The First Boer War. By Joseph Lehmann

Jonathan Cape, London, 1972 (first edition). Hardcover with dustcover, 330 pages. Very good condition. Neat and clean and tightly bound.

Rated by the number of combatants involved, the fighting at Majuba Hill in 1881 was a mere skirmish. Yet few battles have had a more immediate or far-reaching effect. The Boers not only won back the Transvaal from the British and made it the centre of intensified nationalist feeling but altered the whole course of South African history. They also caused a radical change in Imperial policy, encouraging Parnell and the Irish Nationalists to seek Home Rule, and dealt a grievous blow to the pride of the British Army, which was still seeking revenge when the Second Boer War began in 1899. In this definitive study of a small war, Professor Lehmann describes the events that culminated in a unique people confronting and confounding an empire at the height of its wealth and power. Having trekked north in appalling conditions after the British abolition of slavery in Cape Colony, the fiercely independent Boers rose in revolt against inept taxation by the British, who annexed the Transvaal to further their aspiration for a Federation of South African, States.

Contents include: Annexation; Rebellion; Bronkhorst Spruit; Laing's Nek; Ingogo; Majuba...