Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War

Today the word “commando” conjures a picture of daring special forces raids, but originally it was the Boer word for a mobile column of fighting men. This is the account of one such fighting man.  Aged just seventeen Deneys Reitz, son of the ex-President of the Orange Free State and then State Secretary of the South African Republic, took up his rifle and joined the Boer Army. From their initial strikes into Natal to the surge of British troops and the transition to bloody guerrilla warfare, through luck and family ties Reitz was present at most of the major events.