‘The recognized adjunct of modern armies’: foreign volunteerism and the South African War

Kennedy, Wm. Matthew; Holdridge, Chris

doi:10.1080/13507486.2019.1675602

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…For many of those who travelled to South Africa, either as medical volunteers or to fight, the conflict evoked an empty plain on which a struggle for the future of civilisation could be waged. 20 Though the ICRC professed a humanitarian, universalist aim, it upheld the primacy of European civilisation and supported imperial expansion; a proxy, for some, for fighting. 21 The conflict was waged along a porous boundary between 'international' and 'imperial' warfare, serving as a reminder that many of the state signatories to the Geneva Convention were simultaneously empires.…”

Section: Participatory Humanitarianism and The Red Crossmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neutrality as a Contested Concept in International Humanitarian Law: Red Cross Men in the South African War, 1899–1902

Brazil

2023

hum

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This article explores contestations over what constituted medical personnel, hospitals, and ambulances during the South African War (1899 – 1902). It shows that Boer fighters and British soldiers held differing conceptions of what constituted medical 'neutrality' and the meaning of the 1864 Geneva Convention. Analysing their contests over 'neutrality', it shows their diverse legal understandings were influenced by pre-existing medical cultures, the nature of guerrilla conflict, and British portrayals of the Boers as 'uncivilised' and so outside the realm of international law. These contests shaped the provision of medical relief on the ground in South Africa and generated international legal changes which echoed through later warfare.

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Section: Participatory Humanitarianism and The Red Crossmentioning

confidence: 99%