Osprey Men-at-Arms 303 : The Boer Wars (2) 1898-1902

By the middle of the 1890s the South African Republic [Zuid-Afrikaanse Republiek] - the Transvaal - had largely won its 60-year struggle to impose its authority and self-proclaimed boundaries over the black population. Any satisfaction it may have felt in that regard, however, was shortly to be overshadowed by an intensification of that other perennial Boer struggle - against the dominance of the British. Following the 1881 Transvaal War Britain had abandoned its administration of the Transvaal, retaining claim only to 'suzerainty' - a vague and ill-defined right of umbrella authority, which in practice it chose not to exercise. Transvaal affairs might have continued without British interference indefinitely had gold not been discovered in extraordinary quantities at the Witwatersrand in 1886. The subsequent gold rush led to a flood of foreign prospectors - known to the Boers as uitlanders (outsiders) - and to the birth of the boom-town of Johannesburg. It also intensified the economic rivalry which underpinned Boer-British relations in the last years of the 19th century. This second book, Ian Knight completes the study began in the companion book Men-at-Arms 301 : The Boer Wars (1) 1836-1898 by examining the Boer Wars from 1898-1902, and the history, organisation and uniforms of the forces involved and is accompanied by numerous photographs and illustrations, including eight full page colour plates by Gerry Embleton.

Contents

• Introduction
• Boer Forces 1899
• The British Army in 1899
• Tactical Differences
• The Conventional War
• The British Army 1900-1901
• Boer Forces 1900-1902
• The Myth of the 'White Man's War'
• The Bitter End
• Glossary
• The Plates