Anglo-Boer War

1.

Anglo-Boer War

2.

South African War, also called Anglo-Boer
War; or Second War of Independence,
war fought from October 11, 1899, to May
31, 1902, between Great Britain and the
two Boer (Afrikaner) republics—the South
African Republic (Transvaal) and the
Orange Free State—resulting in British
victory. It was the largest and most costly
war in which the British engaged between
the Napoleonic Wars and World War I
(spending more than £200 million)

3.

The total British military strength in
Southern Africa reached nearly 500,000
men, whereas the Boers could muster no
more than about 88,000. But the British
were fighting in a hostile country over
difficult terrain, with long lines of
communications, while the Boers, mainly
on the defensive, were able to use modern
rifle fire to good effect at a time when
attacking forces had no means of
overcoming it.

4.

Underlying
causes

5.

The causes of the war have provoked
intense debates. British politicians claimed
they were defending their “suzerainty” over
the South African Republic (SAR)
enshrined in the Pretoria and (disputably)
London conventions of 1881 and 1884,
respectively. It was the largest gold-mining
complex in the world. Also, the discovery of
gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 allowed
the SAR to make progress with
modernization efforts and vie with Britain for
domination in Southern Africa.

6.

After 1897 Britain—through Alfred Milner,
its high commissioner for South demanded
the modification of the Boer republic’s
constitution to grant political rights to the
primarily British Uitlanders, thereby
providing them with a dominant role in
formulating state policy.
(photo: Lord Alfred Milner)

7.

In an effort to prevent a conflict, Marthinus
Steyn, president of the Orange Free State,
hosted the Bloemfontein Conference in May–
June 1899 between Milner and Paul Kruger,
president of the SAR. Kruger did offer to make
concessions to Britain, but they were deemed
insufficient by Milner. After the conference,
Milner requested that the British government
send additional troops to reinforce the British
garrison in Southern Africa; they began arriving
in August and September. The buildup of
troops alarmed the Boers, and Kruger offered
additional Uitlander-related concessions, which
were again rejected by Milner.
(image: the president Paul Kruger)

8.

The Boers, realizing war was unavoidable,
took the offensive. On October 9, 1899, they
issued an ultimatum to British government,
declaring that a state of war would exist
between Britain and the two Boer republics if
the British did not remove their troops from
along the border. The ultimatum expired
without resolution, and the war began on
October 11, 1899.
(image: the Bloemfontein Conference)

9.

WAR
Initial Boer success

10.

During the first phase of war, the British in
Southern Africa were unprepared and militarily
weak. Boer armies attacked on two fronts: into
the British colony of Natal from the SAR and
into the northern Cape Colony from the Orange
Free State. The northern districts of the Cape
Colony rebelled against the British and joined
the Boer forces. In late 1899 and early 1900,
the Boers defeated the British in a number of
major engagements and besieged the key
towns of Ladysmith, Mafeking (Mafikeng), and
Kimberley. Particularly of note among Boer
victories in this period are those that occurred
at Magersfontein, Colesberg, and Stormberg,
during what became known as Black Week
(December 10–15, 1899).

11.

British resurgence

12.

In the second phase the British, under Lords
Kitchener and Roberts, relieved the besieged
towns, beat the Boer armies in the field, and
rapidly advanced up the lines of rail
transportation. Bloemfontein (capital of the
Orange Free State) was occupied by the
British in February 1900, Johannesburg and
Pretoria (capital of the SAR) in May and June.
Kruger evaded capture and went to Europe,
where, despite the fact that there was much
sympathy for the plight of the Boers, he was
unsuccessful in his attempts to gain viable
assistance in the fight against the British.

13.

Boer guerrilla
warfare and British
response

14.

At the end of 1900 the war entered upon
its most destructive phase. For 15 months,
Boer commandos, under the brilliant
leadership of generals such as Christiaan
Rudolf de Wet and Jacobus Hercules de
la Rey, held British troops at bay, using
hit-and-run guerrilla tactics. They harried
the British army bases and
communications, and large rural areas of
the SAR and the Orange Free State
(which the British had annexed as the
Crown Colony of the Transvaal and the
Orange River Colony, respectively)
remained out of British control.

15.

Kitchener responded with barbed wire
and blockhouses along the railways, but
when these failed he retaliated with a
scorched-earth policy. The farms of
Boers and Africans alike were destroyed,
and the inhabitants of the countryside
were rounded up and held in segregated
concentration camps, often under horrific
conditions; several thousand died during
their incarceration. The plight of the Boer
women and children in the carelessly run,
unhygienic camps became an
international outrage, attracting the
attention of such humanitarians as British
social worker Emily Hobhouse.

16.

The commandos continued their attacks, many of them deep into the Cape
Colony, with Gen. Jan Smuts leading his forces to within 50 miles (80 km) of
Cape Town. But Kitchener’s drastic and brutal methods slowly paid off. Boer
resistance was worn down and led to divisions between the bittereinders
(“bitter-enders”), who wanted to continue fighting, and the hensoppers
(“hands-uppers”), who voluntarily surrendered and, in some cases, worked
with the British.

17.

Peace

18.

The Boers had rejected an offer of peace
from the British in March 1901, in part
because it required that the Boers
recognize the British annexation of their
republics. Fighting continued until the
Boers finally accepted the loss of their
independence with the Peace of
Vereeniging in May 1902. In the end,
pragmatic Boer leaders such as Louis
Botha and General Smuts trumped the will
of the bittereinders and opted to negotiate
for peace on the basis of British suzerainty,
promises of local self-government, the swift
restoration and efficient management of the
gold mines, and, crucially, the alliance of
Boers and Britons against Black Africans.

19.

Assessment

20.

In terms of human life, nearly 100,000
lives were lost, including those of
more than 20,000 British troops and
14,000 Boer troops. Noncombatant
deaths include the more than 26,000
Boer women and children estimated
to have died in the concentration
camps from malnutrition and disease;
the total number of African deaths in
the concentration camps was not
recorded, but estimates range from
13,000 to 20,000.

21.

On both sides the war produced heights of
national enthusiasm of a type that marked the
era and culminated in frenetic British
celebrations after the relief of the Siege of
Mafeking in May 1900. (The word mafficking,
meaning wild rejoicing, originated from these
celebrations.) Despite attempts at rapid healing
of the wounds after 1902 and a willingness to
cooperate for the purpose of uniting against
Black Africans, relations between Boers (or
Afrikaners, as they became known) and
English-speaking South Africans were to remain
frigid for many decades. Internationally, the war
helped poison the atmosphere between
Europe’s great powers, as Britain found that
most countries sympathized with the Boers.

22.

The most astonishing aspect of the war, perhaps, is that it was a war between groups of white peoples in a
subcontinent with a largely Black African population that both sides generally sought to exclude from the
fighting, although research in the later decades of the 20th century indicated that Black Africans became heavily
involved in the war both as combatants and as victims of the armies. During the conflict the British hinted and
sometimes promised that in return for support, or at least neutrality, Black Africans would be rewarded with
political rights after the war. Nevertheless, the Treaty of Vereeniging specifically excluded Black Africans from
having political rights in a reorganized South Africa as the British and Boers cooperated toward a common goal
of white minority rule.

23.

Interesting facts

24.

This war was the first war of the 20th century and is
interesting from a variety of points of view.
✤
For example, both conflicting parties massively used
smokeless gunpowder, rapid-fire guns, shrapnel,
machine guns and magazine rifles, which forever
changed the tactics of the infantry, forcing them to hide
in trenches and trenches, attack in sparse chains
instead of the usual formation and, having remove
bright uniforms, put up in khaki..
✤
This war also "enriched" us with such concepts as
sniper, commandos, sabotage war, scorched earth
tactics and concentration camp.

25.

✤
It was not only the first "attempt to bring
Freedom and Democracy" to mineral-rich
countries. But also, probably, the first war,
where the fighting, in addition to the battlefield,
was transferred to the information space. After
all, by the beginning of the 20th century,
humanity had already made good use of
telegraph, photography and cinema, and the
newspaper has become a familiar attribute of
every home.
✤
Thanks to all of the above, a philistine around
the world could learn about changes in the
military situation within just a few hours. And
not just to read about events, but also to see
them
in
photos
and
screens
of
cinematographs.