AUSTRALASIA IN THE BOER WARS, Pt.1
The Boer War was the first overseas conflict in which Australasian troops were engaged. The Royal Australasian Army was eager to demonstrate its capacities and there were discussions about the dispatch of troops before the conflict had even commenced. In total, more than 30,000 Australasians (about 0.6% of the population) would serve in the conflict and nearly 1,000 of those were killed, either in battle, from injury or taken by disease.
Background
Following the Napoleonic Wars, when Australasia was still a penal settlement at Port Jackson, the southern tip of Africa was split between colonies of the British Empire and the independent republics of the Dutch-Afrikaner settlers, collectively known as the Boers. The Boers resented Dutch abandonment and British rule and trekked east toward Natal and then into the interior, where they formed the Orange Free State and the South African Republic, also known as Transvaal.
After annexing Natal in 1845, the British were prepared to recognise the independence of the two Boer states, though insignificant skirmishes between the British, the Boer and the indigenous inhabitants were largely inevitable on the ground.
Diamonds changed that equation from the late 1860s and, in 1880-81, the British fought a war against the Boer republics in which they were subjected to several humiliating defeats. When British Prime Minister William Gladstone realised the cost, length and casualties of the war he faced, he reached a deal under which the Boer republics would retain sovereignty but would recognise the Empress as their suzerain.
In 1886, an Australasian named George Harrison discovered gold at the site later named Johannesburg, but initially sharing the name of the famous future mine, Witwatersrand. The former inland lake is famous for being the largest known source of gold in the world, over 40% of all gold mined across history. Transvaal had wealth and, very soon, it had immigrants. The largely British arrivals, called uitlanders, came from across the Empire in search of their fortunes.
As the Boers refused to grant the uitlanders citizenship, an act which would have given the British a majority and ended their independence, tensions grew. In 1895, Cecil Rhodes, the Premier of Cape Colony, hatched a plan to stage a coup d’etat in Johannesburg, but the botched effort, along with 65 dead and wounded, only confirmed the inevitable war was approaching.
As the Boer republics armed themselves, they were still unable to resolve how to absorb British arrivals without losing their identity. During his term as Prime Minister, which ended on the eve of the war, Australasia’s Robert Stout argued in favour of conflict. He stated that Australasia had an obligation as a member of the British Empire to stand in defence in the rights of British peoples everywhere and won the white population. He criticised the brutal racism shown by the Boers towards the indigenous peoples and won support from Maori and Aboriginal parliamentarians as well. He criticised their Calvinism (based on his own conflicts with Presbyterianism) and won over the backing from the Anglican Church, despite antagonising about a quarter of his New Munster MPs in the process.
In May 1899, shortly after he came into office, Prime Minister Alfred Deakin sent a telegram to British Colonial Secretary, Sir Joseph Chamberlain, requesting an invitation to send troops to defend the British colonists in the Cape. He took to Parliament the proposition of supporting any effort by the Imperial War Office with the immediate preparations to dispatch four battalions to South Africa while negotiations were still underway. He also supported the use of Australasian troops then training in Britain within the Royal Army who were already en route to South Africa and were therefore in country at the time the conflict commenced.
Stage One: The Boer Offensive
The first engagement of the war was fought at Kraaipan on 12 October 1899, when British cannon on their way to Mafikeng aboard an armoured train were turned back to Vryburg.
The first major clash came nine days later, when seven thousand troops met near the passes of the Drakensberg Mountains as British troops advancing to block the passes struck Boer troops moving through them. While the British dead were twice those of the enemy and their wounded outnumbered the enemy three to one, the brigade under the command of Lieutenant General Sir William Penn-Symons held their ground successfully.
In doing so, they shut down the most preferred of three potential invasion routes into Natal. However, everything north of the mountains was soon controlled by Boer troops and, just as they blocked passage south, the Boer blocked all advances north thereafter. The “Drakensberg Wall” soon settled into a line that would hardly move over the ensuing five months.
On the same day, 4500 troops clashed for control of the railway station at Elandslaagte. It was once again a tactical victory for the British, despite the loss of their commanding officer, Major General John French.
These victories sparked a measure of confidence in the commander of the British division at Ladysmith, Major General Sir George Stuart White. He ordered an immediate attack on the Orange Free State from the west, despite having poor intelligence about troop numbers and position, towards the eventual capture of Bloemfontein, the Free State capital.
The resulting Battle of Harrismith was a disastrous affair for White. The British force was only 8,500 strong whilst the Boer defenders exceeded twenty thousand. 102 British soldiers lost their lives and over a thousand lost their freedom on 1 November, 1899, and General Christiaan De Wet forced the British back behind their lines.
The crushing defeat proved British tactics needed to be reconsidered quickly, having demonstrated that they were incapable of winning battles against entrenched troops with modern magazine rifles. Loose formation fire and manoeuvre would not become a part of the war until the colonial regiments began to prove they were more effective than running into a stream of Mauser bullets.
Meanwhile, in the north-west, at Mafeking on the Transvaal border, over 6,000 Boer, under the command of Piet Cronje, had begun to siege the town. Two local regiments raised under the command of Colonel Robert Baden-Powell held the position.
Further south, the diamond city of Kimberley was similarly surrounded, with resident Cecil Rhodes keeping London informed of the desperation in the city as time progressed. It was also there he declared his support for the idea of a South African confederation, including all British and conquered territories south of the Zambezi River, to be the equal of Canada and Australasia within the Empire. He would not live to see the end of this war, passing away two months before the final treaty. Nor would he live to see his dream of the Dominion of South Africa come to fruition in 1909.
The Boer War was the first overseas conflict in which Australasian troops were engaged. The Royal Australasian Army was eager to demonstrate its capacities and there were discussions about the dispatch of troops before the conflict had even commenced. In total, more than 30,000 Australasians (about 0.6% of the population) would serve in the conflict and nearly 1,000 of those were killed, either in battle, from injury or taken by disease.
Background
Following the Napoleonic Wars, when Australasia was still a penal settlement at Port Jackson, the southern tip of Africa was split between colonies of the British Empire and the independent republics of the Dutch-Afrikaner settlers, collectively known as the Boers. The Boers resented Dutch abandonment and British rule and trekked east toward Natal and then into the interior, where they formed the Orange Free State and the South African Republic, also known as Transvaal.
After annexing Natal in 1845, the British were prepared to recognise the independence of the two Boer states, though insignificant skirmishes between the British, the Boer and the indigenous inhabitants were largely inevitable on the ground.
Diamonds changed that equation from the late 1860s and, in 1880-81, the British fought a war against the Boer republics in which they were subjected to several humiliating defeats. When British Prime Minister William Gladstone realised the cost, length and casualties of the war he faced, he reached a deal under which the Boer republics would retain sovereignty but would recognise the Empress as their suzerain.
In 1886, an Australasian named George Harrison discovered gold at the site later named Johannesburg, but initially sharing the name of the famous future mine, Witwatersrand. The former inland lake is famous for being the largest known source of gold in the world, over 40% of all gold mined across history. Transvaal had wealth and, very soon, it had immigrants. The largely British arrivals, called uitlanders, came from across the Empire in search of their fortunes.
As the Boers refused to grant the uitlanders citizenship, an act which would have given the British a majority and ended their independence, tensions grew. In 1895, Cecil Rhodes, the Premier of Cape Colony, hatched a plan to stage a coup d’etat in Johannesburg, but the botched effort, along with 65 dead and wounded, only confirmed the inevitable war was approaching.
As the Boer republics armed themselves, they were still unable to resolve how to absorb British arrivals without losing their identity. During his term as Prime Minister, which ended on the eve of the war, Australasia’s Robert Stout argued in favour of conflict. He stated that Australasia had an obligation as a member of the British Empire to stand in defence in the rights of British peoples everywhere and won the white population. He criticised the brutal racism shown by the Boers towards the indigenous peoples and won support from Maori and Aboriginal parliamentarians as well. He criticised their Calvinism (based on his own conflicts with Presbyterianism) and won over the backing from the Anglican Church, despite antagonising about a quarter of his New Munster MPs in the process.
In May 1899, shortly after he came into office, Prime Minister Alfred Deakin sent a telegram to British Colonial Secretary, Sir Joseph Chamberlain, requesting an invitation to send troops to defend the British colonists in the Cape. He took to Parliament the proposition of supporting any effort by the Imperial War Office with the immediate preparations to dispatch four battalions to South Africa while negotiations were still underway. He also supported the use of Australasian troops then training in Britain within the Royal Army who were already en route to South Africa and were therefore in country at the time the conflict commenced.
Stage One: The Boer Offensive
The first engagement of the war was fought at Kraaipan on 12 October 1899, when British cannon on their way to Mafikeng aboard an armoured train were turned back to Vryburg.
The first major clash came nine days later, when seven thousand troops met near the passes of the Drakensberg Mountains as British troops advancing to block the passes struck Boer troops moving through them. While the British dead were twice those of the enemy and their wounded outnumbered the enemy three to one, the brigade under the command of Lieutenant General Sir William Penn-Symons held their ground successfully.
In doing so, they shut down the most preferred of three potential invasion routes into Natal. However, everything north of the mountains was soon controlled by Boer troops and, just as they blocked passage south, the Boer blocked all advances north thereafter. The “Drakensberg Wall” soon settled into a line that would hardly move over the ensuing five months.
On the same day, 4500 troops clashed for control of the railway station at Elandslaagte. It was once again a tactical victory for the British, despite the loss of their commanding officer, Major General John French.
These victories sparked a measure of confidence in the commander of the British division at Ladysmith, Major General Sir George Stuart White. He ordered an immediate attack on the Orange Free State from the west, despite having poor intelligence about troop numbers and position, towards the eventual capture of Bloemfontein, the Free State capital.
The resulting Battle of Harrismith was a disastrous affair for White. The British force was only 8,500 strong whilst the Boer defenders exceeded twenty thousand. 102 British soldiers lost their lives and over a thousand lost their freedom on 1 November, 1899, and General Christiaan De Wet forced the British back behind their lines.
The crushing defeat proved British tactics needed to be reconsidered quickly, having demonstrated that they were incapable of winning battles against entrenched troops with modern magazine rifles. Loose formation fire and manoeuvre would not become a part of the war until the colonial regiments began to prove they were more effective than running into a stream of Mauser bullets.
Meanwhile, in the north-west, at Mafeking on the Transvaal border, over 6,000 Boer, under the command of Piet Cronje, had begun to siege the town. Two local regiments raised under the command of Colonel Robert Baden-Powell held the position.
Further south, the diamond city of Kimberley was similarly surrounded, with resident Cecil Rhodes keeping London informed of the desperation in the city as time progressed. It was also there he declared his support for the idea of a South African confederation, including all British and conquered territories south of the Zambezi River, to be the equal of Canada and Australasia within the Empire. He would not live to see the end of this war, passing away two months before the final treaty. Nor would he live to see his dream of the Dominion of South Africa come to fruition in 1909.
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