Canada's Little War: Fighting for the British Empire in Southern Africa, 1899-1902

Summary:marjory kempe
The Boer War is just a footnote in our history, not even rating an entry in McClelland & Stewart's Canadian Encyclopedia. We remember it as a British concern that had had little to do with us, and to which we gave only token support. It was indeed, from a Canadian perspective, a "little war ". Yet Carman Miller, one of Canada’s foremost experts on this subject, believes that this war was a significant epoch in our country and deserves greater consideration. Mr. Miller's most persuasive argument is the connection he makes between the Boer War and World War I. Most Canadian historians would say that Canada came of age during the Great War. For the first time we stood as an equal among the nations of the world, not merely as Great Britain’s dependent. Yet this is only part of the truth. When Canadian soldiers requested the right to fight under their own officers and in their own regiments during World War I, the reputation they earned for courage and resourcefulness during the Boer War helped to support their cause. Many Canadian officers in the later conflict had sharpened their leadership skills in South Africa. One man we would recognize, John McRae, served on the veldt years before he saw the poppies of Flanders fields. That point is well made, and is the strength of the book. Where the book stumbles is in the battle scenes. Mr. Miller fails to find the balance between too little and too much detail in his accounts, making the picture either too muddled or too vague. Battlefield stories can't help but produce memorable, flesh-and-blood characters, but I had the feeling that this same material in another writer's hands could have come to life so much more. One of the stories that did stand out reflected the Boers’ attitude toward their enemies. After a particularly ferocious fight, an outnumbered group of Canadians finally surrendered. Even though the Canadians had decimated the ranks of their attackers, the Boers congratulated them on their courage, helped them bury their comrades, and set them free to return to their regiment. Mr. Miller also illustrates in great detail the effect that the war had upon the civilian population of Canada. The patriotism that swept the country was unlike anything seen before.

Entire communities raised money to contribute to the comfort of soldiers and their families. People wrote sentimental, stirring ballads that celebrated the gallantry of the Canadian soldier and moved the masses to tears. Manufacturers produced patriotic souvenirs of every description--mugs, handkerchiefs, toy soldiers--anything with a war theme. Yet this enthusiasm only highlighted a deep rift in the country. While English Canada largely embraced the cause, French Canada was disdainful, its leaders asking in Parliament why Canada had to fight battles for a foreign power. This division erupted into violence briefly in the Montreal Flag Riot of 1900 and remained festering for years afterward. The title of this book designating the Boer War as a little war seems very appropriate when Mr. Miller presents the battle statistics. Only seven thousand troops were sent, in groups of one or two thousand at a time, and for a service limited to one year. Two hundred and seventy soldiers were killed over the course of three years. These numbers seem ludicrously small compared with the horrific numbers of casualties from later wars, yet the impact of these deaths on the country was profound, and Boer War veterans met to commemorate them every year until 1962. This book continues in that tradition of remembrance. With a wealth of illustrations ranging from pictures of war artifacts, contemporary posters, portraits and photographs of soldiers and their uniforms, it resembles a scrapbook. Even if you’re not in the market for a thoughtful, scholarly discourse on the relevance of a forgotten war, you might enjoy spending a few minutes flipping through the pages and reading the captions to the illustrations to become acquainted wa little-known story of our past.
Canada's Little War: Fighting for the British Empire in Southern Africa, 1899-1902 Originally published in Shvoong: http://www.shvoong.com/humanities/history/487196-canada-little-war-fighting-british/