Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill

This paper analyzes the materials of Winston Churchill of the first third of the XX century, dedicated to his participation in asymmetric military conflicts on the periphery of the British colonial empire. First, it allows us to consider the concept of asymmetric conflict in relation to the British army at the turn of the century and after the First World War. Secondly it allows us to analyze methods, forms and ways of waging war in the conditions of unequal power capabilities, which help to get to know the way of the colonial margins, which was formed by the British in the context of ongoing conflicts. The paper traces a clear chronology in accordance with the works of Winston Churchill: the Cuban War of Independence, the uprising of the Pashtun tribes in Malakand, the Mahdist uprising in Sudan, the second Anglo-Boer War, and the Irish War of Independence. Winston Churchill served in the British Army personally, at the same time he served as a war correspondent covering military events from the front line. Only the Irish War of Independence is knocked out of the chain of events. It was an asymmetric military conflict, perceived by W. Churchill from a completely different perspective: through the prism of political experience and from the height of his position of a Minister of Colonies. In the paper we conclude that the colonial era is the basis for the formation of the theoretical component of the asymmetric conflict concept.

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Back to Churchill: an old vision for prisoner reintegration

Policy Quarterly ◽

10.26686/pq.v5i2.4289 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Kim Workman

Keyword(s):

Prison System ◽

The State ◽

Prison Reform ◽

First Principle ◽

Boer War ◽

Crime And Punishment ◽

Winston Churchill ◽

Prisoner Reintegration

During his brief reign as Liberal home secretary in 1910, Winston Churchill embarked upon an ambitious reform of the English prison system. His first principle of prison reform was ‘to prevent as many people as possible getting there at all’. He believed that there should be a just proportion between crime and punishment, and that even convicted criminals had rights against the state. Underlying Churchill’s prison reforms was a real understanding of the nature of imprisonment from the perspective of the prisoner, which drew from his having been a prisoner during the Boer War.

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The journalist's right to information in time of war and on dangerous missions

Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law ◽

10.1017/s1389135900001380 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 6 ◽

pp. 366-388

Author(s):

Hans-Peter Gasser

Keyword(s):

World Literature ◽

Armed Forces ◽

The United States ◽

Boer War ◽

Winston Churchill ◽

Epic Poem ◽

The World ◽

Indian Epic ◽

Information And Communication ◽

Right To Information

It is commonplace to say that we live in an age of instantaneous information and communication. During the occupation of Iraq by the United States and its allies, pictures taken in the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and showing members of the US Armed Forces and Iraqi detainees in disgraceful circumstances could be seen within minutes all over the world. The message carried by those pictures changed the discourse on the Iraq war of 2003–2004.We have become used to instant information through real-time reporting on events occurring in the various corners of the world. This flow of news is taken for granted, and we expect our favourite radio or TV station to deliver the latest news at every moment of the day. Seeing pictures taken inside a well-guarded prison in a war a few thousand kilometres away is no longer a surprise.Wars have always attracted writers eager to report on what happens when men fight against men. Some of these reports have become immortal works of world literature. Some may even have influenced the course of history. Only a few memorable examples are Homer's epic poem on the fall of Troy, Julius Caesar'sDe bello gallicoor the Indian epicMahabharata. On a different level, who knows that Winston Churchill, at the age of 25, was a war correspondent reporting from the Boer War in 1899?An accidental war correspondent deserves to be mentioned here, Henry Dunant, who happened to witness the aftermath of a particularly murderous battle, the Battle of Solferino in northern Italy in 1859.

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Humanitarianism, Human Rights and Biopolitics in the British Empire, 1890–1902

Britain and the World ◽

10.3366/brw.2016.0216 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 96-115 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Anna Clark

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Nineteenth Century ◽

Human Rights ◽

British Empire ◽

Concentration Camps ◽

Boer War ◽

Personal Rights

The 1890s were a key time for debates about imperial humanitarianism and human rights in India and South Africa. This article first argues that claims of humanitarianism can be understood as biopolitics when they involved the management and disciplining of populations. This article examines the historiography that analyses British efforts to contain the Bombay plague in 1897 and the Boer War concentration camps as forms of discipline extending control over colonized subjects. Secondly, human rights language could be used to oppose biopolitical management. While scholars have criticized liberal human rights language for its universalism, this article argues that nineteenth-century liberals did not believe that rights were universal; they had to be earned. It was radical activists who drew on notions of universal rights to oppose imperial intervention and criticize the camps in India and South Africa. These activists included two groups: the Personal Rights Association and the Humanitarian League; and the individuals Josephine Butler, Sol Plaatje, Narayan Meghaji Lokhande, and Bal Gandadhar Tilak. However, these critics also debated amongst themselves how far human rights should extend.

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