#second boer war

[thoughtportal]

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"Boots" is a poem by English author and poet Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). It was first published in 1903, in his collection The Five Nations.[1] "Boots" imagines the repetitive thoughts of a British Army infantryman marching in South Africa during the Second Boer War. It has been said that if the first four words in each line are read at the rate of two words to the second, that gives the time to which a British foot soldier was accustomed to march.[2]

read by by Taylor Holmes in 1915

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1929.

[barbucomedie]

Slouch Hat of the Life Guards from the British Empire dated to 1900 on display at the Household Cavalry Museum in London, England

This hat was worn by Trooper Edward Lowman during the Second Boer War. While photographs of the time displayed the Life Guards as smart figures in the press, the were in reality scarcely different to thei Boer opponents. Their campaign dress featured old trousers and slouch hats while riding on ponies more practical for mounted infantry needing to dismount in battle. They were reissued their more familiar uniforms before their return home.

Photographs taken by myself 2025

[scholarofgloom]

[bantarleton]

Royal Dublin Fusiliers Maxim gun crew at the battle of Spion Kop on 24th January 1900, during the Second Boer War. From the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Facebook page.

[wtf-fun-factss]

A gold rush in South Africa was bigger than the one in California. Click to read the full fact.

[gjengangeren]

Boer commando during the Second Boer War, 1900

[uwmspeccoll]

Milestone Monday

On this date, October 11 in 1899, the Second Boer War began in South Africa between the British-ruled Cape Colony, and the Boer-ruled Orange Free State and the South African Republic (the Transvaal). By the end of 1900 the war was essentially concluded, with a victory for the British and their official annexation of the two formerly Boer-controlled countries. The Boers, however, would continue a guerilla campaign against the British for two more years until Boer leadership finally surrendered and accepted British terms with the Treaty of Vereeniging in May 1902. Eight years later, the British-ruled colonies of South Africa would merge to form the Union of South Africa, a self-governing dominion of the British Empire, in 1910. It became the independent Republic of South Africa in 1961.

To mark the beginning of this portentous conflict we are showing the color-stamped cloth covers from two books, History of South Africa and the Boer-British War by Henry Houghton Beck, published in Philadelphia by the Globe Bible Publishing Co., ca. 1900, and War in South Africa and the Dark Continent by William Harding, published in Chicago by The Dominion Company in 1899 (with significant racist overtones).

View our other Milestone Monday posts.

[cuirassier]

Farewell, 1900, drawing by Robert Hillingford

A British soldier says farewell to his family as he is about to board a train, most probably to be eventually sent to fight in the Second Boer war in South Africa.