The Boer Wars

The heavy casualties suffered by most combatants in the later 19^th century showed the power of modern weapons. The Boer War demonstrated what new tactics could do to minimize those losses while still delivering military victory on the battlefield.

The first Boer War broke out in 1881 when the Boers, European settlers of Dutch descent, rose to throw off British rule. They succeeded and established a number of separate republics in the interior of South Africa. These new states had essentially pastoral and agricultural economies, and allowed only Boers to vote or hold public office.

When huge deposits of gold and diamonds were discovered in the Boer republics, the Boers had neither the expertise nor the interest to mine themselves. Instead they brought in outsiders to do the mining, contenting themselves with taxing the profits. However, most incomers were British who resented the fact that they had no rights under the Boer governments, while the British government wanted to reassert direct rule. The tensions led to the outbreak of war on 11 October 1899.

The Boers advanced quickly to lay siege to the towns of Mafeking, Kimberley and Ladysmith. Both sides dug into elaborate trench systems to avoid the murderous rifle and artillery fire that were deployed in the battles. It was quickly apparent that the trenches, with interlocking fire, were invulnerable to infantry assault so the sieges soon became contests of endurance and dwindling supplies.

In the open field, the Boers operated as ‘commandos’, small and self contained mounted units armed with highly accurate breech-loading rifles with clips of up to six bullets. The Boers fought lying down, not needing to stand to reload their rifles, or from hastily dug ‘foxholes’. They therefore suffered fewer casualties than the British who were still trained to fight standing up in formed units. The two styles of fighting were most starkly displayed at Spion Kop on 23 January 1900, when a British brigade lost a third of its men when caught in the open by Boer riflemen who hardly lost a man. Thereafter the British began to adopt the scattered formations and dull uniform colors of the Boers.

Later in 1900 a new British command arrived in the form of Anglo-Indian Lord Frederick Roberts – known to his adoring men as “Bobs” – and logistics expert Horatio Kitchener. The supply system was thoroughly reformed to allow British troops to operate anywhere in large numbers, while tactics and strategy were altered to isolate, trap and eliminate the fast-moving commandos one by one. The Boer capital of Pretoria fell on 13 June, but a guerrilla war dragged on until May 1902.