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From: Bryn Dolan
Date: 10/2/00
Time: 6:32:15 PM
Remote Name: 210.141.67.134
I'd have to agree with Gordo in his assessment of Kitchener's role in the Gallipoli campaign. He was indeed one of the main causes of its eventual failure and was in fact, along with General Birdwood, opposed to the evacuation. Kitchener went so far as to send a secret telegram to Birdwood proposing a new landing in the Gulf of Xeros, at the peninsula's neck.
On the other topic, the Afikaaners may not have invented Apartheid, but they did legitimise it and didn't seem to mind too much having it in place. As the old saying (which I've modified a little) goes, 'If you're not against it, you're for it', so who actually invented it seems to be a moot point, of academic interest only. Certainly the fact that it was not the Afrikaaners who originally instituted apartheid must have been pretty cold comfort to all those who suffered under successive Afikaaner government's imposition, refinement and tightening of the system.
So perhaps Gordo should have said of the Boers, '....these are the same people who would later enjoy the benefits of apartheid and who could see no reason on earth why things were not naturally supposed to be that way.'
Bryn Dolan