The British used mines in the Siege of Khartoum to hold off a much larger Sudanese Mahdist force for ten months. In the end, however, the town was taken and the British massacred. In the Boer War (1899–1903), they succeeded in holding Mafeking against Boer forces with the help of a mixture of real and fake minefields; and they laid mines alongside railroad tracks to discourage sabotage.