Bill Nasson. The South African War, 1899-1902. London: Edward Arnold Publishers, 1999. 304
pp. $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-340-74154-2.
Reviewed by Ron Viney (South African Heritage Resources Agency, Johannesburg, South
Africa )
Published on H-SAfrica (December, 2000)
“The Last of the Gentlemen’s Wars.”
Nasson manages to admirably bring together research on
race, class, gender and military history in this book.
Just a note to the publishers first. Typographical erFor Nasson the account recapitulates much of the
rors are irritating at the best of times, but when the distance between Pretoria and Johannesburg is given as: “… staple history of the war, it does not attempt to reproabout 300 miles away” (p.181), then it changes the theatre duce every well-known detail about campaigns, sieges,
personalities, regiments, and units. This is partly beof the war. This should read: “… about 30 miles away”.
cause such technically descriptive detail can be found
This book argues that the war has a recognised sig- elsewhere. But it is also because the main purpose here
nificance in world history. Bill Nasson aims to provide
for the author is to produce a fairly compact interprean account of how the war unfolded. How the political
tation rather than an exhaustive treatment of what has
contest between Boer republicanism and British imperi- been called the Transvaal War, The Great Boer War or
alism developed into a violent struggle. How the warring even the Grate Bore War (p. xiv). The name for this war
sides conducted their operations; how adversaries saw even a hundred years later has stirred up great controeach other; how the conflict affected belligerent societies versy in South Africa. Those wishing for a more incluand some beyond; how the combatants finally turned to
sive parameter in the new South Africa wanted it to be
peace; and how finally how the war has come to be rethe South African War. Most British, Canadians, New
membered in the country across which it was fought and Zealanders and Australians still know it as the Anglohow it might be seen now. [p. xi]. The British defeats Boer War. The idea of referring to it as the Anglo Boer
of 1899 were surprising precisely because they were in- South African war also was toyed with or, as some wit
flicted on an army that had long appreciated the danger of noted, the ABSA war - the name of a large banking group
underestimating its opponents or the variety of local conin South Africa.
ditions it would encounter. [p.viii] Nasson makes clear
that Britain’s weakness at the outset of the war handed
Initially I thought that the amount of space given to
the Boers an initial strategic advantage. [p.viii]. This ad- the military campaigns and troop movements was out of
vantage dissipated while the old tardy Boer leadership proportion to the social issues the war has raised. I am
pondered on their siege strategy as the way to defeat not too keen on traditional military histories myself and
the British. This was nothing new, as all the battles and still see very little point in counting how many bullets
skirmishes fought by the Boers with black polities relied were expended on the battlefield. Perhaps, I thought, it
heavily on siege tactics. Ironically, as the author shows, was an attempt to get back to the ’real war’; as Janet Farit was a younger, more liberal generation [and generally quarson - a Correspendent with the South African Sunbetter educated and well read; as well as being part of day Times and avid amateur military historian - comthe Boer landed gentry] - Botha and Smuts pre-eminent mented at the UNISA Conference on ’Rethinking the
among them - who reinvigorated the Boer’s military ef- South African War,’ held in August 1998. [The conferfort in 1900 and took it to the guerilla phase. (p. ix). ence dealt mainly with social issues and very little with
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military narrative.]
der that made killing the enemy an ever more remote
experience, the end of the fixed formation charge, construction of sangars and trenches [a rather disastrous experiment that was attempted during the first world war
and modelled after the Boer entrenchments at Magersfontein] all squarely and unmistakably made this a modern war of the twentieth century - right up to the guerrilla
tactics used in the second stages of the war.
On closer reading, however, the interpretive nuances
provided by Nasson are well worth it. This clearly comes
out with the interfering Rhodes in the siege of Kimberley. The antics of Rhodes seen a hundred years distant
are very reminiscent of the fuss a drama queen makes
over little things. The ’over by Christmas’ mentality that
was to permeate through to the two world wars comes
out in this narrative. Nasson points to the engendered
nature of the war - women on the Boer side infiltrating
a masculine world of fighting. This was not unusual, as
war for the Boers was always something of a family business. Initially the war was sustained by memories - for
the Boers, of the victory at Majuba in the 1880s, and the
British by this ignominious defeat- as well as the refusal
by the British to believe that a handful of farmers could
hold off large numbers of regular troops accustomed to
victory.
The book attempts to appeal to roughly two groups
of readers:
A] Those interested in a digestible general portrayal
of the war, with minimal prior knowledge of the conflict
or perhaps even no basic comprehension of the episode
at all. In this, Nasson admits it is an attempt to squeeze
quarts into pint pots (p. xiv).
B] Those who have an outline grasp of the conflict,
or even a grasp of some central detail. Nasson would like
to see in the ensuing perspective that readers should find
something over which to ponder or quibble. Greater understanding of the war can only benefit from the critical
judgement of readers as well as the continuing dialogue
of historians (p. xiv).
By the time of the guerrilla phase of the war, the
British had slowly come to realise the value of the use
of irregular strategy. This provided ample opportunity
for colonial irregulars in the British army to prove their
worth by attributing British and Boer characteristics to
themselves. Only those steeped in knowledge of the Boer
[horsemanship, good shooting, hardship on the open
veldt, being able to live off the land] and his ways could
defeat him. Quaintly this provided a sense of national
identity for Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders,
but not especially for English speaking South African
colonials.
Judging, however, from the fact that all distances are
given in miles the book is aimed mainly at the US market.
It should be made more accessible to those places directly
involved with the war, especially South Africa. This may
help to dispel the myth of this being just another colonial
war between two white groups.
Nasson looks at the perceptions Boers had of themselves and their enemies, what perceptions the British
and colonials had of themselves and their enemies as well
as some of the popular myth making in the British [especially around Mafeking] and European popular narrative. He looks at the inherent weaknesses that come out
in the Boer military system based on equality, as well
as the inherent weaknesses of the rigid British military
parameter. What does not come out clearly though are
the distinct differences in the British Army itself between
colonial regulars and colonial irregulars that often hampered the British war effort. No clearer example is that
of Breaker Morant.
Nasson incorporates his earlier work to show how involved in the war many of the black population became
(p. ix). Some might ask why should this book even have
been undertaken while the larger South African population see this still as a white man’s colonial war with
blacks only on the periphery? Ironically, as Greg Cuthbertson has pointed out, the more historians attempt [not
deliberately so] to tell the forgotten story of black participation and suffering in the war, the more they are again
marginalised and placed on the periphery of events.[1] In
this work, then, Nasson wants to inform, but also aims to
appeal to the general reader. He believes that now, a century on since 1899, a return to some consideration of that
harsh imperialist-republican fight is timely (p. xiii).
What can be deduced from this work is that both sides
initially used their traditional methods to wage war and
failed in their objectives. Clearly, these outdated methods would not give either side the victory they wanted.
Armoured trains and the railway, the telegraph and heliograph, balloons, guns with ranges and smokeless pow-
Not all share this view and the majority of South
Africans remain to be convinced otherwise. The newly
elected democratic government as well as a number of
radical historians called for a boycott of the 100-year
commemoration. One possible reason being that they
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saw the war as too distant to provide relief for the immediate trauma inflicted by years of struggle against
apartheid. An intimation of this was the very small
amount of oral tradition to be found in the search for
the black concentration camps. On the other hand White
Afrikaner martyrdom was and still is based heavily on
concentration camp trauma during the war and passed
down as a treasure trove of oral and written accounts. A
hefty debate raged in Free State Afrikaans newspapers in
1996 as to whether blacks had participated or been involved [even on the periphery] in the war. Some white
Afrikaans readers vehemently denied black participation
or involvement.
Australian anti-heroine, Maddy Wolfe: ’go on, rewrite
history then!. it’s a time honoured English Tradition. The
Boer war, Gallipoli, the fall of Singapore’ (p. xiii).
Finally, Nasson points out that there is probably nothing like war to remind one that history, if anything, is the
story of human folly. Indeed perhaps one of the reasons
academic South African historians still give military history a wide berth is that the continuing sound of gunfire
on many of the countries streets still brings home the realities of close combat better than any writing (p. xvi).
Notes
[1]. Seminar on the ’The role of Christian missions
during the South African War,’ Rand Afrikaans University Library, 30 October 2000.
For Nasson it was undertaken partly because no new
general narrative treatment in English has appeared since
Thomas Pakenham in the 1970s (p.xiii). Nasson does not
try to emulate Pakenham’s work but does manage to
bring in wider research conducted on the war since Pakenham’s work appeared. Perhaps it is intimated that it
should be read as a plea from the novelist Kathy Lette’s
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Citation: Ron Viney. Review of Nasson, Bill, The South African War, 1899-1902. H-SAfrica, H-Net Reviews. December,
2000.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4745
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