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Arthur Conan Doyle. The Great Boer War
Preface to the final edition
Chapter 1. The Boer nations
Chapter 2. The cause of quarrel
Chapter 3. The negotiations
Chapter 4. The eve of war
Chapter 5. Talana Hill
Chapter 6. Elandslaagte and Rietfontein
Chapter 7. The battle of Ladysmith
Chapter 8. Lord Methuen's advance
Chapter 9. Battle of Magersfontein
Chapter 10. The battle of Stormberg
Chapter 11. Battle of Colenso
Chapter 12. The dark hour
Chapter 13. Ladysmith
Chapter 14. The Colesberg operations
Chapter 15. Spion Kop
Chapter 16. Vaalkranz
Chapter 17. Buller's final advance
Chapter 18. The siege and relief of Kimberley
Chapter 19. Paardeberg
Chapter 20. Roberts's advance on Bloemfontein
Chapter 21. Strategic effects of Lord Roberts's march
Chapter 22. The halt at Bloemfontein
Chapter 23. The clearing of the South-East
Chapter 24. The siege of Mafeking
Chapter 25. The march on Pretoria
Chapter 26. Diamond hill – Rundle's operations
Chapter 27. The lines of communication
Chapter 28. The halt at Pretoria
Chapter 29. The advance to Komatipoort
Chapter 30. The campaign of De Wet
Chapter 31. The guerilla warfare in the transvaal: Nooitgedacht
Chapter 32. The second invasion of Cape Colony (December 1900 to April 1901.)
Chapter 33. The northern operations from January to April, 1901
Chapter 34. The winter campaign (April to September, 1901)
Chapter 35. The guerilla operations in Cape Colony
Chapter 36. The spring campaign (September to December, 1901)
Chapter 37. The campaign of January to April, 1902
Chapter 38. De la Rey's campaign of 1902
Chapter 39. The end
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Take a community of Dutchmen of the type of those who defended themselves for fifty years against all the power of Spain at a time when Spain was the greatest power in the world. Intermix with them a strain of those inflexible French Huguenots who gave up home and fortune and left their country for ever at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The product must obviously be one of the most rugged, virile, unconquerable races ever seen upon earth. Take this formidable people and train them for seven generations in constant warfare against savage men and ferocious beasts, in circumstances under which no weakling could survive, place them so that they acquire exceptional skill with weapons and in horsemanship, give them a country which is eminently suited to the tactics of the huntsman, the marksman, and the rider. Then, finally, put a finer temper upon their military qualities by a dour fatalistic Old Testament religion and an ardent and consuming patriotism. Combine all these qualities and all these impulses in one individual, and you have the modern Boer – the most formidable antagonist who ever crossed the path of Imperial Britain. Our military history has largely consisted in our conflicts with France, but Napoleon and all his veterans have never treated us so roughly as these hard-bitten farmers with their ancient theology and their inconveniently modern rifles.
Look at the map of South Africa, and there, in the very centre of the British possessions, like the stone in a peach, lies the great stretch of the two republics, a mighty domain for so small a people. How came they there? Who are these Teutonic folk who have burrowed so deeply into Africa? It is a twice-told tale, and yet it must be told once again if this story is to have even the most superficial of introductions. No one can know or appreciate the Boer who does not know his past, for he is what his past has made him.
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At this period the Transvaal, where most of the Boers had settled, desired a formal acknowledgment of their independence, which the British authorities determined once and for all to give them. The great barren country, which produced little save marksmen, had no attractions for a Colonial Office which was bent upon the limitation of its liabilities. A Convention was concluded between the two parties, known as the Sand River Convention, which is one of the fixed points in South African history. By it the British Government guaranteed to the Boer farmers the right to manage their own affairs, and to govern themselves by their own laws without any interference upon the part of the British. It stipulated that there should be no slavery, and with that single reservation washed its hands finally, as it imagined, of the whole question. So the South African Republic came formally into existence.
In the very year after the Sand River Convention a second republic, the Orange Free State, was created by the deliberate withdrawal of Great Britain from the territory which she had for eight years occupied. The Eastern Question was already becoming acute, and the cloud of a great war was drifting up, visible to all men. British statesmen felt that their commitments were very heavy in every part of the world, and the South African annexations had always been a doubtful value and an undoubted trouble. Against the will of a large part of the inhabitants, whether a majority or not it is impossible to say, we withdrew our troops as amicably as the Romans withdrew from Britain, and the new republic was left with absolute and unfettered independence. On a petition being presented against the withdrawal, the Home Government actually voted forty-eight thousand pounds to compensate those who had suffered from the change. Whatever historical grievance the Transvaal may have against Great Britain, we can at least, save perhaps in one matter, claim to have a very clear conscience concerning our dealings with the Orange Free State. Thus in 1852 and in 1854 were born those sturdy States who were able for a time to hold at bay the united forces of the empire.
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