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{{Infobox Military Conflict| conflict=Second Boer War| partof=the
Boer Wars [guerrillas during the Second Boer War]| result=British victory| casus=| territory=
Treaty of Vereeniging| combatant2= [Orange Free State South African Republic
[Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts| commander2=
Paul Kruger Louis Botha Koos de la Rey Martinus Theunis Steyn Christiaan de Wet: Tweede Boerenoorlog, [Afrikaans:
Tweede Vryheidsoorlog) , commonly referred to as
The Boer War and also known as the
South African War (outside of South Africa), the
Anglo-Boer War (among most South Africans) and in Afrikaans as the
Anglo-Boereoorlog or
Tweede Vryheidsoorlog ("Second War of Independence"), was fought from 11 October
1899 until 31 May,
1902, between the
British Empire and the two independent
Boer republics of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic). After a
wikt:protract, hard-fought war, the two independent republics were absorbed into the British Empire.
Background
The southern part of the African continent was dominated in the 19th century by a set of epic struggles to create within it a single unified state. The British attempt to annex Transvaal in 1880, and the Transavaal and the Orange Free State in 1899, was their biggest incursion into southern Africa, but there were others. In 1868, the British annexed Basutoland in the Drakensberg Mountains following an appeal from Moshesh, the leader of a mixed group of African refugees from the Zulu wars, who sought British protection against the Boers. In the 1880s, Bechuanaland (modern Botswana, located north of the Orange River) became the object of dispute between the Germans to the west, the Boers to the east, and Cape Colony to the south. Although Bechuanaland had no economic value, the "Missionaries Road" passed through it towards territory farther north. After the Germans annexed Damaraland and Namaqualand (modern Namibia) in 1884, the British annexed Bechuanaland in 1885.
“British imperialism, which often stalked its quarry with cultural and commercial feints before finally pulling down its prey through conquest and formal annexation, was for some time frustrated by the presence of the two independent Boer republics. Yet, within little more than a decade and half, the Orange Free State and the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek had both been subjugated in the course of the bloody South African War of 1899–1902” Modernization of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek: F. E. T. Krause, J. C. Smuts, and the Struggle for the Johannesburg Public Prosecutor's Office, 1898–1899 : Charles Van Onselen
With the 1886 discovery of gold in Transvaal, thousands of British and other prospectors and settlers streamed over the border from the
Cape Colony (annexed by Britain earlier) and from across the globe. The city of Johannesburg sprang up as a
shanty town nearly overnight as the
uitlanders (foreigners) poured in and settled near the mines. The uitlanders rapidly outnumbered the Boers on the Witwatersrand, but remained a minority in the Transvaal as a whole. The
Afrikaners, nervous and resentful of the uitlanders' presence, denied them voting rights and taxed the gold industry. The tax on a box of dynamite was five shillings ($0.50) of the cost of five pounds ($10). These mines consumed vast quantities of explosives and President
Paul Kruger gave manufacturing monopoly rights to a non-British operation of the Nobel company, which infuriated the British. A.P.Cartwright,
The Dynamite Company, Purnell & Sons, Cape Town, 1964. The so-called "dynamite monopoly" became a major pretext for war. However, one of the underlying irritants for war occurred in 1894–95 over the railway and tariffs problems. Kruger wanted to build a railway through Portuguese East Africa to Maputo Bay, bypassing British controlled ports in Natal and Cape Town and avoiding British tariffs.M. Nathan,
Paul Kruger: His Life And Times, Knox, Durban, 1941. The Prime Minister of the Cape Colony was
Cecil Rhodes, a man with a vision of a British controlled Africa extending from Cape to Cairo Road. Angered by these problems, pressure arose from the
Uitlanders and the British mine owners to overthrow the Boer government. In 1895, Cecil Rhodes sponsored the failed
coup d'état backed by an armed incursion, the Jameson Raid. Of this raid, Jan C. Smuts wrote in 1906, "The Jameson Raid was the real declaration of war...And that is so in spite of the four years of truce that followed... aggressors consolidated their alliance...the defenders on the other hand silently and grimly prepared for the inevitable."
Paul Kruger and the President Martinus Theunis Steyn of the
Orange Free State both understood that the failed raid was the precursor to a war and commencing in 1896 placed orders for Mauser rifles R. Bester,
Boer Rifles and Carbines of the Anglo-Boer War, War Museum of the Boer Republics, Bloemfontein, 1994. and German Krupp artillery.
The failure to gain improved rights for Britons became a pretext to manufacture a case for war and to justify a major military buildup in the Cape. The case for war was justified and espoused as far away as the Australian colonies.C.N. Connolly, 'Manufacturing Spontaneity' Several key British colonial leaders favoured annexation of the independent Boer republics. These figures included the Cape Colony governor Sir
Alfred Milner, Cape Prime Minister
Cecil Rhodes, British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain and mining syndicate owners or
Randlords (nicknamed the
gold bugs) such as
Alfred Beit,
Barney Barnato and Lionel Phillips. Confident that the Boers would be quickly defeated, they planned, schemed and organised to precipitate a war, based on the Uitlanders' real or imagined grievances.
President Steyn of the Orange Free State invited Milner and Kruger to attend a conference in
Bloemfontein which started on 30 May 1899, but negotiations quickly broke down, despite Kruger's offer of concessions. In September 1899, Chamberlain sent an ultimatum demanding full equality for British citizens resident in Transvaal.
Kruger, seeing that war was inevitable, simultaneously issued his own ultimatum prior to receiving Chamberlain's. This gave the British 48 hours to withdraw all their troops from the border of Transvaal; otherwise the Transvaal, allied with the Orange Free State, would declare war.
News of the ultimatum reached London on the day it expired. Outrage and laughter were the main responses. The editor of the
Times laughed out loud when he read it, saying 'an official document is seldom amusing and useful yet this was both'.
The Times denounced the ultimatum as an 'extravagant farce',
The Globe denounced this 'trumpery little state'. Most editorials were similar to the
Daily Telegraph, which declared: 'of course there can only be one answer to this grotesque challenge. Kruger has asked for war and war he must have!'.
First phase: The Boer offensive (October – December, 1899)
War was declared on
11 October 1899. The Boers had no problems with mobilisation, since the Presidents of the Transvaal and Orange Free State simply signed decrees to concentrate within a week and the Commandos could muster between 30-40,000 men. Thomas Pakenham,
The Boer War, p. 56 The Boers struck first by invading
Cape Colony and Colony of Natal between October 1899 and January 1900. What the Boers presented was a mobile and innovative approach to warfare that had first appeared in the American Civil War. The average Burghers who made up their Commandos were farmers who had spent almost all their working life in the saddle, and because they had to depend on both their horse and their rifle they were skilled stalkers and marksmen, and became expert light cavalry. They could make use of every scrap of cover, from which they could pour in a destructive fire using their modern Mausers. They also had around one hundred of the latest Krupp field guns, all horse drawn and dispersed among the various Commando groups, and their skill in adapting themselves to first-rate artillerymen shows them to have been a versatile adversary. Thomas Pakenham,
The Boer War, p. 30
There were early Boer military successes against the scattered British. The Boers were able to besiege the towns of
Siege of Mafeking (defended by troops headed by Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell), and Siege of Kimberley (defended by troops headed by Lt-Col Kekewich) on the borders of the Transvaal. The major British concentration was in northern Colony of Natal under Sir George White. White's troops, who were dangerously dispersed, were defeated separately, and were besieged in
Siege of Ladysmith.
Siege life took its toll on both the defending soldiers and the civilians in the cities of Mafeking, Ladysmith, and Kimberley as food began to grow scarce after a few weeks. In Mafeking,
Sol Plaatje wrote, "I saw horseflesh for the first time being treated as a human foodstuff." The cities under siege also dealt with constant artillery bombardment, making the streets a dangerous place. Near the end of the siege of Kimberley, it was expected that the Boers would intensify their bombardment, so a notice was displayed encouraging people to go down into the mines for protection. The townspeople panicked, and people flowed into the mineshafts constantly for a 12-hour period. Although the bombardment never came, this did nothing to diminish the distress of the civilians. Many of the townspeople, now under siege, sheltered in the local convent, now the Mcgregor museum. Since the mining that occurred there, for diamonds, was open air, the people were not able to shelter in mine shafts. The mine is now known as the Big Hole, a popular tourist attraction in the area.
Major British reinforcements were arriving under General
Redvers Henry Buller. He originally intended an offensive straight up the railway line leading from Cape Town through
Bloemfontein to
Pretoria. Finding on arrival that the British troops already in South Africa were under siege, he split his Army Corps into several widely spread detachments, to relieve the besieged garrisons.
British commanders had trained on the lessons of the Crimean War, and could adapt themselves to battalion and regimental columns manoeuvring in jungles, deserts and mountainous regions; what they entirely failed to comprehend was the trench fighting and cavalry raids of the American Civil War. The British troops went to war with what would prove to be antiquated tactics, and in some cases antiquated weapons Field Marshal Lord Carver,
The Boer War, pp. 259-262, against the mobile Boer forces with the destructive fire of their modern Mausers, the latest Krupp field guns and their innovative tactics.
The middle of December was disastrous for the British army. In a period known as
Black Week (10 – 15 December
1899), the British suffered a series of devastating losses at Battle of Magersfontein, Battle of Stormberg, and
Battle of Colenso.
At the
Battle of Stormberg on
10 December,
William Forbes Gatacre, who was in command of 3,000 troops protecting against Boer raids in Cape Colony, tried to recapture a railway junction about 50 miles south of the
Orange River. But Gatacre chose to assault the Orange Free State Boer positions surmounting a precipitous rock face in which he lost 135 killed and wounded, as well as two guns and over 600 troops captured.
At the Battle of Magersfontein on
11 December, 14,000 British troops, under the command of
Paul Sanford Methuen, 3rd Baron Methuen, attempted to fight their way to relieve Kimberley. The Boer commanders,
Koos de la Rey and Piet Cronje, devised a plan to dig
trenches in an unconventional place to fool the British and to give their riflemen a greater firing range. The plan worked and this tactic helped write the doctrine of the supremacy of the defensive position, using modern small arms and trench fortifications. 'Historical Overview' in Antony O'Brien,
Bye-Bye Dolly Gray At Magersfontein, the British were decisively defeated, suffering the loss of 120 British soldiers killed and 690 wounded, which prevented them from relieving Kimberley and Mafeking.
"Such was the day for our regimentDread the revenge we will take. Dearly we paid for the blunder -A drawing-room General’s mistake. Why weren’t we told of the trenches?Why weren’t we told of the wire? Why were we marched up in column, May Tommy Atkins enquire…." From the
"Battle of Magersfontein," verse by Private Smith of the Black Watch December 1899. Quoted in, ‘Thomas Pakenham’s
"The Boer War," page 115.
But the nadir of
Black Week was the
Battle of Colenso on 15 December where 21,000 British troops commanded by Buller himself, attempted to cross the Tugela River to relieve Ladysmith where 8,000 Transvaal Boers, under the command of
Louis Botha, were awaiting them. Through a combination of artillery and accurate rifle fire, the Boers repelled all British attempts to cross the river. The British had a further 1,126 casualties, and lost 10 artillery pieces to the Boers during the ensuing retreat. The Boer forces suffered 40 casualties.
Second phase: The British offensive of January to September 1900
greets Major Hubert Gough on 28 February. Painting by John Henry Frederick Bacon (1868 – 1914)The British suffered further defeats in their attempts to relieve Ladysmith at the Battle of Spion Kop of 19 to
24 January 1900, where Buller again attempted to cross the Tugela west of Colenso and was defeated again by Louis Botha after a hard-fought battle for a prominent hill feature which resulted in a further 1,000 British casualties and nearly 300 Boer casualties. Buller attacked Botha again on 5 February at Vaal Krantz and was again defeated.
By taking command in person in Natal, Buller allowed the overall direction of the war to drift. Because of concerns about his performance and negative reports from the field, he was replaced as Commander in Chief by Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts. Roberts first intended like Buller to attack directly along the Cape Town - Pretoria railway but, again like Buller, was forced to relieve the beleaguered garrisons. Leaving Buller in command in Natal, Roberts massed further reinforcements near the
Orange River and on
14 February 1900, he launched a major attack to relieve Kimberley. The city was relieved on 15 February by a cavalry division under
John French, 1st Earl of Ypres. At the
Battle of Paardeberg on 18 February to 27 February
1900, Roberts then surrounded General Piet Cronje's retreating Boer army, and forced him to surrender with 4000 men after a siege lasting a week. Meanwhile, Buller at last succeeded in forcing a crossing of the Tugela, and defeated Botha's outnumbered forces north of Colenso, allowing the
Siege of Ladysmith#The later Siege and Relief the day after Cronje surrendered.
Roberts then advanced into the Orange Free State from the west, capturing Bloemfontein, the capital, on
March 13. Meanwhile, he detached a small force to relieve Baden-Powell, and the Relief of Mafeking on May 18 1900 provoked riotous celebrations in Britain.
After being forced to delay for several weeks at Bloemfontein due to shortage of supplies and
enteric fever (caused by poor hygiene, drinking bad water at Paardeburg and appalling medical care), Roberts resumed his advance. He was forced to halt again at Kroonstad for 10 days, due once again to the collapse of his medical and supply systems, then finally captured Johannesburg on May 31 and the capital of the Transvaal,
Pretoria, on June 5. (Before the war, the Boers had constructed several forts south of Pretoria, but the artillery had been removed from the forts for use in the field, and in the event the Boers abandoned Pretoria without a fight.)
British observers believed the war to be all but over after the capture of the two capital cities. However, the Boers had earlier met at the temporary new capital of the Orange Free State, Kroonstad, and planned a guerrilla warfare campaign to hit the British supply and communication lines. The first engagement of this new form of warfare was at Sanna's Post on 31 March where 1,500 Boers under the command of Christiaan De Wet attacked Bloemfontein's waterworks about 23 miles east of the city, and ambushed a heavily escorted convoy which resulted in 155 British casualties and the capture of seven guns, 117 wagons and 428 British troops.N. G. Speed,
Born to FightAfter the fall of Pretoria, one of the last formal battles was at
Battle of Diamond Hill on 11 –
12 June, where Roberts attempted to drive the remnants of the Boer field army beyond striking distance of Pretoria. Although Roberts drove the Boers from the hill, the Boer commander, Louis Botha, did not regard it as a defeat, for he inflicted more casualties on the British (totalling 162 men) while suffering around 50 casualties.
The set-piece period of the war now largely gave way to a mobile
guerrilla war, but one final operation remained. President Kruger and what remained of the Transvaal government had retreated to eastern Transvaal. Roberts, joined by troops from Natal under Buller, advanced against them, and broke their last defensive position at
Battle of Bergendal on
August 26. As Roberts and Buller followed up along the railway line to Komatipoort, Kruger sought asylum in Portuguese East Africa (modern Mozambique). Some dispirited Boers did likewise, and the British gathered up much war material. However, the core of the Boer fighters under Botha easily broke back through the
Drakensberg mountains into the Transvaal highveld after riding north through the bushveld. Under the new conditions of the war, heavy equipment was no use to them, and therefore no great loss.
In October, Kruger and members of the Transvaal government left South Africa on the Dutch warship De Gelderland, sent by the Queen of the Netherlands Wilhelmina, which had simply ignored the British naval blockade of South Africa. His wife was too ill to travel and remained in South Africa; she died on 20 July 1901. Kruger went to Marseille and stayed for a while in The Netherlands, before moving to Clarens, Switzerland, where he died in exile on 14 July 1904.
Third phase: Guerrilla war (September 1900 – May 1902)
, 24th Jan. 1900.By September 1900, the British were nominally in control of both Republics, except for the northern part of Transvaal. They however found that they only controlled the ground their columns physically occupied. The Boer commanders adopted a guerrilla style of warfare. The commandos were sent to their own districts where they had local support and the knowledge of the terrain, towns and district and could live off the land. Their orders were simply to act against the British whenever possible. Their strategy was to strike fast and hard causing as much damage to the enemy as possible, and then to withdraw and vanish before enemy reinforcements could arrive. The vast distances of the Republics allowed the Boer commandos considerable freedom to move about and made it impossible for the 250,000 British troops to control the territory effectively using columns alone. As soon as the British columns left a town or district, British control of that area faded away.
The Boers were initially especially effective during the guerrilla phase of the war because Roberts had assumed that the war would end with the capture of the Boer capitals and the dispersal of the main Boer armies. Many British troops were redeployed, and replaced by lower-quality contingents of Yeomanry and locally-raised irregular corps.
Western Transvaal
The Boer commandos in the Western Transvaal were very active after September 1901. Several battles of importance were fought here between September 1901 and March 1902. At Moedwil on 30 September
1901 and again at Driefontein on
24 October, Gen. De la Rey’s forces attacked the British, but were forced to withdraw after the British offered strong resistance.
A time of relative quiet descended thereafter on the western Transvaal. February 1902 saw the next major battle in that region. On 25 February De la Rey attacked a British column at Ysterspruit near Wolmaransstad. De la Rey succeeded in capturing the column and a large amount of ammunition.The Boer attacks prompted Lord Methuen, the British second-in-command after Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, to move his column from Vryburg to Klerksdorp to deal with De la Rey. On the morning of
7 March 1902, the Boers attacked the rear guard of Methuen’s moving column at Tweebosch. Confusion reigned in British ranks and Methuen was wounded and captured by the Boers.The Boer victories in the west led to stronger action by the British. In the second half of March 1902, large British reinforcements were sent to the Western Transvaal. The opportunity the British were waiting for arose on
11 April 1902 at Battle of Rooiwal, where the combined forces of Gens. Grenfell, Kekewich and Von Donop came into contact with the forces of Gen. Kemp. The British soldiers were well positioned on the mountainside and inflicted severe casualties on the Boers charging on horseback over a large distance, beating them back.
This was the end of the war in the Western Transvaal and also the last major battle of the Anglo-Boer War.
Orange Free State
While the British occupied Pretoria, the Boer fighters in the Orange Free State had been driven into a fertile area in the north east of the Republic, known as the Brandwater Basin. This offered only temporary sanctuary, as the mountain passes leading to it could be occupied by the British, trapping the Boers. A force under General Hunter set out from Bloemfontein to achieve this in July 1900. The hard core of the Boers under
Christiaan de Wet, accompanied by President Steyn, left the basin early. Those remaining fell into confusion and most failed to break out before Hunter trapped them. 4,500 Boers surrendered and much equipment was captured, but as with Robert's drive against Kruger at the same time, these losses were of relatively little consequence, as the hard core of the Boer armies and their most determined and active leaders remained at large.
From the Basin, de Wet headed west. Although hounded by British columns, he succeeded in crossing the Vaal into the Western Transvaal, to allow Steyn to travel to meet the Transvaal leaders.
Returning to the Orange Free State, de Wet inspired a series of attacks and raids from the hitherto quiet western part of the country. Many Boers who had earlier returned to their farms, sometimes giving formal parole to the British, took up arms again. In late January 1901, De Wet led a renewed invasion of Cape Colony. This was less successful, because there was no general uprising among the Cape Boers, and de Wet's men were hampered by bad weather and relentlessly pursued by British forces. They escaped across the Orange River, almost by a miracle.
From then until the final days of the war, de Wet remained comparatively quiet, partly because the Orange Free State was effectively left desolate by British sweeps. In late 1901, De Wet overran an isolated British detachment at Groenkop, inflicting heavy casualties. This prompted Kitchener to launch the first of the "New Model" drives against him.
The British had first erected lines of blockhouses to protect the railway lines. They now built fresh lines of these, linked by barbed wire fences, to prevent free Boer movement across the veld. They also allowed "New Model" drives. Unlike the earlier inefficient scouring of the countryside by scattered columns, a continuous line of troops could now effectively sweep an area of veld bounded by blockhouse lines.
De Wet escaped the first such drive, but lost 300 of his fighters. This was a severe loss, and a portent of further such attrition.
Eastern Transvaal
Two Boer forces fought in this area; under Botha in the south east and Ben Viljoen in the north east. Botha's forces were particularly active, raiding railways and even mounting a renewed invasion of Natal in September, 1901. After defeating British mounted infantry near Dundee, Botha was forced to withdraw by heavy rains which made movement difficult and crippled his horses. Back in the Transvaal, he attacked a British raiding column at Bakenlaagte. This made his forces the target of increasingly large and ruthless drives by British forces, and eventually, he had to abandon the high veld and retreat to a narrow enclave bordering Swaziland.
To the north, Ben Viljoen grew steadily less active. His forces mounted comparatively few attacks and as a result, the Boer enclave around Lydenburg was largely unmolested. Viljoen was eventually captured.
Cape Colony
After he escaped across the Orange in March 1901, de Wet had left forces under Cape rebels Kritzinger and Scheepers to maintain a guerrilla campaign in the Cape Midlands. The campaign here was one of the least chivalrous, with intimidation by both sides of each other's civilian sympathisers. Several captured rebels, including Scheepers, were executed for treason by the British, some in public. In most cases though, the executions were ostensibly for capital crimes such as the murder of prisoners or of unarmed civilians.
Fresh Boer forces under Jan Christiaan Smuts, joined by the surviving rebels under Kritzinger, made another attack on the Cape in September 1901. They suffered severe hardships and were hard pressed by British columns, but eventually rescued themselves by routing some of their pursuers and capturing their equipment.
From then until the end of the war, Smuts increased his forces until they numbered 3,000. However, no general uprising took place, and the situation in the Cape remained stalemated.
Final days of the War
Towards the end of the war, British drives and offensives became more successful. Kitchener's forces at last began to seriously affect the Boers' fighting strength and freedom of manoeuvre. The lines of fortified blockhouses connected by wire fences parceled up the wide veld into smaller areas that could be regularly swept and controlled. The British "
Scorched Earth" policy of sweeping the country bare of everything that could give sustenance to the guerrillas (including interning women and children in concentration camps, destroying crops, burning down homesteads and farms, poisoning wells, and salting fields)also took its toll and made it harder and harder for the Boers to survive. The British established their own raiding mounted columns to follow and relentlessly harass the Boers. The British columns were able to draw on intelligence compiled from information obtained from observers in the blockhouses, and units patrolling the fences and conductng "sweeper" operations. Also, native Africans in rural areas increasingly provided intelligence as the Scorched Earth policy took effect and they found themselves competing with the Boers for food supplies.
The counterinsurgency techniques and lessons learnt from the Boer War were used by the British in future guerilla campaigns including to counter Malayan
communist rebels during the
Malayan Emergency.
The concentration camps
The English term "concentration camp" was first used to describe camps operated by the
United Kingdom in South Africa during this conflict.
These had originally been set up as "refugee camps" by the Army for families whose farms had been destroyed by the British under their "
Scorched Earth" policy (sweeping the country bare of everything that could give sustenance to the guerrillas, including women and children, and including destroying crops, burning down homesteads and farms, poisoning wells, and salting fields) and thousands of Boers and black Africans had already been brought into them. Kitchener succeeded Roberts as commander-in-chief in South Africa in November 29, 1900 and in an attempt to break the guerilla campaign, initiated plans to "flush out guerrillas in a series of sytematic drives, organized like a sporting shoot, with success defined in a weekly 'bag' of killed, captured and wounded, and to sweep the country bare of everything that could give sustenance to the guerrillas, including women and children. . . . It was the clearance of civilians -- uprooting a whole nation -- that would come to dominate the last phase of the war."Thomas Pakenham,
The Boer War. Following Kitchener's new policy, more camps were built and converted to prisons and many tens of thousands more women and children were forcibly moved to prevent the Boers from resupplying at their homes.
This was not the first appearance of internment camps. The
Spain used them in the
Ten Years' War that later led to the
Spanish-American War, and the United States used them to devastate guerrilla forces during the Philippine-American War. But the concentration camp system of the British was on a much larger scale and upon a sytematic basis.
Boer internees were separately held from black Africans. There were a total of 45 tented camps built for Boer internees and 64 for black Africans. Of the 28,000 Boer men captured as prisoners of war, 25,630 were sent overseas. The vast majority of Boers remaining in the local camps were women and children, but the camps established for black Africans held large numbers of men as well. A number of the black African internees were used as a paid labour force as they were not considered by the British to be hostile, although they had been forcibly removed from Boer areas. The majority of the black African internees however languished in the camps and suffered a high mortality rate.
The camps were overcrowded and badly administered. Conditions were very unhealthy with poor
hygiene. The food rations were meager, and wives and children of men who were still fighting were routinely given smaller rations than others. The inadequate shelter, poor diet, inadequate hygiene and crowding led to malnutrition and endemic contagious diseases such as measles,
typhoid and dysentery. Coupled with a shortage of medical facilities, this led to large numbers of deaths. This was exacerbated in March 1901 when Kitchener's troops implemented the internment strategy on a wide scale bringing tens of thousands of additional Boer and black African civilians into the already overcrowded and disease ridden camps.
Although the
United Kingdom general election, 1900, also known as the "Khaki election", had resulted in a victory for the
Conservative Party (UK) government on the back of recent British victories against the Boers, public support quickly waned as it became apparent that the war would not be easy and unease developed following reports about the treatment by the Army of the Boer civilians. Public and political opposition to Government policies in South Africa regarding Boer civilian was first expressed in Parliament in February 1901 in the form of an attack on the policy, the government, and the Army by the radical Liberal M.P. Lloyd-George.
Emily Hobhouse, a delegate of the South African Women and Children's Distress Fund, visited some of the camps in the Orange Free State from January 1901 and in May, 1901 she returned to England on board the ship, the Saxon. Lord Milner, High Commissioner in South Africa, also boarded the Saxon for holiday in England but, unfortunately for both the camp internees and the British government, had no time for Miss Hobhouse, regarding her as a Boer sympathizer and "trouble maker." Thomas Pakenham,
The Boer War, pp. 531-32, 536+ On her return Emily Hobhouse did much to publicize the distress of the camp inmates, speaking to members of the Government and Opposition and publishing a fifteen-page report. Her report caused uproar both domestically and in the international community. In response, the Government called on Kitchener for information and in July 1901 complete statistical returns from camps were sent. By August 1901 it was clear to Government and Opposition alike that Miss Hobhouse's worst fears were being confirmed - 93,940 Boers and 24,457 black Africans were reported to be in "camps of refuge" and the crisis was becoming a catatrophe as the death rates appeared very high, especially amongst the children. The Government responded by appointing a commission, the
Millicent Fawcett Commission, which visited camps from August to December 1901. However this was also highly critical of the running of the camps, making numerous recommendations, including improvements in diet and provision of proper medical facilities.
Following the report of the Fawcett Commission, its recommendations were implemented and by February 1902, the annual death-rate in the concentration camps for white inmates dropped to 6.9% and eventually it dropped to 2%. "Improvements were much slower in coming to the black camps." Ferguson, N. (2002). Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power. Basic Books p.235. However, by then the damage had been done. A report after the war concluded that 27,927 Boers (of whom 24,074 of the Boer child population were children under 16) and 14,154 black Africans had died of
starvation,
disease and exposure in the concentration camps. In all, about one in four (25%) of the Boer inmates, mostly children, died. It is thought that about 12% of black African inmates died but the precise number of deaths of black Africans in concentration camps is unknown as little attempt was made to keep any records of the number of deaths of the 107,000 black Africans who were interned.
"This was not a deliberately genocidal policy; rather it was the result of disastrous lack of foresight and rank incompetence on part of the military" Niall Ferguson,
Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order, p. 250. "Kitchener no more desired the deaths of women and children in the camps than of the wounded Dervishes after Omdurman, or of his own soldiers in the typhoid stricken hospitals of Bloemfontein." Thomas Pakenham,
The Boer War, p. 524. However “…the main decisions (or their absence) had been left to the soldiers, to whom the life or death of the 154,000 Boer and African civilians in the camps rated as an abysmally low priority. was only ... ten months after the subject had first been raised in Parliament… after public outcry and after the Fawcett Commission that ... the terrible mortality figures were at last declining. In the interval, at least twenty thousand whites and twelve thousand coloured people had died in the concentration camps, the majority from epidemics of measles and typhoid that could have been avoided.” Thomas Pakenham,
The Boer War p. 549) Somewhat higher figures for total deaths in the concentration camps are given by S.B. Spies. Methods of Barbarism: Roberts and Kitchener and Civilians in the Boer Republics January 1900 - May 1902. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 1977p. 265.
POWs sent overseas
The first sizable batch of Boer prisoners of war taken by the British consisted of those captured at the Battle of Elandslaagte on 21 October
1899. At first many were put on ships, but as numbers grew, the British decided they didn't want them kept locally. The capture of 400 POWs in February 1900 was a key event, which made the British realise they could not accommodate all POWs in South Africa. The British feared they could be freed by sympathetic locals. They already had trouble supplying their own troops in South Africa, and did not want the added burden of sending supplies for the POWs. Britain therefore chose to send many POWs overseas.
The first overseas (off African mainland) camps were opened in Saint Helena, which ultimately received about 5,000 POWs. About 5,000 POWs were sent to Sri Lanka. Other POWs were sent to Bermuda and
India. Some POWs were even sent outside the
British Empire, with 1443 Boers (mostly POWs) sent to Portugal. No evidence exists of Boer POWs being sent to the United Kingdoms's "white" allied countries such as Australia, Canada or New Zealand.
The end of the war
The British offered terms of peace on various occasions, notably in March 1901, but were rejected by Botha. The last of the Boers surrendered in May 1902 and the war ended with the Treaty of Vereeniging signed on signed on 31 May 1902. Although the British had won, this came at a cost; the Boers were given £3,000,000 for reconstruction and were promised eventual limited self-government granted in 1906 and 1907. The treaty ended the existence of the Transvaal and the
Orange Free State as independent Boer republics and placed them within the British Empire. The Union of South Africa was established as a member of the Commonwealth in 1910.
In all, the war had cost around 75,000 lives; 22,000 British soldiers (7,792 battle casualties, the rest through disease), between 6,000 and 7,000 Boer soldiers, and, mainly in the concentration camps, between 20,000 to 28,000 Boer civilians (mainly women and children) and perhaps 20,000 black Africans (both on the battlefield and in the concentration camps).
The Second Boer War cast long shadows over the history of the region. The predominantly agrararian Boer society of the former Afrikaner-Dutch republics was profoundly and fundamentally affected by the scorched earth policy of Roberts and Kitchner, and the devastation of the Boer population in the concentration camps and through war and enforced exile. Many were unable to return to the farms at all; others attempted to do so but were forced to abandon the farms as unworkable given the damage caused by farm burning and salting of the fields in the course of the scorched earth policy, and given the decimation of family members. Destitute Boers swelled the ranks of the unskilled urban poor competing with the "uitlanders" on the mines. Charles van Onselen, Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand, 1886-1914, c. 1, New Babylon, (London, 1982)
The postwar reconstruction administration was presided over by Alfred (Lord) Milner and his largely Oxford trained "kindergarten". “In the aftermath of the war, an imperial administration freed from accountability to a domestic electorate set about reconstructing an economy that was by then predicated unambiguously on gold. At the same time, British civil servants, municipal officials, and their cultural adjuncts were hard at work in the heartland of the former Afrikaner-Dutch republics helping to forge new identities—first as "British South Africans" and then, later still, as white "South Africans." Some scholars, for good reasons, identify these new identities as partly underpinning the act of union that followed in 1910. Although challenged by an Afrikaner rebellion only four years later, they did much to shape South African politics between the two world wars and right up to the present day”. The Modernization of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek: F. E. T. Krause, J. C. Smuts, and the Struggle for the Johannesburg Public Prosecutor's Office, 1898–1899Charles Van Onselen
The Boers referred to the two wars as the
Freedom Wars. The hard core of Boers who fought to the end and wanted to continue the fight were known as "
bittereinders" (or
irreconcilables) and at the end of the war a number of Boer fighters such as Deneys Reitz chose exile rather than sign an undertaking that they would abide by the peace terms. Over the following decade, many returned to South Africa and never signed the undertaking. Some, like Reitz, eventually reconciled themselves to the new
status quo, but others could not. At the start of
World War I a crisis ensued when the South African Government led by Louis Botha and including other former Boer fighters such as Jan Smuts, declared for Britain and agreed to send troops to take over the German colony of South West Africa (Namibia). Many Boers were opposed to fighting for Britain, especially against Germany which had been sympathetic to their struggle. A number of bittereinders and their allies took part in a revolt known as the Maritz Rebellion. This was quickly suppressed and in 1916, the leading Boer rebels in the Maritz Rebellion got off lightly (especially compared with the fate of leading Irish rebels of the
Easter Rising#Men executed for their role in the Easter Rising), with terms of imprisonment of six and seven years and heavy fines. Two years later, they were released from prison, as Louis Botha recognised the value of reconciliation. Thereafter the bittereinders concentrated on political organisation within the constitutional system and built up what later became the National Party (South Africa) which took power in 1948 and dominated the politics of South Africa from the late 1940s until the early 1990s, under the apartheid system.
During the conflict, 78
Victoria Crosses (VC) — the highest and most prestigious award in the British armed forces for bravery in the face of the enemy — were awarded to British and Colonial soldiers. See List of Boer War Victoria Cross recipients.
Effect of the war on domestic British politics
The war highlighted the dangers of Britain's policy of non-alignment and deepened her isolation. The
United Kingdom general election, 1900, also known as the "Khaki election", was called by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, on the back of recent British victories. There was much enthusiasm for the war at this point, resulting in a victory for the
Conservative Party (UK) government.
However, public support quickly waned as it became apparent that the war would not be easy and it dragged on, partially contributing to the Conservatives' spectacular defeat in 1906. There was public outrage at the use of scorched earth tactics — the forced clearance of women and children, the destruction of the countryside, burning of Boer homesteads and poisoning of wells, for example — and the conditions in the concentration camps. It also became apparent that there were serious problems with public health in Britain: up to 40% of recruits in Britain were unfit for conscription, suffering from medical problems such as
rickets and other poverty-related illnesses. This came at a time of increasing concern for the state of the poor in Britain.
The importing to South Africa and use (especially on the gold mines) of China labour , known as
Coolies, after the war by the governor of the new
crown colony,
Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner as cheap labour to repress local workers and break strikes, also caused much revulsion in the UK and Australia. The Chinese workers were themselves often kept in appalling conditions, receiving only a small wage and isolated from the local population — revelations of homosexuality acts between those forbidden contact with the local population and the services of prostitution led to further public shock. Some believe the Chinese
slavery issue can be seen as the climax of public antipathy with the war.
Many
Irish nationalists sympathised with the Boers, seeing them as a people oppressed by British imperialism, much like themselves. Irish miners already in the Transvaal at the start of the war formed the nucleus of two
Irish commandos. The Second Irish Brigade was headed up by an Australian of Irish parents, Colonel
Arthur Alfred Lynch. In addition, small groups of Irish volunteers went to South Africa to fight with the Boers — this despite the fact that there were many Irish troops fighting with the British army."Although some 30,000 Irishmen served in the British Army under Irish General Lord Frederick Roberts, who had been Commander of Chief of British Forces in Ireland prior to his transfer to South Africa, some historians argue that the sympathies of many of their compatriots lay with the Boers. Nationalist-controlled local authorities passed pro-Boer resolutions and there were proposals to confer civic honours on Boer leader, Paul Kruger." (Irish Ambassador Daniel Mulhall written for
History Ireland, 2004.) In Britain, the "Pro-Boer" campaign expanded,
Lloyd George and
Keir Hardie were members of the Stop the War Committee (See the founder's biography: William T. Stead's.) Many British authors gave their "Pro-Boer" opinions in British press, such as G. K. Chesterton's writing to 1905 — see Rice University Chesterton's poetry analysis with writers often idealizing the Boer society.
Empire involvement
See also History of the British Army#South Africa
The vast majority of troops fighting for the United Kingdom came from the UK. However, in the Second Boer War (South Africa War 1899-1902) a number did come from other parts of the Empire. These countries had their own internal disputes over whether they should remain tied to the United Kingdom, or have full independence, which carried over into the debate around the sending of forces to assist the United Kingdom. Though not fully independent on foreign affairs, these countries did have local say over how much support to provide, and the manner in which it would be provided. Ultimately, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all sent volunteers to aid the United Kingdom. Australia provided the largest number of troops followed by Canada. Troops were also raised to fight with the British from the
Cape Colony and the Colony of Natal. Some Boers fighters such as Jan Smuts and Louis Botha were technically British subjects as they came from the Cape Colony and Colony of Natal respectively.
Australia
See also History of the Australian Army#Boer War 1899 – 1902
The Australian climate and geography were far closer to that of South Africa than most other parts of the empire, so Australians could adapt quickly to service in the war. Initially the British army wanted trained foot-soldiers from Australia rather than mounted infantry.
From 1899 to 1901 the six separate self-governing colony in Australia sent their own contingents. The colonies formed the
Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, and the new federal government sent "Commonwealth" contingents to the war.See Craig Wilcox,
Australia's Boer War The Boer War was thus the first war in which the Commonwealth of Australia fought.
Enlistment in all Australian contingents totalled 16,175, though about a thousand men did a second tour of duty. A total of 267 died from disease, 251 were killed in action or died from wounds sustained in battle. A further 43 men were reported missing. Another five to seven thousand Australians served in "irregular" regiments raised in South Africa. Perhaps five hundred Australian irregulars were killed. In total, then, twenty thousand or more Australians served and about a thousand were killed.
Australian troops served mostly among the army's "mounted rifles".
When the war began some Australians, like some Britons, opposed it. As the war dragged on some Australians became disenchanted, in part because the sufferings of Boer civilians were reported in the press. In an interesting twist (for Australians), when the British missed capturing President Paul Kruger, as he escaped Pretoria during its fall in June 1900, a
Melbourne Punch, 21 June 1900, cartoon depicted how the War could be won, using the Kelly Gang. Wilcox, p. 103.
The convictions and executions of two Australians, Lieutenants Breaker Morant and Peter Handcock in 1902, and the imprisonment of a third, George Witton, had little impact on the Australian public at the time despite later legend. After the war, though, Australians joined an empire-wide campaign that saw Witton released from gaol. Much later, Australians came to see the execution of Morant and Handcock as instances of wrongful British power over Australian lives as illustrated in the 1980 Australian film
Breaker Morant (film).
A few Australians fought on the Boer side. http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/boer.htmThe most famous and colourful character was Colonel Arthur Alfred Lynch, formerly of
Ballarat, Victoria, who raised the Second Irish Brigade and appears in an Australian novel by Antony O'Brien called
Bye-Bye Dolly Gray.
Canada
See also Military history of Canada#Boer War
Canada in 1908
At first, Canadian Prime Minister
Wilfrid Laurier tried to keep
Canada out of the war. The Canadian government was divided between those, primarily French Canadians, who wished to stay out of the war and others, primarily
English Canadians, who wanted to join with Britain in her fight. In the end, Laurier compromised by agreeing to support the British by providing volunteers, equipment and transportation to South Africa. Britain would be responsible for paying the troops and returning them to Canada at the end of their service. The Boer War marked the first occasion in which large contingents of Canadian troops served abroad. The 1st Canadian Contingent was composed of 1000 men recruited from the Canadian Militia to form the 2nd (Special Service) Battalion of The Royal Canadian Regiment. This contingent served under the command of the Permanent Force officer William Dillon Otter.
The Battle of Paardeberg in February 1900 represented the second time Canadian Troops saw battle abroad (although there was a long tradition of Canadian service in the British Army and Royal Navy), the first being the Canadian involvement in the Nile Expedition of 1884-85.
Canadians also saw action at the Battle of Faber's Put on 30 May 1900.
On
November 7, 1900, the Royal Canadian Dragoons engaged the Boers in the Battle of Leliefontein, where they saved the British guns from capture during a retreat from the banks of the Komati River. The Royal Canadian Dragoons would have three
Victoria Cross winners:
Richard Ernest William Turner, Hampden Zane Churchill Cockburn, and
Edward James Gibson Holland.
Ultimately, over 8,600 Canadians volunteered to fight in the South African War. However, not all saw action since many landed in South Africa after the hostilities ended while others (including the 3rd (Special Service) Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment) performed garrison duty in City of Halifax, Nova Scotia so that their British counterparts could join at the front. The 2nd Battalion,
The Royal Canadian Regiment, took part in Bloody Sunday (1900), where at the Battle of Paardeberg the British and Canadian forces suffered more casualties than on any other day of the war. Later on, contingents of Canadians served with the paramilitary South Africa Constabulary. Approximately 277 Canadians died in the South Africa War: 89 men were killed in action, 135 died of disease, and the remainder died of accident or injury. 252 were wounded.
New Zealand
See also history of New Zealand#Second Boer War 1899 – 1902|Military hi
{{Infobox Military Conflict| conflict=Second Boer War| partof=the Boer Wars [guerrillas during the Second Boer War]| result=British victory| casus=| territory=Treaty of Vereeniging| combatant2= [Orange Free State South African Republic
[Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts| commander2= Paul Kruger
Louis Botha
Koos de la Rey
Martinus Theunis Steyn
Christiaan de Wet: Tweede Boerenoorlog, [Afrikaans: Tweede Vryheidsoorlog) , commonly referred to as The Boer War and also known as the South African War (outside of South Africa), the Anglo-Boer War (among most South Africans) and in Afrikaans as the Anglo-Boereoorlog or Tweede Vryheidsoorlog ("Second War of Independence"), was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May, 1902, between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic). After a wikt:protract, hard-fought war, the two independent republics were absorbed into the British Empire.
Background
The southern part of the African continent was dominated in the 19th century by a set of epic struggles to create within it a single unified state. The British attempt to annex Transvaal in 1880, and the Transavaal and the Orange Free State in 1899, was their biggest incursion into southern Africa, but there were others. In 1868, the British annexed Basutoland in the Drakensberg Mountains following an appeal from Moshesh, the leader of a mixed group of African refugees from the Zulu wars, who sought British protection against the Boers. In the 1880s, Bechuanaland (modern Botswana, located north of the Orange River) became the object of dispute between the Germans to the west, the Boers to the east, and Cape Colony to the south. Although Bechuanaland had no economic value, the "Missionaries Road" passed through it towards territory farther north. After the Germans annexed Damaraland and Namaqualand (modern Namibia) in 1884, the British annexed Bechuanaland in 1885.
“British imperialism, which often stalked its quarry with cultural and commercial feints before finally pulling down its prey through conquest and formal annexation, was for some time frustrated by the presence of the two independent Boer republics. Yet, within little more than a decade and half, the Orange Free State and the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek had both been subjugated in the course of the bloody South African War of 1899–1902” Modernization of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek: F. E. T. Krause, J. C. Smuts, and the Struggle for the Johannesburg Public Prosecutor's Office, 1898–1899 : Charles Van Onselen
With the 1886 discovery of gold in Transvaal, thousands of British and other prospectors and settlers streamed over the border from the Cape Colony (annexed by Britain earlier) and from across the globe. The city of Johannesburg sprang up as a shanty town nearly overnight as the uitlanders (foreigners) poured in and settled near the mines. The uitlanders rapidly outnumbered the Boers on the Witwatersrand, but remained a minority in the Transvaal as a whole. The Afrikaners, nervous and resentful of the uitlanders' presence, denied them voting rights and taxed the gold industry. The tax on a box of dynamite was five shillings ($0.50) of the cost of five pounds ($10). These mines consumed vast quantities of explosives and President Paul Kruger gave manufacturing monopoly rights to a non-British operation of the Nobel company, which infuriated the British. A.P.Cartwright, The Dynamite Company, Purnell & Sons, Cape Town, 1964. The so-called "dynamite monopoly" became a major pretext for war. However, one of the underlying irritants for war occurred in 1894–95 over the railway and tariffs problems. Kruger wanted to build a railway through Portuguese East Africa to Maputo Bay, bypassing British controlled ports in Natal and Cape Town and avoiding British tariffs.M. Nathan, Paul Kruger: His Life And Times, Knox, Durban, 1941. The Prime Minister of the Cape Colony was Cecil Rhodes, a man with a vision of a British controlled Africa extending from Cape to Cairo Road. Angered by these problems, pressure arose from the Uitlanders and the British mine owners to overthrow the Boer government. In 1895, Cecil Rhodes sponsored the failed coup d'état backed by an armed incursion, the Jameson Raid. Of this raid, Jan C. Smuts wrote in 1906, "The Jameson Raid was the real declaration of war...And that is so in spite of the four years of truce that followed... aggressors consolidated their alliance...the defenders on the other hand silently and grimly prepared for the inevitable."
Paul Kruger and the President Martinus Theunis Steyn of the Orange Free State both understood that the failed raid was the precursor to a war and commencing in 1896 placed orders for Mauser rifles R. Bester, Boer Rifles and Carbines of the Anglo-Boer War, War Museum of the Boer Republics, Bloemfontein, 1994. and German Krupp artillery.
The failure to gain improved rights for Britons became a pretext to manufacture a case for war and to justify a major military buildup in the Cape. The case for war was justified and espoused as far away as the Australian colonies.C.N. Connolly, 'Manufacturing Spontaneity' Several key British colonial leaders favoured annexation of the independent Boer republics. These figures included the Cape Colony governor Sir Alfred Milner, Cape Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes, British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain and mining syndicate owners or Randlords (nicknamed the gold bugs) such as Alfred Beit, Barney Barnato and Lionel Phillips. Confident that the Boers would be quickly defeated, they planned, schemed and organised to precipitate a war, based on the Uitlanders' real or imagined grievances.
President Steyn of the Orange Free State invited Milner and Kruger to attend a conference in Bloemfontein which started on 30 May 1899, but negotiations quickly broke down, despite Kruger's offer of concessions. In September 1899, Chamberlain sent an ultimatum demanding full equality for British citizens resident in Transvaal.
Kruger, seeing that war was inevitable, simultaneously issued his own ultimatum prior to receiving Chamberlain's. This gave the British 48 hours to withdraw all their troops from the border of Transvaal; otherwise the Transvaal, allied with the Orange Free State, would declare war.
News of the ultimatum reached London on the day it expired. Outrage and laughter were the main responses. The editor of the Times laughed out loud when he read it, saying 'an official document is seldom amusing and useful yet this was both'. The Times denounced the ultimatum as an 'extravagant farce', The Globe denounced this 'trumpery little state'. Most editorials were similar to the Daily Telegraph, which declared: 'of course there can only be one answer to this grotesque challenge. Kruger has asked for war and war he must have!'.
First phase: The Boer offensive (October – December, 1899)
War was declared on 11 October 1899. The Boers had no problems with mobilisation, since the Presidents of the Transvaal and Orange Free State simply signed decrees to concentrate within a week and the Commandos could muster between 30-40,000 men. Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War, p. 56 The Boers struck first by invading Cape Colony and Colony of Natal between October 1899 and January 1900. What the Boers presented was a mobile and innovative approach to warfare that had first appeared in the American Civil War. The average Burghers who made up their Commandos were farmers who had spent almost all their working life in the saddle, and because they had to depend on both their horse and their rifle they were skilled stalkers and marksmen, and became expert light cavalry. They could make use of every scrap of cover, from which they could pour in a destructive fire using their modern Mausers. They also had around one hundred of the latest Krupp field guns, all horse drawn and dispersed among the various Commando groups, and their skill in adapting themselves to first-rate artillerymen shows them to have been a versatile adversary. Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War, p. 30
There were early Boer military successes against the scattered British. The Boers were able to besiege the towns of Siege of Mafeking (defended by troops headed by Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell), and Siege of Kimberley (defended by troops headed by Lt-Col Kekewich) on the borders of the Transvaal. The major British concentration was in northern Colony of Natal under Sir George White. White's troops, who were dangerously dispersed, were defeated separately, and were besieged in Siege of Ladysmith.
Siege life took its toll on both the defending soldiers and the civilians in the cities of Mafeking, Ladysmith, and Kimberley as food began to grow scarce after a few weeks. In Mafeking, Sol Plaatje wrote, "I saw horseflesh for the first time being treated as a human foodstuff." The cities under siege also dealt with constant artillery bombardment, making the streets a dangerous place. Near the end of the siege of Kimberley, it was expected that the Boers would intensify their bombardment, so a notice was displayed encouraging people to go down into the mines for protection. The townspeople panicked, and people flowed into the mineshafts constantly for a 12-hour period. Although the bombardment never came, this did nothing to diminish the distress of the civilians. Many of the townspeople, now under siege, sheltered in the local convent, now the Mcgregor museum. Since the mining that occurred there, for diamonds, was open air, the people were not able to shelter in mine shafts. The mine is now known as the Big Hole, a popular tourist attraction in the area.
Major British reinforcements were arriving under General Redvers Henry Buller. He originally intended an offensive straight up the railway line leading from Cape Town through Bloemfontein to Pretoria. Finding on arrival that the British troops already in South Africa were under siege, he split his Army Corps into several widely spread detachments, to relieve the besieged garrisons.
British commanders had trained on the lessons of the Crimean War, and could adapt themselves to battalion and regimental columns manoeuvring in jungles, deserts and mountainous regions; what they entirely failed to comprehend was the trench fighting and cavalry raids of the American Civil War. The British troops went to war with what would prove to be antiquated tactics, and in some cases antiquated weapons Field Marshal Lord Carver, The Boer War, pp. 259-262, against the mobile Boer forces with the destructive fire of their modern Mausers, the latest Krupp field guns and their innovative tactics.
The middle of December was disastrous for the British army. In a period known as Black Week (10 – 15 December 1899), the British suffered a series of devastating losses at Battle of Magersfontein, Battle of Stormberg, and Battle of Colenso.
At the Battle of Stormberg on 10 December, William Forbes Gatacre, who was in command of 3,000 troops protecting against Boer raids in Cape Colony, tried to recapture a railway junction about 50 miles south of the Orange River. But Gatacre chose to assault the Orange Free State Boer positions surmounting a precipitous rock face in which he lost 135 killed and wounded, as well as two guns and over 600 troops captured.
At the Battle of Magersfontein on 11 December, 14,000 British troops, under the command of Paul Sanford Methuen, 3rd Baron Methuen, attempted to fight their way to relieve Kimberley. The Boer commanders, Koos de la Rey and Piet Cronje, devised a plan to dig trenches in an unconventional place to fool the British and to give their riflemen a greater firing range. The plan worked and this tactic helped write the doctrine of the supremacy of the defensive position, using modern small arms and trench fortifications. 'Historical Overview' in Antony O'Brien, Bye-Bye Dolly Gray At Magersfontein, the British were decisively defeated, suffering the loss of 120 British soldiers killed and 690 wounded, which prevented them from relieving Kimberley and Mafeking.
"Such was the day for our regimentDread the revenge we will take. Dearly we paid for the blunder -A drawing-room General’s mistake. Why weren’t we told of the trenches?Why weren’t we told of the wire? Why were we marched up in column, May Tommy Atkins enquire…." From the "Battle of Magersfontein," verse by Private Smith of the Black Watch December 1899. Quoted in, ‘Thomas Pakenham’s "The Boer War," page 115.
But the nadir of Black Week was the Battle of Colenso on 15 December where 21,000 British troops commanded by Buller himself, attempted to cross the Tugela River to relieve Ladysmith where 8,000 Transvaal Boers, under the command of Louis Botha, were awaiting them. Through a combination of artillery and accurate rifle fire, the Boers repelled all British attempts to cross the river. The British had a further 1,126 casualties, and lost 10 artillery pieces to the Boers during the ensuing retreat. The Boer forces suffered 40 casualties.
Second phase: The British offensive of January to September 1900
greets Major Hubert Gough on 28 February. Painting by John Henry Frederick Bacon (1868 – 1914)The British suffered further defeats in their attempts to relieve Ladysmith at the Battle of Spion Kop of 19 to 24 January 1900, where Buller again attempted to cross the Tugela west of Colenso and was defeated again by Louis Botha after a hard-fought battle for a prominent hill feature which resulted in a further 1,000 British casualties and nearly 300 Boer casualties. Buller attacked Botha again on 5 February at Vaal Krantz and was again defeated.
By taking command in person in Natal, Buller allowed the overall direction of the war to drift. Because of concerns about his performance and negative reports from the field, he was replaced as Commander in Chief by Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts. Roberts first intended like Buller to attack directly along the Cape Town - Pretoria railway but, again like Buller, was forced to relieve the beleaguered garrisons. Leaving Buller in command in Natal, Roberts massed further reinforcements near the Orange River and on 14 February 1900, he launched a major attack to relieve Kimberley. The city was relieved on 15 February by a cavalry division under John French, 1st Earl of Ypres. At the Battle of Paardeberg on 18 February to 27 February 1900, Roberts then surrounded General Piet Cronje's retreating Boer army, and forced him to surrender with 4000 men after a siege lasting a week. Meanwhile, Buller at last succeeded in forcing a crossing of the Tugela, and defeated Botha's outnumbered forces north of Colenso, allowing the Siege of Ladysmith#The later Siege and Relief the day after Cronje surrendered.
Roberts then advanced into the Orange Free State from the west, capturing Bloemfontein, the capital, on March 13. Meanwhile, he detached a small force to relieve Baden-Powell, and the Relief of Mafeking on May 18 1900 provoked riotous celebrations in Britain.
After being forced to delay for several weeks at Bloemfontein due to shortage of supplies and enteric fever (caused by poor hygiene, drinking bad water at Paardeburg and appalling medical care), Roberts resumed his advance. He was forced to halt again at Kroonstad for 10 days, due once again to the collapse of his medical and supply systems, then finally captured Johannesburg on May 31 and the capital of the Transvaal, Pretoria, on June 5. (Before the war, the Boers had constructed several forts south of Pretoria, but the artillery had been removed from the forts for use in the field, and in the event the Boers abandoned Pretoria without a fight.)
British observers believed the war to be all but over after the capture of the two capital cities. However, the Boers had earlier met at the temporary new capital of the Orange Free State, Kroonstad, and planned a guerrilla warfare campaign to hit the British supply and communication lines. The first engagement of this new form of warfare was at Sanna's Post on 31 March where 1,500 Boers under the command of Christiaan De Wet attacked Bloemfontein's waterworks about 23 miles east of the city, and ambushed a heavily escorted convoy which resulted in 155 British casualties and the capture of seven guns, 117 wagons and 428 British troops.N. G. Speed, Born to Fight
After the fall of Pretoria, one of the last formal battles was at Battle of Diamond Hill on 11 – 12 June, where Roberts attempted to drive the remnants of the Boer field army beyond striking distance of Pretoria. Although Roberts drove the Boers from the hill, the Boer commander, Louis Botha, did not regard it as a defeat, for he inflicted more casualties on the British (totalling 162 men) while suffering around 50 casualties.
The set-piece period of the war now largely gave way to a mobile guerrilla war, but one final operation remained. President Kruger and what remained of the Transvaal government had retreated to eastern Transvaal. Roberts, joined by troops from Natal under Buller, advanced against them, and broke their last defensive position at Battle of Bergendal on August 26. As Roberts and Buller followed up along the railway line to Komatipoort, Kruger sought asylum in Portuguese East Africa (modern Mozambique). Some dispirited Boers did likewise, and the British gathered up much war material. However, the core of the Boer fighters under Botha easily broke back through the Drakensberg mountains into the Transvaal highveld after riding north through the bushveld. Under the new conditions of the war, heavy equipment was no use to them, and therefore no great loss.
In October, Kruger and members of the Transvaal government left South Africa on the Dutch warship De Gelderland, sent by the Queen of the Netherlands Wilhelmina, which had simply ignored the British naval blockade of South Africa. His wife was too ill to travel and remained in South Africa; she died on 20 July 1901. Kruger went to Marseille and stayed for a while in The Netherlands, before moving to Clarens, Switzerland, where he died in exile on 14 July 1904.
Third phase: Guerrilla war (September 1900 – May 1902)
, 24th Jan. 1900.By September 1900, the British were nominally in control of both Republics, except for the northern part of Transvaal. They however found that they only controlled the ground their columns physically occupied. The Boer commanders adopted a guerrilla style of warfare. The commandos were sent to their own districts where they had local support and the knowledge of the terrain, towns and district and could live off the land. Their orders were simply to act against the British whenever possible. Their strategy was to strike fast and hard causing as much damage to the enemy as possible, and then to withdraw and vanish before enemy reinforcements could arrive. The vast distances of the Republics allowed the Boer commandos considerable freedom to move about and made it impossible for the 250,000 British troops to control the territory effectively using columns alone. As soon as the British columns left a town or district, British control of that area faded away.
The Boers were initially especially effective during the guerrilla phase of the war because Roberts had assumed that the war would end with the capture of the Boer capitals and the dispersal of the main Boer armies. Many British troops were redeployed, and replaced by lower-quality contingents of Yeomanry and locally-raised irregular corps.
Western Transvaal
The Boer commandos in the Western Transvaal were very active after September 1901. Several battles of importance were fought here between September 1901 and March 1902. At Moedwil on 30 September 1901 and again at Driefontein on 24 October, Gen. De la Rey’s forces attacked the British, but were forced to withdraw after the British offered strong resistance.
A time of relative quiet descended thereafter on the western Transvaal. February 1902 saw the next major battle in that region. On 25 February De la Rey attacked a British column at Ysterspruit near Wolmaransstad. De la Rey succeeded in capturing the column and a large amount of ammunition.The Boer attacks prompted Lord Methuen, the British second-in-command after Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, to move his column from Vryburg to Klerksdorp to deal with De la Rey. On the morning of 7 March 1902, the Boers attacked the rear guard of Methuen’s moving column at Tweebosch. Confusion reigned in British ranks and Methuen was wounded and captured by the Boers.The Boer victories in the west led to stronger action by the British. In the second half of March 1902, large British reinforcements were sent to the Western Transvaal. The opportunity the British were waiting for arose on 11 April 1902 at Battle of Rooiwal, where the combined forces of Gens. Grenfell, Kekewich and Von Donop came into contact with the forces of Gen. Kemp. The British soldiers were well positioned on the mountainside and inflicted severe casualties on the Boers charging on horseback over a large distance, beating them back.
This was the end of the war in the Western Transvaal and also the last major battle of the Anglo-Boer War.
Orange Free State
While the British occupied Pretoria, the Boer fighters in the Orange Free State had been driven into a fertile area in the north east of the Republic, known as the Brandwater Basin. This offered only temporary sanctuary, as the mountain passes leading to it could be occupied by the British, trapping the Boers. A force under General Hunter set out from Bloemfontein to achieve this in July 1900. The hard core of the Boers under Christiaan de Wet, accompanied by President Steyn, left the basin early. Those remaining fell into confusion and most failed to break out before Hunter trapped them. 4,500 Boers surrendered and much equipment was captured, but as with Robert's drive against Kruger at the same time, these losses were of relatively little consequence, as the hard core of the Boer armies and their most determined and active leaders remained at large.
From the Basin, de Wet headed west. Although hounded by British columns, he succeeded in crossing the Vaal into the Western Transvaal, to allow Steyn to travel to meet the Transvaal leaders.
Returning to the Orange Free State, de Wet inspired a series of attacks and raids from the hitherto quiet western part of the country. Many Boers who had earlier returned to their farms, sometimes giving formal parole to the British, took up arms again. In late January 1901, De Wet led a renewed invasion of Cape Colony. This was less successful, because there was no general uprising among the Cape Boers, and de Wet's men were hampered by bad weather and relentlessly pursued by British forces. They escaped across the Orange River, almost by a miracle.
From then until the final days of the war, de Wet remained comparatively quiet, partly because the Orange Free State was effectively left desolate by British sweeps. In late 1901, De Wet overran an isolated British detachment at Groenkop, inflicting heavy casualties. This prompted Kitchener to launch the first of the "New Model" drives against him.
The British had first erected lines of blockhouses to protect the railway lines. They now built fresh lines of these, linked by barbed wire fences, to prevent free Boer movement across the veld. They also allowed "New Model" drives. Unlike the earlier inefficient scouring of the countryside by scattered columns, a continuous line of troops could now effectively sweep an area of veld bounded by blockhouse lines.
De Wet escaped the first such drive, but lost 300 of his fighters. This was a severe loss, and a portent of further such attrition.
Eastern Transvaal
Two Boer forces fought in this area; under Botha in the south east and Ben Viljoen in the north east. Botha's forces were particularly active, raiding railways and even mounting a renewed invasion of Natal in September, 1901. After defeating British mounted infantry near Dundee, Botha was forced to withdraw by heavy rains which made movement difficult and crippled his horses. Back in the Transvaal, he attacked a British raiding column at Bakenlaagte. This made his forces the target of increasingly large and ruthless drives by British forces, and eventually, he had to abandon the high veld and retreat to a narrow enclave bordering Swaziland.
To the north, Ben Viljoen grew steadily less active. His forces mounted comparatively few attacks and as a result, the Boer enclave around Lydenburg was largely unmolested. Viljoen was eventually captured.
Cape Colony
After he escaped across the Orange in March 1901, de Wet had left forces under Cape rebels Kritzinger and Scheepers to maintain a guerrilla campaign in the Cape Midlands. The campaign here was one of the least chivalrous, with intimidation by both sides of each other's civilian sympathisers. Several captured rebels, including Scheepers, were executed for treason by the British, some in public. In most cases though, the executions were ostensibly for capital crimes such as the murder of prisoners or of unarmed civilians.
Fresh Boer forces under Jan Christiaan Smuts, joined by the surviving rebels under Kritzinger, made another attack on the Cape in September 1901. They suffered severe hardships and were hard pressed by British columns, but eventually rescued themselves by routing some of their pursuers and capturing their equipment.
From then until the end of the war, Smuts increased his forces until they numbered 3,000. However, no general uprising took place, and the situation in the Cape remained stalemated.
Final days of the War
Towards the end of the war, British drives and offensives became more successful. Kitchener's forces at last began to seriously affect the Boers' fighting strength and freedom of manoeuvre. The lines of fortified blockhouses connected by wire fences parceled up the wide veld into smaller areas that could be regularly swept and controlled. The British "Scorched Earth" policy of sweeping the country bare of everything that could give sustenance to the guerrillas (including interning women and children in concentration camps, destroying crops, burning down homesteads and farms, poisoning wells, and salting fields)also took its toll and made it harder and harder for the Boers to survive. The British established their own raiding mounted columns to follow and relentlessly harass the Boers. The British columns were able to draw on intelligence compiled from information obtained from observers in the blockhouses, and units patrolling the fences and conductng "sweeper" operations. Also, native Africans in rural areas increasingly provided intelligence as the Scorched Earth policy took effect and they found themselves competing with the Boers for food supplies.
The counterinsurgency techniques and lessons learnt from the Boer War were used by the British in future guerilla campaigns including to counter Malayan communist rebels during the Malayan Emergency.
The concentration camps
The English term "concentration camp" was first used to describe camps operated by the United Kingdom in South Africa during this conflict.
These had originally been set up as "refugee camps" by the Army for families whose farms had been destroyed by the British under their "Scorched Earth" policy (sweeping the country bare of everything that could give sustenance to the guerrillas, including women and children, and including destroying crops, burning down homesteads and farms, poisoning wells, and salting fields) and thousands of Boers and black Africans had already been brought into them. Kitchener succeeded Roberts as commander-in-chief in South Africa in November 29, 1900 and in an attempt to break the guerilla campaign, initiated plans to "flush out guerrillas in a series of sytematic drives, organized like a sporting shoot, with success defined in a weekly 'bag' of killed, captured and wounded, and to sweep the country bare of everything that could give sustenance to the guerrillas, including women and children. . . . It was the clearance of civilians -- uprooting a whole nation -- that would come to dominate the last phase of the war."Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War. Following Kitchener's new policy, more camps were built and converted to prisons and many tens of thousands more women and children were forcibly moved to prevent the Boers from resupplying at their homes.
This was not the first appearance of internment camps. The Spain used them in the Ten Years' War that later led to the Spanish-American War, and the United States used them to devastate guerrilla forces during the Philippine-American War. But the concentration camp system of the British was on a much larger scale and upon a sytematic basis.
Boer internees were separately held from black Africans. There were a total of 45 tented camps built for Boer internees and 64 for black Africans. Of the 28,000 Boer men captured as prisoners of war, 25,630 were sent overseas. The vast majority of Boers remaining in the local camps were women and children, but the camps established for black Africans held large numbers of men as well. A number of the black African internees were used as a paid labour force as they were not considered by the British to be hostile, although they had been forcibly removed from Boer areas. The majority of the black African internees however languished in the camps and suffered a high mortality rate.
The camps were overcrowded and badly administered. Conditions were very unhealthy with poor hygiene. The food rations were meager, and wives and children of men who were still fighting were routinely given smaller rations than others. The inadequate shelter, poor diet, inadequate hygiene and crowding led to malnutrition and endemic contagious diseases such as measles, typhoid and dysentery. Coupled with a shortage of medical facilities, this led to large numbers of deaths. This was exacerbated in March 1901 when Kitchener's troops implemented the internment strategy on a wide scale bringing tens of thousands of additional Boer and black African civilians into the already overcrowded and disease ridden camps.
Although the United Kingdom general election, 1900, also known as the "Khaki election", had resulted in a victory for the Conservative Party (UK) government on the back of recent British victories against the Boers, public support quickly waned as it became apparent that the war would not be easy and unease developed following reports about the treatment by the Army of the Boer civilians. Public and political opposition to Government policies in South Africa regarding Boer civilian was first expressed in Parliament in February 1901 in the form of an attack on the policy, the government, and the Army by the radical Liberal M.P. Lloyd-George.
Emily Hobhouse, a delegate of the South African Women and Children's Distress Fund, visited some of the camps in the Orange Free State from January 1901 and in May, 1901 she returned to England on board the ship, the Saxon. Lord Milner, High Commissioner in South Africa, also boarded the Saxon for holiday in England but, unfortunately for both the camp internees and the British government, had no time for Miss Hobhouse, regarding her as a Boer sympathizer and "trouble maker." Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War, pp. 531-32, 536+ On her return Emily Hobhouse did much to publicize the distress of the camp inmates, speaking to members of the Government and Opposition and publishing a fifteen-page report. Her report caused uproar both domestically and in the international community. In response, the Government called on Kitchener for information and in July 1901 complete statistical returns from camps were sent. By August 1901 it was clear to Government and Opposition alike that Miss Hobhouse's worst fears were being confirmed - 93,940 Boers and 24,457 black Africans were reported to be in "camps of refuge" and the crisis was becoming a catatrophe as the death rates appeared very high, especially amongst the children. The Government responded by appointing a commission, the Millicent Fawcett Commission, which visited camps from August to December 1901. However this was also highly critical of the running of the camps, making numerous recommendations, including improvements in diet and provision of proper medical facilities.
Following the report of the Fawcett Commission, its recommendations were implemented and by February 1902, the annual death-rate in the concentration camps for white inmates dropped to 6.9% and eventually it dropped to 2%. "Improvements were much slower in coming to the black camps." Ferguson, N. (2002). Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power. Basic Books p.235. However, by then the damage had been done. A report after the war concluded that 27,927 Boers (of whom 24,074 of the Boer child population were children under 16) and 14,154 black Africans had died of starvation, disease and exposure in the concentration camps. In all, about one in four (25%) of the Boer inmates, mostly children, died. It is thought that about 12% of black African inmates died but the precise number of deaths of black Africans in concentration camps is unknown as little attempt was made to keep any records of the number of deaths of the 107,000 black Africans who were interned.
"This was not a deliberately genocidal policy; rather it was the result of disastrous lack of foresight and rank incompetence on part of the military" Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order, p. 250. "Kitchener no more desired the deaths of women and children in the camps than of the wounded Dervishes after Omdurman, or of his own soldiers in the typhoid stricken hospitals of Bloemfontein." Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War, p. 524. However “…the main decisions (or their absence) had been left to the soldiers, to whom the life or death of the 154,000 Boer and African civilians in the camps rated as an abysmally low priority. was only ... ten months after the subject had first been raised in Parliament… after public outcry and after the Fawcett Commission that ... the terrible mortality figures were at last declining. In the interval, at least twenty thousand whites and twelve thousand coloured people had died in the concentration camps, the majority from epidemics of measles and typhoid that could have been avoided.” Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War p. 549) Somewhat higher figures for total deaths in the concentration camps are given by S.B. Spies. Methods of Barbarism: Roberts and Kitchener and Civilians in the Boer Republics January 1900 - May 1902. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 1977p. 265.
POWs sent overseas
The first sizable batch of Boer prisoners of war taken by the British consisted of those captured at the Battle of Elandslaagte on 21 October 1899. At first many were put on ships, but as numbers grew, the British decided they didn't want them kept locally. The capture of 400 POWs in February 1900 was a key event, which made the British realise they could not accommodate all POWs in South Africa. The British feared they could be freed by sympathetic locals. They already had trouble supplying their own troops in South Africa, and did not want the added burden of sending supplies for the POWs. Britain therefore chose to send many POWs overseas.
The first overseas (off African mainland) camps were opened in Saint Helena, which ultimately received about 5,000 POWs. About 5,000 POWs were sent to Sri Lanka. Other POWs were sent to Bermuda and India. Some POWs were even sent outside the British Empire, with 1443 Boers (mostly POWs) sent to Portugal. No evidence exists of Boer POWs being sent to the United Kingdoms's "white" allied countries such as Australia, Canada or New Zealand.
The end of the war
The British offered terms of peace on various occasions, notably in March 1901, but were rejected by Botha. The last of the Boers surrendered in May 1902 and the war ended with the Treaty of Vereeniging signed on signed on 31 May 1902. Although the British had won, this came at a cost; the Boers were given £3,000,000 for reconstruction and were promised eventual limited self-government granted in 1906 and 1907. The treaty ended the existence of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State as independent Boer republics and placed them within the British Empire. The Union of South Africa was established as a member of the Commonwealth in 1910.
In all, the war had cost around 75,000 lives; 22,000 British soldiers (7,792 battle casualties, the rest through disease), between 6,000 and 7,000 Boer soldiers, and, mainly in the concentration camps, between 20,000 to 28,000 Boer civilians (mainly women and children) and perhaps 20,000 black Africans (both on the battlefield and in the concentration camps).
The Second Boer War cast long shadows over the history of the region. The predominantly agrararian Boer society of the former Afrikaner-Dutch republics was profoundly and fundamentally affected by the scorched earth policy of Roberts and Kitchner, and the devastation of the Boer population in the concentration camps and through war and enforced exile. Many were unable to return to the farms at all; others attempted to do so but were forced to abandon the farms as unworkable given the damage caused by farm burning and salting of the fields in the course of the scorched earth policy, and given the decimation of family members. Destitute Boers swelled the ranks of the unskilled urban poor competing with the "uitlanders" on the mines. Charles van Onselen, Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand, 1886-1914, c. 1, New Babylon, (London, 1982)
The postwar reconstruction administration was presided over by Alfred (Lord) Milner and his largely Oxford trained "kindergarten". “In the aftermath of the war, an imperial administration freed from accountability to a domestic electorate set about reconstructing an economy that was by then predicated unambiguously on gold. At the same time, British civil servants, municipal officials, and their cultural adjuncts were hard at work in the heartland of the former Afrikaner-Dutch republics helping to forge new identities—first as "British South Africans" and then, later still, as white "South Africans." Some scholars, for good reasons, identify these new identities as partly underpinning the act of union that followed in 1910. Although challenged by an Afrikaner rebellion only four years later, they did much to shape South African politics between the two world wars and right up to the present day”. The Modernization of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek: F. E. T. Krause, J. C. Smuts, and the Struggle for the Johannesburg Public Prosecutor's Office, 1898–1899Charles Van Onselen
The Boers referred to the two wars as the Freedom Wars. The hard core of Boers who fought to the end and wanted to continue the fight were known as "bittereinders" (or irreconcilables) and at the end of the war a number of Boer fighters such as Deneys Reitz chose exile rather than sign an undertaking that they would abide by the peace terms. Over the following decade, many returned to South Africa and never signed the undertaking. Some, like Reitz, eventually reconciled themselves to the new status quo, but others could not. At the start of World War I a crisis ensued when the South African Government led by Louis Botha and including other former Boer fighters such as Jan Smuts, declared for Britain and agreed to send troops to take over the German colony of South West Africa (Namibia). Many Boers were opposed to fighting for Britain, especially against Germany which had been sympathetic to their struggle. A number of bittereinders and their allies took part in a revolt known as the Maritz Rebellion. This was quickly suppressed and in 1916, the leading Boer rebels in the Maritz Rebellion got off lightly (especially compared with the fate of leading Irish rebels of the Easter Rising#Men executed for their role in the Easter Rising), with terms of imprisonment of six and seven years and heavy fines. Two years later, they were released from prison, as Louis Botha recognised the value of reconciliation. Thereafter the bittereinders concentrated on political organisation within the constitutional system and built up what later became the National Party (South Africa) which took power in 1948 and dominated the politics of South Africa from the late 1940s until the early 1990s, under the apartheid system.
During the conflict, 78 Victoria Crosses (VC) — the highest and most prestigious award in the British armed forces for bravery in the face of the enemy — were awarded to British and Colonial soldiers. See List of Boer War Victoria Cross recipients.
Effect of the war on domestic British politics
The war highlighted the dangers of Britain's policy of non-alignment and deepened her isolation. The United Kingdom general election, 1900, also known as the "Khaki election", was called by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, on the back of recent British victories. There was much enthusiasm for the war at this point, resulting in a victory for the Conservative Party (UK) government.
However, public support quickly waned as it became apparent that the war would not be easy and it dragged on, partially contributing to the Conservatives' spectacular defeat in 1906. There was public outrage at the use of scorched earth tactics — the forced clearance of women and children, the destruction of the countryside, burning of Boer homesteads and poisoning of wells, for example — and the conditions in the concentration camps. It also became apparent that there were serious problems with public health in Britain: up to 40% of recruits in Britain were unfit for conscription, suffering from medical problems such as rickets and other poverty-related illnesses. This came at a time of increasing concern for the state of the poor in Britain.
The importing to South Africa and use (especially on the gold mines) of China labour , known as Coolies, after the war by the governor of the new crown colony, Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner as cheap labour to repress local workers and break strikes, also caused much revulsion in the UK and Australia. The Chinese workers were themselves often kept in appalling conditions, receiving only a small wage and isolated from the local population — revelations of homosexuality acts between those forbidden contact with the local population and the services of prostitution led to further public shock. Some believe the Chinese slavery issue can be seen as the climax of public antipathy with the war.
Many Irish nationalists sympathised with the Boers, seeing them as a people oppressed by British imperialism, much like themselves. Irish miners already in the Transvaal at the start of the war formed the nucleus of two Irish commandos. The Second Irish Brigade was headed up by an Australian of Irish parents, Colonel Arthur Alfred Lynch. In addition, small groups of Irish volunteers went to South Africa to fight with the Boers — this despite the fact that there were many Irish troops fighting with the British army."Although some 30,000 Irishmen served in the British Army under Irish General Lord Frederick Roberts, who had been Commander of Chief of British Forces in Ireland prior to his transfer to South Africa, some historians argue that the sympathies of many of their compatriots lay with the Boers. Nationalist-controlled local authorities passed pro-Boer resolutions and there were proposals to confer civic honours on Boer leader, Paul Kruger." (Irish Ambassador Daniel Mulhall written for History Ireland, 2004.) In Britain, the "Pro-Boer" campaign expanded,Lloyd George and Keir Hardie were members of the Stop the War Committee (See the founder's biography: William T. Stead's.) Many British authors gave their "Pro-Boer" opinions in British press, such as G. K. Chesterton's writing to 1905 — see Rice University Chesterton's poetry analysis with writers often idealizing the Boer society.
Empire involvement
See also History of the British Army#South Africa
The vast majority of troops fighting for the United Kingdom came from the UK. However, in the Second Boer War (South Africa War 1899-1902) a number did come from other parts of the Empire. These countries had their own internal disputes over whether they should remain tied to the United Kingdom, or have full independence, which carried over into the debate around the sending of forces to assist the United Kingdom. Though not fully independent on foreign affairs, these countries did have local say over how much support to provide, and the manner in which it would be provided. Ultimately, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all sent volunteers to aid the United Kingdom. Australia provided the largest number of troops followed by Canada. Troops were also raised to fight with the British from the Cape Colony and the Colony of Natal. Some Boers fighters such as Jan Smuts and Louis Botha were technically British subjects as they came from the Cape Colony and Colony of Natal respectively.
Australia
See also History of the Australian Army#Boer War 1899 – 1902
The Australian climate and geography were far closer to that of South Africa than most other parts of the empire, so Australians could adapt quickly to service in the war. Initially the British army wanted trained foot-soldiers from Australia rather than mounted infantry.
From 1899 to 1901 the six separate self-governing colony in Australia sent their own contingents. The colonies formed the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, and the new federal government sent "Commonwealth" contingents to the war.See Craig Wilcox, Australia's Boer War The Boer War was thus the first war in which the Commonwealth of Australia fought.
Enlistment in all Australian contingents totalled 16,175, though about a thousand men did a second tour of duty. A total of 267 died from disease, 251 were killed in action or died from wounds sustained in battle. A further 43 men were reported missing. Another five to seven thousand Australians served in "irregular" regiments raised in South Africa. Perhaps five hundred Australian irregulars were killed. In total, then, twenty thousand or more Australians served and about a thousand were killed.
Australian troops served mostly among the army's "mounted rifles".
When the war began some Australians, like some Britons, opposed it. As the war dragged on some Australians became disenchanted, in part because the sufferings of Boer civilians were reported in the press. In an interesting twist (for Australians), when the British missed capturing President Paul Kruger, as he escaped Pretoria during its fall in June 1900, a Melbourne Punch, 21 June 1900, cartoon depicted how the War could be won, using the Kelly Gang. Wilcox, p. 103.
The convictions and executions of two Australians, Lieutenants Breaker Morant and Peter Handcock in 1902, and the imprisonment of a third, George Witton, had little impact on the Australian public at the time despite later legend. After the war, though, Australians joined an empire-wide campaign that saw Witton released from gaol. Much later, Australians came to see the execution of Morant and Handcock as instances of wrongful British power over Australian lives as illustrated in the 1980 Australian film Breaker Morant (film).
A few Australians fought on the Boer side. http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/boer.htmThe most famous and colourful character was Colonel Arthur Alfred Lynch, formerly of Ballarat, Victoria, who raised the Second Irish Brigade and appears in an Australian novel by Antony O'Brien called Bye-Bye Dolly Gray.
Canada
See also Military history of Canada#Boer War
Canada in 1908
At first, Canadian Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier tried to keep Canada out of the war. The Canadian government was divided between those, primarily French Canadians, who wished to stay out of the war and others, primarily English Canadians, who wanted to join with Britain in her fight. In the end, Laurier compromised by agreeing to support the British by providing volunteers, equipment and transportation to South Africa. Britain would be responsible for paying the troops and returning them to Canada at the end of their service. The Boer War marked the first occasion in which large contingents of Canadian troops served abroad. The 1st Canadian Contingent was composed of 1000 men recruited from the Canadian Militia to form the 2nd (Special Service) Battalion of The Royal Canadian Regiment. This contingent served under the command of the Permanent Force officer William Dillon Otter.
The Battle of Paardeberg in February 1900 represented the second time Canadian Troops saw battle abroad (although there was a long tradition of Canadian service in the British Army and Royal Navy), the first being the Canadian involvement in the Nile Expedition of 1884-85.
Canadians also saw action at the Battle of Faber's Put on 30 May 1900.
On November 7, 1900, the Royal Canadian Dragoons engaged the Boers in the Battle of Leliefontein, where they saved the British guns from capture during a retreat from the banks of the Komati River. The Royal Canadian Dragoons would have three Victoria Cross winners: Richard Ernest William Turner, Hampden Zane Churchill Cockburn, and Edward James Gibson Holland.
Ultimately, over 8,600 Canadians volunteered to fight in the South African War. However, not all saw action since many landed in South Africa after the hostilities ended while others (including the 3rd (Special Service) Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment) performed garrison duty in City of Halifax, Nova Scotia so that their British counterparts could join at the front. The 2nd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment, took part in Bloody Sunday (1900), where at the Battle of Paardeberg the British and Canadian forces suffered more casualties than on any other day of the war. Later on, contingents of Canadians served with the paramilitary South Africa Constabulary. Approximately 277 Canadians died in the South Africa War: 89 men were killed in action, 135 died of disease, and the remainder died of accident or injury. 252 were wounded.
New Zealand
See also history of New Zealand#Second Boer War 1899 – 1902|Military hi
The Boer Wars - Second Boer War - Detail
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