News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The forgotten ruthlessness of Canada’s Great War soldiers... by arcticbull on Saturday July 20, 2019 @09:00PM (#20489305)
They also very briefly touched on the Boer War but I never realized that was in South Africa and that we were quelling basically a Dutch uprising.
Re:The forgotten ruthlessness of Canada’s Great War soldiers... by SideburnsOfDoom on Sunday July 21, 2019 @07:55AM (#20490955)
> a Dutch uprising.

The Afrikaaners (Dutch-descended colonists) already had their own states (Transvaal, Orange Free state), so it wasn't quite an "uprising".

However there was a gold rush happening in the Transvaal in the late 1800s, and the problem was that it wasn't British-controlled, so that had to be fixed.

Re:The forgotten ruthlessness of Canada’s Great War soldiers... by dhdidhdu on Saturday July 20, 2019 @10:51PM (#20489698)
Or that it was an incredibly immoral war
Re:The forgotten ruthlessness of Canada’s Great War soldiers... by benj111 on Sunday July 21, 2019 @01:46AM (#20490141)
I'm not really sure colonialism and morality really go together full stop, but that may be me projecting my modern morality where it doesn't belong, its entirely possible the average Victorian thought they were doing good, by bringing 'civilisation' to the 'savages'.

But then this isnt classic colonialism either, the Dutch Boers weren't exactly there first. This is one set of colonisers fighting another, so on one level, singling it out as immoral betrays a certain kind of bias. Yes the British invented the concentration camp to lock up the Boers, but what were they doing to the Zulus when they were at war with them?

Re:The forgotten ruthlessness of Canada’s Great War soldiers... by SideburnsOfDoom on Sunday July 21, 2019 @07:57AM (#20490965)
> but what were they doing to the Zulus when they were at war with them?

Proving that guns beat spears, no matter how many spearmen you have.

it took 2 goes, though

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana

Re:The forgotten ruthlessness of Canada’s Great War soldiers... by benj111 on Sunday July 21, 2019 @09:26AM (#20491217)
That was quite a famous defeat for the British, so it kind of undermines your point.

Are you making reference to Roukes Drift? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rorke%27s_Drift

That's what the film Zulu is based on. They followed on from one another, and on the same day, they're generally considered to be 2 separate actions though.

Also on the subject of British defeats, there's Gate Pah in New Zealand https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauranga_campaign

And the 1st Afghan War. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War

Anyway I wasn't even thinking about what they did in battle, I was think about how they treated the civilians, how they treated them after the war, how they treated prisoners. The Boers got off lightly, they got some (all?) of their land back after a relatively short period, the Zulus didn't.

Re:The forgotten ruthlessness of Canada’s Great War soldiers... by SideburnsOfDoom on Sunday July 21, 2019 @10:30AM (#20491451)
> They followed on from one another, and on the same day, they're generally considered to be 2 separate actions though.

Yes, that's point that it "took 2 goes".