OSPREY MAA THE BOER WAR SOUTH AFRICA WEAPONS UNIFORMS EQUIPMENT BATTLES

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OSPREY MAA THE BOER WAR SOUTH AFRICA WEAPONS UNIFORMS EQUIPMENT BATTLES

OSPREY MEN-AT-ARMS SOFTBOUND BOOK in ENGLISH by CHRISTOPHER WILKINSON-LATHAM.  ILLUSTRATED by MICHAEL ROFFE.

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Additional Information from Internet Encyclopedia

The Second Boer War (Afrikaans: Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, lit. 'Second Freedom War', 11 October 1899 – 31 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and Orange Free State) over the Empire's influence in Southern Africa.

The Witwatersrand Gold Rush caused a large influx of "foreigners" to the South African Republic, mostly British from the Cape Colony. They were not permitted to vote, and were regarded as "unwelcome visitors", so they protested to the British authorities in the Cape. Negotiations failed at the Bloemfontein Conference in June 1899. The conflict broke out in October when Boer irregulars and militia attacked British colonial settlements. The Boers placed Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking under siege, and won victories at Colenso, Magersfontein and Stormberg. Increased numbers of British Army soldiers were brought to Southern Africa and mounted unsuccessful attacks against the Boers.

However, British fortunes changed when their commanding officer, General Redvers Buller, was replaced by Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener, who relieved the besieged cities and invaded the Boer republics in early 1900 at the head of a 180,000-strong expeditionary force. The Boers, aware they were unable to resist such a large force, refrained from fighting pitched battles, allowing the British to occupy both republics and their capitals, Pretoria and Bloemfontein.[8][9][10] Boer politicians, including President of the South African Republic Paul Kruger, either fled or went into hiding; the British Empire officially annexed the two republics in 1900. In Britain, the Conservative ministry led by Lord Salisbury attempted to capitalise on British military successes by calling an early general election, dubbed by contemporary observers as a "khaki election". However, Boer fighters took to the hills and launched a guerrilla campaign, becoming known as bittereinders. Led by generals such as Louis Botha, Jan Smuts, Christiaan de Wet, and Koos de la Rey, Boer guerrillas used hit-and-run attacks and ambushes against the British for two years.

The guerrilla campaign proved difficult for the British to defeat, due to unfamiliarity with guerrilla tactics and extensive support for the guerrillas among civilians. In response to failures to defeat the guerrillas, British high command ordered scorched earth policies as part of a large scale and multi-pronged counterinsurgency campaign; a network of nets, blockhouses, strongpoints and barbed wire fences was constructed, virtually partitioning the occupied republics. Over 100,000 Boer civilians, mostly women and children, were forcibly relocated into concentration camps, where 26,000 died, mostly by starvation and disease. Black Africans were interned in concentration camps to prevent them from supplying the Boers; 20,000 died.[13] British mounted infantry were deployed to track down guerrillas, leading to small-scale skirmishes. Few combatants on either side were killed in action, with most casualties dying from disease. Kitchener offered generous terms of surrender to remaining Boer leaders to end the conflict. Eager to ensure fellow Boers were released from the camps, most Boer commanders accepted the British terms in the Treaty of Vereeniging, surrendering in May 1902.[14][15] The former republics were transformed into the British colonies of the Transvaal and Orange River, and in 1910 were merged with the Natal and Cape Colonies to form the Union of South Africa, a self-governing dominion within the British Empire.

British expeditionary efforts were aided significantly by colonial forces from the Cape Colony, the Natal, Rhodesia,[17] and many volunteers from the British Empire worldwide, particularly Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand. Black African recruits contributed increasingly to the British war effort. International public opinion was sympathetic to the Boers and hostile to the British. Even within the UK, there existed significant opposition to the war. As a result, the Boer cause attracted thousands of volunteers from neutral countries, including the German Empire, United States, Russia and even some parts of the British Empire such as Australia and Ireland.[18] Some consider the war the beginning of questioning the British Empire's veneer of impenetrable global dominance, due to the war's surprising duration and the unforeseen losses suffered by the British.[19] A trial for British war crimes committed during the war, including the killings of civilians and prisoners, was opened on January 1901.

Overview

The war had three phases. In the first phase, the Boers mounted preemptive strikes into British-held territory in Natal and the Cape Colony, besieging the British garrisons of Ladysmith, Mafeking, and Kimberley. The Boers then won a series of tactical victories at Stormberg, Magersfontein, Colenso and Spion Kop.

In the second phase, after the number of British troops greatly increased under the command of Lord Roberts, the British launched another offensive in 1900 to relieve the sieges, this time achieving success. After Natal and the Cape Colony were secure, the British army was able to invade the Transvaal, and the republic's capital, Pretoria, was ultimately captured in June 1900.

In the third and final phase, beginning in March 1900 and lasting a further two years, the Boers conducted a hard-fought guerrilla war, attacking British troop columns, telegraph sites, railways, and storage depots. To deny supplies to the Boer guerrillas, the British, now under the leadership of Lord Kitchener, adopted a scorched earth policy. They cleared vast areas, destroying Boer farms and moving the civilians into concentration camps.

Some parts of the British press and British government expected the campaign to be over within months, and the protracted war gradually became less popular, especially after revelations about the conditions in the concentration camps (where as many as 26,000 Afrikaner women and children died of disease and malnutrition). The Boer forces finally surrendered on Saturday, 31 May 1902, with 54 of the 60 delegates from the Transvaal and Orange Free State voting to accept the terms of the peace treaty.[21]: 97  This was known as the Treaty of Vereeniging, and under its provisions, the two republics were absorbed into the British Empire, with the promise of self-government in the future. This promise was fulfilled with the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910.

The war had a lasting effect on the region and on British domestic politics. For Britain, the Second Boer War was the longest, the most expensive (£211 million, £19.9 billion at 2022 prices), and the bloodiest conflict between 1815 and 1914,[20]: xv  lasting three months longer and resulting in more British combat casualties than the Crimean War (1853–1856). Disease took a greater toll in the Crimean War, claiming 17,580 British.

Name

The conflict is commonly referred to simply as "the Boer War" because the First Boer War (December 1880 to March 1881) was a much smaller conflict. Boer (meaning "farmer") is the common name for Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans descended from the Dutch East India Company's original settlers at the Cape of Good Hope. Among some South Africans, it is known as the (Second) Anglo–Boer War. In Afrikaans, it may be called (in order of frequency) the 'Tweede Vryheidsoorlog ("Second Freedom War"), 'Tweede Boereoorlog ("Second Boer War"), Anglo–Boereoorlog ("Anglo–Boer War") or Engelse oorlog ("English War").

In South Africa, it is officially called the South African War.[24] In fact, according to a 2011 BBC report, "most scholars prefer to call the war of 1899–1902 the South African War, thereby acknowledging that all South Africans, white and black, were affected by the war and that many were participants".

Origins

The origins of the war were complex and stemmed from more than a century of conflict between the Boers and Britain. Of immediate importance, however, was the question of who would control and benefit most from the very lucrative Witwatersrand gold mines[20]: xxi  discovered by Jan Gerrit Bantjes in June 1884.

The first European settlement in South Africa was founded at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, and thereafter administered as part of the Dutch Cape Colony.[26] The Cape was governed by the Dutch East India Company, until its bankruptcy in the late 18th century, and was thereafter governed directly by the Netherlands.[27] As a result of political turmoil in the Netherlands, the British occupied the Cape three times during the Napoleonic Wars, and the occupation became permanent after British forces defeated the Dutch at the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806.[28] At the time, the colony was home to about 26,000 colonists settled under Dutch rule.[29] A relative majority represented old Dutch families brought to the Cape during the late 17th and early 18th centuries; however, close to one-fourth of this demographic was of German origin and one-sixth of French Huguenot descent.[30] Cleavages were likelier to occur along socio-economic rather than ethnic lines. Broadly speaking, the colonists included a number of distinct subgroups, including the Boers.[31] The Boers were itinerant farmers who lived on the colony's frontiers, seeking better pastures for their livestock.[27] Many were dissatisfied with aspects of British administration, in particular with Britain's abolition of slavery on 1 December 1834. Boers who used forced labor would have been unable to collect compensation for their slaves.[32] Between 1836 and 1852, many elected to migrate away from British rule in what became known as the Great Trek.

Around 15,000 trekking Boers departed the Cape Colony and followed the eastern coast towards Natal. After Britain annexed Natal in 1843, they journeyed farther northwards into South Africa's vast eastern interior. There, they established two independent Boer republics: the South African Republic (1852; also known as the Transvaal Republic) and the Orange Free State (1854). Britain recognised the two Boer republics in 1852 and 1854 but attempted British annexation of the Transvaal in 1877 led to the First Boer War in 1880–1881. After Britain suffered defeats, particularly at the Battle of Majuba Hill (1881), the independence of the two republics was restored, subject to certain conditions. However, relations remained uneasy.

In 1866, diamonds were discovered at Kimberley, prompting a diamond rush and a massive influx of foreigners to the borders of the Orange Free State. Then, in June 1884, gold was discovered in the Witwatersrand area of the South African Republic by Jan Gerrit Bantjes. Gold made the Transvaal the richest nation in southern Africa; however, the country had neither the manpower nor the industrial base to develop the resource on its own. As a result, the Transvaal reluctantly acquiesced to the immigration of uitlanders (foreigners), mainly English-speaking men from Britain, who came to the Boer region in search of fortune and employment. As a result, the number of uitlanders in the Transvaal threatened to exceed the number of Boers, precipitating confrontations between the Boer settlers and the newer, non-Boer arrivals.

Britain's expansionist ideas (notably propagated by Cecil Rhodes) as well as disputes over uitlander political and economic rights led to the failed Jameson Raid of 1895. Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, who led the raid, intended to encourage an uprising of the uitlanders in Johannesburg. However, the uitlanders did not take up arms in support, and Transvaal government forces surrounded the column and captured Jameson's men before they could reach Johannesburg.

As tensions escalated, political manoeuvrings and negotiations attempted to reach compromise on the issues of uitlanders' rights within the South African Republic, control of the gold mining industry, and Britain's desire to incorporate the Transvaal and the Orange Free State into a federation under British control. Given the British origins of the majority of uitlanders and the ongoing influx of new uitlanders into Johannesburg, the Boers recognised that granting full voting rights to the uitlanders would eventually result in the loss of ethnic Boer control in the South African Republic.

The June 1899 negotiations in Bloemfontein failed, and in September 1899 British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain demanded full voting rights and representation for the uitlanders residing in the Transvaal. Paul Kruger, the President of the South African Republic, issued an ultimatum on 9 October 1899, giving the British government 48 hours to withdraw all their troops from the borders of both the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, failing which the Transvaal, allied to the Orange Free State, would declare war on the British government. (In fact, Kruger had ordered commandos to the Natal border in early September, and Britain had only troops in garrison towns far from the border.)[33] The British government rejected the South African Republic's ultimatum, and the South African Republic and Orange Free State declared war on Britain.

Historical background

The southern part of the African continent was dominated in the 19th century by a set of struggles to create within it a single unified state. In 1868, Britain annexed Basutoland in the Drakensberg Mountains, following an appeal from Moshoeshoe I, the king of the Sotho people, who sought British protection against the Boers. While the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 sought to draw boundaries between the European powers' African possessions, it also set the stage for further scrambles. Britain attempted to annex first the South African Republic in 1880, and then, in 1899, both the South African Republic and the Orange Free State.

In the 1880s, Bechuanaland (modern Botswana) became the object of a dispute between the Germans to the west, the Boers to the east, and Britain's 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, Britain annexed Bechuanaland in 1885.

British imperial interests were alarmed when in 1894–1895 Kruger proposed building a railway through Portuguese East Africa to Delagoa Bay, bypassing British-controlled ports in Natal and Cape Town and avoiding British tariffs.[37] At the time, the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony was Cecil Rhodes, a man driven by a vision of a British-controlled Africa extending from the Cape to Cairo. Certain self-appointed uitlanders' representatives and British mine owners became increasingly frustrated and angered by their dealings with the Transvaal government. A Reform Committee (Transvaal) was formed to represent the uitlanders.

Jameson Raid

In 1895, a plan to take Johannesburg and end the control of the Transvaal government was hatched with the connivance of the Cape Prime Minister Rhodes and Johannesburg gold magnate Alfred Beit. A column of 600 armed men was led over the border from Bechuanaland towards Johannesburg by Jameson, the Administrator in Rhodesia of the British South Africa Company, of which Cecil Rhodes was the chairman. The column, mainly made up of Rhodesian and Bechuanaland British South Africa Policemen, was equipped with Maxim machine guns and some artillery pieces.

The plan was to make a three-day dash to Johannesburg and trigger an uprising by the primarily British expatriate uitlanders, organised by the Johannesburg Reform Committee, before the Boer commandos could mobilise. However, the Transvaal authorities had advance warning of the Jameson Raid and tracked it from the moment it crossed the border. Four days later, the weary and dispirited column was surrounded near Krugersdorp, within sight of Johannesburg. After a brief skirmish in which the column lost 65 killed and wounded—while the Boers lost but one man—Jameson's men surrendered and were arrested by the Boers.

The botched raid had repercussions throughout southern Africa and in Europe. In Rhodesia, the departure of so many policemen enabled the Matabele and Mashona peoples' rising against the British South Africa Company. The rebellion, known as the Second Matabele War, was suppressed only at a great cost.

The Boer government handed their prisoners over to the British for trial. Jameson was tried in England, where the British press and London society, inflamed by anti-Boer and anti-German feeling and in a frenzy of jingoism, lionised him and treated him as a hero. Although sentenced to 15 months imprisonment (which he served in Holloway), Jameson was later rewarded by being named Prime Minister of the Cape Colony (1904–1908) and was ultimately anointed as one of the founders of the Union of South Africa. For conspiring with Jameson, the uitlander members of the Reform Committee (Transvaal) were tried in the Transvaal courts and found guilty of high treason. The four leaders were sentenced to death by hanging, but the next day this sentence was commuted to 15 years' imprisonment. In June 1896, the other members of the committee were released on payment of £2,000 each in fines, all of which were paid by Cecil Rhodes. One Reform Committee member, Frederick Gray, committed suicide while in Pretoria gaol, on 16 May. His death was a factor in softening the Transvaal government's attitude to the surviving prisoners.

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 ... [the] aggressors consolidated their alliance ... the defenders on the other hand silently and grimly prepared for the inevitable".

Escalation

The Jameson Raid alienated many Cape Afrikaners from Britain and united the Transvaal Boers behind President Kruger and his government. It also had the effect of drawing the Transvaal and the Orange Free State (led by President Martinus Theunis Steyn) together in opposition to British imperialism. In 1897, the two republics concluded a military pact.

Arming the Boers

Kruger re-equipped the Transvaal army, importing 37,000 of the latest 7x57 mm Mauser Model 1895 rifles supplied by Germany,[39] and some 40 to 50 million rounds of ammunition.[40][21]: 80  Some commandos used the Martini-Henry Mark III, because thousands of these had been purchased. Unfortunately, the large puff of white smoke after firing gave away the shooter's position.[41][42] Roughly 7,000 Guedes 1885 rifles had also been purchased a few years earlier, and these were also used during the hostilities.

As the war went on, some commandos relied on captured British rifles, such as the Lee-Metford and the Enfield.[39][25] Indeed, when the ammunition for the Mausers ran out, the Boers relied primarily on the captured Lee-Metfords.

Regardless of the rifle, few of the Boers used bayonets.

The Boers also purchased the best modern European German Krupp artillery. By October 1899, the Transvaal State Artillery had 73 heavy guns, including four 155 mm Creusot fortress guns[46] and 25 of the 37 mm Maxim Nordenfeldt guns.[21]: 80  The Boers' Maxim, larger than the British Maxims,[47] was a large calibre, belt-fed, water-cooled "auto cannon" that fired explosive rounds (smokeless ammunition) at 450 rounds per minute. It became known as the "Pom Pom".

Aside from weaponry, the tactics used by the Boers were significant. As one modern source states, "Boer soldiers ... were adept at guerrilla warfare—something the British had difficulty countering".

The Transvaal army was transformed: Approximately 25,000 men equipped with modern rifles and artillery could mobilise within two weeks. However, President Kruger's victory in the Jameson Raid incident did nothing to resolve the fundamental problem of finding a formula to conciliate the uitlanders, without surrendering the independence of the Transvaal.

British case for war

The British government went against the advice of its generals (including Wolseley) and declined to send substantial reinforcements to South Africa before war broke out. Secretary of State for War Lansdowne did not believe the Boers were preparing for war and that if Britain were to send large numbers of troops to the region it would strike too aggressive a posture and possibly derail a negotiated settlement—or even encourage a Boer attack.

Negotiations fail

Steyn of the Orange Free State invited Milner and Kruger to attend a conference in Bloemfontein. The conference started on 30 May 1899, but negotiations quickly broke down, as Kruger had no intention of granting meaningful concessions,[55]: 91  and Milner had no intention of accepting his normal delaying tactics.

Kruger's ultimatum and war

On 9 October 1899, after convincing the Orange Free State to join him and mobilising their forces, Kruger issued an ultimatum giving Britain 48 hours to withdraw all their troops from the border of Transvaal (despite the fact that the only regular British army troops anywhere near the border of either republic were 4 companies of the Loyal North Lancs, who had been deployed to defend Kimberley. ) 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 purportedly 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' and The Globe denounced this 'trumpery little state'. Most editorials were similar to the Daily Telegraph's, which declared: 'of course there can only be one answer to this grotesque challenge. Kruger has asked for war and war he must have!'

Such views were far from those of the British government and from those in the army. To most sensible observers, army reform had been a matter of pressing concern since the 1870s, constantly put off because the British public did not want the expense of a larger, more professional army and because a large home army was not politically welcome. Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister, had to tell a surprised Queen Victoria that 'We have no army capable of meeting even a second-class Continental Power'.

When war with the Boer republics was imminent in September 1899, a Field Force, referred to as the Army Corps (sometimes 1st Army Corps) was mobilised and sent to Cape Town. It was "about the equivalent of the I Army Corps of the existing mobilization scheme" and was placed under the command of Gen Sir Redvers Buller, general officer commanding-in-chief of Aldershot Command.[58] In South Africa the corps never operated as such and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd divisions were widely dispersed.

Boer organization and skills

War was declared on 11 October 1899 with a Boer offensive into the British-held Natal and Cape Colony areas. The Boers had about 33,000 soldiers, and decisively outnumbered the British, who could move only 13,000 troops to the front line.[59] The Boers had no problems with mobilisation, since the fiercely independent Boers had no regular army units, apart from the Staatsartillerie (Dutch for 'State Artillery') of both republics. As with the First Boer War, since most of the Boers were members of civilian militias, none had adopted uniforms or insignia. Only the members of the Staatsartillerie wore light green uniforms.

When danger loomed, all the burgers (citizens) in a district would form a military unit called a commando and would elect officers. A full-time official called a Veldkornet maintained muster rolls but had no disciplinary powers. Each man brought his own weapon, usually a hunting rifle, and his own horse. Those who could not afford a gun were given one by the authorities.[21]: 80  The Presidents of the Transvaal and Orange Free State simply signed decrees to concentrate within a week, and the commandos could muster between 30,000 and 40,000 men.[20]: 56  The average Boer nevertheless was not thirsty for war. Many did not look forward to fighting against fellow Christians and, by and large, fellow Protestants. Many may have had an overly optimistic sense of what the war would involve, imagining that victory could be achieved as fast and easily as it had been in the First Anglo-Boer War. Many, including many generals, also had a sense that their cause was holy and just, and blessed by God.

It rapidly became clear that the Boer forces presented the British forces with a severe tactical challenge. What the Boers presented was a mobile and innovative approach to warfare, drawing on their experiences from the First Boer War. The average Boers who made up their commandos were farmers who had spent almost all their working life in the saddle, both as farmers and hunters. They depended on the pot, horse and rifle; they were also skilled stalkers and marksmen. As hunters, they had learned to fire from cover; from a prone position and to make the first shot count, knowing that if they missed, the game would either be long gone or could charge and potentially kill them.

At community gatherings, target shooting was a major sport; they practised shooting at targets, such as hens' eggs perched on posts 100 metres (110 yd) away. They made expert mounted infantry, using every scrap of cover, from which they could pour in a destructive fire using modern, smokeless, Mauser rifles. In preparation for hostilities, the Boers had acquired around one hundred of the latest Krupp field guns, all horse-drawn and dispersed among the various Kommando groups and several Le Creusot "Long Tom" siege guns. The Boers' skill in adapting themselves to become first-rate artillerymen shows that they were a versatile adversary.[20]: 30  The Transvaal also had an intelligence service that stretched across South Africa and of whose extent and efficiency the British were as yet unaware.

War theatre in northern Natal

The Boers struck first on 12 October at the Battle of Kraaipan, an attack that heralded the invasion of the Cape Colony and Natal between October 1899 and January 1900.[57]: 20  With speed and surprise, the Boers drove quickly towards the British garrison at Ladysmith and the smaller ones at Mafeking and Kimberley. The quick Boer mobilisation resulted in early military successes against scattered British forces. Sir George Stuart White, commanding the British division at Ladysmith, unwisely allowed Major-General Penn Symons to throw a brigade forward to the coal-mining town of Dundee (also reported as Glencoe), which was surrounded by hills. This became the site of the first major clash of the war, the Battle of Talana Hill. Boer guns began shelling the British camp from the summit of Talana Hill at dawn on 20 October. Penn Symons immediately counter-attacked: His infantry drove the Boers from the hill, for the loss of 446 British casualties, including Penn Symons.

Another Boer force occupied Elandslaagte, which lay between Ladysmith and Dundee. The British under Major General John French and Colonel Ian Hamilton attacked to clear the line of communications to Dundee. The resulting Battle of Elandslaagte was a clear-cut British tactical victory,[57]: 29  but Sir George White feared that more Boers were about to attack his main position and so ordered a chaotic retreat from Elandslaagte, throwing away any advantage gained. The detachment from Dundee was compelled to make an exhausting cross-country retreat to rejoin White's main force. As Boers surrounded Ladysmith and opened fire on the town with siege guns, White ordered a major sortie against their positions.[57]: 33  The result was a disaster, with 140 men killed and over 1,000 captured. The siege of Ladysmith began: it was to last several months.

Meanwhile, to the north-west at Mafeking, on the border with Transvaal, Colonel Robert Baden-Powell had raised two regiments of local forces amounting to about 1,200 men in order to attack and create diversions if things went amiss further south. As a railway junction, Mafeking provided good supply facilities and was the obvious place for Baden-Powell to fortify in readiness for such attacks. However, instead of being the aggressor, Baden-Powell was forced to defend Mafeking when 6,000 Boer, commanded by Piet Cronjé, attempted a determined assault on the town. This quickly subsided into a desultory affair, with the Boers prepared to starve the stronghold into submission. So, on 13 October, the 217-day siege of Mafeking began.

Lastly, over 360 kilometres (220 mi) to the south of Mafeking lay the diamond mining city of Kimberley, which was also subjected to a siege. Although not militarily significant, it nonetheless represented an enclave of British imperialism on the borders of the Orange Free State and was hence an important Boer objective. In early November, about 7,500 Boer began their siege, again content to starve the town into submission. Despite Boer shelling, the 40,000 inhabitants, of which only 5,000 were armed, were under little threat, because the town was well-stocked with provisions. The garrison was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Kekewich, although Rhodes was also a prominent figure in the town's defences.

The British government took these defeats badly and with the sieges still continuing was compelled to send two more divisions plus large numbers of colonial volunteers. By January 1900 this would become the largest force Britain had ever sent overseas, amounting to some 180,000 men with further reinforcements being sought.

While watching for these reinforcements, Buller made another bid to relieve Ladysmith by crossing the Tugela west of Colenso. Buller's subordinate, Major General Charles Warren, successfully crossed the river, but was then faced with a fresh defensive position centred on a prominent hill known as Spion Kop. In the resulting Battle of Spion Kop, British troops captured the summit by surprise during the early hours of 24 January 1900, but as the early morning fog lifted, they realised too late that they were overlooked by Boer gun emplacements on the surrounding hills. The rest of the day resulted in a disaster caused by poor communication between Buller and his commanders. Between them they issued contradictory orders, on the one hand ordering men off the hill, while other officers ordered fresh reinforcements to defend it. The result was 350 men killed and nearly 1,000 wounded and a retreat across the Tugela River into British territory. There were nearly 300 Boer casualties.

Buller attacked Louis Botha again on 5 February at Vaal Krantz and was again defeated. Buller withdrew early when it appeared that the British would be isolated in an exposed bridgehead across the Tugela, for which he was nicknamed "Sir Reverse" by some of his officers.

Buller replaced

By taking command in person in Natal, Buller had 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 Roberts. Roberts quickly assembled an entirely new team for headquarters staff and he chose military men from far and wide: Kitchener (Chief of Staff) from the Sudan; Frederick Russell Burnham (Chief of Scouts), the American scout, from the Klondike; George Henderson from the Staff College; Neville Bowles Chamberlain from Afghanistan; and William Nicholson (Military Secretary) from Calcutta.[citation needed] Like Buller, Roberts first intended 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 his main force near the Orange River and along the Western Railway behind Methuen's force at the Modder River and prepared to make a wide outflanking move to relieve Kimberley.

After being forced to delay for several weeks at Bloemfontein by a shortage of supplies, an outbreak of typhoid at Paardeberg, and poor medical care, Roberts finally resumed his advance.[63] He was forced to halt again at Kroonstad for 10 days, due once again to the collapse of his medical and supply systems, but finally captured Johannesburg on 31 May and the capital of the Transvaal, Pretoria, on 5 June. The first into Pretoria was Lt. William Watson of the New South Wales Mounted Rifles, who persuaded the Boers to surrender the capital.[64] 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 they abandoned Pretoria without a fight. Having won the principal cities, Roberts declared the war over on 3 September 1900; and the South African Republic was formally annexed.

General Piet Cronjé as a prisoner of war in Saint Helena, 1900–02. He was captured, along with 4,000 soldiers, after the loss of the Battle of Paardeberg.

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. 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 37 kilometres (23 mi) east of the city, and ambushed a heavily escorted convoy, which caused 155 British casualties and the capture of seven guns, 117 wagons, and 428 British troops.

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 162 casualties on the British while suffering only around 50 casualties.

Boers retreat

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. 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.

As Roberts's army occupied Pretoria, the Boer fighters in the Orange Free State retreated into the Brandwater Basin, a fertile area in the south-east of the Republic. 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 Archibald Hunter set out from Bloemfontein to achieve this in July 1900. The hard core of the Free State Boers under 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 Roberts'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.

Kitchener succeeded Roberts in November 1900 and launched anti-guerrilla campaigns. 1898 photograph in 1910 magazine.

By September 1900, the British were nominally in control of both Republics, with the exception of the northern part of the 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 250,000 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 1900, the first successes of the Boer guerrilla strategy were at Lindley (where 500 Yeomanry surrendered), and at Heilbron (where a large convoy and its escort were captured) and other skirmishes resulting in 1,500 British casualties in less than ten days. In December 1900, De la Rey and Christiaan Beyers attacked and mauled a British brigade at Nooitgedacht, inflicting over 650 casualties. As a result of these and other Boer successes, the British, led by Lord Kitchener, mounted three extensive searches for Christiaan de Wet, but without success. However, the Boer raids on British army camps and other targets were sporadic and poorly planned, and the very nature of the Boer guerrilla war itself had practically no overall long-term objectives, with the exception to simply harass the British. This led to a disorganised pattern of scattered engagements between the British and the Boers throughout the region.

From then until the final days of the war, De Wet remained comparatively quiet, rarely attacking British army camps and columns 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. De Wet escaped the first such drive but lost 300 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.

Western Transvaal

The Boer commandos in the Western Transvaal were very active after September 1901. Several battles of importance were fought there between September 1901 and March 1902. At Moedwil on 30 September 1901 and again at Driefontein on 24 October, General Koos De La Rey's forces attacked British camps and outposts but were forced to withdraw after the British offered strong resistance.

From late 1901 to early 1902, a time of relative quiet descended on the western Transvaal. February 1902 saw the next major battle in that region. On 25 February, De La Rey attacked a British column under Lieutenant-Colonel S. B. von Donop at Ysterspruit near Wolmaransstad. De La Rey succeeded in capturing many men and a large amount of ammunition. The Boer attacks prompted Lord Methuen, the British second-in-command after 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 under the direction of Ian Hamilton. The opportunity the British were waiting for arose on 11 April 1902 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.

Eastern Transvaal

Boer commandos

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 1901. 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 scorched earth 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.

Cape Colony

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 ever 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. 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: the Cape Dutch, according to Milner 90 percent of whom favoured the rebels, controlled the provincial legislature, and it's authorities forbade the British Army to burn farms or to force Boer civilians into concentration camps.[77] The British had more limited options to suppress the insurgency in the Cape Colony as result.

After he escaped across the Orange in March 1901, de Wet had left forces under Cape rebels Kritzinger and Gideon 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 sympathisers. In one of many skirmishes, Commandant Johannes Lötter's small commando was tracked down by a much-superior British column and wiped out at Groenkloof. Several captured Boers, 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 British prisoners or of unarmed civilians. Some of the executions took place in public, to deter further disaffection.

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 at the Battle of Elands Rive     FREE scheduling, supersized images and templates. Get Vendio Sales Manager.Make your listings stand out withFREE Vendio custom templates!

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