Guerrillas Tested British Resolve in Boer War

Everyone has heard of the Boer War, but how many of us actually know anything about it? I guarantee I knew very little until I started reading The Great Boer War by Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes, that Arthur Conan Doyle, of Sherlock Holmes fame. And that's a story in itself.

It seems that Doyle (Conan Doyle?) was already a well known writer at the time of what was actually the Second Boer War. He wanted to see it for himself and tried to enlist in the army, but the generals were skeptical about having a famous writer in their ranks. Ultimately, he was allowed to join a field hospital operation, and it was his exemplary service in that capacity that earned Sir Arthur Conan Doyle his knighthood. Pretty dang interesting all by itself.

So let me try to abbreviate this pretty drastically. The Orange Free State was an independent country. The Transvaal was an independent country. Natal was a British colony. The Dutch settlers, or Boers, were very conservative religiously and socially, and in the Transvaal they were afraid that the influx of workers from around the world would overwhelm their numbers and wrest political -- and social -- control from the Boers.

Under the leadership of Paul Kruger (as in Krugerrand) the Transvaalers heaped enormous taxes on the newcomers and passed laws making it practically impossible for them to become citizens. Because many of these workers were British, the Brits did not take kindly to what they considered mistreatment and exploitation of their people. They tried to bring international pressure on the Transvaal but to no avail. Meanwhile, the Boers were known to be arming rapidly, in anticipation of some conflict with Britain.

Understand, of course, that this is all as told through Doyle's eyes, a loyal Brit, so there is probably another side to it all.

Anyway, one thing lead to another and the British sent troops to Natal to protect against aggression from the Transvaal. The Transvaalers considered this aggression and struck first, along with troops from the Orange Free State, with which Britain had no quarrel.

Ultimately, it was a matter of the Dutch settlers wanting all of South Africa to be under Dutch hegemony or influence, not British.

Long story short, the British won after three years and incorporated the Transvaal and the Orange Free State into the Republic of South Africa. But what happened during those three years?

The Boers had early successes because they were prepared. The Brits had some catching up to do. Eventually, though, the might of the British empire was more than the Boers could resist. Except that long after the fight appeared a lost cause, Boer commandos and guerrillas continued the fight. And the British public got restive. They started asking why they were continuing to sacrifice their sons and their tax dollars for this never-ending battle.

In the end, it was probably just the low population numbers that allowed the British to force the end of the conflict after only three years. Most of the populations were rounded up into relocation camps and the Boer fighters could ill afford losses of personnel even if they won a battle. Had the fighting continued for the length of time the U.S. was in Vietnam or has been in Iraq, public opinion may have forced a different outcome. But the Boers lacked the manpower to continue fighting, and the war was won before the British public got totally fed up.

As for the book itself, Doyle is obviously a talented writer, so it's very readable. On the other hand, he touches on practically every battle and a great many of the skirmishes in the entire war effort and that gives a bit tiring at times. Nevertheless, it's a very interesting read and I would definitely recommend it.

Even the Indians Had Church/State Conflicts

OK, fourth and final remarks on Canyons of the Colorado, John Wesley Powell's account of his boat trip down the river in 1869, since renamed The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons.

We all know that separation of church and state is an important element in our system of government, and the degree of separation in some countries varies from 0% to nearly 100%. Do you have the idea that this sort of conflict is something born of advanced societies? Guess again. Take a look at what Powell had to say about the tribal politics of the Zuni peoples he encountered.

In addition to the secular government there is always a cult government. In every tribe there are Shamans . . . In many tribes, perhaps in all, the people are organized into Shamanistic societies: but that these societies are invariably recognized is not certain. The Shamans are always found.

The purpose of the Shamanistic institutions is to control the conduct of the members of the tribe in relation to mythic personages, the mysterious beings in which the savage men believe . . . It is deemed of prime importance that such deities should be induced to act in the interest of men. Thus it is that Shamanistic government is held to be of as great importance as tribal government, and the Shamans are the peers of the chiefs . . . but always there is a conflict of authority, and there is a perpetual war between Shamanistic and civil government.

Politics and religion. Apparently you can't live with them and you can't live without them!

Good Eatin' Down in the Canyon

Who knew you could find so much of interest in such an old book. This is my third post about John Wesley Powell's book Canyons of the Colorado, now renamed The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons. This time we're talking culinary arts.

In 1869, Powell and his men floated the Colorado River from Green River, WY, more than 1,000 miles down to the mouth of the Grand Canyon, the first persons ever to do so. Native Americans still largely ruled the area he went through, although there were some settlers at this point.

Powell tells this amusing story of some time they spent with the Indians:

After we have partaken of goat stew and bread, a course of dumplings, melons, and peaches is served, and this finishes the feast. What seem to be dumplings are composed of a kind of hash of bread and meat, tied up in little balls with cornhusks and served boiling hot. They are eaten with much gusto by the party and highly praised.

Some days after we learn how they are made: they are prepared of goat's flesh, bread, and turnips, and kneaded by mastication. As we prefer to masticate our own food, this dainty dish is never again a favorite.

OK. I don't think I need to expand on this.

Recycling History

Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon are Anasazi Indian ruins that today draw large masses of tourists. They are historical and are protected and no one would consider tearing them down.

Such was not always the case. In Canyons of the Colorado, now renamed The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, John Wesley Powell tells of a ruin they visited as they floated down the river:

. . . here stood an extensive ruin not many years ago. Some portions of the pueblo were three stories high. The structure was one of the best found in this land of ruins.

Now get this:

The Mormon people settling here have used the stones of the old pueblo in building their homes, and no vestiges of the ancient structure remain.

Oh man. Can you imagine? I mean, you can't blame the settlers. Here was a lot of perfectly good building materials ready to be used. But think of Mesa Verde and imagine it being dismantled to build settler homes. What a loss.

John Wesley Powell Describes How Kit Carson Conquered the Navajos

You can't really imagine the courage it took for John Wesley Powell and his men to float the until-then unexplored Colorado River until you read his report of the trip, Canyons of the Colorado, now retitled The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons. They started out with four boats and had two left at the end. Four men gave up the quest before it ended, convinced that death was too likely an outcome.

But the rest did make it through, and their journey is well worth reading about.

Aside from the trip itself, the book contains a number of pretty dang interesting sidelights, and I will discuss them here in a series of posts. This first item has to do with Kit Carson, a celebrated (among the whites) scout, who it seems the natives of the region has good reason to consider in a much less appreciative light.

Powell opens the book by setting the stage, discussing the topography and history of the region traversed by the river. One subject he touches on was the white man's triumph over the original inhabitants of the land, the Navajos.

Powell tells this story:

After the acquisition of this area by the United States they (the Indians) became disaffected by reason of encroaching civilization, and the petty wars between United States troops and Navajos were in the main disastrous to our forces, due in part to the courage, skill, and superior numbers of the Navajos and in part to the character of the country, which is easily defended, as the routes of travel along the canyons present excellent opportunities for defense and ambuscade. But under the leadership and by the advice of Kit Carson these Indians were ultimately conquered. This wily but smart frontiersman recommended a new method of warfare, which was to destroy the herds and flocks of the Navajos: and this course was pursued. Regular troops with volunteers from California and New Mexico went into the Navajo country and shot down their herds of half-wild horses, killed hundreds of thousands of sheep, cut down their peach orchards which were scattered about the springs and little streams, destroyed their irrigating works, and devastated their little patches of corn, squashes, and melons: and entirely neglected the Navajos themselves, who were concealed among the rocks of the canyons. Seeing the destruction wrought upon their means of livelihood, the Navajos at once yielded.

Wow. We all know that the whites basically came in and stole the land from the Indians, and we've read about Wounded Knee and the Trail of Tears, but this is another stain that I had never heard of. "OK, you won't let us just take your land away from you? Fine, we'll destroy your civilization. How do you like that?" What in the world made those people think they had any just reason for doing this? Sometimes it makes you ashamed to be an American. Enough said.

I Thought the Civil War was Over

Here's an interesting and disturbing thought: apparently for a sizeable number of people in the U.S. south, the Civil War is not over, it's just in remission. Now, I spent some years growing up in Tennessee and I'm familiar with the phrase "The South will rise again," but I didn't think anyone took that seriously. More than that, I've always had the impression that Southerners are among the more patriotic folks in this country.

According to this book I just read, Confederates in the Attic, there's a lot more below the surface south of the Mason-Dixon Line than most of us think. This book by Tony Horwitz, subtitled "Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War," is largely about the reenactors who dress up as Union and Confederate troops and stack reenactments of Civil War battles. However, as the author researched his subject he found a lot more than he bargained for. Here's the passage from the book that I find most chilling:

After the quiz, I went with the Curtises and a couple named the Crowders to a Southern-style restaurant chain called Morrison's. We loaded our trays with un-Confederate heaps of cornbread, fried chicken, mashed potatoes and collard greens. I was about to shovel in the first bite when Violet Crowder loudly cleared her throat. Then she turned to her four-year-old son, Warren. "Lord," he intoned, "we thank thee for this meal and especially for the great and wonderful Confederacy."

. . . (skipping a couple paragraphs)

Her son sat quietly completing a connect-the-dot picture of the rebel flag and filling in a coloring-book map of America: gray for the Confederacy, blue for Union, green for border states. "Warren," his mother said, "tell this nice man from Virginia, is there anything you hate more than Yankees?"

"No sir! Nothing!" he shouted.

All right, these are people in the 1990s (the book was published in 1998) who are raising their son to worship an entity that ceased to exist 130 years before, and to hate his fellow countrymen. These people are members of a group called the Children of the Confederacy and which, says the author, "was designed to prep youngsters for Confederate citizenship in rather the way that Future Farmers of America readied teenagers for agricultural life." The group has a 16-page "Catechism" with gems such as this:

Q. What was the feeling of the slaves towards their masters?
A. They were faithful and devoted and were always ready and willing to serve them.

Are you getting queasy yet?

Maybe it's because I live in Colorado, where racial harmony is very much the norm, but I really had no idea that racism is still so prevalent in other parts of the country. Horwitz goes into that quite a bit, telling about his discussions with Blacks, Whites, red-necks, liberals, and everyone else. The picture he paints is not pretty. The one bright hope he touches on is that for the younger generations the issue of racism is receding. Perhaps in the last 10 years it has receded even further.

If Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination for president it will be interesting to see just which states he takes in the election. If he wins in the South I'll feel a lot more optimistic than I did when I finished reading this book.

Random Interesting Tidbits from WWII France

I just finished reading The Collapse of the Third Republic, by William Shirer, about how the government and military of France came to be so weak and divided that Nazi Germany could sweep in and conquer the nation in just one month. This is a book that is hard to put down but it is also hard to keep reading at times because it is downright painful to witness the short-sightedness and timidity that led to bloody catastrophe.

I'm not going to get into that; you can read the book yourself. It's worth reading.

What I want to make note of are just a few of the surprising bits of information I ran across in the book.

For example, when France was on the verge of collapse they continued to have one of the strongest navy fleets in the world. Great Britain was extremely worried about those ships falling into German hands. The French were guaranteeing the British that they would never allow that to happen, but considering all the other failed guarantees France had given in so many other situations, it is not surprising that the British were a bit doubtful.

Winston Churchill was not timid. He gave the order for the seizure of all French vessels possible and sinking of the rest if that were the only recourse. Most were seized with little bloodshed but at Mers-el-Kebir, in French Algeria, the two navies fought a lop-sided battle that resulted in the sinking or destruction of all but one of the French ships in the port. The French soon capitulated to Germany and the Petain dictatorship made common cause with Hitler.

That led to another of the points I want to note. With the French government at Vichy now on the side of the Axis powers, the Nazis were able to walk into the French African possessions. This of course was the setting for the Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall flick "Casablanca." When the time came for the British and American troops to invade North Africa, the French fought them. Approximately 1,500 French and a like number of Americans killed each other in that initial battle. Sort of like if the Kuwaiti military had fought the U.S. military when the Americans came in to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.

Lastly, I remembered from childhood that Charles De Gaulle was the leader of France at that time. During the period the book covers he was a colonel and then a general, and he did not capitulate, but rather went on to lead the French resistance (I'm not clear on details here, haven't read about that yet). I guess I just assumed that he became president after the war and that he headed the Fourth French Republic.

Well, not exactly. First off, De Gaulle did not immediately become the French head of state. He eventually did become the last Premier of the Fourth Republic and then he became the first President of the Fifth Republic. Apparently they rewrote their constitution again at that point. I'm only assuming that the government of France today is still the Fifth Republic.

So those are the particular things that struck me. Of course the whole book really struck me. Everything is so clear in hindsight but there are always at least a few people who see it clearly in foresight. If only it weren't so difficult to figure out who those people are and who they are not.