jan smuts
Commando
By Deneys Reitz
A Boer Journal of the Boer War
(Revised in May 2009). Deneys Reitz was 17 when the Boer War broke out in 1899. Reitz describes that he had no hatred of the British people, but “as a South African, one had to fight for one’s country.” Reitz had learned to ride, shoot and swim almost as soon as he could walk, and the skills and endurance he had acquired during those years were to be made full use of during the war.