Boer Brigade
When the Second Boer War broke out, Lynch was sympathetic to the Boers and decided to go to South Africa as a war correspondent. In Pretoria, he met General Louis Botha, and decided to join the Boer side. Lynch raised the Second Irish Brigade, which consisted of Irishmen, Cape colonists and others opposed to the British. He was given the rank of Colonel and saw limited active service. In his comprehensive history on the Australia's Boer War, Wilcox said, it was misleading to call the seventy or so men in the Irish unit raised by Lynch "a brigade", rather he suggested that "the publicity that comes from spectacular gestures..." made Lynch appear "a romantic warrior" and that his actions "flattered many Irishmen and women...". In contrast, O'Brien's fictional Bye-Bye Dolly Gray, is kinder to Lynch's showy South African exploits and his uitlanders. Michael Davitt who travelled to South Africa has photos of Lynch with his brigade on the veldt, in, The Boer Fight for Freedom.
Read more about this topic: Arthur Alfred Lynch
Famous quotes containing the word brigade:
“Rational free spirits are the light brigade who go on ahead and reconnoitre the ground which the heavy brigade of the orthodox will eventually occupy.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)