10. The Boers Let Themselves Get Bamboozled Out of an Easy Victory
Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, later Lord and founder of the Boy Scouts, commanded British forces in the besieged town of Mafeking during the Boer War (1899 – 1902). The Boers were bamboozled by Baden-Powell into letting him seize the town shortly before the outbreak of war, then kept falling for his bluffs when they besieged the town after the war began.
The future founder of the Boy Scouts, who had been ordered to raise two regiments of volunteers, began storing his supplies in Mafeking. However, openly garrisoning the town before hostilities began would have been impolitic and provocative. Baden-Powell got around that by politely asking the townspeople for permission to send guards to protect his supplies. They consented, and Powell sent in his entire force of nearly 1500 men. When the locals protested, he responded that he had never specified the size of the guard.
