Bang, Rattle, Pop: Sound, Technology and the South African War

The South African War of 1899–1902 has been traditionally framed as one of Britain’s final colonial wars and a last gasp of nineteenth-century military conventions. In this article, I argue that—far from being the last “gentlemen’s war”—the South African War can be seen as a newly modern form of warfare that is mediated and modulated through sound. I draw on archival research and earwitness accounts from both combatants and observers to reconstruct aspects of historical sense perception that demonstrate how the confluence of new military and media technologies elevated the role of sound in sensing (and making sense of) the battlefield. In particular, I consider the pervasive metaphors of gunfire as music and of the guns themselves as musicians as a way for earwitnesses to make sense out of the chaos of wartime listening, before turning to other ways in which music filtered through into the wartime soundscape. Understanding this intertwining of sound, perception, and technology allows us to trace the audile techniques through which participants perceived the war. Heard in this way, the South African War lays a foundation for how modern wars have been listened to and imagined.