The Boer War

by Martin Bossenbroek

  It was a huge gamble, because the area they were in was cut off by railway lines on three sides. If the British acted quickly, they could destroy the advantage that De Wet’s diversionary tactic had given them. And that is exactly what happened. Combat troops brought in by train blocked De Wet’s route. He couldn’t continue south and penetrate deeper into the Cape Colony. Only a small contingent of about 50 men led by Lieutenant Wynand Malan managed to get through. De Wet and his main force had no option but to go west. There, too, a railway line obstructed their path, but they managed to cross it under cover of darkness. It meant riding or, more accurately, struggling all through the night: the last stretch was marshland. It was hard enough to negotiate in normal conditions, but after the downpours of the preceding few days it was gruelling. The water came up to their saddles, the mud to their knees. Their horses were exhausted and could hardly move. The men had to dismount and lead them by their reins—and leave behind the many that collapsed. Getting the wagons through was almost impossible. They managed to transport the few guns they had with them, using up to 50 oxen for each one. The wagons with munitions and maize meal were, however, hopelessly stranded. Even the invincible De Wet was close to despair. He left Fourie behind with 100 men to make a last attempt to save their supplies. If they didn’t succeed, they were to blow them up before the British arrived. He and his main force continued on their way.

  By first light—it was 15 February—they crossed the railway line. A few kilometres further, they found grass for the horses and sheep for the men to slaughter. It was a relief after their ordeal in the night. But it hadn’t really been worthwhile. Covered in mud, the men looked like scarecrows. More than 200 horses had died, and they had heard gunfire in the distance. They had lost their wagons and supplies as well. There was little time to catch their breath. The British were on their way. The following day De Wet decided to press on, leaving the 300 men on foot to make their way back to the Free State on their own. However, their pursuers were approaching rapidly, so they continued walking with the rest, carrying their rifles, saddles and blankets over their shoulders. The route south was still obstructed, so De Wet veered off to the north-west.

  On 19 February he found himself back at the Orange, at the point where the Brak River joins it from the south. He had been in a similar situation before. They would have to cross the Brak to go further into the Cape, or the Orange in order to return. But the torrential rains had swollen both rivers and flooded the drifts, and the British were right behind him. The fact was inescapable: De Wet was marooned. With a heavy heart, he decided to call off the mission and at least try to save their lives. Under cover of darkness he followed the Orange upstream, leading his men past their British pursuers, hoping to find an opportunity to cross the river to the Orange Free State.

  It was almost impossible. All the drifts they passed were still too deep. They spent more than a week trudging along the south bank of the Orange. Even Sand Drift, where they had entered the Cape Colony, was impassable. There, however, they met both Fourie’s and Hertzog’s commandos, which had been active in the western Cape since mid-December. The reinforcement was welcome, as the British had not yet given up hope of surrounding De Wet. On 16 February Kitchener had come to De Aar in person, to coordinate the operation. No fewer than 12 columns had assembled in the vicinity of Colesberg. But De Wet was in luck. The fifteenth drift they reached—Botha’s Drift—was shallow enough for them to cross. This time the name was auspicious. On 28 February 1901 the Free State commandos crossed the Orange. The men were overjoyed to be back on their own territory. The British troops continued to hunt them down, driven by frustration more than by anything else. On 11 March they were forced to acknowledge that they had failed yet again. For the third time, Christiaan de Wet had eluded a massive manhunt.

  Another miraculous escape earned him a reputation as the elusive Boer Pimpernel—and rightly so. De Wet was a brilliant tactician, a master of the unexpected manoeuvre, a wizard at taking his adversaries by surprise. As a strategist, he was a loose cannon. His actions had done nothing to improve the chances of the Boers successfully invading the Cape Colony and a subsequent uprising among the Afrikaners living there. On the contrary, through his wilfulness, his impatience and his failure to make adequate preparations, he not only shot himself in the foot, but Botha and Smuts as well.

  This is not to say that a joint action by Transvalers and Free Staters—the Cyferfontein variant, carefully planned and executed—would have accomplished what they wanted. But it would definitely have made things more difficult for the British. The way things had gone now, their limited incursions had given the British ample opportunity to take precautions. By declaring martial law and requisitioning arms, munitions, horses and food supplies in the sensitive regions, the British had deprived the invading Boers and their potential supporters of vital resources. The uprising in the Cape Colony, the great ambition for the Boers and the worst nightmare for the British, had been forestalled for the time being.52

  Dead horse

  Ou Wapad, February 1901

  Deneys Reitz was intending to set off early that morning, but he was concerned about his brother’s chestnut. As he was untying its fetters, the animal had savaged his arm. It had never behaved like that before. He saddled up all the same and rode off, following the oxwagon on which Arend was travelling. They would be several kilometres ahead by now. Some time later he realised that all was not well. The horse was foaming at the mouth and nostrils, which he knew to be a symptom of African horsesickness. He led the animal to an abandoned farm a little further along and put him in the shade. That was his only hope. He knew he was clutching at straws, but one could never tell. An hour later, the horse was dead.

  This was his third horse to die of the dreaded disease within the space of a few weeks. He had been devastated the first time. He was still in the eastern Transvaal, at the time, in the vicinity of Ermelo, with Beyers’s commando. One morning his roan had come limping back from where it had been grazing. He had known at once. ‘Nosing against me he seemed to appeal for help’, but there was nothing he could do. ‘In less than an hour, with a final plunge, he fell dead at my feet.’ The loss of his ‘dear old roan’ affected him deeply. ‘A close bond had grown up between us in the long months since the war started, during which he had carried me so well.’

  There had been other partings in that time, as well. Botha had remained in the Transvaal. Beyers and his men had gone north, to the Waterberg, where most of them came from. The Afrikander Cavalry had no ties with any particular town. Their new commander, Jan Nagel, had decided to return to the western Transvaal, to join De la Rey, and the Reitz brothers had accompanied him. Arend had given Deneys one of his two horses, a spirited animal called Malperd, which allowed only the two brothers to ride it.

  After returning safe and sound to the Johannesburg area, they had spent a week in the Skurweberg, which was a serious mistake. In the rainy season it was tempting fate. The region was infested with mosquitoes carrying the horsesickness virus and the consequences were disastrous. They lost more than half their horses, including Malperd. Deneys reluctantly became part of the growing group of ‘foot soldiers’. They weren’t much use as commandos. At that point Nagel had decided to have a word with De la Rey: he might have horses for them. Half the men accompanied him, but the rest thought it futile. They had gone north, over the Magaliesberg and into the bush. So that was the end of the Afrikander Cavalry Corps.

  Deneys and Arend had also gone north, but with a different destination in mind. Their father was probably still in the vicinity of Lydenburg and they assumed he would be able to arrange horses for them. It was another interminable journey, 500 kilometres, with one horse between the two of them, but there was nothing else to be done. Before long, they had a lucky break. They came upon an outspanned oxwagon, which belonged to a woman whose husband was fighting with De la Rey. When the British were approaching she had fled with her children and a black servant, preferring the hard
ship of the bush to confinement in a camp. All she possessed were the belongings she had been able to carry on the oxwagon. If Deneys and Arend would lend a hand, they were welcome to join her. It was a foregone conclusion.

  They had travelled some distance when Deneys suddenly realised he had forgotten something. He no longer had a horse, but he still possessed saddlebags, and he had left them at the campfire that morning. They were valuable, particularly as they contained a supply of salt that he had managed to obtain a week earlier. He couldn’t just leave them behind. So it was agreed that he would borrow Arend’s chestnut and go back to retrieve his possessions. He would catch up with the oxwagon the following day.

  His saddlebags were still there, but the next morning the horse died. He had no option but to follow the oxwagon on foot. As the sun was blazing down, he decided to rest until it grew cooler. Looking for shade, he went into the deserted farmhouse. The floor was littered with cigarette butts, matches and other debris. The British had apparently been here, too. He also found a bundle of newspapers, eight or nine months old, and settled down to read. There was a war in China, Queen Victoria was dead, Roberts had been replaced by Kitchener—he hadn’t known about any of this.

  But what interested him most were the reports about Boer commandos in the Cape. He was riveted. The English papers spoke of rebels, desperadoes, bandits. To Deneys Reitz they were romantic heroes: Kritzinger, Malan and Gideon Scheepers, at 22, barely older than himself. He could picture it all. And he resolved to be part of it. No more fighting on these sad, wasted plains, no more struggling with ‘sore-hoofed, unshod horses—empty stomach—naked body’. There would be enough food and whatever else one needed to show that ‘you can’t make a Boer turn back, if he wants to go forward’—even all the way to the ocean. He had once boasted about this to his father. Now he was going to prove it.

  He had no horse, his boots were worn out, but he had made up his mind. He wouldn’t go north with Arend. He wouldn’t ask his father for a horse. He was going south, in search of adventure.53

  One man’s heroes were another’s desperadoes. There were two schools of thought about the Boer commandos invading the Cape Colony. Seen from the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, they were freedom fighters who kept alive the hope of an uprising that would change the course of the war. To the British military authorities they were lawless marauders, criminals, saboteurs, terrorists. The Cape’s civilian population was also of two minds. The Afrikaners were sympathetic and supportive. Hundreds joined them, and became known pejoratively as ‘Cape rebels’ by their English-speaking compatriots.

  The split between the whites occurred along predictable lines. The indigenous population was virtually unanimous. The vast majority of the coloured and African people54 were vehemently opposed to the commandos. A handful, like John Tengo Jabavu, the editor-in-chief of the influential newspaper Imvo Zabantsundu, protested on principle against the British undermining the independence of the Boer republics. But men like him were few and far between. By far the majority of Africans and coloureds took the side of the British against the Boers.

  This isn’t surprising. The non-white population of the Cape Colony stood to lose a great deal—as they did wherever the Boer commandos came to power: freedom, a decent livelihood, the basic conditions for survival. The coloured and African communities had had a taste of Boer government soon after the war broke out in November 1899. Free State commando units had invaded many parts of the Cape Colony. They not only behaved like a military invading force, brandishing Mausers to seize whatever they wanted, but they also imposed a new social order, using the sjambok to enforce it. They regarded the districts over which they took control as annexed territory, and accordingly introduced the administrative structures they were accustomed to in their own republics: their laws, their rules, their newly appointed landdrosts and their systematic subordination of coloureds and Africans. Both groups were disenfranchised, compelled to carry passes and to work on Afrikaner farms. Any form of resistance was brutally suppressed.

  It wasn’t difficult for black people to choose between the Boers and the British. They were more than willing to lend their support to the fight against the intruders from the north. The high commissioner, Milner, and others were soon talking about arming them, but that was a sensitive issue for the Afrikaner Bond. The Cape prime minister, William Schreiner, depended on the support of the Afrikaners and was anxious not to antagonise them, if only out of fear of inciting an uprising. The outcome was a reluctant compromise. Small auxiliary corps of coloureds and Africans were formed in regions under threat. Schreiner took cover behind the local military commanders, over whom he had no control, but that didn’t help him. He resigned in June 1900 over a dispute about sanctions against the Cape rebels.

  By that time, all Boer commandos had disappeared from the Cape. Roberts’s incursions into the Orange Free State and the Transvaal had demanded their attention. But they returned after December 1900, still wielding the rifle and the whip: military campaigns combined with administrative reorganisation and the oppression of the African and coloured populations. They operated in the sparsely populated and predominantly Afrikaner north-east and north-west of the Cape, steering clear of the eastern region, which had the largest black population and the most militant black auxiliary corps.55

  Boer commando raids were not confined to the border areas. Barry Hertzog and his men, for instance, advanced deep into the colony. They ventured as far as the Hantam mountains, 600 or 700 kilometres from the Free State border, and the last range before the Atlantic Ocean. One of the places they occupied was Calvinia, a small farming town with a few thousand Khoikhoi and San inhabitants, and a few hundred Afrikaners. There was nothing remarkable about this occupation, other than that it exemplified the way the Boer commandos operated in hostile territory, intentionally and unintentionally.

  On 12 January 1901 Commandant Charles Niewoudt proclaimed himself landdrost and swiftly issued a warrant for the arrest of 14 ‘suspects’. He had got their names from Afrikaners living in the area. Nine of the detainees were coloureds, one being the local blacksmith, Abraham Esau, the undisputed leader of the coloured community. Esau had been educated at an English mission school. He felt and lived like a ‘Coloured Englishman’. For months he had been trying to mount resistance against the Boers and, unsuccessfully, to secure arms for his community. As far as Niewoudt was concerned, the case was cut and dried: a coloured who thought he was an Englishman, and a troublemaker to boot. He would teach him a lesson.

  On 15 January Esau was tried by Field Cornet Carl van der Merwe. The hearing didn’t take long. He was convicted of slander against the Boers and of arming coloureds, and sentenced to 25 lashes. He was tied to a eucalyptus tree. Van der Merwe administered the punishment. After 17 lashes Esau lost consciousness. He was untied, held upright and beaten between the eyes with a stick. When he fell to the ground, he was kicked from all sides.

  That wasn’t the end of it. He was tortured for several weeks. Finally, on 5 February, on Van der Merwe’s orders, Esau was shackled, bound between two horses and dragged a few kilometres outside the village. There, Stephanus Strydom shot and killed him. The Boer commando left Calvinia the following day. A British column was approaching.56

  Abraham Esau’s death caused an uproar. In Calvinia, a mob of angry protesters threatened the Boer fighters, who fired warning shots to disperse them. The English press, in the colony and overseas, was scandalised. Politicians, especially in Cape Town, were furious. Milner had known Esau, or was at least aware of his insistent requests for the coloured community to be armed, and considered him ‘a most respectable, and for his class in life (a village blacksmith) superior man—far more civilised than the average Boer farmer’. Milner saw a pattern in it all: after Morgendaal and De Kock, now Esau. Murderous barbarians, those Boers.

  In London these incidents had the effect of polarising political opinion. Salisbury had reorganised his Cabinet after the Khaki election of October 1900. At 70,
he was no longer coping adequately with the combined offices of prime minister and secretary of state for foreign affairs. At any rate, this was his associates’ opinion. He resigned as foreign secretary, appointing Lansdowne to replace him. Lansdowne’s position as war secretary went to St John Brodrick, who had been under-secretary in the same department and at the Foreign Office. Soon afterwards, the British army came under a new commander-in-chief as well, when in January 1901 Roberts succeeded Wolseley. Joe Chamberlain remained as state secretary for the colonies, gaining increasing influence on foreign policy.

  What didn’t change, in spite of Roberts’s pledges to the contrary, was the military reality in South Africa. The war was far from over. No sooner had Kitchener taken command than he asked Brodrick for reinforcements, ideally troops from the overseas territories, mounted troops from British India who, unlike their own bunch, ‘forget their stomachs and go for the enemy’. But Brodrick rejected the proposal. This was still supposed to be ‘a white man’s war’, at least in the eyes of the world. Even before Roberts returned to England, the new Cabinet had agreed to send 30,000 reinforcements—and as many horses—including new contingents from Australia and New Zealand.

  This decision was grist to the mill of the Liberal Opposition, particularly to principled critics of the war like David Lloyd George. On 18 February 1901 the matter was tabled in the House of Commons. It was the first parliamentary debate on South Africa in the twentieth century, and the first under the new sovereign, King Edward VII. Lloyd George delivered a fiery speech. After all the disturbing reports about burning down farms, they wanted to send more troops? What better proof of the military and moral bankruptcy of the government’s policies? He had an axe to grind with one man in particular, General Bruce Hamilton, who had been responsible for the destruction of an entire village, the community of Ventersburg in the Orange Free State. ‘Brute’ Hamilton would be a more appropriate name, he suggested. ‘This man is . . . a disgrace to the uniform he wears.’57