The Boer War was fought across the length and breadth of modern-day South Africa. It started as a conventional fight but degenerated into a protracted guerilla war that cost the British people 230 million pounds, approximately 27 billion pounds in today’s money. But the war left another legacy in South Africa – a legacy of concentration camps that left tens of thousands of women and children dead. It was a modern war – a war of trenches and machine guns. It was a war that wiped two nations off the face of the planet and almost destroyed the Boer people as a distinct nation. The British thought the war would be a walk in the park. What they got was a promenade through hell. This is the story.
Download episode 36 here: Boer War Download
Maps and Pictures:
References:
The Boer War by Thomas Pakenham
The Afrikaners: Biography of a People by Hermann Giliomee
Scorched Earth by Fransjohan Pretorius
The Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation by Donald Morris
God Does Not Forget by Deneys Reitz
A History of South Africa by Frank Welsh
A History of South Africa by Leonard Thompson
The Boer War 1899-1902 by Gregory Fremont-Barnes
A Military History of South Africa by Timothy Stapelton
Letters from Kimberley: Eyewitness Accounts from the South African War by Edward Spiers
Letters from Ladysmith: Eyewitness Accounts from the South African War by Edward Spiers
The Cambridge History of South Africa by Robert Ross et al.
De La Rey – Lion of the West by Johannes Meintjes
General Louis Botha: A Biography by Johannes Meintjes
President Steyn: A Biography by Johannes Meintjes
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