TOPIC:

Several posts later, we have returned to where Ian started. This from Young's Relief of Mafeking ( www.angloboerwar.com/books/71-young-the-...-15-an-elusive-enemy )


A thing happened in connection with this Boer ammunition which shows once more how very easy it is to attribute all kinds of sins to one's enemy. Someone came running up to a little group of us with several packets of cartridges, one with the seal broken.

"Here's a pretty thing," he said; "poisoned bullets—the brutes!"

Sure enough, there were the steel bullets projecting out of the cartridges, each completely coated with something very like verdigris up to the edge of the brass envelope. The sealed packets showed that they must have been so received from the makers, which easily proved the most premeditated barbarity. Exclamations were rife; a brigadier was making notes in his pocket-book; someone was urging a correspondent to send home a cable announcing the fact, when a man, who had been sitting quietly through it all, said—

"That's all very well, but how about the rifling in the barrel? I guess there wouldn't be much of that stuff left on by the time the bullet was spinning."

Silence fell like a cloud on the group, and the bubble was finally pricked when another officer came up and said—

"More bad grease! I've had to chuck out half a box of ammunition because the grease has gone bad and fouls the rifles."

Of course; it was as simple as day. The bullets had, as usual, been dipped in grease to preserve them, and the grease had gone bad. When I returned to the little circle there was an animated conversation in progress on the subject of visiting patrols.

David
Thanks for those contemporary articles. They pretty well put the "poisoned bullets" tale to rest. I also note a reference to "explosive bullets" in one of the posts and this is another ammunition-related subject sometimes noted in contemporary accounts. It is rather "off-this-particular-topic" and - if you consider it to be appropriate for the site - I could do a post on it.
No problem if you think it will not fit.
IL.

The Boers did not have to waste time poisoning bullets, since most were expert marksmen and dealt with their enemies by accurate shooting!

Brett

Thanks very much to all of you for the info and ideas, and I'll have a good look at the newspaper extracts posted. Will be discussing this at the archives in the morning.

I agree, this combined with their blatant use of expanding munitions, from the very begining, to the end of the war too, men shot in their limbs who would normally have survived, stood no chance as a result of infection to their awful, often quite horrendous injuries, that could not be effectively treated on the battlefield

Brett Hendey wrote: The Boers did not have to waste time poisoning bullets, since most were expert marksmen and dealt with their enemies by accurate shooting!

Brett