Page 40 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

542 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

intent on merely defending their borders against any British advance, and had no inclination
to deeply penetrate British territory or to capture large areas of the adjacent British territo-
ries. Consequently, they invaded the Cape Colony and Natal on a limited scale, besieged the
British garrisons in Mafikeng, Kimberley and Ladysmith, and took up defensive positions
(for example, on the northern banks of the Thukela River in Natal) from where they hoped to
force back any advancing British forces. 10
The war that followed did not take the course that either the British or the Boers had fore-
seen. The drawn-out struggle can be divided into four main phases: the limited Boer offen-
sive of October – November 1899; the first and unsuccessful British offensive under Buller,
November 1899 – January 1900; the second and relatively successful British offensive under
Roberts, January – November 1900 (when he defeated Cronjé at Paardeberg, and captured
both republican capitals); and the guerrilla phase, which overlapped to some extent with the
third phase, and lasted from March 1900 – May 1902 (with Kitchener being the Commander-
in-Chief of the British forces in South Africa most of the time).

the semi-conventionaL phases of the war, october 1899 – september
1900
It may be argued, in a certain sense, that the Boers lost the war when, on Monday 9 Oc-
tober 1899, they handed over an ultimatum to the British government, demanding, inter alia,
that all British troops deployed on the Transvaal’s border be withdrawn, and that troops on
their way to South Africa be ordered not to land. Strictly speaking, the two small Boer re-
publics could not win a war against the mighty British Empire. If the Boers wanted to stand
a chance of being able to enforce a negotiated settlement by means of military action (as
they had done in February–March 1881, at the end of the Transvaal War of Liberation), they
should have prepared better for war, and acted with optimal force in 1899, implementing a
carefully-considered strategy. In other words, they should have acted decisively before the
11
British were able to send large numbers of reinforcements to South Africa. For example,
the Boers should have divided their forces into as many small mobile commandos as possi-
ble, should have invaded the British colonies at as many places as possible, and should have
disrupted the British lines of communication.
Initially, the Boers fielded some 35 000 burghers. (In due course, approximately 70 000
men served on the Boer side, including Cape and Natal rebels and foreigners, albeit that there
were never more than 47 000 in the field at any given time.) But the Boers did not exploit
their initial numerical advantage, merely invaded British territory on a limited scale, and
squandered strategic opportunities by laying siege to Mafikeng, Kimberley and Ladysmith.
This allowed the British to send an army corps of 46 000 men to South Africa, which were
deployed under the command of General Sir Redvers Buller. Initially, Buller planned to

10 Wessels, “Afrikaners at war”, pp. 82-86.
11 For an assessment of the lack of sound strategic planning on the Boer side, see, for example, A. Wessels,
“Die Boere se strategie aan die begin van die Anglo-Boereoorlog”, Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe 39(3 &
4), September & December 1999, pp. 227-242. For General J.C. Smuts’s views re the strategy that the Boers
should have followed, see W.K. Hancock and J. van der Poel (eds), Selections from the Smuts papers 1: The
sanguine years, 1870-1919 (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 315-318.