13. This Commander Seized a Town by Resorting to Trickery
Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, commander of Mafeking’s besieged British garrison, had initially seized the town by bluff during the runup to the war. He held on to it with a steady diet of bluffs during the subsequent siege after hostilities commenced. Baden-Powell, who had been ordered to raise two regiments of volunteers, began storing his supplies in Mafeking. However, he was prevented from openly marching into and garrisoning the town before the war started because doing so was deemed impolitic and provocative.
So Baden-Powell politely asked the townspeople for permission to send guards to protect his supplies. They consented, and Baden-Powell sent in his entire force of nearly 1500 men. When the townspeople protested, he responded that he had never specified the size of the guard. When the war began soon thereafter, the British colonel found himself besieged by a Boer force five bigger than his own. Those were dire odds, so Baden-Powell turned to trickery. The Boers’ failure to immediately attack and seize the town backfired by depriving them of an easy victory.
