Lord Kitchener's War or the Gold War was the first war of the bloody 20th century. It pitted the might of the British Empire against a small group of Dutch farmers. Boer is simply the Dutch word for FARMER.

Diamonds were discovered in South Africa in 1867 and gold in 1872. By 1897 South Africa was the world's largest exporter of gold.

The golden rule states that "whoever has the gold; makes the rules." The Boer War was all about the Bank of England gaining a complete monopoly on South African gold. In the 16th century, the brutal Spanish Empire committed a similar genocide to gain a monopoly on New World gold....Only Heroic Holland stood in the way of Spanish global hegemony.

Lord Kitchener circa 1900.

The Boer War was a dress rehearsal for World War I. Kitchener ended up commanding all the British forces in South Africa, and he was the architect of the brutal concentration camps for women and children.

Kitchener riding a white horse to distinguish him from the rest of the generals.

Most of the generals that served with Lord Kitchener in the brutal gold war went on to serve in World War I.

Field Marshall French (1852–1925).

Field Marshall French commanded the token British Expeditionary Force in World War I. He was relieved in 1915 and replaced by Field Marshall Haig. Haig is known as the "Butcher of the Somme."

Field Marshall Haig (1861–1928 .

Sir Ian Hamilton led the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign for Lord Kitchener. The Campaign was a side show that diverted soldiers from the hard pressed French on the Western Front.

Sir Ian Hamilton (1853–1947).

General Ian Hamilton led the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign. Lord Baden-Powell (the Boy-Man) did not serve in WWI because he was busy founding the Boy Scouts Movement. Powell was an acknowledged spy; he even wrote a book about spying entitled My Adventures As A Spy.

Colonel Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941).

Before World War II, Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts Movement was the model for the Hitler Youth in Germany!! It's GREAT that boys learn survival skills, but without a thorough knowledge of Sword of the Spirit, they are like the Boers confronting the might of the British Empire.

The British mobilized 500,000 men to fight the farmers!!

The British mobilized a vast army to fight the Dutch farmers. Lord Kitchener was their most experienced soldier. The British wholly underestimated the Boers and they believed that just the sight of the British Army would make them run.

Men came from as far away as Australia and New Zealand to "serve their Queen" who was too old to even know or care what was happening in the United KINGdom!!

Troops of the Australian contingent marching through Melbourne.

All over the Empire the battle cry was "God save the Queen" who was too old to know or even care about the genocide of the Boers that was done in her name.

Men of the first Canadian contingent leaving for South Africa.

Troop strength finally reached a total of 500,000 men from all parts of the British Empire.

Vast British Army deploying for battle.

The British believed that just the sight of the army would scare the Boers. This was the first example of "shock and awe."

The invading host drawn up in dread array.

This vast army used state of the art military technology. One such weapon was the newly invented Maxim machine gun.

British troops laying down a deadly fire on the farmers with their Maxim machine gun.

One of the deadliest weapons in the British arsenal was the newly invented Maxim machine gun.

4.7 inch British naval gun shelling the farmers.

Despite the overwhelming numbers and the latest killing technology, the Boers fought heroically against the British invaders.

The farmers fought heroically against the British invaders!!

The Boers were never able to field more that 60,000 men but they fought heroically to defend their homeland.

The brave Boers went toe to toe with the British invaders.

The Boers were a citizen militia and very familiar with firearms. They made the British pay a heavy price for invading their country and stealing their gold.

Thousands of dead British invaders were left to rot in trenches.

The real heroes of the resistance were the individual Boers who displayed remarkable courage and resourcefulness.

Brave Boer commando prepare to defend their country.

With a Bible in one hand and a rifle in the other, the brave farmers confronted the overwhelming might of the British Empire, and made them pay a heavy price for their gold lust!!

Boer father and son prepare to expel the invaders.

With the cream of the British Army turned into whipped cream, Lord Kitchener resorted to a diabolical scorched earth policy.

Lord Kitchener erected concentration camps for women and children!!

Despite signing the Hague Convention, the British resorted to a scorched earth policy in order to subdue the Boers. Homes were burned to the ground, cattle were slaughtered, and the women and children carted off to concentration camps.

British soldiers looting and burning a Boer farm.

The British army behaved like BEASTS as this was the fruit of Darwinian evolution!! After looting and burning their homes, Boer women and children were herded off to concentration camps.

Boer women entering a concentration camp.

In the most unkindest cut of all, the women were asked to sign a piece of paper pleading with their husbands to surrender. Despite terrible suffering, not one woman relented and signed the paper.

Women and children were forced to live in flimsy tents with snow on the ground.

South Africa can be very cold in the winter, and the winter of 1901 was unusually cold and rainy. The women and children were forced to live in flimsy tents.

Sanitary facilities were horrendous, leading to death from typhoid and dysentery.

Boer children died by the thousands from dysentery, typhoid, and malnutrition.

Young girl victim of malnutrition.

A total of 45 genocide concentration camps were set up with the largest containing 5,000 women and children. The Holohoax in Germany would later be used as a smokescreen to hide these war crimes!!

Camp inmate Lizzie Van Zyl dying from malnutrition.

By 1900, true Christianity was not completely extinct in Britain. In December 1899, an angel of mercy named Emily Hobhouse arrived in South Africa on a mission of mercy.

Emily Hobhouse (1860 - 1926).

By 1900, true Christianity was not completely extinct in Britain. Emily Hobhouse was an angel of mercy who tried to bring relief to the starving concentration camp inmates.

Emily comforting a young dying girl.

After Emily arrived in South Africa, she sought permission from Lord Kitchener to visit the camps. Kitchener rebuked her sternly so she turned to the governor, Lord Milner.

Milner was more cooperative and the first camp she visited was named Bloemfontein. Here is her eyewitness report of conditions in the camp:

My first visit to the camp at Bloemfontein after the lapse of a few weeks was a great shock. The population had doubled, and had swamped the effect of improvements which could not keep pace with the numbers to be accommodated. Sickness was increasing, and the aspect of the people was forlorn in the extreme. Disease and death were stamped upon their faces. Many whom I had left hale and hearty, full in figure and face, had undergone such a change that I could not recognise them. I realised how camp life under these imperfect conditions was telling upon them, and no impartial observer could have failed to see what must ensue, unless nurses, doctors, workers, and above all extra food, clothing, and bedding, could be poured out in abundance and without delay. I sought the Deputy Administrator, and represented to him the death-rate already worked out in the adjoining camp at 20 per cent., and asked if nothing could be done to stop the influx of people. He replied that he believed that all the people in the entire country, with the exception of towns on the line, were to be brought in. His kindness and courtesy often encouraged me to put before him not only the bodily needs of the women, but other troubles or punishments which weighed upon them, which seemed unnecessarily severe, and appeared to be creating sores which even time would not have power to heal. His policy was no doubt dictated from higher sources, his humanity too evidently crippled by lack of means. My fund was but a drop in the ocean of such a need. (Hobhouse, The Brunt of the War and Where it Fell, pp. 122-123).

Emily discovered that a total of 45 concentration camps existed throughout South Africa; most of them with the same appalling conditions as Bloemfontein.

This war was a public relations nightmare for the British, so to deflect criticism of their brutal behavior, they invented a "Jewish" holocaust with "Jewish" concentration camp inmates.

The farmers received no help from any nation!!

Apart from a small group of volunteers from the U.S., France, and Holland, no nation offered any military help to the Boers. Boer president Paul Kruger traveled to Europe in 1900 but all he received from the Europeans was sympathy.

Paul Kruger appealed to the German Kaiser for help but the Kaiser could render him no assistance because he had no navy!!

Paul Kruger (1825–1904).

Paul Kruger was president of the South African Republic from 1883 to 1900. According to his biographers, Kruger believed that the earth was flat, and he got that belief from reading the Bible!! Is that no less stupid than believing that the earth rotates on its axis every 24 hours??

Paul Kruger's grave in Pretoria, South Africa.

President Kruger travelled to Europe in 1900 seeking military help for his farmers. No nation offered him any assistance and the German Kaiser refused to even meet with him:

But Leyds was not really surprised. Britain had largely ignored the French demonstrations, but a similar sort of thing in Germany would be a different matter. Instead of helping the Boers, and to make up for past indiscretions, the Kaiser in fact sent suggestions to England as to how the Boers could be vanquished by a scorched earth policy, concentration camps, drives, and so on, measures actually adopted by Lord Kitchener who succeeded Lord Roberts. To his critics the Kaiser explained that he was in no position to go to war with England because he did not have a proper fleet, so it was best to befriend her. Leyds did not know all this, but he had hoped that Kruger's actual arrival would clarify the situation. Now it had been clarified, and he called off a German tour. (Meintjes, President Paul Kruger, p. 254).

Where did the Kaiser get the money to build a vast fleet and challenge the British Empire in 1914? Obviously, it was a gift of some of the stolen South African gold courtesy of the Bank of England!!

References

Baden-Powell, Robert My Adventures As A Spy. C.A. Pearson, London, 1915.

Hobhouse, Emily. The Brunt of the War and Where it Fell. Methuen & Co., London, 1902.

Lee, Emanuel, To the Bitter End. Penguin Books, London, England, 1985.

Meredith, Martin, Diamonds, Gold, and War. The British, the Boers, And the Making of South Africa. Public Affairs, New York, 2007.

Meintjes, Johannes, President Paul Kruger. A biography. Cassel, London, 1974.

Pakenham, Thomas, The Boer War. Random House, New York, 1979.

Rosenthal, Michael. The Character Factory: Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts and the Imperatives of Empire, Pantheon Books, New York, 1984.

Copyright © 2014 by Patrick Scrivener

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