The Boer Wars was the name given to the South African Wars of 1880-1 and 1899-1902, that were fought between the British and the descendants of the Dutch settlers (Boers) in Africa. After the first Boer War William Gladstone granted the Boers self-government in the Transvaal.
The Boers, under the leadership of Paul Kruger, resented the colonial policy of Joseph Chamberlain and Alfred Milner which they feared would deprive the Transvaal of its independence. After receiving military equipment from Germany, the Boers had a series of successes on the borders of Cape Colony and Natal between October 1899 and January 1900. Although the Boers only had 88,000 soldiers, led by the outstanding soldiers such as Louis Botha, and Jan Smuts, the Boers were able to successfully besiege the British garrisons at Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberley.
Army reinforcements arrived in South Africa in 1900 and counter-offences relieved the garrisons and enabled the British to take control of the Boer capital, Pretoria, on 5th June. For the next two years groups of Boer commandos raided isolated British units in South Africa. Lord Kitchener, the Chief of Staff in South Africa, reacted to this by destroying Boer farms and moving civilians into concentration camps.
The British action in South Africa was strongly opposed by many leading Liberal politicians and most of the Independent Labour Party as an example of the worst excesses of imperialism. The Boer War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging in May 1902. The peace settlement brought to an end the Transvaal and the Orange Free State as Boer republics. However, the British granted the Boers £3 million for restocking and repairing farm lands and promised eventual self-government (granted in 1907).
The Lord Mayor of London appeared in his robes and made a speech to the crowd. I cannot remember his exact words, but they announced that after intolerable insults from an old man named Kruger, Her Majesty’s government had declared war upon the South African Boers. There was terrific and tumultuous cheering. Top hats were flung up after the crowd had sung “God Save the Queen”. I don’t believe I joined in the cheering. Certainly I did not fling up my top hat. Brought up in the Gladstonian tradition to the Liberals, and being, anyhow, a liberal-minded youth hostile to the loud-mouthed jingoism of the time, I was not swept by enthusiasm for a war which seemed to me, as it did to others, a bit of bullying by the big old British Empire.
You hear the squeal of the things all above, the crash and pop all about, and wonder when your turn will come. Perhaps one falls quite near you, swooping irresistibly, as if the devil had kicked it. You come to watch the shells – to listen to the deafening rattle of the big guns, the shrilling whistle of the small, to guess at their pace and their direction. You see now a house smashed in, a heap of chips and rubble; now you see a splinter kicking up a fountain of clinking stone-shivers. This is a dangerous time. If you have nothing else to do, you get shells on the brain, think and talk of nothing else, and finish by going into a hole in the ground before daylight, and hiring better men than yourself to bring you down your meals.
Britain considers the war over. But the Boers have a long and proud tradition in South Africa and are not about to give up so easily. Some Boer commando units, the ‘bitter-enders’, escape into the vast bush country and for 2 more years continue to wage unconventional guerilla warfare by blowing up trains and ambushing British troops and garrisons. The British Army, unable to defeat the Boers using conventional tactics, adopt many of the Boer methods, and the war degenerates into a devastating and cruel struggle between British righteous might and Boer nationalist desperation. The British criss-cross the countryside with blockhouses to flush the Boers into the open; they burn farms and confiscate foodstuffs to prevent them falling into Boer hands; they pack off Boer women and children to concentration camps as ‘collaborators’; they literally starve the commandos into submission. The last of the Boer commandos, left without food, clothing, ammunition or hope, surrender in May, 1902 and the war ends with the Treaty of Vereeniging
HAHAHA this is all merely academically interesting to me and I have no vested interest in either of the involved states or cultures, bitches!
Feel free to trashtalk eachother like impotent jerks anyhow, as it’s all the more amusing for those of us whose manhood is not tied to these events.
haha the british are a bunch of bitches..always cowering behind their numbers and shrewd tactics..we fucked you and the american colonists fucked you..you only won because of overwhelming reinforcements…doesnt surprise me why my grandfather hated you pale sons of bitches
OH THANK U MY FRIEND!!! i do believe that i have you now on the following charges, race discrimination act 1972, and threatening behaviour which is a common law offence.. Thanks matey for your post code I think I will meet up with you, my name is PC john Hammond of south Kennington police station please to meet you!
You sure, i currentley stay in Leyton east London, post code is E10 NQ Lytellton street. Check on the net, come meet me and i will show you IM HERE boy. Us South Africans are needed here as you english are too lazy to work, i must say england is a great place to make £££ and piss off again, the Ausies and the Kiwi’s are needed to as the british in general are lazy fat basturds who live of the DOLL, and you call me backward scum, i work for what i have, its not given on a plate like you pratts!
ha ha ha…. u been to the uk ? bet u havent!! backward scum
No you are confused, the british have never won any battle on their own, they always need america to back them up and still they dont really get anywhere. Look how long your solders have been in Afghan and Iraq and STILL no results, those fighter’s will never let you people defeat them, they have been outsmarting you for the past 5 years and still outsmart you in YOUR OWN country, England will soon be and ISLAMIC state and there is nothing you or USA can do about it. UK are a weak nation…
second boar war ???? i do believe the British won that!! and then the British empire created the union of south Africa, and all u good people became subjects of the queen.. And now ur in the commonwealth which is controlled by the uk….. and we will see if Russia is victorious !!
Angry, who said i was angry, im saying it how it how it is, you british dont like hearing the truth. Yep, your right, we are a 3rd world country and thats great because i have been to england, i have seen how the muslims are contolling more and more of that place each day. Us South Africans dont interfere in other countries business as uk and usa do. The british tried in SA and we fucked them up and sent them home which is what Iran, Iraq, Aghan and Russia are going to do to uk and usa very soon
your just an angry little queer who doesn’t know there place in life, and your angry because South Africa has no role on the world stage, and is considered a second class nation a worthless nation. How was the Olympics for you queers down there hahaha
john151988. Ha ha ha ha cock is what your mother said when she saw you for the first time….
ha ha ha ha ha cock
limey , maybe we yankees’ll kick your ass again some day , for good measure
The british will get whats coming to them, they are a cruel nation, always have been and always will be bloody english scum!
its true they just want the world to see what they want to show them, i hope the muslims over run this place and bomb it as well as get harry&william, then it will be retribution for us south africans (the boere) and turn their un godly ways atleast to something, they failed with christianity it was too easy, give them muhammidism and teach their woman to keep their legs closed and behave them selves.bunch of ungodly people their god os the football!! enshalah
twat
All british propoganda, the war started Bcause they imposed taxes on whites and blacks, the british actually started apartheid. they never mixed with boers nor did they mix with africans. 1652 we were there and then these British cum with Vicks bullshit empsoing taxes on all in south africas, it wasnt there land and Ucan see how their propoganda lasted until the end of apartheid, thy did loose the war,Y else would they hav2 murder woman&children 67,000 in total fucking thugs
I could not hear a thing… sound recoring bit bad.
Transvaal “protected” by the British… Another euphemism…