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The South African or Anglo-Boer War rounded off the British conquest of Southern Africa. While ultimate British victory was scarcely in doubt, the unsettling experience of having to field an army of 450,000 troops to break two of the world's tiniest agrarian states gave imperial society much to reflect upon, both during and after the conflict.
To the Boer 'bittereinders' the outcome of the war was never anything other than a humiliation. Yet the defeat of Boer interests was less evident. Although much of the black population became involved in the conflict, white supremacy remained intact; and the successes of the Boers in the field, as well as the trials and tribulations of their families in defeat, restoked a nationalist Afrikaner identity, which would go on to become a key element in the policy of apartheid. Only now, a hundred years later, are some of the more baleful legacies of the war being addressed.
Bill Nasson's lively new history is a crisp, up-to-date account not only of the military struggle but also of the whole web of miscalculations and shattered illusions that surrounded it and spread far beyond the battlefields.
