South African War

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South African War or Boer War, 1899–1902, war of the South African Republic (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State against Great Britain.

Background

Beginning with the acquisition in 1814 of the Cape of Good Hope, Great Britain gradually increased its territorial possessions in S Africa and by the late 19th cent. it held Natal, Basutoland, Swaziland, Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, and other Bantu lands. The Boers (Dutch), already settled in some of these areas, strongly resented British incursions. Resentment was especially marked in the Transvaal (headed by the strongly anti-British Paul Kruger ), which had actually been annexed (1877–81) to Great Britain.

Anti-British sentiment was further inflamed after the discovery (1886) of gold in the Witwatersrand brought a great influx of prospectors (mainly British) into the Transvaal . Soon almost all the newly established mines as well as much of the commerce passed into British hands. The Boer government, to protect itself from the growing number of foreigners, denied these Uitlanders [foreigners] citizenship and taxed them heavily, despite British objections. In 1895 the Jameson raid (see Jameson, Sir Leander Starr ), which Transvaalers considered an officially sponsored plot to seize their country, aggravated the situation, and in 1896 the Transvaal and the Orange Free State (see Free State ) formed a military alliance to protect their independence.

The War

The British, after the appointment (1897) of Sir Alfred Milner as high commissioner for their South African territories, determined upon a showdown in defense of what they considered their commercial rights. Troops were dispatched from Britain, and, after Boer protestations were refused, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State declared war (Oct. 12, 1899). The Boer forces, well equipped by Germany, were larger than those immediately available to the British, and they scored impressive victories in the areas adjacent to the Boer territories. In the Cape Colony, Mafikeng was captured and Kimberley besieged; in Natal, Ladysmith was placed under siege. Reinforcements under the command of Sir Redvers Buller were sent from Britain.

Buller's failure to dislodge the Boers led to his replacement by Gen. Lord Roberts , with Kitchener as his chief of staff. They landed in 1900 with heavy reinforcements and soon won victories; Kimberley and Ladysmith were relieved, and General Cronje was forced to surrender. Roberts advanced into the Orange Free State, captured its capital, Bloemfontein, and occupied the entire territory by May. By the end of June, Mafikeng had been relieved, the Transvaal invaded, and Johannesburg and Pretoria captured. The Boer states were formally annexed and Kruger, a fugitive in Europe, appealed in vain for help there.

Roberts, believing the war to be over, left South Africa and delegated the mopping up to Kitchener. The Boers, however, continued an extensive and coordinated guerrilla war. Under their leaders, including Smuts, De Wet, and Botha, they disrupted communications, attacked outposts and, with their intimate knowledge of the countryside, eluded capture. Kitchener decided that final victory lay only in the systematic destruction of these guerrilla units, and adopted a scorched-earth policy. Boer women and children were herded into concentration camps where unhealth conditions killed some 26,000 Boers, most of whom were children, and perhaps 20,000 or more black Africans also died. Thousands of farms were torched, some 40 towns destroyed, and untold livestock killed. Chains of blockhouses were erected that cut off large areas, and dragnets of troops went through the guerrilla country section by section. By 1902 the British force (about 450,000) had reduced to final submission the Boer troops (approximately 54,000). The Treaty of Vereeniging (May 31, 1902) ended hostilities; the military casualties included some 22,000 British troops, mainly from disease, and some 7,000 Boers.

The War's Aftermath

The Boers accepted British sovereignty in exchange for a promise of responsible government in the near future. Great Britain agreed to grant a £3 million indemnity for property destruction and promised not to assess taxes to cover the expenses of the war. Amnesty was granted to all who had not violated the rules of war and repatriation to those who accepted the British king. The war left much bitterness, which continued to affect the political life of South Africa throughout the 20th cent.

Bibliography

See L. Amery, ed., The Times History of the War in South Africa (7 vol., 1900–1909); D. Reitz, Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War (new ed. 1945, repr. 1970); E. Holt, The Boer War (1958); W. B. Pemberton, Battles of the Boer War (1964); T. C. Caldwell, ed., The Anglo-Boer War (1965); G. H. L. Le May, British Supremacy in South Africa (1965); J. M. Selby, The Boer War (1969); P. Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899–1902 (1983).

South African War (1899–1902) Also known as the Boer War, it was a colonial war in which the British tried to extend their rule from the Cape Colony and Natal to include the independent Afrikaner republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State (OFS). It was caused less by strategic interests than by the discovery of vast gold mines, especially in the Transvaal, which had transformed the republic from a poor agricultural state into a major potential regional power overnight. As British intentions to annex the two republics became increasingly evident, the Afrikaners decided in favour of a pre-emptive strike in the hope of overwhelming the British garrisons in Natal and rousing the Afrikaners of the Cape into rebellion. After a series of heavy defeats, the British appointed Lord Roberts (b. 1832, d. 1914) as Commander-in-Chief, with Lord Kitchener as his Chief of Staff. They inflicted a humiliating defeat on their opponents at Paardeburg on 27 February 1900, and proceeded to march towards Pretoria. They formally annexed the OFS in May and the Transvaal in September 1900.

In response, guerrilla warfare began under the military leadership of Louis Botha and Christiaan de Wet (b. 1854, d. 1922), when Afrikaner commandos undertook raids against British garrisons and towns not only in the Transvaal and the OFS, but also through the Cape. The British responded by burning Afrikaner farms and destroying their cattle to deny them the means to continue the raids. Moreover, following the appointment of Kitchener to replace Roberts as Commander-in-Chief in November 1900, a comprehensive network of blockhouses was created to restrict the Afrikaner commandos' freedom of movement. In addition, concentration camps were erected to intern civilians believed to support, or be connected with, the enemy.

In 1902, Botha decided to sue for peace while the Afrikaner forces still possessed the strength to bargain an advantageous peace, so that on 31 May 1902 the Treaty of Vereeniging was concluded. It proved a Pyrrhic victory for the British, however. The war had exposed the weakness of the British army, which had needed a total of half a million soldiers to win over two small, ill-equipped armies. Furthermore, even after annexation British control over the reluctant OFS and the Transvaal, which had no liking for the British Empire whatsoever, remained extremely weak. Finally, the memory of the war ensured the continued bitterness of many Afrikaners against the Empire, and the relationship with Britain remained the most divisive issue in South African politics until 1961.

South African Wars Two wars between the Afrikaners (Boers) and the British in South Africa. The first (1880–81) arose from the British annexation of the Transvaal in 1877. Under Paul Kruger, the Transvaal regained autonomy, but further disputes, arising largely from the discovery of gold and diamonds, provoked the second, greater conflict (1899–1902), known to Afrikaners as the Second War of Freedom and to the British as the Boer War. It was also a civil war between whites; black Africans played little part on either side. In 1900, the British gained the upper hand, defeating the Boer armies and capturing Bloemfontein and Pretoria. Boer commandos fought a determined guerrilla campaign but were forced to accept British rule in the peace treaty signed at Vereeniging (1902).