Episode 28 - Journalists take Bloemfontein but typhoid breaks out

This week we’re traveling to the Orange Free State Republic capital Bloemfontein with Lord Robert’s army - and its not something to boast about. The capture of the town is known as a one-off - its the first and last time that journalists seized a capital in the midst of a war. Bloemfontein was to prove to be a disease-ridden death trap for over five hundred British soldiers who’d survived the campaign thus far, marched overland for hundreds of kilometers only to die of typhoid infection in the filthy mud of the capital city. Which is ironic because Bloemfontein means “Flower Spring”. It’s March 1900, the new century has brought with it a continuation of the war between the Boer and British in the South of Africa. In the previous podcast we heard how Transvaal president Oom Paul Kruger arrived at the Free State front in a vain attempt to shore up the morale of the Boer troops.