The Second Boer War, also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics over the Empire's influence in Southern Africa.
The Union of South Africa was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange River colonies. It included the territories that were formerly part of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State.
Louis Botha was a South African politician who was the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa, the forerunner of the modern South African state. A Boer war veteran during the Second Boer War, Botha eventually fought to have South Africa become a British Dominion.
Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers and are further separated from Midlands by the Shangani River in central Zimbabwe. The region is named after its inhabitants, the Ndebele people who were called "Amatabele"(people with long shields – Mzilikazi 's group of people who were escaping the Mfecani wars). Other ethnic groups who inhabit parts of Matabeleland include the Tonga, Bakalanga, Venda, Nambya, Khoisan, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, and Tsonga.
Major Robert Johnston was an Irish rugby union player and soldier. During the Second Boer War, Johnston was awarded the Victoria Cross while serving with the Imperial Light Horse. He played rugby for both Ireland and the British Lions. He is one of three Ireland rugby union internationals to have been awarded the Victoria Cross. The other two are Thomas Crean, who also served with the Imperial Light Horse in the Second Boer War, and Frederick Harvey who served in the First World War. Johnston, Crean and Harvey all played club rugby for Wanderers. In 1896 Johnston and Crean were also members of the same British Lions squad that toured South Africa . Johnston was also one of three alumni of King William's College to have been awarded the VC. The other two were George Stuart White and Robert Henry Cain. White served in the Second Anglo-Afghan War and Cain served in the Second World War.
The Battle of Modder River was an engagement in the Boer War, fought at Modder River, on 28 November 1899. A British column under Lord Methuen, that was attempting to relieve the besieged town of Kimberley, forced Boers under General Piet Cronjé to retreat to Magersfontein, but suffered heavy casualties altogether.
Two Irish Commandos, volunteer military units of guerrilla militia, fought alongside the Boers against the British forces during the Second Boer War (1899–1902).
John Hays Hammond was an American mining engineer, diplomat, and philanthropist. He amassed a sizable fortune before the age of 40. An early advocate of deep mining, Hammond was given complete charge of Cecil Rhodes' mines in South Africa and made each undertaking a financial success. He was a main force planning and executing the Jameson Raid in 1895. It was a fiasco and Hammond, along with the other leaders of the Johannesburg Reform Committee, was arrested and sentenced to death. The Reform Committee leaders were released after paying large fines, but like many of the leaders, Hammond escaped Africa for good. He returned to the United States, became a close friend of President William Howard Taft, and was appointed a special ambassador. At the same time, he continued to develop mines in Mexico and California and, in 1923, he made another fortune while drilling for oil with the Burnham Exploration Company.
Major Frederick Russell Burnham DSO was an American scout and world-traveling adventurer. He is known for his service to the British South Africa Company and to the British Army in colonial Africa, and for teaching woodcraft to Robert Baden-Powell in Rhodesia. Burnham helped inspire the founding of the international Scouting Movement.
Opposition to the Second Boer War occurred both within and outside of the British Empire. Among the British public, there was initially much support for the war, though it declined considerably as the conflict dragged on. Internationally, condemnation of the British role in the war came from many sources, predominately left-wing and anti-imperialist commentators. Inside Britain, influential anti-war groups, especially those consisting of members of the opposition Liberal Party, quickly formed. They campaigned ineffectually against British wartime policies, which were supported by the Conservative Party of Prime Minister Lord Salisbury.
Frederick "Fritz" Joubert Duquesne was a South African Boer and German soldier, big-game hunter, journalist, and spy. Many of the claims Duquesne made about himself are in dispute; over his lifetime he used multiple identities, reinvented his past at will, claimed family ties to aristocratic clans and famous people and even asserted the right to military titles and medals with no third-party verification.
The Second Matabele War, also known as the First Chimurenga, was fought in 1896 and 1897 in the region later known as Southern Rhodesia, now modern-day Zimbabwe. It pitted the British South Africa Company against the Matabele people, which led to conflict with the Shona people in the rest of Southern Rhodesia.
Boer foreign volunteers were participants who volunteered their military services to the Boers in the Second Boer War.
The Medalje voor de Anglo-Boere Oorlog is a South African military campaign medal. It was instituted on 21 December 1920 as a retrospective award for Boer veteran officers and men who fought in the 1899–1902 Second Boer War.
Captain Daniël Johannes Stephanus Theron was a Boer military officer, teacher and lawyer best known for his service during the Second Boer War. Born in Tulbagh, Cape Colony, he was raised in Bethlehem, South African Republic. Originally intending on become a schoolteacher, Theron instead became a lawyer and notary with his own law firm in Krugersdorp. After the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899, he joined the Boer commandos where he was responsible for the formation of a bicycle infantry formation.
The South African Wars, including but also known as the Confederation Wars, were a series of wars that occurred in the southern portion of the African continent between 1879 and 1915. Ethnic, political, and social tensions between European colonial powers and indigenous Africans led to increasing hostilities, culminating in a series of wars and revolts, which had lasting repercussions on the entire region. A key factor behind the growth of these tensions was the pursuit of commerce and resources, both by countries and individuals, especially following the discoveries of gold in the region in 1862 and diamonds in 1867.
The military history of Australia during the Boer War is complex, and includes a period of history in which the six formerly autonomous British Australian colonies federated to become the Commonwealth of Australia. At the outbreak of the Second Boer War, each of these separate colonies maintained their own, independent military forces, but by the cessation of hostilities, these six armies had come under a centralised command to form the Australian Army.
Mather Howard Burnham, was an American who went by the name of Howard; his brother was the celebrated scout Frederick Russell Burnham. He traveled the world, frequently worked as a mining engineer and, during World War I, he became an intelligence officer and spy for the government of France. He had a wooden leg which he used to conceal tools for spying when he was behind enemy lines.
21st Brigade was an infantry formation of the British Army first organised in the Second Boer War, when it took part in Ian Hamilton's March from Bloemfontein to Pretoria. Reformed in World War I it served under the command of first 7th Division and then 30th Division, fighting in most of the major battles on the Western Front from the First Battle of Ypres to the Armistice. It was briefly re-raised in the Sudan early in World War II before being transferred to the Indian Army.
Christiaan Hendrik Muller was a Boer general during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). He succeeded General Ben Viljoen as the sole leader of the Boer forces in the Eastern Transvaal after Viljoen was captured by British troops on 25 January 1902 and sent to St. Helena as a prisoner of war.
