The black spot - the one very black spot - in the picture is the frightful mortality in the
Concentration Camps. I entirely agree with you in thinking that while a hundred explanations
may be offered and a hundred excuses made they do not really amount to any adequate defence. I
should much prefer to say at once so far as the Civil authorities are concerned that we were
suddenly confronted with a problem not of our making with which it was beyond our power
properly to grapple. And no doubt its vastness was not realised soon enough. It was not till
six weeks or two months ago that it dawned on me personally (I cannot speak for others) that
the enormous mortality was not merely incidental to the first formation of the camps and the
sudden inrush of thousands of people already sick and starving but was going to continue. The
fact that it continues is no doubt a condemnation of the Camp system. The whole thing I think
now has been a mistake. Alfred Milner to Joseph Chamberlain December 7th 1901 The British
scorched earth policy during the last phase of the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 led to the
burning of farms the destruction of homesteads harvests and livestock and to the internment
of the civil population in the so-called concentration camps. There people - mainly women and
children - died of malnutrition and diseases such as measles pneumonia and typhoid. The death
rate in the camps was so high - nearly 28 000 white Boers succumbed - that the English
population renowned for its gallantry and chivalry was consternated. Lloyd George blamed his
government for its policy of extermination Campbell-Bannerman spoke of methods of barbarism
and philanthropic institutions protested led by Emily Hobhouse who was the first civilian to
investigate the conditions of the camps. The government reacted and sent a ladies' commission
under the leadership of Millicent Garrett Fawcett to South Africa. Birgit Seibold's study is
the first to compare the 'inofficial' and the official report on the camps and to give an
insight into conditions in each of the thirty-three white concentration camps. Based on
first-hand research among the Hobhouse manuscripts this book is both scholarly and
compulsively readable.
