The mining areas didn’t die out completely. About 20,000 whites and 15,000 Africans stayed on, just enough to keep at least a few mines running, which was exactly what the Transvaal government wanted. Towards the end of September the Executive Council, with the Volksraad’s approval, passed a number of resolutions in anticipation of a state of emergency. Mine owners who wanted to continue operating were obliged to obtain work permits for their employees. Mine workers had to take an oath of obedience and good conduct. Gold yields were to be handed over to the government in Pretoria for safekeeping. The government would mint and supply sufficient coins to cover the mine owners’ costs and would refund the balance when the war ended. Mines that suspended production could be taken over by the state, either temporarily or permanently. A Peace and Order Commission was installed, chaired by the commissioner of peace D.E. Schutte. Alcohol was prohibited, travel permits became mandatory. British citizens without a work or residence permit were deported.38
In early October, with the war imminent, the Transvaal government compiled an inventory of abandoned mines. There were 66 in all. How could they make the most profit with the smallest possible workforce? When war broke out, they soon reached a decision. The three most promising mines, the Robinson, the Bonanza and the Ferreira Deep, were taken over by the state right away. The Rose Deep followed in November. The eight privately owned mines that continued to operate were placed under the supervision of an inspector.
Even before the war broke out, Pretoria had introduced a far more direct method to supplement its gold reserve, namely confiscation. On 2 October, by order of the state attorney, Jan Smuts, a consignment of gold worth more than £400,000, en route by train from Johannesburg to Cape Town, was intercepted at the Transvaal border. A week later Smuts sent police officers to empty the gold vaults of Johannesburg’s banks. As of 11 October goods and services of all kinds could be requisitioned. The state-controlled gold mines flourished as a result. The Boers seized dynamite, potassium cyanide and whatever else they needed. They extracted gold only from the layers of rock containing the highest concentrations, with no thought for the prospects of the mining industry in future. They slashed the wages of the black workforce.
All these measures were permissible under the state of emergency. Labour was declared one of the services that could be lawfully requisitioned. It was to be deployed according to new regulations based on nationality, education and skin colour. Burghers were called up for commando service on the front. Uitlanders who wanted to remain in the Transvaal were obliged to obtain work permits; those with special skills were awarded bonuses. This largesse was something the black miners couldn’t even dream of. For them the approaching war meant loss of income, an uncertain future and expulsion from the Transvaal; the war itself brought the prospect of forced labour. The thousands of Africans who found themselves without work or food after the mass closure of mines in September and early October received no assistance from their former employers. Many of them had been recruited from the coastal regions of Mozambique, Zululand and Natal, and were left to make their own way home. They needed special passes to travel, but with their numbers steadily increasing they became a threat to public order. The authorities responded by relaxing controls, bundling them into goods trucks and shunting them off in droves. If there wasn’t space for them in the trains to Lourenço Marques, they were sent south.
Trains were being deployed for military transports and many of these miners were unable to travel at all. In early October, an estimated 7000 men from Zululand found themselves stranded in Johannesburg. Rather than leave them waiting for trains to become available, John Marwick of the Native Affairs Department in Natal obtained permission from the authorities to escort them home on foot. The men set off in an orderly column, 30 abreast, singing traditional Zulu songs. They covered more than 50 kilometres a day. Initially they were provided with food and places to rest. Seven days after leaving Johannesburg they limped into northern Natal, famished and exhausted, only to face another ordeal. They were intercepted by Boer fighters, who commandeered a few hundred men to haul their guns up a hill. Only once they had done so were they able to complete their march home.
Those who undertook the journey had only this one experience of forced labour. The men left behind were subjected to it every day of the whole war. They could either keep their jobs on the mines, mostly working longer hours for less pay, or, like all other Africans in the Transvaal, work on the land or as servants of the Boer commandos.39
Although the authorities in Pretoria enforced rigorous security measures in vital sectors like the railways and the mining industry, these precautions didn’t extend to their surveillance of British prisoners of war. Churchill’s escape from prison, daring as it may have been, was made possible by an amateurish prison regime. Scaling a fence was hardly a Houdini-like feat. The authorities hadn’t reckoned on such large numbers of prisoners and had underestimated their determination. Churchill’s escape turned the whole of Pretoria upside down.
As Haldane and Brockie had anticipated, his disappearance was discovered early the following morning, causing a great deal of commotion. No one could figure out how he had done it and speculation was rife. Some said he’d escaped in a rubbish bin, or disguised as a woman; he was lying low somewhere in town, or had he already been recaptured in Waterval Boven? Homes were searched, a couple of Zarps were sent to the front in disgrace, a few ‘suspect’ Englishmen were thrown out of the country. The Boer leaders felt betrayed, Commandant-General Joubert most of all. He had sent his telegram approving Churchill’s release only days before. The affair should be made public, he insisted to the state secretary, Reitz, ‘to show the world what a villain he is’. A photograph of the fugitive, along with a personal description, was pasted on the wall of the government building. Beside it was a ‘Dead or Alive’ poster. Churchill had a price of £25 on his head.
Prison security was tightened, more sentries were employed, some to patrol the garden next door. Alcohol was prohibited, sleeping on the veranda became a thing of the past, no more newspapers for inmates, and roll call twice a day. It was especially hard on Haldane and Brockie, whose hopes of escaping had gone up in smoke. Churchill’s impatience had led to a great deal of frustration in the prison and beyond, and the incident was never forgotten. The legend that he had broken his word and betrayed his friends was an understandable emotional reaction, but it wasn’t actually true. Even so, it hounded Churchill for the rest of his life.40
Churchill himself was oblivious to all the upheaval. He had other things on his mind in his underground lair. He felt claustrophobic and hated being confined again, this time on his own, in total darkness and in a silence broken only by an unnerving pitter-patter. Howard listened sympathetically when Churchill told him this during his next visit, and on the night of Friday 15 December he escorted him to the surface. A stroll on the veld and a breath of fresh air lifted Churchill’s spirits. Howard realised it would be better for his health and state of mind to remain above ground. At the back of the mine office was an unused storage room. It would be reasonably safe.
And so it was, for as long as it lasted. But at some stage he would have to move on. Churchill still believed he would manage with a horse, a pistol, an escort and some food, but Howard disagreed. He proposed an alternative which he had already discussed with a local merchant, Charles Burnham, another Englishman who was prepared to take risks to help a fellow countryman. Burnham was about to send a consignment of wool to Lourenço Marques for shipment abroad. There was enough to fill a couple of railway wagons, with sufficient space left over for Churchill to hide among the bales. This was the plan.
It took a couple of days to make the arrangements. On the night of Monday 18 December they were ready. The wool had been loaded and covered with sailcloth, and a space had been cleared for Churchill on the floor of one of the wagons. He packed a loaf of bread, a melon, two roast chickens, three flasks of cold tea, some whiskey and a pistol—but no cigars, for obvio
us reasons. They expected the journey to take 16 hours at most, although in wartime one always had to be prepared for delays. At the last minute, Burnham decided to accompany Churchill, just to be on the safe side.
It turned out to be a good move. The journey was not as uneventful as they had hoped. In Witbank, soon after they set off, Burnham parted with a couple of ‘Christmas gifts’ to have the wagons coupled to an ongoing passenger train. A few generous shots of whiskey persuaded the guard to cooperate. He used the same ruse in Waterval Onder, where—after a whole night’s wait—their wagons were joined to another train. And in Kaapmuiden, the last station before the Mozambique border, Burnham managed to prevent a Boer commando from searching Churchill’s wagon. This time, it was coffee that did the trick. After that, crossing the border at Komatipoort was easy. The customs officer allowed the consignment to pass without being inspected, but the Portuguese authorities were more difficult. They demanded that the wagons be uncoupled from the passenger train, which held them up for several hours, until the next goods train arrived.
All that time—it was already Thursday 21 December—the wagons had been in Portuguese territory, but Churchill was still on edge. He thought he heard people speaking Dutch and was desperate not to be caught at the last minute. He only calmed down when the train set off again and arrived at the next station. Through a chink in the wall he saw Portuguese uniforms and a signboard indicating that they had arrived in Ressano Garcia. Once they had passed the station, he gave vent to his excitement. He peered out, emerged from the sailcloth and sang, roared, crowed with delight. Free at last. He drew his pistol and fired two, three shots in the air.41
A warm welcome
Durban, 23 December 1899
The local newspaper, the Natal Mercury, was short of good news. Disappointment following the Black Week disaster hung like a cloud over the town. The British troops had suffered crushing defeats on three fronts. In a single week three distinguished generals had fallen into disgrace: on 10 December Sir William Gatacre at Stormberg on the southern front; on 11 December Lord Methuen at Magersfontein on the western border of the Orange Free State; and on 15 December the commander-in-chief, Sir Redvers Buller, at Colenso, here in Natal, less than 200 kilometres from Durban. It had been a week of shame and humiliation, with almost 3000 British soldiers killed, wounded or captured. The numbers were staggering—almost ten times as many as on the Boer side.
The Natal Mercury and the whole of Durban were desperate for something to lift their spirits. The news about the spectacular escape of the Morning Post’s young war correspondent came as a godsend, and he was now on his way here. That very afternoon, Saturday 23 December, Winston Churchill would be arriving in Durban, the headlines announced, on board the Induna, the weekly mail steamship from Lourenço Marques. By one o’clock a rapturous crowd had gathered on the quay. Among them was a large contingent of Uitlanders who had left the Johannesburg area to settle in Durban. The ships in the harbour were decorated with flags. When the Induna sailed in, around four o’clock, at least a thousand people were waiting to welcome the hero. In the absence of a free berth, the Induna moored alongside two other vessels. Everyone went wild and people swarmed over the decks. The most determined of them bounded over to Churchill and lifted him onto their shoulders. He barely had time to nod at the dignitaries queuing up to greet him as he was taken to the quay, where the crowd demanded a speech.
Standing on a box, hands on his hips, the cowboy hat from Lourenço Marques clasped lightly in his hand, Churchill addressed his ecstatic admirers. The impression he made was more militant and more self-assured than the photograph suggests. ‘No matter what the difficulties, no matter what the dangers... we shall be successful in the end.’ The Boers, ‘these reactionary Republics that menace our peace’, would be defeated, ‘because our cause is a just and right one, because we strike for equal rights for every white man in South Africa and because we are representing the forces of civilization and progress’.
This was the rallying cry they had been waiting for. They wouldn’t let him go. He was installed in a rickshaw and paraded to the town hall, while the crowd continued to swell. A flat wagon had been placed in front of the building to serve as a platform. Whether he wanted to or not, he would have to deliver another speech. No one had to twist his arm. After the crowd’s spontaneous rendition of ‘Rule, Britannia!’, Churchill rose to speak. Again, effortlessly, he struck the perfect note of nationalistic pride. ‘We are now in the region of war, and in this war we have not yet arrived at the half-way house.’ But the outcome would be triumphant, he assured them. ‘Under the old Union Jack there will be an era of peace, purity, liberty, equality, and good government in South Africa.’ The ‘loyal and devoted colonists of Natal’ could depend on it.
Finally inside the town hall, Churchill had a chance to catch his breath. He received a handful of congratulatory telegrams from the local commanding officer. He regaled journalists with the story of his escape, carefully omitting details that might incriminate Howard or Burnham or any of the others who had helped him. Then he went outdoors again. The crowd was still euphoric and kept cheering. Churchill posed for photographs, then announced that he wanted to get back as soon as possible. Back to the front. A rickshaw festooned with British flags was waiting for him. This time it took him to the railway station where the 17.40 to Pietermaritzburg was ready to depart. Churchill had his own coupé. Well-wishers flocked to the platform to wave him off. The train shuddered into motion, the last hoorahs, the last goodbyes, handkerchiefs fluttering, and off he went. Churchill had spent one hundred minutes in Durban. He settled back in his seat. He had plenty of time to read a month’s supply of newspapers.42
The contrast couldn’t have been greater. Churchill was exhilarated by his successful escape and his overwhelming reception in Durban, but he was also distressed about the catastrophes that had befallen the British forces. The shameful details of the fiascos at Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso differed, but the reasons for the three defeats were essentially the same: over-confident commanders, an inflexible strategy, underestimation of the adversary’s capability, unfamiliarity with the terrain, poor coordination, an inability to improvise. It seemed as if British officers took pride in making the same mistakes over and over again. Even Buller, for all his experience in South Africa, had lost his touch. Colenso was his personal Majuba. He came out of it a broken man, his career in shreds. Three days after the defeat, on 18 December, he had been relieved of his command and replaced by Field Marshal Lord Roberts, the leader of the ‘Indian ring’ in the British army.
His downfall fitted into a pattern. From the start Buller had felt he had no control over his own war. While he was still in England, the war secretary, Lord Lansdowne, had given him little say in the preparations. At the same time, Buller’s urgent warnings against taking positions north of the Tugela had been cast to the winds. To make things worse, they had suffered both defeats on the very day he set foot in Cape Town. And Milner only had more bad news. Mafeking and Kimberley were under siege as well, and Milner himself feared an Afrikaner uprising in the Cape Colony.
In these circumstances, in early November, Buller felt it would be unwise to follow his original plan. At one stage it had all seemed so straightforward. The idea was to take his entire 1st Army Corps of 47,000 men and steamroll his way to the north, over the highveld to Bloemfontein, Johannesburg and Pretoria. He mulled it over for a few more days, but then abandoned the plan altogether. It would be irresponsible. Instead, he decided to divide his forces. Milner had recommended two detachments, which would enable them to defend the Cape Colony and relieve the sieges of Kimberley and Mafeking at the same time, but Buller opted for three. Unlike the high commissioner, he wasn’t prepared to give up White, Ladysmith and, as a result, perhaps the whole of Natal.
What is more, he would go to the eastern front himself with more than half his corps—that is, half once all his units had arrived. He knew that part of the country well. He loved its
rolling green hills. He would be able to force the decision. He instructed Lieutenant-General Lord Methuen to proceed west with 11,000 men to relieve Kimberley. Major-General Sir William Gatacre would repel the Boer commandos who had invaded the Cape Colony from the Orange Free State. Gatacre had 3000 men as well as support from the cavalry units under Major-General French, who had narrowly escaped from the besieged Ladysmith. It took a few weeks to organise the detachments, ensuring that suitable command structures were in place and that the units were evenly balanced. Then, of course, the entire logistical operation still had to be planned. On 21 November Methuen crossed the Orange River, and a day later Buller set off for Natal.43
Methuen wasted no time. ‘I shall breakfast in Kimberley on Monday,’ he bragged in a telegram to the commanding officer of the embattled Kimberley, Lieutenant-Colonel R.G. Kekewich. In other words, it wouldn’t take more than a week. His first encounters with the Boers boosted his confidence even further. Advancing along the railway line, he defeated them at Belmont on 23 November, at Graspan two days later, and at Modder River on 28 November. They were hard-fought victories, it must be said, especially the last, where Methuen himself was wounded. All in all, the British incurred heavy casualties: 140 dead and 780 wounded, far more than the 50 dead, 140 wounded and 90 captured on the side of the Free State and Transvaal forces. But Methuen had managed to flush the Boers from their positions on three occasions, and there was only one more obstacle on the way to Kimberley. He felt this compensated for his heavy losses. And he saw no reason at all to change his strategy: first, his artillery fire against the enemy positions, then the frontal infantry attack, and finally the cavalry pursuit.
The Boer War Page 26
