The Boer War

by Martin Bossenbroek

  The deployment of Africans and coloureds had been a bone of contention right from the early stages of the war, particularly in the sieges of Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking. The two sides accused each other of violating their unwritten agreement not to involve Africans or coloureds in the war. In the case of Mafeking the allegations were justified, as both sides recruited and armed their African allies, thereby setting the Tshidi Barolong against their rivals, the Rapulana Barolong. Elsewhere, Africans and coloureds were assigned non-combatant duties, although agterryers were not infrequently deployed in the trenches as well.92

  After the fall of Pretoria the deployment practices of the two parties diverged further. The number of Boer fighters in the field declined dramatically in the guerrilla stage of the war, and the number of agterryers even more so, if only because of the shortages of horses, food and clothing. The majority of burghers could no longer afford to engage a servant.

  The British army, by contrast, continued to expand and accordingly employed significantly more auxiliaries. Africans and coloureds were initially engaged as labourers (trench diggers, porters, herdsmen, guards, even cattle-rustlers), but they were soon performing paramilitary duties as well (scouts, couriers and the like). In the guerrilla phase they took part in drives, burning down farms and transporting Boer women and children to the camps. In 1901 the numbers employed increased dramatically, with the building of thousands of blockhouses and the erection of thousands of kilometres of barbed-wire barriers. Large numbers of Africans and coloureds were deployed to transport building materials and construct the immense metal web. Finally, to implement the blockhouse system 25,000 were engaged as sentries in addition to 60,000 white soldiers.

  Another difference compared with the first stage of the war was that the British were able to recruit not only from the Cape, Natal and their own protectorates of Bechuanaland and Basutoland, but also from Swaziland, formerly a protectorate of the Transvaal, as well as from the two annexed Boer republics themselves. The Boers grew increasingly anxious. The principle of racial hierarchy, one of the basic tenets of their faith, was being undermined on their own home ground. Africans and coloureds actively engaged in the war developed a growing political awareness. Previously resigned to a condition of submission, they now ventured beyond former boundaries in their relations with Boer commandos and especially their women and children.

  Of major concern to the Boers was the deployment of the Kgatla in the north-western Transvaal and the Pedi in the east. The Kgatla, from neighbouring Bechuanaland, had been overtly pro-British from the beginning of the war. Their attack on Derdepoort on 25 November 1899 had been the Boers’ first (shocking) confrontation with African auxiliaries deployed in the war. The incident had been followed by a series of reprisals from both sides. On Kitchener’s orders, the Kgatla chief, Lentshwe, had been encouraged to carry out raids on the Transvaal. Towards the end of 1901 the Kgatla were supplied with weapons for that purpose, and had consequently gained control of the entire region north-west of Rustenburg.93

  As for the Pedi of the eastern Transvaal, there had been tensions between them and the Boers for decades. The Pedi had been subdued in 1879, in the period of British administration,94 when their chief, Sekhukhune, was imprisoned, and ever since they had sought to regain independence. At the outbreak of war the Boers had sent a large armed force to maintain control of the area. This was effective, but after the fall of Pretoria in June 1900 the troops were redeployed to strengthen Botha’s main force. The Pedi saw their chance. Those who had aligned themselves with the Boers were sidelined. New leaders rose to power. When the British assumed control of the region, they took advantage of the new balance of power. In April 1901 Major-General Walter Kitchener, the commander-in-chief’s younger brother, reached an agreement on mutual cooperation with Sekhukhune II, Malekutu and Mpisane. Since then, the Pedi and the Boers had been in a state of open war, with both sides committing atrocities. As a result, the commandos were unable to move freely through the eastern Transvaal.95

  The Boer force was declining and becoming increasingly white, while the British army flourished and became more ethnically mixed. This must have caused consternation among the Boers, particularly because of its implications for another sensitive issue, namely the arming of Africans and coloureds in British service. Under Roberts the instructions had been clear. Africans and coloureds were to be deployed only as ‘noncombatants’. They were not to wear uniforms or bear arms, or serve as scouts or couriers.

  His successor, Kitchener, adopted a more flexible approach to the ‘colour line’. On taking office he asked Brodrick to send Indian cavalry regiments from British India to South Africa. The request was turned down, but London had little, if any, control over the way Kitchener deployed ‘natives’ under his jurisdiction. In December 1900 Africans and coloureds who possessed rifles and agreed to serve as British scouts were exempted from the requirement to surrender their arms. Their numbers in the British army subsequently escalated.

  The Boers denounced this, arguing that it contravened ‘the rules of civilised warfare’. The matter had been mentioned explicitly in a report for Kruger, of which Bierens de Haan received a copy in March 1901.96 In the same month Christiaan de Wet complained to Kitchener that ‘a great majority’ of the British troops were African or coloured. Other Boer commandants and their political leaders made similar allegations. Schalk Burger and F.W. Reitz protested directly to Lord Salisbury against the deployment of ‘these wild ruffians’ who, on several occasions, had killed prisoners of war ‘in a barbarous fashion’—with British troops looking on.

  The strongest backlash came in July 1901 from Pieter Kritzinger, whom De Wet had since appointed assistant chief commandant of the Free State commandos in the Cape Colony. He warned that his men would execute Africans or coloureds serving in the British army, regardless of whether they were armed. A few months later he added that the same would apply to those who passed on information about the Boer commandos.

  In response to Kritzinger’s announcement, Kitchener, and then Brodrick and the rest of the British Cabinet, threw caution to the winds. It was no empty threat. African and coloured prisoners of war were already being subjected to summary execution. It had become routine, whether they were carrying weapons or not. They should all be armed as quickly as possible, Brodrick insisted in parliament. They should at least be in a position to defend themselves and not have to ‘stand there in cold blood to be shot’.

  Liberal opponents like Lloyd George warned that this was the start of a slippery slope. If they took that route, Africans and coloureds serving in other capacities would be armed as well. He was right. At any rate, it applied to blockhouse sentries, who were supplied with weapons for their own safety. Just how many Africans and coloureds were armed by the end of the war was never disclosed. Even Kitchener’s superiors in London weren’t informed. His stock reply to Brodrick’s questioning was that ‘no record could possibly be kept’. In the spring of 1902 he finally mentioned a number: 10,000 men. Britain’s Liberal Opposition wasn’t convinced. Lloyd George estimated the total to be around 30,000. Later assessments confirmed that this was closer to the truth.97

  So in the second half of 1901 the war in South Africa was caught up in a spiral of violence. The British increasingly transgressed their gentlemen’s agreement to wage ‘a white man’s war’. ‘There is no such agreement,’ Chamberlain bluntly declared in the Commons in August 1901. More auxiliary troops and allies entered into British service, regardless of race. The Boers retaliated by limiting their application of the ‘rules of civilised warfare’ to white adversaries and were ruthless towards others who supported the British war effort in any manner, even in territories beyond their own borders. In the Cape Colony, in particular, Boer commandants like Kritzinger took the law into their own hands wherever they were in control, even if only temporarily.

  In the second half of 1901 the Boers made incursions into other territories again, with mixed results. In July Louis Bot
ha sent General Tobias Smuts—no relation to Jan—and his Ermelo commando on a mission to Swaziland. Their target was Steinacker’s Horse, a unit of irregular troops. It was made up of some 50 whites and 300 Africans, mainly Tsonga, led by a German adventurer, Ludwig Steinacker. The British had hired him to guard the border with the Transvaal, but he interpreted his assignment more liberally. His men plundered whatever they came across. Boers, Swazis, no one was safe, not even in adjacent Mozambique. When they captured a Swazi prince, supposedly sympathetic to the Boers, the queen regent, Labotsibeni—whose young husband, King Bhunu, had died in 1899—turned to Botha for help.98 Smuts’s commando advanced on Steinacker’s headquarters in Bremersdorp and wiped out his unit. They released the prince, took horses, oxen and rifles as loot, and set fire to Bremersdorp. The action was successful apart from the burning of the town, an indiscretion for which Tobias Smuts was demoted to the rank of an ordinary burgher.99

  Louis Botha was considerably less successful. In mid-September 1901 he made another attempt in Natal. This was what they had originally planned in Cyferfontein in October 1900, except that it was supposed to have been on a far larger scale, with 15,000 Boers who would launch a joint attack on the gold mines and then fan out to the Cape and Natal.100 In terms of numbers Botha wasn’t as wide of the mark as Jan Smuts, who charged into the Cape Colony with just 250 men. But Botha’s venture was also a watered-down version of the initial plan, literally and metaphorically. The elements conspired against him, as they had against Christiaan de Wet, who had tried to invade the Cape earlier. Botha and his 2000 men entered Natal in a steady downpour of icy rain, and it was still raining 11 days later when they sloshed back to the Transvaal with their tails between their legs. Botha had won one battle and led two futile attacks against British forts that were not even particularly well defended. His return to the battlefield where he had been crowned with glory two years before was a sorry affair and best forgotten.101

  The escalating violence in the second half of 1901 coincided with a surge in war fatalities. There was no causal relationship between the two. The majority of deaths occurred not in battle, but as a result of exhaustion, malnutrition and epidemics in the British internment camps. By September there were nearly 50 of these camps, located along the railway lines in the two annexed republics, Natal and the Cape Colony. They held a total of between 110,000 and 115,000 Boers, mostly women and children. The population remained relatively stable up to the end of the war. Improvements in the camps’ administration had some effect in reducing mortality. After peaking in October, the death rate declined gradually at first and more substantially in time. Nevertheless, the final toll—which was revealed only after the war—was shocking. A total of 27,927 Boers died in the British internment camps: 1676 men, 4177 women and 22,074 children.102

  It wasn’t only the Boers who were confined to camps. Africans and coloureds in the Transvaal and Orange Free State were held in similar conditions, with the same catastrophic results. In May 1902 their numbers matched those of the Boers: between 110,000 and 115,000 people in 66 camps. These too were located along the railway lines, mostly in the two former republics. A total of 14,154 deaths were recorded, but post-war estimates put the number closer to 20,000. In absolute terms, the mortality rate was slightly lower than among the Boers. The main difference was the duration of their internment. The African and coloured camps were established at a more advanced stage of the war, but their populations continued to increase right up to the end.

  There were other differences, too. One was the level of public attention focused on the camps. Emily Hobhouse’s alarming eyewitness reports generated support in Europe, including Britain, for the Boer women and children in the ‘murder camps’. But almost no one campaigned on behalf of other groups. Hobhouse and the Fawcett Commission visited only the white camps. The few reports on the African camps that reached the outside world gave a relatively good impression. The inmates were said to be resigned to the circumstances and were not particularly dissatisfied.

  No effort was made to bring those camps under civil administration. They were run by the military authorities until the end of the war. In June 1901 the Native Refugee Department was established for this purpose, under the direction of a Canadian, Major G.F. de Lotbinière. Military administration had one advantage in particular, because these camps differed in another respect from those to which the Boers were consigned. Unlike the Boers, African and coloured prisoners formed a labour reserve. Most of the men were employed by the British army, generally for three-month stints. In April 1902 some 13,000 men were in service, roughly two-thirds of the camps’ total male population. Civilians living in the vicinity of the camps were also allowed to employ prisoners. The men were paid a shilling a day, which wasn’t unreasonable, and could spend their earnings on extra comforts available in the camps like flour, sugar, tea, coffee, candles, tobacco, clothing and blankets. This was another difference between the two groups: unlike whites, Africans and coloureds were expected to support themselves as far as possible.

  For the rest, all the camps were basically the same. They had been created for the same reasons and there were no significant differences in their conditions. Black prisoners, like whites, fell into two categories: refugees who had reported to the authorities voluntarily, and those who had been rounded up in Kitchener’s systematic drives. His instructions applied equally to the African and coloured population of the highveld, regardless of whether they were servants of Boer families, tenants on their land, or people living in homes of their own. They were driven out in order to deprive the Boer commandos of any form of practical or moral support.

  Their camps were as squalid as the Boer camps. They too were deprived of weather-resistant tents, sufficient firewood, vegetables, milk and uncontaminated water; their sanitary facilities and medical services were likewise atrocious. Here, too, the mortality rate was high, with children in particular dying from chickenpox, measles and dysentery. The mortality curve corresponded to that in the white camps, with a two-month time lapse, peaking in December 1901. The reasons were the same. The improvements in housing, nutrition and medical services, which the Fawcett Commission had recommended, were also implemented in the camps under De Lotbinière’s supervision. The army did sometimes get things right.103

  Wild fruit. It looked like a pineapple. No one knew how to prepare it. Deneys Reitz hadn’t a clue either. But it was called Hottentot’s bread, so one could assume it was edible, and just as well. They had reached a wild, uninhabited region on the second ridge of the Suurberg mountains, and they were famished. One of the men roasted the fruit on the campfire. It tasted good. Others followed his example, and soon half the men were eating it, Jan Smuts along with the rest.

  Reitz was pleased to see him enjoy his meal. Never before had he served under a commandant of Smuts’s calibre. It was late September 1901 and they had been in the Cape Colony for over three weeks. That they were still alive and free was nothing short of a miracle and they owed it all to this taciturn, sharp-featured man. Smuts had pulled them through when they were close to despair and beyond exhaustion, urging them on day after day, night after night, through sleet and over mountaintops. He had shepherded them through British columns, too many to mention, and with impeccable timing, he had launched a decisive assault. And here they were now, within 50 kilometres of Port Elizabeth. From the top of the mountain you could probably see the Indian Ocean. No, he didn’t really feel like any fruit. A couple of horses had broken free. He would just go and tether them.

  The first week in the Cape had been cold and wet. Once they had shaken off the Sotho they found themselves in the more hospitable environs of Lady Grey. The locals were mostly Afrikaners, their lives seemingly untouched by the war. It came as a relief after the denuded landscapes of the Boer republics. Here, one saw men working peacefully on the land, smiling women and children, who waved gaily and welcomed them. There was coffee and sugar, salt and tobacco. Clothing was in short supply, but they would make
a plan. Covered in blankets to keep off the rain, they headed south: Redskins on the warpath.

  Reitz’s appearance was little improved when he found an empty grain bag, cut holes in it for his head and arms, and wore it as a coat. His comrades were amused at first, but they soon followed his example. And so the first week passed. It rained incessantly, the men were frozen and miserable, the horses tired and aching. They were short of ammunition, and Louis Wessels and his men were returning to the Free State. The tattered remains of their unit bore no resemblance to a fighting force which could strike fear into the hearts of the British. Two hundred scarecrows on worn-out horses.

  But still the British were doing their utmost to catch them. Ahead of them, behind them, left and right, the area was crawling with columns brought in by train to pursue them, intercept them, obstruct them. At Moordenaarspoort—Murderers’ Gate!—Smuts and three men on a reconnaissance mission were caught unawares by a British patrol. The three men were killed; Smuts lost his horse, but managed to escape in the dark. He arrived back at the camp on foot in the middle of the night, to the relief of his commando. Without Smuts, Reitz believed, the expedition would have failed. His two adjutants, Jacobus van Deventer and Ben Bouwer, were ‘good fighting men’, but neither possessed the personality or authority that was needed to save them from ‘going to pieces during that difficult period.’

  Smuts’s inspiring leadership proved its worth again in the second week, from 10 September. It was one long nightmare, with a fantastic ending. Smuts allowed neither his men nor himself a moment’s rest. The British were closing in on all sides and the only way to escape was to keep going. No sleep, no pauses, press on. They asked locals to guide them to marshes, mountain passes or other natural barriers where they could shake off their pursuers. Sixty hours non-stop. No sooner had they crossed one railway line than they came upon the next. They had to cross that, too, and get well clear, as the train would be arriving with yet another load of British troops. Dazed from exhaustion, wherever there was a delay, at ‘a fence or a ditch, whole rows of men would fall asleep on their hands and knees before their horses like Mohammedans at prayer’.