the boer war more often referred to as
the second anglo-ball war was fought in
south africa from 1899 to 1902 between
the british empire and the boer
republics of the orange free state and
the south african republic transvaal
450 000 british troops
versus 50 000 irregular boar fighters on
paper it was no match
but the boers proved more than a match
and this war was to be the bloody and
controversial climax to the growth of
the british empire during queen
victoria's long reign
the british were to lose over 20 000
troops and were only able to bring the
boards to the negotiating table after
implementing a series of controversial
tactics including the internment of poor
civilians in camps where over 26 000 of
them died in the british parliament
these camps were referred to by a new
name
concentration camps this is a summary of
the boer war and quite frankly the
anglo-ball war needs far more than just
this little video to do it justice the
battles alone need their own series of
videos as do the stories of some of the
larger than life personalities present
in south africa at the time at two
future south african prime ministers
louis botha and jan smutz
the british future prime minister
winston churchill who was captured and
escaped from the boers
sherlock holmes creator arthur conan
doyle the founder of the boy scouts
robert baden-powell
and mahatma gandhi all there during the
boer war the incredible guerrilla
warfare campaign led by board generals
like christian devette and coustela ray
needs its own story the road to war is
an intriguing story
centered around british imperialist and
mining magnate cecil rhodes and his
attempt to actually overthrow the boer
state using his own private army the
british scorched earth policy of general
kitchener the concentration camps and
the work of britons like emily hobhouse
to expose the truth also deserve a story
and finally as this story was the first
time that canada australia new zealand
had sent their sons to fight far from
their shores i think there are some
stories there too
those stories are to follow in the
future
this video however is a summary that
both explains the overall events in the
war and will put future event videos
into context
i hope you enjoy it
south africa in 1899 was divided between
the the british colonies of the cape and
natal and the boer republics of orange
free state and transwall also called the
south african republic
the closing years of queen victoria's
reign at the end of the 19th century saw
britain wanting to consolidate south
africa into one british ruled country
for a variety of reasons which we can't
go into today the boers descendants of
dutch and french huguenot and german
settlers had no desire to be dominated
by britain
relations between the british empire and
the two independent boer republics had
long been acrimonious
back in the 1830s matters came to a head
when the british abolished slavery in
their in the british empire including
the cape
and the boers who were living in the
cape simply loaded up their wagons and
trekked into the african interior
carving out their own two independent
republics
the british have briefly occupied the
two war republics in the late 1870s only
for the boers to defeat them in a war of
independence often called the first
world war
and since those days a massive goldfield
had been discovered at the vit varta
strand in the transvaal suddenly fortune
hunters were flocking to the gold city
of johannesburg the majority of whom
were british
as they settled and paid local taxes
they demanded to have a say in the
running of the country
and this alarmed the president of the
south african republic paul kruger
now in his 70s kruger had actually taken
part in that great trek in the 1830s he
was a deeply religious and conservative
and proud afrikaner
he realized that giving the vote to
these wheatlanders or the outsiders
could lead to the boers losing control
of their own country
and an elected wheatlander government
was likely to align if indeed not seek
to join the british empire which of
course was certainly what the british
imperialists wanted especially with all
those gold reserves in the country
kruger refused to give them the
franchise much to the irritation of
imperialist and mining magnate cecil
rhodes who attempted to overthrow kruger
in a botched rising in 1896 called the
jameson raid
the jameson raid merely made kruger even
more hawkish in his approach to the
wheatlanders in general and the british
empire in particular
by 1899 with attempts at conciliation
failing at the bloomfontaine conference
both sides began to save a rattle the
british high commissioner in south
africa imperialist lord milner told
london that the boers were he feared the
boars were likely to launch a preemptive
attack into british colonies of the
natal and cape and to encourage local
africana populations in those colonies
to rise in support in short miller cried
britain could be kicked out of south
africa the british government announced
that they would send ten thousand troops
to the cape and natal
in the transworld capital of pretoria
kruger interpreted this as an attempt by
the british to invade his country and
the neighboring orange free state
in october 1899
he sent an ultimatum to the british
demanding they withdrew british troops
from his borders and turn back those
reinforcements that were on their way
in london those in government still
seeking a compromise were dismayed by
kruger's ultimatum
however imperialist hawks cheaply
colonial secretary joseph chamberlain
were overjoyed
they could now have a war and defeat the
boers whilst acting as victims of bull
regression
but the overall feeling in london was
more of quite frankly of amusement
just how were a group of farmers going
to take on the might of queen victoria's
empire the biggest empire the world had
ever seen
quite frankly the boer ultimatum was a
joke as events were to prove
the boers were no joke and the laugh for
the rest of the world would be on
british on the british empire the
ultimatum expired on the 11th of october
1899 and in the early hours of the
following morning more troops crossed
the borders into the british colonies
younger hawkish bore commanders like
louis botha and jan smuts advocated
heading straight towards durban in natal
to prevent british troops at landing and
also into the cape to raise their fellow
afrikaners into a mass war of
independence
their ambitious plans were ignored by
the senior boer leadership
in natal the 68 year old general pete
juber victor over the british in the
previous war preferred to surround the
british forces at ladysmith and settle
into a lengthy siege
over in the cape colony board general
pete cronier adopted a similar tactic
leading laying siege to the towns of
mafiking and the diamond producing town
of kimberley
in response to the invasion the british
sent a whole army corps 50 000 strong
from britain under the command of
veteran general sir revis buller
british confidence and optimism was
massively high this was the biggest army
to ever leave britain shores since the
crimean war
a cartoon in the magazine punch captured
the mood of the british public
two street urchins are shown with one
saying the boars will cop it now
father's gone to south africa and he's
taking his strap the ball farmers have
had their fun and now was the time for
the british empire to teach them a
lesson but within a matter of weeks it
was the boers who'd be teaching the
british a bloody lesson
the boers might not march as neatly as
the soldiers of the queen
but they knew africa unlike their
british adversaries
organized into mounted units called
commandos the boers had the flexibility
and speed that enabled them to
outmaneuver the lumbering british
infantry time and time again
their frontier lifestyle had developed
the boers into crack shots and unlike
the native armies that the british
normally fought the boers were armed
with the latest european weapons the
german mauser rifle whilst not in the
abundance of the british forces landing
in south africa the boers were also
armed with the latest crooks artillery
again a complete difference to the
native armies the british were used to
fighting in their empire and finally the
boers during these war years were to be
led by a series of gifted generals in
particular louis botha cous de la ray
jansmutz and christian devette
all in all
this was an african enemy unlike any the
british had fought during queen
victoria's long reign
bulla's initial plan to use his whole
army in one push from the cape colony
towards the boer capitals of
bloomfontaine and pretoria
had to be revised due to events
unfolding on the ground
in the besieged town of kimberley cecil
rhodes the imperialist who practically
owned the town was undermining the
military commander by sending frantic
messages as to the peril of the town and
suggesting that he would have to
surrender it to the boers to lose the
world's main diamond producing town and
to have one of the british empire's
leading advocates cecil rhodes captured
by the buzz presented bulla with a
political as well as military imperative
meanwhile over in the tile colony
general white was holed up with 12 000
troops stuck in lady smith as queen
victoria mooted the surrender of this
force to a ragged bore army was too
awful to contemplate
bulla divided his forces
he himself would go to natal and rescue
the troops trapped in ladysmith
lieutenant general lord methuen would
lead a column to relieve kimberley
whilst general gattica a fresh from the
british victory at omdaman in sudan
would prevent the buurs driving into the
cape midlands and instigating a local
africana rising
within the space of five days in
mid-december the boers were to inflict
three stunning defeats on the proud
british empire
the army advancing to relieve kimberly
lost 900 men killed wounded and captured
at the battle of magus fontaine
at stormberg general gattica got
hopelessly lost in a nighttime advance
on the boers holding the railway
junction and instead of surprising the
boers
they were themselves surprised and 600
british troops were captured
finally bulla's own advance in natal was
brought to a shuddering halt as he was
defeated by general louis botha at the
battle of calenzo
in five days
the british had lost over two and a half
thousand men
the stunned british press
dubbed it
black weak
back in london there was a clamor for
change and buller was relieved of
overall command to be replaced by the
darling of the indian army lord roberts
known to his men as bobs
bob's arrived in south africa wearing a
black armband his only son had been
killed at the battle of kalenso
with him was a new chief of staff
general herbert kitchener who only the
previous year had ruthlessly crushed the
sudanese at the battle of omdam
humiliated by the boers ridiculed by the
foreign press and governments just two
years after queen victoria's diamond
jubilee
this was now turning into a war the
british government had to win
and fast
thousands more troops were sent to south
africa including 100 000 colonial troops
from australia canada and new zealand
in britain a new sort of army unit the
imperial yeomanry was recruited
from men from the hunting and riding
communities of each county
and they would provide a mobile counter
to the boers
eventually nearly 450 000 british troops
would serve in south africa the largest
british army ever sent abroad before
world war one
to counter
just 45 000 burs
before roberts could swing into action
bulla had another crack at breaking
through to lady smith in january 1900
the ensuing battle of spin cop resulted
in yet another boer victory with a loss
of 350 british british dead and over a
thousand wounded
as an aside during the battle an indian
ambulance corps played an active role in
rescuing and caring british wounded
british soldiers
amongst their number was a young lawyer
mahandas gandhi
over in the cape colony robert's army of
35 000 men finally moved forward a
cavalry division under major general
john french outflanked the boers and
entered kimberley on the 15th of
february only to find the situation was
nowhere near as dire as rhodes had been
claiming later that month the british
gained their first significant military
success forcing the surrender of general
cronier and over four thousand of his
troops at the battle of padburg just
over two weeks later roberts entered the
capital of the orange free state
bloomfontaine and raised a silk union
flag that his wife had made for him more
good news for the british followed with
bulla finally relieving lady smith and
then advancing towards transwell roberts
now pause for several weeks in
bloomfontaine during which time polluted
water spread disease through his army in
this war more british soldiers were to
die from disease
than from boar bullets on the 17th of
may mafa king was finally relieved after
a siege of 215 days the longest siege of
the war
the british public had followed the
reports from the garrison commander
robert baden-powell with an insatiable
hunger that had turned this quiet if
somewhat of a showman officer into a
national hero unlike the shrill calls
from rhodes in kimberley
baden powell's reports had an air of
indifference and supreme confidence that
the victorian public expected from their
military leaders the public back in
britain
loved him the relief of mafiking gave
rise to huge street celebrations which
rivaled those that we saw at the end of
both world wars
baden-powell was to go on to form the
boy scouts
by the end of may roberts had advanced
almost unopposed into johannesburg and a
week later was once again unfurling his
wife's silk flag in the capital of the
transwell pretoria
president kruger fled to the neighboring
uh portuguese territory of mozambique
and then boarded a ship to the
netherlands
he was never to return to his homeland
with the war seemingly over roberts
returned to britain to a hero's welcome
on the back of this imperial victory the
conservative government under lord
salisbury called a general election
dubbed the kharki election
which they won with a large majority
back in south africa kitchener had been
left to mop up the remaining boar
commandos and sort out the peace
but there was to be
no peace
the boer army of over 25 000 was still
in the field and showed no signs of
giving up the fight
they simply adopted a new tactic
guerrilla warfare
the idea of guerrilla warfare was not
actually new the term itself had been
coined in spain during the napoleonic
wars but never before was it to be waged
on such a scale or with such ferocity
that the bulls unleashed against the
british in south africa before the year
was out the boers were confident and
organized enough to attack a british
force of 1200
under general clements and in the
shooting in the ensuing battle the
british came within a whisker of yet
another disaster
commandos under judge herzog and the
irrepressible christian devette had
passed the occupy bypass the occupying
british army crossed the orange river
into the cape colony hoping to ferment a
rebellion
if the british back in 1899 have been
unprepared to fight well at a well-armed
army they were now equally unprepared
for this mobile hit-and-run style of
warfare against an enemy who knew the
land better than they did both the
famously didn't bother using maps
and could gain supplies and intelligence
from their families and supporters not
just in the old republics but in the
cape too
kitchener decided to conduct a scorched
earth policy to defeat these determined
and unyielding buzz the areas of boar
activity were divided into massive
squares crisscrossed with barbed wire
and lined with 8 000 garrisoned block
houses mounted troops would then sweep a
square rather like a game hunt driving
the boers ahead of them either into the
barbed wire or into waiting british
troops
tactically the sweeps were a modest
success netting about a thousand boer
prisoners a month but with 25 000 boors
at large kitchener's policy could take
months if not years to succeed
and despite their general election
victory lord salisbury's government in
england did not have the luxury of that
time let alone the cost to fund a
never-ending guerrilla war income tax
had already had to be raised and the
jingoism of those crowds who had cheered
the relief of mafia king just a few
months before was already starting to
wear thin
kitchener decided to turn the screws
the boar commandos relied on
sympathizing farms for their supplies
the victor of omdaman decided to to deny
them those supplies the british
systematically destroyed boar farms
burning the houses burning the crops
killing the livestock leaving the
commandos families the elderly the women
the children homeless on the african
felt it was now that the most
controversial decision of all was taken
the homeless boys civilians were
interned in refugee [ __ ] prison camps
and that concentration of poor civilians
in those camps
gave them a sinister new name
concentration camps
russians were meager and medical
facilities sparse to say the least
the military administration of these
camps were indifferent to the plight of
the boer civilians
and as the numbers of internees swelled
the sanitary systems in those camps were
swiftly overwhelmed
typhoid dysentery and measles especially
amongst children broke out the
humanitarian disaster was brought to
international attention by british
quaker and anti-war protester emily
holphouse the rumors coming out of the
camps inspired her to travel to south
africa to see them firsthand and what
she witnessed was worse than anything
she could have prepared herself for by
october 1901 the camps housed 111 000
boer civilians
and that month alone
3
100 of them died which was an annualized
death rate of 34
for the record actually there were also
a reported 44 000 blacks in the
concentration camps and their death
rates that october were about 700.
the british parliament was scandalized
and the government embarrassed on the
international stage
running of the camps was removed from
kitchener and handed over to civil
servants reporting into lord milner in
cape town
by the end of the war milner had reduced
the annualized death rate from 34
to 2
which was actually less than the death
rate that was prevailing in glasgow at
that time
but the damage had been done
what moral authority britain had in this
war and in the eyes of certainly the
french and german press there never was
very much was lost
public support in britain and elsewhere
in the empire started to ebb away
particularly in australia
where this callous treatment of
civilians was compounded by the
execution of two officers peter hancock
and harry breaker morant for killing
boar prisoners in cold blood but without
any reference to the australian
government
the government's now ordered kitchener
to stop sending families to the camps
although not to desist in the scorched
earth policy
so somewhat bizarrely the decision not
to in turn bore civilians anymore
probably had a greater effect on
bringing the buzz to the negotiating
table
than the anger at seeing their families
dying in such huge numbers in the
concentration camp
the result of this new supposedly
humanitarian policy was that once the
homes have been destroyed kitchener left
the civilians in the african bush to
fend for themselves
many found sanctuary with the boer
commandos but militarily this actually
hampered the commandos speed and
flexibility and indeed brought their
families into the danger of being killed
in skirmishes with the british
furthermore many of those hardened boar
commandos were appalled that their
undefended families could be exposed to
attack by local african tribes
and this fear actually became real when
in april april 1902 a zulu imp army had
wiped out a burkamando near the border
between the transvaal and british
controlled zulu land the boers still
defiant
was starting to run out of options
the arsenal of modern weapons and
ammunition that had that they started
the war with have been used up and they
now relied on captured british arms
slowly that scorched earth policy of
kitchener was depriving them of food
intelligence and safe havens
many fighters were actually having to
use sacking from bags to dress in
kitchener sweeps were still netting
prisoners not a lot but it was having a
drip drip effect
however if the british and their
politicians were divided on continuing
the war
so were the burs
the boer community itself now started to
divide between those who wanted to keep
fighting called bitter enders
and those willing to accept some sort of
compromise
hands uppers
by 1902 kitchener had recruited 5 000 of
those hands uppers into his army
boys who knew how the buzz fought
kitchener invited the boar leaders to
meet him to discuss peace terms
on the 31st of may 1902 the treaty of
renegade brought the conflict to a close
christian devette was in tears as he
advised his men to surrender
unlike the relief of mafiking just two
years before the celebrations in britain
were muted
at the outset of this war paul kruger
had promised that if the british wanted
his country the price they would pay
would stagger humanity
and so it proved the british had lost
just under 8 000 men killed in action
nearly three times as many as were
killed in action in the crimean war
and a further 14 000
dead from disease
the war had cost the british taxpayer
222 million pounds in those days money
which included the loss of 350 000
horses and 50 000 mules that have
perished in the conflict
it had taken an army of 450 000 four
times the size of the british army sent
to the crimea to suppress a boer army of
about 50 000 men
the boers themselves had lost 6 000 of
their number killed in action but it was
the human cost of those concentration
camps that they would remember
26 000 of their women and children
died
and whilst this was seen by both sides
as a white man's war
the black african population had been
caught up in it too over 20 000 died in
concentration camps alone
the british terms at the peace treaty
were generous unlike the defeated french
following the franco-prussian war
and the germans after world war one the
boers were not forced to pay any form of
reparations
actually they were given compensation by
the british government to rebuild their
farms
they're also allowed to retain dutch in
their schools
and they were promised self-government
and crucially the british agreed that
the black population would not receive
the franchise in the trans-wild and
orange-free state until after the buurs
had received their self-government
in other words it would be down to the
boers to decide when the blacks received
a franchise
which meant never
within five years both former boer
republics had achieved self-government
and in 1910 they joined the cape and
natal colonies to form the dominion of
south africa
the first prime minister of this new
country was the former board general
louis botha
and he was succeeded by another former
commando leader
jan smutz
the boers would never forget the
concentration camps and what happened to
their families as david lloyd george had
rightly declared in the british house of
commons
a barrier of dead children's bodies will
rise up between the british and boer
races in south africa
that resentment would foster the rise of
the national party and when they came to
power in 1948 leaving the british
commonwealth and the establishment of
apartheid
britain had won the war war but
ultimately they lost the peace
and the events of the past
continue to influence the world we live
in today
thanks for watching i hope you enjoyed
this story and i hope to see you very
soon
so
[Music]
you