Opposition To The Second Boer War - in The United Kingdom

In The United Kingdom

Although the 1900 UK general election, also known as the "Khaki election", had resulted in a victory for the Conservative government on the back of recent British victories against the Boers, public support quickly waned as it became apparent that the war would not be easy and unease developed following reports about the treatment by the British army's of the Boer civilians such as concentration camps and farm burning. Public and political opposition to Government policies in South Africa regarding Boer civilians was first expressed in Parliament in February 1901 in the form of an attack on the policy, the government, and the Army by the radical Liberal M.P. David Lloyd-George.

Emily Hobhouse in June 1901 published a fifteen-page report on the concentration camps operated by British Command, and Lloyd George then openly accused the government of "a policy of extermination" directed against the Boer population. In June, 1901, Liberal opposition party leader Campbell-Bannerman took up the assault and answered the rhetorical "When is a war not a war?" with "When it is carried on by methods of barbarism in South Africa," referring to those same camps and the policies that created them.

There was also embarrassment at the poor health of the British recruits, with up to 40% being found unfit for military service. Most were suffering from poverty-related illnesses such as rickets. Concern over the health of the recruits coincided with increasing concern for the general state of the poor in Britain.

Opposition to the war was strongest among the Irish. Many Irish nationalists sympathised with the Boers as a kindred people being oppressed by British imperialism. Though many Irishmen fought in the British army, some fought for the Boers too. Irish miners working in the Transvaal when the war began formed the nucleus of two tiny Irish commandos.