Storm over South Africa follows the lives and tribulations of a diverse
group of characters through the 2nd Anglo-Boer War from 1899-1902 in
South Africa. They belonged to different levels of the opposing societies
and the story follows their actual life and death experiences in this conflict.
The characters include the seventeen-year-old son of a Boer president;
a young shipbuilding dock worker and his military nurse girlfriend from
the industrial north-east of England, and a young Canadian soldier who
volunteered for Canada's first campaign outside its borders. Involved
too are such illustrious British participants as Winston Churchill, Field
Marshals Frederick Roberts and Herbert Kitchener, Generals Ian Hamilton
and Robert Baden-Powell among others. Boer leaders involved include
Generals Christiaan de Wet, Louis Botha, Koos de la Rey and Jan Smuts.
The reader is guided through the various twists and turns of the first
major British conflict of the 20th century from its beginning through to
its end. The naivety and excitement of combatants in the lead up to
and beginning of the Second Anglo-Boer War was contagious. It pulled
many naIve young men into the maelstrom of combat. It began as
another glorious Victorian war. But the successes and failures, sufferings
and disillusionment soon emerge. It is a tale of imperial arrogance and
determination, of stubbornness, innocence, love and loss experienced in a
rugged and alluring land far from the heart of the British Empire.
