The Siege of Mafeking (1900)

From time to time intelligence has reached us from native sources that the Boers were still anxious to make a final attempt to capture the town. We have had this story repeated...

The imprimatur has now been given to the siege, and that chapter of the war which bears reference to the investment of Mafeking must now be considered as closed. The end of the...

Barely had the celebration of Christmas Day passed in Mafeking when the order to prepare for immediate action was sent out from Headquarters, and in the early hours of Boxing Da...

A short canter from Mafeking across the sloping expanse of the veldt and the interior lines of its western defences lie before one. It can be said that Cannon Kopje to the south...

Africa was streaming past the dusty windows of the railway carriage, presenting an endless spectacle of flat, depressed-looking country, with here and there a hut, here and ther...

There was some sign that the engagement of Saturday between the Protectorate troops and the Boer forces investing Mafeking would have been the precursor of a series of minor fig...

Cannon Kopje is in itself a hideous cluster of stones, perched upon a rocky ridge, which commands the town, a mile across the veldt. It is impossible to conceive any more positi...

To be in Cape Town in September would seem to be visiting the capital of Cape Colony in its least enjoyable month; since, more especially than at any other time in the year, the...

We take a keen interest in our artillery, although we never cease to deplore the fact that the War Office did not think it necessary to send to Mafeking anything better than old...

Yesterday we completed the first hundred days of our siege, and when we look back beyond the weeks of our investment into those earlier days it is difficult to realise the trial...

Early this morning a mounted patrol under Captain Lord Charles Bentinck reported the Boers in strong position to the north of the town, and engaging them at once a general fight...

To-day is the third day of the bombardment by which Commandant Cronje is attempting to realise his threat of reducing Mafeking to ashes. Up to the present it has been impossible...

The straits of a beleaguered city are only just beginning to come to Mafeking. A retrospect of the history of the Franco-Prussian war reveals how very great were the sufferings...

Within a few weeks of Major Godley's daybreak attack upon the western laager, it was decided to repeat the experiment against the main position of the Boers upon the east side....

A breeze was freshening, tufting the heaving billows with white crests and driving showers of spray and clots of foam upon the decks of the _Dunvegan_. Passengers stood in strai...

Beyond a few successful cattle-raiding forays on the part of the Baralongs, we have done nothing these past days but maintain courageously the glories of our splendid isolation....

Last night there occurred one of those isolated instances of gallantry by which the British sustain their high reputation. For some days, in fact ever since the Boers secured th...

In the history of the siege of Mafeking there should stand forth an event as remarkable to posterity, if, perhaps, not quite so historical, as the famous ball which was given by...

In itself the situation has not developed over much, but in relation to the siege there are two tragedies to chronicle. The Boers are still investing us, in more or less the sam...

The relief of Mafeking is now an accomplished fact, and the first Imperial troops to enter our lines were eight of the Imperial Light Horse, under the command of Major Karri Dav...

Colonel Baden-Powell has recently issued an order to all ranks in his command requesting the names of those who are willing to enlist in the special corps which are to be raised...

New Year's Eve drew to itself much of the sentiment which is usually associated with that event. We perhaps did not ring the old year out and the new year in, because the sonoro...

We have duly celebrated the two hundredth day of the siege, and if one examines closely into the condition of a town which has withstood the attacks of the enemy during two hund...

In many ways this month has been the most eventful of any during the siege. Other months of the siege have secured for themselves a certain notoriety, because they have been ide...

We have lived for so many months now under the conditions which govern a town during siege that we almost accept existing circumstances as normal. We have ceased to wonder at th...

The Boers continue to shell Mafeking daily, and to concentrate upon the streets of the town their customary rifle fire. At first we experienced a terror of the dangers of shell...

At a moment when the entire garrison, perhaps, excluding the military chiefs, was eagerly anticipating some announcement which would determine the date of an immediate relief, i...

Soldiers and sand--clouds of sand whirring and eddying through the air, drifting through closed windows, piling in swift-mounting heaps against barred doors. That is the camp he...

This usually dull and dirty mining station has now been occupied by a small detachment of British troops. The force arrived here from the camp at Orange River within the week, a...

Mafeking lies a day's journey by the train from Vryburg, and was once the terminus of the Cape railway system pending its extension northwards. Just now it is the embodiment of...

The week has been a dull one, which in relation to the siege implies that the passing days have not borne what we have now come to regard as their full quota of shells and bulle...

During the time which has elapsed since Christmas an interesting event has been the deposition of Wessels, the chief of the Baralongs. At a _kotla_ of the tribe, to which the co...

The importance of the resistance which Mafeking has made to the attacks of the Boers should be viewed in the light of its relationship to the two Protectorates, Bechuanaland and...

It has become altogether impossible to gauge with any degree of accuracy, the situation in relation to the fortunes of the Imperial arms, or as it might be found in the camp of...

There is now happily no longer any doubt of the truth of the native reports of important successes having befallen our arms in the vicinity of Kimberley. We hear with infinite r...

As compensation to the inhabitants of beleaguered Mafeking for the many dull days we have had lately, yesterday was replete with incidents and crowded with a constant succession...

The main occupation of the garrison just now is to speculate upon the progress of the work of trench-building, which is being rapidly pushed forward in the brickfields upon the...