The Boer War

I've never been interested in military history, but I picked this book off my father's book shelf, and I found it to be fascinating, well-written, and very well organized. And there is a good balance between analysis of the causes of the war, biographical detail of the personalities, and description of battles.

Thomas Pakenham, the brother of historian Antonia Fraser, penned "The Boer War" in the early 1970s. He was privileged to have available a trusty tape recorder and the reedy voices of several of the Tommy Atkins Brits who actually foght in the war!
The Boer War lasted from 1899-1902. Its purpose was to conquer the Boer republics of the Orange Free State (cattle and sheep farmers) and Transvaal home to the world's richest gold mines.
One war had been fought in the early 1880s won by Britain leading to their conquering of the Natal region. The British government's headquarters were in Capetown in the Cape colony. The Jameson raid in 1895 launched by the British against the Transvaal had failed.
Now in 1899 the second Boer war began. Its author was Sir Arthur Milner High Commissioner to the Cape Colony. This bold imperialist wanted all of Africa to be British on his own terms. His opponent was the President of the Transvall the aged Paul Kruger. The Conservative government in London backed Milner in his plans. PM Salisbury wanted to seize South Africa for its rich gold lode and to ensure it would be secure as a fueling stop on the voyage around Africa to India the jewel in the British empire.
The war was noted for its long sieges in which British civilians and soldiers were beseiged by Boers. The major sieges were at Mafeking and Ladysmith.
The Boers were a tough opponent believing in guerilla warfare led by such fierce warriors as Jan Smuts and De Wet. The war dragged on feeding into its bloody maw over 22,000 British dead matched by an equal number of the Boers. Blacks were also killed in the thousands. Both the Boers and British were anti-black treating these people with great cruelty.
Among the reasons for folks on this side of the pond to study the Boer War are the following:
a. Lord Kitchener's widespread use of the concentration camp system to hold Boer women, children and POW's would be a harbinger of the horrors of twentieth century concentration camps in World War II and in the Soviet Gulag.
b. Smokeless powder and automatic weapons were used widely for the first time in major battles. The time of the cavalry horse was ending as defensive warfare (seen in its most salient focus in World War I) would come to the fore.
c. The war was one of the costliest in English history. It reminds Americans of our long ordeals in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
d. Men like the Commander Lord Roberts failed to properly administer hospitals, organize transport for his troops and failed to see that warfare was changing in the modern age.
e. The war was the introduction to combat of such British luminaries of World War I as John French, HH. Kitchener and Douglas Haig.
f. The war gave Winston Churchill his first fame. Churchill had been held in Praetoria as a captive of the Boers; he returned home to write a bestseller about his adventures winning him a seat in the British House of Commons.
Great Britain proved victorious due to over 250,000 troops committed to the grisly campaign. The Orange Free State and Transvaal became possessions of the British Empire.
This book is the sine qua non of literature on the Boer War. It is 615 densely written pages which will not whet the appetite of everyone. If you like detailed accounts of battles and a backstairs look at diplomacy this book will gratify your interest.

Pakenham's "The Boer War" is one of the best and certainly one of the most thorough works on the war against the Afrikaner peoples of South Africa. This book is both well-researched and well written and, although it is tempting to take exception against this particular colonial war--because it was against "fellow" whites--it must be remembered that the British, scarcely 100 years before, waged war against fellow whites in America.

The difference was that the Americans proved victorious partially because the English were not prepared to go to the extremes they did in South Africa. Ultimately, the English had more troops in South Africa than the Africaners had total population--men, women and children. They also resorted to measures never used against the Americans, namely concentration camps to imprison civilians. Consequently, Great Britain proved victorious but it was a pyrrhic victory, indeed.

There are major similarities and dissimularities between the Boer War and the American Civil War. In both cases the "rebel" forces initially were victorious against larger, better supplied armies. Also, in both cases, the rebels were eventually defeated in open battle. Here the similarities end. Lee, when surrounded at Appomatox, had the option of "going on commando." He refused, reckoning that the damage--both physical and moral--would be worse than surrender. The Boers, given the same option, opted for guerilla warfare. The result was death, devastation and hatred lasting to the present day.

In both cases--Southern and Afrikaner--defeat resulted in extreme measures against black populations. In the South, Jim Crow and the Klan were the unfortunate result. In South Africa, apartheid was the result. In the case of the South, northern domination eventually forced complete desegregation. In the case of South Africa, world opinion and sanctions, resulted in a takeover by the ANC and...it is now totally irrelevant as to whether the English or Afrikaners proved victorious. They are all in the position of potentially losing everything.

Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Conquest of Mexico

This is simply a fantastic and very readable book. The down side is that it is about another bloody and useless war. This war set the stage for the the 20th-century wars to come. The Boer War was the first time concentration camps were used, and the US simultaneously used the idea in their Spanish-American War in the Philippines. We have much to learn from Thomas Pakenham's book, including how the special interests (neocons in the case of the Iraq War) propagandize for war and how wars, in general, have nothing to do with national security, but rather with plunder for the corporatocracy. Here is a taste for those of you who just don't get how horrible war is: "The farms were burnt, the stock looted, the women and children concentrated in camps along the railway lines. Between twenty thousand and twenty-eight thousand Boer civilians died of epidemics in these "concentration camps". This same story continues today, only now in Iraq. Will the masses ever cease getting duped by their criminal states???

Atr the outset, it should be noted that this book could be usefully supplemented by reading COMMANDO by Deneys Reitz - A Boer journal ,of the Boer War.
Much of the horror of 20th century warfare - trench warfare, concentration camps, shooting or otherwise mistreating prisoners - was carried out in the Boer war. Some readers, and I am a general reader not an historian, will have been aware of elements of the Boer War such as the shooting of prisoners by Lt "Breaker Morant" which was and is something of a cause celebre in Australia retold in books, plays and a fine contemporary film. But the one feeling I have after reading this fine book by Mr Pakenham is a far greater sympathy for the Boers and a much better appreciation of the contribution and sacrifice that black Africans made in what was touted as a "white man's" war. In fact it was a black man's war too with c100,000 black riflemen seeing duty, and fighting in effect for the right to vote. Mr Pakenham provides evidence to suggest that the successful survival by the British at the siege of Mafeking was made possible by the sacrifice of black Africans.
Item: 3500 horses perished in one day in one cavalry charge.
Item: 400,000 horses, mules, donkeys died in total
Item: Lord Kitchener invented the concentration camp using a Spanish model re Cubans
Item: The British military and politicians did not care about the thousands of women and children in concentration camps and as the result of disgusting conditions many many died as a result.
Item: It was not superior marksmanship or courage that won, but the application of the knowledge that defence was superior to attack with the new, smokeless, high velocity, weapons.
The book is very well written, with a reliance on much primary source material, especially diaries and letters of the major British protagonists
including Sir Alfred Milner, High Commissioner for South Africa and Lt Governor of Cape Colony who is revealed in his own words as a thoroughly despicable character. The reader also gets a very real feeling for the exigencies of the landscape, the boredom of routine for the military, the clash of battle where the stones on the ground or the mud on the banks of a river become as frighteningly real as the whizz and splat of dum dum bullets. Clearly the writer has experienced the landscape firsthand. The reader also gets a very real picture of the characters involved, their weaknesses and strengths, including some ordinary and very likeable soldiers or "Tommy's".
The likely causes and consequences of the war are made clear to the reader. The usual suspects - imperial supremacy of the British; greed for gold, diamonds; denial of franchise; nationalism - are covered and a re-evaluation of the protaganists undertaken. It is a fair and balanced re-assessment of the task faced by General Sir Redvers Buller and his inability to overcome it whilst appreciating his intelligent appraisal of the situation he found himself in. On the other hand it reveals Lord Kitchener as arrogant and hard working but overrated and over-compensated for his role. The book also emphasises the CRITICAL role of transport and supply.
We are still living with the consequences of it today but one redeeming reality is that democracy and a free press are likely to inhibit a repetition. What was that? Guantanomo Bay? Oil? Imperialism? Franchise? Prisons?