30, 1899, the ship Sardinian sailed the troops for four weeks to Cape Town. The Boer War marked the first occasion in which large contingents of Nova Scotian troops served abroad (individual Nova Scotians had served in the Crimean War). The Battle of Paardeberg in February 1900 represented the second time Canadian soldiers saw battle abroad (the first being the Canadian involvement in the Nile Expedition). Canadians also saw action at the Battle of Faber's Put on May 30, 1900. On November 7, 1900, the Royal Canadian Dragoons engaged the Boers in the Battle of Leliefontein, where they saved British guns from capture during a retreat from the banks of the Komati River. Approximately 267 Canadians died in the War. 89 men were killed in action, 135 died of disease, and the remainder died of accident or injury. 252 were wounded. Of all the Canadians who died during the war, the most famous was the young Lt. Harold Lothrop Borden of Canning, Nova Scotia. Harold Borden's father was Sir Frederick W. Borden, Canada's Minister of Militia who was a strong proponent of Canadian participation in the war. Another famous Nova Scotian casualty of the war was Charles Carroll Wood, son of the renowned Confederate naval captain John Taylor Wood and the first Canadian to die in the war. First World War During World War I, Halifax became a major international port and naval facility. The harbour became a major shipment point for war supplies, troop ships to Europe from Canada and the United States and hospital ships returning the wounded. These factors drove a major military, industrial and residential expansion of the city. On Thursday, December 6, 1917, the city of Halifax was devastated by the huge detonation of a French cargo ship, loaded with wartime explosives. It had accidentally collided with a Norwegian ship in "The Narrows" section of the Halifax Harbour. Approximately 2,000 people were killed by debris, fires, or collapsed buildings, and over 9,000 people were injured. This is still the world's largest man-made accidental explosion. Interwar Period and the Second World War Gabriel Sylliboy was the first Mi'kmaq elected as Grand Chief (1919) and the first to fight for treaty recognition – specifically, the Treaty of 1752 – in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia (1929). Nova Scotia was hard hit by the worldwide Great Depression that began in 1929 as demand plunged for coal and