Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Role of the Press (The Hobhouse Report & its Impact (In response, the…
Role of the Press
The Hobhouse Report & its Impact
In response, the government sent a committee led by Millicent Fawcet to South Africa in order to create an inquiry. - The team inspected the camps and its reports corroborated with the findings of Hobhouse.
The Government acted - they took away the responsibility of the camps from the army and passed it on to civilian administration - by the end of the war death rates in the camps had fallen to 2% - less than the average death rate in Glasgow.
The reports publicity gained a hostile reaction from some government and press quarters however the report was circulated and some liberal papers, such as the Manchester Guardian published the article.
Public opinion shifted when the press reported conditions of the concentration camps. - This was in part due to a report published by Emily Hobhouse - a British peace activist.
Hobhouse had only heard of one concentration camp at Port Elizabeth but discovered there were more than 40.
-At Bloemfontein she was appalled by conditions which were cramped and squalid.
She had expected to bring the people comforts but was surprised that they were in desperate need of food.
Impact of Churchill's journalism:
In South Africa, Churchill helped to rescue an ambushed armoured train and was captured by the Boers but managed to escape.
Churchill believed the war was just.
Churchill joined the army in 1895 aged 21 and had seen action in Cuba, India and Sudan.
-He left the army to stand for parliament but failed to win a seat.
His dispatches were uncensored and were generally supportive but revealed deficiencies within the army.
Churchill still believed the British would win and his lively journalism made readers at home feel close to the action.
Britain’s reaction to war
The defeats and casualties meant that the ending of the Second Boer War came with a public relief rather than jubilation.
The war had little of the 'glory' that earlier colonial wars had.
-It provoked debate about the British empire, many people believed that the empire was a force for good, but others questioned Britains right to rule other people without consent and therefore supported the Boers.
The main response came in stages: an upsurge of patriotism and pride, followed by anger at the failures, and then relief upon victory.
Political liberals and socialists within the country felt that the money being spent on war would be better spent on trying to solve the economic and social problems at home.
The changes in South Africa and the granting of the Dominion Status to former colonies indicated a change towards a looser commonwealth.
Press coverage & Changing attitudes
The mood dipped with losses and peaked with victory - the public being triumphant.
Boer war songs and poems were written.
As the War dragged on the press became less supportive.
Most of the British Press backed the war and most sent correspondents to South Africa
The Daily Express launched in 1900 and echoed the jingoistic tone
Newspapers reflected public opinion which was broadly behind the war.
Daily Mail which was first published in 1896 was fiercely imperialist and gave a great deal of space to stories about the empire.
There was a grudging respect for the Boers as brave and determined figures.