One of the favourite squeals of True Believers is that the Boer War was so extraordinarily long, and so outrageously expensive, that it ‘almost bankrupted the British Empire’. Though shouting things like that makes a certain sort of fellow feel a bit better about themselves, it is – like pretty much everything else these types claim – quite simply untrue.
I have demonstrated this inconvenient reality in previous blog articles, where I showed that British Defence Expenditure during the Boer War barely registered as a blip across the centuries – certainly when compared to other conflicts, some of which the layman won’t even have heard of.
Even more convincing, however is a chart of British national debt (as a percentage of GDP) which appeared in today’s Daily Telegraph, and which was complied by the Office for Budget Responsibility:
As the chart clearly shows, British debt levels at the time of the Boer War were at some of the lowest in history, and, indeed were dropping before rocketing up when the Great War started. Of course, nothing will ever convince the hardcore Defenders of the Myth that they have been sold a (highly convenient and self-serving) lie over the decades, but hopefully this will be of interest to more intelligent and open-minded types.
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The reality is that UK defence expenditure was a little under 4% of GDP at the outbreak of war. It increased to a shade under 7% and then dropped back to its earlier levels after the war. Not even close to bankrupting anyone. The problem with the True Believer perspective on history is the desperate need to make the war more significant than it was.To Britain and the rest of the world it was one of the larger colonial wars but nothing more. The True Believer would have us believe that it had earth shattering consequences that expand in their significance in direct relation to the quantity of Klipdrift consumed. It was certainly an interesting conflict but it didn’t dent the Empire neither did it have any far reaching effects beyond the borders of the new, British Union of South Africa.
Indeed – these articles put Defence Expenditure during the Boer War into perspective:
https://www.chrisash.co.za/2020/08/08/financial-ruin/
https://www.chrisash.co.za/2020/08/15/financial-ruin-part-2/
“Empire neither did it have any far reaching effects beyond the borders of the new, British Union of South Africa”
How many officers that fought on the ABW later went on to command positions in the WWI
Are you saying that the experience they gained in the ABW was a waste of time >.
As valuable as it may have been, it would be a stretch to call that ‘far reaching consequences’ in a Geopolitical sense.
Many of those officers also saw extensive service in the Sudan or on the NW Frontier too – it was a time of Colonial Wars, and the Boer War was far from a unique event.
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