I've been working on a story for the last few days (unplanned, the idea came to me on the bus home from work), but I'm a bit concerned about the setting. Originally it was to be set partly during the Great War, but I was afraid of it being too dark, so I switched it to the Second Boer War, and a lighter ending. Here's the problem...
Although there are many historical military adventure stories featuring British soldiers, there are hardly any (in print at least) set in the Boer War... probably because (excuse me dear American readers) it is the one war where we are unquestionably the bad guys - in our own eyes.
My story is set during the Battle of the Modder River, right at the beginning of the war, but I fear that the later atrocities will overshadow anything I write... it might seem like 'Springtime For Hitler' in many people's eyes.
Comments
Rags of Glory
This book set during the Boer War by Stuart Cloete, while historical fiction, is historically accurate (as far as I could determine by additional reading) and also contains one of the best "dress in woman's clothes to escape" episodes I've ever read to boot.
Commentator
Visit my Caption Blog: Dawn's Girly Site
Visit my Amazon Page: D R Jehs
Hey, that was a hit.
Max and Leo got in trouble cause "Springtime for Hitler" was such a hit. Maybe you'll have as much luck!
Good Luck.
The show was lousy and long.........
I want to wish you good luck!
Just couldn't resist.
Danielle
Einstein described insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the result to change. Was Albert a reader of TG fiction then?
Daniel, author of maid, whore, bimbo, and sissy free TG fiction since 2000
What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.- Oscar Levant
I wouldn't worry about it
There are numerous American comedies set in questionable wars. Though I've never seen one in the Bay of Pigs or the Philippine Insurrection, the second of which is probably OUR nearest equivalent of the Second Boer War, romping on the eve of destruction is a time-honored literary tradition.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Uhmmmm, Whut War?
Maybe your quest should be to find a war where the morale imperative wasn't claimed by both (all) parties. If you tire of that fruitless search, try to find one that didn't have its share of atrocities.
Don't worry about American readers. We love any kind of fiction about wars, especially if it's delivered by our peerless leaders in State of the Union addresses.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Hum, was that the one?
It's been a while but if memory serves the Boar wars included such figures as a young Winston Churchill leading what likely was England's last horse cavelry charge and Baden Powell's defence of Maafaking which lead to the creation of the Boys Scouts. And there is The African Queen which is fiction I believe but based on some real aspects of that war over colonies.
This could be fun.
John in Wauwatosa
P.S. Don't forget the US Civil War were Confererate President Jefferson Davis was rumored to have dressed as a woman to try and escape at the wars end. But don't mention I mentioned it or half the South will be at my door with hot tar, feathers and a hanging noose.
John in Wauwatosa
Hum ... No not quite.
Just to put the record straight John :)
The battle of Omdurman in 1998 was between the Anglo-Egyptian Force led by Kitchener and the Dervishes of the Sudan. They with an, allegedly, whirling tendency were also described by contemporaries, politically incorrectly with hindsight, as Fuzzy-Wuzzies who, according to the immortal Corporal Jones of Dad's Army "did not like it up them."
The 21st Lancers were told to clear away a few hundred Dervishes who threatened to interrupt the General's dinner. Unbeknown to them there were a further 2,500 infantry hidden behind in a depression. Apart from being rather sneaky on the part of the Dervishes and as such borderline against the rules of Fair Play, these extra troops were probably off-side. However you can't always rely on the referee particularly when playing away from home so they just had to make the best of it. As they used to say in military circles, "If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined."
Churchill was with them, the Lancers not the Dervishes, but only as a junior officer.
Anyway it all ended fairly well although not from the Dervishes point of view of course.
All this took place a year before the Boer War started. Well you have to find something for an army to do otherwise they get all sulky and their weapons rust.
Churchill was a war correspondent during the Boer War rather than a serving officer. He probably found it both safer and more lucrative. The mess bills of an officer in a smart cavalry regiment necessitating a fairly substantial private income. Not that I suppose Winston was short of the odd bob or two.
The Cavalry have of course a great disdain for, and indeed dislike of, mechanised contrivances such a tanks which reek of diesel and make a dreadful clanking noise. It is therefore too early by far to say that Omdurman was the last cavalry charge. There is time yet. Do read 'To War with Whitaker' being the wartime diaries of the Countess of Ranfurly. She accompanied her husband to the Middle East when his regiment, the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry, was posted there during the Second World War. They took their horses with them and were exceedingly miffed when they were later issued with tanks to fight with. History does not record if Rommel would have concurred
The African Queen tale is set in German East Africa during the First World War. The lake is, I think, Lake Tanganyika which borders what is now Tanzania.
You were right about Mafeking though.
Hugs,
Fleurie.
P.S. The only literary example that occurs to me of a prisoner donning women's clothing to effect an escape from jail is Toad being disguised as a washerwoman. It may not be as authentic as yours but the mention of it sounds a lot less risky.
visual feel
You could try the movie Breaker Morant, don't know any others based in that setting. Not exactly cheery but pretty accurate as such things go. Oh we 'other colonials' think you're the bad guys too... pokes out tongue.
Kristina
Stop me if I'm boer-ing you...
I am fairly addicted to historical military novels - I've just reread Allan Mallinson's 'Company of Spears' ahead of the latest instalment appearing in paperback next week (if you like Patrick O'Brian Mallinson is your man... tho his characters are cavalrymen in the 1820s not Napoleonic sailors). But it was Henry Treece who gave me the original fix with 'Viking's Dawn' when I was nine or ten years old. I bought a copy of John Wilcox's 'Horns of the Buffalo' this week but cannot read it, because there are so many historical inaccuracies in the first chapter... I don't mind liberties being taken, but these are wholesale, and stink of sloppy research.
That said I haven't put a whole lot of research into my Boer war story, apart from identifying units - though it does include one little known fact of the war... under the rules of war as European armies understood them, a defeated enemy who quit the field without surrendering was open too 'pursuit'... this meant that while units could surrender en masse and be treated as prisoners of war, fleeing individuals could be killed out of hand by their pursuers. Britain like most European countries used lancers for the pursuit, and the prospect of being killed with a savages' weapon appalled the Boers (who devoted a great deal of effort in being 'superior' to spear wielding Africans), so much they threatened to execute any lancer who fell into their hands. This actually forms part of the plot (the central character is a member of the 9th Lancers), so it's not meant as a justification for Britain's later excesses.
My maternal grandfather ...
... was a railwayman and, I was told, was the driver of the locomotive that drew the first train into Ladysmith after the siege there. It always seemed strange to me that the Boer war was fought over territory by a pair of nationalities neither of whom had any right to be there in the first place. My sympathies were always with the Zulus and other indigenous peoples.
Geoff