Rifles in the Boer War

The use of the Lee-Metford by British forces was undoubtedly one of the biggest changes of equipment of the British Army. Before 1888 the British army had used The Martini Henry rifle, a breech-loading, single-shot, lever rifle. This rifle was used, most famously in the Zulu war, where it was used mostly, but not exclusively, against men armed with just spears and shields. This was fine - the rifle could fire 12 rounds a minute, so on an open battlefield a Zulu army had no chance. 
The Lee-Metford on the other hand could fire 20 rounds a minute - a huge increase in fire power, it also used smokeless powder, and had a greater range than the Martini Henry. But these technological advances, although useful, were not used effectively in the British Forces, as they were in the Boer forces.

Lee-Metford

Before the Boer war, age old tactics had been used to fight battles, forming a line and firing by rank was still an effective method by 1888, we can see this in the iconic scene from Zulu where Stanley Baker lines up his men and suppresses a Zulu attack. This kind of tactic was necessary, primarily because of loading times, but also because of a lack of smokeless powder. Another scene in Zulu when there are Zulu marksmen on the hills firing down onto the British Troops best illustrates how long range firing was not feasible; when firing non-smokeless powder, a man can be seen from very far away and then immediately fired upon.


The Boers however, capitalized upon their bolt action rifles - the German Mauser and the Norwegian Krag rifle (which had a very unusual and interesting design). Boers rarely allowed the British to have pitched battles, and made the most of the fact that they could fire without their positions being revealed. a small number of well placed Boer riflemen could easily decimate an entire British Column, and then easily escape on horse back. These Boer tactics lead to great frustration in the British Army and led Kitchener to make 2 major tactic changes. Firstly the scorched Earth Policy which effectively denied sustenance and safe houses to Boer guerrillas. This, whilst definitely effective also had many ethical issues. Another, somewhat lesser known tactic was the use of the Bushveldt Carbineers - a mounted guerrilla type force, primarily composed of Australians, set up to counter the Boers. They used carbine versions of both the Lee-Metford and the Martini Henry

Carbineers

The Carbineers, although not in Britain, are fairly famous in Australia. The most famous of all of them was a man called Henry 'Breaker' Morant. Morant was court marshaled and executed, for killing Boer prisoners, despite this being a well known and condoned practice for Carbineers, as they had no other means of keeping them. It is often said that his killing was used as an attempt to keep Germany away from the war as well as a way to make peace with the Boers. He is now a folk Hero in Australia, his friend after his death wrote a book about him called Scapegoats of Empire, and there is also a film about him.

Weapons of the Second Boer War | Kieran McMullen. 2013. Weapons of the Second Boer War | Kieran McMullen. [ONLINE] Available at:http://kieranmcmullen.com/2012/10/07/weapons-of-the-second-boer-war/.


Film Breaker Morant


Piers Brendon, 2008. The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997. Third Impression Edition. Vintage Books.

Medicine in the Crimean War

The Crimean war proved to be an extremely inhospitable place for the British Military, especially in the winter of 1854-5. The winter, even by Russian standards was extremely cold and harsh, this combined with the fact that due to a supply shortage, men were left without warm winter clothing and medicine meant that staying healthy was extremely difficult.

Over the course of the war, it is thought that 22,000 men were injured or killed in battle, but only 3754 actually died in battle, the others died because of the poor medical services that they received. Scurvy was a huge issue for example, around 85% of the men that were admitted into hospitals in the war had scurvy. In fact conditions were so horrendously awful, that one had a better chance of survival being in the Charge of the Light Brigade than being in a British hospital. Common sights in hospitals were men slowly dying of exposure t the harsh winter conditions, infections and blood loss.

To combat this, the British Government sent Florence Nightingale to head the introduction of female nurses into the war and to improve hospital conditions.

It was around this time that huge medical improvements were being made, the link between hygiene and germs had just been discovered, and as a response antiseptic was being used for the first time to help cleanse wounds and surgical treatment. Carbolic

acid was a key antiseptic that had come into wide usage, it would be sprayed on patients wounds and on medical instruments, supposedly in a Newcastle Hospital, this reduce infection related deaths by 56%.

Despite these advances though, a sheer lack of effective management and resources lead to appalling conditions, as demonstrated by this account by an Assistant Surgeon in the Crimea (Dr Wrench) - 'There were no beds or proper bedding in the hospital in Balaclava. Patients had to lye in their dirty clothes on the hospital floor. A hurricane had blown out all of the windows in the hospital. This allowed rain to be blown onto the patients of the hospital. Wounds were infected by the heat and dust, by shortage of water and lack of proper care, and grew more and more painful. Foul exhalations contaminated the air, in spite of the praiseworthy attempts of the authorities to keep hospital areas in a sanitary condition'. To modern ears this sounds horrific, and it must have been much the same for the medical staff who had to work in these conditions, but mostly by the brave men who died there.

However the French and Russian treatment was not much better, they suffered from much the same systemic problems as the British did, partly due to a lack of understanding, and partly down to a sheer lack of medical equipment. Ambulances were notoriously overcrowded and helped spread a typhus epidemic, which affect some 90% of all patients carried by Ambulance.

The war did however lead to medical reform, it was made clear that having more men die from disease than from the enemy was simple unacceptable. Better treatment was given to soldiers in future wars, but the most clear cut example of an improvement is the foundation of the Red Cross by Henry Durant, who was inspired to improve medical care for soldiers based on his experiences of the Crimean -  a charity that still runs today.

William Russell

An Irish born reporter for The Times Russell is generally considered to be one of the first war correspondents, despite the fact that he hated the term. Raised and taught in Ireland who then moved to London to become a maths teacher, it was during this time tat he did some freelance work for The Times. His work was found to be of such quality that he was offered a full time role in the paper, around this time he covered a small war going on in the disputed territories between Prussia and Denmark. In 1854 he was sent to the Crimea to send reports back to The Times on the stories of the war. He was a controversial figure in the eyes of the military, Lord Raglan disliked him so much that he encouraged his officers not to speak with him. Russell later said that 'Raglan is utterly incompetent to lead an Army'. Modern Historians have said of him 'Russell made friends with junior officers, and from them and other ranks, and by observation, gained his information. He wore quasi-military clothes and was armed, but did not fight. He was not a great writer but his reports were vivid, dramatic, interesting, and convincing.... His reports identified with the British forces and praised British heroism. He exposed logistic and medical bungling and failure, and the suffering of the troops.' This illustrates the honest approach Russell took to writing, which may have been part of his appeal, yes he 'Praised British Heroism' but he was not afraid to inform the public of 'bungling[s] and failure'. Raglan however did not take kindly to this kind of reporting and said that Russell may be revealing information that could be useful to the enemy, even Queen Victoria condemned him, saying '[Russell writes] infamous attacks against the army which have disgraced our newspapers'.

 Russell's reporting allowed the public to have a non establishment perspective of war for really the first time; and it was this that led to radical reform of the military. Russell was so influential in fact, that Florence Nightingale claimed that she was inspired to join the war effort because of his reports. Russell was a great reporter, maybe not because of his writing skill or even his ability to get information, but in his honesty in his writings, it seems to me that before the advent of independent war Journalism, the public simply had no information or only positive information about wars. Thus people didn't know about defeats, or tragedies or 'bungles'. People like Russell informed the public, and they were outraged, and consequently reforms were established to prevent these failures from happening again. Even though Russell was only a part of a much larger chain of events, I think he had a profound effect on British Journalism.

Roger Fenton

Roger Fenton was a leading British photographer and probably one of the first war photographers in the world. He took 350 usable photographs during the war 312 of which were exhibited in London, all despite suffering personally in the war from Cholera, broken ribs and Depression. 

Fenton was attached to the British Army to document the Crimean War. Because of the technology of the time he was unable to take action shots - thus any sort of movement in a shot was not recorded properly. This meant that no shots of battles were taken, which at first might suggest that Fenton's photographs are of little interest to those studying the war, but in fact it is precisely this technical hitch that has allowed us to see the other side of the war.

We see in this image for example, the graves of some high ranking officers who died in battle, although I knew that men's bodies would not be transported home for burial in Britain, I did not realise that officers would have their own graves complete with headstones such as these.It helps to illustrate the difference between the average private and a high born officers, and it shows that even in an unorganised  and poorly supplied like the Crimean, tombs could still be made for the wealthy.


Another image which helps illustrate the non battle element of the war, it is an image of a cantinière.
It helps to illustrate the role of women in the war. Women would often be seen around camp, making meals for the troops, or nursing them or as war wives. Some married soldiers had traditionally brought their wives on the campaign with during in war, this was until the late 19th century, a common thing to do. 

Here we see what an actual camp would've looked like. we see the emptiness of the Crimea and the poor housing given to troops. It's clear from this image that a cold and windy winter would be absolutely awful for troops to live in, especially, as the textbook sources have shown, because troops often lacked winter clothing.  






And finally we see the birth of modern journalism and war photography from this image of Roger Fenton's Van, this also indirectly shows the level of technology at the time. The van may have carried Fenton's belongings, but it also demonstrates the size of Fenton's Camera, and illustrates how recording in such a hostile, war environment would have been immensely difficult.

 

Cossacks

Reading from the textbook and from sources in class I found that Russian troops were often described as, or described fighting alongside 'Cossacks', so I decided to find out who they were.

A group of Cossacks

There is no agreed definition of 'Cossack' according to one website this is because 'They are not a nationality or a religion, they don’t represent a political party or movement' but the word 'Cossack' is derived from a Turkish word 'Qasaq' meaning Free Man, or Adventurer. However many sources have also said that Cossacks were often Serfs that ran away from their masters and became wanderers. They were typically associated  with the Steppe region, the Ukraine and Southern Russia, which may be the Reason for the name of the country Kazakhstan ('Kazak' and 'Qasaq' being different spellings of the same word and  the country is south of Russia).

Never the less, small Cossack settlements began to appear in the Don river region in the 15th Century. Cossacks were most famous as being a formidable part of the Russian Military. From a young age, Cossack boys were taught to ride a horse, supposedly being able to ride one by the age of 5. Cossack Hosts (Groups or Tribes) were given special treatment in the Russian Empire but in return their young men had to serve 20 years in the Russian Military. Cossacks were also renowned as marksmen, often excelling in use of Rifles, and in earlier periods, Bows.

A Siberian Cossack

Cossacks were used as light cavalry units, who could do reconnaissance and Ambushes, but in open pitched battles they were often outmatched by regular troops and regular cavalry. But they were also used as border Guards, often living in the Russian Borderlands and knowing the area they would be able to provide quick and effective resistance if Russia was ever invaded.

After Hundreds of years of service, the traditional role of Cossacks was phased out, Cavalry had been replaced with tanks and planes. By the middle of the 20th Century the classical image of a Cossack was no longer a reality, and although many still fought in the Military, they're warlike traditions were no longer useful.
Sources:http://tinyurl.com/nksww7a http://tinyurl.com/6rse4mf http://tinyurl.com/oum48ck http://tinyurl.com/puo73vx

The Thin Red Line

Famous Painting of the Thin Red Line

'The Thin Red Line' is a commonly used phrase, often meaning an Army that has been spread out in a defensive position. It comes from episode in the Crimean War, that is enshrined in British History.

The Battle of Balaclava 1854 - nothing stands between the British Headquarters and 400 Russian Cavalry except for the 93rd Highlander Regiment, lead by Sir Colin Campbell.

Seeing the Russian Cavalry charging towards his position Campbell told his men ''There is no retreat from here, men. You must die where you stand'. He then formed his men into 2 firing lines - this was an uncommon practice. It was military protocol to form one's men into a Square Formation (Shown below); this prevents the Cavalry from breaking the line, using bayonets to push away the enemy. However, Campbell had a very poor opinion of Russian Cavalry and beveled he could shoot them down.
As the Russian Cavalry began it's charge, the 93rd fired 3 volleys upon them; at 600 yards, then 350, and finally at 150. The Russian Cavalry were routed. Some of the 93rd began to charge at the fleeing enemy, but were stopped when Campbell said '93rd, damn all that eagerness!'.' 

A painting of a Napoleonic Square

Later after the Battle, writing in for the Times, William H. Russel said that he could nothing between the Russian Cavalry and the base of British operations but a 'thin red streak tipped with a line of steel' - this was the 93rd, and this is where we get the condensed 'Thin Red Line'.
The defeat of the Calvary was celebrated as a victory of the common Red Coats in a dangerous and unorganised war. It was clearly down to Campbell confidence in his own men, and their willingness to follow him.