Hi all

Dunno if anyone is interested in the Anglo-Boer War... but I found this interesting article online comparing it to OIF...

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1611655,00.html

Ticking off a few similarities isn't really historical analysis, even it's only a newspaper article.

Concern about the Boers arming themselves is a new one to me (not that I'm that big on the Boer War), and one thing carefully omitted is any mention of the Boers attitude to the African inhabitants of their province, which eventually spawned Apartheid.

For another historical question how do you think the Spanish-American war would have turned out if the Spanish had fought like the Boers? Goodbye Teddy Roosevelt for a start.

moderator action

moved to history club.

interesting article!

Joe-- did you move this into the History Forum? If so, where was it originally published?
thanks
DJ

David, just remember that this was the 1890s, and that Britain treated the Africans in a very ‘unfriendly’ way as well. Also remember that Cecil John Rhodes and his ‘Jameson’s Raid’ of 29 December 1895 was a very active participant in this. Rhodes is not remembered for his ‘Friendly’ attitude to the Africans in Matabeleland (now Zimbabwe).

Do remember that as late as the 1920s Sir Winston Churchill advocated the use of ‘poison gas’ against the Kurds see: http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHU407A.html. Thankfully the technology was not up to the challenge!

What about Gen. R.E.H. Dyer’s Jallianwallah Bagh massacre on April 13, 1919? An estimated 400 civilians were killed and some 1200 wounded, whom left Dyer without medical attention, see: http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/landow/post/india/history/colonial/massacre.html.

Apartheid (as we know it), for the Anglo Boer War, played no part, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_War

As to “carefully omitted is any mention of the Boers attitude to the African inhabitants of their province”

Indirect quote from:
Donald Denoon. A Grand Illusion: the failure of imperial policy in the Transvaal Colony
during the period of reconstruction, 1900-1905. (London: Longman, 1973)
Peter Warwick. Black People and the South African War, 1899-1902. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980)
The Times History of the War in South Africa. Volume 6. Edited by L S Amery.
(London: Sampson Low, Marston and Company, 1907)
Diana Cammack The Rand at War, 1899-1902. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)
W Basil Worsfeld. Lord Milner’s Work in South Africa: From its commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902. (London: John Murray, 1906).

Within a week of Johannesburg being captured by General Roberts, the British issued a gazette re-imposing the Pass Laws of the ZAR to control Black inhabitants. Boer attitude = British attitude?

Also from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_War:

“In all, 116,572 Boers were moved into camps, roughly a quarter of the Boer population, along with about 120,000 black Africans.”

“Coupled with a shortage of medical facilities, this led to large numbers of deaths — a report after the war concluded that 27,927 Boers (of whom 22,074 were children under 16) and 14,154 black Africans had died of starvation, disease and exposure. i.e. About 25% of the Boer inmates and 12% of the black African ones died (although recent research suggests that the black African deaths were underestimated and may have actually been around 20,000).”

Don’t forget the images from these Concentration Camps!



For more info on the Boer War see: http://www.anglo-boer.co.za/index.html

When it comes to the Anglo-Boer War, very raw emotions surface. Even a century later and growing up as an ‘Englishman’ (Uitlander) in South Africa, those sentiments are real even to me.

Whenever the Anglo-Boer War is mentioned, the following image springs to mind, and this poem by C Louis Leipoldt :



“Hulle het jou in England gemaak, seepkissie,
Om hier vir ons kinders as doodkis te dien;
Hulle het vir jou lykies gevinde, seepkissie,
En ek het jouselwe as doodkis gesien.”

Rough translation:

They made you in England, little soapbox
To serve as a coffin for our children
They found little corpses for you, soapbox
And I have witnessed you as a coffin.

Thanks Savage for the reminder of the horrors of the Boer War (and all wars) and of colonialism, something we tend to overlook as we blithely model away.

My comments weren't intended as justifying the Boer War or suggesting that the British Empire was motivated by altruism, just a riposte to the woeful over-simplification of the newpaper article.

The bitterness caused by the Boer War is not all one-sided either, the great-uncle of a friend of mine fought in South Africa and he never forgave the Boers to the end of his life.

Mention of the Amritsar massacre reminded me of a more recent event with parallels to Iraq:
http://www.sikh-history.com/sikhhist/events/attack841.html

DJ,

i moved it from the junk drawer. i posted the message before i moved it.

it will get better responses and attention here

regards

joe

Whilst I condemn Kitcherners actions, I fail to see what other choices he had. The boers were fighting on for what? Guerilla warfare is useful when trying to weaken the enemy thru attrition before an assault to ruin lines of communication or to delay the enemy advance whilst reinforcements are gathered. The boers had none of the options. Kitchener would have been stuck in SA for years with rising casualties (like Iraq) because the boers could not surrender and admit defeat with honour.

In all my years i have often asked an afrikaans friend what honour is in afrikaans and they don't know. Nowadays you get 2 types of afrikaaners (in my view) 1) r very nice, polite friendly people and then 2) rude, racist stubborn, english-hating , sore loser types.

Just my opinion hope I did'nt offend anyone