Boer Wars
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Two Boer Wars were fought between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics, the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic), founded by settlers known as Voortrekkers who made the Great Trek from the Cape Colony.
The war most commonly referred to as the "Boer War" is the Second Boer War.
Contents |
[edit] First Boer War
The First Boer War (1880–1881), also known as the "Transvaal War," was a relatively brief conflict in which Boer settlers successfully resisted a British attempt to annex the Transvaal, and re-established an independent republic.
[edit] Second Boer War
The Second Boer War (1899–1902), by contrast, was a lengthy war - involving large numbers of troops from many British possessions - which ended with the conversion of the Boer republics into British colonies (with a promise of limited self-government). These colonies later formed part of the Union of South Africa. Unlike many colonial conflicts, the Boer War lasted three years and was very bloody. The British fought directly against the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The bloodshed that was seen during the war was alarming and many of the British soldiers faced unfit conditions. Inhumane treatment of South Africans and the usage of a new system, the concentration camp, caused many in Britain to view imperialism as barbaric. The cost of war in money, destruction, and demoralization was gigantic, and many in Britain began to believe the Empire was too costly to maintain.
[edit] Significance
The Second Boer War was a major turning point in British history, due to world reaction over the anti-insurgency tactics the army used in the region. This led to a change in approach to foreign policy from Britain who now set about looking for more allies. To this end, the 1902 treaty with Japan in particular was a sign that Britain feared attack on its Far Eastern empire and saw this alliance as an opportunity to strengthen its stance in the Far East. This war led to a change from "splendid isolation" policy to a policy that involved looking for allies and improving world relations. Later treaties with France ("Entente cordiale") and Russia, caused partially by the controversy surrounding the Boer War, were major factors in dictating how the battle lines were drawn during World War One.[citation needed]
The Boer war also had another significance. The Army Medical Corps discovered that 40% of men called up for duty were physically unfit to fight. This was the first time in which the government was forced to take notice of how unfit the British Army was. This led to individual investigations by Booth and Rowntree into the poverty in Britain, and ultimately gave the Liberals ideas on which to base their Welfare reforms, beginning in 1906.
Another significant event was the British policy of rounding up and isolating the Boer civilian population into concentration camps. The wives and children of Boer guerrillas were sent to these camps with poor hygiene and little food. The death and suffering of the civilians, according to many scholars, is what broke the guerrillas' will. The "pacification" theory has been repeated many times in warfare since.
[edit] Notables who served in the Second Boer War
- Winston Churchill served in the British Army as a lieutenant, and was a prisoner of war and war correspondent.
- The famous author Arthur Conan Doyle served as a doctor, and saw more soldiers die of fever than of actual war wounds.
- Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts, was a general, and achieved fame with his defence of Mafeking.
- Frederick Russell Burnham, the British Army Chief of Scouts, was twice captured and twice escaped. He was the highest decorated American to serve in the war.
- Mahatma Gandhi served in the Ambulance Corps.
- Jan Smuts, a Boer guerilla leader, was later Prime Minister of South Africa, a Field Marshal in the British Army and in the Imperial War Cabinet. The only man to sign the peace treaties ending both the First and Second World Wars, he was involved in the foundation of both the League of Nations and the United Nations.
- British commanders who were generals in World War I included John French, Ian Hamilton and Horace Smith-Dorrien; Horatio Herbert Kitchener was Secretary of State for War.
- The last surviving veteran of the (Second) Boer War was George Frederick Ives, a trooper in the Imperial Yeomanry.[citation needed]. He died in 1993.
[edit] See also
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Books
- Beck, Roger B. (2000). The History of South Africa. Westport, CT: Greenwood. ISBN 031330730X.
- Davenport, T. R. H., and Christopher Saunders (2000). South Africa: A Modern History, 5th ed. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0312233760.
- Doyle, A. Conan (1902). The Great Boer War. Toronto: George N. Morang & Company.
- Jackson, Tabitha (1999). The Boer War. Basingstoke, U.K.: Channel 4 Books/Macmillan. ISBN 075221702X.
- Judd, Denis, and Keith Surridge (2003). The Boer War. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan. ASIN B000OLSIXQ. ISBN 0719561698 (paperback).
- Pakenham, Thomas (1979). The Boer War. New York: Random House. ISBN 0394427424.
- Plaatje, Sol T. (1990). Mafeking Diary: A Black Man’s View of a White Man's War. Ohio University Press. ISBN 0821409441.
- Reitz, Deneys (1930). Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War. London: Faber and Faber. ASIN B00165A9Y0. ISBN 1432612239 (2005 reissue).
- van Hartesveldt, Fred R. (2000). The Boer War. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313306273.
- Woods, Frederick (1972). Young Winston's Wars; The Original Despatches of Winston S. Churchill War Correspondent, 1897-1900. New York: The Viking Press, Inc. SBN 670-79515-1 (Published in 1973). Library of Congress catalog card number: 72-90478.
[edit] Journal Articles
- Grad, Kenneth (2008). "Effective Leadership in Counter-Insurgency: The North-West Mounted Police in South Africa, 1899-1902". Canadian Military Journal 9 (2). http://www.journal.dnd.ca/vo9/no2/08-grad-eng.asp. Retrieved on 2009-02-23.
