Recently, a Boer War historian, Chris Ash published some interesting works on Breaker Morant on his blog, and it’s not what you may think of this hero to some and villain to others, ultimately executed for the murder of unarmed Boers during the South African War 1899 – 1902. It was not his trial, or the murders he committed or controversy around his execution by the British, nor the controversy of nationalists making a hero of him in latter years – simply because they saw him as a British scapegoat. It was also not the repeated attempts by current Australian social activists trying to embolden Morant as a National Australian Hero and their repeated and unsuccessful attempts to get the British government to issue a “pardon” for him and apologise for shooting him. Nah! None of that … turns out Breaker Morant was an accomplished poet – and Chris Ash simply published some of his poems.
I wrote to Chris Ash on one of the published poems and stated that it remained ironic, for all the hullabaloo over Breaker Morant and calls for his reinterment on Australian soil as a National Australian hero .. his grave in Pretoria was in fact empty, there’s nothing in it. This came as a surprise to him – and to others I’m sure as its a very little known fact.
Lt. Harry “The Breaker” Harbord Morant
Empty! Huh – no Morant, what happened and where the hell is Breaker? Well, here again there’s a little more controversy to this very controversial man.
A while back in early February 2024 I published an Observation Post on the Boer War 2 titled ‘War is Cruelty’ War is Cruelty – a very esteemed Australian based historian, Gordon Mackinlay wrote some of the content and he wrote to me to say, according to his research, Breaker Morant was gone – so too Hancock buried with him, the result of a grave robbery in the 80’s – the grave site near the hallowed acre of Afrikaner heroes in Pretoria had been tampered with – detectives found no bodies, so they put it down to a grave robbery for African “Muti” purposes. The conclusion that the bones of men executed held mystical powers and of value to practitioners of traditional African “Muti” medicine. The Australian government sponsored a nice new slab for the grave in the knowledge that neither Morant or Hancock are in it.1
On the Observation Post’s scuttlebutt Facebook group, this question was again raised, along with Danie Theron, the famous Boer Scout, whose grave was also robbed. A good friend, fellow historian and regular contributor to the Observation Post, Johann Hamman gave us some fresh insight.
Johann is a leading Afrikaans battlefield historian and I generally sit up and listen to him. The feedback as follows:
The remains of Danie Theron had indeed been stolen from his grave. 2He had been taken by two Afrikaner Weerstandsbewegin (Afrikaner Resistance Movement – AWB) members from Carltonville, but his remains had since been recovered. He was re-buried and the site was re-secured at Eikenhof. The AWB men robbed the grave of his remains because they did not want their ‘white’ Boer hero to lie among the ‘Black’ Africans buried in the same cemetery from the nearby modern township.
On Breaker Morant – he is most certainly not present in his grave anymore, however, according to Johann it is not because of any Muti-theft in the 80’s – the detectives are mistaken. When Morant was buried they poured two bags of unslaked lime on top of him, and what they buried there is no longer there as a result. There is nothing to steal.3
Johann Hamman and Gerald Leach among others, researched Morant as thoroughly as possible, and they blocked an attempt to have him pardoned as an Australian hero by Queen Elizabeth twice.
The argument was that Morant, Handcock and Taylor had been responsible for the murder of at least 36 people, of whom the youngest were Boer children of 11 years, they were murderous and their execution justified. Morant himself admitted to 12 killings at his court-martial, one was the Reverend Heese, who was the great-grandfather of Johan’s friend – the late Hendrik Neethling.4
Just to note, the British poured unslaked lime on everyone they executed in Boer War 2, Cape Rebels and Boers wearing British Khaki uniform included. There has been some research on whether unslaked lime speeds up decomposition or in fact aids preservation of the corpse, however even here school is out, some medical journals and specialists specify preservation others demonstrate the opposite – rapid decomposition.
Now, I’m pretty sure that the case on Morant is forever open to endless debate, especially in Australia, but the general conclusion most historians come to is regardless of legalise, and whether Morant was even an Australian – he was by all accounts a maverick from the get-go, his execution an inevitability and for very justifiable reasons (many in fact just conclude that ‘he had it coming’). There are countless Australian heroes from their statutory forces over the years, and to be honest they can find amongst them far more suitable candidates to honour than Morant.
Either way we cut it, whether the bones were stolen, whether they are completely destroyed by unslaked lime – or not – Breaker Morant is not there, the grave is empty.
I was having a banter with an old SADF army pal of mine, and we recalled the great divisions between the “English” okes in the platoon and the “Afrikaans” okes in the platoon. There was always banter, and general unity and respect, we all faced the same hardship and threats, and we needed one another to survive so we were closer than blood brothers. That of course did not stop ‘the great divide’ caused by a Afrikaner nationalist identity, the ingrained idea that the “English” were the source of all Afrikaner trauma, the fierce need to be free of Britain’s tyranny and the mass exodus of Afrikaners from the British colonies in protest – the Great Trek, this would be followed by later by the indignation of the British invading their free republics and the fierce fight for independence again, a fight to the bitter end to protect an Afrikaner rebel hegemony and the right to the country.
Time and again, two key themes would re-appear – the idea that they all belonged to a ‘pioneer’ class of hard fighting frontiersmen – Voortrekkers and the idea they also all belonged to an equally hard fighting bunch of ‘bittereinders’ – all the time seeking independence from their traditional foe – the ‘English’ and all the time desirous of an Afrikaner Republic. It’s a repeat theme – you still see it even today then the Springbok XV meet the England XV. In the army, us ‘English’ okes were constantly singled out as the physical manifestation of this ‘foe’ – sometimes in jest but also sometimes taking a lot of abuse and you had to tread very lightly when accusations like “you put my Grandmother in a concentration camp” started kicking about – not that your forebears had anything to do with it whosoever.
Problem is – not all Afrikaners share a “pioneer” and “bittereinder” identity, they were artificially jelled into this identity in the late 1930’s by an all-white, all-Afrikaans and Broederbond driven Centenary celebration of the Great Trek. Pulled under a singular banner of Christian Nationalism. So much so that even if you look up ‘Afrikanerdom’ today you find it defined as:
Noun. (in South Africa) Afrikaner nationalism based on pride in the Afrikaans language and culture, conservative Calvinism, and a sense of heritage as pioneers (Voortrekkers).
But what are the chances? What are the chances that Afrikaners all share this unified ‘Pioneer’ and ‘Bittereinder’ identity – the coming together of which Henning Klopper, the Chairman on the Broederbond famously declared in 1938 as “a sacred happening” – God, according to Klopper, had ordained it. What are the chances indeed?
This is where economic history, hard stats, the maths, starts to punch massive holes into ‘political’ history and ‘identity’ politics. So, let’s begin at the very beginning.
The “Great” Trek
Let’s start with the “Great Trek”. There’s a lot of false and inflated numbers as to The Great Trek, but most accredited historians refer these Cape Colony figures.
From the commencement of British rule in 1806 – the Cape Colony had about 27,000 white burghers, 35,000 registered ‘ex-slaves’ and 17,000 Khoi Khoi descendants – 79,000 total population. Of that total population only approximately 6,000 ‘Boers’ including an equal number of their ‘coloured’ servants and labourers on a 1:1 ratio (so 12,000 in total), left in the waves considered the Great Trek itself – and their jump points – Grahamstown, Uitenhage and Graaff-Reinet were hundreds of kilometres away from metropolitan Cape Town (in fact it was as far to travel to Bloemfontein from these jump points as it was to Cape Town).
We need to think of them as the American white ‘pioneers’ settling the wild west in trailblazing wagon convoys – trying to negotiate land in “Indian” territory. The interior of South Africa above the Cape Colony and Natal Colony was not “empty” or “undiscovered” – like the “Wild West” it was already partly mapped by frontiersmen, nomadic farmers (trek-boers), hunters and missionaries. They would provide the network of ‘supply’ support to our plucky pioneers (Voortrekkers).
The “exploratory” first wave is not very successful. Louis Tregardt’s group is all but wiped out by disease – 52 people make it to Portuguese East Africa and return to Port Natal. Hans van Rensburg’s group (51 people) is wiped out by the Zulu – 2 children survive. Hendrik Potgieter and Sarel Cilliers have a party of 200. Gerrit Maritz has a party of about 700 (including servants). Piet Retief’s party starts with about 100 people, it links up with the other Voortrekkers and over 100 (including black servants/labour) are initially wiped out by the Zulu – the Zulu then wipe out more of Retief’s combined trek 282 Voortrekkers and 250 of their servants (there’s that 1:1 ratio) were killed along the Bloukrans during the Zulu attacks of the 16th and 17th February 1838. Piet Uys has a party of 100, and both he and his son are wiped out by the Zulu.
As we can see, there is already a major issue in trying to account the size of these treks – some account ‘white’ families only (and we have no knowledge of the number of servants – they are referenced but that’s about it), whilst others account both. Much work on the “Black History” of the Great Trek has yet to be done – the guardians of its ‘white’ history resisted it for decades.
Either way, whichever way you cut it, the chances of anyone been related by a direct blood line to the exploratory wave of the great trek are extremely slim if the published numbers are anything to go by – in fact it’s about 1% considering about half didn’t make it. Also, the ‘Zulu’ pose more of a threat to the Voortrekkers as a traditional ‘foe’ than the British ever did – it seems counter-intuitive to believe they would rather face certain death than face a British tax administrator and a colour blind Cape Franchise. There is clearly a lot more motivating this initial expedition and its highly nuanced.
That aside, let’s we stick to all the parties of Voortrekkers, the figure expressed in The Afrikaners : biography of a people by the famous Afrikaner historian, Hermann Giliomee – he notes 6,000 white Afrikaners over the period of the trek 1835 – 1840 (5 years) leaving the colony (so that’s 12,000 including Black Labour/servants on a 1:1 ratio – which tallies up with other references). So, given the size of the Cape Colony population and demographic there is only a 22% chance of any modern day white Afrikaner been related directly by bloodline to a white Voortrekker (Gillomee uses a different base and puts this figure at 10% – but let’s go with the higher figure and the benefit of the doubt). 78% of white Afrikaners are bloodline related to those who stay put in the Cape Colony and have nothing to do with the great trek whatsoever.
But, but .. but, there are loads of us “Boere” – you talking “kak” man comes a great retort from a great many. Well, not really would be my answer, let’s look at the economic history and the numbers.
There is, of course a natural economic migration of people, from the British Colonies and other places into the hinterland and into the small Voortrekker republics as they grow from strength to strength – from about 1840 (when the initial trek ends) all the way to the start of the South African War (1899-1902) a.k.a Boer War 2 – 60 odd years. It’s an incredibly slow migration, but speeds up substantially only from 1886 with the discovery of minerals in the ZAR (the OFS remains very sparsely populated). The economic migrants over this 60 year period consist of many white Afrikaners seeking bigger farms, mineral wealth or they settle as urbanised people seeking a “tabula rasa” opportunity with a trade, skill or service – shop owners, doctors, lawyers, miners, teachers – you name it. It’s not just white Afrikaners, they are joined by thousands of “English” 1820 settlers, other Europeans and even many Jews also seeking bigger farms, mining, commerce, service or trading opportunities.
Here’s the primary difference though, all these people are economic migrants seeking better business, wealth and lifestyle opportunities – they are not migrating because of any deep ‘hatred’ for the British or because the British took away their slaves. On the “numbers”, you would think from all the propaganda spewed out by Afrikaner Nationalists that a mass exodus of “true” Afrikaners had taken place and by the beginning of Boer War 2 most of them are “free-men” living in a Boer Republic, BUT – there’s a problem with this idea, its still NOT the case – not even after 60 years of migration and not even after the discovery of mineral wealth in the ZAR – the majority of Afrikaners, believe it or not, are STILL in the Cape Colony. Here are the numbers at the start of Boer War 2:
Boer War 2
The population of South Africa in 1899 was approximately 4.7 million persons with 3.5 million Africans making up 74% of the total. Whites, numbering 830,000 made up only 18% of the entire population. Asians and Coloureds total 400,000 or 8%. So whichever way you cut it, the ‘whites’ – Boer and British together, are a ‘minority’.
But what of these two ‘white’ tribes? Where are they located after The Great Trek and economic migrations of the last 60 years. The white population are distributed among the two colonies and the two republics, In total 480,000 are Afrikaans-speaking, 58% of the total white population. Less than half of the Afrikaners lived in urban areas, most the ‘English-speaking’ population are urbanised and constitute 42% of the white population.
Also, most importantly, where are all these Afrikaners? Here’s the kicker, the majority of them are STILL in the Cape Colony – Great Trek aside. Afrikaners in the Cape Colony qualified as a bigger population of Afrikaners than the Orange Free State and Transvaal Afrikaners COMBINED. Data sources differ a little in the Transvaal I.e. ZAR, but it is generally understood that Afrikaners only really made up about half (50%) percent of the white population in the ZAR in any event, the other half are classified as ‘Uitlanders’ – mainly ‘British’ (it’s this imbalance that this is the principle Casus Belli advanced by the British as their reason for the 2nd Boer War).
The Transvaal’s Afrikaners made up only 31% of the total number of Afrikaners in South Africa, with the Orange Free State having mere 15%. This total of 46% (approximately 219,000 people) shows that when Boer War 2 broke out, less than half of the total Afrikaners in South Africa were in the two republics that declared war on Britain. The Cape Colony and Natal, containing 54% of the Afrikaners, or 260,000 persons, never rose up and declared war against the British.
Although some 10,000 odd Cape Afrikaners did join the Republics forces as ‘Cape Rebels’ – this force when viewed against that of the general Cape Afrikaner populace is insignificant. Cape Afrikaners, and for that matter Natal Afrikaners too, simply did not rise up in any significant number to join the ZAR and OFS invasions of the two British colonies. Add to this that just about as many Cape and Natal Afrikaners joined the British forces which also counter-balances the argument somewhat.
The bottom line – the majority of Afrikaners simply decided not to rise up against their lawfully elected governments in the Cape and Natal, many decided to remain neutral and as a majority grouping of Afrikaners in general they simply did not participate in the war at all – that’s a fact. View it this way, the Cape franchise is such, that if the Afrikaner – the majority of voters – did not want someone like Cecil Rhodes in government. they could easily have voted him out.
The underpinning reality is that the Boer Generals planning the war and the Boer politicians claiming “Africa for the Afrikaner” failed to appreciate that many of the Cape Afrikaners were pretty happy under British administration for the near 100 years they are subjected to it, contented with the Cape franchise, many of them urbanised middle class and well to do and of the landed class many were very wealthy – as a demographic they are fundamentally different to their isolated frontier farming (Boer) Afrikaner brethren ‘up north’ facing an extremely hostile environment.
Poverty, famine and hardship was not an overarching issues in the British Colonies for many whites’ (Boer and Brit) in 1899 – nor does it seem that there was any fundamental discontent with their governance, representation and political disposition – and many simply did not view the ZAR’s “Krugerism” as a viable ideology or system of governance for Southern Africa – in fact Prime Minister William Schreiner, John X. Merriman and Jacobus Sauer had moved many in the Cape Colony’s branch of the Afrikaner Bond and Afrikaners in the Cape Colony in general closer to the British way of thinking.
In a nutshell, half the available Afrikaners failed to take up arms against the British and the Boers fought the South African War 1899-1902 at half strength. So, in essence – they went off “half-cocked” against a world super-power to quote John L Scott’s conclusion on the numbers and the Boer Republics’ decision to invade British colonies.
So, here’s the statistical truth to a modern white Afrikaner – There is a 22% chance that their direct bloodline forebear was a Voortrekker, and a 54% chance that their direct bloodline forebear never took part in the Boer War, at all – the majority of Afrikaners simply did not take up arms, even when their northern brethren expected them to, even demanding they do it, still nothing happened.
The big question now, is of that minority – the 46% of Afrikaners who can claim a bloodline forebear who took part in the 2nd Boer War, how many of them joined the British and fought for them – the hated “joiners”, how many of them preferred neutrality “hensoppers” and how many qualify as the “true” patriotic Afrikaner irreconcilables – the “bittereinders”?
Bittereinders and Joiners
Let’s go with the most “conservative” Afrikaner chronology experts on this one, Pieter Cloete, and give some benefit of the doubt as numbers on the Boer War to the Boers as they vary considerably depending on whose recording them. Cloete in his chronology maintains there are 5,464 joiners (Republican Boers joining the British army to fight against their own countrymen) versus 20,779 recorded Bittereinders registered as still on Commando at the end of the war. So for every 5 Boers left in the field – 4 were fighting for the Republics and 1 was fighting for the British – a 4:1 ratio. Not a common or acknowledged bit of Boer War history – 26% of the Boers fighting at the end of the war were fighting FOR the British – a quarter of them, it’s a significant statistic.
This Figure becomes a little more skewered and complicated when you add the ‘Hensoppers’ and the ‘Prisoners of War’ – those that took the oath of neutrality and those that did not, those that went back on their oaths as well as the war dead and injured – but suffice to say that the stated majority of white Afrikaners are still not with the Boer Republic’s causes … at all. In fact many are even prepared to go to war with one another over it such is the extent of the disagreement.
This figure of white Afrikaner support for the Boer Republican ideal starts to really pale into insignificance after South Africa is made a Union in 1910. So let’s have a look at the Boer Revolt in 1914 as much Afrikaner legacy and Nationalist ‘volk’ heroes stem from it.
The Boer Revolt 1914
Upfront let’s look at the fighting numbers, in all during World War 1 (1914 to 1918) – no fewer than 146,000 South African whites volunteer to fight alongside Britain and France. A mere 7,100 South Africans volunteer to fight alongside Germany for the reinstatement of the Boer Republican paramountcy in South Africa – that’s only 5% of the entire white population volunteering to fight for one side or the other.
In the case of a proportion of these Boer Revolt fighters in relation to Afrikaners only – during WW1 every white in the census classifies themselves as ‘British’, and there are 1,400,000 of them. It’s hard to say who are English and who are Afrikaans, but if we apply the 40/60 ratio which exits most the way through our history – Afrikaners would account 840,000 – if we double the amount of Boer Rebels to include their wives in support – they would account 2% of the overall Afrikaner diaspora, even if we triple or quadruple the ‘Rebels’ number for sympathetic friends – they still remain a tiny minority – 3% to 4% odd.
And it’s not as if their leaders are in support of the Boer Republican cause and remaining neutral during the World War 1 either, this idea that the decision to go to war against Germany was rejected by the “majority” of Afrikaners is pure Hollywood – 92 members of the South African Parliament voted in favour of the war against Imperial Germany, and only 12 vote against. In the Afrikaner Party – the SAP, the vote is 82% in favour and only 18% against.
There is no doubt that Barry Hertzog’s break away from Botha and Smuts to form the National Party in 1914 re-kindled Afrikaner Nationalism in many white Afrikaners – primarily in the Orange Free State, a region hit by severe drought and an extensive share cropping farmer problem (bywoners) as a result of Boer War 2. Hertzog was a very popular Afrikaner Bittereinder General and held large sway. However, even this romanticising with nationalism the Afrikaner Nationalists are still a minority in the Afrikaner diaspora and even more so in the white diaspora at large. When the National Party first contend the General Elections in 1915 they win 29% of the votes (mainly in the OFS), whilst their brethren Afrikaners in the SAP get 37%. The ‘English’ parties alone match the National Party in size and have around 34% of the vote. This split down the middle in the Afrikaner diaspora is however beginning to rear its head again.
The 1938 Centenary Great Trek
What follows once the National Party get into power as a minority government, in a coalition with the Labour Party on the back of the Rand Rebellion in 1922 – is 15 years of unrelenting glorification of the 1914 Boer Revolt leaders, the execution of Jopie Fourie and the vilifying of General Smuts and General Botha. But even by 1938 the National Party still don’t have the stable majority they need, and there is still a massive split in the diaspora between the ‘Cape Afrikaner’ and the ‘Boere’ Afrikaner. That would all change with the 1938 Centenary of the Great Trek.
In 1938, the Broederbond under the directive of its Chairman, Henning Klopper sought to use the centenary of Great Trek to unite the ‘Cape Afrikaners’ and the ‘Boere Afrikaners’ under the symbology of the Great trek. In this endeavour artificially creating a shared heritage. He started a Great Trek re-enactment with two Ox-Wagons in Cape Town and addressed the large crowd of 20,000 spectators by saying;
“We ask the entire Afrikanerdom to take part in the festival celebration in this spirit. We long that nothing shall hinder the Afrikaner people as a whole from taking part. This movement is born from the People; may the People carry it in their hearts all the way to Pretoria and Blood River. Let us build up a monument for Afrikaner hearts. May this simple trek bind together in love those Afrikaner hearts which do not yet beat together. We dedicate these wagons to our People and to our God.”
By that he hoped to combine the ‘Cape white Afrikaners’ with the ‘Boer white Afrikaners’ in the symbology of the Great Trek under a fabricated Nationalist ideal of Christian Nationalism – and only meant ‘White’ Afrikaners in the Broederbond’s definition of what constituted ‘Afrikanerdom’ and not really the Afrikaans speaking peoples as a ‘whole’ – certainly not the Coloured and Black Afrikaners. The Trek celebration would be pitched as an assertion of Afrikaner white power in South Africa and the Trek as the true path to a overall South African nationhood and identity and ignore the histories of everyone else – black and white – in creating a future South African identity.
Images: The 1938 Centennial Great Trek
In any event the trek re-enactment was very successful in re-aligning white Afrikaner identity under the Christian Nationalist ideal. In the end eight wagons from all around the country threaded their way to Pretoria to lay the cornerstone of the Voortrekker monument – in front of a crowd of 200,000 people. Whilst at the same time, four ox-wagons went to the site of the battle at Blood River for a commemoration service on the 16th December. The wagons stopping in countless towns and villages all around the country along the way to re-name street after street after one or another Voortrekker hero, and laying imprints of the wagons wheels in freshly laid cement at many halts (there are still ‘imprints’ at my hometown in Hermanus – despite the fact that not one single Voortrekker came from this region).
The Centenary trek gave the Broederbond and the National Party symbology – the ox-wagon, gun-powder horns etc. on which to pin Afrikaner Nationalism that did not exist before. Gideon Roos would say of it:
“We (the Afrikaners) never had a symbol before; the ox-wagon became that symbol.”
The Broederbond had staggered onto the ideal way to ‘unify’ the Afrikaner – a round the country travelling carnival – from the cities to the platteland, on to far flung corners and everything in between. Henning Klopper himself amazed at the reaction and the success of it all – so much so he turned to divine intervention and said:
“Although I organised it and had everything to do with it, I felt it was taken completely out of my hands. The whole feeling of the (centenary) trek was the working not of man, not of any living being. It was the will and the work of the Almighty God. It was a pilgrimage, a sacred happening.
A “sacred happening” – a miracle indeed.
It’s a Miracle!
What is a real miracle however, is that the ‘majority’ of Afrikaners would adopt this Voortrekker hegemony even when it is proven that most of them had nothing to do with the Great Trek, and that the two ‘separate’ hearts from Boer War 2 would only find commonality in the Bittereinders 40 years after the war. It’s a sheer miracle that the Broederbond managed to pull this off – and it’s no wonder that Smuts during World War 2 had to appoint a “Truth Legion” to counteract all the propaganda stemming from the Broederbond, re-setting identity and changing Afrikaner minds. So much so Smuts would call the Broederbond:
“a dangerous, cunning, political fascist organization”
He was not wrong, but the 1948 elections sealed it for the Broederbond, and Smuts was dead by 1950. The next 40 years are dominated by unrelenting Afrikaner Nationalism ideals and the banning, violent repression and gagging of any voices of dissent – including many Afrikaners.
A careful construct was put together which found Afrikaner heroes who were either Bittereinder Generals or 1914 Boer Rebels elevated to national worship. The irony is only those who were enamoured with racial segregation in their central politics were highlighted – and as leaders, either Boer War or 1914 Rebel, they had represented a minority of Afrikaners.
Whereas Afrikaners which sought unification and reconciliation – and were largely the most popular and effective leaders were airbrushed out – Jan Smuts and Louis Botha specifically, and so too all the Afrikaner military heroes who followed them, the military and political likes of Kommandant Dolf de la Rey, Group Captain Adolph “Sailor” Malan, General Daniel Pienaar, Group Captain Petrus “Dutch” Hugo, Mattheus Uys Krige, General Kenneth Reid van der Spuy, General George Brink, Major Jacob Pretorius, Lieutenant (Dr) Jan Steytler, Captain (Sir) De-villiers Graaff, Major Pieter van der Byl, Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr … the list goes on.
By the time I found myself in the Army most my Afrikaner brothers in arms were pretty convinced their heritage and identity lay with Voortrekkers and the Boer War concentration camps – and such is the power of identity many still believe in that – an entire nation baptised into a identity the majority had no connection to in the first place. Dr D.F. Malan would try to cement his sentiment when he said of Afrikanerdom:
“To be a true patriot you have to embrace this Afrikaner Nationalism take on history – to do otherwise is not to be an Afrikaner.”
So – according to the National Party leader, as an Afrikaner, whether you are related to a Voortrekker, Bitteriender Republican or a 1914 Rebel or whether you are not, whether its your history or not (the irony, statistically speaking chances are you’re not). This is your heritage, history and identity, like it or not – or you’re not an Afrikaner – simple.
He went on to define this further, later Dr. Malan would say:
“An Afrikaner is one who, whether speaking the same language or attending the same church as myself or not, cherished the same Nationalist ideas. That is why I willingly fight against General Smuts. I do not consider him an Afrikaner.”
So, if your forebear joined Jan Smuts’ call to arms in World War 1, World War 2 or even voted for his “United Party” – and you’ve not adopted the Afrikaner Nationalist identity politics and their take on Afrikaner history – according to these Nationalists – you’re not considered an Afrikaner – you’ve somehow turned ‘English’. This attitude, believe it or not, still survives today. I took criticism from a local Freedom Front Plus councillor who authors Afrikaner history romanticism that my focus on was not on the true Afrikaners and I only praised selected Afrikaners who had sold out to the “crown” the ones with ‘English’ hearts – in that way he called me “anti-afrikaner” which is pretty odd considering the size of his bias and his total misconception of the Afrikaner diaspora.
Dr. Malan is not alone either, Adolf Hitler managed to do exactly the same to the German nation prior to Word War 2, using the same techniques, a similar ideology and the same brand of Nationalism. A miracle in every sense. It took a genocide and sheer destruction of their entire country and cultural construct to shake the German nation out of this malaise such is the power of it – its testament to what a determined minority government can do with the politics of pain and hatred if they really set their minds to it.
So, what are the chances – well the chances of the vast majority of Afrikaners been related to a Voortrekker is nil – maybe one in five are. The chances their bloodline forebear took part in the Boer War as a hard fighting Bittereinder Republican – maybe a one in three chance. Chances are that their forebear was a Boer Rebel is incredibly slim, there’s a far better probability that he fought against the rebels and joined up with Jan Smuts – chances of that happening are pretty good. Which makes it odd is that the Afrikaner leadership, when in the pound seats from 1948 to 1994, chose to force the traitorous 1914 Boer Rebels onto just about everyone as national heroes (Beyers, Fourie, de Wet, Kemp, Martiz etc.) in just about every medium, when in fact they are an anathema to the general public, black and white – including a great many Afrikaners.
The chances of anyone hitting the trifecta jackpot, a bloodline direct link between a Voortrekker, Bittereinder and a Rebel to make up a “Pure” Afrikaner at heart (as is the basis of the Afrikaner nationalist myth) – this is a very slim chance statistically speaking – its incredibly rare. However the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kidtuurverenigings (FAK) the old Broederbond front organ still co-ordinates events promoting this mythology and identity to the modern Afrikaner generation … and unless they too are exposed to the extent of the National Party’s nefarious ways and flawed ideologies chances of many of them putting any of this identity politics into proper perspective are equally slim.
Written and researched by Peter Dickens
References:
The Afrikaners : biography of a people (Reconsiderations in Southern African History) Published 2010 by Hermann Giliomee
British Concentration Camps of the second South African War (the Transvaal 1900 to 1902), Masters thesis – published 2007 by John L Scott
1899 Population data comes from state almanacs and is found in an essay by Andre Wessels ‘Afrikaners at War’, John Gooch (editor), The Boer War. Published 2000
The White Tribe of Africa – South Africa in Perspective: Published 1981 by David Harrison
The Union of South Africa censuses 1911-1960: an incomplete record: By A.J. Christopher
The Anglo-Boer war: A chronology. By Cloete, Pieter G
The Economic History of the Boer nation from 1880 to 1980. Rhodes University Economic History paper – 1988 by Peter Dickens
So, I’m reading a published Doctorate on the South Africa War (1899-1902) a.k.a Boer War 2 from the University of Pretoria by Anne-Marie Gray. It was quoted as a reference to my War is Cruelty article by a subscriber trying to prove I had a “bias”, so I’m reading it. Here’s the kicker, it just proved again to me the tremendous Afrikaner Nationalist bias Afrikaner academics have been putting through their work on the Boer War. It’s something that the University of Pretoria has been very guilty of in the past and it’s something they still continue to do – they just seem unable to shake it sometimes, even if the don’t intend to in 2024 it still comes through.
I’ve yet to see where my bias exists in a work like ‘war is cruelty’ as I strove for balance – someone has yet to empirically or even theoretically show it. However I will show empirically how a bias is applied in the link sent to the Observation Post, its Anne-Marie Gray’s work from the University of Pretoria, completed in 2004 for a Doctorate in Music, it covers the impact the Boer war has on Afrikaner music – here’s the link https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/28462/03chapter3.pdf.
This particular bias starts with the use of opposition Minister’s of Parliament (MP) quotes, writings and opinions as a “fait accompli” of the British attitude to the war, the way the way is persecuted and to the British government who they finger out as proven “warmongers”. These opposition MP’s “quotes” are even used to ground entire books and historical treatise as proof of genocide and barbarity, they become the backbone of the argument put forward by Afrikaner historians, academics and authors and by default openly demonstrating a extreme cultural and identity bias. Not only authors and academics, its even seen countless times by Boer War ‘Afrikaner’ enthusiasts on posting on social media pages in addition.
The worse case in point of this is even titling books using an opposition MP’s statement such as “Methods of Barbarism” as was done by Professor Burridge Spies (S.B.) for his book. Now this statement was made by the Liberal politician Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman when openly condemned what he called “methods of barbarism” in the concentration camps. The problem lies with Campbell-Bannerman’s political affiliation, Henry Campbell-Bannerman is a “Whig” and a “Radical Reformer” – later a devout “Socialist” – he’s a Liberal Party leader who steered in the concepts of socialism and the welfare state. His eventual Prime Ministership is marred by failure after failure, as he – like the labourites and liberals who all come after him quickly find out – radical socialism and political pontificating on ’reforms’ – criticising operating sitting and elected governments left and right – seldom translate into sound social and economic reform.
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Now, like any ‘hard left’ opposition MP, Henry Campbell-Bannerman is prone to the dramatic, and he’s highly critical of the government’s policies – from economics, to spend, to welfare, to war … he is the eternal opposition bencher, like Jeremy Corbyn or Michael Foot after him, bounding out inflammatory and politically charged statements to try and make the governing party look bad. That’s his job – no opposition MP ever intends to make a Tory (conservative) government policy look good, they are in disagreement even if they agree.
To use a statement in 1901 by Liberal opposition leader like Henry Campbell-Bannerman in a Boer War context – “methods of barbarism” to then “prove” British complicity in waging genocide is like using a statement by the Labour opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2021 when he said “Britain had hostile intent” against ordinary Afghans – to then “prove” Britain complicity in murderous warmongering in Afghanistan on the back of the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
You can’t build entire proven’ academic argument on what opposition MP’s say, this is like using a statement by Julias Malema to prove undeniably that all Black people hate all White people. But unfortunately academics do it. Here’s an example from Anne-Marie Gray’s doctorate:
“This is confirmed by Thomas Pakenham (1982:495) when he says that Kitchener is not remembered in South Africa for his military victory but “his monument is the camp – ‘concentration camp’, … [which] has left a gigantic scar across the minds of the Afrikaners; a symbol of deliberate genocide.”
She goes on to another example:
“James Ramsay MacDonald, afterwards Prime Minister of Great Britain and a devout Scotsman, echoed Packenham’s sentiments. He (cited in Fisher 1969:204) stated: “It was the vrouw who kept the war going on so long. It was in her heart that patriotism flamed into an all-consuming heat … She it is who feels most keenly that all her sufferings, her weary waiting and her prayers have been naught. The camps have alienated her from us forever.”
OK, two things about these statements:
On the first statement, Thomas Pakenham is a devout Irish Republican, his book “Boer War” has been torn to shreds by latter day historians because of an inherent bias, he’s also a travel writer and not a qualified historian when he writes his “Boer War” and it shows – and this is another case in point on Pakenham’s bias (see my review: Un-Packing Pakenham).
Pakenham’s statement that Kitchener committed “deliberate genocide” in the white Boer camps is unproven – even today. No case of genocide has been proven when the victims all died of a measles epidemic, followed by a typhoid epidemic. Genocide by ‘virus” has yet to be challenged. Certainly not by the 1899 Hauge Conventions which governed warfare then. That Pakenham’s “opinion” is held up as a truth is sloppy academics at best. To see far better and far more balanced work on the white Boer concentration camps see Dr Elizabeth van Heyningen works – which come on the back of a full-blown investigation into the Concentration Camps by a combined University of Cape Town and University of Warwick team and they still could not hold up a criminal case of “genocide”.
The National Party in South Africa sat in the pound seats for over 60 years, with all the budgets and resources at hand, and not one case, not one commission, not one ‘think tank’ could “prove” a case of genocide against the British and Kitchener – think about that.
The statement that Kitchener is remembered only for the concentration camps’ is also speculation, it’s a ‘half truth’ at best – maybe in Afrikaans communities, but certainly not in English ones. Lord Kitchener goes onto to be the face for British recruitment during WW1, such is his positive association and regard during this period in his homeland. Not only then, even now, his statue stands at Horse Guards on hallowed ground reserved for Britain’s national military heroes. The truth is the British today could care not a jot what Kitchener did in South Africa, far bigger events in their history have subsequently taken place.
On the second statement, Pakenham’s opinions aside, Anne-Marie Gray then goes on try and justify Pakenham and gives academic substantiation to Pakenham’s statement by quoting James Ramsay MacDonald and giving him gravitas as a ‘Prime Minister’. But we have another problem here, and a big one at that.
Like Henry Campbell-Bannerman, James Ramsay MacDonald is an ‘opposition’ MP – and he’s even more radically left than Campbell-Bannerman, he’s the country’s first “Labour” Prime Minister, a socialist trade unionist at heart. He not only resisted Britain’s involvement in South Africa, he was, like his current protégé, Jeremy Corbyn, an avid anti-war campaigner and went to criticise Britain for its involvement in World War 1 in addition. He led minority governments and his active “pacifism” led Churchill to accuse him of not recognising the Nazi German threat. He openly supported Nazi Germany’s stance to teach the French “a severe lesson” for what they did to Germany after WW1. Heck, his golf club even expelled him because of his radical and “pacifist views” and bringing the club into disrepute.
James Ramsay MacDonald
Clement Attlee, his colleague and another very famous Labourite Prime Minister even accused James Ramsay MacDonald of being a turncoat to the Labour cause and one of the “guilty men” who failed to prepare Britain for war against Hitler.
Straw man arguments
And that’s the problem with just about any thesis or book coming from Afrikaans academics, authors or commentators. It’s not just these quotes, I could go into entire Doctorates from the University of Pretoria and easily start picking them apart – quote by quote. I’m not sure if they really understand the historical figures they quote and simply relying on the secondary sources to have the understanding in the first place and then quoting them – but whichever way we cut it the over-seeing Professors should have spotted these issues – so I do believe its a confirmation bias which just sees it slip away.
It just shows that many Pro-Boer Afrikaner commentators simply do not understand British parliamentary politics, British partisan press or even British political process and the concepts of a “robust” house – I guess it’s like trying to understand “British humour” – unless you’re ‘British’ you’re not going to get it. Some even turn to academic works completed in the 80’s and then provide ’straw-man’ arguments because they cannot find quotes from the actual key players of the time to justify their argument – instead they seek them out from partisan and highly flawed historical figures – easily discredited … “straw men” in effect.
This is not to say that Thomas Pakenham or Anne-Marie Gray or Professor Burridge Spies or even his understudy Professor Fransjohan Pretorius from the University of Pretoria are all completely hopeless and their doctorates and books are not worth the paper they are written on. That would be an entirely incorrect statement, there is much merit in their work and much argument – but there is also much political bias, confirmation bias and cultural misunderstanding.
There is also much misinterpretation of British politics and British press. P. J. O’Rourke referenced Westminster styled Parliaments as “a Parliament of whores” and its a good description of them – the Westminster Commons is a theatre, the politics dramatic, floral and verbose .. in fact its great entertainment and much is said in jest or dramatised for political one-upmanship – to then use this to ground academic work is fraught with issues.
A Partisan press
Fraught with significant issues is also using British press for academic argument, what most don’t understand in South Africa, is the concept of “free press” is different in the United Kingdom than it is in South Africa. In the UK it is traditional for newspapers to declare their political affiliations and put their efforts behind this or that political party – the idea being that readers go out and buy the Daily Telegraph (Tory), the Daily Mirror (Labour) and the Independent (Liberal) – read them all and then make their own minds up. So, in Britain journalists are openly partisan and politically motivated. Then there is the “tabloid” press – which is just sensationalist trash requiring no credible sources whatsoever – then and now – mere ‘entertainment’ only. Here again South African academics made an error quoting British “correspondents” during the Boer War and here’s a good example in Anne-Marie Gray’s doctorate where she says:
“According to Hanekom and Wessels (2000:17), “de Wet can truly be described as the father of mobile warfare in South Africa.” A British correspondent wrote that de Wet’s operations would in future be studied and copied and form the subject matter of studies at every military institution. He stated that “his [de Wet’s] name will be handed down to posterity as a great exponent of partisan warfare” (FAD A296).”
Now – there are a number of problems with this statement. A “British Correspondent’s” view on de Wet is a view to sell sensationalist news using romanticised copy. It’s politically partisan and commercially driven depending on which newspaper he’s writing for and selling … “romanticising” de Wet as the “Boer Pimpernel” in British media was common – in the same way British media romanticised Winston Churchill’s escape as he “forged the mighty Apies River”. That Christiaan de Wet would go down in history as the greatest guerrilla fighter is just pure sensationalist rubbish. That he is the subject of required study at military academies is also pure rubbish.
It’s all rubbish as there is a very big problem with General Christiaan de Wet, his legacy is somewhat compromised by the old National Party and their sponsored and related ‘cultural’ organs – as he’s built into a ‘Volksheld” (people’s hero) and given a divine and almost unassailable aura. From a military history and military doctrine perspective he is in fact the very last person anyone should study.
Militarily speaking, General Christiaan de Wet has a great grasp of tactical warfare, but he is highly compromised on the operational level and he’s completely hopeless on a strategic level. His campaigns are fraught with command and control errors – he is unable to link up with Cronje at Paadeburg – resulting in the first mass capitulation of Boer arms, he then leads the remaining Free State Boer Army into a poor defensive position at the Brandwater basin, abandons his command as the British close in on him and his forces and leaves a squabbling and misdirected bunch of his subordinates to surrender in the second mass capitulation of Boer arms – Surrender Hill marks the end of any hope the Boers can win the war. His insistence on laying siege to the strategically irrelevant town of Wepener is an irresponsible diversion of key resources to a worthless military target. His guerrilla invasion into the Cape Colony is an unmitigated disaster as he signals his intentions to the British, who shadow his column and chew it up – resulting in the loss of all his key logistics as he scarpers back over the Orange River with a smattering of his remaining forces and back into the Orange Free State and friendlier territory.
Even de Wet’s greatest “success” – Sanna’s Post is a Operational and Strategic failure as he is unable to effectively cut all the water supply to the British as was his stated operational objective, he does cause harm though, the resultant intermittent water supply causes significant issues as to waterborne diseases and British soldiers encamped in Bloemfontein suffer, many die, but it also leads to the unfortunate deaths of many Boer Woman and Children in the Bloemfontein concentration camp (one of the largest camps) to the same epidemics – a very tragic “own-goal”. In reality, the only effective thing de-Wet is really able to do very well is tactically evade his “hunt” and for that he is romanticised.
If you are in any doubt about the above statement, the next bit seals it. After the Boer War ends in 1902, General Christiaan de Wet joins the Boer Revolt in 1914, here he campaigns with inadequate resources and outdated doctrine – the revolt is poorly planned, poorly supported and poorly executed and he’s soundly beaten by South African Union Defence force under the command of General Jan Smuts and General Louis Botha in a matter of months, his “hunt” catches him in quick time – his old “bittereinder” guerrilla fighting colleagues showing him up as a completely inadequate guerrilla fighter. Refer my article on it Boer War 3 and beyond!
Using the secondary data source of Hanekom and Wessels to state that “de Wet can truly be described as the father of mobile warfare in South Africa” is completely unsubstantiated militarily speaking, sheer jibber-jabber and it’s completely untrue – all Anne-Marie Gray is doing is unwittingly perpetuating an Afrikaner Nationalist myth – now we can’t all together blame her as she’s not a military scientist, she’s after a degree in music, but her oversight should have pointed it out to her – problem is that her oversight is enamoured with the same bias.
In Conclusion
I am not saying that all Afrikaner academics are compromised by bias what I am saying is that holding up someones work which is clearly biased to try an dispel a “bias” in my work is very counter intuitive – it says more about the problems underpinning people’s perceptions of the Boer War – one were the entire narrative was re-written during the Apartheid period by the protagonists of white Afrikaner Nationalism, and it shows – as Afrikaner National Identity is fused into this history in such a way that it becomes a real challenge to dispel mistruths as it starts to bring people’s “identity” into question and they start to shift around uneasily and lash out at the person and not the subject. But if we are to be true to being good historians and tell an unbiased story, dispelling with these myths and ingrained “nationalism” becomes vital.
Shakespeare provides us with a wonderful quote from Hamlet, it’s in the opening act, and it’s said by Marcellus on seeing the King’s ghost: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” – it’s a forewarning that there is sedition afoot in the state, real trouble is coming. It is appropriate when viewing the newly formed Union of South Africa, as within a year of its formation the old Boer War hero – General Louis Botha can already sense sedition in their camp. As Prime Minister, he tasks General Smuts as his Minister of Defence to set up the South African Union’s Defence Force and amalgamate the old Boer Republic’s Commandos with the old Cape and Natal Colonial Regiments.
Walking a political tight-rope of “reconciliation” post the South African War (1899-1902), Smuts appoints a staunch Boer “Bittereinder” General, Christiaan Beyers, as the head of the South African Union Defence Force’s Active Citizen Force (the largest contingent within the force made up by a majority of Afrikaners). His appointment largely a symbolic gesture to the “irreconcilables” in the Afrikaner diaspora.
On the 4th July 1911, Louis Botha in his capacity as Prime Minister wrote to General Jan Smuts to express his bewilderment that Smuts had appointed General Christiaan Beyers as the head of the Active Citizen Force. He does not hold back and what he says is very telling:
“Dear Jannie, You really are lazy to write so little. How is it possible that you have appointed Beyers? I do hope that you did not agree to it, because you certainly have no greater enemy there. He is not a persona grata (welcome person) with our people and still less so with the English. The Bar, no doubt, also does not approve of it and the Judges will be angry. I can swallow anything but this is impossible.”
Christiaan Beyers, would go on with his appointment, and only just 2 years after his appointment in the Union Defence Force, he would try and scuttle the Union’s decision to go war against German South West Africa. He unsuccessfully campaigns to get resignations from the UDF so as to render it toothless. Thereafter he unsuccessfully campaigns for De La Rey to join his treasonous plot. He joins hands with Manie Maritz, Christiaan de Wet and Jan Kemp in a treasonous soup and initiates the Boer Revolt of 1914 – inadequately planned and inadequately resourced the revolt is an outright failure – strategically, operationally and tactically. Lasting mere months and attaining none of its stated objectives. Beyers would drown in the Vaal river trying to escape his hunt on the 8th December 1914 (later supporters of Beyers would point out that he never fired his handgun when his body was recovered, as if to somehow say he didn’t really intend to kill fellow Afrikaners – but that’s merely an apologist’s stretch, Beyers had every intent given his Commando’s actions and his entire act was that of high treason whichever way you cut it).
The revolt does however pitch Afrikaner against Afrikaner, driving deep scars into the Afrikaner psyche. It would drive a political wedge into the Afrikaner diaspora, and in the strangest turns of fate, many Afrikaners by the 1980’s, after decades of Afrikaner Nationalist propaganda, would oddly juxtaposition the concept of “treason” – and start calling Smuts the “traitor” and Beyers the “hero” (even to this day he is cited in this community as a “volks” hero). Also, rather inexplicably Louis Botha somehow escapes this ‘traitor’ paint-brush as the Afrikaner Nationalist vitriol is almost exclusively targeted at Smuts.
Botha in this letter to Smuts is being nothing more than prophetic – calling out Beyers as an ‘enemy’ and a ‘persona non grata’ (an unacceptable person) to the Afrikaner nation. There is obviously no love lost between these two men and Botha sees Beyers as a treasonous snake not with the program of a peaceful coexistence between English and Afrikaans South Africans and at odds with the vast majority of South Africans in general. Smuts, eternally seeking a careful balance of everyone’s opinions in the Afrikaner diaspora, has his efforts backfire on him considerably.
What I love about General Jan Smuts is his ‘classics’ education and intellect, it’s used to rapier effect and you need to be on your toes when reading his material.
Here’s an example, this is a letter – June 1902, from Jan Smuts’ to his wife Isie directly after the South African War (1899-1902), there are two parts which are noteworthy, the opening statement for its raw frankness and humility – it gives insight into how the guerrilla campaign is fought and the peace conditions it was fought for, and then the part where he informs Isie of President Steyn’s health. Here’s the first part:
“My darling Isie, The tragedy is over. The curtain falls over the Boers as British subjects, and the plucky little Republics are no more. Peace was signed last night at Pretoria. You can imagine my feelings on the subject; you will perhaps not be surprised to hear that I worked for peace. I did my best for our cause as long as there was any chance; but I had become convinced that the struggle had become hopeless. So we shall start afresh, working along the lines opened by the new conditions. I accept my fate – that is the only manly course left.”
The next bit on President Steyn’s health is where you need to pull out your copies of Shakespeare. Smuts informs Issie of the following news:
“I shall be very glad to hear how your health is progressing; write to me c/o General Sir John French and don’t forget I have reverted to plain J. C. Smuts. I am very sorry to tell you that President Steyn’s health is quite gone; sort of gradual paralysis; he cannot last long. He was the last of the Romans.”
Now, what does he mean by … ‘he was the last of the Romans’? It comes from Shakespeare’s Julias Caesar and it’s a quote from Brutus when he sees Cassius’ dead body, he says:
“The last of all the Romans, fare thee well! It is impossible that ever Rome should breed thy fellow. Friends, I owe more tears to this dead man than you shall see me pay. I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time. Come, therefore, and to Thasos send his body.”
In other words Jan is saying to Isie that President Steyn was the last of a special breed of Afrikaner, the likes of which will not be seen again. He is under no illusions that Steyn will die shortly, and he is implying that he must get to work on immediate important issues (which is to secure amnesty for the Cape Rebels) and will mourn the death when he has the time.
Now, that’s deep. Luckily Isie was a well renowned intellectual herself and trained in ‘classics’ – so she would have understood exactly what Jan was trying to say to her.
Classics eh! You can’t beat it, Plato’s Philosopher King in action.
Written and Researched by Peter Dickens
Quoted Reference: Selected Smuts Papers – Volume II by W.K. Hancock
This is a famous speech, 30th January 1940 at the Sportspalast by Adolf Hitler and it had a significant impact on South Africa which very few people know about today. It’s Hitler’s take on the South African War (1899-1902) a.k.a. Boer War 2.
The speech is a lash out against Britain for declaring war against Nazi Germany for the invasion of Poland. Hitler in his speech seeks to paint Britain and the warmonger – and not Germany who we paints as Britain’s victim after the Treaty of Versailles – which he equates as Britain’s “Bible” as they have forsaken God and Christianity in favour of greed and materialism (unlike the God fearing Germans who keep a puritan faith).
To view Hitler’s speech on 30th January 1940 at the Sportspalast in full, here’s the YouTube link:
To ground his argument he uses the Boer War, and makes two significant points, he says:
“They (Britain) waged war for gold mines and mastery over diamond mines.”
Then later in the speech Hitler says:
“When has England ever stopped at women and children? After all, this entire blockade warfare is nothing other than a war against women and children just as once was the case in the Boer War, a war on women and children. It was there (South Africa) that the concentration camps were invented, in an English brain this idea was born. We only had to look up the term in the dictionary and later copy it .. with only one difference, England locked up women and children in their camps. Over 20,000 Boer women (and children) died wretchedly at the time. So why would England fight differently today?”
Now, I’ve seen people on social media immediately conclude that this is yet another rant of a mad-man, Hitler was a megalomaniac with more mental issues than you wave a stick at. As for Nazism – that’s pure evil, nothing to do with good Christians, Afrikaners and the Boer War thanks – no words from the madman here, linking Hitler and World War 2 to the Boer War is mischievous and contentious!
But here is a problem, this is 1940, Hitler is at the absolute pinnacle of his power. Nazism is at the absolute zenith of its popularity – millions, literally millions of Europeans are in favour of the “The Third Reich”. People today don’t really understand what the ‘The Third Reich’ was all about … in a modern construct its a early form of the European Union, only the EU head office is not in Brussels its in Berlin – the Third Reich is all about free trade, semi-open borders, freedom of movement and freedom to assimilate and commercially transact in Europe – its a wealth generator. It’s about respect for “cultural boundaries” according to Hitler – but in reality he’s hoodwinking again – behind the scenes it is in fact a “vampire economy” as Germany gears all its production from food to armaments to war and directs all economies to itself and its nefarious ends.
Adolf Hitler giving a speech at the Berlin Sportspalast
You can hear about all of this in the first 10 minutes of Adolf Hitler’s speech – its a utopian concept, and millions across Europe – in Germany, Austria, Fascist Italy, Hungary, Romania, Fascist Spain – even Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands and literally the whole of the south of France (Vichy France) are into this free trade union with Germany (in fact by definitions of the EU they still are – and immediately after the war ended they strove to get back to it only this time with a different leadership construct without the ‘vampire economy’ ideal).
The speech is also music to the ears of South African Neo-Nazi movements on the far right political spectrum in South Africa, the “cultural fronts” of Afrikaner Nationalism – The Ossewabrandwag, the Grey Shirts, the Black Shirts, The Boerenasie Party and the New Order. All have adopted National Socialism in one form or another and all have declared open admiration for Adolf Hitler – and he’s saying the right stuff, Britain is the warmonger, Britain is greedy for Boer gold and diamonds and Britain waged genocide against Boer women and children. A European world leader, an iconoclast in 1940, a national hero to millions said so. This speech streaming into Afrikaner homes across South Africa by Radio Zeesen (the Nazi Germany’s foreign radio service also broadcasting in Afrikaans).
Mein Kampf
And what’s not to like about Hitler in 1940, he’s a firm fan of the Afrikaner Nationalist cause and shares the ‘politics of pain’ of the Boer War with them. Hitler would write of the Boer War in his autobiography Mein Kampf in 1935:
“The Boer War came, like a glow of lightning on the far horizon. Day after day I used to gaze intently at the newspapers … overjoyed to think that I could witness that heroic struggle.”
Hitler would put his money where his mouth is and engage his propaganda ministry to drive his opinion on the Boer War, Joseph Goebbels on 19 April 1940, on Hitler’s birthday speech, would broadcast over Radio Zeesen (and others), and he said:
“Get rid of the Führer or so-called Hitlerism … British plutocracy had tried to persuade the Boers during the South African war of the same thing. Britain was only fighting Krugerism. As is well known, that did not stop them from allowing countless thousands of women and children to starve in English concentration camps”
Dr Erik Holm – the South African Afrikaans broadcaster for Radio Zeesen would recall Hitler’s open admiration for General Christiaan De Wet during the Boer War and his guerrilla tactics in flummoxing the British – from conversations he personally had with the Führer on the Boer War.
Ohm Krüger
Then there is Ohm Krüger (1941), a movie about the Boer War – Joseph Goebbels’ masterpiece. Winner of the Reich Propaganda Ministry’s “Film of the Nation” rating (one of only 4). A propaganda masterpiece which would reach millions all across Europe, complete with a massacre at the end of hundreds of Boer women as they are mowed down execution style by a skirmish line of British tommies (a scene repeated by Nazi Germany against Jews all over Europe).
Directed by Hans Steinhoff and starring Emil Jannings, Lucie Höflich and Werner Hinz. Although the plot has nothing to do with Germany, the story centres around a character which the Germans could admire, “Uncle” Paul Kruger – a man the Propaganda Minister wants to draw parallels to Adolf Hitler, who he deems is also a man with a common touch, from a simple background and one who is thrust into extraordinary circumstances due to international aggression and a conspiracy of greedy ‘foreigners’.
Waffen SS
The Boer War and Paul Kruger are even used by the Nazi propaganda ministry for recruitment into Dutch Corps of the Waffen SS. In fact the Dutch and Belgians in the Waffen SS Regiment Westland and other SS corps and Wehrmacht formations made up over 25,000 members – the backbone of the Waffen SS.
Press Junkets
During a press interview Hermann Göring (the spokesperson on behalf of Adolf Hitler), took a leaf out his Führer’s leader’s book on the Boer War when he deflected a challenge from Sir Nevile Henderson, the British ambassador to Berlin who protested about the German government’s use of concentration camps for the political ‘re-education’ of German’s dissonant non-believers in Nazism and opposition in 1935, and using a ‘press stunt’ Göring dramatically sprung up, walked over to a bookcase and like a thespian actor, grabbed a German encyclopaedia opening it at “Konzentratinslager” (concentration camp) he read out loud:
“First used by the British, in the South African War”.
Although factually incorrect, his action served as a skilful stroke of deflection of which Hermann Göring was a past master.
Nationalism – two separate peas, same pod!
That the Boer War is nuanced was not on Hitler’s agenda, the fact that the British did not “invent” the concentration camp, the fact that diamonds were already on British soil, the fact that the gold mines in the Transvaal were already owned by British and German private consortiums, the fact that the Boers also first brought ‘British’ women and children into the conflict by driving the ‘Uitlander’ population out of Johannesburg, including all the black mine labour, then declaring war and invading British sovereign territories and laying their towns to siege (with British citizens – black and white – in them). All this mattered not a jot to Adolf Hitler.
Hitler in his speech and radio broadcasts is also reinforcing Anglophobia and Republicanism, he is giving re-assurance to the Afrikaner nationalist cause from Berlin. To understand this better, Afrikaner Nationalism starts in earnest with the establishment of the National Party in 1914 – at this stage it has as its central ideology ‘Krugerism’ – Kruger’s political philosophy and the old ZAR’s (Transvaal) Republicanism constitution and race laws (Grondwet) at its centre. An Oligarchy bordering on a Theocracy with no political emancipation for Black Africans whatsoever (the majority), and racially based franchise and citizenship restrictions for white ‘foreigners’ (read “British” and Jews).
By 1940 this party has evolved its ‘Krugerism’ ideology to a ‘Christian Nationalism’ ideology – a political philosophy which B.J. Vorster (a future South African head of state) famously equated with National Socialism (Nazism) in 1942 when he said:
“We stand for Christian Nationalism which is an ally of National Socialism. You can call this anti-democratic principle dictatorship if you wish. In Italy it is called Fascism, in Germany National Socialism and in South Africa, Christian Nationalism”.
Two people in history play a significant role in generating myths around the Boer War, building into it Afrikaner nationalism constructs and identifying trigger areas for the “politics of pain” necessary for a Christian Nationalism or National Socialism ideology to surface and survive. Known as Hegemonic Nationalism this shared type of Nationalism needs an identified “internal” economic enemy and a “external” political enemy – all grounded on a specified nation’s ‘trauma’. In the case of German National Socialism, it’s World War 1, the Treatise of Versailles is the villainous instrument, the economic enemy is “Judaeo-Capital” profiteering off their misery. In the case of Afrikaner Christian Nationalism it’s Boer War 2, the British concentration camps the villainous instrument, the economic enemy is “British-Judaeo Capital” (“Hoggenheimer”) profiteering off their misery.
The first chap to build up all this nationalism is a fellow by the name of Henning Klopper – he is the Chairman of Afrikaner Broederbond in 1940, Klopper survives a Boer War concentration camp at the tender age of 6 and cannot understand why his older brother is isolated with measles, assuming that Britain murdered him and its all a campaign of genocide – Klopper would use this to principally guide Christian Nationalism as the Broederbond’s official ideology.
The other person is Adolf Hitler himself, one cannot under-estimate his influence, it still influences how the Boer War is seen and understood in Europe to this day – an example is the British “invention” of concentration camps – a myth which still holds right across Europe, the British used the concept of concentrating civilians in camps whilst they fought a guerrilla war (like the Spanish and the United States before them) no doubt there, but they certainly did not “invent” the concept (the Spanish did). To dismiss Hitler as irrelevant to the Boer War is to dismiss factual and relevant history and in fact to censor it for no good reason serves only to distort history.
In Conclusion
On linking Nazism, Kruger, Krugerism and Christian Nationalism, I’m afraid the hard truth is that linking Kruger to Hitler was done very effectively by the German propaganda ministry in Europe prior to and during World War 2. The Afrikaner Nationalist ‘right’ in their support of Nazi Germany during WW2 and infusing the ideology of Krugerism with Weimar Eugenics to create Afrikaner Christian Nationalism certainly creates a linear relationship and reinforces the argument on exactly who is culpable for the ideals of Apartheid.
Not unusually, whenever there is a post of a Boer farm burning on a Boer War social media site there is an inevitable indignation and disgust targeted at the British and usually accompanied by a torrent of abuse from a community still fractured by this conflict.
Harsh reality of ‘total war’: a Boer families’ farm burning. Colourised by Tinus le Roux.
On my blog, The Observation Post, I even had a person write to me personally and state how dare I allude to Boer aggression as a Casus Belli of the war when “the British brought innocent Boer women and children into the war in the first place” – the indignation at the ‘destruction of innocents’ and rather misdirected raw hate at me highly apparent, a quoted figure of Boer women and children sacrificed almost immediately referenced (usually inflated) – and it’s a common theme and a common retort – I see it all the time on all sorts of forums. It’s the kind of retort that is the result of decades of indoctrination and propaganda – and it’s simply completely disconnected with any semblance of full truths or balance.
So, here’s a little balance and understanding of a ‘full-truth’. At the beginning of the South African War (1899-1902), it was the Boers who commenced with creating a civilian refugee crisis, not the British, and the Boers subsequently invaded, besieged and ransacked entire British towns and territories – not only Johannesburg, but on sovereign British territory in addition, the ransacking of Dundee a case in point – burning farms and looting – leaving civilians with no shelter or refugee camps and simply chasing them into the hinterland without food or assistance.
So, let’s account who started what, and let’s account the carnage and scale of civilian casualties and who the really affected parties are – and I think you’ll be a little surprised to learn something that is not part of the old nationalist narrative of this war. Let’s begin at the beginning.
The Johannesburg Exodus
Starting in September 1899 and into October 1899 is a civilian refugee crisis on a significant scale, the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR) issue a directive which sees the largest city in the republic empty out of nearly all its inhabitants.
What follows are first hand account of the initial “stampede” of ‘foreign’ (Uitlander) residents fleeing Johannesburg – many to be disposed of their property at the beginning of the war. In the end some 50,000 ‘foreign’ residents of the Transvaal were shipped out in cattle trucks and coal carts creating a refugee crisis of note (6,000 left in cattle trucks over just two days alone). Many were afforded no food or water and there are documented cases of deaths and even births in these cattle trucks and open top coal carts – the dead were buried next to the railway lines. Many of these refugees arrived in places like Durban, Cape Town, East London or Port Elizabeth and those who could not find rented, friendly or temporary accommodation were found to be loitering in parks and on the streets with no place to go, sleeping in the open and subject to the elements. The Boers idea being to chase them out of their homes in the ZAR and empty Johannesburg of its “uitlander” problem … and the British should somehow deal with the crisis.
Uitlanders leaving Johannesburg on cattle trucks – October 1899, colourised by Jenny B
In addition to the 50,000 odd whites departing Johannesburg – it is estimated that some 78,000 Black mine labour and workers fled Johannesburg between September and October 1899, many on foot arriving home in their villages penniless (their money, the last month of their wages, was confiscated by the ZAR government), and they are destitute, malnourished and exhausted (see Black People and the South African War 1899-1902. By Peter Warwick).
Notwithstanding the scale of this forced displacement of civilians – these unarmed ‘foreigners’ and their labour made up the majority of residents in the republican state – the “minority” chasing them out at gun-point.
Here’s the account by a white “British” Bradford man, writing to his parents, from Port Elizabeth, and he gave a vivid picture of the flight (bear in mind this is just the opening of what became a mass exodus).
“When I wrote you a short note on September 29th, 1899, from Johannesburg, I did not expect to have to clear out so soon afterwards, but there was very little time given us to consider. The Boers were commandeering all the Outlanders’ property as a war tax; they claimed all the horses on the mines, and behaved most insultingly to any Englishman they could come across. The way the Boers were treating us was simply outrageous. They are worse than Kaffirs, so I cleared out as quickly as I could.
There were 1500 people left Johannesburg by the same train, and nearly as many left on the platform. I had an awful journey down. We saw all the women and children in the closed carriages, whilst we men had to go in open coal trucks. About two hours after we started there was thunder, lightning, and heavy rain, which continued until we reached Kronstadt next day. Of course, we were all drenched to the skin. There we had some “scoff,” for which we had to pay 3s. 6d. each. At ordinary times the charge is not more than 2s. per meal.
The Orange Free State officials provided us with cattle trucks, which, being covered, were a little better than open coal trucks, and shielded us from the rain. We travelled right through the Free State in this kind of conveyance, and after crossing the border into the colony at Newport we were put into civilised carriages for the rest of our journey. Altogether the journey took us three days and three nights. It was difficult to get quarters, for the place is crowded. Anyhow, we managed to get a room —I and another fellow—for which we had to pay a pound for one week.
There are about 5000 refugees from the Transvaal down here, and I hear that at Cape Town and Durban people are sleeping in churches, warehouses, and, in fact, anywhere they can get a covering for their heads. People who came down here two or three months ago are at their wits’ end, their money being finished, and they having to rely on charity for a bite to eat. Whole families are starving.
The British Government ought to help these subjects, as they are forced to leave their livelihood, and all because the English Government will not hurry up and settle things one way or the other. Johannesburg is very nearly empty. Nearly all the mines have been closed down. All the storekeepers have barricaded their places up and discharged their workpeople, and the principals have cleared out, leaving their goods and property to look after themselves. Thousands of people who a few months ago were doing a nice business are now ruined, and their labours for years past are all wasted. The Boers will not allow them to remove their stock, produce, or anything else.”
Of the exodus from Johannesburg a nurse named Miss Colina Macleay records the ordeal:
“I caught the first train, crowded beyond anything you can imagine, and had to go into a coal truck with fifty white and black people, all mixed, including coolies, samies, Kaffirs, Cornish miners, and other whites. On our way out of the Transvaal we were detained at lots of stations, and insulted everywhere. The heat was intense, with a broiling sun and nothing to protect us from it. And we also suffered from thirst. When we saw a water pump we would try to get out, but guns were pointed at us and we were threatened if we dared to move. All the time the fellows at the stations were drinking and laughing and wasting the water to tempt us all the more … one poor child died in our truck, and our train stopped for a few minutes to bury the body at the railway side on the veldt. I think I shall never forget the cries of the poor children for meat and drink … At length we arrived at Delagoa Bay at one o’clock in the morning, only to find the place crowded, with people lying in the station, parks, and other available corners. A Committee of kind ladies and gentlemen and the Governor met all the refugee trains, and did the best they could for the poorer ones. As I was a nurse and in uniform I was taken to the Salvation Army Hall, and I had there to lie on the floor with hundreds of others (women and children) …”
To quote Steven’s ‘Complete History of the War’:
“The expulsion of aliens was the order of the (Republican) States, and protection was withdrawn from the mines, which of course came to a stand still. With the opening of October (1899) South Africa became astir with warlike preparations, Burghers and British troops hurrying to the- front, and with martial law (in the Boer Republics) came plunder. Bullion worth a million being conveyed from the Rand to Cape town was seized (by the Boers) and sent to Pretoria —with a ‘receipt’ for the same. It was minted into coin”.
The ransacking of Natal
The Boer Republics declared war on Great Britain on the 11th October 1899. This was achieved by two actions, both of which involved invading two sovereign British territories by way of declaration of hostilities. The first was the cutting of the railway line near Kimberley in the Cape Colony and the second was the invasion of the Natal Colony.
The invasion of Natal is marred by wholesale looting and the ransacking of British towns and farms in northern Natal. Despite Boer proclamations from their war council prohibiting both looting and even annexations. The Republican forces on the ground behave with impunity and ignore their directives, they re-name towns, declare sections of Natal as annexed to the ZAR, appoint Landrosts, hoist the Vierkleur over public buildings and embark on a looting and destructive spree of note (Newcastle is re-named Viljoensdorp and Dundee is re-named Meyersdorp).
Boer forces in front of the Dundee Town Offices – note the ZAR ‘Vierkleur’. Photo Credit – Talana Museum – colourised by Jenny B.
Both Newcastle and Dundee are looted extensively, Republican Burghers also pillage surrounding villages, towns and farms – loading wagons with stolen goods. British farmers and their families are disposed of their property and stock and many are pushed as refugees into the veldt to fend for themselves – no shelter or food given as aid.
The looting spree is so intense the Boers even sacrifice their military objectives of speed and manoeuvrability to cut the British forces off from linking up at Ladysmith and taking Port Natal – the slow-down to loot and pillage takes precedence and it allows the British to re-group and dig-in, this is a fundamental military blunder which ultimately costs the Boers the war. The extent of some of the damage and destruction can be found in this eye-witness account, when the British consolidate and counter-attack:
“General Hildyard at Estcourt lost no-time in following up the retreating Boers. On Sunday morning tents were struck and the order was given for a forward march to Frere. At 8 a.m. the long column streamed out, and after a tiring march arrived at Frere at two o’clock in the afternoon.
All along the line of march were evidences of wanton destruction by the Boer commando. At each railway station the safes had been blown to pieces with dynamite; the lamps and furniture had been smashed to atoms; the papers, tickets, and books had been torn to pieces and lay strewn over the floors. The farmhouses had also suffered in like manner, valued trinkets and ornaments lying smashed among the debris of furniture, etc. The doors and windows had been burst open and broken to pieces with crowbars. But it is impossible to adequately describe the heartrending scenes which were enacted. To understand fully the wanton devastation which had been made in many a happy country home, it would be necessary to witness the scene of desolation.
The disloyal Natal Dutch appear to have been among the principal perpetrators of these acts of despoliation, for in many of their houses were afterwards found articles of furniture which had been taken from the homes of neighbouring English farmers. In one house were found five pianos, which had belonged to English homes in the district. But the enemy had not restricted these wicked acts of destruction to ‘ the interiors of the farmhouses only, for- in some cases orchards of young fruit trees had been chopped down and utterly destroyed, and iron rain-water tanks had been pierced through the sides, rendering them useless. Many a heart was bowed down with grief on beholding the home, which had meant years of work, thus destroyed in a few moments by a ruthless foe.
Much of the live-stock, that had not been driven away, had also been destroyed. Dead poultry were lying about in heaps at one farmstead, among them being fifty young turkeys. Cattle and sheep lay rotting in the paddocks. On another farm three hundred head of cattle and sheep had been destroyed with arsenical poison.
Truly it was a terrible scene ; and yet this destruction had been wrought by the offspring of a civilised European nation. The Law of Environment had here proved itself true in the evolution of this people dwelling among the savage and barbarous tribes of South Africa.”
So, in reality – the country “stealing the gold” from private businesses and minting it was the ZAR (not Britain) and the country bringing women and children into the conflict first was the ZAR followed by the OFS and not the British, the countries in initial neglect of duty of care when dealing with civilian refugees are the ZAR and the OFS, the initial illegal looting and stealing of private property is attributed to the Boers and the peoples responsible for the first civilian deaths were the Boer Republics.
The Siege crisis
There are always “two sides to the story” and each side has merit in their argument, but let’s do try and stick to some of these basic facts. The Boers initiated the Johannesburg civilian ‘refugee’ crisis in Sep 1899 and northern natal civilian refugee crisis in Oct 1899 and then they started another civilian refugee crisis when they put British cities like Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberley under siege during the first phase of the war from Oct 1899 to March 1900. The siege tactics – cutting water and food supplies, shelling townships, workers compounds and residence suburbs with artillery and the subsequent diseases, starvation and malnutrition killing thousands of civilians – black, white and coloured – over 3,000 in Kimberley alone (see The Battle of Magersfontein. By Dr. Garth Benneyworth).
Kimberley: “The Moir family at their siege shelter” – Colourised by Tinus le Roux
Figures of civilian casualties during the sieges are well documented in the case of white civilians – recorded deaths include women and children killed by shellfire and well-known townspeople, what’s not recorded adequately is the death of civilians by disease, and the death of Black, Coloured and Indian citizens also caught up in the sieges. An example is Kimberley – a pavement plaque marks the first civilian casualty and it simply reads that here the first civilian was killed by Boer shellfire – an unknown black women. In Ladysmith the civilian burials at the provisional hospital amount some 600 casualties, mainly disease – and these are just the whites, no record is made of the Black and Indian Ladysmith civilians.
The Empire Strikes Back!
This is all a pre-curser to the refugee crisis the British created by engaging scorched earth policies issued mid 1900 to deal with insurgency and guerrilla warfare – and the subsequent burning down and destruction of the bittereinder’s farms’ as part of this policy and strategy.
The British counter-attack to the Boer invasions in Oct 1899 is relentless and highly efficient. The British are able to consolidate from the setbacks of ‘Black-week’ in December 1899 whilst they are numerically disadvantaged and they manage to hold their major towns under siege. By the time their hastily assembled ‘Army Force’ begins to land from January 1900 and they are numerically matched – other than the set-back at Spionkop at the end of January 1900, they lose no other other major conventional battle and in a matter of just 6 months, relieve all the sieges of all their cities, dispatch the Republican forces from their colonies, take both the Boer capitals, take the economic hub that is Johannesburg, remove Boer Forces from all their invested defences, break the Boer’s fighting capability with the mass surrenders at Paadeberg and Brandwater Basin (9,000 Republican men in total) and cut the Boers from supply and foreign assistance from the sea. By July 1900, a mere 10 months in, the conflict is un-winnable for the Boers – the British attitude is the war is ‘done and dusted’ – the Boer capitals are in British hands and its back home before Christmas for tea and medals.
With extended and unprotected supply lines stretching all the way from Cape Town to Pretoria the British position in Pretoria is vulnerable. The Boers target these lines and start blowing up rail-line and shooting up trains as the main thrust of their newly devised guerrilla or insurgency campaign. Sick and tired of trains arriving in Pretoria full of holes or not at all, and highly annoyed with the chief protagonist of these tactical hit and runs – General Christiaan de Wet – Lord Roberts writes to Lord Kitchener on the 14th June 1900 and says:
“We must put a stop to these raids on our railway and telegraph lines, and the best way will be to let the inhabitants understand that they cannot be continued with impunity. Troops are now available and a commencement should be made tomorrow by burning De Wet’s farm… He like all Free Staters now fighting against us is a rebel and must be treated as such. Let it be known all over the country that in the event of any damage being done to the railway or telegraph the nearest farm will be burnt to the ground.”
Boer guerrillas derailing a train. British soldiers on the scene. Photo colourised by Tinus le Roux.
The Boer decision to embark on guerrilla warfare and force all the Burghers who have taken up the offer and oaths of neutrality – to take up arms again and rejoin their Commando’s on threat of their farmsteads being destroyed – marks the point where the British military attitudes in South Africa turn from ‘Relentless’ to ‘Ruthless’.
On 16 June 1900, Roberts issues the proclamation on ‘scorched earth’ stating that, for every attack on a railway line the closest homestead would be burnt down. When that does not work, some months later another proclamation is issued in September stating that all homesteads would be burnt in a radius of 16 km of any attack, and that all livestock would be killed or taken away and all crops destroyed.
“Government Laagers”
This is followed by two separate Boer civilian refugee problems – one refugee crisis created by the Boer Republican Forces, burning down and destroying Hensopper, British and Joiner farms after the mid 1900 armistice proclamations – leaving these families in the veldt to fend for themselves – the Boers spurring the British to initiate the first concentration camps on the 22nd September 1900 specifically to deal with these ‘Hensopper’ refugees and give them a bell tent shelter, food and water … Maj. General J.G. Maxwell signals:
“… camps for burghers who voluntarily surrender are being formed at Pretoria and Bloemfontein.”
A proclamation was even issued by Lord Kitchener by 20th December 1900 which states that all burghers surrendering voluntarily, will be allowed to live with their families in these “Government Laagers” (concentration camps) until the end of the war and their stock and property will be respected and paid for.
And there is a second refugee crisis, this one initiated by the British forces and their scorched earth policy. The ‘concentration camps’ termed ‘refugee camps’ by the British (or ‘Government Laagers) start to fill up with a mix of Boers who have voluntarily surrendered (Hensoppers) or joined British forces (Joiners) and whose farms have been burned down by the Boers, they are also joined by some British families whose farms suffered the same fate (all these families comprise, men, women and children). They are then joined by ‘Bittereiner’ families directed to the concentration camps by the British who are busy burning down or dynamiting their farmsteads under the Scorched Earth policy – these families comprise a handful of men, but mainly women and children (their husbands still on Commando). Over time and given the sheer scale of destruction of the rural sector, the Bittereinder families start to outnumber the Hensopper families.
By 21st December 1900 Lord Kitchener outlined the advantages of interning all women, children and men unfit for military services, also Blacks living on Boer farms, as this will be;
“the most effective method of limiting the endurance of the guerrillas … The women and children brought in should be divided in two categories, viz.: 1st. Refugees, and the families of Neutrals, non-combatants, and surrendered Burghers. 2nd. Those whose husbands, fathers and sons are on Commando. The preference in accommodation, etc. should of course be given to the first class. With regard to Natives, it is not intended to clear (Native) locations, but only such and their stock as are on Boer farms.”
What gets created now are two separate camp systems, one for ‘whites’ and one for ‘natives’ (Blacks) and they are both fundamentally different in the way they are managed. The ‘white’ camps are structured using bell tents along military camp lines, shelter is provided by way a tent and food and water is provided – the camps are somewhat porous, there are no fences or armed guards and people can come and go with ‘refugee passes’ – isolation and lack of places go for alternate shelter keep the Boers in the camps. Medical facilities are also at hand, some camps better equipped than others.
Winburg Concentration Camp – Photo Credit: Boer War Museum, Bloemfontein. Colourised by Jenny B.
However, and this is key, upfront these camps are very poorly managed, the military have other problems to deal with and are prioritised to do what they know best and fight – there are major problems with sanitation, some camps being better than others. The supply lines to these camps – medicine, food, tents etc. all situated along railway lines for this purpose, are also severely disrupted by the Boer insurgents blowing up railway line. Overcrowding, lack of tents, disrupted food, poor sanitation, poor water and limited medicines all become major issues.
Many people don’t fully understand the concentration camps systems or the phases of their administration, in a nutshell there are two distinctive phases:
Concentration Camps – diseases bell curve – Black and white camps and time-line.
Phase 1: Started in September 1900 – they are set up under British military administration. In the ‘white’ camps – from March 1901 the mortality rates in the starts to climb to unprecedented and alarming levels, and at their peak the mortality rate is driven primarily by a measles epidemic which sweeps the camps and accounts 30% the overall deaths – as a child’s disease, along with the high infancy mortality rate and child death ratio in the Victorian period, coupled with the difficulty of wartime conditions and camp sanitary standards, by the beginning of 1902 children account for nearly 2/3 of all deaths.
The period March 1901 to November 1901 is 9 months of abject misery and suffering in the white Boer camps. However, contrary to modern propaganda, although there are many in white Boer camps who are malnourished and conditions are extremely harsh, they are not purposefully starved to death – ‘Starvation and Scurvy’ accounts for only 2.9% of recorded deaths. There are also no recoded cases of premeditated murder or executions, all deaths are attributed to disease or medically related conditions.
The conditions and plight of the women and children in the camps, against the context of respiratory and waterborne disease, coupled with inadequate medical countermeasures and failures in administration is highlighted by the likes of Emily Hobhouse and later in 1901 by the Fawcett Commission.
Phase 2: From November 1901 as a result of the Fawcett Commission’s and parliamentary recommendations, Lord Alfred Milner, the Cape Colony High Commissioner is tasked with taking over the white Boer camps from the military and bringing them under civilian authority instead.
As a result of Milner’s direct intervention, from November 1901 the mortality rates in the ‘white’ camps start to drop off dramatically as his civilian administrators and medical staff start to get on top of the epidemics, food supply and sanitary issues. They also do away with the putative and preferential treatment of ‘hensopper’ versus ‘bittereinder’ families initiated by the military.
Children fetching water, Bloemfontein concentration camp – colourised by Tinus le Roux – inserted chart is the full account of white Boer concentration camp deaths.
Milner’s actions and policies are extremely effective, in just 4 months the mortality rates in the white camps drop to acceptable mortality rates for the Victorian era, made even more remarkable considering that these mortality rates are declining and have plateaued-out when the Guerrilla Phase and Scorched Earth policy is at its height and at its most destructive.
These “acceptable” i.e. normal mortality rates continue up to the end of the war on 31 May 1902 and then remain acceptable long after the end of the war as the camps are then used as ‘resettlement’ centres for displaced Boer families until the end of 1902.
As to Milner, it’s also an inconvenient truth, that a man so often vilified by modern white Afrikaners as the devil reincarnate, is the same man responsible for saving tens of thousands of Boer women and children’s lives. However in all, there are exactly 29,491 deaths recorded in the ‘white’ concentration camps, the result of which would deeply harm the white Afrikaner collective psyche and does so even to this day.
The ‘Black’ concentration camps are a different matter, on a point to note here, the ‘Black’ camps are very big, this population of displaced civilians throughout the war, be they from the farms or from the cities far outnumbers the whites. In the Black concentration camps, no food or shelter is afforded, Black internees are instructed to grow their own food, and provided seed for this purpose. The food is both for their own consumption and for the British war effort. Wages are paid for labour provided to the British war machine, and these wages are then used by the Africans in the camps to purchase shelters, provisions and food. Medical assistance is minimal. In terms of structure some of these camps start to reflect a modern day poor shack township – corrugated metal, mud, wood and canvass shacks. In a nut-shell these camps can best be described as ‘forced’ labour camps.
Boer War Black Concentration Camp near Bronkerspruit, c.1901 – Colourised by Jenny B.
These ‘Black’ camps are hit by the same cocktail of viruses and bacteria that hit the ‘White’ camps, mainly typhoid and to a large degree measles. Their disease bell curve follows a similar trajectory as the white camps, however it starts a little later in August 1901. That’s were the similarity ends, in the Black camps there are also cases of starvation as the black populations do not receive enough food from the government to maintain human survivability (unlike the white camps). The mortality rates are also not clearly understood as they were not meticulously recorded (unlike the white camps). Only as late as 2024 do we even have an inkling of an idea of the mortality in these camps. They are now been carefully analysed using archaeological record (primary data, excavating and forensics) and oral history – it is now estimated that over 30,000 Black Africans died in these forced labour camps (refer Dr. Garth Benneyworth ‘Work or Starve’ published 2024).
Seeing the bigger picture
In reality, we now need to start accepting that as many Blacks died in their concentration camps (30,000 plus) as Whites died in their concentration camps (29,461). The key difference given racial prejudices (Boer and Brit) of the time, and more so the racial prejudices of the Afrikaner Nationalist governments after 1910.
So, before “Boer War” Afrikaner enthusiasts start jumping up and using this as yet another stick to vilify and beat the British with, we must note that whilst hundreds of plinths, monuments, museums and thousands of grave markers have focused on the “Boer Women and Children” at every single camp and in every single affected town – erected over the course of nearly 10 decades at massive state expense … and not one grave marker, monument, museum or even a simple single plinth was erected to the Black concentration camps.
As to prejudice and misunderstanding of the Boer War – there remains to this very day no such acknowledgement and remembrance – still, and some still want to call it “The Anglo-Boer War” as if these are the only two groups in it and not by its official designated name “The South African War (1899-1902)” and they still exclude by way of simple acknowledgement the mass of other ethnicities who either took part in the war directly as belligerents – taking service directly in the British Army’s colonial regiments and units, over 30,000 as ‘Black African’ British combatants alone – and were not getting to the thousands of South African based ‘Coloureds’ and ‘Indians’ joining British forces.
Then there are the thousands of ‘armed’ black Agteryers’, labour and servants in the Boer Republican Armies – not to mention the Blacks affected by the war in their concentration camps as forced labour for the British by their tens of thousands.
Black African ‘British’ soldiers defending a rice patten blockhouse, British Army Museum – Colourised by Jenny B.
Remember also that both the Tswana in Botswana and the Swazi enter the war as belligerent nations in their own right – on the side of the British, and both defeat Boer Commandos. There are literally hundreds of thousands of refugees having lost their jobs and been displaced from places like Johannesburg and Kimberley by the Boers or displaced from the Boer farms by the British – so here’s the kicker – there are more “Blacks’ affected by the war than either the Anglos or Boers combined and their death toll is as significant!
Heck, entire books and academic papers have been written by ‘British’ and then ‘Afrikaner’ historians – but this aspect of the war only started to appear with any degree of sincerity around 2015 – post 1994, and it’s still not fully researched.
War is Cruelty
The Boer’s Guerrilla campaign is not a romantic ‘scarlet pimpernel’ chase of Christian de Wet and his chums, all whilst they cleverly outsmart the British. It’s a brutal, harsh and very cruel campaign – aimed at public networks – trains and rail in addition to the military ones. It is marred by maundering – the destruction of public buildings, mission stations and farms in the British territories – and even the murder of British citizens. Here is just a flavour of it – mission stations and Black and Coloured British citizens and soldiers are especially targeted.
When the Reverend C. Schröder returned to his Gordonia congregation after the war, he was horrified to find that most of his flock had been killed by Boer raiders. A attack by an unhinged Manie Maritz on the Methodist mission station at Leliefontein in Namaqualand was especially savage. The mission station razed and plundered, the civilians hunted down in an act of revenge, in all 27 Leliefonteiners are killed (some accounts say a total of 43) and approximately 100 are injured. So brutal it even shocked Deneys Reitz who recorded it in his diary:
“We found the place sacked and gutted and among the rocks beyond the buried houses lay 20 or 30 dead Hottentots, still clutching their antiquated muzzleloaders. This was Maritz’s handiwork. He had ridden into the station with a few men to interview the European missionaries, when he was set upon by armed Hottentots, he and his escorts narrowly escaping with their lives. To avenge the insult, he returned the next morning with a stronger force and wiped out the settlement, which seemed to many of us a ruthless and unjustifiable act. General Smuts said nothing but I saw him walk past the boulders where the dead lay, and on his return he was moody and curt… we lived in an atmosphere of rotting corpses for some days.”
Deneys Reitz
Bill Nasson, the renowned Boer War historian would note:
“The wretched refugees of this massacre were pitilessly hunted down by parties of Boers. Those unfortunate enough to be captured were brought back to work as slave labourers. Indeed, they were even shackled in irons forged at the mission station’s smithy”.
Manie Maritz is so unhinged that later in the war, he ignores clear instructions from Smuts and attempts to dynamite the town of Okiep – its garrison and civilians included. Using the commandeered Namaqua United Copper Company locomotive ‘Pioneer’ to propel a mobile bomb in the form of a wagonload of dynamite into the besieged town. Luckily the attack failed when the train derailed.
Maritz is not the only unhinged Boer Kommandant in the Guerrilla phase – both Kmdt. Gideon Scheepers and Kmdt. Hans Lötter, amongst other charges – were charged on marauding, property destruction, murdering “native spies” and mistreatment of black civilians (in the case of Scheepers also murdering unarmed but uniformed black British POW) – both were executed by the British once caught.
Images: Kommandant’s Scheepers and Lötter after their capture and ‘Fighting General’ Manie Maritz.
General Christian De Wet even writes to Lord Kitchener requesting clemency for Boer Kommandant’s executing Black soldiers out of hand as he had given “general instructions to have all armed natives and native spies shot.” Kitchener rejected the appeal, replying to General De Wet that Boer officers were personally responsible for their actions, and he wrote:
“[I am] astonished at the barbarous instructions you have given as regards the murder of natives who have behaved in my opinion, in an exemplary manner during the war.”
Ironically, as the modern Nationalist narrative went, Gideon Scheepers, Hans Lötter, Manie Maritz and Christiaan de Wet are all heralded as “volks-heroes” for their deeds, and this involves the outright murdering of black civilians, whereas Lord Kitchener, who would move on to become the face for British recruitment in World War 1, would ultimately be painted as the murderer incarnate.
The cruelty does not stop in the Cape, even General De la Rey’s victory over Lord Methuen’s column at Tweebosch on the 7th of March 1902 in the Transvaal at the end of the war is marred by war crimes. Tweebosch is famous because of General De la Rey’s compassionate and kind treatment of the wounded Lord Methuen and saving his life. What is not recorded at the Battle of Tweebosch in the narrative is the killing spree De la Rey’s commando members go on, as they execute about 30 unarmed Black wagon drivers and servants in service of the British column as well as black and Indian soldiers having surrendered. The testimony of the executions by survivors recently found in WO 108-117 in the UK’s National Archives give a unique and harrowing insight:
Here are some quotes on the killings of that day:
“…the whole Indian and Kaffir establishment of the F.V.H. (Field Veterinary Hospital … One Farrier Sergeant of the Indian Native Cavalry and two Indian Veterinary Assistants (men carrying no arms) were ruthlessly shot dead after the surrender, and nine Hospital Kaffirs were either killed in action or murdered later.”
(British Cavalry – Regimental History).
The Boers whom I met on the 8th instantly admitted that their men had deliberately shot down the transport Natives with a view, they asserted, of deterring others from enlisting in our services”.
Captain W.A. Tilney.
“I saw four Cape boys, unarmed and dismounted, come towards the Boers with their hands up. They were shot dead”.
Trooper C.J.J. Van Rensberg
“I saw a young Native boy riding a horse and leading another. He was unarmed. A Boer road up to him and told him to dismount. No sooner had he done so than the Boers shot him in the back of the head and killed him”.
Corporal H. Christopher
These testimony’s go on, there are loads – but its enough to get the point.
Even one of the most biased Republican Historians – Thomas Pakenham, has to acknowledge the slaughter of Blacks in the Transvaal by Republicans under the Command of Jan Smuts when he notes:
“When Jan Smuts’ commando fell on the native village at Modderfontein, for example, they butchered the 200 or so black inhabitants and left their bodies strewn around, unburied.”
The American General, William Tecumseh Sherman said something very relevant to war generally and the Boer War specifically – he said:
“War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueller it is, the sooner it will be over”.
General Sherman
One can easily see where the origins of the “you reap what you sow” ethos which enters into latter British mindsets when dealing with the Boer Republican refugees and their properties – a “hardening of attitudes” as it is often termed in modern military speak. Not even 40 years later, a ‘Rhodesian’ Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris would really crystallise this type of military sentiment to justify his carpet bombing of German civilians in World War 2 when he quoted Horsea 8:7 and said:
“They sowed the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”
Also, to General Sherman’s point, the British fight the Boer’s guerrilla phase of the war with such intensity, the commitment of massive resources (8,000 blockhouses alone) and tens of thousands combatants – that the Guerrilla Phase of the Boer War is the shortest fought guerrilla war in the history of modern guerrilla warfare – it’s over in short time – less than 2 years (modern guerrilla warfare of this nature war lasts an average of 9 years), and here’s an uncomfortable fact, it’s over with the least trauma to the general population such warfare has traditionally invokes (then and now) – believe it or not.
The simple truth is the scale of destruction to property, lives and livelihoods is massive on both sides of the fence, so much so its almost impossible to separate the destruction initiated by the Boers and that initiated by the British given its scale – whole sections of the country in Boer territories destroyed and whole sections in British territories were also destroyed – thousands of Boer farms and entire British cities, farms, towns and mission stations … all destroyed.
To give an idea of the scale facing Milner at the end of the war, in trying to recover South Africa economically and deal with repatriations. There is the re-settlement of some 150,000 white civilians involved (mainly Boers) and about 50,000 impecunious white “foreigners” (mainly British) who had been employed on the Witwatersrand, and then there is approximately one million displaced and unemployed “Bantu” (read that again – 1,000,000 Black refugees).
Post war, Boers outside a compensation and repatriation tent. Colourised by Jenny B (insert Lord Milner).
Milner’s repatriation, economic reforms and compensations were naturally decried by latter day Afrikaner nationalists as insufficient – and that’s because they only focused on the Boers’ compensation and nobody else in the bigger picture. Milner, as a studious and rather bull-headed administrator, felt he did a decent enough job given the challenges he faced – and even some latter day economic historians would agree with him. But let’s face it – the community that come off worse, by a miracle mile, were the “Bantu”.
In Conclusion
This is not to say “tit for tat” – the Boers started it first bla … bla … bla! That would be disingenuous and disrespectful to their memory and that’s not the point of this missive – the point is to remind people who are hidebound by a rather poor Christian Nationalist education and blinkered by identity politics – that in war there are no saints, war is nasty, it’s cruel, there are never really any ‘winners’ in war, nothing happens in a vacuum – and in war the truth is always the first victim.
The idea that the white Boer civilians were the unwitting victims in this entire saga, that they are the only real community to really have suffered the ravages of this war at the hands of the British is completely unhinged, baseless and untrue. This sentiment rings more true to politicking and identity politics initiated by the Nationalists than it does to any historical fact.
In truth, both the Boers and the British are equally responsible for waging war, both can be held to account for the resultant civilian crisis that war inevitably produces and all the carnage that follows that, and very importantly they are both equally cruel … and citizens from all communities were traumatised, there is no clear ‘murderous villain’ … there never is in war.
Written and researched by Peter Dickens
References:
Complete history of the South African War: in 1899-1902 By F. T. Stevens. Published 1903.
The Boer Invasion of Natal : Clement Horner Stott. Published 1900.
Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery “The Second Boer War – The Times History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902” – Volumes 1 to 7.
History of the war in South Africa 1899-1902. By Maj. General Sir Frederick Maurice and staff. Volumes 1 to 4, published 1906
The Boer War: By Thomas Pakenham – re-published version, 1st October 1991.
Black People and the South African War 1899-1902. By Peter Warwick. Published 1983.
The Battle of Magersfontein – Victory and Defeat on the South African Veld, 10-12 December 1899. Published 2023. By Dr. Garth Benneyworth.
Kruger’s War – the truth behind the myths of the Boer War: By Chris Ash, BSc FRGS FRHistS, published 2014.
A History of the British Cavalry, 1816-1919, Vol.4, p.270
Commando – By Deneys Reitz, published 1929
Work or Starve - Black concentration camps and forced labour camps in South Africa: 1901 – 1902, By Dr. Garth Benneyworth. Published 2024 by The War Museum of the Boer Republics.
Correspondence and fact checking with Dr. Garth Benneyworth, Boer War historian – Sol Plaatjies University, Kimberley – February 2024.
A tool for modernisation? The Boer concentration camps of the South African War, 1900-1902. By Dr Elizabeth van Heyningen – Department of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town, 2010 South African Journal of Science.
Correspondence and fact checking with Chris Ash, BSc FRGS FRHistS, Boer War historian, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society for The Boer War Atlas – February 2024.
Correspondence to The Observation Post on Boer War Repatriation and Compensation – Jan 2024. By Gordon Mackinlay.
Correspondence and fact checking with Boer War historian – Robin Smith, Feb 2024.
With thanks to:
Colorised images on the mast-head thanks to Allan Wood (Kitchener) and Jenny B (de Wet)
Colourised images used with great thanks to both Jennifer Bosch and Tinus le Roux.
Often on Boer war social media appreciation sites, and even on simple things like wikipedia we see this statement “it took 500,000 British to defeat 20,000 Boers” – the much-touted ratio in this type of media is that the Boers were outnumbered 25 to 1, at a staggering disadvantage during The South African War 1899-1902 a.k.a Boer War 2.
The story goes that these plucky Boers held the mighty British empire at bay. Now that’s a figure designed to paint the Boer fighter as some sort of super-man and the British military as bumbling, monolithic and ineffective. But the truth is far from this and this figure is completely erroneous designed to drive Afrikaner nationalist political rhetoric – it has nothing to do with actual numbers on the ground.
This is why I love economic history and not political history – economic history speaks the raw numbers, the statistics – the unassailable mathematical facts, and it tends to drive great holes into the ‘political’ history and its inherit political rhetoric – its the point when the facts talk and the bull walks.
Let the numbers speak!
Now, here’s the truth – at no point in Boer war 2 were there ever 500,000 British troops in South Africa as boots on the ground at any one point in time – in total, over the course of the war the British called up 550,000 men – that bit is true, yes. HOWEVER the British rotated their Regiments in and out of South Africa on ‘tours of duty’ – never really sending a full regiment into the operational theatre at once, retaining many at home and in their other colonies around the world. The “high water mark” i.e., the maximum number of British Troops in South Africa at any one point in time is 230,000 men. Even pro-Boer chronologies like that of Pieter Cloete’s Boer War facts and figures reluctantly has to admit this fact.
This high-water mark of 230,000 (including African Auxiliaries) is only peaked briefly during the late Guerrilla Phase of the war – and at least 50,000 of these troops are being used to man the rather extensive blockhouse defence system stretching from the top to bottom and side to side across the whole of South Africa (as referenced by Simon C. Green in his Blockhouses of the Boer War) – over thousands of kilometres both ways. On average during the Guerrilla Phase of the war – September 1900 to April 1902, the British enjoy 190,000 troops on the ground.
But let’s stick to the high-water marks for a proper account – the high water for the Boer forces, total Republican forces strength is 87,365 men – including 21,043 burghers who add onto the original ZAR and OFS Commando call-up later (initial call-up is 48,216), the statutory Boer forces (2,686), foreign volunteers (2,120) and Cape Rebels (13,300).
The Boer figure is possibly higher if we add African auxiliaries and rear echelon support – the “tooth to tail” non-combatant ratio – which is accounted in the British numbers in terms of administrators, doctors, pharmacists and medics, batmen, chefs, farriers, holsters, labourers, wagon drivers etc. but NOT in the Boer numbers as this would start to add women, agteryers, servants and farm hands as people acting in Boer combat supporting roles in a non-combatant capacity.
That means a conservative ratio between Brit and Boer at the high-water marks = 230,000 Brits and 87,300 Boers – a ratio of 3:1 – total Imperial forces versus total republican forces (sans the tooth to tail ratio in the Boer number). It’s a far cry from the emotionally charged and erroneously touted figure of 25:1.
Consider the size of the Republican Forces at the beginning of Boer War 2, versus that of the British. At the Boer declaration of war on the 11th October 1899 when the Boers invade sovereign British territories: The total British Forces in the field = 15,300 men. Total Boer forces assembled to attack = 48,216 men. The ratio is heavily in favour of the Boers – Boer Forces outnumber the British 3 to 1.
“On the high seas” as at the 11th October 1899 are an additional 7,418 British Troops on their way to South Africa from India and Australia – called up to bolster an inadequate British force strength in the event of war. Even with their arrival at the end of October 1899 (after the war has been declared and the Boer invasions commence) bringing the British number up to 22,708 – British Forces are still woefully inadequate, and the invading Boer Forces still outnumber them 2 to 1.
If we want to account Boer War 2 properly and view it with balance, it would be correct and very true to say at the beginning of the war the Boers outnumber the Brits 3:1 – as the war progresses there is a juxtaposing of numbers (they start to match capability in numbers from February 1900) … and by the end of war the Brits account 190,000 troops in country, Boers account 24,300 left in the field and 47,300 POW in the bag (factoring out the ‘Hensoppers’ and ‘joiners’ and factoring in the Cape Rebel POW) = 71,600 or a 3:1 ratio – Brits outnumber Boers, a reversal of the advantageous 3:1 ratio the Boers enjoyed at the start of the war.
Let the doctrine speak!
In terms of military doctrine, the above estimation on a 3:1 ratio is about right given Boer War 2 is fought in two distinctive phases, the Conventional warfare Phase (Oct 1899 to August 1900) and the Guerrilla warfare phase (September 1900 to May 1902) – to invade the British territory in Oct 1899 the Boers need a 3 to 1 advantage to be successful … and to counter attack and hold the Boer territory the British need to be at a 3 to 1 advantage – and even by Guerrilla Warfare standards and the doctrine used to fight one, this number is very low. Consider the following:
American Brigadier-General Nelson Miles was put in charge of hunting down Geronimo and his followers in April 1886. Miles commanded 5,600 troops deemed necessary to find and destroy Geronimo and his 24 warriors. In Malaya in 1950 it took 200,000 British, Australian and allied troops to defeat 5,000 Communist guerrillas. In Ireland over the 30-year course of ‘the troubles’ a total of 300,000 British troops were used to contain 10,000 IRA guerrillas. Closer to home, so the arm chair Boer war generals get this – over the course of the Angolan Border War (1966-1988) and the ‘Struggle’ (1960-1994) the SADF would call up 650,000 conscripts and then hold them in reserve – MK and other non-statutory force ‘guerrillas’ at their high water mark in 1990 only have 40,000.
The modern-day theoretical ratio of counter-insurgency forces to guerrillas needed to defeat an insurgent/guerrilla campaign is 10:1. In 2007, the US Department of Defence produced a document entitled Handbook on Counter Insurgency which quotes this as the rule-of-thumb ratio for all such operations – and that is even with the advent of modern technology in warfare fighting mere insurgents or guerrillas. Little wonder that General David Petraeus needed 180,000 coalition force troops (the same size as the full invasion force) on the ground in 2007 just to deal with the Iraqi guerrilla “surge” spearheaded by an insignificant but determined bunch of suicide bombers.
Just kidding!
The idea that it took half a million British troops to subdue a couple of thousand boers is very erroneous .. the old ‘super’ Afrikaner joke – on witnessing an advancing British ‘rooineck’ column a Boer kid asks his Dad “how many Boers are we Dad? – Answer “50 son”, and “how many British Dad?” – Answer “10,000 son”. Punchline … “Dad, does this mean we’re going to finish late again?” A joke that re-appears in different formats in countless forums, and it’s as funny as it’s statistically false and fantastical.
Written and Researched by Peter Dickens
References – all quoted statistics
Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery “The Second Boer War – The Times History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902” – Volumes 1 to 7.
History of the war in South Africa 1899-1902. By Maj. General Sir Frederick Maurice and staff. Volumes 1 to 4, published 1906
The Anglo-Boer war: A chronology. By Cloete, Pieter G
Anglo-Boer War Blockhouses – a Field Guide by Simon C. Green, fact checking and correspondence – 2023.
The Boer War: By Thomas Pakenham – re-published version, 1st October 1991.
Correspondence and interviews with Dr. Garth Bennyworth, Boer War historian – Sol Plaatjies University, Kimberley – 2023.
Correspondence on fact checking British doctrine with Chris Ash, BSc FRGS FRHistS, 2023 – Boer War historian, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Kruger’s War – the truth behind the myths of the Boer War: By Chris Ash, published 2014.
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
I was a discussant at a book launch of Jan Smuts’ First World War by Dr. David Brock Katz, and the minute questions were opened to the audience, the very first question was “What about Jopie?”, to which there was a universal sigh and “here we go again”.
Turns out you just cannot discuss Jan Smuts’ career as military strategist and Field Marshal, his career as lawyer, botanist, academic, philosopher, conservationist or statesman – without covering the “Jopie” base. The interesting bit about covering the Jopie base is just how little people understand about him, the nature of events that led to his execution, or even fully understand Smuts’ role in it.
So, to ask the question … “What about Jopie?” To truthfully answer that question – we also have to ask another question, and that is … “What about William?”.
What about William?
William! Who is then heck is William and what is he in the life of Jopie? – Never heard of him! Comes the retort – ah, but here we uncover a part of the Jopie Fourie story which is often glossed over and even never mentioned in all the Nationalistic inspired dogma that surrounds Jopie Fourie, and you have to ask yourself why? So, here goes.
Our story begins with three men who had taken officer commissions in the newly fledged Union Defence Force of South Africa (the UDF) army (the South African Union was declared in 1910). They served together in the ACF (Active Citizen Force) and knew one another well, they are Captain William Allan King, Major Harry Trew and finally Captain Jopie Fourie.
When South Africa declared war on Germany in 1914, by a landslide Parliamentary vote, those UDF officers who held a ‘Conscientious Objection’ to war against Germany were invited to resign. The Union government was well aware of the sympathies the Boer forces had to Germany during the South African War 1899-1902 and would accommodate them, in other words individual UDF members were not forced to go war against Germany, Botha (then the Prime Minister) and Smuts (then the Minister of Defence) expected a ‘handful’ of resignations from those that refused to fight Germany – and they got exactly that – ‘a handful’ (less than 1% of the UDF construct).
Key resignations from the UDF came from Major Jan Kemp, Lt. Col Manie Maritz and General Christiaan Beyers. All of whom took the precaution of resigning their UDF commissions and oaths before going into armed revolt against the lawfully elected Union government over the issue of the invasion of German South West Africa. Failure to do so in 1914 would amount to a charge of High Treason which carried with it the death sentence.
Images: Jan Kemp, Christiaan Beyers and Manie Maritz
Captain Jopie Fourie decided to join Kemp, Maritz and Beyers in open armed revolt, however for reasons known only to him, he chose not to resign his commission and oath to serve the Union of South Africa. In other words, as an active serving UDF officer (not just a rebel) he chose to make war against the UDF and his colleagues with the intention of killing them. This in 1914 constituted treason in the highest order.
According to Major Harry Trew, Fourie was a close friend of his and was a likeable chap with a wicked sense of humour, and Fourie had a somewhat cavalier approach to things, this can be seen during the revolt when Trew recalled a commandeering note that Fourie had given to the hotelkeeper at Pienaar’s River. In the note he stated he had taken goods to the value of £10 for the use of the Republican Forces; if his side won it would be honoured by the Republican Government, if he lost: The amount was to be debited against Generals Botha and Smuts.
In another rather cavalier approach to the rebellion, and a very ill-advised one, Jopie Fourie had rather foolishly decided to fight for the rebels whist wearing his Union Defence Force Uniform (refer Military History Journal Vol 16, No.4). The wearing of your ‘enemies’ uniform in 1914 also immediately guaranteed a place in front of firing squad, its treason of the highest order.
During the South African War 1899-1902 (or Boer War 2) there is an extensive list of Boers executed for “wearing khaki” i.e., wearing a British uniform, by 1914 and the 1st World War this sort of offence earned you a ‘drumhead’ court martial in the field and immediate execution on the spot.
Even by World War 2, who can forget the harrowing images of the execution of German soldiers – Pernass, Billing, and Schmidt by firing squad of American GI’s for wearing American uniforms, they were condemned to death under the Hague convention concerning land warfare, article 23: “It’s especially forbidden .. to make improper use of a flag of truce, of the national flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy”.
Unteroffizier Manfred Pernass, Oberfähnrich Günther Billing, and Gefreiter Wilhelm Schmidt were given a military trial at Henri Chapelle, sentenced to death, and executed by a firing squad on 23rd Dec 1944 for wearing American uniforms to infiltrate their lines.
Jopie Fourie took a tremendous risk choosing to continue to wear his UDF uniform whilst joining a revolt against the UDF, and there is absolutely no doubt that he knew the consequences of his actions, as a Boer War veteran and subsequently a UDF officer he knew exactly the consequence.
Captain Jopie Fourie and Captain William Allan King where also colleagues and friends. Captain William Allan King was a part-time ACF officer in the UDF, full-time he was the Sub-Commissioner of Pretoria, he was Pretoria’s ‘Native Commissioner’ responsible for the affairs of Blacks and Coloureds in the Transvaal. His duties and responsibilities included arbitrating between the employers of labour in the Pretoria Labour District with the Black African Natives performing the labour.
According to Sol Plaatje, the first General Secretary of the African National Congress (ANC) in his book ‘Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since the European War and the Boer Rebellion’, William King is described as;
“Without doubt the ablest native administrator in the Transvaal Civil Service … an expert on Native matters, and no commission ever sat without his being summoned to give evidence before it”.
Sol Plaatje went on to say of William King:
“The Natives called him ‘Khoshi-ke-Nna’, which means ‘I am the Chief’. A firm but just Englishman, with a striking military gait, he would have been an ideal leader of the native contingents had the offer of native help been accepted by the Union Government.”
That William Allan King was a very popular and well-liked man in South African politics and amongst the majority communities and their representatives in South Africa would be an understatement.
Captain William Allan King, was sent to arrest Captain Jopie Fourie, presumably as they had a personal connection to talk him and his Commando into surrender as a first prize. King was also to warn Fourie that he needed to resign his commission. King’s small UDF force came into contact with Jopie Fourie and his Commando on the 23rd November 1914, just north of Pretoria near Hamaanskraal and a skirmish ensued. During the firefight Captain William Allan King attended to a wounded man. Whilst attending to the man he was shot dead by one of Fourie’s men. Again, military doctrine viewed these sorts of incidents in 1914 as outside accepted rules of engagement.
“What made it so tragic was that Jopie and King, who was Native Commissioner of Pretoria, had been good friends prior to the rebellion” recorded Major Harry Trew, Jopie Fourie’s other friend. It would now be left to Major Harry Trew to capture and arrest Fourie, which he and detachments of South African Police (SAP) and Union Defence Force (UDF) troops eventually managed to do on the 16th December 1914 at Nooitgedacht in the Rustenburg district.
It needs to be noted at the “Battle of Nooitgedacht” to arrest Fourie, Jopie Fourie and his men killed one policeman and many other policemen were injured – Dr C Louis Leipoldt was the ‘police doctor’ that day and was mentioned in dispatches for attending to all the wounded.
Images: Captain William Allan King’s headstone and newspaper notice, note the population group who erects the headstone (the Waterberg Chiefs) and his honouring as an African Chief in a native language.
It was also not the first time Fourie and his men would flout rules of engagement. In a earlier engagement, from under a white flag of truce they opened up on a UDF detachment, this time killing another popular UDF officer, who happened to be unarmed. Captain John (Koos) Nolte, an Afrikaner, was treacherously shot. The epitaph on Nolte’s grave, who was a well-known rugby player and attorney on the East Rand, states; “Gesneuveld 29 October 1914 te Treurfontein onder Witvlag met Rapport. Geboren 11de Juli 1881.”
Retribution
Captain William Allan King’s funeral was a national outpouring of grief, newspapers across the county lamented at his passing, his funeral was the largest funeral since the Union was declared in 1910. Plaatje would read his obituary and would record that he was “one loss which the Natives, judging by articles in their newspapers, will not easily forget”.
Retribution for Fourie was coming – not only from the large swaths of English’, ‘Coloured’ and ‘Black’ communities grieving for William Kings death, of all the Rebel’s Commandos – it was Fourie’s Commando which exacted the greatest number of Union Defence Force deaths. Of those most of them were Afrikaners – Prime Minister Botha insisted the ‘English’ regiments who made up the Active citizen Force (ACF) part of the UDF ‘stay out of it’ for the most part and the Afrikaner ‘Rifle Associations’ – the old Boer Republic Commandos the RA part of UDF to deal with the brunt of the revolt – so, brother against brother, this was to be the Afrikaners sorting out their seditious brethren amongst themselves. Retribution was coming for Fourie from many in the Afrikaans community and the UDF families affected by the loss of their husbands, brothers and sons – men like Captain Koos Nolte.
Unlike many of the other rebel leaders who faced a single count of treason, Captain Jopie Fourie had committed High Treason on three counts, not resigning his Army commission in the UDF, caught wearing his UDF uniform and undertaking a seditious armed revolt against his lawfully elected government and his own armed forces – the UDF.
Also, unlike the other rebel leaders who faced a trial in a civilian court, having resigned from the UDF, that would not be the case for Jopie Fourie, as he had not resigned from the UDF he was considered as still in service in the UDF, so he faced a military court. A military court martial is fundamentally different to a civilian one as there are a whole set of laws that apply to military personnel that don’t apply to civilians. Military tribunals are almost a ‘law unto themselves’ – sentences tend to be carried out quickly and punishments harsh – very little latitude is given to appealing convictions, and military courts do not really tolerate interventions from civilian authorities and government structures.
This is compounded further when the military is ‘in a state of war’ with a foreign power or if a state of ‘martial law’ is declared against an internal enemy, and South Africa and the UDF specifically was in both states. During these respective states of war military law becomes even more intolerant and convictions even more punitive. Retribution from the UDF was most certainly coming for Fourie and there was very little anyone could do about it.
Retribution was also quick, South Africa was in a state of martial Law and there was no dilly-dally, from the time Jopie Fourie was captured on the 16th December 1914, he was tried by this fellow military officers, from all accounts he was given a proper military trial, he was found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death by firing squad (a military ‘death’ afforded only to military personnel – civilians are hanged).
The firing squad was comprised equally of members of the South African Police (as they were involved in his capture and he took a toll on them), members of Jopie Fourie’s own regiment – the “Botha Ruiters”, and members of the South African Mounted Rifles. The execution took place with Fourie refusing a blindfold on the 20th December 1914 …. from capture to execution, it took a mere 4 days.
Images: Authorisation Letter: Jopie Fourie Execution: 20th December 1914 and colourised image of Jopie Fourie (courtesy Jenny B Colourised Photos)
Why Smuts?
Usually in a legal and parliamentary construct like the Union of South Africa, the only person who can stay an execution or offer an amnesty is the Prime Minister and usually that is done with a consensus of cabinet ministers, so the Prime Minister is not seen to act unilaterally. The Prime Minister of South Africa in 1914 was Louis Botha, not Jan Smuts – Smuts was one of 66 South African Party Ministers of Parliament and he is one of Louis Botha’s Cabinet Ministers – holding two portfolios reporting to Botha. Jopie Fourie’s execution is on Botha’s watch – it’s his responsibility, not Smuts’.
General Jan Smuts during WW1
So why not Botha, why the focus on Smuts?
As Dr David Katz in his work ‘General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa 1914 -1917) points out. Jan Smuts had been the key Minister keeping a level head and seeking reconciliation and understanding all the way through the rebellion, and when it was clear the rebellion had failed, Smuts called for a ‘Blanket Amnesty’ across the board for the Boer Rebel leaders and their troops if they laid down their arms.
General Louis Botha, the Commander in Chief, on the other hand took a much harder and less reconciliatory line than his colleague – he was livid at the sheer betrayal, the sheer waste of lives, resources and time it took and the complete stupidity of it all – an unsupported revolt against a lawfully elected government with absolutely no chance of success.
It was reported that Louis Botha once joking said to Jan Smuts “Let’s face it Jannie, you’re no General!” By that he meant Smuts was far too reconciliatory and soft-hearted – as far as Louis Botha was concerned, under the edicts of martial law, all rebels, officers and men alike should be tried, the most treasonous of which, the leaders, put up against a wall and shot – even if they were all his old friends.
Smuts however persevered – Botha eventually agreed to an Amnesty, but for the rank and file only, the Boer Rebel leaders would have to be prosecuted. The amnesty, excluding the Rebel leadership, was in put place from 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 like Jopie Fourie refusing surrender and amnesty, but by the end of January 1915 the rebellion was over.
Even by standards of the day, at the end of the revolt Smuts would seek clemency and compassion with Botha for the rebel leaders, consider their sentences. In private correspondence with his confidant and friend, Emily Hobhouse, Hobhouse would urge both Smuts’ and Botha’s compassion in dealing with the rebel leaders, to which Smuts agreed.
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.
Lt. Colonel Manie Maritz would evade capture and escape into self-imposed exile, he would re-enter South Africa in 1923 and spent a couple of months in jail for treason, when General Barry Hertzog came to power later in 1924 he was given amnesty. He would enter into politics as the leader of an antisemitic, one-party state, National Socialist (Nazi) inspired ‘Boerenasie’ party prior to World War 2.
Of all the other rebel officers, men like Kmdt Daniel Flemming, who were also captured or returned from exile in GSWA. 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.
The Visit
The delegation in December 1914, headed up by Dr D.F. Malan, which decided on a last minute ‘drop in’ visit at Jan Smuts’ house and deliver a petition Malan had drafted, with the remote hope of getting clemency for Fourie, did so because they saw Smuts as the ‘weakest link’ – they knew he had a soft spot for the rebels and they would have no such luck with a no-nonsense General like Louis Botha, and how do we know this?
Simply because General Botha, as Prime Minister made no effort to stay the execution of Jopie Fourie, he did not lift a finger, he didn’t even offer an opinion on the matter or make a statement, and one can only deduce that given his very hard stance he initially held against giving the rebels any sort of amnesty, that he wanted an example made of Fourie. Botha was livid, this revolt in no way received the support of the broad Afrikaner community, it was poorly planned and poorly led and an utter waste of life – to read more on this position read Observation Post – Boer War 3 and Beyond, here’s the link Boer War 3 and beyond!
Now consider what the delegation is asking of Jan Smuts, they are asking him to make a decision he is not really mandated to do, they are asking him to override his boss’ intentions and act unilaterally of the Prime Minister. They are asking him to act unilaterally of all this fellow cabinet ministers and as a UDF General, they are also asking him to act unilaterally of the military, its laws and its tribunals. They are also asking Smuts to perform a communications miracle, considering the speed at which the Fourie trial takes place – a mere 4 days, it’s 1914 – the country is at war and Smuts has to contact a wide variety of MP’s and his Boss the PM who is on a military campaign to get any sort of consensus before the execution – and he only has about a single day to do it in.
Future nationalists would blow this delegation and incident out the water and pay far too much attention to Smuts than he deserves, they would try and turn Smuts into a coward for not meeting the drop in delegation, stating he was ‘hiding’ in the house – in fact Smuts was visiting on the next door farm when the delegation turned up, and unlike President Paul Kruger who entertained the general public dropping in unannounced, Smuts did not.
What if?
Even if Smuts had entertained the visit, there is literally nothing he could do about Jopie Fourie – as noted, Fourie’s case was far too complicated, his crimes were far too serious and there were far too many incriminating circumstances of high treason. Smuts in even trying to get Fourie off the hook would have incurred the wrath of the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, the majority of the government, the Union Defence Force and all its commanders, many in the Afrikaans community, the families of the UDF slain, and finally the broader English, Coloured and Black communities, the vast majority, thanks to the death of William King at the hands of Fourie.
This was World War 1, this was Martial Law after all, soldiers and officers were executed in front of firing squads for ‘cowardice’ or ‘leaving posts without permission’ or ‘refusing orders’ – let alone High Treason, Sedition and White Flag incidents. There was just no way anyone was going to get Fourie any form of amnesty or clemency, not in a month of Sundays.
It is very naive and a very arrogant assumption on behalf of Dr. Malan to think that Smuts could stay the execution and its smacks more of a political assassination exercise than it does of a philanthropic one, and that’s exactly what happened – Prime Minister Louis Botha, the man who was in fact responsible – the bittereinder’ hero of the Boer War – would remain relatively unscathed and still heralded as Boer hero in the Boerevolk community, whereas Smuts would unfairly take the full brunt of Afrikaner Nationalist vitriol in Botha’s place – unrelenting and for decades – he still does.
Images: Hate mail sent to Jan Smuts – Jan Smuts collection
Uneasy is the head that wears a crown
Smuts would go on to be regarded as one of the greatest Statesmen South Africa has ever produced, Jopie Fourie was a junior officer and simply not on the same playing field as Smuts (or Botha for that matter). To quote Shakespeare “uneasy is the head that wears a crown” – no ‘coward’ when it came to his convictions – in Smuts’ career, as a Boer War General during the South African War 1899 – 1902 (Boer War 2) he would personally oversee the court martial and execution by firing squad of Lambert Colyn, a Boer traitor who betrayed his Commando’s position to the British.
After the 1922 Miners’ Strike, when Smuts was Prime Minister in his first term and had powers of amnesty, the English ‘Communist’ rebels – Samual ‘Taffy’ Long, Herbert Hull and David Lewis were all hanged singing the Red Flag song, Smuts remained unmoved.
As Prime Minister on two separate occasions many South Africans were executed for a variety of crimes under his watch for clemency, mainly murder, none received it. The UDF in its only recorded execution during World War 2, executed one of their own during the Italy campaign – Johan Mgema (a Native Military Corps man) attached to 12 Squadron SAAF, executed by firing squad when he was found guilty of murdering an Italian woman. Again, as Prime Minister at the time Smuts granted no amnesty.
Smuts however went one step further, and only for one man, when he was Prime Minister during World War 2, and mandated to grant amnesty and clemency, stay executions and intervene in judicial process – he stayed the execution of Robey Leibbrandt – the South African Nazi zealot inserted into South Africa by Nazi Germany to overthrow the government and assassinate Smuts. Captured and found guilty of High Treason Leibbrandt was sentenced to death – he claimed that he had acted “for Volk and Führer” (Adolph Hitler and the Afrikaner people) and gave the Hitler Salute in court, declaring “I greet death”.
Robey Leibbrandt
Smuts commuted his sentence to life in prison instead. Smuts had served with Leibbrandt’s father, Meyder Leibbrandt during Boer War 2 and admired him as a “courageous Boer warrior”. In the case of Robey Leibbrandt only did Smuts intervene as Prime Minister and exercise his powers, nobody else, again demonstrating his ‘soft spot’ for his most beloved Boere community, one in which he consistency sought reconciliation and understanding. However, even this act would not deter his most obstinate detractors. Robey Leibbrandt was subsequently released on amnesty granted by the incoming nationalists led by Dr. D.F. Malan in 1948.
The point been, for all the executions and all the variety of people of communities involved, it was only with the Boerevolk that Smuts exhibited extraordinary measures of compassion. The execution of Fourie was an extraordinary one, and considering the William Allan King incident, the white flag incident, his commission and his uniform, far too large a segment of the population sought retribution.
This is one of the key reasons why the Jopie Fourie mythology and narrative put forward by Afrikaner Nationalists never really includes William Allan King – Fourie was pitched as been of ‘pure’ Afrikaans heart, unfairly executed for it by traitorous Afrikaners, it’s all about Afrikanerdom – the English, Black and Coloured Communities’ in South Africa who Fourie also went to war against don’t count – that would make him universally unpopular and a genuine traitor – nor do all the other communities affected by government policies in dealing with treason and those executed for it count – it just doesn’t fit their insular and myopic Afrikaner Nationalist narrative.
In Conclusion
In relating the story of Jopie Fourie, it’s clear that the story of William King a.k.a. The Chief is lost. In weighing up the two, the man who died for his country, the man who is the true patriot, the member of the statutory forces representing a legal government and the broad communities of South Africa as a whole – the majority of South Africans, the man who is functioning as a legitimate commissioned officer and upholding his oath to serve his country and men, the man ‘unfairly’ killed, the man whose loss is felt across the entire nation – is Captain William King, as a South African Army officer doing his duty his sacrifice is fully deserving of the nation’s recognition. The true national hero is Captain King, and when we ask ourselves “what about Jopie?” We must also ask of ourselves … “what about William?”
We will never know what Jopie Fourie’s true reasons were for not taking the precaution of resigning his UDF commission, despite been warned to do so. Nobody knows what was going through his head when he donned on his UDF uniform to rebel against the UDF. Given the extremely grave consequences of these actions – one can only assume that the person who wanted Jopie dead, was Jopie himself and he foresaw himself as some sort of martyr.
It remains perplexing, no matter what Smuts did right, no matter all his achievements, no matter that he arbitrated the peace deal to end the Boer War, no matter that he twice put South Africa on the right side of history when Germany acted as polecat, no matter that he consolidated Afrikaners and English and established Union and a whole new country – the true father of South Africa, no matter that he established the UDF and its military doctrine, identified new botanicals, established both the Royal Air Force and the South African Air Force, wrote an accredited work of philosophy, established South Africa as an economic powerhouse, no matter that he commanded British troops in East Africa and was Churchill’s personal advisor during Operation Overlord (D-Day) and the liberation of Europe, no matter that he established the concept of the Commonwealth of Nations and wrote the pre-amble to establish United Nations – all that matters not a jot to the chap in the back of the room at any modern day Smuts related seminar who sticks up his hand and inevitably asks “what about Jopie?”.
Military History Journal, Vol 16 No 4 – December 2014 – Forgotten casualties of the 1914 Rebellion. By Richard Wadley
‘Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since the European War and the Boer Rebellion’. By Sol. T. Plaatje
Nongqai Vol 10, No 4 A (1) by Brigadier Hennie Heymans
‘General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa’ 1914 -1917. By Dr David Broc Katz
A large thank you to Stef Coetzee for his inputs on Captain William Allan King and further thanks to Admiral Arne Söderlund for his assistance, along with Brigadier Hennie Heymans
The Observation Post 