Who Captured Winston Churchill During The Boer War?

when the second war war broke out on the 11th of october 1899 a young journalist eagerly set off to cover the story his name winston churchill this is the story of how he ended up captured by the boers and the daring escape which then propelled him into a political career that would last for over 60 years and culminate in him leading britain and the free world during world war ii but it also tells another story an almost forgotten story of the foreigners who fought on behalf of the boer republics of some larger than life characters and how one of them claimed to have crossed swords with churchill himself winston churchill a former cavalry officer had already seen action in four conflicts on three continents written three books and had run unsuccessfully for parliament which is not bad seeing as he was just 24 years old with an eye for being in the headlines he'd earned the nickname pushful the younger and he'd used his family contacts to join the british army campaign in sudan the previous year much to the consternation of the commander-in-chief general kitchener kitchener like many others at the time and indeed afterwards distrusted winston churchill's seemingly constant desire to be in the limelight and to write articles for the press criticizing his senior officers who he was serving in action and kitchener was not to be disappointed as churchill having participated in one of the last great cavalry charges in british history at the battle of onderman then cashed in on his experiences and criticized kitchener's tactics in his best-selling book the river war in 1899 churchill had finally left the army to pursue both a more lucrative career in journalism and to begin his political career fighting and losing a by-election in the lancashire seat of oldham with storm clouds gathering in south africa the morning post newspaper engaged the ambitious young man as their journalist to cover the forthcoming boer war and it was a pretty good number for churchill too with a promise of 250 pounds per month for a four-month contract he would earn twice his yearly salary that he was getting back in the army just three days after the war had started he'd embarked on the passenger ship the donator castle on route for south africa also on the passenger ship was the new commander of the massive british army heading towards south africa the veteran general sir edvars bulla and also accompanying the morning post editor was his valet and 18 bottles of scotch whiskey well it's churchill after all by the time the donator castle had docked in cape town on the 31st of october churchill and bula had received the news that the opening phase of the war was not going britain's way with the boers having invaded the british colonies and were laying siege to the garrisons at mafiking kimberley and ladysmith both as a journalist as a man who thrived on the adrenaline of battle churchill set off at the front line in the natal colony at 6 a.m on the 15th of november just two weeks after arriving in cape town he boarded an armored train which was heading off on a reconnaissance mission towards the ball positions blocking that british relief of lady smith apart from the journalist churchill and the civilian driver and some railway plate layers there are about 120 men from the dublin fusiliers aboard under the command of captain haldane having passed through the station at chivalee in natal they came under fire from the boers on the nearby hillside and as artillery joined the rifle fire the train driver reversed its speed back down the line towards safety which was just what the boers were hoping for as the train raced around a bend the leading wagon hit a boulder that the boers had placed on the track the first two wagons were derailed blocking the line the british armored train was trapped at this moment churchill seems to have forgotten his role as a civilian journalist and having liaised with captain haldane raced down the track to the engine where the injured driver was all for giving up somehow churchill convinced him to attempt to shunt the stricken wagons off the track and after nearly an hour the locomotive finally cleared the track having piled wounded soldiers onto the engine churchill and haldane organized the rest of the dublin fusiliers to try and walk alongside the engine using it as cover as they retreated back to safety but with safety beckoning and the wine of ball bullets whizzing far too close for comfort the driver of the engine increased speed leaving those soldiers behind the boers were now descending from the hills and churchill ran after the train to slow it down but he couldn't close the distance returning back to the stranded infantry he turned a corner to see two civilians on the track who he presumed with some of the civilian plate layers it was only when they opened fire with their rifles on him he realized they weren't civilians they were bore fighters turning tail he ran in the direction of the train but suddenly found himself facing a mounted boar just 40 yards away the boar aimed his rifle straight at the future british prime minister churchill decided to chance his luck and reached for the miles of pistol that he had been carrying an interesting fashion accessory by the way for a civilian journalist and he found that he'd lost it whilst he'd been directing the train escape taking the maxim from napoleon that uh when one is alone and unarmed surrender may be pardoned he raised his hands as he trudged towards captivity churchill realized that he had two clips of ammunition on him moreover it was soft nose ammunition otherwise known as dum-dum bullets whose purpose was to expand on impact causing horrendous injuries their use had now been banned by an international treaty at the hague convention earlier in 1899 a ban that had been opposed by both the americans and the british interestingly in the very first action of the boer war boar commander cousteau ray had captured a british train on route to mafiking and claimed that some of the ammunition on that train had included soft nose bullets and now civilian journalist churchill dressed in kartik khaki fatigues with an empty holster was in possession of soft nosed cartridges things could get very tricky indeed casually he tossed the first magazine into the grass but as he was in the process of getting rid of the second piece of incriminating evidence the boa demanded to know what was he was doing churchill casually replied that he had found it in the grass and the boa took the magazine off him and threw it away no more was said by his boar captor but remember this incident for later in our story and so young winston churchill had been captured by the boers but had he really been captured by the buzz keep up with me as i uncover a really intriguing story a few years later boy general louis bota who became the first prime minister of south africa was visiting london and was at a dinner one of the dinner guests was regaling the audience with a story about his capture by the boers during the war it was winston churchill motor suddenly interrupted don't you recognize me i was that man that captured you what a great coincidence the only problem is that this emission by boater was recorded by churchill in his book my early life which was published in 1930 and by then the talented boater was long dead so was it true what we do know is that boater was indeed in the vicinity at the time of the armored train incident indeed he had commanded the overall ambush so maybe he personally did capture churchill tall story but then history is full of sliding door moments isn't it but another even more colorful soldier also claimed to have captured churchill on that november morning and he wasn't even a boar it's worth remembering that the bull war was not simply a british versus bull republic entanglement that's the sort of black and white version of history that many of us are taught the british imperial effort brought in troops not just from great britain and ireland but canada new zealand australia rhodesia and even salon the war army of 88 000 men included over 6 000 afrikaners from the british cape colony who had more in common with their kin in the north than they had with queen victoria equally there were residents of the boar republics who were no fans of president kruger and were actually sympathetic to the british course as we're going to find out in a while so stay tuned the boers however also did gain international sympathy despite issuing an ultimatum to the british and then invading british territory many in the international community saw the bullers as victims of long-term british imperialism and aggression the european press railed against britain and gloated on her humiliations at the hands of the irregular ball forces but some boar sympathizers went even further traveling to south africa to fight against the british the hollander corps consisting of over 600 men from the netherlands and belgium including in their number the brother of the artist vincent van gogh a similar number of germans also made their way to fight for the boers some of whom were involved in the battle of spinkop the scandinavian corps were at the battle of marcus fontine 1 500 meters in front of the boer lines they bore the brunt of the attack by the highland brigade only seven of the 52 men in that unit survived and a monument at the battlefield translated reads they could not fold they could only fall the majority of the scandinavian corps surrendered along with general cronier after the battle of paderburg in 1900 generally the boers might have appreciated the support of these foreigners but they really embraced them and even more rarely allowed them any positions of command there were two foreigners who bucked that trend both rising to the rank of general in the boer armies george de ville bar moriel veteran of the franco-prussian wars and the french imperial wars in north africa commanded the legion of france during the boer war this unit numbering nearly 400 men fought at the battle of kalenso before suffering a defeat at the battle of boshoff where the french general himself was killed the other foreigner who rose to become a board general was russian adventurer soldier and journalist evgeny maximov this 50 year old had served in the russian army before resigning after an attempted suicide maximoff then fought with fellow orthodox christians in the serbian war of independence against the turks and the greco-turkish wars as well as alongside the orthodox abyssinians or ethiopians against the italian invasion in the 1895. he arrived in the transwall at the outbreak of the war professing to be a journalist but he only ever wrote one article before he did what he did best fighting maximoff was one of about 250 russians who fought on the buoy side during the war ultimately he was to die in the russia-japanese war of 1904.05 smaller numbers from other nationalities fought as well like the greeks and 300 americans mainly irish americans also fought for the boers hardly surprising based upon the history between britain and ireland some irish joined the boer cause before war even broke out twenty thousand irish men and women had marched through dublin in opposition to the potential conflict two irish brigades were raised principally from amongst the irish community who had already settled in the transvaal the first was led by john mcbride who would later be executed by the british for his part in the easter rising in 1916. the other was formed by irish australian arthur lynch as a british citizen whether he liked it or not lynch was convicted after the war of treason but he was pardoned and ironically he went on to support the british effort in world war one people see history as very black and white whereas actually it's far more complex that with so many nuances and twists and turns and the irish involvement in the boer war is a case in point whilst several hundred irishmen volunteered to fight for the boers other irish nationalists like sir roger casement who was also executed after the easter rising supported the british cause in this war due to the treatment of black africans by the boers and let's not forget that many many irishmen were fighting in the british army not least the irish brigade at the battle of kalenso and the men of the dublin fusiliers taken prisoner along with winston churchill which brings us back to exactly who captured the future british wartime prime minister despite the foreign units numbering about 3 000 men that was a tiny fraction of the 88 000 strong boer army it's even smaller when you consider that something like 34 000 foreigners fought in the international brigades during the spanish civil war anyway with the boer army in natal was the italian volunteer legion made up of about 200 members of the italian immigrant community from the transwall commanded by yet another soldier adventurer and author camilo ricciardi and ricciardi claimed that he personally had captured churchill ricciardi is another one of those colorful characters who seems to have been attracted to the excitement of the boer war born in alba in northern italy just nine years before churchill he rather like winston spent just a few years in the italian army also as a cavalry officer before seeking fame and fortune elsewhere his career included being a military advisor in thailand or siam as it was called then a mercenary fighting for the rebels in the spanish colony of the philippines and a war correspondent in china and then in the italian abyssinian campaign the same war in which maksimov had fought on the ethiopian side but in many respects his actual career details were murky he claimed to have been at the battle of adawa where the italians were defeated in abyssinia but no one seems to be able to confirm that by 1899 he was in south africa and with the italian volunteer legion was based in natal reporting into general louis boater subsequently he claimed that he had not only captured churchill but had turned a blind eye as churchill had discarded those incriminating soft nose bullets i said we'll come back to that churchill never mentioned any italians in his capture and was adamant that it was boater who had captured him the problem we have with this story is we have one larger than life britain who claimed he'd been captured by board general and future south african prime minister louis bota and a larger than life italian who seem to have a checkered history with lots of holes in it so who do you believe i'll let you decide but there is a third more boring story that churchill was captured by a boar it just wasn't louis bota many in south africa believe that the buu in question wasn't a general but commandant dolph de la rey in the 1950s the elderly boer war veteran dolph de la ray joined with fellow afrikaner and second world war flying ace sailor milan to form the torch commando opposing the nationalist party of df milan and its apartheid policies once again showing that history isn't quite as clear-cut as people sometimes try and try and make it out when they're toppling statues or whatever you know not all afrikaners supported apartheid any more than all british people supported the boer war emily hobhouse and david lloyd george come to mind but whoever pointed their rifle at him winston churchill was now a prisoner of the boers and what a prize the boers had a 24 year old ex-army officer and journalist was nothing of real note but churchill had pedigree he was a direct descendant of john churchill the first duke of marlborough and commander at one of britain's greatest land victories over the french the battle of blenheim indeed winston had been born in blenheim palace back in 1874. his father randolph churchill was the second son of the current duke and had pursued a glittering political career becoming chancellor of the exchequer and tipped as a future prime minister so by default winston churchill was a very valuable prisoner indeed and that's before we consider his less than civilian antics on the armoured train strangely enough despite his protest that he was merely a journalist's the boers were having none of that and they packed him off as a prisoner of war to a camp in the transvaal capital pretoria churchill was not best pleased to be cooped up in the state model school which had now been converted into a pow camp not only was he a prisoner but there were those 18 bottles of scotch with his valet back in natal but most importantly he'd been removed from the center of action and the paid writing opportunities that went with it so together with captain haldane who had also surrendered and lieutenant brocky he planned an escape interestingly brocky was actually a sergeant major masquerading as an officer so he could get better prison quarters on the 12th of december churchill scaled the wall behind the latrines and waited for his comrades to join him after waiting for about an hour he heard haldane telling him in latin that the boer centuries had got suspicious and they wouldn't be joining him now once again this is a recollection of churchill haldane insisted that churchill had basically gone ahead with the escape long before the appointed hour leaving him and brocky stranded again who you want to believe what was a fact was that churchill who had celebrated his 25th birthday in captivity was now on his own in the boer capital 300 miles from safety with no map no compass no food all of which with his other would-be escapees inside the prison whatever you think of churchill you have to admire his absolute self-belief that in this moment he believed the task ahead was still achievable news of churchill's escape spread quickly back in britain the newspapers seized upon it a small glimmer of good news after the three defeats in black week the boers on the other hand issued a reward of 25 pounds for winston churchill dead or alive making his way to a railway line he jumped on a call train and hoped it was heading east towards the neutral portuguese territory of mozambique it was indeed heading in the right direction but it stopped long before the border in the coal mining region of middleburg absolutely famished churchill jumped from the train and he saw a light in the distance he went to the house and he knocked on the door a man brandishing a revolver answered the door and asked him a question in afrikaans the game was up churchill blurted out his name in english thank god you've come here was the reply also in english it's the only house for 20 miles where you've not been handed over of all the houses in the transfile that churchill could have knocked on this own one was owned by a brit john howard manager of the local collary howard hit him down a mine shaft until the 19th of december when with the help of a local boar who was actually sympathetic to the british he was spirited onto a good train heading towards mozambique finally they crossed the border and arrived at lorenzo mark's modern-day maputo capital of mozambique and there he made his way to the british consulate and that very night he was on a steamer heading down the coast back to durban his arrival in durban was the first of many occasions when churchill would receive a hero's welcome in his life he now convinced general bulla to re-enlist him in the army the old general rather like kitchener in sudan was not convinced especially as churchill wanted to remain a war correspondent whilst being a serving officer as well eventually the morning post newspaper agreed to pay his salary and so bulla got an experienced officer at no cost whilst churchill got action and a handsome salary commissioned in the south african light horse he was present at the battle of spienkop and then he joined lord roberts in the british advance to the transworld capital of pretoria there in true adventure of fashion that yevgeny maximov or camilo ricciardi would have undoubtedly approved he rode up to the very pow camp where he had been held at the state model school and accepted the surrender of his former guards by july 1900 just nine months after starting out on his adventure churchill was returning to britain on board the very donator castle that had brought him to south africa in the first place and he returned to britain as a celebrity and a hero and in the general election in october of that year he was elected to parliament for the constituency of oldham in lancashire and thus begun a parliamentary career that would last until 1964. not only does this story throw up the boy's own adventures of winston churchill and let's face it there aren't many british prime ministers who have actually been fired at fought in battles been prisoners of war and had a price on their head dead or alive but this story also shows how history is never clear-cut humans make history and that's history is as complicated confusing and inconsistent as human beings are finally this story just throws up some intriguing what ifs what if winston churchill had managed to catch up the train as it sped away from the boar ambush or he'd acted more like a civilian journalist and not an ex-soldier and the boys just released him when they'd captured him would he have become a celebrity who could win a parliamentary seat at the age of 25 and propel a career that then took off or what if he'd been killed either as it escaped from pretoria or in that ambush whether it's by louis beauter dorf de la ray camilo ricciardi or someone on some other unknown boar fighter how history could have been very different but of course that didn't happen before the boer war he'd written to his mother these words i have faith in my star that i'm intended to do something in the world and you certainly did well thank you for watching and i hope you enjoyed that story about winston churchill and the buzz as well as finding out a little bit more about those foreigners who fought against britain in the boer war who captured winston churchill really lots more videos coming your way so don't forget to subscribe to my channel below and in the meantime keep well and i'll see you very soon you

Channel: The History Chap

Views: 65,513

Keywords: british history, the history chap, military history, winston churchill and the boers, winston churchill prisoner boer war, winston churchill prisoner of the boers, winston churchill and the boer war, winston churchill boer war escape, winston churchill captured boer war, winston churchill boer war, winston churchill, boer war, louis botha, prime minister, scandanavian corps boer war, yevgeny maximov boer war, camillo ricchiardi, camillo ricchiardi boer war

Id: gVsLmEigteM

Length: 24min 26sec (1466 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 01 2022