Images of the Boer Wars
1. A photo of a Boer artillery piece overlooking Johannesburg.
2. This is an image depicting British soldiers transporting cannon during the Second Boer War. The photo helps to highlight the amount of manpower and vehicles necessary to field these new technologies. Several officers in the British military had concerns that the resources necessary to keep these weapons running could be better served supplying individual soldiers.
3. This photograph depicts Boer, or Afrikaner, commandos armed with British Lee-Metford and German Mauser rifles. Despite the numerous complaints concerning the Lee-Metford in the hands of British soldiers, the weapon was deadly accurate in the hands of Boer commando. As hunting was a natural part of life for many Boer soldiers from the time they were children, their ability to shoot at distance while behind cover or on horseback proved a great challenge for the traditional British soldier. Her Majesty's formations made easy targets for the mobile Boers.
4. A tactic adopted by the British soldiers during the Boer Wars, "scorched earth" was used to force Boer soldiers and citizens to either surrender or get off the land. Due to the mobile and non-traditional fighting style of the Boer forces, the British found themselves unable to truly route the Boer soldiers from their land. The British army reasoned that if they destroyed Boer homesteads, the soldiers would have no place to return to at the end of the day. The families were generally given 5 minutes to gather their belongings before the house was set ablaze.
