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