Find out the story behind the U.S. Army Sniper charged with murder on the battlefield in new #truecrime book, SAVING SANDOVAL!
The South African BOER WAR 1899-1902. Cape of Good Hope. The Cape of Good Hope ,South Africa was founded in 1652 as a halfway house for the Dutch fleet to pick up fresh water and fresh vegetable for their crews. These ships were on their way to trade in the Orient, to places like Batavia ,India and Malaysia. The only indigenous people living in this area were the Koi ,so as the Colony grew, more workers were needed and the Dutch imported slaves from Malaysia, India and the east coast of Africa. After the Dutch ,some Germans arrived and after the prosecution of the Catholics in Europe ,many French Huguenots also arrive at the southern point of Africa. As the Europeans never invaded Southern Africa like in the Americas, it grew slowly and supplied the trading fleet of ships with their fresh food and water. In 1806 the British defeated the Dutch and the Cape become a British Colony by 1814. Battle of Blauwberg 1806 . British take over the Cape of Good Hope. In 1838 many of the Dutch ( Boers) decided to move north and remove themselves from British rule. Historians have identified various factors that contributed to the migration of an estimated 12,000 Voortrekkers to the future Natal, Orange Free State and Transvaal regions. The primary motivations included discontent with the British rule. The migrants also sought fertile farmland, as good land was becoming scarce within the colony's frontiers. The Great Trek also resulted from increasing population pressures, as Trekboer migrations eastward had come to a virtual stop for at least three decades, though some Trekboers did migrate beyond the Orange River prior to the Great Trek. The Great Trek was made up of a number of waves of parties and migration of Afrikaans speaking settlers from the Cape Colony to most of the rest of what is today modern day South Africa. Outside of the Cape Colony borders they formed the two Boer Republics the Orange Free State (named after the Royal House of the Netherlands) and the Transvaal. The Boers and Africans lived side by side -not always peaceful but mostly so. After towns and cities where established ,the Africans would enjoy some of the first world amenities and some would seek work on the farms and towns, to earn wages. In 1866 all this changed when diamonds and gold were discovered and the two barren Boer Republics all of a sudden became very important to the rest of the world. Paul Kruger the president of the Transvaal Republic tried to control the sales of the gold and establish a railroad to the harbor of Lourenco Marques where the gold could be shipped world wide ,without using the Cape harbors and avoiding the taxes imposed by the British Government. Cecil John Rhodes . Cape to Cairo- Rhodes wanted it to be part of the British Empire. Cecil John Rhodes the prime minister of the Cape Colony was furious and instigated several attacks on the Boer Republics, but to no avail. In 1899 he got Chamberlain on his side and the Boer War started. It would last for three years and kill 26,000 women and children in their "scourged earth" policy to defeat the Boers. Below are some photos and cartoons that were published all over the world as many people saw it for what it was- a war by the British Empire to grab the riches of the Boer Republics. Republic of the Orange Free State. Republic of Transvaal. The Boer Republics in Orange. Paul Kruger. President of the Transvaal. Young Boer Warriors. Prisoners of War .Paardeberg.. General Koos De La Rey. Boers on Commando. Boer Generals. Generals De la Rey, De Wet and Botha. Cecil John Rhodes Instigator. The Devil is off to War. Kruger and the British tin soldiers. Tin soldiers captured. Theater of War. Bad news for Mr. Chamberlain. John Buller tied down like Gulliver by the Transvaal and the Free State. Kruger clobbering the Brits while Queen Vic looks on. Kruger kicks the British out of Transvaal. Paul Kruger and "Dogs of War". John Buller telling the Boers to back off! Boers waiting for the British Army in Natal. Loosing a British Train. Queen Victoria giving her soldiers chocolate while Kruger gives them hell. Britannia consoling her people. Kruger taking over England- as Caesar. Buller before- Buller after.... Kruger cleaning up at Ladysmith. Ladysmith has fallen. John Bull is a little Boer-ed. Kruger smacking the Khaki's Queen Vic viewing her mules. Theater of War. Queen Vic on stage. England boiling in the sausage kettle. Kruger and Father Christmas. Kruger as a bull fighter. President and Mrs. Kruger having a cup of coffee. Death of Mrs. Kruger. Mrs. Kruger in Heaven- Queen Victoria in Hell. Lord Roberts and Kitchener. David and Goliath- Buller fighting Kruger for the mountain of gold. "Boer en Rooinek " game. Boer head on a stick. John Buller and Queen Victoria in bed worrying about the Boer War. Paper Soldiers. The Boer on the right on the mountain . The English Lion being gaffed by Kruger the Bull. Boer and Brit. John Buller lost the key to Ladysmith. Boer Family. Mother and children in the concentration camp .. Scorched Earth Policy. Boer War concentration camps. "A little Transvaal Prisoner" Concentration Camps for Boer Women and Children. Boer Concentration Camps. "Stop the War" Buller and Boer. Boer War Death toll. According top the Encyclopedia Britannica nearly 100,000 lives were lost, including those of more than 20,000 British troops and 14,000 Boer troops. Noncombatant deaths include the more than 26,000 Boer women and children estimated to have died in the concentration camps from malnutrition and disease; The total number of African deaths in the concentration camps was not recorded, but estimates range from 13,000 to 20,000. War in Transvaal. Paul Kruger on the "Gelderland" the ship the Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands sent to take him to Europe -and Switzerland where he died. Tragedy of the Boer War. Cecil Johan Rhodes with a bottle of Champagne while the Transvaal burns. Transvaal and the Orange Free State on the pyre. Cost of War. Boer War. Asking Uncle Sam to help. Read here about the American involvement in the Boer War. http://www.henrileriche.com/2013/04/15/the-united-states-and-the-south-african-boer-war-when-standing-up-for-whats-right-did-not-involve-oil/
Images of the Boers who fought against the British Empire. Boer mounted “commandos” made formidable guerrilla foes of the British Army during the Second Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902. The I…
Pakenham’s very thorough history of The Boer War (1899-1902) reads like a novel and I could hardly put it down. In my mind that puts him in a class with Barbara Tuckman and other reviewers have made the same comment. The book was written over 30 years ago (published in 1979), so the author was able to interview a great many survivors from both sides, as well as access a mass of documents that were not available when the original histories had been written, just after the war. Pakenham regretted that there was not as much material available from the Boer side as from the British. That is understandable as their army was purely volunteer irregulars, without the massive bureaucracy of the British military machine. There were also only 50,000 Boers vs 250,000 British. Wars are not fought in abstract but fought by people. The book is filled with dozens if not hundreds of characters all skillfully drawn, (though sometimes hard to keep track of, without a war room of maps and pins). While it is the politicians and officers whose names we remember from history…Asquith, Balfour, Chamberlain, Lloyd George, John Buchan, Roberts, Kitchener, French, Haig, Allenby, White, Buller, Baden-Powell, Wolseley, Churchill, Rhodes …Kruger, De Wet, Cronje, de la Rey, Botha, Smuts…Pakenham writes a great deal of his narrative from the perspective of the men on the ground, both Boer and British, as well. Their view of the war was one of deprivation, boredom, sudden death and frustration with both the enemy and their own commanding officers. There are many conflicts within a war, not just between the side dubbed “us” and the side dubbed “the enemy” or even with the weather and the terrain. Pakenham weaves them all into the larger struggle. In England there were The Imperialists vs. the “Pro-Boers” as they are labeled; Colonial Office vs. War Office vs. Treasury; the “African Ring" under Wolseley vs. the “Indian Ring" under Roberts. In Africa, there were too many personal conflicts to mention here. Initially it was Milner vs. Kruger which set the stage for the war. Then it was Buller and the other field Generals vs. Roberts/Kitchener; Rhodes vs. Milner and on it went. Plots within plots. It was a new kind of war Pakenham described. Perhaps rightly called “the first modern war”. The British, used to fighting poorly armed and organized natives in Africa and India, as usual underestimated their opponents. (Was there ever a war that was not going to “over by Christmas”?). The British had shed their red uniforms for khaki. It was the first war fought with smokeless powder. Soldiers and artillery were now invisible to the enemy. High velocity, small bore, magazine loading rifles, Lee-Enfields and Mausers, had replaced the old single shot breech-loaders. A soldier could aim and fire a clip of shots in the time it used to take to fire once. Concentration camps, used by the Spanish against the Cubans, were used by the British who rounded up women and children as part of their scorched earth tactics against the Boer guerrillas. The British were taught “no end of lessons” as Kipling put it, but they failed to learn the crucial one – modern weaponry combined with trenches put the advantage on the side of the defenders. That lesson was brought home at great cost in France and Belgium during The Great War. Buller had learned how to deal with this new way of war through the series of defeats he suffered in attempting to relieve the siege of Ladysmith. No more one-day set-piece battles. The new war required creeping artillery barrages, more individual initiative, better use of cover, and day after day of constant pressure. But the pro-Kitchener crowd made Buller the scapegoat for initial British reverses and he was fired at the end of the war. Histories are written by not only the victorious side but the victorious cliques. Pakenham redeems Buller and illustrates that his replacements as Commander in Chief, Roberts and then Kitchener made as many if not more blunders under far easier conditions. A soldier in the field must have wondered (as I expect all soldiers do) who the real enemy was, the men facing him trying to kill him or the men behind him sabotaging his ability to do his job with endless wranglings for political position and endless blunders in supplying necessary provisions. Without even trying, Pakenham has written an anti-war, anti-imperialism book. Not by preaching or pointing out the obvious but by simply telling it like it was. Another useless war. For all that it was to be a “White Man’s” war; the Africans paid the greater price in loss of life, property and rights. For all his Machiavellian plotting, Milner’s dream of a white non-Africaner British-only South Africa came to nothing. The Liberals won the next election, restored self government to the four colonies and the Boer/Afrikaner parties won majorities. And in the end, Africa got her revenge on Milner who was bitten by a tstse fly and died of sleeping sickness. For a better and shorter review, I suggest reading Jeff Cordell's review on Amazon at the link above. This was totally a learning experience for me, as previous knowledge was based on Canadian highschool history which was sketchy at best. Source for map here
The South African BOER WAR 1899-1902. Cape of Good Hope. The Cape of Good Hope ,South Africa was founded in 1652 as a ha...
During this lull in hostilities, the Zulu medicine men created the illusion of invincibility amongst the warriors in a series of pageant-like displays.
Chocolate Louit "The Transvaal War" (2nd Boer War) c1902. Surrender of English squadron at Wryheid, 20th May 1900
This edited article about Lord Kitchener originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 167 published on 27 March 1965. Lord Kitchener On the left bank of the river Nile, not far from Khartoum in the heart of the Sudan, lies the town of Omdurman. A few miles away, on September 2, 1898, a combined […]
The South African BOER WAR 1899-1902. Cape of Good Hope. The Cape of Good Hope ,South Africa was founded in 1652 as a ha...
Read this newspaper clip below – where an Englishman described how kind the Boers were and that everything that was said in England about the Boers, was not true. From the Boer War Facebook p…
27 February marks the anniversary of the Battle of Majuba Hill, the major battle of the First Boer War, in 1881. The boers won a resounding victory at Majuba Hill The hill, near Volksrust, South Africa, was occupied by British forces under Major-General Sir George Pomeroy Colley, possibly as part of a plan to outflank […]
