Author Topic: The boer war... (Read 1666 times)

lazs2 · « **Reply #30 on:** January 09, 2006, 08:39:25 AM »

Star... sorry.. It was the 450 martini henry of about the same power as our 45-70.

Curval... The brits had slaughtered the blacks there by the thousands... The Boer were slave holders and didn't treat blacks any better than the brits did but... the war had nothing to do with slaves... it had to do with gold.

I admired the way they fought off the brits and the way that they fought.

I don't doubt that NZ or aussie troops are good but the boer won the first war with the biggest military might the first time and fought em to a standstill for 3 years the second. What country did austrailia or NZ fight?

lazs

Curval · « **Reply #31 on:** January 09, 2006, 08:54:35 AM »

I never said anything about slaves.

Vulcan · « **Reply #32 on:** January 09, 2006, 12:29:01 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by lazs2
What country did austrailia or NZ fight?

lazs

The aussies beat the world, and NZ beat the aussies. Thats all that matters.

-tronski- · « **Reply #33 on:** January 09, 2006, 10:01:47 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Vulcan
The aussies beat the world, and NZ beat the aussies. Thats all that matters.

lol

Quote

Originally posted by lazs2
I don't doubt that NZ or aussie troops are good but the boer won the first war with the biggest military might the first time and fought em to a standstill for 3 years the second. What country did austrailia or NZ fight?

lazs

Don't forget Lazs, the British didn't exactly park their whole army in the Transvaal, and when they did build up strength the Boers reverted to purely guerilla tactics...

As for us, there were no purely Australian formations. The units sent to south africa before and after federation were intergrated into British units. However it is a recognised fact that Australian mounted infantry were easily the equal of the Boers ie. Slingersfontein where 20 West Australian troopers held off an attack by a Boer commando 400 strong or the siege of Eland River.

Just as the dominions provided the finest soldiers for the British Empire for the later 2 world wars.

Trosnky

Ack-Ack · « **Reply #34 on:** January 09, 2006, 11:03:09 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by BUG_EAF322
Guys Boer means farmer
south african language looks very similar to the dutch.

IIRC, most of the Boers were of Dutch ancestry.

ack-ack

Ack-Ack · « **Reply #35 on:** January 09, 2006, 11:03:56 PM »

The Boer War also introduced "concentration camps" to the world.

ack-ack

Thrawn · « **Reply #36 on:** January 10, 2006, 12:25:49 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Ack-Ack
The Boer War also introduced "concentration camps" to the world.

ack-ack

What's a "reserve" that aboriginals were forced to live on, vis a vis Canada, Oz and the US history?

-tronski- · « **Reply #37 on:** January 10, 2006, 02:58:37 AM »

In a strict sense Aboriginals weren't moved into reservations, however the idea of 'Terra Nullius' mean't the govt. and white settlement could take possesion of any land and move the inhabitants off, but the aboriginals weren't all moved into specially reserved areas.

Tronsky

Momus-- · « **Reply #38 on:** January 10, 2006, 03:28:54 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Ack-Ack
The Boer War also introduced "concentration camps" to the world.
ack-ack

The USA used such camps in the Philippines around the same time as the Second Boer War. Spain used them even earlier in Cuba.

Nashwan · « **Reply #39 on:** January 10, 2006, 03:31:16 AM »

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The Boer War also introduced "concentration camps" to the world.

The Spanish used a similar system in Cuba a few years earlier, and the US used a similar system in the Phillipines at the same time. As Thrawn points out, such camps had been used against aboriginal populations a lot earlier (for example, American Indians)

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Don't forget Lazs, the British didn't exactly park their whole army in the Transvaal,

Yes, I believe the Boers had about a 4 to 1 advantage in soldiers in the first Boer war, and in the second they carried out guerrila attacks, because they couldn't win major battles.

In the end, of course, they lost the guerilla campaign as well.

Quote

The brits exploited the Boer love of family by rounding up the Boer women and children and putting em into concentration camps to starve and die of disease and the elements.

It was actually the end of the concentration camp policy that defeated the Boers.

The camps had been set up to house Boer families who had had their farms destroyed, either in fighting or to prevent them supplying the guerillas. In late 1901 Kitchener ordered no more Boer families to be brought in, unless they were starving, and the Boer guerillas had to look after their civilians. By the Boer congress of March 1902 they were complaining that the British were turning their families away from the camps.

lazs2 · « **Reply #40 on:** January 10, 2006, 08:32:01 AM »

The Boer outnumbered the brits 4/1 in the first Boer war? that is interesting... Maybe...If you count every farmer as a soldier but every single battle the brits enjoyed a numeric advantage or were fairly equal...

In the second Boer war, most of the early major battles the brits enjoyed superior numbers and took heavier casualties.. The brits assembled the greatest army they had ever assembeled since the napoleonic wars to fight the Boer and they did pretty badly.... If for instance... the Americans had lost so many men for casualties inflicted in either the vietnam war or the Iraq war we would be a laughing stock. People in england were stunned at the early loses by british troops. The war that on paper should have lasted a few weeks, drug on for 3 years.

The concentration camps were probly the first to consist of nothing but women and children civilians and the death rate was very high.. The brits didn't waste much resources on caring for Boer families... they let em die behind the wire.

The brits had caused the war in order to take away the gold of the free Boer states. The Boers were the ones on the high moral ground in that war.

lazs

Curval · « **Reply #41 on:** January 10, 2006, 08:50:36 AM »

In those wars there was no high moral ground. The Boers were constantly fighting each other, but when it came to:
1. The British

and in particular

2. The Africans

they put aside any differences they had and fought like heck.

Did the gold to which you refer belong to the Boers in some way? Other than by stealing it from the Africans, of course.

They were as bad as the Brits in every respect in this matter.

Suave · « **Reply #42 on:** January 10, 2006, 08:55:01 AM »

Somebody pinpoint just where the egotistical nationalistic chest thumping contimated this otherwise good thread. I want to know who the brittle tempered schmuck was.

lazs2 · « **Reply #43 on:** January 10, 2006, 08:59:23 AM »

I don't know... what I got out of it was an admiration for the courage of the Boer free state to stand up to the largest military force in history.... allthough they really had no choice.. They also had no help and had allready seen how people the brits disarmed were treated.

In the same place... I would have done the same thing as the Boer.

I think that another thing that came out was that brits did a lot better against unarmed people and or spear chucking ones than against....

farmers with modern weapons.

I also got that when brits want you to disarm it is useually the first step toward bad things happening to your country.

lazs

Curval · « **Reply #44 on:** January 10, 2006, 09:16:48 AM »

lazs...if you REALLY want to be amazed by members of a "free state" fighting against unimaginable odds read up on the Ethiopian Wars in the late 1930s. The Ethiopians fought the Italians with little more than spears and bows...and still won.

Perhaps you won't feel that you have anything in common with the Ethiopians in the same way you do with the Boers though....for some reason. lol