Bloody Sunday of February 18, 1900, was a day of high Imperial casualties in the Second Boer War. It occurred on the first day of the Battle of Paardeberg. A combined British-Canadian force of 6,000 finally trapped a group of approximately 5,000 Boer soldiers and some civilians, under Piet Cronje, in a bend of the Modder River near Kimberley, having advanced from south of the Modder River on the 11th. The Boers defended a series of trenches on Paardeberg Hill.