Episode 116 -The Fawcett Commission reaches a chilling conclusion

The Anglo-Boer War

This week its all about the scandal of the Concentration Camps which breaks across Great Britain as the Fawcett Commission releases its initial report. We also continue to monitor General Christiaan de Wet who has a large commando of 700 men and is beginning the move towards the Cape once more. His plan is to increase the pressure on the English although his previous attempt a few months before ended in failure. But first, a reality check for Lord Kitchener who has led what has become known as the Drives across Southern Africa where tens of thousands of British troops have been mopping up the remnants of the guerrilla commandos, but at a cost. The Boer women and children have been herded into Concentration Camps along with their black workers and this has turned into a catastrophe. As Emily Hobhouse realised more than 9 months ago, squeezing civilians into camps without proper hygiene or sanitation is a disaster waiting to happen. The country didn’t have long to wait. The Fawcett Commission was made up of a fairly diverse group of women. It was a daring experiment, a women-only commission which would investigate conditions in the Concentration Camps and compile a report which would be given to the Government in December. Between August and December they steamed up and down the veld in their special train. They may have had diverse backgrounds but they were all united in one thing – they believed that the war against the Boers was just and that the civilians were part of the Boer support network and therefore should be punished. Led by Mrs Millicent Fawcett, a liberal unionist and feminist, she was also a leader of the women’s suffragette movement. Lady Knox was the wife of Major General General Sir William Knox, who was on Kitchener’s staff. The four other women included a nurse from Guy’s Hospital two doctors who were already living in South Africa.