Scorched Earth (disambiguation)
Scorched earth is the military strategy or operational policy of destroying everything useful to the enemy in areas that cannot be defended.
Second Boer War
The British saw their tactics of Scorched Earth and concentration camps as ways of controlling the Boers by "eliminating the decay and deterioration of the national character" and as a way of reinforcing the values, through subjugation of citizens and the destruction of the means for the Boer soldiers to continue fighting, of British society that the Boers were rejecting by engaging in a war against the Commonwealth. The Boers saw them as a British ploy designed to coerce the Boer soldiers into a surrender. With approximately 10% of their population confined, many of whom were women and children, the Boers suggested that the British were forcing the Afrikaners to return to their homes and protect their families who were in danger of internment.