The siege received considerable attention as Lord Edward Cecil, the son of the British prime minister, was in the besieged town, as also was Lady Sarah Wilson, a daughter of the Duke of Marlborough and aunt of Winston Churchill.

Their aims were to maintain a mobile cavalry force on the frontier with the Boer republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State.

Although the two regiments were raised in Rhodesia, Baden-Powell chose Mafeking to store supplies for his forces due to its location – both near the border and on the railway between Bulawayo and Kimberley – and because of its status as a local administrative centre.

[5] Work to build defences around the 6-mile (10 km) perimeter of Mafeking started on 19 September 1899; the town would eventually be equipped with an extensive network of trenches and gun emplacements.

Under orders of General Piet Cronje the Mafeking railway and telegraph lines were cut the same day, and the town began to be besieged from 13 October.

[1] Although usually considerably outnumbered by Boer troops, the garrison withstood the siege for 217 days, defying the predictions of the politicians on both sides.

[1] With few soldiers, no modern artillery and little risk, the defenders kept as many as 8,000 Boers from deploying to other war fronts in Natal and the Orange Free State.

[2][1] Often British soldiers had to dress as women just to undertake normal activities such as fetching water and sewing to deceive the enemy.

The morale of the civilian population was given attention, and Sunday ceasefires were negotiated so that sports, competitions and theatrical performances could be held.

Initially, the religious sensibilities of General Jacobus Philippus Snyman (in command after Cronje departed) were offended, and he threatened to fire upon the players if they continued.

Guided by a British deserter, they followed a path beside the Molopo River to where it enters the stadt, the village where the native Africans lived.

Eloff's party burst into the stadt unopposed and set fire to the huts in order to signal the attack's progress to Snyman.

By about 5:30 a.m., the Boers seized the police barracks on the outskirts of Mafeking, killing one and capturing the garrison's second-in-command, Colonel C. O. Hore and 29 others.

[4]: 437–438 One curious factor that was unexpected was that the Post Office ran out of stamps, and there was a shortage of bank notes for the people to use in everyday dealings.

[14] Each note has the facsimile signatures of Robert Urry, the manager of the Mafeking branch of the Standard Bank of South Africa.

[12] The siege was finally lifted on 17 May 1900, when a flying column of some 2,000 British soldiers, including many South African volunteers from Kimberley, commanded by Colonel B. T. Mahon of the army of Lord Roberts with Prince Alexander of Teck as his Aide-de-camp, relieved the town after fighting their way in.

The resistance to the siege was seen as one of the positive highlights in the media, and it and the eventual relief of the town excited the liveliest sympathy in Britain.

[18] However, the remaining stores that Baden-Powell had amassed in Mafeking were so great that they were able to re-supply Mahon's force and operations in the area for some time.