His dispatches from the 1899-1902 Boer War in South Africa to the London Morning Post . . . Winston Churchill, though he had left his regiment, the 4th Hussars, in the previous March, was eager as ever to be within the sound of guns and wasted no time in getting himself accredited to the Morning post as war correspondent. “We never think of Churchill as a reporter. The first shots of the Boer War were fired at Kraaipan on 12 October 1899. He was famously captured only two weeks later by the Boers, when the armoured train on which he was travelling in Boer-occupied territory was ambushed and derailed. Recounting Churchill’s own adventures and observations during the conflict, this book is fascinating for both its historical and personal perspective. In this last youthful military adventure, Churchill set off and arrived in Cape Town late on 30 October 1899. Churchill tells the story of how he escaped and made a daring overland crossing, traveling only at night to avoid detection. This book consists of two separate works in one volume, “London to Ladysmith via Pretoria” and “Ian Hamilton’s March.” In the former, Churchill is captured in Pretoria not long after he arrives to join the British forces-and is frustrated not by the conditions in the prison, but by the fact that he was missing the action. In this conflict, rebel forces in the Transvaal and Orange Free State had proclaimed their own statehood, calling it the Boer Republic. A fascinating piece of first-person reporting from the British statesman’s early years as a war correspondent in South Africa.Īs a young, ambitious soldier, Winston S. Churchill managed to get himself posted to the 21st Lancers in 1899 as a war correspondent for the Morning Post-and joined them in fighting the rebel Boer settlers in South Africa.

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