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.
Lt. Harry “The Breaker” Harbord Morant
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.
I was having a banter with an old SADF army pal of mine, and we recalled the great divisions between the “English” okes in the platoon and the “Afrikaans” okes in the platoon. There was always banter, and general unity and respect, we all faced the same hardship and threats, and we needed one another to survive so we were closer than blood brothers. That of course did not stop ‘the great divide’ caused by a Afrikaner nationalist identity, the ingrained idea that the “English” were the source of all Afrikaner trauma, the fierce need to be free of Britain’s tyranny and the mass exodus of Afrikaners from the British colonies in protest – the Great Trek, this would be followed by later by the indignation of the British invading their free republics and the fierce fight for independence again, a fight to the bitter end to protect an Afrikaner rebel hegemony and the right to the country.
Time and again, two key themes would re-appear – the idea that they all belonged to a ‘pioneer’ class of hard fighting frontiersmen – Voortrekkers and the idea they also all belonged to an equally hard fighting bunch of ‘bittereinders’ – all the time seeking independence from their traditional foe – the ‘English’ and all the time desirous of an Afrikaner Republic. It’s a repeat theme – you still see it even today then the Springbok XV meet the England XV. In the army, us ‘English’ okes were constantly singled out as the physical manifestation of this ‘foe’ – sometimes in jest but also sometimes taking a lot of abuse and you had to tread very lightly when accusations like “you put my Grandmother in a concentration camp” started kicking about – not that your forebears had anything to do with it whosoever.
Problem is – not all Afrikaners share a “pioneer” and “bittereinder” identity, they were artificially jelled into this identity in the late 1930’s by an all-white, all-Afrikaans and Broederbond driven Centenary celebration of the Great Trek. Pulled under a singular banner of Christian Nationalism. So much so that even if you look up ‘Afrikanerdom’ today you find it defined as:
Noun. (in South Africa) Afrikaner nationalism based on pride in the Afrikaans language and culture, conservative Calvinism, and a sense of heritage as pioneers (Voortrekkers).
But what are the chances? What are the chances that Afrikaners all share this unified ‘Pioneer’ and ‘Bittereinder’ identity – the coming together of which Henning Klopper, the Chairman on the Broederbond famously declared in 1938 as “a sacred happening” – God, according to Klopper, had ordained it. What are the chances indeed?
This is where economic history, hard stats, the maths, starts to punch massive holes into ‘political’ history and ‘identity’ politics. So, let’s begin at the very beginning.
The “Great” Trek
Let’s start with the “Great Trek”. There’s a lot of false and inflated numbers as to The Great Trek, but most accredited historians refer these Cape Colony figures.
From the commencement of British rule in 1806 – the Cape Colony had about 27,000 white burghers, 35,000 registered ‘ex-slaves’ and 17,000 Khoi Khoi descendants – 79,000 total population. Of that total population only approximately 6,000 ‘Boers’ including an equal number of their ‘coloured’ servants and labourers on a 1:1 ratio (so 12,000 in total), left in the waves considered the Great Trek itself – and their jump points – Grahamstown, Uitenhage and Graaff-Reinet were hundreds of kilometres away from metropolitan Cape Town (in fact it was as far to travel to Bloemfontein from these jump points as it was to Cape Town).
We need to think of them as the American white ‘pioneers’ settling the wild west in trailblazing wagon convoys – trying to negotiate land in “Indian” territory. The interior of South Africa above the Cape Colony and Natal Colony was not “empty” or “undiscovered” – like the “Wild West” it was already partly mapped by frontiersmen, nomadic farmers (trek-boers), hunters and missionaries. They would provide the network of ‘supply’ support to our plucky pioneers (Voortrekkers).
The “exploratory” first wave is not very successful. Louis Tregardt’s group is all but wiped out by disease – 52 people make it to Portuguese East Africa and return to Port Natal. Hans van Rensburg’s group (51 people) is wiped out by the Zulu – 2 children survive. Hendrik Potgieter and Sarel Cilliers have a party of 200. Gerrit Maritz has a party of about 700 (including servants). Piet Retief’s party starts with about 100 people, it links up with the other Voortrekkers and over 100 (including black servants/labour) are initially wiped out by the Zulu – the Zulu then wipe out more of Retief’s combined trek 282 Voortrekkers and 250 of their servants (there’s that 1:1 ratio) were killed along the Bloukrans during the Zulu attacks of the 16th and 17th February 1838. Piet Uys has a party of 100, and both he and his son are wiped out by the Zulu.
As we can see, there is already a major issue in trying to account the size of these treks – some account ‘white’ families only (and we have no knowledge of the number of servants – they are referenced but that’s about it), whilst others account both. Much work on the “Black History” of the Great Trek has yet to be done – the guardians of its ‘white’ history resisted it for decades.
Either way, whichever way you cut it, the chances of anyone been related by a direct blood line to the exploratory wave of the great trek are extremely slim if the published numbers are anything to go by – in fact it’s about 1% considering about half didn’t make it. Also, the ‘Zulu’ pose more of a threat to the Voortrekkers as a traditional ‘foe’ than the British ever did – it seems counter-intuitive to believe they would rather face certain death than face a British tax administrator and a colour blind Cape Franchise. There is clearly a lot more motivating this initial expedition and its highly nuanced.
That aside, let’s we stick to all the parties of Voortrekkers, the figure expressed in The Afrikaners : biography of a people by the famous Afrikaner historian, Hermann Giliomee – he notes 6,000 white Afrikaners over the period of the trek 1835 – 1840 (5 years) leaving the colony (so that’s 12,000 including Black Labour/servants on a 1:1 ratio – which tallies up with other references). So, given the size of the Cape Colony population and demographic there is only a 22% chance of any modern day white Afrikaner been related directly by bloodline to a white Voortrekker (Gillomee uses a different base and puts this figure at 10% – but let’s go with the higher figure and the benefit of the doubt). 78% of white Afrikaners are bloodline related to those who stay put in the Cape Colony and have nothing to do with the great trek whatsoever.
But, but .. but, there are loads of us “Boere” – you talking “kak” man comes a great retort from a great many. Well, not really would be my answer, let’s look at the economic history and the numbers.
There is, of course a natural economic migration of people, from the British Colonies and other places into the hinterland and into the small Voortrekker republics as they grow from strength to strength – from about 1840 (when the initial trek ends) all the way to the start of the South African War (1899-1902) a.k.a Boer War 2 – 60 odd years. It’s an incredibly slow migration, but speeds up substantially only from 1886 with the discovery of minerals in the ZAR (the OFS remains very sparsely populated). The economic migrants over this 60 year period consist of many white Afrikaners seeking bigger farms, mineral wealth or they settle as urbanised people seeking a “tabula rasa” opportunity with a trade, skill or service – shop owners, doctors, lawyers, miners, teachers – you name it. It’s not just white Afrikaners, they are joined by thousands of “English” 1820 settlers, other Europeans and even many Jews also seeking bigger farms, mining, commerce, service or trading opportunities.
Here’s the primary difference though, all these people are economic migrants seeking better business, wealth and lifestyle opportunities – they are not migrating because of any deep ‘hatred’ for the British or because the British took away their slaves. On the “numbers”, you would think from all the propaganda spewed out by Afrikaner Nationalists that a mass exodus of “true” Afrikaners had taken place and by the beginning of Boer War 2 most of them are “free-men” living in a Boer Republic, BUT – there’s a problem with this idea, its still NOT the case – not even after 60 years of migration and not even after the discovery of mineral wealth in the ZAR – the majority of Afrikaners, believe it or not, are STILL in the Cape Colony. Here are the numbers at the start of Boer War 2:
Boer War 2
The population of South Africa in 1899 was approximately 4.7 million persons with 3.5 million Africans making up 74% of the total. Whites, numbering 830,000 made up only 18% of the entire population. Asians and Coloureds total 400,000 or 8%. So whichever way you cut it, the ‘whites’ – Boer and British together, are a ‘minority’.
But what of these two ‘white’ tribes? Where are they located after The Great Trek and economic migrations of the last 60 years. The white population are distributed among the two colonies and the two republics, In total 480,000 are Afrikaans-speaking, 58% of the total white population. Less than half of the Afrikaners lived in urban areas, most the ‘English-speaking’ population are urbanised and constitute 42% of the white population.
Also, most importantly, where are all these Afrikaners? Here’s the kicker, the majority of them are STILL in the Cape Colony – Great Trek aside. Afrikaners in the Cape Colony qualified as a bigger population of Afrikaners than the Orange Free State and Transvaal Afrikaners COMBINED. Data sources differ a little in the Transvaal I.e. ZAR, but it is generally understood that Afrikaners only really made up about half (50%) percent of the white population in the ZAR in any event, the other half are classified as ‘Uitlanders’ – mainly ‘British’ (it’s this imbalance that this is the principle Casus Belli advanced by the British as their reason for the 2nd Boer War).
The Transvaal’s Afrikaners made up only 31% of the total number of Afrikaners in South Africa, with the Orange Free State having mere 15%. This total of 46% (approximately 219,000 people) shows that when Boer War 2 broke out, less than half of the total Afrikaners in South Africa were in the two republics that declared war on Britain. The Cape Colony and Natal, containing 54% of the Afrikaners, or 260,000 persons, never rose up and declared war against the British.
Although some 10,000 odd Cape Afrikaners did join the Republics forces as ‘Cape Rebels’ – this force when viewed against that of the general Cape Afrikaner populace is insignificant. Cape Afrikaners, and for that matter Natal Afrikaners too, simply did not rise up in any significant number to join the ZAR and OFS invasions of the two British colonies. Add to this that just about as many Cape and Natal Afrikaners joined the British forces which also counter-balances the argument somewhat.
The bottom line – the majority of Afrikaners simply decided not to rise up against their lawfully elected governments in the Cape and Natal, many decided to remain neutral and as a majority grouping of Afrikaners in general they simply did not participate in the war at all – that’s a fact. View it this way, the Cape franchise is such, that if the Afrikaner – the majority of voters – did not want someone like Cecil Rhodes in government. they could easily have voted him out.
The underpinning reality is that the Boer Generals planning the war and the Boer politicians claiming “Africa for the Afrikaner” failed to appreciate that many of the Cape Afrikaners were pretty happy under British administration for the near 100 years they are subjected to it, contented with the Cape franchise, many of them urbanised middle class and well to do and of the landed class many were very wealthy – as a demographic they are fundamentally different to their isolated frontier farming (Boer) Afrikaner brethren ‘up north’ facing an extremely hostile environment.
Poverty, famine and hardship was not an overarching issues in the British Colonies for many whites’ (Boer and Brit) in 1899 – nor does it seem that there was any fundamental discontent with their governance, representation and political disposition – and many simply did not view the ZAR’s “Krugerism” as a viable ideology or system of governance for Southern Africa – in fact Prime Minister William Schreiner, John X. Merriman and Jacobus Sauer had moved many in the Cape Colony’s branch of the Afrikaner Bond and Afrikaners in the Cape Colony in general closer to the British way of thinking.
In a nutshell, half the available Afrikaners failed to take up arms against the British and the Boers fought the South African War 1899-1902 at half strength. So, in essence – they went off “half-cocked” against a world super-power to quote John L Scott’s conclusion on the numbers and the Boer Republics’ decision to invade British colonies.
So, here’s the statistical truth to a modern white Afrikaner – There is a 22% chance that their direct bloodline forebear was a Voortrekker, and a 54% chance that their direct bloodline forebear never took part in the Boer War, at all – the majority of Afrikaners simply did not take up arms, even when their northern brethren expected them to, even demanding they do it, still nothing happened.
The big question now, is of that minority – the 46% of Afrikaners who can claim a bloodline forebear who took part in the 2nd Boer War, how many of them joined the British and fought for them – the hated “joiners”, how many of them preferred neutrality “hensoppers” and how many qualify as the “true” patriotic Afrikaner irreconcilables – the “bittereinders”?
Bittereinders and Joiners
Let’s go with the most “conservative” Afrikaner chronology experts on this one, Pieter Cloete, and give some benefit of the doubt as numbers on the Boer War to the Boers as they vary considerably depending on whose recording them. Cloete in his chronology maintains there are 5,464 joiners (Republican Boers joining the British army to fight against their own countrymen) versus 20,779 recorded Bittereinders registered as still on Commando at the end of the war. So for every 5 Boers left in the field – 4 were fighting for the Republics and 1 was fighting for the British – a 4:1 ratio. Not a common or acknowledged bit of Boer War history – 26% of the Boers fighting at the end of the war were fighting FOR the British – a quarter of them, it’s a significant statistic.
This Figure becomes a little more skewered and complicated when you add the ‘Hensoppers’ and the ‘Prisoners of War’ – those that took the oath of neutrality and those that did not, those that went back on their oaths as well as the war dead and injured – but suffice to say that the stated majority of white Afrikaners are still not with the Boer Republic’s causes … at all. In fact many are even prepared to go to war with one another over it such is the extent of the disagreement.
This figure of white Afrikaner support for the Boer Republican ideal starts to really pale into insignificance after South Africa is made a Union in 1910. So let’s have a look at the Boer Revolt in 1914 as much Afrikaner legacy and Nationalist ‘volk’ heroes stem from it.
The Boer Revolt 1914
Upfront let’s look at the fighting numbers, in all during World War 1 (1914 to 1918) – no fewer than 146,000 South African whites volunteer to fight alongside Britain and France. A mere 7,100 South Africans volunteer to fight alongside Germany for the reinstatement of the Boer Republican paramountcy in South Africa – that’s only 5% of the entire white population volunteering to fight for one side or the other.
In the case of a proportion of these Boer Revolt fighters in relation to Afrikaners only – during WW1 every white in the census classifies themselves as ‘British’, and there are 1,400,000 of them. It’s hard to say who are English and who are Afrikaans, but if we apply the 40/60 ratio which exits most the way through our history – Afrikaners would account 840,000 – if we double the amount of Boer Rebels to include their wives in support – they would account 2% of the overall Afrikaner diaspora, even if we triple or quadruple the ‘Rebels’ number for sympathetic friends – they still remain a tiny minority – 3% to 4% odd.
And it’s not as if their leaders are in support of the Boer Republican cause and remaining neutral during the World War 1 either, this idea that the decision to go to war against Germany was rejected by the “majority” of Afrikaners is pure Hollywood – 92 members of the South African Parliament voted in favour of the war against Imperial Germany, and only 12 vote against. In the Afrikaner Party – the SAP, the vote is 82% in favour and only 18% against.
There is no doubt that Barry Hertzog’s break away from Botha and Smuts to form the National Party in 1914 re-kindled Afrikaner Nationalism in many white Afrikaners – primarily in the Orange Free State, a region hit by severe drought and an extensive share cropping farmer problem (bywoners) as a result of Boer War 2. Hertzog was a very popular Afrikaner Bittereinder General and held large sway. However, even this romanticising with nationalism the Afrikaner Nationalists are still a minority in the Afrikaner diaspora and even more so in the white diaspora at large. When the National Party first contend the General Elections in 1915 they win 29% of the votes (mainly in the OFS), whilst their brethren Afrikaners in the SAP get 37%. The ‘English’ parties alone match the National Party in size and have around 34% of the vote. This split down the middle in the Afrikaner diaspora is however beginning to rear its head again.
The 1938 Centenary Great Trek
What follows once the National Party get into power as a minority government, in a coalition with the Labour Party on the back of the Rand Rebellion in 1922 – is 15 years of unrelenting glorification of the 1914 Boer Revolt leaders, the execution of Jopie Fourie and the vilifying of General Smuts and General Botha. But even by 1938 the National Party still don’t have the stable majority they need, and there is still a massive split in the diaspora between the ‘Cape Afrikaner’ and the ‘Boere’ Afrikaner. That would all change with the 1938 Centenary of the Great Trek.
In 1938, the Broederbond under the directive of its Chairman, Henning Klopper sought to use the centenary of Great Trek to unite the ‘Cape Afrikaners’ and the ‘Boere Afrikaners’ under the symbology of the Great trek. In this endeavour artificially creating a shared heritage. He started a Great Trek re-enactment with two Ox-Wagons in Cape Town and addressed the large crowd of 20,000 spectators by saying;
“We ask the entire Afrikanerdom to take part in the festival celebration in this spirit. We long that nothing shall hinder the Afrikaner people as a whole from taking part. This movement is born from the People; may the People carry it in their hearts all the way to Pretoria and Blood River. Let us build up a monument for Afrikaner hearts. May this simple trek bind together in love those Afrikaner hearts which do not yet beat together. We dedicate these wagons to our People and to our God.”
By that he hoped to combine the ‘Cape white Afrikaners’ with the ‘Boer white Afrikaners’ in the symbology of the Great Trek under a fabricated Nationalist ideal of Christian Nationalism – and only meant ‘White’ Afrikaners in the Broederbond’s definition of what constituted ‘Afrikanerdom’ and not really the Afrikaans speaking peoples as a ‘whole’ – certainly not the Coloured and Black Afrikaners. The Trek celebration would be pitched as an assertion of Afrikaner white power in South Africa and the Trek as the true path to a overall South African nationhood and identity and ignore the histories of everyone else – black and white – in creating a future South African identity.
Images: The 1938 Centennial Great Trek
In any event the trek re-enactment was very successful in re-aligning white Afrikaner identity under the Christian Nationalist ideal. In the end eight wagons from all around the country threaded their way to Pretoria to lay the cornerstone of the Voortrekker monument – in front of a crowd of 200,000 people. Whilst at the same time, four ox-wagons went to the site of the battle at Blood River for a commemoration service on the 16th December. The wagons stopping in countless towns and villages all around the country along the way to re-name street after street after one or another Voortrekker hero, and laying imprints of the wagons wheels in freshly laid cement at many halts (there are still ‘imprints’ at my hometown in Hermanus – despite the fact that not one single Voortrekker came from this region).
The Centenary trek gave the Broederbond and the National Party symbology – the ox-wagon, gun-powder horns etc. on which to pin Afrikaner Nationalism that did not exist before. Gideon Roos would say of it:
“We (the Afrikaners) never had a symbol before; the ox-wagon became that symbol.”
The Broederbond had staggered onto the ideal way to ‘unify’ the Afrikaner – a round the country travelling carnival – from the cities to the platteland, on to far flung corners and everything in between. Henning Klopper himself amazed at the reaction and the success of it all – so much so he turned to divine intervention and said:
“Although I organised it and had everything to do with it, I felt it was taken completely out of my hands. The whole feeling of the (centenary) trek was the working not of man, not of any living being. It was the will and the work of the Almighty God. It was a pilgrimage, a sacred happening.
A “sacred happening” – a miracle indeed.
It’s a Miracle!
What is a real miracle however, is that the ‘majority’ of Afrikaners would adopt this Voortrekker hegemony even when it is proven that most of them had nothing to do with the Great Trek, and that the two ‘separate’ hearts from Boer War 2 would only find commonality in the Bittereinders 40 years after the war. It’s a sheer miracle that the Broederbond managed to pull this off – and it’s no wonder that Smuts during World War 2 had to appoint a “Truth Legion” to counteract all the propaganda stemming from the Broederbond, re-setting identity and changing Afrikaner minds. So much so Smuts would call the Broederbond:
“a dangerous, cunning, political fascist organization”
He was not wrong, but the 1948 elections sealed it for the Broederbond, and Smuts was dead by 1950. The next 40 years are dominated by unrelenting Afrikaner Nationalism ideals and the banning, violent repression and gagging of any voices of dissent – including many Afrikaners.
A careful construct was put together which found Afrikaner heroes who were either Bittereinder Generals or 1914 Boer Rebels elevated to national worship. The irony is only those who were enamoured with racial segregation in their central politics were highlighted – and as leaders, either Boer War or 1914 Rebel, they had represented a minority of Afrikaners.
Whereas Afrikaners which sought unification and reconciliation – and were largely the most popular and effective leaders were airbrushed out – Jan Smuts and Louis Botha specifically, and so too all the Afrikaner military heroes who followed them, the military and political likes of Kommandant Dolf de la Rey, Group Captain Adolph “Sailor” Malan, General Daniel Pienaar, Group Captain Petrus “Dutch” Hugo, Mattheus Uys Krige, General Kenneth Reid van der Spuy, General George Brink, Major Jacob Pretorius, Lieutenant (Dr) Jan Steytler, Captain (Sir) De-villiers Graaff, Major Pieter van der Byl, Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr … the list goes on.
By the time I found myself in the Army most my Afrikaner brothers in arms were pretty convinced their heritage and identity lay with Voortrekkers and the Boer War concentration camps – and such is the power of identity many still believe in that – an entire nation baptised into a identity the majority had no connection to in the first place. Dr D.F. Malan would try to cement his sentiment when he said of Afrikanerdom:
“To be a true patriot you have to embrace this Afrikaner Nationalism take on history – to do otherwise is not to be an Afrikaner.”
So – according to the National Party leader, as an Afrikaner, whether you are related to a Voortrekker, Bitteriender Republican or a 1914 Rebel or whether you are not, whether its your history or not (the irony, statistically speaking chances are you’re not). This is your heritage, history and identity, like it or not – or you’re not an Afrikaner – simple.
He went on to define this further, later Dr. Malan would say:
“An Afrikaner is one who, whether speaking the same language or attending the same church as myself or not, cherished the same Nationalist ideas. That is why I willingly fight against General Smuts. I do not consider him an Afrikaner.”
So, if your forebear joined Jan Smuts’ call to arms in World War 1, World War 2 or even voted for his “United Party” – and you’ve not adopted the Afrikaner Nationalist identity politics and their take on Afrikaner history – according to these Nationalists – you’re not considered an Afrikaner – you’ve somehow turned ‘English’. This attitude, believe it or not, still survives today. I took criticism from a local Freedom Front Plus councillor who authors Afrikaner history romanticism that my focus on was not on the true Afrikaners and I only praised selected Afrikaners who had sold out to the “crown” the ones with ‘English’ hearts – in that way he called me “anti-afrikaner” which is pretty odd considering the size of his bias and his total misconception of the Afrikaner diaspora.
Dr. Malan is not alone either, Adolf Hitler managed to do exactly the same to the German nation prior to Word War 2, using the same techniques, a similar ideology and the same brand of Nationalism. A miracle in every sense. It took a genocide and sheer destruction of their entire country and cultural construct to shake the German nation out of this malaise such is the power of it – its testament to what a determined minority government can do with the politics of pain and hatred if they really set their minds to it.
So, what are the chances – well the chances of the vast majority of Afrikaners been related to a Voortrekker is nil – maybe one in five are. The chances their bloodline forebear took part in the Boer War as a hard fighting Bittereinder Republican – maybe a one in three chance. Chances are that their forebear was a Boer Rebel is incredibly slim, there’s a far better probability that he fought against the rebels and joined up with Jan Smuts – chances of that happening are pretty good. Which makes it odd is that the Afrikaner leadership, when in the pound seats from 1948 to 1994, chose to force the traitorous 1914 Boer Rebels onto just about everyone as national heroes (Beyers, Fourie, de Wet, Kemp, Martiz etc.) in just about every medium, when in fact they are an anathema to the general public, black and white – including a great many Afrikaners.
The chances of anyone hitting the trifecta jackpot, a bloodline direct link between a Voortrekker, Bittereinder and a Rebel to make up a “Pure” Afrikaner at heart (as is the basis of the Afrikaner nationalist myth) – this is a very slim chance statistically speaking – its incredibly rare. However the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kidtuurverenigings (FAK) the old Broederbond front organ still co-ordinates events promoting this mythology and identity to the modern Afrikaner generation … and unless they too are exposed to the extent of the National Party’s nefarious ways and flawed ideologies chances of many of them putting any of this identity politics into proper perspective are equally slim.
Written and researched by Peter Dickens
References:
The Afrikaners : biography of a people (Reconsiderations in Southern African History) Published 2010 by Hermann Giliomee
British Concentration Camps of the second South African War (the Transvaal 1900 to 1902), Masters thesis – published 2007 by John L Scott
1899 Population data comes from state almanacs and is found in an essay by Andre Wessels ‘Afrikaners at War’, John Gooch (editor), The Boer War. Published 2000
The White Tribe of Africa – South Africa in Perspective: Published 1981 by David Harrison
The Union of South Africa censuses 1911-1960: an incomplete record: By A.J. Christopher
The Anglo-Boer war: A chronology. By Cloete, Pieter G
The Economic History of the Boer nation from 1880 to 1980. Rhodes University Economic History paper – 1988 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.
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
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.
Not unusually, whenever there is a post of a Boer farm burning on a Boer War social media site there is an inevitable indignation and disgust targeted at the British and usually accompanied by a torrent of abuse from a community still fractured by this conflict.
Harsh reality of ‘total war’: a Boer families’ farm burning. Colourised by Tinus le Roux.
On my blog, The Observation Post, I even had a person write to me personally and state how dare I allude to Boer aggression as a Casus Belli of the war when “the British brought innocent Boer women and children into the war in the first place” – the indignation at the ‘destruction of innocents’ and rather misdirected raw hate at me highly apparent, a quoted figure of Boer women and children sacrificed almost immediately referenced (usually inflated) – and it’s a common theme and a common retort – I see it all the time on all sorts of forums. It’s the kind of retort that is the result of decades of indoctrination and propaganda – and it’s simply completely disconnected with any semblance of full truths or balance.
So, here’s a little balance and understanding of a ‘full-truth’. At the beginning of the South African War (1899-1902), it was the Boers who commenced with creating a civilian refugee crisis, not the British, and the Boers subsequently invaded, besieged and ransacked entire British towns and territories – not only Johannesburg, but on sovereign British territory in addition, the ransacking of Dundee a case in point – burning farms and looting – leaving civilians with no shelter or refugee camps and simply chasing them into the hinterland without food or assistance.
So, let’s account who started what, and let’s account the carnage and scale of civilian casualties and who the really affected parties are – and I think you’ll be a little surprised to learn something that is not part of the old nationalist narrative of this war. Let’s begin at the beginning.
The Johannesburg Exodus
Starting in September 1899 and into October 1899 is a civilian refugee crisis on a significant scale, the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR) issue a directive which sees the largest city in the republic empty out of nearly all its inhabitants.
What follows are first hand account of the initial “stampede” of ‘foreign’ (Uitlander) residents fleeing Johannesburg – many to be disposed of their property at the beginning of the war. In the end some 50,000 ‘foreign’ residents of the Transvaal were shipped out in cattle trucks and coal carts creating a refugee crisis of note (6,000 left in cattle trucks over just two days alone). Many were afforded no food or water and there are documented cases of deaths and even births in these cattle trucks and open top coal carts – the dead were buried next to the railway lines. Many of these refugees arrived in places like Durban, Cape Town, East London or Port Elizabeth and those who could not find rented, friendly or temporary accommodation were found to be loitering in parks and on the streets with no place to go, sleeping in the open and subject to the elements. The Boers idea being to chase them out of their homes in the ZAR and empty Johannesburg of its “uitlander” problem … and the British should somehow deal with the crisis.
Uitlanders leaving Johannesburg on cattle trucks – October 1899, colourised by Jenny B
In addition to the 50,000 odd whites departing Johannesburg – it is estimated that some 78,000 Black mine labour and workers fled Johannesburg between September and October 1899, many on foot arriving home in their villages penniless (their money, the last month of their wages, was confiscated by the ZAR government), and they are destitute, malnourished and exhausted (see Black People and the South African War 1899-1902. By Peter Warwick).
Notwithstanding the scale of this forced displacement of civilians – these unarmed ‘foreigners’ and their labour made up the majority of residents in the republican state – the “minority” chasing them out at gun-point.
Here’s the account by a white “British” Bradford man, writing to his parents, from Port Elizabeth, and he gave a vivid picture of the flight (bear in mind this is just the opening of what became a mass exodus).
“When I wrote you a short note on September 29th, 1899, from Johannesburg, I did not expect to have to clear out so soon afterwards, but there was very little time given us to consider. The Boers were commandeering all the Outlanders’ property as a war tax; they claimed all the horses on the mines, and behaved most insultingly to any Englishman they could come across. The way the Boers were treating us was simply outrageous. They are worse than Kaffirs, so I cleared out as quickly as I could.
There were 1500 people left Johannesburg by the same train, and nearly as many left on the platform. I had an awful journey down. We saw all the women and children in the closed carriages, whilst we men had to go in open coal trucks. About two hours after we started there was thunder, lightning, and heavy rain, which continued until we reached Kronstadt next day. Of course, we were all drenched to the skin. There we had some “scoff,” for which we had to pay 3s. 6d. each. At ordinary times the charge is not more than 2s. per meal.
The Orange Free State officials provided us with cattle trucks, which, being covered, were a little better than open coal trucks, and shielded us from the rain. We travelled right through the Free State in this kind of conveyance, and after crossing the border into the colony at Newport we were put into civilised carriages for the rest of our journey. Altogether the journey took us three days and three nights. It was difficult to get quarters, for the place is crowded. Anyhow, we managed to get a room —I and another fellow—for which we had to pay a pound for one week.
There are about 5000 refugees from the Transvaal down here, and I hear that at Cape Town and Durban people are sleeping in churches, warehouses, and, in fact, anywhere they can get a covering for their heads. People who came down here two or three months ago are at their wits’ end, their money being finished, and they having to rely on charity for a bite to eat. Whole families are starving.
The British Government ought to help these subjects, as they are forced to leave their livelihood, and all because the English Government will not hurry up and settle things one way or the other. Johannesburg is very nearly empty. Nearly all the mines have been closed down. All the storekeepers have barricaded their places up and discharged their workpeople, and the principals have cleared out, leaving their goods and property to look after themselves. Thousands of people who a few months ago were doing a nice business are now ruined, and their labours for years past are all wasted. The Boers will not allow them to remove their stock, produce, or anything else.”
Of the exodus from Johannesburg a nurse named Miss Colina Macleay records the ordeal:
“I caught the first train, crowded beyond anything you can imagine, and had to go into a coal truck with fifty white and black people, all mixed, including coolies, samies, Kaffirs, Cornish miners, and other whites. On our way out of the Transvaal we were detained at lots of stations, and insulted everywhere. The heat was intense, with a broiling sun and nothing to protect us from it. And we also suffered from thirst. When we saw a water pump we would try to get out, but guns were pointed at us and we were threatened if we dared to move. All the time the fellows at the stations were drinking and laughing and wasting the water to tempt us all the more … one poor child died in our truck, and our train stopped for a few minutes to bury the body at the railway side on the veldt. I think I shall never forget the cries of the poor children for meat and drink … At length we arrived at Delagoa Bay at one o’clock in the morning, only to find the place crowded, with people lying in the station, parks, and other available corners. A Committee of kind ladies and gentlemen and the Governor met all the refugee trains, and did the best they could for the poorer ones. As I was a nurse and in uniform I was taken to the Salvation Army Hall, and I had there to lie on the floor with hundreds of others (women and children) …”
To quote Steven’s ‘Complete History of the War’:
“The expulsion of aliens was the order of the (Republican) States, and protection was withdrawn from the mines, which of course came to a stand still. With the opening of October (1899) South Africa became astir with warlike preparations, Burghers and British troops hurrying to the- front, and with martial law (in the Boer Republics) came plunder. Bullion worth a million being conveyed from the Rand to Cape town was seized (by the Boers) and sent to Pretoria —with a ‘receipt’ for the same. It was minted into coin”.
The ransacking of Natal
The Boer Republics declared war on Great Britain on the 11th October 1899. This was achieved by two actions, both of which involved invading two sovereign British territories by way of declaration of hostilities. The first was the cutting of the railway line near Kimberley in the Cape Colony and the second was the invasion of the Natal Colony.
The invasion of Natal is marred by wholesale looting and the ransacking of British towns and farms in northern Natal. Despite Boer proclamations from their war council prohibiting both looting and even annexations. The Republican forces on the ground behave with impunity and ignore their directives, they re-name towns, declare sections of Natal as annexed to the ZAR, appoint Landrosts, hoist the Vierkleur over public buildings and embark on a looting and destructive spree of note (Newcastle is re-named Viljoensdorp and Dundee is re-named Meyersdorp).
Boer forces in front of the Dundee Town Offices – note the ZAR ‘Vierkleur’. Photo Credit – Talana Museum – colourised by Jenny B.
Both Newcastle and Dundee are looted extensively, Republican Burghers also pillage surrounding villages, towns and farms – loading wagons with stolen goods. British farmers and their families are disposed of their property and stock and many are pushed as refugees into the veldt to fend for themselves – no shelter or food given as aid.
The looting spree is so intense the Boers even sacrifice their military objectives of speed and manoeuvrability to cut the British forces off from linking up at Ladysmith and taking Port Natal – the slow-down to loot and pillage takes precedence and it allows the British to re-group and dig-in, this is a fundamental military blunder which ultimately costs the Boers the war. The extent of some of the damage and destruction can be found in this eye-witness account, when the British consolidate and counter-attack:
“General Hildyard at Estcourt lost no-time in following up the retreating Boers. On Sunday morning tents were struck and the order was given for a forward march to Frere. At 8 a.m. the long column streamed out, and after a tiring march arrived at Frere at two o’clock in the afternoon.
All along the line of march were evidences of wanton destruction by the Boer commando. At each railway station the safes had been blown to pieces with dynamite; the lamps and furniture had been smashed to atoms; the papers, tickets, and books had been torn to pieces and lay strewn over the floors. The farmhouses had also suffered in like manner, valued trinkets and ornaments lying smashed among the debris of furniture, etc. The doors and windows had been burst open and broken to pieces with crowbars. But it is impossible to adequately describe the heartrending scenes which were enacted. To understand fully the wanton devastation which had been made in many a happy country home, it would be necessary to witness the scene of desolation.
The disloyal Natal Dutch appear to have been among the principal perpetrators of these acts of despoliation, for in many of their houses were afterwards found articles of furniture which had been taken from the homes of neighbouring English farmers. In one house were found five pianos, which had belonged to English homes in the district. But the enemy had not restricted these wicked acts of destruction to ‘ the interiors of the farmhouses only, for- in some cases orchards of young fruit trees had been chopped down and utterly destroyed, and iron rain-water tanks had been pierced through the sides, rendering them useless. Many a heart was bowed down with grief on beholding the home, which had meant years of work, thus destroyed in a few moments by a ruthless foe.
Much of the live-stock, that had not been driven away, had also been destroyed. Dead poultry were lying about in heaps at one farmstead, among them being fifty young turkeys. Cattle and sheep lay rotting in the paddocks. On another farm three hundred head of cattle and sheep had been destroyed with arsenical poison.
Truly it was a terrible scene ; and yet this destruction had been wrought by the offspring of a civilised European nation. The Law of Environment had here proved itself true in the evolution of this people dwelling among the savage and barbarous tribes of South Africa.”
So, in reality – the country “stealing the gold” from private businesses and minting it was the ZAR (not Britain) and the country bringing women and children into the conflict first was the ZAR followed by the OFS and not the British, the countries in initial neglect of duty of care when dealing with civilian refugees are the ZAR and the OFS, the initial illegal looting and stealing of private property is attributed to the Boers and the peoples responsible for the first civilian deaths were the Boer Republics.
The Siege crisis
There are always “two sides to the story” and each side has merit in their argument, but let’s do try and stick to some of these basic facts. The Boers initiated the Johannesburg civilian ‘refugee’ crisis in Sep 1899 and northern natal civilian refugee crisis in Oct 1899 and then they started another civilian refugee crisis when they put British cities like Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberley under siege during the first phase of the war from Oct 1899 to March 1900. The siege tactics – cutting water and food supplies, shelling townships, workers compounds and residence suburbs with artillery and the subsequent diseases, starvation and malnutrition killing thousands of civilians – black, white and coloured – over 3,000 in Kimberley alone (see The Battle of Magersfontein. By Dr. Garth Benneyworth).
Kimberley: “The Moir family at their siege shelter” – Colourised by Tinus le Roux
Figures of civilian casualties during the sieges are well documented in the case of white civilians – recorded deaths include women and children killed by shellfire and well-known townspeople, what’s not recorded adequately is the death of civilians by disease, and the death of Black, Coloured and Indian citizens also caught up in the sieges. An example is Kimberley – a pavement plaque marks the first civilian casualty and it simply reads that here the first civilian was killed by Boer shellfire – an unknown black women. In Ladysmith the civilian burials at the provisional hospital amount some 600 casualties, mainly disease – and these are just the whites, no record is made of the Black and Indian Ladysmith civilians.
The Empire Strikes Back!
This is all a pre-curser to the refugee crisis the British created by engaging scorched earth policies issued mid 1900 to deal with insurgency and guerrilla warfare – and the subsequent burning down and destruction of the bittereinder’s farms’ as part of this policy and strategy.
The British counter-attack to the Boer invasions in Oct 1899 is relentless and highly efficient. The British are able to consolidate from the setbacks of ‘Black-week’ in December 1899 whilst they are numerically disadvantaged and they manage to hold their major towns under siege. By the time their hastily assembled ‘Army Force’ begins to land from January 1900 and they are numerically matched – other than the set-back at Spionkop at the end of January 1900, they lose no other other major conventional battle and in a matter of just 6 months, relieve all the sieges of all their cities, dispatch the Republican forces from their colonies, take both the Boer capitals, take the economic hub that is Johannesburg, remove Boer Forces from all their invested defences, break the Boer’s fighting capability with the mass surrenders at Paadeberg and Brandwater Basin (9,000 Republican men in total) and cut the Boers from supply and foreign assistance from the sea. By July 1900, a mere 10 months in, the conflict is un-winnable for the Boers – the British attitude is the war is ‘done and dusted’ – the Boer capitals are in British hands and its back home before Christmas for tea and medals.
With extended and unprotected supply lines stretching all the way from Cape Town to Pretoria the British position in Pretoria is vulnerable. The Boers target these lines and start blowing up rail-line and shooting up trains as the main thrust of their newly devised guerrilla or insurgency campaign. Sick and tired of trains arriving in Pretoria full of holes or not at all, and highly annoyed with the chief protagonist of these tactical hit and runs – General Christiaan de Wet – Lord Roberts writes to Lord Kitchener on the 14th June 1900 and says:
“We must put a stop to these raids on our railway and telegraph lines, and the best way will be to let the inhabitants understand that they cannot be continued with impunity. Troops are now available and a commencement should be made tomorrow by burning De Wet’s farm… He like all Free Staters now fighting against us is a rebel and must be treated as such. Let it be known all over the country that in the event of any damage being done to the railway or telegraph the nearest farm will be burnt to the ground.”
Boer guerrillas derailing a train. British soldiers on the scene. Photo colourised by Tinus le Roux.
The Boer decision to embark on guerrilla warfare and force all the Burghers who have taken up the offer and oaths of neutrality – to take up arms again and rejoin their Commando’s on threat of their farmsteads being destroyed – marks the point where the British military attitudes in South Africa turn from ‘Relentless’ to ‘Ruthless’.
On 16 June 1900, Roberts issues the proclamation on ‘scorched earth’ stating that, for every attack on a railway line the closest homestead would be burnt down. When that does not work, some months later another proclamation is issued in September stating that all homesteads would be burnt in a radius of 16 km of any attack, and that all livestock would be killed or taken away and all crops destroyed.
“Government Laagers”
This is followed by two separate Boer civilian refugee problems – one refugee crisis created by the Boer Republican Forces, burning down and destroying Hensopper, British and Joiner farms after the mid 1900 armistice proclamations – leaving these families in the veldt to fend for themselves – the Boers spurring the British to initiate the first concentration camps on the 22nd September 1900 specifically to deal with these ‘Hensopper’ refugees and give them a bell tent shelter, food and water … Maj. General J.G. Maxwell signals:
“… camps for burghers who voluntarily surrender are being formed at Pretoria and Bloemfontein.”
A proclamation was even issued by Lord Kitchener by 20th December 1900 which states that all burghers surrendering voluntarily, will be allowed to live with their families in these “Government Laagers” (concentration camps) until the end of the war and their stock and property will be respected and paid for.
And there is a second refugee crisis, this one initiated by the British forces and their scorched earth policy. The ‘concentration camps’ termed ‘refugee camps’ by the British (or ‘Government Laagers) start to fill up with a mix of Boers who have voluntarily surrendered (Hensoppers) or joined British forces (Joiners) and whose farms have been burned down by the Boers, they are also joined by some British families whose farms suffered the same fate (all these families comprise, men, women and children). They are then joined by ‘Bittereiner’ families directed to the concentration camps by the British who are busy burning down or dynamiting their farmsteads under the Scorched Earth policy – these families comprise a handful of men, but mainly women and children (their husbands still on Commando). Over time and given the sheer scale of destruction of the rural sector, the Bittereinder families start to outnumber the Hensopper families.
By 21st December 1900 Lord Kitchener outlined the advantages of interning all women, children and men unfit for military services, also Blacks living on Boer farms, as this will be;
“the most effective method of limiting the endurance of the guerrillas … The women and children brought in should be divided in two categories, viz.: 1st. Refugees, and the families of Neutrals, non-combatants, and surrendered Burghers. 2nd. Those whose husbands, fathers and sons are on Commando. The preference in accommodation, etc. should of course be given to the first class. With regard to Natives, it is not intended to clear (Native) locations, but only such and their stock as are on Boer farms.”
What gets created now are two separate camp systems, one for ‘whites’ and one for ‘natives’ (Blacks) and they are both fundamentally different in the way they are managed. The ‘white’ camps are structured using bell tents along military camp lines, shelter is provided by way a tent and food and water is provided – the camps are somewhat porous, there are no fences or armed guards and people can come and go with ‘refugee passes’ – isolation and lack of places go for alternate shelter keep the Boers in the camps. Medical facilities are also at hand, some camps better equipped than others.
Winburg Concentration Camp – Photo Credit: Boer War Museum, Bloemfontein. Colourised by Jenny B.
However, and this is key, upfront these camps are very poorly managed, the military have other problems to deal with and are prioritised to do what they know best and fight – there are major problems with sanitation, some camps being better than others. The supply lines to these camps – medicine, food, tents etc. all situated along railway lines for this purpose, are also severely disrupted by the Boer insurgents blowing up railway line. Overcrowding, lack of tents, disrupted food, poor sanitation, poor water and limited medicines all become major issues.
Many people don’t fully understand the concentration camps systems or the phases of their administration, in a nutshell there are two distinctive phases:
Concentration Camps – diseases bell curve – Black and white camps and time-line.
Phase 1: Started in September 1900 – they are set up under British military administration. In the ‘white’ camps – from March 1901 the mortality rates in the starts to climb to unprecedented and alarming levels, and at their peak the mortality rate is driven primarily by a measles epidemic which sweeps the camps and accounts 30% the overall deaths – as a child’s disease, along with the high infancy mortality rate and child death ratio in the Victorian period, coupled with the difficulty of wartime conditions and camp sanitary standards, by the beginning of 1902 children account for nearly 2/3 of all deaths.
The period March 1901 to November 1901 is 9 months of abject misery and suffering in the white Boer camps. However, contrary to modern propaganda, although there are many in white Boer camps who are malnourished and conditions are extremely harsh, they are not purposefully starved to death – ‘Starvation and Scurvy’ accounts for only 2.9% of recorded deaths. There are also no recoded cases of premeditated murder or executions, all deaths are attributed to disease or medically related conditions.
The conditions and plight of the women and children in the camps, against the context of respiratory and waterborne disease, coupled with inadequate medical countermeasures and failures in administration is highlighted by the likes of Emily Hobhouse and later in 1901 by the Fawcett Commission.
Phase 2: From November 1901 as a result of the Fawcett Commission’s and parliamentary recommendations, Lord Alfred Milner, the Cape Colony High Commissioner is tasked with taking over the white Boer camps from the military and bringing them under civilian authority instead.
As a result of Milner’s direct intervention, from November 1901 the mortality rates in the ‘white’ camps start to drop off dramatically as his civilian administrators and medical staff start to get on top of the epidemics, food supply and sanitary issues. They also do away with the putative and preferential treatment of ‘hensopper’ versus ‘bittereinder’ families initiated by the military.
Children fetching water, Bloemfontein concentration camp – colourised by Tinus le Roux – inserted chart is the full account of white Boer concentration camp deaths.
Milner’s actions and policies are extremely effective, in just 4 months the mortality rates in the white camps drop to acceptable mortality rates for the Victorian era, made even more remarkable considering that these mortality rates are declining and have plateaued-out when the Guerrilla Phase and Scorched Earth policy is at its height and at its most destructive.
These “acceptable” i.e. normal mortality rates continue up to the end of the war on 31 May 1902 and then remain acceptable long after the end of the war as the camps are then used as ‘resettlement’ centres for displaced Boer families until the end of 1902.
As to Milner, it’s also an inconvenient truth, that a man so often vilified by modern white Afrikaners as the devil reincarnate, is the same man responsible for saving tens of thousands of Boer women and children’s lives. However in all, there are exactly 29,491 deaths recorded in the ‘white’ concentration camps, the result of which would deeply harm the white Afrikaner collective psyche and does so even to this day.
The ‘Black’ concentration camps are a different matter, on a point to note here, the ‘Black’ camps are very big, this population of displaced civilians throughout the war, be they from the farms or from the cities far outnumbers the whites. In the Black concentration camps, no food or shelter is afforded, Black internees are instructed to grow their own food, and provided seed for this purpose. The food is both for their own consumption and for the British war effort. Wages are paid for labour provided to the British war machine, and these wages are then used by the Africans in the camps to purchase shelters, provisions and food. Medical assistance is minimal. In terms of structure some of these camps start to reflect a modern day poor shack township – corrugated metal, mud, wood and canvass shacks. In a nut-shell these camps can best be described as ‘forced’ labour camps.
Boer War Black Concentration Camp near Bronkerspruit, c.1901 – Colourised by Jenny B.
These ‘Black’ camps are hit by the same cocktail of viruses and bacteria that hit the ‘White’ camps, mainly typhoid and to a large degree measles. Their disease bell curve follows a similar trajectory as the white camps, however it starts a little later in August 1901. That’s were the similarity ends, in the Black camps there are also cases of starvation as the black populations do not receive enough food from the government to maintain human survivability (unlike the white camps). The mortality rates are also not clearly understood as they were not meticulously recorded (unlike the white camps). Only as late as 2024 do we even have an inkling of an idea of the mortality in these camps. They are now been carefully analysed using archaeological record (primary data, excavating and forensics) and oral history – it is now estimated that over 30,000 Black Africans died in these forced labour camps (refer Dr. Garth Benneyworth ‘Work or Starve’ published 2024).
Seeing the bigger picture
In reality, we now need to start accepting that as many Blacks died in their concentration camps (30,000 plus) as Whites died in their concentration camps (29,461). The key difference given racial prejudices (Boer and Brit) of the time, and more so the racial prejudices of the Afrikaner Nationalist governments after 1910.
So, before “Boer War” Afrikaner enthusiasts start jumping up and using this as yet another stick to vilify and beat the British with, we must note that whilst hundreds of plinths, monuments, museums and thousands of grave markers have focused on the “Boer Women and Children” at every single camp and in every single affected town – erected over the course of nearly 10 decades at massive state expense … and not one grave marker, monument, museum or even a simple single plinth was erected to the Black concentration camps.
As to prejudice and misunderstanding of the Boer War – there remains to this very day no such acknowledgement and remembrance – still, and some still want to call it “The Anglo-Boer War” as if these are the only two groups in it and not by its official designated name “The South African War (1899-1902)” and they still exclude by way of simple acknowledgement the mass of other ethnicities who either took part in the war directly as belligerents – taking service directly in the British Army’s colonial regiments and units, over 30,000 as ‘Black African’ British combatants alone – and were not getting to the thousands of South African based ‘Coloureds’ and ‘Indians’ joining British forces.
Then there are the thousands of ‘armed’ black Agteryers’, labour and servants in the Boer Republican Armies – not to mention the Blacks affected by the war in their concentration camps as forced labour for the British by their tens of thousands.
Black African ‘British’ soldiers defending a rice patten blockhouse, British Army Museum – Colourised by Jenny B.
Remember also that both the Tswana in Botswana and the Swazi enter the war as belligerent nations in their own right – on the side of the British, and both defeat Boer Commandos. There are literally hundreds of thousands of refugees having lost their jobs and been displaced from places like Johannesburg and Kimberley by the Boers or displaced from the Boer farms by the British – so here’s the kicker – there are more “Blacks’ affected by the war than either the Anglos or Boers combined and their death toll is as significant!
Heck, entire books and academic papers have been written by ‘British’ and then ‘Afrikaner’ historians – but this aspect of the war only started to appear with any degree of sincerity around 2015 – post 1994, and it’s still not fully researched.
War is Cruelty
The Boer’s Guerrilla campaign is not a romantic ‘scarlet pimpernel’ chase of Christian de Wet and his chums, all whilst they cleverly outsmart the British. It’s a brutal, harsh and very cruel campaign – aimed at public networks – trains and rail in addition to the military ones. It is marred by maundering – the destruction of public buildings, mission stations and farms in the British territories – and even the murder of British citizens. Here is just a flavour of it – mission stations and Black and Coloured British citizens and soldiers are especially targeted.
When the Reverend C. Schröder returned to his Gordonia congregation after the war, he was horrified to find that most of his flock had been killed by Boer raiders. A attack by an unhinged Manie Maritz on the Methodist mission station at Leliefontein in Namaqualand was especially savage. The mission station razed and plundered, the civilians hunted down in an act of revenge, in all 27 Leliefonteiners are killed (some accounts say a total of 43) and approximately 100 are injured. So brutal it even shocked Deneys Reitz who recorded it in his diary:
“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.”
Deneys Reitz
Bill Nasson, the renowned Boer War historian would note:
“The wretched refugees of this massacre were pitilessly hunted down by parties of Boers. Those unfortunate enough to be captured were brought back to work as slave labourers. Indeed, they were even shackled in irons forged at the mission station’s smithy”.
Manie Maritz is so unhinged that later in the war, he ignores clear instructions from Smuts and attempts to dynamite the town of Okiep – its garrison and civilians included. Using the commandeered Namaqua United Copper Company locomotive ‘Pioneer’ to propel a mobile bomb in the form of a wagonload of dynamite into the besieged town. Luckily the attack failed when the train derailed.
Maritz is not the only unhinged Boer Kommandant in the Guerrilla phase – both Kmdt. Gideon Scheepers and Kmdt. Hans Lötter, amongst other charges – were charged on marauding, property destruction, murdering “native spies” and mistreatment of black civilians (in the case of Scheepers also murdering unarmed but uniformed black British POW) – both were executed by the British once caught.
Images: Kommandant’s Scheepers and Lötter after their capture and ‘Fighting General’ Manie Maritz.
General Christian De Wet even writes to Lord Kitchener requesting clemency for Boer Kommandant’s executing Black soldiers out of hand as he had given “general instructions to have all armed natives and native spies shot.” 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.”
Ironically, as the modern Nationalist narrative went, Gideon Scheepers, Hans Lötter, Manie Maritz and Christiaan de Wet are all heralded as “volks-heroes” for their deeds, and this involves the outright murdering of black civilians, whereas Lord Kitchener, who would move on to become the face for British recruitment in World War 1, would ultimately be painted as the murderer incarnate.
The cruelty does not stop in the Cape, even General De la Rey’s victory over Lord Methuen’s column at Tweebosch on the 7th of March 1902 in the Transvaal at the end of the war is marred by war crimes. Tweebosch is famous because of General De la Rey’s compassionate and kind treatment of the wounded Lord Methuen and saving his life. What is not recorded at the Battle of Tweebosch in the narrative is the killing spree De la Rey’s commando members go on, 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. The testimony of the executions by survivors recently found in WO 108-117 in the UK’s National Archives give a unique and harrowing insight:
Here are some quotes on the killings of that day:
“…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.”
(British Cavalry – Regimental History).
The Boers whom I met on the 8th instantly admitted that their men had deliberately shot down the transport Natives with a view, they asserted, of deterring others from enlisting in our services”.
Captain W.A. Tilney.
“I saw four Cape boys, unarmed and dismounted, come towards the Boers with their hands up. They were shot dead”.
Trooper C.J.J. Van Rensberg
“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”.
Corporal H. Christopher
These testimony’s go on, there are loads – but its enough to get the point.
Even one of the most biased Republican Historians – Thomas Pakenham, has to acknowledge the slaughter of Blacks in the Transvaal by Republicans under the Command of Jan Smuts when he notes:
“When Jan Smuts’ commando fell on the native village at Modderfontein, for example, they butchered the 200 or so black inhabitants and left their bodies strewn around, unburied.”
The American General, William Tecumseh Sherman said something very relevant to war generally and the Boer War specifically – he said:
“War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueller it is, the sooner it will be over”.
General Sherman
One can easily see where the origins of the “you reap what you sow” ethos which enters into latter British mindsets when dealing with the Boer Republican refugees and their properties – a “hardening of attitudes” as it is often termed in modern military speak. Not even 40 years later, a ‘Rhodesian’ Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris would really crystallise this type of military sentiment to justify his carpet bombing of German civilians in World War 2 when he quoted Horsea 8:7 and said:
“They sowed the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”
Also, to General Sherman’s point, the British fight the Boer’s guerrilla phase of the war with such intensity, the commitment of massive resources (8,000 blockhouses alone) and tens of thousands combatants – that the Guerrilla Phase of the Boer War is the shortest fought guerrilla war in the history of modern guerrilla warfare – it’s over in short time – less than 2 years (modern guerrilla warfare of this nature war lasts an average of 9 years), and here’s an uncomfortable fact, it’s over with the least trauma to the general population such warfare has traditionally invokes (then and now) – believe it or not.
The simple truth is the scale of destruction to property, lives and livelihoods is massive on both sides of the fence, so much so its almost impossible to separate the destruction initiated by the Boers and that initiated by the British given its scale – whole sections of the country in Boer territories destroyed and whole sections in British territories were also destroyed – thousands of Boer farms and entire British cities, farms, towns and mission stations … all destroyed.
To give an idea of the scale facing Milner at the end of the war, in trying to recover South Africa economically and deal with repatriations. There is the re-settlement of some 150,000 white civilians involved (mainly Boers) and about 50,000 impecunious white “foreigners” (mainly British) who had been employed on the Witwatersrand, and then there is approximately one million displaced and unemployed “Bantu” (read that again – 1,000,000 Black refugees).
Post war, Boers outside a compensation and repatriation tent. Colourised by Jenny B (insert Lord Milner).
Milner’s repatriation, economic reforms and compensations were naturally decried by latter day Afrikaner nationalists as insufficient – and that’s because they only focused on the Boers’ compensation and nobody else in the bigger picture. Milner, as a studious and rather bull-headed administrator, felt he did a decent enough job given the challenges he faced – and even some latter day economic historians would agree with him. But let’s face it – the community that come off worse, by a miracle mile, were the “Bantu”.
In Conclusion
This is not to say “tit for tat” – the Boers started it first bla … bla … bla! That would be disingenuous and disrespectful to their memory and that’s not the point of this missive – the point is to remind people who are hidebound by a rather poor Christian Nationalist education and blinkered by identity politics – that in war there are no saints, war is nasty, it’s cruel, there are never really any ‘winners’ in war, nothing happens in a vacuum – and in war the truth is always the first victim.
The idea that the white Boer civilians were the unwitting victims in this entire saga, that they are the only real community to really have suffered the ravages of this war at the hands of the British is completely unhinged, baseless and untrue. This sentiment rings more true to politicking and identity politics initiated by the Nationalists than it does to any historical fact.
In truth, both the Boers and the British are equally responsible for waging war, both can be held to account for the resultant civilian crisis that war inevitably produces and all the carnage that follows that, and very importantly they are both equally cruel … and citizens from all communities were traumatised, there is no clear ‘murderous villain’ … there never is in war.
Written and researched by Peter Dickens
References:
Complete history of the South African War: in 1899-1902 By F. T. Stevens. Published 1903.
The Boer Invasion of Natal : Clement Horner Stott. Published 1900.
Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery “The Second Boer War – The Times History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902” – Volumes 1 to 7.
History of the war in South Africa 1899-1902. By Maj. General Sir Frederick Maurice and staff. Volumes 1 to 4, published 1906
The Boer War: By Thomas Pakenham – re-published version, 1st October 1991.
Black People and the South African War 1899-1902. By Peter Warwick. Published 1983.
The Battle of Magersfontein – Victory and Defeat on the South African Veld, 10-12 December 1899. Published 2023. By Dr. Garth Benneyworth.
Kruger’s War – the truth behind the myths of the Boer War: By Chris Ash, BSc FRGS FRHistS, published 2014.
A History of the British Cavalry, 1816-1919, Vol.4, p.270
Commando – By Deneys Reitz, published 1929
Work or Starve - Black concentration camps and forced labour camps in South Africa: 1901 – 1902, By Dr. Garth Benneyworth. Published 2024 by The War Museum of the Boer Republics.
Correspondence and fact checking with Dr. Garth Benneyworth, Boer War historian – Sol Plaatjies University, Kimberley – February 2024.
A tool for modernisation? The Boer concentration camps of the South African War, 1900-1902. By Dr Elizabeth van Heyningen – Department of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town, 2010 South African Journal of Science.
Correspondence and fact checking with Chris Ash, BSc FRGS FRHistS, Boer War historian, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society for The Boer War Atlas – February 2024.
Correspondence to The Observation Post on Boer War Repatriation and Compensation – Jan 2024. By Gordon Mackinlay.
Correspondence and fact checking with Boer War historian – Robin Smith, Feb 2024.
With thanks to:
Colorised images on the mast-head thanks to Allan Wood (Kitchener) and Jenny B (de Wet)
Colourised images used with great thanks to both Jennifer Bosch and Tinus le Roux.
Often on Boer war social media appreciation sites, and even on simple things like wikipedia we see this statement “it took 500,000 British to defeat 20,000 Boers” – the much-touted ratio in this type of media is that the Boers were outnumbered 25 to 1, at a staggering disadvantage during The South African War 1899-1902 a.k.a Boer War 2.
The story goes that these plucky Boers held the mighty British empire at bay. Now that’s a figure designed to paint the Boer fighter as some sort of super-man and the British military as bumbling, monolithic and ineffective. But the truth is far from this and this figure is completely erroneous designed to drive Afrikaner nationalist political rhetoric – it has nothing to do with actual numbers on the ground.
This is why I love economic history and not political history – economic history speaks the raw numbers, the statistics – the unassailable mathematical facts, and it tends to drive great holes into the ‘political’ history and its inherit political rhetoric – its the point when the facts talk and the bull walks.
Let the numbers speak!
Now, here’s the truth – at no point in Boer war 2 were there ever 500,000 British troops in South Africa as boots on the ground at any one point in time – in total, over the course of the war the British called up 550,000 men – that bit is true, yes. HOWEVER the British rotated their Regiments in and out of South Africa on ‘tours of duty’ – never really sending a full regiment into the operational theatre at once, retaining many at home and in their other colonies around the world. The “high water mark” i.e., the maximum number of British Troops in South Africa at any one point in time is 230,000 men. Even pro-Boer chronologies like that of Pieter Cloete’s Boer War facts and figures reluctantly has to admit this fact.
This high-water mark of 230,000 (including African Auxiliaries) is only peaked briefly during the late Guerrilla Phase of the war – and at least 50,000 of these troops are being used to man the rather extensive blockhouse defence system stretching from the top to bottom and side to side across the whole of South Africa (as referenced by Simon C. Green in his Blockhouses of the Boer War) – over thousands of kilometres both ways. On average during the Guerrilla Phase of the war – September 1900 to April 1902, the British enjoy 190,000 troops on the ground.
But let’s stick to the high-water marks for a proper account – the high water for the Boer forces, total Republican forces strength is 87,365 men – including 21,043 burghers who add onto the original ZAR and OFS Commando call-up later (initial call-up is 48,216), the statutory Boer forces (2,686), foreign volunteers (2,120) and Cape Rebels (13,300).
The Boer figure is possibly higher if we add African auxiliaries and rear echelon support – the “tooth to tail” non-combatant ratio – which is accounted in the British numbers in terms of administrators, doctors, pharmacists and medics, batmen, chefs, farriers, holsters, labourers, wagon drivers etc. but NOT in the Boer numbers as this would start to add women, agteryers, servants and farm hands as people acting in Boer combat supporting roles in a non-combatant capacity.
That means a conservative ratio between Brit and Boer at the high-water marks = 230,000 Brits and 87,300 Boers – a ratio of 3:1 – total Imperial forces versus total republican forces (sans the tooth to tail ratio in the Boer number). It’s a far cry from the emotionally charged and erroneously touted figure of 25:1.
Consider the size of the Republican Forces at the beginning of Boer War 2, versus that of the British. At the Boer declaration of war on the 11th October 1899 when the Boers invade sovereign British territories: The total British Forces in the field = 15,300 men. Total Boer forces assembled to attack = 48,216 men. The ratio is heavily in favour of the Boers – Boer Forces outnumber the British 3 to 1.
“On the high seas” as at the 11th October 1899 are an additional 7,418 British Troops on their way to South Africa from India and Australia – called up to bolster an inadequate British force strength in the event of war. Even with their arrival at the end of October 1899 (after the war has been declared and the Boer invasions commence) bringing the British number up to 22,708 – British Forces are still woefully inadequate, and the invading Boer Forces still outnumber them 2 to 1.
If we want to account Boer War 2 properly and view it with balance, it would be correct and very true to say at the beginning of the war the Boers outnumber the Brits 3:1 – as the war progresses there is a juxtaposing of numbers (they start to match capability in numbers from February 1900) … and by the end of war the Brits account 190,000 troops in country, Boers account 24,300 left in the field and 47,300 POW in the bag (factoring out the ‘Hensoppers’ and ‘joiners’ and factoring in the Cape Rebel POW) = 71,600 or a 3:1 ratio – Brits outnumber Boers, a reversal of the advantageous 3:1 ratio the Boers enjoyed at the start of the war.
Let the doctrine speak!
In terms of military doctrine, the above estimation on a 3:1 ratio is about right given Boer War 2 is fought in two distinctive phases, the Conventional warfare Phase (Oct 1899 to August 1900) and the Guerrilla warfare phase (September 1900 to May 1902) – to invade the British territory in Oct 1899 the Boers need a 3 to 1 advantage to be successful … and to counter attack and hold the Boer territory the British need to be at a 3 to 1 advantage – and even by Guerrilla Warfare standards and the doctrine used to fight one, this number is very low. Consider the following:
American Brigadier-General Nelson Miles was put in charge of hunting down Geronimo and his followers in April 1886. Miles commanded 5,600 troops deemed necessary to find and destroy Geronimo and his 24 warriors. In Malaya in 1950 it took 200,000 British, Australian and allied troops to defeat 5,000 Communist guerrillas. In Ireland over the 30-year course of ‘the troubles’ a total of 300,000 British troops were used to contain 10,000 IRA guerrillas. Closer to home, so the arm chair Boer war generals get this – over the course of the Angolan Border War (1966-1988) and the ‘Struggle’ (1960-1994) the SADF would call up 650,000 conscripts and then hold them in reserve – MK and other non-statutory force ‘guerrillas’ at their high water mark in 1990 only have 40,000.
The modern-day theoretical ratio of counter-insurgency forces to guerrillas needed to defeat an insurgent/guerrilla campaign is 10:1. In 2007, the US Department of Defence produced a document entitled Handbook on Counter Insurgency which quotes this as the rule-of-thumb ratio for all such operations – and that is even with the advent of modern technology in warfare fighting mere insurgents or guerrillas. Little wonder that General David Petraeus needed 180,000 coalition force troops (the same size as the full invasion force) on the ground in 2007 just to deal with the Iraqi guerrilla “surge” spearheaded by an insignificant but determined bunch of suicide bombers.
Just kidding!
The idea that it took half a million British troops to subdue a couple of thousand boers is very erroneous .. the old ‘super’ Afrikaner joke – on witnessing an advancing British ‘rooineck’ column a Boer kid asks his Dad “how many Boers are we Dad? – Answer “50 son”, and “how many British Dad?” – Answer “10,000 son”. Punchline … “Dad, does this mean we’re going to finish late again?” A joke that re-appears in different formats in countless forums, and it’s as funny as it’s statistically false and fantastical.
Written and Researched by Peter Dickens
References – all quoted statistics
Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery “The Second Boer War – The Times History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902” – Volumes 1 to 7.
History of the war in South Africa 1899-1902. By Maj. General Sir Frederick Maurice and staff. Volumes 1 to 4, published 1906
The Anglo-Boer war: A chronology. By Cloete, Pieter G
Anglo-Boer War Blockhouses – a Field Guide by Simon C. Green, fact checking and correspondence – 2023.
The Boer War: By Thomas Pakenham – re-published version, 1st October 1991.
Correspondence and interviews with Dr. Garth Bennyworth, Boer War historian – Sol Plaatjies University, Kimberley – 2023.
Correspondence on fact checking British doctrine with Chris Ash, BSc FRGS FRHistS, 2023 – Boer War historian, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Kruger’s War – the truth behind the myths of the Boer War: By Chris Ash, published 2014.
A lot has been written on the extreme sacrifice at the Battle of Delville Wood during the Somme offensive of 1916, and lets also remember the extreme courage of these South Africans, a young country, the Union of South Africa formed just 6 years prior in 1910 after the devastation of the South African War (1899-1902) i.e. Boer War 2 … and here Afrikaner and English heritage South Africans were fighting shoulder to shoulder in one of the most most desperate engagements in the history of World War 1, and the most heroic and desperate battle in South African’s entire military history – then and even now, and that’s saying something as there have been quite a few notable actions in between.
If there was courage to be rewarded from this desperate South African action on the Somme, the Battle of Delville Wood saw one South African individual rise above to an unprecedented level of gallantry and was awarded The Victoria Cross (VC) – the highest award for valour in the British and Imperial Forces (later Commonwealth) – that was Cpl William Faulds serving in the 1st South African Infantry Brigade. For his full story follow the link to this Observation Post Delville Wood’s Victoria Cross – William Faulds
Cpl William Faulds and an artists impression of his heroic deed at Delville Wood 18th July 1916
However, there is a missing South African Victoria Cross from the Somme Offensive and Battle of Delville Wood, one not usually recognised or known about in South Africa, and one that is not often referenced in the narrative of Delville Wood, his name is Lt. Alexander Young VC of the 4th South African Infantry Brigade (South African Scottish).
The ‘missing’ story of Lt. Alexander Young VC – 4th South African Infantry
Lieutenant Alexander Young VC is ‘missing’ in more ways than one, not only from our general conciseness as South Africans, but he is also literally missing too – his body has never been found.
You can however find him today on the ‘Thiepval Memorial to the Missing in the Somme’ in France – his name is on Pier 4, Face C, alongside all the other missing South Africans from the Somme Offensive and Battle of Delville Wood who have no known grave.
Thiepval Memorial – Pier 4, Face C – South African section names – my photo, Peter Dickens copyright
So, why don’t we as South Africans know much about this missing South African Victoria Cross? Well, the first reason is that the Irish regard it as their Victoria Cross as Alexander Young was born in Ireland, the second reason is his Victoria Cross was awarded to him for actions, as a Cape Colony colonialist serving in the Cape Colony Police, during The South African War (1899-1902) i.e. Boer War 2 – and not World War 1 (1914-1918) which took place after the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910.
All that aside, Alexander Young VC was a South African to his bones and an incredibly brave one at that – not only fighting for the British Army, but also fighting as Cape Colony Mounted Policeman as their Regimental Sergeant Major and then ultimately fighting as a Commissioned Officer in the Union of South Africa’s forces during World War 1. He saw action and served in India, Egypt, Sudan, Zululand, South Africa, German South West Africa, East Africa and France – his impressive array of decorations and medals include: The Victoria Cross, The Queen’s South Africa medal, The King’s South Africa medal, The Zulu Rebellion medal and then his three WW1 medals – The 1914-1915 Star, British War Medal, and the Victory Medal.
That he was a very remarkable South African is beyond doubt, and this is his story and the story of his Victoria Cross (large extracts courtesy The South African War Graves Project):
Ireland and British Army (early years)
Alexander Young was the son of William and Annie Young, of Ballinamana, Co. Galway. He was born in Ballinona, Galway, Ireland on the 27th January 1873. Educated at the Model School in Galway, Young showed great prowess as a horse rider in his youth and when he was only seventeen, he joined the Queen’s Bays at Renmore. He soon gained the attention of his superiors, was sent to India as a riding instructor, and then served as a sergeant major with Lord Kitchener during the 2nd Sudan War (1896-1898).
South African War (1899-1902)
Sgt Maj Alexander Young became recognised as one of the best horseman in the British Army and as a rough rider was unexcelled. It was after he had been injured by a horse that he retired from the British Army and came to the Cape Colony in August 1899 when The South African War (1899-1902) i.e. Boer War 2 broke out, here he joined colonial forces, attesting in the Cape Mounted Police, and as a skilled horseman he was soon picked to form one of a mounted bodyguard for Lord Milner on an official visit to the Transkei.
Now this is an interesting photograph of these Cape Mounted Policeman escorting Lord Milner from Grahamstown to King Williamstown in 1899 – in just this single tiny detachment of Policemen there are three future recipients of the Victoria Cross. It says a lot for the calibre of soldier South Africa has bred (The three men are: Colonel J. Sherwood-Kelly VC, CMG DSO, received his VC during the First World War, Lieutenant W. Bloomfield VC, also First World War and finally our man, Sergeant Major Alexander Young VC, who received his during the South African War).
Now stationed at King William’s Town, Sgt Maj. Young saw action whilst serving with General W. F. Gatacre at Stormberg Junction (December 1899) which was routed by Boers, he escaped and was mentioned in dispatches for his coolness in saving Bethulie bridge in March 1900.
Alexander Young’s day in the military history annuals for the highest valour would come on the 31st August 1901 when he took part in the engagement at Ruiterskraal and led a small body of men against a hill held by Republican forces under Commandant J.L.P. Erasmus.
When the Boers tried to escape, he closed in on them, succeeded in taking prisoner Erasmus (who had fired at him point-blank three times) and was awarded the Victoria Cross for his heroic deed. His Citation in the London Gazette on 8thNovember 1901 reads:
“Towards the close of the action at Ruiter’s Kraal on the 13th August, 1901, Sergeant-Major Young, with a handful of men, rushed some kopjes which were being; held by Commandant Erasmus and about 20 Boers. On reaching these kopjes the enemy were seen galloping back to another kopje held by the Boers. Sergeant-Major Young then galloped on some 50 yards ahead of his party and closing with the enemy shot one of them and captured Commandant Erasmus, the latter firing at him three times at point blank range before being taken prisoner.”
German South West Africa and Bambatha Rebellion
Young remained with the Cape Mounted Police until 1906, when he joined the German forces in German South-West Africa and saw service during the Herero uprising (January 1904 to March 1907). For this he was decorated by Kaiser Wilhelm II. During the last phase of the Bambatha Rebellion (February-June 1906) he served in Natal and Zululand, after which he turned to farming.
1st World War
When the First World War (1914-1918) broke out he took up his old position of Regimental Sergeant-Major in the Cape Mounted Police, and served under General Louis Botha in German South-West Africa campaign, thereafter he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and was subsequently active again during the East Africa campaign under General Jan Smuts, joining the Natal Light Horse.
He was amongst the first to respond to the call for South African troops to head to Europe and he transferred his commission to the 4th South African Infantry (the South African Scottish), he would however first see action against the Senussi in Egypt, he was again in the thick of it with the 4th South African Infantry in France during the Somme Offensive of 1916 and was later wounded in the crucible which was the Battle of Deville Wood in July 1916.
On recovering, he returned to take part in the later stages of the Somme Offensive under Captain T. H. Ross, he was tragically Killed in Action just before the battle of Warlencourt by German bombs and flame-throwers during an attack on his ‘Snag Trench’ on the 19th October 1916.
His body has never been identified and his mortal remains are known only to his God. Thiepval Memorial is unique in that it is both a British and South African monument, recorded on its walls are all the ‘missing’ during all the battles of the Somme offensive – a staggering: United Kingdom 71,341, South Africa 832. Total 72,173.
The Thiepval Memorial is one of the most visited Commonwealth War Graves Commission sites in the world. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme (1 July 1916) almost 20,000 men under British command died. By the time the battle was over, 141 days later, more than a million people on all sides were killed, wounded, or went missing.
For the British and South Africans with no known grave, the Thiepval Memorial stands in their honour.
In Conclusion
I had the privilege of officiating and commanding the remembrance parade at Thiepval Memorial to mark the centenary of the Battle of Delville Wood. During my speech I referenced Lt. Alexander Young VC and pointed out the panel on which his name is recorded.
It is with deep appreciation and honour, that on the 10th July 2016, South African military veterans of The South African Legion, Memorable Order of Tin Hats, The Royal British Legion – South African Branch and just about every single CMVO Registered South African Veterans Association, with Rhodesian veterans in addition could ‘stand-to’ on top of Thiepval Memorial 100 years later – with banners flying and heads bowed – whilst we remembered the sheer sacrifice and the many brave South African men, men like Alexander Young VC.
References and extracts from The South African War Graves Project
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Thank you to Brigadier Hennie Heymans for this remarkable photograph artefact of the Cape Mounted Police.
The artist`s impression of the action at Deville Wood for which William Faulds was awarded the Victoria Cross. From the book “Deeds that thrill the Empire” Vol 5
So what does the Great London Beer Flood of 1814 have to do with the Boer War of 1899 decades later? A lot really, and it involves a banjo-playing prostitute (a ‘bawd’ in case you’re wondering about the old Middle English used in the headline), so – here’s the tale of how an artillery battery was financed during the South African War (1899-1902) a.k.a The Boer War by a very eccentric and colourful Lady.
The Beer
Let’s start at the beginning with the London Beer Flood of 1814, basically the flood was caused when a 6.7m heigh wooden fermentation vessel containing ‘Porter’ beer at Meux&Co’s Horse Shoe Brewery in London burst open. It dislodged and burst open another fermenter and storage barrels releasing around a million litres of beer. The resultant wave of beer swept into a slum, tragically killing 8 people as it flooded basements and knocked over walls. Although one person died of alcohol poisoning a couple of days later after hundreds of people collected the beer and mass drunkenness ensued.
Images: The Meux & Co’s Horse Shoe Brewery and Sir Henry Meux, 1st Baronet
The brewery was nearly bankrupted as a result, but was saved by the government after a rebate was given on the excise of the lost beer. Gradually the Meux&Co Brewery found it way back on its feet and became highly profitable. The Meux family (Meux is pronounced ‘Mews’) had a long association with beer and breweries, the owner of the Horse Shoe Brewery was Sir Henry Meux, 1st Baronet (1770-1841), the son of a brewer named Richard Meux (1734 – 1813). Sir Henry Meux would bequeath the brewing empire to his son, also named Henry, Sir Henry Meux, the 2nd Baronet (1817-1883), he headed up Meux&Co Brewery and also became a Member of Parliament. He in turn bequeathed the brewery and family fortune to his son, also Henry, Sir Henry Bruce Meux, the 3rd Baronet, who started managing the brewery from 1878.
Now, it is in Sir Henry Bruce Meux, the 3nd Baronet that we find a most remarkable figure. His wife. Lady Valerie Susan Meux.
The Bawd
Born in Devon in 1847, Valerie Langdon married Sir Henry Bruce Meux in 1878 and moved to his Hertfordshire estate. Langdon claimed to have been an actress, but was apparently on the stage for only a single season. By all accounts, she worked as a banjo-playing prostitute and barmaid under the name of Val Reece (or Val Langdon – her stage name) at the Casino de Venise in Holborn, central London, and it is here that she is believed to have met Sir Henry Bruce Meux.
Images; Sir Henry Meux with Lady Meux playing the Banjo and their Zebra drawn carriage in London.
She certainly struck the big time. Meux had a considerable estate, including 9,200 acres on the Marlborough Downs. He even commissioned James Whistler to paint three portraits of his wife, Valerie, Lady Meux. At Lady Meux’s request, Henry purchased from the City of London the Temple Bar Gate, which they preserved at their Theobalds Park estate. They re-opened and greatly extended the house, including installing a roller-skating rink (roller-skating is older than you think, invented in 1863 – it was initially dubbed ‘rinkomania’ in the 1870s).
Lady Meux took up the mantle of a London socialite, and a very eccentric one at that, she reportedly travelled around London in a carriage drawn by zebras.
Images: Portraits by James Whistler of Lady Meux
The Boers
During the South African War (1899-1902), early British reverses to the Boer invasions of the British Colonies and sieges of their towns leading to ‘Black Week’ in December 1899 made headline news and the defence of Ladysmith made a particular impression on Lady Meux.
When the Boers declared war against the British on 11th October 1899, Captain Hedworth Lambton was in command of HMS Powerful, which was posted in the China seas, HMS Powerful was a state-of-the-art Cruiser for its time and at the onset of hostilities it was immediately ordered to Durban. Knowing that the British forces at Ladysmith urgently needed more powerful guns, Captain Percy Scott from HMS Powerful’s sister ship, HMS Terrible, devised carriages to transport naval cannon, and Lambton led a Naval brigade to the rescue at Ladysmith with four twelve-pounders and two 4.7″ guns. The enthusiastic response in Britain to these Naval “heroes of Ladysmith” was enormous and made Captain Hedworth Lambton a well-known public figure. Queen Victoria even sent a telegram to him saying, “Pray express to the Naval Brigade my deep appreciation of the valuable services they have rendered with their guns.”
So impressed by their actions around the Ladysmith siege, Lady Meux, in her own patriotic way decided to do her bit for England and sprang into action. She ordered, six naval 12-pounders on special field carriages made by Armstrong of Elswick. The guns were sent directly to Lord Roberts in South Africa, because they had been refused by the War Office. The unit which manned these guns were known as the “Elswick Battery”. The battery was in action several times, including the Second Battle of Silkaatsnek near Rustenberg on the 2nd August 1900.
Images: The Elswick Battery Naval Guns donated by Lady Meux in South Africa during the Boer War.
Sir Henry Bruce Meux died on the 11th September 1900 at his Theobalds estate, the couple were childless and he was still a very wealthy man, thus leaving Lady Valerie Meux, now aged 48, one of the richest women in Britain with no heirs to the family fortune. She owned a string of race horses, entering them under the assumed name of ‘Mr Theobalds’, and won the Derby in 1901. She also collected a vast array ancient Egyptian artefacts.
When Captain Hedworth Lambton, the commander of the Naval Brigade at Ladysmith, returned to England, he called on Lady Meux at Theobalds to recount his adventures in South Africa and to praise the patriotic spirit of her gift. Lady Meux was “touched by this tribute” and wrote out a new will and testament making Lambton the chief heir to the large fortune left by her husband, including her house at Theobalds Park in Hertfordshire and a substantial interest in the Meux&Co Brewery. The only condition was that Lambton should change his name to Meux.
So, when Lady Meux died on 20 December 1910, Captain Hedworth Lambton without hesitation, promptly changed his name by royal licence to Meux, thereby enabling him to inherit her substantial fortune. By the end of the 1st World War, Sir Hedworth Meux GCB, KCVO (née Lambton) was a Full Admiral in the Royal Navy and the Naval aide-de-camp to King Edward VII.
Images: A Tea Cloth in the Ladysmith Siege museum celebrating the ‘Heroes of Ladysmith’ – Captain Hedworth Lambton top right and Admiral Sir Hedworth Meux (née Lambton) during WW1.
Back to the Beer
So what became of Meux&Co Brewery – can we still buy the beer? Well, sort of, you’re possibly drinking it now. When the Admiral of the Fleet, the Honourable Sir Hedworth Meux retired from the Royal Navy in 1921, in the same year Meux&Co Brewery was directed to move their production to the ‘Nine Elms’ brewery in Wandsworth which the Company had already purchased in 1914. The original ‘Horse Shoe’ brewery was demolished and today is the site of the Dominion Theatre, a Grade II listed art deco theatre in the heart of London.
In 1961 Meux&Co Brewery was sold to Friary, Holroyd and Healy’s Brewery of Guildford in Surrey. The company was renamed Friary Meux but only existed as an independent brewery until 1964, when it became part of the new national group, Allied Breweries. Through a series of more brewery mergers, the breweries ultimately merge with Carlsberg in 1992 and become Carlsberg-Tetley, which it is now part of the Carlsberg Group.
One for the road
In addition to my love of military history, I am also the owner of a Craft Beer Brewery in South Africa, and I love a good historic yarn like this, so I can only hoist one of our ice cold ‘Old Tin Hat’ beers to a Carlsberg Pilsner and say thank you once again to my good friend, Dennis Morton, who researched and directed me to this fantastic bit of history. Another toast to The Anglo Boer War and Related History Group (Facebook) and Iain Hayter.
Cheers!
Written and Researched by Peter Dickens with thanks to Dennis Morton.
Book Review: Jan Smuts and his First World War (1914-1917) by David Brock Katz
Finally, a refreshing new look at Jan Smuts, and not a popularist novel, a proper historical treatise, so well researched it stands up to strong academic scrutiny and it will stand for some time to come.
Jan Smuts and his First World War 1914-1917 by Dr David Bock Katz is a revelation, it seeks out and finds Smuts’ essence in his military campaigning, not previously achieved by earlier historians.
It can often be said of Jan Smuts, that a Canadian student will have a better understanding of the man than a South African one. That is because Smuts has been vilified in his own country by an endless tirade of politically driven one-upmanship whether it be from far right or the far left of the political spectrum, an unabated tirade, especially from a very small but very vocal white Afrikaner right fuelled with propaganda and unhinged over the Apartheid epoch. Whereas internationally he is seen as a champion of global peace post both World Wars and a founder of the United Nations, he still stands on Parliament Square in London and in Canada even a mountain is named after him.
The political quagmire surrounding Smuts makes a new study of Smuts very difficult, the historian must ‘peel the onion’ and discard all the politically inspirated bias. Bill Nasson, one of South Africa’s most respected historians said the only way for us to understand Jan Smuts is to understand what he amounted to and to define Smuts’ essence, i.e., get to what he is all about, what made him tick and identify what he was always striving toward. Happy to report that Dr David Katz in his new book on Jan Smuts and his First World War 1914–1917 does exactly that.
Smuts was born and lived in an era of colonial expansionism, an era where Imperialism was normative and in fact a value for which European’s fought over in great life and death struggles, in Europe and across the Globe. David Katz examines Smuts in his context and removes the urge to suddenly apply a modern critical race theory bias. In doing this Katz gets to the essence of the man. He does this by drawing attention to Smuts’ plans for a ‘Greater South Africa’ one in which South Africa’s borders are drawn as high as the equator including south Angola, bits of modern day Central African Republic and the entire states of Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique. This idea of ‘sphere of influence’ whether under the control of an Afrikaner or a British ideal on the back of conquest and expansion, is central to ‘white’ politics of Southern Africa, pre and post The South African War (1899-1902).
A ‘man of his time’, Smuts’ philosophy of holism, basically the sum (union) of parts is greater than the whole, drives Smuts’ ideal for the union of nation states, not only South Africa as we know it, but also Southern Africa with his plans of a ‘Greater South Africa’, his concept of ‘union’ eventually extends globally with the establishment of the British Commonwealth, the League of Nations and its modern-day manifestation, the United Nations. Here, as David Katz shows extensively and rather refreshingly in his work, we see the true ‘essence’ of Field Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts, South Africa’s most decorated General.
It also gives us the context for the Union of South Africa’s eagerness to move its borders northwards, the First World War provided both Louis Botha and Jan Smuts with the ideal vehicle, starting with the German South West African campaign (GSWA) and then the German East Africa campaign (GEA).
In these campaigns David Katz starts to shake up some preconceived beliefs about Smuts’ abilities as a General, detailing and outlining his abilities to strategise outcomes and also his ability to tactically apply them. Many commentators and historians chose to highly criticise Smuts, but usually in the context of political expediency, both in the United Kingdom and in South Africa, but here Katz exposes their ‘bias’ and even at times exposes some blatant mistruths previously held up as fact, he does this by examining the ‘primary documentation’, the boring, dusty, daunting, and rather vital extensive archives – here in South Africa and in the United Kingdom. In this primary documentation, without a political agenda, he finds the real Smuts, a true reflection of the military strategist and field commander. David’s work in this respect is extensive, it was the backbone of his Doctorate in Military History (cum laude), and it shows.
It is almost impossible to write a ‘complete’ history on Smuts in a single book, he was a man who dominated South African politics from 1890 to 1950, seven decades which see a man and his outlook change over time along with changing world orders and philosophies of governance and even warfare. This can make the subject of Smuts extremely daunting, and even impossible – where do you start, Smuts the academic, the philosopher, the botanist, the lawyer, the author, the politician, the stateman, the peacemaker, the privy councillor and finally Smuts the miliary General?
It is with some relief that David Katz hones in on only one aspect, Smuts’ First World War, it gives him the opportunity to really challenge Smuts in one sector of his life, the outcome of which is a detailed account of this one facet which reaches completely new conclusions and views.
Rightly in establishing a view on Smuts’ Generalship in World War 1, Katz also looks at the root of Smuts’ abilities as a General, forged in the South African War (1899-1902) under General Koos de la Rey and General Louis Botha. Katz then examines the complexities and challenges facing Smuts in amalgamating Colonial British and Boer Forces into a unified fighting entity and the development of a distinctively South African ‘style’ of combat fighting, a manoeuvrability ‘style’ which even our modern-day defence force still holds as a central doctrine.
Katz also reviews the Maritz Rebellion of 1914 in its correct context, as an opening act of internal aggression in South Africa’s First World War and how it strategically and even morally affected the GSWA campaign. Also, refreshingly he focusses on the cause and effect of the revolt militarily speaking and is not guided by the political fallout and resultant bias in examining Smuts’ ability as a wartime General.
Smuts’ GEA campaign often comes in for a lot of criticism, and here Katz again applies a military mind and scours the primary source material in evaluating Smuts’ effectiveness as a General, reasoning that Smuts effectively attained his objectives, reduced casualties and delivered an Allied victory and didn’t chase General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck around aimlessly as has been suggested by past historians.
It’s a very long overdue re-assessment of Jan Smuts and his ability as a General. David Katz also wrote a book called ‘South Africans versus Rommel’ which covers Smuts in World War 2 to a degree, but we look forward to the next historical account which looks at Smuts and his Second World War 1939-1945 in its complete entity, as the next ‘bite sized’ chunk of this most extraordinary man.
In the end, the Afrikaner National Party and their opposition rhetoric aside, we may find that when it is all added together, Smuts’ 2nd Anglo-Boer War command, his First World War command, his Second World War Command, and Smuts’ net success in all three of these wars, his structure of South Africa’s defence force and doctrine, his pioneering work on structuring air-arms, air combat and air defences, his contribution as part of the British War Cabinet and the Imperial War Cabinet during World War 1 and then again in the King’s Privy Council and as Winston Churchill’s confidant and councillor during World War 2, and even his extensive role in Operation Overlord, all concluding with his role in the establishment of the United Nations, we may very well be looking at a Afrikaner farm boy with one of the greatest military minds of the 20th Century and beyond.
No small statement, you’ll find Jan Smuts’ fingerprints in just about every theatre of operations in the South African War (1899-1902), in the GSWA, GEA and Western Front theatres of World War 1 (1914-1918), and again in the East African, North African, Italy, Atlantic and European campaigns to conclude World War 2 (1939-1945) and in just about every major modern military development in between. Dr David Brock Katz’ book on Jan Smuts First World War (1914-1918) goes a long way to establishing a solid foundation on which to begin to challenge this conclusion or at the very least he gives Smuts a well-earned balanced perspective and insight.
The Observation Post 