HOW TO WIN A WAR documents a cemetery from the Anglo-Boer War (1901 - 1902). Situated at the town of Springfontein, 140 kilometres south of Bloemfontein, it is the only cemetery from that war where one finds the graves of British soldiers intermixed with the graves of the women and children who died in the concentration camp. The concentration camp policy was implemented in the second half of the war and resulted in 42 concentration camp cemeteries in South Africa. Only at Springfontein is the burial plot shared between deceased British soldiers and Boer civilians.

 

HOW TO WIN A WAR shows the layout of the cemetery. Near the gate one finds the soldiers' graves, en masse, dating from October 1899 to January 1901. The first graves for women and children begin to appear, amongst those of the soldiers, at about February 1901. Towards December 1901 one finds very few soldiers' graves and many graves of women and children. The bottom end of the cemetery (January 1902 - May 1902) is filled exclusively with women and children. Added to the top right hand corner of the work are the 37 graves of unbaptised children under the age of six months, buried under suspicious circumstances four kilometres away on the outskirts of the town.