22. "Rhodesia."
23. "Transvaal."
And there were also two date clasps inscribed:
24. "South Africa, 1901."
25. "South Africa, 1902."
Battle Honours for the Campaign.
Whilst medals and clasps were distributed with a free hand, a different policy was enacted with reference to the names that were inscribed on the colours and appointments of the regiments which took part in the campaign. Only six battle honours were authorized for the two and a half years' fighting—"South Africa" (with a date indicating the period that the corps remained in the country), "Modder River," "Defence of Kimberley,"[30] "Relief of Kimberley," "Defence of Ladysmith," " Relief of Ladysmith," and "Paardeburg"—and no regiment obtained more than four of these battle honours. Few were able to add more than two honours for the campaign.
The relations between the British Government and the Boers had never been marked by any cordiality. Their hostility was not confined to ourselves. They had rebelled against the Dutch East India Company prior to our conquest of the Cape of Good Hope, and from the earliest days of the Dutch settlement there had been constant friction between the Boers and the natives. It is not my province to enter into the causes of the war, or whether it might have been avoided, suffice to say that on October 9, 1899, an ultimatum was handed to our Agent in Pretoria, couched in such terms as to render hostilities inevitable. On the 12th the first shot was fired, and England embarked on a campaign of far greater magnitude than any in which we had ever been engaged. Our forces were all too weak to cope with the situation, and they were widely scattered.
The Boers from the outset assumed the offensive, whilst we, owing to our numerical inferiority, were compelled to act strictly on the defensive until the arrival of reinforcements, which were already on the way from England. Within a very few days of the outbreak of hostilities it became apparent that we had, as usual, grievously underrated the strength of our opponents. Sir George White, with the bulk of the troops in South Africa, was shut up in Ladysmith, where he made a gallant defence. Colonel Kekewich, with a half-battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and some artillery, kept the flag flying at Kimberley, the headquarters of the diamond-fields; whilst Colonel Baden-Powell, with irregular troops only, earned a world-wide reputation for his brilliant defence of Mafeking. Not content with enveloping our forces in this way, the Boers carried on a series of daring raids into Cape Colony. In this they were to a great extent assisted by the disloyal conduct of many of the Dutch Colonials, who were actively hostile to our cause.
In justice to the General Officers who were in command during the earlier and less successful stages of the war, a brief description of the military resources of the Empire is desirable. As Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister, had stated in the House of Lords that no Indian troops would be employed, I may eliminate the magnificent fighting material that we possess in our Indian army. Approximately we had the following forces to draw on from our fellow-subjects beyond the seas, who at once let it be known that they looked on the quarrels of the Mother Country as their own, and that they were ready to place at the disposal of the War Office the manhood of their peoples. Our resources may be thus summarized: