HIST 3906 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: British Army, Impi
4 Feb 2017
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Human: 87, 356 boer, 447,435 british. Horses: the british alone used over 500,000, the boers used thousands more. Burghers formed a military unit called a commando. Commando would elect officers to represent them. All males between ages 16-60 eligible for war service. Made up purely of volunteers, each man brought his own weapon and horse. Those who could not afford a gun were given one by the state. Not all the boers responded to the call for duty. Republics only mobilized about 50% of their strength. Lack of a uniform response tells us they were not willing to die for the sake of the volk (nation) Over 6,000 men from other countries willing to fight against the british: dutch, germans, scandinavian corps (swedes, norwegians), americans, italians, polish, irish, None of the foreigners receive compensation but were supplied with food, weapons, and horses. Each man had to take a formal oath of allegiance to the sar.
