"Although small by European standards, the British Army was a professional army. The men signed on for a shilling a day for a minimum of six years. Life in the Army was exceptionally hard and commissions for enlisted men were virtually unheard of. The ranks were consequently not a place for men of ambition, means, or education and much of the British Army was composed of regiments raised in Ireland or the highland areas of Scotland of men for whom the Army, whatever its shortcomings, promised a temporary refuge from the vicious cycle of rural destitution and urban poverty."
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Wars and battles20th-century military history19th-century military history1899History of South Africa
Original Language: English
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Sources
The Boer War: 1899-1902 (1992), written and directed by Andrew Aitken
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War
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Second Boer War
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