英國陸軍與南非戰爭(1899-1902)

Owen Coetzer. Fire in the Sky: The Destruction of the Orange Free State, 1899-1902. Weltevreden Park, South Africa: Covos-Day Books, 2000. xvi + 338 pp. Photographs. Map. Appendixes. Bibliography. Index. R120.00. Paper. Fransjohan Pretorius. The Great Escape of the Boer Pimpernel, Christiaan de Wet: The Making of a Legend. Translated and adapted by Stephen Hofstatter, assisted by Wilhelm Snyman. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 2001. xvi + 240 pp. Photographs. Illustrations. Maps. Bibliography. Index. $29.95. Cloth. These two works are examples of the Janus face of war in turn-of-the-century South Africa, reflecting the pity (Coetzer) and glory (Pretorius) of the Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. With the centenary of that war, there has been a revived interest in the conflict, expressed in a spate of academic conferences reevaluating previous interpretations, in battle reenactments, in the restoration of monuments and battlefields, and in the recognition of the many bit players in that war whose contributions have hitherto been ignored or marginalized. As Anna-Karin Evaldsson and Andre Wessels of the University of the Free State have pointed out (The Anglo-Boer War Centennial: A Critical Evaluation, Journal for Contemporary History [Bloemfontein] 27, no. 3 [December 2002]: 124-44), all the participating groups in that war have been accorded full recognition except for those Afrikaners from the two republics South African Republic [Transvaal] and the Orange Free State) who bolted from the cause by surrendering early in the war hands-uppers) and those who joined forces with the British (the joiners). In the same article, the authors estimate, incidentally, that the centenary generated in the neighborhood of two hundred books and one hundred academic essays. Owen Coetzer, a seasoned South African journalist, has attempted to deal with the sad, and long-remembered, part of the war in the Orange Free State. The and population resettlement policies of the British military forces can be considered components of counterinsurgency warfare against a tactically skilled and tenacious enemy. Although the British were roundly condemned in many circles for what Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, a prominent Liberal and future prime minister, called (in his speech of June 14, 1901, to the National Reform Union in London) of barbarism, it was not the first time these methods had been applied. Indeed, Coetzer points out that President William McKinley, in his message to Congress in 1898, excoriated the Spanish general Weyland for his forced relocation and policies in Cuba as an antidote to guerrilla warfare. The same charge could be applied to the U. S. Army in its campaign against the Navajos, as depicted in Lynn R. Bailey's The Long Walk: A History of the Navajo War, 1846-68 (Westernlore Press, 1988). Indeed, Bailey uses the terms scorched earth (165) and concentration camp (226) in his narrative. Visitors to the Canyon de Chelly National Monument in the Arizona portion of the tristate Navajo reservation are tactfully reminded by their Navajo guides of that lamentable part of history, a history that has striking parallels with the Afrikaners' experiences in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. What is so unusual about Coetzer's book, which revisits old topics in a fresh manner, is the way in which he quotes at considerable length from official British command papers (presented to Parliament) and then proffers comments and observations drawn from less well-known sources to corroborate or refute the claims in these published documents. Many of the sources he utilizes are testimonials by Afrikaners who lived in the various relocation centers (commonly termed concentration camps but without the pejorative meaning that the term subsequently acquired in the German Third Reich). He has availed himself of the original Afrikaans sources, many of which are located in the Museum of the Boer Republics in Bloemfontein, translated them, and placed them within the context of the more readily available official published British sources. …

In the winter of 1906, the national rugby team of South Africa, the Springboks, traveled to Britain for a series of matches. Twenty-five games later, they had lost just two and drew one, all the while outscoring their opponents 553 to 79. The trouncing, though decisive and embarrassing, may not have been as newsworthy as it proved to be had the same thing not happened the year before, when the New Zealand All Blacks took 31 of their 32 matches in the British Isles by an aggregate score of 830 to 39. Within a year, then, two teams from the Empire came to Britain, the home of organized sport and the birthplace of athleticism, and earned victories that resonated not just with fans of rugby but also with the culture at large. In contrast to earlier colonial victories, most notably the Australian success at cricket against England, had been explained away by stressing the “Englishness” of the Australians, the rugby defeats struck a warning chime among English commentators and were seen to be a portent of doom for the future of the British Empire, especially in the wake of the perceived poor showing of the British army in the recently concluded Anglo-Boer War.1 Organized games and the doctrines of Muscular Christianity, which held that athletics in general and team games in particular were uniquely able to foster the manliness which an Empire needed in order to prosper, had been exported over the second half of the nineteenth century.2

They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force – nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind – as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from whose who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretense but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea – something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to … Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1985) The war between the British Empire and the governments of Transvaal and Orange Free State which began on October 11, 1899, was once called the Anglo-Boer War, or Boer War for short, but historians now call it “The South African War ” in recognition of the important role played in it by black Africans. The South African theater European interest in South Africa has its origins in the development of trade contacts with India and the Far East.

The British forces that served during the Anglo-Boer War (also known as the South African War) of 1899–1902 were an amalgam of several different types of soldiers. These men came from varying geographic and socio-economic backgrounds, and had different reasons for enlisting. This article discusses the composition of the British forces during the war, and adopts a military and socio-historical approach to understand who served in South Africa and why. To this end, the different types of British soldiers are looked at as separate (but ultimately intertwined) groupings, including regular (or career) soldiers, British volunteers, colonial volunteers, and “non-white” combatants. This represents a wide-viewed perspective of the British military system during the late-Victorian era. Keywords: Anglo-Boer War, South African War, British Empire, British Army, British Soldiers, Australian Soldiers, Canadian Soldiers, New Zealand Soldiers

This paper discusses British military mapping in South Africa by initially reviewing the early military cartography based on existing Dutch maps, and the cartography resulting from the shift of the centre of military gravity from Cape Town to the Eastern Frontier. Attention is subsequently given to the cartography which emanated from the various “small wars” or skirmishes which took place in the Orange Free State (1848), Basutoland (1868), Sekhukhuniland (1868), Zululand (1879), Bechuanaland (1885), and the Transvaal (1880–1881) during the half a century it took Britain to decide whether it wanted to be a permanent player in southern Africa. The British Army’s response to the challenge to provide in the huge demand for maps created by the Boer War (1899–1902) is dealt with in some detail and, to conclude, the change in the mapping policy of the War Office towards Britain’s colonies after the War is discussed with reference to the level of mapping in southern Africa south of the Limpopo by 1914.

This article is devoted to the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), which was not only the most devastating armed conflict in South Africa’s recent history but also a global concern. It sparked public interest in Europe and North America, with more support for the Boers’ independence than for Britain. Russian subjects of different classes, nationalities and ages, who had previously been almost indifferent to the history and problems of South Africa, showed considerable interest in the struggle for independence of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Russian periodicals, representing a wide range of political opinion, unanimously condemned Britain’s actions, using the conflict to express their ideological stances and analyse Russia’s present and future. The situation in South Africa was perceived as a lesson for Russia to learn. Political figures sought to make practical conclusions for Russia from the conflict. Historians have only started to examine these lessons, drawing on press archives, political pamphlets, and memoirs. Russian conservatives, Marxists, and supporters of Narodnichestvo and neo-Narodnichestvo considered the Boers’ resistance to imperialist aggression to be a just war. They viewed the defenders of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State as victims of British militarism, which was driven by capitalists seeking control over mineral resources. Conservatives admired the resistance to Western materialism and liberalism, and sought to provide support for the Boers, while taking advantage of Britain’s distraction to further Russian expansion in Asia. Liberals pointed out the inexpediency of military methods to achieving imperialist aims. Antiautocracy political forces found inspiration in the Boer struggle, with Narodniks viewing the conflict in South Africa as a caution against rapid industrialisation and urbanization. Social democrats utilised the workers’ preoccupation with the Boers’ fight to promote socialism and recruit for their movement, while studying how Boer combat tactics could be applied to revolutionary struggle. This marked a significant shift, as it was the first time the African experience was not only widely discussed in Russia but also regarded as a model for addressing national challenges.

On October 11th, 1899 long-simmering tensions between Britain and the Boer Republics – the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic – finally erupted into the conflict that would become known as the Second Boer War. Two days after the first shots were fired, a young writer by the name of Winston Churchill set out for South Africa to cover the conflict for the Morning Post. The Boer War brings together the two collections of dispatches that Churchill published on the conflict. London to Ladysmith via Pretoria recounts the future Prime Minister’s arrival in South Africa and his subsequent capture by and dramatic escape from the Boers, the adventure that first brought the name of Winston Churchill to public attention. Ian Hamilton’s March collects Churchill’s later dispatches as he marched alongside a column of the main British army from Bloemfontein to Pretoria. Published together, these books are a vivid eye-witness

BRITISH QUAKERS AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR By Richard A. Rempel* In October 1899 Great Britain became involved in a major war for the first time since the Crimean conflict nearly a half a century before. This struggle against the two Boer Republics, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, was not, as World War I and World War II, a war for British national survival, but it was unquestionably the greatest imperial war (with the exception of the American Revolution) the country had ever fought. Despite the facts that national independence and conscription were not at stake, the war aroused burning passions and controversies. The small minority of Britishers who opposed the coming and the conduct of the war and pleaded the cause of the Boers were faced with a degree of popular, press and political harassment unequalled since the suppression of dissent in the most repressive years of the Liverpool ministry from 1815 to 1822. Among the most consistent and intrepid opponents of the war were many Quakers who formed part of an outspoken small minority labelled derisively "Pro-Boers." This minority was oppressed and often divided because the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, had by October 1899 educated most Britishers, at least among the upper and middle classes, to believe that the Boers posed a threat to the global security of the British Empire.1 One of his devices was to imply that there was a "Pan-Afrikaner" conspiracy to destroy British power in South Africa.2 Moreover, by appointing Sir Alfred Milner in *Department of History, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario 1.Peter Fraser, Joseph Chamberlain (London, 1966), 174-203. Richard Price argues brilliantly that British working classes, far from being affected by the tides of jingoism which swept the country, were in fact largely indifferent to the struggle or even in large numbers hostile to the war. But if workers often opposed the war they were largely passive and Labour organizations such as the I.L.P. and the trade unions were divided on the war issue. See R. Price, An Imperial War and the British Working Class (London , 1972), ch. 2. 2.G. H. L. LeMay, British Supremacy in South Africa, 1899-1907 (Oxford , 1965), 25 and 31. Chamberlain was encouraged by his Under-Secretary of State, Lord Selborne, who constantiy urged his chief not to give concessions to Kruger. (Birmingham University Library, Selborne to Chamberlain , 23 June 1899, Confidential, JC 10/4/2/41). Similarly, when Milner showed signs of weakening, Selborne warned that Sir Alfred "could not realize the enormous difficulty we have had with public opinion at home. We have only now got 4/5th of the nation behind us because of the infinite patience we showed. . ." (Bodleian Library, Milner Papers, Selborne to Milner, 7 October 1899, vol. 15, Secret). 75 76QUAKER HISTORY 1897 as High Commissioner for South Africa, Chamberlain was able to ensure that one wing of the Liberal party—the Liberal Imperialists—would support his war policy.3 With the Liberals paralyzed Chamberlain and the Pro-Boers both knew that no alternative government could arise to destroy Unionist policies. Thus the Pro-Boers presented little unity, for they ranged from Quakers who condemned the war as un-Christian to Labour leaders , such as Keir Hardie,4 who saw the war as retarding the advance of socialism. Traditionalists such as Leonard Courtney,5 whom John Burns described as "a Puritan and sincere lover of righteous England,"6 viewed the conflict as a betrayal of the historic qualities of English liberty. Burns and the old Radical Henry Labouchere alleged that, along with Chamberlain, Jewish Rand millionaires deliberately engineered the war.7 Intellectuals such as Frederic Harrison and journalists such as C. P. Scott (as well as the Quaker George Cadbury) also espoused the financier conspiracy theory most ably elaborated by J. A. Hobson. But Cadbury and Quakers in general were not guilty of the antisemitism which tinged so many Pro-Boers. Of the churches and sects only the Quakers played a significant role in the anti-war movement. The Baptists alone were united against the war8 but only Dr. John Clifford was an active and 3.H. W. McCready, "Sir Alfred Milner...

The Anglo Boer War (also known as the South African War) was fought between the two Boer Republics (the South African Republic or Transvaal, and the Orange Free State) and the British Empire from October 1899 until May 1902. Soon after Pretoria was occupied by British forces in June 1900, the Head of Topography of the local Field Intelligence Department, Major H.M. Jackson, commenced with the compilation of a map of the South African Republic and Natal to supersede the inadequate IDWO 1367 and Imperial Map. This new map, known as the Major Jackson’s or First Transvaal Series, was compiled on a scale of 1:148,752 (1,000 Cape roods or 2.34 miles per inch) and covered the whole of the Transvaal Republic, northern Natal, Zululand and Swaziland, and the western part of British Bechuanaland. Cartographically it is a fine example of a compilation map executed de novo for military purposes under conditions of extreme urgency in a foreign area devoid of a trigonometrical base. The compilation was done from available farm and mining surveys as corrected and supplemented by information gathered by the No 1. Survey Section which was sent to South Africa by the War Office, and various officers in the field. The method of reproduction used was lithography, and subsequently photolithography. By December 1900 the whole series was completed and during the ensuing months most of the sheets were repeatedly revised, many as much as up to six or seven times. Initiated to serve urgent military demands, the publication of the series was discontinued after the cessation of hostilities. This paper documents the progress of the survey, compilation and reproduction of the Major Jackson’s Series by using surviving maps and other archival material in South Africa and the UK.

Introduction - The global impact of the South African War and its legacy, Donald Lowry a century of controversy over origins, Iain Smith journalism and active politics - Flora Shaw, The Times and South Africa, Dorothy O. Helly, Helen Callaway The Times at war, 1899-1902, Jacqueline Beaumont intermediate imperialism and the test of empire - Milner's eccentric high commissionership in South Africa, John Benyon African attitudes to the British Empire, Chrisopher Saunders Boer attitudes to Africans, Fransjohan Pretorius the Cape Afrikaners and the British Empire from the Jameson Raid to the South Africa War, Mordechai Tamarkin Hamlet with the Prince of Denmark left out? - the South African War, Empire and India, Balasubramanyam Chandramohan religion against the South African War - marshalling the non-conformist conscience, Greg Cuthbertson Kruger's farmers, Strathcona's horse, Sir George Clarke's camels and the Kaiser's battleships - the impact of the South African War on imperial defence, Keith Jeffery.

The year 1901 saw an upsurge in Boer guerrilla and concomitant British counterinsurgency operations during the Anglo-Boer (South African) War of 1899 to 1902 – especially in the wake of the failed Middelburg peace negotiations. One hundred and twenty years later, it is appropriate that these events should be revisited. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the Boer guerrilla and British counterinsurgency operations, including events in the Cape Colony, where the conflict had grave implications for the local white, brown and black inhabitants, who were caught up between the British and Boer forces, and where in certain areas of the war zone, a civil war was fought. The reactions and views of Lord Kitchener, the British Commander-in-Chief, receive particular attention, as he tried to bring the war to a close as soon as possible, and in the process laying waste to large areas of the war zone, thanks to the scorched-earth policy implemented by the British Army in South Africa.

One hundred years after the Boer War, the British continue to debate what went wrong, while the war has significant nationalist overtones in today's South Africa. This book examines changes in interpretations of the war and provides a bibliography of major sources on the Boer War, now sometimes called the South African War. The bibliography focuses on the military history, but also includes some historical accounts of the political debate. The first part of the book provides an extended historiographical essay, while part two provides an annotated bibliography of the titles discussed in part one. Historiographical questions concerning the Boer War are numerous. Discussions of military operations focus on the early use of modern weaponry and the effect of guerrilla tactics on a traditional force, while other historians debate the question of British military leadership and organization. Questions also revolve around British imperialism and the scramble for Africa. Frequently called the second war for freedom by South African authors, the war was the reason that South Africa, unlike other British colonies, gained independence without majority rule. This makes the war of continuing relevance to the turmoil in South Africa, the collapse of the minority government, and the continuing problems of the current government. This book will provide a useful tool for those wishing to research the war.

God Save the Boer: Irish American Catholics and the South African War, 1899-1902 Charles T. Strauss They tell us the Boers must be defeated in the interests of civilization, that they are an uncivilized race. Why is that said of them? Is it because they carry on an effective government at the lowest rate of taxation known? Is it because in their country, education is universal ; drunkedness is unknown; divorce doesn’t exist; and every man lives with his own wife? I can understand a country owning a smart set thinking that nation uncivilized which doesn’t support a divorce court. I would not deny to that set the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of smartness; but I would have them see that though the Boers have not evening dress, they have evening prayers, and though they fear God, the fear of man is not in them.1 W. Bourke Cockran is the greatest American orator that no one remembers today. A respected politician, a skilled diplomat, a devout and well-connected Catholic, and an accomplished speechmaker, Cockran has been overshadowed by other eloquent orators in the crowded pantheon of political giants of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One of the great causes of Cockran’s political life, anti-imperialism and U.S. support for the Boer Republics during the South African War (1899-1902) in particular, is also a little remembered aspect of Gilded Age and Progressive Era history. And yet Cockran’s speech, which he delivered at New York’s Academy of Music on 4 March 1900, and the South African War, an imperial conflict between the British Empire and the descendents of Dutch settlers in southern Africa, provides rare insight into the transnational dimensions of American ethnic politics as the U.S. made its debut as a serious international player. 1 I am grateful to Margaret Abruzzo, Jay Dolan, Donal Lowry, John McGreevy, David O’Brien, Eamonn O’Ciardha, Edward O’Donnell, and Ellen Skerrett for reading various incarnations of my research on the impact of the South African War on ethnic politics in the United States. I am particularly indebted to David O’Brien and Edward O’Donnell for advising me in the early stages of my research and to participants of the seventh annual GRIAN Conference on Irish Studies at New York University, 4-6 March 2005. 1. W. Bourke Cockran, Irish World, 10 March 1900; revised and reprinted in its entirety in the Irish World, 17 March 1900. Cockran was by all accounts the national spokesperson for the pro-Boer movement in the United States.2 The people of New York elected the Irish-born lawyer to represent them in the U.S. House of Representatives eight times between 1887 and his death in 1923.3 Dutch Americans, who had initially lobbied for U.S. mediation in the early stages of the South African War, asked Cockran to help them to raise funds for Boer relief and to petition his friends in Washington on the Boers’ behalf.4 Cockran supported the Boer cause mainly through passionate speechmaking, such as his dramatic defense of the Boers at New York’s Academy of Music in March 1900. Clan-an-Gael, a militant Irish nationalist organization, hosted the event and the Irish Americans in attendance filled the Academy’s main hall and all of its galleries. Cockran began by honoring the memory of Robert Emmet, Ireland’s preeminent nationalist leader of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, on the 122nd anniversary of his birth. He praised the Irish leader for his commitment to the universal principles of justice and liberty. However, Cockran devoted most of his speech to a commendation of a people from South Africa whom he praised for defending these principles in his own day. Cockran contrasted the God-fearing Boer with the British people and their “smart set,” which controlled two other provinces in South Africa and were engaged in an imperial war over the Boers’ mineral-rich land. The Boers, according to Cockran, deserved the admiration and support of patriotic Americans and liberty-loving people everywhere and the U.S. should have intervened to stop Britain’s...

The South African War, also known as the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, was one of the most important armed conflicts of the age of imperialism. The war evoked an immense public response in Russia; not even the power circles remained unmoved. Russian public opinion supported the struggle for the independence of the Boer republics, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. For their part, the governments of the two republics convinced their fellow citizens that the Russian Empire, as the initiator of the Hague Peace Conference and the only great power that never had colonies in Africa, would be able to unite other states of Europe and the United States to help the Boers in countering British imperialism. By June 1900, it had become clear that the Great Powers would not take military action in defence of the South African republics. Moreover, they were unable to overlook their geopolitical differences in order to offer collective mediation or good offices to the belligerents. On behalf of the official Boer delegation, who was visiting the United States, the Transvaal envoy conveyed to the foreign offices of Russia and its ally France a request for a joint protectorate over the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Documentary evidence of this demarche, which has not yet received sufficient coverage in historiography, has been preserved in the archive of the Transvaal envoy Leyds, as well as in the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire. Appealing to Russia and France, the Boer delegates assumed that these powers, for humanitarian reasons, would provide friendly guardianship to the two republics in South Africa. However, the European governments of the period understood protectorate as a form of colonial dependence. Besides, Russia and France did not want a military confrontation with the mighty British Empire for the sake of the Boer states that were outside the sphere of their political and colonial interests. The attempt of the representatives of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State to secure a Russo-French protectorate for their republics was predestined to fail.

Die waardering vir president MT Steyn onder sy mense het weerklink in beskrywings waarmee hulle hom gekarakteriseer het, soos "Afrikaner van die Afrikaners" en "siel van die Vryheidstryd". Steyn (1896-1902) was die laaste president van die Republiek van die Oranje-Vrystaat, maar die eerste een wat in dié onafhanklike Boererepubliek gebore is. Omstanders kon sy belydenis van God Drie-enig as die Driemaal Heilige God uit sy eie mond hoor. Hy het sy taak, waaronder die Vrystaat se deelname aan die Anglo-Boereoorlog, in die geloof aangepak. Sy reaksie op probleme was gegrond op Christelike lewenswaarhede. Hoewel hy soms in onpersoonlike, onsydige terme na God verwys het, sou dit hom nie verhinder om die Bybel as gids vir die lewe te aanvaar nie. Vanuit sy agtergrond as 'n Vrystaatse boerseun sou Steyn 'n spontane band met die Afrikaner en veral die Vrystaatse Afrikaner ontwikkel. Deur studie en opleiding as 'n Afrikaner uit Afrika in Nederland en Brittanje, asook deur sy vriendskap met bekende Engelse van Bloemfontein en sy werk as 'n Vrystaatse regter, sou Steyn ontwikkel in 'n moderne, belese en berese staatsman. Hierdie Vrystaatse president het gedurende sy ampstydperk (1896-1902) getoon dat hy deeglik op hoogte was van Suid-Afrikaanse en Westerse denkrigtings en dat hy sy eie posisie as Vrystater in hierdie opsig na binne en buite kon verantwoord. Steyn se optrede as president op nasionale sowel as internasionale vlak is deurgaans gerig deur die beginsel van reg en geregtigheid. Hy was uitgesproke Afrikaans, maar met lewensruimte vir ander groepe. Daarby was hy 'n voorstander van die strukturele gelykwaardigheid van state, ongeag hulle mag of vermoë. Steyn se sentrale lewenskompas is op die Vrouemonument aangebring: "Uw wil geschiede …".