British units, and eroded the fringe of larger columns. Some commandos
penetrated deep inside the Cape Colony, where they tried, not very success-
fully, to whip up Afrikaner support.
To crush this resistance, Roberts's
successor, Lord Kitchener, adopted the scorched earth policy that imperial
troops and Afrikaner commandos had been accustomed to using against
Africans. He burned Afrikaner crops and destroyed thirty thousand farm-
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