Launceston gathers to remember the Boer War 121 years later

The war was a colonial conflict between the British Army and South African Boers between 1889 and 1902, and was the first war Australia fought in as a nation.

The memorial service featured a special letter from the South African High Commissioner Marthinus van Schalkwyk, which provided insight into the other side of the conflict.

"The Anglo-Boer War was a formative event in the history of South Africa," Mr van Schalkwyk said.

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"It laid the political and economic foundations of our country that still impacts our nation's lives today.

"Today, in graveyards scattered all over South Africa, many in remote areas, the graves of South Africans and Australians who paid the highest price are next to each other; it is a constant reminder of a war that should never have taken place."

He said it was a testimony to the adaptability and good sense of human nature that South Africa joined the First and Second World Wars on the side of its former enemies to defeat an existential threat.

"Most importantly, it is an illustration of the ability to overcome painful divisions to unite in the face of common existential threats for the greater good," he said.

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Event organiser and historian Nigel Burch said the war was a major effort by Tasmanians.

"Two Victorian Crosses came out of it, it was the first war that we started as colonies and ended as part of the nation of Australia," Mr Burch said.

He said it was a war we could learn a lot from.

"That is, if we remember, but unfortunately we often don't remember and repeat the same mistakes," he said.

"It was a war where our patriotic fervour took us in but in fact when we look back there was a lot of opposition to it.

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"I think jingoism and patriotic fervor carried us away and we got involved when we should have thought more about it."

Mr Burch said it was important to continue the tradition to remember those who served.

"We should remember those people who laid down their lives, came home wounded or died of disease," he said.

"Families remember and we should all do so."

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