South Africa

The Disaster at Majuba, 1881

The Battle of Majuba Hill during the First Boer War, had immense political and military significance to British armsand not only in South Africa. Its chief cause, writes Brian Bond, was a gross underestimation of the Boer’s tactical aptitude and courage.

The Siege of Mafeking

“A game of bluff from start to finish,” said Robert Baden-Powell, British commander during the Second Boer War. Nicholas King describes the seven-months’ siege, that took place in present day South Africa.

South Africa and the War

In September 1939, writes J.V. Woolford, a British war in Europe seemed alien to many Dutch South Africans, but General Smuts changed the country’s mind.

A South African Year of Crisis 1899

Edna Bradlow writes that while Paul Kruger felt he had an obligation to protect his country's moral right on behalf of the Transvaal Republic, Chamberlain, speaking for his own countrymen, declared that the issue involved both “our supremacy in South Africa and our existence as a great power”.

Sir George Grey: A Great Proconsul

George Grey was governor in succession of South Australia, New Zealand, Cape Colony and New Zealand again. Cyril Hamshere charts a most remarkable career in the Victorian Colonial service.

Primus in Afros? The Career of John Gregory S. J.

Among the English pioneers in Southern Africa must be honoured the name of John Gregory of Lyme Regis, writes W.F. Rea, who embarked for Mozambique from the Jesuit College at Goa during the reign of Charles II.