The Boer War (book review)

The Boer War

By Thomas Pakenham

Published by Abacus Books

ISBN 0-349-10466-2

Paperback, 659 pages

Some of you may recall I read and reviewed another tome on this colonial conflict last year in August 2025:

https://baberonwargames.blogspot.com/2025/08/goodbye-dolly-gray-book-review.html

With this review I felt it was important to compare to two books.

Now I have already stated The 2nd Boer War is not really within my period of interest as far as tabletop gaming in concerned, but as advancing technologies lead directly into more relevent periods (to me at least) it is very interesting to read about none-the-less.

This particular book is another general history of the conflict, but this author had greater access to personal papers and letters (from both sides) and in the British case from all ranks - private soldier to government civil servant or Army staff officer! The author also had far better access to both British Government and military archieves than Rayne Kruger had with his book published some twenty years previous.   

This book also has better maps (though again not enough in my opinion) and a selection of B/W period photos and cartoons.

The level of detail in this newer publication is far greater than Rayne`s book and this makes some of the actions very easily transferable to tabletop; which I think from a purely wargamers point of view makes this book more useful to own than the other! 

The style of the two books is also very different, this one reading more like a narrative, whilst Rayne`s is a bit more dry. Both seem to assume the reader has a firm knowledge of the geography of South Africa and neither trys to explain the vast distances involved between actions to any significant degree, leading the reader to scratch his head and turn to the internet for guidance!

Pakenham does dig quite deeply into the political infighting which disrupted British efforts into ending the war, including the trial and execution of two Australians for killing Boer prisoners, made famous by the 1980 film "Breaker Morant" with Edward Woodward. Due to his better access to government archieves the author is also able to give the reader lots of statistics for those of you who like such things. 

At the end of the day both books cover the conflict in fare detail and the reader does get the sad feeling deep down in your gut that if someone in authority had been watching more closely, the horrors of WW1 may have been avoided! The effectiveness of quick fire artillery, magazine rifles and machine guns plus trenches and barbed wire had all made their presence felt on the battlefields of South Africa - why on earth didn`t anyone in the British High Command make note of these things.......