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In 1931 General Harington declared that it was 'leather'--in the shape of footballs and boxing gloves--that had won the Great War for Britain. During the First Worm War, sport previously popular but unofficial in the British armed services--became formally integrated into the military system, both as 'recreational training' and as an officially sanctioned form of leisure for other ranks. This article traces the process by which sport in the British Army was transformed from a mainly spontaneous and improvised pastime into a compulsory activity. It discusses the relationship between sport and war in the public school ideology of 'athleticism'; examines the ways in which sport was seen to have military utility in raising morale, esprit de corps, and the 'fighting spirit'; and demonstrates how the amateur model of sport came to be imposed on all British service sports as a result of the war. The article concludes that sport in Worm War I had real benefits both to individual soldiers and to the army as a whole. En 1931, le general Harington declara que la Grande-Bretagne sortit victorieuse de la Grande Guerre grace au 'cuir'--sous les formes de ballon de football et de gants de boxe. En effet, ce fut durant la Premiere Guerre mondiale que le sport--jusque-la populaire mais non officiel dans les forces armies britanniques--fut officiellement integre dans le systeme militaire en tant que 'formation de jeux' de meme qu etant egalement officiellement approuve comme une forme de loisirs pour les autres tangs. Dans cet article, nous retragons le processus par lequel le sport progressa de divertissement principalement improvise et spontane a devenir une activite obligatoire dans l'armee britannique. Nous examinons le lien entre le sport et la guerre dans l'ideologie de la 'constitution athletique' des ecoles publiques; nous scrutons egalement les facons de voir vis-a-vis du sport comme etant un element utilitaire de l'armee pour remonter le moral, pour l'esprit de corps et meme pour 'l'esprit combatif'; finalement nous demontrons comment le modele de sport amateur fut impose dans tousles sports du service britannique a la suite de la guerre. En terminant, nous arrivons a la conclusion que durant la Premiere Guerre mondiale, le sport amena de grands bienfaits aux soldats en rant qu 'individus et h toute l'armee en general., The assiduous and organized cultivation of sport, and what is more important the spirit of sport, has become one of the most distinctive marks of the British Army, and it [...]

Three hundred women teachers were recruited from British world to work in the concentration camps set up to hold Afrikaner women and children during the South African war. Women anxious to strengthen the bonds between mother country and dominions during the war found the Guild of Loyal Women of South Africa, the Imperial Order, Daughters of the Empire in Canada, and the Victoria League in Britain and Australia.

The South African War created nearly 5,000 British working-class war widows: three-quarters of a million pounds was raised by public subscription to support them. This article investigates the three national war widows' charities: the Royal Patriotic Fund, the Daily Telegraph / Scotsman Shilling Fund, and the Imperial War Fund. Highlighting the plight of war widows and orphans, it argues that evaluation of the war's impact on British society must include its effects on working-class soldiers' families. Analysing the identity and motivations of donors, it suggests funds for soldiers' dependants succeeded by fusing imperial sentiment to class solidarity and local identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South African War of 1899-1902 cost the lives of 22,000 British and colonial soldiers and created almost 5,000 British war widows. It was in this context that the first state pensions for the widows of rank and file soldiers were introduced in 1901. Triggered by unexpectedly high casualty rates and widespread dissatisfaction with charitable provision, the introduction of state pensions also reflected changing public attitudes towards soldiers and their dependants in the context of an imperial war. Dismissed in the historiography as insignificant because of its low rates and restrictive eligibility clauses, the 1901 scheme in fact delivered pensions to the majority of war widows and made the Edwardian state their most important source of financial support. This article, after discussing the social and political context in which widows' pensions were developed, analyses the economics of the scheme and how key eligibility rules were formulated, before investigating significant changes in the scheme to 1920, the point at which Boer War widows were finally granted full maintenance. Strongly influenced by the practices of Victorian armed forces charities and by contemporary ideologies of gender and class, the South African War pension regulations created precedents which would continue to shape pensions for military widows to the end of the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a substantial historiography on the 'pro-Boers', the role of women in the British campaigns against the South African war has never been systematically examined. This article discusses women's activism through the two main pro-Boer organizations, the Stop the War Committee and the South Africa Conciliation Committee, and through Liberal women's organizations. It examines women pro-Boers' arguments and attitudes to both pacifism and imperialism. Finally it considers the gender aspects of the pro-Boer campaigns, the development of distinctively feminist arguments against war, and the effects of the war on the British women's suffrage movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]