The Boer War: When Farmers Fought an Empire

It all started with gold. Not metaphorically, not as a symbol of greed or imperial arrogance. Literal, sparkly, inconveniently located gold. When veins of it were found beneath the scrublands of the South African Republic (also known as the Transvaal), it sent the British Empire into a bit of a colonial tizzy. What followed was not just one of the earliest media-driven wars, but also a conflict that turned an obscure southern African region into a global headline. The Boer War had arrived.

The Boer War, properly called the Second Anglo-Boer War (because yes, they’d already had a warm-up), ran from 1899 to 1902 and made the Transvaal and Orange Free State the most contested patches of farmland since someone decided Troy was worth ten years of spear-throwing. It pitted the mighty British Empire against a scrappy collection of Afrikaner farmers who had the sheer nerve to want independence, a stubborn grip on their rifles, and a surprising knack for guerilla warfare.

Long before TikTok influencers posed with fatigues and faux concern, the Boer War was already the war that sold newspapers. Londoners were eating breakfast with updates from the veldt, and the war gave birth to the embedded war correspondent. Hello, Mr. Winston Churchill, war reporter, escapee of Boer prison trains, and future prime minister with one heck of a memoir angle.

Speaking of Churchill, he was just one of many characters who stumbled out of this war with a future shaped by its mud and blood. Gandhi was there too, running an ambulance corps for the British and forming some very strong opinions about empires and how best to resist them. It was, in short, a networking event for future icons of 20th-century resistance and power.

The Boers, which is Dutch for farmers, were descendants of 17th-century Dutch settlers. By the time of the war, they were thoroughly Afrikaans-speaking and had fought off Zulu, British, and even each other to hold their land. But they were also deeply conservative, Calvinist, and held views that would make modern liberals break out in hives. Racial hierarchy wasn’t a quirk; it was policy.

The British, meanwhile, marched in with red coats, then changed to khaki after realising that bright crimson makes you a bit too visible when people are trying to shoot you. They assumed a quick win. They got bogged down in trench-style sieges, supply issues, and a furious resistance that refused to play by gentleman’s rules. Think trench warfare meets ambush tactics meets ‘we’re really, really annoyed you came here’.

Things got particularly grim when the British, frustrated by elusive Boer fighters, decided to burn farms and shove civilians into what they called “concentration camps”. And yes, that term already had a bad ring to it. Disease ran rampant, and by the end, around 26,000 Boer women and children had died in these camps. Lord Kitchener became a household name for all the wrong reasons.

There was also the curious use of black South Africans in the war. Around 100,000 were used by the British as labourers, scouts, and sometimes fighters, though they were promised they wouldn’t be armed. Many were later placed in separate camps, and thousands of them died too. But somehow, history often left them out of the narrative. Convenient, that.

One bizarre twist? The war turned into something of a fashion trend. Suddenly, Edwardian gentlemen wanted safari gear, moustaches, and tales of bush bravado. Boer War chic was a thing. The British public may have been appalled by the human cost, but they couldn’t resist the aesthetics.

And the British press? Well, they painted it all in the glowing light of empire, until it dragged on too long and the casualty figures got a little too hard to spin. Then the criticism poured in. The war had become expensive, morally dubious, and stubbornly un-winnable in the way they’d hoped.

The Boers eventually surrendered in 1902 under the Treaty of Vereeniging. They kept their language and culture but gave up their independence. South Africa would become a self-governing dominion under British rule a few years later, setting the stage for even bigger struggles in the 20th century.

It was the war that made the British Army realise it was out of shape, that perhaps cavalry charges were a tad outdated, and that maybe treating civilians like chess pieces wasn’t the best PR move. It shook public confidence in empire and laid the groundwork for changes in military tactics and policy.

Strangely, it also helped shape the legend of the stiff upper lip. The idea that Britishness was defined by suffering through horrible conditions with an ironic smile? The Boer War gave that idea legs and walking boots.

Meanwhile, Afrikaner nationalism didn’t vanish with the Treaty. It festered. The Boers lost the war, but they didn’t forget. Their cultural memory, their sense of being wronged, would echo into the policies of apartheid and the strange, stubborn identity politics of 20th-century South Africa.

The war also gave birth to some unsettling military ideas. Kitchener’s scorched earth policies and internment logic didn’t stay in South Africa. They inspired other empires, and not in the good way. Lessons from the veldt found their way into World Wars.

It was a messy war, with no clear heroes and plenty of villains on all sides. There were brave acts, noble intentions, and unspeakable cruelty. A modern war with ancient grudges, fought with rifles and railway lines, with civilians caught in the middle.

So yes, the Boer War was about gold. But it was also about identity, pride, imperial arrogance, and what happens when the so-called civilised world tries to hammer its order onto a stubborn patch of earth that just won’t listen. It was the war that made no one look good but made everyone look closely.

And just in case you thought it ended quietly—it didn’t. The memories lingered, in South African politics, in British war stories, and in the pages of history that still haven’t quite decided who, if anyone, came out ahead.