Almost three years earlier, the sombre Paul Kruger had warned that Britain would find conquering the Boer regions no easy task. In the sense that they were not acquired cheaply, this was an accurate judgment. At the end of the war, the British were forced to muster approximately 450,000 imperial troops to defeat the Boer forces, which had managed to muster approximately 80,000 troops at least. Their increased resistance turned London’s South African campaign into the largest and most expensive war fought by the British between 1815 and 1914. This was a colonial war which the British Treasury estimated in September 1899 would require the deployment of about 75,000 troops and financial support of approx. £10 million for a two to three month campaign. By the time the dispute finally ended, that cost had risen to £217 million. What this balance sheet showed was the huge military investment the British Empire needed to conquer two of the world’s smallest agricultural regions.
That is from the New History of South Africa, by Hermann Giliomee, Bernard Mbenga, and Bill Nasson, an excellent book. I found it to be one of the best one volume histories of any country I have read. Another book on South Africa that I found particularly useful is Understanding South Africa, by Carien du Plessis and Martin Plaut. One of the best things about traveling is you understand a country – through books – much better than before you go there. Everything is clearer, and you retain more of it.
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