Did the Boers cut the trigger fingers off of the British officers?

It is not mentioned at all in any history book about the war.

It seems as though the film's writers is updating the Agincourt myth about the French cutting the fingers off English archers. That's a load of hogwash as well.

http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/pluckyew.a...

As Man of Kent points out, the Agincourt myth is a very recent invention - the earliest account of it comes from America in 1996. It is most definitely a load of codswallop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign#cite_note-BSC-...

It sounds like a load of old codswallop to me! It is said that the Scots and Frogs did something similar to English/Welch archers too. That's probably codswallop too.

PAUL

I believe that this thing about the archers is a fairly recent invention. I would be very interested if you have any good evidence to the contrary.. Even when I was a kid, not aaallll that long ago, the two fingered gesture was sexual and meant 'up yours'. the back of the hand was shown and the hand was lifted as you made the gesture with the thumb between the fingers. Churchill did otherwise, he thrust his arm forward with the palm facing his audience. The thumb held down the pinkie and little finger. It was the V sign. V for victory.

EDIT 2

I've just remembered an earlier ref. In the novel 'The White Company' by Arthur Conan Doyle published c1900, A minor character is an archer who has had his fingers cut off by the Scots. He is training his young sons to shoot so they can go down to the Borrder and take ten scottish lives for each finger.

I don't know about the Boer war, but without doubt captured medieval archers had the two fingers next to the thumb of the right hand severed. Before the battle of Agincourt French troops threatened the entire English army with this treatment. Afterwards the English archers raised thier hands, with those two fingers prominent and the other two closed, at the surviving and defeated French soldiers. This became a gesture of defiance and insult to the present day. Churchill reversed this gesture with his V for Victory sign in WW2.

TOTAL RUBBISH like the Agincourt archers story. Originated amongst barroom know-alls I think. The Boer war was the last gentleman's war.

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