Here is a rare and very unique display of South Africa’s very own Nazi Party’s shirts, flags and bunting. Of interest, is the use of Orange, Blue and White in the Nazi swastika configuration – this was intentionally done to reflect the national colours of the South African flag at the time, the ‘Oranje-blanje-blou’ (Orange, White and Blue).
These items belong to South Africa’s ‘Greyshirts’, read on for an in-depth chapter in South Africa’s hidden history, here we focus on the SANP – The South African Christian National Socialist Movement also referenced as the South African Gentile National Socialist Movement. More commonly they were also known at the time as the SANP – The South African National Party – ‘Gryshemde’ in Afrikaans and ‘Grey-shirts’ in English.
SANP bunting, flags, armbands and shirts, image courtesy Ulrich Duebe, the current owner of the collection.
South African statute forces had fought a hard war against Italian Fascism and German Nazism, and the same war had been fought on the ‘home-front’ in South Africa itself, as with the USA and the United Kingdom, South Africa also had its own National Socialist (Nazism) parties prior to the war (it had actually been a quite popular doctrine across many “Western” European states prior to the war). During the war the Smuts’ government took severe action against pro-Nazi South African movements on the Afrikaner right-wing political fringe – the SANP (the Grey-shirts), the South African Democratic National Movement – the ‘Black-shirts’, the National Workers Bond – the ‘Brown-shirts’, The ‘New Order’ and the Ossewabrandwag amongst others and jailed some of their leaders for the duration of the war.
Imagine the sheer frustration felt by the South African war veterans returning after winning ‘The War for Freedom’ (as Smuts had called WW2 at the time). This war had been fought with a massive cost in South African lives to rid the world of Nazism and Fascism in the “good fight” – only to come home in 1945 and within three short years in 1948 find South African ‘home grown’ pre-war Nazi and Neo Nazi politicians swept into government. The very men and their philosophy they had gone to war against in the first place. Many of these movement’s leaders and members were folded into National party after the war to one day become South Africa’s political elite (including a Ossawabrandwag General – BJ Vorster who became a future Prime Minister and State President of South Africa).
Louis Theodor Weichardt
One such South African politician was Louis Theodor Weichardt (21 May 1894 – 26 October 1985) and this is his relatively unknown story of South Africa’s very own Nazi Party, the largest and most significant of the Pro-Nazi South African ‘Shirt movements’ – the Grey-shirts .
Louis Theodor Weichardt
Louis Theodor Weichardt was born in Paarl of German extraction on the 23 May 1894, he attended German school in Pretoria and in New Hanover Natal. At the outbreak of World War 1 (1914-1918), Weichardt found himself in Germany. His military service to the German state is shrouded in a little mystery, some accounts point towards three years service in the German Army, others point to non-combatant service in a Labour Corps. As a South African national there is an account that he was arrested after the war for High Treason, however the charges were never brought.
In Germany Louis Weichardt became a rabid antisemite, in travelling Europe he recalled that in the Ottoman Empire that the Turks were being “bled to death by Jewish extortioners and money lenders” and in Germany he said he:
“had the privilege of witnessing the first beginnings of the national German uprising against Jewish domination”. 1
Returning to South Africa in 1923, Louis Weichardt joined Hertzog’s National Party, however he became increasingly disillusioned in the National Party as he was unable to bring fellow members to his vision of National Socialism – he blamed been “checkmated” in his endeavours by external influences he called “powerful financial interests, predominantly Jewish”. When Hertzog merged the National Party with Smuts’ United Party, which was seen as by the ‘pure’ nationalists as underpinned by ‘Anglo-Jewish Capital’ (Oppenheimer) – Weichardt took the opportunity to break away from the National Party altogether and start his own party.
In Cape Town, on 26 October 1933, he founded South Africa’s Nazi party equivalent – The South African Christian National Socialist Movement with a paramilitary ‘security’ or ‘body-guard’ section (modelled on Nazi Germany’s brown-shirted Sturmabteilung) called the ‘Gryshemde’ (Afrikaans) or Grey-shirts (English). In May 1934, it was agreed to combine the ‘Grey-shirts’ with the South African Christian National Socialist Movement and form a new enterprise called ‘The South African National Party’ (SANP) – not to be confused with the National Party. The SANP would all keep with the ‘grey-shirts’ as their dress.
Johannes Von Moltke at this time was Louis Weichardt’s right hand man, the leader of the SANP’s stronghold in the Eastern Cape (his SANP office in Port Elizabeth proudly flying a swastika flag outside it every day). Johannes Von Moltke was of 1820 settler and German heritage, born in Senekal in the OFS he became a firm Republican and Afrikaner Nationalist, working for the Afrikaner Pers Group and the ‘Die Burger’, he met Weichardt in October 1933 and the two decided to collaborate.
Louis Weichardt was very proficient in English and he intended the SANP to appeal to both ‘English’ and ‘Afrikaner’ whites – citing that they were both of “Nordic” races. Some English joined the organisation, but the backbone found itself in rural and ‘poor white’ Afrikaner communities. It must be noted here that Nazism appealed to many Afrikaners as Hitler took an “anti-British” stance and the legacy of the South African War (1899-1902) was still strong within Afrikaner communities by the 1930’s, many within living memory of it. However Nazism was no means the exclusive pursuit of Afrikaners in South Africa, the handful of ‘English’ that supported the SANP were vicious in their anti-Semitic leanings – as were the British fascists at the time, Oswald Mosley a case in point in England. This sentiment can be be seen in the University of Cape Town Law and SANP supporter – Professor Kerr Wylie, who said of Jews in a letter to University of Cape Town Principal Sir Carruthers Beattie:
“Everything point to the fact that the Jews’ game in South Africa is up, and, if they have any sense, they will realise the fact and try to effect compromise. But history shows that the greed for gold and lust for power is so engrained in the Jewish race that they will cling to their gold and power until it is too late”.2
As a movement the SANP also saw themselves as a ‘popular’ movement for National Socialism and initially did not contend by-elections and municipal elections as a political party – choosing instead to put forward their members as “independents” in elections. A future Grey-shirt breakaway called the ‘Black-shirts’ would however put party candidates forward which ironically caused issues for the ‘Pure’ National Party as the support or the Black-shirts split their vote.. Overall, Weichardt saw democracy as an outdated system and an invention of British imperialism and Jews.3
The SANP would eventually contest elections and Louis Weichardt would stand as a MP candidate in Port Elizabeth, he was not very successful and would later try another safer seat without success either – predictably he blamed his election losses on a Jewish conspiracy.
The SANP grew to about 4,000 members in South Africa (with their largest support base in the Eastern Cape – spurred by ‘poor white’ rural and urban issues in the area), central to their cause in the 1930’s where Jewish immigrants escaping Nazi Germany to South Africa, and their numbers were growing significantly over the decade – in response the SANP launched a campaign calling for an end to Jewish migration and even arranged mass protests in Cape Town. Their primary communication mouthpiece was a newspaper called ‘Die Waarheid/The truth’ which was nothing more than a vehicle to spread Nazi doctrine in South Africa – the Nazi emblem emblazoned on the masthead.
Louis Weichardt would spell out his ‘Nordic’ argument and vision in the ‘Die Waarheid/The truth’ and trace South Africa’s problems to one source – the Jews. He claimed Jewish ‘domination’ of the legal, medical, dental, commerce, trading, liquor trade etc. as between 60% to 100%, and he would write:
“We are determined to put the Jew in his place. We are not going to tolerate bootlicking, Gentile South Africans – English or Dutch speaking – are no longer prepared to play second fiddle to these aliens”.4
The main target of the SANP was Hertzog’s old National Party’s inspired Quota Act of 1930 which sought to curtail Jewish immigration. As far as the SANP was concerned the National Party had not gone far enough in their endeavours to clip Jewish immigration specifically. They proposed revoking South African citizenships granted to all Jews entering South Africa after 1918, the prevention of Jews gaining government jobs and the prevention of Jews from owning immovable property and dominating any particular industrial or trade sector. They would however support an immigration policy that brought in whites of ‘nordic’ (aryan) races that would assimilate with a white culture in South Africa sans the “insoluble” element of Jews.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The nature of the movement was clearly seen in March 1934 when the SANP held a rally in Aberdeen in the Eastern Cape, Harry Victor Inch – one of the Greyshirt leaders – announced that he had in his possession a ‘stolen’ document from a Port Elizabeth synagogue – signed by its Rabbi – which outlined a secret plot by the Jews to destroy the Christian religion and civilisation.
SANP propaganda leaflet accusing Jews of inciting Native (Black) violence against whites.
The Rabbi in question was not in fact a Rabbi, he was a Jewish Reverent, Reverent Abraham Levy, and he took the SANP Grey-shirt leadership in the Eastern Cape to court in Grahamstown in a landmark case. The SANP accused; Johannes von Strauss Moltke who was the Regional SANP leader, Harry Inch, who allegedly ‘stole’ the document and David Olivier, who had printed the document for circulation as the owner and publisher of “Rapport”, another media organ of the ‘shirt’ movements. All now have to account for themselves – the case billed as a mighty ‘Gentile vs. Jew’ showdown and a legal test of the ‘Great Jewish Conspiracy.’ `
The document in question followed the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a pamphlet of some 70 pages purporting to be the actual minutes of 24 speeches made by Jewish leaders during the First Zionist Congress in 1897. The pamphlet detailed a satanic plot by Jewish/Zionist conspirators to conquer the world. Alleging that Jews controlled much of the world’s finance, the media, the educational institutions, the court systems and many of the world’s governments, the Protocols claimed that the Jews indulged in all forms of trickery and deceit to tighten their hold. They deliberately spread diseases and immorality to weaken Gentiles, and did not hesitate to use murder and terrorism to destroy all religions except their own. Jews were striving to establish their own autocracy based on a false Messiah, the “Son of David”, and posed a fiendishly devious omnipresent peril to the rest of mankind.”5
‘Die Waarheid/The truth’ would pick up this ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ and really twist it for a South African audience claiming:
“the disastrous Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902 was deliberately brought about by the Jewish mine magnets who circumvented Rhodes and Kruger alike”.6
In addition, Jews were accused of inciting blacks against whites and controlling the economy, exploiting ordinary Afrikaners as part of an international Jewish conspiracy. The ‘Die Waarheid/The truth’ statements were accompanied by a propaganda leaflet printed by the SANP and distributed in Port Elizabeth.
Left to Right – standing outside the courthouse in Grahamstown in full SANP dress is Johannes von Strauss Moltke, Harry Inch and David Olivier.
The ‘stolen’ document was scrutinised legally, it was found to be based on an entirely discredited antisemitic ‘international Jewish conspiracy’ document called ‘the Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ and given a South African twist by the SANP. The ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ was a composition based on a 1860’s anti-Napoleon III pamphlet and a German antisemitic novel by Herman Gödshe ‘Biarritz’ – used by the Nazi Party in Germany.
In a carefully considered 30,000 word judgement, the court concluded inter alia;
“the protocols are an impudent forgery, obviously published for the purposes of anti-Jewish propaganda”.7
As a result three Greyshirt leaders all were fined, Harry Victor Inch was found guilty of perjury and forging documents defaming the Jewish race and swearing under oath that those documents were genuine – and fined £1,000, later also receiving a short prison sentence.8 David Hermanus Olivier was fined £25 for acting improperly and printing the document and Johannes von Moltke was fined £750 for “playing a leading role in the plot”.
The result has been widely hailed here as a complete vindication of the Jewish people and of Rev. Abraham Levy who brought the lawsuit against the Grey-shirt leaders.
Splits in the Shirts
Later that year, the SANP Grey-shirts would hold their first National Congress in Observatory, Cape Town. Louis Weichardt in his keynote address would dismiss Johannes von Moltke as a “traitor” to the SANP and no longer a member having “misbehaved” in releasing Harry Inch’s anti-Jewish protocols. In fact Johannes von Moltke had broken away from the SANP along with most of his the Eastern Cape SANP supporters and leaders and formed a new organisation called ‘The South African Fascists’ who wore blue trousers and grey shirts.
Other Nazi splinter parties and ‘shirt’ organisations also began to form – ‘The South African National Democratic Movement’ (Nasionale Demokratiese Beweging) which became known as ‘the Black-shirts’ was formed in Johannesburg by Manie Wessels and operated in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal – the Black-shirts themselves would splinter into another Black-shirt movement as an off-shoot called the South African National People’s Movement (Suid Afrikaanse Nasionale Volksbeweging) – based in Johannesburg, started by Chris Havemann and advanced a closer idea of National Socialism – this Blackshirt splinter group by 1937 boasted 265 branches (mainly in the Transvaal), their official mouthpiece was called “The Swastika”9.
The black-shirts by July 1939 were formally incorporated into the Ossewabrandwag focussing on the recruiting of ‘Christian minded National Aryans’ into the Ossewabrandwag infusing it with a “volkisch” Nationalism and took it beyond just being a cultural organ of Afrikanerdom and the National Party. 10
Another ‘Volksbeveging’ (People’s movement) also known as ‘African Gentile Organisation’ was also formed in Cape Town by H.S. Terblanche. The National Workers Union (Bond van Nasionale Werkers) – known as the Brown-shirts was established by Dr. A.J. Bruwer in Pretoria in September 1934. Finally a group called the ‘Orange-shirts’ under Frans Erasmus, who at that stage was the Secretary to the Federal Council of the National Party and the Minister of Parliament for Moorreesburg, Erasmus would go onto become the National Party’s Minister of Defence after 1948.11
In addition, the SANP leader J.H.H. de Waal resigned from the SANP over leadership issues with Weichardt and formed the The ‘Gentile Protection League’ whose sole aim was to:
De Waal’s organisation would focus on the Western Cape, he would also advance a Jewish store boycott in the southern Orange Free State where antisemitism was rife, he was a popular lawyer of political stock and he would eventually claim his organisation as 5,000 members strong. De Waal would comment in his memoir “My Ontwaking” (my awakening) and blame Jan Smuts for promoting the Jewish agenda in South Africa and call him “The King of the Jews”.13
An ‘insoluble’ element
So, where does the ‘purified or reunified’ National Party under Dr. D.F. Malan sit on the ‘Jewish’ question in the mid 1930’s and what influence do these Nazi ‘shirt’ organisations have on it?
Prior to the war and sitting in the wings of the Broederbond was Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd (the Architect of Apartheid), he was a predominant Broederbond member, National Party leader and would become a future Prime Minister of South Africa. Dutch by birth, he honed his studies in sociology and psychology in Germany and there is no doubt he was exposed to German politics and the rise of Nazism at the time. Verwoerd showed his colours early on when, the ‘Black shirts’ held a large rally and protested the arrival of the S.S. Stuttgart in Cape Town on the 27th October 1936 with 600 Jewish refugees on board.
S.S. Stuttgart in Cape Town
The Nationalists joined hands with the Black-shirts in support of their protest and a few days later on 4 November, Dr Theophilus E. Dönges (future NP Acting Prime Minister) and admirer of Nazism would nail the Nationalists colours to the mast and said:
“The Jew is an insoluble element in every national life.”
The Black-shirts were joined by Dr Verwoerd and five fellow professors from Stellenbosch University who all went in deputation to the government to protest against the immigration of Jews from Nazi Germany. Frans Erasmus (the future National Party Minister of Defence) would go further on the matter and even officially thank the Black-shirts on behalf of The National Party for bringing the attention of the;
“Jewish problem to the Afrikaner ‘volk’.”
Dr Verwoerd would forward the National Party’s views on Jews in the Transvaaler where he wrote that there was a “botsing van belange” (clash of interests) between Jew and Afrikaner because the Jew had risen to wealth in key economic sectors whilst protecting themselves as a community, and as guests in the country they had purposefully excluded the Afrikaner (he referenced as the ‘majority’) from taking their rightful place in accessing the country’s wealth. He would outline the Jew as an enemy of Afrikanerdom, he would write:
“This population group (the Jews), which still keeps itself separate and apart within the population, and which is indifferent or even hostile to the national aspirations of Afrikanerdom, is thus regarded as the group which also stands in the way of the Afrikaner’s economic prosperity”.14
Dr. D.F. Malan, the National Party leader would go further and refer to the Jews as a:
“undigested and unabsorbed and unabsorbable minority … that leads to all sorts of difficulties”15
D.F. Malan would however try and sanitise the The National Party to the Jewish Community, but as they were a firmly “Christian” movement in terms of constitution his words carried little weight to the South African Jewish Council who saw the National Party for what it was. The National Party would openly lock-step with the “shirt” movements when it came to demonising Jews and Jewish Capital in the form of “Hoggenheimer” in their mouthpieces “The Transvaaler” (of which Verwoerd was the editor) and “Die Burger” (of which Dr. Malan was a founding editor).
‘Hoggenheimer’ would become a cartoon in the same vein as “the banker” – a Nazi demonisation of Capitalist Jews and ‘the Jewish Conspiracy’ – depicted as fat, cigar smoking, balding and greedy – either pulling the strings or holding onto the money bag . The work of D.C. Boonzaier his caricature was developed specifically for Die Burger – a derogatory figure designed to depict a fat and bloated Jewish capitalist with a play on ‘hog” or pig, the character made a number of appearances and also served to lampoon Ernest Oppenheimer, the German Jewish Mining Industrialist who made South Africa his home. The Nationalists would even go as far as referring to Oppenheimer and Jewish Capital openly in Parliament and in speeches as “Hoggenheimer”.
Hoggenheimer by D.C. Boonzaier – Die Burger
It is undeniable that these “shirt” and antisemite fringe effectively “succeeded in shifting the ‘Jewish Question’ from the political margins of South African public life to its centre” … “Malan, under pressure from the ultra-right Greyshirts, focussed increasingly on the Jew as an explanation for the Afrikaners political misfortunes. It was Hendrik Verwoerd, however, who stood at the vanguard of anti-Jewish agitation”16
This sentiment would be taken up broadly across the Afrikaner Nationalist front – an example is the Nationalist MP for Bethlehem – Roelof van der Merwe, who on a call to boycott Nazi German goods, would warn the Jews:
“They (the Jews) are exploiting our people (the Afrikaners) and are nothing more than parasites.”17
World War 2 Nazi collaboration
During the Second World War, Louis Weichardt would even work in conjunction with the Ossewabrandwag to aid Nazi Germany’s war effort. He would take two Nazi spies under his wing, spies been smuggled by the Ossewabrandwag – the German spies Lothar Sitting and Nils Pashe would present themselves at a house in Stellenbosch and meet Weichardt – he would ensure they be driven and hidden by SANP men on a farm near Barrydale for two days after which one SANP man took them to Pretoria and back into the Ossewabrandwag’s network on 13 June 1940.18
Weichardt was arrested and imprisoned for the remainder of World War II at Koffiefontein detention barracks by the Smuts’ government as an ‘enemy of the state’ – along with all the other far right pro Nazi Germany, anti-British militants.
Merging of interests
With the end of the Nazi regime in Germany in 1945, Nazism became an anathema worldwide, Weichardt subsequently disbanded his SANP Nazi party in 1948. Moving on, Weichardt then gave his full attention and allegiance to D.F. Malan and the ‘Reunited’ National Party (NP) itself. He had a very successful political career with the National Party and went on to become the National Party’s senator from Natal Province from 1956 to 1970. Remaining elements of the Greyshirts distanced themselves from open Nazism and renamed themselves the White Workers Party in 1949. However, by this time most of the membership had been lost to the National Party and so the ‘Greyshirts’ and their reconstituted party faded .
By the early 1950’s the South African National Party government was littered with men, who, prior to the war where strongly sympathetic to the Nazi cause and had actually declared themselves full-blown National Socialists along Nazi political doctrine lines: Men like, B.J. Vorster – Broederdond, Ossewabrandwag – OB – ‘General’ and future NP Prime Minister and President of South Africa, Oswald Pirow – Founder of the New Order – NP Cabinet Minister and future National Prosecutor, Hendrik van den Bergh – Ossewabrandwag – future NP head of State Security, P.O. Sauer – Ossewabrandwag ‘General’ – now NP Cabinet Minister, Frans Erasmus – Ossewabrandwag ‘General’, founder of the ‘Orange Shirts’ – now NP Cabinet Minister, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd – Broederbond and future Prime Minister, C.R. Swart – Ossewabranwag member – future NP State President, P.W. Botha – Broederbond, Ossewabrandwag member – and future President of South Africa, Eric Louw Ossewabrandwag – future NP Cabinet Minister, Dr Nico Diedericks – Broederbond and future NP State President, Jaap Marais – Ossewabrandwag – now NP Cabinet Minister and future co-founder of the ultra-right Herstigte Nasionale Party, Dr Albert Hertzog – now a NP minister and future co-founder of the ultra-right Herstigte Nasionale Party, Piet Meyer – Broederbond, Ossewabrandwag and future head of SABC … to name just a few, and there is no doubt that their brand of far right politics, known collectively as Christian Nationalism (a form of Nazism) was influencing the National Party’s government policy.
By the early to mid 1950’s, this state of affairs led to open Anti-Apartheid protests from the South African military veterans community returning from WW2 – in their hundreds of thousands – in all The Torch Commando would rise to 250,000 members openly protesting the on-set of Nazism in the guise of the National Party, and it also ultimately led to the marginalisation of South African World War 2 veterans and their veteran associations by the ruling party when it was crushed under anti-communist legislation put forward in 1950 by the National Party.
The folding in of key National Socialist organisations, including Louis Weichardt and his SANP, Johannes von Moltke and his South African Fascists into the National Party’s political sphere would have a resounding impact on the future of not only the majority of ‘Black’ South Africans (who were viewed as ‘Inferior’ peoples by these hard liners), but also minority white ethnic groups like South Africa’s very large Jewish community.
The arrogance of this underpinning politics is seen with Louis Weichardt himself, who, on becoming an elected National Party Parliamentarian quickly covered up his dubious history as a full blown card carrying Nazi, and rather infamously declared that he had never been against the ‘Jewish race’ but only against the actions of certain ‘Jewish communists’. Not a single Jew, in his ‘opinion’ had suffered through his actions.19
Johannes Von Moltke the ex SANP and ex SA Fascist leader also later became a National Party Member of Parliament and the National Party’s leader in South West Africa and exhibited the same arrogance, gaslighting and covering up of his antisemitic tracks and blame his old grey-shirt colleague instead. “The (UP) Jewish Minister of Parliament, Morris Kentridge, once recalled with some amusement that Von Moltke frequently buttonholed him in the lobby of the House of Assembly to explain that he had been misled by Inch (his fellow Grey-shirt collaborator) and was a great friend of the State of Israel!”20
Researched and written by Peter Dickens.
My thanks and acknowledgements to Ulrich Duebe, the current owner of the collection as illustrated.
References:
“Echoes of David Irving – The Greyshirt Trial of 1934” by Dr. David M. Scher – December 2004.
A Perfect Storm – Antisemitism in South Africa 1930-1940, Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2015 – By Milton Shain.
National Socialism and Nazism in South Africa: The case of L.T. Weichardt and his Greyshirt movements, 1933-1946: By Werner Bouwer.
Hendrik Verwoerd’s ‘possible solution’ to the Jewish Question in South Africa, 1937 – Die Transvaler, 1 October 1937.
“Hitler’s Spies: Secret Agents and the Intelligence War in South Africa 1939-1945” by Every Kleynhans – Jonathan Ball Publishers 2021
The Rise of the South African Reich by Brian Bunting.
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
So, I’m reading a published Doctorate on the South Africa War (1899-1902) a.k.a Boer War 2 from the University of Pretoria by Anne-Marie Gray. It was quoted as a reference to my War is Cruelty article by a subscriber trying to prove I had a “bias”, so I’m reading it. Here’s the kicker, it just proved again to me the tremendous Afrikaner Nationalist bias Afrikaner academics have been putting through their work on the Boer War. It’s something that the University of Pretoria has been very guilty of in the past and it’s something they still continue to do – they just seem unable to shake it sometimes, even if the don’t intend to in 2024 it still comes through.
I’ve yet to see where my bias exists in a work like ‘war is cruelty’ as I strove for balance – someone has yet to empirically or even theoretically show it. However I will show empirically how a bias is applied in the link sent to the Observation Post, its Anne-Marie Gray’s work from the University of Pretoria, completed in 2004 for a Doctorate in Music, it covers the impact the Boer war has on Afrikaner music – here’s the link https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/28462/03chapter3.pdf.
This particular bias starts with the use of opposition Minister’s of Parliament (MP) quotes, writings and opinions as a “fait accompli” of the British attitude to the war, the way the way is persecuted and to the British government who they finger out as proven “warmongers”. These opposition MP’s “quotes” are even used to ground entire books and historical treatise as proof of genocide and barbarity, they become the backbone of the argument put forward by Afrikaner historians, academics and authors and by default openly demonstrating a extreme cultural and identity bias. Not only authors and academics, its even seen countless times by Boer War ‘Afrikaner’ enthusiasts on posting on social media pages in addition.
The worse case in point of this is even titling books using an opposition MP’s statement such as “Methods of Barbarism” as was done by Professor Burridge Spies (S.B.) for his book. Now this statement was made by the Liberal politician Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman when openly condemned what he called “methods of barbarism” in the concentration camps. The problem lies with Campbell-Bannerman’s political affiliation, Henry Campbell-Bannerman is a “Whig” and a “Radical Reformer” – later a devout “Socialist” – he’s a Liberal Party leader who steered in the concepts of socialism and the welfare state. His eventual Prime Ministership is marred by failure after failure, as he – like the labourites and liberals who all come after him quickly find out – radical socialism and political pontificating on ’reforms’ – criticising operating sitting and elected governments left and right – seldom translate into sound social and economic reform.
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Now, like any ‘hard left’ opposition MP, Henry Campbell-Bannerman is prone to the dramatic, and he’s highly critical of the government’s policies – from economics, to spend, to welfare, to war … he is the eternal opposition bencher, like Jeremy Corbyn or Michael Foot after him, bounding out inflammatory and politically charged statements to try and make the governing party look bad. That’s his job – no opposition MP ever intends to make a Tory (conservative) government policy look good, they are in disagreement even if they agree.
To use a statement in 1901 by Liberal opposition leader like Henry Campbell-Bannerman in a Boer War context – “methods of barbarism” to then “prove” British complicity in waging genocide is like using a statement by the Labour opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2021 when he said “Britain had hostile intent” against ordinary Afghans – to then “prove” Britain complicity in murderous warmongering in Afghanistan on the back of the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
You can’t build entire proven’ academic argument on what opposition MP’s say, this is like using a statement by Julias Malema to prove undeniably that all Black people hate all White people. But unfortunately academics do it. Here’s an example from Anne-Marie Gray’s doctorate:
“This is confirmed by Thomas Pakenham (1982:495) when he says that Kitchener is not remembered in South Africa for his military victory but “his monument is the camp – ‘concentration camp’, … [which] has left a gigantic scar across the minds of the Afrikaners; a symbol of deliberate genocide.”
She goes on to another example:
“James Ramsay MacDonald, afterwards Prime Minister of Great Britain and a devout Scotsman, echoed Packenham’s sentiments. He (cited in Fisher 1969:204) stated: “It was the vrouw who kept the war going on so long. It was in her heart that patriotism flamed into an all-consuming heat … She it is who feels most keenly that all her sufferings, her weary waiting and her prayers have been naught. The camps have alienated her from us forever.”
OK, two things about these statements:
On the first statement, Thomas Pakenham is a devout Irish Republican, his book “Boer War” has been torn to shreds by latter day historians because of an inherent bias, he’s also a travel writer and not a qualified historian when he writes his “Boer War” and it shows – and this is another case in point on Pakenham’s bias (see my review: Un-Packing Pakenham).
Pakenham’s statement that Kitchener committed “deliberate genocide” in the white Boer camps is unproven – even today. No case of genocide has been proven when the victims all died of a measles epidemic, followed by a typhoid epidemic. Genocide by ‘virus” has yet to be challenged. Certainly not by the 1899 Hauge Conventions which governed warfare then. That Pakenham’s “opinion” is held up as a truth is sloppy academics at best. To see far better and far more balanced work on the white Boer concentration camps see Dr Elizabeth van Heyningen works – which come on the back of a full-blown investigation into the Concentration Camps by a combined University of Cape Town and University of Warwick team and they still could not hold up a criminal case of “genocide”.
The National Party in South Africa sat in the pound seats for over 60 years, with all the budgets and resources at hand, and not one case, not one commission, not one ‘think tank’ could “prove” a case of genocide against the British and Kitchener – think about that.
The statement that Kitchener is remembered only for the concentration camps’ is also speculation, it’s a ‘half truth’ at best – maybe in Afrikaans communities, but certainly not in English ones. Lord Kitchener goes onto to be the face for British recruitment during WW1, such is his positive association and regard during this period in his homeland. Not only then, even now, his statue stands at Horse Guards on hallowed ground reserved for Britain’s national military heroes. The truth is the British today could care not a jot what Kitchener did in South Africa, far bigger events in their history have subsequently taken place.
On the second statement, Pakenham’s opinions aside, Anne-Marie Gray then goes on try and justify Pakenham and gives academic substantiation to Pakenham’s statement by quoting James Ramsay MacDonald and giving him gravitas as a ‘Prime Minister’. But we have another problem here, and a big one at that.
Like Henry Campbell-Bannerman, James Ramsay MacDonald is an ‘opposition’ MP – and he’s even more radically left than Campbell-Bannerman, he’s the country’s first “Labour” Prime Minister, a socialist trade unionist at heart. He not only resisted Britain’s involvement in South Africa, he was, like his current protégé, Jeremy Corbyn, an avid anti-war campaigner and went to criticise Britain for its involvement in World War 1 in addition. He led minority governments and his active “pacifism” led Churchill to accuse him of not recognising the Nazi German threat. He openly supported Nazi Germany’s stance to teach the French “a severe lesson” for what they did to Germany after WW1. Heck, his golf club even expelled him because of his radical and “pacifist views” and bringing the club into disrepute.
James Ramsay MacDonald
Clement Attlee, his colleague and another very famous Labourite Prime Minister even accused James Ramsay MacDonald of being a turncoat to the Labour cause and one of the “guilty men” who failed to prepare Britain for war against Hitler.
Straw man arguments
And that’s the problem with just about any thesis or book coming from Afrikaans academics, authors or commentators. It’s not just these quotes, I could go into entire Doctorates from the University of Pretoria and easily start picking them apart – quote by quote. I’m not sure if they really understand the historical figures they quote and simply relying on the secondary sources to have the understanding in the first place and then quoting them – but whichever way we cut it the over-seeing Professors should have spotted these issues – so I do believe its a confirmation bias which just sees it slip away.
It just shows that many Pro-Boer Afrikaner commentators simply do not understand British parliamentary politics, British partisan press or even British political process and the concepts of a “robust” house – I guess it’s like trying to understand “British humour” – unless you’re ‘British’ you’re not going to get it. Some even turn to academic works completed in the 80’s and then provide ’straw-man’ arguments because they cannot find quotes from the actual key players of the time to justify their argument – instead they seek them out from partisan and highly flawed historical figures – easily discredited … “straw men” in effect.
This is not to say that Thomas Pakenham or Anne-Marie Gray or Professor Burridge Spies or even his understudy Professor Fransjohan Pretorius from the University of Pretoria are all completely hopeless and their doctorates and books are not worth the paper they are written on. That would be an entirely incorrect statement, there is much merit in their work and much argument – but there is also much political bias, confirmation bias and cultural misunderstanding.
There is also much misinterpretation of British politics and British press. P. J. O’Rourke referenced Westminster styled Parliaments as “a Parliament of whores” and its a good description of them – the Westminster Commons is a theatre, the politics dramatic, floral and verbose .. in fact its great entertainment and much is said in jest or dramatised for political one-upmanship – to then use this to ground academic work is fraught with issues.
A Partisan press
Fraught with significant issues is also using British press for academic argument, what most don’t understand in South Africa, is the concept of “free press” is different in the United Kingdom than it is in South Africa. In the UK it is traditional for newspapers to declare their political affiliations and put their efforts behind this or that political party – the idea being that readers go out and buy the Daily Telegraph (Tory), the Daily Mirror (Labour) and the Independent (Liberal) – read them all and then make their own minds up. So, in Britain journalists are openly partisan and politically motivated. Then there is the “tabloid” press – which is just sensationalist trash requiring no credible sources whatsoever – then and now – mere ‘entertainment’ only. Here again South African academics made an error quoting British “correspondents” during the Boer War and here’s a good example in Anne-Marie Gray’s doctorate where she says:
“According to Hanekom and Wessels (2000:17), “de Wet can truly be described as the father of mobile warfare in South Africa.” A British correspondent wrote that de Wet’s operations would in future be studied and copied and form the subject matter of studies at every military institution. He stated that “his [de Wet’s] name will be handed down to posterity as a great exponent of partisan warfare” (FAD A296).”
Now – there are a number of problems with this statement. A “British Correspondent’s” view on de Wet is a view to sell sensationalist news using romanticised copy. It’s politically partisan and commercially driven depending on which newspaper he’s writing for and selling … “romanticising” de Wet as the “Boer Pimpernel” in British media was common – in the same way British media romanticised Winston Churchill’s escape as he “forged the mighty Apies River”. That Christiaan de Wet would go down in history as the greatest guerrilla fighter is just pure sensationalist rubbish. That he is the subject of required study at military academies is also pure rubbish.
It’s all rubbish as there is a very big problem with General Christiaan de Wet, his legacy is somewhat compromised by the old National Party and their sponsored and related ‘cultural’ organs – as he’s built into a ‘Volksheld” (people’s hero) and given a divine and almost unassailable aura. From a military history and military doctrine perspective he is in fact the very last person anyone should study.
Militarily speaking, General Christiaan de Wet has a great grasp of tactical warfare, but he is highly compromised on the operational level and he’s completely hopeless on a strategic level. His campaigns are fraught with command and control errors – he is unable to link up with Cronje at Paadeburg – resulting in the first mass capitulation of Boer arms, he then leads the remaining Free State Boer Army into a poor defensive position at the Brandwater basin, abandons his command as the British close in on him and his forces and leaves a squabbling and misdirected bunch of his subordinates to surrender in the second mass capitulation of Boer arms – Surrender Hill marks the end of any hope the Boers can win the war. His insistence on laying siege to the strategically irrelevant town of Wepener is an irresponsible diversion of key resources to a worthless military target. His guerrilla invasion into the Cape Colony is an unmitigated disaster as he signals his intentions to the British, who shadow his column and chew it up – resulting in the loss of all his key logistics as he scarpers back over the Orange River with a smattering of his remaining forces and back into the Orange Free State and friendlier territory.
Even de Wet’s greatest “success” – Sanna’s Post is a Operational and Strategic failure as he is unable to effectively cut all the water supply to the British as was his stated operational objective, he does cause harm though, the resultant intermittent water supply causes significant issues as to waterborne diseases and British soldiers encamped in Bloemfontein suffer, many die, but it also leads to the unfortunate deaths of many Boer Woman and Children in the Bloemfontein concentration camp (one of the largest camps) to the same epidemics – a very tragic “own-goal”. In reality, the only effective thing de-Wet is really able to do very well is tactically evade his “hunt” and for that he is romanticised.
If you are in any doubt about the above statement, the next bit seals it. After the Boer War ends in 1902, General Christiaan de Wet joins the Boer Revolt in 1914, here he campaigns with inadequate resources and outdated doctrine – the revolt is poorly planned, poorly supported and poorly executed and he’s soundly beaten by South African Union Defence force under the command of General Jan Smuts and General Louis Botha in a matter of months, his “hunt” catches him in quick time – his old “bittereinder” guerrilla fighting colleagues showing him up as a completely inadequate guerrilla fighter. Refer my article on it Boer War 3 and beyond!
Using the secondary data source of Hanekom and Wessels to state that “de Wet can truly be described as the father of mobile warfare in South Africa” is completely unsubstantiated militarily speaking, sheer jibber-jabber and it’s completely untrue – all Anne-Marie Gray is doing is unwittingly perpetuating an Afrikaner Nationalist myth – now we can’t all together blame her as she’s not a military scientist, she’s after a degree in music, but her oversight should have pointed it out to her – problem is that her oversight is enamoured with the same bias.
In Conclusion
I am not saying that all Afrikaner academics are compromised by bias what I am saying is that holding up someones work which is clearly biased to try an dispel a “bias” in my work is very counter intuitive – it says more about the problems underpinning people’s perceptions of the Boer War – one were the entire narrative was re-written during the Apartheid period by the protagonists of white Afrikaner Nationalism, and it shows – as Afrikaner National Identity is fused into this history in such a way that it becomes a real challenge to dispel mistruths as it starts to bring people’s “identity” into question and they start to shift around uneasily and lash out at the person and not the subject. But if we are to be true to being good historians and tell an unbiased story, dispelling with these myths and ingrained “nationalism” becomes vital.
So, what do Charles Darwin, John Milton and Jan Smuts have in common? A lot it seems, and as I’m heading back into academia this year I am reminded that South Africa has produced some great men in the academic field. There is however one South African who stands head and shoulders above everyone else in terms of academic excellence, and we’ve not produced a South African since that even comes close to him.
That man is Jan Christian Smuts, a simple Afrikaner farm boy from Riebeeck-West – who, under the social construct of his time, as the younger sibling, wasn’t even supposed to go to school, the passing of his older brother giving him the sliver of an opportunity of a education and so he started late – aged 12. In just 4 years he completed all his schooling and landed up at Victoria College, now Stellenbosch University, studying law (he also joined the College’s military detachment for his first taste of military training – not a lot of people know that).
And what an education! Eventually getting a scholarship to the University of Cambridge at Christ’s College, which would eventually see him in later life as the University’s first “foreign” Chancellor in its 800 year odd history. Smut’s legal mind was something else, he took both parts of the Law Tripos in the same year and was placed first in each with distinction.
His intellect was unsurpassed, to pass an exam at Cambridge he learnt Greek (fluently) in just 6 days. His wife was no intellectual slouch either, later in life Jan Smuts and his wife Issie “Ouma” Smuts used to tease one another when one would recite a Bible verse and the other would be expected to recite the following one, from memory, in Greek!
Professor Frederic Maitland (the father of Modern English Legal History) described Jan Smuts as:
“the most brilliant student I have ever met”.
Smut’s academic brilliance did not stop at the classics and law, it even extended into science, Albert Einstein counted Smuts as one of approximately ten people that truly understood his theory of relativity.
Smuts is also the first internationally regarded South African Psychologist – whilst an undergraduate at Cambridge University, he produced a manuscript in 1895 in which he analysed the personality of the famous American poet Walt Whitman.
Smuts believed that the holistic tendency of the personality would be studied best through personology – which brings us onto his philosophy of Holism.
In writing his own philosophy “holism” Smuts was accredited as a philosopher in his own right as his work held up to peer review. Holism looked into the studies of cyclical pattens in nature that are dependent for survival on other cyclical pattens – like one culture is dependent on another (all the parts making up the whole that is society).
Holism can be defined as “the fundamental factor operative towards the creation of wholes in the universe” and was published in 1926. For Smuts it formed the grounding behind his concepts of the League of Nations and United Nations.
Although Smuts’s concept of holism is grounded in the natural sciences, Smuts claimed that it has a relevance in philosophy, ethics, sociology, and psychology. He even argued that the concept of holism is:
“grounded in evolution and is also an ideal that guides human development and one’s level of personality actualisation.”
The principal of Christ’s College, Sir Alexander R. Todd (who won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry) had the following to say about Smuts:
“…in 500 years of the College’s history, of all its members, past and present, three had been truly outstanding: John Milton, Charles Darwin and Jan Smuts.”
Now, nobody has said that of any other South African, not even Mandela. Think about that statement for a second – Smuts on the same level as Darwin and Milton, men who shaped the understanding of the human condition.
After Smuts’s death on the 11th September 1950, Sir Winston Churchill wrote to Issie Smuts and said:
“There must be comfort in the proofs of admiration and gratitude that have been evoked all over the world for a warrior-statesman and philosopher who was probably more fitted to guide struggling and blundering humanity through its suffering and perils than anyone who ever lived in any country during his epoch.”
None of Smuts’ detractors – even the ones with Doctorates like Malan and Verwoerd came close to Smuts as an academic – not one of them receiving any high degree of international peer recognition – not then and not even now. Now we have Provincial Premier’s ghost writing their masters thesis in a government completely devoid of any thought.
As Doctorates go, Dr. Smuts earned more Doctorates than you shake a stick at, no other academic in South Africa comes close. He obtained a Doctorates in Civil Law (D.C.L.) from Durham and Oxford Universities. He obtained a Doctorate in Literature (D. Litt.) from the University of Pretoria. He obtained Doctorates in Science from the University of Cape Town and the University of London. He obtained Doctorates in Law (LL.D.) from the following Universities: Baltimore, Cambridge, Cape Town, Cardiff, Columbia (New York), Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leyden, Manchester, Montreal, St. Andrew’s, Sheffield, University of South Africa, Utrecht and Wales. Finally, he obtained Doctorates in Philosophy (Ph.D.) from Athens University, University of California and Stellenbosch University.
He even became the Chancellor of Cambridge University, the Chancellor of the University of Cape Town and the Rector of St. Andrew’s University in Scotland.
But for all the Doctorates in the world, Smuts would not refer to himself as a Doctor of anything, he even disliked being called a “Field Marshal” preferring to be simply referred to as “General” – a rank he obtained as a young man fighting for the Boer Republics in the South African War (1899-1902).
For all Smuts achieved, Jan Smuts would be vilified by a small group of far right Afrikaner nationalists his entire life, they would revert to belittling his intellect and academic achievements as been above his “ordinary Volk” and out of touch. On achieving acts of Union between English and Afrikaner they would paint him as somehow “British” and call him “slim Jannie” (clever little Jan) a term he personally hated.
Leif Egeland would summarise this perfectly when he said:
“Yet the great paradox of (Smuts’) life was that it is precisely because Smuts was a Afrikaner and a Boer soldier that he built up such a formidable reputation world-wide. On his many visits abroad and in his personal life, he kept the image of the Boer general, ‘one of the most romantic and bravest figures in history’. Whilst many of his countrymen described him for being an Englishman at heart, in Britain and around the world ‘General Smuts’ was respected and revered for being a true and patriotic Afrikaner – the finest example of his tribe”.
As South Africans have a wonderful story in Smuts, and what we have a character of force – a polyglot, philosopher, botanist, intellectual, lawyer, academic, politician, statesmen, reformer and warrior – a story and a man who is best summed up by Alan Paton who said:
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
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.
I’ve just finished reading Thomas Pakenham’s ‘The Boer War’ … AGAIN, this is my 7th time. Pakenham was the first book I read on the Boer War in the early 80’s and it has been my go-to, it’s easy and it reads like a novel, section 1 sets up a ‘gold-bug’ conspiracy complete with political intrigue, and it becomes a page turner after that.
As I’ve matured as a history lover and commentator, and even lately mapping out my own historical papers for academic scrutiny, I’ve become more astute on challenging material. I’ve learned that the closer you are to archive material and source documents the better – and this is where references and sources become critical to history books.
Doing ‘history’ on a 19th Century topic in the 21st Century is interesting, as in between there are all the 20th Century historians – and sometimes what they have penned as ‘truism’ seems to hold and is simply taken by the 21st Century historian chaps as a grounded fact and then they expounded and expanded on it without really challenging its origins, and whole historical misunderstandings are easily created.
The interesting bit is when you hit an archive and discover the 20th Century historian has not grounded the fact properly, and what has come after him is pure hyperbole – and that unfortunately is the case with Pakenham … and here’s how.
The Boer War and Race
One of the most relevant issues and topics when looking at the South African War 1899 -1902 a.k.a. Boer War 2, in the 21st Century is the topic of ‘race’ and the related topics of ‘franchise’ and ’emancipation’. To really understand how ‘race’ is viewed and acted upon in the war within the context of its time and then what role subsequent historians and commentators during the Apartheid period took to dismiss it from the narrative or side-line it as irrelevant in what has been essentially pitched as ‘white man’s war’ between two ‘white’ antagonists – the black man is a but a part player merely along for the ride.
Even in ‘white’ communities in modern South Africa today, the ‘Boer War’ is a war from which the ‘Black’ man is excluded at the beginning and excluded at the end. They sincerely believe that. So much so, that academic attempts to re-brand the war on its official name “The South African War (1899-1902)” to incorporate the full scope and all the belligerents (black and white – British, Boer, Tswana, Swazi etc.) – still goes completely unnoticed in ‘white’ Afrikaans communities especially – and they still call it the “2nd War for Independence” (whose independence was at stake is anyone’s guess) or the “Anglo-Boer War” (Brits and Boers only thanks).
This perception starts to really take shape with historians writing on the Boer War during Apartheid, and here Pakenham in section one of his ’The Boer War’ book sets it up perfectly. From the get-go, as the good travel writer and journalist he is (he was not a qualified historian and the “The Boer War” by T Pakenham is his first real attempt at a history book), Pakenham decides on who is a villain and who is a hero, like any good novel – very important if you’re going to set up a ‘page-turner’ and reinvigorate a tired old boring subject with some flare and creative license.
Creating a Villain
Been an Irish Republican himself, Pakenham is almost predisposed to vilifying British Imperialists. To build Alfred Milner as his villain, Pakenham uses two key meetings – one meeting with Joseph Chamberlain on 22nd November 1898 where Milner gets ‘his orders’ so to speak and one meeting with Percy Fitzpatrick from the Reform Committee (the Uitlanders) on the 31st March 1899 where he gives the ‘Uitlanders’ some advice to how to advance their cause and declares his own commitment to their cause. Seems legit right? Let’s focus on each and see how Pakenham ‘interpreted’ these meetings.
On the meeting in London with Chamberlain – Milner outlines that a “crisis” is developing over the Uitlander franchise as Kruger is simply unbending and is showing no signs of compromising. Chamberlain is of the opinion that “time” will resolve the crisis, leave Kruger to his unreasonable demands and simple democracy, civil pressure and process will see in inevitable change (in other words give Kruger enough rope and he’ll eventually hang himself). To quote, Chamberlain tells Milner to do two things 1. That a peaceful settlement is the only settlement the “British Public” i.e. Parliament will accept and 2. Keep things moving “forrarder” in South Africa (old English – ‘Forrarder’ means ‘forward’).
Joseph Chamberlain (left) and Alfred Milner (right)
Milner also agrees with Chamberlain that he will “screw” Kruger – now before you jump to a 21st Century conclusion, “screw” in Victorian times comes from word used to describe a prison official and the ‘screw’ was a pressure machine prisoners aimlessly turned as a punitive measure – to ‘screw’ means to “increase pressure” on Kruger politically (and not to “screw” him out of his country as would be a ‘literal’ 21st century translation and one that it is so often misquoted by Afrikaner Boer War enthusiasts).
Those are Milner’s orders – from his boss. Straightforward enough.
In a modern context Chamberlain is telling his civil servant in the colonial office in South Africa to conclude an acceptable peace without using violence and keep up the good work, keep going and keep pushing.
But this is not Pakenham’s’ take on the meeting at all, Pakenham sets up the meeting as Milner intentions on artificially ‘working up a crises’ to urge Chamberlain to agree a pathway to war – that no such ‘pathway’ is even mentioned nor is one discussed matter not a jot to Pakenham. Thomas Pakenham then uses the phase of “moving things ‘forrander’ locally” and declares it a “hint” to Milner to continue with an aggressive ‘forward’ policy to annex the Transvaal Republic. That there is absolutely nothing backing Pakenham up in his assertion that Chamberlain is “hinting” to Milner to continue creating conditions for a war and the annexation of a Republic does not deter Pakenham at all – with no proof whatsoever he keeps up his vilification of Milner (and Chamberlain). It gets worse.
The meeting between Percy Fitzpatrick and Alfred Milner is Pakenham’s next focus. So, what happens here? – Fitzpatrick as a Reform Committee leader (and Uitlander in the Transvaal) meets with Milner to put the case of the Uitlanders, to outline their beef with Kruger as a crisis and put their franchise issue front forward.
Percy Fitzpatrick (left) and Alfred Milner (right)
Milner sympathises with Fitzpatrick and says his “heart and soul” are with the miners and their predicament. He indicates to Fitzpatrick that their case is not strong enough with the British public, and this is borne out by Parliament (and by default Chamberlain) who are unmoved – he suggests the next step is for the Uitlanders to strengthen their case to the ‘British Public” is a concerted focus on British “media” (the very partisan British press) – he however distances himself personally from involvement in this media campaign and indicates the Uitlanders have to go it alone (as he does not want to be seen as partisan and he’s toeing the line his ‘boss’ Chamberlain is demanding of him).
That’s it – in modern context, he sympathises with their cause, and he suggests they tighten up their PR and do a media blitz to strengthen their case, only he cannot be seen to be partisan to such a media campaign – Straightforward enough.
But that’s not Pakenham’s take, instead Pakenham sees this as collusion, purposefully building a crisis for the purposes of strengthening a case for war. He concludes that Milner’s avoiding of the proposed media campaign as duplicitous behaviour – covering his tracks as he’s breaking with his Boss’ instructions and fanning a war, and Pakenham does this again with absolutely no grounded fact whatsoever. It gets even worse.
Pakenham concludes all this with, and I’ll quote Pakenham directly.
“His (Milner’s) plan was to annex the Transvaal. He would rule it as a crown colony much as his old chief, Cromer, ruled Egypt”.
Pakenham goes on and states
“these were the dreams of Milner’s life and he saw no reason to abandon them because of one obstinate (and obsolete) old man in South Africa (editor – implying Kruger). But how to prevent Chamberlain “wobbling” and ruining everything by compromise? A delicate plan, whose object had to be kept as secret from Chamberlain as from Kruger, was taking shape in Milner’s mind.”
Wow! I mean … wow … a plan for annexation, a secret conspiracy, dreams of grandeur – a Napoleon in the guise of a British bureaucrat and who knew? …Where did Pakenham get all this information from? There must be a source, a reference of some kind, Milner must have betrayed his thoughts to a friend in a letter or similar, he’s drafted an annexation plan surely … and luckily there is a reference, Pakenham’s given it all a notation – number “25”.
Now I want to see this – it’s the entire crux of Pakenham’s argument, it’s the moment of truth, so over to No. 25 under Chapter 6 and it reads … “The evidence that Milner wanted a war is circumstantial.” Huh! … say what! There is no evidence – it’s all circumstantial – and this ‘truth’ is hidden in a notation at the back of the book! What’s going on?
Telling Porkies
In London cockney rhyming slang if you “tell a pork pie” it’s a “lie”. Telling ‘Porkies’ is to shield or be ‘sparing’ with the truth. One clear way of telling a porkie is to tell a ‘half-truth’ its sounds legit enough and has enough gravitas on which you can base an entire argument.
When it comes to Pakenham and ‘The Boer War’ on the issue of race and the British franchise demands outside of the ‘white’ uitlander issue i.e. the Coloured Franchise and the recognition of the rights of an urbanising Black African population drawn to mines and industry for labour – this bit of purposeful manipulation becomes masterful – as in one stroke Pakenham paints Milner as a rabid racist and he relegates the entire ‘Coloured’ franchise issue to a secondary status, citing Britain’s lip service to it because in his view deep down they are as racist and segregationist as the Boers – and he uses Milner to ‘deflect’ this rather thorny subject away from the ZAR Republic’s very racist ‘Grondwet’ and its institutionalised racism as reflected in Articles 31 and 32 (applicable to ‘white’ “non-Boers” and “coloured”, “Indians” and “blacks”) of the ZAR constitution.
What this does is relegate this issue of race to a ‘secondary’ status and builds the war as a white only affair for white rights. It goes against the another ‘narrative’ the modern black historians and academics point out – the ‘winds of war’ actually starts in earnest when Edmund Fraser meets Jan Smuts on the 23rd December 1898 and he warns the Republic that their treatment of their ‘Blacks’ is reaching unacceptable levels, he warns Smuts that issues like universal franchise and rights are the type of things the British public like to get behind because they are concepts the average Briton understands – and these easily understood equity and franchise concepts – like slavery – are issues the British government tends to go into a legitimate and justified war over.
This meeting leaves Smuts utterly gobsmacked and under the impression that the coming war is inevitable … it’s not just about the ‘white’ miners and their rights after all … it’s much bigger than that and the British are not going to stop at insisting on the 5 year franchise for the ‘whites’ only, next is the issue of Black rights. The British also don’t let go of this – throughout the war the ‘Coloured franchise’ and ‘Black’ protectorate and recognition issues are front and forward – it’s a ‘term’ for peace when the first peace negotiations are opened up with Louis Botha in February 1901 in Middleburg and it’s still a ‘term’ for peace when the Vereeniging Peace proposals are put forward in May 1902 …. It is Smuts’ skill as a lawyer and negotiator that its ‘kicked into the long grass’ to be dealt with a ‘future and independent’ union (a move Milner very rightly and prophetically clocks as future problem).
It’s a key part of the Boer War as the Boers continue with an entire guerrilla phase with the absolute devastation to their family and farm constructs precisely because they absolutely refuse to change their ‘grondwet’ (constitution) on franchise – and especially the coloured franchise. This is NOT what the Apartheid era politicians want taught about the war, to them it’s a whites only affair, it’s a result of a long standing feud dating back to the Voortrekkers … the ‘black’ issue is incidental and the Brits are not that serious about it anyway.
To put this very critical ‘part of the Boer War .. the entire ‘Black’ part of the war on the rump and kick it into the long grass – and in so to fall in line with the Republican narrative (and Apartheid philosophy of Boer victimisation) we need the villain to give the ‘black’ issue the old heave-ho … and Pakenham turns to Milner, his warmongering “Cromer”, so here’s the quote he users – it’s from a letter Milner writes to a friend.
“You have only to sacrifice ‘the nigger’ and the game is easy”.
Wow, what a powerful and condemning quote – proof positive, the ‘Black’ man is the sacrificial lamb, nothing more – the British will happily deflect the black issue, they’re a pawn in their greater ‘game’ to annex the Transvaal, the British aren’t serious about the ‘black emancipation’ – it’s just a scapegoat – and Milner is a vile racist and bigot to boot!
Ah … small problem. It’s a half truth, in fact it’s a complete misquote – and by misquoting it Pakenham is setting up an entire preconceived bias, on purpose he is guiding historic opinion and creating fiction not fact – he’s telling porkies … here’s the quote in full and when you’re done reading it you’ll realise the injustice and the depth of the problem, as Pakenham purposefully leaves this bit out, he’s character assassinating and he’s guiding an preconceived agenda – here is Milner’s quote in full:
“If I did not have some conscience about the treatment of blacks I personally could win over the Dutch in the Colony and indeed all the South African dominion without offending the English. You have only to sacrifice ‘the nigger’ and the game is easy. Any attempt to secure fair play for them makes the Dutch fractious and almost unmanageable”.
Hang on a tick, that quote is completely different … hold the horses … Milner is NOT a racist, he cares about the plight of Black South Africans, and he’s frustrated at the Republics treatment of them and their lack of resolve or plain reason to even open the subject of black emancipation and deal with it. The ‘sacrifice’ bit and even the ‘nigger’ bit is a throwaway line referring to simply leaving out the subject altogether when dealing with the Boers as it would make life easier, and it’s something (by his own consciousness) he is simply not prepared to do.
… so that’s a bit different, now you have to ask yourself – what is Pakenham trying to do why is he been deceptive – for what purpose?
Lord Milner (left) and President Kruger (right)
Where Pakenham fails to peruse the ‘Black’ angle of the Boer War, the esteemed and renowned British historian Andrew Roberts FRSL FRHistS has a sharply different take to Pakenham’s argument and would fall back on Leo Amery and the entire black and white franchise argument in this statement of his:
“Although the Boer War has long been denounced by historians as the British Empire’s Vietnam, and characterised as being fought for gold and diamonds, and trumped up by greedy, jingoistic British politicians keen to bully the two small, brave South African republics, the truth was very different. Far from fighting for their own freedom, the Boers were really struggling for the right to oppress others, principally their black servant-slaves, but also the large non-Afrikaans white Uitlander (‘foreigner’) population of the Transvaal who worked their mines, paid 80% of the taxes, and yet had no vote. The American colonists had fought under James Otis’ cry that ‘Taxation without representation is tyranny’ in 1776, yet when Britain tried to apply that same rule to Britons in South Africa, she was accused of vicious interference’.”
Now, if we think this is all unsubstantiated character assassination so far, it gets worse again, Pakenham carries his now artificially grounded warmongering, scheming, conspiracist and racist ogre that is his Milner into the next chapters which he brands ‘Milner’s war’ and we start with the Bloemfontein conference with Kruger.
For Suzerainty Sakes
Most people have the impression that the Bloemfontein conference in June 1899 was all about Milner unbudging and arrogant and Kruger pleading and declaring all Britain wants is his country – greedy and after the gold, Pakenham highlighting Kruger’s tearful cry at the conclusion of Milner’s browbeating arrogance when the poor simple farmer stands up to leave and cries “it is our country you want” a statement which in actuality startled Krugers’ own negotiating team members like Smuts who saw it for what it was – melodrama, but not Pakenham – a whole chapter in his book is named after this statement of Kruger’s and he holds it up as proof positive of Milner’s intentions as a warmonger.
This perception of a callous British bureaucrat intent on war is carefully built by Pakenham as he very carefully omits ‘the British case’ and focuses primarily on ‘the Boer case’, and the proof is in the pudding … what if I said the whole franchise negotiation centred around the Transvaal’s Suzerainty status – and had nothing to do with ‘stealing’ the Transvaal’s gold. “Huh!”, the universal cry … what’s a Suzerainty? And here’s exactly the problem, the ‘British case’ is entirely misunderstood, and its largely thanks to Pakenham – historians prior to Pakenham, like Leo Amery extensively cover the complex issue of the Suzerainty – it’s a critical part of the Casus Belli … Packenham on the other hand merely gives it lip service and glances over it.
If you want to really understand the ‘road to war’ and the real underpinning issues which caused the war, you have to understand the Suzerainty, the ‘vassal state’ or ‘client state’ status of the Transvaal (Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek – ZAR) – as it was by no means, not in a month of Sunday’s, a “Sovereign” or a “fully independent” Republic. On the franchise issue, Britain was “meddling” in its own Suzerain and not in some independent state, something it regarded as perfectly legal in the spirit of the “Conventions” of 1881 and 1884.
Reitz (left) and Kruger (right)
Yup, sorry to burst the bubble on this one but the ZAR was never legally “fully independent” – lots of politicians on both sides gave it lip service, promises of respect for each other’s so called “independence”, but the hard truth is that legal treaties existed, The Pretoria Convention of 1881 and the London Convention of 1884 which allowed the ZAR no foreign policy whatsoever, they had to defer all of it to Britain – for all their foreign relations and even matters pertaining to trade and trading tariffs (affecting movement of “goods” and even labour) and even their borders (their expansion plans and claims to other territories and ‘old’ Republics like Natalia, Winburg and Stellaland were clipped)– the ZAR had no legal rights in external dealings with any other country other than the Orange Free State – neither foreign treaties or even foreign trade tariff deals could be struck legally without Britain’s consent – none whatsoever. The ZAR remained a British vassal state from the day it stopped being a British colony on the 23rd March 1881 to the date the ZAR “Raad’ and Kruger declared war on their Imperial Suzerain – Great Britain, on 11th Oct 1899 – that’s a fact (and a surprise to many I’m sure).
Now, you can start to see the complexity that was the backwards and forwards between Milner and Kruger. This is such a complex issue that I will be publishing an Observation Post on it called “For Suzerainty Sakes” in future, so readers have a better understanding of the causes of Boer War 2 (and Boer War 1 as the Suzerainty is a critical component of the 1st Boer War or Transvaal War 1880-1881). Churchill when captive and been shipped to Pretoria as a POW during Boer War 2, passed Majuba mountain and lamented in his historical account on the “disgraceful peace” which resulted from Boer War 1 and the true cause of Boer War 2 – and here he is referring the “Suzerainty” and not “gold” – and he is a commentator “from the time” – a first hand account and not a later commentator “of the time” like Pakenham – a second hand account.
Suffice to say Pakenham does not cover this issue of the ZAR’s true sovereignty in depth at all, the ‘British historians’ do, Pakenham doesn’t – choosing a rather concocted and completely unsubstantiated “conspiracy” of greedy capitalists in cohorts with Milner instead … and as a net result just about everyone in South Africa has no true understanding of what caused the war in the first place.
Long and Short to get a better understanding, Kruger opens his negotiations with the proposal that he will only consider a 5-year franchise for the “Uitlanders” if Britain drops all Suzerainty regulations governing the ZAR. Kruger lists 12 points he wants resolved before he will consider dropping the 15 year ‘franchise’ for Uitlanders to 5 years – which would bring it in line with all the bordering states’ franchise and labour movements regulated for ‘whites’ (this includes the Orange Free State, Natal, Rhodesia, Botswana and the Cape Colony).
In fact 9 of Kruger’s points are directly related to the ZAR’s Suzerainty restrictions. If the Suzerainty regulations are dropped this would mean the ZAR could change the power balance and threaten Britain’s paramountcy and power balance in the entire region – from the Zambezi all the way to Cape Point, enabling the ZAR to go into military treaties and trade alignments with other aspirational colonial powers like Imperial Germany thereby threatening Britain’s paramountcy in favour of a Boer one. That is a WHOLE lot more to it than mere “miners rights” and their greedy “gold” magnates on the reef as it put all of Britain’s colonies and the protectorates in the whole of southern Africa in a precarious position (3 full blown colonies and 3 colonial protectorates – 6 countries in all), and bottom line, the British (the Parliament and Chamberlain) and their ‘man’ on the ground – Milner, turn round to Kruger and simply say … “No”.
What follows is a four month long cat and mouse game with the Franchise period gradually dropping to 7 years with “conditions”‘ attached, its rejected by all (especially the Reform Committee) – thereafter desperate negotiations between Jan Smuts (for the ZAR) and W. Conyngham Greene (for Britain) continue and they settle on the final offer on 19th August 1899 – it is a 5 year franchise, the ZAR agree Milner’s original term and that there will be nothing “contrary to the Convention” (the ‘Convention is the 1884 version of the Suzerainty and by this it means the Suzerainty remains in place) – the agreement is outlined in a urgent telegram from Greene to Milner, everyone is relieved as war is now avoided, job done …. not yet … Francis Reitz, the ZAR State Secretary sends the ‘formal’ offer on the 21st August 1899 – in which he outlines the 5 year franchise – all good, on the PROVISO that Britain drops the Suzerainty completely, and he is very specific so as to clear up any ambiguity Smuts may have caused – not good. This is what Reitz writes:
The proposals of this Government (ZAR) regarding question of franchise and representation contained in that despatch must be regarded as expressly conditional on Her Majesty’s Government consenting to the points set forth in paragraph 5 of the despatch, viz. :
(a) In future not to interfere in internal affairs of the South African Republic.
(b) Not to insist further on its assertion of existence of suzerainty.
(c) To agree to arbitration.
In Amery’s historical account, he notes at this stage it was “quite impossible for the British government to accept” Reitz’ final offer and that for the British they come to realise the ZAR has no intention to deal with the franchise issue – and this would lead subsequent historians like Paul Ludi to correctly conclude that all the subsequent Greene-Smuts talks were merely a delay tactic by Smuts to ready the two Afrikaner republics for their declaration of war against Britain.
Smuts (left) and Greene (right)
As historians go, both Leopold Amery (then) and Professor Bill Nasson (now) and Andrew Roberts (now) claim the Suzerainty (not gold and diamonds or ‘Cape to Cairo’ British Imperialism) is the Casus Belli of the 2nd Boer War. Bet you did not learn that in your Christian Nationalism School textbook … nor do you get that conclusion from Pakenham.
In Conclusion
This is NOT say that Milner is a saint – not by any stretch, he’s a hard headed British Imperialist whose expressed desire is a Federation of States in Southern Africa, all under the oversight of the British “family” of nations – and he’s no different to just about every Federalist before and after him, men like Sir Henry Barkly. Milner is also no different to the “Afrikaner” federalists who see some form of Federation between all the states – men like Smuts, Botha, de la Rey and Hofmeyr – only they see it under an Afrikaner paramountcy and not a British one.
The Boer war is a clash of ideologies and paramountcy for complete regional oversight – and this is where Pakenham falls hopelessly flat – not only is he sparing with truths, sparing with “quotes” and sparing with ‘context’ – he blatantly sets up unsubstantiated conspiracy theory in favour of creative story telling and setting up a “good yarn” and ignores and/or manipulates the hard historical facts like the coloured and white franchise issues and the complexities surrounding the ZAR’s suzerainty – all in favour of complete fables surrounding the “gold conspiracy” and painting Milner as a “warmonger”.
The net result is “revisionist” history, a complete change in the historical narrative, and one which is so skewed to the Afrikaner Nationalist and Republicanism cause that it even had Eugène Terre’Blanche, the rabid white supremacist and leader of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging radical far right “terrorist” group stand up and state that Thomas Pakenham’s “The Boer War” was the definitive work and final say on the Boer War – no need to read anything else!
Now, if the erstwhile “ET” said it, then you must know there is a tremendous bias – unfortunately as I’ve outlined here, this bias undermines the entire integrity of Pakenham’s work. There is merit in a lot of Pakenham’s work if you put his entire Section 1 aside, problem is Section 1 is so flawed and has so many holes in it, it can almost be classified as fiction – and here Pakenham is in effect using fiction to set up all the non-fiction in his subsequent sections – it almost stands in the same category as James A Michener’s The Covenant and Leon Uris’ Exodus. The BIG problem is subsequent Apartheid period “Afrikaner” historians and academics ensconced in institutions like the University of Pretoria, the Rand Afrikaans University (now RAU) and the University of Stellenbosch have taken Pakenham as their lead – and that now calls into the question the integrity of all their work in addition.
That is exactly why you should read the works of other authors on the Boer war, both the “original” old ones like Leo Amery’s The Times History of the South African War (Volumes 1 to 7), Deneys Reitz’ Commando and Churchill’s and Smuts’ definitive works of their involvement in the war – all the way to Rayne Kruger’s Goodbye Dolly Gray. Then we need to focus on the “new” ones like Dr Garth Benneyworth and his 2023 work on “Black” concentration camps and even his ground-breaking insights on battles like Magersfontein, or Dr Elizabeth van Heyningen’s ground-breaking work on the concentration camps and disease, or even the ‘British’ historians like Andrew Roberts FRSL FRHistS and his history of the English-speaking peoples and dare I say it Chris Ash BSc FRGS FRHistS and his book Kruger’s War.
The truly difficult thing for me is the realisation that my much-loved Pakenham’s ‘The Boer War’ is so flawed it now needs to make way for more definitive, revived, and new perspective on the subject – and luckily in un-packing Pakenham and packing him away – on the up-side, what Pakenham has done is a favour for all of us history lovers – as it now keeps a dusty old war alive as a subject – his work out of necessity and relevance now has to be counterbalanced and more critically scrutinised. For in truth, the last word on the Boer War has yet to be written.
Written and Researched by Peter Dickens
References:
Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery (1873-1955) “The Second Boer War – The Times History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902” – Volumes 1 to 7.
The Battle of Magersfontein – Victory and Defeat on the South African Veld, 10-12 December 1899. Published 2023. By Dr. Garth Benneyworth.
The Boer War: By Thomas Pakenham – re-published illustrated version, 1st October 1991.
The Boer War: By Thomas Pakenham – Abacas Edition, 1st October 1979.
The War for South Africa: The Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) Published February 9, 2011 by Bill Nasson
My Early Life. A Roving Commission. Author: Churchill, Winston S, published October 1930.
Salisbury: Victorian Titan: By Andrew Roberts – January 2000
The path to the South African War (1899-1902) i.e. Boer War 2 is often misunderstood – so let’s look at the actual military numbers and the mission creep. Very often on Boer War social media appreciation sites you hear this old myth “the British intended to invade the Boer Republics and built up their forces on the borders to do so”. This build-up of British invasion forces then prompts the Boers to make “a pre-emptive strike” to “take up forward defensive positions” on British territory. The Boers didn’t start the war see! They merely forestalled the inevitable warmonger, none other than the greedy British – get it?
Problem is “I don’t get it”, my training as an Economic Historian will always lead me to look at the statistics and the ‘cold facts’ to make comparisons and conclusions, my training as a military officer will also always lead me to the science of military doctrine in analysing military history, and not a ‘mainstream’ historian’s interpretation of it. As to above assertions on invasion body troop strengths and pre-emptive strikes, let me be upfront – it’s all bunk, a complete myth and it not supported by the historical facts of the day, nor is it supported by military doctrine (then and now) and the cold hard facts – the statistics, ratios and numbers certainly don’t support it . This is again where ‘economic history’ starts to rip ‘political’ history apart, the numbers – the hard facts (measurable and accurate) start to talk and the political bollocks start to walk, and here’s how.
Looking at the numbers
So, here the numbers to the start of the Boer War on the 11th October 1899 when the Boers invade sovereign British territories:
31st July 1899 – Total British Forces in the Cape Colony, Natal, Rhodesia, and Bechuanaland (Botswana) and Protectorates = Total 8,803 men. 1st August 1899 to 11th October 1899, additional British Forces arrive = Total 6,500 men
Total British Forces in the field as at 11th October 1899 = 15,300 men
27th September 1899 – Transvaal Mobilises Forces = 26,871 men 3rd October 1899 – Free State mobilisers Forces = 21,345 men
Total Boer Forces in the field as at 11th October 1899 = 48,216 men.
The Boer forces at the commencement of hostilities when they declare war against Britain are heavily in their favour = 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 – 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) 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.
There are numerous quotes and historic references which prove the British had no intention of ‘invading’ the Boer Republics, these always result in a slinging match whilst Boer romantics profess to intelligence reports as proof positive of a plan of attack. Like any military with a military academy and a war office, a scenario plan was devised by the British, its called ‘The War Office Plan’ and it was developed in 1886 – it outlines that should the British invade the ZAR, a full Army Corps (invasion force) would assemble at Colesberg and invade the underbelly of the OFS on their way to the ZAR, avoiding mountainous defences completely and just move up the spine of South Africa over flat and easy terrain (more or less the route of the N1 today).
In reality the British made no actual invasion plans, scenario ‘top draw’ plan yes, actual plans a ‘campaign plan’ with start lines showing troop strengths, regiments and units, timelines and objectives – no, that plan doesn’t exist – an entire Parliamentary commission and Royal inquest was made in 1902 after the war ended, and they established that “no plan for campaign ever existed for operations in South Africa” (that they meant an actual operational plan), but you can put all that aside and let’s just look at the numbers.
There is simply no way, that the British intended to ‘invade’ with a force of only 22,700 troops – going up against a 40,000 strong invading Republican Boer army – just no way. Anyone whose served in the military and understands military doctrines knows, you need twice the numbers of the opponent, at least 2:1 (ideally more) before commencing with an invasion. That means Britain would have needed at least 80,000 troops (in excess of an Army Corps) in theatre before it posed any threat as an ‘invasion’ Force. It had nowhere near those numbers, and nor did it intend to have those numbers. In truth – the Boer Army, who had twice the numbers of the British Army, posed far more of an ‘invasion’ threat – and that’s exactly what they did.
Also, so you can see how the ‘numbers’ and the ‘actual’ history correlate – Lord Milner writes to Her Majesty’s government and states that Kruger is unmovable on issues pertaining the Franchise, he warns them that the ZAR is gearing for an invasion of the British Colonies with the call-up of troops and purchase of munitions, and the purchase of state of the art rifles and artillery pieces – one million Mauser rounds alone arrive in Port Elizabeth as early as the 8th July (ordered around April 1899) destined for the Republics (well before the ‘impasse’ between Milner and Kruger).
He implores the British to send a sizeable force – a full “Army Corps” – of about 35,000 troops to bolster the small garrison forces in South Africa, warning them invasion of British colonies is inevitable.
The British War Office in London respond to Milner, they maintain that the ZAR was simply not bold enough to invade British sovereign territory, and on the remote chance that should an invasion take place, it would be a “farmers army” and could be held back by professional soldiers.
The war office also does not want to provoke a flammable situation by sending a full Army Corps. So, they bolster the garrison forces with only 6,500 men, including colonial ‘citizen force’ units mustered from the local populations – and an additional 7,400 men “on their way” from India – the doctrine again is that even though they are outnumbered they should be able to ‘hold the line’ long enough for an expeditionary ‘Army Corps’ to arrive. The war office estimates a ‘Army Corps’ will take four months to muster and would require a £1 million investment upfront – so not necessary unless there is an absolute and proven military threat.
The eve of war
By the end of September and the beginning of October 1899, Boer forces are amassing primarily at Laing’s neck on the Natal border and the ultimatum agreed by the Boers on the 27th September indicates that war is inevitable, presented by the 7th October 1899 to the British (4 days before they invade sovereign British territories), last minute attempts by Afrikaner Bondsmen in the Cape to get Kruger to “step-down” from his position fail, so too do last minute attempts by members of his own Raad and by his young appointed negotiator Jan Smuts in his final negotiations with Greene, even Steyn in the OFS is urged to get the ZAR to ‘step down’ – whilst all urging the ZAR to “step-down” – Kruger’s unbending demand that the 5 year ‘uitlander’ franchise would only come if the British tore up the 1884 London Convention completely and withdraw all her Suzerainty rights to the region, rights which have been in place since 1877 – this is now deemed a ‘step too far’ as it substantially compromised British paramountcy in the region. Kruger’s position remaining unchanged from the beginning of negotiations in June 1899 in Bloemfontein to the end – only with a cat and mouse game promising limited reforms and then withdrawing them in-between (more on this in an Observation Post called “for suzerainty sakes” as most people don’t understand the real Casus Belli of the war).
Kruger is superstitious, paranoid and impatient and doesn’t even wait for the presentation of the ultimatum to the British or the ultimatum’s deadline – he sees tiny troop movements of small garrison forces as the prelude of an invasion, albeit the British are by no means capitalised for such an invasion – they have not even called up their Army Corps at this point. But Kruger is on the warpath. On the same day the ultimatum is drafted – 27th September 1899 – D Day minus 14 days – Kruger telegraphed to Steyn:
“English troops already at Dundee and Biggarsberg, and will probably take up all the best positions unless we act at once. Executive Council unanimous that commando order should be issued to-day. We beg you will also call out your burghers. As war is unavoidable we must act at once, and strongly. The longer we wait the more innocent blood will be shed through our delay. We don’t intend to have Chamberlain’s note, with your amendments re Convention, telegraphed to you till burghers are at or near borders, and till you have been informed that the English Government has acted contrary to last part thereof. “We are justified in crossing border. Plan of campaign follows.”
27th September 1899 – D Day minus 14 days – Kruger telegraphed to Steyn again (same day again):
“Burghers will be in position in our territory near Laing’s Nek on Friday morning 5 a.m. All other burghers being called up to follow as soon as possible. Kock leaves with two cannons tomorrow evening, also big guns for Laing’s Nek. Will Free State then also be in position? Volksraad meets seven this evening. Can you reply by then? Plan campaign follows.”
On the 29th September 1899 – D Day minus 12 days – Kruger telegraph to Steyn:
“Our burghers going to hold positions on border to prevent enemy getting hold of them. You still seem to think of peace, but I consider it impossible. I am strongly of opinion that your people ought also to go to border to take positions. You think Chamberlain is leading us into a trap, but if we wait longer our cause may be hopelessly lost and that would be our trap.
President Steyn (left) and President Kruger (right) colour by Tinus le Roux and Jenny B.
In the final minute, with war inevitable and Boers amassing on the border to invade – the British Parliament approves the request to raise the ‘Army Corps’ as a deterrent against Boer aggression and they only start calling up their reserves from the 7th October 1899 – the Boers are already mobilised and its 4 days before the Boers invade. It’s too late, this force would only be arriving in critical mass in the South African theatre by mid January 1900.
In the end, both ends of the British argument are 100% correct. Milner is 100% correct, the ZAR is a significant destabiliser in the area with territorial ambitions over Swaziland – which they annex, Rhodesia (the Adendorff trek and the Matabeleland concession) and Zululand for access to a Natal based seaport at St Lucia. President Steyn in the OFS also has territorial ambitions over Griqualand and the diamond fields in the Cape Colony.
Afrikaner Bondsmen and their supporters, men like Smuts, Botha, Hofmeyr and Reitz are all promoting the idea of a unitary Afrikaner Republic stretching from the Zambezi to the Cape. Both Boer preachers and politicians are all talking war and the removal of British influence from the entire region altogether (and Milner makes specific note of this). The two Republics are tooling up for war and the ZAR is commissioning and building massive defensive forts and buying advanced state of the art German and French siege guns. Vast stores of smokeless ammunition is been landed, and 40,000 brand new state of the art German Mauser rifles have landed – enough to arm nearly every Boer with not just one but two rifles. President Steyn has signed President Kruger’s long awaited “aggression pact” between the OFS and the ZAR on the 22nd March 1897 which locks the OFS into war even if the ZAR feels “threatened”. Simply put, the ‘winds of war are blowing’.
The purpose for going to war can best be read in the final statements made by the main protagonists.
Francis Reitz, now acting as the ZAR’s state secretary after sending the final Boer ultimatum, concludes his speech on the eve of war with the following:
“…. from Slagter’s Nek to Laing’s Nek, from the Pretoria Convention to the Bloemfontein Conference, they haveever been the treaty-breakers and robbers. The diamond fields of Kimberley and the beautiful land of Natal were robbed from us, and now they want the goldfields of the Witwatersrand … Brother AfrikanersI The day is at hand on which great deeds are expected of us – War has broken out ! What is it to be ?A wasted and enslaved South Africa or – a Free, United South Africa?”
So, for Francis Reitz accuses the British of breaching the spirit of Transvaal’s Suzerainty, accuses them of stealing Natal and Griqualand and a threat to Boer paramountcy in the region – calling for a ‘United South Africa’ (I.e. the Afrikaner Bond’s ‘Zambezi to the Cape under a Boer hegemony’ objective).
The desire of the Boers and the desire of the British that South Africa fall under their respective paramountcy and hegemony is a clash of interests between Boer Imperial and British imperial desires on territorial expansion and control – and this is the conclusion reached by just about every Boer War historian worth his salt as the basic underlying cause of the war, it’s the Casus Belli.
This paramountcy and desire for regional control by Boer and Brit respectively is most adequately wrapped up by Jan Smuts’ final word on the matter, when on the eve of war writes:
The aim of the war is to establish “a United South Africa, of one of the great empires (rijken) of the world… an Afrikaans republic in South Africa stretching from Table Bay to the Zambesi”.
On the British front, Joseph Chamberlain concludes his speech to Parliament on the eve of war with the following:
“… we are at war now because the oligarchy at Pretoria … has persistently pursued, from the very day of the signing of the Convention of 1881 down to now, a policy which tended to the evasion of its obligations; a policy by which it has broken its promises; by which it has placed, gradually, but surely, British subjects in the Transvaal in a position of distinct inferiority; by which it has conspired against and undermined the suzerainty, the paramountcy which belongs to Great Britain.”
So – for Chamberlain, the spirit and agreement of the Transvaal’s Suzerainty (its status as a vassal state as prescribed by the Pretoria and London conventions) has been breached – a breach of treaty – and in so a threat to British paramountcy in the region.
The British War Office is also 100% right, they’ve matched the ‘risk’ perfectly, in terms of military doctrine they augment their forces just enough to prevent total calamity, and its seen upfront in the invasions when these small bordering garrison forces – of professional officers and men, completely outnumbered in Ladysmith, Kimberley, Kuruman and Mafeking make quick work of the invading Boers and stop them in their tracks – on the 14th October 1899 the Boer attack on Mafeking is effectively driven off, and on the 20th October the British forces in Natal are successful at the Battle of Talana Hill and the next day on the 21st October they are successful again at the Battle of Elandslaagte .
On the 25th October the second Boer assault on Mafeking is driven off and on the 9th November, the Boer assault on Ladysmith is effectively driven off (albeit with heavy losses), the Boers then opt to put the town to siege. The siege of Kimberley starts in earnest on the 4th November with the British defenders firmly dug in, the Boers opt to shelling the town from a safe distance in the hope they capitulate. On the 13th November the Boer attack on Kuruman is successfully driven off and the Boers opt to put it that town to siege in addition.
The Pre-emptive strike and forward defences myth
As to a “pre-emptive strike” and “invading for the purposes setting up forward defensives” argument to forestall an inevitable British invasion so often found on Boer war appreciation sites – this is possibly the most stupid assertion and myth generated around Boer War 2 … ever, and for the following reasons:
Upfront, a ‘pre-emptive strike’ is not the plan, never is the plan. These modern-day Boer Romantics ‘couch commanders’ conveniently ignore people like the ZAR commander in chief, Piet Joubert – who states:
“The master plan was to advance rapidly on Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban”
Jan Smuts in his memoirs of the war refers to his direct planning to take the Port of Natal (Durban) in a rapid advance – a “Blitzkreig’ strategy.
In fact, Jan Smuts is the only man with a plan. His plan is outlined, supposedly whilst he was sick in bed. It was presented to the ZAR raad (council) in a secret session and unanimously adopted. It’s a very specific plan, it is summed up by Smuts himself who said the plan was to invade Natal from Laing’s Neck and he does on;
“The republics must get the better of the English troops from the start … by taking the offensive and doing it before the British force in SA is markedly strengthened …. the capture of Natal by a Boer force together with the cutting of the railway between the Cape Colony and Rhodesia … will cause a shaking of the Empire”.
The idea of cutting the railway line between the Cape and Rhodesia is to create an uprising of Afrikaner support in the Cape Colony for the Boer Republic cause, Smuts in his account is very reliant on this happening, he’s an ex-Cape Afrikaner Bondsman, the Afrikaners in the Cape are the majority population – the idea of taking the Cape Colony would fail if they do not rise in support. Smuts’ objective through these actions – in Natal and the Cape Colony – is to “shake up” the paramountcy and in so force better terms with the British with a peace settlement early on … not to get into a protracted and costly war, and to do all this before any sort of “army force” or “expeditionary force” can be raised in the UK – an early concept of “shock and awe” and “blitzkrieg” is Smuts’ basic military plan. Smuts’ plan is also an early form of “manoeuvre” warfare – using the Clausewitzian concept (developed after the Napoleonic wars) – using superior and simultaneous advances along “exterior” lines (a concentration in space) on an enemy using “interior” lines (a concentration of time) of communication and supply. Smuts would also apply this later when he is tasked with forming the Union Defence Force in 1910.
Smuts’ offensive plan also does not propose laying anything to siege, surrounding and laying either Ladysmith, Kimberley or Mafeking is avoided entirely, he is far more concerned with speed and a quick win before Britain can reinforce anything – especially Natal and Durban which Smuts targets his ‘seat of war’. The rapid seizing of Durban whilst its relatively lightly defended is important to Smuts, without seizing it the British will be able to reinforce and counter-attack – so the taking of Durban will either make or break the plan.
Reference: General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa – D. Katz
So, here’s the Boer Republics’ offensive plan – in includes Smuts’ initial offensive plan and then a greater offensive offensive advance to Port Elizabeth so as to build on a Cape Afrikaner uprising and rebellion. At the start of hostilities on the 11th October 1899, according to Jan Smuts himself, the ZAR Commandant-General Piet Joubert merely had Smuts’ broad outline of the offensive plan in his hand, he had not given it any further thought – “no comprehensive war planning” had been done on how the strategic plan would be met by any planning on a tactical level or even on the operational level (contingency planning).
On launching the offensive, only then does the Boer leadership give thought to how they inited to meet Smuts’ strategic plan on a tactical level and operational level. They draw on inspiration from the first Anglo-Boer War, the Transvaal War of 1880 to 1881 i.e. Boer War 1, this war called for laying British garrisons around Pretoria to siege and then concentrating on using the natural mountain defences around Laing’s Neck on the ZAR/Natal border which squeezed the British ‘relief column’ making their way to relive the sieges onto a single road through the mountain defences – focusing them onto Majuba where the Boers enjoyed an outstanding victory. This reasoning had worked in 1881, no reason why it would not work in 1899.
So, as a defensive strategy to augment the offensive strategy, General Piet Joubert and the Boer leadership decide on laying siege to Kimberley, Mafeking (in the Northern Cape) and Ladysmith (in Natal) – their thinking is this would split the British forces who would then be focussed on relieving these border towns and their relief columns would have to follow singular roads and railway lines to get there, easy pickings for the Boers as they had done to them at Majuba – thereby weakening the British forces further and giving the Boer’s offensive strategy in Natal all the chance of success.
Important Note, as to military doctrine as follows;
“assuming a defensive posture does not win wars and a offensive strategy is essential for winning a war, defensive stances are a temporary measure allowing for an advantage to develop, which will eventually result in offensive action to secure combat success.”
Dr. D Katz’ ‘Jan Smuts and his First World War
Jan Smuts at this point is disillusioned with the Boer leadership’s planning, he feels this offensive and defensive plan is far too complicated and questions whether the Boers are capable of launching a plan of this magnitude. He even goes as far as calling General Piet Joubert “passé” and “hopelessly incompetent”.
The Boers however, initially follow exactly “the plan” in what they do. They advance from Laing’s Neck down the centre spine of Natal heading to Durban as planned, as they push into Natal the Boer Commanders telegram Kruger to say the “Vierkleur” would be soon flying over Durban. The ZAR Chief Justice Gegorowski boasted;
“the war will be over in a fortnight. We shall take Kimberley and Mafeking, and give the English such a beating in Natal that they will sue for peace”.
The general rally call amount the Boer soldiery is that will be “eating fish” in Durban, General Louis Botha convinced he will also be “eating bananas” in Durban. They also initially follow Smuts’ offensive plan in the Orange Free State, cutting the Cape Colony and Rhodesia railway line in the first action of the war at Kraaipan on the 12th October 1899.
Their mistake, they are too cautious and instead of using their much-promoted advantage – mobility, they err on a cautious and slow advance. The plan, as Smuts predicted is overcomplicated, and in so far as intending to split the British forces between the Northern Cape and Natal, the decision to put Kimberley and Mafeking to siege in addition to the offensive plan as a defensive plan also splits the Boer forces and weakens their offensive capability, from a ‘Blitzkreig’ (lightning mobility war) perspective they are unable to put their maximum effort behind their ‘schwerpunkt’ (heavy, focus – or centre point) which is the rapid invasion of Natal and the taking of Durban. The Boers also compromise their mobility and resources in Natal when they start to lay Ladysmith to siege instead of rapidly advancing to Durban.
In following “the plan” – the ‘high water marks’ of the invasions i.e., where they ultimately land up. In the Natal invasion it’s just 60 kilometres north of Pietermaritzburg – Botha stops at Mooi River, this invasion has no reference to the “defence plan” whatsoever (in fact it’s the opposite), and the Boers do not take up very effective “defensive positions” to stop any sort of mythical British invasion – the positions they take up are far worse than the positions they were in before they invaded. Any military person will tell you that Rivers and Mountain Ranges make for the most formidable defences – and in the case of the Boer Republics – the Orange River, Vaal River and Drakensberg are perfect defences – no need to invade anyone, investing in these border defences would have been the logical military doctrine, and far more effective as to a “defensive strategy” without initiating a war and the risk that involves.
Look at it from the perspective of military doctrine, the Boer “start line” is Volksrust on the border near Laing’s Neck – a most formidable defence position on the border of Natal and the “gateway” to both the ZAR and Natal, home to Majuba mountain and Laing’s neck, where the British were so soundly beaten by the Boers in 1881 – it’s a proven natural defence and one which the British could not breach just 18 years earlier.
As to continuing a deep advance (remember the offensive plan is to invade), after they are confronted by the British in the field at Talana outside Dundee on the 20th October 1899 (D Day plus 8) – the Boers are initially defeated in two pitched battles, the Boers are held up losing advantage daily. After winning the battle at Nicolson’s Neck the Boers manage to advance another 70 kilometres to Ladysmith reaching it on the 2nd November (D Day plus 24 days) – now they are now 190 kilometres into their advance from their start line on the border and nearly a month into their invasion campaign.
So, if your strategy is only one of defence – why leave such a formidable defence and find something else? Then as to the so called amassed “British threat on the border” – the invasion force overall Commander, General Piet Joubert is joined by General de Kock from the OFS and General Erasmus and they advance from their start line for nearly 120 kilometres deep into Natal territory before they meet any significant British forces or resistance whatsoever – the British are nowhere near the “border” and “poised” to invade anything. The British have rather inadvisably split their forces between Dundee and Ladysmith. Extending military supply lines and logistics support for 120 kilometres in 1899 using wagons and horses to initiate a “pre-emptive” strike aimed at the British in Dundee is pure Hollywood, wishful thinking, it has nothing to do with military doctrine or sound military planning – or even the Boer’s plan for what it is.
The Boer invasion of Natal as mapped.
General Louis Botha then extends the advance from Ladysmith all the way to Mooi River on the 22nd November 1899 – 100 Km away from Ladysmith and 60 km from Pietermaritzburg and now a staggering 290 km from their start line. That’s the length of the “supply” line for the Boers – their “high water” mark. No military commander in his right mind sets up a “defensive position” with a near 300 km long supply line running through enemy territory intended to support ‘defences’ – no military commander in 1899 advances near 300 km on horseback for a pre-emptive strike either – air warfare has not been invented yet and even by today’s standards a ground force invasion 300 km into enemy territory is never considered by any commander as a mere “strike” – pre-emptive or otherwise.
The Boer high-water mark is only obtained by the 22nd November – D Day plus 43 days – now having been significantly compromised on mobility and speed. Both HMS Terrible and HMS Powerful had arrived in Durban port by the 6th November 1899, either one of these two Battle Cruisers had more fire power on board than the entire Boer invading armies combined – a Battle Cruiser defending a port from mounted infantryman on horseback is no match. The Royal Navy is Britain’s senior service and it has at its disposal the very best of all their resources and commanders, defending their ports is what the Royal Navy does best, they are very good at it.
HMS Terrible (Left) and HMS Powerful (Right)
The Boer invasion falters, it fails because they had lost their only significant advantage – mobility, aggression and speed gives way to cautiousness, they chose resource draining static warfare instead – sieges and invest into them instead, losing valuable days and sacrificing their “Blitzkreig” offensive plan altogether.
With Botha’s objective of “eating bananas in Durban” now completely dashed, General Botha has no choice but to do what countless military commanders before and after him have done when an invasion fails – and beat a retreat, creating what are known in the military as “defensive “boxes” as you go along, the idea is to slow the enemy’s counter attack down until you can “join” with more friendly forces and consolidate – which he initially successfully does just north of the high water mark at Willow Grange on 23rd November 1899 and then further north at his next “box” at Colenso on 15th December 1899. He finally settles further north on the Tugela heights as his next defensive box, having now retreated for 80 Km, however he loses this pivotal battle and his final defensive box to the British on the 27th February 1900 (to see a defensive box retreat in action in a more recent war involving South African Commanders – see “Gazala Gallop” in WW2).
On the western front, the Boers are able to invade the arid and sparsely populated northern Cape meeting no real resistance from any British forces – as none are stationed there in any numbers – the Boers end their high water mark at the border with German South West Africa – this has more to do with the strategic imperative of opening up a sea route and port access via Walvis Bay and linking up with a “friendly state” for the purposes of supply than it does with any offensive or defensive plan offered by the Boer command. It certainly has nothing to do with a ‘pre-emptive’ strike.
On other lesser known fronts
If there is any semblance of logic in invading the Cape and Natal colonies for the purposes of establishing forward defences only, there is absolutely no logic in the Boer invasions of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and Bechuanaland (Botswana) to suggest invading for purposes of defending – or even a ‘pre-emptive’ strike – the tiny nominal British Police forces in both these countries are no invasion threat whatsoever, and all the invasion of the Bechuanaland Kingdom does is bring the Tswana into the war as a belligerent all on their own, and the Tswana in their own right decimate the invading Boer Kommando and its laager at Derdepoort on the 25th November 1899. The small BSAP (British South African Police) base consisting of 450 British soldiers at Tuli in Rhodesia is however sufficiently professional to stop the 2,000 strong Boer Commando (now with a 1 to 4 advantage over the British) which had forged itself over the Limpopo River into Rhodesia at Rhodes Drift and other points. On the 2nd November 1899 the BSAP successfully halt them at Bryce’s Store and then repulse the invasion, although border incidents and Boer incursions into Rhodesia continue for some time – well into the Guerrilla phase.
Bryce’s Store in Rhodesia showing combat damage
What Defences?
Also, nobody has been able to point where these so called ‘invasion for the purpose of defensive positions’ are, there is no investment in resources or materials for effective defences, the Boer trenching system at the Modder River at the beginning of the war in November 1899 are proven ineffective.
The defensive earthworks that make up the trench line at defence cluster centre at Magtersfontein is merely a shallow trench converted from a natural ‘donga’ at the base of the koppie range (refer Dr. Garth Bennyworth’s groundbreaking work on this trench-line) – the British frontal attack on this trench-line is successfully repelled by the Boers on 11th December 1899 (Cronje’s only real tactical ‘victory’), but after regrouping and reinforcing the British are able to by-pass these defences completely in a highly mobile flanking manoeuvre.
No large defence fortifications are really invested in by the Boers in either Natal or the Cape Colony, and any idea of fortifying the Republics borders are in fact neglected in the drive to invade the British colonies instead.
It is only from the beginning of the new year in 1900, that the British have been able to muster anywhere near enough troops to land in Cape Town, that they are now matched 1:1 to the Boer army, and it is on these equal footings that the British counterattack, breakout and relieve of all the major sieges. From January 1900 to July 1900 they rout the Republican armies from their colonies, relieve their sieges and in two significant manoeuvres – the Battle of Paardeberg on the 27th February 1900 and Brandwater Basin (Surrender Hill) on 30th July 1900 they break the Republican forces critical mass to fight a conventional war – Brandwater and Paardeberg alone result in the capturing 8,300 men and the Boer Army is now simply just no longer matched to the British on a 1:1 ratio, it’s now in an inadequate position – with more British troops streaming in.
The 500,000 myth
Often on Boer war sites, and even on simple things like wiki 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, but 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.
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 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 kilometers. 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 Boer War – including 6,000 burghers who add onto the original ZAR and OFS Commando call-up, the statutory Boer forces, foreign volunteers and Cape Rebels is 87,365 men (possibly higher if we add African auxiliaries and rear echelon support). That means a realistic ratio between Brit and Boer at the high-water mark is a 3:1 ratio – total Imperial forces versus total republican forces. It’s a far cry from the emotionally and erroneously touted figure of 25:1.
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… 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’) = 71,600 or a 3:1 ratio – Brits outnumber Boers, a reversal of the ratio the Boers enjoyed at the start of the war.
In terms of military doctrine, the above estimation is about right – to invade the British territory 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.
Boer bashing and other myths
Military doctrine and planning – to anyone whose served as officer in a military, is made up of three levels – the Strategic level, the Tactical level and the Operational level (when the metal starts flying around and the rubber hits the road). Military Generals and Commanders are judged by how they relate these three components – Strategic, Tactical and Operational. German Forces during WW2 are outstanding at the Operational level, completely dazzling the enemy concentrating overwhelming firepower at the “schwerpunkt” – the ‘heavy or focal’ point. They are equally outstanding at the tactical level, consider the masterful work of Field Marshal Rommel in North Africa. But they fail at the Strategic level by overextending their resources and pandering to wayward political ideologies and ambitions – and that loses them the war.
In reality, and it’s not trying to be nasty or ‘Boer bashing’ in any way shape or form. The Boers at the ground level are a committed, determined, resourceful and extremely brave bunch. They are scarifying much and like the Japanese in WW2 have a deeply ingrained cultural sense of honour.
But their commanders fail these brave men on all three key aspects of warfare. At an Operational level they are been asked to use a Commando system of mounted infantrymen – good for quelling poorly armed native rebellions – but absolutely hopeless when confronting a modern professional military force with modern weaponry using both combined arms and joint arms in which they are very well versed – and it quickly shows when the British are able to repel the invasions and stall them long enough to get reinforcements in whilst completely outnumbered. The British ORBATS (Order of Battle) are also far superior in just about every key engagement fought – that’s a fact.
It is often noted in all the Battle ORBATS – even the ones that mark the beginning of the war in the conventional phase, that the Boers are always “on the back-foot” always “outnumbered” almost always fighting against the odds – even for battles they win. However, this is again a function of poor leadership – at the beginning of the war the Boers outnumber the British significantly, but they don’t make use of the advantage – instead of driving their forces to their “schwerpunkt” and the “crucible” (Natal) – focusing on their plan and leveraging their only real advantage – mobility, they choose instead to divide their forces and sacrifice their mobility completely. Inexplicably they commit unusually large numbers of these highly mobile combatants and all their resources to siege warfare (static warfare) and not to defeating the enemy in the field (also a key military blunder) – high numbers of Boers sitting around and simply shelling three British towns from afar – safely out of range, and other than Ladysmith, making no real attempt to ‘take’ the town – and in doing this they allow the British to pour in all the reinforcements they need to counter-attack.
General Joubert – colour by Tinus le Roux
On a tactical level, General Joubert – tasked with the invasion of Natal fails on nearly every level, he fails to take tactical advantage of his “mobility” and fails to “take the fight to the enemy”, he fails to prevent the British forces at Dundee from “linking up” with their forces in Ladysmith (a key military blunder), and he fails to take Ladysmith when the opportunity is presented to him on a plate choosing a divine sense of providence instead (another key military blunder). By the time General Botha takes over the advantage is lost, and Buller is able to ultimately dislodge Botha at Tugela Heights with the innovative use of pontoons and manoeuvre and relive Ladysmith.
General Cronje, on a tactical level on the other front in the Cape also fails on every level, he fails in his initial defences, fails to move from his static defences in time, sacrificing mobility again and is outflanked and outmanoeuvred by a more “mobile” General French, Cronje then, for reasons known only to himself fails to link up with General de Wet and presents himself as a sitting duck to the British – the result is the 1st significant capitulation of Boer forces at Paardeberg on the 27th Feb 1900.
General Cronje – colour by Jenny B
General Christiaan de Wet also fares no better. De Wet’s attack on Wepener is strategically un-sound, committing resources to worthless target and he’s repeatedly beaten back by a gutsy small garrison force. His plan to defend the indefensible at the ‘Brandwater Basin’ is flawed and he too presents his forces as sitting ducks in a ‘pocket’ surrounded on all sides – and then he leaves his command post on the “first train out of Dodge” as the British close in on him and leaves his squabbling subordinates and troops to fight it out instead, the result is a complete breakdown of his command and the 2nd. significant capitulation of Boer forces at Surrender Hill on the 30th July 1900.
This surrender marks the start of the Boer’s loss of the war (it’s the beginning of the end), they are unable to recover it and the surrender marks the end of the Conventional War and chalks it up as a British Victory. Often put up on a pedestal as a “volksheld” (people’s hero) unfortunately General Christiaan de Wet has the stigma of losing the Boer war for the Boer nation – it happened under his watch and his Command – literally. Militarily speaking he’s directly to blame – and he fares no better leading a doomed, inadequately armed, inadequately supported, strategically flawed, and failed Boer Revolt in 1914.
De Wet’s invasion of the Cape Colony in the guerrilla phase is also a disaster as he signals his intentions up-front to the British and over commits a slow and large wagon train which the British chew up and then they expel de Wet from the Cape with a semblance of his invasion force left over and the loss of most of his transports. Tactically de Wet is brilliant, evading his ‘hunt’ and labelled ‘The Boer Pimpernel’ - romanticised somewhat, especially his tactical victory using barefoot burghers to sneak up on the British at Groenkop. However truth be told, on both an operational and strategic level, as a commander he fails, even his victory at Sanna’s Post is somewhat flawed as an ‘own goal’.
General de Wet – Colour by Jenny B
On a strategic level, as we have seen Smuts’ strategic plan adopted by the Boer Forces is thrown out the window almost from the get-go. They start with it, but simply do not follow through with it at all, invading three British colonies and two British protectorates, splitting focus and forces – completely misreading and unable to raise the critical “Cape Rebellion” and completely sacrificing the Blitskreig concept by working to all their weaknesses and not any of their strengths. Smuts’ “Clausewitzian concept” goes out the window too – in the Conventional War phase, the Boers sacrifice their superior and simultaneous advances along “exterior” lines (a concentration in space) and revert to only using “interior” lines (a concentration of time) for communication and supply.
In terms of strategy, on a political front, Kruger’s decision to strike out, by any type of military action you care to mention, against the world’s single biggest superpower, one whose Navy is bigger than the French, German and American Navy’s combined, at the very height of its Imperial power, is fundamentally flawed – plucky and very brave, yes – but strategically myopic and very unsound.
The best the Boers can do from here out is a ‘hit and run’ guerrilla campaign in the hopes of wearing the British resolve down to avoid “unconditional surrender” and get better peace terms (which eventually happens). The ‘Bittereinder’ guerrilla campaign is not fought with any romantic idea of actually “winning’ the war”, the Bittereinder Generals – Smuts, Botha and de la Rey are under no illusions, they also see the resolve of their women to endure the farm clearances and concentration camps as their duty in winning a better peace – they never, during or after the war, turn to victimhood, its denies them their pride and their sacrifices. The victimhood argument is a latter day ‘politics of pain’ concept taken up by latter day “pure” Afrikaner nationalists, nearly all of whom sat out the war or were too young at the time.
Even the decision to strategically engage Guerrilla War is unsound given the extreme sacrifice of lives and livelihoods required to run this type of campaign, literally breaking the back of the Boer nation – the folly of this thinking is something even General Botha realises, and he sues for peace before his entire nation is crushed – as in his own words there will be literally nothing left to fight for.
This is not the failure of the Boer soldier – this is the complete failure of the Boer Command. As military historians we have to look at the ‘score card’ in an objective and disparaging way – pointing out “critical failures” in doctrine it is – “boer bashing” it is not.
The Score Card
To look at the Boer war by way of its score card we need to divide it into three broad sections – the Conventional War – Phase 1, when the Boers have the advantage, the Conventional War – Phase 2 when the British have the advantage and then The Guerrilla War (Insurgency) phase – which needs to be separate as the edicts of war change completely.
In all, for the duration of the war there are 170 significant actions fought between the Boers and the British (including their allied Black armies like the Tswana and the Swazi), these include significant pitched conventional battles, relief or success of all sieges, successful or repelled attacks and counter-attacks during all phases on strong-points (blockhouses, bases, forts) and trains, and the taking of key cities by way of military objective – Bloemfontein, Kroonstad, Johannesburg and Pretoria.
Not factored is the general carnage of destroying property – by either British or Boer actions – the Boer actions of burning down ‘British’, ‘hensopper’ and ‘joiner’ farms, ransacking and looting towns (Dundee etc.), destroying mission stations and blowing up railway track are excluded – so too is the carnage caused by the British burning down ‘bittereinder’ farms, destroying livestock and blowing up buildings. Trying to even factor this would be impossible.
From the 11th October to 1st January 1900, the Boer forces have a numeric advantage, however the British battle order stemming and repulsing attacks on besieged towns is very good considering their disadvantage, so too the initial advance to relieve Kimberley – during this period 21 actions are fought – the Brits win 14 and the Boers win 7.
From 1st January to July 1900, the numeric components start to balance, however on a Operational and Tactical level conducting conventional combined arms – the advantage swings significantly to the British. All the major sieges are relieved, the Boers invasions are turned and they are ejected from the British colonies. The hunt into the Orange Free State decimates the fighting capability of the Boers and forces the surrender of their conventional fighting capability. During this phase 49 actions are fought – the Brits win 44 and the Boers win just 5.
Overall, for the ‘Conventional’ war phase, the balance is overwhelming in favour of the British – British win 58 and the Boers win 12. In terms of timing, the British victory in the Conventional Phase is swift – from October to July – a mere 10 months, they have reversed an invasion, captured two separate countries, taken both Boer Republic’s capital cities, taken the Boer’s economic hub, isolated both countries and starved them of external aid. Broken the critical mass of the enemy to fight conventionally, taken nearly every major gun and artillery piece, and occupied all the enemy’s fortifications and defences. By any military standards that is good Command – Strategic, Tactical and Operational.
The Guerrilla phase is completely different, there are no significant pitched battles, battles resemble skirmishes, sieges are small towns remotely accessed and the focus switches to destroying supply lines (Boer and Brit) and ‘Commando’ hunts. It’s a “slow burner” in other words not much happens for months on end for the hundreds of thousands of troops in the theatre of operations, truly a case of “war is 99% boredom and 1% terror”. From August 1900 to May 1902 – the duration of this phase – 22 months, 100 significant actions are fought that would classify a ‘clash of arms’. It works out to only about 4.5 direct classes between Boer forces and British forces per month.
The scorecard is also in favour of the British – the Brits win 72 and the Boers win 28. To read this correctly we also need to understand that the Boer strategy in this phase is not to beat or capture British troops (they can’t keep them), generally the strategy is to harass the British, inflict some damage, retreat and fight another day. On a ratio of Brit to Boer “wins” the ratio is 2:1 – the Boers are remarkably successful at insurgency warfare, and they generally evade the ‘hunts’. The Boers do well at the tactical and operational levels and attain their objectives of wearing down British resolve and elevate their monetary and human costs of waging war – but it comes as a massive cost to the Boer lives and livelihood at the strategic level.
For the British, they win at the strategic level, the objective of starving the Guerrillas of their supply – food, ammunition, transport, weaponry, shelter and human resources, not to get into the moral or ethics of this, this is strategy used to win just about every Guerrilla war ever fought, by Britain or anyone else – it was the focus of the Vietnam War, the South African “Border War” and even most recently the Afghanistan War. On a tactical level their ‘Counter Insurgency” measures – now known as COIN – are very successful, so much so the Boer War’s Guerrilla Warfare phase is the shortest fought Guerrilla War in modern military history.
That said, as Professor Abel Esterhuyse rightly pointed out to the Observation Post – by 1902, the Boers emerge as the masters of ‘Insurgency Warfare’ and the British emerge as the masters of ‘Counter Insurgency Warfare’ (COIN) – lessons that are still referenced at Westpoint Military Academy to this day. This mastery would also define the ‘South African’ way of fighting war, when Jan Smuts is tasked with amalgamating the Boer Commandos and the old British colonial regiments to form the South African Union Defence Force (UDF) in 1910.
Thus, the UDF was built along the lines of using effective combined arms with high degrees of mobility to deal with both conventional warfare (as is the requirement of any statutory force) in the event a Colonial Power in Africa (e.g. Portugal or Germany) invades the Union and any domestic insurgencies (initially ‘internal’ threats are defined as potential Black African uprisings) and the UDF COIN doctrine is been developed to counter-act it along with a ‘Seek and Destroy’ ethos.
Smuts is happy to cherry pick, basically he’s happy to bring all that’s great and good about the British culture of warfare – their discipline and drill (sorely lacking in the Boer army), their uniforms and rank structures (sorely lacking in the Boer army) and their very effective use of combined arms warfare and joint arms warfare (also sorely lacking in the Boer army) and combine it with the Boer culture of warfare – the use of mobility, and applying high rates of survivability thinking to tactics of assault and defence (both of which are sorely lacking in the British army).
Smuts will build into the UDF the doctrine of highly mobile ‘combined arms’ – mainly the effective use of mounted infantry, armour and artillery (and other ‘arms’) all acting in unison and speed. Finally, he’s able to implement the doctrine of “manoeuvre” using the Clausewitzian concept. Under General Jan Smuts the UDF was shaped into a very effective fighting force, one that is far ahead of the old Boer Republics strategic and tactical constructs and doctrine. This will have far reaching consequences as this South African ‘philosophy’ of warfare would be effectively applied from the 1st World War (1914-1918), to the 2nd World War (1939-1945) to the ‘Border War (1966-1989) and its still used by the SANDF to this very day.
Casualties
The number of casualties in the Boer War needs a whole new Observation Post, as here we look at the very sensitive subject of civilian casualties – Boer, but also British and Black – the number is extreme – about 50,000 and still rising given new research – nearly all of it the result of disease – Measles and Typhoid mainly. The Measles epidemic, which swept the ‘Black’ and ‘White’ Concentration Camps and the besieged British citizens – killed nearly 40% of all the civilians succumbing to disease – measles as a ‘children’s disease’ especially taking its toll on Boer children. Not just civilians, the biggest killer of British soldiery was Typhoid and not the Boer’s bullets, nearly two thirds of all British casualties are the result of disease – young fit men who are dropping like flies from the same diseases sweeping the concentration camps and British towns under siege. Typhoid alone affects 57,684 British soldiers – killing 8,225 of them.
This is a highly sensitive and misunderstood aspect of the war – it requires a full analysis on the disease bell-curves and medical science to fully properly understand the causes and effects, and actions taken or neglected – look out for a future Observation Post in draft called “The Boer War’s biggest killer” where we will deep dive this subject and these statistics – because if there is one “winner” of this war’s butchers bill it’s not the British or the Boers – it’s an indiscriminate cocktail of micro-organisms.
We also need to look at the Killed in Action (KIA) and Died of Wounds (DOW) and survivability ratios between Republican and Imperial forces, as the KIA/DOW figure for the Brits is around 8,000 and the KIA/DOW figure for the Boers is around 4,000 – this implies the Boers were better soldiers – for every 1 Boer killed in combat 2 Brits are killed in combat (2:1 ratio) – this leads to the myths of the Boers been “better marksman” than the British or the Boers had better command and operational prowess – the British according to these myths were then “Lions led by Donkeys”.
However truth be told is on the survivability given the respective troop size and different doctrine, if you were a British soldier in South Africa in a combat role, your chance of surviving combat without been KIA or DOW was 98% – there was a 2% chance a Boer bullet would kill you – which is pretty good survivability by British doctrine which was “Hidebound by Tradition” with costly frontal attacks and bayonet charges and antiquated cavalry and lancer charges.
If you were a Boer combatant, given your overall troop size and strength, you had a 93% chance of combat survival and a 7% chance of been KIA or DOW from a British bullet. Which is not very good given Boer doctrine actually focussed on high degrees of survivability, choosing to break engagements, reconcile and fight another day (mobility and manoeuvre) – rather than stand and be bayonetted, cleaved and then impaled from a costly British frontal assault of infantry, cavalry and lancers – none of which appealed to the Boer way of fighting and doctrine for mounted infantrymen.
Bottom line – on casualties – statistically speaking the British command in the Boer War actually was pretty good given the improvements over time in doctrine from Waterloo to the Crimean War (see chart above), the Boer command on controlling casualties and survivability on the other hand was much poorer. One thing the British are NOT are “bad shots” and their Commanders are certainly NOT “Donkeys”. Simply put, if you were British you had a better chance of surviving combat, the point where the metal is flying around, than if you were a Boer.
In Conclusion
Numbers speak more to truths than anything else, and the truth is the numbers support the idea that the Boers invaded the British colonies whilst they were numerically inferior and the Boers numerically superior, for the purposes of changing the regional balance between Boer and Brit and establishing a unitary state under “Afrikaner” influence – and not only does the republican planning and objectives point to this, their military strategy, doctrine and statements of intent supports it – and it is statistically proven.
The idea that the British were building up an invasion force on the borders is complete Hollywood and panders to the ‘politically inspired’ sabre waving in the “ultimatum” delivered by the Boers and not to the reality on the ground at all. The idea that the Boers invaded British colonies for the purposes of forward defences or as some sort of pre-emptive strike is also completely unsupported by what actually happens, the actual plans and this assertion is woefully unsupported by military doctrine – entirely debunked by the science of military history.
Also, the idea that the Boer command and doctrine is somehow better than that of the British is completely statistically unproven, in fact the opposite is true, the ‘numbers’ point in favour of the British – so too does an analysis of the three aspects of effective command – on the Strategic level, the Tactical level and the Operational level.
Written, researched by Peter Dickens
With thanks to Tinus Le Roux and Jenny Bosch for the use of colourised images.
“Rights and wrongs of the Transvaal war” by Edward t. Cook. Publication date 1901
Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery “The Second Boer War – The Times History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902” – Volumes 1 to 7.
Military History Journal, Vol 6 No 3 – June 1984. The Medical Aspect of the Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902 Part II by Professor J.C. de Villiers, MD FRCS.
The Anglo-Boer war: A chronology. By Cloete, Pieter G
The Battle of Magersfontein – Victory and Defeat on the South African Veld, 10-12 December 1899. Published 2023. By Dr. Garth Bennyworth.
Dr David Brock Katz; ‘General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa 1914 -1917’
Dr Evert Kleynhans and Dr David Brock Katz; ’20 Battles – searching for a South African Way of War 1913 – 2013’.
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.
Interviews with Dr. David Broc Katz, University of Stellenbosch, South African Military Academy – Military historian – focus on Jan Smuts and fact checking Boer and British military doctrine – 2023.
Correspondence on fact checking British doctrine 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 – 2023.
History of the war in South Africa 1899-1902. By Maj. General Sir Frederick Maurice and staff. Volumes 1 to 4, published 1906
Very often when you post anything on Jan Smuts, some obdurate paleo-conservatives emerge to vilify him, using rhetoric the old Afrikaner Nationalists used for political one-upmanship, but only this time, to these people, his “volks-verraaier” (traitor to his people) status somehow “proven” as an absolute truism.
Little consideration is given to his actual relationship with the ultra right conservatives when he was alive, and how those ultra-right Afrikaner conservatives actually viewed Smuts in his lifetime.
So, let’s look at Dr. D.F. Malan, the leader of the ‘pure’ Afrikaner Nationalists and Jan Smuts’ greatest political antagonist and arch political rival – Smuts’ nemesis. Here’s something about Jan Smuts and D.F. Malan many people don’t know.
We are all familiar with Allesverloren wines at Riebeeck West in the Swartland, but did you know the original Allesverloren farm was owned by the Malan family and it was also the birthplace to Daniël François Malan, and did you know a portion of Allesverloren farm also belonged to the Smuts family and also Jan Christiaan Smuts’ birthplace?
So, both Jan Smuts and D.F. Malan grew up in the small ‘dorp’ of Reibeeck West in the Western Cape, Jannie Smuts was slightly older than Daniël, but they both attended the same Sunday school and here’s a photo, a young Smuts stands behind a slightly younger Malan. Later, Smuts would teach the Sunday school class with Malan as one of his students – think about that, and such was the religious influence on the young Daniël Malan, he would go on to become a NG Church minister and complete a Doctorate in theology.
Photo courtesy Philip Weyers and analysis by Monika Wilde.
The closeness of the Smuts and Malan families did not stop there, later Jan Smut’s father and D.F. Malan’s father shared a semi-detached house together – they were neighbours – literally.
When Jan Smuts died in 1950, Dr. D.F. Malan was attending a National Party political rally to the party faithful and whipping up support for the edicts of Apartheid. An aide walked up to him and handed him a note with the news of Smuts’ death, what he does next would surprise even the hardest right-wing Afrikaner Nationalist.
Instead of gleeful celebration of the demise of this most hated enemy of the Apartheid cause, the man repeatedly called a ‘traitor’ by the Nationalists, a man who had the ‘blood’ of Jopie Fourie on his hands, the ‘hansopper’ and ‘joiner’ turncoat who favoured the union of the Afrikaner with the hated British to heal South Africa over and above separationist Afrikaner rule, the King’s ‘hanskakie’ puppet, old ‘slim Jannie’ who put global interests and governance ahead of his ‘volk’ (white Afrikaner peoples) – no Dr. Malan changed the tone – this was no longer about political one-upmanship and rhetorical language – his reaction to the news was somewhat different to what most people now would even think.
Dr. D.F. Malan addressing a political rally – source S.A. History
Dr. Malan immediately turned pale, he slowly sat down, slumped over and cupped his hands to his face. He had lost a lifelong and very close friend. Their political positions aside, Malan had a deep sense of admiration for his old friend.
Malan even had to be helped up to stand at the microphone, where he announced that “a great figure of our time” has just died, he called the Nationalists to silence and then cancelled the rally. His colleagues reporting that they had never seen Malan so distressed.
DF Malan’s reaction says a lot about Smuts, the importance he had in the formation of South Africa, he was the original ‘reconciler’ of the warring nations in South Africa, his idea of union based his philosophy of holism – all parts of the sphere make the whole, made the state of South Africa as we know it, he was quite literally the ‘father’ of the South African nation, and now he was lost.
Dr. Daniël Malan, still had it within him to respect Jan Smuts as a man, a teacher and a statesman – in fact he never lost his respect for Smuts. He would never have stooped as low in personally vilifying Smuts as some modern protagonists do, he understood the boundaries of simple politicking versus simple respect shown between two seasoned politicians and old family friends who hold opposing political views.
Written and Researched by Peter Dickens
With the helpful assistance of Philip Weyers and Monika Wilde, my deepest thanks once again to the Smuts family.
The Observation Post 