Their lifestyle of hunting for sport and profit honed the Boers' skills of field-craft, horsemanship, and marksmanship, making them a formidable force in the field and well suited to guerrilla operations. This book describes the life and combat experiences of a typical Boer in this key period. Using meticulously researched analysis and comment, and the experiences of a composite character, Johannes de Bruyn, a revealing portrait of Boer life and military operations is drawn. The actions at Laing's Neck, Majuba, the Zulu Civil War and the Second Anglo-Boer War are covered in this packed and informative treatment.
The British Expeditionary Force at the start of World War I was tiny by the standards of the other belligerent powers. Yet, when deployed to France in 1914, it prevailed against the German army because of its professionalism and tactical skill, strengths developed through hard lessons learned a dozen years earlier. In October 1899, the British went to war against the South African Boer republics of Transvaal and Orange Free State, expecting little resistance. A string of early defeats in the Boer War shook the military’s confidence. Historian Spencer Jones focuses on this bitter combat experience in From Boer War to World War, showing how it crucially shaped the British Army’s tactical development in the years that followed. Before the British Army faced the Boer republics, an aura of complacency had settled over the military. The Victorian era had been marked by years of easy defeats of crudely armed foes. The Boer War, however, brought the British face to face with what would become modern warfare. The sweeping, open terrain and advent of smokeless powder meant soldiers were picked off before they knew where shots had been fired from. The infantry’s standard close-order formations spelled disaster against the well-armed, entrenched Boers. Although the British Army ultimately adapted its strategy and overcame the Boers in 1902, the duration and cost of the war led to public outcry and introspection within the military. Jones draws on previously underutilized sources as he explores the key tactical lessons derived from the war, such as maximizing firepower and using natural cover, and he shows how these new ideas were incorporated in training and used to effect a thorough overhaul of the British Army. The first book to address specific connections between the Boer War and the opening months of World War I, Jones’s fresh interpretation adds to the historiography of both wars by emphasizing the continuity between them.
Waged across an inhospitable terrain which varied from open African savannah to broken mountain country and arid semi-desert, the Anglo-Boer wars of 1880–81 and 1899–1902 pitted the British Army and its allies against the Boers' commandos. The nature of warfare across these campaigns was shaped by the realities of the terrain and by Boer fighting techniques. Independent and individualistic, the Boers were not professional soldiers but a civilian militia who were bound by the terms of the 'Commando system' to come together to protect their community against an outside threat. By contrast the British Army was a full-time professional body with an established military ethos, but its over-dependence on conventional infantry tactics led to a string of Boer victories. This fully illustrated study examines the evolving nature of Boer military techniques, and contrasts them with the British experience, charting the development of effective British mounted tactics from the first faltering steps of 1881 through to the final successes of 1902.
For many people the epitome of the British soldier of the late Victorian period is the Redcoat who fought in southern Africa in the 1870s. This title covers the key period of the wars against the Zulu and Boers; the dramatic battles of Rorke's Drift, Isandlwana, Ulundi, Laing's Nek and Majuba are some of the most famous engagements in the history of the British Army. The journey of the British soldier from the back streets of Britain's inner cities, to the isolated rock outcrop of Isandlwana and the mountain top of Majuba is one of discipline, devotion, loyalty, bravery, determination and sheer hard-work. It is a journey from which many men never returned.
The fully illustrated David-vs-Goliath story of the Boer commandos and British mounted troops who fought one another in South Africa in the final years of the nineteenth century.
On 11 October 1899 the Second Boer War between the British and the Boers began. The war saw the most powerful professional army in the world pitted against the unconventional tactics of the undisciplined Boers. Although the Boers were finally forced to surrender in May 1902 the war had taken its toll on their opponents who lost some 8,000 troops killed in action with a further 13,000 dying from disease. This book covers the organisation, uniforms and very different tactics involved in the conflict, from guerrilla warfare to a final war of attrition that the Boers could not hope to win.
Mention of the Zulu War of 1879 inevitably conjures up images of the redcoats at Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift; it is often forgotten that the limited number of Imperial troops available led to the raising of several thousand local troops from Natal, Cape Colony and beyond. Typified by hard-riding white frontiersmen and lightly armed African infantry, these units made up for the British Army's severe shortage of cavalry scouts and local knowledge. Ian Castle's concise study of their organisation, uniforms, weapons, and campaign service covers a far wider range of units than ever previously published; it is illustrated with rare photographs and vivid colour plates.
The British amateur military tradition of raising auxiliary forces for home defence long preceded the establishment of a standing army. This was a model that was widely emulated in British colonies. This volume of essays seeks to examine the role of citizen soldiers in Britain and its empire during the Victorian period.
