The Boer War

When the Boer War between the British Empire and the white-controlled South African republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State erupted in October 1899 over independence and mining rights, both sides expected that the fighting would be over by Christmas. Little could either the British or the Boers the republics' mostly Dutch-descended inhabitants have dreamed that the three-year war would claim the lives of some 30,000 soldiers and 48,000 noncombatants. The Boer War was not only Britain's bloodiest in more than a century but also its most controversial, particularly because of the British army's tactics of burning Boer homes and farms and imprisoning the Boer civilians in concentration camps. Read more about this major turning point in British and South African history in The Boer War.