The Scottish press and the Anglo-Boer War: The Edinburgh Evening News and The Scotsman (1899-1902)

Résumé 0

While the Anglo-Boer War was raging in South Africa, another war was being fought between two newspaper editors in Scotland. The so-called pro-Boer editor of the Edinburgh Evening News and the Unionist editor of The Scotsman faced each other across a battleground littered with sarcasm, misunderstandings, misinterpretations of terms and a stubbornness which prevented the two editors from providing an accurate picture of the war and further confusing the already muddled understandings of terms such as patriotism, imperialism and liberalism. Although both editors confronted important issues such as Black Week and the Scorched Earth Policy, it is clear that these topics were used merely as a cover for matters such as loyalty and patriotism towards the British Empire. When The Scotsman accused the Edinburgh Evening News of being pro-Boer, the editor of the Edinburgh Evening News firmly rejected the allegation as unwarranted; however, the News' continued anti-war stance seemed only to confirm its pro-Boer status among readers and unionist newspapers such as The Scotsman. By comparing the two different editorial approaches, the article attempts to indicate the extent to which a major event such as the Anglo-Boer War emphasized ideas of Scottish national identity, and the role the Scottish press played in this ongoing debate.