Editing Second Boer War (section)

=== 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.