By all means Busby on 42nd Street.

The Boer Kommandos were being supplied and kept "in the field" by sympathisers in the surrounding farms.

The civilians were cleared off their land into "concentration camps" and the Boers lost the supply lines, they eventually decided to negotiate peace terms.

As a means of shortening the conflict and bringing about an end to the war the strategy was effective.

There is only one governing rule in war - Win. Anybody that has any misconception about that is a complete and utter fool, no-one engages in war to lose "nicely", war is not a "nice" business.

The conditions in the British Camps in South Africa became one of the leading points of debate in the General Election and campaigners in the UK won concessions from the Governmment to improve conditions markedly.

South Africa became a self Governing Dominion in 1906 and the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910.

Counter to popular myth the British did not "invent" such camps:

First recorded use of this tactic was in the Spanish 10 Year War in Cuba 1868 -1878 which resulted in the deaths of 300,000 Cuban rebels and civilians.

At exactly the same time as the British were fighting the Boer War the Americans were herding Philippino civilians into camps during the Philippine - American War 1899 to 1902. There the US forces suffered 4,380 casualties whereas the Rebel lost 16,000 and civilian deaths could only be estimated at somewhere between 250,000 and 1,000,000.

While all that was going on the British Forces lost round about 7,700 men in action, plus some 15,000 from disease, Boer losses in action amounted to about 8,000 men with civilain casualties of 28,000 Boer + 20,000 Africans.

Therefore in the scale of things the British camps in South Africa appear to have been a damn sight more "humane" than those operated by either the Spanish in Cuba or the Americans in the Philippines.

Glad to have been of service.