Banjo by Paul Terry

Author:Paul Terry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2014-06-22T16:00:00+00:00

9

THE BOER WAR

While Australians were struggling with the complexities of Federation, the wider British Empire was becoming increasingly preoccupied by steadily worsening strife in another far-off colony—South Africa. In 1880, the Boers—descendants of independently minded Dutch settlers—had declared independence in the Transvaal in the country’s north-eastern region, and inflicted a heavy defeat on a British force. It ended in an uneasy stalemate that saw the Boers granted their independence in the Transvaal and neighbouring Orange Free State. The discovery of a massive gold reef at the Witwatersrand in the Boer republic caused tensions to rise. The Boers were short of resources and manpower, and reluctantly decided to bring in ‘uitlanders’, or foreigners, to help exploit the gold find. Many of the uitlanders were of British stock and so many arrived that they threatened to outnumber the Boers, giving powerful numerical support to the British.

There was conflict between the Boers and the foreigners as an expansionist Britain eyed off the Witwatersrand gold as well as fabulous diamond riches in the Kimberley. The Boers saw a British invasion as inevitable and in 1899, they launched a pre-emptive strike. It led to a war that pitted the might of the British army with men from around the world against Boer farmers, either volunteering or commandeered to fight. It was, at first, a close-run thing.

As the threat of war loomed, the Australian newspapers were sure it would be a one-sided contest. Adelaide’s The Advertiser said it would be a disgrace to be beaten by the Boers but there would be no glory in victory. Rival paper, The Register, felt the Boer fighter was not a match for his British counterpart and was confident the competitiveness of the Australian colonies meant a stream of men would lend ‘their aid in support of the Empire’. Although the Boers soon proved to be much tougher opponents than expected, the papers at least got it right when they predicted enthusiasm from Australian volunteers. When war was formally declared on 11 October, men in cities, towns and villages across the country rushed to join up.

The volunteers’ names were published in the papers and town bands played as the men boarded trains at crowded stations on the first stage of their journeys to the front. Australia was doing its duty to the mother country and the colonies competed to see who could be the best son. In Perth, The Western Mail acknowledged that the people of that colony were ‘West Australians first and Australians second’. Even when it came to the send-off for the soldiers, the Mail said, the west did it better than the rest, and as for the quality of the men, ‘we are pretty sure that none of the sections of Australasia can place a squad of finer physique in the field’.

For Paterson, the outbreak of war was an opportunity to pursue adventure as a writer. The way he told it later, he got his chance at a meeting with Sir James Fairfax, owner of The Sydney Morning Herald.

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