The Transvaal had not been as fortunate in its leadership and had fallen into a chaotic state: burghers refused to pay taxes, government debts mounted, there was no money for schools, roads or public buildings; the volksraad argued and quarrelled and accomplished nothing. By 1877 the Bapedi, a hostile tribe, were causing trouble on the southeastern frontier and Zulu impis were poised for an invasion. Although slavery was forbidden, a law designed to provide for orphans permitted a system of “apprenticeship” that was very close to it. Every successful commando returned with orphans, and questions were seldom asked about the parents when a Boer registered apprentices. Once indentured the children could be sold, and there was a considerable trade in them. At least once a wagonload of black “orphans” was openly sold in the streets of Potchefstroom. The British thought it was perhaps time to take under its imperial wing this immoral, bankrupt country drifting towards anarchy and war. They sent Theophilus Shepstone (1817-1893) to investigate and, if necessary, to act.
He arrived in Pretoria, capital of the Transvaal, on 22 January 1877 with a small staff which included the twenty-one-year-old future novelist H. Rider Haggard and an escort of twenty-five mounted policemen. Many of the people with whom he spoke favoured annexation, and he thought the conditions of the country seemed to justify this action. Haggard said:
Anything more hopeless than the position of the country on 1st January 1877 it is impossible to conceive. Enemies surrounded it.... In the exchequer there was nothing but over-due bills. The president was helpless, and mistrustful of his officers.... all the ordinary functions of Government had ceased, and trade was paralysed.... the majority of the inhabitants, who would neither fight nor pay taxes, sat still and awaited the catastrophe, utterly careless of all consequences.1
In the Victorian era a curious belief was prevalent that sovereign states ought to have governments that were reasonably efficient and solvent.
It was true that some of the burghers were apathetic, others saw annexation as the only solution to the government’s woes, and probably a few even believed Shepstone’s assurances that annexation would be a blessing and that Britain’s motives were entirely philanthropic, but there was a sizable number—a majority as it turned out later—who, although disliking their own government, liked the idea of British rule even less. This view was forcefully expressed by the volksraad, which stated its strong objections. Britain ignored these, as it ignored also the provisions of the Zand River Convention, although a case could be made that the Transvaal had violated the Convention by permitting conditions very near slavery to exist.
In April 1877 the Transvaal was annexed and Shepstone became the first British governor. Although he promised at the outset “the fullest legislative privileges compatible with the circumstances of the country and the intelligence of the people,” no elected legislative body was ever assembled and the Boers were left with no effective voice in their government.
There was some talk of armed rebellion and much grumbling. Former Vice-President Paul Kruger even made two trips to London, once with a petition signed by a majority of the male population, protesting the annexation and begging for independence; nothing came of it.
Less than two years after the annexation of the Transvaal the British went to war with the Zulus, crossing the Buffalo River and invading Zululand at three points. The results were disastrous. Near a hill called Isandhlwana the Zulus fell upon a large part of the main column and almost completely exterminated it. Nearly 900 men were left dead amidst a welter of broken wagons and scattered supplies. Only a few days after the start of the invasion, what was left of the British army came limping back across the Buffalo.
Britain was appalled. That black savages armed with assegais could defeat a large force of British regulars armed with modern rifles and artillery seemed incredible. The Boers in the Transvaal raised their eyebrows: they remembered how Pretorius, with a handful of men armed with muskets, had beat off Dingaan’s impis; the famed British army was not, after all, invincible, even against savages. Although the British rushed reinforcements to Natal and the Zulus were eventually crushed, the defeat at Isandhlwana made a lasting impression on the Transvaalers.
When the news of this British disaster reached London, the government sent out Sir Garnet Wolseley, the most brilliant general of the Victorian era. He was appointed high commissioner for South Africa, and although the Zulu War was finished before he arrived, he undertook a campaign that crushed the troublesome Bapedi. Wolseley was soon made aware of Boer discontent, but he was contemptuous of it: “Ignorant men, led by a few designing fellows, are talking nonesense on the High Veld,” he said. He advised the Boers to forget about independence, for “so long as the sun shines, the Transvaal will remain British territory.” But in a dispatch home on 29 October 1879 he warned that “the main body of the Dutch population are disaffected to our rule.”
The Transvaalers continued to hope, and with some reason, that the British would change their minds. No one had been louder in his denunciations of the annexation than William Ewart Gladstone, who had called it a hideous and treacherous crime. His speeches, together with those of political leaders who agreed with him, were given much space in Transvaal newspapers, and some of the speeches were published as pamphlets. When, in the spring of 1880, Gladstone became prime minister they waited expectantly for their independence to be restored, a hope finally dashed by Gladstone himself when he informed them: “Looking at all the circumstances . . . our judgement is that the Queen cannot be advised to relinquish the Transvaal.”
The Boers digested this information for six months and then rose in revolt.
3
THE FIRST ANGLO-BOER WAR
No one dreamed that the Boers in the Transvaal would fight. The British officials there did not think so, the colonials in Natal and Cape Colony did not think so, and certainly no one in London thought they would be so rash. There were, indeed, sound reasons for holding such a belief.
The Boers had, after all, quietly accepted the annexation only three years earlier; they were widely scattered and armed only with hunting weapons; and they were uneducated, many illiterate. And consider the audacity of the thing: for some 50,000 people—less than half the population of Kensington or of Peoria, Illinois—spread over more than 110,000 square miles, to challenge the might of the British Empire with its hundreds of millions of people, its army alone more than three times larger than the entire white population of the Transvaal, its navy twice the size of any other and undisputed master of all the oceans and seas—no, it was unthinkable.
But the British underestimated the depth and extent of Boer discontent. Only a spark was needed to ignite the flame of revolt, and Piet Bezuidenhout (believed to be a descendant of the Bezuidenhouts who started the revolt at Slachter’s Nek in 1815) provided the spark. It began simply enough when he refused to pay his taxes—a common enough thing among the Boers. The government sued him for £27 5s, but Bezuidenhout pointed out that this was £14 more than he owed. The court agreed, reduced the tax due, and assessed him £13 5s court costs. When he balked at this, his ox wagon was seized.
The stoutly built, half-tented ox wagon was to the Boer more than just a farm wagon. Often it was a family’s most valuable and valued possession, and frequently their home as well. In native wars it was a movable fort from which a man could defend himself. Efficient and economical, it made the trekboer’s life style possible, and he usually had an attachment to it in excess of its material value. With it and six to eight span of oxen the vast spaces of the open veld were his, for he had no need of roads. To lose an ox wagon was a serious matter; that the government would seize one for a mere £13 5s debt was, felt most Boers, rank injustice.
Piet Bezuidenhout’s ox wagon was scheduled to be sold in the public square of Potchefstroom at 11 A.M. on 11 November 1880. Early that morning some one hundred Boers assembled in front of the landdrost’s office to protest. Indignant speeches were made, and, having stirred themselves up, they moved on to
the public square. When an official mounted the wagon to read the conditions of sale, Piet Cronjé dragged him off and kicked him. Oxen were brought up, and the wagon was triumphantly hauled back to the Bezuidenhout farm.
One hundred and forty Scots Fusiliers and two guns were sent to restore order and to enforce the government’s authority. Marching out to meet Cronjé, they found him on his farm surrounded by thoroughly aroused, armed Boers. The Fusiliers prudently withdrew to Potchefstroom and settled themselves to wait for tempers to cool, throwing up some earthworks and making a little fort just outside the town. But the British underestimated the fighting fever of Cronjé and his men; in the early afternoon of 15 December some 500 of them, led by Cronjé, rode into Potchefstroom and occupied its principal buildings and streets. The troops and some of the townspeople retreated to the fort.
The following day a small party of Boers trotted defiantly out towards the fort. One called out, “Why don’t you fight, you damned cowards?”
When a lieutenant and thirteen men sent out to drive them away rode purposefully towards them, they wheeled their ponies and dashed for town, the troopers on their heels. At the edge of town four or five Boers raised their rifles and fired. The troops returned the fire and Commandant Frans Robertse was hit in the arm.
The war had begun.
In December 1880 nearly 5,000 men, women, and children gathered at Paardekraal, a farm near present-day Krugersdorp, and proclaimed themselves to be free in a long manifesto which said in part:
We therefore make it known to everybody, that on the 13th of December 1880 the Government has been re-established. Mr. S. J. P. Kruger has been appointed Vice President, and shall form with Mr. M. W. Pretorius and Mr. P. Joubert, a Triumvirate that shall execute the Government of the country. The Volksraad has recommenced its sitting. . . .1
Before the day was over, every person there found a stone and placed it on a symbolic heap, pledging themselves to the task of regaining their independence. They declared Heidelberg to be their temporary capital, and there on 16 December, Dingaan’s Day—the Boers always attached importance to historic dates—the long declaration of independence was read and the four-coloured flag, the Transvaal Vierkleur, was hoisted in defiance. In Pretoria rifles were handed out from the back of a wagon to everyone who looked as if he could shoot one.
The Transvaalers’ hopes and dreams were set forth in a “Petition of Rights” that they sent to the government of the Orange Free State in the hope of enlisting their support. It listed their grievances in great detail, ending with: “With confidence we lay our case before the whole world, be it that we conquer or that we die; liberty shall arise in Africa as the sun from the morning clouds, as liberty rose in the United States of North America. Then will it be from the Zambezi to Simon’s Bay, Africa for the Afrikaner!”
The British were unperturbed. At Lydenburg young Elsa Dietrich warned Lieutenant Colonel Philip Robert Anstruther of the 94th Foot that the Boers were plotting rebellion and that the British were not safe. Anstruther laughed. “Do you think, Miss Dietrich, that the British army is asleep?” She might have answered in all truth, “Yes.” The British army was completely unprepared. The forces in the Transvaal at the begining of the revolution were certainly inadequate, and they were split into tiny garrisons sprinkled about the country.
A few days later Anstruther knew beyond any doubt that Miss Dietrich had spoken the truth. Marching with a column of 250 men and three women, he reached Bronkhorstspruit, about 38 miles east of Pretoria, his destination, on 20 December. The band was playing and he was marching across Mr. Grobler’s farm when a horseman carrying a white flag dashed up and handed him a message, a demand for immediate surrender. Anstruther refused and the Boers opened fire, shooting from concealed positions. Before the soldiers could shake out of their marching formation into skirmishing order, the battle was over. Fifty-six soldiers and one of the women were killed; 101 were wounded, of whom 20 died later. Only one officer survived, and he was badly wounded.
As soon as the firing ceased, the Boers came forward to help; tents were set up and the battlefield became a hospital. Farmer Grobler supplied what he could, bread, butter, and fruit. From Pretoria came doctors and a stream of townspeople bringing food and books and other comforts. One of the doctors was amazed at the number of multiple wounds the soldiers had suffered, stating that there were “on an average, five wounds per man,” an exaggeration perhaps, but the Boers were among the finest marksmen in the world.
The dead soldiers were buried on Mr. Grobler’s farm, and it is said that from the seeds of peaches in their knapsacks sprang flourishing peach trees.
It was more than a month before another pitched battle was fought, although throughout the Transvaal the British were besieged in all their little garrisons by Boer commandos that simply sat down around them to starve them out. In Natal the British were hurriedly throwing together an army to rescue the besieged garrisons and to restore the authority of the crown. In command was Major General Sir George Colley, forty-five years old and considered by many to be the brightest intellect in the British army, but he was apprehensive about his performance, for this was his first independent command. In a letter home he wrote: “Whether I ... shall find that South Africa is to me, as it is said to be in general, ‘the grave of all good reputations’, remains to be seen.”2
His opponent was Petrus (“Piet”) Jacobus Joubert, the forty-six-year-old commandant-general of the Transvaal Boers. He had fought in native wars, but he lacked the temperament, training, and inclination to be a soldier; he was a farmer-politician, a man who disliked war.
The Boers seized the initiative, not waiting for the British to invade. Some 2,000 crossed the frontier into Natal and took up favourable positions at Laing’s Nek (Langenek). There on 23 January 1881 Colley found them and ordered them to disperse. The Boers showed a disposition to bargain but not to be cowed. They replied:
... we declare that we would be satisfied with a rescinding of the annexation and the restoration of the South African Republic under a protectorate of Her Majesty the Queen, so that once a year the British flag shall be hoisted.... If your Excellency resolves to reject this, we have only to submit to our fate; but the Lord will provide.
The Lord provided. In a short, simple battle the British soldiers charged and the Boers shot them down. There were 195 British casualties.
In this battle the 58th Regiment carried its colours into battle; it was the last British regiment ever to do so.
Joubert failed to follow up his victory, and ten days later Colley had recovered sufficiently to make an effort to clear his line of communication and “meet and escort some waggons expected from Newcastle.” He set out on 8 February, a fine and bright morning, with 273 infantry, 38 mounted men, and four guns. Thomas Fortescue Carter, a newspaper correspondent who accompanied the expedition, noted that “everyone was in good spirits at the prospect of an outing.” Colley did not expect to be attacked. He thought his guns would deter the enemy, who had no artillery of their own.
But about noon, at Schuin’s Hoogte near the Ingogo River, the Boers opened fire on the column. The battle lasted all afternoon. About five o’clock rain began to fall and the British huddled on a piece of rising ground while the Boers lay back and picked them off. At dusk some British reinforcements arrived, but they were too late. Seven officers and 69 men were killed and 3 officers and 64 men wounded. Under cover of darkness Colley retreated, leaving most of his wounded lying in the rain.
The British suffered defeat in three successive engagements, but they were small affairs; no decisive battle had yet been fought. As the two armies sat facing each other on the Natal-Transvaal border, Colley made a careful study of the Boer position. It was located below a steep, high hill, an extinct volcano actually, called Majuba, or Amajuba, which did not appear to be held. It was the key topographical feature, and Colley saw that if he occupied it he could prise the Boers out of their positions.
On the night of 26 February
orders were quietly passed for 494 soldiers and 64 sailors to assemble with arms, ammunition, greatcoats, entrenching tools, and three days’ rations. Including the medical staff, some Bantu porters, and three newspaper correspondents, there were about 600 men.
At ten o‘clock on this moonless night Colley led his force towards Majuba. As they passed near the farm of R. C. O’Neill a dog barked, but the silent men marched on and the dog roused no one. On a ridge at the base of the hill two companies were detached and ordered to entrench. The horses of the officers were also left, and the troops began the long, hard climb to the summit. In old age Ian Hamilton, then a lieutenant in the Gordon Highlanders, wrote: “I remember, as if it were yesterday, the tense excitement of that climb up with a half-dozen shadowy forms close by, which were swallowed up and disappeared if they got further away from me than half a dozen paces.” It was three o’clock in the morning before they reached the top, exhausted but exultant. Many men, weighed down by their 58 pounds of equipment and provisions, had lagged behind and in the dark had lost contact with their own units; straggling in, they were sent to positions that seemed short of men. Thus the units were not well organized under their own officers, and no attempt was made to sort them out. They could now rest for a few hours, but most were too excited to sleep, and besides it was cold in the early morning hours.
The top of Majuba was about 400 yards long and 300 yards wide, and in the centre was a basinlike depression. No effort was made to entrench or to throw up any effective defences. Neither was the position properly reconnoitred, for some men were posted to defend a side that was quite adequately protected by a sheer precipice.
Dawn revealed the Boer laager below them. “Looking down from our position right into the enemy’s lines, we seemed to hold them in the palm of our hands,” said Thomas Carter, one of the correspondents. Colley looked around and remarked, “We could stay here forever.” Highlanders stood up and gleefully shook their fists. One called out, “Come up here, you beggars!”
Great Boer War Page 3