The government at home, which had supported Milner, was staggering towards its fall, reeling under the attacks of the Liberals, who were busily fanning the flame of public indignation over the Chinese coolie policy. Milner was obviously a political liability. Abruptly he resigned, and on 2 April 1905 he left Johannesburg for England, not to return until nearly twenty years later when he came back for a visit and contracted the sleeping sickness that killed him. He had failed in his chief aim: British paramountcy was not established, Afrikaner culture and the Afrikaans language were not swamped by a tide of British culture, and Britons had not emigrated to South Africa in sufficient numbers to provide an Anglo-Saxon majority; in fact, the Afrikaners’ pride in themselves as a separate people was intensified. Afrikaner culture flourished as never before: in 1902 the first Afrikaans dictionary was published and Afrikaans literature began to replace Dutch.
In January 1906 the general elections in Britain swept Campbell-Bannerman’s Liberal Party into power with a record majority, one of the main issues being the Chinese in South Africa. Throughout the country during the electioneering, hoardings featured lurid pictures of Chinese being tortured, and political meetings were often enlivened by men parading through the streets dressed as Chinese coolies in chains. The following March there was a motion in the House of Commons for a vote of censure on Milner. It was during the debate on this issue that the young under-secretary at the Colonial Office, Winston Churchill, used the expression for which he was much ridiculed for many years: to describe the conditions under which the Chinese in South Africa laboured as slavery, he said, was a “terminological inexactitude.” In the end, although the treatment of the Chinese was condemned, Milner was not censured by name; still, he had suffered a slap in the face.
Paul Kruger died in Clarens, Switzerland, on 14 July 1904; his body was returned to the Transvaal, and his funeral on 16 December (Dingaan’s Day) was a large public affair. The funeral and the political orations in connection with it raised the Boers’ nationalistic feelings to a high pitch. The following month a Boer political party, Het Volk, was formed. In January 1906 the Liberals came to power in England, as Kitchener had predicted they would, and less than one year later, on 6 December 1906, to the intense indignation of all Unionists, a Transvaal Constitution was promulgated by Letters Patent; a general election was held the following February. Balfour denounced this granting of self-government to the Transvaal as “the most reckless experiment ever tried in the development of a great colonial policy.” Contrary to all expectations and hopes in London—Churchill had assured the King that “a clear racial Boer majority is outside the bounds of possibility”—Het Volk obtained a majority of five in a legislative assembly of sixty-nine, and Louis Botha became prime minister. Behind him in serried ranks stood the old Boer generals and commandants to take up the ministerial posts. Less than five years after the war the Boers, although now part of the British Empire, were again self-governing, and they have remained so. Britain, after winning a long and costly war in which 21,942 of her soldiers gave their lives to establish British paramountcy in South Africa, had now simply abandoned the whole idea.
Botha wasted no time in taking up the reins of power and in replacing British officials with Afrikaners. In 1907 he started to repatriate the Chinese, and the last to go left in 1910, taking their dead with them, the ashes neatly packaged in little tea boxes.
One residue of the war left by the British still flourishes. With the fodder they imported from South America during the war came a pungent-smelling, noxious weed with a small flower (Althermarathera achyran-tha) which South Africans call “khaki weed.” In spite of strenuous efforts to eradicate it, the weed still crops up in the Afrikaners’ mealie fields.
In 1907 the Orange River Colony was also given a constitution and self-government. Abraham Fischer became prime minister, with De Wet and Hertzog in his cabinet. Steyn’s health never recovered from his exertions during the war. He spent two and a half years in Europe under a doctor’s care, returning to South Africa in 1905 and retiring to his farm. Although he retained his interest in politics—he neither forgot nor forgave—he was never again able to assume active leadership. He died in 1916, still irreconcilable. His wife, Tibbie, had donned a black dress after Vereeniging and for forty years continued to wear only black.
On 12 October 1908—the ninth anniversary of the start of the war —political leaders from all four colonies met in Durban to consider a merger. After a series of such meetings an agreement was reached, and on 31 May 1910—exactly eight years after the signing of the peace of Vereeniging—the Union of South Africa came into being. Louis Botha was the first premier, and in his cabinet sat Smuts, Hertzog, and other Boer heroes; F. W. Reitz was elected president of the Senate. The Boers now controlled not only the Transvaal and Orange River Colony but Natal and Cape Colony as well. There were squabbles, for, as De la Rey said, “Now that we no longer have to fight Kaffirs or English, we are bound to quarrel among ourselves—it is the way of the Boer.” In 1914, when Botha carried South Africa into the war on the side of Britain, quarrels flared into an open revolt led by De Wet, Kemp, and Manie Maritz.
De la Rey too might have been planning to join the rebels, but no one knows, for he was killed in Johannesburg on the eve of the rebellion in a bizarre accident. Riding with Christiaan Beyers, then commandant-general, on the night of 15 September 1914, their Daimler was driven through a police roadblock set up to intercept a band of desperados; the police fired, and De la Rey slumped over dead in his seat. Had he lived and lent his enormous prestige to the rebel cause there might have been a civil war on a grand scale. It was bad enough as it was. Boers again seized their rifles, mounted their horses, and formed commandos, about 13,000 on the rebel side against 30,000 government troops, two-thirds of whom were Afrikaners; Boer against Boer.
When some government scouts rode into a village and an old woman called out in Afrikaans, “Where are the verdoem English?” a young Boer called out, “We are the verdoem English, old vrow!”
In less than three months it was over. Maritz and Kemp took their forces over the border to join the Germans in Southwest Africa, and De Wet and his commando were brought to earth by Coen Brits, who pursued them with a fleet of motor cars. It marked the end to the picturesque horse commando system. Government forces suffered 374 casualties, the rebels 540. De Wet was tried and sentenced to serve six years in prison and pay a fine of £2,000. Kemp too finally surrendered and was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. None served his full sentence. De Wet stayed in gaol only one year; two years after the rebellion all were freed. Lesser participants were merely banned from holding public offices for ten years. Only one man, Joseph Johannes (“Jappie”) Fourie, was shot for treason, and this execution shocked many people, for Jappie Fourie had been a minor hero of the Anglo-Boer War.
The 1914 Rebellion was the last attempt of the Afrikaners to win complete independence by violence rather than negotiation, by their commandos rather than their cunning; never again would they take up their rifles in revolt. As the wiser among them had already discovered, they did not need to. Not only were they already self-governing; their leaders were becoming world figures. Jan Smuts was soon sitting on Lloyd George’s War Cabinet, and Louis Botha was to sit side by side with Milner (who became secretary for war) at the peace conference at Versailles.
Although in World War II there was a sizable pro-German faction in the Union of South Africa, Smuts kept the country within the Empire for one more war. Then, in October 1960, with Britain’s acquiescence, a referendum was held to decide whether or not South Africa should become a republic. The vote was close, but the republicans won (850,458 versus 775,878, a difference of only 74,580), and on 31 May 1961—exactly fifty-nine years after Vereeniging—the Republic of South Africa was founded with C. R. Swart as its first president. In October of that same year South Africa withdrew its application for membership in the British Commonwealth and the last ties with Britain were finally and complet
ely severed.
The wildest, most improbable political dreams of Kruger’s and Steyn’s Boers—to be free of British interference and to make all South Africa a Boer republic—became reality for their children and grandchildren.
GLOSSARY
bergen—mountain
donga—ravine
dorp—hamlet, small town
drift— ford
fontein—spring
hoek—corner or secluded valley
impi—a Zulu “regiment”
kappie—sunbonnet
kloof—mountain pass or gully
kop—isolated hill
kopje—small hill
krysraad—council of war
laager—(n.) camp, often one formed for defence; (v.) to form a camp, to make camp
laagte—valley, dale
landdrost—magistrate
mealie(s)—maize
nek—neck, applied to depression between two hills
predikant—preacher
raadzaal—legislative building
rand—highland or ridge
spruit—creek
uitlander—foreigner
veld or veldt—grassland
vierkleur—“four colour”: used for the flag of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (Transvaal)
vlei—swamp
voetgangers—men on foot
volksraad—parliament of a Boer republic
voortrekker—pioneer
vrow—woman
Zarps—Transvaal police, from Z.A.R.P. (Zuid-Afrikaansche Repupliek Politie)
NOTES
Only the shortened form of the reference is given here; a complete description of the works cited is given in the bibliography.
Chapter 1. The Birth of a People
1 Quoted in Rosenthal, Stars and Stripes in Africa, p. 86.
2 Reitz, No Outspan, p. 21.
Chapter 2. Voortrekkers and Their Republics
1 Haggard, The Last Boer War, p. 49.
Chapter 3. The First Anglo-Boer War
1 Quoted in Carter, A Narrative of the Boer War, p. 127.
2 Quoted in Fitzpatrick, The Transvaal from Within, p. 44n. This book, written by an uitlander, has been called the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the First Anglo-Boer War.
3 Doyle, The Great Boer War, 3rd impression, pp. 20, 22.
4 Carter, A Narrative of the Boer War, pp. 492f.
5 Ibid., p. 501.
Chapter 4. The Jameson Raid
1 Warner, The Geography of British South Africa, pp. 177f.
2 Quoted in Nutting, Scramble for Africa, p. 340.
3 Quoted in Meintjes, President Steyn, p. 61.
Chapter 5. Moving Towards War
1 Words spoken to Graham Bower, imperial secretary at the Cape. Quoted in Nutting, Scramble for Africa, p. 299.
2 Quoted in Symons, Buller’s Campaigns, p. 55.
3 The Times History, V. 1, p. 183.
Chapter 6. Eve of War
1 All of the quotations here are taken from the British Government Blue Book, Cd 1792.
2 The Times History, V. 1, p. 13.
3 Blue Book, Cd 1792, p. 44.
4 Mahan, The Story of the War in South Africa, pp. 203f.
5 Belmont, Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis, p. 289.
6 Steevens, From Cape Town to Ladysmith, p. 21.
7 Quoted in Nutting, Scramble for Africa, p. 414.
8 Ibid., p. 423.
Chapter 7. War Begins
1 Quoted in May, The Music of the Guns, pp. 6f.
2 Ibid., p. 17.
3 Quoted in Jones, Lloyd George, p. 26.
4 Blunt, My Diaries.
5 Sinclair-Stevenson, The Gordon Highlanders, p. 74.
6 Quoted in Cornwallis-West, Edwardian Hey-Days.
7 Mackinnon, The Journal of the C.I.V. in South Africa, pp. 3f.
8 “Pearson’s Illustrated War News,” 25 November 1899.
9 Morning Post, 27 November 1899.
10 Souza, No Charge for Delivery, p. 160.
11 Reitz, Commando, p. 24.
12 Ibid., p. 26.
13 Schikkerling, Commando Courageous, p. 10.
Chapter 8. Talana: The First Battle
1 Quoted in The Times History, V. 2, pp. 164f.
2 Ibid., pp. 168f.
Chapter 9. Elandslaagte
1 Sampson and Hamilton, Anti-Commando, p. 117.
2 Quoted in The Times History, V. 2, p. 193n.
3 Quoted in Beck, History of South Africa and the Boer-British War, pp. 403f.
4 Reitz, Commando, p. 34.
5 Steevens, From Capetown to Ladysmith, p. 61.
6 Souza, No Charge for Delivery, p. 116.
7 Hobson, The War in South Africa, p. 222.
8 Pearse, Four Months Besieged, p. 75.
Chapter 10. The Battle of Ladysmith
1 Sampson and Hamilton, Anti-Commando, p. 157.
2 Reitz, Commando, pp. 32f.
3 De Wet, Three Years War, p. 25.
4 Steevens, From Capetown to Ladysmith, pp. 75f.
5 Ibid., p. 80.
Chapter 11. Buller
1 Jerrold, Sir Redvers Buller, V.C., p. 234.
2 Churchill, A Roving Commission, p. 234.
3 Quoted in Pemberton, Battles of the Boer War, p. 124.
4 Atkins, The Relief of Ladysmith, pp. 30f.
5 The Times History, V. 2, p. 285.
6 The Letters of Queen Victoria, 3rd series, V. 3, p. 416.
Chapter 12. Methuen
1 Quoted in Meintjes, Sword in the Sand, p. 39.
2 Quoted in The Times History, V. 2, p. 336.
3 Jeans, Naval Brigades in the South African War, p. 22.
4 Quoted in Milne, The Epistles of Atkins, p. 73.
5 Quoted in Wilson, With the Flag to Pretoria, V. 1, p. 164.
6 Souza, No Charge for Delivery, p. 187.
7 Black and White Budget, 14 April 1900.
8 Wilson, With the Flag to Pretoria, V. 1, p. 166.
Chapter 13. Magersfontein
1 Quoted in Sutherland, The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, p. 61.
2 Quoted in Sinclair-Stevenson, The Gordon Highlanders, p. 76.
3 Wilson, With the Flag to Pretoria, V. 1, p. 193.
4 Barnes, The Great War Trek, pp. 41f.
5 Doyle, The Great Boer War, 3rd impression, p. 161.
6 Badenhorst, Tant’ Alie of Transvaal, p. 95.
Chapter 14. Stormberg Junction
1 Gatacre, General Gatacre, p. 56.
2 Steevens, From Capetown to Ladysmith, p. 10.
3 Quoted in Meintjes, Stormberg, p. 107.
4 The Official History gives the final figure as 135 killed and wounded and 571 missing.
5 Quoted in Gatacre, General Gatacre, pp. 235f.
Chapter 15. Before Colenso
1 Atkins, The Relief of Ladysmith, p. 118.
2 Butler, Sir Redvers Buller, p. 81.
3 Quoted in Pemberton, Battles of the Boer War, p. 162.
4 Atkins, The Relief of Ladysmith, p. 128.
5 Quoted in Meintjes, General Louis Botha, p. 44.
6 Quoted in Barnard, “General Botha at the Battle of Colenso,” Military History Journal, V. 2, No. 1, June 1971.
Chapter 16. Colenso
1 Blue Book, Cd 1793, p. 341.
2 Gough, Soldiering On, p. 70.
3 Wilson, With the Flag to Pretoria, V. 1, p. 97.
4 Quoted in Symons, Buller’s Campaigns, p. 165.
5 Quoted in Bryant, Jackets of Green, p. 185n.
6 Quoted in Atkins, The Relief of Ladysmith, p. 174.
7 Quoted in Hamilton, Listening to the Drums, p. 32.
8 Blue Book, Cd 1792, pp. 341f.
9 Dickson, The Biograph in Battle, p. 83.
10 Black and White Budget, 10 March 1900, 21 April 1900.
11 Quoted in Butler, Sir Redvers Buller, p. 71.
12 Quoted in The Times History, V. 2, p. 461.
13 Quoted in Pemberton, Battles of the Boe
r War, pp. 147f.
14 Ibid., p. 134n.
Chapter 17. Black Week
1 Wilson, With the Flag to Pretoria, V. 1, pp. 105f.
2 Maurice, The Life of General Lord Rawlinson of Trent, p. 51.
3 Doyle, The Great Boer War, 3rd impression, p. 197.
4 The Times History, V. 3, p. 3.
5 Rice, Letters and Friendships of Sir Cecil Spring Rice, V. 1, pp. 303f.
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