Chapter 377: The End of the Boer War

Not long after the fleet carrying Prince Hu An set sail, major news arrived from South Africa.

Following the previous reinforcement of 50, 00 troops, the British government decided to send another 100, 00. As time reached February 1896, the number of troops committed by the British to the Boer War had already exceeded 250, 00.

In addition to these troops, the British also transported thousands of military horses from their homeland and Australia to increase the mobility of their army.

In this era, the role of cavalry was still very important. As the fastest-moving branch of the military, cavalry could be used not only for reconnaissance but also for strategic assaults and flanking maneuvers.

The Boers clearly did not have so many horses, which meant that once the British cavalry units were formed, the British would hold an absolute advantage in terms of cavalry.

Sure enough, after the British cavalry units were formed, they quickly proved effective on the front lines of the Boer War.

The original offensive route of the British army was to attack north from Natal, directly blockading the coastline of the Transvaal Republic and achieving a total encirclement of both Transvaal and Orange.

The Boers were also clear about the British intentions. They deployed a large number of troops in the south and southeast of the Transvaal Republic, and their determined resistance made it very difficult for the British army to push the front line further north.

Even though the scale of the British army was at an absolute advantage, it was still impossible to make progress on the front lines in a short period of time.

After careful consideration, the British army decided to prioritize dealing with the weaker defense of Orange. Although both were Boer nations, the Orange Free State had less territory and a smaller population, so its defensive strength was naturally somewhat weaker.

More importantly, if they could occupy Orange, the British army could move directly north from the land of Orange, bypassing the defensive lines the Boers had established in the south and southeast of the Transvaal Republic.

In this way, the British army could easily occupy Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal Republic, and end this war.

Thinking of this, the British no longer hesitated.

Because their total troop strength was five times that of the Boers, the British could recklessly change their offensive targets without worrying about the impact on other battlefields.

Although the current situation on the front lines was unfavorable for the British offensive, it was equally impossible for the Boers to launch a counterattack against the British.

Because their troop strength was at an absolute disadvantage, the Boers could only adopt a strategy of all-out defense. This did indeed have some effect, severely slowing down the speed of the British advance.

This was also the reason why, after nearly a year of war, the British army still had not gained much on the front lines. Coupled with the constant arrival of aid from various European countries to the Transvaal Republic, this war had become even more difficult than it was in history.

The good news was that because of the British army's constant failures on the front, the jingoistic sentiment of the British public continued to rise.

In the eyes of the British, the British Empire was the most powerful country in the world, and it was impossible for Britain to back down before the small Boer population.

Even if it meant losing several hundred million pounds, they had to win this war at all costs. The jingoistic sentiment of the British also influenced the British government; given the current situation, no matter how the front lines were faring, this war had to continue.

Unless Britain could achieve final victory, the British government absolutely could not compromise.

Once they compromised, the angry British public would immediately make the British government understand what it meant to go against the will of the people.

As the war developed to this point, the funds the British government had invested in this war had already reached over 100 million pounds. Fortunately, the British government was wealthy; while these military budget figures were astronomical to other European countries, they were acceptable to Britain itself.

Is 100 million pounds a lot? Of course it is.

But this was only one year of the British government's fiscal revenue. If other countries were to take their own year's fiscal revenue and invest it in a war, while the governments would certainly feel the pinch, it would not reach the point of fiscal collapse.

Take the Spanish government as an example. The Spanish government's total fiscal revenue last year reached 1. 62 billion pesetas; if the Spanish government were asked to come up with that much funding for a war within a year, it would still be quite easy for them to scrape the funds together.

Even spending that much on military expenses in one year would not be a crippling blow to Spain. This was where the British confidence lay; Britain's finances were even better than Spain's, and they were confident they could invest even more in the budget—in any case, money was the one thing the British did not lack.

To boost the combat confidence of the soldiers on the front lines, the British government gathered a large amount of grain, beef, and mutton and shipped them to the South African battlefield.

The soldiers fighting on the front lines had meat to eat almost every day, which was already a fairly good level of rations. Such generous food did indeed motivate the British troops on the front, and they fought with more ferocity than before.

Under the incentive of the British constantly throwing money at the problem, the front-line troops soon achieved results in the Boer War.

Although the Boer resistance was very stubborn, the Boer population was truly limited, a shortcoming that could not be overcome.

After the British shifted their offensive focus from the Transvaal Republic to the Orange Free State, the problem of the Boers' insufficient troop strength was quickly exposed.

With only forty or fifty thousand troops in total, it was very difficult to defend such a large area of land. Under the advice of European experts, the Boers placed their main defensive strength in the south of the Transvaal Republic, which was also the original direction of the main British offensive.

But when the British army changed its direction of attack, the Boer army found it difficult to respond accordingly.

If the Boers moved the troops from the south of Transvaal, the British army would very likely attack that land again.

At that point, they might lose both; they would be unable to hold either the Orange Free State or the Transvaal Republic. If they did not move the rear troops, the Orange Free State army had only ten thousand or so men, clearly no match for the attacking British army.

To quickly occupy the Orange Free State, the British army mobilized nearly 100, 00 troops. 100, 00 against 10, 00—a 10-to-1 troop advantage—this war could be won with one's eyes closed.

And that was indeed the case. It took the British army only half a month to break through Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State, and this news boosted the morale of all British troops on the front, as if they saw the hope of victory in the war.

The British army, having achieved good results, was unstoppable and soon occupied the entire territory of the Orange Free State.

By this time, it was March 1896, and only the Transvaal Republic remained fighting alone on the entire Boer battlefield.

To prevent the Boers of the Orange Free State from continuing to engage in guerrilla warfare to sabotage the British occupation, the British army directly established a large concentration camp in Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State, encompassing almost all of the tens of thousands of Boers in the surrounding area.

The British established a very strict management system within the concentration camp, explicitly prohibiting anyone from gathering privately.

Within a week of the concentration camp's establishment, the number of Boer civilians shot by the British army for various reasons had already reached over a thousand.

The cruel behavior of the British army aroused the intense dissatisfaction of the Boers in the Transvaal Republic; their resistance to the British army became even more intense, even reckless, willing to trade their lives for those of the British soldiers.

But the British army no longer cared about the opinions of the Boers. To the British government, as long as they could end this war quickly, any means were worth it.

At the end of March 1896, the British army officially began its attack on the Transvaal Republic.

By this time, the scales of victory had already tipped toward the British; the Boers had fewer than 40, 00 troops left, nearly 10, 00 of whom were volunteer soldiers supported by various European countries.

As for the British army, although they had lost nearly 30, 00 troops in continuous fighting, the British had replenished even more.

Under these circumstances, the British army had not decreased in the slightest; instead, it had reached a peak of nearly 300, 00 men.

It must be known that British casualties on the front lines had already reached nearly 100, 00. This actually meant that the total number of troops Britain had committed to the battlefield was close to 400, 00, which was about the total population of the Boers.

Less than 40, 00 fighting nearly 300, 00—the outcome of this war had actually been destined long ago.

The Boers also understood that they could no longer defeat the British; their thinking had shifted from the initial goal of defeating the British to inflicting as many casualties as possible. Operating on the logic that trading one for one was not a loss and trading one for two was a huge profit, the more the Boers fell into a disadvantage, the stronger their will to fight became.

The Boer ambushes in the early stages of the war had caused the British army to suffer heavy casualties, but the British army had learned to be smart. When encountering an ambush, the infantry no longer maintained formation but instead dug trenches nearby to cover the cavalry as they launched a counterattack on the Boer positions.

This was precisely the key role of the cavalry. Because the Boers were few in number, once they were busy ambushing the British infantry, they could no longer account for the British cavalry.

As long as the cavalry successfully got behind the Boer positions, the ambush battle turned into a reverse slaughter of the Boers by the British army.

This British tactic achieved very good results; the Boer attempts to block them at places like Poplar Grove and Abraham's Kraal failed one after another, and casualties reached a scale of nearly 10, 00 in a short time. On April 11, 1896, the 6th and 7th Divisions of the British Expeditionary Force defeated the best-equipped Boer unit, the Johannesburg Police, at Abraham's Kraal.

The weapons and equipment of this army all came from European countries; the Boers had spent a large amount of funds to arm such an elite force.

Unfortunately, the excellence of their weapons and equipment could not cover up the shortcoming of insufficient numbers. After a bitter fight, this unit ultimately suffered heavy losses and could only flee in defeat.

The defeat of the Johannesburg Police was like the final straw that broke the camel's back for the Boers.

On April 13, the remaining military forces in the north of the Orange Free State all fled to the Transvaal Republic; the Orange Free State had effectively ceased to exist as a nation.

The good news was that because of a typhoid epidemic, the commander, Roberts, had to order the army to rest in place.

After all, this was not the later era with highly developed medical technology; even typhoid could be fatal to soldiers at any time.

The British offensive was forced to terminate due to typhoid, which in turn gave the nearly collapsed Boers a chance to catch their breath.

The British army on the front lines could wait, but the British government in the rear certainly could not. Before a week had passed, another batch of reinforcements from the British government arrived in South Africa.

The total number of these reinforcements was about 60, 00, which was also about the last batch of reinforcements for the British army.

With the addition of these 60, 00 reinforcements, the total size of the British army on the front lines exceeded 350, 00, more than 10 times the fewer than 30, 00 troops the Boers had left.

After a period of rest, the British army re-mobilized 8 infantry divisions and one cavalry division, preparing to launch a new offensive in early May.

The rested British army regained its combat effectiveness and soon broke through large swaths of the Transvaal Republic's territory.

The British army tried to promise generous conditions to the Boers in the occupied areas, such as allowing them to return to their farms after surrendering and resuming their original peaceful lives, using these conditions to exchange for them giving up resistance and avoiding the disruption of order in the British-occupied areas.

Indeed, some people chose to surrender to the British army, but the majority of Boers still chose to resist firmly.

There was no help for it; the cruel acts the British army had committed against the Boers over the year since the war broke out were simply too many, and most Boers could not abandon the blood feud they held against the British.

Since they could not make these Boers in the occupied areas give up resistance, the British government stopped pinning its hopes on them and chose to annex the two Boer nations first.

On May 20, 1896, the Governor of the British Cape Colony announced in Bloemfontein the annexation of the Orange Free State, and the land of the Orange Free State would be incorporated into the Cape Colony.

And on the second day after that, the British army intensified its offensive against the Transvaal Republic, attempting to eliminate this last remaining Boer nation within that month.

It took the British army less than 10 days to push the front line to not far south of Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal Republic.

Here, the British army and the Boer army engaged in their final confrontation.

The last fewer than 20, 00 Boer soldiers held their ground for three days, but ultimately had to surrender due to heavy casualties and a lack of supplies.

At the time of the final surrender, the number of Boer soldiers who could continue to fight was less than 5, 00, which also proved the tenacity of the Boers in this war.

On the British side, to defeat the last remaining Boer army, the British army suffered even more casualties than the Boers.

Originally, the total number of British troops exceeded 350, 00, but after experiencing this month of fighting, the available combat strength was less than 300, 00.

And after defeating this last Boer army, the British army marched triumphantly into Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal Republic, and announced the occupation of the Transvaal Republic a few days later.

Actually, by this point, the war was more or less over. But because of the cruel behavior of the British army, most Boers did not recognize the rule of the British government.

There were still many militias in these two Boer nations resisting British rule; only by completely eliminating these military forces that resisted them could Britain achieve a true annexation.

The news of the war's end soon reached Europe and sparked widespread discussion among European countries.

Setting aside the reputation of the British in this war, this conflict, which had attracted the attention of Europe and even the world, led all countries to pay close attention to Britain's investment and military losses in the war.

Although the British side would not disclose detailed intelligence to the outside world, some basic data could still be obtained quite easily.

Coupled with the fact that each country had its own intelligence organization, having a rough range was not a problem.

Relying on the Royal Security Intelligence Agency, Luo Lun successfully obtained the situation regarding the investment and casualties of both the British and the Boers in this war.

This war was slightly different from history, but generally, it was the same. The hatred between the Boers and the British was deeper, and British casualties were also higher than in history.

But Britain was, after all, the side with the overwhelming advantage; even if the Boers had received aid from various European countries, they still could not change the fact that the winner of this war could only be Britain.

First, regarding troop investment: the total number of troops Britain invested in this war reached as high as 450, 00, while the total troops the Boers invested were only 60, 00, plus 20, 00 international volunteers.

Although the total military expenditure invested by the British government was unclear, as of the beginning of 1896, the military expenditure invested by the British government had already reached as high as 140 million pounds.

In the six months of 1896, the British government would have to invest at least another 60 or 70 million pounds in military expenses.

Calculating it this way, the total military expenditure reached over 200 million pounds; even for the British Empire, it was estimated that it would be a painful loss for a long time.

There was no systematic record of the Boer military expenditure. Much of it was even free aid from various European countries, which was the reason the small Boer nations could hold out for so long.

If they had really been forced to spend money to buy all their supplies, I fear that in less than half a year, the finances of the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State would have collapsed.

Let's talk about the British casualty situation, which European countries were most concerned about.

With a total British investment of 450, 00 troops, the number of soldiers killed in action alone was nearly 30, 00. Total British casualties reached about 150, 00, and after the war ended, there were fewer than 300, 00 uninjured British soldiers on the battlefield.

As for the Boers, the number of military deaths was less than 10, 00, though the casualty ratio was extremely high, reaching a level of nearly 40, 00.

Compared to the Boer army, the Boer civilian casualties were even higher. The number of Boer civilians who died in British concentration camps and prisoner-of-war camps reached over 30, 00, which infinitely deepened the hatred between the British and the Boers.

One has to admire the Boers; their combat effectiveness is still quite formidable. With an army size only one-seventh that of their opponent, the Boers achieved a damage ratio as high as 1 to 3 and a casualty ratio as high as 1 to 4, which is a quite impressive performance.

If Britain did not have a cash cow like India, it would absolutely have suffered a crippling blow in this war.

Of course, Britain's current situation is not much better. Having spent as much as 200 million pounds on military expenses all at once, the Yingguozheng Prefecture has been forced to cut future shipbuilding plans while simultaneously shrinking the size of the army as much as possible to save on unnecessary expenditures.

Compared to the financial losses, what the Yingguozheng Prefecture lost most severely was actually its international prestige and influence.

Originally, the prestige of the British Empire was extremely high, but because of the cruel actions taken against the Boers, the Yingguozheng Prefecture has been condemned by countries all over the world.

This also means that the future diplomatic actions of the Yingguozheng Prefecture will be severely affected. Those who are already followers of Britain will naturally remain loyal, but the remaining countries are no longer so convinced by Britain.

5, 00 words, 2nd update; today's 10, 00-word goal successfully completed!

Still need one more day of 10, 00 words; requesting support!

(End of chapter)