Lost Boer treasures in South africa
hardluck:
Hello BA
Indeed right you are about the scouts and Winston Churchill. Baden Powell the heroic scout from the Boer war became the founder of that wonderful Scouting organization that later branched out all over the world.
Many things were learned from that war.
There is a little darker side to the origins of the scouting movement which thankfully became the organization of the pure intentions it has is today.
The British government lost about 22000 troops in the conflict. Many as it was later revealed about 40% of the armed services who though there wasn't fit for duty. The Boer war exposed the serious short comings of the British Army in many ways. There was a simple factor that British troops did not have the field skills the Boers and other colonial forces had.
Many of the British troops came from industrial cities and towns and had never camped out in their life and had no bush or camping skills and lacking in general fitness. This weakness was discovered all throughout the armed forces.
Baden Powell was tasked with creating a movement to encourage the next generation of children of the empire to be better equipped with survival,fitness, camping and bush craft skills. To be one day if needed the new generation of warriors of the empire. If you look at the very early days of the movement, the movement was organized along military lines.
Later in the 1930's the Nazi's took the concept even further to program young German children into Nazis doctrine of hate and racial perfection through physical fitness and survival skills to further their tainted ideologies.
And you are right the Boer war was the springboard for Winston Churchill into politics. Love him or hate him, he later became the savior of the British people in their darkest hour against the Germans.
As with all wars lessons can be learned from them.
Here is part of a letter from Baden Powell telling of his military career and year he founded the scouting movement 1908. He retired from the Army in 1910 and died in 1941.
Hardluck. :)
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Pgill:
Hi BitburgAggie_7377, You are very right indeed.... It also made many people rich in the gold and diamonds industry. Winston Churchill was a prisoner of war, but managed to escape... I am sure that made him a hero also [laola] Weaponry also made some great changes, even the Matini Henry went from a soft to a hard shell which made a big difference in the way the rifle fired.
God bless
Peter
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Pgill
hardluck:
Hello Pgill
Learn something new every day. Transition from soft cartridge to hard cartridge casings? Did it give better firing range or less problems with ejecting the spent cartridges?
Perhaps with count of soft to hard shells found you can work out when the encampment was most active. ie more soft shell in early stages of the war more hard shell found may indicate more action was in the later stages of the war?
Oops I'm starting to sound Like archeologist! :D
hardluck ;D
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Pgill:
Hardluck,
The soft had some problems to what I have read.... 1 was that gasses used to escape from the casing when fired and so you never got the full power behind the blast. 2 was of course the shells getting stuck. 3 wet weather was not good with these cases.
I think you would be right in some instances about dating the sites with these, but for the first part of the 2nd war they were using these quite frequently. So in some sites you will probably get a mix of soft and hard.
I have added some Photo's of some of my finds from the Boer war. If you can help with the 2 unknowns, it would be great, especially the two pegs.
God bless
Peter
[rider]
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hardluck:
Hello Pgill
In regards to what the two pegs are used for? At this stage I have no idea ???
Thanks for the interesting pictures. I found a little on the history of the weapons and ammunition. You have done a pretty good job in identifying the ammunition types.
As for the mystery shell casing? Perhaps we can get a clue from the following.
It should be noted that while uniformity was the general watchword regarding British armaments, that this was not the case in all circumstances. The Canadian forces, for instance, were armed differently, many with weapons of American manufacture such as Colt .45 revolvers (which were the standard side arms of the US at that time), as well as Lee-Enfields.
Boer small arms, on the other hand, varied considerably. Mauser, Martini-Henry and Krag-Jorgenson (shown alongside) rifles were all employed, as well as a variety of personal hunting rifles and other weapons. An excerpt from a British army surgeon's diary shows that Boer forces also used shotguns; this is entirely likely, given that Boer recruitment advised burghers to bring their own "?Rifle, ammunition, Horse, saddle and bridle, [and] food for eight days" to their mustering point.
Rural as the Boer population was, it is unlikely that every man had access to a rifle of sufficient caliber as to be useful; many, then, would have brought whatever they could lay their hands on. A similar pattern has been seen wherever armies have been raised from local populations; most notably, in the American War of Independence. The governments of the Boer Republics also purchased weapons in bulk from overseas nations, in particular Germany.
Some efforts were made to distribute these weapons among the troops, although most were held in reserve for arming sympathetic rebels in captured territories. It is likely that the nature of the Boer force, with its emphasis on marksmanship which had been learnt through experience and not as the result of training, precluded the adoption of a standard rifle.
Throughout the war, of course, and especially during the guerilla phases where resupply was no longer a possibility, many Boers took to using captured British weapons. Ammunition for these weapons could be stolen or captured, and although the weapons themselves were less than ideal for the natural born marksman, they were better than none at all.
Here is a picture of Bulliet known to have been used in the Boer war. It is by no means comprehensive. Left to right: .577/450 Martini Henry, MKII.303, MKV Hollowpoint .303, MK7.303, 8mm Mauser, 8x50R Austrian Mannlicher.
Perhaps that will lead you in the right direction.
hardluck :)
Hello Again all
In researching a little more about the Kruger legend there has been some excellent and valuable resaerch done by Scott Balson of Australia of the last minted coins by the Boer mobile field treasury.
This treasury was on the run from the British and finally ended up at a gold mining town called Pillgrims rest. They produced a gold coin called they Veld Pond. It was made from a hand screw press on a crudely marked die in as late as 1902.
Generally it was thought over 900 hundred coin or so was minted by the field mint. M Clooney who was the official assayer of the gold states in a letter that only 520 of these crude coins were minted by the field mint at Pilgrims rest. These coins are fairly rare and are now quite valuable depending on the grading anything from $5000.00 to $20000.00 dollars.
It has however attracted coin counterfeiters and through research is needed for verification of any coin or coins that show up.
Was these coins related to the Krugar treasure legend?
Maybe or maybe not, but it does show that the mobile field mint was minting coins on the run?
Krugar, like Yamashita and Rommel have all had treasure legends falsely attributed to them.
The question we have to ask our selves is what happened to all the other monies sized from the banks and gold producers?
And it is clear the British government wasn't full convinced that all the treasure was accounted for.
In 1909 a strange story leaked out.
More to come
Hardluck. ;)
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Pgill:
Hardluck, again you are the star.... I had actually forgotten about the "Veld Pond", not sure if it was anything to do with the Kruger millions though??? It was a very basic designed coin, I would love to get my hands on one of them [great] Thanks for all the photo's and letters, they are great history.
God bless
Peter
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hardluck:
Hello All
Kruger's Grandson Paul Kruger Smit in some respects added to the Kruger treasure myth. He was arrested, convicted and executed for murdered of his partner on the pretext of searching for buried Boer war treasure. It turns out to be an elaborate ruse to murder a rival in a Love triangle.
Two things we can take from this is that.. if President Kruger had taken a vast amount of wealth it did come to be passed on to his grandson. However Kruger himself had 16 children.There has been no real evidence to date to link with President Kruger being involved in any Burying of treasure that he has become associated with.
That said there are some questions about the intentions of some his generals such as general Botha. One of his own aids in 1915 claimed that Botha had not fully account for a large sum of missing money. There was a libel action over it.
In 1909 the British tracked down a mysterious gold shipment that was alleged to have been dispatched from a port in Mozambique in 1898 on a wooden bark called the Dorothea which was wrecked off Cape Vidal off the Natal coast.
One of the British intelligence officers was convinced that treasure was shipped out on this vessel. They even tried to Find this shipwreck all they found was the remains of an anchor and chain. The Old Bark allegedly was so overloaded that she split up the seams and broke up. The main location of the ballast and gold has far as it is known has not been found.
However Cape Vidal location has no distinct Cape as such. It is a large stretch of sandy coast line. The remains of the hull and ballast may lay under several feet of sand. Was this the fate of the Missing gold that General Botha could not account for?
As with most legendary treasures some times you will find stories behind stories and what makes treasure legends so interesting.
I think it is a little presumptuous to write off all the treasure legends associated with the Boer war. But President Kruger got blamed for them all. ;D
South Africa keeps her treasure secrets well so it seems.
Hardluck ;)
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Idaho Jones:
Now wouldn't that be a nice hunk of concrete to run across? ;)
Very interesting stories guys! :)
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Spooky:
The unknown shell casing corresponds with a .30-06 cartridge, which would post date Boer War association.
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These are some AWESOME finds my friend!
[great]
:)
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Pgill:
Hardluck,
That is an interesting twist to the treasure ;) I have not heard about that one before.... I wonder why they do not get that ship with the robotic operated Vehicle (ROV) to look for it. If they found it, it would as they say, be worth millions..... Umm if only I had that sort of equipment and expertise ::)
Spooky, I will check the dimensions of the shell to see if it is the one.... I will let you know, thanks for looking.
God bless
Peter
Spooky, scraped and cleaned shell and can now add more to the unknown shell. On the bottom it has "FN 1900" written on it. I did not know that FN was around at that time.... I think the 1900 is the date which we have found on many shells. The Enfield shell dimensions are a little different I'm afraid.
I have added some more photo's
1. Buckle, Knife blade and the back of a watch (I think)
2. Buttons.
3. Gramophone needle box in Aluminium.
4. Harmonica reed plates and a little unknown object. (you guys get the reed plates also from the civil war)
5. Mixed objects.
6. Whats left of a padlock.
7. Covers that go over the bowl on a smoking pipe. (Horse guys used these to stop ash from blowing into their eyes)
8. Pocket watch cover with markings, was gold plated.
9. Mixed pottery and glass.
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