Great Canadian Boer War Book Review - James Lorimer Heritage Howlers #1

"The newspaper industry is in a bad spot. Actually, run a correction on that statement — newspapers are in a "time to panic" spot. The business model is collapsing, ad dollars are disappearing, newsprint prices are at a 12-year high and the Internet is just giving news away for free. On July 2, the Los Angeles Times announced it was cutting more than one-sixth of its newsroom staff; the Tampa Tribune said it would cut 20%." Time Magazine - July, 13, 2008

Everywhere readership of the regular press (books and newspapers) - the output of the stable of the Establishment regular journalists, editors, and columnists - is plumetting. This professionally produced book by James Lorimer is a good example of the handiwork of professional scribes that has turned off the most educated and informed populace in history.

Regular press coverage of the wars in Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, etc. is no more accurate than this work by the best journalists and editors at one of Canada's top book publishing companies.

Early in 2003 we sent a detailed proposal to James Lorimer & Co. Ltd., Publishers, Toronto, Canada, suggesting a pictorial book on the Canadian Anglo-Boer War - none had ever been produced before - offering the use of the vast archival holdings of the Canadian Anglo-Boer War Museum, to illustrate it. We received no reply...

To our amazement, some time later, James Lorimer approached the Museum and requested that we make available, for their upcoming publicly-funded, pictorial book on the Boer War, left, 49 of our collection's most rare and valuable items, which had taken years of sleuthing, time, effort, and private money, to put together.

To have our staff search our archives, retrieve the 49 desired objects, prepare them for photography, to shoot them, make high resolution printing masters of each of the 49 items, and to pay us for world publishing rights for them all, James Lorimer offered The Canadian Anglo-Boer War Museum $100 (one hundred dollars) Canadian total, for everything.

Compare: In Canada, a plumber who makes a house call - without fixing anything - charges $100 just to come and evaluate...

Compare: The National Archives in Ottawa will charge you $30 just to provide you with a copy of one ordinary photo, made from degraded duped masters, of a ship that docked with immigrants at Halifax. For 49 images that would total $1470 Canadian. Then ask the Archives what it would cost to have it photograph something special for which it doesn't have a dupe photo, and ask what they would charge? Times 49...

Compare: A New York book publisher, who requested a 300 dpi jpeg of one of our images - not even a rare one, it was of an Edward VII bowl - for one time use, offered $150 US ($180 Canadian) and apologized for only being able to offer the low end of the industry standard of the fee for the use of one picture.

When we pointed out to James Lorimer that his offer was highly improper, he replied that the price was not negotiable, and that by making our materials available to him our collection would become publicized and far more valuable.

We declined James Lorimer's offer.

The company published its book without our materials or assistance. Below are some representative highlights of the book James Lorimer & Co. produced, with the considerable financial blessing of the Canadian taxpayer.

Please Note: Because the captioning on the pictures in this pictorial book was extremely sparse, to non-existent, our Boer War experts have taken the liberty to try to decipher, for our readers, to the best of their ability, what James Lorimer was trying to say, but was too shy to do so. We take no responsibility if errors of interpretation have crept in while carrying out this considerable public service.

Great Canadian Heritage Howler #1

James Lorimer's Gatling Gun

James Lorimer says: this is a Gatling Gun...

The Picture: The editor shows a large colour picture of a big, Boer War era, breech-loading, single shot gun, that fires a heavy 12 pound shell, one at a time, through a massive barrel with a bore of some 4 inches across.

The Error: This is wrong on so many levels it just boggles the mind. The Gatling Gun, as every high school student knows, of course, is a small, light-weight machine gun firing small bullets from a magazine, through a bundled group of many small “rifle-size? barrels that the operator rotates with a crank to fire.

No Gatling Gun was used in the Boer War - it was already old technology and had been replaced by the Maxim, water-cooled machine gun. Clearly the editor just dreamed up the Gatling gun angle, somewhere on a bar stool - possibly in Cancun, Mexico - and thought that the picture above might be a machine gun.

The gun above has not the slightest resemblance to any kind of machine gun ever made. James Lorimer could just as accurately have called this a pistol.

SHAME! Why was an editor picked for a war book who lacked even the most rudimentary - make that elementary - knowledge of firearms?

Could the labeling get worse? Sure it can!

Within the same picture one can clearly make out - with the naked eye - the museum label, which clearly states the gun as a “One of the 12 Pounder field guns saved at Leliefontein.?

SHAME! Why was an editor picked who could not even be bothered to read the basic English label in the very materials they were carefully picking and publishing? And why was the publisher too lazy to exercise supervisory controls to prevent this kind of sloppy work from an editor who at least had the legitimate excuse that she was blind!

Could the labeling get worse? Sure it can!

The particular gun featured in the photo, is a Canadian heritage treasure, and one of the Canadian War Museum’s starring memorabilia items, the very gun saved by EWB Morrison when the Canadians won their three Victoria Crosses at Leliefontein, in Nov. 1901, an event never duplicated in Canadian history.

SHAME! Why was Canada's most famous gun not even identified as such, nor its Victoria Cross connection, in the only Canadian pictorial book of the Boer War published in the past 100 years. Why was this project given to an editor who was too lazy to learn this most elementary Canadian Boer War fact, and publish it?

In 2003 James Lorimer & Co. Ltd, Publishers, Toronto, ON, Canada, produced the first pictorial book on the Boer War ever published in Canada. It was also the first Canadian book on the Boer War produced in many years. It also had huge amounts of public funding.

Sadly it proved to be a disaster of Great Canadian proportions.

Dispassionate observers remarked that rarely, in the annals of world publishing, has a volume been produced as sloppily, and as riddled with gross errors of fact, as is this one.

It was widely regarded as a laughable production. (Actually, Canadian humour is funded by the Federal Government, but by a different department.)

Said one reviewer: "ridiculously sloppy and incompetent."

Explains another, "In Canada, heritage funding for books is structured so that the lion's share can only be tapped by business men who are publishers, not by authors, talented writers, or subject experts; book publishing businessmen are the gate keepers of funding in a system in which, as a result, very little ever trickles through to the creative Canadians with real heritage skills, talent and knowledge. A classic case of the disastrous effect of this is a book called "Canada's Little War," which was absolutely riddled with errors - absolutely amazing mistakes, lots of them.

"Clearly no money was spent on subject experts to check out the materials used in this book, though the public purse was tapped - big time - by the publisher. This is a classic case of what happens when a businessman - not a talented person with a passion for the subject - knew where the heritage money was, and how to tap it, and simply goes through the motions to trigger the funds. Does this system produce good work? Look at the results! Does the publisher care? He got generous cultural funding to make it. Why would he possibly care beyond that?

"The creative community is the loser in all this, and the taxpayers of course; they think they are providing funds for talented people to promote Canadian heritage. But in reality most of it is skimmed off by cold-hearted, self-serving businessmen."

James Lorimer does not publish the name of an editor on the cover or title page of this book. One may well ask, was one used, or did the night cleaning staff put these images and captions together?

Clearly the book exhibits work that is incompetent in the extreme. From the language used, from the cultural attitudes the captions display, it is an inescapable certainty that James Lorimer used a woman editor on this military book of men at war, and one who had not the slightest background in the subject, and betrayed, repeatedly, not the foggiest notion of the material she was researching. Let alone display the slightest interest in any of it. The monumental gaffes that permeate this book awfully embarrass James Lorimer's abilities as a competent publisher of Canadian history.

Why was a history book on a war given to an editor who had not the slightest knowledge of Canadian history, of warfare, or military subjects. And one who, furthermore, consistently displays a total lack of basic reading skills in English, or training in how to use a dictionary or encyclopedia to vet her language and basic information?

And why was a pictorial book project given to someone who displayed not the slightest knowledge, or background, in the visual arts on any level? Who repeated every possible mistake that it is possible to make in pictorial publishing, and did it over and over, again and again!

Why were this war book's proofing copies not given to someone with Boer War expertise, or military knowledge, to review before going to print? Even an amateur with minimal knowledge could have pointed out the numerous and egregious errors of fact and presentation in this book.

And why did the publisher pay no attention to what his workers were doing to safeguard the integrity of the story, or the book, or to make sure the taxpayer's money was honourably spent?

"Look," says another observer, "the system's flawed; cultural funding goes into a businessman's pocket, and it never leaves it."

Does this explain why no competent Boer War expert was hired to vet the pictures and the captions on Canada's first ever pictorial book on the Boer War?

Great Canadian Heritage Howler #3

James Lorimer is Stoned at Sangam

James Lorimer says: this is a "Stone breastwork at Sangam"

The Picture: The picture showing rifles poking out from the rocks formed into a sheep’s kraal (or corral.) Stone kraals were used by the Boers to make secure enclosures to keep their stock safe at night from the attacks of wild animals. During the war these stone kraals served as ideal forts for Briton and Boer alike in which to hide or fight off attacks.

The Error: Don’t go looking for Sangam on a map; there is no such place.

Slipshod scholarship and scanty knowledge again is evident here. The editor – again clearly lacking knowledge of farming practices in Africa or India – misread the label on the back of the photo where very likely was written “Stone breastwork or Sangar.? The editor – “This military stuff is all Greek to me!? – just corrected the labelling into what she thought it should say and translated it into “Stone breastwork at Sangam.? Miscopying two out of four words is par for this book. The editor made up the word Sangam out of thin air...

She was totally ignorant that the caption, as originally written, was proper - that it was her knowledge that was lacking. A stone sangar was a stone enclosure, which the British army first encountered on its campaigns in India. They imported the Indian word to Africa where it is encountered constantly in Boer War diaries and books of all kinds.

SHAME! It is astonishing that an editor was assigned to this book who did not even possess a basic knowledge of the rudimentary terminology associated with the Boer War or British Imperial History. Or the interest or sense of professionalism to get a dictionary to check up on a curious word?

Great Canadian Heritage Howler #2

James Lorimer can't tell friend from foe!

James Lorimer says: this picture shows the Boers fighting the Canadians of Strathcona's Horse...

The Picture: The picture - we'll overlook the fatuous tone of "dramatized representation" - shows horsemen attacking foot soldiers. Presumably, according to James Lorimer, the Boers are mounted in the foreground, shooting at the Strathconas around the wagons and guns in the background.

The Error: How wrong can you be? The Strathconas were a mounted unit, not foot soldiers! Furthermore the soldiers shown - supposedly the Strathconas - are all wearing pith helmets, identifying them clearly as British not Canadian soldiers. There is no picture in existence of Boer horsemen attacking members of Canada's First Contingent - the only ones to wear pith helmets on campaign in Africa. Just where are the Strathconas?

In fact the Strathconas, who always wore brimmed stetson hats, had a uniform that is much closer to that worn by the Boer in the foreground. It is therefore quite probable that James Lorimer thought that the Strathconas were mounted in the foreground and were shooting at the Boers wearing their pith helmets in the background...!

Actually, if you must know, the Strathconas were home in Canada, safe and sound, when the action above - painted by FJ Waugh - occurred at Vlakfontein in May, 1901, with the Boers, foreground, attacking the British.

SHAME! Why is Canadian heritage funding wasted on a publisher who does not even bother to give basic lip service to the minimum standards of scholastic propriety.

Great Canadian Heritage Howler #5

James Lorimer and "the neat old guy"

James Lorimer says: this is a Strathcona's Horse Officer

The Picture: It shows a drawing of a soldier, and a photo, dwarfed by two huge, ugly black blocks, presumably of the same "officer" in old age, when he reminisced about dashing after the Boers in South Africa.

The Error: The man in the photo is not the man in uniform, did not reminisce about riding after the Boers with the Regiment in South Africa - he was never there, and never wore a uniform. Clearly the editor did not know this, but thought the picture of "the old guy from the Boer War" was neat. Clearly the editor also did not know that he was Lord Strathcona, that he was the man who paid to outfit the regiment, and that it was named after him.

SHAME! Why weren't Canadians told the identity of Lord Strathcona, who, after Prime Minister Laurier was the most famous Canadian during the Boer War, who carried out the biggest private philanthropic act by a Canadian during the Boer War, outfitting a regiment to go to South Africa to represent Canada and Canadians, at a time that Ottawa had no army of its own to send, and was mightily reluctant to organize one.

SHAME! And why weren't Canadians told that the picture - yes and it was way too tiny besides - shows the horses drawn up on Parliament Hill before the Regiment went overseas. It was the most spectacular event ever seen on Parliament Hill, and one that most Canadians could connect with, since most have been on the Hill at some time in their lives. This opportunity was missed, as were so many others in this book, by an editor who did not have the faintest...

Great Canadian Heritage Howler #7

James Lorimer leaves us shell-shocked!

James Lorimer says: this is an inscription...

The Picture: A tiny picture of a corner of a small piece of brass...

The Error: Really! Why bother publishing something so small and so badly photographed that one cannot decipher a single letter or number, let alone an inscription, even with a magnifying glass! Why taunt the reader by saying something great is written there but we're not going to tell you what it is, or show it to you? So there!

The editor could have published a wide picture so that the reader can at least see a complete shell casing from the period. Or she could have gone in for a close-up for the inscription. She did neither, refusing to give us a proper wide view of a shell, nor offering us even a tiny bit of the inscription. All we get a a close-up photo of a soiled piece of brass, taken by a blind photographer who should have told the editor, "Hey this isn't working!" The caption should properly have been "This is a bad photograph of a silly little smudge!"

SHAME! We shall never know what the inscription says, or mercifully, the names of the blind workers who collaborated on this publishing atrocity.

Great Canadian Heritage Howler #9

James Lorimer can't tell Jack Tar apart from Johnny Canuck

James Lorimer says: these toy soldiers are styled after the Canadian Contingent...

The Picture: The picture which the editor picked featured a contingent of Britain’s famous Naval Brigade of the Boer War, who won renown because, when the British were outgunned by Boer heavy artillery in the early months of the war, they dismounted the huge guns from British battleships, fashioned carriages for them, and pulled them, by hand, to battlefields all over South Africa.

The Error: How wrong can you be? Neither the men, the uniforms, or the gun shown in the picture have any connection whatsoever with the Canadians or the claim of the editor.

The men are all British sailors in the uniform of British tars from the 1890s, a dress not worn or related to anything put on by Canadians in South Africa, neither in style or colour.

They are also pulling one of the 4.7 inch guns dismounted from the Royal Navy Battleship Terrible and pulled across the veldt to attack the Boers. The Canadians never had anything like these guns in the field, had no sailors involved, and had nothing to do with the British Naval Brigade. There is no doubt that Canadians who saw it in action – marveled.

The British were professionals at war; they had been at it for decades, centuries. The Canadians were amateurs in their first outing to fight in an overseas war. Canada’s first Contingent – serving at the same time as the Naval Brigade above – wore British khaki uniforms and helmets, used British Lee-Metford rifles, and bayonets, used British guns - but not the one above - and followed British military drill. In fact, the first Canadian soldiers in South Africa - hundreds of officers and men - had all been thrilled to be allowed to lose their Canadian identity and to join British units and don British uniforms.

SHAME! If anyone emulated or patterned it was the Canadians, wildly copying the British in almost everything, except British cooking. That would have been too much...

Great Canadian Heritage Howler #8

James Lorimer is caught Meddling with Medals...

James Lorimer says: you should get honour for an ordinary service...

The Picture: Supposedly three Boer War medals given (1899-1902) to "honour the Canadian Contingent."

The Error: Well the editor failed on banquets, let's try her on medals! Not good. Two wrong out of three - a truly amazing record! Sad to report, only the left medal is Boer War, the Queen’s South Africa Medal.

The other two are bogus Boer War, as they date from 1935 and 1937. The middle one is the Coronation Medal of George VI from 1937!!!!!... Had the editor shown basic curiosity, and flipped it over, she would have read "Crowned 1937." But being blind that wouldn't have helped. It is also why she didn't know the medal - besides not being remotely Boer War - also has the wrong ribbon, if you can believe!

Here is what the medal should look like and what is written on the reverse that should have been a clue!!!

It just goes to show, one shouldn't do these captioning jobs at the bar!

The third medal, on the right., is the Jubilee Medal of George V and Queen Mary, from 1935, and - wait for it - it too has the wrong ribbon!

Left, is what it should really look like! It is true, though, in the editor's defence, that the ribbon does not come in a braille version...

These two medals were obviously picked because of their pretty ribbons! But apparently the editor, or the photographer, or both - well into their cups at this point - thought the medals would look nicer if they exchanged the ribbons, and so they did! No harm in that; what's the difference? No one will ever know!

In any case, neither has the remotest connection to honouring the Canadian Contingent from the Boer War.

Furthermore, even the QSA could hardly be said to be designed to “honour the Canadians,? or for that matter, anyone else, but simply to “recognize? their participation in a historic event.

Everyone - not just Canadians - who signed up to fight in South Africa, got a QSA, just for showing up. Hero and malingerer, the noble officer, and the camp thief, all got the same medal. Some 500,000 were minted, one for every man or beast who ever set foot in South Africa.

Even dogs got them, like Jock, the regimental mascot, below, who got his for serving at the Modder River. It was a service medal; you served, you put in your time, you got the medal, right Jock! What kind of honour is that?

To be honoured means to be centered out for some special recognition, like for the VC, the DSO, or the DCM, which sets you apart from your mates. They are honours because they are rare.

SHAME! Why was an editor picked who had not even the most basic knowledge of the war medals Canada produced to give to its veterans? Or who could not tell one Canadian war from another, or one Canadian King from another? Or not bother to take the time to learn the basics? Or ask someone competent for help, like maybe the staff at the Canadian War Museum!

Great Canadian Heritage Howler #10

James Lorimer says "Wow! Troops! I love a parade!"

James Lorimer says: well, somebody, somewhere we guess... doing whatever... Nevertheless, a bunch of nobodies!

The Picture: Oddly, one of the larger ones in the book, of soldiers, led by a band in a town square.

The Error: Failing to recognize a great picture and event and failing to pass on the information to the readers who will mistakenly buy this book figuring they will learn something. Not from this photo and caption...

SHAME! Why didn't Lorimer hire someone who could have recognized a rare picture of the Royal Canadian Regiment at the Farewell Reception given them at Cape Town City Hall as the regiment ends its year of service in South Africa and is off to the docks . The Heroes of Paardeberg are going home, sadly leaving behind many fallen comrades.