The Boer armies turned to guerrilla warfare in the second half of 1900 because they could not hold ground in the face of British military power, but were unwilling to give up their fight for independence. An emerging generation of Boer leaders – prominent among them Christiaan De Wet, Kroos de la Rey and Jan Smuts – recognised the tactical strengths of their commandos and the potential they had for continuing resistance. Using their superior mobility, knowledge of the countryside, and intelligence networks, commandos could identify when and where to strike before rapidly evading the British response. De Wet’s operations in mid-1900 demonstrated that such operations could rise above being mere irritations and seriously disrupt British operations. Gradually, a new path to victory emerged in Boer minds: by continuing to resist within the now annexed Republics and spreading the war to the Cape and Natal, the commandos could exhaust British willingness to continue and give the Republics an upper hand during any peace negotiations.