Boer leather and metal cartridge belt or bandolier, 1900 (c)

This cartridge belt, manufactured by Martine, Birmingham, for the pre-War South African market, is half of a bandolier picked up by a Major South (no further details known), serving in Le Gallais' Mounted Infantry, who was present at the surrender of Piet Cronje's commando at Paardeberg in February 1900.

This pattern of cartridge belt was the most common of those used by the Boers. It was equipped with nine pouches, each of which held a clip of five Mauser cartridges. The Boers often buckled two belts together and wore them over one shoulder and across the chest as a bandolier, sometimes with another pair over the other shoulder. In this combination it was possible to carry 180 rounds.

Major South recorded in his memoirs: 'The prisoners were ordered to stack their arms and ammunition in heaps. I noticed that the bandoliers were made up in pockets each containing five cartridges, a thing we had never seen before as in those days we charged our magazines one at a time, the Boers as you know are armed with German Mausers. I was so interested that I took one of the bandoliers and brought it home as a curio.'