The British-Boer War 1899-1902 - First Modern War?

War has broken out in South Africa and British commanders are confident they will soon crush the upstart Boer republics who have dared to defy them General White's troops facing boar positions on The High Ground near Ladysmith went nervously as British and poor artillery duel overhead but the neighboring British units have gone silent and the order comes to retreat bore artillery and Riflemen pour fire onto the exposed British troops and they withdraw in panic on this day the Empire has been defeated but there's a long and bloody war ahead it's the second Boer War [Applause] thank you [Music] in the late 19th century conflict was brewing in southern Africa the Dutch had colonized the region from back in the mid 17th century and the settlers arrived in what became the cape Colony they call themselves Africanus and spoke their own dialect of Dutch known as Africans but they were often simply known as boers the Dutch word for Farmer most of these settlers Farm plans that They seized from the local native population many of whom the Africanus then enslaved in 1806 Britain captured Cape Town during the Napoleonic Wars and kept permanent control of the cape Colony after 1815. but problems between the British Administration and the poor population soon emerged over language cultural Outlook and legal systems The Tipping Point came when Britain outlawed slavery in 1834. this enraged The boers Who relied on slave labor to work their Farms between 1835 and 1840 the boers migrated out of British territory in what they called the Great Trek to find new independent homelands in eastern South Africa there they founded two new Bora republics the orange free state and the South African Republic work transfal the new bore States maintained some forms of slavery and expropriated their land from native Africans but the British bore struggle continued the British Empire slowly expanded its control of South Africa by taking over more native African territories and by the 1840s it shared a border with the Boer republics frequent border skirmishes blew up into the first war war of 1880 1881. the Poors won the war and forced the British government to formally acknowledge boor Independence and then came the transphile Gold Rush Prospectors discovered enormous gold deposits between 1884 and 1886. immigrants from all over the British Empire flooded to South Africa to seek their fortune and the Newfound mineral wealth of transphal Drew the interest of British Statesmen and businessmen foremost among these was Cape Colony prime minister and Mining magnate Cecil Rhodes who led the campaign to bring the poor republics under British rule to secure their natural resources for the Empire but his scheme to overthrow the poor governments using a force of mercenaries in the Jamison raid of 1895 ended in Fiasco and alerted the boers to the threat of British annexation despite the failure of the Jameson raid Britain relentlessly pressured the Boer republics to make Territorial and legal concessions by 1899 British troops were massing in their colony of natal and the boers feared an invasion was imminent so rather than await the inevitable the boers decided to strike first on October 11 1899 the second Boer War began so The Boar's desire for Independence and British Imperial expansion had come to a head with the outbreak of war in 1899. so let's take a look at the fighting forces that each side brought to the battlefield the boers did not possess a standing army and instead relied on a malicious system times of War the government would muster all able-bodied men between the ages of 16 and 60. citizens were expected to arrive with their own rifle and horse but the government also bought and distributed thousands of German Mauser rifles at the start of the war the boers had no formal military training but they were formidable Fighters noted for their excellent Marksmanship in peacetime poor citizens developed their skill by hunting game and through target shooting competitions a practice noted by American journalist Howard Hillegas target shooting was the chief Amusement in transfal demand for rifle ammunition was constant and firing at marks May almost be said to have taken the place occupied by billiards in Europe every boar fighter was a mounted Rifleman they could move quickly and seize key terrain before dismounting and delivering a hail of accurate rifle fire decades later Winston Churchill named Britain's Special Forces after the Africana word for military unit Commando The Riflemen were backed by a small professional artillery branch which deployed a mixture of modern French and German guns including four 155 millimeter kurzo guns which the British nicknamed long Tong the boers were motivated well-armed and determined to defend their independence they had about 60 000 Men available to fight but their weakness was their ability to sustain a long War the boars relied on Military imports from Europe their small population meant that they could not afford a war of attrition and they feared an African Uprising ore attack from the Zulu Kingdom they had to strike fast and win a clear victory the British army was immensely experienced in colonial Warfare and with 250 000 troops it could field more men than the Africanus one of them in fact would be my great grandfather the second Boer War would be the 226th out of 230 wars fought during the reign of Queen Victoria the British won nearly all these conflicts thanks to the Army's advantages in discipline and technology and tactics based on close formations and crushing fire but the Army had very little experience of facing modern Firepower since the colonial enemies it had defeated fielded little more than a handful of second-hand rifles Imperial troops would face an unpleasant surprise under Boer rifle and artillery fire still the British Army in South Africa was confident and seemed to have forgotten its defeat at the hands of the boers in 1880-81. British military thinkers reckoned Victory would be Swift and decisive against a fragile boar Force lacking in discipline native black Africans also played a role in the war officially both sides declared that the conflict was a quote white man's war and that the neutrality of black Africans would be respected in reality black Africans performed a variety of roles for both belligerents the boers use African forced labor to provide transport and dig trenches while the British hired thousands of Africans for logistic work as well as native Scouts and trackers some of whom fought in uniform the poor militias and the British army were set to clash and when war broke out in October 1899 the boers tried to make the most of their window of opportunity at the start of the war the boers outnumbered British forces in South Africa 40 000 to 20 000. since the British were sure to send reinforcements the poor plan emphasized speed and aggression they would sweep into South Africa and crush the British garrisons before fresh troops arrived from the United Kingdom the boor Invasion had four main axes in the west poor forces besieged the railway town of mafiking to prevent British forces advancing from the direction of bichwana land in the southwest the bores surrounded the diamond mining Center of Kimberly and in the South poor forces Advanced into the cape Midland region to disrupt British Rail transport the main boar offensive though drove into natal the British had most of their army here some fifteen thousand men and had planned to use the colony as a base to invade Boer territory until the boers beat them to it but British forces were poorly deployed and Lieutenant General William Penn Simon's four thousand strong Detachment bore the brunt of the boor attack on October 20th 1899 the first pitch Battle of the war took place as the boers got their artillery onto talana Hill and bombarded Simon's Camp below the British were surprised but they quickly rallied and launched an assault that drove the boers from the High Ground the attack was a costly success Simons was mortally wounded and 10 percent of his Force became casualties the nature of the fighting surprised even veteran British officers like Captain Nugent of the first King's Royal rifle Corps the ground in front of me was literally rising in dust from the bullets and the din echoing between the hill and the wood below and among the rocks from the incessant fire of the Mausers seemed to blend with every other sound into a long drawn-out hideous Roar I looked round over my shoulder the whole ground we had already covered was strewn with bodies at that moment I was hit through the knee the actual shock was as if someone had hit me with their whole strength with a club I spun round and fell my pistol flying one way and helmet another despite the victory at talana Hill the British were in danger mobile boar columns threatened to surround the isolated Force which endured a harrowing Retreat to join the main British Garrison at Ladysmith British forces moved North to clear the retreat route and on October 21st a British column struck advancing bores at the Battle of elan's lachten a skillful British combined arms attack drove the boars from their positions before British Cavalry swept in from the flank and completed the route yet the boar Advance into natal continued by the end of October British commander George White had two options he could withdraw to the South and wait for reinforcements from Britain this would preserve his army but would cause political problems if public opinions saw it as too passive or he could attack the boers and try for a decisive Victory to defeat The Invasion this might turn the tide of the war but it also ran the risk of a disastrous defeat white chose to gamble on October 30th he threw his forces into action at the Battle of Ladysmith but British attacks were badly coordinated and the boers won a significant Victory white retreated to Ladysmith and the boers laid Siege to the town the opening weeks of the war had been a success story for the boers they had defeated Britain's Main Army in South Africa and trapped it in Ladysmith if the town were to fall the boers might just win the war in November 1899 a fresh British Army was on its way to help relieve besieged Imperial troops in Ladysmith its 45 000 men had left the UK at the start of the war under the command of General Red vs Buller Buller had planned to link up with White's force and invade the boor republics but the boar Siege of Ladysmith forced him to scrap the idea instead Buller split his force in three fifteen thousand men would head West to relieve Kimberly five thousand troops would secure the cape Midland area and puller himself would lead 20 000 men into natal and break the siege of Ladysmith and the British were in a hurry to rescue the garrisons since Buller could not be sure how long they could actually hold out since the British had to operate along the railway lines surprise was impossible the boers had time to prepare defensive positions and were ready and waiting on December 10th British troops in the cape Midlands attempted a complicated night march to surprise the boers at dawn but the British column got lost in the dark and when Dawn broke they found themselves in the middle of the poor position rather than on its flank the desperate British launched a doomed frontal assault and bore a Rifleman mowed them down and won the battle of stormberg on the road to Kimberly Lord Methuen at first drove the boers back but the tables turned at the Battle of Maher's Fontaine on December 11th once again the British wanted to move up at night but they were slowed by a thunderstorm and were struck in the open at Sunrise the boars pinned Them Down Under Fire and the British retreated in disorder on December 15th buller's Main Army attacked boar positions on the tugaila River on the way to Ladysmith British artillery moved too far forward and the boars quickly knocked out two batteries the British infantry assault fared no better and as they advanced in close order boar Fighters ambushed them and blasted the Imperial troops from three sides eighteen-year-old boor fighter denies writes who later served in the British Army in World War One recalled the battle we heard a British voice call out bayonets bayonets and they came at us like a wall we poured volley after volley into their closely packed ranks we delivered such a volume of fire that the column swerved away to the left any soldier who got amongst us was shot or made prisoner by mid-morning the Battle of kalenso was over the British suffered over 1 000 casualties and lost 10 field guns while only 38 poor Fighters were killed or wounded in just one week the boers had defeated the mighty British Empire three times stunning UK public opinion and causing the Times newspaper to refer to the black week by Christmas 1899 many in the Boer republics thought that the war was all but won even though the sieges continued but the shock and humiliation of the black weak had galvanized the Imperial government in London after a string of defeats in December 1899 London sent its most famous Soldier to South Africa Lord Roberts arrived in January 1900 along with tens of thousands of reinforcements from all over the Empire including Canada New Zealand Australia and a certain Mohandas Gandhi who served with the Indian ambulance Corps at the Battle of spionkop Roberts began to reorganize the Army including transport to free it from Railways and new tactics to counter boor Firepower the British launched a new offensive on February 10 1900. 50 000 men Advanced on Kimberly and British Cavalry caught the boers off guard by bursting through their Siege lines and threatening their line of retreat a British officer described how the action evolved the Enterprise appeared to us at first as quite hopeless we believed only a few of us could come out of it alive and had we made a similar attack in training we should certainly have all been put out of action and have been looked upon as idiots when we galloped about a quarter of a mile we received a very hot frontal and flanking fire and I looked along the ranks expecting to see the men falling in masses but I saw no one come down although the rifle fire was crackling all around us the feeling was wonderfully exciting just as in a good run to House the boars lifted The Siege and tried to withdraw but with wagons and artillery and Tow they couldn't outrun the British so the boars unwisely dug in at pardeber which allowed Imperial troops to surround them after a 10-day Siege four thousand boar Fighters surrendered on February 27th was a crushing blow for such a small army meanwhile in Natal Buller continued his efforts to relieve Ladysmith the boers were able to repel British attacks at spionkop in January and fall Kranz in February but another British attack at the tegela Heights in late February broke the Boer defenses British artillery and infantry launched methodical step-by-step attacks that resembled the fighting of the first world war and Ladysmith was relieved on February 27th the poor Army was severely weakened and the British capitalized on their victories by invading Orange Free State and trans file they occupied bloomfontaine in March and Pretoria fell in June poor efforts to Halt the Relentless events were overwhelmed by British numbers and Firepower the last pitch Battle of the war took place at bergendal in transfal in late August 1900 as the boers struggled to hold their last defensive line after several days of fierce fighting the British cleared the position and it seemed that the war was over by September 1900 the British had occupied the Boer republics and Scattered their armies Lord Roberts proclaimed that the war had been won and returned home to England as a Conquering Hero but the boers refused to give in and Unleashed a guerrilla War in early 1900 the situation for the boers was rapidly changing some were commanders in particular Christian David argued that the boers should adopt Guerrilla war against Britain's numerical Advantage there had already been successful boar ambushes like the attack on an armored train carrying War correspondent Winston Churchill who made an observation that would play a crucial role in the next phase of the war nothing looks more formidable and impressive than an armored train but nothing is in fact more vulnerable and helpless it was only necessary to blow up a bridge or Culvert to leave the monster stranded far from home and help at the mercy of the enemy debate put his ideas into practice with a spectacular gorilla attack at Santa's post on March 31 1900. his Commandos ambushed an unsuspecting British column inflicting over 500 casualties and capturing seven artillery pieces for the loss of just eight men debate would continue his Guerrilla campaign with great success in 1900 ambushing isolated British columns and destroying the railway on which the British relied for supplies taking advantage of boar mobility and knowledge of the terrain debate could emerge from the countryside to strike without warning an easily eluded British attempts to pursue his Commandos following the defeat at the Battle of bergendal in August the remaining boar commanders decided that conventional Warfare was futile and also turned to Guerrilla War instead the boar campaign began in Earnest from October under the overall leadership of Louis Botha Commandos attacked British columns and Supply Depots but targeted The Rail lines most of all lines were frequently sabotaged and unguarded trains were hijacked during one such hijacking a surprised American businessman was robbed at gunpoint by poor Fighters one of them was Johannes stain the American was stunned and as he handed over his wealth he said but sir I thought that this war was over I replied you were misinformed this war is just beginning the British initially had no answer to Boer gorilla tactics the commando's speed and knowledge of the terrain made them too elusive for slower British columns to catch the British carried out great sweeps of the countryside looking for Commandos and placed faith in the so-called prisoner count of boers that they'd captured in reality most of the prisoners were just Farmers or Drifters seized by a passing British column rather than actual boar Fighters frustrated by continued bore resistance and their inability to counter it the British responded with brutality in mid-1900 Lord Roberts ordered the destruction of farms thought to be supporting boar Gorillas with food or ammunition his successor Lord Kitchener took this measure much further from December 1900 on British troops were to burn all poor owned Farms regardless of whether they supported the gorillas or not this Relentless scorched Earth campaign destroyed thousands of boar farms and made about 150 000 civilians homeless Kitchener also introduced the Blockhouse system to limit Bohr Mobility block houses were small easily constructed pill boxes manned by eight Soldiers the British built 8 000 block houses along Rail lines and opposite River Crossings each Blockhouse was linked to its neighbors with wire obstacles creating a permanent defended barrier which greatly hindered Bohr movement as with all Guerrilla Wars the fighting was prolonged and brutal and both sides inflicted cruelty on the civilian population bore Commandos plundered African villages and pro-british farms for supplies and the British burned down boar Farms combat between poor gorillas and British columns usually took the form of ambushes and was often close ranged and exceptionally violent the boers looted dead or captured British soldiers for equipment and the British responded by summarily executing any poor fighter found to be using British gear kitchener's Relentless scorched Earth policy created thousands of Boer refugees and their treatment by the British would lead to the creation of concentration camps the British had first considered a refugee camp system for displaced boers in May 1900 and set up several ad hoc camps Kitchener made the system official in December 1900 as his scorched Earth policy created thousands of additional refugees and the Concentration Camp system was born the British initially intended the camps as Refugee centers that provided accommodation food and medical care but problems with the system soon emerged the camps were short of Staff since the Army argued that they were a civilian issue and refused to provide officers while civilian authorities felt that they were a low priority and struggled to find suitable administrative and medical personnel as a result many of the camps were badly organized under-resourced and poorly run to worsen the situation many camps were constructed in locations without adequate sanitation but the most critical problem was chronic overcrowding there were some 44 000 boar civilians in the camps by March 1901 but this had risen to 110 000 by December of the same year these conditions led to terrible outbreaks of disease like measles and diphtheria which killed many boars including children was seven years old at the time the camp was lice infested my aunt had to cut all my hair off thousands of newcomers arrived at the camp hudrids became sick the Marquee Hospital tents were always full the doctors worked day and night people died like rats carts came down the rows of tents to pick up the Dead there were funerals every day [Music] the shocking state of the concentration camps was exposed by British Aid worker Emily hobhouse in May 1901. her damning report caused worldwide outrage against Britain it presses hardest on the children they droop in the terrible heat and with insufficient unsuitable food whatever you do whatever the authorities do and they are I believe doing their best with very limited means it is all only a miserable patch on a great ill the British government appointed suffragette Millicent faucet to lead an official investigation her report confirmed hobhouse's findings and recommended major reforms from November 1901 onwards the camps came under formal civilian control and conditions steadily improved by the end of the war in May 1902 the monthly mortality rate in the camps was lower than that of the pre-war bore republics but these British measures came too late for tens of thousands of poor civilians the British also created a parallel Camp system for black civilians these camps were intended to be self-sufficient and had even fewer resources than the camps for the boers Hub house never had a chance to visit these camps and the faucet commission ignored them entirely all told about 27 000 boar civilians died of whom 22 000 were children under the age of 16. at least 25 000 black civilians also died in camps bringing the death toll to a minimum of 52 000. the brutal Guerrilla War took a terrible toll on South Africa both sides had suffered thousands of military casualties large parts of the country had been destroyed and over one hundred thousand civilians were interned in camps in 1902 it finally came to an end by early 1902 the remaining boar Fighters were exhausted British scorched Earth tactics denied them supplies and the Blockhouse system limited their movement the Commandos were also struggling to accommodate some ten thousand poor civilians who were Sheltering in the wilderness to avoid falling into British hands these civilians lacked food shelter and medical supplies and suffered so badly that in some cases boar Fighters took them to the gates of concentration camps and left them for the British to take them in board Commandos calculated that there was no longer any Prospect of Victory and continued fighting would only prolong the suffering of the poor population it had indeed been a bloody struggle the British army suffered over 100 000 casualties including 22 000 dead and poor military losses are estimated to be about 30 000 with 9 000 dead faced with this Grim reality the Poor's open negotiations with the British which led to the peace in May 1902 the boers would surrender but be granted amnesty the British promised to protect the Dutch language the poor republics were absorbed into the Empire but would get self-government in due course and the discussion of black African voting rights would be delayed until self-government the second Boer War shocked Britain which reformed its Army and soon found new allies in Japan France and Russia it was also a baptism of fire for many officers that would later play an important role during the first World War the conflict foreshadowed many of the horrors of the 20th century battlefields and was a dark premonition of modern warfare's Horrors for civilians we'd like to thank Spencer Jones the author of the book from Boer War to World War for his help with this episode and we'd like to thank Tanya for helping me wrestle with Afrikaans pronunciation as usual you can find all our sources for this episode in the video description I'm Jesse Alexander and this is the Great War a production of real-time history and the only YouTube History Channel that still thinks armored trains are really cool even if Winston Churchill disagrees thank you foreign foreign

Channel: The Great War

Views: 834,419

Keywords: History, World War 1, WW1, First World War, Documentary, Documentary Series, The Great War, Indy Neidell, 1919, Interwar Period, 1920s, Educational, Russian Civil War, Revolution, Interbelum

Id: exVno170qhU

Length: 28min 28sec (1708 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 17 2023