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American Heritage Dictionary:
Boer War |
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Oxford Companion to Australian Literature:
Boer War |
There came a cry forth speeding o'er the mighty Indian main,
A whisper that was borne upon the breeze,
'Twas the voice of England calling, and the words were clear and plain,
‘Come and help me, O my children overseas …’
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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
South African War |
For more information on South African War, visit Britannica.com.
Oxford Dictionary of British History:
Boer wars |
The first Boer War (1880-1), hardly more than a skirmish, was won by the Boers (Dutch-origin South African farmers) after victory over a British force at Majuba. That gave the Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State the independence they craved except in foreign policy. Britain accepted this while they were poor and backward. That changed, however, when the vast Witwatersrand goldfield was discovered in the Transvaal in 1886. In 1899 Britain went to war again against the Boers, and got it back.
Britain had other reasons for noticing the Boers' new wealth. If it made them too powerful, they could threaten her supremacy in the rest of South Africa, possibly in league with Germany. The aftermath of the Jameson Raid fuelled that fear. The kaiser sent a telegram congratulating the Boer president on repelling the raid. There were also complaints of mistreatment of immigrant diggers (‘uitlanders’) in the goldfields, though these were mostly exaggerated. Britain negotiated to ease these grievances, but possibly not genuinely, since her main agent in South Africa, Milner, Seems to have wanted war. In the end, on 10 October 1899, it was the Boers who issued the ultimatum. Most foreign opinion saw Britain as the aggressor, Goliath against David.
David did well initially. The first months of the war went disastrously against Britain, with the Boers advancing deep into Natal. Only in May 1900 did the tide begin to turn, mainly through the numbers Britain could deploy. By October the Transvaal had been largely reconquered, Kruger, its president, had fled, and both republics were annexed to the British flag. But the war was not over. The Boers continued a ‘guerrilla’ warfare, which was only crushed in the end by methodical land-razing, farm-burning, and herding non-combatant Boers—mainly women—into unhealthy ‘concentration camps’. In June 1901 Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal leader, publicly attacked this as ‘methods of barbarism’.
When the last Boers eventually surrendered, in May 1902, most Britons were heartily sick of the war: 5, 774 Britons had been killed (more than on the other side). The Boers had been beaten, but not bowed. In the treaty of Vereeniging (31 May) they stuck out in defence of their racial policies. In Britain, the army's poor showing proved salutary, leading to a cessation of aggressive imperialism for a while, and a great national self-examination.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
South African War |
Background
Beginning with the acquisition in 1814 of the Cape of Good Hope, Great Britain gradually increased its territorial possessions in S Africa and by the late 19th cent. it held Natal, Basutoland, Swaziland, Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, and other Bantu lands. The Boers (Dutch), already settled in some of these areas, strongly resented British incursions. Resentment was especially marked in the Transvaal (headed by the strongly anti-British Paul Kruger), which had actually been annexed (1877-81) to Great Britain.
Anti-British sentiment was further inflamed after the discovery (1886) of gold in the Witwatersrand brought a great influx of prospectors (mainly British) into the Transvaal. Soon almost all the newly established mines as well as much of the commerce passed into British hands. The Boer government, to protect itself from the growing number of foreigners, denied these Uitlanders [foreigners] citizenship and taxed them heavily, despite British objections. In 1895 the Jameson raid (see Jameson, Sir Leander Starr), which Transvaalers considered an officially sponsored plot to seize their country, aggravated the situation, and in 1896 the Transvaal and the Orange Free State (see Free State) formed a military alliance to protect their independence.
The War
The British, after the appointment (1897) of Sir Alfred Milner as high commissioner for their South African territories, determined upon a showdown in defense of what they considered their commercial rights. Troops were dispatched from Britain, and, after Boer protestations were refused, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State declared war (Oct. 12, 1899). The Boer forces, well equipped by Germany, were larger than those immediately available to the British, and they scored impressive victories in the areas adjacent to the Boer territories. In the Cape Colony, Mafikeng was captured and Kimberley besieged; in Natal, Ladysmith was placed under siege. Reinforcements under the command of Sir Redvers Buller were sent from Britain.
Buller's failure to dislodge the Boers led to his replacement by Gen. Lord Roberts, with Kitchener as his chief of staff. They landed in 1900 with heavy reinforcements and soon won victories; Kimberley and Ladysmith were relieved, and General Cronje was forced to surrender. Roberts advanced into the Orange Free State, captured its capital, Bloemfontein, and occupied the entire territory by May. By the end of June, Mafikeng had been relieved, the Transvaal invaded, and Johannesburg and Pretoria captured. The Boer states were formally annexed and Kruger, a fugitive in Europe, appealed in vain for help there.
Roberts, believing the war to be over, left South Africa and delegated the mopping up to Kitchener. The Boers, however, continued an extensive and coordinated guerrilla war. Under their leaders, including Smuts, De Wet, and Botha, they disrupted communications, attacked outposts and, with their intimate knowledge of the countryside, eluded capture. Kitchener decided that final victory lay only in the systematic destruction of these guerrilla units, and adopted a scorched-earth policy. Boer women and children were herded into concentration camps where unhealth conditions killed some 26,000 Boers, most of whom were children, and perhaps 20,000 or more black Africans also died. Thousands of farms were torched, some 40 towns destroyed, and untold livestock killed. Chains of blockhouses were erected that cut off large areas, and dragnets of troops went through the guerrilla country section by section. By 1902 the British force (about 450,000) had reduced to final submission the Boer troops (approximately 54,000). The Treaty of Vereeniging (May 31, 1902) ended hostilities; the military casualties included some 22,000 British troops, mainly from disease, and some 7,000 Boers.
The War's Aftermath
The Boers accepted British sovereignty in exchange for a promise of responsible government in the near future. Great Britain agreed to grant a £3 million indemnity for property destruction and promised not to assess taxes to cover the expenses of the war. Amnesty was granted to all who had not violated the rules of war and repatriation to those who accepted the British king. The war left much bitterness, which continued to affect the political life of South Africa throughout the 20th cent.
Bibliography
See L. Amery, ed., The Times History of the War in South Africa (7 vol., 1900-1909); D. Reitz, Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War (new ed. 1945, repr. 1970); E. Holt, The Boer War (1958); W. B. Pemberton, Battles of the Boer War (1964); T. C. Caldwell, ed., The Anglo-Boer War (1965); G. H. L. Le May, British Supremacy in South Africa (1965); J. M. Selby, The Boer War (1969); P. Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899-1902 (1983).
Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: History:
Boer War |
A war between British and Dutch settlers (Boers) in what is now South Africa, fought from 1899 to 1902 and won by the British. The country was united in 1910.
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Boer Wars |
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This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2010) |
The Boer Wars (known in Afrikaans as Vryheidsoorloë (lit. "freedom wars")) were two wars fought between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics, the Oranje Vrijstaat (Orange Free State) and the Republiek van Transvaal (Transvaal Republic).
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The First Anglo-Boer War (1880–1881), was a rebellion of Boers (farmers) against British rule in the Transvaal that re-established their independence. The conflict occurred against the backdrop of the Pretoria government becoming increasingly ineffective at dealing with growing claims on South African land from rival interests within the country.
The Second War (1899–1902), by contrast, was a lengthy war—involving large numbers of troops from many British possessions, which ended with the conversion of the Boer republics into British colonies (with a promise of limited zelf-bestuur). These colonies later formed part of the Union of South Africa. The British fought directly against the Transvaal and the Oranje Vrijstaat, defeating their forces first in open warfare and then in a long and bitter guerrilla campaign. British losses were high due to both disease and combat. The policies of "scorched earth" and civilian internment in concentration camps (adopted by the British to prevent support for the farmers/Boer commando campaign) ravaged the civilian populations in the Transvaal and the Oranje Vrijstaat.
During the later stages of the Second Boer War, the British pursued the policy of rounding up and isolating the Boer civilian population in concentration camps, one of the earliest uses of this method by modern powers. The wives and children of Boer guerrillas were sent to these camps, which had poor hygiene and little food. Many of the children in these camps died, as did some of the adults.[citation needed] This attracted hostility from, in particular, the German Empire.[citation needed]
This led to a change in approach to foreign policy from Britain, which now set about looking for more allies. To this end, the 1902 treaty with Japan in particular was a sign that the British Empire feared attack on its Far Eastern empire and saw this alliance as an opportunity to strengthen its stance in the Far East. This war led to a change from "splendid isolation" policy to a policy that involved looking for allies and improving world relations[citation needed]. Later treaties with France ("Entente cordiale") and Russia, caused partially by the controversy surrounding the Boer War, were major factors in dictating how the battle lines were drawn during World War I.[citation needed]
The Boer War also had other significance. The Army Medical Corps discovered that 80% of men presenting for service were physically unfit to fight.[citation needed] This was the first time in which the government was forced to take notice of how unhealthy the British population was.[citation needed] This strengthened the call for the liberal reforms of the first decade of the twentieth century.[citation needed]
A British journalist, WT Stead, wrote: "Every one of these children who died as a result of the halving of their rations, thereby exerting pressure onto their family still on the battle-field, was purposefully murdered. The system of half rations stands exposed and stark and unshamefully as a cold-blooded deed of state policy employed with the purpose of ensuring the surrender of people whom we were not able to defeat on the battlefield."[citation needed]
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 | American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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Oxford Companion to Australian Literature. Oxford University Press. © 1994 All rights reserved. Read more | |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Oxford Dictionary of British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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| Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: History. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more |
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