Just to correct or confirm some of the points made here.
And don't ask me for citations, I am 6000 miles away from my personal library which includes many original copies of newspapers and mazines of the period and just about everything published on the Boer War in both English and Afrikaans.
1/. There were both refugee and concentration camps.
While the very first camps were indeed Refugee camps, the term Concentration Camp began to be used after mid 1901 when the intake began to swell to substantial numbers.
2/. The first Refugee camps were aimed at accomodating the Black population who had been uprooted from the Witwatersrand and the Transvaal/OFS countryside. When the 100% British owned goldmines closed at the start of the war, most Uitlanders caught the trains to Natal, hired Ox-wagons or rode out of town. The black workers were effectively told to just go away. Thousands just walked towards their homes hundreds of miles away in Natal, Zululand and the Eastern Cape. Many black ex-miners were roaming the veld, without food or shelter, being harried by the Boers, scrounging or stealing whatever they could to survive. How many died is anyone's guess, there was no registration or record. When the British began to take the war back to the Boers, they also encouraged (vigourously) black farmers and the black workers on Boer farms to enter the swelling camps by requisitioning their livestock and crops. These goods were paid for, but the black camp inmates then had to pay for food in the camps. The conditions in the black camps was reputedly worse than the white camps, but real records are scarce and the camps were studiously ignored by British campaigners, notably Emily Hobhouse. Local campaigners showed interest, not least the agencies that provided labour for the military war effort and mining companies who needed a pool of healthy labour for work and restoration of the mines.
3/. The first camps for white families were not just for women and children and were clearly refugee camps. Many Boers in the border areas were pro-British (or at least anti-Kruger),known as "the joiners" or "helpers" and were targeted by the Boer commandos. The camps were thus intended as temporary places of safety for entire families.
4/. One must remember that the Boers did not have an organised army as such. The "troops" were effectively many different local "possies" that combined together, disbanded and reformed repeatedly throughout the conflict. Some "soldiers" went home to sleep if they were near their own areas or just upped and left if there was work to do on the farm or they didn't like their commander much. This amateur status led to a peculiar view of warfare by the Boers. One view was that they were combatants only while "on Commando", so when they were back at home for a rest and a British patrol happened by they would deny being involved in the war and take offence at the suggestion that they should be moved to a place of safety. The British organised a system whereby Boers could sign a document promising not to fight the British and were allowed to stay on their farms. The problem is that this was widely abused and as soon as the British patrol was over the horizon, the Mauser came back out. Even when their families had been moved into the camps, many male Boers would "pop-in" to see them and then re-join their Commando. When the British found this out, the camps began to be partially secured, although they were never "lock-ups" as such. In fact one of the reasons for night-time security and control of movement in and out of the camps was to restrict the thriving business of the Boer ladies servicing the British troops nearby. A Victorian move designed to protect the morals of the troops, not the ladies.
4/.While the provision of food, fuel and medical facilities was deplorable it was clearly, as shown in contemporary records, a result of gross incompetence, not from any evil British plan. The Army was often supplied sub-standard food and supplies by crooked (often Afrikaans) traders and the rations issued to the internees were based on those allocated to British soldiers in the field. Quartermasters were also not unknown to make a couple of bob on the side. To see how badly the British troops themselves were fed, one should read the diaries of Denys Reitz who was horrified at the poor pickings he gained from raids of British supply columns. One might also note that 60% of Army recruits in Britain at this time were rejected as unfit due to dietry induced illnesses, including ricketts and even scurvy. The average height of a "Tommy" recruit was six inches less than an Officer recruit of the same age.
That some Boer families were on reduced rations is true inasmuch as those families who had menfolk who had joined the British Forces received an extra ration equivalent to the menfolk's issue, while those with menfolk on Commando did not.
5/.The Highveld climate is one of the healthiest in the world, as long as you don't come into contact with other people. Moving simple, rustic people with only a rudimentary knowledge of personal hygiene into a close-proximity camp was a guarantee of camp fever, dysentry and similar cases of the trots. Toilet paper was an unheard of luxury in Machadadorp in 1900 and the lysol and carbolic provided by the camp management was viewed with suspicion. Some old tannies believed that it was designed to poison them, indeed the discovery of bluestone (copper sulphate crystals) in food is held up to this day as a British attempt to poison the Boer civilians, whereas it was a standard method at the time of preventing mould in flour and grains.
The Boers were often classed as "dirty" and "unwashed" and "smelly" by english correspondents of the period. Manufactured, perfumed soap was still a rarity in the far-flung corners of the OFS and Transvaal. Boer housewives made their own from Aloes and animal fats which provided cleanliness but not neccessarily a nice perfume. While the camp authorities provided soap in the quantities suitable for a scummy British soldier from the slums of an industrial city (one bar a year?), there was never enough for a large family living in a hot climate. There was also a superstition among some Boer families that washing "weakened" sick children.
6/.The poster who mentioned that the Boers used "boiled human excrement" as a medicine is a bit confused. Kraalmis (or cow shit to you) was a standard maid-of-all-work on the veld. It was a building material, it was used (by African and European alike) as a floor covering for houses ( it comes up to a pretty shine) and in the terms of a medicine was used as a poultice (Victoran medicine was big on poultices), especially for fevers. This remedy seems to be cross-cultural, similar remedies existed in America, Ireland, the Scottish Highlands and in traditional cultures worldwide. Boer folk remedies were actually big on dung with different dungs for different ailments--jackel dung,for instance, was recommended for Diptheria! Goat dung was for infected cuts or wounds. Vulture dung was for prickly heat. ( The theory was that an animal ate "healing" herbs and the healing qualities would be concentrated in the shit!
There may be some confusion by the Human Poo poster about the liberal use of human urine as an antiseptic, a mouthwash, anti-irritant and a mosquito repellent by the Boers. Disgusting as it sounds, modern research shows that it actually had value.
7/. European Countries (and America) were well informed about the scandal of the camps. Boer supporters especially in Holland, France and Germany ran extensive propaganda campaigns complete with "atrocity" cartoons. They were successful in as much as they created substantial anti-British feeling.
8/.Yes, entry into the camps was voluntary in as much as Boer families were offered the choice of staying in the veld with no food or shelter or entering the camps. Towards the end of the war it was clear that the camps were actually a stupid idea and the authorities tried to start pushing the internees out. By effectively sheltering the boer families from a misguided altruism, the existence of the camps allowed the Boer Guerilla campaign to exist and probably prolonged the war by at least a year.
Many of the legends of the Boer concentration camps are just that-legends. Just as it is hard to find a Jewish person who did not have a relative in Auschwitz or a Frenchman who's grandad wasn't in the French resistance-there is not an Afrikaaner who didn't have a granny or great-granny who didn't die in the Boer camps. (One assumes that the "Helpers", "Joiners" and "Hendsoppers" didn't reproduce.)
The (real) injustices were jumped on by the Afrikaaner National Movement from 1908 onwards, exagerated, promoted and elevated to holy writ for political purposes--even today.
7/. Kitchener's "Shoot Order". The British Army does not issue "verbal orders", that just means in words. Orders are either written or are oral.
There were many incidences of Boers abusing the white flag, pretending to surrender and then opening fire and of false-flagging wearing British Army or British irregular uniforms. There was clearly a shoot-on-sight policy in such circumstances and, anyway, what soldier didn't take private revenge in any conflict?
8/. As mentioned, the Indian Army Munitions Depot in Dum-Dum provided a large amount of ammo, but not the manufactured expanding of the same name.Soldiers on both sides however would modify their own rounds to produce the same effect.
9/. The effect of the Breaker Morant case did indeed colour the attitude of Australian authorities to the death sentence for troops. In WW1 the vast majority of Commonwealth troops who went AWOL on the Western Front were Australians (not deserters, just blokes who ducked back from the front lines for a pint a sleep)--something no doubt connected to the fact they wouldn't face a firing squad.