Romancing the Rebellion

Seems there is a lot of social media chatter surrounding Albert Blake’s new Afrikaans book on Jopie Fourie. One Afrikaner pundit after reading the book declaring anyone not familiar with the ‘truth’ about Jopie as a ‘Volksheld’ and the Rebellion is now a liar and this in his world includes any other qualified historians, other than Albert. Albert Blake himself even declaring his new work is the definitive one and the only medium to be referenced (problem is, only people who are fully literate in Afrikaans can read it).

There is undoubtably some truth in the old saying ‘history is written by the winners’, however very often the ‘plucky loser’ is a perennial favourite of propagandists, myth makers and entertainers (including Hollywood), they are often romanticised and idealised, given virtuous christian outlooks, a civilised veneer and great martial abilities – the little guy taking on the big bully. This is especially true of the 1914 Afrikaner Revolt and Jopie Fourie … and many of its local Afrikaner historians and laymen enthusiasts.

All this Boer romanticism and the portrayal of old Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR) as a benign place for a freedom loving people merely wanting it back – a foreign example of this is the Confederacy in the American Civil War (1861 to 1865), and here a Royal Historical Society historian, Chris Ash made a rather humorous comment and it rings especially true:

“Until very recently, they were certainly viewed by most as the more ‘glamorous’ of the two sides… gallant, good looking Southern gen’lemen who ‘frankly didn’t give a damn’, galloping off to fight against impossible odds against a massed industrialised hordes of a faceless enemy who wanted to end their bucolically halcyon way of life. Throw in a few gorgeous Georgia Peaches – called things like Emma-Lou and Daisy-Belle – all with heaving bosoms barely contained by beautiful ball gowns, and you’ve got all the makings of a heroic myth of doomed failure… well, as long as you ignore that the South started the war, and that they were fighting to retain slavery!”

There is an old proverb, and its especially true to historians “never meet your heroes” .. because in getting to the actual historical figures, you need to analyse who they are as people, how they view the society they live in at the time, and how that society views them. In their context of their time, you as as historian need to overcome your prejudices and start to look at things in a critical way.

This is especially true if you grow up with a ‘rebel’ as a person central to your entire identity, because as true as the sun rises that ‘rebel’ is going to be controversial and for good reason – and very much of this hero will depend on what they are fighting for … and “freedom” is the usual caveat … but then you start to really meet your hero when you ask the next question “freedom for whom?” Here it is where the hero worship of the 1914 Afrikaner rebellion leaders like Christiaan de Wet, Manie Maritz, Jan Kemp, Christiaan Beyers and Jopie Fourie starts to wobble somewhat .. sure they are fighting to free themselves from British oppression – they all said so, including Fourie the day before his colleagues shot him, but he like the others – Maritz, de Wet, Kemp and Beyers are also fighting for their stated aim of the Rebellion, and that’s a completely different kettle of fish.

Insert – Christiaan de Wet on winged horse with damsel holding onto him. Main image – the movie poster from Gone with the Wind.

Now, there is a small problem with the history of the Rebellion – and one of them is the complete lack of history books in English and even less written at the time of the revolt – the complete Afrikaner romanticism of the rebellion all comes much later with the advent and rise of Afrikaner nationalism and a plethora of Afrikaner academic papers, novels and books.

For simplicity sake, there is a ‘English’ side to the 1914 Afrikaner Rebellion story – the majority in the country if we consider all races and nationalities caught up in the Rebellion and there is a ‘Afrikaans’ side of the story, a minority – driven initially by Hertzog and his breakaway cabal of pro Republican Afrikaner Nationalists from the Botha/Smuts South African Party (SAP) in 1914 and then it is heavily driven by a far right grouping of ‘pure’ nationalists after their break with the Hertzog/Smuts Fusion before World War 2 (1939-1945) – and they went about using mass media, aligned academics in ‘Afrikaans’ universities and all manner of propaganda to ‘set the Rebel story strait’ – even Radio Zeesen from Nazi Germany with its renegade Nationalist broadcasters went full tilt at glorifying Fourie, the Rebellion and demonising Smuts during World War 2.

For any historian to take a grip on the 1914 Afrikaner Revolt in 2024, the bank of both primary and secondary source becomes invaluable and it sets up the validity of what you are going to say, ensure whatever it is holds up to academic scrutiny by your peers. In respect to using both primary and secondary sources, the closest you are to the historical figure in question the more accurate and valid the work – so here we find original accounts by people involved in the events as the key.

There has only ever been one comprehensive history book written in English on the Afrikaner Revolt and luckily for us its very close to the events of 1914, it is published a year later in 1915 and its written by a journalist very closely tied to the whole 1914 Revolt having interviewed the principle characters personally and been witness to the events himself. The book is called “The Capture of De Wet” and it’s written by PJ Sampson.

Now, unlike all the Afrikaner historians writing for a Afrikaner market on the 1914 Afrikaner Rebellion who come after PJ Sampson (many come decades after him), Sampson is just not interested in presenting a counter-case for High Treason for the Rebellion – the old Afrikaner Nationalist’s “volks-veraairer” versus “land-veraairer” (traitor to your ‘people’ as opposed to traitor to your ‘country’) argument which has been going round and round Afrikaner family kitchen tables for 110 years and still rages on – nope, Sampson records none of that, in fact he sees the ‘treason’ argument as clear cut one in 1914 and the execution of Fourie as inevitable.

Sampson is not alone, I published an article on my visit to Scapa Flow where unarmed German sailors responsible for sinking their surrendered Imperial fleet were executed for sedition on the spot as they came ashore – some by way of bayonet. 1914 and World War 1 (1914-1918) veterans looked at treason and the execution of traitors very differently to the way we look at it now. Fourie is lucky he got a trial and not a drumhead trial and on the spot execution, at that time if you committed treason or sedition, with war declared and domestic state of emergency regulations in place – you got dragged through an administrative formality which lasted barely a day, then taken out back in the morning and shot – that is what happened to Fourie and that was the way of things then.

Smuts during WW1 and a young Fourie in the insert.

I’m also not alone, one of the principle characters in the Jopie Fourie story is General Jan Smuts, Jan Smuts himself would regard Fourie as having “shed more blood than any other officer.” With the rebellion lost, Beyers drowned and General de Wet surrendered … Smuts would say:

“Only Fourie’s band remained contumacious. Twelve of our men were killed at Nooitgedacht. There was no justification for that. Some of them were shot at a range of twelve yards … A court martial was appointed, strictly according to military law. One of its members told me he felt compunction about serving, because he was a friend of Fourie’s. I replied that that was an additional reason why he should be on the tribunal. On Saturday Fourie was unanimously condemned to death…”¹

Smuts would go on to say:

“Had I refused to confirm the sentence, I could not have faced the parents of the young men who met their deaths through Fourie’s fault. There is something to be said for many a rebel, but in this case I conferred a great benefit on the State by carrying out my most unpleasant duty..”²

Smuts remained convinced that a fair trial had taken place, the correct legal framework in place, as to all the rebels Fourie was an exception and Smuts was unrepentant in the outcome, in fact he saw Fourie’s execution as unavoidable and it was his duty to see it through – his attitude had hardened, his son – Jannie Smuts in his biography of his father would write very little on Fourie in the entire appraisal of Jan Smuts’ life and career, Fourie is barely a footnote, a wayward rebel, nothing more.

A lot is also written about by Neo-Nationalist historians and disgruntled Afrikaner commentators on Smuts’ so-called “refusal” to entertain last minute efforts to intervene and reprieve Fourie, Jannie Smuts Junior is however dismissive of this and confident his father “would not have interfered in the course of justice” in any event. So this entire episode in the story really is a non-starter.

The execution of Fourie, the South African Policemen who executed him removed his cell-door as a keepsake to commemorate the occasion (reference Nongqai).

In fact Sampson views Fourie as somewhat deluded and misled, he even sets aside an entire appendix to demonstrate the flaws in Fourie’s understanding of history, his thinking and the flawed nature of his defence testimony, which Sampson tears apart completely and simply dismisses as unreasonable and deluded – instead Sampson takes pity on Fourie as someone who cuts a tragic figure having been misled by less scrupulous men like Maritz, his execution a foregone and unpleasant conclusion.

The main thrust of Sampson’s book is however on the objectives, mission and stated aims of the Rebellion. Although the long-standing Anglophobia caused by the Boer War is considered, it is not Sampson’s focus, simply because he, like many English commentators of his time, they understand the tragedy of the concentration camps and the pain they caused at face value, they see the deaths in context of measles and typhoid epidemics which sweep the camps due to hardship and unsanitary conditions brought about by war – a tragedy and nothing more. The ideas of ‘genocide’ and ‘murder’ of the Afrikaner nation are completely foreign to Sampson and other British historians like Amery of the time and this thinking would qualify fantastical thought at best.

Manie Maritz in this South African Union Defence Force uniform and staff prior to the 1914 Afrikaner Revolt (Maritz Revolt). Lt. Col Maritz is seated front and centre with his ‘Agterryer’ (man-servant) at his heels. It’s the man-servant’s expression and position that is most interesting as in many ways it gives away the complete disregard Maritz felt for people of colour.

Sampson is more interested in the politics of the Afrikaner Revolt and the politics of the leaders taking part in it, the political circumstances in South Africa in effect (and less so the geo-political circumstances). Here Sampson argues that the ‘colour blind franchise’ and human rights for ‘natives’ are also key motivations for the rebellion – the rebels intent on maintaining a Afrikaner led hegemony, an oligarchy based on “Krugerism” as an ideology – which means no franchise, emancipation and limited human rights (if any) to anyone of colour. The declaration of war presents an opportunity for these Afrikaner leaders, with the assistance of Germany, to take over the whole of South Africa and implement this political construct of theirs, much like the post American Civil War traitors like John Wilks Booth and his rebels in 1865 trying to “raise the South” again and reclaim slavery. Sampson refers to the animosity between the ‘Free State’ Boers like Christiaan de Wet against the ‘Transvaal Boers’ of Smuts and Botha over the colour blind franchise, de Wet fearful that Smuts and Botha are ushering it in and it’s all very unacceptable to him.

Now, to anyone paying attention to the history, the colour blind qualified franchise across the entire country (not just in the old British Cape Colony) is one of the key demands by the British for a peaceful settlement of the South African War (1899-1902) ie. Boer War 2. It is the only clause that is dropped out the Peace of Vereeniging agreement as the Boers absolutely refuse to abide it and its a deal breaker. It is only dropped on the proviso that a future Union government, when it is granted self governance, will implement it – Smuts assures the British that he is the man to see it through and all the Boer signatories to the agreement promise they will address it when a Union and self determination is declared (this includes de Wet, Kemp and de la Rey et al)

The South African Union and self determination/responsible government is granted by the British to Botha’s ’South African Party’ (SAP) in 1910. However inside the SAP, Smuts and Botha are simply unable to move on the colour blind qualified franchise as the likes of de Wet and Hertzog will have none of it, 4 Years later it’s beginning to become a problem as an entire black population waits for its emancipation (and its rewards for taking part in the Boer War, the majority of them supporting the British).

Say what! It’s not all about the hatred of the British, Concentration Camps, forced to fight for the British against friendly brethren Germans …. Its about the … blacks!

What you smoking? Yup, I’m afraid there it is, commentators at the time like Sampson were pointing to issues of race – the internal politics at play, not just the geo-politics. To set up the ‘race’ argument Sampson goes in depth into each of the leaders of the revolt by way of outlining their character and disposition to race.

Beyers is described as a very religious man, however he was inordinately vain of his personal appearance (which looking at his pandering to his hair, a monumentally stylised moustache and his disposition to fine and dandy clothing sounds about correct), and regarded as megalomaniac by the man in the street, in fact they “used a more expressive term” to describe him – one not for polite publication. Beyers after the Boer War took to entertaining “veldt Boers” coming in for ‘indabas’ in Pretoria and he earned a reputation as a Anglophobe with a “with a particularly venomous tongue.”³

De Wet is described by Sampson as a different sort of person to Beyers. De Wet too is religious but religion does not dictate his actions – politics does. He is angry with Botha and Smuts for removing Hertzog from cabinet. As a Free Stater he is unhappy with these “Transvaal Boers” entertaining the British request of ‘colour blind qualification franchise’ (which is in fact a Boer War 2 peace treaty pre-requisite). It’s here that we see a common thread in many of the rebel leaders, sheer racism and a desire to maintain an white Afrikaner led oligarchy in South Africa with no rights whatsoever to anyone of colour.

Sampson places De Wet into what he calls a “Old School” Boer whose:

“Abiding fear always has been that British government in South Africa meant that the ascendancy of the whites over the blacks would cease, and one day the kaffirs would be permitted to be on an equality with the whites.”⁴

Sampson cites this fear of Black ascendancy over Whites as a primary rally call for the Boer Republican armies during the South Africa War (1899-1902). He goes on to outline De Wet deep hatred for Black people as his primary motivator for going into the 1914 Rebellion, he writes:

“De Wet always has treated kaffirs with severity, regarding them as little better than animals, whom he believed he ought to have the right to thrash as he would a dog, it only needed a fine for ill-treating a native to bring on a raging brainstorm that drove him headlong into the maelstrom of rebellion. To fine him, De Wet, was the greatest outrage conceivable, and clear proof that the time had come to strike a blow for freedom!”⁵

This sentiment and motive for De Wet going into Rebellion as outlined by Sampson is borne out by Jan Smuts, who later uses the fine De Wet gets for assaulting the said black man with a shambok – which was 5 shillings. In broad media, Smuts belittles both De Wet and his purposes behind the revolt by calling it the “5 Shilling Rebellion”.

Christiaan de Wet would go on to say of the Colour Blind Qualified Franchise policy and the fact its still upheld in the Cape Providence:

“The ungodly policy of Botha has gone on long enough, and the South African Dutch are going to stand as one man to crush this unholy scandal.”⁶

Manie Maritz is also described within his deep-seated racism – he is noted as a man of:

“Enormous strength, inordinate vanity, little education, and the one, perhaps, of all the rebels most open to the influence of German gold.”⁷

Jopie Fourie is described by Sampson as a religious mans and a very pleasant man – however his Anglophobia seemed to have grown on him like a disease starting with his resentment because of a permanent limp, caused by a bullet wound in the knee during The South African War (1899-1902), and this:

“intensified the bitterness to one who had been a fine footballer and athlete”.⁸

What follows in ‘The capture of De Wet’ is the ‘Black’ part of the 1914 Afrikaner Revolt, the declaration from Maritz stating that any blacks standing in the way of the rebels will simply be executed. His declaration Maritz states:

“Several cases are known where the enemy has armed natives and coloured people to fight against us, and as this tends to arouse contempt among the black nations for the white, an emphatic warning is issued that all coloured people and natives who are captured with arms, as well as their officers, will be made to pay the penalty with their lives.”⁹

The killing of Allan William King, the Native representative by Fourie’s Commando. The declaration by the said ‘Natives’ to avenge King and enter the war on their own terms and wipe Fourie’s Commando out by themselves – they are held back by King’s wife who pleads with them for restraint. Sampson notes of ‘rise’ of the ‘Natives’ to avenge King:

‘The natives of the district were almost crazy with rage at the loss of their ” Father,” as they deemed Allan King …. They sent a deputation of chiefs and headmen into Pretoria to see the wife of their dead “inkosi,” to assure her of their love for him … and said to her “Say the word, and we will kill every one of these bad men, and also their wives and children !”¹⁰

But Mrs. King shook her head and forbade them to raise a finger, for well she realized the horrors that might follow if once the natives commenced reprisals. The rebels have to thank the wife of the man they so unfairly shot that all their throats were not cut that night, their wives and children assegaied, and their homes given to the flames.’¹¹

The position of Sol Plaatje as to the revolt and Native rights also becomes important. So too is the lambasting of Christiaan de Wet and his martial abilities – and even his influence, his reputation shattered.

Not only Sampson, General Jan Smuts was highly critical of Christiaan de Wet’s fighting abilities and strategic acumen. His son Captain Jannie Smuts would record his father’s disposition, it gives an interesting insight on de Wet and his disposition to making irresponsible strategic and operational decisions – driven instead by emotion and irrational ideals, here it is:

“It might here be noted that there was considerable divergence of opinion amongst the (1914) rebel leaders on their course of action. Beyers wanted a relatively passive though armed form of resistance – the type that came to be known as a “coup” in the Second World War. He was against civil war. De Wet, more fiery and impetuous, was for vigorous action and pushing through to connect up with Maritz. In his zeal he forgot that he was poorly armed, had no field guns, and was short of ammunition. He also failed to reckon with the mobility afforded the Government by the much-extended railway system, or the advent of the petrol driven motor-car”.¹²

In other words, as a pivot leader of the Boer Revolt of 1914, Christiaan de Wet was flying by the seat of his pants (a trait not uncommon with his approach to the South Africa War 1899-1902) – completely unprepared he was bent on full sedition and revolt to reinstate ZAR republicanism, an oligarchy run on a Boer paramountcy and its severe laws of racial exclusivity and repression throughout the South African Union – paying little regard to the strategic ramifications, operational requirements or even modern military advancements, completely underestimating his enemy, just blindly pursuing his “impetuous” pipe dream.

Yup, its a WHOLE different view of the Afrikaner revolt and its not one you get from your Afrikaner Christian Nationalist education and its certainly not one you get from modern day Afrikaner historians. They have been telling you it’s all about ‘the British’ for decades … and meanwhile, the one and only ‘English’ historian to write on the matter at the time is simply dismissed, completely bypassed – his work simply discarded as ‘jingoism’ – so not relevant.

One thing is a truism, and its true of many Boer War or Boer Revolt books and academic papers directed to Afrikaner consumers in the past, is that the works tend to cater to a specific Afrikaner ‘Volksgeist’, one which has little resonance outside of white Afrikaans culture. These works tend to highlight the ‘whiteness’ of the conflict, and focus primarily on Afrikaner cultural dynamics. One hopes that any new book on the 1914 Afrikaner Rebellion brings something new to the table, one in which the ‘Black’ and the ‘English’ part of the 1914 Rebellion is fully appraised, researched and understood, an in-depth appraisal of race politics of the time, the role played by Black Africans, Coloureds, Indian and even English speaking white South Africans in the revolt i.e. the majority of South Africans – their political representations, reactions and aspirations – what they were “fighting for”, their “freedom” in effect.

Without this, the majority of South Africans will find themselves, once again, as by-standers to this history and they will pay no attention to it whatsoever. The ‘new’ work having no real resonance to modern South African society – just a re-packaged, re-marketed regurgitation of the old white Afrikaner Nationalist debates targeted at a fresh new Afrikaner audience for a little commercial gain.

As a very reputed historian – Dr. Damian P. O’Connor, also pointed out recently, the problem with removing or brushing over sources, especially written accounts such as this one from the period, on the basis of ‘jingoism’ or just ‘not conveniently fitting’ into a Afrikaner nationalist political narrative or even an Afrikaner author’s bias brought about by years of nationalist identity politics and socialisation … is that once we’ve dismissed a first hand written account we are left with nothing, just pure hearsay and verbal tradition .. empty space in effect, and into that ‘empty space’ anyone can write anything they like, we can just make it up. It becomes revisionist history – pure ‘gone with the wind’ romantic drivel.

Written and Researched by Peter Dickens

References:

The Capture of De Wet. The South African Rebellion 1914 – Sampson, Philip J. Published Edward Arnold, London. 1915
JC Smuts. Jan Christian Smuts by his son J.C. Smuts. Heinemann & Cassell Publisher, 1952.

Footnotes

Smuts, Smuts by his son, 239 ↩︎
Smuts, Smuts by his son, 240 ↩︎
Sampson, Capture of De Wet, 5 ↩︎
Sampson, Capture of De Wet, vii ↩︎
Sampson, Capture of De Wet, vii ↩︎
Sampson, Capture of De Wet, 148 ↩︎
Sampson, Capture of De Wet, vii ↩︎
Sampson, Capture of De Wet, vii ↩︎
Sampson, Capture of De Wet, 252 ↩︎
Sampson, Capture of De Wet, 191 – 193 ↩︎
Sampson, Capture of De Wet, 193 ↩︎
Smuts, Smuts by his son, 234 ↩︎

The Boer War’s Freemasons

Posted by Peter Dickens

To answer a question recently posted on Boer War appreciation media as to whether Freemasonry and the Boer War are in some way linked. The origin of this bizarre statement lies in Manie Maritz, the 1914 Afrikaner Revolt leader, who became convinced of a Masonic and Jewish conspiracy to start the second Boer War. More on insane machinations of Maritz later, however to answer the question – no – Freemasonry as a fraternity and the two Boer Wars – the Transvaal Revolt (1880-1881) and The South African War (1899-1902) – have nothing to do with one another, as much as some deluded conspiracy theory driven arm-chair historians would like to to make a connection. In fact, as in many wars over centuries in many countries, Freemasons have landed up on opposing sides shooting one another – the most significant example of this is The American Civil War (1861-1865). For those ‘in the know’ Freemasonry plays no role whatsoever in starting (or preventing) wars, which is not surprising as Freemasonry is a charitable fraternity with principles relating to self actualisation and brotherhood.

It’s also not a ‘British’ thing. Freemasonry started in South Africa under the Dutch Grand Lodge, the Orient of the Netherlands in 1772 .. long before the British played any role in South Africa. The oldest Lodge is South Africa is a Dutch Constitution one – De Goede Hoop Loosie – its temple is located inside the Parliamentary buildings complex. It also does not mean the Dutch and English speaking South Africans are separated by English and Dutch constitutions, you’ll find English and Afrikaners in both. Case in point are the early Voortrekker leaders who were Freemasons – Andries Pretorius was a Freemason, he even opened up a Dutch constitution Lodge in Pretoria. Piet Retief was also a Freemason, but of the English Constitution whilst he was living in the Eastern Cape.

Here’s an interesting artefact, this one is located at the Pinelands Masonic complex’s historic display (my photo) – commemorating past South African state land Boer Republic leaders who were Freemasons. For interest, and it’s all in Public space – just ‘Google’it. As notable Boer Freemason Presidents and Prime Ministers go these include:

General Louis Botha – Boer War Bittereinder General. 1st South African Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa: 1 May 1910 – 27 August 1919, Prime Minister of the Transvaal: 4 March 1907 – 31 May 1910
President Johannes Brand – 4th President of the Orange Free State: 2 February 1864 – 14 July 1888. Awarded a British Knighthood.
President Marthinus Wessel Pretorius – 1st State President of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (Transvaal Republic): 22 October 1866 – 20 November 1871. Established the ZAR and its constitution.
President Thomas François Burgers – 4th State President of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (Transvaal Republic): 1 July 1872 – 12 April 1877. Introduced the ZAR’s currency.
President Francis William Rietz – 5th State President of the Orange Free State: 10 January 1889 – 11 December 1895 and State Secretary of the ZAR in the lead up to Boer War 2.
Acting President Pieter Blignaut – Acting State President of the Orange Free State: 14 July 1888 – 10 January 1889¹

Top Row left to right: Brothers Louis Botha, Marthinus Pretoruis and Thomas Burgers. Bottom Row left to right:: Brothers Johannes Brand, Francis Reitz and Pieter Blignaut

A very good barometer of the early development of the ZAR (Transvaal) and the very cosmopolitan nature of Pretoria with its Voortrekkers, NGK Churches, Jewish traders, British loyalists and Anglican Churches – before the discovery of significant gold deposits and the establishment of Johannesburg – is to look at Freemasonry in the ZAR. The first Freemasons Lodge was a Dutch constitution Lodge in 1862, the Aurora Lodge .

The corner stone of the new temple for this Lodge was laid by President Burgers, as noted, a freemason himself, on 27 May 1876. On the Freemason’s English constitution side, the ZAR voluntarily dissolved itself (led by President Burgers ironically) and it became The British Colony of the Transvaal in 1877 (the first version, there are two). The first English constitution lodge was established a year later on 15 January 1878, called the Transvaal Lodge – and its was established a mere 2 years after the Dutch’s Aurora temple was built. The Aurora temple was destroyed during a severe thunderstorm, disheartened and not keen to start all over again, the Dutch constitution freemasons joined the English constitution freemasons at the Transvaal Lodge (and here’s a rare photo of them).

The Masonic Hall in Pretoria and the Transvaal Lodge in 1884

Here’s another interesting wartime photo – Dutch and English/Scottish/Irish constituted freemasons getting together in the middle of the South African War (1899-1902) a.k.a. Boer War 2 near Bloemfontein. On 12 December 1900, in the middle of the fighting a meeting was held in Jagersfontein, attended by both British (English constitution) and Boer Freemasons (some of which were Dutch constitution) – both on separate sides, but happy to meet one another under a banner of brotherhood. Here’s a fascinating picture of the occasion.

Freemason meeting – Jagersfontein, December 1900

Other famous ‘Boer War’ Freemasons on the ‘Republican’ side include:

Commandant General Petrus ‘Piet’ Jacobus Joubert, Commandant General of the ZAR Forces, Vice President to Kruger and Boer War 1 and Boer War 2 veteran. The overall commander of Boer Forces at the start of the war. and political opposition to Kruger.
General Benjamin Johannes “Ben” Viljoen, Bittereinder Boer War 2 veteran and American Boer colony pioneer.
Commandant Danie Theron, renowned Boer War 2 scout, bittereinder, commander and national Boer hero.
Deneys Reitz – veteran Boer War officer and the author of ‘Commando’, although it his noted that he only became a Freemason after the Boer War, as noted his father President FW Reitz was also a Freemason.²

Of the famous ‘Boer War’ Freemasons on the ‘British’ side, these include:

Field Marshal Lord Roberts Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts and a Lodge in South Africa is named after him.
Field Marshal Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
Sir Winston Churchill but only became a Freemason after he left South Africa after his service in the Boer War and returned to the UK.
Sir Charles Warren was a notable Freemason
Cecil John Rhodes was a very committed lifelong Freemason.³

Significant Freemasons of the South African War (1899-1902) Boer and Brit.

Of the famous authors associated with the Boer War, Joseph Rudyard Kipling, the famous author of the Jungle Book was a Freemason, so too was Arthur Conan Doyle. Leo Amery, who penned the first official history of the Boer War for the Times was also a Freemason.

As to co-operation, during the Boer War, many lodges closed. Some of the buildings used by the Freemasons were used for hospitals such as the Masonic Lodge in Mafeking and the Masonic Temple in Johannesburg. During the Boer invasions of northern Natal at start of the war in October 1899, the Masonic Lodge in Dundee was plundered by the Boer Republican Forces, however the Lodge’s artefacts were found and respectfully returned to the Lodge by Boer Freemasons.

Loot taken from the Masonic Lodge in Dundee by Boer Republican Forces. Image courtesy of the Talana Museum Archive.

Noted here, is there is NO General Jan Smuts – there is no evidence whatsoever that he was a Freemason. Many historians have tried to confirm the ‘conspiracy theories’ and there is no evidence, zilch, nothing – not here in South Africa nor in Britain. Smuts is not a Freemason, no matter how much many people wish he was (conspiracists and Freemasons alike).

Of the other ye olde Boer Republic Freemasons in leadership roles the only other significant ones who were NOT Freemasons were President Paul Kruger (his Dopper approach would not have allowed him) and Prime Minister Barry Hertzog. Of the British ‘hawks’ in starting the Boer War, there is absolutely no conclusive evidence that either Alfred Milner or Joseph Chamberlain were Freemasons – sorry for all those conspiracy theorists again. Maybe the decision to go to war should have been left to the Freemasons to negotiate and there would not have been war in the first place … and look there – I’ve created a conspiracy with no grounding whatsoever.

Image: President Paul Kruger and the British Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, having a dust-up both were NOT Freemasons and no brotherly love lost.

Another point in the respect of famous people associated to the Boer War by way of historic sweep who are NOT freemasons .. all the ‘Pure’ National Party’s Presidents and Prime Ministers were members of the Broederbond – from D.F. Malan all the way to their last one, F.W. de Klerk and as a result of their rather perverse public animosity to Freemasonry, none of them were Freemasons. Also, none of them were ‘significant’ Afrikaners in the formation of ZAR, OFS or Union of South Africa, nor did any of them play any significant role in the Boer War – Dr D.F. Malan sat out of the war in safety – for that matter all of them sat out WW1 and during WW2 they either tacitly or overtly supported Nazism while sitting out of that war too. The best they could come up with was a ‘keep South Africa white’ South African Republic in 1961 and Freemasonry must surely thank its lucky stars that it is spared from any association with it for a change, conspiracy or otherwise.

As noted in the beginning, one origin of this bizarre link of Freemasonry to the Boer Wars is ‘General’ Manie Maritz, the Boer War Commander, 1914 Afrikaner Revolt leader and leader of the National Socialist Boerenasie movement. In the mid 1930’s Maritz would become a convert to the racist and anti-Semitic mythical and completely discredited ‘the Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ and convinced of a Jewish and Freemason conspiracy to world domination. He would make the ‘Protocols of Zion’ his life’s meaning and his mission to educate the Afrikaner people (his ‘Volk’) to it – and in it he would blame the ‘hidden hand’ of the Jews as the true conspiracists behind starting the Boer War. He would then go into mortal combat with General Jan Smuts calling him the King of the Jews and therefore a traitor to the Afrikaner people.⁴ Yet, believe it or not there are still some people out there who would gobble this sort of crap up.

If you want to see how this conspiracy theory nut job rubbish Maritz promulgated in action, consider this, the Broederbond opposed Freemasonry – as a net result the post 1948, the National party’s Minister of Justice C.R. “Blackie” Swart (a Broederbonder himself) famously accused the Freemasons and the ‘Sons of England’ (another South African lodge based fraternity) in the media of infiltrating Sailor Malan’s ‘Torch Commando’ political protest movement in 1952 and in so plotting to militarily overthrow his Apartheid government.⁵ Pure unfounded gobbledygook and you just can’t make this stuff up!

In my book none of these ‘Pure’ Afrikaner Nationalists really qualified ‘great’ Afrikaners in any event – the simple truth is that they were a fringe party of far right-wing nutters .. nothing more. Also, point to note, no – by bringing up famous Boer leaders who either were or were not part of the Freemason fraternity, I’m not “Boer Bashing” and discrediting Afrikanerdom – because that would be equally daft.

Written and Researched by Peter Dickens

References:

250 Years of Freemasonry in South Africa – Commemorative Publication 2022, all Constitutions. Published by the Grand Lodge of South Africa
United Grand Lodge of England. On-line repository
Maritz, Manie ‘My Lewe en Strewe’ Pretoria 1939

Footnotes

250 Years of Freemasonry in South Africa ↩︎
Ibid ↩︎
Ibid ↩︎
Maritz, My Lewe en Stewe‘, pages 97 – 270 ↩︎
P Dickens, The Rise and Fall of the Torch Commando – Part 4, on-line record for The Observation Post ↩︎

The Leliefontein Massacre

Posted by Peter Dickens

As noted in an earlier Observation Post on the massacre of Black and Coloureds in service of the British after the Battle of Tweebosch by General de la Rey’s Commando (see link )¹, and as Dr. Garth Benneyworth, a leading South African War historian pointed out – a significant research gap on the historiography of the South African War (1899-1902) in this respect needs to be investigated.

This specific literacy gap evolves around a policy decision taken by Bittereinder Boer Commanders to shoot out of hand any Black, Coloured or Indian civilian, contractor or soldier deemed as being in support of the British military. No recourse to the law or a trial of any kind – they would be shot on the spot.

A number of very senior Boer Commanders are implicated in this very controversial and at times very genocidal order, and not altogether surprisingly ‘General’ Manie Maritz is in this line up. Early on in his military career Manie Maritz fledges himself as not only a racist, but also a somewhat unhinged commander very capable of murderer.

The Massacre at Leliefontein

Over two days, starting on the 31st January 1902, the Bittereinder effort of the South African War (1899-1902) a.k.a. Boer War 2, and even Jan Smuts, would emerge forever tarnished by what is considered by some as the first massacre of innocents of the 20th Century.

Period image image of the Methodist Mission Nama Leliefonteiners – Barnabas Shaw Links seated centre. Insert image is the mission station church.

Front and centre in this controversial phase is Manie Maritz, who whilst he is under Jan Smuts’ command, rides into the ‘Nama’ missionary town of Leliefontein in the far north west Cape – deep inside the British Cape Colony. Here Maritz immediately detains the Methodist missionary – Barnabas Links – who was acting in place of the absent Rev J.G. Locke. Maritz subsequently reads out a proclamation threatening death to both residents and the town’s missionaries alike if they are found guilty of aiding or abetting the British.

This controversial order to shoot out of hand (no court Marshal, executed on the spot) any ‘coloured’ British civilians and soldiers alike if deemed in support of the British is in fact laid down by General Christiaan de Wet and it becomes policy in Boer Commandos, much to the bewilderment of the British command.

General Christiaan de Wet would inform Lord Kitchener that he personally gave ‘general instructions to our Officers to have all armed natives and native spies shot.’ Kitchener responds to de Wet and says ‘(I am) astonished at the barbarous instructions you (General de Wet) have given as regards the murder of natives … ‘ he then notifies de Wet that Boer Commanders guilty of this crime will face charges of murder and those found guilty will be executed.²

The Nama people (the local people made up of a mix of Khoi Khoi, Namibian and Tswana) and their missionaries are British subjects living in a British colony and fearing for their lives don’t take lightly to the proclamation threat from Manie Maritz and his Boer raiders and they become steadily agitated.

From here out there is a lot of conflicting account, in detaining Barnabas Links a rather strong verbal exchange over jurisdiction and authority takes place and some say Links strikes Maritz with his stick, others say Maritz strikes Links with his sjambok. Either way, a “fists and knives” scuffle breaks between a group of citizens and Maritz’ men, one Republican is injured, Links is also injured, and Maritz and his men manage to disentangle themselves from the melee, leaving 8 Leliefonteiners dead, and ride back to their rendezvous camp.

That night, Maritz and his men become indignant at their treatment at the hands of the Leliefonteiners and elect to exact revenge by wiping the missionary off the face of the earth. So, the next morning the Commando detachment numbering about 100 mounted Boers attacks the missionary in full force. The Nama and their missionaries are no match for a fully armed Boer commando, having some antiquated muskets they try and hold off the assault and most take refuge in the mission building. A further 27 Leliefonteiners are killed (some accounts say a total of 43) and approximately 100 are injured.

Maritz then directs all the surviving women and children, male survivors, and the wounded (including Links) be taken away in chains to the Boer positions surrounding Okiep, and he appoints the local blacksmith to fashion iron shackles for this purpose. Some accounts also point to general violence been meted out by the Boers against surviving Leliefonteiners after the skirmish and ‘refugees’ been hunted down and killed.

Maritz instructs that the mission station be pillaged and then burned down – all the captured sheep and grain are to be forwarded to a Boer supply depot. The mission station is completely destroyed and the dead Leliefonteiners are left where they died in the field– and here they remained unburied for months.

So, how does Smuts and his General Staff react to the news that a detachment of his Commando had ransacked a mission station and killed over 30 poorly armed or unarmed British civilians in a revenge attack? Deneys Reitz on arriving at the destroyed mission station described the scene as follows:

“We found the place sacked and gutted and among the rocks beyond the buried houses lay 20 or 30 dead Hottentots, still clutching their antiquated muzzleloaders. This was Maritz’s handiwork. He had ridden into the station with a few men to interview the European missionaries, when he was set upon by armed Hottentots, he and his escorts narrowly escaping with their lives. To avenge the insult, he returned the next morning with a stronger force and wiped out the settlement, which seemed to many of us a ruthless and unjustifiable act. General Smuts said nothing but I saw him walk past the boulders where the dead lay, and on his return he was moody and curt… we lived in an atmosphere of rotting corpses for some days.”³

Smuts, although clearly unimpressed with Maritz, actually comes through for Maritz in accounting the massacre in his letter to General de la Rey, he down-plays the instance as a ‘close shave‘ for Maritz and somewhat covers up the incident, citing that Maritz was attacked by a knobkerrie whilst acting as a peace envoy, it was taken as a sign of attack and only ‘8 hottentots’ were killed due ‘to misunderstanding and ignorance’.⁴

Some commentators point to this as collusion, as Maritz is completely exonerated and never held to account for the massacre – whereas similar instances of ‘murdering’ civilians in the cases of the Australian officer Lt. Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant and the Boer Commandant Gideon Scheepers landed them both in front of their respective firing squads. Some historians have argued that had Maritz been caught by the British this would have certainly been his fate.

Maritz naturally felt differently, and feels he has to answer Reitz’ allegations in his autobiography ‘My Lewe en Strewe’ and it really is an insight into the mind of Maritz. He refers to Barnabus Links in a diminutive way as the ‘hottentot Corporal’ with an arrogant swagger and becomes aggressive when Links challenges him instructing him to shut-up and know his place.⁵

During the massacre, Maritz claims that during a frantic re-load he manages to shoot two ‘Hotnots’ when they suddenly jump up in front of him with only one shot, one being Barnabas Links whose head the bullet grazes and the another next to Links dies of a headshot. Maritz then recounts that it could not have been classified as murder as he walks up to the wounded Barnabas Links after the massacre, and whilst he is lying bleeding on the ground Maritz decides not to shoot him and take him captive instead. His decision not to shoot him dead is according to Maritz one of compassion as he feels he is perfectly within his rights to shoot him and says:

‘I could have shot him dead, as he deserved the death penalty, he wanted to murder me and my men. If General Smuts was in my position, he would surely have shot him (Links) dead’⁶

Maritz’ reference to Smuts is essentially to put Deneys Reitz in his place by suggesting he knows Smuts better than Reitz, however the history of the relationship of Smuts and Reitz is one of a lifelong, mutually respectful and very tight friendship – whereas Smuts’ relationship with Maritz is one of lifelong animosity, conflict and difference of opinion. The historiography of both men shows Smuts to have liberal and sympathetic disposition to the emancipation and human rights of ‘blacks’ and ‘coloureds’, whereas Maritz displays none of these qualities – in fact the opposite is true.

Unhinged at Okiep

To further demonstrate just how far off the hinge Maritz was, the last real Boer action of the Boer War was when Jan Smuts’ Commando laid siege to the mining town of Okiep in the British Cape Colony in April, 1902. On hearing the news of the Peace Conference, Reitz writes:

‘General Smuts set to work at once. Next morning a messenger was sent into O’Okiep, to advise the garrison that both sides were to refrain front active military operations while the Congress lasted.’⁷

Jan Smuts then left the siege of O’okiep to take part in the final Peace talks at Vereeniging at the end of April 1902. With Smuts away Manie Maritz decided breach Smuts’ standing order and to attack Okiep with the idea of literally wiping the entire town off the map, using the commandeered Namaqua United Copper Company locomotive ‘Pioneer’ – which was used to propel a mobile bomb in the form of a wagonload of dynamite into the besieged town. The attack failed when the train derailed, snagged upon a barbed wire fence which wrapped around the points, spilling the dynamite upon the ground which burnt out harmlessly.

The locomotive ‘Pioneer’ used by Maritz to try and blow up the town of Okiep in Smuts’ absence, insert picture is Martiz portrait from the period (colourised by Jenny B Colour).

The exercise could have resulted in killing large numbers of women and children (mainly coloured) who sheltered behind the defences, the failure of the operation was a blessing at a time when deliberations at the Vereeniging peace talks potentially heralded the end of the conflict. Smuts would again gloss over the incident and cover for Maritz when he stated that the railway was still intact after the incident anyway, and since there were women and children in Okiep town, all the commando was allowed to do was to give the good citizens of Okiep a ‘tremendous fright with a harmless explosion.’

An ungrateful response

Smuts’ disposition to treating treasonous, rebellious and insubordinate Boer commanders with ‘Kidd gloves’ in the hopes of placating and consolidating their views to see his way on things would be Smuts’ greatest “Achilles heel” – as there would be no such quarter given in the way they would view or treat him in future.

Especially Manie Maritz, who challenges Smuts’ entire concept of the South African Union and even the Union’s Defence force in his own ‘Martiz’ Revolt of 1914, splitting the Afrikaner community for decades to come. The 1914 ‘Afrikaner Revolt is swiftly defeated by Louis Botha and Jan Smuts and Union forces. By the mid 1930’s Maritz would enter politics and become a hardened admirer of National Socialism (Nazism) and Adolf Hitler – becoming a Neo Nazi ‘Grey-shirt’ and then a full blown Nazi ‘Black-shirt’ before forming the National Socialist ‘Boerenasie Movement’.

Maritz’ endorsement of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Life’s commitment to exposing ‘the eternal Jew’ in 1938.

Maritz would become a convert to the racist and anti-Semitic myth ‘the Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ and convinced of a Jewish and Freemason conspiracy to world domination. He would make the ‘Protocols of Zion’ his life’s meaning and his mission to educate the Afrikaner people (his ‘Volk’) to it – and in it he would blame the ‘hidden hand’ of the Jews as the true conspiracists behind starting the Boer War. He would then go into mortal combat with General Jan Smuts calling him the King of the Jews and therefore a traitor to the Afrikaner people.⁸

Written and Researched by Peter Dickens

References:

Smuts, Jannie. Jan Christiaan Smuts by his Son, London: Cassell Publishers. 1952
D Judd & K Surridge. The Boer War. London: John Murray Publishers, 2002
Reitz, Deneys. Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War, Kessinger Publishing 1929.
Nel, Eben: Kaapse rebelle van die Hantam-karoo, Bienedell Uitgewers, 2003
Maritz, Manie ‘My Lewe en Strewe’ Pretoria 1939

Footnotes

Observation Post – Tweebosch Massacre, General de la Rey The Tweebosch Massacre ↩︎
Judd & Surridge, The Boer War, p 235 ↩︎
Reitz, Commando, Chapter 25 ‘the last phase’ on-line reference ↩︎
Nel, Eben, Kaapse rebelle van die Hantam-karoo ↩︎
Martiz, My Lewe en Stewe‘, p 55 ↩︎
Martiz, My Lewe en Stewe‘, p 57 ↩︎
Reitz, Commando, Chapter 26 ‘the lost cause’ on-line reference ↩︎
Maritz, My Lewe en Stewe‘, pages 97 – 270 ↩︎

The Tweebosch Massacre

Posted by Peter Dickens

One of the most stand out things in the way the Boer War is recorded by modern historians is the vast difference between the ‘Old School’ Afrikaner historians still peddling a romantic narrative of Bittereinder Boer Pimpernels tying the British up in knots – and then there are the modern ‘British’ and ‘Black’ historians, who post Apartheid have been gradually uncovering a narrative of war crime, atrocity, genocide and massacre – but not of ‘white’ Boer women and children – but of ‘Blacks’ – on nearly all levels of age and sex and all definitions. Upfront let’s be clear on this – it’s an atrocity committed by both sides – so nobody comes out smelling of roses – not the Boers and not the Brits.

So much so, as Dr Garth Benneyworth, a leading South African War historian pointed out recently on The Observation Post that a significant research gap on the historiography of the South African War (1899-1902) needs to be investigated.

A Genocidal Order

This specific literacy gap evolves around a policy decision taken by Bittereinder Boer Commanders in the ‘Guerrilla Phase’ of the South African War (1899-1902) to shoot out of hand any Black, Coloured or Indian civilian, contractor or soldier deemed as being in support of the British military. The order is tantamount to genocide as ‘Natives’ can be simply be killed on the basis of the colour of their skin and a simple “suspicion” of spying or working for the British – which becomes highly problematic in the British Colonies, especially the Cape Colony as many hold a colour blind franchise and are equal to whites, they hold British citizenships and most ‘work’ for the British in one way or another. No recourse to the law or a trial of any kind is afforded them – they could just be shot on the spot by any Boer invader.

An example of the ruthlessness of this order in practice is the murder of a coloured blacksmith named Abraham Esau in Calvinia, Namaqualand, British Colony. As the guerrilla war continued, there were ongoing Boer Commando raids in the area, and demands for tribute, whippings, looting, and even exemplary executions were common.¹ Esau organised a militia to resist these incursions, however his British patriotism and bravery made him a marked man, so when a Orange Free State Commando (600 strong) fell on Calvinia on 7 January 1901², Esau was one of those sought out amidst the plunder of the town. Esau was beaten, bludgeoned and then lashed – he survived this torture until 5 February when he was eventually shackled in irons, dragged for five miles behind a pair of horses, and, after a final beating, shot dead.³

So, where is this order sourced? In fact it’s a ‘General Order’ and can therefore be regarded as ‘Policy’. General Christiaan de Wet would inform Lord Kitchener that he personally issued the order …

‘the ungovernable barbarity of the natives realises itself in practice in such a manner that we felt ourselves obliged to give quarter to no native and for these reasons we gave general instructions to our Officers to have all armed natives and native spies shot.’⁴

Not one senior Boer Commander in the field is not guilty of implementing this policy, even captured junior officers like Gideon Scheepers and Hans Lötter both face charges of “murdering” black and coloured civilians and captured ‘coloured’ British soldiers in the British Cape Colony – and they both faced firing squads for this – Kitchener responds to de Wet:

‘….. (I am) astonished at the barbarous instructions you (General de Wet) have given as regards the murder of natives who have behaved in my opinion, in an exemplary manner during the war.‘⁵

Kitchener then notifies de Wet that Boer Commanders guilty of this crime will face charges of murder and Scheepers had already been found guilty and executed.

However, this policy is widespread, it spreads from the Bittereinder raids into the British Colonies to the two Republics themselves, and these executions happen under of the watch of great Boer Commanders – even the great General Koos de la Rey can’t escape it, de la Rey is almost unapproachable in Afrikaner lore – no Afrikaner historian would dare accuse him of a war crime like this. But the sad fact is it did happen under his watch and it happened at one of his greatest victories.

Massacre at The battle of Tweebosch

The battle of Tweebosch on 7 March 1902 is famous because of General De la Rey’s compassionate and kind treatment of the wounded Lord Methuen and saving his life. It’s also an astounding Boer victory, it occurs towards the end of the war and reassures the Boers of the marshal ability of this, one of their greatest Commanders.

General Methuen surrendering to General de la Rey (insert picture), image from Le Petit Journal 1902.

What is not often recorded at the Battle of Tweebosch in the narrative is the killing spree De la Rey’s commando members go on, its a war crime and atrocity, as they execute about 30 unarmed Black wagon drivers and servants in service of the British column as well as black and Indian soldiers having surrendered.

This spurred Lord Kitchener to write to General de La Rey and forward all the witness reports of the executions. The intention was to get de la Rey to take action against the perpetrators and cease and desist – de la Rey does none of these.⁶

Kitchener’s missive is sent on the 31st of March, 1902 and reads:

Sir,

I beg to forward you the accompanying sworn statements regarding acts of inhumanity which were performed by Burghers serving under your orders during, and subsequent to, the action at Klipdrift (Tweebosch) on March 7th, 1902.

I am fully convinced that you would not approve of such conduct, and that you will lose no time in adopting such action as you may think necessary in the matter.
I take this opportunity of thanking you for your kind treatment of Lord Methuen whilst in your hands.

The following testimonies are then attached:

Captain W.A. Tilney, Deputy Assistance Adjutant-General, states:-

“Boers were already riding amongst the rear wagons, off which some of the drivers jumped. Two knelt down with their hands above their heads, when a Boer pulled up his horse, and shot both dead. They were unarmed.

On the 8th, Commandant Joubert, of Kemp’s Commando, took me over to General De la Rey’s laager. On the way, we passed over the field of action at Klipdrift. Parties of men, women and children were engaged in stripping the dead. There were periodical shots which were not at horses, as there were no wounded animals about that part of the field. All the men we buried that day were stripped naked, including Lieutenants Venning and Nesham, Royal Artillery.

On the 9th instant, the convoy of wounded on its way from Klipdrift to Taaiboschpan trekked along the line of retirement of the mounted troops. We passed many dead, stripped naked, most of whom had three or four bullets through the head and chest. There were so scorched and blistered by the sun as to be beyond all recognition. The Boers whom I met on the 8th instant admitted that their men had deliberately shot down the transport Natives with a view, they asserted, of deterring others from enlisting in our services”.

Lieutenant S.H. McCallum, states:-

“I saw a dismounted white man, unarmed, and with only shirt and breeches on, standing about 40 yards from me with his hands up. I saw a mounted Boer deliberately shoot him about two yards off him.

A few minutes later I saw a Native, who appeared to be a Driver, with his hands up. He was unarmed in front of a Mounted Boer, who deliberately shot him”.

Trooper Hermann S. Van Eeden (nice old English name), states:-

“I saw a native boy coming from our front, saying ‘if you please, Baas…’, and holding up his hands. He was unarmed. A Boer shot him from about 10 yards off. The boy appeared to be a Driver. He was killed.

A few minutes afterwards, I heard a shot from my rear. I looked round and saw a man get up. He said:- ‘You Dutch bastard; you shot me in cold blood’. He was shot in the chest. When I saw him he was unarmed. I spoke to him and he said he had ‘hands up’ when he was shot”.

Trooper F. Jackson, states:-

“I was riding alongside a men who I think was B.S.A.Police. We were in amongst the Boers before we knew it. A Boer told him to ‘hands up’. He was handing up his rifle when another Boer came up and shot him. We had halted. He was killed”.

Trooper C.J.J. Van Rensberg (another fine ‘Jingo’ name), states:-

“I saw four Cape boys, unarmed and dismounted, come towards the Boers with their hands up. They were shot dead”.

Corporal H. Christopher, states:-

“I saw a young Native boy riding a horse and leading another. He was unarmed. A Boer road up to him and told him to dismount. No sooner had he done so than the Boers shot him in the back of the head and killed him”.

Sergeant T. Barrow, states:-

“After surrendering, I saw Captain Tuckey’s native boy, called ‘Clean Boy’, in the act of surrendering with his hands up over his head. I saw a Boer shoot him. He was unarmed.

I also saw two other native boys shot. They were Transport boys and unarmed.
I heard a Boer say plainly in English:- ‘What shall we do? Shall we shoot the blacks and spare the whites, or what?’”.

Tom, Native Driver, states:-

“I saw six boys taken away from the mule convoy, and made to dig a hole. They were then lined up to the side of the hole and shot. I saw them shot. I also saw 13 boys taken away from the mule Transport into a bush on the right. I heard shots, A Boer told me that they had shot the boys”.

Trooper C. Davies, states:-

“I saw a Boer go up to a native boy who was driving a mule wagon and shout ‘hands up’. The boy threw his whip down on the side of the wagon the Boer was, and the Boer fired point-blank at the boy, who fell off the wagon. He was unarmed. Then the Boer turned round to a Scotch Cart and shot the native boy who was driving. Afterwards I saw the Boers shoot four small native boys, who were camp followers. They were running after the Mounted troops on foot, and were unarmed”.

Trooper T. Bradley, states:-

“I was in a sluit with about 30 others, and there were two wounded men laying in the spruit. Some Boers came galloping on to the sluit and fired at the wounded men, and hit one in the neck. They were quite close to them when they fired”.

Jim, Lord Methuen’s Kitchen Boy, states:-

I was with the Mule Convoy when the Boers came up. They shouted ‘hands up’, and the boys all held up their hands and their hats. The Boers were firing at them all the time. The boys were all on the ground, and they walked towards the Boers with their hands still up. The Field Cornet came up and said, ‘Why are you firing at the leaders and drivers? I only told you to shoot those carrying arms and riding horses!’ I saw four boys shot here”.

Adriaan Pohl, native driver, states:-

In the morning after the mule Transport had surrendered, I saw a Boer who shouted ‘hands up’ to a driver, deliberately shoot him after he had put up his hands. I also saw a Boer go up to a Native driver of the name of Gert Gey, who was standing by his wagon, and shout ‘hands up’. He had put his hands up the Boer shot him between his two eyes”.

These testimony’s go on, there are loads – but its enough to get the point. This entire document is found in the files WO 108-117 in the United Kingdom’s National Archives, yet it is seldom referenced by one sector of South African Boer War historians. Why? Because it flies in the face of painting a romantic picture of the Boer Bittereinder Generals and the victimhood narrative – the eternal anvil on which ‘British’ tyranny on the Boer citizenry is forever hammered by these authors.

It does not stop at all the Black Wagon Captains, Handlers etc. Even the Regimental History also records the unlawful killing of Indian veterinarians at the Battle of Tweebosch, a direct violation of the rules of war at the time:

“…the whole Indian and Kaffir establishment of the F.V.H. (Field Veterinary Hospital) … One Farrier Sergeant of the Indian Native Cavalry and two Indian Veterinary Assistants (men carrying no arms) were ruthlessly shot dead after the surrender, and nine Hospital Kaffirs were either killed in action or murdered later.”⁷

(British Cavalry – Regimental History).

‘Native’ wagon handlers and staff in a British Column during the South African War (1899-1902) – Imperial War Museum. Insert shows examples of Kitchener’s letter and testimonies to de la Rey (courtesy Chris Ash).

Conclusion

This is part of the problem with writing any history on the Boer War, if you bring up thorny issues like this – and especially start to criticise holy cows like de la Rey, de Wet and even Smuts the immediate reaction is a tirade of abuse, accusations of bias – and the “Boertjies” in social media groups laager around their ‘heroes’, some administrators of large format Boer War groups will even ‘ban’ you – de Wets’ and de la Rey’s reputations are guarded regardless of the history and it smacks of an old School Aparthied ‘banning’ technique. Nobody remains the wiser, and the very important ‘Black’ history of the Boer War is either ignored or used an another stick to beat the British with by these Anglophobes.

At the end of the day these ‘gatekeepers’ keep the actual history away or continue to reinforce the old National Christian and Apartheid mythology and bias surrounding this war. In the end no-body on their forums learns anything. It also says something about these gatekeepers, by holding back on full historiography of The South African War (1899-1902) and peddling a learned Christian Nationalism bias they are preventing the ownership of this conflict by ‘all’ South Africans and maintaining it for the benefit of “white Afrikaners only” as a “white man’s war” – and then they wonder why ‘Black’ South Africans pay no respect to them or their history.

However, that’s not the case in the modern age of information, there is just no way anyone can stop the dissemination of history as it has already been written, the ‘Black’ contribution to the Boer War is an under researched truism, the extreme white racist hegemony that was the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR) and its claim to absolute authority for white protestant Afrikaners only and policies such as this one to deliver on it is a truism, the ruthless massacres of ‘Black’, ‘Indian’ and ‘Coloured’ citizens and contractors by Boer Generals and Commandants at Tweebosch, Leliefontein, Modderfontein, Uniondale, Calvinia and many other places are all truisms … there is no shaking it, it happened, it’s history. That the ZAR’s extreme policies of race and lack of human rights for people of colour is taken forward to the Afrikaner Revolt of 1914 and then to Aparthied in 1948 by the next generation of these exact men is also an intrinsic part of the historic ‘sweep’ – its a truism.

Next look out for an article which controversiality shows Jan Smuts to be guilty of the same atrocity at Modderfontein – and here I am “sacrificing” a personal hero of mine – but that’s the nature of history and the promotion of the sound and balanced understanding of great men – ‘war is cruelty’ the British were guilty of it, so too the Boers and all great Commanders are flawed – Buller, Kitchener, Roberts, de la Rey, Smuts, de Wet, Botha – all of them, the lot, there’s no escaping it.

Written and Researched by Peter Dickens

References:

B Nasson. Abraham Esau’s War: A Black South African War in the Cape, 1899–1902. African Study Series 68, Cambridge University Press, 2003

D Judd & K Surridge. The Boer War. London: John Murray Publishers, 2002.

Files WO 108-117 United Kingdom National Archives.

Correspondence with Dr Garth Benneyworth, South African War historian on the Observation Post Scuttlebutt – 25 August 2024

C Ash. Kruger’s War – the truth behind the myths of the Boer War. Durban: 30 degrees South Publishers, 2017.

Footnotes

Nasson, Abraham Esau’s War, p 122 ↩︎
Ibid. 128 ↩︎
Ibid. 131 ↩︎
Judd & Surridge, The Boer War. p 235 ↩︎
Idid. 235 ↩︎
Files WO 108-117 United Kingdom National Archives ↩︎
Ash, Kruger’s War, p 324 ↩︎

Let him drop!

Posted by Peter Dickens

In a new endeavour to take things a little easier, I’ve also recommitted myself to being honest and cut through the crap – and nothing beats the usual crap on Boer War appreciation groups where we get people putting up a picture of poor old Gideon Scheepers, the ‘Yster’ (stand-up) man the ‘Volks-held’ (People’s Hero), the dreadful British shot him unfairly – the end of a beautiful, young and courageous life.

So, what’s with Scheepers that he gets an annual re-post on just about every Boer War social media group, and what’s with all the admiration – we know he sprang Boer prisoners from gaol and tied a Union Jack to his horses arse, what’s not to like … he epitomises the Afrikaner spirit! … or does he?

There’s good reason he was executed, not withstanding a court case – but his case was such that the retribution, the sheer hatred the ‘British’ (actually read ‘community’) felt toward him was both palatable and certain.

Let’s put it this way – the British made dead sure he would not get the honour of a coup de grâce, in that they used dum dum (expanding) bullets to kill him upfront¹ – and the officer ordered that he was not to be lowered but “dropped” into the grave – like a sad mielie sack on the command ‘Let him Drop’!². It even left one of the British soldiers witness to the burial sick to the stomach at the disrespect shown to Scheepers in his death.³ That, and he was not afforded a marked grave (and his grave site still has not been found). Simply put the British did not want a hero made of him – EVER.

Execution of Scheepers by a British firing squad, seated in a chair, 18 January 1902

Now, you have to ask yourself – why the retribution, why the disrespect? It seems a little extreme, and at the time it was, even by war and ‘Victorian’ standards.

The answer lies in what Scheepers did – he was racist murderer and murdered blacks and coloureds indiscriminately, whether POW or not – even in context of his time and history he was viewed much like the “wit wolf” Barend Strydom is viewed now – and like ‘Breaker’ Morant who faced the same fate, he was guilty – soldier he was not, murderer he was, post war Afrikaner Nationalist propaganda and romanticism aside.

At the time Gideon Scheepers was loathed as he conducted a marauding campaign all over the British Cape Colony, train-wrecking, looting, burning down public buildings and houses belonging to loyalists, and murdering native policemen solely because of their colour. Scheepers even attempted to rob the Murraysburg branch of Standard Bank, sjambokking the manager when he refused to cooperate.

He avoided pitched battle where possible and according to H.M. Wilson, he instead

‘…confined his attention to the more genial work of robbing, burning and devastating. In his operations there was no military object; he meant, he said, to make Cape Colony a desert.’⁴

Even as the British ‘hunts’ after him started to chase him down and began cutting up his raids and running his Commando to ground, Scheepers found time to commit atrocities. One famous incident involved two coloured scouts who were captured by Scheepers’ Commando. Scheepers decided to be judge, juror and executioner and to murder them, despite their being in uniform and unarmed (so officially classified as Prisoners of War and subject to those conditions). The two were forced to draw lots, and the loser was immediately shot. The other was beaten and released to stagger to the nearest British outpost to tell the story as a warning to other Coloureds and Blacks who had joined the British forces.⁵

As to all the romanticism, consider Scheepers’ own testimony and statements.

Gideon Scheepers’ last words on the issue:

‘Thirty accusations were brought against me of “murder”, seven of “arson”, “rough” handling of prisoners, “barbaric” treatment of kaffrs etc.’⁶

Scheepers was particularly incensed at the accusations that he had ill-treated blacks, and that blacks were allowed to testify in court and even act as gaolers. He wrote:

‘We Afrikaners, will never find justice under the English. Everything is for the kaffirs.’⁷

During his trial General Christiaan de Wet tries to intervene and stay the execution of Scheepers (and that of Hans Lötter who faced similar charges of murdering “blacks” and a firing squad). De Wet writes to Lord Kitchener requesting clemency for the Boer Kommandant’s executing of Black (coloured) soldiers and civilians out of hand as he had personally given the order, he wrote:

‘the ungovernable barbarity of the natives realises itself in practice in such a manner that we felt ourselves obliged to give quarter to no native and for these reasons we gave general instructions to our Officers to have all armed natives and native spies shot.’⁸

De Wet then said that if anybody was responsible for shooting natives it was himself and his government.

Kitchener rejected the appeal, replying to General De Wet that Boer officers were personally responsible for their actions, and he wrote:

‘[I am] astonished at the barbarous instructions you have given as regards the murder of natives who have behaved in my opinion, in an exemplary manner during the war.’⁹

Kitchener then notifies de Wet that Boer officers will face the full consequences for the murder of natives and Scheepers had been found guilty and had already been executed for the crime in any event.

Conan-Doyle would say of it in his book, The Great Boer War, that Scheepers was tried

‘…for repeated breaches of the laws of war, including the murder of several natives. He was condemned to death and executed in December. Much sympathy was excited by his gallantry and his youth—he was only twenty-three. On the other hand, our word was pledged to protect the natives, and if he whose hand had been so heavy upon them escaped, all confidence would have been lost in our promises and our justice.’¹⁰

It’s little wonder that the old National Party loved Gideon Scheepers – his mother spending years searching for the grave of her son, a heart rendering story if there ever was one, and he’s one of ‘them’ – a white supremacist giving no quarter to blacks from resisting their whites-only hegemony and God-ordained claim to absolute power. The Nationalists unveiled a memorial to Scheepers on 27 May 1978 near the place of his execution as part of the events to celebrate thirty years of Apartheid (the monument is still there). Prime Minister John Vorster was the guest of honour.

In his address, John Vorster said:

‘If we are asked why in 1978 a memorial should be erected for a man who died in 1902, then the answer is simple. The life and work of this man was such that history placed him in the heroes’ gallery and nothing and no one can deprive him of that place.’¹¹

Prime Minister BJ Vorster and the memorial unveiled by the National Party to Scheepers

Problem is, John Vorster could not even stand the idea of TV as the ‘devils message’ from the ‘Devils Box’ – ‘liberal’ thoughts and access to information would be freely available outside of all the ‘bans’ he imposed – and a mere generation later they could not hold back the tide of critical thinking, especially as to the Boer War and their hegemony of white power and claim to absolute rule. I would hate to think what the average modern South African in the ‘Information Age’ thinks of Scheepers as an Apartheid ‘hero’ now, and whether he truly deserves his place in the annuals of Afrikaner heroes according to Vorster.

I also get it, Lord Kitchener calling General de Wet a murderer, this from a man many Afrikaners like to consider a genocidal murderer in any event. I do get the irony, but whatever we may think, there are some very clear cut cases in the Boer War historiography and Scheepers does not come up as a wholesome people’s champion for Afrikanerdom. He’s in the same category as Breaker Morant, no matter how much post war sympathy 120 odd years later and no matter how many attempts at historical revisionism, it’s not going to change the fact he was a racist marauding murderer.

In my mind it would be very handy if people really understand the history before re-posting all this hero worship all the while holding onto an BJ Vorster issued Apartheid security blanket thinking the people around them are either ignorant of “their” history or if they are “English” or “Black” they are naturally biased to it anyway (as if that somehow changes the facts).

Written and researched by Peter Dickens

Colourised insert picture of Gideon Scheepers thanks to Jenny B Colourising. Main pictures shows a Black Cape Colonial policeman of the Boer War period in uniform.

References:

HM Wilson. After Pretoria: The Guerrilla War. London: Harmsworth Brothers Ltd, 1901.

AC Doyle. The Great Boer War. London: Smith, Elder & Co Publishers, Revision 1902.

D Harrison. The White Tribe of Africa – South Africa in perspective. Los Angeles: Berkley California Press, 1981.

D Judd & K Surridge, The Boer War. London: John Murray Publishers, 2002.

C Ash. Kruger’s War – the truth behind the myths of the Boer War. Durban: 30 degrees South Publishers, 2017.

Footnotes

Correspondence with South African War historian Dr Garth Benneyworth – 20/6/2024 ↩︎
Harrison, White Tribe of Africa. p 43 ↩︎
Ibid. 43 ↩︎
Wilson, After Pretoria: The Guerrilla War. p 78 ↩︎
Ibid. 80 ↩︎
Harrison, White Tribe of Africa. p 42 ↩︎
Idid. 42 ↩︎
Judd & Surridge, The Boer War. p 235 ↩︎
Idid. 235 ↩︎
Doyle, The Great Boer War. p 655 ↩︎
Harrison. White Tribe of Africa. p 43 ↩︎

Where’s Breaker?

Posted by Peter Dickens

Recently, a Boer War historian, Chris Ash published some interesting works on Breaker Morant on his blog, and it’s not what you may think of this hero to some and villain to others, ultimately executed for the murder of unarmed Boers during the South African War 1899 – 1902. It was not his trial, or the murders he committed or controversy around his execution by the British, nor the controversy of nationalists making a hero of him in latter years – simply because they saw him as a British scapegoat. It was also not the repeated attempts by current Australian social activists trying to embolden Morant as a National Australian Hero and their repeated and unsuccessful attempts to get the British government to issue a “pardon” for him and apologise for shooting him. Nah! None of that … turns out Breaker Morant was an accomplished poet – and Chris Ash simply published some of his poems.

I wrote to Chris Ash on one of the published poems and stated that it remained ironic, for all the hullabaloo over Breaker Morant and calls for his reinterment on Australian soil as a National Australian hero .. his grave in Pretoria was in fact empty, there’s nothing in it. This came as a surprise to him – and to others I’m sure as its a very little known fact.

Empty! Huh – no Morant, what happened and where the hell is Breaker? Well, here again there’s a little more controversy to this very controversial man.

A while back in early February 2024 I published an Observation Post on the Boer War 2 titled ‘War is Cruelty’ War is Cruelty – a very esteemed Australian based historian, Gordon Mackinlay wrote some of the content and he wrote to me to say, according to his research, Breaker Morant was gone – so too Hancock buried with him, the result of a grave robbery in the 80’s – the grave site near the hallowed acre of Afrikaner heroes in Pretoria had been tampered with – detectives found no bodies, so they put it down to a grave robbery for African “Muti” purposes. The conclusion that the bones of men executed held mystical powers and of value to practitioners of traditional African “Muti” medicine. The Australian government sponsored a nice new slab for the grave in the knowledge that neither Morant or Hancock are in it.¹

On the Observation Post’s scuttlebutt Facebook group, this question was again raised, along with Danie Theron, the famous Boer Scout, whose grave was also robbed. A good friend, fellow historian and regular contributor to the Observation Post, Johann Hamman gave us some fresh insight.

Johann is a leading Afrikaans battlefield historian and I generally sit up and listen to him. The feedback as follows:

The remains of Danie Theron had indeed been stolen from his grave. ²He had been taken by two Afrikaner Weerstandsbewegin (Afrikaner Resistance Movement – AWB) members from Carltonville, but his remains had since been recovered. He was re-buried and the site was re-secured at Eikenhof. The AWB men robbed the grave of his remains because they did not want their ‘white’ Boer hero to lie among the ‘Black’ Africans buried in the same cemetery from the nearby modern township.

On Breaker Morant – he is most certainly not present in his grave anymore, however, according to Johann it is not because of any Muti-theft in the 80’s – the detectives are mistaken. When Morant was buried they poured two bags of unslaked lime on top of him, and what they buried there is no longer there as a result. There is nothing to steal.³

Johann Hamman and Gerald Leach among others, researched Morant as thoroughly as possible, and they blocked an attempt to have him pardoned as an Australian hero by Queen Elizabeth twice.

The argument was that Morant, Handcock and Taylor had been responsible for the murder of at least 36 people, of whom the youngest were Boer children of 11 years, they were murderous and their execution justified. Morant himself admitted to 12 killings at his court-martial, one was the Reverend Heese, who was the great-grandfather of Johan’s friend – the late Hendrik Neethling.⁴

Just to note, the British poured unslaked lime on everyone they executed in Boer War 2, Cape Rebels and Boers wearing British Khaki uniform included. There has been some research on whether unslaked lime speeds up decomposition or in fact aids preservation of the corpse, however even here school is out, some medical journals and specialists specify preservation others demonstrate the opposite – rapid decomposition.

Now, I’m pretty sure that the case on Morant is forever open to endless debate, especially in Australia, but the general conclusion most historians come to is regardless of legalise, and whether Morant was even an Australian – he was by all accounts a maverick from the get-go, his execution an inevitability and for very justifiable reasons (many in fact just conclude that ‘he had it coming’). There are countless Australian heroes from their statutory forces over the years, and to be honest they can find amongst them far more suitable candidates to honour than Morant.

Either way we cut it, whether the bones were stolen, whether they are completely destroyed by unslaked lime – or not – Breaker Morant is not there, the grave is empty.

Written by Peter Dickens

Referenced Observation Post: https://samilhistory.com/2024/02/04/war-is-cruelty/

Referenced poetry by Breaker Morant – Westward Ho:

Westward Ho!, by Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant

Westward Ho by Breaker Morant

Butchered to make a Dutchman’s Holiday, by Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant

Butchered to make a Dutchman’s Holiday by Breaker Morant

At the River Crossing, by Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant

At the River Crossing by Breaker Morant

With thanks to Johann Hamman, Robin Smith, Dirk Lombard, Gordon Mackinlay and Chris Ash.

Footnotes

Correspondence Gordon Mackinlay and Peter Dickens – February 2024 ↩︎
Boer hero’s remains stolen by Annie Olivier – News 24, 21 Feb 2003 ↩︎
Correspondence Johann Hamman and Peter Dickens 2 May 2024 ↩︎
Ibid ↩︎

The Boer War’s Straw Men

Posted by Peter Dickens

So, I’m reading a published Doctorate on the South Africa War (1899-1902) a.k.a Boer War 2 from the University of Pretoria by Anne-Marie Gray. It was quoted as a reference to my War is Cruelty article by a subscriber trying to prove I had a “bias”, so I’m reading it. Here’s the kicker, it just proved again to me the tremendous Afrikaner Nationalist bias Afrikaner academics have been putting through their work on the Boer War. It’s something that the University of Pretoria has been very guilty of in the past and it’s something they still continue to do – they just seem unable to shake it sometimes, even if the don’t intend to in 2024 it still comes through.

I’ve yet to see where my bias exists in a work like ‘war is cruelty’ as I strove for balance – someone has yet to empirically or even theoretically show it. However I will show empirically how a bias is applied in the link sent to the Observation Post, its Anne-Marie Gray’s work from the University of Pretoria, completed in 2004 for a Doctorate in Music, it covers the impact the Boer war has on Afrikaner music – here’s the link https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/28462/03chapter3.pdf.

This particular bias starts with the use of opposition Minister’s of Parliament (MP) quotes, writings and opinions as a “fait accompli” of the British attitude to the war, the way the way is persecuted and to the British government who they finger out as proven “warmongers”. These opposition MP’s “quotes” are even used to ground entire books and historical treatise as proof of genocide and barbarity, they become the backbone of the argument put forward by Afrikaner historians, academics and authors and by default openly demonstrating a extreme cultural and identity bias. Not only authors and academics, its even seen countless times by Boer War ‘Afrikaner’ enthusiasts on posting on social media pages in addition.

The worse case in point of this is even titling books using an opposition MP’s statement such as “Methods of Barbarism” as was done by Professor Burridge Spies (S.B.) for his book. Now this statement was made by the Liberal politician Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman when openly condemned what he called “methods of barbarism” in the concentration camps. The problem lies with Campbell-Bannerman’s political affiliation, Henry Campbell-Bannerman is a “Whig” and a “Radical Reformer” – later a devout “Socialist” – he’s a Liberal Party leader who steered in the concepts of socialism and the welfare state. His eventual Prime Ministership is marred by failure after failure, as he – like the labourites and liberals who all come after him quickly find out – radical socialism and political pontificating on ’reforms’ – criticising operating sitting and elected governments left and right – seldom translate into sound social and economic reform.

Now, like any ‘hard left’ opposition MP, Henry Campbell-Bannerman is prone to the dramatic, and he’s highly critical of the government’s policies – from economics, to spend, to welfare, to war … he is the eternal opposition bencher, like Jeremy Corbyn or Michael Foot after him, bounding out inflammatory and politically charged statements to try and make the governing party look bad. That’s his job – no opposition MP ever intends to make a Tory (conservative) government policy look good, they are in disagreement even if they agree.

To use a statement in 1901 by Liberal opposition leader like Henry Campbell-Bannerman in a Boer War context – “methods of barbarism” to then “prove” British complicity in waging genocide is like using a statement by the Labour opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2021 when he said “Britain had hostile intent” against ordinary Afghans – to then “prove” Britain complicity in murderous warmongering in Afghanistan on the back of the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

You can’t build entire proven’ academic argument on what opposition MP’s say, this is like using a statement by Julias Malema to prove undeniably that all Black people hate all White people. But unfortunately academics do it. Here’s an example from Anne-Marie Gray’s doctorate:

“This is confirmed by Thomas Pakenham (1982:495) when he says that Kitchener is not remembered in South Africa for his military victory but “his monument is the camp – ‘concentration camp’, … [which] has left a gigantic scar across the minds of the Afrikaners; a symbol of deliberate genocide.”

She goes on to another example:

“James Ramsay MacDonald, afterwards Prime Minister of Great Britain and a devout Scotsman, echoed Packenham’s sentiments. He (cited in Fisher 1969:204) stated: “It was the vrouw who kept the war going on so long. It was in her heart that patriotism flamed into an all-consuming heat … She it is who feels most keenly that all her sufferings, her weary waiting and her prayers have been naught. The camps have alienated her from us forever.”

OK, two things about these statements:

On the first statement, Thomas Pakenham is a devout Irish Republican, his book “Boer War” has been torn to shreds by latter day historians because of an inherent bias, he’s also a travel writer and not a qualified historian when he writes his “Boer War” and it shows – and this is another case in point on Pakenham’s bias (see my review: Un-Packing Pakenham).

Pakenham’s statement that Kitchener committed “deliberate genocide” in the white Boer camps is unproven – even today. No case of genocide has been proven when the victims all died of a measles epidemic, followed by a typhoid epidemic. Genocide by ‘virus” has yet to be challenged. Certainly not by the 1899 Hauge Conventions which governed warfare then. That Pakenham’s “opinion” is held up as a truth is sloppy academics at best. To see far better and far more balanced work on the white Boer concentration camps see Dr Elizabeth van Heyningen works – which come on the back of a full-blown investigation into the Concentration Camps by a combined University of Cape Town and University of Warwick team and they still could not hold up a criminal case of “genocide”.

The National Party in South Africa sat in the pound seats for over 60 years, with all the budgets and resources at hand, and not one case, not one commission, not one ‘think tank’ could “prove” a case of genocide against the British and Kitchener – think about that.

The statement that Kitchener is remembered only for the concentration camps’ is also speculation, it’s a ‘half truth’ at best – maybe in Afrikaans communities, but certainly not in English ones. Lord Kitchener goes onto to be the face for British recruitment during WW1, such is his positive association and regard during this period in his homeland. Not only then, even now, his statue stands at Horse Guards on hallowed ground reserved for Britain’s national military heroes. The truth is the British today could care not a jot what Kitchener did in South Africa, far bigger events in their history have subsequently taken place.

On the second statement, Pakenham’s opinions aside, Anne-Marie Gray then goes on try and justify Pakenham and gives academic substantiation to Pakenham’s statement by quoting James Ramsay MacDonald and giving him gravitas as a ‘Prime Minister’. But we have another problem here, and a big one at that.

Like Henry Campbell-Bannerman, James Ramsay MacDonald is an ‘opposition’ MP – and he’s even more radically left than Campbell-Bannerman, he’s the country’s first “Labour” Prime Minister, a socialist trade unionist at heart. He not only resisted Britain’s involvement in South Africa, he was, like his current protégé, Jeremy Corbyn, an avid anti-war campaigner and went to criticise Britain for its involvement in World War 1 in addition. He led minority governments and his active “pacifism” led Churchill to accuse him of not recognising the Nazi German threat. He openly supported Nazi Germany’s stance to teach the French “a severe lesson” for what they did to Germany after WW1. Heck, his golf club even expelled him because of his radical and “pacifist views” and bringing the club into disrepute.

Clement Attlee, his colleague and another very famous Labourite Prime Minister even accused James Ramsay MacDonald of being a turncoat to the Labour cause and one of the “guilty men” who failed to prepare Britain for war against Hitler.

Straw man arguments

And that’s the problem with just about any thesis or book coming from Afrikaans academics, authors or commentators. It’s not just these quotes, I could go into entire Doctorates from the University of Pretoria and easily start picking them apart – quote by quote. I’m not sure if they really understand the historical figures they quote and simply relying on the secondary sources to have the understanding in the first place and then quoting them – but whichever way we cut it the over-seeing Professors should have spotted these issues – so I do believe its a confirmation bias which just sees it slip away.

It just shows that many Pro-Boer Afrikaner commentators simply do not understand British parliamentary politics, British partisan press or even British political process and the concepts of a “robust” house – I guess it’s like trying to understand “British humour” – unless you’re ‘British’ you’re not going to get it. Some even turn to academic works completed in the 80’s and then provide ’straw-man’ arguments because they cannot find quotes from the actual key players of the time to justify their argument – instead they seek them out from partisan and highly flawed historical figures – easily discredited … “straw men” in effect.

This is not to say that Thomas Pakenham or Anne-Marie Gray or Professor Burridge Spies or even his understudy Professor Fransjohan Pretorius from the University of Pretoria are all completely hopeless and their doctorates and books are not worth the paper they are written on. That would be an entirely incorrect statement, there is much merit in their work and much argument – but there is also much political bias, confirmation bias and cultural misunderstanding.

There is also much misinterpretation of British politics and British press. P. J. O’Rourke referenced Westminster styled Parliaments as “a Parliament of whores” and its a good description of them – the Westminster Commons is a theatre, the politics dramatic, floral and verbose .. in fact its great entertainment and much is said in jest or dramatised for political one-upmanship – to then use this to ground academic work is fraught with issues.

A Partisan press

Fraught with significant issues is also using British press for academic argument, what most don’t understand in South Africa, is the concept of “free press” is different in the United Kingdom than it is in South Africa. In the UK it is traditional for newspapers to declare their political affiliations and put their efforts behind this or that political party – the idea being that readers go out and buy the Daily Telegraph (Tory), the Daily Mirror (Labour) and the Independent (Liberal) – read them all and then make their own minds up. So, in Britain journalists are openly partisan and politically motivated. Then there is the “tabloid” press – which is just sensationalist trash requiring no credible sources whatsoever – then and now – mere ‘entertainment’ only. Here again South African academics made an error quoting British “correspondents” during the Boer War and here’s a good example in Anne-Marie Gray’s doctorate where she says:

“According to Hanekom and Wessels (2000:17), “de Wet can truly be described as the father of mobile warfare in South Africa.” A British correspondent wrote that de Wet’s operations would in future be studied and copied and form the subject matter of studies at every military institution. He stated that “his [de Wet’s] name will be handed down to posterity as a great exponent of partisan warfare” (FAD A296).”

Now – there are a number of problems with this statement. A “British Correspondent’s” view on de Wet is a view to sell sensationalist news using romanticised copy. It’s politically partisan and commercially driven depending on which newspaper he’s writing for and selling … “romanticising” de Wet as the “Boer Pimpernel” in British media was common – in the same way British media romanticised Winston Churchill’s escape as he “forged the mighty Apies River”. That Christiaan de Wet would go down in history as the greatest guerrilla fighter is just pure sensationalist rubbish. That he is the subject of required study at military academies is also pure rubbish.

It’s all rubbish as there is a very big problem with General Christiaan de Wet, his legacy is somewhat compromised by the old National Party and their sponsored and related ‘cultural’ organs – as he’s built into a ‘Volksheld” (people’s hero) and given a divine and almost unassailable aura. From a military history and military doctrine perspective he is in fact the very last person anyone should study.

Militarily speaking, General Christiaan de Wet has a great grasp of tactical warfare, but he is highly compromised on the operational level and he’s completely hopeless on a strategic level. His campaigns are fraught with command and control errors – he is unable to link up with Cronje at Paadeburg – resulting in the first mass capitulation of Boer arms, he then leads the remaining Free State Boer Army into a poor defensive position at the Brandwater basin, abandons his command as the British close in on him and his forces and leaves a squabbling and misdirected bunch of his subordinates to surrender in the second mass capitulation of Boer arms – Surrender Hill marks the end of any hope the Boers can win the war. His insistence on laying siege to the strategically irrelevant town of Wepener is an irresponsible diversion of key resources to a worthless military target. His guerrilla invasion into the Cape Colony is an unmitigated disaster as he signals his intentions to the British, who shadow his column and chew it up – resulting in the loss of all his key logistics as he scarpers back over the Orange River with a smattering of his remaining forces and back into the Orange Free State and friendlier territory.

Even de Wet’s greatest “success” – Sanna’s Post is a Operational and Strategic failure as he is unable to effectively cut all the water supply to the British as was his stated operational objective, he does cause harm though, the resultant intermittent water supply causes significant issues as to waterborne diseases and British soldiers encamped in Bloemfontein suffer, many die, but it also leads to the unfortunate deaths of many Boer Woman and Children in the Bloemfontein concentration camp (one of the largest camps) to the same epidemics – a very tragic “own-goal”. In reality, the only effective thing de-Wet is really able to do very well is tactically evade his “hunt” and for that he is romanticised.

If you are in any doubt about the above statement, the next bit seals it. After the Boer War ends in 1902, General Christiaan de Wet joins the Boer Revolt in 1914, here he campaigns with inadequate resources and outdated doctrine – the revolt is poorly planned, poorly supported and poorly executed and he’s soundly beaten by South African Union Defence force under the command of General Jan Smuts and General Louis Botha in a matter of months, his “hunt” catches him in quick time – his old “bittereinder” guerrilla fighting colleagues showing him up as a completely inadequate guerrilla fighter. Refer my article on it Boer War 3 and beyond!

Using the secondary data source of Hanekom and Wessels to state that “de Wet can truly be described as the father of mobile warfare in South Africa” is completely unsubstantiated militarily speaking, sheer jibber-jabber and it’s completely untrue – all Anne-Marie Gray is doing is unwittingly perpetuating an Afrikaner Nationalist myth – now we can’t all together blame her as she’s not a military scientist, she’s after a degree in music, but her oversight should have pointed it out to her – problem is that her oversight is enamoured with the same bias.

In Conclusion

I am not saying that all Afrikaner academics are compromised by bias what I am saying is that holding up someones work which is clearly biased to try an dispel a “bias” in my work is very counter intuitive – it says more about the problems underpinning people’s perceptions of the Boer War – one were the entire narrative was re-written during the Apartheid period by the protagonists of white Afrikaner Nationalism, and it shows – as Afrikaner National Identity is fused into this history in such a way that it becomes a real challenge to dispel mistruths as it starts to bring people’s “identity” into question and they start to shift around uneasily and lash out at the person and not the subject. But if we are to be true to being good historians and tell an unbiased story, dispelling with these myths and ingrained “nationalism” becomes vital.

Written and Researched by Peter Dickens

Related Work

Thomas Pakenham review – link as follows: Un-Packing Pakenham

Boer Revolt 1914 – link as follows Boer War 3 and beyond!

Reference:

CHAPTER 3: A CULTURAL- HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE BOERS DURING THE ANGLO-BOER WAR by Anne-Marie Gray, University of Pretoria repository on-line.

Image references: Wikipedia

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!

Posted by Peter Dickens

Shakespeare provides us with a wonderful quote from Hamlet, it’s in the opening act, and it’s said by Marcellus on seeing the King’s ghost: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” – it’s a forewarning that there is sedition afoot in the state, real trouble is coming. It is appropriate when viewing the newly formed Union of South Africa, as within a year of its formation the old Boer War hero – General Louis Botha can already sense sedition in their camp. As Prime Minister, he tasks General Smuts as his Minister of Defence to set up the South African Union’s Defence Force and amalgamate the old Boer Republic’s Commandos with the old Cape and Natal Colonial Regiments.

Walking a political tight-rope of “reconciliation” post the South African War (1899-1902), Smuts appoints a staunch Boer “Bittereinder” General, Christiaan Beyers, as the head of the South African Union Defence Force’s Active Citizen Force (the largest contingent within the force made up by a majority of Afrikaners). His appointment largely a symbolic gesture to the “irreconcilables” in the Afrikaner diaspora.

On the 4th July 1911, Louis Botha in his capacity as Prime Minister wrote to General Jan Smuts to express his bewilderment that Smuts had appointed General Christiaan Beyers as the head of the Active Citizen Force. He does not hold back and what he says is very telling:

“Dear Jannie, You really are lazy to write so little. How is it possible that you have appointed Beyers? I do hope that you did not agree to it, because you certainly have no greater enemy there. He is not a persona grata (welcome person) with our people and still less so with the English. The Bar, no doubt, also does not approve of it and the Judges will be angry. I can swallow anything but this is impossible.”

Christiaan Beyers, would go on with his appointment, and only just 2 years after his appointment in the Union Defence Force, he would try and scuttle the Union’s decision to go war against German South West Africa. He unsuccessfully campaigns to get resignations from the UDF so as to render it toothless. Thereafter he unsuccessfully campaigns for De La Rey to join his treasonous plot. He joins hands with Manie Maritz, Christiaan de Wet and Jan Kemp in a treasonous soup and initiates the Boer Revolt of 1914 – inadequately planned and inadequately resourced the revolt is an outright failure – strategically, operationally and tactically. Lasting mere months and attaining none of its stated objectives. Beyers would drown in the Vaal river trying to escape his hunt on the 8th December 1914 (later supporters of Beyers would point out that he never fired his handgun when his body was recovered, as if to somehow say he didn’t really intend to kill fellow Afrikaners – but that’s merely an apologist’s stretch, Beyers had every intent given his Commando’s actions and his entire act was that of high treason whichever way you cut it).

The revolt does however pitch Afrikaner against Afrikaner, driving deep scars into the Afrikaner psyche. It would drive a political wedge into the Afrikaner diaspora, and in the strangest turns of fate, many Afrikaners by the 1980’s, after decades of Afrikaner Nationalist propaganda, would oddly juxtaposition the concept of “treason” – and start calling Smuts the “traitor” and Beyers the “hero” (even to this day he is cited in this community as a “volks” hero). Also, rather inexplicably Louis Botha somehow escapes this ‘traitor’ paint-brush as the Afrikaner Nationalist vitriol is almost exclusively targeted at Smuts.

Botha in this letter to Smuts is being nothing more than prophetic – calling out Beyers as an ‘enemy’ and a ‘persona non grata’ (an unacceptable person) to the Afrikaner nation. There is obviously no love lost between these two men and Botha sees Beyers as a treasonous snake not with the program of a peaceful coexistence between English and Afrikaans South Africans and at odds with the vast majority of South Africans in general. Smuts, eternally seeking a careful balance of everyone’s opinions in the Afrikaner diaspora, has his efforts backfire on him considerably.

To read more on the Boer Revolt, follow this link: Boer War 3 and beyond!

Written and Researched by Peter Dickens

Quoted Reference: Selected Smuts Papers – Volume III by W.K. Hancock

William Shakespeare, Hamlet: Act 1 Scene 4

Thanks to Jenny B Colourising for the two great images of Botha and Beyers.

Classical Smuts

Posted by Peter Dickens

What I love about General Jan Smuts is his ‘classics’ education and intellect, it’s used to rapier effect and you need to be on your toes when reading his material.

Here’s an example, this is a letter – June 1902, from Jan Smuts’ to his wife Isie directly after the South African War (1899-1902), there are two parts which are noteworthy, the opening statement for its raw frankness and humility – it gives insight into how the guerrilla campaign is fought and the peace conditions it was fought for, and then the part where he informs Isie of President Steyn’s health. Here’s the first part:

“My darling Isie, The tragedy is over. The curtain falls over the Boers as British subjects, and the plucky little Republics are no more. Peace was signed last night at Pretoria. You can imagine my feelings on the subject; you will perhaps not be surprised to hear that I worked for peace. I did my best for our cause as long as there was any chance; but I had become convinced that the struggle had become hopeless. So we shall start afresh, working along the lines opened by the new conditions. I accept my fate – that is the only manly course left.”

The next bit on President Steyn’s health is where you need to pull out your copies of Shakespeare. Smuts informs Issie of the following news:

“I shall be very glad to hear how your health is progressing; write to me c/o General Sir John French and don’t forget I have reverted to plain J. C. Smuts. I am very sorry to tell you that President Steyn’s health is quite gone; sort of gradual paralysis; he cannot last long. He was the last of the Romans.”

Now, what does he mean by … ‘he was the last of the Romans’? It comes from Shakespeare’s Julias Caesar and it’s a quote from Brutus when he sees Cassius’ dead body, he says:

“The last of all the Romans, fare thee well! It is impossible that ever Rome should breed thy fellow. Friends, I owe more tears to this dead man than you shall see me pay. I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time. Come, therefore, and to Thasos send his body.”

In other words Jan is saying to Isie that President Steyn was the last of a special breed of Afrikaner, the likes of which will not be seen again. He is under no illusions that Steyn will die shortly, and he is implying that he must get to work on immediate important issues (which is to secure amnesty for the Cape Rebels) and will mourn the death when he has the time.

Now, that’s deep. Luckily Isie was a well renowned intellectual herself and trained in ‘classics’ – so she would have understood exactly what Jan was trying to say to her.

Classics eh! You can’t beat it, Plato’s Philosopher King in action.

Written and Researched by Peter Dickens

Quoted Reference: Selected Smuts Papers – Volume II by W.K. Hancock

Hitler’s Boer War

Posted by Peter Dickens

This is a famous speech, 30th January 1940 at the Sportspalast by Adolf Hitler and it had a significant impact on South Africa which very few people know about today. It’s Hitler’s take on the South African War (1899-1902) a.k.a. Boer War 2.

The speech is a lash out against Britain for declaring war against Nazi Germany for the invasion of Poland. Hitler in his speech seeks to paint Britain and the warmonger – and not Germany who we paints as Britain’s victim after the Treaty of Versailles – which he equates as Britain’s “Bible” as they have forsaken God and Christianity in favour of greed and materialism (unlike the God fearing Germans who keep a puritan faith).

To view Hitler’s speech on 30th January 1940 at the Sportspalast in full, here’s the YouTube link:

To ground his argument he uses the Boer War, and makes two significant points, he says:

“They (Britain) waged war for gold mines and mastery over diamond mines.”

Then later in the speech Hitler says:

“When has England ever stopped at women and children? After all, this entire blockade warfare is nothing other than a war against women and children just as once was the case in the Boer War, a war on women and children. It was there (South Africa) that the concentration camps were invented, in an English brain this idea was born. We only had to look up the term in the dictionary and later copy it .. with only one difference, England locked up women and children in their camps. Over 20,000 Boer women (and children) died wretchedly at the time. So why would England fight differently today?”

Now, I’ve seen people on social media immediately conclude that this is yet another rant of a mad-man, Hitler was a megalomaniac with more mental issues than you wave a stick at. As for Nazism – that’s pure evil, nothing to do with good Christians, Afrikaners and the Boer War thanks – no words from the madman here, linking Hitler and World War 2 to the Boer War is mischievous and contentious!

But here is a problem, this is 1940, Hitler is at the absolute pinnacle of his power. Nazism is at the absolute zenith of its popularity – millions, literally millions of Europeans are in favour of the “The Third Reich”. People today don’t really understand what the ‘The Third Reich’ was all about … in a modern construct its a early form of the European Union, only the EU head office is not in Brussels its in Berlin – the Third Reich is all about free trade, semi-open borders, freedom of movement and freedom to assimilate and commercially transact in Europe – its a wealth generator. It’s about respect for “cultural boundaries” according to Hitler – but in reality he’s hoodwinking again – behind the scenes it is in fact a “vampire economy” as Germany gears all its production from food to armaments to war and directs all economies to itself and its nefarious ends.

Adolf Hitler giving a speech at the Berlin Sportspalast

You can hear about all of this in the first 10 minutes of Adolf Hitler’s speech – its a utopian concept, and millions across Europe – in Germany, Austria, Fascist Italy, Hungary, Romania, Fascist Spain – even Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands and literally the whole of the south of France (Vichy France) are into this free trade union with Germany (in fact by definitions of the EU they still are – and immediately after the war ended they strove to get back to it only this time with a different leadership construct without the ‘vampire economy’ ideal).

The speech is also music to the ears of South African Neo-Nazi movements on the far right political spectrum in South Africa, the “cultural fronts” of Afrikaner Nationalism – The Ossewabrandwag, the Grey Shirts, the Black Shirts, The Boerenasie Party and the New Order. All have adopted National Socialism in one form or another and all have declared open admiration for Adolf Hitler – and he’s saying the right stuff, Britain is the warmonger, Britain is greedy for Boer gold and diamonds and Britain waged genocide against Boer women and children. A European world leader, an iconoclast in 1940, a national hero to millions said so. This speech streaming into Afrikaner homes across South Africa by Radio Zeesen (the Nazi Germany’s foreign radio service also broadcasting in Afrikaans).

Mein Kampf

And what’s not to like about Hitler in 1940, he’s a firm fan of the Afrikaner Nationalist cause and shares the ‘politics of pain’ of the Boer War with them. Hitler would write of the Boer War in his autobiography Mein Kampf in 1935:

“The Boer War came, like a glow of lightning on the far horizon. Day after day I used to gaze intently at the newspapers … overjoyed to think that I could witness that heroic struggle.”

Hitler would put his money where his mouth is and engage his propaganda ministry to drive his opinion on the Boer War, Joseph Goebbels on 19 April 1940, on Hitler’s birthday speech, would broadcast over Radio Zeesen (and others), and he said:

“Get rid of the Führer or so-called Hitlerism … British plutocracy had tried to persuade the Boers during the South African war of the same thing. Britain was only fighting Krugerism. As is well known, that did not stop them from allowing countless thousands of women and children to starve in English concentration camps”

Dr Erik Holm – the South African Afrikaans broadcaster for Radio Zeesen would recall Hitler’s open admiration for General Christiaan De Wet during the Boer War and his guerrilla tactics in flummoxing the British – from conversations he personally had with the Führer on the Boer War.

Ohm Krüger

Then there is Ohm Krüger (1941), a movie about the Boer War – Joseph Goebbels’ masterpiece. Winner of the Reich Propaganda Ministry’s “Film of the Nation” rating (one of only 4). A propaganda masterpiece which would reach millions all across Europe, complete with a massacre at the end of hundreds of Boer women as they are mowed down execution style by a skirmish line of British tommies (a scene repeated by Nazi Germany against Jews all over Europe).

Directed by Hans Steinhoff and starring Emil Jannings, Lucie Höflich and Werner Hinz. Although the plot has nothing to do with Germany, the story centres around a character which the Germans could admire, “Uncle” Paul Kruger – a man the Propaganda Minister wants to draw parallels to Adolf Hitler, who he deems is also a man with a common touch, from a simple background and one who is thrust into extraordinary circumstances due to international aggression and a conspiracy of greedy ‘foreigners’.

Waffen SS

The Boer War and Paul Kruger are even used by the Nazi propaganda ministry for recruitment into Dutch Corps of the Waffen SS. In fact the Dutch and Belgians in the Waffen SS Regiment Westland and other SS corps and Wehrmacht formations made up over 25,000 members – the backbone of the Waffen SS.

Press Junkets

During a press interview Hermann Göring (the spokesperson on behalf of Adolf Hitler), took a leaf out his Führer’s leader’s book on the Boer War when he deflected a challenge from Sir Nevile Henderson, the British ambassador to Berlin who protested about the German government’s use of concentration camps for the political ‘re-education’ of German’s dissonant non-believers in Nazism and opposition in 1935, and using a ‘press stunt’ Göring dramatically sprung up, walked over to a bookcase and like a thespian actor, grabbed a German encyclopaedia opening it at “Konzentratinslager” (concentration camp) he read out loud:

“First used by the British, in the South African War”.

Although factually incorrect, his action served as a skilful stroke of deflection of which Hermann Göring was a past master.

Nationalism – two separate peas, same pod!

That the Boer War is nuanced was not on Hitler’s agenda, the fact that the British did not “invent” the concentration camp, the fact that diamonds were already on British soil, the fact that the gold mines in the Transvaal were already owned by British and German private consortiums, the fact that the Boers also first brought ‘British’ women and children into the conflict by driving the ‘Uitlander’ population out of Johannesburg, including all the black mine labour, then declaring war and invading British sovereign territories and laying their towns to siege (with British citizens – black and white – in them). All this mattered not a jot to Adolf Hitler.

Hitler in his speech and radio broadcasts is also reinforcing Anglophobia and Republicanism, he is giving re-assurance to the Afrikaner nationalist cause from Berlin. To understand this better, Afrikaner Nationalism starts in earnest with the establishment of the National Party in 1914 – at this stage it has as its central ideology ‘Krugerism’ – Kruger’s political philosophy and the old ZAR’s (Transvaal) Republicanism constitution and race laws (Grondwet) at its centre. An Oligarchy bordering on a Theocracy with no political emancipation for Black Africans whatsoever (the majority), and racially based franchise and citizenship restrictions for white ‘foreigners’ (read “British” and Jews).

By 1940 this party has evolved its ‘Krugerism’ ideology to a ‘Christian Nationalism’ ideology – a political philosophy which B.J. Vorster (a future South African head of state) famously equated with National Socialism (Nazism) in 1942 when he said:

“We stand for Christian Nationalism which is an ally of National Socialism. You can call this anti-democratic principle dictatorship if you wish. In Italy it is called Fascism, in Germany National Socialism and in South Africa, Christian Nationalism”.

Two people in history play a significant role in generating myths around the Boer War, building into it Afrikaner nationalism constructs and identifying trigger areas for the “politics of pain” necessary for a Christian Nationalism or National Socialism ideology to surface and survive. Known as Hegemonic Nationalism this shared type of Nationalism needs an identified “internal” economic enemy and a “external” political enemy – all grounded on a specified nation’s ‘trauma’. In the case of German National Socialism, it’s World War 1, the Treatise of Versailles is the villainous instrument, the economic enemy is “Judaeo-Capital” profiteering off their misery. In the case of Afrikaner Christian Nationalism it’s Boer War 2, the British concentration camps the villainous instrument, the economic enemy is “British-Judaeo Capital” (“Hoggenheimer”) profiteering off their misery.

The first chap to build up all this nationalism is a fellow by the name of Henning Klopper – he is the Chairman of Afrikaner Broederbond in 1940, Klopper survives a Boer War concentration camp at the tender age of 6 and cannot understand why his older brother is isolated with measles, assuming that Britain murdered him and its all a campaign of genocide – Klopper would use this to principally guide Christian Nationalism as the Broederbond’s official ideology.

The other person is Adolf Hitler himself, one cannot under-estimate his influence, it still influences how the Boer War is seen and understood in Europe to this day – an example is the British “invention” of concentration camps – a myth which still holds right across Europe, the British used the concept of concentrating civilians in camps whilst they fought a guerrilla war (like the Spanish and the United States before them) no doubt there, but they certainly did not “invent” the concept (the Spanish did). To dismiss Hitler as irrelevant to the Boer War is to dismiss factual and relevant history and in fact to censor it for no good reason serves only to distort history.

In Conclusion

On linking Nazism, Kruger, Krugerism and Christian Nationalism, I’m afraid the hard truth is that linking Kruger to Hitler was done very effectively by the German propaganda ministry in Europe prior to and during World War 2. The Afrikaner Nationalist ‘right’ in their support of Nazi Germany during WW2 and infusing the ideology of Krugerism with Weimar Eugenics to create Afrikaner Christian Nationalism certainly creates a linear relationship and reinforces the argument on exactly who is culpable for the ideals of Apartheid.

Written and Researched by Peter Dickens

Related work:

The Nazification of the Afrikaner Right – Torch Commando series – Link here: The Nazification of the Afrikaner Right

Uncle Kruger – the movie and the myth – link here: Oom Kruger, the man, the movie, the myth!

British-Judaeo Capital – Hoggenheimer – Link here: Just whistling an innocent ‘toon’

The myth around the invention of concentration camps – Link here: Debunking the myth that the British invented the ‘concentration camp’

References:

National Socialism and Nazism in South Africa: The case of L.T. Weichardt and his Greyshirt movements, 1933-1946. By Werner Bouwer.

Ohm Kruger/Uncle Kruger: The notorious of Nazi Germany’s Anti-British Statements. By Blaine Taylor.

Pro-Nazi Subversion in South Africa, 1939-1941: By Patrick J. Furlong.

The Rise of the Afrikaner Reich: Published 1964. By Brian Bunting

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The Observation Post

South African military history

The Boer Wars

Romancing the Rebellion

The Boer War’s Freemasons

The Leliefontein Massacre

The Tweebosch Massacre

Let him drop!

Where’s Breaker?

The Boer War’s Straw Men

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!

Classical Smuts

Hitler’s Boer War

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