War And Remembrance - War Before Ww1 - The British In The Second Boer War Poem by Paul Warren

On the South African veld the British went to war and couldn't wait
With the free Boer settlers in Transvaal and Orange Free state
These hardy people were independent settlers from the Great Trek
When they left the British at the Cape not wanting to be British in their set
So they crossed the Vaal River and the so the Transvaal was settled
Making lives for themselves, cutting civilization out and were not fettled

But they found gold in the veld and the British took notice of their mines
And they wanted to add these free lands to the Empire in these greedy times
But the Boers under Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger wouldn't have it
And so the Second Boer War occurred and the British Army would make the hit
So they chased the Boers and they couldn't be tamed in this insurgent's war
With troops from the Empire including Australia fighting for the gold for sure

So Alfred Milner the colonial administrator invented concentration camps then
The British cut across the Veld rounding up the Boer Families for this war to end
Their farms were burnt and they were put into concentration camps at the Cape Colony
So the Boer men on the Veld would not be nurtured by their family
And the families in the camps weren't cared for with little food and health care
This episode of the Empire killed 27,000 innocents in a policy which wasn't fair.

© Paul Warren Poetry