xxxxxAs we
have seen, the First Anglo-
THE SECOND ANGLO-
1899 -
Acknowledgements
Majuba Hill: from
Famous Men and Great Events of the 19th Century
by the American journalist Charles Morris (1833-
xxxxxAs we have seen, the First Anglo-
xxxxxThexfinal and inevitable showdown was not long in coming.
In 1897 Alfred Milner
(1854-
xxxxxThe Boers
had long realised that a war was inevitable and they had made
preparations accordingly. Kruger had imported a large quantity of
arms -
xxxxxThe war
started off disastrously for the British. Sending troops to Africa
took some time, and the field force in place proved inadequate.
Within a matter of weeks the Boers had broken out and were laying
siege to Mafeking and Kimberley in Cape Colony and the town of
Ladysmith in Natal. ThexBritish suffered
heavy loses in fighting at Talana Hill and Elandslaagte, and the Battle of Nicholson’s
Nek, just outside Ladysmith, saw the
defeat of a large British force and the surrender of some 800 men,
the largest capitulation since the Napoleonic Wars. And elsewhere,
by means of superior field-
xxxxxThisxbrought about a change in command. Buller was
replaced by Field Marshal Lord Roberts, and
Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, the victor of the Battle of Omdurman,
became his second in command. Meanwhile in Britain thousands of
men volunteered for duty -
xxxxxInxthexmeantime
Roberts had won a decisive victory at the Battle
of Paardeberg (during which the Boer
commander General Piet Cronje was captured) and, following further
success at the Battle of Popular Grove, the capital of the Orange
Free State, Bloemfontein, was captured. In May the country was
annexed and renamed The Orange River Colony. Then, after a delay caused by an outbreak of typhoid,
troops were prepared for the invasion of the Transvaal, and by
June, Johannesburg and Pretoria, two of the country’s largest
cities, had been occupied. The British then gained victories at
the Battles of Diamond Hill and Bergendal (near the town of
Belfast), and by September the Transvaal itself had
been taken over, and Kruger had fled to Europe. To prevent any
further resistance a large number of Boer prisoners of war -
xxxxxUnderstandably, Roberts now considered that the war
was won and he returned home, leaving Kitchener to bring the
conflict to a rapid end. But the Boers had not surrendered and, as
a meeting held at Kroonstad showed, many were willing and anxious
to continue the fight. Underxthe
leadership of General Christian Rudolf
De Wet (1854-
xxxxxKitchener’s response to these terrorist activities was a scorched earth policy, the destruction of crops, cattle and homesteads in order to deprive his enemy of food and shelter. It worked to some extent, but this brutal strategy also left him responsible for thousands of homeless women, children and elderly folk. His solution was to herd these people into a large number of tented camps, but these “concentration camps” (illustrated), were inadequately maintained and supervised and, as a result, some 28,000 Boer citizens, mostly children, died of malnutrition or diseases such as dysentery, typhoid and measles. This scorched earth policy and the horror stories that came out of these internment camps brought worldwide condemnation of Britain’s conduct of the war, and turned world public opinion against the British military. Such was the level of criticism that it became vitally important to bring the campaign to an end as quickly as possible. Large numbers of troops were employed to flush out the guerrilla units section by section, and by the Spring of 1902 the surviving Boer fighters, exhausted and heavily outnumbered, were prepared to sue for peace.
xxxxxThexPeace of Vereeniging, was
signed in Pretoria at the end of May, 1902. Negotiations were
conducted between Milner, Kitchener and Kruger’s successor Louis
Botha. The Boers received the sum of £3 million to rebuild their
country, and were promised responsible government as soon as this
was seen as practicable. In return, they recognised Edward VII as
their sovereign. However, the thorny question of “granting the
franchise to natives (Africans)” was deferred until self-
xxxxxIn total
around 75,000 lives were lost during the war. The British lost
22,000 men, more than a half through disease, and the Boers about
35,000 men, women and children, some 28,000 of whom died in the
concentration camps set up to house the general population. In
addition, it is estimated that
20,000 native Africans were killed during the conflict. The brutal
strategy adopted by the British in the final stages of the war
came in for severe criticism across the world, and raised
questions about the morality and, indeed, the viability of British
imperial policy. Britain found itself in “splendid” but dangerous
isolation and embarked on a search for friends. There followed the
Anglo-
xxxxxIncidentally, A Shropshire Lad, a
cycle of 63 poems published in 1896 by the English classical
scholar and poet A.E. Housman (1859-
xxxxx…… We are told that during the siege of Mafeking Baden Powell organised a series of cricket matches within the garrison to keep his men occupied. The Boers watched the games from afar and at one point proposed a pause in the fighting in order that the two sides could have a match! Baden Powell declined, telling the Boer commander that the British were already winning, having scored 200 days not out. ……
xxxxx…… Despite the worldwide criticism levelled against
Britain’s conduct of the war, the well-
xxxxx…… After the war the Transvaal and Orange River Colony
were made British colonies, and in 1910 they became part of the
Union of South Africa. Considering the bloody, brutal nature of
the conflict there was surprisingly little ill-
xxxxx…… Winston Churchill, the British prime minister during the Second World War, served as a war correspondent for the Morning Post during the conflict. At one point he was captured and imprisoned in a prisoner of war camp in Pretoria, but he managed to escape and travelled some 300 miles to reach the Portuguese colony of Mozambique. He returned home a national hero, and then went back to South Africa to be present at the relief of Ladysmith and the capture of Pretoria. He wrote about his war experiences in London to Ladysmith Via Pretoria and Ian Hamilton’s March, both published in 1900.
xxxxxThe plight of the women and children inside the
concentration camps in South Africa was brought to the notice of
the British public by a Cornish welfare campaigner named Emily Hobhouse (1860-
xxxxxIn her
report, delivered to the British government in June 1901, she
blamed the authorities for the appalling conditions that she found
in the camps she visited, condemning them for the “wholesale
cruelty” they were inflicting on the old, the weak and the young.
The whole policy, she wrote, was “a grievous and gigantic blunder”
and presented almost insoluble problems. Eventually the government
agreed to the setting up of the Fawcett Commission -
Vc-
Including:
Emily Hobhouse