Naturally, they failed to reach agreement. But to Kitchener’s credit, no one walked out. Milner thought Steyn was being ridiculous and wanted the talks to break down, but that didn’t happen. Kitchener made uncharacteristically tactful use of the telegraph connection with London to put pressure on the Boers, without scaring them off. The British Cabinet’s indirect contributions were straightforward. Independence for the former Boer republics was out of the question. The only acceptable scenario was an unconditional surrender on the terms Kitchener had proposed to Botha just over a year earlier, in March 1901, after their talks in Middelburg. Or something along those lines.134
The British standpoint was unequivocal. They categorically refused to reverse the annexation of the two Boer republics. Everything else was open to discussion. Burger—and undoubtedly Botha—would have signed there and then, particularly in view of the bad news coming in from the front. In De la Rey’s absence, his commandos had suffered a painful defeat against Ian Hamilton’s assembled columns at Roodewal on 11 April. The magic of Tweebosch had melted away.
But Steyn held his ground and steered his Transvaal counterpart to the last line of defence. Under the constitution, they argued, neither of the Boer governments was authorised to surrender their independence without consulting their people. For that there had to be a ceasefire, and they would also want a member of the delegation to come out from Europe.
Kitchener refused the latter immediately, an official ceasefire too. But he would allow them to organise and hold a referendum. In addition, Milner suggested that Boer prisoners of war should also be consulted, to which Steyn quipped back, ‘How can the prisoners-of-war be consulted? They are civilly dead.’ Imagine if they voted to continue the war, and the Boer fighters wanted to stop: ‘What then?’ Both Milner and Kitchener saw the irony. Thirty delegates from each of the former republics would be elected from among commandos who were still active in the field. The referendum was to be held in the border village of Vereeniging, on the banks of the Vaal, on 15 May 1902.135
He had no proof, but Deneys Reitz was convinced that their journey had been delayed on purpose. He thought the British might have wanted to prevent Smuts from raising the Transvalers’ hopes with reports of his success in the Cape. Whatever the case, it had taken a long time. Five days sailing to Cape Town, in the greatest comfort, it must be said, with his own cabin, a soft bed, a steward who served morning coffee and ran his bath, and better food than anything he remembered. They had a few days’ wait in Cape Town, on board the battleship Monarch, there too with every convenience.
At length, they took the train north. At the first stop, Matjesfontein, on the edge of the Karoo, they were paid a visit by the cavalry general, French, who had been one of their adversaries right from the start. It seemed to be a social visit, but the conversation was awkward. Smuts felt that his questions were indiscreet and answered evasively. French gloated about his narrow escape from them in September 1901, soon after their incursion into the Cape. He had been in a train, he said, which they had evidently allowed to proceed so as not to attract attention to themselves.
After Matjesfontein Smuts’s party had travelled only at night. In front of their carriage was an armoured locomotive with a powerful headlight. They spent the days in a siding, so their progress was slow. It took the better part of a week to reach Kroonstad. They finally pulled in there on 4 May 1902. Kitchener came to meet them. ‘He rode up to the station on a magnificent black charger, followed by a numerous suite, including turbaned Pathans, in Eastern costume with gold-mounted scimitars.’ In their compartment Kitchener and Smuts politely exchanged irreconcilable views on the hopelessness of the Boers’ struggle, the execution of ‘Cape rebels’ and Boer fighters in khaki uniforms. Kitchener also mentioned British assistance in rebuilding the country. Before leaving, he told Smuts to continue on to the eastern Transvaal to meet Botha. From there they could travel to Vereeniging together.
That night they were back in the Transvaal, after a long absence. In Johannesburg their train switched to the eastern line to Natal. Their train journey ended in Standerton the following day. After covering a short distance by wagon, they were met by a party of burghers, who had brought horses for them. From there it was a two-day ride to Botha’s camp, through barren, deserted plains.
Reitz was appalled by the sight that met his eyes when they arrived there. The 300 delegates, clad in skins or sacking, were starving and ragged, their skin covered with sores. He had probably looked no different in the first weeks of their raid on the Cape, but conditions had gradually improved. If these dispossessed men were the pick of the Transvaal commandos, the war was irretrievably lost.
He also received good news of a personal nature. Botha told him that his father was somewhere up north and would undoubtedly come to Vereeniging. He had no news of his brothers, but from the men Reitz learned that both Hjalmar and Joubert had been captured. No one knew anything about Arend.
Elections were held the following day to choose delegates for Vereeniging. Even in those circumstances ‘the Boers’ predilection for speeches and wordy wrangling asserted itself’, and occupied much of the day. By evening, they had chosen their delegates. They left early the next morning with Botha and Smuts, on horseback to Standerton and from there by train to Vereeniging.
One of the first people Reitz came upon was his father, ‘shaggy and unkempt, but strong and well’. Not having seen each other for more than 18 months, since October 1900,136 their reunion was warm and heartfelt. His father had just heard that Arend, too, was doing well. He had been fighting under Christiaan de Wet for the past year and was safe and well. Three members of their family were free men, two were prisoners of war. But they were all still alive and therefore better off than most: the majority of families were ‘mourning their dead’.137
Sixty men who were to decide over war or peace, 30 Transvalers and 30 Free Staters, chosen by and from the midst of the 15,000 Boers who were still fighting for their cause. In those circumstances, it was a shining example of democratic decision-making. The venue was a large tent, surrounded by an overwhelming number of Brits. The scene couldn’t have been more fitting. This was the conclusion to an unequal struggle which had been extraordinary from beginning to end: an armed civilian population pitted against a professional war machine. Bickering to the bitter end.
The opening of the meeting in Vereeniging, on Thursday 15 May 1902, was similar to that in Klerksdorp more than a month earlier, with one momentous difference. Steyn’s health had deteriorated. He was barely able to take part in the proceedings; as a result the Boer leaders’ opening statements were significantly less uncompromising. De Wet and De la Rey held their ground but spoke only a few words. Burger and Botha, by contrast, dwelt at length on the hopelessness of the situation. Botha impressed on them that ‘the Kaffir question was becoming more serious by the day’. They were now in open war with the Zulus. At Holkrans, just recently, 65 burghers had been ‘murdered by Kaffirs who came from the English lines’. The lives and honour of Boer women were in danger in the south-eastern Transvaal. ‘Many were attacked and raped by Kaffirs. Truly, the plight of these women is more distressing than anything I have encountered in this war.’
Botha’s speech struck a chord, though many of the delegates who subsequently addressed the conference were vehemently against giving up. The Free Staters, in particular, who reported on conditions in their region, dug their heels in. Echoing the words of their chief commandant, they declared that they were willing and able to hold out for another year.
Then it was Smuts’s turn. Everyone had been waiting to hear him. What were the prospects in the Cape Colony? Smuts soon came to the point. Almost 3300 Boer fighters were active in the Cape and controlled large parts of the colony, notably the western region. The majority of Afrikaners were on their side. They could persist in the struggle without difficulty for some time. However, the uprising they had hoped for would not materialise, for two reasons. The first was the shortage of hor
ses and grass. The British had seized or slaughtered the horses, and grass simply didn’t grow there. ‘The veld over the entire Cape Colony is overgrown with bushes.’ Without horses the commandos couldn’t operate. Secondly, the harsh punishment the British inflicted on colonial rebels was proving an effective deterrent. His conclusion was straightforward: continuing the war depended more on the situation in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State than on the Cape Colony.
Smuts’s sobering report marked a turning point. Few Free Staters addressed the meeting after him. Most of the later speakers were Transvalers, who painted a far more dismal picture of the conditions in their districts. The tenor of the following day’s talks was the same. In the course of that Friday afternoon the state secretary, F.W. Reitz, put forward a concrete suggestion aimed at retaining their internal independence. What about conceding the Witwatersrand and (their protectorate over) Swaziland? Pulling out of foreign politics? The motion was carried. It was decided that Smuts and Hertzog, working together with the two presidents, would draft a proposal.
At the evening meeting the delegates invited Botha, De Wet and De la Rey to address the conference again. Botha delivered a lengthy, emotional speech, reiterating his arguments and adding Smuts’s findings. Everything pointed in the same direction, he said. ‘If we wish to negotiate, now is the time. If the Lord God wills it, then, however bitter, we must come to terms . . . It has been said that we must fight “to the bitter end”, but no one tells us where that bitter end is. Is it when everyone is in his grave or banished?’
De la Rey took less time, but he had something important to say. Once again he told them he had come to Vereeniging with no intention of giving up. But having heard about the desperation and misery in many other parts, ‘I can empathise with their reasons for not wanting to continue the war.’ De la Rey was finally convinced. He agreed that the time had come to negotiate with the enemy.
All eyes were now fixed on De Wet. Would he capitulate, too? They should have known better. He respected Botha, he assured the delegates, but he was of a different opinion nevertheless. He believed the Transvaal commandant-general implicitly and was aware of the dire conditions he had described. However, ‘I do not deal in facts. The entire war is a matter of faith.’ It is one and the same thing ‘if we go to our grave or dig the grave of our nation’.
The following day, Saturday 17 May, the representatives of the people of the two republics adopted the peace proposal drafted by Smuts and Hertzog. They wished to retain self-government as British colonies; they would concede independence in foreign relations and concede part of their territory. These were the terms to be presented to the British, not by Steyn and Burger this time, but by their long-suffering military leaders, Botha, De la Rey and De Wet, with Smuts and Hertzog as legal advisers. Before nightfall they were in Pretoria.138
On the morning of Monday 19 May 1902, they were received by Kitchener and Milner, who were glad to be relieved of the uncompromising Steyn, but instead had five new negotiators to deal with. It could make things more complicated, but it also held out new prospects. Who would succeed in playing the adversaries off against each other? The two British negotiators had totally different objectives. Milner wanted to see the Boers begging on their knees, Kitchener was prepared to concede an honourable defeat. But they responded as one to the Boers’ opening proposal: out of the question. This bore no resemblance to the British government’s terms for a settlement, namely, the Middelburg proposals.
After much toing and froing, adjournments and deliberations in subcommittees, the Boers acquiesced. Smuts and Hertzog, together with Kitchener, prepared an amended proposal. It differed from the version of a year earlier in only a few, though significant, respects—in the Boers’ favour. Although they would have to recognise Edward VII as their lawful sovereign, they would be officially recognised as representatives of the governments of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State, regardless of Roberts’s proclaimed annexations. In addition, the Boers would receive reparations of £3 million instead of £1 million. The enfranchisement of coloureds and Africans would not be decided before the introduction of self-government.139
On 21 May the draft was telegraphed to London. Privately, Milner followed it up with a confidential note to Chamberlain. He would have no regrets, he said, if the British Cabinet rejected or radically amended the proposals. They had become far too generous towards the Boers. He thought Kitchener’s judgment may have been clouded by his desire to bring the war to an early end.
And perhaps by his personal sympathy for the Boer leaders, Milner might have added. No matter how relentlessly they had fought on the battlefield, the military men at the negotiating table soon found themselves on common ground. Even Ian Hamilton, Kitchener’s chief of staff, who had inflicted the last serious Boer defeat just over a month before, warmed to his opponents. On 24 May he had attended a dinner held to celebrate Smuts’s 32nd birthday. He wrote a cheerful letter about it to Churchill, explaining that he had sat between Botha and De la Rey, with De Wet on Botha’s right, and Smuts on De la Rey’s left. They had swapped anecdotes about all their escapes. He’d had a splendid evening, ‘and never wish to eat my dinner in better company’.140
The reply from London came on 27 May. With just a few editorial amendments, the British Cabinet accepted the new terms. Chamberlain had ignored Milner’s advice. The treaty contained ten points. The Boers would lay down their arms and acknowledge the sovereignty of the British monarch. Prisoners of war would be allowed to return home on the same condition. Their personal liberty and property rights would be respected. With a few exceptions—three, to be precise—no legal proceedings would be taken against them. The Dutch language would be allowed in schools and courts of law. Possession of licensed weapons for personal protection would be permitted. Military administration would be replaced by civilian government as soon as possible, leading up to self-government. Only at that stage would the matter of the ‘Native Franchise’ be addressed. No war tax would be levied. Special commissions would be appointed to organise the population’s return and the reconstruction of the country, for which £3 million would be made available in reparations and loans on ‘liberal terms’.
The document was submitted to the Boers on 28 May. Their questions were few. Would the delegates in Vereeniging be able to propose amendments? No, they wouldn’t, Milner snapped back. They had to decide now, ‘yes or no’. He read out another document, drawn up in London, concerning the rebels in the Cape Colony and Natal. They were to be disenfranchised, initially for life; the penalty was later commuted to five years. Their leaders would be brought to trial, but none would receive the death penalty. That was that. At nine in the evening, the five Boer leaders set off for Vereeniging. They had arranged to be back in Pretoria by 31 May.
They had a lot of explaining to do to the delegates the following day. And they did, or at least Botha, De la Rey and Smuts did. All three went to great lengths to explain why they had returned with a proposal so different from the one they had been sent to deliver. The British government simply wasn’t prepared to accept anything else. Breaking off the talks wasn’t an option. They were in dire straits. The information that had trickled through to Botha in Pretoria—some from British sources, some from Boer informants—was even worse than he had thought. Only 15,000 of the 60,000 armed civilians who had joined the struggle at the start were still in the field; 3800 had died and 31,400 were in captivity. He didn’t account for the discrepancy, but everyone understood that the remaining 10,000 were the hensoppers and ‘joiners’. In addition, there was the horrific death total of women and children in the concentration camps, 20,000 in all. In other words, he could see no advantage in ‘the further prosecution of the war . . . [It] would mean the destruction of our national existence.’
Smuts stood firmly behind Botha, and De la Rey urged the delegates to adopt the proposal. However, the two Free State negotiators held different opinions. Hertzog was wavering. But De Wet wasn’t waveri
ng yet. He urged them to reject the proposal. ‘Let us persist in this bitter struggle and say with one voice: We will persevere, no matter how long, until we secure our independence.’
Then it was the delegates’ turn. They spent two days, Thursday 29 and Friday 30 May, mulling over the arguments for and against. The majority of Transvalers supported Botha’s view, while the Free Staters who got up to speak—again, far fewer of them—stood behind De Wet. Moreover, De Wet gained an advantage when ill health forced Steyn to resign as president. With little ado, De Wet was nominated to replace him. It was therefore all the more important for Botha and the other Transvaal leaders to win him over.
Early on Saturday morning, before the meeting, Botha and De la Rey went round to De Wet’s tent. Could they at least agree on procedure? All the pros and cons had been discussed. It was 31 May, the day they would have to take a decision. Perhaps Smuts and Hertzog could compile a list of all the arguments. They could submit this to the delegates and leave the final decision to them. De Wet agreed, and announced the idea at the meeting.
Smuts and Hertzog got down to work. They set out the reasons in favour of accepting the British proposal: the complete ruin of the two republics and the destruction of all means of subsistence; the suffering and deaths of women and children in concentration camps; the increasingly active and aggressive participation of coloureds and Africans in the war; the mass confiscation of private property; the dwindling numbers of active Boer fighters, the sacrifices they were called upon to make and the hardships they were forced to endure. All things considered, there was ‘no justification . . . in proceeding with the war, since that can only lead to the social and material ruin, not only of ourselves, but also of future generations’.
The Boer War Page 55
