Boer Wars 1881-1902

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The First Anglo-Boer War 1880–1881
This was a rebellion of Boers (farmers) against British rule in the Transvaal that re-established their independence. The conflict occurred against the backdrop of the Pretoria government becoming increasingly ineffective at dealing with growing claims on South African land from rival interests within the country. A number of British defeats led to the signing of a peace treaty and later the Pretoria Convention, between the British and the reinstated South African Republic, ending the First Boer War.

Battle of Laing's Nek
28 January 1881
Boer forces commanded Commandant General Joubert defeats British Army commanded Major General Sir George Pomeroy Colley. Laing’s Nek is memorable as the last occasion that a British regiment took its colours into action. The 58th were led up the hillside by Lieutenant Baillie carrying the Regimental Colour and Lieutenant Hill carrying the Queen’s Colour. Baillie was mortally wounded while Hill won the Victoria Cross bringing casualties down from the hillside.

Battle of Schuinshoogte
8 February 1881
Boer forces commanded Commandant General Joubert defeats British Army commanded Major General Sir George Pomeroy Colley.

Battle of Majuba Hill
27 February 1881
Boer forces commanded Commandant General Nicolaas Smit defeats British Army commanded Major General Sir George Pomeroy Colley. Major General Sir George Pomeroy Colley is killed like many of his troops by Boer marksmen 'As the British were fleeing the hill, many were picked off by the superior rifles and marksmen of the Boers. Many of the Boers were simply farm boys armed with rifles. It was thus a major hit on British prestige to have been defeated by a group of Dutch farm boys with a hand full of older soldiers leading them.

The Second Boer War 1899-1902
Fought between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic) and the Orange Free State. It ended with a British victory and the annexation of both republics by the British Empire; both would eventually be incorporated into the Union of South Africa, a dominion of the British Empire, in 1910.

Jameson Raid
29 December 1895 – 2 January 1896
A plan was hatched with the connivance of the Cape Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes and Johannesburg gold magnate Alfred Beit to take Johannesburg, ending the control of the Transvaal government. A column of 600 armed men (mainly made up of his Rhodesian and Bechuanaland policemen) was led by Dr. Leander Starr Jameson (the Administrator in Rhodesia of the British South Africa Company (or "Chartered Company") of which Cecil Rhodes was the Chairman) over the border from Bechuanaland towards Johannesburg. The column was equipped with Maxim machine guns, and some artillery pieces. The plan was to make a three-day dash to Johannesburg before the Boer commandos could mobilise, and once there, trigger an uprising by the primarily British expatriate workers (uitlanders) organised by the Reform Committee. 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.

Siege of Mafeking
13 October 1899 – 17 May 1900
British forces commanded by Colonel Baden Powell held out against Boer forces.

Battle of Talana Hill
20 October 1899
British Army commanded Lieutenant-General Sir William Penn Symons defeats Boer forces. Lieutenant-General Sir William Penn Symons was wounded and captured later dying in captivity.

Battle of Ladysmith
30 October 1899
Boer forces defeat British Army commanded George Stuart White.

Battle of Belmont
23 November 1899
British Army commanded Lord Methue defeats Boer forces.

Battle of Magersfontein
11 December 1899
Boer forces commanded Piet Cronje and Koos de la Rey defeat British Army commanded Lord Methuen and and General Andrew Gilbert Wauchope. General Andrew Gilbert Wauchope is killed.

Battle of Colenso
15 December 1899
Boer forces defeat British Army commanded General Sir Redvers Buller.

Battle of Spion Kop
23–24 January 1900
Boer forces defeat British Army. General Edward Woodgate one of the British commanders is killed.

Battle of Paardeberg
18–27 February 1900
British Army commanded Field Marshal Roberts defeat Boer forces.

Guerrilla war
September 1900 – May 1902
By September 1900, 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 infrastructure, resource and supply targets, all aimed at disrupting the operational capacity of the British army. 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. They now built additional blockhouses (each housing 6–8 soldiers) and fortified these to protect supply routes against Boer raiders. Eventually some 8,000 such blockhouses were built across the two South African republics, radiating from the larger towns. Each blockhouse cost between £800 to £1,000 and took about three months to build. However, they proved very effective. Not one bridge where one of these blockhouses was sited and manned was blown.

Concentration camps
1900–1902
The term "concentration camp" was used to describe camps operated by the British in South Africa during this conflict, 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 succeeded Roberts as commander-in-chief in South Africa on 29 November 1900, the British army introduced new tactics in an attempt to break the guerrilla campaign and the influx of civilians grew dramatically as a result. Kitchener initiated plans to flush out guerrillas in a series of systematic drives, organised like a sporting shoot, with success defined in a weekly 'bag' of killed, captured and wounded, and to sweep the country bare of everything that could give sustenance to the guerrillas, including women and children.... It was the clearance of civilians—uprooting a whole nation—that would come to dominate the last phase of the war.

Eventually, there were a total of 45 tented camps built for Boer internees and 64 for black Africans. Of the 28,000 Boer men captured as prisoners of war, 25,630 were sent overseas. The vast majority of Boers remaining in the local camps were women and children. Over 26,000 women and children were to perish in these concentration camps.

As the war raged across their farms and their homes were destroyed, many Africans became refugees and they, like the Boers, moved to the towns where the British army 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."

Commonwealth involvement in the Boer War
From 1899 to 1901 the six separate self-governing colonies in Australia sent their own contingents with the New South Wales Lancers being the first. The colonies formed the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, and the new federal government sent "Commonwealth" contingents to the war. The Boer War was thus the first war in which the Commonwealth of Australia fought. Over 7,000 Canadian soldiers and support personnel were involved in the second Boer war from October 1899 to May 1902. With approximately 7,368 soldiers in a combat situation, the conflict became the largest military engagement involving Canadian soldiers from the time of Confederation until the Great War.


A British soldier encapsulated the soldiers' view of the defeat at Magersfontein:

"Such was the day for our regiment
Dread the revenge we will take.
Dearly we paid for the blunder - A drawing-room General’s mistake.
Why weren’t we told of the trenches ?
Why weren’t we told of the wire ?
Why were we marched up in column,
May Tommy Atkins enquire'