The Boer War

by Martin Bossenbroek

  It was a depressing account. The Boers were running out of weapons, ammunition, food, clothing, horses, money, everything. Could supplies be sent from Europe, through German South West Africa perhaps? Moreover, there were 20,000 men, at most, who were still carrying arms, two-thirds in the Transvaal and a third in the Orange Free State. The black population was becoming increasingly hostile towards the commandos and more threatening towards their women and children. The British were strengthening their reinforcements, particularly around the railways, and deploying more coloureds and Africans as scouts and guards. They were arming them as well. The Boer fighters were ‘disconsolate’ about the plight of their families. They were either abandoned among the ruins of their farms, with no means of subsistence, or transported in open trucks to camps where they were mistreated by the hensoppers and deprived of food and drink. Many children were dying. Could they send emergency relief from Europe? With winter around the corner, Burger, Reitz and Botha were ‘pessimistic about the future’. They were still intending to ‘keep up the fight to the end’, but if nothing changed, they would probably be ‘compelled to lay down their arms’.66

  Botha wisely kept this conclusion to himself when he finally met Christiaan de Wet again, in late March 1901. They had arranged to meet in Vrede, in the northern Orange Free State, to reconcile their differences and restore a basis of trust. Both had some explaining to do: De Wet about his unauthorised incursions into the Cape Colony, Botha about his unilateral decision to negotiate with Kitchener. Both of those projects had led nowhere. They would do better working together. In any event, this was the understanding on which the military leaders of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State parted company: continue the struggle.67

  But winter set in. There was no change for the better. April passed. Bierens de Haan had only recently left the country. The Transvaal leaders were again overcome with despair. On 10 May 1901 they held a military council meeting on a farm called De Emigratie, near Ermelo. Besides Burger, Reitz and Botha, it was attended by generals Smuts, Ben Viljoen and Chris Botha. They reached a unanimous decision. Now they needed to hear what Kruger thought of it. They assumed that the British wouldn’t allow Bierens de Haan to return, in which case they would ask Kitchener, as a favour, to allow them to send official envoys back and forth. If he refused, they would request a ceasefire in order to discuss the situation with their people.

  The proposal had far-reaching implications which, this time, they did discuss with their allies. Reitz wrote a letter to the Orange Free State government that same day, listing five reasons to support his case. The first two were about the loss of men and matériel. Burghers were defecting in droves, and soon there would be none left. Their supply of weapons was virtually depleted. The remaining three reasons were to do with morale. The government was losing its authority, the leaders their personal influence, and the people their trust. They couldn’t ‘allow things to continue as they are’. It was time ‘to take decisive measures’.

  President Steyn agreed, but drew a different conclusion. He had been confronted with the Transvalers’ indecisiveness before—first on 1 June 1900, the day before the fall of Pretoria—and it usually threw him into a rage,68 as it did now. On 15 May he sent two letters in reply, an official one to Reitz and a personal note to Smuts, venting his indignation. Shortages of everything, weapons, food, you name it, they had that in the Orange Free State as well; ‘apathy among burghers and officers’, too. But give up the struggle? The cause they had espoused for the sake of the Transvaal? Never. If the Transvalers were to desert the Free Staters and the rebels in the Cape and Natal, it would be the end of the Afrikaner nation. For the nation to survive, ‘we must demonstrate that now through our perseverance and strength to fight and suffer’.69

  This time, Steyn’s withering reply wasn’t enough to sway the Transvaal leaders. They stubbornly persisted in their plan to contact Kruger, but by other means, by sending telegrams instead of emissaries. For that, too, they needed Kitchener’s consent, and again they used a Dutch intermediary.

  On 22 May 1901 the consul-general of the Netherlands, F.J. Domela Nieuwenhuis, was summoned to Melrose House. British headquarters had received a request from Botha for permission to use the Dutch cipher code to communicate with Kruger by telegram. Kitchener had consented. If the Dutch consul-general agreed, the idea was to collect the telegram in Standerton, a town in the south-eastern Transvaal, between the Vaal and the railway line to Natal. Domela Nieuwenhuis thought the procedure unnecessarily complicated—couldn’t Botha’s representatives come to Pretoria?—but in the end he consented. On 26 May he took the train to Standerton, accompanied by the vice-consul, A.D Roosegaarde Bisschop. The Boer representatives hadn’t yet arrived, so Domela Nieuwenhuis returned, leaving his vice-consul to wait for them. Smuts only got there on 1 June, accompanied by a secretary, both of them blindfolded. Roosegaarde Bisschop received the telegram for Kruger from them and returned to Pretoria a day later. He translated the text into French and converted it into their cipher code. On 3 June the telegram was sent to The Hague.70

  Willem Leyds was taken aback. In mid-April, not long before, someone had delivered a message from F.W. Reitz. It had been encouraging: they still had sufficient weapons and food, meat and maize meal—monotonous but adequate. Clothing was in short supply, some men were reduced to wearing sheepskins, but they were determined to carry on. They seemed to be managing.

  And now this. He had received two disturbing messages, one after another, the note from Bierens de Haan and Smuts’s telegram. Leyds knew that Smuts wasn’t pessimistic by nature. This made it all the more worrying. ‘Our circumstances are dire,’ he wrote. Their weapon supplies were almost depleted. Farms and food supplies had been destroyed. Women and children were imprisoned in camps, or roaming in woods and mountains. Some had been murdered by Swazis and Zulus. ‘Virtually all the kaffir tribes in the north’ were rebellious. Burghers were defecting to the British side. If nothing was done, it would end in an even bigger catastrophe. In spite of it all, Smuts admitted honestly, the president of the Orange Free State wouldn’t hear of giving up. He had urgently called for a conference, which was to be held as soon as a reply came from Kruger. They hadn’t heard from him for the past eight months. They wanted ‘a full, final statement so that we know where we stand’.71

  This was no easy question. Leyds didn’t know the answer and the delegation wasn’t much help: Fischer was wary, Wessels invisible, Wolmarans a loose cannon. Nothing to be achieved there. They couldn’t even agree on where Kruger should be, let alone what he should do. Montagu White, the Transvaal consul to the United States, initially thought the old Boer leader should go there, to win sympathy. But then perhaps not, because it might harm his image. Or maybe later. Wolmarans urged Kruger to settle in The Hague, close to the royal court, the nobility, the government and the diplomatic corps. Leyds thought it a terrible idea for exactly the same reason. He went to great lengths to persuade Wolmarans of the undesirable diplomatic implications, and refused to give in. In January 1901 Kruger installed himself in Hotel des Pays-Bas in Utrecht; in April he moved to a guest house, Casa Cara, in Hilversum.

  That’s where they held the meeting to discuss a reply to Smuts. Leyds was best equipped to deal with the factual matters, and so he did. Intervention by one of the powers wasn’t on the cards. It was impossible to get weapons through. He had tried and failed. However, judging by reports from England, the prospects in the Cape Colony weren’t unfavourable. Moreover, British public opinion was shifting in favour of the Boers. Everything possible was being done to help the women and children in the camps, the prisoners of war in exile, too. Those were the facts as they stood. But the answer to the most important question had to come from the president himself. Make peace or persevere? Kruger left nothing in doubt. The two republics had started the war together, he felt; both had already made huge sacrifices ‘in possessions and lives’, and they should pull together to the end. Even if, ‘God forbid, the situation bec
ame hopeless and further resistance impossible’. In other words, they should continue to fight together until it was no longer feasible. This was the wording of the telegram to Smuts, signed by Leyds and Fischer on Kruger’s behalf. On 11 June it was coded and sent to Pretoria.72

  The reply was received by the consul-general, Domela Nieuwenhuis, who had it deciphered and sealed in an envelope, ready to be collected. But, again, Kitchener wouldn’t hear of the enemy making use of his communication lines, for security reasons. Roosegaarde Bisschop would have to go to Standerton again. Kitchener laid on a special train, this time with all due ceremony and privileges. He probably had high expectations. The train was escorted by 100 men, it stopped nowhere, the regular service was held up, and the military railway staff were ‘most accommodating’. On 15 June 1901 Roosegaarde Bisschop delivered Kruger’s telegram to a grateful Smuts.

  The British had apparently failed to crack the Dutch cipher code (though they did later), or otherwise Kitchener wouldn’t have taken the trouble to have the telegram delivered so quickly. This boosted the Transvaal leaders’ morale, as did the outcome of two recent encounters on the battlefield. On 29 May, General Jan Kemp had inflicted heavy losses on a British column at Vlakfontein in the western Transvaal. And on 12 June, General Chris Muller had overpowered an Australian unit of around 350 men of the 5th Victorian Mounted Rifles at Wilmansrust, near Ermelo. Their weapons, which included pom-poms, were more than welcome, not to mention their ammunition, clothing and food.

  Burger, Reitz, Botha and Smuts had regained their confidence, to the surprise of Steyn and De Wet, who on 20 June 1901 had come to the meeting in Waterval, in the vicinity of Standerton, feeling indignant and apprehensive. Hertzog, De la Rey and Viljoen were present as well. All the most important Transvaal and Free State leaders were meeting face to face for the first time since Cyferfontein, eight months earlier. It was high time they did. Little had come of the Cyferfontein resolution. Steyn opened the meeting by denouncing the Transvalers’ unauthorised peace initiatives, although this hadn’t come to the point where he would have to fight on alone. To his relief, he noted that their ‘indecisiveness appeared to have vanished’ as a result of Kruger’s message. They had closed ranks again. Unanimously they reaffirmed their commitment to peace only on condition of independence for both republics. In addition, the Transvalers agreed to organise a raid on the Cape in support of the Free State men who were already operating there. De la Rey would equip the expedition, Smuts would be in command.

  To inform the burghers, they published a General Notice that same day. It explained the telegrams they had exchanged with President Kruger and included a report on the ‘Conference of the Governments of the Two Republics’. They claimed that the Waterval resolution had the support of ‘the vast majority of our nation, women and children as well as men’. The crux of the notice was that ‘no peace will be made nor terms for peace accepted which would divest us of our independence and autonomous existence as a nation, or harm the interests of our brothers in the colonies [Natal and the Cape], and that the war shall be continued with vigour’.73

  Emily Hobhouse was excited at the prospect—although she also had misgivings that she wouldn’t admit to. She would keep her vow before a full audience in the Queen’s Hall. There, she would tell the British people about the suffering of the Boer women and their children. That was the mission she had sworn to accomplish. The date had been set for 24 June 1901 and 2500 people were expected. ‘The musical centre of the Empire’ was sold out. John Percival, the bishop of Hereford, was to chair the evening. Then it all fell apart. On government orders, the theatre cancelled the contract. Her talk was called off on account of the risk of public disturbances. An alternative venue, Westminster Chapel, rejected her application. The great public event in London failed to materialise.

  Hobhouse thought it was worse for those pitiful women trapped in the war zone in South Africa, thousands of kilometres away. She felt she had let them down. They were brave, but they and their sick, undernourished children were entirely on their own. Who else would plead their cause? She had witnessed the atrocities with her own eyes. For three months, from late January to the end of April, she had visited internment camps, which were euphemistically called refugee camps. At any rate, she had seen as much as Kitchener would allow her to. And there was Milner as well. Once he had been appointed to administer the two new colonies, he had become less accommodating than in the past. Besides Bloemfontein, she had visited five more camps: Norvals Pont, Aliwal North and Springfontein in the Orange River Colony, as well as those in Kimberley and Mafeking, but she had been denied access to the area north of Bloemfontein and to the whole of the Transvaal.

  From what she had seen, the camps were all much of a muchness. Some were marginally less unsanitary than others, some were administered by men with at least a modicum of concern for the welfare of their charges, and here and there she met dedicated nurses. But on the whole, conditions in the overcrowded and unhygienic camps were abominable. People slept on the ground in leaky tents, deprived of sufficient food, milk, water and soap. The ablution facilities were disgraceful. No provision was made for the sick or for disposal of the bodies of the dead. Women and children were without warm clothing for the approaching winter.

  The military authorities were indifferent. The camps were congested, with catastrophic consequences. While travelling back and forth between them, Hobhouse had seen transports of women and children, crowded like animals in open railway trucks, unprotected against wind and rain. As a result of her campaign, conditions at the Bloemfontein camp had started to improve when, a few weeks later, 2000 new inmates arrived, doubling the population and inevitably aggravating the problem. This, finally, had prompted her decision to return to England. She had done all she could, she had been denied access to other camps, the military regime prevented her from doing anything more. The only way forward, she believed, was to campaign in Britain, in the hope that a public outcry would compel the British government to intervene. And once this was accomplished, she would return to South Africa.74

  Hobhouse sailed from Cape Town on the Saxon on 8 May 1901. As it happened, Milner was also on board. He had taken a few months’ leave; Kitchener was replacing him as high commissioner during his absence. Hobhouse made several attempts to speak to Milner in private, but he seemed to be avoiding her. Only after they had passed Madeira did an opportunity present itself. In the course of their conversation she discovered the reason for his unwillingness to meet her. In the preceding months he had received 64 reports, all containing the same allegations against her. She was accused of inciting unrest in the camps and playing at politics. He himself, Milner could assure her, was nevertheless willing to allow her to return to the country, but it was ultimately for the government to decide.

  The Saxon docked in Southampton on 24 May. The administrator and the activist parted ways. Emily Hobhouse went to her bedsit in Chelsea. Alfred Milner was received by four Cabinet members—Salisbury, Chamberlain, Balfour and Lansdowne—and the commander-in-chief, Roberts. He was driven to Marlborough House in an open landau to appear before King Edward VII. He left Marlborough as Lord Milner, Baron of St James’s and Cape Town.75

  Hobhouse threw herself into her work, trying to gain access to politicians. She succeeded, through influential connections in Liberal circles. Her uncle and aunt, Lord and Lady Hobhouse, were also able to help her, as was Lord Ripon, Chamberlain’s predecessor as secretary of state for the colonies and, as of late, president of the South African Women and Children’s Distress Fund. Through them she met the Opposition leader, Campbell-Bannerman, and other prominent Liberal parliamentarians.

  The war minister, Brodrick, also agreed to receive her. She went to see him on 4 June, bearing a list of recommendations. First, she demanded the release of all women and children in the camps who had relatives or friends in the Cape or who would be able to provide for themselves there, irrespective of whether their husbands were hensoppers, prisoners of wa
r, deceased or still active in the field. No more women or children were to be sent to the already overcrowded camps. Every camp was to have a bilingual woman director. And finally, she asked the authorities to appoint a supervisory committee with at least six members representing philanthropic organisations. Hobhouse, of course, offered her services. In the circumstances her proposals were reasonable. Brodrick listened to her politely, agreed to consider her ideas, but promised nothing.

  His indifference stood in sharp contrast to Campbell-Bannerman’s outrage a week later. The Opposition leader had been trying to steer a middle course between the pro-Boer and the Liberal Imperialist factions in his party, but his meeting with Hobhouse tipped the scales. At a dinner on 14 June he delivered an uncharacteristically emotional speech to his party members. He outlined the atrocities Hobhouse had described and denounced the reign of terror against the civilian populations of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. ‘War is war,’ he said, quoting Brodrick’s usual laconic response to this kind of criticism, but in Campbell-Bannerman’s view, this was no longer a war. ‘When is a war not a war?’ His reply left a lasting impression on his audience. ‘When it is carried on by methods of barbarism in South Africa.’76

  Methods of barbarism. Campbell-Bannerman had called the devil by its name. His words echoed in the press and resounded throughout the country. Normally harsh critics, like Lloyd George, expressed their indignation in even stronger terms. In a debate in the Commons three days later he grilled Brodrick about the number of women and children in the camps and the mortality rate. The figures Brodrick cited—a total of 63,000 persons in both white and black camps, and 336 deaths in the Transvaal camps in May alone—were far too low, but they were also considerably higher than those which the government had conceded previously. In response, Lloyd George accused the Cabinet of pursuing ‘a policy of extermination’. Whether intentional or not, he said, this was the outcome. The military authorities had embarked on their mission to depopulate the highveld six months earlier and enough time had elapsed to bring the camps up to standard. Hundreds of children were dying each month. It was an utter disgrace.