The 1914 Boer Revolt in perspective.

Very often when I read website or social media military history commentary on the 1914 Boer Revolt – I often come across the phasing that Louis Botha (usually incorrectly referenced as Jan Smuts) went against the will of the ‘majority’ of Afrikaners and therefore the general will of the white voting population in South Africa, when he declared war against Imperial Germany in 1914 and invaded German South West Africa (GSWA) – now on the side of Britain and its main ally – France. The result is a general upsurgence of Republicanism and a desire to re-engage the Boer War (a sort of Boer War 3) in an outpouring of widespread support by the Boer nation for Germany and against Britain (a legacy hangover from the Boer War). South Africa was forced into an unwanted war to do the British Empire’s bidding and the Boere would have none of it!

The problem with the above assertion is that it is pure bunk, its unfounded, as once again Military History (doctrine, strategy and tactics) and Economic History (stats and demographics) tell a different tale entirely and once again the ‘cold facts’ rip the ‘Political’ interpretation of the history apart (this is why I just love both economic and military history). So, let’s examine these ‘cold facts’ – the hard statistics – the numbers and see how they hold up, let’s also examine military doctrine and see how that holds against the numbers. Let’s challenge the history and establish why this above assertion is purely politically inspired fantasy.

The Vote

Upfront is the vote to go to war. The arrival of World War 1 in 1914 is both a blessing and a curse for the Boer led government of the newly formed Union of South Africa. Both Botha as Prime Minister and Smuts as his ‘right hand man’ were walking a tight rope – as Boer commanders they represented a faction of the new “Union”, balancing the two small old Boer Republic’s politics and laws with those of all the British colonies and protectorates surrounding them (six large British territories and their interests in them in effect) – so they are obliged to support Britain as the major player in the region, and honour their word to them, the oath that brought about peace – that’s the ‘curse’. 

The ‘blessing’ to the Union government is that the war presents them with an ideal opportunity to realise the expansive border of ‘Greater South Africa’ as envisioned and concluded in the Union conference in 1909 – as this border also specifies the eventual inclusion of German South West Africa into South Africa in the first phase of the ‘Greater’ South Arica Union and eventually even bits of German East Africa would be included in the second phase of South Africa’s territorial advancement. 

So it’s really no surprise, that when the decision to go to war is put to the vote in the Boer led and very independent Union of South Africa Parliament (at Union, Britain takes a figurehead role, the South African Union’s Parliament and legal construct is not governed by Westminster, its fee to make its own laws) – and the result is not what your Apartheid era school history teacher plugged – it’s a staggering vote of confidence by nearly all the Boer MP’s favouring going to war alongside Britain (and France) against Germany, by a landslide – literally. Consider the result.

92 = For invasion of German South West Africa (GSWA) by the Union of South Africa

12 = Against

So, as to the ‘majority’ of Afrikaners NOT wanting war with Germany, that is simply untrue, the Afrikaner community’s representatives in Parliament were overwhelmingly in favour of war against Germany. This is also where some ‘Boer Romantic’ commentators on the 1914 Revolt make a fundamental mistake, the Union of South Africa’s decision to conquer German South West Africa (Namibia) was NOT just a service to the ‘British Empire’ – it was largely in service to the objects of The Union of South Africa and its own territorial expansion ambitions and the prescribed ‘sphere of influence’ over the Southern African region as a whole (as agreed by all Boer and British leaders involved in the Union conference in 1909).

Put another way, that’s 88% in favour of going to war alongside Britain and 12% against. In so far as the politics goes, the South African Party (SAP) headed up by Louis Botha, and comprising all the old Boer War Generals and the old Afrikaner Bond is by far the majority party, it’s the Afrikaner’s representative party in government (the National Party came later) … statistically speaking the breakdown of Parliament is as follows:

South African Party, Louis Botha leader – 66 seats

Unionist Party, Starr Jameson leader – 36 seats

Labour Party, Frederic Creswell leader – 3 seats

Simply put, to see who the “Afrikaner” representatives are and who are the “English” i.e. British affiliated parties, the SAP is the ‘Afrikaner’ party – the ‘British’ party is most certainly Starr Jameson’s Imperial Party (you may remember Starr Jameson as the leader of the infamous Jameson Raid). The Labour Party is a British (English) unionist construct, its voters are the miners on the Johannesburg gold reef mainly.

From that it can be deduced that he majority of the ‘Afrikaner’ SAP have voted FOR going to war alongside Britain against Germany – of the SAP – 54 votes, or 82% of the SAP’s ministers are pro-war alongside Britain and her allies. It is only on the very rump of this party that we find the AGAINST voters, and of these 12 individuals (or 18% of the SAP), only 3 of them are notable and become highly vocal anti-war campaigners – Barry Hertzog, Koos de la Rey and Christiaan de Wet. 

In this respect, between the three of them, although vocal they are really a small voice at odds with the legitimate elected government construct, the vast majority of South Africa’s representatives, and even most of their own peers. In truth, they are also not just “pro-German’ – at this stage they are intrinsically at odds with the idea of ‘Union’ and it’s agreed objects – seeking minority rule under a ‘Boer Republican’ hegemony instead.

The UDF Construct and its ’Afrikaner’ nature 

Jan Smuts, as the Minister of Defence at this time had also been busy amalgamating the armed forces of the republics with those of the colonial citizen force regiments to form the Union Defence Force i.e. the UDF (in much the same way as the SADF was amalgamated with other forces in 1994 to form the SANDF – with the same challenges). 

The UDF had taken shape to consist of a small contingent of Permanent Force, the Permanent Force basically comprises some 4,000 odd members and consists of a HQ, some admin and training staff and a mounted military constabulary of 5 regiments called the South African Mounted Rifles (SAMR) – these are a combination of members of the old British colonial mounted regiments like the Cape Mounted Rifles and old Boer Kommando members making the military their profession. They make up only 5% of the total UDF strength.

But the backbone would remain essentially voluntarily forces in a two-stream approach, the old ‘English’ colonial citizen force regiments – Transvaal Scottish, Royal Natal Carbineers, Royal Durban Light Infantry etc comprise what is collectively known as ‘Active Citizen Force’ (ACF) and to begin with they tend be ‘English’ speaking and led. There are 23,000 ACF members (29% of the total UDF mustering).

The greater part of the UDF backbone however is the ‘Afrikaans’ citizen force “skiet” Commandos known as the ‘Rifle Association Mounted Infantry’ working in parallel to the ACF. This is the old Transvaal and Orange Free State Boer Republic’s Boer Kommando system in effect. They are collectively called the “Rifle Associations” or RA and comprise 42,000 members (or 52% of the complete UDF strength) and they are the majority in the new UDF construct.

It was a careful construct to keep everyone happy, but the point is this, it was NOT “British” – Imperial British troops present in South Africa after the Boer War had all returned to the United Kingdom, any engagement the Union of South Africa was going to fight in World War 1 in Africa, whether foreign or domestic, was going to be made up of ‘South Africans’ and led by ‘South Africans’ – and in truth it was commanded by the old Republic’s ‘Bittereinder’ Boer Generals – primarily Botha (as Prime Minister was Commander in Chief) and Smuts (as Botha’s Minister of Defence) – and by way of construction the vast majority of the force is of ‘Afrikaans’ origin (not English) and part of a mounted infantry construct (RA and SAMR).

Smuts is beginning to outline military doctrine for the UDF and he has a greater disposition to the Boer ‘way of fighting’ i.e. mobility which is heavily reliant on mounted infantry. The UDF is fortunate, at the end of the Boer War in 1902, the British (and Colonial forces) emerge as the singular worldwide authority on Counter Insurgency warfare (we know this today as COIN) and the old Boer Republican forces emerge as the worldwide authority on Insurgency warfare.  Thus the UDF is now being built along the lines of using effective combined arms with high degrees of mobility to deal with both conventional warfare (as is the requirement of any statutory force) in the event a Colonial Power in Africa (e.g. Portugal or Germany) invades the Union and any domestic insurgencies (initially ‘internal’ threats are defined as potential Black African uprisings and the UDF doctrine is been developed to counter-act it). 

Intrinsic in the UDF’s DNA at this point is the use of COIN in the rural warfare context (they have not been tested in the urban context, that would only really happen with the Miners’ strike in 1922). Also, a key learning for the UDF is that towards the end of Boer War 2, the British turn to highly mobile ‘Seek and Destroy’ columns known as “Commando Hunts” to put an end to the final ‘Bittereinder Kommandos’ – essentially matching mobility with mobility but with greater firepower and ‘combined arms’. This institutional knowledge will play a major role in the upcoming 1914 Boer Revolt.

Smuts is happy to cherry pick, basically he’s happy to bring all that’s great and good about the British culture of warfare – their discipline and drill (sorely lacking in the Boer army), their uniforms and rank structures (sorely lacking in the Boer army) and their very effective use of combined arms warfare and joint arms warfare (also sorely lacking in the Boer army) and combine it with the Boer culture of warfare – the use of mobility, and applying high rates of survivability thinking to tactics of assault and defence (both of which are sorely lacking in the British army). 

 Smuts will build into the UDF the doctrine of highly mobile ‘combined arms’ – mainly the effective use of mounted infantry, armour and artillery (and other ‘arms’) all acting in unison and speed. It’s a doctrine of “manoeuvre” using the Clausewitzian concept – using superior and simultaneous advances along “exterior” lines (a concentration in space) on an enemy using “interior” lines (known as a concentration of time) of communication and supply. Under General Jan Smuts the UDF is shaping into a very effective fighting force, one that is far ahead of the old Boer Republics strategic and tactical constructs and doctrine which focused mainly on “interior lines”. This will have far reaching consequences for the Boer Revolt and the rebels.

The Afrikaner disposition to Germany

Smuts was also sensitive to the fact that many Afrikaners shared German heritage and they (falsely) believed that Germany extensively supported the Boer cause during Boer War 2 – ‘falsely’ because in fact, Germany was happy to ‘sell’ them arms (as did the British arms manufacturers) at a premium and send some medical assistance later on, however Germany withdrew their support officially – they provided no troops and no substantial funding to the Republican Boer War effort whatsoever. 

Kaiser Wilhelm II, although sending a letter to Kruger congratulating him on the Jameson Raid victory (given the Boer nation their false sense of ‘support’), in fact refused point blank to receive any Boer representations and after the ‘Black Week’ Boer victories during Boer War 2 in late 1899, he and his Generals compiled a military strategy, not to help the Boers, but to help the British win the war (he was after all related to the British monarchy – part of the family so to speak) and shared it with them instead – Kaiser Wilhelm II even proudly proclaiming at the end of the Boer War that the British had followed his plan precisely as he had outlined it to them and it was the German plan that won the war for the British – not Field Marshal Frederick Robert’s plan and as inconvenient truths go the Kaiser’s plan involved scorched earth policies and concentration camps. (see: John C.G. Röhl: The Kaiser and England during the Boer War). 

Ethnic Germans (local and foreign) volunteering to join Boer Commandos also qualified very few (550 odd) – far more Anglo-Irish, Dutch and Flemish joined the Boers (5,500 odd). A Boer leader delegation, including Botha and de Wet visited Germany after the war in 1902, and although they received a  grand welcome and ovations, they were never officially received, Kaiser Wilhelm II flatly refused to entertain any Boer delegation sent to Germany.

Boer delegations did raise a little money from private donators and a Boer help fund, but that’s it – there was never any official public contribution by the German government to the Boer cause – ever. Germany wanted to avoid conflict with Britain – who by convention and legal treatise at the time held suzerainty limitations over the two Boer Republics preventing them from engaging in foreign policies and entering into treaties. However, all this still did not resonate with many in the Boer community who almost illogically saw Germany as an Ally. Now, I bet none of this was in your Nationalistic inspired history teachings.

Smuts would argue the case for war, not on the basis of warring against Germany on the side of ‘Britain’, but for supporting the other old Boer Republic’s supporters – France, Belgium and the Netherlands in their war against a hostile and aggressive Germany busy de-stabilising western and eastern Europe, and Smuts was very aware of the vast majority of Boers had Dutch, Belgian and French roots, as opposed to the ones with German roots. He would use the same argument again for his declaration of war against Germany in World War 2.

Smuts however anticipated that the decision to go to war, although largely supported by the Afrikaner political elite and leadership, would have with it a handful of resignations from the Union’s Defence Force from those strongly in favour of Germany and whose sheer hatred of the British superseded everything, and the Union government received exactly that – a “handful” – nothing that would fundamentally compromise the UDF’s fighting ability or construct, the UDF remained at its 80,000 men strong capability and it remained with its primarily strong ‘Afrikaans’ demographic skew, contrary to the thinking of wishful Boer Romantic modern-day arm-chair Generals, there was no large gravitation of Afrikaners from the ‘Rifle Associations’ (Kommandos) and other arms of the UDF over to the German cause, nor was there a large wave of resignations from the UDF, in fact there was very little, verging on none – less than 1%. 

Of the handful of resignations which were received, a rather long-winded one came from General Christiaan Beyers, the UDF’s Commandant General in charge of the Active Citizen Force (ACF) and his was the most important resignation. As previously noted, prior to the decision to go to war against Germany, Smuts and Botha’s old friend and highly respected comrade, General Koos de la Rey had been one of the handful of Parliamentary Ministers vocally against the decision to invade GSWA and advocated neutrality, and because of his popularity his opinion held massive sway over the old Boer Republic’s Afrikaner electorate  – nevertheless he was persuaded by Louis Botha and Jan Smuts not to take actions which may arouse the Boers, he then held a political rally for only 800 Boers who felt strongly over the matter and took a reconciliatory approach – contrary to what the attendees expected of him.

General De la Rey seemed torn over his decision, and he was then targeted by General Beyers to join him for meeting with Major Jan Kemp, a mid-line UDF officer who had also resigned – the purpose of the meeting; Beyers and Kemp wanted to persuade de la Rey to take a stronger stand and initiate more Union Defence Force resignations to try and compromise its fighting capability. Joining the conspiracy was another heavyweight – the significant Boer General and Parliamentary Minister, Christiaan de Wet.

What follows next is well documented, however the generally accepted and investigated history concludes; General De la Rey and General Beyers were travelling in a soft top sedan car to their meeting with Major Kemp and did not stop at a Police blockade set up to capture a notorious gang of robbers and murderers called The Foster Gang. One of the Policeman fired a warning shot into the road to get them to stop, the bullet ricocheted and hit De la Rey, killing him. 

It was tragedy – plain and simple, and both Botha and Smuts were devasted at the loss of their friend, as a signal to the inevitable accusations of ‘political assassination’ both Botha and Smuts attended De la Rey’s funeral in front of thousands of mourning Boers, they appeared without any bodyguard at the mercy of the assembly – a token of no malice intended, and there were no protests or accusations from the mourners. 

Regardless, despite sound and tested enquiries and court cases, and the Nationalists having full scope and the resources at hand for 40 years to uncover a ‘plot’ – no concrete proof has emerged of a plot by Smuts to kill De la Rey whatsoever – ‘conspiracy theory’ nevertheless grew out of the incident which would plague Smuts in future years, and it still does.

It is also generally understood that with the death of De La Rey, that would probably have been the extent of Boer resistance to the war, and it would have devolved into simple political protest and peaceful demonstrations, had it not been for one single man … Lt. Colonel Manie Maritz, who had an especially strong disposition towards Germany having served in German South West Africa and he commanded a small UDF force at Upington, on the border with German South West Africa (GSWA). 

A treacherous soup

The day after de la Rey’s funeral, Kemp, Beyers and de Wet addressed a large crowd at Lichtenberg, calling on protest meetings against the decision to invade GSWA. Manie Maritz however took a far more robust position than Kemp, Beyers and de Wet, he instead went into open sedition and started ignoring Smuts’ and his other Commander’s orders been sent to him. Intel told Smuts that Maritz had joined the Germans, however contradictory to Smuts’ usual manner of decisiveness, he vacillated instead hoping to persuade Maritz not to revolt and get him to see reason. 

Not dissuaded by Smuts and bent on a sedition, Maritz resigned his commission from the Union Defence Force and openly rebelled on 9 October, taking just 300 odd of his UDF soldiers with him when he went over to the Germans. Maritz arrested all the UDF officers and men under his command who were unwilling to join the Germans, and then sent them forward as prisoners into German South West Africa (GSWA).

Smuts sent Major Barend ‘Ben’ Bouwer over to deal with Maritz’ sedition and insubordination (both Bouwer and Maritz had served under Smuts in his Commando during Boer War 2 and he hoped Bouwer could reason with Maritz). Maritz however also promptly took Bouwer prisoner along with his fellow officers, he was subsequently released and sent back with the ultimatum from Maritz to the Union Government:

The ultimatum read that unless the Union Government guaranteed safe passage of his fellow plotting Generals (De Wet, Beyers, Kemp et al), to his position on the GSWA border by the 11th October he would immediately attack General Brits’ UDF forces preparing to invade GSWA and then he would invade the Union of South Africa.

Major Ben Bouwer reported that Maritz was in possession of some guns belonging to the Germans, and that he held the rank of General commanding the German troops. He also had a force of Germans under him in addition to his own rebel commando. 

To drive Maritz’ point home, Major Bouwer was shown an agreement between Maritz and the Governor of German South West Africa guaranteeing the independence of the Union as a Republic, ceding Walfish Bay and certain other portions of the Union to the Germans, and undertaking that the Germans would only invade the Union on the invitation of Maritz.

Major Bouwer was shown numerous telegrams and helio messages dating back to the beginning of September. Maritz boasted that he had ample guns, rifles, ammunition, and money from the Germans, and that he would overrun the whole of South Africa.

In response to Maritz’ action and ultimatum, on 12 October, the Union government imposed martial law across the whole of South Africa. On proclaiming martial law, Smuts, the eternal reconciler, immediately called again for “reason” and urged the rebels not to be swayed by “foreign agents influencing them”.

The ‘Boer Revolt’ or ‘Maritz Revolt’ or ‘Five Shilling Rebellion’ as it would also become known was underway, and with their sedition hand now played by Maritz in the Cape Colony, his fellow conspirators – Beyers, Kemp and de Wet had no choice, now ‘in for a penny and in for a pound’ they all broke their ties with the Union and went into open armed rebellion against their lawfully elected government – raising Commando’s primarily from the Transvaal and Orange Free State to come to Maritz’ aid.

The ‘Five Shillings Rebellion’ reference came about when de Wet, entered the town of Reitz on a recruitment drive, called together the inhabitants and said:

“I was charged before for beating a native boy. I only did it with a small shepherd’s whip, and for that I was fined 5/–”.

Hearing about the speech later, Jan Smuts referred to the rising as “the Five Shilling Rebellion” as a means of belittling the rebels, the baseless promises of wealth to the desperate and the aims of the revolt.

The stated objective: Maritz issued a proclamation by way of an objective:

 “The former South African Republic and Orange Free State as well as the Cape Province and Natal are proclaimed free from British control and independent, and every White inhabitant of the mentioned areas, of whatever nationality, are hereby called upon to take their weapons in their hands and realize the long-cherished ideal of a Free and Independent South Africa.”

In other words, to take by force, the former British Colonies and re-start the Boer War, resistance to the declaration by any “white” in the entire Union of South Africa would be treated by Maritz’ Provisional Government as treasonous. 

Sabre Waving

Generally in social media and web based articles on the Boer Revolt you get the impression that this was a significant military threat and social movement, but that’s not the case – in fact all these threats by Maritz as to invading South Africa, crushing the UDF’s intensions on invading GSWA, declaring a Afrikaner Republic under a white Boer hegemony with the aid of Germany are nothing more than ‘sabre waving’ – from a military doctrine perspective they are nothing more than unsubstantiated and baseless threats. 

So, let’s look at the military doctrine and establish what sort of threat from the rebels and Germany the South African Union defence force is facing, what’s the magnitude of the problem with regard the Boer Revolt that they have to deal with, what is the rebel forces calibre, construct and fighting capability? – Let’s look at the numbers.

To attain their objective, the Rebels raised 11,476 Boers. The South African Union Defence Force strength to ready itself for World War 1, all in, including all its reserves is 80,500 troops (without even considering the Rhodesian troops mustered for the GSWA campaign under South African command). That means the Boer Rebels are outnumbered on a ratio of 8 to 1. 

Military doctrine will always dictate that a force needs to be twice the size of the opposing force (2:1) if an effective ‘invasion’ is feasible and victory within grasp, more so (and more troops than a 2:1 advantage) if the intention is the occupation and annexation of a country. For the Boer Rebels to be successful in their object to defeat an 80,000 strong UDF they require a force of 160,000 men (that’s 3x more than the entire Boer Republican forces had in Boer War 2 which at their zenith numbered 40,000). 

Obviously, their hope and intention, albeit somewhat fanciful and arrogant, was that the UDF would capitulate with a mass walk out of all its Afrikaner demographic – estimated at some 50,000 odd people – but that simply did not happen. On an 8:1 ratio disadvantage the Boer Revolt stood absolutely no chance of success, even if this UDF number reduced sizeably there would still be at a disadvantage with almost no chance of success. 

But the intention was that Germany would combine with the Boere, the Germans in GSWA would join forces with the Boers right? We need to augment the numbers with German troops. Total German strength in GSWA is 3,000 odd well trained German Schutztruppe and 2,000 odd trained German militaria – about 5,000 in total. At best another 2,000 can be mustered from local Boere and German settlers in GSWA. If we add 7,000 German troops to the Boer Rebels’ 11,500 troops we get 18,500 troops MAX. Against the UDF’s 80,500 that still is nowhere near enough to affect a victorious outcome, they are still heavily outnumbered by 4 to 1. 

There is also no German expeditionary force from elsewhere making its way to GSWA, they are heavily committed to the European theatres of operations. Also, unlike in their East Africa colony, the German military in GSWA is unable to raise many local Askari black troops to augment their numbers, a hang-over from the Herero and Namaqua genocide which gives them no real traction with the black inhabitants of GSWA.

The idea that the Germans in GSWA could link up with a Boer Revolt (unless substantially supported) and invade South Africa is fanciful at best.

Now, let’s look at the Rebel Forces capability and make-up. It is important to note, the Rebel force was not made up entirely of first rate ex-UDF soldiers going against their counterparts, the rebel force was primarily made up of destitute Orange Free State Boers having come through a drought and agricultural reforms on the back of the devastation of their farms during Boer War 2. 

Many of these Free State Boers as has been pointed out by historians like Sandra Swart (Desperate Men: The 1914 Rebellion and the Polities of Poverty’ in South African Historical Journal, Vol 42) and John Bottomly (The Orange Free State and the Rebellion of 1914: the influence of industrialisation, poverty and poor whitism: pages 29-73), were simply desperate ‘Bywoners’ (landless farmers or share-croppers) promised a better life if the rebellion was successful.

Consider the statistics of the Boer rebels and from where they came, and you’ll see how the above statement holds true. 7,123 (62%) of the Boer Rebels came from the Orange Free State – the least populace, most rural and economically worse off province in the Union. As an aside, to gauge the extent of success of Maritz’ proclamation and its resonance across the broader Afrikaner community across the whole of South Africa, the rebel leaders were only able to motivate 1,215 (12%) of the Boer Rebels from the Cape province – the biggest province in the Union with the largest Afrikaans population. The balance coming from the Transvaal – which considering its very urbanised and significant population is negligible in the bigger scheme of the Transvaal’s demographic make-up, and no real support from Natal whatsoever.

The Potchefstroom Herald at the time best tried to explain why there was no traction behind the revolt from Cape Afrikaners and the black/brown African communities in this quote – and not surprisingly it boils down to the lack of suffrage and plain racism in the old Republics;

“When these high officers of the Defence Force in Transvaal and Orange “Free” State rebelled and joined the Germans with their commandos, the Dutchmen of the Cape (presumably because “they vote side by side with the Kafirs”) denounced the treachery in unmistakable terms. The South African party at the Cape beat up its followers to the support of the Government, and the voice of the Cape section of the Dutch Reformed Church rang from pulpit and platform in denunciation of disloyalty and treason. But in the Northern Provinces, where white men are pampered and guarded by the Government against the so-called humiliation of allowing native taxpayers to vote, there the rebellion, having been regarded with seeming approval, gained a marvellous impetus.”

Plaatjie: The Boer Rebellion – snippet from the Potchefstroom Herald

As a unified, coherent, trained and fully armed force, the Rebel Boers were not. 

They were desperate and landless farmers in the main up against fully trained, motivated, even mechanised in some instances, and properly armed UDF soldiers who had an 8:1 numerical advantage. As noted earlier, in terms of doctrine the UDF under Jan Smuts’ design, command and control was focussed on effective deployment of combined arms in an enveloping role – all based on high manoeuvrability – up against this very modern military construct was a rebel force which only really consisted of ‘old school’ mounted infantry Commandos with ‘old school’ Boer command and control doctrine leading it – they had no light artillery support, no supply logistics to speak of, no armoured cars, no heavy guns, no machine guns and no motorised support – whereas the UDF had all of these. 

In essence the Boer Rebels were using an outdated military doctrine originally intended to quell poorly armed Black African uprisings – a Commando, and it was simply complete folly to pitch such doctrine against a modern military using a doctrine of both combined arms and joint arms. The Rebels were simply no match and it quickly showed. 

Whilst still focussing much of the UDF’s resources on the invasion plans and logistics for the GSWA campaign, General Louis Botha would primarily use just the Rifle Associations to counteract the rebellion, insistent that the British ‘stay out of it’, this was going to be the Boer leaders sorting their differences out between themselves – so ‘Brother against Brother’ and in effect the UDF’s Afrikaners outnumbered the rebel Afrikaners 4 to 1. As also noted earlier, intrinsic in the UDF’s institutional memory and doctrine was the British idea of “hunting” Commandos using what was termed as a “flying column” of combined arms – a spill over of the British tactic from Boer War 2.

The long and short the rebellion was almost immediately repelled and then very quickly crushed as Botha’s UDF Rifle Associations with some Active Citizen Force elements in support used these ‘Flying Columns’ and effectively hunted the Rebel Commandos down as they tried to make their way to assist Maritz on the GSWA border. The revolt would last a couple of months only.

Reconciliation

As Dr David Katz in his work ‘General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa 1914 -1917) points out. Jan Smuts, eternally the one Boer General keeping a level head and seeking reconciliation and understanding, and when it was clear the rebellion had failed, Smuts called for a ‘Blanket Amnesty’ across the board for the Boer Rebel leaders and their troops if they laid down their arms. General Louis Botha, the Commander in Chief, on the other hand took a much harder and less reconciliatory line than his colleague – he was livid at the sheer betrayal, the sheer waste of lives, resources and time it took and the complete stupidity of it all – an unsupported revolt against a lawfully elected government with absolutely no chance of success. It was reported that he once joking said to Jan Smuts “Let’s face it Jannie, you’re no General!” By that he meant Smuts was far too reconciliatory and soft-hearted – as far as Louis Botha was concerned, under the edicts of martial law, all rebels, officers and men alike should be tried, the most treasonous of which, the leaders, put up against a wall and shot – even if they were all his old friends.

Smuts however persevered – Botha eventually agreed to an Amnesty, but for the rank and file only, the Boer Rebel leaders would have to be prosecuted. The amnesty, excluding the Rebel leadership, was in put place from 12^th to 21^st November 1914, and with it the 1914 Boer Rebellion was effectively over, by the end of November General de Wet’s force alone was down to only 40 men. Rear actions and isolated and desperate battles continued to be fought for a couple of months by woefully under-strength hard liners refusing surrender and amnesty, but by the end of January 1915 the rebellion was over.  

Of the Rebel leadership now having surrendered, Botha and Smuts would again be especially magnanimous, considering the Union was in a state of war externally and in a state of martial law internally – and this was 1914 ‘World War 1’ – people were put in front of firing squads for ‘cowardice’ and being AWOL (absent without leave) – let alone ‘sedition’ and ‘treason’. Smuts would treat the Rebels in general very kindly, literally with kid gloves, all the time urging reason, understanding and reconciliation.

Of the main rebel leaders, General Christiaan Beyers tragically drowned in the Vaal River whilst attempting to desperately evade capture on 8th December 1914. General Christiaan de Wet was captured during the amnesty and sentenced to six years imprisonment, with a fine of £2000, he was released by Botha and Smuts after one year’s imprisonment, after giving a written promise to take no further part in politics. 

Major Jan Kemp was captured on the 2nd of February 1915 and sentenced to 7 years imprisonment, with a fine of £1000. However, a mere 10 months into his sentence Botha and Smuts agreed to release him – also on the condition that he may not participate in any politics – a promise Kemp almost immediately broke entering politics as a National Party MP under Hertzog in 1920. Ironically he accompanied Hertzog and joined with Jan Smuts in the Fusion government, however by 1940, in opposition to South Africa entering WW2 against Nazi Germany, he joined the Reunited National Party until his death in 1946.

Lt. Colonel Manie Maritz would evade capture and escape into German South West Africa, at the conclusion of the GSWA campaign and the Union Defence Force’s victory and annexation of the territory (the first real victory for the Allies against Imperial Germany in WW1), Maritz would again evade capture, going into self-imposed exile in Angola, Spain, Portugal and then Mozambique. He would re-enter South Africa in 1923 and spend a couple of months in jail for treason, thereafter he would enter into politics as the leader of an antisemitic, one-party state, National Socialist (Nazi) inspired ‘Boerenasie’ party prior to World War 2. 

Of all the other leaders – junior and mid-level rebel officers who were also captured. All were sentenced to short imprisonments and fines, almost all of them walking free within a year … except for just one man … Captain Jopie Fourie was executed for ‘High Treason’ having not resigned his UDF officers commission, captured still wearing his UDF officer’s uniform and opening fire on his fellow UDF troops whilst under a ‘white flag’ of truce – in one skirmish Jopie Fourie’s men shot dead Captain William Allan-King, the much loved and popular Native Affairs administrator, whilst he was attending to a wounded man. 

Retribution for William Allan-King was coming, many in the English, Native and Coloured communities wanted Jopie Fourie dead, the South African Union Defence Force wanted him dead, many Afrikaners related to or who had affiliation to the Afrikaner UDF men he killed wanted him dead … and this was WW1 and Martial Law after all – there was no way anyone could get him out of this one with a no-nonsense leader like General Louis Botha as Prime Minister and in charge of stays of execution – not just one but on three distinctive charges of high treason, not in a month of Sundays was this possible – a story on Jopie needs a little more space – so follow this Observation Post link to Jopie’s story: What about Jopie?

To pay for all their fines the Bloemfontein newspaper ‘Het Volksblad’ established the ‘Halfkroonfonds’ (Half-a-Crown Fund). Shop owners and other people whose property had been damaged during the rebellion were able to claim compensation, leading to the establishment of the Helpmekaar Beweging (the Help-One-Another Movement). By the end of 1917, all the debts were paid.

Of the handling of the 1914 Boer Revolt, Louis Botha would summarise Smuts role and leadership, when he said of him;

“Nobody can appreciate sufficiently the great work General Smuts has done – greater than any man throughout this unhappy period. At his post day and night, his brilliant intellect, his calm judgement, his amazing energy and his undaunted courage have been assets of inestimable value to the Union in her hour of trial.”

As a rebellion with any chance of success consider just what a small minority they represented – no Cape Province or Natal Afrikaner would really come near it (and the majority of Afrikaners lived in the Cape), of the Afrikaners in the Transvaal and OFS they were unable to raise an effective fighting force, the vast majority of Afrikaners in the armed forces remained in the UDF, the vast majority of Afrikaner political leaders remained behind Botha and Smuts and they gained no traction whatsoever to raise anything from the Black and Coloured communities (the real ‘vast’ majority) – no “Askari” troops whatsoever, and they got no support whatsoever from the white South Africans of British decent – who by way of ‘white’ population were not insignificant in size (about 40% of the white population total), the ‘English’ whites commanding massive swathes of white population groups in the Transvaal (most of Johannesburg and the reef), Natal (most of Durban) and the Cape Colony (especially in Cape Town and the Eastern Cape). 

What if?

Now we can ask the question “what if the Rebellion took traction?” What next? Assuming the UDF internally imploded and a 10,000 strong Boer army with a 7,000 strong German army in support could annex the whole of South Africa, however implausible – consider the scale of white, coloured and black population groups that would resist it.

Also consider the British reaction to it, the probability that a couple of thousand mounted infantrymen, lightly armed, could take British held ports like Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban or their Naval Base in Simonstown. As a modern military construct, the UDF at this stage ops out of developing a Navy of its own because the Royal Navy provides this service to the UDF on the back of operating their Simonstown Base as sovereign British territory. As a ‘joint arm’ to the UDF construct the Royal Navy is an incredibly powerful instrument.

The Royal Navy is Britain’s true military might, and it’s the world’s undisputed naval power – a very big hitter, in 1914 it’s bigger than the French and American navies combined. For the British in 1914 the ‘Army’ is very secondary to the control of its trading empire worldwide – the primary tool is the Navy. Defending (and even assaulting) ports is what the Royal Navy does, it’s their speciality and just one British battleship has more firepower on it than the entire Boer Rebel army combined – think about that.

Also, to consider with the hindsight of history, what would Britain do to re-establish its influence in Southern Africa with a rebel Boer Republic (with German backing) now declared – incorporating hundreds of thousands of people who consider themselves British subjects or under British protectorate, citizens and subjects who want nothing to do with the racist constructs of Boer Republicanism. Indeed, what would Britain do … it would, when the opportunity arose, return its Expeditionary Force to South Africa and simply take the country back – only this time it would have the benefit of all the technological advances of World War 1 – tanks, chemical warfare, fighter aircraft, bomber aircraft etc. 

Also, as Germany was defeated in WW1, an unsupported Boer Republican government would not hold out and Britain would have to intervene by 1918. The question then is how would the Boer nation hold out? As a population the Boer nation was devastated by the South African War (1899-1902) and they had no armaments industry, with a renewed British military intervention and all the new technology of warfare available to them, the Boer nation would simply not survive the onslaught. 

But – you may ask, the Boere did manage to get a ‘white’ Republic for themselves in 1948 without the support of Germany, and Britain didn’t invade – so it’s possible right? Again, this is after WW1 – not WW2, Britain is still an Imperial Empire and a colonial power, at the heart of which are its ‘Dominions’ – of which South Africa is one, and a key one at that (the other ‘Dominions’ are Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). In any event, look at how Dr. H.F. Verwoerd’s ‘Keep South Africa White’ Republic worked out in the end. 

To Jan Smuts (and Louis Botha), the idea that a Boer Republic could be resurrected ended with the Boer War, South Africa was now intertwined as a British and Boer construct – Union had seen to that, and all the Boer war leaders had sworn an oath to uphold it, they had given their word (Smuts would remark that a nation who goes back on its word is not a nation at all). 

Smuts would also take an almost paternal approach to his much loved nation and try and gently try to steer the Boer nation away from inflicting more harm on itself, he would however consistently be thwarted by a minority of Afrikaners on the rump of Afrikanerdom, who against all odds are blindly bent on re-instating a Boer Republic with its intensive racially driven constructs (based on Krugerism) over the whole of South Africa and they are also wholeheartedly bent on supporting Germany – through both its Imperial and subsequent Nazi manifestations.

Conclusion 

In the end the Boer Revolt did little in terms of its military objectives, it managed to delay the invasion plans of GSWA for a couple of months only whilst the UDF dealt with it, however in the end the GSWA campaign was a decisive victory for the Union and the territory successfully annexed under ‘Greater South Africa’ in a trusteeship – as was the Union’s expressed casus belli for entering the war. 

As has been statistically proven – the Boer Revolt did NOT evoke a widespread desire from the Afrikaner community in the greater South Africa for a Boer Republic with Germany as its supporter. The Boer Revolt did NOT reflect the sentiment of the majority of the Afrikaans community nor that of the majority of its leaders. The Boer Revolt did NOT inspire the old Boer War Commando system and the majority of Afrikaner fighting men to join with it, in fact they did the opposite. The Boer Revolt also did NOT compromise the Union Defence Force in any way, shape or form whatsoever. 

From a military doctrine perspective, The Boer Revolt was poorly planned and poorly executed. The rebels were always going to be woefully outnumbered with completely insufficient firepower to do the task expected of them – in truth they had no chance of success – zero. The use of outdated mounted infantry doctrine against a modern military construct using combined and joint arms with a mobility ethos was also only ever going to end in a disaster for the rebels. In truth, not one single critical military objective of the Boer Revolt was met.

What the 1914 Boer Revolt did however do was plant the seeds for political division and is one of the key propaganda tools used by the Nationalists to create the deep split in Afrikaner outlooks. Louis Botha would look at the Rebellion as complete folly, a waste of time and an utter waste of life – a sort of Boer equivalent of the Charge of the Light Brigade, with the same disastrous consequence. Botha’s political opponents would look at it rather romantically instead – a sort of ‘Boer Last Stand’. It stands today in some Afrikaner communities, precisely because of its ‘Romanticism’ and ‘political currency’ and not because of its military prowess or even its unattainable objectives. 

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Written and Researched by Peter Dickens

References: 

Statistics, data and references sourced from the following:

Eben Nel; ‘Kaapse rebelle van die Hantam-karoo’

Dr David Brock Katz; ‘General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa 1914 -1917’

Dr Evert Kleynhans and Dr David Brock Katz; ’20 Battles – searching for a South African Way of War 1913 – 2013’

Sandra Swart; ‘Desperate Men: The 1914 Rebellion and the Polities of Poverty’ 

John Bottomly; ‘The Orange Free State and the Rebellion of 1914: the influence of industrialisation, poverty and poor whitism’

André Wessels; Afrikaner (Boer) Rebellion (Union of South Africa) 2018.

Brian Bunting; ‘The Rise of the Afrikaner Reich’

John C.G. Röhl: ‘The Kaiser and England during the Boer War’

Plaatje: Chapter XXIII The Boer Rebellion

Related Work:

A Differing Outlook – Smuts and Maritz A differing outlook

Union to Banana Republic From Union to Banana Republic!

The Story of Jopie Fourie What about Jopie?

Colourised images with greatest thanks and appreciation to Jennifer Bosch – Jenny B Colourised online: