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Military History – South Africa – Europe – England 19th Century
.Article – Online Historic Information | Military
.Page 105
one’s opponent to accept that the cost of continuing the war is unacceptably high, either in terms
of money, casualties or political disadvantage, or a combination of these.
After the fall of Bloemfontein, the Boer leaders convened a council of war at Kroonstad on 17
March 1900. Here, only ten days before he died, Commandant-general Piet Joubert said: “The time
has come for us to look out continually for opportunities to damage the enemy with our attacks; but to
do this we need to dispense with our laagers; our commandos must now move out on horseback with
raincoats and a bit of food, no more. No longer await the enemy, but send out small sections under
responsible commandants which will support each other when possible. We must attack the enemy
ceaselessly, swiftly and unexpectedly.” The clumsy wagon trains were to be set aside. However,
many Boers disliked the policy and repeatedly in the months to come commanders would have to take
renewed decisions to dispense with their accumulating baggage trains in the interests of mobility.
With the British in control of all external lines of supply from September 1900, the Boer
commandos had to rely on the capture of arms, munitions and, to some extent, food and clothing.
These circumstances were very similar to those of Don Juan Martin Diez in Spain in 1808, when
“every [French] courier was intercepted; many large convoys of arms, ammunition, clothing, warlike
stores, carriages, mules, &c., fell into his hands. . .”. Wagon trains, as in the case of the ambush at
Waterval Drift, and railway-based storehouses, as at Roodewal, were targets for the Boers, both with
the intention of depriving the British and of supplying themselves.
Guerrilla warfare is exceedingly difficult to counter. In South Africa the British could not hope
to deprive the Boers of the support of their own people on the veldt by persuasion or by bribery, and
so resorted to depriving them of the people themselves and the resources they controlled. Farm
burning and land clearance were employed, with the displaced people being housed in camps. These
camps became known as concentration camps. Their use was progressively discontinued later in the
war in response to public protest in Britain and other countries outside South Africa. The pressure on
guerrilla fighters was thus increased when they found they had to look after their people themselves.
The other principal technique employed by the British was to drive the Boers up against fortified
lines of blockhouses and barbed wire in order to catch them. These methods were largely successful,
but the eagerness of the British to end a costly war did give the Boers the opportunity to negotiate
peace terms which were surprisingly favourable to themselves.
Not all of the Boers cared for their war being described as a guerrilla war. Christiaan De Wet
wrote expressly rejecting the term on the grounds that their war was authorised by a legitimate
government, that of the Orange Free State. The same applied to his allies from the Transvaal.
See also:
Blockhouses; Concentration Camps, Black; Concentration Camps, White; Drives; Roodewal,
Battle of; Waterval Drift, Action at.
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