TOPIC:

A quick question regarding the Cape Colony bar, which may well have been asked previously, but this should save me from trawling through hundreds of posts.

Looking through posts with photos of the QSA with bars, all have the Cape Colony bar and that set me thinking. It was a British colony, i.e. part of the British Empire, so it wasn't being fought over. The British wanted to gain control of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal (South African Republic) and there were factors that led up to the war.

Am I correct in thinking that the Cape Colony bar was awarded not for fighting in Cape Colony, but for taking part or for passing through the colony? I need a definitve answer so that I can use the right form of words in a course assignment.

Many thanks in advance to those on here who have wonderful knowledge of the Second Boer War.

The clasp was awarded for service in the Cape Colony, which the enemy had originally invaded and as a result, all the fighting that subsequently took place within the colony.

Kathy re Coppock wrote: A quick question regarding the Cape Colony bar, which may well have been asked previously, but this should save me from trawling through hundreds of posts.

Looking through posts with photos of the QSA with bars, all have the Cape Colony bar and that set me thinking. It was a British colony, i.e. part of the British Empire, so it wasn't being fought over. The British wanted to gain control of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal (South African Republic) and there were factors that led up to the war.

Am I correct in thinking that the Cape Colony bar was awarded not for fighting in Cape Colony, but for taking part or for passing through the colony? I need a definitve answer so that I can use the right form of words in a course assignment.

Many thanks in advance to those on here who have wonderful knowledge of the Second Boer War.

I think it important to bare in mind that the OFS Government formed a defensive alliance with the ZAR before the war.
The War Office did not want to go to the expense of fighting the OFS simply because there was no significant gold in that particular country, alas, the geography did tend to get in the way, as well did the politics.

Kathy re Coppock wrote: The British wanted to gain control of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal (South African Republic) and there were factors that led up to the war.

Frank Kelley wrote: The clasp was awarded for service in the Cape Colony, which the enemy had originally invaded and as a result, all the fighting that subsequently took place within the colony.

Thanks Frank. My grandfather landed in SA on 29th March 1901, so Third Phase, and I'm struggling to find in which scenario he would have been engaged in Cape Colony, because his unit doesn't seem to be specifically mentioned in the books available. He was in the Imperial Yeomanry, 91st Sharpshooters. What I have found is a set of listings in Louis Creswicke's book South Africa and the Transvaal War which show the squadrons, but the 91st IY isn't mentioned for Cape Colony that I could find.

You had to be assigned to a unit based in the colony not just passing through. Given how mobile the war was he may have ended up there. It has a wide border with other states.

Any actual service between the 11th of October 1899 and the 31st of May 1902 in the Colony was entitlement, so from the outbreak of war through the bitter fighting into the new year and beyond to the second invasion and subsequent bitter end, so March 1901 is well within the period prior to the end game and Vereeniging.

Kathy re Coppock wrote:

Frank Kelley wrote: The clasp was awarded for service in the Cape Colony, which the enemy had originally invaded and as a result, all the fighting that subsequently took place within the colony.

Thanks Frank. My grandfather landed in SA on 29th March 1901, so Third Phase, and I'm struggling to find in which scenario he would have been engaged in Cape Colony, because his unit doesn't seem to be specifically mentioned in the books available. He was in the Imperial Yeomanry, 91st Sharpshooters. What I have found is a set of listings in Louis Creswicke's book South Africa and the Transvaal War which show the squadrons, but the 91st IY isn't mentioned for Cape Colony that I could find.