Episode 114 - Sarah Raal "the lady who fought" is bloody but unbowed

Episode 114 - Sarah Raal "the lady who fought" is bloody but unbowed

This week’s episode is dominated by a young woman who we heard about last week called Sarah Raal. While some of her exploits have been exaggerated for Nationalist reasons years after the Boer War, there’s no doubt that she was extraordinary by any measure. Remember she is in her early twenties and escaped from Springfontein Concentration Camp outside Bloemfontein heading to join her four brothers who were fighting with Commandant Nieuwoudt who was part of General Herzog’s commando in the Free State. It’s around November 1901 when she joins the commando, and immediately is thrown into the thick of action. Nieuwoudt and his men and one women head off to a place called Boomplaas. “I was apprehensive about going there as it was the scene of my previous capture” she writes in her biography published in English in 2000. The commando ended up in the small settlement of Excelsior which was only to become a town in 1910, well after the war ended. This is where Sarah caught sight of the mountains to the East which loomed in purple and grey tones, and appeared malignant. “The imposing mountains frightened me, they looked so mysterious and full of unknown danger that I felt as if some misfortune may befall us at any moment…” she writes. That was around 50 miles due east of Bloemfontein and the Sarah’s life became increasingly more desperate in the coming weeks. She was to face numerous skirmishes fighting alongside her Boer brothers, and as you’ll hear, Sarah became a target for the British who realised there was a woman fighting against them.

Episoder(143)

Episode 103 - A porcupine causes a stampede & General Smuts makes a big mistake at Murderer's Way

Episode 103 - A porcupine causes a stampede & General Smuts makes a big mistake at Murderer's Way

We continue to rid4 with General Jan Smuts and he has just entered the Cape Colony, an invasion that has been planned to coincide with Spring in early September 1901. The master guerrilla fighter and ...

8 Sep 201919min

Episode 102 - General Smuts enters the Cape and rides straight into a Basutho ambush

Episode 102 - General Smuts enters the Cape and rides straight into a Basutho ambush

Spring is upon is in this podcast - so too the long-awaited invasion of the Cape Colony by General Jan Smuts and his commando. It has taken him almost a month of zig-zagging across the Free State from...

1 Sep 201919min

Episode 101 - De Wet’s son shot by English special forces & Jan Smuts rides into view

Episode 101 - De Wet’s son shot by English special forces & Jan Smuts rides into view

This week we hear about the Dandy Fifth and Deneys Reitz. It’s also time to ride with General Christiaan de Wet as he sums up the Blockhouses. Reitz has fallen in with “this little band” as he calls t...

25 Aug 201918min

Episode 100 - “Send the Boers to Mexico” & Scheepers rides from Desolation Valley

Episode 100 - “Send the Boers to Mexico” & Scheepers rides from Desolation Valley

It’s an amazing to think that back in 2017 I was thinking about this podcast and whether I should go ahead and cover a topic that was missing on both iTunes and general podcasting. Jumping in and star...

18 Aug 201916min

Episode 99 - A Devil's Gorge, an executed priest, and the madness of Breaker Morant

Episode 99 - A Devil's Gorge, an executed priest, and the madness of Breaker Morant

It’s early August 1901 and a series of events in a far off corner of the war would end up resonating internationally for the next one hundred and 18 years. These involved the Bushveld Carbineers, th...

11 Aug 201924min

Episode 98 - Lord Kitchener issues an exile proclamation and de Wet lays an IED

Episode 98 - Lord Kitchener issues an exile proclamation and de Wet lays an IED

It’s time for an exchange of letters and a proclamation or two. General Jan Smuts and his commando have broken into smaller units and are traveling from the Transvaal to the Free State / Cape border. ...

4 Aug 201918min

Episode 97 - Bandits at the Southern border

Episode 97 - Bandits at the Southern border

This week we will hear about bandits at the Southern Border who are making the most of the guerrilla war raging around the Transvaal, parts of the Cape and the Free State. These motley laggards lurke...

28 Jul 201917min

Episode 96 - Blundering into a British blockhouse, the Dirty Dozen break up

Episode 96 - Blundering into a British blockhouse, the Dirty Dozen break up

It’s the third week of July 1901 and this winter has been cold even by the standards of South Africa’s high plains. As I’m writing this, snow has blanketed parts of the semi-desert known as the Karoo ...

21 Jul 201919min

Populært innen Fakta

fastlegen
dine-penger-pengeradet
relasjonspodden-med-dora-thorhallsdottir-kjersti-idem
treningspodden
rss-strid-de-norske-borgerkrigene
foreldreradet
jakt-og-fiskepodden
rss-sunn-okonomi
merry-quizmas
gravid-uke-for-uke
fryktlos
sinnsyn
hverdagspsyken
rss-mann-i-krise-med-sagen
smart-forklart
generasjonspodden
rss-kunsten-a-leve
dopet
sovnlos
hr-podden-2