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.

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.

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.

The South African War as humanitarian crisis

2015 ◽  
Vol 97 (900) ◽  
pp. 999-1028 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth van Heyningen
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Geneva Convention ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Guerrilla Warfare ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
The South ◽  
Black And White ◽  
South African War ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
International Morality

AbstractAlthough the South African War was a colonial war, it aroused great interest abroad as a test of international morality. Both the Boer republics were signatories to the Geneva Convention of 1864, as was Britain, but the resources of these small countries were limited, for their populations were small and, before the discovery of gold in 1884, government revenues were trifling. It was some time before they could put even the most rudimentary organization in place. In Europe, public support from pro-Boers enabled National Red Cross Societies from such countries as the Netherlands, France, Germany, Russia and Belgium to send ambulances and medical aid to the Boers. The British military spurned such aid, but the tide of public opinion and the hospitals that the aid provided laid the foundations for similar voluntary aid in the First World War. Until the fall of Pretoria in June 1900, the war had taken the conventional course of pitched battles and sieges. Although the capitals of both the Boer republics had fallen to the British by June 1900, the Boer leaders decided to continue the conflict. The Boer military system, based on locally recruited, compulsory commando service, was ideally suited to guerrilla warfare, and it was another two years before the Boers finally surrendered. During this period of conflict, about 30,000 farms were burnt and the country was reduced to a wasteland. Women and children, black and white, were installed in camps which were initially ill-conceived and badly managed, giving rise to high mortality, especially of the children. As the scandal of the camps became known, European humanitarian aid shifted to the provision of comforts for women and children. While the more formal aid organizations, initiated by men, preferred to raise funds for post-war reconstruction, charitable relief for the camps was often provided by informal women's organizations. These ranged from church groups to personal friends of the Boers, to women who wished to be associated with the work of their menfolk.

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.

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