The Boer War

by Martin Bossenbroek

  He wasn’t so sure how he would be received in his mother’s native country. The run-up to his American debut had been bedlam. Major Pond—no one knew which unit he had been in—had included the names of a committee of recommendation in the invitations. Some committee members hadn’t been aware of it, while others—pro-Boer—were furious about being publicly associated with the event. The ensuing chaos was good for ticket sales, but not for Churchill’s peace of mind.

  Twain’s opening words did little to put him at ease. Personally, said the famous ‘man in white’, he opposed the war in South Africa, as he opposed his own country’s war in the Philippines. He had always sought to promote ties of friendship between the two countries. After all, ‘England and America . . . [were] kin in almost everything’. But ‘now they are kin in sin’. So his sympathies were with the Boers. That didn’t stop him from giving Churchill a warm welcome. He introduced him as ‘a blend of America and England which makes a perfect match’.

  Churchill received a vigorous round of applause, though his nervousness at the beginning didn’t escape the notice of the New York Times reporter. Gradually the tension subsided, and in the end he gave ‘a clear recital’, interspersed with humour to enliven his story. Here, too, the colourful details of his escape went down well. Things were more difficult during the discussion afterwards. At one point Churchill repeated the adage ‘my country right or wrong’, to which Twain snapped back, ‘When the poor country is fighting for its life, I agree. But this was not your case.’

  It was a useful lesson, from which Churchill benefited on the rest of his overseas tour. The pro-Boer movement in the United States was far stronger than he had realised. His best recourse was humour. It came to his rescue in an incident in Chicago. The audience included a large contingent of Irish Americans, who jeered loudly. Churchill got by only with witty, self-deprecating remarks and praise for the Boers’ courage and humanity. Still, he was relieved that his last lectures would be in Canada. His audiences there were unstintingly appreciative—just as they had been at home. He could speak his mind again. ‘The first thing to be done, of course, is to crush De Wet and the guerrilla bands.’

  He returned to England early in February 1901, richer in experience and his stash of dollars. Converted into pounds, his earnings came to another £1500. This brought his total savings up to £10,000. He had earned it all himself, within a year and a half, thanks to the war in South Africa. He was high and dry for a few years to come. Now he could devote himself to his career in parliament.39

  Nature seemed to be conspiring against him: a sign from above that invading the Cape Colony, as Christiaan de Wet planned, might not be such a good idea after all. The drought had lasted until the end of November 1900. There was virtually no grazing, the horses were growing weaker by the day. If they didn’t recover, they would have to be replaced. Otherwise the whole venture was doomed. The spring rains fell at the beginning of December—and didn’t stop falling. Now there was far too much water. The veld became a swamp, and bubbling brooks turned into raging rivers.

  On the last stretch to the Cape, De Wet and his men faced the hazards of two of these torrents. At the Caledon River it was raining cats and dogs, but they managed to trudge across. Now there was still the Orange, and beyond that the Cape. On 4 December De Wet’s scouts reported that the drift at Odendaalstroom was passable, at least it was at that moment. But their hopes were dashed the following morning. It was obvious as soon as they reached the bank of the river. The water had risen overnight and they wouldn’t be able to cross it. Worse still, there was a British army camp on the other side. Their invasion of the Cape Colony had failed before it began.

  At least, this was De Wet’s conclusion. Waiting for the water to subside wasn’t an option. Approaching from the west was a British column under Major-General Knox, the commander who had caught him off guard at Bothaville and had been pursuing him across the Free State ever since. De Wet had to decide whether to go north, braving the Caledon again, or east, through officially neutral but traditionally hostile Basutoland: an unpredictable river or an unpredictable enemy. He opted for the river. But he left 300 men behind—with their best horses—led by Pieter Kritzinger and Captain Gideon Scheepers. They were to wait for an opportunity to cross the Orange to carry out at least part of the invasion plan.

  They succeeded in mid-December 1900, just as Hertzog and his 1200 men were entering the Cape 150 kilometres downstream. But all De Wet could do was turn back—with Knox still at his heels. To make faster progress and delay his pursuer, he decided to release the 400 British prisoners he had taken after the capture of Dewetsdorp two weeks earlier. On 7 December he was back at the Caledon. They could still cross it at Kommissiedrift, but there they ran into British troops that had dug in. They had better luck at Lubbesdrift, a few kilometres further north.

  On the other side of the river, he still had Knox to contend with. Knox had lost his trail for a while, but the skirmish at Kommissiedrift put him back on track. He resumed the pursuit, assisted by other columns, which were coming in from all sides. For a week these combined forces went after De Wet, leaving him no choice but to retreat further north. He had no opportunity to make a detour and head back to the Cape. His escape route in the north wasn’t safe either. To shake off his pursuers once and for all—well, for as long as it lasted—he would have to break through a British defence line at Springhaansnek, a pass with a fort on each side. But now fortune was with him. Reinforcements from the Bethlehem and Winburg commandos, under Michael Prinsloo and Sarel Haasbroek, arrived in the nick of time. They were well equipped and their horses were fresh. With their help he forced a way through Springhaansnek on 14 December and managed to escape again.

  His elusiveness dismayed Lord Kitchener, who had succeeded Lord Roberts as commander-in-chief of the British troops in South Africa on 29 November. ‘As long as De Wet is out, I can see no end to the war,’ he wrote to London in late December 1900. But it was also to the relief of Louis Botha, who hoped this would finally lead to a meeting with him ‘to discuss matters thoroughly and make sure we understand one another correctly’. The invitation was delivered to President Steyn on 8 December by one of Botha’s adjutants in person. De Wet must have seen it fairly soon afterwards.40

  Emily Hobhouse had been in Cape Town for more than a week when she received an invitation from Sir Alfred Milner for lunch at Government House on 8 January 1901. The letter of introduction from her aunt Mary, Lady Hobhouse, and her cousin Henry, the member of parliament for Somerset East, had yielded results. She was dreading the meeting. Would she be able to persuade Milner? Only once she had got to the Cape had she heard the worst reports, about Boer refugees and about British soldiers, the countless farms that had been burned down. News of these atrocities had already reached Britain, but all those camps, ‘refugee camps’ they called them, for heaven’s sake: that was news to her. In the train, travelling from the suburb where she was staying, her heart pounded wildly. To calm herself she turned to the letters she had just received. There was one from the Courtneys, the couple who had won her over to the Boer cause. Kate had written it, Leonard—most unusual because he had been blind for several years—had added a few words at the end: ‘Be prudent, be calm.’ That helped.

  She trusted Leonard Courtney. He was a seasoned politician, an independent, liberal-minded thinker with a social conscience. And he had been a member of parliament for the past 25 years, in spite of his disability. In January 1900, as president of the South African Conciliation Committee, he had invited Hobhouse to become secretary of the women’s branch. She had taken on the job with heart and soul. She knew all there was to know about dedication. For 15 years she had looked after her ailing father. At 35, the only romantic relationship of her life had come to an end. From then on, she devoted herself to campaigning against social injustice, to the cause of British miners who had emigrated to America, to women and children working in factories and, since the outbreak of the war in South Africa, to the
plight of the Boers, initially because of the unspeakable wrongs they had suffered and, later, in sympathy with their uprooted and displaced families.

  Hobhouse had first spoken out publicly about her concerns for Boer women and children on 13 June 1900, at a protest rally organised by the women’s division of the Conciliation Committee at the Queen’s Hall in London. Resolutions were passed against the government’s policies, against efforts to silence political opposition, and against the impending annihilation of a nation of kinsmen and brothers in faith. To these Hobhouse added a fourth resolution, an expression of solidarity with the women of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. She assured them that thousands of British women were sympathetic to their cause and deplored the actions of the British government.

  The response went beyond expressions of sympathy. The second half of 1900 saw an ominous increase in reports of systematic destruction by the British army in the Boer republics. The involvement of other antiwar activists like the Liberal parliamentarian John Morley strengthened Hobhouse’s resolve to take more vigorous action. ‘Daily British homes were darkened by death and Boer homes by destruction and desolation.’ A relief fund was needed. She would see to it, and indeed she did. The South African Women and Children’s Distress Fund was established in September 1900. It was a purely benevolent, non-political organisation in support of women and children of all colours and creeds throughout the country. Its purpose was to provide food, clothing and shelter to all who had suffered because of the war in South Africa. Within two months the fund had collected £300, enough for two railway trucks of aid. Hobhouse was going to deliver it herself.

  Her uncle and aunt, Lord and Lady Hobhouse, her brother and relatives and friends advised her against it. Was it wise? All on her own in a war zone, all those diseases, that gossip and backbiting, and what did she think she could achieve? But she wouldn’t listen to reason. She had made up her mind. The idea turned into a plan, the plan into a mission. She was 40 and this became her calling in life. She was going to save the women and children of South Africa.

  At Government House, her lunch companions took the wind out of her sails. She was the only woman in a party of eight. Milner broached the subject, but she felt uncomfortable among so many strangers and requested a private interview. He agreed. Fifteen minutes in the drawing room, which turned into more than an hour, and everything came out into the open. The high commissioner was reason itself. Yes, he agreed that burning down farms wasn’t right. And no, he had no objection to Hobhouse visiting the camps to distribute aid. There was just one thing. He would have to consult the new commander-in-chief and obtain his approval.

  Now it was a matter of waiting for Lord Kitchener. In the meantime, Hobhouse came to realise just how much the Boers’ recent incursion into the Cape Colony was troubling the authorities—Milner, that is. Martial law had been declared in areas where Hertzog and the other Boer commandants were about to break through. The line demarcating those areas was rapidly moving south. Milner did his best to accommodate her, but the consequences were becoming increasingly clear, even in Cape Town itself. He demanded the immediate surrender of all civilian arms, guns were installed in strategic positions, with barbed wire around them, and trenches were dug around important buildings. Cycling and riding were prohibited beyond the confines of the city. A 9.30 curfew came into effect. At 10.30, all lights were to be extinguished. But there were no Boer commandos—to Hobhouse’s regret—anywhere to be seen.

  On 17 January 1901 Kitchener’s reply came by telegram. He agreed in principle, but imposed two restrictions. She wasn’t to go beyond Bloemfontein, and he felt that it wouldn’t be necessary to have a ‘Dutch lady’ accompany her, as she had requested. The reply was better than nothing, Hobhouse concluded, and she decided to go. Her two railway trucks were less than half full: the prices here had astonished her. The consignment came to a total of six tonnes, half clothing, half foodstuffs. On 22 January 1901 she set off for Bloemfontein. On her arrival, she heard that Queen Victoria was dead.41

  Guilty landscape

  Naauwpoort, December 1900

  Three days had passed, but Deneys Reitz was still distraught. It was 16 December 1900, Dingane’s Day, the commemoration of the Boer triumph over the Zulus at Blood River. At last there was something to celebrate. They had won a victory at Nooitgedacht, but he was still tormented by the image of a British soldier with half of his head blown off. The memory continued to haunt him. It had been his bullet, his dum-dum. In Warmbaths he had put a few of them in a separate slot in his cartridge belt to use for shooting game. But this had slipped his mind, and in the heat of battle he had unwittingly loaded one. And this was exactly where General Beyers and Dominee Kriel were intending to erect a new monument. Everyone was to lay a single stone to form a large cairn of remembrance, like the one in Paardekraal, which Roberts had later removed. Reitz didn’t care for the idea.

  The victory at Nooitgedacht had been a memorable one. The Boers had launched an attack for the first time in almost a year. While they had been unsuccessful at Platrand, south of Ladysmith, on 6 January 1900, this time they pressed on. Beyers’s commando, among them Reitz and the rest of the Afrikander Cavalry, had forced the decision. It had been uphill, on top of it, in the half-light of dawn, storming the entrenched Northumberland Fusiliers, screaming and shooting, deflecting bayonets with the butts of their rifles. They suffered heavy casualties, around 20 dead and 60 wounded. The British lost almost 100, with the same number captured.

  After seizing the British fortifications, Beyers had sent Krause and his Afrikander Cavalry to comb the mountain ridge. Reitz had been with them, of course. They had run into a division of Imperial Yeomanry making their way up, and wiped out the entire unit of 20 or 30 men—including that solitary soldier, who had suddenly appeared a short distance away.

  Then they had returned to the top. It was seven o’clock in the morning, the battle at Nooitgedacht was as good as decided. Beforehand, the generals in charge—De la Rey, Smuts and Beyers—had planned to launch surprise attacks on the British army camp at the foot of the mountain and the reinforced positions on the slopes simultaneously. They had failed at the camp, because the Boers’ advance guard had been detected too soon, but the success of Beyers and his men had made up for it. Having eliminated their adversaries, they now opened fire on the army camp below, leaving the officer in command, Major-General R.A.P. Clements, no option but to beat a hasty retreat.

  At that point, Beyers’s men began to descend as well. On the way down, Reitz came upon the soldier he had shot at close range. Only then did he see the damage his bullet had caused. He was speechless with horror. He grabbed his cartridge belt, found a few more dum-dums and flung them into the river. It was red with blood. He turned and fled downhill.

  On his path he met two wounded British officers. It was like stepping onto another planet. They casually struck up a conversation with him. Did he speak English? Good. Then could he explain why the Boers were still fighting the war when it was clear that they would lose? As if he had rehearsed it, a passage from David Copperfield flashed through Reitz’s mind. ‘Oh, well, you see, we’re like Mr. Micawber, we are waiting for something to turn up.’ The officers laughed heartily. ‘Didn’t I tell you this is a funny country, and now here’s your typical young Boer quoting Dickens.’

  The British army camp offered more distractions. Beyers had ordered his commandos to pursue Clements’s retreating troops, but they thought otherwise. The spoils were better than anything they had seen in a long time and the temptation was too great. Besides, what were they to do with even more prisoners? They were in any case always released after a few days. Reitz saw no harm in plundering; it was pure necessity, they had to replenish their provisions. Both he and his brother Arend found plenty among the camp’s abundant supplies: two extra horses with saddles and halters, a new Lee-Metford rifle each, with ammunition, to replace their battered Mausers, as well as tea, coffee, salt, sugar, food, clothing and books, all of which
had become luxuries.

  Still, his conscience was troubling him. Reitz decided not to attend the ceremony on Dingane’s Day. De la Rey, Smuts and Beyers addressed the gathering of burghers. The first two recalled the Battle of Blood River in 1838 and the Voortrekkers’ pledge before their victory over the Zulus. Beyers talked about the importance of commemorating the event, especially now, when the Boers were being put to the test and it was all too easy to succumb to weakness. The pledge was repeated in a ceremony led by Dominee Kriel, and everyone laid stones to form a cairn.

  Except Deneys Reitz. How could he have stood there and quoted Dickens as if nothing was wrong? He had thought long and hard about what he had done. It hadn’t been intentional, but he needed to justify it. What difference did it make if you shot someone with an explosive bullet or blew them to smithereens with a lyddite shell, as people were doing all the time in this war? Dead is dead, Master Copperfield. Even so, he wouldn’t feel comfortable laying a stone.42

  Piet de Wet thought it was time to do more. It was 11 December 1900, more than four months had passed since he surrendered, and the situation had only deteriorated. There was wholesale destruction, complete districts had been razed, the country was falling to pieces. The guerrilla raids had to stop. From Durban, where he had been living in self-imposed exile, he requested and obtained Kitchener’s permission to return to Kroonstad. He had an idea for a peace initiative. On the way, he stopped off in Johannesburg. It had come to his knowledge that his sister-in-law Cornelia was staying there. Perhaps he could reason with her and she could persuade Christiaan to abandon the struggle. The very thought was naive. Cornelia showed him the door and asked the military commandant to order her brother-in-law to ‘refrain from further visits in the future’. In that case, he would have to deal with the problem himself head-on.