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Military History – South Africa – Europe – England 19th Century
.Article – Online Historic Information | Military
.Page 33
one of the Irish Brigades and the Scandinavian Corps. To these were added the French,
Americans, Italians (including Lieutenant Count Pecci, nephew of Pope Leo XIII), Russians and
Swiss. Mohommed Ben Nasser, a Muslim, came from North Africa and eventually became a
Transvaal citizen. Few corps were composed entirely of the nationals of the country after which they
were named, as the story of the Russian volunteers illustrates.
See also:
Artillery; Commandeer; French volunteers; Irish; Rifles; Russian Volunteers; Appendix: Boer
Forces.
Reference:
Hall, Darrell, ed. Fransjohan Pretorius and Gilbert Torlage, The Hall Handbook of the Anglo-Boer
War (Pietermaritizburg, University of Natal Press, 1999); Wessels, André, “Afrikaners at War”,
Boer War: Direction, Experience and Image,ed. J. Gooch (London, Frank Cass, 2000).
Boer Forces, Discipline
Boer formations were held together more by mutual agreement than by any European concept of
military discipline imposed from above and sanctioned by law. This made them difficult to control
and command, vulnerable in times of hardship and formidable when the spirit of battle was upon
them.
European soldiers had great difficulty in understanding the way Boer commandos behaved. The
burgher, the citizen soldier, was commanded by an officer he had had a part in electing; the Field
Cornet was simply first among equals and could be replaced in another election. Commanders were
the social equals of their men and were often their neighbours or members of their own family, quite
unlike the hierarchical structure of a European regiment. A burgher might decline to participate in an
action he thought unwise or excessively dangerous, or absent himself from his unit entirely, even
knowingly breaking the law, in order to attend to the harvest. When they did fight they did so because
they chose to do so. It follows that commanding a commando was always something of a gamble.
Nominally discipline was based on the commando acts of the parliaments of the South African
Republic (Transvaal) of 1898 and the Orange Free State of 1899. These laws laid down punishments
of fines or imprisonment for breaches of military discipline. In fact many offences were allowed to go
unpunished or merely admonished, and imprisonment was rarely used given the shortage of
manpower. Various field punishments were devised. Saddle-pack involved the miscreant’s walking
around the camp carrying his saddle, rifle and other equipment for a set length of time or number of
circuits while his comrades jeered, a tiring and humiliating experience. The oxhide punishment
involved being tossed in the air from an oxhide from a newly slaughtered animal manipulated by ten
men. Gun riding was more serious. The convict, sometimes trouserless, had to sit astride a gun barrel,
with hands and feet tied, in the heat of the day. He might eventually collapse because of the awkward
posture and excessive heat. Alternatively he might be tied to a wagon wheel to cook in the sun for a
while.
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