The war in South Africa : its cause and conduct

Preface

For some reason, which may be either arrogance or apathy, the British ahe very slow to state their case to the world. At present the reasons for our actions and the methods which we have used are set forth in many Blue-books, tracts, and leaflets, but have never, so far as I know, been collected into one small volume. In view of the persistent slanders to which our politicians and our soldiers have been equally exposed, it becomes a duty which we owe to our national honour to lay the facts before the world. I wish someone more competent, and with some official authority, had undertaken the task, which I have tried to do as best I might from an independent standpoint.

There was never a war in history in which the right was absolutely on one side, or in which no incidents of the campaign were open to criticism. I do not pretend that it was so here. But I do not think that any unprejudiced man can read the facts without acknowledging that the British Government has done its best to avoid war, and the British Army to wage it with humanity.

To my publisher and to myself this work has been its own reward. In this way we hope to put the price within the reach of all, and yet leave a profit for the vendor. Our further ambition is, however, to translate it into all European tongues, and to send a free copy to every deputy and every newspaper on the Continent and in America. For this work money will be needed — a considerable sum. We propose to make an appeal to the public for these funds. Any sums which are sent to me or to my publisher will be devoted to this work. There cannot be too much, for the more we get the more we shall do.

I may add that I have not burdened my pages with continual references. My quotations are reliable and can always, if necessary, be substantiated.

A. CONAN DOYLE.

Undershaw. Htndhead:

January, 1902.

I

CONTENTS chap.

^ THE BOER PEOPLE. .

✓ (h) THE CAUSE OF QUARREL. .

V III) THE NEGOTIATIONS .......

^ IV) SOME POINTS EXAMINED. .

V V. THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE .

1 Vyl THE FARM-BURNING . . B

Wift THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS. ...

VIII. THE BRITISH SOLDIER IN SOUTH AFRICA.

IX. FURTHER CHARGES AGAINST BRITISH TROOPS \/0 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE QUESTION.

CONCLUSIONS

PACK.

I

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11 7 133

THE WAR:

ITS CAUSE AND CONDUCT

Chapter I : The Boer People

IT is impossible to appreciate the South African problem and the causes which have led up to the present war between the British Empire and the Boer republics without some knowledge, however superficial, of the past history of South Africa. To tell the tale one must go back to the beginning, for there has been complete continuity of history in South Africa, and every stage has depended upon that which has preceded it. No one can know or appreciate the Boer who does not know his past, for he is what his past has made him.

It was about the time when Oliver Cromwell was at his zenith — im652,J:o be pedantically accurate — that__the Dutch made their first loagment at the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese had Teen there before them, but, repelled by the evil weather, and lured forward by rumours of gold, they had passed the true seat of empire, and had voyaged farther, to settle along the eastern coast. But the Dutchmen at the_Cape prospered and .grew stronger in that robust climate. They did not penetrate faFTnTand, for they were few in number, and all they wanted was to be found close at hand. But they built themselves houses, and they supplied the Dutch East India Company with food and jvater, gradually budding off little townlets, Wynberg, Stellen- )sch, and pushing their settlements up the long slopes which lead to that great central plateau which extends for 1,500 miles from the edge of the Karoo to the Valley of the Zambesi.

For a hundred more years the history of the colony was a record o EThe^ra dt^ g ' of" the Africanders^ over the

huge expanse of veldtwhich lay to the north oKthem. Catfle raising became an industry, buFin a country wherifsix acres can hardly support a sheep, large farms are necessary for even small herds. Six thousand acres was the usual size, and five pounds a year the rent payable to Government. The diseases which follow the white man had in Africa, as in America and Australia, been fatal to the natives, and an epidemic of smallpox cleared the country for the newcomers. Farther and farther north they pushed, founding little towns here and there, such as Graaf- Reinet and Swellendam, where a Dutch Reformed Church and a store for the sale of the bare necessaries of life formed a nucleus for a few scattered dwellings. Already the settlers were showing that independence of control and that detachment from Europe which has been their most prominent characteristic. Even the sway of the Dutch Company had caused them to revolt. The local rising, however, was hardly noticed in the universal cataclysm which followed the French Revolution. After ^ twenty years, during which the world was shaken by the Titanic struggle in the final counting up of the game and paying of the stakes, the Cape Colony was added in 1814 to the British ' Ejnpire. ~

U' In all the vast collection of British States there is probably not one the title-deeds to which are more incontestable than ^^to this. Britain had it by two rights, the right of conquest ^nd V the right of purchase. IV i8o5Trodps landeT3EFeaIi^HdTeTocal forces. -and, took possession dU'Cape Town. In-^Si4__Brrtain ^~paid the large sum of six milli^pounds to the Stadtholder for ^^Transference ofthis anTsome~~S^uth WmeTican land. It was IT bargain which was^probably madenFapiHI^and carelessly in that general redistribution which was going on. As a house of call upon the way to India the place was seen to be of value, but the country itself was looked upon as unprofitable and desert. What would Castlereagh or Liverpool have thought could they have seen the items which they were buying for six million pounds? The inventory would have been a mixed one of good and of evil ; nine fierce Kaffir wars, the greatest diamond rnines in the world, the wealthiest gold mines, two costly and hufhiliating campaigns with men whom we respected even when we fought with them, and now at last, we hope, a South Africa of peace and prosperity, with equal rights and equal duties for all men.

The title-deeds to the estate are, as I have said, good ones, but there is one singular and ominous flaw in their provisions. The ocean has marked three boundaries to it, but the fourth is undefined. There is no word of the ‘ hinterland/ for neither the term nor the idea had then been thought of. Had Great Britain bought those vast regions which extended beyond the settlerent local rates. Finally, the compensation was made payable in London, so that the farmers sold their claims at reduced prices to middlemen. Indignation meetings were held in every little townlet and cattle-camp on the Karoo. The old Dutch spirit was up — the spirit of the men who cut the dykes. Rebellion was useless. But a vast untenanted land stretched to the north of them. The nomad life was congenial to them, and in their huge ox-drawn wagons — like those bullock-carts in which some of their old kinsmen came to Gaul — they had vehicles and homes and forts all in one. One by one they were loaded up, the huge teams were inspanned, the women were seated inside, the men with their long-barrelled guns walked alongside, and the great exodus was begun. Their herds and flocks accompanied the ^migration, and the children helped to round them in and drive them. One tattered little boy of ten cracked his sjambok whip behind the bullocks. He was a small item in that singular crowd, but he was of interest to us, for his name was Paul Stephanus Kruger.

It was a strange exodus, only comparable in modern times to the sallying forth of the Mormons from Nauvoo upon their search for the promised land of Utah. The country was known and sparsely settled as far north as the Orange River, but beyond there was a great region which had never been penetrated save •by some daring hunter or adventurous pioneer. It chanced — if there be indeed such an element as chance in the graver affairs of man — that a Zulu conqueror had swept over this land and left it untenanted, save by the dwarf bushmen, the hideous aborigines, -lowest of the human race. There were fine grazing and good soil for the emigrants. They travelled in small detached parties, but their total numbers were considerable, from six to ten thousand according to their historian, or nearly a^quarter^f-t-he -whole population of the colony. Some of the early bands perished miserablyU A large number made a trysting-place at a high peak to the east of Bloemfontein, in what was lately the Orange Free State. One party of the emigrants was cut off by the formidable Matabeli, a branch of the great Zulu nation.

The final victory of the ‘ voortrekkers * cleared all the country between the Orange River and the Limpopo, the sites of wTTat have been known- as~Ttgr Transvaal and the Orange Free Stare. In the meantime anotheF body of the emigrants had descended into Natal, and had defeated Dingaan, the great Chief of the Zulus.

And now at the end of their great journey, after overcoming ( the difficulties of distance, of nature, and of savage enemies, the

Tioers saw at the end of their^-travels the veiw--tIfift€LJwhich they Adesired least^That_which they had ^pj»e--se--4a4Ljx> avoid — the i Pag-jof Great The Boers had occupied Natal from

Within, but England had previously done the same by sea, and a sjmall colony of Englishmen had settled at Port Natal, now lj:nown as Durban. The Home Government however, had acted ijn a vacillating way, and it was only the conquest of Natal by llhe Boers which caused them to claim it as a British colony. At the same time they asserted the unwelcome doctrine that a British subject could not at will throw off his allegiance, and /that, go where they might, the wandering farmers were still only -;Jhe pioneers of British colonies. To emphasise the fact three companies of soldiers were sent in 1842 to what is now Durban — the usual Corporal’s guard with which Great Britain starts a new empire. This handful of men was waylaid by the Boers and cut up, as their successors have been so often since. The survivors, however, fortified themselves, and held a defensive position— as also their successors have done so many times since — until reinforcements arrived and the farmers dispersed. Natal from this time onward became a British colony, and the majority | of the Boers trekked north and east with bitter hearts to tell their wrongs to their brethren of the Orange Free State and of the Transvaal.

I Had they any wrongs to tell? It is difficult to reach that* height of philosophic detachment which enables the historian to deal absolutely impartially where his own country is a party to the quarrel. But at least we may allow that there is a case for our adversary. Our annexation of Natal had been by no means definite, and it was they and not we who first broke that blood- | thirsty Zulu power which threw its shadow across the country. It was hard after such trials and such exploits to turn their back upon the fertile land which they had conquered, and to return to rf the bare pastures of the upland veldt. They carried out of Natal a heavy sense of injury, which has helped to poison our "relations T- with them ever since. It , wastin' a way, a mo~mentous episode, f; HhlTlittie skirmish of soldiers~and emigrant^fortt" was theTieadj ing off of the^oeUirom the sea ant the^confinement of Jiis V- ambitiQTr-to--^^ HaTTtTg^eAhe--T>fKer^^

possibly f ormidabfe^ag would have been added to the maritime nations.

The emigrants who had settled in the huge tract of country I between the Orange River in the south and the Limpopo in the north had been recruited by newcomers from the Cape Colony until they numbered some fifteen thousand souls. This populai combined. But certainly a formidable invasion was pending,! > and the scattered farmhouses were as open to the Kaffirs as our\ / farmers’ homesteads were in the American colonies when thew Indians were on the warpath. Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the \ British Commissioner, after an inquiry of three months, solved \ all questions by the formal annexation of the country. The fact that he took possession of it with a force of some twenty-five men, showed the honesty of his belief that no armed resistance was to be feared. This, then, un 182^ was a complete reversal"* of the Sand River Convention and the opening of a new chapter in the history of South Africa.

There did. not. appear, to be any strong feeling at the time\ against the annexation. The people were depressed with their troubles and weary of contention. Burgers, the President, put in a formal protest, and took up his abode in Cape Colony, where he had a pension from the British Government. A memorial against the measure received the signatures of a majority of the Boer inhabitants, but there was a fair minority who took the other view. Kruger himself accepted a paid office under Government. There was every sign that the people, if judiciously , handled, would settle down under the British flag.

But the Empire has always had poor luck in South Africa, and never worse than on that occasion. Through no bad faith, but simply through preoccupation and delay, the promises made were not instantly fulfilled. If the Transvaalers had waited, they would have had their Volksraad and all that they wanted. But the British Government had some other local matters to set right, the rooting out of Sekukuni and the breaking of the Zulus, before they would fulfil their pledges. The delav_was keenly resented. And we were unfortunate in our choice of Governor. The burghers are a homely folk, and they like an occasional cup of coffee with the anxious man who tries to rule them. The 300/. a year of coffee-money allowed by the Transvaal to its President is by no means a mere form. A wise administrator would fall into the social and democratic habits of the people. Sir Theophilus Shepstone did so. Sir Owen Lanyon did not. There was no Volksraad and no coffee, and the popular discontent grew rapidly. In three years the British had broken up the two savage

Ga-AL* hordes which had been threatening the land. The finances, too, had been restored. The reasons which had made so many burghers favour the annexation were weakened by the very power which had every interest in preserving them.

Tt cannot be too often pointed out that in this armpvati nn.; thp starting-point of our troubles. Great Britain, however mistaken

IO THE WAR: ITS CAUSE AND CONDUCT -

$fip may jiave been^had no possible selfish interest in view.

here wPxeZna._Kand mmes in those davsT nor wajrrhrn'g"^ Jiinp- in the country. tn tempt the most covetous. An empty treasury and two expensive native wars were the reversion which we took over. It washonestly considered that the country was in too distracted a state to govern itself, and had, by its weakness, become a scandal and a danger to its neighbours and to itself. There was nothing sordid in the British action, though it may have been premature and injudicious. There is some reason to think that if it had been delayed it would eventually have been done on the petition of the majority of the inhabitants.

In December. 1880. the Boers rose. Every farmhouse sent out its riflemen, arid'fhe trysting-place was the outside of the nearest British fort. All through the country small detachments— were ■surrounded an5 besieged by the farmers^ Standerton, Pretoria, Potchefstroom, Lydenburg, Wakkerstroom, Rustenburg, and Marabastad were all invested and all held out until the end of the war. In the open country the troops were less fortunate. At Bronkhorst Spruit a small British force was taken by surprise and shot down without harm to their antagonists. The surgeon who treated them has left it on record that the average number of wounds was five per man. At Laing’s Nek an inferior force of British endeavoured to rush a hill which was held by Boer riflemen. Half of the men were killed and wounded.

1 Ingogo may be called a drawn battle, though the British loss was 1 more heavy than that of the enemy. Finally came the defeat of | Majuba Hill, where 400 infantry upon a mountain were defeated j and driven off by a swarm of sharpshooters who advanced under | the cover of boulders. Of all these actions there was not one j which was more than a skirmishTand Tad they been followed bv a final British victory they would~ndw beTardlv remembered. TtJis_tlie. fact that- they were skirmish^TwhicE succeeded in their] nhjerj- — whieh_TLa<; given them an exaggerated importance.

The defeat at Majuba Hijl was followed by the complete surrender of the Gladstonian Government, an act which was either the most pusillanimous pr the most magnanimous in recent history. It is hard for the big man to draw away from the small before blows are struck, but when the big man has been knocked down three times it is harder still. An overwhelming British force was in the field and the general declared that he held the enemy in the hollow of his hand. British military calculations have been falsified before now by these farmers, and it may be that the task of Wood and Roberts would have been harder than

A

1 1 ley imagined ; but on paper, at least, it looked as if the enemy . ^ould be crushed without difficulty. So the public thought, and \ ^et they consented to the upraised sword being stayed. With J hem, as apart from the politicians, the motive was undoubtedly I P moral and Christian one. They considered that the annexation 3f the Transvaal had evidently been an injustice, that the farmers ^ Jiad a right to the freedom for which they fought, and that it was jin unworthy thing for a great nation to continue an unjust war Jior the sake of a military revenge. Such was the motive of the British public when it acquiesced in the action of the Govern- " menf. It was the height of idealism, and the result has not been such as to encourage its repetition.

An armistice was concluded or^Mardx-gU-^B&x^which led ujy to a peace_gn^th£-23rd of the sarne monTh. The Government, after yielding to force what it had repeatedly refused to friendly representations, made a clumsy compromise in their settlement.

2k policy of idealism and Christian morality should jiaye_,been thorough if it were to be triecFat all' It was obvious that if the annexation were unjust, then the Transvaal should have reverted to 'the condition in which it was before the annexation, as defined by the Sand River Convention. But the Government tor kome reason would not go so far as this. They niggled and quibbled and bargained until the State was left as a curious hybrid thing such as the world has never seen. It was a republic which was part of the system of a monarchy, dealt with by the Colonial Office, and included under th^ heading of * Colonies 7 in the news columns of the ‘ Times? It was autonomous, and yet subject to some vague suzerainty, the limits of whicffino one has ever been able to define. Altogether, in its provisions and in its omissions, the Convention of Pretoria appears to prove that our political affairs were as badly conducted as our military in this unfortunate year of 1881.

It was evident from the first that so illogical and contentious an agreement could not possibly prove to be a final settlement, and indeed the ink of the signatures was hardly dry before an agitation was on foot for its revision. The Boers considered, and with justice, that if they were to be letT asTTuidispUlecl victors in the war then they should have the full fruits of victory. On the * other hand, the English-speaking colonies had their allegiance tested to the uttermost. The proud Anglo-Celtic stock is not accustomed to be humbled, and yet they found themselves through the action of the Home Government converted into members of a beaten race. It was very well for the citizen of London to console his wounded pride by the thought that he had done a i2 THE WAR: ITS CAUSE AND CONDUCT magnanimous action, but it was different with the British colonis. ■ of Durban or Cape Town who, by no act of his own, and with" \ out any voice in the settlement, found himself humiliated befory | -^-his Dutch neighbour. An ugly feeling of resentment was lef| i behind, which might perhaps have passed away had the *Trans5 vaal accepted the settlement in the spirit in which it was meant, but which grew more and more dangerous, as during eighteen -years our people saw, or thought that they saw, that one concession led always to a fresh demand, and that the Dutch republics aimed not merely at equality, but at dominance in South Africa. Professor Brice, a friendly critic, after a personal examination of the country and the question, has left it upon record that the Boers saw neither generosity nor humanity in our conduct, but only fear. An outspoken race, they conveyed their feelings to their neighbours. Can it be wondered at that South Africa has been in a ferment ever since, and that the British Africander has yearned with an intensity of feeling unknown in England for the hour of revenge?

The Government of the Transvaal after the war was left in the hands of a triumvirate, but after one year Kruger became President, an office which he continued to hold for eighteen years. His career as ruler vindicates the wisdom of that wise but unwritten provision of the American Constitution by which there is a limit to the tenure of this office. Continued rule for half a generation must turn a man into an autocrat. The old President has said himself, in his homely but shrewd way, that when one gets a good ox to lead the team it is a pity to change him. If a good ox, however, is left to choose his own direction ..^without guidance, he may draw his wagon into trouble.

During three years the little State showed signs of a tumultuous activity. Considering that it was larger than France and that the population could not have been more than fifty Thousand, one would have thought that they might have found room - without any inconvenient crowding. But the burghers passed beyond their borders in every direction. The President cried aloud that he had been shut up in a kraal, and he proceeded to find ways out of it. A great trek was projected for the north, but fortunately it miscarried. To the east they raided Zululand, and succeeded,' in defiance of the British settlement of that country, in tearing away one-third of it and adding it to the Transvaal. To the west, with no regard to the three-year-old treaty, they invaded Bechuanaland, and set up the two newTepublics of Goshen £nd StellalamF So outrageous were these proceedings' that “Great Britain was forced to fit out in 1884 a new expedition

'3 under Sir Charles Warren for the purpose of turning these freebooters out of the country. It may be asked, Why should these men be called freebooters if the founders of Rhodesia were pioneers? The answer is that the Transvaal was limited by treaty to certain boundaries which these men transgressed, while ^nO^piedges ^ere broken when the British power expanded to the north. The upshot of these trespasses was the scene upon which every drama of South Africa rings down. Once more the purse was drawn from the pocket of the unhappy taxpayer, and a million or so was paid out to defray the expenses of the police force necessary to keep these treaty-breakers in order. Let this be borne in mind when we assess the moral and material damage done to the Transvaal by the Jameson Raid. t

Tn T884 ajieputation from the Transvaal visited England, and at their solicitation the" clumsy treaty op Pretoria-^ ^

into the still more~~clumsy ConvenTiofof London. . The changes JfTTTTe~ provisions were all in favour of the Boersranda second successful warcould hardly have given them more than Lordf Derby handed them in time of peace. Their style was altered from the Transvaal to the South Wfrican Republic, a change which was ominously suggestive of expansion in the future. .The control of Great Britain over their foreign policy was also jxlaxed, though a power of veto was retainedL But the most important thing ot all, and' Lire fruitfirrcaiise AT future trouble. lav in an omission! ATTuzeraintv is a vague term, but in politics, as intheology, tBe more~nebuIous"a thing is the more does Jt excite the imagination and the passions of men. This suzerainty was declared in the preamble of the first treaty, and no" mention of it was inadeAn the second. ~Was It thereby abrogated or was it not ? The British contention is tEat~onlv"Tl^ changed, and that the preamble continueT~tohofd p-ood for both. treaties. They point out that not only the suzerainty, but alsa the independence, of the Transvaal is pToclaimed m that preamble, and that if one lapses' ^ tKF~othef~TnusF^3o so also. XJn -the other handTBTe Boers point to the fact that there is admail y a preamble to the second convention, which would seem, there1 jore^ToTake the, place_of the first. As a matter of fact the~ d i s ■ - ^issioty is a barren one, since TotTr~parties agree that Great: "Britain retained certain rights over the^ making of treaties bw The^Republic, which rights place her ~IhTa different posTfiohHyj^ an entirely independent state. Whether this difference amount^ to a suzerainty or not is a subject for the academic discussion of international jurists. What is of importance is the fact, not the word.

! Chapter II: The Cause of Quarrel

GOLD had been known to exist in the Transvaal before, ;

but it was only in 1886 that it was realised that the deposits which lie some thirty miles south of the capital i are of a very extraordinary and valuable nature. The proportion of gold in the quartz is not particularly high, j nor are the veins of a remarkable thickness, but the peculiarity | of the Rand mines lies in the fact that throughout this ‘ banket ’ j formation the metal is so uniformly distributed that the enter- I prise can claim a certainty which is not usually associated with if the industry. It is quarrying rather than mining. Add to this j that the reefs which were originally worked as out-crops have j now been traced to enormous depths, and present the same features as those at the surface. A conservative estimate of the > value of the gold has placed it at seven hundred millions of j pounds.

Such a discovery produced the inevitable effect. A great | number of' adventurers flocked into the country, some desirable 1 and some very much the reverse. There were circumstances. j however, which kept away the rowdy and desperado element who j usually make for this newly-opened goldfield. It was not a class | / of mining which encouraged the individual adventurer. It was \ \ a^fleld for elaborate machinery, which could onI)rbe provided ' by capital. Managers, engineers, miners, technical experts, and the tradesmen and middlemen who live upon them, these were j the TSflandnc^ drawn from" all races under the sun, but with ; ^ the Anglo-Celtic vastly predominant. The best engineers were !

American, the best miners were Cornish, the best managers were j / English, the money to run the mines was largely subscribed in 1 ( England. As time went on, however, the German and French I \ interests became more extensive, until their joint holdings are j now probably as heavy as those of the British. Soon the popula- j tion of the mining centres became about as numerous as that of j the whole Boer community, and consisted mainly of men in the V prime of life — men, too, of exceptional intelligence and energy. The situation was an extraordinary one. I have already attempted to bring the problem home to an American by suggesting j l5 that the Dutch of New York had trekked west and founded an anti-American and highly unprogressive State. To carry out the analogy we will now suppose that that State was California, that the gold of that State attracted a large inrush of American citizens, that these wPfP hpayjly ta_Y.prl and badly used,

and that they deafened Washington with their outcry about their injuries. That would be a fair parallel to the relations between the Transvaal, the Uitlanders, and the British Government.* ^ C

That these Uitlanders_had very real and_.pressing grievances \ no one could possibly deny. To recount them all would be a j formidable task, for their whole lives were darkened by injustice. I There was not a wrong which had driven the Boer from Cape \ Colony which he did not now practise himself upon others — and a wrong may be excusable in 1835 which is monstrous in 1895. J The primitive virtue which had characterised the farmers broke ^ down in the face of temptation. The country Boers were little affected, some of them not at all, but the Pretoria Government <r~ became a most corrupt oligarchy, venal an cT incompetent to the 0 last degree. Officials and imported Hollanders handled the jQ >cXH stream of gold which” came in from the mines, while the. unfortunate Uitlander who paid nine-tenths of the taxation was fleeced at every turn, and met with laughter and taunts when life^enHeavoured to win the franchise by which he might peaceably set’ right the wrongs from which he suffered. He was not ^ ff/j, atTnffireasonabl^^er^dn. On the contrary, he was patient to the verge of meekness, as capital is likely to be when it is surrounded by rifles. But his situation was intolerable, and after successive attempts at peaceful agitation, and numerous humble petitions to the Volksraad, he began at last to realise that he would never obtain redress unless he could find some way of winning it for himself.