Three Years War
Publisher: Galago (South Africa) 1999
Paperback: 459 pages – 16 pages of b/w pictures
Our Price £30.00 + 4.70 p&p
On 2 October 1899 a horseman arrived at Christiaan de Wet’s Orange Free State farm and served summonses for commando service on himself and his three eldest sons. They were to prepare for active
service, providing themselves with horses, saddles and bridles and rifles each with 30 rounds of ammunition (alternatively 30 lead balls, 30 percussion caps and half a pound of black powder). Nine days later on 11 October 1899 Britain and the Boer republics went to war. By the end of the war he would become Commandant General and Commander-in-Chief of all Boer forces of the Orange Free State.
After the British Army had regrouped and reorganised after suffering several humiliating defeats, they advanced under the command of Lord Roberts and occupied Pretoria. Once Pretoria was occupied, the British considered the war was over. The Boer commandos, however, took to the veld and carried on the fight as a guerrilla war.
De Wet soon began to show that his title of Fighting General was no sinecure. In the almost three years until 31 May 1902 when the war ended with the signing of the Peace of Vereeniging, De Wet established a worldwide reputation as a most remarkable guerrilla fighter. He was the man the British could not catch. The damage this virtually unschooled farmer who had never had a formal lesson in military tactics did to the British was little less than astounding.
At the war’s end his book in High Dutch De Stryd Tusschen Boer en Brit and its translation, Three Years War, became instant best sellers and have been much in demand ever since.