A Brief History
General Joubert's unit of Boer soldiers, 1899
Newtown, Wellington, where troops camped before departing for South Africa.
Crowds sending off Tenth Contingent, 1902
The Fourth New Zealand Regiment parade at Klerksdorp, 1900.
NZ soldier serving with British forces
Bodies strewn across the veldt.
Members of the Seventh Contingent pose with the carcases of chickens and sheep taken from Boer farms.
Young Boer boys astride their donkeys.
Grave of Gunner C. W. Smith of the Third Contingent who died in January 1901.
Members of the Seventh Contingent packing up camp in South Africa.
Veterans' Dinner in Wellington, late 1940s.
The South African War of 1899-1902, often called the Boer War (sometimes the Second Boer War), was the first overseas conflict to involve New Zealand troops. Fought between the British Empire and the Boer South African Republic (Transvaal) and its Orange Free State ally, it was the culmination of longstanding tensions in southern Africa.
Origins of the war
Although Transvaal had been annexed by the British Crown in 1877, it had secured a limited form of independence after defeating local imperial forces in a series of engagements during the Transvaal Revolt or First Boer War of 1880-81.
The Jameson raid
The Jameson raid was an ill-fated sortie by a force of 470 troopers, led by Leander Starr Jameson, a Scottish-born doctor and administrator in the British South Africa Company, into Transvaal to join a promised uprising of uitlanders in Johannesburg.
The revolt did not take place, and four days after crossing the border, on 2 January 1896, Jameson and his men surrendered to the Boers. Jameson was handed over to British authorities and was briefly imprisoned in London; because he knew about the conspiracy, Cecil Rhodes was forced to resign as premier of Cape Colony.
Jameson returned to South Africa and was premier of Cape Colony from 1904 to 1908. He was made a baronet in 1911.
An influx of thousands of mainly British uitlanders (foreigners) into the Transvaal after the discovery of gold there in 1886 destabilized the Boer state. Tension grew with Transvaal's refusal to grant the uitlanders citizenship, and was greatly exacerbated in 1895 by the privately organized Jameson raid which ended in a fiasco when a uitlander uprising in Johannesburg failed to materialize. Perhaps hoping for intervention by European powers, Transvaal resisted British demands, and by mid-1899 both sides were preparing for war.
Although the rights of the uitlanders were the immediate issue, the conflict was rooted in British determination to dominate South Africa and equally strong Boer determination to resist the extinction of their independence.
New Zealand offers support
With war seemingly imminent, New Zealand offered its support. On 28 September 1899 Premier R.J. Seddon asked Parliament to approve the offer to the imperial government of a contingent of mounted rifles and the raising of such a force if the offer were accepted. The British position in the dispute with the Transvaal was 'moderate and righteous', he maintained. He stressed the 'crimson tie' of Empire which bound New Zealand to the 'Mother-country' and the importance of a strong British Empire for the colony's security.
Amid emotional scenes, the proposition was overwhelmingly endorsed - only five members voted against it - and within days the offer had been accepted by the authorities in London. Seddon proudly proclaimed New Zealand's the first legislature in the Empire to offer assistance.
[External link: footage of soldiers leaving for the war on the NZ Film Archives website ]
The Volunteer Force
The Volunteer Force was the forerunner of today's Territorial Army and was, as its name suggests, composed of volunteers, who elected their own officers. It was reviewed in 1893 to improve its effectiveness, and infantry corps were organised into battalions. Engineer, transport, and medical units were formed, and in 1900 a standard, practical khaki uniform was adopted for all units apart from Highland corps.
The South African War prompted a massive expansion of the force, which grew from 4,500 in 1898 to a peak of 17,057 in 1901. A large number of Volunteers served with the New Zealand forces in South Africa, where they gained useful combat experience. The war also prompted the New Zealand government to purchase a substantial amount of new equipment for the force and to introduce more realistic training.
The send-off
Hundreds of men applied to serve in the contingent, membership of which was restricted to those already serving in New Zealand's tiny regular forces and the Volunteer Force. By the time that war began on 11 October 1899, after a Boer ultimatum over the deployment of British troops in South Africa had been ignored by London, a 215-man contingent was already encamped in the Wellington suburb of Karori while the Defence Department sought frantically to gather together its equipment and horses.
Ten days later, on 21 October, it was given a tumultuous send-off from Wellington. A huge crowd heard Seddon proclaim that New Zealanders 'would fight for one flag, one Queen, one tongue, and for one country - Britain'.
Under the command of Major A.W. Robin, the contingent reached South Africa on 23 November after an 'ocean race' across the Indian Ocean with contingents from Australian colonies, one which it won by a few days. Despite having received only rudimentary training, the New Zealanders were immediately sent north to join Lieutenant-General Sir John French's Cavalry Division in northern Cape Colony.
First engagement; first casualty
They had their first engagement with Boers on 9 December 1899, and at Jasfontein nine days later their first hard fight. When he succumbed, on 28 December, to wounds he received at Jasfontein, Private George Bradford earned the dubious distinction of being the first New Zealand soldier to lose his life in an overseas conflict; he was also the first taken prisoner of war, for he died while in Boer hands.
Black Week
The highly mobile and well-armed Boer forces began the war by attacking the British possessions of Natal and Cape Colony, and laying siege to the towns of Kimberley, Mafeking, and Ladysmith. In December 1899 they inflicted a series of defeats on imperial forces in what became known as 'Black Week', leading the British government to send the Empire's two most famous generals to South Africa. Field-Marshal Lord Roberts became Commander-in-Chief with General Lord Kitchener as his chief of staff. News of the British reverses - and the obvious political advantages of jumping on the jingoistic bandwagon - induced the New Zealand government to raise a Second Contingent, which left for South Africa in February 1900.
The Rough Riders
A Third Contingent was largely organized and paid for by a committee of prominent Christchurch citizens and other members of the public. It sailed from Lyttelton in mid-February 1900, and was followed a month later by the Fourth Contingent, raised on a similar basis by a committee of Dunedin citizens. Both were known as 'Rough Riders', because they mainly comprised good horsemen and marksmen who were not Volunteers.
New Zealand Hill
A detachment from the First Contingent distinguished itself when, on 15 January 1900, it smashed a Boer attempt to seize a hill overlooking the contingent's camp at Slingersfontein. In recognition of its gallant conduct the site of the action was renamed New Zealand Hill.
At the end of that month, the now reinforced and reorganized British forces took the offensive. A mounted force which included the New Zealand contingent relieved Kimberley on 15 February. Soon afterwards Roberts decisively defeated the Boers at Paardeberg and the siege of Ladysmith was lifted. On 13 March the New Zealanders were among the British forces which entered Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State.
Robin's Regiment
In mid-May 1900 the first three New Zealand contingents were organized into one regiment under Robin's command. They took part in the advance through the Transvaal to Johannesburg and Pretoria, which were both in British hands by early June. Orange Free State and Transvaal were annexed to the British Empire on 28 May and 25 October 1900 respectively. By late November, when Kitchener succeeded Roberts, it was widely believed that the war was virtually over. The last conventional battle of the war took place on 29 November at Rhenoster Kop, east of Pretoria, when imperial forces rather foolishly and unsuccessfully attacked a Boer force occupying a very strong position. Men of the Second and Third Contingents - those of the First Contingent were in process of being repatriated - showed considerable bravery and had five men killed and 21 wounded in this action.
Guerrilla warfare
From late 1900 those Boers who were determined to continue resisting British rule split up into smaller commandos. Abandoning their heavy equipment to improve their mobility and adopting guerrilla tactics, they retained control of most of the countryside in the former Boer republics. Roberts and later Kitchener responded to this development by forming numerous mobile columns to seek out and destroy the Boer commandos.
To remove sources of support for the Boer resistance, agricultural supplies and livestock were also removed or destroyed and Boer civilians rounded up and incarcerated in concentration camps. The Second and Third New Zealand Contingents spent the final months of their service in South Africa on such anti-guerrilla operations, which involved arduous treks interspersed with sniping, ambushes, and skirmishes with a skilful and elusive enemy.
Beira to Mafeking: the Fourth and Fifth Contingents
Meanwhile New Zealanders were also serving elsewhere in the Fourth and Fifth Contingents, which had arrived in the theatre in April-May 1900. They entered the conflict through Beira in Portuguese East Africa. A group of volunteers from the contingents were formed into the 1st New Zealand Battery, which was equipped with six 15-pounder guns.
Congestion on the railway linking Beira with Rhodesia meant that the contingents had to spend several weeks at camps where malaria and dysentery were rife. The New Zealanders spent more than two months making an arduous journey by rail and on horseback to Bulawayo in Rhodesia and thence to Mafeking. Between August 1900 and May 1901 they fought many skirmishes and conducted a series of arduous marches during operations against Boer commandos in the western Transvaal. The most successful action was the capture of General De La Rey's artillery and supply column with 135 men on 24 March 1901. Near Naauwpoort on 28 January 1901 Farrier-Sargent W.J. Hardham became the only New Zealander to be awarded the Victoria Cross during the war, for rescuing a wounded comrade under fire.
Rags and lice
Arriving in South Africa in March 1901, the Sixth Contingent was soon involved in a series of long treks through northern Transvaal. It formed part of one of the élite highly mobile formations employed by Kitchener throughout South Africa to attack Boer commandos and to respond to enemy actions. During its service in South Africa the contingent was involved in operations in the former Boer republics and in Natal, covering some 5,000 kilometres on horseback or foot.
During such operations men would spend 11 or 12 hours alternately riding and leading their horses. Generally men had to sleep in the open and survive on inadequate rations, which consisted mainly of hard army biscuits and bully beef. Support arrangements for the mobile columns were inadequate. As a result, men often had to serve in ragged uniforms that were infested with lice.
At the end of June 1901 the men of the Sixth Contingent staged a 'general strike' in protest at the failure to replace their worn-out uniforms. The harsh conditions were especially hard on the horses.
The three-pronged strategy
New Zealand's Seventh Contingent, which was intended to replace the Fourth Contingent, reached South Africa in May 1901. Within twelve days of landing it had its first significant clash with the enemy. It had some success with dawn raids on Boer laagers (camps), which were an important feature of British tactics in the latter part of the war. By late 1901 the number of Boer guerrillas who were still active had been substantially reduced, though thousands of the most determined and effective fighters were still in the field.
In an effort to crush the remaining Boer forces, and in response to criticism of their policies, the British military and civilian authorities in South Africa adopted a new three-pronged strategy. Firstly, Boer civilians were no longer to be rounded up and placed in unsanitary concentration camps, where thousands had died of disease. Instead they were to be left in the countryside, where the guerrillas would have to take responsibility for them. Secondly, protected areas were established which were guarded by lines of blockhouses linked by barbed wire entanglements. By the end of the war, more than 8,000 blockhouses had been built in lines which stretched 6,000 kilometres across South Africa. Thirdly, 'new-model' drives were organized, in which British columns established a cordon of men right across an area and then moved forward sweeping the Boers ahead of them towards blockhouses. At the beginning of February 1902, the Seventh Contingent formed part of one of the élite mounted columns employed in the new-model drives.
Langverwacht Hill
During the second of the new-style drives in the eastern Orange Free State, General Christiaan De Wet decided to break through the British cordon at Langverwacht Hill, a point on the line held by the Seventh Contingent. The New Zealand line consisted of small posts of five or six men in small trenches or sangars. On the night of 23-24 February a picked force of guerrillas overwhelmed one of the New Zealand posts, then turned left and advanced up the hill destroying each of the posts in turn in ferocious close-quarter fighting. The Boers succeeded in opening up a gap through which most of their force was able to escape.
The New Zealanders, who were reported to have 'displayed great gallantry and resolution', lost 24 men killed and 41 wounded - a very high proportion of the eighty men engaged. Despite this setback, the drive was a qualified success, with 50 guerrillas killed and nearly 800 taken prisoner.
The Eighth Contingent
In January 1902 New Zealand agreed to a British request for an additional contingent to serve in South Africa. The 1,000-strong Eighth Contingent was commanded by Colonel R.H. Davies, one of the outstanding New Zealand officers to emerge during the war. After disembarking in South Africa in mid-March 1902, the Eighth Contingent took part in a major drive against Boer guerrillas. In mid-April 16 men were killed and 11 seriously injured in a rail accident at Machavie in the Transvaal.
Peace
With their situation increasingly desperate, the Boers were at last induced to come to terms. A peace treaty was concluded on 31 May 1902. Two final large contingents from New Zealand, the Ninth and Tenth, arrived in South Africa too late to see any significant action. On 4 June 1902 Lieutenant Robert McKeich became the last New Zealander to be killed in action in the war when he was shot in an unfortunate clash with a group of Boers who did not know of the peace treaty.
In many ways the South African war set the pattern for New Zealand's later involvement in the two world wars. Specially raised units, consisting mainly of volunteers, were despatched overseas to serve with forces from elsewhere in the British Empire. The success enjoyed by the New Zealand troops fostered the idea that New Zealanders were naturally good soldiers, who required only a modicum of training to perform creditably.
The war also strengthened New Zealanders' sense of a national identity, which centered on the physical and military capabilities of the New Zealand male. At the same time the war enhanced the ties of sentiment and shared interests which bound New Zealand to Great Britain and the other parts of the British Empire.
JOHN CRAWFORD
D.O.W. Hall, The New Zealanders in South Africa 1899-1902 (War History Branch, Wellington, 1949); I. McGibbon, The Path to Gallipoli, Defending New Zealand 1840-1915 (GP Books, Wellington, 1991).
An essay from the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History, edited by Ian McGibbon with the assistance of Paul Goldstone. Published by Oxford University Press in September 2000.
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