Sorry to all the South Africans on here, it's a day late:
11 1899 October the Boer war (or at least one of them):
The South African Boer War begins between the British Empire and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.
The Boers, also known as Afrikaners, were the descendants of the original Dutch settlers of southern Africa. Britain took possession of the Dutch Cape colony in 1806 during the Napoleonic wars, sparking resistance from the independence-minded Boers, who resented the Anglicization of South Africa and Britain’s anti-slavery policies. In 1833, the Boers began an exodus into African tribal territory, where they founded the republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The two new republics lived peaceably with their British neighbors until 1867, when the discovery of diamonds and gold in the region made conflict between the Boer states and Britain inevitable.
Minor fighting with Britain began in the 1890s, and in October 1899 full-scale war ensued. By mid June 1900, British forces had captured most major Boer cities and formally annexed their territories, but the Boers launched a guerrilla war that frustrated the British occupiers. Beginning in 1901, the British began a strategy of systematically searching out and destroying these guerrilla units, while herding the families of the Boer soldiers into concentration camps. By 1902, the British had crushed the Boer resistance, and on May 31 of that year the Peace of Vereeniging was signed, ending hostilities.
The treaty recognized the British military administration over Transvaal and the Orange Free State and authorized a general amnesty for Boer forces. In 1910, the autonomous Union of South Africa was established by the British. It included Transvaal, the Orange Free State, the Cape of Good Hope, and Natal as provinces.
Boer in Afrikaans means farmer -so I am led to believe.
Just to take a side step and reply to a comment that sexpert made to Chas concerning why the first commandos were army:
Well it's all to do with the Boers. No really! The word commando stems from the the Afrikaans word Kommando which means Command. The great man Sir Winston Churchill himself was captured by the Boers after resigning his commission and working as a war correspondent, (which is unusual because it took him three attempts to get to Sandhurst, He later escaped and was given a hero's welcome back in Blighty.
He was so impressed with guerrilla tactics, he said to himself that that is the kind of way to put mayhem into the enemies communications and transport. Get behind the lines and hit them below the belt.
Which led to Adolf stating any commandos caught were to be executed.
Why did he pick army and not the Royal Marines (BTW the Royal was added April 1802- because of the exceptional bravery shown throughout the "French wars"), because quite simply the Marines were too busy with manning the ships guns RM artillery and gaurding their bases, many of them overseas, - MNBDO Mobile Naval Base Defense Organization.
And besides The Boers were army, or at least they weren't Navy and therefore the Navy would have nothing to do with any of the these skull skulduggery, cloak and dagger
army tactics.
It wasn't until Montgomery insisted that that this most prestigious of outfits -for want of a better word- should be sent to Scotland and train in commando techniques that in '43, the Royal Marines could add Commando to their official title. Needless to say that this did not go down well with the Army commandos who had been in the thick of it from the beginning
The irony of it all is that after the 2nd world war, the Army commando units were disbanded and the SBS were placed under the charge of the RM, both are still going strong.