re: GMT

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Morning all

:lol JOTD

Good morning
Y'all are reviving some weird shite.

Are those cocks?

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You don’t know what a turkey is?

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Harry?

You're right.

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South African Boers, settler from the Netherlands, declare war on Great Britain.

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This is a little known (outside of South Africa and a few military historians focusing on the British Empire) but very important war. Which lead to a really gruesome aftermath.

The Boers were settlers of the Southern tip of Africa who originated from the Netherlands and Belgium (at the time there really wasn't a difference) who flocked to the area after discovering the region possessed fertile soil and relatively few native tribes. The colony was called, in a display of great imagination, the Cape Colony because... well... it was on the cape of South Africa.

They expanded a bit to the North and came into a series of conflicts with the Xhosa tribe (had to look that sucker up, it doesn't roll off the tongue). Shockingly the Boers, as they called themselves, made alliances with other native tribes to fend off and eventually drive back the Xhosa. I know. Its South Africa, the country that was so racist the Ku Klux Klan thought they should embrace more diversity.

Everything was going fine, until it suddenly wasn't going fine. The French Revolution saw the almost immediate occupation of the Netherlands which, in turn, made the British decide to seize the Cape Colony to prevent it from falling into French hands. Like most of Britain's "temporary" occupations the Brits simply absorbed the colony into the British Empire.

The colonists, to put it mildly, were not thrilled by this development, particularly after English colonists started showing up in droves and were given day to day control of the area. A large segment of the Dutch speaking population packed up their bags and became Trekboers (sadly they didn't use the Vulcan live long and prosper sign) moving to the more desolate northern reaches of the region. Not such a great place to grow crops, but perfectly fine for cattle herding.

And things were fine. Until gold and diamonds were discovered in them thar hills. The world's richest man, at the time, was Cecil Rhodes. Think Elon Musk but without the side order of creepy. He pushed the British into the First Boer war... which was an unmitigated disaster for the UK. 20 years after the US Civil War the British were still trying to fight in "proper" Napoleonic formations and the Boers mowed them down. It more or less ended in a draw but pushed the British to make much needed reforms to the Army.

Que this war, the one that should be called "The Empire Strikes Back." This time the British were far more ready to fight the Boers... and they had a plan. The US had, eventually, crushed the Filipino revolt by establishing Concentration Camps. These were guarded areas that the civilian population was herded into and, not to shock people, held in near starvation (sometimes actual starvation) conditions. Meanwhile the US army burned crops and starved the rebels into submission.

The UK thought this was a swell idea and set about enforcing it with great gusto. Tens of thousands of Boer women and children were starved to death, the cattle herds that fed the region were killed and left to rot in the fields, and the Boers were forced to surrender.

So, if you have ever wondered where the Nazis got the idea for the Final Solution of the Jewish problem or how the Khemer Rouge came up with the concept of their "Reeducation Camps"... they got it from the British, who got it from us.