Browsing by Author "Van der Waag, Ian"

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    All splendid, but horrible : the politics of South Africa's second "Little Bit" and the war on the western front, 1915-1918
    (Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Science (Military Academy), 2012) Van der Waag, Ian
    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 West Africa. An armed insurrection had to be suppressed first. When both these objects were achieved, and following a further British appeal, South African troops moved further afield. This move, representing South Africa’s second ‘little bit’, was a dangerous step for the Botha government. The despatch of troops to France was controversial. Yet, by the end of 1915, South African expeditionary forces were en route to Europe and East Africa. This paper investigates the political crisis in South Africa and the difficult decision to send troops out of Africa, their deployment in an environment entirely foreign to the South African way of war, and the impact of the Western Front on the drawing of ‘lessons’ by post-war Union authorities.
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    An Australian war correspondent in Ladysmith : the siege report of Donald Macdonald of the Melbourne Argus
    (Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University, 2000) Van der Waag, Ian
    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 enduring story of "How we kept the flag flying" through the siege of Ladysmith and this is followed by several other titles including another Ladysmith-siege diary: one written by George Maidment, a British army orderly. Such a publication programme is a monumental and laudable effort. It allows both reflections upon a calamitous episode in South African history and, as is the case of "How we kept the flag flying", an opportunity for the collector to acquire old titles, long-out-of-print, at reasonable prices. Donald Macdonald was born in Melbourne, Victoria on 6 June 1859. After a short career as a teacher, he joined the Corowa Free Press and, in 1881, the Melbourne Argus. A nature writer and cricket commentator, he arrived in South Africa on 21 October 1899, the day of the battle at Elandslaagte, as war correspondent to the Melbourne Argus. This book, "How we kept the flag flying", was born from his experiences and frustrations whilst holed-up in Ladysmith throughout the 100-day siege, whilst the war raged and was reported on by journalists elsewhere.
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    Between history, amnesia and selective memory : the South African armed forces, a century's perspective
    (Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Science (Military Academy), 2012) Van der Waag, Ian; Visser, Deon
    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 of the twentieth century shared a contested history. Yet, in a remarkable bouleversement, South Africa has come through this difficult past and, over the past two decades, a new South African society has been recreated following an interesting period of adjustment following the end of the Cold War and the growth of democracy in the developing world. These changes have necessarily affected her armed forces and the roles defined for them. Some commentators, particularly in the years immediately following 1994, asserted that military power had lost all of its vaunted, Cold-War importance in a new postmodern environment. Others still, recognising future challenges, argued that South Africa, beset with far-reaching socio-economic crises, could no longer afford the burden of military forces. Most scholars agree now that these perspectives were short-sighted and that, while the risk of major conflict has receded, the events of 9/11, and its consequences, demonstrate that the continental and international landscapes are less certain, less stable and less predictable, than that for which many had hoped. Clearly, South African interests are intertwined inextricably in regional and global affairs and if she is to protect these interests and ensure her security, she must maintain credible military force capable of meeting an array of contingencies. It was with this in mind that the strategic arms deal, since the subject of much debate, was passed by parliament:[i] the promise of a full technological transformation, to accompany the human transformation, offered.
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    Hugh Archibald Wyndham (1877-1963) : his ancestry and family connections
    (Historical Association of South Africa, 2002) Van der Waag, Ian
    Wyndham, the epitome of a nineteenth-century English country gentleman, migrated to South Africa in 1901. After serving Milner as an unpaid private secretary, he helped re-established the horse industry after the devastation of the Anglo-Boer War and entered South African politics first as a Transvaal Progressive and after 1910 as a Unionist. This article places Wyndham in his setting, explores his extraordinary background and analyses the extent and importance of his social network. Family connections saw to a job on Milner's staff and inherited money established his later farming and political career. Yet, an anachronism in a changing South Africa, he returned permanently to Britain in 1930, which, as he soon realised, had changed too.
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    Life in a South African household, 1909 - 1923 : changing patterns in leisure and servitude
    (Taylor & Francis; UNISA Press, 2011-06) Van der Waag, Ian
    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. Moreover, it was in the residences of the power elite that the contradictions between the ideas of a migrant aristocracy, notions of empire, and the practical needs for the maintenance of an ostentatious lifestyle, are revealed. In this paper, I use one elite household in Johannesburg (1909-1923) as a lens through which to explore a variety of these domestic experiences and expose the nexus between race, class and empire in South African domestic history at the turn of the twentieth century and so further develop ideas first advanced in my article in the Journal of Family History (2007).
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    Re-fighting the 2nd Anglo-Boer War : historians in the trenches
    (Faculty of Humanities, University of the Free State, 2002) Van der Waag, Ian
    Some one hundred years ago, South Africa was torn apart by the Second AngloBoer WBI (1899-1902). The WaI was a colossal psychological experience fought at great expense. It cost Britain twenty-two thousand men and £223 million. The social, economic and political cost to South Africa was greater than the statistics immediately indicate: at least ten thousand fighting men in addition to the camp deaths, where a combination of indifference and incompetence resulted in the deaths of 27 927 Boers and atleast 14 154 black South Africans. Yet these numbers belie the consequences. It was easy for the British to "forget" the pain of the War, which seemed so insignificant after the losses sustained in 1914-18. With a long history of far-off battles and foreign wars, the British casualties of the Anglo-Boer War became increasingly insignificant as opposed to the lesser numbers held in the collective Afrikaner mind. This impact may be stated somewhat more candidly in terms of the war participation ratio for the belligerent populations. After all, not all South Africans fought in uniform. For the Australian colonies these varied between 4,5 per thousand (New South Wales) to 42,3 per thousand (Tasmania). For New Zealand there were 8 per thousand, for Britain 8,5 per thousand, and for Canada 12,3 per thousand; while in parts of South Africa this was perhaps as high as 900 per thousand. 2 The deaths and high South African paiticipation ratio, together with the unjustness of the war in the eyes of most Afrikaners, introduced bitterness, if not hatred, which cast long shadows upon twentieth-century South Africa.
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    Recording the Great War : military archives and the South African official history programme, 1914-1939
    (Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Science (Military Academy), 2016) Van der Waag, Ian
    The First World War marked a revolt against the traditional mode of official history as conceived and written by the General Staffs and taught at the Staff Colleges. After 1918, the publics in various countries, having experienced massed mobilisation and the impact of total warfare, demanded an explanation for the sacrifices so many had been called on to make. This more inclusive approach rejected the nineteenth-century, Staff College predilection for campaign narratives focussing narrowly on “lessons learned”. The South African tradition of official history dates from this period. This article outlines the creation of the first military archival organisation in Pretoria and analyses the South African First World War official history programme. It explores the apparent motives behind the programme and reveals the often-difficult relationships between the historians and their principals at Defence Headquarters and the tensions between the two modes of official history.
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    South African defence in the age of total war, 1900–1940
    (Historical Association of South Africa, 2015-05) Van der Waag, Ian
    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 1900 and 1940 and analyses the organisational and extraneous factors that affected their functioning and influenced their preparation during peacetime. It explores the doctrinal framework, including an assessment of the services' commitment to the problem of doctrine and of their rigour in drawing, learning and implementing the so-called "lessons" of the First World War. The South African reaction to the 'total war' experience of industrialised warfare is discussed and the attempts, apparently always feeble, by the South African state to adapt to the changing face of modern warfare are explained. It comes with little surprise that the Union Defence Force, after the experiences of the Western Front (1916-1918), was still so unprepared for European warfare in 1941.
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    Van Ryneveld vs Blaine: the UDFI as a civil-military relations football, 1939-1945
    (Stellenbosch University, Military Science, 2000) Van der Waag, Ian
    The South African Forces Institute has a unique place not only in the field of military history but also in the province of South African business history. SAFI was a unique organisation established by Lord Roberts, under the designation South African Garrison Institute (SAGI), to fulfil a unique function: to provide the military in South Africa with unified canteen facilities, offering goods and services to troops at reasonable prices. This was aimed specifically at putting an end to the troublesome tradition of those small traders, known as sutlers, who followed armies and exacted extortionate prices from underpaid soldiers for inferior goods.
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    War, sex and politics : the South African medical section in Korea, 1950-1953
    (Historical Association of South Africa, 2001) Van der Waag, Ian
    South African participation in the Korean War was a complex matter: militari ly and in terms of domestic and foreign politics. Nonetheless South Africa place d an air force squadron as well as a token army element at the disposal of the United Nations Forces, including a small medical section. This study focuses in on the transience of life of about 900 South African soldiers during war. Hedonis m, searches for light-hearted pleasure and making the most of the moment have always accompanied war. the Korean War was no different. Despite South African racial politics, the South African Korea contingent suffered a STD rate of some 130 per thousand per year. Suid-Afrika se deelname aan die Koreaanse Oorlog was 'n komplekse saak - beide vanuit 'n militêre oogpunt as op die terrein van binne- en buitelandse beleid. Nogtans het die Unie 'n lugmageskader, sowel as 'n geringe leërelement, insluitende 'n klein mediese seksie, tot die beskikking van die Verenigde Nasies gestel. Die mediese seksie was nooit meer as sewe man sterk nie. Die studie let op bykans 900 jong Suid-Afrikaners in 'n vreemde land. Daar is sprake van die verganklikheid van die mens in 'n oorlogsituasie. Dit het nog altyd tot 'n mate van hedonisme gelei, 'n soeke na ligsinnige plesier en die geneigdheid om net vir die oomblik te leef.