Assegais, Drums and Dragoons | Willem Steenkamp

Subtitle: The Untold Military History of the Old Cape 1510 - 1806

Author: Willem Steenkamp

Publisher: Jonathan Ball (2012)

ISBN-10: 1868424790

ISBN-13: 9781868424795

Condition: Very Good

Binding: Softcover

Pages: 376

Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.3 x 2.3 cm

by Willem Steenkamp

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What motivated a small multiracial force of Cape-born soldiers - Whites, Coloureds and Malays - to put up such stiff resistance at the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806, in spite of odds so overwhelming that even some long-serving professional soldiers broke rank and ran? This was the intriguing question that launched author Willem Steenkamp's research. It was an investigation which eventually took him back to 150 years before Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape in 1652, and involved examining the social as well as the military history of the Cape.

This book is about the genisis of the South African foot soldier of today - that small, usually dirty, frequently over-tired and often hungry figure - without whom an army cannot ring the gong of victory. He did not spring up full-grown out of the ground. He grew to what he is today through an evolutionary process that took several centuries.