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THE TURN OF THE
TIDE:
The Occupation
(:)/
Pretoria
British Prisoners are Released
Prisoners talkn. by . the Boers 'march into Pretoria after its occupation
by the Britishforces. The Boers adopted guerilla: warfare, and heavy British
.,
British troops cheering the occupation of Pretoria by Lord Roberts on
June
5, 1'900.
On Septembe'r
1,
Britain annexed the Transvaal,
declare~
the war over. But Boer resistance went on.
reinforcements were- sent out before their resistance was crushed.
realised that she was not
engaged
in
a small colonial expedition but in her
first large-scale war since tJte Crimea.
It was conceivable that the
Boers
might
drive the British into the sea.
A
Dutch
rebellion had
flared
up in the Cape.
Intervention by Germapy
was
a possi–
bility. France was bitterly hostile to the .
suppression of Boer freedom. In
England
itse~
the war
was
not every-
where approved, and many Liberals, _ fever was whipped up; "Duke's son, relieved Kimberley and a few days later
including a rising young Welsh lawyer rook'sson,sonofahundredKings"joined at Paardeberg he captUred Cronje, and
called David Lloyd George, denounced up,
according
to Kipling, in whose
Im-
4>000
men.
This
was the real
turning–
it
in scathing language. Even the ' perialiSt visions the war appeared as a point of the war. Ladysmith
was '
Government
was
not so enamoured 'of species of
civilising
crusade.
relieved on February 18-28, and despite
the Rand capitalists whose Cause it
bad
Two more setbacks for the ,British,
at ~
/a
lull -
between March and May which
taken up.
Spion Kop and
Vaal
Krantz,
-saw
in the enabled the Boers to riilly, the final issue
But the war had to be won. Rein- new
century.
But the
god
ofwar began _ was henceforward hardly in doubt. The
forcements were rushed out. Volunteer to come down heavily on the side of the Boers called to the Continental Powers
forces were
.~
in.
England. War big battalions.
OnFeb~15,Roberts
for help, andJearned that the indepen-
dence of small nations 'counts for little in
power politics. , Germany did not move,
and Britain refused a U.S. offer of
mediation.
On May 17,
Mafeking,
gaily defenged
by Baden-Powell, was at last relieved.
The news broke months of nervous
strain in England;
set
the crowds wildly
jubilating in London and added a new
word to the English
language.
A
fort–
night later, the British troops entered
Johannesburg, and on
June
5, Pretoria
was
occupied.
Slowly,
the
Boer
Government
WeI1:
retreating
to
the sea. Step by step,
the
, British
pursued
them.
In
August,
the
Transvaalers'
last
big battle of the war
was
fought at
Bergendal.
Defeated,
old
and broken,
Kruger
went down
to
Lourenco , Marques
to
escape on a
Dutch man-of-war.
r,
And on Septem–
ber
I,
Roberts annexed the Transvaal
'and
declared
the war was over.
He
waS
wrong. There were
still
50,0Q0
Boers-
and foreign volunteers
in the
field.
The
Boers
were
well
supplied
with
small
arms. They were
first-class shots. They
knew
the country
over which they were fight:in& And
theyproke up
into
small
mounted
commandos of
desperate
men,
deter–
mined
to
fight a
~
war.
This
was
the
third
llt3ge
ofhostilities:
Nto:Jh
~fS
to
of
,
GUERILLA WARFARE:
Typical Boer Soldiers
The harassed 'British generals retali–
.ated in drastic fashion. The cottages of
rebel farmers and,- Boers who broke
After the capture of Pretoria and annexation of the Transvaal, the BOMs broke up into commandos and fought agueiilla
war. Young boys and old,men of the same family fought side by side. In this picture are
P.
J.
Lemmter,
65
years old,
40
J.
D.
L.
Botha,
15
years old, and
G.
J.
Pretorius,
43
years old.