Commando : A Boer Journal Of the Boer War

Today the word “commando” conjures a picture of daring special forces raids, but originally it was the Boer word for a mobile column of fighting men.

This is the account of one such fighting man.

Aged just seventeen Deneys Reitz, son of the ex-President of the Orange Free State and then State Secretary of the South African Republic, took up his rifle and joined the Boer Army.

It was 1899, and tensions between Great Britain and the Transvaal Republic and Orange Free State had reached boiling point.

From their initial strikes into Natal to the surge of British troops and the transition to bloody guerrilla warfare, through luck and family ties Reitz was present at most of the major events.

Not published until 1929, ‘Commando’ remains one of the most unique and important pieces of literature about the conflict.

J. C. Smuts summed it up best in his preface: “Wars pass, but the human soul endures; the interest is not so much in the war as in the human experience behind it. This book tells the simple straightforward story of what the Boer War meant to one participant in it.”

Deneys Reitz (1882-1944) was a Boer solider, lawyer, author and politician. In the aftermath of the Second Boer War, he went into exile alongside his father and brothers, spending time in Madagascar before returning to South Africa and studying law. When WWI swept across the globe he fought alongside the British against the Germans, first in Africa and then on the Western Front, rising to command a battalion.

Trekking On: A Boer Journal of World War One

On the 31st of May, 1902, the war in South Africa came to an end after three adventurous years.

Now Reitz would join the war in Europe.

Following his father’s example, Deneys Reitz refused to accept the terms of the peace treaty and went into exile, on Madagascar.

After four years of trials and adventures, Reitz recounts how his former commander, J. C. Smuts, eventually persuaded him to return home to help rebuild their country.

A long and troubled process, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War South Africans were further divided by the September 1914 rebellion.

Serving alongside Smuts once more, Reitz describes an oft-overlooked theatre of the war as they continued their campaign into Germany’s African Colonies.

Continuing immediately from Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War, Reitz’s stirring memoir carries him towards the Western Front and the final years of the war, fighting with the British, but not for them.

Deneys Reitz (1882-1944) was a Boer solider, lawyer, author and politician. After commanding the 1st Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front, at the end of the First World War he returned home, later becoming a member of the South African government. Trekking On is the second of three volumes he wrote about his life.

No Outspan: A Boer Journal of Life after the War

Standing as two pillars in his life, when Gens. Botha and Smuts stated their need for him back home the once-exiled Boer did not fully realise the turning point it would be.

Deneys Reitz believed that South Africa’s safety lay with the Commonwealth, and its people’s unity was only attainable under its shelter, and on his return in 1919 he entered the political arena, joining Smuts’ South African Party.

Although he returned to law and later travelled following Gen. Hertzog’s National Party’s rise to power in 1924, less than a decade later he returned as part of a “united” coalition.

With the outbreak of WWII and Hertzog’s bid for neutrality failing, Reitz found himself appointed Smuts’ Deputy Prime Minister: his subsequent journeyings and encounters were no less extraordinary than any that had come before.

Concluding the narrative of an extraordinary life, No Outspan recounts Reitz’s colourful adventures and endeavours as the long-drawn political struggle for South Africa continued.

Deneys Reitz (1882-1944) was a Boer solider, lawyer, author and politician. From the day he enlisted in a commando to the Western Front and beyond, his life’s work would be devoted to South Africa. He married in 1920, and his wife would go on to become the first female member of the House of Assembly of South Africa. Commando and Trekking On are the first two volumes of his memoirs.

A Handful of Hard Men: The SAS and the Battle for Rhodesia

During the West’s great transition into the post-Colonial age, the country of Rhodesia refused to succumb quietly, and throughout the 1970s fought back almost alone against Communist-supported elements that it did not believe would deliver proper governance.

During this long war many heroes emerged, but none more skillful and courageous than Captain Darrell Watt of the Rhodesian SAS, who placed himself at the tip of the spear in the deadly battle to resist the forces of Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo.

It is difficult to find another soldier’s story to equal Watt’s in terms of time spent on the field of battle and challenges faced. Even by the lofty standards of the SAS and Special Forces, one has to look far to find anyone who can match his record of resilience and valor in the face of such daunting odds and with resources so paltry. In the fight he showed himself to be a military maestro. A bush-lore genius, blessed with uncanny instincts and an unbridled determination to close with the enemy, he had no peers as a combat-tracker (and there was plenty of competition). But the Rhodesian theater was a fluid and volatile one in which he performed in almost every imaginable fighting role; as an airborne shock-trooper leading camp attacks, long range reconnaissance operator, covert urban operator, sniper, saboteur, seek-and-strike expert, and in the final stages as a key figure in mobilizing an allied army in neighboring Mozambique.

After 12 years in the cauldron of war his cause slipped from beneath him, however, and Rhodesia gave way to Zimbabwe. When the guns went quiet Watt had won all his battles but lost the war. In this fascinating biography we learn that in his twilight years he is now concerned with saving wildlife on a continent where they are in continued danger, devoting himself to both the fauna and African people he has cared so deeply about.

Bush War Operator: Memoirs of the Rhodesian Light Infantry, Selous Scouts and beyond

From the searing heat of the Zambezi Valley to the freezing cold of the Chimanimani Mountains in Rhodesia, from the bars in Port St Johns in the Transkei to the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa, this is the story of one man's fight against terror, and his conscience.

Anyone living in Rhodesia during the 1960s and 1970s would have had a father, husband, brother or son called up in the defense of the war-torn, landlocked little country. A few of these brave men would have been members of the elite and secretive unit that struck terror into the hearts of the ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas infiltrating the country at that time - the Selous Scouts. These men were highly trained and disciplined, with skills to rival the SAS, Navy Seals and the US Marines, although their dress and appearance were wildly unconventional: civilian clothing with blackened, hairy faces to resemble the very people they were fighting against.

Twice decorated - with the Member of the Legion of Merit (MLM) and the Military Forces' Commendation (MFC) - Andrew Balaam was a member of the Rhodesian Light Infantry and later the Selous Scouts, for a period spanning twelve years. This is his honest and insightful account of his time as a pseudo operator. His story is brutally truthful, frightening, sometimes humorous and often sad.

In later years, after Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, he was involved with a number of other former Selous Scouts in the attempted coups in the Ciskei, a South African homeland, and Lesotho, an independent nation, whose only crimes were supporting the African National Congress. Training terrorists, or as they preferred to be called, 'liberation armies', to conduct a war of terror on innocent civilians, was the very thing he had spent the last ten years in Rhodesia fighting against. This is the true, untold story of these failed attempts at governmental overthrows.

Koevoet: Experiencing South Africa's Deadly Bush War

Koevoet! has been an global bestseller since its release over 20 years ago. This new edition goes far beyond the original in capturing the courage, fear and intensity of South Africa's deadly bush war. Never before had an outsider been given unrestricted access to Koevoet, the elite South West African Police counterinsurgency unit - also known as Operation K and officially as the South West Africa Police Counter Insurgency Unit (SWAPOL-COIN). Author Jim Hooper spent a total of five months embedded with the semi-secret and predominantly black 'Ops K', which climaxed with one of the most vicious and determined infiltrations ever mounted by the communist-backed South West Africa People s Organization (SWAPO). Crossing regularly into Angola in pursuit of the insurgents, he saw friends die next to him and was twice wounded himself. This updated edition, drawing on the recollections and diaries of the men he rode with, will fascinate yet another generation of readers. In assembling this work, Jim Hooper had the opportunity to re-connect with so many of the men who allowed this outsider to ride with them. All of which brought a new intensity and poignancy. It also reminded Jim Hooper how privileged he was to have been witness to Koevoet's war. This stunning work is a tribute to Koevoet and the legend they created.