ertain
districts which had been Boer centres, where they habitually collected
time after time, were devastated and destroyed. Such districts were
those of Kroonstad, Heilbron, Ventersburg, and Winburg. In these four
districts about one hundred and seventy houses were destroyed. The
village of Bothaville, which was a depot of the enemy, was also
destroyed. It consisted of forty-three houses. In the Transvaal the
number of houses actually destroyed for strategic purposes seems to have
been very much smaller. In the official returns only about twelve houses
are so mentioned. Altogether the houses which have been burned for
reasons which are open to dispute, including those of the men upon
commando, do not appear to exceed two hundred and fifty.

It must be confessed that the case of these houses is entirely different
from the others which have been destroyed, because they were used for
active warlike operations. Of the 630 buildings which we know to have
been destroyed, more than half have been used by snipers, or in some
other direct fashion have brought themselves within the laws of warfare.
But it cannot be said that these others have done so. The cost of the
average farmhouse is a mere trifle. A hundred pounds would build a small
one, and 300_l._ a large. If we take the intermediate figure, then the
expenditure of 50,000_l._ would compensate for those cases where
military policy and international law may have been at variance with
each other. The burning of houses ceased in the year 1900, and, save in
very special instances, where there was an overwhelming military
necessity, it has not been resorted to since. In the sweeping of the
country carried out by French in the Eastern Transvaal and by Blood to
the north of the Delagoa Railway, no buildings appear to have been
destroyed, although it was a military necessity to clear the farms of
every sort of supply in order to hamper the movements of the commandos.
The destruction of the crops and herds of the Boers, distasteful as such
work must be, is exactly analogous to the destruction by them of our
supply trains on which the Army depended for their food. Guerilla
warfare cannot enjoy all its own advantages and feel none of its own
defects. It is a two-edged weapon, and the responsibility for the
consequences rests upon the combatant who first employs it.

CHAPTER VII

THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS

When considerable districts of the country were cleared of food in