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Military History – South Africa – Europe – England 19th Century
.Article – Online Historic Information | Military
.Page 98
French Volunteers
The number of French volunteers serving on the Boer side was quite small, in spite of the Huguenot
connection shown by such family names as Joubert, du Toit and Villiers amongst the Boers. The
French Corps was commanded by Colonel Count Georges de Villebois-Mareuil and fought at
Colenso and the Platrand, Ladysmith before going to the Orange Free State and fighting at Poplar
Grove and Driefontein. Many of the French were subsumed in the European Legion which VilleboisMareuil, now with the rank of Vecht-general, led to defeat by Lord Methuen near Boshof. The rest of
this unit fought during the retreat from Bloemfontein to Pretoria but broke up because of Boer
indifference to, and lack of support for, foreign volunteer units.
Olivier d’Etchegoyen, writing as “An Ex-Lieutenant” of the French commander, produced an
account of the war as seen through French eyes which is probably accurate in its details but is wildly
unreliable in its overview of events. He was captured in July 1900 by a unit that included Frenchspeaking Canadian troops and was permitted to return to France. At that time no more than forty
Frenchman were left in the Boer service.
See also:
Anti-semitism; Boer Forces; Boshof, Battle of; Driefontein, Battle of; Villebois-Mareuil,
Colonel Count Georges de.
Reference:
d’Etchegoyen, Olivier, Ten Months in the Field with the Boers (London, Heinemann, 1901); Hall,
Darrell, ed. Fransjohan Pretorius and Gilbert Torlage, The Hall Handbook of the Anglo-Boer
War (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1999).
Frere
A village in Natal north-west of Estcourt. It was between Frere and Chieveley that the armoured train
on which Winston Churchill was travelling was ambushed.
See also:
Armoured Train Incident.
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