The Last Boer War

THE LAST BOER WAR

pears in arms against us. Why? Because its citizens believe that the time has come to translate into action the old dream of the Boers, which so long as five-and-twenty years ago was familiar to the late President Burgers when he spoke of the coming Dutch Republic, with its eight millions of inhabitants ruling supreme in the vast territories between the Zambezi and the Cape. Now the great conspiracy that it has proved so hard to persuade the British public, or a blind section of it, to credit stands unveiled, and it has for object nothing less than the expulsion of the English power from Southern Africa – a vain thing fondly imagined, but still a thing with which we must reckon, and it is to be feared by the last stern expedient of arms, since here soft words and diplomacy are of no avail.

Difficult as it is to make the fact understood among a proportion of the home electorate and publicists, it cannot be stated too often or too clearly that this war, which is to come, is a war that was forced upon us by the Boers in their blind ignorance and conceit. The mass of them believe, because they defeated our troops in various small affairs in 1881, that they are a match for the British Empire. Their leaders are better instructed. They trust not so much, perhaps, to the rifles of their compatriots as to the prowess of certain party captains in England, and to the enthusiasm of their advocates among the English Press and public. They remember that the activity of these forces eighteen years ago was followed by a miserable surrender on the part of the English Government, and not understanding how greatly opinion has changed in this country, they hope that history may repeat itself, and that England, wearying of an unpopular struggle, will soon cede to them all

21

H. RIDER HAGGARD

they ask. They are mistaken, but such is their faith. They hope also, perchance with better reason, that other complications may force us to stay our hand. If no more telegrams can be extracted from the German Emperor, still there is a German regiment fighting on their side who will take with them the sympathies of the Fatherland, and they know that the hearts of the great Powers of Europe will go out towards any people who try to strike a blow at the root of the ever-growing tree of the might of the British Empire. Buoyed up by bubbles such as these they have determined to tempt the stern arbitrament of battle. [2]

Can it still be avoided? It would seem that except by our surrender, which is out of the question, for that means the loss not only of South Africa, but of our prestige throughout the world, this is not in any way possible. Already acts of war have taken place, such as the seizure of the gold from the mines, and the commandeering of goods belonging to British subjects, and perhaps days before these lines can appear in print the guns will have begun their reasoning. **

After the rebellion of 1881 a Boer jury, to whom the case was committed by the tender mercies of Mr. Gladstone’s Gov-

has despatched its “ultimatum,” perhaps the most egregious document ever addressed to a great Power by a petty State. In effect it is a declaration of war, and hostilities have now commenced with the destruction by the Boers of an armoured train at Kraaipan, and the capture or slaying of its escort.

H. R. H.

14th October 1899.

22

THE LAST BOER WAR

ernment, with the murdered man’s bullet-riddled skull lying before them upon the table of the Court, acquitted the brutal slaughterers of Captain Elliot, not because they had not done the deed with every circumstance of horrible treachery and premeditation, but because to find them guilty was against their brethren’s wish. In much the same way, with all the facts staring them in the face, there are men in England, some of them of high position and character, who urge the righteousness of the Boer cause, and with tongue and pen paint our national iniquity in hues black as ink and red as blood. They write of the “Objects of the War,” which they do not hesitate to describe as self-seeking and infamous, so far of course as the English people are concerned, for according to the same authorities, the Boer objects are uniformly pure and noble. Would it not be better if they looked back a little and tried to discover the causes of the war? I think that if they could have witnessed a certain scene upon the market-square at Newcastle, at which it was my misfortune to be present, on that night of the year 1881 when the news of the base betrayal of the loyalists by England became known, they would win a better understanding of the question. In the spectacle of that maddened crowd of three or four thousand ruined and deserted men, English, Boer, and Kaffir, raving, weeping, and blaspheming in the despair of their shame and bitterness, they might have found enlightenment. Even now a study of the following forgotten letter written by Mr. White, the chairman of the Committee of Loyal Inhabitants, to Mr. Gladstone, might give to some a food for thought: –

23

H. RIDER HAGGARD

“If, sir, you had seen, as I have seen, promising young citizens of Pretoria dying of wounds received for their country, and if you had had the painful duty, as I have had, of bringing to their friends at home the last mementoes of the departed; if you had seen the privations and discomforts which delicate women and children bore without murmuring for upwards of three months; if you had seen strong men crying like children at the cruel and undeserved desertion of England; if you had seen the long strings of half-desperate loyalists, shaking the dust off their feet as they left the country, as I saw on my way to Newcastle; and if you yourself had invested your all on the strength of the word of England, and now saw yourself in a fair way of being beggared by the acts of the country in whom you trusted, you would, sir, I think, be ‘pronounced,’ and England would ring with eloquent entreaties and threats which would compel a hearing… We claim, sir, at least as much justice as the Boers. We are faithful subjects of England, and have suffered and are suffering for our fidelity. Surely we, the friends of our country, who stood by her in the time of trial, have as much right to consideration as rebels who fought against her. We rely on her word. We rely on the frequently repeated pledges and promises of her ministers in which we have trusted. We rely on her sense of moral right not to do us the grievous wrong which this miserable peace contemplates. We rely on her fidelity to obligations, and on her ancient reputation for honour and honesty. We rely on the material consequences which will follow on a breach of faith to us. England cannot afford to desert us after having solemnly pledged herself to us.”

24

THE LAST BOER WAR

“England cannot afford to desert us!” but England, or her rulers, could and did afford itself this luxury. In vain did such men as the late Lord Beaconsfield, the late Lord Cairns, and Lord Salisbury protest and point out dangers. In vain did agonised loyalists flourish their own words and promises in the face of her Majesty’s Government; the spirit of party, or the promptings of a newly acquired conscience proved too strong. Her Majesty’s loyal subjects were sneered at, insulted, and abandoned, and the Boer, who had butchered them, was bid to go on and prosper.

Now, nearly twenty years afterwards, England is called upon to pay the bill of what is in effect, whatever may have been its motives, one of the most infamous acts that stains the pages of her history. From the moment that the Convention of 1881 was signed it became as certain as anything human can be, that one of two things would happen – either that the Imperial Power must in practice be driven out of South Africa, or that a time would come when it must be forced to assert its dominion even at the price of war.

Now that miserable hour is with us, and we are called upon to suppress by arms a small, but sullen and obstinate people, whom we have taught to believe themselves our equals, if not our superiors. Unless they will yield at the last moment, which seems impossible seeing that the war is of their own choosing, the new settlement of South Africa must be celebrated by a mighty sacrifice of their blood and our blood. Not to dwell upon other griefs and dangers, when, I ask, will the smoke and the smell of it depart from the eyes and nostrils of the dwellers in that unhappy land? As they troop back merrily to their

25

H. RIDER HAGGARD

mines and workshops the money-spinners of Johannesburg may forget a past of which, in many instances at least, their chief impression will be that it was unpleasant and unprofitable. But after the Rand is worked out, when the stamps cease to fall heavily by day and night, when the great heaps of tailings no longer increase from month to month, when the broker’s voice is quiet in the Exchange, and the promoter inhabits some new city, still the Boer women in the farmhouses will tell their children how the “damned English soldiers” shot their grandfathers and took the land. In South Africa new Irelands will arise, and from the dragon’s teeth that we are forced to sow the harvest of hate will spring, and spring again. Thus must we eat of the bitter bread which we have baked, and thus the ill fowl that we reared have come home to roost, bringing their broods with them.

Again and again we have blundered in our treatment of the Dutch. For instance, with kinder and fairer management they would never have trekked from the Cape sixty years ago. Also, had the promises which were made to them at the annexation in 1877 been kept, and had not Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who grew up amongst them and to whom they were attached, been removed in favour of a military martinet, there would have been no rebellion, let the Cape wire-pullers working under a cloak of loyalty to the Crown strive as they might. But the rebellion came and the defeats, and after these that surrender whereof this country is called upon to pluck the fruit to-day, which, by the Boers, is attributed to those defeats with the fear of their prowess and to nothing else.

26

CHAPTER I.

ITS INHABITANTS, LAWS, AND

CUSTOMS.

The Transvaal is a country without a history. Its very existence was hardly known of until about fifty years ago. Of its past we know nothing. The generations who peopled its great plains have passed utterly out of the memory and even the tradition of man, leaving no monument to mark that they have existed, not even a tomb.

During the reign of Chaka, 1813–1828, whose history has been sketched in a previous chapter, one of his most famous generals, Mosilikatze, surnamed the Lion, seceded from him with a large number of his soldiers, and striking up in a northwesterly direction, settled in or about what is now the Morico district of the Transvaal. The country through which Mosilikatze passed was at that time thickly populated with natives of the Basuto or Macatee race, whom the Zulus look upon with great contempt. Mosilikatze expressed the feelings of his tribe in a practical manner, by massacring every living soul of them that came within his reach. That the numbers slaughtered were very great, the numerous ruins of Basuto kraals all over the country testify.

28

THE LAST BOER WAR

It was Chaka’s intention to follow up Mosilikatze and destroy him, but he was himself assassinated before he could do so. Dingaan, his successor, however, carried out his brother’s design, and despatched a large force to punish him. This army, after marching over 300 miles, burst upon Mosilikatze, drove him back with slaughter, and returned home triumphant. The invasion is important, because the Zulus claim the greater part of the Transvaal territory by virtue of it.

About the time that Mosilikatze was conquered, 1835– 1840, the discontented Boers were leaving the Cape Colony exasperated at the emancipation of the slaves by the Imperial authorities. First they made their way to Natal, but being followed thither by the English flag they travelled further inland over the Vaal River and founded the town of Mooi River Dorp or Potchefstroom. Here they were joined by other malcontents from the Orange Sovereignty, which, though afterwards abandoned, was at that time a British possession. Acting upon

“The good old rule, the simple plan, Of let him take who has the power, And let him keep who can,”

the Boers now proceeded to possess themselves of as much territory as they wanted. Nor was this a difficult task. The country was, as I have said, peopled by Macatees, who are a poor-spirited race as compared to the Zulus, and had had what little courage they possessed crushed out of them by the rough handling they had received at the hands of Mosilikatze and Dingaan. The Boers, they argued, could not treat them worse than the Zulus had done. Occasionally a chief, bolder than the

29

H. RIDER HAGGARD

rest, would hold out, and then such an example was made of him and his people that few cared to follow in his footsteps.

As soon as the Boers were fairly settled in their new home, they began to think about setting up a Government. First they tried a system of Commandants, with a Commandant-general, but this does not seem to have answered. Next, those of their number who lived in Lydenburg district (where the gold-fields now are) set up a Republic, with a President and Volksraad, or popular assembly. This example was followed by the other white inhabitants of the country, who formed another Republic and elected another President, with Pretoria for their capital. The two republics were subsequently incorporated.

In 1852 the Imperial authorities, having regard to the expense of maintaining an effective government over an unwilling people in an undeveloped and half-conquered country, concluded a convention with the emigrant Boers “beyond the Vaal River.” The following were the principal stipulations of this convention, drawn up between Major Hogg and Mr. Owen, Her Majesty’s Assistant-Commissioners for the settling and adjusting of the affairs of the eastern and north-eastern boundaries of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope on the one part, and a deputation representative of the emigrant farmers north of the Vaal River on the other. It was guaranteed “in the fullest manner on the part of the British Government 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, and that no encroachment shall be made by the said Government on the territory beyond to the

30