Scorched Earth Policy and Descturction

First destruction and then capture

In many cases farm homesteads were initially simply burnt down and the inhabitants left to take refuge on the open plains. The reasoning was that the social plight of the women and children would force the Boers who were still fighting in the field, to consider the situation hopeless and to surrender. The women and children surprised the British authorities by surviving fairly well without shelter and conventional sources of food. Accordingly, columns came along later in the war, which aimed at collecting even these drifting refugees from the ruined shells of their former homes so that they too, could be taken to the concentration camps as the captivity of their families seemed to have a greater demoralizing effect on the Burghers. Sometimes columns simply visited ruined farms in order to collect fuel since the open veldt provided little firewood, which the British army was always in great need of.

Boer Family With Entire Worldly Possessions

A Boer family has been newly off-loaded at an unknown concentration camp. Surrounding them are the only possessions that they have left in the world. With nothing physical left to lose, all these people still had left to lose were their lives and those of their loved ones.

"Even one's mouth was filled with sand. From about ten o'clock till after five one couldn't do anything save lie on the floor and cover oneself with a rug or something, otherwise one would eventually be covered with sand... and so it continued for months with the exception of a few quiet days in-between. Everybody was fed up with the situation." A.C. Heymans., Kampkinders, 1900-1902 -- 'n Gedenkboek, Van Schoor, M.C.E & Coetzee, C.G, Dreyer Drukkers, Bloemfontein, 1982, p.20

The Crying Woman

A striking picture that tells its own story. This show a young Boer woman who appears to be trying to hide her tears from her companions. The picture suggests that she has just been deposited at a concentration camp. Around her, a few of the women are trying to organize the few belongings that they had somehow managed to bring along.

Her entire bearing and body language seems to explain her feelings: "What in the world is happening to us?"

Returning Home After the War
Photo: H Labuschagne

Returning home after the war, meant a time of great hardship for nearly every family. Most had lost everything but the land they stood on, and many were destined to lose even that quite soon. Over 33,000 homes across the Transvaal and Free State were destroyed, and many small towns suffered the same fate. Practically every family had lost their home.

The Boer survivors returned to their devastated farms in the middle of a particularly cold and bitter winter. They did not know it yet, but the coming season would add to their misfortunes by being a year of drought. On most farms only the broken ruins of what had once been homes and sheds were still standing. Commandant Red David Joubert, for example, had to live with his wife under a triangular lean-to shelter made from burnt corrugated iron roof sheets which he salvaged from the ruins of his house. He had lost one arm during the war, but was fortunate in still having his wife and some children. 

Many men returned to their farms to wait for the return of their families from the concentration camps - only to find that the entire family had perished, or that the wife, or some of the children were missing. Mothers and wives returned to find out that their husbands and sons had long since died on the battlefield or in banishment. Some had to wait for many months for the return of their menfolk from prisoner of war camps in Bermuda, Ceylon, St. Helena and India, or from internment in Portugal. In the absence of their men, they had to do what they could do try and build up some kind of a life again. 

The picture above is of the little rondavel that the father of Mr Willie Klingenberg of Piet Retief in the South-Eastern Transvaal, built upon his return from the war. He built this little shack from the bricks that he could salvage from the ruins of his home. In this humble home, he and his family had to live until such time as they could rebuild their lives again. Many families had lost every penny they owned. On many farms, not a single farm animal survived and not a single seed was available to plan. Yet, they were the sons and daughters of a hardy pioneer generation, and they simply made life work out despite all the obstacles.

My own great-grandmother returned while her husband was still a prisoner of war in Ceylon. She was 25 years old and had four little children to look after until her husband could return. Her house was nothing but a pile of ash from which only a few blackened iron and brass articles could be salvaged. In a field, she had buried two trunks with some articles of clothing before the war. These were recovered, but besides that, there was nothing. She set snares for small game, and although the family experiences some hunger in the beginning, at least they were able to survive in this way. Every family had its own little story of survival to tell.

There were others, however, for whom the story was different. Sometimes, out of a family of eight, nine, or occasionally eleven or twelve members, only one would return. Some were children. Young little orphans who were the sole survivors. Ultimately the Anglo-Boer War, would have effects that would ripple across time like a stone, thrown into a pond. These ripples would affect succeeding generations, long after the original survivors weren't there anymore. Some say, the socio-economic effect of the Boer War can be seen in the Afrikaner to this day. It was a war that left an indelible mark for a hundred years.

Those families who had homes to return to, of which the walls were still standing, were fortunate. Many homes were in such a state of ruin that they had to be rebuilt from scratch.

Occasionally it was possibly to repair some of the wholes, which might possibly be what happened in the case of the house in the picture above. It seems to have had a tarpaulin roof fitted.