To the Bitter End by Emanoel Lee is written around a unique collection of photographs taken during the Boer War, the majority previously unpublished. When the war started, light, simple Kodak cameras had recently come on the market, and for the first time, events could be seen through the lens of the amateur photographer. Yet very few of these amateur pictures were published at the time, despite the appearance of numerous publications featuring professional photographs of the war. Here, however, posed official war photographs are replaced by startling images of real-life bloodshed, military incompetence, and civilian suffering, taken by those most closely involved.
Pictured in this book, amongst other photographs, are:
Bringing the wounded down from Spionkop hill the morning after the battle
Baden-Powell was called ‘Bathing Towel’ by his men
Surgeon in a tent operating on a patient’s neck. Rubber gloves were not used until 1904. The anaesthetic was usually chloroform dripped on to a mask over the patient’s face.
Early portable X-Ray machine used at Ladysmith
Boer photographs taken on the morning after the Battle of Spionkop. The British trench has become a mass grave.
General Cronje after his surrender at Paardeberg
Boers signing the loyalty oath after surrendering (1900)
