The Boer War and the Media (1899-1902)

Abstract

The South African War that broke out in October 1899 was both very old and very new. It was a traditional war, the last of the old‐fashioned British imperial wars, with cavalry playing a significant part. But it was also a very modern war, for instance in the British Army's use of railways to subdue the Boers in the early months of 1900, or the use of trench warfare by the Boers along the Modder river. It was disturbingly new in the way that it changed in the autumn of 1900 from a war between armies to a guerrilla war against a civilian population, most distastefully so in the British concentration camps set up to house Boer women and children. Above all, it was a distinctly contemporary war in its impact on the media, especially the newspapers, and in the interaction between the media and those participating in the fighting. It was a significant war, far bigger than originally expected, and was therefore big news. The British Army, ill‐prepared for the original Boer invasion of Natal, at first numbered 75,000 troops. In the end, the British and imperial forces totalled 450,000 with contingents from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India. The British lost 22,000 men, 13,000 of them from disease. The Boers lost about 7,000 in the field, while another 27,000 (many of them very young children) are estimated to have died in the concentration camps. There were also about 20,000 black and ‘coloured’ Africans who died in concentration camps, though this was little reported at the time. So it was a major episode in British military history. The impact on British opinion of the relief of Ladysmith and especially of Mafeking in 1900 was quite overwhelming. In a frenzy of ‘jingo’ celebration, the verb ‘mafficking’ entered the language. In these circumstances, the consequences of the Boer War on the media and its representation of war were inevitably massive.