Boer War Page 2

Anglo-Boer War Intro 2

You are listening to an original recording from the early 1900s featuring one of Canada's very first recording artists, Henry Burr, singing "Just Break the News to Mother," a song sung poignantly at home, and with bravado, in camps near the battlefront. Henry Burr from New Brunswick, started recording in 1902 while in his teens, and, with some 12,000 recordings to his credit, was the most prolific recording artist of his generation. "Just Break" was written by Chas. K. Harris, the first man to write a million selling song (After the Ball in 1892). This song, first written in 1891 for a dying fireman, was a flop but took off as a colossal hit during the Spanish American War in 1898, after he rewrote it featuring a soldier. (Lest you think the lyrics far-fetched, Lord Roberts of Kandahar, won his Victoria Cross exactly in this way while a young officer during the Indian Mutiny. But he survived.)

"The PAARDEBERG PAGE"

We are proud to have been selected as an official

"CANADA MILLENNIUM PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM"

by the Government of Canada's Millennium Bureau

A Canada Centennial Project
by 
Goldi Productions Ltd. 

"KEEPING CANADIANS IN TOUCH WITH CANADA"

In Proud Association with:

The Canadian Television Fund

The Saskatchewan Communications Network (SCN)

& 

ACCESS TELEVISION
ALBERTA

Goldi Productions Ltd. is pleased to announce 
a four hour long
Special Television Documentary Series
on Canada's participation in 

The Great Anglo-Boer War:
The Canadian Experience 

1899-1902

In Commemoration of

the 100th anniversary of the first occasion that the Government and People of Canada sent an army to fight in a foreign war, and

TO REMEMBER

 the 7,000 Canadian men and women volunteers, who, though they eagerly joined up to fight for Queen and Empire, discovered, that above all, they were proudly Canadian.

The Great Anglo-Boer War broke out in October, 1899, between Britain and her neighbors in South Africa, the Boer farmers living in the Boer Republics (the Orange Free State & the South African Republic - the Transvaal).

The shooting started on Oct. 11, 1899; Elandslaagte (below) was fought on Oct. 21. Early Boer successes against overwhelming British forces alarmed Britons everywhere (during Black Week of Dec 10 - 15 the Boers won three huge battles in which 2 British generals, and hundreds of British soldiers were killed). Britain called for help. Colonial volunteers came from Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada, and Ceylon, to help the Mother Country fight what turned out to be the "Last Imperial War."

The 5th Lancers at Elandslaagte, one of the early battles of the Anglo-Boer War, made one of the last charges in history here as this "spearing technology" became out of date with the appearance of the modern German Mauser rifle in the hands of expert Boer riflemen. Lance-Corporal Kelly, doing the spearing above, was shortly afterwards himself shot to death, during a controversial charge against fleeing Boers that was to become a major point of contention among the European press.

FOUR FROM OTTAWA WHO ANSWERED THE CALL

        by Arthur Conan Doyle

"Who`s that calling?
The old sea-mother calls, 
In her pride at the children that she bore.
Oh noble hearts and true, 
There is work for us to do,
And we`ll do it as we`ve done it oft before.
Under the flag. 
Under the flag our father bore.
They died in days gone by for it,
And we will gladly die for it.
God save the Red Cross Flag!"

There are some 270 Canadians like them, who answered the call, in graves all over South Africa.

It is their story that we want to tell on the hundredth anniversary of the first ever military expedition sent by Canada to fight in an overseas war.

Fred Living (above) wrote after the first Battle of Paardeberg, of the horror of seeing "the fellows all stretched out, some dying, all covered with blood." A week later he himself was to die in the successful assault on Cronje's laager

See our Canadian National Boer War Memorial Page

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Even Sam Steele and his hundreds of Canadian Mounties, who supposedly always "get their man", spent months in futile efforts to corral this master of guerrilla warfare. In his honour, for 50 years after the war ended, Canadian veterans at their annual Paardeberg banquets, featured "De Wet soup", whose recipe started with abominably dirty river water, liberally garnished with putrefying "corpse of horse" and a dash of "graying gruel of mule."

Soldiers had ruefully referred to their drinking water in Africa, as "Chateau Modder", boasting a rare flavour because it was "full of body". It was all they often had to drink on the campaign and carried the disease which killed far more of their comrades than did Boer bullets.

The jubilation in the Empire was so fantastically overblown - the drinking and partying went on for days in London, and in colonial capitals when the siege was raised - that the word entered the English language for wild unrestrained carousing like: "We were Mafeking around!" or "Did we ever have a Mafeking good time!"

As a result of the disastrous British Black Week reverses, on the morning of Dec.16, 1899, Lord Roberts of Kandahar, VC, was told he would get his fondest wish, and become Commander-in-chief of the British Forces in South Africa .... In the afternoon he was told his only son had been killed at Colenso......  Bedeviled by gloom as he silently paced the deck on the ship taking him to South Africa, Roberts wrote his wife how pointless his life had become:

"The rent in my heart seems to stifle all feelings ..... I could not help thinking how different it would have been if our dear boy had been with me. Honors, rewards and congratulations have no value to me...."

Before he had gone to South Africa as a galloper (a dispatch rider), young Freddy had failed miserably in his entrance exams to get into the British army's famed staff college at Aldershot. Lord Roberts (Commander of the British Forces in Ireland) begged  his arch rival, Field Marshal Wolseley (Commander-in-Chief of the British Army), "on bended knee", to make an exception and let his son in anyway. Wolseley firmly refused, saying, "No, but possibly ....., if there was to be an act of outstanding gallantry when Freddy went to South Africa......!"

Boer generals who lost sons include de la Rey, Kock, and Viljoen. 

Frederick Borden, Canada's Minister of Militia (below), was eager to test Canadian men and war materiel under battlefield conditions. He could not know the high price he would pay.

When the First Contingent embarked for South Africa, the press tauntingly reminded the Minister of his enthusiasm with a, "Where it the son of the Minister of Militia?" Young Harold, against his father's wishes, signed up for the Second.

He was brought to Lord Roberts' attention for his battlefield exploits when he swam back and forth across the Vet River (left) to draw the fire of the Boers to expose them as the army launched its attack here at Coetzee's Drift.

Historian John Goldi points to the north bank from which the Boers were shooting as Harold (along with Lt. Richard Turner) swam across the river below.

A few months later, while standing up to scout the Boer positions, as his men were rescuing a British unit, he was shot and killed. All Canada mourned his loss.

This morning in a busy street, 
A tiny lad I spied,
With paper hat, and little wooden
Sword slung by his side;
Said I, 'Good morning, Gen'ral!'
In a playful sort of way,
'I see by your appearance you're
Preparing for the fray.'
He stood up to attention,
Looked at me with flashing eye,
Then gripped his little wooden sword
As he made this reply _

Chorus