May 17, 1900 · Northern Cape Theater
May 17, 1900
The 217-day siege of Mafeking — a small railway town in the Northern Cape — became the most celebrated episode of the war in Britain, largely because of the genius of its garrison commander, Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, for public relations and improvisation. Besieged by a Boer force of approximately 8,000 men, Baden-Powell organized an eccentric defense using dummy minefields, bluff, theatrical dispatches designed to be captured, and the systematic use of boys as messengers to free soldiers for combat. He improvised food supplies, printed his own currency, and maintained civilian morale through entertainments and cricket. When a British relief column under Colonel Mahon finally reached Mafeking on May 17, 1900, the news triggered the most extraordinary public celebration in London since Victoria's jubilee.
Commanders