The Boer War

by Martin Bossenbroek

  There boredom had soon set in. Kruger had already left Hectorspruit for Lourenço Marques to wait for a ship sailing to Europe. Botha was travelling in the Transvaal, setting up a new commando structure. The government consisted of Schalk Burger and his father, assisted by a few other department heads. There was nothing in Lydenburg to keep Deneys and his brothers occupied, and their enforced idleness made them irritable. Arend was still too weak to leave, but the three others decided to go on commando again. Hjalmar, who had ‘a queer bent of his own’, went to the eastern Transvaal. Deneys and Joubert chose a different direction. They’d heard that General Christiaan Beyers was organising a force in the area north of Pretoria. He was near Warmbaths, a good 250 kilometres to the west. That’s where they would go.

  There wasn’t much to prepare. They shot a kudu and made biltong, and collected a supply of mealies. These were all the provisions they had. After taking leave of their father, the brothers set off, Deneys on his roan and Joubert on the horse they had recovered from Charley in Pretoria. It was mid-October 1900. They had a long journey ahead of them, through the northern Transvaal bush, ‘untenanted save by native tribes and wild animals’.23

  Officially it was now British territory—at least, according to Lord Roberts. In his view, the victory at Bergendal was decisive enough to allow him to annex the Transvaal with an easy mind. On 1 September 1900 he proclaimed the South African Republic the new Transvaal Colony. Kruger, of course, had responded with a counter-proclamation a few days later, this time from Nelspruit. But he had lost all credibility almost immediately afterwards. His departure for Lourenço Marques was a gift from heaven for Roberts.

  ‘Resignation of Mr S.J.P. Kruger’, announced his new proclamation of 14 September, which went on to reveal that the old president had formally resigned. This wasn’t entirely true, but that didn’t matter much to Roberts. Nor was it true, as he alleged, that Reitz, the state secretary, had left the country, taking the complete archives of the South African Republic. In fact, Reitz was on his way to Lydenburg. Only the part about the archives was true. The Transvaal’s official documents were being shipped to Leyds in Europe for safekeeping. But the most important thing, of course, was Kruger’s departure. ‘His desertion of the Boer cause’, the proclamation explained, confirmed that he considered the war hopeless and futile.

  To convince the Boers, Roberts summarised his case once again. Nearly 15,000 Boers were prisoners of war. Not a single one of them would be released without a universal, unconditional surrender. Intervention by any foreign power could be ruled out. The British Empire would win the war. By any means whatsoever, he added ominously. ‘The war is degenerating, and has degenerated, into operations carried on in an irregular and irresponsible manner by small, and in very many cases, insignificant bodies of men.’ Neither the British government nor the British army could turn a blind eye to them. Measures to curb their activities would be ruinous to the country and cause great suffering to the burghers and their families, but they would have to be taken nevertheless. The longer the guerrilla war lasted, the tougher those measures would be.24

  In other words, more farms and harvests would be razed, more cattle confiscated and destroyed. His announcement wasn’t just bluster. From September 1900 the incidence of farm burnings soared, even according to the systematically underestimated official British accounts. Often they were not reprisals for sabotage, but random acts of destruction carried out on the instructions of individual officers, who were receiving increasingly ruthless orders from their superiors.

  And those orders frequently came from Roberts himself. One incident in the Krugersdorp district stood out in particular. The community was known to be virulently anti-British. Roberts decided that the Paardekraal Monument was part of the problem. It had been erected on a cairn of stones laid there in December 1880 at Paul Kruger’s initiative, as a symbol of resistance to the British regime.25 As long as the stones remained in place, the Transvaal’s independence was secured, or so the ‘ignorant Boer farmers’ believed. Roberts believed it too, so he had the stones removed. On the night of 16 September they were chipped out, packed in flour bags and sent by train to Johannesburg. From there they were taken to Durban and dumped in the Indian Ocean. Others said they were thrown into the Vaal from the railway bridge at Vereeniging. All the same, Krugersdorp continued to oppose the regime.26

  Not everyone approved of Roberts’s iron-fisted repression. Besides continuous protests from Botha, De Wet and other Boer leaders, there were voices in his own circle raised in objection. Just as there were officers who went more than the extra mile in carrying out Roberts’s instructions, so there were others who condemned the savagery of his actions against the civilian population.

  Even Milner, the high commissioner, not the most charitable of men, expressed his reservations to Roberts, though perhaps only because the damage was being inflicted on a country that was now in British hands. Milner was more outspoken towards Chamberlain, the colonial secretary. He wasn’t against the destruction of farms as a punitive measure, but demolishing entire districts for no purpose other than to render them useless to the enemy was going too far. It was ‘1) barbarous and 2) ineffectual’. It meant more homeless people swelling the ranks of ‘the army of desperadoes roaming the country which it is our object to reduce’. He believed that more could be achieved by winning them over to the British side.27

  Roberts wasn’t too bothered about all the protests and criticism—in any event, not at the beginning. October and November saw a growing number of attacks on property and they were becoming increasingly arbitrary. On one point he did take Milner’s advice to heart. More had to be done to secure the loyalty of Boers who were amenable to the British regime. Most importantly, those who had sworn neutrality and surrendered their arms needed special protection. They were caught in the crossfire, sometimes literally. Accommodating them in temporarily unoccupied homes only created new problems. It seemed more practical to house them in camps in the vicinity of British garrisons. They would be safe there and have access to grazing land for their cattle. The first of these ‘refugee camps’ were set up in Bloemfontein, Kroonstad and Pretoria in September 1900. More were to follow in rapid succession.

  One thing led to another. Besides ensuring the safety of the hensoppers, the British military administration had another problem to solve, one it had created itself and was making worse by the day. Milner was right about this, too. The wholesale destruction of property had left many Boer families homeless. In July and August Roberts had tried to saddle Botha with the responsibility for the families of his men, but in September he was back to square one. On 13 September 1900, when British troops reached Barberton, on the Swaziland border, they found all the women and children there, 2800 in all. They had ample supplies of food, but their husbands and fathers, led by Botha, had proceeded north, beyond the reach of the railway. New arrangements had to be made for their families.

  And now, thousands more were in the same position. The solution was obvious. Several camps already existed for hensoppers; the homeless Boer families could join them. They could kill two birds with one stone. The bitter animosity between the two groups wasn’t Roberts’s problem. They would have food, they would have shelter (tents), they would be under military supervision, and they would no longer obstruct military operations: these were the main considerations. Roberts wanted to round things off. On 29 September, a few days before his 68th birthday, London had offered him the position of commander-in-chief, the highest-ranking officer in the entire British army, successor to his ‘African’ rival, Wolseley. It would be a glorious ending to his career. But first, he needed to put things in order in South Africa.28

  Today was the big day, 1 October 1900. Twenty-five thousand voters would be deciding on Winston Churchill’s future as a politician. The election would take roughly a month, and Oldham was one of the first constituencies in the series. There were two seats to be won. Again, like 18 months earlier, Churchill and another Conservat
ive candidate were standing for election against two Liberals, both of whom were currently members of parliament. They stood the best chance, but there was one important difference: the war in South Africa. This was a khaki election, which Salisbury’s Cabinet had called in order to benefit from the war sentiment. And Churchill was a war hero. His praises were sung even in music halls:

  You’ve heard of Winston Churchill,

  This is all I need to say,

  He’s the latest and the greatest

  Correspondent of the day.

  Sentiments like these set the tone for his campaign in Oldham. He was driven in an open landau to the Theatre Royal, where an excited crowd was waiting to catch a glimpse of him. He gave a dazzling account of his escape from prison and his subsequent adventures, culminating in the episode of his confinement in a coal mine. Never before had he revealed the names of those who had helped him. But now that the mining district of Witbank and Middelburg was in British hands, he could do so without jeopardising their safety. And this was the perfect moment. At his mention of the name Daniel Dewsnap, the engineer from Oldham who had wished him well in the next election, the audience went wild. ‘His wife’s in the gallery,’ someone called, prompting a round of tumultuous applause.29

  But, for all their enthusiasm, the race in Oldham was not yet won. The Liberal candidates were moderates, neither pro-Boer nor anti-war as such, but critical of the Conservative government’s handling of it. Churchill had, of course, tried to capitalise on the differences. In one of his speeches he had lambasted a Liberal member of parliament for consorting with the notorious ‘Dr Leyds’ in Brussels. That city, he had recalled—and that man, he had insinuated—were noted for their contempt ‘for the lives of British nobles’. Everyone knew he was referring to an attempt on the life of the Prince of Wales in the Belgian capital, six months earlier.30

  Prominent Cabinet members were adopting the same tone. Chamberlain’s slogan was ‘Every seat lost to the Government is a seat gained to the Boers’. The colonial secretary had come to Oldham in person to support Churchill’s campaign. His presence alone had given rise to tension. The hall in which Chamberlain and Churchill were to speak was filled with supporters, but a hostile crowd had been waiting for them at the entrance. Demonstrators hurling insults and abuse had delayed their landau for several minutes. On the evening of the election the final outcome was still uncertain. The Times of 2 October reported that Churchill had been defeated again. It published a correction the following day. Each voter could cast two votes and it transpired that Churchill had gained enough ‘second’ votes to win a seat. He ended with 12,931 votes, 16 fewer than the successful Liberal candidate and 222 more than the other.

  A member of parliament! And a lost seat recovered—all the more credit to him. At the Conservative Club Lord Salisbury was one of the first to congratulate him. And Chamberlain in turn asked him to support his campaign in Birmingham. Arthur Balfour, the leader of the Commons and Salisbury’s nephew and prospective successor, wanted Churchill with him on the platform in Manchester. Other party bigwigs followed suit. For weeks Churchill appeared at one crowded rally after another, proudly paraded to audiences of 5000, 6000. And he was still only 25 years old. His debut in politics was nothing short of spectacular.

  And all thanks to the war in South Africa. It had worked for Churchill. For the Cabinet as a whole things were less clear-cut. At the end of the election month it emerged that the Conservative–Liberal Unionist coalition had consolidated its majority, taking 402 of the 670 seats. In this respect, the Cabinet’s decision had proved successful, although it had nine seats fewer than in 1895. The Liberals under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had won six and now had a total of 183 seats. And Labour, for the first time, took two. In overall votes, however, discounting the distortion of the constituency system, the coalition had increased its majority from 49 per cent to 50.3 per cent, with the Liberals down from 45.7 per cent to 44.7 per cent. In other words, it was an outcome that both government and opposition could claim as a victory. The same applied to the main election issue, the war in South Africa and public support for it in Britain.31

  So the Salisbury government remained in power: this was the most relevant fact for the Boer leaders. Britain’s policy wouldn’t change. And Kruger had just sailed off to Europe, so for the time being nothing could be expected of him either. It was all up to them and a good plan.

  They rarely had a chance to meet and confer, but an opportunity came in late October 1900. Steyn and the rest of the Free State government were returning from their meeting with Kruger in Nelspruit, and made a detour through the northern Transvaal. Botha joined them there and together they travelled on to Cyferfontein, a farm in the Swartrug, about 100 kilometres west of Johannesburg. De la Rey and Smuts had set up their tents there. On 27 October they all came together. De Wet had also been sent an invitation by courier. He was probably on his way.

  It was a comfortable place and in the circumstances almost idyllic. The tents stood in the shelter of mimosa trees in bloom. Oranges and naartjies were there for the picking. There was good grazing for the horses, and a lake nearby in which to cool off. The camp had only one disadvantage: the British knew they were there. But what they didn’t know was that the Boer leaders were informed about all their plans. Their scouts had been keeping a close watch on the movements of British troops for miles around, and reporting back by heliograph. There was also a telegraph line near the farm and a telegraph office a kilometre further on. Although both had been put out of service, the problem was easy to fix. One of Steyn’s men was an experienced telegraphist, originally John Acton, now Jan Eksteen, who was able to intercept all telegraphic communications to and from the British headquarters. So the Boers knew the exact whereabouts of the British columns and their marching orders—and they knew how much time they had for their talks.

  In the event, it was more than enough to reach two major decisions. They agreed on a modified version of their original, bold plan of attack, the one Smuts had advocated. They would fight beyond their own borders, on British territory, invade Natal (5000 men under Botha) and the Cape Colony (De la Rey and De Wet, with 5000 men each), with the ultimate goal of organising the long-anticipated Afrikaner uprising. But this time it would start with a spectacular curtain-raiser: an unexpected combined attack—with 15,000 men—on the gold mines.

  All the gold mines. Five months earlier Botha had been dead against such a plan, but circumstances had changed in the meantime. Previously, he had thought it a pointless form of retaliation, nothing more than an act of vandalism. But much had changed since then. Roberts was waging a barbaric war, the Boers had their backs to the wall. Their farms had been destroyed, their wives and children hunted down and incarcerated, their cattle plundered and slaughtered, their harvests burned. A harsher response was justified. In that light, even Botha agreed that the mines were a legitimate military target. Show the Randlords what it felt like to lose everything they possessed. Furthermore, the total collapse of the mining industry would be a hellish embarrassment for Britain’s army as well as its government.

  The plan was as follows. First, they would lure the British to the far corners of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Then, in January or February 1901, the Boer commandos, as one, would swoop on the Witwatersrand. Dynamite would finish the job, a lot of dynamite. The mines would be reduced to rubble. By the time the British recovered from the shock, Botha, De la Rey and De Wet would be well on their way to their next assignments in Natal and the Cape Colony.

  It was a stunning plan, even wilder than the one Smuts had proposed on the eve of the war. It all depended on coordination and split-second timing. Everyone would have to come into action at exactly the right moment. A pity that De Wet hadn’t made it. Come to think of it, where on earth was he? The British were approaching fast. It was time to clear out of Cyferfontein.32

  De Wet didn’t have much of an excuse. Of course, he’d had a run-in with British columns, but, to be honest, h
e’d been asking for it and had got himself into a lot of trouble. As a result, he’d got no further than Ventersdorp, some way south of Cyferfontein. There, on 1 November 1900, he had met up with Steyn and his men again and they had ridden back to the Free State together. On 4 November they crossed the Vaal and, a day later, its tributary, the Vals. Then they set up camp in Bothaville.

  By the time they got there, they had caught up on the news. De Wet reported that he had managed to organise a new commando system, but he also had a piece of bad news. Danie Theron, the commandant of the Scouts Corps, the one person who had never failed him, the man who had been his eyes and ears, was dead. He had been killed by an exploding shell at the beginning of September. It was a terrible loss. Since his death, the British had already managed to catch De Wet off guard on more than one occasion. Steyn in turn told him about Kruger’s European mission and Schalk Burger’s appointment as acting president. He told him too about the decisions they had taken in Cyferfontein. Botha wanted to discuss them with him again in private.

  De Wet wasn’t particularly enthusiastic. A new joint plan, follow-up talks with Botha? In the preceding months he’d had an uneasy feeling that the Transvaal leaders were wavering. At any rate, this was true as far as Botha was concerned. His Transvaal counterpart had hinted at peace talks more than once. De Wet wouldn’t hear of it, unless independence was on the agenda. If not, he wouldn’t have talks with anyone. He would rather make a plan on his own, which at least he could count on.