Great Boer War by Farwell Byron

Author:Farwell, Byron,,
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783830619
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Published: 2013-08-19T04:00:00+00:00

We desire to say that in our judgement, reviewing the campaign as a whole, it has not been one where it can properly be said that the medical and hospital arrangements have broken down.... no general or wide-spread neglect of patients, or indifference to their suffering. And all witnesses of experience in other wars are practically unanimous in the view that, taking it all in all, in no campaign have the sick and wounded been so well looked after as they have been in this.

The war attracted an extraordinary number of visitors, people who just came out to see what it was like. While the war was still being fought Cooks organised tours of the battlefields. Admiral F. I. Maxse travelled to Bloemfontein to visit his son. Sir Claude and Lady de Crespigny went out to see their three sons and to take a look around. Lady de Crespigny did a bit of nursing in Bloemfontein, where their eldest son was in hospital, and Sir Claude, who wanted to see some action, attached himself to a colonial unit for a few weeks. A number of officers whose regiments were still in England obtained leave and went out to volunteer their services.

With all those fine young men in South Africa the seat of war became an attraction for a considerable number of women who (as Milner put it) “seem to have no particular call of duty or business.” On 3 April 1900 Chamberlain wrote to Milner: “The Queen regrets to observe the large number of ladies now visiting and remaining in South Africa,” and she deplored “the hysterical spirit which seems to have influenced some of them to go where they are not wanted.” This observation was, of course, passed on to Lord Roberts, whose wife and daughter were then on their way to join him at Bloemfontein. He decided he had better write to the Queen and tell her this, which he did, adding: “I understand that Your Majesty does not approve of ladies coming out to South Africa from mere curiosity. I am forbidding any to enter the Orange Free State, except those who have a son or husband in hospital, or whose husband is likely to be quartered in Bloemfontein for some time.”28

Soon after, John Maxwell wrote to his wife: “Lady Roberts has arrived here and, as Kitchener says, she has represented nearly 500 tons of supplies, for her ladyship came up in a special train and upset all arrangements. However, the old Chief must be looked after, and I’m sure we grudge him nothing.”29 As for his own wife, Maxwell told her not to come out, not even if she stayed in Cape Town, where, he said, “every hole and corner is crammed with ladies who alternate squabbling among themselves with the washing of officers’ faces.”

Young Lady Edward Cecil, herself in Cape Town, remarked that “there was a good bit of cackle” about the ban on women. In her memoirs she wrote: “Nobody in those free and

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