Methods of Barbarism: Roberts, Kitchener and Civilians in the Boer republics by S B Spies

ISBN: 9781868421039

Publishers: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2001

Hardcover, 443 pages

On 14 June 1901, at a dinner party given by the National Reform Union, the leader of the Liberal opposition party in Britain, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, answered his own conundrum: ‘When is a war not a war?’, by stating: ‘When it is carried on by methods of barbarism in South Africa.’ The phrase ‘methods of barbarism’ referred specifically to the devastation of the country and the concentration camp system during the Anglo-Boer War.

Although these two aspects of British military policy affecting non-combatants received the greatest attention from contemporaries, comparatively few detailed documented historical studies have been published on this subject.

This gap has been filled by Methods of Barbarism?. Meticulously researched and documented, it makes absorbing reading and reaches important conclusions on the treatment of civilians in the Boer Republics received from the British military authorities.

Burridge Spies discusses a wide range of themes, which will be of interest to many groups of readers, apart from those with a specialised interest in military history: The difference in the treatment of white and black civilians by the military authorities; the policy and personality clashes between Lord Milner on the one hand and Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener on the other; and the ways in which both sides contravened international law for military expediency.