Kruger, Kommandos and Kak: Debunking the Myths of the Boer War

The second Boer War is the most important war in South African history; indeed, without it, South Africa would likely have not existed. But it’s also one of the least understood conflicts of the era. Over a century of Leftist bleating and insidious, self-serving revisionism, first by Afrikaner nationalists and then by the apartheid regime, has left the layman with a completely skewed view of the war. Incredibly, most people will tell you that the British attacked the Boers to steal their gold, and that when the clueless, red-jacketed Tommies advanced under orders of bumptious, incompetent British generals they were mowed down in their thousands. Others think of the conflict in terms of ‘Britain against South Africa’ and many believe that the Boers actually won the war; the marginally more enlightened explain away the Boer defeat by claiming it took millions of British troops to beat them, or that it was only the ‘genocide’ of the concentration camps which forced the plucky Boers to throw in the towel.

It’s all bosh. This book will take everything you thought you ‘knew’ about the war and turn it on its head. From Kruger’s expansionist dream of an Afrikaans empire ‘from the Zambesi to the Cape’, to the murder and devastation wrought on Natal by his invading commandos, to the savage massacres of thousands of blacks committed by the ‘gallant’ bitter-einders, the reader will have his eyes opened to the brutal realities of the conflict, and be forced to reassess previously held notions of the rights and wrongs of the war. Hard-hitting and uncomfortable reading for those who do not want their bubble of ignorance burst, Kruger, Kommandos & Kak exposes that side of the Boer War which the apartheid propaganda machine didn’t want you to know about.

REVIEWS

“This is revisionist history at its absolute best. With meticulous scholarship but also an attractively waspish turn of phrase, Chris Ash turns everything we thought we knew about the Boer War on its head. After reading this, you won’t think of that conflict in the same way again.” —Andrew Roberts, historian and bestselling author of THE STORM OF WAR: A NEW HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Author Chris Ash is an effective chronicler of the war and uses original research and source material to bring new light to his subject...well researched, ground breaking piece of scholarship..."
Douglas Mason, Member of RCMI and Johannesburg based journalist and analyst

... for the wargamer there are also several excellent descriptions of smaller actions that could be excellent for skirmishing.
MWBG – May 2015 #385 (Martin Penneck)