Buller fought in a number of wars during the 1870s to try to bring British colonies, Afrikaner republics and independent African peoples in southern Africa under unified British control.
The Ninth Cape Frontier War
In 1878 the British attacked the Gcaleka Xhosa. The Rharabe Xhosa chief Sandile, already absorbed within the Cape Colony, rose in rebellion in support of the Gcaleka. Buller led colonist volunteers trying to flush Sandile and his followers, who included women and children, out of the mountainous Pirie Bush. Buller himself led an attack on a cave in which fifteen Xhosa were killed. Sandile was killed by another detachment of Mfengu troops employed by the British. The conflict marked the final conquest of the Xhosa people after eight previous wars.
The Anglo-Zulu War
Buller returned to South Africa to take part in the invasion of Zululand in January 1879, earning his Victoria Cross by rescuing three men at the Battle of Hlobane. He also made a fatal error there, leading to the loss of 40 British soldiers. The following day, at the Battle of Kambula, Captain D’Arcy wrote that Buller and his men “butchered the brutes all over the place,” while Buller himself was “like a tiger drunk with blood”. Around 750 Zulu men were killed in the initial attack, but Buller led the charge in its aftermath which killed another 1,200. At the final battle of the war, Ulundi, when the Zulu charge stalled under fire from British Gatling guns, Buller led a mounted infantry pursuit, killing up to 2,000 more Zulu men as they fled. Following the conquest of the Xhosa and Zulu, the British colonial government developed policies of racial segregation whcih laid the foundations for apartheid.
The Second Boer (South African) War
The South African War of 1899-1902 was the result of a further effort to reshape the region under British control after gold reserves had been discovered in the Transvaal, a republic governed by White Afrikaner (Boer) settlers. Buller was in overall command of British forces for the first time. After losing three successive battles in an attempt to relieve the siege of Ladysmith, his critics nicknamed him ‘Reverse Buller’ and his reputation in Britain suffered. The statue was erected in this context by his defenders, in 1905. Buller was not associated with the policies of concentration camp internment which brought Afrikaner resistance to an end, having left South Africa after reaching Ladysmith.
‘He Saved Natal’
Buller was a popular member of the local gentry in Exeter and the statue was erected by subscribers demonstrating support for him as the man who had at least successfully defended the colony of Natal from a threatened Boer invasion (even if he had repeatedly failed to relieve Ladysmith). Hence the refrain on the plinth.