Springboks on the Somme: South Africa in the Great War 1914 - 1918

by Bill Nasson

The Great War of 1914-18 was a conflict which engulfed the whole world, directly or indirectly. An imperialist world war tugged the new Union of South Africa and its people into a series of separate but connected conflicts - from the domestic Afrikaner Rebellion on the highveld, through the sands of German South West Africa, the steamy bush of German East Africa, and on to the mud and blood of France and Flanders. This book is the first general study of the complex ways in which South Africans experienced the impact of the First World War, and responded to its demands, burdens and opportunities. Told with his customary narrative energy and style, Bill Nasson's new history is a lively account not only of how South Africa fought the war, but also of the miscalculations and illusions that surrounded its involvement, and of how South African society came to imagine and remember that great and terrible conflict.

Genres: History

300 pages, Paperback

First published February 13, 2008

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about two wars; the war between the newly formed South Africa (British colony now included the Transvaal) and neighboring German Southwest Africa (modern day Namibia) during 1914-1916 and the involvement of South African troops on the Western Front in France during 1916 - 1918.

The Great War occurred just a decade after the conclusion of the Boer Wars. At the time of the Great War at the southern extremes of the African continent the British colony was stronger than the German colony militarily. This regional war was largely unnecessary and would never have happened absent the broader Great War. In fact the two governments had more in common with one another, more occupied preventing internal rebellions than worrying about one another. Once the war started the vast areas of dry inhospitable terrain to the Northwest in Namibia and towards Tanzania in the east made it difficult for the South Africans to logistically feed their troops. As a consequence defeating the Germans was drawn out and took over two years, only a corps of a few tens of thousands of troops were involved. South Africa also had to quell internal rebellion from the Afrikaans. Deep racism prevented African troops from serving in the battle in anything but service roles which kept the troop strengths artificially low.

I had a difficult time getting through this read. While the material could have been interesting, the writing often lacked context and the sentences often contained excessive adjectives and many paragraphs were non sequiturs. The concluding chapter was interesting as it covered the war memorials, both impromptu and permanent, that were erected in Europe near the Somme and back in South Africa.


2.5 stars. Material closer to 4 stars but the writing style got in the way of this story.