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Volume I, by J. Castell Hopkins and Murat Halstead
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Title: South Africa and the Boer-British War, Volume I
Comprising a History of South Africa and its people,
including the war of 1899 and 1900
Author: J. Castell Hopkins
Murat Halstead
Release Date: December 1, 2012 [EBook #41521]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOUTH AFRICA AND BOER-BRITISH WAR ***
Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover]
[Illustration: JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN, Colonial Secretary of England. PAUL
KRUGER, President of the South African Republic. (Photo from Duffus
Bros.)]
South Africa
AND
The Boer-British War
COMPRISING
A HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA AND ITS PEOPLE, INCLUDING
THE WAR OF 1899 AND 1900
BY
J. CASTELL HOPKINS, F.S.S.
Author of The Life and Works of Mr. Gladstone;
Queen Victoria, Her Life and Reign; The Sword
of Islam, or Annals of Turkish Power;
Life and Work of Sir John Thompson.
Editor of "Canada; An Encyclopedia," in six volumes.
AND
MURAT HALSTEAD
Formerly Editor of the Cincinnati "Commercial Gazette,"
and the Brooklyn "Standard-Union." Author of The
Story of Cuba; Life of William McKinley;
The Story of the Philippines; The History of American
Expansion; The History of the Spanish-American War;
Our New Possessions, and
The Life and Achievements of Admiral Dewey, etc., etc.
_IN TWO VOLUMES_
VOLUME I. IN TWO PARTS
THE BRADLEY-GARRETSON COMPANY, Limited
BRANTFORD, CANADA
THE LINSCOTT PUBLISHING COMPANY
LONDON, ENGLAND ---- TORONTO, CANADA
Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, at the
Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, in the year One Thousand
Nine Hundred, by J. L. Nichols & Co.
PREFACE.
To measure the South African War of 1899-1900 merely by the population
of the two Boer Republics, would necessitate its consideration as an
unimportant contest in comparison with the great international
conflicts of the century. To measure it by the real power of the Dutch
in South Africa, under present conditions, and by the principles
involved in its inception and prosecution, makes it a struggle which
rivals in importance the Crimean War, the American Civil War or the
Franco-Prussian conflict. In the first of these, Great Britain, France
and Sardinia united to resist the dangerous designs and aggressive
policy of Russia which threatened their power in the Mediterranean and
the British route to India through its intended seizure or acquisition
of Constantinople. In the second, the United States was fighting a
great conflict for national unity. In the third, Prussia averted a
campaign of "On to Berlin" by speedy and successful military action.
All of these elements find a place in the South African War. The
policy of President Kruger, President Steyn and the Afrikander Bund, of
Cape Colony, has been developing for years into a dangerous and
combined effort for the creation of a United Dutch South Africa and the
seizure of Cape Town--one of the chief stations of British commercial
and maritime power. Mr. Chamberlain precipitated matters, so far as
the Cape Colony Dutch were concerned, by a policy of firmness to which
they were unaccustomed at the hands of the Colonial Office and which,
cautious and conciliatory as it was, forced the hand of the Transvaal
President before his general policy was quite matured. As the
diplomatic negotiations proceeded and the war itself developed it
became a struggle for Imperial unity as truly and fully as was the
American Civil War. Two great Colonies of the Empire were threatened,
the principles of equal right and equal liberty upon which its entire
self-governing portions have been built up and maintained were spurned,
and the feeling of unity which has latterly grown so amazingly amongst
its various countries was openly flouted by the treatment of the
Uitlanders and the attack upon Cape Colony and Natal. Backed by the
undoubted ability of President Kruger, the sentiment of racial unity
amongst the Dutch of all South Africa, the swords and science of
European officers and experts, the immense sums drawn from the
Uitlanders and possibly from Europe, the armaments prepared during a
long term of years with skill and knowledge, the characteristics of a
people admirably adapted through both knowledge and experience for
warfare on South African soil, the Boer cry of "On to Durban" was
really more menacing to British interests and conditions of
unpreparedness than was the cry of the Parisian populace, in 1870, to
the Kingdom of Prussia. A war with France might not have been nearly
as difficult or as serious a matter to Great Britain under existing
conditions as the war with the Boer Republics has turned out to be.
The loss of South Africa, or the failure to assert British supremacy as
the Paramount Power in that region, would not only have humiliated
Great Britain in the eyes of rival nations everywhere and precipitated
peril wherever aggressive foreign ambition could find a desirable
opening, but it would have lost her the respect, the admiration or the
loyalty of rising British nations in Australia and Canada; of lesser
Colonies all over the world; of swarming millions of uncivilized races
in Hindostan, China and Northern Africa. Its influence would have been
a shock to the commercial and financial nerves of the world; a blow to
the independence and liberties of the "little peoples" who now rest
securely under the real or nominal guarantee of British power. In the
Persian Gulf and on the borders of Afghanistan, upon the frontiers of
Siam and the shores of the Bosphorus, in the waters of Australasia and
on the coasts of Newfoundland, upon the banks of the mighty Nile and
along the borders of Canada, the result would have come as the most
menacing storm-cloud of modern history. The power of a great race to
continue its mission of colonization, civilization and construction was
involved; and would be again involved if any future and serious
European intervention were threatened.
The origin of the question itself is too wide and complicated to treat
of in a few brief words. To some superficial onlookers it has been a
simple matter of dispute as to franchise regulations between President
Kruger and Mr. Chamberlain. To the enemies of England it has been a
wicked and heartless attempt on the part of Great Britain to seize a
Naboth's vineyard of gold and territory. To a few Englishmen, even, it
has seemed a product of capitalistic aggression or of the personal
ambition of a Rhodes or a Chamberlain. To many more it has appeared as
a direct consequence of the Gladstone policy of 1881 and 1884. In
reality, however, it is the result of a hundred years of racial
rivalry, during which the Boer character has been evolved out of
intense isolation, deliberate ignorance and cultivated prejudice into
the remarkable product of to-day, while the nature of his British
neighbor has expanded in the light of liberty and through the gospel of
equality, of labor and of world-wide thought, into the great modern
representative of progress in all that makes for good government,
active intellectual endeavor, material wealth and Imperial expansion.
Stagnation as opposed to progress, slavery to freedom, racial hatred to
general unity, isolation and seclusion to free colonization and
settlement, the darkness of the African veldt to the light of European
civilization--these are the original causes of the war. British
mistakes of policy in defending the Boer against the Kaffir or the
Kaffir against the Boer; political errors in making the Conventions of
1852 and 1854, of 1881 and 1884; hesitancy in the annexation of
territory and indifference in the holding of it; have increased the
complications of South African life and government, but have not
affected the root of the evil--the fact of two absolutely conflicting
social and political systems developing side by side during a century
of difficulty and racial rivalry. This antagonism has been absolute.
The Boer love for liberty or independence became simply a love for
isolation from the rest of humanity and a desire to imitate the
slave-owners of Old Testament history. The final result has been the
creation of a foreign, or Hollander, oligarchy in both the Dutch
republics for the purpose of preserving this condition. The British
ideal is freedom in government, in trade, in politics, for himself and
for others, regardless of race, or creed, or color. The Boer principle
of morality has always been a mere matter of color; that of the average
Englishman is very different. The Boer religion is a gospel of
sombreness wrapped in the shadow of Hebrew seclusion and exclusiveness;
that of the true Englishman is a gospel of love and the light of a New
Testament dispensation. Side by side these two types have lived and
struggled in South Africa, and to-day the racial, national, individual
and other differences are being thrown into the crucible of a desperate
conflict. There can only be one local result--the ultimate
organization of a united South Africa in which race and creed and color
will be merged in one general principle of perfect equality and the
practice of one great policy of liberty to all, within the bounds of
rational legislation and honest life. A second and more widely potent
consequence will be the closer constructive union of the British Empire
and the welding of its scattered and sometimes incoherent systems of
defence and legislation and commerce into one mighty whole in which
Canada and Australia and South Africa and, in some measure, India will
stand together as an Imperial unit. A third and very important result,
arising out of the policy of foreign nations during the struggle,
should also be the drawing closer of existing ties of friendship and
kinship between the British Empire and the American Republic.
J. CASTELL HOPKINS.
[Illustration: THE RT. HON. SIR BARTLE FRERE, G.C.B. High Commissioner
for South Africa, 1877-1881. THE RT. HON. SIR GEORGE GREY, K.C.B.
High Commissioner for South Africa, 1854-1862.]
[Illustration: MR. CECIL J. RHODES, The Diamond King and Promoter of
the Cape-to-Cairo Railroad, South Africa. LORD ROBERTS, V.C., G.C.B.,
G.C.I.E., Commander-in-Chief British Forces, South Africa.]
Part I.
LIST OF CHAPTERS AND SUBJECTS
CHAPTER I.
Early Scenes of Settlement and Struggle.
The Dark Continent--The Old-time Natives of the South--The Bantu,
Hottentots and Bushmen--The Portuguese of South Africa--The Dutch East
India Company--A Dutch Colony at the Cape--The First
Slaves--Introduction of Asiatics--The Boer Pioneer Farmer--Arrival of
the Huguenots--Wars with the Bantu or Kaffirs--Extension of Settlement
and Exploration--The First British Occupation--Final British
Conquest--The Dutch, the English, the French and the Natives--Birth of
the South African Question
CHAPTER II.
The Dutch and the Natives.
The Early Dutch Character--Contempt for Coloured Races--The
Commencement of Slavery, Its Nature and Practices--The Wandering Native
Tribes Learn to Hate the Dutchman--English and Dutch Views in
Antagonism--The Missionary Interferes--Unwise Action in Some
Cases--Policy of Dr. Philip--Dutch Hostility to England Increased by
Dislike of Mission Work and Antagonism to Slavery--Missionary Influence
upon the Latter--The Dutch and the Kaffir Wars--Hardships of the
Settlers--Rise of the Zulu Power under Tshaka--The Matabele and
Moselkatze--Moshesh and the Basutos--A Second Period in the South
African Problem Begins
CHAPTER III.
The Great Trek and its First Results.
The British Abolition of Slavery--The Immediate Effects of the Measure
Disastrous to Both Dutch and Natives--The Trek of 1836 Commences--The
Emigrant Farmer, Qualities and Mode of Life--Nature of the Country
Traversed Character of the Various Native Tribes--Ruthless Warfare--The
Boer Skill in Marksmanship--The Boers North of the Orange River--Their
Subjugation of the Matabele--Pieter Retief and His Party in
Natal--Massacre by Dingaan--Boer War with the Zulus--Conquest of
Dingaan and His Followers by Pretorius--Dutch Treatment of the
Natives--Boers Develop Strength in War But Show Signal Weakness in
Government--Collision with the English in Natal--The Cape Governor
Decides that the Natives Must be Protected--Conflict Between Boers and
English--The Republic of Natalia Becomes a British Country--The Boers
Trek North of the Vaal River and Colonize the Transvaal--Establishment
of Moshesh by the British as Head of a Border Native State--The
Griquas--A Third Phase of the South African Question
CHAPTER IV.
Birth of the Dutch Republics.
English Policy in South Africa During the Middle of the
Century--Non-interference, no Expansion, Limitation of
Responsibility--Brief Exception in the Case of the Orange River
Boers--Annexation, in 1848, and Establishment as the Orange River
Sovereignty--English Protection of the Boers Against the
Natives--Rebellion of Pretorious and Defeat of the Dutch at Boomplaatz
by Sir Harry Smith--A New Governor at the Cape and a Hastily Changed
Policy--Independence of the Transvaal Boers Recognized in 1852--The
Sand River Convention--English Campaign Against the Basutos in Defence
of the Orange River Boers--Arrival of Sir George Clerk with
Instructions to Withdraw British Authority from the Orange River
Country--Protests of the Loyal Settlers--Formation and Recognition of
the Orange Free State--A New Setting for an Old Problem
CHAPTER V.
Development of Dutch Rule.
Divergent Lines of Growth in the Republics--The Orange Free State and
the Basutos--Early Difficulties and Laws--Rise of President Brand into
Power--His High Character and Quarter of a Century's Wise
Administration of the Free State--Diamond Discoveries and the Keate
Award--Liberal Policy of the Free State and General Friendship with
England--In the Transvaal--Troubles of the Emigrant Farmers North of
the Vaal--Four Little Republics--Union Under Martin W. Pretorius, in
1864, after a Period of Civil War--Rise of S. J. P. Kruger into
Prominence--Conflicts with the Natives--T. F. Bergers Becomes
President--General Stagnation, Developing by 1877 into Public
Bankruptcy--Failure to Conquer Sekukuni and the Bapedis--Danger from
the Zulus under Cetywayo--Annexation to the British Empire--A New Link
Forged in the Chain of Events
CHAPTER VI.
Development of Cape Colony.
Gradual Growth of Population after the Great Trek--Climate, Resources
and Government--Agriculture and the Dutch Settlers--Lack of
Progressiveness--The English and the Cultivation of Special
Industries--Partial Self-government Granted to the Cape--Executive
Council, Schools and Courts--English as the Official Language--Elective
Council and Assembly Constituted in 1853--Extensive German
Colonization--Railways and Diamonds--Incorporation of New
Territories--The Establishment of Responsible Government--The Dutch and
the English in Politics--Representative Men of the Colony--Cecil Rhodes
Appears on the Scene--Racial Conditions in 1877--The Confederation
Scheme Defeated in the Cape Parliament--Religion, Education and
Trade--The Afrikander Bund Formed at the Cape--It Becomes a Most
Important Element in the South African Situation
CHAPTER VII.
Imperial Policy in South Africa.
The Early Governors of Cape Colony and Their Difficulties--The Colonial
Office and its Lack of Defined and Continuous Policy--Growth in England
of Public Indifference to Colonies--Its Unfortunate Expression in
1852-54--Fluctuating Treatment of the Natives--Good Intentions and
Mistaken Practices--Sir George Grey and South Africa--A Wise
Statesman--His Policy of Confederation and Conciliation--Hampered by
the Colonial Office and the Anti-Expansion School in England--The
Non-intervention Policy and the Natives--Conditions in
Natal--Importance of the Cape to the Empire--Importance of South Africa
to the British People--Slow-growing Comprehension of these Facts in
England--Sir Bartle Frere at the Cape--Eventual Repudiation of His
Plans and Recall of the Best of South African Governors--The Gladstone
Government's Responsibility for Succeeding Evils--The Absence of a
Continuous Policy toward the Natives and Varied Questions of
Territorial Extension Involve the Colonists in Constant Trouble and the
Imperial Exchequer in Immense Expenditures--A Story of Imperial
Burdens, Mistakes and Good Intentions; of Colonial Difficulties,
Protests and Racial Complexities
CHAPTER VIII.
The Native Races of South Africa,
Origin, Character and Customs--The Bantu or Kaffirs--Offshoots Such as
the Matabele and Zulus--Some Great Chiefs--Tchaka, Dingaan, Moshesh,
Cetywayo and Khama--Merciless Character of Native Wars--Dealings with
the English and the Dutch--Difference in National Methods of Treating
Savages--Force, or Evidence of Power, the Surest Preservative of
Peace--The Slaves of the Boer and the Slaves of the Savage--Result of
Emancipation upon the Native--Result of Missionary Labour amongst the
Tribes--Livingstone and Moffat--Imperial Problems in the Rule of
Inferior Races--Strenuous British Efforts at Justice and Mercy--The
Bible and the Bayonet, the Missionary and the Soldier--Extremes Meet in
the Policy of the Dutch and English
CHAPTER IX.
Character of the South African Boer.
A Peculiar Type--Mixture of Huguenot and Netherlands' Dutch--Divergence
Between the Permanent Settler at the Cape and the Emigrant Farmer in
the Two Republics--Good Qualities and Bad Curiously Mixed--A Keen
Desire for Independence in the Form of Isolation--A Patriotism Bred of
Ignorance and Cultivated by Prejudice--A Love of Liberty for Himself
and of Slavery for Inferiors--The Possessor of Intense Racial Sentiment
and of Sincere Religious Bigotry--Modification of these Qualities in
Cape Colony by Education and Political Freedom--Moderate Expression of
them in the Orange Free State as a Result of President Brand's
Policy--Extreme Embodiment of them in the Transvaal--The Dutch Hatred
of Missionaries--Dr. Livingstone on Dutch Character and
Customs--Throughout South Africa the Dutch Masses are Slow and Sleepy,
Serious and Somewhat Slovenly, Averse to Field Labour, Ignorant of
External Matters and Without Culture--The Transvaal Boer the Most
Active, Hardy and Aggressive in Character--Hatred of the English and
His Wandering Life the Chief Reason--Morality and Immorality--Different
Types of Dutch--Kruger and Pretorius, Joubert and Steyn--Hofmeyr and
DeVilliers, Representative of the Higher Culture of Cape Colony
CHAPTER X.
The Annexation of the Transvaal.
Condition of the Republic in 1877--Dangers Without and Difficulties
Within--The British Policy of Confederation--Public Opinion in England
not Sufficiently Advanced--Lord Carnarvon, and Mr. J. A. Froude's
Mission--Sir T. Shepstone Takes Action--A Peaceful Annexation Quietly
Carried Out--Neither Force nor Serious Persuasion Used--The Ensuing
Administration--Self-government not Granted--Sir Owen Lanyon's
Mistakes--The Failure of the Confederation Scheme--Mr. Gladstone's
Political Campaign in England--Effect of His Utterances in South
Africa--He Comes into Power--Protests against Annexation Develop--Dutch
Delegates in England--Refusal to Reverse the Annexation--Boer Rebellion
and Ultimate British Repudiation of Pledges and Policy--Magnanimity
Appears to the Dutch as Pusillanimity and Paves the Way for Years of
Trouble and Much Bloodshed
CHAPTER XI.
Natal and the Zulu War.
Slow Progress of Natal--Limited White Population--Constitution and
General History--Rise of the Zulu Power--From the Days of Tshaka to
those of Cetywayo--A Curious British Encouragement of Native
Strength--Bravery and Good Qualities of the Zulus--Lust of Conquest and
Cruelty in War--Cetywayo's Impis Threaten the Boers of the Transvaal
and the English of Natal--Sir Bartle Frere Arrives at Cape Town as High
Commissioner and Considers War Necessary in Order to Avert
Massacre--Takes the Initiative and British Forces Invade Zululand--Lord
Chelmsford in Command--Isandlhwana, Rorke's Drift and Ulundi--Sir
Bartle Frere Recalled and Sir Garnet Wolseley Sent Out--Settlement of
the Zulu Troubles--A Curious Portion of a Complex Problem--Ensuing
Advancement of Natal
CHAPTER XII.
A Review of the South African Question.
British Views of Government and Treatment of Natives Antagonistic to
those of the Dutch--No Question of Republicanism versus Monarchy--The
Dutch at the Cape Possessed of a Larger Share in Public Administration
than the Boers of the Transvaal--The Language Question a Serious
One--Equality of Population and Opportunity and Privilege at the Cape
Without Equality of Education or Knowledge--The British Government and
the Missionaries--The Dutch and Slavery--The Non-intervention Policy
and Confederation--The Question of Cape Colony Extension--Cecil Rhodes
and South Africa--Progress versus Stagnation--The Latter Wins at Majuba
Hill and for a Time Turns Back the Hand of Destiny--The South African
Question Enters on its Last Phase
CHAPTER XIII.
The Colonies and the War.
Sentiment in the Colonies Regarding Imperial Defence--Changes within a
Few Years--Australians and Canadians in the Soudan--Public Feeling in
Canada and Australia concerning the Transvaal Negotiations--General
Sympathy with Great Britain--Expressions of Public Opinion and
Parliamentary Resolutions--The Outbreak of War--Action Taken by New
Zealand and Queensland, by Victoria and New South Wales--Other Colonies
Move--The Sudden Outburst of Feeling in Canada--Colonel Hughes and the
Volunteer Movement--The Premier and Parliament--Public Opinion Impels
Immediate Action--The Government Does its Duty in a Patriotic
Manner--Mr. Israel Tarte and the French Canadians--Attitude of Sir
Charles Tupper--The Contingent Enrolled--Popular Enthusiasm during the
Enlistment--The Officers Chosen--Lieutenant-Colonel W. D. Otter
Commands the "Second Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment"--Sir
Charles Holled-Smith in Command of the Australasians--Departure of the
Canadian Contingent amid Scenes of Unprecedented Popular
Enthusiasm--Similar Incidents in Australia--Speeches by Lord Brassey,
Governor of Victoria, and by Lord Minto, Governor-General of
Canada--Attitude of the Imperial Government toward the Colonies--Mr.
Chamberlain's Correspondence--Dr. W. H. Fitchett on Australian
Loyalty--The New-South-Wales Lancers in London--Arrival and Great
Reception of the Colonial Forces at Cape Town--Second Contingent
Offered--The Colonies and the Empire
LIST OF CHAPTERS AND SUBJECTS.
PART II.
Introduction.
The Origin of the Recent War--Boers' Policy Against
Immigrants--Characteristics of the Boers--Antagonism to British
Rule--British Government in South Africa--Telling Statistics--A
Magnificent Project--Opinions of the Canadians
CHAPTER I.
The Battle of Majuba Hill.
Lord Rosebery's Reflections--The Sting of Majuba Hill--The Gordon
Highlanders at Majuba Hill--Testimony of an Eye Witness--Proclamation
of President Steyn--Reply to the Boer Proclamation--The First Right to
the Transvaal Gold--The Broukhorst Spruit--The Laing's Nek--Terms of
Settlement
CHAPTER II.
The President of the South African Republic.
Birth, Education, etc.--Paul Kruger at Ten Years--Appearance and
Manners--The Boer of Boers--Daily Life--His Grand Passion--Facts of
History--Kruger's Chinese Wall--A Misleading Reputation--Racial
Prejudices--Free and Independent Krugerism--Kruger's Nepotism
CHAPTER III.
The Boers and British Gold and Diamonds.
Solomon's Ophir--How the Gold was Discovered--Early Gold Finds--Gold
Production in 1897 and 1898--A Clear and Impartial Statement--Boss and
Caste Government--Boer Intolerance--The "Dog in the Manger"--Commerce
of the Transvaal--The First Stamp Mill--Diamonds for Toys--Boyle's
Statement--Star of South Africa--Dry Diggings--Qualities of the Cape
Diamonds--"Nature's Freemasonry"
CHAPTER IV.
The Cause of War.
Conference With Kruger--Many Points of Difference--Kruger's Objection
to Franchise--Qualifications for Citizenship--An Absolutely Fair
Proposition--Ireland and Transvaal--What Mr. Chamberlain Wrote--A
Statement by Kruger--Petition from Natal--Resolutions of the House of
Commons of Canada--Kruger's Views on the Question--President Steyn as
Peace-maker
CHAPTER V.
The Boer Declaration of War and the Gathering of the Armies.
Both Sides Surprised--The Boer Ultimatum--Centres of Combat Quickly
Defined--Important Decisions--Early Days of the War--Public
Opinion--Two Popular Illusions
CHAPTER VI.
The First Bloodshed.
First Battle of the War--Battle of Elandslaagte--Hard Work on Both
Sides--General Buller Arrives--The Strategy of the Boers--Difficulties
in Mobilizing the Troops--Boers Select Their Time Judiciously
CHAPTER VII.
The Magersfontein Battle.
Heavy Losses on Both sides--The Hottest Fight of the British
Army--Gatacre's Serious Reverse--Methuen's Failure--The Losses--What
Dispatches Say--Sudden Change of Public Sentiment--The Official Boer
Account
CHAPTER VIII.
Battle of Colenso.--Defeat of General Buller.
"Tied by the Leg"--American and Boer Revolution Compared--New
Conditions of Warfare--Plan of the Fight--Mistaken but Heroic
Advance--Attack Fruitless--Boers Capture the Guns--Why Were the Guns
Lost?--Conduct of the Men--Bad Light and no Smoke--Defeat
Admitted--Dazed by Defeat--A Foredoomed Failure
CHAPTER IX.
The Siege of Ladysmith.
Location of Ladysmith--Timely Arrival of the Naval Brigade--First
Serious Reverse--Excitement in London--Symon's Death and
Victory--Closing in of Ladysmith--A Narrow Escape--Caves Excavated for
Families--Town Hall Struck--Midnight Bombardment--Hard Pressed--Boer
Attempt to Storm--Thrilling Encounters--Relief at Last--British Troops
Enter the Town
CHAPTER X.
The Relief of Kimberley--The Turn of the Tide of War Against the Boers.
Difference in Positions of Roberts and Buller--A White Man's War--Each
Step Carefully Considered--A Remarkable Cavalry Movement--Kimberley
Relieved--Roberts and Buller in Co-operation--Roberts' Public
Utterances--What a Military Specialist Says--The Spion Kop Affair--The
Kop Retaken by the Boers
CHAPTER XI.
Cronje's Surrender and the Occupation of Bloemfontein.
Cronje Hard Pressed--Cronje Capitulates--Cronje and Roberts Meet--The
Detailed Report of Roberts--Kruger Willing to Compromise--From Modder
River to Bloemfontein--Kruger and Steyn's Address to Lord
Salisbury--Lord Salisbury's Answer--The British Cordially Greeted in
Bloemfontein--The Press on Mediation
Official List.
of the Royal Canadian Soldiers Gone to South Africa
NOTE.--Official lists of Second and Third Contingents not being
complete at time of issuing FIRST VOLUME, they will be inserted in full
in SECOND VOLUME.
Illustrations.
The Illustrations in this volume have NO FOLIOS. There are 64 FULL
PAGES of PLATES, and 448 pages of reading matter, making a total of 512
pages.
Glossary of Boer Terms.
That the readers of this volume may understand the meaning of certain
Boer names and words which the author has found it necessary to use, we
append the following glossary of those most frequently employed:
Aarde . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Earth, ground
Afgang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Slope
Baas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Master
Beek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brook
Berg . . . . . . . Mountain (the plural is formed by adding en)
Boer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Farmer
Boom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tree
Boschveldt . . . . . . . . . . . An open plain covered with bush
Broek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marsh, pool
Buitenlander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Foreigner
Burg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A town
Burgher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A citizen
Commandeer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To levy troops
Commando . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A body of armed men
Daal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A valley
Dorp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A village
Drift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A ford
Dusselboom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pole of an ox wagon
Fontein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A spring or fountain
Gebied . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . District
Hout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wood, timber
Inspan . . . . . . . . . . To harness or tether horses or cattle
Jonkher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gentleman of the Volks Raad
Karroo . . . . . . . A geographical term for a certain district.
In Hottentot, a "dry place"
Kerel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A chap, or fellow
Klei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Clay
Kloof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A valley or ravine
Kop, or Kopje . . . . . . . . . . . . A hill or small mountain
Kraal . . . . . . . . . . . . A place of meeting, headquarters
Kruger . . . . . . . . . The family name of present president of
South African Republic
Krantz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A precipice
Laager . . . . A fortified camp, but often applied to any camp,
fortified or not
Landdrost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Local governor
Loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Course, channel
Modder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mud
Mooi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pretty
Nachtmal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lord's Supper
Nieuwe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New
Oom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Uncle
Pan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bed of a dried-up salt marsh
Poort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A passage between mountains
Raad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Senate
Raadsher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Senator
Raadhuis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Senate hall
Raadzael . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Parliament house
Rand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Edge, margin
Rooinek . . . . . Term of contempt applied to British by Boers
Ruggens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A barren, hilly country
Schantze . . . . . . A heap of stones used to protect a marksman
against opposing rifle fire
Slim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cunning, crafty
Sluit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A ditch
Spruit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Creek
Staat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . State
Stad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A town or city
Transvaal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Across the valley
Trek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A journey
Trekken . . . . . . . . . . . . . To travel, or pull away from
Uit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Outside
Uitspan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To unharness, to stop
Uitlander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An outsider or newcomer
Vaal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Valley
Veldt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A prairie, or treeless plain
Veldtheer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The general in command
Vley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A prairie-like meadow
Volks Raad . . . . . . . . . House of commons or representatives
Voortrekkers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pioneers
Vrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Housewife
Witwaterstrand . . . . . . . . . . . The edge of the White Water
Zuid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . South
The correct pronunciation of Boer words is very difficult to a speaker
of the English tongue, hence the attempt to give it in above glossary
is omitted. The language is as peculiar to South Africa as the jargon
French of lower Louisiana is to that country and even more unlike
Holland Dutch than the Creole dialect is unlike Parisian French. While
the Boer speech was primarily Dutch, it has been so modified by
isolation from the mother country for more than two centuries, and by
contact with the native African tribes, and by the influx of French,
Spanish and Maylay elements, that a native Hollander is scarcely able
to understand it, even when written, and to speak it, as the Boers do,
he finds impossible.
PART I.
OF VOL. I.
EARLY HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF
SOUTH AFRICA
BY
J. CASTELL HOPKINS
[Illustration: GENERAL SIR WILLIAM GATACRE,
GENERAL LORD KITCHENER,
THE HON. FREDERICK W. BORDEN,
Canadian Minister of Militia and Defence,
GENERAL JOUBERT
Commander-in-Chief of the Dutch Forces.
Died at Pretoria, March 27th, 1900.]
[Illustration: WILLIAM BRYANT, KINGSTON, CANADA,
and Batt. Royal Fusiliers, Imperial
Army, in South Africa.
VICTORIA CONTINGENT FOR THE TRANSVAAL,
Troops marching through Melbourne on Oct. 28th, 1899,
_Photo by Bishop, Prahran_.
MAJOR DUNCAN STUART, LONDON, ONT.,
With B Co., 1st Canadian Contingent
in South Africa]
CHAPTER I.
Early Scenes of Settlement and Struggle.
[Sidenote: The Dark Continent]
From the date of its discovery by Bartholomew Diaz, in
1486, until the first Dutch settlement by Van Riebeeck, in
1650, the Cape of Good Hope was simply a finger post on
the route to India--a convenient and temporary anchorage for
Portuguese, Dutch, English, Spanish and French
ships. And around its stormy and rock-bound
headlands had passed the richly laden ships of the
English and Dutch East India Companies for half a century
before the latter founded its pioneer establishment.
Henceforward, however, the shores of Table Bay, with its towering and
mountainous mass of granite sheltering the Castle of the Dutch
Governor and the tiny settlement of Cape Town, was to be the
scene and centre of a gradual colonization, of continuous struggle
with innumerable natives, of peculiar trade conditions and curious
governing experiences, of capture by the English and of varied
experiments in British government.
[Sidenote: The First Settlement]
The first Dutch settlement was really a station for supplying
the passing ships of the Dutch East India
Company. No idea of territorial extension was
present in the minds of those who proceeded to
erect a fort and to barter with wandering natives. They knew
nothing of the vast interior of the Dark Continent and its two
or three hundred millions of black or brown population, its
merciless wars and campaigns, its savage customs and cruelties, its
vast lakes and rivers and mountains and rolling plains. They
were equally unaware that about the time of their own establishment
in the south, under the protecting shelter of the vast square
mass of Table Mountain, a tribe of dark-skinned natives, called
the Bantu, had swarmed down upon the far
eastern coast and were preparing to overrun
from their home in Central Africa all the great
region of barren upland and rolling veldt and level Karoo plain
known now by the common name of South Africa. The tiny
settlements of the Dutch were thus unconsciously preparing
for a future in which the persistent pressure of millions of Bantu,
or Kaffirs, from the north and east upon the white colonies of the
south was to make history of a most prolonged and painful
character.
[Sidenote: The Old-Time Natives]
At first little was seen of the natives excepting members of
a degraded coast tribe whom the Colonists called Bushmen and who
lived more like animals than human beings. A little higher in the
scale were the Hottentots, who, in large numbers, formed a fringe
of wandering tribes along the whole of the southern part of the
continent. Fighting continually amongst themselves, trading
occasionally with the white men and stealing cattle wherever possible
from the gradually extending settlement, these natives proved a
source of much trouble to the pioneers.
[Sidenote: The Dutch East India Company]
Between 1652 and 1783 the European population of the Cape
increased to about twenty-five thousand persons, in comparison
with an increase of four millions in the English
population of the thirteen American Colonies
during much the same period. But conditions
were different and the character of the settlers still more so.
The Dutch East India Company ruled with despotic power,
and its regulations read like a product of romantic imagination.
Slaves were, of course, permitted and encouraged, and,
in 1754, the penalty of death was fixed for any slave raising his hand
against his master, and that of a severe flogging for any who loitered
outside the church doors during service time.
[Sidenote: How the French Huguenots were Received]
The French
Protestants, or Huguenots, who came out in 1688-90, were welcomed as
settlers, but were very soon shown that no ideas of racial equality
pervaded the Dutch mind. A schoolmaster was imported expressly
to teach the children the language of the dominant race. No
separate communities were allowed, and the French were carefully
mixed amongst the Dutch and other settlers. Requests for distinct
church organization were stigmatized as impertinent,
and the use of the language was forbidden in official
or public life. By the middle of the eighteenth century
it had entirely died. Sumptuary laws of the most extraordinary
character prevailed. Any person seeing the Governor approach had
to stop his carriage and get out of it. No one lower in rank than a
merchant could use a large umbrella, and only the wives and
daughters of those who were, or had been, members of the Council could
do so. The trade monopoly of the Company was so rigorous that
Colonists were entirely debarred from external commerce, and were
dependent upon officials for the sale and price of their products.
They had not the most elementary self-government, and at the end
of the eighteenth century did not possess a printing press. Cut off
from all literature, having nothing but the Bible and a metrical
version of the Psalms, they developed a type of character unique in
itself and productive of most serious consequences.
[Sidenote: The System of "Loan Leases"]
Nor was permanency of settlement encouraged by the Dutch
authorities. From 1705 to 1770 the Government issued what were
termed "loan leases," or licenses to occupy land in the interior for
grazing purposes upon the payment of a small rental and with a
right to re-assume possession at any time retained by the Government.
Combined with changes in the seasons and the pasturage,
and the desire to obtain better locations, this system encouraged the
formation of that peculiar characteristic called "trekking," which has
marked the pages of South African history with so
much bloodshed and trouble. It also brought the
wandering farmers, or Boers, into contact or conflict
with the wandering natives. Even the Dutch officials at Swellendam
and Stellenbosch complained at last of a plan under which the farmers
"did not scruple to wander about hither and thither several days'
journey from their loan farms;" and finally, in 1770, the system was
abolished. Meantime a region larger than the British Isles had been
taken from the Hottentots and their cattle driven away from the best
grass-land available for their use, and which had been theirs for
centuries. The natural result of cattle-stealing which ensued upon the
part of the natives was punishment by the Colonists in the form of
war; in the holding of captured children as apprentices or slaves;
and in the occasional application of torture to individual savages.
[Sidenote: Successive Racial Importations]
This matter of relations with the natives and of slavery was
complicated at an early date (1658) by the introduction of some negro
slaves from a Portuguese ship. They were brought from the coast
of Guinea and sold to the Government for rough labor in the
neighborhood of Cape Town, and also to some of the more distant
settlers. Naturally inclined, already, to utilize natives for any work of
a manual nature, this official encouragement
immediately complicated the relations between
Hottentots and Bushmen and the Dutch farmers. The
latter, having once tasted the pleasures of slave-ownership in the
midst of vast reserves of dark-skinned people, soon put the principle
into the fullest practice and application. From time to time further
consignments of slaves from other parts of Africa were introduced
by those inveterate dealers, the Portuguese, and to them were soon
added large numbers of native criminals from Malacca, Java and the
Spice Islands, who were sent by the Batavian Government to serve
out terms of punishment or slavery at the Cape. They were, of
course, more intelligent than the imported slaves from Guinea and
Mozambique, and often made excellent masons, harness-makers,
coopers and tailors; but their influence upon the moral tone of the
white community amongst whom they were placed is not hard to
estimate. From their arrival dates one of the many mixed races
with which South Africa swarms. Another class of imported Asiatics
of a higher type consisted of political offenders sent from Java
at a later date to live, with their families, upon fixed Government
allowances. They received occasional accessions up to 1781, when
the last batch came out. As a result of these successive racial
importations Cape Colony came in time to include a most singular
and varied half-breed population in which Dutch and Hottentots and
Malay and Negro were all intermixed.
[Sidenote: European Population in 1759]
In 1759, a century and a half after the Colony was established,
its population contained 9,782 Europeans, of whom
1,486 were women and 8,104 slaves. How many
natives there were it is difficult to estimate, as they
were always a very movable quantity. Up to the end of the
century this population lived and slowly increased under conditions
which absolutely precluded real progress and evolved the character
of singular stagnation which met the English conquerors in 1795.
In 1779 the Dutch settlers pleaded in vain with the Directors of the
East India Company for a limited privilege of making purchases
directly in Holland instead of through the Company's stores at Cape
Town. In vain the so-called burghers also asked for the most
elementary political rights--though even then entirely unwilling to
concede any rights to the surrounding natives. In vain they petitioned
for printed copies of the laws and regulations of the Government
and for a printing press.
They were regarded at this time by the Batavian Government
much as the Transvaal authorities regarded the Uitlanders of
another century. The Law Officer of the Cape Government, to
whom the petitions were referred in 1779 by the Home authorities,
declared that: "It would be a mere waste of words to dwell on the
remarkable distinction to be drawn between burghers whose
ancestors nobly fought for and conquered their freedom and such as are
named burghers here, who have been permitted as matter of grace
to have a residence in a land of which possession has been taken by
the Sovereign Power, there to gain a livelihood as tillers of the
earth, tailors and shoemakers."[1] At the end of the nineteenth
century the Uitlanders believed themselves to have been taxed and
treated in the Transvaal with very much similar motives and entirely
from the point of view of Dutch revenues and the strengthening of
Dutch supremacy. The Boers had been well taught this peculiar lesson
in government, and nowhere better than in another part of this same
document: "Now it is clear, and requires no lengthy argument, that
for the purpose of enabling a subordinate Colony to flourish as a
Colony it is not always expedient to apply those means which,
considered in the abstract, might be conducive to its prosperity. The
object of paramount importance in legislating for Colonies should
be the welfare of the parent state, of which such Colony is but a
subordinate part and to which it owes its existence."
[1] _Three Lectures on the Cafe of Good Hope_,
Judge Watermeyer. Cape Town, 1857.
[Sidenote: The Afrikander Dialect]
Meanwhile, to the degradation of character which came from
the possession of slaves by a people naturally narrow in view and
necessarily ignorant through their unfortunate
environment, was added the creation and cultivation
of a curious _patois_, or Afrikander dialect, which
increased their isolation and intensified the problems of the future.
The Huguenots had been compelled to learn and to speak Dutch, and
probably did not do it very well; the Boers were themselves
compelled to frequently speak the language of the natives; there was
no school system and no sifting of the culture of a higher class of
permanent residents down through the grades of other settlers;
there was no emigration of population from Holland which might
have helped to maintain the _morale_ of the language; and the result
was the evolution of a dialect which became neither Dutch nor
French, nor native, but a mixture of all three called the _Taal_. Olive
Schreiner has given the following explanation and description[2] of
this product of seventeenth century evolution amongst the Boers:
"The Dutch of Holland is as highly developed a language and as
voluminous and capable of expressing the finest scintillations of
thought as any in Europe. The vocabulary of the _Taal_ has shrunk
to a few hundred words, which have been shorn of almost all their
inflections and have been otherwise clipped.... Of the
commonest pronouns many are corrupted out of all resemblance to their
originals. Of nouns and other words of Dutch extraction most are
so clipped as to be scarcely recognizable. A few words are from
Malay and other native sources; but so sparse is the vocabulary
and so broken are its forms that it is impossible in the _Taal_ to
express a subtle emotion, an abstract conception, or a wide
generalization."
[2] _The Story of South Africa_.
By W. Basil Worsfold, M.A. London, 1898.
[Sidenote: The Batavian Republic]
In 1792 a Commission came out from Holland to investigate
the affairs and government of the now decadent and bankrupt
Company; and shortly afterwards the widespread colonial system of that
famous organization was taken over by the Home
Government of Holland, or, as it became under
French influence, the Batavian Republic. Minor
reforms were introduced at the Cape, but they were not sufficient to
meet the current conditions of corruption and stagnation, and by
1795, when Cape Town capitulated to Admiral Elphinstone and
General Craig, during one of the varied phases of the Napoleonic
wars and European combinations against England, much of the
interior Colony was in a state of rebellion, and two little republics had
been established amongst the settlers away to the north and east of
the capital. Thus ended a system of Government which the late
Judge Watermeyer, of Cape Town, has declared was "in all things
political purely despotic; in all things commercial purely
monopolistic;" and which the Historiographer to the Cape Government has
summarized in the words:[3] "It governed South Africa with a view
to its own interests, its method of paying its officials was bad, its
system of taxation was worse, in the decline of its prosperity it
tolerated many gross abuses."
[3] George M. Theal, LL. D., in "Story of the Nations' Series."
[Sidenote: Preliminary Period of British Rule]
In this way were laid the foundations of character and custom
upon which have been built the developments of the nineteenth
century in South Africa. So far, however, there had been no real
antagonism felt towards Great Britain, no apparent
reason for its creation and no direct cause for its
application. But, with the entrance of Holland into
the league against England in 1795 and the evolution of India as
an important dependency of the Island Kingdom, had come the first
real clash of English and Dutch interests in South Africa through
the capture of Cape Town. This preliminary period of British rule
in the country lasted until 1803. Everything possible was done to
conciliate the Dutch population, which in the country districts refused
at first to have anything to do with, or to in any way acknowledge,
the new Government. The people of Cape Town were treated with
generosity. Officials taking the oath of allegiance were, as a rule,
retained in their posts; the depreciated currency, amounting to a
quarter of a million pounds sterling, was accepted by the authorities
at its full nominal value; some very obnoxious taxes were abolished
and a popularly chosen Council or burgher Senate was established
in the capital. More important than all, the announcement was
made that anyone might now buy and sell as he would, deal with
whom he chose in a business way, and come and go as suited him
upon land and water. The farmers were invited to Cape Town to trade
as they might wish, and to lay any matters they desired before the
Governor. The early British administrators included Major-General
Sir J. H. Craig, the Earl of Macartney, Sir George Yonge and
Major-General Sir Francis Dundas.
[Sidenote: The New Government Unpopular]
Unfortunately, the weaknesses inherent in the British Colonial
system of that time soon manifested themselves in South Africa.
While free trade was allowed and promoted throughout the Colony,
and a great advance thus made on previous conditions it was soon
found that external trade to the East was restricted by the existing
monopoly of the British East India Company; while duties were, of
course, imposed upon goods coming from the West in any but
British ships. Even in this, however, there was an advance upon
the previous limitations under which goods could not be imported at
all by the people, even in Dutch ships. These regulations, it must
also be remembered, applied equally, under the strict navigation
laws of that time, to British Colonies in North America, including
French Canada and the West Indies, as well as to
South Africa. It was not an easy population to
govern. The Dutch farmer did not like the oath of
allegiance, although it was made as easy as possible for him to take.
The very strictness of the new Government and the absence of
corruption made it unpopular in some measure. The fact that Holland
had become a Republic, which in time percolated through the
isolation of the public mind, added to the prejudice against monarchical
government which already existed as a result of the despotism of the
Dutch East India Company. Naturally and inevitably positions under
the Government soon drifted into the hands of men who could speak
English and who possessed British sympathies. It is not difficult to
realize that the somewhat sullen character of a Cape Town
Dutchman who was always looking forward to some change in the
European kaleidoscope--of which he naturally knew more than the
farmers of the interior and therefore hoped more from--made
co-operation difficult and at times unpleasant.
[Sidenote: Kaffir Wars]
In the interior there had been one or two petty insurrections, or
rather riots, amongst the farmers, and in the last year of the century
occurred the third Kaffir war. The first had been fought in 1779
under Dutch rule, and the troublesome Kosa tribe
driven back over the Fish River which, it was hoped,
could be maintained as a permanent frontier between
the Colonists and the Kaffirs. The second was a similar but less
important struggle with the same tribe in 1789. One was now to
take place under British rule. The clans along the north bank of
the River joined in a sudden raid into the Colony in February, 1799,
took possession of a large strip of country, drove the fleeing settlers
before them, attacked and almost surprised a force of British troops
marching under General Vandeleur upon another errand to Algoa
Bay, cut off a patrol of twenty men and killed all but four. By
August, when a large body of Dutch volunteers and some British
regulars were got together, all the border country had been harried.
There was nothing else to plunder, and the Kaffirs therefore
withdrew before the advancing force, and readily accepted terms of peace
which General Dundas offered against the wish and advice of the
settlers. Three years later the war was renewed, as a result of
continued and isolated Kaffir depredations and, this time, the initial
movement was made by a Dutch commando. It was defeated, but
the Kaffirs soon became tired of a struggle in which there was no profit
to them, and a new peace was patched up. Meanwhile, in this same
year, a fresh and important element of the future was introduced into
South African life by the arrival of the first Agents of the London
Missionary Society, and in February, 1803, a temporary lull having
occurred in the European conflict, Cape Colony was restored to the
Holland Government and a Dutch garrison of 3,000 men placed at
Cape Town under the control of a Governor of high military
reputation and personal worth--Jan Willem Janssens.
[Sidenote: Restored to Holland Government]
During the next six years the Colony was governed under some
of the milder laws of its mother-land; though not always to the
liking of Dutch settlers, who objected to political
equality--even in the limited application of the the
phrase which was then in vogue--being given to
"persons of every creed who acknowledged and worshipped a
Supreme Being." To them there was only one Church as well as only
one people, and religious or political equality was as extraneous to
their ideas as racial equality. Nor would they have anything to do
with the state schools which the Batavian Government tried to
establish amongst them as being some improvement upon the few
and feeble schools connected with the churches. All useful discussion
or development of such tentative efforts at reform were checked,
however, by the renewed outbreak, in 1803, of war in Europe, and
by the appearance in Table Bay, on January 4, 1806, of a British
fleet of sixty-three ships, with 7,000 soldiers under the command of
Major-General (afterward Sir) David Baird. The troops landed on
the beach at Blueberg, defeated a very motley force of German
mercenaries, Dutch soldiers, volunteers, Malays, Hottentots and slaves
under General Janssens and marched toward Cape Town. Capitulation
followed, and, on March 6th, transports took away from South
Africa the last representative of direct Dutch rule.
[Sidenote: Again Under British Rule]
The settlers did not take kindly to the new Government, and
lived in continuous anticipation of some fresh change in the European
kaleidoscope--so far as they could, in a very vague way, follow
situation--which would once more revive the power of the Batavian
Republic through a renewed French triumph, and thus give them back
their allegiance. It was not that they had greatly
prized Dutch rule when it was theirs without the
asking; that the brief period of republican
administration had really soothed their wild ideas of liberty or
removed the dangers of Kaffir raid and native aggression; or that
they had forgotten the century and a half of oppressive government
and hurtful restriction which they had suffered from the Dutch East
India Company. It was simply the earlier form of that racial feeling
of antagonism which--unlike the sentiment of civilized peoples like
the French in Canada and the better class Hindoos, or educated
Mohammedans of India, and the wild natures of Sikhs and Ghoorkas
and kindred races in the Orient--has never given way before the
kindness and good intentions of British administration. Mistakes
were, of course, made by England, as they have been made in
Lower Canada as well as in Upper Canada, in Ireland as in India;
but the resulting dissatisfaction should not have been permanent.
However that may be, the new Government started out wisely.
Under the Earl of Caledon, a young Irish nobleman, who ruled from
1807 to 1811, the system of the first period of British administration
was revived and guided by the established Colonial principles of the
time. In the matter of representative institutions and commercial
regulations the Dutch of the conquered Colony were treated neither
better nor worse than the Loyalists of Upper Canada, the French of
Lower Canada, or white subjects in the East and West Indies. As
was really necessary in a community so cut off from European
civilization, so inert in an intellectual connection and so morosely
ignorant of constitutional freedom, Lord Caledon governed with much
strictness and even autocracy; but with boundless personal
generosity and amiability.
[Sidenote: The Fourth Kaffir War]
What is termed the fourth Kaffir war was
fought with the Kosas in 1812, and this time, under the command
of Lieut.-Colonel John Graham, the result was eminently satisfactory
to the Europeans concerned. In the preceding year
Sir John Cradock had become Governor, and he
also proved himself a man of high character. Under
his rule autocracy was again given its best form and application.
[Sidenote: Finally Ceded to Great Britain]
Meanwhile, events in Europe were tending towards the final
triumph of British arms and diplomacy and subsidies over the
tremendous military power of Napoleon. Holland, once freed from
French domination, overthrew the peculiar republican system which
Napoleon had established, and accepted, in 1813, the Prince of
Orange--who for eighteen years had been living in England in
exile--as its ruler. An agreement was at once made with him by
the British Government, and, in return for a payment of $30,000,000,
Cape Colony and some Dutch Provinces in South America were
formally and finally ceded to Great Britain by a
Convention signed at London in August, 1814. In
this way the Dutch of the Cape became British subjects.
Not through a conquest preceded, as in the case of French
Canada, by a century of continuous conflict or a rivalry which was
as keen as war, but through the medium of an almost peaceful
annexation succeeded by a friendly purchase of territory and
ratification of the annexation on the part of their Mother-land. Had
the character of the Boers not been so peculiar and exceptional,
there was consequently every ground for the hope of eventual
contentment under British rule and of assimilation with the developing
life of the Empire during the ensuing century. There was no
inherited legacy of civil war or racial hatred. The Mother-lands of
England and Holland had fought with each other, it is true, but more
often they had stood side by side in Europe for the cause of religious
and popular freedom.
[Sidenote: A Period Tending to Racial Co-operation]
And, at the Cape, during the succeeding years from 1806 to 1814,
there were few causes of real friction. The voices of the missionaries
were occasionally heard in criticism of the Dutch treatment of
natives; but the antagonism had not yet become acute. The
Courts of law and public offices under British administration were
found to be ruled by considerations of justice, and the local language
was still in use. Dutch churches increased, the clergymen were paid
by the State and six new magistracies were established.
Inter-marriages were also common amongst the various racial
elements--sometimes too much so--and everything pointed to a period of
gradually developed internal unity and racial co-operation. What
followed was regrettable, and the blame for it is very
hard to adequately and fairly apportion. Lord
Charles Somerset, who governed the Colony from
181410 1826, is accused of drawing far too heavy a salary--ten
thousand pounds a year--from the revenues of the country; of
having treated the Dutch rebels under Bezuidenhout with too great
severity; of having mismanaged relations with the Kaffirs on the
northern frontier; of prohibiting the Dutch language in the Courts
and official documents; and of having weakened the values of paper
money to such an extent as to ruin many of the settlers. Taken
altogether, there was enough in these charges, if true, to explain a
considerable measure of discontent; but there was hardly enough
in them to cause the absolute hatred of England and Englishmen
which had developed amongst the Dutch farmers by the end of the
first quarter of the century. As it was, many of the circumstances
mentioned have more than the traditional two sides. If the
Governor received a large salary, he certainly spent it freely in the
struggling Colony. He had an expensive establishment to maintain, and
the duties and pecuniary responsibilities of the position were much
greater in those days than they are now. He was, in himself,
practically the entire Government of the country, and without Ministers
to share either expense or duties. The Castle was the centre of a
hospitality which was in constant requisition for
visiting fleets and passing travellers of rank to, or
from, the Orient.
[Sidenote: Some of the Earliest Grievances]
Moreover, as in all the Colonies
at that time, the local revenue was largely supplemented from London,
the Army Chest was at the frequent service of the Governor, and an
expensive military establishment was maintained by the Home
authorities. The figures for this immediate period are not available;
but a little later,[4] in 1836, the local military expenditure by Great
Britain was £161,412, or over eight hundred thousand dollars.
[Sidenote: The Fifth Kaffir War]
The
Bezuidenhout matter will be considered in a succeeding chapter, and
the fifth Kaffir war, in 1818, was simply another of the inevitable
struggles between a race of pastoral farmers who openly despised and
ill-treated the natives and tribes which possessed much savage spirit,
bravery and natural aggressiveness. In any case,
Lord Charles Somerset anticipated attack by
attacking first, and turned over a page of history
which Sir Bartle Frere was destined to repeat with the Zulus many
decades after. His policy was certainly plainer and more promptly
protective to the Boers than had been the action of any preceding
Governor. Still, there was a period of surprise and frontier
devastation, and this the Dutch settlers once again resented.
[4] Montgomery Martin. _History of the Colonies
of the British Empire_. London, 1843.
[Sidenote: British Immigration Encouraged]
The prohibition of the language in official and legal matters
was a more important grievance. It arose out of the movement of
English-speaking settlers into the country after 1819, when it was
found, according to the Census of that year, that there were only
42,000 white people in the whole region. The Colonial Office and
Parliament thereupon resolved to encourage colonization, voted
$250,000 for the purpose, and, between 1820 and 1821, established
some five thousand immigrants of British birth in the Colony. Within
a few years about one-eighth of all the Colonists were
English-speaking, and it was then decided to issue the order
regarding the official use of the one language. It
was a very mild copy of the principle which the
Dutch had formerly applied to the Huguenots and which the United
States has never hesitated to apply to subject races such as the
French in Louisiana or the Spaniards and Mexicans elsewhere. It
must be remembered also that the white population of the Colony
was not at the time larger than that of a third-class English town,
and that the statesmen in question were trying to legislate for a
future population in which it was naturally supposed the English
people would constitute a large majority. The policy did not go
far enough, was not drastic enough, to effect the object in view, and
may in any case have been a mistake; but in Lower Canada, where
the opposite course was taken, the tiny French population of 1774
has developed into nearly two millions of French-speaking people
in 1899, and not a small part of the population of the present
Dominion think that a great error was made in the liberal practice
inaugurated by the Quebec Act. It is hard to satisfy everyone.
By 1828 the language arrangement was completed, so far as laws
could effect it, but without the autocratic educational regulations
which had made the Dutch treatment of the Huguenots so thorough.
The policy certainly had an irritating effect upon the Dutch settlers,
who promptly refused, as far as possible, to have anything to do
with the Government, or the Courts, or the high-class Government
schools which had been for some time established throughout the
country, and where English was, of course, the language taught.
[Sidenote: The Paper Money Policy]
The paper money matter was a more complicated affair, and one
which the ignorant settlers were naturally unable to comprehend.
The monetary system of the Colony was practically an inheritance
from the days of Dutch rule. The Company had not been very
scrupulous about the security of its paper money, and the succeeding
Batavian Government seems to have been utterly
unscrupulous. In 1807 Lord Caledon found
mercantile transactions in an almost lifeless state, and
the currency not only depreciated and contracted, but the subject of
usurious charges of all kinds. Every effort was made by him and
succeeding Governors to effect a betterment in the mass of
half-useless paper which was floating about, and, by 1825, there remained
only some three and a half million dollars' worth in nominal value,
of which one-third had been created by the British authorities in
various attempts to ease the financial situation, while the greater
part of the balance was of Dutch origin. Lord Charles Somerset
finally took the desperate, but apparently necessary, course of
cutting down the currency to three-eighths of its nominal value and
making British silver money a legal tender at that rate of exchange.
The result was the practical ruin of a number of people and the
creation of much discontent; but at the same time the measure
placed trade and commerce upon a permanent footing and laid the
basis of future monetary safety. For the time, however, it was like
the amputation of a limb in the case of an ignorant and unsatisfied
patient--producing suffering and discontent without that feeling
which a belief in the necessity of the operation and confidence in the
skill of the physician would have given.
[Sidenote: Other Grievances or Reforms]
These were some of the earlier grievances which are claimed to
have caused the evolution of Dutch feeling against the British. Others
arose between 1826 and 1836, when the Great Trek was inaugurated.
In 1828 the Courts were all remodelled upon the English plan, and
the existing Dutch system replaced by a Supreme Court, in which the
Judges were appointed by the Crown and were to be independent
of the Governor. Minor and local matters were in the hands of
Civil Commissioners and resident magistrates and justices of the
peace in the various scattered communities. The Dutch code, or
law, was to be retained, but English forms and
customs were to be observed. It is hard to see
why this rearrangement and admitted improvement
should have added so deeply to the sullen discontent of the Boers or
Dutch farmers. In being allowed the retention of their own peculiar
laws they were given more than any other country would have
granted in those days and at the same time they obtained what
French Canada was not to have for years afterwards--an
independent Judiciary. The only explanation is the fact that hatred
toward the more progressive and liberal Englishman (or
English-speaking man) was swelling strongly and surely in the Dutchman's
breast, and that every British reform or change had the effect of
deepening this sentiment. The reform in the legal system was
accompanied by changes in the municipal system of the capital.
The antiquated "burgher senate" of Cape Town was abolished, and
the Government assumed charge of the municipal and miscellaneous
duties performed by that body. The measure was beneficial on the
score of efficiency; but, of course, it produced some dissatisfaction
amongst the Dutch residents. There were also some disputes in
the interior districts as to the necessity of all jurymen understanding
English, and this was eventually settled by an ordinance issued in
1831 which defined the qualifications required but omitted any
language test. At the same time official salaries were greatly reduced
and one of the standing causes of complaint thus removed.
[Sidenote: Governor D'Urban's Policy]
In 1828 Sir Lowry Cole became Governor and made several
legislative experiments in connection with the Hottentots, which
were looked upon by the Dutch with open suspicion and dislike.
Four years later Sir Benjamin D'Urban succeeded with a policy of
extensive retrenchment in expenditures and the inauguration of
Legislative and Executive Councils after the style of other Colonial
Governments of the time. Some petitions had previously been sent
to England asking for representative institutions, but the Colonial
Office naturally shrank from giving popular power into the hands
of the evidently discontented Dutch settlers--ignorant as they were
of all constitutional principles and practices. Moreover, public
opinion in England would not then have permitted the grant of any
legislative authority which would have limited the right of the
Colonial Office, for good or ill, to manage native affairs and protect
native interests. The Council of Advice, which had previously
existed, was, however, changed into an Executive Council composed of
four high local officials, and the new Legislative Council was made
up of the Governor, as President, five of the highest
officials and five representative Colonists selected
by the Governor. But the primary and central
object of Sir Benjamin D'Urban's policy was the emancipation of the
slaves, and this touched a subject of so much importance as to
require the fullest consideration. It was from the early evolution of
peculiar and unique racial characteristics in the Dutch farmer that
the South African question has been born; but it was from the
opposing principles connected with the Dutch and English view, or
treatment, of native affairs that the first pronounced phase of that
question was produced. All other considerations were subsidiary.
CHAPTER II
The Dutch and the Natives.
[Sidenote: Hottentot Character]
At the commencement of British rule in Cape Colony (1806) there were in
the country 26,000 persons of European descent, chiefly Dutch; 17,000
Hottentots who wandered around the outskirts of settlement and made a
precarious livelihood by raising or stealing cattle; and 29,000 slaves.
The Bantu had only occasionally appeared upon the visible horizon to
the east and this gathering cloud was not yet a serious subject to the
people or their Governors. The yellow-skinned Bushmen had retired from
sight and sound of the settlers and were in any case a small and
diminishing quantity. The Hottentots were in abject fear of their
masters, whether as slaves "tending another's flock upon the fields"
which once had been their fathers', or as wandering and homeless
vagrants constituting a continuous nuisance to the scattered
communities. Apart from their subjection to the Dutch, however, they
were a thoughtless, cheerful, good-natured people, ignorant of
everything except a little hunting and, in physique and character, were
about half-way between the Bantu and the Bushmen. Like the latter they
became almost extinct under the recurring attacks of small-pox and the
increasing pressure of a white population on the south and the swarming
masses of Bantu on the north-east.
[Sidenote: Native Tribes]
Following the conquest other native elements came into view. Under the
earlier Dutch régime Malays from the East Indies had been introduced
for purposes of special work and negro slaves from the west coast had
been obtained in large numbers. From the union of Hottentots and
Malays came a mixed race called "Cape Boys," and from the union of
Dutch and Hottentots came the Griquas who afterwards filled a
considerable place in local history. From the seventeenth century
until the abolition of slavery, in 1834, all the hard and humble work
of the community was done by slaves. The Dutch farmer lost all
knowledge of menial work and acquired a conviction of personal
superiority which became ingrained in his character. Upon his lonely
farm he was master of what he surveyed, and even the laws had little
real influence or effect upon him. Constant danger from Hottentot
inroads and afterwards from the far more serious and deadly Kaffir
raids had bred an independence of character which isolation and
ignorance deepened into extreme racial narrowness combined with
contempt for men of darker colour or alien extraction.
[Sidenote: Grievance of the Hottentots]
The plowing of ground and fence-building by the Dutch was to the
natives a declaration of war upon the rights of Africans--that is,
according to the natives themselves, just as the building and mining by
the British in the Transvaal is held to be hostile by the Boers who
have inherited Hottentot principles with their Hottentot blood. In
1659 Van Riebeck, of Cape Town, wrote to the Governor-General at
Batavia that the natives had been in mischief again, that one prisoner
spoke "tolerable Dutch," and "being asked why they did us this injury,
he declared ... because they saw that we were breaking up the best land
and grass, where their cattle were accustomed to graze, trying to
establish ourselves everywhere, with houses and farms, as if we were
never more to remove, but designed to take, for our permanent
occupation, more and more of this Cape Country, which had belonged to
them from time immemorial."
[Sidenote: Wars with the Natives]
Wars with the natives were frequent. The first one with the Hottentots
occurred in 1659, and arose out of the natives finding their cattle
debarred from accustomed pasture lands. It consisted chiefly in a
series of cattle raids and fruitless return expeditions, but was
perhaps as annoying as a more real war would have been. The Hottentot
tribes could never be found when sought for by the Colonists, and no
doubt this mobility on the part of their earliest enemy gave the Dutch
settlers lessons from which they profited during the succeeding two
hundred years. The last important struggle with this native race was
in 1673, and arose out of the destruction by Dutch hunters of
antelopes, elephants and other game which were very precious to the
Hottentot, and were within the territories of the principal remaining
tribe--the Cochoqua. During four years a sort of guerilla war was
carried on with Gonnema, the Chief of the clan, and considerable loss
of cattle, some loss of life and a great loss of sleep caused to the
border settlers before peace was concluded. Their expeditions could
never get at Gonnema, although he became eventually tired of living a
hunted life in the mountains, moving from hiding-place to hiding-place
to escape his pursuers. Gradually, however, the Hottentots disappeared
from view, so far as any measure of organized hostility was concerned,
and, like the Bushmen, became either wandering pariahs of the veldt or
bondsmen in the fields of their fathers.
[Sidenote: The Kaffir Wars]
A hundred years or more after the war with Gonnema, the Dutch came into
collision for the first time with the Bantu, or Kaffirs. During the
preceding century this sturdy, vigorous, brave and restless race had
spread itself southwest of the Zambesi in all directions, and were now
beginning to press ominously upon the tiny fringe of white settlements
at the Cape. Wars, already referred to, occurred in 1779 and 1789, and
in each case the Dutch Governor endeavored to persuade or compel the
Kosas--as this particular division of the Kaffirs was called--to accept
the Fish River as the boundary line. But this they would not do with
any degree of continuity, and each war was marked by raids south of the
River, the capture of cattle, the burning of homes, the murder of
settlers and the final driving back of the natives with hastily levied
commandos of Dutch Colonists. In 1799, during the years of preliminary
British rule, a similar struggle took place with very similar incidents
and results. So in 1812 with the fourth Kaffir war, and in 1818 with
the fifth contest. But in the two latter British troops had been
employed to help the Dutch commandos, as British diplomacy had been
used--not very successfully--in order to control the aggressive and
quarrelsome Kosas now coming into continuous contact with the equally
truculent Colonists.
[Sidenote: Missionary Influence]
Meanwhile, and during the years preceding the Kaffir war of 1835, a new
factor in the general situation had developed in the form of missionary
influence, chiefly of the London Missionary Society. Dr. Van der Kemp
had come out in 1798 and given himself up, with the most unswerving
devotion, to the establishment of a Hottentot mission in the eastern
part of the settlement. With other missionaries, who joined him at a
later date, he became the guardian of the hapless natives and the
natural enemy of the Dutch farmers. To the latter nothing could be
more obnoxious than the presence in their midst of men who not only
preached to the wandering Bushmen and Hottentots, but treated them as
human beings not expressly created for slavery and subjection; and who
closely criticised, complained about and reported to headquarters, and
finally to the Colonial Office, any arbitrary treatment by the Boers of
slaves, or migratory natives, or so-called apprentices. Of course
there were two sides to the case which history has developed and which
is so important to any adequate conception of the Dutch farmer and his
character. To him, through close devotion to the Old Testament and to
the peculiarities of its chosen people wandering in the wilderness--of
whom he believed his race to be in some sense a prototype--the natives
were simply servants raised up by Providence for his especial benefit.
They were little better than the surrounding wild animals, and a common
inscription over the doors of the Dutch churches, as they slowly spread
over the land, was: "Dogs and natives not admitted."
[Sidenote: Dutch Prejudices]
To the missionary this was not only incomprehensible, but cruel and
wicked in the extreme. He did not understand the nature of the Boer as
evolved out of conditions of frequent war with environing tribes, and
from customs which included slavery, and did not tolerate equality in
color, race, or religion. He could not understand a creed of the Boer
type--hard, narrow, unsympathetic and essentially selfish. He felt in
his own veins the broad sentiment of a sacrificial Christianity, and,
in trying to lift up the degraded and light the pathway of life to the
darkened eyes of the savage, he frequently failed in comprehension of
the reserved, taciturn and bigoted Dutchman. Hence the rivalries which
spread from individuals to districts, and were finally transfused into
the general Dutch estimate of British Government, and into the
relations between the Cape and the Colonial Office and between Dutch
and English settlers. Ultimately the missionaries became identified
with the British authorities, and Dutch prejudices were intensified by
the protection thus given to the natives within their districts; whilst
the wilder native tribes outside British limits grew in turn to hate
the authorities for the opposite reason afforded by their protection of
the Dutch settlers--or their efforts to protect them--against external
raids and attack. Thus the Colonial Office, had a double difficulty
and a double development on its hands.
[Illustration: RAILROAD NEAR LADYSMITH, VICINITY OF GENERAL WHITE'S
BATTLE WITH THE BOERS]
[Illustration: PRINCIPAL STREET OF PIETERMARITZBURG, CAPITAL OF NATAL]
[Sidenote: The Hottentots and Bushmen Within the Colony]
It was, in any case, no easy matter to manage the Hottentots and
Bushmen within the Colony. Up to the time of Lord Caledon's
administration (1807-11) they had been allowed to run wild through the
region without restraint other than their somewhat chaotic ideas of
chieftainship, their innate belief in the natural superiority of any
kind of a white man, and the rude justice, or injustice, of the Dutch
farmer. Many of them lived as voluntary dependents of the settlers,
and constituted a sort of movable slave class which associated with the
permanent slaves and were treated much as they were, while retaining
the nominal right to transfer their services. Children born of unions
between Hottentot women and the imported slaves constituted a body of
apprentices whom the farmers had the right to keep for a certain number
of years, and who then became free. Practically, however, they were as
much slaves as any other black children pertaining to the property.
Those of the Hottentots who did not connect themselves with the farmers
in any way became rovers and vagrants, who were willing to do almost
anything--except steady work--for brandy and tobacco. This was the
material selected by Dr. Van der Kemp and other missionaries for
reclamation and protection. When the Circuit Courts were instituted in
1811 two of the best known missionaries brought a number of charges
against the Boer families on the frontier, accusing them of varied acts
of violence and forms of oppression in connection with their slaves and
Hottentot servants. A large number of families and a thousand
witnesses were involved, and great expenses were incurred by the
accused whether they were found innocent or guilty. [Sidenote: Charges
of Cruelties] No case of murder was proved, though several were
charged. Without going minutely into the result of the charges, it
seems evident from our knowledge of the Boer character as it then was,
and afterwards proved to be, that cruelties were more than probable.
At the same time there is every proof of the utter unreliability of
native evidence in any matter involving controversies between white
men, or affairs in which his own interests, or fancied interests,
appear to be at stake.
[Sidenote: The Rev. Dr. Philip]
In 1818 Dr. Robert Moffat commenced his long sojourn in South Africa by
going out to the far north in what is now Bechuanaland. Two years
later one of the most curious figures in Colonial history, the Rev. Dr.
Philip, reached Cape Town and took charge of the London Society's
Missions. He found the missionaries hampered at every point by Dutch
dislike, and under some suspicion also from the Government of the
Colony. The latter knew enough of the situation to feel that,
beneficent as it was to spread the lessons of Christianity, it was also
dangerous to inculcate the principle of absolute racial equality in a
mixed population such as that of the Cape. To preach the new
dispensation of freedom and equality alike to the haughty Boer and to
Malay, slave, and Hottentot, was in perfect harmony with religious
enthusiasm and with the growing principles of English conviction; but
it was not always politic. The abolition of slavery idea, however, was
carrying everything before it at home, and Dr. Philip came out with a
feeling in his breast which Thomas Pringle, the South African poet, and
afterwards Secretary of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery, so
well embodied about this time in the following lines:
"I swear, while life-blood warms my throbbing veins,
Still to oppose and thwart with heart and hand
Thy brutalizing sway--till Afric's chains
Are burst, and freedom rules the rescued land--
Trampling oppression and his iron rod."
[Sidenote: The Narrow Views of the Dutch]
He found the Dutch rigidly opposed to him at every point. The great
agencies of civilization in such a country as the Cape then was were
the magistrates, the missionaries, the schoolmasters and the traders.
But the Boer wanted none of them in the full English sense. He
accepted the appointment of magistrates, or lauddrosts, but he desired
them to be Dutch and to dispense Dutch law. Any religious element
outside of the Dutch Reformed Church--which had become the embodiment
of his own narrow views and prejudices--was alien and antagonistic,
even without missionary interference amongst the natives.
Schoolmasters were only good so far as they taught in accord with his
crude and very limited ideas of education; while traders were obnoxious
as introducing new and disquieting conditions into the loneliness of
the veldt and into his relations with the dark-skinned population. Dr.
Philip, however, had a plan to work out, and he proceeded with ability
and determination to the end. He established himself at Cape Town, and
used an influence which came from the strong feeling known to exist in
England against slavery and in favor of sympathetic treatment of
colored races, to bring about continuous modification in the relations
of master and slave. Sometimes he was right and sometimes wrong, but
in every case the Government was between two horns of a dilemma--the
Colonial Office at home and the Dutch settlers at the Cape. The latter
objected to every change in law or regulation; and every interference,
no matter how slight, with their living chattels produced one more
ember of smouldering hatred. But, in the fourteen years from the time
of his arrival until slavery was abolished, Dr. Philip usually carried
his point, and by 1834 had the conditions of servitude so moderated
that the Abolition Act itself made substantially little difference to
the slave.
[Sidenote: The Incident of Slaghter's Nek]
The history of this period and of the entire relationship of English
and Dutch toward each other and toward the natives is the record of a
high civilization and wide code of liberty--though with many admitted
weaknesses and errors of judgment--coming into contact, and inevitable
conflict, with a wild and crude system of life and an intensely
ignorant and isolated people. The famous incident of Slaghter's Nek
illustrates this fact most thoroughly. In 1814 a Hottentot apprentice,
named Booy, complained to the Cradock magistrate that his master,
Frederick Bezuidenhout, refused to allow him to leave his service or to
remove his few belongings. Instructions were given to investigate the
case and it was found that the man's time of service had expired, as he
claimed, and that under the law of the Colony he was, and should be, at
liberty to leave his master. Bezuidenhout refused, however, to obey
the order issued for the man's release, although admitting the facts to
be as stated; declared that such interference between him and his
Hottentot was a presumptuous invasion of his rights; and defied the
authorities by beating the man and sending him with a message to the
magistrate that he would treat him in the same manner if he dared to
come upon his grounds to touch the property or person of a native. He
treated a summons to appear before the District Court and then before
the High Court of Justice with equal contempt; and when a small force
was sent to bring him under subjection to the law, he retired to a
cave, well supplied with food and ammunition, and fired upon his
assailants until he was himself shot dead.
[Sidenote: A Small Rebellion]
The matter would not have been important, except as illustrating the
contempt for law and still greater contempt for the natives which had
developed amongst the farmers, had it not been for what followed. The
brothers and immediate friends of Bezuidenhout attended his funeral and
hatched a small rebellion, in which about fifty men joined--the object
being an attack upon the Hottentots of the neighborhood. Loyal Boers
of the vicinity joined the forces which were at once sent down to
suppress the trouble, and all the rebels were captured, with the
exception of Jan Bezuidenhout, who refused to surrender and was shot
dead. Thirty-nine prisoners were tried by the High Court and six were
sentenced to death. Lord Charles Somerset, after a careful
investigation of the whole matter, would only mitigate one of the
sentences, and five men were therefore hanged for this wild and almost
incomprehensible folly.
[Sidenote: Consequences of Slaghter's Nek]
From the standpoint of to-day the action of the Government seems harsh,
and to the Boers the Slaghter's Nek incident is a vivid and
continuously quoted illustration of British tyranny and
bloodthirstiness. To men on the spot and comprehending the widespread
nature of Bezuidenhout's contempt for British power and law and native
rights, a lesson may well have appeared necessary and present sternness
better than future and more general disregard of law and order. The
fact is, that presumption born of mingled ignorance and pride was even
then becoming so ingrained in the nature of the Boer as to have
rendered some such incident inevitable. And, although the summary
policy pursued planted seeds of bitterness which time has failed to
eradicate, it certainly averted serious insurrectionary trouble through
all the subsequent changes in the law affecting masters and their
slaves, or servants, up to the days of the Great Trek.
[Sidenote: Continuous Conflict with Surrounding Natives]
While the Dutch settlers were thus cultivating in their silent and
morose manner the most intense feelings against England and the English
because of the policy of amelioration in the condition of colored
races--the making of fresh slaves had been forbidden by law in
1808--the British Government and the Colonial authorities were being
dragged into continuous conflict, or controversy, with surrounding
natives on behalf of, and in defence of, the Dutch Colonists. The
latter were absolutely remorseless in their treatment of bordering
tribes. Of course they had suffered from raids and were in fear of
future raids, but this was hardly a sufficient reason for urging and
obtaining in 1811 the forcible expulsion of all the Kaffirs from within
the border, and the driving of some twenty thousand men, women and
children across the Great Fish River. And this in spite of most
pathetic appeals to the Dutch commando, as in the following case: "We
are your friends. We have watched your cattle when they were taken
away by our countrymen. Our wives have cultivated your gardens. Our
children and yours speak the same language."[1] Little wonder that
during this and succeeding years many natives hated the English, who
had permitted this policy, almost as much as they did the Dutch who had
perpetrated it. The fourth Kaffir war had naturally followed, and the
fifth had come in 1818 as the result of a British attempt to hold the
border intact by endorsing a powerful native chief, without available
means to take up the note by force when the chief came under the
subjugation of a rival stronger and abler than himself. [Sidenote: The
Kaffir War of 1835] In 1835 occurred the most important of these wars
with the Kosas, or Kaffirs--not so much because of its actual events as
of the movement amongst the Dutch which it accelerated. The war was
interesting, also, apart from the destruction of Boer property and the
loss of life which followed. It illustrated those evils of vacillating
administration which have caused so much trouble throughout the modern
history of South Africa. Lord Charles Somerset's first policy toward
the Kosas had been the maintenance of a vacant strip of territory
between the Great Fish and the Keiskama Rivers as a sort of buffer
against Boer aggression and native raids. His second plan had been the
creation of a buffer native state--a sort of early and shadowy edition
of the Afghanistan of a later day. The one had failed because of the
lack of coherent action or system amongst the native tribes; the second
because of their rivalries and the fact of one chief being paramount
to-day and another to-morrow. And, in both cases, the Governor lacked
money to persuade the recalcitrant, or men to enforce his decisions.
[1] Parliamentary Papers relative to the Cape, 1835, Part I., p. 176
[Sidenote: A New Line of Action]
Dr. Philip and his party agreed with a portion of this policy. Living
five hundred miles from the disturbed frontier; knowing much of the
mildness and docility of the Hottentot character, and little of the
fiercer and wilder spirit of the Kosa; surrounded by many evidences of
Dutch cruelty to the domestic or vagrant colored man, and therefore not
disposed to sympathize with the Colonists' real difficulties and
sufferings on the border; Dr. Philip supported with ability and
earnestness a policy of frontier conciliation instead of coercion.
After the conflict of 1835 was over Sir Benjamin D'Urban inaugurated a
new line of action. The pressure of the wasting wars of Tshaka and
Moselkatze had driven various tribes or remnants of tribes from the
north and east down upon the Kosas and into the vicinity of Cape
Colony. The Governor therefore took some eighteen thousand Fingoes--as
one of these mixed masses of fighting fugitives was called--and
established them between the Great Fish and Keiskama Rivers as a new
form of the old "buffer" scheme. They and the Kosas hated each other,
and he believed that the former would prove a strong British influence
upon the frontier. Between the Keiskama and the Keir further to the
eastward, certain Kosa clans were proclaimed British subjects, the
territory was named the Province of Queen Adelaide, and troops were
located at a spot called King Williamstown. But the war had been a
bitter one, the natives had been punished for an unprovoked aggression
by a somewhat harsh desolation of their country, and the missionary
influence at Cape Town saw and seized its opportunity.
[Sidenote: Formation of States Ruled by Native Chiefs]
Their plan was the formation of states ruled by native chiefs under the
guidance and control of missionaries, and from which Europeans not
favored by, or favorable to the latter, were to be excluded. It was a
very idyllic proposal, and was, of course, based upon an entirely wrong
conception of the native character and of the necessity of strong, if
not drastic, measures being employed to protect the Colony from the
Bantu masses, which were now pressing upon the border tribes in all
directions. [Sidenote: Dr. Philip Visits London] To press these views,
however, Dr. Philip visited London with a carefully trained Kosa and a
half-breed Hottentot as examples of the wild and gallant races of the
east and north, and testified at great length before a Committee of the
House of Commons. He was also supported by the evidence of Captain
Andries Stockenstrom, a retired Colonial official. The net result of
his mission, combined with the English sympathy for colored races which
was then at its highest point of expression, and the hardships of the
native war just ended, was a victory for the missionary party; a
despatch of unmitigated censure from Lord Glenelg, the new Secretary
for the Colonies, to the Governor; the public reversal of the latter's
policy with the statement that "it rested upon a war in which the
original justice was on the side of the conquered, not of the
victorious party;" and the still more extraordinary assertion that the
Kosas "had a perfect right to endeavor to extort by force that redress
which they could not expect otherwise to obtain." British sovereignty
was withdrawn from the region beyond the Keiskama, Sir Benjamin D'Urban
was recalled, Captain Stockenstrom was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of
Eastern Cape Colony and shortly afterwards created a baronet, and the
whole Colony was thrown into a state of violent commotion.
[Sidenote: Sir George Napier's Declaration]
Looking back now and placing oneself in the position of a British
Minister pledged by duty to protect British subjects, and by the most
ordinary rules of policy bound not to encourage or approve the
proceedings of an enemy, there appears to be no adequate practical
excuse for this line of action. Sir George Napier, who succeeded to
the Governorship and went out to carry Lord Glenelg's policy into
effect, declared some years afterwards in examination before the House
of Commons that: "My own experience and what I saw with my own eyes
have confirmed me that I was wrong and Sir Benjamin D'Urban perfectly
right." No matter how reckless the Dutch settlers may have been
regarding the border natives, there was no justification in policy for
such an insensate and ill-timed defence of native invasion. From the
standpoint of sentimentality, however, Lord Glenelg had much support in
Great Britain as well as amongst the missionaries at the Cape; and
there was much of the theoretically beautiful and Christian-like in his
conception of the situation. But from the practical point of view of a
statesman dealing with diverse races and absolutely different ideals,
and responsible, in the first place, for the guardianship of the
subjects of the Crown as against irresponsible tribal attacks, the
theories and opinions of religious enthusiasts afford poor foundation
for such a policy.
[Sidenote: Noble Ideals of the British Authorities]
At the same time, no one can take the two principles of Government
exhibited in the respective incidents of Slaghter's Nek and the results
of the sixth Kaffir war without paying an involuntary tribute of
admiration to the noble ideal of the British authorities; apart from
questions of practical statecraft or wise administration. The Dutch
Colonists' principle was the enslavement of the Hottentot; the
subjugation of the Kosa within British territory so long as his
retention in servitude was safe; the driving of him out of the Colony
with ruthless severity when his numbers became considerable; the
carrying of fire and slaughter into native regions when war broke out.
The policy of succeeding British Governors seems to have been an
attempt at compromising between the views of a local missionary party
which could see no gleam of good in the Dutch character and the feeling
of the latter that all natives were created for the special footstool
of a chosen people. The British public, while knowing little of the
Dutch farmers beyond their belief in slavery felt very strongly the
duty of Great Britain as a guardian of inferior races, and was willing
to go so far in defence of an ideal of freedom as to tacitly
approve--without probably fully understanding--the extreme development
of this policy in the action of Lord Glenelg. The latter was
philanthropic, it was Christian-like in a high and cosmopolitan sense,
but it was also injurious to the interests of British and Dutch
settlers and to the welfare and peace of the Empire. Had a large force
of British troops been kept in the Colony to enforce British theories
of liberty and high-minded justice, as between natives who knew nothing
and could comprehend nothing of either and Boers who would sooner
starve than accept the principles thus propounded, the ideal might in
the end have been put into praiseworthy practice. As it was the policy
of Lord Glenelg helped to promote the Great Trek and to lay the
foundation in a territorial sense of that South African question which
in its racial connection had now been developing for a couple of
centuries.
CHAPTER III
The Great Trek and its First Results.
[Sidenote: Abolition of Slavery]
The abolition of slavery is one of the landmarks in South
African history. The motive for the expenditure of a
hundred million of dollars in freeing slaves within the bounds of
the British Empire was noble beyond all criticism. The act itself
was wise and necessary. But the immense distance of the British
Government from the scene in South Africa and the unfortunate
ignorance of the Colonial Office, at times, concerning conditions
in those far-away regions, produced mistakes in the carrying out of
their policy of freedom which created a distinct injustice and made
memories which still rankle in the breasts of Dutchmen from the
Cape to the Zambesi. The Slave Emancipation
Act came into force in Cape Colony on
December 1st, 1833, and by the terms of its
administration $6,235,000 was apportioned to the Cape proprietors,
as against the $15,000,000 at which they had valued their
property. The difference was considerable and, as many of the
slaves were mortgaged it is apparent that some measure of trouble
must have followed even had the whole six million dollars been
promptly distributed amongst the farmers. As it was, the period
of seven years' apprenticeship originally granted in order to prepare
all parties for the inevitable change of condition was shortened
to five years, while the money itself was doled out from London
after individual proof of claim. The result, through a natural and
complete ignorance of procedure amongst the farmers, was the
wholesale disposal of claims against the Government for mere
trifles and the enrichment of hordes of agents at the expense of
the settlers.
[Sidenote: A Disastrous Measure]
To many this meant ruin. Their source of labour was gone;
they could not, or would not, themselves perform manual work;
their discontent with the British Government was intensified by a
bitter feeling that the missionaries were their sworn enemies and
were installed at the ear of the Governor and in the heart of the
Colonial Office; their belief in British power was at a minimum
owing to weakness in dealing with the Kaffirs; their homes had
been harried along the border during many Kaffir wars and sometimes
in days of peace; their pleas for a vagrancy law which should
restrain wandering Kaffirs or Hottentots while
within the Colony had been refused from fear
of harshness in its local administration; their
whole social system, religious sentiment and racial pride seemed
in a state of revolt against existing conditions. At this
unfortunate moment another Kaffir war broke out. There had
been warning signs of danger along the eastern frontier of the
Province, much alarm had been felt and expressed and appeals
were sent to Cape Town for protection. Dr. Philip, the political
missionary and self-constituted defender of all natives, declared these
fears unwarranted, and Sir Benjamin D'Urban, who had just come
out as Governor, failed to take any serious measures for defence.
The result was that on December 23rd, 1834, 10,000 Kaffirs swept
over the frontier, plundered the farms, murdered fifty Europeans
within a week and, before the Colony was cleared of them, had
wholly, or partially destroyed 806 farm-houses and captured, or
destroyed sixty wagons, 5700 horses, 111,000 horned-cattle and
161,000 sheep. This was the final blow to thousands of Dutch
settlers. Had they been naturally loyal to British institutions and
allegiance, their repeated misfortunes must have produced some
discontent, and, as it was, they were said to create an absolutely
impossible situation.
[Sidenote: The Trek Commences]
Disregarded by their own slaves, whom they
despised and often ill-treated; pillaged by the native tribes, whom
they hated with a bitter hatred and oppressed wherever possible;
governed by the English, whom they had learned to dislike intensely
and to in some measure despise; controlled by rules of administration
which they failed to understand and by laws of liberty which aimed
at their individual right of control over human chattels,
while striving to permeate by education the
dense mass of their inherited ignorance; they prepared
their caravan-covered wagons, gathered together their
household possessions and flocks and herds, and withdrew in
thousands from the Colony, and, as they hoped, from British rule.
[Sidenote: Qualities and Mode of Life]
Such is a brief pen-picture of the immediate and surface causes
of the Great Trek. It gives the most favorable view for the
emigrant farmer, and constitutes, in various forms, the basis for the
belief in foreign countries that the Boers were forced to migrate
from Cape Colony by British tyranny or maladministration; that
they deserved their independence if ever a people did; and that Great
Britain had no right to interfere further with them in the interior.
Such an opinion is far from correct. As we have seen in preceding
pages, the British Government had made sundry serious mistakes in
policy; but they had occurred under conditions of exceptional
difficulty and from motives of the highest and best. The Boers, in fact,
did not want firm government or free institutions; they desired
liberty to do as they liked with their own living
chattels and with the natives of the soil. They
deliberately cultivated modes of life and thought diametrically
opposed to everything the Englishman holds dear, and carefully
fanned the smouldering embers of dislike and distrust in their own
breasts until they became a flame of active hatred. The development
of conditions, therefore, which in Canada or Australia would have
produced protests and elicited eventual and satisfactory reforms only
served, in South Africa, to intensify individual bitterness, to increase
the racial misunderstandings and prejudices, and to hasten the great
migration into the interior.
There are some important details to consider in this connection.
Many of England's troubles in administering the eastern part of the
Colony were due to Boer arrogance and contempt of native rights and
property; while the wars which resulted in the destruction of Dutch
property, in turn, were natural though regrettable ebullitions of that
spirit of revenge which is not always confined to savages. Unwise
as Lord Glenelg's despatch to Sir Benjamin D'Urban was, its terms
clearly prove this fact. As to the Trek itself, there is a possibility
that it would have occurred in any case. The Boers were accustomed
to a wandering life in wagons, and, in time, their laagers must
inevitably have extended further and further into native territory. The
loss of their slaves would have naturally driven parties of the more
enterprising and youthful into the vast interior, and the spirit with
which they slaughtered natives as readily and as cheerfully as they
did wild beasts would have surely established Dutch communities to
the north and east without the provocations afforded by missionary
charges of cruelty, the Slaghter's Nek incident, the freeing of the
slaves, or native raids of retribution across the frontier. The pity
of it is that the feeling of hatred toward England and Englishmen
was so early in its origin and so deep-seated in its nature that some
of these occurrences, which superficial writers give as the undoubted
cause of the sentiment, were in reality more like the froth and foam
upon the top of a slow-gathering wave of sullen and stubborn
resentment against a superior racial civilization.
[Sidenote: Troubles with the Natives]
The Boers who migrated were chiefly those of the eastern part
of the Colony, far away from the seat of Government and almost
entirely isolated from communication with English settlers--largely
by their own desire. They were accustomed to
fighting the natives, and had the authorities
allowed them at pleasure to throw off their allegiance
and move into the interior in detached bodies, there would have
been no end to complications with the native tribes, while a
prolonged series of little wars in partial defence of men who were alien
in race and thought and policy would have resulted. At this period,
too, England still maintained throughout the world the principle
that he who is born a British subject is always one, and in South
Africa, up to 1836, it was really good policy to prevent isolated
Dutch settlements in the native regions. When the migration
became too large and too well organized to prevent, later developments
made it still necessary to press this claim of allegiance in
order to try and control, or check, the new régime of strife and
bloodshed which the Boer commandos had established and which
threatened both British interests and settlers in Natal. There was
much of the picturesque and something of the apparently heroic in
this famous migration. Out of Egypt and from the bondage of the
Englishmen--who would not let them retain their bondsmen--the
Boers went to the number of at least ten thousand, and traversed
the vast wilderness stretching through what is now Griqualand East
into the Natal of to-day; or else trekked into the regions north of
the Orange and Vaal Rivers. The interest and striking features
of the migration were undoubted, but the heroism was not at first
so clear. As events turned out there was much of danger and
death in these determined raids into native territory--conquered
and partially cleared of population by the wars of Moselkatze and
Tshaka--but at first the contempt of the Boers for all savages, their
absolute belief in themselves as a chosen people and in their
shotguns as invincible allies, made the movement an apparently simple
matter.
[Sidenote: Preparations and First Party of Trekkers]
In 1836 the Great Trek began. All through the frontier districts
sounded the hum of preparation, while the still primitive roads
became crowded with large wagons laden with
household goods, provisions, ammunition and the
families of the men who rode on either side or
guarded the droves of cattle and horses and the flocks of sheep and
goats which accompanied each caravan. The parties travelling
together were usually made up of related families, and were led by
one of themselves duly elected to the post and to the title of
Commandant. The first party to start was divided into two sections of
about fifty individuals each. One section met the not uncommon
fate of over-confident invaders in a land of savages, and its
members were destroyed with the exception of two children. The other
went away up to the north and east, and only a few finally reached
the Portuguese settlement at Delagoa Bay alive. Fever and the
Tsetse fly had been too much for the expedition.
[Sidenote: The Second Party]
The second party
was a large one under command of an able leader--Hendrik
Potgieter. Slowly and carefully he guided his people
up to an extensive strip of land lying between the
Vet and Vaal Rivers, and of this they took possession.
It was not long, however, before Moselkatze, the potent
Chief of the Matabele, heard of this invasion of his sphere, and some
isolated parties of the farmers were killed by his warriors. Then
came the news that a grand attack was to be made and the settlement
wiped out. Potgieter at once selected a suitable elevation,
made a strong defence with wagons and trees, and with forty men
awaited the attack. The result of fierce onslaughts upon such a
position by the naked bodies and brandishing spears of a Matabele
army was what might have been expected, and 155 corpses of the
enemy were finally left outside the laager.
[Illustration: BRITISH COURIER CARRYING THE NEWS OF THE BEGINNING
OF WAR TO THE ENGLISH SETTLERS]
[Illustration: INSPECTION BY THE COMMANDANT OF THE ASSEMBLED "COMMANDO"
IN THE MARKET PLACE OF A DORP.
BEGINNING OF THE WAR-BOERS LEAVING PRETORIA FOR THE FRONT.]
[Sidenote: The Third Contingent]
Relief came to the party from a third contingent of emigrants
under Gerrit Maritz, who soon after joined forces with them, and
then the Boers with their characteristic and inborn
contempt for the natives organized an expedition of
one hundred and seven farmers to attack the
nearest kraal of the Chief whose name was a household word of
terror amongst alien tribes and a force for unity and fighting power
amongst his own people. The commando surprised a large kraal
from which both Moselkatze and his Induna happened to be absent,
slew at least four hundred warriors, fired the village and returned to
camp with nearly seven thousand cattle as trophies of victory. The
emigrants then established themselves at a place on the Vet River,
which they called Wynburg, and here they were soon joined by other
families from Cape Colony, and, notably, by one band with Pieter Retief
at its head. The latter was elected Commandant-General, and a skeleton
of a constitution, after the Dutch plan, was framed. Instinct,
however, with the roving spirit of their people, many of the continually
arriving bands would not settle down even at this spot, and hankered
after the lowlands and sea-coast of Natal. Pieter Uys, one of the
leaders, had visited this region a couple of years before, and was
eloquent in praise of its beauty, fertility and delightful climate. The
fact that Natal had been partially colonized as early as 1825 by
Englishmen, under arrangements with Tshaka; that it was claimed as a
British possession, and that, in 1835, the settlers at Durban had
petitioned the Imperial Government to take them formally under its
protection; does not seem to have greatly concerned the Boers. The
only point in question was how Dingaan, who had succeeded Tshaka
as head of the Zulus, could be persuaded or coerced into a cession
of territory outside the immediate sphere of British settlement on the
coast.
[Sidenote: How they Obtained Land]
To this end Retief himself crossed the Drakensberg mountains,
paid a visit to Dingaan in what is now Zululand, and found him
apparently quite willing that the farmers should
settle in Natal. Meantime a second Dutch expedition
against the Matabele in the west had been organized,
and the result, as told by Dr. Theal, the Cape Town historian,[1]
is so typical of Boer methods and character in warfare that no
apology is needed for its reproduction here:
[1] _The Story of South Africa_. By George M. Theal,
LL.D. London, 1895.
[Sidenote: Ruthless Warfare]
"It consisted of one hundred and thirty-five farmers in two
divisions, under Hendrik Potgieter and Pieter Uys. Moselkatze
was found on the Marikwa, about fifty miles north of Mosega, and
he had with him at least twelve thousand warriors, all splendidly
trained and as brave as any troops who ever lived. But the advantage
of the farmers in their guns and horses was so great that the
hundred and thirty-five did not hesitate to attack a force which was
to theirs as ninety to one. For nine days the Matabele tried to
reach their opponents, but all their efforts were in
vain. The farmers were more than once nearly
surrounded; still their plans were so perfect that
they were never quite entrapped. They had little
else but dried meat to live upon, and they had no resting-place but
the bare ground with a saddle for a pillow. Only the hardiest of
men and horses could have carried on aggressive operations so long.
The loss of the Matabele was great, so great that at the end of the
nine days Moselkatze gave up the contest and sought only to
escape. With his people and his cattle he fled to the north, and in
the country beyond the Limpopo commenced to destroy the Mashona
tribes as he had destroyed the southern Betshuana. The farmers
were too wearied to follow him, and indeed they could not have
continued in the field much longer under any circumstances, so they
contented themselves by seizing six or seven thousand head of
cattle, with which they returned to Wynburg."
[Sidenote: Subjugation of Matabele]
There seems to have been no particular reason for the expedition
except the driving of the Matabele out of a region which the
Boers wanted and the making of their own position more secure. It
is probable that negotiation would have answered the purpose, as
Moselkatze was more amenable to reason than other native
potentates had proved to be, and was to some slight
extent under the influence of Dr. Moffat. But the
emigrant farmers wanted territory, and despised the
native owners too much to care about taking time and trouble for
its acquisition. Better a bold assault, a speedy and successful
slaughter of the enemy, than an ordinary and peaceful but prolonged
settlement. The immediate result of this raid was a proclamation
issued by Commandant Potgieter in which he declared territory now
including the greater part of the Transvaal, a half of the Orange
Free State, and the whole of northern Bechuanaland, to belong to the
emigrant farmers.
[Sidenote: Pieter Retief]
Not satisfied with this immense acquisition, or
annexation of territory, Retief, in the succeeding year (1838) led a large
party of Boers over the Drakensberg, and went on
himself with about seventy men to Dingaan's
capital--Umkungunhlovu, where he claimed the formal cession
of that part of Natal which had been previously promised him.
The Zulu Chief expressed his approval of the deed which had been
drawn up, affixed his mark to it, and then invited the visitors into his
own private part of the kraal. Unsuspiciously leaving their guns
behind them, the entire party seated themselves, and were then
seized, bound and slaughtered by surrounding guards. Immediately
afterwards ten thousand Zulus left the kraal, and after a march of
eleven days fell upon the nearest Boer encampment at a place since
called Weenen, and destroyed men, women, children and slaves.
The horrors of that massacre have never been forgotten or forgiven
by the Dutch. Had not one young man, sleeping at a distance from
the camp, awakened in time to save himself on a swift horse, every
Dutch emigrant in Natal must have suffered the same fate. As it
was, he succeeded in warning the other scattered parties in time for
them to form their simple laagers and to shoot down the attacking
Zulus until surrounded, literally, by heaps of dead savages.
[Sidenote: War with the Zulus]
Immediately upon hearing of the disaster Potgieter and Uys
collected every available fighting man and crossed the mountains to
the relief of their comrades. The Englishmen of
Port Natal, or Durban, also offered their assistance.
Finally, a force of 347 Boers rode straight for the
Zulu capital, intent only on vengeance. After five days' journey they
were, however, drawn into an ambush and lost ten men, including
Commandant Uys, and much ammunition and baggage. About the
same time seventeen Englishmen, leading fifteen hundred friendly
natives, of whom some four hundred were armed with muskets,
started out to help the Dutch. A little south of the Tugela River
they came upon a Zulu regiment, and were in turn drawn into an
ambush on April 17, 1838, which resulted in one of the bloodiest
battles ever fought in that region of almost continuous conflict. The
little force found itself between the wings of a Zulu army numbering
at least 7,000 men and with thousands more coming in during the
battle. Three times the Englishmen and their little force beat back
the enemy. One division, with four white men and four hundred
blacks, did fight its way down the steep bank of the Tugela and
across the river. The other division, after battling for hours with
the serried masses of savage warriors, was finally
overpowered and slaughtered.
[Sidenote: Natal Overrun by Native Soldiers]
Natal was now
overrun by Dingaan's soldiers, and the remaining
Boer families were gathered together in fortified camps, which the
Zulu armies could not carry by storm.
[Sidenote: Pretorius in Command]
In November, 1838, however, a change came over the scene.
Andries Pretorius, a Boer leader of great natural skill and characteristic
self-confidence, arrived in Natal, was elected to the command
of the scattered forces, and speedily succeeded in getting together a
compact and mobile little army of 464 men. With prayers and psalms
the men rode straight for the place where they expected to find
the enemy. Every precaution against surprise or
ambush was taken, and wherever they camped
they were surrounded with a circle of wagons
lashed together; while scouts were maintained continuously in all
directions. A vow was made that if victory came to the little troop
they would build a church and set apart a yearly thanksgiving day
in commemoration. On the 16th of December, Dingaan's army of
ten or twelve thousand men attacked their camp on the margin of a
stream which has ever since been called Blood River, and for two
hours the brave Zulu warriors faced the storm of bullets from that
deadly laager. It was useless, however. The guns and artillery of
the invaders killed over three thousand of the enemy before they
finally broke and fled. Pretorius followed them to the Zulu capital,
which Dingaan meantime set on fire, and then tried without success
to capture the Zulu Chief, who had fled with some thousands of men
to a part of the country where cavalry could not operate. Finally,
the commando returned to Natal with some 5,000 head of cattle
and the loss of six white men in the entire campaign. Dingaan also
returned and rebuilt his capital, while the Dutch founded
Pietermatitzburg, erected a church in memory of their victory, and
commenced the annual celebration of Dingaan's Day which is still
maintained.
[Sidenote: Durban Re-occupied by the British]
Meanwhile Durban had been re-occupied by a small British
force in accordance with a proclamation issued by Sir George
Napier, Governor of Cape Colony, and dated
November 14, 1838, which declared that it was intended
"to put an end to the unwarranted occupation of
the territories belonging to the natives by certain emigrants from
Cape Colony, being subjects of Her Majesty." No definite
interference was effected, however, and a year later the troops were
withdrawn in one of the multiform mutations of Colonial Office
policy; though Sir George Napier absolutely refused to recognize any
right of control over the country by the Boers, and declared in
January, 1841, that "Her Majesty could not acknowledge the independence
of her own subjects." Despite this Pretorius acted as if he
were the head of a free and all-powerful community, and with a
degree of autocratic contempt for other races and peoples which
was very characteristic. Dingaan, during the year succeeding the
battle on the banks of the Blood River, remained passive, and does
not appear to have had any aggressive intentions.
[Sidenote: Invasion of Zululand]
In September,
1839, however, the Boers made common cause with a local rebellion
raised by his brother Panda, joined the latter in
January, 1840, with four hundred men under
Pretorius, invaded Zululand and defeated Dingaan with
great slaughter. The latter fled to the Delagoa Bay region, and
was shortly afterwards murdered, being replaced by Panda as
"King of the Zulus" under the terms of a curious proclamation
signed by the Boer leader as "Commandant-General of the Right
Worshipful Volksraad of the South African Society," and in which
he claimed for the farmers the whole of Natal by right of conquest.
During this campaign against Dingaan--from which the Dutch
farmers received a booty of 40,000 head of cattle--an event occurred
for which there is no adequate excuse, and which illustrates the
unscrupulous nature of Boer warfare. Dingaan, at one stage of the
invasion, tried to come to terms with his enemy, and sent an officer
named Tambusa to negotiate for peace. Contrary to all the rules
of war, savage or civilized, Pretorius had the envoy arrested, tried
by court-martial for an alleged but unproven share in the
Umkungunhlovu massacre, and executed.
[Sidenote: Republic of Natalia Established]
What was called by the Boers the Republic of Natalia, stretching
from the Umzimvubu to the Tugela and including a claim to much
of modern Zululand, was thus established. The first act of its
Government, toward the close of 1840, was to attack a chief
named N'Capai, living two hundred miles from the
territory of the alleged Republic, and not far from the
border of Cape Colony. Without apparent rhyme or reason, the
men were slaughtered, their cattle captured, and seventeen young
children carried away into slavery. This at last aroused the Colonial
Government, and, in turn, the Home authorities. Sir George Napier
promptly sent some soldiers into the region to watch events and
prevent further aggression upon the natives, announced his intention
to resume the military occupation of Natal, and at the same time
appealed to the Colonial Office for further aid and instructions.
Ultimately it was decided to occupy Natal permanently. But before
this was done there had to be some fighting with the irrepressible
farmers. A small British force had been sent to defend Durban,
but before it reached that place was surprised and almost surrounded
by a number of Boers. After fighting for some time the British
retired, losing their guns and oxen and some nineteen men. Captain
Smith found a new position, strengthened it, and stood a siege at the
hands of Pretorius and his six hundred men, until he was relieved
on June 25, 1842, by troops from Cape Town, who came to his
rescue by sea.
[Sidenote: Further Developments]
The further developments of the situation were peaceful. Lord
Stanley, then Colonial Secretary, wrote a despatch on December 13,
1842, appointing Mr. Cloete as British Commissioner
at Durban, and laying down definite and
important rules in a new system of administration
for the country. Under these instructions the white people were to
be called together and given every opportunity for stating the nature
of the institutions they desired, although full legislative power was
not yet to be granted. "I think it probable," said Lord Stanley,
"looking to the nature of the population, that they will desire those
institutions to be founded on the Dutch rather than on the English
model, and however little some of those institutions may be suited
to a more advanced state of civilization, it is the desire of Her
Majesty's Government that, in this respect, the contentment of the
emigrants, rather than the abstract merits of the institutions, should guide
our decision." There were, of course, to be certain
limitations in this connection. No distinction or
disqualification founded on "color, origin, language
or creed," was to be recognized. No "aggression
upon natives beyond the Colony" was to be tolerated
or sanctioned. Slavery in any shape or form was to be
"absolutely unlawful." But the Boers were incorrigible. They
would not meet with the British Commissioner or fairly discuss his
terms. They would not accept the principle of racial and religious
equality under any condition of affairs. They would not accept any
restriction upon their right to take whatever territory they liked
from the natives outside of Natal and at any time they might feel
disposed. They would not endure the principle of negro freedom in
this new region any more than in the older Colony at the Cape.
Apart from these basic principles of government, practical details
also galled them. The establishment of a Land Court to limit and
define the possessions of settlers and to give legal rights of ownership
to the natives, was especially objectionable, and, by 1847, most
of the emigrant farmers had again trekked away to the Orange Free
State and the country beyond the Vaal.
[Sidenote: British Principles of Government]
There seems to have been no valid reason for this movement.
The British Government, outside of certain fundamental principles
of morality and administration, desired to give the farmers every
possible latitude. It had no wish for territorial expansion, and would
never have interfered at all if the aggressive policy of the Boers
meeting the wild instincts of the Bantu, or Zulus, half-way, had
not drenched the region with blood. But the
deterioration of the Boer character, or rather the
expression of that character in a sphere where it was
practically uncontrolled, had assumed a form in which the possession
of large tracts of land and the compulsory service of natives appeared
as absolute essentials of life, which they had the right to take by
force--in the same way as Moselkatze and Tshaka had done
previously and with apparently no higher motives than those which had
actuated savage chiefs at war with weaker tribes. Moreover, they
had failed signally in this first effort at self-government, and the
rivalry of leaders like Hendrick Potgieter, Gerrit Maritz and Andries
Pretorius had not only helped to prevent the establishment of any
form of administration amongst the people capable of levying taxes
and compelling obedience to the state, but had made constant raids
upon neighboring native tribes appear almost essential to the
holding together of the scattered communities in a common bond of
conflict and territorial acquisition.
[Sidenote: The Trek North of the Vaal River]
With the failure to acquire and hold Durban and to rule themselves
or the regions of Natal which they had taken from the Zulus
ended the first Boer effort to reach the sea and
to establish Dutch independent communities in touch
with the external world. The bulk of the farmers,
as already stated, trekked north of the Orange or the Vaal. Here
they found conditions, in 1845-47, which were scarcely less
perplexing and troubled than their own had been. Over an area of some
700 miles long and 300 wide was established a Dutch population of
about fifteen thousand persons which was constantly at war with the
natives, and, as a result of losses in this connection, did not increase
greatly in numbers despite the numerous accessions from Cape
Colony and Natal. Nominally, and by British theory, they were still
British subjects; practically, from the Orange to the Limpopo they
were independent communities whom the Colonial Office would have
preferred to forget altogether rather than to assert claims over or
make demands upon. But their relation of permanent and bitter
hostility towards the natives appears to have made absolute British
neutrality impossible. Accordingly, in 1843, an effort was made to
further isolate the Boers from Cape Colony, and "buffer states" of
native or half-breed tribes were established and recognized; much
in the same way as in the days of the Kosa tribes on the eastern
frontier of the Colony. Then, however, it was for the protection of
the Dutch farmers against the natives; now it was for the protection
of native and Colonial interests against the turbulent Boers.
[Sidenote: Moshesh the Basuto]
Moshesh the Basuto was at this time established in much
strength upon the borders of the present Orange Free State and in
territory now known as Basutoland. He was one of
the ablest men produced by the Bantu, or Kaffir,
race, and, unlike chiefs of the type of Moselkatze
the Matabele or Tshaka the Zulu, did not build his fortunes and his
power upon bloodshed and devastation. When the regions afterwards
covered by the Dutch republics and Natal were swept by a
sanguinary tide of conquest under the leadership of the two chiefs
mentioned, Moshesh followed in the wake of the wave of slaughter,
gathered together scattered remnants of tribes, conciliated, strengthened
and united them until, by almost imperceptible degrees, he had
established a strong state around the rock-ribbed heights of Thaba
Bosigo--the centre of his kraal and his kingdom. In 1843,
therefore, when the British authorities were looking around for some
means of restricting the sphere of Boer difficulties and aggressions
upon the natives, Moshesh seemed an ideal instrument. He was
intensely ambitious to extend and consolidate his power. He was
not a savage or barbarous potentate in the sense of Dingaan or his
predecessor; and to him the proffered alliance, a small annual
subsidy, an extension of recognized territorial rights and supremacy
over minor chiefs in contiguous regions, was extremely attractive and
easily acceptable. West of his territory lived a tribe of
Griquas--a half-breed people of mixed Dutch and Hottentot blood--numbering
about two thousand and ruled over by a man named Adam Kok.
They were largely influenced by missionaries, and were an inoffensive
and, as it turned out, perishing race.
[Sidenote: Establishment of a Border Native State]
With Kok a similar arrangement
of alliance was made, and he was recognized as ruler of all the
territory from the Basuto border westward to where
Andries Waterboer--another Griqua chief--held
sway over the region afterwards dominated by
Kimberley and including Modder River and the southern portion of the
present Free State. East of Moshesh and the Basuto territory a
similar alliance was made with the Pondo Chief, Faku, and thus the
girdle, or league of allied states between British territory and the
Boers was complete.
[Sidenote: Rebellion by the Boers]
But the plan did not work out as well as was expected. The
racial elements involved were too mutable, the conditions too loose,
the Governments too inadequate in strength and prestige, the Dutch
too aggressive and hostile in character, to admit of its permanent
success. A strong man, backed up continuously with plenty of
British troops, might have saved the situation and averted the wars
which followed; but continuity of policy for these fluctuating
frontiers seems to have never prevailed at either London or Cape Town.
The Treaty States did not prevent personal and commercial
intercourse between the Boers of the Cape and of the interior. They
did not avert further emigration or encourage the return of those
who had left the Colony. The Dutch population in Adam Kok's
territory did not like being ruled by a half-breed chief, and the
greater part of them repudiated the right of Great Britain to
support him in this government. Some of the minor native chiefs
refused to accept the sovereignty of Moshesh. The
first result was a small Boer rebellion against Kok
and the defeat of 250 men by some British troops
under Colonel Richardson. The second was an entire rearrangement
of existing matters by Sir Peregrine Maitland, who had
meantime become Governor at the Cape. Kok's sovereignty over the
whole region was still acknowledged, but he was limited in government
to the portion of it occupied by Griquas; while the whites
living in the other section were placed under the supervision or rule
of a British officer, who, in 1846, established himself at a small place
called Bloemfontein, where some three hundred Boers of a friendly
disposition took the oath of allegiance to the Queen. The rest
moved north to Wynburg and out of the region thus controlled by
Major Warden. With Moshesh much less could be done. He had
been far too shrewd to violate directly the terms of his arrangement
with Great Britain or to accept any proposals which would seriously
alleviate the differences between himself and the bordering tribes or
neighboring Boers. Thus the State, which had been strengthened
with a view to maintaining peace, now threatened to promote
conflict instead, and in this condition matters rested when Sir Harry
Smith came out to Cape Town in 1848 as Governor and High
Commissioner. Now the events which immediately followed came the
Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic.
CHAPTER IV.
Birth of the Dutch Republics.
[Sidenote: British Policy During the Middle of the Century]
By the middle of the century there were some twenty thousand emigrant
farmers scattered over the region between the Orange and Vaal Rivers
and north of the latter. They had no organized government; no bond of
union except a feeling of hostility to British sovereignty and a common
love of independent isolation; no adequate security against sudden
attacks from surrounding savages. Occasionally they combined in small
forces and fell with merciless severity upon tribes which had aroused
their displeasure. They would brook no control, even from
self-constituted authorities, and at first endeavoured to govern
themselves by general meetings of citizens. Distances were too great,
however, to render this practicable, and small elective Assemblies in
several semi-republican communities eventually developed. But the Boer
character possessed a positive genius for disobedience, and the feuds
of families and communities soon became as marked as those of the
native tribes around them--whose cattle they delighted to capture and
whose children were occasionally enslaved by Dutch commandos. The
settlers were not seriously interfered with by the British Government
in London, or in Cape Town. A general supervision, or pretence at
supervision, over their relations with the natives was maintained and
with ultimately important results. But for some years following the
Natal annexation nothing of importance occurred. No formal recognition
of their feeble efforts at self-government was given, they remained
British subjects in the eyes of the law, and Sir Peregrine Maitland's
Proclamation of August 21, 1845, at the Cape, expressly reserved the
rights of the Crown in this connection.
[Sidenote: Moshesh the Basuto]
Meanwhile, however, two other communities had developed in their
neighbourhood. East of what afterwards became the Orange Free State
and in territory which the emigrant farmers, or Boers as they were
beginning to be called, claimed for themselves, an exceedingly able
native chief, in the person of Moshesh the Basuto, had risen into power
and had welded together the scattered fragments of tribes which had
been crushed by the raids of the Matabele and Zulus. From the rugged
heights of Thaba Bosigo he dominated a large extent of country, an
increasing native population and much spoil in cattle and slaves. To
the south and west of the Boers two half-breed leaders named Adam Kok
and Waterboer had established themselves respectively with strong,
armed bands of Griquas--the name given to the offspring of Dutch
farmers and Hottentot women--and had become a recognized force. With
Moshesh they constituted the elements of a new British policy which was
inaugurated in 1843. The Colonial Office did not want at this time to
extend its territories. South Africa, indeed, appeared during the
first portion of this century as the least promising, and the most
turbulent and troublesome, of all British possessions. The soil was
supposed to be arid and without fertility or minerals, the population
seemed hostile and the net result of colonization and administration
had been a series of costly Kaffir wars. In dealing with the Kaffirs,
or Kosas, on the eastern frontier of the Colony the British Government
had shown this disinclination with quite sufficient clearness. But to
allow the emigrant Boers to repudiate their allegiance was another
matter, and even to the not very far-seeing statesmen of the Colonial
Office of that day it presented possibilities deserving of
consideration. With Sir Harry Smith's arrival and the termination of
the Kaffir War of 1846-47 came another development of the situation.
The new Governor of Cape Colony, who for the first time had also been
appointed High Commissioner with power of control over native matters
outside of the bounds of the Colony, visited the Orange River region,
looked into the results of the Treaty State policy, came to the
conclusion that agreements with native chiefs were like arrangements
made with little children, and determined to suppress these creations
of missionary statecraft as soon as might be possible.
[Sidenote: Orange River Sovereignty]
Meanwhile the High Commissioner was well received at Bloemfontein, and
soon made arrangements with Adam Kok and Moshesh which greatly
curtailed their authority and independence. On February 3, 1848, he
announced the annexation to British dominions of the whole territory
between the Vaal and Orange Rivers and the Drakensberg mountains under
the name of the Orange River Sovereignty. The colored population was
left under the control of its chiefs, and their land was carefully
reserved for their own use. All relations between tribes, however, or
with Europeans, were to be guided by British authorities. Major Warden
was continued at Bloemfontein as the Governor, or Resident, and Sir
Harry Smith returned to Cape Town after having carried out a policy
which should have been effected long before. And it was now too late.
Although without any definite government amongst themselves, or any
allegiance to the little republics which had sprung up over the Vaal, a
certain number of Dutch farmers in the new Sovereignty would not accept
British rule, and they were speedily aided by the Transvaal Boers under
Pretorius in a direct attack upon Bloemfontein. Major Warden was
compelled to surrender, and the British officials were speedily driven
out of the country. Sir Harry Smith, however, was too vigorous and
able a commander to stand this sort of thing, and he hastily got some
troops together, crossed the Orange River, attacked Pretorius in a
strong position at a place called Boomplaatz, defeated him and
re-established the Sovereignty Government. Those of the Boers who were
inveterately opposed to British rule at once crossed the Vaal and were
not interfered with by British officials. Their places, to some
extent, were taken by fresh emigrants from Cape Colony, many of them
English, and from this time forward the Orange River State was
populated by white settlers more or less passively friendly toward
England and composed of the least hostile amongst the emigrant farmers
with a certain proportion of Englishmen.
[Sidenote: Rebellion of Molitsane]
For a time all went apparently well. Then, in 1851, Moshesh, finding
his power had been restricted by the new arrangements, and knowing that
he was much stronger in a military sense than the British authorities
had any conception of, began to foment disturbances between his own
people and native clans in the Sovereignty. He did not appear publicly
in the matter, but his policy was none the less effective in drawing
both Major Warden and the Cape Governor into a determination to punish
Molitsane--a vassal of Moshesh--who was a distinct offender. With 162
soldiers, 120 Boers and some fifteen hundred natives, Major Warden
marched out from Bloemfontein, and at Viervoet was drawn into a trap
and suffered a disastrous defeat. It is said that Moshesh himself was
surprised at the easy result. At any rate, he at once threw off the
mask and joined forces with his vassal. A section of the Boers also
repudiated the Sovereignty Government, so far, at least, as to promise
Moshesh absolute neutrality if he would leave their cattle and property
unharmed. This he promised and fulfilled by plundering without mercy
the Boers who remained loyal. Major Warden was now helpless at
Bloemfontein, as Cape Colony was in the throes of another Kaffir war.
and not a soldier could be spared--a fact of which Moshesh and the
disloyal Dutch were perfectly aware. The latter added to the
difficulties of the situation by suggesting to Pretorius that now was
his time to avenge Boomplaatz. He was not unwilling, but thought a
primary duty lay to his own adherents beyond the Vaal; so he wrote
Warden that if the independence of the Boers of that region were
definitely acknowledged he would refrain from participation in the
struggle.
[Sidenote: The Sand River Convention]
Major Warden reported to Sir Harry Smith that the safety of the
Sovereignty for the time lay in assenting to this proposal, as he could
not hold it against the Basutos and the Transvaal Boers combined. The
result was the appointment of Commissioners and the negotiation in 1852
of the Sand River Convention "with the Commandant and Delegates of the
Boers living beyond the Vaal," by which the British Government
"guaranteed to the emigrant farmers beyond the Vaal River the right to
manage their own affairs and to govern themselves according to their
own laws without any interference on the part of the British
Government." Provisions were included by which the British authorities
disclaimed all alliances with colored peoples north of the Vaal, and
the Boers accepted the declaration (on paper) that "no slavery is or
shall be permitted or practiced" in the country under their control.
This arrangement finally severed the two communities, carried across
the Vaal another migration of the anti-British element, and in time
consolidated the bitterly hostile and prejudiced sections of population
into the present Transvaal Republic. Meanwhile, peace had been made
with the Kaffirs, and Sir George Cathcart, who was now Governor at the
Cape, invaded Basutoland with a considerable force of regulars for the
purpose of punishing Moshesh. As usual in South African warfare, he
under-estimated the numbers and fighting skill of his opponents as well
as the natural strength of this Switzerland of the Veldt. Thaba Bosigo
was too hard a nut for his force to crack, and he was, besides, drawn
into an ambush and defeated. Moshesh, however, was wise enough not to
press his advantage too far, and with statecraft which was worthy of a
greater sphere, asked and received peace on terms very beneficial to
himself.
[Sidenote: Changed Policy]
But the Colonial Office was now in the hands of the Manchester School
party, England was living in the exhilaration of a period of great and
growing commercial prosperity, and her politicians were sick of the
prolonged succession of petty and costly wars which had marked South
African history. It was decided that all further responsibility must
be avoided, that existing boundaries must be drawn back wherever
possible, and that extension of territory must be imperatively
resisted. The first point of contact with this feeling was the
Sovereignty, and the Duke of Newcastle, who was then acting as Colonial
Secretary, sent Sir George Russell Clerk out in 1853, as a Special
Commissioner: "To ascertain whether it was practicable to make
arrangements for the abandonment of the whole of that territory." Then
followed the most extraordinary and perhaps regrettable incident in all
the turbulent and troubled history of South Africa. The Commissioner
had called a Convention of European Delegates for the purpose of taking
over the government of the Sovereignty. But these twenty-four men
sounded public opinion, and they had soon found that the feeling was
clear and unmistakable that from every standpoint of right, honor and
expediency Great Britain should retain its authority and continue its
protection. Sir George Clerk, however, was under definite
instructions, and any protests from the Delegates, or from the public
meetings which were hastily held, were simply regarded as so much
unnecessary obstruction to the fulfilment of his mission. The
Convention refused to accept in any way his proposition, and was
promptly dissolved. [Sidenote: Formation of the Orange Free State] A
small body of men were found, however, to favor independence, and with
these representatives of a distinct minority Sir George concluded an
agreement on February 23, 1854, by which the country was practically
handed over to them as the Orange Free State. This precious document
"guarantees on the part of Her Majesty's Government the future
independence of that country and Government"--although it also provides
"that this independence shall, without unnecessary delay, be confirmed
and ratified by an instrument promulgated in such form and substance as
Her Majesty shall approve, finally freeing them from their allegiance
to the British Crown, and declaring them, to all intents and purposes,
an independent people." So far as can be ascertained this instrument
was never actually promulgated, and it may be a delicate technical
point as to whether the Free State people have ever been legally freed
from their allegiance to Great Britain.[1]
[1] Westminster Review. April, 1869.
Large popular gatherings were held to protest against the policy of
dismemberment, and the Chairman and another member of the late
Convention were sent to England to bring the whole case before the
Queen's Government. But it was all in vain. Hardly any notice had
been taken in Great Britain of the Sand River Convention, and even less
concern was exhibited over this new development of weak and nerveless
Colonial administration. A motion upon the subject in the House of
Commons had to be withdrawn for lack of a seconder, and Parliament
voted $240,000 as a compensation to loyal settlers--presumably as a
solace for having forced them to give up their allegiance. By the
terms of the Bloemfontein Convention--already quoted from--no slavery
or trade in slaves was to be permitted and the Government was made free
to levy import duties and to buy ammunition in the British Colonies.
In this way were two Boer Republics founded in South Africa, and the
evils which might naturally have been expected from the intense
isolation and ignorance of the emigrant farmers crystallized into
constitutional shape, and finally into military form. These
Conventions of 1852 and 1854 legalized a lasting and bitter schism in
the small European population of South Africa, and even the conditions
and interests of the Free State and the Transvaal were not, for many
years afterwards, considered identical by the Boers themselves.
CHAPTER V.
Development of Dutch Rule
[Sidenote: Development of the Two Republics]
From 1854 to 1877 the two Republics developed along very different
lines. Their general principle of government was the same, but it was
not administrated in the same way. In form their constitutions were
nominally republican; in practice they became essentially arbitrary and
absolutely antagonistic to British and Colonial ideas of government.
The coloured people who, in hundreds of thousands, were established
around the Dutch, had few civil rights and no political ones. They
were the prey of small military bodies, the source of an enforced
labour which could not in practice be distinguished from slavery, the
object of personal contempt and with little protection from public law
or private conscience. Citizenship was practically limited to the
Boer, in the Transvaal; and in the Orange Free State, through the
stringent military conditions connected with the privilege, the same
result followed for some years. The right of participating in the
Government of the country was thus confined to one class, the burghers
or native-born Dutch citizens. These alone could elect the President,
the Executive Council and the Volksraad, or popular Assembly.
[Sidenote: Important Differences]
There were important differences, however, in the further evolution of
the Republics. Something of this was due to the modified feeling of
the Orange River Boers towards England, to their proximity to the Cape
and to the fact of English settlers being scattered amongst them with
the natural result of friendly association and occasional
intermarriage. They, therefore, approximated in character and type to
the Dutchmen of Cape Colony. The Boer of the Transvaal, on the other
hand, was entirely isolated, of unmixed stock and with sentiments of
hostility toward everything British as strong and stern as they were
when he first left Colonial territory. Both Republics were allowed to
develop their own institutions in their own way and were, as the
Bloemfontein Convention of 1854 declared, "to all intents and purposes
a free and independent people." No slavery, or trade in slaves, was to
be permitted, however, and what might be termed Imperial rights of
control over native questions was retained along lines enunciated as
follows, by Sir M. E. Hicks-Beach, in a despatch dated November 20,
1879: "Neither by the Sand River Convention of 1852, nor at any other
time, did Her Majesty's Government surrender the right and duty of
requiring that the Transvaal should be governed with a view to the
common safety of the various European communities." The same
principle, of course, covered the Free State position and, later on,
was applied in connection with Moshesh and the Basuto question.
[Sidenote: Early Organization]
Without roads and bridges, churches and schools, or the ordinary
machinery of government, the Dutch of the Free State commenced the work
of organization in 1854, and the ultimate result reflects considerable
credit upon the ignorant burghers of those scattered communities. As
in the Cape Colony and the Transvaal the fundamental law was the old
Roman system as modified by the Legislature of Holland prior to 1652.
The official language was Dutch, and the Courts were constituted after
the Dutch fashion. For a short period Josias Hoffman was President,
and then Jacobus Nicolaus Boshof was elected to the position.
Relations with Moshesh and the Basuto tribe constituted the chief
trouble of this early period. The continuous object of this ambitious
ruler was to recover certain territory which had once belonged to
tribes of which the remnants now acknowledged his rule. The Boers
wished to retain regions which had in great part appeared as wild and
empty wastes when they had settled there. Apart from the general
question, both sides were aggressive and warlike. Each hated the
other, and the intermittent struggles which ensued were of the usually
merciless character. But Moshesh was too much for the Boers in skill
and craft, and, in 1858, the Free State President, after appealing in
vain to his Transvaal brethren for aid, turned to Sir George Grey, who
was then Governor of the Cape. Sir George accepted the position of
mediator, studied the situation closely, and came to the apparent
conclusion that the claims of Moshesh were in a measure just. To him,
therefore, he gave a piece of territory which the Boers believed to be
theirs, and handed over to the latter an outlying mission station which
had hitherto acknowledged Basuto authority. Mr. Boshof promptly
resigned the Presidency, and was succeeded by Marthinus Wessel
Pretorius, a son of the famous general. He devoted himself to
effecting a union with the Transvaal republics of the time, but was
unsuccessful, owing to conflicting interests and jealousies and to the
declaration from Cape Town that such action would dissolve the
Conventions with Great Britain.
[Sidenote: Chronic Condition of War]
Meantime, and during the greater part of the years from 1854 to 1868,
the Boers of the Free State were in a chronic condition of war with the
Basutos. There were few direct conflicts, and the troubles consisted
mainly in raids, the burning of houses or kraals, the stealing of
cattle, or the kidnapping of children. The Basutos fought in much the
same Fabian manner that the Boers themselves practiced, and met
invaders concealed behind rocks or cairns or the ever-present kopje.
The region ruled by Moshesh was a compact and round-shaped territory
lying between Natal, Cape Colony and the Free State. Its surface was
broken by steep hills or mountains with more or less flat summits
admirably fitted for villages or kraals, and with every requisite for
defence in the form of perpendicular wall-like sides. [Sidenote: The
Basutoland] Between these natural fortresses were the sweeping and
fertile valleys where the Basutos grew their corn and raised their
cattle, and which for years it was the delight of the Boers to raid; as
it was the primal pleasure of the Basutos to pour down in sudden forays
from their rocky fastnesses upon Dutch territory. This constant
interchange of robbery and pillage embittered the character of both
peoples, but naturally had the most degrading effect upon that of the
Boer. For a presumably civilized and Christian race to be engaged year
in and year out in the seizure of cattle from a savage enemy and in the
occasional enslavement of children or the shooting down of stray
individuals and small parties of a mobile enemy could not but have an
evil influence upon a character so peculiar as was that of even the
best and most enlightened of the emigrant farmers.
[Sidenote: Basutoland Overrun]
After a decade of this sort of intermittent struggle, however, the
Boers were encouraged by familiarity with that part of the Basuto
country which lay in the valleys and fields to try the task of storming
some of the strongholds of the enemy. With the aid of a few small
cannon, the first attempts were successful and surprisingly easy. Thus
encouraged, within the three years following 1865, the greater part of
Basutoland was overrun and the best cornfields captured. They were
promptly "annexed" to the Free State, and then attention was devoted to
the French missionaries, who had, meanwhile, been doing a splendid work
amongst the natives. They were turned out of the country in which half
a million of dollars had been expended upon their stations; their homes
were plundered and the private property of men who had, in some cases,
been laboring for thirty years in the region was confiscated;
furniture, books and other items of value were destroyed, and all
redress was refused. Permission was afterwards given to re-occupy
their stations, not as such, but as farms for which $500 was in each
case to be paid the Boer Government. Much of the conquered territory
was also surveyed and sold. But the power of the Boers was a very
fitful one. With a weak Government at home they were unable to hold
the regions which they captured from time to time, and the result was a
re-occupation by the Basutos, an attempt to cultivate their fields,
further reprisals, and more attacks upon the mountain strongholds.
Upon one occasion the Boers destroyed all the growing crops of an
extensive section. But Thaba Bosigo, the central fortress of the
country, could not be subdued by any force available.
[Illustration: AN ARMORED TRAIN SHELLING A BOER BATTERY AT NIGHT.]
[Illustration: BOERS CROSSING THE MALMANI FORD NEAR MAFEKING]
[Sidenote: Basutoland under British Rule]
In 1867 one last struggle occurred, and then Moshesh, weakened by age
and realizing that his sons were much as other natives were, and did
not possess the ability to hold the country together when his own end
had come, turned to Sir Philip Wodehouse, the Governor and High
Commissioner at Cape Town, and asked that his people be proclaimed
British subjects. This was done, partly from a wise unwillingness to
have the Free State so immensely strengthened as it would have been by
the possession of Basutoland, partly by a natural objection to have so
large a number of natives dispersed over the country without home or
special object, and partly by dislike of the policy which the Boers had
been for years pursuing in regard to savages generally and missionaries
in particular. The Free Staters were intensely annoyed. They had lost
the opportunity for a lasting revenge upon their enemy and the
possibility of possessing the Switzerland of South Africa. In the
light of after events the action of Sir Philip Wodehouse seems almost
Providential, and is certainly one of the few instances where British
statecraft was really brought into play in this part of the world.
Were the Basuto strongholds in possession of Dutch sharpshooters and
fortified by German science and artillery, the struggle of 1899-1900
would be infinitely more serious than it is at the time of writing.
[Sidenote: "The Hollanders"]
The Boers of the Free State bitterly resented this annexation.
Although now governed by the wisest Dutchman who has come to the front
in South Africa--Jan Hendrik Brand--(afterwards better known as Sir
John Brand) who had succeeded Pretorius as President in 1865--they were
also greatly influenced by a small and compact body of men, known as
Hollanders, who had obtained possession of nearly all the offices of
emolument in the State. These Hollanders afterwards drifted largely
into the Transvaal where they had fuller and freer scope for
anti-British sentiment and policy; and for isolation from the British
ideas and principles which gradually and, in the end, powerfully,
controlled the policy of President Brand. Meantime, however, these
adventurers from Holland had much influence in the Free State. In
1858, when the Basutos had driven back the farmers and were threatening
their homes and cattle during one of the ups and downs of the long
struggle, a number of the Boers, and even some of the Hollanders, were
in favor of seeking annexation to Cape Colony, and actually a
resolution to that effect went through the Volksraad. But five years
later, when fifteen hundred and fifty signers of a memorial asked the
Volksraad to press an agitation to this end, the situation in regard to
the Basutos had meanwhile changed, and the Hollanders opposed the
proposition strongly. The movement was never seriously revived.
Speaking in this connection at the prorogation of the Cape Parliament
in September, 1868, Sir Philip Wodehouse declared that: "Entirely on my
own responsibility, giving expression only to my own opinions, I may
say that I regard the measures which severed from their allegiance the
European communities in those regions to have been founded in error."
[Sidenote: The Boers Protest]
This Hollander party refused to enter into any negotiation with the
High Commissioner concerning the Basutoland annexation, indulged in
much talk about French and Russian intervention, and finally despatched
two Commissioners to London armed with a long and emphatic protest.
Fortunately for all concerned, the British Government approved of the
policy pursued by Sir Philip Wodehouse and authorized him to take such
further action as, to his knowledge of local conditions, might seem
desirable. This wisdom of this course was so unusual and striking in
connection with South African affairs that a tribute of respect seems
due to the Colonial Secretary of that period--the Duke of Buckingham
and Chandos. The annexation was, in fact, in the immediate interest of
the Free State as well as in the future interests of Great Britain. It
gave the exhausted republic a rest from protracted and injurious
conflict. It afforded an opportunity for the statesmanship of the new
President to assert and express itself. It facilitated the development
of a friendliness between Cape Colony and the Free State which, so long
as President Brand lived and ruled (1865-88), did much for the general
good of South Africa and something for the improvement of individual
character amongst the less implacable farmers of the little republic.
There was indeed much for a statesman to do. Ideals of Government
amongst the best of the Boers were still so crude as to be almost
laughable. Masses of useless paper money were in existence. Farms or
ranches had been neglected, many cattle destroyed and heavy debts
incurred.
[Sidenote: Discovery of Diamonds]
Just at this moment the discovery of diamonds effected a revolution in
South African affairs. As this incident is variously described by many
writers, and as its importance is so great from an historical point of
view, I propose to pin my faith upon the record given by Dr. George M.
Theal. His position as a civil servant and Historiographer to the Cape
Government would, perhaps, lay the most impartial of historians open to
occasional allegations of favoritism in dealing with annals so
permeated with Dutch and English rivalry as are those of South Africa.
But there can be no question as to his accuracy in treating of such
questions of fact as this.[1] He states that: "One day, in 1867, a
child on a farm in the north of Cape Colony was observed to be playing
with a remarkably brilliant pebble, which a trader, to whom it was
shown as a curiosity, suspected to be a gem of value. It was sent for
examination to a qualified person in Grahamstown, who reported that it
was a diamond of twenty-one carats weight and that its value was £500.
Search was immediately commenced in the neighborhood by several persons
in odd hours, and soon another, though much smaller, was found. Then a
third was picked up on the bank of the Vaal River, and attention was
directed to that locality. During 1868 several were found, though as
yet no one was applying himself solely to looking for them. In March,
1869, the 'Star of South Africa' was obtained from a Korana Hottentot,
who had been in possession of it for a long time without the least idea
of its value except as a powerful charm. It was a magnificent
brilliant of eighty-three carats weight when uncut, and was readily
sold for £11,000."
[1] The Story of the Nations Series. _South Africa_, p. 322.
[Sidenote: Ownership and Territorial Rule]
The lower Vaal then became the scene of a bustling, restless and
struggling population of miners and speculators. Wealth and diamonds
go together, and with them naturally came questions of ownership and
territorial rule. The latter was and had been in dispute for many
years. The southern bank of the river was probably Free State
territory, but the ownership of the northern bank was in grave doubt.
No actual government had been established there, although the
Transvaal, the Free State, the Batlapin tribe of natives, and the
Griqua captain--Waterboer--all claimed portions of the ground. There
was naturally much disorder at the mines, both north and south of the
River, under such conditions, and, finally, as the bulk of the miners
were British subjects, the High Commissioner at Cape Town decided to
interfere, and proposed a general arbitration. President Brand
declined the suggestion, but President Pretorius of the Transvaal
acceded, and a Court was established at Bloemhof, on the northern bank
of the Vaal, with Mr. Keate, Governor of Natal, as final Umpire. From
the information then available there seems no doubt that the Award
issued by Mr. Keate in October, 1871, was just. He acted, and could
only act, upon the evidence presented to the Court, and, as the Free
State refused to work up or present its case, and as Waterboer was
enabled by the use of a clever advocate to prepare a fairly strong one,
the region in dispute was finally awarded to him. He had already
offered his claim to the territory to the British authorities, and, as
soon as the legal decision was announced, Sir Henry Barkly, as High
Commissioner, proclaimed the Diamond Mines and what had long been
familiarly known as Griqualand West, to be a British dependency.
Afterwards, during the holding of a special Court for the settlement of
individual ground-claims, a minute search into the history of the
region south of the Vaal revealed an unsuspected flimsiness in
Waterboer's title, and the judgment of the Court thereupon threw out
all titles based upon Griqua grants. This very impartial
verdict--under all the circumstances of the case--at once gave
President Brand a position in the matter which he did not hesitate to
use. He went to London and laid his case before the British
Government, which replied that the possession of the country in
question was a necessity to the paramount Power in South Africa, but
that he would be given $450,000 as a settlement of the Free State
claims. This he accepted.
[Sidenote: A Momentous Decision]
The decision was as momentous in its results as the annexation of
Basutoland. Without the possession of Griqualand West, the British
Government and settlers, and Cape Colony itself, would have been shut
off from expansion to the north. The unclaimed country from the
Limpopo to the Zambesi would have been open to the raids and eventual
occupation of the Boers of the two Republics. The diamond mines of
South Africa--with their hundreds of millions' worth of precious
stones--would have been in the hands of England's enemies as well as
the gold mines. Matabeland and Mashonaland and the empire created by
Cecil Rhodes to the north and west of the republics would have been
alien ground. The development of British South Africa would, in a
word, have been effectually confined to the limited region south of the
Orange River and the Drakensberg Mountains. The Keate Award,
therefore, and the dispute between the two Dutch Governments and that
of Great Britain, turned upon more important issues than the discovery
of diamonds. The Boers did not really want the latter, but it is
fairly evident now that they fully appreciated the importance of
holding the only route to the north which still remained open to
British acquisition. Had President Brand shared in the hostile
sentiments of many of his own people and of his compatriots over the
Vaal toward Great Britain, he would never have sold his claim even for
the sum which did so much to place the finances of the Free State upon
a sound footing. From this time forward to the end of the century,
however, the Orange Free State enjoyed a condition of progressive
prosperity. Roads, public buildings and bridges were constructed. A
fairly good system of Dutch public schools was established in the
villages, though it did not greatly affect the farmers on their wide
ranches. [Sidenote: Railway from Cape Town] A railway was run through
the country from Cape Town to Pretoria, largely at the expense of the
Cape Government, while branch lines in time connected the Free State
system with Durban, in Natal, and with Port Elizabeth and East London,
on the southeast coast of Cape Colony. President Brand was re-elected
to his position until he died in 1888, leaving the highest of
reputations as a wise administrator, a warm friend of Great Britain,
and a sincere admirer of British institutions. After his time other
influences predominated, and the first evidence of this was in the
election of Mr. F. W. Reitz--previously Chief Justice of the State--as
his successor.
[Sidenote: Condition of the Transvaal]
Meanwhile, the Transvaal State, or South African Republic as it called
itself, was passing through an infinite variety of more or less painful
experiences. The region possessed by the Boers north of the Vaal is a
great tract of fairly fertile and level land broken here and there by
rugged hills. The climate is varied, but upon the whole pleasant and
healthful. Its wheat-producing capabilities are famed throughout South
Africa. Coffee and tobacco also thrive. But cattle-raising was and is
the primary pursuit of almost the entire white or Dutch population.
The Boers of this region did not arrive there all at once, or found
their State upon conditions of mutual interest and a basis of common
principles. Their one tie of union, their single basis of
co-operation, was hatred of the English. Whether trekking north from
Cape Colony under Potgieter and fighting the Matabele for a country to
live in; or leaving Natal in utter disgust at the proposed free
institutions of the new British administration; or crossing the Vaal
from the Orange River Sovereignty to escape from even friendly
relations with British communities; they were, and remained, the most
implacable, the most ignorant, the most isolated and unmanageable of
the emigrant farmers. At first the Boer population numbered only some
sixteen thousand, and in 1837, after the destruction of Moselkatze and
the Matabele power on the south side of the Limpopo, an unsuccessful
attempt was made to form a common government. A little later four
republics--Pochefstroom, Zoutpansberg, Lydenburg and Utrecht--were
established, but without much effect so far as practical government was
concerned. A period of wild license followed, and was marked by much
cruelty towards the natives as well as anarchy and strife amongst the
farmers themselves.
[Sidenote: Transvaal Under Pretorius]
In all the great region between the Orange River and the Limpopo these
conditions, however, prevailed between 1836 and 1850 to a greater or
lesser degree. South of the Vaal a check came through the vicinity of
British power and population; but north of that historic river there
was little ameliorative influence until about 1864. Marthinus Wessel
Pretorius became President of one of the Transvaal sections, or
republics, in 1857, and by 1860 had united the entire region under his
control. Even then, however, there was a further period of civil war
until, in 1864, Pretorius succeeded in obtaining general acceptance by
the people and a legal election, with S. J. P. Kruger as
Vice-President. He at once resigned the Presidency of the Orange Free
State, which he had also held since 1858--but without success to his
efforts at uniting the northern and southern republics--and devoted
himself to breaking the power of the Baramapulana tribe which had
established itself, in great and growing strength, upon the southern
banks of the Limpopo and in territory which the Boers thought they
should control. During more than three succeeding years the Transvaal
tried in vain to subjugate this tribe. The State, however, had no
money, and could not even pay for the transport of ammunition from
Durban, on one occasion, while its people were not united in the
prosecution of the war. The result was a practical withdrawal from the
Zoutpansberg region; a recognition of the independence of the
Baramapulana under the nominal form of a small annual tribute; and the
creation of difficulties amongst other tribes which realized the check
thus given to a people who had often oppressed them and frequently
attacked their kraals. Wars followed with the Baralong and other
clans, and the Republic presently found itself unable to assert its
authority over the natives within its claimed sphere of supremacy, or
to even hold its own territory intact. By 1870, when the Transvaal
became mixed up in the Diamond Fields controversy and entered into the
arbitration resulting in the Keate Award, the condition of the people
was deplorable. [Sidenote: Ignorance and Isolation] The generation
which was now grown up had absolutely no knowledge of anything beyond
their own family circle, and had no acquaintance whatever with books,
or history, or external affairs. The rivers were unbridged, the
Treasury was empty, the salaries of the officials were only
occasionally paid and trade was carried on by barter in the absence of
gold or silver. The natives around them could not be more densely
ignorant, or more completely isolated, than were these farmers on the
veldt with all their thriving flocks and herds and stores of grain and
vegetables and fruit. Whatever the poverty of intellect, or knowledge,
or the primitive nature of their government, there was never any lack
of food and wealth of cattle amongst the Dutch of the Transvaal. Like
the Matabele and Zulu in their days of power, the Boers always
possessed these requisites of life. Yet they would not pay taxes, or
support their government, or educate their children.
[Sidenote: Discontent and Disintegration]
President Pretorius was compelled to resign as a result of his
participation in the Diamond Fields' arbitration, and the Reverend
Thomas Francois Burgers, a clergyman of unorthodox views, who had
distinguished himself as a lawyer, was elected, in 1872, to the
position. He was an able man, but somewhat visionary for the strained
situation which required his attention. He had to deal with a few
thousand ignorant men of seventeenth century views who were unable to
govern themselves, or to control the surrounding natives, and be
expected within a few years to mould out of this unpromising material a
prosperous Republic with colleges, railways, telegraphs and a great
name amongst the nations of the world. That his dreams were afterwards
in a measure realized reflects credit upon his patriotism and
perspicacity; but his policy broke down before the obstacles of the
immediate present. Money to the extent of $450,000 was obtained from
Holland, which the President visited in 1874, under authority from the
Volkraad. With this sum railway material was purchased for a proposed
line from Lorenzo Marques to Pretoria, and a Superintendent of
Education was brought back to manage a system which was not yet in
existence and for the creation of which there was neither money nor
popular desire. When Mr. Burgers arrived home again he found
discontent and disintegration everywhere visible, and his educational
scheme was put aside; while his railway material was sent to rot at the
Portuguese port for want of more money to carry on the enterprise.
Then the strong Bapedi tribe under Sekukuni rose in rebellion; many of
the Boers refused to fight under an agnostic President; and a large
commando which he succeeded in getting together failed to accomplish
anything and in the end stampeded homeward. The first result of this
failure was anarchy, and the secondary consequence was the development
of a situation, through the menacing attitude of the Zulu forces upon
the frontier, which brought about annexation to the British Crown and
the creation of the strictly modern phase of the South African question.
CHAPTER VI.
Development of Cape Colony.
[Sidenote: Gradual Growth of Cape Colony]
The dismemberment of South Africa, which commenced in the days of the
Great Trek, which was made more distinct by the Conventions of 1852-4,
and was destined to culminate in the Conventions of 1881-4, was at
first somewhat of a boon to Cape Colony. It removed about ten thousand
of the most discontented, restless and ignorant portion of its
population and left plenty of land and room for the occupation of
future immigrants. They came slowly, however, as the Kaffir wars had
given the country a bad name and the reputation of its climate was not
particularly good. But, between 1845 and 1850, some five thousand
British settlers were brought in under aid from the Government, and a
little later a number of Germans who had fought for England in the
Crimean war migrated to the Cape. In 1858, two thousand German
peasants were settled on lands near the southern coast of the Colony
which had once belonged to the Kaffirs. They made excellent settlers,
and in time merged with the British population, which came to
predominate in the eastern part of the country, as the Dutch did in the
western section.
[Sidenote: The Climate]
The climate was found to be reasonably healthful. To newcomers the
sudden change from heat to cold, owing to the south-east winds, was
found unpleasant, and in cases of weak constitutions somewhat
dangerous. But with proper care in clothing and gradual
acclimatization this difficulty soon moderated, and the peculiar
dryness of the climate was found to make strongly for health.
Sunstrokes were rare, and the only serious evil arising from the heat
was the drying up of the rivers in the interior of the country. In
most parts of the continent malarial fever was then an admitted and
serious danger, as it is to-day in the great lake region of Central
Africa and in the valley of the Nile. In German East-Africa, in parts
of the Transvaal and in the Delagoa Bay region there is still a similar
state of affairs. But Cape Colony, the Orange Free State and Natal
were then, and are at the present time, almost entirely free of this
dreaded disease. For weak lungs it was discovered that no finer
country exists in the world than the Cape, and for the development of
general healthfulness and vigour the settlers of the Colony soon found
themselves in an ideal region.
[Sidenote: Natural Resources, etc.]
Natural resources were not quite so apparent. A wealth of brilliant
flowers and tropical plants existed, but forests were few, timber was
scarce and costly, and it was years before the introduction of the
Australian Eucalyptus embowered many a village from the Cape to
Kimberley and from Buluwayo to Pretoria in groves of that useful tree.
The land in some cases was fertile, but, on the whole, was perhaps more
suited to the raising of sheep and cattle than to agriculture in the
American or Canadian sense. Farming of the latter kind involves severe
labour, and neither the original slaves, the coloured labourers of an
after-time, nor the Dutch farmers, were fitted by disposition or nature
for the work. But, as the population increased from 26,000 Europeans
in 1805 to 182,000 in 1865, and to 237,000 ten years later, the country
assumed a more civilized and prosperous appearance. Sheep and cattle
were literally scattered over a thousand hills, while various
collateral industries were developed by English settlers which the
slow-moving Dutch would never have dreamed of. Between 1812 and 1820
the Merino sheep was introduced, and its wool soon became a source of
profit and wealth. In 1865 ostrich farming was commenced, and speedily
developed great importance through the process of artificial
incubation. Roads were made, churches and schools were built,
municipal government in the towns and villages was introduced, and the
Colonial finances were put into shape despite the expenses of Kaffir
wars and native troubles--which were mainly charged to the Imperial
exchequer. The first railway was constructed in 1859, and wagon roads
were carried over various mountain passes and through much of the
settled part of the country.
[Sidenote: An Executive Council Created]
In 1834 an Executive Council had been created composed of members
nominated by the Governor, and therefore more or less dependent upon
his good-will. Perhaps at that time, and in view of the limited
population, the racial rivalry and religious and educational
complications, it was just as well that such a body should not be
elective, as some desired. Twenty years later, however, when
conditions had somewhat changed, a representative Legislature was
established composed of a Council and a House of Assembly. Members
were to be elected upon a wide franchise, with no distinction of race
or color, excepting that a Kaffir had to hold some small amount of
property and to have given up the tribal system. There were very few
natives in this condition. Meanwhile the dissensions between the Dutch
part of the population and the missionaries continued, and they
extended at times to the English settlers also. There can be no doubt
of the intense irritation aroused by this controversy. The Dutchman
looked upon the native as created and existing for his special benefit,
and through the effect of contiguity and similarity of conditions often
induced the English farmer to agree with him. The missionary, on the
other hand, believed himself appointed to guard the interests of the
weaker race, and was too apt to forget the suffering caused by Kaffir
raids from the outside, in his general sympathy for the downtrodden
representatives of the race in the Colony itself.
[Sidenote: A Long Struggle]
From about 1820 to 1860 this struggle lasted. It weakened the hands of
the Governors, who usually shared the Colonial view of the Kaffir wars,
as against the missionaries. It injured the reputation of the Colonial
Office throughout South Africa from the widespread belief that its
officials were inspired, or guided, by the friends of the missionaries
and by the impracticable sentiments of Exeter Hall, rather than by the
wishes of the people of Cape Colony. It seriously affected the
continuity of policy which should have marked the action of the British
Government, in these regions of all others, and which, unfortunately,
so seldom characterized their treatment of either Cape Governors or
native questions. In 1846 commenced the seventh Kaffir or Kosa war.
Sandili was the heir of Gaika, the Kosa chief who had figured in a
previous conflict, and he had for some time prior to this date
permitted raids upon the settlers of the Colony's eastern territory,
and had entirely disregarded pledges and arrangements. Finally, Sir
Peregrine Maitland sent a military force to occupy the region
controlled by Sandili and bring him to terms. With incomprehensible
but oft-repeated carelessness in South African warfare, a long
ammunition wagon train following the expedition was left practically
unguarded, and was, of course, surprised and seized by the Kaffirs.
[Sidenote: A Sweeping Raid] The result of the ensuing retreat of the
British troops was a combination of the Kosa and the Tembu tribes, a
sweeping raid along the entire frontier, the murder of settlers, the
capture of cattle, and the burning of dwellings. The local forces of
the Colony were hastily got together, and operations carried on in a
scattered sort of way for some months until the arrival of several
British regiments from abroad. A temporary submission was then made by
the natives with a view to the planting of their maize. As soon as
this was garnered the war broke out again.
[Sidenote: The province of British Kaffraria]
The Governor had meantime been recalled, and was succeeded for a few
months by Sir Henry Pottinger. Sandili, however, soon had enough of
the struggle, and, in 1847, peace was made after an enormous cost to
the British authorities and amid the clamor of ruined Eastern farmers.
At the end of the year Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Smith came out as
Governor and High Commissioner, with unusual personal powers and under
the awakening perception of the Colonial Office that it was better to
let the man on the spot guide affairs than to attempt the real
government of South Africa from six thousand miles away. It was not a
permanent awakening, but it was useful so long as it lasted. Sir Harry
Smith adopted the repudiated native policy of Sir Benjamin D'Urban;
proclaimed the territory between the Kei and the Keiskama as a British
possession for the absolute use of the western clans of the Kosa tribe;
appointed a Commissioner to exercise general authority over the Chiefs
and sent a strong body of troops to garrison various forts; and named
the region--which once for a brief season had been called after Queen
Adelaide--the Province of British Kaffraria. A few years later the
eighth Kaffir war took place. The tribes seem to have considered the
peace as nothing more than a truce, and as soon as the British
authorities began to suppress the worst of their savage
customs--notably the murders and tortures arising out of the hunt for
witchcraft--discontent very speedily developed into the war of 1850-51.
The usual struggle followed, with surprises, raids, murders and the
ravaging of the frontier. The war was the most costly of all the
conflicts with these restless tribes, and was specially marked by an
event memorable in the annals of British bravery--the loss of H. M. S.
_Birkenhead_ with 400 soldiers on board. It occurred near Algoa Bay,
where the ship had struck a reef in the middle of the night. The
women, children and sick people were sent away safely, in all the
available boats, while the troops remained drawn up in line as though
on parade, with the ship breaking up under them and a sea swarming with
sharks around them.
[Sidenote: An Extraordinary Incident]
For two years a large force of soldiers, farmers and auxiliaries of
various kinds were employed in trying to end a war with enemies who had
the fleetness of the antelope and powers of disappearance equal to that
of a bird. When their food was exhausted, and not before, the Kosas
gave in and asked for peace. As usual in such cases, the Governor was
recalled, and Sir George Cathcart appointed his successor. The
government of British Kaffraria was reorganized and the region
subdivided amongst the Tembus, a section of the Kosa tribe under a
chief named Kreli, the western clans of the Kosa and the loyal Fingos.
Several regiments of regular troops were maintained in the Province and
a body of local police formed from amongst the younger white colonists.
In 1857 there took place one of those extraordinary incidents which can
only occur in a region such as South Africa. The Kosas, prompted by
some wizard who professed to wield unknown and vast powers and to hold
communication with the unseen world, destroyed all their cattle and
stores of grain in the belief that their ancestors would, as a reward
for their faith, join them in driving the white man out of the country
and in creating for them a boundless stock of new cattle and a
limitless supply of fresh crops. Famine naturally followed, and some
30,000 natives perished of hunger or disease despite all that Sir
George Grey, who, in 1854, had become Governor at Cape Town, could do
for them in a hurried supply of provisions and work. Some good came
out of the evil. Large tracts of depopulated land were taken
possession of by European settlers, peace came to the exhausted region,
and in 1865 it was annexed to Cape Colony. It may be added here that
some small risings occurred in 1877, termed the ninth Kaffir war, and
that in 1880 the region held by the Pondos was formally annexed to the
Colony, and its borders thus became coterminous with those of Natal.
[Illustration: A GENERAL VIEW OF ESTCOURT, TWENTY-FIVE MILES SOUTH OF
LADYSMITH. GENERAL VIEW OF CITY OF LADYSMITH, NATAL (From Photo by
Henry Kisch).]
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING COUNTRY FROM DURBAN TO LADYSMITH]
[Sidenote: A Vexed Question]
Meanwhile, the history of Cape Colony was by no means confined to
conflicts with border natives or to the controversies with the Orange
Free State, which have been detailed in preceding pages. In 1850
occurred one ol the most striking illustrations of what mistakes a
fair-minded and well-meaning Home Government may at times be involved
in when dealing with far-away regions. There seems to have been no
perception in those days of the wrong which might be inflicted upon a
Colony by the exportation of convicts undergoing various terms of penal
servitude. Confinement in Australia or South Africa seemed to British
statesmen, and especially to Earl Grey, who presided over the Colonial
Office at this time, no more objectionable on principle than it would
be if they were kept at home in the British Isles. They forgot that on
being released these men--some punished for serious crimes, some for
slight offenses--were let loose upon a community widely scattered and
isolated and composed of many persons who, taken in this way, were easy
victims to robbery or attack. And they entirely overlooked the danger
of allowing hundreds, or in time thousands, of men without personal
responsibility or character, to roam at will amongst a large and
restless population of natives. They appear to have felt only that in
the vast and vacant spaces of the Colonies there was room and verge for
a released convict, or a ticket-of-leave man, to make for himself a new
career untrammelled by the past, or by the danger of drifting again
into the deeps of the great cities at home.
[Sidenote: Penal Settlement in the Colony]
When it was understood at the Cape that the Imperial Government
proposed to establish a penal settlement in the Colony, similar to the
one which had been formed at Botany Bay, the indignation aroused was
immediate and intense, petitions and protests were sent in great number
to London, meetings were held throughout the Colony, and when the
_Neptune_ arrived in Simon's Bay, Cape Town, with convicts on board,
nearly all the people of the Peninsula bound themselves together in a
pledge to supply nothing to the ship or to have any dealings with
persons connected with it. Sir Harry Smith, who was then Governor, had
expressed his own strong opposition to the plan; but he was compelled
to obey his orders from home and could not therefore send the vessel
back. For five months it lay in the Harbor, supplied from passing
men-of-war and treated by the Colonists as though the plague were
within its wooden walls. And then, at last, came the order--in frank
and acknowledged response to the petitions of the
Colonists--transferring its convict cargo to Tasmania.
[Sidenote: A New Constitution]
Four years after the satisfactory settlement of this vexed question
came the grant of Parliamentary institutions to the Colony. This
action was part of a general Colonial plan by which full responsible or
ministerial government was established in Canada, under Lord
Elgin--there had long been elective legislatures in the
British-American Provinces--and a system formulated in the Australias
similar to that of the Cape. The details of the proposed changes were
left by the Colonial Office largely in the hands of the Governor and
the appointive Legislative Council, which had been created in 1834, and
it was therefore not expected that the result would be extreme in a
democratic sense. The new constitution was promulgated on March 11,
1853, and by its terms an elective House of Assembly numbering
forty-six members was created--afterwards increased to seventy-six, and
with a five years' limit in time as against the earlier seven years
period. The Upper Chamber or Legislative Council was, to the surprise
of many, also made elective. It consisted of fifteen members, who were
afterwards increased to twenty-two, with the Chief Justice of the
Colony as an additional member and _ex-officio_ President. The right
to vote for both Houses was given to every male British subject over
twenty-one years of age who occupied a house or land worth $125, or was
in receipt of a salary or mixed remuneration valued at $250. There was
no distinction as to race, color, religion or mode of life, and this
pronounced measure of electoral liberty was a matter of constant
friction in the minds of the Dutch settlers--so far as they cared in
these years to think or trouble themselves about the affairs of an
alien rule. The legislation, however, was more important as the
enunciation of a principle than because of its working out in practice
at this particular period. There were few natives for many years in a
position to take advantage of even this low franchise, and, of course,
all who continued to share in the tribal system were absolutely
debarred. [Sidenote: Right to Vote Limited] In 1892 the right to vote
was limited by fresh legislation--resulting from the rising political
power of the Afrikander Bund and the Dutch dislike to the natives--to
such adult males as were able to sign their names and write down their
addresses and employment. The franchise qualification was raised to a
property one of $375, while the wage qualification was allowed to
remain as it had been.
[Sidenote: The First Parliament of the Colony]
The first Parliament of the Colony met in June, 1854, and from that
time onward all laws had to be sanctioned by both Houses and approved
by the Governor. As elsewhere in the Empire the right of disallowance
was reserved to the Queen for a given period after such laws reached
London, but in practice the power was, and is, seldom used. Like so
many of the apparently dormant prerogatives of the Crown it is,
however, available for an emergency. Following this creation of
Parliamentary institutions came the usual struggle for Parliamentary
control over the appointments to office, over the expenditure of money,
and over the _personnel_ of the Governor's Council. As in other
Colonies, it was found impossible to construct in a day, or a year, an
exact imitation of Great Britain's Cabinet and governmental system,
with all its complex Parliamentary code, its elaborate constitutional
checks and counter-checks, its numerous traditions and precedents. And
there was, of course, the same difficulty as Canada had already faced
and overcome--the presence of a large electoral population with no
hereditary or natural adaptability to the British constitutional
system, and without, in some cases, the basis of cordial loyalty which
is so essential to its successful operation. At first, therefore, the
officials of the Executive Council (or what afterwards became the
Ministry) were appointed by the Colonial Secretary. They framed the
financial legislation of the Government and introduced it to the House
of Assembly, and they held the right of discussion, though not of
voting, in both Houses. This system was maintained for eighteen years,
and, in view of England's heavy financial responsibilities in South
Africa, the racial condition of Cape Colony itself and the continuous
troubles everywhere with natives and Boers, it was, perhaps, as well
that the threads of government should be largely held in London. And
this may be said despite all the vacillations of the Colonial Office.
Had there been firmness and continuity in the general Home policy
concerning South Africa, there could be no question at all upon this
point.
[Sidenote: Wise Administration]
Meanwhile, Sir George Grey had been distinguishing himself by a
singularly wise administration between the years 1854 and 1859. He
conciliated the Hottentots of the Colony by granting certain claims
which had been long and fruitlessly pressed upon the authorities. He
settled tor a time the native troubles in Kaffraria, and founded a
great hospital for natives, in which, by 1890, more than 130,000 cases
had been treated, and the resulting cures heralded in many corners of
"Darkest Africa" as a proof of the Englishman's power and unexpected
beneficence. He despatched troops to India at a critical period of the
Mutiny and upon his own responsibility, settled the German Legion from
the Crimea in the Colony, and brought out a number of German families
for its members to marry into. Finally, during his first Governorship,
he urged the union of the Legislatures of the Cape, Natal and Orange
Free State in a common federal system, and at a time when the Free
State might easily have been persuaded to accept the policy. But the
Colonial Office would have none of it. Unfortunately, and to the
lasting injury of South Africa, the Home Government distrusted him, and
in 1858 he was recalled.
[Sidenote: Sir George Grey Reappointed]
The Derby Administration, however, met with defeat while Sir George
Grey was on the sea, and when he reached London it was to find that he
had been reappointed to his position. It long afterwards became known
that this was done by the personal command of the Queen, who had
appreciated the policy he pursued and had sympathized with his proposed
federal scheme.[1] But despite this fact the new Government, as a
whole, was so strongly opposed to the much-feared increase of
responsibilities, under a federation in South Africa, that Sir George
Grey was obliged to forego the hope of even attempting to carry his
schema further. During his second administration, which only lasted
until 1861, he entertained Prince Alfred (the Duke of Edinburgh), and
traversed with him a great part of Cape Colony, Kaffraria and Natal;
improved to an immense extent the splendid natural Harbor at Cape Town;
visited the Orange Free State and established at Bloemfontein, as a
token of friendship, the Grey Institute, in which so much has since
been done for the higher education of the youth of that State.
[Sidenote: Annexation of Basutoland] In 1861 he accepted the
Governorship of New Zealand, and was succeeded by Sir P. E. Wodehouse,
whose administration was chiefly distinguished for the annexation of
Basutoland. In 1870 Sir Henry Barkly took charge of affairs and
assumed possession for Great Britain of the Diamond Fields. With the
coming of Sir Bartle Frere, in 1877, arose new developments along the
lines of Sir George Grey's disappointed hopes and hampered policy.
This time, however, a check was to be given from within the Colony
instead of by the Colonial Office. The wheel of fate refused to
reverse itself.
[1] _Life and Times of Sir George Grey_. By W. L. Rees. London, 1892.
Vol. XI., p. 298.
[Sidenote: The First Cape Ministry]
The year 1872 had seen the grant of full responsible government to the
Colony and the crowning of its Parliamentary system by the
establishment of the first Cape Ministry. As in the British-American
Colonies, from 1854 onwards, the Ministry now had to obtain and hold
the confidence of a majority of the members of the House of Assembly,
and its defeat upon any important question necessitated immediate
retirement. The head of the Government, or Prime Minister, was
_ex-officio_ in charge of native affairs within the Colony, but, owing
to the complex position of South Africa in the relationship of its
various states to each other and towards the natives, the Governor of
Cape Colony remained High Commissioner in South Africa with the control
of British interests outside the bounds of Cape Colony. In such
matters he was responsible to the Crown and not to his own Colonial
Ministry. Parliament could be dissolved, constitutionally, at the
pleasure of the Governor, but practically and mainly upon the advice of
his Ministry. It could not sit longer than five years, so that the
people were, and are, able to turn out their Government either through
pressure upon their representatives at Cape Town, resulting in a
Parliamentary vote of want of confidence, or by their own votes at the
polls as the result of a general election. The following have been
successively Prime Ministers of Cape Colony:
1872, Sir John C. Molteno, K.C.M.G.
1878, Sir J. Gordon Sprigg, K.C.M.G.
1881, Sir Thomas C. Scanlen, K.C.M.G.
1884, Sir Thomas Upington, K.C.M.G.
1886, Sir J. Gordon Sprigg, K.C.M.G.
1890, The Hon. Cecil J. Rhodes.
1893, Right Hon. Cecil J. Rhodes, P.C.
1896, Right Hon. Sir Gordon Sprigg, P.C.
1898, Hon. W. P. Schreiner, Q.C., C.M.G.
[Sidenote: Lord Carnarvon's Scheme of Federation]
Upon the structure of these Governments and around the names of their
members turns much of the history of Cape Colony during these years;
although a man of the wide influence of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr never held
office except for a few months in 1881, while Sir John Henry de
Villiers has not been in a Ministry since 1873 when he retired from the
Molteno Cabinet to accept the Chief Justiceship of the Colony. The
first great question which had to be dealt with under the new
constitution was Lord Carnarvon's scheme of federation. This most
cultured representative of British statecraft had, curiously enough,
been Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies at the time when the
head of that Department, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, had refused any
favorable consideration to the policy proposed by Sir George Grey in
1858. He had then agreed with his chief; now he was at the head of the
Colonial Office, under the inspiration of Lord Beaconsfield's new
Imperialism, as a convert in the most enthusiastic degree to the
general principle of Colonial federations under the Crown.
Accordingly, in 1875, he addressed a despatch to the Cape Government
pointing out the complications of South African inter-state relations,
the advantages of unity and the willingness of the Imperial Government
to enact legislation bringing into effect a federal union of the
various communities. At the same time he sent out, as a sort of
confidential envoy to press the matter upon public attention, a man
who, with all his brilliant attainments as a writer and historian--the
late James Anthony Froude--seems to have been without that tact and
personal magnetism so essential to the success of a delicate mission.
His own record of the matter in _Oceana_ proves this conclusively. And
it was not a favorable moment for any general consideration of the
matter. The Orange Free State was in a somewnat exasperated condition
over the annexation of Griqualand West to Cape Colony, and had not yet
become mollified by the personal influence of President Brand and by
the results of the monetary return given for the loss of the Diamond
Fields. The Transvaal was in a position of such factional discontent
and general disintegration that its people could hardly have dealt
clearly with such an important issue had even their still keen hatred
of the English been eliminated from the question. Natal was in
imminent danger from the massing of Zulu spears upon its frontiers;
while the Dutch people in Cape Colony looked upon the whole matter with
suspicion and certainly without sympathy.
[Sidenote: Sir Garnet Wolseley as Governor]
Following Mr. Froude's mission to the Cape came the appointment of Sir
Garnet (afterwards Field Marshal Lord) Wolseley as Governor of Natal,
with the special object of studying the situation and promoting
federation. He returned to London after a few months without
accomplishing anything very definite, and on August 3, 1876, presided
over a Conference held in the metropolis and attended by several South
African delegates. Amongst them was Theophilus Shepstone, a clever and
ambitious man who had for years been in charge of native affairs in and
around Natal, and for some time prior to this date had been in London
urging a union of the various States as the only way out of existing
evils and difficulties. The meeting adjourned, however, without any
practical result, and in the succeeding year Sir Bartle Frere, a
brilliant Anglo-Indian administrator, was sent out as Governor and High
Commissioner with a special view to the promotion of confederation.
[Sidenote: Steps for Annexation of Transvaal] About the same time Mr.
(now created Sir) Theophilus Shepstone was given exceptional authority
as a Special Commissioner in Natal to steps for take steps for the
annexation of the Transvaal under certain possible conditions of
necessity or willingness on the part of its inhabitants. These
conditions appeared to present themselves and annexation followed; as
did the Zulu war and the war of 1881. Meantime Sir Bartle Frere found
himself and his policy opposed by practically the whole Dutch
population of Cape Colony. He was violently criticised by the press
and politicians of the Colonial Boers--who were now awakening to the
possibilities of racial power under the new institutions of the
country--and in 1880 had the mortification of having his carefully
prepared federal proposals thrown out of the Cape Parliament; chiefly
at the instigation of the Transvaal Boers, who were just then entering
upon their struggle for independence. Meanwhile the Beaconsfield
Government was defeated, Mr. Gladstone came into power, and in the
prompt recall of Sir Bartle Frere and the equally prompt repudiation of
his policy another unmerited grave was dug in the cemetery which South
Africa has provided for the reputations of many Governors.
[Illustration: THE LEICESTER REGIMENT RETREATING TO LADYSMITH BOMBARDED
BY THE BOERS]
[Illustration: THE NAVAL BRIGADE AT LADYSMITH SHELLING THE BOERS,
OCTOBER 30, 1899. The large gun mounted on Captain Scott's carriage is
shown in action.]
This action of the Cape Parliament was an effective evidence of the
growing political influence of the Dutch population in the Colony.
Another was the establishment in 1882 of the dual language system.
Prior to this date, and since 1828, the English language alone could be
used in Parliamentary debate, in the Courts of Law, or in the Public
Offices. But now the local Dutch farming population had awakened to
its real political influence--largely through the formation of the
Afrikander Bund in 1881--and its representatives in the Assembly soon
obtained a change in the law. Henceforward either language could be
used in any place or position, and it was also enacted eventually that
no one should be admitted to the ordinary branch of the Civil Service
without a perfect knowledge of both English and Dutch. Such a result
was inevitable, under the circumstances, but it is hard to see any real
advantage which has ensued. The measure did not improve the standard
of public life, and even Dr. Theal, who is disposed to give the
brightest view of Dutch development in the Colony, declares that it
would be incorrect to say that the change "raised the tone of debate in
Parliament or improved the administration of justice in the slightest
degree." As a matter of fact it helped still further to isolate the
Dutch people, encouraged the publication of Dutch newspapers, helped
the progress of Dutch political organization in Parliament and in the
Afrikander Bund, and promoted the use of a _patois_ which was very far,
indeed, from being the mother-tongue of the race.
[Sidenote: General Progress]
Meanwhile, Cape Colony was making considerable material and general
progress. It was largely an English development, as the Dutch
population still adhered to the slow-going ways of its ancestors, and
cattle and sheep remained the chief support of the farmers under
British rule as they did of those beyond the Orange or the Vaal. At
the beginning of the century, when the Colony finally came under the
control of Great Britain, its products had been limited to grain,
cattle and wine--the total exports being under half a million of
dollars in value. At present they include aloes, coffee, copper ore,
ostrich feathers, dried fruits, guano, angora hair, hides, horns,
skins, tobacco, wine, wool and diamonds. In 1875 the vines of the
Colony yielded four and a half million gallons of brandy. In the same
year three million pounds of tobacco were produced; while the Colony,
as a whole, possessed eleven million sheep, twenty-two thousand
ostriches, over three million goats and a million horned cattle. The
trade of the country has always been chiefly with Great Britain and
carried in British vessels. [Sidenote: Facts and Figures] Between 1861
and 1886 the imports doubled and the exports trebled. From 1872 to
1897 they rose by leaps and bounds--the imports increasing by
$67,000,000 and the exports by $66,000,000. Since English agricultural
settlement and work has increased the growth of grain in some of the
richer regions has been considerable. Wheat, maize, oats, barley and
millet are common crops, while rice and cotton are grown in certain
localities--the latter being still an experimental production. Merino
sheep have largely taken the place of the big-tailed sheep of the early
Dutch settlers. The following table,[2] beginning with 1854 and
including 1872, as the years marked by important constitutional
changes, will illustrate the general progress in this connection:
1854 1872 1897
Receipts, $1,479,010 $ 5,770,205 $ 36,949,830
Expenditures, 1,562,605 4,612,840 34,261,930
Public Debt, none 7,755,470 136,412,025
Shipping, tons (inwards), 1,202,715 2,412,780 32,101,005
" (outwards), 1,197,975 2,353,455 32,166,020
Imports, 7,740,185 21,943,640 89,659,390
Exports, 3,822,305 30,347,645 97,181,520
[2] Condensed from official figures in the _Statistical Register_.
Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. 1897.
In 1868 the declared value of diamonds exported was $750, while from
1881 onwards the export averaged twenty millions a year--in 1897 being
$22,271,880. In 1872 the export of wool reached its highest point, and
exceeded sixteen millions in value. Since then it has diminished,
owing to the effect of frequent droughts upon the sheep, and, in 1897,
was but little over seven millions. Of all the exports Angora hair is
now the most important, and excels gold, diamonds and precious stones.
In 1857 its export was about $5,000 in value; forty years later it was
$60,900,000. The population had meantime been growing slowly. The
Census of 1865 gave the Europeans as numbering 181,592, and the natives
314,789. Ten years later the figures were 236,783 and 484,201,
respectively, and in 1891 the Census of that year showed an increase to
382,198 Europeans and 1,217,762 natives. How far these figures are
accurate it is difficult to say. There has been an objection to
differentiating between European races in the official returns--partly
from the English portion not liking to appear in so marked a minority
and partly, perhaps, from the Dutch themselves not desiring to have
their full strength known. And it is not improbable that the last
Census very greatly understated the numbers of the latter; as seems to
have also been the case with the figures of Boer population in the two
Republics.
[Sidenote: Other Statistics]
In other branches of development there have been marked evidences of
advancement; though in the figures which follow, and notably in
connection with railways and banking, the English part of the
population is again the principal progressive element. In 1860 there
were 225 schools and 18,757 scholars, and in 1897 2,358 schools and
119,812 scholars. The railways were taken over by the Government in
1873 to the extent of 64 miles. In 1897 the railways under Government
control covered 1901 miles, with total receipts of $15,350,000 and
expenditures of $9,500,000. This particular branch of progress was
greatly assisted by the Orange Free State under President Brand.
Telegraph lines, with 19 stations, 781 miles of wire sending 15,500
messages in the year, were also assumed by the Government in 1873, and
in 1897 there were 426 stations, 18,631 miles of wire, and 2,392,503
messages despatched. The fixed and floating deposits in the banks of
the Colony amounted, in 1865, to ten million dollars and the bills and
notes under discount to over fifteen millions. In 1897 the fixed
deposits were $13,500,000, the floating deposits $24,000,000, and the
discounts $17,000,000, in round numbers. The chief railways in the
Colony start from Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London, and the
main line into the interior now reaches Buluwayo. If Mr. Cecil Rhodes
ever succeeds in the aim of his life, it will eventually reach Cairo,
and thus connect the Cape with Egypt.
[Sidenote: The Colony from a Religious Standpoint]
Until the discovery of gold in the Transvaal the British emigration to
South Africa was never extensive, and even since that time it has not
been greatly added to so far as Cape Colony is concerned. The total of
those sent from England between 1873 and 1884 was only 23,337. From a
religious standpoint the condition of the Colony is somewhat complex.
There are two Church of England Dioceses, and the Church is very
popular amongst the English part of the community, whilst its
organization is excellent--a fact largely due to the work done during
many years by Dr. Gray, Bishop of Cape Town. It is in close touch with
the Church at home, and in 1874 had 45,000 adherents, of whom 19,000
were colored people. The Roman Catholic Church at that time numbered
8,000, and the Dutch Reformed Church, which is, of course, the Church
of the Boers, included 132,000 adherents. In 1891 there were,
according to the Census, 186,073 white members of the Dutch Reformed
congregations in the Colony and 24,441 colored; 46,114 white adherents
of the Church of England and an equal number of colored; 20,215 white
adherents of Wesleyan Methodism and over a hundred thousand colored;
and 12,000 Roman Catholics, mostly white; with the balance of the
population scattering amongst minor denominations and the various
sections of the Lutheran Church.
The most prominent public man of British extraction in the earlier
period of the history of Cape Colony was the Hon. William Porter,
C.M.G., who died in 1880 after many years' seclusion at his home in
Ireland. A native and barrister of Erin, he was Attorney-General of
Cape Colony as far back as 1839, and held office for a long period
prior to the attainment of responsible government. The constitution of
1854 was largely his creation, and his personality, combined with great
natural eloquence, made him a strong place in the hearts of the people.
Three times he refused the position of Chief Justice, and, in 1872,
declined the office of Prime Minister under the newly established
system of complete self-government. Bishop Gray of Cape Town, who died
in the year just mentioned, was also one of its great public figures.
During quarter of a century, and amidst innumerable ecclesiastical
storms and political complications, he administered the affairs of the
Anglican Church, and left it in a strongly organized position as the
"Church of South Africa," with its own Synod, prosperous finances and
growing membership. Sir Walter Curry, of Cape Mounted Rifles fame; Sir
Sydney Smith Bell, a learned Judge of twenty-three years' labor; Sir
Christoffel Josephus Brand, the first Speaker of the House of Assembly;
the Hon. Robert Godlonton, M.L.C., and Thomas Burt Glanville, M.L.A.;
Hon. Saul Solomon, M.L.A., Sir Andries Stockenstrom, Bart., M.L.A.,
Hon. J. W. Leonard, M.L.A., Hon Jonathan Ayliff, M.L.A., Hon. George
Wood, M.L.C., the Hon. Andries Stockenstrom, Judge of the Supreme
Court, and John Noble, C.M.G., were all men who left their mark upon
the history of the Colony.
After William Porter, the most prominent of the earlier Colonists, was
the Hon. John Paterson. A Scotchman by birth, he went out to South
Africa in 1840, and became a teacher, a journalist, a capitalist, a
banker, and, finally, during many years was a keen politician. A
member of both Houses in turn, a strong advocate of Confederation and
railway development, a progressive leader in every sense of the word,
his death by drowning in 1880 left a serious void in the life of the
Colony. Of Sir John Charles Molteno, the first Premier at the Cape,
much might be said. An Englishman by birth, he was a Colonist from the
age of sixteen (1830) until his death in 1886. Participating in
different Kaffir wars, fighting for responsible government, struggling
for railway extension, sharing in all the ups and downs of local
political life, he became Prime Minister in 1872, and retired from
public life in 1883, after receiving the honor of knighthood from the
Queen.
In later years and in the development of Dutch individuality the
Afrikander Bund did some measure of good.
[Sidenote: Some Prominent Leaders]
Apart from its influence in arousing a racial passion which was innate,
but as yet sluggish, amongst the Cape Boers, it had detached them
somewhat from their previous position of absolute isolation, and, under
the local leadership of Mr. J. H. Hofmeyr and others, had brought them
into political and constitutional action. That this growing knowledge
and experience was ultimately twisted by the influence of President
Kruger of the Transvaal and President Reitz of the Free State into an
increased and active aversion to Great Britain and the English was the
misfortune of the situation. Meantime, however, the movement taught
the Dutch something of the freer life of British politics and brought
some able men to the front. Mr. Hofmeyr could have been Premier at
almost any time during these years, but seems to have been without
personal ambition of the official kind. Sir John Henry de Villiers was
the first Attorney-General under responsible government, President of
the Legislative Council for many years, and has been Chief Justice of
the Colony since 1873. He was a Delegate in 1894, with Mr. Hofmeyr, to
the Colonial Conference at Ottawa, and three years later was appointed
a member of the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council--the
highest Court of Appeal in the Empire--as part of a new policy which
included Canadian, Australian and South African members in that
important body. He has long represented the best type of loyal,
cultured and able Dutchmen at the Cape. His name indicates the strain
of Huguenot blood which so curiously mingles with many of the Dutch
families of the Cape.
Sir Pieter Hendrik Faure, K.C.M.G., is another Dutch leader of the same
type--loyal to the finger-tips and progressive in ideal and in practice
and as a follower of Cecil Rhodes. He was in the latter's Ministry
from 1890 to 1896, and in the succeeding Government of Sir Gordon
Sprigg until 1898. The Hon. Jacobus Wilhelmus Sauer has been a very
different style of political leader. A thorough Dutchman and
enthusiastic member of the Afrikander Bund, he helped to break up the
first Rhodes' Ministry, in which he had been included as a part of the
Premier's conciliatory policy, and he is now a member of very doubtful
loyalty in the Schreiner Government. He has declined a knighthood.
Mr. Wilhelm Philip Schreiner has not had that opportunity, but he has
accepted a C.M.G., or Companionship in the Order of St. Michael and St.
George. He was a member of the second Rhodes' Ministry (1893) for a
short time, and, in 1898, when the Bund had become a strong political
factor and had overpowered Rhodes and his friendly successor--Sir
Gordon Sprigg--at the polls, he became, on October 14th of that year,
Premier of Cape Colony as well as the local leader of the Bund in
practical succession to Hofmeyr. As events developed in the direction
of racial hostilities in South Africa, and as political power at the
Cape came to centre in the hands of the Bund Ministry, Mr. Hofmeyr's
influence has naturally diminished and that of Messrs. Schreiner, Sauer
and Te Water increased. The latter, the Hon. Thomas Nicholas German Te
Water, B.A., M.D., has been, for some time, a leader of the Afrikander
party, and, though a graduate of Edinburgh University, a student of
Berlin, Vienna and other Universities and a man of culture, he also has
become enmeshed in the web of racial or Dutch ideals. He was for two
years in the last Sprigg Ministry, and is now in that of Mr. Schreiner.
[Sidenote: Mr. Cecil Rhodes]
First and foremost of all English leaders in South Africa, and ranking
higher in practical power and developed policy than any British
Governor or ruler in its history, is Mr. Cecil John Rhodes. He has
been in the Parliament of Cape Colony since 1880, and was for a short
time, in 1884, Treasurer in the Scanlen Ministry. He held no other
official post until he became Chairman of the British South Africa
Company in 1889, and Premier of the Colony in 1890. Of the other Prime
Ministers of the Cape Sir Thomas Upington was a clever Irish Roman
Catholic lawyer, a brilliant speaker and strong Imperialist, who became
Attorney-General in 1878, after he had only been a couple of years in
the Colony. Six years later he was Premier. Sir John Gordon Sprigg is
an Englishman by birth and a politician of acknowledged personal
probity. He is, however, described by a well-known writer on Colonial
affairs[3] as a political opportunist who has changed his opinions upon
various subjects, and who generally believes in being in accord with
the majority wherever an opening may occur. This opinion arises
somewhat from the fact that his policy of recent years has been in
accord with that of Rhodes--up to 1895--and was very conciliatory
toward the Dutch majority, while his own views were known to be
strongly British. [Sidenote: Sir James Sivewright] Sir James
Sivewright has not been Premier of the Colony, but was the pioneer head
and front of its telegraph system--a native of Scotland and a graduate
of Aberdeen--and was a member of the first Rhodes Ministry and the
third Sprigg Ministry. One other politician must be mentioned--the
Hon. John Xavier Merriman. A native of England, a son of Bishop
Merriman of Grahamstown, a graduate of Oxford, and an early Tory and
loyalist of strong views and enthusiastic adherence to Rhodes; he has
developed into a Radical and a follower of Schreiner and the Afrikander
Bund. It has been a remarkable change, presents a curious combination
of racial inconsistencies, and has made him intensely unpopular amongst
the Progressive, or Rhodes' party of recent years, as well as amongst
the English element of the troubled present. He has been a member of
the Scanlen Ministry, the first Rhodes Ministry, and belongs to the
present Schreiner Government.
[3] _Problems of Greater Britain_. By Sir Charles W. Dilke, Bart.,
M.P. London, 1890.
[Sidenote: The Parties of To-day]
Meanwhile the parties of to-day had been developing--the Afrikander
party and the Progressives. The former included Dutch leaders such as
Hofmeyr, Schreiner, Te Water and Sauer, and a few Englishmen like J. X.
Merriman. The latter was composed of English politicians such as
Rhodes, Sprigg and Upington, and a few Dutchmen like Sir P. Faure. The
policy of the former is and has been openly for some time voiced in the
phrase: "Africa for the Afrikander." The policy of the latter is that
of territorial expansion--as in the annexations to Cape Colony of
Griqualand West and Bechuanaland--and of British supremacy throughout
South Africa. Of course there have been many changes and developments,
and it has only been within the past few years (1896-1900) that the
policy of conciliating the Dutch has been in great measure dropped
owing to its apparent impracticability. For the time being the
Afrikander party is in power. It triumphed in the general elections of
1898, and the Legislative Assembly at Cape Town has a Dutch majority,
the Ministry is emphatically a Bund Government, and the Legislative
Council has fifteen Boer members to eight English. Such has been the
final development of equal rights and British constitutional freedom in
this South African Colony.
CHAPTER VII.
Imperial Policy in South Africa.
[Sidenote: The Early Governors of Cape Colony]
Like most of England's Colonial Governors those of the Cape were, from
the time of Lord Caledon's arrival in 1807, men of character, standing
and ability. They might make mistakes in policy, they might
occasionally be led astray by local advisers and they were always
liable to censure or recall from a Colonial Office which too often
judged local conditions from the standpoint of Downing Street rather
than by a clear comprehension of the difference between struggling
pioneer communities and a wealthy and matured home society. But their
intentions were good, they were never known to be, or even charged with
being corrupt, and they usually had a degree of experience in public
life which was naturally useful to a new country with crude
institutions. Lord Caledon improved the postal system and established
Circuit Courts for the better administration of justice in outlying
districts. Sir John Cradock, who came out in 1811, established schools
in the country regions and tried to control the nomadic tendencies of
the Dutch farmers by making them freeholders of farms ranging from 6000
to 20,000 acres in extent. Lord Charles Somerset--a brother of the
Duke of Beaufort and of Lord Raglan, the well-known Crimean General of
after-years--was appointed in 1814 and carried out many measures of
value to the infant Colony. He founded new townships, promoted
industrial development, encouraged the importation of sheep and himself
brought out Merinos whom he established in sundry breeding-farms. At
the same time he broached and carried out the important scheme of
immigration known in its result as the Albany Settlement and as one of
the chief factors in the progress of the period. His large salary of
fifty thousand dollars, paid by the Local Government was, therefore,
well earned and though an unpopular and arbitrary man he certainly
appears to have done good service to the community.
[Sidenote: Good Service to the Community]
In 1826 Sir Lowry Cole succeeded to the position and attempted for a
time the difficult and dangerous task of Anglicizing the population.
Eight years afterwards General Sir Benjamin D'Urban, who had seen
military service in Canada, and elsewhere, was appointed to carry out
the slave emancipation policy. Then came Sir George Napier, under
whose régime a splendid system of roads was created and, in 1847,
General Sir Harry Smith, a most popular and able Governor. He was
followed by Sir George Cathcart in 1852. All of these rulers had to
deal with native or Boer wars and none of them had much time to spare
for the cultivation of material progress in the generally harassed
country. From 1854 to 1862, however, Sir George Grey administered the
affairs of the Colony and to this remarkable man South Africa owes
much, and would have owed more had he not been hampered and overruled
at every turn by Imperial fears of a policy of expansion and Imperial
objections to the assumption of further responsibilities.
This was the period when Little Englanders abounded in the mother
country; when Tories and Radicals were agreed in opposing any added
links to the chain of Empire; when the masses believed that the
manufacturing industries and commerce which they saw advancing by leaps
and bounds on every side were entirely independent of political
boundaries and national allegiance; when the markets of the world
seemed for a time to belong to England, and the markets of the Colonies
were in comparison absolutely insignificant; when public men like John
Bright and Richard Cobden, Cornewall Lewis and Sir William Molesworth,
Lord Brougham and Lord Ellenborough, Robert Lowe and even Lord John
Russell, spoke of a future in which the Colonies would be independent,
and of a present which was simply preliminary to a destiny which they
did not regret. The popular idol of that day was Trade, as the popular
idol of the last days of the century is Empire. The swing of the
pendulum has come indeed, but it has brought with it a war which the
acceptance of Sir George Grey's policy at this time would have
prevented.
[Sidenote: England's Unsettled Colonies]
There is, of course, much to excuse this view of the Colonies in, and
about, 1850. The British-American Provinces were still in a
dissatisfied and disorganized condition from the Rebellion of 1837, the
racial troubles of 1848, and the fiscal difficulties which followed the
repeal of the Corn Laws and Preferential duties by England. The value
and resources of Australia were practically unknown. It was still the
home of convicts, and had only just entered upon a period of rushing
settlement and turbulent mining successes in which the problems of
government were extremely complicated. South Africa had been the scene
of nothing but war and trouble. All the later Governors had been
recalled one after the other, and their policy frequently reversed
without either conciliating the Colonists or controlling the restless
masses of native population along the ever-changing frontiers. As a
rule the earlier policy toward the Kaffirs had been one of
half-measures. The first plan of alliances with native chiefs broke
down, and in Lord Charles Somerset's time had ended in conflict. Then
came the Boer wars with the Zulus in Natal and a British effort to
protect the natives against the invaders' onslaughts. Sir Benjamin
D'Urban's policy in 1835, after the Kaffir war of that time, was the
establishment of a living frontier along the east of Cape Colony, which
should be sufficiently strong to resist the pressure of the savage
masses from beyond. A line of European settlers was to be established,
and beyond that a body of loyal Kaffirs supported by a string of forts.
Before a Committee of the House of Commons this was afterwards declared
by D'Urban's successor, Sir G. Cathcart, to have been a wise and
necessary policy. But, unfortunately, it involved an advance from the
Fish to the Kei River, and such a thing the Colonial Office would not
tolerate. The policy was reversed and the territory in question given
back to the Kaffirs.
[Sidenote: England's Unsettled Colonies]
Sir George Grey (1854-61) took a different line of action and policy.
Everything that he did was bold and determined. He acted first,
assumed the responsibility next, and made it necessary for the Colonial
Office to either approve, or else recall, a Governor who had for the
first time in a quarter of a century proved a successful South African
ruler. This statement is not necessarily a reflection upon previous
Governors. Sir Benjamin D'Urban was overruled by Downing Street. Sir
George Napier went out simply to reverse a certain policy under
detailed instructions. General Sir Peregrine Maitland had
distinguished himself as a soldier, had made an excellent Governor of
Upper Canada and of Nova Scotia, and was no more responsible for the
Kaffir war which caused his inevitable recall than was the Premier of
Great Britain. General Sir Harry Smith, the victor of Aliwal in India,
and the only British officer who before 1899 had won a direct victory
over the Boers, had in him the making of a statesman, as his annexation
of the Orange River region proved. But the war with Sandili brought
about his recall, and a very few years also saw the reversal of his
policy toward the Boers, the creation of the independent Free State,
the establishment of the Transvaal, and the foundation of endless
opportunities for trouble in the future. For these actions the
Government of the Earl of Aberdeen and the Secretaryship of the Duke of
Newcastle must always hold an unpleasant responsibility. Sir George
Grey did what he could to rectify the errors which had been made. He
was instinct with the Imperial idea, and, although doomed to fail in
some measure in the attainment of his great ambitions, none the less
did splendid work for the Empire. The men at the Colonial Office were
constantly changing, and the only continuity in their policy was a
common desire to be relieved from any new developments and fresh
responsibilities. Politics did not come into the matter at all, as one
party was then as ignorant of Colonial requirements and as indifferent
to Colonial possibilities as the other.
[Illustration: HOSPITAL TRAIN LOADING WOUNDED SOLDIERS]
[Illustration: THE TOWN HALL AT LADYSMITH CONVERTED INTO A HOSPITAL]
[Sidenote: Governors and Colonial Office Differ]
During Grey's seven years' administration of the Cape, for instance,
Sidney Herbert (afterwards Lord Herbert of Lea), Lord John Russell, Sir
William Molesworth, Henry Labouchere (afterwards Lord Taunton), Sir
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Stanley (afterwards Earl of Derby), and the
Duke of Newcastle, succeeded each other at the Colonial Office; while
Sir Frederick Rogers (afterwards Lord Blachford) was Permanent
Under-Secretary during part of the period. Molesworth, Russell,
Stanley and Labouchere were all tainted strongly at this time with the
Manchester School theory, and Sir F. Rogers who, in his more permanent
position, had greater influence than all the passing Secretaries of
State put together, is upon record as having advised his chief, on more
than one occasion, to encourage the Colonies in every line of thought
and action which would develop separatist and independence sentiment.
It was little wonder, therefore, that Sir George Grey failed in his
effort to weld the infant States and Colonies--first of South Africa
and afterwards of Australasia--in a federal union. Had he succeeded in
the one it would have averted much bloodshed and racial hatred, and in
the other much of useless controversy, crude constitution-mongering and
demagogic development. "I believe I should have succeeded," he
declared in bitterness of heart many years afterwards; but the
statesman proposed, the Colonial Office disposed. For years the whole
scope of the suggested federation was discussed between the Governor
and the Imperial authorities. The former suggested the constitution of
the then federated islands of New Zealand as a practical basis, and
even obtained a Resolution of the Free State Volksraad in favor of the
general principle. The consent of Cape Colony would have been
unanimous. Natal was ready, and it is not likely that the conflicting
and tiny republics into which the Transvaal was then divided would have
long resisted Free State influence and the personal magnetism which Sir
George Grey could have brought to bear upon them. Even had their
deeper prejudices and denser ignorance prevailed for a time in the
perpetuation of their isolation, the increased prosperity of the Free
State under the new conditions would have ultimately brought them into
the union.
[Sidenote: Federal Union Proposed]
When the Cape Parliament met in 1859 the Governor placed before it the
Resolutions of the Orange River Volksraad, and in his accompanying
address said: "You would, in my belief, confer a lasting benefit upon
Great Britain and upon the inhabitants of this country if you could
succeed in devising a form of federal union under which the several
provinces composing it should have full and free scope of action left
to them, through their own local Governments and Legislatures, upon all
subjects relating to their individual prosperity or happiness; whilst
they should act under a general federal Government in relation to all
points which concern the general safety or weal." Along this path
alone lay safety and success for the South African States. A copy of
the address was sent to the Colonial Office with full explanations and
comments, and then came a reply expressing great dissatisfaction at the
question having been brought before the Legislature at Cape Town
without authority from the Ministers at home. Sir George claimed, on
the other hand, to have indirectly understood that the policy proposed
had the approval of the Colonial Department. There seems, however, to
be little doubt from the terms of the general correspondence that he
did really try to force the hands of the Imperial Government in this
matter; as one which he deemed essential to the welfare of the Empire,
and for the success of which he was willing to risk personal
humiliation in a bold effort to stem the tide of anti-colonialism then
swelling on the shores of British thought and sentiment. [Sidenote:
Government's Disapproval of Grey's Policy] The result, however, was his
recall in a dispatch from Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, dated 4th June,
1859, and containing an expression of the high opinion held by the
Government of Sir George Grey's endowments and patriotism, but
explaining that "they could not safely continue to entrust with your
present functions one committed, as you have committed yourself, to the
policy of which they disapprove on a subject of the first importance;
nor could they expect from you the necessary assistance when steps,
which you have taken without that authority, have of necessity to be
retraced." [Sidenote: Sir George Grey's Vindication] The reply to this
was dated July 20, 1859, and constitutes a distinct and complete
vindication of his general policy. In its closing paragraph is summed
up the situation facing more than one Governor of Cape Colony, or High
Commissioner to South Africa, before and since his time:
"Can a man, who, on a distant and exposed frontier, surrounded by
difficulties, with invasions of Her Majesty's territories threatening
on several points, assume a responsibility which he, guided by many
circumstances which he can neither record nor remember as they come
hurrying on one after another, be fairly judged of in respect of the
amount of responsibility he assumes by those who, in the quiet of
distant offices in London, know nothing of the anxieties or nature of
the difficulties he had to encounter? If Her Majesty's possessions and
Her Majesty's subjects are saved from threatening dangers, and they
gratefully acknowledge this, whilst the Empire receives no hurt, is it
a fitting return that the only reward he should receive should be the
highest punishment which it is in the power of Her Majesty's Ministers
to inflict? This may be the reward they bestow; but the true one of
the consciousness of difficult duties performed to the best of his
ability, with great personal sacrifice, they cannot take from him."
[Sidenote: Grey Reinstalled by Palmerston]
But Sir George Grey had friends of greater power than the novelist
politician at the Colonial Office or his narrow-visioned assistant.
From the time, in 1857, when he had diverted troops to India, which had
stopped at Cape Town on their way to China, and by this seemingly
reckless assumption of responsibility had enabled Sir Colin Campbell to
relieve Lucknow and to save the situation in those terrible days of
mutiny, he was given the lasting friendship and appreciation of the
Queen. His further policy of conciliating the natives by personal
visits and explanations of the situation; his wise trust in the
friendship of savage chiefs whom he knew often understood honor and
practiced it better than the white man himself; and his stripping the
country of troops and munitions of war in order to give additional help
in the Indian crisis; naturally added to the esteem which his first and
most daring act had inspired in the mind of a Sovereign who was, even
in those days, an Imperial statesman in the highest sense of the word.
Of his action in changing the route of the troops from Hong Kong to
Calcutta, and sending Cape troops and artillery and stores and specie
to India in time to be of the most valuable service, the Queen
commanded Mr. Labouchere, Colonial Secretary, to express privately to
Sir George Grey "her high appreciation" as well as in a more formal
manner. Later on she hesitated for some time in giving her assent to
his recall, and short of precipitating a Cabinet crisis did refuse. A
little later the Derby Government was defeated, and as soon as Lord
Palmerston came into power Grey was promptly reinstalled, and, on his
arrival in London, was informed by the Prince Consort of the Queen's
"approval of the measures taken by him and the policy of confederation
which he had pursued," and her opinion that the plans proposed were
"beneficent, worthy of a great ruler, honorable to himself and
advantageous to her people." Speaking at Sydney, New South Wales, in
1891, Sir George Grey referred to this matter, and declared that "one
person in the Empire held that I was right, and that person was the
Queen."
[Sidenote: Advancement During Grey's Governorship]
Back he went to South Africa amid general rejoicings at the Cape, but
with the refusal of the new Government at home to take any steps
whatever in the direction of federation. But, as if to expressly mark
the Queen's sympathy with Grey's Imperial ideas, Prince Alfred was sent
out in 1860 to make a tour of South Africa, and to evoke, as he did,
the same sentiments of loyalty as were aroused by the visit of the
Prince of Wales to Canada at about the same time. Cape Colony, Natal
and the Orange Free State were visited with due ceremony by the
Governor and the Prince, and at Bloemfontein one of the arches of
welcome contained the significant motto: "Loyal, though discarded."
During the succeeding year Sir George Grey finally left the Cape to
take up the Governorship of New Zealand, at a critical period in its
troubles with the Maoris, and at a time when the Duke of Newcastle,
Colonial Secretary, had given him to understand that the
Governor-Generalship of Canada and ultimately of India were open to him
after leaving South Africa. But duty seemed to require him in New
Zealand, and thither he went to live for years as Governor, for other
years as Prime Minister, and for a still longer period as a private
citizen. During the eight years in which he had ruled Cape Colony he
had inaugurated representative institutions and established schools,
libraries, hospitals, public works, roads and railways. The Cape Town
and Wellington Railway, the first line in the Colony, was his
enterprise. The great ostrich-farming industry of the future was
started by him. Above all, he won the affection and respect of the
most varied types of native races, and the after voluntary submission
of Moshesh, the Basuto, to British authority may be largely traced to
the friendly feeling inspired by a visit which Grey paid to the rocky
heights of Thaba Bosigo. In his greatest aim he had failed, and in
later days he became eccentric and erratic in his views; but none the
less does South Africa owe much to the life and memory of Sir George
Grey.
His successor, Sir Philip E. Wodehouse, was a man of ability who had
been Governor of British Guiana, and was afterwards for five years
Governor of Bombay. His administration was signalized by the
inauguration of a new and wiser policy on the part of the Colonial
Office. Whether it was that the Manchester School, in reaching the
meridian of its power during these years, had temporarily overlooked
South Africa; or that it had become apparent even to the Colonial
Office that the man on the spot must be allowed some latitude; or that
Sir Philip Wodehouse was more trusted and less feared by the Home
authorities than Grey; is not visible upon the surface. But the fact
remains that in 1865 British Kaffraria was finally incorporated with
Cape Colony, and definite responsibility assumed for its government and
control, and that in 1868 Basutoland was annexed to British
dominions--not to the Cape Colony--and perhaps the most rugged and
strongest natural fortress in the world prevented from falling into
Boer hands. Sir Henry Barkly, an experienced Australian Governor,
assumed charge in 1870, and a year later Griqualand West, with its vast
potentialities as a diamond-producing country and as the only available
British route to the far interior, was annexed and placed, like
Basutoland, under the authority of the Cape Governor as High
Commissioner for South Africa and direct representative of the Crown
and the Colonial Office.
[Sidenote: Natal a Separate Colony]
Meantime Natal, which had up to 1856 been under the control of the
Governor at the Cape, was in that year made a separate Colony governed
from the Colonial Office under a Lieut.-Governor, and with only
partially representative institutions. Zululand and the Zulus were to
this region what the Kosas had been to the Cape settlers so far as the
fear of raids and the dangers of war were concerned. Of actual and
serious war there was but little from the time of the Boers until 1879.
Of trouble in management, however, there was abundance because of the
number of Zulus within as well as from the Zulus without the strict
limits of Colonial territory. In 1873 Cetywayo was installed under
authority of the British Government as head of the Zulu nation, and
from this time dates the inauguration of the serious situation which
culminated six years later and ended in the annexation of a large part
of that region in 1887, and the protectorate established over the
sea-coast country, called Tongaland, in the same year. These two
events marked a singularly wise expression of Imperial policy, as they
checked and prevented the realization of the greatest ambition of the
Transvaal Boers--the obtaining of a sea-port. While this extension was
taking place in the east under the general administration of Sir
Hercules Robinson (afterwards Lord Rosmead) as High Commissioner, and
the whole sea-coast region from Portuguese territory to Cape Town was
being made British, a similar expansion had occured in the north and
west.
[Sidenote: Zululand Annexed]
It was to a great extent forced upon the British authorities by Boer
aggressiveness which, after the war of 1880-1 and the succeeding
Conventions, had become very marked. The Transvaal Dutch first trekked
into Zululand when it had been placed again under Cetywayo's
rule--after the war of 1879 and in the useless hope of avoiding its
annexation--and endeavored to establish there another Boer republic.
In order to prevent this and to protect the Zulus, under pledges
previously made, the Imperial Government had to formally annex the
greater part of the region. Then the Transvaalers turned to the west,
and a large number trekked into Bechuanaland, threatened to cut off
British territory and trade from the interior and menaced the
independence of Khama--a wise and friendly ruler to the north of
Bechuanaland. Sir Charles Warren's expedition of 1884 was despatched
by the Imperial Government and checked this movement, though at the
serious risk of war, and forced the Boers to recede. Bechuanaland was
then made a Crown Colony. Khama's Country was proclaimed, in 1885, a
British Protectorate, while in the preceding year, the important naval
station of St. Lucia Bay, just south of Zululand and about the
ownership of which there was some doubt, had also been annexed. Four
years previously Griqualand West had been taken from the direct control
of the Colonial Office and annexed to Cape Colony, and, in 1895, the
Dutch of the Cape had recovered somewhat from the angry feelings
provoked by the Warren expedition and the repulse of Boer ambitions
which its success involved, and permitted Mr. Rhodes to arrange the
annexation of all Bechuanaland to the Colony and its consequent removal
from the control of the Governor as High Commissioner to his charge as
the constitutional Governor of the Cape.
[Sidenote: Mr. Rhodes Premier of Cape Colony]
This curious combination of duties had been first created in 1847 when
Sir Henry Pottinger, for a few brief months, held the position of
Governor of Cape Colony and High Commissioner for South Africa. The
latter position simply involved, at that time, certain powers of
control over border tribes and certain specified authority in
negotiation. There were then no recognized independent States in South
Africa, and no self-governing powers at the Cape to complicate matters.
In time these conditions developed, and yet the Governor of the Cape,
responsible to his Ministers and Parliament for every detail of local
government, remained apart from that Parliament as the centre of a
thousand strings of diplomacy and negotiation throughout all South
Africa and the Governor of various regions, with undefined powers and
with responsibility only to the Colonial Office or the Crown. In 1889,
for example, Cape Colony was under complete self-government, and Natal
only partially so--the latter having a Governor of its own.
Basutoland, Pondoland, Bechuanaland, the Khama Country and the sphere
of British influence to the far north were under the Governor of Cape
Colony as High Commissioner only. In the same year the latter region
came under the direct control of Cecil Rhodes as Chairman of the
British South Africa Company, and Mr. Rhodes, in 1890, became Premier
of Cape Colony and the responsible adviser of the Governor. Zululand
and Tongaland were at the same time subject to the joint control of the
Governors of Cape Colony and Natal, though not in any way governed by
the Ministers of either official. Meantime, Swaziland (northwest of
Tongaland) was managed by alternate British and Boer Committees, and
ultimately was allowed to pass into the hands of the Transvaal; while
the latter Republic was nominally under the Queen's Suzerainty and the
Orange Free State was absolutely independent.
[Sidenote: Gold not the Cause of Expansion]
Such a complication, it is safe to say, never existed in any other
region of the world, or in any other record of colonization and
expanding empire. That government was possible at all reflects great
credit upon the administrators, and shows that, as years passed on, the
Colonial Office had at last risen to the level of its responsibilities,
had grasped the true spirit and the absolute necessity of Imperial
growth, and had learned that the men in charge of distant regions must
have the confidence of rulers at home and a policy with some degree of
continuity in plan and principle and detail. What really caused this
change in policy and the resulting expansion of Great Britain in South
Africa is an interesting historical question. The position of late
years has been so different from the developments of the fifties and
from the dominating ideas and ideals of the Manchester School of
thought that some explanation is necessary. The discovery of gold and
diamonds does not afford an adequate one. There was none of either in
Basutoland, or Zululand, or Bechuanaland, or Tongaland, or in the great
regions which the Chartered Company had acquired and held under the
Crown. Much was due to the slow but sure subsidence of the Little
Englanders after 1872, when Mr. Disraeli in a famous speech expressed
the first formal antagonism of a great party, as a whole, to any
further playing with questions and principles of Imperial unity. More
was due to the sustained Imperialism of his succeeding Ministry, to the
purchase of the Suez Canal shares and increasing public appreciation of
the value of the Cape in connection with the route to India, and to the
growing popular comprehension of the value of India itself. More still
was due to the rise of a new school of British statesmen, in all
parties, who had become instinct with the spirit and pride of Empire
and inheritors of the sentiment which Disraeli in his later years, and
under his new designation of Lord Beaconsfield, so strenuously
propagated. The Imperial Federation League, formed in 1884 with strong
support from leaders such as the Earl of Rosebery, Mr. W. H. Smith, Mr.
Edward Stanhope, Mr. Edward Gibson, Mr. W. E. Forster, Sir John
Lubbock, Sir Lyon Playfair and Lord Tennyson, constituted a most
important educative influence. Writers like Froude and Dilke and
Seeley took the place of philosophic disintegrationists of the
Molesworth and Cornwall Lewis school; whilst Radical politicians of the
Chamberlain and Cowan type came gradually into touch upon this subject
with aristocratic Imperialists such as Salisbury, Carnarvon and
Rosebery.
[Sidenote: Cecil Rhodes and Expansion]
The rise of Cecil Rhodes and his enthusiastic perception of the
necessity for South African expansion and unity had also much to do
with the change, while the discovery of diamonds did of course have
some effect in creating, at the time, a fresh interest in a country
hitherto chiefly known for wars and natives and missionary
explorations. So too with the natural rivalry aroused by German and
French and Italian efforts at acquisition of African territory. The
Transvaal annexation and war, 1877-81, had an effect also of
considerable importance. It projected South Africa into the wide
publicity of a place in British politics, and taught many opponents and
supporters of Mr. Gladstone more than they had dreamt of in all their
previous philosophies. The result was unfortunate as a whole, but in a
somewhat undefinable degree it cleared the way for a knowledge of
conditions and necessities which made the expansion policy of 1884-95
possible. The sending of Sir Bartle Frere to the Cape in 1877 was an
illustration of the Imperialistic principles which actuated the
Beaconsfield Government. No more brilliant and honorable administrator
had ever graced the service of the Crown in India than Sir Bartle
Frere. He was loved by subordinates, respected by all races and
creeds, trusted by Ministers at home, and, like all the greater
Governors of the Empire, was a strong believer in the closer union of
its varied portions. Reference to his connection with the
Confederation question, the Zulu war and the Transvaal annexation has
been made elsewhere, and must be still more expanded in another
chapter. But, something should be said here as to his general
treatment by the Imperial authorities. He went out with distinct
powers in connection with the unification of South Africa, and, with
the additional ones given Sir Theophilus Shepstone in Natal, held
practically a free hand.
[Sidenote: Gladstone and the Boers]
The annexation of the Transvaal and the subjugation of Cetywayo were
duly accomplished, but success to the policy as a whole was prevented
by the war of 1881; and the latter was greatly encouraged, if not
practically caused, by the eloquent objections urged in England by Mr.
Gladstone. There seems to have been no very clear comprehension of the
issue, and there was certainly no accurate knowledge of the Boer
character and history, in Mr. Gladstone's mind. They were simply to
him a pastoral people asking, and then fighting, for a freedom for
which they had struggled steadily during half a century. He knew
nothing of the land and cattle and liberties stolen by them from
unfortunate native races; of the bitter and ignorant hatred felt by
them towards England and British civilization; of the contempt for
missionaries and religious or political equality; or of their ambition,
even in those days of weakness, to expand north and east and west and
to cut off British power to the north and eventually in the south. He
never had an Imperial imagination and cared little for the ideal of an
united South Africa under the Crown. An historical imagination he did
possess, as was shown in his devotion to the cause of Greek
independence and his willing transfer of the Ionian Isles, in earlier
years, to the new Hellenic Kingdom. But that was based upon his love
of Homer and ancient Greek literature--not upon so modern and material
a matter as the welfare of British settlers in a distant and
storm-tossed colony.
[Sidenote: Governor's Restraint of Boers]
However that may be, his eloquent attacks upon the Government hampered
their further action, and when the Transvaal rebellion broke out Sir
Bartle Frere--to the lasting discredit of the Administration--was
promptly recalled. Then and to-day his name is perhaps the most loved
in the list of British rulers at the Cape--not even excepting Sir
George Grey. In the _Diary_ of Prince Alfred Victor and Prince George
of Wales, written during their cruise around the world, in 1880-81,
there is a reference to the Governor who had just left the Cape of
interest in this connection: "Ask any Colonist, haphazard--Afrikander
or English--and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you will be told
that he was conscientious, able, far-seeing, magnanimous, truthful and
loyal." The reversal of his policy followed, and was embodied in the
Convention of 1881. The new Governor and High Commissioner, Sir
Hercules G. R. Robinson, was a man of considerable ability and of
prolonged experience. After the settlement of the Transvaal troubles
he was given a certain amount of latitude in dealing with the natives
and in controlling the Boer disposition to seize territory in every
outstanding direction. The annexations and protectorates already
alluded to followed in due course, and Sir Hercules claimed before he
left Cape Town in 1889, after eight years of administration, that: "As
Governor of a self-governing Colony I have endeavored to walk within
the lines of the Constitution; and as Her Majesty's High Commissioner
for South Africa I have, whilst striving to act with equal justice and
consideration to the claims and susceptibilities of all classes and
races, endeavored at the same time to establish on a broad and secure
basis British authority as the paramount power in South Africa."
To this claim there was certainly one exception. The treatment of the
Swaziland question during these years was a distinct evasion of
responsibility on the part of both High Commissioner and the Imperial
Government, and appears to have been better suited to the earlier
fifties than to the developments of the eighties. It was, however, a
fitting sequel to events such as the somewhat indifferent agreement of
the British Government, in the days of Lord Granville's weak
administration of the Foreign Office, to the German acquisition of
Damaraland and North Namaqualand on the western coast--for no other
apparent reason than to have some territory contiguous to that of Great
Britain. Fortunately, the vigorous protests of the Cape Government
prevented Walfisch Bay--the only useful harbor on the shores of all
that parched and arid region--from being given up to the same Power.
The Swazis were a branch of the Zulu race, and their territory bordered
the Transvaal to the north-west, and Tongaland and the Delagoa Bay
region to the south-east. Its acquisition meant that only Portuguese
territory would lie between the Boer country and the great harbor at
Lorenzo Marques. But apart from the immense strategic importance of
the country--afterwards so strongly realized--it was the duty of the
British Government to have in this case withstood the covetous designs
of the Transvaal.
[Sidenote: Swazis Appeal to England]
Protected by the terms of the Convention of 1884, when their practical
independence was guaranteed, and appreciating the policy by which the
infant Boer republics of Stellaland and Goshen had been suppressed in
Bechuanaland by the Warren expedition, the Swazis naturally looked to
England for support when they found numerous individual Boers settling
amongst them and preparing for further and more active aggression. In
1886 and 1887 the Swazi Chief appealed to the British Government for
the establishment of a formal protectorate; but was refused on the
ground that the Convention of 1884 by guarding their independence
practically prevented Great Britain from taking such a step. For years
prior to this period the Swazis had been friendly to the British, and
had stood by them in war and peace. Promises of consideration were
given, but nothing was done. The fact of the matter is that the
Afrikander party in Cape Colony wanted to help the Transvaal to a
seaport, and from some motive of conciliation, or strange error of
judgment, Sir Hercules Robinson shared, or appeared to share, the same
sentiment. So far as this point was concerned, the protectorate
established over St. Lucia Bay and Tongaland neutralized the evil of
the subsequent acquisition of Swaziland by the persistent Boers, but
nothing can ever compensate the loyal and friendly Swazis of that time
for their apparent desertion through the final refusal of the British
Government--after a discussion with a delegation of Chiefs in 1894--to
interfere with the action of the Transvaal in claiming full possession
of their country. It is only fair, however, to say that the issue had
become complicated by extensive and voluntary Swazi grants of land to
individual Boers.
[Sidenote: Delagoa Bay Decision]
In this connection some reference must be made to the Portuguese
territory of this coast, in view of the important international issues
since involved. Delagoa Bay is, perhaps, the most important harbor on
the east coast of Africa and a vital naval factor in the protection of
trade with India and China. The surrounding country is of little
value, and in the main a hot-bed of malarial fever. The harbor was
claimed for many years by Great Britain under terms of cession from a
native chief to an exploring party in 1822. Portugal resisted the
claim, and in 1872 the matter was referred to the arbitration of
Marshal MacMahon, President of the French Republic. As usual in such
cases, the decision was against Great Britain, but with the curious
concession of a right to purchase the territory at any time Portugal
might desire to sell it, and to the exclusion of the wish of any other
Power in the same connection. It is stated that Portugal was actually
ready at that time to sell her rights for £60,000;[1] and Lord
Carnarvon, British Colonial Secretary in 1874-78, afterwards stated
that: "When I succeeded to office I had reason to think that the offer
of a moderate sum might have purchased that which a very large amount
now could not compass. Unfortunately _the means were not forthcoming_,
the opportunity was lost, and such opportunities in politics do not
often recur." The inference from this statement is that the Chancellor
of the Exchequer--Sir Stafford Northcote--was the obstacle. If so, and
in the light of the many millions sterling which Great Britain in 1900
would give for this bit of territory, his name certainly merits
recollection.
[1] Molteno: _Federal South Africa_, page 87.
[Sidenote: Milner Appointed Governor]
Sir Henry Brougham Loch, a most successful Australian Governor, and
afterwards created Lord Loch, became Governor and High Commissioner in
1889, and, in 1895, was succeeded by Sir Hercules Robinson again for a
couple of years. It does not appear that the latter was recalled in
1889, but was simply not reappointed at the expiration of his term of
office. He left the country in the midst of much and strongly
expressed regret, and when he returned six years later was welcomed
with open arms. Shortly afterwards he became Lord Rosmead, and, in
1897, his health compelled a retirement which was soon afterwards
followed by death. Sir Alfred Milner was then appointed and at a most
critical period. He had to assume charge of a complicated political
and racial situation, and to supervise the relations of Great Britain
and the Colonies with the increasingly aggressive Transvaal Republic
and Afrikander organization. A strong Imperialist, a man of high
reputation for ability in conducting the finances of Egypt for some
time, and as Chairman of the British Board of Revenue in the preceding
five years, he went out to Cape Town with large powers and with the
complete confidence of Mr. Chamberlain and the Imperial Government.
The immediate result of his conclusions and policy will be treated
elsewhere in this volume, and whatever verdict the historian of the
future may have to give upon data and documents and secret developments
not now available, there is no doubt that he will accord to Sir Alfred
Milner a high place for honest statesmanship, conciliatory personal
policy and absolute conscientiousness of action in events, and amidst
surroundings, calculated to disturb the equanimity of the coolest
statesman and to influence the reasonableness of even the most
strong-minded representative of the Crown. Unlike Sir Benjamin
D'Urban, Sir Peregrine Maitland, Sir Harry Smith, Sir George Grey and
Sir Bartle Frere, he has had the rich and rare privilege in South
Africa of being endorsed and supported through all the tangled threads
of a complicated situation by the Colonial Office, the Imperial
Government, the British Parliament, and, eventually, the people of the
Empire. Of this he will always have reason to be proud, whatever may
be the arduous labors and responsibilities and perhaps changes of the
hidden future. And the fact, in itself, affords a fitting conclusion
to the consideration of British policy, or policies, in South Africa,
and marks the wonderful change which has come over the face of affairs
since the days of D'Urban and Lord Glenelg, Grey and Bulwer-Lytton,
Frere and Hicks-Beach--the Governors in Cape Colony and the Secretaries
of State in London.
[Illustration: BLUE JACKETS FROM THE BATTLESHIP "RENOWN" FIGHTING AT
LADYSMITH.]
[Illustration: OFFICERS WHO FELL IN THE EARLY BATTLES OF THE TRANSVAAL
WAR]
CHAPTER VIII.
The Native Races of South Africa.
[Sidenote: The Bushmen]
The physical and mental differences between the three chief native
races of South Africa have been very great. The genuine aborigines, or
Bushmen, ranked amongst the lowest of human races, and maybe placed
upon much the same level as the Fuegians or the Black-fellows of
Australia. Though primarily natives of the coast they seem to have
become scattered in after times throughout the region from the Cape to
the Zambesi. Nomadic by nature, knowing nothing of agriculture, and
not even owning cattle, they wandered here and there, living upon such
wild animals as they could kill with poisoned arrows, or upon wild
fruits and the roots of plants. They were small in stature and
untamably savage, swift in passage from place to place, and capable of
enduring the severest fatigue. Almost inevitably, the pressure of a
civilization which had to often shoot them in self-defence, the
influence of progressive settlements which destroyed the game upon
which they lived, and the force of stronger types of savagery which
bore down on them from the north, have in the end blotted the Bushmen
out of existence.
[Sidenote: The Hottentots]
Superior in some respects were the Hottentots. Though small in stature
they were not by any means pygmies, and they lived in a better manner
than the Bushmen knew anything of. They possessed sheep and many lean
cattle, which they drove hither and thither over vast tracts of
country, doing a little intermittent hunting, fighting occasionally
with one another and living in a tribal system which the lower racial
type found it impossible to emulate. Like the Bushmen their muscular
power was slight, their hair grew in woolly tufts upon the skull, and
they were of a yellowish-black colour. They made fairly good servants
after a period of subjugation, but suffered in numbers very greatly
from the spread of small-pox and similar epidemics, which were at times
introduced into the country from the ships of the white man. In 1713
immense numbers perished from this cause. The Hottentot was for many
decades in the succeeding century a favourite subject of missionary
labour in Cape Colony, but it is to be feared that the degraded
elements which are to be found in every white community, with the
additional factor of an absolute contempt for all natives amongst the
Dutch of South Africa, had far greater influence for evil upon the
unfortunate tribes than English legislation and Christian efforts had
for good.
[Sidenote: The Bantu and its Sub-Divisions]
A far more important native race than either of these, and one which
has taken a place in history as distinct as that of the Indian in
America or the Maori in New Zealand, is the Bantu, with its many tribal
sub-divisions. Popularly known as Kaffirs from the earliest days of
Portuguese discovery and slave raids, there seems little reason to
doubt that they have gradually drifted southward from the Upper Nile
and the Nyanza Lake region; while the brown colour of many of them
would appear to indicate an admixture of Arab blood from settlers and
traders along the coast of the Indian Ocean, the majority are black and
they all possess the thick lips, woolly hair and scanty beard of the
typical negro. Usually they are strong and well-made, fierce in
battle, savage in their punishments, brutal in many of their customs.
Their bravery is of a high order, as a rule, but has varied somewhat in
quality, and the various tribes in later days have developed special
lines of intelligence. At the present time, for instance, the Zulus
and the Matabele are the most noted for courage and for fighting skill
of a savage sort, the Fingoes show some natural adaptiveness for trade
and barter, and the Basutos, under the influence, no doubt, of English
contiguity and friendliness have given distinct indications of steady
industry--a most unusual quality amongst natives.
[Sidenote: Civilization Helping the Natives]
There are various groups of this widely scattered race. They include
the Amakosa, with whom the Cape Colonists so early came into conflict
along the Fish River frontier, and who afterwards became known as
Tembus and Pondos; the Amazulu of Natal and Zululand; the Swazis, the
Matabele and the Amatongas; the Bechuanas, who are subdivided into
Bamangwato, the Basutos, the Barolongs, and the Barotze; the Makalakos
of Mashonaland. The speech and habits of these people are sufficiently
similar to denote a common racial origin and to stamp them as a
distinct type. As a race they are very prolific, and in this respect
present a marked contrast to the primeval natives of America or
Polynesia. The approach of civilization, instead of killing them off,
has surrounded them with safety, bound them to a more or less peaceful
life, and thus prevented the strife which at one time changed the
central part of South Africa from the home of a teeming population into
an almost lonely and empty wilderness. The result of this régime of
peaceful power is that their numbers all over South Africa are
increasing at a rate which, in itself, creates a serious problem for
the future and resembles the rapid advance of the population amongst
the myriad races of Hindostan under the gentle rule of Great Britain.
Dr. Theal states[1] that "the Bantu population in South Africa from the
Limpopo to the sea has trebled itself by natural increase alone within
fifty years," and he goes on to add that even this is asserting "what
must be far below the real rate of growth." In 1879, for instance,
there were 319,000 Kaffirs in Natal as against 455,000 in 1891; while
in Cape Colony between 1875 and 1891 the natives increased from 483,000
to 1,150,000. Roughly speaking, the native population of all South
Africa south of the Zambesi was, in 1893, about five millions.
[1] Theal, _History of the Republics_.
[Sidenote: Vain to Avoid Interference]
Of this population Great Britain controls more than one-half. About a
million and a half are in the Portuguese possessions, a hundred
thousand in the German Protectorate, seven hundred thousand in the
Transvaal, and something over a hundred thousand in the Free State.
Since the time, in the early fifties, when Earl Grey was at the
Colonial Office, and the proposed abandonment of the Orange River
region was announced, he added in his despatch to the Governor: "That
done, no war in future, 'however sanguinary,' between the different
tribes and communities which will be left in a state of independence
beyond the Colonial boundary are to be considered as affording ground
for your interference." In this vain effort to avoid further
responsibility beyond the outer marches of the Cape Lord Grey was
certainly logical. But, like the Manchester School in this
respect--although he did not adhere very closely to its general
views--he bore a striking resemblance to Mrs. Partington, in the
familiar pages of _Punch_, sweeping back the ocean tide with a broom.
He believed that, with utterly inadequate military resources at the
Cape and with absolute indifference at home, it was useless to try to
control a vast region where the majority of the white settlers were
opposed to Great Britain and the masses of the natives strongly
hostile. But he overlooked the impossibility of maintaining a stable
frontier amid the shifting sands of a savage population, and he forgot
that justice had to be done, as between native and native and often as
between white man and native, if Great Britain was to fulfill her
mission and do her duty. Neither of these ends could be accomplished
without strife or expansion. As time passed, and amid all the
countless mutations of South African policy, this inevitable advance of
the British border and gradual incorporation of native tribes went on.
In 1865 British Kaffraria, with its 78,000 natives, was annexed to the
Cape, and then Basutoland, with (in 1893) some 218,000 natives, was
brought under British control. Following this came Griqualand West,
with its 30,000 natives; British Bechuanaland, with some 50,000;
Khama's Country, or the Bechuanaland Protectorate, with over 100,000;
Zululand, with its 140,000; Pondoland, with 200,000, and Tongaland,
with 80,000; and finally Rhodesia, or British Mashonaland, with a
quarter of a million Matabele and Mashonas.
[Sidenote: Expansion Inevitable]
Earl Grey's despatch was, in fact, only a passing phase of the
many-sided British policy toward the native territories. Every now and
then, however, this principle of non-extension and non-responsibility,
so far as the Kaffirs were concerned, continued to come into
practice--as in the previous case of Lord Glenelg and the Kosas.
Instances in point may be mentioned such as the giving up of part of
Zululand and much of Swaziland to the Transvaal, the earlier and
prolonged refusal to annex the Kosa country, afterwards known as
Kaffraria, the hesitating and lingering policy over Bechuanaland and
the refusal to annex Damaraland and Namaqaland at a period when no
objection would have been raised by anyone, and a region covering
300,000 square miles and, with the Providential exception of Walfisch
Bay, guarding the entire western coast, might have become British
instead of German territory. There were three causes--all connected,
directly or indirectly, with the natives and the native question--for
the ultimate and inevitable expansion. The first was the determination
of the British people to suppress and prevent slavery. This produced
emancipation in Cape Colony, and partially caused the Great Trek of the
Boers. The second was the intensity of Dutch arrogance, the frequency
of Dutch oppression and a continuous Dutch policy of aggression, in
connection with native tribes. The third was the impossibility of
holding frontiers intact against uncivilized races, and the natural
wish of missionaries to extend British influence and through it the
power of Christianity. The second and third causes worked together in
some measure and may be seen controlling or modifying many complicated
conditions.
[Sidenote: Slavery]
Little doubt exists as to the continued practice of slavery amongst the
Boers--in Natal before 1846, in the Orange Free State up to recent
years, and in the Transvaal at the present time. There was, in the
earlier period, a state of absolute lawlessness amongst the Boers
themselves, combined with constant war, or raids, upon surrounding
tribes. Kaffirs were shot down in cold blood, beaten at pleasure,
their families burned out of their little huts and their children, or
the most promising of them, taken away as "apprentices" for a given
period--the euphemistic expression for a condition of permanent
enslavery. Of course the natives retaliated when they could, and
during the first thirty years of the Boer migration and history--1836
to 1866--the state of affairs was lamentable. It was estimated in 1869
that six thousand child-slaves were in the Transvaal as the much-prized
booty of casual raids upon different tribes. And this despite the
clause in the Sand River Convention forbidding, and promising to
prevent, anything of the kind. During these years agitation in England
against these practices of the Boers was incessant, and local protests
from missionaries and others at the Cape and in Natal equally so.
Papers in 1868 were laid before the Natal Legislature describing many
accredited instances even at that late date, and three years before,
Mr. W. Martin had laid before the Government of that Colony a detailed
statement of his own experiences across the Vaal in this connection.
The Lieutenant-Governor (Mr. John Maclean, C.B.) transmitted the
documents to Cape Town, and the High Commissioner intimated that while
he believed there was much of truth in the charges, yet it would be
practically impossible to intervene successfully without being prepared
to use force. A Resolution of protest against this view was at once
passed by the Legislature, of which the following is an extract:
"That the traffic is a direct breach of the Treaty entered into with
Her Majesty's Commissioners, is an outrage upon humanity and
civilization, and is an aggravation of the traffic which Her Majesty's
Government has so long sought to suppress upon the east coast. That so
long as this traffic in children is suffered to exist there can be
little hope for the progress of civilization amongst the native tribes
in the Transvaal Republic, while the prevalence of such practices in
the immediate neighborhood of independent and colonial tribes has a
most pernicious and injurious effect, and tends to lower the position
and influence of the white race. That it is impossible for the High
Commissioner, living as he does so far from the scene of those
atrocities, to judge clearly and fully their character and tendencies."
[Sidenote: Livingstone Reports on Slave Trade]
This statement regarding the Boer slave policy represented the feeling
and knowledge of Englishmen generally along the borders, or when they
came into contact with the Dutch and the natives together. Of the
missionary sentiment in this connection the works of Livingstone and
Moffat and the more recent statements of the Rev. Dr. Stewart afford
abundant evidence. And this aside from the aggressive and sometimes
mistaken or exaggerated views of Dr. Philip and Cape Town missionary
leaders and semi-political preceptors in the earlier days of Kosa or
Kaffir warfare. All around the frontier of the two Republics commandos
would from time to time attack isolated tribes, with slight excuse and
sometimes none at all, burn their kraals, take their cattle and kidnap
their women and children. Dr. Livingstone has put it on record,[2]
after prolonged experience of both Boers and Blacks and with a personal
character for honesty and honor which no one will impeach, that "the
great objection many of the Boers had, and still have, to English law
is that it makes no distinction between black men and white."
Elsewhere in the same volume he declares that "it is difficult for a
person in a civilized country to conceive that any body of men
possessing the common attributes of humanity should with one accord set
out ... and proceed to shoot down in cold blood men and women, of a
different color it is true, but possessed of domestic feelings and
affections equal to their own.... It was long before I could give
credit to the tales of bloodshed told by native witnesses; but when I
found the Boers themselves, some bewailing and denouncing, others
glorying in the bloody scenes in which they had been themselves the
actors, I was compelled to admit the validity of the testimony."
[Sidenote: Early Scenes of Bloodshed] The great missionary proceeds, in
detail, to describe one of the Boer methods of fighting natives. "When
they reach the tribe to be attacked, friendly natives (previously
captured) are ranged in front to form as they say 'a shield;' the Boers
then coolly fire over their heads till the devoted people flee and
leave cattle, wives and children to the captors." He knew of this
being done nine times within his own personal experience, and upon no
occasion was any Boer blood shed. He also declares that the Boers
never intended to abide by the promise regarding slavery made in
1852-4, and describes how a slave raid amongst the Bechuanas was
organized and carried out by 400 Boers under Piet Scholz immediately
after that engagement was entered into. It was the same all along the
line until, in the latter sixties, England began to advance into the
interior and to definitely plant her feet upon regions which the Boer
deemed himself heir to and, almost, actual owner of. During these
years the Natal _Mercury_, the Cape _Argus_ and the Transvaal
_Argus_--a small but energetic sheet--drew continuous attention to this
slave system and policy, and a bulky pamphlet was published in 1868 at
Cape Town containing a mass of printed proof as to the real condition
of affairs. As Dr. Livingstone says, no attention was ever paid, or
intended to be paid, to the pledges in the Conventions. The only
effect was to change the name of "slave" to "apprentice." The
following paragraph from an authoritative source[3] summarizes the
situation in this respect:
"Children were kidnapped, trained to work in the fields, had their
price and were as little protected by the law as any other live stock
on the farm. The 'apprenticeship' never came to an end. Wagon-loads
of slaves, 'black-ivory' as they were called, passed through the
country and were put up to auction or were exchanged, sometimes for
money, and sometimes for a horse, or for a cow and a big pot."
[2] _Missionary Travels_. By David Livingstone. London, 1857.
[2] Martineau's _Life of Sir Bartle Frere_. Vol. II., p. 174.
[Sidenote: English Abhorrence of Slavery]
Such were some of the causes of British dislike for Boer methods and
for naturally unfriendly contact with them through strong sympathy for
oppressed races and utter abhorrence of slavery in every shape and
form. The relation of the Boer and the native was indeed at the root
of much to of British expansion during the last thirty years of the
century. The threatened subjugation of Moshesh caused the annexation
of Basutoland. The Transvaal attack upon the Bapedi under Sekukuni and
its failure precipitated the annexation of 1877. The danger of a Zulu
invasion of the same country and of Natal, as a consequence of this
attack, caused the war with Cetywayo and the establishment of a feeble
and tentative protectorate over Zululand. The raids of the Boers into
the latter region and the formation of what they called the "New
Republic" caused the ultimate annexation of a greater portion of the
whole country and of Pondoland. Their attempt to crush the Batlapins
and Barolongs in Bechuanaland and to establish the so-called Republics
of Stellaland and Goshen caused the expedition of General Warren and
the annexation of the territory. Their effort in 1891 to trek north of
the Limpopo and to take possession of a portion of Rhodesia had to be
repressed by Dr. Jameson under threats of force. Their previously
well-known ambition in this connection had much to do with Mr. Rhodes'
determination to extend British power northwards by means of his
Chartered Company. Similar efforts in Tongaland had, meanwhile,
compelled its ruler to appeal to the Queen's Government for protection
in 1887. The complications of British policy with the natives of South
Africa north and east of Cape Colony, in the latter half of the
century, were, therefore, as much the fault of Boer ambition and
arrogance and ill-treatment of the Blacks as were the difficulties in
the earlier part of the century with the Hottentots and Bushmen and
Kosas.
[Sidenote: The Napoleon of South Africa]
Of these natives--Bantu, or Kaffirs, or whatever their local names
might be--much has been written and much might be said here. The race
has produced some great men. Merciless in war they generally were, but
it is a question whether the cruelties perpetrated by Matabele or Zulu
chiefs have not been excelled by leaders of Christian nations without
the aggravation of continuous warfare or the excuse of natural
savagery. The religious strife of mediæval Europe, or the fire and
sword and tortures of Spain in Mexico and Peru, will occur to every
mind. Bravery was an almost universal quality amongst the Bantu,
though it varied in degree. Tshaka, the founder of the Zulu nation,
possessed boundless ambition, a powerful and ruthless will, a genuine
genius for military organization and rule. He was emphatically the
native Napoleon of South Africa. Dingaan, his successor, had a few of
his qualities; Cetywayo enough of them to constitute him an interesting
figure and to give him a permanent place in history. Had he not been
obliged to contest his supremacy with the firearms and cannon of the
white man, he might have extended his sway up to the Zambesi and been a
greater warrior than Tshaka. Moselkatze, until he came into conflict
with the emigrant farmers, was a savage potentate of considerable
ability. Like Tshaka with his Zulus, he organized the Matabele into a
strong military power and ruled the west and north with a rod of iron
for many years. His successor, Lobengula, resembled the Zulu Cetywayo
in many respects, and in none more than in his final overthrow by the
white man. Had conditions been otherwise the two chiefs might have
disputed the primacy of South Africa; and it is hard to say which would
have won. These men were all warriors by nature and environment and
generals by instinct. Moshesh the Basuto was, however, a statesman as
well, and his rise and progress and career afford most striking
evidence of the natural ability which a savage may possess. Of a
somewhat similar character is Khama, the present Chief of the
Bechuanas. So much for the greater names among the Bantu.
[Sidenote: Native Bravery]
Their customs and characteristics are, and have always been, somewhat
varied in detail amongst the different tribes, though the main points
are the same. In a military sense they all possess bravery, skill in
ambush, and resourcefulness in attack or defence. The assegai is
certainly a manly weapon in many respects, as well as a deadly one. It
required physical strength, skill and courage in assault, and marked
powers of endurance in the long marches which they have so often
undertaken to surprise a foe or raid a kraal, to attack a British force
or a Dutch commando. The southern tribes--Zulus, Pondos, Tembus and
Kosas--have been perhaps the fiercest and strongest warriors, but the
Matabele of the north ran them pretty close. On the west coast,
however, owing to intermixture with the Bushmen and Hottentots, the
Bantu have deteriorated in both physique and intellect. As a whole,
they knew something in earlier days of agriculture and tilling the
soil, though their women performed the labor; could work in metals to
some extent; had a common language, fairly developed, and a sort of
general law of custom. In government they were, with certain
exceptions, autocratic, and the chiefs possessed great personal power.
Cattle constituted and still comprise the principal source of wealth
and measure of value. Slavery amongst the tribes of the interior was
common up to the days of British rule, and was a natural result of wars
of conquest or predatory excursions. With the Zulu and the Matabele,
as with the Boer, it was a matter of course to keep prisoners of
strength or usefulness as slaves, and to the Kaffir, being
constitutionally lazy, it was a great advantage to have some in his
possession. If he had none, his wife, or wives, occupied a position of
practical serfdom.
[Sidenote: Religion and Superstitions]
Religion has always been a strong factor in Kaffir life. It is not,
however, a principle of Deity worship, nor has it ever been potent in
morals, or government, or military enthusiasm. It is more like the
Chinese deification of ancestors, and consists chiefly in a worship of
the spirits of the dead. The greater the dead chiefs or warriors, the
more pronounced the worship, and the system has, therefore, some
influence in maintaining loyalty to the living chiefs. Spirits are
supposed to pass into animals, and at different times and places,
snakes and lions and antelopes and crocodiles are revered, and have
been propitiated by the sacrifice of other animals--but never of human
beings. It is a moot question as to whether a Supreme Being has ever
been so much as thought of in their original conception of religion,
and the probabilities seem to be against it. Of proof there is
practically none. With a simple superstition which peoples the world
with spirits of no higher character than their own gross or wild
imaginations it has, therefore, been a matter of course that the Kaffir
religion should not influence for good the morals and habits of the
tribes or inspire them even with the religious and military enthusiasm
of the Mahommedan dervish or the Hindoo devotee. Such power as it had,
up to recent years, lay with the wizards, or witch-doctors, who took
the place of the priests in other creeds, and, like the medicine men of
the Red Indians, revelled in cruelties and ruled by playing upon
superstitious fears. The practice of "smelling-out" persons suspected
of witchcraft or of causing sickness, or drought, or cattle-disease,
gave a tremendous power into the hands of chiefs and their unscrupulous
allies. Once a victim was "smelled-out" little chance was left him,
and, no matter how wealthy in person, or strong in influence, his end
had usually come. His property then went to the chief. The murders
and terrorism this system gave rise to constituted perhaps the darkest
side of native life, and its suppression has caused at least one war
between the British and the Kaffirs; while it was for long the greatest
obstacle in the way of the missionary. Of morals the Kaffirs never
knew much, and could not, therefore, lose by association with the white
man in as important a degree as other savage races have done. They
were distinctly inferior in their conception of woman's position to
even the Indian of North America, and females appear to have always
held a very degraded place amongst them. Hence the easy immorality of
the Boers and the practical impossibility of abolishing the polygamous
system amongst semi-independent tribes despite all the efforts of
generations of missionaries.
[Sidenote: Tribal Divisions]
These general characteristics were, of course, modified by surroundings
and external influences. Roughly speaking, the Kaffirs are divided
into the military and industrial Bantu. The former live largely in the
fertile regions between the Drakensberg mountains and the Indian Ocean,
in the Zoutpansberg district of the Transvaal and in Kaffraria. The
latter prefer the mountainous country, and are to be found in
Basutoland, in the greater part of the two Boer republics and in the
regions south of the Orange River or on the confines of the Kalahari
Desert. The differences between these classes of the same race are
pronounced. The military Bantu is stronger, fleeter of foot and
sterner in battle. His assegai has a short handle and a long blade,
and is used for fighting at close quarters; while the other tribes have
a weapon with a long shaft and light blade intended primarily for
hunting. Among the former the chief is a despot; amongst the Mashonas
and Bechuanas and Basutos his power is limited by a council and
sometimes by a general assemblage of the people. The town, or kraal,
of the former is designed chiefly for defence; that of the latter for
purposes of open intercourse and barter. The sole business of the one
has, up to recent years, been warfare and the raising of corn and
cattle as a subsidiary pursuit. The latter cultivated gardens, sowed
fields of grain and could smelt ore and work in iron. Their seats of
power and influence were, and are, in Basutoland and Bechuanaland.
Outside of the steadily improved civilization and character of the
Basutos themselves their country is noteworthy for the career of
Moshesh; his almost final words in 1868, after twenty years of
intermittent conflict with the Boers: "Let me and my people rest and
live under the large folds of the flag of England before I am no more;"
and for the general and sincere loyalty of its people in these later
days. Bechuanaland is famous as the scene of the labors of Robert
Moffat, David Livingstone and John Mackenzie; as being the trade route
from Cape Colony to Central Africa; and as the scene of a prolonged
struggle voiced in the words of Livingstone: "The Boers resolved to
shut up the interior and I determined to open it." Eventually it was
opened, and the work of the great missionary became triumphant.
[Sidenote: British Efforts at Civilizing the Natives]
Meanwhile, much was being done by the British in the various parts of
South Africa which they controlled, from time to time, to elevate the
life and pursuits and character of the natives. In regions governed by
the Dutch no such idea was ever tolerated. Dr. Moffat tells a story in
this connection which describes much in a few words. He was visiting a
Dutchman's house, and suggested that the servants be brought in to the
Sunday service. His host roared with laughter. "Preach to
Hottentots!" he exclaimed. "Call in my dogs and the preach to them!
Go to the mountains and preach to the baboons! Preach to the
Hottentots! A good joke." Aside from the missionaries, Sir George
Grey was probably the first prominent Englishman to even partially
understand the natives, and he was certainly the first to put his views
into effect as Governor. He was greatly respected by all the tribes
with whom he came into contact personally or by policy. Yet he had his
limitations. Mr. Rees in his biography of the Governor tells an
amusing story of his having upon some public occasion remonstrated
against the extravagant folly of a number of the native women in
wearing brass ornaments. One of the chiefs promptly rose and pointed
out that there were bounds to human power. "Rest content, O great
chief," said he, "with what you have accomplished. You have made us
pay taxes. You have made our people work. These things we thought
could never be. But think not you can stop women wearing ornaments.
If you try to do this, O Governor, you will most surely fail."
[Sidenote: Education of Natives]
The first and most important point in the improvement of the native
races is the matter of education. To be really effective it must take
the form of an organized system with plenty of pliability and
machinery; and there should be a fair number of Europeans in the
general community to prevent the native children, after they have once
been trained and taught, from relapsing by degrees into the barbarism
of their natural associates and older relatives. For this reason
little has been done in Natal to educate the Kaffirs; although there
are some seventy-three native schools and the natives appear to be
improving in general character and even in willingness to perform mild
sorts of intermittent labor. Nothing of importance has been achieved
in the purely native territories except such isolated teaching as the
missionaries can manage. Nothing has been even attempted in the two
Republics. But in Cape Colony very successful results have followed
the labors of many men during a number of years--assisted by special
provision made through the Government for purposes of native education.
Sir Langham Dale, Superintendent-General of Education, reported in 1883
that there were 396 mission schools in the Colony, with an attendance
of 44,307 pupils; 226 aborigines' schools, with 13,817 pupils; and 21
boarding and trade schools, with 2,519 pupils. About one-third of the
annual Education Grant, which amounted in 1866 to $110,000, and in 1889
to $425,000, and in 1897 to nearly a million dollars, was appropriated
to these purposes. In the latter year, it may be added, the number of
mission schools had risen to 551, and the aborigines' schools to 420.
Of the various native schools, or institutions, that at Lovedale is the
most important. In 1883 there were 300 pupils in attendance, and it
had a yearly revenue of $125,000. Native clergy and teachers are
trained in its College department; young men are taught book-binding,
printing and other trades in its workshops; young women are instructed
in sewing and laundress work, and there is also an elementary school
for children.
[Illustration: A MATABELE CHIEF. A KAFFIR CHIEF. PRESIDENT STEYN,
ORANGE FREE STATE. SIR W. HALY-HUTCHINSON. GOVERNOR OF NATAL.
ENGLISH, DUTCH AND NATIVE TYPES, SOUTH AFRICA]
[Illustration: A DERVISH CHARGE, SOUDAN WAR. A battle of the Soudan in
which Sir Herbert Kitchener avenged the massacre of Hicks Pasha and his
12,000 men; also the death of the heroic Gordon which occurred a year
later.]
[Sidenote: Progress of the Natives]
The Superintendent-General of Education, already quoted, in a
supplementary Report published in 1884, speaks of the general
opposition he has had to meet as coming from two classes of people--one
which describes the schools as worthless and decries educated natives
as useless, and another which describes the aborigines as getting a
better education than white people and denounces the system as
consequently increasing the competition in industrial employments. And
then he appeals to such evidences of progress and success as: "The
large interchange among natives of letters passing through the
Post-Office; of the utilization of educated natives as carriers of
letters, telegrams and parcels; of the hundreds who fill responsible
posts as clerks, interpreters, school-masters, sewing-mistresses; and
of the still larger number engaged in industrial pursuits, as
carpenters, blacksmiths, tin-smiths, wagon-makers, shoe-makers,
printers, sail-makers, saddlers, etc., earning good wages and helping
to spread civilization amongst their own people." This is a good
record, and there is no doubt that amongst the million natives of Cape
Colony the influence of the system is steadily spreading. There is the
natural defect, however, of the refusal of the white population to mix
with the black either in school or elsewhere, outside of politics. The
native schools and the native system are things apart and isolated,
although, throughout the Colony, there are wealthy and influential
Kaffirs, many of whom are substantial owners of property. And, as a
matter of fact, there are more negro children now attending Government
schools than there are pupils of white extraction.
Everywhere in British territory an effort has been made to utilize
Kaffir free labor and to make the native appreciate the money value of
his work and his time. But although some progress may be seen, it has
not been very great. In Natal, for instance, the sugar industry, with
an invested capital of nearly five million dollars, finds colored labor
absolutely essential. But the Kaffirs cannot be got to work with any
degree of permanence, or effectiveness, and the planters have had to
import coolies in thousands, while all around them are multitudes of
natives admirably suited to the work. At the Diamond Mines of
Kimberley, Mr. Rhodes has employed thousands of black laborers, but it
has only been for short periods and in successive relays. They make a
little money and then go back to their huts, or kraals, as miniature
millionaires--able to obtain cattle enough to buy a wife and to settle
down in Kaffir comfort. Of the important matter of liquor drinking and
liquor selling to natives a word must be said here. In Natal, where
there are at least half a million Zulus, scattered around the villages
and settlements of the fifty thousand white men, it is naturally a
vital question--as in a lesser degree it is all through South Africa.
The law is therefore very strictly administered, and the penalty for a
European selling liquor to a native is severe. It is practical
prohibition, and a similar law has been enforced in the vast
territories of the Chartered Company. Incidentally, it may be said
that in the Colony of Natal the general native management approximates
somewhat to the model of India. The tribal organization has been
largely preserved, instead of being broken up, as it was in Cape Colony
by Sir George Grey. The native mass was too great to be merged in the
small white population. European Courts, mixed Courts of native and
European Judges, and Courts composed of Kaffir chiefs alone, administer
the law in a peculiar form which admits the validity of Kaffir custom
and precedents and law--modified, of course, by Colonial statutes.
Order is maintained, and splendidly so, by a system of passes and by a
code of special police regulations applicable to natives alone.
Written permission from a magistrate must be obtained before a Kaffir
can change his abode, and in the towns all natives must retire to their
huts when curfew rings at nine o'clock. Registration of firearms is
imperative, and the sale to natives is guarded by very strict
enactments. Every native who is responsible for a hut has to pay a
yearly tax of 14s., and this is very cheerfully done.
[Sidenote: The Liquor Laws]
Drunkenness amongst the Kaffirs of Natal is limited, as may be inferred
from this sketch of their management. But in Cape Colony the natives
are not nearly so well guarded from its evils--partly because of the
aversion of the Dutch electorate to legislate in their behalf or to
enforce laws of this kind when they are made; partly from the influence
of the wine-growers and distillers, who naturally have something to
say; partly, in general result, from the intermixture of lower races
such as the Hottentot and Bushmen, and the creation of a type of negro
and half-breed much inferior in parts of the Colony to the Kosa of the
east or the Zulu of Natal. [Sidenote: Civil Rights and Qualifications]
In the important matter of civil rights there is a common feeling among
all settlers of British origin in South Africa, as elsewhere in the
Empire, that no color line should exist in the franchise--other things
being reasonably equal. The qualification is, of course, vital,
although the Dutch part of the community make no qualification or
admission of equality in any way, shape or form, and were, for
instance, greatly disgusted when, in 1895, Khama, the educated,
Christianized and civilized Chief of the Bechuanas, was received in
England with respect and consideration, and entertained by prominent
personages. The principle of political equality is, however, firmly
established in British South Africa. But, so far as the natives are
concerned, the tribal system must be given up, and this debars the
greater part of the population of Natal. In that Colony, also, a
native must have lived for seven years exempt from tribal laws before
he can share in the franchise under qualifications of the same kind as
affect the white population. In Cape Colony there are similar
conditions, with an added proviso that the would-be native voter must
be able to sign his name and write his occupation and address.
[Sidenote: Native Suffrage]
Practically it is only at the Cape that the experiment of native
suffrage has been fairly tried. In Jamaica it failed for various
reasons, and in Natal it did not work when first tried, and at present
has little more than a theoretical existence. In the eastern part of
Cape Colony, which contains the chief native population--including the
Kaffraria of earlier days and the Transkei region--a member of the
Legislative Council is apportioned to mixed constituencies containing
an average respectively of 227,000 colored people and 18,000 whites;
and a member of the House of Assembly is similarly given to every
56,000 natives and 4,500 whites.[4] There are, as yet, not very many
constituencies where this colored vote is an important consideration.
The chief exceptions are to be found amongst the Malays in and around
Cape Town, the Hottentots of the Kat River Settlement, and the Kaffirs
at King Williamstown, Beaufort and Alice. But the number of voters is
growing, and in the eastern part of the Colony their influence appears
to be very good. The educated Kaffir is very unlike the educated
Hindoo, who is apt to become a sort of skeptic in patriotism as well as
in creed. He is intensely conservative in a natural fondness for land
and aversion to change. He is also loyal in the extreme to the British
institutions from which his opportunities and position are derived; and
in this respect has set an example of gratitude worthy the appreciation
of some more civilized peoples. Practically, he is an Imperialist, and
one student of the subject has recently expressed a belief that the
wiping out of the native vote in Cape Colony would mean the loss of
eight or ten seats to the Progressive party in the Assembly. Most
instructive of all, and even more striking than the fact of their being
adherents of Mr. Rhodes' advanced British policy, has been the support
given by educated natives to measures presented to the Legislature for
the prohibition of the sale of liquor to colored people--proposals
defeated from time to time largely by the Afrikander vote. This is,
indeed, a fitting statement to conclude a brief sketch of native
history and development.
[4] Tables of Director of Census. Cape Town. 1891.
CHAPTER IX.
Character of the South African Boer.
[Sidenote: A Peculiar Type]
The Dutchmen of South Africa present in character and type one of the
most peculiar racial results of all history. They came originally of a
people who had proved its love of liberty and its faith in religion on
many a well-fought field and in the pages of noble national annals.
Yet they did not carry their qualities with them to the new land in any
sufficient measure to overcome surrounding influences of a pernicious
nature. They were raised from the lowest class in the home community
and migrated practically for the wages offered them by the Dutch East
India Company. In this respect the origin of the Colony was greatly
different from that of New England, to which men of high character and
earnest thought had migrated in order to obtain religious freedom; of
Virginia, where men of the best English families and culture came in
that adventurous spirit which has made the British Empire or the United
States a present possibility; of French Canada, where Jesuits roamed
the vast forests in a spirit of intense missionary zeal and where the
scions of noble French families hunted in the wilderness of the West,
or fought the Iroquois on the banks of the St. Lawrence; of English
Canada, to which the United Empire Loyalists came from motives of
loyalty to King and country.
[Sidenote: Their Religious Life]
As these Dutch settlers drifted into the Colony, over a period of a
hundred years, they left every source of knowledge, refinement and high
principle behind them. It is true they had their Bible. Upon its
interpretation depended greatly their future development of character
amid surroundings of absolute isolation, and it has been a permanent
misfortune that they chose the natural view of narrow and ignorant men,
and made their religious life one of practical devotion to the Old
Testament dispensation in a most crude and sometimes cruel application.
Around them on all sides were the moral laxities of savage life, the
dangerous powers of slavery, the looseness incident to any small
population of whites in the midst of great numbers of ignorant and
superstitious natives. Their Government was intolerant in the extreme,
they had no books or newspapers, they saw no intelligent visitors, and
the naturally somewhat sombre character of the Dutchman developed under
these conditions into a unique mixture of religious zeal, intolerant
ignorance and qualified immorality. To this character was added the
quality of undoubted bravery and into the general melting pot was
thrown the further attributes, as time went on, of intense dislike and
distrust of the Englishman and of absolute confidence and belief in
themselves.
[Sidenote: Mixture of Huguenots and Dutch Culture]
The Huguenots, who joined the small Dutch population of 1689, brought a
considerable element of culture and liberality of thought with them,
but although many of the best families in Cape Colony, and South Africa
generally, to-day trace their descent from these settlers, the effect
upon the scattered masses of the people was very slight. The
distinctive language and religion and culture to a large extent
disappeared under laws which enforced uniformity and in time merged the
Frenchman in the Boer. Of course, the influence was to some extent a
good one and it yet dwells on the surface of affairs in such names as
De Villiers and Joubert, Du Plessis and Le Seuer, or their local
corruptions. A more potent factor in this evolution of character was
the solitary nature of the settler's life. [Sidenote: Boer and
American Colonist] Pioneers on the American continent were often alone
with their families for a time in some advanced frontier location, but
it was not usually a continuous isolation. As the years passed on
other families joined them, settlements grew rapidly, and with these
villages came the various amenities of social and civilized life. But
the Boer seemed to catch from the wandering savages around him
something of the spirit of their roaming life, and in this he was
encouraged by the nature of his occupation and by the Government
regulations, which simply charged him rental for three thousand acres
of grazing ground without confining him to any specific location. He
did not carve his farm out of some primeval forest, build a permanent
home for his family on his own land, or cultivate the soil with the
strenuous labor of his hands. During the century in which his racial
type was developing the Dutch settler moved from point to point with
his cattle in accordance with the season and the pasture, and lived an
almost nomadic life. His covered wagon was to him what the wigwam has
been to the savage of the American continent, while his skill in
shooting held a somewhat similar place to that of the bow and arrow in
Indian economy. Hence the accentuation of his intellectual narrowness
by continued isolation and the strengthening of the physical frame at
the expense of mental power.
[Sidenote: Boer Characteristics]
As the years passed on, however, and settlement increased; as the
effects of English administration and laws were felt more and more
throughout the regions owning the authority of the Cape Government; as,
unfortunately, the growing inroads of the Kaffirs and their continuous
raids made combination necessary amongst the Dutch farmers; as villages
grew more numerous and occasional schools were to be found in the
communities; some modification of these personal conditions might have
been expected. Amongst the Dutch farmers of Cape Colony changes of
this kind did occur. They adopted some of the customs of civilization,
they lost a part of the more intense Boer narrowness and ignorance of
the past, they developed a qualified interest in education of a racial
character, they lived upon terms of slightly freer intercourse with
their neighbors of both races, they had drilled into them a wholesome
respect for the law and a more humane, or, at any rate, legal view of
the natives position. But to the emigrant farmers of Natal, of the
Orange River and the Vaal, these modifications of character were long
indeed in coming, and to a great mass of them have never come at all.
In their main pursuits the Boers of all South Africa are the
same--owners of cattle and horses and dwellers upon ranches as widely
separated from each other as conditions of population and law will
permit. Of course, in Cape Colony and Natal, there are town and
village Dutchmen sufficient to constitute a small class by themselves;
and the slow-spreading influence of a persistent educational system is
having its effect in other directions; while the natural increase of
population has been doing its work in lessening the isolation of the
farmers. So to some extent in the Orange Free State. Physically and
mentally, however, the Dutch farmer is much the same everywhere in
South Africa--tall, raw-boned, awkward in manner, slow of speech, fond
of hunting whenever and wherever possible, accustomed to the open air,
lazy as regards work, but active in pursuits involving personal
pleasure. Especially has this latter quality been apparent in such
amusements as war with the natives, or the English, or in predatory
excursions into alien territory and the shooting of big game.
[Sidenote: Livingstone's Description of the Boers]
All these qualities have become accentuated in the two republics, while
the latter ones have not been called into practical exercise of late
years in the Colonies proper. The Boer of the Transvaal and the Free
State is, in fact, a most peculiar type even in that region of the
strangest inconsistencies. Authorities are not wanting who praise his
general character in terms of the highest laudation. Mr. J. A. Froude,
after spending a few crowded weeks in South Africa, declared with
almost poetic enthusiasm of the Boers that they: "of all human beings
now on this planet, correspond nearest to Horace's description of the
Roman peasant soldiers who defeated Pyrrhus and Hannibal." Mr. F. C.
Selous, who has hunted with and amongst them for years, found "no
people in the world more genuinely kind and hospitable to strangers
than the South African Dutch." Other less well-known travellers and
public men have spoken in equally high terms of the Boer; while during
the last few years a whole library of literature has been published on
his behalf, and proves, if it does nothing else, that Englishmen have
plenty of impartiality in dealing with such subjects. On the other
hand, evidence accumulates that the character made by history and
environment is in this case a permanent one; that the Boer of to-day is
the natural and inevitable product of the past; and that the visitor,
or traveller, or the interested advocate of racial and political
theories, can no more turn over the pages of a record written in blood
and sorrow throughout the wild veldt of South Africa than the Boer
himself can, in Rudyard Kipling's phrase, "turn back the hands of the
clock" in the region now under his control. Dr. Livingstone saw more
of the emigrant farmer in the formative days of his republican and
independent existence than any other Englishman, and he has described
the strongest influence in his historic evolution as a distinct racial
type[1] in the following words:
"They are all traditionally religious, tracing their descent from some
of the best men (Huguenots and Dutch) the world ever saw. Hence they
claim to themselves the title of 'Christians,' and all the colored race
are 'black property' or 'creatures.' They being the chosen people of
God, the heathen are given to them for an inheritance, and they are the
rod of divine vengeance on the heathen as were the Jews of old.... No
one can understand the effect of the unutterable meanness of the slave
system on the minds of those who, but for the strange obliquity which
prevents them from feeling the degradation of not being gentlemen
enough to pay for services rendered, would be equal in virtue to
ourselves. Fraud becomes as natural to them as 'paying one's way' is
to the rest of mankind."
[1] Dr. Livingstone's _Missionary Travels_. London, 1857.
[Sidenote: Impressions of James Bryce]
Mr. James Bryce, in his _Impressions of South Africa_, points out with
evident truth that: "Isolation and the wild life these ranchmen led
soon told upon their habits. The children grew up ignorant; the women,
as was natural where slaves were employed, lost the neat and cleanly
ways of their Dutch ancestors; the men were rude, bigoted, indifferent
to the comforts and graces of life." [Sidenote: Opinion of Canon Knox
Little] Canon Knox Little, so well known as a divine and a writer,
declares[2] that "it is probable that even the most corrupt of the
South American republics cannot surpass the Government of the Transvaal
in wholesale corruption," and then proceeds to analyze the Boer
character in the following expressive terms: "They detest progress of
any kind, are frequently regardless of truth and unfaithful to promises
when falsehood, or betrayal of engagement, will suit their purpose.
They are subject to alternations of lethargic idleness and fierceness
of courage which characterize many wild animals. Some of them are, of
course, not bad fellows to get on with, if there is no reason for
crossing them. They delight in isolation, detest work, dislike paying
taxes, hate all progressive ways, cling to the most wretched stationary
stage of semi-civilization with unparalleled tenacity, and love what is
called 'independence'--that is, selfish self-seeking up to the verge
and over the verge of license. They are utterly uncultured--indeed,
have no conception of what culture means; their very language is
incapable of expressing high philosophical ideas; and the pastoral home
life so much insisted upon by their panegyrists thinly veils in many
cases--such is the testimony of the many credible witnesses who have
lived among them--the most odious vices."
[2] _Sketches and Studies in South Africa_. By W. J. Knox Little,
Canon Residentiary of Worcester. London, 1899.
[Sidenote: Misinterpretation of the Old Testament]
Similar quotations might be given from many sources and of the same
repute and strength. But, leaving unfavorable generalizations on the
one side to offset favorable ones on the other, it might be well to
take the qualities of the people in detail and examine them from
various points of view. Religion is perhaps the first and foremost
influence. The creed of the Boer is based by universal admission upon
the Old Testament. The love and light and liberty of the newer
dispensation has no place in his belief or in his life. The Bible, as
he reads it, permits slavery, tolerates concubinage, teaches the
perpetual intervention of a personal Providence, and makes him as truly
one of a chosen people as was ever Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob. He
lives upon the broad veldt of South Africa a patriarchal life not
unlike in some respects that of the Hebrew of old, and he has
thoroughly convinced himself that the British are to him what the
Philistines were to the Jew, while the natives are intended to be his
footstool as fully as ever were some of the surrounding races of
Palestine to the heroes of Scripture. His religion is essentially a
gloomy and serious one. There is no lighter side of life to him, and a
text from the Old Testament is made to apply to most of the events of
the day. Built into his character by isolation and intensified, in the
crudest and wildest application, by an environment of inherited and
continued ignorance, this religion has produced some very curious
consequences. It has not made the Boer an enthusiast; it has simply
rendered him contemptuous of all other creeds and sects to a degree of
arrogance which is hard to meet and worse to endure. It has not had
any softening influence, but rather a hardening one--making every
prejudice stronger, every hatred more bitter, every avenue of
intellectual expression more narrow and less susceptible to the forces
of modern progress and education. It has developed into a more or less
formal expression of defiant racial pride through the almost profane
belief that the God of the Hebrews has become, essentially and
entirely, the Providence of the Boers. The continuous use of Old
Testament words and phrases has become a part of his individual life,
though it usually means as little as do the continuous oaths of the
cheerful sailor in the performance of his work. Ignorance has, in
fact, crystallized the faith of his fathers into an extraordinarily
narrow creed of which Tant' Sannie, in Olive Schreiner's _Story of an
African Farm_, presents one of many picturesque embodiments:
"_My_ mother boiled soap with bushes and I will boil soap with bushes.
If the wrath of God is to fall upon this land (said Tant' Sannie, with
the serenity of conscious virtue), it shall not be through me. Let
them make their steam-wagons and their fire-carriages; let them go on
as if the dear Lord didn't know what he was about when he gave their
horses and oxen legs--the destruction of the Lord will follow them. I
don't know how such people read their Bibles. When do we hear of Moses
or Noah riding in a railway?"
[Sidenote: Prejudice Against Civilization]
It would appear, therefore, as beyond doubt, and the conclusion may be
stated in very few words, that his religion has intensified the racial
peculiarities of the Boer; has increased an already strong natural
bigotry and tendency to superstition; and has helped to evolve a most
unique and unpleasant personal character. What it has not done for him
may be still further summarized. It has not taught him that
"cleanliness is next to Godliness;" that morality is more than a matter
of the color line; that honesty in word and action is a part of
righteousness; that hatred toward his territorial neighbors, and malice
or contempt toward his racial inferiors, are characteristics of
anything rather than Christianity. Incidentally, it may be said that
the Boer hates the slightest tendency toward show or display in his
religious worship, and that he will obtrude his views of religion upon
others at any and every opportunity. The Dutch Reformed Church is the
State Church of the Transvaal, and has two branches--the Gereformeede,
which believes in the singing of hymns during service, and the opposing
Hervormde Dopper branch, which has been led by Paul Kruger since the
disagreement of 1883 upon this subject. The matter has become a
political one, and the party opposed to singing hymns has now been in
power for a decade. To the Boers of both Republics the Nachtmaal, or
annual Communion, is the great event of the year. Pretoria is the
centre of the annual pilgrimage and the Mecca of all Boers at this
period. From the ranch and farm and village they trek to that point in
wagons loaded with supplies and holding the entire family. It is
really a national holiday, as well as a religious festival, and is the
one occasion upon which the Boer throws aside his love for solitude and
shows himself willing to mix with his kind. Such is the religion of
the Boer in its general results.
[Sidenote: Home Life and Morals]
Of his home life and morals much might be written. The families live
far apart from each other in a house which forms the centre of some
wide-stretching ranch or farm, and the larger the farm, the more
isolated the situation, the fewer and further the neighbors, the better
pleased is the Boer. In a limited sense only is he hospitable.
Visitors are very few, and when they come on horseback and properly
attended they are received in a sort of rude way. Englishmen are not
considered desirable guests--unless they happen to be great hunters
with many stories of the sport which the Boer loves so well. Poor men,
or those who have met with misfortune, are spurned. The women of the
republics are very ignorant, and as mentally feeble as might be
expected from their surroundings and history. Physically, stoutness is
the end and aim of female ambition, and to weigh two, or even three,
hundred pounds is the greatest pride of the Dutch women of the veldt.
They are invariably treated as the inferior sex, and even eat apart
from the men. The Boer woman thinks little of dress, and in the house
wears chiefly a loose and scantily made gown, which does for night as
well as day. Out of doors, upon the weekly visit to church, something
slightly better is used, together with an immense bonnet and a veil so
thick as to make the face invisible. Next to the desire for fatness is
the wish for a good complexion, and these two vanities constitute the
special distinction of the Boer woman. She does little work and takes
less exercise; except in times of war, when she sleeps as easily on the
veldt as in a feather bed, and handles her gun as skilfully as does her
husband. The Kaffirs and Hottentots and miscellaneous colored servants
do the labor of both the kitchen and the farm. They do not share in
the long prayers of the family, or indeed in any religious exercise, as
the Boer regards them as animals not requiring salvation. The common
belief is that they are descended from apes and baboons.
[Sidenote: The Homestead and Immorality]
The homesteads are small and unpretentious, and nearly always dirty in
the extreme, as are the clothes and persons of the people themselves.
Washing is perfunctory and generally the merest pretense. Of course
water is frequently scarce, and this fact affords some excuse for what
has now become a general habit and condition. As to the morals of the
Dutch farmer facts speak stronger than words. In his relations with
his own race his code is as strict as can be desired, and im that
respect the home life is entirely moral. But no law, spiritual or
human, controls him in regard to the negro women with whom he has been
surrounded for centuries. And the result is a brutalization of his
whole nature, a loss of all refinement in manners and the absence of
any real respect for the sex. The Griquas, who have numbered thousands
and constituted large and distinct communities in South Africa, and are
still being added to, are the offspring of Boer and Hottentot unions;
while the Cape-Boys are the result of similarly unrecognized relations
between Boers and the Kaffir women. This immorality extends to the
Boers all through South Africa in their relation with colored
dependents, and it is not difficult to comprehend its degrading effect
upon men, women and children alike.
[Sidenote: Lack of Education]
Ignorance is universal and pronounced. It is more than a mere lack of
education. Such as there is amongst the wealthier portion of the rural
population consists in the occasional visit of some travelling
schoolmaster--generally a broken-down Englishman, or drunken Hollander
who has failed in every other pursuit. Even this measure of
instruction is not supported by the poorer farmers. Schools in the
Transvaal are very rare, though more frequently found in the Free
State. Distances are, of course, considerable, and for this reason
alone organized education would be difficult. In late years the
well-to-do frequently engage tutors--usually of rather doubtful
qualifications--for six months and in order to teach the children to
read and write. But of anything more than this they do not dream, and
the great majority of the adults can do neither. The Old Testament
they are taught until they know it by heart, and do not really require
to read it. Of literature, history, astronomy, the sciences, political
economy, the nations of the world, nothing is known to the average Boer
of the veldt. He believes the earth to be a flat and solid surface
around which the sun revolves. A member of the Transvaal Volksraad is
on record as having jeered at the English view of the matter. He
declared that the earth couldn't move because he had often for hours at
a time watched upon the veldt to see if a certain kopje gave any sign
of motion. As to the sun, didn't Joshua bid it stand still, and how
could he have done that if it was already stationary and the world went
round it? No native Dutchman of South Africa has shown literary
ability. Its only poet is Pringle--a Scotchman. Its only writer is
Mrs. Cornwright-Schreiner--the daughter of a German. Its only
historian is Dr. Theal--a Canadian. New ideas are to the Boer a source
of dread; improvements are spurned as either impious or unnecessary.
Cures for infectious sheep disease or for rinderpest amongst the cattle
are opposed as contravening the intentions of Providence. Compulsory
education is as heartily and vigorously denounced in Cape Colony, where
the most intelligent members of the race are to be found, as is
compulsory vaccination.
[Illustration: THE LAST CARTRIDGE. An incident in the battle of
Glencoe.]
[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA AT BALMORAL, OCTOBER 22, 1899. Writing
letters of sympathy to the near relations of the killed and wounded at
the battle of Glencoe.]
[Sidenote: Primitiveness]
Taxation in the republics of to-day is as strongly and sincerely
disliked as it was in the days of the Great Trek, or of the little
republics in the time of Pretorius. Had the Government of the
Transvaal depended upon its ordinary revenues, or upon the taxation of
its own people for munitions of war and for the great armament of the
present day, it would have long since been overthrown by the Boers
themselves. Like the Chinaman, the Dutch farmer reveres the practices
and precepts of his equally ignorant father or grandfathers. They did
not endure taxation, neither will he. His method of cultivating the
soil affords another illustration of this quality. It is that of Syria
and Palestine. Corn is still trodden under the foot of the ox, and the
little agricultural work carried on is done by native servants. There
is, of course, a better class of South African Dutchmen than the Boer
of the veldt. But it is limited in number, outside of Cape Colony, and
the latter constitutes the really important subject for consideration.
For some of his qualities the Boer cannot be seriously blamed.
Surliness of manner, uncouthness in appearance, aversion to strangers,
ignorance of the outer world, religious superstition, are all matters
in which he does not stand alone, and which are the natural products of
an isolated life. So also is the fact of his being stupid and lazy in
ordinary life, and only keen, alert and quick when he stands on the
veldt with gun in hand and his horse by his side intent upon the game
of sport or the greater game of war. But there is no adequate excuse
for his continued hatred of the Englishman, for his tyranny toward
inferiors and colored people, for his personal immorality, or for the
phenomenal arrogance of his conduct and character. The higher class
Boer of the towns in the Free State, and of Pretoria itself, may
eliminate some of the more evident barbarisms of his veldt brother, but
there remains the same extraordinary ignorance of external conditions,
the same monumental conceit, the same absence of truthfulness and
honor, the same arrogance and hatred of British power and progress.
Added to this is the political corruption arising, in the Transvaal,
out of conditions in which poor and ignorant farmers have obtained and
held, through designing adventurers from Holland, the entire government
and control of a State in which gold is being produced in immense
quantities, and lavished, as opportunity offers, for the purchase of
privileges or powers not obtainable through the usual channels of
popular government.
[Sidenote: Love of Liberty]
What of the Boer love of freedom? There is no more admirable quality
in the world than love of liberty; no greater inspiration to gallant
deeds, to high ideals, to noble practices. But there are different
kinds of liberty. The Iroquois of North American history stalked
through his noble forests in all the pride of physical power and the
freedom to torture and slaughter his red enemy or white foe whenever
and wherever he could. He loved liberty in the sense of doing what he
liked. The Dublin assassins of Lord Frederick Cavendish, the Chicago
bomb-throwers, the lovers of lynch-law in Southern States, the
anarchists of Paris or St. Petersburg, all have feelings of the
fiercest nature in favor of freedom. License, however, is not true
liberty, nor is the love of independence amongst the Boers a regard for
freedom in the ordinary sense of that much-abused word. Of course,
there is much that is admirable in the feeling, as there is in any
sentiment or aspiration for which men will fight and die--as there was
in the freebooting instincts of the old-time Scottish clans; as there
was in the loyal passion of the Scottish Highlanders for "Bonnie Prince
Charlie;" as there was in the prolonged and desperate struggle of the
Southern States for a dying cause; as there is even in the Filipino
desire for a sort of wild freedom. In the case of the Boer, however,
it is simply an instinctive desire for solitude and for the free
practice of certain inbred tendencies, such as hunting, slave-holding
and ranching. It can hardly be said to be connected with questions of
government or constitution. No Government at all would suit the Boer
if it were practicable, and his record shows that an oligarchy is no
less agreeable to him than was the one-time division of 15,000 settlers
into four republics. He knows little of the struggles of his reputed
ancestors in Holland for freedom of the higher kind, and for that
equality of religious and racial rights which he is now the first to
spurn, and to even fight in order to prevent others from obtaining in
parts of South Africa.
[Sidenote: Change of Policy]
So long as the Boer love for independence was simply a fond regard for
isolation, which inflicted no serious injury upon other white people
around him, the British Empire and its citizens had no right to
interfere or to do more than laugh at its crudities and, perhaps,
denounce its cruelties to inferior races. But, when the so-called
passion for independence became an aggressive passion for territorial
acquisition, and the love for license to do as he liked with his own
colored population was lost sight of in a widely manifested desire to
acquire control over outside native tribes, the issue became an
Imperial one, and raids upon Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Zululand,
Mashonaland and Tongaland marked the direct pathway to present
developments. This policy of extension, however, required statecraft,
a quality somewhat lacking amongst the rude legislators of Pretoria or
Bloemfontein. It also needed money, the supply of which, before the
discovery of gold, was sadly deficient. [Sidenote: Government of Dutch
Adventurers] President Brand, of the Free State, was a statesman, but,
in the ordinary sense of the word, was never a Boer, and would have
nothing to do with the more aggressive ambitions of the Transvaal
rulers. President Kruger had plenty of native ability, and from the
time of his taking hold of affairs in the Transvaal dates its growth in
strength and influence. He is, however, of German extraction, although
one of the boys who participated in the original Great Trek. Dr. F. W.
Reitz, who ultimately became so strong a personality in the Government
of both republics, was also of German origin. So with Hofmeyr of Cape
Colony. President Steyn, of the Free State, is the son of a Dutchman,
but one who was a resident of Bloemfontein and not a Boer in the
popular sense of the term. Dr. W. J. Leyds, the cleverest manipulator
and schemer of South African history, is a Hollander, as was Dr. E. J.
P. Jorrissen, one of the Dutch negotiators of the Convention of 1881.
These facts illustrate an interesting phase of the situation. It was
not from the ranks of the Boers that men came who were capable of
making the Transvaal an arsenal of military power, a close corporation
of clever financial government, the head of the great Afrikander
movement of the past decade, a force of organized strength for the
destruction of British rule in South Africa, and a diplomatic factor at
the capitals of Europe. The Boers were, and are, simply the
instruments of clever adventurers from Holland. The "Hollanders" first
came to the front in South Africa during the early days of the Free
State. They controlled its incipient constitution for some years, and
helped, incidentally, to check and then kill the agitation for
reincorporation in the Empire. They caused President Brand some
trouble during the preliminary period of his administration, but then
gradually settled down into the quiet and comfortable occupancy of such
offices as required more education than the average Boer possessed.
These they still hold to a considerable extent. After Brand's death
their governing influence became greater; they joined and organized the
Afrikander Bund in the State, and then stood shoulder to shoulder with
President Reitz and his successor, Steyn, until the development of
events brought them into closer relationship with fellow-Hollanders in
the Transvaal under the common leadership of Kruger and the clever
manipulation of Reitz and Leyds.
[Sidenote: Anti-English Influence]
In the Republic beyond the Vaal they first came into prominence under
the administration of President Burgers, who, after his visit to Europe
in the early seventies, brought some individual Hollanders back with
him. But the bankrupt State did not possess sufficient attractiveness
to draw very many adventurers from anywhere during the immediately
succeeding years; and it was not until the discovery of gold, in 1884,
and the prospect of the country becoming wealthy arose, that clever and
adventurous natives of Holland began to think seriously of entering
into the heritage they have since acquired. They did come, however,
and in time acquired control of the chief offices in the State outside
of the Presidency and Vice-Presidency; of the educational system, such
as it was; of the railways and taxes and customs. It was not hard for
them to see that the more isolated they could keep the Boer of the
veldt the better it would be for their permanent success, and that the
more they could estrange the Transvaal from Great Britain and the
British Colonial system of South Africa the easier it would be to
preserve the Republic and its riches for their own use and control.
From these considerations it was natural and easy to take advantage of
President Kruger's anti-British ambitions, of the machinery of the
Afrikander Bund at the Cape, and of the money of the Uitlanders, in
order to build up a great movement against British power in combination
with the Free State; and to transform the republic of emigrant farmers
into a strong, though small, military power. Plenty of foreigners and
foreign help--especially German--was available, and out of that
prominent Boer characteristic of hatred of England and the other one of
pride in his own fighting records and belief in his own invincibility
in war, were built up the military structure of the year 1899.
[Sidenote: War a Big Game Hunt]
To the fighting qualities of the Boer many tributes have been and more
will be paid in the future. It is essentially a product of his
environment. The student of British wars with the Kaffirs and of the
interminable succession of struggles fought by the Boer with Hottentots
and Bushmen in early Colonial days; with the Kosas on the frontiers of
Cape Colony and the Zulus in Natal; with the Matabeles in the pioneer
days of the republics, and with the Basutos during more than a decade
in the history of the Free State; with the Bapedis of the Transvaal and
the Bechuanas of the northern and western borders; with the
Baramapulana of the Limpopo River and the Swazis of the southeastern
border; will understand how much of native guile and savagery there is
in the Boer method of warfare, and why it is so difficult for troops
trained in other kinds of fighting to meet it when combined with
European science in armament and trained skill in the management of
great guns. Added to the quality of native cunning in warfare is an
alertness of movement derived from long and hereditary skill in hunting
wild animals and living constantly on horseback; as well as in fighting
continuously a wily and ambush-making native foe. As with the Kaffir
himself, laziness disappears when the game of the Boer is on the
horizon, and it matters not whether the quarry be animal or human, the
hunter and fighter becomes at once a creature of the veldt; a very part
and parcel of the country around him. He knows every foot of South
African soil. In the words of Pringle, referring to the emigrant
farmer of earlier years:
"Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
Away--away--in the wilderness vast,
Where the White Man's foot hath never passed,
And the quivered Koranna or Bechuan
Hath rarely crossed with his roving clan:
A region of emptiness, howling and drear,
Which man hath abandoned from famine and fear."
Those days are passed; but the instinct remains, the knowledge has
become hereditary, and, through the love of hunting which still
continues in the breast of the Boer, it is to-day a practical and
potent force. To the average Dutch farmer maps are therefore
unnecessary, and the Drakensberg is as familiar in its every detail of
mountain and kopje and rainless river as are the rooms of his own home
on the rolling plains of the Transvaal or the Orange Free State. Hence
it is that the general peculiarities of his complex character combine
to make him a soldier and enemy whom it is no easy task to subdue--even
for the legions of Britain and her allied Empire.
CHAPTER X.
The Annexation of the Transvaal.
[Sidenote: Dangers Without, Difficulties Within]
In the years immediately following 1872 the disorganization and public
weakness of the Transvaal Boers became dangerous to themselves and
inimical to the peace of all South Africa. The emigrant farmers had
for two decades been living in a chronic state of war with the
ever-increasing number of natives around them and, while successful in
their raids upon individual Bantu kraals, were entirely unsuccessful in
the subjection of the tribes as a whole. They would not submit to
taxation, what little paper money they possessed had in 1870
depreciated to a quarter of its face value, and the few business
transactions indulged in were carried out on lines of barter not
dissimilar to the aboriginal customs around them. No public
improvements were made and no administrative system existed further
than a nominal Presidency which was helpless in the face of the
surrounding disorganization. The accession of Mr. Burghers to the
position, in 1872, did not remedy matters and the repulse of the Boers
from the stronghold of Sekukuni on their north-eastern border, in 1876,
precipitated a situation which resulted in the British annexation of
the Republic.
[Sidenote: Authoritative Questions]
So much of the subsequent discussion regarding this policy turns upon
the then existing internal situation of the Transvaal that a couple of
authoritative quotations may be given here. Mr. James Bryce, who has
since made himself unpopular in England by his opposition to the War of
1899, states in his _Impressions of South Africa_ that: "The weakness
and disorders of the Republic had become a danger not only to the
British subjects who had begun to settle in it but also to the
neighbouring British territories and especially Natal." Dr. George M.
Theal, a recognized authority upon South African affairs, despite a
pronounced tendency to sympathize with the Dutch, refers in the _Story
of the Nations_ Series, to the troubles with Sekukuni and then
proceeds; "But the country was quite unable to bear the strain. The
ordinary charges of government and the interest on the public debt
could not be met, much less an additional burden. And so the whole
administrative machinery broke down. The Republic was really in a
pitiable state, without money or an army, with rebellion triumphant and
a general election approaching that was feared might be attended with
civil war."
[Sidenote: A Great Peril]
National bankruptcy and the danger arising from 300,000 threatening
natives surrounding, within the Transvaal, some 30,000 people of Dutch
descent were also added to by the possibility of external attack from
the Zulus. There can be no doubt of the reality of this peril although
the events which followed led the Dutch to minimize its extent.
Cetywayo, in 1876, had a large army of trained and physically powerful
warriors numbering at least 30,000 men. He had immense reserves of
savage population, in the event of war, both in the Transvaal and
Natal, and all were bound together by a bond of hatred against the
Boer--the only tie recognized by native tribes. He had his men in
threatening positions upon the frontier from time to time and had
announced that his _Impis_ must have an opportunity of wetting their
spears in the blood of an enemy. But at this point the Zulu chieftain
touched British interests. If he attacked the Boers and was successful
it meant a future onslaught with increased power upon Natal, and, in
any case, might easily involve the hundreds of thousands of related
tribes in the Colony. For the safety of the scattered British
settlements it was therefore necessary to protect the now almost
helpless Boer. Of course, the commandos of the latter would have put
up a good fight against the invading hordes and the enmity of
surrounding natives, but, without provisions, without ammunition,
without fortifications, and without money (the Transvaal Treasury was
so empty in 1876 that it could not pay for the transportation of some
ammunition from Durban to Pretoria) the result must have been extremely
disastrous.
[Sidenote: The Federation Policy of Lord Carnarvon]
It was at this junction that the Federation policy of Lord Carnarvon,
Colonial Secretary in the Beaconsfield Government, combined with the
apparent local necessities of the case to cause the intervention of the
Imperial authorities. Lord Beaconsfield was an Imperialist of the
strongest type, imaginative yet practical, initiative in policy and
also courageous in execution. His Government had bought the Suez Canal
shares in order to ensure the trade route of the Empire to India, and
had made the Queen an eastern Empress and the Prince of Wales the
centre of Oriental hospitality and magnificence, in order to appeal to
the sentiment of those vast regions and teeming populations. Lord
Carnarvon had, in 1867, as Colonial Secretary, presided over the
Confederation of British America, and his present great ambition was to
help in creating a federated South Africa. But it was too late so far
as South Africa was concerned; too early so far as Imperialistic
sentiment at home was concerned. When Sir Bartle Frere reached Cape
Town he found that the Transvaal had just been annexed, and that one
great apparent difficulty had been removed from his path. At the same
time, however, he found the Orange Free State opposed to federation
though ready for a customs union; and two years later the malcontents
in the Transvaal, roused and encouraged by Mr. Gladstone's public
sentiments as Leader of the Liberal Opposition and in defence of the
Boer right to independence, were in rebellion and able to influence
their racial allies at Cape Town in the vetoing of the Commissioner's
general policy of federation. Such was the story in a brief summary.
[Sidenote: Threatened Anarchy]
The details are both interesting and important. In 1876 the Boer
attack on Sekukuni--a not very strong Kaffir chief upon the Transvaal
border--had, as already stated, been repulsed, and the High
Commissioner of the moment in South Africa, Sir Henry Barkly, wrote to
Lord Carnarvon, under date of October 30th, describing the ensuing
situation of the Transvaal at some length, and concluded with the
following expressive words:
"In short, the whole state of things borders very closely upon anarchy;
and, although in other parts of the Republic lawlessness and inhumanity
are less rampantly exhibited, the machinery of administration is
everywhere all but paralyzed, and the Republic seems about to fall to
pieces through its own weakness. In that event the Boers in each
district would either have to make their own terms with the adjacent
Kaffir tribes or trek onwards into the wilderness, as is their wont,
whilst the position of the large number of British subjects scattered
about on farms, or resident in the towns, or at the gold fields, might
fairly claim the humane consideration of Her Majesty's Government even
if there were not other reasons to save so fine a country from so
miserable a fate."
There was more, however, to be thought of than the mere paralysis of
the functions of Government, bad as it was. Then as now, the Transvaal
was the Turkey of South Africa in its treatment of other races as well
as in a Mahommedan-like superciliousness of religious view. Writing a
few months after the above despatch from the High Commissioner, Lord
Carnarvon--January 25, 1877--in referring to the Boer method of warfare
on the native tribes as particularly illustrated in the Sekukuni
struggle, declared that: "Her Majesty's Government, after having given
full consideration to all the information attainable on the subject,
and with every desire to view matters in the most favorable light,
deeply regret that they are forced to come to the conclusion that the
barbarities alleged to have been committed, though denied by the
Transvaal Government, have, in fact, occurred."
[Sidenote: Sir T. Shepstone's Arrival in Pretoria]
Meanwhile, on October 5, 1876, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who, during
forty years of life and administration in South-eastern Africa had won
the general respect of Englishmen, Boers and natives, received a Royal
Commission to inquire into the Transvaal disturbances and to exercise
power and jurisdiction in the matter subject to the will and welfare of
the people. He arrived at Pretoria on January 22d, after a slow
progress through the country and accompanied only by a small personal
staff and 25 Natal Mounted Police. He had, during this period, in
different parts of the Transvaal and to various portions of the people,
explained his policy of annexation and the necessity of doing something
for the preservation of personal property as well as real liberty.
Everywhere he had been well received, and, for a month after his
Proclamation annexing the Republic to the Empire had been issued on
April 12th, he remained at Pretoria without the support of a single
soldier of the Queen. The general position of the country was well
explained in a despatch to Lord Carnarvon dated at Pretoria on March
6th. The white population was made up, at the outside estimate, of
8,000 men capable of bearing arms, and of these more than 6,000 were
farmers scattered in isolated homesteads over a surface equal to that
of the British Isles. It was patent, he declared, to every observer
that:
[Sidenote: Boer Government's Weakness]
"The Government was powerless to control either its white citizens or
its native subjects, and that it was incapable of enforcing its laws or
collecting its taxes; that the Treasury was empty; that the salaries of
officials had been and are for months in arrears; and that sums payable
for the ordinary and necessary expenses of Government cannot be had;
that payment for such services as postal contracts were long and
hopelessly overdue; that the white inhabitants had become split into
factions; that the large native population within the boundaries of the
State ignore its authority and its laws, and that the powerful ruling
king, Cetywayo, is anxious to seize upon the first opportunity of
attacking a country the conduct of whose warriors at Sekukuni's
mountain has convinced him that it can be easily conquered by his
clamoring regiments."
[Sidenote: Kruger's Visit to London]
President Burgers himself recognized the situation, and a month before
the annexation was consummated told the assembled Volksraad that
"matters are as bad as they ever can be; they cannot be worse."
Practically, he supported the policy of Sir T. Shepstone, and shortly
afterwards retired on a pension to live at Cape Town. The Hollanders,
who stood to lose heavily by the supremacy of British ideas and
intelligence in the country, did their utmost to arouse the fanaticism
of the farmers by printed manifestoes and memorials of the most
inflammatory character, but without much success. In the end the only
practical opposition made was the appointment by the expiring Executive
Council, on the day before the Proclamation, of a delegation to England
composed of Mr. Paul Kruger, Vice-President, and Dr. E. J. P.
Jorrissen, Attorney-General. These gentlemen went to London and were
well received personally, and a similar result followed from a second
deputation headed by, Mr. Kruger in 1878. One evil, however, came from
these visits. Instead of the astute Paul Kruger being impressed by the
power of Great Britain, or conciliated by the courtesy of political
leaders, he seems to have been interested chiefly in the study of party
tactics and of the disintegrating influence of politics when carried
into the field of Colonial government and foreign affairs. Coupled
with the knowledge thus gained of a Radical faction which was already
denouncing Lord Carnarvon's Confederation scheme, and of the
anti-expansion views of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. John Morley and Sir William
Harcourt, was a keen appreciation of the strength of the Home Rule
issue then evolving such incipient power in the field of partisan
battle. It was not hard for Mr. Kruger to discern, or hope for, the
coming fall of the Beaconsfield Government; the growing power of a
Radical element which would parallel the case of the Transvaal with
that of Ireland; and a future in which some strong movement in the now
quiet and peace-environed Boer country would result in a reversal of
British policy.
But the annexation was now a fact. In England it was received with
comparative indifference by the Tories and with a sort of passive
hostility by the Liberals. No one seemed to know very much of the real
state of affairs, and when, in the autumn of 1879, Mr. Gladstone
practically urged the independence of the Boers as a portion of Liberal
policy, his party opponents did not themselves realize the greatness of
the issue involved or the inevitable consequences of playing with
Empire questions as with measures for the building of a local bridge or
the amending of some local law. In South Africa the English element
rejoiced greatly at the annexation, and never dreamt of its reversal.
[Sidenote: Dr. Moffat's Joy Over Annexation]
The Rev. Dr. Robert Moffat, writing privately on July 27, 1877, with
all his long accumulated experience in the South African missionary
field,[1] declared that: "I have no words to express the pleasure the
annexation of the Transvaal Territory has afforded me. It is one of
the most important measures our Government could have adopted as
regards the Republic as well as the aborigines. I have no hesitation
in pronouncing the step one fraught with incalculable benefit to both
parties, _i.e._, the settlers and the native tribes. A residence of
more than half a century beyond the Colonial boundary is quite
sufficient to authorize me to write with confidence that Lord
Carnarvon's action will be the commencement of an era of blessing to
South Africa." Such was the general view of the English element at the
Cape, and such would have been the expressed view of Dutchmen like
President Brand of the Free State if they could have ventured to
explain their own sentiments. But Lord Carnarvon proposed, and Mr.
Kruger's astute perception, combined with Hollander scheming and the
fickleness of British party policy, disposed.
[1] Letter to Alexander McArthur, M.P., published in the _English
Independent_ of August 16, 1877.
[Sidenote: Dutch Appeal to Gladstone]
Slowly but surely Kruger played upon Boer ignorance and local
prejudices, intense aversion to taxation and dislike of the English.
Slowly and steadily he worked upon the racial sentiment of the Dutch at
the Cape, until, in 1880, they largely signed an address to Mr.
Gladstone asking his support for the "liberties" of their kinsmen.
Eventually, he defeated, by indirect means, Sir Bartle Frere's policy
of federating Cape Colony, Natal, Griqualand West and the Transvaal
when it came before the Cape Legislature in June, 1880. Carefully, but
with certainty, he built upon the shifting sands of England's Colonial
policy that later structure of personal supremacy so well described by
Kipling:
"Cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun,
Far beyond his border shall his teaching run.
Sloven, sullen, savage, secret, uncontrolled,
Laying on a new land evil of the old."
For a couple of years, however, matters went on without open rebellion.
The administration of Sir T. Shepstone was, upon the whole, a wise one.
The former officials were largely retained, provision was made for a
dual official language, the finances were got into fairly good shape,
and the natives were conciliated. Sir Bartle Frere, looking on from
Cape Town, wished to establish complete responsible government, and had
his policy been carried out, it is possible that the war might have
been averted, and certain that the growing influence of Kruger would
have been checked. Two Dutch deputations had gone to London, and the
restoration of independence had been refused them by both the
Beaconsfield Government and the succeeding one of Mr. Gladstone. High
officials of all kinds--Frere, Wolseley, Shepstone and Lanyon--had
declared that it was an absolute impossibility, and, certainly, no
overt attempts were made to obtain it while British troops were present
in South Africa in large numbers engaged in crushing the Zulu enemy or
the lesser power of the Sekukuni.
[Sidenote: Encouragement from England]
Unofficially, however, the Boer idea of independence received
substantial encouragement from England. Before coming into power Mr.
Gladstone, in his famous Midlothian speeches, proclaimed that "if those
acquisitions were as valuable as they are worthless, I would repudiate
them because they are obtained by means dishonorable to the character
of the country." When he came into office he practically repudiated
his own statements; but they had meanwhile done the mischief which so
often accompanies demagogic or thoughtless oratory when uttered by
highly-placed public men. In 1880 Colonel Sir Owen Lanyon became
Administrator of the Transvaal in place of Sir T. Shepstone, who was
paying a visit to England. He has been described as an "orthodox
military man, somewhat pompous and a trifle haughty to inferiors," and,
in reality, was the worst possible personage to be placed at the head
of affairs in a country now seething with discontent and ripe for
insurrection.
[Sidenote: Taxation the Cause of War in 1880-81]
One of the real and immediate causes of the war of 1880-81 was the
question of taxation--not in any constitutional sense, as it might have
been in an English community, but in the personal objection of the Boer
to paying taxes of any kind to any person or any Government. The
proceedings of the Volksraad from 1868 to 1877 teem with references to
the difficulty of obtaining payment of the most ordinary and necessary
taxes until, in March of the latter year, and just before the
annexation was consummated, that body declared that the greater amount
of the taxes had not been paid, that the Government of the country
could not be carried on, and that the Government be authorized "to
collect all outstanding taxes by summary process." There was, however,
no personal objection to the drawing of money from the Government to
any obtainable limit. Sir Owen Lanyon stated, as an illustration of
this fact, and in a despatch to Lord Kimberley on December 5, 1880,
that "Mr. Kruger's case exemplifies this (the avoidance of paying taxes
on the ground of conscientious scruples against the Government), for he
continued to draw salary as a member of the Executive Council for a
period of eight and a half months after the annexation. In fact, he
would doubtless be drawing it now, for notwithstanding his term of
office expired on the 4th of November, 1877, he applied for and
received pay up to the close of the year." Whatever the immediate
cause of the rebellion, however, there can be no doubt of many of the
collateral issues. Love of independence was one, and the careful
manipulation of this sentiment by Mr. Kruger was perhaps as important a
factor as any other. Hardly less so, in his hands and in those of
clever Hollander intriguers, were the party utterances of English
leaders. The men of the veldt knew nothing of England or English life,
and how should they comprehend the complex character of partisan
statements and eloquent platform vagaries? Hence it was that they were
only too willing to believe that a show of force and the shock of a
sudden revolt would break the back of the Gladstone Government's
new-found objection to a recognition of their complete independence.
[Sidenote: Sudden Coming of the War]
The war came with apparent suddenness to the unprepared
authorities--lack of preparation being, however, a not uncommon
condition of South African history. Yet there was really ample
warning. At a great mass meeting in December, 1879, the strongest
possible sentiment had been expressed in favor of independence. Mr. M.
W. Pretorius, a former President, had been arrested for sedition, and
several others were in prison for the same reason. Passive resistance
had everywhere become the order of the day, and a proclamation against
seditious meetings was necessarily issued. Later on, Sir Garnet
Wolseley, who had been recently appointed High Commissioner for
South-eastern Africa, wrote to the Colonial Office (October 29, 1880)
regarding the "continuance of grave discontent," and added: "I am
informed on all sides that it is the intention of the Boers to fight
for independence. There is no doubt, I think, that the people are
incited to discontent and rebellion by ambitious agitators, ... and
that the main body of the Dutch population is disaffected to our rule."
Nothing of importance was done, however. Of course, Sir Garnet
Wolseley did all he could in the careful disposition of his small
force; but at home there was only wavering and uncertainty. The fact
is, that the Gladstone Government was afraid to give way and did not
want to hold on. They cared nothing for the Transvaal, but were face
to face with repeated official pledges regarding its retention, as well
as with their own unofficial advocacy of its abandonment. So they
waited, and events drifted into the inevitable rebellion. The first
overt action was the forcible resistance of a farmer, named
Bezuidenhout, who had been served with a notice and then with an
attachment for the sum of £27 5_s._, unpaid taxes.
[Sidenote: Armed Boers Take Possession of Town]
Then a great public meeting was announced for January 8, 1881, but was
held instead on December 15th at Paardekraal. Armed Boers came in
thousands, and, on the succeeding day, took possession of the Town of
Heidelberg, declared their independence, and established a republican
government, with Paul Kruger as President, Piet Joubert as
Commandant-General, E. J. P. Jorrissen as Attorney-General, and a man
named Bok as Acting State Secretary. Four days later a portion of the
94th Regiment, consisting of some 250 men, were surprised and shot down
to the number of 120. Owing to the clever _ruse_ of the Boers in
announcing their mass-meeting for nearly a month ahead of its real
date, the breaking out of active rebellion had not been expected for
some weeks.
The British force was so small in the Transvaal that the Boers had it
all their own way. The tiny garrisons were shut up and closely
besieged, and the rebels advanced into Natal and occupied a favorable
position in the mountains at a place called Laing's Nek. It was
attacked on January 27th by Major-General Sir George Colley, commanding
the troops in the Colony, with about a thousand men. He was driven
back with heavy losses, owing partly to a lack of artillery and partly,
on his own admission, to attempting a flank movement with inadequate
means. Another unsuccessful fight took place at Ingogo, and then, on
February 26th, he occupied Majuba Hill, and on the succeeding day met
his second and famous defeat. Death buries mistakes, but there is no
doubt that, once more, over-confidence had led a British officer into
disaster. The results were more serious than those which usually
follow such passing incidents.
[Sidenote: Attitude of Gladstone's Government]
The Gladstone Government did not want the Transvaal; did not like the
preceding situation of suspended sedition; did not understand or care
for the necessity and vital import of the country to a future united
South Africa; did not desire to fight the Boers in any way, shape or
form; did not know anything practical regarding the nature of Dutch
politics and racial cohesion in South Africa, except to have vague
fears of a general war; did not understand how greatly peace in such
regions depends upon _prestige_ or at how low an ebb British military
reputation in South Africa already was. To them these little defeats
were an excuse and a means to an end. Telegram followed telegram,
after Majuba Hill, urging Sir Evelyn Wood--who had succeeded to the
military command[2]--to obtain a meeting with the Boer leaders for the
discussion of terms of peace. On March 5th, Sir Evelyn Wood
telegraphed to Lord Kimberley, Colonial Secretary, that: "In discussing
settlement of country, my constant endeavors shall be to carry out the
spirit of your orders; but, considering the disasters we have
sustained, I think that the happiest result will be that, after
accelerating successful action which _I hope to fight in about fourteen
days_, the Boers should disperse without any guarantee, and then many,
now undoubtedly coerced, will readily settle down." But the Government
was not willing to wait even fourteen days, and Mr. Gladstone had
already stated in the House of Commons that he hoped to come to terms
with the Boers. Accordingly, on March 12th, Lord Kimberley telegraphed
Wood as follows:
[2] Sir Garnet Wolseley had returned to England some months before the
outbreak of the war in order to take up the Quartermaster-Generalship
of the Forces.
[Sidenote: Proposition for Peace]
"Inform Boer leaders that if Boers will undertake to desist from armed
opposition and disperse to their homes we are prepared to name the
following as Commissioners: Sir H. Robinson (High Commissioner), Chief
Justice de Villiers (of Cape Colony) and yourself. President Brand
would be asked to be present at proceedings as representing friendly
State. Commission would be authorized to consider following points:
Complete self-government under British suzerainty with British Resident
and provisions for protection of native interests and as to frontier
affairs. Control over relations with foreign Powers to be reserved."
[Sidenote: Self-Government, but not Independence]
Four days later the meeting took place under the shadow of Laing's Nek,
and President Kruger accepted the terms of Lord Kimberley's telegram.
On March 21st, the armistice having meanwhile been prolonged and
President Brand not having turned up, a new meeting of President
Kruger, Sir E. Wood and others was held and a draft treaty drawn up.
Schedule 2d stated that: "We, Kruger, Pretorius and Joubert, declare
our readiness to accept the suzerainty of the reigning Sovereign of
Great Britain and Ireland according to the explanation given by Sir E.
Wood." Schedule 3d declared that: "I, Sir Evelyn Wood, acknowledge the
right of the Transvaal people to complete self-government, subject to
the Suzerain rights." Everywhere throughout these negotiations the
phrase "self-government" is used as contradistinguished from
"independence." Not even the Boer leaders then suggested the latter as
a possible policy. They were willing to accept the supremacy of the
Queen, the British control of their foreign policy, the management of
their relations with the natives and even the control of their border
policy. But whatever they did ask for they received. The Lydenberg
District, for instance, was distinctly debatable ground, with a mainly
British and white population, and covering the region once ruled by
Sekukuni and subdued by British troops on behalf of the Boers. This
region the latter now demanded, though not very strenuously, and on
March 31st Lord Kimberley telegraphed to the Royal Commissioners, in
the concluding words of a somewhat fatuous discussion of the question,
that: "Her Majesty's Government are averse, on general grounds of
policy, to the extension of British territory in South Africa." Of
course Lydenberg was ultimately given up and the Boer position further
strengthened and consolidated. On June 13th the Royal
Commission--Robinson, Wood and De Villiers--met the new Boer Government
at Pretoria, and on August 3d the Convention of 1881 was signed and
made public.
[Illustration: THE GOVERNMENT BUILDING, PRETORIA, TRANSVAAL. A VIEW OF
MAJUBA HILL FROM THE RAILWAY]
[Illustration: PRESIDENT KRUGER WORSHIPPING IN CHURCH]
[Sidenote: Suzerainty of the Queen]
The document carefully guarded the Queen's supremacy, and declared in
its important preamble that: "Her Majesty's Commissioners for the
settlement of the Transvaal Territory, duly appointed as such by a
Commission passed under the Royal Sign Manual and Signet bearing date
April 5, 1881, do hereby undertake and guarantee on behalf of Her
Majesty that, from and after the 8th day of August, 1881, complete
self-government, subject to the suzerainty of Her Majesty, her heirs
and successors, will be accorded to the inhabitants of the Transvaal
Territory." Then follow the Articles of the Convention giving terms
and conditions, reservations and limitations. [Sidenote: Rights
Guaranteed Residents] Control was preserved over the natives; a British
Resident was to be appointed at Pretoria; the right to move British
troops through the State was acceded; "the control of the external
relations of the said State, including the conclusion of treaties and
the conduct of diplomatic intercourse with foreign Powers," was given
to Britain; no slavery or "apprenticeship partaking of slavery" was to
be tolerated; complete freedom of religion was promised; boundaries
were defined and the independence of the Swazis "fully recognized."
Finally, Article 26 declared that "All persons other than natives
conforming themselves to the laws of the Transvaal State will have full
liberty, with their families, to enter, travel or reside in any part of
the Transvaal State; they will be entitled to hire or possess houses,
manufactories, warehouses, shops and premises; they may carry on their
commerce either in person or by any agents whom they may think fit to
employ; they will not be subject in respect to their persons or
property, or in respect to their commerce or industry to any taxes,
whether general or local, other than those which are, or may be,
imposed upon Transvaal citizens." This Article, reaffirmed in the same
words by the ensuing Convention of 1884, and taken in conjunction with
the guarantee of self-government to all the inhabitants of the
Transvaal--not to the Boers alone--constitutes the charter of right to
the Uitlander of a later day. Another point must also be considered in
the same connection. Prior to the signing of the Convention a
discussion[3] took place as to the existing rights of aliens or British
subjects in the new State and in the following terms:
[3] See British Government _Blue Book_ c. 3219, pp. 24 and 53.
[Sidenote: What the Rights of Uitlanders were]
"Question 239. Sir H. Robinson. Before annexation had British
subjects complete freedom of trade throughout the Transvaal? were they
on the same footing as citizens?
" 240. Mr. Kruger. They were on the same footing as the burghers;
there was not the slightest difference, in accordance with the Sand
River Convention.
" 241. Sir H. Robinson. I presume you will not object to that
continuing?
" 242. Mr. Kruger. No, there will be equal protection for everybody.
" 243. Sir E. Wood. And equal privileges?
" 244. Mr. Kruger. We make no difference as far as burgher rights are
concerned. There may perhaps be some slight difference in the case of
a young person who has just come into the country.
" 245. There are no disabilities with regard to trade, are there?
" 246. Mr. Kruger. No.
"1037. Dr. Jorissen. At No. 244 the question was: 'Is there any
distinction in regard to the privileges or rights of Englishmen in the
Transvaal?' and Mr. Kruger answered, 'No, there is no difference;' and
then he added, 'There maybe some slight difference in the case of a
young person just coming into the country.' I wish to say that that
might give rise to a wrong impression. What Mr. Kruger intended to
convey was this: according to our law a newcomer has not his burgher
rights immediately. The words young person do not refer to age, but to
the time of residence in the Republic. According to our Grondwet
(Constitution) you have to reside a year in the country.
"1038. Sir H. de Villiers. Is the oath of allegiance required from a
person, not being born in the Transvaal, coming to reside there, who
claims burgher rights?
"1039. Dr. Jorissen. In the law relating to the franchise there is a
stipulation for the oath of allegiance to be taken to the State.
"1040. Then it is not every burgher who has a vote; it is only the
burghers who have taken the oath of allegiance that have a vote?
"1041. Dr. Jorissen. Yes, the last revision of that law was made in
1876."
[Sidenote: Complete Equality of Races]
It is therefore plain that when the re-cession of the Transvaal took
place complete equality of races existed and was pledged to continue;
while a fair system of franchise was in force which required only a
year's residence and the usual oath of allegiance--similar to that
always used in the Orange Free State, and not like the one afterwards
created which compelled a repudiation in set terms of allegiance to the
Queen. The very term "self-government" naturally involved freedom of
franchise under similar conditions for both Boer and Briton, and not
even Kruger himself then claimed otherwise; whilst the British
Government and the Commissioners took it as a matter of course that
Englishmen would be kept upon the same level in the Transvaal as they
always had been and as were the Dutch in Cape Colony and Natal.
[Sidenote: Effort to Get Rid of British Suzerainty]
However, results were still a matter of the future, and in the meantime
the Convention, as signed by S. J. P. Kruger, M. W. Pretorius and P. J.
Joubert, was ratified, on October 20th, by the Volksraad, though under
protest from Joubert and others, and with the remarkable statement from
Lord Kimberly that "no proposals for its modification could be
entertained until it was ratified." This statement, coupled with the
hostility secretly raised in the Volksraad by Kruger, and openly
expressed as representative of public opinion, paved the way for a
reconsideration of its terms along ultimate lines which should limit
the Queen's Government to a supervision of the Transvaal's foreign
affairs instead of their direction and control; which should abrogate
the clause permitting interference with internal legislation, or with
the policy pursued towards native tribes; and should strip the Resident
of any authority other than that of a Minister or Consul. The aim was
to get rid of British suzerainty by degrees, and Kruger, from his study
of British political parties, believed he could eventually succeed.
Bold preliminary steps were taken. In open disregard of the
Convention, a law was passed in 1882 providing that a newcomer must
reside five years in the country, become duly registered and pay a sum
of $125 before obtaining the privilege of naturalization. In 1884
President Kruger again visited London, accompanied by two other
Delegates--Messrs. S. J. du Toit and N. J. Smit, and a clever Hollander
lawyer named Van Blockland. Mr. Gladstone was still Premier, and Lord
Derby, the weakest and most vacillating of modern British Ministers,
was Colonial Secretary. As the hero of a retirement which had
practically killed the Government of Lord Beaconsfield and of a New
Guinea fiasco which had merited and received the execration of
Australians, he was eminently fitted to become an instrument for
trouble in South Africa under the shrewd manipulation of Kruger.
[Sidenote: British Power Relinquished]
The new Convention was duly negotiated, and all reference to the
suzerainty omitted. Practically every power retained by the British
Government in 1881 was now given up. As a "matter of convenience" the
authority of the British Resident was wiped off the slate, and the
right of the British Sovereign to move troops through the State in time
of war with bordering natives was abrogated. The right to conduct
diplomatic negotiations was also freely given up, and the only shred of
authority visibly maintained was the power to veto treaties publicly
entered into.
[Sidenote: Loophole in the New Arrangement]
Fortunately the declaration of suzerainty was not abrogated in set
terms, and, of course, until that was done the British authority under
which the first Convention was signed and sealed and the second
Convention created remained the same. Moreover, the terms of the
preamble to the second agreement simply stated that "the following
_Articles_ of the new Convention ... shall be _substituted for the
Articles_ embodied in the Convention of August 3, 1881," so that there
was no direct substitution of authority. However, the new arrangement,
through not definitely reasserting the suzerainty, gave President
Kruger the opening he desired for some future period when he might
claim that there was no longer any such authority; and in making
possible this technical and vague claim the indifferent Lord Derby laid
one of the foundation stones of great future trouble. The Transvaal
State now became the South African Republic, and its Delegates
negotiated treaties in Berlin, Paris and Lisbon. Gold soon began to be
produced in great quantities, the revenues swelled into millions of
pounds sterling, salaries of officials grew apace, President Kruger
became one of the wealthy men of the world, alien settlers were treated
like native inferiors, the oppressed Uitlander came into prominence,
and presently the British Empire found itself face to face with an
organized, compact, wealthy and powerful enemy.
CHAPTER XI.
Natal and the Zulu Wars.
[Sidenote: Population, Climate, Resources, etc.]
During these varied ups and downs of racial life and rivalry the
progress of Natal had not been very great. Like Zululand, to the east,
it lies on the sea-slope of a mountainous range and is undulating in
surface with an alternation of hills and valleys. The latter have
numerous and permanent streams, grass is plentiful, and in the coast
region there is abundance of wood. It is much more favoured by nature
than Cape Colony and, as a whole, its soil may be described as rich,
its appearance as charming and its climate as temperate. Yet, at the
end of the century, Natal has not more than 50,000 white residents
within its bounds, although before the War of 1899 commenced it was
making new and vigorous progress. Durban has become a beautiful, well
managed and growing town of 30,000 people--half natives and coolies
from India--while Pietermaritzburg is a small but pleasant capital with
a cultivated society and agreeable natural surroundings. The
population of the Colony includes nearly half a million Zulus, who are
increasing in number by leaps and bounds; 50,000 immigrants from India
of the coolie and artisan type, with an intermixture of Mohammedan
traders from Bombay or Zanzibar who conduct a prosperous retail
business with the natives; and about the same number of whites, of whom
some nine or ten thousand are Dutch.
[Sidenote: Progress of Natal]
The progress latterly visible in Natal dates from the close of the Zulu
war of 1879. Prior to that time the discovery of the Kimberley diamond
fields had drawn away many of its more active spirits and, afterwards,
the shadow of Cetywayo for some time loomed large upon the eastern
border. After that cloud was dispelled the Transvaal War took place,
and in 1886 the phenomenal growth of the Witwatersrand gold mines again
drew away from the English population. As a whole, however, the people
of the Colony have been very comfortable in their circumstances, and
the bulk of the white settlers, outside of the villages, occupy large
and prosperous cattle farms in which little of the soil is cultivated,
and where the work is largely performed by coloured labourers. Sugar
and tea plantations are, however, growing in numbers of late years.
Politically, the Colony was governed directly from London during the
years immediately following its British occupation in 1842 and latterly
its Governor has had a curiously complicated position in relation to
the Colonial Office and the High Commissioner for South Africa who
dwells at Cape Town and acts as Governor of Cape Colony. [Sidenote:
Self-Government given to the Whites] In 1893, with some hesitation and
natural doubtfulness, the 15,000 adult white males of Natal were given
self-government with almost complete control over hundreds of thousands
of natives. There is now a Cabinet of five members, a House of
Assembly and Legislative Council--the former elected for four years and
the latter appointed by the Governor for ten years. It is greatly to
the credit of these new institutions and the electorate generally that
no trouble has occurred with the surrounding Zulus; that the law is
easily enforced and thoroughly respected; and that the loyalty of the
tribes has been pronounced and sincere.
But in 1876 this latter condition had hardly begun to develop, the
natives were still a source of fear and natural suspicion, the Zulu
impis of Cetywayo were darkly threatening, and the country was held
back from settlement and progress by the encircling shadow of savage
life. In the year 1877 Sir Bartle Frere, as Cape Governor and High
Commissioner, had received a genial and not uncommon welcome to South
Africa by a Kaffir war on the eastern frontier where two Kosa chiefs,
Sandilli and Kreli, had revolted. Owing to the prompt action and wise
measures taken the area of disturbance was limited and Cape Colony
saved from those horrors of savage border warfare to which it had been
so accustomed in the past. Satisfied with the result, Sir Bartle Frere
turned to the northeast and found himself face to face with the
menacing Zulu question and with the growth of a native power which had
been practically encouraged by British policy to develop itself along
the frontier of Natal.
[Illustration: THE DEATH OF COLONEL CHISHOLME AT ELANDSLAAGTE. As the
daring officer fell from his horse at the head of his men, he shouted,
"Splendid, Lads!]
[Illustration: GENERAL SIR REDVERS BULLER ON HORSEBACK. MAJOR-GENERAL
SIR A. HUNTER, K.C.B., Chief of Sir George White's Staff.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL T. SHERSTON, Killed in Battle of Glencoe]
[Sidenote: Cetywayo; his Power and Character]
Since the struggle with his brother in 1856, and the slaughter of the
latter with about one-fourth of the Zulus of that time, Cetywayo had
been the real ruler of his nation. In 1872, upon the death of Panda,
he succeeded also to the nominal government and was approved by the
British authorities. In appearance the great Zulu chief was, in these
earlier years, handsome and dignified, besides being possessed of
undoubted mental gifts. He was, however, pitiless and cruel in the
extreme, as hard of heart as a piece of steel, and as regardless of
human life as a lion or tiger in its native fastnesses. In organizing
power he had the genius of Tshaka, and he brought out all that was best
and all that was worst in the Zulu race--the most intelligent, fearless
and active of South African Kaffirs, or Bantu. As time went on and
Cetywayo drilled and exercised and trained his impis, it became evident
that unpleasant results must follow and that, hemmed in as they were by
the Transvaal, Natal and the sea, there were only two possible outlets
for the fiery spirits of the growing Zulu force. Cetywayo would have
found it hard to control them had he desired to do so. Like all native
armies, and especially with such disciplined and ambitious soldiers as
he now had, they were more than anxious to test their power, to "wash
their spears" in blood and to taste of the fierce pleasures of war. In
this connection Sir Bartle Frere wrote with vigor in a dispatch of
January, 1879, justifying his instructions to Lord Chelmsford to
advance into Zululand:
"Whether his (Cetywayo's) young men were trained into celibate
gladiators as parts of a most efficient military machine, or allowed to
become peaceable cattle herds; whether his young women were to be
allowed to marry the young men, or to be assegaied by hundreds for
disobeying the king's orders to marry effete veterans, might possibly
be Zulu questions of political economy with which the British
Government were not concerned to meddle; but they were part of the
great recruiting system of a military organization which enabled the
King to form, out of his comparatively small population, an army, at
the very lowest estimate, of 25,000 perfectly trained and perfectly
obedient soldiers, able to march three times as fast as we could, to
dispense with commissariat of every kind and transport of every kind,
and to fall upon this or any part of the neighboring colony (Natal) in
such numbers and with such determination that nothing but a fortified
post could resist them; making no prisoners and sparing neither age nor
sex."
[Sidenote: War Clouds Gathering]
Demonstrations of aggressiveness were frequent. About the time when
Sir Bartle Frere arrived at Cape Town a powerful Zulu force had, in the
most menacing manner, paraded along the Natal frontier, and, in
response to protests, was described as merely a hunting party. British
officials, who had been sent into Zululand from time to time as envoys,
were treated in the most contemptuous manner by the Zulu Idunas. On
one occasion (in 1876) two native women were captured on Natal soil and
carried back to punishment, which, in this case, meant death. Proofs
were not wanting of Zulu attempts to create disturbance amongst other
Bantu tribes in distant parts of the country, and, on December 10,
1878, Sir Bartle Frere wrote to the Colonial Secretary that: "Whenever
there has been disturbance and resistance to the authority of the
Government between the Limpopo and the westernmost limits of Kaffir
population, there we have found unmistakable evidence of a common
purpose and a general understanding." The first embodiment of this
fact was the Kaffir war already mentioned. Sandilli, leading the Gaika
tribe, and Kreli the Galekas, had revolted in August, 1877, and only
prompt military measures had saved the neighboring colonists from much
suffering. As it was the tribes were not entirely subjugated until
eight months after their first hostile action. The general effect, of
course, was to still further encourage Cetywayo and his warriors in
their aggressive ambitions.
[Sidenote: The Zulus and the Boers]
An additional factor to this end was the British annexation of the
Transvaal in 1877. By placing their most hated enemy, the Boer, under
British control it transferred the expression of that hatred to the new
Government and the English people. A part of the general restlessness
of the natives in the year of the annexation had been expressed in the
war between Sekukuni, a Kaffir chief to the northeast, and the Boer
Republic. The chief in question was a tool of Cetywayo's, and there is
little doubt was egged on by him to hostilities which the latter
intended as preliminary to a general attack upon the Transvaal; in
which he was further encouraged by the defeat of the Boers and the
retirement of President Burgers from his invasion of Sekukuni's
territory. But the British annexation temporarily averted the attack
and the whole burden of Zulu hostility was practically assumed by the
British; as well as the subsequent brunt of Zulu attack. The
situation, therefore, was not a pleasant one for Sir Bartle Frere any
more than it was for the colonists of Natal, or for the Boers of the
Transvaal prior to their annexation. It had been anticipated by Sir
George Grey, a quarter of a century before, when he had urged that the
growth of the Zulu power be checked by the establishment of a
protectorate, or watched by the placing of a permanent Resident at its
capital. [Sidenote: Zulu Declaration] But his advice was disregarded,
and, in 1876, when Sir Henry Bulwer, Governor of Natal, protested
against some Zulu act of force upon the frontier, Cetywayo was able to
reply with a temerity born of the possession of a splendidly developed
fighting machine of many thousand men: "I do kill; but do not consider
yet I have done anything in the way of killing. Why do the white men
start at nothing? I have not yet begun. I have yet to kill. It is
the custom of our nation, and I shall not depart from it." In a
dispatch to the Colonial Office on December 2, 1878, Sir Bartle Frere
declared plainly that, as a result of these and other more practical
manifestations, "no one can really sleep in peace and security within a
day's run of the Zulu border, save by sufferance of the Zulu Chief."
In the end the war really came as a result of the Transvaal annexation,
and, in the main, because of the bitter feeling between the Boers and
the Zulus. During the month of September, 1878, Sir Bartle Frere, as
High Commissioner for South Africa, visited Natal, and examined some
territory in dispute between the Transvaal (then a British dependency)
and Zululand. Finally he gave his decision as arbitrator in favor of
the Zulu claim; but with a view to the general well-being of South
Africa attached certain requirements to the announced Award. These
included the disbandment of his army by Cetywayo, the reception of a
British Resident at his capital of Ulundi, the surrender of certain
persons guilty of an offence upon Natal territory, and the giving of
specific guarantees for the better government of his people. The
proposal obviously involved the establishment of a protectorate over
Zulu territory, and the only possible alternative to its refusal was
war. Knowing the ambitions of Cetywayo and his army, as Sir Bartle
Frere did, he could hardly have expected the acceptance of these
propositions or have supposed that there could be any other result than
immediate hostilities. [Sidenote: Advance into Zululand] As a matter
of fact no reply was received, and on January 10, 1879,
Lieutenant-General Lord Chelmsford, who had commanded in the Kaffir War
of the preceding year, crossed the Lower Tugela with a force which was
small, but generally deemed sufficient, and marched into Zululand
toward a place called Isandlhwana, where camp was formed for a few
days. Colonel Pearson, with a flying column of 2,000 white troops and
a similar number of blacks, marched on toward Ulundi, and got as far as
Etshowe, after beating back a Zulu army of about his own number. A
third column under Colonel Evelyn Wood marched from another direction
toward the same objective point, reached a post called Kambula, and
remained there for some time after duly fortifying it and defeating a
persistent attack from a large Zulu army. Incidentally, one of his
patrols was surprised by the enemy, and ninety-six of the party killed,
including Colonel Weatherley and his son.
[Sidenote: A Large Force Slaughtered]
Meanwhile Lord Chelmsford had moved the main body of his forces to the
capture of a large kraal near Isandlhwana, leaving about a thousand
British, Colonial and native troops to guard the camp. Despite the
warnings of some Dutch farmers, no attempt had been made at protecting
the place by trench, or embankment, or even by the traditional and easy
laager of wagons. Danger was hardly dreamed of until, on January 22d,
the horns of a Zulu army of twenty thousand men were found to be
closing around the devoted troops. There was practically nothing to do
but to die, and this the soldiers did with their faces to the foe,
fighting as long as their ammunition lasted and killing over a thousand
Zulus. A few irregular mounted troops escaped, as did the bulk of the
natives; but seven hundred British regulars and over a hundred Colonial
troops were slaughtered by an enemy who gave no quarter and from whom
none was asked or expected. Not far away from this camp, on the Natal
frontier and guarding the line of communication, was a small depot for
provisions and hospital work under the charge of Lieutenants Chard and
Bromhead with 130 soldiers. In the afternoon of the fateful day at
Isandlhwana this little post of Rorke's Drift was attacked by a picked
Zulu army of four thousand men, and for eleven hours was defended so
desperately, behind hastily improvised fortifications of biscuit boxes
and grain bags, that the enemy retired after leaving over 300 men dead
on the field. The little garrison was saved, and, more important
still, Natal was saved from a sweeping and devastating raid of savage
warriors. Lord Chelmsford at once fell back upon his base of supplies
in the Colony, and the other columns at Etshowe and Kambula,
respectively, proceeded, as already stated, to fortify themselves and
await events. Further movements were slow in arrangement and
reinforcements slow in coming, but, finally, Lord Chelmsford advanced
again into Zululand with 4,000 British and Colonial troops and a
thousand natives, and on July 4th, after relieving Etshowe and beating
back the enemy at Gungunhlovu, reached Ulundi, where he defeated a Zulu
army of 20,000 men.
[Sidenote: Death of Prince Imperial]
Meantime Sir Garnet Wolseley had been sent out to supersede Lord
Chelmsford and to administer the regions affected by the war. He
arrived on the scene very soon after this decisive conflict, and was
able to report to the War Office that Zululand was practically at peace
again. A few months later Colonel Baker Creed Russell went to the
further rescue of the Boers in their seemingly hopeless struggle with
the Bapedis, and, on November 28th, stormed and captured Sekukuni's
stronghold. One of the melancholy incidents of a most unpleasant
"little war" was the death of the Prince Imperial of France. The Zulus
must have lost ten thousand men, all told, and their power was
absolutely shattered. Cetywayo, after remaining in concealment for a
time, was eventually captured and sent to live in guarded comfort near
Cape Town. A little later he was allowed to visit England, where he
was well received, and proved himself a dignified savage, and in 1883
was re-established in Zululand after the practical failure of Sir
Garnet Wolseley's attempt to govern that region through thirteen
semi-independent chiefs. Civil war followed, Cetywayo died, his sons
kept up the internal conflict, the Transvaal annexed what is now called
the District of Vryheid, and in 1887 what remained of the country was
proclaimed British territory. Thus, and finally, was settled a
question which threatened the very existence of the thirty thousand
white people of Natal--surrounded within their own territory by three
hundred thousand Zulus and faced upon their border by a strong Zulu
nation and its army of 25,000 to 40,000 men.
[Sidenote: Redress Necessary]
Sir Bartle Frere was vigorously denounced for the war, for the disaster
at Isandlhwana, and for everything connected with the matter. Yet it
seems to the impartial judgment of later days that he only did what was
wise in a most difficult and dangerous situation. There appears to be
no doubt that Cetywayo was simply awaiting his chance to over-run the
Transvaal and Natal. In writing to the Colonial Office, on March 1,
1879, Sir Bartle Frere pointed out the necessity of taking immediate
action, and the difficulty, or worse, of waiting two months--in days
prior to cable communication--for exact authority to move in the matter
of compelling redress, and added: "The Zulus had violated British
territory, slain persons under English protection, and had repeatedly
refused the redress we demanded. Could a final demand for redress on
this account be postponed? It seems to me clearly not, with any safety
to Natal and its inhabitants." In another despatch to the Colonial
Office, on January 13, 1880, the High Commissioner replied to some
attacks from Mr. Gladstone by declaring that "in the judgment of all
military authorities, both before the war and since, it was absolutely
impossible for Lord Chelmsford's force, acting on the defensive
_within_ the Natal boundary, to prevent a Zulu _impi_ from entering
Natal and repeating the same indiscriminate slaughter of all ages and
sexes which they boast of having effected in Dingaan's other massacres
of forty years ago." He defended Lord Chelmsford, and incidentally
stated that the disaster at Isandlhwana was due to disregard of orders.
South Africa was for a time, however, the grave of Sir Bartle Frere's
reputation, both in this connection and that of the Transvaal, and his
recall followed a few months after the writing of the above despatch.
But historical retrospect is wiser than political opinion, and time has
now revived the fame of a great man and a wise statesman, and declared
that there was practical truth and justice in the farewell address
presented to him by the people of Albany in the Colony of the Cape:
"We have watched with the most anxious interest your career during that
eventful period when the affairs of the neighboring Colony of Natal
were administered by you; we perfectly understand that at that crisis
the deep-laid plans and cruel purposes of the savage and bloodthirsty
king of the Zulus were just reaching their full development, and that
his inevitable and long-expected encounter with the British power could
no longer be averted; it was, no doubt, fortunate for that colony, and
for the honor of the British name, that you were on the spot ready to
sacrifice every personal consideration, and to undertake one of the
heaviest and most tremendous responsibilities ever undertaken by a
servant of the Crown. Your excellent plans, your steady determination,
your unflagging perseverance, led to the downfall of a barbarous
tyrant, the break-up of a most formidable and unwarrantable military
power, and the establishment of peaceful relations, which, properly
managed, might have ensured the lasting peace and prosperity which you
have systematically desired to secure for South Africa."
[Sidenote: Order in Natal and the Transvaal]
With the ending of this war and the temporary settlement of the
Transvaal troubles there came to Natal a period of progress in both
constitutional and material matters. The natives of the Province had
always been well treated by the Imperial authorities, and there were
none of the complexities of dual control so noticeable at the Cape;
while the small number of Dutch settlers who remained after the
"forties" were not important enough to create racial friction or to
seriously antagonize the surrounding Zulus. The many privileges and
immunities of the latter, and the possession of large tracts of land
given and secured to them by the Colonial Office, seem to have made
them a fairly satisfied people and to have prevented any organized
effort at any time to join hands with their kin under Panda or
Cetywayo. The experience of Englishmen with the Maori, the Red Indian,
or the Kaffirs to the west of Natal, have not been repeated in that
little Colony, and the small population of whites has lived in
comparative security, though not without frequent fear, amidst the
ever-increasing numbers of a savage race. Something of this has been
due to the wise administration of the Colonial Governors and to their
reasonable immunity from the influences which controlled the Cape and
dragged the Colonial Office first one way and then the other. The
local whites were also too few to claim constitutional government, to
assert a right to control the natives, or to do more than occasionally
protest against incidents such as the Transvaal slave-raids upon Kaffir
tribes or hostility towards its general system of "apprenticeship."
In 1845 the first Lieutenant-Governor, under the jurisdiction of the
Governor of Cape Colony, had been appointed in the person of Mr. Martin
West. He was succeeded, in 1850, by Mr. Benjamin Pine, and, in 1856,
by Mr. John Scott, who brought with him a Royal charter constituting
the Colony, separating it from the Cape, and giving it an appointive
Council. In 1866 an Assembly was created, with the same limitations as
to responsible government which characterized all the Colonial
Assemblies of that time. Mr. John Maclean, C.B., was appointed
Lieutenant-Governor, and Mr. R. W. Keate became the first Governor of
Natal in 1867. His successors were as follows, and their names mark
several important incidents in South African history:
1872, Sir Anthony Musgrave, K.C.M.G.
1873, Sir Benjamin Pine, K.C.M.G.
1875, Major-General Sir Garnet Wolseley, B.C.
1875, Sir Henry E. Bulwer, K.C.M.G.
1880, General Sir Garnet Wolseley, G.C.B.
1880, Major-General Sir G. Pomeroy Colley.
1881, Brig.-General Sir H. Evelyn Wood.
1881, Lieut.-Colonel C. B. H. Mitchell, C.M.G.
1882, Sir Henry E. Bulwer, K.C.M.G.
1885, Sir Charles B. H. Mitchell, K.C.M.G.
1886, Sir Arthur E. Havelock, K.C.M.G.
1889, Sir Charles Mitchell, K.C.M.G.
1893, Sir W. F. Hely-Hutchinson, G.C.M.G.
[Sidenote: An Uprising Threatened]
Under the régime of Sir Benjamin Pine occurred one of those native wars
which illustrate at once the precarious tenure of peace with savage
tribes and the danger of a Governor falling between the two stools of a
weak white population demanding protection against the serried masses
of native races and a Colonial Office controlled, to some extent, by
missionary and religious influences with sympathies wider than their
statecraft or knowledge. Langalibalele, Chief of the Hlubis in
Natal--a tribe which was great and powerful in the days preceding
Tshaka--had gradually strengthened his people in numbers and in
training until he thought himself able to defy the Natal Government,
and to send his young men into neighboring communities to purchase guns
and ammunition in defiance of the regulations of the Colony. Messages
were in vain sent from Pietermaritzburg demanding an account of the
matter and his presence at the capital. Finally, a small party of
volunteers was sent to compel his obedience, and met with the usual
preliminary repulse. Then upon a thread seemed to hang the peace of
South Africa. Langalibalele was known to be held in high respect by
Kaffir tribes from the Caledon to the Fish River, and it was afterwards
proved that he really had tried to effect a general rising. Prompt
measures were taken, however, by all the Governments--even those of the
Republics offering aid--and the Chief was surrounded by a large force
of Natal and Cape Mounted Police, captured, tried by a special Court
and sentenced to imprisonment for life. Meantime the influence of
Bishop Colenso and the Aborigines Protection Society had made the
Colonial Office doubtful of the justice of these steps. The Governor
was recalled, sentences were commuted, and compensation was given from
the Imperial Treasury to a tribe which had suffered through expressing
sympathy with the rebels.
[Sidenote: Gen. Wolseley Arrives in State]
The coming of Sir Garnet Wolseley, in 1875, amid much glitter of state
and ceremony, marked the attempt of Lord Carnarvon to promote the
federation of the Colonies; and the despatch of the same distinguished
soldier, in 1880, was an effort to gather up the threads of military
organization after the reverses and successes of the Zulu War. The
death of Sir George Pomeroy Colley at Majuba Hill and the accession of
Sir Evelyn Wood, with instructions to make peace with the Transvaal,
are landmarks in the annals of the whole region; while the coming of
Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson in 1893, with extended powers as Governor of
Natal and Zululand, marks the grant of complete responsible government
to this miniature Colonial India, twenty years after it had been given
to Cape Colony, and nearly fifty years after Canada had received it.
[Sidenote: Government of Natal] Under this constitution there is now a
Legislative Council of eleven members, nominated by the
Governor-in-Council and appointed for ten years, and a Legislative
Assembly of thirty-seven members, elected by popular
constituencies--mainly white--for four years. The Ministry holds
office by the same Parliamentary tenure as do all British Governments
under free institutions, and, since 1893, the Prime Ministers have been
Sir John Robinson, K.C.M.G., who held office until 1897; the Right Hon.
Harry Escombe, P.C., who succeeded him and participated in the Queen's
Diamond Jubilee; Sir Henry Binns, K.C.M.G., who died in 1899; and the
present occupant of the position, Lieut.-Colonel Albert Henry Hime,
C.M.G. The franchise of the Colony is liberal, and every European who
is a British subject and possesses real property worth $250, occupies
such property at an annual rental of not less than $50, or is in
receipt of an income of $480 and upwards, can vote. He must, however,
have resided in the Colony for three years. Natives are entitled to
vote under the same conditions after seven years' voluntary exemption
from the action of the special native laws and the tribal system.
One of the curious conditions of Natal, and which entitles the Colony
to consideration as a sort of miniature India, has been elsewhere
casually referred to. It was thought, at first, that in a country
which combined tropical vegetation with a healthful climate and with a
great reserve force of natives for local labor, immense development of
production might be possible. Coffee, sugar, arrowroot, cotton and tea
were all found to thrive in its fruitful soil. But European workers
did not come in any number, and it was soon found that the natives
would not work with the least bit of persistence or dependence. In
this difficult situation planters and capitalists turned to the Eastern
Empire, and coolies were engaged under contract for a term of years.
And, when their term was up, these hired immigrants, as a rule, showed
no desire to return, and settled down for good in a land which seemed
to their minds greatly superior to the one they had left. Naturally,
too, Indian traders followed, and, in time, a small but steady stream
of immigrants flowed in from India, and through their cheap mode of
living soon captured the bulk of retailing trade in the country, while
also doing most of the cheaper labor. Of this class of settlers, now
nearly equal in numbers to the white population, there were 17,000 in
1879, 41,000 in 1891 and 53,000 in 1898. They do not, through taxes,
add greatly to the revenues of the country, or in any sense to its
military strength, but they do add appreciably to its productive and
industrial capabilities.
[Illustration: FIRST SERIOUS BOER-BRITISH BATTLE, MAJUBA HILL, 1881.
In which the Boers defeated the English and gained internal
independence.]
[Illustration: BATTLE BETWEEN THE ENGLISH AND THE ZULUS, SOUTH AFRICA,
1879]
[Sidenote: Resources of Natal]
In this latter connection there were, in 1892, over four million
dollars invested in the sugar industry, including 36 factories, with an
output of 15,000 tons and employing 6,000 coolies. But, although great
possibilities exist in this and other industrial directions, serious
development had only just commenced when the present war broke out, and
the central resource of the Colony was still sheep and cattle raising,
together with a fair amount of straight agricultural work such as the
cultivation of maize, oats, barley, potatoes and vegetables of various
kinds. Fruit, such as pineapples, oranges, lemons, bananas, peaches,
etc., were, of course, grown to any extent desired. That the general
progress of production was fair is seen from the fact that the Natalian
exports rose from $6,200,000 in 1893 to $8,100,000 in 1897. Other
conditions were good. The imports, chiefly from Great Britain,
advanced during the same period from $11,000,000 to $29,900,000, and
the revenue from five millions to eleven millions. Durban became the
port for a large transit trade to the interior States. The population
as a whole grew from 361,000 in 1867 to 543,900 in 1891, and 829,000 in
1898--four hundred thousand of this increase being amongst the natives.
Educational progress was excellent. In 1892 the regular attendance at
Government and inspected schools was 6,000, while 2,200 attended
private schools, and only some 200 children were reported as receiving
no education. There were 74 schools for natives, with a total
attendance of 4,050, and 24 schools for Indian children, with an
attendance of 1,402. In 1897 there were 7,685 in regular attendance at
Government and inspected schools, and 1,600 at the private schools.
There were 159 native schools with an attendance of 8,542, and 30
Indian schools with 1,961 pupils.
[Sidenote: England's Wise and Generous Policy]
Upon the whole, the historic life of Natal since the days of Dutch and
native turmoil has not, with the exception of the eventful period of
1876-81, been a stormy one. The Dutch are too much in the minority to
cause much trouble, and a fair measure of good feeling seems to have
prevailed locally. The whole white population are fairly well agreed
upon franchise questions as the free British principle works out in the
practical exclusion of the ignorant and tribal savage. They are at one
upon tariff matters, and the present system is for revenue only and is
very low--the ordinary _ad valorum_ rate being five per cent. Politics
have not been as bitter as in Cape Colony, owing to a practical, though
not always expressed, recognition of the fact that good reasons existed
for not giving complete control over an immense black population,
involving in its results at times the whole Imperial policy and system
in South Africa, into the hands of thirty, forty, or fifty thousand
white men, women and children, all told. The wise handling of the
native problem, the conciliation of the Kaffir and the careful local
laws, did, however, make this finally possible, and the Government of
the Colony since 1893 has been all that could be reasonably desired.
There is some rivalry with Cape Colony, owing to the latter's
annexation of Griqualand East and Pondoland which Natal had hoped to
acquire, and also, in some measure, to the railway competition of the
richer and stronger Colony. But Natal has been allowed to absorb
Zululand and Tongaland on its eastern border, and to thus reach up to
Portuguese territory. The people have also led an easy and tranquil
life, and are as a rule comfortably off. Now, of course, this is all
changed, and the little Colony is the scene of an Empire-making strife,
while its fruitful soil, or beautiful valleys and picturesque hills,
resound with the march of armed men and echo with the roar of
artillery. A tardy measure of healthful progress has thus been
suddenly and summarily arrested; but in the end it is probable that
good will come of evil and the natural riches of a splendid region be
more generally recognized and developed.
CHAPTER XII.
A Review of the South African Question.
[Sidenote: Religious Intolerance of the Boers]
The South African War of 1899 grew out of racial conditions and
national considerations far apart from, and long precedent to, the
growth of Kimberley and Johannesburg or the discovery of diamonds and
gold. It arose, primarily, from racial tendencies which had grown more
and more opposed to each other as the climate and conditions of South
Africa accentuated their peculiarities. History and tradition had
early driven into the Boer's heart an intense intolerance of religious
thought to which the isolation of the veldt added an almost
incomprehensible ignorance. A wider survey of the world and a fuller
grasp of the essentials of liberty had, meanwhile, developed in the
Englishman's mind[1] a love for free religious thought and practice to
which his belief in schools and his affection for literature and the
press added strength and character. The Dutchman was nomadic in life,
pastoral in pursuit, lazy and sluggish in disposition. The Englishman
was at times restless in seeking wealth or pleasure, but upon the whole
he liked to settle down in a permanent home and with surroundings which
he could make his own in ever-increasing comfort and usefulness. He
drew the line at no single occupation and made, as the case might be, a
good farmer, or artisan, or labourer, or merchant. And he was usually
of active mind as well as body.
[1] I use the word Englishman here in a general sense, and inclusive of
the Scotchman or Irishman.
[Sidenote: Two Opposite Views of Liberty]
The Dutchman in South Africa wanted liberty to do as he liked and to
live as he chose, but he did not wish to accord that liberty to
inferior races, or to attempt the training of them in its use and
application. The Englishman, on the other hand, loved liberty in a
broad way, and wanted nothing better than to see it applied to others
as freely and fully as to himself. The one race looked upon the negro
as only fitted to be a human chattel and as not being even a possible
subject for improvement, education or elevation. The other, in all
parts of the world as well as in the Dark Continent, believed in the
humanity of the coloured man, whether black, or red, or brown, and
looked upon him as fitted for civilization, for Christianity and for
freedom. He considered him as material for good government and for
fair play. Both views, however, have been carried to an extreme in
South Africa and upon either side evil resulted. The Boer treated the
native from the standpoint of an intolerant and ignorant slave-owner.
The Colonial Office tried to treat him solely from the standpoint of
the sympathizing and often prejudiced missionary. Hence, in part, the
Great Trek; hence some of the Kaffir raids and consequent sufferings of
the early settlers; hence an addition to the growing racial antagonism.
[Sidenote: Two Opposing Views of Government]
The principles of government believed in and practiced by the Dutch and
British in South Africa have been and are diametrically opposed. The
one took territory from the natives wherever and whenever he could and
used it without scruple, and without return in the form of just
government, for his own purposes. The latter, time and again, avoided
the acquisition of territory; experienced war after war which might
have been averted by the prompt expression of authority and strength;
gave up regions to native chiefs which had afterwards to be conquered
by force of arms; tried every phase of policy in the form of alliances,
protectorates and "buffer" states in order to avoid increased
responsibilities; gave up the Orange Free State to an independent
existence under circumstances of almost incredible insistence; annexed
the Transvaal with indifference, and gave it up without serious
thought; in later days allowed German East Africa to be established,
and at one time practically declined the acquisition of Delagoa Bay;
permitted the Boers of the Transvaal to annex part of Zululand and to
take almost the whole of Swaziland at the expense, even, of possible
injustice to the natives. And all this from an honest though mistaken
desire to avoid unnecessary expansion of authority or extension of
territory. In those departments of Government which are apart from
questions of acquiring or ruling dependent states there was the same
antagonism. [Sidenote: Boer Ideas of Democracy] Equality being an
unknown principle to the Boer, it was, perhaps, natural that he should
endeavor to make his own language and laws and institutions the pivot
of administration in any country under his control; that he should
regard with suspicion and fear any attempt to raise the status of
surrounding natives; and should reject with contempt, in the Transvaal
at least, later efforts on the part of civilized aliens to obtain
equality of political rights. The Dutchman in South Africa knew, in
earlier days as well as at the present time, absolutely nothing of
democracy in the British sense of the word. Republicanism, in the
sense of Government by the majority, he does not even now
understand--unless the majority be Dutch. To dream of convincing, or
trying to convince others, by argument and discussion that some
particular policy is better than another has always been far from his
point of view. He has been too long accustomed to using the shot-gun
or whip upon inferior races to deem such a policy either desirable or
possible.
[Sidenote: Varied Opportunities for Settlers]
The region these two races were destined to dominate was, and is, a
splendid one. It had an infinite variety of resource and tropical
production and temperate growth. Within the million and a half square
miles of South African territory were room and verge for a vastly
greater white population than has yet touched its shores; while every
racial peculiarity or pursuit could find a place in its towns and farms
and mines and upon its rolling veldt. To the lover of quiet village
life and retirement nothing could be more pleasant than parts of Natal
and Cape Colony, and of the two Republics. To the keen business man,
eager for gain and intent upon quick returns, the rapid and
wealth-producing progress of the great mining towns gave all that could
be desired. To the adventurous spirit, willing to suffer hardships and
endure labor in its severest form for a possibly glittering return, the
diamond and gold fields offered untold opportunities. To the hunter
and tourist and traveller the myriad wild animals of the interior gave
a pleasure only second to that felt by the Kaffir and the Boer when
hunting the lion to his lair or the elephant in its native jungle. To
the man fond of country life the vast plains, stretching in varied
degrees of value and elevation from Cape Town to the Zambesi, afforded
room for pastoral occupation and the raising of cattle and sheep upon a
veritable thousand hills. To the seeker after new industries, ostrich
farming, mohair, the feather industry and diamond mining have from time
to time proved the greatest attraction. To the farmer or planter parts
of the region were eminently fitted for the raising of wheat and other
cereals, and the cultivation of tobacco, cotton, sugar and rice. To
the restless and wandering Boer, South Africa seems to have given for a
time everything that his spirit desired--isolation, land, wild animals
to hunt, independence of control, freedom from the trammels of
education and taxation and civilization. To the quieter Dutchman of
Cape Colony has been given every element of British liberty and
privilege of British equality; as well as land in plenty, and for
thirty years, at least, the pledge of internal peace.
[Sidenote: Statistics and Finances of South Africa]
According, also, to the latest figures[2] the material progress and
recent position of all these countries has been good. Cape Colony, in
1897-98, had a revenue of $36,940,000, an expenditure of $34,250,000
and an indebtedness of $136,400,000; a tonnage of British vessels,
entered and cleared, amounting to 12,137,000, together with 2,835 miles
of railway and 6,609 miles of telegraph; exports of $108,300,000, and
imports of $90,000,000; and 132,000 scholars in its schools. Natal and
Zululand, combined, had a revenue of $11,065,000, an expenditure of
$8,120,000 and an indebtedness of $38,720,000; a tonnage of British
vessels, entering and clearing, of 2,132,000, together with 487 miles
of railway and 960 of telegraph; exports of $8,100,000 and imports of
$30,000,000; and 19,222 scholars in its schools. The exports of
Basutoland, under purely native control, had grown to $650,000 and its
imports to half a million. The length of railway in the Bechuanaland
Protectorate was 586 miles and in Rhodesia 1,086 miles; while the
telegraph lines of the former region covered 1,856 miles. The South
African Republic, or Transvaal, had a revenue of $22,400,000, an
expenditure of $21,970,000 and an indebtedness of $13,350,000;
announced imports of $107,575,000 and no declared exports; railways of
774 miles in total length and telegraph lines of 2,000 miles; and
scholars numbering 11,552. The Orange Free State had a revenue of
$2,010,000, an expenditure of $1,905,000 and an indebtedness of
$200,000; imports of $6,155,000--chiefly from Cape Colony--and exports
of $8,970,000, which were divided principally between Cape Colony and
the Transvaal; 366 miles of railway, 1,762 miles of telegraph and 7,390
scholars in its schools. The following table[3] gives an easily
comprehended view of South Africa as divided amongst its Kaffir, Dutch
and English communities in respect to mode of government and measure of
British responsibility:
[2] _British Empire Series_. Vol. II. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner 4
Co., Limited. London, 1809.
[3] _South Africa_. By W. Basil Worsfold, M.A. London, 1895.
MODE OF GOVERNMENT.
{ Cape Colony } Responsible Government
Three British Colonies { Natal }
{
{ Bechuanaland } Crown Colony.
{ South African } Full internal freedom
{ Republic } within terms of
Two Republics { or } Conventions of 1852-54
{ Transvaal } and 1881-84.
{ Free State. }
{ Basutoland, } Officers under High
{ Zululand, } Commissioner.
{ Tongaland, }
Native Territories {
{ Transkei, } Officers under Cape
{ Tembuland, } Government.
{ Griqualand, }
{ Pondoland. }
Territories of } { Administrator who
the Chartered } . . . . . . . { represents the Directors
Company } { and Secretary of State
} { jointly.
Yet, with all the varied advantages and evidences of substantial
progress and prosperity given above, the present war has broken out in
a result which could not have been different had the whites of South
Africa been dwelling amidst limited areas, restricted resources, few
liberties and a crowded population of competitive classes. Some of the
reasons for this situation have been pointed out, and they include
natural racial differences; a quality which Lord Wolseley described in
a speech at the Author's Club on November 6, 1899, when he declared
that "of all the ignorant people in the world that I have ever been
brought into contact with I will back the Boers of South Africa as the
most ignorant;" the inherent desire of the Dutch population for native
slave labor and intense aversion to principles of racial equality;
mistakes of administration and more important errors of judgment in
territorial matters made by the British Colonial Office; a Dutch pride
of race born from isolation, ignorance and prejudice and developed by
various influences into an aggressive passion for national expansion
and a vigorous determination to ultimately overwhelm the hated
Englishman, as well as the despised Kaffir, and to thus dominate South
Africa. [Sidenote: Afrikander Bund] Of the elements entering into this
last and perhaps most important evolution the Afrikander Bund has been
the chief. The formation of this organization really marks an epoch in
South African history, and has proved, in the end, to be one of the
most effective and potent forces in the creation of the present
situation. Nominally, it was organized in 1881 amongst the Dutch
farmers of Cape Colony for the purpose of promoting agricultural
improvement and co-operation and for the increase of their influence in
public business and government. In 1883 it swallowed up the Farmer's
Protective Association--also a Dutch organization. Practically, it was
a product of the feeling of racial pride, which developed in the heart
and mind of every Boer in South Africa as a result of Majuba Hill and
the surrender of 1881. The openly asserted influence of their
Transvaal brethren, and of this triumph, had prevailed with the Cape
Boers to such an extent that the latter were able to compel the
rejection of Lord Carnarvon's federation scheme although they did not
at the time possess a large vote in the Cape Legislature or a single
member in the Government. The same influence created a desire for
racial organization, and the result was the Afrikander Bund.
Its chief individual and local promoter was Mr. Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, a
man whose record is one of a loyalty to the British Crown which seems,
in some peculiar fashion, to have equalled his loyalty to his race. In
the beginning of the Bund, and during its earlier years, he could
easily harmonize the two principles. How he could do so at a later
period is one of the puzzles of history and of personal character.
Incidentally, it may be said that Mr. Hofmeyr attended the Colonial
Conference of 1887, in London, and contributed to its proceedings the
then novel proposition that each part of the Empire should levy a
certain duty upon foreign products--above that imposed upon goods
produced in and exported to British dominions--and that the proceeds
should be devoted to the maintenance and improvement of the Imperial
Navy. He also attended the Colonial Conference at Ottawa in 1894, and
had, consequently, received all the knowledge of Imperial development
and power which travel and experience and association with the rulers
of its various countries could afford. He has, since 1881, always
declined office at the Cape, and it is, therefore, apparent that the
solution of the personal problem must, in his case, be left to the
future--with, perhaps, the further intimation that he is looked upon
with great suspicion by local loyalists, and is considered to be the
owner, or controlling influence, of _Our Land_, the chief anti-British
organ in Cape Colony.
[Sidenote: An Imperium in Imperio]
From the first the Bund was regarded with suspicion by not only English
politicians in the Colony, but by a few of the more sober and
statesmanlike leaders amongst the Dutch. They were, however, won over,
as time passed, except the President of the Orange Free State. Sir
John Brand--he had accepted knighthood from the Queen as an evidence of
his British sympathies--absolutely refused to have anything to do with
it. "I entertain," said he, "grave doubts as to whether the path the
Afrikander Bund has adopted is calculated to lead to that union and
fraternization which is so indispensable for the bright future of South
Africa. According to my conception the institution of the Bund appears
to be desirous of exalting itself above the established Government and
forming an _imperium in imperio_." But, wise and far-seeing as were
these views, the Free State President could not hold back his own
people from sharing in the movement. Mr. F. W. Reitz, then a Judge at
Bloemfontein, afterwards President in succession to Sir John Brand,
and, finally, State Secretary of the Transvaal under President Kruger,
joined enthusiastically in its organization, and soon had many branches
in the Free State itself. Of this period in the history of the Bund,
Mr. Theodore Schreiner, son of a German missionary, brother of the Cape
Premier and of Olive Schreiner--the bitter anti-British writer--has
described an interesting incident in the _Cape Times_. [Sidenote: Mr.
Reitz and the Present War] He says that in 1882 Mr. Reitz earnestly
endeavored to persuade him to join the organization, and that the
conversation which took place upon his final refusal was so striking as
to indelibly convince him that in the mind of Reitz and of other Dutch
leaders it constituted, even then, a distinct and matured plot for the
driving of British authority out of South Africa. "During the
seventeen years that have elapsed," says Mr. Schreiner, "I have watched
the propaganda for the overthrow of British power in South Africa being
ceaselessly spread by every possible means--the press, the pulpit, the
platform, the schools, the colleges, the Legislature--until it has
culminated in the present war, of which Mr. Reitz and his co-workers
are the origin and the cause. Believe me, sir, the day on which F. W.
Reitz sat down to pen his Ultimatum to Great Britain was the proudest
and happiest moment of his life, and one which has, for long years,
been looked forward to by him with eager longing and expectation."
Branches of the Bund, within a few years, were established all over
Cape Colony and the Free State, and, by 1888, the slow-moving mind of
the Cape Dutch had grasped the racial idea thus presented with
sufficient popular strength to warrant the holding of a large and
general Congress. In his opening address the President spoke of a
"United South Africa under the British flag;" but at the meeting held
on March 4, 1889, at Middleburg, while much was said about the future
Afrikander union, references to Britain and the flag were conveniently
omitted. The platform, as finally and formally enunciated at this
gathering, included the following paragraphs:
"1. The Afrikander National Party acknowledge the guidance of
Providence in the affairs of both lands and peoples.
2. They include, under the guidance of Providence, the formation of a
_pure nationality_ and the preparation of our people for the
establishment of a United South Africa.
3. To this they consider belong--
_a_. The establishment of a firm union between all the different
European nationalities in South Africa.
_b_. The promotion of South Africa's _independence_."
[Sidenote: Dutch and English not Harmonious]
There was also a clause of gratuitous impertinence towards the Imperial
country--through whose grant of absolute self-government in 1872 the
Bund was now beginning to aim, with practical effort, at the racial
control of the Colony--in the declaration that "outside interference
with the domestic concerns of South Africa shall be opposed." Under
the general principles of the platform these "domestic concerns" meant,
of course, the relation of the different States toward each other, and
the growing rivalry of Dutch and English in matters of Colonial
Government, as well as the old-time question of native control and the
newer one of territorial extension on the part of Cape Colony. So long
as President Brand lived and ruled at Bloemfontein there remained,
however, some check upon the Bund as well as upon President Kruger. If
he had opposed the Bund actively, as he certainly did in a passive and
deprecatory sense, the result might have been a serious hindrance to
its progress. Brand's policy was to, indirectly and quietly, keep the
Cape Colony and the Free State in harmonious and gradually closer
co-operation instead of promoting that closer union of the two
republics which was one of the ideals of the Bund leaders. He refused
to accept Kruger's proposal of isolating their countries from the
British possessions, and thus promoting the policy which, without
doubt, had, since 1881, been shaping itself in the latter's mind. But,
in 1888, Sir John Brand died, and was succeeded by F. W. Reitz. The
influence of the new régime became at once visible in the platform
above quoted, and in the whole succeeding policy of the Free State. It
now assumed a more and more intimate alliance with the Transvaal, and
frequently, during these years, the question of a union of the two
countries was discussed. In 1896 Reitz resigned and accepted the State
Secretaryship of the Transvaal--a position analogous in personal power,
though not in the matter of responsibility to the people, with that of
a Colonial Premier. Mr. M. T. Steyn became President of the Free State
and the triumvirate of Kruger, Steyn and Reitz formed, with Mr. W. P.
Schreiner and Mr. J. W. Sauer, in the Cape Parliament and Afrikander
Bund, a very strong Dutch combination. Just where Mr. Hofmeyr stood it
is hard to say now, but the probabilities are that, he was pretty well
acquainted with the plots and schemes of these leaders.
[Sidenote: Mr. Cecil Rhodes to the Front]
Meanwhile Mr. Cecil Rhodes had come to the front in mining, in
speculation, in wealth, in financial organization, in politics, and in
a great policy of Empire expansion. He had studied South Africa from
the Cape to the Zambesi as few or no Englishmen have ever been able to
do. He understood its Governments, its peoples and its racial
complexities with the innate thoroughness of genius or of a woman's
intuition. To him the looming menace of the Afrikander Bund was as
clear as it had been to President Brand, and, from the time when he
entered the Cape Parliament in 1880 and became Premier in 1890 until
his retirement from the latter post in 1895, his whole heart and
ambition was devoted to preventing Dutch expansion and to checkmating
the new Dutch organization with its clever manipulators at Pretoria,
Bloemfontein and Cape Town. To this end he founded the famous British
South Africa Company, and, by acquiring control over the vast areas of
Mashonaland and Matabeleland, effectually checked Dutch expansion to
the north of the Transvaal. With this in view he urged upon British
statesmen the annexation of Bechuanaland, a huge strip of country to
the west of the same Republic; and supported with his influence the
annexation of Zululand on the south-east coast, into which many Boers
had trekked and for the possession of which they had an intense
ambition as opening the way to the sea. His reasons seldom appeared on
the surface, and some of them were not fully comprehended in South
Africa itself until long after their accomplishment. But there is no
doubt that as Mr. Rhodes' power at the Cape became felt, as the great
interests of the Chartered Company grew more manifest in their
importance to the Empire, and as the wealth and ability of its Chairman
became a factor in London as well as in the Colony, so also his
influence at the Colonial Office was enhanced.
[Sidenote: Rhodes' Policy of Conciliation]
At the same time he developed this line of action for many years in
conjunction with a policy of public conciliation toward the Dutch
everywhere. If, eventually, a system of kindly co-operation could be
evolved and the principles of the Afrikander Bund rendered
comparatively harmless by the winning over of its strongest men at the
Cape to his side, and to the continuous expansion of British power in
the common interest of a United South Africa, so much the better. If
he failed in this he did not, however, propose that the Empire should
some day find itself face to face with the problem of a thin line of
English settlement--mixed with Dutch--along the sea-coast, in rivalry
or conflict with a united Afrikander nation holding all the keys of the
interior to the north and stretching from the Delagoa region on the
east to the German possessions on the west. Hence his continuous
acquisition of territory, and hence the present position of the two
republics--surrounded by British soil except for the small strip of
Portuguese possessions to the east of the Transvaal. Hence, also, his
hope that as British power grew in South Africa the Bund would
eventually see the futility of its effort to make the whole country a
Dutch republic, and would meet his policy of conciliation at least half
way. Between 1890 and 1895, when the Jameson Raid and his resignation
of the Premiership took place, Mr. Rhodes' speeches teemed with
expressions of friendliness toward the Dutch, of appreciation of their
rights in South Africa, of sympathy with all legitimate aspirations, of
appeals for co-operation. In his Ministry, from time to time, he
managed to include leaders of the roll such as W. P. Schreiner, J. W.
Sauer, T. N. G. Te Water, and so prominent a Boer supporter of later
days as J. X. Merriman. But it seems to have become gradually apparent
to his mind that conciliation was practically useless; that the
influence and power of the Afrikander movement was daily growing
stronger; that Kruger had become too great a force with the Dutch of
the Cape for him to be checkmated by friendly demonstrations or
appeals; and that the oppression of the Uitlanders in the Transvaal was
a growing evidence of Boer unity and arrogance just as the increasing
electoral strength of the Cape Boers was a proof of their developing
power. [Sidenote: England's Ignorance of the Situation] And, above
all, he was aware that while this web of inter-state Dutch conspiracy
was building up the Afrikander Bund into a great anti-British force,
England was profoundly ignorant of the whole matter and was resting in
the belief, expressed by passing travellers and presented by the usual
number of superficial political theorists, that the Dutch and English
of South Africa were not only dwelling together in amity, but were
developing increased sympathy, and that the Uitlander trouble, of which
vague reports were beginning to reach the British public, was more or
less the creation of a transition period of development and would soon
settle itself.
To meet the dulled vision of the British people, to settle the
Transvaal issue without war between the Republic and the Empire, to
play with President Kruger at his own game and overthrow him by an
internal rebellion, Rhodes approved the general idea of the Jameson
Raid and of external assistance to the people of Johannesburg. The
policy was carried out rashly and prematurely by his deputy, the
Uitlanders were not ready and did not redeem their promises, it failed
and he had to retire from office. But one important result was
achieved. The eyes of the British public were in some measure opened
to the seriousness of the situation in South Africa. Mr. Chamberlain
and the members of the Imperial Ministry no doubt knew something
already of the general position from private advices--if in no other
way--and it was for this reason that they stood by Mr. Rhodes when the
Raid came before a Parliamentary Committee for investigation. They had
not, of course, known of the Raid itself or supported its aggressive
action. The code of honor, personal and political, is too high amongst
British statesmen to permit of anyone but a sensational journalist or
an unusually violent partisan accepting such a supposition for a
moment. But they did understand the motive and were not prepared to
punish the self-confessed originator, although obliged to allow the
legal punishment of the active participators. Mr. Rhodes could not
defend himself, and Mr. Chamberlain could not publicly support him in
connection with the matter, without avowing their belief in the
disloyalty of a portion of the population of Cape Colony and their
knowledge of a secret conspiracy shared in by the chiefs of two
nominally friendly republics. The former would have involved the
making of unwise charges which, in the nature of things, could hardly
have been proved, and if proved would have done more harm than good;
the latter would have meant a war which it might still be possible to
avert.
[Sidenote: Efforts and Conciliation not Successful]
Mr. Hofmeyr, the nominal leader of the Bund in Cape Colony, might at
almost any time during recent years have become Premier and, through
his reputation for moderate views, might, perhaps, have done good
service to the cause of compromise and conciliation. On the other
hand, it is doubtful whether he could have succeeded in this respect
when Mr. Rhodes, between 1890 and 1895, failed. The latter did
everything that man could do to hold the racial elements together and
checkmate the Kruger influence, and it seems probable that Hofmeyr
could not in the end have resisted the power of Pretoria over the
Afrikanders any more effectively than did Mr. W. P. Schreiner in the
two years preceding the outbreak of war. His Ministry would have been
a Bund Government just as that of Schreiner is to-day; his principal
co-workers would have been instruments of Kruger in much the same
degree as members of the Schreiner Cabinet have been; and his
participation in the general Afrikander movement, or conspiracy, or
whatever it may be called, would have been more dangerous than that of
Mr. Schreiner because his loyalty has always been asserted, and would
have been used, consciously or unconsciously as a cloak for the action
of his colleagues and friends. [Sidenote: Kruger's Auspicious
Opportunity] In 1898, however, Mr. Schreiner took office; the Bund was
triumphant at the polls in Cape Colony and in Parliament; and had a
weak Government or vacillating Colonial Secretary been in power in
London, Mr. Kruger's day would have indeed come. He undoubtedly built
upon this latter possibility and upon his personal experiences of Mr.
Gladstone, Lord Kimberley and Lord Derby. To demand, even in the days
of Transvaal weakness, had been to receive, and now, with the Uitlander
population under the heels of an ironclad law and of enactments
allowing them less liberty than was given the Kaffir; with great guns
guarding Pretoria and commanding Johannesburg--coupled with the
consciousness of other and more extensive military preparations; with
the policy of the Imperial Government hampered by the rash
aggressiveness of the Jameson Raid; with the Orange Free State in close
defensive and offensive alliance and its President a mere tool in his
own hands; with clever advisers and unscrupulous helpers such as Reitz
and Leyds; with the certainty of European sympathy, the expectation of
American support and the hope of active interposition on the part of
France, or Russia, or Germany; with the Cape Colonial Government in
tacit sympathy with his aims and in occasional active support of his
policy; with the assurance of an extensive support from the Boers of
the Colony itself; it is not surprising that President Kruger entered
the lists at the Bloemfontein Conference with great confidence, and
ultimately faced the might of Britain with assurance that the weakness
of a British Ministry, the power of a European combination, the
interposition of the United States, or some other providential aid,
would secure the abrogation of that British suzerainty which was the
bane of his life and the chief apparent element in preventing the
supremacy in South Africa of the Dutch race in general and the
Transvaal Republic in particular.
[Sidenote: Chamberlain's Strong Policy]
But he knew not Mr. Chamberlain or the changed conditions of British
thought. He did not realize that the days of indifference to the
Colonies had passed away, and that the Colonial Office had become one
of the greatest posts in the British Government and had been
deliberately selected by one of the most ambitious and able of modern
statesmen as a suitable field for achievement and labor. He had no
idea that the retention and extension of British territory was no
longer a party question, and that the days of Granville at the Foreign
Office had as completely passed away as had those of Derby at the
Colonial Office. His very knowledge of British political life and its
see-saw system was turned into a source of error through the rapid
developments of an epoch-making decade. It must have been a shock to
him to find that an insult to the Imperial Government in the form of
his ultimatum was looked upon as an insult to a dozen other British
Governments throughout the world, and that the invasion of the soil of
Natal and Cape Colony was regarded as an assault upon the interests of
Canada and Australia as well as of Great Britain. The days of weakness
had indeed departed, and despite all the conciliatory slowness and
caution of Mr. Chamberlain during weary months of controversy the iron
hand was concealed beneath the glove of velvet and there was nowhere a
thought of surrendering that right of suzerainty which preserved and
ensured British supremacy in South Africa. The inevitable war has now
come--the struggle which the Gladstone Government shrank from in days
when the Boer Power was weak, and which Sir George Grey spoke of in its
wider sense when he declared, in 1858, after the abandonment of the
Orange River State, that "many questions might arise, in which it might
be very doubtful which of the two Governments the great mass of the
Dutch population (in Cape Colony) would obey."
[Sidenote: Uitlander's Many Grievances]
Its more immediate cause has not been the chief reason, though, of
course, the more prominent and pronounced. The position of the
Uitlander was bad enough, and the facts which have been drilled into
the public mind and explained in the dispatches of Mr. Chamberlain and
Sir Alfred Milner are sufficiently explicit. Since 1895 the hundred
thousand aliens--chiefly British subjects--established in Johannesburg
and at the mines have been subjected to every restriction of liberty
which is conceivably possible. None of the rights of self-government
pledged in the Conventions of 1881 and 1884 have been given them or
rendered possible in any succeeding period worthy of consideration.
The press had been gagged and public discussion prevented; the Courts
had been made subservient to the Boer Volksraad and the money raised in
taxes applied upon armaments directed against Great Britain and the
Uitlander. No attention had been paid to industrial development or
financial security and the drink traffic amongst the natives had been
openly encouraged. No protection had been given to individual
Englishmen and their families by the Boer Police and education had
become a matter of Dutch language and Dutch methods. Roman Catholics
were excluded from even the faintest chance of obtaining the franchise
and monopolies were publicly sold to Hollander favorites and
adventurers. Heavier and heavier burdens of taxes have been laid upon
the Uitlanders--poll tax, railway tax, road tax, miner's claims,
digger's license, prospector's license. An enactment made in 1894, in
addition to the five years' residence required of adult aliens,
declared that the children of such, though born in the Transvaal, must
wait fourteen years after making claim for the right to vote. The
respectable, educated Hindoo merchants had been classed with and
treated with the same contempt as the indentured coolies. These things
were surely cause enough for Mr. Chamberlain's intervention, and more
than cause for his sustained effort to obtain equal rights for British
men.
[Sidenote: Causes of the War]
Nominally, therefore, the failure to modify these grievances and abuses
of the Uitlander was the cause of the condition out of which war came.
Practically, the cause was in the distant past, in the character of the
Boer, the development of his peculiar history, the British mistakes of
1836, 1852 and 1877, the aggressive Dutch pride of recent years, the
historical hatred of the English, the growth of military resources in
the Transvaal, the evolution of the Afrikander Bund, the determination
to create a Dutch South Africa. The means for success, even to the
most utterly ignorant and intensely vain Dutchman, were not apparent
until the gold mines of the Witwatersrand paved the way and the
revenues of the little State rose in the following ratio from $889,000
in 1885--the year preceding the discoveries--to nearly $25,000,000 in
the year 1897:
1886 ............... $1,902,165 1892 ............... $6,279,145
1887 ............... 3,342,175 1893 ............... 8,513,420
1888 ............... 4,422,200 1894 ............... 11,238,640
1889 ............... 7,887,225 1895 ............... 17,699,775
1890 ............... 6,145,300 1896 ............... 22,660,970
1891 ............... 4.835.955 1897 ............... 24,432,495
[Sidenote: Misappropriation of Taxes]
For an assumed Boer population of little more than 200,000, the
expenditure of this large sum would have been difficult under ordinary
and honest conditions of government. Nothing, practically was expended
upon the Uitlanders, from whom the revenue came, and nothing upon the
800,000 Kaffirs in the country. Nothing was spent upon the development
of natural resources, and but little upon the extension of railways,
etc. Of this $120,000,000, in round numbers, it might be fair to allow
$3,000,000 per annum for ordinary purposes of administration and
development during the twelve years, or one million per annum more than
had been spent by the Free State in any year of the same period. It
would then be reasonably safe to assume that the remaining $84,000,000,
and the acquired indebtedness of $13,000,000, have been spent upon
fortifications, armament, subsidies to foreign papers and politicians
and salaries to Hollander adventurers. It is in this connection a
curious fact that the imports to the Transvaal in 1898 were over a
hundred millions in value, with no recorded exports--except gold, of
which the production in 1897 was over $85,000,000. These imports must
have consisted very largely of ammunition and military supplies, as the
Boers are not a people who use extraneous products or luxuries. Of
course, the Uitlanders were responsible for a portion; but the great
bulk must have been made up of articles very different from the usual
commodities of peaceful commerce. Such was the state of affairs, in a
brief summary, which led up to the diplomatic crash between Mr.
Chamberlain and President Kruger, to the negotiations conducted by Sir
Alfred Milner and the two Presidents, and to the invasion of the
British Colonies on the eleventh of October, 1899.
[Illustration: LT.-COL. T. D. B. EVANS, Canadian Mounted Rifles in
South Africa. LT.-COL. F. L. LESSARD, Commanding Royal Canadian
Dragoons in South Africa. LIEUT. JAMES C. MASON, First Canadian
Contingent in South Africa. LIEUT.-COL. A. M. COSBY Commanding 48th
Royal Highlanders, Toronto, and his two sons in the Second Contingent
in South Africa--Lieut. F. Lorne Cosby and Norman W. Cosby]
[Illustration: COLONEL BADEN-POWELL. GENERAL FRENCH]
CHAPTER XIII.
The Colonies and the War.
One of the most striking and perhaps important historical features of
the South African crisis of 1899 was the sentiment of sympathy
expressed by other parts of the Empire and the co-operation offered, or
given, by the Colonies in the ensuing conflict. The number of men who
actually participated from Canada, or Australia, or New Zealand was not
great. But the possibilities of aid shown by the enthusiasm in
despatching the Contingents, the keen interest taken in the origin and
nature of the war, the sudden recognition of Colonial responsibilities
for the defence of the Empire, and the fresh and vivid appreciation of
the vast Imperial burdens of Great Britain, were exceedingly and
vitally important. Some three thousand men went from Canada and over
five thousand from the Australian Colonies and New Zealand. Ceylon
contributed Contingents and troops were offered by the Malay States,
Lagos, Hong Kong, the West Indies and the leading Princes of India.
When it was found that colored forces could not well be accepted the
various native Governments of India proffered money, armament and
horses; while Lumsden's Horse was raised and equipped amongst the white
population.
[Sidenote: Australians and Canadians in the Soudan]
The history of the sudden movement which resulted in the sending of
these Contingents from the Colonies is most interesting. To
participate in the defence of the Empire was not, it is true, an
absolutely new thing. In 1885 New South Wales had sent some troops
from Sydney to share in the Soudan campaign for the relief of Gordon
and they had duly received their baptism of hardship and
disappointment. They left Australian shores amid scenes of wild
enthusiasm and under the initiative of Mr. W. Bede Dalley, an eloquent
Irishman who was then Acting-Premier of New South Wales; and they were
received in a similar manner on their return. At the same time there
had been carping criticism of the action taken, a certain amount of
political discontent amongst the Radical element in the Colony had
existed, and in some measure a reaction took place after the war was
all over. There were not wanting bitter opponents of Imperial unity to
prophecy that it was the last force which would ever leave Sydney to
fight the battles of Britain. But there were other Colonies in
Australasia besides New South Wales and, even there, the little wail of
the pessimist was soon neutralized. Dalley died shortly afterwards,
though he had lived long enough to receive the blue-ribbon of political
honour--a place in the Imperial Privy Council; and to be given after
his death a commemorative tablet in St. Paul's Cathedral and a lasting
place in British history. At this time, also, Canada sent a small
force of _voyageurs_ or boatmen, under the command of
Lieutenant-Colonel F. C. Denison, to help Wolseley's troops in their
difficult expedition up the Nile. But it was neither a Government
action nor one which the public had thought much about, and it
consequently wielded little influence, although the Canadians did their
duty well and received the warm approbation of Lord Wolseley.
[Sidenote: Canadians in the Wars With the United States]
Of course, the country had fought for the Crown in days of war with the
United States, and in 1812-14 nearly every able-bodied man in the
British Provinces had stood beside the scattered line of British
regulars in defence of their hearths and homes. They were doing then
what 10,000 Cape Colonists and 5000 of the men of Natal are doing in
the present war. But it was, of course, a struggle upon Canadian soil
just as the little rebellions of 1837 in Upper and Lower Canada, the
Red River troubles of 1870, the Saskatchewan rebellion of 1886, or the
Fenian Raids of 1866, had been. So far as Canada was concerned,
therefore, no real precedent existed for the Imperialist demonstrations
of 1899. Large numbers of Indian troops--chiefly Sikhs and
Ghoorkas--had, it is true, been brought to Malta in 1878 by Lord
Beaconsfield and Europe in this way electrified by a revelation of
unexpected British military resources; while similar Contingents had
been used against Arabi in Egypt and during the expedition up the Nile.
In a naval sense too, the Australian Colonies had led the way in
contributing to the Imperial defence system of the seas by paying for
the maintenance of a British fleet on the Australasian station from
1887 onwards. But this exhausts all possible comparisons, or partial
precedents, and to those who know the Canadian sentiment of a few years
since regarding Imperial armaments and the assumption of increased
defensive responsibilities the present situation seems very striking.
[Sidenote: Change of Sentiment in the Dominion Since 1885]
I had something to do with the movement for Imperial Federation which
commenced in the Dominion in 1885, and, with many others, shared in the
missionary work done during succeeding years. It is without
hesitation, therefore, that I assert the greatest of the early
obstacles, experienced by the advocates of closer union with Great
Britain, to have been the fear of compulsory participation in wars of
all kinds and in all parts of the world with which, perhaps, Canadian
interests might have little connection and Canadian feeling no
particular sympathy. The change of sentiment since then has been very
great. It had already been shown in other ways by such official action
as the granting of a tariff preference to the Mother-Country, in 1898,
of twenty-five per cent. The war with the Boers, it should be also
remembered, was a Colonial war in which British subjects had been
attacked as they had for years been insulted and menaced and in which
the general supremacy of the Crown in an important part of the Empire
was threatened. Moreover, the liberties and equality of position asked
for by the Uitlanders in the Transvaal were of a kind which Great
Britain and Canada had a century since given to the French population
of British America with the greatest eventual success. The diplomatic
contest was, therefore, watched with continuous interest in Canada, and
local talk of volunteering for the front was only checked by a mistaken
feeling that if war came it would be but a small and insignificant
struggle.
[Sidenote: The Premier and Parliament]
But amongst military men there was a strong undercurrent of desire to
raise some kind of volunteer force for active service. In this
connection Lieutenant-Colonel S. Hughes, M.P., was particularly
enthusiastic. He introduced the subject in Parliament, on July 12th,
while negotiations were still pending between President Kruger and Mr.
Chamberlain. The result was that, despite the fact of Queensland
having already offered troops and his own expression of opinion that
five thousand men would readily volunteer in Canada, it was thought
best not to take any immediate action, and the Premier, Sir Wilfrid
Laurier, expressed the hope and belief that in view of the absolute
justice of the Uitlanders' claims, recognition would eventually be
given them and war averted. On July 31st more definite action was
taken, and the following Resolution moved in the House of Commons by
Sir Wilfrid Laurier and seconded by the Hon. G. E. Foster in the
absence, but with the approval of, Sir Charles Tupper as Leader of the
Opposition, was carried unanimously:
"That this House has viewed with regret the complications which have
arisen in the Transvaal Republic, of which Her Majesty is Suzerain,
from the refusal to accord to Her Majesty's subjects now settled in
that region an adequate participation in its Government.
"That this House has learned with still greater regret that the
condition of things there existing has resulted in intolerable
oppression and has produced great and dangerous excitement among
several classes of Her Majesty's subjects in Her South African
possessions.
"That this House, representing a people which has largely succeeded, by
the adoption of the principle of conceding equal political rights to
every portion of the population, in harmonizing estrangements and in
producing general content with the existing system of government,
desires to express its sympathy with the efforts of Her Majesty's
Imperial authorities to obtain for the subjects of Her Majesty who have
taken up their abode in the Transvaal such measure of justice and
political recognition as may be found necessary to secure them in the
full possession of equal rights and liberties."
[Sidenote: Popular Enthusiasm]
The members, after passing the motion, sprang to their feet and sang
"God Save the Queen" amid a scene of striking enthusiasm which was
duplicated a little later in the Senate. Following this expression of
feeling Colonel Hughes endeavored, upon his own responsibility, to
raise a regiment for foreign service and in doing so naturally came
into collision with the head of the Militia--Major-General E. T. H.
Hutton. The result of this enthusiastic rashness was, of course,
failure in the attempt though at the same time, he was able to afford a
distinct indication of the general feeling in favour of something being
done should war break out. Leading papers took up the subject and
favoured the sending of a force in case of necessity and, on October
2d, a few days before the war began, a large and representative meeting
of Militia officers was held in Toronto and the following Resolution
passed with unanimity and enthusiasm on motion of Lieutenant-Colonels
George T. Denison and James Mason: "That the members of the Canadian
Military Institute, feeling that it is a clear and definite duty for
all British possessions to show their willingness to contribute in the
common defence in case of need, express the hope that, in view of
impending hostilities in South Africa, the Government of Canada will
promptly offer a contingent of Canadian Militia to assist in supporting
the interests of our Empire in that country." On the following day the
Prime Minister was interviewed at Ottawa, and expressed the opinion
that it would be unconstitutional for the Militia, or a portion of it,
to be sent out of Canada without the permission of Parliament, and that
it would take some weeks to call that body together. Sir Wilfrid
Laurier declared[1] that "there is no doubt as to the attitude of the
Government on all questions that mean menace to British interests, but
in this present case our limitations are very clearly defined. And so
it is that we have not offered a Canadian Contingent to the Home
authorities." Meantime, however, the matter had been under
consideration, all the independent offers to serve from individuals or
regiments had been duly forwarded to the Colonial Office, and each had
received the stereotyped reply that while negotiations were in progress
no further troops were required.
[1] Toronto _Globe_, October 4, 1899.
[Sidenote: Forces Sent with Great Enthusiasm]
Public sentiment soon proved too strong for what might have been in
other circumstances a legitimate constitutional delay. On September
27th Sir Charles Tupper, in a speech at Halifax, offered the Government
the fullest support of the Conservative Opposition in the sending of a
Contingent, and on October 6th telegraphed the Premier to the same
effect. The British Empire League in Canada passed a Resolution
declaring that the time had come when all parts of the Queen's
dominions should share in the defence of British interests, and the St.
John _Telegraph_--a strong Liberal paper--declared on September 30th
that "Canada should not only send a force to the Transvaal, but should
maintain it in the field." The Montreal _Star_ sought and received
telegrams from the Mayor of nearly every town in the Dominion endorsing
the proposal to dispatch military assistance to fellow-subjects in
South Africa. Mr. J. W. Johnston, Mayor of Belleville, represented the
general tone of these multitudinous messages in the words: "It is felt
that the Dominion, being a partner in the Empire, should bear Imperial
responsibilities as well as share in Imperial honors and protection."
The Toronto _Globe_--the leading Ontario Liberal paper--also supported
the proposal, and soon the country from Halifax to Vancouver was
stirred as it had not been since the North-west Rebellion of
1885--perhaps as it has never been in the sense of covering the entire
Dominion.
[Sidenote: The Opposition Which Occurred]
There was, inevitably, some opposition, and it was largely voiced by
the Hon. J. Israel Tarte, Minister of Public Works in the Dominion
Government. It was not a note of disloyalty; it was simply the
expression of a lack of enthusiasm and the magnifying of constitutional
dangers or difficulties. No one in Canada expected the French
Canadians, amongst whom Mr. Tarte was a party leader, to look upon the
matter with just the same warmth of feeling as actuated English
Canadians; and very few believed that the absence of this enthusiasm
indicated any sentiment of disloyalty to the Crown or to the country.
The people of Quebec had not yet been educated up to the point of
participation in British wars and Imperial defence; they were, as a
matter of fact, in much the same position that the people of Ontario
had been in ten or fifteen years before. The influences making for
closer Empire unity could never in their case include a racial link or
evolve from a common language and literature. The most and best that
could be expected was a passive and not distinctly unfriendly
acquiescence in the new and important departure from precedent and
practice which was evidenced by the announcement, on October 12th, that
a Canadian Contingent had been accepted by the Imperial Government and
was to be dispatched to South Africa. There was no active opposition
to the proposal except from a section of the French-Canadian press
edited by Frenchmen from Paris, and from a Member of Parliament who
resigned his seat as a protest and was afterwards re-elected by
acclamation--both parties deeming it wisest to treat the matter as of
no importance. Mr. Tarte eventually fell into line with his
colleagues, but with the public announcement that he did not approve
the principle of sending troops abroad without Parliamentary sanction;
that he had obtained the Government's approval to an official statement
that this action was not to be considered as a precedent; and that he
thought the only way to adequately meet similar situations in future
was by definite and permanent arrangement with the Imperial authorities
and representation in Imperial Councils. Upon the subject as a whole
his attitude was certainly logical and loyal, but in effect it was
untimely, unpopular and unnecessary. And the continued utterances of
his paper--_La Patrie_, of Montreal--were of a nature calculated to
irritate loyal sentiment and arouse serious misapprehension amongst
French Canadians.
However, the feeling of the country generally was too fervent to permit
of this obstacle having anything more than an ephemeral and passing
influence. And any opposition which might exist amongst French
Canadians assumed an essentially passive character. Toward the end of
October an already announced pledge from an anonymous friend of Sir
Charles Tupper's to insure the life of each member of the Contingent to
the extent of $1,000, was redeemed, and on October 24th the following
message was received through the Secretary of State for the Colonies:
"Her Majesty the Queen desires to thank the people of her Dominion of
Canada for their striking manifestation of loyalty and patriotism in
their voluntary offer to send troops to co-operate with Her Majesty's
Imperial forces in maintaining her position and the rights of British
subjects in South Africa. She wishes the troops Godspeed and a safe
return." The first Contingent of one thousand men steamed down the St.
Lawrence from Quebec on October 30th, after farewell banquets to the
officers and an ovation from immense crowds in the gaily decorated
streets of the "Ancient Capital." For weeks before this date little
divisions of 50, or 100, or 125 men had been leaving their respective
local centres amidst excitement such as Canada had never witnessed
before. St. John and Halifax, on the Atlantic coast, were met by
Victoria and Vancouver, on the shores of the Pacific, in a wild
outburst of patriotic enthusiasm. Toronto and Winnipeg responded for
the centre of the Dominion, and at the Quebec "send-off" there were
delegations and individual representatives from all parts of the
country. Every village which contributed a soldier to the Contingent
also added to the wave of popular feeling by marking his departure as
an event of serious import, while Patriotic Funds of every kind were
started and well maintained throughout the country. It was, indeed, a
manifestation of the military and Imperial spirit such as Canadians had
never dreamed of seeing, and for many months the words upon every lip
were those of the popular air, "Soldiers of the Queen." To quote the
Hon. F. W. Borden, Minister of Militia and Defence, at the Quebec
Banquet on October 29th: "This was a people's movement, not that of any
Government or party; it emanated from the whole people of Canada, and
it is being endorsed by them as shown by the words and deeds of the
people at all points where the troops started from." The Earl of
Minto, as Governor-General, in bidding official farewell to the troops
on the succeeding day, expressed the same idea, and added, in words of
serious importance when coming from the Queen's Representative and
bearing indirectly upon the much-discussed question of alleged
Government hesitancy in making the first offer of military aid, that:
[Sidenote: An Act of Loyalty]
"The people of Canada had shown that they had no inclination to discuss
the quibbles of Colonial responsibility. They had unmistakably asked
that their loyal offers be made known, and rejoiced in their gracious
acceptance. In so doing surely they had opened a new chapter in the
history of our Empire. They freely made their military gift to the
Imperial cause to share the privations and dangers and glories of the
Imperial army. They had insisted on giving vent to an expression of
sentimental Imperial unity, which might perhaps hereafter prove more
binding than any written Imperial constitution."
[Illustration: THE LONDON CONTINGENT OF THE CANADIAN TRANSVAAL
REGIMENT. MAJOR D. STEWART ON THE LEFT]
[Illustration: GROUP OF OFFICERS CANADIAN TRANSVAAL CONTINGENT. PLATE
I]
[Sidenote: Canadians, Australians and British Comrades]
The principal officers of the Contingent were its Commander,
Lieut.-Colonel W. D. Otter, who had seen active service in the
North-west Rebellion, Lieut.-Colonel Lawrence Buchan, Lieut.-Colonel O.
C. C. Pelletier, Major J. C. MacDougall and Major S. J. A. Denison,
afterwards appointed to Lord Roberts' Staff. The troopship _Sardinian_
arrived at Cape Town on the the 29th of November, and the Canadians
were given a splendid reception--Sir Alfred Milner cabling Lord Minto
that: "The people here showed in unmistakable manner their appreciation
of the sympathy and help of Canada in their hour of trial." The
Regiment was at once sent up to De Aar, and later on to Belmont, the
scene of Lord Methuen's gallant fight. From here a portion of the
Canadian troops took part in a successful raid upon Sunnyside, a place
some distance away, where there was an encampment of Boers. A number
of the enemy were captured, but the incident was chiefly memorable as
the first time in history, as well as in the war itself, when Canadians
and Australians have fought side by side with British regular troops.
Meanwhile public feeling in Canada seemed to favor the sending of
further aid, and its feasibility was more than shown by the thousands
who had volunteered for the first Contingent over and above those
selected. But it was not until some of the earlier reverses of the war
took place that the offer of a second Contingent was pressed upon the
Home Government. On November 8th, however, it was declined for the
moment, and a week later Mr. Chamberlain wrote the following expressive
words to the Governor-General:
"The great enthusiasm and the general eagerness to take an active part
in the military expedition which has unfortunately been found necessary
for the maintenance of British rights and interests in South Africa
have afforded much gratification to Her Majesty's Government and the
people of this country. The desire exhibited to share in the risks and
burdens of empire has been welcomed not only as a proof of the staunch
loyalty of the Dominion and of its sympathy with the policy pursued by
Her Majesty's Government in South Africa, but also as an expression of
that growing feeling of the unity and solidarity of the Empire which
has marked the relations of the Mother Country with the Colonies during
recent years."
[Sidenote: Additional Contingents Sent]
On December 18th events in South Africa and the pressure of loyal
proffers of aid from Australia and elsewhere induced the Imperial
Government to change its mind, the Second Contingent was accepted, and
once again the call to arms resounded throughout Canada. The first
Regiment had been composed of infantry, the second was made up of
artillery and cavalry. Eventually, it was decided to send 1,220 men,
together with horses, guns and complete equipment, and they duly left
for the Cape in detachments toward the end of January and in the
beginning of February. A third force of 400 mounted men was recruited
in the latter month and sent to the seat of war fully equipped and with
all expenses paid through the personal and patriotic generosity of Lord
Strathcona and Mount Royal, the Canadian High Commissioner in London.
In addition to "Strathcona's Horse" another independent force of 125
men was offered in similar fashion by the British Columbia Provincial
Government and duly accepted at London and Ottawa, while a movement was
commenced to proffer an organized Dominion Brigade of 10,000 men, if
required. Little wonder, when such a popular spirit was shown, and
when the anxiety to enlist and the influence used to obtain a chance of
going to the front were greater than men show to obtain positions of
permanent financial value, that Lord Roberts, shortly after his
appointment to South Africa, should have cabled his expression of
belief that: "The action of Canada will always be a glorious page in
the history of the sons of the Empire. I look for great things from
the men she has sent and is sending to the front." Meantime even the
slightest opposition to the policy of aiding the Empire had died
out--in fact, its assertion would have been dangerous, or at least
unpleasant, and when Parliament met early in February the Government
announced its intention of asking a vote of two million dollars for
expenses in the despatch of the Contingents and for the payment after
their return, or to their heirs, of an addition to the ordinary wage of
the British soldier. This brief description of Canada's action during
an eventful period may be concluded by a quotation from the speech of
the Hon. G. W. Ross, Prime Minister of Ontario, at a banquet given in
Toronto on December 21st to Mr. J. G. H. Bergeron, P.M., of Montreal--a
French-Canadian who also expressed in fervent terms what he believed to
be the loyalty of his people to the British Crown. Mr. Ross declared
in emphatic and eloquent language that:
[Sidenote: "Canada and the Empire"]
"It is not for us to say that one or two Contingents should be sent to
the Transvaal, but to say to Great Britain that all our money and all
our men are at the disposal of the British Empire. It is not for us to
balance questions of Parliamentary procedure when Britain's interests
are at stake, but to respond to the call that has been sent throughout
the whole Empire and to show that in this western bulwark of the Empire
there are men as ready to stand by her as were her men at Waterloo. It
is not for us to be pessimists, but to have undying faith in British
power and steadily to maintain the integrity of her Empire. He hoped
that the present strife might soon pass, and that at its close
Canadians will feel that they have done their duty to the flag that has
protected them and under whose paternal Government they have prospered
in the past. Their motto should be 'Canada and the Empire, one and
inseparable, now and forever.'"
Throughout Australasia, from the commencement of the crisis, there was
great interest taken in the question. The press and the public
discussed its phases with ever-increasing sympathy for the British
cause and the liberties of the Uitlanders. There has always been in
recent years much good feeling between these Colonies--partly from the
development of trade, partly from Australian admiration of Cecil
Rhodes, partly from the common ties of life in a tropical or
semi-tropical climate, partly from the keen and mutual interest felt in
Gordon during his last lonely campaign in the deserts of Northern
Africa, partly from such incidents as the proffer by the Rhodes'
Ministry of financial aid to the Australian Governments during the
banking crises of 1893. The relation in sentiment and practice has, in
fact, been much closer than that between Canada and the Cape, although
the desire to help in time of need could hardly be greater. During the
earlier period of the controversy public meetings were held to discuss
its details in the various capitals of Australia and New Zealand, and
resolutions passed somewhat in the terms of the following motion,
proposed by Sir Henry Wrixon, M.L.C., seconded by the President of the
Chamber of Commerce, and accepted with enthusiasm by a great gathering
in the Melbourne Town Hall, on May 16, 1899:
"Twenty-one thousand British subjects in the Transvaal having
petitioned the Queen through the High Commissioner, Sir Alfred Milner,
to extend her protection to them, to cause an inquiry to be held into
their grievances, to secure the reform of abuses, and to obtain
substantial guarantees from the Transvaal Government and recognition of
the petitioners' rights, this meeting desires to record its sympathy
with their fellow-countrymen in the Transvaal, and hopes that Her
Majesty may be pleased to grant the prayer of her subjects."
[Sidenote: Australia's Sympathy]
With the progress of events this feeling of sympathy grew stronger, and
culminated in a wave of military and loyal enthusiasm such as few had
thought possible and none had considered probable. In July the
Governments began to consider the subject of active participation in
what seemed to be an impending struggle, and troops were offered to the
Imperial authorities in the following order: Queensland on July 11th,
Victoria on July 12th, New South Wales on July 21st, New Zealand on
September 28th, Western Australia on October 5th, Tasmania on October
9th, South Australia on October 13th. The first offers were declined,
for the time being, on the ground that it was hoped war would be
averted and that, meanwhile, it was not desirable to assume an openly
hostile attitude. The Legislature which first moved actively in the
direction of organization was that of New Zealand, and the speeches of
its leaders on September 28th indicate the general view taken by the
people themselves. The Premier, the Right Hon. R. J. Seddon, declared
that "the Colony shared the privileges of the Empire, and ought to
share its responsibilities." The Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. W.
R. Russell, supported the action of the Government strongly, and
declared that "the Colony was loyal at heart to the Imperial idea. It
was not merely the sending of a few men, for the power of England was
more than enough to cope with the trouble. He hoped the British flag
would float over South Africa, and that another empire like India would
be formed in that part of the world. The present proposal would do
more to consolidate the Empire than any speeches of politicians."
[Sidenote: A Meeting of the Colonies of Australia] Meanwhile an
agitation commenced in Australia proper for a federal, or united,
contingent, and culminated on September 28th in a meeting of the
Military Commandants of the various Colonies at Melbourne. Victoria
was represented by Major-General Sir Charles Holled-Smith, K.C.M.G.,
C.B.; New South Wales, by Major-General G. A. French, C.M.G.;
Queensland, by Major-General H. Gunter; Western Australia, by Colonel
G. H. Chippendall; Tasmania, by Colonel W. V. Legge; South Australia,
by Colonel J. Stuart. A plan was carefully evolved and submitted to
the respective Governments, but was frustrated at the last moment by
the hesitancy of the recently formed Ministry in New South Wales. Mr.
W. J. Lyne had not long since defeated the Right Hon. G. H. Reid in the
Legislature, and did not seem to know his own mind upon this new
subject; or else he was seriously afraid of a possibly hostile Labor
vote. At any rate, he refused to move in the matter until Parliament
met again, and gave reasons not dissimilar to those adduced in Canada
by Sir Wilfrid Laurier for the brief delay which afterwards occurred at
Ottawa. On October 5th it was announced that the Queensland offer of
troops, made some three months before, had been accepted, and that the
voluntary proffer of service by some seventy-five Mounted Rifles from
New South Wales, who happened to have been drilling at Aldershot, had
also been considered favorably by the War Office. On October 10th this
latter body marched through the streets of London on its way to the
front with bands playing and banners fluttering to the breeze, and amid
a reception which the city seldom accords to events of less importance
than a state visit of the Queen or the departure of an army. It was
not the little line of mounted men in the characteristic uniform of the
Australasian trooper that caused a manifestation of almost
unprecedented popular enthusiasm from the densely crowded streets of
the metropolis; it was the fact that this tiny force represented a
living loyalty in the breasts of Colonists in great countries all
around the globe. Naturally such a "send-off" had its effect in
Australia, and a week later the Melbourne _Argus_ was able to say with
patriotic enthusiasm regarding the universal desire to aid the Mother
Country that:
[Sidenote: Australia's Appreciation of England's Protection]
"The event shows to the world that the Empire, as a whole, will stand
and fall together. Nothing appears to have impressed our critics more
than the ease with which 10,000 men could be withdrawn from India and
landed at the scene of action, and the Canadian and Australian
demonstrations indicate also that there are still larger reserves
(though not so complete) to draw upon. And we in Australia know that
the feeling is reciprocal. We realize that, while we are ready to make
real sacrifices for Great Britain if she requires them, the Mother
Country would exhaust her last man and her last shilling to guard our
Austral shores from insult or injury. Saturday week will be one of the
memorable days in the history of the Empire. It will imply that
British victories in future will not be merely insular, but that the
Colonies, by sharing the perils, will earn a right to share also the
triumphs of the flag."
[Sidenote: Various Contingents Leave for Africa]
As in Canada, every little town and village and country centre
contributed its quota of enthusiasm and recruits, from end to end of
the island-continent, throughout little Tasmania and in beautiful New
Zealand. The latter Colony was the first to get its troops away, and
on October 21st they sailed from Wellington amid scenes of wild
enthusiasm and in the presence of 25,000 people. The Governor, the
Earl of Ranfurly, briefly addressed the Contingent, and, during the
Premier's speech, when he asked the significant question: "Shall our
kindred in the Transvaal be free?" there was a tremendous shout of
"yes" from thousands of throats. A few days later the Governor
received a cable from the Colonial Secretary expressing the
gratification of Her Majesty's Government at home and the appreciation
of the people generally. The Queensland troops left on October 28th
under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Ricardo, and Brisbane, for the time
being, was the home of immense masses of people and the scene of
banquets, speeches and unlimited enthusiasm. From Melbourne, Sydney,
Adelaide and Perth the various other Contingents sailed about the same
time and amid scenes such as the pen finds it hard to describe in cold
type. It was literally a wave of patriotism in which the Governors and
Premiers--Lord Brassey and Sir George Turner, of Victoria, Earl
Beauchamp and the Hon. W. J. Lyne, of New South Wales, Lord Tennyson
and the Right Hon. C. C. Kingston, of South Australia, Sir Gerard Smith
and Sir John Forrest, of Western Australia--simply represented in their
speeches the feeling of the people, and were supported in doing so by
Opposition Leaders and by every important element in their respective
Colonies; even the Labor organizations having fallen into line where,
in some cases, they had been antagonistic. The Sydney _Daily
Telegraph_ declared, in this connection that "the remarkable
demonstrations in the two great cities of Australia (Melbourne and
Sydney) on Saturday must have convinced the most callous soul of the
deep-seated hold which the idea of Empire has upon the people.... In
offering troops to Great Britain for service in South Africa the
underlying feeling is that we are part of the Empire whose supremacy in
one part of the globe is threatened." Lord Brassey, in addressing the
Victorian and Tasmanian Contingents on October 28th at Melbourne,
clearly and eloquently voiced the same sentiment:
"It was not through apprehension for the peace and security of
Australia, nor through the influence of Governors, or Ministers, or a
few men in positions of power, of wealth and responsibility. It was
under the irresistible impulse of popular feeling that the resolve was
taken to offer Her Majesty the services of her citizen soldiers
dwelling beneath the Southern Cross. On the shores of South Africa you
will wheel into line with the Canadian Contingent. All this marks an
epoch, I would rather say a turning-point, in British history. It
speaks of the firm resolve of the people of the Empire on which the sun
never sets to stand together, and in the hour of stress and strain to
rally round the old flag. It is a noble and wise resolve. It makes us
from this time forward absolutely secure against foreign aggression."
[Sidenote: The Empire a Unit]
The total force thus despatched numbered 1480 officers and men, and
included 386 from New South Wales, 258 from Queensland, 250 from
Victoria, 213 from New Zealand, 104 from South Australia and 80 from
Tasmania, besides the troop of Lancers from Aldershot. In connection
with the latter body, which, of course, was the first of the external
Colonial volunteers to arrive at Cape Town, the _Cape Times_ of
November 3d declared that they "come to us as a symbol of something
greater and deeper and more durable than any display of military power
or of patriotic ardor. Their presence represents in concrete form the
Imperial idea, never before expressed with such forcefulness and
vigor." As in Canada, Patriotic Funds were everywhere started, and
before long hundreds of thousands of dollars were subscribed for the
aid of sick and wounded or of possible widows and orphans. Incidents
of striking generosity were many. Mr. R. L. Tooth, of New South Wales,
subscribed $50,000; a South Australian gentleman gave $5,000 for the
purchase of horses; a Victorian officer gave $5,000 for the equipment
of new troops; a citizen of Sydney gave $15,000 toward sending out a
force of Bush-riders, and another contributed $25,000 for the same
purpose. By the middle of January, 1900, the various Patriotic Funds
had assumed large proportions--that of Sydney, N.S.W., being $115,000;
Brisbane and Queensland, $80,000; New Zealand, $300,000; Melbourne,
$50,000. Meantime the first reverses of the war had occurred in South
Africa, and the feelings of the people been greatly and deeply stirred
by the news. Second Contingents were at once offered by all the
Colonies, and upon this occasion the effort to combine them as one
federal body was successful.
[Sidenote: Large Funds Raised in the Colonies]
The general sentiment was well expressed by a motion of the Queensland
Legislative Assembly, on December 20th, which was proposed by the
Premier and seconded by the Leader of the Labor party. It expressed
the pride of the Colony in the splendid gallantry of the British troops
in South Africa, authorized the Government to co-operate with the other
Colonies in despatching an additional Australian force, and was carried
unanimously amidst great cheering. At first it was proposed that a
thousand men should go from the combined Colonies; then it was found
that each Colony was anxious to send more than was thus provided for;
and eventually 1,700 men were despatched by the middle of January, of
whom New South Wales alone contributed seven hundred. But this was not
all. Continued preparations were made for the despatch of more troops.
On January 11th the Premier of Queensland telegraphed to Mr. Lyne, at
Sydney, suggesting that the second Contingent should be increased so as
to ultimately form a body of 5,000 men. To this the New South Wales
Premier agreed, but pointed out at the same time that his Colony was
already increasing its contribution to 840 men, besides 500 Bush-riders
who were being sent by private subscription, and that many more were
being drilled for service. Mr. McLean, of Victoria, replied to a
similar telegram that: "I do not think that the number of our
Contingent should be limited. We will send men as rapidly as they are
trained and equipped." In saying farewell to the second New Zealand
Contingent of 242 officers and men, on January 20th, the Premier of
that Colony declared that another would follow, and that "if occasion
arose every man who could bear arms in the Colony would volunteer; as
in helping the Empire in South Africa they were securing New Zealand
and upholding the Queen, the country and the constitution." By the
middle of February 1,000 Bush-riders were also trained and equipped and
almost ready to embark as a special Contingent from Queensland,
Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales.
[Sidenote: Cause for Demonstrations of Loyalty]
And so these revelations of patriotic feeling and Imperial unity have
gone on in increasing volume from day to day. To theorists like
Goldwin Smith, political economists like Mr. James Bryce, or
philosophical politicians such as Mr. John Morley, such demonstrations
of loyalty are incomprehensible. To the man who really understands the
history of the Empire and the evolution of its system, who reaches down
into the hearts of the people and comprehends the undercurrents of
sentiment, it is not so difficult to grasp the reasons. Speaking of
Australasia more particularly, Dr. W. H. Fitchett, the well-known
editor of the _Australasian Review of Reviews_, recently summed up a
part of the situation very concisely: "Why," he said, "have the
Colonies stood by the side of England? For Jingoism? Don't you
believe the men who tell you that. Our people are too hard-headed and
too businesslike to be carried away by mere Jingoism. They come
because they know that the Transvaal question is a Colonial question, a
question that intimately concerns all of them. To-day these little
settlements of white men, planted down on the coastline of great
continents, are able to remain secure, notwithstanding the earth-hunger
of every great Power, because the might of the Empire is behind them."
This, in part, is the reason. But there is more at the back of it than
the mere principle of self-interest. A liberty common to all the
Colonies has been threatened, a new-grown pride in the Empire was
struck at, a feeling of manly aversion to further dependence was
touched, an inherent but sometimes dormant love for the Mother Land was
aroused.
[Sidenote: Other Colonies Eager to Assist]
Nor have these manifestations of affectionate allegiance to the Crown
and the flag been limited to Australia and New Zealand and Canada.
Back on the 17th of July the Malay States volunteered a body of troops;
on the succeeding day the Lagos Settlements did the same; on the 21st
of September Hong-Kong joined in the proffer of help; later on Ceylon
offered a Contingent, and toward the end of January 130 officers and
men, completely armed and equipped, sailed from there for the Cape. As
already stated, however, it was not deemed well to use colored
soldiers, so that the loyalty of the first-named Colonies was not
utilized. Englishmen in India were keen to go to the front, and from
every rank of life and labor came the offer to serve. Finally, in
January, a mounted corps was accepted with Colonel Lumsden in command.
Not only did men in large numbers volunteer, but money in immense sums
was proffered. As native troops could not be accepted, the native
rulers, Princes and great merchants did the next best thing. They all
offered cavalry horses, money or guns. The Nizam of Haidarabad, on
December 28th, at a Vice-regal banquet in Calcutta, told Lord Curzon
that "his purse, his army and his own sword were ever ready to defend
Her Majesty's Empire." The Maharajah of Gwalior asked to be allowed to
serve on Lord Roberts' staff, and offered to send troops, horses and
transport to South Africa. The Maharajahs of Mysore and Jodpore joined
in the latter part of his request. The Maharajah of Kuch Behar wrote a
stirring letter to the Calcutta _Englishman_ proposing the enrollment
of the Indian Princes and their sons in a sort of "Empire army," and,
at the same rime, he contributed 350 guineas to the Indian Patriotic
Fund which, on January 14th, amounted to $100,000. Amongst other
contributors the Maharajah of Tagore had given 5,000 rupees.
[Sidenote: Natal Forces]
Meanwhile what of the South African Colonies? Seldom in history has
there been such a spontaneous response to the call to arms as in Natal
and Cape Colony; never has there been a more fervent belief in the
righteousness of their cause than amongst the first and greatest
sufferers from the inevitable agonies of war. The fleeing Uitlanders,
almost to a man, volunteered; and by the middle of January little
Natal, with its English population of about 40,000, had the following
list of troops in active service:
Natal Naval Volunteers . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Natal Carbineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Natal Mounted Rifles . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Border Mounted Rifles . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Umvoti Mounted Rifles . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Natal Field Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Natal Royal Rifles . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Durban Light Infantry . . . . . . . . . . . 400
Medical Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Veterinary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Natal Mounted Police (Europeans) . . . . . . 649
Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry . . . . . . 500
Bethune's Mounted Infantry . . . . . . . . . 500
Imperial Light Infantry . . . . . . . . . . 1,000
Imperial Light Horse . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Colonial Scouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Ambulance Bearers (1st Section) . . . . . . 1,000
Ambulance Bearers (2d Section) . . . . . . . 600
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7,139
[Sidenote: Cape Colony Forces]
Cape Colony, with its larger population, had, however, greater local
dangers to face from possible rebels, and men were anxious to organize
for local defence as well as for service at the front. But at the same
date as the above figures are given for Natal the mother Colony had ten
thousand men at the disposal of the General commanding the forces.
They included the Kaffrarian Rifles, with 600 men; the Queenstown
Rifles, 200 men; the Port Elizabeth Guards, 520 men; the Grahamstown
Rifles, 310 men; the Cape Town Volunteers, 3,000 men; the Kimberley
Volunteers, 200 men; and the Protectorate Regiment, 800 men. Of
Mounted Infantry there were the Cape Mounted Rifles, 800 men; Brabant's
Horse, 800 men; Cape Police, 600 men; Kaffrarian Mounted Infantry, 100
men; Frontier Mounted Rifles, 200 men; Diamond Fields' Horse, 400 men;
Mafeking Mounted Infantry, 500 men; South African Light Horse, 800 men;
Grahamstown Horse, 120 men; Rimington's Scouts, 350 men.
[Sidenote: Future of the Colonies]
Such was the remarkable military development, in a Colonial sense,
which has arisen out of the Transvaal trouble of 1899 and the ensuing
war. Its result is in the womb of the future, but there can be little
doubt as to the important effect which the evidences of loyalty and
unity thus produced must have, not only upon the constitution of the
Empire, but upon its _prestige_ and practical power. The day, indeed,
is not far distant when the Colonies will have their full share in the
Councils as well as in the defence of British dominions. The voice of
Canada in the control of matters affecting the British West Indies and
Newfoundland and Alaska, or other American interests touching the
Empire, will be then as fully understood by foreign nations to be a
great and permanent factor as will be that of Australasia in matters
connected with the Indian Empire, the New Caledonia question, or the
islands of the Pacific generally. A new and greater power in the
world's history is, in fact, being born amid the throes of South
African warfare, and the incoming century must witness developments in
this connection even more marvellous than those of the one which is
passing.
PART II.
OF VOL. I.
TROUBLE BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN
AND THE BOERS
INCLUDING THE WAR OF 1899-1900
BY
MURAT HALSTEAD
[Illustration: GENERAL SIR REDVERS BULLER, C.B. (From Photo, Charles
Knight, Aldershot). MAJOR GEN'L SIR W. S. SYMONDS (From Photo, Cowell,
Simla)]
[Illustration: BOERS HELIOGRAPHING ON THE NATAL FRONTIER]
INTRODUCTION
[Sidenote: The Origin of the Recent War]
The origin of the war breaking out in the later months of the last year
of the nineteenth century between the Boers and the British may be
traced to the famous defeat of the latter at Majuba Hill in 1881, the
influence of which was intensified by the failure of the Jameson Raid,
that had a good cause, but was irresponsible and disorderly. The Boers
were entirely persuaded by these incidental successes of their army
that they could always get the better of those they called intruders
into their own country, which they had made a long journey to find and
shed a great deal of blood of the natives to conquer. Their preference
in the two pilgrimages away from the Cape country was to become
herdsmen, raising cattle, shooting game, farming in a rude way, and
enjoying the right to which they attached great importance to hold
property in man. The first chief objection they had to the English,
who superseded the Dutch at the Cape, was that they had prejudices
against human servitude, and the slaveholders were sensitive as to
interference with their high privileges and thought themselves greatly
aggrieved that their scriptural institution was disapproved. It is
true the Boers established a civilization immensely superior to
barbarism of the natives, but they indulged all the passions of
slaveholders, and were but little advanced in civilization. Something
akin to semi-barbarism seemed the normal condition of Africa for
countless centuries, and the light dawned gradually in South Africa
from the occupancy of territory by the Dutch, the Portuguese and the
English successively, and it may be fairly said that broad daylight
came with the English, who in the lower regions of the Dark Continent
were the stronger and the more persevering antagonists of barbarous
peoples and made the greatest advancements to civilization. It was the
nerveless policy of dealing with South Africans following the British
defeat at Majuba Hill that produced in the Boers contempt for English
military capacity and the personal courage of English speaking people,
and led them to enter upon the policy of restriction of English
speaking immigrants that appeared in great numbers after the
discoveries of diamond mines and gold mines, assuming indeed that new
comers had no rights, civil or military, as citizens or squatters, that
the Boers were bound to respect. [Sidenote: Boers' Policy Against
Immigrants] So distinct was the impression the Boers made of their
exclusive policy to govern the immense territory upon which they had
settled for the purpose of raising cattle and ruling the natives, that
the circulars sent abroad in the United States by the enemies of
England to form public opinion favorable to the presumption of the
Boers, presented the specific complaint urged on behalf of the
Transvaal people and government that the British would not cease to be
subjects of their "Empire," and must not be allowed a share in local
government, because in the gold country they were three times as
numerous as the Boers themselves. It seems reasonable to say the
English had as good a right to improve upon the Transvaal methods of
aiding the good works of progressive humanity beyond the Boer
limitations as the Boers had to take grazing land and game and forests
from the original savages. The Boers made war upon the savagry and
therefore upon the natives and were intolerant in the extreme in their
exactions. There were between the original African tribes and their
earliest invaders many wars and constant rumors of wars, and bloodshed
frequently and profusely. When the diamond and gold mines that
interested the whole world were discovered, it was as righteous to work
them as it was for the Boers to open farms where there had been only
hunting grounds. The great cause of South African advancement demanded
British organization then just as it had required Boer enterprise in
the beginning.
[Sidenote: The Centre of the Diamond Mine Country]
It should be well understood for the location of influential events
that the city of Kimberley is the center of the diamond mine country.
The Boers do not seem to have had the spirit of adventure, the breadth
of understanding and the executive faculty to interest themselves
largely in the development of the unparalleled riches found under their
feet. They parted with the farms containing gold in such quantity that
they are believed to be the Ophir Land of Solomon, of which the Bible
contains a specific and most interesting account, and they, disgusted
with the discovery of this wealth, that they had the shrewdness to see
threatened their supremacy, were resentful toward the immigrants--the
gold and diamond seekers that poured into the Transvaal impetuously, as
the Americans crossed the deserts and the mountains to possess
California fifty years before.
[Sidenote: Characteristics of the Boers]
The Boers are people whose hardihood, bravery, manliness, high spirit,
marksmanship with the rifle, attachment to the soil, and content as
farmers, fortified with solemn appreciation of religious duty, compel
respect, but they are at fault in their attitude of determined
obstruction of progress in the Dark Continent that is chiefly committed
to the English. They interfere not merely with the people who have
found and worked the most productive mines of diamonds and gold ever
known, they have held those who have done in Africa what the Americans
did in their acquisitiveness in Mexico in contempt, and in the name of
a "free republic" have been apostles of class and personal tyranny and
ruthless in regard to the rights of those who have enriched their
country and the world with their adventurous industry--with their
organization of prospecting, engineering machinery, chemistry,
transportation and mastery of the elements and forces that have in
great and good works in Europe and America crowded a millennium into
the nineteenth century.
It is easy to assert that as people cannot eat precious stones and
metals, the things that are most beautiful and costly are less useful
than corn and potatoes, and yet the human race for several thousand
years has attached importance to the sands and rocks that have yielded
diamonds in Golconda and Brazil and gold in California and Australia;
and it is a record and tradition that the gold of California gave the
nations of the earth "Californian good times," a phrase that was
historical and an inspiration, and significant of the prosperity of the
people of the generation that had its enjoyment. The diamond cannot be
converted into food save by exchange, for the dust of the ground stone
is rather imperishable than palatable and nourishing, but it is "a
thing of beauty" that is "a joy forever;" and even if the prejudices of
the Boers were inflamed against the most beautiful and enduring forms
of value, that should not commend them as heroes of civilization; and
it does not prove their Republicanism to refuse the rights of
self-government to a people certainly among the most enlightened on the
earth because they are in the majority in the great and flourishing
communities, where they founded splendid cities, opened railroads and
established a commerce additional to the world's wealth of more than
one hundred millions of dollars a year. Whatever may be said to the
contrary, these achievements should command the respect of all nations
and peoples.
[Sidenote: Antagonism to English Rule]
The English speaking inhabitants of the gold and diamond country of
Africa are treated as hostiles by the Boers who were the first settlers
and slaughtered the natives, and the English are held out of favor
because they are so numerous and prosperous, and, it may be added, so
superior in their intelligence and elevated in their purposes and
resolute in their determinations, that the Boers must keep them
disarmed and deny them the ballot and all consideration in local
affairs. The English offense is that they have made the country
flourish, have built cities in deserts, spanned rivers and penetrated
mountains with roads of steel. These improvements may be bad for the
peculiar civilization and hardy endowments of the Boers, but do not
seem to vindicate the belligerent rancher in his ferocious antagonism
to those who are leading in their day and generation those affairs that
are working out the betterment of the race of man. There are
boundaries that must be removed for the broad benefits of the general
welfare of mankind that the forces of the age may overcome the most
stubborn resistance to the triumphant processes by which civilization
spreads abroad and acquires stability.
It is the semi-barbarous theory that gold and diamond hunters are
offenders against liberty, that it is the holy duty of the Boers as
cattle drivers and stalkers of game, to reduce intrusive English
speaking people to a subordination down to the level of the native
tribes, so that they may not become masters over the aristocracy of the
African cowboys. What better title is there anywhere for
self-government than a people in the majority? This is most obvious
where racial questions arise, and there is more and more declared the
rights of men under the sanction and rule of the majority to govern
themselves. A higher civilization, greater property and educational
qualifications and the output of "wealth beyond the dreams of avarice,"
are incidental to and co-operate with majority government in South
Africa. But all this on behalf of Boerdom is denied.
The English have possessed a great quantity of land in Africa, and they
are justified by the establishment of comparative peace under stable
form of government, by the increase of prosperity of the people,
irrespective of race or previous condition of servitude or of shades of
color. The ancient despotism at the Cape which was a prohibition of
progress, for it was the tyranny of an absolute monopoly, has been
swept away; and there has been growth in human liberty as well as
augmentation of wealth and comfort, and there is white light on the
dismal shores of the Dark Continent.
[Sidenote: English Government in South Africa]
It has been the English policy to form a federation of colonies
pressing by steady and encouraged advancement of the sovereign rights
of intelligent people, forming states in South Africa. The objection
to this first urged is that the British have insisted upon the flag of
the Empire over the movement. That flag has not prevented the
wonderful growth of Australia, for that world newly risen from the seas
has become of imperial proportions. Under that flag in this new world
are more remarkable experiments undertaken, testing the theories of
municipal socialism and industrial unity than in any other part of the
globe. Under the same flag the population of India has doubled. The
inference is that it would not blast the bloom of Africa.
The racial complications on South Africa demand for the greatest good
of the people at large (and we include in that phrase the greatest
number of people) that the best form the rule of the land can take is
that of British supremacy--this positively for an indefinite period of
transition. It has been the British policy to set apart for natives a
vast tract of good land, and that would seem to be better and more
human than to devote them to extermination, unless they themselves
insist upon exterminating others. In Natal over 500 miles of railroads
have been constructed. These roads connect with harbors at Cape Town
and Durban. The improvement of the country has turned out to the
advantage of the military operations of the British. Good roads are a
great help to a people, but, it must be admitted, they do favor the
rapid movement of masses of armed men in these days as they did in
those of the Romans.
[Sidenote: A Few Telling Statistics]
Consider the simple statistics of the productions of the territory
contested between the British and the Boers. The yield of the diamond
mines in 1897 was valued at $21,676,776, and the gold of the White
Water range region in 1899, if the output continued as in September,
was closely estimated at $76,647,375, putting that territory at the
head of the gold producing regions of the world. With order, security
for industry and its varied fruits, fair play for men of all races, the
gold yield by the Transvaal would speedily equal one hundred millions
annually. It is the result of an investigation by the use of the
drills and the chemistry of experts that there is a certainty in the
soil of an amount of gold equal to 3,500 millions of dollars, and
probably a great deal more; and this addition to the metal that is the
world's standard of value in the greater commercial and military
transactions would, according to the logic of all examples in history,
be a guarantee of good times for those identified with all the
productive industries in the shops and on the farms. The yield of
diamonds will be equal to the demands of trade, whatever it is. The
store of them in the soil about Kimberley seems to be inexhaustible.
It is these tremendous endowments of nature in the heart of South
Africa that caused the immigration there, and has aroused the cupidity
and excited the ambition of the Boers, causing them to array themselves
against the growth of communities whose importance has been increasing
so fast as to threaten the rule of the caste that has held the
Transvaal with an iron hand.
[Sidenote: A Plea Unworthy of Consideration]
The very plea of the Boers that the English speaking people are too
numerous to trust with the right of suffrage and too rich to be allowed
a share of self-government, and that the discovery and developments of
mines of gold and diamonds, the most concentrated and attractive forms
of the wealth of Nature, is unworthy not only of deference but of
consideration. It is opposed to the spirit and substance of the
surprising realizations of the century that have made it the most
memorable epoch in the history of man in the appropriation of the
resources of the earth he inherits. Never until now has mankind had
the labor and capital, the courage, the machinery, the intelligence, or
the tools provided by marvelous inventions--the conquering capacity to
give the gigantic continent of Africa--nearly 12,000,000 square
miles--into the hands of the people who need room for industry, thus
making an addition to the good land available for the lucrative
employment of countless millions through the coming ages.
[Sidenote: A Magnificent Project]
There is one people, and one only on earth, that has the ability and
the purpose, the will and the force, the experience and the energy to
make this gift to mankind, and that power is the British Empire.
Whatever the resources or the ambition or the faculties of other great
nations, none with the exception of Great Britain is so situated as to
make it possible to do this. British influence and territory, from the
Cape of Good Hope to the mouth of the Nile, are interrupted by a space
less than 600 miles, and 480 miles of that are navigable water! The
British have thousands of miles of railroad there now, and the work to
pierce Africa with lines of steel, on the lines of longitude, is under
way. Less than the cost of the war caused by the obstruction of
English enterprise in Africa by the boorishness of the Boers would have
completed a safe and magnificent highway from Cape Town to Alexandria.
After all, war will not stop, but will promote that project. The study
of the war history will so advertise the marvels of Africa that the
money will be found to build the road and its branches from the
Mediterranean to the South Sea, and that speedily; and this will be
recorded as one of the mightiest works of man--one that profoundly
interests all nations and all races.
[Sidenote: England cannot Give up Africa]
England cannot afford to give up Egypt or South Africa, and, of course,
will not do it, for there she fights for India, and for every form and
feature of her imperialism. The world could not afford to have her
give up Africa. If she was weak enough to be willing to do it, that
weakness would mark her decline and declare her fall. The British
Empire is the chosen instrument of Providence that rough-hews the ends
of the earth, and that includes the conquest of Africa, for the sake of
mankind. That Empire is the only one that has the enabling equipment
to do the work, and the advancement will be the achievement of one of
the proudest and most beneficent of all victories of men for man.
A great deal of the journalism of the world is wickedly and wretchedly
wrong and extremely misleading in its treatment of this superb and
lofty theme. The Boers have been cruelly deceived by interludes of
feebleness displayed in the government of England, permitting a halting
interference with the perpetuation of the policy that has made the
British Empire what it is. It was this unfaithfulness that sacrificed
Gordon at Khartoum. It is the same sort of moral malady, a choice of
that which is inadequate, that would have surrendered the Philippines
to an impostor and prevented the expansion of American commerce in Asia.
The Boers are men of strength and generously sustained with many
virtues, but they have had the misfortune to be trained in narrow ways
and are forced by deplorable circumstances of environment to fight for
a cause without hope, for it is one that is against the courses of the
stars and the irresistible currents of the forward movements of our
generation--against the mastery of the world by man for man's own sake.
This awful war is the bitter fruit of a want of candor among the
nations and the races that have enlightenment, and of the incapacity of
the obstructionists in South Africa to resist the blandishments of the
crude vanity and the criminality of the tyranny that is based upon the
ignorance whose violent presumption sheds the blood of heroes, but may
not change the majestic progress of the twentieth century, in which all
the living nations and vital people, the Boers and the British, shall
participate--for it is duty and destiny.
[Sidenote: Opinions of the Canadians]
The substantial unanimity of the Colonial people in the support of the
British Empire in asserting the rights of British civilization in South
Africa as imperative, is an impressive circumstance and shows the
solidity of the people of English speech--when the intense advocacy of
the independent nationality of Ireland is eliminated--in support of the
African policy of the British government. In the Dominion the
contention between the party of the Administration and that of the
Opposition is whether the one or the other has been the more zealous
and practical friends of the Empire. There is not as much diversity of
opinion and heat of political friction in British Africa over the
continuance of the colonial system, supplemented by conquest, if
needful, in the African crisis of the Empire, as there is in the United
States in applying to the Philippine Archipelago, the great principles
of the fathers that the Republic shall grow continuously as the
generations come and go. The people of the United States, however, can
better afford to refrain from accepting the goods the gods have
provided for them in Asiatic waters and for the expansion and
cultivation of our commerce with Asia and the increase of our puissance
on the Pacific--than England can to be balked, beaten and discredited
in Africa, which is the land of the great hereafter of Europeans, next
to Europe itself.
The people of the United States can put aside their sublime opportunity
of gaining at a stroke advantages on the greater ocean of the globe,
that any other people would consider it irrational and suicidal to
abandon, and yet go on, though it would be a collapse of ambition for
Americans to acquiesce in conservative stagnation instead of moving on
ever westward. They have possessions on and in the Pacific, including
the states of California, Oregon and Washington, the territory of
Alaska and the Aleutian, Hawaiian and Philippine Islands, greater than
any other people. Why should they be bounded in enterprise in the way
all the stars have led, any more than eastward whence comes the light
of day? England can no more consent to give up Africa than yield
India, Egypt, Malta, Gibraltar, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle
of Wight. Indeed the greater growth of England's hereafter is in
Africa, or the end of her greatness and the grave of her glory is there.
MURAT HALSTEAD.
CHAPTER I.
The Battle of Majuba Hill.
[Sidenote: Lord Rosebery's Reflections]
The Earl of Rosebery, under date of October 11, 1899, wrote
that he could speak "without touching politics, for a
situation had been created beyond party polemics, and it was
needless to discuss how we could best have attained our simple
and reasonable object of rescuing our fellow-countrymen in the
Transvaal from intolerable conditions of
subjection and injustice, and of securing equal rights
for the white races in South Africa, for an ultimatum
has been addressed to Great Britain by the South African
Republic which is in itself a declaration of war."
Lord Rosebery continued that the people would close their
ranks and relegate party controversy to a more convenient season,
and there was in addition this to say: "Without attempting to
judge the policy which concluded a peace after the reverse at Majuba
Hill, I am bound to state my profound conviction that there is no
conceivable Government in this country which could repeat it."
In a speech at Bath, unveiling the mural tablets to the Earl of
Chatham and William Pitt, Mr. Gladstone's brilliant lieutenant and
successor said of the Boer ultimatum, it was such as, he thought,
the proudest empire in the world would have hesitated about
sending. But since the commencement of the war the Boers had
engaged in the strange policy of issuing decrees of annexation of
British territory, which were, apparently, desirable additions to the
Republic of the Transvaal.
[Sidenote: Lord Rosebery's Speech at Bath]
There had been a great misunderstanding about the Majuba
Hill transaction. It was a mere skirmish, and concurrently with
that there was an attempt on the part of the then Government to
settle peaceably the issue in the Transvaal. Now, whatever they
might think of the result of that attempt, the thing in itself was a
sublime experiment. Mr. Gladstone, with his overpowering
conviction of the might and power of England, thought that she could
do things which other nations could not do, and, therefore,
endeavored to treat with the Boers after the reverse which took place.
We knew how Mr. Gladstone's magnanimity was rewarded. He
(Lord Rosebery) felt a deep misgiving at the
time in respect to this course of policy, and
his fears had been realized in the result. The
Boers had regarded that magnanimity as a proof of weakness,
and they rewarded Mr. Gladstone's magnanimity with a deliberate
and constant encroachment on the terms of the settlement. Then
there came the discovery of gold. If they might judge from all
that they had read, the income secured by the discovery of gold
produced great corruption in the Transvaal. The bill of
salaries--public salaries in the Transvaal--amounted, on a calculation, to
about £40 a head of the population, and it could not but be
considered that that was a liberal allowance for the working of so
simple a republican Government. The Jameson raid was not
merely a deplorable incident from a diplomatic point of view, but
it was also the symptom of a deplorable state of things. They might
be quite certain that no English gentleman would have engaged
in what might be called a filibustering raid had it not been for the
strong cry of distress that proceeded from within the Transvaal.
But it was unfortunate from many points of view. In the
first place, it gave the Transvaal Government very much the best of
the argument. They had then a great grievance to complain of, and
we in those circumstances could not urge those grievances of which
our subjects had to complain. In the meantime, almost all the
taxation of the country was drawn from our fellow-countrymen--the
very people who were not subjects of the Transvaal. Our
fellow-subjects combined in vain for the most elementary form of
education. They were losing face, so to speak, in the eyes of the
natives and of the world at large. And the most important
element of all was beginning to attract attention--which was that
with the money derived from the gold the Transvaal Government
was gradually piling up a great military power, armed to the teeth.
That was a standing menace to to our dominion. If it had
continued we should have had to consider whether we who rule so
many nations were to become a subject nation in our turn in South
Africa; and had we become a subject nation, or remained even in
the position in which we were, it was scarcely possible to doubt
that we should have lost South Africa itself.
[Sidenote: The Sting of Majuba Hill]
Nothing has happened showing more distinctly than Lord
Rosebery's utterance, the sting that has rankled
in England of the unfortunate campaign that
closed in the surrender at Majuba Hill; and
the history of that event, with the influential circumstances
before and after, has been obscured rather than cleared by the
strenuous spirit of controversy on both sides. Every point is
contested except the defeat of the British. The Boers claim that 120
of their riflemen assailed the British soldiers and made prisoners
of them, though they were 600 strong. The British version is that
they were caught in an untenable position and overwhelming forces,
outnumbering them four to one, were their assailants. There is
bitter feeling in the British Army on the relative responsibilities of
disaster, and the reinforcements sent from England, arriving at Cape
Town soon after the battle were in a desperate state of
dissatisfaction with the peacemaking that followed, and felt themselves
not only aggrieved but insulted.
[Sidenote: The Gordon Highlanders at Majuba Hill]
A despatch from Bombay about
the embarkation to take part in the present Boer and British war
of the Gordon Highlanders, contained the following: "The stern,
grim Highlanders were curiously quiet. Every Englishman who
saw them knew the reason. The Gordons are one of the finest
regiments in the army. They have a splendid fighting record. But
in the last Boer war a strong detachment of the Second Battery
broke and turned on the bloody hill of Majuba. It was an
inexplicable occurrence, for the men were bronzed veterans who had just
fought their way through Afghanistan and made the famous march
with Lord Roberts from Kabul to Kandahar. The regiment has
brooded over the stain for nineteen years. No man has ever dared
to mention Majuba before a Gordon Highlander.
Everyone who saw them embark this morning
knew what their rigid faces portended. Their
chance had come. This time there would be no mistake.
Highlanders have long memories and the 'Gay Gordons' are
in the mood to allow themselves to be hewn to pieces rather
than take a single step backward before the Boers or any
other foe."
[Sidenote: An Eyewitness About Majuba Hill]
John Boyd of Galt, who was of the Gordon Highlanders
Regiment for 21 years, regards this as a "foul aspersion." He says
of his old regiment:
"Its reputation can dispense with both personality and
egotism. Its deeds speak for themselves, and at Majuba Hill the
bonnie Gordons upheld their honor and glory. I was there, and I
know that I speak truth. As distinctly as if the events took place
yesterday, I remember all that occurred on that awful night, when
121 Gordon Highlanders braved thousands of enemies in ambush.
I am not exaggerating. Hundreds of Boers were concealed on the
hill, while 2000 lay hidden across the nek, and pitted against such
overwhelming odds were 100 Highlanders, and barely 300 other
troops.
"And the writer of that London dispatch says that we
'broke and turned'; that, in short, we retreated. Let me tell you
that of the 121 Gordons, 60 were killed or wounded, and 27 were
taken prisoners. And these men who fought against fate, yet
who--I solemnly declare--stood their ground to the last, are accused
of showing the white feather. Dead men tell no tales, nor can
they defend themselves from such calumnies. But how, I ask,
could they play the craven when one-half were stark and stiff,
dying, as they had lived, for their country? And of the handful
who escaped the Boers and their bullets all
were on the hill when morning broke. I was
one, with a wounded comrade at my side.
"I am not in the habit of talking of what I have or have not
done, nor do I proclaim from the housetops the Gordons' enviable
past. But I was with them at Majuba Hill; in spirit I am with
them now; and the man who says that the Ninety-second ever
disgraced its colors or its Queen, does the regiment a grievous
wrong, and himself a greater one."
The claims of Great Britain to sovereignty in the Orange
Free State were withdrawn in 1854, and this seemed to give
additional force to the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877, and that,
it must be admitted, was in a sense a mistake, because it was done
under the impression that the Boers really desired it. That was
evidently an error when the time came for the fulfillment of the
policy, but what amount of demagogy occurred in the meantime to
change the sentiments of the ruling class of the Transvaal is a
matter of doubt; and there are other difficulties that do not
necessarily enter into the consideration of the subject.
[Sidenote: Proclamation of President Steyn]
The proclamation of President Steyn of the Orange Free
State entering unreservedly into an alliance, defensive and offensive,
with the Transvaal Boers, states with vehemence the principles
contended for and the attitude assumed in antagonism with the
British during the present conflict. President
Steyn said that the Orange Free State was
bound "with the sister republic not only by
ties of blood, of sympathy and of common interests, but also
by formal treaty, which has been necessitated by circumstances.
This treaty demands of us that we assist her if she should be
unjustly attacked, which we unfortunately for a long time have had
too much reason to expect;" and President Steyn added:
[Sidenote: What the Proclamation Charges]
"Our own unfortunate experiences in the past have also made
it sufficiently clear to us that we cannot rely on the most solemn
promises and agreements of Great Britain when she has at her
helm a Government prepared to trample on treaties, to look for
feigned pretext for every violation of good faith by her committed.
This is proved among other things by the unjust and unlawful
British intervention after we had overcome an armed and barbarous
black tribe on our eastern frontier, as also by the forcible appropriation
of the dominion over part of our territory where the discovery
of diamonds had caused the desire for this appropriation, although
contrary to existing treaties. The desire and
intention to trample on our rights as an
independent and sovereign nation, notwithstanding
a solemn convention existing between this State and Great
Britain, have also been more than once and are now again
shown by the present Government by giving expressions in public
documents to an unfounded claim of paramountcy over the whole
of South Africa, and therefore also over this State."
[Illustration: ADVANCE OF THE GORDONS AGAINST THE BOERS AT ELANDSLAAGTE,
OCTOBER 21, 1899.
THE BATTLE OF ELANDSLAAGTE--THE DEVONS, MANCHESTERS AND GORDONS
CHARGING BOER GUNS]
[Illustration: A COLUMN OF THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE
MARCHING TO MAFEKING.
THE ILL-FATED TENTH MULE BATTERY CAPTURED BY THE BOERS
(From Photo by H. Johnstone)]
The Orange proclamation charges that it is the discovery of
gold mines in the country that causes the claims made upon the
Republic, and adds:
"The consequence of these claims would be, moreover, that
the greater part of the power will be placed in the hands of those
who, foreigners by birth, enjoy the privilege of depriving the
country of its chief treasure while they have never shown any
loyalty to a foreign government. Besides, the inevitable
consequence of the acceptance of these claims would be that the
independence of the country as a self-governing, independent sovereign
republic would be irreparably lost."
[Sidenote: Boers not Capable of Modern Mining]
This statement does not seem to be made in the fullness of
candor. The Transvaal people are not capable of working gold
mines by the modern methods. They are essentially the masters
of cattle ranches and of farming in an
extensive and rather rude way. Their country is
much like Western Kansas, New Mexico and
Colorado in some respects; and the interest they have taken
in the gold mines has been not to get the gold by digging for it.
They have neither capital nor labor to put into the mining operations,
but they have insisted upon their pre-eminence in authority
and profited through the taxation of the gold product and of the
accumulations of property by the British, and held the immigrants
to the gold region to be intrusive and a disagreeable and
troublesome people who must be subordinated, because they were
adequate in the business of mining, the methods of which have
become exceedingly complicated. Unquestionably the Boers have
got more gold than they would have acquired if they had worked
the mines for themselves. The Newcastle _Chronicle_, one of the
most important provincial papers of England, because it is
assuredly representative of the public opinion of the country, says
plainly in reply to the proclamations of the Boers and of the
President of the Orange State:
[Sidenote: Newcastle "Chronicle" on the War]
"We are fighting to prevent men of British blood from being
treated as 'helots' on British territory by a sordid oligarchy which
British arms saved from extinction and British generosity endowed
with autonomy.
"We are at war for the purpose of preventing our brethren
in South Africa from being taxed without representation; from
being placed under the control of courts whose judges take their
orders from a corrupt Executive; from being
refused the right to carry arms while their
oppressors flourish theirs with insolent brutality;
from being compelled to contribute to schools in which
English is treated as a foreign tongue; in short, from being denied
the elementary rights of self-government in territory undoubtedly
British.
"We ask no privilege for ourselves that we would not give
to the Boers, but we will not submit to be ostracized and
domineered over in our own dominions.
"We cherish no revengeful feelings.
"The British flag is the herald of mercy as well as might.
"But we will have justice for our countrymen and control of
our own Empire, come what may."
The language of President Steyn as to gold mines is: "The
British Government, now that gold mines of immense value have
been discovered in the country, make claims on the republic, the
consequences of which, if allowed, will be that those who or whose
forefathers have saved the country from barbarism and have won
it for civilization with their blood and tears, will lose their control
over the interests of the country to which they were justly entitled
according to divine and human laws."
[Sidenote: The First Right to the Transvaal Gold]
The British resent as the greatest injustice the accusation that
they are fighting expressly for the diamond and gold mines, that,
indeed, are already the property of the English speaking people
who discovered and developed them. As the claim of proprietorship
is made by President Steyn, it amounts to the announcement
of the confiscation of this property if the Almighty, whom they
call upon so familiarly, gives them the victory they solicit in their
prayers. If we must go back to the beginning, the aborigines
have the first right to the precious stones and metals, if the rights
of discovery, investment and labor are to be absolutely disregarded.
There is an unyielding spirit on both sides, and war has
been in the air and unavoidable ever since that
English aberration which the Earl of Roseberry
called the "sublime experiment of Mr. Gladstone
in magnanimity" after the Majuba Hill defeat of the British.
There is no question that the fight must be fought out. The
issues are racial and radical.
The war that ended in the magnanimous policy after the
defeat at Majuba Hill began with the Boer's resistance to taxation.
They are as determined not to be taxed by others without
representation as they are to tax others and refuse representation,
because they have the power to do it or make war. Having
subjugated and in a great measure enslaved the natives, it seems to be
the temper and the passion of their lives to treat the English as
inferiors and forbid them to exercise local authority, or assert that
they have rights beyond those of paying for being on the ground.
[Sidenote: The Broukhorst Spruit Affair]
The first of the war, when the English assumed to have
annexed the Transvaal, was caused by the seizure of a Boer wagon.
A great wagon and a string of oxen are to the Boer almost sacred
objects, and his sense of propriety of an immense structure on
wheels drawn by ten long-horned oxen, propelled with a whip, the
handle as long as a fishing pole, is something extraordinary. The
Boers rose at once and took the wagon from the Sheriff, resisting
what the Uitlanders have been resenting. They had suspected
trouble was ahead and prepared for it, collecting
ammunition and storing it in their wagons.
A portion of the Ninety-fourth British Regulars
was stationed at Leydenburg, north and east of Pretoria, and
ordered to go to that city, The Boers came to the warlike
resolution to oppose the march of the British, and ordered them to
halt, with the placid purpose of discussing an accommodation, but
the commander of the detachment of the Ninety-fourth had his
orders and proceeded. A fight ensued, and the British, after
suffering severe losses, were surrounded and surrendered. This was
the Broukhorst Spruit affair.
[Sidenote: The Laing's Nek]
Mr. Gladstone was at the time too deeply interested in Irish
affairs to give much attention to those in Africa, and Sir George
Colley, who had been appointed High Commander over the Transvaal
and Natal, took charge of the leading responsibilities. Sir
George had visited Pretoria in 1875, and thought public opinion
favorable to British rule over the Transvaal. When he heard of
the Boers fighting for their wagons to be free, he collected available
troops and led them into the difficult country encountered in
advancing from Natal to the Transvaal. The Boer forces upon
Natal territory commanded the pass across Laing's Nek. In
January, 1881, Sir George attacked the pass
and fought on the precise plan followed by the
British officers in the present war. First he
used the artillery, shelling the Burghers, followed it up by an
infantry attack straight in front, while the mounted men made
flank diversions. The Boers stood shelling as well then as
recently, met the assaults in front with a deadly fire, and soon stood
off the mounted men, endeavoring to turn the flanks. The Boers
were very successful in picking off the gunners of Sir George's
artillery, and his attacks proved failures all around.
[Sidenote: Majuba Hill]
The Burghers thought the British would have to surrender,
but they managed by great exertions to recross the Ingogo River
and returned to their camp at Mount Prospect. Both sides were
of the judgment after the conflict that serious business was on hand,
and there was an informal and perhaps an involuntary suspension
of hostilities, with a great deal of talk about making peace.
Sir Evelyn Wood was on his way to take command, and Sir George
Colley concluding not to wait for him, made a rush for the summit
of Majuba on the night of February 26th, 1881, and, dragging
artillery, reached the table-land at the top, after excessive
exertion. The plateau contains about four acres,
curiously surrounded by a confusion of rocks,
and in the center is a considerable depression. It seemed
that the capture of the mountain was a decisive success, as
the British forces had turned the position of their enemy. The
Boers were greatly surprised, their camp was overlooked by the
English. One doesn't always have an advantage over an enemy
when he gets into a high place, and it happened that the ground
was well suited to the peculiar tactics of the Boers. Instead of
retreating, there was a call for volunteers to attack the British, and
the matchless riflemen of the Transvaal were ardent and energetic
in undertaking the seemingly desperate but really rather simple
task before them. They took shelter behind the rocks, and, by
rushes and dodges reached the fringe of stones that were like a
framing beam around the plateau of four acres at the top with the
depression in it, and then it appeared the British were entrapped
in their position that they had sought, believing that it was one
that commanded the situation. The fringe of rocks became a ring
of fire. Sir George was killed and his troops defeated as decidedly
as Braddock's regulars were by the French and Indians near
Pittsburg.
The camp of Sir George at Mount Prospect is distinguished
now for the cypress trees that surround his grave. After his fall
there was no intelligent resistance by his forces. They were simply
shot down by the Boers from their ambuscade in the tumbled
rocks, until the slaughter was terminated by a surrender.[1]
[Sidenote: Terms of Settlement]
This called Mr. Gladstone's attention to the conditions in
South Africa, and it was his understanding that the majesty of
England was so great that she could afford to
do anything that he thought was right. The
President of the Orange Free State became
useful as a mediator, and terms of settlement, to which
Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Kruger, then Vice President of the Transvaal,
with some minor disagreements omitted, were signed on the 24th
of March, subject to ratification by the Transvaal Volksraad; and
Sir Frederick Roberts, with reinforcements, met peace men at
Cape Town. Mr. Kruger, Pretorius and Joubert had a good deal
of trouble to carry the terms of settlement in the Boers'
representative Assembly, for they had conceived ideas of sovereignty, and
their successes appeared to warrant them in extensive assertions of
themselves. They were very pressing for further concessions
from Mr. Gladstone, and had a list of points of their dissatisfaction
with the protocol that had been signed. The leading objection
they made was the reference of foreign affairs to British
supervision; Mr. Gladstone, however, insisted upon that. It was the
Boers' idea the British should have nothing to do with the
Transvaal, that there was to be no interference in any form with the
legislation of the country, whether it was about foreign or domestic
affairs. The negotiations were terminated by a continuation of the
truce, and the gold discoveries and increasing importance of the
Uitlanders caused a succession of difficulties and exasperations,
culminating at last in the Jameson Raid, and, after an intermission
of disquietude, the war that is on.
When the death of Sir George Colley, the High Commissioner
in Southeastern Africa, occurred on Majuba Hill, it developed upon
Sir Evelyn Wood to become Governor of Natal, and his Chief of
Staff was Sir Redvers Buller. It was a very distasteful task that
Sir Evelyn Wood and Sir Redvers Buller had, to talk peace in the
shadow of British defeat, but they did their duty in that respect.
In the course of the adjustments Sir Redvers and Mr. Kruger,
President of the Transvaal, met personally, but the negotiations
were fruitless until President Rand, of the Orange Free State,
exerted his mediating capacity and won great reputation as a
peacemaker.
[1] The British force at Majuba Hill numbered 554,
of whom three companies, 180 rifles, were of the 92nd Highlanders,
two companies, 170 rifles, of the 58th Regulars,
two companies, 140 rifles, of the 60th, and 64 rifles of the Naval Brigade.
The men carried 70 rounds of ammunition, three days rations,
great coats and blankets. General Colley made this
move hastily, and if he had perfected any plan in connection
with it, it was never known except that when he found the
top of the hill was greatly exposed to the fire of the Boers,
and that they had the advantage of position, he repeatedly
said to the men that he only wanted them to hold it
"for three days." He said to one of the officers that he meant to
return to the camp at Mount Prospect. The idea upon which
he acted seemed to be that his position on top of Majuba
Hill gave him command of the pass through which he desired
to make his way, and he meant to return to the camp and
conduct in person the movement which he believed to be
feasible when he called upon the detachment he accompanied
up the hill to make the desperate effort to get there.
The plateau he had fancied was a place of security and command,
was larger than he expected. It was nearly a mile in
circumference, and as soon as the Boer riflemen took their
positions to attack the British it was shown to be utterly
untenable and the fight from first to last was a massacre of the
British. The story that artillery was taken up the mountain
is a mistake; 200 men were detached to keep open
communication with Camp Prospect, leaving 354 to make the fearful
climb and place themselves in a helpless situation
exposed to the Boer marksmen in possession of piles of rocks
from which they could pick off their enemies. The heart
of the position was searched by a rifle fire from a ridge
at the northwest angle. There was time after reaching the top
of the hill to have used the rocks to throw up a barricade
and shelter some of the men, but it was the order of Sir George
Colley, the Commander, that the troops should rest,
and they were resting when the fire and slaughter began. Major
Wright says that when the first shot was discharged
by the British, it was ordered by General Colley; the Boers
galloped back to their camp with the news. Immediately
all the camps were like wasps' nests disturbed, and it really
was an imposing sight to see, that Sunday morning,
all turn out, fires lighted for breakfast, and then a morning hymn
sung; after which all the wagons were inspanned,
and the Boers turned out for battle. A storming party of about 200
men immediately rode under the second ridge.
By crossing round under the naval brigade's position they could do it
without being seen. There they left their horses,
and climbed up right under the hill, where we could not see them
without going to the very edge of the hill, and exposing
ourselves entirely to the fire from the two ridges. In this
position we remained till about twelve noon, the Boers climbing
towards us step by step, and I may almost say unsuspected
by any but Hamilton and myself, who could see them.
Twice I went to the General and told him we couldn't hold our
position with so few men if any serious attack were made.
All he said was, 'Hold the place three days.'"
The Commander of the Boers, General Schmidt,
told Major Douglas and Captain Cunyngham that he "had 2000
rifles in the attack." The regimental records
of the Gordon Highlanders contain this:
"About one P.M.," says Wright, "we saw some heads
appearing over the top. The 92nd rushed forward in a
body and drove them for the moment back--we lost about
fifty killed and wounded. Then, strange to say, the word to
'cease fire' came distinctly to where Hay and I were,
and immediately after, 'retire.' We all ran back to the ridge in
the middle of the hill, which allowed the Boers
to gain the hill. Then came the murder! In the meantime more Boers
came up, round where the navy men were, and began
to fire into the hospital, and so took us in rear. Hamilton and I
both went to the General and asked to be allowed to charge."
"Wait," he said, "send a volley or two first; I will give the order!"
"Hamilton then said to me, 'Let's call on the 92nd,
and charge on our own account. Are you ready, Harry?'"
"I answered, 'Yes,' drew my sword and laid it beside me."
"Macgregor (I think it was he) came up then and said,
'We've got to die now.'
"Just then I heard the General say, 'Retire in as orderly
a manner as you can,' when they all jumped up and ran
to the rear. Hay and I and two men of ours remained
where we were, all using rifles and firing our best.
"Macdonald still held his position and would not budge,
neither would we. About a quarter of an hour or twenty
minutes after the retirement, no firing had been going
on from the rest of our troops, which neither Hay nor I could
understand, as we thought by 'retiring' it was meant
to hold the brow on the east side, where the 58th were posted.
"We were now being sorely pressed, hiding our bodies
behind stones, and for another five minutes the unequal
combat went on. Then Hay said, 'The battle 's over;
we can't fight a multitude; let's try and get away.'
"So off we four started in the direction which the others
had previously taken, under a most awful volley from the
Boers on the navy side and the ridge where we had been
latterly firing at the enemy only twenty yards distant. Both
the men were killed. Hay was shot in the leg and arm,
and I was hit in the foot and turned head over heels. I had to
crawl on my stomach a yard or two back to get my rifle,
and so lost Hay, who got under cover somewhere."
General Colley was killed soon after giving the order
to fire, by a bullet that struck just over his right eye and
'made an enormous hole at the back of his head.' The Highland
account is that the General was waving a white
handkerchief when shot down. It is presumed he had
despaired of success or of withdrawing the men, and was
anxious to save them by surrender. His movement
had been so venturesome and so awkwardly handled that when the
General fell there was a great deal needing explanation
of the strategy of the operation and no one living knew anything
about it. It has been thought that General Colley,
already beaten twice by the Boers, was dazed upon realizing that
his expedition was a murderous failure; and it is believed
that while endeavoring to take care of the men, he exposed
himself purposely to secure death."
Of the Highlanders in the fight (two companies) 33
were killed and 63 wounded. Colonel Napier says:
"Although stationed some miles from Majuba Hill,
I was able, with the aid of a telescope, to see some portions of
the engagement, and I afterwards made a careful study
of the ground and positions occupied. The disaster was the
result of a series of inexcusable blunders in the art
and practice of war. In the first place, there was nothing to gain
and everything to lose by premature action.
There was no question of the enemy being reinforced,
taking the offensive,
or even shifting their position; while, on the other
hand, General Colley's strength might have been doubled within
twenty-four hours' notice by moving up troops from
Newcastle. In fact, General Wood had himself gone down to
Newcastle to bring up other regiments, and it was
during his absence that the Majuba disaster occurred. Moreover, it
was almost universally known in camp that General
Wood had desired that no offensive movement was to be undertaken
by his second in command till his return. General
Colley staked his all in occupying a position the extent and
nature of which were unknown to him, while its distance
from Laing's Nek deprived it of any value, it being out of
rifle range of the Boer lines. The General had neglected
to provide himself with mule guns, which might have been
used from Majuba heights with good effect as a covering
fire to an infantry attack from below. As it was, General
Colley, after a hard and exhausting night march, found
himself in an untenable position, with a handful of men,
composed of detachments of four distinct corps. He had
actually lost his supports and separated himself from his reserve
ammunition. When day came no systematic steps were taken
either to hold the hill or effect a retreat, although he had
four or five hours of daylight before an attack commenced."
CHAPTER II.
The President of the South African Republic.
[Sidenote: Birth, Education Etc.]
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, President of the Transvaal--the other
side of the Vaal River, is the name of the country--was born in the
Cape Colony, October 10th, 1825. It is the commendation of the
naturalist Mr. Distant, that Mr. Kruger has a "very large amount of
natural wisdom," which is the softer way of saying that he is not an
educated man, but one of the statesmen of Nature. He is, on the
authority already quoted, "undistinguished in appearance," but has "a
prodigious memory;" and "a weakness in resisting flattery and adulation
which is not good for him," because, as his will is so pronounced and
his authority so absolute, he is perpetually surrounded by the
representatives of the rascalities in a strange variety of
"concessions." The flattering description of this historical personage
is that he is "very pious and self-reliant, which is provocative of
bigotry and hot temper," and he is also "a rough diplomat of no mean
rank."
[Sidenote: A Story Picture of President Kruger]
In Fitzpatrick's "The Transvaal from Within" we find this strongly
drawn picture of Mr. Kruger:
"To an English nobleman, who in the course of an interview remarked,
'My father was a Minister of England, and twice Viceroy of Ireland,'
the old Dutchman answered, 'And my father was a shepherd!' It was not
pride rebuking pride; it was the ever-present fact which would not have
been worth mentioning but for the suggestion of the antithesis. He,
too, was a shepherd, and is--a peasant. It may be that he knows what
would be right and good for his people, and it may not; but it is sure
that he realizes that to educate would be to emancipate, to broaden
their views would be to break down the defences of their prejudices, to
let in the new leaven would be to spoil the old bread, to give unto all
men the rights of men would be to swamp forever the party which is to
him greater than the State. When one thinks on the one-century history
of this people, much is seen that accounts for their extraordinary love
of isolation, and their ingrained and passionate aversion to control;
much, too, that draws to them a world of sympathy. And when one
realizes the old Dopper President hemmed in once more by the hurrying
tide of civilization, from which his people have fled for
generations--trying to fight both Fate and Nature--standing up to stem
a tide as resistless as the eternal sea--one sees the pathos of the
picture. But this is as another generation may see it. To-day we are
too close--so close that the meaner details, the blots and flaws, are
all most plainly visible; the corruption, the insincerity, the
injustice, the barbarity--all the unlovely touches that will by and by
be forgotten, sponged away by the gentle hand of Time, when only the
picturesque will remain."
[Sidenote: Paul Kruger at ten Years]
In 1836 a company of trekkers about 300 strong, the second that crossed
the Orange River, was under the command of Hendrick Potgeiter and
attacked by native warriors, twenty-five trekkers were killed, but the
main body were warned and forming a laager of wagons with barricades of
thorn bushes. They were able to beat off the assailants. Paul Kruger,
a boy of ten years, was one of the defenders.
Henry M. Stanley, M.P., the famous African explorer, writing at
Pretoria in November, 1897, gives a graphic sketch of President Kruger,
"fully dressed in the usual black suit and little old-fashioned top
hat, smoking on the veranda of his house." This was the first glimpse
Mr. Stanley had of the great ruler upon whom he was calling, and the
historical correspondent was shown into the spacious saloon, finding
opposite to him "a large and coarse oil painting" of Kruger. Stanley
says in his striking and unreserved way:
[Sidenote: Not a Bad Likeness of President Kruger]
"The history of the painting I do not know, but as it is permitted to
be hung so prominently in the reception room, it is to be presumed that
the President and his friends regard it as a faithful likeness, and are
consequently proud of it. This small fact proved to be the ABC of my
study of the man of destiny of South Africa. It was clear that neither
Kruger nor his friends knew anything of art, for the picture was an
exaggerated reproduction of every defect in the President's homely
features, the low, narrow, unintellectual brow, over small eyes, and
heavy, massive expanse of face beneath. The man himself was almost
beautiful in comparison with the monster on the canvas, and I really
could not help pitying him for his innocent admiration of a thing that
ought to be cast into the fire. But presently the President spoke--a
mouthful of strange guttural sounds--in a voice that was like a loud
gurgle, and as the great jaws and cheeks and mouth heaved and opened, I
stole a glance at the picture, and it did not seem to me then as if the
painter had libeled the man. At any rate, the explosive dialect so
expanded the cheeks and widened the mouth, that I perceived some
resemblance to the brutal picture."
Mr. Stanley made his call, according to information about the habits of
the great natural statesman, very early, but the President of the South
African Republic had already prepared himself for the day by reading a
chapter of the Bible, and when he remarked to his visitor, "What I have
said shall be done," Stanley naively remarks he discovered in the
manner of the words, "When I learned how he had been engaged, I knew he
had been infected with the style of the Pentateuch," adding, "He has
fully arrived at that stage of life that made Mr. Gladstone so
impossible in the Cabinet. There is abundance of life and vitality in
the President, but he is so choleric that he is unable to brook
opposition. Any expression suggesting him to be mistaken in his views
or policy arouses his temper, the thunderous gurgle is emitted, the
right arm swings powerfully about, while the eyes become considerably
buried under the upper eyelids, I suppose from the photograph of him
now on sale at Pretoria, which represents his eyes looking upward, he
fancies this to be his impressive gaze. He receives a stranger with
the air of a pedagogue about to impress a new pupil, and methodically
starts to inculcate the principles of true statesmanship; but soon
heats himself with the dissertation, and breaks out in the strong
masterful style which his friends say is such a picturesque feature in
his character, and his critics call the 'humbug pose'. If by the
latter is meant the repetition of stale platitudes, and the reiteration
of promises which will never be carried out, I fear I must agree with
the critics."
[Sidenote: His Appearance and Manners]
Mr. Stanley continues: "In appearance he is only a sullen,
brutal-looking concierge, dressed in old-fashioned, ill-made black
clothes. He appears to know absolutely nothing outside of burgherdom;
he has neither manners nor taste; his only literature seems to be
limited to the Bible; he has no intrinsic excellence of character that
should appeal to the admiration of the public; but what he does know,
he knows well. He knows the simplicity of his rude and bearded
brethren of the veldt; he can play upon their fears and their creed,
with perfect effect, and it is in the nature of his ill-conditioned
personality to say 'no.' All the rest has fallen to him because he is
so stubborn, so unyielding, and others so vacillating and so pitifully
weak.
[Sidenote: The Boer of Boers]
"I do not suppose there are any people in the world so well represented
by a single prominent man as the Boers of South Africa are by Mr.
Kruger. He is pre-eminently the Boer of Boers in character, in
intellect, and in disposition, and that is one reason why he has such
absolute control over his people. His obstinacy--and no man with a
face like his could be otherwise--his people call strength. Age and
its infirmities have intensified it. His reserve--born of self-pride,
consciousness of force--limited ambitions, and self-reliance, they call
a diplomatic gift. His disposition, morose from birth, isolation
fostered by contact with his kind, is unyielding and selfish, and has
been hardened by contempt of the verbose weaklings who have measured
themselves against him."
Mr. Howard C. Hillegas is a singularly specific writer, and in his
instructive volume, "Oom Paul's People," is careful to say, and it is a
point worth making, that the President is "less than five feet seven
inches in height, body large and fat, legs thin and short, eyebrows
bushy, white and projecting half an inch. * * * When he smiles the big
fat circles above his cheeks are pushed upward, and shut his small gray
eyes from view. When pleased the President generally laughs
hilariously, and then his eyes remain closed for the greater part of a
minute. Mr. Kruger's nose and mouth are the chief features of his
face. Both are more extensive than his large face demands, but they
are such marvels in their own peculiar way as to be distinguishing
marks. The bridge of the nose grows wide as it goes outward from the
point between the eyes, and before it reaches the tip it has a gentle
upheaval. Then it spreads out on either side, and covers fully two
inches of area above his upper lip. It is not attractive, but in that
it follows the general condition of his facial landscape.
"The mouth is wide and ungainly. The constant use of a heavy pipe has
caused a deep depression on the left side of his lower lip, and gives
the whole mouth the appearance of being unbalanced. His chin is large
and prominent, and his ears correspond relatively in size and symmetry
with his face. When in repose his features are not pleasant to look
upon, but when lighted up by a smile they become rather attractive, and
generally cause his laughter to be contagious among his hearers.
"The thin line of beard which runs from ear to ear combines with the
hair on his head in forming what is not unlike a white halo around the
President's face. The lines in the man's face are deep, irregular, and
very numerous."
[Sidenote: His Daily Life and Family]
It is said this great man takes particular care of his health which is
an affair of international importance. He rises at half-past five and
drinks several cups of "intensely black coffee," and smokes several
"full pipes of very strong tobacco," reads the Bible for half an hour,
and goes to work.
Mrs. Kruger is the President's second wife, the niece of his first
wife. The first wife had one child, who is dead, and the second wife
is the mother of sixteen children, nine of whom are dead. Two sons are
living, one acting as the President's private secretary, the other one
in a responsible government position, and the President has a
son-in-law, Captain Elopp, described as several times a millionaire,
living in a $250,000 house.
In his proclamation after the Jameson Raid, President Kruger said: "I
am inexpressibly thankful to God that the despicable and treacherous
incursion into my country has been prevented, and the independence of
the republic saved, through the courage and bravery of my burghers."
The famous telegram from the Emperor of Germany to Oom Paul is highly
prized by the President. It is considered a priceless treasure, and
runs as follows:
"Received January 3rd, 1896.
"From William I.R., Berlin.
"To President Kruger, Pretoria.
"I tender you my sincere congratulations that, without appealing to the
help of friendly powers, you and your people have been successful in
opposing with your own forces the armed bands that have broken into
your country to disturb the peace, in restoring order, and in
maintaining the independence of your country against attacks from
without. "WILLIAM I.R."
[Sidenote: President Kruger's Grand Passion]
President Kruger's grand passion is hatred of the British, and he holds
them in such distrust and contempt that he refuses to see the
accredited correspondents of the principal London newspapers, but will
see an American newspaper man, emphasizing the reason why by the
statement that "they do not lie" about him and that the English do, and
he desires Americans to hear the inside of things from himself. The
first thing he asked the author of "Oom Paul's People," himself an
American newspaper correspondent, whose valuable letters were published
by Appleton & Company, was, "Have you any English blood in your veins?"
This was delivered in the Boerish dialect, and the correspondent had
been told the President always opened a conversation by inquiring as to
the health of the person introduced, and this time he got the answer
back that the English blood was abundant and good. This was considered
a portentous joke, and struck Oom Paul as extraordinarily funny. The
story of the expression of his delight is useful in its disclosure of
character. Then the correspondent was informed the old statesman was
in a better humor than he had been seen for some time, and that
anything could be got out of him. An extremely interesting
conversation followed.
The majority of the people of the United States have accepted the
newspaper celebration of President Kruger as a wonder in courage,
diplomacy, integrity, piety, and all that makes up excellent manhood.
The record of his duplicity, cunning, evasiveness and crooked
selfishness is practically excluded from those journals, and even
headlines that approximate to the truth are confined to a few papers
that care for international commentary. It is supposed that our local
market for intelligence desires a constant flavor of Boerdom.
[Sidenote: Fair Summaries of Both Sides]
The collection of historical matter--"The Transvaal from Within"--is in
terms and tone very persuasive that it has unusual merit as
truthful--giving from the records fair summaries of both sides of
disputed questions, whether they are commercial, political, racial or
personal. The author is Mr. J. P. Fitzpatrick, the publisher Mr.
William Heineman, London, and the work is brought well up to date. It
opens with a note that shows a spirit of consideration for all that is
admirable; and it is the desire of the author of this book that it
should apply thoroughly. We quote:
"It has been found impossible to avoid in this book more or less
pointed reference to certain nationalities in certain connections; for
instance, such expressions as 'the Boers,' 'the Cape Dutch,' 'the
Hollanders,' 'the Germans,' are used. The writer desires to say once
and for all that unless the contrary is obviously and deliberately
indicated, the distinctions between nationalities are intended in the
political sense only and not in the racial sense, and if by mischance
there should be found something in these pages which seems offensive,
he begs the more indulgent interpretation on the ground of a very
earnest desire to remove and not to accentuate race distinctions."
[Illustration: A HUMANE AND DARING DEED. Lieutenant L. R. Pomeroy,
when retiring to shelter at the battle of Ladysmith, November 3, 1890,
saw a wounded and dismounted trooper needing help; and regardless of
bullets and shells flying around, assisted his comrade to mount behind
him and carried him to safety. Such are the deeds that win the
_Victoria Cross_.]
[Illustration: BATTLE OF LADYSMITH--TERRIBLE DASH OF HORSE ARTILLERY
RUSHING TO TAKE UP A NEW POSITION]
The first chapter of the inside history opens with this searching
paragraph:
"When, before resorting to extreme measures to obtain what the
Uitlanders deemed to be their bare rights, the final appeal or
declaration was made on Boxing Day, 1895, in the form of the manifesto
published by the Chairman of the National Union, President Kruger,
after an attentive consideration of the document as translated to him,
remarked: 'Their rights. Yes, they'll get them--over my dead body!'
Volumes of explanation could not better illustrate the Boer attitude
and policy towards the English-speaking immigrants."
[Sidenote: A Few Facts of History]
President Burgess, the predecessor of Kruger is described in this work
as leaving the Transvaal "brokenhearted by the cruelty and mean
intrigue, the dissensions among and disloyalty of the people." He left
a statement denouncing Kruger for his intrigues to secure the
presidency for himself, and charges and proves Kruger to have been a
leader in breaking promises and betraying where he had promised
support. When the Transvaal was annexed after President Burgess'
pathetic retirement before the rising tyrant, Kruger calmly took office
under the British government, and resigned the dignity and emolument
only when refused increased remuneration for which he repeatedly
applied. The English authority during this time was undermined by
rumors incessantly circulated among the sentimentalists of English
statesmen, and having some foundation that the Transvaal would be given
up. This was preparing the way for trouble, and the weakness displayed
in England was met by what amounted to a conspiracy in the Transvaal.
Kruger's point was an artful though crude demagogy of violence against
taxation.
It was about taxes that the first English war was finally started, and
the Majuba Hill incident was preliminary to a complacent accommodation,
glossed in England as magnanimity and exalted expression of the
overwhelming power of Great Britain, but perfectly understood in the
Transvaal to mean that the British Empire was whipped and could be
kicked about at the pleasure of the powerful President.
[Sidenote: Outrages Perpetrated by Boers]
It was during the war leading down to this inglorious surrender and
false peace, that many murders were committed by Boer assassins, who
used white flags and Red Crosses to lure victims. A few incidents of
this treachery are thus specified:
"There was the murder of Green in Lydenburg, who was called to the Boer
camp, where he went unarmed and in good faith, only to have his brains
blown out by the Boer with whom he was conversing; there was the public
flogging of another Englishman by the notorious Abel Erasmus because he
was an Englishman and had British sympathies; and there were the
various white flag incidents. At Ingogo the Boers raised the white
flag, and when in response to this General Colley ordered the hoisting
of a similar flag to indicate that it was seen, a perfect hail of lead
was poured on the position where the General stood; and it was obvious
that the hoisting of the flag was merely a ruse to ascertain where the
General and his staff were. There was the ambulance affair on Majuba,
when the Boers came upon an unarmed party bearing the wounded with the
Red Cross flying over them, and after asking who they were and getting
a reply, fired a volley into the group, killing Surgeon-Major Cornish."
These are facts of history, and the Boers have played the same savage
game in all their wars with the English. The policy of Kruger has from
the first been engineered to exclude immigrants, to repel all
foreigners especially held in abhorrence by the Transvaal government,
and constantly denied civil rights associated with civilization.
After a naturalized subject "shall have been qualified to sit in the
Second Volksraad for ten years (one of the conditions for which is that
he must be thirty years of age), he may obtain the full burgher rights
or political privileges, provided the majority of burghers in his ward
will signify in writing their desire that he should obtain them, and
provided the President and Executive shall see no objection to granting
the same! It is thus clear that, assuming the Field-cornet's records
to be honestly and properly compiled, and to be available for reference
(which they are not), the immigrant, after fourteen years' probation
during which he shall have given up his own country and have been
politically emasculated, and having attained the age of at least forty
years, would have the privilege of obtaining burgher rights should he
be willing, and able to induce the majority of a hostile clique to
petition in writing on his behalf, and should he then escape the veto
of the President and Executive.
[Sidenote: The Copingstone to Mr. Kruger's Chinese Wall]
This was the coping-stone to Mr. Kruger's Chinese wall. The Uitlanders
and their children were disfranchised forever, and as far as
legislation could make it sure, the country was preserved by entail to
the families of the "Voortrekkers." The measure was only carried
because of the strenuous support given by the President both within the
Raad and at those private meetings which practically decide the
important business of the country.
The great statesman Kruger, when asked just to "open the door a little"
to outsiders, began an address in a village near Johannesburg by
saying, "Burghers, friends, thieves, murderers, newcomers and others."
The particular propriety of this was that for a long time Kruger could
not be persuaded to visit Johannesburg. He hated the flourishing,
stirring and steadily increasing city, and mistrusted the people,
because he knew that his methods could not for a great while be
submitted to by an enlightened community. He relaxed his vigilant
attitude of hostility at last so far as to become the guest of the
people of the city, and when he was civilly treated, and the fact that
the Johannesburgers had been handsome in entertainment, he reviled them
as "a set of lick-spittles."
[Sidenote: The Wise Man's Treatment of the Natives]
The style of the wise man's treatment of the natives appears in this:
The "April" case was one in which an unfortunate native named April,
having worked for a number of years for a farmer on promise of certain
payment in cattle, and having completed his term, applied for payment
and a permit to travel through the district. On some trivial pretext
this was refused him, his cattle were seized, and himself and his wives
and children forcibly retained in the service of the Boer. He appealed
in the nearest official, Field-cornet Prinsloo, who acted in a
particularly barbarous and unjustifiable manner, so that the Chief
Justice before whom the case was heard (when April, having enlisted the
sympathy of some white people, was enabled to make an appeal),
characterized Prinsloo's conduct as brutal in the extreme and a
flagrant abuse of power perpetrated with the aim of establishing
slavery. Judgment was given against Prinsloo with all costs. Within a
few days of this decision being arrived at, the President, addressing a
meeting of burghers, publicly announced that the Government had
reimbursed Prinsloo, adding, "Notwithstanding the judgment of the High
Court, we consider Prinsloo to have been right."
[Sidenote: A Misleading Reputation]
President Kruger has had provided for him a reputation that is
astonishingly misleading. His part in public affairs has been one of
vehement and vindictive self-assertion, participation in intrigue for
office and for salaries--the constant intrusion of his personality in
the rudest and most selfish ways into everything that concerns the
state, disregarding the law, and with complete indifference to the
rights of all persons except those who recognize him as their master.
Abstaining himself from intoxicating drinks, he has long sustained a
liquor ring in dispensing horrible drinks at scandalous profit. Given
to self-praise for lofty purity in matters of state, he maintained a
dynamite ring that cut off a large revenue, seemingly for no better
reason than that his friends--his sycophant friends--were of it, and he
has stooped to studied interference between employers and employed,
that he might break up reasonable relations, believing himself in a
position to profit by agitations; and in this insidious proceeding he
has used secret service funds in the organization of hostilities for
the embarrassment of employers, not because they had wronged the
laboring man, but for the reason that they were not on their knees to
him.
All this the world has accepted as manifestations of virtue, domestic
kindliness and the religious sensibilities that are always in the
public eye, that the multitude may gaze upon the goodness of the great
and good man. The sincerity of his character as a professor of piety
is not doubtful, but he carries into that, as into everything else, an
ostentatious egotism, that among some nations and peoples is regarded
as unbecoming a Christian statesman. It is fair to say of him that the
one thing in which he seems to have profound convictions in addition to
his self-esteem and hatred of English-speaking people, is in his
devotion to the doctrines of the Old Testament. He does not seem to
have made the acquaintance of the New Testament.
[Sidenote: Racial Prejudices, Racial Hatreds]
He has sought to keep apart the merchants and the miners, fearing their
united power might interfere with his characteristic proceedings. He
has lost no opportunity to promote belligerency among white laborers,
and utterly and always ignores the rights as men of the natives. When
intriguing with organized labor he has shown all the surface
indications of partnership in carrying on, as the inside historian
Fitzpatrick says, "an anticapitalist campaign with the Government
press," and also "fostering the liquor industry with its thousands of
reputable hangers on"; and more than all, he has without hesitation or
variation flagrantly indulged racial prejudices and incited racial
hatreds in South Africa, the most deplorable and dangerous possible use
of power, and he has found constant consolation and been greatly
sustained in his public pursuits by the hatred of the Whites against
the Black and Brown people. But his favorite investment and
educational enterprise is in arousing the animosities of the Boers
against the British, that they may be at the same altitude with his own.
It is to the rough violence of President Kruger, his disregard of the
laws, studied demoralization of his own courts, that he has repeatedly,
recklessly overruled with sheer brute force--his heedless refusal to
aid in the prosperous development of his own country, his gross and
violent opposition to progress of all kinds--to the extension and
protection of legitimate industries, and steadfast cares for those that
are illegitimate, and sinister participation in corrupting schemes
surrounded and inspired by the noisy congratulations of his habitual
flatterers--all this afflicting him with the elephantiasis of conceit.
It is to that and his effusion of arrogance to which we trace with
certain steps the remote sources and the rampant rushing of the war,
that is so destructive and wanton. There is no good in it, unless it
involves the downfall of the Kruger tyranny, an example of individual
caprice of a type of ruthless misgovernment, not surpassed in the
self-indulgence of those who rule the barbarous tribes of Africa or sit
on the gaudy thrones of Asia.
[Sidenote: Illustrating Specifications]
So much accusation must for full effect be illustrated by
specifications. In 1897 the Burghers, the ruling class behind
President Kruger, had heavy losses from the ravages of Rinderpest and
there followed a great work of benevolence in the shape of purchases by
the Government of a multitude of mules, to take the place of the oxen
that had perished; and there was associated with this, provision made
in "mealies," the corn of the country, to save the alleged starving.
Under a form of favoritism by a Government that was the personal
property of Mr. Kruger, anything could be done under the pretense of
saving the rulers of the land said to be suffering by pestilence and
famine. Government officials were greatly interested in the contracts
for the salvation of the people. The historian Fitzpatrick says: "The
notorious Mr. Barend Vorster, who had bribed Volksraad members with
gold watches, money and spiders, in order to secure the Selati Railway
concession, and who although denounced as a thief in the Volksraad
itself, declined to take action to clear himself and was defended by
the President, again played a prominent part. This gentleman and his
partners contracted with the Government to supply donkeys at a certain
figure apiece, the Government taking all risk of loss from the date of
purchase. The donkeys were purchased in Ireland and South America at
one-sixth of the contract price. The contractors alleged that they had
not sufficient means of their own and received an advance equal to
three-quarters of the total amount payable to them; that is to say, for
every £100 which they had to expend they received £450 as an unsecured,
advance against their profits."
Investigation of this scandal was hushed up, but the money payable
under the contracts was all exacted and all lost. There is nothing to
show that the people got any good of it. The shippers of mules
persuaded the majestical President that the health of those animals
demanded the ventilation of the upper decks, and that the vessels might
not be topheavy there must be double cargoes, mules for the bereaved
Boers on top, and food for the famine-stricken, none of whom were in
actual want, carried in the hold as ballast. Here was a double stroke
of the ingenuity of contractors, and the profit was swollen accordingly.
[Sidenote: Free and Independent Krugerism]
The benevolent President was a fierce defender of the money makers by
this transaction. There are a few figures that indicate the scientific
political economy by which the formidable President wins the affections
of the populace and guards his free state from harm. His particular
friends are in office, of course, and they have fixed salaries to a
great extent. It shows the progress made by the Government, that the
amount of those salaries was twenty-four times as great in 1899 as in
1886, having risen from £51,831, 3s. 7d., to £1,121,394, 5s. This is
the revenue that goes to the promotion and perpetuation of free and
independent Krugerism.
[Illustration: MEMBERS OF THE FIRST VOLKSRAAD, S.A.R. J. W. VanDerryst
(Bode), S. P Dutoit, A. K. Loveday, J. H. Labuschagne, J. G. G. Bassle
(Stenographer), A. J. Havinga (Ass. Bode). B. J. Vorster, J. P.
Goetser, L. Botha, J. DeGleroq, J. L. VanWiok, A. Bieperink. D. I.
Louw, I. K. DeBeer, P. I. Schutte. W. J. Fogkens, Sec., A. D.
Wolmarans, F. G. H. Wolmarans, H. M. S. Prinsloo, J. P. Meyer, J. DuP.
DeBeer, J. H. De LaReis.]
[Illustration: PRESIDENT KRUGER AND HIS CHIEF ADVISERS IN THE WAR. A.
Wolmarans, F. W. Reitz (State Secretary), S. M. Berger, J. M. H. Kock,
Com. Gen'l P. J. Joubert, President S. J. P. Kruger, P. J. Cronje
(Supt. of Natives).]
[Sidenote: President Kruger's Nepotism]
The law forbids the sale of liquor to the natives, and yet they are to
an astonishing degree habitually drunk on the Rand, and the cost of
labor in the great mines is largely increased by the disabilities of
men a great part of the time under the influence of liquor, and the men
themselves perish at a shocking rate. We quote again the historian
Fitzpatrick: "The fault rests with a corrupt and incompetent
administration. That administration is in the hands of the President's
relations and personal following. The remedy urged by the State
Secretary, State Attorney, some members of the Executive, the general
public, and the united petition of all the ministers of religion in the
country, is to entrust the administration to the State Attorney's
department and to maintain the existing law. In the face of this,
President Kruger has fought hard to have the total prohibition law
abolished and has successfully maintained his nepotism--to apply no
worse construction. In replying to a deputation of liquor dealers he
denounced the existing law as an 'immoral' one, because by restricting
the sale of liquor it deprived a number of honest people of their
livelihood--and President Kruger is an abstainer!
"The effect of this liquor trade is indescribable; the loss in money,
although enormous, is a minor consideration compared with the crimes
committed and the accidents in the mines traceable to it; and the
effect upon the native character is simply appalling."
This is a shocking indictment, and the history in it has been hidden
under a boisterous sentimentalism, to the effect that the
eccentricities of monstrous vulgarity should be accepted as the graces
of supernaturalism of true natural greatness.
[Illustration: SCENE IN MARKET SQUARE, KIMBERLEY, THE CITY OF DIAMONDS]
[Illustration: THE RICHEST DIAMOND MINES OF THE WORLD, KIMBERLEY, SOUTH
AFRICA]
CHAPTER III.
The Boers and British Gold and Diamonds.
[Sidenote: Solomon's Ophir]
Solomon obtained his supplies of gold, it is believed, from the
Transvaal. There is something more in this than imagination and
conjecture. There are two excellent harbors on the South African coast
that confronts the Indian Ocean, and in Solomon's great days he was a
"sea power" there and his ships were on the Mediterranean and the Red
Sea, so that his connection with African gold mining is not at all
improbable. The Transvaal mines are neither remote nor inaccessible
from the best ports on the coast of Eastern Africa. Solomon obtained
the "gold of Ophir," and it was by making "a navy of ships in
Ezion-Geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the
land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that
had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came
to Ophir and fetched from thence gold * * * and brought it to King
Solomon." The visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon in his glory is
testimony of the familiar splendor of his fame in Africa.
[Sidenote: How the Gold was discovered]
The Leydenburg gold fields were first made definite and certain in the
public eye by the writings of a German explorer, Herr Carl Mauch, which
attracted adventurers from California, New Zealand and Australia. In
February, 1875, the official reports in Pretoria stated that notice was
given to the Landrost of Leydenburg of the discovery of alluvial gold
between thirty and forty miles eastward of that town, which is situated
5,825 feet above the sea. In 1873 the Postmaster-General at Pretoria
received a letter from the Landdrost of Leydenburg and with it two
ounces and a half of gold. This had been found on a farm thirty miles
from Leydenburg. Other gold discoveries were soon made and among them
nuggets in the walls of mud houses. A letter was published in the
"Transvaal Advocate" giving interesting incidents of gold finding. We
quote as follows:
[Sidenote: Reports About Early Gold Finds]
"In the bed of a spruit running through the farm (Hendricksdale)
alluvial gold was found in sufficient quantity to justify the opinion
that it was present in paying quantities, and this opinion was
confirmed from day to day by the following facts:
"1st. Messrs. McLachlan, Palmer and Valentine, with two Kaffirs, and
without proper appliances, found in fourteen days the first sample of
two ounces, among which is a nugget the size of a half sovereign,
somewhat longer, but more flattened.
2nd. Mr. Valentine with two Kaffirs found and sent to the cashier of
the Standard Bank of Natal a second sample of above two ounces, in
which was a nugget as large as a middle sized bean.
"One of the farms distinguished by gold, that of Erasmus and Mullers,
was at this time hired for thirty years at £200 per annum.
"Among these hills are caves, in one of which one might travel
underground for hours, and here, in olden times, the natives sheltered
themselves and cattle in many an inter-tribal war. Skulls and bones of
men and cattle are found, and tradition, whether justly or not, brands
the occupiers as cannibals. Near some of the southern sources of the
Um Saabi, or Sabea, is the Spitz Kop, 100 feet high, under which the
first gold in the district was found, and the gold district was in
early times supposed to be about fifty miles long by eight broad, and
six or eight farms were known to have gold upon them. The gold was
found about three feet below the surface, the upper layer being red
clay; then large gravel quartz in fragments, limestone and a cindery
fused substance, like slag from a smelting furnace, but softer; below
this is a soft black soil, which when put in the box reminds one of a
mixture of tar and oil, and with this a soft white clay is found. The
quartz when pounded proved also to have gold in it, and so did the
cylinder layer, and the stones of which the cattle kraal was built
contained gold. The best finds were usually under or between the large
boulders.
[Sidenote: The Most Interesting Specimen]
"The latest testimony I can give is that I saw thirty-one ounces of
gold a day or two ago brought from McMc and Pilgrim's Rest, and that
one of my friends not long ago sent 145 ounces home. But to me the
most interesting specimen was a half ounce obtained from the country to
the southeast of Matabeleland, probably about half way between Hartley
Hill and the ruins of Mazimboeye Zimboae--or Zimbabye--of Herr Mauch,
in which direction I have reason to believe that alluvial fields as
rich as and more extensive than those of Leydenburg await the coming of
the explorer who shall unite to skill in prospecting patience,
perseverance and tact in dealing with the various native tribes, whose
friendship must be cultivated and assistance gained before the richest
of all the districts of Southeastern Africa shall be ready to surrender
its treasures to the enterprise and industry of Europe."
United States Consul Macrum writes from Pretoria to the State
Department in regard to the gold production in South Africa in 1897 and
1898:
"The Rand has at last reached and surpassed the marvelous output of
400,000 ounces of gold as the production for a single month of
twenty-eight working days. Every twenty-four hours, then, witness the
recovery of 14,250 ounces of gold, worth rather over £50,000
($243,325). The Rand total comprises only the output of mines along a
stretch of some thirty miles of country. With this statement for the
month of October, the gold winnings of the whole Republic for the ten
months of 1898 amount to 3,700,908 ounces. At this rate the total for
the whole of 1898 would be over four and a half millions.
[Sidenote: Gold Production of South Africa in 1897 and 1898]
The value of the October 423,000 ounces is £1,500,000 ($7,299,750),
which may be compared with £11,653,725 ($56,162,743), the value for all
in 1897, and £12,208,411 ($59,412,232), the value of the gold
production of the United States in the same year. Although the
combined mines of Colorado, California, Dakota, Montana, Nevada, and
Alaska put out more gold last year than did the South African Republic,
it is not likely that the Transvaal will take second place this year.
Deep levels continue on the upgrade, as their production in October was
106,426 ounces--the first time that the hundred thousand has been
exceeded. The average price of the September production was £3 16s.
($18.42) per ounce."
The yearly aggregate for eleven years was:
Ounces. Ounces.
1888 .......... 208,122 1894 .......... 2,024,162
1889 .......... 369,577 1895 .......... 2,277,685
1890 .......... 494,819 1896 .......... 2,279,827
1891 .......... 729,238 1897 .......... 3,034,678
1892 .......... 1,210,869 1898 .......... 3,700,908
1893 .......... 1,478,477
The price of gold is a few cents less than $18.50 per ounce. The
figures $18.42 often occur. Consul Macrum sent from Pretoria December
31, 1898, a report of the gold production of the South African
Republic--the Transvaal--saying:
"It must be remembered that this has been a remarkably dull year, so
far as ordinary business is concerned, and the mining companies, it is
freely said, are not working up to their full capacity; but,
nevertheless, the production and profit have been greater this year
than ever before. When the differences that are said to exist between
the Government and capital have been removed or adjusted, the
Transvaal, it is predicted, will see a most wonderful boom."
But it must be taken into account that the Boer has a soul above booms.
[Sidenote: A Clear and Impartial Statement]
Mr. O. P. Austin, Chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury
Department of the United States, gives an admirable, impartial and
clear statement of the matters of first importance in the Transvaal. A
few official, indisputable figures and simple facts put the question of
the right and wrong of the bloody war in South Africa in the right way
and yield the correct answer unmistakably. He says:
"The laws of the State are enacted by a Parliament of two chambers, the
first or higher chamber enacting a large share of the laws independent
of the lower house, which only originates measures relating to certain
subjects of administration, and which cannot become laws without the
approval of the upper house. Members of the first chamber are elected
from and by the first-class burghers, who comprise only the male whites
resident in the Republic before May, 1876, or who took an active part
in the war of independence in 1881 or subsequent wars, and the children
of such persons over the age of sixteen. This condition would deprive
persons natives of other countries of becoming "first-class burghers,"
and thus obtaining the privilege of participating in the election of
the President or the house which enacts the most important of the laws
and has a veto power upon all measures originating in the lower house.
The second-class burghers may become members of and participate in the
election of the second chamber, the second-class comprising the
naturalized male alien population and their children over the age of
sixteen. Naturalization may, according to the Statesman's Year Book,
1899, "be obtained after two years' residence and registration on the
books of the field cornet, oath of allegiance and payment of £2, and
naturalized burghers may by special resolution of the first or higher
chamber become first-class burghers twelve years after naturalization."
[Sidenote: Boss and Caste Government]
This is the rarest combination known of Boss and Caste Government. It
is an unrestrained despotism designed to perpetuate itself by favor and
force, regardless of everybody not of the ruling race and condition,
and the Englishman who would give up his rights in the Transvaal as a
British subject for the privilege of ultimate participation in the
government, even of his own town, if that town contained ten Englishmen
to the people of all other nationalities, would have to be "a man
without a country" for seven years. It was at this point that Mr.
President Kruger stood fast, peremptorily refusing the reduction of the
period of probation even two years--leaving it five, and yet the
probability is a very large number of the naturalized citizens of the
United States who would regard such a restriction in this country as a
bitter and remorseless discrimination against the foreign born, are
sympathizing with the unrelenting attitude of the Boers upon this
subject. Apply to this condition of things in the Transvaal the facts
and figures following:
[Sidenote: Facts and Figures]
The area of the Republic is 119,139 square miles; the white population,
according to the State Almanack for 1898, is 345,397, and the native
population, 748,759. The seat of government is Pretoria, with a white
population of 10,000. The largest town is Johannesburg, the mining
center of Witwatersrand gold fields, having a population within a
radius of three miles, according to the census of 1896, of 102,078
persons, of which number 50,907 were whites, 952 Malays, 4,807 Coolies
and Chinese, 42,533 Kaffirs, and 2,879 of mixed race. One-third of the
population of the Republic is estimated to be engaged in agriculture,
the lands of the Republic generally, outside the mining districts,
being extremely productive, and the demand for farm products in the
mining regions very great, even in excess of the local products at the
present time."
It does not in the least soothe the Boers that they have a good market
for their farm products, for which they are indebted almost exclusively
to English enterprise in great feats of engineering, in the application
of the most modern methods of mining, and to immense investments, in
the cheapening of transportation, and extending the capacities and
facilities of the poor as well as the rich, for swift and easy
communication with neighbors.
[Sidenote: Boer Prejudice and Intolerance]
The chief care, concern and anxiety of the Boer is that a government of
the people must not by any chance be established in Transvaal. It is
the elementary principle of the Boer disposition and government, that
there are no real "people" except Boers, who place the Hottentot, the
Englishman, the Zulu and the Kaffir, the American, the German and the
Frenchman on the same level. He will have none of them except in the
capacity of subordinates, and when it suits his humor, servants of the
established class that dominates. The native population is double that
of the number of whites, but that does not concern the Boer. His
Republicanism takes no account of people with darker skins than his
own. In the most important part of the Transvaal, the Boers themselves
are in a pronounced minority, if we take into account only the white
folks. The Boer capital, Pretoria, has a white population of 10,000;
the white population of Johannesburg is 50,907; and the great political
task and vindictive occupation of the Boers of Pretoria, the political
capital of the alleged free country, is that the select few of the
10,000 whites in that town shall rule it and Johannesburg also at their
pleasure, and according to the obstinate caprices of their will. There
were 50,000 whites in Johannesburg, and the argument the Boer advocates
have advanced in America is that the whites of that city, five times as
numerous as those of Pretoria, must not be allowed even the shadow of
the right of suffrage, because they would outvote the chosen people who
have taken the course of government upon themselves in the political
capital. It is this insistence upon an atrocious inequality that is
the elementary cause of the war. Such an oppression becomes an
intolerable condition, and there is no cure for it but the sword. Of
course, it has been a characteristic of this situation that it is
associated with a systematic tyranny at once insulting and
extortionate. [Sidenote: The "Dog in the Manger"] The Boer policy is
moderately described as that of the "dog in the manger." The 50,000
white people of Johannesburg, are disfranchised, first, because they
under the rule of the majority would be at least their own rulers and
exercising an important influence in the government of Johannesburg,
would impair the authority and destroy the prestige of the oligarchy at
Pretoria. We do not urge the fact that this majority at Johannesburg
are also the creators and possessors of the greater wealth of the
Transvaal. Property has the right of recognition as the result of
investment and industry, but it is not necessary that to protect itself
it must have political advantages out of proportion to the number of
the electors who are the property holders. So the argument for the
enfranchisement in a reasonable time of the Uitlanders of Johannesburg
rests primarily and safely upon the proposition that they could cast a
majority vote, and we do not need to call in the merits of the property
qualification or the question whether the natives have by possibility
any rational right to consideration because about sixty years ago they
were crowded out of their hunting grounds by the Boers, seeking a
country where they could own labor and assert mastery over all others,
instead of being second in importance as a people to the English of
lands further South.
[Sidenote: The Commerce of the Transvaal]
The Johannesburghers are not merely disfranchised; they are, by a
vengeful and grasping minority, excluded from the right to protect
themselves in persons and property. It is a great fault in them that
they did not arm themselves and march to Pretoria to receive and
reinforce the Jameson raiders as deliverers. They are justly punished
for this sin of omission. The statistician of the United States
Treasury Department says: The gold mines are now the most productive in
the world, and have already turned out gold to the value of more than
$300,000,000, and, according to the estimate of experts, have still
$3,500,000,000 'in sight.' The commerce of the South African Republic,
while naturally great because of the large number of people employed by
the mining industries, cannot be as accurately stated as that of states
or divisions whose imports are all received through a given port or
ports. Foreign goods for the South African Republic reach it through
several ports--Cape Colony, Natal, Lourenco Marquez, and in smaller
quantities from other ports on the coast. The total imports of 1897
are estimated at £21,515,000, of which £17,012,000 were from Great
Britain, £2,747,000 from the United States, £1,054,226 from Germany,
and the remainder from Belgium, Holland and France."
All this does not help the Boer as a politician. He is devoted to the
rule of the minority and the exercise of his will in commanding others,
native and foreign, black and white, and trampling them into the place
he has assigned them. This he calls liberty, and for that sort of
liberty he has a portentous passion that he is absolutely sure is
sanctified.
Mr. Howard C. Hillegas, in his book "Oom Paul's People," D. Appleton &
Co., holds the Boers to be a nation, and his pages are full of highly
colored partiality for their cause. The diamond mines, he says, "have
yielded more than four hundred million dollars worth of diamonds since
the Free State conceded them to England for less than half a million
dollars."
He does not condescend to consider the proposition that if the cession
had not been made, the find of diamonds would not have occurred, or if
it had, and the Boers undertaken to work the mines, their success would
have been small in comparison with the remarkable results produced by
the Uitlanders.
Mr. Hillegas in his story of the gold mines sheds light upon the
character of the people of the Orange State as well as the Transvaal.
He says:
"In 1854, a Dutchman named John Marais, who had a short time before
returned from the Australian gold fields, prospected in the Transvaal,
and found many evidences of gold. The Boers fearing, that their land
would be overrun with gold seekers, paid £500 to Marais and sent him
home after extracting a promise that he would not reveal his secret to
any one.
"It was not until 1884 that England heard of the presence of gold in
South Africa. A man named Fred Stuben, who had spent several years in
the country, spread such marvellous reports of the underground wealth
of the Transvaal, that only a short time elapsed before hundreds of
prospectors and miners left England for South Africa. When the first
prospectors discovered auriferous veins of wonderful quality on a farm
called Sterkfontein, the gold boom had its birth. It required the
lapse of only a short time for the news to reach Europe, America and
Australia, and immediately thereafter that vast and widely scattered
army of men and women which constantly awaits the announcement of new
discoveries of gold was set in motion toward the Randt.
[Sidenote: The First Stamp Mill]
"The Indian, Russian, American and Australian gold fields were
deserted, and the steamships and sailing vessels to South Africa were
overladen with men and women of all degrees and nationalities. The
journey to the Randt was expensive, dangerous and comfortless, but
before a year had passed almost 20,000 persons had crossed the deserts
and the plains and had settled on claims purchased from the Boers. In
December, 1885, the first stamp mill was erected for the purpose of
crushing the gneiss rock in which the gold lay hidden. This enterprise
marks the real beginning of the gold fields of the Randt, which now
yield one-third of the world's total product of the precious metal.
The advent of thousands of foreigners was a boon to the Boers, who
owned the large farms on which the auriferous veins were located.
Options on farms that were of little value a short time before were
sold at incredible figures, and the prices paid for small claims would
have purchased farms of thousands of acres two years before. * * *
"Owing to the Boer's lack of training and consequent inability to share
in the development of the gold fields, the new industry remained almost
entirely in the hands of the newcomers, the Uitlanders, and two totally
different communities were created in the Republic. The Uitlanders,
who, in 1890, numbered about 100,000, lived almost exclusively in
Johannesburg, and the suburbs along the Randt. The Boers, having
disposed of their farms and lands on the Randt, were obliged to occupy
the other parts of the Republic, where they could follow their pastoral
and other pursuits."
Elsa Goodwin Green, a lady who volunteered as a nurse and served in the
hospital at Pretoria, where forty of Jameson's wounded raiders were
cared for, writes of "Raiders and Rebels in South Africa," and says of
the gold question:
"In the year 1885 gold was found in the reefs underlying the
Witwatersrand (Whitewater's strand). Miners, prospectors and
capitalists soon gathered together--drawn by the magnet gold--and a
fine town, Johannesburg, sprang rapidly into existence. The progress
of this town with its rich reefs--gold-bearing--excited a large amount
of curiosity, felt by the world in general.
"With the rapid development of the mining industry and the influx of
strangers, a certain amount of friction sprang up between the two
races--viz., the Boers and the ever-increasing Uitlander population. A
repressive legislation was persevered in, to prevent the still growing
majority of newcomers from predominating or participating in affairs of
the Republican States.
"This rush of men with capital to the Randt meant undreamt of
prosperity to the Boers, who found a ready market for horses, cattle
and farm produce. Railways and telegraphic communication further
developed the land.
"Though the foreigner and his money were welcome to the Boer, yet he
was persistently denied a voice in the government of the community--a
vote even in matters most concerning himself--indeed all rights as a
citizen. Heavy duties were imposed on the articles most necessary to
the development of the mining industry. Monopolies were often unjustly
obtained by those having interest with the Government. Concessions
were granted only after large consideration to a Government not wholly
free from a taint of bribery."
South Africa is not only a land of gold. It is even more famous for
its diamonds; and the richest mines in the whole world for these
precious stones are located in that country. Some of the most fabulous
stories have been told by travelers of their experiences in the early
mining days of South Africa, and such books as "King Solomon's Mines,"
and others have served to awaken a lively interest and induce
adventurous spirits to go to that land.
[Sidenote: Diamonds for Toys]
The use the Boers had for diamonds when they took their wagons and oxen
and moved north from Cape Colony 700 miles, to find a country where
they could subjugate the natives and live in a Paradise of Great Game,
was to amuse their children with the pretty stones,--certain glittering
pebbles that sparkled as the young Boers, without the least
comprehension of the prodigality of Nature, rolled on the grass and
sand. If it had not been for the revelations of the riches of Africa
by travelers from foreign lands, the Boer boys would still have had a
monopoly of diamonds for toys, and but a dim consciousness of their
bucolic magnificence. Boers are very queer people. Their idea of a
next-door neighbor is that he must keep his hut and wagon at least
three miles away. A closer approach makes a crowd; the air and the
soil become impure, and the Boer is stifled in the midst of his own
splendors. He is the most conservative citizen in the world. He
estimates his own inherent, individual imperialism so extravagantly,
that the rights of men without big wagons with tents on them, and long
strings of oxen with long horns, fade into speculative insignificance.
The Boers did not believe in diamonds--for they are not decorators of
their persons--until they found others making money by mining them, and
even then they only took a feeble interest in the work and were willing
to rent a few square miles of each of their farms to those who were,
with labor and capital, seeking the beautiful crystals. The Boer
talent, according to the testimony of their lives, was in the
multiplication of cattle, the shooting of wild beasts good to eat,
occasional encounters with lions, and hunting parties that pursued the
hippopotamus in the marshy lakes. As a matter of military science,
they were educated in making forts out of their big wagons to repel the
black warriors opposed to invasion by the drivers of horned cattle and
dwellers in houses on wheels.
[Sidenote: President Kruger]
President Kruger is a power, because he is representative of his
people. He is a great chief for the reason that a big savage becomes a
leader and the headman of a tribe on account of his superior strength.
In his youth he was the swiftest and longest winded runner and the
champion rifleman in his part of the country, and it is the favorite
tradition of his admirers that once when a youth he was pursued by a
lion, and the brute incontinently ran away when the man of destiny
turned upon him and looked him in the eye. His attitude towards gold
is a distinction in which those who celebrate his virtues take special
pride. It is well known that his capital city, Pretoria, is built on a
gold mine, and a few years ago there was a revolutionary proposition
made in Mr. Kruger's alleged parliament--even that of opening the
neighboring land to prospectors seeking gold! The powerful President
crushed out the insidious proposal.
"The Transvaal and the Boers," an interesting volume by William Garrett
Fisher, says of the pre-eminence of Mr. Kruger in the official decision
settling this matter that the great and good man said, with the wisdom
inherited from generations of ancestors who had studied the
encyclopedias of Nature:
"Stop and think what you are doing before you open fresh gold fields.
Look at Johannesburg, what a nuisance and expense it has been to us!
We have enough gold and gold seekers in this country already; for all
you know there may be a second Rand at your very feet."
These momentous words in the aid of higher destinies were addressed to
the Volksraad, and there was no more countenancing the idea of digging
for gold.
[Sidenote: Gold Found in 1854]
In 1854 there was a find of the obnoxious yellow metal in the Boer
country, but it was hushed up on the great principle announced with
such simple sublimity by the grand old President when the horrors of
prosperity broke in upon the contentment of his people and caused the
"nuisance" at Johannesburg, where fifty thousand white men rushed in
and gave the Boers more trouble to make them "servants of servants"
according to the curse of Cain than millions of blacks had done, whose
lives were ordered upon even more primitive and economical lines than
presented by the secondary rulers of the golden lands.
However, it cannot be denied that from the standpoint of the Boers, the
British are not to be tolerated when they assume that they have
"certain inalienable rights," for they make themselves an abomination,
obstreperous in the preliminaries of their educational reduction to the
condition of the serfs of semi-barbarians. The objection undoubtedly
is good against the British that they are fond of lands where gold is
found, and they obstinately support the yellow metal as the standard of
value, notwithstanding that they are by their ubiquitous commerce and
enduring egotism forcing the yellow metal as the true standard upon the
great nations of the earth.
Diamonds do not play the great part in the forces that form governments
and shape the destinies of peoples in South Africa or elsewhere, that
gold does. While the precious stone is useful in the arts, excellent
as a tool, and adorns beauty with the beautiful in the highest degree,
it does not find its way diffusively into the service of the people
generally. Diamonds are not a popular production. They are for a
class and not for the mass. The four hundred million dollars worth of
glittering stones picked up and dug up in South Africa within a few
years, have not affected the measure of value. The finding of gold in
such quantities as to over-pass largely and permanently the consumption
of it, affects the money standard by which is valued all that the
fields and shops produce; that is, all that comes of perseverance in
toil that is productive.
[Sidenote: Diamonds of not so great importance is Gold]
Mines of diamonds attract labor for immediate returns--only as they can
be sold for gold or silver, which have functions that make up power in
purchasing food and raiment and in construction, the carrying out of
enterprise that causes the activities both of capital and labor,
putting the two in harmonious relations. Diamonds in Africa have aided
commerce, increased exportation and importation, indirectly helping the
people at large, but they have not competed with gold in the political
potentialities. They are found, when their stories are written, to be
rather romantic than historical. Their is a fascination in the
relation of the finding of South African diamond mines equal to the
charms of fiction. One would have thought the old Dutch settlers
should have had special qualifications for seeking and securing and
appreciating diamonds as one of the gifts that are gracious, for the
African stones have to find the world at large by way of Belgium and
Holland, and are not ready to be known to fame until they have been cut
in Amsterdam.
[Sidenote: Boyle's Statement]
In Boyle's delightful history "To the Cape for Diamonds," he says of
the diamond fields:
"Old Dutch residents of Cape Town appear to have been quite astir upon
the matter on several occasions; but as years passed on, the ancient
rumor died away. Men had to search back for memories long buried when
Governor Woodhouse set the Colony agog by exhibiting the "Hopetown"
diamond in 1867. That Bushmen, Corannas and other tribes of low
condition used the gem mechanically from immemorial time seems to be
quite ascertained. They still remember how their fathers made
periodical visits to the rivers of West Griqualand, seeking diamonds to
bore their "weighting stones." The rediscovery, however, took place in
1867. At that date a shrewd trader named Niekirk, passing through a
country forty miles or so west of Hopetown, saw the children of a Boer
called Jacobs playing with pebbles, picked up along the banks of the
neighboring Orange. Struck with the appearance of one among their
playthings, Niekirk told Vrouw Jacobs that it reminded him of the white
shining stones mentioned in the Bible. As he uttered the words, an
ostrich-hunter named O'Reilly chanced to pass the doorway of the house.
He overheard, entered, and was also impressed. Vague ideas of a
diamond--which none of the three had ever seen--passed through their
minds. They tried the pebble upon glass, scratching the sash all over,
as I have seen it at this day. A bargain was struck. O'Reilly took
the stone for sale, and each of the parties present was to share. At
Capetown, upon the verdict of Dr. Atherstone, Sir P. E. Woodhouse gave
£500 for it. The news spread fast. At the moment of this discovery,
there was something exceeding a panic in the colony. Wool, its staple
product was at a hopelessly low quotation. A murrain was thinning the
sheep. Never had merchants known such a time of anxiety, and no hope
was visible. The story of the trader, corroborated by actual
inspection of his treasure thus excited more active stir than it would
have made at any other time. People began to study every foot of the
ground. Then other stones turned up, the most of them bought from
natives, in whose hands they had lain for many years, perhaps
centuries. In 1868 several were picked up along the banks of the Vaal
about Pniel, and then the rush began. But as yet it was mere surface
seeking.
[Sidenote: "Star of South Africa"]
Early next year a Hottentot shepherd named Swartzboy, brought to Mr.
Gers' store, at the Hook, a gem of eighty-three and a half carats, the
"Star of South Africa," wide famed. In Mr. Gers' absence, his shopman
did not like to risk the £200 worth of goods demanded. Swartzboy
passed on to the farm of that same Niekirk above mentioned. Here he
demanded £400 which Niekirk ultimately paid, receiving £12,000 from
Messrs. Lilienfeld the same day. The diamond was passed to Cape Town,
and all the colony rose. But not for twelve months more did "digging"
begin. On January 7, 1870, Captain Rolleston and his party washed out
their first diamond at Pniel, on the lands claimed by the Berlin
Mission. Within three months, there were five thousand people digging
there.
[Sidenote: The Earliest Discoveries]
South African diamond fields henceforth were established; but of such
"pockets" as Dutoitspan and New Rush none yet had any inkling. The
fields were established as a fact in the colony, but none yet at home.
Mr. Harry Emmanuel sent out a professed expert, Mr. Gregory, to report
upon them, and his foolish haste in discrediting their wealth caused
serious loss to English merchants. The diggers only laughed, and
showed each other their glittering prizes. Mr. Coster, of Amsterdam,
came out, and he also went back incredulous. But the diggings grew and
grew. The necessity of some system of government amongst the crowd
became apparent. The Orange Free State claimed jurisdiction over the
larger space, and the Transvaal Republic exercised rights over the
remainder. Practically there was no government at all.
The earliest report, in writing of discovery, is a letter addressed by
Mr. Parker to Mr. Webb. However it be, Mr. Parker was not long in
acquiring very great influences. All the camp yielded authority to
him, and passed the title of President which he affected. He met the
chief of the South African Republic upon such easy terms of equality
that the latter hastily fled to realms where his supremacy was
uncontested.
[Sidenote: The First Dry Diggings]
In December, 1870, the dry diggings first were heard of. Hitherto the
search for diamonds had been only carried on by river banks, and the
gems discovered there had been washed down in ancient floods from some
kopje, or dry mine now perhaps worn away. In two years of such digging
in a score of places, the yield had not been greater than 300,000
pounds, as Mr. Webb computed. This is indeed an astonishing figure,
all circumstances considered, but the time draws near when the same
amount will be returned as the monthly average in Custom House reports
at Cape Town. In December then, it was whispered that the children of
Dutoit, a Boer living at Dorsfontein--so well known by the name of
Dutoitspan--were in the habit of picking up diamonds on their father's
farm. To those who believed the rumor, it was evident that diamond
digging was henceforth to enter on a novel phase. The gem would be
sought in the bed where nature created it. But few believed--not till
the end of January did the crowd put faith. About that time the farm
was "rushed," an expressive word, though sinister to the ears of a
landed proprietor nowadays. It signifies that diggers swarmed to the
spot in such throngs as to render merely foolish any resistance a
proprietor might meditate. But the simple Boer who owned Dutoitspan
never dreamed of such a thing. He only sat in, staring, amazed at the
endless train of carts and wagons and foot travelers that filed past
him.
[Sidenote: Conditions Under Which Diamonds are Found]
Diamonds in South Africa are found in a limy, chalky grit, bound
together in smaller or larger lumps, from the measure of a foot ball to
that of a pea. The grit is very dry and of considerable hardness, so
that a heap of it looks like shingle on the sorting board. I do not
understand that the diamond is found under those conditions anywhere
else. It is discovered in a limy stratum at the Brazils, I find, but
rarely, and always waterworn. The river beds are the treasure houses
there. In India, for the most part, it seems to have been the same
case; though at one large field, five days' journey from Golconda, the
diamonds were hooked out from crevices of the rock. "In the
neighborhood of the mines," says Tavernier, "the earth is sandy,
covered with rocks and thickets; something like the environs of
Fontainebleau. In these rocks there are many veins, sometimes half a
finger wide, and sometimes double of this. The miners have short iron
instruments, hooked at the end, which they thrust into the veins, and
so drag out the sand or earth collected there. This earth they load
into convenient vessels, and therein are the diamonds found. No one
reading this description can doubt that the jewels were lodged in the
crevices by water power."
The Vaal and the Orange Rivers, the Mod and the Riet, all contain
diamonds, waterworn for the most part. Hundreds or thousands of years
have these lain grinding mid the pebbles, brought, I should take it,
from some diamond kopjes, washed away and vanished which stood beside
the stream. There is not the mark of water on a single stone at the
dry diggings.
The foremost quality of the Cape diamond which attracts attention is
its freedom from the coat or skin which wraps the stone [Transcriber's
note: end of chapter?]
CHAPTER IV
The Cause of War.
The English Blue Books treat the controversy that resulted in the war
officially, impartially and exhaustively. The full dispatches are
given, and all that the Boers had to say is fairly presented with
unquestionable authenticity. What President Kruger stated in his
conferences with Sir Alfred Milner, the British High Commissioner in
South Africa, is given in his own language, as faithfully put down as
the dispatches of Mr. Chamberlain or those of the High Commissioner
Milner. The British Blue Book is made a perfect History for both sides
and bears the closest scrutiny of a hostile opposition in parliament as
accurate.
[Sidenote: Conference With President Kruger]
June 14, 1899, High Commissioner Sir Alfred Milner wrote from
"Government House, Cape Town" to Colonial Secretary Chamberlain a
report of his conferences with President Kruger at Bloemfontein. On
the way to meet the President of the South African Republic, the
British High Commissioner was the guest of President Steyn, of the
Orange Free State. The conference with President Kruger was
interpreted and reported with the greatest care. It is not given
verbatim in all instances, because there was a great deal of
repetition, but there is nothing important omitted, and the actual
words of both gentlemen were officially reported and printed. The
importance of these conferences was perfectly understood, and the
official record has not been and will not be questioned. It was upon
these conferences that the issue of peace and war hinged. [Sidenote:
The Cause of Many Points of Difference] The President stated at the
first meeting that he preferred the British High Commissioner should
speak first, and the Commissioner, writing Mr. Chamberlain, said that
in his personal opinion, "The cause of many points of difference, and
the most serious, was the policy pursued by the South African Republic
towards the Uitlanders, among whom many thousands are British subjects.
The bitter feelings thus engendered in the Republic, the tension in
South Africa, and the sympathy throughout the Empire with the
Uitlanders, led to an irritated state of opinion on both sides which
rendered it more difficult for the two Governments to settle
differences amicably. It was my strong conviction that if the South
African Republic would, before things get worse, voluntarily change its
policy towards the Uitlanders, and take steps calculated to satisfy the
reasonable section of them, who after all are the great majority, not
only would the independence of the Republic be strengthened, but there
would be such a better state of feeling all round that it would become
far easier to settle outstanding questions between the two Governments.
[Sidenote: The President's Objection to the Franchise]
"The President, in coming to the Conference, had made a reservation as
to the independence of the Republic. I could not see that it was in
any way impairing that independence for Her Majesty's Government to
support the cause of the Uitlanders so far as it was reasonable. A
vast number were British subjects, and in similar circumstances we
should in any part of the world, even in a country not under
conventional obligations to Her Majesty's Government, be bound to make
representations, and to point out that the intense discontent of our
fellow-subjects stood in the way of the friendly relations which we
desired to exist between the two Governments."
[Sidenote: By Gradual Co-operation all Would be Burghers]
The President objected to granting the franchise which he was assured
by His Excellency, the Commissioner, was the main point, because he
said if it was done "to any large number of aliens," the result would
be "immediately the outvoting of the old burghers." The High
Commissioner went so far as to say that it "would not be reasonable to
do that," and he endeavored to explain the matter to the President,
saying: "At present the Uitlanders had no effective voice whatever in
the legislation, the existing form of oaths was offensive and
unnecessary, and by taking it a British subject at once lost his
nationality, and yet had to wait twelve years, or, under the
President's latest proposals, seven years, before he could become a
full citizen of the Republic. It was perfectly possible to leave the
old burghers in such a position that they could not be swamped, and yet
to give the numerous foreign population--to whom, after all, the
Republic owed its present position--some share in the work of
government, so that they could give the Government the benefit of their
knowledge and experience. In this way the time would come when, by
their gradual co-operation, instead of being divided into separate
communities, they would all be burghers of one State."
The President indicated "a strong dislike of every proposition of the
kind," and proceeded to assail a petition that had been sent from
Johannesburg to the British Government praying for a redress of
grievances, and alleged to have been signed by 25,000 people. This
petition was like a red rag to the Boer bull all through the
conferences. The British High Commissioner, when the President had
expressed his feeling about the petition, informed him that that
document did not change anything. The character of the petition was
not especially to be considered, but he (His Excellency the
Commissioner) based his statements "on a careful study of the
conditions."
[Sidenote: Qualifications for Citizenship]
At the second meeting the President talked about the strengthening of
the British garrison at the Cape, and referred to other military
preparations of the English, of which mention had been made in the
newspapers. The Commissioner denied the accuracy of the press in that
particular; and then the President returned to the petition from
Johannesburg to Her Majesty the Queen, and said the English proposition
to "enlarge the franchise of the strangers" would do away with the
independence of the Republic, and he added, "would be worse than
annexation." His Excellency, the Commissioner, remarks that the
President was "reluctant to come to close quarters" on the franchise
proposition, but at last asked for a proposal of that which would be
satisfactory to the Uitlanders and the English Commissioners, who said:
"I proposed that the full franchise should be given to every foreigner
who--
(_a_) "Had been resident for five years in the Republic.
(_b_) "Declared his intention to reside permanently.
(_c_) "Took an oath to obey the laws, undertake all obligations of
citizenship, and defend the independence of the country.
"The franchise to be confined to persons of good character possessing a
certain amount of property or income."
Finally it was proposed that a small number of new constituencies
should be created. That which was vital in the plan of peace, Sir
Alfred said, "was the simplification of the oath and the immediate
admission to full burghership on taking it. Knowing as I do the
feeling of the Uitlander population, and especially of the best of
them, in these points, I felt and feel that any scheme not containing
these concessions would be absolutely useless. The most influential
and respectable sections of the Uitlander community feel strongly the
indignity and injustice of asking them to denationalize themselves for
anything less than full burghership--which in the South African
Republic carries with it, _de ipso facto_, the right to vote for the
First Volks Raad and the President. They will not accept citizenship
of the Republic on any other terms." And Sir Alfred continues: "The
President at once objected very strongly to my proposal, saying that it
would immediately make the Uitlanders a majority of enfranchised
burghers, who by the constitution formed the sovereign voice, and so
controlled all legislation."
[Sidenote: Milner's proposition Absolutely Fair]
The President was evidently alarmed by the idea that a majority of the
Europeans might, under the proposition urged by the British
Commissioner, become the rulers of the land, and he stuck to his
objection after it was explained that the new burghers who would
appear, if the franchise arrangements were made, could have only a
minority of seats in the first Volks Raad, and therefore they could not
control the State. In fact, the President was not in favor of allowing
the Uitlanders any political power whatever without a long intermission
after the abandonment by the Uitlanders of their rights as British
subjects. The proposition of Sir Alfred was absolutely fair,
reasonable and moderate. Its acceptance would have prevented war.
There was time given by the Commissioner to the President for full
consultation and consideration--that is there was no effort to rush
him. Sir Alfred says in his communication to the Colonial Secretary
Chamberlain, that he felt here he "had reached the crucial point," and
he alleges that the Boer President endeavored to make the matter one of
bargaining, wanted to talk away from the real issue, and desired to
speak of what he called "grievances," wandering far from the main
matter, which was in its simplicity whether the great community of
Johannesburg and the surroundings in the gold mines, constituting a
very large majority of the Europeans and white men in the Transvaal,
should have any representation at all in the Volks Raad.
[Sidenote: Self-Government desired by all]
President Kruger at the fourth meeting of the conference presented what
he styled a "Complete Reform Bill," full, as Sir Alfred says, of
"elaborate restrictions." Subsequently Sir Alfred drew up a paper
showing what those restrictions were, and that this reform bill
consisted of traps and catches, and was a careful, studied evasion,
expressive of a fixed resolution to make no concessions whatever to the
majority of the white population of the country. Sir Alfred says: "I
pointed out that His Honor's proposal differed absolutely from mine, in
that it did not provide for an immediate, or even an early,
enfranchisement of people who might have been in the Republic for many
years, and it made no provision for an increase in the number of seats
in the Volks Raad. I, therefore, in view of the improbability of our
arriving at a settlement on this basis, suggested that the President
should consider whether there was any other way, apart from the
franchise, of giving the Uitlanders some powers of local
self-government, such as were suggested by Mr. Chamberlain in February,
1896. The President, however, was, if possible, more opposed to this
than to my previous proposal. He maintained that the municipality of
Johannesburg had already as great powers as could properly be entrusted
to it, and said it was no use speaking about self-government, as his
people would be absolutely against it."
[Sidenote: Lapse of Citizenship]
Sir Alfred further stated, as to President Kruger's plan: "Under the
plan no man not already naturalized, even if he had been in the country
for thirteen or fourteen years, would get a vote for the First Volks
Raad in less than two and a half years from the passing of the new law.
No considerable number of people would obtain the vote in less than
five years, even if they got naturalized; but the majority would not
naturalize because the scheme retained the unfortunate principle, first
introduced in 1890, by which a man must abandon his old citizenship for
a number of years before getting full burgher rights."
[Sidenote: Immediate Representation Wanted]
President Kruger added to his proposition a scheme for a few new seats.
Of this Sir Alfred remarks: "I have an open mind as to the number of
new seats for the Gold Fields, and for that reason did not attempt to
lay down any definite number of my own proposal. I think three is
decidedly too low. Under this proposal the enfranchised newcomers
might, not immediately, but after the lapse of several years, obtain
five seats in the First Volks Raad. Add, perhaps, two for other
constituencies, in which they would in time become the majority, and
they would be seven out of thirty-one. By that time they would be a
vast majority of the inhabitants, and would contribute, as they indeed
already do, almost the whole revenue. Under these circumstances less
than one-fourth of the representation seems a scanty allowance. But
the great point is, that even this limited degree of representation is
still a long way off. My aim was to obtain some representation for
them immediately. In my view, the First Volks Raad has already been
too long out of touch with the new population, with whose most vital
interests it is constantly dealing, and not dealing wisely. Every year
that this state of things continues increases the tension and the
danger. I do not assert that the mistakes made are due to ill-will. I
believe they are due to want of knowledge. If representatives of the
new population could make their voices heard, if they could come in
contact with the representatives of the old burghers on an equal
footing in the First Raad, they would, without being a majority or
anything like it, yet exercise an appreciable influence on legislation
and administration."
[Sidenote: Justice Would Have Prevented Intervention]
There is no question of the entire reasonableness and truth of this.
In his talk with President Kruger Sir Alfred said of the Uitlanders: "A
vast number of them are British subjects. If we had an equal number of
British subjects and equally large interests in any part of the world,
even in a country which is not under any conventional obligations to
Her Majesty's Government, we should be bound to make representations to
the Government in the interests of Her Majesty's subjects, and to point
out that the intense discontent of those subjects stood in the way of
the cordial relations which we desire to exist between us. I know that
the citizens of the South African Republic are intensely jealous of
British interference in their internal affairs. What I want to impress
upon the President is that if the Government of the South African
Republic of its own accord, from its own sense of policy and justice,
would afford a more liberal treatment to the Uitlander population this
would not increase British interference, but enormously diminish it.
If the Uitlanders were in a position to help themselves they would not
always be appealing to us under the convention."
When the conference was about to close President Kruger said: "Our
enfranchised burghers are probably about 30,000, and the newcomers may
be from 60,000 to 70,000, and if we give them the franchise to-morrow
we may as well give up the Republic. I hope you will clearly see that
I shall not get it through with my people."
Further along, when President Kruger insisted upon it that the too
numerous newcomers would end the Republic, Sir Alfred asked what the
President meant by "outvoting in the Volks Raad," and the President
answered: "I mean this; that if they are all enfranchised then they
would at once form the majority of the whole population, and the
majority of the enfranchised burgher, according to our law, must be
listened to by the Volks Raad; since in a republic we cannot leave the
sovereign voice out of account. Then if they once get the vote, and
the majority come to the Volks Raad saying that the members of the Raad
should be in proportion to the number of electors, the Volks Raad would
be all up with them."
[Sidenote: Ireland and The Transvaal]
Sir Alfred and President Kruger in course of conversation had an outing
on "the Irish question," the President saying: "I say that by taking
the oath of naturalization, whereby they become entitled to elect
members for the Second Raad, they become lawful burghers, and at that
moment they get more than they get in their own country. In their own
country they cannot, within such a short period, choose ministers,
magistrates, or similar officials; but they do this with me, and are
they not to be regarded as full burghers because they cannot yet elect
certain officials? The only difference is that they cannot yet
exercise the full franchise. In England, for instance, the Irish also
have not their own administration."
His Excellency.--"Yes, they have."
President--"When?"
His Excellency.--"The Irish have always sent a full number of
representatives to the Imperial Parliament, even in excess of what was
due to them on a basis of population. If we were to apply the Irish
principle to the South African Republic the Rand would send about fifty
members to the First Volks Raad."
The conference came to nothing. President Kruger asserting to the last
substantially, that if the English-speaking people whom he styled the
"strangers" and the "newcomers," got any political rights at once, no
matter how restricted, it would put his "blood-bought country into the
hands of strangers."
[Sidenote: Grievances of the Uitlanders a Burning Question]
Mr. Conyngham Greene, Her Majesty's agent at Pretoria, wrote to the
State Secretary of the South African Republic June 26, 1899, that Sir
Alfred Milner "desires me to say that, as he pointed out to the
President at Bloemfontein, he considers that the question of finding a
remedy for the grievances of the Uitlanders is the burning question of
the moment, and that this has to be disposed of before other matters
can be discussed. The adoption by the Government of the South African
Republic of measures calculated to lead to an improvement in the
position of the Uitlanders would so improve the general situation that
outstanding differences between the two Governments could be considered
in a calmer atmosphere, and would be more capable of adjustment. Under
these circumstances, it might be possible to devise a scheme for
referring at least a certain number of differences to arbitration. But
as the Government of the South African Republic has not seen its way to
meet Her Majesty's Government on the question of primary importance,
the High Commissioner can see no use in approaching the delicate and
complicated subject of arbitration at the present time. Over and above
this, His Excellency does not consider the scheme now proposed to be a
practicable one. To make no mention of other objections, the
constitution of the suggested Arbitration Court, which would leave
every decision virtually in the hands of a President, who, it is
provided, shall not be a subject of either of the arbitration parties,
does not conform to the fundamental principle which, as Sir Alfred
Milner more than once stated at Bloemfontein, Her Majesty's Government
would regard as a _conditio sine qua non_ to the acceptance of any
scheme of arbitration."
[Illustration: A COMMANDO OF BOERS CHARGING COLONEL BADEN-POWELL'S
FORCES AT MAFEKING]
[Illustration: SOME OF THE SECOND GORDON HIGHLANDERS ENJOYING A ROUGH
AND READY CLEAN UP. BOER SCOUTING PARTY]
[Sidenote: What Mr. Chamberlain Wrote]
Mr. Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary, writing July 27, 1899, to Sir
Alfred Milner, says:
"Besides the ordinary obligations of a civilized Power to protect its
subjects in a foreign country against injustice, and the special duty
arising in this case from the position of Her Majesty as the Paramount
Power in South Africa, there falls also on Her Majesty's Government the
exceptional responsibility arising out of the Conventions which
regulate the relations between the Government of the South African
Republic and that of Her Majesty. These Conventions were granted by
Her Majesty of her own grace, and they were granted in the full
expectation that, according to the categorical assurances conveyed by
the Boer leaders to the Royal Commissioners in the negotiations
preliminary to the Convention of 1881, equality of treatment would be
strictly maintained among the white inhabitants of the Transvaal.
"It may be well to remind you what those assurances were, as detailed
in the Blue Book of May, 1882. At the Conference of the 10th of May,
1881, at Newcastle, there were present: Sir Hercules Robinson
(President), Sir Evelyn Wood, Sir J. H. De Villiers, Her Majesty's
Commissioners; and, as Representatives of the Boers, Mr. Kruger, Mr. P.
J. Joubert, Dr. Jorissen, Mr. J. S. Joubert, Mr. DeVilliers and Mr.
Buskes.
"The following report of what took place shows the nature of the
assurances given on this occasion:
"239. (President).--'Before annexation, had British subjects complete
freedom of trade throughout the Transvaal; were they on the same
footing as citizens of the Transvaal?'
"240. (Mr. Kruger).--'They were on the same footing as the burghers;
there was not the slightest difference in accordance with the Sand
River Convention.'
"241. (President).--'I presume you will not object to that continuing?'
"242. (Mr. Kruger).--'No; there will be equal protection for everybody.'
"243. (Sir E. Wood).--'And equal privileges?'
"244. (Mr. Kruger).--'We make no difference so far as burgher rights
are concerned. There may perhaps be some slight difference in the case
of a young person who has just come into the country.'
"At the Conference of the 26th of May, 1881, at Newcastle, there were
present: Sir Hercules Robinson (President), Sir E. Wood, Sir J. H.
DeVilliers, Her Majesty's Commissioners; and, as Representatives of the
Boers, Mr. Kruger, Mr. J. S. Joubert, Dr. Jorissen, Mr. Pretorius, Mr.
Buskes and Mr. DeVilliers.
"At this meeting the subject of the assurances was again alluded to as
thus reported:
"1037. (Dr. Jorissen).--'At No. 244 the question was, 'Is there any
distinction in regard to the privileges or rights of Englishmen in the
Transvaal?' and Mr. Kruger answered, 'No, there is no difference;' and
then he added, 'there may be some slight difference in the case of a
young person just coming into the country.' I wish to say that that
might give rise to a wrong impression. What Mr. Kruger intended to
convey was this: 'according to our law a newcomer has not his burgher
rights immediately.' The words 'young person' do not refer to age, but
to the time of his residence in the Republic. According to our old
'Grondwet' (Constitution), you had to reside a year in the country.'
[Sidenote: The Whole Spirit of the Convention disregarded]
"In spite of these positive assurances, all the laws which have caused
the grievances under which the Uitlanders labor, and all the
restrictions as to franchise and individual liberty under which they
suffer, have been brought into existence subsequently to the
conventions of Pretoria or London. Not only has the letter of the
convention of 1884 been repeatedly broken, but the whole spirit of that
convention has been disregarded by this complete reversal of the
conditions of equality between the white inhabitants of the Transvaal
which subsisted, and which, relying on the assurances of the Boer
leaders, Her Majesty believed would continue to subsist, when she
granted to it internal independence in the preamble of the convention
of 1881, and when she consented to substitute the articles of the
convention of 188 for those of the previous convention.
[Sidenote: A Statement by Kruger]
"The responsibility of Her Majesty's Government for the treatment of
the alien inhabitants of the Transvaal is further increased by the fact
that it was at the request of Her Majesty's High Commissioner that the
people of Johannesburg, who in December, 1895, had taken up arms
against the Government of the South African Republic to recover those
equal rights and privileges of which they had been unwarrantably
deprived, permitted themselves to be disarmed in January, 1896. The
High Commissioner's request was made after the issue by President
Kruger of a proclamation in which he stated: 'And I further make known
that the Government is still always ready to consider properly all
grievances which are laid before it in a proper manner, and to lay them
before the Legislature of the country without delay to be dealt with.'
Unfortunately, the assurances conveyed in this proclamation have been
no better observed than the assurances of 1881. Not only have no
adequate or genuine reforms been introduced up to the present time, but
the conditions and the general atmosphere in which the Uitlanders have
to live have become more difficult and irksome to free and civilized
men. Fresh legislation has been passed in a repressive and reactionary
direction, and the administration of justice itself has been made
subservient to the control of the Executive Government."
Every word of this is amply supported.
[Sidenote: Orders from Mr. Chamberlain]
August 1st Mr. Chamberlain telegraphed Sir Alfred Milner: "I now
authorize you to invite President Kruger to appoint delegates to
discuss with our question whether reforms, which the Volks Raad has
passed, will give immediate and substantial representation of
Uitlanders, and if not, what additions and alterations will be
necessary in order to secure this result. If invitation is accepted
our delegates would not be precluded from raising any point calculated
to improve measure; and you will instruct them to press for early
report, which on the points mentioned ought not to be difficult."
Also: "My telegram of the 31st July. We must confine proposed joint
inquiry, in the manner suggested in that telegram, to question of
political representation of Uitlanders. You should, however, let
President Kruger know through Greene that you will be ready, at the
conclusion of inquiry, to discuss with him, not only the report of the
inquiry, and the franchise question, but other matters as well,
including arbitration without introduction of foreign element."
[Sidenote: Petition From Natal]
This petition was signed by 6,336 "loyal colonists of Natal, July 10,
1899: "Your Majesty's petitioners, being British subjects resident in
the Colony of Natal, wish to express their sympathy with those
thousands of their fellow-subjects in the Transvaal Republic, whose
petition Your Majesty has been graciously pleased to receive.
"That men of British origin, engaged in industry of vital concern to
the prosperity of all South Africa, should labor on sufferance under
unjust laws partially administered; that they should contribute nearly
the whole revenue of the State and have no voice in its disposal; that,
while themselves rigorously designed, they should have to watch the
fruits of their labor being applied to swell the military strength of
the class which holds their liberties and even their lives at its
disposal; this is a position repugnant to our sentiments.
"Moreover, it is a source of unrest, insecurity, and injury to business
throughout Your Majesty's South African possessions.
"In all these possessions the rule is absolutely equal rights for the
Dutch-speaking and English-speaking population; in the Transvaal
Republic alone are the latter denied not only equal rights, but
political rights altogether.
"From this contrast springs an intense race-feeling, which tends
increasingly to divide and embitter all South Africa."
[Sidenote: Views of Mr. Baynes]
Mr. Baynes, of the Natal Parliament, is reported in the Natal _Times_,
July 20, 1899: "He had said before, and he would say again, that keenly
as he and all true Englishmen felt the defeat of those gallant British
soldiers fighting at the command of their country in the war ending at
Majuba, the Dutch then had right on their side and it was nothing but
right that right should prevail. As a result of that battle he had
hoped that the British blood there shed together with the magnanimous
act of the British Government, as exemplified in and by the deed of
retrocession, would have sufficed to have washed away all the
bitterness of the past, and evoked forgiveness for all wrongs suffered,
and that the two dominant races in South Africa would thereafter live
together in peace and happiness, and in the process of time by
inter-marriage, by mutual esteem, and by the uniting influence of the
principle of self-preservation, become one people, ennobled by the
struggles and sufferings of the past, each the better for the influence
of the other, forming a people and country that would become the
admiration and envy of the world. Any immediate prospect of such a
consummation had been hopelessly deferred and blighted by the action of
the Transvaal Government in refusing the continuance of the principle
of equal rights to all Europeans alike within their borders. It was
because he feared that the continued refusal of those rights must
sooner or later bring about a war too fearful to contemplate, a war
that might, and probably would, overthrow the independence of the
Transvaal Republic, that he urged upon that Assembly to unanimously
adopt the motion under consideration, in the hope that such an
expression of opinion made by that Assembly might receive favorable
consideration by His Honor the President, the Volks Raad and the
burghers of the Transvaal. Equal rights and privileges would give the
only sure foundation on which the Republic of the Transvaal could be
established, and the only foundation on which the independence of the
country could continue. Let these privileges be denied to Europeans
now, and perpetual race hatred and strife, anarchy or tyranny, or war,
too dreadful to contemplate, must result. With the same purpose of
endeavoring to avert such a calamity, he moved the resolution standing
in his name."
The motion was one of sympathy with and approval of the action of the
British Government in endeavoring to secure equal rights and privileges
for all Europeans in South Africa. The resolution was carried without
a single dissentient.
[Sidenote: Resolutions of the House of Commons of Canada]
The House of Commons of Canada, July 31, 1899, adopted the following:
"1. Resolved, That this House has viewed with regret the complications
which have arisen in the Transvaal Republic, of which Her Majesty is
Suzerain, from the refusal to accord to Her Majesty's subjects now
settled in that region any adequate participation in its government.
"2. Resolved, That this House has learned with still greater regret,
that the condition of things there existing has resulted in intolerable
oppression, and has produced great and dangerous excitement among
several classes of Her Majesty's subjects in Her South African
possessions.
"3. Resolved, That this House, representing a people which has largely
succeeded, by the adoption of the principle of conceding equal
political rights to every portion of the population, in harmonizing
estrangement, and in producing general content with the existing system
of government, desires to express its sympathy with the effort of Her
Majesty's Imperial authorities to obtain for the subjects of Her
Majesty who have taken up their abode in the Transvaal such measure of
justice and political recognition as may be found necessary to secure
them in the full possession of equal rights and liberties."
[Sidenote: A Characteristic Article]
The Boer organ, _The Rand Post_, December 28, 1898, had an article on
"The Rebellion," which was very abusive of the petitioners, whose paper
sent to the British Government, so greatly irritated President Kruger,
who described it as "the lying and libelous petition"; and we quote:
"The hand on the rudder! It is more than time! Now once for all, an
end must be put to such exhibitions as that of Saturday's, by reason of
which the English Government will contend is not capable of exercising
authority, not in a position to insure the safety of personal property.
In the interests of the country such little upheavals must be
vigorously suppressed. From henceforward public gatherings of a
semi-political character in Johannesburg must be absolutely forbidden
and prevented, because here (in Johannesburg) such gatherings lead to
confusion and disorder. The 400 or 500 policemen are sufficient to
exercise authority, and especially to prevent such open-air gatherings,
and to prevent further flag waving by English ladies taking place
before the door of the English Consulate. Mounted police can and must
disperse such gatherings, and, if necessary, there must be some
shooting done. Nobody should find that in any respect very terrible.
In other countries that happens now and then, and the public well know
beforehand that taking part in such gatherings is forbidden, and that
force can be used for dispersing such gatherings. Those who then take
part in them do so at their own risk. The Government must not proceed
further under a Commandant who is hooted by the burghers, but appoint a
Commandant who will have the esteem of the burghers. Commandants of
neighboring districts should also be in complete readiness with their
burghers. Immediately anything happens, the Government must take
vigorous action. The Government must show that it is master of this
town, and not unsuccessful men of business, and cowardly political
wire-pullers, who shelter themselves behind the guns of Her British
Majesty, not the men who in their quality of British subjects, and
under cover of lying petitions bring to light their hatred of the Boer.
To this Johannesburg Rebellion an end must be put once and for all.
The well-meaning portion of the population, a very considerable part,
wishes nothing else. Let us shoot down a pair of these wire-pullers,
and thereby spare ourselves a formal war."
[Sidenote: A Whole History of Outrages]
This is expressive of the venomous intensity of the press of the Boers.
In the same article there are very broad hints to President Kruger that
he had been going too far in the conciliation of the British. There
are in the Blue Books many instances of personal outrage, violence,
insult, oppression and murder, with a view to the intimidation of the
"strangers," the "newcomers," those who were crowding themselves into
"the blood-bought land" from mere sordid motives of course in gathering
gold and diamonds, and being more numerous than the Boers, and having
more money and fixed property, were even not content with the simple
office of the payment of taxes and submission to the Boers as an
inferior caste. In order to emphasize this spirit of exclusion of
those who were actually representing the progress of civilization, and
doing vastly more than the Boers ever did to improve the country and
make it prosperous in all the ways of advanced civilization, a fort was
erected and so located as to bring the business centre of the
Uitlanders directly under the guns of the Boers, who not satisfied with
the menace of personal outrages and the denial of public rights, had to
have a fort from which they could fire into the city, in which their
policemen were constantly guilty of extraordinary brutalities. There
is a whole history of these outrages that would make good reading for
sentimentalists.
The policy of the Boer President and people in the negotiations that
had so unhappy a termination was, throughout, marked with all the worst
characteristics of the Boer race. The President of the South African
Republic had promised in London, where he appeared as the head of a
commission when the British attempted the alleged sublime policy of
magnanimity in refraining from pushing the war, after the miserable
slaughters and skirmishes culminating in the Majuba Hill insanity and
massacre--that the Government of the "Republic" would be most
considerate in protecting the rights of the British subjects in the
Transvaal. Doubtless it was the remembrance of his responsibilities
thus undertaken that aroused the violent spirit in the Boer Dictator
when he met the British High Commissioner, Sir Alfred Milner, in the
Bloemfontein conferences--so that he vehemently denounced the true
petitioners of Johannesburg as falsifiers in appealing to the British
Government for belated protection. It was the pleasure of President
Kruger, who had himself in London promised his protection, that those
who told the plain truth as to the oppression of the European people
were "libelous liars." The Dictator, whose official title was that of
President, and who undertook to be the representative of the
implacable, domineering spirit of the Boer minority in the Transvaal,
in his personal declarations disregarded all civilized amenities, and
grossly insisted upon the humiliation of England in the very matter of
which she has been most justly proud and won the highest regard of all
enlightened peoples, and that is, of seeing at whatever cost that
British subjects shall be respected everywhere in their personal rights.
[Sidenote: England's Determined Protection of Her Subjects]
Mr. Chamberlain was well within the line of established truth when he
said, if the English Government had no rights in the Transvaal other
than those arising from the duty of demanding plain justice from an
independent government, be it republican or monarchy, the treatment of
the Uitlanders at the hands of the Boers required remonstrance and
demanded consideration. Of course, the logic of this statement was
that if there was not a remedy for the great and bitter wrong inflicted
upon one of the most important communities in the world, and far the
most important in Africa, the British Empire would have to interfere.
The claims of England that British subjects should be respected in
personal rights have been many times vindicated, and the fact that the
whole world knows the high principle and firm policy of the British in
the determined protection of its subjects is one of the glories of the
Empire. The President of the South African Republic flinched from his
own word of honor and responsibility given in London, and rudely
asserted that the majority of Europeans in the Transvaal had no rights
he was bound to respect. He did not use precisely that form of speech,
but it was that substantially, and the meaning of it was that the
English-speaking population that had sought the Transvaal because there
were there the greatest gold discoveries ever made were to be treated
by the Boers as exactly on a level with "niggers." It was the
President's persistent assumption and unconcealed purpose that the
minority of the people of the Transvaal he controlled must be supreme
over two majorities,--one the natives who had precedence of the Dutch
in possession of the country, and the other the newcomers who were
there on the business of civilized mankind--the Boers being a
semi-barbarous minority between the two--holding with a small fraction
of the population a half-way fortification from which to order and
command. President Kruger wandered constantly in his conferences from
the discussion of the franchise, showing an imperious temper and an
inordinate and reckless, domineering propensity.
[Sidenote: A Reasonable and Just Proposal]
The proposal made by the British Commissioner for a settlement of
difficulties was plain, reasonable in all respects, singularly careful
of all the just susceptibilities of the Boer Government. It consented
to the maintenance of the dominance of the minority, except in
requiring respect for personal and public rights accorded to
individuals in all civilized governments,--and in the declaration of
the strict rights of British subjects consent was given to the theory
of the utter independence of the Boers. There was a careful limitation
here, so that even the vanity of the semi-barbarians, who asserted that
they were and must be always the exclusive rulers, was not to be
suddenly and in a hostile sense disturbed. There was much conceded
merely to save the excessive and savage self-esteem of the Boers, who,
however, positively refused justice and demanded without mitigation
exercise of a despotism so unwarranted and wicked as to be intolerable
to civilization. The Boer statements, soliciting sympathy, circulated
in the United States have dwelt upon the assertion that the British
subjects, who meant to reside permanently in the Transvaal, refused to
become citizens of the South African Republic on any conditions. This
way of putting the case was misleading, and purposely so. The British
subjects did not agree to renounce their character as subjects, until
assured they could be citizens of the South African Republic so far,
and _that the large majority of the Europeans, the white men in the
Transvaal, might have a small minority of representation in the Volks
Raad, and this upon the belief that if a very few members of that body
who knew the truth of the conditions were able to speak it in public
and officially, there would be a mitigation of the remorseless tyranny
under which the Uitlanders had been suffering_.
[Sidenote: Boers Positively Refuse Justice]
The Boer President refused to think of this, on the precise and often
expressed ground that the Uitlanders were a large majority of the
people, and there could be no safeguards for the Boer Government if
these outsiders and strangers were permitted to have any political
rights whatever. The President held indomitably that the "newcomers"
and "strangers" should not occupy and possess the country to any degree
by force of numbers or merit of industry and property. They were in
the "blood-bought land"--that is truthfully applied, especially the
native blood, and British blood had been shed copiously, and the land
was bloody enough in that sense; but the condition of English-speaking
people and all white immigrants in the gold fields, the richest in the
world, and the diamond fields, also the richest ever known--the whole
output amounting to more than one hundred millions of dollars a
year--should be abject submission to an extortionate, tyrannous and
brutal caste that respected no human rights and revelled in
selfishness, sordidness and personal and racial insolence. [Sidenote:
Mr. Kruger's Views on the Question] The initial point at which
President Kruger stood through these negotiations, in which he had
ample and honorable opportunities to make peace, was that the great
communities of English-speaking people were composed of strangers and
aliens who must be inferiors. This amounted to a presumption,
officially and peremptorily and continuously asserted, that the Boers
must, though a minority, and _because they were a minority_, be
consecrated by "blood" a ruling caste, a caste whose authority it was
impious to dispute, and that they must have confided to them
exclusively and forever commanding powers held sacred over the natives
they had enslaved; and the English-speaking people they taxed, assessed
and restricted, insulted and humiliated with ostentation at their
sovereign, savage pleasure. It is a mild and gentle form of expression
to say that the behavior of the Boers has been that of a barbarous
tribe, and that their conduct has had a nearer correspondence with Zulu
savagery than with Christian civilization, and totally lacks the
kindliness of the Hottentot. The Boers forced the war with England in
the spirit of haughty, tribal, class, racial, contemptuous hostility,
and would have it so throughout the Conferences.
[Sidenote: The English Language not Permitted]
After the Conferences between the British Commissioner and Governor of
South Africa, Sir Alfred Milner and President Kruger, the peace-making
efforts lacked acute interest, but were perseveringly continued. The
latest concession of the Boers was that if the "people"--and by the
"people" were meant the burghers of the Transvaal--approved, and the
Government would try to get them to do so, a "retrospective five years'
franchise" would be granted, and the amount of it was that of
two-thirds of the white men of the Transvaal were to have one-fourth of
the representation in the Volks Raad, but by no possibility, it was a
little later explained, could the English language be permitted in that
august body--the barbarous jargon of the Boers being the official
language and the only tongue to be spoken. The President of the Orange
State, as the gravity of the situation increased played a raucous
second fiddle to President Kruger, and busied himself against the
English, constantly professing friendliness to excess, working upon the
line of securing the acceptance of an impossible complacency by the
majority of white men in the Transvaal, in reference to the policy of
their own subordination. That sort of submission is not according to
the inheritance of the blood or the antecedent history of the
English-speaking race, and the Uitlanders were not effusive with
satisfaction even at the last Boer effort to make peace by offering a
fractional representation in a body while they must listen to an
unknown tongue and not be permitted to speak in the "Republican"
parliament the language of the majority of the tolerably white men
dwelling in the territory of the Republic.
The utility of the hysteria of the President of the Orange State was in
the warning his frequent and voluminous impracticable suggestions gave,
that peace could only be preserved by another case of sublime
magnanimity like that of Mr. Gladstone, whose Christian benevolence had
given the Boers confidence in their own invincibility and also in the
timidity of the British, who were supposed to be most happy when
dealing in generosities toward enemies in arms and victorious over the
generous. Suddenly the peace-maker, President of the Orange State,
snatched the British gold in transit, arrested or expelled British
subjects by countenancing and justifying a panic that led them to take
flight from his peaceable State, at the same time commandeering the
burghers in force, assuming that this was done in a purely pacific way;
and on the fourth of October this man of peace wrote to Sir Alfred
Milner that he must urge the "urgent necessity of intimating to me
without further delay whether Your Excellency sees your way clear to
give effect to these my views and wishes."
[Sidenote: The President of the Orange Free State as Peace Maker]
It will be remarked that there is found in the Orange President's
literature the same sort of note that Aguinaldo was in the habit of
putting in his proclamations expressions of his intense passion for
pacification when he was plotting the burning of Manila and the
massacre of the American army. President Steyn had just stated that
the South African Republic would not "make or entertain proposals or
suggestions unless not only the troops menacing their State were
withdrawn further from their borders, but an assurance given" that all
increase of British troops in South Africa would be stopped and those
on the water not landed "or as far removed as can be from the scene of
possible hostilities;" and then if the Orange State President was to do
anything more for peace he must now--this was the evening of October
5th--"if this preliminary but absolutely essential matter can be
regulated between this and to-morrow." This shows that the
professional presidential pacificator had received due notice of the
purpose of the Boers to rush a declaration of war.
CHAPTER V
The Boer Declaration of War and the Gathering of the Armies.
[Sidenote: Both sides Surprised]
When the Republic of South Africa and the Orange Free State, after a
conspiracy of the two Presidents, rushed their armies into what they
believed a campaign of conquests, the surprise of the Boers and their
allies that they gained so few and small advantages after elaborate
preparations and careful openings of their opportunities in striking
first, was as at as that of the British that they, indifferently
provided and hastily thrust into hot places, could not march headlong
in solid columns, storming fortifications, to easy victories.
[Illustration: THE LAST LETTER HOME. An incident at Ladysmith. Red
Cross Nurse writing a message of love from a dying soldier.]
[Illustration: THE GUARDS TERRIFIC CHARGE--BATTLE OF BELMONT]
The Boer ultimatum, ordering the British to flee, for waiting on the
frontiers would be regarded a "declaration of war on the part of Her
Majesty's Government," and that within forty-eight hours, was
promulgated on the 9th of October. The material part is in the
following words, as per Associated Press report:
THE TRANSVAAL'S ULTIMATUM,
which is signed by F. W. Reitz, State Secretary, is as follows:
"Her Majesty's unlawful intervention in the internal affairs of this
republic, in conflict of the London convention of 1884, by the
extraordinary strengthening of her troops in the neighborhood of the
borders of this republic, has caused an intolerable condition of things
to arise, to which this Government feels itself obliged, in the
interest not only of this republic, but also of all South Africa, to
make an end as soon as possible, and this Government feels itself
called upon and obliged to press earnestly and with emphasis for an
immediate termination of this state of things and to request Her
Majesty's Government to give assurances upon the following four demands:
"First--That all points of mutual difference be regulated by friendly
recourse to arbitration or by whatever amicable way may be agreed upon
by this Government and Her Majesty's Government.
"Second--That all troops on the borders of this republic shall be
instantly withdrawn.
"Third--That all reinforcements of troops which have arrived in South
Africa since June 1, 1899, shall be removed from South Africa within a
reasonable time to be agreed upon with this Government, and with the
mutual assurance and guarantee on the part of this Government that no
attack upon or hostilities against any portion of the possessions of
the British Government shall be made by this republic during the
further negotiations within a period of time to be subsequently agreed
upon between the Governments, and 'this Government will, on compliance
therewith, be prepared to withdraw the armed burghers of this republic
from the borders.
"Fourth--That Her Majesty's troops which are now on the high seas shall
not be landed in any part of South Africa."
To these demands is appended the definition of time limit for a reply:
"This Government presses for an immediate and affirmative answer to
these four questions, and earnestly requests Her Majesty's Government
to return an answer before or upon Wednesday October 11, 1899, not
later than 5 o'clock P.M.
It desires further to add that in the unexpected event of an answer
unsatisfactory being received by it within the interval, it will, with
great regret, be compelled to regard the action of Her Majesty's
Government as a formal declaration of war, and will not hold itself
responsible for the consequences thereof, and that in the event of any
further movement of troops occurring within the above mentioned time,
in a nearer direction to our borders, this Government will be compelled
to regard that also as a formal declaration of war. I have the honor
to be, respectfully yours,
F. W. REITZ,
State Secretary."
To the above, Great Britain replied that the demands were such as could
not be discussed, and instructed the British agent to apply for his
passport, which he did.
On the following day, October 11th, the proclamation of war was
formally issued at Pretoria, the Boer capital, and the Orange Free
State openly took its place as an ally of the South African Republic,
appointing General Petrus Jocobus Joubert Commandant-General of its
forces. Both the Transvaal and Free State Boers promptly invaded Natal
and took strong positions.
[Sidenote: Centers of combat quickly Defined]
The object was to overrun South Africa, raising the Dutch in revolt,
and driving all foes seaward, before the slender British garrisons
could be reinforced from England. Thus the war began with surprises on
both sides, for the outposts of the English met the onslaught of the
Boer columns whose movements were extraordinarily rapid as they were
nearly all mounted men, with a hearty appetite for coming to blows.
The flood of Boer riflemen on horseback well supplied with artillery,
largely living on the country that was to have swept the British into
the towns by the sea to meet their incoming transports, was soon
arrested. The centers of the cyclones of war were quickly defined.
The British were astonished to meet in the Boer armies evidences of
well studied campaigning, thorough armament and generalship in the
leaders, and in finding that what was understood to be irregular forces
in thin lines of skirmishers were masses of an army of 50,000 men. The
British were still more thoroughly surprised on finding themselves hard
pressed, than the Boers were that the momentum of the advance of the
sweeping successes of which they had such broad expectations, had been
suddenly stayed.
[Sidenote: Important Decisions to Be made]
If there had been no political considerations with respect to people of
whose tendencies there were doubts to control the action of the British
at the beginning of the war their military position would have been
much bettered by yielding more ground in Natal, abandoning the
positions that the Boers were abundantly able to surround and that were
certain to need relief in a few weeks, a condition that would force the
British armies to hasten advances on dangerous lines. The scenes of
the first chapter of the war had been located by the establishment of
arsenals and encampments that must be strenuously defended, if not
destroyed, with losses irreparable for many days. The gravest
consideration in the first weeks of the war were as to the choice
between the better military and political positions. Naturally there
was something of both given weight in the selections made. Rather than
abandon additional Natal territory the British accepted the conditions
in the midst of which they have repeatedly suffered severely, and their
columns have been driven to accept the contingencies of extra hazardous
operations and relief expeditions driven under the strain of perilous
emergency. The British, as well as the Boers and Orange State armies
underestimated the work they cut out for themselves. The mutual wonder
has been that there was such hot work on both sides.
[Sidenote: Early Days of the War]
During the first weeks of the war the British were busy in securing
transports and getting troops and supplies for the voyage of a month,
and the news of the passing days was of the scenes of parting at the
ports whence the regiments ordered to join the African army of the
British, sailed; and next was the announcement of the arrivals of the
famous organizations at the ports to which they had been
ordered,--speculations as to the time required to put in motion the
several columns for the relief of the besieged garrisons, and the
meantime the gallantry of the beleaguered British and their style of
defending themselves with dashing sorties deeply moved the public, and
gave edge and points to attention. The encounters at this time were
decidedly educational. The combatants were taught to respect each
other. Innumerable war incidents gave zest to the reading of the
current literature in which the journals paraded the names of the troop
ships, the number of men with rifles, the names of the officers,
speculations as to the days and hours the vessels would require to
reach the seat of war, the places where the troops could be put ashore
to the greatest advantage, the roads they must follow to the front.
[Sidenote: Public Opinion]
This was a period of confidence on the part of the British, mitigated
only by occasional furtive suggestions of misgiving. It was almost
universally held throughout the British Empire that the divisions on
the way would be equal to the demands upon them. The arrival of Sir
Redvers Buller to take supreme command was to be a signal for the
display of imperial power--the auspicious beginning of the speedy end.
It was reasonable that spectators not jealous of the British, and
inclined to some form of hatefulness towards them, should accept the
information and conclusions of the intelligence of the people of the
dominant British Island. The general judgment of the world outside the
British Empire--excepting the specialists in detailed knowledge who had
made close studies of the shifting situation with growing apprehension
of its seriousness, political as well as military--was that the war was
to be charged to the account of the land greed of Englishmen, and their
persecution of the religious and Republican Boers instead of to the
fact that the Transvaal Republicans made up one barbary state, and the
alleged Orange Free State another, in a lesser degree wanting in
civility, and that these allies were resolute and aggressive in their
determination to enslave both the original occupants of the soil and
those who had within a few years developed its exceedingly great
riches, and the worth to the world of the astounding revelation of the
most precious stones and metals.
When we form the intimate acquaintance of the facts we find the
friction between the strangely mixed races of the Transvaal was not
caused by British expansionists, or occasioned by British aggression,
but by the stolid abominable ambition of the Boer race--the same for
whom Great Britain had broken the Zulu power in a war that was most
expensive in blood and money. The trouble in Africa did not grow from
the anxiety of the British for extensions of territory or of
privileges. The Boers held all others to be according to the Gospel
their inferiors, and the protestation of the British Government that
there should be for the sake of peace a very moderate reform amounting
to the insertion of an admixture of justice, according to all testimony
denied disdainfully, in the administration of the laws, customs and
habits of the caste of burghers.
[Sidenote: Two Popular Illusions]
The world so far as it has admitted daylight to aid the inspection of
South African affairs has parted with two illusions: First, that the
English made the war, second, that they were ready for it, and menaced
the liberties of South African peoples when they landed two regiments
of regular troops at Durban. It is demonstrated the Boers were the war
makers and ready for war, holding the British in contempt for
peaceableness under the buffetings to which they had submitted, and for
their reluctance to take up arms to defend themselves. It was the
Boers who declared war and were first in the field. They had a fixed
policy for asserting themselves with increasing energy and ferocity,
and they opened the grim game of war in logical accordance with their
proceedings ever since England was so magnanimous after Majuba Hill.
Their astonishment as to the misapprehensions manifest in the course of
warfare thus far, is as great as that of the English at their
miscalculations that would seem humorous if they were not most grave.
CHAPTER VI
The First Bloodshed
[Sidenote: The First Battle of the War]
The first battle of the war was fought October 20th, eleven days after
the ultimatum of the South African Republic. General White was at
Ladysmith, where there was a large accumulation of stores, and General
Symons at Dundee and Glencoe Junction. A Boer force under Lucas Meyers
were in position on Talana Hill. General Symons attacked them. He was
mortally wounded, 10 officers and 33 men killed and 200 wounded, but
the Hill was carried, and though there has been much disputation as to
the possession of the ground immediately after the conflict, and the
comparative lists of casualties, British pride in the courage of their
troops was justified, and the Boers realized they were confronted by
soldiers who would not be satisfied for a day to act strictly on the
defensive. The outlying position of General Symons was perhaps not
worth the sacrifice of so many men to storm a hill that could not be
held at the utmost more than a few days. It was necessary for the
British to retire from the field of their dearly bought victory, and
General Symons died in the hands of his enemies, while the wounded
soldiers who could not be removed were captured. It is creditable to
the Boers that they treated the dying General and the mangled men, with
respect and kindness.
[Sidenote: Battle of Elandslaagte]
On the 21st of October, the day after the fight at Glencoe--Symon's
fight--General French, second in command at Ladysmith, defeated the
Boers, many from the Orange State, at Elandslaagte, a few miles north
of Ladysmith. The losses were heavy, and a retreat from Glencoe, which
was soon found to be inevitable, was made comparatively easy. The
English forces that fought at Glencoe and Elandslaagte, united October
26th with the garrison at Ladysmith, and a week later were surrounded
by a largely superior force under General Joubert, the better known of
the Boer officers, whose movements were slowed down by the hard
fighting he had found it necessary to do. It was the unity of the
detachments that gained, in severe encounters, the first successes of
the British, that justified the bloodshed where Generals Symons and
French were conspicuously heroic. The garrison of Ladysmith was
strengthened by the naval brigade that got in during the sortie of the
30th of October, and manned the guns of long range transported by
railroad from the British cruiser, the "Powerful," which was at Durban.
Lieutenant Edgerton, of that cruiser, at first handled the guns, and
wounded by a shell died after a few days.
[Sidenote: Hard Work on Both Sides]
The hard work the Boers had to do in the first days of their appearance
before completing the investment of Ladysmith, obstructed their plan of
campaign, which was to beat back the British at all points in Natal and
lock them up in Durban and Pietermaritzburg. The storm centers in the
latest days of October, after three weeks of war, were Ladysmith,
Kimberley and Mafeking; and the mobile masses of the Boers were held in
check as the transports loaded with soldiers from England drew nigh.
But the British were not the men to defend themselves in trenches only.
They were too fond of going out to find and develop their enemies, and
had to pay dearly repeatedly for the spirit of adventure with which
they made themselves acquainted with the country occupied by those who
knew it well.
[Sidenote: General Buller Arrives]
News that was distressing reached England from the seat of war on the
last day of October. A squadron of the 18th Hussars was "cut off" and
taken prisoners when in pursuit of apparently fugitive Boers. This was
near Dundee. There was a sortie from Ladysmith under Colonel Carlton,
who was also "cut off" and forced to surrender. He had been sent out
in the night to "flank the enemy," a phrase of wide construction, and a
broad road leading to destruction, unless one is certain of the
location of the flanks and the main body too, of the enemy. On this
occasion there was a stampede of mules with "practically the whole of
the gun equipment, and the greater part of the small arm ammunition."
This affair is known as the disaster of Nicholson's Nek. These 870
officers and men, after fighting nearly an entire day and exhausting
ammunition, were surrendered, and their presence in Pretoria attested a
great victory by the Boers, and increased Afrikander expectations and
enthusiasm. The organizations involved were four and a half companies
of the Gloucesters, six companies of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, and the
10th Mountain Battery. The British successes at Glencoe and
Elandslaagte were due to the excellence of the soldiers and the
devotion of the officers. The successes of the Boers that speedily
followed were results of what the London _Times_ calls "the humiliating
truth--that in that difficult country of kopjes, our enemy more
numerous, better informed and immeasurably more mobile, is able to act
more swiftly than our forces in isolated attacks, as he is habitually
able to choose better positions to defend."
General Buller arrived at Cape Town on the day of the Dundee disaster
October 31st, and his conception of his first duty was the relief of
Ladysmith. For that and collateral purposes there were three columns
prepared for the advance. About 16,000 men were sent to Durban, where
General Cleary soon had two whole divisions. General Gatacre was sent
to Queenstown November 18th, to check a Free State incursion
threatening Cape Colony, and Lord Methuen with the Guards and a Brigade
of the line, and the Highland Brigade, moved on the way direct for
Kimberley. It does not take scientific attainment in looking upon a
map of the country to understand that the advantages of the position
were remarkably with the Boers, and no one had any reason for surprise
that all the British relief columns had "serious reverses."
[Sidenote: The Strategy of the Boers]
An English correspondent, evidently a trained observer, says of the
strategy of the Boers: "Their plan has been simplicity itself.
Establish a laager in a convenient position, detach a sufficient force
to hold and strengthen a kopje, and await a British attack coming from
a given direction. If the attack succeeds the detachment falls back on
the main laager, and the game is repeated. Such are the tactics of the
Boers. Their acquaintance with lyddite shell is said to have induced
them to place less confidence in the rocky crests of the kopjes and to
resort to trenches on lower ground, but the principle remains the same.
So long as the campaign is waged in a country that provides an
interminable series of defensible positions which are attacked in the
way the Boers most ardently desire, while our troops are tethered to a
railway, the game must apparently continue to be in the hands of the
enemy."
[Sidenote: Confronted by Clouds and Darkness]
Sir Redvers Buller found clouds and darkness when he landed at Cape
Town a week before his birthday, having made up his own staff
irrespective of all suggestion of favoritism, and accepted all the
responsibilities. There was before him the two Boer States, whose
Presidents, and sympathizers in Natal, Cape Town and throughout
Southern Africa, caused by the uncertainties of the British policy for
many years, had made hopeful the schemes for the foundation of an
Afrikander Nation. This would mean that all South Africa should be
subjected to the mastery of the Boers, whose specific and especial
policy would be to drive out Englishmen with all their capital,
influences and improvements. The meaning of a great Boer nation could
not fail to be a confederacy of inferior civilization, and to end the
grand work the British have carried on, brightening the Dark Continent
from the days of Moffat and Livingstone to those of Stanley and Rhodes.
Sir Redvers Buller found the Afrikander movement held in suspense by
the Mafeking, Ladysmith and Kimberley defenders, who were fighting
fiercely to stand their ground until the relief columns could be
gathered, formed, put in motion and strike. On all sides there were
embarrassments of the gravest nature for the English.
[Sidenote: Difficulties in Mobilizing the Troops]
The public at large were occupied considerably in counting the number
of soldiers that had sailed from England, computing the speed of the
ships and fixing the dates of their arrival at the ports for which they
were destined, and the concern was not great as to the mobility of the
troops, the confinement of the columns to railroad lines easily
interrupted, and the immense impediment in the indispensable stores
heaped at the points of debarkation, as in our attack upon the
Spaniards in Cuba we were overwhelmed at the point of embarkation. The
army with which the British Commander-in-Chief moved in the direction
of Ladysmith was about the same size as that under Major-General
Shafter that scrambled aboard ship at Tampa and landed at Santiago.
As Sir Redvers Buller marched to attempt the passage of the Tugela
River, he had to encounter the discouragements of the bloody repulses
of both columns co-operating with him, and especially the depressing
experience of Lord Methuen on the Modder River; and he had also at last
to report as the others had done, a "serious reverse."
[Illustration: A NATIVE DISPATCH CARRIER OVERTAKEN BY THE BOERS]
[Illustration: GENERAL LORD METHUEN, British Commander, Battle of
Modder River. GENERAL SIR GEORGE WHITE, V.C., Commander British
Forces, Battle of Ladysmith.]
[Sidenote: The Boers Selected Their Time Judiciously]
There is to be remarked a strong family likeness in all the combats
unfortunate for the British--the desperate storming of fortified hills,
the half blind flank movements, seemingly seeking to get into
ambuscades--the columns by companies charging into zones of rifle fire,
Mausers in the hands of marksmen; the vain hammering with artillery not
all of the latest pattern and longest range--the certain, fatal,
frontal advance, because there was no other way, as the ground lay, for
the work required to be done; and there were, more than all, rivers
booming between rugged banks, rocks serving the Boers for shelter and
rests for their rifles, and a perfect exposure of the masses of the
British to the searching fire of the expert riflemen. The Boers had
selected their time for beginning the war, and judiciously placed it
when the open country was green with grass for their ponies, and their
forces were wafted about almost as swiftly as the winds,--while the
British were fettered to lines of rails readily obstructed, and
repeated misfortunes taught the limits of usefulness of armored trains,
perils from the mad panic of green drivers with greener mules; the fact
slowly learned by old soldiers that the rifles in hand often outranged
the artillery, the next to impossible fording of rivers in the face of
rifle fire, making the attempts an invitation to slaughter, no matter
what the merits of the troops even if the best the world ever saw; and
all the while the pressure of the bitter necessity of groping gallantly
along the gloomy paths that, as we read in Gray's Elegy, "lead but to
the grave," though they shine with glory.
CHAPTER VII
The Magersfontein Battle.
[Sidenote: Heavy Losses on Both Sides]
Lord Methuen moved from the Orange River, November 23d. The objective
point of his undertaking was the relief of Kimberley, the city of
diamond mines. He had at the start a success that was described in
glowing terms. Though the result has appeared in the study of the
course of the combat, which gave him so much distinction, and caused an
amount of applause that was at least disproportionate to that which was
accomplished, was that the British lost 225 men, killed and wounded--a
casualty list that would have meant a bloody skirmish in a war of very
considerable proportions. The fighting was fierce on both sides, and
heavy losses were considered matters of course. Napoleon's observation
that one had to break eggs to make an omelette was much quoted as the
correct philosophy of warfare.
The second stroke by his Lordship, in the course of this campaign, was
at Graspan, and the sobering effect of it, though the claim of the
British was that they had won a victory, did not pass away upon reading
this telegram, dated at Cape Town, December 15th, giving mature
information: "A visit to Simons Town hospital confirms the reports of
the extraordinary gallantry of the marines at Graspan. They have 92
casualties out of a total of 183 in the fight. Many have three wounds
and some four. Sixty per cent. of the officers and sargeants were
hit." All the officers of the naval detachment but two were wounded.
The correspondents wrote that they were on the way to Kimberley
"fighting invisible foes," but moving on slowly and surely. It was
plain that though the foe was invisible, they made themselves felt.
The number of Boers in action at Graspan was estimated at 3,000, and by
the time the slow movement reached Modder River the force of Boers was
believed to be 8,000, showing the mobility of the fighters against the
relief of Kimberley. They hastened from place to place and knew how
and where to concentrate to be of efficiency in obstructing the British
advance. The following week the numbers of the Boers at Magersfontein
was believed to be possibly 16,000.
[Sidenote: The Hottest Fight of the British Army]
The British General described the fight of November 28th as one of the
hottest and most trying in the annals of the British Army. He was
careful not to claim a decisive victory, and his moderate language was
the more impressive for the absence of reassuring assertion overdone.
He said: "After Desperate hard fighting, lasting ten hours, the men
without water or food under a burning sun, made the enemy quit their
position." The London _Times_ correspondent wrote: "The fire was the
hottest recorded, and the results would revolutionize existing
theories. It was effective up to 1,600 yards, but the casualties among
the troops lying down were trifling, their losses being only thirty,
though they were in an exposed position. It was found impossible to
bring the ammunition reserve to the firing line." Much in these words
is significant, and they should have conveyed a warning as to what
revolutionary experience ought to teach; but the commander of the
column did not seem to be teachable. He held on to existing theories.
If it was impossible to bring the ammunition reserve to the firing
line, it was an acknowledgment that no matter what the attacking force
might be in front of an enemy armed with long range rifles, the attack
must utterly fail upon the consumption of the cartridges the men were
able to carry into action. This, of course, if an established
proposition, would limit rigidly the force of an assault.
However, the Boers, on this occasion, withdrew in the night, and the
British occupied the whole of the battlefield, and the column was said
to be encouraged, and moved on according to the fashionable formula of
the special dispatches, "slowly but surely to Kimberley." There was
nothing in the advantage gained to awaken enthusiasm, and confidence
began to fail. There was an atmosphere of misfortune in which the
English armies were moving.
General Gatacre, December 10th, mentioned a "serious reverse" in attack
that morning at Stormberg, where he had penetrated resisting the
invasion of the north of Cape Colony by Orange State forces. The
general had merely been "misled to the enemy's position by guides, and
found impracticable ground." Also he had taken the precaution of
marching all night to surprise the enemy, and was misguided by spies,
so morning broke on him in the presence of the enemy, who were posted
on "an unscalable hill." The British Empire owes his Lordship a
memorable debt of gratitude because he did not immediately order an
impossible charge! The troops that were exhausted in a long night's
march to enter a trap at daylight should, according to prevalent
tactics, have been rushed upon any hill that was crowned by the enemy,
and "unscalable." How could General Gatacre have found out that the
hill could not be scaled without attempting it with his men? He varied
the strategy by retreating nine miles immediately, and complimented the
enemy's gunners for the punishment they gave him, saying, "their guns
were remarkably well served, and carried accurately 5,000 yards." This
was disagreeable intelligence, but the general is reported to have had
the satisfaction of shooting his false guide, and rested from his
labors.
[Sidenote: Lord Methuen's Failure]
He had not the perseverance of Lord Methuen, who was enabled to wire
truthfully that he had failed, December 12th, in assaulting the enemy's
position at Magersfontein. It was there his Lordship met in full force
General Cronje, who had been spending a few days intrenching himself
after the fight on the Modder River. There was no effort on the part
of the British officers to claim Magersfontein as a victory, though
they did insist that the loss of the Boers was something frightful.
The Highland Brigade was marched after the fashion of General Gatacre
at Stormberg, so as to come right on the enemy just at the time and in
the formation that they wanted to see him. It was, of course, during
the darkness of early morning, after a very hard night for the men,
that they entered the trap. The Boers had been waiting patiently and
exercising their mobility in getting together so as to have a force of
about 12,000 men. In that which immediately followed, the emergence of
the troops from the strain of the march, General Wauchope seemed to
believe his orders meant a massacre of his men, and it is the story of
the battle whether strictly true or not, that will give it endless
fame, that he called to the men not to hold him responsible, as he was
obeying Lord Methuen's orders. He died on the field, and his son, near
him, was wounded.
[Sidenote: The Losses]
The Highlanders composing his brigade were, it is told with a dreadful
simplicity, in "formation of quarter column," with no time to deploy,
and they could not, by anything known in military maneuvers, have been
placed in better form for the enemy. The loss of the brigade was their
brave and capable commander Wauchope, with about 700 men killed and
wounded, fifty of them officers, seven-tenths of them Highlanders.
This was the overture. There came after it a great deal of bombarding
by the British of the Boer trenches, and the result was Lord Methuen
retired to the Modder River, the retreat having been conducted in the
official reports in an "orderly" manner. It will be noted that a
considerable number of the Highlanders escaped, and that is accounted
for by the fact that they were just a few minutes too early on the
ground. They were quicker than expected according to the time table,
and "bad light" saved those whose names were not found in the casualty
lists. It was said that General Gatacre personally executed the false
guides; but the trap for Lord Methuen immediately succeeding the affair
at Stormberg was a case bearing such a close resemblance to the
Magersfontein incident, where the guides were not accused of wilfully
going on, that there rests a suspicion as to the criminality of the
error that General Gatacre avenged. [Sidenote: What the Dispatches
Say] The dispatches say in the case of the experience of Lord Methuen,
"six miles had to be covered before the Highland Brigade could reach
the Boer stronghold. It is not yet clear through what mischance the
force which was led by guides came upon the Boer trenches so
unexpectedly and so suddenly. Beyond question the Boers were aware of
the approach of the British and had prepared to receive them." There
were persistent reports that the Boers suffered heavy losses in the
combat that opened with the fall of 700 Highlanders. Whatever were the
casualties of the Boers, they must have been inflicted by the British
Artillery which fired lyddite shells for several hours, and as nothing
could be seen to positively show what the effect of the shelling was,
there are evident exaggerations in the fancies about it. Reuter's
Special Agency telegraphed from Modder River December 12th: "Twelve
ambulances started early this morning under a flag of truce to collect
the wounded and bury the dead. General Wauchope's body was found near
a trench. He had been shot through the chest and in the thigh." The
Boer General Cronje telegraphed that he estimated his losses in this
engagement at 100 killed and wounded, and the British at 2,000. Rumors
in the camp of the British placed the Boer loss at 700 at least. The
Queen sent to the widow of General Wauchope a touching message
expressing her deep sympathy, and paid a warm tribute to the general's
qualities as a soldier and his services to the nation. Her Majesty
referred to the fact that with a single exception, that of the Soudan,
in every campaign in which he had taken part he had been wounded.
[Sidenote: Sudden Change of Public Sentiment]
The most hopeful of British military movements in South Africa, for a
time, was that of the column of Lord Methuen, which was terminated by
the decimation of the Highland Brigade. He was reported as steadily
advancing, winning his way with dashing marches without heavy losses.
His high qualities were mentioned with emphasis in all the
newspapers--his stalwart physique, his cleverness, his kindliness, his
courage, his intelligence; there was no praise too effusive for the
adulation to which he was subjected. The fact that the Highlanders
were put into a trap under his orders changed all this, and he is
accused of madness. The orders that he gave on the field are described
as those of a maniac; but his misfortune was quite like that which
preceded it at Stormberg, and succeeded it at Colenso. Whatever is to
be said of the disaster of Magersfontein, it must be recognized as
typical and to signify either that the Boers were invincible or the
methods of war as conducted by the British just at that period
defective to helplessness. Four days later came the repulse of
Buller's army, and the malady of disaster was manifest there also; so
that it would almost warrant characterizing as a disease, a contagion,
or a plague.
[Illustration: BOERS FIRING ON GENERAL FRENCH'S TRAIN EN ROUTE TO
DURBAN. The excellent marksmanship of the Dutch of South Africa
enables them to hit a man at the distance of a mile or more with their
accurate aim.]
[Illustration: TWO SIDES TO THE QUESTION. Boer or Briton? A heated
discussion on the crisis.]
The general destruction of the Boers by bombarding and the courage
displayed by the British soldiers under trying circumstances, could not
aid the British Empire to assert complacency, and there was a passing
consternation that reflection over the monotony of misfortunes
converted to indignation, and then the spirit of the people rose to the
occasion. There was a general rally and hardening of resolution.
This sort of thing was, however, wired from the Modder Riveras late as
December 13th: "Our lyddite shells fell always where the enemy was
thickest; most awful havoc was inflicted by the Royal Horse Artillery,
who under a hot fire of a raid by the Boer firing line are said to have
filled the trenches with dead."
[Sidenote: The Official Boer Account]
Much has been said of the Boers on the Modder River blazing away
several times in the night, shelling imaginary foes, and there is
evidence that the continued use of the British Artillery, shelling Boer
lines, and an apprehension of desperate sorties (because after the
various storming parties of the British there was no calculating what
they might undertake), did for several nights disturb the nerves of the
Boers in their intrenchments, and caused them to open fire and continue
to blaze with their Mausers and artillery into darkness until they
expended a great amount of ammunition; and the British found
considerable relief in the enjoyment of this evidence that they were
still held in great respect by their enemies. The official Boer
account, telegraphed from Pretoria, was this:
"Despatch riders from the field report that the Boers have taken a
large quantity of booty, including 200 Lee-Metford rifles. two cases
of cartridges, some quantities of filled bandoliers, and hundreds of
bayonets. A large number of British retired from Tweerivieren, in the
direction of Belmont. The loss of the British is very great. Heaps of
dead are lying on the field. The wounded are attended to temporarily
at Bisset's Farm. The Boers lost a considerable number of horses. The
sappers and miners must have suffered severely, as many implements were
found on the field. The slaughter on the battlefield yesterday cannot
be described otherwise than sad and terrible. It was for us a
brilliant victory, and has infused new spirit into our men to enable
them to achieve greater deeds."
[Sidenote: What the Battle Meant for Kimberley]
The Magersfontein battle was of intense interest to the people of
Kimberley, and a special service dispatch gives this account of what
was seen and heard by the anxious inhabitants of that city:
"This morning the ceaseless roar of cannon and Maxims was heard here
from 4.25 till 10.30. Riding out at 5.30 A.M. to a ridge beyond the
racecourse, I saw shell after shell burst on the side of a
sugar-loaf-shaped kopje standing alone to the left of Spitzkop.
"Great puffs of white smoke rose every now and them, appearing like the
spray of breakers on a rocky shore. Presently a captive balloon
ascended and descended out of sight. The roar of the guns as heard
here was most impressive, and told plainly of a great engagement."
The British casualties at Magersfontein are--official total:
Officers and men killed ...... 82
Wounded ...................... 667
Missing ...................... 348
-----
1,097
A Mafeking dispatch, January 3d, states "The Boers, despite repeated
warnings, concentrated their fire during the last two days upon the
women's laager and hospital. Children have been killed and women
mutilated by the bursting of shells.
It was at this time reported in their towns that the Boers used
explosive bullets. Surgeon Major Anderson authorized the statements
that the wounds inflicted at Gambier fight were altogether different to
previous experience in Egypt and in India, and that it was impossible
they could have been produced by Martini or Mauser bullets, though,
perhaps, they might have been caused by Snider ones, but from a
scrutiny of the wounds made while dressing them in hospital here he has
no doubt in his own mind that bullets of an explosive character were
used by the Boers.
Captain Baden Powell deposed Wessels, chief of the tribe of the
Baralongs, who had quarters at Mafeking. Wessels has lately been
intractable. He spread false reports among the tribes that the
military authorities were endeavoring to make the natives slaves.
CHAPTER VIII
Battle of Colenso--Defeat of General Buller.
[Sidenote: "Tied by the Leg"]
South Africa has several lines of railroads scoring the country with
outline improvements, and there are many bridges easily broken, and
then the iron lines are lost and the armies dependent upon them are, to
employ a phrase common in England to describe immobility without
imprisonment, "tied by the leg." South Africa is of enormous extent.
It is, for example, 641 miles by railroad from Cape Town to Kimberley,
and the country is diversified and divided by mountain ranges and
rivers, and yet it is extraordinarily open but rugged, giving
sharpshooters with long range rifles concealment and shelter, while the
columns of an army on the march can hardly be missed by the eye or the
rifle. The Boer wagons with oxen for motors are phenomenally slow, but
the Boer on his pony with rifles and a supply of cartridges gallops
fifty miles in a few hours, while Europeans with indispensable
impediments, have hard work to cover one quarter of the distance in the
same time. The war was rushed just in the season for the grass to feed
the ponies. While the English statesmen were debating with the Boer
President the details of fractional representation based upon
restricted constituencies, the Transvaal Government used the money
extracted from disarmed and unprotected Englishmen in preparing for
war, and it was held that a British subject unwilling to be of a
servile class and have the people speaking his language in the great
city enslaved to the burghers, was in a sense irrational, a disturber,
and one who would be a usurper, sordidly seeking to plunge the world
into war. [Sidenote: American and Boer revolutions Compared] Our
revolutionary fathers fought for representation, or rather against
taxation without representation, but the Boers regarded it as an insult
that the majority paying nine-tenths of the taxes should claim that it
would be no more than fair to have one-sixteenth of the law-making
power of the Transvaal Congress and none at all of the executive. The
British did not prepare for war, but the Boers accused them of it, as
the wolf accused a sheep of muddying the water when it was taking a
drink down stream; and when the Boers were ready to fight they went at
it and took the British unawares, at the same time charging them with
responsibility for the conflict.
[Sidenote: Buller's Difficult Position]
If Sir Redvers Buller comprehended the full extent of the dangers of
the duties of his assignment, he made no sign. He might have had
apprehensions that a pushing advance would mean, at best, delays for an
indefinite period, but it seemed preposterous to sit down on a river
with 18,000 men and watch the water glide away with the days and get
news, perhaps, of the fall of Ladysmith, the place of the trial of
strength of the combatants. He did wait long enough to cause comment
in the press of his country to the effect that there was no break in
the monotony of his camp beside the Tugela. This was equivalent to the
old sarcasm in the American war, during the time that McClellan was
making ready to move; "All is quiet on the Potomac." It was not the
first appearance of General Buller in South Africa. He was with Sir
Evelyn Wood after Majuba, and it was assumed his knowledge of the
country would be valuable. The resources of the English Empire were at
his command, but he was made to feel the want of time. He was where he
could hear the thunder of cannon at Ladysmith day after day, but there
was a river before him and beyond it the enemy in unknown numbers
digging trenches, and they also occupied a position on the British side
of the river, as was soon ascertained when the attempt was made in full
force to pass it. The Boers were engaged in constructing rifle pits in
the shape of the letter S, a double curve that gives occupants
facilities for keeping out of raking shell fire, but making drainage
difficult in rainy weather, and as the ground to cover was rough and
the time to turn the tide that had been running against the British had
come, if it was to be done before the fall of the besieged places, the
General-in-Chief attempted to force the river and the first line of his
report, after stating that he had moved in "full force" in the morning
was to regret a "serious reverse."
[Sidenote: A Possible Preliminary Demonstration]
It was indeed serious. If there had been a chance to flank the
position of the enemy, General Buller had not discovered it. The
presumption is he had a force much stronger than the enemy would be in
the open field, and one would think a violent cannonade at the bend of
the river where there were two fords might have commanded attention in
that quarter, and that there were British troops enough to make a
demonstration that could be converted into a real attack at another
point. In the report there is nothing about a pontoon train to put
promptly two or three bridges across the Tugela, and no flanking
operation seemed to be possible; but that movement should always be at
the command of a superior force. Napoleon crossed the Alps to get
behind the Austrians, who were furiously besieging Genoa, drew them out
and defeated them. General Sherman flanked the Confederate army out of
strong positions from Resaca to Atlanta, and his method was as simple
as effective. Having the superior force, thirty per cent., probably
more, he occupied the whole front of his antagonist and extended one of
his flanks so as to overlap the line of the enemy; then swung a
division or corps like a gate to strike the tip of the Confederate wing
and crumple it up. When Joe Johnston, who had a great faculty for the
business of war, was pressed by this flanking operation, he fell back
to another position. The flanking compelled him to retire or to
advance, and it was not his game to challenge a general battle with an
army greatly stronger than his command. Rivers were not found an
insurmountable obstacle in the American war at any time or place. At
Fredericksburg the Americans laid pontoons across the Rappahannock in
the face of the fire of Mississippi riflemen admirably posted in the
cellars whose ventilating windows served as port-holes overlooking the
river and the landing. [Sidenote: New Conditions of Warfare] It is to
be said, however, that the firearms a generation ago did not have a
range of a mile, even of half a mile, but the Confederate rifles were
effective the whole breadth of the river. The material difference is
that the Mausers of to-day have combined four times the range of our
old "Springfields" with magazines of four metal cartridges in a "clip";
and one of the problems of the Boer and British war is as to the change
made in and by the improvement of the small arms. It must affect the
conditions of combats radically; and all the nations are going to the
war school in South Africa.
[Sidenote: Plan of the Fight]
General Buller's report of the action in which he was discomfited is as
noticeable for what it does not contain consecutively as for its
communicativeness in some respects. He "moved in full strength,"
starting at four A.M. The first attack was at the left-hand ford, and
a failure. The selection of that point for an assault is a curious
one, as it was on ground two-thirds surrounded by a curve of the river,
and exposed to fire on the front and both flanks. The general says the
work could not be done there, but he does not say how soon he became
convinced of that; and there was a second attack made on what may be
best described as the right center. The British succeeded in occupying
Colenso Station and the houses near the bridge. How great the
expectations of the British general were to force a passage of the
second ford, then assailed, we have to conjecture, for no two accounts
agree, except--and this is between the lines--that the British army at
last lost hope and heart. The plan was first to strike with the left
wing, and when that had failed, with the right, supporting right and
left with the center. The turn of the day was soon to be determined,
and "at that moment" the general truly says--he means the crisis of the
affair--he "heard" that two field batteries and also six naval guns,
twelve pounders, quick fire, were "out of action," _Hors du combat_.
The general adds that Colonel Long, who commanded the artillery, "in
his desire to be within effective range, advanced close to the river.
It proved to be full of the enemy, who suddenly opened a galling fire
at close range."
[Sidenote: Mistaken but Heroic Advantage]
The general commanding does not appear to have been well informed. He
must have been exceedingly ill supplied with intelligence that should
have been commonplace, if he didn't expect to find the ground near the
river full of the enemy, and there is a peculiarity in announcing the
sudden opening of a galling fire at close range that one feels it to be
needful to account for. The location of the battery was 800 yards from
the bank of the river. This is stated by the correspondent of the
_Times_, who adds the action of Colonel Long in advancing his guns was
"mistaken but heroic," and this writer imparts definiteness to the
situation when he tells that Long took his batteries into action
"within 800 yards of the river to the left of the railway, and 1250
yards from his objective--a ridge situated beyond Fort Wylie." It was,
therefore, "heroic" to go with artillery within three quarters of a
mile of the "objective!" The consequence, the correspondent says, was
"the guns were exposed to a perfect inferno of rifle and shell fire;
officers, men and horses fell in rapid succession, but, nevertheless,
the guns went on, unlimbered and opened a steady fire, causing that of
the enemy to abate to an appreciable degree. In this position the
batteries remained for an hour and a half."
[Sidenote: Attack Fruitless]
The specific statements appear to show that the correspondent had a
better comprehension of the situation than the general. The
correspondent says that the guns were fired upon with rifle and shell
fire, but went on and opened a steady fire and remained there an hour
and a half. What point of time of this hour and a half General Buller
refers to in stating that at this "moment" he heard that the batteries
were "out of action," is for investigation. Later on, we ascertain
that the general had sent these guns "back." They must, therefore,
have been turned from the fruitless attack on the left to help the one
that seemed more hopeful on the right, but this couldn't happen in a
moment. The artillery fire caused that of the enemy to abate, but at
the distance of 1,250 yards from the objective the horses of the
batteries were killed and so many of the men fell that the guns could
not be served, and more than that, the ammunition could not be
replenished.
This is the most striking example given in active service of the
efficacy of the modern rifle. It overpowered the well-served artillery
rapid-fire twelve-pounders. The exhaustion of the ammunition may be in
part attributed to the activity of the batteries in the attack on the
left. As the men were disabled, so that the guns could not be served,
it was not worth while to forward ammunition, and dispatches state that
at the time when the guns ceased firing, "twenty carts went to the rear
with the wounded." This, of course, by grace of the Boers.
[Sidenote: Boers Capture the Guns]
A further statement is that the artillery detachment "doubled back,"
which means retreated without order and into a depression--a donga or
ravine--where they "found they were protected from the enemy's fire,
but exposed to the burning heat of the sun." General Buller and staff
rode in that direction. Two of the staff were hit, and the General
himself touched, when heroic efforts were made in which the only son of
Lord Roberts fell in the act of rescuing the two guns that were
restored to the British army. The presence of the Commander-in-Chief
at the scene of the greatest danger is noted, but his resources must
have been at the time exhausted. The correspondent we have just quoted
covers a considerable lapse of time in these words: "At a late hour in
the afternoon, while the men were lying without hope of succor under
the rays of the still blazing sun, a strong party of Boers crossed the
river.[1] Firing was stopped, and they surrounded the guns which had
been taken to the donga for shelter, and captured the whole of them.
This is positive, and appears to be at least as authentic as anything
official. There is a great gap in the story of the battle that still
is to be credited to the censor. A correspondent's letter, early
wired, says the Boers crossed the river, and it would appear at this
place, but other accounts say that they were intrenched on the British
side of the river a little further to the right so extensively they
could not be flanked, and they were so numerous they had been offensive
and caused the Commander-in-Chief to refer to them as "oppressing his
right flank," which was to threaten his retreat. General Buller and
his staff are not referred to further than in their appearance in
attempting to save the guns. Whether the British artillery and small
arms were of as long range as those of the enemy, is one of the
questions that rises up and will not down in this connection. The
extent of the disaster to the British is emphasized by the knowledge
that the guns captured and carried off by the Boers were not only 800
yards distant from the river, but had been, after the batteries had
ceased firing, taken into the ravine which was used for shelter
only--at least, that is one of the assertions that are made. Colonel
Bullock, who attempted to reinforce the artillery and was driven into
the ravine, and forced to surrender, but at the same time the men with
him "managed to make good their escape in the confusion."
[1] They had a bridge behind a hill over the Tugela, bearing on
Buller's right.
[Sidenote: Why Were the Guns Lost]
Another question forces itself upon the student of the situation as it
existed at this time: Why could not the guns on the British side of the
river, more than a furlong from the bank, be put under the fire of
British marksmen and saved? Why were the Boers, who came over and
swarmed around them safe, while the British had been crushed on that
very spot by an "inferno" fire? The Boers could hardly have been in
superior force and position on both sides of the river. Early in the
action the British had captured Colenso and the houses near the bridge.
That position should have offered advantages for those who could
consider the propriety of remaining upon the defensive. General Buller
certainly was wise in not sacrificing lives in attempts that he saw
would for some cause be vain to bring off the guns; indeed, he should
have desisted when beaten on the left. The life of Captain Roberts had
been sacrificed in the attempt to recover the guns, but the long-range
rifle in the hands of marksmen could have detained them on the ground
where they were abandoned. If the position of the enemy was
impregnable from the beginning, as is the conclusion in England, the
commanding general should have known it and had the courage of his
conviction to accept the defeat on the left as the end of the day's
experiment. It was according to his reputation, however, to repeat the
effort to force the river with increase of energy. But all depended
upon the distance from the river that was to be passed--a battery could
be in range of the Boer's position and not stricken with their rifle
fire and put out of action. There was no eye that made and applied
this measurement. It is another form of the question: At what distance
is a self-cocking revolver a better weapon than a magazine rifle?
[Sidenote: Buller's Explanation]
The key to the intelligence of the further proceedings is that the
Boers were strongly posted on the south side of the river and pressing
at close quarters the right wing of the British army. General Buller
explains his refusal to continue the effort to gain possession of the
abandoned artillery and the men sheltered in the ravine of retreat,
saying, "Of the eighteen horses thirteen were killed, and, as several
of the drivers were wounded, I would not allow another attempt, as it
seemed they would be a shell mark." This is definite, but not
conclusive. The wounding of several drivers does not seem to have been
important enough to change the fortunes of the fight; but the fact
that, the general adds, he could not sacrifice life in a gallant
attempt to force a passage, "unsupported by artillery," gives the
reason, and a good one, for not attempting to "force a passage." The
language implies that Buller was at the moment the battery was put out
of action attempting to cross at the second ford--the one on the right.
Of course, it was not possible to do that without the support of
artillery, and it might be very difficult with the support of
artillery. [Sidenote: Conduct of the Men] The general in one sentence
refers to the intense heat, and adds that the conduct of the troops was
"excellent," and says, in conclusion, "We abandoned ten guns." Right
after saying he would not try to force a passage without artillery he
remarked, "I directed the troops to withdraw, which they did in good
order. Throughout the day a considerable force of the enemy was
pressing on my right flank, but was kept back by the mounted men under
Lord Dundonald." Though they were kept back, they were making
themselves very disagreeable on General Buller's side of the river; and
this happened, as exactly stated, under "the still blazing sun." One
company of riflemen, half a mile away, with plenty of ammunition, if
marksmen, could have made the abandoned guns too hot for the Boers to
take away. The last line of the official report is, "We have retired
to our camp at Chieveley." There was nothing else to do. The day was
lost, and full particulars show the Boer position was impregnable.
Buller had to make the attacks, and it was good generalship that gave
up the assaults with a loss less than eight per cent. of troops engaged.
[Sidenote: Fuller Accounts Needed]
There is a great deal in General Buller's report that some day will
have to be made more intelligible--if not to himself, in justice to the
world at large. If the Boer position was impregnable, he ought not to
have assaulted it, and he should have known the fact when he ceased
fighting on the left. There are many indications that the first attack
was more disastrous than has been reported, certainly more so than the
official reports represent it, and the second effort, that on the
right, according to the facts that have emerged from the turbid
dispatches, was a palpable mistake; for the loss of the guns and the
retreat five miles to the camp from which the army had moved in the
morning, was in consequence of the second failure of the day, and the
pressure, which General Buller noticed with grave concern, of the Boers
on the right flank of the British. The mystery of that "pressure" is
partially cleared through Laffan's Agency in these words: "The cavalry
brigade had a very hot engagement. Lord Dundonal, who was in command,
tried to take Lhangwana Hill on our extreme right. He found the hill
occupied, by a strong force of Boers." This, of course, was on the
British side of the river. [Sidenote: Pressed All Along the Line] A
flanking attack was made on the Boers, but their lines "ran along some
high ground to the right of the flanking party," and that prevented the
capture of the hill. Lord Dundonald had a battery which shelled the
Boers "until at mid-day" an order to retire was received. The battle
was, therefore, going on on the right flank at the same time that it
was taking place at the left hand, and, therefore, when the central
movement was made by bringing up the artillery to the point where it
was put out of action and the guns were captured, the British had been
hard pressed all along the line, for Dundonald--we quote the
correspondent--"was unable to carry out the order (given out
immediately to retire) for another two hours, because as soon as the
men began to move they became a target for the enemy's fire, and it was
only under a continuous shell fire that the retirement was eventually
effected." Here we have Dundonald, with his battery and his mounted
men, attempting to carry the extreme Boer left and getting into the
same shape that Colonel Long got the battery, which was to put
themselves forward as a target of the Boer rifle fire, so that they
could not get away for hours, if at all. The Boers dominated the whole
field of battle. At this point, on the right wing the British losses
were not very heavy, and the men were not discouraged, but fell back
reluctantly. [Sidenote: Bad Light and No Smoke] The failures in other
parts of the contested ground could not be remedied there, for, "owing
to the bad light, it was impossible to see the Boers, and as they used
smokeless powder, firing did not reveal their position." This "bad
light" on the right flank comes in as a last and lamentable resort,
when there was so much complaint of the intensity of the sunshine in
other parts of the field; and it is a strain to try to understand the
strange story that the Boers were obscure at all times and places and
the British everywhere conspicuous. The loss of the cavalry brigade
was "something more than 100 killed and wounded," but, as a writer on
the spot says, this was not "tremendous."
[Sidenote: Defeat Admitted]
The soldierly character of General Buller is that of a man in full
command of his faculties in extra hazardous situations. This has been
shown in the Ashantee, Egyptian, Soudan and Indian fighting in which he
has participated with great distinction. No other British officer has
seen as much war in Africa as General Buller before his recent
experience, and as his report of the reverse on the Tugela is read and
examined line by line, it is seen the general felt he could afford
better to take the blame on himself in full, with the exception of the
placing of the batteries, than to make criticisms upon the conduct of
any of the officers and men of his command; and he tells that he
"heard," did not see, that "the whole of the artillery I had sent
back," etc. The guns must have been used in the first attack on the
left, and sending "back" was moving to the right. It is not in
evidence that the batteries were exceptionally hurt until then, and
there are accounts to show that they were not quickly put out of
action, and so situated that they could not be helped to ammunition,
nearly all the horses killed and the men wounded. The guns were not
abandoned until after "continuous heavy firing we ran short of
ammunition," and the men were "ordered under cover," but with
"absolutely no thought of abandoning the guns, which were in no way
disabled." There could be no more expressive admission of defeat.
[Sidenote: Dazed by Defeat]
As the case is critically examined, the magnitude of the British
disappointment on the left, in the hook of the river, clearly amounted
to a serious reverse. The general commanded the guns "back," and
Colonel Long got with them too close to the river. The circumstances
do not indicate that this movement was absolutely aggressive. The
judgment of the general that nothing more could be done on the left was
correct, but we can hardly appreciate the extreme surprise that he
showed when the failure on the left was repeated with on the right; and
it strikes one who strives to follow the changes of the engagement that
the "pressure" from the Boers on the British right was the factor that
determined General Buller to give the order to retreat. The
explanation of this is that in the afternoon the situation of the
British army was more critical than has been admitted, and yet General
Buller had more than 15,000 neither killed, disabled nor captured. It
must be true that the defeat added to the series of serious reverses of
which it was the culmination, affected the army, so that the general
was impressed there might be in the conditions the elements of a far
greater disaster, and he took on himself more blame than was his share
of the responsibility for the issue. If this is controverted, he must
himself have been profoundly affected and awed, if not dazed, by the
immense disappointment of the day, during which the three British
attacks were successive demonstrations of an impracticable undertaking;
and late in the day, the four o'clock march in the morning, the intense
heat, the extreme exertion, and the discouraging results of all
encounters with the enemy "took it out" of the British army for the
day, until it was the belief of the general, whose fame has been that
of coming out under desperate circumstances with striking achievements,
that there would be more certainly risked than possibly gained in
further efforts to save the guns and hold the field, and hence the
order to return to camp.
[Sidenote: Startled and Disturbed but Haughty]
The call for Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener to save the campaign, the
refusal of risks until Lord Roberts arrived, is based upon information
that the War Office and the Commander-in-Chief have not shared with the
world at large. The defeat of the army of General Buller in attempting
to cross the Tugela River for the relief of the strenuously besieged
city of Ladysmith was in the positive likeness of the preceding
reverses of the British arms on three other lines and, therefore, more
startling and disturbing to the people of Great Britain and the Greater
Britain, but they met the renewed and increased demands upon them with
a gloom that was haughty, and a resolution that did not falter, for
they knew it was in the issue to lose or gain an empire. The official
figures of British casualties in the Battle of Colenso were, officers
killed 5, wounded 36; men killed, 145, wounded 751; missing, officers
21; men 332. Total, 1,290--about eight per cent.
[Sidenote: Buller Attacks]
The Boer account of the battle dated Colenso, December 15, 1899, said:
"At dawn to-day the long-expected attack by the British was made.
Commandant Pretorius, with the artillery, gave the alarm that General
Buller's Ladysmith relief column was advancing on the Boer positions
close to the Tugela and Colenso, and was in full battle array.
"The centre consisted of an immense body of infantry, while the flank
was formed by two batteries of artillery. On each side were strong
bodies of cavalry supporting the troops.
"The Boer artillery preserved absolute silence and did nothing to
disclose their position. Two batteries of British artillery came up
within rifle range of our foremost position, and the Boers then opened
fire with deadly effect. Our artillery next commenced operations, and,
apparently, absolutely confused the enemy, who were allowed to think
the bridge open for them to cross the river.
"The British right flank meanwhile attacked the southernmost position
held by the Boers, but our Mauser rifle fire was so tremendous that
they rolled back like a spent wave, leaving ridges and ridges of dead
and dying humanity behind them.
"Again the British advanced to attack, and again they fell back,
swelling the heaps of dead. The cavalry charged up to the river, where
the Ermelo commando delivered such a murderous fire that two batteries
of cannon had to be abandoned. So tremendous a cannonade has seldom
been heard. The veldt for miles round was covered with dead and
wounded.
"The result of the engagement was a crushing British defeat. Nine
cannon were captured and brought across the river.
"The official returns of the Boer losses were thirty killed and
wounded."
[Sidenote: "A Crushing British Defeat."]
All this about a combat in which the British losses, the names of the
killed, wounded and missing given, assuring accuracy were one per cent.
of Buller's men in action were killed. One wonders what words the
Boers will have left to use if they do win a great battle. The British
account is in some respects less florid than that of the Boers. We
quote the account least picturesque of the correspondents:
[Sidenote: A British Account]
"The Dublins and Connaughts advanced magnificently against the almost
overwhelming fire, men falling at every step. As they approached the
river the enemy's fire seemed to redouble. Every time a company rose
to its feet to advance there was a perfect crash of musketry, and the
plain all round them became a cloud of dust spurts. It seemed
wonderful that any man could survive it. And yet there was nothing to
tell where the enemy lay concealed. Not a single head even was
visible; nothing but a long line of smoke, scarcely visible, and the
incessant crackling roar. The batteries sent shell after shell
wherever they could distinguish the line of the trenches, but they
failed to silence the terrible fire. At last our men reached the
river, but where there should have been a ford there was seven feet of
water. The few who tried to cross it, overcome by the weight of rifle
and ammunition, were drowned. The rest lined the bank, and poured in a
tremendous fire on the still almost invisible enemy. Then came the
general's order to retire."
A letter from General Buller's camp, showing that the British army, on
the way presumably to relieve Ladysmith, consisted of twenty-three
battalions (23,000 men), says, "It is not to be expected that a single
battalion had 600 men in the firing line. Many barely had 400. I am
making a generous calculation by allowing 500 men per battalion."
The press states Buller had 30,000 men, including the sick, camp
guards, camp duties, lines of communication troops, standing pickets
and standing posts, permanent signallers, clerks, orderlies, cooks,
bakers, butchers.
[Sidenote: A Foredoomed Failure]
Then come the deductions made on the field escorts, flag signallers,
orderlies, detached flankers, ammunition bearers, stretcher bearers,
fall-outs, and Buller's attacking force was 10,000 infantry, 700 sabers
and 48 guns. It requires infantry to take a position, and it is the
drill book defined principle that an attack to have a chance of success
must be four assailants to one defender. The Boers could put as many
in the trenches as the British could send against them, and, therefore,
the assault was a foredoomed failure.
CHAPTER IX
The Siege of Ladysmith.
[Sidenote: Location of Ladysmith]
The siege of Ladysmith began November 2, 1899, the third day after the
British disaster at Nicolson's Nek, that is, the affair in which six
companies of the Royal Irish Fusiliers marched out with four companies
of the Gloucestershire regiment to seize the Nek, seven miles northwest
of Ladysmith, and they were caught, the mules stampeded with artillery
and ammunition, and the Fusiliers and supports were penned, and there
were next day empty camps and the British Empire was shaken. The town
of Ladysmith is 169 miles from Durban, 3,285 feet above the level of
the sea, and is the chief town of the Klip River division of the Klip
River country in Natal; it is on a tongue of land formed by the Klip
River. There is a sheltering semi-circle of hills. The position of
General White, the British commander, is out of town on the hill tops
that overlook Ladysmith. The town hall in this place is of the Doric
style, and cost $30,000. It is of blue whinstone and white freestone.
The town is an important railway center, and has shops for railway
repairs. The distance from Colenso where Buller was checked is only
sixteen miles. Dundee is distant forty-seven and a half miles; Glencoe
forty-two miles; Estcort fifty-three miles. When General Symons won
the fight at Dundee and was mortally wounded, he ordered that he and
other wounded be placed in hospitals and his column marched to
Ladysmith. General Symons had won the field, carried a very strong
position brilliantly but with heavy loss, and retreated before the
rushing reinforcements of the Boers. General Yule set out with the
able-bodied troops--four battalions of infantry, three batteries, and a
small body of the 13th Hussars. By daybreak they were nine miles away
in the hills. At 2 P.M. they had reached Beith, subsequently passing
unmolested through the rocky defiles of Waschbank, emerging safely on
the third day into the open country. General White, finding a Boer
attempt would be made to cut off Yule, sallied forth and drove the
Boers from their position on a hill 8,000 feet high. [Sidenote: Timely
Arrival of Naval Brigade] While General White was out fighting, the
Naval Brigade, that has done so much to assist the British defence of
Ladysmith, arrived. General White reported 3 P.M., October 30th:
"I sent No. 10 Mountain Battery with Royal Irish Fusiliers and
Gloucester Regiment to take up a position on the hills to clear my left
flank. The force moved at 11 P.M. last night, and during some night
firing the battery mules stampeded with some of the guns, which,
however, I hope to recover. The two battalions have not yet returned,
but are expected this evening."
[Sidenote: First Serious Reverse]
This was the first notice of the disaster. At 11.35 P.M., October
30th, General White sent his announcement of the first "serious
reverse," in these terms:
"I have to report a disaster to a column sent by me to take a position
on hill to guard the left flank of the troops in these operations
to-day.
"The Royal Irish Fusiliers, No. 10 Mountain Battery, and the Gloucester
Regiment were surrounded in the hills, and, after losing heavily, had
to capitulate.
"I formed the plan in carrying out which the disaster occurred, and am
alone responsible for the plan.
"No blame whatever attaches to the troops, as the position was
untenable."
[Sidenote: The Excitement in London]
The excitement and depression in London about this news was
representative of that throughout the empire, and it was astonishing in
its degree. The Boers hastened to close around Ladysmith and cut off
railroad and telegraphic communication, and very soon had connected
railway tracks giving themselves free run into Natal and communication
with Pretoria. In the gloom of these inauspicious incidents the siege
of Ladysmith began, forcing the policy of relief of places in the most
difficult country to prevail, and making costly combats certain, and
scattered operations, according to ordinary judgment, necessary. It is
a question that will long be discussed whether it would have been
better to destroy the stores at Ladysmith and withdraw the troops to
Colenso, or even further, for concentration and movement with one
irresistible column, but this is all speculation. The siege of
Ladysmith is a stirring chapter of history forever.
[Sidenote: Distribution of Forces]
Sir George White's official report was forwarded by Sir Redvers Buller
from Cape Town, under date of November 9th. Sir George took command of
Natal forces October 7th, and he says:
"The information available regarding the positions occupied by the
armies of the two Dutch Republics showed the great bulk of the forces
of the Orange Free State were massed near the passes of the Drakensberg
mountains, west of Ladysmith. The troops of the South African Republic
were concentrated at various points west, north, and east of the
northern angle of Natal."
[Illustration: THE TREACHERY OF A WOUNDED DERVISH. An incident in the
Soudan War 1898.]
[Illustration: THE LAST STAND OF THE KHALIFA'S STANDARD BEARER. A
thrilling incident in the late Soudan war. "That one man, alone, was
standing alive, holding his flag upright a storm of lead sweeping past
him--his comrades dead around him."]
October 10th, the Boer war ultimatum was received. Sir George desired
to withdraw the troops from Glencoe, but the Governor of Natal said,
"Such a step would involve great political results and possibilities of
so serious a nature that I determined to accept the military risk of
holding Dundee as the lesser of two evils. I proceeded in person to
Ladysmith on October 11th, sending on Lieutenant-General Sir William
Penn Symons to take command at Glencoe.
"The Boers crossed the frontier both on the north and west on October
12th, and next day the Transvaal flag was hoisted at Charlestown. My
great inferiority in numbers necessarily confined me strategically to
the defensive, but tactically my intention was and is to strike
vigorously whenever opportunity offers."
Sir George states that it was Sir W. P. Symons' intention to make a
direct attack on the enemy's position under cover of a small wood and
of some buildings, and continues:
[Sidenote: Symons' Death and Victory]
"At 8.50 A.M. the Infantry Brigade were ordered to advance. The ground
was open and intersected by nullahs, which, running generally
perpendicular to the enemy's position, gave very little cover. At 9
A.M. Sir W. P. Symons ordered up his reserves, and advanced with them
through the wood at 9.15 A.M. At 9.30 A.M. the Lieutenant-General was,
I regret to report, mortally wounded in the stomach, and the command
devolved upon Brigadier-General Yule.
"About 11.30 A.M. the enemy's guns were silenced and the artillery
moved into a range of 1,400 yards and opened a very rapid fire on the
ridge over the heads of our infantry. This temporarily brought under
the enemy's rifle fire, and enabled our infantry to push on. The
ground in places was so steep and difficult that the men had to climb
it on hands and knees; but by 1 A.M. the crest was reached, and the
enemy, not waiting to come to close quarters, retired."
The loss of a detachment followed, and Sir George says:
"The Boer force engaged in this action is computed at 4,000 men, of
whom about 500 were killed or wounded. Three of their guns were left
dismounted on Talana Hill, but there was no opportunity of bringing
them away."
[Sidenote: Elandslaagte and Engagements]
In his account of the Elandslaagte engagement, Sir George details the
fight and closes:
"Our men worked forward in short rushes of about fifty yards. Many of
the Boers remained lying down, shooting from behind stones until our
men were within twenty or thirty yards of them, then sometimes ran for
it and sometimes stood up and surrendered. These latter individuals
were never harmed, although just previous to surrendering they had
probably shot down several of our officers and men.
"At length the guns were reached and captured, and the end of the ridge
was gained, from which the whole of the enemy's camp, full of tents,
horses and men, was fully exposed to view at fixed sight range. A
white flag was shown from the centre of the camp, and Colonel Hamilton
ordered the 'cease fire' to be sounded. The men obeyed, and some of
them moved a short distance down the hill towards the camp. For a few
moments there was a complete lull in the action, and then a shot was
heard, which was followed by a deadly fire from the small conical copje
to the east of the camp, and by a determined charge up hill by some
thirty or forty Boers, who effected a lodgment near the crest line
within fifteen or twenty paces of our men, who fell back for a moment
before the fierce suddenness of this attack. Only for a moment,
however, for our fire was at once reopened, and, reinforced by a timely
detachment of the 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment, they charged back,
cheering, to the crest line, when the remnant of the Boer force fled in
confusion towards the north.
"The 1st Devonshire Regiment charged with fixed bayonets, and the
cavalry squadrons went through and through the retreating enemy. Sir
George White estimates the Boer losses at over 100 killed, 108 wounded
and 188 prisoners."
[Sidenote: Closing in of Ladysmith]
The close of the General's report is full of significance:
"Reverting to my action at Rietfontein on October 24th, I may mention
in general terms that my object was not to drive the enemy out of any
positions, but simply to prevent him crossing the Newcastle road from
west to east and so falling on General Yule's flank. This object was
attained with entire success, the enemy suffering severely from our
shrapnel fire, which was very successful in searching the reverse
slopes of the hills on which he was posted. Our own loss amounted to
one officer and eleven men killed; six officers and ninety-seven men
wounded, and two missing. The details of this action, as well as the
various plans and returns, which should accompany a despatch, will be
forwarded later; but I am anxious that this report should be sent off
at once, as it is very doubtful whether any communications by rail with
Pietermaritzburg will remain open after to-day."
[Sidenote: Defences of Ladysmith]
The story of constructing the fortifications of Ladysmith is very
handsomely told in a letter dated November 21st:
"The defences were incomplete, and it was felt that the enemy, if
determined, could make an impression upon every section. Probably the
civilian population had not realized this, but it was obvious to those
concerned in their construction; and if it had not been for the moral
effect of the naval guns it is doubtful if the defences would have been
finished in time to meet the assault when it was made. The devotion
with which the sailors drew and returned the enemy's fire while all
other troops were engaged in building breastworks stands unprecedented.
The first three days their guns had little or no parapets, and the men
had to stand to in the open. The luck of the British service was with
them, for, though the ground round the guns was furrowed and plowed in
every direction, no appreciable damage was done to any group. With the
naval gunners drawing the fire it was possible for the men to work at
day on some of the posts. But on others nothing could be done except
at night, and the men, as soon as they were relieved from holding the
crest lines, were forced to exchange rifle for pick and shovel and to
spend the night intrenching. But each twenty-four hours that the Boers
delayed the assault saw the safety of Ladysmith increase, until, by
November 7th, those responsible for the line of defences were confident
that we could hold our own. But after the experience of November 9th,
the Boers have made no further attempt to reduce Ladysmith by storm.
[Sidenote: A Narrow Escape]
There were eleven miles of defences. This early incident of the siege
is told:
"Colonel Ian Hamilton and staff, including Lord Ava and Colonel F.
Rhodes, escaped a serious burst by a few moments. They were about to
have breakfast when a shell from the Peppworth battery entered the
plinth of the house and, passing into the cellar, burst under the
breakfast table. The force of this explosion drove the floor planks of
the room through the ceiling and roof."
The famous war correspondent, G. W. Stevens, who died of fever in
Ladysmith during the siege, gave at a dash a diagram and picture of the
city that will be memorable for British valor and the tenacity of the
Boers, and the proof that the former are as fierce on the offensive as
they are firm on the defensive, and Ladysmith will be fixed in history
as a spot that was for months the pivot upon which events that effected
the destiny of nations turned. This paragraph is an outline drawing of
the correspondent whose reputation was won in adventures of hardihood,
personal bravery in going to the fire lines where history is made, and
a rare talent for rapid and vivid pencillings by the way:
[Sidenote: Surroundings of Ladysmith]
"If the reader will bear in mind what a horse's hoof inverted looks
like, he may get a mental picture of Ladysmith and its
surroundings--the heels of the horseshoe pointing eastward, where, five
miles off, is the long, flat top of steep Bulwaan, like the huge bar of
a gigantic horseshoe magnet, The horse's frog approximately represents
a ridge, behind which, and facing Bulwaan, but separated from it by
broad stretches of meadow, with the Klip River winding a serpentine
course through them, between high banks is Ladysmith town. Between the
frog and the horseshoe lie our various camps, mostly in radiating
hollows, open either to the east or west, but sheltered from cross
fires by rough kopjes of porphyritic boulders that have turned brown on
the surface by exposure to sunshine. Bushy tangles of wild, white
jasmine spring from among those boulders with denser growth of thriving
shrubs, bearing waxen flowers that blaze in brilliant scarlet and
orange."
[Sidenote: Preparations for the Siege]
_The Natal Witness_ has contained striking accounts of the situation in
Ladysmith. "The people cut off in the town, having been notified that
Joubert would begin the bombardment in a day or two, sought places of
safety. The Royal Hotel people flitted to the deep, rocky ravine
through which the Port road runs towards the camp. In the bottom of
the ravine, with precipitous banks on each side of the high stone
viaduct, used once for the conveyance of water to the town, towards the
mouth of the ravine, a well-protected little camp was formed, and here
the Royal continued to cater for such of its guests as thither went.
The Railway Hotel closed. Mr. and Mrs. Chisnall, of the Crown Hotel,
did better than the others. They kept their hotel open, and, not too
much afraid of shells, which never came, continued to do their best for
their clients, despite shrinkage of supplies. Along the bottom of the
ravine, already referred to, were numerous tents, people--men and
women--took up their abode amongst the trees and rocks, and several
individuals found holes amongst the rocks on the sides of the ravine
into which they could stow a few of their possessions, and crawl into,
themselves, when the shells began to whistle overhead.
[Sidenote: Caves Excavated for Families]
"In the clay banks of the ravine caves were excavated. Many of these
places showed there had been no lack of energy and ingenuity employed
in their preparation. Narrow entrances opened into cavities large
enough, some of them, for a dozen people to stand upright in at one
time, and into these interiors had been brought bedding, seats, food
and cooking appliances. Some folks, less energetic or less
apprehensive, contented themselves by scooping out the banks so as to
have a few feet of covering over their heads. Into one of these
scooped-out terraces were set two long garden seats, and on these the
father and mother and a big family of little children intended to sit
in a row when the shells began, with their backs firm against the
earthen wall behind, and their eyes upon the Klip River below. Within
a distances of less than half a mile between twenty and thirty such
places had been prepared.
"Monday, November 7th, the bombardment began. Early in the morning
Boer shells were whistling overhead, banging and crashing as they
reached the earth, from end to end of the town. There is a glorious
uncertainty about Boer shells. Whether their erratic course is due to
deliberation or merely the result of poor gunnery, I cannot pretend to
decide. But the fact remains that the shells from the Dutch positions
fell in the most unexpected places.
"Some fell near the camps by the river, and some caused considerable
alarm to the cave-dwellers by alighting near their cool retreats.
Others, again, went far over Ladysmith, striking the bare hills,
causing a loud report and a cloud of dust, and that was about all.
About 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the shelling was heavy. Shrapnel
came from Umbulwan, and the shells bursting over the town; the bullets,
iron segments and shot rattled on the housetops at times like hail.
From 4 o'clock to 4.20 twenty-two shells came from the Boer guns, but
taking the entire day the number of shells would not average one every
two minutes."
[Sidenote: Town Hall Struck]
"Shelling by the enemy's smaller guns started before 8 o'clock
(November 22d), but the backyards of houses in the vicinity of Port
road west, was the designation of the missiles. "Slim Piet" chimed in
after breakfast, with no respect for the Red Cross. After sending a
few into the centre of the town, he succeeded in striking the right
wing of the Town Hall, which has all along been the office of the town
clerk. The bomb--a 94-pounder--entered the roof, crashed through the
ceiling, and thence against the back wall of the wing. Here it
encountered a well-constructed stone wall about two and a half feet
thick. The resistance was tremendous, but a portion of the wall gave
way with the explosion, which wrecked the inside of the office, smashed
every pane of glass, and threw splinters in every direction. The most
remarkable thing about this was that at the moment several soldiers
belonging to the Hospital Corps were engaged at breakfast under what
was considered the friendly shelter of the wall. When the partition
wall gave way they were literally covered with the falling debris, and
many received bruises and scratches, but not one was severely wounded.
[Sidenote: Patients Removed]
"A huge cloud of dust rose high above the building, intermingled with
the smoke, which issued forth from the windows. About fifty patients
were inside the Town Hall at the time, and these were immediately
removed into a large excavation adjacent to the building. A stone
weighing about seventy pounds was thrust from the wall a distance of
about 100 yards. The "Powerful" men's reply to this bomb of "Slim
Piet's" was a plugged shell, which had the desired effect of silencing
him for a few hours. The other Boer guns kept taking hot shots. One
of these from Lombard's Kop struck and exploded on the top of a
partially built house, which was being used as the kitchen for the
Natal Police Field Force. Trooper Duncanson, who was at work there,
was hit on the right side by portions of the shell, and died almost
immediately. Then there was a cessation until dusk, when "Long Tom"
sent half a dozen shells into Ladysmith very close to the Town Hall.
"Night cometh on apace," and soon all was wrapped in darkness. The
elements went to war; thunder and lightning, rain, and a half gale
prevailing. Heaven's artillery seemed to mock the puny thunders of
man's more deadly weapons. The Boers started firing at 10.40 P.M., and
our guns, which must have been trimmed and ready, responded with
alacrity.
"To date (25th November), the Boers have on three occasions shelled the
town and camp at night. In the quietness of the night the noise of the
shelling--the firing of the guns and the bursting of the shells--was
awful in its volume and intensity."
[Sidenote: Midnight Bombardment]
A Ladysmith letter gives a thrilling account of a midnight bombardment:
"To be awakened at midnight by a shower of ninety-four pound shells was
a painful shock to the opinion we had formed of the good nature of the
Boer Commander. Many people would not believe it, and concluded that
they were victims of nightmare. But steel shells, with a bursting
charge of melinite, do not encourage delusions.
"By the time half a dozen had rent the sky with terrific crash the town
was awake, and silent figures in undress were flitting like uneasy
ghosts about gardens and verandas. This was a new and unpleasant
experience, very trying to the nerves. It had taken several days to
get accustomed to shell fire between dawn and dusk. At first the
flight of a shell turned one's thoughts to the caves in the river bank.
But, after a time, when one began to realize how little damage was
done, the instinct of Fate--more common among men of the East than of
the West--asserted itself. The light of the sun and the presence of a
crowd gave a sense of security. Everybody, unconsciously it may be,
puts the question, "Why should a shell hit me rather than another?" In
the solitude and shadows of the night this confidence in destiny is a
sorry support. Each man thinks himself the sole target of the enemy,
and feels that every shell is aimed at the pit of his stomach.
[Sidenote: An Awe-Inspiring Cannonade]
"The night was dark, and a solemn stillness was in the air, when
suddenly the hills burst into intense and lurid life. The long black
ridges kindled under a bright red flame. Then come the fateful
moments. Scorching the deep blue sky, the shell rushes onward in
seemingly interminable flight. During the day, amid the stir of life,
this invisible, death-laden progress sounds short and sharp, like an
arrow from a bow. The suspense is brief. But at night it sweeps alone
like a meteor from horizon to zenith, and descends in a hissing curve
like a white-hot bolt plunging into a fathomless sea. A second later
and earth and air and sky are rent with the crash of bursting steel; a
tongue of flame leaps upward, and the great amphitheatre of hills
seethes with steel bullets and fragments of shell. For several nights
the enemy kept up this awe-inspiring cannonade. The only result was to
disturb one's slumber, and to drive women, children and a few nervous
men to the caves."
[Sidenote: Ladysmith Hard Pressed]
January 6th the Boers made a desperate rush to storm Ladysmith, and the
last heliographic message received at 3.15 P.M. by Sir Redvers Buller
consisted only of the words, "Attack renewed. Very hard pressed." The
sunlight then failed, and only a "camp rumour" that the Boers were
defeated at 5 P.M., with a loss of 400 prisoners was forthcoming. At 2
P.M. on Sunday, another message reached Frere Camp with the news that
the attack had been "repulsed everywhere with very heavy loss."
[Sidenote: Attack in Force Repulsed]
On the 6th "from 3 to 8 the Boers bombarded Ladysmith more heavily than
at any time previously during the siege," the main attack was directed
against Cæsar's Camp and Wagon Hill, a partially detached spur of the
same feature about three-quarters of a mile west. The total extent of
front assaulted was about three miles, and the Boer guns on Bulwana
Hill and Lombard's Kop co-operated as soon as there was sufficient
light. The attack commenced at 2.45 A.M. The first assault was
repulsed before 9 A.M., although fighting was still going on when Sir
George White's earliest message was dispatched--"The enemy were in
great strength, and pushed their attack with the greatest courage and
energy." How severe the struggle was is evident from the statement
that "some of our intrenchments on Wagon Hill were three times taken by
the enemy and retaken by us." At this point, specially exposed,
Colonel Ian Hamilton commanded, and "rendered valuable services." Sir
George White further reports that "one point in our position was
occupied by the enemy the whole of the day; but at dusk, in a very
heavy rainstorm," the Boers were driven out "at the point of the
bayonet" by the 1st Devonshire Regiment. "The attack continued until
7.30 P.M."
[Illustration: THE GORDON'S CHARGING THE BOERS, GROBLERS KLOOF]
[Illustration: GOOD-BYE, DADDIE. The little son of Piper-Major Lang of
the Scots Guards bidding his father farewell]
PIETERMARITZBURG, January 11th.
Correct casualty return, Ladysmith, January 6th:
KILLED.
Officers as reported ......... 13
Rank and file ................ 135
Killed ................... --- 148
WOUNDED.
Officers as reported ......... 28
Rank and file ................ 244
Wounded .................. --- 272
---
Total killed and wounded ..... 420
[Sidenote: Boer Version of Storming Ladysmith]
The Boer version of their attempt to storm Ladysmith, January 6th, is
as follows:
"HOOFDLAAGER, LADYSMITH, Jan. 7th.
"A bold attack was made yesterday morning by the commandoes investing
Ladysmith on the British fortifications on the Platrand Ridge. The
operations that ensued were most exciting in their character. The
storming parties were greeted, on reaching the edge of the rugged
plateau, by a tremendous hail of shot and shell from the British
artillery. No attempt was made, however, to hold the first line of
schanzes, or stone breastworks, at the top of the hill, and these were
promptly occupied by the Boer sharpshooters. At the next row, however,
an exceedingly stubborn resistance was made, and with good effect,
every inch of ground being most stubbornly contested. Conspicuous
bravery was displayed on both sides.
"After ten o'clock the British artillery fire slackened perceptibly,
but then ensued a most terrific individual contest among the riflemen
for the possession of the ridge. At noon a heavy thunderstorm broke
over the position, interrupting the battle for two hours. It seemed as
though the heavenly batteries were using their best endeavors to create
an even more terrific noise than the cannon and the rifles of the
contending armies. Though the Burghers succeeded ultimately in gaining
possession of most of the British positions on the western side of the
Platrand they were finally obliged to retire from most of the ground
they had occupied. The British losses were apparently severe, their
ambulances being busy for many hours. The Boer losses were about 100
killed and wounded, the Free State contingents being the heaviest
sufferers. Simultaneous attacks were made from the different outposts
on all the British positions round Ladysmith.
[Sidenote: Thrilling Arm's Length Encounters]
"Operations are continued to-day on a smaller scale, but it is reported
that as a result of one of the forlorn hopes one gun and two ammunition
waggons have been captured."
"HOOFDLAAGAR, MODDERSPRUIT, LADYSMITH, Jan 9th,
(via Lourenzo Marques, January 14th).
"Further details of the assault of Cæsar's Camp, on the Platrand, are
most thrilling in their character. It is clear that the attack was
most determined and the defence equally tenacious. The British were
most strongly entrenched, and the walls of their redoubts were
skillfully loopholed. The combat was so close that the rifles were
frequently fired at arm's length between the opposing forces. It was,
in fact, a hand to hand encounter in the grey dawn. The men on both
sides are reported to have fought like demons, the horror and
bewilderment of the scene presenting a picture without parallel in the
experience of those who took part in the encounter."
PRETORIA, January 10th,
(via Lourenzo Marques, January 14th).
"An official announcement has just been placarded to the effect that
the Federal losses in Saturday's engagement were fifty-four killed
(including three Free State and one Transvaal Field-Cornet) and
ninety-six wounded.
Lord Duefferin's son, the Earl of Ava, was mortally wounded in the
repulse of the Boers, and died January 11th.
The monotony of the siege was varied by several brilliant sorties, in
one of which the Boers testified the British did "fine work." On two
occasions Boer siege guns were captured and destroyed. A letter
dispatched by a Kaffir, dated Ladysmith, January 21st, mentioned that
"Buller's guns are eagerly watched shelling the Boer position with
lyddite. As each shot strikes, dense volumes of brown smoke arise, the
lyddite shells being thus quite distinguishable from ordinary shrapnel
shells.
[Sidenote: Fortifications Strengthened; Fever Abating]
"Six Boer camps are visible between Ladysmith and Potgeiter's Drift,
and bodies of the enemy have been observed riding towards the Tugela.
They are evidently determined to offer a stubborn resistance to the
advance of the relief column. They have given no indication of any
intention to remove their guns, but have put new ones up recently and
are still continually working at their fortifications.
"Since the 6th inst. our fortifications on Wagon Hill and Cæsar's Camp
have been greatly strengthened, and Ladysmith is now practically
impregnable.
"Doubtless owing to the dry weather, fever has abated in the garrison.
The number of convalescents returning from Intombi camp exceeds that of
the patients sent out.
"Our commissariat has been most ably managed during the siege, and our
supplies are lasting splendidly. All the troops have a sufficiency of
wholesome food. The heat is terrific, being 107 degrees in the shade
at the present moment.
[Sidenote: Insurmountable Obstacles]
The surroundings of the now forever famous city of Ladysmith have been
described as a crescent a horse shoe, and a soup plate with a big piece
chipped out. It was named after the Spanish wife of General Sir Harry
Smith in 1840. Before the Britain and Boer War it was a noted railway
station on the great line to Pretoria and beyond. The siege lasted
within two days of four months. Relief came on the last night in
February. The besiegers held on after they knew Lord Roberts was
successfully invading the Orange Free State, hoping that he might be
repulsed, and they resisted with their accustomed energy the fourth
attack by the army under Sir Redvers Buller, whose first advance and
reverse was December 15th. His second general advance to force the
Boer lines on the Tugela pivoted on Spion Kop, gallantly carried and
held for some time, but evacuated January 26th. General Buller's third
advance was on February 5th, but his attack was not pressed, for the
obstacles were manifestly insurmountable except by a sacrifice too
great to be considered.
[Sidenote: Success at Last]
February 20th, the fourth advance was made and a severe struggle
occurred. The Irish troops distinguished themselves, especially, and
the Welsh Fusiliers suffered the loss 252 men killed and wounded.
General Buller recalled his battalions from the first position
assailed, and put them in again in force on his extreme right and
carried by storm Pieters Hill. Buller's artillery was very effectively
used on this occasion. On the afternoon of February 28th the British
commander ascertained that the ridges toward Ladysmith were unoccupied.
Lord Dundonald dashed forward with two squadrons and galloped until
there was a challenge. "Who goes there?" The reply was, "The
Ladysmith relieving army;" and the cavalry had a great welcome from the
thin and pale faced men of the garrison, whose cheers of joy were
through physical weakness feeble. The Boers had been observed from
Ladysmith hastening away in a continuous stream, trekking North.
The crisis of the siege was when General Joubert ordered that the town
should be taken before January 10th. The supreme effort was made at 2
o'clock the morning of the 6th, and directed upon three positions--the
one most exposed, the flat topped Hill, Cæsar's camp, crescent shaped,
the interior facing the Boers' position--height of crest above the town
near 800 feet. The Boers advanced on the two horns of the crescent and
gained an advantageous position, which they held for seventeen hours.
The fight on both sides was a soldiers battle; and the British success
finally was credited correctly to the leadership of the company
officers.
A party of sappers, with half a company of Gordon Highlanders, were
placing a gun on the critical position, Wagon Hill, and made so much
noise the Boers, stealthily approaching, thought for a time their
movement was discovered. The British working party added sixty rifles
to the defense, and so even was the balance in the combat, the repulse
of the assailants was apparently due to the accident of this force
having a special service at the point of danger.
[Sidenote: An Extraordinary Hard Struggle]
The Boer assailing party was 300 strong, led by de Villiers, and as
they were creeping silently up the hillside, Lieutenant Mathias, of the
British Light Horse, going down to visit his post, met them and had the
presence of mind to turn back with them, and when a few yards from his
own picket he rushed forward and gave the alarm. This was at 2.30 A.M.
It was pitch dark and the defenders after a spell of indiscriminate
firing were driven back. There ensued a struggle of extraordinary
character, the flashing of the rifles giving the only light. Colonel
Hamilton, in command of the defenders at the ragged edge, telephoned
for re-inforcements. The first to arrive were two companies of Gordon
Highlanders. At 4 o'clock four other companies were ordered and in the
advance Colonel Dick Conyngham was mortally wounded by a bullet that
had traveled over 3,000 yards. The re-inforcements did not get up a
moment too soon. At daybreak the Boers were pushing more men up the
water-way by which the first assailants had advanced and their
augmented firing line sorely pressed the handful of Light Horsemen who
were re-inforced at the most opportune moment by Colonel Edwards. The
Boers displayed their deadly marksmanship, and the Colonel, two Majors
and four other officers of the Light Horse were hit within a few'
minutes. Lord Ava, Colonel Hamilton's orderly officer, was in this
place mortally wounded. The British infantry fire could not dislodge
the Boers. It was scarcely possible to see the assailants and to live.
[Sidenote: Desperate Efforts]
To effect a rush necessitated the passage of sixty yards of open.
Major Mackworth, attached to the 60th Rifles, attempted to make the
rush. He fell shot through the head. Captain Codrington, 11th
Hussars, commanding a squadron of the Light Horse, went forward to find
cover for his men. Thirty yards away he fell, and just had strength
enough to wave the Light Horse back. Lieutenant Tod, with twelve men,
attempted to rush the open. He was shot dead three yards from cover.
A terrible rain storm arose, something extraordinary even for Africa.
At its height the indomitable Boers increased their efforts. Colonel
Hamilton called for Colonel Park, who led three companies to clear the
plateau. They were commanded by Lieutenant Field, leading, Captain
Lafone's and Lieutenant Masterson's companies following in order.
There were sixty yards of plateau to cross; a hundred Boer magazines
waiting to sweep it. Three lines of naked bayonets scintillated
against the hillside. Then the Colonel rose to his feet, and the three
companies rose with him as one man. With a cheer that foretold success
the Devons dashed forward. Colonel Hamilton, who was just below when
this sudden attack was delivered, ordered up a dismounted squadron of
the 18th Hussars, and the plateau was reoccupied.
[Illustration: TRANSVAAL STATE ARTILLERY IN GUN PRACTICE. ARTILLERY
CROSSING A DRIFT NEAR LADYSMITH]
[Illustration: DUTCH FARMER RECEIVING ORDERS TO GO TO WAR. GENERAL
JOUBERT AT THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH]
A handful of Boers with desperate valor, appeared on the crest line
suddenly and unexpectedly. They were commanded by de Villiers, who
dashed for the emplacement of gun.
Major Miller-Wallnutt, the only regimental officer there, and a sapper
were shot dead at the gun-pit. Fortunately the sappers who, with fixed
bayonets, were stationed near the emplacement, stood firm. Lieutenant
Digby Jones, who had commanded them with great gallantry since the
night attack, led them forward, and shot de Villiers, falling himself a
moment later with a rifle bullet through his brain. Lieutenant
Denniss, R.E., went on to the crest-line to search for Digby Jones. He
likewise was shot dead and fell beside his brother officer.
While the rain storm was raging and the Boers were advancing through
the sluicing waters, there were shouts of "retire." Major Rice pushed
forward his sappers again. A subaltern rallied the broken Rifles, and
the Highlanders faced round. Then they swung back again with levelled
bayonets, and the Boers went headlong down the slopes.
[Sidenote: Great Suffering in the City]
Ladysmith saved from assault, the besieged force endured great
privations with heroic devotion, suffering from insufficient and in
part loathsome rations, a bombardment that was steadily maintained and
above all, fevers arising from hideously unsanitary conditions.
General Buller's telegram, dated March 2d, and announcing the success
of his fourth advance, was in these terms: "I find the defeat of the
Boers more complete than I had dared to anticipate." While the
casualty lists during his operations assumed very grave proportions,
exceeding 20 per cent. of his effective force, nothing but generalship
that was at once adventurous as against the enemy and conservative of
his army, would have brought triumph without a far greater expenditure
of blood.
CHAPTER X
The Relief of Kimberley---The Turn of the Tide of War Against the Boers.
[Sidenote: The Difference in Positions of Roberts and Buller]
The first intelligence from South Africa that plainly promised the
success of Lord Roberts was that, after his arrival at the Cape, there
was no news of what became of the British troops disembarked there, and
the newspapers had to be content with the story of embarkations and the
thunderous attrition of Buller on the Tugela. He was crossing and
recrossing fords, storming kops and retiring from them, and the sound
of the pounding of his guns stimulated the garrison of Ladysmith to
hopefulness that the hand of help was night. There was no affectation
of the solemnities of secrecy and mystery about Roberts. He gave out
letters and dispatches occasionally that foretold nothing, and was
busy. The transports from England stopped at the Cape instead of
Dunbar, and the troops appeared and disappeared. Lord Roberts and
Kitchener had maps, and were keeping books.
Sir Redvers Buller found himself committed to attack the invaders of
Natal for the relief of Ladysmith and to fight an invisible foe. There
has been no account that a British soldier not taken prisoner saw an
enemy at the Battle of Colenso. Sir Redvers had no opportunity for
maneuvers, the immediate demand upon him was the achievement of the
impossible. The Boers were in a fortified enchanted castle, built of
mountains, safeguarded by a river, itself an immense intrenchment. The
situation of Lord Roberts was different. He was in command of the
British Empire and before him was Africa and he was at liberty to
choose the road by which to invade the Boer states. There was but one
limitation upon his freedom to exercise his power. That was that he
should conduct a White Man's War. The _London Mail_ stated the case
precisely in these words:
[Sidenote: A White Man's War]
"At the beginning of our campaign we firmly refused to allow men of
color to help our arms. Powerful and well-equipped tribes on the
border of the Free State clamored for an opportunity to pay off old
scores on their hereditary foes, but Sir Godfrey Lagden kept them back.
Native Indian rulers begged to be permitted to shed their blood and
that of their armies for the Empress; but while gladly recognizing
their generous loyalty, England declined their offers. Our splendid
Indian soldiers, among the best mountain troops in the world, only
waited a signal to do their utmost for us. But England felt that this
was a white man's war, to be fought out solely between white men."
The use of the black man would have raised the black flag, and that was
the reason why the Asiatic troops of England were not poured into
Africa and the natives of Africa invited to get even with the most
cruel of the master races. The weapon of race hate by which the Boers
might have been exterminated was not drawn by the British whose
preference of alternatives was to shed their own blood.
[Sidenote: The Utmost Secrecy Preserved]
A railway map of South Africa pointed out to intelligent people plainly
the railway line upon which Lord Roberts could advantageously muster
his men to strike the enemy in their homes. Some of the bridges were
blown up, some of the rails removed, but the surveys remained. The
engineers had marked out the eligible pathway. The Modder River, the
scene of the early successes and final fatality of Lord Methuen,
reappeared in the war correspondence. A letter from Modder River camp,
February 18th, said all the soldiers worked like slaves and the
generals of divisions carried out the campaign planned, without
faltering or blundering and there was "the utmost secrecy," so that the
common people, regimental commanders, and newspaper correspondents did
not obtain the slightest inkling of what the immediate future was to
bring forth. Even the senior officers, who were assigned the important
duty of taking the Sixth Division from Modder River, had but a hazy
idea of what they would have to do after the railway had landed their
troops at Enslin siding. Consequently, the spies, with which this camp
undeniably has been infested, were not only unable to help their
paymasters, but, even by the absence of news of our movements, lulled
the Boer commanders into fancied security.
[Sidenote: Each Step Carefully Considered]
The time when General Lord Roberts was ready to move was one of
critical conditions. The second attempt to relieve Ladysmith by direct
movements had just failed like the first, but with greater losses. The
total cost of the second effort counted in men was 1,800. The plan of
operations had been carefully concealed, and executed with energy, and
as one of the expert writers put it, "there was no undue haste, and the
troops were not brought under the enemy's rifle fire in close
formation, or forced to attempt the passage of a river, of which the
water level was not known, in face of a strongly intrenched position
held by an unshaken enemy. Each step was carefully considered, and no
unnecessary risk was run."
The fighting quality of the British troops was well illustrated, but
the lines of the Boers remained unbroken and unshaken, and the
strategic consequences of this failure were more serious than when the
first experiment was tried. Still, Ladysmith heliographed January
27th, "We can hold on here." The initial move of Roberts in force was
successful. The invisible and invincible foe in inaccessible trenches
did not rise to the occasion. The blow that was struck had not been
foreseen and the spot selected fortified by the enemy. There was a
change described as magical. The magic was that of a free hand and a
clear head, and the magician a general capable of generalship. All at
once the British columns, cavalry, infantry and artillery were
"mobile". The horses "got a move on". The wagons did not stall and
tangle--the field guns, big and little, trundled along merrily. The
long complained of cavalry materialized under General French, going out
and seeking the enemy aggressively and rushing him wherever they found
him. There was something new about this. Speaking of the brilliant
promise of the advance of Roberts, a military correspondent said:
[Sidenote: A Remarkable Cavalry Movement]
"What is particularly interesting is the presence of General
Kelly-Kenny's Division--the Sixth--in this quarter. It was beginning
to be understood that General French had brought with him a number of
his cavalry from the neighborhood of Colesberg, but the fact that the
whole of the Cavalry Division is now under Lord Roberts' control,
together with an Infantry Division, the headquarters of which were only
a few days ago at Thebus, near Steynsburg, is distinctly surprising and
gratifying. The movement must have been carried out with extreme
secrecy, and is calculated to greatly disconcert Boer calculations."
[Sidenote: Kimberley Relieved]
The Cavalry Division of General French described as "a magnificent
force of regular and irregular horsemen and mounted infantry, whose
goal was Kimberley," covered twenty-six miles in twenty-four hours
through a fearful heat, and few fell out even when the burning sun was
succeeded by terrific tropical rain, accompanied by the continuous and
blinding lightning. The road was soon like a morass, but French
plodded doggedly on and reached the Modder River at Klip Drift just
before midnight. That was business, and Lord Roberts entered
Jacobsdal, February 15th. Kimberley was entered February 16th. This
telegram was dispatched from that town while French was still invisible.
"At 2 o'clock this afternoon a heliograph message from a range of
kopjes to the left of Alexandersfontein announced that General French's
column was approaching. The enemy were immediately observed to be
fleeing with their guns."
On the day before, the bombardment of Kimberley had been heavy, the
Boers firing 100-pound shrapnel shells. Then they fled from their
laagers for the first time. February 18th, the country all around the
diamond city was cleared of them and Roberts telegraphed: "The
engineers have started laying the rails on the line between Kimberley
and Modder River. Several herds of cattle have been captured."
The movement of French was so rapid and had such important consequences
that it produced an impression that it was a peaceable procession.
This extract of a summary report will correct the misapprehension:
"The New South Wales Ambulance Corps, under Lieutenant Edwards, drawn
by Australian horses, kept pace with the column and picked up many
wounded. They were complimented by the brigadier as being the first
ambulance to cross the Modder River.
"Between the Riet and Modder Rivers the enemy attacked our flanks. Our
guns promptly opened from a hillside. While our gunners were driving
the Boers back with heavy shell-fire, the column pressed on at full
speed. Many horses died on the march from exhaustion.
"When we reached the Modder the enemy were found to be intrenched on
the opposite side. The Horse Artillery opened fire with shrapnel and
the Boers ran. We captured their tents, guns, oxen, wagons, and large
quantities of ammunition. The ammunition was in boxes labelled
'Biscuits, Delagoa Bay'."
In this telegram from Roberts there is a trumpet-note of triumph:
"PAARDEBERG, February 19, 7.05 P.M.
(Thirty miles east of Jacobsdal Camp).
"Railway to Kimberley will be ready to-day.
"Methuen proceeds with reinforcements at once, and a large amount of
supplies will be forwarded by rail."
A London cable to Canada said:
"A very distinguished officer said to me last night, 'It is regarded as
a suspicious thing to prophecy after an event, but 'Johnny' French was
under me years ago in India, and when he was only a chubby lieutenant
in the 19th Hussars I saw enough of him to know that there was in him
the making of such a cavalry officer as would have delighted the soul
of 'Stonewall' Jackson."
London fairly rang with praises of General French for days after
Kimberley's relief.
Lord Roberts found time as he was gathering his force on the Modder
River to transfer the fighting to the Boer States, to address, February
9th, this letter to Presidents Kruger and Steyn:
"In continuation of my telegram of Feb. 5th, I call your Honors'
attention to the wanton destruction of property by the Boer forces in
Natal. They have not only helped themselves freely to the cattle and
property of the farmers without payment, but also have utterly wrecked
the contents of many farmhouses. As an instance I would specify Wood's
Farm, near Springfield. I would point out how very different has been
the conduct of the British troops. It is reported to me from Modder
River that farms within the actual area of the British camp have never
been entered, nor have their occupants been molested. The houses and
gardens have been left absolutely untouched."
The following from the other side of the world shows the cordial
reciprocity of appreciation between Lord Roberts and the most remote
colonies:
"SYDNEY, Feb. 8.
"Lord Roberts has sent the following telegram to the Governor of New
South Wales:
"I had the great pleasure of personally welcoming the New South Wales
battery of field artillery and wish to express to your Excellency my
high appreciation of the patriotic spirit which led our fellow-subjects
in Australia to send such a useful and workman-like body of men to
assist in the work of restoring peace, order, and freedom in South
Africa."
The Lieutenant-Governor has replied:
"MELBOURNE, Feb. 8.
"Ministers fully appreciate your telegram, and concur in the earnest
hope that peace, order and freedom may shortly be restored in South
Africa under the British flag."
Lord Roberts has telegraphed to the Governor of Victoria a similar
message to that which he has sent to the Governor of New South Wales.
[Illustration: GENERAL GATACRE ORDERING "CEASE FIRING"]
[Illustration: BOER TACTICS. Alluring the English to death with a flag
of truce.]
[Sidenote: National Qualifications for Fighters]
The Boer States maintained their invasion of the British Colony of
Natal for 100 days, and made for themselves a military reputation that
has astonished and instructed the armed nations of the earth. We of
the United States have less to learn from them than others have,
because we are mobile as they are, and their horsemanship and
marksmanship with rifles are among our accomplishments. The Americans,
also, are as individuals self-reliant, and that makes men competent to
take good care of themselves and keep their heads clear and their hands
steady when there is a life and death business to do. Our traditions
of Indian warfare have informed our people that among the military arts
and qualifications must be ranked the preservation of the lives of
soldiers, that they may not by carelessness on their own part or
wantonness of superiors be wasted--though the commanding officers must
be sure that orders are obeyed, when the reason why is not stated. Our
volunteers have in great measure and likeness the same capacities that
have distinguished the Boers in the wonderful fight they made against
the British. The fact is that as fighting men the Boers closely
resemble in many respects the Confederate soldiers who in the great
state and sectional conflict in this country, fought with surprising
address and displayed such activities--that the infantry under
Stonewall Jackson were jocosely, but with justice in the compliment
implied, called the "Southern Cavalry." They covered the ground nearly
as fast on foot as the Boers have on horseback, and they were men whose
rifles were always to be respected. There have been no bloodier wars
since the days of Napoleon than that which occurred among the people of
the United States when they were construing their Constitution and
having a trial of battle over it; and it is a subject of speculation
very curious and of interest to people of inquiring minds, what effect
upon our war it would have had if at the beginning both sides had been
provided with the long range rifles and artillery that are now the
necessary equipments of an army. Certainly the combats would have been
radically changed, and what might have been the result is left to
constructive imagination.
[Sidenote: Roberts and Buller in Co-operation]
The combination of movements with which Lord Roberts opened his
campaign of invasion of the Orange Free State began by massing an army
of nearly 50,000 men in a place where it was expected, and this
happened to be where the enemy were comparatively weak. At the same
time, Sir Redvers Buller's army was hammering hard on the Tugela and
the thunder of his guns continued to be heard at Ladysmith, from the
outer-guarding trenches of which, the explosion of British shells could
be seen, announcing that the work of relief, if not progressing, was at
least continued. It had long been known by the British officers that
the Boers were constantly signalled of the arrival of troops at Durban,
and able to correctly gauge the army under Buller's command. They were
not so well informed promptly of the movements of troops from Cape
Town, and had not believed in the speedy and eagerly swift advance of
Roberts, whose reputation might have been known to them, of ability to
make his men "keen," which was not the state of the troops whose fine
edge had been removed by the "reverses" under Methuen, Gatacre and
Buller. The first blow Roberts struck furnishes a fine military study
on a large scale. Of course, it materially assisted in raising the
siege of Ladysmith as well as that of Kimberley. The presence of the
main body of the British army in the Orange Free State, the dispersion
of the besiegers of Kimberley, and the capture of Cronje's army, made
sure that the only hope of the Boers was in a rushing concentration of
their forces, and the lines before Buller in Natal weakened at once.
[Sidenote: Roberts' Public Utterances]
An element in the character of Lord Roberts not generally familiarly
known has been developed in his public utterances since he was
commanded to save his country in South Africa. Before he sailed he
consented to say something for the interviewer, which shows that he is
abreast of the methods of talking to the people, and he said he had
"entire confidence in the British soldier." He made a few terse
remarks on meeting the Highlanders in Africa after they had suffered so
severely in action, and said he had been with them in India and he was
glad to see them around him, always wanted to see them when there was
hard work to be done. He has repeatedly taken occasion to recognize
the high spirit of the Colonial contingents, putting them in places
that conveyed a compliment to their courage and effectiveness as
soldiers, and he has ministered to their pride in his efficient
reports. In announcing the surrender of Cronje, he hoped it was
"satisfactory" to Her Majesty's Government, as it was on the
anniversary of Majuba Hill. He especially and handsomely acknowledged
the obligations of the army in that celebration of the anniversary to
the Canadian contingent, "took a day off" to visit Kimberley and
address the sickly and half-starved garrison in fitting terms, and
dined with Mr. Cecil Rhodes, the strong man who represents British
enterprise and ambition in South Africa.
In his correspondence with the Presidents of the Boer States which they
opened, Lord Roberts has been courteous in form, but in substance
aggressive and incisive. Born at Cawmpore, India, of Irish parents, he
has the vivacity of his blood and a talent for saying as well as doing
things. There is a statue of him at Calcutta which was decorated with
flowers March 1st, and a cable was sent him from Cawmpore, "Your
birthplace salutes you."
[Sidenote: General Conditions Favoring the English]
Sir Redvers Buller was not idle when the decisive movements of Lord
Roberts were made, and at last his pounding away battered the Boer
fortresses, and the Boer commanders, seeing it was too late to take
Ladysmith, retreated even more rapidly than they had advanced. General
Buller did not permit them to hold him with a thin line while they were
making haste to abandon Natal to defend the Transvaal. The distance
between the lines of operation by Roberts and Buller made the
concentration of the British and Boer armies in their new relations and
change of scene a matter of time. The mobility of the Boer mounted
infantry and their use of inner lines of rails enabled them to get
together and prepare for actions of increased seriousness and magnitude
of results. The combatants were released from monotonous sieges by the
relief of Kimberley and Ladysmith. The British have had such heavy
losses and bitter lessons that, while rejoicing over the good fortune
of their arms, they have not weakly acted upon the theory that the war
was over when Cronje surrendered and they marched deeper into the
hostile state.
[Sidenote: What a Military Specialist Says]
When the third effort of General Buller to relieve Ladysmith by way of
the Tugela River approaches failed, the cleverest of the military
specialists, writing for the London _Press_, said, February 10th: "We
must now hope that the resources of Ladysmith will last until strong
pressure can be brought to bear in another part of the theatre of war,
and meanwhile Sir R. Buller is at least detaining in his front the best
force the Boers have placed in the field. Whatever may happen in
Natal, the further course of the war will not be materially affected.
The terrible initial strategic mistake of abandoning a principal
objective for a subsidiary operation still over-weights the campaign;
but the time is at hand when its baneful influence will cease to fetter
our action. The great issues of the war will not be decided in Natal."
That the Boers were sufferers in Natal to an extent much greater than
they have reported is shown by a Boer correspondent with the Natal
Commandos, dated February 8th, from Lorenzo Marques. He called
attention to the necessity of more men and wagons for the prompt
removal of the wounded from the battlefield. He states that the
present arrangements are most inadequate. He suggests that volunteers
should be invited to form ambulance corps at Johannesburg.
[Sidenote: The Spion Kop Affair]
After the battle of Colenso, and before the successful storming of
Pieter's Hill, the public attention was excited and fixed with
intensity for some days on the fighting about Spion Kop--the key to the
Boer position which was assailed by General Buller, January 21st and
23d. The Kop was carried by a night attack which was a very daring and
hardy movement, and abandoned only after a long and bloody conflict.
The British began to climb the mountain an hour after midnight, and at
3 o'clock were challenged by a Boer sentinel. When this was done,
they, as had been ordered to do, threw themselves flat on their faces
and the Boer picket not more than fifteen in number and only thirty
yards away, emptied their magazines into the darkness and fled for
their lives. "One brave man alone remained" and was killed as the
British flung themselves into the trench, "with a cheer that was heard
by those who were anxiously listening in the camp below."
The Boers soon yielded their second line of trenches and the British
attempted, having gained this much ground, to prepare themselves for
the assault that they knew was coming with the daylight. It was very
dark and, though they worked hard to protect themselves, found they had
laid out their trenches so that they afforded very little shelter.
Indeed they were enfiladed and raked on all sides; and it appeared the
Boers had six guns ready for them. Two of them Maxim-Nordenfeldts and
four other guns on a ridge, completely concealed from our batteries,
but able to command them, as was shown by their dropping shells among
them periodically during the day. The Boer riflemen followed their
usual tactics. They were scattered all over the hill, lying wherever
they found cover, and firing coolly and steadily all the time. "To our
men they were as usual, practically invisible, and they were far too
widely scattered for shell fire to have much effect upon them. At 8
their attack began. It was a most vigorous infantry attack, supported
by a converging shell fire from three directions. For the first time
in this war the Boer artillery was as deadly as their musketry. The
Maxim-Nordenfeldts scoured first one side of the hill and then the
other, raising great clouds of dust, and shell after shell bursting
where our men lay thickest.
[Sidenote: A Fierce Struggle]
"This condition lasted three hours when the Boers advanced closer and
closer, without giving our men a chance, and drove them out of their
first line of trenches, but did not stay there long; for the second
time we drove them back again at the point of the bayonet, and in one
of the trenches this happened three times.
"Two British battalions came up as re-inforcements, and all the way up
the men were under fire from the top and from sharpshooters in trenches
and behind rocks on the flanks, yet they never wavered once. The climb
took over two hours, and when they at last reached the summit they
surrounded it and went up the last part with a rush and cheer. It was
a stirring sight, and to those who watched it seemed that now, at any
rate, the hill was ours. The only ominous thing was that not a Boer
left the hill, and the ceaseless fire went on without even a break.
This was 5.15, and things were not going well with the main attack."
Information had been given the British that there was a supply of water
on the Kop, but that was a mistake, and the troops suffered greatly
from thirst, and the rifle fire of the Boers never slackened. There
was unusual energy and resolution on the part of the British,
notwithstanding their disadvantages and losses, to adhere to the
position they had gained in the night, and many valorous efforts, all
in vain, to clear the Boers out of the way and overcome their fire, so
that at last the various regiments and companies and battalions of the
British force engaged, were very much mixed up. They were resolute,
but between the darkness and the rough ground and the changes of
position there was no little confusion. Six hundred Royal Engineers
received orders to go up after nightfall in order to intrench the
position, and a part of General Hildyard's Brigade bivouacked under
Three Tree Hill, with orders to advance against the main ridge of Taba
Myama at dawn. Colonel Thorneycroft, who was in the most critical
position, was in ignorance of all this. The condition, in which his
force was, has already been described, but besides this his men were
suffering considerably from the effects of the day. "The losses had
been heavy; his own men had lost 122 out of 194 who had climbed the
hill, and the men, who had been under fire all day, although not in the
slightest degree demoralized, were yet considerably shaken, and it was
exceedingly doubtful whether they would be able to stand another such
day's shell fire."
[Sidenote: The Kop Retaken by The Boers]
Each hour's fighting added evidence that the British could not sustain
themselves on the Kop and retirement was judiciously ordered and began
at 8.30 P.M., January 24th, and as the leading troops went down they
met the sappers coming up. The descent was conducted with the utmost
order and dispatch, but it was early morning before the last man was
off the hill. With the failure to retain Spion Kop failed General
Warren's attempt to cross the Spion Kop Taba Myama range, so, on the
25th, a withdrawal across the Tugela was ordered. It took the heavy
transport wagons all day to cross the pontoons, and in the night the
troops followed them.
CHAPTER XI
Cronje's Surrender and the Occupation of Bloemfontein.
[Sidenote: Cronje Hard Pressed]
The main body of the British army on the Modder soon disposed of the
reproach of immobility, and the Boers were disconcerted. They were not
prepared for "leaps and bounds" to the front. It has been important in
the history of Lord Roberts that his troops became confident and moved
with alacrity. Cronje, finding himself getting into the air,
confronting Roberts, made a long night march February 15th, and the
British swung to the left in hot pursuit, some of the regiments
outstripping the supplies; but there was no complaint of fatigue or
short rations, or other commonplace troubles, though the rains were
heavy and the winds cold. Cronje was driven to the precarious shelter
of a river bed, where he formed a laager. Roberts shelled the Boer
force and pushed regular approaches to insure victory and save life.
[Sidenote: Cronje Capitulates]
A gallant rush by the Canadians made the Boer position untenable in a
strict military sense. There was a fusilade at 3 A.M. on the morning
of the 15th, and the most dramatic incident of the eventful day was the
appearance of a small white flag moving from the Boer laager to the
British lines. It was understood by all who saw it to convey the
tidings that Cronje had surrendered. A British officer advanced to
meet the flag, and the bearer of it turned back disappearing behind the
fortifications. For a few moments the flag-bearer reappeared, and at
his side walked--as a correspondent present describes him--"a little,
grizzly, old man." The word passed along the British lines, "That's
Cronje." It was Cronje, and he was soon in the presence of Roberts,
who invited him to take a seat. The Boer commander, when on his way to
the British headquarters, was described as a "heavy shouldered, heavy
bearded, heavy-lipped man, clad in farm-like garb, wearing a
broad-brimmed felt hat and lumbering along on a little gray pony." He
showed no emotion, accepted the situation with fortitude, and said he
had had a very uncomfortable time. Between 3,000 and 4,000 prisoners
marched out of the laager with Mrs. Cronje and her grandson. The
prisoners said the onslaught of the Canadians had astonished them.
They had been cooped up for ten days and suffered greatly. Cronje was
treated with courtesy, and all his personal requests granted. As he
desired, his wife, grandson and servants accompanied him. Considering
the disparity in forces, he had made a great fight, and to have
detained the powerful army of Roberts so long was the best service he
could render his cause. The words in which Lord Roberts announced his
victory were that Cronje and his force capitulated at daylight,
February 27th. The dispatch was dated at Paardeburg, at 7.45 in the
morning. Lord Roberts added the capitulation was unconditional, and
Cronje was now a prisoner in his camp, and then said, "I hope that Her
Majesty's Government will consider that this is very satisfactory,
occurring as it does on the anniversary of Majuba."
A writer for the _Journal_ says that Cronje was anxious to attempt to
cut his way out of the river bed and seize a hill and oppose the idea
of surrender to the last moment, but was overcome by a council of war,
and that his theory about it was that, rather than lose men in storming
the Boer position, Roberts would grant terms. However, when Cronje
consented to a council of war, he must have known what the result would
be. The scene on the inside of the laager is thus described: "The
wrecks of wagons, carcasses of horses and cattle are strewn everywhere,
not to speak of scores of corpses partially unburied. The Red Cross
men who buried the dead and collected the wounded at Magersfontein,
Belmont and Graspan declare they have seen nothing so awful as this
terrible spectacle.
"A mute story is told by the fearful sight that Cronje had no
alternative but to surrender unless he wished to see his camp converted
into a wholesale shambles. Hundreds of dead bodies of both men and
cattle were washed down through the British main camp when the river
was flooded last week. It is impossible therefore to estimate how many
actually fell in Cronje's last stand."
[Sidenote: Cronje and Roberts Meet]
The historical scene of surrender is thus described: "A group of
horsemen then approached. On General Prettyman's right rode an elderly
man clad in a rough, short overcoat, a wide brimmed hat, ordinary tweed
trousers and brown shoes. It was the redoubtable Cronje. His face was
almost burned black, and his curly beard was tinged with gray.
"Lord Roberts walked to and fro in front of the cart until the Boer
general arrived, when the British commander advanced gravely and kindly
saluted the Boer commander. He then motioned General Cronje to a seat
in a chair which had been brought for his accommodation, and the two
officers conversed through an interpreter.
"Cronje's face was absolutely impassive when he approached Lord
Roberts, exhibiting no sign of his inner feelings. Lord Roberts was
surrounded by his staff when General Prettyman, addressing the Field
Marshal, said:
"'Commandant Cronje, sir.'
[Illustration: MAJOR W. A. WEEKS, Charlottetown, P.E.I., Canada,
LIEUTENANT J. C. OLAND, Halifax, Company H, CAPTAIN F. CAVERHILL JONES,
St. John's, 3d Regt. Canadian Artillery, CORPORALS H. W. ACKHURST AND
C. HANCOCK, both of Halifax. GROUP OF CANADIAN OFFICERS, TRANSVAAL
CONTINGENT. PLATE II]
[Illustration: AN ARMORED TRAIN FROM LADYSMITH RECONNOITERING]
"The commandant touched his hat in salute, and Lord Roberts saluted in
return. The whole group then dismounted, and Lord Roberts stepped
forward and shook hands with the Boer commander.
"'You made a gallant defence, sir,' was the first salutation of Lord
Roberts to the vanquished Boer leader.
"General Cronje afterward breakfasted with the British officers."
Cronje's army was promptly sent to Cape Town as prisoners of war,
accompanied by their gallant leader--"the Lion of South Africa"--whose
heroism everywhere commanded respect.
The detailed report of Lord Roberts is as follows:
"PAARDEBERG, 11 o'clock Tuesday Morning.--From information furnished
daily to me by the intelligence department it became apparent that
General Cronje's force was becoming more depressed and that the
discontent of the troops and the discord among the leaders were rapidly
increasing. This feeling was doubtless accentuated by the
disappointment caused when the Boer re-inforcements which tried to
relieve General Cronje were defeated by our troops on Feb. 2.
"I resolved, therefore, to bring pressure to bear upon the enemy. Each
night the trenches were pushed forward toward the enemy's laager so as
to gradually contract his position, and at the same time we bombarded
it heavily with artillery which was yesterday aided by the arrival of
four six-inch howitzers which I had ordered up from De Aar. In
carrying out these measures a captive balloon gave great assistance by
keeping us informed of the dispositions and movements of the enemy.
"At 3 A.M. to-day a most dashing advance was made by the Canadian
regiment and some engineers, supported by the First Gordon Highlanders
and Second Shropshires, resulting in our gaining a point some 600 yards
nearer the enemy and within about eighty yards of his trenches, where
our men intrenched themselves and maintained their positions till
morning, a gallant deed worthy of our colonial comrades, and which, I
am glad to say, was attended by comparatively slight loss.
"This apparently clinched matters, for, at daylight to-day, a letter
signed by General Cronje, in which he stated that he surrendered
unconditionally, was brought to our outposts under a flag of truce.
"In my reply I told General Cronje he must present himself at my camp
and that his forces must come out of their laager after laying down
their arms. By 7 A.M. I received General Cronje and dispatched a
telegram to you announcing the fact.
"In the course of conversation he asked for kind treatment at our hands
and also that his wife, grandson, private secretary, adjutant and
servants might accompany him wherever he might be sent. I reassured
him and told him his request would be complied with. I informed him
that a general officer would be sent with him to Cape Town to insure
his being treated with proper respect en route. He will start this
afternoon under charge of Major-General Prettyman, who will hand him
over to the general commanding at Cape Town.
"The prisoners, who number about 3,000, will be formed into commandos
under our own officers. They will also leave here to-day, reaching
Modder River to-morrow, when they will be railed to Cape Town in
detachments. ROBERTS."
LONDON, Feb. 28.--The Queen telegraphed General Buller:
"I have heard with the deepest concern the heavy losses sustained by my
brave Irish soldiers, and I desire to express my sympathy and
admiration of the splendid fighting qualities they have exhibited
throughout these trying operations."
In her dispatch to Lord Roberts, following the announcement of the
surrender of General Cronje, Her Majesty said:
"Accept for yourself and for all under your command my warmest
congratulations on this splendid news."
Lord Roberts replied:
"All under my command are deeply grateful for Your Majesty's most
gracious message. Congratulations from their Queen are an honor the
soldiers dearly prize."
General Buller has telegraphed his thanks to the Queen for her telegram
of "gracious sympathy and encouragement."
OTTAWA, Ont., Feb. 27.--Joseph Chamberlain cables to Lord Minto:
"LONDON, Feb. 27.--Her Majesty the Queen desires you to express to
people of the Dominion her admiration of the gallant conduct of her
Canadian troops in the late engagement, and her sorrow at loss of so
many brave men.
CHAMBERLAIN."
The Governor-General received the following dispatch:
"LONDON, Feb. 27.--I desire to express congratulations on Cronje's
surrender effected by gallant Canadian aid. Deep sympathy for Canadian
losses. Am proud to have lived among them. LOUISE."
LONDON, Feb. 28.--Lord Roberts has forwarded an additional list of the
British casualties during the three days' fighting at Paardeberg,
showing twelve killed, eighty-two wounded and four missing, including
seven officers and four Canadian privates wounded.
Up to this morning the total number of casualties was 12,834,--of which
2,319 were added during the last fortnight. Ten of the eleven Scotch
regiments lost about 2,050, and eight of the Irish regiments, 2,000.
Of nearly 200 Colonials the Royal Canadians lost 121 and the Victoria
mounted contingent, 26. The casualties are classified thus:
Killed, 1,993; wounded, 6,838; missing, 3,173; disease, 830.
The following is quite in the spirit of Lord Roberts' famous report of
satisfactory news on Majuba Day.
"At 3 A.M., to-day a most dashing advance was made by the Canadian
Regiment and some engineers, supported by the 1st Gordon Highlanders
and 2d Shropshires, resulting in our gaining a point some 600 yards
nearer to the enemy."
It is officially stated that, if it had not been for peremptory orders
to stop, the Canadians would have stormed the Boer laager itself on the
morning of the surrender, and it was in evidence that they could have
gained their point that caused the anniversary surrender of the Boers.
[Sidenote: Kruger Willing to Compromise]
The hurried appearance of President Kruger among his troops soon after
Cronje's defeat, and his sudden willingness to compromise for the sake
of peace, and utterances to that effect at Bloemfontein, causing his
congregations to shed tears, make known his understanding that his
cause in his opinion verged upon a collapse, but the faith was strong
in him that the Lord would deliver him, and the aged President whose
diplomacy has been the subject of so much admiration by those who
indulge a specialty of disliking the British, was carried away by the
thought that as his enemies had vindicated their military power and
honor to some extent, they could therefore afford to make peace, and
his experience in the war that closed at Majuba suggested that advances
on his part might be attributed to a gracious condescension and result
in peace making; and as he has been well advised of the general course
of the press of Europe and America, he had a certain justification in
feeling that his appeal for pacification would arouse the European
nations at least to propose arbitration.
[Sidenote: Kruger visits Bloemfontein]
It was on March 6th, that Mr. Kruger started to visit the Free State
laager, and a Pretoria dispatch announced that he made the journey "to
arrange a compromise between the Transvaalers and the Free Staters."
This showed a more serious disturbance of the relations of the allied
states than had been made known, but the old President's shrewdness had
not failed to warn him that the invasion of the Orange Free State
threatened the existence of both the Boer States, and that if there was
a chance for peace it would be necessary to be speedy in coming to the
decision to make such offers as he might believe himself generous in
formalizing with that certain vagueness that has been one of his strong
points, enabling him to add sinister interpretations in the final
construction of the principles of proposed protocols. He had not been
at Bloemfontein many hours before his state of mind caused him to
communicate pacific intentions to the British Government, and the
understanding of the Premier and the Colonial Secretary was that the
Transvaal President was of the opinion his cause was lost if he could
not obtain time for negotiation.
There was an uprising in London when the Queen drove through the
streets to Buckingham Palace, animated by the auspicious news from
South Africa, and guided by her intuition that the people would be glad
to see her; and the public enthusiasm surpassed all that has been
witnessed, including her jubilee receptions. She is described as
looking "old and worn, but her face radiant with happiness;" and the
spectators shouted "Welcome home!" and followed her with "a mighty roar
of cheering in which was an undertone of tenderness and affection."
She has followed the course of the war with evident anxiety and
intelligence, and Her Majesty's expressions of appreciation, good cheer
and sympathy have been many, and full of womanly charm; and all this
has been exercised in such times and ways and places as to demonstrate
close relation to political tact. The ties between Her Majesty and her
subjects were multiplied and strengthened by the thrilling vicissitudes
of the war, while the Empire has had an attraction unknown until the
African crisis came for the colonies; and the colonial contingents from
Canada, New Zealand and Australia, have become the pioneers and
missionaries of British Imperial confederation--a fact of world-wide
and deep significance.
[Sidenote: From Modder River to Bloemfontein]
The march from the scene of Cronje's defeat at Modder River to
Bloemfontein, the capital of the Free State, was interrupted by a
number of minor engagements, resulting in considerable loss of life,
but no serious halts were made. On Monday, March 12th, General
French's cavalry arrived on the outskirts and demanded the surrender of
the city, threatening bombardment if refused. Four A.M. Tuesday
morning was named as the limit of time allowed for consideration.
Meantime General Roberts arrived with the main army. A white flag was
hoisted Tuesday morning, and a deputation of the Town Council, with
Mayor Kellner, came out to meet Lord Roberts at Spitz Kop, five miles
south of the town, making a formal surrender of the place.
Lord Roberts made a state entry at noon. He received a tremendous
ovation. After visiting the public buildings, he went to the official
residence of the President, followed by a cheering crowd, who waved the
British flag and sang the British national anthem. They were in a
condition of frenzied excitement.
President Steyn had the evening before moved the government of the Free
State to Kroonstadt, 125 miles north of Bloemfontein, on the road to
Pretoria.
In the afternoon, Lord Roberts led his army triumphantly into the city,
established his headquarters at the President's house, where many
wounded soldiers were also taken by his command, and at 8 P.M. sent the
following dispatch to his Government, which was given out by the War
Office the next evening:
"BLOEMFONTEIN, March 13, 1900.
"By the help of God and by the bravery of Her Majesty's soldiers, the
troops under my command have taken possession of Bloemfontein.
"The British flag now flies over the Presidency, evacuated last evening
by Mr. Steyn, late President of the Orange Free State.
"Mr. Frazer, member of the late Executive Government, the Mayor, the
Secretary to the late Government, the Landrost, and other officials met
me two miles from the town and presented me with the keys of the public
offices.
"The enemy have withdrawn from the neighborhood, and all seems quiet.
The inhabitants of Bloemfontein gave the troops a cordial welcome."
[Illustration: THE OBSERVATION BALLOON. Used by the British in
observing the Boers' position. This balloon caused great annoyance to
the Dutch and they tried in vain with rifle and cannon to puncture it.]
[Illustration: WOUNDED OFFICERS CHATTING IN WARD NO. 1]
The delay in the sending of this message is attributed to the field
telegraphs not being connected with Bloemfontein on Tuesday evening.
Wherever Lord Roberts' dispatch was read, his reference to the "late"
President Steyn and the "late" executive was immediately fastened upon
as highly significant.
Overtures for peace had been made, by Presidents Kruger and Steyn, some
days before the occupation of Bloemfontein, but the terms were not such
as England would entertain, and the burghers were promptly informed by
Lord Salisbury, that his Government would consider no conditions
looking to the independence of the South African Republic or the Orange
Free State, This reply caused bitter disappointment to the South
African Presidents, and President Kruger cabled the following
characteristic message:
"PRETORIA, March 13, 1900.
"The burghers will only cease fighting with death. Our forces are
returning in good order to our first line of defense on our own soil.
The Natal campaign was longer in our favor than we expected.
"The British will never reach Pretoria. The burghers, Steyn, Joubert
and myself, as well as all others, are united. There are no
differences. God help us."
[Sidenote: The War Solely Defensive]
Presidents Kruger and Steyn addressed to Lord Salisbury the following
proposition:
"BLOEMFONTEIN, March 5th.
"The blood and the tears of thousands who have suffered by this war,
and the prospect of all moral and economic ruin, wherewith South Africa
is now threatened, make it necessary for both belligerents to ask
themselves dispassionately and as in the sight of the triune God for
what they are fighting, and whether the aim of each justifies all this
appalling misery and devastation.
"With this object, and in view of the assertions of various British
statesmen to the effect that this war was begun and is being carried on
with the set purpose of undermining Her Majesty's authority in South
Africa, and of setting up an administration over all of South Africa
independent of Her Majesty's Government, we consider it our duty to
solemnly declare that this war was undertaken solely as a defensive
measure to maintain the threatened independence of the South African
Republics, and is only continued in order to secure and maintain the
incontestable independence of both Republics as sovereign international
States, and to obtain the assurance that those of Her Majesty's
subjects who have taken part with us in this war shall suffer no harm
whatever in person or property. On these conditions, but on these
conditions alone, are we now, as in the past, desirous of seeing peace
re-established in South Africa, while if Her Majesty's Government is
determined to destroy the independence of the Republics there is
nothing left to us and to our people but to persevere to the end in the
course already begun.
"In spite of the overwhelming pre-eminence of the British Empire, we
are confident that that God, who lighted the unextinguishable fire of
love of freedom in the hearts of ourselves and of our fathers, will not
forsake us, and will accomplish His work in us and in our descendants.
"We hesitated to make this declaration earlier to Your Excellency, as
we feared that as long as the advantage was always on our side, and as
long as our forces held defensive positions far within Her Majesty's
colonies, such a declaration might hurt the feelings and honor of the
British people.
"But now that the prestige of the British Empire may be considered to
be assured by the capture of one of our forces by Her Majesty's troops,
and that we have thereby been forced to evacuate other positions which
our forces had occupied, that difficulty is over, and we can no longer
hesitate to clearly inform your Goverment and people, in the sight of
the whole civilized world, why we are fighting, and on what conditions
we are ready to restore peace."
[Sidenote: The Turning Point]
The design of this communication was to influence the great powers to
intervene and bring a pressure upon England to consent to make a
fruitless sacrifice of blood and treasure, and put aside as irrelevant
the British victories. The reply of Lord Salisbury was:
"FOREIGN OFFICE, LONDON, March 11TH.
"I have the honor to acknowledge Your Honors' telegram, dated March
5th, from Bloemfontein, of which the purport is principally to demand
that Her Majesty's Government shall recognize the 'incontestable
independence' of the South African Republic and Free State 'as
sovereign international States,' and to offer on those terms to bring
the war to a conclusion.
[Sidenote: Who Broke the Peace?]
"In the beginning of October last peace existed between Her Majesty and
the two Republics under conventions which were then in existence. A
discussion had been proceeding for some months between Her Majesty's
Government and the South African Republic, of which the object was to
obtain redress for certain very serious grievances under which the
British residents in South Africa were suffering. In the course of
these negotiations the South African Republic had, to the knowledge of
Her Majesty's Government, made considerable armaments, and the latter
had consequently taken steps to provide corresponding reinforcements of
the British garrisons at Cape Town and in Natal. No infringement of
the rights guaranteed by the conventions had up to that point taken
place on the British side.
"Suddenly, at two days' notice, the South African Republic, after
issuing an insulting ultimatum, declared war upon Her Majesty, and the
Orange Free State, with which there had not even been any discussion,
took a similar step. Her Majesty's dominions were immediately invaded
by the two Republics. Siege was laid to three towns within the British
frontier, a large portion of two colonies was overrun with great
destruction of property and life, and the Republics claimed to treat
the inhabitants of extensive portions of Her Majesty's dominions as if
those dominions had been annexed to one or the other of them.
[Sidenote: Accumulating Military Stores]
"In anticipation of these operations the South African Republic had
been accumulating for many years past military stores on an enormous
scale, which, by their character, could only have been intended for use
against Great Britain. Your Honors make some observations of a
negative character upon the object with which these preparations were
made. I do not think it necessary to discuss the questions you have
raised. But the result of these preparations, carried on with great
secrecy, has been that the British Empire has been compelled to
confront an invasion which has entailed upon the empire a costly war
and the loss of thousands of precious lives. This great calamity has
been the penalty Great Britain has suffered for having of recent years
acquiesced in the existence of the two Republics.
"In view of the use to which the two Republics have put the position
which was given them, and the calamities their unprovoked attack has
inflicted on Her Majesty's dominion, Her Majesty's Goverment can only
answer Your Honors' telegram by saying it is not prepared to assent to
the independence either of the South African Republic or the Orange
Free State."
[Sidenote: The "Good Offices" of the United States]
The plea for peace from the two Presidents was taken seriously by its
authors, but there could not have been a reasonable expectation that
there would be any business results. If there was a remote chance to
open negotiations, the suggestion to the State Department of the United
States, through our Consul at Pretoria, appeared the only possibility
of an open door. The United States would gladly undertake to
facilitate peace negotiations, and the Boer communications to this
country were transmitted to the British Government, and our "good
offices" were not rebuffed but respectfully declined. The British
Premier confined himself to a courteous verbal expression. This was
all that any sober-minded person expected. The Government of the
United States gave evidence of its kindly spirit, and was treated with
civility. The South African questions are too deep for settlement
until military operations are conclusive. There was no intervention by
a foreign power between Germany and France in 1870, or between Turkey
and Greece, or the United States and Spain, and there will be no
interference in the South African war. Either the Boers or the Britons
are to be masters of South Africa.
There were not wanting, even during the period of Boer military
successes, signs that the burghers of the two Republics were finding it
difficult to serve together. The Orange Free State troops felt that
they were having an amount of fighting to do greater than their share
of responsibility. The invasion of the State caused at once
dissatisfaction and consternation, and the surrender of Cronje caused a
panic, but the Boers rallied and skirmished hotly to check Roberts.
The Orange men were not united, and Lord Roberts had a popular welcome
at Bloemfontein. One of the incitements of the peace proposals of the
two Presidents was to arouse the drooping animosities of the Orange
men. The foremost of the invaders to enter the Orange Capital were
three newspaper correspondents, who were at first thought to be
townsfolk, and when found out they were greeted cordially and conducted
to a club, where they met Mr. Frazer, of the Executive Council, the
Mayor and other officials. These they persuaded to take carriages and
go to meet Lord Roberts.
The cavalry were closing up, and the newspaper men introduced the
Orange men to the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, meant the
town would surrender. Lord Roberts entered--made his entry in
state--and was warmly welcomed. Everybody appeared glad to see him,
and the function was impressive and influential beyond the military
pageantry. The first work of the Army of Occupation was to make the
railroads available. Three trains were in motion March 15th, managed
by British railroad men found in the ranks. Lord Roberts found much to
do of a political nature, and issued a series of orders and
proclamations, establishing military government on a pacific basis.
President Steyn is referred to as the "Ex-President," and his part in
bringing misfortune upon his country is discussed with reflections upon
his policy. He strove to rally the Orange burghers, but they were
down-hearted and largely depressed. The Transvaal Government were on
firmer ground, and gave their attention to make ready the destruction
of the gold mines with the City of Johannesburg, and the defense of
Pretoria.
[Sidenote: The Press on Mediation]
The London correspondent of the Toronto _Globe_ telegraphed of the
peace proceedings of President Kruger:
"There are many explanations from American sources, but the action of
the State Department is not understood here. Englishmen are asking
what Americans would have said, not long ago, if the Madrid Government,
in the hour of defeat, had proposed peace on the basis of Spanish
retention of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and England had
offered her services as a mediator."
But the United States Government merely conveyed a message, and the
_Standard_ (London) said:
"We are grateful to the Americans for their good offices, and we should
be delighted to accept their assistance if it were possible. But this
quarrel is our own, and we must settle it in our own way. We have no
reason to complain of platonic and vicarious affection for intervention
so long as every government is quite resolved to leave it to its
neighbor to begin."
The _Mail_ said:
"Englishmen are sufficiently acquainted with American affairs not to
misinterpret the attitude of the Washington Cabinet. President
McKinley has behaved to us with scrupulous fairness."
The text of Mr. Balfour's reply in the House to the question about the
American mediation was in these terms:
"The United States Charge D'Affaires on March 13th communicated to Lord
Salisbury a telegram from Mr. Hay: 'By way of friendly and good office
inform the British Minister of Foreign Affairs that to-day he received
a telegram from the United States Consul at Pretoria, reporting that
the Government of the South African Republic requested the President of
the United States to intervene with the view of cessation of
hostilities and saying that a similar request has been made to the
representatives of the European powers. In communicating this request
I am directed by the President of the United States to express the
earnest hope that a way will be found to bring about peace and to say
that he would be glad in any friendly manner to aid in bringing about
the desired result.'"
OFFICIAL LIST
OF THE
CANADIAN CONTINGENTS IN SOUTH AFRICA
The First Contingent was composed of seven Companies, recruited from
the various parts of the Dominion. The formation by Company and
District was as follows:
A Company, British Columbia and Manitoba.
B Company, London, Ontario.
C Company, Toronto, Ontario.
D Company, left half, Kingston and vicinity; right half, Ottawa,
Ontario.
E Company, Montreal.
F Company, Quebec.
G Company, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
H Company, Nova Scotia.
Each Company consisted of 125 men, which, with the staff and officers,
brought the total force up to 1019. The mobilization of the Contingent
took place at Quebec, and on October 30th, 1899, the _Sardinian_, of
the Allan Line, bearing Canada's initial quota of fighting men, sailed
on her voyage to Cape Town. On the 13th, November the _Sardinian_ was
reported at Cape Verde Islands, having made a quick and uneventful
passage to that point. From Cape Verde the steamer touched at no port
till Cape Town was reached on November 29th.
First Contingent.
Officers.
Commanding Officer.
Otter, Lieutenant-Colonel W. D., Canadian Staff, A.D.C., to His
Excellency the Governor-General.
Majors
(2nd in command).
Buchan, L. (Lieutant-Colonel Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry).
Pelletier, Q.C.C. (Lieutenant-Colonel Canadian Staff).
"A" Company, British Columbia and Manitoba.
Captain.
Arnold, H. M.(Major 90th Winnipeg Rifles).
Lieutenants.
Blanchard, M. G. (Captain 5th Regiment C.A.)
Hodgins, A. E. (Captain Nelson Rifle Company).
Layborn, S. P. (Lieutenant Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry).
"B" Company, London, Ontario.
Captain.
Stuart, D. (Major 26th Middlesex Light Infantry).
Lieutenants.
Ross, J. M. (Captain 22nd The Oxford Rifles).
Mason, J. C. (Captain 10th Royal Grenadiers).
Temple, R. H. M. (2nd Lieutenant 48th Highlanders).
"C" Company, Toronto.
Captain.
Barker, R. K. (Captain Queen's Own Rifles).
Lieutenants.
Marshall, W. R. (Lieutenant 13th Battalion).
Wilkie, C. S. (Lieutenant 10th Royal Grenadiers).
Lafferty, F. D. (Lieutenant Royal Canadian Artillery).
"D" Company, Ottawa and Kingston.
Captain.
Rogers, S. M. (Major 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles).
Lieutenants
Lawless, W. T. (Captain Governor General's Foot Guards).
Stewart, R. G. (Lieutenant 43rd Carleton Rifles).
Caldwell, A. C. (Lieutenant Reserve of Officers).
"E" Company, Montreal.
Captain.
Fraser, C. K. (Captain 53rd Sherbrooke Battalion).
Lieutenants.
Swift, A. E. (Lieutenant 8th Royal Rifles).
Laurie, A. (Lieutenant 1st Prince of Wales' Fusiliers).
Armstrong, C. J. (Lieutenant 5th Royal Scots of Canada).
"F" Company, Quebec.
Captain.
Peltier, J. E. (Major 65th Mount Royal Rifles).
Lieutenants.
Panel, H. A. (Captain Royal Canadian Artillery).
Leduc, L. (Lieutenant Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry).
Pelletier, E. A. (Lieutenant 55th Megantic Light Infantry).
"G" Company, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
Captain.
Weeks, W. A. (Major Charlottetown Engineers).
Lieutenants.
Jones, F. C. (Captain in 3rd Regiment C. A).
Kaye, J. H. (Lieutenant Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry).
McLean, C. W. W. (2nd Lieutenant 8th Princess Louise's Hussars).
"H" Company, Nova Scotia.
Captain.
Stairs, H. B. (Captain 66th Princess Louise's Fusiliers).
Lieutenants.
Burstall, H. E. (Captain Royal Canadian Artillery).
Willis, R. B. (Lieutenant 66th Princess Louise's Fusiliers).
Oland, J. C. (2nd Lieutenant 63rd Halifax Rifles).
O. C. Machine Gun Section.
Bell, A. C. (Captain Scots Guards) A. D. C. to the Major-General
Commanding Canadian Militia.
Regimental Adjutant.
Macdonell, A. H. (Captain Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry).
Battalion Adjutants.
Macdonell, A. H. (Captain Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry).
Ogilvy, J. H. C. (Captain Royal Canadian Artillery).
Quartermaster.
Denison, S. J. A. (Captain and Brevet Major Royal Canadian Regiment of
Infantry).
Medical Officers.
Wilson, C. W. (Surgeon-Major 3rd Field Battery).
Fiset, E. (Surgeon-Major 89th Temiscouata and Rimouski Battalion).
Attached for Staff Duty.
Drummond, L. G. (Major Scots Guards) Military Secretary to His
Excellency the Governor-General.
Attached for Special Duty.
Drury, C. W. (Lieutenant-Colonel Royal Canadian Artillery), A. D. C. to
His Excellency the Governor-General.
Lessard, F. L. (Lieutenant-Colonel Royal Canadian Dragoons).
Cartwright, M. (Major Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry, A. A. G. at
Headquarters).
Forester, W. (Captain Royal Canadian Dragoons).
Medical Staff for General Service.
Osborne, A. B. (Captain Canadian Army Medical Staff).
Nurses.
Pope, Miss Georgina; Forbes, Miss Sarah; Affleck, Miss Minnie; Russell,
Miss Elizabeth.
Historical Recorder.
Dixon, F. J. (Captain Reserve Officers).
Chaplains.
Almond, Rev. J.
Fullerton, Rev. T. F. (Hon. Chaplain 4th Regiment C. A.).
O'Leary, Rev. P. M.
"A" COMPANY, BRITISH COLUMBIA AND MANITOBA.
Holmes W. H., Colonel-Sergeant, R. C. A.
Allan, H. S., 5th R. C. A.
Alliston, B. D., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Adams, J., Manitoba Dragoons.
Anderson, J., 5th R. C. A.
Armstrong, E., R. C. A.
Andrews, H., 5th R. C. A.
Barrett, R. J., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Barlow, R. H., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Beach, A. C., 5th R. C. A.
Berthour, W. H., 5th R. C. A.
Battson, A. S., 5th R. C. A.
Bonner, H. M.,5th R. C. A.
Boyce, A. W., 13th Field Battery, C. A.
Brooking, W., 5th R. C. A.
Carnagie, J., 90th Winnipeg Rifles
Carter, A., 5th R.C. A.
Campbell, R. B., Nelson Rifles.
Campbell, A., R. C. A.
Chisholm, A., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Clough, P., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Collins, J., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Cook J., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Corbould, G. B., 5th R. C. A.
Cowan, H. J., Manitoba Dragoons.
Cornwall, F. J., 5th R. C. A.
Court, S. T., 5th R. C. A.
Crooke, M., Nelson Rifles.
Davies, J, E., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Dickinson, F., 5th R. C. A.
Dickson, J. H., Nelson Rifles.
Dixon, W. J. G., 5th R. C. A.
Duncalfe, C. W., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Docherty, M., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Edwards, H., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Fowle, W. F., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Findley, T. A., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Foord, F. N., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Finch-Smiles, F., 5th R. C. A.
French, J. P., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Gamble, C. W., 5th R. C. A.
Groves, C. E., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Greaves, P., 5th R. C. A.
Hammond, J. L., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Hanson, S. S., 5th R. C. A.
Hicks, H. P., Nelson Rifles.
Holeyoke, G. C. F., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Hughes, E. N., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Hutchings, George, 5th R. C. A.
Ingram, L., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Irvine, A. B., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Jackson, W., 5th R. C. A.
Johnson, H., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Jones, S. L., 5th R. C. A.
Jones, J. W., 5th R. C. A.
Kelly, E., Queen's Own Rifles.
Kennedy, D., 34th Ontario Battalion.
Lee, A. S., Nelson Rifles.
Leeman, R. W. J., 5th R. C. A.
Leamy, C. S., 5th R. C. A.
LeBar, V. E., R. C. R.
Listen, B., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Livingstone, J., 5th R. C. A.
Lohman, A. O., 5th R. C. A.
Martin, A., R. C. R.
Mackie, A. S., 5th R. C. A.
Matheson. K., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Maundrill, A., 5th R. C. A.
Mills, C. A., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Munro, A. E., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Moier, W. J., 36th Peel Battalion.
Moodie, W. H., Kaslo Rifle Co.
Moscrop, J., 5th R. C. A.
McCalmont, R. J., 5th R. C. A.
McIvor, D., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
McKeand, D. L., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
McKenzie, H., Manitoba Dragoons.
McHarg, W. H., Rossland Rifle Company.
Northcote, J., 5th R. C. A.
Neibergall, H. F., 5th R. C. A.
Neil, G., 5th R. C. A.
Nixon, F. S., 36th Peel Battalion.
Nye, A. J., 5th R. C. A.
O'Brien, S. W., 5th R. C. A.
Odell, S. H., 5th R. C. A.
Parker, H. F., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Patterson, W. O., Nelson Rifles.
Patterson, C., R. C. R.
Perry, J. C., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Rea, J. R., Nelson Rifles.
Rumsay, F., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Rush, F., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Rorke, E. B., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Robbins, A. E., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Roberts, S. C., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Roberts, C. M., 5th R. C. A.
Sherlock, H., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Sherris, J., R. C. A.
Scott, W., 5th R. C. A.
Sinclair, J. J. S., 5th R. C. A.
Smethurst, H., 5th R. C. A.,
Smith, James, 5th R. C. A.
Snider, C. H., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Soper, A. C. W., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Somers, J. H., 5th R. C. A.
Stewart, J., 5th R. C. A.
St. James, G., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Stebbings, W. H. H., 5th R. C. A.
Talbot, A., 34th Ontario Battalion.
Thompson, C. C., 5th R. C. A.
Thompson, T., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Todd, J., 5th R C. A.
Vinnel, A. J., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Whimster, P., Manitoba Dragoons.
Wallace, W., 5th R. C. A.
Wallace, G., 5th R. C. A.
Welch, W., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Western, T., Manitoba Dragoons.
Whilley, W. F., 5th R. C. A.
Wilkins, G. H., Kaslo Rifle Company.
Wilkie, O. J., 5th R. C. A.
Wyatt, H. R., 90th Winnipeg Rifles.
Ward, R., Royal Canadian Dragoons.
Wood, A. M., 5th R. C. A.
"B" COMPANY, LONDON, ONTARIO.
Davies, Colonel-Sergeant R., R. C. R.
Adam, S., R. C. A.
Adams, W. G., 7th Fusiliers.
Adair, A., R. C. A.
Anderson, A. H., 25th Elgin Battalion.
Andrews, E. C., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Atkinson, D. H., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Bredin, J., 38th Dufferin Rifles.
Bowden, R. B., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Bethune, A., R. C. R.
Bollard, H. E., 28th Perth Battalion.
Barr, H. B., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Barrett, P., 7th Fusiliers.
Baugh, E., R. C. A.
Beers, F. C., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Berges, H., 38th Dufferin Rifles.
Biggs, J. C., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Burns, W. J., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Burrell, H., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Burwell, A. E., 6th F. B. C. A.
Campbell, F. W., 30th Wellington Rifles.
Chapman, W. H., 7th Fusiliers.
Charman, A., R. C. R.
Coles, F. J., 7th Fusiliers.
Cole, A. E., 1st Hussars.
Corley, J. B., 30th Wellington Rifles.
Crockett, Samuel, 7th Fusiliers.
Craig, E. D., 21st Essex Fusiliers
Collins, W., 1st Hussars.
Dalgleish, A. D., 29th Waterloo Battalion.
Day, J., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Donegan, J. A., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Dolman, E. N., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Donahue, H., 26th Middlesex Infantry.
Delmer, P., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Duff, J. B., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Edward, A., 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Evans, F., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Farley, J. E., 25th Elgin Battalion.
Finch, C. E., 7th Fusiliers
Floyd, F. G. W., 7th Fusiliers.
Fox, W. H., R. C. A.
Foote, William, 29th Waterloo Battalion.
Gorrie, W. B., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Graham, George, 28th Perth Battalion.
Greene, C., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Green, W. J., 25th Elgin Battalion.
Gorman, F., 27th Lambton Battalion.
Hill, J. C., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry,
Herrick, J., 7th Fusiliers.
Hessell, F. W., 7th Fusiliers.
Hyman, W. J., 6th Field Battery, C. A.
Hennessy, J. T., 7th Fusiliers.
Inglemells, P. C., 1st Hussars.
Irvine, R., 19th St. Catherines Battalion.
Jell, A. P., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Jones, M. L., 33rd Huron Battalion.
Johnston, K. G., 27th Lambton Battalion.
Kingswell, J., R. C. A.
Leonard, G. W., 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Little, R. H., 1st Hussars.
Little, G. B., 34th Ontario Battalion.
Lane, H., 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Lundrigan, J., R. C. A.
McBeth, G. W., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
McBeth, G. A., 7th Fusiliers.
McLaren, C. D., 7th Fusiliers.
McLean, M., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
McCalla, J., 19th St. Catherines Battalion.
McMahon, W. H., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
McMillan, D. C., 27th Lambton Battalion.
McMurphy, A., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
McLean, A. R., 38th Dufferin Battalion.
Marshall, A., 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Marentette, V. F., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Merrix, A. E., R. C. R. I.
Moore, D. L., R. C. R. I.
Mullins, E., R. C. R. I.
Munro, G. H., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Northwood, J., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Nott, William, R. C. A.
Odium, V., 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Odium, G., 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Paddon, A. E., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Phillips, G. R. S., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Piper, T. J., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Pinel. G. F., 7th Fusiliers.
Pert, E. W., 28th Perth Battalion.
Power, L., R. C. A.
Powell, L, 29th Waterloo Battalion.
Purcell, J. J., E. C. A.
Reed, W. G., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Reid, D. A., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Redee, C., 7th Fusiliers.
Robinson. J. B., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Rae, A. H., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Rorison, C. K., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Sippi, G. R. B., 7th Fusiliers.
Smith. J., 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Scott, C. R., 27th Lambton Battalion.
Smith, R., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Stanberry, F. G., 25th Elgin Battalion.
Stevenson, W. R., R. C. R. I.
Sutherland, J., 25th Elgin Battalion.
Taylor, E., 1st Hussars.
Taylor, G., 1st Hussars.
Thompson, H., R. C. A.
Trolley, F. H., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Turner. F. W., 6th Field Battery.
Tutt, T., R. C. R. I.
Wardel, A. E., 7th Fusiliers.
Webb, A. B., 33rd Huron Battalion.
West, W., 7th Fusiliers.
Westaway, H., 25th Elgin Battalion.
Wells, James, 30th Wellington Rifles
Wheatcraft, A. H., 7th Fusiliers
White, G., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
White, W., 21st Essex Fusiliers.
Wilson, A. R., 33rd Huron Battalion
Wigham, R. D., 6th Field Battery, C. A.
Woodliffe, G. W., 7th Fusiliers.
Woodward, A. W., 26th Middlesex Light Infantry.
Wilson, H. R, 22nd Oxford Rifles.
Woodyatt, W. H., 7th Fusiliers.
"C" COMPANY
Campbell, Colonel-Sergeant J. S., R. C. R. I.
Allen, L., Q. O. R.
Anderson, F. T., 39th Norfolk Rifles.
Baldwin, John, 48th Highlanders.
Banton, T. H., 48th Highlanders.
Beattie, A., Q. O. R.
Black, N. D., 35th Simcoe Foresters.
Blair, F., 48th Highlanders.
Bird, B. M., Q. O. R.
Bingham, H. S., 35th Simcoe Foresters.
Blight, W. S., Q. O. R.
Brettingham, W. P. R., 12th York Rangers.
Brunton, H. G., 12th York Rangers.
Burkhart, F., 29th Waterloo Battalion.
Butler, W. B., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Calvert, F. M., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Callahan, H. A., 35th Simcoe Foresters.
Christie, D. H., 37th Haldimand Rifles.
Cassel, K. J., 13th Battalion.
Curtis, W. R., 31st Grey Battalion.
Coggins, A. E., R. C. D.
Coggins, H., 31st Grey Battalion.
Cuthbert, F., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Davidson, J., 12th York Rangers.
Dangerfield, A., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Day, E. C., G. G. B. G.
Dixon, H. W. A., Q. O. R.
Dunham, F. H., 48th Highlanders.
Eakins, G., Q. O. R.
Ellis, G. S., Q. O. R.
Fawcett, J. H., 12th York Rangers.
Findlay, J. H., 35th Simcoe Foresters.
Freemantle, A. H. O., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Graham. T. H., 12th York Rangers.
Grant W H., 48th Highlanders.
Gray N., Sault St. Marie Rifles.
Haines, W., R. C. R. I.
Hector, F. T. D., Q. O. R.
Hendry, Murray, 13th Battalion.
Henderson, R. H., 35th Simcoe Foresters.
Hewett. W. H., Q. O. R.
Holland, W. C. S., 77th Wentworth Battalion.
Holland, J., Civilian.
Hodgins, E. W., G. G. B. G.
Hopeson, C. W., 48th Highlanders.
Hoskins, R. W., Q. O. R.
Hornibrook. T. L., 48th Highlanders.
Inglestrom, F., Q. O. R.
Ironside, G. M., Toronto Police.
Tones, N. J., 31st Grey Battalion.
Jordan, Joseph, Q. O. R.
Kennedy James, 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Kidner, R., Q. O. R.
Long, J. L., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Lorsch, F. D., 48th Highlanders.
Love, William, 37th Haldimand Rifles.
Machin, H. A., 12th York Rangers.
Manion. W. T., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Martin, G. F., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Morley, N. L., 48th Highlanders.
Mitchell, J. A., 48th Highlanders.
Morse, T., R. C. R. I.
Middleton, H. J., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
McCall, A., Toronto Police.
McCosh, P., 35th Simcoe Foresters.
McCuish, D., R. C. R. I.
McGee, K., R. M. C., Cadet.
McGiverin L., Q. O. R.
McHugh, E., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
McKenzie, L. C., 48th Highlanders.
McLaughlin, R. H., R. C. R. I.
McNish, M., 48th Highlanders.
McPherson, D., 48th Highlanders.
Noble, D. A., 38th Dufferin Rifles.
Page, F. C., G. G. B. G.
Parry, C. E., R. C. D.
Bugler Pringle, R., S. S. Marie Rifle Company.
Perry, S., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Preston, D. G., 44th Lincoln and Welland Battalion.
Ramage, J. H., 30th Peel Battalion.
Ramage, J. H., 346th Peel Battalion.
Rasberry, J., 77th Wentworth Battalion.
Rae, F. A., 34th Ontario Battalion.
Ridway, E. H., Q. O. R.
Robson, A., 13th Battalion.
Rogers, W. R., 44th Lincoln and Welland Battalion.
Rooke, W. J., Q. O. R.
Rorke, J. H., 31st Grey Battalion.
Ramsay, J. F., 48th Highlanders.
Rutherford, F. H., 13th Battalion.
Seager, John, Q. O. R.
Seymour, C., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Sherritt, A. W., 38th Dufferin Rifles.
Simpson, G. C. M., 12th York Rangers.
Smith, J., 48th Highlanders.
Smith, G. M., 48th Highlanders.
Solari, J., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Spence, J. D., 48th Highlanders.
Stewart, M. M., Q. O. R.
Button, J. H., 13th Battalion.
Thompson, G., R. C. D.
Thompson, W. F., R. C. R. I.
Tice, C., Civilian.
Tomlinson, C., Q. O. R.
Travers, W., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Usher, J. F., Q. O. R.
Vanderwater, W. J., Q. O. R.
Van Norman, A. F., R. C. R. I.
Vicary, S., S. S. Marie Rifle Company.
Vickers, J. R., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Wallace, T. G., 36th Peel Battalion.
Warde, S. M., Q. O. R.
Warren, W. C., 13th Battalion.
Warwick W. H., 13th Battalion.
Watson, R. G., R. C. R. I.
Weir, F. E., Q. O. R.
Wellar, E. T., 48th Highlanders.
Wilson J. A., 10th Royal Grenadiers.
Wilson, N. W., Q. O. R.
Whitehead, J., 48th Highlanders.
Wright, D. M., R. C. R. I.
Bugler Williams, D. F., Q. O. R.
Young, H., Q. O. R.
Young, A., Q. O. R.
"B" COMPANY, OTTAWA AND KINGSTON.
Thompson, Color-Serjeant C. H., R. C. R. I.
Auger, E., G. G. F. G.
Ault, C. E., 14th Princess of Wales Own Rifles.
Bartlett, E. D., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Benbow, H. A., G. G. F. G.
Bennett, A., P. L. Dragoon Guards.
Bolster, H. G., Cobourg Garrison Artillery, C. A.
Bolyea, A. W., 15th A. L. I.
Bradshaw, A. L. H., 16th Prince Edward Battalion.
Brady, W. S., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Bull, E. W., Cobourg Company, C. A.
Burns, O. T., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Burns, R., G. G. F. G.
Clunie, P., Civilian.
Cunnington, R., 15th A. L. I.
Carruthers, B., 14th Prince of Wales Own Rifles.
Cairns, J. S., 2nd Field Battery, C. A.
Chidlow, J., R. C. R. I.
Clarke, C. P., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Clother, A., G. G. F. G.
Cluff, N. W. H., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Cockburn, G. G., Cobourg Company C. A.
Coleman. J. D., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Cotton, H., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Cotterell, A., R. C. R. I.
Cram, J. A. C., 42nd Lanark and Renfrew Battalion.
Craig, C. E., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Croft, F., 16th Prince Edward Battalion.
Croft, P. C., 42nd Lanark and Renfrew Battalion.
Cunningham, R, J., 20th Halton Rifles.
Chitty, L. M., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Dalberg, R. P., K. C. R. I.
Des Lauriers, E., P. L. Dragoon Guards, deceased.
Deuchars, G. D., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Donaldson, C. A., 41st Brockville Rifles.
Dunlop, E., 14th Princess of Wales Own Rifles.
Dunlop, J. R., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Eagleson, S. H., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Ellard, J. F. G., G. G. F. G.
Eley, D. M., 14th Princess of Wales Own Rifles.
Escobel, N., R. C. R. I.
Fleming. A. J., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Floden, W. J., 47th Frontenac Battalion.
Foster, P. R., G. G. F. G.
Frye, C. E., 15th A. L. I.
Gallagher, J., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Gibson, C. A., 15th A. L. I.
Gilmour, A. E., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Graham, J. D. H., P. L. D. G.
Gilmour, W. J., R. C. R. I.
Haig, H. G., 2nd F. Battery, C. A.
Hatton, J., 14th Princess of Wales Own Rifles.
Hagan, J. R., 41st Brockville Rifles.
Hennessy, J., R. C. R. I.
Hulme, G. G., 15th A. L. I.
Holland, C., 16th Prince Edward Battalion.
Hugall, P., R. C A.
Jackson, C. E. E., 37th Haldiman Rifles.
Johnston, W., R. C. R. I.
Jones, H. H., 15th A. L. I.
Laird, A., late R. C. A.
Lamothe, G., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Latimer, W. R., G. G. F. G.
Large, A. L., 15th A. L. I.
Lawrence, W. R., 59th Stormont and Glengarry Battalion.
Lewis, Z. R. E., N. W. M. Police
Living, J. F., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Lynn, F., 15th A. L. I.
Lyon, G. R. D., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Le Bean, L. P., G. G. F. G.
Macaulay, A., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Martin, W. A., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Martin, H., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Mason, C. P., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Matthews, A. J., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Malloch, E. St. J., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Major, J., 56th Grenville Battalion
Mills, W. W., 15th A. L I.
Mitchell, N., 42nd Lanark and Renfrew Battalion.
Morgans, E. F., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Morrison, W. A., G. G. F. G.
Morin, J., G. G. F. G.
Morrison, E. F., 3rd Field Battery, C. A.
MacCullough, C., G. G. F. G.
MacRae, R. A., 43rd Ottawa and Csrleton Rifles.
McConnell, J. F., G. G. F. G.
McCormack, A. J., 14th Princess of Wales Own Rifles.
MacKay, R., 15th A. L. I.
McDonald, F., R. C. R I.
McFadden, F., G. G. F. G.
McLennan, J. A., 59th Stormont and Glengarry Battalion.
McCrea, J. M., 45th Victoria Battalion.
McNair, J., 15th A. L. I.
Padmore, D. T., R. C R. I.
Parr, W. B., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Peters, A E., R. C. R. I.
Phillips, G., 15th A. L. I.
Prior, A., R. C. R. I.
Porteous. R. W., G. G. F. G.
Ritchie. W. G., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Ross, W. J. H., Domn. Police.
Rowley, J., G. G. F. G.
Ross, A. L., 30th Wellington Rifles.
Schwitzer, W. C., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifies.
Shillington, W. J. H., P. L. D. G.
Small, H. C., 42nd Lanark and Renfrew Battalion.
Smith, J. F., G. G. F. G.
Smith, W. A., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifies.
Southey, E. C., 46th Durham Battalion.
Spence, C. T., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifies.
Street, L. J., G. G. F. G.
Swan, N. W. D., 14th Princess of Wales Own Rifles.
Thomas, J. M., G. G. F. G.
Taylor, A. H., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifies.
Thomas, C. T., G. G. F. G.
Thompson, R. R., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifles.
Tilley, G., 49th Hastings Rifles
Turner, R. H., 41st Brockville Rifles.
Turpin, T. J., Cobourg Co., C. A.
Wall, A., 16th Prince Edward Battalion.
Walker, L. C., 16th Field Battery, C. A.
Wendt, W. G., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifies.
Williamson, A. T. L., G. G. F. G.
Wood, F. H., 43rd Ottawa and Carleton Rifies.
Wright, H. O., P. L. D. G.
"E" COMPANY, MONTREAL.
Young, Color-Sergeant A., R. C. R. I.
Allan, J., R. C. R. I.
Allan, C. E., 5th Royal Scots.
Ackerman, F., 9th Voltiguers de Quebec.
Adams, J. A., 8th Royal Rifles.
Allmand, W. W., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers
Aspell, T. J., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers
Bach, R. C., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers
Baugh, T. E., R. C. R. I.
Bailey, J., 2nd Regiment C. A.
Barry, C. H., Civilian.
Bigelow, J. A., late N. W. M. P.
Bolt, G. H., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Byford, R., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Byers, R. T., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Carter, M., 2nd R. C. A.
Campbell. C., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Canty, R., 8th Royal Rifles.
Carter, W., 2nd R. C. A.
Clarke, R. C., 2nd R. C. A.
Coates, H. W., 5th Royal Scots.
Cox, F., R. C. R. I.
Crotty, P., 8th Royal Rifles.
Curry, I., 5th Royal Scots.
Corner, F. G., 5th Royal Scots.
Dawson, A., 8th Royal Rifles.
Delaney, M. J., 8th Royal Rifles.
Downey, G., Civilian.
Doyle, T. H. M., 8th Royal Scots.
Durkee, A. A. 3rd V. Rifles.
Dynes, E. J., Queen's Own Canadian Hussars,
Erskine, F., 5th Royal Scots.
Fisher, H., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Fowler, W., R. C. R. I.
Fisher, R. L., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Fraser, H., 41st Brockvilie Rifles.
Frawky, W. M. C., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Gamble, J., 5th Royal Scots.
Gardner, J., 5th Royal Scots.
Goodfellow, R., 5th Royal Scots.
Gorman, J. F., 3rd Field Battery, C. A.
Graham, R., R. C. R. I.
Greenlay, G., 54th Richmond Battalion.
Gunn, R., 5th Royal Scots.
Hill, J. K., 8th Royal Rifles.
Hale, W. J., 5th Royal Scots.
Hampson, G., 5th Royal Scots.
Hannaford, A., 5th Royal Scots.
Hawkins, J., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Hayes, R., R. C. R. I.
Harding, E., no corps.
Hayward, H., 53rd Sherbrook Battalion.
Home, F., Queen's Own Canadian Hussars.
Hynes, P., 5th Royal Scots.
Irwin, F. B., 8th Royal Rifles.
James, A., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Jones, F., 5th Royal Scots.
Jeffery, W., 5th Royal Scots.
Jeffrey, J. W., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Kealey, M., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Kelly, E., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Leconteur, R., 8th Royal Rifles.
Lee, F., Queen's Own Canadian Hussars.
Lewis, C. E., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Lester, C., Civilian.
Malin, J., 5th Royal Scots.
Marjin, H., 2nd R. C. A.
Martin, A., 2nd R. C. A.
Mead, D., 2nd R. C. A.
Middleton, F., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Mitchell, H., 3rd V. R.
Moody, F., R. C. R. I.
Moore, T., D. Y. R. Canadian Hussars.
Molyneux, C. R., 5th R. S.
Murphy, D., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Murray, W. R., 8th Royal Rifles.
Murdock, W. A. H., 2nd R. C. A.
McDonald, A., 5th R. C. A.
McCann, J., 8th Royal Rifles.
McGill, D. R., R. C. R, I.
McGoldrick, J., 5th Royal Scots.
McIver, W., 5th Royal Scots.
McLean, R. G., 5th Royal Scots.
McLeod, N. M., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
McQueen, A., 5th Royal Rifles.
Nash, T. B., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Nickle, C. R., 3rd Field Battery, C. A.
O'Brien, J., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
O'Meara, J., 5th Royal Rifles.
Phillips, J., 5th Royal Scots.
Platt, J., R. C. R. I.
Pope, A., 5th Royal Scots.
Porter, W., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Prince, R. H., 2nd R. C. A.
Price, G., Civilian.
Roberts, G. P., 2nd R. C. A.
Rupert, E., 85th Battalion.
Ryan, P., Civilian.
Richardson, F., Civilian.
Shaw, A. C., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Shore, R. N., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Sheehan, M., Queen's Own Canadian Hussars.
Stanning, W., 5th Royal Scots.
Swift, M., 5th Royal Rifles.
Sword, A., 5th Royal Scots.
Sword, D. C., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
Thomas, A. P., D. Y. R., Canadian Hussars
Thomas, G. W., 5th Royal Scots.
Travers. H. B., 25th Elgin Battalion.
Tregett, J., Queen's Own Canadian Hussars.
Tulloch, A. J., 5th Royal Scots.
Turner, A. J., 5th Royal Rifles.
Tweddell, W., 8th Royal Rifles.
Upton, S., 1st P. W. O. F.
Walker, H. H., 54th Richmond Battalion.
Walters, T. A., 5th Royal Scots.
Walters. J. H., 5th Royal Scots.
Wasdell. F., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Wardle, A., 53rd Sherbrook Battalion.
White, A., 54th Richmond Battalion.
Wilkin, W., 5th Royal Scots.
Wilkins, A. W., 3rd Royal Rifles.
Williams, H., 53rd Sherbrooke Battalion.
Wright, P. E., Sth Royal Rifles
Wright, J., 8th Royal Rifles.
Yelland, J., 5th Royal Scots.
Youngson, J. S., 5th Royal Scots.
"F" COMPANY, QUEBEC.
Lafleur, Col.-Sergt. L. E., R. C. A.
Arnton, C. S., Civilian.
Anthony, P., Civilian.
Atkinson, G., Sth Royal Rifles.
Barclay, C. N., D. Y. R. C. Hussars.
Bagot, A., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Bamford, W., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Baldwin, C., R. C. D.
Bessette, W., R. C. A.
Beaupre, C., 5th Battalion.
Brown, H. I., Civilian.
Brown, H., R. C. R. I.
Brooker, L., R C. D.
Bouck, L., Civilian.
Bower, J. W., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Carbonneau, E., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Casey, J. E., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Champagne, M., 1st Field Battery C. A.
Chatel, A., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Cloutier, W., 80th Nicolet Battalion.
Chisholm, A. W., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Cooper, W., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Conley, F., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Cowgill, H., R. C. D.
Curphy, J., civilian.
D'Amour, J., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Demais, A., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Dolhec, L., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Donahue, F., late 6th U. S. Infantry.
Downing, W., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Duhamel, J. W., 56th Three Rivers Battalion.
D'Orsonens, G., 80th Nicolet Battalion.
Duberger, A., 1st Field Battery, C. A.
Dixon, W., R. C. A.
Desjardins, J. F., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Eite, William, R. C. R. I.
Fancy, J. G., civilian.
Forest, H., 61st Montmagny and L'Islet Battalion.
Gates, J. H., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Gingrass, J., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Grecia, J., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Gratton, E., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Harrison, R., and R. C. A.
Harvey, R., R. C. R. I.
Hennessy, B., R. C. R. I.
Harrison, Charles, 2nd R. C. A
Hill, J., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Hudon, J A., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Hunter, W., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Hubley, C., R. C. A.
Irwin, W., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Ivers, M., R. C. A.
Jette, G., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Jewell, T., 8th Royal Rifles.
Jobin, E., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Larue, L., 87th Quebec Battalion.
Lambkin, H. J., 8th Royal Rifles.
Lamotireaux, E., R. C. A.
Laverdure, E., R. C. A.
Lefebre, P. W., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Lescarbeau, T., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Lightbound, G. R., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Levielle, L., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Lewis, O., 68th King's County Battalion.
Lemay, A., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Matheson, O., 12th Field Battery, C. A.
Medhurst, J., R. C. D.
Michau, L. C., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Monteith, J., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Montizambert, H., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
McEllhiney, J., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
McNeil. J. D., R. C. A.
McCollum, G. H., R. C. R. I.
McDonald, J. E., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
McIntosh, W., R. C. A.
MacTaggart, J. W., civilian.
Mclaughlin, H. P., R. C. R. I.
McMillan, A., 1st Prince of Wales Fusiliers.
McMillan, E., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
McDonald, R. D., R. C. A.
Orman, G., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Paquet, G., 87th Quebec Battalion.
Plammondin, J., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Polkinghorn, J., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Proulx, H., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Peppeatt, W., R. C. A.
Peterson, C. F., R. C. R. I.
Rae, J. P., civilian.
Raymond, J. W., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Remy, J., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Redmond, C., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Robertson, J. H., 62nd St. John Fusiliers
Roy, A., 89th Temiscouata & Rimouski Battalion.
Roberts, J. R., R. C. A.
Scott, J. A., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Sievert, J., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Soucy, A., R. C. A.
Smith, L., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Strong, F. B., civilian.
Sutton, G. J., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Sutherland, A., D. Y. R. C. Hussars.
Tapin, J., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Tattersall, H. C., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Tessier, E., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Theriault, A., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Thompson, W. B., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Touchette, J., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Utton, F. W., R. C. R. I.
Vallee, L. C., 65th Mount Royal Rifles.
Walsh, J., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Warren, C., R. C. A.
Warren, W., R. C. R. I.
Wiseman, N., 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
Woodward, F., R C R I
Wylie, R. R., 2nd R. C. A.
Withy, B., R. C. A.
"G" COMPANY, ST. JOHN AND CHARLOTTETOWN.
Charlton, Col.-Sergt. C., R. C. R. I.
Sheldon, Sergeant A., R. C. R. I.
Adams, George Frederick, 8th Hussars.
Addison, Joseph, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Aitkin, Joseph M., 71st York Battalion.
Anslow, Charles, 12th Field Battery, C. A.
Baker, Warren, R. C. R. I.
Bishop, William, 74th Battalion.
Boudreau, John, Charlottetown "E" Company.
Bowness, Ernest William, 82d Queen's County Battalion.
Burnside, James, 3rd R. C. A.
Brace, Nelson T., Charlottetown Engineer Company.
Brown, Herbert Henry, 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Bryant, William, 3rd R. C. A.
Campbell, George, R. C. R. I.
Carney, John, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Chapman, George, 74th Battalion.
Chappell, Montrose C., 74th Battalion.
Coombs, F. W., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Cox, Reginald William, 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Craig. Edward, 3rd R. C. A.
Creighton, Crandall, 74th Battalion.
Dillon, Artemus Robert, 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Donahue, William Wallace, 3rd R. C. A.
Doyle, Andrew, 3rd R. C. A.
Dorion, Necy, Charlottetown Engineer Company.
Durant, Henry E., 74th Battalion.
Putney, John, 73rd Northumberland Battalion.
Dyas, Frank, 36th Peel Battalion.
Fahre, David J., 3rd R. C. A.
Ferguson, Daniel, 74th Battalion.
Flewelling, Ernest, R. C. R. I.
Foley, Richard Joseph, Charlottetown Engineer Company.
Foster, Minard, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Fradsham, Harry, R. C. R. I.
Furze, F. C., Charlottetewn Engineer Company.
Gaudet, L. S., 4th R. C. A.
Globe, A. R., 62nd Battalion.
Hallamore, William, R. C. R. I.
Hammond, Albert, 74th Battalion.
Harris, Benjamin, 12th Field Battery, C. A.
Harris, John Archibald, 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Harris, Leroy, 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Hartfield, Arthur S., 3rd R. C. A.
Haydon, Arthur, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Hessian, E., R. C. A.
Hine, Charles Herbert, Charlottetown Engineer Company.
Hubley, Russell C., 8th Hussars.
Irving, Walter H., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Jenkins, Charles Leonard, 3rd R. C. A.
Johnson, James, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Johnston, Joseph M., 62nd St. John Fusiliers,
Jones, Samuel, 71st York Battalion.
Keddy, Edward, R. C. R. I.
Keswick, George, 73rd Northumberland Battalion.
Kirkpatrick, F. A., 3rd R. C. A.
Kitchen, W., 12th Field Battery, C. A.
Lane, Walter, 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Leavitt, Herbert, 71st York Battalion
Leslie, J. P., 4th R. C. A.
Letson, J., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Lord, Roland E., 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Lutz, Ernest, 74th Battalion.
Lutz, John, 74th Battalion.
Matheson, J., 4th R. C. A.
McCain, F., 3rd R. C. A.
McCarthy, M. J., 4th R. C. A.
McRae, Frederick B., 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
McCreary, Patrick, 74th Battalion.
McDiarmid, John, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
McFarlane, Bruce E., 71st York Battalion.
McKinnon. Hedley V., 4th R. C. A.
McLean, H. L., 4th R. C. A.
McLeod, John, 71st York Battalion.
McMullan, W., 8th Hussars.
Mellish, A. J. B., 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Miller, H., R. C. R. I.
Morley, H. A., 3rd C. A.
Morrison, J., R. C. A.
Monroe, J. R., 73rd Northumberland Battalion.
O'Reilly. Joseph, 4th R. C. A.
Pascoe, J. B., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Pelky, A., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Penny, Roland, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Perkins, J. A., 71st York Battalion.
Pickle, J., 71st York Battalion.
Pringle, James, 71st York Battalion.
Quinn, M. James, R. C. R. I.
Raymond, W. J., 3rd R. C. A.
Rawlings. John, 3rd R. C. A.
Redden, H., R. C. R. I.
Riggs, William Alfred, Charlottetown Engineer Company.
Rodd, T. A., 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Roberts, Arthur, 3rd R. C.
Russell, J., R. C. A.
Schofield, Allen, 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Scott, J. B., R. C. R. I.
Scott, J., 3rd C. A.
Singer, L. M., 78th Colchester, Hants & Pictou Battalion.
Simpson, Alfred, 3rd R. C. A.
Simpson, Percival, R. C. R. I.
Small, J. E., 4th R. C. A.
Sprague, F. W., 3rd R. C. A.
Stanton, Leigh, 5th Royal Scots.
Stevenson, P. S., 71st York Battalion.
Stewart, Lorne, 52nd Queen's County Battalion.
Strange, E. H., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Swatridge, W. O., 3rd R. C. A.
Taylor, R. D., Charlotte Town Engineer Company.
Tower, Bradford G., 74th Battalion.
Turner, R. M., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Unkauf, W. C., 62nd St. John Fusiliers.
Walker, Frederick G., 71st York Battalion.
Walker, J. S., 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Wallace, W. V., R. C. R. I.
Wanamaker, H. L., 74th Battalion.
Ward, G., R. C. A.
Ward, Robert, 73rd Northumberland Battalion.
Wayne, J. F., 82nd Queen's County Battalion.
Williams, Joseph, 62nd St. John's Fusiliers.
Williams, F., 62nd St. John's Fusiliers.
Wilson, John H., 71st York Battalion.
Withers, Frederick W., 3rd R. C. A.
"H" COMPANY, HALIFAX.
Eustace, Col.-Segt. J. D., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Adams, W. F., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Anderson, J. H. N., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Atwater, James, 94th Argyle Highlanders.
Ackhurst, F. W., Halifax Bearer Company, C. A. M. S. C.
Binnett, G. B., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Blaikie, H., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Borton, C. N., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Burgess, M., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Blair, S., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Bent, E. E., 68th King's County Battalion.
Brown, S., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Buchanan, K., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Bingay, L. W., 1st R. C. A.
Baugh, B., R. C. A.
Conrad, W., 1st R. C. A.
Coons, F., 2nd R. C. A.
Cleary, W., 1st Leinster Regiment.
Carroll, James, 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Cameron, A. A., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Chapman, F., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Daley, F., 5th Royal Scots.
Dooley, F., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Drake, J., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Duncan, J., 2nd R. C. A.
Dewers, F., 65th Prince
Defoe, J., R. C. A.
Elliott, W., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Embree, G., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Ewing, I., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Ewing, D. H., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Farrell, G. P., Durham Light Infantry.
Farrer, De B., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Ferguson, W. R., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Fillmore, W. A., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Fitzgerald, A. E., 1st R. C. A.
Forsyth, A., civilian.
Fraser, H. H., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Gallacher, J., 4th Battalion Manchester Regiment.
Grant, J. W., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Grimshaw, 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Hancock, C., C. A. M. S. C.
Harris, J., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Harrison, G., 1st R. C. A.
Hartneth, J. W., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Hart, W. J., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Halliday, J., R. C. A.
Huestis, G. J., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Hire, J., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Hunt, G., civilian.
Hurly, J., 1st R. C. A.
Hoult, E., R. C. A.
James, George, civilian.
Johnstone, G., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Jones, H., 63th King's County Battalion.
Kelly, J., 10th R. G.
Kennedy, John, R. C. A.
Keogh, P., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Keener, R. T., civilian.
Kilcup, E., 65th King's County Battalion.
Kirkpatrick, F., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Lewis, M., R. C. A.
Lenahan, J., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Lindsay, A. C., N. W. M. Police.
Lindon, H., R. C. A.
Lockwood, A., 68th King's County Battalion.
Lowry, T. P., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Miller, C., 1st R. C. A.
Miller, R., 75th Lunenburg Battalion.
Munnis. M., 63rd Halifax Battalion.
Muir, F., 1st R. C. A.
Murray, N. G., civilian.
Murray, A., civilian.
McAldin, R., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
McCallum, B., civilian.
McCollum, G. D., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
McDougall, H. A., 5th Royal Scots.
McDonald, C., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
McDonald, G., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
McDonald, D. C., 1st R. C. A.
McLean, W. J., civilian.
McLean, J., civilian.
McNab, F., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Neily, R L., 68th King's County Battalion.
O'Brien, E., 78th Colchester & Hants Battalion.
Oxley, William, 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Osborn, D., civilian.
Oulton, H., 93rd Cumberland.
Parkes, F. S., 2nd R. C. A.
Patterson, A., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Parker, A., 68th King's County Battalion.
Pollock, W. J., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Purcell, E. S., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Purcell, L. A., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Pooley, C. F., C. A. M. S. C.
Regan, W. J., 68th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Rector, R., 93rd Cumberland Battalion.
Roche, W., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Rose, J. E., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Rose, F., C. A. M. S. C.
Rolfe, J., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Roue, J. F. L. C. A. M. S. C.
Ross, W. J., 1st R. C. A.
Robertson, A., 3rd Victoria Rifles.
Ross, R., 1st R. C. A.
Rudland, R., 1st R. C. A.
Reid, W., civilian.
Ryan, D. J., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Simmons, W., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Sloan, R., 1st R. C. A.
Stevenson, T., 1st Leicester Regiment.
Swinyard. W., R. C. A.
Steuart, G. W., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Taylor, F. A. E., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Tester, S., 2nd R. C. A.
Trider, A., 1st R. C. A.
Trueman. W. E., 78th Colchester & Hants Battalion.
Walker, W. A., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Walsh, T. J., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Ward, E., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Walke, C. W. J., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
Ward, G., 68th King's County Battalion.
Watson, J., R. C. A.
Woods. D., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Wright, P., 63rd Halifax Rifles.
Zong, A. E., 66th Princess Louise Fusiliers.
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