Museum Curator's Note

It is probably the biggest exposé of fake war photography in history.

John Goldi csc pursued university studies leading to an Hon. B.A. in Modern History, at the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, and a B.Ed., and an M.A. in History, at Queen's University, Kingston, ON.

He has won over 136 international film and television awards at major American Film & Television Festivals for his educational and television documentary work.

To make his four-hour long television special on the Boer War - which won an astonishing four Gold Medals at Houston Worldfest, the world's biggest film and television festival (Best Program, Best TV Series, Best TV Writing, Best On-Camera Host) - he spent two months filming Boer War battlefields in South Africa, driving 11,000 kms, and lugging his heavy camera, climbing many kopjes, while following the footsteps of the British, Boer, and Canadian contingents.

But he also discovered that no Canadian Government signage of any kind existed, on any historic locations where thousands of Canadians had fought, and some 300 had died, and remain in South Africa. And this, shamefully, after the 100th Anniversary commemoration of the event had come and gone...

He hand delivered a huge documented report of his research, supported by a four hour video documentary, to the office of the Minister of Canadian Heritage, the Hon. Sheila Copps, in Ottawa, Ontario, demanding an end to "100 Years of Neglect."

As a result of his research, her successor, the Hon. Stéphane Dion, wrote him to announce that "I have recently designated Canada and the South African War an event of national historic significance."

And consequently he would order that Canada set up its first ever Canadian Historic Sites and Monuments plaques on the African continent.

The Gold Standard - Think about it as you look at what are claimed to be Boer War combat photos. Lt. James Cooper Mason DSO, who took the world's first certifiable candid combat photograph, got only ONE snapshot, and in doing so had his pith helmet and badge pierced with bullets though he only stuck up his head for several SECONDS, to take his photo.

Go to Boer War Doc Cameraman

Boer War Fake #1 - A very typical photo of what was claimed to be a "combat" photograph from the Boer War, entitled the "Hampshire Yeomanry in Action" from Major-General JEB Seeley's autobiography.

In fact we believe it's a typo - it should have read "Hamp Yeomanry Inaction."

It's the best "action" photo he could come up with. And Seeley was certainly no slouch in the courage department.

Unlike the BlackBerry Generals of our day, who command from the rear, he was always, like Victorian officers were, on the front lines, putting his life at risk.

In World War I he would become a Major-General in command of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade. He was Mentioned in Dispatches five times for bravery, and was so close to the Front Line action he was gassed.

Still, his Boer War picture is not good enough to pass muster as a combat photo.

Note how the men's heads are all firmly posed above the skyline, ideal targets for any Boer sniper a km or two away - so clearly there are none.

Great Canadian Heritage Treasure How Canadian generals lead their guys and gals in 2009, from the rear... A huge departure from General Seeley's day and that of his fellow officers, hundreds of whom died leading their men from the front. This BlackBerry was uncovered in the Canadian Archives when General Hillier, Canada's top general, was given his walking papers by the Conservative Government. General Hillier is famous as the first of Canada's most Americanised generals, and who astonished Canadians by famously bragging that the job of the Canadian Forces is "to be able to kill people" referring specifically to those "detestable scumbags" in Afghanistan, his way of referring to his Muslim enemies there, whose homeland this Christian general was invading. Language no British Victorian officer would ever use. And luckily for posterity, it preserves one of the last orders that the good general wired his troops in the dangerous and dusty front lines in Kandahar, from his air conditioned offices on the banks of the Rideau in Ottawa. It shows how war has changed from General Seeley's day, when he was "up front" with his men, sharing the danger equally with the common soldier. In fact, in the opening months of the Boer War no fewer than three courageous British generals died in front line action personally leading their men. The BlackBerry is the modern generals' secret weapon to ensure that they will all live to enjoy a healthy and wealthy retirement and comfortable old age, for themselves, their wives, and their children... oh, and their mistresses and boyfriends... Go to Boys at War Command and Control, The Field Marshall's Baton in Every Canadian Pack Orig. BlackBerry - Size - 6 x 9 cm Found - in every Canadian private's belt pouch Now do you know why, of all Canada's 157 war fatalities in Afghanistan, only one officer of the rank of Major or above, was killed in combat there?

Note, how not a single rifle is up, because clearly, the men have nothing within range they can see to shoot at. Even Seeley needs a huge telescope to try to see if there are any Boers within miles of where the men are.

But do note, and remember, that the photographer is properly down below the skyline, and safely behind the men "on the firing line."

He's where every real combat photographer in a dangerous battle zone would be, not in front of the shooters, or above a protective wall from which the men are supposedly firing at attacking forces. He doesn't want to court almost certain death...

Which is exactly why no commercial photographer ever made a genuine combat photo during the 19th century.

And when the first real combat photo was shot, it was taken by a soldier, an officer, with equal "front line" courage like General Seeley's.

Seeley's book is also instructive about how people viewed war before World War I. He titled it "Adventure." It was the age of "Thrilling Stories of the War."

War was seen more like individual patriotic Boy Scouts on outings to do gentlemanly combat, than men mindlessly harnessed to do mass killing with awful instruments of extermination.

Go to Bob Capa, You Fake...

The whole sordid story is here:

Since war photography began with Fenton, during the Crimean War, photographers have faked combat photos to fool the public into believing these were supposed to be from the front lines, where shot, shell, and bullets fly, and men die. But not, of course, photographers, whom no one was paying enough to expose themselves to danger. For the first 50 years war photography had been done by civilian contract employees who were paid and backed by photo and book marketeers, and engaged to follow armies to the war zone. They exchanged the safety of the studio for the safety of the army camp.

Go to Fenton You Fake...

In fact, staging great fake combat photos was also born with Fenton, and pursued by all his famous descendants in the art of war photography.

Hurry Up & Wait - Shouldn't it have been called "the camera in camp?" This is the kind of unwieldy studio camera that many commercial photographers - used to make "war photographs" and numerous "combat action" fakes. This is what they looked like, as they were - supposedly - in the midst of the front lines doing combat photography. It also shows why soldiers, willing to pose in camp, were even more keen to stage, "battle scenarios" for photographers when the fighting - and the Boers - were far away. (In fact this is exactly the reason "war photographers" in the Spanish-American War (1898) and the Boer War, gave for producing not a single combat photo from the front line at all - though the latter became the most photographed war in history... They said the camera technology was too cumbersome and unsuitable to allow it to be done. The action moved too quickly away from them while they were preparing to shoot. In fact some hoped to be able to get action shots by using new telephoto lenses to get closer to the "front." We suspect it was to allow the photographers to stay further back from the danger, as they had been doing for some 50 years.) Note how the men stand still, and wait patiently while the photographer scrambles to set up his shot. You can be sure of one thing; they wouldn't be hanging about to pose for pictures if there were any Boers about, taking potshots... Go to a Real Combat Camera Below, far behind the front the hugely cumbersome movie camera of WKL Dickson, taking the earliest movies of men at war. Still photographers went no closer... Dickson's autobiography makes interesting reading and tells you a lot about the problem of getting action shots. Far from accompanying the lead elements of the army on the march, he was often behind even the rear guard with his photographic wagon. Busy with all his gear, his film, and his chemicals he was always playing "catch up" with the army whose action he was supposed to be filming. Often following the army at night he had no trouble finding where it went. He simply followed the stench of dead animals that marked the route it took. The only real "action" pictures Dickson ever got was the British army retreating after Spion Kop, which resulted because the army came back to him and his camera. Oh, and did we mention, Boer War action movies were faked in England using actors charging up hills, and in New York by the Edison company...?

Until the 1890s part of the problem with getting real combat photos was the huge size of the cameras that were available. They simply could not be set up on a fast moving front line battle, even if a photographer wanted to expose himself to the danger.

Standing tall, fiddling with his camera and its emulsion-covered glass plates, while the other men were lying down, or hiding behind rocks or cover, the foolhardy cameraman would have been the first to be shot.

Then, in the 1890s, Kodak produced small handheld "folding pocket Kodaks" which used paper film, and were affordable for common people.

And so candid photography was born, with people going wild photographing everything in sight.

Thousands of pocket Kodaks went to war in South Africa in 1899, in the packs of officers. The Boer War became the most photographed war in history.

A Picture to Die For... But no real combat photos were ever taken, images of men fighting for their lives, in the front lines, where the dying was being done.

The ancient fear of commercial photographers, of being shot while exposing themselves to sniper danger on the front lines, just to take a picture, prevailed. And it did not change in the Boer War.

Of thousands of photos we have seen of the Boer War, we have seen only one real, certifiable, combat photo, and, tellingly, it was taken by a soldier not a commercial photographer.

But fakes, made by commercial photographers, abound.

The editors of the popular press, flooded with tens of thousands of camp shots, marching men and horses, were desperate to give readers real combat photos.

And the ever crafty photographers were determined to provide them - but on their own terms... Hmmmh...

Which, of course, like Bob Capa in 1936, was to fake it for the camera. I mean, who would ever know...?

The obvious Boer War fakes were deliberately intended to deceive the public, as they were clearly captioned as being genuine combat or action pictures when, in fact, none were.

Featured below, one of the most famous "battle" photos from the war, showing a Tommy giving water to a dying soldier, while his dead comrades lie about him.

But the credibility for this photo is completely shot because we have discovered TWO copies of this stereoview, taken only moments apart.

Not a good move if you want to fake a successful combat photo as explained below.

We publish here, for the first time anywhere, incontrovertible proof that these Boer War battle photos were faked.

Bob Capa's phony war photo was also similarly exposed as a fake because his contact sheet - all the mini photos from the rolls of his exposures - was found.

They show he was getting men - he claimed soldiers in battle; they were really acting for him - to charge the same way, in the same spot repeatedly.

While Capa with his camera was hunkered safely down a gully...

Now if you were a sniper and saw this repeating activity, on a nearby hillside, what would you do?

The chances were good that Bob Capa would get his photo of a man being shot up close, and nicely composed, and in focus.

Let's just do it a few more times...

This "exposed photographer" - like the two examples we feature on the right - alone allows you to pick out "faked" combat photos.

Boer snipers were legendary, able to pick off anyone standing up over a mile away. So no one in their right mind did it, if they even suspected a Boer was only a mile or two away...

Let alone a photographer, on the firing line...

In fact three of Canada's most celebrated Boer War casualties were "head shots," when officers briefly chose to pop up their heads to use their binoculars during battles (Arnold, Borden, Burch).

Great Canadian Heritage Treasure

#2 Model A Kodak Folding Pocket Camera Lt. JC Mason, DSO RCR, 1899

Orig. camera - Size - 23 cm Found - Cambridge, ON

The portable and affordable pocket Kodak that revolutionized the taking of candid photos especially in war. Go to James' Camera

Suspect a bad fake immediately if the cameraman and his rig stand up tall above soldiers who are lying down all around him.

Left the Canadian wounded after the Battle of Faber's Put, with the shadow of the "photo fiend" taking the picture.

Now that the Boers are long gone, the photographers come out...

The small portable camera could now be whipped out in a moment to snap a picture.

Go to James' Real Combat Photo

So it would be a soldier, Canadian Lt. James Cooper Mason DSO, not a commercial photographer who defied the convention of 70 years and used the camera right to snap the world's first genuine combat photo, and quite predictably, getting his helmet and badge shot through in the brief seconds it took to take his iconic photograph.

It was invented in 1838 by Sir Charles Wheatstone, the same British professor who invented the concertina.

It was based on the principle of human vision, which sees depth because two eyes, slightly offset, see the same picture from different angles so the brain combines them into a 3 dimensional view.

The camera therefore used two lenses, slightly apart to take two nearly identical pictures, letting you see any view in three dimensions when placed in a viewer.

The photos look totally identical, but if you look extremely close-up, you can see there is a tiny shift to the side between the two views. It's enough to give the illusion that you are seeing "depth."

The operator holds the viewer with the handle and places the stereoview in the clips on the rack which is moveable, in and out to allow the viewer to adjust it for his/her eyes.

The wooden partition between the two eye ports is to ensure that each eye only sees the picture on its side, or the 3 D effect would be lost.

On the day of rest, or when people came visiting, the stereoviewer was hauled out to show the latest views of Paris, Rome, Indians out west, or British soldiers fighting the Boers in the war zone.

But the sentiment wildly appealed to the Victorian sense of patriotism during wars.

This photo obviously seeks to trade on the enormous popularity of Bugler Dunne who was shot and lost his bugle during a disastrous charge across the Tugela River at Colenso, in December, 1899.

Queen Victoria visited him in hospital and presented him with a new bugle.

There were, in fact, numerous very brave young bugle boys putting their lives on the line. Some died in combat.

But this photo is cheesy and fake, as are all the ones that follow, created by photographers who staged all kinds of battle scenics for their big cameras, way behind the lines, where the Boers weren't, and lots of available resting troops were...

Note the five fake bodies also draped for effect.

In fact we cannot recall ever seeing British photos of genuinely dead British soldiers published in the British press.

The only ones we've seen were the photos of the aftermath of the Battle of Spion Kop, and these were taken by Boers and publicized in the European press to show the devastating British casualties.

Which should have been another alert that the British "dead" we feature on these photos, were phony from the beginning.

So what we have here is clearly "theatrical news," to massage the public, not truthful reporting, on any level...

You know, like in the China of Chairman Mao...

And in the Canadian media in 2011...

Ooops... #22

Here is another very slightly different exposure to the first Fake #2.

The bugle is down quite a bit here, and the care-giver has leaned forward more, and tilted his head down considerably.

In other words, we have a posed situation here, with multiple exposures taking place, not just a candid battlefield grab shot.

More compromising info is still ahead.

No one noticed in this exposure - but then it's such a tiny, unobtrusive part of the image - that the dead man has taken a split second after lying there for ages, to adjust his helmet.

Just as the shutter went.

And he went back to his dead man's hand...

In fact we can prove Fake #78 was taken first...

Oh, and did you see, the cameraman has demanded that the caregiver also, quickly, reverse the way he's wearing his helmet so the badge shows up?

And you can also find out which picture was taken first...

The top dead man has his helmet cover standing up in this photo, and has then lowered his head slightly, causing the cover to collapse down over his ear. His arm has also dropped to a more comfortable position.

The closer actor makes fewer changes but his helmet cover has moved too, as he tilted his head back, ever so slightly, crimping it up, while the photographer diddled. He has also adjusted his right leg, and drooped the rifle a bit.

Another dead give-away are the rifles. Notice how the Tommies - endlessly barked at by the Sergeant-Major to never let go of your rifle - do so in "death," closely grasping their weapons which would, of course, never ever happen under real battle conditions. Both grip their rifles even more firmly in the second exposure.

In fact, in death throes the first thing falling from the hands of a dying soldier - even before he hits the ground - is his rifle. Note Bob Capa's 1936 "Loyalist" actor, in the moment of death, throws his rifle away.

It's a great shot but totally faked, except the death of the actor...

Go to Bob Kills his Actor

In fact war photographers like Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner in the US Civil War, bemoaned this fact when photographing real corpses there in the 1860s. So they carried prop rifles which show up photogenically draped across numerous corpses in their photographs.

Go to Prop Rifles on Dead Bodies

But these are not prop rifles nor dead or wounded Tommies.

The Tommy draped over a rock on the left also offers clues on which exposure was shot first. He is still adjusting his helmet, when the shutter goes.

He had probably put his head down first when the brim of his helmet hit the rock and came off his head. He was readjusting it when the camera clicked, catching him with his hand replacing it.

Then, when everything was comfortably set, he put his hand back on the rock for his "dead" position in the second photo. In fact the photographer may very well have sworn at him for the move, necessitating a second take. It was the editorial staff in London who picked the photos for publication, and never noticed the tiny gaffe in the photo.

Note too, like the cowboys in the old West, who keep their hats on during fisticuffs or falling off their horses, these dead Tommies all keep their helmets on.

None of them are wearing chin straps. When a Tommy falls down in battle, absolutely the first thing that flies off when his head hits the ground is the helmet. In every case.

Just after the rifle... Here, in an execution scene illustrated by George Soper, he documents the hat flying off at the moment of death.

All these "dead" Tommies are wearing their helmets, staged by a cameraman who had never seen dead on a real battlefield.

Below is another Boer War image by George Rowlandson that also shows that, invariably, falling or shot troopers loose their hats in mid air.

They're only following instructions.

"Bill you go lie over there." And helmet firmly planted on his head and rifle closely tucked in, Bill goes and carefully lies in his spot, comfortably adjusting hat and rifle.

And that Death Grip... - Even if none of the other slip ups had occurred - like if they were all real bodies - there is one dead give-away, that by itself, would show what a fake the photos are: the death grip.

There is no way that any corpse, in death, can end up draped over a rock like this one is, with hands gripping the stone. Even in total relaxed mode - like all corpses are - this pictorialization of a dead body would never be possible.

Absolutely, there is some muscle activity that maintains the man on top of the rock like that and his arms in the forward - anti-gravity - position and clutching the rock.

In the close-up you can clearly see that these fingers are animated, acting in concert by a living mind, and definitely are not in the relaxed mode of a dead person, or they would be collapsed.

Or they might be under ultra tension of an extreme claw form which they are not either.

They are mid-way between "dead body" ultra-loose and ultra-claw, in a position that a thinking actor believes is necessary for the effect he's after. He's a failure. This is his first, and last, acting job.

And we have a typical Boer War combat photograph, faked in every detail.

We won't mention that the cameraman changed lenses and moved back further for the second, wider angle photo... The narrow, tighter, field-of-view was not cropped from the wider exposure. Because he moved back with the camera, more of the near man's puttee is covered by the rock in the second exposure Fake #2.

The same photo as Fake #4, just retitled for more sales punch and pathos.

The whole scenario is explained in detail down below.

Great Canadian Heritage Treasure

Lying down on the job

Orig. Stereoview - Size - 9 x 18 cm Found - Kingston, ON

Poor Action Photo - Closer to the action than the vast majority of Boer War photos. But - rifles are lying on the ground; the men are looking around or down. And the photographer high above them all. You can be sure no Boer snipers are in the county... Poor candidate for action photo of the year..

FAKE! FAKE! FAKE!

During the Boer War people wanted action pictures at home, especially ones showing the pathos of war.

Though there were more cameras at this war, by far, than any previous war in history, and thousands of images were exposed, it is virtually impossible to find one that shows real action on the front lines.

Right is not one of them. Nor the the one below

Since it was impossible to get action shots for real - few men were willing, like James Mason, to stick out their necks with a camera while the Boers were firing - so these were faked.

The Last Drop - Among the most famous are the supposed Last Drop pair of stereoviews that we feature here.

Great Canadian Heritage Treasure On the March Orig. Stereoview - Size - 9 x 18 cm Found - Chatham, ON Poor Action Photo - This is what passes for an action photo during the Boer War - men marching. They are packed close together, their rifles leisurely perched, while transport wagons trundle peacefully along the horizon. One thing sure - no Boers within a 100 miles...

These are not candid, off-the-cuff photos, shot by an out-of-breath photographer worried about a good action shot that may disappear. In fact these photos were made with a tripod-mounted camera. The camera point of view is precisely the same in both views with the photographer not moving an inch between photos.

Had only one exposure been made the photographer and publisher might have been able to carry off the deceit. In fact many people today mistakenly think these were taken during a real action. The myth persists because few people have ever seen both, made by the same photographer, standing in exactly the same spot, only moments apart.

The pictures feature five bodies - one the presumably dying soldier and four corpses, obviously recently deceased. We can buy that the dead would still lie there when the photographer arrives. We cannot buy that the photographer would have got to the spot ahead of the stretcher bearers to take wounded to the hospital.

So these are definitely supposed to be "dead" bodies.

Unfortunately for the photographer and the veracity of the picture, ALL the corpses have moved in the short time lapse between the pictures. In fact the only one who has moved least is the dying soldier himself. The others, bored with being fringe players, tried to make themselves more comfortable by moving heads, hands, arms, and legs to new positions.

Below the corpse has completely repositioned the helmet and also brought both arms in to a more comfortable position.

Below the corpse has lifted its elbow - probably to scratch an annoying itch just when the shutter went - creating a new shadow, and also moved its foot further forward and off the rock. Remember, cameras don't lie; only photographers do...

The middle corpse has moved its hand closer to the Michael Jackson position.

The top corpse has further drooped its head.

Great Canadian Heritage Treasure In Camp Orig. Stereoview - Size - 9 x 18 cm Found - Port Hope, ON Poor Action Photo - Photos shot in camps - obviously far from Boers and danger - account for the vast majority of Boer War photographs, especially the commercially produced and sold pictures issued as stereo views. These commercial photographers wanted a peaceful place to set up a tripod - like for the Dying Bugler - so their images would be sharp, steady, and well exposed. Hard to do when bullets are whizzing around your head. Besides, no one could pay me enough on a sober day.

Of course the photographer might have moved the corpses himself. Famed US Civil War photographer, Alexander Gardner, did exactly that, moving corpses several hundred yards to get better compositions. But that is clearly not the case here with the movements serving no further photographic purpose.

Now, do you believe this soldier is dying?

Notice how a second photo can spoil the effect and fantasy of what looks like a first class effort in the first one.

Clearly, photographers should destroy their seconds and keep only the best. It makes for a much better, believable story.

As Robert Capa found out when someone noticed a duplicate picture of another dying loyalist shot in the exact same place, the same background, the same grass in both photos. Now how likely is that to happen in real life?

The supposed dead body does not show up in other pictures. There are no records of anyone else, than Garcia, dying there that day.

Which all goes to show - it's better to destroy compromising evidence when you're trying to make a photo op set-up look like the real thing.

Which may also explain why those who've gone to search for the negatives,.of Capa's work on the day he shot the Loyalist, or more accurately, got the Loyalist shot - to try to establish details in the action pictures, etc. - have found them missing.

When you've got dupes kicking around of what are supposedly real "one-ofs" it could ruin a reputation. In fact one of those dupes turned up, apparently slipping through the cover up.

Above a real action shot of an army. Hurry up and wait. These men refused to take part in the tomfoolery for the photographer.

ebay sellers are notorious, around the world, for tarting up listings so they can get top dollar from gullible buyers, who, once caught, have no way to recoup their losses. (Note: the No Returns Accepted cautionary.)

These old stereoviews are just another ebay example of things hyped up to be something they are clearly not, so they can catch a live one...

capt_harry_flashman AKA wilbos_daddy and war-department and joel8281 on ebay is an old hand at this... His many handles are all attempts to escape his creepy ebay reputation.

Go to fake bugle

"A very touching scene," "a mortally wounded friend." Please, spare us...

The ebay hustler says he'd like to think it wasn't a fake, staged after the battle...

Sorry, but this was not even staged "after the battle."

This was reenacted "instead" of a battle, as we have clearly demonstrated. By no fewer than six very healthy actors with nothing better to do on that day.

One of a large series of fake combat images staged by Boer War photographers on order for the commercial trade, to profit from war hysteria back home.

As everyone knows, ebay hucksters, are, of course, the bane of this online auction service, where people all over the world are suckered into buying stuff they're told is "real" when it is often fake, phony, or not as described.

Followed by "No Returns Accepted."

Great Canadian Heritage Treasure Fake #5 - The Warwicks Skirmishing with Boers near Weppener, east of Bloemfontein Orig. Stereoview - Size - 9 x 18 cm Found - Napanee, ON Poor Action Photo - When everything is beautifully composed, the men wonderfully placed, the image well exposed, and sharp, suspect a fake, and ask, why is the camera on a tripod, and a photographer, standing tall, and not scared - like the men appear to be, cowering behind boulders - of being shot by Boers.

Great Canadian Heritage Treasure Getting Water in Camp Orig. Stereoview - Size - 9 x 18 cm Found - Napanee, ON Real Action Photo - Nothing phony here. These men are not posed. They really are lining up and scooping water from buckets brought up from the local slough. This, like all the other stereoviews featured here, was the typical "war photography" done by Boer War commercial photographers. To them it was a job. No need to get killed at the battle front when there were so many great camping shots to get, far from any danger. Some of these were war correspondents, doing photography as a sideline. But mostly they hung around with command headquarters which, during battles, was well behind the lines of lethal fire. None of them marched into battle with generals who commanded attacking columns like Wauchope, Woodgate, or Hart. Too dangerous. Correspondents were unanimous, no photo is worth that risk.

Another Boer War faked stereo view action picture, complete with corpses draped over rocks.

Looks exciting but it's bad theatre at best. Everyone eager to do his part...

Notice how the men in back are shooting their mates in the back. One man in the middle ground left, is aiming at the heights were at least two British soldier clearly see no danger from Boers. Perhaps he's fragging an unpopular officer. And why are the men below holding back and acting aggressively when the enemy has long gone.

Theatre, that's why. Bad theatre.

So far from being good examples of war photography these images are worse and less authentic than the fuzziest camp shot of a camp cook peeling potatoes in a tent.

Those are real people doing real Boer War things.

These guys are just taking part in a bad school play.

All for a photographer on contract hoping to win fame and fortune.

Well at least no one is in danger of dying during this photo shoot...

Right another genuine Boer War action picture, getting water...

It makes one realize how utterly rare, and brave, was the accomplishment by Lt. James Cooper Mason DSO, in taking his real action photo, while under heavy Boer fire, during the most vicious battle of the Boer War.

He showed the same courage in the battle that followed until he was shot through the shoulders and lungs. For his exemplary conduct in the field, Lord Roberts, the British Commander-in-Chief, who came to visit him in his hospital tent at Paardeberg, recommended him for the Distinguished Service Order.

Go to Lord Roberts

But the photographer, or somebody, now says it is a skirmish by the Worcesters, not the Warwicks, and the location is Colesberg, not Weppener...

Seriously now, it can't be both. The units aren't related, and the two locations are a very long way apart, not even part of the same campaign. This is a doubly egregious captioning error.

"Skirmish"? Not on your life...

There is faked action here as well as a fake unit and a fake location.

In real battlefield action the men in front, closer to danger, move less than men coming up in the rear. The opposite is true in these two photos, with the men at the rear, closer to the photographer, and more responsive to his directions, holding their poses while the men further away move forward, more unsure of how to act...

Likewise men up front have a clearer view of supposed targets, and would be more likely to have their rifles up to shoot. Not men at the rear, who are further away, can't see as well, and risk shooting their pals. Yet here three men at the back are aiming their rifles while those in front are not... In fact they appear to be in serious danger of being shot in the back...

And these mistakes are not unique. We publish fourteen identical photos with captions that ascribe the action to completely different units and at widely different supposed "battlefield" locations...

Could be, though the boulders at Belmont are not such huge piles on the skyline like this.

Methuen's troops fought at Belmont in November 1899, and may well have fired rounds at the departing Boers who sensibly fled on horseback when they saw the overwhelming numbers of infantrymen who were marching on them.

Poor Action Photo

Note the photogenically positioned "corpse."

If the photographer is that close to the action you can be sure of another thing: the army medics would have been there long before, and taken away the dead or wounded man, to a safe location, where medical care was dispensed.

The Battle of Graspan intervened and only then did his army advance further to Modder River, where, true enough, Methuen fought another battle.

But hold it. The photo can't be both places. It's either Belmont or Modder River.

We can be absolutely certain it is not Modder River. There are no hills of boulders there that look like that.

The land on both sides of the meandering river, where the battle was fought, is flat, alluvial plain, much of it cropland.

The British suffered a momentary setback there exactly because the Tommies were exposed on flat fields while the Boers fired from trenches concealed along the river banks.

So the caption is fake; the place is fake; the action is fake; the dead man is alive.

Someone must ultimately have seen the captioning mistake and approached the photographer about it. His reply:

"Look, I can't remember. We had the lads do some action photos when the poor blokes had a couple of days rest after the Battle of Belmont, or Graspan. Hell, I can't remember. The rock piles are all the same. Just leave it. No one will ever know. Count your blessings; it's a great action picture. I think the lads did a great job."

A classic illustration of how the media can misguide an unwary, unthinking, and uninformed public with false pictures and information about what its military forces are doing overseas.

Combatting the Internet - In the 21st century, to the great dismay of the governing and media owning and manipulating classes, the internet, as an alternative source for information, of what is really going on in the world, has undermined, hugely, their version of the "truthful" narrative they and their stable of toadying calumnists want you to swallow. No wonder Wikileaks principal Julian Assange is being targetted and hounded with allegations of date rape of two women who were demonstrably loose and sluttish in their sexual behaviour to begin with - there are those who say these are rights that must be defended for the modern woman - and openly sought him out for sex - repeatedly. And only later howled when someone made it worth their while. It is an interesting modern sociological development, that lusting women, who act like whores, and openly target and attract notorious celebrities like Errol Flynn, Heffner, Sheen, Lowe, and Woods, are loudly defended, while the men who respond in like kind, are just as loudly derided and, like Assange, even prosecuted for crossing some kind of sexual boundaries with women who have few, if any...

So - the photo is not Modder River.

The photo is not of Methuen's men at Modder River.

The photo is not a combat photo, but a reenactment for the camera.

The scene is, in fact, a total fantasy of the actual battle that occurred at Modder River. So it even fails as a reenactment.

The date is wrong. The Battle of Modder River occurred on Nov. 28th, 1899.

The "desperate stand" never took place, The British were not in defensive positions, warding off a Boer attack. Exactly the opposite was true. The British were the attackers; the Boers were the ones making a desperate stand to halt Methuen's advancing army. The British were pinned down in their attack and had to dig in and wait till nightfall.

In fact after a day long battle the Boers withdrew, leaving the British in charge of the field. So Methuen was not "badly defeated;" he was in command of the field after the battle, the classic definition of victory in battle.

Though he felt his losses were enough that he waited for reinforcements before moving against the Boers again.

The Bacon print detail below got the scene right more accurately than the photo - not a rock in sight.

The British are advancing on the flat fields against Boers in trenches, which they abandoned during the night.

Great Canadian Heritage Treasure	A fabulous lithograph of the Battle of Modder River. Like the stereoviews Bacon prints were important propaganda publications designed to stoke the fires of jingoism on the home front so that the media owning classes could keep Joe Public on side as they inflicted their depredations on the local population of Boers who were - like the Taliban in Afghanistan - defending their homes and hearths against foreign forces invading their homelands. So stereoviews and Bacon prints are fabulous documents that illustrate how the media-owning classes manipulate the population in democracies to get them to agree to foreign policy interventions that are advantageous for their business cronies, while getting the average Joe to think it's good for him and the country. The Conscience of Canada - In fact the French-Canadian population of Canada has, for over a century, been the backbone of Canadians who say Canada has no business making war on helpless populations in their homelands just because the business and industrial classes want to get rich by doing so, and has lobbied to abstain from foreign military adventures that are not in Canada's best interests.
Bacon Print, Battle of Modder River, Nov. 28, 1899 (detail)
Orig. litho - Image Size - 23 cm Found - London, UK

In fact this is very much like the battlefield there looked, from the vantage of the British troops, looking north towards the Modder River.

So compare this view of Modder River with that of the previous photo, which was absolutely not taken at Modder River.

The fake caption of the "desperate stand" above looks ludicrous. The British, in fact, were stalled, while lying on the flats, digging holes for cover as best they could, exactly as shown left. They were pinned down there all day, till night fall.

The British did not make a desperate stand, which is generally a holding action to maintain a position from attackers.

In truth the British, far from "making a stand" at Modder River, were, in fact, stymied in striking home their attack on the Boers who, in reality, were the ones making the stand, and quite successfully so, along the banks of the river.

"The fighting line" is dubious. The photographer is standing tall, while the men hunch down. Is he risking his life? No way.

It's certain that the Boers are a long way away, and cavalry and artillery units may very well be manoeuvring into positions ahead, with these infantrymen holding the perimeter line for the supply wagons in the rear.

So a cameraman unpacked his tripod and made the photo, and provided the caption to please his boss.

Captions often make pictures fakes.

But hold it. Look how the men have dug themselves in with their entrenching spades, lying beside them. They're digging in to get away from the Boer rifle fire, especially the snipers.

The only one who doesn't look afraid is the damn photographer with his huge rig, standing high above the action, fiddling with his focus, exposure, and glass plates...

It should tell you how close the Boers are and whether this really is men "creeping on the Boers."

It looks to us they're dug in to hold ground, not advance on anyone.

We're absolutely certain the three lying down supposed combat photos are taken at the same place featuring the same Tommies 1 and 2. The folds on their clothing and helmets, the position of their equipment, the amount they are dug in, the terrain around them etc., are identical from photo to photo.

They were taken at the same time in the same place. But we will never know if it was Orange River, Dreifontein, or Modder River.

But we will know that the photographer had no trouble taking all the time in the world to go to the head of the supposed firing line, and set up his big rig again, fully exposing himself for a considerable time to the hot fire of the Boers which the Tommies are supposedly escaping by being dug in.

Victoria Cross for the photographer? Naaah, all three shots are clearly fake combat photos. The Boers? Miles, and miles, away...

But hold it. The photo can't be both places. It's either Dreifontein or Orange River.

They are a very long way apart, indeed, especially if you have to fight Boers all the way.

And these boys also are neither "creeping" or "stealing" after the Boers, in either place.

Infantrymen never caught the Boers - who were highly mobile on horseback - sleeping or unawares.

The only ones who managed to do that were British mounted troops and often only by moving at night.

Whenever you see photos of infantrymen you can be sure the Boers are long gone from the slowly plodding, footsore Tommies.

In fact the biggest complaint of the foot slogging Tommies was that they never got to see a Boer let alone get a shot at one...

So another false caption; a wrong place; and you can be sure, fake action as well.

Varying the names of the units, for the same photograph, was helpful in sales, on the Home Front, as people would identify by seeing their local units named on the stereoviews.

But, since none of the photos were taken of real battles, but staged ones, no one could keep straight which battle was actually portrayed and publishers just ad libbed the captions to fit the most famous fight of the day.

Now how probable is that?

Clearly he was there ahead of the Tommies, got his rig set up, and when all was ready, gave the signal for his actors to begin the charge...

Good action picture though...

Even if it is fake...

In fact this kind of genuine photography of death-defying action at the front lines did not occur until World War II, when photographers who were as brave as the men they photographed were embedded with the front-line troops.

Then the soldier who fought was at last, one with the combat photographer who shared the danger.

The Worcesters here know that tomorrow they will be asked to charge into the real jaws of death...

While the damn photographer will be sitting in some bar, far behind the lines, quaffing a few while laughing about the fake action photos he took.

So, is it the Worcesters, or the Gloucesters? It can't be both... But here the word "fearless" has been added to give impact.

Fearless? When there are no Boers in sight...?

Really, it shows that when the media issues propaganda pictures or text, and the reader has no alternative source for corroboration etc. - like Wikileaks in our day - the propagandizing classes can, and will, say just about anything to further their cause.

These many fake pictures and captions show that the search for truth is not what it's all about, but to create an effect it will achieve among those you are trying to brainwash...

We have featured seven sets of completely identical photos where the locations, and military units, were interchanged willy nilly by the publishers, without the slightest concern about getting it right...

No doubt they convinced the Home Front to Stand Firm for Queen and Country.

In fact many of these heroic stereoviews motivated many young men to sign up to fight in World War I, just a dozen years later.

But this time they would die by the hundreds of thousands in the muddy hellholes of No Man's Land in France. No more "gallant" or "fearless" charges, or "stealing" or "creeping" up on the enemy, like they had in sunny South Africa.

Instead an entire generation of young men would be wiped out in the world's most stupid war that started with a quarrel between the Royal Houses of Europe, after the assassination of an heir to the throne.

BBC photo researcher Pat Hodgson sleuthed out the best Victorian war photographs up to 1900, and published some 90 of the very best from conflicts around the world.

She failed to publish a single combat photograph, of men in the front line engaged in actual fighting that wasn't staged.

The cover speaks for the book - Boer War soldiers at the battle of Colenso, watching from a safe distance, as war happens to someone else a couple of miles away. This was typical of Boer War photography. Though there were more cameras there than in any previous war, the photographers wanted to keep their cameras, ahem, safe from harm... So Pat published nothing that would qualify as a combat photograph from that war, or any other.

In fact Hodgson stops her book in 1900 with both British and American war photographers complaining that combat photography was just not possible and no one could do it. It was just too dangerous and the camera technology not up to the task.

She further confesses that she had to stretch her book beyond the Boer War, to 1904, to put in a picture of a dying Tibetian - by a suitably anonymous photographer - to find a photo that is closer to the real action of front line fighting, and is more akin to the photojournalist combat action photos that became more common decades later.

In fact this anonymously shot Tibetian dying photo is not a combat picture either. You could photograph a dying soldier any number of hours - even days - after the combat has passed him by.

She says this photo has much more in common with the photos of the 1930s, like Capa's famous Death of a Loyalist, than any of the other photos in the book. She wasn't aware that Capa's photo was not, at all, what he claimed it to be either. Her book ends, sadly, with these two examples of what are fake combat photographs. Neither can pass the smell test for genuine "soldiers in action" combat photographs.

She does not publish Lt. James Cooper Mason's "Firing Line at Paardeberg" photo right. She may not have known of its existence, and so the landmark status we have proven it holds in the evolving art of war photography.

Pity. It would have been the only genuine combat photograph in her entire book.

Oddly enough she does publish the photograph which we have identified as a multi-level fake of the supposed "Canadians" climbing a kopje, by Capt. Holson RFA, where the helmets sport the obviously phony Canadian cap badge.

That photo right is also credited to Reinhold Thiele who was using a large plate camera with Lord Methuen, in the area the Canadians were stationed.

Go to Fake Canadian Photo

They Said It Couldn't Be Done

Reinhold Thiele, used an 8” x 10” camera - some say 10" x 12" - that was fitted with a recently invented Dallmeyer telephoto lens. He figured he would get combat shots through a powerful telephoto lens, instead of going up by himself to where the action was.

The Royal Engineers also sent out a tele-photographer who was reputed to be able to take a clear picture up to two miles away. Without, need we add, exposing himself to personal danger.

Everyone wanted pictures of the combat up front, but were not "dying to," preferring to shoot their images from well back...

Many of the photos that were published were still heavily touched up.

Worst of all, no amount of touching up could hide the fact there were no combat photos being taken.

On the eve of the Boer War, says Pat Hodgson, repeating an often heard canard,

“It was still not possible to take action shots, as James Burton found out when photographing the Battle of San Juan (Cuba.)"

She quotes an American war photographer during the Spanish-American War, who "found himself" in the last place he ever wanted to be, in the firing line of a real battle. And confessed he wasn't up to what it took.

“Almost before I realized what had happened I found myself, for the first time in my life, under fire, right up in front, on the firing line of the 7th Regiment….. I found it impossible to make actual “battle scenes,” for many reasons – the distance at which the fighting is conducted, the area which is covered, but chiefly the long grass and thickly wooded country.”

Getting stranded in the firing line, sent him into an obvious panic, for he had so glued his body to the ground, for safety, that he was complaining of grass that was only six inches long. Not the best position to try to take a combat photo from...

War Action Canada - 1885 These two photographs from the Battle of Batoche, during the Riel Rebellion of 1885, show that the camera was capable of capturing guns going of, and stopping the motion sufficiently to make an exposure of "action." The lower picture shows men ready to shoot. Trouble is the last photo, for certain, was taken a long way from the enemy and the front line. You got a picture because the photographer knew he was safe to stand up and compose his image without fear of getting shot. It makes for a poor combat photo. And clearly it is not. Go to Why This is Not a Combat Photo The technology was there; just the will to use it in the firing line was not. Until the son of a heroic officer, who was severely wounded at this fight, went off to serve his Queen and Country, fifteen years later...

During the Boer War, a year later, another photographer who used a glass plate camera excused his lack of shots of combat:

“Future photographing of war scenes will be done with cameras quite different from those I use in the campaign.”

Others found faking a lot more convincing.

Motion pictures were used for the first time by W. K-L Dickson in the Boer War. His movie colleagues had their critics. A filmed sequence of action of the Battle of Colenso was roundly panned by the British Journal of Photography. “We happen to know these were taken on Muswell Hill” on Hampstead Heath (England.) So faking combat scenes - and hiding it - was a way of life for war photographers of all kinds.

So war photographers were basically trying to avoid doing what was obvious to get combat photographs - go up front where the shooting is done on the firing line and take your chances like the foot soldiers who were putting their lives on the line for Queen and Country. Instead they sought long telephoto lenses, made fake photographs, and blamed the technology for the fact that in spite of the high pay they were getting they were not coming up with any real combat photographs.

Even Pat Hodgson, like other modern historians, states baldly, that in 1898, "it was still not possible to take action shots."

Balderdash! Kodak had sold its small Brownie Box cameras starting in 1888, ten years before the wars of which she quotes complaining photographers.

There are lots of action shots of troops marching, walking, of artillery caissons rolling along, and of artillery guns going off. These were a long way behind the lines, of course. But the cameras did freeze motion.

Action shots were possible, as a Canadian South African Constabulary officer proved.

Go to Action Photos of Capt. Poussette

Truth be told, the technology proved perfectly fine to get wagons and horses in motion, men diving while swimming, or running while playing tennis, a long way behind the front of the firing line. It was just men in real combat action, at the battle front, who were missing...

Plainly, the complaining, of long grass, too many bushes, the enemy too far away, the battle lines too spread out, the poor technology, etc., was bogus, like many of the photos war photographers made instead.

Clearly they were simply too scared to go up to where the dying was done. And who wouldn't be? Still, these were men who had a problem with honesty. Which allowed them to make so many fake photos of things that weren't what they appeared to be, just so they could make a buck...

So Bob Capa had many worthy predecessors in staging fake photos of men in action.

Which explains why we are able to publish seven sets of totally identical photos with wildly varying captions as to who is pictured and the supposed location. Since none were really of an actual battle, but faked during "down time," the discrepancy about "who," "where," "what," and "when" easily crept into the captions.

So it's very clear that anyone with courage, and a little initiative, might actually achieve what nobody else was able or inclined to try. How about a real combat photo?

It was the elusive photo that all the famous war photographers of the past had failed to get.

Go to The Famous War Photographers

Enter Lt. James Cooper Mason of the Royal Canadian Regiment, about to join Lord Roberts' fabled March to Pretoria, and a date with destiny, as a soldier, and a photographer, at the bloody battle of Paardeberg.

Go to Canadian banker James Mason