Seems there is a lot of social media chatter surrounding Albert Blake’s new Afrikaans book on Jopie Fourie. One Afrikaner pundit after reading the book declaring anyone not familiar with the ‘truth’ about Jopie as a ‘Volksheld’ and the Rebellion is now a liar and this in his world includes any other qualified historians, other than Albert. Albert Blake himself even declaring his new work is the definitive one and the only medium to be referenced (problem is, only people who are fully literate in Afrikaans can read it).
There is undoubtably some truth in the old saying ‘history is written by the winners’, however very often the ‘plucky loser’ is a perennial favourite of propagandists, myth makers and entertainers (including Hollywood), they are often romanticised and idealised, given virtuous christian outlooks, a civilised veneer and great martial abilities – the little guy taking on the big bully. This is especially true of the 1914 Afrikaner Revolt and Jopie Fourie … and many of its local Afrikaner historians and laymen enthusiasts.
All this Boer romanticism and the portrayal of old Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR) as a benign place for a freedom loving people merely wanting it back – a foreign example of this is the Confederacy in the American Civil War (1861 to 1865), and here a Royal Historical Society historian, Chris Ash made a rather humorous comment and it rings especially true:
“Until very recently, they were certainly viewed by most as the more ‘glamorous’ of the two sides… gallant, good looking Southern gen’lemen who ‘frankly didn’t give a damn’, galloping off to fight against impossible odds against a massed industrialised hordes of a faceless enemy who wanted to end their bucolically halcyon way of life. Throw in a few gorgeous Georgia Peaches – called things like Emma-Lou and Daisy-Belle – all with heaving bosoms barely contained by beautiful ball gowns, and you’ve got all the makings of a heroic myth of doomed failure… well, as long as you ignore that the South started the war, and that they were fighting to retain slavery!”
There is an old proverb, and its especially true to historians “never meet your heroes” .. because in getting to the actual historical figures, you need to analyse who they are as people, how they view the society they live in at the time, and how that society views them. In their context of their time, you as as historian need to overcome your prejudices and start to look at things in a critical way.
This is especially true if you grow up with a ‘rebel’ as a person central to your entire identity, because as true as the sun rises that ‘rebel’ is going to be controversial and for good reason – and very much of this hero will depend on what they are fighting for … and “freedom” is the usual caveat … but then you start to really meet your hero when you ask the next question “freedom for whom?” Here it is where the hero worship of the 1914 Afrikaner rebellion leaders like Christiaan de Wet, Manie Maritz, Jan Kemp, Christiaan Beyers and Jopie Fourie starts to wobble somewhat .. sure they are fighting to free themselves from British oppression – they all said so, including Fourie the day before his colleagues shot him, but he like the others – Maritz, de Wet, Kemp and Beyers are also fighting for their stated aim of the Rebellion, and that’s a completely different kettle of fish.
Insert – Christiaan de Wet on winged horse with damsel holding onto him. Main image – the movie poster from Gone with the Wind.
Now, there is a small problem with the history of the Rebellion – and one of them is the complete lack of history books in English and even less written at the time of the revolt – the complete Afrikaner romanticism of the rebellion all comes much later with the advent and rise of Afrikaner nationalism and a plethora of Afrikaner academic papers, novels and books.
For simplicity sake, there is a ‘English’ side to the 1914 Afrikaner Rebellion story – the majority in the country if we consider all races and nationalities caught up in the Rebellion and there is a ‘Afrikaans’ side of the story, a minority – driven initially by Hertzog and his breakaway cabal of pro Republican Afrikaner Nationalists from the Botha/Smuts South African Party (SAP) in 1914 and then it is heavily driven by a far right grouping of ‘pure’ nationalists after their break with the Hertzog/Smuts Fusion before World War 2 (1939-1945) – and they went about using mass media, aligned academics in ‘Afrikaans’ universities and all manner of propaganda to ‘set the Rebel story strait’ – even Radio Zeesen from Nazi Germany with its renegade Nationalist broadcasters went full tilt at glorifying Fourie, the Rebellion and demonising Smuts during World War 2.
For any historian to take a grip on the 1914 Afrikaner Revolt in 2024, the bank of both primary and secondary source becomes invaluable and it sets up the validity of what you are going to say, ensure whatever it is holds up to academic scrutiny by your peers. In respect to using both primary and secondary sources, the closest you are to the historical figure in question the more accurate and valid the work – so here we find original accounts by people involved in the events as the key.
There has only ever been one comprehensive history book written in English on the Afrikaner Revolt and luckily for us its very close to the events of 1914, it is published a year later in 1915 and its written by a journalist very closely tied to the whole 1914 Revolt having interviewed the principle characters personally and been witness to the events himself. The book is called “The Capture of De Wet” and it’s written by PJ Sampson.
Now, unlike all the Afrikaner historians writing for a Afrikaner market on the 1914 Afrikaner Rebellion who come after PJ Sampson (many come decades after him), Sampson is just not interested in presenting a counter-case for High Treason for the Rebellion – the old Afrikaner Nationalist’s “volks-veraairer” versus “land-veraairer” (traitor to your ‘people’ as opposed to traitor to your ‘country’) argument which has been going round and round Afrikaner family kitchen tables for 110 years and still rages on – nope, Sampson records none of that, in fact he sees the ‘treason’ argument as clear cut one in 1914 and the execution of Fourie as inevitable.
Sampson is not alone, I published an article on my visit to Scapa Flow where unarmed German sailors responsible for sinking their surrendered Imperial fleet were executed for sedition on the spot as they came ashore – some by way of bayonet. 1914 and World War 1 (1914-1918) veterans looked at treason and the execution of traitors very differently to the way we look at it now. Fourie is lucky he got a trial and not a drumhead trial and on the spot execution, at that time if you committed treason or sedition, with war declared and domestic state of emergency regulations in place – you got dragged through an administrative formality which lasted barely a day, then taken out back in the morning and shot – that is what happened to Fourie and that was the way of things then.
Smuts during WW1 and a young Fourie in the insert.
I’m also not alone, one of the principle characters in the Jopie Fourie story is General Jan Smuts, Jan Smuts himself would regard Fourie as having “shed more blood than any other officer.” With the rebellion lost, Beyers drowned and General de Wet surrendered … Smuts would say:
“Only Fourie’s band remained contumacious. Twelve of our men were killed at Nooitgedacht. There was no justification for that. Some of them were shot at a range of twelve yards … A court martial was appointed, strictly according to military law. One of its members told me he felt compunction about serving, because he was a friend of Fourie’s. I replied that that was an additional reason why he should be on the tribunal. On Saturday Fourie was unanimously condemned to death…”1
Smuts would go on to say:
“Had I refused to confirm the sentence, I could not have faced the parents of the young men who met their deaths through Fourie’s fault. There is something to be said for many a rebel, but in this case I conferred a great benefit on the State by carrying out my most unpleasant duty..”2
Smuts remained convinced that a fair trial had taken place, the correct legal framework in place, as to all the rebels Fourie was an exception and Smuts was unrepentant in the outcome, in fact he saw Fourie’s execution as unavoidable and it was his duty to see it through – his attitude had hardened, his son – Jannie Smuts in his biography of his father would write very little on Fourie in the entire appraisal of Jan Smuts’ life and career, Fourie is barely a footnote, a wayward rebel, nothing more.
A lot is also written about by Neo-Nationalist historians and disgruntled Afrikaner commentators on Smuts’ so-called “refusal” to entertain last minute efforts to intervene and reprieve Fourie, Jannie Smuts Junior is however dismissive of this and confident his father “would not have interfered in the course of justice” in any event. So this entire episode in the story really is a non-starter.
The execution of Fourie, the South African Policemen who executed him removed his cell-door as a keepsake to commemorate the occasion (reference Nongqai).
In fact Sampson views Fourie as somewhat deluded and misled, he even sets aside an entire appendix to demonstrate the flaws in Fourie’s understanding of history, his thinking and the flawed nature of his defence testimony, which Sampson tears apart completely and simply dismisses as unreasonable and deluded – instead Sampson takes pity on Fourie as someone who cuts a tragic figure having been misled by less scrupulous men like Maritz, his execution a foregone and unpleasant conclusion.
The main thrust of Sampson’s book is however on the objectives, mission and stated aims of the Rebellion. Although the long-standing Anglophobia caused by the Boer War is considered, it is not Sampson’s focus, simply because he, like many English commentators of his time, they understand the tragedy of the concentration camps and the pain they caused at face value, they see the deaths in context of measles and typhoid epidemics which sweep the camps due to hardship and unsanitary conditions brought about by war – a tragedy and nothing more. The ideas of ‘genocide’ and ‘murder’ of the Afrikaner nation are completely foreign to Sampson and other British historians like Amery of the time and this thinking would qualify fantastical thought at best.
Manie Maritz in this South African Union Defence Force uniform and staff prior to the 1914 Afrikaner Revolt (Maritz Revolt). Lt. Col Maritz is seated front and centre with his ‘Agterryer’ (man-servant) at his heels. It’s the man-servant’s expression and position that is most interesting as in many ways it gives away the complete disregard Maritz felt for people of colour.
Sampson is more interested in the politics of the Afrikaner Revolt and the politics of the leaders taking part in it, the political circumstances in South Africa in effect (and less so the geo-political circumstances). Here Sampson argues that the ‘colour blind franchise’ and human rights for ‘natives’ are also key motivations for the rebellion – the rebels intent on maintaining a Afrikaner led hegemony, an oligarchy based on “Krugerism” as an ideology – which means no franchise, emancipation and limited human rights (if any) to anyone of colour. The declaration of war presents an opportunity for these Afrikaner leaders, with the assistance of Germany, to take over the whole of South Africa and implement this political construct of theirs, much like the post American Civil War traitors like John Wilks Booth and his rebels in 1865 trying to “raise the South” again and reclaim slavery. Sampson refers to the animosity between the ‘Free State’ Boers like Christiaan de Wet against the ‘Transvaal Boers’ of Smuts and Botha over the colour blind franchise, de Wet fearful that Smuts and Botha are ushering it in and it’s all very unacceptable to him.
Now, to anyone paying attention to the history, the colour blind qualified franchise across the entire country (not just in the old British Cape Colony) is one of the key demands by the British for a peaceful settlement of the South African War (1899-1902) ie. Boer War 2. It is the only clause that is dropped out the Peace of Vereeniging agreement as the Boers absolutely refuse to abide it and its a deal breaker. It is only dropped on the proviso that a future Union government, when it is granted self governance, will implement it – Smuts assures the British that he is the man to see it through and all the Boer signatories to the agreement promise they will address it when a Union and self determination is declared (this includes de Wet, Kemp and de la Rey et al)
The South African Union and self determination/responsible government is granted by the British to Botha’s ’South African Party’ (SAP) in 1910. However inside the SAP, Smuts and Botha are simply unable to move on the colour blind qualified franchise as the likes of de Wet and Hertzog will have none of it, 4 Years later it’s beginning to become a problem as an entire black population waits for its emancipation (and its rewards for taking part in the Boer War, the majority of them supporting the British).
Say what! It’s not all about the hatred of the British, Concentration Camps, forced to fight for the British against friendly brethren Germans …. Its about the … blacks!
What you smoking? Yup, I’m afraid there it is, commentators at the time like Sampson were pointing to issues of race – the internal politics at play, not just the geo-politics. To set up the ‘race’ argument Sampson goes in depth into each of the leaders of the revolt by way of outlining their character and disposition to race.
Beyers is described as a very religious man, however he was inordinately vain of his personal appearance (which looking at his pandering to his hair, a monumentally stylised moustache and his disposition to fine and dandy clothing sounds about correct), and regarded as megalomaniac by the man in the street, in fact they “used a more expressive term” to describe him – one not for polite publication. Beyers after the Boer War took to entertaining “veldt Boers” coming in for ‘indabas’ in Pretoria and he earned a reputation as a Anglophobe with a “with a particularly venomous tongue.”3
De Wet is described by Sampson as a different sort of person to Beyers. De Wet too is religious but religion does not dictate his actions – politics does. He is angry with Botha and Smuts for removing Hertzog from cabinet. As a Free Stater he is unhappy with these “Transvaal Boers” entertaining the British request of ‘colour blind qualification franchise’ (which is in fact a Boer War 2 peace treaty pre-requisite). It’s here that we see a common thread in many of the rebel leaders, sheer racism and a desire to maintain an white Afrikaner led oligarchy in South Africa with no rights whatsoever to anyone of colour.
Sampson places De Wet into what he calls a “Old School” Boer whose:
“Abiding fear always has been that British government in South Africa meant that the ascendancy of the whites over the blacks would cease, and one day the kaffirs would be permitted to be on an equality with the whites.”4
Sampson cites this fear of Black ascendancy over Whites as a primary rally call for the Boer Republican armies during the South Africa War (1899-1902). He goes on to outline De Wet deep hatred for Black people as his primary motivator for going into the 1914 Rebellion, he writes:
“De Wet always has treated kaffirs with severity, regarding them as little better than animals, whom he believed he ought to have the right to thrash as he would a dog, it only needed a fine for ill-treating a native to bring on a raging brainstorm that drove him headlong into the maelstrom of rebellion. To fine him, De Wet, was the greatest outrage conceivable, and clear proof that the time had come to strike a blow for freedom!”5
This sentiment and motive for De Wet going into Rebellion as outlined by Sampson is borne out by Jan Smuts, who later uses the fine De Wet gets for assaulting the said black man with a shambok – which was 5 shillings. In broad media, Smuts belittles both De Wet and his purposes behind the revolt by calling it the “5 Shilling Rebellion”.
Christiaan de Wet would go on to say of the Colour Blind Qualified Franchise policy and the fact its still upheld in the Cape Providence:
“The ungodly policy of Botha has gone on long enough, and the South African Dutch are going to stand as one man to crush this unholy scandal.”6
Manie Maritz is also described within his deep-seated racism – he is noted as a man of:
“Enormous strength, inordinate vanity, little education, and the one, perhaps, of all the rebels most open to the influence of German gold.”7
Jopie Fourie is described by Sampson as a religious mans and a very pleasant man – however his Anglophobia seemed to have grown on him like a disease starting with his resentment because of a permanent limp, caused by a bullet wound in the knee during The South African War (1899-1902), and this:
“intensified the bitterness to one who had been a fine footballer and athlete”.8
What follows in ‘The capture of De Wet’ is the ‘Black’ part of the 1914 Afrikaner Revolt, the declaration from Maritz stating that any blacks standing in the way of the rebels will simply be executed. His declaration Maritz states:
“Several cases are known where the enemy has armed natives and coloured people to fight against us, and as this tends to arouse contempt among the black nations for the white, an emphatic warning is issued that all coloured people and natives who are captured with arms, as well as their officers, will be made to pay the penalty with their lives.”9
The killing of Allan William King, the Native representative by Fourie’s Commando. The declaration by the said ‘Natives’ to avenge King and enter the war on their own terms and wipe Fourie’s Commando out by themselves – they are held back by King’s wife who pleads with them for restraint. Sampson notes of ‘rise’ of the ‘Natives’ to avenge King:
‘The natives of the district were almost crazy with rage at the loss of their ” Father,” as they deemed Allan King …. They sent a deputation of chiefs and headmen into Pretoria to see the wife of their dead “inkosi,” to assure her of their love for him … and said to her “Say the word, and we will kill every one of these bad men, and also their wives and children !”10
But Mrs. King shook her head and forbade them to raise a finger, for well she realized the horrors that might follow if once the natives commenced reprisals. The rebels have to thank the wife of the man they so unfairly shot that all their throats were not cut that night, their wives and children assegaied, and their homes given to the flames.’11
The position of Sol Plaatje as to the revolt and Native rights also becomes important. So too is the lambasting of Christiaan de Wet and his martial abilities – and even his influence, his reputation shattered.
Not only Sampson, General Jan Smuts was highly critical of Christiaan de Wet’s fighting abilities and strategic acumen. His son Captain Jannie Smuts would record his father’s disposition, it gives an interesting insight on de Wet and his disposition to making irresponsible strategic and operational decisions – driven instead by emotion and irrational ideals, here it is:
“It might here be noted that there was considerable divergence of opinion amongst the (1914) rebel leaders on their course of action. Beyers wanted a relatively passive though armed form of resistance – the type that came to be known as a “coup” in the Second World War. He was against civil war. De Wet, more fiery and impetuous, was for vigorous action and pushing through to connect up with Maritz. In his zeal he forgot that he was poorly armed, had no field guns, and was short of ammunition. He also failed to reckon with the mobility afforded the Government by the much-extended railway system, or the advent of the petrol driven motor-car”.12
In other words, as a pivot leader of the Boer Revolt of 1914, Christiaan de Wet was flying by the seat of his pants (a trait not uncommon with his approach to the South Africa War 1899-1902) – completely unprepared he was bent on full sedition and revolt to reinstate ZAR republicanism, an oligarchy run on a Boer paramountcy and its severe laws of racial exclusivity and repression throughout the South African Union – paying little regard to the strategic ramifications, operational requirements or even modern military advancements, completely underestimating his enemy, just blindly pursuing his “impetuous” pipe dream.
Yup, its a WHOLE different view of the Afrikaner revolt and its not one you get from your Afrikaner Christian Nationalist education and its certainly not one you get from modern day Afrikaner historians. They have been telling you it’s all about ‘the British’ for decades … and meanwhile, the one and only ‘English’ historian to write on the matter at the time is simply dismissed, completely bypassed – his work simply discarded as ‘jingoism’ – so not relevant.
One thing is a truism, and its true of many Boer War or Boer Revolt books and academic papers directed to Afrikaner consumers in the past, is that the works tend to cater to a specific Afrikaner ‘Volksgeist’, one which has little resonance outside of white Afrikaans culture. These works tend to highlight the ‘whiteness’ of the conflict, and focus primarily on Afrikaner cultural dynamics. One hopes that any new book on the 1914 Afrikaner Rebellion brings something new to the table, one in which the ‘Black’ and the ‘English’ part of the 1914 Rebellion is fully appraised, researched and understood, an in-depth appraisal of race politics of the time, the role played by Black Africans, Coloureds, Indian and even English speaking white South Africans in the revolt i.e. the majority of South Africans – their political representations, reactions and aspirations – what they were “fighting for”, their “freedom” in effect.
Without this, the majority of South Africans will find themselves, once again, as by-standers to this history and they will pay no attention to it whatsoever. The ‘new’ work having no real resonance to modern South African society – just a re-packaged, re-marketed regurgitation of the old white Afrikaner Nationalist debates targeted at a fresh new Afrikaner audience for a little commercial gain.
As a very reputed historian – Dr. Damian P. O’Connor, also pointed out recently, the problem with removing or brushing over sources, especially written accounts such as this one from the period, on the basis of ‘jingoism’ or just ‘not conveniently fitting’ into a Afrikaner nationalist political narrative or even an Afrikaner author’s bias brought about by years of nationalist identity politics and socialisation … is that once we’ve dismissed a first hand written account we are left with nothing, just pure hearsay and verbal tradition .. empty space in effect, and into that ‘empty space’ anyone can write anything they like, we can just make it up. It becomes revisionist history – pure ‘gone with the wind’ romantic drivel.
Written and Researched by Peter Dickens
References:
The Capture of De Wet. The South African Rebellion 1914 – Sampson, Philip J. Published Edward Arnold, London. 1915
JC Smuts. Jan Christian Smuts by his son J.C. Smuts. Heinemann & Cassell Publisher, 1952.
As noted in an earlier Observation Post on the massacre of Black and Coloureds in service of the British after the Battle of Tweebosch by General de la Rey’s Commando (see link )1, and as Dr. Garth Benneyworth, a leading South African War historian pointed out – a significant research gap on the historiography of the South African War (1899-1902) in this respect needs to be investigated.
This specific literacy gap evolves around a policy decision taken by Bittereinder Boer Commanders to shoot out of hand any Black, Coloured or Indian civilian, contractor or soldier deemed as being in support of the British military. No recourse to the law or a trial of any kind – they would be shot on the spot.
A number of very senior Boer Commanders are implicated in this very controversial and at times very genocidal order, and not altogether surprisingly ‘General’ Manie Maritz is in this line up. Early on in his military career Manie Maritz fledges himself as not only a racist, but also a somewhat unhinged commander very capable of murderer.
The Massacre at Leliefontein
Over two days, starting on the 31st January 1902, the Bittereinder effort of the South African War (1899-1902) a.k.a. Boer War 2, and even Jan Smuts, would emerge forever tarnished by what is considered by some as the first massacre of innocents of the 20th Century.
Period image image of the Methodist Mission Nama Leliefonteiners – Barnabas Shaw Links seated centre. Insert image is the mission station church.
Front and centre in this controversial phase is Manie Maritz, who whilst he is under Jan Smuts’ command, rides into the ‘Nama’ missionary town of Leliefontein in the far north west Cape – deep inside the British Cape Colony. Here Maritz immediately detains the Methodist missionary – Barnabas Links – who was acting in place of the absent Rev J.G. Locke. Maritz subsequently reads out a proclamation threatening death to both residents and the town’s missionaries alike if they are found guilty of aiding or abetting the British.
This controversial order to shoot out of hand (no court Marshal, executed on the spot) any ‘coloured’ British civilians and soldiers alike if deemed in support of the British is in fact laid down by General Christiaan de Wet and it becomes policy in Boer Commandos, much to the bewilderment of the British command.
General Christiaan de Wet would inform Lord Kitchener that he personally gave ‘general instructions to our Officers to have all armed natives and native spies shot.’ Kitchener responds to de Wet and says ‘(I am) astonished at the barbarous instructions you (General de Wet) have given as regards the murder of natives … ‘ he then notifies de Wet that Boer Commanders guilty of this crime will face charges of murder and those found guilty will be executed.2
The Nama people (the local people made up of a mix of Khoi Khoi, Namibian and Tswana) and their missionaries are British subjects living in a British colony and fearing for their lives don’t take lightly to the proclamation threat from Manie Maritz and his Boer raiders and they become steadily agitated.
From here out there is a lot of conflicting account, in detaining Barnabas Links a rather strong verbal exchange over jurisdiction and authority takes place and some say Links strikes Maritz with his stick, others say Maritz strikes Links with his sjambok. Either way, a “fists and knives” scuffle breaks between a group of citizens and Maritz’ men, one Republican is injured, Links is also injured, and Maritz and his men manage to disentangle themselves from the melee, leaving 8 Leliefonteiners dead, and ride back to their rendezvous camp.
That night, Maritz and his men become indignant at their treatment at the hands of the Leliefonteiners and elect to exact revenge by wiping the missionary off the face of the earth. So, the next morning the Commando detachment numbering about 100 mounted Boers attacks the missionary in full force. The Nama and their missionaries are no match for a fully armed Boer commando, having some antiquated muskets they try and hold off the assault and most take refuge in the mission building. A further 27 Leliefonteiners are killed (some accounts say a total of 43) and approximately 100 are injured.
Maritz then directs all the surviving women and children, male survivors, and the wounded (including Links) be taken away in chains to the Boer positions surrounding Okiep, and he appoints the local blacksmith to fashion iron shackles for this purpose. Some accounts also point to general violence been meted out by the Boers against surviving Leliefonteiners after the skirmish and ‘refugees’ been hunted down and killed.
Maritz instructs that the mission station be pillaged and then burned down – all the captured sheep and grain are to be forwarded to a Boer supply depot. The mission station is completely destroyed and the dead Leliefonteiners are left where they died in the field– and here they remained unburied for months.
So, how does Smuts and his General Staff react to the news that a detachment of his Commando had ransacked a mission station and killed over 30 poorly armed or unarmed British civilians in a revenge attack? Deneys Reitz on arriving at the destroyed mission station described the scene as follows:
“We found the place sacked and gutted and among the rocks beyond the buried houses lay 20 or 30 dead Hottentots, still clutching their antiquated muzzleloaders. This was Maritz’s handiwork. He had ridden into the station with a few men to interview the European missionaries, when he was set upon by armed Hottentots, he and his escorts narrowly escaping with their lives. To avenge the insult, he returned the next morning with a stronger force and wiped out the settlement, which seemed to many of us a ruthless and unjustifiable act. General Smuts said nothing but I saw him walk past the boulders where the dead lay, and on his return he was moody and curt… we lived in an atmosphere of rotting corpses for some days.”3
Smuts, although clearly unimpressed with Maritz, actually comes through for Maritz in accounting the massacre in his letter to General de la Rey, he down-plays the instance as a ‘close shave‘ for Maritz and somewhat covers up the incident, citing that Maritz was attacked by a knobkerrie whilst acting as a peace envoy, it was taken as a sign of attack and only ‘8 hottentots’ were killed due ‘to misunderstanding and ignorance’.4
Some commentators point to this as collusion, as Maritz is completely exonerated and never held to account for the massacre – whereas similar instances of ‘murdering’ civilians in the cases of the Australian officer Lt. Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant and the Boer Commandant Gideon Scheepers landed them both in front of their respective firing squads. Some historians have argued that had Maritz been caught by the British this would have certainly been his fate.
Maritz naturally felt differently, and feels he has to answer Reitz’ allegations in his autobiography ‘My Lewe en Strewe’ and it really is an insight into the mind of Maritz. He refers to Barnabus Links in a diminutive way as the ‘hottentot Corporal’ with an arrogant swagger and becomes aggressive when Links challenges him instructing him to shut-up and know his place.5
During the massacre, Maritz claims that during a frantic re-load he manages to shoot two ‘Hotnots’ when they suddenly jump up in front of him with only one shot, one being Barnabas Links whose head the bullet grazes and the another next to Links dies of a headshot. Maritz then recounts that it could not have been classified as murder as he walks up to the wounded Barnabas Links after the massacre, and whilst he is lying bleeding on the ground Maritz decides not to shoot him and take him captive instead. His decision not to shoot him dead is according to Maritz one of compassion as he feels he is perfectly within his rights to shoot him and says:
‘I could have shot him dead, as he deserved the death penalty, he wanted to murder me and my men. If General Smuts was in my position, he would surely have shot him (Links) dead’6
Maritz’ reference to Smuts is essentially to put Deneys Reitz in his place by suggesting he knows Smuts better than Reitz, however the history of the relationship of Smuts and Reitz is one of a lifelong, mutually respectful and very tight friendship – whereas Smuts’ relationship with Maritz is one of lifelong animosity, conflict and difference of opinion. The historiography of both men shows Smuts to have liberal and sympathetic disposition to the emancipation and human rights of ‘blacks’ and ‘coloureds’, whereas Maritz displays none of these qualities – in fact the opposite is true.
Unhinged at Okiep
To further demonstrate just how far off the hinge Maritz was, the last real Boer action of the Boer War was when Jan Smuts’ Commando laid siege to the mining town of Okiep in the British Cape Colony in April, 1902. On hearing the news of the Peace Conference, Reitz writes:
‘General Smuts set to work at once. Next morning a messenger was sent into O’Okiep, to advise the garrison that both sides were to refrain front active military operations while the Congress lasted.’7
Jan Smuts then left the siege of O’okiep to take part in the final Peace talks at Vereeniging at the end of April 1902. With Smuts away Manie Maritz decided breach Smuts’ standing order and to attack Okiep with the idea of literally wiping the entire town off the map, using the commandeered Namaqua United Copper Company locomotive ‘Pioneer’ – which was used to propel a mobile bomb in the form of a wagonload of dynamite into the besieged town. The attack failed when the train derailed, snagged upon a barbed wire fence which wrapped around the points, spilling the dynamite upon the ground which burnt out harmlessly.
The locomotive ‘Pioneer’ used by Maritz to try and blow up the town of Okiep in Smuts’ absence, insert picture is Martiz portrait from the period (colourised by Jenny B Colour).
The exercise could have resulted in killing large numbers of women and children (mainly coloured) who sheltered behind the defences, the failure of the operation was a blessing at a time when deliberations at the Vereeniging peace talks potentially heralded the end of the conflict. Smuts would again gloss over the incident and cover for Maritz when he stated that the railway was still intact after the incident anyway, and since there were women and children in Okiep town, all the commando was allowed to do was to give the good citizens of Okiep a ‘tremendous fright with a harmless explosion.’
An ungrateful response
Smuts’ disposition to treating treasonous, rebellious and insubordinate Boer commanders with ‘Kidd gloves’ in the hopes of placating and consolidating their views to see his way on things would be Smuts’ greatest “Achilles heel” – as there would be no such quarter given in the way they would view or treat him in future.
Especially Manie Maritz, who challenges Smuts’ entire concept of the South African Union and even the Union’s Defence force in his own ‘Martiz’ Revolt of 1914, splitting the Afrikaner community for decades to come. The 1914 ‘Afrikaner Revolt is swiftly defeated by Louis Botha and Jan Smuts and Union forces. By the mid 1930’s Maritz would enter politics and become a hardened admirer of National Socialism (Nazism) and Adolf Hitler – becoming a Neo Nazi ‘Grey-shirt’ and then a full blown Nazi ‘Black-shirt’ before forming the National Socialist ‘Boerenasie Movement’.
Maritz’ endorsement of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Life’s commitment to exposing ‘the eternal Jew’ in 1938.
Maritz would become a convert to the racist and anti-Semitic myth ‘the Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ and convinced of a Jewish and Freemason conspiracy to world domination. He would make the ‘Protocols of Zion’ his life’s meaning and his mission to educate the Afrikaner people (his ‘Volk’) to it – and in it he would blame the ‘hidden hand’ of the Jews as the true conspiracists behind starting the Boer War. He would then go into mortal combat with General Jan Smuts calling him the King of the Jews and therefore a traitor to the Afrikaner people.8
Written and Researched by Peter Dickens
References:
Smuts, Jannie. Jan Christiaan Smuts by his Son, London: Cassell Publishers. 1952
D Judd & K Surridge. The Boer War. London: John Murray Publishers, 2002
Reitz, Deneys. Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War, Kessinger Publishing 1929.
Nel, Eben: Kaapse rebelle van die Hantam-karoo, Bienedell Uitgewers, 2003
In a new endeavour to take things a little easier, I’ve also recommitted myself to being honest and cut through the crap – and nothing beats the usual crap on Boer War appreciation groups where we get people putting up a picture of poor old Gideon Scheepers, the ‘Yster’ (stand-up) man the ‘Volks-held’ (People’s Hero), the dreadful British shot him unfairly – the end of a beautiful, young and courageous life.
So, what’s with Scheepers that he gets an annual re-post on just about every Boer War social media group, and what’s with all the admiration – we know he sprang Boer prisoners from gaol and tied a Union Jack to his horses arse, what’s not to like … he epitomises the Afrikaner spirit! … or does he?
There’s good reason he was executed, not withstanding a court case – but his case was such that the retribution, the sheer hatred the ‘British’ (actually read ‘community’) felt toward him was both palatable and certain.
Let’s put it this way – the British made dead sure he would not get the honour of a coup de grâce, in that they used dum dum (expanding) bullets to kill him upfront1 – and the officer ordered that he was not to be lowered but “dropped” into the grave – like a sad mielie sack on the command ‘Let him Drop’!2. It even left one of the British soldiers witness to the burial sick to the stomach at the disrespect shown to Scheepers in his death.3 That, and he was not afforded a marked grave (and his grave site still has not been found). Simply put the British did not want a hero made of him – EVER.
Execution of Scheepers by a British firing squad, seated in a chair, 18 January 1902
Now, you have to ask yourself – why the retribution, why the disrespect? It seems a little extreme, and at the time it was, even by war and ‘Victorian’ standards.
The answer lies in what Scheepers did – he was racist murderer and murdered blacks and coloureds indiscriminately, whether POW or not – even in context of his time and history he was viewed much like the “wit wolf” Barend Strydom is viewed now – and like ‘Breaker’ Morant who faced the same fate, he was guilty – soldier he was not, murderer he was, post war Afrikaner Nationalist propaganda and romanticism aside.
At the time Gideon Scheepers was loathed as he conducted a marauding campaign all over the British Cape Colony, train-wrecking, looting, burning down public buildings and houses belonging to loyalists, and murdering native policemen solely because of their colour. Scheepers even attempted to rob the Murraysburg branch of Standard Bank, sjambokking the manager when he refused to cooperate.
He avoided pitched battle where possible and according to H.M. Wilson, he instead
‘…confined his attention to the more genial work of robbing, burning and devastating. In his operations there was no military object; he meant, he said, to make Cape Colony a desert.’4
Even as the British ‘hunts’ after him started to chase him down and began cutting up his raids and running his Commando to ground, Scheepers found time to commit atrocities. One famous incident involved two coloured scouts who were captured by Scheepers’ Commando. Scheepers decided to be judge, juror and executioner and to murder them, despite their being in uniform and unarmed (so officially classified as Prisoners of War and subject to those conditions). The two were forced to draw lots, and the loser was immediately shot. The other was beaten and released to stagger to the nearest British outpost to tell the story as a warning to other Coloureds and Blacks who had joined the British forces.5
As to all the romanticism, consider Scheepers’ own testimony and statements.
Gideon Scheepers’ last words on the issue:
‘Thirty accusations were brought against me of “murder”, seven of “arson”, “rough” handling of prisoners, “barbaric” treatment of kaffrs etc.’6
Scheepers was particularly incensed at the accusations that he had ill-treated blacks, and that blacks were allowed to testify in court and even act as gaolers. He wrote:
‘We Afrikaners, will never find justice under the English. Everything is for the kaffirs.’7
During his trial General Christiaan de Wet tries to intervene and stay the execution of Scheepers (and that of Hans Lötter who faced similar charges of murdering “blacks” and a firing squad). De Wet writes to Lord Kitchener requesting clemency for the Boer Kommandant’s executing of Black (coloured) soldiers and civilians out of hand as he had personally given the order, he wrote:
‘the ungovernable barbarity of the natives realises itself in practice in such a manner that we felt ourselves obliged to give quarter to no native and for these reasons we gave general instructions to our Officers to have all armed natives and native spies shot.’8
De Wet then said that if anybody was responsible for shooting natives it was himself and his government.
Kitchener rejected the appeal, replying to General De Wet that Boer officers were personally responsible for their actions, and he wrote:
‘[I am] astonished at the barbarous instructions you have given as regards the murder of natives who have behaved in my opinion, in an exemplary manner during the war.’9
Kitchener then notifies de Wet that Boer officers will face the full consequences for the murder of natives and Scheepers had been found guilty and had already been executed for the crime in any event.
Conan-Doyle would say of it in his book, The Great Boer War, that Scheepers was tried
‘…for repeated breaches of the laws of war, including the murder of several natives. He was condemned to death and executed in December. Much sympathy was excited by his gallantry and his youth—he was only twenty-three. On the other hand, our word was pledged to protect the natives, and if he whose hand had been so heavy upon them escaped, all confidence would have been lost in our promises and our justice.’10
It’s little wonder that the old National Party loved Gideon Scheepers – his mother spending years searching for the grave of her son, a heart rendering story if there ever was one, and he’s one of ‘them’ – a white supremacist giving no quarter to blacks from resisting their whites-only hegemony and God-ordained claim to absolute power. The Nationalists unveiled a memorial to Scheepers on 27 May 1978 near the place of his execution as part of the events to celebrate thirty years of Apartheid (the monument is still there). Prime Minister John Vorster was the guest of honour.
In his address, John Vorster said:
‘If we are asked why in 1978 a memorial should be erected for a man who died in 1902, then the answer is simple. The life and work of this man was such that history placed him in the heroes’ gallery and nothing and no one can deprive him of that place.’11
Prime Minister BJ Vorster and the memorial unveiled by the National Party to Scheepers
Problem is, John Vorster could not even stand the idea of TV as the ‘devils message’ from the ‘Devils Box’ – ‘liberal’ thoughts and access to information would be freely available outside of all the ‘bans’ he imposed – and a mere generation later they could not hold back the tide of critical thinking, especially as to the Boer War and their hegemony of white power and claim to absolute rule. I would hate to think what the average modern South African in the ‘Information Age’ thinks of Scheepers as an Apartheid ‘hero’ now, and whether he truly deserves his place in the annuals of Afrikaner heroes according to Vorster.
I also get it, Lord Kitchener calling General de Wet a murderer, this from a man many Afrikaners like to consider a genocidal murderer in any event. I do get the irony, but whatever we may think, there are some very clear cut cases in the Boer War historiography and Scheepers does not come up as a wholesome people’s champion for Afrikanerdom. He’s in the same category as Breaker Morant, no matter how much post war sympathy 120 odd years later and no matter how many attempts at historical revisionism, it’s not going to change the fact he was a racist marauding murderer.
In my mind it would be very handy if people really understand the history before re-posting all this hero worship all the while holding onto an BJ Vorster issued Apartheid security blanket thinking the people around them are either ignorant of “their” history or if they are “English” or “Black” they are naturally biased to it anyway (as if that somehow changes the facts).
Written and researched by Peter Dickens
Colourised insert picture of Gideon Scheepers thanks to Jenny B Colourising. Main pictures shows a Black Cape Colonial policeman of the Boer War period in uniform.
References:
HM Wilson. After Pretoria: The Guerrilla War. London: Harmsworth Brothers Ltd, 1901.
AC Doyle. The Great Boer War. London: Smith, Elder & Co Publishers, Revision 1902.
D Harrison. The White Tribe of Africa – South Africa in perspective. Los Angeles: Berkley California Press, 1981.
D Judd & K Surridge, The Boer War. London: John Murray Publishers, 2002.
C Ash. Kruger’s War – the truth behind the myths of the Boer War. Durban: 30 degrees South Publishers, 2017.
Footnotes
Correspondence with South African War historian Dr Garth Benneyworth – 20/6/2024 ↩︎
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
From Boer ‘Refugee Camps’ to Nazi ‘Konzentrationslager’
In some recent social media postings, the old fracas between the Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg’s inflammatory statements about Boer War concentration camps and Pretoria University’s erstwhile Professor Fransjohan Pretorius’ emotionally charged response to it seems to have resurfaced (not that Rees-Mogg cares a jot, or has even responded to Professor Pretorius), a key source of the fracas in both respects – the use of language surrounding concentration camps.
The issue lies around how ‘concentration camps’ are perceived in our common modern consciousness and what the phrase means to us – not only in South Africa but world over. This was adequately demonstrated in the TV interview with Jacob Rees-Mogg, who, whilst defending Winston Churchill’s legacy, was challenged on the issue of British concentration camps in South Africa during the South African War (1899-1902) a.k.a. Boer War 2.
His response, falling back on a typical Etonian education, compared the death rate in Boer War concentration camps to the death rate in Glasgow at the beginning of the 20th Century – i.e., disease, not war, being the major issue. In Reese-Mogg’s political context he is using a ‘deflection’ as one can scalp mortality statistics and disease statistics by demographic segment and by country from 1899 to 1902 in many ways.
Rees-Mogg’s comparison of Glasgow and South African camps is, however, statistically unsound – mortality rates in South Africa during disease epidemics at the time, notably the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 would have been more compelling and comparative argument.
Rees-Mogg’s grip on disease statistics aside, he then went to state that the camps were set up for protecting Boer citizens. This is a partial truth, believe it or not, the camps were initially set up for protecting refugees – but it comes with a double-edged sword when forcibly displaced citizens were added to the genuine refugee population of the camps, hence the controversy, confusion and general indignation across the Afrikaner community.
Then, Rees-Mogg goes on to state that one should not to confuse the Boer concentration camps with Hitler’s extermination camps. This is an absolute truth, Rees-Mogg is correct, the two concepts are completely different. However, the morality issue regarding the outcome of both systems (i.e. the death of civilians in wartime) will forever be argued – especially when one starts to add modern day 21st Century WOKE sensibilities to 20th Century contexts – the idea that war kills, whether by virus or bullet, makes no difference to the dead.
Wading into this fracas to “set Rees-Mogg strait” comes Professor Fransjohan Pretorius from the University of Pretoria, using equally emotionally charged language.
What is however very interesting to this discussion, and more to the subject to this article, is just how loaded the words ‘concentration camp’ are, and it’s seen in Rees-Mogg’s co-discussant on the panel, Grace Blakeley, an academic, journalist and far left leaning political commentator who best describes herself as a ‘socialist’ – and on the Boer War concentration camps she literally loses the plot – dramatically declaring with great dollops of repugnance that “the British invented the Concentration Camp” – a complete untruth, the Spanish invented concentration camps.
Grace Blakeley then loudly proclaims with all the authority in the world “it was systematic murder!” Now, in the 125 odd years since the war not one single case of ‘systematic murder’ in a Boer concentration camp has been proven – not then and not now – and that’s not an opinion it’s a fact, whether some like it or not. Even the old Afrikaner National Party had 40 years in the pound seats with all the resources at hand to try and ‘prove’ a legitimate case of systematic murder which could hold up to legal scrutiny and could not do it. The simple truth is that all deaths recorded in both the ‘Boer’ and the ‘Black’ Concentration camps of the Boer War are disease or health related (more on this later).
She then excitedly declares “hundreds of thousands of people died” in the white Boer concentration camps – implying mass genocide and ethnic cleansing – whilst in truth 28,000 people died in the ‘white’ camps and about 20,000 in the ‘black’ camps (some say more) – all whilst very tragic, it is hardly ‘hundreds of thousands’ that really is hyperbole.
In Jacob Rees-Mogg’s rather measured counter response to Grace Blakeley’s wild claims he reiterates that it is “completely wrong” for her to compare the Boer War 2 concentration camps to that of Adolf Hitler’s extermination camps of World War 2.
So, how is it that Grace Blakeley (a Labour Party strategic think-tank economist with a Masters Degree in African Studies) gets her facts so woefully wrong?
Another glaring problem with her outbursts, and its highly indicative of the issue at hand, Professor Fransjohan Pretorius in his effort to “set Jacob Rees-Mogg strait” on his facts, only takes aim at Rees-Mogg, the net result is a raft of indignation levelled directly at Rees-Mogg by many in South Africa simply because the good Professor said so. What he does not do, is take aim at Grace Blakeley, an expert in her field, for her equally stupid, emotionally charged and factually incorrect statements. This is a BBC ‘Balance’ panel of Tory and Labour after all. Here the good Professor is ‘Tjoepstil’ – nada, nothing, silent … crickets! But why?
The uneasy answer is that he agrees with Blakeley, and by NOT “setting Grace Blakeley strait” in addition to Rees-Mogg, he tacitly approves of her statements. He is ‘weaponising’ the issue, the surge in indignation from South Africa (and even the UK) does not target the ‘Labourite’ in the debate, but rather the ‘Tory’ – nobody cares about what Grace Blakeley said, they all tacitly agree with her in addition.
It exposes a tremendous old Afrikaner Nationalist bias, something Professor Fransjohan Pretorius is often criticised for in his history writing, and one that is currently undermining his credibility. As they say in Afrikaans “Jou onderrok steek erg uit” (your underwear slip is exposed i.e. your hidden bias is plain to see) – and by nailing his bias to the mast in the way he does – calling the British “scandalous” in addition, and politicising the issue by focusing only on the Tory MP, he creates a fracas and feeds a hungry audience seeking to chastise the British for just about every misery on the planet.
So, what’s with all this tacit approval of this Labourite’s assertions that this was a “British invention”, “systematic murder” and a genocide of “hundreds of thousands” … what’s the connection between the South African War (1899-1902) a.k.a. Boer War 2 and World War 2 (1939-1945) in weaponising words like “concentration camps” for political currency?
The answer funnily enough lies in the little Austrian born Bavarian Lance Corporal with megalomaniac tendencies, to which Jacob Rees-Mogg refers and to whom Grace Blakeley infers (more on Hitler later).
The Boer War ‘Concentration Camps’
Let’s take a quick step back, what’s with attributing the term ‘Concentration Camp’ to the Boer War of 1899 and why the confusion?
Many people have little understanding of the concentration camps of the Boer War. In essence there are two separate phases.
Data Reference: The Boer concentration camps of the South African War, 1900-1902 by Elizabeth van Heyningen.
Phase 1: Started the 22nd September 1900 – they are set up under British military administration by Major-Gen J.G. Maxwell and they are initially intended and termed as “refugee camps” for ‘hensopper’ families (Boers who surrendered early – these include men in addition) and ‘joiner’ families (Boer families whose menfolk joined the British forces and were away fighting) – they are all voluntarily seeking shelter and safety from the Guerrilla phase (Bittereinder campaign) of the war which commences from mid 1900 once Pretoria falls to the British. Here these families are, as Rees-Mogg correctly points out, “sheltered and fed” as there is a “war going on”.
The camps are also referred to as “Government Laagers” – however on the 21st December 1900 Lord Kitchener comes up with a different intention for these “Government Laagers” completely, and he decrees:
“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.”
The camp concept is then opened up from January 1901 to include “bittereinder” families, which are primarily women and children as their menfolk are still “on Commando” (and any other families for that matter), they are involuntarily displaced by Kitchener’s Scorched Earth policies and this curious concept of a refugee camp/displacement camp is expanded somewhat. Similarly, internees in the black camps (which include men and women) are civilians who are also involuntarily displaced. It’s this bit that Rees-Mogg conveniently ignores.
From March 1901 disease related mortality rates in the camps start to climb to unprecedented and alarming levels, and at their peak the mortality rate is driven primarily by a measles epidemic which sweeps the white 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. However, contrary to modern propaganda, although there are many in the camps who are malnourished and conditions are extremely harsh, they are not purposefully starved to death – ‘Starvation and Scurvy’ accounts for only 3% of recorded deaths in the white camps (the records for the black camps are incomplete). 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 Commission’s and parliamentary recommendations, Lord Alfred Milner, the Cape Colony High Commissioner is tasked with taking over the ‘white’ camps from the military and bringing them under civilian authority instead (the Black camps remain under military authority).
Image: Boer concentration camp – children carrying water buckets, colourised by Tinus Le Roux – note the nature of the camp – bell tents, demarkation lines and administration blocks.
As a result of Milner’s direct intervention, from November 1901 the mortality rates 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 preferential treatment of ‘hensopper’ versus ‘bittereinder’ families initiated by the military in the white camps.
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 in the white camps when the Guerrilla Phase and Scorched Earth policy is at its height and at its most destructive (the black camps are a separate matter).
These ‘acceptable’ i.e. normal mortality rates in the white camps 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 thousands of Boer women and children’s lives.
Look out for a future Observation Post on the Boer War camps whilst we tackle this extremely difficult, deeply tragic and often misunderstood concept of Boer War refugee/displacement/re-settlement camps for whites and refugee/displacement/labour camps for blacks (a.k.a concentration camps). This subject is highly nuanced and highly complex and it is certainly not the highly simplistic and emotionally charged outline put forward by Professor Pretorius in his response to Rees-Mogg.
What’s in a word?
The words “concentration camp” comes from two sources really, the Spanish invent the concept and are accredited with the first use of concentration camps starting in 1896 (not the British – the Spanish ‘invent’ the camps three years before Boer War 2), the Spanish call them “campo de concentración” (concentration camps) during The Cuban War of Independence (1895–98) and they ‘concentrated’ Cuban civilians in camps to break their supply lines to marauding Cuban guerrillas.
The second source of the word “concentration camp” ironically comes from the source of the argument between Rees-Mogg and Grace Blakeley, it’s the Germans. It is the ‘German’ version and evolution of concentration camps which would really weaponise the words and bring in concepts of pre-meditated genocide and systematic murder, and oddly enough it does NOT start with Adolf Hitler and his Nazi cabal, it happens well before Hitler’s time and it does NOT start in Europe, as irony goes – it starts in Africa.
Etymology of concentration camps
As to the actual etymology of concentration camps – as said earlier they start with the Spanish during Cuban War of Independence in 1896, the next country to use concentration camps are the Northern Americans (the USA) in the Philippines during the Tagalog Insurgency earlier in 1899 (as with the Spanish – the USA concentrated Filipino civilians in camps to break their supply lines to marauding guerrillas – with the same tragic outcome as the Spanish when disease takes root in the camps).
The third country to use Concentration Camps are the British in late 1900 to forcibly displace Boer ‘Bittereinder’ civilians and cut Boer guerrilla supply lines in addition to providing genuine refugee shelter to ‘Joiners’ and ‘Hensoppers’, with the same disastrous consequences as the Spanish and the Americans as disease takes root in the camps.
As irony goes (and inconvenient truth) it is also the Germans who suggest the use of a concentration camp system during the Boer War, in addition to a Scorched Earth policy, to the British. Kaiser Wilhelm II, as a favour to his blood relative Queen Victoria – after the ‘Black Week’ British defeats to the Boers in late 1899, sets up a strategic planning session with his military elite and compiles a military strategy, not to help the Boers, but to help the British win the war and shared it with them instead. Kaiser Wilhelm II even proudly proclaiming at the end of the Boer War that the British had followed his plan precisely as he had outlined it to them – not Field Marshal Frederick Robert’s plan (see: John C.G. Röhl: The Kaiser and England during the Boer War).
Now, also as inconvenient history and etymology of concentration camps goes, the fourth country to use Concentration Camps is Germany, it’s Kaiser Wilhelm’s military elite who first uses the system for Germany – and it is NOT Adolf Hitler and his Nazi circle.
The 1st Genocide of the 20th Century
The first German concentration camps are initiated just 2 years after the Boer War, they fall part of the Herero Wars (1904-1908) in German South West Africa (now Namibia) and it is infamously officially regarded as the first Genocide of the 20th Century (not the Boer War).
It starts in a similar vein to the Boer War’s Guerrilla Phase, the Herero lead a guerrilla campaign against the Germans to overthrow their colonial yoke. It cumulates in a battle on the 11th August 1904, known as the Battle of Waterberg and the Herero army is defeated, scattered and weakened. In October 1904, General Lothar von Trotha issued orders to kill every male Herero and drive women and children into the desert, denying them access to key water holes. In the desert ‘hundreds of thousands’ of them promptly die of thirst.
The extermination order was finally suspended by the German government at the end of 1904, the surviving tribesmen are then herded as prisoners into Concentration Camps – in German, now termed “Konzentrationslager” (Concentration Laager or ‘camp’), there are 5 concentration camps and over the course of their existence the Hereto tribe is joined with members of the Nama tribe also rebelling against the Germans. In the concentration camps the Hereto and Nama are put to slave labour in support of the German military and German settlers. Again, the camps are horrific, and the inmates starved of rations and water, disease also takes hold.
These camps are fundamentally different to the British Boer War concept, these are slave labour camps, inmates are imprisoned, there are cases of them been shot, starved and worked to death – some are even hanged. There is no real consideration to medical care and as to medical intervention, the Germans also enter the history books as the first to use concentration camp inmates for medical experimentation.
In all, between the war, the order of extermination and resultant starvation and the concentration camps engaging slave labour approximately 80,000 Hereto and Nama die.
Image: Chained prisoners from the Herero and Nama tribes during the 1904-1908 war against Germany.
Modern Historians have drawn a linear connection between Germany’s ‘Konzentrationslager’ of the Namibian conflict in line with the German ‘Konzentrationslager’ of World War 2, the central thread is “pre-meditated Genocide” (systematic murder in effect). The idea of Concentration Camps to exterminate races of people and ‘purify’ the population starts with General Lothar von Trotha in his written statement on the matter;
“I destroy the African tribes with streams of blood … Only following this cleansing can something new emerge, which will remain.”
The simple truth is, when the Nazi party came to power in Germany, this German policy of using concentration camps for ethnic cleansing and not merely for defeating ‘Guerrilla’ warfare by cutting civilian supply lines as the Spanish, Americans and British had used them – and this Genocidal intent for “Konzentrationslager” becomes highly apparent and acceptable in Germany itself.
Enter Herr Hitler
Now we get to the subject of the Austrian born Bavarian Lance Corporal with megalomaniac tendencies, to which Jacob Reece-Mogg refers and to whom Grace Blakeley infers. What is his connection to The Boer War?
If you’re a big fan of Paul Kruger and Boer Republicanism, and believe that our modern interpretations of the Boer War have nothing to Nazism – now is the chance to look away, because this next bit is going to sting somewhat – our modern interpretation of the Boer War has a lot to with Adolf Hitler and Nazism – in fact Hitler and his Nazi inner circle’s interpretation of the Boer war still guides European opinion of it in Europe and it fundamentally reinforced the Afrikaner Nationalist interpretation of it in South Africa – a legacy that continues even to this day.
Huh! How’s that all connected … Kruger, Hitler and Nationalist Afrikaner ideology and identity? Well, it starts with Herr Hitler’s enthusiasm for everything Boer War related and his dramatic and spell-binding speeches.
Hitler would record in his book ‘Mein Kampf’ that in his youth;
“The Boer War came, like a glow of lightning on the far horizon. Day after day I used to gaze intently at the newspapers, and I almost ‘devoured’ the telegrams and communiqués, overjoyed to think that I could witness that heroic struggle, even from so great a distance…”
Then on the 30th January 1940, with Nazi Germany at the height of its influence and popularity, Adolf Hitler gave a speech at the Sportspalast and stated the following on The Boer War;
“They (Britain) waged war for gold mines and mastery over diamond mines”
Hitler then went on in the same speech to say of the Boer War:
“After all, this entire blockade warfare is nothing other than a war against women and children just as once was the case in the Boer War … It was then that the concentration camps were invented. England locked up women and children in these camps. Over 20,000 Boer women (and children) died wretchedly at the time.”
Just about every sentence Hitler is uttering here is either pure falsehood or a half truth – blaming the British for “inventing” the “Konzentrationslager”, painting the camps as “locked” prisons, and implying the British wage genocide and not war.
Image: Adolf Hitler speaking at the Sportspalast
Ah, but it’s just a speech Mr Dickens – you make too much of it! Hitler said many things comes the universal call … nobody took him seriously! Wrong … this gets much bigger than just a speech – this ‘Pro-Boer’ Nationalism morphs into an entire Nazi propaganda campaign – one which is regarded as the most influential and successful Nazi propaganda campaigns ever devised – so bear with me.
What Hitler is doing in his speech is using his intense ‘fame’, peaking in 1940, across Germany, Western Europe and the globe in some respects – remember that Hitler is a world player and influencer from 1935 to 1940, he is literally a “God” in Germany and Austria – what comes out his mouth people listen to and literally millions of people gobble it up as a truth. With this statement he achieves three things:
Firstly, he demonises the British (the only real “enemy” he has left in 1940) as an enemy of the German people, but also – most importantly – an enemy to Europeans at large – and he uses the Boer War for this purpose as it is in living memory for many Europeans, this deflects the focus on Germany as the enemy to Britain as the enemy of Europe. Europe is now also within the 3rd Reich’s scope of influence – which at the time needs to be viewed as sort of early version of the European Economic Union, and in 1940 it was literally at its height.
Nazism and the concept of the 3rd Reich was a lot more popular in Europe in the lead up to World War 2 than most people would believe now. In fact its position as “anti-bolshevist” (anti-Communist) and as “anti-Judeo Capital” found vast popular appeal in right wing and conservative parties across Europe – especially in France, the Netherlands and Belgium, these people would see Nazi Germany as liberators – not invaders – and after Germany invades Western Europe in 1940 they all immediately come into government of their respective countries as collaborating parties to the Nazi cause (the conservative and popular southern based “Vichy French” government is a case in point), and they immediately engaged with the 3rd Reich and it’s regional economic and political policies. Hitler is relying on these supporters to support his view that Britain and not Germany is the true enemy, and the Boer War according to Hitler is his ‘proof positive’ of this.
Secondly, Hitler is reinforcing Anglophobia and Republicanism in South Africa through propaganda and he is giving re-assurance to the Afrikaner nationalist cause from Berlin. To understand this better, Afrikaner Nationalism starts in earnest with the establishment of the National Party in 1914 – at this stage it has as its central ideology ‘Krugerism’ – Kruger’s political philosophy and the old ZAR’s (Transvaal) Republicanism constitution and race laws (Grondwet) at its centre. An Oligarchy bordering on a Theocracy with no political emancipation for Black Africans whatsoever (the majority), and racially based franchise and citizenship restrictions for white ‘foreigners’ (read British) and Jews.
By 1940 this party has evolved its ‘Krugerism’ ideology to a ‘Christian Nationalism’ ideology – a political philosophy which B.J. Vorster (a future South African head of state) famously equated with National Socialism (Nazism) in 1942 when he said:
“We stand for Christian Nationalism which is an ally of National Socialism. You can call this anti-democratic principle dictatorship if you wish. In Italy it is called Fascism, in Germany National Socialism and in South Africa, Christian Nationalism”.
Also bear in mind in 1940, when Hitler gave this speech and referenced the Boer War, the National Party was bound to the hip with openly pro-National Socialism, Pro-Hitler, Pro-Nazi Germany movements in South Africa – domestic political organs like the South African Nazi ‘shirt’ movements – Louis Weichardt’s South African Christian Nationalist Socialist Party or “Greyshirts” and Manie Wessels’ and Chris Havemann’s ‘Democratic Movement’ or “Blackshirts”. Other Nazi ‘shirt’ organisations included the Volksbeweging (People’s Movement) or ‘African Gentile Organisation’ which was established by H.S. Terblanche. Johannes Bruwer also founded the ‘Bond van Nasionale Werkers’ (National Workers Union) which became known as the “Brownshirts”.
Added to this was the Ossewabrandwag led by a Nazi devotee – Dr J.F.J. van Rensburg who transformed the Ossewabrandwag from a predominately Afrikaner cultural movement surrounding the 1938 Great Trek Centenary into a militarised, totalitarian, anti-Semitic, anti-British, anti-Anglo/Judaism capital and pro-Nazi movement operating under the guise of an Afrikaner cultural movement. In addition, the National Party’s Defence Minister, Prime Minister Barry Hertzog’s right-hand man, Oswald Pirow was another Nazi devotee, and it inspired his organisation – the Nazi ‘New Order’ or Nu Order. Added to this is the popular leader of the 1914 Boer Rebellion – Manie Maritz, who has become an Hitler worshiper and rabid antisemite, now leading the ‘anti-democratic’, ‘one party’, ‘national socialist’ – ‘Boerenasie’ (Boer Nation) party.
Images: SANP and Ossewabrandwag
As outlined by Werner Bouwer in his ‘National Socialism and Nazism in South Africa’ – to all these South African Hitler admirers and their followers, Hitler’s assurance that the British committed a Boer ‘Genocide’ is music to their ears. They all attested to the concept that the British had tried to ethnically cleanse South Africa of the Boer nation during the war – and here one of the world’s greatest leaders, a 20th Century iconoclast who agreed with them, and whose not to believe Adolf Hitler? He is a European powerhouse, he’s at the helm of a super-power like Britain and now he’s standing up to Britain and telling it as it is – if it comes from Hitler it’s a truism, the British committed Boer Genocide and stole the Boer’s gold … and it does not end there, Hitler goes further … much further.
Enter Herr Göring
During a press interview Hermann Göring (the spokesperson on behalf of Adolf Hitler), took a leaf out his Führer’s leader’s book on the Boer War when he deflected a challenge from Sir Nevile Henderson, the British ambassador to Berlin who protested about the German government’s use of concentration camps for the political ‘re-education’ of German’s dissonant non-believers in Nazism and opposition in 1935, and using a ‘press stunt’ Göring dramatically sprung up, walked over to a bookcase and like a thespian actor, grabbed a German encyclopedia opening it at “Konzentratinslager” he read out loud,
“First used by the British, in the South African War”.
Although factually incorrect, his action served as a skilful stroke of deflection of which Hermann Göring was a past master.
Image: Adolf Hitler (left) and Hermann Göring (right).
It was not just Hermann Göring in Hitler’s inner circle toeing his Führer’s line on the Boer War, using all the propaganda tools at their disposal, this myth was about to hit the big time as also in the ‘inner circle’ is the Nazi Propaganda Minister and he’s going to really propagate Boer War myths – not only in Germany, but also across the entire Western European continent.
Enter Herr Goebbels
Dr. Joseph Goebbels was a propaganda mastermind, he was a rabid, almost insane follower of his Führer, Adolf Hitler and a devout Nazi.
In printed media, the German propaganda machine would go even further on the back of Hitler’s speeches and use an image of Paul Kruger and the Boer War on propaganda posters to recruit Waffen SS troops in the Netherlands and Belgium, with whom these countries had an affinity for the Boer War. Both these countries proved highly fruitful in recruiting Waffen SS troops as they feared Bolshevism more than Nazism and for these conservative sections of the populations Nazism had an appeal (not to be confused with the SS, the Waffen SS also comprised ‘non-German’ and ‘foreign’ battalions – and later in the war they proved to be ferocious and devout combatants).
Next up in Goebbels’ propaganda arsenal was radio. Joseph Goebbels made this radio address on 19 April 1940, on the eve of Adolph Hitler’s birthday and said:
“On 3 September last year (1939), two hours after English plutocracy declared war on the German Reich, the British Prime Minister Chamberlain gave a radio speech …The point of the speech was that England had no intention of waging war against the German people … get rid of the Führer or so-called Hitlerism …. At the beginning of the war, however, they sang the same old song …. Its melody was dull and worn out. British plutocracy had tried to persuade the Boers during the South African war of the same thing. Britain was only fighting Krugerism. As is well known, that did not stop them from allowing countless thousands of women and children to starve in English concentration camps”.
Image: Joseph Goebbels making a radio address on the eve of Adolph Hitler’s birthday.
The idea that Britain and not Germany is the natural enemy of civilised Europe because of they way they conducted the Boer War and committing pre-meditated genocide in concentration camps is starting to take shape. Goebbels said of radio;
“We want a radio … that is an intermediary between the government and the nation, a radio that also reaches across our borders to give the world a picture of our character, our life, and our work.”
In this respect Radio Zeesen was also part of the arsenal, it was a Nazi German ‘International’ propaganda service radio station broadcasting in short wave in eighteen different foreign languages including Afrikaans, it broadcasted both Hitler’s speeches and Goebbels’ messages – and eagerly picked by devout Afrikaner Nationalists in South Africa.
Also, Goebbels loved, literally adored movies and the moving picture industry – he regarded this industry as his single most powerful propaganda tool, and he made a number of movies that came to define the Nazi legacy:
The Jud Süß – ‘Süss the Jew’ – was released in 1940, and it became an absolute blockbuster – today it is considered one of the most antisemitic films of all time. However, even this movie did not make it to the much-converted Reich Propaganda Ministry’s “Film of the Nation” rating. Only four movies made it to this rare honorary distinction deemed critical viewing for national identity in Nazi Germany – Heimkhehr (1941) – an anti-Polish movie, Der große König (1942) – a movie about Frederick the Great of Prussia, Die Entlassung (1942) – a movie about the dismissal of Otto von Bismarck and finally …… Ohm Krüger (1941), a movie about Paul Kruger and the Boer War.
Say what? Ohm Krüger – Uncle Paul Kruger! What on earth does that have to do with German National identity, all the other movies are about Germany and the Nazi journey in forging their National Socialist identity – that all makes sense, what on earth is a movie about South Africa and the Boer War doing in the mix – what does that possibly have to do with Nazi identity?
Well, as an inconvenient truth goes, it turns out quite a lot – so let’s examine what its purpose was, how its linked to Nazim, its relationship to Concentration Camp propaganda and how it fared – its impact.
Ohm Krüger, the man, the movie and the myth
Directed by Hans Steinhoff and starring Emil Jannings, Lucie Höflich and Werner Hinz. Although the plot has nothing to do with Germany, the story centres around a character which the Germans could admire, “Uncle” Paul Kruger – a man the Propaganda Minister wants to draw parallels to Adolf Hitler, who he deems is also a man with a common touch, from a simple background and one who is thrust into extraordinary circumstances due to international aggression and a conspiracy of greedy ‘foreigners’.
The plot revolves around a dying Kruger’s flashback, now old and blind confined to a sanatorium in Switzerland.
Harping back to an earlier time, Kruger is portrayed as having all the mystique of a great national leader at odds with Great Britain and proclaims, “With England, one cannot come to an understanding”, “We have only one aim, peace and liberty”, “One must be a dreamer to become a ruler.” Much as Adolf Hitler himself is proclaiming.
Lord Kitchener, the British Commander in South Africa is portrayed as a sadist stating things like “No more humanity”, “We must be without mercy”, “We must set up concentration camps” and fight the war “by colonial means.”
The film also centres on Cecil John Rhodes as the principle villain, desirous of Transvaal Gold he creates border disputes (the Jameson Raid) in cohorts with Joseph Chamberlain (the Colonial Secretary), who in turn solicits the support of Queen Victoria and Price Edward, who also become desirous of invasion once they learn of the gold in the region, Queen Victoria’s character states “If there’s gold to be found, then of course it’s our country. We British are the only ones capable of carrying the burdens of wealth without becoming ungodly”.
Kruger then tricks the British into signing a treaty which gives them the gold, but Kruger holds onto the supply of dynamite as a monopoly, which the British then have to buy from him at exorbitant prices.
Cecil Rhodes, having been tricked and outmanoeuvred by the astute Kruger, then tries to buy Paul Kruger’s allegiance offering him a ‘open’ chequebook. However, Kruger is incorruptible and rejects his offer. Rhodes then decides to expose members of Paul Kruger’s Raad (council) who are British spies on his payroll and shows Kruger a list of names. Fearing an internal plot that will over-throw his authority, Kruger decides to declare war against the British or lose his country.
The Boers are initially victorious in the war, but Lord Kitchener then rather cowardly decides to use Boer women and children as human shields and places them in concentration camps in an attempt to demoralise the Boer Army. To this point Kitchener’s character says, “an end to woolly humanitarianism, which means hitting the Boers where they are vulnerable. We must burn their farms, separate wives and children from their men folk, and put them in concentration camps. From today all Boer, without exception, are outlaws. No distinction is to be made between soldiers and civilians.”
Kruger’s own son, Jan Kruger, tries to find his wife in a concentration camp, he’s portrayed as educated at Oxford University and at first harbours pro-British sympathies, but changes his mind completely when a drunken British Sergeant assaults his wife. Jan Kruger is caught and becomes the martyr for the Boer cause when he is hanged by the neck by the British on a hill that looks like Golgotha. “I die for the Fatherland” he cries.
Like a Shakespearean tragedy, a British soldier then shoots Jan Kruger’s wife (their children are already dead) and the interned Boer women respond angrily to the hanging, so the British then form a skirmish line and brutally massacre them – indiscriminately shooting women in the back and mowing them down as they flee the executioner’s hill with Jan Kruger swinging from a lone tree.
The flashback concludes in the Geneva hotel room. In conclusion, the dying and blind Kruger reflects on the defeat of the Boers then prophesies the destruction of Britain by major powers of the world declaring “We were a small people, but great and powerful nations will arise to reduce the British to pulp” which alludes to the German Third Reich, Fascist Italy and later Imperial Japan.
To any historian who knows his salt, this entire plot is pure fable, it really is “Ouma se stories” – absolute ‘Hollywood’. Gold is the ‘Catalyst’ to the war but not the ‘Casus Belli’ of the war – that’s a franchise vote for a disenfranchised majority in the Transvaal. No women and children are ever shot in a Concentration Camp by any British soldier – ever, didn’t happen, there’s also no recorded ‘massacre’ as is portrayed in the movie, didn’t happen either – in fact there is also no recorded hanging in a concentration camp, public or otherwise.
The British are victorious in both phases of the war – not the Boers. Kruger’s’ son is never executed by the British, they also never shoot his wife. Kitchener goes to pains to distinguish between civilians and combatants in proclamation after proclamation. The Jameson raid is to raise ‘white’ disenfranchised miners, into revolt not hordes of native ‘blacks’ into rebellion (as is the movie’s sub plot – with Blacks depicted as ‘treasonous’, ‘primative’ and ‘ignorant’ requiring good white Afrikaner benevolence and oversight). Joseph Chamberlain is exonerated over the Jameson Raid and there is no documented proof he had oversight of the raid whatsoever, Queen Victoria certainly had no knowledge of the Raid.
Queen Victoria is also not a drunk and in fact goes out her way to affirm her wish for independence for the ZAR. Jan Kruger is never a British sympathiser, nor does he go to Oxford, also there is no such thing as list of ZAR ‘Raad’ spies shown to Kruger by Rhodes as the ‘trigger’ to the war – the ‘trigger’ to the war is the Boer invasions of sovereign British territories on the 11th October 1899. The British never seize a gold mine, they nationalise nothing, in fact they don’t even really benefit from the taxes from the mines – the mines remain in private hands, before and after the war.
And the Nazi German propaganda machine didn’t miss a beat in the movie, the evil Cecil Rhodes is played by none other than the Austrian actor Ferdinand Marian, who was better known to German audiences as Süss the Jew in the very popular and disgustingly antisemitic “The Jud Süß” – a better villain to link Judeo-Capitalism with British-Capitalism they could not find.
As antisemitic the undertone is, as racist the overtone is, British missionaries are seen handing out rifles to Black South Africans to rise in rebellion and kill Boers singing ‘God save the Queen’ and onward Christian soldiers. Queen Victoria herself is portrayed as a cunning old harridan addicted to whisky, and a Winston Churchill look alike is portrayed as an overfed commander of a concentration camp for Boer women, who are kept in a condition of starvation and whose plight is depicted, not in bell tents on open veldt, but in an Auschwitz look-alike camp complete with towers and barbed wire containment fences.
On Churchill, the Nazi propaganda machine surrounding the movie also doesn’t miss a beat either. Churchill’s involvement in the Boer War is mercilessly exploited, even accusing him directly of implementing the concentration camp policy (which is pure fabrication) – and the following media release accompanies the film:
“The same Churchill who in South Africa saw his ideas about exterminating the Boers followed throughout, as the English rulers, voicing polished humanitarian slogans, while driven by mere greed, unleashed the most contemptible actions on a people under attack. The same Churchill is now Great Britain’s prime minister.”
Winston Churchill is an imbedded journalist and later a combatant and has nothing to do with concentration camps, in fact he never laid eyes on a Boer one – he returns to Great Britain at the end of the 1st Phase (Conventional war phase) of the war before the camp system is initiated.
British concentration camps were portrayed in the film as intentionally inhumane. Meanwhile, as irony goes, at the same time major expansion of the Nazi German system of concentration camps is taking place, designed for actual ethnic cleansing, slave labour and systematic murder and it was being enthusiastically implemented by those very same Nazi.
As extreme irony goes, the set of the British concentration camp for Ohm Krüger was actually but a few miles from a real Nazi Concentration Camp at Sachsenhausen, an interesting case of art imitating life. Out of 200,000 inmates in the real camp, half died, about 100,000 people from 1936 to 1945 – twice as many than the entire Boer War, and that is only ONE of the German concentration camps – theirs is murder on an industrial level.
Finally, as the film’s prediction goes – the world powers do not rise up to crush Britain, in fact they rise up and crush Germany. But to the power of propaganda, there are still people in South Africa and Europe who would take all of Ohm Krüger as an absolute truism – even to this day.
To see the full movie of Ohm Krüger – with English sub titles, here is the YouTube link:
What’s the outcome, how does this movie do?
It’s a massive success, a propagandistic blockbuster, it’s by far the most expensive film produced in Nazi Germany up to that time with a 5.5 million Reich Marks budget and a massive film lot outside Berlin that resembles a mini-South Africa with 100 Longhorn cattle and African huts. Ohm Krüger offers plenty of entertainment – ‘wild west’ frontier grit alongside its vivid battle scenes, as if John Ford’s Monument Valley had been transposed onto South Africa’s Transvaal region.
It is first screened on 4th April 1941 in Germany, and it’s rolled out across Europe – it opens in Italy in September 1941, France on the 1st October 1941, Hungary on the 19th December 1941, Finland on the 15th March 1942 and it even makes it to Japan on the 2nd September 1943. It makes it way right across Europe – Bulgaria, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium etc.
Both locally and internationally, it is received to rapturous applause. It is pitched as the European cinema equivalent to ‘Gone with the wind’ and it’s a winner – literally, not only the first movie to win the converted ‘Film of the Nation’ and the award for ‘Film of Special Value in terms of state policy and art’, but importantly – it also wins the Mussolini Cup for the Best Foreign Film at the 1941 Venice Film Festival.
The movie is so popular, the Nazi propaganda machine even decided to re-release it in 1944. In the end – millions of people see it, today it is regarded as Nazi propaganda master stroke. However, as irony goes the Nazi propaganda machine ‘Bans’ the movie in 1945, not because it’s a great yarn, entertaining and an outstanding propaganda piece – but because they are concerned that the graphic massacre of Boer women at the end of the movie would upset the female population of Germany concerned about their treatment at the hands of the counter-attacking and invading Soviet Union and other Allied armies at the end of the war.
How does this movie stack up to our modern understanding of Concentration Camps, what does it do to link Nazi Concentration camps to Boer Concentration Camps? Let’s look at how the international critics review this movie in relation to this question.
Erwin Leiser in his 1974 work Nazi Cinema said;
“Ohm Kruger is meant to show that Britain is the brutal enemy of any kind of order or civilization … when England realizes that even with cannon and rifles she cannot crush the little nation whose heroic struggle is jubilantly acclaimed by the whole world, she (England) decides to commit one of the most obscene acts in the history of the world … the technique makes it possible to reveal that concentration camps were no German invention: the peculiar logic of Gobbels thereby justifies the Nazi camps.”
And Roger Manvell in his study of Films and the Second World War concludes;
“The shattering conclusion to the movie, the concentration camp massacre, provokes and disturbs even today, not only due to its undeniable artistry, but more because of how it invites comparison with the still greater horrors we associate with Nazi Germany, atrocities this movie was designed to rationalize and exonerate.”
Bottom line, the movies broad appeal, the unrelenting publicity and propaganda machine surrounding it, its popular acceptance in Europe and extensive distribution cements the idea throughout Europe that the Boer Concentration Camps are a British invention and that they are intended to ethnically cleanse the Boer nation. By demonising the British in this way, the German propaganda machine very successfully deflects and sanitisers their own Nazi ‘Extermination Camp’ Concentration Camps which are indeed intended to ethnically cleanse Europe of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, asylum patients and even Freemasons.
The Nazi German death rate in their concentration camp, POW camp and extermination camp systems is on an industrial scale, 18.5 million die in total, a figure so high that it is almost impossible to comprehend – the idea that concentration camps are purposefully engineered and designed to eliminate hundreds of thousands of people at a time, the 6 Nazi extermination camps in Poland alone kill over 3 million people.
In Conclusion
The net result of it, to this day, throughout Europe (as this is all still in living memory within one generation to many) the British are forever tarnished with the idea that they “invented the concentration camp” and they committed “systematic murder” and genocide to “hundreds of thousands” of Boers as the poorly misguided and very misinformed Grace Blakeley blurts out in her response to Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Now, Grace Blakeley is not a known South African historical commentator, in fact it’s doubtful she’s ever read a proper historic treatise on the Boer War, the conversation she is having with Jacob Rees-Mogg is on Winston Churchill’s legacy, the Boer War is mentioned in passing. What she states as ‘facts’ on the Boer War are nothing more than perceptions, and in Europe the perceptions on the Boer War were driven by the both Nazi propaganda machine and the concept of the German Konzentrationslager.
Afrikaner Nationalism from 1948 and their Christian Nationalist propaganda on the Boer War is highly isolated, it exists in South Africa only, it does not make it onto a European platform in any significant way whatsoever – as far as the British education establishment are concerned the official history of the Boer War is Leo Amery’s 7 volumes titled ‘The Times History of the war in South Africa’ – end of story, and it says nothing about “systematic murder”, ethnic cleansing or the British “inventing the concentration camp”, it’s this history that Etonian teachers impart to the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Grace Blakeley has never been exposed to an Afrikaner Christian Nationalist education and it’s doubtful she’s even read Leo Amery – she would not know what a South African ‘Boer’ is if one jumped up and bit her on the bum. It’s not accredited history that is guiding Grace Blakeley, she has no clue that the Spanish and Americans used concentrations camps before the British. The Spanish who actually invented the concentration camp and whose mortality rate on Cuban civilians far exceed that of the Boer camps get away with it scot-free, even to this day, such is the power of this propaganda.
Nor has Grace Blakeley any idea of Boer mortality during the war. Her view is sheer perception based on the output of an extensive and very effective Nazi German propaganda campaign in Europe, coupled with the fact that Germany is singularly responsible for linking concentration camps to systematic murder and pre-meditated genocide, which it invented (not the British) as early as 1904, and by 1945 had perfected the killing machine on an unpredicted level. Hence the reason Jacob Rees-Mogg has to remind her that she’s promoting a Nazi construct and intensionally confusing the matter.
The erstwhile Professor Fransjohan Pretorius in tacitly harbouring the same sentiment and directly supporting Grace Blakeley as both of them are now in unison challenging Jacob Reese-Mogg, and this desire to morally “set him strait” is testament to the power of the propaganda driving both of them. In pitching his rebuttal to Rees-Mogg and approaching the media in the way Professor Fransjohan Pretorius does, he is allowing everyone else, now armed with confirmation bias, to challenge Jacob Rees-Mogg’s misunderstandings only and not challenge the Nazi inspired mistruths peddled by Grace Blakeley.
On linking Nazism, Kruger, Krugerism and Christian Nationalism, I’m afraid the hard truth is that linking Kruger to Hitler was done very effectively by the German propaganda ministry in Europe prior to and during World War 2. The Afrikaner Nationalist ‘right’ in their support of Nazi Germany during WW2 and infusing the edicts of Krugerism with Weimar Eugenics to create Apartheid after World War 2 certainly creates a linear relationship and reinforces the argument somewhat.
Written and Researched by Peter Dickens
References:
National Socialism and Nazism in South Africa: The case of L.T. Weichardt and his Greyshirt movements, 1933-1946 By Werner Bouwer
Ohm Kruger/Uncle Kruger: The notorious of Nazi Germany’s Anti-British Statements. By Blaine Taylor
Concentration camps in the South African War? Here are the real facts! by Professor Fransjohan Pretorius
BBC On-Line: Jacob Rees-Mogg comments on concentration camps
IMDb On-Line: Ohm Krüger
Ohm Krüger: The Genesis of a Nazi Propaganda Film By Christian W. Hallstein
Films and the Second World War (1974) by Roger Manvell
Morbidity and Mortality in the Concentration Camps of the South African War, 1899-1902 (2007) by Dr Iain R. Smith (History, Warwick University) and Dr Elizabeth van Heyningen (University of Cape Town) 2007.
Nazi Cinema (1974) by Erwin Leiser
The Kaiser and England during the Boer War by John C.G. Röhl
South African Scientific Journal “The Boer concentration camps of the South African War, 1900-1902” By Elizabeth van Heyningen – Department of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa
The Rise of the South African Reich. By Brian Bunting – published in 1964.
Thanks to JennyB Colourising and Tinus Le Roux for the colourised images.
An opposing view, a massacre, a revolt, and a Nazi.
There is an old joke in Afrikaner politics, put two Afrikaners in a room and they will come up with three political parties!
It’s funny because throughout history it has always proven to be very true, As a nation from the get go, literally from the Great Trek serious schisms have occurred within the Afrikaner culture – from the Great Trek’s “Vlugkommando” where two trekking parties could NOT agree a overall Commando Commander for an assault on the Zulu on the 6th April 1838 and decided instead to have two equal Commanders in equal positions of authority – the result (if you’re a military vet – you guessed it) .. a Zulu victory and the death of 10 Voortrekkers including Piet and Dirkie Uys – the surviving “Vlug” Kommando (meaning “Flee” or ‘run-away’ commando) splitting ways after the battle, both accusing each other of been “Veraaiers” (traitors) and heading off on their respective treks.
So, as humorous as it is seriously tragic, nothing represents this dichotomy of views more so than this image of Jan Smut’s Commando during the South African War (1899-1902) a.k.a. The 2nd Boer War. In it are two leaders who have – right upfront – two massively differing opinions, two completely differing views of life and vastly differing outlooks on the objects of the war and the country as a whole going forward. So much so that it is a surprise that Smuts was even able to command this Commando, that his is arguably one of the most successful ‘Bittereinder’ Commanders of the war is even more surprising, and testament to Smuts’ abilities.
Image: General Jan Smuts’ Commando during the South African War 1899-1902. Smuts and Maritz are seated in the centre – photo colourised by Jennifer Bosch
So, what’s with this leadership battle – what’s with these vastly differing views? The two people in this famous photograph are Manie Maritz and Jan Smuts, and the composition of the shot by the photographer ironically betrays their future feelings towards one another as an intense dislike of one another would emerge – and even here, almost by purpose, Smuts is seated opposite Maritz for a group portrait and both of them have their backs to one another looking the other way.
This differing view and outlook of these two men would forever taint Smuts’ commando with a mass murder of civilians – something your school history book would have conveniently glanced over – this differing outlook on Afrikanerdom would result in a serious schism in Afrikaner cultural fabric after World War 1, a schism that still exists to this day believe it or not and it would it would even add to the “Nazification” of the Afrikaner far right-wing prior to World War 2 and as a result create a diametrically opposing view of Afrikaner identity itself.
What, Maritz, Smuts … mass murder and Nazism – you smoking your socks again right Mr. Dickens? Well, no – let me explain … and if you are a fan of the 1914 Boer Revolt and a Boer Romantic looking to this revolt as the bedrock of Boer stoicism and independence – now is the time to look away, as this next bit is going to sting a little.
Let’s get this out upfront. General Manie Maritz, as the leader of the 1914 Boer revolt does not end up a very redeemable figure in history bathed in glory, instead he ends up as a murderer, an antisemite, a racist and a devout Nazi … the bit your Nationalist inspired school history book did not want you to know about him … the inconvenient truth.
An opposing view
Let’s start with Boer War 2, and upfront Maritz and Smuts are already at different points of view in Smuts’ Commando. It starts with Maritz’ rank, role and appointment in the Commando. Maritz would maintain Smuts gave him the rank of ‘General’ as a field commission – in the Republican Armies this was known as a “veggeneraal” or ‘fighting-general’. Deneys Reitz, Smuts’ long-time right-hand man, confidant, and friend, has a different view and claimed Maritz was only a “leader of various rebel bands” and never given a Generalship – as Reitz was also on Smuts’ staff, Reitz would have known if Martiz was made a ‘veggeneraal’or not.
The two leaders upfront also differ on leadership style, experience and philosophy. Smuts is a skilled lawyer and academic, he is a ‘Philosopher General’ and takes a very holistic view to the fighting seeking a consolidation of ‘white civilisation’ in Southern Africa between Boer and Brit as its final object. Smuts also has an outward look, seeking through the ‘consolidation of the white races’ good neighbourliness with all South Africa’s peoples, including South Africa’s ‘coloureds’ and ‘blacks’. Maritz on the other hand is a ‘Soldier’s General’, he starts his military career as a guard at the Johannesburg Fort after the Jameson Raid and subsequently becomes a ZARP Policeman. Maritz has a reputation as a “thug” he’s a devout Boer Republican, he wants nothing to do with reconciliation with the ‘hated’ British, he is inwardly focussed and views ‘coloureds’ and ‘blacks’ very suspiciously.
So, Smuts and Maritz are fundamentally different in their leadership styles, outlooks and personalities and it would come to a head towards the end of Boer War 2 in what was to become known as the ‘Leliefontein massacre’. For those who have an abiding admiration for Smuts, now is also the time to also look away, as some historians have tarnished Smuts with the title of “mass murderer” as it took place ‘under his watch’ so to speak, but the culprit is really Maritz – so what happened?
A Massacre
Over two days, starting on the 31st January 1902, the ‘noble’ Boer bittereinder effort of the Boer War, and even Jan Smuts, would emerge forever tarnished by what is considered by some as the first massacre of innocents of the 20th Century.
A rather dishonourable title and achievement not often emphasised by Boer War ‘Republican’ historians, journalists and commentators – rather conveniently ignored by them is the nature of this phase of the war really – the repeated targeting, pillaging and ransacking of mission stations, ‘hensopper’ farms (farms belonging to Boers who surrendered prematurely during the amnesty), ‘Joiner’ farms (farms belonging to Boers who joined the British) and even tribal villages by marauding Bittereinder groupings. This period also sees many Black and Coloureds executed by Bittereinder Boer firing squads and hangman nooses, mainly charged with “spying” for or “working” with the British. It is not such a ‘glorious’ end to a noble fight to the end, as romantic Boer war novelists would have you believe – its harsh war – bloody and revengeful, and nobody in the ‘Guerrilla’ phase of the Boer War comes out smelling of roses – not the British with their tactic of Scorched Earth and certainly not the Boers with their tactic of Marauding.
Manie Maritz
Many of these actions were of little real tangible military value in the war against the British and have more to do with retribution than anything else, and front and centre in this controversial phase is Manie Maritz, who whilst he is under Jan Smuts’ command, rides into the ‘Nama’ missionary town of Leliefontein in the far north west Cape – deep inside the British Cape Colony. Here Maritz immediately detains the Methodist missionary – Barnabas Links – who was acting in place of the absent Rev J.G. Locke. Maritz subsequently reads out a proclamation threatening death to both residents and the town’s missionaries alike if they are found guilty of aiding or abetting the British.
The Nama people (the local people made up of a mix of KhoiKhoi, Namibian and Tswana) and their missionaries are British subjects living in a British colony and fearing for their lives don’t take lightly to the proclamation threat and become steadily agitated. From here out there is a lot of conflicting account, in detaining Barnabas Links a rather strong verbal exchange over jurisdiction and authority takes place and some say Links strikes Maritz with his stick, others say Maritz strikes Links with his sjambok. Either way, a ‘fists and knives” scuffle breaks between a group of citizens and Maritz’ men, one Republican is injured, Links is also injured, and Maritz and his men manage to disentangle themselves from the melee, leaving 8 Leliefonteiners dead, and ride back to their rendezvous camp.
That night, Maritz and his men become indignant at their treatment at the hands of the Leliefonteiners and elect to exact revenge by wiping the missionary off the face of the earth. So, the next morning the Commando detachment numbering about 100 mounted Boers attacks the missionary in full force. The Nama and their missionaries are no match for a fully armed Boer commando, having some antiquated muskets they try and hold off the assault and most take refuge in the mission building. A further 27 Leliefonteiners are killed (some accounts say a total of 43) and approximately 100 are injured.
Image: Modern day image of the Methodist Mission Church, Leliefontein (erected in 1855, it was the third church built at the mission station).
Maritz then directs all the surviving women and children, male survivors, and the wounded (including Links) be taken away in chains to the Boer positions surrounding Okiep, one account points to the local blacksmith been instructed to fashion iron shackles for this purpose. Some accounts also point to general violence been meted out by the Boers against surviving Leliefonteiners after the skirmish and ‘refugees’ been hunted down and killed.
Maritz instructs that the mission station be pillaged and then burned down – all the captured sheep and grain are to be forwarded to a Boer supply depot. The mission station is completely destroyed and the dead Leliefonteiners are left where they died – and here they remained unburied for months.
So, how does Smuts and his General Staff react to the news that a detachment of his Commando had ransacked a mission station and killed over 30 poorly armed or unarmed British civilians in a revenge attack? Deneys Reitz on arriving at the destroyed mission station described the scene as follows:
“We found the place sacked and gutted and among the rocks beyond the buried houses lay 20 or 30 dead Hottentots, still clutching their antiquated muzzleloaders. This was Maritz’s handiwork. He had ridden into the station with a few men to interview the European missionaries, when he was set upon by armed Hottentots, he and his escorts narrowly escaping with their lives. To avenge the insult, he returned the next morning with a stronger force and wiped out the settlement, which seemed to many of us a ruthless and unjustifiable act. General Smuts said nothing but I saw him walk past the boulders where the dead lay, and on his return he was moody and curt… we lived in an atmosphere of rotting corpses for some days.”
Deneys Reitz
Smuts, although clearly unimpressed with Maritz, actually comes through for Maritz in accounting the massacre in his letter to General de la Rey, he down-plays the instance as a “close shave” for Maritz and somewhat covers up the incident, citing that Maritz was attacked by a knobkerrie whilst acting as a peace envoy, it was taken as a sign of attack and only “8 hottentots” were killed due “to misunderstanding and ignorance” (Nel, Eben: Kaapse rebelle van die Hantam-karoo, p 461).
Some commentators point to this as collusion, as Maritz is completely exonerated and never held to account for the massacre – whereas similar instances of ‘murdering’ civilians in the cases of the Australian officer Lt. Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant and the Boer Commandant Gideon Scheepers landed them both in front of their respective firing squads.
To further demonstrate just how off the hinge Maritz was, the last real Boer action of the Boer War was when Jan Smuts’ Commando laid siege to the mining town of Okiep in the British Cape Colony in April, 1902. On hearing the news of the Peace Conference, Reitz writes “General Smuts set to work at once. Next morning a messenger was sent into O’Okiep, to advise the garrison that both sides were to refrain front active military operations while the Congress lasted”.
Jan Smuts then left the siege of O’okiep to take part in the final Peace talks at Vereeniging at the end of April 1902. With Smuts away Manie Maritz decided to attack Okiep with the idea of literally wiping the entire town off the map, using the commandeered Namaqua United Copper Company locomotive ‘Pioneer’ – which was used to propel a mobile bomb in the form of a wagonload of dynamite into the besieged town. The attack failed when the train derailed, snagged upon a barbed wire fence which wrapped around the points, spilling the dynamite upon the ground which burnt out harmlessly.
The exercise could have resulted in killing large numbers of women and children (mainly coloured) who sheltered behind the defences, the failure of the operation was a blessing at a time when deliberations at the Vereeniging peace talks potentially heralded the end of the conflict. Smuts would again gloss over the incident and cover for Maritz when he stated that the railway was still intact after the incident anyway, and since there were women and children in Okiep town, all the commando was allowed to do was to give the good citizens of Okiep a “tremendous fright with a harmless explosion.”
Images: General Jan Smuts and General Christiaan Beyers at the Vereeniging Peace negotiations (left), and the locomotive ‘Pioneer’ used by Maritz to try and blow up the town of Okiep in Smuts’ absence (right).
Smuts’ disposition to treating treasonous, rebellious and insubordinate Boer commanders with ‘kid gloves’ in the hopes of placating and consolidating their views to see his way on things would be Smuts’ greatest ‘Achilles heel’ – as there would be no such quarter given in the way they would view or treat him in future. Which brings us to the next instance – The Boer revolt of 1914.
A Revolt
Much has been written on the Boer Revolt of 1914, but let’s understand the ‘differing’ view between Smuts and Maritz in the lead up and then the instigation of the revolt itself. Where Smuts was involved in negotiating the Peace at Vereeniging to end the Boer War in 1902, Maritz as part of his leader element would have none of it. When peace was made, the burghers of the erstwhile Republics were obliged to lay down their arms and sign an oath of allegiance to the British monarch – Maritz refused and instead he slipped over the border into German South West Africa (modern Namibia).
In German South West Africa (GSWA), Maritz would become embroiled in another massacre, this time the Hereto and Namaqua genocide – which as irony goes it is the first recorded case of Germans using the concentration camp system along with the resultant mass death (something ignored by both Hermann Göring and Adolf Hitler when they solely laid the blame on the British for “inventing” concentration camps and the “Genocide” of the Boers – in their book white deaths count, black deaths don’t seem to count – and these two criminals were are also happy to try and deflect Germany’s real crimes of genocide).
Returning to South Africa by sneaking back over the border, Maritz is briefly arrested in the British Colony of the Transvaal for not signing the oath of allegiance (and therefore still a combatant) – it’s a forewarning of a general dislike of his deep-seated dislike of the British. He is ultimately released and joins up again as a Transvaal Policeman.
Smuts on the other hand at this time in 1909 is concerning himself with Union, the Union conference on the back of the Peace of Vereeniging specifies an expanded Union border to incorporate Britain’s Southern Rhodesia colony as a 5th Province along with the incorporation of the British protectorates of Bechuanaland (Botswana), Lesotho and Swaziland. By doing this the Boer and the Brits agreed ‘Union’ negotiations are hoping to gain balance and reconciliation between Boer and Brit interests in the region, although now all under the “British family of nations” as specified in the Vereeniging Peace Treaty – Jan Smuts, Louis Botha and all the other significant Boer Generals – De la Rey, Hertzog etc are all consolidating to ensure this new ‘Union’ is managed by the Boers and not the Brits, which is in fact the subsequent outcome when The Union of South Africa is formed in 1910 – the South African Party, consisting of Botha, Smuts, De la Rey, Hertzog etc. win the majority seats.
Image: The borders of ‘Greater South Africa’ as outlined in the Union conference in 1909 – phase one – the Limpopo River marks the border of South Africa, phase two – Zambezi River marks the border and phase three – the Ruvuma River marks the border, this is Smuts’ map, note his personal notations ‘A’ and ‘B’.
The arrival of World War 1 in 1914 is both a blessing and a curse for the Boer led government of the newly formed Union of South Africa. Both Botha as Prime Minister and Smuts as his ‘right hand man’ were walking a tight rope – as Boer commanders they represented a faction of the new “Union”, balancing the two small old Boer Republic’s politics and laws with those of all the British colonies and protectorates surrounding them (six large British territories and their interests in them in effect) – so they are obliged to support Britain as the major player in the region, and honour their word to them, the oath that brought about peace – that’s the ‘curse’.
The ‘blessing’ to the Union government is that the war presents them with an ideal opportunity to realise the expansive border of ‘Greater South Africa’ as envisioned and concluded in the Union conference in 1909 – as this border also specifies the eventual inclusion of German South West Africa into South Africa in the first phase of the ‘Greater’ South Arica Union and eventually even German East Africa would be included in the second phase of South Africa’s territorial advancement.
So it’s really no surprise, that when the decision to go to war is put to the vote in the Boer led and very independent Union of South Africa parliament (at Union, Britain takes a figurehead role, the South African Union’s Parliament and legal construct is not governed by Westminster, its fee to make its own laws) – and the result is not what your school history teacher plugged – it’s a staggering vote of confidence by nearly all the Boer MP’s favouring going to war alongside Britain (and France) against Germany, by a landslide – literally. Consider the result.
92 = For invasion of German South West Africa by the Union of South Africa
12 = Against
So, as to the ‘majority’ of Afrikaners NOT wanting war with Germany, that is simply untrue, the Afrikaner community’s representatives in Parliament were overwhelmingly in favour of war against Germany. This is also where some ‘Boer Romantic’ commentators on the 1914 Revolt make a fundamental mistake, the Union of South Africa’s decision to conquer German South West Africa (Namibia) was NOT just a service to the ‘British Empire’ – it was largely in service to the objects of The Union of South Africa and its own territorial expansion ambitions and the prescribed ‘sphere of influence’ over the Southern African region as a whole (as agreed by all Boer and British leaders involved in the Union conference in 1909).
Image: Political cartoon of the day captures the Union’s territorial ambitions
Smuts, as the Minister of Defence at this time had also been busy amalgamating the armed forces of the republics with those of the colonial citizen force regiments to form the Union Defence Force i.e. the UDF (in much the same way as the SADF was amalgamated with other forces in 1994 to form the SANDF – with the same challenges).
The UDF had taken shape to consist of a small contingent of permanent force, but the backbone would remain voluntarily forces in a two-stream approach, the voluntary ‘English’ colonial citizen force regiments – Transvaal Scottish, Royal Natal Carbineers, Royal Durban Light Infantry etc and the voluntary ‘Afrikaans’ citizen force “skiet” Commandos known as the ‘Rifle Association Mounted Infantry’ in parallel to them (the old Republic’s commando system in effect). It was a careful construct to keep everyone happy, but the point is this, it was NOT “British” – Imperial British troops had returned to the United Kingdom, any engagement the Union of South Africa was going to fight in World War 1 in Africa, whether foreign or domestic, was going to be made up of ‘South Africans’ and led by ‘South Africans’ – and commanded by the old Republic’s ‘Bittereinder’ Boer Generals – primarily Botha (as Prime Minister was Commander in Chief) and Smuts (as Botha’s Minister of Defence).
Smuts was sensitive to the fact that many Afrikaners shared German heritage and they (falsely) believed that Germany extensively supported the Boer cause during Boer War 2 – ‘falsely’ because in fact, Germany was happy to ‘sell’ them arms (as did the British arms manufacturers) at a premium and send some medical assistance later on, however Germany withdrew their support officially – they provided no troops and no substantial funding to the Republican Boer War effort whatsoever.
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Kaiser Wilhelm II, although sending a letter to Kruger congratulating him on the Jameson Raid victory (given the Boer nation their false sense of ‘support’), in fact refused point blank to receive any Boer representations and after the ‘Black Week’ British defeats to the Boers in late 1899, he and his Generals compiled a military strategy, not to help the Boers, but to help the British win the war (he was after all related to the British monarchy – part of the family so to speak) and shared it with them instead – Kaiser Wilhelm II even proudly proclaiming at the end of the Boer War that the British had followed his plan precisely as he had outlined it to them and it was the German plan that won the war for the British – not Field Marshal Frederick Robert’s plan and as inconvenient truths go the Kaiser’s plan involved scorched earth policies and concentration camps. (see: John C.G. Röhl: The Kaiser and England during the Boer War). Now, I bet none of this was in your Nationalistic inspired history teachings.
Ethnic Germans (local and foreign) volunteering to join Boer Commandos also qualified very few (550 odd) – far more Anglo-Irish, Dutch and Flemish joined the Boers (5,500 odd). A Boer leader delegation, including Botha and de Wet visited Germany after the war in 1902, and although they received a royal welcome and ovations, they were not officially received – they did raise a little money from private donators and a Boer help fund, but that’s it. However, all this still did not resonate with many in the Boer community who almost illogically saw Germany as an Ally.
Smuts would argue the case for war, not on the basis of warring against Germany on the side of ‘Britain’, but for supporting the other old Boer Republic’s supporters – France, Belgium and the Netherlands in their war against a hostile and aggressive Germany busy de-stabilising western and eastern Europe, and Smuts was very aware of the vast majority of Boers had Dutch, Belgian and French roots, as opposed to the ones with German roots. He would use the same argument again for his declaration of war against Germany in World War 2.
Smuts however anticipated that the decision to go to war, although largely supported by the Afrikaner political elite and leadership, would have with it a handful of resignations from the Union’s Defence Force from those strongly in favour of Germany and whose sheer hatred of the British superseded everything, and the Union government received exactly that – a “handful” – nothing that would fundamentally compromise the UDF’s fighting ability or construct.
Of the handful of resignations which were received, a rather long-winded one came from General Christiaan Beyers, the UDF’s Commandant General in charge of the Active Citizen Force and his was the most important resignation. Prior to the decision to go to war, Smuts and Botha’s old friend and highly respected comrade, General Koos de la Rey had been one of the handful of Parliamentary Ministers vocally against the decision to invade GSWA and advocated neutrality, and because of his popularity his opinion held massive sway over the old Boer Republic’s Afrikaner electorate – nevertheless he was persuaded by Louis Botha and Jan Smuts not to take actions which may arouse the Boers, he then held a political rally for 800 Boers and took a reconciliatory approach – contrary to what the attendees expected of him.
Images: General Christiaan Frederik Beyers (left) and General Jacobus Herculaas de la Rey (right)
De la Rey seemed torn over his decision, and he was then targeted by General Beyers to join him for meeting with Major Jan Kemp, a mid-line UDF officer who had also resigned – the purpose of the meeting; Beyers and Kemp wanted to persuade de la Rey to take a stronger stand and initiate more Union Defence Force resignations to compromise its fighting capability. Joining the conspiracy was another heavyweight – the significant Boer General and Parliamentary Minister, Christiaan de Wet.
What follows next is well documented, however the generally accepted and investigated history concludes; General De la Rey and General Beyers were travelling in a soft top sedan car to their meeting with Major Kemp and did not stop at a Police blockade set up to capture a notorious gang of robbers and murderers called The Foster Gang. One of the Policeman fired a warning shot into the road to get them to stop, the bullet ricocheted and hit De la Rey, killing him.
It was tragedy – plain and simple, and both Botha and Smuts were devasted at the loss of their friend, as a signal to the inevitable accusations of ‘political assassination’ both Botha and Smuts attended De la Rey’s funeral in front of thousands of mourning Boers, they appeared without any bodyguard at the mercy of the assembly – a token of no malice intended, and there were no protests or accusations from the mourners.
Regardless, despite sound and tested enquiries and court cases, and the Nationalists having full scope and the resources at hand for 40 years to uncover a ‘plot’ – no concrete proof has emerged of a plot by Smuts to kill De la Rey whatsoever – ‘conspiracy theory’ nevertheless grew out of the incident which would plague Smuts in future years, and it still does.
It is also generally understood that with the death of De La Rey, that would probably have been the extent of Boer resistance to the war, and it would have devolved into simple political protest and peaceful demonstrations, had it not been for one man … the subject of the differing view – none other than Lt. Colonel Manie Maritz, who by now had joined the UDF and commanded a small UDF force at Upington, near the border with German South West Africa (GSWA).
The day after de la Rey’s funeral, Kemp, Beyers and de Wet addressed a large crowd at Lichtenberg, calling on protest meetings against the decision to invade GSWA. Manie Maritz however took a more robust position than Kemp, Beyers and de Wet, he instead went into open sedition and started ignoring Smuts’ and his other Commander’s orders been sent to him. Intel told Smuts that Maritz had joined the Germans, however contradictory to Smuts’ usual manner of decisiveness, he vacillated instead hoping to persuade Maritz not to revolt and get him to see reason.
Images: General Christiaan Rudolf de Wet (left) and Major Jan Christoffel Greyling Kemp (right) in his UDF dress uniform.
Not dissuaded by Smuts and bent on a sedition, Maritz resigned his commission from the Union Defence Force and openly rebelled on 9 October, taking 300 odd of his UDF soldiers with him when he went over to the Germans.
Major Barend ‘Ben’ Bouwer was sent to deal with Maritz’ sedition and insubordination (Bouwer had also been a ‘Veggeneraal’ in Smuts’ commando during the Boer War and as irony goes was alongside Maritz when he sent the dynamite train into O’okiep). Maritz took Bouwer prisoner along with his fellow officers, he was subsequently released and sent back with the ultimatum from Maritz to the Union Government to the effect that:
That unless the Union Government guaranteed safe passage of his fellow plotting Generals (De Wet, Beyers, Kemp et al), to his position on the GSWA border by the 11th October he would immediately attack General Brits’s UDF forces preparing to invade GSWA and then he would invade the Union of South Africa.
Major Ben Bouwer reported that Maritz was in possession of some guns belonging to the Germans, and that he held the rank of General commanding the German troops. He also had a force of Germans under him in addition to his own rebel commando. Maritz arrested all the UDF officers and men under his command who were unwilling to join the Germans, and then sent them forward as prisoners into German South West Africa.
To drive Maritz’ point home, Major Bouwer was shown an agreement between Maritz and the Governor of German South West Africa guaranteeing the independence of the Union as a Republic, ceding Walfish Bay and certain other portions of the Union to the Germans, and undertaking that the Germans would only invade the Union on the invitation of Maritz.
Major Bouwer was shown numerous telegrams and helio messages dating back to the beginning of September. Maritz boasted that he had ample guns, rifles, ammunition, and money from the Germans, and that he would overrun the whole of South Africa.
Image: Rare image of Lt. Col Maritz, front and centre in his South African Union uniform and his staff behind him – his ‘Agterryer’ (man-servant) is at his heels (It’s the man-servant’s expression and position that is most interesting as in many ways it gives away the complete disregard Maritz felt for people of colour).
In response to Maritz’ action and ultimatum, on 12 October, the Union government imposed martial law across the whole of South Africa. On proclaiming martial law, Smuts, the eternal reconciler, immediately called again for “reason” and urged the rebels not to be swayed by “foreign agents influencing them”.
The ‘Maritz Revolt’ as it would now become known was underway, and with their sedition hand now played by Maritz in the Cape Colony, his fellow conspirators – Beyers, Kemp and de Wet had no choice, now ‘in for a penny and in for a pound’ they all broke their ties with the Union Defence Force, resigned their commissions and went into open revolt against their lawfully elected government – raising Commando’s in the Transvaal and Orange Free State to come to Maritz’ aid
The revolt is well documented and carries with it a number of consequences for Jan Smuts, and we will cover these in future Observation Post articles called “Boer War 3 and Beyond” and “What about Jopie?” (look out for them). However, the long and short of it from a military historian’s perspective let’s look briefly look at the objective, the capability and strategy to achieve the objective and the outcome.
The stated objective: Maritz issued a proclamation by way of objective – “the former South African Republic and Orange Free State as well as the Cape Province and Natal are proclaimed free from British control and independent, and every White inhabitant of the mentioned areas, of whatever nationality, are hereby called upon to take their weapons in their hands and realize the long-cherished ideal of a Free and Independent South Africa.”
In other words, to take by force, the former British Colonies and re-start the Boer War, resistance to the declaration by any “white” in the entire Union of South Africa would be treated by Maritz’ Provisional Government as treasonous.
Capability: To attain this objective, the Rebels raised 11,476 Boers. Union Defence Force strength was around 32,000 troops (so in essence the Rebels were outnumbered 3 to 1). Important to note here that of the 32,000 UDF troops, 20,000 were Afrikaners – mainly ex-Commando and most of them in the UDF’s mounted infantry ‘Rifle Associations’ (the old Commandos). General Louis Botha would primarily use the Rifle Associations to counteract the rebellion, insistent that the British ‘stay out of it’, this was going to be the Boer leaders sorting their differences out between themselves – so ‘Brother against Brother’ and in effect the UDF’s Afrikaners outnumbered the rebel Afrikaners 2 to 1.
Images: General Smuts (left) and General Botha (right) as depicted on cigarette cards during WW1.
Important also to note here as to capability, the Rebel force was not made up entirely of first rate ex-UDF soldiers going against their counterparts, the rebel force was made up primarily of destitute Orange Free State Boers having come through a drought and agricultural reforms on the back of the devastation of their farms during Boer War 2.
Many of these Free State Boers as has been pointed out by historians like Sandra Swart (Desperate Men: The 1914 Rebellion and the Polities of Poverty’ in South African Historical Journal, Vol 42) and John Bottomly (The Orange Free State and the Rebellion of 1914: the influence of industrialisation, poverty and poor whitism: pages 29-73), were simply desperate ‘Bywoners’ (landless farmers or share-croppers) promised a better life if the rebellion was successful.
Consider the statistics of the Boer rebels and from where they came, and you’ll see how the above statement holds true. 7,123 (62%) of the Boer Rebels came from the Orange Free State – the least populace, most rural and economically worse off province in the Union. As an aside, to gauge the extent of success of Maritz’ proclamation and its resonance across the broader Afrikaner community across the whole of South Africa, he was only able to motivate 1,215 (12%) of the Boer Rebels from the Cape province – the biggest province in the Union. The balance coming from the Transvaal, and no real support from Natal.
The Potchefstroom Herald at the time best tried to explain why there was no traction behind the revolt from Cape Afrikaners and the black/brown African communities in this quote – and not surprisingly it boils down to the lack of suffrage and plain racism in the old Republics;
“When these high officers of the Defence Force in Transvaal and Orange “Free” State rebelled and joined the Germans with their commandos, the Dutchmen of the Cape (presumably because “they vote side by side with the Kafirs”) denounced the treachery in unmistakable terms. The South African party at the Cape beat up its followers to the support of the Government, and the voice of the Cape section of the Dutch Reformed Church rang from pulpit and platform in denunciation of disloyalty and treason. But in the Northern Provinces, where white men are pampered and guarded by the Government against the so-called humiliation of allowing native taxpayers to vote, there the rebellion, having been regarded with seeming approval, gained a marvellous impetus.
Plaatjie: The Boer Rebellion – snippet from the Potchefstroom Herald
As a unified, coherent, trained and fully armed force, the Rebel Boers were not. Desperate and landless farmers in the main up against fully trained, motivated, even mechanised in some instances, and properly armed UDF soldiers on a 3:1 numerical advantage – the Rebels were no match and it quickly showed. The long and short the rebellion was almost immediately repelled and then very quickly crushed as Botha’s UDF Rifle Associations with some Regiment elements in support hunted the Rebel Commandos down as they tried to make their way to assist Maritz on the GSWA border.
Image: The last pursuit of Major Kemp. A South African Union ‘Flying column’ crossing the Orange River after him.
As Dr David Katz in his work ‘General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa 1914 -1917) points out. Jan Smuts, eternally the one Boer General keeping a level head and seeking reconciliation and understanding, and when it was clear the rebellion had failed, Smuts called for a ‘Blanket Amnesty’ across the board for the Boer Rebel leaders and their troops if they laid down their arms. General Louis Botha, the Commander in Chief, on the other hand took a much harder and less reconciliatory line than his colleague Smuts – Botha agreed to an Amnesty, but for the rank and file only, the Boer Rebel leaders would have to be prosecuted. The amnesty, excluding the Rebel leadership, was in put place from 12th to 21st November 1914, and with it the 1914 Boer Rebellion was effectively over, by the end of November General de Wet’s force alone was down to only 40 men. Rear actions and isolated and desperate battles continued to be fought for a couple of months by woefully under-strength hard liners refusing surrender and amnesty, but by the end of January 1915 the rebellion was over.
Of the Rebel leadership now having surrendered, Botha and Smuts would again be especially magnanimous, considering the Union was in a state of war externally and in a state of martial law internally – and this was 1914 ‘World War 1’ – people were put in front of firing squads for ‘cowardice’ and being AWOL (absent without leave) – let alone ‘sedition’ and ‘treason’. Smuts would treat the Rebels in general very kindly, literally with kid gloves, all the time urging reason, understanding and reconciliation.
Of the main rebel leaders, General Christiaan Beyers tragically drowned in the Vaal River whilst attempting to desperately evade capture on 8th December 1914.
General Christiaan de Wet was captured during the amnesty and sentenced to six years imprisonment, with a fine of £2000, he was released by Botha and Smuts after one year’s imprisonment, after giving a written promise to take no further part in politics.
Major Jan Kemp was captured on the 2nd of February 1915 and sentenced to 7 years imprisonment, with a fine of £1000. However, a mere 10 months into his sentence Botha and Smuts agreed to release him – also on the condition that he may not participate in any politics (a promise Kemp almost immediately broke entering politics as a National Party MP under Hertzog in 1920 and again under Malan’s ‘Reformed’ National Party after 1948).
Lt. Colonel Manie Maritz would evade capture and escape into German South West Africa, at the conclusion of the GSWA campaign and the Union Defence Force’s victory and annexation of the territory (the first real victory for the Allies against Imperial Germany in WW1), Maritz would again evade capture, going into self-imposed exile in Angola, Spain, Portugal and then Mozambique.
Of all the other leaders – junior and mid-level rebel officers who were also captured. All were sentenced to short imprisonments and fines, almost all of them walking free within a year … except for just one man … Captain Jopie Fourie was executed for ‘High Treason’ having not resigned his UDF officers commission, captured still wearing his UDF officer’s uniform and opening fire on his fellow UDF troops whilst under a ‘white flag’ of truce (this was WW1 after all and there was no way anyone could get him out of this one with a no-nonsense leader like Botha as Prime Minister, not in a month of Sundays – more on him in a later article “What about Jopie?”).
To pay for all their fines the Bloemfontein newspaper ‘Het Volksblad’ established the ‘Halfkroonfonds’ (Half-a-Crown Fund). Shop owners and other people whose property had been damaged during the rebellion were able to claim compensation, leading to the establishment of the Helpmekaar Beweging (the Help-One-Another Movement). By the end of 1917, all the debts were paid.
Of the handling of the 1914 Maritz Revolt, Louis Botha would summarise Smuts role and leadership, when he said of him;
“Nobody can appreciate sufficiently the great work General Smuts has done – greater than any man throughout this unhappy period. At his post day and night, his brilliant intellect, his calm judgement, his amazing energy and his undaunted courage have been assets of inestimable value to the Union in her hour of trial.”
Prime Minister Louis Botha
As a rebellion with any chance of success consider just what a small minority they represented – no Cape Province or Natal Afrikaner would really come near it, of the Afrikaners in the Transvaal and OFS they were unable to raise an effective fighting force, the vast majority of Afrikaners in the armed forces remained in the UDF, the vast majority of Afrikaner political leaders remained behind Botha and Smuts and they gained no traction whatsoever to raise anything from the Black and Coloured communities (the real ‘vast’ majority) – no “Askari” troops whatsoever, and they got no support whatsoever from the white South Africans of British decent – who by way of ‘white’ population were not insignificant in size, commanding massive swathes of white population groups in the Transvaal (most of Johannesburg and the reef), Natal (most of Durban) and the Cape Colony (especially in Cape Town and the Eastern Cape) .
In the end the Maritz revolt did little in terms of its military objectives, it managed to delay the invasion plans of GSWA for a couple of months only whilst the UDF dealt with it, however in the end the GSWA campaign was a decisive victory for the Union and the territory successfully annexed under ‘Greater South Africa’ in a trusteeship – as was the Union’s expressed casus belli.
Image: General Botha (right) accepts the surrender of German South-West Africa from Lt Col Francke, (left) at Kilo, 9 July 1915.
What the Rebellion did however do was plant the seeds for political division and is one of the key propaganda tools used by the Nationalists to create the deep split in Afrikaner outlooks. Louis Botha would look at the Rebellion as complete folly, a waste of time and an utter waste of life, his opponents would look at it rather romantically instead – a sort of – ‘Boer Last Stand’. It stands today in some Afrikaner communities, precisely because of its ‘Romanticism’ and ‘political currency’ and not because of its military prowess or even its unattainable objectives.
Now, back to Maritz and Smuts, the subjects of this vastly differing outlook on Afrikanerdom, because it would manifest itself again just prior to the Second World War.
A Nazi
Manie Maritz decided to end his self-imposed exile after the 1st World War ended and returned to the Union of South Africa in 1923. The Smuts government treating him very kindly by way of reconciliation, and all things considered for a crime as serious as treason he received a short imprisonment of three years. Luckily for Maritz, Hertzog’s National party won the 1924 election and Maritz was granted full amnesty and walked free having only served three months.
Maritz took to farming, but came under the influence of National Socialism (Nazism) in 1936 and founded a ‘anti-parliamentary’(dictatorship led) party called the Volksparty (People’s Party) in 1940. Maritz also took control of another ultra-right, national socialist, pro-Nazi movement initially set up by Colonel J.C. Laas (the first Commandant-General of the Ossewabrandwag) called “Die Boerenasie” (The Boer Nation), he then merged the Volksparty with Die Boerenasie and continued under the “Die Boerenasie” banner. He became known as a very outspoken proponent of The Third Reich and admirer of Adolf Hitler. During this time, he had also developed a theory about the alleged Jewish conspiracy and interference in South African and world politics and became a fanatical Antisemite. He would detail his Antisemitic and National Socialist views in his autobiography ‘My Lewe en Strewe’ (My life and Aspiration) which he published in 1939, a book regarded as lacking in objectivity, inciting racial hatred and like his hero Adolf Hitler’s book ‘Mein Kampf’ (My Struggle) Maritz’ book was full of emotional and racially driven rhetoric. He was even taken to court over all the anti-Semitic statements he made in his book, found guilty of fomenting racial hatred and he was fined £75.
Images: Maritz’ book ‘My Lewe an Sterwe’, later political portrait and the ‘Die Dappere Bloodskapper’ second world war mouthpiece for The Ossewabrandwag and Maritz’ Boerenasie.
Die Boerenasie rose to prominence under Manie Maritz, in September 1939 Jan Smuts declared war against Nazi Germany and once again you could not find a more vastly differing view than that of Smuts and Maritz. Smuts was extremely wary of the dangers of Nazism and Adolf Hitler, who he accused of being a “false messiah” and whose Nazi symbology of the Swastika Smuts called “the crooked cross” in reference to it being a corruption of true Christianity. Smuts was so anti-Nazism that he would take the Union of South Africa to war again to fight it, and once again at ‘war’ with Maritz.
On antisemitism, here again Smuts held a polarising opposite view to Maritz. Smuts was a devout Zionist, he believed in the establishment of Israel as nation state, supported Jewish immigration and refugees (even controversially as Prime Minister he was involved in rescuing 200 Jewish orphans from the ‘Pogroms’ in the Ukraine in 1921, bringing them to safety in South Africa). Smuts supported the ‘Balfour Agreement’ which gave rise to Israel, he was also a personal friend of Chaim Weizmann, the President of the Zionist Organization. Weizmann went on to become the first President of Israel. Smuts is so loved and honoured in Israel that even today a kibbutz in Ramat Yohanan is named in his honour.
It is however difficult to say if Smuts would have interned Maritz again for his Nazi sympathies along with the other strong proponents of Nazism during the 2nd World War as Maritz’ life ended tragically and very early on in the war, he died in a car accident in Pretoria on the 20th December 1940. Probably, had he lived, Smuts and Maritz would have been at extreme loggerheads and Maritz back on the warpath with the Union – and very possibly back in jail.
A completely differing outlook
So, back to the image of Smuts and Maritz on Commando during the South African War (1899-1902) a.k.a. The 2nd Boer War on the masthead. It is hard to think how Smuts and Maritz could find anything in common, and to think they are fighting side by side in common cause against the British, living hard in the bush on horseback and up to their necks in the blood and gore of war – brothers in arms in effect.
Both saw South Africa – from the “Limpopo to the Cape” – even incorporating all the surrounding British protectorates and German South West Africa in addition. Both saw ‘white civilization’ as the steward to develop the region – this was the era of ‘Empire’ after all. Both put their ‘Afrikanerdom’ front and centre and both believe sincerely that only an Afrikaner hegemony in Southern Africa would successfully unlock the region’s potential, and both were prepared to fight for it.
That’s where the similarity ends. Smuts believed the ‘Afrikaner’ led hegemony would only work with an outward, embracing and reconciliatory disposition – and with all the British protectorates, British colonies and British subjects living in ‘Greater South Africa’ in partnership … so, he saw that the future lay only with the co-operation of the British super-power as a steward protecting the region as part of Britain’s family of nations. Progress for Smuts would only lie in establishing peace and co-operation with Britain.
Maritz on the other hand believed in a similar hegemony, only he believed that South Africa would fall under the stewardship of white Afrikaners with Germany as the super-power providing the glue to keep the region stable and prosperous. He believed that the only way the troublesome ‘British’ subjects in the colonies and protectorates would be brought into line was with jack-boot authority – and Germany would provide the Afrikaners with the protection, money, military backing and arms to do so.
Maritz’s political disposition had its roots in “Krugerism” – a philosophy whereby White Afrikaners were ‘pure’ with an orthodox Calvinist ‘dopper’s’ approach to religion, through God and a theocracy styled republic they had an ordained right to rule over non-Afrikaners and Africans alike – they would have limited or no basic suffrage rights whatsoever in Kruger’s Republic. Maritz’ view so inwardly directed that he demonstrated a deep seated racist and violent response to anything “non-Aryan” (non pure). By 1939 Maritz’ Afrikaner cabal consisted of far-right wing Afrikaner nationalists with Nazi leanings – all of whom adopted or supported Nazism prior to, including and some even after the war – the likes of H.F Verwoerd, F.C Erasmus, Jaap Marais, B.J. Vorster, F.C. Erasmus, Oswald Pirow, Hendrik van den Bergh, Johannes von Moltke, P.O. Sauer, C.R. Swart, P.W. Botha, Eric Louw, Louis Weichardt, Rev. Koot Vorster, Henning Klopper, Albert Hertzog, Dr Nico Diedericks, Piet Meyer, Dr Eben Dönges, Dr Hans van Rensberg etc., etc. All of whom were infusing Afrikanerdom with a heady mix of Christian Nationalism, Oligarchy Republicanism and National Socialism (Nazism).
Smuts’ political disposition on the on the other hand had it roots in “Holism” – a philosophy whereby White Afrikaners lived in an interdependent state with all the cultures and societies surrounding it, he cherished the Cape Franchise, acknowledged Black South African medieval history and although a segregationist for much of his early life, his political philosophy would focus on consolidation, reconciliation and mutual recognition. By 1939 Smuts had abandoned segregationist thinking altogether famously stating that “segregation had fallen on evil days” in 1941 – his thinking had turned to universal suffrage and human rights and his Afrikaner cabal consisted of ‘left’-leaning Afrikaners with liberal suffrage and democratic leanings in the main – they were known as “Smuts-men” and they consisted of people like Deneys Reitz , Kmdt Dolf ‘Oom’ de la Rey, Group Captain ‘Sailor’ Malan, General Dan Pienaar, Group Captain ‘Dutch’ Hugo, Uys Krige, General Kenneth van der Spuy, General George Brink, Jacob Pretorius, Jan Steytler, Captain De Villiers-Graaff, Pieter van der Byl, Dr Ernst Malherbe, Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr etc., etc.
A more vastly different and polarising view of Afrikanerdom you could not find – one inward and one outward.
In conclusion
So how does it all work out for these two vastly different views of Afrikanerdom? Well, unfortunately we all know the history, and after Smuts’ shock electoral defeat of the Nationalist Afrikaners in 1948, these Afrikaners had a free-reign with complete control of education channels and media channels coupled with ‘gagging’ powers over opposition voices – for 40 long years – in which they also took the opportunity to resurrect Manie Maritz and the ‘Boer Rebels of 1914’ as the true Afrikaner ‘heroes’ of Afrikanerdom and paint Smuts and his Smuts-men as the ‘traitors’.
The net result, sad to say, is Maritz’ view won out, Maritz would be directly responsible in his rebellion in creating a schism that would break the Afrikaner camp into two distinctive groups and continue to drive a schism through it all the way to the on-set of World War 2 and then Apartheid and beyond.
Thanks largely to leaders like Maritz and advent of the Broederbond’s ‘Centenary Trek’ in 1938 the modern Afrikaner is still seen in South Africa by most other societies in the context of a whites-only ‘Voortrekker’ (pioneer), ‘Boer’ (farmer) hegemony, sometimes with conservative and ‘racist’ leanings – which, as it happened in Maritz’ beloved Nazi Germany put the Afrikaner on the same footing as Nazi Germans in many people’s eyes after the Afrikaner nationalists formally gazetted their eugenically driven ideology of Apartheid in 1948.
The small difference, modern Germany goes to great extent to re-dress, re-educate, reconcile and consolidate their military history and political ideologies from both the 1st World War and the 2nd World War … so as to overcome the tremendous impact of propaganda and conditioning initiated by the National Socialists and ‘open’ minds to the truth. Whereas in South Africa no real deep-seated action of reconciliation, re-education and understanding has taken place to counteract the old Christian Nationalism conditioning and propaganda initiated by the Nationalists, and in many circles the likes of General Christiaan de Wet, General Christian Beyers, Major Jan Kemp, Captain Jopie Fourie, Lt. Col Manie Maritz in active sedition with Germany and eventually the likes of the other Afrikaners flirting with Germany and its ideologies, D.F. Malan, H.F. Verwoerd, B.J. Vorster and P.W. Botha are still held up fervently and sometimes illogically by some as the ‘true’ heroes of Afrikanerdom – as certainly is the case with Maritz.
In all honesty, the challenge for ‘white’ South Africans especially in reviewing, redressing, and balancing their history – and this massively different outlook initiated by the likes of Maritz and Smuts – is to better resurrect the ‘redeemable’ Afrikaners – the iconoclasts, the ones who held the opposing view to Apartheid, the ones who went to war against Imperial Germany and then again against Nazi Germany – Smuts and his ‘Smuts-men’ – NOT the ones who joined hands with Germany and its ideologies. Hold up the true ‘heroes’ to account Afrikanerdom, the ones who demanded suffrage and fought against racist oppression – and believe it or not, there is a very big pool to choose from. Their histories and ‘differing’ views where savagely repressed by the Nationalists and literally scrubbed from our national consciousness – and they need to come to light in order to affect a more balanced outlook on Afrikanerdom – as in truth when we look at it with the hindsight of history, they are really the true ‘ysters’ (heroes) and not the ‘veraaiers’ (traitors). Krugerism, National Socialism, Christian Nationalism, Apartheid and a ‘keep South Africa white’ Verwoerd Republicanism are an abhorrent testament to Afrikaner nationalism as an ideology and an anathema to Afrikanerdom itself.
Written and researched by Peter Dickens
References:
Eben Nel; ‘Kaapse rebelle van die Hantam-karoo’
Dr David Katz; ‘General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa 1914 -1917’
Sandra Swart; ‘Desperate Men: The 1914 Rebellion and the Polities of Poverty’
John Bottomly; ‘The Orange Free State and the Rebellion of 1914: the influence of industrialisation, poverty and poor whitism’
André Wessels; Afrikaner (Boer) Rebellion (Union of South Africa) 2018.
Brian Bunting; ‘The Rise of the Afrikaner Reich’
John C.G. Röhl: ‘The Kaiser and England during the Boer War’
Plaatje: Chapter XXIII The Boer Rebellion
Colourised images with greatest thanks and appreciation to Jennifer Bosch – Jenny B Colourised on line:
So here’s an old chestnut that keeps coming up on South African history social forums and it’s this:
“The British, using war (The South African war 1899-1902 aka The Boer War), stole two independent Boer Republics – the ZAR and the OFS – from the Boers.”
Then they stole the gold and the diamonds from the Boers – Britain the bully, the Boers the victims. It’s wonderfully simple – see?
Small problem with this statement – its utter bunk, compete rubbish, a historic mistruth and this is where understanding history in South Africa gets wonderfully fascinating.
Not surprising really, many in South Africa are still the product of a ‘Christian Nationalism’ inspired education. It’s not their fault, it’s just that propaganda has been drilled into them, so much so they believe it’s a fact .. and that’s why ‘debunking’ these myths and popping up with ‘inconvenient truths’ is both fun and educational – you learn something new.
So, lets understand why this statement is utter rubbish – complete bunk, and I’m going to start with my statement;
“The British could not steal what was already legally theirs to take!”
WHAT! … you’re smoking your socks right?
Afraid not, .. here’s a truism and it’s a fact – at the start of the South African War (1899-1902) aka The Boer War – the Boer Republics of the ZAR and the OFS were NOT ‘Independent’ Republics at all, in fact they were both British vassal states, each known as a British ‘Suzerainty’ – and by law (the two Republic’s laws themselves and those of Britain), Britain had every right to meddle in the affairs of these two Republics. The hard truth is that these two Republics only existed at the behest of the British and were both accountable to mutually agreed British oversight. If you think I’m talking bunk – google it now, type in (Republic name) and the word ‘Suzerainty’.
What – NOT “independent” Republics at all! What the hell is a Suzerainty anyway, and how did that come about – those devilish British stealing again, well, erm – no, they did not. So, here’s what actually happened (and if you’re a romantic fan of fierce independent, pioneering Boere forging their own independence – now is the time to pour yourself a stiff Klippies and Coke).
The Orange Free State
Let’s start with the Orange Free state. Now, this Republic had never in its entire history seen ‘full independence’ not even from the get go, it was and remained a British vassal state from beginning to end. In fact as a governed territory it was established as British colony first, even the capital city – Bloemfontein, was established by the British. It only became a Boer Republic when the British peaceably handed the territory to the Boers to administrate as a Republic for practical reasons – on the PROVISO that it remained a British Tributary State or British Suzerainty.
Huh .. WTF .. etc. Let me explain. Prior to the ‘Great Trek’ in September 1835, ‘Trek Boers’ from the Cape Colony (nomadic farmers) had already started to venture across the Orange River border. In the territory between Orange and Vaal rivers, these early Trek Boers were then joined by small groups of Voortrekkers in 1835/6 and they had two ways of settling down to farm land – negotiate it with the local inhabitants (and there were many inhabitants – the idea that the land was ‘empty’ is bunk) or, as was sometimes the case, take the land by gunpoint.
So, very understandably these early trekkers almost immediately came into conflict with the local inhabitants – notably the Basuto and Griquas. This almost immediately came back to the British to resolve, as these people were after all coming from their colony. So, as a first measure to resolve any marauding on behalf of their “subjects” now Trekking outside their border – the British in 1836 issued the ‘Cape of Good Hope Punishment Act’, which ensured that any ‘Trek Boer’ or ‘Voortrekker’ or any other Cape Colony subject now outside the Cape Colony’s border for that matter was liable for all crimes committed south of the 25-degree latitude (which falls just below the old Warmbaths in the old Northern Transvaal).
So, inconvenient truth – number 1, the ‘Trekkers’ (Voortrekker and Trek Boers) were never really ‘independent’ of British law at any time in any event. Bet you didn’t learn that in your school history book.
Conflict however persisted with Trekkers and local black inhabitants in ‘Transorangia’ as the territory was known then, and not just between white and black – the black tribes in the area were also in conflict with one another – and all this conflict was over land/territory. So, the British on the 8th December 1845 appointed Captain William Sutton as “British Resident” among the tribes living beyond the Cape Colony Frontier (black and white) to resolve all the conflicts. He was succeeded in 1846 Captain Henry Douglas Warden who bought the farm ‘Bloemfontein’ from a Griqua farmer and established– you guessed it – the capital.
On the 3rd February 1848, to bring governance to the region, Sir Harry Smith declared the area of ‘Transorangia’ i.e. the area between the Orange and Vaal Rivers a ‘British Sovereignty’ (a colony) calling it the Orange River Sovereignty est. 1848 and went out dividing it up into districts for the Boere and the Griqua and land reservations for the Mantatee tribe, the Coranna (Koranna) tribe, the Bataung Tribe, Barolong Tribe, a tribe referred to as the Bastards tribe and a rather big swathe of territory to the Bassutos tribe. This was all overseen by a British High Court and British Governor based in Bloemfontein. The ‘Free State’ as we know it now was first a British colony and not a Boer Republic- inconvenient truth – number 2.
If you look at the map of the Orange River Sovereignty in 1850, you’ll see how these tribal lands and districts were divided – note, about a third of the landmass of what would become The Orange Free State is tribal territory – so much for the old Broederbond inspired education who said it was ‘empty’ for the Boere taking it, that’s the inconvenient truth – number 3.
Image: Map of the Orange River Sovereignty
However, all was not well as a small grouping of Voortrekkers under the leadership of Andries Pretorius became aggrieved at land concessions made by the British to the Griqua leaders and Basotho leaders. He raised a Commando, declared a Republic around Winburg and a skirmish was fought on Boomplaats farm between a British column raised to deal with the insurrection and Pretorius’ commando on the 29th August 1848. The Boer Commando lost the battle and Pretorius fled across the Vaal river into safety. The “battle” would be celebrated as a significant encounter, proof positive of the bad blood between Brit and Boer by Boer romantics in future years, to the British it was nothing but a small insurrection and an isolated footnote of history.
As to the claim of land north of the Vaal River for the Voortrekkers (what was to become the Transvaal), a convention was held called the Sand River Convention on the 17th January 1852 between Boer and Brit – and the British basically agreed that they had no interest in this territory and the Boere could declare it a independent country of their own, on the proviso (written into the agreement) that the Boere were not to practice slavery. Another inconvenient truth to those who say the Voortrekkers voluntarily left the idea of slavery behind them and did not intend to practice it – they did not practice it as they were warned by Britain not to, and then they agreed not to – inconvenient truth number 4.
Later in the year of 1852, with slavery already outlawed by the British in their Orange River Sovereignty. The British found that the remoteness, resources needed and distance of their Orange River Sovereignty difficult to manage and would have to abandon it – which would have happened had it not been for an erstwhile meeting to resolve the matter in Bloemfontein in June 1852 when all enfranchised voters in the territory – mainly the Boere and some Brits – all had a vote and declared in favour of the retention of British rule of the territory (so much for Andries Pretorius and his commando).
However, this did not really deter the British government’s resolve in the UK to finding a solution on the management of their colony in such a remote and difficult place and as a ‘minority’ people there – something had to give. So, they held another convention with the Boers called the Orange River Convention, at the Convention it was mutually agreed that the Boers take over the Colony, declare the Orange Free State as a Republic and be recognised as a self-governing state – But, and this is a BIG but – only on the PROVISO that it became a British Suzerainty – a tributary state with British oversight.
The Republic of the Orange Free State was declared (without a shot been fired mind) on the 23 February 1854, however it remained a British Suzerainty from that day forward, up to and including the South African War (1899-1902) a tad less than half a decade later – and never in that time was it ‘fully’ independent, inconvenient truth – number 5.
As to the ‘stealing of diamonds’ – the Diamond Rush in Kimberley took place in 1871 – the ‘rush’ proper – 23 years AFTER the British had already declared the region under their control and then under their Suzerainty, Kimberley did not even exist as town when the British first took control of the territory – not a single diamond had yet to be found. In any event – in 1871 a diamond rush happened and EVERYONE – the Cape Colony, the ZAR, Griqualand and the OFS all claimed the diamond fields as theirs – the matter was put to arbitration and the Griquas won it (not the Boere and not the Brits), the Griquas in turn declared their territory a British Protectorate (fearing Boer aggression) and they later resolved that their territory be absorbed into the Cape Colony – and, no – the British did not ‘invade’ an ‘independent’ Boer republic to steal diamonds, inconvenient truth – number 6.
The Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR)
Now, let’s turn to the Transvaal, as here the British conceded, the Voortrekkers could form a full, self-governing and whole-fully independent Republic – a Republic proper – free of British meddling. Preceding the Sand River convention – all the voortekker groupings who had settled the area of the Transvaal had established no fewer than 6 separate ‘Republics’ – so at the Sand River convention the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek (South African Republic) or ZAR came into existence – officially on 17 January 1852 as an agreement to merge all these small republican declarations and make a proper state of them.
If you’re the Boer romantic still holding onto the idea that the Boers were an independent nation with a long history of self-governance – now is the time to refill that branders and coke.
Because, and this is the BIG kicker, the ZAR as a fully independent Republic didn’t last very long, a mere 25 years only. What the heck – the Boers only really enjoyed 25 years of full freedom in one Boer Republic only – that’s it? What the flip, what happened?
The British up to their devilish ways again? Well, here’s a great Afrikaans term “Ja/Nee” – yes and no, but to be fair to the British, this one is a Boer ‘own goal’.
The ZAR had a rocky start from the get go – the Voortrekkers were in conflict with just about every tribe initially occupying large parts of the ZAR territory (again, the territory was not ‘empty’ as the Broederbond would have you believe) – conflicts with indigenous tribes starting with all their small isolated republics and building up to their big singular republic.
The ZAR, far from being a pastoral little settlement just wanting to ‘farm’ in peace was a highly aggressive and expansionist state – a ‘coloniser’ in effect, to exist in a hostile environment they also had to either negotiate land or shoot their way in, and they did both – on conflict there is a reason Botswana exists as a state today (the Tswana asking Britain for ‘Protection’ against Boer expansion and aggression). Also, the ZAR was much bigger than you might imagine, its borders extended well into ‘Zululand’ as we know it now (massive swaths of ‘Kwa-Zulu Natal’ were part of the ZAR)– and herein lay a major problem for the ZAR .. the Zulu.
Map of the ZAR in 1899 after the Republic annexed Swaziland – note the borders, especially in ‘Natal’ – achingly close to St Lucia and access to the ocean.
Aggressive expansion by the ZAR had also stirred up the Pedi, led by Sekhukune I and resulted in a war in 1876 which is recorded as a Boer defeat. Bolstered and confident, the very powerful Zulu kingdom was now also making some very threatening claims on ZAR territory. Added to this, the ZAR government was also struggling financially (remember that gold had not yet been discovered in any significant way), and it is recorded that the ZAR government faced bankruptcy – so they could not afford any more wars or defensive actions – literally. Feeling their small and vulnerable communities were about to be wiped out by the Zulu and unable to raise enough taxes – the ZAR government did the unthinkable and elected to dissolve their Republic – voluntarily and then they turned to the British for protection against the aggrieved and increasingly violent African tribes – yup, the British.
The various indigenous tribes inside and bordering the ZAR felt they had a case too, and they too called on the British to help them from what they saw as ZAR aggression, land grabbing and subjection. They too also invited the British to protect them.
All good then, invited by EVERYONE the British peaceably moved into the ZAR on the 12th April 1877 to settle the conflicts and with no resistance from the Boers whatsoever, not a shot being fired, took down the ZAR ‘Vier-Kleur’ and hoisted the Union Flag (Jack) over Pretoria and erected a British government there. In doing so the ex-Boer Republic also handed over their finances, tax from now out, of both Africans and Boers alike would now be collected by the British. With that the British now declared the Transvaal officially a British Colony – The British Colony of the Transvaal, established 1877.
So, here’s another staggering inconvenient truth – number 7, the ZAR became ‘British’ as early as 1877 – having existed for only 25 years. The British didn’t ‘steal’ it, nor did they ‘invade’ it – no they marched peacefully into the ZAR at the invitation of the Boers and strange as it may seem – they were welcomed as saviours by some Boers – fact.
Now, some modern day Boer Romantics point to being ‘duped’ by deceitful and greedy British officials or state that President Thomas Burgers was nothing but a madman, senile or drunk – when he agreed to the British taking over his Republic – but that’s all debatable, I like to look at the facts and what people at the time said – Burgers in fact blamed the ZAR ‘Raad’- Kruger and his cabal – and it really cuts to the point and the issues of the day – he said;
“I would rather be a policeman under a strong government (the British) than a President of such a State (the ZAR). It is you—you members of the Raad and the Boers—who have ruined the country, who have sold your independence for a drink. You have ill-treated the natives, you have shot them down, you have sold them into slavery, and now you have to pay the penalty.”
Incidentally (not to get too wide into this subject now as nobody comes out smelling of roses) – but the “slavery” bit Burgers refers to is the inboekselings system widely used by the Boers in the ZAR at the time – an old VOC/Dutch system of ‘indentured slavery’ – primarily of Black women and children captured and indentured to their Boer masters till 25 years of age, it also formed a lucrative trade for struggling farmers on the frontiers of the ZAR known as ‘Black Gold’ hence Burgers’ term “sold them” (and if you think I’m speaking rubbish – look it up).
Now, was everyone happy? Well, no, as you can imagine there was a bun fight amongst the Boers – some not happy with becoming British and others quite happy to crack on with the British – after all the Zulu threat had now abated – in fact the British had gone one step further and literally crushed the Zulu threat in the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War (ironically the Zulu thought the British column moving up was intended to deal with issues in their Transvaal colony, and were pretty surprised when they came under attack).
With the British crushing the Zulu threat, some Boers were pretty happy and felt they could now get on and farm safely. However, on the other hand, with Zulu threat now gone completely, it did not take long before the British policies, taxes and concessions for Black African land rights and their policies of taxation of Boer land to become an issue to some other sectors of the resident Boer population.
It all came to a head with the Boers when the British confiscated one Boer’s wagon in lieu of his backdated tax, which he refused to pay. This brought the British into direct conflict with a Boer Commando drafted to help the farmer .. the incident exploded, 10,000 Boers led by Paul Kruger demanding the return of their old Republic and removal of the British – then they attacked the British Garrisons around Pretoria, starting on the 20 December 1880 at Bronkhorstspruit (there were no British garrisons at Johannesburg – it didn’t exist).
This then kicked off the ‘Transvaal War’ in November 1880 (to Afrikaner historians it’s the 1st Anglo-Boer War and to the rest its simply known as ‘The Transvaal War’ – I’ll call it Boer War 1).
The long and short of the Transvaal War – it ended rather disingenuously. The British sighted a poor battlefield on top of Majuba mountain on which to hold their ‘waterloo’ and got their arses kicked (there is literally no other way to put it) on the 27 February 1881 and routed from the ZAR.
Image: Painting of Lance Corporal Joseph John Farmer, awarded the Victoria Cross for running the first aid station on the top of Majuba Hill during the battle. Farmer raised a white cloth over the wounded to indicate their presence to the Boers. His arm was shot through. He raised another cloth with his other arm which was also hit.
The Boers walked away victorious having seen the back of the ‘Rooinekke’ (red-necks) – done and dusted with British rule – back to an Independent Republic and Koeksusters and coffee (at least that’s how it was pitched). But, the truth of the matter, it was far from ‘done and dusted’ – and an ‘independent’ Republic did not materialise, as much as some would like to believe that it did.
The British, deeply aggrieved, decided against sending in a massive expeditionary force and flattening the insurrection in their colony, they sued for peace instead – they understood (as they had in the Orange River Sovereignty) that this was a difficult region, tough customers and they were at the end of the day the minority in it. So, they agreed to give the administration of it back to the Boers, to re-declare their Republic – and here’s the kicker bit – on the PROVISO that it be a British (and here’s the word again) – ‘Suzerainty’. In other words, a British tributary state or British vassal state, with no real ‘recognition’ internationally and one in which they were legally free to ‘meddle’ in at any point in time.
The Boers, over a barrel really, and happy to get back a semblance of a Republic – agreed. Two Conventions – the Pretoria convention, held on 3 August 1881 established the ZAR as a British Suzerainty and at a later convention, the London Convention, signed on 27 February 1884, in which some concessions were given to Kruger and his party as to borders, the word Suzerainty was also dropped from the pre-amble, but the the SAR still had to get permission from the British government for any treaty entered into with any other country other than the Orange Free State – Britain reserved the right to oversight and could still ‘meddle’ in the state’s affairs – a British “client” state if you will – in either event, the ZAR remained a state with mutually agreed British oversight – all the way from 1881 to ‘The South African War (1899-1902)’ a.k.a Boer War 2. It was theirs to legally intervene, a truly ‘free’ and ‘fully independent’ Republic it was not, inconvenient truth – number 8.
As to gold, the Johannesburg gold rush took place in earnest on the reef from July 1886 – 9 years AFTER the British had established interests and control of the ZAR in 1877, in fact when the ZAR became a British colony for the first time, Johannesburg had not even been established – it didn’t exist. So, no – the British did not ‘invade’ the ZAR to steal the gold, their interests were there long before significant deposits of gold were found on the Witwatersrand – inconvenient truth – number 9.
Understanding the true causes of the South African War 1899-1902
There’s usually lively debate on Boer war forums as to the casus belli (the case for war) of the ‘South African War’ (1899-1902) – incorrectly called ‘The Boer War’.- but for clarity I’ll call it Boer War 2. They look to the greed of British Imperialism or the fact that the Boers declared war on the British in the official declaration – not the other way round .. but that would be to COMPLETELY ignore the three casus belli that Paul Kruger upfront put on the table as Boer ZAR demands at Bloemfontein when ‘negotiations’ kicked off with Alfred Milner in 1899 .. the ZAR’s status as to British oversights specified by the London Convention (which Kruger wanted removed completely) and the qualification time for ZAR citizenship of the miners on the reef (a human rights issue – nothing to do with gold per se) – which Kruger wanted extended. Then there was also the issue of a seaport, and Kruger wanted the British to concede parts of ‘Zululand’ to allow an ‘Independent’ ZAR to expand its borders and secure a vital seaport (key to maintaining future ‘independence’).
Images – President Paul Kruger (left) and Alfred Milner (right) – colourised by Jennifer Bosch.
The British would agree to none of the above, Milner was dogmatic and unmoving – their sticking point, the Franchise – they wanted 5 years qualification – and things simply went south from there – war was on the cards – again! So, let’s understand the ‘belligerence’ of the British – what’s driving it – and it boils down to this niggly issue of both the ZAR and the OFS being British client states. If you understand that, the minds of Rhodes, Milner, Kruger and even Smuts become increasingly clear – so to the casus belli, and here’s how:
Jan Smuts would very famously state that the Jameson Raid 1895 was the ‘real’ start of the Boer War in 1899 (not the Boer invasions of the British colonies), the British had betrayed the Boers and an uneasy peace existed after it – this was the Boer interpretation of events and even Smuts was sticking to it.
The British on the other hand, viewed the start of the Boer War in 1899 somewhat differently, they viewed the Battle of Majuba back in 1881 as the ‘real’ start of the Boer War in 1899, the ‘peace’ struck with the ZAR was a ‘dishonourable’ one – the Boers had betrayed the British and retribution was coming – this was the British interpretation of events, and commentators at the time like Winston Churchill were sticking to it.
In truth, Boer War 2 is to Boer War 1, what World War 2 is to World War 1 – a progressive extension of the preceding issues which remained unresolved (and, as inconvenient as this is – these issues were not about stealing gold or diamonds). It would be interesting to see this debate in 1941 when Churchill and Smuts became friends, but I’m sure neither changed their minds – and as to the British position and what started the war, one can clearly see it in their wartime rally call in 1899 – which was “Avenge Majuba” not “let’s go get their gold”- inconvenient truth – number 11.
Image – Postcard of the time calling for the avenge of Majuba during Boer War 2 (1899-1902) note the phrase “wiping something off the slate” – old score.
So back to Cecil Rhodes and his pals, in their minds their actions in implementing the Jameson Raid in 1895 were perfectly justified – sorting out a British Suzerainty’s governance of British citizens on the reef – so confident was Rhodes and Starr Jameson in their right to meddle in the ZAR that they did not bother to get official British government backing in Westminster for the raid (in fact in their minds it was not a raid at all – but a ‘rescue mission’).
That the raid failed so dismally was an embarrassment to Rhodes, so much so it forced his resignation. But it did not stop Britain from sending their next ‘man’ in to replace Rhodes and ‘sort out’ their troublesome vassal state which was the ZAR – and that was Alfred Milner. Milner, very aware of the legal status of both the OFS and the ZAR as British Suzerainty States was a blunt, unabashed British Imperialist. Kruger, a Boer Imperialist (there is no hiding that fact either) was never going to get Britain to renege on its rights to the ZAR (or the OFS for that matter).
In Milner’s mind the OFS and ZAR as British vassal states had no sway whatsoever, nor did they have the right to claim ‘full’ independence – in his rather dogmatic and arrogant Victorian mind they were merely being ‘troublesome’ children of the bigger British family. Milner made it clear that he wanted ‘independent’ and ‘good civil governance’ of a ‘federated’ composition of states stretching from from the Cape to the Zambezi – all good – but here’s the kicker – ONLY under the ‘British Flag’ – he held that singular view (read agenda) from the day he landed in South Africa in 1897 to the day he left in 1905, and he made it clear it was not for changing – Kruger stood no chance in his demands to drop the ZAR’s Suzerainty status completely or for that matter his demand to gain more territory from the British for a fully ‘independent’ ZAR with a seaport.
Milner was confident enough, the British had to intervene directly with Paul Kruger on his dealings with both Jameson raiders and the round-up and prosecution of the ‘trouble-makers’ in Johannesburg (as Kruger referred them) – to this end the Jameson raiders would not be tried in South Africa but in England. Due to on-going disagreements like the ‘Drifts Crisis’ on ports of entry into the ZAR in 1895 – which kicked off the Jameson Raid, Joseph Chamberlain eventually had to remind President Kruger directly that the ZAR was still a British Suzerainty State in 1897 (incidentally the same year Milner arrived in the Cape Colony).
Image: The officers of the Jameson Raid heading to England for trail in 1896, Starr Jameson is standing in the centre – he got 15 months in prison without hard labour for contravening the Foreign Enlistment Act – of which he served 4 months only in Holloway Gaol for first-class misdemeanants.
This ‘independent’ and ‘self-governing’ unitary state from the Cape to the Zambezi – part of the British family of Nations – was so important to the British to resolve its ‘Southern Africa’ problems that it is the foundation of the Peace Treaty of Vereeniging in May 1902 to end the 1899-1902 Boer War – the guarantee of future ‘independence’ and ‘self-governance’ for the Boers, but as a more robust and formal ‘Union’ of states under the British flag rather than going back to a combination of two British colonies and two British Suzerainty states – which was the case at the start of the war. Here’s the kicker – and the inconvenient truth – number 10, ALL the Boer Generals signed up for it – not just Smuts and Botha.
It was the ONLY way forward for peace and regional development. Fully ‘Independent’ Boer Republics were an impossibility, a pipe dream – they had never really materialised in the past and were not going to materialise in the future. The ‘Keep South Africa White” Republic pipe-dream of Dr. H.F. Verwoerd and his cabal in 1960 was an abhorrent and short lived testament to Boer independence with disastrous consequences for just about everyone – and Boer Generals like Smuts and Botha recognised the danger of hanging onto this idea from the get-go.
Huh – smoking socks again – of course the Boers could have their Republics back comes the chorus from the Boer romantics even to this day – fully independent and feasible, they would last a thousand years, the Boers just wanted to farm and be left alone, see? Well, no – a future ‘independent’ ZAR was a complete pipe-dream, even in 1899 – even if the war did NOT take place the ZAR – ‘independent’ or otherwise – would not have lasted, nor was it all about farming, it would have possibly have made it till about 1910 MAX and no further, and here’s why.
Franchise
So, we to come to the BIG sticking point between Boer and Brit – the issue of ‘Franchise’ – the vote. An issue of legality and morality for British Imperialists, an issue of power for the Boer Imperialists. The ‘official’ and most significant casus belli of the Boer War in 1899 (not ‘Ouma’s se stories about stealing gold). The long and short here – the British – Chamberlain, Rhodes, Milner etc. felt legally obligated, politically empowered and morally compelled to ‘meddle’ in their Suzerainty and sort this issue out.
As to ‘peaceful’ pastoral farming – Paul Kruger in his memoirs would rue the discovery of Gold as the downfall of the Boers, but in reality, the discovery of gold would aid the ZAR substantially. For starters, the ‘poor’ pastoral backwater was no more – the bankruptcy prior to 1877 would be well and truly resolved by 1886 – a mere 9 years later. The ZAR was rich, tax on gold had filled the state coffers to bursting – it enabled them to finance and build security forces with state-of-the-art German (and British) weaponry. The ‘poor white’ problem of failed farmers living as bywooners had been resolved as they became urbanised and prosperous along with struggling famers who opted to become miners, manufactures, entrepreneurs etc. and a more prosperous and burgeoning urban Afrikaner middle class took shape in the ZAR. The strengthened and emboldened ‘Commandos’ were able to annex more territory – mainly Swaziland and bits of Natal and marginalise the ‘native’ threat completely. The state started to take emboldened steps on imports, ports of entry and monopolising the supply of things like dynamite. Its role on the international stage changed with its influence on the gold standard and currencies. The ZAR was ‘on the up’ and expanding, it had become a ‘Playa’ and Kruger wanted it recognised as such.
Big problem though – the majority of the miners and entrepreneurs entering the ZAR were of British extraction. They had now built a complete city for themselves in the middle of the ZAR – bigger than the Capital, Pretoria, heavily invested in manufacturing facilities, mining, housing, infrastructure and railways stretching right across the ZAR from east to west – a tented group of migrant pan miners to be over-looked they were not – they were not going anywhere, their lives and livelihood was now firmly in the ZAR and they wanted a say. The attitude of the ZAR was to treat them as ‘uitlanders’ and suppress their political aspirations as long as possible – secondary citizens with a separate ‘raad’ whilst the Boers remained in full control. This kicked off ‘revolts’, violent protests, flag burning incidents and the violent suppression of miners including maiming and murder by the notorious and hated ZAR police known as the ZARP.
These ‘uitlanders’ were also highly political and had started to unionise and form political interest groups – and fast becoming a pain in the arse for both the British establishment and the Boers. By the 28 March 1899, a petition to Queen Victoria contained 21,684 ‘uitlander’s’ signatures demanding Britain intervene in the ZAR as Kruger’s governance had become “well-nigh intolerable.”
Image: Political Cartoon of the time – note the caption.
Now think about that – 21,500 people not happy with Kruger, not just ‘uitlanders’ to be ignored – to a man, these people qualified a future voting bloc in the ZAR, and those sorts of numbers are only the ‘very angry’ ones prepared to make a mark. Really think about it, that’s twice the number of Boers they managed to muster for Boer War 1. If given a full franchise Kruger’s controlling party would be out of power – and Kruger knew it. The miners would rule the ZAR, demographically, economically, and politically the landscape of the ZAR had changed – forever. So, what did he do, he forestalled the inevitable change, clung onto power and tied to kick the franchise question into the long grass – giving his regime 14 more years (before they could all qualify to vote).
The British, and the miners would have none of it, they wanted political rights as an unflinching human right. So, they set the qualification period at 5 years. This would mean that by 1904 – in all likelihood the ZAR with Kruger and his party at the helm would cease to exist. Kruger was however pragmatic enough to know that his position was unsustainable and was prepared to, and did substantially compromise on this point, dropping the qualification to 7 years with a raft of “provisions” and eventually even prepared to meet the British demand of 5 to avoid war – but only on the proviso that Britain relinquish all its claims to the ZAR’s Suzerainty. Whichever way it goes, it would mean – that by 1907 he would be out of power, the ZAR as he knew it would be no more – sheer ‘democracy’ would have seen to that.
The Imperialists
So why Boer War 2 – democracy would have won a painless victory? Why the massive death and destruction brought onto the Boers by the British. Now that’s a good question – why? In a modern context it’s kind of like asking why it was necessary to nuke Japan in 1945, the war was won, Japan was already on its knees – why bring in the wrath of annihilation?
It boils down to the Imperial mind – Boer and Brit.
To Milner the risk of a prolonged conflict in the ZAR would have just gone on too long with too much drawn out anguish, he feared Boer Imperialists and the possibility of Boer Afrikaners to reconcile with the Cape Afrikaners and take over the whole shooting match for themselves – merely extending the issues of the day – franchise, native rights, territorial conflicts etc. into eternity, so he wanted the whole region in unity under British oversight sooner rather than later. The result is destruction on an epic scale, sheer carnage. Hence the reason Jan Smuts wrote to him on his departure from South Africa in 1905 and said he was hated, and unless he took a reconciliatory approach in future he was not welcome back.
Now, at this point there is bound to be someone whose going to venture out and say “Kak! Man!” the Boers were not ‘Imperialists’ and ‘aggressive’ territory hunters – that’s the British! The Boers just want to Boer and be left alone. Manne – it’s time for that branders re-fill I’m afraid – if you want to understand Boer Imperialism and British Imperialism – know this, both sides were into territorial expansion and control, both sides wanted control of the whole of Southern Africa – the point of departure, the British wanted it under their influence, and the Boers wanted it under theirs. To see just how ‘Big thinking’ Boer Imperialists and British Imperialists were, one only has to look at what they decide to do after Boer War 2 aided with a little ‘helpmekaar’.
All the protagonists put aside their vast differences aside and got together to nut out a solution in 1908 and 1909, known as ‘The Closer Union Convention’ it was the CODESA of its day, a ‘whose who’ of modern Southern African history .., the old ‘Boer’ Generals – de la Rey, Hertzog, Smuts, Botha, de Wet and Burger even sucked it up long enough to sit opposite the likes of Starr Jameson and be nice. Have a look at this photo of it, it’s a stella cast of Imperialists – the heads and ministers of every British colony and ex-Republic in Southern Africa.
Front row (left to right):Hon. J.W. Saner, (Commissioner for Public Works); Hon. J.X. Merriman, (Prime Minister, Cape Colony): Hon. M.T. Steyn (Vice-President of Convention); Hon. A. Fischer, (Prime Minister, Orange River Colony), Lord J.H. de Villiers (President of the Convention), Right Hon. General Louis Botha, (Prime Minister, Transvaal); Right Hon. F.R. Moor, (Prime Minister, Natal), Sir W.H. Milton (Administrator of Southern Rhodesia), Sir J.P. Fitzpatrick.
Second row: Hon. E.H. Walton; Hon. Colonel E.M. Greene (Minister of Railways and Harbours); Mr H.C. van de Heerden; Dr J.H.M. Beck, Mr G.H. Maasdorp, Mr H.L. Lindsay; Hon. F.S. Malan (Secretary for Agriculture); General S.W. Burger; Hon. Dr T.W. Smartt; Hon. General C.R. de Wet (Minister of Agriculture); Right Hon Dr L.S. Jameson; Hon. H.C. Hall (Treasurer); Hon. General J.B.M. Hertzog (Attorney General); Mr C.F. Kilpin (Clerk of House of Assembly and Chief Secretary of Convention).
Third row: General J. H. de la Rey; Mr W.R. Morcom; Hon A. Brown; Mr T. Hyslop; Mr J.W. Jagger; Hon. C.J. Smythe; Sir G.H. Farrar; Hon. General J.C. Smuts (Colonial Secretary); Mr A.M.N. de Villiers (Clerk to House of Assembly, ORC and Secretary of Convention).
Fourth row: Mr G.T. Plowman (Secretary to the Prime Minister of Natal and Secretary to Convention); Mr W.E. Bok (Private Secretary to Prime Minister of Transvaal); Mr G.F. Hofmeyr (Clerk of House of Assembly Transvaal and Secretary to Convention); Colonel W.E.M. Stanford; Hon. C.P.J Coghlan.
And what do they come up with? The South African Union as was foretold in the Peace of Vereeniging – yes, but oh so much bigger, not just a couple of isolated Republics acting as British vassal states combined with a couple of British colonies – oh no, this is BIG thinking – they agree to a ‘Greater South Africa’ – an here’s a map of it – its in three phases – Phase 1 the initial South African ‘Union’, would incorporate Lesotho and Swaziland.
Phase 2 – this would be followed by the incorporation of Bechuanaland (Botswana), German South West Africa (Namibia), the southern half of Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique – Delagoa bay) and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).
And then Phase 3,’Greater South Africa’ does not stop at Phase 2, the next phase would see half of modern Angola, the rest of modern Mozambique (the north part of Portuguese East Africa), the whole of modern Zambia (Northern Rhodesia) and the whole of modern Malawi joining the South African ‘union’. Here’s a map of it (note Jan Smuts’ notations of ‘A’ – phase 2 and ‘B’ – phase 3).
Image: Phase settings for ‘Greater South Africa’
This sort of expansionist Imperial thinking took the idea of the ‘white race’ as the great driver of conquest and civilisation in Southern Africa (Boer and Brit, either together or separate)- starting from South Africa’s borders, then over the Zambezi River and literally all the way to the equator. This thinking also did not just materialise in 1908, oh-no … it started well before that in 1895, BEFORE Boer War 2, when Jan Smuts as the State Attorney to the ZAR started to articulate the thinking of a ‘Greater South Africa’ under ‘Boer influence’ and he was not alone, the likes of Louis Botha and many others agreed with him, not only in the ZAR, but even people like Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr in the Cape, even Kruger was an expansionist had no problem annexing territory for Boer control either – Swaziland and bits of Zululand are just two cases in point. Cecil Rhodes thought the same way, only his idea specified ‘British influence’ – hence the clash of under ‘whose influence’ – its an ideological clash – and its not the .. we just want to be left alone to Boer .. thinking at all!
Just to think, had the issue not been pushed to war, there would not have been the deep mistrust and hatred between Boer and Brit, the Boer Imperialists like Smuts and Botha in conjunction with ‘British’ like Merriman, FitzPatrick and Jameson would have established the grand ideas of ‘union’ and ‘Greater South Africa’ – no problem.
The reason ‘Greater South Africa’ did not materialise – the African tribal leaders and Kings in places like Bechuanaland, Swaziland and Lesotho were a bit jittery over the old Boer Republic’s race laws, they saw the British qualified franchise laws as hopeful but feared the Boere, so they chose a wait and see approach – see how the union’s segregation laws in the old Boer Republics and simmering Afrikaner nationalism and discontent panned out – and we all know how that panned out.
More money than you can shake a stick at!
As to the question of gold and Johannesburg – a government’s income from minerals comes in the form of tax. The plain truth is that the Boers extracted high taxation on gold for ZAR coffers until 1900, thereafter the tax went to an interim Transvaal government pending union and self governance and by 1910 – a mere decade later the money went to an independent South African Union government’s tax coffer – run by the Boers. It is impossible for Britain to even have made money from South African gold to pay for its war in South Africa and the agreed reparations to the Boers guaranteed in the Vereeniging Peace treaty after the war – the war cost Britain £210 million (a staggering £25 billion in today’s money – R 547 billion in South African Rands – that’s more money than it will take to fix our current ‘Energy Crisis’). Britain’s sojourn in South Africa in 1899 was a significant financial loss to them (and political – the ‘Khaki elections’ after the war saw the back of the Tory warmongers and regime change) – proof positive, it was not about ‘stealing gold’.
As to Johannesburg, it would remain a destabiliser – to the ZAR, then the British, then the Union of South Africa – and it’s still a destabiliser in the modern South African Democratic Republic. A true den of thieves and an economic powerhouse controlling the outcome of the entire region – from beyond Zimbabwe all the way to Cape Town, it has never changed, it’s an unflinching reality and we have to accommodate and recognise it, now and then. The idea that it could exist in the middle of some sort of pastoral Boer Republic with Boers in charge of it is just sheer deniability and wishful – pure romanticism.
In reality, in 1899 – the seat of power in the ZAR had shifted, true power – economic power – no longer sat in the ‘Boer’ Republic’s Raad in Pretoria, it sat in The Rand Club in Johannesburg – and everyone knew it, Johannesburg would dictate the future of the region, not Pretoria, or even Cape Town, not even London – and here’s the inevitable truth, it still dictates the future of the region – it’s still the power-hub – the heart of South Africa (nearly 60% of South Africa’s population now live in the Megalopolis it has created).
I mention the Rand Club in Johannesburg, as this really was the real seat of power for the ZAR, the Jameson Raid was conceived and planned in its billiards room as a privateering mission and not in the corridors of Westminster with the endorsement of the British Parliament as some Boer romantics wishfully believe.
In conclusion
At the beginning the statement was made that Britain could not steal what was already theirs – I hope this has shown that true ‘fully’ independent Boer states never really existed with any degree of longevity or sustainability. Britain, from the get-go as an International Superpower, was always going to dictate the outcome – it had an entire planet to run – a vast network of countries the world over in what it regarded as the “British’ sphere, the largest ’empire’ ever built – the Romans didn’t even come close. Just one of the two Boer Republics existed without British oversight for a mere 25 years only and by the start of Boer War 2 they were both British Suzerainty States in any event. Britain peacefully ‘gave’ its colony of the Orange Sovereignty – est. 1848 to the Boers to manage, the Boers peacefully dissolved and gave their Republic of South Africa (ZAR) to the British to manage as their colony in 1887, long before diamonds and gold respectively became an issue in these regions. That’s the uneasy and inconvenient truth of the matter.
I also hope I’ve shown that Imperialism and colonisation – whether practiced by Boer or Brit is a bloody and violent matter and idea of free and independent Boer republics was a pipe dream – then and now. That things eventually went pear shaped between Boer and Brit and there were lots of shots fired at one another in anger is also a truism – and not just Boer and Brit, but the violence extended to everyone else in-between. I also hope I’ve highlighted the idea of ‘Boer’ victimhood as a population group seeking nothing more than a pastoral farming existence in a peaceful setting is a complete fallacy.
I’m sure someone will point out that this is ‘too simplistic’ and the issue is far more nuanced, the history far more complex and this is way too much ‘factor analysis’ – but these are the truths, they are facts – you can debate and argue them – sure – there are many other compelling facts and historical figures and you can point to them too, however, at best this missive is designed to present different perspectives to get you thinking, engage some brain cells and question political narrative on history and a piss-poor nationalistic education (the Nats then and the ANC now).
In the end, and this is a truism – it all could have been avoided had it not been for the personalities at play and their Imperial aspirations (both Boer and Brit) – the Boer War was a failure of the human condition – enfranchisement, political and economic emancipation and human rights would have marched on regardless. Looking at the complete destruction, death and tragedy that was Boer War 2 with the hindsight of some really inconvenient history – all I can say is I’ll now join those Boer romantics and pour myself a very strong Klippies and Coke.
There is a lot to be said about South Africa’s most remarkable First Lady – Sybella (Isabelle – shortened to Isie or ‘Issie’) Margaretha Smuts, or as she was affectionally known by all – simply as .. “Ouma.” However to get a really good understanding of this petite but powerhouse of a woman, one only needs to know what she endured and did during and directly after the Boer War i.e. The South African War 1899-1902, and here one only has to look at her curtain rails – yup, simple curtain rails.
Not many know this, and its not in the official tour guide, but if you ever have the privilege to visit the humble correlated iron house that Jan and Isie Smuts lived in from 1910 in Irene, near Pretoria, now a museum – you may notice the family’s bamboo curtain rails, and they tell a story, so here goes;
Image: Bamboo curtain rails, Smuts House Museum, Irene – Picture: Peter Dickens
From the beginning of 1899 Jan Smuts was a leading legal and political figure in Kruger’s government of the Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek (South African Republic, ZAR or Transvaal Republic). Smuts at the time lived with his wife Isie in a house on the corner of Troye and Walker streets in Sunnyside, Pretoria.
When the Boers declared war against the British on the 11th October 1899, it was with Smuts’ invasion plans that the Boer’s invaded the British Colonies of the Cape and Natal. War proved a highly trying time for Isie Smuts, but the worst was to come when Pretoria fell a mere 9 months into the war, and Isie bid farewell to her husband the evening of 4th June 1900 as he and General Botha rode away to take the ZAR government into the field with the other Boer commanders and commence the guerrilla warfare phase of the war, leaving Pretoria open for the British to occupy.
On occupying Pretoria the British took no time to gather whatever intelligence on the Boer army that they could, and Jan Smuts’ residence came into their sights. Using her initiative, Isie Smuts tore up all Jan’s letters written to her, except his first, and stuffed the scraps of paper into a cushion. She also rolled up Jan Smuts’ key documents and plans, deemed too important to destroy and hid them inside her ‘hollow’ bamboo curtain rails.
She also took the precaution of sewing gold sovereigns Jan Smuts had left her for a emergency, into a money belt. When she saw the enemy British soldiers approaching, “she dropped the belt into the boiling water of the kitchen copper” (Women South Africa Remembers” by Fay Jaff 1975), in spite of her protests the British soldiers entered her home, but still, she gave them freshly baked bread, still warm, from her oven.
During her separation from Jan Smuts, in August 1900 their baby son ‘Koosie’ died. Isie had to bear the burden alone, she wrote to Jan so he could learn of the loss by telegram, but the message never reached him. Jan Smuts also wrote to her, but she never received any of his letters in the first year of their separation.
By the beginning of 1901, Lord Kitchener, the British Chief of Staff, ordered that Isie Smuts be moved from Pretoria to a concentration camp in Pietermaritzburg. As a special concession, because of her status as Jan Smuts’ wife, Isie Smuts was afforded a small house near the camp. Isie packed up all their belongings and household items and effectively moved under ‘house arrest’ to Pietermaritzburg. She would pass her time making ‘comforts’ such as scarves for the women interned in the nearby camp.
Purposefully cut off from the outside world by the British, under house arrest, she was tormented with constant rumour that her husband had been killed, and likewise her husband was tormented whilst fighting in the field as he had no contact with his wife.
Eventually, a year after he departed Pretoria, in June 1901 she received her first letter from her husband, her response reveals the deep levels of trauma, she wrote, “I have read it and reread it so often that I know almost the whole by heart, and now I shall be able to live on those loving words for the many weary weeks to come . . .”
By special arrangement, Isie and Jan were allowed to see each other for a mere 24 hours in Standerton during a pause in the fighting. Isie was very ill at the time, war had taken a toll on her, she was prone to severe bouts of fatique and she weighed about 45kg. Her physical state distressed her husband, so he wrote to Lord Kitchener asking for permission to send her to Stellenbosch where her family could care for her, but his request was refused.
The couple were re-united some time after the Peace Treaty of Vereeniging was signed on 31st May 1902. Smuts urgently needed to go to the Cape Colony after the Peace was concluded to convince the acting Prime Minister, Thomas Graham to treat returning Cape Rebels fairly. On his return from Cape Town, Jan stopped in Pietermaritzburg to see his wife and reassure himself that her health was improving. Their minds were put to rest by Doctors who said she would be well enough in 6 weeks to travel back to Pretoria. Smuts went ahead to re-claim his home which had been occupied by British Imperial Yeomanry during the war.
Between May 1902 and 1910, before Jan Smuts finally re-settled the family at Irene, the Smuts’ went about re-building their lives and having children. Isie Smuts was very understandably anti-British, given her treatment by them and her witness to the camps. She insisted on a Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek ‘ZAR’ Vierkleur (Four Colour) National Flag be present at each child’s birth, so they would be born under it and not under the occupier’s British Union Jack. In all, her first children were born when the ZAR existed as an independent Republic and she ensured all her remaining children when born, would be born under the Vierkleur (not a lot of people know this either – it’s not in mainstream accounts of the Smuts’ history). Not many people know this too, but according to the family, Jan Smuts, not surprisingly considering his experience of the war, also personally harboured a similar deep disregard for the British at this time.
Picture: The Smuts family at this time, superbly colourised by Jennifer Bosch
Isie’s Anglophobia did not stop there, she was totally anti-British, and openly hostile toward them. She even went so far as to stick stamps deliberately upside down on her letters, so as to make the King stand on his head. It was much later when Lord Paul Methuen, the Officer Commanding-in-Chief in South Africa, convinced her that the British were not all bad, he helped her overcome her prejudices to eventually support her husband in his efforts to reconcile the English and Afrikaner “races” to achieve peace, stability and ‘Union’ in South Africa.
Jan Smuts would also tease her and say she would be “punished” if any of her children married a Brit in the future, which ironically several of the Smuts children did, either marrying into wholly British or half English descendants. Isie’s future would see her rise to one of the most loved people in South Africa – English and Afrikaner alike – and she hit her stride during World War 2, during Jan Smuts’ second Prime Ministership, when she headed up the wartime ‘The Gifts and Comforts Fund’ in support of the men and women from South Africa fighting in the war, even visiting them in the combat zone, but that’s a remarkable story for another day.
In South Africa, one can still find people who swallowed Smuts’ political detractors rhetoric and will say that by reconciling with the British, he did not suffer or fully understand the indignity of the concentration camps. Utter poppycock, one only has to look at the fact that he not only lost family, he nearly lost his wife, such was his conviction to get a better peace for his countrymen by engaging guerrilla war tactics and becoming a ‘Bitter-einder’ in war already hopelessly lost. Of his reasoning for enduring the ‘Bitter-einder’ campaign Jan Smuts said “… two years more of war, the utter destruction of both Republics, losses in life and treasure … Aye, but it meant that every Boer, every child to be born in South Africa, was to have a prouder self-respect and a more erect carriage before the nations of the world.”
The journey for both Jan and Isie to overcome their hatred for the British and reconcile with them in 1910 for the good of all South Africans is one of the most generous and forgiving acts ever seen in South Africa, it was only seen again in 1994 when Nelson Mandela did the same (although the same could not be said of his wife).
Jan Smuts famously said “history writes the word ‘reconciliation’ over all her quarrels” and to anyone visiting the Smuts museum in future, look up at the simple curtain rails, and remember the courage of an ‘Ystervrou’ (iron woman) who endured during a highly destructive war, literally crippling her people and her remarkable journey to reconciliation with the enemy to the benefit of all.
Written and Researched by Peter Dickens.
With grateful assistance from Philip Weyers (Jan Smuts’ Grandson) and the Jan Smuts Foundation and family. Large reference and thanks to “Women South Africa Remembers” by Fay Jaff (1975). Also, with much thanks and gratitude to Jenny B Colourisation. Photos below – Smuts House Museum in Irene, the author and his wife with Philip Weyers.
In 1992, the last Boer War survivor appeared at The Royal British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall in London and later laid a remembrance wreath at the base of the Cenotaph in Whitehall. He was 111 years old, his name – George Frederick Ives, born in Brighton, England on 17th November 1881 and he served in the British Army for 18 months and served in South Africa during The South African War (1899-1902). He was the last combatant survivor from either side and it was his last known public appearance.
It remains amazing that in living memory of many today, right up into the 90’s, stood a veteran of the Boer War, think about his longevity, he was still alive when Gulf War 1 broke out between 1990 and 1991 – he saw war from a horse drawn age, before the invention of the airplane – right up to jet-aircraft ‘shock and awe’ warfare and the nuclear age, we can only wonder now what he thought of it. This is his story.
At the on-set of the war from 11th October 1899, the British suffered tremendous set-backs when the Boer’s declared war and invaded the two British Colonies, the Boer sieges and shelling of British garrisons and civilians alike in Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberley, incensed and immediately spurred many in the United Kingdom to join up and fight – including George Ives, citing “Black Week’ – the British losses to the Boers whilst attempting to relieve the sieges at the battles of Stormberg, Colenso and Magersfontein from the 10th to 17th December 1899 as his reason. George initially enlisted as Private in 2nd Volunteer Battalion, Bristol Engineers.
Clearly the British had a fight on their hands and by January 1901, George really wanted to get to South Africa, before the war he had experience training horses and considered himself a good jockey, so he attested to join the Imperial Yeomanry (voluntary mounted infantry) as a Trooper, number 21198. His height was 5’6, his eyes dark blue, hair black, and trade listed as a grocer. He trained in England until the end of February, when he proceeded to South Africa with the 1st (Wiltshire) Company, 1st Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry.
With the Yeomanry in support of Scottish troops, and thanks to his training on horses, George became a Cavalry Scout. He would spend days in the saddle as a messager often riding far into ‘enemy’ territory to connect between British detachments, he would regularly cover distances upwards of 80 km through enemy territory which he managed to do by taking two horses and hiding in the hills during daylight hours.
Horses were an important part of the military campaign in South Africa. Many, many years later in television interview George would chuckle and wryly observe that “There were lots of veterinaries but not many doctors. A horse cost £40 while a man was only worth a dollar.”
March 1st, 1901 to August 27, 1902, George fought on patrols in the Transvaal, Orange Free State and the Cape Colony. work in the hot South African sun riding on the open veldt, ‘water’ almost became an obsession for George. In the same interview many years later, George described what these patrols were like:
“We started out in the morning early, had a good camp breakfast, filled our water cans up with coffee, and we went. Before the sun was up any strength at all, nearly all the drink had gone. We was all day and we’d chew stones in our mouth and try and agitate a little saliva. Finally we got to the end of the trip and fell off the horse, the horse was thirsty too, and we’d throw some water in our mouths and on the back of our neck, and when we looked up [we] discovered there was two dead mules in the same pond, but it didn’t matter about mules rotting, you had to satisfy your thirst.”
In the same interview Ives recalled his proudest moment during the war:
“The most important [moment] was when the Captain had us fall in, get in line, it was after supper, at night, and when they were all there he said ‘Ives take ten paces forward’ and I stepped forward ten paces, and he says to the company: ‘here is the man who was scouting through 70 miles of enemy territory several times’. The captain then said give him a cheer, and they said ‘hoorah, hoorah’ and I went back in line.”
Trooper George Ives was discharged in England on September 3, 1902 and for his service in South Africa, he was awarded the Queen’s South Africa Medal with clasps for Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, South Africa 1901, and South Africa 1902.
Later Life
In 1902 George immigrated to Canada, in 1990, he told the Vancouver Sun that he flipped a coin – heads Canada, tails New Zealand. The coin came up heads, and George Ives became a farmer in British Columbia. When World War 1 broke out he volunteered again, but was rejected when they identified a heart murmur.
He would raise six children with his wife of 76 years, Kate (Kitty). He worked as a farmer, logger and then a boat builder, his wife died 1987 when she was 98.
Living in Aldergrove, he would regularly attend Remembrance Day celebrations, well into the 1980s in Aldergrove, George Frederick Ives would get onto his feet and stand attention for the moment of silence, and his identity as a Boer War veteran announced to the crowd, as well as his age – well over 100 at this stage.
When George Ives returned to the United Kingdom for the last time in November in 1992, he was deemed to be the oldest man to have flown the Atlantic. He was also accompanied by his youngest daughter (76) and his nurse. During his visit he had tea with the Queen Mother, Princess Diana, Lady Thatcher and had a tour of Downing Street.
Images: George Ives with Princess Diana (Left) and Margarat Thatcher (Right)
As far as the last surviving veterans of the Boer War goes, George outlived the last ‘Boer’ veteran, believed to be Pieter Arnoldus Krueler (1885–1986) – the famous ‘4’ war Boer, who served on the ZAR side during the Boer War, then in both World Wars, the Spanish Civil War and was a mercenary in the Congo Crisis – another very interesting figure from the Boer War (another contender for ‘oldest’ Boer fighter was Herman Carel Lubbe who died on 11 August 1985).
George Frederick Ives eventually died five months after his famous UK visit, back in Canada, in Aldergrove’s Jackman Manor at the age of 111 on April 12, 1993, the last surviving Boer War veteran and the oldest man in Canada at the time.
Secrets of Longevity
Take a learning on longevity here, George Ives, was married for 77 years, smoked for 89 years and his secret for longevity was a glass of brandy and water which he took at 3am every morning! George is officially the second oldest British military veteran ever, at 111 years, 146 days, his record was only broken on 1 November 2007 by World War 1’s last combatant British survivor Henry Allingham (who also funnily credited “cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women – and a good sense of humour” for his longevity). They just don’t make em like this anymore.
To see George Ives’ last interview follow this link
The Observation Post 