Boer attack - 2nd Boer war

Hello,
my questions are based on the articles of the 2nd Boer war in
Military History May 2010
Clausewitz 2/2015 (german military magazine)
wikipedia

After reading the articles I find the following flaws of the Boer warriors:

They had no chief of staff. They saw that the british were building fences but nobody looked at the big picture and thought that the british would put all of Boer country behind fences and divide the country by fences.
The Boer made raids and sieges in the beginning but had no desire to conquer. Their soldiers were too individualistic and homebound. So the british had in the Cape colony a nearly safe base of operations.

So, what would have happened if these and other mistakes had been corrected?

Sending headhuntersquads after Milner, Kitchener and Rhodes and the british government in London?

Infiltrating Cape Town and burning it down.

Going for tu quoque. If the british do not care about Boer civilians, why should the Boers not respond in kind?

And now to the most controversial question:
(Yes, I know that the Boer were considered to be the god guys and they would loose it all including german support, but...)

Was Queen Victoria a legitimate military target?
Taking her hostage and forcing her to sign a paper accepting the independance of Boer territory.
Or killing her in revenge for the camps where the Boer women and children died.

What would be the reaction to such an attack even if it not succeeded?
Please remember that according to Military History page 32 Kitchener had given the "Take no prisoners" order.

And why did some of the Boer did not take revenge after 1902?
If my wife and children would have died in a camp I would have tried to get at Kitchener.
What do you think?
 
Well...

For one thing, it will turn the Boer War from a 'oh look at the evil Brits' into 'these Brits better deal with them terrorists'.

But then, the Boers lost (depending; some call Apartheid South Africa basically a Boer victory), so it's not like they have much to lose.
 
Britain still lost in the long run.
Rhodesia declared independence during the 1960s. By 1980, Boers lost control to the black majority.
Similarly, Englishmen lost control of South Africa after WW2, but Boers lost control by the end of the century.

Returning to the original question, Boers would have been justified in killing any British military leader. Assassinating British monarchy or politicians is more problematic.
 
The problem for the Boers is that Kitchner (and the British government at large) was more than willing to be ruthless in their campaign against the guerrillas and devised probably some of the most effective anti-guerrilla warfare doctrines to be employed in the 20th century. The Boers were expecting a repeat of the last war and lacked any sort of coordinated plan to force the British to terms.

If the Boers had been able to adopt a good strategy they might have been able to adopt peace on their decent terms, but in the long run they would probably have had to give in to some British demands since no outside help was forthcoming.

In answer to the other questions:

Well the Boers were quite literally deprived of the sea in which they swam to quote Mao, so continued resistance quickly became rather pointless. If they wanted to go tit for tat and start killing British civilians then they'd be seen as the monsters and lose all support in the eyes of the world. It would be a very different thing to deliberately murder civilians versus kill them via incompetence like the British did.

They could have killed British officers in theatre and no one would have really raised a stink, but to send assassins to Britain and kill them there? The powers that be would have taken issue with that.

Then killing Queen Victoria is a big no-no. She's almost literally the Grandmother of all the royal houses in Europe. Assassinating her would be the greatest PR disaster I could think of. Britains would be demanding the earth of South Africa be salted and the crowned heads of Europe would be cheering them on.
 
Top