Podcast: The Boer War, with Spencer Jones

Cathal Brennan and John Dorney interview historian Spencer Jones on the Boer War in South Africa of 1899-1902. First broadcast on the Irish History Show. 

The Boer War was the British Empire’s crushing of the Afrikaaner Republics in South Africa. It was a war that effected Ireland profoundly, with Irish contingents on both sides. The far more numerous Irish on the British side, numbering over 45,000, suffered nearly 2,000 dead, while a smaller contingent, opposed to British imperialism, numbering 2-400 fought with the Boers.

We discuss the uniqueness of South Africa and the Boer Republics and the British advance across South Africa throughout the nineteenth century culminating in the Boer War. We go on to talk about the war itself, with its initial British reverses and subsquent long drawn out and vicious guerrilla war. The war had a major social and political legacy for South Africa, but also on politics in Britain and in Ireland.

Spencer Jones is a historian at the University of Wolverhampton, author of many books on military history including From Boer War to World War, Tactical Reform of the British Army 1902-1914 . He also hosts the podcasts No so Quiet on the Western Front and Military History Plus.

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