Editing Second Boer War (section)

== Third phase: Guerrilla war (September 1900 – May 1902) ==
[[File:StateLibQld 1 102586 Lord Herbert Kichener on horseback..jpg|thumb|upright|Kitchener succeeded Roberts in November 1900 and launched anti-guerrilla campaigns. 1898 photograph in 1910 magazine.]]
By September 1900, the British were nominally in control of both Republics, with the exception of the northern part of the Transvaal. However, they soon discovered that they only controlled the territory their columns physically occupied. Despite the loss of their two capital cities and half of their army, the Boer commanders adopted [[guerrilla warfare]] tactics, primarily conducting raids against railways, resource and supply targets, all aimed at disrupting the operational capacity of the British Army. They avoided pitched battles and casualties were light.

Each Boer commando unit was sent to the district from which its members had been recruited, which meant that they could rely on local support and personal knowledge of the terrain and the towns within the district thereby enabling them to live off the land. Their orders were simply to act against the British whenever possible. Their tactics were to strike fast and hard causing as much damage to the enemy as possible, and then to withdraw and vanish before enemy reinforcements could arrive. The vast distances of the republics allowed the Boer commandos considerable freedom to move about and made it nearly impossible for the 250,000 British troops to control the territory effectively using columns alone. As soon as a British column left a town or district, British control of that area faded away. The Boer commandos were especially effective during the initial guerrilla phase of the war because Roberts had assumed that the war would end with the capture of the Boer capitals and the dispersal of the main Boer armies. Many British troops were therefore redeployed out of the area, and had been replaced by lower-quality contingents of [[Imperial Yeomanry]] and locally raised irregular corps.

[[File:Eul ms 202 1900 25 theatre royal playbill.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Playbill for an "illustrated lecture" on the campaign by war correspondent and artist René Bull,1900]]
From late May 1900, the first successes of the Boer guerrilla strategy were at Lindley (where 500 Yeomanry surrendered), and at Heilbron (where a large convoy and its escort were captured) and other skirmishes resulting in 1,500 British casualties in less than ten days. In December 1900, De la Rey and [[Christiaan Beyers]] attacked and mauled a British brigade at [[Battle of Nooitgedacht|Nooitgedacht]], inflicting over 650 casualties. As a result of these and other Boer successes, the British, led by Lord Kitchener, mounted three extensive searches for [[Christiaan de Wet]], but without success. However, the Boer raids on British army camps and other targets were sporadic and poorly planned, and the very nature of the Boer guerrilla war itself had practically no overall long-term objectives, with the exception to simply harass the British. This led to a disorganised pattern of scattered engagements between the British and the Boers throughout the region.

===Use of blockhouses===<!-- This section is linked from [[Blockhouse]] -->
The British were forced to quickly revise their tactics. They concentrated on restricting the freedom of movement of the Boer commandos and depriving them of local support. The railway lines had provided vital lines of communication and supply, and as the British had advanced across South Africa, they had used [[armoured train]]s and had established fortified [[blockhouses]] at key points along most railway lines.<ref name="Jones" /> They now built additional blockhouses (each housing between six and eight soldiers under the command of a single non-commissioned officer) at bridges and beside major roads connecting various rural towns, and fortified these to protect supply routes against Boer [[raid (military)|raiders]]. Eventually over 8,000 such blockhouses were built across the two South African republics, radiating from the larger towns along principal road and railway routes. Each blockhouse cost between £800 and £1,000 and took about three months to build. Despite the expense, they proved very effective; not one bridge or any section of railway line at which a blockhouse was sited and manned was blown up.<ref name="Jones" />

The blockhouse system required an enormous number of troops to garrison. Well over 50,000 British troops, or 50 battalions, were involved in blockhouse duty, greater than the approximately 30,000 Boers in the field during the guerrilla phase. In addition, up to 16,000 Africans were used both as armed guards and to patrol the line at night.<ref name="Jones">{{harvnb|Jones|1996}}</ref> The Army linked the blockhouses with barbed wire fences to parcel up the wide veld into smaller areas. "New Model" drives were mounted under which a continuous line of troops could sweep an area of veld bounded by blockhouse lines, unlike the earlier inefficient scouring of the countryside by scattered columns.

=== Scorched earth campaign against civilians ===
[[File:VerskroeideAarde1.jpg|thumb|One British response to the guerrilla war was a [[scorched earth]] policy to deny the guerrillas supplies and refuge. In this image [[Boer]] civilians watch their house as it is burned.]]

The British also implemented a scorched earth policy under which they targeted everything within the controlled areas that could give sustenance to the Boer guerrillas with a view to making it harder for the Boers to survive. As British troops swept the countryside, they systematically destroyed crops, poisoned wells, burned homesteads and farms, and interned Boer and African men, women, children and workers in concentration camps. Finally, the British also established their own mounted raiding columns in support of the sweeper columns. These were used to rapidly follow and relentlessly harass the Boers with a view to delaying them and cutting off escape, while the sweeper units caught up. Many of the 90 or so mobile columns formed by the British to participate in such drives were a mixture of British and colonial troops, but they also had a large minority of armed Africans. The total number of armed Africans serving with these columns has been estimated at 20,000. {{Citation needed|date=March 2025}}

The British Army also made use of Boer auxiliaries who had been persuaded to change sides and enlist as "[[National Scouts]]". Serving under the command of General [[Andries Petrus Johannes Cronjé|Andries Cronjé]] (1849–1923), the National Scouts were despised as ''joiners'' but came to number a fifth of the fighting Afrikaners by the end of the War.{{sfn|Pakenham|1991|p=571}}

The British utilised armoured trains throughout the war to deliver rapid reaction forces much more quickly to incidents (such as Boer attacks on blockhouses and columns) or to drop them off ahead of retreating Boer columns.

=== Peace committees ===

Among those Burghers who had stopped fighting, it was decided to form peace committees to persuade those who were still fighting to desist. In December 1900, Lord Kitchener gave permission that a central Burgher Peace Committee be inaugurated in Pretoria. By the end of 1900 some thirty envoys were sent out to the various districts to form local peace committees to persuade burghers to give up the fight. Previous leaders of the Boers, like Generals Piet de Wet and Andries Cronjé were involved in the organisation. [[Meyer de Kock]] was the only emissary of a peace committee to be convicted of high treason and executed by firing squad.{{sfn|Blake|2010|p=140}}

=== Joiners ===

Some burghers joined the British in their fight against the Boers. By the end of hostilities in May 1902, there were no fewer than 5,464 burghers working for the British.{{sfn|Ploeger1985|pp=15–22}}

=== Orange Free State ===

[[File:Christiaan de Wet.jpg|thumb|upright|right|[[Christiaan De Wet]] was the most formidable leader of the Boer guerrillas. He successfully evaded capture on numerous occasions and was later involved in the negotiations for a peace settlement.]]
After having conferred with the Transvaal leaders, de Wet returned to the Orange Free State, where he inspired a series of successful attacks and raids in the western part of the country, though he suffered a rare defeat at [[Battle of Bothaville|Bothaville]] in November 1900. Many Boers who had earlier returned to their farms and towns, sometimes after being given formal parole by the British, took up arms again. In late January 1901, De Wet led a renewed invasion of Cape Colony. This was less successful, because there was no general uprising among the Cape Boers, and De Wet's men were hampered by bad weather and relentlessly pursued by British forces. They narrowly escaped across the Orange River.

From then until the final days of the war, De Wet remained comparatively quiet, rarely attacking British army camps and columns partly because the Orange Free State was effectively left desolate by British sweeps. In December 1901, De Wet attacked and overran an isolated British detachment at [[Battle of Groenkop|Groenkop]], inflicting heavy casualties and capturing over 200 British soldiers. This prompted Kitchener to launch the first of the "New Model" drives against him. De Wet escaped the first such drive but lost 300 of his fighters. This was a severe loss, and a portent of further attrition, although the subsequent sweep attempts to round up De Wet were badly handled, and De Wet's forces avoided capture.

=== Western Transvaal ===

The Boer commandos in the Western Transvaal were very active after September 1901. Several battles of importance were fought there between September 1901 and March 1902. At Moedwil on 30 September 1901 and again at Driefontein on 24 October, General [[Koos De La Rey]]'s forces attacked British camps and outposts but were forced to withdraw after the British offered strong resistance.

From late 1901 to early 1902, a time of relative quiet descended on the western Transvaal. February 1902 saw the next major battle in that region. On 25 February, De La Rey attacked a British column under Lieutenant-Colonel [[Stanley von Donop|S. B. von Donop]] at Ysterspruit near [[Wolmaransstad]]. De La Rey succeeded in capturing many men and a large amount of ammunition. The Boer attacks prompted Lord Methuen, the British second-in-command after Kitchener, to move his column from Vryburg to Klerksdorp to deal with De La Rey. On the morning of 7 March 1902, the Boers attacked the rear guard of Methuen's moving column at [[Battle of Tweebosch|Tweebosch]]. Confusion reigned in British ranks and Methuen was wounded and captured by the Boers.

The Boer victories in the west led to stronger action by the British. In the second half of March 1902, large British reinforcements were sent to the Western Transvaal under the direction of Ian Hamilton. The opportunity the British were waiting for arose on 11 April 1902 at [[Battle of Rooiwal|Rooiwal]], where a commando led by General [[Jan Kemp (South African)|Jan Kemp]] and Commandant Potgieter attacked a superior force under Kekewich. The British soldiers were well positioned on the hillside and inflicted severe casualties on the Boers charging on horseback over a large distance, beating them back. This was the end of the war in the Western Transvaal and also the last major battle of the war.

=== Eastern Transvaal ===

[[File:Afrikaner Commandos2.JPG|thumb|upright|[[Boer Commando|Boer commandos]] c. 1900]]
Two Boer forces fought in this area, one under Botha in the south east and a second under Ben Viljoen in the north east around Lydenburg. Botha's forces were particularly active, raiding railways and British supply convoys, and even mounting a renewed invasion of Natal in September 1901. After defeating British mounted infantry in the [[Battle of Blood River Poort]] near [[Dundee, KwaZulu-Natal|Dundee]], Botha was forced to withdraw by heavy rains that made movement difficult and crippled his horses. Back on the Transvaal territory around his home district of Vryheid, Botha attacked a British raiding column at [[Battle of Bakenlaagte|Bakenlaagte]], using an effective mounted charge. One of the most active British units was effectively destroyed in this engagement. This made Botha's forces the target of increasingly large scorched earth drives by British forces, in which the British made particular use of native scouts and informers. Eventually, Botha had to abandon the high veld and retreat to a narrow enclave bordering [[Swaziland]].

To the north, Ben Viljoen grew steadily less active. His forces mounted comparatively few attacks and as a result, the Boer enclave around [[Lydenburg]] was largely unmolested. Viljoen was eventually captured.

=== Cape Colony ===

In parts of Cape Colony, particularly the Cape Midlands District where Boers formed a majority of the white inhabitants, the British had always feared a general uprising against them. In fact, no such uprising ever took place, even in the early days of the war when Boer armies had advanced across the Orange. The cautious conduct of some of the elderly Orange Free State generals had been one factor that discouraged the Cape Boers from siding with the Boer republics. Nevertheless, there was widespread pro-Boer sympathy. Some of the Cape Dutch volunteered to help the British, but a much larger number volunteered to help the other side. The political factor was more important than the military: the Cape Dutch, according to Milner 90 percent of whom favoured the rebels, controlled the provincial legislature, and its authorities forbade the British Army to burn farms or to force Boer civilians into concentration camps.{{sfn|Marsh|1994|pages=483–485}} The British had more limited options to suppress the insurgency in the Cape Colony as result.

After he escaped across the Orange in March 1901, de Wet had left forces under Cape rebels [[Pieter Hendrik Kritzinger|Kritzinger]] and [[Gideon Scheepers]] to maintain a guerrilla campaign in the Cape Midlands. The campaign here was one of the least chivalrous of the war, with intimidation by both sides of each other's civilian sympathisers. In one of many skirmishes, Commandant [[Johannes Lötter|Johannes Lötter's]] small commando was tracked down by a much-superior British column and wiped out at [[Battle of Groenkloof|Groenkloof]]. Several captured Boers, including Lotter and Scheepers, who was captured when he fell ill with appendicitis, were executed by the British for treason or for capital crimes such as the murder of British prisoners or of unarmed civilians. Some of the executions took place in public, to deter further disaffection.

Fresh Boer forces under [[Jan Christiaan Smuts]], joined by the surviving rebels under Kritzinger, made another attack on the Cape in September 1901. They suffered severe hardships and were hard pressed by British columns, but eventually rescued themselves by routing some of their pursuers at the [[Battle of Elands River (1901)|Battle of Elands River]] and capturing their equipment. From then until the end of the war, Smuts increased his forces from among Cape rebels until they numbered 3,000. However, no general uprising took place, and the situation in the Cape remained stalemated.

In January 1902, Boer leader [[Manie Maritz]] was implicated in the [[Leliefontein massacre]] in the far [[Northern Cape]].