The Boer War

by Martin Bossenbroek

  Fortifications were built or reinforced in strategic places and the artillery was brought up to standard. Before the Jameson Raid the arsenal consisted of fewer than 20 guns. A series of orders in Germany and France—Krupp and Creusot cannon of various calibres—brought the total to 80. Plus 34 Maxim machine guns. All supplied with ample ammunition. Hardware would not be the problem next time around.103

  There was still the threat from within. The Executive Council wanted better protection on that side too. This meant tougher legislation and more police control. A new Press Act was introduced to start with. For years, Kruger and Leyds had battled with opposition newspapers such as Land en Volk and The Star. The new law banned the publication of anonymous contributions or articles that were deemed either morally offensive, a threat to peace and stability, libellous, or likely to incite violence. And it was the president alone who decided. Another two new pieces of legislation, the Aliens Act and the Extradition Act, widened the government’s powers to bar or deport undesirable immigrants. The Boers dug in and sharpened their claws.

  At least, as far as the British were concerned. All Afrikanerdom was outraged over the raid and came to the rescue. In the February 1896 presidential elections in the Orange Free State, the Afrikaner candidate, Marthinus Steyn, won with an overwhelming majority from the opposition, which stood for closer affiliation with the Cape Colony. Steyn was a lawyer educated in Leiden and London. In theory he had a choice between two directions. In practice he made no secret of his solidarity with the Transvaal Boers. The contract with the Cape railway was cancelled, and the railway service in the Free State came under his administration. The Volksraad in Bloemfontein promised military aid if the need arose. The Volksraad in Pretoria made this reciprocal. In March 1897 the closer ties between the two Boer republics were consolidated by a political alliance. It was a welcome boost and brought with it significantly more firepower. The Orange Free State possessed another 12,000 Martini-Henrys, 12,000 Mausers, 24 cannon and three machine guns.104

  The shock was just as great in the Cape Colony. Jan Hofmeyr and his Afrikaner Bond felt betrayed and withdrew their support for Rhodes. He had made his position impossible and should resign as prime minister. The Cape parliament subsequently published a Blue Book, which came to basically the same conclusion as the Transvaal’s Green Book: the Colossus had ‘directed and controlled the combination’.

  That wasn’t all. Rhodes also had reason to fear for the future of the country named after him. Chamberlain was concerned about his own political career and threatened to cancel the charter of the British South Africa Company. Rhodes saw blackmail as the only way out. He had enough telegrams from Chamberlain to prove that he had prior knowledge of the raid. He also had a good lawyer, who discreetly conveyed the message. That took care of the BSAC’s future—and Chamberlain’s at the same time.105

  But not Rhodesia’s, not yet. Jameson had taken most of Rhodesia’s police troops for his raid on the Transvaal. After their defeat and imprisonment, the whole of that huge territory had to make do with only 60 white policemen. Independently of each other, the Ndebele and the Shona arrived at the same conclusion. The BSAC’s pioneers had driven them from their land, stolen most of their cattle and condemned them to hard labour. And Rhodesia, like the Transvaal, was plagued by drought, locusts and rinderpest. This was their chance. They hadn’t handed in their weapons, but had hidden them away. They rose up, both using the same means—attacking remote farms, trading posts and settlements and killing or wounding a total of 500 people, roughly ten per cent of the white population.

  Their tactics horrified the survivors, but probably saved their colony. Massive, direct attacks on the virtually undefended administrative centres of Bulawayo and Fort Salisbury would have done far more harm. As things were, the BSAC had time to bring in auxiliaries from the Cape Colony and Natal. Rhodes led the campaign. It was one endless retaliation. ‘You should kill all you can, as it serves as a lesson to them when they talk things over at their fires at night.’ His instructions were carried out to the letter. Thousands of Ndebele and Shona were wiped out: ten thousand, according to some estimates. Olive Schreiner wrote about the incident in Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, an indictment of the ruthless and indiscriminate colonial war. She had once believed in Rhodes; this was her revenge. In 1897 order was restored in white Rhodesia.106

  The Jameson Raid sent ripples through Europe as well, but the response was less clear cut than in southern Africa. The initial response was unequivocal, in political circles and among the public. Fury at the violation of the Transvaal’s autonomy, relief at the Boers’ successful resistance, sniggers over the botched raid. That was the general attitude on the European continent. It was felt most keenly by Britain’s fiercest rivals, Germany and France, and by the Netherlands, with its blood ties to the Boers.

  In Britain things were more complicated. There was indignation there too, especially over the mining magnates and their cynical power games. The raid lent credence to the nascent hypothesis of a critical observer, John Hobson. In Imperialism (1902) he would argue that imperialism was driven by the City of London and its international offshoots. Not everyone went as far as Hobson, but many felt uncomfortable about the situation. It wasn’t right. At the same time, however, it was hard to suppress a glow of national pride. At least those men had guts. Doctor Jim actually did something. The ‘rescue letter’ inspired the poet laureate Alfred Austin to write about ‘girls in the gold-reef city, there are mothers and children too . . . So what can a brave man do?’ No wonder the raiders had heeded the call.107

  The British public’s ambivalence vanished in a puff of smoke after Kaiser Wilhelm’s telegram to Kruger. His forthright promise of military support for the Transvaal was a flagrant insult, a sign of German aggression. All their outrage was now directed at Berlin. ‘It is considered very unfriendly towards this country,’ Queen Victoria told her grandson. The serious newspapers endorsed her view, the popular press screamed it out. Germans were harassed in London’s docks, in shops and in bars. In music halls, actors dressed up as Jameson’s ‘troopers’ sang ominously, ‘We don’t want to fight but by Jingo if we do, we’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too.’

  It therefore isn’t surprising that the raiders received relatively mild sentences in June 1896. The main suspects, Jameson and his second-incharge, Willoughby, got 15 months’ imprisonment. Jameson didn’t even complete his sentence. He became ill, was granted a remission and then was released before the end of the year.

  Chamberlain got off scot-free. A parliamentary investigation in which he was questioned, along with the others who were directly involved—Rhodes, Beit, Jameson, Phillips and Leonard—ended with nothing more than a cunningly worded statement. The incriminating telegrams weren’t submitted to the commission. But they were submitted to Lord Salisbury, along with Chamberlain’s resignation. However, the prime minister wasn’t prepared to lose his most popular minister. He refused his resignation and became complicit in the cover-up, including the deal with Rhodes. The investigating commission concluded that Chamberlain and his staff were above reproach. Salisbury’s Liberal predecessor, Lord Rosebery, took a different view: ‘I have never read a document at once so shameful and so absurd.’108

  Be that as it may, as from July 1896 Chamberlain had a free hand as regards the Transvaal. Rhodes had tried, unsuccessfully, to achieve his aims by force. Chamberlain opted for the patient diplomatic art of pulling and prodding, running the show not via Cape Town but directly from London. His opening move was to extend an invitation to President Kruger. A personal meeting in the English capital might help to restore their trust, he suggested. They could discuss matters like the Transvaal’s security and South Africa’s economic development. That would be fine, Pretoria replied, but they would also discuss replacing the London Convention with a new agreement, minus article 4. That wasn’t exactly what Chamberlain had in mind. But he’d be happy to talk about the Uitlanders’ grievan
ces. This diplomatic sparring went on for a couple of months. Kruger said more or less nothing; Leyds rendered it in watertight legal terms.

  It didn’t make them any more popular in Whitehall. In an internal memorandum Chamberlain described Kruger as ‘an ignorant, dirty, cunning and obstinate man who has known how to feather his own nest and to enrich all his family and dependants’. Leyds he didn’t trust at all, with his so-called health problems and his intrigues in Berlin. He wasn’t the only one in London who didn’t trust him. When Lippert visited the City in June 1896 he encountered less animosity towards the Germans than towards ‘Dr Leyds’. According to his business associates, Leyds was known in London as ‘the snake in the grass’. So strong was the feeling against him that a banker friend confided in Lippert, ‘Give us up Dr Leyds, and we will give up Rhodes.’109

  If Leyds had been given a say in the matter, his critics would have had their way. His ailment returned with a vengeance in the South African winter of 1896. In the middle of August he turned to Moltzer in despair. ‘I’m worried about the future, mainly because of my throat condition.’ He had been optimistic after his treatment in Berlin, but now he was sure that ‘if I continue to live in this environment and with the assistance available to me here, I will lose my voice permanently. You can imagine what that would mean to me, I, who have no independent means.’ His wife and son weren’t in the best of health either. ‘Louise cannot spend another summer here. The heat gives her headaches; they must not recur.’ And Louis couldn’t bear ‘either the heat or the winter months. He is ill every June and July; you know those months are bad for the health here. This year he had bronchitis first and after that a typhus-like fever.’

  Leyds saw only one solution. It was time to leave Africa and return to Europe. Moltzer was in a position to help him. During his last visit they had discussed the inadequacies of the Transvaal’s diplomatic representation to the Great Powers. Beelaerts van Blokland did the best he could to act on the Transvaal’s behalf, but because of his parliamentary obligations it was always from The Hague. There really should be embassies in Berlin, Paris, London and Lisbon. Leyds would be the right man for the job. He had countered by saying, ‘I can’t leave the Boers in the lurch’, but now, realising ‘that my health will put me out of action’, this argument was no longer valid. ‘It is imperative that I look after myself; I can’t sacrifice my voice for my work.’ He asked his ‘best friend’ Moltzer to write to Kruger, adding, ‘it would be good to point out—without mentioning a figure—that representatives of the Republic must be paid well because, as is customary all over the world, there are expenses they cannot avoid incurring’.

  Moltzer didn’t waste time. Within a few weeks he wrote a long, carefully worded letter to Kruger, saying exactly what Leyds had asked him to. He also gave it a personal touch to drive the message home. ‘I myself had to give up my position last year as Professor at the University of Amsterdam, as a result of a voice and throat complaint, and unfortunately I know from experience how debilitating excessive strain on the vocal chords can be. But, with sincere gratitude, I can also tell you from experience about the wonderful kindness shown to me when the Government of my country—alerted by a faithful friend of mine—prevented my health from being destroyed prematurely by entrusting me with the senior position I hold now.’110

  It was perfectly clear. The Transvaal needed good diplomatic representatives to promote its interests. In his present position Leyds was in danger of working himself to a standstill. He could, however, use his talents to serve the Boer cause as an envoy to Europe.

  Kruger wasn’t overjoyed. He didn’t want to lose his trusted state secretary. He would think it over. In the meantime Willem and Louise Leyds took one decision at least: their children, now nine and seven years old, were going back to the Netherlands. Louise went with them to settle them in and make arrangement for their schooling. At Christmas she gave a farewell party. At the beginning of January 1897 Willem saw his wife and children off in Lourenço Marques.

  It was hard on Leyds. To make matters worse, he was having a difficult time at work. Chief Justice Kotzé raised a fundamental question in connection with a court case concerning mining rights: who had the last word when it came to legislation in the Transvaal? Up to then it had been the Volksraad, but now Kotzé wanted to give the Supreme Court the right to veto all new legislation to ensure that it was constitutional. His proposal led to an out-and-out power struggle between the political and judicial authorities. This crisis at the heart of the South African Republic affected more than just Leyds’s work. It disturbed him on a personal level as well. The other four Supreme Court judges backed Kotzé. Even ‘Ameshoff, who owes his position to me, has dealt the State a blow which . . . is nothing short of criminal’. Because that’s what upset Leyds the most. He felt that Kotzé and his henchmen were jeopardising the entire judicial system purely to further their own political ambitions and out of ‘personal vanity’. And just when the Transvaal was in trouble. ‘Merely raising this matter is a triumph for the British,’ he remarked bitterly. It suggests ‘that we need reforms to guarantee legal certainty for persons and property’.

  In response, the politicians proposed legislation whereby decisions taken by the Volksraad would be binding on ‘every court of law’. In a decisive meeting Leyds delivered an uncharacteristically long speech, advocating the primacy of the Volksraad. The motion was passed. The president was authorised to dismiss members of the judiciary who were not prepared to abide by the decision.

  It didn’t come to that, at least not at that stage, but for Leyds it was the last straw. ‘I have more or less decided not to continue as State Sec.,’ he noted in mid-February 1897, in the diary he kept for his wife. He agreed on a scenario with Kruger. If he was re-elected at the end of May, he would ‘leave for Europe immediately afterwards, for health reasons’. The president would then try to arrange the matter of diplomatic representation with the Volksraad ‘and discuss it with Beelaerts, because we mustn’t go over his head’. To be on the safe side he proposed an alternative scenario, in the strictest confidence, to Middelberg, director of the Netherlands-South African Railway Company, who agreed to consider appointing Leyds ‘as adviser, for something in the region of £1000’. So once Leyds returned to Europe he would have two options. ‘What I do’, he wrote to Louise in his diary, ‘depends on many different factors: money, position as commissioner, railway company, etc., you etc.’111

  Diamond Jubilee

  London, May 1897

  The life of a diplomat in Europe had its good side. Two days after landing in Plymouth on 16 April 1897, Leyds travelled on to the Netherlands. First to The Hague, to his wife and children, who were doing well. Visits to friends and relatives, a few business meetings in Amsterdam, and then the whole of May spent between London and Paris. In London he had many useful talks with interesting people. Nothing was better than personal contact.

  Even Chamberlain had thawed. Their last meeting, more than a year earlier, had been little more than a formal exchange of greetings. Now, the British secretary for the colonies took time to have a frank discussion. Apparently Leyds made a good impression on him. Chamberlain introduced him to fellow politicians as ‘the ablest representative’ of the South African Republic, and made sure that invitations poured in. In June it was Queen Victoria’s sixtieth jubilee and the whole of London was celebrating. Leyds had already reserved three good places—for himself, Louise and her sister—to watch the Jubilee Procession on 22 June. Now he was offered three tickets for the Naval Review on the 26th, with a personal note from Chamberlain: ‘It will be a fair sight and will I am sure interest you.’112

  This was the scenario Leyds had arranged with Kruger, except that he started on his journey two months earlier than planned. As fate would have it, Beelaerts van Blokland died unexpectedly on 14 March 1897. The South African Republic no longer had a diplomatic representative in Europe. President Kruger was in Bloemfontein at the time to sign the political treaty with th
e Orange Free State. Three days later he telegraphed Leyds, instructing him to ‘prepare for the journey’. His assignment was wide-ranging. Sound out the mood in Europe, among the public and the governments with which the Transvaal had relations. And then make recommendations about improving the image of the South African Republic.113

  Its image did need improving. The Jameson Raid had taken place more than a year earlier. On the European continent indignation had been replaced by alarm, which is to say, among shareholders in the gold mines. After being convicted in Pretoria and Cape Town, Rhodes had been officially cleared and was now hustling in London, where he and Chamberlain were doing their best to undermine confidence in the Transvaal government: Rhodes, as always, by buying whatever he needed, in this case newspaper reports about the Boers’ supposed reign of terror over the gold mines, and Chamberlain by putting more pressure on Kruger. In early March 1897 he had two dispatches drawn up. One accused the Boer republic of systematically violating the London Convention. For instance, he said, Pretoria had signed the Geneva Convention—for the protection of soldiers wounded in battle—without informing the British government. It had also negotiated treaties with the Orange Free State and Portugal. The second dispatch demanded the immediate repeal of the Transvaal’s Aliens Act. In mid-April the British representative in Pretoria, William Conyngham Greene, handed the two dispatches to Kruger in person, with the implicit threat that a large fleet of British ships was on its way to South Africa.