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Expansion and empire

• Ashanti Wars in West Africa.
• Matabele Wars in South Africa.

The British usually came away victorious from these conflicts – mainly because they had far superior technology in their armed forces.

The Maxim gun was a major piece of technology that added greatly to British military superiority in Africa in the late 19th century. This weapon could fire hundreds of bullets a minute and it played a major part in a number of British victories in Africa. These included:

• Matabeleland in 1893-4.
• The Sudan in 1898.
• The Aro War in Nigeria in 1901-02.

The Maxim gun became so renowned, it even featured in poems.

In the war with the Zulu people of South Africa in 1879, the British suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Isandlwana, but went on to win the war.

The Second Boer War

The Second Boer War (1899-1902) was fought with the same technology as Britain’s other campaigns in Africa, but it was a very different struggle. The war was fought against the Afrikaner nation which had two Republics within South Africa: the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The opposition were known as Boers (meaning farmers) and they were equipped with the same technology as the British.

The Boers lost the war but they inflicted a number of defeats on the British during its course. The result was the unification of all the South African colonies into the Union of South Africa, which was part of the British Empire. However, the South Africans were granted a considerable amount of freedom to decide their own approach, particularly their treatment of the black African natives who were strongly discriminated against.