Boer Wars: Diamonds, Gold, and Imperial Conflict

European Powers in Africa

If you look at the map, you see that there are two dominant powers: there is a horizontal line to the North, where the French were, and a vertical line in blue, which corresponds to British dominion. That is what explains a caricature of Cecil Rhodes—who gave name to Rhodesia—in which he appears above the African map.

Germany's Ambitions

The third colonial power was Germany, which was fast becoming an industrialized area. By then, Germany was trying to establish a railway line joining Berlin and Baghdad, which contains the biggest oil reservoirs. Therefore, that is why they had interest to build this railway line.

British Dominions and Boer Republics

If we concentrate on the South, we see primarily British dominions and a piece in which we see two Boer Republics, Transvaal and Orange Free State. The Boers were a community of Dutch origin, and they had been living there for a long time. They even had a language, Afrikaans. They were very peaceful people, and they were farmers.

Gold and Diamonds

The problems for the Boers started when, at the end of the 19th century, gold was found in the area of Transvaal. That created a kind of gold fever, with thousands of people from the surrounding areas going in, looking for gold. These people from the surrounding areas were the so-called 'uitlanders'. The gold fever began to create problems.

The second problem was diamonds. They were found in the area around Kimberley. The combination of gold plus diamonds was crucial.

Road to War

The war was not declared against the Boer community instantly. Before England captured Swaziland and Zululand, and the annexation of Swaziland was very much the reason for the war that came: it was the only place that the Boers had that allowed them access to the sea. The Boers began to find the situation very difficult. As a result, the Boers decided to fight for liberty, for survival. But basically, this was what England wanted, because they thought that they were going to win easily, and it was not like that.

Unequal Conflict

This was from the start a war that was unequal. It was a war between the British army and the Boers, who had nothing to do with this. They were common men with simple weapons, but they made things difficult for the English for three reasons:

• First of all, the Boers were fighting for their own land.
• They knew their land to perfection, and the English did not.
• They fought a kind of 'guerrilla war', for which the England army was not trained. Boer cavalry was excellent.

Scorched Earth and Concentration Camps

Suddenly, the British army found themselves in a difficult position. The solution for this situation was that the British started a campaign of scorched earth. They began to burn all the Boer farms. The idea was to leave these men without any kind of material support; and to make matters worse, they ended creating the first concentration camps. The result was the defeat of the Boers, and the English won a new colony, and they also won peace. The Boers were allowed to have a space in the new territory, which was a republic for two peoples. In fact, there were established two official languages: English and Afrikaans. And England gave millions of pounds to the Boer community to rebuild their farms. In a way, there are things in this war that make us think about the First World War, so we need to jump to that.