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Boer War Page 54 |
Boer War Promo 1 |
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ANNOUNCEMENT: From: GOLDI PRODUCTIONS LTD. Since 1979 "Keeping Canadians in Touch With Canada" www.goldiproductions.com |
 In later life Willie Griesbach would become a Major-General, Mayor of Edmonton, and a Senator. |
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Goldi Productions has won 128 international awards and honours for its film and television work.
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A Canada Millennium Project We are honoured that our Anglo-Boer War project was one of the rare television shows selected as a partnership program by the Government of Canada to commemorate the Millennium. |
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The Narrator Linden MacIntyre, multiple Gemini Award-winning anchor journalist of CBC's 5th Estate, our first choice for this project. "It's just an excellent script! I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't. I started reading and couldn't put it down until I had read the whole thing for all four hours." |
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Otto Moody 1902 The Canadian Perspective: 19 year old Canadian Trooper Otto Moody of Montreal. (Innovative Research: Historian John Goldi rescued for posterity Otto's Anglo-Boer War memorabilia, this photo, and 20 letters he wrote to his mother from the Front which were discovered in a shack in Montana. Otto's poignant insights are published for the first time as a feature "voice" in our program.) |
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The Relics In the Footsteps of the Canadians: One of several vintage tins stamped "CANADA" we found on a remote Boer War campground, where Canadian volunteers once guarded a bridge. (Innovation: dogged research by historian John Goldi, who, with producer Joan Goldi, travelled for 2 months and 11,000 km in South Africa to follow the trail of the Canadians and document "The Canadian Experience.") |
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The Memories Scratchings from 1899, far from home, on Gun Hill, Belmont, South Africa. (Innovation: Rare Canadian historic sites found in South Africa, and featured for the first time on television.) |
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The Experts Susan Botha, Enslin Battlefield, with relics. (Innovation: We feature powerful "point of view" presentations from women experts on a topic - the art of war - that is usually regarded as a "man's thing.") |
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Modules & Slates Besieged for seven months, inside a ring of Boers, the Hero of Mafeking, Col. Robert Baden-Powell - of later "Boy Scout" fame - credited the Canadian guns with his rescue, and decreed that on Mafeking's first day of liberation, the secret password of the garrison would be "CANADA." (Innovation: Our program is constructed with 43 five minute modules, introduced by 43 unique slates featuring rare historic Anglo-Boer War memorabilia.) |
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The Canadians Sir Wilfrid Laurier - in a huge and rare colour litho we found in Canfield, ON - facing a bitter split between French and English Canadians over war with the Boers, was determined to follow a "Made in Canada" policy, but, finally decided to send Canada's first ever military force to an overseas war. (Innovation: A Canadian military heritage story never told before on television.) |
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The Battlefields Now Historian John Snyman, Spion Kop Battlefield, "An Acre of Massacre," at the very spot where General Woodgate was fatally wounded. (Innovation: Our experts don't merely talk, they "bring the past to life" by giving powerful "performances" at actual historic sites.) |
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The Horses Horseshoes unearthed by a Boer farmer from a camp where, long ago, troopers from Lord Strathcona's Horse had stabled their horses. Half a million horses would die in the Great Anglo-Boer War. |
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The Boers The Colour Record of History: President Paul Kruger, of the Transvaal Republic, honoured in a giant litho displayed in tobacco shops by French-Canadians, 99 percent of whom, empathized with the plight of the Boers. (Innovation: An unprecedented "colour record" of history, featuring over 200 rare antique colour lithographs, prints, and postcards from 1900, were specially unearthed - the one above in Montreal - to feature in this program.) |
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The Descendants Colin Steyn, great grandson, of President M.T. Steyn, Orange Free State, who was "the Soul of the Freedom Struggle" and fought to "the Bitter End." (Innovation: Unprecedented television intimacy, as all our experts talk straight to the camera to connect powerfully, directly with the viewing audience.) |
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The Memorabilia The Anglo-Boer War unleashed a blizzard of memorabilia unmatched in any war, before or since, and included this pitcher of Lord Roberts, the British Commander-in-Chief, who paid the ultimate price in war - the loss of an only son. (Innovation: Our program is illustrated with over 23 types of rare historic memorabilia from 1900 - over 30 ceramic items alone - which Victorian Canadians proudly displayed in their homes to show support for their volunteers and the British Empire.) |
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The Battlefields Then  The laager at Paardeberg, where 4,000 Boer men, women, and children tunneled caves into the earth, to escape ten days of artillery bombardment from 100 British guns, in Feb. 1900. (Innovation: Through the voices of participants on all sides, a gripping examination - on site - of the battle which caused Britain's highest casualty toll of the war, and most of Canada's battle deaths. It was Victorian Canada's most celebrated battle, taking pride of place atop Anglo-Boer War monuments. |
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QSA The Canadians were honoured as the first soldiers to receive the newly minted Queen's South Africa service medal. It was also the first medal ever awarded to members of a Canadian regiment for service in an overseas war. |
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The British The late, lamented Gen. Penn-Symons, who, living up to the noblest tradition of the British officer class, charged fearlessly into a fierce fire to rally his men from the front, and paid the ultimate price in the opening battle of the war. Hundreds of British officers realized too late that Victorian heroism had no place in "modern" warfare. |
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The Foolhardy Col. C.J. Long, at Colenso, failed to see that his outmoded artillery tactics - however brave - only ensured that for his men, "the Paths of Glory led but to the grave." And to the retreat of the most powerful army in the world from a motley collection of farmers led by a "farmer turned general" in a battle that shocked the world. |
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The Heroes Canada's most decorated soldier of the war, Lt. Richard E. Turner VC, DSO earned one of four Victoria Crosses won by Canadians during the war. He became a top general in World War I. (Innovation: We sought out and revisited the actual Canadian battle sites - many are remote, unmarked, and difficult to find - where he and the other Canadians won their medals, to tell the story of their heroism. |
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The Technology Historian Johan Hattingh and the fabled Boer "Long Tom," which British military experts were certain was far too heavy to ever be moved in the field. They were wrong. (Innovation: The impact of the technology of the war (armoured trains, artillery, Mauser rifles, lyddite shells, war balloons, clearly explained in simple laymen's terms.) |
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The Horror The dead at Spion Kop, in a photo which the British High Command tried to suppress, all to no avail, as thousands of the newly invented Kodak folding cameras were everywhere, making the Anglo-Boer War the most photographed war in history. (Innovation: Powerful depiction of a battle which shocked the world, brought to life with rare archivals and a gripping "Then & Now" type presentation.) |
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 Ultra rare sheet music found in Barrie, ON, to illustrate the national pride Canadians had in their fighting men. |
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The Heroines Canada sent 40 teachers to teach Boer children in the concentration camps, in schools which Emily Hobhouse had started. Canadians played a big role in helping the Boers put their lives back together again after the devastation of the first of the "Total Wars." |
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The Departed Norman Builder, mourned by a grief-stricken Brantford, Ontario, from a time when the death of a single local boy in war, was more than a community could bear. (Innovation: Many rare photos never shown before. Historian John Goldi discovered and identified this picture for a Canadian military museum.) |
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Canadian Souvenirs Canadian "fire starter", crimped rifle shells holding powder to start fires in the cold. Found on top of a remote kopje beside scratchings on a rock that said. "N CLUFF D CO OTTAWA CANADA" |
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"For Queen and Empire"
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The Silence Paardeberg Hill, where 300 Britons (including 31 Canadians), and 100 Boers died, in Feb. 1900, and where, it is said, Canada came of age. (Innovation: We constantly link the Present with the Past throughout the entire program in an uprecedented attempt to bring the Past to life.) |
Lest We Forget Linking the Present with the Past: Lt. JW Osborne of Brantford, ON, one of 150 Canadians serving as officers in the British Army, and the trench where he fought, and died, and now lies buried, among hundreds of his comrades, on Spion Kop, |
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The Fallen A victim of the deadliest foe - enteric- far from home, at Bloemfontein. 7,000 Canadian volunteers served and over 300 stayed behind, in lonely African graves, most victims of typhoid. (Innovation: We show, for the first time, many sacred Canadian heritage sites, and the final resting place of many Canadian veterans, none ever seen before on Canadian television.) |
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For the latest News see our "Boer War News Page" at
"The Canadian Anglo-Boer War Museum" at www.goldiproductions.com Preview Video Programs available at: jgoldi@sympatico.ca or Goldi Productions Ltd. |
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"The Great Anglo-Boer War: The Canadian Experience"
"The wealth of research and detail is astounding and thorough, with a wonderful breadth of archival sources throughout. Clearly this was a labour of love and it shows." Sydney Suissa,
When Canadian Boys Went to War: 14 year old Edwin McCormick served two terms in South Africa. (Innovative Research: Edwin was featured in an extremely rare, huge, and glorious litho - published by the Globe for Christmas 1901 - and which dogged research by historian John Goldi unearthed. His sleuthing also discovered, and saved for posterity, Edwin's bugle on which he blew the Last Post as they buried the Canadians after the Battle of Hart's River in 1902.
"The Canadian Anglo-Boer War Museum"