The Boer War was fought across the length and breadth of modern-day South Africa. It started as a conventional fight but degenerated into a protracted guerilla war that cost the British people 230 million pounds, approximately 27 billion pounds in today’s money. But the war left another legacy in South Africa – a legacy of concentration camps that left tens of thousands of women and children dead. It was a modern war – a war of trenches and machine guns. It was a war that wiped two nations off the face of the planet and almost destroyed the Boer people as a distinct nation. The British thought the war would be a walk in the park. What they got was a promenade through hell. This is the story.

Download episode 36 here: Boer War Download

Maps and Pictures:

References:

The Boer War by Thomas Pakenham

The Afrikaners: Biography of a People by Hermann Giliomee

Scorched Earth by Fransjohan Pretorius

The Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation by Donald Morris

God Does Not Forget by Deneys Reitz

A History of South Africa by Frank Welsh

A History of South Africa by Leonard Thompson

The Boer War 1899-1902 by Gregory Fremont-Barnes

A Military History of South Africa by Timothy Stapelton

Letters from Kimberley: Eyewitness Accounts from the South African War by Edward Spiers

Letters from Ladysmith: Eyewitness Accounts from the South African War by Edward Spiers

The Cambridge History of South Africa by Robert Ross et al.

De La Rey – Lion of the West by Johannes Meintjes

General Louis Botha: A Biography by Johannes Meintjes

President Steyn: A Biography by Johannes Meintjes