Page 37 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

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The Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) and its consequences:
a South African case study of military conflict and the
civilian population

ANDré WESSELS

introduction
From 11 October 1899 to 31 May 1902, the Anglo-Boer War raged in what is today South
Africa. This bitter conflict may be regarded as the first liberation struggle of the twentieth
century, with the Afrikaners/Boers being the first African freedom fighters. So far, it is the
most extensive and destructive war that has been fought in southern Africa. In this paper, it
will be shown how the military conflict between the world’s only superpower on the cusp of
the nineteenth and twentieth century (i.e. the British Empire) and two small Afrikaner/Boer
republics (i.e. the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek / South African Republic / Transvaal and the
Oranje-Vrijstaat / Orange Free State) wreaked havoc on the civilian population. What started
as a white man’s war and a so-called gentleman’s war, soon degenerated into a conflict that
displayed characteristics of both a civil war and a total war, affecting the lives of all the in-
habitants (i.e. white, black, “coloured”/brown and Asian) in the region.
In the first part of the paper, a brief review of the causes of the war will be provided, and
more light will be cast on the false expectations both sides had regarding the duration of the
conflict. a closer look will also be taken at the Boer and British strategies, and how these
strategies were implemented during the first three (semi-)conventional phases of the struggle.
It will then be pointed out how and why the character of the war changed from March 1900
onwards (i.e. when the Boers changed their (semi-)conventional strategy to that of guerrilla
warfare), and what measures the British Army in South Africa took in a desperate effort to
counter the new Boer onslaught. The consequences of the British counter-guerrilla strategy
will then be discussed, including the “collateral damage” it inflicted on the country and its
inhabitants. The British scorched-earth policy, for example, led to the destruction of approxi-
mately 30 000 Boer farmsteads; and the houses of thousands of black labourers, as well as
approximately 40 towns and villages, were partially or totally destroyed. The fact that more
than half of the total (only 219 000 strong) Afrikaner population of the Transvaal and Orange
Free State and more than a 100 000 black civilians were left destitute, and that in due course
the British authorities established internment camps (a term preferred to the emotionally-
charged term “concentration camps”) where these civilians were housed – most of the time
under unsanitary conditions, and without sufficient food or medical facilities – speaks for
itself. The result was a humanitarian disaster, which led to the death of approximately 28 000
white civilians (80% of them children, aged sixteen years and younger), and at least 23 000
(but probably many more) black civilians.
Finally, the traumatic consequences and legacy of the Anglo-Boer War, which may be
traced throughout the twentieth century, will be evaluated briefly. After all, one cannot un-