Boer Wars

Boers in action (1881).

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.

First Boer War

Main article: 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.`

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 their 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.

The Boer war also had another significance. It was discovered by the Army Medical Corps 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 public were. 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 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.

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 founding both the League of Nations and the United Nations.
• The last surviving veteran of the (Second) Boer War was George Frederick Ives, a trooper in the Imperial Yeomanry.. He died in 1993.

See also

• Military history of South Africa
• South African Wars (1879-1915)
• Treaty of Vereeniging

Bibliography

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.
• 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.

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). Retrieved 2009-02-23. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)