Do you agree with the view that the Second Boer War resulted in Imperialism being discredited?

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Daniel Sinclair (Ra)

Do you agree with the view that the Second Boer War resulted in Imperialism being discredited?

At the end of the Boer War in 1899, people had to blame the general failure of the Boer War on a scapegoat. In my opinion, that scapegoat was imperialism; the policy of extending the rule of authority of an empire to foreign countries. People could blame the empire because there were few that could argue differently and human atrocities in South Africa like the burning of farms and the introduction of concentration camps, could only build up a case against Imperialism. In Britain there was fierce support for both sides, the Khaki Election in1900 proved that a number of people agreed with the Conservative view on continuing the war.

Both sources 4 and 5 use linguistic devices to signpost an inferred negative opinion of imperialism. In source 4 the words used include “dragged” “disenchanted” and “discredited” which we can infer directly links in with the title, that this source is trying to place a negative slant on Imperialism. Source 5 also uses negative language when talking about aristocrats “manipulating” public opinion. You can infer that this reference is about the aristocrats leaning on the national newspapers to sensationalise positive stories about the war. A particular example of this is Robert Baden Powell, who was the “medias darling” and was very popular because he played tricks on the Boer soldiers and was very successful.

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Furthermore source 4 uses short sentences to place emphasis on what the author of this source is explaining. “It had cost £200 million and over 22,000 British lives.” We can infer from the use of this linguistic device that the author believes that this is a huge number of lives and cost for a needless war. While source 6 disagrees directly with source 4 “ I do not think the sacrifices in connection with the war were too great.” The use of long a short sentences in source 6 indicates use of opinions, this is confirmed because the source is ...

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