The Anglo-Boer War: Surviving When the Empire Strikes Back

When representatives of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State voted on May 31 1902, to accept the peace terms worked out with the British by their negotiators, they took pride in the stunningly effective war their "ignorant peasant communities" had waged against the army of the greatest empire in the world For two and a half years, Boer "commando" units had astonished professional observers by demonstrating that an irregular and decentralized force, equipped with modern weapons, highly mobile, and sensibly led, could hold its own against a vastly superior European army - at least for a while.