Fame at last – ‘The If Man’ makes it into the Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5972809/Why-Rudyard-Kiplings-classic-poem-rightly-revered-Serena-Williams.html
‘We Rest Here Content’ – book review
One of the most remarkable regiments of the Boer War was the Imperial Light Horse. Raised just prior to the Boer invasions, the ILH was formed largely from the ex-Johannesburg uitlanders – the (mainly) English-speaking men who had built...
‘Hell Fire Jack’ Dartnell, Natal Police
‘A heavily built man of irrepressible ebullience with a smart Imperial beard’ Though their intentions had been obvious for months, the Boer invasion of Natal in October 1899 nevertheless caught the British off-balance and...
Hidebound by Tradition? The Cavalry
One of the most cherished myths about the Boer War is that the British army was hopelessly ‘hidebound by tradition’, whereas the clever old Boers (who, so the myth goes, outclassed them in every action) used the most up-to-date tactics. Like most...
On this day in 1900… Battle of Diamond Hill
By early June 1900, Lord Roberts’ forces had captured Pretoria and, for a brief moment, an end to the Boer War seemed likely. At the head of around 30,000 troops, Roberts had resumed his advance from Bloemfontein on the 2nd of May, capturing...
The Noise Before Defeat
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat Sun Tzu Though today trumpeted as ‘Great Generals’ by the likes of Pakenham, the Boer commanders embarked on a war of conquest against...
“A United Kingdom”
The propaganda offensive against the record of the British Empire in Southern Africa makes strange bed fellows of the extreme Right of Afrikanerdom and the extreme Left in Britain; two groups of highly deluded people who have nothing in common...
Playing the Victim
I have lost count of how many times I have been informed by South Africans that their grandparents were ‘murdered’ in the concentration camps. There seems to be a widespread and bizarre desperation to bask in the warm glow of victimhood by...
Diamonds are Forever
Quora can always be relied upon for amusement. The concept of the site is good, but nine times out of ten, the questions posed are either totally inane (“who was the toughest General, like, ever?”) or could just have been Googled (“what is the...
Taking Offence
When is an offensive, not really an offensive? Well, according to many writers on the Boer War, when it is conducted by republican forces. In his otherwise rather good ‘The Boer War: Direction, Experience and Image’, John Gooch reckons: The...
Review of ‘Kruger’s War’ – RUSI Journal
Review of ‘Kruger’s War’ Royal United Services Institute Journal, 15th April 2018 Dr Damian O’Connor Get into conversation with an Afrikaner in South Africa and the subject of the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902) will come up, and with it the...
A Grave Blunder
One would have thought that the relentless propaganda offensive to portray the British Empire as some sort of ghastly Bogey Man would have died with the demise of the Apartheid government. Amazingly, however, the new regime has taken up the baton...