Anglo-Boer War

[rwenzori]

Here is something written in 1901 by Count Sternberg who was a german advisor during the boer war

Thanks for your great book links.

 

[Conradl]

long answer needed to answer that ... I will try type out a short version and post later ...got work to do

you can start by reading this if you are interested

love reading all these old books written by people in the time - this particular book was published in 1902

Preface

I bought a book of newspapers printed during the time period of the Boer war and it is a very good read.

 

[Conradl]

long answer needed to answer that ... I will try type out a short version and post later ...got work to do

you can start by reading this if you are interested

love reading all these old books written by people in the time - this particular book was published in 1902

Preface

I bought a book of newspapers printed during the time period of the Boer war and it is a very good read. If you enjoy reading books from that time, then search for newspapers too....

 

[Alan]

Hmm, should have fought in rows. Wouldn't have been any reason for a scorched earth policy or concentration camps if they had not initiated guerilla warfare. Should've picked "civilized warfare". The decisions made by the boer leaders cost their people dearly. They could not win that war.

They probably didn't foresee the harsh conditions the civilians would suffer as a result of involving them directly in the war

 

[Kosmik]

They probably didn't foresee the harsh conditions the civilians would suffer as a result of involving them directly in the war

I don't think they had a choice. You think the boers could have stood under a formulised meat grinder? Also seems rather silly and a waste of life and I'm sure students of history can state cases of attrocities involving "civilised" war.

 

[Gothan]

The sad thing is, all that they wanted was a little piece of land and a country to call their own, they did not even take land from the British colonies.

 

[DigitalSoldier]

The sad thing is, all that they wanted was a little piece of land and a country to call their own, they did not even take land from the British colonies.

Sad when thinking about it like that.

But interesting to note everywhere the Boere went they found very valuable land. In South Africa it was gold in Argentinia it was the oil.

 

[undesign]

I read Thomas Pakenham's The Boer War a while back - shortened version, with extra photos, newspaper articles and cartoons from then. Very interesting read. And not from a us/them perspective - purely from a historical point of view and the fact that the AB wars are a significant part of SA history.

If memory serves me correctly, wasn't it the first war where guerrilla tactics, trenches and smokeless powder was used? Maybe not individually but collectively it changed the face of warfare at the time. If I recall it is also (in real terms) the most expensive war the British have ever fought.

 

[Gothan]

Sad when thinking about it like that.

But interesting to note everywhere the Boere went they found very valuable land. In South Africa it was gold in Argentinia it was the oil.

We are natural divining rods

 

[Morgoth]

Then why did Paul Kruger have to go to the netherlands (spelling??) and other european countries to help financially with the war? They did not have the money to pay for the war, and remember, they did not even have a regular standing army, almost all soldiers were farmers that took their own guns and transport to war

During the prusion war a lot of Germans looked for jobs under the East Indian trading company, so they changed their names to a dutch spelling
Müller --- > <Muller
Krüger ---> Krige or Kruger

some where to suborn though, my family being one of them and refused to accept a Dutch surname,

As for why the Afrikaners were driven to war, well since the Afrikaner became a nationality they have been forced to survive from the 1800 - 1930's or so.

 

[Alan]

I don't think they had a choice. You think the boers could have stood under a formulised meat grinder? Also seems rather silly and a waste of life and I'm sure students of history can state cases of attrocities involving "civilised" war.

You always have a choice. Was the alternative so bad it was worth the lives of tens of thousands men, women and children?

Edit: I saw a blockhouse outside Wellington yesterday. Should've taken a pic

 

[Kosmik]

You always have a choice. Was the alternative so bad it was worth the lives of tens of thousands men, women and children?

That was the british choice to perform the attorcities against women and children.

 

[Gothan]

@Alan
Why don't you ask the other colonies like india and so on? How did they feel about british occupation?

Remember, the british treated dutch/french hugenots as 3rd class citizens, in a country they settled long before the british arrived "to assist the netherlands with the management of the cape during the napoleonic wars"

 

[DigitalSoldier]

You always have a choice. Was the alternative so bad it was worth the lives of tens of thousands men, women and children?

For them yes.

Did they not say rather cross the Drakensberg barefoot than be under English rule. funny thing though, Afrikaners have a lot of English culture instead of Dutch or German culture.

 

[Alan]

That was the british choice to perform the attorcities against women and children.

It was the Boer's choice to involve them in the conflict.

@Alan
Why don't you ask the other colonies like india and so on? How did they feel about british occupation?

Remember, the british treated dutch/french hugenots as 3rd class citizens, in a country they settled long before the british arrived "to assist the netherlands with the management of the cape during the napoleonic wars"

3rd class is better than dead or concentration camp captive. What exactly were the conditions the Brits put forward to avoid war?

 

[Gothan]

Well actually the Brits instigated war with the failed Jameson raid, cecil john rhodes instigated this raid, as he was afraid that the ZAR would become more powerful than the cape colony financially (which it did). So they started sending agents to cause unhappiness under the "uitlanders", even though the "Uitlanders" earned more than people in Britian (thanks again Blah for the links).

So they weren't really interested in peace, they wanted the gold, And abolished afrikaans in schools and so on (Us Afrikaans dit the reverse during the apartheid, and see how that turned out for us).

 

[Palimino]

Slightly off-topic
I had a friend (he’s in Canada now) who sold metal detectors. He was a student of Anglo-Boer War history and he frequently went metal detecting on the ABW battlefields to find relics. I went with him occasionally. Once we were detecting in an area where the Brit. Forces were chasing the Boers across open veld. It would be a major job to cover the area. I surveyed the area through Boer eyes. Where would I take cover to pot at the pursuing Brits. with my Mauser? There was a treasure trove of Mauser magazines, rounds etc. behind rocks. They would put them on the ground for rapid reloading and then retreat hurriedly when the Brits. got too close. A successful relic hunt.

 

[Alan]

Well actually the Brits instigated war with the failed Jameson raid, cecil john rhodes instigated this raid, as he was afraid that the ZAR would become more powerful than the cape colony financially (which it did). So they started sending agents to cause unhappiness under the "uitlanders", even though the "Uitlanders" earned more than people in Britian (thanks again Blah for the links).

So they weren't really interested in peace, they wanted the gold, And abolished afrikaans in schools and so on (Us Afrikaans dit the reverse during the apartheid, and see how that turned out for us).

These vast gold fields were discovered in 1886, within ten years the uitlander population of the Transvaal was thought to be double that of the native Transvaalers, 60,000 uitlanders to 30,000 burghers.[1] These workers were primarily concentrated around the Johannesburg area.

The Transvaal Government, under President Paul Kruger, were concerned as to the effect this large influx could have on the independence of the Transvaal. The uitlanders were almost entirely British. Enfranchising them, at a time when the British government was keen to extend its colonial power in South Africa, would almost certainly lead to power in the Transvaal passing into British hands, eventually turning it into a British colony. As a result, the Transvaal government passed legislation in 1890[citation needed] refusing voting rights or citizenship to any uitlander who had not been resident for fourteen years and who was over 40 years of age. This successfully disenfranchised the uitlanders from any meaningful political role.

This policy, together with high taxation, and corrupt and inefficient public administration, gave rise to considerable discontent. Their treatment served as the pretext for the Jameson Raid in 1895; Cecil Rhodes planned an invasion of the Transvaal to coincide with an uprising of the uitlanders in Johannesburg. Dr Jameson's force invaded, but the expected uprising never took place; the invading force were quickly overpowered and arrested.

From 1897 onwards, the High Commissioner for South Africa, Sir Alfred Milner, and the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, used the denial of rights to the uitlanders as their main point of attack against the Transvaal. They encouraged uitlander agitation and pressed uitlander claims, with veiled threat of war, upon Kruger's government.

In the end, British insistence and Kruger's intransigence led to the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899.

Upon its defeat in 1902, the Transvaal became a British colony. All residents of the Transvaal thereafter became British subjects and so the term uitlander fell into disuse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uitlander

If this is accurate those in power in the Boer Republics wanted to deny uitlanders equal rights so as to keep themselves in power. Bit like waht the Nats did during Apartheid.

 

[Gothan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uitlander

If this is accurate those in power in the Boer Republics wanted to deny uitlanders equal rights so as to keep themselves in power. Bit like waht the Nats did during Apartheid.

But if you read some of the books that Blah posted you would see, that they changed the from 14 years down to 5 years. And as stated most of the uitlanders did not mind, as they were not there for politics, and they were actually paid better than people in Britain (5p compared to 15 - 25p).

This is also proven in the failed Jameson raid, Britain actually placed instigators in the mining camp to sweep up the uitlanders to join the British in trying to overthrow the ZAR government, they would join with Jameson, and overthrow the government, but when Jameson arrived, there were no uitlanders to help him, most of them were busy with parties and so on, no one cared.

That little line was the propaganda that Britain used to justify the war. One of the other reasons was, that Kruger and them was busy building the Delgoa bay railway, and with that, they would not need the cape for anything (especially since they used to have to pay excessively high taxes to move cargo)

 

[Conradl]

If memory serves me correctly, wasn't it the first war where guerrilla tactics, trenches and smokeless powder was used? Maybe not individually but collectively it changed the face of warfare at the time. If I recall it is also (in real terms) the most expensive war the British have ever fought.

AFAIK it was the first time that smokeless powder was used to remain in cover and undetected. In the battle of Colenso Gen. Louis Botha successfully used trench warefare to halt a British advance on the town.

The Boers were able to shoot acurately from a great distance and the British miscalculated the artillary barrage that started the battle of Colenso; and effictively bombarded a few hundred yards on front of the Boers (the Boers placed little bits of metal pipe at the foot of the hill to fool the British into bombarding short of the boer position). The lack of smoke also prevented the British from acurately focusing their artillary on the Boers position.

The British infantry assault was then taken by surprise and forced to retreat (Gen Redvers Buller got the nickname Reverse Buller for his failed assault and paved the way for Lord Roberts to take over as commander in Chief).

The battle of Colenso was the biggest british defeat since Waterloo, with nearly 1000 british soldiers killed or wounded.

The Boer war was very epensive; at one stage it was said that there was not a sinlge horse to be found in England....