Threatened by the growing numbers of militant Boers in the Pretoria region, the British recalled the 94th Regiment of Foot, which had several companies garrisoned in towns and villages across the wider area.

The regiment's commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Philip Robert Anstruther, led a 34-wagon column consisting of roughly 250 men on a 188-mile (303 km) journey from Lydenburg back to Pretoria.

On 20 December, 24 days after receiving the order to return, Anstruther's column was confronted by the Boers, who demanded under truce that the British stop their march.

[7] Four years later, they signed the Sand River Convention, granting independence to Boers north of the Vaal, an area the British called the Transvaal, and recognising the establishment of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (South African Republic) there.

The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1873 changed this thinking; rather than viewing south Africa as too complex and costly, the British saw the potential for an economic boom.

However, Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, concerned with Irish and other issues, informed the Boer leaders that the British Empire would not relinquish the Transvaal.

[13] In November 1880, following the directive of the British colonial administrator, Colonel Owen Lanyon, a local magistrate in Potchefstroom (roughly 95 miles (153 km) south-west of Pretoria) seized a wagon from a Boer, Piet Bezuindenhout, for alleged non-payment of taxes, and put it up for auction.

During this wait, Anstruther received a communication from Colonel William Bellairs warning him of the possibility of a surprise attack as the Boers were taking up arms in the area.

The modern historian John Laband describes Anstruther as "bluff, good-natured and unfussed, with an amiable contempt for the Boers whose ability to take strong, concerted action he discounted.

[22] Despite the warnings they had received, when they set off the next morning, the soldiers were only carrying 30 rounds of ammunition per man, rather than the regulation 70; only four scouts were posted, two ahead and two behind the main body; and the 40 men of the band were playing, leaving them unarmed.

[18] While Anstruther's column marched from Lydenburg, thousands of Boers were gathering around Pretoria, and on 13 December they elected leaders and declared independence from British rule, reestablishing the South African Republic.

Nicolaas Smit, who had combat experience from the Pedi wars, suggested flexibility rather than a set ambush, and so they continued east towards Middelburg to intercept the British column.

A few months after the battle of Bronkhorstspruit, a question was raised in the British parliament, which criticised the uniforms for being "conspicuous", and therefore allowed "the Boers to shoot them down without danger to themselves".

[26] Hugh Childers, the Secretary of State for War, said in response that there was no need to change the uniforms, though the red coat was phased out over the subsequent eighteen years.

[18] According to the British historian Ian Castle, after having fought in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, a series of battles against Sekhukhune, and then experiencing "tedious periods of garrison duty in isolated posts", the 94th Regiment was low on morale, and facing increasing levels of desertion.

Once their scouts reported that the column had been sighted, they moved into a valley to the south of the road the British were travelling along and spread out into a skirmish line.

[34][35] Around midday, one of the advance British scouts, riding around 400 yards (400 m) ahead of Anstruther and the column, thought he spotted a group of Boers moving to a farmhouse off the road.

The column resumed its travel until it was about 1 mile (1.6 km) from the Bronkhorstspruit river,[36] when the sight of around 150 Boers arrayed on their left flank caused the band to stop playing.

While he did so, a Boer rider, Paul de Beer, approached under a flag of truce, and Anstruther with two of his officers walked out to meet him.

The messenger, who spoke English, presented Anstruther with a letter from the Boer leaders in Heidelberg, instructing him to "stop where you are" and stating that any further movement towards Pretoria would be interpreted as a "declaration of war, the responsibility whereof we put on your shoulders.

[39] The return shots that they did fire typically went high, over the heads of the Boers, which contemporary reports on both sides attributed to the British having their sights set to the wrong distance.

[18][40] There is no record of casualty figures for the native African wagoneers; Duxbury supposes that some of them must have been killed and injured, but says that the only mention of them is from a single Boer report, "which says that they ran off as fast as they could.

One of these, Conductor Egerton, smuggled the British colours from the battle; they had been hidden on one of the stretchers under the wounded Mrs Fox, and he then wrapped them around his body to get them to Pretoria.

"[46] The Boers besieged several towns over the next month, and engaged in three significant battles during January and February 1881; at Laing's Nek, Schuinshoogte (Ingogo) and Majuba Hill.