Although there was support for the Boer War from some political views, and support from the respective countries involved in the war for their country to succeed, I don’t think that there was an ‘overwhelming’ support. My view is backed up not only by the sources, but the view of many other people, including many left wing Liberals who shared the view that the Boer war was not only unjust, but morally wrong. An overwhelming support suggests a very great amount of people supporting the cause, which there was evidently not.
Source A is an extract from a book by Andrew Roberts, published in 1999. Its purpose is to inform people, but with the intention of selling copies. The source suggests the support for the Boer war was political; however it did not have the public’s backing. This caused national tension and the government’s decision to continue the war was deemed as a mishandling of the situation. “Church bells were rung, flags were flown, and school children were given a half day off school, stock exchange was suspended.” This shows the lack of support for the war as the public were elated to hear the news that soldiers were returning from home. Evidently, they supported Britain as a country to do well, but did not support the government’s ideas to resume the war. The reliability of the source however could be questioned, as the intention of the book is to sell copies, therefore it must be intriguing. As a result, the book may not be 100% factual in order to bring about some excitement in the book and so cannot be considered completely reliable.
Source B is a book extract by Peter Rowland describing the experiences of Lloyd George. Its purpose is of course, to inform. This Source somewhat contradicts source A. Here, the audience at a peace meeting seem to become enraged at the fact Lloyd George was