Siege of Mafeking (1899-1900): Baden-Powell's 217-Day Defence

The Siege of Mafeking was a 217-day Boer siege of a small railway town in the northern Cape Colony during the Second Boer War, lasting from 13 October 1899 to 17 May 1900. Colonel Robert Baden-Powell’s defence against a much larger Boer force turned him into a celebrity, and news of the town’s relief sparked such wild celebrations in Britain that they gave the English language a new word, “mafficking”. Historians today also stress the large and often overlooked role, and suffering, of the town’s African residents.

Background: why Mafeking mattered

Mafeking (now Mahikeng) lay on the railway line from the Cape to Rhodesia, close to the western border of the Transvaal. It had little military value in itself, but it was a supply centre and a symbol of British power in the region. The Jameson Raid of 1895–1896 had been launched from nearby Pitsani, and the Boers regarded the area as a base for British hostility.

In the summer of 1899, as war approached, Baden-Powell was sent to raise irregular forces on the frontier. Rather than operate in the open veld as intended, he decided to hold Mafeking, where he had collected stores. He hoped that a stubborn defence would tie down Boer commandos that might otherwise invade the Cape Colony.

The defenders and the town

The garrison numbered roughly 1,200 to 1,500 armed men, including the Protectorate Regiment, Cape and Bechuanaland police, local volunteers and a town guard of civilians. They had only a few small, outdated guns. The white population was around 1,500.

The largest community was African. Some 7,000 people lived in and around the town, most in the stadt, the settlement of the Tshidi Barolong under their chief Wessels Montshiwa, together with refugees from the mines. Several hundred Barolong and other Africans were armed and held sections of the defences, and African runners and cattle raiders played an important part throughout the siege.

The siege

The Boers, under General Piet Cronjé, surrounded the town on 13 October 1899 with perhaps 6,000 to 8,000 men and began shelling it, including with a 94-pounder Creusot siege gun nicknamed “Creaky” by the defenders. In mid-November Cronjé took most of his force south to face the main British advance, leaving General J. P. Snyman with a smaller besieging army of a few thousand.

Baden-Powell’s defence relied on energy and bluff. The garrison built a ring of trenches and small forts, laid fake minefields and pretended to string barbed wire where none existed, and staged demonstrations to make their strength seem greater. Boys of the Mafeking Cadet Corps carried messages around the town. The defenders printed their own banknotes and postage stamps, and by mutual agreement there was usually no fighting on Sundays, when cricket matches, concerts and sports helped keep up morale.

Not every move succeeded. On 26 December 1899 an attack on a Boer position called Game Tree Fort failed with heavy losses, around 24 killed. Food grew short as the months passed. Horses were slaughtered for meat, and a porridge made from oat husks, called sowens, became a staple.

Hunger and the African population

The burden of the siege fell most heavily on African residents. Rations were divided unequally: Africans received less and had to pay for food that the garrison controlled, and soup kitchens serving horse-meat stew were set up only later. Baden-Powell encouraged many Africans to leave and try to slip through Boer lines, where some were shot.

Hunger and disease caused many deaths in the stadt and among the refugees, though no reliable total exists. The best contemporary African account comes from Sol Plaatje, a young Barolong court interpreter whose diary of the siege, rediscovered and published in 1973, offers a vivid, often humorous view of life under fire. Plaatje later became a founder of the South African Native National Congress, forerunner of the African National Congress.

The last attack and the relief

On 12 May 1900 a Boer force led by Sarel Eloff, a grandson of President Paul Kruger, made a daring night attack. It broke into the stadt and captured the police fort, but the defenders cut the attackers off, and Eloff surrendered that evening with more than 100 men.

Relief was by then close. A flying column under Colonel Bryan Mahon came up from the south, joined by Colonel Herbert Plumer’s force from Rhodesia. After pushing the Boers aside, Mahon’s troops entered Mafeking on 17 May 1900, ending the siege. Snyman’s commandos withdrew towards the Transvaal, and within days British forces were advancing on Johannesburg and Pretoria from the south.

Losses on the British side over seven months amounted to a few hundred killed and wounded among the armed defenders, a modest total by the standards of the war. The heavier toll was among African civilians, whose deaths from hunger were never fully counted.

“Mafficking” in Britain

After the shock of Black Week and months of anxious news, the relief was greeted in Britain as a national deliverance. When the news reached London on the evening of 18 May 1900, huge crowds poured into the streets, singing, cheering and waving flags until the early hours, and similar scenes followed across the country and the empire. Newspapers coined the verb “to maffick” for this kind of riotous rejoicing.

Baden-Powell was promoted to major-general, the youngest in the army at the time. He used his fame to launch the Scout movement with Scouting for Boys in 1908.

Key people

• Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941): Cavalry officer and commander of the garrison. Inventive and theatrical, he kept up morale with entertainments and bluff, and sent cheerful dispatches that reached the British press.
• Piet Cronjé (1836–1911): Boer general who began the siege but left in November 1899; he surrendered at Paardeberg in February 1900.
• J. P. Snyman: Boer general who commanded the besiegers for most of the siege and was criticised by his own side for his caution.
• Sol Plaatje (1876–1932): Barolong interpreter, journalist and diarist, later a leading writer and political campaigner for Black South Africans.
• Wessels Montshiwa: Chief of the Tshidi Barolong, whose people formed the majority of the town’s inhabitants.
• Bryan Mahon (1862–1930): Irish cavalry officer who led the relief column.

Myths and debates

The heroic story of plucky defenders against overwhelming odds was simplified from the start. Critics, notably the historian Thomas Pakenham, argued that Baden-Powell’s treatment of the African population was harsh and that its contribution was written out of the official record; Baden-Powell’s biographer Tim Jeal has offered a more sympathetic view of his decisions. Historians agree that the siege held down Boer forces only in its first weeks, before Cronjé left.

Timeline

• 1899, 13 October: Boer forces under Cronjé begin the siege.
• 1899, mid-November: Cronjé leaves with most of his men; Snyman takes command.
• 1899, 26 December: The garrison’s attack on Game Tree Fort fails.
• 1900, 12 May: Sarel Eloff’s attack breaks into the stadt but is defeated.
• 1900, 17 May: Mahon’s relief column enters Mafeking after 217 days.
• 1900, 18 May: News of the relief sets off “mafficking” in Britain.

Why it matters

Militarily the siege was a sideshow, but together with the Siege of Ladysmith it became one of the most famous episodes of the Boer War and a lasting symbol of imperial patriotism. It created Baden-Powell’s legend and, indirectly, the Scout movement, while Plaatje’s diary ensures that the African experience of the siege is also remembered.