Episode 78 - American blockhouses from Cuba and the enigma that was the pro-Boer John Tengo Jabavu
The Anglo-Boer War17 Maalis 2019

Episode 78 - American blockhouses from Cuba and the enigma that was the pro-Boer John Tengo Jabavu

The ides of March were upon the British in South Africa as they continued chasing the ghost generals, Smuts, de la Rey, Beyers, de Wet across a cooling landscape that had begun its Southern Hemisphere Autumn in 1901. This week we’ll probe an American invention in Cuba called the Blockhouse chain as well as details of how journalist John Tengo Jabavu was publishing pro-Boer commentary against the wishes of both the British and most black intellectuals. We’ll return to his experiences later. The tactic of building a chain of forts is ancient, but the most recent examples before the Boer War came from the American War in Cuba. But this campaign had demonstrated that forts by themselves could not prevent guerrilla action and Lord Kitchener who was beginning to build them in South Africa knew that full well. Kitchener’s strategy therefore was to integrate the function of the fixed defensive units in fortified blockhouses with mobile attacking units on the drives. These began in January 1901, I’ve spoken about them in previous podcasts as the British tried herding or hustling the Boers into smaller areas of veld so that they could be overcome. Kitchener believed if the country could be divided into small areas by fortified lines, the Boers in each might be prevented from crossing to the next. His chessboard of maps across his HQ walls featured these regions with the addition of mobile columns that would be moved quickly by train from chess block to chess block while the blockhouses and barbed wire began to string out across the wide-open plains.

Jaksot(143)

Episode 95 - A Concentration Camp Commission & Maxwell has a brush with dynamite under a skirt

Episode 95 - A Concentration Camp Commission & Maxwell has a brush with dynamite under a skirt

It’s mid July 1901 and it's a Southern Winter. We will also hear how the commanding officer in Pretoria, General Maxwell, meets a Petticoat commando member Johanna van Warmelo who unknown to him, is c...

14 Heinä 201920min

Episode 94 - The British break a Boer code and President Steyn is forced to flee wearing a nightcap

Episode 94 - The British break a Boer code and President Steyn is forced to flee wearing a nightcap

It’s the first week of July 1901 and the British are about to break the code both the Boers and the Dutch have been using which has meant London’s military planning at times has been beset by guess wo...

7 Heinä 201920min

Episode 93 - The ruinous war costs 1.25m pounds a week & Lord Kitchener receives a telegram

Episode 93 - The ruinous war costs 1.25m pounds a week & Lord Kitchener receives a telegram

The winds of war have been blowing cold across the veld, shrivelling the corpses that lie across hundreds of kilometres in all directions. It is the beginning of July 1901. Emily Hobhouse was so e...

30 Kesä 201919min

Episode 92 - Methods of barbarism and Magistrate Kidwell signs an oath of neutrality

Episode 92 - Methods of barbarism and Magistrate Kidwell signs an oath of neutrality

This week we spend some time in England as the political fallout caused by the Anglo-Boer war grows, and meet an unusual man called Magistrate Kidwell. But first, Emily Hobhouse finally presented her...

23 Kesä 201919min

Episode 91 -  Women are caught in an artillery barrage and a deadly blizzard sweeps across the veld

Episode 91 - Women are caught in an artillery barrage and a deadly blizzard sweeps across the veld

It’s mid June 1901. Winter in the Southern Hemisphere and in the Highveld or high plains of South Africa that means bitterly cold nights where the temperature can dip well below freezing. As I write, ...

16 Kesä 201922min

Episode 90 -  Casualties, alcohol, prostitutes and a skirmish at an overgrazed Free State farm

Episode 90 - Casualties, alcohol, prostitutes and a skirmish at an overgrazed Free State farm

This week we’ll focus on the British troops and discuss how British army tactics had changed, and the role that alcohol and prostitution played in the three year war. There were more 65 000 English ...

9 Kesä 201923min

Episode 89 -  Emily Hobhouse pricks English consciousness & Reitz eats pork

Episode 89 - Emily Hobhouse pricks English consciousness & Reitz eats pork

IT’s June 1901 and there’s trouble brewing like a north sea storm around the British Isles. The main force behind this political hurricane is a diminutive but loud woman called Emily Hobhouse. While...

2 Kesä 201918min

Episode 88 - Reitz chases Mustangs on the plains and Jan Smuts becomes pessimistic

Episode 88 - Reitz chases Mustangs on the plains and Jan Smuts becomes pessimistic

Its the end of May and the guerrilla war has turned nasty as the coldest winter of living memory has started - bringing gusts of freezing wind which whipped through the Concentration Camps with their ...

26 Touko 201919min

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