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Second Boer War

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Pre 1900 Military

                Second Boer War
   Part of the Boer Wars
   Boer guerillas during the Second Boer War

      Date     1899 – 1902
    Location   South Africa
     Result    British Pyrrhic victory
   Casus belli Jameson Raid
   Territorial
   changes     Treaty of Vereeniging
                   Combatants
   United Kingdom,
   Canada,
   Australia,
   New Zealand       Orange Free State,
                     South African Republic
                   Commanders
   Frederick Roberts,
   Lord Kitchener    Christiaan Rudolf de Wet,
                     Paul Kruger
                   Casualties
   22,000            6,500
   Civilians killed [mainly Boers]: 24,000+
                                 Second Boer War
   Talana Hill – Elandslaagte – Belmont – Modder River – Stormberg –
   Magersfontein – Colenso – Spion Kop – Bloody Sunday – Paardeberg –
   Ladysmith – Sanna's Post – Mafeking

   The Second Boer War also known as the South African War (outside of
   South Africa), the Anglo-Boer War (among some South Africans) and in
   Afrikaans as the Anglo-Boereoorlog or Tweede Vryheidsoorlog (Second War
   of Independence), was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902.
   The war was fought between the British Empire and the two independent
   Boer republics of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic
   (Transvaal Republic). After a protracted hard-fought war, the two
   independent republics lost and were absorbed into the British Empire.

Background

   With the 1885 discovery of gold in Transvaal, thousands of British and
   other prospectors and settlers streamed over the border from the Cape
   Colony (anexed by Britain earlier) and from across the globe. The city
   of Johannesburg sprang up as a shanty town nearly overnight as the
   uitlanders (foreigners) poured in and settled near the mines. The
   uitlanders rapidly outnumbered the Boers on the Rand, but remained a
   minority in the Transvaal as a whole. The Afrikaners, nervous and
   resentful of the uitlanders' presence, denied them voting rights and
   taxed the gold industry heavily. In response, there was pressure from
   the uitlanders and the British mine owners to overthrow the Boer
   government. In 1895, Cecil Rhodes sponsored a failed coup d'état backed
   by an armed incursion, the Jameson Raid.

   The failure to gain improved rights for Britons was used to justify a
   major military buildup in the Cape, since several key British colonial
   leaders favoured annexation of the Boer republics. These included the
   Cape Colony governor Sir Alfred Milner, British Colonial Secretary
   Joseph Chamberlain and mining syndicate owners (nicknamed the gold
   bugs) such as Alfred Beit, Barney Barnato and Lionel Phillips.
   Confident that the Boers would be quickly defeated, they attempted to
   precipitate a war.

   President Martinus Steyn of the Orange Free State invited Milner and
   Kruger (President of the Transvaal) to attend a conference in
   Bloemfontein which started on 30 May 1899, but negotiations quickly
   broke down. In September 1899, Chamberlain sent an ultimatum demanding
   full equality for British citizens resident in Transvaal.

   Kruger, seeing that war was inevitable, simultaneously issued his own
   ultimatum prior to receiving Chamberlain's. This gave the British 48
   hours to withdraw all their troops from the border of Transvaal;
   otherwise the Transvaal, allied with the Orange Free State, would
   declare war.

First phase: The Boer offensive (October-December, 1899)

   War was declared on 11 October 1899 and the Boers struck first by
   invading Cape Colony and Natal Colony between October 1899 and January
   1900. This was followed by some early Boer military successes against
   General Redvers Buller. The Boers were able to besiege the towns of
   Ladysmith, Mafeking (defended by troops headed by Colonel Robert
   Baden-Powell), and Kimberley.

   Siege life took its toll on both the defending soldiers and the
   civilians in the cities of Mafeking, Ladysmith, and Kimberley as food
   began to grow scarce after a few weeks. In Mafeking, Sol Plaatje wrote,
   "I saw horseflesh for the first time being treated as a human
   foodstuff." The cities under siege also dealt with constant artillery
   bombardment, making the streets a dangerous place. Near the end of the
   siege of Kimberley, it was expected that the Boers would intensify
   their bombardment, so a notice was displayed encouraging people to go
   down into the mines for protection. The townspeople panicked, and
   people flowed into the mineshafts constantly for a 12-hour period.
   Although the bombardment never came, this did nothing to diminish the
   distress of the civilians. In Kimberley many of the towns people, now
   under siege, sheltered in the local convent, now the Mcgregor museum.
   Since the mining that occurred there, for diamonds, was open air, the
   people were not able to shelter in mine shafts. The mine is now known
   as the Big Hole, a popular tourist attraction in the area.

   The middle of December proved difficult for the British army. In a
   period known as Black Week (10- 15 December 1899), the British suffered
   a series of devastating losses at Magersfontein, Stormberg, and
   Colenso. At the Battle of Stormberg on 10 December, British General Sir
   William Gatacre, who was in command of 3,000 troops protecting against
   Boer raids in Cape Colony, tried to recapture a railway junction about
   50 miles south of the Orange River. But Gatacre chose to assault the
   Orange Free State Boer positions surmounting a precipitous rock face in
   which he lost 135 killed and wounded, as well as two guns and over 600
   troops captured. At the Battle of Magersfontein on 11 December, 14,000
   British troops, under the command of Lieutenant-General Lord Methuen,
   attempted to fight their way to relieve Kimberley. The Boer commanders,
   Koos de la Rey and Piet Cronje, devised a plan to dig trenches in an
   unconventional place to fool the British and to give their riflemen a
   greater firing range. The plan worked. The British were decisively
   defeated, suffering the loss of 120 British soldiers killed and 690
   wounded, which prevented them from relieving Kimberley and Mafeking.
   But the nadir of Black Week was the Battle of Colenso on 15 December
   where 21,000 British troops, under the command of Redvers Buller,
   attempted to cross the Tugela River to relieve Ladysmith where 8,000
   Transvaal Boers, under the command of Louis Botha, were awaiting them.
   Through a combination of artillery and accurate rifle fire, the Boers
   repelled all British attempts to cross the river. The British had a
   further 1,126 casualties, and lost 10 artillery pieces to the Boers
   during the ensuing retreat. The Boer forces suffered 40 casualties.

Second phase: The British offensive of January to September 1900

   The Relief of Ladysmith. Sir George White greets Major Hubert Gough on
   28 February. Painting by John Henry Frederick Bacon (1868-1914)
   Enlarge
   The Relief of Ladysmith. Sir George White greets Major Hubert Gough on
   28 February. Painting by John Henry Frederick Bacon (1868-1914)

   The British suffered further defeats in their attempts to relieve
   Ladysmith at the Battle of Spion Kop of 19 to 24 January 1900, where
   Redvers Buller again attempted to cross the Tugela west of Colenso and
   was defeated again by Louis Botha after a hard-fought battle for a
   prominent hill feature which resulted in a further 1,000 British
   casualties and nearly 300 Boer casualties. Buller attacked Botha again
   on 5 February at Vaal Krantz and was again defeated.

   It was not until reinforcements arrived on 14 February 1900 that
   British troops commanded by Field Marshal Lord Roberts could launch
   counter-offensives to relieve the garrisons. Kimberley was relieved on
   15 February by a cavalry division under Lieutenant General John French.
   At the Battle of Paardeberg on 18 February to 27 February 1900, Roberts
   surrounded General Piet Cronje's retreating Boer army, and forced him
   to surrender with 4000 men after a siege lasting a week. Meanwhile,
   Buller at last succeeded in forcing a crossing of the Tugela, and
   defeated Botha's outnumbered forces north of Colenso, allowing the
   Relief of Ladysmith the day after Cronje surrendered.

   Roberts then advanced into the two republics, capturing Bloemfontein,
   the capital of the Orange Free State, on 13 March. Meanwhile, he
   detached a small force to relieve Baden-Powell, and the Relief of
   Mafeking on 18 May 1900 provoked riotous celebrations in Britain. After
   being forced to delay for several weeks at Bloemfontein due to sickness
   within his army (caused by poor hygiene and medical care), Roberts
   resumed his advance and captured the capital of the Transvaal,
   Pretoria, on 5 June.

   British observers believed the war to be all but over after the capture
   of the two capital cities. However, the Boers had met at a new capital
   of the Orange Free State, Kroonstad, and planned a guerrilla campaign
   to hit the British supply and communication lines. The first engagement
   of this new form of warfare was at Sanna's Post on 31 March where 1,500
   Boers under the command of Christiaan De Wet attacked Bloemfontein's
   waterworks about 23 miles east of the city, and ambushed a heavily
   escorted convoy which resulted in 155 British casualties and the
   capture of seven guns, 117 wagons and 428 British troops.

   After the fall of Pretoria, one of the last formal battles was at
   Diamond Hill on 11- 12 June, where Field Marshal Lord Roberts attempted
   to drive the remnants of the Boer field army beyond striking distance
   of the city. Although Roberts drove the Boers from the hill, the Boer
   commander, Louis Botha, did not regard it as a defeat, for he inflicted
   more casualties on the British (totalling 162 men) while suffering
   around 50 casualties.

   The set-piece period of the war now largely gave way to a mobile
   guerilla war, but one final operation remained. President Kruger and
   what remained of the Transvaal government had retreated to eastern
   Transvaal. Roberts, joined by troops from Natal under Buller, advanced
   against them, and broke their last defensive position at Bergendal on
   August 26. As Roberts and Buller followed up along the railway line to
   Komatipoort, Kruger sought asylum in Portuguese East Africa (modern
   Mozambique). Some dispirited Boers did likewise, and the British
   gathered up much material. However, the core of the Boer fighters under
   Botha easily broke back into the Transvaal. Under the new conditions of
   the war, heavy equipment was no use to them, and therefore no great
   loss.

Third phase: Guerrilla war (September 1900-May 1902)

   By September 1900, the British were in control of both Republics,
   except for the northern part of Transvaal. They however found that they
   only controlled the ground their columns physically occupied. As soon
   as the columns left a town or district, British control of that area
   faded away. The huge territory of the Republics made it impossible for
   the 250,000 British troops to control it effectively. The vast
   distances between the columns allowed the Boer commandos considerable
   freedom to move about. The Boer commanders decided to adopt a guerrilla
   style of warfare. The commandos were sent to their own districts with
   the order to act against the British there whenever possible. Their
   strategy was to do as much damage to the enemy as possible, and then to
   move off and vanish when enemy reinforcements arrived.

Western Transvaal

   The Boer commandos in the Western Transvaal were very active after
   September 1901. Several battles of importance were fought here between
   September 1901 and March 1902. At Moedwil on 30 September 1901 and
   again at Driefontein on 24 October, Gen. De la Rey’s forces attacked
   the British, but were forced to withdraw after the British offered
   strong resistance.

   A time of relative quiet descended thereafter on the western Transvaal.
   February 1902 saw the next major battle in that region. On 25 February
   De la Rey attacked a British column at Ysterspruit near Wolmaransstad.
   De la Rey succeeded in capturing the column and a large amount of
   ammunition – enough to last his commandos a long time.

   The Boer attacks prompted Lord Methuen, the British second-in-command
   after Lord Kitchener, to move his column from Vryburg to Klerksdorp to
   deal with De la Rey. On the morning of 7 March 1902, The Boers attacked
   the rear guard of Methuen’s moving column at Tweebosch. In the
   confusion that soon reigned in British ranks, Methuen was wounded and
   captured by the Boers. The battle of Tweebosch was one of the De la
   Rey’s finest victories.

   The Boer victories in the west led to stronger action by the British.
   In the second half of March 1902, large British reinforcements were
   sent to the Western Transvaal. The opportunity the British waited for
   arose on 11 April 1902 at Rooiwal, where the combined forces of Gens.
   Grenfell, Kekewich and Von Donop came into contact with the forces of
   Gen. Kemp. The British soldiers were superbly positioned on the
   mountainside and mowed down the Boers charging on horseback over a
   large distance, beating them back with heavy casualties.

   This was the end of the war in the Western Transvaal and also the last
   major battle of the Anglo-Boer War.

Orange Free State

   While the British occupied Pretoria, the Boer fighters in the Orange
   Free State had been driven into a fertile area in the north east of the
   Republic, known as the Brandwater Basin. This offered only temporary
   sanctuary, as the mountain passes leading to it could be occupied by
   the British, trapping the Boers. A force under General Hunter set out
   from Bloemfontein to achieve this in July 1900. The hard core of the
   Boers under Christiaan de Wet, accompanied by President Steyn, left the
   basin early. Those remaining fell into confusion and most failed to
   break out before Hunter trapped them. 4,500 Boers surrendered and much
   equipment was captured, but as with Robert's drive against Kruger at
   the same time, these losses were of little consequence if the hard core
   of the Boer armies and their most determined and active leaders
   remained at large.

   From the Basin, de Wet headed west. Although hounded by British
   columns, he succeeded in crossing the Vaal into the Western Transvaal,
   to allow Steyn to travel to meet the Transvaal leaders.

   Returning to the Orange Free State, de Wet inspired a series of attacks
   and raids from the hitherto quiet western part of the country. In late
   January 1901, he also led a renewed invasion of Cape Colony. This was
   less successful, because there was no general uprising among the Cape
   Boers, and de Wet's men were relentlessly pursued by British forces.
   They escaped across the Orange River, almost by a miracle.

   From then until the final days of the war, de Wet remained
   comparatively quiet, partly because the Orange Free State was
   effectively left desolate by British sweeps.

Eastern Transvaal

   Two Boer forces fought in this area; under Botha in the south east and
   Ben Viljoen in the north east. Botha's forces were particularly active,
   raiding railways and even mounting a renewed invasion of Natal in
   September, 1901. However, Botha's forces were the target of
   increasingly large and ruthless drives by British forces, and
   eventually, he had to abandon the highveld and retreat to a narrow
   enclave bordering Swaziland.

   To the north, Ben Viljoen grew steadily less active. His forces mounted
   comparatively few attacks and as a result, the Boer enclave around
   Lydenburg was largely unmolested. Viljoen was eventually captured.

Cape Colony

   After he escaped across the Orange in March 1901, de Wet had left
   forces under Cape rebels Kritzinger and Scheepers to maintain a
   guerilla campaign in the Cape Midlands. The campaign here was one of
   the least chivalrous, with intimidation by both sides of each other's
   civilian sympathisers. Several captured rebels, including Scheepers,
   were executed for treason by the British, some in public. In most cases
   though, the executions were ostensibly for capital crimes such as the
   murder of prisoners or of unarmed civilians.

   Fresh Boer forces under Jan Christiaan Smuts, joined by the surviving
   rebels under Kritzinger, made another attack on the Cape in September
   1901. They suffered severe hardships and were hard pressed by British
   columns, but eventually rescued themselves by routing some of their
   pursuers and capturing their equipment.

   From then until the end of the war, Smuts increased his forces until
   they numbered 3,000. However, no general uprising took place, and the
   situation in the Cape remained stalemated.

Final days of the War

   Towards the end of the war, British drives and offensives became more
   successful. This was achieved by establishing lines of blockhouses and
   wire fences which parcelled up the wide veld into smaller areas. De Wet
   narrowly avoided being trapped against these by a drive, but
   Kitchener's forces at last began to seriously affect the Boers'
   fighting strength and freedom of manoevre.

The concentration camps

   Boer women and children in a concentration camp
   Enlarge
   Boer women and children in a concentration camp

   These had originally been set up for refugees whose farms had been
   destroyed by the British " Scorched Earth" policy (burning down all
   Boer homesteads and farms). However, following Kitchener's new policy,
   many women and children were forcibly moved to prevent the Boers from
   resupplying at their homes and more camps were built and converted to
   prisons.

   This was not the first appearance of concentration camps. The Spanish
   used them in the Ten Years' War that later led to the Spanish-American
   War, and the United States used them to devastate guerrilla forces
   during the Philippine-American War. But the concentration camp system
   of the British was on a much larger scale.

   There were a total of 45 tented camps built for Boer internees and 64
   for black African ones. Of the 28,000 Boer men captured as prisoners of
   war, 25,630 were sent overseas. So, most Boers remaining in the local
   camps were women and children, but the native African ones held large
   numbers of men as well. Even when forcibly removed from Boer areas, the
   black Africans were not considered to be hostile to the British, and
   provided a paid labour force.

   The conditions in the camps were very unhealthy and the food rations
   were meager. The wives and children of men who were still fighting were
   given smaller rations than others. The poor diet and inadequate hygiene
   led to endemic contagious diseases such as measles, typhoid and
   dysentery. Coupled with a shortage of medical facilities, this led to
   large numbers of deaths — a report after the war concluded that 27,927
   Boers (of whom 22,074 were children under 16) and 14,154 black Africans
   had died of starvation, disease and exposure in the concentration
   camps. In all, about 25% of the Boer inmates and 12% of the black
   African ones died (although recent research suggests that the black
   African deaths were underestimated and may have actually been around
   20,000). However the precise number of deaths is unknown. Reports have
   stated that the number of Boers killed was 18,000-28,000 and no
   bothered to keep records on the number of deaths of the 107,000 Black
   Africans who were interned in Concentration Camps.
   Lizzie van Zyl
   Enlarge
   Lizzie van Zyl

   A delegate of the South African Women and Children's Distress Fund,
   Emily Hobhouse, did much to publicise the distress of the inmates on
   her return to Britain after visiting some of the camps in the Orange
   Free State. Her fifteen-page report caused uproar, and led to a
   government commission, the Fawcett Commission, visiting camps from
   August to December 1901 which confirmed her report. They were highly
   critical of the running of the camps and made numerous recommendations,
   for example improvements in diet and provision of proper medical
   facilities. By February 1902, the annual death-rate dropped to 6.9% and
   eventually to 2%.

   Counterinsurgency techniques which were applied by the British in the
   Boer War were later reused by the British to fend off Malayan communist
   rebels during the Malayan Emergency.

POWs sent overseas

   The first sizable batch of Boer prisoners of war taken by the British
   consisted of those captured at the battle of Elandslaagte on 21 October
   1899. At first many were put on ships. But as numbers grew, the British
   decided they didn't want them kept locally. The capture of 400 POWs in
   February 1900 was a key event, which made the British realise they
   could not accommodate all POWs in South Africa. The British feared they
   could be freed by sympathetic locals. They already had trouble
   supplying their own troops in South Africa, and did not want the added
   burden of sending supplies for the POWs. Britain therefore chose to
   send many POWs overseas.

   The first overseas (off African mainland) camps were opened in Saint
   Helena, which ultimately received about 5,000 POWs. About 5,000 POWs
   were sent to Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Other POWs were sent to Bermuda and
   India. Some POWs were even sent outside the British Empire, with 1443
   Boers (mostly POWs) sent to Portugal.

The end of the war

   In all, the war had cost around 75,000 lives — 22,000 British soldiers
   (7,792 battle casualties, the rest through disease), 6,000-7,000 Boer
   soldiers, 20,000-28,000 Boer civilians and perhaps 20,000 black
   Africans. The last of the Boers surrendered in May 1902 and the war
   ended with the Treaty of Vereeniging in the same month. But the Boers
   were given £3,000,000 for reconstruction and were promised eventual
   self-government, and the Union of South Africa was established in 1910.
   The treaty ended the existence of the Transvaal and the Orange Free
   State as Boer republics and placed them within the British Empire.

   The Boers referred to the two wars as the Freedom Wars. Those Boers who
   wanted to continue the fight were known as "bitter-einders" (or
   irreconcilables) and at the end of the war a number like Deneys Reitz
   chose exile rather than sign an undertaking that they would abide by
   the peace terms. Over the following decade, many returned to South
   Africa and never signed the undertaking. Some, like Reitz, eventually
   reconciled themselves to the new status quo, but others waited for a
   suitable opportunity to restart the old quarrel. At the start of World
   War I the bitter-einders and their allies took part in a revolt known
   as the Maritz Rebellion. Those Boers who now formed the South African
   government, along with their English speaking allies, quickly
   suppressed the revolt. Compared with the fate of leading Irish rebels
   of the Easter Rising in 1916, the leading Boer rebels in the Maritz
   Rebellion got off lightly, with terms of imprisonment of six and seven
   years and heavy fines. Two years later, they were released from prison,
   as Louis Botha recognised the value of reconciliation. After this, the
   bitter-einders concentrated on working within the constitutional system
   and built up the National Party which would come to dominate the
   politics of South Africa from the late 1940s until the early 1990s,
   when the apartheid system they had constructed also fell.

   During the conflict, 78 Victoria Crosses (VC) — the highest and most
   prestigious award in the British armed forces for bravery in the face
   of the enemy — were awarded to British and Colonial soldiers. See List
   of Boer War Victoria Cross recipients.

Effect of the war on domestic British politics

   The war highlighted the dangers of Britain's policy of non-alignment
   and deepened her isolation. The 1900 UK general election, also known as
   the "Khaki election", was called by the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury,
   on the back of recent British victories. There was much enthusiasm for
   the war at this point, resulting in a victory for the Conservative
   government.

   However, public support quickly waned as it became apparent that the
   war would not be easy and it dragged on, partially contributing to the
   Conservatives' spectacular defeat in 1906. There was public outrage at
   the use of scorched earth tactics — the burning of Boer homesteads, for
   example — and the conditions in the concentration camps. It also became
   apparent that there were serious problems with public health: up to 40%
   of recruits were unfit for military service, suffering from medical
   problems such as rickets and other poverty-related illnesses. This came
   at a time of increasing concern for the state of the poor in Britain.

   The use of Chinese labour, known as Coolies, after the war by the
   governor of the new crown colonies, Lord Milner, also caused much
   revulsion in the UK. Workers were often kept in appalling conditions,
   received only a small wage and were forbidden to socialise with the
   local population — this led to further public shock at the resulting
   homosexual acts between those forbidden the services of prostitutes.
   Some believe the Chinese slavery issue can be seen as the climax of
   public antipathy with the war.

   Many Irish nationalists sympathised with the Boers, seeing them as a
   people oppressed by British imperialism, much like themselves. Irish
   miners already in the Transvaal at the start of the war formed the
   nucleus of two Irish commandos. In addition, small groups of Irish
   volunteers went to South Africa to fight with the Boers — this despite
   the fact that there were many Irish troops fighting with the British
   army. In Britain, the "Pro-Boer" campaign expanded, with writers often
   idealizing the Boer society.

Empire involvement

   The vast majority of troops fighting for the United Kingdom came from
   the UK or South Africa. However, in the Second Boer War (South Africa
   War) a number did come from other parts of the Empire. These countries
   had their own internal disputes over whether they should remain tied to
   the United Kingdom, or have full independence, which carried over into
   the debate over whether they should send forces to assist the United
   Kingdom. Though not fully independent on foreign affairs, these
   countries did have local say over how much support to provide, and the
   manner in which it would be provided. Ultimately, Canada, Australia,
   and New Zealand all chose to send volunteers to aid the United Kingdom,
   but did not send them in sufficient size and speed to be critical to
   the final outcome.

Australia

   The Commonwealth of Australia was formed from the six Australian
   colonies on 1 January 1901, making the Boer War the first war in which
   the Commonwealth of Australia fought. As part of the British Empire
   prior to federation the Australian colonies also offered troops for the
   war in South Africa. In all, 16,175 Australians served in contingents
   raised by the six colonies and the Commonwealth. About 4,500 men served
   more than one contingent. 267 died from disease and slightly less, 251,
   died in action or from wounds sustained in battle, while a further 43
   men were reported missing. A small number of Australians are known to
   have fought on the Boer side.

   The Australian climate and geography were far closer to that of South
   Africa than the towns and cities of Britain where most of the British
   troops originated, so Australians were perceived by the British
   authorities as better suited to the conditions in South Africa than
   many of the British troops and a particularly useful adjunct to the
   British regular forces.

   The Australians served mostly as powerful "mounted rifles" in units
   formed in each colony. Some contingents fought in the second phase of
   the war when the British counter-attack captured the Boer capitals.
   Later contingents fought in the guerrilla war phase. They were valued
   for the ability to be able to match the speed and agility of the Boer
   commandos on the veldt and were often used as quick-response reserves
   sent to areas where the more sedate British infantry units often in
   Blockhouses reported contact with the Boers. Some of these troops
   formed the kernel of the Australian Lighthorsemen regiments later sent
   to the Middle East in World War I.

   In Australia at the start of the war, sympathy lay with the imperial
   cause, but as the war dragged on the Australian public started to
   become disenchanted, in part because the sufferings of Boer civilians
   became known through newspaper reports on the well-publicised
   conviction and execution of Lieutenants Breaker Morant and Handcock in
   1902.

Canada

   The unveiling of the South African War Memorial in Toronto Canada in
   1908
   Enlarge
   The unveiling of the South African War Memorial in Toronto Canada in
   1908

   At first Canadian Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier tried to keep Canada
   out of the war. The Canadian government was divided between those,
   primarily French Canadians, who wished to stay out of the war and
   others, primarily English Canadians, who wanted to join with Britain in
   her fight. In the end, Canada agreed to support the British by
   providing volunteers, equipment and transportation to South Africa.
   Britain would be responsible for paying the troops and returning them
   to Canada at the end of their service. The Boer War marked the first
   occasion in which large contingents of Canadian troops served abroad.

   The Battle of Paardeburg in February 1900 represented the second time
   Canadian Troops saw battle abroad (although there was a long tradition
   of Canadian service in the British Army and Royal Navy), the first
   being the Canadian involvement in the Nile Expedition of 1884-85.

   Ultimately, over 8,600 Canadians volunteered to fight in the South
   African War. However, not all saw action since many landed in South
   Africa after the hostilities ended while others performed garrison duty
   in Halifax, Nova Scotia so that their British counterparts could join
   at the front. Canadian forces ( Royal Canadian Regiment) took part in
   Bloody Sunday, where at the Battle of Paardeberg the British and
   Canadian forces suffered more casualties than on any other day of the
   war. Approximately 277 Canadians died in the South Africa War: 89 men
   were killed in action, 135 died of disease, and the remainder died of
   accident or injury. 252 were wounded.

New Zealand

   When the Second Boer War seemed imminent, New Zealand offered its
   support. On 28 September 1899 Prime Minister Richard Seddon asked
   Parliament to approve the offer to the imperial government of a
   contingent of mounted rifles and the raising of such a force if the
   offer were accepted and thus becoming the first British Colony to send
   troops to the Boer War. The British position in the dispute with the
   Transvaal was 'moderate and righteous', he maintained. He stressed the
   'crimson tie' of Empire which bound New Zealand to the Mother-country
   and the importance of a strong British Empire for the colony's
   security.

   In many ways, the South African war set the pattern for New Zealand's
   later involvement in the two World Wars. Specially raised units,
   consisting mainly of volunteers, were dispatched overseas to serve with
   forces from elsewhere in the British Empire. The success enjoyed by the
   New Zealand troops fostered the idea that New Zealanders were naturally
   good soldiers, who required only a modicum of training to perform
   creditably.

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