In one important respect these numerous, though trivial, conflicts differed from the battles in the earlier stages of the war.  The British had learned their lesson so thoroughly that they often turned the tables upon their instructors.  Again and again the surprise was effected, not by the nation of hunters, but by those rooineks whose want of cunning and of veld-craft had for so long been a subject of derision and merriment.  A year of the kopje and the donga had altered all that.  And in the proportion of casualties another very marked change had occurred.  Time was when in battle after battle a tenth would have been a liberal estimate for the losses of the Boers compared with those of the Briton.  So it was at Stormberg; so it was at Colenso; so it may have been at Magersfontein.  But in this last stage of the war the balance was rather in favour of the British.  It may have been because they were now frequently acting on the defensive, or it may have been from an improvement in their fire, or it may have come from the more desperate mood of the burghers, but in any case the fact remains that every encounter diminished the small reserves of the Boers rather than the ample forces of their opponents.

One other change had come over the war, which caused more distress and searchings of conscience among some of the people of Great Britain than the darkest hours of their misfortunes.  This lay in the increased bitterness of the struggle, and in those more strenuous measures which the British commanders felt themselves entitled and compelled to adopt.  Nothing could exceed the lenity of Lord Roberts’s early proclamations in the Free State.  But, as the months went on and the struggle still continued, the war assumed a harsher aspect.  Every farmhouse represented a possible fort, and a probable depot for the enemy.  The extreme measure of burning them down was only carried out after a definite offence, such as affording cover for snipers, or as a deterrent to railway wreckers, but in either case it is evident that the women or children who were usually the sole occupants of the farm could not by their own unaided exertions prevent the line from being cut or the riflemen from firing.  It is even probable that the Boers may have committed these deeds in the vicinity of houses the destruction of which they would least regret.  Thus, on humanitarian grounds there were strong arguments against this policy of destruction being pushed too far, and the political reasons were even stronger, since a homeless man is necessarily the last man to settle down, and a burned-out family the last to become contented British citizens.  On the other hand, the impatience of the army towards what they regarded as the abuses of lenity was very great, and they argued that the war would be endless if the women in the farm were allowed always to supply the sniper on the kopje.  The irregular and brigand-like fashion in which the struggle was carried out had exasperated the soldiers, and though there were few cases of individual outrage or unauthorised destruction, the general orders were applied with some harshness, and repressive measures were taken which warfare may justify but which civilisation must deplore.