Lord Milner's Work in South Africa Part 26

And, while the peaceably inclined burghers were prevented from surrendering by the fear of these penalties, the courage of the commandos was maintained by the spread of false information. Among these same papers found at Roos Senekal is a telegram despatched on November 2nd, 1900, to General Viljoen, containing a number of encouraging statements bearing upon the political and military situation, of which the three following may be taken as characteristic:

"October, 1900. A Congress of Delegates of the Powers was held at Parijs [Paris], whereby England asked for an extension of six months to carry on the war. This was refused by the powers on the proposal of Holland and Austria.

"France is ready to land troops in England on the 1st November.

"Cape Colonial troops to the number of 2,500 have been sent back by General Roberts, having quarrelled with the regulars. Their arms were taken away and burnt. This last is official news received by General Fourie."[243]

[Footnote 243: Cd. 663.]

[Sidenote: "Not civilised warfare".]

It was in order to counteract the effects of this system of terrorism and deceit, that the endeavour was made to inform the ma.s.s of the Boers still in arms of the actual state of affairs, both in respect of the hopelessness of foreign intervention and the real intentions of the British Government, through the agency of the Burgher Peace Committee. The treatment accorded to these peace emissaries is justifiable, possibly, by a strict interpretation of the laws of war; but it fixes inevitably the responsibility for the needless sufferings of the Boer people in the guerilla war, upon Ex-President Steyn, Schalk Burger, Louis Botha, Christian de Wet, and the other Boer leaders. On January 10th, 1901, of three agents of the Peace Committee taken prisoners to De Wet's laager near Lindley, one--a British subject--was flogged and then shot, and two, who were burghers, were flogged.[244] And on February 12th Meyer de k.o.c.k, the Secretary of the Committee, was shot.[245]

[Footnote 244: Cd. 547.]

[Footnote 245: Cd. 663. It was at this time that the utterly unjustifiable and brutal murder of the coloured man, Esau, took place in the invasion of the Calvinia district of the Cape Colony. His sole offence was his known loyalty to the British Government. "He was flogged on January 15th, 1901, and kept in gaol till February 5th, when he was flogged through the streets and shot outside the village by a Boer named Strydom, who stated that he acted according to orders."

Cd. 547.]

But the efforts of the Peace Committee were not altogether thrown away. The terrible deaths of these men, true martyrs of the Boer cause, evoked more than one notable protest against the insensate determination of Ex-President Steyn and De Wet.

"Dear Brother, ... From what I hear you are so angry with me,"

wrote General Piet de Wet to his brother Christian, "that you have decided to kill me should you find me. May G.o.d not allow it that you should have the opportunity to shed more innocent blood.

Enough has been shed already.... I beseech you, let us think over the matter coolly for a moment, and see whether our cause is really so pure and righteous that we can rely on G.o.d's help."[246]

[Footnote 246: Cd. 547.]

And Mr. H. A. Du Plessis, the predikant at Lindley in the Orange River Colony, addressed an "open letter" to the clergy of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Cape Colony.

"It is not civilised warfare any more on the part of the burghers. They have become desperate, and as fanatics do things in conflict with a Christian spirit and civilisation.... About a fortnight ago, G. Muller, one of my deacons and brother of the late minister of Burghersdorp, was brutally ill-used. He had to strip, and received twenty-five lashes with a stirrup leather--he is not the only one--because he took letters from a member of the Peace Committee to certain heads of the burgher force, in which they were strongly advised to give in. At the same time Andries Wessels and J. Morgendael were taken prisoners. They left Kroonstad at their own request, and with the sanction of the military authorities, in order to have an interview with the leaders of the burgher force. Morgendael was mortally wounded by Commandant Froneman without a hearing, and at the instigation of General C. de Wet. He died afterwards.... In such a shameful, in fact, inhuman, manner were these men treated; and for what reason? Simply because they had tried to save their country and people....

"The burghers are kept totally in the dark by their leaders as to what the real state of affairs is. Because I wish to save them from certain ruin I make this appeal to you....

"If [the burghers] knew what the true state of affairs was, a large portion would long ago have come in and delivered up their arms....

"Therefore, I implore you, stand still for a few moments and think of the true interests of the Afrikander nation, and see if you will not alter your opinion, and quench the fire of war instead of feeding the flame....[247]

[Footnote 247: Cd. 547.]

These letters, which were published in _The Cape Times_, formed part of an attempt made by the Burgher Peace Committee, "to induce some of the leading men in the colony, who are known to sympathise with the Boers, to tell the men still in the field that the hope of any a.s.sistance from here is a delusion." But, in thus reporting this new endeavour to Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Milner adds that he is not, himself, "very sanguine" of its success.

[Sidenote: Policy of the Bond.]

There was only too good ground for this opinion. The Afrikander nationalists of the Cape hated England no less than did the republican nationalists, though they feared her more. The policy which the Bond had adopted after the occupation of the Republics by the British forces was perfectly definite. Its object was to avert the final disaster of the war by securing the maintenance of the Republics as independent centres of Afrikander nationalism. In order to do this the Bond resolved to keep the Cape Colony in a state of smouldering rebellion, to encourage the continued resistance of the Boer commandos, and to render all the material a.s.sistance to the guerilla leaders and their forces that could be afforded without exposing the Cape Dutch to the penalties of treason. It may be doubted, however, whether the Bond leaders, in view of the resolute att.i.tude of the loyalist population and their consistent and unfaltering support of Lord Milner, would have embarked upon this policy, unless they had calculated upon the co-operation of the Liberal Opposition in England.

As it was, their expectations in this respect had been amply fulfilled, and the policy itself, as we have seen, had been admirably carried into effect.

The second invasion of the Cape Colony began, as we have noticed, with the incursion of the Boers after the Worcester Congress. On December 16th, 1900, Kruitzinger, with seven hundred, and Hertzog with twelve hundred men, crossed the Orange River; and by February 11th, 1901, De Wet, who had been "headed back" in December, had succeeded in eluding the British columns and entered the Colony.[248] At this moment success seemed to be within measurable distance both to the Bond and to De Wet. The point of view of the astute Afrikander statesmen is different from that of the guerilla leader; but each party is equally hopeful of the ultimate victory of the nationalist cause. Of the att.i.tude of the Bond in this month of February, 1901, Mr. Kipling writes from Capetown:

[Footnote 248: Cd. 522.]

"Some of the extremists of the Bond are for committing themselves now, fully, to the Dutch cause, De Wet and all; but some of the others are hunting for some sort of side-path that will give them a chance of keeping on the ground-level of the gallows, within hail of a seat in the next Parliament. If De Wet wins--he is a.s.sumed to be in command of several thousands, all l.u.s.ting for real battle, and sure of a welcome among many more thousands alight with the same desire--the Bond may, of course, come out flat-footedly on his side. Just at present the apricots are not quite ripe enough. But the Bond has unshaken faith in the Opposition, whose every word and action are quoted here, and lead to more deaths on the veld. _It is a.s.sumed that His Majesty's Opposition will save the Bond, and South Africa for the Bond, if only the commandos make the war expensive._"[249]

[Footnote 249: The italics are Mr. Kipling's. _The Science of Rebellion: a Tract for the Times_, by Rudyard Kipling.]

[Sidenote: De Wet in the colony.]

If this account of the att.i.tude of the Bond stood alone, its value would be merely that of an _ex parte_ statement by a competent observer on the spot. But it does not stand alone. The accident of the capture of the Boer official papers at Roos Senekal, to which we have referred before, has provided us with a record of the thoughts which were in De Wet's mind at the time when Mr. Kipling's words were written. In a report dated "On the Veld, February 14th, 1901,"

Commandant-General Botha is informed that "De Wet's last news is that the Cape Colony has risen to a man, and has already taken up arms.

They refused to give up to the British Government. Many more are only waiting operations on part of De Wet to join him; and General De Wet concludes this report with the words: 'It is certain that the ways of the Lord are hidden from us, and that, after all, it seems that the day of a united South Africa is not far off.'"

The writer of this despatch is the "Acting Chief-Commandant" of the Orange Free State; and to his report of De Wet's success in the Cape Colony, he now adds an account of what is happening on the other side of the Orange River:

"The burghers in the Orange Free State are hopeful, and expecting a happy ending. The grudge against the Britisher has now taken deep root, and the women and girls are encouraging the burghers to stick up to the bitter end. So that our cause now rests in the union of the burghers, and, with G.o.d's help, we will accomplish our end.... The enemy's plan is to starve us out, but he will never do it, now we have an outlet from the Cape Colony, even if we have to use force."[250]

[Footnote 250: Cd. 663.]

De Wet was chased out of the Colony by the British columns on February 28th, but smaller commandos under Kruitzinger, Fouche, Scheepers, and Malan remained behind. Apart from their mobility, and the persistent manner in which they clung to rugged and mountainous districts, the ability of these Boer raiders to keep the field against the Imperial troops must be attributed to the sympathy and material a.s.sistance which they received from the colonial Dutch. The actual number of recruits which they secured was small; but, in Lord Kitchener's words--

"the friendly feelings of a considerable portion of the rural population a.s.sured to them at all times not only an ample food supply, but also timely information of the movements of our pursuing columns--two points which told heavily in their favour."[251]

[Footnote 251: Cd. 605.]

[Sidenote: Effect of Cape rebellion.]

In view of the enormous area of the spa.r.s.ely populated and difficult country throughout which their movements were thus facilitated, it is not surprising that these roaming commandos were never completely suppressed. Of the 21,256 men who surrendered after Vereeniging, 3,635 were Boers and rebels, who had been, up to that time, at large in the Cape Colony.[252] The importance of the contribution which the disloyal majority of the Cape Dutch were enabled, in this manner, to make to the power of resistance exhibited by the Boers in the guerilla war has scarcely been sufficiently appreciated. As it was, a large body of Imperial troops, which would otherwise have been available for completing the conquest of the new colonies, were kept employed, not merely in guarding the all-important railway lines, but from time to time in arduous, costly, and exhausting military operations in the Cape Colony.[253]

[Footnote 252: Cd. 988.]

[Footnote 253: "Cape Colony is a great disappointment to me ... no general rising can be expected in that quarter....

[But] the little contingent there has been of great help to us: they have kept 50,000 troops occupied, with which otherwise we should have had to reckon."--Gen. Christian de Wet at the Vereeniging Conference on May 16th, 1902. App. A.

_The Three Years' War_, by Christian Rudolf de Wet (Constable, 1902). But see forward also, p. 485, for part played by British loyalists.]

The value of this contribution was quite well understood by the Afrikander nationalists of the Cape. In Mr. Kipling's vigorous English, "north and south they were working for a common object--the manufacture of pro-Boers in England by doubling the income-tax." And it is in the extension of the area of the war by the establishment of the Boer commandos in the Cape Colony that we must find the one valid military consideration which underlay the failure of the peace negotiations between Lord Kitchener and General Louis Botha (February-April, 1901), and the final rejection of the British terms of surrender by the Boer leaders in June. The point is made perfectly plain in the official notice signed by Schalk Burger, as Acting President of the South African Republic, and Steyn, as President of the Orange Free State, which was issued to the burghers on June 20th, 1901. After reciting that the British terms had been referred to "State President Kruger and the deputation in Europe," and that President Kruger's reply had been considered by a conference of the Governments of both Republics, at which Chief-Commandant C. De Wet, Commandant-General L. Botha, and a.s.sistant-Commandant J. H. De la Rey had presented a full report, the doc.u.ment continues:

"And considering the good progress in our cause in the colonies, where our brothers oppose the cruel injustice done to the Republics more and more in depriving them of their independence, considering further the invaluable personal and material sacrifices they [the Colonial Dutch] have made for our cause, which would all be worthless and vain with a peace whereby the independence of the Republics is given up ... [it is resolved]

that no peace will be made ... by which our independence and national existence, or the interests of our colonial brothers, shall be the price paid, and that the war will be vigorously prosecuted."[254]

[Footnote 254: Cd. 663.]

[Sidenote: Afrikander statesmans.h.i.+p.]

It is impossible to withhold a tribute of admiration from the Afrikander nationalist leaders. The qualities of statesmans.h.i.+p that enabled a Cavour or a Bismarck to make a nation were theirs. From the apparent hopelessness of the position created by Lord Roberts's swift and overwhelming victories, they had brought round their affairs to the point at which they now stood. The task which confronted the Imperial troops was no longer to disarm the inhabitants of the Republics, but to disarm and subdue practically the entire Dutch population of South Africa. And to the military difficulties inherent in the accomplishment of such a task in such a country, they had added the opposition of political forces operating both in England and South Africa with scarcely less embarra.s.sing effects. Had it been merely an affair of the island people and the island statesmen, the Bond might still have won. The courage and endurance of the Imperial troops alone would not have saved South Africa. The army was the instrument of the people, and it was for the people to make use of this instrument, or to withdraw it, as they chose. But the over-sea British claimed a voice in the settlement; and the Bond had no friends among them. The "younger nations" and the "man" at Capetown saved South Africa for the Empire.

Before we proceed to consider the broad features of the military operations by which the disarmament of the Dutch was at length accomplished, a reference must be made to the account of the general situation in South Africa addressed by Lord Milner to Mr. Chamberlain from Capetown on February 6th, 1901. Among all the notable doc.u.ments which he furnished to his official chief, none affords more convincing evidence of cool judgment, mastery of South African conditions, and sureness of statecraft than this. It is a letter, and not a despatch, and as such it contains some personal details which would not have found a place in more formal communications.

[Sidenote: Lord Milner's survey.]

Two reasons, Lord Milner writes, have prevented him from sending for a long time past any general review of South African affairs. "I am occupied," he says, "every day that pa.s.ses from morning till night by business, all of which is urgent, and the amount and variety of which you are doubtless able to judge from the communications on a great variety of subjects which are constantly pa.s.sing between us." And in addition to this, he has always hoped that "some definite point would be reached, at which it might be possible to sum up that chapter of our history which contained the war, and to forecast the work of administrative construction which must succeed it." Now, however, it is useless to wait longer for a "clear and clean-cut" situation.

Although he has not "the slightest doubt of the ultimate result," he foresees that the work which still lies before the Imperial troops will be "slower, more difficult, more hara.s.sing, and more expensive than was at one time antic.i.p.ated."