Hill of Squandered Valour: The Battle for Spion Kop, 1900

"Good focused context" pinpoints the historical significance of the single bloodiest episode in the Second Boer War—from a Zulu warfare expert (FGS Forum).

Spion Kop, just northeast of Ladysmith, South Africa, was the largest hill in the region, being over 1,400 feet high, and it lay almost exactly at the center of the Boer line. If the British could capture this position and bring artillery to the hill, they would then command the flanks of the surrounding Boer positions.

On the night...