The British Way of War: Cultural Assumption and Practices in the South African War, 1899–1902

This essay explores the impact of late Victorian cultural assumptions on the conduct of the South African War of 1899–1902, both at home and on the battlefield. It contends that three cultural values, intrinsic to late Victorian culture—cosmopolitanism, political egalitarianism, and race—shaped British soldiers’ sense of justice at the outset of the war and, as a result, influenced their actions on and off the battlefield. This article emphasizes that the numerous “small wars” fought by British armies in the late nineteenth century, of which the South African War was the largest, were each unique and worthy of study not just as political history but as cultural military history.