Second Boer War

• 1. Imperial Origins And Gold Rush

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  In June 1884, Jan Gerrit Bantjes discovered a massive gold deposit on the Witwatersrand ridge south of Pretoria. This find triggered an influx of thousands of Uitlanders, or foreigners, mostly from Britain's Cape Colony. The Boer republics had no intention of granting voting rights to these new arrivals until they resided for fourteen years. British imperial interests grew alarmed as the number of Uitlanders quickly outnumbered the Boers in Johannesburg and along the Rand. President Paul Kruger sought to contain their influence through heavy taxes and strict administrative controls. A box of dynamite costing five pounds included a tax of five shillings, which British mine owners found exorbitant. Kruger granted monopoly rights for explosive manufacturing to a non-British branch of the Nobel company, further infuriating London. Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes envisioned a British-controlled Africa stretching from the Cape to Cairo. Negotiations failed at the Bloemfontein Conference in June 1899 when Kruger refused meaningful concessions. The conflict erupted after the British government decided to send 10,000 troops to South Africa.

• 2. The Jameson Raid And Diplomatic Failure

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  A plan to seize Johannesburg was hatched in 1895 with the connivance of Cape Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes and gold magnate Alfred Beit. Leander Starr Jameson led a column of 600 armed men across the border from Bechuanaland toward Johannesburg. The column carried Maxim machine guns and artillery pieces but lacked sufficient support. Four days later, the dispirited column was surrounded near Krugersdorp within sight of Johannesburg. After a skirmish where the column lost 65 killed and wounded while Boer losses numbered only one man, Jameson's men surrendered. The botched raid had repercussions throughout southern Africa and Europe. In Rhodesia, the departure of so many policemen enabled the Matabele and Mashona peoples' rising against the British South Africa Company. A few days after the raid, the German Kaiser sent the Kruger telegram congratulating President Paul Kruger on their success. When the text was disclosed in the British press, it generated a storm of anti-German feeling. Rhodes was censured at parliamentary inquiries and forced to resign as Prime Minister and Chairman of the British South Africa Company. Jameson was tried in England and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment yet later became Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1904 to 1908. The raid alienated many Cape Afrikaners from Britain and united the Transvaal Boers behind President Kruger.

• 3. Black Week And Early Boer Offensives

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  War was declared on the 11th of October 1899 with a Boer offensive into British-held Natal and Cape Colony areas. The Boers had about 33,000 soldiers who outnumbered the British forces that could move only 13,000 troops to the front line. The quick Boer mobilisation resulted in military successes against scattered British forces. Sir George Stuart White unwisely allowed Major-General Penn Symons to throw a brigade forward to Dundee. This became the war's first major clash, the Battle of Talana Hill. Boer guns began shelling the British camp from the summit of Talana Hill at dawn on the 20th of October. In mid-December, Black Week struck between 10 and the 15th of December 1899 when the British suffered defeats on three fronts. On the 10th of December, General Gatacre tried to recapture Stormberg railway junction but ended in defeat with 135 killed and wounded. At Magersfontein on the 11th of December, Methuen's 14,000 British troops attempted a dawn attack to relieve Kimberley. Highland Brigade men were pinned down by accurate Boer fire after suffering intense heat and thirst for nine hours. The nadir of Black Week was the Second Battle of Colenso on the 15th of December where 21,000 British troops under Buller attempted to cross the Tugela River. Through artillery and rifle fire, the Boers repelled British attempts to cross the river. Buller broke off the battle and ordered a retreat abandoning many wounded men and ten field guns.

• 4. British Counteroffensive And Capital Capture

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  The British government sent two more divisions plus large numbers of colonial volunteers to South Africa. By January 1900 this force amounted to 180,000 men with further reinforcements being sought. Lord Roberts replaced Redvers Buller as Commander in Chief due to concerns about his performance. Roberts assembled a new team including Lord Kitchener from the Sudan and Frederick Russell Burnham from the Klondike. Roberts launched his main attack on the 10th of February 1900 and managed to outflank the Boers defending Magersfontein. A cavalry division under French entered Kimberley that evening on the 15th of February ending its 124 days' siege. Roberts pursued Piet Cronjé's 7,000-strong force which had abandoned Magersfontein to head for Bloemfontein. At Paardeberg from 18 to the 27th of February, Roberts surrounded Cronjé's retreating army. General Cronjé was finally forced to surrender at Paardeberg with 4,000 men. In Natal, Buller used all forces in one all-out attack on the 26th of February to defeat Botha's outnumbered forces north of Colenso. After a siege lasting 118 days, the Relief of Ladysmith was effected on the 28th of February. Roberts advanced into the Orange Free State putting the Boers to flight at Poplar Grove. He captured Bloemfontein unopposed on the 13th of March with Boer defenders escaping and scattering. The Relief of Mafeking on the 18th of May 1900 provoked riotous celebrations in Britain. Roberts captured Johannesburg on the 31st of May and Pretoria on the 5th of June before declaring the war over on the 3rd of September 1900.

• 5. Guerrilla Tactics And Blockhouse Systems

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  By September 1900 British troops were nominally in control but discovered they only controlled territory their columns physically occupied. Boer commanders adopted guerrilla warfare conducting raids against railways and supply targets to disrupt British operational capacity. They avoided pitched battles and casualties remained light while commandos relied on local support and knowledge of terrain. The vast distances allowed Boer commandos freedom to move about making it nearly impossible for 250,000 British troops to control the territory effectively. From late May 1900 first successes of the Boer guerrilla strategy appeared at Lindley where 500 Yeomanry surrendered. In December 1900 De la Rey and Christiaan Beyers attacked a British brigade at Nooitgedacht inflicting 650 casualties. The British implemented blockhouses each housing six to eight soldiers under a non-commissioned officer at bridges and beside major roads. Eventually over 8,000 such blockhouses were built across the republics radiating from larger towns along principal roads and railways. Each blockhouse cost between £800 and £1,000 and took three months to build. Well over 50,000 British troops or 50 battalions were involved in blockhouse duty greater than the approximately 30,000 Boers in the field during the guerrilla phase. Up to 16,000 local Africans were used as armed guards and to patrol the line at night.

• 6. Concentration Camps And Civilian Suffering

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  The British implemented a scorched earth policy targeting everything within controlled areas that could give sustenance to guerrillas. As British troops swept the countryside they systematically destroyed crops poisoned wells burned homesteads and farms. They interned Boer and African men women children and workers in concentration camps. Over 100,000 Boer civilians were forcibly relocated into these camps where 26,000 died by starvation and disease. Black Africans were also interned to prevent them from supplying the Boers with 20,000 dying in separate camps. Conditions were as bad in the black camps even though improvements came much slower after the Fawcett Commission report. Eventually there were a total of 64 tented camps for Africans held separately from Boer internees. The British Army made use of Boer auxiliaries who had been persuaded to change sides and enlist as National Scouts. Serving under General Andries Cronjé the National Scouts numbered a fifth of the fighting Afrikaners by the end of the War. Many of the 90 or so mobile columns formed by the British included a large minority of armed Africans estimated at 20,000.

• 7. International Volunteers And Global Opinion

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  Individuals from several countries volunteered and formed Foreign Volunteer Units primarily coming from Europe particularly Netherlands Germany and Sweden-Norway. Other countries such as France Italy Ireland and restive areas of the Russian Empire including Congress Poland and Georgia also formed smaller volunteer corps. Finns fought in the Scandinavian Corps while two volunteers George Henri Anne-Marie Victor de Villebois-Mareuil of France and Yevgeny Maximov of Russia became veggeneraals of the South African Republic. International public opinion was sympathetic to the Boers and hostile to the British. Even within the UK significant opposition existed to the war. As a result the Boer cause attracted volunteers from neutral countries including the German Empire the United States Russia and parts of the British Empire such as Australia and Ireland. Some consider the war the beginning of questioning the British Empire's global dominance due to its surprising duration and unforeseen losses suffered by the British. A trial for British war crimes including killings of civilians and prisoners was opened in January 1902.

• 8. Treaty Of Vereeniging And Legacy

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  The last of the Boers finally surrendered in May 1902 ending the conflict with the Treaty of Vereeniging signed on the 31st of May 1902. After obstinacy the British offered generous terms of conditional surrender to bring the war to conclusion. The Boers were given £3,000,000 for reconstruction and promised eventual limited self-government granted in 1906 and 1907. The treaty ended the existence of the Transvaal and Orange Free State as independent Boer republics placing them within the British Empire. The Union of South Africa was established as a dominion of the British Empire in 1910. Mohandas K. Gandhi started an Ambulance Corps serving the British side at Spion Kop with 300 free burgher Indians and 800 indentured Indian labourers. Nonwhite roles were minimised but manpower needs stretched those resolves continuously. Black Africans moved to towns where British hastily created internment camps after their homes were destroyed by scorched earth policies. The former republics were transformed into British colonies of the Transvaal and Orange River before merging with Natal and Cape Colonies to form the Union of South Africa.