110 Years Since the Boer War

[baboon6]

Originally Posted by oldsoak

So you are telling me that Holland would have gone to war with Germany in WW1 if the Boer wars had not happened ? for what reason ?
I put it to you that no Dutch government in its right mind would go to war with an imperial Germany- the foremost continental superpower. They would have gained nothing and ended up like Belgium. I cannot imagine them being that stupid. With no real navy to speak of , a small army and dependent of the sea for trade - how the hell did they think they'd survive the first onslaught ? It would have been a Beau Geste at best with horrifying results for the Dutch populace.
The whole idea that the Boer wars stopped Holland from joining alongside the French and British simply because of the Brits ignores the reality of the political and military situation facing the Dutch in WW1.

The Belgians didn't exactly join either world war by choice either, only because the Germans invaded them- like the Dutch in WW2. I agree with the rest of your post, the idea that the Dutch would have declared war on Germany in 1914 under any circumstances other than being invaded is to me ridiculous.

[oldsoak]

Exactly that - the knowledge of what happened in Belgium would have concentrated the minds in the Hague wonderfully.

[Jelle H.]

Regarding the British concentration camps, Stanford has an interesting section on its website containing scans of official British documents:

Concentration Camps during the South African / Boer War, 1899-1902
http://library.stanford.edu/depts/ss...ica/boers.html

[drevil5000]

[Minardiau]

This war has some significance to our family. On my mothers side, my great grandmother who was taken from her family being the last full aboriginal of her tribe never had a birth certificate. So they could only work out her age when she said she was 6 years when the war started.

[Jelle H.]

Originally Posted by drevil5000

Quote:

"We were a company of 109, when we were all through there was only 17 of us left"

Heavy casualties...

[OrangeWolf]

I don't think the Netherlands didn't go to war because of the Boer Wars, but it just added up to widespread distrust of the British intentions. Either way I am glad we didn't join World War 2. Judging from what little I know about my family generations back, they were very pro-Afrikaner.

I have deep respect for the Afrikaners who resisted British rule during the Boer Wars, and even moreso for foreign volunteers especially the Dutch. Failing to destroy the Afrikaners the concentration camps were established, and families whose men did not surrender were more and more deprived from food. I did however read in this extensive book the Covenant that women in the camps threatened to kill those who surrendered. The whole camps are probably the blackest page in South African history

Afrikaners from the Cape also fought on the British side btw, and let's not forget those black nations and coloreds fought on both sides, and they too suffered in the camps.

Some of the Boers used the tactic of faking surrender, showing up with a white flag yet still fire. But I do suppose the whole idea of conventional warfare according to certain rules is dead when you burn everyone's farms and force their women and children into malnutrition. I did also read floggings after capture did sporadically happen on both sides

Op ‘n perd kom hy aan, die leeu van die Wes-Transvaal! (On a horse he comes, the lion of West Transvaal)

[Jelle H.]

Interesting (and shocking) part from a book titled "March of the Titans - A History of the White Race" on the Boer Republics and British Rule.

The First Anglo-Boer War 1881-1882
The Boer Republics were primarily agriculturally based, and also, compared to the British ruled Cape, comparatively poor. The discovery of diamonds in the interior - in a region claimed by both the British and Boers, called Griqualand West, caused a fresh wave of White immigration from Europe, mainly British but also small numbers from other European nations, including a group of European Jews who were soon to wield great influence in the affairs of the region. The influx of British settlers caused the already strained relations between the Boer Republics and the British to deteriorate. The Boers were not only politically weak but also militarily divided, with the result that the British were able to annex the Transvaal Republic in 1877 with a tiny force which met no resistance at all. Within a few days, the British flag was hoisted in the Transvaal capital, Pretoria, (named after the Boer leader at the battle of Blood River) and British rule was extended into the interior without a shot being fired. It took three years and a Herculean effort on the part of three young Boer leaders to organize their people and to motivate them into fighting the British occupation of the Transvaal: eventually in 1881, a Boer rebellion finally broke out. The British were unexpectedly badly beaten by a Boer army at the battle of Majuba in February 1881, and the British then announced that they were prepared to restore self-government to the Transvaal. One of the young Boer leaders of the rebellion, Paul Kruger, was elected president of the once again independent Boer republic in 1883.

Second Boer Republic in Natal
In the far north of Natal, in land previously agreed as belonging to the Zulus, a small Boer population established themselves after providing military assistance to one of the Zulu factions which came to dominance in Zulu politics: this republic of Northern Natal was eventually to join up with the larger Boer Republic of the Transvaal, giving the latter access to the coast for the first time.

The Second Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902
The discovery of gold in the southern Transvaal in 1886, caused a new wave of British and European Jewish immigrants to come flooding into the Transvaal. The number of immigrants swelled: in certain areas like Johannesburg, the city founded at the center of the gold bearing reef, British and other non-Boer elements greatly outnumbered the Boer population. The Boer Republic refused to grant the new immigrants voting rights, correctly foreseeing the loss of political power, and this "Uitlander" ('Foreigner") question was to serve as the spark for the Second Anglo-Boer war of 1889 - 1902, the one that is most often remembered in the annals of history. After protracted negotiations between the British government at the Cape, headed by one Cecil John Rhodes, and the Boer president, Paul Kruger broke down, a small Uitlander rebellion broke out in Johannesburg. Simultaneously a small private English militia under the leadership of one of Rhode's adjutants, actually invaded the Transvaal Republic. The invasion and rebellion were quickly suppressed by the Boer forces, but the die had been cast; war between the Boer Republics and the British was thereafter inevitable.

Boers Strike First
Sensing that war was near, the British began moving troops up to the borders of the Orange Free State and Transvaal Republics, and started preparations to ship out further troops from Britain. The Transvaal President, Kruger, sent an ultimatum to the British administration in the Cape to stop the troop build up or the Boers would regard it as an act of war (which it of course was). The British ignored the ultimatum, and in October 1899, the Boers went over to the offensive, launching two pronged invasions in British ruled Natal and the Northern Cape. The White population figures of the Boer Republics at this stage of the proceedings make interesting reading: in total the White population of the Transvaal and Orange Free States State was just over 200,000, and together with 2,000 Boer sympathizers recruited from Natal and the Cape, the Boer armed forces in total were never more than 52,000 at any one stage in the three year war which followed. The British in the other hand had 176,000 soldiers alone in the Cape by the end of 1899, and by the end of the war itself had deployed 478,725 soldiers in the field: nearly twice as many military personnel as the entire Boer population, men, women and children included.

Initial British Defeats
At first the war went well for the Boers: several British defeats followed one another in quick succession, created by the skillful use of trenches by the Boers and unconventional mobile tactics. Another advantage, exploited to the hilt by the Boers, was their modern semi-automatic Mauser rifles - a gift from the German Kaiser - while the British still had manual loading Lee-Enfield rifles as their main infantry armament. The Boers laid siege to three towns inside British held territory: Mafikeng and Kimberley in the Northern Cape and Ladysmith in Natal. It was however in besieging these three towns that the Boers lost their chance of winning the war. Initially the plan had been to strike down into Natal and seize the port of Durban, whilst simultaneously seizing the large ports in the Cape (Port Elizabeth and eventually Cape Town itself) thereby preventing the British from sending in more troops. However, the main Boer force became bogged down besieging what were in reality relatively unimportant military targets, and the British were able to land many thousands of troops in the country unmolested.

Inevitable British Victories due to overwhelming numbers
Eventually the sieges of all three towns were lifted and the British then pressed home their military superiority, occupying Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State, and Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal, in quick succession. The British then expected the Boers to surrender after the fall of their major cities: but instead the remaining Boer forces - now numbering only some 26,000 - started a hit and run guerrilla war which was to last from 1900 to 1902. Operating in the open veld, the Boer guerrillas could rely on provisions and support from the rural Boer community, and as a result the British occupation only extended as far as the range of their guns: as soon as they moved out an area it was quickly re-occupied by Boers, who then waged a highly effective campaign of sabotage and raids against British columns.

Scorched Earth and Concentration Camps
By mid 1900, the Second Anglo-Boer War had been raging for well over a year: the overwhelming British force had occupied all the major towns and centers of the Boer Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, and the Boers had been forced to resort to hit and run guerrilla tactics in the open veld. The Boers continued to inflict defeats upon the British in this way: so much so that eventually the war was to cost the British government £191 000 000 (191 million Pounds - a fortune by 1901 standards, and many hundred times that amount today). By mid 1900, however, the British had become exasperated with the military situation: the Boers seemed to be able operate with impunity in the veld: a new course of action was decided upon. In the last months of 1900, the British began to build what eventually became 45 separate concentration camps, established to systematically remove women and children from their farms to prevent them aiding and supplying the Boer soldiers ("burgers") in the field.

The British ironically justified rounding up thousands of women and children - something unprecedented before in any other war which the British Empire had fought. So it was that the British started not only rounding up as many Boer women and children as they could, but also destroying the farms, their only source of survival. The evacuation of the farms was accompanied by the burning and dynamiting of all farm houses and buildings. Poultry, sheep and cattle were slaughtered, the houses looted and all fruit trees, grain or other crops burned down. This is not to say that all the British undertook this task with relish: many ordinary British soldiers were themselves appalled at what they were ordered to do. Transported in open wagons, and sometimes in open flatbed trains, the Boer women and children so evacuated were taken to the camps which were scattered all over the country, from Howick in Natal through to Kroonstad in the Orange Free State. The terrain upon which the camps had been built was poorly chosen: exposed to the elements and under supplied. Too many people were assembled in too short a time without adequate preparation. The administrative personnel and medical services were inadequate, the rations unsatisfactory; there were dishonest contractors and inefficient officials who were unable to cope with the epidemic of measles and pneumonia which broke out. The wave of evacuees soon overwhelmed the inadequate preparations the British had taken. Up to October 1901, the number of inmates in the 45 camps increased to 118 000 Whites and 43 000 non-Whites. The death rate was 344 per thousand amongst the Whites; at one stage in the Kroonstad camp the death rate was 878 per thousand. Eventually 27,927 Boers died in the camps, of whom 4177 were adult women and 22,074 were children under the age of 16. Since the entire Boer population in both republics was just over 200,000, the mortality rate meant that just under 15 percent of the entire Boer population was wiped out. Such a figure is of genocidal proportions. These figures are even more revealing when the actual combat fatalities for the entire war are reviewed: some 7091 British soldiers died, while on the Boer side some 3990 burgers were killed, with a further 1081 dying of disease or accident in the veld. Twelve percent of Boer deaths were battle related; six percent died from other causes while on commando; 17 percent were adults in the camps and 65 percent were children under the age of 16 years. It has been estimated that without this loss, the White population of South Africa would have been as much as a third larger than what it eventually became.

Boer Surrender
Although the guerrilla war itself was reasonably successful - with one Boer commando under the able guerrilla leader general, Jan Smuts, raiding so deep in the Cape that they came within sight of Table Mountain in Cape Town - the pressures brought to bear by the concentration camp issue forced them to eventually surrender or face total extermination. In 1902, the Treaty of Vereniging brought the war to an end, and Britain formally annexed the Transvaal and Orange Free State.

http://iluvsa.blogspot.com/2009/11/m...e-race_04.html

[oldsoak]

Just to add relevance to those figures, child mortality in the Uk was 156 per 1000 in the period 1896-1900.

[nemowork]

Another advantage, exploited to the hilt by the Boers, was their modern semi-automatic Mauser rifles - a gift from the German Kaiser - while the British still had manual loading Lee-Enfield rifles as their main infantry armament.

Semi-auto?

Weird how long ago this all is, at the same time talking to my grandmother about her watching the troops coming off homecoming trains after the Boer war at the station where her father worked.

[oldsoak]

Semi Auto mausers ? - only in pistols.
The Boers Mausers had clip loaded magazines for their rifles during the war which allowed a faster reload. UK did not adopt that until later. One side had the faster bolt action and bigger magazine capacity, the other had the faster loading mag.

[Jelle H.]

Originally Posted by oldsoak

Semi Auto mausers ? - only in pistols.
The Boers Mausers had clip loaded magazines for their rifles during the war which allowed a faster reload. UK did not adopt that until later. One side had the faster bolt action and bigger magazine capacity, the other had the faster loading mag.

Indeed, the Boer's "Plezier Mauser" was charger feeding.

Plezier Mauser

In the Boer War, wealthy burghers' sporters were the terror of the kopies.

By Richard Venola

"Vertrou in God en die Mauser!" was the battle cry of citizen soldiers as they protected their democracies against the Evil Empire of the age--and they had little else to trust in besides God and their Mauser rifles.

At the turn of the last century, the pink spots checkering schoolroom globes represented Britain's ever-expanding acquisitions. In southern Africa two small republics, the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (Transvaal), had unfortunately found new mineral wealth while being sandwiched between several British colonies.

The tough, Afrikaans-speaking residents of these two fledgling republics had fended off the larcenous Brits less than two decades before and saw that they were going to have to do it again. Unable to afford a single mass purchase, the governments bought state-of-the-art Mausers at a discount rate and then resold them to members of the militias at cost.

A Boer farmer could buy a standard 1895 Mauser, identical to the ones used by Spain to flog U.S. troops in Cuba, at a cost of three pounds, Sterling. A thousand rounds of 174-grain ammo went for just over six pounds.

For the wealthy burghers in the booming mining towns, the 1895 service rifle was rather pedestrian. Since war hadn't yet been declared, they wanted something that could be used for sporting purposes as well. Private and small-volume purchases were made, and the special sporting rifles were made available for about five quid.

The result was one of the most beautiful military rifles ever, the Pleasure Mauser. Based on the same 1895 small-ring action and superb 7x57mm cartridge, the Plezier Mausers were fitted with a precision, tapered 28-inch octagonal barrel. The rear sight is a short ladder and the front winged and windage adjustable. The stock is clearly a sporting design, with a semi-pistol grip, fine checkering, cheekpiece and Schnabel fore-end. The front sling swivel is silver-soldered to the barrel in the manner of African hunting rifles. Alongside the receiver are distinctive flats standing out from the gentle curves.

When war broke out in the fall of 1899, coarse Boers left their farms and bourgeois Burghers the comfort of their townhomes, both to go "on commando." British-held towns were sieged and relief columns introduced to some harsh realities.

Poor men hunting meat for their families become efficient marksmen, by learning either to stalk close or to stretch their ability with a rifle. In the case of the Boers, they did both. It is appalling to think of the carnage at such places as Colenso and Spion Kop, where men with such talents used rapid-firing rifles to fire at massed bodies of troops--with what is still arguably the most effective cartridge ever.

Gradually, however, the British pressed (as they do) stubbornly on, and the Boers fell back. By this point, unit commanders had learned who could shoot and who could not and which rifles shot more accurately. Many egos were wounded and humiliations doled out as the leaders of the increasingly fragmented commandoes ordered the Burghers to "temporarily" trade their beautiful, accurate Pleziers with the better marksmen.

If, say, the Minutemen were to make a group purchase of Colt M-16s and the wealthier members opted for Les Baer Varminters, the effective difference between them would have been the same.

Boer marksmanship during the guerrilla phase entered the status of legend, and British sentries' worst nightmare was the specter of the lone, hungry Boer with his Mauser. Kipling wrote both prose and verse in honor of Boer marksmanship. His poem "Two Kopjes" laments the frustration of British troops in trying to move through the small flat-topped hills that dot the veldt. The Boers used mutually supporting, highly accurate enfilade fire to consume columns of British light horse.

Kipling helped nurture the legend of Boer marksmanship in Piet, writing:

An' when there wasn't aught to do
But camp and cattle-guards,
I've fought with 'im the 'ole day through,
At fifteen 'undred yards;
Long afternoons o' lyin' still,
An' 'earin' as you lay,
The bullets swish from 'ill to 'ill
Like scythes among the 'ay.

http://www.rifleshootermag.com/featu...r_071907/#cont

[JCR]

Originally Posted by oldsoak

So you are telling me that Holland would have gone to war with Germany in WW1 if the Boer wars had not happened ? for what reason ?

Dutch-German relations until 1940 were superb, and especially dutch-german relations in the days of the empire.
The Hohenzollerns and the House of Orange were related, and they still owned land in Germany.
Actually the house of Orange-Nassau still owns a few castles in Germany where they come from (Nassau and a few others).
Protestantism also was a strong bond between prussia and the dutch, with the dutch being seen as something like the founding fathers of protestant nations.
It wasn't without a reason that the Kaiser fled to the Netherlands in 1918.


Sadly, WW2 spoiled that special relationship, but today relations aren't that bad again, even if this is due to football and alcohol, not protestantism and nobility

[OrangeWolf]

Originally Posted by JCR

Dutch-German relations until 1940 were superb, and especially dutch-german relations in the days of the empire.
The Hohenzollerns and the House of Orange were related, and they still owned land in Germany.
Actually the house of Orange-Nassau still owns a few castles in Germany where they come from (Nassau and a few others).
Protestantism also was a strong bond between prussia and the dutch, with the dutch being seen as something like the founding fathers of protestant nations.
It wasn't without a reason that the Kaiser fled to the Netherlands in 1918.


Sadly, WW2 spoiled that special relationship, but today relations aren't that bad again, even if this is due to football and alcohol, not protestantism and nobility

Protestantism, football, beer whatever it takes Germany and the Netherlands should have the warmest relationships of all nations .

Anyway did anyone read The Covenant, it also has an entire chapter about the Boer War and the events leading to the Boer War? It combines non-fiction with fictious characters though.

In the end I am afraid the British would just have won due to the fact they were superior in number, they were pouring in masses of soldiers into Southern Africa. But I guess killing and starving children and women in camps is an easier way to hit your opponent.

[oldsoak]

There is a certain mythology around the 7x57 mauser - I've had a look at an original and while its a worthy rifle, I suspect if the sides were forced to swap rifles, the results would be much the same. Indeed, Boers used captured British rifles just as British scouts also used Mausers - Mausers were readily available commerially throughout SA and its surrounds - and cheap.
The problem lay with the tactics. The British army was not large, and it was a tool of empire used to fighting massed attacks - something the Boers did not do. It was forced to fight a guerilla war against highly motivated and mobile troops in unfamilar country. The SA had to do the same in the Apartheid years, and even with the advantages of modern mobility and knowledge of the bush, they did not find it an easy task.