Historians and small wars

[marct]

I don't know if the Boer War had as much to do with the Commonwealth falling apart (Peter Weir's version aside) as the did the bloodletting in World War I. Marc can comment to Canadian attitudes here, but if memory serves they revised their entire military system (requiring that only volunteers be sent overseas) as a direct result of World War I.

I concur. I think , as we say here in Massachusetts, "the light started to dawn on Marblehead" during the 2d Boer War, but actions like the Gallipoli Campaign had much greater impact on the larger colonies' views of their place in the Empire.

I think you're correct, WM. The 2nd Boer war certainly had a fairly major impact on the colonial aristocracy of Ontario, many of whom held commissions. As far as the Canadians were concerned, I would say that Vimy Ridge and the conscription crisis of 1917 were much more important than Gallipoli where we had no troops.

Marc