Peoples, societies, institutions and other entities frequently record their histories in terms of successive epochs, and commemorate those histories according to perceived milestones or turning points in their development. ...

Die Suid-Afrikaanse gemeenskap is blootgestel aan snelle veranderinge wat noodwendig 'n neerslag vind in die SA Weermag en die Militêre Akademie op Saldanha. Dit is egter nie net die veranderinge wat hul invloed laat geld ...

South Africa’s decision to enter the First World War was not easy. After a difficult interplay between Whitehall and Tuinhuis, the Botha government agreed to secure limited strategic objectives in neighbouring German South ...

Some one hundred years ago, South Africa was torn apart by the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). To mark this cataclysmic event, Covos-Day is publishing a series of books. The first is a facsimile of Donald Macdonald's ...

Bambatha is widely known as the chief who led a group of men to confront the Natal colonial government in protest against poll tax. He lived in a broken, sandy and stoney area known as Mpanza valley, to the north of Greytown, ...

Writing about the Namibian Border War and South African involvement in the Angolan Civil War is difficult. Many South Africans have been conscripted or willingly served in the military at the time and find it difficult to ...

2012 has a double significance for this year sees the centenary of the founding of the African National Congress (8 January) and of the creation of the Union Defence Forces (1 July), two organisations that have for much ...

In August 1991 a Committee for State Emergencies, consisting of the minister of defence and the chief of the KGB, ousted Mikhail Gorbachev from power in the Soviet Union. The coup was important for several reasons. The ...

Most countries expect their armed forces to be broadly representative of the populace with respect to race, ethnic composition, social class, religion and gender. The concern, particularly with respect to the officer corps ...

ENGLISH SUMMARY: The diplomatic relations between the United States (USA) and South Africa (SA) had its birth in 1799 with the establishing of a consulate in Cape Town. Over the next two centuries the political dealings ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Germany’s declaration of war on Poland on 1 September 1939 and the consequent war in Europe not only found the Union of South Africa politically divided but militarily unprepared to fight a modern war let ...

Many people’s view about war and its impact was changed by a woman named Dang Thuy Tram. Her diaries, which she kept as a practicing medical doctor during the Vietnam War, were published some forty odd years after her ...

Domestic history in South Africa is largely an unploughed field. Yet, for much of South Africa’s past, households were the places where concerns about class, gender and race intersected, at a very close, personal, level. ...

Henry Timson Lukin was born and educated in Britain. After completion of his schooling at the Merchant Taylor’s School in 1875 he had hoped to enter the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, but failed the entry examinations. ...

From historical writings to current day, morale has always been regarded as a major determinant of success on the battlefield. The management of morale is thus also important in the South African National Defence Force ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The use of military force to suppress internal unrest has been an integral part of South African history. The European colonisation of South Africa from 1652 was facilitated by the use of force. Boer ...

It is seldom that one comes across a work where history-writing and qualitative research meet succinctly. Add to this an author who communicates crisply and relates real-life narratives that capture and hold the reader’s ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Sidi Rezegh and Tobruk are the largest disasters suffered by South Africa in its military history. Yet, despite their enormity, Sidi Rezegh and Tobruk are little understood and hardly remembered. South ...

Based largely on a study of official archives and private papers held in South Africa and the United Kingdom, this article sketches the political-strategic landscape on which the armed forces of South Africa operated between ...

In 1915, the Union of South Africa was requested to administrate South West Africa (SWA) (today Namibia) on behalf of the British Crown and approved the South West Africa Mandate. The policies of the Union strongly ...