THE ANGLO-BOOR WAR. Although this is generally know as the Anglo Boor war, I wish to point out that Black South Africans were also involved in the war and some of them were fighting on the side of Britain and others on the side of the Boor.

This was actually the second Freedom War of the Boors against Briton but I will not talk about the first one here. One of the major problems was the rich gold reef, which was discovered in the Transvaal Republic and the Diamond discoveries in the Kimberley area.

The war started on 11 October 1899. In the beginning the two parties were very evenly balanced but the British soon discovered that they would not won the war and got additional men from Britain and their colonies.

The Boors were doing well in the beginning but then the British had just too many men and they took Bloemfontein and Pretoria. They thought that it was the end of the war. The Boors were however just regrouping and then the British Army for the first time experienced Guerrilla Warfare. Under Christiaan de Wet and other leaders the British army suffered heavy losses. President Paul Kruger went to The Netherlands to try and help.

The British army was unable to make any progress against this type of warfare and as then decided to start up their concentration camps. Women and children were moved to these camps. The story was that it was to protect them from the "Bantoes" (Blacks). Most people didn't believe it.

They have destroyed all the farms, burned down the houses and killed the animals and even destroyed the fruit trees and crops. They then started building block houses, but this was also to no avail and an additional 30,000men were brought from England. The British forces were now around 230,000 men strong.

The women and children were living in inhumane circumstances and so many of them died that it actually forced the Boors to negotiate peace.

Many of the Afrikaner who were not prepared to live under British rule left the country and went to live in Argentina. After the war there was still hard feelings between the English and the Afrikaner. This was only stopped when they were more or less united under HF Verwoerd. He brought them closer together with the idea of a free white nation.

Although this war was suppose to be between the White Afrikaner and the British, some 20,000 Blacks died in the war and some 115,000 were in concentration camps.