GISSA Ukubuzana 2012: Academic paper

Spioenkop: a case study of the potential of modern mapping techniques to enhance

understanding of historical battles
 
by Michelle Dye, African Conservation Trust, Peter Dye, University of the Witwatersrand, and Angus Forbes,
University of KwaZulu-Natal

Abstract

There has been much research on the historic battlefields of KwaZulu-Natal to better understand the complex battles
that took place in this province. However, there are numerous accounts of the conflicts and research continues to
determine the exact sequence and significance of events. Understanding the details of the complex military
engagements is challenging and difficult to impart to interested historians, student, and visitors to the battle sites.
Advances in geographical technology have provided new tools to assist in overcoming these limitations, and include
geographical information systems (GIS), viewshed analysis, Google Earth imagery, high resolution GigaPan images
and virtual tours. This paper uses the battle of Spioenkop as a case study to demonstrate how modern geographical
techniques can be used to digitally record the battlefield site, and provide new insights and perspectives into the course
of events. Results show that the proposed methods may greatly enhance our understanding of the battle and offer new
tools to promote historical research, tourism and education.

Keywords

geographical information systems (GIS), viewsheds, virtual tour, battlefields, Anglo-Boer war, KwaZulu-Natal

Introduction

The Anglo-Zulu and Anglo-Boer wars were two globally important wars that unfolded in South Africa during the late
19th and early 20th centuries. During this time, local populations fiercely opposed the might of the British Empire in
attempts to retain their independence. The continued interest in the historic battlefields is the basis for a thriving tourism
industry, drawing local and international tourists to battlefields, especially in northern KwaZulu-Natal. The battlefields
have also been the subject of much research [1  8] to better understand some of the events that occurred. However,
there are numerous accounts of the battles and it remains a challenge to inform visitors of the complexities of the
conflicts and the sequence of events during these engagements.

New technology has provided excellent tools to assist in overcoming some of these limitations; these include
geographical information systems (GIS), viewshed analysis, Google Earth imagery, high resolution GigaPan images
and virtual tours. So far, these techniques have not been used to any significant extent in South Africa, though examples
of historical applications exist elsewhere. Knowles [9] created an historical GIS for the Battle of Gettysburg, one of the
most studied topics in American history. A detailed terrain model of the Gettysburg area was created and viewshed
analysis was performed to determine what the observer would have been able to see from any location on the
battlefield. In this way, one can identify what the various officers could see at each stage of the battle and how this
might have influenced their actions at key moments. In another example, Harris [10] used terrain modelling to recreate
the landscape and vegetation cover around a burial mound in Ohio prior to European settlement and urbanisation. The
significance of the mound on the landscape could be explored as it would have appeared to contemporary observers.

Background to the battle of Spioenkop

Towards the close of the 19th century, Britain tried to gain control over the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek (Transvaal)
and this led to the declaration of war in October 1899. Boer troops moved into the Colony of Natal and laid siege to the
town of Ladysmith, where a large number of British troops were stationed. The Boers, in response to the arrival of
thousands of British troops in Durban, took up positions along the Tugela River near Colenso. In early December a
British force of 19 400 men, under General Sir Redvers Buller, suffered a humiliating defeat at Colenso. After failing to
break through the Boer defence line, General Buller decided to move to the upper Tugela with his force. Lieutenant-
General Sir Charles Warren was given command of 15 000 men and ordered to cross the river and attempt to outflank
the Boer defence line. He failed to penetrate the Boer defences on the summit of Ntabamnyama and then decided to
capture the highest hill in the area, Spioenkop, and thereby dominate the Boer positions. The battle of Spioenkop was
the scene of the bloodiest and most futile of the four battles fought to relieve the besieged town of Ladysmith from the
surrounding Boer forces.

At nightfall on the 23 January 1900, approximately 1700 British men began their ascent of Spioenkop hill from
Warren’s headquarters at Three Tree Hill. They reached the summit at 04h00 surprising a group of Boers who fled to
spread the news to the Boer camp that the British had taken Spioenkop. General Botha rallied his troops and prepared

 
 GISSA Ukubuzana 2012: Academic paper

for a counter attack on the British. In the early hours of the morning of 24 January, the summit was surrounded by a
thick mist and the British entrenched in the centre instead of the forward slopes. When the mist lifted they realised their
mistake and posted pickets forward, but the hard ground made it difficult to dig trenches and the poor cover meant that
they were exposed to Boer fire. The Boer rifle fire was supported by highly accurate artillery fire which rained down on
the British with deadly accuracy. Despite British reinforcements it became clear that they would not be able to hold out
and they started to withdraw. Unbeknown to the British, the Boers had also started to withdraw. A Boer party later
discovered that the only occupants of the Spioenkop Hill were the dead and dying, and quickly reoccupied the hilltop.
By the evening of the 25th, the British had commenced a general retreat across the Tugela River [11]. More detailed
accounts of the battle are available in [12, 13].

This paper uses the Spioenkop battle between British and Boer forces in the Ladysmith district of KwaZulu-Natal to
illustrate how GIS and virtual environments can be used to stimulate interest in historical battles and shed new light on
the course that they took. The study was conducted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), in partnership with
the African Conservation Trust (ACT).

Study area

The Spioenkop battlefield site (Fig. 1) is located 27 km south-west of the town of Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal, South
Africa (28°38'56.46"S 29°31'3.80"E). The area falls under the KwaZulu-Natal Highland Thornveld biome [14] which is
characterized by a grassy ground layer and a distinct upper layer of woody plants. The summit of Spioenkop lies at an
altitude of 1460 m and is surrounded by hilly terrain and broad valleys. The area experiences summer rainfall and has a
mean annual precipitation of 750 mm. Much of the surrounding land has been transformed to crop lands, but just south
of the battlefield site lies the formally protected Spioenkop Game Reserve which is 37 km2 and includes the Spioenkop
Dam.

Fig. 1: Location of the Spioenkop battle site in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

 
 GISSA Ukubuzana 2012: Academic paper

Methods

Recording and mapping features of significance with GIS

A photograph and GPS coordinate of every grave and monument was recorded using a Trimble Yuma rugged laptop
tablet. Differential correction was performed using GPS Pathfinder Office 5.1 and spatial accuracy ranged from
1  3 m. A range of historic British Ordnance Survey maps depicting the battle were scanned. This ensures that the
maps are more accessible to historians and the public, and creates a digital archive to preserve the information on fragile
paper maps. The maps were georeferenced and ascent routes, troop positions and firing lines were digitized, allowing
comparisons to be made to features visible from Google Earth imagery and the GPS data collected during field visits.
The data were presented to battlefields guides and historical experts for checking, interpretation and analysis. In
addition, a series of five maps was created to illustrate how events changed during the course of the battle from 02h00
to 16h00 on the 24 January 1900. The maps were created by Gilbert Torlage, an authority on the battle of Spioenkop,
who mapped out the various phases on blank topographical maps. The maps were then digitised and superimposed on
satellite imagery (Fig. 2). Each time series map is accompanied by a detailed description of the events to give a more
thorough account of how the battle unfolded.

Fig. 2: Maps showing how the sequence of events changed from 07h00 to 11h45 on the 24 January 1900.

 
 GISSA Ukubuzana 2012: Academic paper

Digital elevation model (DEM)

Terrain played an important role in the mountainous vicinity of Spioenkop. Familiarity with the landscape gave the
Boers a clear advantage over the British troops. General Warren ordered the attack on Spioenkop without a proper
reconnaissance and did not realise that, viewed from the north, Spioenkop was not the bastion it appeared to be from the
south. This is illustrated in Fig. 3 which is a colour-graded DEM of the battlefield site. The DEM was created from a
triangulated irregular network (TIN) with a vertical resolution of 20 m. The green and yellow areas show the lower
elevations south of Spioenkop (1040  1200 m) where the British were positioned, while the purple colours show the
higher ground to the north of the summit (1200  1420 m) where the Boers were positioned. By not performing a
reconnaissance of the landscape, the British also made an error in the positioning of their main defensive trench on the
summit of Spioenkop. When the British arrived on the summit in the early hours of morning and the area and the
surrounding hills were shrouded in heavy mist, the engineers marked a position for a trench along what appeared to be
the northern crest line [15]. When the mist lifted, the British realised that they had entrenched in the centre of the
summit and were exposed to the Boer forces on the surrounding hills.

Fig. 3: The Spioenkop terrain, illustrating the high ground to the north of the summit in purple and the Boer firing lines
in black.

Animations and Google Earth flight tours

Animated terrain models and Google Earth flight tours are effective visualisation tools that show the landscape as
though viewed from an aircraft. A TIN was created in ArcGIS 9.3 using 20 m contours of the area. Google Earth
imagery was draped onto the TIN in ArcScene to produce a 3D terrain model of the entire battlefield site (Fig. 4). An
animation was created whereby the summit of Spioenkop rotates along a centre point as the "camera" looks down from
above; troop positions, firing lines and text were superimposed onto the model. The rotating view allows the battlefield
to be viewed from all sides, providing a unique three-dimensional overview of the battle and the landscape in which it
occurred. Google Earth flight tours were also created along significant routes such as troop paths and ascent routes.
These techniques provide a unique visual background to which a pre-recorded authoritative narrative can be matched.
The final products can be made available on the internet, providing valuable tools for supporting historical research,
tourism and education.

 
 GISSA Ukubuzana 2012: Academic paper

Fig. 4: Rotating 3D terrain model of the Spioenkop battle showing British and Boer firing line [16].

Viewshed analysis

A viewshed is created from a DEM and shows what is visible from a certain observation point. GIS viewsheds can
provide new insights into a battle, suggesting for example what may have influenced decisions made by key military
leaders, showing the visibility of potential deployment positions, and possibly the impact of relief on the range and
effectiveness of artillery fire. A series of viewsheds was created from a 20 m DEM at key locations on the Spioenkop
battlefield. There has been a great deal of emphasis placed on the breakdown of communication by the British during
the battle of Spioenkop. The following examples demonstrate how GIS viewsheds can illustrate the effective placement
of the Boer guns, the limited view by Warren from his position at Three Tree Hill, and the importance of heliographic
communication (or lack thereof) during the battle.

The Boers used three types of guns during the battle of Spioenkop. The 37 mm Maxim Nordenfelt Automatic machine
gun (Pom Pom), the 75 mm Krupp QF, and the 75 mm Creusot QF guns. Through the brilliant utilisation of these guns,
the Boers rained shells down on the summit with deadly accuracy. The Boer heliographer, Louis Bothma, had
positioned himself on level ground just below the crest of Aloe Knoll and kept in heliographic contact with Botha to
direct fire onto the British position [17]. A British heliographer was positioned on the western side of the summit to
keep contact with Warren. However, the heliograph was shot to pieces early in the morning. Warren’s only
communication to the summit had to go via Buller on Mount Alice some 8,8 km away, causing a serious breakdown in
communication.

Fig. 5 is a viewshed from Warren’s headquarters. The pink indicates what is not visible from this point, and the green
satellite imagery indicates what is visible. The viewshed shows that Warren had a limited view of the summit from his
position on Three Tree Hill (Point A) and no view at all of the Boer artillery. This meant that he was relying heavily on
the heliograph (Point B) to inform him about the situation. The second viewshed (Fig. 6) indicates what is visible from
the British heliograph position on the summit. It shows that the heliograph was visible from Lieutenant Von
Wichmann’s two 75 mm Krupp guns, and Lieutenant Grothaus’s Pom Pom north west of the summit. The position and
range of the Boer guns meant that they could target and destroy the heliograph, which had severe consequences for the
British [15].

 
 GISSA Ukubuzana 2012: Academic paper

Fig. 5: Viewshed from Warren’s headquarters on Three Tree Hill (Point A) showing that he could not see any of the
Boer artillery north of the summit which destroyed the British heliograph (Point B).

Fig. 6: Viewshed from the heliograph station on Spioenkop marked as point B. The viewshed shows that the station was
close enough to the summit to inform Warren what was happening, but could be observed by two groups of Boer
artillery to the north-west, which meant that it was targeted and destroyed.

GigaPan panorama images

The GigaPan unit is a robotic camera platform that moves along a precise grid taking a series of photographs which are
later stitched together to form one extremely high resolution panoramic image. The panoramas make it possible to view
both the general location as well as small detail at selected points of interest. For example, one can zoom in to read
hundreds of names off a monument, or view the plaque of an individual grave (Fig. 7). The panoramas were taken at
key locations on the battlefield using the GigaPan Epic Pro platform and Nikon D5000 digital camera. An average of

 
 GISSA Ukubuzana 2012: Academic paper

140 images were taken at each location and GigaPan Stitch 1.0 software was then used to stitch the images together.
The panoramas have a very large file size and are therefore uploaded to the GigaPan website where they are optimised
for web viewing (www.gigapan.org). This is not only useful for storing the large images, but makes them easily
accessible to anyone with internet access.

Fig. 7: The GigaPan panorama image taken on Mount Alice showing the amount of detail visible when zooming into
the grave of Lieutenant-Colonel R. Buchanan-Riddell who led the 3rd Battalion King's Royal Rifle Corps.

Virtual tours

A virtual tour is a digitally-simulated panoramic tour which is designed specifically for viewing on the internet. Using a
series of panoramic images, the virtual tour provides a realistic walkthrough of the battlefield (similar to Google street
view) from any computer with internet access. The user can move throughout the battlefield site by clicking on arrows
in the image, or can jump to areas of interest using hotspots on an overview map. Voice narration provides explanations
of what took place at key points on the battlefield and draws the user’s attention to key features. The virtual tour can aid
in historical analysis as the user can see the same view that key role players in the battle could see, and it allows access
to areas that are difficult to reach such as surrounding hills, gun positions that are kilometres away, and features of
interest which lie on private land. Historical data such as old photographs or documents can also be linked to certain
locations in the tour.

A virtual tour of the Spioenkop battlefield was created in Tourweaver 6.50 using the GigaPan panorama images
(Fig. 8). Due to the constraint of file size for web applications, the GigaPan panoramas are compressed and some of the
detail is lost. To overcome this problem, hyperlinks to the high resolution panoramas on the GigaPan website were
added to each view in the virtual tour. For many applications the user might not require the high level of detail offered
by the GigaPan panoramas but, for example, a historian who is doing research on individual soldiers might need to go
down to grave stone resolution.

 
 GISSA Ukubuzana 2012: Academic paper

Fig. 8: The Spioenkop virtual tour which allows the user to walk throughout the site virtually, moving to different
locations either by clicking on the red arrows in the scene view, or by clicking on the green hotspots in the map on the
right (in this case the aerial satellite view of Spioenkop) [16].

Discussion and conclusions

The battlefields of KwaZulu-Natal are an important part of the province’s heritage as they helped shape the province as
we know it today. However, battlefields are under threat by development, neglect, thieves and vandals searching for
items of value. The digital documentation of the battlefields is important for their preservation. Furthermore, many of
the battles are not fully understood, and research continues in order to improve our understanding of the conflicts. Using
the battle of Spioenkop as a case study, this study has shown that GIS and virtual environments are valuable tools to
improve our understanding of events. The maps and tools produced from this study are available at
http://www.projectafrica.com/index.php/battlefields.

There has been a significant rise in the use of GIS for historical research in recent years and this has led to the new field
of historical GIS. The main advantage of GIS is its ability to include location explicitly into any analysis which can
open up new avenues for research [18  21]. GIS allows historical events, which have been described mainly in
textbooks and paper maps, to be investigated and verified using new spatial techniques. This was demonstrated in the
viewshed analysis where valuable information on historic maps was used in conjunction with modern digital elevation
data to determine what was visible from the British position on Three Tree Hill and the heliograph on the summit. Tools
such as 3D terrain models displaying various layers of historical information provide a unique 3D viewpoint of the
battle that is not possible with traditional maps. In addition, making the various maps, 3D models, animations, and
virtual tour available on the internet makes it possible for educators, learners and tour operators to access and showcase
the data. This paper has shown that the proposed spatial methods can offer new perspectives to historians that can help
in explaining the complex events that took place on the 23 and 24 January 1900.

One of the limitations of this study was the relatively coarse resolution of the elevation data (20 m). It is recommended
for future research that a higher resolution DEM, or aerial LIDAR is used to create more detailed viewsheds for further
analysis. For example, there is a cluster of Boer graves in the first of the time series map examples (Fig. 2) beyond the
British positions; one theory is that a group of Boer soldiers managed to sneak past the British line in a depression in the
land until they were discovered by the British and killed. A more accurate DEM would allow viewsheds to be created
on either side of the depression to prove or disprove this theory. This study made use of Google Earth imagery, but it is
also worth noting that high resolution multispectral imagery such as QuickBird (2,4 m spatial resolution) is accessible
and could offer more detail for future studies. Furthermore, the software that was used for the GIS analysis was ESRI’s
ArcGIS 9.3, but the upgraded version 10.1 is currently available. Another problem we encountered during this study
was identifying the extent of the battle, as the events that preceded the battle were important in the documentation
process, as well as the events that followed. Through communication with historians, it was suggested that one could

 
 GISSA Ukubuzana 2012: Academic paper

not only document a battle in isolation, but also examine a much larger area and document the full series of battles that
were fought to relieve the town of Ladysmith, which could provide more insight into the individual battles. Lastly,
future research could model the battlefield as it was in 1900 using historical imagery. The battlefield has changed over
time, most significantly the Spioenkop dam was built in the 1960s, swallowing up several kilometres of the Tugela
River and Trichardt’s Drift where Buller’s troops crossed prior to the battle.

In conclusion, this study has shown that the use of GIS and visualisation techniques in historical analysis can greatly
enhance the understanding and teaching of historic battles. GIS is mostly used in the natural and environmental
sciences, however, we have shown that GIS can also be an effective tool in the field of human sciences. The input of
historians is essential in the documentation process, GIS and virtual environments spatially capture the battlefield site,
but it is through the interpretation of that data that the tools are most effective.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF) for funding the project, and the
reviewers for their valuable suggestions. Special thanks to Prof. Phillip Everitt, Ken Gillings, and Gilbert Torlage for
their assistance with the historical analysis, and to Chris Moore who introduced the project idea for his input and
sourcing the historical maps used in this study. Finally, the authors would like to thank Carl Grossmann and Kira
Macdougall for assistance in the field work and data processing.

References

[1] B. Farwell: The Great Anglo-Boer war, Harper and Row, New York, 1, 1976.
[2] F. Pretorius: The Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902, D. Nelson, Cape Town, 1, 1985.
[3] G. Torlage and S. Watt: A Guide to the Anglo-Boer war sites of KwaZulu-Natal, Raven Press, Randburg, 1999.
[4] F. R. Van Hartesveldt: The Boer War: Historiography and Annotated Bibliography, Greenwood Press, Cape
Town, 2000.
[5] J. Laband and P. S. Thompson: The illustrated guide to the Anglo-Zulu War, University of Natal Press, South
Africa, 2004.
[6] D. Rattray and A. Greaves (Ed.): David Rattray's guidebook to the Anglo-Zulu War battlefields, Ball,
Johannesburg, 2003.
[7] F. M. Maurice and M. H. Grant: Official History of the War in South Africa, 8 volumes, Hurst and Blackett
Ltd., London, 1906-1911.
[8] J. H. Breytenbach: Die geskiedenis van die Tweede Vryheidsoorlog in Suid-Afrika, 1899-1902, 6 volumes,
Staatsdrukker, Pretoria, 1969-1996.
[9] A. K. Knowles: “How real can we get? Modeling the Battlefield of Gettysburg”, American Geographers
Annual Conference, Chicago, March 2006.
[10] T. Harris: GIS and Archaeology, In A. K. Knowles (ed.), Past time, past place: GIS for history, ESRI Press,
Redlands, pp. 131-143, 2002.
[11] K. Gillings: Battlefields of KwaZulu-Natal. A pictoral souvenir of the Battles of KwaZulu-Natal 1818-1906,
Art Publishers Pty Ltd, Durban, 2003.
[12] O. Ransford: The battle of Spion Kop, Murray, London, 1969.
[13] G. Torlage: The battle of Spioenkop, 23-24 January 1900, The Battle Books Series Battles of the Anglo-Boer
War, Ravan Press, Randburg, 1999.
[14] L. Mucina and M. C. Rutherford (eds.): The Vegetation of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, Strelitzia 19,
South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria, 2006
[15] C. J. Barnard: “General Botha in the Spioenkop Campaign January 1900”, Military History Journal, Vol. 2,
No. 1, 1971.
[16] African Conservation Trust and C. Moore: “Using GIS technology to document the KwaZulu-Natal
battlefields”, PositionIT, July 2012, pp. 56-58.
[17] K. Gillings: “Spioenkop Curtain raiser to indirect fire”, Krygshistoriese Tydskrif, Vol. 15, No. 4, pp.121-126,
2011.
[18] I. N. Gregory and R. G. Healey: “Historical GIS: structuring, mapping and analysing geographies of the past”,
Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 638-653, 2007.
[19] I. N. Gregory and P. S. Eli: Historical GIS. Technologies, Methodologies, and Scholarship. Series: Cambridge
Studies in Historical Geography (No. 39), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002.
[20] T. J. Bailey and J. B. M. Schick: “Historical GIS: Enabling the Collision of History and Geography”, Social
Science Computer Review, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp.291-296, 2009.
[21] A. K. Knowles: Past Time, Past Place, GIS for History, Esri Inc., California.

Contact Michelle Dye, African Conservation Trust, Tel 033 342-2844, michelle@projectafrica.com

 
 GISSA Ukubuzana 2012: Academic paper