Based on many hundreds (thousands?) of conversations I have had since I first came to South Africa over 30 years ago, in my experience the average white South African would sum up the Boer War something along these lines: The Boers were peaceful...
We shall perhaps never know why it is that certain failed History Professors and online fanatics (plus their various toadies and hangers-on) squeal and scream that there is ‘no evidence’ that Kruger was in any way responsible for the war that he...
While we all know that nothing but myth-laden nonsense will endlessly spew out of certain South African universities, one really hopes for a little more from an august institution such as London’s National Army Museum. It was rather a shame...
‘Independence means Dutch independence, of a Dutch-ruled State, in which the resident foreigner cannot become a citizen. Defence means defence of the rule of a privileged race. No aggression on the British power means no present aggression; only...
Ever since Kruger, Kommandos, and Kak was published back in 2014, I have always been amused by the hysterical rage it produced in certain quarters… mainly those quarters inhabited by people who resolutely refused to read it. This swivel-eyed...
It always amazes me just how little many of those who write about the Boer War know about military history in general, and the British army in particular. Pakenham, for example, had clearly never heard of the old ‘3 to 1’ rule-of-thumb needed for...
We are constantly told – with thinly-disguised delight – that only ‘a handful’ of Boers ‘took on the British Empire’ (and, err, lost). Were the Boers outnumbered by the British army? Eventually, yes – though certainly not at first, as they...
‘The worst crime of war is to make war. To initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime. It contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole’.[1] – and yet, an especially...
In a comment on a recent blog article, one person queried my analysis of the deeply flawed republican plan to attack and invade British territory, by (sarcastically?)[1] asking, ‘so, Kruger should have just done nothing?’ My response was to say...
‘A double tide of armed men was now pouring into Southern Natal. From below, trainload after trainload of British regulars were coming up to the danger point, feted and cheered at every station. Lonely farmhouses near the line hung out their...
The race to be the most pig-ignorant online True Believer is a crowded field, but one contender has recently pulled clear of the pack: The level of foolishness needed to equate ‘being given tents to live in’ (plus food, medical care, education...
One of the most entertaining of the online True Believers is a fellow called John Elsegood. This figure of fun can always be relied on to provide a bit of hilarity and, somewhat remarkably, his qualifications for holding forth about the Boer War...
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