Piet de Wet wasn’t the only one who wanted to see the war over and done with. Many others had tried to intervene in the preceding months, and in December 1900 they began to form organised groups. In several towns and cities prominent hensoppers, including former members of the Volksraad, were forming peace committees. Piet de Wet became the chairman of the local committee in Kroonstad. Meyer de Kock was the leading light in the Transvaal Colony. Kitchener refused to negotiate with them. Britain had no intention of abandoning the struggle and there was no chance of foreign intervention: that’s what they could tell the Boer fighters in the field. And they did. In late December the committees sent out scores of representatives to try to persuade them to lay down their arms.43
They spread the same message through newspapers and pamphlets. Piet de Wet, for instance, wrote to his brother Christiaan on 11 January 1901. Soon afterwards, his letter appeared in the Bloemfontein Post, and subsequently as a pamphlet called Brother to Brother. The introduction said it all. ‘Dear Brother, I have heard that you are angry and would kill me because you believe me to be guilty of treason.’ He proceeded to discuss the accusation that he had been bought off by the British, and replied quite simply, ‘God will judge righteously.’ But he also had something to say in reply. If his brother and Steyn continued the war, the people would be ‘impoverished, as many already are’. They would ultimately become ‘the country’s labouring class and disappear as a nation’. And what for? ‘Are you blind?’ Was Christiaan really unable to see that he was ‘being deceived by the Transvaal generals and burghers’? They had not ‘fought a tenth of the battle that we Free Staters are fighting. The Transvaal is nowhere near as ravaged as the Free State.’ And the Transvaal generals had long been wanting to surrender, ‘but are waiting to see what you do. They will give up the moment you surrender, fall or are captured. I beg you to consider this all before you go any further.’44
His heartfelt appeal didn’t have the effect he had hoped for. Christiaan de Wet ignored the letter, in any event publicly. He is said to have threatened to shoot his younger brother if he came anywhere near him. Piet de Wet didn’t lose hope. He directed his efforts to like-minded people in the Cape Colony. The high commissioner, Milner, expected little to come of them, but gave his consent. In February 1901 De Wet went to Cape Town, accompanied by members of several other peace committees in the Orange River Colony. First he spoke to T.P. Theron, the president of the Afrikaner Bond, and subsequently to influential church ministers, but all to no avail.
The party also visited the prisoner-of-war camp in Green Point, an encounter that did bear fruit. For one thing, it sowed unrest among the Boer prisoners. Some reviled Piet de Wet and his companions, others were more receptive to their message of peace. At any rate, that is how it seemed, though few dared to speak openly. Moreover, De Wet noted, there were Boers among them who had voluntarily laid down their arms and who could therefore not be deemed prisoners of war. After the visit he urged Milner to establish a second camp in order to separate the ‘good’ prisoners from the ‘bad’. Milner was in favour and proceeded to do so, notwithstanding Kitchener’s reservation. A ‘peace camp’ was opened in Simonstown in March 1901, to which 800 prisoners—those who had accepted British rule—were transferred. Those who refused to do so could be sent to camps overseas.45
So Piet de Wet did achieve something, which was more than the other peacemakers could say. Even the venerable Marthinus Pretorius had got nowhere. The 81-year-old former president of both republics, and founder (in 1855) of Pretoria (named after his Voortrekker father, Andries), visited Louis Botha in January 1901, at his own initiative, according to Kitchener. He left empty-handed, with the message that Botha wasn’t prepared to talk to intermediaries. If Kitchener had something to say, he should say it himself, in writing.
But at least the elderly Pretorius returned safely from his mission. A few others were less fortunate. Johannes Morgendaal and his father-inlaw, Andries Wessels, were prosperous Free State Boers. Morgendaal was a justice of the peace and a scribe for the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk. Wessels was a member of the Volksraad. These were men of standing in Kroonstad and its environs. Having lost faith in further resistance, they set off for Christiaan de Wet’s camp towards the end of December 1900. On the way, they were arrested and tried. A court martial under General Stoffel Froneman referred their case to a higher court. Pending their hearing, they were taken along with Christiaan de Wet’s commando, as prisoners. Froneman had been instructed to keep them under close watch.
On 9 January 1901 things went wrong. Early in the morning a scout reported—mistakenly, as it later transpired—that the British were approaching. Froneman ordered Morgendaal to help span the oxen. Morgendaal took no notice. ‘I’m not a Hottentot,’ he said. Froneman set on him with his sjambok. Morgendaal managed to wrest the whip from his hands and a fight ensued. Christiaan de Wet, watching from a distance, yelled ‘Shoot the motherfucker’, or words to that effect. Froneman fired, and fatally wounded Morgendaal. The following day the court martial convened to try his father-in-law. The 15 officers, chaired by De Wet, pronounced Wessels guilty of treason and sentenced him to death. He owed his life to President Steyn, who commuted the penalty.
Schalk Burger, the acting president of the Transvaal, was less lenient in the case of Meyer de Kock, who was arrested on 23 January 1901 and brought to trial a week later. He was tried on four counts: evasion of commando duties and surrendering arms to the enemy, conspiring with the enemy, possession of incriminating documents belonging to the peace committee he chaired, and attempting to incite civilians to surrender. He, too, was found guilty of treason. The difference was that Burger refused to grant clemency and signed the court judgment. On 12 February De Kock was executed by firing squad.46
Methodical. If there was one quality by which Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, the British commander-in-chief in South Africa, wanted to distinguish himself from his predecessor, it was his rigorous pursuit of his objectives. Obsessively rigorous, critics said, and ultimately self-defeating, as when, on a previous occasion, he had centralised the transport system and earned himself the nickname K of Chaos.47
Kitchener saw things differently. The problem was the way orders were being carried out, and that could only be solved by more stringent measures. The same applied to the way they were dealing with guerrilla fighters. This, too, needed to be more systematic. Lord Roberts had issued one proclamation after another and provided for appropriate reprisals, but it had still ended up in random acts of terror. It all had to be more efficient, like clockwork.
On 7 December 1900, at the end of his first week in office, he gave the first sign of what was to come. He issued a memorandum with new instructions for columns crossing the highveld. It wasn’t about destroying farms or other property so much as ‘denuding the country of supplies and livestock’. This served two purposes. It enabled the columns to provide for their needs and it deprived the enemy of all means of subsistence. So the first step was to remove or destroy livestock and food supplies.
Two weeks later Kitchener announced the second step: people. On 21 December he sent a confidential circular to all high-ranking officers. In order to end the guerrilla war all non-combatant civilians were to be removed from areas where Boer commandos were active. This would prevent anyone from assisting or communicating with the fighting men, whether by choice or under coercion. They would be left to fend for themselves, without logistical or moral support.
The uprooted communities were to be housed in camps in their own district, in the vicinity of a railway line to facilitate supply transports. In the process, they were to be divided into two categories: firstly, those who had voluntarily laid down their arms, along with their families, and secondly, the families of men who were still active in the struggle. It went without saying that the first category were to receive preferential treatment in the camps. Their property rights were to be respected and they were to be given priority, if necessary, when it came to accommodati
on and rations: better tents and more food.
A separate section of the circular dealt with the black population. The aim was not ‘to clear kaffir locations’ as such. But Africans living on Boer properties, as servants or otherwise, were also to be removed, along with their livestock. They could keep their possessions, if at all practicable. In the camps they were to be given adequate protection. They could also be employed to perform any necessary work, at the prevailing ‘tariff for natives’.48
This was all to be carried out systematically: depopulating the region by obliterating all signs of life and returning the earth to a state of barren wilderness. This was Kitchener’s policy resolution for the year 1901, his Christmas greeting for the twentieth century. The operation began in the eastern Transvaal at the end of January. Eight columns, more than 20,000 troops, set off under Major-General French to flush out Botha and his commandos and strip the whole region of humans, animals and crops. The commanding officers were to keep records of the ‘proceeds’, or what Kitchener called ‘bags’.
Deneys Reitz was still serving with General Beyers’s commando but they had left the Magaliesberg and were heading east. Botha had summoned them to Ermelo. One day he saw the assembled British columns approaching, filling the horizon as far as the eye could see. It came as a terrible shock. Beyers divided his men into two groups. The first went off to locate the enemy’s left flank. The other, which included Deneys and his brother Arend, were to delay their advance.
They saw at once how the British went about their task. Pillars of smoke rose up behind them. From fleeing women he heard that the British were destroying everything in their path and arresting everyone they encountered. Crops too rain-sodden to burn were trampled by cattle. The following day brought a stampede of people fleeing from the columns. ‘The plain was alive with wagons, carts, and vehicles of all descriptions, laden with women and children.’ Horses, cattle and sheep were being ‘hurried onward by native herdboys’, with farms and haystacks burning behind them. Botha directed the refugees to Swaziland, across the border, to escape from the British.
In the meantime, the Boer fighters were recovering from their initial shock. They noticed that the British were unable to maintain a continuous front. ‘The troops were left groping about after the elusive Boer forces, which easily evaded the lumbering columns plodding through the mud far in the rear.’ The army’s new strategy of obliterating everything in their path did little to dent the morale of the Boers in the field, Deneys Reitz noted. On the contrary, it only strengthened their resolve to keep fighting.49
Emily Hobhouse enjoyed the train journey through the Karoo more than Willem and Louise Leyds had done in their day, or Winston Churchill just over a year before.50 And this in spite of its not being the best time of year. Sandstorms and thunderstorms followed one another in a seemingly endless cycle. The sandstorms were the worst. Even with the doors and windows closed, her coupé was covered in a layer of red dust. It penetrated her eyes, her ears, her hair; it covered everything like a tablecloth. Yet there was something extraordinary about this pristine wilderness—the wide open spaces, the flowing lines, the infinite sky. The following stretch, from Colesberg, was bleaker. Formerly the Orange Free State, it was now the Orange River Colony. Well, this really was a desolate, depressing landscape. It had once flourished, as anyone could see, but now it was deserted and lifeless, strewn with the corpses of horses and cattle, burned and abandoned farms, litter everywhere, no one tending the land. And no Boer commandos to be seen, unfortunately. There wasn’t a soul on the entire journey except bored British soldiers, cadging for newspapers and books.
The soldiers were everywhere. She had found them disquieting when she arrived in Bloemfontein on 24 January 1901. You couldn’t move an inch without their permission; identity checks were carried out on every street corner. It was oppressive and she could imagine how the locals must have felt. It was a good thing that she had the letter of introduction from Milner. The town’s military governor, Major-General G.T. Pretyman, knew she was coming and granted her permission to visit the women’s camp whenever it suited her.
Hobhouse couldn’t wait. The next day she was standing at the entrance. It was a tent camp only a few kilometres from Bloemfontein, out in the veld, just like that. Not a tree, no shade at all anywhere for the 2000 women and children, plus a handful of men—hensoppers. Where to begin? The sister of a woman she had met in Cape Town was said to be here, a Mrs Botha. She would look her up first. She found her sweltering in one of the thin canvas tents, with her five children and a native servant. Each had a blanket, nothing more, no beds, no chairs, no table, only a small chest to store food.
Other women came to the tent, with more shocking details. When it rained, the tents flooded. Many children were ill. There was a separate tent for people with measles. More and more were dying. As they were speaking, Hobhouse noticed a snake slither into the tent, a puffadder, the women said, quite poisonous. While they went for help, Hobhouse attacked it with her parasol. Just imagine that happening at night, when everyone was asleep on the ground. Hobhouse wasn’t able to drive it away, but the women returned with a man, who killed the snake with a hammer.
Hobhouse had seen and heard enough to form a first impression. What a disgrace! She would talk to the person in charge of the camps, Major R.B. Cray. As they spoke, their roles were reversed and in the end it was Cray who complained to her. He had no resources: no money, no equipment, no transport. He was at his wits’ end. Perhaps she had connections who would be willing to help. She did at least have her trucks half-filled with food supplies and clothing. But it was a drop in the ocean. Far more was needed. In the first place, a separate tent for the deceased awaiting burial, who at present were left in their living quarters. More clean water—the water obtained from the Modder River contained typhoid bacteria. Insufficient wood was available to boil it. Milk and soap were in short supply. Schooling for the hundreds of children in the camp. Protection for the women: many soldiers were present in the camp. A bilingual woman director.
Cray appreciated her recommendations. However, he took ill a few days later, leaving the camp without a commander. His temporary replacement, Captain Hume, was indifferent to the suffering of his charges. He was not the kind of man Hobhouse could work with.
Hobhouse described the conditions in a lengthy letter to her aunt Mary, which was delivered by an acquaintance in order to bypass the censors. The camps were ‘murder to the children’. Fifty people, mostly children, had died in the preceding six or seven weeks. If nothing was done, the mortality rate would increase. And this was only one of the camps. As far as she knew, tens of thousands of Boer women and children were incarcerated. And they weren’t refugees who were there for their own safety, as the authorities claimed. They were prisoners, she said, detained against their will. Indeed, the whole of Bloemfontein was a prison of sorts. She had seen Mrs Steyn, the president’s wife, in the street on several occasions, always tailed by a soldier with a bayonet on his rifle. She had also heard about a separate camp for Africans, which evidently held about 500 prisoners.
Couldn’t her aunt write a letter to The Times? Lord Hobhouse, a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, was a man of high standing and Lady Hobhouse was influential in her own right. Could they make an appeal to the conscience of the British people? The lives of women and children were at stake. Word had it that Kitchener was intending to denude the whole of the highveld. They had already started in the Transvaal. Many more women and children would be sent to the camps as a result. Whether it was true or not, she couldn’t say. Nor could she confirm the rumour that Christiaan de Wet, apparently heading south with 4000 men, had passed within 25 kilometres of Bloemfontein on the night of 31 January 1901. In any event, 7000 soldiers had been sent to pursue them. Hopefully he would escape this time, too.51
De Wet was indeed on his way to the Cape Colony again, not with 4000 but 3000 men. The rest of the account was true. It was also true that the British c
olumns were close on his heels, as usual, and as usual they had arrived just too late. He had gone his own way again, regardless of Botha and Smuts’s plans. They had wanted to discuss the possibility of a joint action with De Wet, but he hadn’t responded to their invitation. He had more faith in the letters that had come in from his own officers. Assistant Chief Commandant Hertzog, Commandant Kritzinger and Captain Scheepers had been operating in the Cape since December 1900 and were optimistic about the mood among the Afrikaners. De Wet just needed to appear in person, they said, to unleash a mass uprising. In addition, the recent wave of destruction carried out by British troops demanded some form of reprisal, and President Steyn would like to see something done on or around 14 February 1901, exactly a year after Roberts’s invasion of the Orange Free State.
This encouraged De Wet to try again. The main problem was that the British knew about his plan and were desperate to stop him. Kitchener had even withdrawn two columns from his ‘dragnet operation’ in the eastern Transvaal to go after him, while extra troops were being transferred by train to the border area in order to apprehend him there. His only advantage was that no one knew where he was planning to cross the Orange, whether he was on the east or the west side of the Bloemfontein–Cape Town railway line. He had made his previous attempt in the east, in November 1900, and he was heading in the same direction again. Or, rather, he had sent out his generals, Froneman and Fourie, with large contingents of men to give the British that impression. The ruse was successful. De Wet and a smaller unit, which included Steyn and the rest of the government, set off in the opposite direction. On 10 February 1901 they crossed the Orange at Sand Drift, about 60 kilometres west of the railway. He had finally reached the Cape Colony.
But what to do now? They had covered more than 400 kilometres since leaving the northern Orange Free State and the journey had taken its toll. Hundreds of men, afraid of what was to come, had dropped out on the way. All told, there weren’t many more than 2000 men left. They had lost some of their horses, and those that remained were worn out. And good grazing turned out to be scarce in the Cape. Locusts had eaten the grass. It rained incessantly, but that didn’t solve the problem. In the circumstances, De Wet decided it would be wise to wait for those who had remained behind, particularly Fourie’s men.
The Boer War Page 44
