In his early days Gandhi served as a stretcher-bearer on the British side in the Boer war, and he was prepared to do the same again in the war of 1914-18.

During the Boer War, when there was much unrest in the country, a certain minister asked his brother-minister, who was a leader in the church, to do his best to calm the minds of those around him.

After narrowly losing a by-election in Oldham, he returned to the journalistic fray as a war correspondent in South Africa for the Morning Post during the second Boer war of 1899-1902.