Five Shilling Rebellion

One of the oddities of the story of the Five Shilling Rebellion in South Africa at the start of WW1 is that even many Afrikaners are unaware of that part of their history. I was once shown a British medal by an Afrikaans chap called Myburgh. The medal had been given to a relation of his and wondered if I knew how he came to get it. I didn’t know at the time but in my researches for King or Kaiser and Shadows in the Veldt, I discovered that one of the generals who dealt with the wireless mast in German South West, now Namibia, was called Myburg and he played an active part in defeating the German settlers there. I’ve come to the conclusion that there has been a bit of denial over the squabble between the two groups in 1914, one supporting the Kaiser and the other the British Empire. Or it may be that the ordinary Afrikaner was just looking for bit of fun when they called out the kommando. After all, one leader reported that the kommando are assembled, who do we fight, the English or the Germans? Anyway, I enjoyed doing the story.
Sullatober