War of Words


Book Description

Tussen 1899 en 1902 woedde in Zuid-Afrika een oorlog tussen de Boerenrepublieken en het Britse Rijk. Veel Nederlanders steunden in die tijd de Boeren. Dit uitte zich in een vloedgolf aan propagandamateriaal om een tegenwicht te bieden aan de Britse berichtgeving over de oorlog. Dit boek bevat een grondige analyse van de Nederlandse pro-Boeren-beweging vanaf haar begin in de jaren 1880. Kuitenbrouwer gaat in op de organisaties die de banden tussen Nederland en Zuid-Afrika trachtten aan te halen en zo belangrijke knooppunten werden in een internationaal netwerk. Aan de hand van bronnenmateriaal toont de auteur aan dat de propagandacampagne voor de Boeren nog lang nagalmde in de twintigste eeuw.0.




The Zulu Kingdom and the Boer Invasion of 1837-1840


Book Description

After six battles, the war of 1838 between the Zulu people and the invading Boers and their Port Natal allies reached a stalemate. The Boers occupied half the Zulu kingdom and Dingane, the Zulu monarch, was discredited.




From Boer War to World War


Book Description

The British Expeditionary Force at the start of World War I was tiny by the standards of the other belligerent powers. Yet, when deployed to France in 1914, it prevailed against the German army because of its professionalism and tactical skill, strengths developed through hard lessons learned a dozen years earlier. In October 1899, the British went to war against the South African Boer republics of Transvaal and Orange Free State, expecting little resistance. A string of early defeats in the Boer War shook the military’s confidence. Historian Spencer Jones focuses on this bitter combat experience in From Boer War to World War, showing how it crucially shaped the British Army’s tactical development in the years that followed. Before the British Army faced the Boer republics, an aura of complacency had settled over the military. The Victorian era had been marked by years of easy defeats of crudely armed foes. The Boer War, however, brought the British face to face with what would become modern warfare. The sweeping, open terrain and advent of smokeless powder meant soldiers were picked off before they knew where shots had been fired from. The infantry’s standard close-order formations spelled disaster against the well-armed, entrenched Boers. Although the British Army ultimately adapted its strategy and overcame the Boers in 1902, the duration and cost of the war led to public outcry and introspection within the military. Jones draws on previously underutilized sources as he explores the key tactical lessons derived from the war, such as maximizing firepower and using natural cover, and he shows how these new ideas were incorporated in training and used to effect a thorough overhaul of the British Army. The first book to address specific connections between the Boer War and the opening months of World War I, Jones’s fresh interpretation adds to the historiography of both wars by emphasizing the continuity between them.




The Boer War


Book Description

Originally published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson in 1979, an illustrated narrative of the Boer War, written by the author of SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA.




British Terrorism Against Boer Civilians


Book Description

This book exposes the acts of terrorism that the British soldiers used against Boer civilians in order to destroy the two Boer Republics during ANGLO BOER WAR II. When diamonds and gold were discovered, England forgot about the Conventions signed to give the Boer Republics sovereignty, and sent 450,000 troops against an entire population of less than 200,000 souls. Despite fighting against a Boer army that could never have more than 20,000 fighting men (mostly farmers that would take up the weapon), England's soldiers could not win on the battlefield. So, England defied the Hague Convention and sent troops to terrorise the local Boer people by burning farms, food, livestock and churches. Defenseless Boer women, children, the sick, elderly and disabled were sent by railway trucks meant for animals to more than 30 concentration camps in South Africa, and deliberately starved. Boer children had their already meagre rations halved whenever England lost on the battlefield. The pain of dying such a death is clearly illustrated. The Boers had to surrender. England's soldiers won by fighting against the weak, not against soldiers. The great culprits in this action, Queen Victoria, her son, and Lord Kitchener are portrayed in a collage together with Lizzie van Zyl, one of the victims. The book offers affidavits from concentration camp survivors, translated from Dutch to English, as well as appraisals from a forensic / psychological point of view. It includes a letter to Mr Obama, on his visit to Buchenwald, when he asked: "How did we get here?" In the final appendix, it is pointed out how well America treated the Saudi's upon the discovering of oil, and how, by contrast, the British set out to destroy the Boer people upon the discovery of diamonds and gold. The section on the history of South Africa asserts that, if it were not for the Anglo Boer War, Apartheid would never have existed, as the Black people would have had the greater part of the country to themselves. Technical points on warfare is also offered, i.e. how the British used Boer women as shields against Boer attacks - which means that Palestine, today, cannot be blamed for doing so. This book rests on the concept of terrorism as generally understood, and how England used acts of terrorism to destroy two republics. It casts a whole new light on how this war was won.




The Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902


Book Description

This concise history of the Anglo-Boer War, a prize-winning work which was originally written in Afrikaans, is the ideal book for those who want an overview of the military fortunes of the two warring parties. Now richly provided with maps and illustrations, it is one of the most accurate short histories of this important three-year war. The author, G. D. Scholtz, was a Afrikaner historian of great stature, who saw the Anglo-Boer War as a struggle for liberation, a fight for Boer freedom and independence. His original text has been sensitively translated into English by historian Bridget Theron, who is a lecturer at the University of South Africa. It is an accessible work that may provide echoes to the American wars of independence.




Bull Run to Boer War


Book Description

The American Civil War is often said to have predicted the way in which later wars such as the Boer War and the First World War would be fought. As a result the British Army has been criticised for not heeding its lessons, a view that can be traced back to the 1930s.This book challenges that long-held view, and demonstrates that the responses to the lessons of the war in the British Army were more complex, better informed, and of higher quality, than normally depicted.Key to this new interpretation is that it takes a nineteenth century perspective rather than pre-supposing what the British should have seen based upon hindsight from the South African veldt or the Western Front trenches. It demonstrates that strategists and policy-makers reacted to the changes in the nature of warfare suggested by American experience, looks at how officers in the cavalry, infantry, artillery and engineers applied their observations in America to the technical and tactical issues of the day, and even examines the war's influence on the development of aeronautics.In studying how the Civil War changed the Late Victorian British Army, the book provides insight into its learning process, and concludes that although sometimes flawed, its study of the American Civil War meant that it was better prepared for the wars of the twentieth century than previously acknowledged.




Boer Guerrilla Vs British Mounted Soldier


Book Description

The fully illustrated David-vs-Goliath story of the Boer commandos and British mounted troops who fought one another in South Africa in the final years of the nineteenth century.




Hero of the Empire


Book Description

From the bestselling author of Destiny of the Republic, this thrilling biographical account of the life and legacy of Wintson Churchill is a "nail-biter and top-notch character study rolled into one" (The New York Times). At the age of twenty-four, Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England. He arrived in South Africa in 1899, valet and crates of vintage wine in tow, to cover the brutal colonial war the British were fighting with Boer rebels and jumpstart his political career. But just two weeks later, Churchill was taken prisoner. Remarkably, he pulled off a daring escape—traversing hundreds of miles of enemy territory, alone, with nothing but a crumpled wad of cash, four slabs of chocolate, and his wits to guide him. Bestselling author Candice Millard spins an epic story of bravery, savagery, and chance encounters with a cast of historical characters—including Rudyard Kipling, Lord Kitchener, and Mohandas Gandhi—with whom Churchill would later share the world stage. But Hero of the Empire is more than an extraordinary adventure story, for the lessons Churchill took from the Boer War would profoundly affect twentieth century history.




The Great Boer War


Book Description

The story of the battle for independence from the British Empire in South Africa by “a vivid chronicler of military forces, generals, and wars” (Kirkus Reviews). The Great Boer War (1899-1902), more properly known as the Great Anglo-Boer War, was one of the last romantic wars, pitting a sturdy, stubborn pioneer people fighting to establish the independence of their tiny nation against the British Empire at its peak of power and self-confidence. It was fought in the barren vastness of the South African veldt, and it produced in almost equal measure extraordinary feats of personal heroism, unbelievable examples of folly and stupidity, and many incidents of humor and tragedy. Byron Farwell traces the war’s origins; the slow mounting of the British efforts to overthrow the Afrikaners; the bungling and bickering of the British command; the remarkable series of bloody battles that almost consistently ended in victory for the Boers over the much more numerous British forces; political developments in London and Pretoria; the sieges of Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberley; the concentration camps into which Boer families were herded; and the exhausting guerrilla warfare of the last few years when the Boer armies were finally driven from the field. The Great Boer War is a definitive history of a dramatic conflict by the author of Queen Victoria’s Little Wars, “a leading popular military historian” (Publishers Weekly).