Frameworks

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas E. Delaney
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Second Line ◽  
British Army ◽  
The South ◽  
General Staff ◽  
South African War ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
The Military ◽  
Voluntary Basis

Chapter 1 explains the early efforts to fix military problems that had been exposed during the South African War (1899–1902) and make the armies of Britain, India, and the dominions compatible. It traces the deficiencies identified by the Elgin commission (1903), the recommendations advanced by the Esher committee for War Office reconfiguration (1904), and the military reforms of Secretary of State for War Richard Haldane to implement Esher’s recommendations, create an expeditionary force for continental warfare, and establish a Territorial Force for home defence duties and, potentially, second-line expeditionary contingents. The British Army, which was perennially short of manpower and operating on a voluntary basis for enlistments, could not afford to ignore potential contributions from overseas. The chapter also explains how Haldane managed to sell the dominions on military standardization and a general staff for the empire.

scholarly journals ‘We are having a very enjoyable game’: Britain, sport and the South African War, 1899–1902

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Donaldson
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Military Personnel ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
The South ◽  
South African War ◽  
The Military ◽  
War Stories ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Military Tradition

This article explores the relationship between sport and war in Britain during the South African War, 1899–1902. Through extensive press coverage, as well as a spate of memoirs and novels, the British public was fed a regular diet of war stories and reportage in which athletic endeavour and organized games featured prominently. This contemporary literary material sheds light on the role sport was perceived to have played in the lives and work of the military personnel deployed in South Africa. It also, however, reveals a growing unease over an amateur-military tradition which equated sporting achievement with military prowess.

St. John Brodrick and Army Reform, 1901–1903

1976 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lowell J. Satre
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
The Political ◽  
The South ◽  
General Staff ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
The Public ◽  
South African War ◽  
The Government

Edwardian England has become an increasingly significant period for scholarly research. One of the more carefully examined subjects is the interrelationship between politics and army reform. The debacles of the South African War forced the governments to examine England's army, and reforms emerged after 1901. Historians have concentrated on the efforts of Balfour's administration of 1902-05 and Haldane's sojourn at the War Office from 1906 to 1912; these periods witnessed the emergence of the Committee of Imperial Defence and the reorganization of the War Office, the shaping of the General Staff and the development of the British Expeditionary Force. All of these have been subjected to detailed examination — notably, the C. I. D. in recent works by Peter Fraser and Nicholas d'Ombrain, and the War Office by W. S. Hamer.There is, however, at least one gap in the historical literature on politics and army reform: St. John Brodrick's term as Secretary of State for War, 1901-03. An understanding of Brodrick's activities is necessary, since he was, of course, the first War Secretary to attempt reforms as a response to the obvious shortcomings of the army in the South African War. A careful examination will explain why he failed in many of his programs, the political consequences of these failures, and some of his more positive contributions.The breakdown of the British army in the first few months of the South African War, which began in October 1899 and ended in May 1902, shocked and dismayed both the public and the Government.

From Neutrality to Collaboration

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Boje
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
British Army ◽  
The South ◽  
Opting Out ◽  
South African War ◽  
Essential Unity ◽  
The Many ◽  
Economic Considerations ◽  
Intelligence Service

This chapter examines how the Boers went from neutrality to collaboration with the British during the South African War. It considers the many gradations in the process of alienation from the national cause as well as the essential unity of the phenomenon. Before discussing gradations of culpability, the chapter looks at some general issues relating to economic considerations, pan-republican nationalism, and level of commitment that underlay the phenomenon of collaboration in all its forms. It then describes manifestations of Boer disloyalty: evading combat, opting out of the war, the “objective collaboration” of working with the new authorities, participation in the peace movement, providing intelligence, service with the British Army, and service under arms.

From observations in field surgery

1903 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 151-151
Author(s):  
O. M. Golbek
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
The South ◽  
Military Hospitals ◽  
South African War ◽  
The Military

The author cites a number of observations on military field surgery carried out by the chiefs of the military hospitals of the Red Cross Society in Volksrust-Transvaal and Watervalboven during the South African war from February to August 1900.

Officers, Gentlemen and Thieves: The Looting of Monasteries during the 1903/4 Younghusband Mission to Tibet

2003 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Carrington
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
The South ◽  
Military Action ◽  
South African War ◽  
Systematic Scheme ◽  
The Military

During the early years of British conquest in India [and elsewhere] indiscriminate and frenzied looting often followed military action. Certainly, the acquisition of plunder had always been used as an incentive for the troops, though its distribution was often disproportionate and the source of much discontent. Officially appointed prize agents ought to have lessened any animosity, though like the Admiralty Prize Courts which were a ‘public scandal’, the military agents were mostly thought to be ‘sharks’ and men often went collecting for themselves rather than for the ‘official’ pot. By the latter half of the nineteenth century, collection of plunder had also become the ‘collecting’ of curios and artefacts for both personal and institutional reasons. This material had become increasingly important in the process of ‘othering’ Oriental and African societies and was exemplified in the professionalism of exploration and the growth of ethnographic departments in museums, the new ‘temples of Empire’. The gathering of information may have reached new heights but the British attempt at a monopoly on knowledge was not particularly ordered or controlled and events within the Empire offered the world's press numerous opportunities for criticism. Nearer home, reports of looting often became ammunition in the hands of liberal critics of Empire who had their cause strengthened after the disastrous events of the South African War with its burning, looting and removal of non-combatants to concentration camps. So looting may have become morally questionable, but it was institutionalized and symptomatic of the British imperial state's desire for artefacts with which to provide information about ‘exotic’ societies. There was literally a ‘scramble’ for information out of which, it was hoped, an ordered and systematic scheme of knowledge would realize the dream of an ‘imperial archive’ in which fantasy became reality and ultimate knowledge became ultimate power.

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