JCH 2011 Volume 36 Issue 2
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Browsing JCH 2011 Volume 36 Issue 2 by Subject "Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902)"
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Item Open Access Lessons from the Southern African wars: a counterinsurgency analysis(Faculty of Humanities, University of the Free State, 2011) Scholtz, LeopoldWith the war in Afganistan still going strong, there is a considerable interest in the military profession for insight into counterinsurgency war. This article argues that the five Southern African counterinsurgency wars – the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), the Portuguese colonial wars (1960-1974), the Rhodesian War (1965-1980), the Border War in Namibia (1968-1989) and the South African war against the ANC/SACP are valid illustrations of some of the rules being analysed in military literature nowadays. Mainly three lessons come out very strongly. One is the fact that counterinsurgency warfare is not about destroying an enemy army on the battlefield, but a struggle for the hearts and minds of the local population. The other is the role played by space – the smaller the geographical area to which the counterinsurgent can confine the insurgent, the better the chances for success. Last but not least, no counterinsurgency war can be truly won militarily. Politics will always be the deciding factor.Item Open Access Neerslag van die Anglo-Boereoolog (1899-1902) in die Portugese geskiedskrywing(Faculty of Humanities, University of the Free State, 2011) Ferreira, O. J. O.This article traces how the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) was chronicled in Potuguese historiography. Considering that the Portuguese colony of Mozambique shared a border with the South African Republic (Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek – ZAR), and that Lourenço Marques was a strategic harbour during the war, Portugal was, unwillingly, involved in the conflict, directly and indirectly. King Carlos I and the Portuguese government were pro-British, but many Portuguese newspapers, intellectuals and ordinary citizens were pro-Boer. One could have expected that the war would feature fairly prominently in Portuguese historiography, but this is not the case. From 1899 to 1906, during and directly after the war, a few publications – most of which were pro-Boer – were published. However, three decades passed before studies about the war trickled through from 1936 to 1971 – probably as a result of the stormy political history being played out in Portugal during that period. Only since 1984 have sporadic scientific studies about the Anglo-Boer War been undertaken in Portuguese, but the centenary of the war (1999-2002) itself passed almost unnoticed in Portugal.