Redvers Buller (7 December 1839 – 2 June 1908) was a British Army General who served in the Second Opium War, the Ashanti Campaign, the Anglo-Zulu War, the Anglo-Egyptian War, the Mahdist War, and the Second Boer War.
Biography[]
Redvers Buller was born in Crediton, Devon, England on 7 December 1839, and he came from an old Cornish family. He joined the British Army in 1858, and he was a veteran of wars in China, Egypt, Zululand, Sudan, and West Africa. Despite being commended for his leadership at Hlobane in 1879, his dispatch to South Africa as British commander-in-chief in November 1899 was fraught with problems. Lacking resources, he was outfought by Boer commanders. After several defeats, ending with his retreat at Colenso during the "Black Week" of December 1899, he was replaced by Frederick Roberts. Buller retained command in Natal, compensating for past mistakes by lifting the Ladysmith siege in February 1900. Returning to Britain as a hero, he was later made a scapegoat for British failures.