Join Lord Tim Heale on a fascinating journey through the history of British Psychological Operations, starting from 1899 all the way to the present day. Discover the impact of British influence during the Boer War, the World Wars, the Cold War, and even Lord Tim's own experiences in psychological operations. Don't miss out - hit subscribe to follow this captivating series!
Prepare to delve into the intriguing world of British Psychological Operations with Lord Tim Heale! From the first World War to modern-day conflicts, this series will uncover the secrets and strategies behind psychological warfare. Hit subscribe to join the journey!
So the history of British Psychological Operations known as PsyOps from 1899 onward, encompasses various military and governmental initiatives aimed at influencing opinions, behaviours, and beliefs both domestically and internationally.
In this series I will cover the Boer War 1899 to 1902, WW1 1914 to 1918, between the two World wars 1918 to 1939, WW2 1939 to 1945, post WW2 1945 to present looking at conflicts from the Cold War, Far East, Middle East, Africa, Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq.
This isn't a comprehensive series but from my own research and in the later episodes my personal experience where I served on 15 (UK) Psychological Operations Group from 1999 to 2009 covering 2 tours of Kosovo, Macedonia, 3 tours of Afghanistan and 1 tour of Iraq.
If you have questions just put them in the comments and I will get back to you of cover it in a live Q & A during the series.
Please subscribe to the channel, comment and share with like minded friends.
Pre-Roll Post-Roll short version
Pre-Roll Post-Roll
Support the Show.
Speaker 0 (0s): Welcome to the Tim Heale Podcast. If you have the time, you can not only listen to the episodes, but you can also watch all the shows, and you'll find the links in the description below. thank you.
Welcome to this British Psychological Operations history In. this episode, we're gonna look at the Boer War, or should I say the second Boer war from 1899 to 1902. Now back, just to give you an overview of what was going on at the time, south Africa was a British colony, and the British wanted to dominate the whole area.
It was also occupied by the boars. Now the boars were essentially Dutch farmers that moved down to the area, and they didn't really want to come under British rule. So what they did, they pushed north and they went north into and, and established a couple of their own territories, the orange free state and the trans vol.
And they set up their own, their own stuff there. Now there's a guy called Paul Kruger. He came to London in the back end of the 18 hundreds, and initially he negotiated with Benjamin Disraeli and his government to give him a free state of the trans vol to make him a president of the trans vol and also over the orange free state.
Now, he wasn't overly successful old Paul Krueger, but he did manage to become the, the president of the South African Republic. He also went back and negotiated with the liberal Democrats. When they took over as a Chamberlain government again didn't come off particularly well for him. At the same time, the British sent down Lord Frederick Robertson, and this is him pictured at Pretoria.
Now, his chief of staff was none other than later become Lord Horatio Kitchener. Now, Kitchener was the old guy for the first World War doing the old pointing the finger, your country needs you. That's law Kitchener. He took over running the territory, policing it effectively
Speaker 1 (2m 59s): And effectively. He came up with his bright idea of scorched a policy. So he was effectively trying to burn out the rebels that were fighting against the British rule. So they went around burning farms, and in turning the, the Bos predominantly the women and children, so they burn out the farms.
In turn, the women and children, most of the men were off fighting a gorilla war against the British. Now, the British sent down an awful lot of more troops, and we'll come on to a little bit of that in a bit, but this is what the camps ideally were gonna look like. Nice sort of airy places, well fed, well looked after while the British were fighting a Gorilla War campaign against the boars.
In reality, what it looked like was this, it was, they underfed them. Poor sanitation, really horrible conditions. And the upshot of it was some 26,000 predominantly women and children died in those internment camps, or as the French would put it, concentration camps.
This came out in, in the French press depicting what was going on in South Africa under the British rule in the internment camps didn't go down well, particularly well for the British at the time. The British press, on the other hand, was showing a totally different picture altogether. They were showing, well, the British were effectively manipulating the press, pushing out if, for want of another word, disinformation, to make it look a lot better, that the British were doing well down there.
Effectively, the British had to send down some 13,000 troops initially to relieve the Sge Lady Smith and Maiken. So the but in the British eyes, it, it looked a, a positive down in South Africa. That's what they were trying to portray.
Speaker 2 (5m 58s): Then you've got this guy, Cecil Rhodes. Now Cecil Rhodes, he, he was a, an imperialist. He was a, he was British born. He set up a mining company when they found gold down in the the Kimley area. He had a big hand in it, taken on or buying up all the rights and everything for the gold that came out of that area of South Africa.
This is him with members Kimley Garrison. Now Cecil Rhodes, he was the guy that eventually set up Rodia, what was then Zambia later becomes Zimbabwe, you know, that place, the east of Africa, which was the bread basket of Africa basically, until Robert Mugabe took over and started killing off white farmers.
But that is another story. So old Cecil Roads had a big and in the imperial side of it and didn't want the lights of the balls, upstarts and all the rest of it. So Cecil Rhodes, he set up the, the Beers company and they pretty much dominated it and still do to this day. The, the, that gold region of South Africa.
So the propaganda stuff that was coming out in the press at the time, this is one of them showing that the small balls the Lily puts and tying down our old good old John Ball. Now, John Ball was an imperialist. He was, he was the poster boy of British imperialism.
So this is, this is one of the, the, the cartoons. There was a lot of cartoons put out in the press at the time on all sides. So the Americans also wanted to keep their nose out of it. And this, this come out in Puck, which is an American publication, So it, uncle Sam there. He's a policeman not wanting to go off his beat.
And you can see there that people are pleading him to go and get involved in South Africa to police it down there. This is where the Americans were starting to become the world's police effectively.
Speaker 3 (8m 56s): And you can see in the background there, you've got John Ball having a ruck with Paul Kruger. So quite a powerful image. And in the other image, the one on the right that's showing the a lion, the British lion running back to Pretoria because they didn't realize the boars were such a, a fighting force. They were thought they were just peasant farmers turned out to be slightly different.
in the end, the British won and put it down to a victory. And then again, you've got this one. This is the French standing by in the Russian bear, again, taken on John Ball. Although we, we actually had had a couple of wars against the French over the, the earliest century, but a peninsula war and at Waterloo, and now we were siding with the French, particularly coming towards the, the first World War.
We didn't really want Russian involvement in, in Africa. So that's about the size of it. There's a lot more to do on South Africa, but I'm gonna leave it there. Gonna let you, if you're interested, go and research it yourself. It's quite difficult to find lots of images that one can use, but that just gives you a flavor of British Psychological Operations at the time, although there wasn't an actual official established office for propaganda, they certainly had their fingers in it, and it was the start of a proper psychological warfare being set up.
So in the next episode, we're gonna look at the First World War and the First World War. There's a lot of psychological warfare that went on, on, on all sides. So we'll cover that in the next episode. So if you like what I'm doing, Please, subscribe to the channel. It's free. Gimme a a You know thumbs up, and please comment if, if you think I'm wrong, if you like what I'm doing, if you don't like what I'm doing, let me know in the comments.
So until the next one, thank you for your time, Thank you for listening. TT FN Tartar for now.
Welcome to the Tim Heale podcast. If you have the time, you can not only listen to the episodes, but you can also watch all the shows and you'll find the links in the description below. thank you.