110 Years Since the Boer War

[wilhelm]

The average Boer, or farmer, was taught from as a young boy to shoot accurately and make every shot count. When you are shooting for the pot, and you are an impoverished farmer, ammunition is expensive and wasting it can be ill-afforded.

[oldsoak]

Exactly. Its not the rifle, its the marksman.

[wilhelm]

Originally Posted by oldsoak

Exactly. Its not the rifle, its the marksman.

Sort of like the British and Germans using poachers in the sniper role back in the day... patience and good markmanship.

[Cohaagen]

Many people tend to get very puffed-up and enthusiastic about the Boers for sticking one on the chin of them evil Britisher imperialists, until they find out that they were the progenitors of the SA nationalists that implemented Apartheid. Americans like them because it appeals to their own institutionalised myths about rugged frontiersmen who were good with a rifle - the fact that Boers were largely illiterate, ignorant, strangers to sanitation, and had repulsive views towards black people is by-the-by when you're getting into a good bit of hero-worship. They haven't disappeared, either. A quick look through Roger Ballen's book about the dorps in rural SA reveals as much.

[oldsoak]

Speaking as someone is proudly a Brit, I do think thats a little unfair on the Boers - they were products of their time. Their views and beliefs were not that different from most Europeans migrants who were trying to make a better living be it in Canada, Australia , NZ or S Aftrica. It might be argued that the feeling of marginalisation contributes to resistance to change. What happened in later years is another story.
As for being illiterate etc, that was true of the poor everywhere, especially in a country devoid of infrastructure as S Africa was in those days. Yes, there is in my humble opinion a lot of mythology on either side, but theres also truth, and we have to be even handed on this.

[Obelix]

the fact that Boers were largely illiterate, ignorant, strangers to sanitation, and had repulsive views towards black people

And I take it that your opinion is that these characteristics you so eloquently list were exceedingly rare in Britain and continental Europe during this era...

[wilhelm]

Originally Posted by Cohaagen

the fact that Boers were largely illiterate, ignorant, strangers to sanitation, and had repulsive views towards black people is by-the-by when you're getting into a good bit of hero-worship.

Ahhh .... an apologist for the high death rate in the camps has arrived. The same rubbish that was spouted by the camp apologists before the British public realised what was going on and were horrified by it.

What were prevailing attitudes worldwide at the time? Pray, do enlighten us. Was there a class sytem in place still in Europe? Could women vote? Was colonialism still extant.

Care to give us some hard statistics concerning the "hygiene, sanitation, ignorance and literacy levels" amongst the Boers, rural and urban, please? From independent sources please. Or should I just report you as a troll who clearly wants to flame a good and worthwhile topic? On your first post.

Your choice.

[oldsoak]

Funnily enough, the British public seemed remarkably blind sided to the less than wonderful conditions enjoyed by its lower classes in the slums of industrial cities in the Victorian era. The high mortality rate there being statistically "evened" out by those living in better conditions elsewhere. Its a little odd that ones ancestors were suffering from consumption and malnutrition in obscurity in the UK while educated society protested the suffering of the Boers in a land far away.
We have to view the past without the sentimentality or the moral conscience of the present. In time to come, even our current values may yet be found wanting.

[CMN]

Anachronism stalks the poor historian oldsoak. Conditions for the urban poor in Victorian Britain were appalling.

[wilhelm]

Originally Posted by oldsoak

We have to view the past without the sentimentality or the moral conscience of the present. In time to come, even our current values may yet be found wanting.

I have no doubt about it.

Reading recently about conditions in the East End during Jack the Rippers reign brings home the full scope of what it meant to to be poor in London only a decade before the Boer War. Certainly though, other great metropolis such as New York had areas of similar degradation.

I certainly agree with you about the dangers of using todays moral compass to judge the past, in a general way however.

Good virtue is timeless however.

[Switek]

One of my favorite military related song... I do not understand almost anything but it's really moving:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlHqKJyo3GQ