Conventional War
The war started with the expiration of the time limit set on President Kruger’s ultimatum on October 12, 1899. The Boers outnumbered the British and had the advantage of knowledge of the terrain. This allowed them to quickly defeat the British. In the second week of December 1899, known as “Black Week” in the British press, the British were defeated at Stromberg, Magersfontein and Colenso. The British knew they were in a full blown war and it would take a lot more troops then they originally planned.1
From the Orange Free State and the Transvaal the Boers attacked the Cape Colony and laid siege to Kimberley and Mafeking. They also attacked Natal and laid siege to Ladysmith. At Ladysmith the Boers had trapped their arch enemy, Cecil Rhodes. Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, future founder of the Boy Scouts movement, headed the forces at Maefeking. These cities were able to hold out against the numerically superior Boers for over six months. Baden-Powell had a force of only 1000 against over 6000 and augmented his forces by arming the blacks within the city. This infuriated the Boer commander Piet Cronje who sent this message in the first month of the siege:
It is understood that you have armed Bastards, Fingos and Baralongs against us – in this you have committed an enormous act of wickedness – reconsider this matter, even if it [should] cost you the loss of Mafeking … disarm your blacks and thereby act the part of a white man in a white man’s war.2
The British quickly mobilized their forces and sent a force of greater than 47,000 men to South Africa. To begin with the British had problems within their command, there were two competing cliques, the Indian clique, headed by Sir Roberts and the African clique headed by Sir Redvers Buller. These two cliques were continuously fighting amongst themselves.
Buller 
was the man on the ground and in command of the troops in Natal. At Colenso Buller quickly found that the Boers tactics and arms were able to defeat the British army. The Boers used a German made Mauser with smokeless ammunition. The Mauser had a five round magazine that could be loaded at one-time while the British had the Lee-Enfield, which had a ten round magazine, but each round had to be loaded individually. The Boers were able to kill the British from distance of greater than 500 yards. At this battle Redvers Buller received the nickname, Sir Reverse Buller. However, the overwhelming superiority of men and material allowed Buller to relieve Ladysmith on the 28th of February.
Lord Roberts, the man put in charge of the entire operation took over operations in January of 1900 and relieved the sieges of Kimberley and Mafeking in February, captured the capital of the Orange Free State in March and in June conquered the capital of the Transvaal, Pretoria. The final push against Boer Armies came in September with the pushing of the remaining Boer forces into Portuguese East Africa.
Everyone believed the war was over; Buller and Roberts went home and left the mopping up to Lord Kitchener of Khartoum.3
