In the century prior to the UN's creation, several international treaty organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross were formed to ensure protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and strife.

On 17 February, a pincer movement involving both French's cavalry and the main British force attempted to take the entrenched position, but the frontal attacks were uncoordinated and so were easily repulsed by the Boers. Finally, Roberts resorted to bombarding Cronjé into submission, but it took a further ten precious days, and with the British troops using the polluted Modder River as water supply, there was a typhoid epidemic killing many troops. General Cronjé was forced to surrender at Surrender Hill with 4,000 men.

Following the assassination of his uncle, the Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich, on 17 February [O.S. 4 February] 1905, the Tsar made new concessions.

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia killed 17 February [O.S. 4 February] 1905 in Moscow.

In Gallipoli, the Ottoman Empire successfully repelled the British, French, and Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs).