Short description
As war correspondent for the Morning Post , this is Winston Churchill's account of the Boer War, the conditions under which it was fought and the problems which faced the British Army when confronted by the Boers' dogged determination.
Long description
The first shots of the Boer War were fired at Kraaipan on 12 October 1899. Winston Churchill, though he had left his Regiment, the 4th Hussars, in the previous March, was eager as ever to be within the sound of the guns and wasted no time in getting himself accredited to the Morning Post as war correspondent. He sailed from Southampton aboard the Dumottar Castle on 14 October and reached Cape Town on the 31st. For the next eight months he filed his copy regularly for the Morning Post and it is these despatches which were later reprinted in book form as London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and Ian Hamilton's March. They are here published together, giving a vivid and spirited picture of the conditions under which the war was fought and of the problems which confronted the long untried British Army when faced with the dogged and determined resistance of the Boers.