Home / Browse / Literature & History / The Times History of the War in South Africa, 1899-1900.
AMERY, Leo (ed.)
The Times History of the War in South Africa, 1899-1900.
Publisher: London, Sampson Low, Marston and Company, Ltd., 1900-09
Stock code: 45417
Price: £1,250 Currency Conversion
Volume I second edition, the rest firsts. Volumes I and II inscribed on the front free endpapers by Joseph Chamberlain to William Crowninshield Endicott the Younger, son of the former American Secretary of State for War and Chamberlain's brother-in-law. The War in South Africa was to be of great importance in Chamberlain's career, as Foreign Secretary his handling of the colony has been criticized as erratic; "Once the war broke out Chamberlain shrank from the role of war minister which was otherwise his for the taking—and the war demonstrated a crying need for better military management. The war nevertheless raised him to new heights of eminence in the government. It was Chamberlain who pulled the government out of the slump into which it fell after three British armies were defeated in South Africa within one week in December 1899. It was he who determined the timing of the general election (October 1900), which was called early once the British seemed assured of military victory. Almost alone among the members of the cabinet, he then strode into the electoral fray. Crudely identifying the partisan appeal of the Unionist coalition with the fortunes of the imperial war—'Every seat lost to the Government was a seat gained by the Boers' - he renewed the victory of 1895 …the eruption of guerrilla warfare in South Africa eroded the moral force of the electoral mandate. Still, the war seemed to validate Chamberlain's imperialism, just as the election seemed to prove its popularity …Arthur Balfour, Salisbury's nephew and presumed political heir, heralded Chamberlain at a special presentation to him in the Guildhall towards the end of the war as 'the man who, above all others, has made the British Empire a reality'. Next day The Times (14 February 1902) greeted him as 'the most popular and trusted man in England'. But the war and its rewards for Chamberlain ended together. The heroic fight put up by the Boer guerrillas and the 'methods of barbarism' employed by the British army to force them to make peace discredited Chamberlain's brand of imperialism." (ODNB) Chamberlain had married Endicott's sister Mary in 1888.
Octavo, 7 volumes including index, original red cloth with titles and gilt medallions to the spines, tope edges gilt. Photogravure frontispieces to all text volumes except Volume V, Joseph Chamberlain's portrait being that for Volume I, eighty-two other black and white plates, one large folding map of South Africa in pocket of Volume I, eighty other maps in all, 5 of them large folding maps contained in end-pockets, 5 of them full-page, the remaining ones folding. Armorial bookplates of William Crowninshield Endicott the Younger to the front pastedowns. Cloth a little mottled and spines mildly sunned, as usual, endpapers of Volume II renewed, some light foxing, but overall a very good set.
