Boer PODs

Yes they did, in this case around 1910-1930 or so, rewriting history to make the camps something different.

The evidence in this case is exactly what I presented. The non-evidence backed lying revisionist in this case is the one pushed the extermination camp story.

What the fuck? Who said anything about extermination camps except me? Are you now saying that Nazi extermination camps are a lie?
 
Although that’s more of a consequence of the Diamonds and Gold rather than a northern rail line isn’t it?

That's partly the case, but in terms of political power, the ability to set rail rates, set economic policy, and collect customs fees is what's really important. Most of the capital used in the diamond mines didn't come from the Boer states, but since they had their own rail line, the customs and rail fees all went to the Transvaal. Previously, everything went through the Cape. Even acquiring arms would be problematic without an outside link.
 

Cook

Banned
That's partly the case, but in terms of political power, the ability to set rail rates, set economic policy, and collect customs fees is what's really important. Most of the capital used in the diamond mines didn't come from the Boer states, but since they had their own rail line, the customs and rail fees all went to the Transvaal. Previously, everything went through the Cape. Even acquiring arms would be problematic without an outside link.

Which of course, it was.

Interesting point.
 

Cook

Banned
Yes and those who indeed did not survive, it was because of measle, not by any mistreatement, no no no absolutely not!


Boer families died of malnutrition disease and exposure because insufficient effort was taken by the British command to provide food, sanitation and shelter. And they were both “Gated” and fenced with barbed wire.

Why someone would try to defend an action even the now British Army regards as war crime I don’t know.


Well I think we’ve nailed the revisionist history, can we get on with the Alternate History now?
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Kitchener himself admitted after the war that he had issued verbal orders to shoot Boer Prisoners captured on the Veldt. This was confirmed by his ADC. This isn’t a point even disputed by historians.

It is not even discussed, he never issued such as order, denied issuing and had war criminals like Lt Morant shot for murdering prisoners. It is an article of faith of some Australians, despite the completeness of the contradictary evidence. Incidently, so Australian academia is overturning the 1980's nationalist myth and pointing out the British correctly executed a war criminal.

The direct consequences of this was the abolition of the death penalty in the Australian Army.

There was no "Australian Army", Lt Morant etc. were members of a British Army Regiment the "Bushveldt Carabiniers".

You are mistaken.

Boer families died of malnutrition disease and exposure because insufficient effort was taken by the British command to provide food, sanitation and shelter. And they were both “Gated” and fenced with barbed wire.

Food was plentiful in the camps, except when the Commandoes sieged them. Only prisoner of war camps were gated, not refugee camps. Several refugee camps had to be removed to the coast to stop the Boer military starving their own civilians, part of a deliberate attempt to stem desertion (which included burning the farms of any Boer that surrendered).

The typical modern Afrikaner nationalist account of a refugee camp is:
They deported all women & children to concentration camps, with only the clothes they had on them. No blankets, no food, no firewood. Boers were (are) expert survivalists and they could cure any injury / disease with traditional medicines made form plants, herbs etc. These medicines / plants were destroyed.

Now the South African highlands are at 1500 meters above sea level. Spend 2 nights in the open in winter and you’re guaranteed to get pneumonia. Spend 2 days in the open in summer and you’re guaranteed to get sunstroke. You need a thick tarpaulin (canvas) tent to protect you from extreme day/night temperatures. Britain destroyed all the Boer tents – concentration camps were made up of British tents made from linen cloth, practically useless against African weather elements.

Women who escaped were herded in the fields and shot with cannons.

In the camps they were literally starved to death. A mother and her children had to live for a week on the standard daily rations of one British soldier. When they got ill, the British doctors gave a bottle of British medicine to the mother, which she should give to the children. The children invariably died – after their death the mother was informed that the medicine was actually poison, and that she in fact poisoned her own children.

Today more than 100 years later there is in Boer culture still a well-known cradle song called “Siembamba” about a mother that unknowingly killed her own baby.

They were given “coffee” made from roasted & ground acorns instead of coffee beans. This killed many children within hours of drinking it.

The sugar they were given contained crushed glass. By the time you realise what you ate / drank it’s too late. The glass particles are heavy and sink to the bottom of the stomach, so chances of vomiting it out are slim. Movement of the stomach and intestines, or even natual movement of the upper body, makes them cut through the intestines. Intestine or stomach contents leak into the stomach cavity, and begins to rot there, causing a horrible, slow death.

Not one ounce of truth.

The camps were volunteery (and indeed, later in the war difficult to get into), well supplied and had, excepting the measles pandemic, a very low death rate. Do I have to cross the road and get AC Martin to bombard you with the actual numbers?

Why someone would try to defend an action even the now British Army regards as war crime I don’t know.

Really? When did this happen? It isn't in my copy of the Manual of Military Law.

A rationalisation that even the British didn’t try. Instead they suppressed the news of it.

Rationalisation? It was the fact, and there was no attempt to suppress the hardship in the "outlander camp", just look up the google news archive.

Or read http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2000/may/16/historybooks.books
 
I'm gonna ask for some citations again please

Why bother? This is the guy who believes that McClellan was the best general in the ACW, only he was constantly hampered by the evil and incompetent Abe Lincoln and McClellan's equally evil and incompetent sub-commanders, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of phantom Confederate soldiers that confounded McClellan at every turn contrary to what everyone else says.:rolleyes:

And now apparently he has his own interesting ideas about the Boer War and the British concentration camps in that war. So I ask again, why even bother?
 

Al-Buraq

Banned
Just to correct or confirm some of the points made here.
And don't ask me for citations, I am 6000 miles away from my personal library which includes many original copies of newspapers and mazines of the period and just about everything published on the Boer War in both English and Afrikaans.

1/. There were both refugee and concentration camps.
While the very first camps were indeed Refugee camps, the term Concentration Camp began to be used after mid 1901 when the intake began to swell to substantial numbers.
2/. The first Refugee camps were aimed at accomodating the Black population who had been uprooted from the Witwatersrand and the Transvaal/OFS countryside. When the 100% British owned goldmines closed at the start of the war, most Uitlanders caught the trains to Natal, hired Ox-wagons or rode out of town. The black workers were effectively told to just go away. Thousands just walked towards their homes hundreds of miles away in Natal, Zululand and the Eastern Cape. Many black ex-miners were roaming the veld, without food or shelter, being harried by the Boers, scrounging or stealing whatever they could to survive. How many died is anyone's guess, there was no registration or record. When the British began to take the war back to the Boers, they also encouraged (vigourously) black farmers and the black workers on Boer farms to enter the swelling camps by requisitioning their livestock and crops. These goods were paid for, but the black camp inmates then had to pay for food in the camps. The conditions in the black camps was reputedly worse than the white camps, but real records are scarce and the camps were studiously ignored by British campaigners, notably Emily Hobhouse. Local campaigners showed interest, not least the agencies that provided labour for the military war effort and mining companies who needed a pool of healthy labour for work and restoration of the mines.
3/. The first camps for white families were not just for women and children and were clearly refugee camps. Many Boers in the border areas were pro-British (or at least anti-Kruger),known as "the joiners" or "helpers" and were targeted by the Boer commandos. The camps were thus intended as temporary places of safety for entire families.
4/. One must remember that the Boers did not have an organised army as such. The "troops" were effectively many different local "possies" that combined together, disbanded and reformed repeatedly throughout the conflict. Some "soldiers" went home to sleep if they were near their own areas or just upped and left if there was work to do on the farm or they didn't like their commander much. This amateur status led to a peculiar view of warfare by the Boers. One view was that they were combatants only while "on Commando", so when they were back at home for a rest and a British patrol happened by they would deny being involved in the war and take offence at the suggestion that they should be moved to a place of safety. The British organised a system whereby Boers could sign a document promising not to fight the British and were allowed to stay on their farms. The problem is that this was widely abused and as soon as the British patrol was over the horizon, the Mauser came back out. Even when their families had been moved into the camps, many male Boers would "pop-in" to see them and then re-join their Commando. When the British found this out, the camps began to be partially secured, although they were never "lock-ups" as such. In fact one of the reasons for night-time security and control of movement in and out of the camps was to restrict the thriving business of the Boer ladies servicing the British troops nearby. A Victorian move designed to protect the morals of the troops, not the ladies.
4/.While the provision of food, fuel and medical facilities was deplorable it was clearly, as shown in contemporary records, a result of gross incompetence, not from any evil British plan. The Army was often supplied sub-standard food and supplies by crooked (often Afrikaans) traders and the rations issued to the internees were based on those allocated to British soldiers in the field. Quartermasters were also not unknown to make a couple of bob on the side. To see how badly the British troops themselves were fed, one should read the diaries of Denys Reitz who was horrified at the poor pickings he gained from raids of British supply columns. One might also note that 60% of Army recruits in Britain at this time were rejected as unfit due to dietry induced illnesses, including ricketts and even scurvy. The average height of a "Tommy" recruit was six inches less than an Officer recruit of the same age.
That some Boer families were on reduced rations is true inasmuch as those families who had menfolk who had joined the British Forces received an extra ration equivalent to the menfolk's issue, while those with menfolk on Commando did not.
5/.The Highveld climate is one of the healthiest in the world, as long as you don't come into contact with other people. Moving simple, rustic people with only a rudimentary knowledge of personal hygiene into a close-proximity camp was a guarantee of camp fever, dysentry and similar cases of the trots. Toilet paper was an unheard of luxury in Machadadorp in 1900 and the lysol and carbolic provided by the camp management was viewed with suspicion. Some old tannies believed that it was designed to poison them, indeed the discovery of bluestone (copper sulphate crystals) in food is held up to this day as a British attempt to poison the Boer civilians, whereas it was a standard method at the time of preventing mould in flour and grains.
The Boers were often classed as "dirty" and "unwashed" and "smelly" by english correspondents of the period. Manufactured, perfumed soap was still a rarity in the far-flung corners of the OFS and Transvaal. Boer housewives made their own from Aloes and animal fats which provided cleanliness but not neccessarily a nice perfume. While the camp authorities provided soap in the quantities suitable for a scummy British soldier from the slums of an industrial city (one bar a year?), there was never enough for a large family living in a hot climate. There was also a superstition among some Boer families that washing "weakened" sick children.
6/.The poster who mentioned that the Boers used "boiled human excrement" as a medicine is a bit confused. Kraalmis (or cow shit to you) was a standard maid-of-all-work on the veld. It was a building material, it was used (by African and European alike) as a floor covering for houses ( it comes up to a pretty shine) and in the terms of a medicine was used as a poultice (Victoran medicine was big on poultices), especially for fevers. This remedy seems to be cross-cultural, similar remedies existed in America, Ireland, the Scottish Highlands and in traditional cultures worldwide. Boer folk remedies were actually big on dung with different dungs for different ailments--jackel dung,for instance, was recommended for Diptheria! Goat dung was for infected cuts or wounds. Vulture dung was for prickly heat. ( The theory was that an animal ate "healing" herbs and the healing qualities would be concentrated in the shit!
There may be some confusion by the Human Poo poster about the liberal use of human urine as an antiseptic, a mouthwash, anti-irritant and a mosquito repellent by the Boers. Disgusting as it sounds, modern research shows that it actually had value.

7/. European Countries (and America) were well informed about the scandal of the camps. Boer supporters especially in Holland, France and Germany ran extensive propaganda campaigns complete with "atrocity" cartoons. They were successful in as much as they created substantial anti-British feeling.

8/.Yes, entry into the camps was voluntary in as much as Boer families were offered the choice of staying in the veld with no food or shelter or entering the camps. Towards the end of the war it was clear that the camps were actually a stupid idea and the authorities tried to start pushing the internees out. By effectively sheltering the boer families from a misguided altruism, the existence of the camps allowed the Boer Guerilla campaign to exist and probably prolonged the war by at least a year.

Many of the legends of the Boer concentration camps are just that-legends. Just as it is hard to find a Jewish person who did not have a relative in Auschwitz or a Frenchman who's grandad wasn't in the French resistance-there is not an Afrikaaner who didn't have a granny or great-granny who didn't die in the Boer camps. (One assumes that the "Helpers", "Joiners" and "Hendsoppers" didn't reproduce.)
The (real) injustices were jumped on by the Afrikaaner National Movement from 1908 onwards, exagerated, promoted and elevated to holy writ for political purposes--even today.

7/. Kitchener's "Shoot Order". The British Army does not issue "verbal orders", that just means in words. Orders are either written or are oral.
There were many incidences of Boers abusing the white flag, pretending to surrender and then opening fire and of false-flagging wearing British Army or British irregular uniforms. There was clearly a shoot-on-sight policy in such circumstances and, anyway, what soldier didn't take private revenge in any conflict?
8/. As mentioned, the Indian Army Munitions Depot in Dum-Dum provided a large amount of ammo, but not the manufactured expanding of the same name.Soldiers on both sides however would modify their own rounds to produce the same effect.
9/. The effect of the Breaker Morant case did indeed colour the attitude of Australian authorities to the death sentence for troops. In WW1 the vast majority of Commonwealth troops who went AWOL on the Western Front were Australians (not deserters, just blokes who ducked back from the front lines for a pint a sleep)--something no doubt connected to the fact they wouldn't face a firing squad.
 
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67th Tigers

Banned
6/.The poster who mentioned that the Boers used "boiled human excrement" as a medicine is a bit confused. Kraalmis (or cow shit to you) was a standard maid-of-all-work on the veld. It was a building material, it was used (by African and European alike) as a floor covering for houses ( it comes up to a pretty shine) and in the terms of a medicine was used as a poultice (Victoran medicine was big on poultices), especially for fevers. This remedy seems to be cross-cultural, similar remedies existed in America, Ireland, the Scottish Highlands and in traditional cultures worldwide. Boer folk remedies were actually big on dung with different dungs for different ailments--jackel dung,for instance, was recommended for Diptheria! Goat dung was for infected cuts or wounds. Vulture dung was for prickly heat. ( The theory was that an animal ate "healing" herbs and the healing qualities would be concentrated in the shit!
There may be some confusion by the Human Poo poster about the liberal use of human urine as an antiseptic, a mouthwash, anti-irritant and a mosquito repellent by the Boers. Disgusting as it sounds, modern research shows that it actually had value.

The folk-medicine remedy was boiled pig faeces, it seems given the lack of swine in the camp that human faeces may have been a substitute (it's use is reported in contemporary sources. I'm awaiting an inter-library loan to check a source.

"A large number of deaths in the concentration camps have been directly or obviously caused by the noxious compounds given by Boer women to their children." - Fawcett, Report on the Concentration Camps
 

Al-Buraq

Banned
The folk-medicine remedy was boiled pig faeces, it seems given the lack of swine in the camp that human faeces may have been a substitute (it's use is reported in contemporary sources. I'm awaiting an inter-library loan to check a source.

"A large number of deaths in the concentration camps have been directly or obviously caused by the noxious compounds given by Boer women to their children." - Fawcett, Report on the Concentration Camps

I shall be really interested to see that source. It may just be a contemporary calumny. I have my doubts for the following reasons:-

The Boere apothetik--home remedies, were largely derived from native herbcraft mixed up with a bit of 18th and 19th Century European quackery--I have never, ever seen any reference to such a cure mentioned anywhere.

The Boer women actually had to be taught, sometimes ordered, even to boil their drinking water. (The Boer histiography is that they were not provided enough fuel to do so, but the facts are in Hobhouse's and subsequent reports). So boiling poo seems a step back. (You can however get a burnable fuel from making bricks of pig-shit and drying them in the sun--could this be the origin?)

Most wild and herbivore animal dung is not that offensive. Kraalmis has no odour once its dry and 19th Century horse doctors would taste horse dung to diagnose an animal's illness. A good hunter ( so, they say, I haven't tried it) can tell the age of droppings and therefore the proximity of game not only by hardness , but by the taste! Pig shit, though, is extremely smelly, possibly the most smelly shit there is (although wild bush pig isn't).

However if this turns out to be the origin of the AWB being pig-shit ignorant, I will accept it.
 
After the Jameson Raid have Joesph Chamberlain attempts to wash his hands of Rhodes by having Jameson face the full blunt of charges. Rhodes then releases all the documented proof of Chamberlain's involvement in plot. British public is shocked and next election votes against Liberal Unionists. Next colonial secretary attempts tried and failed tactics to fight Afrikaner expansion. Transvaal eventually becomes the center of South Africa.

*note: Also get rid of Kaiser's congrats to Kruger in repelling the raid.
 
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