During the Second Boer War on 15 November 1899, Winston Churchill, then a war-correspondent, was travelling on board an armoured train when it was ambushed by Boer commandos.

Following the experience of the South African War of 1899-1902 ( where mounted Boer citizen commandos fighting on foot from cover proved superior to regular cavalry ) the British Army withdrew lances for all but ceremonial purposes and placed a new emphasis on training for dismounted action.

The plan was to make a three-day dash to Johannesburg before the Boer commandos could mobilise, and once there, trigger an uprising by the primarily British expatriate workers ( uitlanders ) organised by the Reform Committee.

The vast distances of the Republics allowed the Boer commandos considerable freedom to move about and made it impossible for the 250, 000 British troops to control the territory effectively using columns alone.

Between twenty and thirty thousand Boer commandos were only defeated after the British brought to bear four hundred and fifty thousand troops, about ten times as many as were used in the conventional phase of the war.

The Boer commando raids deep into the Cape Colony, which were organized and commanded by Jan Smuts, resonated throughout the century as the British and others adopted and adapted the tactics used by the Boer commandos in later conflicts.

Eight British columns were sent to either force the Boer commandos to surrender or flee to Swaziland.

Kitchener subsequently inherited and expanded the successful strategies devised by Roberts to force the Boer commandos to submit, including concentration camps and the scorched earth policy.

In the First Boer War, Boer commandos were able to use superior marksmanship, fieldcraft, camouflage and mobility to expel an occupying British force ( poorly trained in marksmanship, wearing red uniforms and unmounted ) from the Transvaal.

In 1941, Lieutenant-Colonel D. W. Clarke of the British Imperial General Staff, suggested the name Commando for specialized raiding units of the British Army Special Service in evocation of the effectiveness and tactics of the Boer commandos.

Boer commandos besieged the towns of Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberley, and ten thousand Cape Afrikaner rebels joined the Boers in fighting the British.

It was hoped that this would be a 3 day dash to Johannesburg before the Boer commandos could mobilise, and would trigger an uprising by the Uitlanders.

He led commandos in the Second Boer War for the Transvaal.

Kitchener had received intelligence on their location and he hoped to damage the morale of Boer commandos at large by sending a small group of men to capture the Boer Government.

On his return to South Africa, Robinson he found that a critical situation had arisen in Bechuanaland ( today's Botswana ), where Boer commandos had seized large tracts of territory and proclaimed the republics of Stellaland and Goshen.

The average Boer citizens who made up their commandos were farmers who had spent almost all their working life in the saddle, and, because they had to depend on both their horse and their rifle for almost all of their meat, they were skilled hunters and expert marksmen.

The Boer commandos made for expert light cavalry, able to use every scrap of cover from which they could pour accurate and destructive fire at the British with their breech loading rifles.

However, his force was diverted by local commanders, who assigned it to burning homesteads sheltering Boer commandos and attacking Boer units.

Among these actions were the Seven Years ' War, the American Revolutionary War, the Napoleonic Wars, the First and Second Opium Wars, the Boxer Rebellion, the New Zealand land wars, the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, the First and Second Boer Wars, the Fenian raids, the Irish War of Independence, its serial interventions into Afghanistan ( which were meant to maintain a friendly buffer state between British India and the Russian Empire ), and the Crimean War ( to keep the Russian Empire at a safe distance by coming to Turkey's aid ).

When used in a historical context, the term Boer may refer to an inhabitant of the Boer Republics as well as those who were cultural Boers.

Many Boers had German ancestry and many members of the government were themselves former Boer military leaders who had fought with the Maritz rebels against the British in the Second Boer War, which had ended only twelve years earlier.

The Boer quest for independence manifested in a tradition of declaring republics, which predates the arrival of the British ; when the British arrived, Boer republics had already been declared and were in rebellion from the VOC ( Dutch East India Company ).

The supporters of these views feel that the Afrikaner designation ( or label ) was used from the 1930s onwards as a means of unifying ( politically at least ) the white Afrikaans speakers of the Western Cape with those of Trekboer and Voortrekker descent ( whose ancestors began migrating eastward during the late 17th century and throughout the 18th century and later northward during the Great Trek of the 1830s ) in the north of South Africa, where the Boer Republics were established.

Not all of those executed were leaders: Willie Pearse described himself as " a personal attaché to my brother, Patrick Pearse "; John MacBride had not even been aware of the Rising until it began, but had fought against the British in the Boer War fifteen years before ; Thomas Kent did not come out at all — he was executed for the killing of a police officer during the raid on his house the week after the Rising.

In some cases, as in the Xhosa / Boer Wars, Boers were removed from Xhosa lands.

In 1901, the Boer republics were defeated by Britain in the Second Boer War.

About 300 were delivered to Boer forces of the South African Republic.

However, the disputes with the Boer over land were revived in 1858 and more seriously in 1865.

The Boer had a number of military successes, killing possibly 1, 500 Basotho soldiers, and annexed an expanse of arable land which they were able to retain following a treaty at Thaba Bosiu.

In order to protect his people, Moshoeshoe appealed to the British for assistance, and in March 1868 the land was placed under British protection and the Boer were ordered to leave.

A number of forts were built for the defence of the city just prior to the Second Boer War.

The Boer Republics of the ZAR and the Orange Free State were united with the Cape Colony and Natal Colony in 1910 to become the Union of South Africa.

For the next two years over six thousand Boer prisoners were imprisoned at Deadwood and Broadbottom.

On 16 October 1836, a Boer laager ( or fortified circle of wagons ) led by Andries Hendrik Potgieter, was attacked by an Ndebele force of about 5, 000, who looted all of Potgieter's livestock, but were unable to defeat the laager in what became known as the Battle of Vegkop.

This party instituted an elementary form of government, and in 1840 entered into a loose confederation with the Natalia Republic Boer, and also with the Voortrekkers south of the Vaal, whose headquarters were at Winburg.

After the failed raid, there were rumours that Germany offered protection to the Boer republic, something which alarmed the British.

Kruger won another presidential election in 1898, but the following year British forces were gathering on the borders of the Boer Republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State and fearing Britain's imminent annexation, the Boers launched a preemptive strike against the nearby British colonies in 1899, a strike which became the Second Boer War.

His critique of the Boer War was especially scathing, and it contributed to his declining popularity in Britain.

In foreign affairs especially the Second Boer War was of particular interest to him, in the conflict between the Dutch-speaking reformed farmers and the English-speaking Anglicans he sided with the Boers, and heavily opposed the English.

The Second Boer War was especially unpopular in the United States and soured Anglo-American relations.

Use of large irregular forces featured heavily in wars such as the American Revolution, the Irish War of Independence, the Franco-Prussian War, the Russian Civil War, the Second Boer War, Vietnam War, and especially the Eastern Front of World War II where hundreds of thousands of partisans fought on both sides.

Boer forces, imagining that the British would be unable to cross, especially with artillery, waited during the night to resume the battle the next day.