The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of Lieutenant Carl Oswald Basche, “B” Squadron, 1st New South Wales Mounted Rifles, Boer War.

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Chris Widenbar, the story for this day was on Lieutenant Carl Oswald Basche, “B” Squadron, 1st New South Wales Mounted Rifles, Boer War.

Lieutenant Carl Oswald Basche, “B” Squadron, 1st New South Wales Mounted Rifles
Died of Illness 16 April 1900

Today we remember and pay tribute to Lieutenant Carl Oswald Basche.

Carl Basche was born on 4 March 1876 to Carl and Emily Basche in Kempsey, New South Wales. His parents were dairy farmers in the Macleay River district, and “Carley”, as he was known, was the younger of two sons. He excelled at his studies at West Kempsey Superior Public School, and went on to study at the Fort Street School in Sydney. After completing school, he became a clerk in the New South Wales colonial treasury. In 1899, he married Eulalie Netterfield in Sydney.

Basche joined the colonial militia in 1893 at the rank of private, and worked his way through the non-commissioned ranks before being commissioned as a second lieutenant in January 1899. In October of that year, after a worsening political deadlock, Britain declared war on the two Boer republics, the Orange Free State and the South African Republic. Each of the Australian colonies committed troops to the conflict.

Basche joined the second contingent to be sent from New South Wales, on the staff of the officer commanding the 1st New South Wales Mounted Rifles.
He left Sydney on the transport ship Southern Cross in mid-January 1900, arriving at Cape Town in mid-February. After spending some time in camp outside Cape Town, the horses and men of the Mounted Rifles travelled on trains to the border of the Orange Free State.

In letters home, Basche described two actions in which he was involved with his unit in March. During the first battle, at Poplar Grove, Basche led a detachment of Mounted Rifles to relieve men of his unit who had been pinned in position by enemy fire. At the second action at Driefontein, the Mounted Rifles engaged 400 mounted Boers for six hours. “I had several narrow escapes”, he wrote, “as bullets were falling like hail all round us”. During the fighting, Basche’s horse was shot twice, but recovered afterwards.

One evening in mid-March, Basche was ordered to ride from his position to headquarters to pick up orders. During his journey, his horse stumbled after putting a foot into an aardvark hole. Recovering in hospital in Bloemfontein, he wrote to his parents “don’t worry about me as I am in good hands”. However, he mentioned other symptoms, not caused by the fall, which suggest that he had contracted typhoid fever while in hospital. Sanitation in the military hospitals was not good, and there was no clean water supply for the soldiers in Bloemfontein.

On the 16th of April 1900, Basche died of typhoid in hospital.

Just over half of the Australian soldiers who died in South Africa died of illness. One of Basche’s comrades in the Mounted Rifles recalled that Basche’s funeral in President Brand Cemetery in Bloemfontein was delayed by two hours because of the sheer number of burials taking place.

Carl Basche was 24 years old. He was survived by his parents, his older brother Bertrand, and his widow Eulalie. In Sydney, his former colleagues unveiled a brass plaque in his memory in the New South Wales treasury building.

Lieutenant Carl Oswald Basche is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 600 Australians who died while serving in the Boer War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Lieutenant Carl Oswald Basche, who gave his life for us, for his country, and in the hope of a better world.

Thomas Rogers
Historian, Military History Section