Episode 194 - The Battle of Berea leads to an Anglo-Basotho Mutual Admiration Society

History of South Africa podcast

This is episode 194 and we’re marching towards Thaba Bosiu with Lieutenant General George Cathcart.
Or sitting on horseback among King Moshoeshoe’s Basotho warriors, armed with a musket. Take you pick. We’re going to hear about the Battle of Berea, and the outcome would underline the Basotho mastery of their land, leading to Lesotho’s independence.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, first things first.
AS you heard last episode, soldiers from various regiments in the British army and the Cape Mounted Rifles totalling 2500 troops were invading Moshoeshoes’ kingdom.
The British were trying to secure the northern parts of the Cape Colony and believed that by crushing Moshoeshoe, the TransOrangia would be rid of raiding and chaos. The fact that a whole range of people were raiding and causing chaos seemed to have escaped the attention of Cathcart and his commanders.
As you know, there was a long list of these renegades. But because Moshoeshoe was the most organised African leader in the territory, it stood to reason that it must be his people causing the trouble. The Basotho’s main opponent weren’t the Boers under Pretorius or the Rolong under Maroka or the Griqua, no they weren’t the Bastaards under Pieter Davids and Carolus Batjoe, or even the Kora Bandits under Gert Taaibosch.
No, the Basotho regarded Sekonyela’s Batlokwa as their main opposition in the area.
And it was Sekonyela’s complaints to the British about Moshoeshoe that set off this recent marching business. Sure, there’s no debate about whether or not Moshoeshoe and his allies had been carting off Boer stock, raiding when they could, this was true.
What was really going on was that Cathcart wanted to end the ongoing 8th Frontier War and thought that by hammering Moshoeshoe, a possible future conflict could be avoided and he could concentrate on the amaXhosa further south.
Cathcart moved off during daylight, and it was going to take his force hours to reach their first objectives. That was more than enough time for Moshoeshoe to recover from what was a heinous break from English military tradition — no war was declared after all. The Basotho king moved fast and within an hour, his 3000 warriors were on their horses, muskets loaded.
The King had also not been idle in recent years, his people had been studying and practicing how to fight a mobile army moving inside his mountain kingdom, particularly the tactics used by the British.
Instead, the British commander looked around him and counted the cost. Thirty-eight British soldiers died, the most in any engagement thus far in South Africa. He had 5000 Basotho cattle, hardly a small number, and yet something to boast about.
The Basotho king in turn had lost around 50 men, dozens more injured and written a letter that Cathcart could wave about - peace in our time!