Description
By Arthur Conan Doyle, annotations by R. B. Wilson
A new edition of Arthur Conan-Doyle’s classic account of the Second Anglo-Boer War, originally published in 1901. Now completely reset and updated with 194 new footnotes explaining terms, personalities, and events to the present-day reader, in addition to all 19 original footnotes by the author.
This edition also benefits from three appendices detailing total military casualties on both sides; a short review of the Boer prisoner of war camps in the Caribbean, the island of St. Helena, Ceylon and India; and finally, a comprehensive overview of the British concentration camps and their effect upon the Boer population.
Lavishly illustrated with 91 rare photographs, Conan-Doyle’s work remains the standard by which all other accounts of the conflict are measured. Compiled by the author while serving as a medical doctor in Bloemfontein, the book starts by covering the origin of the Boer republics, and their dealings with the British and other emigrants on the Rand which laid the foundation of the casus belli.
From there it moves onto a fast-moving and factual account of the various battles and campaigns which saw initial British defeats turned into rapid advances into the Boer heartlands. The expected Boer surrender then never materialised, and the conflict devolved into a hard-fought guerrilla war which saw nearly twice as many British troops deployed into the Boer republics as the latter’s entire population: men, women, and children combined.
A riveting story which has lost none of its drama in the past century, and whose reverberations can still be felt to the present day.
This special anniversary edition is lavishly illustrated with 91 rare photographs and two maps.
6.000″ x 9.000″ (229mm x 152mm)
Page Count: 568
About the author:
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was a Scottish writer and physician, most noted for his fictional stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes. He served as a medical officer in Bloemfontein during the Second Boer War.
- B. Wilson is the pen-name of a former history lecturer at the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) who specialised in the Second Boer War.
Table of Contents
About the Author
Preface to the First Edition
Preface to the Final Edition
Chapter 1: The Boer Nations
Chapter 2: The Cause of the 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: The Battle of Magersfontein
Chapter 10: The Battle of Stormberg
Chapter 11: The Battle of Colenso
Chapter 12: The Dark Hour
Chapter 13: The Siege of 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 the Cape Colony (December 1900-April 1901)
Chapter 33: The Northern Operations from January to April, 1901
Chapter 34: The Winter Campaign (April-September, 1901)
Chapter 35: The Guerilla Operations in the Cape Colony
Chapter 36: The Spring Campaign (September–December, 1901)
Chapter 37: The Campaign of January–April, 1902
Chapter 38: De La Rey’s Campaign of 1902
Chapter 39: The End
Appendix I: Official Table of Casualties
Appendix II: Boer Prisoner of War Camps
Appendix III: The British Concentration Camps
Index
“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 bard-bitten farmers with their ancient theology and their inconveniently modern rifles.”—From the first chapter.
ISBN Softcover
9781647644796
ISBN Hardcover
9781647644796
