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Resistance See other Resistance Articles Title: WHAT PEOPLE WITH RIFLES CAN DO: THE BOER WAR 1899: The British Empire expands deeper into Southern Africa to seize the gold and diamond deposits. Having crushed the Zulus the British Army was now tasked to crush the Afrikaaners. Being simple farmers, with no industry they were descended from 16th century Dutch colonists, roughly comparable to Revolution War era Americans. The British had an army geared primarily to crush backwards natives. That wasn't the Boers. The Boers were self-sufficient, they could ride, live off the land, were intelligent, free spirited, and they could shoot. They also had a powerful ally in Germany-which supplied them with thousands of these rifles: src="http://www.rumormillnews.com/pix4/Boer_Mauser_1896_7x57mm.jpg"> Mauser is a five shot bolt action rifle, that the Boers used out to incredible ranges! A couple snippets of their shooting exploits: What astonished the professional British soldiers during those first few months of the war (when they were soundly routed by the Boer amateurs) were two things: firstly, the Boers were excellent marksmen, almost to a man. It seemed to the British that they could be shot at almost any rangeand the volume of fire was generally withering, because the Boers were using one of the best rifles available anywhere: the Mauser Model 1896. Not only was the standard issue British Lee-Metford rifle inferior to the Boer Mausers, it was markedly soand the Germans had been secretly supplying the Boer arsenals with Mausers for a period of two years before the outbreak of hostilities. One of the first things the Boers did when reporting for duty was to hand in whatever rifles they owned as private individuals, and pick up a Mauser (making resupply less problematicone rifle type, one caliber). ...Ive been to several of the Boer War battlefields, among them Ladysmith, Colenso, Spion Kop and Magersfontein. The ranges between the battle lines were impressive: seldom less than four hundred yards, more often closer to eight hundred. (Not many scopes in those days, eitherhead-shots with iron sightsyowzer.) From http://www.theothersideofkim.com/index.php/ggps/5141/ And... The Dutch Boers of South Africa, at the turn of the last century, sought to gain independence from Great Britain. Living a lifestyle very similiar to the American Pioneers, they were almost to a man noted for their rifle shooting skills, from hunting dangerous game to fighting the natives, as they wrested the land from its original owners. In anticipation of their revolution, the Boers ordered as many modern M-93/95 Mausers they could get their hands on and several million rounds of 7x57mm ammunition. The Boers titled themselves as simply Burghers, or citizens, and when called to action, they rode to assembly points with their own horse, rifle and ammunition to form up into "Commandos". One famous Boer slogan was: "Vertroue im God en die Mauser
Faith in God and the Mauser. Great Britain, at the time, had vast experience in quelling native revolts throughout her world-wide empire, and boasted one of the most modern armies in the world. They set out to quell the upstarts, and their arsenal included Maxim guns, quick-firing pom-poms, heavy artillery, aerial observation from balloons, armored trains, semophore signallers, and the Lee-Metford rifle. They marched in expecting a cake walk. It was to take them a half a million men and more than three years to subdue a force of, at its height, 40,000 Boers. Rudyard Kipling describes the grudging admiration the British soldier had for the Boer's prowess with the Mauser: An when there wasnt aught to do But camp and cattle-guards, Ive fought with im the ole day through At fifteen undred yards; Long afternoons o lyin still, An earin as you lay The bullets swish from ill to ill Like scythes among the ay. Ah, there, Piet!beind is stony kop With is Boer bread an biltong, an is flask of awful Dop; Is Mauser for amusement an is pony for retreat, Ive known a lot o fellers shoot a dam sight worse than Piet. (Note: Biltong is jerky and Dop is Cape brandy.) British General Paul Methuen, at the Battle of Modder River, said, "I never saw a Boer, but even at 2,000 yards when I rode a horse I had a hail of bullets around me. He ended the day in hospital with a bullet in his leg. He was later to help re-train the British Army before WWI, where he stressed, "Good shooting, accurate judging of distance, and intelligent use of ground." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who went on to create the character Sherlock Holmes, also witnessed the Battle of Modder River and said: As to the rifle bullets the air was humming and throbbing with them, and the sand was mottled like a pond in a shower. To advance was impossible, to retire was hateful. The men fell upon their faces and huddled close to the earth, too happy if some friendly ant-heap gave them a precarious shelter. An always, tier above tier, the lines of rifle fire rippled and palpitated in front of them. The infantry fired also, and fired, and firedbut what was there to fire at? An occasional eye and hand over the edge of a trench or behind a stone is no mark at seven hundred yards. Later, Doyle reported on the Battle of Colenso:No sign of the enemy could be seen, though the men were dropping fast. It is a weird and soul-shaking experience to advance over a sunlit and apparently a lonely countryside, with not the slightest movement upon its broad face, while the path which you take is marked behind you by sobbing, gasping, writhing men, who can only guess by the position of their wounds whence the shots came which struck them down. All round, like the hissing of fat in the pan, is the monotonous crackle and rattle of the Mausers; but the air is full of it, and no one can define exactly whence it comes. Far away on some hill upon the skyline there hangs the least gauzy veil of thin smoke to indicate whence the six men who have just all fallen together, as if it were some grim drill, met their death." What did it take to defeat Free Men who could shoot? The British exploited the basic weakness of the Boers: 1.)They were isolated from any trade or resupply from Germany. Britain ruling the waves wasn't just a slogan it was a fact. The Boers were easy to blockade, being geographically isolated from Europe. 2.)The Boers had NO industry. Not even a means to reload their spent rifle cartridges with powder, jackeded bullets, and primers not having basic metal casting, chemistry and gunpowder manufacturing capabilities meant they eventually ran out of rounds before the British Empire ran out of bodies. 3.)The British were ruthless. Ruthless enough to burn crops, set up machine gun armed blockhouses literally everywhere, and to put the Boer women and children into concentration camps. It took as many as 600,000 soldiers, the burning of farms and crops, the killing or impoundment of livestock, and the imprisonment of the Boers' families in concentration camps to beat them. The Boers and their Mausers, for the most part, were not defeated on the field of battle. Peace terms were actually quite generous towards the Boers as the exhausted British wished to simply end the war that had proven to be so unexpectedly costly in lives, manpower, time, effort, and money. Source:http://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php?topic=2525.0 Yes the Boers lost, but they could've won had they invested SOMETHING into being able to just reload their own spent cartridges. Also, despite having machine guns and artillery the Boers put up a much harder fight due to being able to shoot. RIFLE MARKSMANSHIP= the Boer thought nothing of shooting out past 1000 yards with iron sighted bolt action rifles! That's why the teaching of marksmanship has been killed by the beast, that's why the beast has been trying so very hard to kill the cherished American heritage of rifle marksmanship. So, don't just buy rifles and ammo. Learn how to shoot! Go to www.appleseedinfo.org (or type www.rwva.org same difference)and sign up for an Appleseed shoot. Learn how to hit with a rifle out to AT LEAST 500 yards... which against Boer standards, with older bolt action rifles with those horrible European military sights, is going easy... 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#1. To: X-15 (#0)
(Edited)
Indeed. The Brits are frequently associated with the word "civilized." That maybe true in many respects but not in the way the Brits approached warfare. The Brits were methodically ruthless, not civilized at all. Thank you for shedding light on the Boer War and the brutal "scorched earth" tactics employed by the Brits to win the war and control of the recently discovered gold resources in South Africa. Lesson to be learned from the Boer War: in order to win any war,a stockpile of lotsa ammunition is essential.
Great piece. One suggestion, though. Edit "semophore signallers" to "semaphore signalers". The box magazine-fed Mausers also gave the Spanish an edge in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. US troops used a variety of small arms including the 6mm Lee Navy Rifle. (Fifty four straight-pull Lee Rifles and six breech loading .45 cal Springfield rifles were salvaged by divers from the USS Maine and sold as surplus by Francis Bannerman for $40 and $25, respectively. They were among the arms of the 40 shipboard marines and 300-plus sailors of The Maine) One weapon that did distinguish itself on both sides was the (incorrectly named) dynamite gun, which Teddy Roosevelt proudly acknowledged in a victory parade after the war. (despite having problems with it while in service)
For those that havent read Rags of Glory, by Edward Stuart Cloete, 1963, I would highly recommend finding a copy.
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