A brief history of the Second Boer War

On the 15 th December the third column heading from Durban, led by Buller himself, encountered the Boers, who in turn were led by Louis Botha, at Colenso. The British third column numbered around 21, men but was driven back by the Boers concealed in difficult terrain. The British had all of its artillery captured and sustained losses of men killed, men wounded, and men captured.

Boer casualties, at around 50, were negligible, as they had been in the previous two encounters. Buller, who retained his local command, was replaced by Field Marshal Viscount Roberts, with General Kitchener as his chief of staff. The two rapidly reorganised the British forces to counter Boer mobility, and Buller made another attempt to finally relieve Ladysmith. He divided his force into two; one, led by General Warren, attempted to take control of the commanding heights of Spion Kop to the west of Ladysmith, the balance being held in reserve. On the night of the 24 th January men scaled the hill but discovered in daylight that they could not dig in, had no sandbags, and, worse, were overlooked by Boer artillery.

The British came under heavy fire, which they could not return, but reinforcements allowed them to keep the hill despite a Boer attempt to scale the hill and engage them at close quarters. By the evening both sides were exhausted and withdrew, the Boers then regrouped taking the abandoned summit and allowed Buller to retreat.

Buller himself eventually managed to relieve Ladysmith on the 28 th February. After the British had burned Boer farms and destroyed their crops to deny Boer fighters food and shelter, General Kitchener set up a series of refugee camps to accommodate Boer civilians who had become displaced.

They were the first camps to be known as concentration camps and served as a chilling precursor for what was to follow in the 20th century. Conditions were appalling and food rations meagre, leading to the deaths from starvation, disease and exposure of 27, Boers, of whom 24, were under half of the Boer child population.

Meanwhile, Roberts had helped free Kimberley in mid-February and then decided to strike at the Boer capitals. A strong British force led by Kitchener trapped a slightly smaller Boer force on Paardeberg hill and attacked it directly, suffering more than casualties before Kitchener withdrew. Roberts then took command and subjected the Boers to an artillery barrage before they submitted.

He then marched on Bloemfontein, the Orange Free State capital, which he took on the 13 th March before heading north to Transvaal to take Johannesburg on the 31 st May and Pretoria on the 5 th June. As Roberts forged ahead, the siege of Mafeking, which had been in progress since the start of the war, was over.

Defended by Colonel Baden-Powell, the town was relieved on the 17 th May The Boers, having all but lost the war, turned to guerrilla tactics. They sabotaged railway communications, attacked isolated outposts, and ambushed British troops. The British responded by starting a scorched earth policy that burned farms to deny the rebels food and moved the displaced civilians into concentration camps. Faced with such harsh measures, the Boers capitulated, signing a peace treaty in May The aforementioned peace treaty was signed at Vereeniging on the Transvaal-Orange Free State border and was quite lenient on the Boers.

The two Boer republics accepted British sovereignty and the promise of future self-government, which both republics gained in For the British meanwhile, it had taken more than , imperial troops to defeat a far smaller number of Boers. Army reforms were desperately needed. Richard Haldane, Secretary of State for War from to , created a British Expeditionary Force ready to fight overseas at any time, and a Territorial Force that amalgamated all voluntary local militia forces into a single home defence force. The wisdom of these reforms was proved in the opening months of World War I.

The war had revealed Britain to be isolated diplomatically, with most nations supporting the Boers. Britain therefore moved to secure an alliance with Japan in and an entente, or understanding with France in that settled outstanding colonial differences between the two nations. In the first in a series of confidential military conversations took place between their military staff in order to determine a common strategy in the event of a war against Germany.

An entente with Russia, similar to that with France, was signed in Sign in or sign up and post using a HubPages Network account. Comments are not for promoting your articles or other sites. The lesson for most of us is Not to become enmeshed in wars. War and violence is not healthy for the individual.

You can generally see war and violence coming. Thanks for an interesting hub on a war which is often overlooked, especially its relevance to the changing political landscape leading to WWI. Congratulations on HOTD, well deserved. Learn from this and other wars not to become enmeshed in them. People will fight one another forever, learn to move away from the violence and subsequent repercussions. You are not a tree, Move! No Empire really looked good in history especially when viewed today.

The lesson is not to become enmeshed in war at all. Do not pick sides, do not assign blame, just stay out of it. As individuals we have little or no say in politics, so avoid harm.

• African History: The Second Boer War | Owlcation.
• On this page.
• South African War | Definition, Causes, History, & Facts | www.newyorkethnicfood.com.
• En Medio De La Tormenta (Spanish Edition).
• Boer War begins in South Africa - HISTORY.
• BBC - History - The Boer Wars;
• The Prefabricated Home.

When I was a child, 7 or 8 I used to take after dinner walks at my grandmother's with Ned. I remember Ned as a big man, both in height and girth. I realize that a 7 year old might see any man as tall, but my grandmother assures me that Ned was over 6'4" tall.

I later learned that Ned had been born in England. While we walked he would tell me stories about his adventures in the Boer wars, though he didn't identify them as such. It was only later I learned that the stories he told me had to do with the Boer Wars. My grandmother told me that Ned was a young officer in the wars and when he returned to England, he resigned his commission and immigrated to America. I remember little of the stories he told me, only that he told them well and was able to keep a 7 year old captivated.

That would have been around I like the article, it gave me some perspective on Ned. I always remember him as a warm man. Congratulations for being selected HOTD. This hub is well researched. Yes, there was animosity between the British and the Boers from the beginning of British hegemony in Africa. The British viewed the Boers as somewhat inferiors the way they viewed the Irish. Now, let me not digress. The Boers were a fierce, independent people who wanted autonomy over their lands. Having won the principal cities, Roberts declared the war over on 3 September ; and the South African Republic was formally annexed.

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 campaign to hit the British supply and communication lines. After the fall of Pretoria, one of the last formal battles was at Diamond Hill on 11—12 June, where Roberts attempted to drive the remnants of the Boer field army under Botha beyond striking distance of Pretoria. Although Roberts drove the Boers from the hill, Botha did not regard it as a defeat, for he inflicted casualties on the British while suffering only 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 Bergendal on 26 August.

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.

This offered only temporary sanctuary, as the mountain passes leading to it could be occupied by the British, trapping the Boers. Those remaining fell into confusion and most failed to break out before Hunter trapped them. From the Basin, Christiaan De Wet headed west. Although hounded by British columns, he succeeded in crossing the Vaal into western Transvaal, to allow Steyn to travel to meet their leaders. There was much sympathy for the Boers on mainland Europe.

Paul Kruger's wife, however, was too ill to travel and remained in South Africa where she died on 20 July without seeing her husband again. President Kruger first went to Marseille and then on to the Netherlands, where he stayed for a while before moving finally to Clarens, Switzerland , where he died in exile on 14 July The first sizeable batch of Boer prisoners of war taken by the British consisted of those captured at the Battle of Elandslaagte on 21 October At first, many were put on ships, but as numbers grew, the British decided they did not want them kept locally.

Moreover, 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, POWs. In all, about 26, POWs were sent overseas. On 15 March , Lord Roberts proclaimed an amnesty for all burghers, except leaders, who took an oath of neutrality and returned quietly to their homes.

By September , the British were nominally in control of both Republics, with the exception of the northern part of Transvaal. However, they soon discovered that they only controlled the territory their columns physically occupied. Despite the loss of their two capital cities and half of their army, the Boer commanders adopted guerrilla warfare tactics, primarily conducting raids against railways, resource and supply targets, all aimed at disrupting the operational capacity of the British Army.

They avoided pitched battles and casualties were light. Each Boer commando unit was sent to the district from which its members had been recruited, which meant that they could rely on local support and personal knowledge of the terrain and the towns within the district thereby enabling them to live off the land. Their orders were simply to act against the British whenever possible.

Their tactics were 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 nearly impossible for the , British troops to control the territory effectively using columns alone.

As soon as a British column left a town or district, British control of that area faded away. The Boer commandos were especially effective during the initial 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 therefore redeployed out of the area, and had been replaced by lower-quality contingents of Imperial Yeomanry and locally raised irregular corps.

From late May , the first successes of the Boer guerrilla strategy were at Lindley where Yeomanry surrendered , and at Heilbron where a large convoy and its escort were captured and other skirmishes resulting in 1, British casualties in less than ten days.

What is Kobo Super Points?

As a result of these and other Boer successes, the British, led by Lord Kitchener, mounted three extensive searches for De Wet, but without success. However, the very nature of the Boer guerrilla war was sporadic, poorly planned, and had little overall long-term objective, with the exception to simply harass the British. This led to a disorganised pattern of scattered engagements throughout the region.

The British were forced to quickly revise their tactics. They concentrated on restricting the freedom of movement of the Boer commandos and depriving them of local support. The railway lines had provided vital lines of communication and supply, and as the British had advanced across South Africa, they had used armoured trains and had established fortified blockhouses at key points. Eventually some 8, such blockhouses were built across the two South African republics, radiating from the larger towns along principal routes.

However, they proved very effective. Not one bridge where one of these blockhouses was sited and manned was blown. The blockhouse system required an enormous number of troops to garrison. Well over 50, British troops, or 50 battalions, were involved in blockhouse duty, greater than the approximately 30, Boers in the field during the guerrilla phase. In addition, up to 16, Africans were used both as armed guards and to patrol the line at night.

The British also implemented a " scorched earth " policy under which they targeted everything within the controlled areas that could give sustenance to the Boer guerrillas with a view to making it harder for the Boers to survive. As British troops swept the countryside, they systematically destroyed crops, burned homesteads and farms, poisoned wells, and interned Boer and African women, children and workers in concentration camps.

Finally, the British also established their own mounted raiding columns in support of the sweeper columns. These were used to rapidly follow and relentlessly harass the Boers with a view to delaying them and cutting off escape, while the sweeper units caught up. Many of the 90 or so mobile columns formed by the British to participate in such drives were a mixture of British and colonial troops, but they also had a large minority of armed Africans.

The total number of armed Africans serving with these columns has been estimated at approximately 20, The British Army also made use of Boer auxiliaries who had been persuaded to change sides and enlist as "National Scouts". The British utilised armoured trains throughout the War to deliver rapid reaction forces much more quickly to incidents such as Boer attacks on blockhouses and columns or to drop them off ahead of retreating Boer columns.

Among those Burghers who had stopped fighting, it was decided to form peace committees to persuade those who were still fighting to desist. By the end of some thirty envoys were sent out to the various districts to form local peace committees to persuade burghers to give up the fight. Meyer de Kock was the only emissary of a peace committee to be convicted of high treason and executed by firing squad. Some burghers joined the British in their fight against the Boers. By the end of hostilities in May , there were no fewer than 5, burghers working for the British.

After having conferred with the Transvaal leaders, De Wet returned to the Orange Free State, where he inspired a series of successful attacks and raids from the hitherto quiet western part of the country, though he suffered a rare defeat at Bothaville in November Many Boers who had earlier returned to their farms, sometimes giving formal parole to the British, took up arms again. 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 narrowly escaped across the Orange River. 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 , 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. De Wet escaped the first such drive, but lost of his fighters.

This was a severe loss, and a portent of further attrition, although the subsequent attempts to round up De Wet were badly handled, and De Wet's forces avoided capture. The Boer commandos in the Western Transvaal were very active after September Several battles of importance were fought here between September and March A time of relative quiet descended thereafter on the western Transvaal.

February saw the next major battle in that region. De La Rey succeeded in capturing many men and a large amount of ammunition. On the morning of 7 March , 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 , large British reinforcements were sent to the Western Transvaal under the direction of Ian Hamilton.

The opportunity the British were waiting for arose on 11 April at Rooiwal , where a commando led by General Jan Kemp and Commandant Potgieter attacked a superior force under Kekewich. The British soldiers were well positioned on the hillside 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 war. Two Boer forces fought in this area, one under Botha in the south east and a second under Ben Viljoen in the north east around Lydenburg.

Botha's forces were particularly active, raiding railways and British supply convoys, and even mounting a renewed invasion of Natal in September After defeating British mounted infantry in the Battle of Blood River Poort near Dundee , Botha was forced to withdraw by heavy rains that made movement difficult and crippled his horses. Back on the Transvaal territory around his home district of Vryheid, Botha attacked a British raiding column at Bakenlaagte , using an effective mounted charge.

One of the most active British units was effectively destroyed in this engagement. This made Botha's forces the target of increasingly large and ruthless drives by British forces, in which the British made particular use of native scouts and informers. Eventually, Botha 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. In parts of Cape Colony, particularly the Cape Midlands district where Boers formed a majority of the white inhabitants, the British had always feared a general uprising against them. In fact, no such uprising took place, even in the early days of the war when Boer armies had advanced across the Orange. The cautious conduct of some of the elderly Orange Free State generals had been one factor that discouraged the Cape Boers from siding with the Boer republics.

• A Book of Joy.
• African History: The Second Boer War;
• Underlying causes?
• Bruce Springsteen scores his first pop hit with “Born to Run”?

Nevertheless, there was widespread pro-Boer sympathy. Some of the Cape Dutch volunteered to help the British, but a much larger number volunteered to help the other side. The political factor was more important than the military: Milner said 90 percent favoured the rebels. After he escaped across the Orange in March , 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 of the war, with intimidation by both sides of each other's civilian sympathizers.

1. Second Boer War.
2. NEW DAWN OPERATION - Operación Nuevo Amanecer (Spanish Edition);
3. Softball Game Intelligence: The Difference Maker in Umpiring.
4. Join Kobo & start eReading today.
5. Enjoying the Ride!
6. Related Stories.

In one of many skirmishes, Commandant Lotter's small commando was tracked down by a much-superior British column and wiped out at Groenkloof. Several captured rebels, including Lotter and Scheepers, who was captured when he fell ill with appendicitis, were executed by the British for treason or for capital crimes such as the murder of prisoners or of unarmed civilians. Some of the executions took place in public, to deter further disaffection. Since the Cape Colony was Imperial territory, its authorities forbade the British Army to burn farms or to force Boers into concentration camps.

Fresh Boer forces under Jan Christiaan Smuts , joined by the surviving rebels under Kritzinger, made another attack on the Cape in September They suffered severe hardships and were hard pressed by British columns, but eventually rescued themselves by routing some of their pursuers at the Battle of Elands River and capturing their equipment. From then until the end of the war, Smuts increased his forces from among Cape rebels until they numbered 3, However, no general uprising took place, and the situation in the Cape remained stalemated.

While no other government actively supported the Boer cause, individuals from several countries volunteered and formed Foreign Volunteer Units. Other countries such as France, Italy, Ireland then wholly part of the United Kingdom , and restive areas of the Russian Empire, including Poland and Georgia, also formed smaller volunteer corps.

Finns fought in the Scandinavian Corps. The policy on both sides was to minimise the role of nonwhites but the need for manpower continuously stretched those resolves. As the war raged across African farms and their homes were destroyed, many became refugees and they, like the Boers, moved to the towns where the British hastily created internment camps. Subsequently, the "Scorched Earth" policy was ruthlessly applied to both Boers and Africans.

Although most black Africans were not considered by the British to be hostile, many tens of thousands were also forcibly removed from Boer areas and also placed in concentration camps. Africans were held separately from Boer internees. Eventually there were a total of 64 tented camps for Africans. Conditions were as bad as in the camps for the Boers, but even though, after the Fawcett Commission report, conditions improved in the Boer camps, "improvements were much slower in coming to the black camps.

About 10, black men were attached to Boer units where they performed camp duties; a handful unofficially fought in combat. The British Army employed over 14, Africans as wagon drivers. Even more had combatant roles as spies, guides, and eventually as soldiers. By there were about 30, armed Africans in the British Army. The term " concentration camp " was used to describe camps operated by the British in South Africa during this conflict in the years —, and the term grew in prominence during this period.

The camps had originally been set up by the British Army as " refugee camps " to provide refuge for civilian families who had been forced to abandon their homes for whatever reason related to the war. However, when Kitchener took over in late , he introduced new tactics in an attempt to break the guerrilla campaign and the influx of civilians grew dramatically as a result. Disease and starvation killed thousands. It was the clearance of civilians—uprooting a whole nation—that would come to dominate the last phase of the war. As Boer farms were destroyed by the British under their " Scorched Earth " policy—including the systematic destruction of crops and slaughtering of livestock, the burning down of homesteads and farms, and the poisoning of wells and salting of fields—to prevent the Boers from resupplying from a home base many tens of thousands of women and children were forcibly moved into the concentration camps.

This was not the first appearance of internment camps, as the Spanish had used internment in Cuba in the Ten Years' War , but the Boer War concentration camp system was the first time that a whole nation had been systematically targeted, and the first in which some whole regions had been depopulated. Eventually, there were a total of 45 tented camps built for Boer internees and 64 for black Africans. Of the 28, Boer men captured as prisoners of war , 25, were sent overseas. The vast majority of Boers remaining in the local camps were women and children.

Over 26, women and children were to perish in these concentration camps. The camps were poorly administered from the outset and became increasingly overcrowded when Kitchener's troops implemented the internment strategy on a vast scale. Conditions were terrible for the health of the internees, mainly due to neglect, poor hygiene and bad sanitation. The supply of all items was unreliable, partly because of the constant disruption of communication lines by the Boers.

The food rations were meager and there was a two-tier allocation policy, whereby families of men who were still fighting were routinely given smaller rations than others [74] The inadequate shelter, poor diet, bad hygiene and overcrowding led to malnutrition and endemic contagious diseases such as measles , typhoid and dysentery to which the children were particularly vulnerable. Towards the end of the war, British tactics of containment, denial, and harassment began to yield results against the guerrillas. The sourcing and co-ordination of intelligence became increasingly efficient with regular reporting from observers in the blockhouses , from units patrolling the fences and conducting "sweeper" operations, and from native Africans in rural areas who increasingly supplied intelligence, as the Scorched Earth policy took effect and they found themselves competing with the Boers for food supplies.

Kitchener's forces at last began to seriously affect the Boers' fighting strength and freedom of manoeuvre, and made it harder for the Boers and their families to survive. Despite this success, almost half the Boer fighting strength, 15, men were still in the field fighting. Kitchener's tactics were very costly: Britain was running out of time and money and needed to change tack. The Boers and the British both feared the consequences of arming Africans.

The memories of the Zulu and other tribal conflicts were still fresh, and they recognised that whoever won would have to deal with the consequences of a mass militarisation of the tribes. There was therefore an unwritten agreement that this war would be a "white man's war. However, in some cases there were old scores to be settled, and some Africans, such as the Swazis , were eager to enter the war with the specific aim of reclaiming land confiscated by the Boers.

As the war went on there was greater involvement of Africans, and in particular large numbers became embroiled in the conflict on the British side, either voluntarily or involuntarily. By the end of the war, many blacks had been armed and had shown conspicuous gallantry in roles such as scouts, messengers, watchmen in blockhouses, and auxiliaries. And there were more flash-points outside of the war. On 6 May at Holkrantz in the southeastern Transvaal, a Zulu faction had their cattle stolen and their people mistreated by the Boers as a punishment for helping the British.

The local Boer officer then sent an insulting message to the tribe, challenging them to take back their cattle. The Zulus attacked at night, and in a mutual bloodbath, the Boers lost 56 killed and 3 wounded, while the Africans suffered 52 killed and 48 wounded. The British offered terms of peace on various occasions, notably in March , but were rejected by Botha and the "Bitter-enders" among the commandos.

The Boer Wars

They pledged to fight until the bitter end and rejected the demand for compromise made by the "Hands-uppers. On the other hand, their women and children were dying every day and independence seemed impossible. The British had won and offered generous terms to regain the support of the Boers. The predominantly agrarian society of the former Boer republics was profoundly and fundamentally affected by the scorched earth policy of Roberts and Kitchener. The devastation of both Boer and black African populations in the concentration camps and through war and exile were to have a lasting effect on the demography and quality of life in the region.

Many exiles and prisoners were unable to return to their 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. Destitute Boers and black Africans swelled the ranks of the unskilled urban poor competing with the "uitlanders" in the mines. The postwar reconstruction administration was presided over by Lord Milner and his largely Oxford trained Milner's Kindergarten.

This small group of civil servants had a profound effect on the region, eventually leading to the Union of South Africa.

Second Boer War | HistoryNet

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 Boer 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 Although challenged by a Boer 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 counterinsurgency techniques and lessons the restriction of movement, the containment of space, the ruthless targeting of anything, everything and anyone that could give sustenance to guerrillas, the relentless harassment through sweeper groups coupled with rapid reaction forces, the sourcing and co-ordination of intelligence, and the nurturing of native allies learned during the Boer War were used by the British and other forces in future guerrilla campaigns including to counter Malayan communist rebels during the Malayan Emergency.

In World War II the British also adopted some of the concepts of raiding from the Boer commandos when, after the fall of France , they set up their special raiding forces, and in acknowledgement of their erstwhile enemies, chose the name British Commandos. Many of the Boers referred to the war as the second of the Freedom Wars. The most resistant of Boers wanted to continue the fight and 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 oath, such as the following, to pledge allegiance to Britain: Over the following decade, many returned to South Africa and never signed the pledge.

Some, like Reitz, eventually reconciled themselves to the new status quo , but others could not. One of the most important events in the decade after the end of the war was the creation of the Union of South Africa later the Republic of South Africa. 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 , the leading Boer rebels in the Maritz Rebellion got off lightly especially compared with the fate of leading Irish rebels of 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 , which took power in and dominated the politics of South Africa from the late s until the early s, under the apartheid system.

Many Irish nationalists sympathised with the Boers, viewing them to be 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. 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 in the British army, including the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

The war also highlighted the dangers of Britain's policy of non-alignment and deepened her isolation. The UK general election , also known as the " Khaki election ", was called by the Prime Minister, Lord 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 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 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: This came at a time of increasing concern for the state of the poor in Britain. Having taken the country into a prolonged war, the Conservative government was rejected by the electorate at the first general election after the war was over. Balfour, succeeding his uncle Lord Salisbury in immediately after the war, took over a Conservative party that had won two successive landslide majorities but led it to a landslide defeat in The number of horses killed in the war was at the time unprecedented in modern warfare.

For example, in the Relief of Kimberley , French's cavalry rode horses to their deaths in a single day. The wastage was particularly heavy among British forces for several reasons: Horses were slaughtered for their meat when needed. During the Siege of Kimberley and Siege of Ladysmith , horses were consumed as food once the regular sources of meat were depleted.

The Horse Memorial in Port Elizabeth is a tribute to the , horses that died during the conflict. The vast majority of troops fighting for the British army came from Great Britain. Yet a significant number came from other parts of the British Empire. These countries had their own internal disputes over whether they should remain tied to London, or have full independence, which carried over into the debate around the sending of forces to assist the war.

Boer War Documentary

Though not fully independent on foreign affairs, these countries did have local say over how much support to provide, and the manner it was provided. Canada provided the largest number of troops followed by Australia. There were also many volunteers from the Empire who were not selected for the official contingents from their countries and travelled privately to South Africa to form private units, such as the Canadian Scouts and Doyle's Australian Scouts.

There were also some European volunteer units from British India and British Ceylon , though the British Government refused offers of non-white troops from the Empire. Some Cape Coloureds also volunteered early in the war, but later some of them were effectively conscripted and kept in segregated units. As a community, they received comparatively little reward for their services. In many ways, the war set the pattern for the Empire's later involvement in the two World Wars.

Specially raised units, consisting mainly of volunteers, were dispatched overseas to serve with forces from elsewhere in the British Empire. The United States stayed neutral in the conflict, but some American citizens were eager to participate. Early in the war Lord Roberts cabled the American Frederick Russell Burnham , a veteran of both Matabele wars but at that very moment prospecting in the Klondike , to serve on his personal staff as Chief of Scouts. Burnham went on to receive the highest awards of any American who served in the war, but American mercenaries participated on both sides.

From to the six separate self-governing colonies in Australia sent their own contingents to serve in the Boer War. That much of the population of the colonies had originated from Great Britain explains a desire to support Britain during the conflict appealing to many. The British were not the first in the modern age to use the concentration camp system.

The Spanish General Valeriano 'Butcher Weyler had enforced a similar system on a far larger scale to crush a rebellion in Cuba in , leaving more than , dead. The United States authorities had also established concentration camps to suppress the insurrection in the Philippines early in In South Africa, the bad administration of the camps led to poor quality of food, unhygienic conditions and inadequate medical arrangements. Consequently civilians suffered terribly. Eventually 28, Boer women and children and at least 20, black people died in the camps.

A turning point in the death rate in the Boer camps came about by November , after the Fawcett Ladies Commission had made some recommendations for improvement. However, this was only after Emily Hobhouse from the Liberal opposition in Britain had revealed the terrible conditions in the camps to a sceptical British public and an embarrassed government, and High commissioner, Lord Alfred Milner had taken over the administration of the camps from the army.

The concentration camp system caused the widest opprobrium of the second Boer War. In the first half of the 20th century Afrikaaner leaders effectively used the suffering and deaths in the Boer camps to promote Afrikaaner nationalism. However, it is worth noting that there is very little similarity between the Nazi camps and the concentration camps established by the British army in the second Boer War.

The latter were not set up with the express intention of exterminating a section of the human race, but to deprive the Boer commandos of supplies and to induce the burghers to surrender. Things went horribly wrong because of the poor administration of the camps by the British and their callous lack of care. From the start British and Boer forces alike employed black people in non-combatant roles. About 10, agterryers 'after-riders' accompanied the Boers to perform small duties on commando.

A very tiny number of them unofficially took up arms on the Boer side. The Afrikaaners took control of South African politics, and they resolved to become independent of the British sphere of influence. In the British Army, at least 14, black people worked as wagon drivers. The British Army increasingly employed blacks in combatant roles, such as spies, guides and eventually soldiers. By the end of the war there were probably 30, armed black men in the British Army. Moreover, black communities drove Boer commandos and families from large areas of the Transvaal, thus further curtailing Boer operations and contributing to the Boer acceptance of the peace terms.

The imperial policy promoted by Milner, which included rigorous Anglicisation efforts, failed soon after the war and merely fanned Afrikaaner nationalism. The British empire had been shaken by its efforts to force two small nations into submission, just a decade before World War One. The war had devastated the Afrikaaners economically and psychologically.

This contributed to Boer poverty and accelerated urbanisation. In the course of the 20th century, the Afrikaaners took control of South African politics, and they resolved to become independent of the British sphere of influence. It shaped them as 'race patriots' and revealed an aggressive nationalism, which led them to aspire to self-determination and complete dominance of South Africa.

This, together with a fear of the black majority, may partly explain the implementation of the policy of apartheid racial segregation. With the forming of the Republic of South Africa in , the Peace of Vereeniging seemed to have been avenged. Black people were equally devastated by the war, with similar results concerning poverty and urbanisation. Moreover, their occupation of Boer land during the second Boer War was not recognised, and they did not receive an extension of the qualified franchise practiced in the Cape Colony and Natal to the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony.

With the coming of Union in , these aspirations were again frustrated which led to the founding of the South African Native National Congress in This became the African National Congress in The black struggle was to continue throughout the 20th century and would achieve success in with a democratically elected South African government. The war had shown that modern rifles and artillery provided greater accuracy, range and rates of fire than before.

This led to the belief in a fire zone of increased depth and danger, and the need for formations that were more open. One of the most useful lessons was the necessity of cover for the attackers. During the war in South Africa, clear terrain had been sought when on the offensive, and rough terrain in defence. The new emphasis on fields of fire meant a reversal in policy.

And, finally, following the French, the British began to consider frontal attacks as decisive, giving them official sanction in the field service regulations. This marked the greatest diversion from the Boer War experience and the flank attacks of Lord Roberts. Sampson Low, Marston, The Dynamics of Treason. Volunteers on the Veld. He specialises on the Boer War of The Afrikaans edition won three major awards. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled.

While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience.