The idea of the Camps originated at first from the Boers themselves in an indirect way.  When the English troops marched into the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, most of the farmers who composed the bulk of the population of the two Republics having taken to arms, there was no one left in the homes they had abandoned save women, children and old men no longer able to fight.  These fled hurriedly as soon as English detachments and patrols were in sight, but most of the time they did not know where they could fly to, and generally assembled in camps somewhere on the veldt, where they hoped that the British troops would not discover them.  There, however, they soon found their position intolerable owing to the want of food and to the lack of hygienic precautions.

The British authorities became aware of this state of things and could not but try to remedy it.  Unfortunately, this was easier said than done.  To come to the help of several thousands of people in a country where absolutely no resources were to be found was a quite stupendous task, of a nature which might well have caused the gravest anxieties to the men responsible for the solution.  It was then that the decision was reached to organise upon a reasonable scale camps after the style of those which already had been inaugurated by the Boers themselves.

The idea, which was not a bad one, was carried out in an unfortunate manner, which gave to the world at large the idea that the burgher families who were confined in these camps were simply put into a prison which they had done nothing to deserve.  The Bond Press, always on the alert to reproach England, seized hold of the establishment of the Camps to transform into martyrs the persons who had been transferred to them, and soon a wave of indignation swept over not only South Africa, but also over Britain.  This necessary act of human civilisation was twisted to appear as an abuse of power on the part of Lord Roberts and especially of Lord Kitchener, who, in this affair, became the scapegoat for many sins he had never committed.  The question of the Concentration Camps was made the subject of interpellations in the House of Commons, and indignation meetings were held in many parts of England.  The Nonconformist Conscience was deeply stirred at what was thought to be conduct which not even the necessities of war could excuse.  Torrents of ink were spilt to prove that at the end of the nineteenth century measures and methods worthy of the Inquisition were resorted to by British Government officials, who—­so the ready writers and ready-tongued averred—­with a barbarity such as the Middle Ages had not witnessed, wanted to be revenged on innocent women and children for the resistance their husbands and fathers were making against an aggression which in itself nothing could justify.