The South African War reappraised 9781526121523

Citation preview

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

EDITED BY DONAL LOWRY

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

General editor John M. MacKenzie

When the ‘Studies in Imperialism’ series was founded by Professor John M. MacKenzie more than thirty years ago, emphasis was laid upon the conviction that ‘imperialism as a cultural phenomenon had as significant an effect on the dominant as on the subordinate societies’. With well over a hundred titles now published, this remains the prime concern of the series. Cross-disciplinary work has indeed appeared covering the full spectrum of cultural phenomena, as well as examining aspects of gender and sex, frontiers and law, science and the environment, language and literature, migration and patriotic societies, and much else. Moreover, the series has always wished to present comparative work on European and American imperialism, and particularly welcomes the submission of books in these areas. The fascination with imperialism, in all its aspects, shows no sign of abating, and this series will continue to lead the way in encouraging the widest possible range of studies in the field. Studies in Imperialism is fully organic in its development, always seeking to be at the cutting edge, responding to the latest interests of scholars and the needs of this everexpanding area of scholarship.

The South African War reappraised

STUDIES IN IMPERIALISM Britain in China Community, culture and colonialism, 1900–1949

Robert Bickers

Western medicine as contested knowledge ed. Andrew Cunningham and Bridie Andrews

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Imperial cities Landscape, display and identity ed. Felix Driver and David Gilbert Unfit for heroes Reconstruction and soldier settlement in the Empire between the wars Kent Fedorowich Emigration from Scotland between the wars Opportunty or exile! Marjory Harper Empire and sexuality The British experience Ronald Hyam ‘An Irish Empire?’ Aspects of Ireland and the British Empire ed. Keith Jeffery The empire of nature Hunting, conservation and British imperialism John M. MacKenzie Propaganda and empire The manipulation of British public opinion, 1880–1960 John M. MacKenzie Imperialism and popular culture ed. John M. MacKenzie Gender and imperialism Clare Midgley Guardians of empire The armed forces of the colonial powers, c. 1700–1964 ed. David Omissi and David Killingray Colonial masculinity The ‘manly Englishman’ and the ‘effeminate Bengali’ Mrinalini Sinha The imperial game Cricket, culture and society ed. Brian Stoddart and Keith A. R Sandiford Jute and empire The Calcutta jute wallahs and the landscapes of empire Gordon T. Stewart The French empire at war, 1940–45 Martin Thomas Travellers in Africa British travelogues, 1850–1900 Tim Youngs Forthcoming New frontiers Imperialism’s new communities in East Asia 1842–1952 Robert Bickers and Christian Henriot France in Algeria 1830–1962 From colonialism to independence Martin Evans Aviation and Empire Gordon Pirie Imperialism and music Jeffrey Richards

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

The South African War reappraised edited by Donal Lowry

MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS Manchester

Copyright © Donal Lowry 2000 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher.

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Published by MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS ALTRINCHAM STREET, MANCHESTER, M1 7JA, UK www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN

0 7190 5258 0 hardback 0 7190 5825 2 paperback

First published 2000 06 05 04 03 02 01 00

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset in Trump Medieval by Northern Phototypesetting Co Ltd, Bolton Printed in Great Britain by Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd, Midsomer Norton

CONTENTS

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

General editor’s introduction — page vii Notes on contributors — page ix Acknowledgements — page xii 1

Introduction: not just a ‘teatime war’ Donal Lowry

page 1

2

A century of controversy over origins Iain R. Smith

23

3

Journalism as active politics: Flora Shaw, The Times and South Africa Dorothy O. Helly and Helen Callaway

50

4

The Times at war, 1899–1902 Jacqueline Beaumont

67

5

‘Intermediate’ imperialism and the test of Empire: Milner’s ‘excentric’ High Commision in South Africa John Benyon

84

6

Boer attitudes to Africans in wartime Fransjohan Pretorius

104

The Cape Afrikaners and the British Empire from the Jameson Raid to the South African War Mordechai Tamarkin

121

African attitudes to Britain and the Empire before and after the South African War Christopher Saunders

140

‘Hamlet with the Prince of Denmark left out’?: the South African War, Empire and India Balasubramanyam Chandramohan

150

Pricking the ‘non-conformist conscience’: religion against the South African War Greg Cuthbertson

169

11 Kruger’s farmers, Strathcona’s Horse, Sir George Clarke’s camels and the Kaiser’s battleships: the impact of the South African War on imperial defence Keith Jeffery

188

7

8 9

10

12

‘The Boers were the beginning of the end’?: the wider impact of the South African War Donal Lowry Index — 247

203

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

GENERAL EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

In the relatively remote southern city of Invercargill, New Zealand, a magnificent neo-classical troopers’ memorial stands on the intersection of Dee and Tay streets. The visitor who, quite naturally, assumed that this commemorated the First World War would be wrong. In fact, it was unveiled in 1908 in memory of the New Zealanders fallen in the Boer War. That memorial, together with others around the former British Empire, illustrates well the manner in which the South African War became a major imperial and indeed global set of events. Moreover, the extensive debate about the causes, course and consequences of the war, which broke out contemporaneously with it, brought southern African history firmly into the mainstream of an international historiography. It has been a historiography with complex political and economic ramifications. The debate has remained fraught and lively: the Boer War has been seen by many, and in diverse ways, to illuminate the nature of British imperialism at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In recent times, we have become more aware of the war’s significance in women’s history, through the contrasting activities of Flora Shaw, Emily Hobhouse and Millicent Garrett Fawcett, through the foundation of the Victoria League in London, through the stirring consciousness of both white and black women in South Africa, not to mention the work of the many nurses who served and died there. Despite all that has been written about the Boer War, much remains to be said. This volume touches on a number of fresh areas. Given the old adage about the first casualty of war being truth, and given the notion that wars are not so much about what actually happens as about what people think is happening, the role of the press remains central. Several of the contributions open up new insights into the activities of the press in relation to the war. New ethnic perspectives are explored, such as the elite African vision of the British Empire, the relationship between Boer combatants and Africans, the complex stance of the Cape Afrikaners, and the ideas and involvement of Indians. In addition to a major historiographical survey, the volume also includes such wider issues as the role of the war in British strategic thinking and army planning and the strangely, if not dangerously, anomalous position of the High Commissioner. A chapter on the dissident voices within the non-conformist churches reveals both how fiercely the war was opposed and how relatively isolated such resistance was. Yet much still remains to be studied. The other respect in which the Boer War entered the social and cultural bloodstream of the British Empire was through popular culture. The celebrations of the relief of Mafeking and of other events of the war took place in cities and towns in Britain and throughout the Empire. We need a comparative study of these remarkable popular expressions of celebration, which cannot simply be rejected as the [ vii ]

GENERAL EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

mindless carousings of a jingo crowd. Prisoners of war are frequently another obscure area of military history. Boer prisoners were exiled to India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), St Helena and Bermuda. A few of them stayed. Another fascinating study remains to be pursued here. It is to be hoped that this volume will open up these and other areas of research.

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

John M. MacKenzie

[ viii ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

JACQUELINE BEAUMONT is a visiting Research Fellow in the School of Humanities, Oxford Brookes University. She returned to full-time historical research in 1996 after retiring from the Civil Service. She has written on censorship of the British press during the South African War and is currently writing a book on the role of the press during the war. JOHN BENYON was until 1998 Professor of History at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg. He has published on the mechanism of High Commissionership in South Africa, including Proconsul and Paramountcy in South Africa: The High Commission, British Supremacy and the SubContinent, 1806–1910 (1980). HELEN CALLAWAY is a former Director of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research on Women at Queen Elizabeth House in the University of Oxford. She is the author of Gender, Culture and Empire: European Women in Colonial Nigeria (1987), and co-editor of Anthropology and Autobiography (1992) and Caught Up in Conflict: Women’s Responses to Political Strife (1986). She is currently writing, with Dorothy O. Helly, a biography of Flora Shaw/Lady Lugard. BALASUBRAMANYAM CHANDRAMOHAN is Senior Lecturer in PostColonial Studies in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Luton. He has also taught at universities in India, Algeria and Switzerland. His publications include A Study of Trans-Ethnicity in Modem South Africa: The Writings of Alex La Guma, 1925–1985 (New York, 1992). He is currently working on a history of Indian overseas writing, with special reference to indentured labour migration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. GREG CUTHBERTSON teaches History at the University of South Africa, Pretoria. He has published in the fields of religious history, comparative USSouth African historiography and war and society. He is an immediate past editor of the South African Historical Journal and is an international contributing editor of the Journal of American History. DOROTHY O. HELLY is Professor Emerita of History and Women’s Studies at Hunter College and the Graduate School, City University of New York. Her published works include Livingstone’s Legacy: Horace Waller and [ ix ]

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Victorian Mythmaking (1987), Gendered Domains: Rethinking the Public and Private in Women’s History (1992) and Women’s Realities, Women’s Choices: An Introduction to Women’s Studies. With Helen Callaway she published ‘Crusader for Empire: Flora Shaw/Lady Lugard’, in N. Chaudhuri and M. Strobel (eds), Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance (1992) and both are currently working on a full-length biography of Flora Shaw. KEITH JEFFERY is Professor of Modern History at the University of Ulster at Jordanstown. His recent publications include ‘An Irish Empire’? Aspects of Ireland and the British Empire (editor, Manchester University Press Studies in Imperialism, 1996) and A Military History of Ireland (joint editor, Cambridge pbk edn, 1997). He was the 1998 Lees Knowles Lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge. DONAL LOWRY is Senior Lecturer in History at Oxford Brookes University. A graduate of University College Dublin and Rhodes University, he has also taught at Rhodes University, University College Chester and the University of York. He has published articles and essays on Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, loyalist and anti-colonial movements in the British Empire, and Irish foreign policy in the Commonwealth, 1922–49. He is currently engaged in a book-length study of ideological links between British colonies of settlement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. FRANSJOHAN PRETORIUS is Professor of History at the University of Pretoria. He is the author of several books on the South African War, including Kommandolewe tydens die Anglo-Boereoolog, 1899–1902, which has received three non-fiction awards. An English edition, Life on Commando during the Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902 was published in 1999. In 1998 he was awarded the Stals Prixe for Cultural History by the Suid Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, and he currently serves on the Central Committee for the Commemoration of the South African War. CHRISTOPHER SAUNDERS is Associate Professor of History at the University of Cape Town. Educated at the University of Cape Town and the University of Oxford, he is the author of Making the South African Past (1988), Historical Dictionary of South Africa (1983, new edn 1998), Writing History (1992) and many articles on topics in South African and Namibian history. His special fields of interest include historiography, urban history and the recent political history of southern Africa. IAIN R. SMITH is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Warwick. He is the author of The Origins of the South African War (1996) and, with [x]

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Christopher Saunders, of the section on ‘Southern Africa 1795–1910’ in The Oxford History of the British Empire, volume 3 (1999). MORDECHAI TAMARKIN is a graduate of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and of the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London, and is Professor of History at the University of Telaviv. His research areas include colonial and post-colonial Kenya, the decolonisation of Zimbabwe, ethnicity and the state in Africa, the late nineteenth-century Cape Colony and ethnic relations in post-Communist eastern Europe. His publications include The Making of Zimbabwe: Decolonization in Regional and International Politics (1990) and Cecil Rhodes and the Cape Afrikaners (1990).

[ xi ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The idea for this volume originated in March 1996, when I convened a conference on the subject of ‘South Africa 1895–1921: Test of Empire’, for the Humanities Research Centre, Oxford Brookes University. The purpose of the gathering was to examine the relationship between South Africa and the imperial and wider world from the Jameson Raid of 1895–96 to the aftermath of the First World War. Of particular concern was the international impact of the South African War itself, as well as the allegiances generated within southern Africa by British imperial power. The majority of papers in this volume, initially presented at the conference, concentrate on this theme. I should like to thank a number of people who assisted in the genesis of this volume. I am grateful to those who attended the conference, chaired various panels and contributed comments to the discussion. Most importantly, thanks are due to the contributors to this volume for their commitment to the project. In particular, I should like to thank Emeritus Professor J. O. Baylen, Dr Julia Bush, Professor William Beinart, Professor Apollon Davidson, Dr John Darwin, Dr Kent Fedorowich, Professor Irina Filatova, Dr Deborah Gaitskell, Professor David Killingray, Professor Donal McCracken, Professor Shula Marks, Dr Alex May, Professor Andrew Porter, Dr Hilary Sapire, Dr Roger Stearn, Dr Keith Surridge, Dr Stanley Trapido, and Dr Lori Williamson. I am also indebted to Professor Elize Botha, Dr Saul Dubow, Professor Ian Fletcher, Professor Roy Foster, Dr Andrew Thompson, and my colleagues in the History Department at Oxford Brookes University, Professor Anne Digby, Dr David Nash and John Stewart, who provided encouragement and practical assistance throughout the conference and the preparation of this volume. David Elsmore, Catriona Potter and Pauline Tobin gave me invaluable administrative and secretarial assistance. Special thanks are also due to Ton Vosloo and Hannes van Zyl of Tafelberg Publishers Ltd, and to Western Wines Ltd for their assistance in convening the conference. I am very grateful to Professor John Mackenzie, editor of the Studies in Imperialism series, for enthusiastically supporting the idea of a volume on this theme and for his encouragement and valuable comments. My editors at Manchester University Press, Vanessa Graham and Louise Edwards, and my copyeditor, Monica Kendall, gave me enormous practical assistance. Finally, many thanks are also due to my wife, Elizabeth Lowry, for her critical advice and support.

[ xii ]

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction: not just a ‘teatime war’ Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Donal Lowry

October began as months do; their entrance is, in itself, an unostentatious and soundless affair, without outward signs and tokens … Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols. 1 (Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, 1924)

The guns of October At 6.15 on the morning of 10 October 1899, Joseph Chamberlain, British Secretary of State for the Colonies, was awakened from his sleep to read an ultimatum just received from President Kruger’s government in Pretoria. ‘They have done it’, Chamberlain exclaimed with some relief, since it pre-empted an ultimatum which he had been preparing to send to Kruger. Now the Boers could be cast in the role of aggressor. In Pretoria the Union flag was hauled down over the British Consulate and its officials departed for British territory, along with throngs of uitlanders (foreigners) resident in the Transvaal who felt endangered by the imminent state of war. Within two days, the ultimatum having expired, the South African Republic (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State, two of the world’s smallest states, were at war with the British, then rulers of the largest empire in the world. Outside the subcontinent, it was widely expected that the conflict would be brief, with newspapers in London’s Fleet Street confidently predicting that this would be just a ‘teatime war’. Sir Alfred Milner, British High Commissioner at the Cape, who had advocated the ‘forward’ policy that had precipitated the conflict, was privately more cautious, as he told Lord Selborne, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies: We have a bad time before us, and the Empire is about to support the greatest strain put upon it since the [Indian] Mutiny. Who can say what may [1]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

befall us before that [British] Army Corps arrives? But we are all working in good heart, and having so long foreseen the possibility of this Armageddon, we mean to do our best in it, though it begins rather unfortunately for us. 2 After all have not the great struggles of England mostly so begun?

Even Milner, however, could not foresee just how great a strain this struggle would place not only on the Empire but on the imperial idea itself, for this became the largest and costliest war waged by Britain between the Napoleonic Wars and the Great War of 1914–18, even including the Crimea. It would take three years, more than £200 million and between 250,000 and 450,000 British and colonial troops to defeat an army of 45,000 to 88,000 mounted peasants, amateur soldiers aged from under fourteen to over seventy. Between 10,000 and 30,000 Africans were armed by the British in the course of the war and over 100,000 African and Coloured South Africans were required to transport the imperial forces over huge distances. These campaigns combined traditional nineteenthcentury military tactics with new technology which would anticipate much twentieth-century warfare. The war demanded huge numbers of horses and mules, forcing the British to search the world for supplies. Less traditional equipment, such as field telephones, barbed wire, blockhouses and aerial (balloon) reconnaissance, was also employed by the British, while the combination of trenches, heavy artillery and smokeless highvelocity magazine rifle fire anticipated so many of the wars of the following century. From mid-1900 to May 1902, as the British faced a growing guerrilla challenge from the Boers, the conflict became a total war in which Boer civilians came to be seen as actual or potential enemies. The British resorted to farm-burning and concentration camps, which resulted in the deaths, largely as a result of poor camp administration, unhygienic conditions and neglect, of nearly 28,000 Boer civilians, of whom approximately 22,000 were children and 4,000 were women. More than 14,000 Africans, a tenth of the African refugee population, died in other camps, where conditions were generally worse than those in white concentration camps. Roughly 7,000 Boer combatants and 22,000 British soldiers died, three-quarters of the latter from disease. The tactics employed by the British bitterly divided public opinion in Britain, where they were denounced by the Liberal leader, Sir Henry CampbellBannerman, as ‘methods of barbarism’, and these weighed heavily in the propaganda war waged by both sides for the support of world opinion.3 As A. J. P. Taylor opined on the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the war, the conflict caused in British domestic politics ‘a bitterness without parallel since the great Reform Bill and never equalled since except in 1914 during the Ulster [loyalist] rebellion … “Pro-Boer” was a more [2]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

INTRODUCTION: NOT JUST A ‘TEATIME WAR’

opprobrious epithet than ever “pro-German” became in either German war’.4 The war ‘started the word imperialism on a new Continental career’, and it inspired an anti-war literature which would to an extent anticipate that of the First World War.5 By the end of the war in May 1902, tens of thousands of Boers and their African servants were in concentration camps, and large tracts of the country had been laid waste, or were in the hands of Africans who were re-establishing their control over territory lost to the Boers in previous decades. Many commandos changed sides, so that by the end of the war perhaps one in four Boers still in the field was serving in the imperial forces. The British, anxious to end an embarrassing and costly conflict, granted generous terms to the Boers. Far from exacting an indemnity, the British agreed to pay £3 million for war damages, and the official position of the Dutch language was guaranteed, along with the return of prisoners of war, subject to their signing an oath of allegiance to the Crown. More crucially, under Clause 8 of the Treaty of Vereeniging, it was agreed that the question of extending the franchise to Africans in the two former republics would be postponed until after the restoration of responsible government. On the other hand, the Boers formally surrendered sovereignty of the republics. This was the ‘British moment’ in South Africa, a period in which theoretically the victors 6 were free to remake the country as they pleased. Within eight years of the Boer surrender, the two British territories of the Cape Colony and Natal were joined with the defeated republics in the Union of South Africa, a self-governing dominion within the Empire, a ‘sister state’ of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. During these years, the British attempted to remake South Africa to suit imperial needs. Milner, assisted by his ‘Kindergarten’ of specially chosen, likeminded young men, set about reconstructing the mining and agricultural industries. Within a year, nearly £19 million had been paid by the British in war damages, grants and resettlement loans. Nearly 75,000 Chinese workers were scandalously imported to make up the shortfall of African labour in the mines and worked in conditions of near slavery. The railway networks were amalgamated, and a customs union and an InterColonial Council were established. Sir Godfrey Langden was appointed to head a South African Native Affairs Commission which would draw up a native policy to cover the two former republics, the Cape Colony and Natal. Milner’s attempts to anglicise South Africa through British immigration and the educational system failed, however, and Afrikaner political power recovered far more quickly than the British anticipated, spurred on not least by the issue of Chinese labour. In an exercise of hard-headed mutual self-interest disguised as a ‘Magnanimous Gesture’, Britain in 1906–07 restored self-government to the Transvaal and the [3]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Orange River Colony.7 The issue of Indian immigration and the outbreak of the Zulu or Bambatha Rebellion in 1906 fostered a greater sense of common interest among the formerly warring ‘white races’, while African solidarity was encouraged by the ruthless suppression of the Zulu revolt.8 During these years the foundations of a modern capitalist state were created and the essential elements of white supremacy and segregation enshrined in the constitution and politics of the new dominion.9 After 1910, Britain effectively abdicated its responsibility to uphold the rights of African, Coloured and Indian citizens of South Africa to the new dominion government in Pretoria, rights which Britain had claimed to uphold in the South African War. Following Union, while African and Coloured territorial and electoral rights were eroded, a ‘new South Africa’ was presented in imperial and international circles as a miracle of ‘racial reconciliation’ between the two white races, a unity symbolised by the two identical towers and concave colonnade of the Union Buildings in Pretoria, designed by Cecil Rhodes’s architect, Sir Herbert Baker.10

South Africa’s ‘Great War’, or an imperial ‘little war’? It is not surprising, therefore, that the origins of the South African War should have attracted more attention from historians and aroused more controversy than perhaps any other issue in South African historiography.11 Even the question of what term to use to describe the war has provoked argument. It has been called the ‘Anglo-Boer War’ or the ‘Boer War’, but these terms do not convey the divisions among Afrikaners during the conflict, and, moreover, they exclude the involvement of African, Coloured and Indian South Africans. To Afrikaners it has been described as die Engelseoorlog (‘the English War’), or die Tweede Vryheidsoorlog (‘the Second War of Freedom’ – as distinct from ‘the First War of Freedom’/’First Anglo-Boer War’/’Anglo-Transvaal War’ of 1880–81), or even Milner se oorlog – ‘Milner’s war’.12 The term ‘South African War’ has generally been used throughout this volume because, firstly, it was the title most widely used at the time of the war, when the term ‘South African’ (used much as ‘southern African’ is today) described the geographical extent of the conflict. Secondly, the term underlines an aspect of the war which historians are increasingly coming to appreciate: namely, that it was in some respects a ‘civil war’. Opinion on the war was as divided among white Afrikaners, Africans, ‘Coloureds’ and English-speaking white South Africans as these communities were from each other. As Bill Nasson puts it, this was South Africa’s ‘Great War’: ‘a war which would be crucial to the historical formation of [4]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

INTRODUCTION: NOT JUST A ‘TEATIME WAR’

modern South Africa as were the Civil Wars to England and the United States of America’.13 In Chapter Two, Iain Smith surveys a century of controversy surrounding the origins of the war and in particular the argument that gold rather than geopolitical or strategic factors shaped British policy towards the Transvaal in the drift towards war. He argues that such an assertion cannot be supported by the archival evidence. Unless new evidence can be found to support the contrary case, the gulf between these approaches is likely to remain as wide as ever.14 As with other major conflicts, less attention has been paid to the consequences of the conflict and particularly its impact on the creation of the Union in 1910. It is likely that this period will now attract greater scholarly concentration, and become a major focus for debate.15 In the drift towards war and after its outbreak, the power of public opinion, as Milner in particular was keenly aware, was central. Media warfare was a developing feature of the age. It had played a central part in the Spanish-American War in 1898, and this blurring between war and journalism is further illustrated by the number of soldier-journalists serving on both sides of the conflict, among them Winston Churchill, Erskine Childers, Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil, Colonel Eugène Maximov and Colonel Arthur Lynch.16 The South African War, it should be noted, was one of a number of conflicts of the 1890s and early 1900s fought by expansionist imperial powers in the full or partial view of the world’s press; among them, the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, the Italian defeat by the Ethiopians in 1896, the British victory over the Mahdists at Omdurman in 1898, the Chinese Boxer Uprising of 1900, the Spanish-American War of 1898, the Philippine-American War of 1899–1904, the American-backed secession of Panama from Colombia in 1903 to ensure American control of the Canal, the Herero and Maji Maji revolts in German South-West Africa and East Africa in 1904–06, and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. A number of reporters directly experienced more than one of these conflicts.17 Winston Churchill had covered the Spanish counterinsurgency in Cuba in 1895 for the Daily Graphic, and the Australian Arthur Lynch had reported on the Ashanti campaign of 1898 for the Evening News, before forming the Second Irish Transvaal Brigade in 1900. E. F. Knight had served as a war correspondent in Matabeleland, Madagascar, Sudan, Greece and Cuba. After losing an arm in the South African War, he went on to cover the Russo-Japanese War and Turkish campaigns in the Balkans.18 Two contributions to the volume focus on this aspect of the conflict. In Chapter Three, Dorothy O. Helly and Helen Callaway portray the remarkable South African career of Flora Shaw, the first woman to gain a [5]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

professional position on The Times, its first and only Colonial Editor and the most highly paid woman journalist in London at that time. Shaw had a wide command of complex political and economic issues and, although she later joined the anti-suffrage movement, she thought of her journalism as ‘active politics without the fame’. Like Alfred Milner, she worked under W. T. Stead at the Pall Mall Gazette, where she was impressed by the political power of journalism. Her articles did much to prepare British opinion for confrontation with the Boers, and the evidence suggests that she was at the heart of the Jameson Raid conspiracy, if not the link between Rhodes, whom she hero-worshipped, and the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain. She strongly supported Milner’s policy in 1899, and tried to sway international opinion in February 1900 with a series of articles on Great Britain and the Dutch republics which were translated into French, German, Hungarian, Swedish and Spanish. In all, 40,000 copies were distributed in Britain, Europe, the dominions and the USA. This was the only serious attempt to meet European and American pro-Boers on their own home ground. In Chapter Four, Jacqueline Beaumont examines the expensive operation mounted by The Times in order to cover the war, at a time when it was struggling with falling circulation. The paper remained the most influential paper in Fleet Street, an importance accepted by editors of other newspapers and by its political opponents. She describes the immense practical problems in satisfying an almost insatiable public appetite for news, including an ever-changing team of reporters and official censorship, which was applied haphazardly and often made reporting meaningless, especially after Kitchener became commander-in-chief. In Chapter Five, John Benyon revisits the character and function of Milner as High Commissioner. While acknowledging the need not to overstress the role of personality, Benyon echoes J. A. S. Grenville in describing the combination of Milner and Chamberlain as a ‘fateful partnership’. He analyses their common Liberal Unionism, ‘constructive imperialism’ and mentality of social engineering born out of the crisis over Irish home rule in 1886, and he examines the evolution of the office of High Commissioner in South Africa before Milner’s arrival and how it differed from other proconsular posts in the Empire. For all of Milner’s apparent power, however, not least in helping to bring the about war, Benyon suggests that local South African circumstances after 1900 proved too much for an office which was now, with the conquest of the Boer republics, theoretically even more powerful. Milner himself admitted that he was ‘building on sand’. An enormous number of books about the war were written during the twentieth century, mostly for the popular market, and the volume of [6]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

INTRODUCTION: NOT JUST A ‘TEATIME WAR’

production can be expected to increase dramatically in the centenary years, 1999–2002, to cater for public demand. Much recent scholarly research, however, has yet to filter through to counter the general perception that the conflict was simply a ‘white man’s war’, or as Rayne Kruger put it in his popular account of 1959 (still in print): ‘a war fought across the breadth of a vast region, the majority of whose inhabitants were mere spectators’.19 During the last three decades of the twentieth century there was a historiographical revolution in scholarly approaches to the war and it is now no longer possible to depict the struggle simply as a war between the British and the Boers.20 As Jeremy Krikler, Bernard Mbenga and others have shown, at the close of the war, large areas of the Transvaal were reverting to African control, as local conflicts with different and deeper roots were fired by the collapse of Boer authority. Other scholars are currently engaged in detailed research into the impact of the war and the involvement of Africans in other regions of South Africa.21 In Chapter Six, Fransjohan Pretorius describes the impact of this participation on the development of Boer attitudes to Africans during the war, as well as the extensive role played by Africans in the Boer forces. African involvement sometimes led to intense friendships between them and their Boer employers, but, as he suggests, it would always remain an unequal relationship. In hindsight, it seems remarkable that it ever became possible to portray the war as a conflict between whites. Among the reasons given by the Boers for their decision to surrender at Vereeniging were the extensive African military campaigns being waged within the borders of the republics. The Times official historian of the war noted that Africans also played a ‘by no means unimportant part in the Boer military system’. He acknowledged their fighting role, as well as their employment as spies, transport drivers, trench-diggers and servants, and he estimated that 10,000 Africans were attached to the Boer forces on a regular basis.22 In 1903, Jan Smuts warned the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, about ‘the grave character of the Native question’ resulting from the circumstances of the war: [The] events of the late war, and especially the political and social upheaval to which it has led, have tended to unsettle the minds of the Natives and to create a spirit or feeling among them which must be a matter of grave concern to the white population of South Africa. [We] feel that it is necessary by a firm though a just administration of the law to make it plain to the Natives that the war altered the relations between the two white 23 races but not between the white and coloured population of the country.

[7]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

By 1928, however, the South African delegate to the League of Nations Disarmament Conference in Geneva could declare without any apparent irony: We have had wars in South Africa between civilised peoples, but, thank God, the savage hordes of Africa have never been dragged into those wars … Is it too much to hope that, under the guidance of the League, we shall, in the near future, meet in order to agree among ourselves that those … whose well-being and development form a sacred trust of civilisation, shall not be used to strengthen military forces which are already deemed by many to be 24 excessive for the purposes of peace and goodwill in the world?

Another challenge to the ‘white man’s war’ approach to the conflict has come from research into the role of women. Although white women were not enfranchised for a generation after the war, they played a central part in the conflict. At the outbreak of war, the responsibility for maintaining and defending the farms, and the nursing of the wounded fell on Boer women and, with the destruction by the British of some 30,000 farmhouses, this burden became even more acute in the concentration camps, where 4,000 Boer adult women died. Helena Wagner of Zeerust is reputed to have fought in male disguise alongside the commandos in Natal. Hendrina Joubert, wife of the Transvaal Commandant-General, was said to have advised her husband in planning his military campaigns, while Annie Botha, wife of General Louis Botha, was used as an intermediary in negotiations between Roberts and Kitchener and the Boer leadership. Generally, the British attributed Boer determination to continue the struggle to the tenacity of the women, and the military high command considered deporting leading Pretoria women from the Transvaal. African women also bore the brunt of life in African ‘refugee camps’, where conditions were even worse than in the white concentration camps. White English-speaking South African women shared the privations of men in the sieges of Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking, as did Russian and other foreign nurses on the Boer side. Dorothea Fairbridge helped to support the imperial war effort with the foundation of the Guild of Loyal Women, while Olive Schreiner did much to publicise the reasons for her opposition to the war. At an international level, women also exerted a profound influence on public opinion on both sides of the war, from Queen Victoria and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands to Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Rosa Luxemburg, Emily Hobhouse and, as already mentioned, Flora Shaw.25 A large body of research is currently being undertaken on topics ranging from nursing to concentration camp life, the publication of which should shed far greater light on the impact of women during these years.26 [8]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

INTRODUCTION: NOT JUST A ‘TEATIME WAR’

Recent research on the war has also highlighted an aspect of the conflict which had become somewhat obscured by wider historiographical developments during the last thirty-years of the twentieth century. In the 1950s and 1960s, as much of what had been regarded as ‘Imperial and Commonwealth History’ broke up into national or regional histories of the successor states of the British Empire, historians in South Africa, Canada, Australasia, India and in other parts of Africa, reacted against what was regarded as a metropolefocused, ‘top-down’ school of history, in which the imperial centre both proposed and disposed of imperial policy, and relegated the so-called ‘colonial periphery’ to the role of little more than a passive observer in the process. The inhabitants of this ‘periphery’, particularly those outside the corridors of power – indigenous peoples, women and the poor – were thus deprived of meaningful historical participation. More than thirty years on, South African historiography can be said to have long shed such a ‘peripheral’ perspective. Some scholars, however, have remained concerned that what remains of ‘imperial history’ might, however inadvertently, reconstruct a distorted imperial view of South African history and thus reproduce, and reintroduce into academic 27 approaches, a colonial mentality and outlook. Yet imperial history, as it developed during the 1970s to 1990s, represented not least by other volumes in the Studies in Imperialism series, has much to gain from a dialogue with the South African historiographical tradition about the nature of imperialism and segregation. In the 1970s and 1980s Donald Denoon alerted Australian historians to the value of comparative history of settler-dominated societies.28 Over the same period, anthropologists, historians of art and social scientists became aware of the benefits of comparative work on South Africa and Australia.29 Other scholars have argued that empire in general and South Africa in particular played an essential part in the construction of ‘metropolitan’ Britishness in the twentieth century.30 Saul Dubow’s 1997 analysis of South African colonial nationalism in the years before Union, for example, also demonstrated the usefulness of comparative reference to other white-dominated British colonies, while retaining the centrality of regional distinctiveness, but as he pointed out, ‘the task of reintegrating imperial and indigenous South African histories in the post-South African War era is only beginning’.31 However much metropolitan authority may have been circumscribed by local conditions, it should be recalled that the coherence of the British Empire seemed real enough to many of those who lived within its borders, and this perception of metropolitan and imperial strength often informed the political actions of colonial subjects. Ironically, there remains a major gap in our understanding of [9]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

the white English-speaking South Africans, particularly those living in the Cape and Natal, the communities to which British officials primarily looked for support.32 Not only colonists of British and European origin, however, but ‘subject peoples’, largely excluded from equal treatment by local imperial authorities, looked to the Crown and Whitehall to uphold or enhance their rights. Membership of the Empire often produced deep allegiances based originally on self-interest or self-defence, but the term ‘collaboration’, with its somewhat pejorative Second World War connotations, does not always adequately convey the complex nature of these relationships and sentiments.33 Three contributors to this volume deal with the relationship of Cape Afrikaners, black South Africans and Indians in South Africa and India to the British Empire in the years before and after the South African War. As has already been noted, no community in South Africa in 1899–1902 was monolithic, least of all the Afrikaners, who were divided by region, class and allegiance. In Chapter Seven, Mordechai Tamarkin argues that Cape Afrikaner identity could combine local patriotism, a sense of solidarity with their republican cousins to the north, attachment to the economic benefits of imperial membership and a sincere sense of loyalty to the Crown. Before the Jameson Raid of 1895–96, Cecil Rhodes had been adept at courting such sentiment through his connections to J. H. Hofmeyr and the Afrikaner Bond. Even after the Raid, leading Cape Afrikaner politicians, including S. J. du Toit, the Afrikaans language activist, were reluctant to condemn Rhodes, until he demonstrated no sign of repentance. The Raid, then, was not the crucial turning point in the Cape Afrikaners’ relationship to the Empire.34 Cape Afrikaners had developed, Tamarkin argues, a liberal, ethnically inclusive, concept of empire which ran directly counter to the ‘race-patriotic’ vision of Alfred Milner. To Milner, the Cape Afrikaners, like the French Canadians, were not to be trusted, whatever their protestations of loyalty to the Crown. This prejudice continued to be shared, apparently, by General Louis Botha as Prime Minister of the Union, and the Governor-General, Lord Buxton, long after the war: Botha has always thought rather badly of the Cape Dutch as a whole, and often spoke to me privately about their action, or rather inaction, at the time of the Anglo-Boer War. He considered them in intelligence and courage greatly inferior to the Transvaal or Free State Dutch, and derided them as much too afraid for their own skins. I am inclined to think from what I have seen of the Dutch-speaking section, especially in the back-veldt parts of these three Provinces, that he is about right in his comparison. The Cape backveldt Dutch are more ignorant, more backward than their fellows in the other three Provinces, and a much smaller proportion of them can talk or 35 even understand English. [ 10 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

INTRODUCTION: NOT JUST A ‘TEATIME WAR’

In Chapter Eight, Christopher Saunders describes the developing allegiance of the African elite to the Empire and an ideal of imperial citizenship before and after the South African War. While America provided a model for self-help, he points out, imperial Britain was the African elite’s most important external reference point, and these sentiments remained prominent in the African press even after the disappointments of Union and into the 1920s. This sense of allegiance also motivated the African nationalist Sol Plaatje to plead the case for ‘the land of his fathers’ with British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, in 1919. Lloyd George, a Welsh-born erstwhile pro-Boer, was moved to write a strong letter on Plaatje’s behalf to his old friend, General Jan 36 Christiaan Smuts, but nothing came of the intervention. The intense sense of betrayal which followed the South African War was central to the development of African politics in the decade before Union and for a generation afterwards, and the Coloured population of the Cape felt a similar sense of disappointment.37 Such memories, however, died hard. When, after the outbreak of the Second World War, the veteran liberal politician Margaret Ballinger toured the Eastern Cape to try to drum up support for the war effort, she was asked by a speaker at New Brighton in Port Elizabeth: Why should we fight for you? We fought for you in the Boer War and you betrayed us to the Dutch. We fought for you in the last war. We died in France, in East Africa … and when it was over did anyone care about us? 38 What have we to fight for?

In Chapter Nine, Balasubramanyam Chandramohan examines the impact of the war on Indian allegiances in South Africa and in India. As in the case of the African elite, there was a traditional Indian elite belief in British justice and the potential benefits of imperial citizenship which stretched back to Queen Victoria’s Proclamation of 1858, and this conviction was encouraged not least by the young Mohandas K. Gandhi. South African Indians were reluctant to abandon their sense of imperial loyalty, which Gandhi managed to combine with admiration for Boer heroism, in spite of repeated disappointment, just as they were slow to recognise their common subordinate status with Africans within the 39 Union. Clearly, the war had a most profound impact on Afrikaner nationalism in the twentieth century, helping especially to unify a disparate people around a common experience. It was, however, a problematic element in nationalist mythology, often dividing as much as it unified.40 The fact that perhaps a quarter of all Boers in arms at the end of the war were fighting for the British added to the difficulty of employing it as a central myth. Although, according to Albert [ 11 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Grundlingh, those Boers who joined the British forces were reintegrated into Afrikaner society within a decade, it would be useful to know more about the processes of reconciliation and reintegration, given the hatred surrounding such people at the time.41 When the National Party came to power in 1948, the war became diminished in importance in the interests of white Anglo-Afrikaner unity. Nevertheless, white unity and a common anxiety about the African majority could not always dampen Anglo-Afrikaner nationalist animosity. Although Boer fears of African uprisings were instrumental in persuading them to surrender in 1902, and were clearly a factor encouraging the process of unification, these considerations did not dissuade significant numbers of Boers from joining an Afrikaner rebellion in 1914, or large numbers of white workers from taking part in major strikes between 1913 and 1922.42 It is important, moreover, not to underestimate the extent to which Afrikaner nationalists defined themselves against British imperialism in the three decades before 1948, and the mobilising, inflammatory power of memories of the war and of the camps – a memorial process, like the war itself, in which Afrikaner women were central.43 It should be recalled that in these decades, and as late as the 1950s, the terms ‘race’ and ‘racialism’ usually referred to the bitter animosity felt between English-speaking South Africans and Afrikaners, rather than to the wider relationship between the white minority as a whole and the black majority; this was usually described as the ‘Native Question’. In the interwar period, one-third of Afrikaners were classified as ‘poor white’, and almost two-thirds of Afrikaners were employed by English-speaking South Africans. In 1922, during the failed campaign to incorporate Southern Rhodesia into the Union, one opponent of the scheme, Mrs Boddington, publicly described Afrikaners as ‘neither black nor white’ but ‘mentally deficient’ and ‘really worse than animals’. Such views, with their racial overtones, were not uncommon among English-speaking South Africans in the years of the Depression.44 In 1930, N. J. van der Merwe, founder of the Republican Union within the National Party and as much a cause of political anxiety to his party leader, General Hertzog, as to the British, reflected the continuing Afrikaner sense of grievance: When I think of the struggle of the past, when I think of the thousands of sacrifices which today lie under the ground, of the women and children who today lie under the ground, of the women and children who died in the camps, of which I myself as a child was witness, when I think of more than one who died on the battlefield or even hung on the gallows, when I think of Steyn and de Wet, then I say: In truth, No! They did not die to see their

[ 12 ]

INTRODUCTION: NOT JUST A ‘TEATIME WAR’

posterity submit to the British Crown … Then I hear a voice cry out from 45 the bloodstained soil of my fatherland: ‘Trek on! Not far enough!’

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

The liberal journalist Marq de Villiers later recalled the childhood significance of such invocations of the memories of the camps: [We] would be taken once a year to the small rise outside town on which stood a simple stone obelisk … we all understood why we were there. The obelisk was a memorial raised to the women and children who died in the camps. It is perhaps the most emotional symbol the Afrikaners have, transcending the massive Voortrekker monument in Pretoria or the monument to the Afrikaans language erected outside Paarl. The Vrouemonument (Women’s Monument), as it is called, is a symbol of oppression; it is a symbol of the hatred of the world, of the imposition of alien ways, and most of all it is a symbol of how the outside world, the 46 British and Milner in particular, misunderstood the Afrikaner spirit.

The last three chapters deal with periods in which large bodies of opinion in that ‘outside world’ seemed to be on the side of the Afrikaner republicans rather than British imperialism. In Britain itself, the churches played a central role in the formation of public opinion. J. A. Hobson, Liberal critic of the conflict, included them in an almost conspiratorial triumvirate of ‘Press, Platform and Pulpit’.47 In Chapter Ten, Greg Cuthbertson demonstrates that the term ‘pro-Boer’ is problematic when it comes to describing the attitude of non-conformists who were more antiwar than pro-Boer and who were more concerned with the apparent injustice of the British cause than with weighing the justice of the Boer campaign. Non-conformist opinion was deeply divided, moreover, and it included much vociferous support for the war. He also shows that the failure of the anti-war faction within non-conformity was due not only to internal divisions but also to middle-class pretensions and declining influence within the working class. While non-conformists had been generally opposed to Britain’s imperial expansion before the 1880s, by the late 1890s many had become keen imperialists, and the pro-Boer faction was often associated in the public mind with eccentrics, ‘vegetarians’, pacifists and temperance enthusiasts. Cuthbertson concludes that only a remnant actively opposed the war. Dr John Clifford, Baptist leader and Fabian, and Dr John Watson, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of England, were unusual in their determination that African rights should not be forgotten. Nevertheless, Clifford, in common with many of those critical of the war, believed in a benevolent empire. During the SpanishAmerican War of 1898, widely regarded as a Protestant crusade against a ‘medieval’ Catholic power, he told his congregation that the conflict had ‘converted the people of the USA from what I may call an insular power [ 13 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

into an imperial power; using that term in the best sense’.48 On the other hand, the moral power of nonconformity should not be underestimated. It assisted in providing a moral spotlight on imperialism in these years and, it should be recalled, it was from non-conformists that Gandhi learned his Christianity which he incorporated into his eclectic political philosophy.49 Turning from the ‘church militant’ to the ‘Empire militant’, in Chapter Eleven, Keith Jeffery examines the impact of the South African War on imperial defence. He argues that if the war demonstrated British weakness in the short term, it also conveyed the determination to uphold imperial authority and prestige regardless of world opinion. Moreover, while the conflict made little impact on British strategic thinking, British defeats and revelations about the physical deterioration of the nation gave much greater urgency to the question of army reform. The war also encouraged a much greater assertiveness on the part of the self-governing colonies and dominions. Indeed, in spite of its profound political impact, the war has been all but forgotten in the public memories of the former dominions, even in Canada, where the war had made such a crucial political impression, and where the last surviving British veteran of the war died in 1993 aged 111.50 The Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood vividly captures this forgetfulness in a description of a Toronto street in the late 1980s: I continue along Queen Street … Right here there’s a group of statues, coppery green, with black smears running down them like metal blood: a seated woman holding a sceptre, with three young soldiers marching forward grouped around her, the legs wound with bandage-like puttees, defending the Empire, their faces earnest, doomed, frozen into time. Above them on a stone tablet stands another woman, this time with angel wings: Victory or Death, or maybe both. This monument is in honour of the South African War, ninety years ago, more or less. I wonder if anyone remembers that war, 51 or if anyone in all these cars barging forward ever even looks.

The wider impact of the war is surveyed in the final chapter of this volume, which examines the extraordinary rise of pro-Boer movements in Europe and America during the South African War, fed by a mixture of Anglophobia and a highly idealised image of the Afrikaners. The Boers could be recreated in the image of a far wider ideological range of European and American opinion – from anti-industrial aristocrats to socialists and anarchists – than in the case of the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. International brigades were formed to fight for the Boers, and the struggle was keenly followed by figures as diverse as Rosa Luxemburg, Mark Twain, Millicent Fawcett, Sun Yat-sen, Tsar Nicholas II, the young Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the aged Pope Leo XIII. The [ 14 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

INTRODUCTION: NOT JUST A ‘TEATIME WAR’

war was, moreover, twinned in contemporary imperial and anti-imperial minds with the Spanish-American War of 1898. Aided by a rapidly globalising and syndicated system of world news, the conflict was keenly followed by Theodore Roosevelt and other leading American politicians, and for a time it had a disruptive effect on the internal ethnic politics of America. The pro-Boer movements were remarkable examples of the power of public opinion, but the processes of forgetting these connections and the international decline of the romanticised image of the Boers were equally extraordinary. Indeed, it is difficult to find in the twentieth century an equivalent disintegration into pariah status of such a once near-universally acclaimed, almost legendary, media-built reputation. On the British side, too, the conflict drew volunteers from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as the United States. If the South African War offered the British little practice for the immensely greater conflict which erupted in 1914, it became the chief political and military template for the handling of the issue of Irish independence in the years 1916 to 1921 and beyond. More generally, as Keith Surridge has argued, the South African War had a lasting impact on all future counterinsurgency campaigns, providing the model particularly for the operation of civil-military relations.52 The conflict provided crucial formative influences in the lives of individuals who would later achieve prominence on an international and inter-imperial stage, from Winston Churchill and Leo Amery to Baden-Powell and Mahatma Gandhi. If the Boers were not, as the writer James Joyce fancied, ‘the beginning of the end of the British Empire’, in the revolutionary inspiration they provided to other nationalist groups, they played no insignificant part in its evolution and ‘downfall’. If Gandhi learned his Christianity from the non-conformists, the Irish guerrilla leader Michael Collins was inspired by the guerrilla warfare of General Christiaan de Wet, with whom he corresponded. Collins in turn inspired Jewish guerrillas in the Palestine Mandate, where the latter confronted British veterans of the South African and Irish conflicts, and he also influenced the Indian nationalist Chandra Bose. De Wet, General Koos de la Rey, Smuts and Gandhi also fascinated the young Nelson Mandela. In 1963, among incriminating documents found in his possession before the Rivonia Trial was a quotation from de Wet: ‘I would rather stand among my own people in a manure heap than live in a palace among strangers’.53 Later, the Afrikaner nationalists’ universally reviled policy of apartheid, however, provided a central argument for the Empire’s shadowy afterlife in the form of the Commonwealth, with the end of apartheid hailed as the post-imperial organisation’s greatest success. The wider British Empire [ 15 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

thus provided an arena for the development of a community of ideas, linking both imperialists and anti-imperialists.

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

A century of amnesia? The chapters included in this volume represent only a small selection of work currently being undertaken on the war and its impact. Much new material will be published to coincide with the centenary of the South African War in 1999–2002 and it is hoped that this volume will add to the new perspectives which are emerging. Central to these historiographical developments will be the relationship of the war to imperial power and intervention, as well as its consequences.54 With reference to other imperialist conflicts of a century ago, an American historian has warned that ‘commemorations sometimes serve to tranquillize the memory of dangerous and disturbing events’.55 There is little likelihood of this in South African historiography or in the wider South African society, where the politics of commemorating the conflict remains almost as heated as the war itself. Many Africans still regard the war as a ‘white man’s war’ and a ‘white man’s commemoration’, while some Afrikaner nationalists seek to extract a British apology for the concentration camps, along the lines of public expressions of regret for such events as the Irish famine of 1847 and the Amritsar massacre.56 Yet contemporary amnesia about the war and its legacy is far greater in Britain than in South Africa.57 As Shula Marks has remarked: ‘It is extraordinary how quickly the enormous hold of empire over the British imagination has been forgotten.’58 This forgetfulness was particularly evident at the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to South Africa in 1995 and President Mandela’s visit to Britain in the following year. During the Queen’s visit to South Africa, British television coverage of her previous visit as a young princess with her parents in 1947, arranged by Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee, made no reference to the fact that a white government had been in power at that time, led by Field Marshal Smuts. The 1995 visit was presented as a reward for the ending of apartheid, as though segregation and minority rule had not existed in South Africa in 1947. On the latter occasion, George VI was forbidden by Smuts’s cabinet to shake hands with Africans at official ceremonies, and the African National Congess boycotted the tour.59 Similarly, in 1996, the Speaker’s address welcoming Nelson Mandela to the Great Hall of Parliament in Westminster made only passing reference to the role of the British parliament in the creation of a racially divided state in South Africa. In 1907, the Liberal Party had boasted that its South African policy stood for ‘An end to Chinese Labour; Free Government and more [ 16 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

INTRODUCTION: NOT JUST A ‘TEATIME WAR’

scope for the white man; No cost to the British taxpayer.’60 It was at Westminster, after all, that James Keir Hardie, the Labour leader and erstwhile pro-Boer, had declared that to leave Africans unrepresented in the Union parliament was like writing above the portals of the British Empire, ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’61 There, too, Arthur Balfour, the Conservative leader, had described the South Africa Bill as ‘the most wonderful issue out of all those divisions, controversies, battles, bloodshed, devastation, and horrors of war, and of the difficulties of peace. I do not believe the world shows anything like it in its whole history.’62 Mandela’s speech in 1996 demonstrated a greater sense of history than those of his hosts, as he recalled those African leaders who, many years before, had come to that place to plead the cause of their people. In covering the state visit, however, only one national newspaper briefly mentioned that there had been previous visits by Smuts, though in their coverage of the historical context none recalled that the privilege of addressing both houses of parliament, now extended to Mandela, had first been accorded to Smuts during the Second World War. Mandela was also showered with civic and academic honours, but there was scarcely a British city or university which had not similarly honoured Smuts, graphically illustrating how far public opinion had changed in half a century.63 Yet the most popular poem in Britain remained Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’, inspired by Leander Starr Jameson’s reckless raid into the Transvaal a century before. The origins of the poem, however, like the exuberance of Mafeking Night in 1900, have been largely forgotten. In 1961, in the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre, the writer and caricaturist Osbert Lancaster depicted this extraordinary transformation in public memory in a sketch of a London anti-apartheid meeting. Amid placards and posters with the words ‘Down with Verwoerd’, an elderly activist turns to the chairman seated next to him and says: ‘Oddly enough, the last time I spoke in this hall Lloyd George was in the chair and the theme was “Hands off the gallant little Boers”.’64

Notes 1 2

3

T. Mann, The Magic Mountain, trans. H. T. Lowe-Porter ([1924] Harmondsworth, 1960), p. 225. Milner to Selbome, 11 October 1899, in D. G. Boyce (ed.), The Crisis of British Power: The Imperial and Naval Papers of the Second Earl of Selbome, 1895–1910 (London, 1990), pp. 95–6. See T. Pakenham, The Boer War (London [1979], 1992 edn); P. Warwick (ed.), The South African War: Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902 (London, 1980); P. Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899–1902 (Cambridge, 1983); F. Pretorius, The Anglo-Boer War, 1899– 1902 (Cape Town [1985], 1998 edn); S. B. Spies, Methods of Barbarism? Roberts and

[ 17 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

4 5

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

6 7

8 9

10

11

12 13 14

15 16

17 18

Kitchener and Civilians in the Boer Republics: January 1900 – May 1902 (Cape Town, 1977); E. Lee, To the Bitter End: A Photographic History of the Boer War, 1899–1902 (Harmondsworth, 1986). A. J. P. Taylor, ‘The Boer War: the issues over fifty years’, Manchester Guardian, 11 October 1949. R. Koebner and H. D. Schmidt, Imperialism: The Story and Significance of a Political Word, 1840–1960 (Cambridge, 1965), p. 243; M. van Wyk Smith, Drummer Hodge: The Poetry of the Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902 (Oxford, 1978). S. Katzenellenbogen, ‘Reconstruction in the Transvaal’, in Warwick (ed.), The South African War, pp. 341–61. R. Hyam, ‘The myth of the “Magnanimous Gesture”: the Liberal government, Smuts and conciliation, 1906’, in R. Hyam and G. Martin (eds), Reappraisals in British Imperial History (London, 1975), pp. 167–86. See S. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion: The 1906–8 Disturbances in Natal (Oxford, 1970). M. Legassick, ‘British hegemony and the origins of segregation in South Africa, 1901–14’ (originally presented at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Southern African Seminar in 1972–73), in W. Beinart and S. Dubow (eds), Segregation and Apartheid in Twentieth Century South Africa (London, 1995), p. 44; D. Denoon, A Grand Illusion: The Failure of Imperial Policy in the Transvaal Colony during the Period of Reconstruction, 1900–1905 (London, 1973). S. Dubow, ‘Colonial nationalism, the Milner Kindergarten and the rise of “South Africanism”, 1902–10’, History Workshop Journal, 43 (1997), p. 54. See also D. Schreuder, ‘British imperialism and the politics of ethnicity: the “warring nations” of the African highveld’, Journal of Canadian Studies, 25:1 (1990), 122–41; D. Schreuder, ‘The making of the idea of colonial nationalism’, and ‘South Africa’, in J. Eddy and D. Schreuder (eds), The Rise of Colonial Nationalism (Sydney, 1988). The South African War is rivalled in historiographical controversy only by the Mfecane, the forced depopulation of Natal and Zululand in the early nineteenth century, the existence and extent of which is still hotly debated by historians. See J. Omer-Cooper, The Zulu Aftermath (London, 1966); C. Hamilton (ed.), The Mfecane After-math (Johannesburg, 1995). M. de Villiers, White Tribe Dreaming: Apartheid’s Bitter Roots as Witnessed by Eight Generations of an Afrikaner Family (Harmondsworth, 1990 edn), p. 364. B. Nasson, ‘Tot siens to all that? South Africa’s Great War, 1899–1902’, South African Historical Journal, 32 (1995), p. 192. See I. Phimister, ‘Unscrambling the Scramble for Southern Africa: The Jameson Raid and the South African War revisited’, South African Historical Journal, 28 (1993), p. 219; S. Marks and S. Trapido, ‘Lord Milner and the South African State’, History Workshop Journal, 8 (1979), and ‘Lord Milner and the South African State reconsidered’, in M. Twaddle (ed.), Imperialism, the State and the Third World (London, 1992). B. M. Magubane, The Making of a Racist State: British Imperialism and the Union of South Africa, 1875–1910 (Trenton, 1996), pp. xiii-xiv, 2, 227. See M. K. Wilkerson, Public Opinion and the Spanish-American War: A Study in War Propaganda (Baton Rouge, 1932); J. D. Startt, Journalists for Empire: The Imperial Debate in the Edwardian Stately Press, 1903–1913 (New York, 1991), chs 1–7; R. Macnab, The French Colonel: Villebois-Mareuil and the Boers, 1899–1900 (Cape Town, 1975), pp. 36, 41–5, 166, 200–1, 248; A. Davidson and I. Filatova, The Russians and the Anglo-Boer War (Cape Town, 1998), pp. 102–3; P. Towle, ‘The debate on wartime censorship in Britain, 1902–14’, in B. Bond and I. Roy (eds), War and Society (London, 1975), pp. 103–16. I. C. Fletcher, ‘Around 1898’, Radical History Review, 73 (1998), p. 128. W. Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Visions of Glory, 1874–1932 (London, 1989 edn), pp. 186, 189–92, 205; A. A. Lynch, My Life Story (London, 1924); E. F.

[ 18 ]

INTRODUCTION: NOT JUST A ‘TEATIME WAR’

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

19 20

21

22 23 24 25

26 27

Knight, Reminiscences (London, 1923); C. H. Brown, The Correspondents’ War: Journalists and the Spanish American War (New York, 1987). R. Kruger, Goodbye Dolly Gray: The History of the Boer War (London, 1959), p. 421. D. Denoon, ‘Participation in the Boer War’, in B. Ogot (ed.), War and Society in Africa (London, 1972); Denoon, A Grand Illusion, pp. 2–4; P. Warwick, ‘Black people and the war’, in Warwick (ed.), The South African War, pp. 186–209; P. Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899–1902 (Cambridge, 1983); B. Willan, ‘The siege of Mafeking’, in Warwick (ed.), The South African War, pp. 139–60; B. Willan, Sol Plaatje: South African Nationalist, 1876–1932 (London, 1984), pp. 77–103; B. Willan (ed.), Sol Plaatje: Selected Writings (Johannesburg, 1996); pp,21–49; S. Plaatje, Mafeking Diary: A Black Man’s View of a White Man’s War (eds J. Comaroff, B. Willan and A. Reed, [Cambridge, 1973] London, 1990); B. Nasson, Abraham Esau’s War: A Black South African War at the Cape, 1899–1902 (Cambridge, 1991). J. Krikler, Revolution from Above: Rebellion from Below: The Agrarian Transvaal at the Turn of the Century (Oxford, 1993), pp. 1–37, 227–33; A. Grundlingh, ‘“Protectors and friends of the people”? The South African Constabulary in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, 1900–08’, in D. M. Anderson and D. Killingray (eds), Policing the Empire: Government, Authority and Social Control, 1830–1940 (Manchester, 1991), pp. 175–77; B. Mbenga, ‘The Bakgatla’s role in the South African War and its impact on the Pilansberg, 1899–1903’, in G. Cuthbertson, A. Grundlingh and M. Suttie (eds), Rethinking the South African War (forthcoming, Cleveland); P. Labuschangne, Ghostriders of the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902): The Role and Contribution of Agterryers (Pretoria, 1998). See also P. Delius, A Lion amongst the Cattle: Reconstruction and Resistance in the Northern Transvaal (London, 1996). A number of relevant papers were presented at the Unisa Library Conference on the South African War, at the University of South Africa, 3–5 August 1998. See M. Suttie, ‘Rethinking the South African War, 1899–1902: the anatomy of a conference’, and A. Jeeves, ‘New perspectives in South African War studies: a report on the Unisa Conference, August 1999’, South African Historical Journal, 39 (1998), pp. 144–53, 153–8. L. S. Amery (ed.), The Times History of the War in South Africa, 1899–1902 (London, 1902), p. 87. Address to J. Chamberlain, 8 January 1903, in W. K. Hancock (ed.), Selections from the Smuts Papers, vol. 2, June 1902-May 1910 (Cambridge, 1966), p. 65. C. A. Manning, The Policies of the British Dominions in the League of Nations (London, 1932), pp. 61–2. S. B. Spies ‘Women and the war’, in Warwick (ed.), The South African War, pp. 161–85; R. First and A. Scott, Olive Schreiner (London, 1989 edn), ch. 6; J. Fisher, That Miss Hobhouse (London, 1971); J. J. van Helten and K. Williams, “‘The crying need of South Africa”: the emigration of single British women to the Transvaal, 1901–10’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 10:1 (1983), pp. 17–24; B. Roberts, Those Bloody Women: Three Heroines of the Boer War (London, 1991); P. Merrington, ‘Pageantry and primitivism: Dorothea Fairbridge and the “Aesthetics of Union’”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 21 (1995), pp. 643–56; J. Bush, ‘Edwardian ladies and the “race” dimensions of British imperialism’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 21:3 (1998), pp. 285–6. See Suttie, ‘Rethinking the South African War, 1899–1902’, pp. 145, 148, 153. See K. Smith, The Changing Past: Trends in South African Historical Writing (Johannesburg, 1988), pp. 176–7; D. Fieldhouse, ‘Can Humpty-Dumpty be put together again? Imperial history in the 1980s’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 12:2 (1984), pp. 9–23. See also N. Parsons, ‘Imperial history in the Ukay’, South African Historical Journal, 34 (1996), pp. 211–22, a report on the ‘South Africa 1895–1921: Test of Empire’ Conference held in Oxford in March 1996. This concludes that this conference was ‘conceived very much in the tradition of Imperial/Commonwealth History, as a study of “Greater Britain’”, but it is clear, however, from the author’s own summary of the

[ 19 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

28

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

29

30

31 32

33

34

35 36 37

38 39 40

conference proceedings that the great majority of papers presented did not come into this category. D. Denoon, ‘Understanding settler societies’, Historical Studies, 18:73 (1979), pp. 511–27, and ‘The isolation of Australian history’, ibid., 22:87 (1986), pp. 252–60. See also J. Eddy and D. Schreuder (eds), The Rise of Colonial Nationalism: Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa First Assert their Nationalities, 1880–1914 (Sydney, 1988). See K. Darian-Smith, L. Gunner and S. Nuttall (eds), Text, Theory, Space: Land, Literature and History in South Africa and Australia (London, 1996), particularly the essay by Terence Ranger on “‘Great spaces washed with sun”: the Matopos and Uluru compared’, pp. 157–71. The work of Peter Merrington on the role of visual display and architecture also lends itself to comparison with similar movements elsewhere in the Empire, most notably Canada. See P. Merrington, ‘Pageantry and primitivism’, pp. 643–56, and ‘The State and the “Invention of tradition” in Edwardian South Africa’, in A. Bosco and A. May (eds), The Round Table, the Empire/Commonwealth and British Foreign Policy (London, 1997), pp. 127–36. See, for example, S. Marks, ‘History, the Nation and Empire: sniping from the periphery’, History Workshop Journal, 19 (1990), pp. 111–19; B. Schwarz, “‘The only white man in there”: the re-racialisation of England, 1956–1968’, Race and Class, 38:1 (1996), pp. 68–9, and ‘The romance of the veld’, in Bosco and May (eds), The Round Table, pp. 65–126. For a discussion covering a wider time frame, see P. J. Marshall, ‘Imperial Britain’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 23:3 (1995), pp. 379–94. Dubow, ‘Colonial nationalism’, p. 55. Denoon, A Grand Illusion, p. 5. Dubow, ‘Colonial nationalism’ is the first significant attempt to analyse the outlook of this community and its contribution to a wider sense of ‘South Africanism’. For discussions of this phenomenon in the military sphere, see A. Jackson, ‘Motivation and mobilization for war: recruitment for the British Army in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1941–42’, African Affairs, 96:384 (1997), pp. 399–417; D. Omissi, The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army, 1860–1940 (London, 1994); C. S. Sundaram, ‘“Martial” Indian aristocrats and the military system of the Raj: the Imperial Cadet Corps, 1900–14’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 25:3 (1997), pp. 415–39; C. H. Enloe, Ethnic Soldiers: State Security in a Divided Society (Harmondsworth, 1980). See also J. A. Mangan, Making Imperial Mentalities: Socialisation and British Imperialism (Manchester, 1990); D. M. Anderson and D. Killingray (eds), Policing the Empire: Government, Authority and Control, 1830–1940 (Manchester, 1991); D. M. Anderson and D. Killingray (eds), Policing and Decolonisation: Nationalism, Politics and the Police, 1917–65 (Manchester, 1992). For an elaboration of these arguments, see M. Tamarkin, Cecil Rhodes and the Cape Afrikaners: The Imperial Colossus and the Colonial Parish Pump (London, 1996). For recent appraisals of the significance of the Raid, see J. Carruthers (ed.), The Jameson Raid: A Centennial Retrospective (Johannesburg, 1996). Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Milner MSS dep 380: Buxton to Milner, 8 September 1919. Willan, Sol Plaatje, pp. 243–4; Plaatje, Mafeking Diary, pp. 7, 11. S. Marks and S. Trapido, ‘The politics of race, class and nationalism’, in S. Marks and S. Trapido (eds), The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa (London, 1987), p. 28. P. Walshe, The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa: The African National Congress, 1912–1952 (London, 1970), pp. 263–4. See also pp. 15–16, 24, 33, 80. See B. Sacks, South Africa: An Imperial Dilemma: Non-Europeans and the British Nation, 1902–1914 (Albuquerque, 1967), pp. 17–24, 201–59. See A. Grundlingh, ‘War, wordsmiths and the Volk: Afrikaans historical writing on the Anglo-Boer War and the war in Afrikaner nationalist consciousness, 1902–1990’, in E. Lehmann and E. Reckwitz (eds), Mfecane to Boer War: Versions of South African History

[ 20 ]

INTRODUCTION: NOT JUST A ‘TEATIME WAR’

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

41

42

43

44

45 46 47 48 49

50 51 52 53

54

(Essen, 1992); I. Hexham, ‘Afrikaner nationalism, 1902–14’, in Warwick (ed.), The South African War, pp. 386–403; H. Giliomee, ‘The beginnings of Afrikaner nationalism, 1870– 1915’, South African Historical Journal, 19 (1987), pp. 116–42; H. Giliomee, ‘The beginnings of Afrikaner ethnic consciousness, 1850–1915’, in L. Vail (ed.), The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (London, 1989), esp. pp. 43, 46–50. Grundlingh, ‘Protectors and friends of the people’, p. 171; A. M. Grundlingh, Die Hensoppers en Joiners: Die Rasionaal en Verskynsel van Verraad (Pretoria, 1979); A. Grundlingh, ‘Collaborators in Boer society’, in Warwick (ed.), The South African War, p. 277. A useful model for detailed local studies of Afrikaner reactions to the war might be provided by Peter Hart’s acclaimed study of the Irish War of Independence and its impact on local communities in Cork: The IRA and its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916–1923 (Oxford, 1998). K. Fedorowich, “‘The weak link in the imperial chain”: South Africa, the Round Table and World War One’, in Bosco and May (eds), The Round Table, pp. 137–60. S. Swart, “‘A Boer and his gun and his wife are three things always together”: Republican masculinity and the 1914 Rebellion’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24:4 (1998), pp. 737–51; J. Krikler, ‘The Commandos: the army of White Labour in South Africa’, Past and Present, 163 (1999), pp. 203–44. J. Butler, ‘Afrikaner women and the creation of ethnicity in a small South African town’, in Vail (ed.), Creation of Tribalism, pp. 55–8, 61, 71, 74–5; I. Hofmeyr, ‘Building a nation from words: Afrikaans language, literature and ethnic identity, 1902–1924’, in Marks and Trapido (eds), The Politics of Race, pp. 95–123. Bulawayo Chronicle, 10 October 1921. See also C. Bloomberg, Christian Nationalism and the Rise of the Afrikaner Bond in South Africa, 1918–48 (Bloomington, 1989), p. 59. For the continuing influence of the war in Afrikaner nationalism, see P. J. Furlong, Between Crown and Swastika: The Impact of the Radical Right on the Afrikaner Nationalist Movement in the Fascist Era (Hanover, 1991), pp. 47, 72, 81, 121, 123–4, 134–6, 145; S. Marks and S. Trapido, ‘The politics of race, class and nationalism’, pp. 7, 15; H. Saker, The South African Flag Controversy (Cape Town, 1980), pp. xxii-xxiii, 43–4, 111, 120, 131, 137, 156, 193, 209; T. Dunbar Moodie, The Rise of Afrikanerdom: Power, Apartheid and the Afrikaner Civil Religion (Berkeley, 1975), pp. 9–10, 12, 18–19, 32–6, 41, 93, 116–17, 223, 234, 240, 295; K. Fedorowich, ‘Anglicization and the politicization of British immigration to South Africa, 1899–1929’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 19:2 (1991), pp. 222–46; Colonel A. C. Martin, The Concentration Camps, 1900–1902: Facts, Figures and Fables (Cape Town, 1957). Quoted in Dunbar Moodie, The Rise of Afrikanerdom, p. 94. De Villiers, White Tribe Dreaming, p. 237. J. A. Hobson, The Psychology of Jingoism (London, 1901), p. 138. A. S. Thompson, ‘The language of imperialism and the meanings of Empire: Imperial discourse in British politics, 1895–1914’, Journal of British Studies, 36 (1997), p. 167. J. D. Hunt, Gandhi and a Non-Conformist Education in South Africa (New Delhi, 1986); H. H. Hewison, Hedge of Wild Almonds: South Africa, the Pro-Boers and the Quaker Conscience, 1890–1910 (London, 1989). George Ives of Aldergrove, British Columbia, who died in Canada in April 1993, aged 111. See the Daily Telegraph, 15 April 1993. M. Atwood, Cat’s Eye (London, 1989), p. 311. K. Surridge, ‘Rebellion, martial law and British civil-military relations: the war in Cape Colony, 1899–1902’, Small Wars and Emergencies, 8:2 (1997), p. 60. A. Sampson, Mandela: The Authorized Biography (London, 1999), pp. 189, 286. See also Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (London, 1994), pp. 149, 469. See Suttie, ‘Rethinking the South African War’, and Jeeves, ‘New perspectives in South

[ 21 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

55 56

57

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

58 59 60 61 62 63

64

African War studies’. Fletcher, ‘Around 1898’, p. 129. ‘Blair’s SA visit stirs Boer War memories’, The Star (Johannesburg), 11 February 1992; ‘Orania residents commemorate diehards’, ibid., 1 June 1999. See also S. Robins, ‘Silence in my father’s house’, in S. Nuttall and C. Coetzee (eds), Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa (Oxford, 1998), p. 137. See B. Schwarz, ‘Empire: for and against’, Twentieth Century British History, 6:3 (1995), pp. 359–68. S. Marks, ‘History, the Nation and Empire: sniping from the periphery’, History Workshop Journal, 29 (1990), pp. 111–19. Sampson, Mandela, pp. 50, 504–5. ‘Two South African pictures’, the Liberal Monthly, August 1907, p. 88. I am grateful to John Stewart for this reference. Hewison, Hedge of Wild Almonds, p. 340. Sir R. Birley, ‘The imperial idea in South Africa: Briton, Boer and Bantu’, Round Table, 240 (1970), p. 611. The Times, 10 July 1996; Guardian, 12 July 1996. See also Sampson, Mandela, pp. xxi-xxiii, 565; J. C. Smuts (Jnr), Jan Christian Smuts (London, 1952), pp. 529–32. L. Barrow, ‘White solidarity in 1914’, in R. Samuel (ed.), Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity, vol. 1, History and Politics (London, 1989). Birley, ‘The imperial idea in South Africa’, p. 611.

[ 22 ]

CHAPTER TWO

A century of controversy over origins Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Iain R. Smith

The South African War of 1899–1902 has attracted more attention from historians than any other event in South African history and there has been more controversy over its origins than over any other aspect. The argument has continued more or less unabated ever since the war broke out. It continues still. One of the reasons for this is that different historians have approached the task of explaining the origins of this war with different ideologies and methodologies and have thereby found little common ground on which to meet. Since the history which historians write stands or falls by the evidence which underpins it, the increasing access which historians have had, during the twentieth century, to an ever-widening range of relevant evidence, has also played a significant part in the continuing debate about the origins of the war. What were once put forward as plausible hypotheses, based on surmise, can now be tested against the evidence which has survived. Such activity is no mal des archives – as Derrida and other non-practitioners of the historian’s craft would have us believe – but an essential part of the process by which the grain is sifted from the chaff and historical knowledge is advanced. The danger with historical interpretations which are reached without the testing and time-consuming work in the archives is that they may reflect little more than the transient theoretical preoccupations of their authors. Writing about this subject has been further complicated because the historiographies of several different but related areas of enquiry are involved. This war may have been South Africa’s ‘Great War’,1 and played as important a part in the making of modern South Africa as did the American Civil War in the development of the United States, but it does not only belong to South African history. It is of interest to historians and others with no particular interest in South Africa; and it is widely approached in many parts of the world as part of the history of Britain and the British Empire [ 23 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

as well as of late nineteenth-century European imperialism, the history of warfare and the history of Africa. Since the origins of the war lie in a struggle between rival white elites and minorities for dominance in the Transvaal and in South Africa, anyone interested in this subject finds themselves – sooner rather than later – in a world of elites and policy-makers and ‘top-down’ history, where the focus is on those who had power; and especially on those in the British and Transvaal governments who took the crucial decisions which resulted in a resort to war in October 1899. Such a focus makes this a subject which rests uneasily amidst much of the recent work on South African history, not least because it implies that the majority, African population of the country played no major role in the resort to war. Since the path-breaking work of Peter Warwick, the important part played by the African population during the course of the war has been recognised and the myth has been exploded that this was a purely ‘white man’s war’, fought in a part of the world where the combined British and Boer populations (then just under one million) were only about a fifth of the total.2 This was no war ‘fought across the breadth of a vast region, the majority of whose inhabitants were mere spectators’.3 In terms of the origins of the war, however, the part played by the African population was indirect and ancillary and less important than the part played by the uitlanders in the Transvaal. The widespread support of the majority of Boer burghers in the two republics – at least initially – for the resort to war, and the readiness of the British electorate to support the British government in its confrontationist policy towards the Transvaal government of President Paul Kruger, were also more important factors. Thus, the attitudes and activities of white males, of various kinds and in very different situations, form a more important focus of attention than those of the African population for historians interested in explaining why the war came about. For most of the Afrikaners who wrote about the origins of this war until the 1970s (whether they wrote in Afrikaans or not), the dominant paradigm within which they set their accounts was that of Afrikaner nationalism. The contemporary tract for the times, Eene Eeuw van Onrecht (A Century of Wrong – first published in Dutch in 1899 and in 1900 in English translation), and the work of G. D. Scholtz and others, many of whom were journalists rather than professional historians, were the most generally influential. But the work of an older generation of historians – including the multi-volume study of the war by J. H. Breytenbach, published after 1945 – was also ideologically charged with Afrikaner nationalist sentiment.4 Although A Century of Wrong was hurriedly put together in 1899, by non-historians for political purposes [ 24 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

A CENTURY OF CONTROVERSY OVER ORIGINS

and foreign consumption (it was written by J. C. Smuts together with J. de Villiers Roos), it also served as a rallying cry to all Afrikaners to take up arms in defence of liberty and independence from British imperialism and ‘Capitalistic Jingoism’ and against a future in which ‘South Africa will be dominated by capitalists without conscience, acting in the name and under the protection of an unjust and hated Government 7,000 miles away’. Here, the main ingredients which were to continue to feature in the work of those writing about the war within an Afrikaner nationalist framework are to be found. The South African War is presented as the culmination of Afrikaner national grievances against British imperialism, injustice and over-rule traced back over ‘a century of wrong’ through the Jameson Raid, the Transvaal War of 1880–81, the British annexation of the Transvaal in 1877, the Great Trek and Slagtersnek to the ‘transaction in which the Prince of Orange sold the Cape to Great Britain for £6 million against the wish and will of the inhabitants’.5 Within this tradition, the South African War of 1899–1902 was viewed as die Tweede Vryheidsoorlog (the Second War of Freedom) and as an attempt by the British government to reverse the result of the war of 1880–81 (the First War of Freedom) which had ended in a British defeat at Majuba Hill and a negotiated peace. Viewed in this way, the origins of the war of 1899–1902 were longstanding and the resort to arms was not only morally justifiable but widely regarded as inevitable. The most influential writing within this tradition always had a clear, didactic purpose. Since Afrikaner nationalism fed upon a deep sense of grievance, suffering and oppression at the hands of British imperialists, the South African War soon rivalled the Great Trek as a focus for the attentions of Afrikaner nationalist writers during the twentieth century. The war stimulated some fine poetry and prose (in the emerging language of Afrikaans), biographies of some of the leading participants in the war on the Boer side, and much rather narrowly conceived political and military history, alongside a good deal of nationalistic propaganda for popular consumption in which the war was utilised as a historical quarrying ground for material to support later Afrikaner struggles over language, politics and identity. W. J. Leyds, writing in 1906, saw it as his task to give meaning to the history of the Afrikaners ‘and to draw from its armoury the need of the 6 times – weapons for the coming struggle’. Gustav Preller dismissed the idea that an historian should approach the past dispassionately as ‘doctrinaire pedantry’ and wrote history in which the Afrikaners were heroes and the British were villains.7 Most of this literature was for and about the Afrikaner population – which was all too easily assumed to be monolithic – and concentrated heavily on political history to the neglect not only of social and economic history but also of the rest of the diverse [ 25 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

population of South Africa. Those writing about the South African War within this tradition tended to claim the moral high ground over that conflict by presenting the Transvaal as a peace-loving republic, under a Boer government, which fought honourably against hopeless odds to defend its independence against the predatory designs of the world’s greatest power backed up by ‘the forces of capitalism’. The anti-capitalist element was a recently introduced feature in 1899, when it was suggested that the Boer destiny was to be ‘the first among all peoples to begin the struggle against the new-world tyranny of Capitalism … 8 reinforced by the power of Jingoism’. Thereafter, the messianic element – in which a special role is ascribed to the Boers’ struggle in South Africa on the world-historical stage – soon recedes, but an anti-capitalist thread continues to run through the whole body of writing about the origins of the war which has an economic emphasis. Only during the 1970s and 1980s, as an historiographical revolution occurred in South Africa ahead of the political revolution which was to follow in the 1990s, did a number of younger Afrikaner historians produce fresh and scholarly work on the South African War and its origins which challenged the old 9 Afrikaner nationalist paradigm. In the historiography in English, the dominant tradition of writing about the origins of the war was first established in Leo Amery’s first volume of The Times History of the War in South Africa, published in 1900. Here, the origins of the war were firmly located in a political conflict between the British and Transvaal governments. Amery denied ‘that the Transvaal was a peaceful, unaggressive, unambitious, wellmanaged state, or that President Kruger’s only object was to preserve unaltered the independent status guaranteed him by the Convention of London’ (1884).10 On the contrary, declared Amery, ‘by independence Kruger always understood the political predominance of himself and his faction’. The main objects of Kruger’s policy, after the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand, were to maximise the independence of the Transvaal and to extend both its boundaries and its influence over neighbouring states so as ultimately to establish the Transvaal ‘in the position of the paramount power in South Africa’.11 Amery believed that the war was fought to prevent ‘the hostile attitude and the far-reaching ambitions of President Kruger’s government’ resulting in the loss to ‘Greater Britain’ of a vast region of great importance and potential for the British Empire. He also drew interesting parallels between the South African War and the American Civil War, arguing that essentially the South African War ‘was an internal conflict; a struggle within that confines of the Empire between the forces making for union and the forces making for disintegration’ and observing that ‘in Africa, as in [ 26 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

A CENTURY OF CONTROVERSY OVER ORIGINS

America, the war was practically a civil war’ in which black men’s rights in the American South and white men’s rights in the Transvaal were both interwoven with the wider questions of Federal supremacy, in the one case, and British imperial supremacy in the other.12 Like Milner, and many others at the time, Amery viewed the situation in South Africa as one of rival and incompatible imperialisms: Boer versus British, and looked forward to a future when the verdict of both British and South African opinion ‘on the justice of the war and the necessity of the suppression of the Dutch Republics will be as unanimous as that of American opinion on the justice and necessity of the suppression of the Southern Confederacy’.13 After the South African War was over, Amery, like Milner, felt that its chief interest lay not in its causes but in its results. These he regarded as overwhelmingly positive – ‘a triumphant vindication of the statesmanship which faced the inevitable issue of war, and laid, broad and deep, the foundations of the new South Africa’.14 Amery utilised, to great effect, the evidence then available from government sources to sustain his essentially political explanation of the war. He acknowledged that a different interpretation was already held by significant numbers of people who believed ‘that the war was an unrighteous war, unjustly forced upon the Republics by the British Government at the instigation of an ambitious High Commissioner, supported by a gang of unscrupulous capitalists and by a hireling press’. Milner and Chamberlain stood accused ‘of having wantonly provoked an unnecessary war’ but Amery defended them by arguing that ‘it is not easy to see what other policy they could have pursued consistently with their duty to the interests of the British Empire’.15 He categorically repudiated the assertion ‘that the war has been a capitalists’ war, that the uitlander grievances were invented by the capitalists in order to upset the Boer Government and convert the Transvaal into a gigantic syndicate’ – an assertion which he described, already in 1900, as having been made ‘with great persistency. But it is not borne out by the facts.’ Rather, he observed, ‘almost to the very last the capitalists were far more eager to bargain with the Transvaal Government for reasonable financial and administrative reforms than to clamour for the franchise … They not unnaturally desired reforms, but they had no craving for war.’16 Amery also denied that the outright annexation of the Transvaal was ever the primary objective of the British government. On the contrary, he argued, the reason why the uitlander franchise was taken up by the British government in 1899 was because it provided the means ‘to extinguish the hostile [Afrikaner] nationalist ideal by gradual and peaceful means, without interfering with the internal independence of the Republic’.17 [ 27 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Amery cheerfully admitted that ‘absolute impartiality’ in dealing with the origins of the war was probably unattainable and that his book had been written ‘frankly from the point of view of one who is convinced that the essential right and justice of the controversy have been with Britain’. He acknowledged that there was ‘a Boer side to the controversy’ and pointed to ‘their hostility to the [British] Imperial Government’ and their ‘far-reaching national ambition’ as key factors in the conflict. His conclusion was quite clear-cut: ‘Those who believe in progress, in honest government, in political liberty and equality, must, upon a true statement of the facts, be on the side of England. Those to whom nationalism is all in all … will naturally tend to be on the side of the Afrikander Republics.’18 Throughout the twentieth century, a separate but parallel body of writing about the origins of the South African War has drawn upon the seminal work of J. A. Hobson and, in particular, on his book The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Effects, which was also first published in 1900.19 Hobson, like Amery, had been in South Africa as a British newspaper correspondent in 1899 (for the Manchester Guardian as opposed to Amery’s The Times). Neither, it should be emphasised, were professional historians; both were journalists with different axes to grind. Amery was an imperialist with a life-long commitment to the British Empire. Hobson was a liberal anti-imperialist whose ideas about the relationship between capitalism and imperialism are to be found influencing the writings of J. C. Smuts and Olive Schreiner, among many others, at this time. Where Amery provided a political explanation of the war, Hobson propounded an economic explanation which, despite repeated attempts to rebut it, has continued to exercise great influence. For much of the twentieth century, these have formed the two poles of historical explanation between which debate about the origins of the war has fluctuated. Hobson’s book about the South African War has tended to be regarded with embarrassment by commentators on the prolific output of this wide-ranging and influential thinker because of its crude ‘conspiracy plot’ explanation and its obvious role as a polemic. But when Hobson himself looked back on his life, in old age, he regarded the South African War as ‘both a turning-point in my career and an illumination to the understanding of the real relations between economics and politics 20 which were to occupy so large a place in my future work’. Hobson’s conclusions about the causes of that war formed the basis for his first theoretical analysis of the forces at work in modern imperialism21 and went on to inform two of his best-known books, The Psychology of Jingoism (1901) and Imperialism: A Study (1902). Through this work, Hobson explored the political, economic and social interconnections [ 28 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

A CENTURY OF CONTROVERSY OVER ORIGINS

between capitalism and imperialism more comprehensively and systematically than any previous writer and developed a theory of economic imperialism which has attracted continuous attention ever since. His ideas influenced Lenin and many others who later argued that modern imperialism involved the subordination of national politics to the specific sectional interests of capitalists and ‘the forces of capitalism’.22 Hobson’s work was acclaimed in his own lifetime by an extraordinary range of liberals, socialists and Marxists and its influence on those writing about imperialism can be detected right down to the present day.23 Hobson was never a Marxist – Lenin accurately described his as ‘a social liberal’ – but his work has drawn a considerable body of writing in its wake which has been influenced by presuppositions loosely derived from a Marxist theory of history. Personal ideological positions have often been closely involved in the debate about theories of imperialism which has continued throughout the twentieth century. Marxists and neo-Marxists have been determined to salvage something from the wreckage of their theories, while anti-Marxists have sometimes seemed to imply that any admission that economic factors may have been involved in modern imperialism is best avoided because this leads straight to economic determinism. Since South Africa soon came to be regarded as a test case by theorists of imperialism, discussion about the origins of the war of 1899–1902 soon became enmeshed in a much more amorphous debate about late nineteenth-century imperialism generally. Hobson’s The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Effects (London, 1900) was hurriedly put together out of newspaper articles, as a contemporary tract for the times, after the war had broken out. Many of his acute perceptions about the situation in South Africa, based on personal observation and information gathered there at the time, have stood the test of later investigation by historians, who have had access to a much wider body of evidence than was available to Hobson himself. There is now general agreement about many of the things which Hobson suggested had helped to bring about the war: the deep Boer distrust of Joseph Chamberlain and the objectives of the British government which was greatly intensified by the Jameson Raid; the corrosive effect this had on all subsequent attempts at a negotiated settlement; the influence of the press – both in Britain and in South Africa; the role played by the uitlanders and uitlander organisations in the Transvaal; the belated emergence, in 1899 as in 1895, of at least some of the leading mine magnates into open support for the uitlander cause; the powerful influence of the British High Commissioner, Sir Alfred Milner, and his increasingly bellicose attitude during the mounting crisis between the British and Transvaal governments in 1898–99. The problem with Hobson’s book comes with Part 2, where its author exchanges the role of [ 29 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

observer for that of public prosecutor and vents some of his own particular obsessions at that time about conspiratorial capitalists and Jews. Here, Hobson provided an answer to the contemporary questions – for whom and for what are we fighting? – by arguing that the root cause of the war lay at the door of the gold-mining industry and the cosmopolitan capitalists and financial speculators who profited from its development. In what came to be called the ‘Hobson thesis’, Hobson claimed that this ‘small confederacy of international financiers, working through a kept press’ – many of whom, he emphasised, ‘were German in origin and Jewish in race’ – had already established ‘a practical paramountcy’ over the Transvaal economically and now sought to do so politically. The war was being fought ‘in order to place a small international oligarchy of mine-owners and speculators in power in Pretoria’.24 In the approach to the war, Hobson argued, it was the minemagnates who had influenced the politicians in their own interests: ‘open-eyed and persistent they have pursued their course, plunging South Africa into a temporary ruin in order that they may emerge victorious, a small confederacy of international mine-owners and speculators holding the treasures of South Africa in the hollow of their hands’.25 The ‘Hobson thesis’ about the origins of the South African War did not, in fact, originate with Hobson. It developed, even before the war began, out of the revelations about the Jameson Raid which emerged between 1896 and 1898. Both Milner and Chamberlain commented on and dismissed what Milner called ‘the capitalist intrigues myth’ in 1899, but acknowledged the mischievous influence that this might exert on public opinion; and Lord Salisbury reminded his Cabinet colleagues ‘that the one dangerous objection that is made to our policy is that we are 26 doing the work for the capitalists’. Many of the key elements in the ‘Hobson thesis’ are to be found, clearly articulated and wearisomely reiterated, in the editorial columns of the newspaper which acted as an organ of the Transvaal government during 1898–99, The Standard and Diggers News. What Hobson did was to pick these up, integrate them with his own emerging conclusions about late nineteenth-century capitalism and imperialism generally, and serve them up in an attractive and readable form to a wide audience – which has continued to respond to their potent appeal ever since. Hobson wrote his book not as an historian but as a polemicist. His explanation for the war was not really based on evidence (he did not have access to the records of either the governments or the mining companies) but on a process of deduction influenced by the liberal, Cobdenite tradition of asking cui bono? Who or what were the ‘sinister interests’ which had most to gain from a war in South Africa? Hobson’s answer was to point to the gold-mining magnates and finance capitalists of the [ 30 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

A CENTURY OF CONTROVERSY OVER ORIGINS

Rand. The result was a plausible hypothesis which had all the attraction of a conspiracy plot. Once historians were able to test this hypothesis against the evidence (which only became fully available after 1945), the ‘Hobson thesis’ about the origins of the war – at least as formulated by Hobson himself – had to be abandoned.27 No convincing evidence has been found to support the idea that the British government acted at the behest of mine-magnates or capitalists with a stake in the Transvaal during the mounting crisis with Kruger’s government which resulted in war. Nor did the British government go to war ‘to secure for the mines a cheap, adequate supply of labour’ – another of J. A. Hobson’s assertions which has reverberated down the century.28 This idea is another product of Hobson’s obsessive tendency to reduce everything to the interests of the mine-owners. What careful spadework by historians in the archives has since revealed is that the problem of a shortage of cheap mine labour for the Transvaal both predated and long outlasted the South African War. Far from being ‘totally obdurate’ in this matter, Kruger’s government in fact went a considerable way towards assisting the goldmining industry over it before 1899.29 Although the unification of South Africa under British auspices might be expected to assist in the more effective mobilisation and deployment of African labour throughout the region, the mining industry continued, until well into the twentieth century, to recruit a considerable part of its labour force from outside South Africa, in Mozambique and elsewhere.30 Hobson helped to popularise a view in which the Jameson Raid of 1895–96 and the outbreak of war in 1899 have tended to be seen together, and the causes of the war have been inferred from what was revealed about the background to the Jameson Raid before the war broke out. J. C. Smuts articulated the opinion of many of the leading participants in the war, on the Boer side, when he wrote: It was the rooted conviction of the Boers generally, a conviction which was I believe shared by their responsible leaders, that the war was at bottom a mine-owners’ war, that it had its origin in the Jameson Raid – in the firm resolve of the mine-owners to get the political control of the Transvaal into their hands by fair means or foul, to shape the legislation and administration of the country along lines dictated by their economic interests, and to destroy the Boer Government which had stupidly proved obdurate to their threats no less than to their seductions. It was with the mine-owners not a desire to bring the Republic under the British flag; as was conclusively proved by the fact that the Rand financiers decided in 1895 to have a republic of their own in the Transvaal and not to submit to Rhodes’s desire to hoist the British flag in the country … Neither in 1895 nor in 1899 was it

[ 31 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

a question of the British flag. As the Boers read the situation the one issue was whether the mine-owners had to govern the Transvaal in their own 31 interests: the British flag was a minor phase of that fundamental issue.

Smuts regarded the Jameson Raid as ‘the real declaration of war in the great Anglo-Boer conflict’ which he asserted was the outcome of ‘a marriage of convenience’, an ‘unholy union’, between the mine-owners and the British government in which each used the other to attain their ends. The ‘four years of truce’ which followed the Jameson Raid were merely a time when ‘the allied aggressors consolidated their alliance, found fresh tools for the execution of their South African and Transvaal policy and laid fresh schemes and beat the deafening tom-toms of uitlander agitation, while the defenders on the other hand silently and grimly prepared for the inevitable’.32 Whereas Hobson was a visiting outsider, seeking in the South African situation a test case for his developing theory of imperialism generally, Smuts was a key adviser to President Kruger and a front-line participant who never made Hobson’s mistake of trying to reduce everything to the interests of the capitalists. The British government had its own objectives, in relation to the Transvaal, and the mine-magnates had theirs, ‘as probably both parties knew’, Smuts concluded, ‘but each used the other for the attainment of its own ends’.33 Smuts had met Hobson in South Africa in 1899 and, in his own polemic about the causes of the war – written as war approached – Smuts utilised many of Hobson’s ideas in his own analysis of what he called ‘Capitalistic Jingoism’.34 In their contemporary accounts of the origins of the war, Hobson and Smuts were among the first to argue that the conflict had little to do with the strident claims made on behalf of the Uitlanders for the franchise and the rectification of their grievances – which had featured so prominently as a casus belli. Under the influence of Hobson in particular, the South African War came to be regarded as a classic example of an imperialist war in which economic interests had accompanied, even if they had not determined, the resort to war in 1899 and the annexation of the Transvaal by Britain the following year. The idea that specific economic interests were involved in particular cases of British imperial expansion in the late nineteenth century was not new. The British occupation of Egypt in 1882 was alleged to have taken place at the behest of Egyptian bond-holders, and the ‘bondholder’ thesis was later incorporated into much radical writing, including that of Hobson himself.35 The Jameson Raid was initially explained, in January 1896, as a bid by Cecil Rhodes and his accomplices to boost the flagging value of shares in the British South Africa Company.36 In the Transvaal, [ 32 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

A CENTURY OF CONTROVERSY OVER ORIGINS

the immense deposits of gold and the revelation that some of the leading mine-magnates on the Rand had been involved in a conspiracy to bring about a coup d’état which then failed to accompany the Jameson Raid, soon combined to fix the importance of economic considerations in the public mind. It would indeed be strange if economic considerations were not present in the minds of men like Alfred Beit and Lionel Phillips, when they joined in that conspiracy, even if other personal and political considerations were also present and seem to have predominated in the case of Cecil Rhodes himself.37 The American mining engineer and key adviser to Rhodes, John Hays Hammond, certainly encouraged and participated in the conspiracy because he was convinced by 1895 that the future prosperity of gold-mining on the Rand depended on the replacement of Kruger’s government by one more sympathetic to the needs of the mining industry. After the failure of the Jameson Raid, and his own release from prison (on payment by Rhodes of a fine of 100,000 dollars), Hammond lobbied with great effect in the United States for a British takeover in the Transvaal.38 When war came, the US government, although technically neutral, hoped for a rapid and complete British victory; in this it was generally supported by American businesses with interests in South Africa – if not be various other sections of public opinion.39 The fact that the Jameson Raid involved a conspiracy, in which some of the leading mine-magnates in a far from united gold-mining industry were involved, does not, of course, mean that the economic interests of the mining industry predominated in 1895, or that there was a capitalist conspiracy behind the resort to war in 1899 as well. Such ideas have not stood the test of the extensive work of R. V. Kubicek in the archives of the mining companies. He concluded that the business interests and priorities of the cosmopolitan capitalists involved in gold-mining in South Africa were different from the imperial interests of the British government and frequently out of step with them, and that the last thing the capitalists wanted or needed in 1899 was a war.40 In 1965, in a single foray into South African history which seriously misconstrued the Witwatersrand gold-mining industry, the Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey sought – through the ‘Blainey thesis’ – to explain why some mining companies participated in the 1895 conspiracy while many did not. Since 1965, a number of historians have used their increasing access to the archives of the mining companies to reveal a great deal about the actual workings of the gold-mining industry and the relationship between business and politics in the last years of Kruger’s republic.41 They have also been able to test the ‘Blainey thesis’ against the evidence. Like the ‘Hobson thesis’ about the war, the ‘Blainey thesis’ [ 33 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

about the gold-mining industry and the Jameson Raid has been tried and found wanting. At a symposium to mark the centenary of the Jameson Raid, historians agreed that it was time that both of these mistaken hypotlieses were buried ten feet deep with a stake through both their hearts.42 Why these two plausible but misguided ‘thesis’ should have exerted such a hold over the historiography for so long is itself an interesting question. But South African history is by no means unique in its ability to attract grands simplifìcateurs. More broadly, the idea that fundamentally both the Jameson Raid and the South African War were economically motivated has fitted nicely with the predisposition of many historians, during the twentieth century, towards a materialist approach with regard to questions of historical causation. Dispensing with a crude ‘capitalist conspiracy plot’ explanation for the war, has freed historians to assess afresh some of the economic factors at work in the Transvaal, and on Anglo-Transvaal relations, amidst the burgeoning yields of deep-level gold mining in the late 1890s and to explore beyond the narrowly political confines laid down by Amery. Gold transformed the Transvaal from the poorest to the richest state in South Africa and made it, by 1899, the source of over a quarter of the world’s gold supply. This extraordinarily rapid development occurred at the same time as changes in the relations between Europe and the non-European world were resulting in a European scramble for empire and dominance on a global scale. The South African War, as the greatest of the wars accompanying the European ‘Scramble for Africa’, has been widely regarded as part of this outburst of European empire-building since it resulted in the conquest and incorporation of the two Boer republics as colonies within the British Empire and the establishment of British control over virtually the entire region.4 3 Deeply rooted though the origins of this war certainly were in Anglo-Boer relations during the nineteenth century, and more especially in Anglo-Transvaal relations after 1881, historians of European imperialism in Africa have also viewed this war as part of a wider process. In the 1930s, three American historians, R. W. Bixler, W. L. Langer and his pupil R. I. Lovell, set the war more fully in the context of the international relations and the New Imperialism of its time. In doing so, they extended and elaborated on the framework established by Amery for an essentially political explanation of the war. Lovell was representative in concluding that ‘England did not in 1899, nor apparently did Rhodes in 1895, covet the gold of the Transvaal. Neither England nor Rhodes cared particularly for the gold-diggers. They both feared rather the power which geographical accident had placed in Kruger’s hands.’44 This remained the predominant view right down to [ 34 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

A CENTURY OF CONTROVERSY OVER ORIGINS

the 1970s. The British decision to force a confrontation with Kruger’s government to the point of war in 1899 was determined not by economic interests but by the British government’s concern for Britain’s weakening hold over an area which was recognised as a British sphere of influence. Ultimately, ‘the war was an attempt to use political means to restore British political supremacy in an area where it was threatened by the secondary effects of economic change’.45 Meanwhile, a whole number of biographers utilised the papers of their subjects to give a detailed insight into the diplomacy which preceded the war. Work on Joseph Chamberlain and Alfred Milner shifted the emphasis from what had been widely regarded at the time as ‘Joe’s war’ to ‘Milner’s war’ and suggested that it was Milner, even more than Chamberlain, who had adopted a bellicose attitude towards the Transvaal government in 1899 and helped to push things towards a confrontation which could only result in either a Transvaal capitulation to British 46 demands or a resort to war. As a dominant person in a powerful position to influence British government policy, Milner became a particular focus of attention for many historians. Both G. H. Le May and Thomas Pakenham placed a major part of the responsibility for bringing the war about at his door.47 This was a verdict that Milner himself had earlier claimed: ‘I precipitated the crisis, which was inevitable, before it was too late’, he told Lord Roberts in June 1900; ‘It is not a very agreeable, and in many eyes, not very creditable piece of business to have been largely instrumental in bringing about a big war.’48 Chamberlain’s role was also subjected to intense scrutiny, as his papers became generally accessible after 1945, and the work of Jean van der Poel, Ethel Drus and Richard Wilde significantly altered the earlier picture portrayed in the 1930s by his biographer, J. L. Garvin.49 Andrew Porter, in a major book about Joseph Chamberlain and the origins of the war and a series of incisive articles since, has been concerned to set the South African policy of Chamberlain and the British government in the wider frameworks of their domestic, British political concerns and their broader foreign and imperial policy and to challenge the economic determinism implicit in much writing about the origins of this war which assumes rather than demonstrates that economic considerations predominated.50 After the death of J. C. Smuts in 1950, the magisterial biography by W. K. Hancock (2 vols, Cambridge, 1962–68) and the Selections from the Smuts Papers edited by Hancock and Jean van der Poel (7 vols, Cambridge, 1966–73) gave a new insight into the attitude of the Transvaal government as war approached. The interstate diplomacy within South Africa, on the eve of the war, was also revealed through a whole series of studies, many of them biographies, between Eric Walker’s early studies of Lord de Villiers and W. P. Schreiner and the studies of W. J. Leyds and Percy FitzPatrick [ 35 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

published more recently.51 This substantial body of historical work has had the effect of emphasising the role of human agency in bringing about the war and of giving detail and substance to an essentially political explanation focused on the policy-makers, both in Britain and in South Africa, and the abundant documentation which has survived about their decision-making. These political interpretations, with such an emphasis on the role of a few individuals in bringing about the war and a tendency to ignore the economic aspect, eventually evoked a reaction. In an important reassessment of what Rhodes had first called ‘the imperial factor’ in nineteenth-century South Africa, Shula Marks and Anthony Atmore argued that the broader economic considerations which underlay British policy and the concept of ‘British supremacy’ in South Africa had been neglected by historians who had retreated into narrowly political and ‘diplomatist’ explanations for the resort to war in 1899.52 They criticised the tendency in the historiography to focus on the roles of powerful individuals – particularly Milner – and to ascribe British policy ‘to the decisions, or even the whims of personalities’ while neglecting broader British interests which were ‘essentially, although not invariably, related to the development and demands of the British economy’. ‘Political supremacy’, they argued, ‘is the obverse face of economic hegemony’ and ‘at least one important reason why Britain went to war was to establish a modern polity in South Africa, one which would provide the necessary infrastructure for the maintenance and development of crucial British economic interests’ which were centred on the Transvaal and the goldmining industry. In further contributions, over the ensuing twenty-five years, Shula Marks developed and extended the case which she had first made with Anthony Atmore and was later to state, and restate with specific reference to the causes of the South African War, with Stanley Trapido.53 In 1961 two classic works of historical scholarship were published which have been an inspiration and a challenge to all who have since written about this subject. In The Fall of Kruger’s Republic, J. S. Marais focused specifically on the Transvaal and set out ‘to explain how the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand led to war between Britain and the Boer republics’, utilising the wealth of new material made available during the previous decade, especially in Britain, as a result of the fiftyyear rule then governing access to British government archives.54 On the way, Marais not only demolished the ‘Hobson thesis’ but came close to reversing it, concluding that far from the mine-magnates manipulating the British government during the approach to war, the British government and its agents manipulated them. Marais argued that, after [ 36 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

A CENTURY OF CONTROVERSY OVER ORIGINS

the failure of their involvement in the Jameson Raid, the mine-magnates withdrew into the shell out of which some of them had ventured in 1895, and left the political initiative to the British government. As the crisis deepened, they re-emerged and, in 1899, lent at least some of their weight to the reconstituted uitlander reform movement, ‘this time as instruments of British policy’.55 Refusing to separate the grievances of the uitlander population from those peculiar to the mining industry, they failed to reach a settlement with representatives of the Transvaal government in the ‘Great Deal’ negotiations in March 1899. It was then left to the British government to confront Kruger’s government with an accumulating list of demands for reform, which was by no means restricted to those of particular interest to the mining industry and which included an uitlander franchise. What had begun as an internal and domestic conflict in the Transvaal, between the mining industry and Kruger’s government, thus became enmeshed in a deadly confrontation between the British and Transvaal governments. By the middle of 1899, the mine-magnates were certainly not determining British policy, but at least some of their leading figures were supporting the British government’s policy of extracting reforms from Kruger’s government at the risk of a resort to war which they, like the majority of people in Britain at the time, thought was unlikely. To this extent there was, by June 1899, ‘a congruence of interests’ between the mining industry and the British government in relation to Kruger’s government in the Transvaal, which Smuts observed at the time and which Alan Jeeves and others have elaborated since.56 Since 1961, those who have worked in the archives of the mining companies, the Chambers of Mines and Commerce, and leading financial institutions such as the Standard Bank in South Africa – have questioned some of the detail in Marais’s account but have found much to support in his overall picture. The common assumption (which owes much to Marxist ideas about class interest) that the mine-magnates acted as a monolithic body and must have had a coherent political stance, beyond a reaction to Transvaal government policies and practices which adversely affected their businesses, squares ill with the differing views between firms – and even between different members of the same firm – which emerges from the archives. Disunited in 1895, the mine-magnates wee also disunited in 1899 and, in all sorts of ways, in competition with each other. Whoever ruled the Transvaal, they would establish and maintain a working relationship with the government, as they always had done and as capitalists usually do. Like cosmopolitan capitalists anywhere, they pursued their own interests in their own ways, whether these coincided with the rather different interests of the British government or not. They [ 37 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

proved adept at keeping a foot in both camps, as the conflict between the British and Transvaal governments mounted. Doubtful of British resolve, and half-expecting to be left to reach a settlement with Kruger’s government on their own (as had happened in 1896), they hedged their bets and continued their meetings with members of the Transvaal government, and even with President Kruger himself, after the Great Deal negotiations had broken down in mutual recriminations at the end of March 1899. War was likely to involve at least a temporary suspension of their mining operations, with potentially huge losses and possibly long-term damage to expensive equipment and mine-shafts through flooding or even sabotage. What they wanted was not a war but certain clearly and repeatedly stated reforms in the Transvaal administration. The failure of Kruger’s government to act on the recommendations of its own Industrial Commission with regard to these reforms after 1897, made the representatives of the mining industry increasingly sceptical that his government would ever do what not only they, but outside mining experts, repeatedly argued was urgently needed. But, whatever the mine-magnates wanted, it was not they who took the crucial decisions which brought about the war.57 These were taken by the British and Transvaal governments. British government records, and the private papers of members of the British Cabinet show that when they took their decisions with regard to the Transvaal in 1899, they were concerned not with the profits of the mining industry or with bringing the gold-fields directly under British control, but with strengthening the political hold of Britain over the Transvaal and British supremacy over South Africa generally. Since historians have been in broad agreement that Britain provoked the war, by subjecting the Transvaal government to steadily increasing British pressure, intervention, demands and threats, the record of Lord Salisbury’s government, with regard to South Africa, has been the subject of intense and repeated scrutiny. In the same year as J. S. Marais punished The Fall of Kruger’s Republic, R. Robinson and J. A. Gallagher 58 published Africa and the Victorians. Brilliant in conception, engagingly written, and firmly anchored in British government papers – the record of what they called ‘the official mind’ – their book, ‘written as a contribution to the general theory of imperialism’, analysed the rapid expansion of Britain’s African empire at the end of the nineteenth century. South Africa, along with Egypt, formed a key focus for their analysis. Some of their best-known concepts were deployed to great effect in the South African context: the importance of developments on the ‘periphery’ (i.e. in Africa, rather than in Britain or in Europe) in driving forward imperial expansion and bringing about the transition from ‘informal’ to ‘formal’ empire; the subordinate place of economic [ 38 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

A CENTURY OF CONTROVERSY OVER ORIGINS

considerations in ‘official’ thinking about South Africa; the emphasis on strategic interests; the emergence of the uitlanders as the ready-made collaborators in the Transvaal through whom the British government might hope to secure a firmer hold over the government of that state in the face of the growing nationalism and resistance of President Kruger and his burghers. In a tom de force, Robinson and Gallagher devoted the penultimate chapter of their book to a cogent rationale of why Britain went to war in South Africa in 1899 ‘for a concept that was finished, for 59 a cause that was lost, for a grand illusion’. Clearly articulating the difference between ‘contemporary motives’ and ‘historic causes’, Robinson and Gallagher studied the motives behind British expansion into Africa through the evidence of the policymaking elite (‘the official mind’). For all their shortcomings, they argued, ‘official calculations throw most light on the deeper reasons for imperial expansion in Africa’ and are central to the historian’s quest for ‘causes’.60 Carefully integrating economic and strategic with political considerations, they also related the imperial aims of British policymakers to their domestic British concerns and the growing international competition as the nineteenth century wore on. As to the means adopted to establish and maintain British paramountcy in areas of British interest overseas, Robinson and Gallagher concluded that British governments used whatever means best suited the particular circumstances in and beyond an empire of very diverse parts. As they had concluded in a seminal article earlier, ‘the chances of local cooperation and crises of local resistance played as large a role as the agents of expansion in deciding different forms of imperialism in different regions’.61 In South Africa, they argued, the impulses which drew the British government into ever greater involvement in the Transvaal stemmed from developments there. Gold-mining transformed the situation not only in the Transvaal but in South Africa. It strengthened the ability of President Kruger’s government to resist the incorporation of the Transvaal into a united South Africa under British auspices (the longstanding British objective) and made it likely that the Transvaal would draw the rest of South Africa away from the Empire into economic and political dependence on the republic. Utilising the celebrated memorandum dawn up by Lord Selborne in 1896, Robinson and Gallagher developed their analysis around the question which Selborne had posed to Lord Salisbury’s government: was South Africa to become another Canada or develop into another United States? As previous means for maintaining British imperial supremacy in South Africa proved inadequate, the ‘loyal’ uitlanders became the last best chance for securing a British hold over the Transvaal without a resort to war. In the wake of the Jameson Raid fiasco, the British government took [ 39 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

up the uitlander cause and committed itself to a rectification of their grievances. ‘The remedy may be found in time in an English party in the Transvaal getting the franchise’, Milner observed in 1897, ‘but the Boer oligarchy of the Transvaal is going to die hard.’62 By 1899, the uitlanders franchise had become central to the casus belli. It formed ‘a splendid battle cry’ for mobilising British public opinion. It offered the best means by which the various grievances of the uitlanders might be rectified, the government of the Transvaal improved, the need for perpetual nagging by the British government removed, and British paramountcy and control could be reasserted over a Transvaal which seemed increasingly set on a course of complete, republican independence. For almost forty years, Africa and the Victorians has been the benchmark book against which more recent work on nineteenth-century British imperial expansion has been judged. Some of the concepts coined and put into circulation by Robinson and Gallagher have since been found to be of doubtful validity or limited utility. The concept of ‘informal empire’, for example, has a real but restricted usefulness but has come in for serious challenge when applied to areas of the world such as Latin America or China.63 The ‘official mind’ has been dismissed as ‘a specious contrivance’ and ‘an artificial and mechanistic abstraction’. Its supposedly monolithic nature and mandarin detachment from outside influences – especially of the press and of public opinion – have squared ill with the pluralistic political process and the recorded preoccupations of the policy-makers which are revealed in the archives. Certain of Robinson and Gallagher’s emphases have also be questioned. The importance of strategic considerations (especially the sea-route to India round the Cape) which they argued ‘figured prominently in the decision to uphold British supremacy in south Africa’ has been questioned by historians who have doubted whether this really was a major consideration in 1899, when there is so little evidence of any serious strategic threat.64 Peter Henshaw’s recent attempt to reassert the strategic factor and show that British concerns about Delagoa Bay were ‘a key, and hitherto neglected factor in the origins of the South African War’ pays rather too little regard to the careful consideration of this issue by Robinson and Gallagher and fails to address the recent work, from the German archives, which shows the determination of the German government by this time to extricate itself from ‘the South African blind alley’, to stand by the Anglo-German Agreement of 1898 and not to obstruct Britain’s paramountcy over South Africa.65 Indeed, in September 1899, a leading envoy of the German government specifically assured Chamberlain that ‘all the sensible politicians in Germany as well as the capitalists look upon an absorption of the Transvaal by England as an [ 40 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

A CENTURY OF CONTROVERSY OVER ORIGINS

historical and commercial necessity’.66 Delagoa Bay – which gave Kruger’s Transvaal access to a nearby port outside British control in Portuguese Mozambique – had certainly been a worry to British governments before 1898. But it has yet to be demonstrated that it was a key factor, after the Anglo-German Agreement was concluded, in the origins of the South African War. Robinson and Gallagher’s conclusions about why there was a resort to war in South Africa in October 1899 have been explored, extended, qualified and reiterated by many historians since, as further relevant material has become available; on the British side, from the Treasury, War Office and Army records, and those of the Bank of England; and in South Africa, from the Chambers of Mines and Commerce and the archives of the leading banks and gold-mining companies. But many of their essential findings have come to be widely accepted; and their approach – of studying the origins of the war through the records of key government departments and policy-makers – has remained indispensable, even while there has been a move to widen the debate and to ask other questions of different kinds of evidence.67 In their wide-ranging study of British imperialism, P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins have challenged some of the premises on which Robinson and Gallagher worked, as well as some of their conclusions with regard to the late nineteenth century.68 Acknowledging ‘the interplay between process and agency’ in causal explanations, they argue convincingly for ‘the use of hindsight to bring out aspects of causation which may not have been stated or perceived clearly by the participants at the time’. Since they consider that Robinson and Gallagher take far too narrow a view of causation, Cain and Hopkins set out ‘to explain trends and events in terms of causes rather than trying to understand individual actions in terms of motives’; but they are concerned ‘to use contemporary opinion to check that our retrospective vantage point has 69 not imposed unacceptable anachronisms on the past’. Cain and Hopkins approach their large subject as economic historians of exceptional sophistication and breadth of reading and are careful to emphasise that ‘the stress laid on economic aspects of imperialism does not imply a commitment to the belief that economic forces are, a priori, more important than other considerations. It means only that the extent of their significance is to be determined by empirical investigation.’70 While acknowledging that developments on the periphery have their place in explanations of certain cases of British expansion, they believe that this aspect has been given undue prominence to the neglect of developments in the British metropolitan economy, which form the central focus of their book. Observing that it was commerce and finance, rather than industry and manufactured goods, which were the most [ 41 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

dynamic elements in the British economic thrust overseas, Cain and Hopkins trace the role of the ‘gentlemanly capitalists’, heavily concentrated in south-east England, as they went about their business. By the late nineteenth century, they argue, these ‘gentlemanly capitalists’ shared ‘a common world view’ with those in British government policy-making circles – many of whose senior officials ‘were recruited from the service sector and were inevitably infected by its perspectives and its values’.71 Where Hobson had argued that finance ‘was the real governor of the imperial engine’, Robinson and Gallagher had allocated this role to ‘the official mind’ and claimed that this was separate from business and able to act in the national interest, rather than in the sectional interest of capitalists. Cain and Hopkins now concluded that it is almost impossible to separate the ‘gentlemanly capitalists’ from the government’s policy-making elite. In the case of South Africa, Cain and Hopkins demonstrate that Britain’s involvement was not just political; it had an important economic dimension to it. Although capital is cosmopolitan, and much of this investment was French and German in origin, more than half of it was British (estimates vary between 60 per cent and 80 per cent of the total). Similarly, on the eve of the war, two-thirds of South Africa’s trade was carried out with Britain, and British exports were worth £15 million a year. For what was still the world’s greatest financial and trading power, this was small beer, in global terms, but it made South Africa by far the most important area of economic interest for Britain in Africa, where it accounted for two-thirds of that continent’s total foreign trade and investment.72 Within South Africa, it was the Transvaal which was the magnet for British investment and exports and, by the late 1890s, it seemed certain to become even more important in the future. Yet it cannot be said that Cain and Hopkins succeed in establishing a convincing linkage between these economic facts and the considerations in the minds of the British government decision-makers as the long-standing conflict with the Transvaal seemed increasingly likely to result in war. British government records reveal no real anxiety about British economic interests in the Transvaal at this time. What the British government feared was the political consequences of the growing economic power and importance of the Transvaal for the rest of South Africa and for British paramountcy there, not the present or future security of the British economic stake there per se. This was not thought to be at risk, and it was certainly not considered necessary to go to war to safeguard it. The Transvaal was dependent on the City of London, the financial capital of the world in 1899, to an unusual degree. This dependency was not just in terms of the long-term investment required by the capital[ 42 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

A CENTURY OF CONTROVERSY OVER ORIGINS

intensive gold-mining industry, and the coal-mines and railways developed in association with it. It extended to the whole network of financial, shipping, insurance, and technical services (including the refining and minting of South African gold) which London was uniquely well equipped to provide. The difficulties encountered by Kruger’s government when it attempted to escape the London network, and raise loans elsewhere, emphasised the Transvaal’s economic dependency on Britain at precisely the time when Kruger was seeking to assert the country’s independence from British over-rule. By 1899, when the German government had vacated the South African pitch politically in Britain’s favour (through the 1898 Anglo-German Agreement), German capitalists, like their French, Dutch and American counterparts, largely supported Britain’s determination to impose far-reaching reforms on the Transvaal government even to the point of war.73 A British takeover of the Transvaal was supported because it was expected to lead to a strong and more efficient administration, better conditions for the expansion of free trade and increased profits on investment, and the gradual unification of the region into a more effective whole – to the benefit of all concerned in the area. Cain and Hopkins focus on British investment and trade, when examining the South African case, but avoid the specific issue of the regular gold supplies from South Africa to London which has been the focus of Russell Ally’s recent research, utilising the archives of the Bank of England.74 With London as the bullion capital, as well as the financial capital of the world in the heyday of the Gold Standard, it might be expected that an interruption in the supply of Transvaal gold in the event of war would form a major consideration in the deliberations of the Bank and of the British government as war approached in 1899. Yet with gold supplies, as with the sizable British investment in and trade with the Transvaal, the evidence does not support the view that these issues played any significant part in government decision-making. The research and conclusions of J. J. van Helten on these issues still seem more persuasive than the attempts of Shula Marks, Stanley Trapido and Russel Ally to rebut them.75 In a recent review of the arguments and the evidence that gold decisively shaped British policy towards the Transvaal republic in 1899, Ian Phimister frankly concludes that the evidence is only circumstantial.76 Certainly, the evidence at present available does not support the widely held assumption that ‘whatever the ideology, the motive for the Boer war was gold’.77 Ever since Hobson’s hypothesising about the specifically economic considerations at work in the readiness of the British government to resort to war against the Transvaal republic in 1899, a steady stream of [ 43 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

historians writing about the origins of this war have sought to establish a direct linkage between gold and other specifically economic considerations, and British government decision-making with regard to the Transvaal in 1899. If and when such evidence is found, all serious historians of the subject will, one hopes, be happy to consider the matter afresh. That is how advances in historical knowledge and explanation are made. Meanwhile, open minds rather than entrenched positions are surely what need cultivating after a century of controversy. Argument by inference or innuendo or by appeals to ‘how the world works’ will not do. Nor will it suffice to establish a ‘context’ in which the crucial decisions were taken. As Andrew Porter has rightly emphasised: ‘“contexts”, which may be little other than a description of more or less coincidental phenomena, are too readily used in the absence of particular evidence to attribute motive and decisive influence to individuals or “interests’”. They are also too often employed to support a range of essentially determinist arguments.78 The evidence so far produced does not support the view that the British government went to war in 1899 to bring the gold supply or the gold-fields under British control or to protect British trade or the profits of cosmopolitan capitalists in the Transvaal. None of these was felt to be under serious threat, even if it was acknowledged that the capitalists did suffer from unnecessary impositions at the hands of an inefficient and corrupt government. The Transvaal was not the only part of the world where this occurred, as the British rulers of the most extensive empire in world history well knew. Despite their justifiable complaints, the capitalists on the Rand not only made sizable profits, under Kruger’s government, but were also successful in attracting the large-scale private investment which was so essential to their operations. While some of their leading members, by 1899, certainly looked to a British takeover in the Transvaal as likely to benefit their interests, there is as yet no evidence that their views formed a significant part of British government considerations in its mounting conflict with the Transvaal government of President Kruger. Transvaal gold formed only a small proportion of the low level of British gold reserves, which was a deliberate feature of Bank of England policy before, during and after the South African War – testimony to the still awesome strength of the British economy and to the fact that sterling operated as an international currency alongside gold. It was not gold that Britain was after in 1899, but the establishment of British power and influence over the Transvaal on a firmer basis. The uitlanders, the majority of whom had of course been drawn to the Transvaal as a result of gold being discovered there, acted as a local ‘bridgehead’ which the British government sought to reinforce while the [ 44 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

A CENTURY OF CONTROVERSY OVER ORIGINS

burgeoning gold-mining industry and continuing uitlander immigration in the future were expected to secure Britain’s hold over the Transvaal and regional primacy over a united South Africa.79 At the end of 1895, an uitlander uprising on the Rand, assisted from outside the Transvaal by Jameson and his Raiders, was to have been the pretext for a direct intervention by the British government in the Transvaal as a result of which Kruger’s government would have been removed. The British High Commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson, was expected to arrive from Cape Town and issue a Proclamation ordering submission to his arbitration and the formation of a new Constituent Assembly, ‘to be elected by every adult white male in the country’, many of whom were uitlanders.80 The failure of the uprising and Jameson’s fiasco put paid to any such reform. But Chamberlain took up the gauntlet of uitlander grievances in January 1896, in the wake of this debacle, and the British government continued thereafter to champion them and to seek their rectification through the extraction of an uitlander franchise from Kruger’s reluctant government. Henceforth, this became the means to the larger British end of a transfer of political power in the Transvaal out of the exclusive control of its Boer oligarchy and into the hands of a white minority in which the British element was soon expected to outnumber that of the Boers by a rapidly expanding margin. At the same time as it took up the uitlander franchise issue, the British government pressed its claim to suzerainty over the Transvaal with renewed vigour (albeit by specious reasoning) and used this to justify its intervention in what it had previously accepted was an internal matter for the Transvaal government. Once committed, it would not back down. The timing – when matters might be brought to a head – might be affected by the government’s estimation of the readiness of British public opinion to support it in a confrontation with the Transvaal, and by Britain’s involvements elsewhere. Eventually, however, either Kruger’s government would capitulate to Britain’s demands or there would be a resort to war – which the British government had every reason to anticipate would be short and decisive and result in a British victory. Only after the war had begun did the British government decide to annex the Transvaal, and her ally and sister republic the Orange Free State. This had not been the original objective but the war made it possible. Britain used the opportunity provided by her victory to bring the entire region under her sovereignty with a view to creating the strong, united, white-ruled dominion, within the British Empire, which had long been the objective of successive British governments. [ 45 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Notes 1

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

2

3 4

5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27

Bill Nasson, ‘Tot Siens to All That? South Africa’s Great War, 1899–1902’, South African Historical Journal, 32 (May 1995), pp. 191–205. Peter Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899–1902 (Cambridge, 1983). Among much work since, some of it unpublished, see especially: Bill Nasson, Abraham Esau’s War: A Black South African War in the Cape, 1899–1902 (Cambridge, 1991), Jeremy Krikler, Revolution from Above, Rebellion from Below: The Agrarian Transvaal at the Turn of the Century (Cambridge, 1993) and Stowell V. Kessler, ‘The Black concentration camps of the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902)’, research paper, 10 October, 1996. Rayne Kruger, Goodbye Dolly Gray (London, 1959), pp. 421–2. F. J. Le Roux and D. J. van Zyl, eds, ‘n Eeu Onreg (Cape Town and Pretoria, 1985), where the matter of the authorship of this work is analysed in a useful Introduction; G. D. Scholtz, Die oorsake van die Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, 2 vols (Johannesburg, 1947) and Europa en die Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, 1899–1902 (Johannesburg and Pretoria, 1939); J. H. Breytenback, Die Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, 2 vols (1948–49) and Die geskiedenis van die Tweede Vryheidsoorlog in Suid-Afrika, 1899–1902, 5 vols (Pretoria 1969–1983). The quotations from A Century of Wrong are from the English edition (London, 1900), p. 2 and p. 5. F. A. van Jaarsveld, The Afrikaner’s Interpretation of South African History (Cape Town, 1964), p. 95. Ken Smith, The Changing Past: Trends in South African Historical Writing (Johannesburg, 1988), p. 68. A Century of Wrong, p. 98. Among the most important work has been, Albert Grundlingh, Die ‘hendsoppers’ en ‘joiners’: Die rasionaal en verkynsel van veraad (Pretoria, 1979); Fransjohan Pretorius, The Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902 (Cape Town, 1985) and Kommandolewe tydens die AngloBoereoorlog, 1899–1902 (Cape Town and Johannesburg, 1991); Hermann Giliomee, ‘The beginnings of Afrikaner nationalism, 1870–1915’, South African Historical Journal, 19 (1987), pp. 115–42. L. S. Amery, ed., The Times History of the War in South Africa, vol. 1 (London, 1900), p. vii. Ibid., pp. 90–1. Ibid., pp. 2–3. Ibid., p. 23. Ibid., vol. 6, p. viii. Ibid., p. 16. Ibid., p. 17. Ibid., p. 22. Ibid., vol. 1., p. vi. J. A. Hobson, The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Effects (London, 1900). Substantial parts of the book had first been published as articles in the Manchester Guardian and the Speaker. J. A. Hobson, Confessions of an Economic Heretic (London, 1938), p. 59. J. A. Hobson, ‘Capitalism and Imperialism in South Africa’, Contemporary Review, 77 (April 1900), pp. 1–17. Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916); in the English tradition see L. Woolf, Economic Imperialism (1920). Most recently, P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 2 vols (Harlow, 1993), especially vol. 1, pp. 16–17. J. A. Hobson, The War in South Africa, pp. 189–97. Ibid., p. 240. Milner to Selborne, 28 June 1899, in D. G. Boyce (ed.), The Crisis of British Power: The Imperial and Naval Papers of the Second Earl of Selborne, 1895–1910 (London, 1990), p. 87; Salisbury to Chamberlain, 9 October 1899, Chamberlain Papers JC5/67/129. See especially, J. S. Marais, The Fall of Kruger’s Republic (Oxford, 1961); Iain R. Smith, ‘The origins of South African War: a re-appraisal’, South African Historical Journal, 22

[ 46 ]

A CENTURY OF CONTROVERSY OVER ORIGINS

28

29

30

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

31

32 33 34 35 36 37

38

39 40

41

42

43 44

45 46 47

(November 1990). J. A. Hobson, The War in South Africa, p. 231. This aspect attracted renewed attention during the 1970s. See Dennis Bransky, ‘The causes of the Boer War: towards a new synthesis’, unpublished paper, Oxford, 1974. See P. Harries, ‘Capital, state and labour on the 19th century Witwatersrand: a reassessment’, South African Historical Journal, 18 (1986); A. (eeves, Migrant Labour in South Africa’s Mining Economy, 1890–1921 (Johannesburg, 1985). Ibid. Also P. Harries, Work, Culture and Identity: Migrant Labourers in Mozambique and South Africa, 1860–1910 (Johannesburg, 1994). ‘Memoirs of the Boer War’, unfinished MS written by Smuts between 1903 and 1906 and printed in W. K. Hancock and J. van der Poel, eds, Selections from the Smuts Papers, 7 vols (Cambridge, 1966–73), vol. 1, p. 623. Ibid. Ibid., p. 624. Published in English as A Century of Wrong (London, 1900) under the name of F. W. Reitz. See n. 5 above. A. G. Hopkins, ‘The Victorians and Africa: a reconsideration of the occupation of Egypt, 1882’, Journal of African History, 27, 2 (1986), pp. 365–7. Jean van der Poel, The Jameson Raid (Oxford, 1951), pp. 83–4. For the most recent appraisal of this still controversial subject see the chapters by R. Rotberg and R. Mendelsohn in J. Carruthers (ed.), The Jameson Raid: A Centennial Retrospective (Johannesburg, 1996). Richard Hull (New York University) is currently (1999) working on this subject. John Hays Hammond left a good deal of evidence about his views in his own writings, especially The Truth about the Jameson Raid (1918) and the Autobiography of John Hays Hammond, 2 vols (1935). See Thomas J. Noer, Britain, Boer and Yankee: The United States and South Africa, 1870– 1914 (Kent, Ohio, 1978). R. V. Kubicek, Economic Imperialism in Theory and Practice: The Case of South African Gold Mining Finance, 1886–1914 (Durham, NC, 1979), p. 204. See also his chapter ‘Economic power at the periphery: Canada, Australia and South Africa, 1850–1914’, in R. E. Dumett (ed.), Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism (Harlow, 1999). G. Blainey, ‘Lost causes of the Jameson Raid’, Economic History Review, 18 (1965), pp. 350– 66; R. Mendelsohn, ‘Blainey and the Jameson Raid: the debate renewed’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 6, 2 (1980), pp. 157–70; A. Jeeves, The Rand capitalists and Transvaal politics, 1892–1899’, Ph.D. thesis, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada, 1971; R. V. Kubicek, ‘The Randlords in 1895: a reassessment’, Journal of British Studies, 40, 2 (1972), pp. 84–103; J. J. van Helten, ‘British and European economic investment in the Transvaal with special reference to the Witwatersrand goldfields and district, 1886–1910’, Ph.D. thesis, London University, 1981; A. Webb, ‘Before Blainey and the Jameson Raid: the experience of the Ferreira gold mining company’, Journal of the Economic History Society of Southern Africa, 3 (1984–85), pp. 11–24; E. Katz, ‘Outcrop and deep level mining in South Africa before the Anglo-Boer War: re-examining the Blainey thesis’, Economic History Review, 48, 2(1995), pp. 304–28. This proposal was made by the archivist of Barlow Rand, Mrs Maryna Fraser, at the Symposium held at the Brenthurst Library, Johannesburg in January 1997 to mark the publication of The Jameson Raid: A Centennial Retrospective (Houghton, South Africa, 1997) where this whole debate is reviewed by R. Mendelsohn. See Christopher Saunders and Iain R. Smith ‘Southern Africa, 1795–1910’, in A. N. Porter (ed.), The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1999). R. w. Bixler, Anglo-German Imperialism in South Africa, 1880–1900 (Baltimore, 1932); W. L. Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism (New York, 1935); R. I. Lovell, The Struggle for South Africa, 1875–1899 (New York, 1934), p. 290. D. K. Fieldhouse, Economics and Empire, 1830–1914 (London, 1973), p. 362. Especially influential has been C. Headlam (ed.), The Milner Papers, 2 vols (London, 1931– 33). G. H. Le May, British Supremacy in South Africa 1899–1907 (Oxford, 1965); T. Pakenham,

[ 47 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

48 49

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

50

51

52

53

54 55 56

57 58 59 60 61 62 63

64

65

66

The Boer War (London, 1979; new illustrated edn, 1993). Milner to Lord Roberts, 6 June 1900, quoted in T. Pakenham, The Boer War, p. 113. Jean van der Poel, The Jameson Raid (Oxford, 1951); E. Drus, ‘A report on the papers of Joseph Chamberlain relating to the Jameson Raid and the Inquiry’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 25 (1952), pp. 33–62; E. Drus, ‘Select documents from the Chamberlain papers concerning Anglo-Transvaal relations, 1896–99’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 27 (1952), pp. 156–89; R. H. Wilde, Joseph Chamberlain and the South African Republic, 1895–1899, Archives Yearbook for South African History, Part 1 (Pretoria, 1956); J. L. Garvin, Life of Joseph Chamberlain, vol. 3 (London, 1934). A. N. Porter, The Origins of the South African War: Joseph Chamberlain and the Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1895–1899 (Manchester, 1980); ‘Lord Salisbury, Mr Chamberlain and South Africa, 1895–1899’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 1, 1 (1972); ‘Lord Salisbury, foreign policy and domestic finance, 1860–1900’, in R. Blake and H. Cecil (eds), Salisbury: The Man and His Policies (London, 1987); ‘The South African War (1899– 1902): context and motive reconsidered’, Journal of African History, 31 (1990). Eric Walker, Lord de Villiers and His Times (London, 1925); W. P. Schreiner: A South African (Oxford, 1937); L. E. van Niekerk, Kruger se regterhand: ‘n Biografìe van dr. W. J. Leyds (Pretoria, 1985); A Duminy and W. Guest, Interfering in Politics: A Biography of Sir Percy FitzPatrick (Johannesburg, 1987). A. Atmore and S. Marks, ‘The imperial factor in South Africa in the nineteenth century: towards a reassessment’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 3, 1 (October 1974). See especially S. Marks, ‘Scrambling for South Africa’, Journal of African History, 23 (1982), pp. 97–113 and chs 7 and 8 in R. Oliver and G. N. Sanderson (eds), The Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 6 (Cambridge, 1985); S. Marks and S. Trapido, ‘Lord Milner and the South African state’, History Workshop, 8 (1979), pp. 50–80; S. Marks and S. Trapido, ‘Lord Milner and the South African state reconsidered’ in M. Twaddle (ed.), Imperialism, the State and the Third World (London, 1992), pp. 80–94. J. S. Marais, The Fall of Kruger’s Republic (Oxford, 1961), Preface. Ibid. Alan Jeeves’s fine Ph.D. thesis ‘The Rand capitalists and Transvaal politics, 1892–1899’, Queens University, Kingston, Canada, 1971, has never been published; but see his two short studies: ‘Aftermath of rebellion – the Randlords and Kruger’s republic after the Jameson Raid’, South African Historical Journal, 10 (1978) and ‘The Rand Capitalists and the coming of the South African War, 1896–1899’, Canadian Historical Association Papers 1973 (Ottawa, 1974); also his chapter in E. Carruthers (ed.), The Jameson Raid: A Centennial Retrospective (Houghton, South Africa, 1996). G. H. Le May, British Supremacy in South Africa, 1899–1907 (Oxford, 1965), p. 30. R. Robinson and J. A. Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians (London, 1961). All citations are to the second edition, with added ‘Explanation’ and ‘Afterthoughts’, published in 1981. Ibid., p. 461. Ibid., p. 20. J. Gallagher and R. Robinson, ‘The imperialism of free trade’, Economic History Review, 6, 1 (March 1953). Milner to Sir Clinton Dawkins, 25 August 1897, C Headlam (ed.), The Milner Papers, vol. 1 (London, 1931), p. 87. See W. R. Louis (ed.), Imperialism: The Robinson and Gallagher Controversy (London, 1976) and most recently, J. Darwin, ‘Imperialism and the Victorians: the dynamics of territorial expansion’, English Historical Review, 112 (June 1997). Africa and the Victorians, p. 464. See especially R. L. Cope, ‘Strategic and socioeconomic explanations for Carnarvon’s South African Confederation policy: the historiography and the evidence’, History in Africa, 13 (1986). Peter Henshaw, ‘The “Key to South Africa” in the 1890s: Delagoa Bay and the origins of the South African War’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 24, 3 (September 1998); Harald Rosenbach, Das Deutsche Reich Grossbritannien und der Transvaal, 1896–1902 (Gottingen, 1993). J. L. Garvin, Life of Joseph Chamberlain, vol. 3, p. 334 (London, 1934).

[ 48 ]

A CENTURY OF CONTROVERSY OVER ORIGINS

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

67

68 69 70 71 72

73 74

75

76 77 78 79

80

See Iain R. Smith, The Origins of the South African War, 1899–1902 (Harlow, 1996); also G. H. Le May, British Supremacy in South Africa, 1899–1907 (Oxford, 1965); L. Thompson, ‘Great Britain and the Afrikaner Republics’, in L. Thompson and M. Wilson (eds), The Oxford History of South Africa, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1971); D. Schreuder, The Scramble for Southern Africa (Cambridge, 1980); A. N. Porter, The Origins of the South African War (Manchester, 1980); S. Marks and S. Trapido, ‘Lord Milner and the South African State’, History Workshop, 8 (1979); A. N. Porter, ‘The South African War (1899–1902): context and motive reconsidered’, Journal of African History, 31 (1990); I. Phimister, ‘Unscrambling the scramble for Southern Africa: the Jameson Raid and the South African War Revisited’, South African Historical Journal, 28 (1993). P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 2 vols (Harlow, 1993). Ibid., vol. 1, p. 49. Ibid., p. 50. Ibid., p. 13. Ibid., pp. 373–4. For further detail see J. J. van Helten, ‘British and European economic investment in the Transvaal, with specific reference to the Witwatersrand gold fields and district, 1886–1910’, Ph.D. thesis, London University, 1981. See Rosenbach, Das Deutsche Reich, Grossbritannien und der Transvaal; T. J. Noer, Briton, Boer and Yankee: The United States and South Africa, 1870–1914 (Kent, Ohio, 1978). P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, vol. 1, p. 375 fn. 80; R. Ally, Gold and Empire: The Bank of England and South Africa’s Gold Producers, 1886–1926 (Johannesburg, 1994) and his ‘The Bank of England and South Africa’s gold, c.1886–1926’, Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1990. Van Helten, ‘British and European economic investment’; also his article, ‘Empire and high finance: South Africa and the International Gold Standard, 1890–1914’, Journal of African History, 23 (1982), pp. 529–48; S. Marks and S. Trapido, ‘Lord Milner and the South African State’, History Workshop, 8 (1979) pp. 50–80; S. Marks and S. Trapido, ‘Lord Milner and the South African State reconsidered’, in M. Twaddle (ed.), Imperialism, the State and the Third World (London, 1992), pp. 80–94; Ally, Gold and Empire, 1. Phimister, ‘Unscrambling the scramble for Southern Africa, p. 219. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875–1914 (London, 1987), p. 66. Porter, ‘The South African War (1899–1902)’, p. 51. In a thoughtful extension and critique of Robinson and Gallagher’s ideas, John Darwin has recently developed for more general application the concept of ‘bridgeheads’ out of the more specific use of the term by P. J. Marshall for Bengal. See Darwin, ‘Imperialism and the Victorians, pp. 629, 641. See Sir Hercules Robinson’s private letter to J. Chamberlain, 4 November 1895, and Chamberlain’s response, printed in J. L. Garvin, Life of Joseph Chamberlain (London, 1934), vol. 3, pp. 59–63.

[ 49 ]

CHAPTER THREE

Journalism as active politics: Flora Shaw, The Times and South Africa Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Dorothy O. Helly and Helen Callaway

Had Miss Florizel been a man she would probably have been a Cabinet Minister. Financiers admitted with a sigh that they had never met a journalist out of petticoats who could compare with her for grasp of the subject and for the lucidity with which she appreciated their points and divined the weakness and strength of their case. (W. T. Stead, Blastus, the 1 King’s Chamberlain )

When Flora Shaw published her first article in The Times in May 1890, she gained an entry to the daily newspaper in Britain with the strongest voice in international affairs. For the next decade, her political journalism in the pages of ‘The Thunderer’ – nearly six hundred articles, leaders and columns – supported the expansion and consolidation of the British Empire. She became the first woman to gain a professional position on The Times and its first Colonial Editor. She wrote with lucid analysis, clarifying complex economic and political issues. Her persuasive arguments in the leaders and columns of this leading newspaper regularly reached the masculine clubrooms of the ruling elite – politicians, civil servants, and leaders of commerce and industry. South Africa, for many reasons, was high on her agenda. In a letter to Sir Frederick Lugard early in their marriage, she reviewed her achievements on The Times: ‘To have helped to rouse the British public to a sense of Imperial responsibility and an ideal of Imperial greatness … to have prevented the Dutch from taking South Africa, … [the list goes on] are all matters that I am proud and glad to have had my part in.’ She added, ‘I never thought of my work exactly as journalism, but rather as active politics without the fame.’2 As a woman barred from public office, she clearly discerned the political power she had exercised. While historians have registered Shaw’s involvement in the notorious Jameson affair, they have failed to grasp the cumulative effect of her journalism as politics committed to shaping British public opinion and influencing colonial affairs in South Africa.3 [ 50 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

JOURNALISM AS ACTIVE POLITICS

Shaw was already an accomplished journalist when she contributed her first article to The Times. Born in 1852, Shaw grew up in the upperclass military and political establishment. Her grandfather, Sir Frederick Shaw, represented the elite of Anglo-Irish Protestant society in Dublin, having served as a Tory in parliament for many years before he succeeded to the baronetcy and family estate. Her father, George Shaw, a second son, ultimately became a major general at the Royal Military Arsenal at Woolwich. She was one of the eldest of eleven surviving children, a tall, slender girl with auburn-brown hair and intense blue eyes. Although she had no formal schooling, she read widely in the library of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich and was encouraged in her writing by such mentors as John Ruskin and George Meredith. During her apprenticeship at the Pall Mall Gazette under W. T. Stead, she fully discerned his methods of using the press to achieve political results. In the winter of 1888–89 she reported from Egypt, where she learned much from C. F. Moberly Bell, long-time correspondent for The Times and a dedicated imperialist. In Cairo, she met twice a week with the British Consul-General and Resident, Sir Evelyn Baring (later Lord Cromer), who as head of the British occupation saw in her a way to ensure a more favourable press in England. Shaw portrayed the practical benefits of British rule in Egypt in frequent reports to the Pall Mall Gazette and the Manchester Guardian. On her return to London she met Cecil Rhodes, who was campaigning for a royal charter for his British South Africa Company. She was attracted by his charismatic personality and his visionary ideas of an expanding British Empire based on self-governing colonies. Rhodes, in turn, appreciated her quick intelligence and astute political analyses. They forged a relationship of mutual interests, renewed each time they met in London and Cape Town. She began intensive self-instruction about the affairs of southern Africa, interviewing Sir Hercules Robinson, 4 recently retired High Commissioner. She called on the Portuguese envoy to write on the developing crisis over the railway from the Transvaal to Delagoa Bay. She also consulted regularly with Sir Robert Herbert, the permanent under-secretary at the Colonial Office. While she did not actively support Rhodes’s campaign to gain the charter, as some of his biographers have claimed,5 she wrote appreciative articles that autumn on the new Chartered Company praising its purpose of bringing ‘civilisation’ to another area of southern Africa and thereby increasing imperial wealth and trade.6 Shaw’s opportunity to write for The Times came unexpectedly. Bell was summoned from Egypt in March 1890 to become assistant to the manager; his task was to revive the flagging reputation and the finances of the newspaper after the scandal of the forged Parnell letters. The [ 51 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

directorate of The Times supported Rhodes and his chartered company and agreed with Bell on the need to appoint a colonial correspondent with a knowledge of African problems.7 Having been greatly impressed in Egypt by Shaw’s professional abilities, Bell devised a strategy by which she might enter the male stronghold of Printing House Square. He formally requested her to submit a trial article. She responded with ‘The Egyptian debt’, demonstrating her ability to analyse the complex economic history of European intervention in Egyptian financial affairs. It gained high approval, and from June to November she published ten further articles, including an interview with General Joubert of the Transvaal.8 Sir Charles Mills, agent-general of Cape Colony, introduced her and reported to J. X. Merriman, then a cabinet member of Rhodes’s government: an exceedingly clever, fascinating lady, Miss Shaw, who has thoroughly studied and mastered South African politics, was sent by me to interview Joubert. He was delighted with her, and could not believe that a lady could 9 know so much, and ask such searching and pertinent questions.

In early November 1890, she began writing fortnightly columns on ‘The colonies’ without a contract. Throughout 1891, she continued a heavy schedule of freelance writing for the Manchester Guardian and Stead’s Review of Reviews as well as for The Times. Among her frequent articles on Africa, she featured the work of the British chartered companies (the Royal Niger Company, the British East Africa Company and the British South Africa Company), including her first leader for The Times.10 She consistently praised Rhodes, now premier of Cape Colony as well as managing director of the British South Africa Company, as a particularly effective empire-builder. Early in 1892, exhausted and concerned about the insecurity of her career in journalism, she fell ill with severe influenza. Bell, friend as well as employer, arranged for The Times to send her to South Africa to recover her health and write about Cape politics. This four-month visit proved the turning point in her career and convinced her that British paramountcy in South Africa was essential. As the Times correspondent, Shaw gained immediate access to leading government officials, politicians and businessmen. With much improved health, she took the initiative to arrange travels to the interior. She extended her assignment into a series of articles covering the economic potential of the diamond and gold fields of Kimberley and Johannesburg and the agricultural districts of the Transvaal. In her first two articles she took readers on an underground tour of the Kimberley diamond mines, with explanations of the engineering processes of extracting ore and the financial operations of the industry. She hailed De [ 52 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

JOURNALISM AS ACTIVE POLITICS

Beers for solving the labour problem of the diamond industry, praising their creation of a fenced-in compound where, she described, black men lived under a regime of total surveillance to prevent drunkenness and diamond-stealing. Her focus on the black population in southern African was solely as a potential labour force. In Pretoria, President Kruger received her in his home and aired his strong views on the Transvaal’s claims to administer Swaziland. In Basutoland, she heralded its resident commissioner, Sir Marshall Clarke, for making that African territory into ‘a centre of loyalty and order’ and a reserve for needed migrant labour.11 Shaw wrote on the charged political issues of the day, including the proposed customs union, responsible government in Natal and the fate of Swaziland. Her reports were aimed at readers looking for information about potential high-yielding investments, possibilities for exports of manufactured products, and prospects for agriculture and commerce. She set out a glowing vision of South Africa’s future development: ‘Everything that is written of the material resources of this astonishing country must read like exaggeration, and yet exaggeration is hardly possible. The fertility of the soil is no less amazing than the mineral 12 wealth.’ Most of all, she argued, Dutch land interests would prosper and be reconciled to the benefits offered by English commercial enterprise, ‘What English supremacy demands is not the destruction of other Governments … It is railway development, customs union, … [and] above all, an increased white population … the steam-engine has become a more effective instrument of empire than the cannon.’13 From London, Bell wrote, ‘[N]ever have I so often heard the term “Remarkable” applied so generally & by so many different sorts of people as to your letters.’14 Earning high praise from the editor and proprietor, she received a year’s contract to report from Australia and New Zealand. Back in London in July 1893, she signed a new contract as Colonial Editor of The Times at an annual salary of £800, and so became London’s highest-paid woman journalist.15 Shaw embarked on the next phase of her journalistic career with renewed enthusiasm. Two themes dominated her reporting on South Africa: the contributions of Rhodes to the expansion of the Empire and the grievances of the uitlanders of the Transvaal. In October 1894, in her first significant leader on the topic, she characterised uitlanders as, ‘A foreign population which by its personal exertions and by the investment of its wealth, has contributed enormously to the development of the Transvaal, and bears, it is said, the burden of five-sixths of the taxation, [yet] occupies a position little better than that accorded by other civilised 16 Powers to vagrant aliens in their midst.’ Four months later, she supported the nomination of Sir Hercules Robinson to succeed Sir Henry Loch as High Commissioner. She reminded readers that when Robinson [ 53 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

had been in South Africa in the 1880s, he had opened the policy of ‘northern expansion … which Mr. Rhodes had followed.’17 Her keen interest in southern Africa drew her into the politics of what she understood to be an uitlander scheme to overturn Kruger’s government in the Transvaal. In fact, as she would later realise, it was a plot organised behind the scenes by Rhodes and his agents. Rhodes sent Dr Rutherfoord Harris to the new Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, in early August 1895 with the object of renewing a proposal that the Chartered Company take over the administration of the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Chamberlain’s first reaction was negative.18 But Harris was accompanied by Chamberlain’s close friend Albert Grey, a director of the Chartered Company, who in a private moment supplied ‘good reasons’ for Rhodes’s request. Chamberlain reconsidered and came up with a compromise.19 He offered the Company a strip of land along the Transvaal-Bechuanaland border to allow it to build a railway connecting Rhodesia and the northern Cape.20 In September, when Harris called on Shaw at The Times, she asked him pointblank if the additional police she noticed the Company assembling in Rhodesia had anything to do with the uitlander grievances.21 He replied, ‘The trouble in Johannesburg must break out; we must be ready to go in to … help … It’s all right, Chamberlain knows all about it.’ He was alarmed, however, when she indicated she would raise the question with the new Colonial Secretary, and warned her, ‘Oh, you mustn’t do that: it’s absolutely confidential.’22 She reported Harris’s visit and its implications for South Africa to the directorate of The Times. By mid October, Dr Jameson was able to move troops from Rhodesia to a Bechuanaland border station near Johannesburg.23 When a crisis arose over Kruger’s closing off the drifts on the Cape Colony border, Shaw wrote a Times leader connecting it with the Uitlander problem. She underscored her previous remarks: ‘Unfortunately the action of the President is but the continuance of a course of repressive measures, by which the endurance of the uitlander, or foreign, population of the Transvaal has notoriously been brought almost to its limits.’24 In the face of a British ultimatum, Kruger backed down, encouraging Rhodes, Chamberlain and the British government ‘to believe that Kruger would always climb down if “firmly summoned’”.25 Shaw held the same view. Harris cabled Rhodes on 4 November 1895: ‘I have already sent Flora to convince J. Chamberlain support “Times” newspaper and if you can telegraph course you wish “Times” to adopt now with regard to Transvaal Flora will act.’26 She later assured the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the Jameson Raid that these words were an empty assertion by Harris trying to impress his employer. [ 54 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

JOURNALISM AS ACTIVE POLITICS

She had committed The Times to nothing, she said; she was acting as a journalist in search of information.27 Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, head of the foreign news department, wrote one of his rare leaders on 16 December 1895, comparing the treatment of the uitlanders to helots of ancient Greece. While they supported Rhodes and the cause of the Uitlanders, neither the managing proprietor Arthur Walter nor the editor G. E. Buckle was kept abreast of the strategies Bell used to make sure The Times would be the first newspaper to announce the expected Johannesburg uprising. Early in December, Bell wrote to Shaw, urging her ‘to wire R. to ask him to let us know probable date (or certain date if possible) when the Company 28 begins business’. The next day, using the code name ‘Telemones’, assigned her by Harris, Shaw sent a cable to Cape Town, ‘Can you advise when you will commence the plans …’29 An ink press of the text of this telegram, in code and in Bell’s handwriting, is in the Manager’s letter book, as are the telegrams of 12 and 17 December, conveying concern that ‘delay’ was dangerous, and assuring Rhodes that ‘Chamberlain sound in case of interference European powers but have special reason to believe wishes you must do it immediately’.30 After Jameson’s raid on the Transvaal at the end of December, and before news of his surrender had arrived in London, Bell described the panic evoked at the Colonial Office: Chamberlain was at first furious, inclined to throw over Rhodes, Jameson, South Africa, the Charter and the whole bag of tricks, but that invaluable Miss Shaw of ours has acted with great diplomacy, and receiving the most amusingly dictatorial telegrams from Rhodes, ‘Tell Chamberlain he must at once do so-and-so.’ ‘Tell Chamberlain to stop sending foolish telegrams to the High Commissioner,’ and so forth, and spending her days at the Colonial Office, has succeeded in keeping as watertight as possible the situation 31 gravely compromised by Jameson.

Many years later, Shaw made her own acerbic comparison: ‘I had an opportunity during the Jameson crisis of comparing from the inside the panic of the C.O. and the panic of The Times and it was six of one and half a dozen of the other.’32 Following the failure of the raid, Shaw guided the maneouvres at The Times to limit the damage to imperial policy. Every day during the first two weeks of 1896, she contributed lengthy commentary on the incoming news about the crisis in the Transvaal. In the face of condemnation elsewhere in the press, she emphasised that Jameson would not have acted without sound reasons and that Rhodes was only a supporter of uitlander complaints, not a prime mover in their plans.33 Campaigning for public sympathy, she also published three articles [ 55 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

beginning 1 January on ‘The Transvaal Uitlander’, in which she claimed that the second republic of 1889 was practically a new creation and that the uitlander had contributed much more to its present situation than the Boer. She accused the Transvaal government of ‘[a]rbitrary taxation, military terrorism, incompetent and corrupt administration, and a judicial system of which the independence is not assured’. She concluded that ‘it is evident that the condition of things is one which cannot in any circumstances remain unaltered’.34 Shaw had been embarrassed, personally and professionally, when The Times was the only newspaper to print the letter concocted by the Reformers which called on Jameson to come and protect the ‘women and children of Johannesburg’. She blamed Harris for cabling her the faked letter.35 In April came further exposures. The diaries, telegrams and notes found among the raiders taken as prisoners in the Transvaal came under public scrutiny and revealed Rhodes’s complicity. Shaw had to face Buckle’s indignation when the Pretoria correspondent of Le Temps gave Paris the news that one telegram implicated The Times because it had urged Rhodes against delay. In a formal letter to Buckle dated 29 April, she accepted sole responsibility, stating that the telegrams were sent in her private capacity, without ‘your knowledge or that of the 36 Managing Proprietor’. Her letter did not mention Bell. The disclosures from South Africa forced Shaw to write in a leader of 1 May that there could be no further doubt that Rhodes had aided the uitlanders with money and arms.37 But she continued to impress upon her readers the distinction between the plan for an uprising and the raid carried out by Jameson without Rhodes’s approval.38 Making this distinction became Shaw’s mission. She conceded that Rhodes’s responsibilities as the premier of the Cape Colony and the managing director of an imperial enterprise ought to have restrained him. But she maintained that though Rhodes was accountable for his action as an individual, it should not be considered in any way a condemnation of the British South Africa Company. Evidence of the confidence the Times directorate placed in Shaw’s judgement is confirmed by a 4 May leader (not written by Shaw) again cautioning readers against a demand for the abrogation of the charter and calling attention to a letter to the editor that day signed ‘Imperialist’. Under this pseudonym Shaw defended Rhodes as the ‘ablest Englishman in South Africa’ devoted to asserting the supremacy of Great Britain there. Two days later, her letter to the editor under the pseudonym ‘Festina Lente’ appeared, warning readers that dismissing Rhodes as managing director would remove ‘its most valuable asset’. Frank Harris, editor of the Saturday Review, immediately identified her as the author of these letters. He praised her journalism as ‘excellent in manner and [ 56 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

JOURNALISM AS ACTIVE POLITICS

matter, combining a real knowledge of the subject with a masculine firmness of style’, while condemning her continued defence of Rhodes as the ‘woman’ in her ‘peeping out’ and ‘an extraordinary specimen of special pleading and hysterical admiration’.39 By August 1896, however, after the Jameson trial ended with a verdict of guilty, she found she had to defend herself to Bell. In a long letter, accompanied by documents, she accused him of misreading her position on Rhodes’s culpability. Conscious of her isolation as a woman at Printing House Square, she began sharply, ‘Mr Walter would tell me no doubt that being a woman I have no business to have an opinion when a man speaks.’ She pointed out that while Bell believed that Jameson’s guilt was Rhodes’s guilt, she differed: ‘The worst thing that Mr Rhodes did in my opinion was to foster the revolution and whip it up to point instead of waiting until it came to point itself as it probably would have done within a period of months.’ She did not believe that Rhodes had instructed Jameson to cross the Transvaal border. She resented the way people forgot Rhodes’s real achievements and asked him to plead guilty to what he had not done. She set out evidence that Chamberlain clearly knew of the plan when he released the strip of border territory to the chartered company on 8 November after he had been advised of its necessity as the place for the gathering of Jameson’s forces. She stated clearly: We also were acquainted with it and gave it countenance. None of us knew [of] … such an expedition as that projected and carried into execution by Dr Jameson. … A plan which could commend itself to the serious consideration of two governments and to the Directorate of a paper like the Times was not a harum-scarum expedition like Dr Jameson’s. Nor was it a plan of which 40 there is reason to be ashamed.

When Rhodes gave evidence before the parliamentary committee of inquiry in February 1897, Shaw’s name was mentioned, convincing Bell that she would be called before the committee. Anxious that his participation remain invisible, Bell put his position to her carefully. He would prefer ‘to blush unseen’. The wording of his letter implied that he expected Shaw to take full responsibility for their joint actions. He wrote that if he had to give evidence, he would emphasise that it was his business to ‘ascertain – through you’ that a rising was imminent, that since Englishmen were placed on the border, ‘confirmed by you’, they were likely to join in the event of an uprising, and he ‘assumed that they had been placed there with that object’. Further, anxious that ‘my correspondents in different capitals should be correctly informed as to what was likely to occur & when … I pressed you to ascertain the date at 41 which the rising was likely to take place’. He defended his opinions [ 57 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

and actions, while making clear that all his information came through Shaw. She understood the subtext and played her part. On 21 May, she received official notification that she should appear before the parliamentary committee on 25 May. She sought advice from Sir Herbert Stephen, counsel for The Times, about how far she could keep her conversations with the Colonial Secretary confidential. He advised her that because journalists were often told confidential matters, she could claim that right as part of her profession.42 She also asked for an appointment with Chamberlain, who replied through his secretary that it would be well to be in a position to say that they had not had a meeting before she gave her evidence. He asked, however, if she would give him an idea of what she was going to say. In response, she sent a memo on 24 May saying that if asked whether in the course of any conversation with him she had mentioned ‘what is now known as “Jameson’s plan” viz. the placing of troops on the border in order to be able to assist an insurrection, her answer would be “no”‘. This, in fact, she did. She also told Chamberlain that she would inform the committee that she had sent the three December telegrams ‘on her own responsibility, without informing her Editor’.43 Shaw also discussed her forthcoming testimony with Buckle. As the editor of The Times, he was responsible in the eyes of the world for both its opinions and the actions of its staff. After their talk, he sent her a long letter saying he was dismayed to learn that she planned to maintain that everything she had done was ‘entirely right & justifiable’; this was very far from his opinion and ‘the opinion of the Paper & the Committee & the public should not be left to think it was’. He gave strict instructions about how she should behave as a witness, emphasising that she should not offer information unsolicited, should not make speeches – should not, in other words, convey any sense of self-importance. He made quite clear his concern was for ‘the reputation of The Times’, which also meant his own reputation. He was anxious to keep Bell’s name ‘out of the matter of the telegrams’ and expected her to say that she had sent them on her own responsibility and at her own expense ‘without the knowledge or concurrence of the editor’. He urged her to confess that the Editor ‘only discovered what you had done in April [1896] … and you were severely blamed’.44 Shaw preserved this letter, attaching her bitter comment: The spirit of disloyalty and official timidity embodied in this letter sent to me and received on the eve of an examination in which it was well known at the office that I intended to assume responsibility for acts which were not mine has given me one of the sorriest and most cynical lessons of my life. [ 58 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

JOURNALISM AS ACTIVE POLITICS

Accompanied by her younger sister Lulu, Shaw made her appearance on 25 May in a room otherwise occupied solely by men. The press made a point of their appearance. Shaw wore black silk, pearls and a fashionable hat, while her sister wore ‘bright yellow’.45 She confined herself to brief answers, but at one point she indulged in a pointed lecture: the committee must remember the distinction between the Jameson plan and the Jameson Raid. Offering explanations for references to ‘Flora’ in Harris’s telegrams, she revealed a carefully monitored amount of information which left her listeners no wiser than before. She conveyed her willingness to answer their questions, while making skilful use of her journalistic right to maintain confidentiality to evade all comment on the workings of The Times. The next day congratulatory letters flowed in, from Buckle, from his assistant editor, Mr Capper, from Mr Walter, Sir Herbert Stephen and Lord Loch.46 Chamberlain’s secretary wrote, conveying the Colonial Secretary’s view that her evidence had been given ‘admirably & that the universal opinion was that in lucidity and frankness & general manner the Lady witness beat all the men’.47 But her ordeal was not over. The cables supplied by the Eastern Telegraph Company were newly decoded and made available to the parliamentary committee on 24 June. More explanations were called for. Shaw was summoned to appear on 2 July, with three days’ notice. Again she sought to avoid any scandal for her employers, but her first appearance had given her confidence to rely on her own sense of strategy. This time she gave testimony for two hours with, as one paper reported, ‘a steady, continuous, unbroken flow of words that swamped her questioners and left her in complete mastery of the situation … Every answer was a speech; every digression a lecture of formidable length.’48 Not only did she have to explain the texts of the three mid-December telegrams urging no delay, but she also had to contend with two newly exposed cables sent from Rhodes at the end of December with instructions she should give to Chamberlain. She used two main tactics. One was to insist in a meticulous tone that she should deal with each telegram in detail, explaining the difference between how she would have written it for the public instead of condensing it into a code that was unfamiliar to her. The second was to let her questioners know that she was willing to go on and on giving them information, while not actually adding to the sum of their knowledge. Her skill was to conceal, not to reveal, and to keep her interrogators off balance. When it was over, Buckle felt he could be magnanimous. He congratulated her for having great presence of mind and adroitness. The facts being what they were, I do not think you could have put the position of yourself and The Times better [ 59 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

… An Evening Paper compliments you truly as well as prettily when it says that the editors who abuse you & The Times for your evidence would give 49 their ears to have you on their staff.

In the years leading to the outbreak of the South African War, Shaw continued to report the strains between Britain and the Transvaal. During the summer of 1898, she toured the goldfields of the Klondyke for The Times. Her return to London in November coincided with the arrival of Sir Alfred Milner, High Commissioner for South Africa, for crucial talks with the Colonial Office. Convinced that a confrontation with the Transvaal could not be avoided, Milner was determined to prepare the British government and the public for an imperial stand against Kruger’s government. Like Shaw, he had trained as a journalist at the Pall Mall Gazette under W. T. Stead, and he was convinced of the importance of the press in marshalling public opinion. Milner went out of his way to talk about South Africa with leading members of the press. Shaw shared his views on British supremacy in South Africa and in her columns continued to deplore the failure of the Transvaal to give its foreign residents a measure of political franchise. She noted the military build-up of the Transvaal, implying at first that Kruger was determined to use force against the Uitlanders if necessary, and by August 1899 she reported ‘an unprecedented importation of arms and ammunition’ in the Transvaal.50 Writing in February 1899, Shaw posed ‘the question of questions’: ‘How much will the Imperial Government tolerate before it declares the intention to interfere?’51 She warned of daily unrest spreading under Kruger’s ‘despotism’, repeating the litany of uitlander complaints. In April, she received a ‘very confidential’ letter from Milner saying that a ‘storm was rising again over here, as I daresay you have gathered’. He noted that Johannesburg, which had been ‘utterly cowed by the Fiasco of 1896’, was recovering courage, its leading men beginning to ‘show a determination & a statesmanship’. He believed that the Boers would yield only under strong threat from Britain.52 Shaw gave full support to Milner’s aggressive stance, writing in June, ‘the failure of the Bloemfontein conference is of President Kruger’s own making’.53 Shaw’s most ambitious attempt to sway international opinion came after the onset of the South African War, in February 1900, in a series of four long articles on ‘Great Britain and the Dutch Republics’.54 Claiming imperial paramountcy over all of southern Africa since 1814, she asserted that the British annexation in 1879 had placed the Transvaal on a sound financial basis and had removed the threat of the neighbouring Zulu. The Transvaal owed its prosperity to Uitlander development of gold mining on the Rand and had turned aside at every stage attempts by [ 60 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

JOURNALISM AS ACTIVE POLITICS

the British to work cooperatively. Seizing on the propaganda value of these articles, the Foreign Office gave The Times a subvention from the secret service fund to reprint them, translated for circulation on the continent as well as in America.55 Her historical background of BritishBoer relations, edited by Leo Amery, became two chapters in the first volume of The Times History of the War in South Africa.56 In 1900, Shaw resigned with exhaustion from years of intense pressure. A year later she agreed to marry Sir Frederick Lugard, High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria. To help her regain her health, Bell again sent her to South Africa for The Times. Because the South African War dragged on, she asked W. P. Schreiner, the Cape politician, ‘Would it be utterly impossible to persuade the more enlightened [Boers] that there would be a high patriotism in negotiating a loyal surrender?’57 James Rose-Innes explained to his wife why she received no encouragement: She is very anxious to ‘get into touch’ with some of the Dutch party, so as to try and induce them to recommend an offer of peace to come from the Boers, since it is impossible for England to profer fresh terms. Clever woman as she is, she quite fails to realize that her connection with the raid will quite debar 58 her from obtaining any real confidences from the Dutch side.

Shaw’s first report to The Times assured British readers that some Dutch farmers in the Cape Colony had said they looked forward to a ‘United States of Africa under the British flag’.59 Observing from the train to Bloemfontein, she described Kitchener’s grid of blockhouses set up to contain the Boer forces. ‘For a thousand miles the chain is practically continuous, each within rifle range of the other, and along the whole line I did not see one untidy or neglected.’60 She visited one of the concentration camps for Boer women and children. To counter the continuing pro-Boer press in England, she was determined to present an optimistic view: ‘No one can pass through the camps and see the happy faces of the thousands of children who cluster round the schools and soup kitchens … without realizing the state of harmony which exists between them and the English authorities who are governing them.’61 She admitted that the infant mortality remained bafflingly high, despite the efforts of camp officials. Her final article praised Milner’s system of committees for governing Johannesburg as the replacement of Afrikaner autocracy with British representative government: For the Englishman whose faith in his countrymen is disposed to flag, for the man who doubts whether the sinews of the English nation are as they always were – hardy, vigorous, and free, – who fears, in a word, that the [ 61 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

dream of empire is too great for the generations on whom the duty lies to make it a reality, it would be difficult to prescribe a better tonic than a visit 62 to Johannesburg.

This rhetorical display of patriotism, in her case deeply felt, proved to be Shaw’s final words on South Africa for The Times. Commissioned to write on Cecil Rhodes for the tenth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica – an article repeated in the eleventh edition – she framed her account in terms of his ‘service to the empire’, summing up her own dedication to that cause. She set out Rhodes’s vision for achieving ‘nothing less than the governance of the world by the British race’ with local self-government as the ‘enduring basis on which the untidy empire could be built’. She acclaimed his early determination that ‘no power but Great Britain should be allowed to dominate in the administration of South Africa’. To enable a federated South Africa to absorb all neighbouring native territories, Rhodes considered it necessary to recognise the land rights of white settlers over Africans. Shaw approved this principle, which was embodied in the Glen Grey Act in Cape Colony and promoted by Rhodes because he ‘protested against the absurdity of permitting the uncivilized Kaffir to vote on questions of highly civilized white policy’. She emphasised Rhodes’s fear that the extension of British colonies northwards would be permanently blocked if the Dutch joined hands with Germany. Since by 1895, she argued, his power in South Africa had become a ‘benevolent dictatorship’, he became ‘intolerant of any control or opposition’. This was his fatal flaw; it led him to rely on men who failed him, making the Jameson Raid possible. Rhodes was not responsible for Jameson’s decision to act; both the Cape and parliamentary committees had acquitted him of it. But his actions were inconsistent with his duties as prime minister of the Cape and managing director of the Chartered Company, a judgement Shaw had made in her Times leader of 1 May 1896. She predicted, however, that his countrymen would recognise that his greatness lay in his overall service to the Empire and his ‘conviction that the unity of the British Empire … was among the greatest of organized forces united for universal good.’63 By the end of the 1890s she had achieved an international reputation as ‘Miss Shaw of The Times’. Although she earned more than any other woman journalist in London, unlike her male colleagues on the newspaper she received no pay rises during the decade.64 During the crisis of the Jameson fiasco at The Times, she was designated as the scapegoat, expendable to the newspaper – despite Bell’s initiatives. She accepted full responsibility and, by her skilful performance before the [ 62 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

JOURNALISM AS ACTIVE POLITICS

parliamentary committee, rescued the reputation of the newspaper. She may have been considered an ‘honorary male’ during her decade with The Times, but her position was vulnerable. She was never a full member of the male regime. As Colonial Editor of The Times, she dealt with all the colonies except India, and made clear to her readers the extent to which South Africa was a model for an imperial future based on federated self-governing colonies. Before the Jameson Raid, she established the Times position of encouraging the Uitlanders in their demand for greater representation in the Transvaal. After the Raid, she led a defence of Rhodes in The Times in the face of more general condemnation; and even after evidence that he had planned an uprising in Johannesburg, she used her position as Colonial Editor to insist on Rhodes’s achievements in southern Africa. By her strong indictment of Kruger’s regime for corruption and her warnings about his military buildup, she contributed to Milner’s attempt to force Kruger to back down. Her appreciation of Rhodes never faltered, and her consistent support in The Times for his vision of empire became a driving force in her use of journalism as active politics.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14

W. T. Stead, Blastus, the King’s Chamberlain (London, 1898), p. 152. First published as The Review of Reviews Annual for 1896. 13 November 1904, Perham Papers 309/1, f. 25, Rhodes House, Oxford. The most recent examination of the Jameson Raid ignores Shaw’s role. See J. Carruthers (ed.), The Jameson Raid: A Centennial Retrospective (Houghton, South Africa, 1996). Robinson to Stead, 29 May 1889, Stead Papers 1/61, Churchill College, Cambridge University. The most recent one being Robert I. Rotberg, The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power (New York and Oxford, 1988), p. 280. ‘Dry Nursing the Colonies’, Fortnightly Review, 46 n.s. (September 1889), pp. 367–79; ‘The British South Africa Company’, Fortnightly Review, 46 n.s. (November 1889), pp. 662–8; and ‘The British South Africa Company’, Manchester Guardian, 8 October 1889. The History of the Times, vol. 3 (London, 1947), p. 160. ‘The Swazi Convention’, 11 August 1890. Phyllis Lewsen (ed.), Selections from the Correspondence of John X. Merriman, vol. 2 (Cape Town, 1963), letter 8. ‘Government by charter or by the sword in Africa’, 21 September 1891. The Times, 2 September 1892. The ‘Letters from South Africa’ appeared 22 and 28 July, 8, 12 and 20 August, 2 and 20 September, 3 October 1892. The series of eight articles was published as Letters from South Africa by The Times Special Correspondent by Macmillan in 1893 on the recommendation of Sir James Sivewright. Manager’s Letter Book MB 6/895, The Times Archives. 8 August 1892. 12 August 1892. Bell to Shaw, 12 August 1892. The Times Archives.

[ 63 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

15 16

17 18

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

19 20

21

22 23 24 25 26 27

28

29 30

31 32 33

Manager’s Letter Book MB 8/84, The Times Archives; David Rubinstein, Before the Suffragettes: Women’s Emancipation in the 1890s (Brighton, 1896), pp. 85, 93 n.79. 25 October 1894. This was written a year before the 10 October 1895 leader on the Transvaal Uitlanders cited as ‘proof of a sympathetic standpoint’ in The History of the Times, vol. 3, p. 169. 28 February 1895. Chamberlain’s relations with Rhodes that autumn have been described as ‘mutual dependency with antagonism’. P. T. Marsh, Joseph Chamberlain: Entrepreneur in Politics (New Haven, 1994), p. 373. Marsh, pp. 373–4, 376–7. See the letter from Albert Grey to Chamberlain sent 10 December 1896, referring to this fact, Jean Van der Poel, The Jameson Raid (London, 1951), p. 28. This decision was forwarded to Rhodes by wire 2 August. Elizabeth Longford, The Jameson Raid: The Prelude to the Boer War (London, 1982 edn), pp. 152–4; she notes that this portion of the telegram was omitted by Garvin in his biography. It was subsequently found by C. M. Woodhouse among the Rhodes papers at Rhodes House, Oxford. Minutes of Evidence, The Select Committee on British South Africa, vol. 311 of 1897, 8874 (hereafter, 1897, 311); compare The History of The Times, vol. 3, p. 169. By early summer 1895 Jameson had added a Volunteer Corps to the Company police and had made Sir John Willoughby its commander. Van der Poel, The Jameson Raid, p. 25. Van der Poel, The Jameson Raid, p. 30. Ibid., p. 39. 10 October 1895. I. R. Smith, The Origins of the South African War, 1899–1902 (London, 1996), p. 65. 1897, 311, Second Report, Appendix 14. By the time she gave this testimony, Harris had appeared before the Select Committee, holding the position that his statement was ‘hyperbolical’, and that he had not sent her to convince Chamberlain of anything. 1897, 311, 8605. Bell to Shaw, 9 December 1895, Shaw Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford (SP). When Shaw reported on an interview with Leyds, Bell urged her to send Rhodes a wire with the message: ‘L. making mischief Hague Paris Berlin act quickly or too late.’ The sense of this concern was incorporated into the ‘Telemones’ telegram sent 17 December. Second Report of the Select Committee of Inquiry into South Africa, 1897, 311, Appendix 14. Manager’s Letter Book MB 13/187, 220, 235, The Times Archives. In each case the coded wire has at bottom ‘F. Shaw 130 Cambridge Street Warwick Sq. SW’, only the top half of this line showing in the first of the three inked impressions. Chamberlain’s most recent biographer has concluded that the ‘Telemones’ cable of 17 December took its shape from the Colonial Office’s concern in the second week of December that ‘things on the Rand were coming to a head’. Simultaneously, Chamberlain feared that increased German sympathy for the Transvaal made it better ‘from the British point of view for the uitlanders to rebel soon’. Chamberlain made Flora Shaw aware of his line of thought. ‘This was worse than indiscreet … He must have known that the message was likely to reach Rhodes … Chamberlain in effect ecouraged Rhodes to trigger the rebellion.’ Marsh, p. 380. Enid Moberly Bell, C. F. Moberly Bell (London, 1927), pp. 210–11. This letter was probably sent to Buckle. Flora Lugard to Frederick Lugard, 8 November 1918, cited in Margery Perham, Lugard: The Years of Authority (London, 1960), pp. 610–11. Shaw wrote one leader during this period. From 1 January to 31 May, of the approximately 42 leaders related to the Transvaal or South Africa (not counting events in ‘Matabeleland’), handled by the three regular leader writers, 27 were written by John Woulfe Flanagan, 10 by John Callender Ross and 5 by Edward D. J. Wilson. The political sympathies of these men matched those of Shaw and Moberly Bell; their leaders on the Transvaal conveyed personal

[ 64 ]

JOURNALISM AS ACTIVE POLITICS

34

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

35

36 37 38 39

40

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

51 52 53 54

as well as professional convictions. See obituaries for each, respectively: 18 November 1929, 30 June 1913 and 14 April 1913. ‘The Transvaal Uitlander II’, The Times, 2 January 1896. The third in the series of articles appeared on 4 January. Bell, Flora Shaw (Lady Lugard) (London, 1947) p. 180. A. N. Porter, The Origins of the South African War: Joseph Chamberlain and the Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1895–1899 (Manchester, 1980), p. 103. Shaw always held Harris more culpable than Rhodes in this matter, focusing on the change of the date to 28 December by Harris as ‘scandalous trickery’, while explaining that Rhodes merely ‘acquiesced’ in cabling it to The Times, aware that Jameson’s action had compromised him but not wishing to abandon or destroy him. She chose to ignore that Rhodes was Harris’s employer; otherwise she would have had to face the fact that Rhodes had chosen to try to ‘save’ Jameson at her expense. See her remarks in The Times History of the War in South Africa, vol. 1, p. 169. Copy of Flora Shaw’s letter, dated 29 April 1896, sent from her home address, SP. The copy is marked, ‘sent to Mr. Walter June 15’. Rhodes maintained before the parliamentary committee of inquiry that he ‘subscribed to’ an already viable movement in Johannesburg in October 1895. See 1897, 311, 2059–66. Leader, The Times, 1 May 1896. ‘Notes’, Saturday Review (9 May 1896) 81:2115, 464. J. B. Capper, Buckle’s assistant editor since 1884, sent a note congratulating Shaw on her excellent ‘Imperialist’ letter. Capper to Shaw, 4 May 1896, SP. You write as though I had wished to argue against Mr Rhodes coming home and acknowledging to the fullest degree what he has done in this S. African matter and taking any penalty which justly attaches to his actions. I doubt if there is any single individual in England who has done … more than I have done to bring about the adoption of this course. Any one who knows me – except apparently you – knows my opinion on this point … It has never varied since I told Mr Rhodes within two hours of his arrival in England that from his own point of view it was the only thing for him to do … and the other day after the sentence had been pronounced it was I who went to Mr Hawksley and said you have no course open to you but to go to the Attorney General and act on Mr Rhodes authorisation to you to offer him for trial. (Flora Shaw to C. F. Moberly Bell, 3 August 1896, SP.) Bell to Shaw, marked ‘received 16/2/97/F.L.S.’ SP. Stephen to Shaw, 24 May 1897, two etters, SP. A.F.W. 24/5, ‘Miss Shaw’s Evidence’, Chamberlain Papers, Birmingham University, JC 10/2/3/35. Buckle to Shaw, 24 May 1896, SP. Daily Telegraph, 26 May 1896, p. 7. SP. A. F. Wilson, Chamberlain’s secretary, to Flora Shaw, 26 May 1897, written on a half sheet of plain paper, with no official seal or heading, SP. Morning Post, 2 July 1897, p. 3. Buckle to Shaw, 4 July 1897, SP. The Times, Colonies column, 14 February and 28 August 1899. In a letter to Charles Eliot Norton after the war in South Africa broke out, she told him that she believed it ‘inevitable’ in the light of ‘trustworthy information’ that Kruger had ordered artillery and small arms from France and Germany for distribution to the ‘disaffected Dutch colonists’ in South Africa. Shaw to Norton, 17 December 1899, Norton Papers, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA. ‘The imperial factor in South Africa’, The Times, 14 February 1899. Sir Alfred Milner to Shaw, 14 April 1899, SP. ‘The South African situation’, The Times, 12 June 1899. 5, 9, 13 and 22 February 1900.

[ 65 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

55 56

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

Bell, Flora Shaw, p. 228; reference from Jacqueline Beaumont. ‘Chapters V and VI, dealing with the grievances of the Uitlanders and the struggle for political supremacy within the Transvaal before the Jameson Raid, are in the main, the work of Miss Flora Shaw’, L. S. Amery (ed.), The Times History of the War in South Africa (London, 1900), p. vii. Bell, Flora Shaw, p. 234. J. Rose-Innes to his wife, 31 December 1901, in Sir James Rose-Innes: Selected Correspondence (1884–1902), ed. Harrison M. Wright (Cape Town, 1972), p. 331. ‘The Dutch of Cape Colony’, The Times, 11 February 1902. ‘The Orange River Colony’, The Times, 25 February 1902. Ibid. ‘Johannesburg Today’, The Times, 27 February 1902. F. L. L., ‘Rhodes, Cecil John (1853–1902)’, Encylopaedia Britannica (London, 11th edn, 1910–11), pp. 254–7. Manager’s Letter Book MB 8/84, The Times Archives.

[ 66 ]

CHAPTER FOUR

The Times at war, 1899–1902

1

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Jacqueline Beaumont

By 1899, the circulation figures of The Times had decreased from between 60,000 and 70,000 in the late 1870s to an average of about 35,000. Figures available show an underlying downward trend in circulation which was not reversed until the paper was taken over by Lord Northcliffe.2 The format had hardly changed in decades and, inevitably, the paper was being challenged on all sides in the struggle to take over shares of the market and create new ones. Nevertheless, it retained a position and a prestige unrivalled by any other broadsheet. It was still the largest paper on Fleet Street, rarely falling below eighteen pages a day and often, particularly during the war, reaching over twenty. Only the Daily Telegraph came close to this. More space meant more room for all categories of information and comment deemed appropriate in a paper of record designed to be read by gentlemen. And read it they did, for its parliamentary and law reports, its excellent news coverage and, above all, its correspondence columns in which arguments on the questions of the day were initiated and elaborated. Having one’s letters published in The Times might influence politicians and help to shape the public opinion in whose efficacy journalists and politicians believed so fervently. Edmund Garrett, himself a journalist, remarked: Hobson, Mackarness and co feel bound to notice anything in The Times … whereas in the D. News and elsewhere they pretend not to have seen it 3 unless it lends itself to effective reply.

The correspondence of politicians is littered with references to The Times. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman followed events in the weeks leading up to the war from its pages while still on holiday abroad. His comments then and later are an indication of the importance which he ascribed to it.4 It mattered too to the editors of other papers, particularly of the radical press, who relied on The Times while at the same time attacking it vigorously. They read it closely and carefully. They quoted its leaders, criticised its interpretation of events and accused it of playing [ 67 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

a part in the unfolding of those events. The Morning Leader, whose leaders were often critiques of opinions expressed in those of other broadsheets, is a good example. It saw The Times as part of the ‘Rhodesian Press’, as an organ of South African capitalism in general and of Rhodes in particular. It suggested that Rhodes, Chamberlain and Flora Shaw, the Colonial Editor of The Times, were joined in a conspiracy to force the government into war. Although many broadsides were aimed at The Times, it was also quoted as an authority. This was because of its recognised status as a newspaper of record, and because it was generally considered to be a mouthpiece of the government. Pronouncements in leaders and political notes were therefore seen, both in England and abroad, as an indicator of government attitude and worth watching.5 In the late summer of 1899 Moberly Bell, the business manager, had to put together a team to cover a possible war. Neither he nor The Times believed that it would come to that. On 29 August Bell wrote to the Times war correspondent, Lionel James: It looks to me as if you would soon have to be making your preparations for starting for South Africa. I still do not believe there will be actual fighting as I expect the Boers to cave in at the last moment, but an expedition will 6 probably be sent and we shall need to be ready for the chances of war.

In mid September, he was still telling W. F. Monypenny: I cannot doubt for a moment that Kruger … will go on haggling over details at a new conference. If on the other hand he does by good luck refuse it we are absolutely committed to an expedition and then no doubt the ground will be cleared of all the impedimenta of these damned conferences and 7 negotiations.

The main effect of Bell’s scepticism was that, like the British government, he left full preparations for war until very late in the day. On 26 August Leo Amery left for South Africa, but the purpose of his visit was to cover the settlement which was then thought to be in the offing. By the time Amery arrived in South Africa, the political situation had darkened. He decided that the best thing he could do was to investigate opinion, both at the Cape and in the republics. He spent nearly two weeks in Cape Town, discussed the situation with Milner who ‘had no doubt that the Republics meant war’ and met Rhodes, but most of his time was taken up with ‘hearing the other side of the story’.8 On 19 September, just before he left for the Orange Free State, he wrote a report for The Times on the situation at the Cape, in which he rejected the editorial view of The Times that Kruger would climb down at this [ 68 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE TIMES AT WAR

stage, and that war could still be averted. The Cape Dutch, he stated, believed that the Transvaal leaders had made up their minds and would fight for their convictions. Amery clearly supported British government views as to the status of the two republics and the importance of the franchise for the Uitlanders, but he reported sympathetically on the efforts of Cape politicians to persuade President Kruger to make further concessions. He also commented approvingly on the efforts made by the Bond ministry to keep the Dutch at the Cape in check at a time of great unrest.9 His discussions with Cape Dutch politicians were looked upon with alarm by those at the Cape and elsewhere who wanted war. Monypenny reported to Bell that ‘Amery … has made a bad impression in high quarters in Cape Town. He has been mainly in the Bond camp and is labelled a dangerous mugwump.’10 He later telegraphed that Milner too was anxious as to what Amery was up to. Bell replied: I feel sure that Milner’s fears are groundless. He [Amery] was sent out to study the situation. Now any wise man under those circumstances would make a point of getting at the Boer side (such as it is) first … the thing of most importance is to hear what can be said by the Kruger gang. Now it is obvious that he could never get into the Kruger gang if he had first of all ostentatiously shown himself too much among the other side. I think therefore from every point of view he was wise to go into the opposite camp while he could, and his head being screwed on all right, I have no doubt that he will, when he gets back to Milner … come out quite straight with the additional advantage of 11 having shown his impartiality by going to them first.

Amery was on a fact-finding mission and no more, though he personally remained sceptical about the good offices of the Boers. Mr Fischer he describes as ‘exactly like the pictures in my boyhood’s illustrated Huckleberry Finn of the Dauphin, that lachrymose old fraud who fastened himself upon the hapless boy traveller’.12 Bell saw Amery as a political not a war correspondent, but while he was in Pretoria Amery decided that, since war was now inevitable, he should become war correspondent on the Boer side for The Times. Armed with a letter of introduction to General Joubert from Mr Reitz, he boarded a train and made his way to the Boer laager at Sandspruit.13 Bell was quite pleased by this turn of events and told Monypenny: [Amery] has not ‘gone over’ to the Boer view but is keeping very cool his big head on his small body. But he wires that he is going to act as war correspondent on the Boer side. I am bound to say that I should not like to do it for various reasons were I in his place, but that is a matter that concerns him and from a journalistic point of view it will be a great score to have a correspondent with the enemy. Only take care you don’t shoot him. I [ 69 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

don’t suppose he will be allowed to wire anything but if all goes well we shall have later on an interesting account of how they take their licking. I don’t in the least think that he will turn out a Boer. I expect he will emerge 14 as violent an Outlander as yourself!

Amery sent back a telegram from the Hoofdlaager on 9 October, the very eve of war. It was to be his only report on the Boer side, for on 12 October Joubert ordered him to return to Pretoria. Here he wrote one longer report, dated 18 October, which appeared in The Times of 7 November. So ended his attempt to report the war on the Boer side. His mission accomplished, he expected to return to England. But Monypenny, the chief political commentator and coordinator of the war effort in South Africa who, with Bell’s assistance at long distance, was, during September, putting together a team to comment on events all over South Africa, had joined the Imperial Light Horse in Pietermaritzburg. He decided that he could not be a soldier and run the Times war campaign. So Amery stayed, while Monypenny joined his regiment. He took part in the march from Newcastle to Ladysmith, spent most of the siege in hospital with enteric fever and disappeared from the paper’s war effort until the very last months, when he resumed the editorship of the Johannesburg Star. It was left to Amery to finish assembling the team and then to coordinate it and the war correspondents coming out from England. Back at Printing House Square, Bell was having some difficulty in finding correspondents. The only war correspondent of experience on whom he could call was Lionel James whom he had engaged at the beginning of 1899. Bell took him because he had previously worked for Reuters and Bell recognised that the training in efficient and swift transmission of news which the news agency gave its correspondents was essential in modern times. But The Times had always laid stress on its letters from the scene of battle, which required some literary talent, and James’s expertise in this area was as yet unknown.15 The paper’s other correspondent, E. F. Knight, better known as a small-boat sailor and the author of some celebrated travel books, had worked for The Times since 1890. Knight wrote well, but he was not always easy to work with. In July 1899, when talk of war was already widespread, Knight quarrelled with Bell, resigned and joined the staff of the Morning Post. So Bell was short of an able and experienced man for the coming campaign at a time when every London newspaper was looking for correspondents. There was no lack of candidates offering to represent the paper, but finding the right ones was not easy. In the end, Bell had to rely on trusted recommendations and his own instinct, neither of which was always reliable. [ 70 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE TIMES AT WAR

Bell’s first choice was Perceval Landon who had written offering his services. Bell interviewed him and was sufficiently impressed to engage him. Landon was thirty an Oxford graduate trained as a barrister, with the private means to support a taste for travel.16 He left for South Africa on 23 September, one week after Lionel James. Landon never really learned the Job of war reporting to the satisfaction of The Times. One has only to compare his brief and ungraphic telegrams covering the battle of Paardeberg with those which The Times printed alongside, written by Reuters’ correspondent Howell Gwynne, to see the difference between a professional, one of the best available, and an amateur. Landon’s gift was literary. He had a feeling for atmosphere which is most apparent in a piece written on the banks of the Modder River while Methuen and his troops waited for the arrival of reinforcements. It is a very personal piece, written as he stood by the river watching beautiful birds flitting between the willows of what in peacetime had been a summer holiday place for the inhabitants of Kimberley, watching the river and then noticing the wrack of gruesome flotsam and jetsam in it. He describes the torn and mangled bridge across the river and the constant noises of military movement, then turns back once again to the beauty of the scenery and the splendour of an African sunset.17 This is the only piece The Times published throughout the war which expresses such feelings about the ruin of war. Soon after he wrote it, he asked Bell if he could go to Cape Town and write on the political situation. Bell refused. Landon left South Africa at the end of April 1900 having apparently suffered a nervous breakdown. He agreed with the objectives of the war and supported the Times views, but the stark facts of warfare seem to have been too much for him. His greatest pleasure was probably co-editing Lord Roberts’s newspaper, the Bloemfontein Friend, which resulted in a lifelong friendship with Rudyard Kipling.18 Bell decided that two correspondents were not enough. Before the outbreak of war he had discussed the needs of The Times with Lord Wolseley who advised him that he should have a military man. Sir George Clarke, the paper’s military correspondent during the war, recommended a Major Pollock who was known to be on good terms with General Buller. Pollock’s military experience was, if anything, a disadvantage. Bell complained to Amery about the length of his telegrams, filled with his views on the strategy and tactics which should be employed. Bell was annoyed by a letter from Pollock on his arrival at Cape Town in which he mentioned ‘secrets’ about Buller’s plan of campaign, which were already well known in London, and, worse, told Bell that he might receive from him misleading or false information provided by the military authorities. Bell was not amused at the thought [ 71 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

that any correspondent should knowingly send false information. Pollock joined General Gatacre and reported on Stormberg, but failed to mention or explain in his telegrams the loss of six hundred soldiers. By the end of 1899 Bell was asking Amery to get rid of him. When, eventually, Pollock joined Landon for Lord Roberts’s advance on Bloemfontein, he disappears from the news columns of The Times. Landon seems to have used him as a stringer and The Times published one specialist military article by him, the task for which he was best suited.19 The best of the correspondents was Lionel James. A professional newsman, trained by Reuters, he also became a good letter writer, a skill which he attributed to the help of his siege companion at Ladysmith, Maxwell of the Standard.20 He had, in Monypenny’s words, ‘the gift … of cadging for information without loss of dignity’ arising from a natural easiness in the company of army officers.21 Despite siege conditions he succeeded in getting almost all his telegrams and letters out by runners and, unlike other correspondents, he did not have a day’s sickness during the siege. He left Ladysmith as soon as he could to join Lord Roberts, accompanying him, in place of Landon, all the way to Pretoria. He returned to England in the summer of 1900 for a few months, expecting to be sent to China, but he was back in South Africa by the beginning of 1901 and stayed until the autumn.22 His views on military and political affairs in South Africa were to become increasingly important as the war proceeded. On his return to South Africa in 1901 he coordinated the reports of his stringers on the war and reported on any other matters which interested the public at home. It was partly on the basis of his reports that The Times took its unyielding stance on the concentration camps. Bell’s aim before war broke out was to use Reuters as little as possible, so local agents were widely recruited. Monypenny engaged C. H. Lepper, editor of the Natal Witness in Pietermaritzburg, the Rev. Adrian Hofmeyr at Lobatsi, a Major Young at Lourenço Marques and Angus Hamilton at Mafeking. Amery replaced Young with R. Douglas, assistant editor of the Johannesburg Star, and recruited extra war correspondents. Hallemond, a Johannesburg cyanide manager who spoke the local languages, was attached to General French. J. M. Greenlees, another Johannesburger with some journalistic experience, was based at Queenstown. Amery also used his personal contacts. The Bulawayo correspondent, Stephenson, he had known at Harrow. Later in the war he persuaded Lionel Curtis, an Oxford friend, to write an account of his 23 experiences at Prieska. But any idea of rivalling Reuters was soon abandoned. There were not enough good people available to compete with Reuters extensive South African service. The Times, did not, as sometimes stated, have twenty correspondents at one stage. Amery had [ 72 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE TIMES AT WAR

to make the best use of what he had and concentrate on what seemed to him the main events.24 The team changed as the war progressed. By the end of July 1900 virtually everybody had either gone home to England or ceased employment with The Times. Bron Herbert, who covered Buller’s campaign with great success although he had no previous journalistic experience, stayed until he was wounded in the autumn of 1900. He was succeeded for a time by Duncan Traill and P. J. MacDonnell who, like Herbert, contributed nothing but accounts of engagements. But for two months at the end of 1900 the paper had to rely exclusively on the agencies and their reliance on Reuters was very heavy from the summer of 1900 to the end of the war, as conventional battles gave way to guerrilla warfare. In 1901, Bell’s nephew, Thurburn, arrived and remained for the rest of the war. He was not particularly effective, but by the time James had left South Africa, in the autumn of 1901, it hardly mattered. Less and less was getting through Kitchener’s censorship net and at home the war had become an embarrassing drag on the public conscience. Thurburn wrote no detailed long letters for The Times, which began to reduce its reporting of the war by the autumn of 1900. Amery returned in the spring of 1902 for the peace negotiations, and the dying days of the war were also enlivened by a series of articles by Flora Shaw from South Africa. But by this time both she and Amery were 25 looking towards the future. The reporting of the war was in the hands of an ever-changing team, with varying degrees of experience and capacity. It was, therefore, uneven in quality and far from comprehensive. This was not always the fault of the correspondent. In the early weeks of the war censorship was administered haphazardly and it was always difficult to ensure consistency. Telegrams were sometimes censored to a degree where they became incomprehensible. The Times did not complain about this as vociferously as did other papers, but eventually Bell wrote privately to the War Office about the inconsistent treatment of news cables by the censors from which, he felt, The Times suffered greatly.26 Censorship was always a problem, especially after Lord Kitchener became Commander-in-Chief. Thurburn Bell had an entire telegram held back and had to cable a humble explanation of his actions to Kitchener.27 Even if cables were not over-censored, they could be held up for several days by the breakdown of the line. Bron Herbert’s first cable after the battle of Colenso, filed on 15 December, was diverted to the Cape Town route after the breakdown of the eastern cable and did not appear in The Times until 20 December. If the news had been less important it would probably not have been published, as was the case with some of his earlier delayed cables. But these were difficulties experienced by all [ 73 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

correspondents. The paper naturally preferred to publish its own correspondents’ news and comment, but it had a mass of information coming in from all the news agencies, so any gaps were soon filled, usually by Reuters’ accounts, and if gaps remained they were due to heavy censorship which affected everybody. Public perception of The Times as a ‘newspaper of record’ was not challenged at the time because its war correspondents failed to achieve full, accurate and comprehensive coverage of events. In the early days of the conflict, when Printing House Square was convinced that it would be a short war resulting in a British victory, news and comment were at a premium. Telegrams from every part of South Africa were published. There were daily articles on ‘the Military Situation’, mostly written by Sir George Clarke, and lengthy reports of the send-off of shiploads of troops written in the language of high patriotism, mainly by J. E. Vincent. When accounts of the first battles came in, they were analysed and discussed minutely, sometimes several times in the same issue. Almost any news was publishable and the correspondents were under pressure to provide it in quantity. The first engagements, Glencoe and Elandslaagte were construed as British victories, despite the heavy losses, the death of Penn Symons and the failure of General White to stave off close investment. Even the reverse at Nicholson’s Nek was shrugged off. It was unfortunate; nothing 28 more. When the first serious reverses of Black Week were cabled, there was no change of front. Once again, what the war reporters wrote, beyond the bare facts, was not all that important in shaping editorial attitude. The news trickled through of Gatacre’s disaster at Stormberg, Methuen’s defeat at Modder River and Buller’s at Colenso between 12 and 16 December. The paper published the best accounts available of all three, co-ordinated the telegraphic scraps in leaders, agreed that the news was grave and encouraged the British nation to keep a stiff upper lip. No word of criticism against either Buller or the government was uttered at this stage. The Cabinet was congratulated on the speed of the appointment of Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener. Christmas intervened. Even before fighting commenced, the whole contest had become a question of British prestige, of the cohesiveness of the Empire, of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race. The Times could not believe that the Boer successes were anything but temporary and continued to say so even after Black Week. But there was soon a grumbling undertow in the correspondence columns. Military men, most of them anonymous, wrote in to voice their opinions about the changing face of modern warfare, the apparent ignorance of its implications shown by military leaders and of their unpreparedness to face this campaign. Early in 1900, Sir George [ 74 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE TIMES AT WAR

Clarke commented disapprovingly on Buller’s strategy. For a time, the editorial pages continued to remain silent as the body of evidence for mismanagement at home and in South Africa grew. Editorials concentrated on a theme which it had been developing since the summer: the importance for the future of the Empire of the apparently enthusiastic readiness of the dominions to help. Early in January 1900 there was a return to this theme, encouraged by the very full reportage of two small, insignificant successes involving colonial troops. The leader writer admitted that they were insignificant but thought ‘that our fellow-subjects in the colonies have been stirred up by this war to a more ardent and practical devotion to the Imperial ideal’.29 These words, in sightly different forms, were to be repeated at regular intervals over the next few months. Alongside the vision of a united Empire, fighting for the beliefs of the Mother country, was that of the flower of English youth flocking to the colours as Volunteers. The two together proved that ‘the Nation’ and the Empire supported government policy, which must therefore be the right policy. Editorial glorification of the colonial troops was fed by reports from the war correspondents of their successes in the field. Their superiority was later questioned by Lionel James, who argued that these successes were due to the leadership of British officers and that where this was lacking they were ineffective. But as an immediate boost to the self-confidence of a shaken public it served its purpose, as did emphasis on the response from British volunteers on the 30 news that more troops were to be sent for Lord Roberts. Support for government policy did not mean that the government itself was safe from criticism. As the unpreparedness of the army for the campaign was revealed, loyalty to the government became strained and finally broke down when Balfour attempted to justify the government. The attack started on 10 January when the leader criticised The tone of acquiescence with which he seems to regard our mishaps and reverses, as though they were the inevitable consequences of some malign destiny which no foresight and no initiative on our part could have prevented … There is not in any quarter a desire to deal harshly with the Goverment or treat them as scapegoats for the sins of others. But it is neither becoming nor prudent after what has happened for a Minister to declare, as Mr Balfour declared on Monday, that he ‘does not feel the need, so far as his colleagues or himself are concerned, of any apology whatever.’ Language such as that, in the teeth of the admissions he has been compelled to make, and in the teeth of the facts which extorted these admissions from him, betrays, to say the least of it, a very imperfect appreciation of the popular view and, as we hold, the correct view of Ministerial responsibility. There is need of apology, and of ample apology, on the part of the Cabinet for serious errors both in policy and in warlike preparation. [ 75 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

But by 15 January Balfour was being told that despite the feeling of ‘pained surprise’ in the country at his speeches, ‘the nation, who care little for party politics just now’ would forgive him so long as he publicly apologised for the government and then got on with winning the war. From then on attacks on the government diminished, although after the recall of parliament, individual ministers and members of the Opposition were criticised for putting party above the needs of a national crisis. The paper concentrated on urging the government to make good the deficiencies which were reported by its correspondents in their letters and reports, to be cited in leaders when the unsatisfactory conduct of the war was discussed. Pollock, whose full account of Stormberg was published on 18 January, listed a long catalogue of errors. He blamed Gatacre for his strategy and for not using troops who knew the ground; the establishment was at fault for the inadequate maps and training of the men. Pollock’s criticisms were probably not his own, but those of Gatacre’s junior officers. Landon’s criticisms of the inadequate kit of the Highland Brigades decimated at Magersfontein, sent a few weeks later, were directly inspired by General Hector Macdonald, who wrote letters of complaint on the subject to Kitchener at the end of January.31 Concurrent with support for government policy the paper was presenting a view of the enemy which helped to justify waging war in the first place and, as time passed, to support its call for the policy of no conciliation and no terms without unconditional surrender. As news of the first round of serious reverses was received, Bell cabled Amery on 14 December asking him to report on feeling among the Cape Afrikaners. Accounts from Pollock, Landon and Hallimond stationed at Sterkstrom, Cradock and Modder River respectively appeared in The Times on 27 December, Amery’s own observations appearing the following day. All told the same story, that concern was growing about the possibility of a rebellion in the Colony following the British reverses. As Amery wrote: Since the recent reverses … the feeling of anxiety with regard to the attitude of the Colonial Dutch has been steadily growing. Of their sympathy with the Republics they make no effort at concealment; the only question now is whether with the military situation remaining unchanged they will keep from open rebellion even in districts hitherto unvisited by the Boer commandos.

One may, perhaps, see here Milner’s hand. He is known to have feared a rebellion in the Colony. It was Amery’s job to relay the High Commissioner’s thinking to The Times, privately, no doubt, if it were highly confidential, and publicly, through his dispatches, where [ 76 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE TIMES AT WAR

possible.32 Amery wrote regularly from Cape Town on both the military situation and politics in South Africa. Sometimes it is plain that he must have discussed the matter with Milner or with one of his staff. His views, expressed more than once during the war, about the possibility of a rebellion by the Cape Afrikaners are pure Milner. He was also, at times, to echo Milner on other matters. For instance, when the question was first broached as to the location of the new capital of the Transvaal, he wrote a long piece rehearsing the pros and cons of Johannesburg and Pretoria and settling on Pretoria, which could almost have been written by Milner. These initial reports on feeling in the Colony confirmed editorial thinking about the Cape Afrikaners. The contentions were that they were unreliable, rebels at heart if not in fact, and not to be trusted.33 This attitude was later also taken towards the Boers of the Free State who had taken the oath of neutrality and returned to their farms. On 20 March 1900 Lionel James had reached Bethulie after leaving Ladysmith. The following day he visited the town and observed local Boers surrendering and taking the oath: men, he remarked, who were too old, or too young for commando service, or plainly untrustworthy, since they surrendered old weapons, not the Mausers issued for use in the war. James was not convinced that such oaths were reliable.34 At this stage, The Times was giving the Free State Boers the benefit of the doubt and was praising Lord Roberts’s policy of leniency, which we now know to have been the policy of Milner and the Colonial Office.35 James’s scepticism represented the thinking of those officers in South Africa who never believed in the policy. As it came increasingly to look as if they were right, there was growing hostility in editorials towards the Boers of both republics, for which James was in part responsible. But The Times always praised Roberts for his generosity and magnanimity in the conduct of his campaign. Roberts, unlike Buller, who received an increasingly bad press in the paper, could do no wrong. By the end of the summer of 1900, the paper was saying that the war was all but over and would have been already, but for a small band of irreconcilables, Cape rebels and foreigners who had nothing to lose by continuing to fight and terrified other Boers into continuing by telling them lies about the British which they were too ignorant to disbelieve. This argument, which The Times used for the rest of the war, accompanied by more or less sarcasm and animosity, was one which was shared by army leaders, and relayed regularly by Lionel James and other correspondents of both The Times and the news agencies.36 At home Flora Shaw put the case for the necessity for war in the first place. Already before the war she had written at length in support of the uitlanders. Her last major contribution before she resigned from [ 77 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

employment with The Times was the publication in February 1900 of four articles entitled ‘Great Britain and the Dutch Republics’. In these she argued that Britain had a legal right to the position of Paramount Power in South Africa going back to the 1830s, that the rights and privileges which the two republics had received were given by virtue of this paramountcy, including the various Conventions under which the two republics had been set up, and that the Transvaal in particular had always sought, by threats and violence, to nullify Conventions and so shake off British supremacy. She aimed to counter the pro-Boer assertion that Britain was the aggressor before war began and to demonstrate that Boer actions had made war inevitable. The articles are lively and readable and they presented a coherent, though biased, picture of South African imperial history and its consequences. Bell reported to Amery Miss S’s letters have had an enormous success and I have never before received so many letters asking for them. Republication in pamphlet form moreover. Old Sarum is fumbling at the bottom of his breeches pocket for a spare sixpence out of the secret service fund to give us if he can find it, a ‘grant in aid’ toward getting them translated into French and German for 37 distribution on the continent.

The letters appeared in pamphlet form before the end of February. By early March they had been translated into French, German, Hungarian, Spanish and Swedish, and by the end of April forty thousand copies had been sold or distributed freely, not only in Great Britain and on the Continent, but also in the United States and the dominions. It was the only attempt made by The Times to meet the pro-Boer pamphleteers on their own ground and is an indication of government concern about proBoer influence on foreign opinion. The main arguments passed into the stock-in-trade of editorial denunciation of the Boers. As the war progressed, arguments against the Boers became formulaic but also much sharper. Support of Government policy also became more hard line, particularly the insistence on unconditional surrender, and this had its effect upon the way in which the paper reported and commented on the scorched earth policy and the concentration camps. The Times had included reports of farm-burning before it became an issue.38 Reports in the summer of 1900, when farm-burning and deportation of the women and children on a large scale began, all from Reuters, were infrequent and, when published, passed without comment. They disappeared entirely for a time after Milner, on 21 November 1900, ordered the Cape Town censor to omit all such references from telegrams going home.39 But he was too late. The Times had already printed a letter from John Morley on 17 November attaching a letter [ 78 ]

THE TIMES AT WAR

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

from a Dutch girl which described what had happened to her family. For the first time the paper saw fit to remark upon this aspect of the conduct of the war in the guerrilla phase: The effort which is now being made by writers of various authority … to induce us to stultify ourselves by sacrificing the fruits of all our blood and treasure, because the operations and the punishments inseparable from guerrilla warfare cause suffering to women and to innocent persons, is 40 certainly not calculated to have the result they desire.

The evidence of Morley’s letter was dismissed on the grounds that the women must have deserved their punishment, and his fears that ‘such deeds will never be forgiven us’ countered with the example of the United States after the Civil War. A few days later Sir Charles Trevelyan, who supported government policy, wrote expressing concern that the farm burning would alienate a generation who had been made homeless in this way and who he considered to be ‘part of our political Empire now’. This too merited a leader. It was more polite than that on Morley’s letter, but rejected Trevelyan’s arguments equally firmly: If these measures break down resistance and shorten the period of disturbance they are cheap and merciful, however harsh they may seem when taken out of their setting. All history shows that the state of war is the worst evil of war. When once the war is fairly over, recuperation is amazingly rapid. The most frightful devastation is repaired with great rapidity as soon as peace is established, if the state of war has not lasted too long. Therefore humanity and policy demand that at any cost of severity war 41 should be made short.

There the argument rested. It was not until the following June that The Times returned to the question of the treatment of the Boers, forced to notice the agitation of Lloyd George and others in the House of Commons and Campbell-Bannerman’s ‘methods of barbarism’ speech. Again The Times was dismissive. Although harsh methods had not shortened the war it continued to stand by the argument it had used when farm-burning became an issue and, in addition, it accused the proBoers of prolonging the war, since their sympathy for the women and children encouraged the guerrillas, who overestimated support for the 42 pro-Boers in England, to carry on fighting. Emily Hobhouse’s report, published on 18 June, was not summarised, even briefly, in The Times. Instead, Lionel James sent a report on the camps in the Orange River Colony, obtained from the British authorities there, which was published on 20 June. James painted a picture of order, even of comfort in the camps. He acknowledged high death rates and gave figures. In explaining them he accused the Boers of not understanding the [ 79 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

importance of ‘careful sanitary cleanliness’ and of poor childcaring skills, though he also mentioned that many of the women and children were already sick when they arrived in the camps due to ‘the rigours of the later phases of the campaign’.43 James’s remarks were supported by others, notably Adrian Hofmeyr. Emily Hobhouse crossed swords with both on their assertions about the filthy habits and poor childcare of the Boer women. The Times published all her letters in the interest of balance but, taking its cue from Hofmeyr, accused her of naivety, of applying the standards of civilised society where they were not appropriate and of political bias.44 When her report reached South Africa, The Times published a number of letters adding further support to James’s report. Chief among them were some anonymous letters attacking Hobhouse’s report written by Reuters’ war correspondent Howell Gwynne.45 There was, in addition, an outcry from Loyalists at the time and money being spent on the Boer families when those of the exiled uitlanders were living in penury, which received heavy coverage in The Times. Although editorial comment was minimal, the debate was allowed to continue, becoming increasingly concerned with the interpretation of health statistics and the treatment of measles, until the end of 1901. With the publication of Mrs Fawcett’s report of the findings of the Ladies’ Committee on 22 February, 1902, which was briefly summarised and commented on in one leader, the 46 subject was dropped. The Times accepted and allowed criticism on the preparations for and the conduct of the war in its earlier phase, while supporting government policy, and yet refused to accept that the later conduct of the war included some actions which had doubtful legal sanction and did little to end war more quickly. Why? Much of the criticism for the poor organisation and strategy earlier in the war was taken seriously because it had long-term implications for army organisation and the fitness of the forces to fight a ‘civilised’ foe. This was an issue which could be left for a post-war report and need not affect the war itself. The task of the government was to ensure a speedy end to war. When war dragged on, the Boer irreconcilables, not the British army, were blamed for continuing a fruitless struggle in the course of which their country was devastated and their families suffered. The sooner, it was argued, the women told their men to stop fighting, the sooner their alleged sufferings would end. While expressing sympathy for the plight of Boer women and children, it was not prepared to criticise the army or the government, which, it considered, were doing their best to uphold the interests of the Empire. The cohesion of the Empire and the development of imperial solidarity were of prime importance to The Times. These were issues which, it maintained, were above party politics and had the full support of ‘the [ 80 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE TIMES AT WAR

man in the street’ whose attitudes and aspirations the paper claimed to represent. Support for the Boers came from Liberal radicals and Irish nationalists, whom The Times detested and attacked from the start for their lack of patriotism. It considered that they were motivated by party considerations and hostility to the Empire, and therefore rejected or ignored their accusations. The correspondents played a part in providing material to buttress the arguments of the paper on a number of issues. Most of them were employed primarily to write good descriptive accounts of battles and did no more. A few, notably Pollock, also ventured to question the conduct and attitudes of senior officers. Only Leo Amery had any sympathy or understanding for the Boer point of view and this was limited by his imperialist, Conservative political views. He and Lionel James both provided political and social comment as well as coverage of military events. Amery, whose opinions were often used as the basis for editorial comment, was much influenced by Milner, thus ensuring that Milner’s view on politics at the Cape and on the shape of the new South Africa were well represented, James, with his many contacts in the army, ensured that its view, which was not always shared by The Times, was made public. These last two were on the permanent payroll and stayed with the paper throughout the war and beyond. Most of the others were employed to uphold the prestige of the paper in the first phase of the war. Their numbers were cut drastically after Lord Roberts had reached Pretoria. Their presence was designed to show that The Times was still a great newspaper.47

Notes 1 2

3 4 5

6 7

I am most grateful to the staff of the Archive of News International (TNL Archive) for help with the papers of The Times and to Dr Iain Smith for his comments. See, History of the Times, vol. 2 (London, 1939), pp 357–8. TNL Archive has figures which show a decline from 40,009 in 1891 to 35,183 in 1899. The war seems to have made very little difference to the turnover, which was 35,642 in 1900,35,073 in 1901 and 33,944 in 1902. British Library 46391 Spender Papers: Garrett to J. A. Spender 30 October 1900. For example, Bodleian Library: MS Harcourt 77, 17 February 1900: Campbell-Bannerman to Harcourt. Morning Leader 12 September 1899 for the accusations against Flora Shaw. This paper followed the arguments in The Times particularly closely and there are frequent references to it in its leaders. There were links between The Times and the Colonial Office. Flora Shaw was briefed on important matters – see Birmingham U L Chamberlain Papers 6/4/1. TNL Archive: Moberly Bell Letter Books: Bell to Lionel James 29 August 1899. State Archives Pretoria A739 box 5. Fragment of a letter from Bell to Monypenny among the papers of J. De Villiers Roos who acted as a correspondent for Reuters on the Boer side during the war. I am obliged to John Entwisle, Reuters’ Archivist, for access to Reuters’ copy. Monypenny, editor of the Johannesburg Star and correspondent for The Times in

[ 81 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16

17 18

19

20 21 22 23 24

25

26 27 28

29 30

Johannesburg, had fled Johannesburg at the beginning of September 1899 on being told that he was to be arrested. He went to Pietermaritzburg and continued to act for The Times there. Leo Amery My Political Life, vol. 1 (London, 1953) pp. 99–103. The Times, 9 October 1899. TNL Archive: Monypenny to Bell, 23 September 1899. TNL Archive: Moberly Bell Letter Books: Bell to Monypenny, 29 September 1899. Amery, My Political Life, p. 105. Ibid., pp. 107–9 TNL Archive: Moberly Bell Letter Books: Bell to Monypenny, 6 October 1899. The information about James’s recruitment and Bell’s expectations of him are taken from letters in the Moberly Bell Letter Books: and from James’s own account in his autobiography, High Pressure (London, 1929) pp. 99–103. I am grateful to Mr Theo Landon, who has written the family history, for information about Perceval Landon. It was he who suggested that Landon had private means deriving from his mother’s family, the Percevals. The Times, 9 March 1900. TNL Archive: Amery to Bell, 19 April 1900: ‘They told me on arrival here that it was Pollock’s talk that finally broke down Landon’s nervous system – perhaps it was the last straw.’ See also Julian Ralph, War’s Brighter Side: The Story of The Friend Newspaper Edited by the Correspondents with Lord Roberts’s Forces, March, April, 1899 [1900] (London, 1901). TNL Archive: Moberly Bell Letter Books: Bell to Monypenny, 6 October 1899. There are numerous complaints about Pollock to Amery in the Times letter books. See Pollock’s book With Seven Generals in the Boer War, a Personal Narrative (London, 1900) based on his campaign journal and articles written for The Times. James, High Pressure, p. 160 TNL Archive: Monypenny to Moberly Bell, I L H Camp Ladysmith, 7 March 1900. James, High Pressure, chs 11–15 for details of his activities after Ladysmith. ‘The Western Rebellion’, The Times, 2 June 1900. Philip Knightley, The First Casualty (London, 1989), p. 66. At the end of 1899 there were thirteen correspondents and by the summer of 1900 this had risen to sixteen, the most the paper ever had at one time. The larger figure is found in the advertising for The Times History of the War, drafted by Moberly Bell, which on 15 August claimed twenty correpondents in various parts of the field. By then there probably had been twenty all told, but there were never more than seven with official accreditation, and this was in the first phase of the war, until Roberts reached Pretoria. Thereafter numbers dropped to two or three at most at any time. Details of the personnel at the start of the war and subsequent changes are taken from the extensive correspondence between Bell and Amery in the Manager’s Letter Books and from the evidence of the marked copies of The Times held in the Archive. For complaint by The Times see PRO WO 108/306 No. 373. PRO WO 108/117 Part II fos 385–94. Accounts of Glencoe (Monypenny’s sole contribution to war reporting) and Elandslaagte (Lionel James) were published on 18 November 1899. Telegraphic accounts started to arrive on 20 October and comment in leaders and military articles followed over the next few days. The Times, Leader 6 January 1900. One of the first actions referred to was an attack made by Colonel Pilcher on a Boer laager at Sunnyside. Troops from Queensland and Canada distinguished themselves and much was made of the action, chiefly because of the full coverage given to it by Howell Gwynne of Reuters, for whom it was a ‘scoop’. Subsequently Gwynne claimed that he had set up the action in the first place (Bodleian Library: Lady Milner Papers VM 55, Gwynne to Violet Cecil 12 January 1900). None of the Times correspondents achieved this much. The Times remarked that the censor was allowing detailed news about this small engagement when major questions about Colenso and Stormberg remained unanswered. James’s article, ‘Irregular troops in South Africa’, dated 20 April 1901, and written while he was in Pretoria,

[ 82 ]

THE TIMES AT WAR

31

32

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

33

34 35 36

37 38

39

40

41 42 43

44 45 46 47

appeared in The Times, 28 May 1901. The Times, 27 February 1900, Perceval Landon, ‘The war as a test of the present equipment’ written on 28 January; PRO 30/57/17 Miscellaneous letters to Lord Kitchener include three from Hector MacDonald dated 26, 29 and 30 January. TNL Archive: Moberly Bell Letter Book 17 October 1899 Bell to Amery ‘we want to be kept in touch with Milner and to get letters and telegrams’. The Times, 19, 23 January; 10, 23 February. For the new capital of the Transvaal see The Times, 7 August 1900. Thereafter Amery was mainly engaged in preparing the history of the war, writing only an occasional leader until his return to cover Vereeniging. The Times, 16 April 1900 ‘In the Steps of the Invaders’. S. B. Spies, Methods of Barbarism (Cape Town, 1977) pp. 27–9 For a halfway stage see the leader on 1 May l900, based upon James’s reports. See too James’s report published on 18 July 1900, ‘The Operations East of Pretoria’, and 15 August 1900, Leader, as examples of hardening attitudes. TNL Archive: Moberly Bell Letter Books: Bell to Amery 16 February 1900. The articles were published on 5, 9, 13 and 22 February 1900. The earliest reference is 15 January 1900 when Landon reported that farms belonging to Commandant Lubbe had been burned. The complaints of the Boer leaders to Lord Roberts’s were also reported on 5 February, together with Roberts response on 6 February. See also Spies Methods of Barbarism, p. 29. Bagot Papers, Levens Hall, 21 November 1900: Milner to Bagot: ‘I think all references to burning of farm houses should be kept out of telegrams. There is a particular Reuter present with the Lindley column who seems to delight in chronicling every case of the kind. It is folly to do it (in most cases), much greater folly for correspondents to blaze it abroad – thus supplying the agitators here & mad men at home with their most valuable material.’ Thanks to Mr Charles Bagot for permission to quote from his family papers. The Times, 19 November 1900, Leader. Like most of the leaders quoted, this one was written by John Woulfe Flanagan, who wrote most of the contentious leaders throughout the the war. The Times, 26 November 1900. The Times, 15 June 1901, Leader. James’s report of 20 June was followed in The Times of 18 July by a report of conditions in the camp at Potchefstroom and on 27 July by a report written by Thurburn Bell about the Bloemfontein camp. Both were reassuring in tone. The Times, 26 June 1901. Gwynne’s letters appeared on 27 August and 19 October 1901. Jennifer Hobhouse Balme, To Love One’s Enemies (Cobble Hill, 1994), ch. 15 for The Times. In the spring of 1899 the editorial staff was concerned about the effect on its readership of the style of the popular press. Chirol, the foreign editor, subsequently wrote to Saunders and Lavino, correspondents in Berlin and Vienna. TNL Archive: Freign Editor’s Letter Book 20 April 1899, Chirol to Saunders: ‘There is no doubt that what the public – even the public we cater for – demands more & more is to know something about personality of the men who make politics as well as about politics themselves.’

[ 83 ]

CHAPTER FIVE

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

‘Intermediate’ imperialism and the test of Empire: Milner’s ‘excentric’ High Commission in South Africa John Benyon

In their famous quotation, Robinson and Gallagher tell us that the Empire fought the war of 1899–1902 for ‘a grand illusion’.1 Why, then, was there a war? Why did South Africa become such a ‘Test of Empire’? After all, Arthur Balfour – an ‘objective’ man – had to concede publicly that there was no provable pan-Afrikaner conspiracy against imperial paramountcy; and news that the British were about to proceed to extremes flabbergasted even the far-seeing Jan Smuts as late as March 1899.2 In explaining the confrontation, Robinson and Gallagher may themselves be raising an illusion by perhaps overstressing the factor of uitlander collaboration.3 This is not to deny its importance: Iain Smith’s comprehensive new study well illustrates how indispensably the Uitlander issue contributed to the supreme crisis.4 Nor can one easily contradict the overall elegance of the original theory and subsequent elaborations on how collaborators in the so-called ‘excentric’ metropole served as peripheral attractants to imperial action.5 In ever more sophisticated terms the old question thus reasserts itself: was the British state machine pushed by some centrifuge in the metropolitan islands into taking up the South African test or challenge, whether illusory or not; or was it some peripheral maelstrom that sucked that imperial machine over the edge of war? In South Africa especially, the ‘Anglo-centric’ and ‘peripheralist’ arguments even have their superficial parallels. We need only compare Robinson’s and Gallagher’s above emphasis upon the Uitlanders with those of J. A. Hobson: ‘We are fighting in order to place a small international oligarchy of mine-owners and speculators in power in Pretoria.’6 And, as with the ‘peripheralist’ thesis, the ‘Anglo-centric’ version extrapolates: first, into the imperatives of Hobsonist underconsumption acting upon metropolitan capitalist conspirators; second, into the pressures associated with the original collapse of Barings’ Bank; [ 84 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

‘INTERMEDIATE’ IMPERIALISM AND THE TEST OF EMPIRE

and eventually into the overlapping – and much more ‘open’ – concerns of the ‘gentlemanly capitalists’ who steered both the City of London’s financial system and the engine of imperial government.7 To enter into close analysis of these theories in order to determine which of them posed a limited ‘Test of Empire’ in South Africa in the late 1890s lies beyond this paper’s purposes. The thesis here is that – pace the more charged metropolitan and local circumstances – neither the imminent collapse of the (essentially flimsy?) collaborationist front on the periphery nor the socio-economic dynamics of the centre in themselves constituted a set of challenges or responses that could make South Africa into a full-scale ‘Test of Empire’: ‘It needed an ultimatum to wake them up’, was Milner’s own admission on his compatriots, ‘and they will go to sleep again on the first opportunity.’8 While there were, certainly, challenges and responses involving Boers, South African League collaborators, financial pressures upon governments, and the intrigues of ‘gentlemanly’ (or, if we take Hobson’s line, ‘ungentlemanly’) capitalists between 1895 and 1899 – and while there was a distant foreign challenge to the strategic security of the Cape sea-route (presented especially by Germany) – one is still left with a puzzle: why did a strained – but not ‘fully testing’ – situation in fact produce a major war? And why, too, were there not sufficient anticipation and restraint, both at the centre and on the periphery, to prevent what were really only medium-level challenges becoming an unavoidable and ultimate ‘test’ of ruinous consequences to the Empire? Some specific answers may be found by re-examination of the institutions and personalities that coupled successive sections of the unique conduit of political communication between metropole and periphery. Here the carefully echeloned sets of converging or diverging sub-courses into, or from, either end hardly compromised the control of access to, and of discharge from, the main – highly exclusive – channel that lay between. In fact, the latter’s overall carrying capacity was enhanced by the regular adjustment of inputs and outputs at the two termini. Almost designedly, the whole reticulation seemed laid out, first, for the unimpeded flow and, second, widest possible dissemination of loaded messages: along it would pass not just the day-to-day accumulation of administrative business but the complex stimuli and responses that aggregated eventually to produce ‘war itself’ as the ultimate ‘Test of Empire’. The two personalities and authorities with the major say on what went through the intermediate – and main – part of the channel were of course the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Joseph Chamberlain, and the High Commissioner for South Africa, Alfred Milner. In studies of the [ 85 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

origins of war British historians like Andrew Porter and Iain Smith have, probably rightly, criticised South African scholars for hyperconcentration upon these two men, without taking more of the surrounding circumstances into consideration.9 Smith underlines this by quoting E. H. Carr’s verdict that overstress upon the role of personalities in the causes of such great events ‘belongs to a primitive stage of historical consciousness’.10 Nevertheless, J. A. S. Grenville is also right in calling Milner-andChamberlain a ‘fateful partnership’.11 Without wishing to trespass into stale repetition on what is becoming a hackneyed theme, perhaps this chapter can at least help to realign certain emphases, in order not only to highlight why such a remarkably unrestricted monopoly of communication and decision-taking did come to rest in their hands, but also to reiterate – in somewhat more emphatic historical terms than have Smith, Porter, van der Poel, Marais, Stokes and Le May – the abiding inspiration for Chamberlain’s and Milner’s mutual ideological position. Thus, this explanation concentrates upon the long-held convictions of personalities in combination with their peculiar strategic and institutional situation. A first and vital point is that these two men shared the so-called ‘Unionist’ faith. For whatever ‘test’ South Africa may have ‘been made’ to offer in 1899, there can be little doubt that the real and ultimate ‘Test of Empire’ in this period was Ireland. At the core of the imperial credo lay the inviolability of Pitt’s Union of 1801 between the two home islands: from Gladstone’s attempt to alter this relationship in 1886 (if not earlier) till the Anglo-Irish ‘Treaty’ of 1921 the issue inexorably determined the political affiliations of the ruling elite. In Winston Churchill’s words, Ireland was ‘the principal theme of British and Imperial politics … the main process by which parties gained or lost the majorities indispensable to their power’.12 Yet, in Lord Salisbury’s vast majority of 1895, which itself increased the imperial interventionist impulse, were two kinds of Unionist. On the one hand, there were the sober, calculating strategists like Salisbury particularly (perhaps, too, his nephew and ‘Crown Prince’, Arthur Balfour) and many of the Conservative Party generally. Admittedly with some concession to the new democracy and to an emerging international challenge to British overseas hegemony, their imperial ideas continued to rest upon the premises of Palmerston and Disraeli – and, behind them, upon those of Shelburne, Pitt, Dundas and Grenville, with their emphasis upon the importance of the Empire’s ‘strategic posts’ (of which the Cape was, of course, a vital instance).13 The plight of Irish landlordism also struck a chord in a party built originally upon squires [ 86 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

‘INTERMEDIATE’ IMPERIALISM AND THE TEST OF EMPIRE

and cavaliers. Nevertheless, there were, on the other hand, the relatively small, self-conscious and defensive group of Liberal Unionists, who numbered Chamberlain and Milner among their most devoted adherents. These Liberal Unionists saw the task in Ireland (and, by extrapolation, in the Empire more generally) not only as preservation but also as constructive engagement and improvement. Thus, Milner was to warn his mentor, G. J. Goschen, to push schemes of Irish land purchase and industrial development as the only means of neutralising the backlash in British public opinion against Conservative ‘strong government’ after 1886.14 Having as a young volunteer-organiser rendered ‘services … impossible to over-estimate’ for the Liberal Unionist Association,15 Milner was, too, expressing his faith in that state interventionism which close association with Arnold Toynbee and his own outlining of the doctrine of ‘socialism’ in East End London had given him in youth.16 After his travels in Ireland in 1886 – and, no doubt, mindful of the violent death of his mother’s Anglo-Irish first husband in County Mayo during agrarian outrages – Milner was an enthusiastic supporter of Balfour’s more constructive schemes to counter the Irish nationalists’ ‘Plan of Campaign’.17 Ireland, therefore, lay at the very centre of Milner’s belief in Empire. In the traumatic period before 1914 his uncompromising opposition to Asquithian Home Rule would again underline this fundamental fact.18 In leaving Gladstones’ Liberals for the wilderness in 1886 Chamberlain had similarly committed himself to imperial integrity upon the Irish issue. But his earlier experiments in ‘municipal socialism’ in Birmingham, his proposed devolutionary schemes for Ireland, and his growing commitment to what Gladstone denounced as ‘constructivism’ gave him too, like Milner, a belief in the positive potential of state intervention both at home and, in due course, in the Empire abroad.19 Here he aimed at improvement of the ‘colonial estates’ and, particularly in South Africa, their consolidation under unequivocal imperial supremacy or, in the controversial word of the Pretoria Convention which he resurrected, under (an Afrikaner-acknowledged) ‘suzerainty’.20 In short, these two key Liberal Unionists were not only ideologically aligned but were what we would today call ‘social engineers’ prematurely mobilising the ‘dis’-United Kingdom and the Empire generally for twentieth-century rivalries. When combined with their positions along the channel of command between the periphery and the metropole, this emotional conviction – largely if not entirely a product of metropolitan politics be it noted21 – would supply much of the ‘puzzling’ impulse that elevated mediumlevel ‘local challenge’ in South Africa into a full-scale ‘Test of Empire’. [ 87 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

The strength of Liberal Unionist support and the image of social reformism that Chamberlain could bring to the Conservatives, not to mention the drive of personality, significantly made him into ‘the most powerful Colonial Secretary of the century’.22 Moreover, in the period following Jameson’s Raid, in 1896, ill health removed several able but obstructive officials from the London Colonial Office – so much so that Chamberlain at first complained that his staff had gone to pieces! But their youthful replacements, such as Graham, Wingfield and Fiddes – the latter being subsequently promoted to serve Milner – proved much more amenable to his ‘pushful’ methods than their older and more experienced predecessors, such as Meade and Fairfield.23 Chamberlain’s co-politician in the Office, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary Lord Selborne, was both Salisbury’s son-in-law and Milner’s friend and supporter. Similar departmental and public backing was available from the other two crucial Parliamentary Under-Secretaries, St John Brodrick and Wyndham. Thus, the channel of official communication from periphery to metropole – and vice versa – opened trumpet-like at its upper end, with an exhortatory ‘Unionist-imperialism’ rather than circumspect statecraft as its main reciprocal through-put. In spite of Selborne’s family influence, convincing a Cabinet and Conservative Party led by the humanely rational Salisbury and the sophisticated, unobsessed Balfour (not to mention the penny-pinching Hicks-Beach and hesitant Lansdowne) of the need to proceed to the supreme ‘Test’ of war by extreme threat or ultimatum remained a problem for both Chamberlain and, more particularly, Milner. But, here, the capacity of the two Liberal Unionists to enthuse a wide spectrum of metropolitan society – Chamberlain with his public emphasis upon the moral base of empire and Milner with his narrower stress upon the 24 ‘intolerable’ grievances of the Uitlanders – weighed heavily. In this connection Andrew Porter has argued that Salisbury himself did become more assertive from the Drifts Crisis onwards. Yet the Prime Minister had still to be prodded to the ultimate ‘Test’: in August 1899 he would make his well-known confession (not necessarily as an aberration in his tougher stance) that he and his colleagues regretted having to operate on a ‘moral field prepared by Milner and his jingo supporters’.25 In particular, there was the problem that Milner had himself stressed when he blamed the British public for ‘having all along fixed upon the letter of [his] Bloemfontein proposals [basically the five-year uitlander franchise] without sufficient attention to their spirit [i.e. securing British supremacy]’.26 When his prediction that the Boer ultimatum would anticipate the British one proved right, Salisbury heaved a sigh of relief that it had ‘liberated us from the necessity of explaining to the people of England why we are at war’.27 [ 88 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

‘INTERMEDIATE’ IMPERIALISM AND THE TEST OF EMPIRE

Dominated almost exclusively by the High Commissionership, the lower, institutional manifolding of the channel of communication from South Africa was even more streamlined than the upper, metropolitan exits. Because this portrayal of the High Commission as ‘a self-wound engine of imperialism’ has met criticism for, so-to-speak, exalting ‘legal technicality’,28 it is important to re-emphasise the truth of an old political equation: driven personalities + supportive, recognised and accepted institutions = ‘power’ (and ‘power’ means, bluntly, ‘the capacity to shape things to one’s own individual will and convictions’). Thus, it has always seemed peculiar that Milner’s almost unlimited ‘claim to speak and act’ for the Empire at the South African end – as a prior or preliminary consideration – has been accepted with such scant analysis by historians: avoiding this unexplained monopoly almost by default, they have taken it as a ‘given’, before at once passing on to discussion of what he actually did write or say. After all, Milner’s proconsular contemporaries had no such latitude. In Egypt, Lord Cromer was hedged by the limitations of his position as only the ‘British Consul-General’ answerable to a host of critics and other legitimately involved stakeholders – the Turkish suzerain and his firmans; the Khedive; the Egyptian government (however supine); a number of interested foreign representatives, from France and Germany in particular; not to mention the close supervisory hand of Lord Salisbury always upon him.29 Even that ‘most superior person’ in India, Lord Curzon, however righteous he considered his causes and however persuasive his pen, had to work with an Executive Council (on which he met with both defiance and defeat from Lord Kitchener), a Legislative Council with some popular representation, the minor Presidencies of Bombay and Madras (with the constitutional leeway allowed them), the other obstructive provincial governors (like Sir Mackworth Young), the advisory India Council in London, the supervisory Secretary of State for India and, ultimately behind all, the Prime Minister, Salisbury, with his specialist knowledge and cynical refusal to countenance the Viceroy’s extravagant anti-Russian policies.30 In spite of having only indirect recourse to military power, the High Commissioner in South Africa was, by contrast, a remakably free agent. The colonists had early discovered this. At the time of the concession of responsible government to the Cape in 1872 Saul Solomon had complained: ‘We know what the Governor is; we know his power; but we do not know what the High Commissioner is, and we do not know his power.’31 Frequently forced to defer to the High Commissioner’s will, the Natalians, for their part, had deplored the fact that he wielded against them a ‘concealed sceptre’ with ‘occult and undefined powers not [ 89 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

… controlled by any of the ordinary restraints by which even kings are kept within bounds’.32 Mindful, nevertheless, of how the High Commissioner had duped them out of possessing Basutoland in 1868–70, they had had unwillingly to admit that ‘Several of his coups were masterly, and almost Napoleonic in their boldness and originality.’ Given such convictions among those white settlers at the receiving end of High Commission action (and there were many more black indigenes without such facility of expression), it is small wonder that the incumbents of the post were fully alive to its strength and utility. Only the first holder, Sir Henry Pottinger, would depart in 1847 lamenting that he had lacked ‘the power of a Dictator [sic] [where] … Of all places in the world that arrangement [autocratic unitary authority] strikes me to be most necessary at the Cape.’33 His successor, Sir Harry Smith, would show more perspicacity. Using the vague wording of the High Commission instrument as his cue, he would disobediently and illegally establish, in 1847 and 1848 respectively – and just as illegally administer for years on end – not just British Kaffraria but also the Orange River Sovereignty.34 In spite of certain qualms about bypassing the legalising Letters Patent, Smith’s successor, Cathcart, would continue the unlawful High Commission administration of British Kaffraria.35 At the same time a Special Commissioner under him, Clerk, would illegally withdraw from the Orange River Sovereignty and simultaneously conclude a highly questionable informal diplomatic agreement with the successor Orange Free State – the ‘Bloemfontein Convention’.36 Assisted by a special imperial grant, Sir George Grey would rely for his whole term upon the unspecified (and, in law, non-existent) ruling powers that the High Commission had appropriated, not only in British Kaffraria but also in the supposedly ‘independent’ Transkei. In spite of many doubts confidentially expressed by two generations of Colonial Office personnel, only in 1863 did the Crown’s Law Officers get around to ruling ultra vires the High Commissioner’s penchant for ‘founding and enforcing legal jurisdiction either criminal or civil beyond the limits of British territory’.37 Nevertheless, raison d’état made the incoming High Commissioner, Wodehouse, dispute even this magisterial dictum: Under … the situation to which the High Commissioner has been gradually and imperceptibly brought, it seems almost essential to safety that no doubts should be cast on his powers – no one knows or can tell what they really are – but it is a fact that both Black and White have come to believe that on our frontiers he can do just what he pleases. [I]t does not follow that because the Queen cannot give them [the powers he needed as High Commissioner] I cannot assume and exercise them … This government cannot afford [ 90 ]

‘INTERMEDIATE’ IMPERIALISM AND THE TEST OF EMPIRE

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

voluntarily to relinquish any powers of which it has come into possession – 38 and those of High Commission are among the most important of all.

While this important (but carefully suppressed) dispute gave some pause to the free exercise of the High Commission, the ‘concealed sceptre’ was soon back at work – with Wodehouse’s disobedient establishment of ‘High Commission sovereignty’ in Basutoland in 1868, followed shortly afterwards by Barkly’s similar action in unilaterally taking over Griqualand West in 1871. At metropolitan insistence a hurried Annexation Act in the former case and the creation of a Crown Colony in the latter contrived to cancel the illegalities involved.39 The institution of Cape ‘responsible government’ in 1872 therefore found self-assertive colonists like John X. Merriman angrily trying to ‘lift the veil which shrouded the doings of the High Commissioner and his relations with the government of this country’.40 Alas for Merriman, he was to interfere unacceptably with Frere’s importation of troops in early 1878 for purposes of imposing the High Commission project of South African Confederation. In addition, this colonial gadfly would at the same time unwisely question the proconsul’s more legitimate powers as Commander-in-Chief. And so, in a situation almost without precedent in responsibly governed colonies, Frere was put in a position to use his third capacity as Cape Governor to dismiss not only the troublesome Merriman but also the uncooperative colonial Premier, Molteno, along with his other colleagues!41 Well might Lady Frere write about the value of this trident of complementary powers: Most fortunately Sir Bartle holds the office of Governor, High Commissioner and Commander-in-Chief … Without this three-fold [sic] power he could never have managed various measures which he saw as imperative, and has 42 thus been able to carry through.

It is, thus, small wonder that Merriman’s instinctive insight into Milner’s policy after 1897 would make him quickly discern in the new High Commissioner ‘an avatar of Bartle Frere’.43 And, as in the case of Frere, the attempt of the old colonial veteran and his moderate South African associates to restrain Milner would fail in 1898–99. In Canada and Australasia (also ‘responsibly governed’), where such more or less irresponsible proconsulates were obsolete by that stage, would such widespread disapproval of metropolitan initiatives among an influential section of English-speaking colonists (and, more particularly, the francophone habitants) have been similarly brushed aside? Most probably not. And so, while we may agree with Smith, Cain and Hopkins that Milner only stirred a pot of pre-existing ingredients, we must also ask (continuing the metaphor) whence came his long and unique [ 91 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

stirring-rod and the ladle used to offer the war-mix to his local and metropolitan supporters?44 To go back to Frere. As High Commissioner for all South Africa45 (earlier High Commissions were only for the Cape trans-frontier), Frere went on in 1878 to take charge in Natal and, by overriding that junior colony’s doubts (and those of the metropole as well), to launch the Zulu War with his ultimatum to Cetshawayo in early 1879.46 While the disaster of Isandlwana did cause a temporary split in the High Commission between Frere and Wolseley, the Majuba fiasco of 1881 necessitated its reunification under Sir Hercules Robinson.47 But at least this skilful, if venal, proconsul did eventually establish a belatedly legalised High Commission rule in Lesotho in 1884.48 Complementarily, Lord Loch did the same for the Bechuanaland Protectorate in 1891.49 Beyond the High Commissioner’s newly legal power to rule, or to supervise, certain Southern African frontier territories and an undefined but acknowledged right of surveillance over outlying colonies like Natal, Griqualand West and British Bechuanaland there lay his diplomatic relations with the Boer republics. Originally initiated by his ‘Assistant’ and ‘Special’ Commissioner-associates in the Conventions of the 1850s, these relations were designed as one of those typical ‘influence systems’ 50 of the mid-nineteenth century of which Robinson and Gallagher write. Nevertheless, the Boers always chafed at this semi-subordination to High Commissioner and Colonial Office. Wodehouse’s takeover of Basutoland especially provoked the Free State into overseas missions and agitation, which called forth Colonial Office denunciations of ‘the airs which they seek to give themselves of a foreign country’.51 The High Commissioner himself warned: This is not the first attempt … made by these South African Republics to place themselves in communication with the Foreign Office … I cannot well conceive any more futile source of misadventure and confusion than the extension to them of the right of corresponding directly with Her Majesty’s 52 Government.

Leaving things largely in the High Commissioner’s hands like this was somewhat modifed in the later Pretoria and London Conventions of the 1880s, under which diplomatic agents appeared for the Colonial Office in Pretoria and for the Transvaal in London. But the essential link through the High Commissioner and the Colonial, rather than Foreign, Office remained intact. As we approach the point where these historically developing powers and institutions of the High Commission (official and informal) were to be melded with Milner’s crusading personality, there were, nevertheless, two significant developments which, together, somewhat inhibited [ 92 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

‘INTERMEDIATE’ IMPERIALISM AND THE TEST OF EMPIRE

proconsular action. First, Loch was to discover how necessary it was to have a metropole that was supportive of, or at least benignly neutral towards, High Commission initiatives. Here it must be noted that it was the imperial agent, rather than the colonist-collaborator, Rhodes, who made the first serious official proposal for eliminating Krugerism by forcing an uitlander franchise upon the Transvaal. Responding to an early version of this proposal, the unsympathetic Conservative Colonial Secretary, Knutsford, told Salisbury bluntly that Loch ‘must be a little off his head’.53 When Knutsford’s successor, the Liberal Lord Ripon, was faced with the elaboration of this scheme, by which an uitlander revolution in Johannesburg would combine with an intruding imperial force from the western border of the Transvaal, he and his Parliamentary Undersecretary, Buxton, refused to countenance what they politely termed ‘the Loch indiscretions’.54 (Those who argue that Chamberlain had little choice but to fall in with Rhodes’s Raid plan – admittedly at a remove – should note the significant contrast between his ‘Liberal Unionist’ approach in 1895–96 and these earlier responses in 1891 and 1894 – the first even coming from a Conservative Secretary of State.) The other, related constraint upon High Commission action was the conscious metropolitan decision to rely more heavily on the ‘subimperial’ activities of what Robinson had called ‘Colonialism’ in 1889 – meaning combined Cape Colonial and Chartered Company projects controlled and initiated by Rhodes.55 Thus, Loch found himself frustrated in his attempts as High Commissioner to gain control of the Chartered Company in the north both before and after the Ndebele War of 1893. The returned Robinson confirmed this temporary subordination of the High Commission to Rhodes. But the disastrous failure of the Jameson Raid, which for the moment neutralised colonial subimperialism, would swing the pendulum back the other way, in favour of greater High Commission involvement as the embodiment of the nownaked Imperial Factor. But in 1896 Robinson (or Lord Rosmead as he had become) still would not conform to Chamberlain’s desire to elevate what was only a medium-level challenge into full-scale confrontation with Kruger. Such a task was left for his Liberal Unionist successor, Milner. And so we face the counter-factual: if we exclude the ‘fateful partnership’ of these two Liberal Unionists in institutional and ideological conjunction, was the full ‘Test of Empire’ in South Africa unavoidable? Before attempting an answer it may be instructive to look back at the other precedents in South African history for powerful and determined Secretaries of State and forceful and aggressive High [ 93 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Commissioners acting in tandem or in parallel phase. There are only two: the partnerships of Sir Harry Smith and Earl Grey (late 1840s-early 50s) and of Lord Carnarvon and Sir Bartle Frere (late 1870s). Both covered eras of major expansive and aggressive initiatives on the part of the Imperial Factor; indeed, it would be hard to find comparable periods even in the other turbulent decades of Britain’s war-punctuated paramountcy – except, notably, in the era of Milner and Chamberlain. What is more, these phases encompassed more than, simply, a reaction to local circumstance: all involved envisioning some wider, overall interest of empire. Thus, we may conclude that these three conjunctions were of unusual historical significance in determining the trajectory of the 56 Imperial Factor across the Southern African subcontinent. On arrival in 1897 Milner spent a year summing up the situation. His barrister’s eye quickly discerned how an historical accumulation of usage and precedent, assumption of power together with tacit acquiescence, and genuine conferment of authority, had made the High Commission, rather than Cape Governorship, his real rod of authority in South Africa and effective lever at Home. To Chamberlain he wrote of its utility: [First, in the whole subcontinent] the influence of H.M. Government in S. Africa … depends very largely on the strength of the H.C.’s position. To weaken him in any way is to weaken the most powerful local factor, in fact the only factor worth mentioning, on the Imperial side … As far as I can see ahead, the post of High Commissioner will be a fighting post. [Second, in the Cape situation] It was the locus standi which the High Commissionership gave me … which lifted me over the stile … the power of the Governor of the Cape itself rests, not upon his position inside its borders, but on his authority outside them. And similarly in dealing with the Republics. [Third, in controlling Britain’s Transvaal Agent] the reports of H.M. Agent direct to the Secretary of State under flying seal … have never come into existence. Greene reports everything to me [for settlement], without wasting 57 the tremendous reserve power which we both have in the S of S.

Thus, Milner remained both fully cognisant and extremely jealous of his High Commission power and of the scope it gave him in half a dozen fields. As British Agent in the Transvaal, Conyngham Greene in Pretoria was more pliant than his predecessor, Sir Jacobus de Wet. Nor did Milner hesitate to cajole him with hints of future ambassadorial promotions and to cuff him gently into line for perceived indiscretions, such as oversanguine reaction to conversations with Smuts in August 1899.58 [ 94 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

‘INTERMEDIATE’ IMPERIALISM AND THE TEST OF EMPIRE

Similarly, the High Commissioner soon asserted his ascendancy over Hely-Hutchinson, the Governor of Natal Colony, which would be the probable target of a major Boer offensive, should hostilities break out along the old Majuba line. Thus, he was to call upon his Natal subordinate ‘before the bomb bursts … to stiffen the wobblers’ among his colonists – who were, after all, supposed to have been weaned from their former friendship with Kruger and sweetened into collaboration by Chamberlain’s concession of Zululand to them in 1897.59 In the same way as Wodehouse had earlier thwarted overseas delegations from the Free State, Milner (and Greene) were to react forcefully to the attempt of the Transvaal State Secretary, Dr Leyds, acting as ‘Envoy Extraordinary’, to coordinate the Transvaal’s foreign relations in Europe and to raise loans. Seeing this as an attempt to evade ‘suzerainty’ and, therefore, receiving strong reinforcement from Chamberlain as well, they did their best to frustrate Leyds’s efforts.60 Milner, moreover, was convinced of the importance of ‘getting the development of the [Rhodesian] North on to right lines’.61 This meant bringing the Company Administrator more under the restraint of the ‘Deputy’ (soon ‘Resident’) Commissioner, who should act as the ‘eyes and ears’ of the High Commissioner and who should ‘report to and not merely through the H.C.’62 Needless to say, both Chamberlain and Salisbury fell in with this scheme; while Milner’s meeting at Inyanga with Rhodes made him less suspicious of the weakened ‘colossus’ and more convinced that he could bring him safely into play as a junior ally to influence South African Leaguer and mining capitalist alike.63 This careful channelling of all the subordinate southern African ducts into one main official (and unofficial) ‘High Commission’ funnel of communication upward to the metropole was complicated by a major impediment – the Cape Colony. Milner’s temperament and convictions decreed that, if one was not with him, one must be against him; in his brain there seem to have been few ‘grey areas’. As he told the guests at his farewell banquet on the eve of departure for the Cape: My mind is not so constructed that I am capable of understanding the arguments of those who question the desirability or possibility [of imperial unity] … It is a great privilege, to be allowed [to serve] as a civilian soldier of 64 the Empire.

With its divided politics, the Cape presented all those equivocations and compromises which were anathema to its new Governor. Quite deliberately, he therefore turned his back upon its political elite. It would, he felt, free him in his dealings with the ‘most uncongenial people’ whom he daily encountered. Complaining of the boredom and [ 95 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

drawing uncomplimentary parallels with his previous life in Egypt, he told his friend Rendel: ‘I loathe the place as a man.’65 The colonists reciprocated. Merriman, for example, regretted that Milner had been ‘trained in the school of newspapers and books, rather than that of men’ – which had made him a ‘poor nervous ignorant fellow, utterly out of sympathy with South Africa’ and suffering the especial affliction of a ‘curious nervous fashion of mind’.66 Thus, personalities like the Chief Justice, de Villiers, the leading politician, Hofmeyr, and the Cape Premier himself, Schreiner, found difficulty in working with their colonial chief. Such antagonisms – important at their inception – were to be crucial during Milner’s future war troubles over martial law and his attempts to suspend the Cape Constitution. More vitally, they vitiated Cape restraint upon his immediate actions. In reality, Merriman had seriously underestimated his man. Milner might have been alone and ‘agoraphobic’ at the Cape but he had taken extraordinary care to embed himself within the very fibre of English polite society. As he told Rendel somewhat disingenuously: ‘my only personal interest is in my English friends and my only amusement 67 hearing from them’. In fact, Milner’s image as civilian paladin of the far-flung battle line on the colonial periphery is misplaced: he was the most ‘metropolitan’ of all the Cape Governors and High Commissioners. Having spent less than three years outside Britain during his entire public career, his appointment in 1897 evoked from Garvin the understatement that it ‘defied routine’.68 Interestingly, too, a critic interpreted Milner’s earlier term of financial management in Egypt not as service to the periphery but as a propaganda exercise on behalf of the metropole – of which, indeed, the prompt appearance thereafter of his tendentious book, England in Egypt, seemed due confirmation.69 Milner’s home in the heart of Westminster in St James’s, his dinners at Brooks’s and the Athenaeum, his visits to Windsor, Highbury, Hatfield, Mells, Tring, Panshanger, Seacox, etc., his active retention of his fellowship at New College and maintenance of close ties with Balliol and Balliol men, his open hospitality to, and touring with, wellconnected English visitors while abroad, his ceaseless private correspondence on public affairs with a wide acquaintance in the ruling establishment and, not least, with the political hostesses – all (apart from his genuine friendships) suggest he was more than astute about how metropolitan society and politics meshed in the era of the Oxbridge high table and Union debate, the clubland tëte-à-tëte, and the country house weekend with its ‘gunroom diplomacy’. This familiarity with the still -narrow but much nuanced political world of the metropole led Milner into another calculated decision. After failure in the Harrow election of 1885 his perception that he was not [ 96 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

‘INTERMEDIATE’ IMPERIALISM AND THE TEST OF EMPIRE

temperamentally suited to the hurly-burly of the hustings made him resolve to make his way as a public servant either at Home, or in the Empire, or both. Unlike leading politicians, such officials were at the behest not of one, but of two, parties. Milner had begun as a young Liberal and had served as deputy editor of the Liberal Pall Mall Gazette. But the major party split of 1886 threw him into uncompromising opposition to the great Liberal icon, Gladstone.70 The question was therefore: How public should that opposition become? In this dilemma Milner showed streetwise caution. With Balliol Liberals such as Asquith he kept on good terms, especially as Asquith, Grey and Haldane came to represent the imperialist wing of their party. And when he found that his chairmanship of the Inland Revenue Board had subordinated him to Sir William Harcourt as Chancellor of the Exchequer during Gladstone’s Fourth and Rosebery’s First Ministry of 1892–95, he took good care to work cooperatively with his new Liberal chief. The fact that Harcourt now belonged not so much to the Gladstonian ‘individualists’ as to the ‘social reforming’ wing of the Liberal Party also helped. He and Milner could therefore find common anti-Gladstonian ground, for example on the redistributive principle in the Budget of 1894.71 The consequence was that Milner successfully kept a foot in both party camps: his Liberal Unionism and acquantance with Balfour made him acceptable to the Conservatives; while his conscious retention of allies among the ‘Liberals proper’ confirmed the image that he consciously cultivated of being genuinely ‘independent’ and ‘disinterested’. At his departure banquet he confessed, somewhat uncandidly, to an audience widely representative of both parties and to hearty applause how much he was ‘cursed with a cross-bench mind’. Thus, the ‘Test of Empire’ was far advanced in South Africa before Campbell-Bannerman, who had succeeded to Gladstone’s mantle, began to grasp how difficult it would be to dam, block, sever or even dent the communication conduit that led so directly through (and mainly from) the High Commissioner in South Africa to Chamberlain as Secretary of State – and, beyond him and the Cabinet, straight into an admiring Home elite: ‘behind him [Chamberlain] stands Milner, and it is to doubt Milner that is the unpardonable sin’. The canny Scot thus found it hard to accept this ‘blind belief’ which many of his Liberal colleagues, especially the Balliol set, had in the High Commissioner. He could only describe it as the psychological infirmity of the ‘religio Milneriana’!72 But his complaint was in fact a compliment: it was a measure of Milner’s earlier investment in metropolitan political friendship – and in his ability to retain and manipulate it. [ 97 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Milner’s long reach from South Africa into the very heart of the English establishment was reinforced by his capacity to touch the sentiments of the much wider metropolitan public. Here again, as in the minds of officials, politicians and the elite generally, his High Commissionership gave him the especial advantage of appearing to speak ex cathedra on South Africa. Alongside this was another earlier investment in metropolitan experience and contacts that made him wholly conversant with the techniques of coordinating a major propaganda campaign partly in South Africa but, more particularly, at Home. He had, after all, participated in two such campaigns before: the Liberal Unionist crusade to defeat Gladstone in 1886; and the effort during the early 1890s to save the imperial Egyptian occupation by agitating (as he put it) in ‘Grub Street’ rather than on the banks of the Nile. To echo his critic, Wilfred Scawen Blunt: ‘For this work no man could have been better chosen … No man better than he knew the length of the electoral foot.’73 As a well-known and established London journalist, Milner had been able to win the trust of both Moberly Bell and Buckle, respectively manager and editor of the Conservative ‘Thunderer’, The Times. From the latter he was to recruit his own editor for the Wernher-Beit Johannesburg Star, W. F. Monypenny. An old London contact from his own former paper, the Pall Mall Gazette, was Assistant Editor Edmund Garrett, whose weak chest would conveniently bring him to South Africa to edit the Cape Times during the most testing time. A further important old colleague and friend from the Pall Mall was E. T. Cook, who had gone on to the editorship of that other important Liberal organ, the Daily News. For purposes of appealing further down the social strata, especially to the lower middle category, he could count on the crude patriotism of Alfred Harmsworth’s newspapers like the Daily Mail.74 Additional useful support came from Balfour’s ex-Private Secretary and, from 1898, UnderSecretary for War, George Wyndham, whose leadership of the Imperial South African Association in the metropole made him a crucial element in the media campaign in newspapers and journals.75 The Imperial South African Association in Britain was the complement of the popular South African League, which had sprung up in the subcontinent as a result of the polarising stimuli of post-Raid politics.76 As the crisis mounted in the Transvaal, Milner told his official Agent, Conyngham Greene, that he should get into closer contact with these Uitlanders.77 Other and more private emissaries like the High Commissioner’s Private and Imperial Secretaries, Ozzy Walrond and George Fiddes, were also sent on missions to Johannesburg to emphasise the importance of unity and precision in the Uitlander programme; [ 98 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

‘INTERMEDIATE’ IMPERIALISM AND THE TEST OF EMPIRE

while Milner personally met with his devoted messenger into miningmagnate ranks, Percy Fitzpatrick, on how ‘to form opinion and hold it firm’. Fitzpatrick reacted enthusiastically by briefing his principals in their London ‘Park Lane palaces’: ‘You have got to do the press and you have got to try and get before the House [of Commons] the mass of damning evidence that lies in the petitions [i.e. the so-called ‘Appeal to Caesar’ in the shape of the Edgar and Second Uitlander Petitions].’78 In this way Milner plumbed yet another subsidiary propaganda duct into the High Commission mainline through to metropolitan society. Well might he confide to Selborne in March 1899: ‘As Governor of the [Cape] Colony I have really ceased to exist.’79 During the South African summer of 1898–99 the High Commissioner’s bëte noire and temporary substitute was Sir William Butler. Perceiving how much the impulses being transmitted in both directions could be charged up, or scaled down, at the halfway relaying point, he referred to the High Commissioner as a ‘pointsman on the railway of thought between two stations’.80 In Milner’s case this was a profound understatement; for he had expanded the High Commissionership into nothing less than an intermediate proconsulate joining metropole to periphery like a connecting-rod within the reciprocating engine of empire. By chosen position and precept he was essentially a man-of-the-metropole. Precisely because of that position, and driven by his iron-bound precepts, he was able to extend, expand and exploit the channel of communication that he had helped to build and had come virtually to monopolise as High Commissioner on the periphery. Through it he largely converted the posturing and conspiracies he found in South Africa and the ministerial and public sentiment he cultivated in Britain into a cause that would, he anticipated, bear the mighty measures of war and reconstruction – in other words, into a full ‘Test of Empire’. The High Commission was, thus, at vital times a true ‘excentric metropole’; though its incumbent was hardly the mere ‘prisoner’ or instrument of the peripheral collaborators alone: he was very much his own – metropolitan – man wielding his own – peripheral – weapon for a metropolitan cause in overreaction to a peripheral challenge – and his intermediate intervention can be seen as ultimately decisive. The irony in this massive exercise of will and manipulation was that the resulting war created rivals to the High Commissioner in the soldiers, Roberts and Kitchener (with Buller in a minor role). Their extended and destructive campaigns and the miscalculated length of the war caused the hitherto-exclusive and uncluttered communication channel between metropole and periphery to be muffled by new voices and choked by unforeseen circumstances. After 1900, Chamberlain was [ 99 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

to promote Milner to be Governor both of the Transvaal and of the Free State and to attach the High Commissionership to him personally – making his position, in the Secretary of State’s own words, ‘like that of the Governor-General of India’.81 But the ‘Test of Empire’ had meanwhile receded beyond even his powers of manipulation and social engineering. As Milner himself confessed in moments of self-doubt, he had been ‘rowing against the stream’ and ‘building on sand’.82 What might have seemed a successful political project between 1897 and 1899 did not therefore convert into a successful socio-economic enterprise between 1900 and 1905. Chamberlain’s departure in 1903 to promote another unattainable object of social engineering – tariff reform – together with Milner’s own commitment to the importation of Chinese labour, contributed crucially to Liberal victory in 1905–06. This wrote finis to their particular version of imperial supremacy. The ideology and institutional powers which had raised the ‘fateful partnership’ of Secretary of State and High Commissioner – especially the latter’s unique monopoly (inherited and newly initiated) – had ultimately led them, through overreach, to frustration and futility.

Notes 1 2

3 4 5

6 7

8 9

10 11 12 13

R. Robinson, J. Gallagher with A. Denny, Africa and the Victorians (London, 1961), p. 461. Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates 4th series, 78, column 257; W. K. Hancock (ed.), Selections from the Smuts Papers (Cambridge, 1966), vol. 1, pp. 147–309, passim, especially p. 179. Robinson and Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, p. 469. Iain R. Smith, The Origins of the South African War (London, 1996), passim. R. E. Robinson, ‘Non-European foundations of European imperialism: a sketch for a theory of collaboration’, in Imperialism (London, 1972); R. Robinson, ‘The excentric idea of imperialism, with or without Empire’, in W. J. Mommsen and J. Osterhammel (eds), Imperialism and After: Continuities and Discontinuities (London, 1986). J. A. Hobson, The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Effects (London, 1900), p. 189. See J. A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study (London, 1902); A. Atmore and S. Marks, ‘The imperial factor in South Africa in the nineteenth century: towards a reassessment’, Journal of Commonwealth and Imperial History, 3:1 (1974); P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1789–1914 (London, 1993). C. Headlam, The Milner Papers (London, 1932), vol. 2, p. 425: Milner to Rendel, 2 August 1902. For example, see A. N. Porter, The Origins of the South African War (Manchester, 1980), passim, especially pp. 264–7; Smith, Origins of the South African War, passim, especially pp. 413–17. Smith, Origins of the South African War., p. 415, quoting E. H. Carr, What is History? (London, 1961), p. 45. J. A. S. Grenville, Lord Salisbury and Foreign Policy: The Close of the Nineteenth Century (London, 1964), pp. 236–7. Winston S. Churchill, Great Contemporaries (London, 1938 edn), pp. 347–8. The classic thesis here is that of Professor Vincent Harlow, embodied (especially in his exaltation of Shelburne in vol. 1) in The Founding of the Second British Empire, 2 vols (London, 1964). It should be remembered that Disraeli had successfully won over the Liberal

[ 100 ]

‘INTERMEDIATE’ IMPERIALISM AND THE TEST OF EMPIRE

14 15 16 17 18 19

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

20

21

22 23

24 25

26

27 28

29

30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

Palmerstonians before the General Election of 1874. T. H. O’Brien, Milner (London, 1979), p. 68. Arthur R. Elliot, Life of G. J. Goschen, 2 vols (London, 1911), vol. 2, p. 82. See A. Milner, ‘Arnold Toynbee: a reminiscence’, reprinted in A. Toynbee, Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England (London, 1908 edn); O’Brien, Milner, pp. 37–50. O’Brien, Milner, p. 78; Sir J. Evelyn Wrench, Alfred, Lord Milner (London, 1958), p. 21. O’Brien, Milner, pp. 240–55, passim. See, for example, J. L. Garvin, The Life of Joseph Chamberlain (London, 1934), vol. 3, passim, especially ch. 1, p. 19, where he speaks of a landlord improving his (colonial) estates. For a treatment of the issue of ‘suzerainty’ see D. Schreuder, Gladstone and Kruger (London, 1969), pp. 148, 427–35; for British supremacy see G. H. L. Le May, British Supremacy in South Africa (London, 1965), especially ch. 1. Both men were also apparently influenced by the imperial views of Seeley and Dilke (the latter being Chamberlain’s early political associate) and by the example of both German imperial aggression (in Chamberlain’s case) and German efficiency (in Milner’s case). Robinson and Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, p. 426. R. H. Wilde, ‘Joseph Chamberlain and the South African Republic’, Archives Year Book for South African History, 1956, vol. 1, pp. 12, 51, especially 52, 67–8, 71–2, 87, 90, 95; J. S. Marais, The Fall of Kruger’s Republic (Oxford, 1961), p. 136. See Porter, The Origins of the South African War, passim. E. Drus, ‘Select Documents from the Chamberlain Papers concerning Anglo-Transvaal Relations, 1896–1899’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 27:76 (November 1954), p. 189, fn.3, quoting Salisbury to Lansdowne, 30 August 1899. Milner Papers, Pretoria Archives Photostat F.K. 13 1102, p. 1420: Milner to Hely Hutchinson, 24 August 1899. With typical tendentiousness Headlam, Milner Papers, vol. 1, p. 520, does not quote this; see further the argument that Milner limited his objective to the franchise, A. H. Duminy, Sir Alfred Milner and the Outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War, Research Monograph No. 2, Natal University, 1976. Hansard, 4th series, 77, column 266: remarks on 19 October 1899. See John Benyon, Proconsul and Paramountcy in South Africa (Pietermaritzburg, 1980), passim, especially pp. 332–42; J. A. Benyon, ‘Overlords of Empire? British “proconsular imperialism” in comparative perspective’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 19:2 (1991), pp. 164–202. For criticism see R. L. Cope, ‘The origins of the Zulu War of 1879’, Ph.D. thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 1995, p. 249, fn. 46. For general surveys of the complexity of Egyptian government see Lord Cromer, Modern Egypt, 2 vols (London, 1908), vol. 2, passim, especially pp. 260–346; A. Milner, England in Egypt, 6th edn (London, 1899), passim, especially pp. 24–62. For the position of the Viceroy after the Mutiny of 1857 see generally Sir P. Moon, The British Conquest and Dominion of India (London, 1989), p. 754 and following. On Curzon’s Viceroyalty see pp. 911–43 passim. Lord Salisbury was wont to complain that Curzon pursued his anti-Russian vendetta as if he could rely always on having the backing of eighty thousand additional British bayonets supplied to him from home! Grahamstown Journal, 7 May 1873. Natal Witness, 15 April 1868. Pottinger Papers, PRO, FO 705/85: Pottinger to Earl Grey, 23 August 1847. Benyon, Proconsul, chs 3 and 4; Pottinger Papers, PRO, FO 705/84: High Commission to Pottinger, 10 October 1846; B.P.P. 1846–48, XLIII (912), p. 5. See B.P.P. 1852–53, LXVI (1635), p. 217: Cathcart to Pakington, No. 51, 11 February 1853. See Benyon, Proconsul, chs 3 and 4; Pottinger Papers, PRO, FO 705/84: High Commission to Pottinger, 10 October 1846; B.P.P. 1846–48, XLIII (912), p. 5. CO 48/420: Legal Opinion of 18 June 1863. Wodehouse Papers: Wodehouse to Newcastle, No. 20, 20 August 1863. See Benyon, Proconsul, pp. 115–28. Grahamstown Journal, 7 May 1873. Benyon, Proconsul, pp. 149–52. Carnarvon Papers, PRO 30/6/34: Lady Frere to Carnarvon, 20 November 1877.

[ 101 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED 43 44

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58

59

60

61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

P. Lewsen (ed.), Correspondence of John X. Merriman (Cape Town, 1963), vol. 2, p. 273: Merriman to Currey, 19 May 1897; see ibid., pp. 334–5; ibid., vol. 3, pp. 3–4, 21. See Smith, Origins of the South African War, p. 415; Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, p. 379. Sprigg Papers, Cory Library, Rhodes University, P.R.990: copy of High Commission to Frere, 27 February 1877. B.P.P. 1878–79, LII(C.2222), p. 206: Frere’s Ultimatum to the Zulu, 11 December 1878. Benyon, Proconsul, pp. 165–79. Ibid., pp. 186–93. See A. Sillery, Founding a Protectorate (The Hague, 1965), pp. 154–8. Robinson and Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, pp. 54–5; Benyon, Proconsul, pp. 40–8. CO 48/441: Wodehouse to Buckingham, No. 50, 18 June 1868, Minute by Elliott, 27 July. Ibid., Wodehouse to Buckingham, No. 37, 18 June 1868; ibid., Wodehouse to Buckingham, 9 April 1868. Salisbury Papers, File ‘Knutsford’, 1891–1902, No. 371: Knutsford to Salisbury, 14 September 1891, concerning Loch’s secret dispatch of 6 August. Ripon Papers, Add. MSS 43,555 (LXV), fos 33–5: Buxton to Ripon, 22 June 1896; for Loch’s plan see J. van der Poel, The Jameson Raid (Cape Town, 1951), pp. 15–22; E. Pakenham, Jameson’s Raid (London, 1960), pp. 140–8; J. Butler, The Liberal Party and the Jameson Raid (Oxford, 1968), pp. 28–34; E. Drus, ‘The question of imperial complicity in the Jameson Raid’, English Historical Review, 67, (1953), pp. 590–3. Grahamstown Journal, 4 May 1889, p. 3: Robinson’s farewell speech extolling ‘Colonialism’. Benyon, Proconsul, pp. 338–42. Headlam, Milner Papers, vol. l, pp. 119–21: Milner to Chamberlain, 5 October 1897. Milner Papers, Pretoria Archives Photocopy F.K. 10/1099, pp. 895–6: Milner to Conyngham Greene, 11 February 1898, referring to him as a future ambassador; R. H. Wilde, ‘Joseph Chamberlain and the South African Republic’, p. 130; Headlam, Milner Papers, vol. 1, p. 489. Headlam, Milner Papers, vol. 1, pp. 358–9: Milner to Hely Hutchinson, v.confdtl., 8 May 1899; F. R. Carroll, ‘The growth & co-ordination of pro-war sentiment in Natal before the Second Anglo-Boer War’, MA thesis, University of Natal, 1981, passim, especially pp. 100– 1, 113–14. L. E. van Niekerk, ‘Dr. S. J. Leyds as Gesant van die Zuid-Afrikaanse Republiek’, D.Phil. thesis, Orange Free State, 1972, pp. 77–9 (subsequently published in the Archives Year Book for South African History). Headlam, Milner Papers, vol. 1, p. 118: Milner to Graham, 29 September 1897. Ibid., p. 110: Milner to Selborne, 15 June 1897; ibid., p. 120: Milner to Chamberlain, 5 October 1897. See J. G. Lockhart and C. M. Wodehouse, Rhodes (London, 1963), ch. 23. Quoted in O’Brien, Milner, p. 153. Ibid., p. 141. Lewsen, Merriman’s Correspondence, vol. 3, p. 317: Merriman to Courtney, 17 October 1901; ibid. pp. 22, 23: Merriman to Schreiner, 6 March 1899. Quoted in O’Brien, Milner, p. 141; ‘agoraphobic’ was L. S. Amery’s word – see A. M. Gollin, Proconsul in Politics (London, 1964), p. 11. Garvin, Chamberlain, vol. 3, p. 142. W. S. Blunt, My Diaries, vol. 1, 1880–1890 (London, 1922), pp. 44–5; A. Milner, England in Egypt (London, 1892). O’Brien, Milner, p. 62 and following. Ibid., ch. 6. See J. A. Spender, The Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, 2 vols (London, 1923), vol. 1, p. 264. W. S. Blunt, My Diaries, vol. 1, pp. 44–5. See R. Pound and G. Harmsworth, Northcliffe (London, 1959), pp. 151, 172, 178–9, 195, 231, 251; H. Pelling, Popular Politics and Society in Late Victorian Britain (London, 1968); M. van Wyk Smith, Dummer Hodge: The Poetry of the Anglo-Boer War (Oxford, 1978), passim.

[ 102 ]

‘INTERMEDIATE’ IMPERIALISM AND THE TEST OF EMPIRE 75

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

76 77 78 79 80 81 82

M. F. Bitensky, ‘The South African League and British imperialist organization in South Africa, 1896–99’, MA thesis, University of Witwatersrand, 1950, pp. 36–41, 160–1; J. W. Mackail and Guy Wyndham, Life and Letters of George Wyndham (London, n.d.), vol. 1, p. 60; see also J. S. Galbraith, ‘The pamphlet campaign on the Boer War’, Journal of Modern History, 24:2 (1952), pp. 111–26. Bitensky, ‘South African League’, pp. 24–35, 125–6. Headlam, Milner Papers, vol. 1, p. 325: Milner to Greene, 11 March 1899. Fitzpatrick Papers, Q 3=A/LC, XI: Fitzpatrick to Wernher, 6 April 1899. Headlam, Milner Papers, vol. 1, p. 325: Milner to Selborne, 8 March 1899. Sir W. Butler, Autobiography (London, 1912), p. 408. Milner Papers, Pretoria Archives Photostat F.K. 103 1192: Chamberlain to Milner, Private, 25 April 1903. Headlam, Milner Papers, vol. 2, p. 424: Milner to Rendel, 2 August 1902; ibid., p. 401: Milner to a friend, October 1902.

[ 103 ]

CHAPTER SIX

Boer attitudes to Africans in wartime Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Fransjohan Pretorius

The general attitude of Afrikaners towards Africans before the outbreak of the South African War was decidedly racist. Evidence of this was their strong feeling of superiority in relation to Africans and a categoric rejection of equality or miscegenation. After the military subjugation of Africans within the borders of the Boer republics, and the demands of the mineral revolution, Africans were seen merely as a form of labour, as was the case elsewhere in South Africa.1 The Afrikaners’ negative view of Africans in the nineteenth century, which has been recorded both by Afrikaners themselves and by other observers, was exacerbated during the South African War, and this is apparent in the writings of several of the burghers while they were on commando. They condemned political equality for Africans by alleging that they were at a very low level of intellectual and moral development which made them unreceptive to western mentality and way of life. R. D. McDonald, who officiated at religious gatherings for the burghers on commando and was later to become a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, claimed that the Afrikaners always expressed themselves very explicitly against political equality between whites and Africans ‘because morally, intellectually and industrially they are decidedly [our] inferiors’.2 In contrast, there was also evidence among Afrikaners of a degree of benevolence towards Africans, particularly towards those who had been in their service or that of their families for many years. It was a goodwill which in many cases was reciprocal, although strongly paternalistic on the part of the whites.3 Once the war was under way, the Boer commandos became acutely aware of the threat posed by Africans. Prior to the war there had been no formal undertaking between the governments of Great Britain and the Boer republics that in the event of war between them, such a war would only be fought between whites, but there was a tacit agreement in this regard between the two warring parties. As early as September 1899, Sir [ 104 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

BOER ATTITUDES TO AFRICANS IN WARTIME

Alfred Milner, British High Commissioner in South Africa, and Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, agreed that only whites would be involved in ‘a white man’s war’. The British government was, moreover, acutely aware that the arming of black South Africans or other ‘nonEuropean’ soldiers from elsewhere in the Empire would evoke severe criticism from the Cape and Natal governments, white South Africans generally and inflame opinion in other white colonies of settlement. Chamberlain felt therefore ‘that it would be bad policy’.4 From the outset, however, the British army used Africans for non-combatant purposes such as labourer, wagon driver, stable hand and kitchen assistant. In the guerrilla phase they were also used as construction workers to erect blockhouses.5 During the first year of the war, acting on the request of the British government, Lord Roberts issued strict instructions that Africans should not under any circumstances be armed for active service against the Boers.6 The British command was not, however, able to control the actions of the subordinate officers in the veld. Bill Nasson has shown that the instructions issued by Roberts in this regard were virtually a dead letter. Within a few weeks of the outbreak of war, an appreciable number of African scouts and dispatch riders in the British army had been provided with firearms.7 Lord Kitchener’s outlook on the utilisation of Africans in the war effort was more flexible than that of Roberts. When he took over command towards the end of 1900 there had already been a number of voices raised in favour of arming Africans in the service of the British army for reasons of self-defence against the Boers. This was because the Boers had started to execute captured African scouts and the manpower of the British army was being sapped to a considerable degree. In December 1900 Kitchener decided that in future, African scouts who had possessed firearms at the time of their employment would not be disarmed. In July 1901 the whole issue took a new turn when a Boer leader, General R H. Kritzinger, cautioned Kitchener that Africans in the employ of the British army would be executed if they fell into Boer hands, irrespective of whether they were armed or not. We shall return to the implications of this warning later. Kitchener felt that under these circumstances it was untenable that African scouts were still unarmed and unable to defend themselves against Boer attacks.8 By the second half of 1901 most of the African scouts in the British army deployed in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR or Transvaal) and the Orange Free State (Orange River Colony) had been given rifles. This policy evoked strong criticism, particularly from the Liberal opposition in the British parliament. Kitchener remained evasive in the [ 105 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

face of periodic enquiries from the War Office concerning the number of armed Africans in the British army. In March 1902, under pressure, he eventually provided an answer: the combined total in the Cape Colony, Natal, the Free State and Transvaal was 10,053.9 Kitchener’s statistics were certainly not a true reflection of the total number of armed Africans in British military service. Many Africans, particularly scouts, had provided their own firearms, a practice which was permissible after December 1900. In March 1902 David Lloyd George stated in the House of Commons that there were as many as thirty thousand armed Africans on the British side in South Africa. If this was the case, and Peter Warwick does not regard this number as too farfetched, it means that by the time peace was signed, there were fifty per cent more armed Africans in British military service than there were ‘bittereinder’ Boers (those who fought on until the ‘bitter end’) on commando.10 From the outset the British military authorities provided several friendly African groups who lived within the British colonies and in areas bordering on the republics with firearms. The idea behind this was to provide them with protection on the borders of their own territories. In this way not only was security established on British colonial boundaries but more units could be freed for hostilities against the Boer forces. A force of five hundred Zulu police was recruited to protect the border of Zululand, and in Bechuanaland the Kgatla under headman Lentshwe and between eight hundred and one thousand of Kgama’s Ngwato were armed. Similarly, in the Transkei four thousand Mfengu and Thembu were given weapons.11 In the case of the Kgatla this policy had unfortunate repercussions in the Marico district. Three Kgatla regiments under Lentshwe’s halfbrother, Segale, crossed over the Bechuanaland border under orders and firing-cover from a British column lead by Colonel G. S. Holdsworth, and attacked a Boer laager at Derdepoort. Holdsworth’s men soon retreated but the Kgatla continued to fight. According to Boer sources there were six burghers killed including the local Volksraad member, Jan Barnard. The Kgatla claimed that as many as twenty-five (some even put the figure as high as thirty-five) Boers had been killed. At least fifteen of them were killed and sixteen were wounded. They also attacked a white settlement a kilometre away from the laager. Two white women were murdered here and sixteen white women and children were captured and taken temporarily into Bechuanaland.12 At Mafeking, Colonel R. S. S. Baden-Powell used armed Africans in the military defence of the town. He supplemented his four white units of seven hundred and fifty men with armed militia units. At the end of the siege there were more than five hundred Tshidi under arms.13 [ 106 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

BOER ATTITUDES TO AFRICANS IN WARTIME

Both General Piet Cronjé and his successor in control of the siege of Mafeking, General J. P. Snyman, reacted vehemently to Baden-Powell’s use of armed Africans. A number of accusations and counteraccusations on African participation in military operations flew back and forth between Baden-Powell on the one hand and Cronjé and Snyman on the other.14 In agreement with Cronjé, Snyman considered that to shoot armed African people who supported the British war effort was fully justified: it was appropriate conduct.15 But what was his opinion on unarmed African units which left the besieged town under BadenPowell’s orders to steal cattle from the Boers who were encamped around Mafeking? On 16 January 1900 Snyman informed Commandant-General Piet Joubert by telegram of a local military council decision: that cattle thieves would be summarily shot. The following day this measure was enforced and two African men who had tried to steal cattle were executed, while the body of another was left unburied to serve as a grim warning to other Africans.16 Boer retaliation was not restricted to the execution of cattle thieves. The orders which Snyman gave to the burghers, according to Abraham Stafleu, a Dutch schoolteacher from Marico who was a member of the Boer force, went much further than this. Stafleu alleged that Snyman gave orders that all Africans who were found outside Mafeking were to be shot and that the burghers themselves were extremely reluctant to comply with this random execution of Africans.17 Nevertheless, A. W. de Waal recorded that by the end of January 1900, a number of Africans had in fact been shot by the burghers.18 On 23 January President Kruger reacted vehemently and very negatively to Snyman’s conduct. He declared that captured cattle thieves should not be shot unless they tried to escape. Instead they were to be brought before a military council and could be punished with either hard labour or corporal punishment. Kruger’s instructions obviously also included the unarmed Africans found merely loitering outside Mafeking.19 What were the attitudes and conduct of the Boers towards unarmed Africans in the guerrilla phase? In his memoirs written in 1902 General Ben Viljoen said that the Boers felt largely neutral towards Africans unless they were found armed among the Boer lines and were unable to provide an acceptable excuse for being there.20 In the first months of the guerrilla phase there was in fact evidence that Viljoen’s assertion was accurate.21 Although the lives of some of the unarmed Africans who fell into Boer hands in the last months of 1900 were thus spared, the assistant state attorney of the ZAR had issued instructions as early as June 1900 that Africans who had been taken in terms of Roberts’s proclamations should be arrested and made to stand trial for treason.22 To be found guilty invariably meant the death sentence. [ 107 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

With the onset of the winter of 1901 the Boer execution of unarmed African British dispatch riders in the republics with or without a trial gained momentum. On 13 June 1901 Kritzinger gave his burghers official permission to shoot summarily both armed and unarmed Africans. Any African who on his own initiative and without the permission of his employer gave information on the Boer movements to the British authorities, would be considered a British spy and be shot if he fell into Boer hands. A month later, on 13 July 1901, Kritzinger repeated the proclamation.23 On the one hand this proclamation gave the Boers the opportunity to carry out openly what they had in any event been doing ever since the commandos’ second invasion in the Cape Colony under Kritzinger in December 1900, namely the shooting of Africans purely on suspicion of spying.24 On the other hand, in effect it gave Kitchener the pretext to legitimise the practice of arming Africans employed by the British army. This merciless conduct against unarmed Africans in British service continued from about January, but particularly after July 1901 it coincided directly with the Boer policy which had been applied in the previous months against armed Africans. From at least August 1900 the burghers on commando were aware that hostile Africans either under the command of white British officers or in their own military formations in African tribal areas were armed with rifles. Various isolated Boer commandos or detachments of burghers in the belt which stretched from the western Transvaal through the northern Transvaal to the south-eastern Transvaal, and in the eastern and north-western Cape, experienced invasions by armed African groups, often leading to loss of life on both sides. In the first six months of 1901 such attacks increased.25 The British arming of Africans and African violence against the Boers elicited the same reaction from the Boer governments as it did from the ordinary burghers. In 1902 the opinion of Jan Smuts, state attorney of the ZAR and leader of the Boer commandos in the Cape Colony during the guerrilla phase, clearly reflected the attitude of the Boer governments. Smuts explained that the provision of firearms to Africans and their fighting on the Boer side in the war was unthinkable to the Boers because of the tradition in South Africa to keep the indigenous people out of the conflicts fought between whites: I do not say that it is positively contrary to the rules of international law to employ armed barbarians under white officers in a war between two white Christian peoples. But it is certainly shocking to the moral sense of all 26 civilised people. [ 108 ]

BOER ATTITUDES TO AFRICANS IN WARTIME

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

There is no doubt that by far the majority of ‘bittereinders’ concurred with the government’s attitude on armed Africans. R. D. McDonald, who fought under Kritzinger in the Cape Colony, explained in 1904: We naturally felt indignant at the adoption of coloured races in the British army; for we regarded it as an unwritten agreement between the respective Governments that no Africans were to be involved in the war. It was to be white versus white, Boer versus Briton. Hence, when the natives became imbroiled in the struggle we refused to acknowledge and treat them as combatants. No quarter was given to armed natives that were not British subjects, and even these forfeited their lives on more than one occasion. We had to resort to severe measures so as to let the natives fully realise that they were not acknowledged combatants, and thus could not claim the 27 privileges of combatants.

It is thus clear that the Boers wanted to use force to make Africans fearful of any participation on the British side. On 13 August 1900 General J. H. de la Rey ordered that Africans should be molested as little as possible but that those who were armed when captured within republican territory should be shot.28 This paved the way for the shooting of all armed Africans, with or without a trial, who fell into Boer hands throughout the extensive theatre of war. In the last six months of the war there were Boer leaders everywhere who were uneasy about the consequences of the harsh conduct of the Boers in the handling of armed and unarmed Africans who supported the British war effort and even those Africans who were merely suspected of doing so.29 Some officers did not allow the concern of the Boer leadership to bother them. Commandant J. R Neser, for example, who terrorised Africans in the north-western Cape, later recalled: Those who came to hand, I had shot. On one day I saw to it that no fewer than seven, and on another, nine were put before a firing squad. They had of course all been armed. The outcome was that they [other Africans] were very 30 wary of me.

A low point was reached in the relations between Africans in the Cape Colony and the Boer commandos at the end of January 1902 at Leliefontein in Namaqualand. The Basters at this Wesleyan mission station supported the British war effort in a variety of ways. Scouting and dispatch riding for the Namaqualand Field Force became a profitable exercise in the last year or two of the war. Between July 1901 and July 1902 about three hundred residents of Leliefontein did scouting work for the Namaqualand Intelligence Department. The poor relationship with the Boer commandos received a further setback when farm labourers in the area were allegedly recruited by field-cornets who used force to [ 109 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

persuade the Basters to work for the Boer cause. On 11 January 1902 General Manie Maritz read out a proclamation to the Basters of Leliefontein. Under threat of execution he forbade them from offering any help, information or fodder to the British forces. At the same time he promised them protection. Everyone would be provided with passes to leave the mission station and support the Boer cause. They would also receive land and cattle. Maritz did not, however, succeed in befriending the Basters with these tactics. On 27 January he rode to the mission station, presumably to issue another notice to the residents. An argument developed with the Baster leader, Barnabas Links, and Maritz and his small party only just escaped with their lives. To avenge this insult, Maritz launched an attack on the Basters the following day with a strong Boer force and completely annihilated the mission station. Maritz himself claimed that he shot and killed thirty-eight Basters.31 There was a varied Boer reaction to the Leliefontein incident. According to Deneys Reitz many burghers labelled it ‘a ruthless and unjustifiable act’. Smuts said nothing, he added, ‘but … he was moody and curt, as was his custom when displeased’.32 Maritz later tried to justify his action with the argument that he and his men had to fight hard for their very lives; had the Basters gained the upper hand they would have murdered the Boers: a short time earlier they had in fact killed two burghers in a cold-blooded manner.33 The attacks by armed Africans on wandering Boer families in the veld and on isolated commandos as well as those by Boers against African groups, meant that relations between the Boers and the majority of African people in the guerrilla phase were far from cordial. This was particularly the case in the belt where large communities of African people lived: an area stretching from the western Transvaal, through the north-west and northern Transvaal and from there to the eastern and south-eastern corner of the Transvaal. The major groups in this belt were the Tswana, the Pedi and the Zulu. The war finally dispelled any lingering doubt that the South African frontier was well on the way to closing. Even though African aspirations were not recognised at the peace negotiations at Vereeniging, the African polities of the Transvaal in the last nearly two years of the war laid claim to large unpopulated areas of the Transvaal and made these territories inaccessible to the Boer commandos.34 In the western and north-western Transvaal it was primarily the Kgatla who restricted the manoeuvrability of the commandos. In June 1900 BadenPowell told Roberts that the Kgatla were armed ‘and in many places are active in hostility against, and a standing danger to, the Boers’.35 In November 1900 Smuts found that large areas of the western Transvaal had to be cleared because of the potential danger from Africans. [ 110 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

BOER ATTITUDES TO AFRICANS IN WARTIME

Similarly, in the northern Transvaal General C. F. Beyers adjudged this to be necessary by March 1901.36 In December 1901 Lentshwe, headman of the Kgatla, in effect annexed the area west of the Elands River in the north-western Transvaal and General J. C. G. Kemp was warned to keep out of his region.37 In the eastern Transvaal it was particularly the Pedi domain between the Olifants and the Steelpoort Rivers that was inaccessible to the Boer commandos. The commandos experienced this exclusion from about September 1900, when they deviated northwards from Hector-spruit in the direction of Pietersburg and were refused transit through Sekhukhuneland. By April 1901 no commandos could venture further west than the Steelpoort River.38 In the meantime, as a consequence of white depopulation, the Pedi extended their territory eastwards so that by January 1902 the town of Ohrigstad formed the boundary.39 By this time there were large areas of the eastern Transvaal in which the commandos were obliged to move their laagers after sundown as a precaution against attacks from armed African groups.40 By March 1902 a great deal of the White River district was inaccessible to the commandos.41 In the Vryheid district in the south-eastern Transvaal a number of farms belonging to whites were taken over by Africans who had previously been employed there. This was indeed the experience of Louis Botha, Commandant-General of the ZAR forces, when he returned to his farm after the war: the farm had been taken over by Africans who told him that he had no right to be there and should leave.42 It is thus important to realise that the settlement of African communities in white-owned areas during the war, particularly those in the ZAR, constituted a decided threat to the Boer commandos and the wandering Boer women and children. In the first place, as mentioned before, the commandos and these Boer women and children suffered attacks by groups of armed Africans. At Holkrans on the night of 5 May 1902, fifty-six burghers were killed by a Qulusi impi from Zululand shortly before the commencement of the peace negotiations at Vereeniging. This was an indication to the Boer delegates of the very real threat which some African societies held for the commandos and the Boer women and children who were roaming in the veld. One of the six reasons laid down in the Vereeniging resolution on why the Boers had agreed to peace was: That the Kaffir tribes within and without the boundaries of the territory of both Republics have almost all been armed, and have taken part in the struggle against us, and, by perpetrating murders and committing all kinds of atrocities, have brought about an impossible state of affairs in many districts of both the Republics, as has only been recently proved in the [ 111 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Vrijheid district, where on a single occasion 56 burghers were murdered and 43 mutilated in an awful manner.

In the second place, the occupation of white-owned areas by Africans meant that they restricted the freedom of movement of the commandos. The burghers could only persist with their struggle by keeping the superior British army busy over the entire theatre of war. This was now no longer possible. Together with the scorched earth policy and the concentration camp system, by which the British columns deprived the Boers of food; and the blockhouse system which limited the commandos’ manoeuvrability even further, the settlement by Africans of areas which had belonged to the Boers before the war meant that the commandos were unable to continue their guerrilla tactics of fight and flight effectively in the smaller operational area.44 In terms of Article 28 of Act No. 20 of the ZAR, Africans who were in a position to be of service to the defence force could be called up either to offer personal service or to contribute to the defrayal of war expenses. In the Orange Free State, Article 30 of the War and Commando Act, No. 10 of 1899, laid down that unemployed Africans could be commandeered to place themselves in the service of any burgher at a reasonable remuneration of no more than ten shillings per month.45 The personal service which Africans were legally obliged to provide will be considered later. Here the spotlight falls on the material contributions to the defrayment of expenses incurred by the war, which were sometimes voluntarily provided but were more often enforced. These revolved primarily around the payment of hut tax, which had also been levied prior to the war, and the commandeering of slaughter-cattle and grain from those who had the necessary resources. In the conventional military phase of the war this collection was the responsibility of the 46 native commissioners and magistrates in the various districts. The commandeering of grain and slaughter-cattle belonging to African people was in many instances done without the permission of magistrates and native commissioners.47 During the guerrilla phase, officers were also given this authority. De la Rey received a number of complaints about unauthorised people commandeering various goods and the subjects of Captain Iddipus Mabal. In December 1900 De la Rey authorised Mabal not to give up anything unless on the orders of an officer or a person who had been authorised to do so by an officer.48 This did not, however, prevent Boer officers from exacting cattle from African groups whom they alleged had been guilty of misconduct against the republican cause. Following Kemp’s successful assault in December 1901 on Lentshwe’s subjects, who had been responsible for the murder of a number of Boer men and women at Derdepoort in [ 112 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

BOER ATTITUDES TO AFRICANS IN WARTIME

November 1899, a substantial 3,000 cattle and 3,200 sheep were seized.49 A burgher, J. F. Naudé, justified the Boer action in that Lentshwe was allowed to follow the example of his British overlords: ‘om maar to anexeeren’ (to simply annex) the territory, laying claim to the region right up to the Elands River, to rob the Rustenburgers of thousands of head of cattle, and to attack a laager of Boer women at Holfontein.50 Later, in his own memoirs, Kemp identified himself with Naudé’s justification.51 During the guerrilla phase, the subjects of Joel Molapo in the Leribe district of Basutoland sold clothing, food supplies and tobacco to individual Free Staters and commando commissioners. The same occurred in the Mohaleshoek district. As a result, the British assistant commissioner was instructed by the resident commissioner to make sure that no merchandise wagons should be allowed to go further north than Hlotse Heights. Furthermore, in December 1901 the order went out that shops close to the border of the Ficksburg and Bethlehem districts would be temporarily closed. This supply route was thus fairly 52 effectively closed to the Boers. Bartering with African groups also took place in the guerrilla phase. In exchange for commodities such as salt, sugar, goat hides and offal, they provided the burghers with maize, sorghum, sorghum beer, eggs, tobacco and vegetables.53 We now turn to Africans as collaborators of the Boers, where the emphasis is on the personal service which Africans rendered on commando and on the way in which the Boers treated them. In by far the majority of instances, this service was of a non-combatant nature and included manual labour as well as services such as as wagon drivers, wagon leaders (or touleiers, literally: tether-leaders) and agterryers (literally: after-riders, support-riders). In rendering these services, Africans became collaborators within the commandos in the struggle against Britain. In the conventional military stage of the war, African workers were used in teams to assist the burghers in the building and safeguarding of the trenches, or the building of ramparts for the guns and roads to the gun 54 emplacements. Because of the nature of the war in the guerrilla phase, where mobility was important and there was no static warfare, there was far less need for African labour on commando. Moreover, labour was not as readily available to the commandos, mainly because the British columns had moved many Africans to concentration camps; from here many of them were recruited as mine labour on the Witwatersrand. It was important for the Boer leadership that the African labourers, who were used primarily in the conventional phase to do the manual labour, be properly treated. In practice the Africans were, however, far worse off than the burghers who themselves, because of the poor functioning of the [ 113 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

commissariat in the conventional military phase, were not too well provided for. Compared to the burghers on the Natal front who, in accordance with a scale of rations drawn up by General S. W. Burger in November 1899, should each receive two pounds (908g) of meat per day,55 a captain in the State Artillery proposed in October 1899 that their African labourers, who were on their way to the front, should each get half a pound of meat every second day. An official in the CommandantGeneral’s office noted on the letter of application that he was unable to give any authority on this matter: ‘Ze moeten er maar zonder klaar komen.’ (‘They must simply manage without.’)56 The official’s heartless comment is a grim indication of the treatment that befell the African labourers. In reaction to a request to the commissariat for two hundred blankets for the Africans in the laager on the Natal front, an official in the head committee in Pretoria commented: ‘Valt reeds moeilijk om burgers te voorzien.’ (‘It is already difficult to supply the burghers.’)57 The message was clear: when the burghers experienced a shortage of supplies – and this was often the case – the lot of the African labourers was that much worse. Some of the African labourers who had been commandeered and for whom the demands on commando during the conventional phase became too much, crossed over to the British side, apparently also because of the possibility of payment. Such deserters, and their knowledge of the commandos, were welcomed with open arms by the British officers.58 In the guerrilla phase, particularly for those Africans who had been compelled to become wagon drivers in the commandos, it was an even harder life. The privation was extreme. Their work was physically exhausting and had to be done without pay and often without food. Extended hours of hard work, a starvation diet, continual lashes, the necessity to keep on the move and cold nights without the provision of fuel, all took their toll. Frequently, when the occasion presented itself, some of the labourers deserted the commandos.59 One of the most important personal services which Africans were obliged to do in accordance with the republican legislation was that of the agterryer. This was primarily done in a non-combatant capacity and the contribution of agterryers was mainly in the conventional military phase of the war. In some instances the agterryer only served his master personally, but more often he worked for a small group of five or more burghers. Some of the farmers who had their own farm labourers selected their best servants to accompany them on commando as their agterryers. This type of agterryer was generally very reliable. They were drawn from the lower class of African servants and formed part of the social structure of the rural Boer society in the republics. Many of them were members of African families who had remained for generations on the 60 farms of white families. The agterryer had to make sure that his [ 114 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

BOER ATTITUDES TO AFRICANS IN WARTIME

master’s saddle and bridle, spurs, stirrups and other riding gear were clean and shiny.61 When called upon he had to ride with his master and hold the pack-horses and standby horses. Afterwards he had to unsaddle and tend the horses in the laager.62 Other important tasks for the agterryer were fetching the water for his master’s coffee, looking for firewood and making the fire. Some agterryers also did the cooking on commando.63 During pitched battles or skirmishes they played an important logistical role. When a commando set off to fight, particularly in the conventional warfare phase when the burghers fought from fixed positions rather than storming the enemy on horseback, the agterryers had to wait with the saddled horses and the pack-horses out of firing range behind a ridge.64 There are very few documents written by the burghers on commando which refer to the relationship between a burgher and his agterryer. This in itself is an indication of the nature of the interaction between them. The agterryer was an instrument, a possession, who supported the burgher in his war effort, but whose contribution did not come into the reckoning when the burgher recorded his experiences on commando. The relationship was indeed based on paternalism and an attitude of superiority on the part of the burgher, and in most cases on the passive submissiveness of the agterryer. Apart from the paternalism of the burgher towards his agterryer, there was often almost a sense of brotherliness between them, which meant that the agterryers were easily assimilated into the commandos. This comradeship was noted by both friend and foe.65 There were various allegations from the British ranks that Africans on the Boer side had taken up arms.66 What was the reaction of the Boers to these allegations? Of all the denials from Boer officers, that of Jan Smuts in January 1902 was probably the most eloquent: The leaders of the Boers have steadfastly refused to make use of coloured assistance in the course of the present war. Offers of such assistance were courteously refused by the Government of the South African Republic, who always tried to make it perfectly clear to the Natives that the war did not concern them and would not affect them so long as they remained quiet … The only instance in the whole war in which the Boers made use of armed Kaffirs happened at the siege of Mafeking where an incompetent Boer officer, without the knowledge of the Government or the Commandant-General put a number of armed Natives into some forts. As soon as the Government became aware of his doings General de la Rey was sent to supersede him, 67 and the Kaffirs were disarmed and sent away.

How accurate were the Boer denials of the British allegations of their use of armed Africans against the British forces? There were cases where, [ 115 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

in the conventional warfare phase, the ZAR governnment armed friendly African groups with rifles when they were faced by threats from hostile Africans. There is also strong evidence that in the course of the struggle, a number of Africans were armed with rifles so they could assist the Boers in their war effort against the British. It appears that this was done on the initiative of a few officers and individual burghers and did not carry the approval of the Boer governments.68 A few agterryers were also given permission by their masters to use rifles and take part in skirmishes. Sometimes it was on a single occasion, in other instances such an agterryer fought on the Boer side for a considerable period. Windvoël, for example, was an African who departed on commando with the Rustenburgers at the outbreak of the war, providing his own rifle and horse. ‘I am going to help defend my country, the land of my master’s children’, he said. And according to one of these sons, H. du Plessis, no one could deter him. Du Plessis relates that when they were out on patrol, Windvoël simply took over the lead himself. The burghers let him go his own way, because his eyes were as sharp as those of a hawk. When he spotted the enemy, the plan of action he suggested was usually difficult to improve upon. For this reason the burghers nicknamed him ‘General Windvoël’. In the guerrilla phase he took part in several battles under Beyers and Smuts in the western Transvaal. During the battle of Vlakfontein on 29 May 1901 he rescued one of the burghers who had 69 trouble with his horse, and brought the man to safety. Goeiman, who was the agterryer of Commandant (later General) Jan Crowther of Ladybrand, somehow managed to acquire a Martini-Henry and prior to the battle of Biddulphsberg on 29 May 1900, he took up a position to the left of the left flank without being noticed. When the fighting broke out, his rifle, which did not fire with smokeless powder, made such a cloud of smoke that it immediately caught the eye of the British artillerists. A light breeze wafted the smoke in the direction of the burghers, and to their great consternation, the enemy started to direct their artillery attack at that point. He was told in no uncertain terms to stop his shooting. Crowther caught him with his rifle and ordered him never to appear in the battle lines again. After the battle, Goeiman boasted to burgher J. N. Brink about his skill at shooting, but according to the Boers, his bullets in fact hit the ground about four hundred yards in front of him.70 With the disintegration of the various fronts in March 1900 and the transition from the conventional to the guerrilla phase of the struggle in the course of the following six months, a number of agterryers left the commandos. There were many reasons for this, including the widespread confusion within Boer ranks when they had to retreat from all fronts; the [ 116 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

BOER ATTITUDES TO AFRICANS IN WARTIME

removal of four thousand burghers from the war arena when Cronjé surrendered; the lack of sufficient supplies at the time; the poor treatment some of the agterryers had suffered at the hands of their masters and apparently also a wavering belief on the part of some of them who had doubts about their masters’ chances in the war.71 For those who left the service of their masters, there was often the opportunity to earn a wage by joining the British forces: here they were usually employed as wagon drivers and labourers. Some worked as scouts for their new masters. As far as the Boers were concerned, these men were a real danger because they had inside knowledge of activities in the commandos.72 But there was also a core group of agterryers of unknown number, who displayed an exceptional loyalty towards the Boer cause and who still remained loyal to their masters in the guerrilla phase. According to J. N. Brink, Goeiman, the agterryer in the service of General Crowther, declared that although he had a black skin, he was just as loyal a burgher of the Orange Free State and the big morena, President Steyn, as were the whites.73 Charlie, Kalie van der Merwe’s agterryer, apparently watched the battles on the Natal front from behind a ridge where he kept the horses. He shouted loud encouragement to the burghers while rushing around jumping for joy at the excitement of it all.74 The abovementioned Windvoël who accompanied the Rustenburg commando and possessed his own rifle, could not tolerate Africans who were on the British side. If he spotted one in a British column, he was the first who had to be made to bite the dust. ‘They are traitors to their country, my young masters. It is also their land, just as it is ours, and there they are, leading the enemy onto our trail. I shall not spare them.’75 G. J. Joubert later wrote sympathetically about the faithful agterryers who came under strain when the war became so prolonged and there was constant moving about over the railways and through the lines of blockhouses. Nevertheless they appeared to retain their cheerful disposition despite all this. After a time they too could sing the songs which the burghers liked to sing and before long they also learned to imitate the games which the burghers played.76 Of these loyal agterryers Ben Bouwer wrote: ‘Some of them were tenacious fellows and clung to their masters long after the masters would have been glad to be relieved of the responsibility, and when they themselves could have found much easier living by changing to the other side.’77 J. F. Mentz remembers that when the news was received that night in the Heilbron commando that the peace had been signed and Boer independence had been lost, the agterryers also sat in dead silence around their little fire. Like the burghers, they did not speak. Later that [ 117 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

night when the burghers held an evening service around the fire, they too crept closer. Nobody was able to sing anything that night. Mentz felt that ‘perhaps they recognised something akin to our grief in their souls’ (translated from the Afrikaans).78 On the loyalty of those agterryers who remained steadfastly with their masters right up until the end of the war, Dick Moshene solemnly declared: So we agterryers stayed on with our masters in the veld, and where they fled, we also fled. Even though we didn’t ever fight ourselves, our hearts were right … When the peace came, our masters went to lay down their 79 rifles and we went home.

After the war, however, the role of the agterryers was largely forgotten and the arming of Africans was regarded as a nefarious and wholly British operation which had added to the near annihilation of the Boers. Within a generation even that prejudiced memory seemed to be sacrificed in the interests of Anglo-Afrikaner unity, and the South African War was recreated as a ‘white man’s war’.

Notes 1 2

3

4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12

B. J. Krüger, ‘Hoe die Transvaalse Boer die Bantoe gesien het’, Historia, 10:3 (September 1965), p. 181. P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald, In the Shadow of Death (London, 1904), pp. 142–3. Cf. G. J. Schutte, ‘Een Eeuw Nederlandsche Aandacht voor Zuid-Afrika’, in Zicht op ZuidAfrika (Amsterdam, 1981), p. 29; D. Romeyn, Met de le Nederlandsche Roode KruisAmbulance naar Zuid-Afrika, Colenso (n.p., n.d.), 18 January 1900, p. 2; Transvaal Archives Depot (TAD), A1426, Professor G. J. Jordaan Accession, Op! voor Transvaal, 13 May 1900; TAD, A1842, G. Lipp Accession, Diary of I. E. Lipp, 14 December 1899, p. 113; J. J. Oberholster, ‘Dagboek van Oskar Hintrager’, Christiaan de Wet-Annale, 2 (1973), 26 August 1900, p. 118. See e.g. N. J. Grobler, ‘Ou Willem Gorrel’, Die Huisgenoot, 6 February 1948, p. 21; J. F. Mentz, ‘Poekoejan en Salmon’, Die Huisgenoot, 24 July 1942, p. 15; D. Reitz, Commando (London, 1929), pp. 20–1. P. Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899–1902 (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 15–16. F. Pretorius, Kommandolewe tydens die Anglo-Boereoorlog, 1899–1902 (Cape Town, 1991), p. 286. S. B. Spies, Methods of Barbarism? Roberts and Kitchener and Civilians in the Boer Republics, January 1900-May 1902 (Cape Town, 1977), p. 155; Warwick, Black People, p. 22. B. Nasson, Abraham Esau’s War: A Black South African War in the Cape, 1899–1902 (Cape Town, 1991), pp. 21–2. Warwick, Black People, pp. 22–3. Ibid., pp. 24–5; G. H. le May, British Supremacy in South Africa (Oxford, 1965), p. 101; Spies, Methods of Barbarism!, p. 279. Warwick, Black People, p. 25; Spies, Methods of Barbarism?, p. 279. Spies, Methods of Barbarism?, p. 155; Warwick, Black People, pp. 20–1. Warwick, Black People, pp. 40–1; H. J. Botha, ‘Die Moord op Derdepoort’, Militaria, 1:1

[ 118 ]

BOER ATTITUDES TO AFRICANS IN WARTIME

13 14 15

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45

(1969) passim. Warwick, Black People, pp. 31–3. Ibid., p. 34. See e.g. TAD, A220, J. M. Johnson Accession, Head, Telegraph Service – Telegraph Office at Rustenburg, 7 April 1900; T. Pakenham, The Boer War (London, 1979), p. 410. A. P. Smit and L. Maré, Die Beleg van Mafeking: Dagboek van Abraham Stafleu (Pretoria, 1985), 18 January 1900, p. 194 and 24 January 1900, p. 204. Ibid., 24 January 1900, p. 204 and 23 January 1900, p. 200. TAD, A1173, A. W. de Waal Accession, Diary of De Waal, 29 January 1900. Smit and Maré, Die Beleg van Mafeking, 24 January 1900, pp. 203–5. B. J. Viljoen, My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War (London, 1902), p. 247. Pretorius, Kommandolewe, pp. 290–1. Spies, Methods of Barbarism?, p. 156. Free State Archives Depot (FAD), OMV, 155/194/2, A. C. van Heerden Collection, Proclamation by P. H. Kritzinger, Stormberg, 13 June 1901; Cd. 903, Further Correspondence relating to Affairs in South Africa, Proclamation by P. H. Kritzinger, Stormberg, 13 July 1901, p. 137; Warwick, Black People, p. 23; Nasson, Abraham Esau’s War, p. 22. Nasson, Abraham Esau’s War, p. 107. Cf. e.g. TAD, A547, General J. H. de la Rey Collection, De la Rey – H. R. Lemmer, 13 August 1900; O. J. O. Ferreira, Memoirs of General Ben Bouwer (Pretoria, 1980), pp. 73–7, 259 and 262–3; J. F. Naudé, Vechten en Vluchten van Beyers en Kemp ‘bôkant’ de Wet (Rotterdam, 1903), pp. 229 and 264–5; A. G. Oberholster, Oorlogsdagboek van fan F. E. Celliers, 1899–1902 (Pretoria, 1978), 4 July 1901, p. 258; M. E. R., Oorlogsdagboek van ‘n Transvaalse Burger te Velde, 1900–1901 (2nd edn, Cape Town, 1976), 20 April 1901, p. 171, 5 May 1901, p. 181, 17 June 1901, p. 191, 2 July 1901, p. 196 and 27 August 1901, pp. 215– 16; TAD, Preller Collection, 61, Diary of Gustav Preller, 7 July 1901, p. 33; O. T. de Villiers, Met de Wet en Steyn in het Veld (Amsterdam, 1903), pp. 178 and 212–14; R. de Kersauson de Pennendreff, Ek en die Vierkleur (Johannesburg, 1960), 14 February 1901, p. 24. W. K. Hancock and J. van der Poel, Selections from the Smuts Papers (Cambridge, 1966), vol. 1, p. 484. Kritzinger and McDonald, In the Shadow, p. 112. Cf. TAD, A1498, A. F. C. Stumpf Accession, Reminiscences of Stumpf, pp. 36–7. TAD, A547, General J. H. de la Rey Collection, J. H. de la Rey – H. R. Lemmer, 13 August 1900. Pretorius, Kommandolewe, pp. 295–6. Translated from Afrikaans. See A. Wessels, ‘Die Oorlogsherinneringe van Kommandant Jacob Petrus Neser’, Christiaan de Wet-Annale, 7 (Bloemfontein, 1987), p. 86. Nasson, Abraham Esau’s War, pp. 108–12. Reitz, Commando, p. 299; see also Ferreira, Memoirs of General Ben Bouwer, p. 296. M. Maritz, My Lewe en Strewe (Johannesburg, 1939), p. 50. Pretorius, Kommandolewe, pp. 298–9. Quoted by Warwick, Black People, p. 46. Hancock and Van der Poel, Selections, vol. 1, p. 345; Naudé, Vechten en Vluchten, p. 233. J. C. G. Kemp, Vir Vryheid en Vir Reg (Cape Town, 1941), pp. 427 and 443–4. Viljoen, My Reminiscences, p. 205; TAD, W81, Viljoen Accession, 3, M. J. Viljoen, Diary No. 3, 5 October 1900; M. E. R., Oorlogsdagboek, 4 April 1901, p. 162; Warwick, Black People, p. 101. R. W. Schikkerling, Commando Courageous (A Boer’s Diary) (Johannesburg, 1964), 16 January 1902, p. 346. TAD, W81, Viljoen Accession, 3, M. J. Viljoen, Diary No. 9, 6 March 1902. Schikkerling, Commando Courageous, 14 March 1902, p. 370. Warwick, Black People, p. 165. J. D. Kestell and D. E. van Velden, The Peace Negotiations between Boer and Briton (London, 1912), p. 204. Pretorius, Kommandolewe, p. 300. TAD, Leyds Archives, 781(1), Report by Capt. Ram and Lt. Thomson re the Anglo-Boer War,

[ 119 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

46 47 48

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

49 50 51 52

53

54

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

VII, p. 64; Botha, ‘Die moord op Derdepoort’, p. 5. See too J. H. Breytenbach, Die Geskiedenis van die Tweede Vryheidsoorlog in Suid-Afrika, I (Pretoria, 1969), p. 37. Pretorius, Kommandolewe, p. 301. Botha, ‘Die Moord op Derdepoort’, p. 6. TAD, A547, General J. H. de la Rey Collection, De la Rey – All tribal chiefs in the Marico and Rustenburg Districts, n.d. (August 1900); ibid., De la Rey – Iddipus Mabal, 26 December 1900, p. 20. TAD, Preller Collection, 62, Reminiscences of C. G. C. Rocher, 11 December 1902, p. 178. Naudé, Vechten en Vluchten, p. 308. See too TAD, Preller Collection, 225, Reminiscences of W. J. Louw, 18 October 1901, p. 40. Kemp, Vir Viyheid en Vir Reg, p. 427. C. C. Eloff, Oranje-Vrystaat en Basoetoland (Pretoria, 1984), pp. 239–40; C. C. Eloff, ‘Vrystaatse vlugtelinge in Basoetoland tydens die Anglo-Boereoorlog’, South African Journal of Cultural History, 6:5 (June 1985), p. 176; H. Verloren van Themaat, Twee Jaren in den Boereoorlog (Haarlem, 1903), pp. 309–10; Warwick, Black People, p. 63. It is evident from Kestell and Van Velden, The Peace Negotiations, p. 56, that the closing was not exhaustive. Viljoen, My Reminiscences, pp. 133 and 137; M. E. R., Oorlogsdagboek, 15 November 1901, p. 91; Oberholster, Oorlogsdagboek van Jan F. E. Celliers, 10 May 1901, pp. 241–2; Schikkerling, Commando Courageous, 24 July 1901, pp. 264–5; C. R. de Wet, Three Years War (London, 1902), p. 412. TAD, KG, 884, L. Meyer – Chief of Transport, 23 February 1900, p. 6. See too TAD, Preller Collection, 12, L. Botha – P. J. Joubert, 14 February 1900, p. 69; TAD, A865, Carolina Historical Committee Collection, A2, 2, Diary of I. Stoltz, 8 July 1900. TAD, Preller Collection, 52, Circular by S. W. Burger, Modderspruit, to all Commandants, 28 November 1899, p. 8. TAD, KG, 384, CR7624/99, J. Wolmarans – Commandant-General, 6 October 1899. TAD, HCC, 8, P. C. van Rooyen – Head, Supplies Commission, 14 February 1900. Warwick, Black People, p. 131. Nasson, Abraham Esau’s War, pp. 103–5. G. J. Joubert, ‘Ek wil hulle vandag stemreg gee’, Die Huisgenoot, 20 February 1948, p. 41; Nasson, Abraham Esau’s War, pp. 97–103; Grobler, ‘Ou Willem Gorrel’, p. 21. J. A. Olivier, ‘Pitlos’, Die Huisgenoot, 13 February 1948, p. 34. Joubert, ‘Stemreg’, p. 41. Cf. ibid.; C. Plokhooy, Met den Mauser (Gorinchem, 1902), p. 53. Joubert, ‘Stemreg’, p. 41. Pretorius, Kommandolewe, p. 310. TAD, A1643, Lord Roberts Papers, 34, I. Hamilton – F. Roberts, 14 June 1900, p. 30; Warwick, Black People, p. 26; Spies, Methods of Barbarism?, p. 345. Hancock and Van der Poel, Selections, vol. 1, p. 485. Pretorius, Kommandolewe, pp. 319–20. H. du Plessis, ‘Generaal Windvoël’, Die Huisgenoot, 11 September 1942, p. 37. J. N. Brink, ‘Drie getroues’, Die Huisgenoot, 7 August 1942, p. 35; J. N. Brink, ‘Goeiman en sy Martini-Henri’, Die Huisgenoot, 5 March 1948, p. 45. Pretorius, Kommandolewe, p. 314. Joubert, ‘Stemreg’, pp. 41 and 87. Ibid., p. 41. A. le R. B., ‘Charlie en Tiekie’, Die Huisgenoot, 31 July 1942, p. 19. Du Plessis, ‘Generaal Windvoël’ (translated from Afrikaans), p. 37. Joubert, ‘Stemreg’, p. 41. Ferreira, Memoirs of General Ben Bouwer, p. 51. Mentz, ‘Poekoejan en Salmon’, p. 15. See too C. A. Cronjé, ‘Op sy maag tussen wagte deur’, Die Huisgenoot, 4 February 1949, p. 8. Translated from Afrikaans. See W. H. Ackermann, Opsaal: Herinneringe aan die Tweede Vryheidsoorlog (Johannesburg, 1969), p. 369.

[ 120 ]

CHAPTER SEVEN

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

The Cape Afrikaners and the British Empire from the Jameson Raid to the South African War Mordechai Tamarkin

This chapter seeks to examine the role of the Cape, and the Cape Afrikaners in particular, in the historical trajectory which led South Africa and Britain from the Jameson Raid to the South African War. There was a large measure of political convergence between the Cape Colony and the Cape Afrikaners. Since 1884 the Afrikaner Bond, the party representing the emerging Afrikaner political community, became increasingly the arbiter of power in this self-governing colony. From Britain’s imperial perspective, this local political transformation was not inconsequential. The Cape was the focus and foundation stone of its imperial sphere in South Africa. In the wake of the ‘first liberation war’ of 1880–81, the prospect of a pan-Afrikaner republican nationalism, hostile to British interests, beset the imperial official mind, and this prospect became a nightmare in the aftermath of the Jameson Raid at the end of 1895. This nightmare came true in the catastrophic South African War of 1899–1902. It will be argued here, however, that, from a Cape Afrikaner perspective, the Raid was definitely not a point of no return. Arguably the point of no return was the appointment of Alfred Milner as Governor of the Cape and High Commissioner for South Africa.1 Milner was a constructive imperialist at a time when the imperial bonds were loosening, and he was wedded to the illusion of a compact, hegemonic empire. He was also a radical by temperament, impatient with complex situations and tough realities and intolerant of conflicting points of view. He believed that history must be shaped rather than be obeyed. This political elephant entered the South African china shop in May 1897. J. C. Molteno’s verdict on the eve of the war was critical and gloomy: ‘Had we only had a Statesman instead of a violent Jingo and Rhodes-ian advocate as Governor, the whole complexion of affairs would have been different.’2 Milner was not only an aggressive imperialist and a radical, he was also well connected and very influential in decision-making circles in [ 121 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

London, particularly in the Colonial Office, and in public opinionmaking circles. He did not perceive himself as an obedient civil servant waiting for guidance and instructions from above, but rather as an imperial knight defending the Empire on its most vital and vulnerable front. In this spirit he wrote on his way to South Africa: ‘S.A. is just now the weakest link in the Imperial chain, and I am conscious of the tremendous responsibility which rests upon the man who is called upon to try and preserve it from snapping’.3 Among his foremost tasks was the education of decision makers in faraway London to the ‘true’ requisites of an appropriate imperial policy. He had to fight heresies such as the naive belief that ‘the waiting game was the best for this country as time must be on our side’.4 As he showed in the Bloemfontein conference in May 1899, he also had, as a powerful man on the spot, a sufficient manoeuvring space to shape the course of history. There is little doubt that he had an immense influence on the events that led to the South African War. As such his assessment of the Cape and the Cape Afrikaners and his relations with them are important in understanding the evolution of the South African crisis from the Jameson Raid to the war. In the wake of the Jameson Raid, the Cape Colony was still the foundation stone of British imperial influence in South Africa. Accepting this premise, Milner believed, at least until October 1897, that ‘the key to the situation lay in the local politics of the Cape’.5 Local Cape politics at the time of Milner’s arrival was hardly congenial for an ardent imperialist. For half a decade before the Jameson Raid, with a devout imperialist as premier and a solid Afrikaner political phalanx behind the government, imperial interests seemed as secured as one could have hoped, but the Raid threw Cape politics into disarray. Sir Gordon Sprigg, the new premier, retained the lukewarm, reluctant support of the Afrikaner Bond, the dominant Cape party. However, as he increasingly identified himself with the revitalised Jingo movement and with Rhodes, his political fortunes among Cape Afrikaners declined sharply and the prospect of a Bond-controlled government had to be contemplated. In view of such prospect, the imperial credentials of Cape Afrikaners became crucially important. Already on board the ship on his way to South Africa Milner contemplated the possibility of ‘a Boer incursion into Cape Colony and a rising to meet it’.6 The memorandum handed to him on his arrival by the Acting Governor could only serve to reinforce his fears.7 Headlam, while fully subscribing to the thesis of Cape Afrikaner disloyalty, commended Milner for coming to South Africa with an open mind.8 Perhaps Milner’s open-mindedness at the beginning of his term of office [ 122 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE CAPE AFRIKANERS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE

was nourished by the enthusiastic demonstrations of loyalty by Cape Afrikaners occasioned by Queen Victoria’s Jubilee soon after his arrival.9 Milner’s reports to his superior clearly indicate that at that early stage he made an effort to lure Cape Afrikaners and gain their support.10 In doing this he followed the guidelines conveyed to him by the Colonial Office. In March 1898, in raising the possibility of war with the Transvaal, Chamberlain stated that the first of four relevant considerations was that ‘Transvaal should be the aggressor, and that the Imperial Government should have the active sympathy of at all events a considerable section of the Dutch in the Colony’.11 However, even at that early stage, while trying to cajole the Afrikaners, Milner found it difficult to persist in his efforts. As a frontier imperialist, he came very early to grips with the inherent contradiction between courting Cape Afrikaners and pursuing a vigorous imperial policy. A few weeks after his arrival, he prepared Chamberlain for the visit of Sir Henry de Villiers: ‘He will assure you that the Dutch in the Colony are thoroughly loyal’, he wrote, ‘and that they cannot help feeling a great affection for those relatives, and would regard a war between Great Britain and the Transvaal as the worst of calamities.’12 In other words, Cape Afrikaner loyalty could not be harnessed to any determined effort to bring the Transvaal to submission. As the latter became increasingly Milner’s main goal, indeed an obsession, Cape Afrikaners were perceived by him as at least potential enemies of the Empire. Milner’s view of the Cape Afrikaner was definitely coloured by the primacy of imperial supremacy. Indeed, from this perspective, if there was a contradiction between the requisites of imperial supremacy and the sensitivities of Cape Afrikaners, then it was too bad for the latter. The possibility that this might not necessarily be the position of policymakers in London exacerbated Milner’s frustration. In advance of de Villiers’ visit to London, Milner tried to prepare Chamberlain, expressing the fear that ‘English opinion may once more be bamboozled in the Dutch interest’.13 Clearly, Milner’s warning proved insufficient. The education of the ‘official mind’ and public opinion in England regarding the true nature of Cape Afrikanerdom became a major task. Shortly after his arrival, Milner implied that the Bond was working behind the scenes against imperial interests.14 In another letter he openly cast doubt about the loyalty of Cape Afrikaners to the British Empire, describing them as ‘fellow-citizens with the State and Transvaalers’.15 In the wake of Kruger’s re-election to the presidency of the Transvaal in February 1898, Milner noted that ‘the Colonial Afrikaners continue to do obeisance before him’.16 Seeing that South African republicanism was, in [ 123 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Milner’s eyes, the arch-enemy of imperial paramountcy, this allegation was very serious. When Milner arrived, the Afrikaners were politically agitated as a result of Rhodes’s triumphant return to the Cape. This Afrikaner fury, which was directed solely against Rhodes’s unrepentant, provocative reappearance, greatly displeased Milner. Some of the resolutions adopted in many Afrikaner Bond meetings across the Colony seemed to him to verge on ‘sedition’, and Milner felt it necessary to speak with Hofmeyr ‘confidentially but very plainly about this’.17 Much of the blame for the negative political disposition of Cape Afrikaners was attributed to the Afrikaner Bond press.18 He also singled out the leadership of the Bond for being republican ‘at heart’.19 There are also indications that at an early stage he developed aversion and prejudice towards Cape Afrikaners, depicting them as ‘very ignorant’ or ‘lazy’.20 For an imperialist like Milner, viewing Cape politics as the key to the situation in South Africa, the agitated politics of the Cape in the wake of the Raid was a cause for anxiety and concern. The elections to the upper and lower Houses of Cape Parliament in 1898 heightened still further these political tensions. Milner’s disposition towards the Cape Afrikaners was influenced not only by the political dynamics of the Cape, but also, perhaps mainly, by the interaction between Afrikaner politics in the Colony and Boer politics in the Transvaal. From this perspective, the re-election of Kruger in February 1898 was a watershed in Milner’s attitude towards the South African crisis as a whole and Cape Afrikaners in particular. In early 1898 Milner faced squarely the two basic contradictions which could not be resolved peacefully. The one was between the desire to maintain peace and the attainment of imperial supremacy through radical political reform in the Transvaal; the second was between the goal of maintaining the support of Cape Afrikaners and pushing for a head-on collision with Kruger. For Milner, who wished to ensure paramountcy at all cost, these contradictions could only be resolved by a war which would cut the South African ‘knot’. Clearly, in early 1898 Milner began to tread on the war path. In the midst of confusion of desires and goals Milner submitted everything to his uppermost goal of radically transforming the Transvaal through either reform or war. The implication of drawing this conceptual sword for Cape Afrikaners was crystal clear: There has got to be a separation of the sheep from the goats in this subcontinent … the time has come when we should, I think, quietly but firmly force the wobblers to show their colours and not expect us to recognize them as loyal citizens of a free British Community, as long as they

[ 124 ]

THE CAPE AFRIKANERS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

give any countenance to men who trample on freedom and on everything 21 British in a neighbouring state.

In two separate letters Chamberlain and Lord Selborne made it quite clear that they did not accept Milner’s simplistic surgical cure to the imperial ills of South Africa.22 Meanwhile, this rejection exacerbated Milner’s frustration and his impatience with Cape Afrikaner politics. He could not resign himself to accepting that they possessed a veto power on his imperial designs. This burst into the open in his famous Graaff Reinet speech on 3 March 1898. It was there that Milner tried, for the first time, to separate ‘the sheep from the goats’. He complained, pointing to the Bond, that in any dispute between Britain and the Transvaal, ‘a number of people in the Colony at once vehemently, and without even the semblance of impartiality, espouse the side of the Republic’, and he referred cynically to their profession of loyalty: Of course I am glad to be assured that any section of her Majesty’s subjects are loyal, but I should be much more glad to be allowed to take that for granted. Why should I not? … Well, gentlemen, of course you are loyal. It 23 would be monstrous if you were not.

From a Cape lingo perspective, the post-Graaff Reinet period was politically not particularly agreeable. In May 1898, the fall of the Sprigg government, which had enjoyed at least some support from the Bond, and the ensuing election to the House of Assembly resulted in a narrow victory for the Afrikaner Bond and its liberal allies. W. R Schreiner formed a government which was more closely associated with the Bond than ever before. In April 1899, in an election for newly redistributed seats, the Bond increased its parliamentary majority. Thus, as the crisis in the Transvaal exacerbated, the Cape Colony itself seemed to be snapping from the imperial chain. The changing political profile of the Cape had a definite impact on Milner’s attitude towards the Cape Afrikaners, the masters of Cape politics. The Graaff Reinet speech was only a foretaste. As Milner crossed the Rubicon in early 1898 into the war zone, he came to view Afrikanerdom as enemy territory. Cape Afrikaners had to be groomed for their larger role in the unfolding imperial drama and they had to be appropriately introduced to the London gallery. Thus, if in Graaff Reinet he only cast doubt on their loyalty, privately he regarded them as a disloyal, anti-imperialist lot. With view to the prospect of a Bond government he was categorical: As far as the objects of Imperial policy in S.Africa are concerned, I am satisfied that… the existence of the Bond under its present leadership always 24 hampers the attainment of these objects. [ 125 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Once the Bond government headed by Schreiner assumed office, Milner began to view it as part of the anti-imperialist alignment. He maintained that the Bond government should not be allowed to influence British policy because ‘the Dutch are, as a body, deeply disaffected’.25 He argued that the price of ‘keeping on good terms with the Colonial Dutch’ was too high because they were ‘at heart averse from us’.26 He presented the Bond as an undiluted republican party.27 There is little surprise that Milner abhorred the idea of Bond or Cape government involvement in South African politics. Thus, he objected to the idea of a Conference of States and Colonies on the Alien Question, brought up by Schreiner. Thanking the Governor of Natal for agreeing to help in obstructing the conference, Milner wrote: ‘The whole thing is simply anti-British Boer intrigue.’28 He viewed much in the same light Hofmeyr’s and Schreiner’s initiative which brought about the Bloemfontein conference.29 In explaining the reason for discouraging Schreiner from participating in the conference, Milner stated: ‘we have already gone very far in agreeing to meet at Bloemfontein in Afrikaner atmosphere’.30 Milner disapproved of the desperate attempt made by Hofmeyr, Schreiner, Sir Henry de Villiers and others to squeeze concessions from Kruger and avert a war: ‘To accept in discharge of all claims mutilated franchise scheme without guarantee, especially with Cape Ministry saying “it is enough, you must take it”, would be regarded as triumph for Afrikander Combination.’31 He indicated that peace achieved under Cape Afrikaner auspices would be ‘contaminated’.32 As the war approached he described the attitude of the Bondcontrolled government towards the Transvaal as one of ‘friendly neutrality’, a diplomatic term describing a limited alliance.33 Milner’s report on Hofmeyr’s desperate appeal to the Transvaal to make further concessions conveyed the impression that Hofmeyr was conspiring with the Transvaal against Britain.34 He began to treat the Cape government as hostile and its removal from office only a matter for tactical considerations. With his prospective war in mind, Milner also expected Cape Afrikaners to rise together with their republican brothers. He also thought that the long railway line ‘running for hundreds of miles through Boer districts of the Colony, might be cut off’.35 On the eve of the war he wrote to his superiors that with the military power of the Transvaal, and with ‘half our subjects sympathizing with that power, our paramountcy will be an idle phrase’. He predicted that effective British influence would be restricted to the coastal towns.36 As the political temperature rose, Milner also manifested more prejudice and greater antipathy towards the Afrikaners. Reporting to a friend on Rudyard Kipling’s visit he expressed joy ‘that [Kipling] saw [ 126 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE CAPE AFRIKANERS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE

through that utter imposture, the simple-minded Boer patriot, dear to the imagination of British radicals’. While stating, in a manner not uncommon among bigots, that he did not want ‘to run down the Dutchman still less to join the vulgar outcry raised against them by the least estimable section of the English out here’, and while admitting, in a patronising manner, that ‘the Boer has his strong point’, he lashed out at ‘the political Boer [who] is an awful humbug’.37 Such attitudes were quite typical of impatient colonial officials towards their ‘natives’: liking the simple and apathetic, while loathing the politically inclined ones. To Chamberlain he presented Cape Afrikaners as ethnic chauvinists and domineering.38 According to J. T. Molteno, ‘Milner had already thrown off the mask; he was constantly insulting the Afrikaners and, with his superior Oxford manner, was sneering at their loyalty.’39 Merriman reported similarly that, ‘Milner has goaded and stung our folk to an incredible degree.’40 Thus, from Milner’s ultra-imperialist perspective, the war had to be fought not only to subdue the Transvaal and incorporate it in the British Empire, but also to bring the Cape back to the imperial fold. One can argue that, from an imperial history vantage point, having established the role of the Cape in the overall calculations which drove Milner to the war, the task of this chapter has been fulfilled. First of all, the South African War is not only an episode in British imperial history. It is also a critical chapter in the history of South Africa. The war is the most painful historical trauma which played a major role in shaping the unhappy story of twentieth-century South Africa. But even from an imperial history perspective it is about time that the Afrikaner side of the historical equation is taken more seriously in analysing the origins of the war. The study of the positions and dispositions of the Afrikaners could shed light on critical questions related to the origins of the war and to imperial decision-making. Was it a case of a reluctant imperial government being pulled to a war by the gravitation power of an exacerbating local crisis? Who in the British ‘official mind’ were right in their assessment – those who claimed that historical inevitability must be allowed to do the work for imperial interests or those who argued that British paramountcy faced a critical threat requiring massive surgical intervention? An analysis of the Cape Afrikaner perspective indicates clearly that it was not a case of a reluctant imperial government being drawn to the war by a veritable threat to British supremacy. It was rather a case of pushy aggressive imperialists dragging reluctant Afrikaners into a war they dreaded. Those who claimed that history was on the side of the Empire were right. The difficulty of studying late nineteenth-century South Africa lies in the fact that in the backwards historiographical [ 127 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

march the historians have to traverse the rugged historical terrain of the twentieth century. Reaching the late nineteenth century through the century which witnessed the evolution of militant pan-Afrikaner nationalism, the historian can sympathise with anxieties of British policy-makers regarding the danger of pan-Afrikaner republicanism. However, the study of late nineteenth-century South Africa requires also a late nineteenth-century perspective. From a Cape Afrikaner late nineteenth-century perspective the war looked definitely superfluous. Even in the wake of the Jameson Raid they were, as far as they were concerned, well within the imperial bosom. They were deeply loyal to the Empire and entertained no desire to replace republican for imperial allegiance. In order to substantiate these assertions we must begin with a recovery of a sense of how Cape politics evolved. Cape Afrikaners, who began to organise politically only in the late 1870s, became, by 1884, the arbiters of political power in the Cape with the Afrikaner Bond as the dominant block in parliament. No government could exist without their support. In July 1890 the Bond collaborated in the ousting of Sprigg and struck a political alliance with Cecil Rhodes which secured him the premiership of the Cape. The political marriage between Rhodes, perhaps the foremost British imperialist of his time, and the Afrikaner Bond seemed unnatural at first glance. For the Afrikaners the alliance with Rhodes was more than a political deal. Above all Rhodes was for many of them the embodiment of their own world outlook, of their own innermost convictions. They believed that Rhodes shared with them the conception of ‘colonialism’, namely, the paramountcy of Cape white colonial interests within the framework of a distant, benevolent and protecting British Empire. Resting on common interests and outlook as well as on personal friendships, the Bond-Rhodes alliance appeared sound and resilient. During the five and a half years of his premiership, the relations between Rhodes and the mainstream of the Bond grew closer and deeper. The Bond proved a most dependable and loyal ally and supporter. Furthermore, Cape Afrikaners manifested great devotion, admiration and love for Rhodes. Understandably, then, the news of the filibustering expedition into the Transvaal by Dr Jameson, Rhodes’s most trusted collaborator, was met with disbelief and shock by Bond leaders. Hofmeyr, who had become his close friend and confidant, reacted unequivocally: ‘If Rhodes is behind it, then he is no more a friend of mine.’41 When Rhodes refused to repent fully and to condemn and disown Jameson, Hofmeyr cut himself clear of his former friend. In the case of Rhodes and Hofmeyr there was definitely an immediate and painful political and personal divorce. [ 128 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE CAPE AFRIKANERS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE

This may have contributed to the perception that the Jameson Raid not only precipitated a swift disengagement of the Bond from Rhodes, but also occasioned a critical turning point in the ideological and political evolution of Cape Afrikaners. Thus, Afrikaner historians argue that the shock of the Raid consolidated Afrikaner unity throughout South Africa as never before.42 The historian of the Afrikaner Bond concluded: ‘The Raid gave birth to a new form of self-conscious Afrikaner nationalism … which laid stress on the exclusiveness of the wronged group and its need to close its ranks.’43 This reflects, in fact, Milner’s own perception of the ideological and political orientation of the Bond in the aftermath of the Raid. A close look at the evidence does not, however, lend support for such interpretation. Not only was the break with Rhodes not as swift and sharp as presumed, but the Bond also did not undergo a qualitative political and ideological transformation in the wake of the Raid. While abandoning Rhodes, the Bond remained faithful to the essence of the political and ideological heritage which had brought them together. The ambivalence of the Bond towards the Raid crisis was also manifested in Hofmeyr’s handling of the crisis. As in the crisis of 1880– 81, he was remarkably even handed. On the one hand he urged the British to repudiate the Raid, encouraged Kruger to stand up to ‘Jameson’s filibusters’ and congratulated him for his victory. On the other, he urged Kruger to prevent ‘the firing of a single shot’ in Johannesburg, and to be magnanimous in making ‘as many concessions as possible’, presumably to the uitlanders. He also beseeched him to show leniency towards the captured raiders. Above all, Hofmeyr facilitated a meeting between the High Commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson, and Kruger which contributed to the prompt resolution of the 44 crisis. The Raid contributed greatly to the politicisation of Cape Afrikaners. This involved a much greater popular political awareness and participation by Cape Afrikaners and Bondsmen. It entailed an increasing political tempo which manifested itself in editorials, letters to the editor, Bond branch meetings, congress debates and contribution to parliamentary debates. However, as we shall see, on essential issues relating to Cape Afrikaners’ self-identity and to the major thrust of their political ideology and strategy they manifested an evolutionary adjustment rather than a revolutionary change. The continuity in the Bond’s political strategy was already evident at the height of the Raid crisis. With the resignation of Rhodes on 7 January 1896, the Bond was faced with a ministerial crisis. As the largest and most effective parliamentary group representing specific interests, the Bond could not remain aloof. The opposition which included prominent negrophiles and free traders was not a particularly attractive alternative. Thus, Hofmeyr, [ 129 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

on behalf of the Bond, sanctioned, albeit somewhat reluctantly, a new government headed by Sprigg which greatly resembled the former and which was certainly not an anti-Rhodes one.45 It was the traditional external support policy involving individual participation of Bond members in the government and conditional support by the party. It remains to be asked to what extent the Raid and the disengagement from Rhodes had an impact on the political and ideological disposition of the Bond. Did the Bond espouse, in the wake of the Raid, a narrow ethno-nationalist outlook as suggested by Davenport and others? The answer is negative. While the Raid stimulated the politicisation of the Afrikaners it did not radically transform their outlook which had been informed by a long and thorough process of socialisation into the British Empire. The changes that did take place were more directly associated with Rhodes’s person. Thus Rhodes, the former benevolent capitalist who had been presented as the friend and ally of the Afrikaner farmer, became the epitome of malevolent, selfish, 46 profit-seeking capitalism. While the Bond did not turn Bondsmen into socialists, Rhodes’s betrayal certainly considerably reinforced the anticapitalist, populist strain in the party.47 Another victim of the Raid was Rhodes’s sponsored Cape subimperialism. During the Bond-Rhodes alliance the latter had diverted the economic imagination of Cape Afrikaners from the Transvaal to his promised land across the Limpopo. Rhodesia offered not only the possibility of economic salvation for the Cape farmers, but also the vehicle for the fulfilment of their hidden desires and dreams. The Raid, however, put an end to this fancy, and the eyes of Cape Afrikaners turned again towards the Transvaal. The attitude of the Bond towards the Transvaal after the Raid brings us closer to a crucial question related to the impact of the Raid on Cape Afrikaner collective consciousness and identity. Here one is confronted with the ‘nationalist’ historiographic conventional wisdom which views the Jameson Raid as a crucial turning point in the march of pan-Afrikaner nationalism. The ‘nationalist’ historiography looks at the Jameson Raid from across the South African War, that great watershed in South African and Afrikaner history. A late nineteenth-century Cape perspective is needed for a late nineteenth-century episode. The improved fortunes of the Transvaal among Cape Afrikaners did not simply result from rediscovering the call of the blood. The shock of the Raid also woke Cape Afrikaners to the regional economic realities. Ons Land argued that, ‘The Rhodesian market exists in the imagination 48 whereas the Transvaal market is already opened to us.’ Thus, the lure of the Transvaal gold in the wake of the Raid was more a result of the economic failure of Cape sub-imperialism than of an outburst of pan[ 130 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE CAPE AFRIKANERS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE

ethnic nationalism. Cape Afrikaners were materialistic and pragmatic and the substitution of sub-imperialism for pan-Afrikaner solidarity made perfect economic sense. A speaker in Ceres was candid, ‘[The] Transvaal is a very good market for us … and they want us to fight her. Is it not an extreme foolishness?’49 At a meeting in Stellenbosch Jan Smuts tried to impress upon the local farmers that the market argument was not sufficient, when he said, ‘What is at stake is a sense of nationhood and brotherly love.’50 Indeed, the Raid inspired differently fiery spirits like the young Jan Smuts: ‘We have again begun to write our history in blood … the Raid which aimed at paralysing Afrikanerdom … served as an electric shock sent to the national heart. This has brought about an awakening of the Afrikaner in consciousness and seriousness we have not witnessed since the glorious liberation in 1880.51 Shattered by the impact of the crisis and by a deep sense of personal betrayal and disappointment, Smuts produced a text which could be construed as the maturing of a veritable pan-Afrikaner nationalism.52 Editor F. S. Malan used Ons Land to propagate the idea of pan-Afrikaner unity. He wrote in the spirit of la patrie en danger: Never has Afrikanerdom needed more colonial and republican unity. A psychological moment has now come, now our volk throughout South Africa has awakened, now a new flame rages in our hearts – let us now lay the foundation stone of a truly united South Africa on the ground of a pure and comprehensive sense of nationality … The blood of the voortrekkers is 53 the same as that of those left behind.

This, indeed, sounds like a veritable organic bloot und bodem nationalism. It would be, however, misleading to conclude from a few fiery articles and speeches that Cape Afrikaner ethnic consciousness and ideological outlook have been radically transformed. Smuts and Malan were two brilliant, sensitive and articulate young Afrikaners who had recently returned from their studies in England. Their contribution to the ideological discourse was definitely influenced by their education and by their stay in Europe at a time when nationalism was at its peak. They were certainly not representatives of the rank and file or even the leadership of the Bond. In fact, even their exhortations sound more chauvinistic than they actually were. In order to capture the full scope of the post-Raid Cape Afrikaner ideological and political discourse, we must take into consideration other texts, as well as the impact of the context. There is ample evidence that Cape Bondsmen exhibited much more sympathy and understanding towards their brothers in the Transvaal [ 131 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

than before the Jameson Raid.54 We have seen that there was a material rationale for that. The question is whether there was also, as suggested by the contribution of Smuts and Malan, an ‘idealistic’ motivation behind it as well. Solidarity with their republican ethnic brothers had been a permanent feature of Cape Afrikaner ethnic outlook. The ‘first liberation war’ of 1880–81 elicited not only solidarity but also nonmilitary support for their struggling brethren. Even at the time of their alliance with Rhodes, when their relations with the Transvaal were very strained, sympathy with their republican brothers remained a feature of their ideological and political arsenal. The more buoyant and persistent verbal manifestations of solidarity in the wake of the Raid reflected the different context rather than a radical transformation in the inner meanings of the texts. As in the case of the Transvaal crisis of 1880–81, the Raid revealed to Cape Afrikaners that, ‘blood was thicker than water’. The difference was that whereas the former crisis was concluded with British magnanimous concessions, which brought it, from a Cape Afrikaner perspective, to a happy conclusion, the Raid crisis never really subsided. The conduct of the uitlanders, the British government, Rhodes and the Cape Jingoes transformed the Raid crisis into a persisting, lowintensity crisis threatening to erupt so that Cape Afrikaners lived under the spectre of an imminent ‘race’ war which they dreaded.55 Unlike the war of 1880–81 the prospective war at the end of the century threatened to engulf South Africa as a whole. It was a vital Cape Afrikaner interest to avert such a war. Even Milner believed that the excessive manifestations of sympathy by Cape Afrikaner leaders towards the Transvaal were primarily motivated by a desire to prevent the eruption of such a war.56 In order to fully appreciate the attitude of Cape Afrikaners towards their republican brothers, and republicanism, we must correlate this attitude to their overall identity and political consciousness. To do this we should consider the distinction between ethnic core and ethnic diaspora. For Cape Afrikaners their republican brothers were ethnic diaspora. As ethnic diaspora they were objects of compassion, sympathy and solidarity. However, the political consciousness and behaviour of the core ethnic community were primarily informed by their core experience. From this perspective even the solidarity with their ethnic diaspora was an integral part of their Cape ‘Afrikanerdom’, rather than a manifestation of its transformation into a full-blown pan-Afrikaner nationalism. In fact, there was an inherent contradiction between Cape ‘Afrikanerdom’ and pan-Afrikanerism. The nature of the evolving ethnic identity and political consciousness among Cape Afrikaners was shaped by their colonial [ 132 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE CAPE AFRIKANERS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE

experience.57 Since the Cape Afrikaner community were to a large extent a product of the British colonial situation, it is hardly surprising that the latter left a deep imprint on the community’s very nature. The colonial nature of their experience kept them wide apart from their republican co-ethnics. This, in turn, shaped two distinct Afrikaner identities and political consciousnesses. Even the drama and pathos of the Raid and subsequent provocations could not erase the differences which had been carved into the rock of reality by strong historical currents. The Raid and the subsequent persisting low-intensity crisis definitely further stimulated the evolution of ethnic identity and consciousness among Cape Afrikaners. Many manifestations attest to that. However, from a Cape perspective, two competing identities continued to shape their consciousness and to constrain the evolution of a veritable pan-Afrikaner nationalism. First, Cape Afrikaners still perceived themselves concurrently also as white Cape colonists. Rhodes’s betrayal did not diminish the urge among Bondsmen to amalgamate the two white ‘races’. This was true also in the case of Ons Land which was also preaching the gospel of pan-Afrikaner solidarity: We have in our land two white races – and the pragmatic politician must acknowledge the fact that we can hate one another or live together in friendship. Is there anyone who doubts that we must choose friendship? We must eradicate from our midst racial hatred, contempt, agitation and suspicion. We must not withdraw from our ideal because of the recent 58 events.

Professor de Vos, in a series extolling Afrikaner nationalism, also advocated the amalgamation of ‘the two brave races, the English and the Afrikaner’.59 Dr J. M. Hoffman, another ‘nationalist’ ideologue, claimed that no one wanted the amalgamation of the two ‘races’ more than him.60 In the 1898 Bond congress, D. P. van den Heever reiterated the party’s known position that, ‘The Bond knows no nationality.’61 A few months before the war Ons Land reiterated the Bond’s position that ‘South Africa for the Afrikaners’ means for all those who see in her their homeland and love her.62 Calling for moderation two months before the war the editor stated: ‘We never forget that our foremost goal is the promotion of peace and cooperation between the different races and nationalities.’63 The party provided an ultimate proof of its commitment to inter-’racial’ collaboration when despite their greatest ever electoral victory in the 1898 election, they chose W. P. Schreiner, a non-Afrikaner, non-Bondsman, as the new prime minister in a government which included only two Afrikaners. The second identity competing with pan-Afrikanerism was the imperial one. In a meeting in Paarl in March 1898, after parading the [ 133 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

record of his loyalty and services to the British Empire, Hofmeyr addressed the allegation that he harboured republican inclinations: ‘When I joined the Bond it was, amongst others, to scrap a clause regarding an independent South Africa … I wanted to remain under the British flag and even Majuba and Doornkop [Jameson’s defeat] did not change my mind.’64 Indeed, the evidence of loyalty to Crown and Empire is so voluminous, so universal and so convincing, that only political blindness and/or prejudice could account for the accusations of disloyalty levelled against the Bond. In May 1898, T. P. Theron, after raving about the freedom enjoyed by Afrikaners as British subjects, suggested to his large Bond audience: ‘Ask the Germans, the Russians and anybody else, where would they have enjoyed more freedom, in their own land or under a British government?’ He then added: ‘Imbued with this feeling, do I say too much if I say “I thank the Lord that I am a 65 British subject?”‘ Such a statement by the Bond chairman in one of the foremost centres of ‘genuine Afrikanerdom’, at a time when ethnic feelings ran so high, is telling. Onze Courant claimed that ‘there was probably more disloyalty in England than here’.66 Responding to Milner’s suggestion that Cape Afrikaners would actively support the Transvaal in the case of conflict with Britain, Ons land stated with confidence that, ‘It is possible that there are a few who are prepared to act in such a manner, but it is certainly untrue with respect to the great majority of Dutch Afrikaners in the Cape.’67 After the formation of a Bonddominated government in 1898 the Bond, and Cape Afrikaners in general, were increasingly subjected to attacks for their alleged disloyalty. They repulsed these attacks with great conviction. At an Afrikaner dinner in Caledon in February 1899, Hofmeyr, still the unchallenged leader of the Bond and the articulator of its ideological mainstream, stated: ‘I was born under the British flag and I have no difficulty dying under it.’ G. J. Krige, MP for Stellenbosch, reacted bitterly against the allegations of disloyalty: ‘I, as a citizen of the land, 68 will fight, gun in hands, for the honour of the British flag.’ Dr Hoffman claimed that ‘one cannot find more loyal subjects of the Queen than the Bondsmen’.69 Loyalty to the Crown and the Empire was not merely a topic for political statements. It was an important part of the consciousness of ordinary Cape Afrikaners even on the eve of the war. It was inculcated to them in school and in church and it was reinforced by their life under what they perceived as a benevolent British Empire. A correspondent gave this popular perspective of Cape Afrikaner loyalism: ‘The silent Afrikaners are all too willing to trust their authority and to place their cause in its hands, with the expectation that it will be handled justly and fairly … The colonial Afrikaners are trusting subjects of the Queen.’70 Professor de [ 134 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE CAPE AFRIKANERS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE

Villiers boasted that never had a meeting consisted of more loyal subjects of the Queen than the one he addressed in Paarl. He added that this could not be otherwise because they lived safely under the British government and because their predicant ‘taught them to honour the Queen and they love her’.71 There were also underlying religious overtones in the moving letter of D. J. de Wet from Prince Albert on the very eve of the war. De Wet’s heart bleeding for his Transvaal brothers and yet ‘as loyal as before’, he put his trust in the hands of the Almighty.72 The constant challenge from the local Jingoes, and from a metropolitan policy feeding the tension between Britain and the Transvaal,73 forced Cape Afrikaners to address the apparent contradiction between loyalty to the Crown and the call of the blood. It was in line with the political culture of the Cape Afrikaners that, in dealing with this contradiction, they sought not to heighten and sharpen it but rather to submerge and resolve it. They did it by offering a syncretic, ambivalent and inclusive outlook, which facilitated the cohabitation of British imperialism and Afrikaner ethnicity. In fact, they do not seem to have felt the contradiction. Theron, for example, while raving about the Empire, also propagated, to the same audience, the virtues of emotional, organic ethnic ‘sense of nationality’.74 M. L. Neethling, appealing to his electors, wrote the following: ‘This I enunciate as a loyal subject and at the same time as an Afrikaner patriot of the right sort.’75 In remote Upington a speaker responded to allegations of disloyalty: ‘Birth, sympathy, religion and various circumstances make us Afrikaners, my friends! But am I less loyal for that than any Englishman who also cannot forget his vaderland?’76 Particularly disturbing, as the war was approaching, was the apparent contradiction between loyalty to the Crown and solidarity with the republics. In fact, Cape Afrikaners did not see the contradiction there as well. They were attached to their ethnic brothers rather than to their republics. Dr Hoffman, a prominent Bond leader, declared in parliament that he ‘would not submit to Krugerism’, and that he repudiated it ‘with contempt’.77 M. L. Neethling saw no discrepancy between his loyalty and his wish to live in friendship and love with his brothers and sisters in the republics.78 However, constantly challenged, Bondsmen had to deal more directly with these contradictions and to articulate their resolution. The well-informed Hofmeyr took a comparative view – arguing that as in the case of Scotland and Ireland, ‘local patriotism’ was not incompatible with loyalty.79 Indeed, the need to confront these contradictions made Bond leaders join the avant-garde of the Empire which was pointing in the direction of a Commonwealth of free nations. In making a [ 135 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

distinction between Britain and England80 they heralded a multinational, liberal empire. In this vein they made a distinction between ‘true imperialism’ and the chauvinistic imperialism of the Jingoes.81 Indeed, it was in such a loose, liberal empire that all these apparent contradictions could be finally and permanently laid to rest. The Afrikaner Bondsmen had no difficulty in containing the apparent contradictions. Because of the complexity of their colonial experience, their ethnic identity and consciousness were not bent on exclusivity. On the contrary, they were of a hybrid variety. They carved a cohabitation space, in which Cape Afrikaner ethnicity, white Cape colonialism, pan-Afrikaner solidarity and British imperialism lived side by side, not without tension, but on the whole quite happily. In all this complex construct, the imperial experience and imperial loyalty were essential foundation stones. This informed their desperate attempt to secure peace by appealing both to the Transvaal for concessions and to Britain for patience and flexibility. They dreaded the prospect of being forced to choose between their genuine loyalty to the Empire and their genuine solidarity with their republican kinsmen. Yet, even when the war broke out the Bond remained unswervingly loyal, making tremendous and painful efforts to prevent ethnic solidarity from being mobilised against the Empire. Merriman referred to the disposition of Cape Afrikaners at the beginning of the war: That the bulk of the Colony, under these circumstances, remained tranquil is convincing proof of their loyal attachment to the institutions of their country, and their absolute unwillingness to sever their connection with the 82 flag which they have to thank for their constitution.

If Cape Afrikaners, not least among them Bondsmen, were the loyal subjects of the Empire that have been described above, how did it occur that they were so misunderstood? How did it occur that instead of being perceived as a solid foundation stone of the Empire they were treated as a snapping link in the imperial chain? How did it occur that they were considered as part of an ‘Afrikaner combination’ rather than as faithful servants of Crown and Empire? Above all, how can we account for the fact that such misconceptions were articulated and propagated by a man who took the trouble to study Dutch and boasted of having read the Bond press? Indeed, Milner is the ultimate proof that you do not have to know other peoples’ language in order to misunderstand them. But was it really a question of misunderstanding? It seems that in essence Milner and Bondsmen were subjects of different empires. The Bondsmen were most loyal and devoted subjects of the empire that was evolving towards a Commonwealth, an empire which was to be a loose, free association of white multi-cultural nations across the world, under the soft wings of [ 136 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE CAPE AFRIKANERS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE

the monarch and the British flag. Milner’s empire was compact, hegemonic and intolerant. It was an empire that was prepared to use ultimate force to prevent weak links from snapping. As Robinson and Gallagher succinctly put it: ‘The Empire went to war in 1899 for a concept that was finished, for a cause that was lost, for a grand illusion.’83 Like Rhodes, Milner suffered from the trauma of the American separation.84 Like Rhodes, however, in order to prevent such repetition, he manifested the same intolerance and insensitivity towards local conditions and local desires that had brought it about. The Cape Afrikaners were perfect allies and collaborators of a liberal empire. The Cape was, in fact, a microcosm of such an empire. However, in the context of Milner’s empire the Cape Afrikaners were mortal enemies, because they were impostors; they were loyal to the wrong empire. Their loyalty did not interest him in the least. In an interview with Milner, on 4 October 1899, J. T. Molteno tried to impress on the Governor: ‘I know their deep reverence to the Queen and their love for the Constitution.’ Milner’s curt reply was telling: ‘Well Mr Molteno, it is no use; I am 85 determined to break the dominion of Afrikanerdom.’ They were dangerous because their display of loyalty could undermine his efforts to construct a solid platform from which to launch his empire and his war. Consequently, Milner was subjected to the same syndrome which pushed Rhodes over the brink to the Jameson Raid. Once the balance of South African power shifted towards the Transvaal, the Cape on its own, from the perspective of the hegemonic empire, was not worth preserving for its own sake; anyway, both believed that it could not be preserved in the long run. If, as in both cases, Cape Afrikaners were not prepared to join an anti-Transvaal crusade they became not only expendable, but veritable obstacles. It is a moot question whether Milner actually believed what he wrote about Cape Afrikaners. It is clear that he very consciously cultivated both the official mind and public opinion in England in preparation for his war. Cape Afrikaners had to be negatively presented as part of an anti-imperial conspiracy, in order to justify the war and to transform good, loyal subjects of the Empire into its victims.

Notes 1

2 3

On Milner’s imperialism and personality see, E. T. Stokes, ‘Milnerism’, Historical Journal, 5:1 (1962); E. Porter, ‘Sir Alfred Milner and the Press, 1897–1899’, Historical Journal, 16:2 (1973); G. H. L. Le May, British Supremacy in South Africa, 1899–1907 (Oxford, 1965), pp. 8–32. V. Solomon (ed.), Selections from the Correspondence of Percy Alport Molteno, 1892–1914 (Cape Town, 1981), p. 99; J. C. Molteno to P. A. Molteno, 3 October 1899. C. Headlam, (ed.), The Milner Papers (London, 1931), p. 42, Milner to Sir George Parkin, 28

[ 137 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

4 5

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

April 1897. Ibid., p. 227, Chamberlain to Milner, 16 March 1898. A. N. Porter, The Origins of the South African War: Joseph Chamberlain and the Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1895–1899 (Manchester, 1980), p. 135. Headlam, The Milner Papers, p. 41, Milner to Lord Selborne, 20 April 1897. Ibid., pp. 47–8, ‘Memorandum handed to Sir Alfred Milner on his arrival by General Goodenough’, 5 May 1897. Ibid., pp. 44–7. Ibid., p. 49, Milner to Chamberlain, 23 June 1897. Ibid., pp. 61, 68. Ibid., p. 227, Chamberlain to Milner, 16 March 1898; see also, pp. 72, 229. Ibid., p. 64, Milner to Chamberlain, 25 June 1897. Ibid., p. 63, Milner to Chamberlain, 25 June 1897; p. 70, Chamberlain to Milner, 5 July 1897. Ibid., p. 59, Milner to Mr Graham, 30 June 1897; p. 61, Milner to Chamberlain, 9 July 1897. Ibid., p. 87, Milner to Clinton Dawkins, 25 August 1897. Ibid., p. 221, Milner to Chamberlain, 23 February 1898. Ibid., p. 90, Milner to Chamberlain, 29 August 1897. Ibid., p. 100, Milner to Lord Selborne, 13 October 1897. Ibid., p. 250, Milner to Chamberlain, 18 January 1898. Ibid., p. 87, Milner to Clinton Dawkins, 25 August 1897; p. 100, Milner to Lord Selborne, 13 October 1897. Ibid., p. 216, Milner to Sir W. Hely Hutchinson, 18 February 1898. Ibid., pp. 227–9, Chamberlain to Milner, 16 March 1898; pp. 229–30, Lord Selborne to Milner, 22 March 1898. Ibid., pp. 243–6. Ibid., p. 261, Milner to Chamberlain, 29 June 1898. Ibid., p. 398, Milner to Hely Hutchinson, 22 April 1899. Ibid., p. 476, Milner to Sir Edward Grey, 7 August 1899. Ibid., pp. 255, 303, 353. Ibid., pp. 304–5, Milner to Fiddes, 25 November 1898; Milner to Hely Hutchinson, 23 February 1899. Ibid., p. 378, Milner to Conyngham Greene, 12 June 1899. Ibid., p. 392, Milner to Chamberlain, 23 June 1899. Ibid., p. 456, Milner to Selborne, 10 July 1899. Ibid., p. 466, Milner to Chamberlain, 17 July 1899. Ibid., p. 519, Milner to Selborne, 22 August 1899. Ibid., p. 453, Milner to Chamberlain, 6 July l899. Ibid., p. 400, Milner to Selborne, 24 June 1899; note that whereas normally he described Cape Afrikaners as Dutch, for this belligerent occasion he termed them Boers. See also, p. 540, Milner to Chamberlain, 19 September 1899. P. Fraser, Joseph Chamberlain: Radicalism and the Empire, 1868–1914 (London, 1966), p. 198. Headlam, The Milner Papers, p. 240, Milner to Mrs Gaskell, 2 June 1898. Ibid., p. 262, Milner to Chamberlain, 12 July 1898. J. T. Molteno, The Dominion of Afrikanerdom (London, 1923), p. 163. P. Lewsen, Selections from the Correspondence of John X. Merriman, 1899–1905 (Cape Town, 1966), p. 97, Merriman to Mrs J. Merriman, 17 October 1899. J. H. Hofmeyr, Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (Onze Jan) (Cape Town, 1913), p. 498. A. J. H. van der Walt, J. A. Wiid and A. L. Geyser, Geschiedenis van Suid Afrika, vol. 1 (Cape Town, 1951), p. 512. T. R. H. Davenport, The Afrikaner Bond (Cape Town, 1966), p. 167. Hofmeyr, Hofmeyr, pp. 491–6; N. J. Hofmeyr, De AfrikanerBond en de Jameson Inval (Cape Town and Amsterdam, 1896), pp. 390–2. J. P. V. Vanstone, ‘Sir John Gordon Sprigg: a political biography’, Ph.D. thesis, Queen’s University, Kingston, pp. 347–51. See, for example, Ons Land, 5 March 1898.

[ 138 ]

THE CAPE AFRIKANERS AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE 47 48 49 50 51 52

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

53 54

55 56 57

58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

See, for example, Ons Land, 17 August 1897, 6 January 1898, 20 January 1898, 29 March 1898, 4 May 1898, 16 July 1898, 26 July 1898. Ibid., 25 November 1897. Ibid., 21 January 1899; see also, 14 January 1897, 19 January 1897, 21 January 1897. Ibid., 14 January 1897. W. K. Hancock and J. van der Poel (eds), Selection from the Smuts Papers, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 103–4. See, for example, the interpretation of this article in J. A. Coetzee, Die Politieke Groepering in die Wording vand die Afrikanernatie (Johannesburg, 1941), pp. 185–6. Ons Land, 12 March 1896. See, for example, ibid., 11 January 1896, 16 January 1896, 22 August 1896, 15 December 1896, 19 December 1896, 19 January 1897, 1 May 1897, 26 August 1897, 2 October 1897, 10 March 1897; Cape Colony: Debates of the Legislative Assembly, 1897, columns 105–6, 109, 130. Headlam, The Milner Papers, p. 64, Milner to Chamberlain, 25 May 1897; Ons Land, 17 August 1897. Headlam, The Milner Papers, p. 245, Milner to Mrs Gaskel, 22 June 1898. For a fuller discussion see, M. Tamarkin, ‘Nationalism or “tribalism”: the evolution of Cape Afrikaner ethnic consciousness in the late nineteenth century’, Nations and Nationalism, 1:2 (1995), pp. 221–42. Ons Land, 18 January 1896; see also, 9 April 1896, 7 November 1896. Ibid., 5 November 1896. Ibid., 12 January 1897. Ibid., 22 February 1898. Ibid., 25 May 1899. Ibid., 11 July 1899. Ibid., 29 March 1898. Onze Courant, 2 May 1898. Ibid., 12 February 1897. Ibid., 5 March 1898. Ibid., 28 February 1899. Ibid., 1 June 1899. Ibid., 6 July 1899. Ibid., 25 July 1899. Ibid., 10 October 1899. R. Robinson and J. Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, (London, 1961), pp. 430–57; Porter, The Origins, pp. 95–175; Ons Land, see, e.g., 7 August 1897, 7 September 1897, 7 December 1897, 5 March 1898. Ons Land, 2 Mayl898. Ibid., 17 February 1898. Ibid., 25 March 1899. Cape Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 18 October 1898, p. 46. Ibid., 1 February 1898. Ibid., 29 March 1898. Ibid., 18 February 1899. Ibid., 22 April 1899. Lewsen, Merriman, 111, Merriman to J. Bryce, 5 December 1899. Robinson and Gallagher, Africa, p. 461. W. B. Worsfold, Lord Milner’s Work in South Africa from its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 (London, 1906), p. 78. Molteno, The Dominion of Afrikanerdom, p. 185.

[ 139 ]

CHAPTER EIGHT

African attitudes to Britain and the Empire before and after the South African War1 Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Christopher Saunders

By the mid-1890s the long process of bringing what is now South Africa under white rule was all but complete. Britain had played a central role in that process: from 1811 to 1879 the British army had fought and defeated one African chiefdom after another. Yet despite the enormous suffering which Africans had endured as a consequence of British actions – a ‘century of wrong’2 which far outweighed that done by the British to the Afrikaners – most Africans at the turn of the century saw Britain not as an oppressor, but instead as an actual or potential protector and liberator. How is this apparent paradox to be explained? In the decades of anti-apartheid struggle, from the 1960s to the 1980s, the main focus of historians concerned with African actions and responses was, not surprisingly, on resistance; expressions of proimperial sentiment tended to be downplayed. Those who noticed such sentiments often dismissed them as embarrassingly obsequious, and regarded appeals to Britain for aid as hopelessly naive because they did not produce results.3 More serious scholars, writing on African involvement in the South African War or the making of Union, included useful passages on the attitudes of South African Africans to Britain and the Empire4 but none focused systematically on this topic.5 Much more scholarly attention was directed to the attitudes of Africans in South Africa to America and African-Americans than to their attitudes to Britain and the Empire. While members of the South African African elite did look in this period to America for role models, and took from America the idea of self-help in particular,6 the most important external reference point for them was not the land of Jim Crow, but imperial Britain. It was from Britain, the main source of their ideas about racial equality, and not from America, that they expected help to come to improve their lot. We are here mainly concerned, of necessity, with the attitudes of a relatively small western-educated African elite, numbered in the tens of [ 140 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

AFRICAN ATTITUDES TO BRITAIN AND THE EMPIRE

thousands at most, a group often known as the ‘ama-respectables’.7 While that elite of course remained part of the subordinate community which suffered racial discrimination, its members were nevertheless to some extent cut off by their education from other black Africans, yet they spoke and wrote as if they represented the views of the subordinate community as a whole. While evidence of the attitudes of non-elite Africans is difficult to find, there are a few indications that non-elite views were less pro-British than those of the elite.8 In the most important available source for African attitudes, the African newspapers of the time, however, the discourse is almost entirely pro-imperial. Nevertheless, that discourse was neither unchanging nor unambiguously pro-imperial. By setting it in context, I hope to help to explain why African pro-imperialism continued, from before the South African War and for decades beyond it.9 Part of the explanation for the apparent paradox with which this chapter began is to be found in the history of relations between Africans and the British before the 1890s. Many independent African rulers, impressed by British power and wealth, and sometimes on the advice of missionaries, had asked for ‘British protection’, often because the alternative – Boer conquest, or Cape or Natal colonial rule – seemed likely to be worse. When they waged their wars against African chiefdoms, the British almost always had African allies to help them; the Mfengu and others were rewarded substantially for their assistance.10 For the westernised African elite which began to emerge at the Cape from the 1870s, Britain was associated, not only with power and wealth, but as importantly with Christianity, the ending of the slave trade and the emancipation of the slaves. Members of that elite were socialised, not merely to view Britain and the Empire positively, but also to identify themselves as belonging to those ‘subject races’ which Britain, they were told, had an imperial duty to uplift.11 In South Africa itself, direct British rule often allowed Africans to retain their land, whereas colonial or Boer rule meant dispossession. By the end of the century, however, direct British rule had been reduced to the High Commission territories of Bechuanaland and Basutoland. With the completion of the conquest of independent societies, all Africans outside Bechuanaland and Basutoland fell under either republican governments or self-governing colonial ones. The latter remained within the Empire, of course, which confused their status to some, for their local white minorities could in effect rule as they wished. By the mid-1890s, the distinction between direct imperial rule from London through the High Commission and rule by self-governing colonists was clear to most African rulers and members of the [ 141 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

westernised African elite. But whites sometimes deliberately fudged that distinction. Realising early in 1894 that he could no longer maintain his independence, the ruler of the Western Mpondo in what became the Transkeian territories told a Cape official: ‘I give myself to the Queen … I don’t know if your government is the same as the English government’.12 He was told that it was, but that he asked the question at all suggests that he realised that direct rule of the kind then being exercised in Basutoland and Bechuanaland, and rule by the self-governing Cape, were not the same. The three Tswana chiefs who travelled to Britain in 1895 were adamant that they wanted a continuation of direct British rule in Bechuanaland, not British South Africa Company rule. ‘There is no government that we can trust other than that of the Great Queen’, they told the British government. For them, ‘British protection’ clearly meant being protected in their lands, subject to relatively little interference, as against settler rule, whether by Cecil Rhodes’s Cape or by the Boer government of the Transvaal.13 For the African elite of the late nineteenth century, Britain stood for progress, opportunity, modernisation and, above all, ‘civilisation’. The mission churches which provided the elite with its education were closely tied to mother churches in Britain. Imperial propaganda was allpervasive, and the elite heard much, especially at the time of the Diamond Jubilee in 1897, of the glories of an Empire on which the sun never set. For them, Britain and its Empire stood for justice, fairness and equality before the law, which meant above all non-racialism in the sense of ‘equal rights for all civilised men’. They referred to the British proclamation of 1843 annexing Natal, which ruled out discrimination on grounds of race, as a precursor of the non-racial tradition which they associated with Britain. That tradition, epitomised by the Cape’s nonracial franchise of 1853, was the antithesis of what members of the African elite sometimes called ‘the Boer creed’, of no equality in church and state. As Martin Luther King was to call on Americans of the 1960s to live out the meaning of their creed, so Africans in South Africa at the turn of the century called on Britain to give effect to the non-racialism which they regarded as integral to the ideals of empire, however much imperial agents might in their actions have transgressed those ideals. In numerous petitions submitted to British officials, and even to the monarch personally, the African elite appealed for one or other form of British intervention in South African affairs in the interests of racial equality. While pro-imperial sentiments were very directly used for instrumental purposes, however, it is important to notice that they were also expressed when other Africans alone were being addressed, as in the African press of the time. Expressions of devotion to Britain and the [ 142 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

AFRICAN ATTITUDES TO BRITAIN AND THE EMPIRE

Empire were especially prominent during and after the South African War, for Africans hoped that their loyalty during the war would be rewarded once Britain had won it, but pro-British sentiments remained pronounced for almost two decades after the war. In the African press in these decades there was no significant alternative discourse, and only very occasional dissent from the dominant pro-British view was voiced. A. K. Soga, editor of Izwi Labantu, ardently pro-British during the war, was by 1908 denouncing ‘white civilisation’, and by implication Britain, for ‘its history is laid in a trail of blood and savagery’.14 The praise-poet Samuel Mqhayi, aware of the ambiguous role Britain had played in South Africa, gave voice to the ironies involved in the pro-British sentiments the elite expressed: You occupied this land by force, You settled on this land like a pest. You will leave this land like a stillborn. 15 As always we still say we are British.

The most prominent disagreement among the educated African elite occurred when Soga’s rival, John Tengo Jabavu, who was before the South African War the single most prominent member of the educated elite, criticised what he called the British war-party of Milner and Chamberlain for provoking that war, criticism which played a part in the closure of his newspaper, Imvo Zabantsundu, in August 1901. But even while he was making that criticism, Jabavu continued to stress his loyalty to Britain and the Empire, insisting as he did so that being loyal should not mean an unquestioning jingoism. Though opposed to the war, he shared the hope of the rest of the African elite that a British victory would lead to an extension of the Cape’s non-racial franchise and the principle of ‘equal rights for all civilised men’ to the conquered republics. Once the ex-republics were brought under British rule, the elite hoped that Africans, Coloureds and Indians living there would, in the words of one post-war petition, ‘be welcomed within the imperial family as true citizens of the empire’.16 Statements by Chamberlain, Milner and Salisbury before and during the war seemed to suggest that blacks everywhere in South Africa would find their fortunes would change for the better once the entire country was under the benevolent umbrella of the Empire. And yet, as we know, such hopes were dashed, as Africans found that British rule meant even tighter control than Boer rule, while their ‘betrayal’ was seen most starkly in Article 8 of the Treaty of Vereeniging of May 1902, which provided that the question of extending the franchise to blacks would not be settled until after the introduction [ 143 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

of self-government to the ex-republics. And yet, despite this ‘betrayal’, and failure to reward African loyalty after the war, the African elite continued to express loyalist rhetoric, and to look to Britain for assistance and aid, even as their fortunes in South Africa steadily worsened. While a full explanation of why this was so would require the events of those years to be traced in detail, some pointers towards such an explanation can be offered.17 In the various petitions and delegations they sent to Britain, the African elite called on the British authorities to use the powers they had – by virtue of their direct rule in the ex-republics in the early years of the new century, or as imperial overlord – to improve the lot of Africans or, as increasingly became the case, to prevent further infringements of their rights. In 1909 they wanted the South Africa Bill, providing for Union, to be amended, to eliminate its colour bar clauses. When the deputation sent to London for that purpose failed to achieve anything of substance, and Union was instituted, the African elite urged Britain to block antiblack legislation by employing the reserve powers provided for in the South Africa Act, which provided that the King in Council might disallow legislation reserved for imperial attention within a year.18 Further missions to London on the Natives Land Act in 1914 and at the time of the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 were similarly unsuccessful. At times, members of the elite suggested some new form of direct British rule or involvement, such as the creation of an imperial Department of Native Affairs, or an imperial veto power on all Union legislation affecting Africans.19 As appeal after appeal achieved nothing, the African elite often blamed imperial agents, imperial officials in South Africa or the British government itself, for failing to do the imperial duty, as after the AngloZulu War of 1879 the Zulu monarch Cetshwayo had held Sir Bartle Frere, the High Commissioner, and Theophilus Shepstone, British administrator in the Transvaal, responsible for the attack on his kingdom, not Britain and certainly not Queen Victoria.20 The westerneducated elite always believed that the Great White Queen could do no wrong, and after her death looked back to the days of ‘Queen Victoria the Good’ as golden ones. The grandson of a Xhosa ruler told the anthropologist Monica Wilson in the 1930s, ‘We want a woman to rule us again. It is only grandmothers who have sense … We have no grudge against George, but his counsellors are bad. Whatever representation we make is never forwarded overseas. If the Government reverted to the Crown things would be much better.’ And he asked that the South African government make known ‘our condition to our great father 21 overseas’. In the first decade of the twentieth century, members of the [ 144 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

AFRICAN ATTITUDES TO BRITAIN AND THE EMPIRE

African elite spent much time organising for the establishment of a memorial to Queen Victoria, and a portrait of her was to be found in many an African hut.22 In the many appeals Africans made to Britain in these years, it was often suggested that if the monarch, the imperial government or the British people were to be properly appraised of the situation in South Africa, they would do something about it. The elite blamed the British officials who had signed the Treaty of Vereeniging for its contents, or the need to end the war; it was not – it was said – what the imperial government really desired.23 The petitions which the African elite addressed to Britain served a double purpose. Though often formulaic and always couched in the appropriate language of civility and humility, they drew attention to Britain’s failure to reward African loyalty. Britain was judged by reference to the elite’s conception of the imperial ideal, and British hypocrisy condemned. On the other hand, and more importantly, such petitions were an appeal against those who ruled them – whether colonial, republican or Union government – to a higher, imperial authority. In that sense they were a way of contesting colonial authority. Looking to Britain as a counterpoise to local racial power, the African elite was able to point out how unjustly Africans were being ruled, and thereby, at least by implication, they were criticising their rulers for ruling them in that way. In that sense, African pro-imperialism was a kind of anti-colonialism.24 To such an appeal to the higher morality of empire, the stock reply of South Africa’s rulers, from before the South African War to after Union, was that such an appeal was irrelevant in an age of full colonial self-government. The imperial government likewise said, especially after Union, that even if it wished to, it could not in fact interfere in South Africa’s internal affairs. With hindsight we can see that the attempt to use imperial power against local rulers was doomed to failure, but the African elite could not be certain that that strategy would fail until they had tried it.25 And though frustrated time and again, they continued to hope that Britain would eventually act. No alternative strategy more likely to succeed presented itself. As late as 1920 the newspaper Umteteli thought that what it called ‘Native respect for the Crown’ was strengthening ‘as tribal differences become less acute’. And, that editorial continued, in the aftermath of yet another failed mission to London: ‘The rebuff experienced by the Native delegates to England has in no sense diminished the desire of those who sent them for a closer and more real association with the Imperial Government, and it is fairly certain that the attempt to establish direct relations with the Mother Government [sic] will be renewed unless the Union Government [ 145 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

recognises its obligations and fearlessly does its duty.’26 And even then Umteteli believed that ‘the lot of the Native in Africa is receiving the attention of the British public, and no matter how dilatory or unconcerned the Imperial Government may be, the public voice will sooner or later be heard, and the pressure of public opinion in England must sooner or later be felt in Cape Town’.27 India had been ‘granted as much of self-government as would satisfy the Native people of South Africa for the next fifty years’, but the Africans of South Africa had no sympathy for those Indians who ‘cry out for a total withdrawal of Imperial interest and control’. On the contrary, said Umteteli, ‘We should shout in protest if our British connection were endangered. And our trust in the British Empire is reflected in our faith that the Government of the Dominion which holds us will not be unresponsive to our needs.’28 Other passages from Umteteli convey well the flavour of the African elite’s pro-imperial sentiments at this time. Here is an example: in spite of the pessimists we pin our faith to that indefinable something in the British race, which produces at the time of each impeding crisis the necessary strength and power to carry on with cheerfulness to the discomfort of her enemies … [for] the British Empire is the outcome of an aptitude peculiar to the British race, a wonderful capacity for penetrating those parts of the earth’s surface possessed by the coloured people and for breaking down all barriers with which it is confronted … [The] whole concept of segregation is in conflict with Anglo-Saxon history as we have learnt it … the Natives of South Africa rely for their emancipation upon the British connection, and would actively oppose any serious attempt to destroy it. The might and humanity of British rule is fully appreciated by the black races the world over, and its conscientious dealing is admitted by the subject races when its errors of judgement are gravest. The British connection at least gives us 29 immunity from the much worse that might be.

Such sentiments began to come under sustained attack for the first time in the early 1920s. From that time the South African Native National Congress (the African National Congress from 1923) turned away from Britain as a major external reference point. In 1920 D. D. T. Jabavu, John Tengo’s son, wrote of Britain, ‘the cow is dry’. In a book which appeared in the same year, Silas Molema concluded that the position of blacks had deteriorated ever since the South African War, and that despite all their loyalty and appeals to Britain, their rights had nevertheless been 30 curtailed systematically. The realisation that Britain was not going to act began to sink home in the early 1920s, and a more negative attitude towards the Empire becomes noticeable. Yet despite the antiimperialism of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union and the [ 146 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

AFRICAN ATTITUDES TO BRITAIN AND THE EMPIRE

Communist Party, appeals to Britain continued to be made. At the time of the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1925 there was another great outpouring of expressions of loyalty to Britain and the Empire.31 It is possible to find examples of pro-imperial sentiment well into the 1940s.32 Even after more direct challenges to the white power structure were employed, even after the adoption of the armed struggle in 1961, appeals to universal morality and for aid from outside played a not unimportant, if by then very secondary, role in the struggle for racial justice. It was, however, from before the South African War, and for two decades thereafter, that African appeals to Britain were most frequent and forceful. That was the period of the most sustained and consistent expressions of loyalty to the Crown. In making such appeals, and expressing that loyalty, African South Africans were testing Britain and the Empire. Tested, they were found wanting.

Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

My thanks to Donal Lowry and Iain Smith for suggesting I write this chapter, and to Jeremy Ball, Apollon Davidson, Bob Edgar, Hildegard Fast, Peter Limb, Hugh Macmillan, Rachidi Molapo, Abner Nyamende and Jeff Opland for ideas and material. A Century of Wrong (London, n.d.), was issued by F. W. Reitz on the eve of the South African War, ‘as the official exposition of the case of the Boer against the Briton’ (p. vii). It was written by Jan Smuts. In the earliest general account of the history of Africans in South Africa, Eddie Roux called such pro-imperial sentiments naive and pathetic: Time Longer Than Rope (London, 1948), pp. 104, 110. More recently, G. Mbeki ignored them in The Struggle for Liberation in South Africa (Cape Town, 1993). Francis Meli provided a more rounded account in South Africa Belongs to Us: A History of the ANC (London, 1989). A full study would require not merely a comprehensive search through Imvo Zabantsundu, Izwi Labantu and other African newspapers, but also a systematic combing of the relevant archives. P. Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899–1902 (Cambridge, 1983); B. Nasson, Abraham Esau’s War: A Black South African War in the Cape (Cambridge, 1991); A. Odendaal, Vukani Bantu! The Beginnings of Black Protest Politics in South Africa to 1912 (Cape Town, 1984); P. Walshe, The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa (London, 1971), ch. 1; B. Willan, Sol Plaatje: A Biography (London, 1984); T. Karis and G. Carter (eds), From Protest to Challenge, vol. 1 by S. Johns (Stanford, 1972). Cf. also B. Magubane, The Making of a Racist State: British Imperialism and the Union of South Africa, 1875–1910 (Trenton, NJ, 1996). An unpublished thesis begins to explore the topic: P. H. Molatsi, ‘The decline of British influence on South African native policies, 1855–1925’, Ph.D. thesis, New York University, 1979. See especially G. Fredrickson, Black Liberation (New York, 1995). Fewer South African Africans studied in Britain in these years than in America, but the main founders of the South African Native National Congress in 1912 had all studied in Britain. Though the number of Africans who visited Britain was never significant, those who did often made much of their visits on their return. It was much rarer for South African Africans to look to other European countries for help; one who did so in the 1890s was Mdlangaso of the Mpondo, who appealed to both Germany and Russia: C. Saunders, ‘The annexation of the Transkeian territories’, Archives Yearbook of South African History (Pretoria, 1978), ch. 7. Their attitudes were in general, though not in specifics, similar to those held by their Indian and Coloured counterparts. I do not have space here to discuss the views of members of

[ 147 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

8 9

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

10

11

12 13

14 15

16

17

18 19

20

those other elites, but see n. 17 below. Africans who were not members of the elite expressed the hope that Britain would be defeated in the South African War: Warwick, Black People, pp. 176–7. This chapter is a shortened version of the paper presented to the Oxford conference on ‘Test of Empire’. I hope to explore this theme in relation to the post-Union years in detail elsewhere. Moshoeshoe, who had sought British protection to avoid coming under Boer rule in the 1860s, had sent ‘our Gracious Queen’ a leopard-skin kaross (a garment) as a thank-you present; L. M. Thompson, Survival in Two Worlds (Oxford, 1976), p. 310, n.4. Hamu, the Zulu who defected to the British in 1879, was rewarded with a chieftainship; J. Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom (London, 1979), p. 240. Africans in South Africa did not often directly link their cause to that of other ‘subject races’, however. But cf. e.g. Izwi, 16 July 1901: ‘The same principles that have been applied to the treatment of the Maoris will also hold good with Kaffirs, whose qualities are not unlike, but closely resemble in many respects those of his New Zealand Brethren.’ Quoted in Saunders, ‘Annexation of the Transkeian Territories’, p. 166 N. Parsons, King Khama, Emperor foe and the Great White Queen (Chicago, 1998). Jakob Marengo, guerrilla resistance fighter against the Germans, sought British rule for southern Namibia early in the twentieth century. He conceived of British rule in terms of Bechuanaland-style rule. Cape rule was his second choice, but ironically he met his death at the hands of Cape forces; N. Alexander, ‘Jakob Marengo and Namibian history’, Social Dynamics, 7(1) (1981). Izwi, 27 October 1908. Ibid., 7 January 1908, ‘Sise kwelidala! Singama Britani’ (here translated from the Xhosa). Mqhayi continued: ‘Only one song shall be taught to the youth; We are British, We are British.’ His most famous poem expressing his ambiguous attitude to the British dates from the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1925, when he said: ‘O Roaring Britain! You sent us the truth, denied us the truth; you sent us life, deprived us of life; you sent us the light, we sit in the dark, shivering, benighted in the bright noonday sun’: J. Opland, Xhosa Oral Poetry (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 8–9. (There is a different translation in A. C. Jordan, Towards an African Literature (Berkeley, 1973), p. 114.) Similar ambiguities are to be found in Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom (London, 1994). Mandela describes how shocked he was when a fellow student at Fort Hare described Britain as an oppressor. While Mandela deplored British imperialism, he continued to have a deep respect for Britain as the home of democracy: pp. 46, 91, 291. This phrase is often repeated, as in the 1903 South African Native Congress petition to Chamberlain, given in Karis and Carter, Protest to Challenge, vol. 1, p. 28. For such statements by British officials see, e.g. Odendaal, Vukani Bantu, p. 30; J. Ball,’The Cape Liberal tradition, 1853–1910’, thesis, Boston College, 1994, p. 23, quoting British Parliamentary Debates, 19 October 1899, column 271. For Jabavu’s loyalty, see especially Imvo, 31 October 1899, quoted in L. Ngcongo, ‘John Tengo Jabavu’, MA thesis, University of South Africa, p. 222. Cf. C. Saunders, ‘Ngcongco, Jabavu, and the South African War’, Pula, 11 (1) (1997). Coloureds and Indians hoped that the term ‘natives’ did not apply to them and appealed, on the basis of their distinct identity, for special treatment by the imperial government. A Coloured delegation went to London in 1906 on this matter, the year in which an Indian delegation seemed to have persuaded the imperial government to delay the passage of a Transvaal Ordinance. This encouraged Africans to think that similar action could get results. Only under the threat of Union did non-African leaders agree to join the 1909 South African Native Convention delegation to London. Cf. E. Mamkeli, ‘African public opinion and the Unification of South Africa’, Honours thesis, University of Cape Town, 1954. South Africa Act, 1909, section 65. As late as 1926 H. Selby Msimang called for an Imperial Native Commissioner to be ‘the representative of Native interests in this country’: Umteteli wa Bantu (hereafter Umteteli), 5 May 1926. He said ‘It will be a happy day for the black people of South Africa when the English are South Africa’s sole rulers … The Queen is fond of justice’: J. Guy, The Destruction of the

[ 148 ]

AFRICAN ATTITUDES TO BRITAIN AND THE EMPIRE

21 22

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

23

24

25

26 27 28 29 30

31

32

Zulu Kingdom (London, 1979), pp. 126, 128 and cf. 130. M. Wilson, Reaction to Conquest (2nd edn London, 1961), p. 556. E.g. Izwi Labantu, 4 February 1902. A. K. Soga spent a great amount of time on a Memorial fund for the erection of a tribute to ‘Queen Victoria, the Good’: Izwi, 22 October 1901; The Colored American Magazine, February 1904, p. 116. On the local politics which help explain why the South African Native Congress supported the Victoria Memorial scheme, see A. Odendaal, ‘African political mobilisation in the Eastern Cape, 1880–1910’, Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1983, especially p. 214. Molotsi, ‘Decline of British influence’, p. 78. Black South Africans who visited Britain and met British people in their own country usually reported that they were treated with respect and friendliness. Pixley Seme’s time at Jesus College, Oxford, and in London, though marred by financial problems, left him with a profound respect for British institutions, especially its system of parliamentary democracy, and British people. Some Africans encountered people from Britain and the Empire in South Africa with attitudes which seemed to reflect the imperial ideal of non-racialism. See e.g. N. Mokgatle, An Autobiography of an Unknown South African (Berkeley, 1971), pp. 348–9; Nasson, Abraham Esau’s War, p. 192; Z. K. Matthews, Freedom for My People (Cape Town, 1983), p. 61. Cf. L. de Kock, Civilising Barbarians (Johannesburg, 1996). Elsewhere in Africa, it has been argued, colonial regimes manipulated pro-imperial and monarchical sentiment to bolster their rule. See especially T. Ranger, ‘Making Northern Rhodesia imperial: variations on a royal theme, 1924–1938’, African Affairs, 79 (316) (July 1980). At the end of the First World War, Z. K. Matthews recalled, ‘it was impossible not to believe that some of what was said about freedom and democracy [in that war] had some substantial reality and … [would] trickle down to us … We had learned scepticism in a hard school, but hope is a stubborn thing that mocks the mind.’ Matthews, Freedom, p. 62 Umteteli, 19 June 1920. Ibid., 11 September 1920. Ibid., 15 January 1921. Ibid., 13 November and 11 December 1920, editorials. F. Wilson and D. Perrot (eds), Outlook on a Century (Lovedale, South Africa, 1971), p. 244; S. M. Molema, The Bantu: Past and Present: An Ethnographical and Historical Study of the Native Races of South Africa (Edinburgh, 1920), p. 292. Molema completed his book some years before it was published. The African National Congress boycotted the visit. There was another such outpburing when the question of removing the Union Jack from the South African flag was at issue in 1927. But after Hertzog returned from the Imperial conference of 1926 some Africans realised for the first time that the new equality of status he had won for the dominions meant that Africans in South Africa had been abandoned by Britain and the Empire. Queen Victoria was still commemorated in Langa township outside Cape Town in the 1940s: R. Molapo, ‘Sports, festivals and popular politics: aspects of the social and popular culture in Langa township, 1945–70’, MA thesis, University of Cape Town, 1944. During the Second World War new expressions of loyalty are to be found: e.g. P. Mda wrote of African sympathy, as always, being with ‘that power which has always defended and upheld the rights of small nations, Britain’: Imvo, 3 August 1940, quoted in R. Edgar, An African American in South Africa: The Travel Notes of Ralph J. Bunche (Johannesburg, 1992), p. 319.

[ 149 ]

CHAPTER NINE

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

‘Hamlet with the Prince of Denmark left out’?: the South African War, Empire and India Balasubramanyam Chandramohan

Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage; For he was likely, had he been put on, To have prov’d most royal. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act V, Scene II

The South African War was presented by the imperial government and elements of the pro-war press, especially The Times, as a crusade to uphold the ideals, unity and interests of the Empire. Even within these inter-related motivations for the pursuit of the war, however, specific elements were emphasised to appeal to particular constituents that were drawn in to make the war a truly imperial war. For example, introducing the causes of the war, L. S. Amery commented: We have fought … to vindicate the white man’s birthright – the right of all white men that come into a new country, and join in the work of developing and making it, to claim their share of political privileges. Our endeavour has been … to prevent a vast region inhabited by men of English blood or of that stubborn Low-German stock that is so nearly akin to our own … from being 1 lost to the community of … nations that make up Greater Britain.

In this description there is no mention of the majority ‘non-white’ populations both of South Africa and of the Empire. In the war itself, moreover, ‘coloured troops’ were not – officially at least – given combatant roles, a theme to which we shall return later.2 Nevertheless, Amery was forced to recognise the importance of the strong tradition of Indian loyalty and martial valour in previous imperial wars: A British war in which the Indian army, European and native, plays no part is almost like the play of Hamlet with the Prince of Denmark left out … Although only Englishmen actually composed the [Indian] contingent, it was equally representative of the loyalty of the princes and the people of India … 3 [who displayed] patriotic generosity. [ 150 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR, EMPIRE AND INDIA

There was therefore a certain ambivalence about the role India played in the South African conflict and this blurred the notions of imperial principles of justice and equality. It was not clear whether the imperial ideal applied to all parts and all races in the Empire, and the Indian ‘native’ contribution seemed to be just a matter of loyalty to be expected in times of crisis. In D. M. Morrison’s India and Imperial Federation (1900), which supported the war, we also encounter this manifest tension between the assertion of the ideal of imperial citizenship and the recognition of Indian loyalty and generosity in their support for the war. In the special church parade organised in Calcutta in February 1900 for the Lumsden Horse, then about to embark for South Africa, the Bishop of Calcutta said: Well is it then that the Englishmen and Scotchmen and Irishmen resident in India should take their stand with the Colonists not of South Africa only, but of Australia and Canada in the cause which makes them one. For the Empire means … the principles upon which the modern Christian world is broadly based; justice, equality, freedom of thought and speech, intellectual progress, pure religion, the sense of personal responsibility to God … It is not nothing to you; it is a matter which vitally and personally touches your interest that to your fellow-subjects in South Africa should have been denied elementary rights of citizenship, the common privileges of humanity. The 4 injury that has been done to them is done to you.

There is no indication here, however, that the bishop included Indian South Africans in the ‘fellow subjects’. Morrison, however, manages to find a ‘satisfactory ending’ for his book by quoting a Reuters’ telegram of 20 October 1899 from Simla which depicts the offers of assistance from the ‘chiefs of India for the Transvaal … [which proved] conclusively the wonderful loyalty and devotion to the Empire displayed throughout Hindustan’.5 This ambivalence about what the war represented to different peoples of the Empire lies at the root of the various Indian responses to the conflict. At one level it was a ‘Sahibs’ War’, in which the Indians were allowed only non-combatant roles, but it also provided an opportunity to demonstrate loyalty to the Raj for a range of Indians, from the nawabs and maharajas in India to Indian labourers and merchants in South Africa. With loyalty came the expectation, especially to Indian South Africans and to the Indian National Congress that supported their fight against restrictive legislation and social practices, that success in battle would lead to justice for all in the Empire. Seen through the eyes of Indian subjects of the Empire (both in India and in South Africa), this rejection-acceptance syndrome contributed to raised expectations, and later to crushed hopes. [ 151 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Indian involvement in the war itself had, however, a positive outcome in allowing for a political mobilisation which took on nationalistic overtones in India, while in South Africa itself it contributed to a sense of public activism and the blurring of class-ethnic barriers within the Indian community. Mohandas K. Gandhi’s role in the war – especially his organisation of an ambulance corps – helped him to develop a leadership role in South Africa. This baptism into politics, through the interest that the Indian National Congress took in overseas Indians, eventually proved to be advantageous to his later entry into Indian politics, and Boer resistance in South Africa and their prisoners of war in India came to influence nationalist thought in India. The Indian presence on the eastern coasts of Africa pre-dated the arrival of Europeans in the region, and was due largely to trade patterns in the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. However, the establishment of European trading posts around the Cape and the eastern seaboard of Africa and around the coast of India led to a small movement of Indians as slaves or under slavery-type conditions. However, in the late nineteenth century the demand for labour to develop and run the newly established sugar cane plantations in Natal led to the recruitment and importation of Indian workers on a larger scale. Using Indian labour was the easiest option available to the sugar interests (when compared to forcing self-sufficient and rebellious Africans to work in the plantations or importing expensive European labour) and this requirement created the ‘pull’ factors of the Indian migration. The ‘push’ factors resulted from the political and economic consequences of the imperial intervention in India that led to the establishment of foreign rule and economic upheaval affecting large numbers of artisans and peasants. British capitalism created both the demand for labour and the economic conditions in India that compelled labour to emigrate. The Indian presence in South Africa was therefore both a direct and an indirect consequence of the policies pursued by the British Raj, as it contributed to ‘pull’ as well as ‘push’ aspects of Indian emigration, especially in the late nineteenth century. The first arrival of Indians on a large scale in South Africa took place in November 1860, when indentured labour from Madras arrived in Natal, followed soon afterwards by a group of indentured labourers from Calcutta. Migration from these two regions of India was followed by traders largely from the Gujarat region. These three groups differed in religion and language. While the first two were largely Hindu, the traders from Gujarat, also called ‘Passenger Indians’ (since they paid their own fares, as contrasted with the indentured whose fares were paid as part of the indenture) were mostly Muslim. Indians from Madras spoke largely Tamil and Telugu, those from Calcutta mostly spoke Hindi/Bhojpuri and [ 152 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR, EMPIRE AND INDIA

the traders by and large used Gujarati. In terms of class differences, the traders were relatively better off and brought not only business skills but also capital to start their business in South Africa. The indentured, on the other hand, were largely poor people recruited often through false promises by unscrupulous agents at a time of political and economic turmoil in the aftermath of the 1857 War of Independence/Sepoy Mutiny.6 The indentured labourers brought with them a will to struggle and survive, factors demonstrated in the relative incremental success of different generations in the harsh and hostile colonial conditions of South Africa. While there were major cultural, linguistic, religious and material variations between groups of immigrants from the diverse territories of the Indian Empire, these were to some extent forced to sink their differences after their arrival in South Africa, for they all laboured under the same or similar social, political, legal and administrative disadvantages and discrimination at the hands of the white populations and governments in South Africa. ‘Every Indian, without exception’, Gandhi later observed, ‘is a coolie in the estimation of the general body 7 of the Europeans.’ In the build-up to the war the question of maltreatment of Indians by the government of the Transvaal became for the British a convenient issue which would enable them to portray the Boer adversary in a negative light. There were several indirect benefits to be gained from the use of the issue of maltreatment of Indians as British subjects. It enabled the British to assume the mantle of a protector while the Boers became the persecutors, and this allowed them to reinforce images of an imperial authority standing up for the rights of its subjects, regardless of their colour. Such an image was important to win over the sympathies of the Indians in South Africa, in other parts of Africa and in India itself. More importantly, with issues of fair play at stake the build-up to the confrontation in Transvaal could be justified to the domestic audience in Britain as a moral crusade, an inevitable course of action against an unreasonable and unjust adversary. There was, however, a fundamental flaw in the British approach, not least because the uitlander merchants were in full agreement with the legislative restrictions placed on Indian traders, and were opposed to their ‘cut-throat competition’. In April 1899, Lord Milner, the British High Commissioner, decided to win the tacit silence of the merchants on the Indian question to exploit the issue, and to achieve this he sent his secretary George Fiddes to the Rand. During his visit, Fiddes dined with leading Uitlanders and tried to win their favour by expressing his sympathetic understanding of their problems and concerns, and later at a dinner party argued how the issue might be used against the Transvaal government: [ 153 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

This question might assume a serious shape. Now if HMG made up their minds that it was necessary to take a firm stand on it, would Johannesburg be likely to take up a hostile or embarrassing attitude on it?

His dinner companions could not agree more. They ‘simply chorused’:

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Any stick is good enough to beat Paul Kruger with, and though we don’t love the Indian, we wouldn’t say a word, and we would use our influence for all 8 it’s worth, to prevent others from saying a word against you.

During the same visit Fiddes managed to persuade W. F. Monypenny and R. J. Pakeman, editors of the Star and Transvaal Leader respectively, ‘to strike the right note’ to ensure support for Milner in his handling of the issue of rights for non-white British subjects. Uitlander control of several English-language papers was a crucial factor in convincing the outside world that ‘the vast majority of foreigners on the Rand chafed as “helots” under Boer mismanagement’. The Indian issue thus provided the Englishlanguage press with further ammunition to use against the Boers.9 The value of the Indian issue as a propaganda tool was not lost on the Transvaal government. It tried to use the question of the legal status of Indians to its advantage by trying to embarrass the British government by proposing a general South African conference on alien immigration. Milner saw through the game plan, and explained his countermove in a letter to the Governor of Natal, Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson: The whole thing is simply an anti-British Boer intrigue. No doubt there is a strong and growing feeling throughout S. Africa in favour of the exclusion of Indians and Chinese. I think we shall have to bend to the blast, if it is not to break us. But if so, let us by all means arrange the disagreeable business in foro domestico. Let me, for instance, agree here on the minimum of offensive legislation for the Colony, as you have already done for Natal. Do not let us have a General South African Conference passing anti-Asiatic resolutions in the most offensive form by a large majority … Union by all means, but I don’t want to initiate united action by a concerted exclusion of British subjects from the whole sub-continent. The 10 Boers know the hole we are in over this business.

For the Indians, in both India and South Africa, the war put to the test British claims that they would protect and guarantee Indian rights throughout the Empire. In India the Princely States responded generously to British appeals for support. The editor’s correspondence published in The Englishman reveals the loyalty and willingness of the maharajas and nawabs of different states to participate in the imperial cause. In response to a letter by ‘An Indian’ suggesting that ‘our Viceroy, [ 154 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR, EMPIRE AND INDIA

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

the noble Lord Curzon, make this year 1900 famous by the formation of the Army of Imperial Federation’, the paper commented in its edition of 13 January 1900: There has been nothing more noticeable during the past few weeks than the marked loyalty of the Native States in India. Each ruler has indeed vied with the other in offering troops, horses, transport and stores for South Africa. In all, we learn, 1,260 horses have been accepted for service by the Government of India from various Native states … No less than sixteen rulers are usefully assisting in this direction … all appearing on the list of those who 11 deem it a privilege to assist the Empire in its war across the seas.

Such offers of support were officially acknowledged by Queen Victoria, who in her opening address to Parliament in 1900 said that she was ‘much gratified at the proofs of loyalty to myself and devotion to the Empire afforded by numerous offers from Indian Native Rulers to place their troops and resources at my disposal’.12 Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, also expressed his appreciation of the Indians’ ‘most exemplary and gratifying loyalty’.13 Indian loyalty and assistance were also marshalled in support of claims for a say in the government of the Empire. Various maharajas and nawabs wrote to papers such as The Englishman supporting closer imperial relations. The Maharaja of Darbhanga in eastern India, for example, promised to do all in his power individually and among his ‘brother noblemen’ to assist in the further development and realisation of Imperial Federation and its aims of ‘loyalty and brotherhood among the Queen-Empress’s subjects all over the civilised world’.14 There was also a considerable element of bravado. A letter from ‘A Musulman’ dated 5 February 1900 included the declaration: ‘Talk of injury to the British Empire, whoever dares it, must lay under the sword thirty crores [300 million] of Hindus and Musulmans before they do dare anything of the kind.’15 Even religious occasions were used for expressions of loyalty and solidarity. A correspondent of the Bombay Gazette, reporting on the Kuthba Id ceremony in Secunderabad in the southern Princely State of Hyderabad, noticed a banner ‘bearing in letters of gold the invocation, “Pray to Almighty God for the Success of Her Majesty’s Arms in the Transvaal War’” and adds: ‘It may be mentioned that it is a strong belief among the Mohammedans that whatever is prayed for on the “kuthba” day will be granted.’16 At the close of the ceremony a procession was formed and marched down the road, carrying flags and chanting a litany for the British success in South Africa.17 In a gesture of official acknowledgement of the Nizam of Hyderabad’s general ‘loyalty to Great Britain and devotion to the Empire’, it was even arranged by the Viceroy [ 155 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

that he should be the ‘mouthpiece of this glorious news [of the relief of Ladysmith]’.18 While princely assistance to the British was not unexpected, given the fact that many of them owed their position and survival to the Raj, wider Indian support for the war was not always so forthcoming. At a public meeting chaired by the Hon. Ranjit Sinah, Bahadur of Nashipur, in January 1900, Babu Panchkouri Bannerjee, the editor of Basumathi, stated that ‘there was no doubt that among the uneducated masses evil reports were rife, and they always received with elation any news of a British reverse’.19 Thus the loyalists saw their support for the British as a badge of superior education, culture and sense of duty. The Indian National Congress, the most popular and powerful organised political movement in India, was preoccupied at this time with famine-related issues. Generally, however, it supported, or at least did not oppose, the British war effort, in the the hope that the British, when victorious, would reward the Indians by undoing the restrictions and discrimination that Transvaal and Orange Free State Indians were suffering under Boer rule. Congress support was not unqualified, therefore, and discussions of South Africa in the three sessions held during the war were linked to wider concerns such as freedom of emigration within the Empire and India’s link with Britain. Nationalists were aware that the Indian army, paid entirely out of Indian taxation, was an essential instrument of British imperial policy. In his presidential address to the 1899 session of the Indian National Congress, R. C. Dutt linked the war and military preparedness to the causes of Indian poverty: There is the question of enormous military expenditure, and the maintenance of a vast army out of the resources of India, not for the requirements of India, but for the requirements of the British Empire in 20 Asia, Africa and even in Europe.

And the Resolution No. 3 passed at the session read: … the time has come when the Indian tax-payer should be granted some relief out of the British Exchequer towards the cost of maintaining in India 21 so large a force of European soldiers.

Thus, from the point of view of the Indian National Congress, Indian resources were being used in foreign adventures that did not benefit India.22 Although this criticism did not make a pointed reference to South Africa, the implications were clear. The Congress was not happy with the level of spending on the army. There were also other issues raised by the war which interested the Congress, not least the assertion of a greater role for India in the Empire and a recognition of its contributions. The [ 156 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR, EMPIRE AND INDIA

perennial demand for commissions for Indians in the army and for unfettered travel and residence in other parts of the Empire was a manifestation of this feeling. In the 1900 session of the Congress, Chandravarkar demanded in his presidential address the application of ‘the open-door’ policy for Indian manufacturers and Indians migrating abroad: ‘Now let that open door policy be for the whole Empire, and let not Indian subjects going to Natal or Cape Colony be treated as if India had no part or lot in the Empire.’23 The response of the Congress to imperial matters during the Boer War period took two forms: unhappiness at the way Indian resources were managed locally, and an active search for a bigger role in the world outside, especially within the Empire. Calls for complete independence were still years away. With Indian blood having been shed in many an imperial cause, Indian nationalists now wanted an equal share in the benefits of Empire, not least in South Africa where the British were claiming to uphold these principles. Gandhi’s resolution at the 1901 session signalled a greater Congress intervention on behalf of the Indians in South Africa, especially in requesting that Chamberlain should confer with Lord Milner ‘as to how the old [Boer] legislation should be changed’.24 Seconding the resolution, A. Pillai explained that such reforms were essential, ‘So our hearts can feel and sympathize with them, living as they do as strangers in a strange land as Israelites of old in the land of Pharaoh’.25 The resolution was carried unanimously. The ‘Moses’ that the South African Indians found was Gandhi, who played a leading role in articulating the Indian responses to their political condition in South Africa. A chief feature of his strategy of highlighting the plight of Indians was his emphasis on the principles of fair play and justice that the British rule claimed to represent. In this he was drawing on a long tradition of Indian faith in British justice which had its roots in Queen Victoria’s proclamation of 1858: We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories by the same obligations of duty which bind us to all our other subjects, and these obligations, by the blessing of Almighty God, we shall faithfully and 26 conscientiously fulfil.

The importance of this proclamation to the expectations of Indians in South Africa can be seen in the explicit and implicit references to it in several speeches and petitions.27 And as Christian values of compassion and humane treatment were also a part of the legitimising ideology of the Empire, humanitarian critiques of the Empire posited religious theory against daily practices. In an open letter in 1894 to the Members of the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly of Natal, Gandhi [ 157 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

had commented: ‘that the treatment of the Indians is contrary to the teachings of Christianity needs hardly any argument’.28 Thus the appeals, petitions and protests of the Indians in South Africa time and again raised the following aspects: equality of treatment with whites in the name of the Empire, fair play and justice in the name of British traditions, and compassion and humanity in the name of Christian or religious values. We can see these sentiments encapsulated in a letter written by Gandhi to The Times of Natal, in which he commented on the conspicuous absence of any coloured child in the children’s féte organised by the Mayor of Durban in 1894: Will you re-read your New Testament? Will you ponder over your attitude towards the coloured population of the Colony? Will you then say you can 29 reconcile it with the Bible teaching or the best British traditions?

Gandhi went on to remind British colonists in Natal that Indians were inheritors of a great civilisation and human achievements in linguistics, literature, science and mathematics and he vehemently denied widespread allegations that Indians were lacking in cleanliness.30 His reference to the rights of the ‘civilized’ was highly significant in a colonial society obsessed with the notion that it represented a superior British civilisation in the face of African ‘barbarism’. The emphasis on civilisational and cultural achievements was a way of finding a place for the Indians within the colonial world that recognised the certain ‘achievements’ of specific races. Gandhi’s demands were rooted in the acceptance of such an evaluatory framework, and thus diminished the possibility of making common cause with Africans and the Coloureds who were also excluded from power and privilege in South Africa. Such an ‘Indian rights first’ approach remained the basis of much political activity until the 1940s. On the other hand one could argue in favour of the approach as being the most practical and it allowed him to express his public loyalty to the Empire, and thus do his ‘karma’ or duty while retaining his own personal admiration and sympathy for the opposite side: the Boers during the South African War and the Zulus during the Bambatha Rebellion. Gandhi’s political strategies in South Africa anticipate his campaigns in India, a theme to which we will return later. The South African War, as far as the Indians were concerned, remained a ‘Sahibs’ War’, a war in which they participated almost exclusively in non-combatant roles, because both British settlers and the Boers were generally opposed to the use of non-whites in combat, on the grounds that participation would result either in the mutiny by nonwhite troops or the encouragement of insubordination among the nonwhite population. The pressures of war forced the British to make [ 158 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR, EMPIRE AND INDIA

exceptions for the African and Coloured populations, of whom more than 10,000 were armed.31 In the case of Indians, however, no such use was made. In the Boer republics, especially in the Transvaal, many were forced to become refugees and moved to Natal. Lord Kitchener’s suggestion that a number of Indian cavalry regiments be sent was turned down as ‘it would appear as a confession of weakness, since the impression would be given that the army had no more white troops left’.32 A number of Indian troops were sent but, because of British fears about their effect on imperial authority in Africa and India, they were given roles that did not really fit their military training. Highly disciplined and proficient Indian cavalrymen resented being shunted into menial support tasks; in this they attracted the active sympathies of many British troops. A common indictment of military administration was its restraint on the operational independence of Indian contingents. Officers complained that major tactical opportunities were squandered. The Viceroy attempted to use the issue of the South African War to persuade the War Office in London to permit the granting of Queen’s Commissions to Indian officers, but his requests met with determined 33 opposition. As well as contributing to the war effort in South Africa, India was also straining to sustain prisoner-of-war camps in South Africa and absorb Boer internees in India, which was paid for out of Indian revenue.34 However, it must be conceded that in general Indians in both India and South Africa were happy to contribute to the war effort as members of the Empire, even in the limited ways permitted. They not only collected money and materials for the war effort, but also entered the battlefield in ancillary roles. For example, Madras, Bengali and Punjabi cavalrymen performed non-combatant assignments in the remount departments, as water-carriers, stretcher-bearers and washermen.35 In Natal, Gandhi organised the Indian Ambulance Corps as part of the imperial forces, in an ‘endeavour to prove that, in common with other subjects of the Queen-Empress in South Africa, the Indians too are ready to do duty for their Sovereign on the battlefield’.36 He saw it as a part of a balance between demanding rights and discharging duties in the context of the Empire, and therefore it was a moral act. As with much of Gandhian activism, the moral was also political. Initiating, organising, participating in the action and being a spokesperson for the Ambulance Corps gave him an opportunity to build an organisation that bridged ethnic, religious, caste and language divisions in the Indian community.37 The cause had the support of different sections of the community. It had government assent, and the sugar estates released indentured Indians to join the Corps. The Indian trading community also provided cigarettes and money to support the leaders of the Corps and [ 159 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

their families, and the leaders were even honoured at a reception by Harry Escombe, the Premier of Natal. In spite of these favourable circumstances, it was not an easy task to attempt to encompass the diverse origins of the Indian population in South Africa. Gandhi came to regard the work of the volunteers as something done for the ‘Indian’ motherland and as well as ‘out of regard for him’. In return he offered to take any legal work without fee for the volunteers or their friends. The mixture of self-sacrifice, idealism, patriotism, public loyalty to the Empire, private obligation and reciprocity, combined to give Gandhi the political base that no other public figure before or during his stay in South Africa could command. As well as heightening the sense of imperial citizenship and demands for the privileges of that citizenship, the war also helped to radicalise Indian nationalism when these expectations were dashed. One of the less documented aspects of the war is the history of the Boer prisoners deported to different destinations outside South Africa, especially to India. Thousands of prisoners were brought to India and kept in camps around the country at Ahmednagar, Ambala, Amritsar, Bellary, Bhim Tal, Kakool, Muree, Nilgiris, Satara, Shahjahanpoor Sialkot and Tiruchinopoly, where some of them died in captivity. In 1993 the historian and veteran anti-apartheid activist E. S. Reddy visited the cemetery in Ambala and laid a wreath at the gravestone dedicated to twenty Boer prisoners ‘in a gesture to stress that the world is not against the Afrikaners but only against apartheid’.38 Reddy’s other contribution to this little-remembered South African-Indian link includes an article, ‘Time for Reconciliation’, in which he discussed the events surrounding the Boer commandant J. L. P. Erasmus, a Johannesburg solicitor from a prominent Afrikaner family, who was detained as a prisoner of war in Fort Gobindgarh. On his release Erasmus met Saradas Chopra, a barrister based in Amritsar in the Punjab, who in turn introduced him to friends from whom he obtained religious literature. Erasmus made a study of the subject and in October-November 1904 delivered a series of six lectures on ‘India: its religions and social history’ before the Transvaal Philosophical Society.39 Gandhi, who was then a fellow solicitor in Johannesburg, published the first lecture, on ‘the psychology of the Bhagavad Gita’, in Indian Opinion (5 November 1904), a weekly that he edited. Gandhi saw in Erasmus’s development hope for the future of white South African attitudes to race: That a South African, and he too, a Boer commandant, should interest himself in Indian studies, is to our mind, a happy augury for the future; and if we had more South Africans like him, we should hear very little indeed of 40 anti-Indian prejudices. [ 160 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR, EMPIRE AND INDIA

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

The war produced tragically few neat and happy endings as in the case of Erasmus, however, and the conflict did not lead to improvements in the legal standing of Indians. In fact conditions for Indians became worse. A cartoon published in the Review of Reviews epitomised the feeling and frustration of Indians in the post-war period. It shows two women, one representing Britain – ‘Britannia’ – and the other, India – ‘Hind’. In an angry mood ‘Hind’ asks: Will you please answer me plainly, Sister Britannia? Am I a partner in the British Empire or not? Are my children free citizens of that Empire? Have they the right to enter every nook and corner of it or not? Whether you will speak out plainly and unequivocally, authoritatively and without mincing matters, to those who would put restrictions in their way, and make them respect your Imperial authority?

Britannia does not answer, however, but looks the other way.41 The South African War did not satisfy widespread Indian expectations that a British victory would lead to the abolition of the discriminatory laws in Transvaal and Orange Free State and that a more generous political dispensation would be in place as a reward for their loyalty. An angry editorial in the Indian Opinion described India as ‘The Cinderella of the Empire’ and asked: ‘Is it an equable bargain that while India is expected to bear the burden of the Empire she may not get the 42 benefits of that Empire?’ Gandhi’s own frustration with British unwillingness to ensure the rights of Indians was expressed in the following words to Lord Elgin: ‘Our lot today [in 1906] is infinitely worse than under the Boer regime’, a sentiment shared by Africans and Coloureds and expressed by Segale, the Kgatla chief, and Dr Abdurahman, the Cape Malay Member of the Cape Town City Council.43 Each of the three groups saw their hopes for a better, nondiscriminatory life first raised and then crushed. The ending of the war brought no joy, but ultimately only more restrictions and misery in a state that represented a consolidation of British and Boer interests. As regards the wider impact of the war, one could see the admiration that the Boers earned in the Indian nationalist circles, especially with Gandhi, and this influenced his ideas and strategies. In Satyagraha in South Africa Gandhi wrote: His [General Botha’s] knowledge of English was excellent; yet when he met the King and the ministers he always preferred to talk in his own mother tongue … Boer women are as brave and simple as the men. If the Boers shed their blood in the Boer War, they were able offer this sacrifice owing to their 44 womenfolk and inspiration they receive from them.

And while moving a resolution for civil disobedience at the Indian National Congress meeting in 1928 he said: [ 161 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Have we got a General Botha in our midst who is prepared to sacrifice 20,000 acres of his valuable property and so many thousands of sheep? … Have we got a General Smuts who is just as ready to tuck up his sleeves and work underground as to shoulder his rifle when the country demanded? I 45 feel we have. If we had not I would not place this resolution before you.

The war’s most significant legacy was the development of Gandhi’s religio-political philosophy in the midst of conflicts and contradictory loyalties. In a speech at Calcutta on 27 January 1902, when he was on a tour of India to inform the Indian public about the conditions in which Indians lived in South Africa, he recalled an incident from his Ambulance Corps days on the battlefield at Chiveley. A group of white soldiers cheerfully shared scarce water with Indian stretcher-bearers ‘in a spirit of brotherhood irrespective of colour or creed’. Reflecting on the incident Gandhi compared his and other Indians’ participation in the South African War to that of Arjun, the unwilling warrior in the Hindu epic Mahabharata who enters the fray to answer the demands of duty. Gandhi couched his explanation in Hindu terms: As a Hindu, I do not believe in war, but if anything can even partially reconcile me to it, it was the rich experience we [soldiers/stretcher-bearers] gained at the front. It was certainly not the thirst for blood that took thousands of men to the battlefield. If I may use a most holy name without doing violence to our feelings, like Arjun, they went to the battlefield 46 because it was their duty.

The notion of ‘detached conduct’ or karma is a crucial concept that allowed Gandhi to be reconciled with his role as a supporter of the British and the Empire. To him, supporting the British was a duty that had to be done even though his sympathies were with the Boers or, later, the Zulus. The same philosophy allowed him in his South African and Indian political campaigns to mix politics, morality and religion to oppose what he and his fellow Satyagrahis saw as injustice that needs to be opposed even if the odds were stacked against them. His change from an arch-defender of the Empire to a ‘Quit India’ politician is a different story. But what is important as a legacy of the Boer War is the birth of Gandhi’s political philosophy and campaign strategy of passive resistance. But what did Gandhi, and the Indian community at large, make of the fellow sufferers from racial discrimination in South Africa, especially the Africans? Gandhi had once advised Indians to keep their campaign for rights distinct from those of other non-white groups. This strategy was followed by the Natal Indian Congress, an organisation in which Gandhi played a leading role. In a petition, drafted by Gandhi, to Lord [ 162 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR, EMPIRE AND INDIA

Ripon, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, against the Franchise Bill of 1894, Hajee Mohamed Hajee Dada and sixteen other Indian British subjects ‘noticed with shame and sorrow’ attempts to compare them with ‘the Natives of South Africa’ and pointed out ‘the marked difference that exists between the Governments of Indian British subjects and Native British subjects’.47 They were also worried about the ‘anomaly that the Bill would rank the Indian lower than the rawest native’.48 The Natal Indian Congress also ‘asked the authorities to provide three entrances, instead of two, to public buildings such as the Post Office, so that Indians would be separated from Africans’.49 In 1904 Gandhi himself was unhappy about ‘the mixing of Kaffirs with Indians’ in Johannesburg locations.50 He was also ‘extremely unhappy’ about having to wear prison clothes marked ‘N’ for ‘Native’ and having to share prison cells with Africans when he and other passive resisters in Transvaal were imprisoned.51 The exclusive pursuit of political struggle to address grievances that were specific to British Indians in the first instance could be seen as the best available option in the prevailing conditions of the day. It was not so much ‘ethnocentrism’ as a calculated political agenda to win the interests of an insecure minority.52 It was purely ‘a political tactic’.53 The Indian presence in South Africa had, after all, resulted directly from imperialism. Rights based on conquest and possession of coercive apparatus that whites could exercise or the legitimacy of the ‘sons of the soil’ that Africans and Coloureds could claim through earlier inhabitation of the country were not available to Indians. Consequently, Indian attempts to consolidate their position relied on convincing the colonists, and indeed the imperial administration, of their moral and legal right to be in South Africa. Thus, their appeals for justice and equality were couched in such a way as to appeal to humanitarian and Christian conscience and directed to the colonists, as well as the imperial government and metropolitan British opinion. They appealed to that reputed British sense of fairness, justice and promises which had been implied in Queen Victoria’s proclamation of 1858. A more subtle class-based ‘civilisational’ argument focusing on past and contemporary achievements in culture and civilisation was used to appeal to the whites for a more privileged political position than that of the Africans, who occupied the lowest level in the colonial scheme of things. This ‘civilisational’ argument asserted that Indians were inheritors of an ancient, sophisticated civilisation which placed them far above ‘savage’ and ‘barbarous’ aboriginal populations. They therefore deserved an honourable place without restrictions on their legitimate pursuit of trade and professional prosperity. [ 163 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

This argument overlapped with the civilisational concepts that underpinned European colonial encounters with Africa, which suggested that the ‘dark continent’ was very low in a civilisational scale compared to India. Lord Curzon as Viceroy once refused a request from London that Indian labour be made available for use in German East Africa when he learned that there Indians were treated ‘more or less on the level of aborigines with whom they have nothing in common but colour’, and they were subjected to treatment ‘degrading and injurious to their selfrespect’.54 Gandhi also made use of civilisational concepts, however, referring, for example, to Santhals, one of the aboriginal groups (‘tribals’) in India and comparing them to Africans he encountered in South Africa, thus linking ethnic prejudices in India and in Africa. In his ‘Green Pamphlet’ speeches in 1896 he disputed the official description of Indians as belonging to the ‘aboriginal or semi-barbarous races of Asia,’ because, ‘as a matter of fact there is hardly one Indian in South Africa belonging to the aboriginal stock. The Santhals of Assam will be as useless in South Africa as the natives of that country.’55 The South African War and its aftermath was a missed opportunity for white South Africans. By refusing to make concessions politically and constitutionally, the British colonists left a vocal minority dissatisfied. As Indians had moral and legal claims for equal treatment, they could rely on moral and material and institutional support from individuals in India, as well as from political organisations and the government of India itself. The India Office in London also played a limited but important role in maintaining pressure on South Africa on the issue of Indian rights. While South Africa wanted to keep the question of Indian rights – like that of the Africans and Coloureds – a domestic issue, the government of India sought to make it at least a bilateral issue and it used as a lever its power to turn off the supply of indentured labour. When it did not get its way fully, it extracted concessions and commitments about accepting the Indians on a relatively firmer legal footing. For South African Indians the war did not resolve problems of identity and collaboration within the racial/power mosaic of the country. The pre-war interest in seeking recognition and concessions from the whites did not change even when such requests were rejected. The political leadership – especially Gandhi himself – was against alliances with other non-white groups. This go-it-alone policy had a lasting influence, as the conditions which led to it in the first place – a marginalised minority unable to claim its place either in terms of power or being native to the country/having longer period of inhabitation – continued for decades after the war. The weakening of imperial ties, the [ 164 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR, EMPIRE AND INDIA

inability of the imperial government to uphold Indian rights in South Africa, and the emergence of a locally born population to whom the Empire was a distant and somewhat embittered memory, combined to encourage South African Indians to recognise their common experience with the disenfranchised majority. The outcome of the negotiations with the vanquished Boers and the nature of the Union of South Africa could have been different if the war had not been just a ‘Sahibs’ War’. For the Empire the war provided a challenge and an opportunity by bringing together different parts of the Empire in a demonstration of commitment to an imperial cause. But it also highlighted the racial faultlines of the Empire. The inability of the imperial government to enforce its stated creed of non-discrimination between ‘children of the Empire’ showed up its weaknesses, while the non-utilisation of the Indian native troops resulted in an inefficient use of manpower and, possibly, prolonged the war. British control of South Africa seemed to offer a unique opportunity to reward Indian loyalty, but the racial fears of colonists in Natal and the Cape were given greater priority over the reputed principles of justice and fair play that empire was supposed to represent. Such apparent weakness on the part of the imperial government had a long-term effect on the future both of South Africa and of India. In the negotiations which led to the creation of the Union, the Indian population was alienated along with the African and Coloured majority population. In India this strengthened the influence of those nationalists who believed that Britain would always choose or be forced to appease its white kith and kin rather than reward loyal ‘nonEuropean’ subjects. The more Anglophile, moderate wing of the Congress was further weakened. Had Indian nationalism been appeased in southern Africa at this stage, its later identification with African nationalism might not have emerged so rapidly after independence as a central platform of independent India, when India led the internationalisation of the issue of apartheid in the Commonwealth and at the United Nations.56

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6

L. S. Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, 1899–1902 (London, 1900), vol. 1, p. 2. L. S. Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, 1899–1902 (London, 1905), vol. III, p. 6. Ibid., pp. 44–5 (emphasis added). D. M. Morrison, India and Imperial Federation (London, 1900), pp. 54–5. Ibid., p. 67. D. Northrup, Indentured Labour in the Age of Imperialism, 1834–1922 (Cambridge, 1995),

[ 165 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

7

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27

28

p. 162. Gandhi’s assessment of the position of Indians in South Africa in 1896, in F. Meer (ed.), The South African Gandhi: An Abstract of the Speeches and Writings of M. K. Gandhi (Durban, 1996), p. 166. For the Indian question in South Africa see H. J. and R. E. Simons, Class and Colour in South Africa, 1850–1950 (Harmondsworth, 1969); R. A. Huttenback, Gandhi in South Africa: British Imperialism and the Indian Question, 1860–1914 (Cornell, 1971); M. Swan, Gandhi: The South African Experience (Johannesburg, 1985); J. D. Hunt, Gandhi and a Non-Conformist Education in South Africa (New Delhi, 1986); J. Brown and M. Prozesky (eds), Gandhi and South Africa: Principles and Politics (Pietermaritzburg, 1996); Y. Chadha, Rediscovering Gandhi (London, 1997), pp. 48–193. Fiddes to Milner, 7 April 1899, cited in D. Cammack, The Rand at War, 1899–1902: The Witwatersrand and the Anglo-Boer War (London, 1990), p. 20. Ibid., pp. 20, 32. C. Headlam (ed.), The Milner Papers: South Africa, 1897–1899 (London, 1931), pp. 304–5, emphasis in the original. Morrison, India and Imperial Federation, pp. 12–13. Ibid., cited on p. 31. Lord Curzon, the Viceroy; Curzon to Hamilton, 28 December 1899, Curzon Papers, MSS Eur. F. 111/158. No. 64, cited in S. R. Mehrotra, India and the Commonwealth, 1885–1929 (London, 1965), p. 19. Morrison, India and Imperial Federation, p. 31. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., pp. 45–6. Ibid., p. 49. Ibid., p. 66. Ibid., pp. 21–22. A. M. Zaidi and S. Zaidi, The Encyclopaedia of the Indian National Congress, vol. 3: 1896– 1900 (New Delhi, 1977), p. 465. Ibid., p. 476. ‘The Indian army, as distinct from the British army in India, had been used in the China Wars (1840–42 and 1857–60) and in the Abyssinian campaign of 1867. In 1878, 7,000 Sepoys were dispatched to Malta, and the Indian troops were used in Egypt in 1882, in Sudan (Suakim) in 1896 and in China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900–01. Additionally, Indian soldiers served on garrison duty in Ceylon, Mauritius, Singapore, Aden and Weihaiwei, and in the 1890s in parts of Africa. See A. P. Kaminsky, The India Office, 1880–1910 (London, 1986), p. 110. Zaidi and Zaidi, The Encyclopaedia of the Indian National Congress, vol. 3, p. 686. A. M. Zaidi and S. Zaidi, The Encyclopaedia of the Indian National Congress, vol. 4 (New Delhi, 1978), p. 82. Ibid., p. 84. H. S. L. Polak, The Indians of South Africa: Helots within the Empire and How They Are Treated (Madras, 1909), p. v. ‘We worship this Queen [Victoria], whose Proclamation has been set at naught by the Transvaal Government’ protested Dr Godfrey at a meeting held on 11 September 1906: Indian Opinion, 22 September 1906; cited in Meer (ed.), The South African Gandhi, p. 301. Cited in ibid., p. 139. One such critique, anticipating Gandhi’s, was that of Thomas Pringle, one of the British settlers who arrived in the eastern Cape Colony in 1820, who had earlier argued: He [Kaffir] a robber? – True; it is a strife Between the black skinned bandit and the White, A Savage? Yes, though loth to aim at life, Evil for evil, fierce he doth requite A heathen? – Teach him, then, thy better creed, Christian! If thou deserv’st that name indeed. (Poems Illustrative of South Africa: African Sketches, (Cape Town [1834], 1970), p. 96)

[ 166 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR, EMPIRE AND INDIA 29 30 31 32

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

33

34 35 36 37 38

39

40 41 42 43 44 45

46

47 48 49 50

51

52 53

Letter to The Times of Natal, 26 October 1894, in Meer (ed.), The South African Gandhi, p. 121. Ibid., pp. 133–9. P. Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899–1902 (Johannesburg, 1983), p. 25. Views of St John Brodrick, the Secretary of State for War, and Lord Roberts, the Commander-in-Chief. Cited in ibid., p. 23. Navy and Army Gazette, 19 May 1900, 28 September 1900; Oxfordshire Light Infantry Chronicle (1900), p. 108; cited in B. Nasson, Abraham Esau’s War: A Black South African War in the Cape, 1899–1902 (Cambridge, 1991), p. 13; C. S. Sundaram, ‘“Martial” Indian aristocrats and the military system of the Raj: the Imperial Cadet Corps, 1900–1914’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 25:3 (1997), pp. 415–19. Kaminsky, The India Office, p. 112. Warwick, Black People, p. 187. Gandhi’s letter to the Colonial Secretary, Pietermaritzburg, 19 October 1899, in Meer (ed.), The South African Gandhi, p. 744. S. Bhana, ‘Gandhian legacy: a review essay’, South African Historical Journal, 35 (1996), p. 168. E. S. Reddy, ‘Why I knelt in tribute to Boer prisoners buried in Ambala’, Typescript of unpublished article, pp. 1 and 5. I am grateful to Mr Reddy for lending the article and giving permission to quote from it. There were also other destinations in St Helena, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Bermuda, and the total number of prisoners of war involved was 30,000. A. G. Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 2: The Discovery of Satyagraha – On the Threshold (Bombay, 1980), p. 267, cited in Reddy, ‘Time for reconciliation’, Typescript of unpublished article. The above account of Erasmus is based on Reddy’s article. I am thankful to him for his permission to use it. Reddy, ‘Time for reconciliation’, p. 11. From The Review of Reviews, n.d., Boer War pamphlet collection, Kellie Campbell Africana Library, Durban. Indian Opinion (Durban), 30 July 1903, p. 2. Warwick, Black People, pp. 176–7. Reddy, ‘Time for reconciliation’, pp. 7–8. Ibid., p. 8. Gandhi expressed a similar opinion of Botha in Navajivan, 15 January 1922, quoted in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 22, December 1921-March 1922 (Ahmedabad, 1966), pp. 189–90. Meer (ed.), The South African Gandhi, p. 760. Emphasis added. The Mahabharata is a story of two branches of a ruling family of the warrior caste. They try to settle the question of supremacy, among other methods by war. When the actual epic battle was about to commence, Arjun(a), the leading figure of one of the parties, whose chariot the godincarnate Krishna piloted, refuses to fight. He tells Krishna that he is not willing to slaughter his kith and kin and fight his elders, whom he worshipped, for the sake of the kingdom: ‘I do not know if any kingdom is worth winning after so much bloodshed. What is that gain worth?’ At this point ‘Krishna began to preach in gentle tones, a profound philosophy of detached conduct’ and convinced Arjuna through an elaborate philosophical dialogue that it was his duty to fight. R. K. Narayan, The Mahabharata (London, 1978), p. 147. Meer (ed.), The South African Gandhi, p. 128. Ibid., p. 130. Reddy, ‘Time for reconciliation’, pp. 7–8. M. Swan, Gandhi: The South African Experience (Johannesburg, 1985), pp. 112–13; U. S. Mesthrie, ‘Eastern roots: a representation of the history of Indian South Africans in film’, South African Historical Journal, 31 (1994), p. 248. U. S. Mesthrie, ‘From advocacy to mobilisation: Indian Opinion 1903–1914’, Paper at the conference on ‘A century of the resistance press in South Africa’, University of the Western Cape, 1991, p. 20; cited in ibid. Ibid., p. 248. F. Meer, Portrait of Indian South Africans (Durban, 1969), p. 28.

[ 167 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED 54 55

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

56

Kaminsky, The India Office, p. 113, citing Curzon’s correspondence with Col. S. H. E. McCallum, 5 June 1902, CP. F. 11/280. Meer (ed.), The South African Gandhi, p. 166. The pamphlet entitled ‘The grievances of the British Indians in South Africa: an appeal to the Indian public’ is known as the ‘Green Pamphlet’ on account of the colour of its cover. See A. Gupta, ‘A note on Indian attitudes to Africa’, African Affairs, 69 (1970), pp. 171–3.

[ 168 ]

CHAPTER TEN

Pricking the ‘non-conformist conscience’: religion against the South African War Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Greg Cuthbertson

A study of the ‘non-conformist conscience’ (which reflected the political life of free churches, such as the Congregational, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Unitarian and Quaker) and the South African War of 1899– 1902 inevitably intersects with many historiographical debates. British imperial historians – in the wake of a renewed debate about the ideologies of imperialism, especially cultural imperialism, and a rethink about the economics of empire1 – have taken a hard look at how religion has influenced the construction of empire. John Wolffe, in a wideranging exploration of religion in Britain and Ireland between 1843 and 1945, shows how fruitful working at the ‘interface between “ecclesiastical” or “church” history and “mainstream” history’ has been in recent British writing. Religious history has moved beyond the bounds of conventionally defined Christian institutions and theologies at the same time as historians in other fields have shown a greater sensitivity to religious factors.2 The literature on nonconformity in nineteenth-century Britain has been refined in the 1980s and early 1990s, following the seminal contributions of David Bebbington and Brian Stanley.3 This makes a difference about how one interprets nonconformity during the South African War. Detailed regional studies have changed the contours of the historiography of Victorian religion and cast doubts on earlier theories about secularisation, the religious counterpart of theories of modernisation.4 There is no longer any clear relationship between urbanisation (and industrialisation) and a decline in the strength of organised religion, or the importance of religious belief.5 Since this chapter is concerned with the anti-war strand of the nonconformist conscience, the historical literature about ‘pro-Boerism’ is germane. The term ‘pro-Boer’ is problematic; non-conformists were antiwar’ more than ‘pro-Boer’. The ‘pro-Boerism’ of uitlanders is touched on in Diana Cammack’s history of Johannesburg,6 Donal McCracken’s [ 169 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

study of Irish pro-Boers offers a neo-metropolitan analysis7 and Hope Hewison’s exhaustive labour of love examines Quaker activism and relief work during the war.8 The anti-war Quakers had to contend with the vociferous imperialism of many other non-conformist ministers who were roundly condemned by what John Morley, outspoken critic of the South African War, called ‘the glorification of war by men whose profession is peace, the glorification of all the advantages that come from the moral discipline of war from the lips of men who have no intention of undertaking any of that moral discipline’.9 There can be little doubt that nonconformity sanctified military involvement in the war against the Boers. Any pacifism which might have been present in dissenting Christianity was systematically eroded by the militarisation of British society and widely held notions about the God-given role of Britain to subjugate colonial peoples.10 Although the non-conformist conscience was gradually incorporated into a broader imperialist ideology – which it also helped to shape – in the 1890s, and particularly during the South African War, Hewison’s important argument is that much resistance to the war was explicitly religious in nature and origin. In this sense, her work is pioneering and puts religion back on the imperial map. She is, however, too concerned with Quakerism itself and only hints at the intersection between Quaker and Christian socialist political philosophy in 1900. She also exaggerates the role of Friends in the anti-war movement, at the expense of nonconformist – particularly Baptist and Unitarian – socialists.11 The failure of the non-conformist anti-war faction to create a mass movement in Britain was not only due to its internal divisions, but also to its growing middle-class pretensions and declining influence among the working class, whose church attendance was in retreat by the beginning of the South African War in 1899. The extent of popular opposition to the war is, however, difficult to gauge.12 Of the two hundred resolutions (hostile to British policy in South Africa) sent to the Colonial Office between June and November 1899, the vast majority came from non-conformist bodies such as the National Council of (Evangelical) Free Churches (NCFC).13 Although they represented the more traditional non-conformist conscience (i.e. Cobdenite Liberalism), which was important in shaping the opinions and actions of the Stopthe-War Committee, they were not in the ‘mainstream of nonconformist opinion’.14 The weakness of the non-conformist anti-war movement mirrored that of the larger general ‘pro-Boer’ lobby. The ineffectual campaign of the pro-Boers has been well documented.15 Its lack of leadership and [ 170 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

RELIGION AGAINST THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

tardy mobilisation hindered its attempts to stop the drift into war in 1899, and muted its calls for a negotiated peace after the expulsion of the Boers from colonial territory. It has been argued that ‘pro-Boer advocacy was harmful to the humanitarian impulse’ because Quaker relief in 1901 came to be associated with partisans in the public mind. Anti-war nonconformists also lost credibility because of their links with ‘eccentrics, disciples of esoteric cults (including vegetarians, doctrinaire pacifists and temperance enthusiasts) and inveterate supporters of worthy causes’.16 A purely negative verdict on the achievements of the anti-war movement would, however, be too simplistic. Not only did it counter propaganda about the conduct of the war and publicise the ‘methods of barbarism’ committed in concentration camps under ‘scorched earth’ military strategy, but it also sharpened radicalism in British politics after the war.17 The resolutions sent to the Colonial Office show clearly that there was a current of non-conformist opinion opposed to the war. Nevertheless, the non-conformist conscience which had influenced the ‘national conscience’ during the Bulgarian Agitation of 1876–78, failed ‘to speak with a clear, strong and united voice on the issue of imperialism versus anti-imperialism’ in 1899–1900.18 Munson puts it more bluntly: ‘It was in 1899 that the non-conformist conscience came to grief.’19 Apart from the protest of Quakers,20 strongly worded resolutions condemning British policy in South Africa came mostly from Primitive Methodists who ‘deplored the threatening attitude pursued by the Colonial Secretary,’ convinced ‘that to make war upon the Boers over the issue at present in dispute would be an act of unrighteousness which would tarnish our good name and would be disastrous to the future of the South African Colonies’.21 The Methodist free churches, who shared none of Wesleyanism’s enthusiasm for imperialism,22 also objected to a war against fellow Protestants.23 They spoke for a predominantly working-class membership, which indicates that the anti-war movement, although essentially a middle-class phenomenon, had wider appeal at the outbreak of war. The Free Methodists, however, stood on the radical fringes of nonconformity and were too much of a minority to modify the non-conformist conscience.24 The NCFC registered its protest against war with the Boer republics in October 1899. District Free Church Councils took the lead in appealing to the British government to avoid war. The executive of the NCFC passed a cautious resolution which emphasised the considerable patience of the British government in negotiations with the Transvaal, and urged that diplomacy and arbitration be continued in the hope of averting war.25 This weak response foreshadowed division in nonconformist ranks and ended any possibility of a united anti-war [ 171 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

campaign by the free churches in Britain. As the NCFC was passing its equivocal statement, local free church councils were holding peace prayer meetings.26 Once the war began, however, much of the pacific sentiment disappeared, and in March 1900, dissension reached such a pitch that a resolution banning all discussion of the war was passed unanimously by the committee of the NCFC.27 Only a hard core of nonconformist opposition to the war remained. The Colonial Office gave scant attention to anti-war protests. Officials who expected a torrent of opposition from non-conformist, trade-union or peace associations, refused to print or circulate it. The Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, himself a Unitarian, endorsed this policy.28 It is clear, therefore, that protest was not seen as a threat to British policy and that the Conservative government was sure of overwhelming public support for the war. Owing to the special relationship between the Conservative government and the Church of England, any opposition to imperial policy had to come from nonconformity. Anglican protest was an aberration.29 Since nonconformity’s large Wesleyan Methodist contingent was mainly imperialistic, free-church opposition to Chamberlain’s designs was relatively ineffectual. Munson points out that the number of Wesleyans in the armed services almost doubled between 1890 and 1901, which was bound to influence their outlook.30 Among the Congregationalists and Baptists there were pockets of anti-war sentiment, but non-conformists generally chose to be neither jingoes nor pro-Boers. However, ‘their favourable disposition to empire separated them far more sharply from opponents of the war than from those who gloried in it outright’.31 Only a remnant took up the cudgels against the war. Among the most articulate and persuasive of its leaders was the Baptist intellectual, the Rev. Dr John Clifford. The central concerns of his life were the Baptist faith, socialism, secular public education and pacifism. He was sectarian in religious outlook and energetically Fabian in his politics.32 His attacks on capitalism were uncharacteristic of nonconformist ministers of his generation and his advocacy of collectivism as a better environment for Christian work33 had little support in freechurch circles. His views about war were equally unrepresentative, but his powerful influence within the Baptist denomination has led a prominent scholar to conclude mistakenly that ‘of all the churches only the Baptist presented a united front against the [South African] war’.34 Any tendency on the part of Baptists to side with the anti-war movement was mainly due to Clifford’s vigorous campaign. His focus on the social implications of Christianity won him a working-class audience.35 He cooperated with W. T. Stead on the Peace Committee and [ 172 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

RELIGION AGAINST THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

served as executive chairman of the Stop-the-War Committee during the war.36 His fierce condemnation of the concentration camps resulted in his church being besieged by an angry mob during the imperialistic demonstrations of 1900.37 Clifford’s pamphlet, Brotherhood and the War in South Africa (January 1900), contains an incisive analysis of the pretexts of war. Since the outbreak of hostilities, he wrote, there had been ‘a steadfast growth of the idea that we are fighting for the emancipation of the natives from Boer tyranny. It is not for gold. It is not for Empire. It is not to give the Outlander the vote … no! It is “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” to the South African natives … Of course everyone knows that not one syllable was said of the “native” till we were far on in the quarrel and had been beaten again and again.’ Nevertheless, Clifford was anxious to ensure that once the issue of African rights had been raised, it should ‘not be forgotten in the arrangements for labour in the mines made by capitalists, or in the terms of citizenship offered to the aboriginal tribes’.38 Complicity in the war on the part of all the British churches was also one of Clifford’s major themes. He was disgusted that ‘John Bull will annex … and the churches will bless his theft!’ He predicted that the ‘faithless, cowardly churches’ would suffer most as a result of the war because of their denial of moral conscience. He proposed vigorous opposition to the government and a dramatic restructuring of Liberalism, by ‘shedding its wealthier and “more aristocratic” members; men who prefer class to humanity, and bigness of empire to justice of conduct; and by going to a “lower” stratum of the social world’. In effect, he was suggesting a party ‘composed of the most level-headed of the Socialists and the most radical of the Radicals’.39 The Baptists were also implicated in the anti-war movement in Liverpool where it was a very vocal minority. Dr Charles Aked of Pembroke Chapel did for Liverpool nonconformity what Clifford had done for London. Despite their tenacity, however, Baptists were not won over to the anti-war lobby as a denomination, even though their stance was never quite unequivocal.40 This meant that both the radicals and imperialists claimed a majority of Baptist support. Baptist ambivalence caused F. W. Hirst, writer and intellectual, to record that ‘the leading Baptist and Independent Ministers are all right’,41 and Silas Hocking complained that the Baptists as a whole ignored the Stop-the-War Committee.42 Hirst was probably referring to high-profile Baptists like Clifford, whereas Hocking was doubtless pointing to the weak support from grassroots membership. It is also true that neither the Baptist Times, a weekly non-conformist newspaper, nor the Baptist Magazine, a monthly publication, was prepared to support anti-war statements made [ 173 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

by Baptist ministers.43 Anti-war Baptists were able to appeal to some working-class radicalism within their ranks,44 but generally the Baptist press had to cater to middle-class tastes. Nevertheless, more Baptist ministers than Congregationalists stated their opposition to the war especially in the opening stages of the conflict.45 Since the essence of the Stop-the-War Committee’s appeal was a religious one, it was possible lor a socialist non-conformist, such Clifford, and non-conformists who were not socialists, such as W. T Stead to work together on the committee in support of the peace movement Their resolutions were full of references to the anti Christian policies of the government. The committee was utopian in vision and precisely because of this high moral tone it failed to attract workingclass support.46 The Stop-the-War Committee was less rational in its nature and methods than its allied body, the South African Conciliation Committee (SACC), and therefore incurred a far greater hatred and provoked more opposition.47 Although the anti-war movement drew some strength from Christianity it could not rely on the institutional backing of any significant section of the churches.48 Instead, it had to depend on individual ministers of religion, mainly non-conformists, to put its case. The most notable among English Presbyterians was Dr John Watson, who wrote under the pseudonym of Ian Maclaren. Presbyterians were sensitive about being at war with fellow Christians of the Reformed tradition.49 Watson deplored the outbreak of war between Britain and the Boer republics. He had little respect for the reservists in the British army who answered the call to ‘butcher their Boer brethren’. He also resented the powerlessness of the anti-war movement to prevent conflict The only lorn, of protest left to him was to write letters to the press objecting to the ‘spirit of militarism which is infecting quiet, decent, church-going people’. He condemned war as a means of reso1ving international disputes and declared his commitment to the ideals of the Peace Society.50 Watson’s influence in nonconformity was considerable ans as moderator of the Presbyterian Church of England in 1900–01,51 he reflected the attitudes of at least the upper echelons of its membership. Untilmid-1900, he was a regular contributor to the British Weekly, which gave incisive coverage to anti-government comment and was the major non-conformist mouthpiece for centrist Liberalism during the war. It resisted Lord Rosebery’s bid for Liberal Party leadership in 1901 because it believed this would divide the party and replace its Gladstonian tradition with Liberal imperialism. The British Weekly there fore spoke loudly for the policies of Henry Campbell-Bannerma.52At the beginning of [ 174 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

RELIGION AGAINST THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

the South African War, it favoured the views of the leading anti-war clerics, such as Clifford and Watson. Watson’s sermons were often reported, which emphasises the importance of the pulpit in Victorian society.53 He obviously subscribed to the theory of a capitalist conspiracy in the Transvaal, declaring that ‘if the only end this war would serve were to give fresh fields for greed and gambling then the best thing that could happen to our country would be defeat’ On the other hand, he believed that victory would have to bring ‘equal rights to all men, whether Dutch or English, black or white, in South Africa’.54 He was one of the few nonconformist ministers to speak of equal rights for Africans as well as uitlanders and Boers. Watson had the same views as Clifford on the causes of the war. His polemic against Chamberlain and Rhodes was well known.55 But his anti-war stance was short-lived. Like his Congregational contemporary, the Rev. R. J. Campbell,56 his initial denunciation of the war changed to an insistence that once it had begun it should be expedited. Although he remained convinced about British culpability, he nevertheless argued that the war should be waged in such a way that ‘it shall never need to be fought again’.57 His defection was a blow to the antiwar movement very early in the conflict. It seems, however, that he was uneasy about the shift. He consistently spoke out against the capitalist exploitation implicit in British policy, while at the same time urging a triumph of British arms.58 In many ways he was undecided, reflecting the quandary of many non-conformists during the war. By March 1900, his conversion to the imperialist cause was complete. In a sermon delivered at Sefton Park Presbyterian Church in Liverpool, he dismissed the allegation that the war was being fought on behalf of the ‘gold-seekers’, contending that ‘England was fighting … for liberty, for righteousness, for equal rights … for abolition of slavery, for lasting peace … and for the unsullied glory of the English name’.59 Watson’s change of heart symbolises the larger conversion of the non-conformist conscience to imperialism.60 Another setback to anti-war nonconformity was the defection of Campbell, one of the most eloquent Congregational preachers in Britain. Speaking in Brighton at the end of December 1899, Campbell expressed solidarity with a ‘minority who do not approve, and never have approved, of the motive of this war,’ which he claimed had been sparked by the ‘filibustering’ Jameson Raid.61 It was not long, however, before his deeply felt commitment to empire won him over to the mainstream of non-conformist support for the war. Campbell’s biographer regrets that ‘the “irresistible force” was not the non-conformist (or any other) conscience, but a music-hall excrescence of braggart Jingiosm, Which drove the Council of the Federation of the Free Churches ignominiously to its tent’.62 Campbell’s anti-war views were dramatically changed by [ 175 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

his visit to South Africa early in 1900. On his tour, he was impressed by the loyalty to Queen Victoria expressed by those whom he met: ‘The very natives share it. They hear Britons speak of their Queen as they would of a Divinity, and they catch the inspiration.’ His contact with missionaries of the London Missionary Society also persuaded him that the war was being fought for Africans.63 At the Congregational Union assembly in October 1899, the meeting cheered a statement announcing that Britain had been forced to go to war.64 An overwhelming majority of the denomination embraced imperialism. Only a few dissenting voices were heard in support of the Rev. J. Hirst Hollowell, who remained implacably opposed to the war, even to the point of parting company with the staunch John Clifford on this subject.65 Some of the other leading opponents of war were Charles Silvester Horne, who experienced intense loneliness in his convictions,66 Urijah Thomas, a Bristol Congregationalist, Alexander Mackennal, of Bowdon Downs in Manchester, who refused to attend the committee meetings of the NCFC because it had failed to condemn the war,67 and Basil Martin, minister at Hereford, who believed that all wars were wrong.68 Congregationalist MPs, such as Halley Stewart and R. L. Everett, remained firmly committed to the peace movement, which they had supported since the days of Henry Richard.69 But, of the leading Congregationalists who campaigned against imperialism, the most prominent was Silvester Horne. He consistently opposed the war and condemned the policy that had led up to it. Horne records that he ‘preached against war with some hesitation’ because the pro-war element in Congregationalism was so strong. He was in a precarious position as Chairman of the Congregational Union in 1900 and drew support mainly from his friend and colleague, Dr R. F. Horton, who thought ‘the power and character of a Boer are such as might make his rule … purer and nobler’ than that of the British.70 Horne was labelled a ‘pro-Boer’ and ran the risk of dismissal by his congregation which took an opposing view.71 The imperialist press also attacked him. But as the war dragged on, Congregationalism in Britain became more tolerant of the anti-war position. This shift was reflected at a Congregational anti-war rally which drew almost four hundred assembly delegates in October 1901.72 The annual assembly of 1901 was therefore unable to make a statement on the war for fear of alienating either the imperialists or the radicals. In its annual report, the executive committee of the Congregational Union confessed that ‘knowing the wide differences of opinion [on the war issue] that exist in the Churches … [it] felt itself precluded from expressing any positive opinion on the policy of her Majesty’s Government’.73 [ 176 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

RELIGION AGAINST THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

There was a shift in Congregationalist opinion on the war at the top, but it would be an exaggeration to suggest any similar softening of imperialist feeling among the general membership. There had always been differences in outlook between pulpit and pew, which widened during the war. The dividing line was often social. Congregationalism in Lewisham provides a typical case study.74 Burnt Ash Congregational Church, whose minister, the Rev. G. Critchley, was an ardent pro-Boer, was bitterly divided during the South African War. He was forced to resign, although a large minority of members supported his views and left with him. At a meeting in April 1900, a motion calling on Critchley to withdraw his resignation was defeated by a margin of only two votes. Another Congregationalist, the Rev. R W. Aveling, the headmaster of a Blackheath school, was also called a pro-Boer. In February 1900 he preached in Critchley’s church. His sermon provoked protest from some members. And, like Critchley’s, his windows were smashed by mobs on 75 Mafeking Night. Aveling was a founder member of the general committee of the Stop-the-War Committee in 1900.76 It is significant that it should be the homes of two Congregationalists that were attacked on Mafeking Night, while the Anglican vicarage at Lewisham was decorated with Union Jacks.77 It is difficult to establish exactly how strong anti-war feeling was among the working-class non-conformists. The non-conformists themselves disagreed about the extent of worker opposition to the war. the British Weekly claimed that during the khaki election of 1900 workers had voted Tory, but it hoped that this was only a temporary alliance: ‘So long as working men do not feel the cost of the war, they like to throw their caps in the air; but the coming months, though they will not … make the working men Little Englanders, may do much to cure their jingoism.’78 Such a view, and an editorial on the Trades Union Congress and the war a few weeks later, evoked a fierce debate on working-class opinions in the non-conformist press. The Rev. George Armstrong, minister of the Primitive Methodist Chapel in Durham Road, Gateshead, disagreed completely that hardly any working men opposed the war. He declared that of the fifty families in his parish, ninety per cent were against the conflict. He admitted that ‘a number are in doubt, and profoundly distrust both Mr Kruger and Mr Chamberlain, but I have never found one who was pronouncedly in favour of the war’. This assessment of working-class loyalties was vociferously repudiated by a worker who cited the abandonment of a Stop-the-War meeting to be addressed by Cronwright Schreiner in Gateshead-on-Tyne as proof of 79 overwhelming support for the British cause. But what is important about Armstrong’s evidence is that working-class non-conformists sometimes took up an anti-war stance. [ 177 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

What does the press reveal about the divisions within nonconformity on the war issue? Together with the Methodist Times, with a readership of about 150,000, the British government’s policy received support from W. Robertson Nicoll’s the British Weekly,80 which had a circulation of more than 100,000. The Christian World, with a comparable readership, also backed Liberal imperialism during the war, but gave more uncritical support to British policy than the British Weekly. The anti-war nonconformists could therefore not rely on their own press to support their views.81 Denominational newspapers, such as the Baptist Times, were equally committed to the British cause. But the Daily News, acquired by a pro-Boer syndicate at the close of 1900, vigorously denounced the war. It took a puritan as well as a radical view. This became the mouthpiece of non-conformist anti-war opinion. In mid-1900, it helped to collect the signatures of more than half the total number of non-conformist ministers in England and Wales for the Free Church Ministers’ Manifesto on the War. Despite its watered-down contents, Stephen Koss has suggested that on the basis of a statistical analysis of the signatures there is a close correlation between denominational affiliation and opposition to the war. It shows that Congregationalists, Unitarians and Quakers were the strongest supporters of the manifesto. Some leading Baptists also joined the moderate protest, but many of the rank-and-file Baptist ministers felt strongly that religion had no business in politics. As was to be expected, only eight per cent of Wesleyan Methodist ministers signed the document.82 The anti-war Morning Leader carried out a similar survey which almost duplicated these findings.83 The pro-Boers came in for criticism from both the Christian World and the British Weekly. During the mob violence which occurred early in 1900, the anti-war element was accused of ‘provoking the wrath of their fellow-citizens, and were ambitious of the honours of martyrdom. Posing as peacemakers, they are … bellicose and provoking.’ The Christian World was scathing in its attacks on the Stop-the-War Committee in general and W. T. Stead in particular.84 The British Weekly was less critical of anti-war sentiment and gave considerably more critical attention to the issue of concentration camps than any other major non-conformist organ.85 On the other hand, it rejected the contents of certain leaflets issued by the SACC on the conduct of the British army in the war. It also confronted the anti-war Manchester Guardian for ‘inflaming’ public opinion by ‘distorting the facts’ about British action against Boer women and children. Nevertheless, the British Weekly upheld the right of Emily Hobhouse to hold meetings in Britain, claiming that ‘no good can come out of attempts to intimidate and silence the holders of unpopular views’. It deplored the ‘terrorism’ [ 178 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

RELIGION AGAINST THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

which aimed at preventing her giving evidence of conditions in the concentration camps. During the latter half of 1901, the British Weekly gave increasing coverage of the views of anti-war representatives of the Liberal Party. In October 1901, it supported a vigorous attack by a leading Anglican socialist, Canon Charles Gore, on infant mortality in British concentration camps in South Africa.86 Significantly, however, there was little general protest from non-conformist ministers in the correspondence pages of the British Weekly. The divisions in nonconformity during the South African War became even more pronounced in the ‘Khaki election’ of 1900. Apart from a handful of Unitarians and Wesleyans who stood as Unionists or Conservatives, the vast majority of free-church candidates were elected as Liberal MPs. Congregationalists invariably ranged themselves behind Campbell-Bannerman and kept away from either extreme imperialism or extreme radicalism. Baptists, especially Welsh MPs, were outspoken in their criticism of the war. Liberal Unitarians, perhaps to compensate for Chamberlain’s ‘apostasy,’ were unashamedly anti-war.87 The Wesleyans formed the largest contingent of non-conformist Liberal imperialists. The election of 1900 boosted non-conformist representation in parliament. The Presbyterian MPs constituted the single largest denominational grouping with 36, followed by all sections of Methodism with 33 and then Congregationalism with 25. The Unitarians had 10, the Friends 7 and the Baptists 4. The Congregationalists and Baptists were mostly Welsh.88 But radical Liberalism was poorly represented in the ranks of the non-conformist MPs. Consequently, nonconformity contributed very little to the antiwar debate in parliament. Lord Rosebery’s Liberal League was also stocked with non-conformists, which indicates clearly that they were not naturally drawn to radical Liberalism in 1900.89 Less can be said of the anti-war movement in South Africa, and the British denominations in South Africa hardly protested against the war in 1899, which most of them thought was inevitable, or necessary, for a variety of reasons. Non-conformist attitudes were as predictable as those of Anglicans. This accounts for South African non-conformist incredulity at free-church involvement in the anti-war movement in Britain.90 Very little criticism of British diplomacy on the eve of war or of imperial conduct in the conflict found its way into the Englishspeaking press in South Africa, with the exception of the South African News.91 It was left to the Dutch Reformed churches (DRC) to be the real religious opponents of the war. The Rev. Andrew Murray elicited an angry response to his outspoken attacks on British policy.92 His pietistic theology suited the evangelical fervour of some Protestant agencies. The [ 179 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in Cape Town, for instance, decided not to pronounce on the righteousness of the war for fear of alienating Murray, who was one of its trustees. His powerful personality and strong pro-Boer feelings assuaged the antirepublican sentiments of many young women refugees who had left the Transvaal after war had broken out. The YWCA was also careful to separate its evangelicalism from politics in official statements.93 Non-conformist identification with the British war effort is clearly shown in the number of ministers who became military chaplains.94 Uitlander audiences in Transvaal non-conformist churches were receptive to strong condemnation of the Boer republics. The fact that non-conformist churches in South Africa were missionary orientated also explains their overwhelming support for the British government. Free-church ministers justified the war in terms of the evangelisation of Africans. The war therefore had a moral and religious purpose, but nonconformists avoided any specific political commitments to the Africans once the war was over. The imperialist stance of nonconformity rested on the belief that British supremacy in South Africa would serve the interests of missionary endeavour and end the power of the Dutch Reformed churches. Boer ministers were discredited as ‘the most infernal 95 pack of rascally rebels in South Africa’. Non-conformists subscribed to and perpetuated the view that the DRC was ‘the most active agent in keeping up the ill feeling’ because it encouraged Afrikaner communities in the Cape to support the Boer struggle against the British.96 Nonconformists in South Africa were also annoyed at the appeals made by the DRC to British free churches calling for an end to hostilities and the recognition of republican independence. They were particularly incensed by the refusal of most DRC ministers to take the oath of allegiance to the British crown and their testimony of the poor conditions in British concentration camps,97 with the possible exception of that expressed by the Rev. Adriaan Hofmeyr, which ran counter to much of Emily Hobhouse’s evidence.98 It was against this solidly imperialist sentiment that a few nonconformist ministers dared to declare their opposition to the war. Their voices were, however, lost in a plethora of pro-war resolutions submitted to Sir Alfred Milner, the British High Commissioner, by about forty freechurch ministers and representative denominational assemblies throughout South Africa. These petitions were published by the South African Vigilance Committee and illustrate the propaganda value of religious support for the war. Anti-war non-conformists therefore had to challenge the views that the Boers had attempted to undermine British supremacy in South Africa; that the uitlanders and Africans had suffered under Boer oppression; that annexation of the Boer republics was the [ 180 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

RELIGION AGAINST THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

only course open to redress these grievances; and finally, that the ‘development and extension oí civilization … [would] invariably accompany British rule.’99 The few ‘pro-Boers’ in South Africa, like their counterparts in Britain, argued that the war was not being fought for Africans, that British and English-speaking South African attitudes to Africans differed widely, and that there would be no automatic benefit to Africans in the peace settlement. Among the most prominent supporters of the small peace party was the Unitarian minister and author, the Rev. Ramsden Balmforth. Having arrived at the Cape at the same time as Milner, he subsequently became convinced that the High Commissioner was unable to solve South Africa’s political problems. His views were uncompromisingly stated from the pulpit and in the Cape press.100 His influence was out of all proportion to the size of the Unitarian church in Cape Town although its membership boasted some of the finest intellectuals in the colony. Balmforth was a founder member of the conciliation movement founded early in 1900, which spearheaded a campaign against the annexation of the republics. This movement evoked fairly widespread reaction in the Cape Colony, chiefly from the Afrikaner section of the population, but it made very little impact in Britain.101 Balmforth shared the disillusionment of the small anti-war lobby which railed against the ‘Jingoism of … gentlemen of the cloth’ in the columns of the South African News.102 By and large, the conciliationists could rely only on the Dutch Reformed ministers for their religious support,103 which weakened their chances of winning English-speaking churches. Deputations to Britain by DRC clergy during 1900 did no more than confirm the suspicions of South African non-conformists that the SACC aimed to undermine British hegemony.104 Predictably, the pro-Boers found their campaign virtually confined to Boer circles and the Afrikaner press.105 Balmforth’s anti-war opinions did, however, please the editor of the South African News. But he had to rely on the radical press in Britain to make his views more widely known. Unitarianism was the theological orphan of nonconformity in South Africa. It was remote from the prevailing evangelicalism of most of the other free churches. Balmforth could therefore only hope to influence academics, pacifists and freethinkers. Nevertheless, he became known through his appearances with Andrew Murray and Roman Catholic leader, F. C. Kolbe,106 on anti-war platforms in Cape Town. Balmforth was a supreme critic of capitalism. His critique was more thorough than that of most non-conformists in 1900. For him, capitalism had to be controlled if postwar South Africa was to have any future. He suggested that collective control of the gold [ 181 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

mines should be a cornerstone of the peace settlement with the Boers. Another controversial tenet of Balmforth’s blueprint for peace was the recognition of the independence of the republics.107 His ideas, as well as his own experiences of the war, were incorporated in his address to the London Unitarian Ministers’ Meeting in November 1901. He presented the case for an immediate peace with characteristic forthrightness, but was unable to get the London ministers to pass a resolution supporting his formula for a settlement, or to issue a statement declaring a Unitarian position on the war.108 He was not entirely alone among free churchmen in expressing his shame and disgust at British ‘scorched earth’ tactics against the Boers and in objecting to the mistreatment of women and children. In November 1900 he called for immediate action to end the conflict109 and his sentiments were shared by a Cape Town Congregational minister, the Rev. Dewdney Drew, who relentlessly criticised martial law and conditions in concentration camps. Drew stood with Balmforth against imperialist opinion in South Africa. He wrote that the ‘terrorism … committed by our troops … has merely put the devil into the Boers’. Drew maintained close links with Boers in the Cape Colony and claimed to have seen at first hand the ravages inflicted by British forces in the Orange Free State. He had also encountered convoys of women and children on the way to the Bethulie camp and felt that ‘what will never die from the memory of the survivors are the horrors which we have allied to fall upon them’. He declared that the hospital scandals had not been exaggerated either, and the ‘rebel’ executions in the Cape had ‘blended stupidity and cruelty’, creating additional tensions in Cradock and Murraysburg: ‘putting up … the scaffolds … was equivalent to building recruiting offices for the Boer commandants’. For Drew, the only sensible solution was to recognise Boer independence along the lines of home rule for Ireland.110 He did not win the support of his Observatory congregation and was forced to resign in 1901. The following year, he became assistant editor of the anti-war South African News. Immediately after the war, he acted as intercessor for the Cape rebels, whom he was convinced had been too harshly discriminated against in the Peace of Vereeniging.111 Among the Presbyterian ministers in South Africa, only John T. Lloyd spoke out strongly against the war. He was an eloquent preacher whose popular sermons appeared in print (Kimberley and Cape Town, 1885–88). When he moved to Port Elizabeth in 1889, he contributed literary articles to the Eastern Province Magazine. During the 1890s, he was influenced by Olive Schreiner, whose writings often found their way into his preaching. She and her brother, Cronwright Schreiner, became [ 182 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

RELIGION AGAINST THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

firm friends of the Lloyds, and Olive was able to help John Lloyd through a period of great intellectual and spiritual introspection. In 1894 Lloyd moved to Bree Street Presbyterian church in Johannesburg, where he remained until the end of the South African War. Olive Schreiner’s agnosticism rubbed off on him and he resigned from the Presbyterian church late in 1902, to become a free-thinker.112 There was, however, a hint that he had left the ministry for reasons of ill health, possibly alcoholism.113 Lloyd’s position was difficult; he was the only Presbyterian minister in the Transvaal republic during the war. The Rev. James Gray of Pretoria had been forced to leave his charge and an ordained missionary was permitted to serve the needs of Presbyterians in Pretoria.114 Lloyd’s undiluted condemnation of British policy attracted considerable opprobrium from his Presbyterian colleagues, who had served churches in the Transvaal before the war. The Rev. R. B. Douglas alleged that Lloyd had fallen prey to Olive Schreiner’s ‘dictatorship’. Lloyd’s predecessor at Bree Street Presbyterian Church, the Rev. John Allen, also found it reprehensible that a Presbyterian minister should side with the Boers. Andrew Brown of Fordsburg Presbyterian Church was shocked that Lloyd could display such disloyalty, especially when some DRC ministers had ‘admitted and bewailed the fact that their Government had created by lost opportunities and repressive legislation the critical and dangerous situation out of which there was scarcely any way but war’.115 The torrent of criticism seems to have forced Lloyd to reconsider his anti-war attitude, and early in 1900 he changed his mind quite suddenly.116 The press found his ‘conversion’ rather curious.117 It appears that Lloyd bowed to overwhelming Uitlander pressure. Non-conformists had until the 1880s been opposed to Britain’s expansion overseas, but by the late 1890s they had become keen imperialists. Anti-war nonconformity between 1899 and 1902 therefore represented the conscience of imperialism. The empire was regarded as a providential gift of God for the spread of Christianity and civilisation which meant that there was no clear distinction between religious and secular motives in this period. They were intertwined in both theology and social context, which seems to confirm Andrew Porter’s thesis that ‘Evangelical militancy and support for a nationalistic “missionary imperialism”, if sometimes strident, were also necessarily shaped by recurrent reservations about imperial authority and colonial government, reservations rooted in their theology and acquired experience, and invigorated by interplay between the two.’118 The failure of anti-war nonconformity during the South African War does not [ 183 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

detract from its importance as an interrogator of imperialism at its peak, and it uncovers the internal tensions within imperial Christianity at the fin de siècle.

Notes

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

1

2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21

See for example, L. E. Davis and R. A. Huttenback, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire: The Economics of British Imperialism (Cambridge, 1988); R J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688–1990, 2 vols (London, 1993); and A. Porter, ‘“Gentlemanly capitalism” and empire: the British experience since 1750?’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 18:3 (1990), pp. 265–95. J. Wolffe, God and Greater Britain: Religion and National Life in Britain and Ireland, 1843–1945 (London, 1994), p. x. D. W. Bebbington, The Non-conformist Conscience: Chapel and Politics, 1870–1914 (London, 1982); B. Stanley, The Bible and the Flag: Protestant Missions and British Imperialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Leicester, 1990). See also D. Bebbington, Victorian Nonconformity (Bangor, 1992) for a short, but informed, historiographical survey. See for example, A. D. Gilbert, Religion and Society in Industrial England: Church, Chapel and Social Change, 1740–1914 (London, 1976). M. Smith, Religion in Industrial Society: Oldham and Saddleworth, 1740–1865 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 273–4. D. Cammack, The Rand at War, 1899–1902: The Witwatersrand and the Anglo-Boer War (London, 1990), pp. 54–6. D. P. McCracken, The Irish Pro-Boers, 1877–1902 (Johannesburg, 1989). H. H. Hewison, Hedge of Wild Almonds: South Africa, the ‘Pro-Boers’ and the Quaker Conscience, 1890–1910 (London, 1989). Manchester Guardian, 1 June 1900. M. Howard, ‘Empire, race and war in pre-1914 Britain’, History Today, 31 (1981), pp. 4–11; for an excellent discussion of militarism in Victorian society, see Olive Anderson, ‘The growth of Christian militarism in mid-Victorian Britain’, English Historical Review, 86 (1971), pp. 46–72. P. d’A. Jones, The Christian Socialist Revival, 1877–1914: Religion, Class and Social Conscience in Late-Victorian England (Princeton, 1968). R. Price, An Imperial War and the British Working Class: Working-Class Attitudes and Reactions to the Boer War, 1899–1902 (London, 1972), p. 13. CO 417/277, Correspondence from various public bodies etc. respecting the relations of H.M. Govt, with the South African Republic (Public Record Office, Kew). Price, An Imperial War, p. 13. Davey, The British Pro-Boers, 1877–1902 (Cape Town, 1978); B. Porter, Critics of Empire: British Radical Attitudes to Colonialism in Africa, 1895–1914 (London, 1968); J. W. Auld, ‘The Pro-Boer Liberals in Britain during the Boer War, 1899–1902’, Ph.D. thesis, Stanford University, 1970; P. A. S. Ashman, ‘Anti-war sentiment in Britain during the Boer war’, Ph.D. thesis, St Louis University, 1970; and B. Porter, ‘The Pro-Boers in Britain’, in P. Warwick (ed.), The South African War: The Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902 (London, 1980), pp. 239–57. Davey, British Pro-Boers, pp. 188–91 Porter, Critics of Empire, pp. 336–7 Price, An Imperial War, p. 14. J. Munson, The Non-conformists: In Search of a Lost Culture (London, 1991), p. 234. R. Rempel, ‘British Quakers and the South African War’, Quaker History, 64:2 (1975), pp. 75–95. CO 417/277, f. 239, Resolution representing eight churches in the Lowton circuit, Newtonle-Willows, Lancashire, 4 September 1899.

[ 184 ]

RELIGION AGAINST THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

61 62 63

S. Koss, ‘Wesleyanism and empire’, Historical Journal, 18:1 (1975), p. 108. CO 417/277, fos 547–8, United Methodist Free Churches, London second district, 26 September 1899. Price, An Imperial War, pp. 14–15. National Council of Evangelical Free Churches (NCFC) Papers, Minutes of the general committee, A 1, 2 October 1899, pp. 115–17 (London). Christian World, 12 October 1899. NCFC Minutes, A 2, meeting of general committee, 12 March 1900, p. 14. CO 417/277, fos 36–7, notes of Colonial Office officials H. W. Hurst and F. Graham, 27 June 1899. M. Blunden, ‘The Anglican Church during the war’, in Warwick and Spies, The South African War, pp. 279–91. Munson, Non-conformists, p. 238. Bebbington, Non-conformist Conscience, p. 122. Jones, The Christian Socialist Revival, 1877–1914, pp. 341–4. Christian Socialist, 9:94 (March 1891), p. 27; 9:97, June 1891, p. 67; 9:102, November 1891, p. 127. Price, An Imperial War, p. 13. A. C. Underwood, A History of English Baptists (2nd edn London, 1956), p. 228. See J. O. Baylen, ‘W. T. Stead and the Boer war: the irony of idealism’, Canadian Historical Review, 40:4 (1959), pp. 304–14. C. T. Bateman, John Clifford: Free Church Leader and Preacher (London, n.d.), p. 192. The following discussion of Clifford’s views on the war relies heavily on J. Clifford, Brotherhood and the War in South Africa, pp. 2–24. See also Bateman, John Clifford, p. 193; M. R. Watts, ‘John Clifford and radical nonconformity, 1836–1923’, D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 1967. J. Marchant, Dr John Clifford: Life, Letters and Reminiscences (London, 1924), p. 147. Munson, Non-conformists, p. 236. F. W. Hirst, In the Golden Days (London, 1947), p. 191. S. Hocking, My Book of Memory: A String of Reminiscences and Reflections (London, 1923), p. 180. Baptist Magazine, February 1900, p. 100. H. McLeod, Class and Religion in the Late Victorian City (London, 1974), p. 178. Hocking, My Book of Memory, p. 180. Price, An Imperial War, pp. 22–6 J. S. Galbraith, ‘The pamphlet campaign in the Boer war’, Journal of Modern History, 24:2 (1952), pp. 111–26. Porter, ‘The Pro-Boers in Britain’, in Warwick and Spies, The South African War, p. 248. Presbyterian Messenger, December 1899, p. 317. Presbyterian, 7 December 1899. Ibid. See for example, British Weekly, editorial, 27 February 1902. J. Hart, ‘Nineteenth-century social reform: a Tory interpretation of history’, Past and Present, 31 (1965), pp. 108–37. British Weekly, 28 December 1899. His views were reported in the Baptist Times, 5 January 1900. See K. Robbins, ‘The spiritual pilgrimage of the Rev. R. J. Campbell’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 30:2 (1979), pp. 261–76. Presbyterian, 1 March 1900. British Weekly, 14 June 1900. Christian World, 8 March 1900. See for example, Viscount Gladstone Papers, Add. MSS 46059, vol. LXXV, fos 149–51, J. Compton Rickett to Lord Rosebery (copy), 11 March 1902; Rosebery to Compton Rickett, 15 March 1902 (British Library). Christian World, 21 December 1899. A. H. Wilkerson, R. J. Campbell: The Man and His Message (London, 1907), p. 24. Daily News, 11 May 1900; see also G. C. Cuthbertson, ‘Missionary imperialism and

[ 185 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

93 94

95

96

colonial warfare: London Missionary Society attitudes to the South African War, 1899– 1902’, South African Historical Journal, 19 (1987), pp. 103–4. Christian World, 26 October 1899. E. K. H. Jordan, Free Church Unity: A History of the Free Church Council Movement, 1896–1941 (London, 1956), p. 74. W. B. Selbie, The Life of Charles Silvester Horne (London, 1920), pp. 112–13. D. Macfadyen, Alexander Mackennal: Life and Letters (London, 1905), p. 158. Christian World, 9 November 1899. Bebbington, Non-conformist Conscience, p. 123. Selbie, Life of Charles Silvester Horne, p. 112. I. Sellers, Nineteenth-century Nonconformity (London, 1977), p. 88. Christian World, 24 October 1901. Congregational Yearbook, 1901, p. 64. On Dutch Reformed churches and opposition to imperialism, see G. Cuthbertson, ‘Christianity, imperialism and colonial warfare’, in J. W. Hofmeyr and G. Pillay (eds), A History of Christianity in South Africa, vol. 1 (Pretoria, 1994), pp. 165–7. McLeod, Class and Religion, pp. 176–81. Lewisham Independent, 22 February 1900; Lewisham Borough News, 10 May 1900. War Against War in South Africa, 14, 19 January 1900, p. 213. Lewisham Borough News, 14 May 1900. British Weekly, 4 October 1900. Ibid., 20 September 1900; 29 November 1900; 27 September 1900. T. H. Darlow, William Robertson Nicoll (London, 1925), p. 165. Rosebery Papers, MS 10050, fos 70–1, R. W. Perks to Lord Rosebery, 9 July 1900 (National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh). S. Koss, Nonconformity in Modern British Politics (London, 1975), pp. 32–3. A similar analysis using statistics from the Morning Leader is given in Davey, British ProBoers, p. 152. Christian World, editorial, 22 March 1900. See for example, British Weekly, 29 November 1900; 3 January 1901. Ibid., 28 February 1901; 27 June 1901; 31 October 1901. Koss, Nonconformity in Modern British Politics, p. 33. Christian World, 18 October 1900. Rosebery Papers, MS 10168, fos 119–20, W. Robertson Nicoll to Lord Rosebery, 5 March 1902. See also Koss, Nonconformity in Modern British Politics, p. 35. British Weekly, 4 January 1900; 8 February 1900; 22 February 1900. See T. Botma, ‘The Conciliation Movement in the Cape Colony during the Anglo-Boer War’, MA thesis, University of Cape Town, 1974. The letters of the Rev. Andrew Murray were given particular prominence in the press. See for example, Cape Times, 13 October 1899; 18 October 1899; 23 October 1899; 27 October 1899; De Kerkbode, 12 October 1899; 30 November 1899; South African News, 12 October 1899. G. Cuthbertson and D. Whitelaw, God, Youth and Women: The YWCAs of Southern Africa, 1886–1986 (Johannesburg, 1986), pp. 10–13. Many of the non-conformist ministers who left their churches in the Transvaal at the beginning of the war joined the British forces as military chaplains. See for example, O. S. Watkins, Chaplains at the Front: Incidents in the Life of a Chaplain during the Boer War, 1899–1900 (London, 1901); P. B. Bull, God and Our Soldiers (3rd edn London, 1914); H. K. (ed.), Chaplains in Khaki: Methodist Soldiers in Camp, in the Field and on the March (London, 1900); and E. P. Lowry, With the Guards’ Brigade: From Bloemfontein to Komati Poort and Back (London, 1902), pp. 88–112. Joseph Chamberlain Papers (CP), JC 11/39/9, Eric Barrington to Chamberlain, 20 January 1901 (Birmingham University). The letter includes information about the activities of Dutch Reformed ministers at the Cape. CP, JC 13/2/1/17, ‘Cape colony general remarks’, Colonial Office Minutes, chiefly relating to South Africa, 1900–03. Reference is made to DRC propaganda in Cradock. See also South African News, 31 March 1900.

[ 186 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

RELIGION AGAINST THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR 97 P. Lewsen, (ed.), Selections from the Correspondence of John X. Merriman 1899–1905, Van Riebeeck Society, 47 (Cape Town, 1966), pp. 237–8; South African News, 5 December 1900; 13 December 1900. 98 Adriaan Hofmeyr Papers, 1900–03, A 219, p. 71 (Cape Archives, South Africa). 99 South African Vigilance Committee, The South African Churches Declare for Annexation, Vigilance Paper 1, 1900. 100 South African News, 19 June 1899; 28 September 1899; 16 October 1899; 12 January 1900. 101 Cd 261, Further Correspondence Relating to Affairs in South Africa, July 1900, pp. 77–85, 92–4. 102 For example, South African News, 27 April 1900. 103 Ibid., 1 May 1900; Cd 261, pp. 2–3, 138. 104 The South African News, 16 June 1900; 20 June 1900; 21 June 1900. See also Botma, Conciliation Movement in the Cape, pp. 132–4. 105 Ons Land, 8 December 1900. 106 See K. Boner, ‘Dr F. C. Kolbe: priest, patriot and educationalist’, Ph.D. thesis, University of South Africa, 1980. 107 R. Balmforth, ‘A plea for an honourable peace: with a few words about magnanimity’, Westminster Review, 153 (June 1900), pp. 633–42. Another Unitarian minister in Cape Town who took an anti-war line was D. P. Faure. He had left the DRC on theological grounds. His views on the war and his letters to the press are published in his autobiography, My Life and Times (Cape Town, 1907), pp. 153–86. 108 London Unitarian Ministers’ Conference Minutes, periodical meetings 1863–1922, MS 61, vol. 2, 56th ordinary meeting, 11 November 1901 (Greater London Council Library). 109 Morning Leader, 19 December 1900. 110 H. J. Wilson Papers, C8 MD 2512/8, Drew to the Rev. D. Burford Hooke, 24 July 1901 (Sheffield Central Library). 111 W. K. Hancock and J. Van der Poel (eds), Selections from the Smuts Papers, vol. 4 (Cambridge, 1966), p. 318. 112 Rand Daily Mail, 10 November 1902; 30 December 1902; Star, 29 December 1902. 113 South African News, 7 November 1902. See also private letter from Prof. C. Cook, of Rhodes University, to M. Cartwright, librarian at the South African Library, 5 October 1975, in which Cook cites a letter from the Rev. John Smith to the Rev. W. McCulloch, referring to Lloyd being ‘very much under the influence of alcohol in London’ in 1901 (information supplied by Miss K. Cross, formerly of the Theological Research Institute, University of South Africa, Pretoria). 114 See the scrapbook on James Gray compiled by his wife (Africana Library, Johannesburg). 115 British Weekly, 15 February 1900; 22 February 1900; 1 March 1900. 116 Ibid., 8 March 1900. 117 Grahamstown Journal, 9 April 1900; 17 September 1901. 118 A. N. Porter, Religion and Empire: British Expansion in the Long Nineteenth Century, 1780–1914, an inaugural lecture in the Department of History, King’s College (London, 1991), p. 19.

[ 187 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Kruger’s farmers, Strathcona’s Horse, Sir George Clarke’s camels and the Kaiser’s battleships: the impact of the South African War on imperial defence Keith Jeffery The defence dimension of the Second South African War has to be considered both in terms of the immediate impact of the conflict on the British Empire and within the wider context of Britain’s imperial defence commitments during the two decades or so before the outbreak of the First World War. At the core of the conflict was the military challenge of an estimated 50,000 Afrikaners, posing a small, apparently trivial threat to the greatest empire in the world. Yet these soldiers, dismissed by the British army as mere ‘farmers’, secured the dramatic victories of ‘Black Week’ in December 1899 which punctured any overconfidence the British may have had that the South African affair would prove to be no more than an easily extinguished imperial ‘bush fire’. In the end the war cost an estimated £200 million, and over 400,000 British troops were drawn into the conflict,1 together with volunteer colonial contingents, including Lord Strathcona’s Horse from Canada,2 various Australian units – one of which (the Victorian Mounted Infantry) was graphically dismissed by their unloved British commander as ‘a fat damned lot of wasters’ – and troops from New Zealand, who (along with the Australians) were praised by Lord Methuen for their ‘cunning and shrewdness’. But only the white colonies of settlement were exploited, and only their white populations officially permitted to participate. Although London refused to allow New Zealand to send mixed-race units, apparently some Maori, or part-Maori, soldiers did go to the war. In July 1899, after the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, had asked for colonial help for a campaign in South Africa, the Malay States offered three hundred Guides and Nigeria a similar number of Hausas, but their offers were turned down on racial grounds.3 The following year London turned down Lord Roberts’s request for a West Indian regiment to serve in the lowveld region of the north-eastern Transvaal where the climate was thought to be unsuitable for Europeans. ‘Black Week’ was a white [ 188 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR ON IMPERIAL DEFENCE

preserve, although by the end of the war the British had armed certainly more than 10,000 African personnel.4 In all, apart from the South Africans who participated, some 30,000 imperial troops served in the war (see the table for dominion contingents). More than half of these came from the six Australian colonies which united as the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901; thus the final contingents comprised the ‘first truly Australian units’. The quality of the colonial soldiers varied, as the contingents included both fulltime soldiers, such as many of the Royal Canadian Dragoons, members of part-time defence units, such as the New South Wales Mounted Rifles, and raw citizen soldiers, like the Australian Corps of Bushmen.5 The Canadians also contributed over 1,200 men to the South African Constabulary and provided an infantry battalion for garrison duties at Halifax, Nova Scotia, which released a British battalion for service in the war.6 During 1900 a 200-strong contingent of mounted infantry drawn from the white planter community in Ceylon joined the British forces and a similar formation, numbering some 300 white volunteer soldiers – ‘Lumsden’s Horse’ – came from India. In total India sent nearly 8,000 white troops, together with over 7,000 Indian noncombatants, including corps of water-carriers, grooms and washermen.7 The colonial contributions were not quite entirely male. Some 60 Australian, 12 New Zealand and 8 Canadian nurses took part and 20 women teachers were sent from New Zealand to help with the education of children in the concentration camps. Care was taken not to include anyone who was ‘opposed to British rule in South Africa’ or of the Roman Catholic persuasion, which was thought ‘likely to be too far out of touch with the Boer population’.8 Dominion contingents for the South African War Total sent

Killed and died of wounds

Died of disease

Australia Canada New Zealand

16,310 6,051 6,416

251 94 85

267 79 91

Total

28,777

430

437

Source: Laurie Field, The Forgotten War: Australia and the Boer War (Melbourne, pbk edn 1995), pp. 193–9, based (with corrections) on statistics in L. S. Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, 6 vols (London, 1900–09), vol. 4, appendix I and vol. 5, p. 697. [ 189 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

The participation of colonial troops was both cheering and dismaying. It was cheering for the imperial solidarity which was demonstrated, together with what Leopold Amery called ‘the vast reserve of power latent in the patriotism of the free nations which compose the British Empire’. It required, he asserted, ‘the touchstone of a great war to make the Empire feel its unity’.9 Yet it was dismaying for the implication that the ‘Mother Country’ could no longer cope unaided with the burden of empire. Opening the 1902 imperial conference, Joseph Chamberlain expressed both responses. He employed Matthew Arnold’s celebrated image of England as like some ‘weary Titan’ staggering under ‘the too vast orb of his fate’,10 but also declared that ‘very great anticipations’ had been aroused by the colonies’ material support in the recent war. ‘We have borne the burden for many years’, he said. ‘We think it is time that our children should assist us to support it.’ But when he put to the conference the ‘prosaic business’ of the dominions making practical contributions to imperial defence the response was very disappointing. New Zealand proposed setting up an imperial reserve force, but the British wanted so much unfettered control over it that even New Zealand demurred and the offer was withdrawn. Dominion autonomy was a matter of increasing importance. The Canadian prime minister, Wilfrid Laurier, refused to help as this ‘would entail an important departure from the principle of Colonial selfgovernment’. Canada, besides, did not wish to become involved in that ‘vortex of militarism’ which was ‘the curse and blight of Europe’.11 Beyond these unsatisfactory discussions about defence burdensharing, what was by many regarded as the central question of imperial defence festered on elsewhere in the world. A. J. Balfour at the turn of the century is reputed to have remarked that the problem of imperial defence could be summed up in one word: ‘Afghanistan’. So it was that the threat of Russian troops advancing inexorably on India across the North-West Frontier was the greatest nightmare for Britain’s imperial strategists. The strategic sensitivity of this region to the British was well appreciated by the Russians. In November 1899 Tsar Nicholas II, perhaps a little over-optimistically, asserted to his sister that he could alter the course of the war in South Africa simply by ordering his forces in Turkestan to mobilise.12 From the 1890s onwards the Indian military authorities periodically estimated the defence requirements of India in the event of Russian aggression. In 1904 Lord Kitchener – who had succeeded Lord Roberts as Commander-in-Chief in South Africa in November 1901 and (no doubt glad to get back to ‘real’ soldiering after the guerrilla war conditions of South Africa) had been C-in-C in India since October 1902 – reported to the Committee of Imperial Defence [ 190 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR ON IMPERIAL DEFENCE

(CID) that in the first year of a war with Russia the 75,000 British and 150,000 Indian troops in India would require reinforcements from the United Kingdom of 160,000 men, followed by 300,000 to 400,000 more in the second year. In order to maintain such a huge force in the Hindu Kush, Sir George Clarke, the secretary of the CID, calculated that not fewer than three million camels would be required.13 These fantastic potential demands on imperial military resources were staggering enough on their own, but following the shock of the South African War and coming at a time when the German navalbuilding programme – the Kaiser’s battleships – was forging ahead and threatening to upset Britain’s global naval mastery, they brought home to Britain’s policy-makers the need for strategic readjustments to bring the available resources into line with possible costs. The magnitude of these defence commitments – far outstripping anything run up in South Africa – powerfully contributed to a reordering of British strategic policy during the first decade of the twentieth century. This shift is exemplified in a well-known series of measures by which Britain’s diplomats helped to ease the burden of imperial defence from the shoulders of Britain’s sailors and soldiers. In the early 1900s Britain adopted the working assumption that it would never go to war against the United States of America. In 1902 the Anglo-Japanese Alliance efficiently secured British interests in the East Asia and Pacific region. Two years later the Entente with France enabled the Admiralty to reduce the British naval presence in the Mediterranean and concentrate its battleships nearer home, and in 1906 the Anglo-Russian agreement at least temporarily halted the ‘Great Game’, with (one supposes) a ‘score-draw’ in which Britain and Russia divided Iran and Afghanistan into agreed ‘spheres of influence’.14 The impact of the South African War clearly contributed to the strategic reassessment in the first decade of the new century, but the fundamental causes lay in Britain’s changing relations with other great powers. The cost of the war, moreover, while great, was by no means crippling; it provided a salutary warning for Britain’s defence planners which was heeded by many and which, it can be argued, contributed to an improvement in Britain’s defence position by the outbreak of the First World War. As John Gallagher remarked, the conditions for Britain’s success ‘which were easily met during the nineteenth century became somewhat harder to meet after that. But not much harder. By 1914 the system was far from being in disarray.’15 As for the South African War itself, it is important to bear in mind that Britain did actually defeat the Boers and incorporate their republics into the Empire. The ‘weary Titan’ was not so exhausted as all that. [ 191 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

In terms of the Empire’s strategic security it is arguable whether the war made very much difference at all. In August 1899 Lord Salisbury had asserted that Milner’s aggressive expansionism in southern Africa was ‘all for people whom we despise, and for territory which will bring no profit and no power to England’.16 It was more the last act in the ‘partition of Africa’, a sort of imperial tidying-up; than some carefully thought-out scheme finally to secure the Cape route east. Here we have the final stage in the transition from informal to formal empire which so characterised British imperial expansion in the nineteenth century. Britain’s paramountcy in the region was not really under threat (despite the Kaiser’s optimistic bluster), merely its extent. The result of the war, indeed, was, if anything, to overinsure Britain’s regional position. And despite the apparent assimilation of Afrikaners within the Empire following the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910, the first concern of the Union government when war broke out in 1914 was to put down a significant domestic pro-German uprising. The rebellion of 1914 might be characterised as the last flickering – for the time being at least – of armed Afrikaner resistance to British hegemony. But its suppression, like that of the 1900–02 Boer commandos, abundantly demonstrated (if anyone needed reminding) that, even in the British Empire, imperial rule and the exercise of imperial power depended above all on armed force. In colonial war after colonial war, which – despite occasional reverses such as Isandhlwana (1879) and the 1857 uprising in India – were not particularly costly, the British were able to demonstrate in practical and often ruthless terms that when necessary they did have ‘the ships, the men and the money too’ to crush such opposition as they encountered. As an exemplary exercise, pour encourager les autres, it might be supposed that the war manifested continued British imperial firmness of purpose. Yet the South African experience also demonstrated rule, as it were, by a double-edged sword. The flourishing of imperial power and the accompanying effusions of imperial and imperialistic sentiment also provoked and invigorated anti-imperialism, and, perhaps more to the point, specifically anti-British imperialism, at home and abroad. In Dublin the Irish Transvaal Committee, which was formed to support the Boer republics and dissuade Irishmen from enlisting in the British army, also served to invigorate militant Irish nationalism in general.17 The dispatch of Canadian soldiers to South Africa ‘opened the floodgates of protest in Quebec’, though these protests, as with anti-war demonstrations in Britain, were strongly coloured by existing domestic political tensions.18 In January 1900 a group of American antiimperialists resolved that ‘the war which the British Empire is now waging against [ 192 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR ON IMPERIAL DEFENCE

the South African Republics’ was ‘a violation of that important rule of international law … that no government has the right to interfere with the internal policy of another’. The Boers, moreover, were merely ‘contending for the same right of self-government for which the founders of the American Republic fought in 1776’.19 For the dominions, participation in the war undoubtedly stimulated local patriotisms as well as a sense of collective imperial service. At the public sending-off the first group (of five men) from the north Queensland mining town of Charters Towers, Major Hooper of the 3rd Queensland Regiment declared that ‘though the numerical strength of the contingent was not great, it still showed the world that every portion of the Empire would be represented’.20 Between New Zealand and her Australian neighbours, there was a ‘competition in patriotism’ which undoubtedly served to stimulate colonial New Zealand nationalism.21 The conjunction of imperial and local sentiment can be seen in some of the inscriptions chosen for South African War memorials: that in Quebec City confidently states that the soldiers fought ‘For Empire, Canada, Quebec’; in Box Hill (a suburb of Melbourne) the memorial commemorates ‘the loyal and patriotic spirit’ of those who responded ‘to the Empire’s call’; while the one to the South Australian Volunteers in Adelaide is described as a ‘National [sic] Memorial Statue’. The paradox of this imperial service was that the more individual parts of the Empire generously contributed on their own behalf to collective imperial needs, the more independent-minded they might become. Addressing the Canadian parliament in 1900 Laurier affirmed that ‘what we have done, we have done in the plenitude, in the majesty of our colonial defence’. He went on to ‘claim for Canada this, that in future, Canada shall be at liberty to act or not to act, to interfere or not to interfere, to do just as she pleases, and that she shall reserve for herself the right to judge whether or not there is a cause for her to act’.22 Thus the political attitudes accentuated and amplified by dominion participation in the South African War might lead to a moment when they might not unquestioningly rally to the side of the ‘Mother Country’ at time of need. This very concern was raised in the 1909 imperial conference and in the Committee of Imperial Defence in 1911 when both Canada and Australia stood out for the right to remain neutral. Considering the issue some years later, the longstanding secretary of the CID, Sir Maurice Hankey, thought that the matter was more or less academic: ‘My recollection is that Mr Asquith Privately held the view that it would be all right on the day, and that was better not to force an issue on what he regarded as an academic question.’23 That, of course, tended to be Asquith’s view on most issues, but in this case, considering [ 193 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

the unstinting assistance offered by the dominions at the start of the First World War, he turned out to be absolutely right. One long-term effect which the war had on Britain’s defence capability stemmed from the debate on ‘national efficiency’ which was powerfully stimulated by the evidence of physical deficiencies revealed in the medical reports from recruiting offices. It might be argued that by adding to the pressure for social legislation to address the health and education of the nation, the effect of the war was to strengthen the Empire, since, as the proponents of national efficiency never failed to observe, healthy babies can grow into healthy soldiers and workers. The social welfare reforms introduced by both Conservative and Liberal administrations following the South African War certainly owed much to the shocking figures revealed by the War Office. In 1900 recruitment medicals showed that 565 men out of every 1,000 presenting themselves were below the standard army height of 5 feet 6 inches. The returns were worst in urban recruiting offices. At Manchester 8,000 out of 11,000 volunteers were rejected outright and only 1,200 were accepted as ‘fit in all respects’. Even those who were taken did not all turn out to be satisfactory. Three thousand men were sent home from South Africa because of bad teeth.24 Yet improvements in public health could have an impact only in the long term. When the nation next called for volunteers many stunted, flat-footed, rottentoothed, rickety men were in fact admitted to the forces, not least because recruiting sergeants and doctors were paid per capita for enlistments. One response to deficient manpower was to lower the standards. By July 1915 the minimum height had been reduced to 5 feet 2 inches, and special ‘Bantam’ units admitted men down to 5 feet in height. Ironically, once conscription had been introduced and medical examinations more systematically organised, high rejection rates reappeared. In the last year of the war medical boards exempted over a million men out of 2.5 million examined.25 It may be that the chief impact of the South African War on the ‘national efficiency’ question was merely to reinforce existing concerns and, perhaps, accelerate the implementation of some social welfare measures, which in any case could only have an effect in the very long term. It is easier to chart the impact of the war in more specifically military terms. The two phases of the war – regular military operations and the guerrilla/insurgency campaign which followed it – offered two modes of imperial defence which could be learned from. But the South African experience, it seemed, did not sit easily in either, and it was scarcely taken up as a military ‘case study’. It was an anomalous war, a colonial campaign fought against well-armed white opponents, but a ‘small war’ which apparently provided no real lessons for the potential [ 194 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR ON IMPERIAL DEFENCE

big war against a proper great power enemy like Germany. It was, to use a football simile, perhaps a bit like a cup-tie between a top club and a possible ‘giant killer’ from a lower division: entertaining, but hardly instructive for future matches against premier-division sides. The official history of the conflict produced by the German general staff asserted that the war had demonstrated ‘no fresh element which can alter the essence of fighting’.26 Enquiring into the education of officers in 1902, Dr Edmond Warre, the headmaster of Eton, had his opinion confirmed that military opinion generally felt the South African War should ‘not be taken as an example in Tactics, and so on, as everything would be different in a European War’.27 As for the guerrilla/insurgency phase of the conflict, there was some appreciation that lessons learned in South Africa could be applied in other colonial conflicts. Charles Callwell, author of the army’s principal primer on the subject, Small Wars, first published in 1896, added a few scattered references to the conflict in the third, revised, edition of 1906.28 Nevertheless the scale of Kitchener’s ‘scorched earth’ tactics and the scandal associated with the ‘concentration camps’ where Boer civilians were incarcerated – what the Liberal leader Henry Campbell-Bannerman memorably described as ‘methods of barbarism’29 – apparently rendered the ‘lessons’ of the conflict inapplicable in other circumstances. Yet, as Michael Howard observed in his 1971 Ford Lectures: ‘seventy years’ further experience of insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare may lead us to wonder, not that Lord Kitchener’s pacification campaign took so long and involved some incidental [sic] brutalities, but that it did not take still longer and involve yet more’.30 Some contemporary observers did, however, argue the significance of the war for modern conflict. During 1901 J. S. Bloch, a Polish banker who in 1898 had published a massive study, The War of the Future, anticipating the emergence of ‘total’ war and warning of its catastrophic impact, reflected on the South African War in the Contemporary Review. The war, he asserted, had demonstrated how modern weapons, such as quick-firing rifles and smokeless powder, together with the extensive use of earthworks and barbed-wire entanglements, had given the defence a clear superiority over the attack. ‘The importance of trenches and barbed wire’, he argued, ‘is become a truism in contemporary military science.’ He observed the ‘comparative immunity of entrenchments to artillery fire’, and quoted Sir Howard Vincent (a Conservative MP and first commander of the City Imperial Volunteers, raised for South African service) in a recent lecture at the United Services Institution: ‘When the Army comes home … you will be surprised to find how few members of it have ever seen a Boer, save with a flag of truce or as a prisoner. I did not meet half a dozen officers in all [ 195 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Sir Redvers Buller’s army who saw one at the battle of Colenso.’ A major war between great powers, concluded Bloch presciently, would produce ‘disaster and misery’, which would ‘stagger humanity’.31 The following year the Contemporary Review published ‘Lessons of the South African War’, attributed to the French General de Négrier, who also stressed the importance of quick-firing rifles, smokeless powder, trenches and barbed wire. The infantry, he wrote, ‘have now to fight lying down’ and ‘the essential point is to get near the enemy without being spied’. The conflict also demonstrated the fundamental uselessness of cavalry in modern conditions: ‘the day of grand charges is over’. The battle of Colenso (15 December 1899) had in particular shown ‘the failure of the cavalry to answer the expectations of its utility for exploring purposes. Equally unable with sabre or lance to pierce the screen … their chief method of action became that of fighting on foot.’32 Colenso, indeed, anticipated some of the battles of the Western Front a decade and a half later. Trusting to a heavy artillery bombardment, the British commanders expected that the enemy would be sufficiently softened up to allow their forces to advance across the River Tugela relatively unscathed. But they grievously underestimated the impact of ‘the new, invisible war of the rifle-plus-trench’.33 Well-armed and entrenched, the Boers were able to see off the British attackers with comparative impunity. Confirming Sir Howard Vincent’s report about Colenso, Major Henry Wilson reported: ‘Although I was under fire for 5 hours, and sometimes brisk fire, I can only swear to having seen 5 Boers. It’s quite marvellous, I doubt our having killed 100. More likely 50.’34 In fact the Boers lost 6 killed and 21 wounded; the British 1,139 killed, wounded and missing. Any impact which the South African War may have had on tactical attitudes in the British army was overtaken by the lessons of the RussoJapanese War of 1904–05. Here, for officers studying ‘modern war’, was a ‘premier-division’ fixture where in Manchuria increased firepower, trenches and barbed wire all played a major part. From 1903 to 1913 the Staff College entrance examination included a specific paper on ‘small wars’. South Africa was never one of the selected campaigns, while the Russo-Japanese War was chosen every year from 1910 to 1913.35 But the lesson drawn from the campaign was that the Japanese had overcome the difficulty of attacking over open ground through ‘offensive spirit, cold steel and high morale’. The British certainly appreciated the new importance of firepower, but responded by adopting ‘an unrealistic cult of the offensive’ which was applied at horrifying cost in the First World War.36 Following the war, nevertheless, there were some efforts made to harmonise aspects of army training and doctrine. In the War Office in [ 196 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR ON IMPERIAL DEFENCE

1904–05 Henry Wilson and his old friend Henry Rawlinson – who had been on Lord Roberts’s staff in South Africa – cooperated on producing a Manual of Combined Training and a Staff Manual. This work formed the basis for the ‘army’s first modern training manual’, Field Service Regulations Part II (1909). Major-General Douglas Haig, who had enjoyed a ‘good war’ in South Africa, played a major role in the preparation of the work, successively as Director of Military Training and Director of Staff Duties. Haig also initiated regular General Staff conferences, which in 1909 included representatives from Australia and 37 But these innovations had only a patchy effect. New Zealand. Individual commanders, fearful of losing power, opposed the introduction of centralised training schools, and it was not until after 1914 that the urgent pressures of actual war eventually brought centralisation. Even so Douglas Haig, by now Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, did not create a single Training Directorate until July 1918. In terms of everyday staff work, where grave deficiencies had been revealed, the war had a much more positive effect. The army had begun with no strategic appreciation or plan of campaign, it being thought that such matters were best left to the commander on the spot. Operations were severely handicapped by inadequate numbers of staff officers and, initially at any rate, the British were pitifully badly informed about their opponents and even the terrain over which they would have to march and fight. There was, for example, a grievous shortage of maps. Reports of inadequate support services were widespread. Henry Wilson, for example, noted in February 1900 that the Light Brigade had not had a change of kit since landing at Durban the previous November. The following month, after Ladysmith had been relieved, he complained that ‘owing to shocking bad HQ staff arrangement our baggage was not up till today when camp was pitched. The B[riga]de has been 18 days without 38 tents or coats.’ The Army Service Corps, the Ordnance Corps, the Pay Corps and the Provost Service all had ‘hopelessly inadequate’ prewar establishments faced with the scale of demands posed by the South African conflict. The deficiencies of the Royal Army Medical Corps, ‘overworked, undermanned, and under-orderlied’, contributed to the fact that three times as many of the British dead died of wounds or disease (16,168) than immediately by enemy action (5,774).39 Fuelled by revelations of administrative incompetence – a Royal Commission on the war, for example, provided a devastatingly detailed report in 1903 – there were widespread calls for army reform the postwar years. Already by the time in 1909 he was completing the Times history of the war (itself an extended manifesto for the reform of imperial defence arrangements at all levels), Leopold Amery was able to [ 197 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

note with approval medical service reforms introduced by St John Broderick, Secretary for War from 1900 to 1903, including increases in pay for the Royal Army Medical Service, the relocation of the Army Medical School to London, ‘to bring it into closer touch with the great teaching schools’, and the creation of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service.40 The creation of a six-division expeditionary force, for possible dispatch overseas, in the ‘Haldane reforms’ of 1906–08, was clearly influenced by recent experience. Haldane argued the need for ‘a highly-organised and well-equipped striking force’, ready to be ‘transported with the least possible delay, to any part of the world’: in each respect an improvement on the ad hoc arrangements which had been made to reinforce the garrison in South Africa in 1899.41 It was at the higher, administrative staff levels that the greatest progress was made, in particular in the emergence of a general staff in Britain. This development was a response, if somewhat belated, to the challenges of modern, large-scale war. The creation of a general staff, to be what the distinguished military commentator Spenser Wilkinson called the ‘Brain of an Army’,42 had been an invention of PrussiaGermany. The central requirement which a general staff was designed to meet was simply one of scale, and the urgent need for an efficient organisation to cope with this. Britain, unlike other European great powers, did not have a mass, conscript army and the localised, smallscale nature of Britain’s nineteenth-century imperial defence problems favoured a pragmatic, empirical, ‘muddling-through’ approach. Nevertheless, the problems of mobilising and deploying even comparatively modest numbers of troops during the Crimean War in the 1850s had revealed very serious deficiencies in staff work. The experience of the South African War further exposed British shortcomings, and made the pressure for reform irresistible. After a series of internal investigations, most notably the Esher Committee of 1903–04, which sensibly concluded that the ‘main task’ of the general staff should be ‘the preparation of the army for war’, the intention to establish a general staff was finally announced by Richard Haldane in March 1906, as one of his first reforms after becoming Secretary for War. There was a wider, imperial dimension to the measure. In a memorandum accompanying Army Order 233 setting up the new body in September 1906, it was hoped that the general staff would ‘become a real bond of union between the widely-scattered military forces of the Empire, giving to them all common ideas even in matters of detail, so that, if ever the need should arise, they could readily be concentrated to 43 form a really homogeneous Imperial Army’. Order 233 in fact provided for general staff posts to be allocated to the dominions, though at this stage no specific arrangements were made to implement this. At the [ 198 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR ON IMPERIAL DEFENCE

1907 imperial conference a modest War Office proposal for a general staff system covering the Empire as a whole was put forward. Haldane suggested to the conference an ‘Imperial General Staff’ as a purely advisory body with no powers of command, together with arrangements which would facilitate the interchange of general staff officers between the United Kingdom and the dominions. ‘Our great object’, he asserted, ‘must be to make the General Staff an imperial school of military thought, all members of which are imbued with the same traditions, accustomed to look at strategical problems from the same point of view, and acquainted with the principles and theories generally accepted at 44 head-quarters.’ The conference unanimously accepted the proposal in principle and the dominions agreed to work towards the uniformity of organisation, equipment and doctrine of their respective armed forces with those of Britain. Nevertheless (as might be expected) only haphazard progress was made with any practical implementation, especially because of dominion sensitivity about imperial centralisation. Further agreement in principle was secured at the 1909 imperial conference and Sir William Nicholson subsequently became the first ‘Chief of the Imperial General Staff’ (CIGS). But the title was more symbolic than real. It represented more a British aspiration than any effective manifestation of coherent imperial purpose. Before 1914 the coordination of defence matters on an imperial basis was largely confined to a scattering of secondments of individual officers between British and dominion forces. The South African War had a very significant impact on individuals involved in it. Some military careers were destroyed by the war (most notably that of Sir Redvers Buller) while others were enhanced (such as those of Kitchener and John French). The common experience of war, moreover, created and confirmed important social and professional networks, of which perhaps Milner’s ‘Kindergarten’ is the best known. But on the military side too, relationships were forged in the crucible of the war. One significant network is illustrated in the frontispiece to volume four of The Times History of the War in South Africa, which shows ‘Lord Roberts and Sir Alfred Milner with some staff officers’. Henry Wilson is there, along with his old friend Henry Rawlinson, who had been instrumental in getting Wilson transferred to Roberts’s staff. The two men worked together in the War Office after the war, and were successive commandants of the Staff College. Also in the photograph is Colonel Lord Stanley (afterwards Earl of Derby), private secretary to Lord Roberts. While on the staff at Pretoria, Wilson shared a house with William Nicholson (later CIGS), Rawlinson and ‘Eddie’ Stanley. With the latter two – they were all in their mid-thirties – he formed a close group who socialised with Roberts’s two unmarried daughters, Aileen and [ 199 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Edwina. Stanley, a member of parliament since 1892, provided Wilson with an entrée into Conservative and Unionist political circles which he was to exploit in later years, as, too, did Stanley’s colleagues exploit him, a bright and sociable officer with strongly articulated views on army reform and strategic questions generally. Another long-standing friendship for Wilson which originated in this period was that with the great British imperialist Leopold Amery, then chief correspondent in South Africa for The Times. Wilson (like many others) provided Amery with information while he was working on his history of the war. The two men shared a strongly conservative world view and held common opinions on the need for army reform and the desirability of compulsory military service.45 Roberts had a penchant for gathering round him a circle of bright young men. Nora, Lady Roberts, ‘Ladyship’ as she was known to the circle, took a close maternal interest in her husband’s protégés, though in Pretoria the presence of these young men must at times have been very hard to bear. The Roberts’s only son had been killed at the battle of Colenso, and Wilson in particular, perhaps in part a substitute for the lost Freddie, became very close to the family. Wilson was kept on Roberts’s staff when the field marshal returned home in December 1900 and retained in the War Office where Roberts was commander-in-chief. In 1906 Roberts’s influence was crucial in securing Wilson’s appointment to head the Staff College. There Wilson preached the gospel of a British ‘continental commitment’ at the side of France in the event of war with Germany. In 1910 Wilson went on to be Director of Military Operations, in which position he perfected the plans for mobilising and deploying the Expeditionary Force to France which, in 1914, was completed with sufficient dispatch and efficiency to prevent – just – a French collapse in the face of the German onslaught. Thus it might be said that the experience of war in South Africa directly contributed to the nature of the experience of war in Europe a dozen years or so later. The overall impact of the South African War on imperial defence was very generalised. The strains posed by the conflict undoubtedly contributed to the pressure for the reassessment of imperial strategy which occurred in the early years of the century. But the contributions of the dominions, modest though they may have been in numerical terms, were a clear indication of imperial strength and, as it turned out, a harbinger for the high level of imperial solidarity demonstrated in the First World War. Perhaps the most significant effect of the war lay in the practical area of military administration and staff work. The dispatch of the British Expeditionary Force to France in August 1914 was backed up by excellent staff arrangements which ensured that the armed might of [ 200 ]

THE IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR ON IMPERIAL DEFENCE

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

the British Empire was brought to bear at the only point which mattered at that particular moment. Yet when the battlelines settled down along the Western Front and the role of modern weaponry in strengthening the power of the defensive became all too abundantly and bloodily apparent, it appeared that at a tactical level the South African War, tragically, had had virtually no impact whatsoever. Like the Boers themselves at the battle of Colenso, the ‘lessons of war’ had altogether disappeared.46

Notes 1 2 3

4

5

6 7 8 9 10

11

12

13 14

15 16 17

18

Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War (London, 1979), pp. 572–3. L. S. Amery (ed.), The Times History of the War in South Africa, 1899–1900, vol. 3 (London, 1905), ch. 2, ‘The colonies and the Empire’, usefully summarises colonial contributions. Glen St J. Barclay, The Empire is Marching: A Study of the Military Effort of the British Empire, 1800–1945 (London, 1976), pp. 28, 40; Ian McGibbon, The Path to Gallipoli: Defending New Zealand, 1840–1915 ([Wellington], GP Books, 1991), pp. 115–17, 124. Peter Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899–1902 (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 23, 25. On p. 5 he suggests ‘possibly as many as 30,000’ armed black Africans fought with the British army. Jeffrey Grey, A Military History of Australia (Cambridge and Melbourne, 1990), p. 61; Laurie Field, The Forgotten War: Australia and the Boer War ((Melbourne, pbk edn 1995), pp. 80–1. George F. G. Stanley, Canada’s Soldiers, 1604–1954: The Military History of an Unmilitary People (Toronto, 1954), pp. 280–1. Amery, Times History, vol. 3, pp. 44–5. Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War (Melbourne, 1992), pp. 1–24; McGibbon, Path to Gallipoli, p. 122. L. S. Amery (ed.), The Times History of the War in South Africa, 1899–1900, vol. 1 (London, 1900), pp. 9, 13. The quotation is extracted from lines 87–96 of the poem ‘Heine’s grave’, which Arnold used to conclude his essay ‘My countrymen’ (1866). Chamberlain slightly misquoted the original in which Arnold refers to ‘the too vast orb of her fate’ (my emphasis). Richard Jebb, The Imperial Conference: A History and Study (London, 1911), vol. 1, pp. 354, 362–6; J. E. Tyler, ‘Development of the imperial conference, 1887–1914’, in E. A. Benians, Sir James Butler and C. E. Carrington (eds), Cambridge History of the British Empire, vol. 3, The Empire-Commonwealth, 1870–1919 (Cambridge, 1959), p. 416. Sneh Mahajan, ‘The defence of India and the end of isolation: a study in the foreign policy of the Conservative government, 1900–1905’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 10 (1982), p. 173. Michael Howard, The Continental Commitment: The Dilemma of British Defence Policy in the Era of Two World Wars (London, 1972), p. 19. See Paul Kennedy, The Realities Behind Diplomacy: Background Influences on British External Policy, 1865–1980 (London, 1981), pp. 118–27. For the post-1917 revival of AngloRussian tension, especially concerning the defence of India, see Keith Jeffery, The British Army and the Crisis of Empire, 1918–22 (Manchester, 1984), ch. 3. John Gallagher, The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire, ed. Anil Seal (Cambridge, 1982), p. 85. Ibid., p. 70. See Donal P McCracken, The Irish Pro-Boers, 1877–1902 (Johannesburg, 1989); Terence Denman, “‘The red livery of shame”: the campaign against army recruitment in Ireland 1899–1914’, Irish Historical Studies, 29 (1994–95), pp. 208 33. George EG. Stanley, Canada’s Soldiers, 1604–1954: The Military History of an Unmilitary People (Toronto, 1954), p. 288. See also Stephen Koss (ed.), The Pro-Boers’ The Anatomy of

[ 201 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

19

20

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

21 22 23 24

25

26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

an Antiwar Movement (Chicago and London, 1973). Manhattan Single Tax Club, ‘Resolutions on the Boer War’, Single Tax Review (May-June 1914), quoted in Jim Zwick (ed.), Anti-Impenalism in the United States, 1898–1935 (http://www.accinet.net/~fjzwick/ail98–35.html (January 1996)). Further similar examples of American opinion may be found in this website. Northern Miner, 21 October 1899, quoted in Joan Neal ‘Charters Towers and the Boer War’, in B. J. Dalton (ed.), Lectures on North Queensland History No. 4 (Townsville, 1984), p. 101. McGibbon, Path to Gallipoli, p. 111. Stanley, Canada’s Soldiers, p. 288. Hankey to Sir Charles Madden, 23 November 1928 (Public Record Office, CAB 21/311). Ronald Hyam, Britain’s Imperial Century, 1815–1914: A Study of Empire and Expansion (London, 1976), p. 131; Joanna Bourke Dismembering the Male. Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War (Chicago, 1996), p. 13. Ian Beckett, ‘The Nation in Arms, 1914–18’, in I. Beckett and Keith Simpson (eds), A Nation in Arms: A Social Study of the British Army in the First World War (London 1990), pp. 8–9, 13; Bourke, Dismembering the Male, pp. 171–4. Quoted by Ian Beckett in ‘South African War historiography’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 2 (1991), p. 294 Tim Travers, The Killing Ground: The British Army, the Western Front and the Emergence of Modern Warfare, 1900–1918 (London, 1987), p. 44. Charles Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice (London, 3rd edn, 1906). Koss, The Pro-Boers, p. 215. Howard, Continental Commitment, p. 71. Jean de Bloch, ‘Militarism in politics and Lord Roberts’ Reorganisation Scheme’, Contemporary Review, 80 (July-December 1901), pp. 761–93. Translated from Revue des deux Mondes, ibid., 82 (July-December 1902), pp. 305–40. Pakenham, Boer War, p. 335. Wilson to his wife, n.d., quoted in C. E. Callwell, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: His Life and Diaries (London, 1927), vol. 1, p. 29. Beckett, ‘South African War historiography’, p. 294. Travers, Killing Ground, pp. 37–8, 43. John Gooch, The Plans of War The General Staff and British Military Strategy, c. 1900– 1916 (London, 1974), pp. 27–8, 108–15. Henry Wilson diary, 10, 13 February 4 March 1900 (wilson MSS, Imperial War Museum). Quotation from the Wilson MSS is by permission of the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum. Edward M. Spiers, The Late Victorian Army, 1868–1902 (Manchester, 1992), pp. 322–5; Pakenham, Boer War, p. 572. Amery, Times History, vol. 6 (London, 1909), pp. 542 3. Edward M. Spiers, The Army and Society, 1815–1914 (.on,don, 1980), p. 266. Jay Luvaas, The Education of an Army: British Military Thought, 1815–1940 London, 1965), p. 312. 12 September 1906, Gooch, Plans of War p. 106 Edward M. Spiers, Haldane, an Army Reformer (Edinburgh 1980), p. 127. L. S. Amery, My Political Life (London, 1953), vol. 1, pp. 192–3. I wish to acknowledge the generosity of the History Program, Research School of Social Sciences Australian National University, for providing the comfortable cirumstances and congenial scholarly company within which this chapter was completed, in particular Professor Ken Inglis for his advice on war memorials.

[ 202 ]

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘The Boers were the beginning of the end’?: the wider impact of the South African War Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Donal Lowry

The Empire, stripped of its armour, has its hands tied behind its back and its bare throat exposed to the keen knife of its bitterest enemies. (W. T. Stead, 1900)

The global range of the war The South African War was regarded from the outset by both the British and the Boers as a conflict fought for public opinion. By the last decade of the nineteenth century the telegraph and syndicated news agencies had globalised world news, making this the most publicised war waged outside Europe between the American Civil War and 1914. Indeed, contemporary observers were struck by the evident similarities which the South African War shared with the American conflict, not least the prevailing opinion that it involved issues and moral principles of global significance.1 Rarely had such an extraordinary range of nationalities and outlooks assembled for a conflict so far from their homelands under the gaze of the world’s press. The Transvaal gold fields already contained one of the most ethnically diverse populations in the world. Citizens of virtually every European state and shade of political opinion and occupation from crooks and fortune-seekers to anarchists, nurses and aristocrats were represented in the Boer forces, where they fought alongside American cowboys, Filipinos and at least one Algerian Muslim.2 The war also drew Canadian, Australian and New Zealand soldiers and nurses to South Africa to join their metropolitan ‘cousins’ in a common defence of the Empire. There were American volunteers on the British side, too, including one African-American scout who had previously worked as a sugar grower in Oceana and as a gold miner in Australia, before becoming an explorer for Cecil Rhodes’s British South Africa Company. All of the great powers, deluding Japan, soon to become Britain’s ally, sent military attachés to observe the conflict on both [ 203 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

sides.3 The telegraph had brought the conflict to within a day’s reach of the other side of the globe, where the European and American appetite for news of the war was seemingly insatiable. Reports from correspondents and books and lectures by military experts such as Admiral Alfred T. Mahan were in popular demand. Theodore Roosevelt, for example, Governor of New York and a keen military enthusiast, who became US President in 1901, was able to obtain regular reports of the progress of the war, which allowed him to draw comparisons with other contemporary conflicts in the Philippines and China.4 The immense needs of the war forced the British to scour the world for horses and mules, and British officers in uniform could openly be seen trading at America’s major ports, while American detectives remained vigilant against Irish American pro-Boer sabotage. Boer prisoners and internees were scattered across the world from Bermuda and St Helena to Ceylon and Portugal, where the significance of their presence was not lost on local populations.5 With the flow of guns, ammunition, horses and mules, went cameramen, reporters, and that combination of both – the ‘photo-journalist’ – and popular culture. The ballad ‘Good-bye Dolly Gray’, for example, made popular in the Spanish-American War, soon became associated with the conflict half a world away in South Africa, while ‘Sarie Marais’, an Afrikaans love song, became adopted as the regimental tune of the Royal Marines.6 From the outset, both sides in the conflict were sensitive to the power of public opinion on a global scale. For the British, the war involved issues of international prestige, imperial security and imperial solidarity which had to be justified in the face of vociferous anti-war movements at home. Although foreign intervention was prevented by a combination of British seapower and economic self-interest on the part of potential rivals, there were widespread rumours of war with a coalition of continental rivals, with British interests being threatened by the Russians on the borders of Afghanistan and in the western Mediterranean by France and Spain.7 The Boer leadership was unable, however, to transform near-universal popular sympathy into active intervention by the great powers, but this expectation played no small part in encouraging continuing Boer resistance when the war entered its guerrilla phase. In March 1900, for example, at the krijgsraad (war council) held at Kroonstad to discuss future tactics, President Steyn of the Orange Free State told his comrades that there was ‘reliable news that the Russians planned to occupy Herat and threaten India, and that if the Boers held out for another six to eight weeks the British could be forced to accept terms. Steyn privately knew that such action was far from certain, but these reports might at least temporarily improve Bo [ 204 ]

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

morale.8 Kruger also reminded his compatriots before he went into exile that they had ‘the sympathy of the whole world’.9 In their bid for the backing of world and, particularly, colonial opinion, British imperialists and their supporters attempted to portray the war as a campaign for African rights. In the West African colony of Sierra Leone, for example, the editor of the Freetown Weekly News asserted in the aftermath of the defeats of ‘Black Week’: Every true hero fallen in this struggle for the right is also a Saviour to the nation and the African tribes long oppressed in South Africa … We can entertain no doubt as to final victory on the part of England. It may be achieved by means which, as President Kruger has predicted, will ‘stagger humanity’. ‘Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.’ The present war we are persuaded was inevitable. All the stars in their courses were urging it on … The conflict is between opposing principles, between the narrowness and darkness of the past and the light and liberality of the future … The news of peace and the better news of justice and equal rights for black and white, African and European, will ere long be remembered. The catastrophes will soon be forgotten in the vastness of prosperity which will bless the regions to which we now look with such 10 feelings of sadness and apprehending.

Unfortunately, however, for those who would have liked to portray the war as a righteous crusade, Lord Salisbury, Joseph Chamberlain and Alfred Milner made very unconvincing propaganda material for an Abraham Lincoln kind of heroic emblem. The conspiracy surrounding the Jameson Raid of 1895–96 was still vivid in popular memory and, whatever the true extent of capitalist influence in the drift towards war, the political prominence of Rand magnates, often caricatured by a bloated Cecil John Rhodes, gave the conflict an inescapable whiff of the sordid.11 Moreover, opponents of the war often exploited popular anti-semitism, depicting Jews as orchestrators of worldwide imperialism. J. A. Hobson, for example, leading critic of the war and progenitor of Lenin, declared that the ‘rich, rigorous, and energetic financial and commercial families are chiefly English Jews, not a few of whom … [had] here as elsewhere anglicised their names after true parasitic fashion’.12 The socialist Edward Carpenter described Johannesburg as ‘a hell hole of Jews, financiers, greedy speculators, adventurers, prostitutes, bars, gaming saloons, and every invention of the devil’.13 John Burns, leader of the 1889 London dockers’ strike, declared that the British army, ‘which used to be for all good causes the Sir Galahad of history, [had] become the janissary of the Jews’.14 Ironically, such anti-urban, anti-semitic and pro-Boer prejudices were also widespread among British officers in South Africa, the very people charged with prosecuting the war against the Boers.15 [ 205 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

In such circumstances, it was difficult for pro-imperialist propaganda to make much headway outside its traditional constituency, particularly after the conflict evolved into a guerrilla struggle in 1900, and the British began to employ the tactics of farm-burning and concentration camps. ‘It seems to me that in this war we have gradually followed the policy of Spain in Cuba’, David Lloyd George declared in the House of Commons, to the embarrassment of the government.16 ‘If I am to believe Kipling, this is a war undertaken for the cause of democracy’ Joseph Conrad reflected: ‘C’est à crever de lire [It’s enough to make you die laughing].’17 Indeed, by the end of the conflict, even the war’s supporters found little source for pride. The Freetown Weekly News, for example, still maintained that Britain must win because ‘she had justice and right on her side’, but the telling phrase, ‘at least more justice and right than the Boers had’, was now added as a qualification.18 The Fabian Society regarded the war as unjust but necessary and inevitable. Its failure to condemn the conflict led a number of prominent socialists, trade unionists and feminists to resign, including Ramsay MacDonald, Emmeline Pankhurst and Walter Crance.19 These, in common with other opponents of the conflict, tended to idealize the Boers. For the Labour leader, James Keir Hardie, for example, the involvement of capitalists in the British cause seemed to absolve Afrikaners of any significant fault: [The war is] a Capitalist war, begotten by Capitalists’ money, lied into being by a perjured mercenary Capitalist press, and fathered by unscrupulous politicians, themselves the merest tools of the Capitalists. As a pastoralist people the Boers doubtless have all the failings of the fine qualities which pertain to that mode of life; but whatever these failings might have been they are virtues compared to the turbid pollution and refined cruelty which is inseparable from the operation of capitalism. As Socialists, our sympathies are bound to be with the Boers. Their Republican form of 20 Government bespeaks freedom, and is thus hateful to tyrants.

Edward Carpenter also acknowledged that the Boers had ‘their faults’, including hard and barbarous behaviour towards Africans, but, he claimed, the British were more ‘systematically cruel’. The Boers, in contrast, lived a simple, pastoral life, loving their land, cattle and homes. They possessed the same right to sovereignty as the British would have, were Liverpool to be overrun by 100,000 Chinese, ‘smothering our civilization, and introducing their hated customs and ways’.21 Clement Attlee, future Labour Prime Minister, then a pupil at Haileybury and enthusiastic anti-Boer and imperialist, was beaten along with the entire middle school by his pro-Boer headmaster for participating in an illicit celebration of the relief of Ladysmith.22 While G. K. Chesterton was [ 206 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

‘very proud of the title of pro-Boer’, most British critics of the war were by no means necessarily opposed to Britain’s world role. Hobson, Burns and Carpenter distinguished between ‘new imperialism’, which eroded liberty in the colonies and had a corrosive effect on politics in Britain, and an enlightened imperialism based on benevolent administration and the progressive extension of self-government. Viewed from such a perspective, the South African War marked a colossal betrayal of enlightened British political values.23 In spite of their lack of experience and relative scarcity of diplomatic resources the Boers were not novices in the field of international propaganda and diplomacy. Foreign awareness of the region had already been raised by such events as the visits to Europe of Transvaal President T. F. Burgers in 1875–76, the first Anglo-Transvaal War of 1880–81, the discoveries of diamonds and gold, the Jameson Raid of 1895–96 and the Kaiser’s subsequent telegram of German support for Kruger. By 1899 the Boers possessed a number of propaganda advantages, not least the fact that the war coincided with widespread anti-Britishness among nationalists in Europe and America and particularly in Russia and France, the historic ‘metropolis of liberty’. French humiliation at 24 Fashoda a year earlier had given a particular edge to local pro-Boerism. The war also drew on a widespread millenarian sense of angst, manifested in such events as the Dreyfus Affair and other scandals in France, various assassination attempts on members of European monarchies, and the Spanish-American War of 1898, as well as the international humanitarian spirit generated by the recent creation of The Hague Peace Conference. British and American imperialists also regarded the Spanish-American and South African conflicts as heralding a new age of ‘Anglo-Saxon manifest destiny’ and hegemony, while their opponents also discerned common characteristics, not least in the apparent conspiratorial role of press barons in orchestrating both 25 conflicts. At the end of 1900, in an article ironically titled ‘A Greeting from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century’, Mark Twain listed South Africa as central to that hypocritical fin de siècle process of partition and conquest then being undertaken in Africa, China and other parts of Asia: I bring you the stately nation named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched and dishonest, from pirate raids in Kiao-Chou, Manchuria, South Africa and the Philippines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle and her mouth full of hypocrisies. Give her soap and a towel, 26 but hide the looking glass.

Because of the obvious power imbalance between the two sides there was widespread and spontaneous sympathy for the underdog and this [ 207 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

was the Boers’ greatest propaganda advantage. The involvement of foreign volunteers, the romantic idealism of much pro-Boer propaganda, the widespread perception that universal principles were at stake and the extensive use of anti-war propaganda in countries around the world, all place the South African War in an ‘internationalist’ tradition which extends from the American and French revolutionary wars of the eighteenth century, through the South American and Greek revolts, the Italian wars of reunification and the Paris Commune, to the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Indeed, the participation of the foreign volunteers was symbolically highly significant in arousing anti-British and radical pro-Boer feeling in their various homelands, even if they were relatively few in number compared with the contingents from Canada and Australasia serving with imperial forces, and their performance not 27 always admired by the Boers. Metropolitan movements were often inspired by the activities of their various volunteer contingents, but these also included pacifist elements which were opposed to the war and concerned chiefly with humanitarian aid. Like the mainstream pro-Boer movements, pacifist organisations also tended to idealise and sentimentalise the Boers as pastoralist victims of a militarist empire. Generally, the pro-Boer movements contained a wide spectrum of opinion, from imperialists jealous of British hegemony and nationalists who regarded the war as an opportunity to assert martial values in a war where the issues appeared to be clear-cut, to nationalists and socialists who regarded the Boers as archetypally republican and democratic, if not anarchic, champions of pre- and antiindustrialism. A number of the movements regarded as ‘pro-Boer’ were in fact pacifist or humanitarian, but these, too, tended to romanticise the Boers. According to Olive Schreiner, South African feminist and socialist, for example, the Boer was ‘a pure-blooded European, descended from some of the most 28 advanced and virile nations of Europe’. Classical analogies abounded. To some of their admirers the Boers embodied the classical virtues of the Roman farmer-turned-reluctant-general, Cincinnatus; to others they were Tacitus’s German guerrillas come to life. Sympathetic European nobility could characterise them as ‘natural aristocrats’, while anarchists could regard them as indomitable peasants.29 A wide range of Europeans and Americans could, moreover, claim some measure of kinship with the Boers, with their mixed Dutch, French and German ancestry. Colonel (later General) de VilleboisMareuil, the ‘French Colonel’ who commanded the International Legion, was convinced that they were still essentially French. Theodore Roosevelt, Governor of New York, believed them to be seventeenthcentury cousins with familiar surnames removed to South Africa rather than America by the fortunes of history: [ 208 ]

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

I am of Dutch descent though now mixed with other blood, Huguenot, Scotch and Irish. I belong to the Dutch Reformed Church to which my fathers have always belonged. The church I go to here in Albany is the same as my predecessor as Governor, old Peter Stuyvesant, went to when Albany was called Fort Orange, and New York, New Amsterdam … I have a very 30 keen respect for the Boers … I was proud of the ‘valour’ of my kinsfolk.

In contrast, Roosevelt’s distant young relative (and another future American president), Franklin Delano Roosevelt, saw the Boers primarily as anti-imperialists rather than ethnic cousins, and he thus championed their cause as President of the Harvard University Boer Relief Committee.31 To many Americans, Kruger seemed to resemble both ideologically and physically those bearded pentateuchal patriarchs who had proverbially ‘opened up’ the American West with a bible in one hand and a musket in the other. He had long been careful to display the stars and stripes on official occasions in the Transvaal and had once famously couched his own brand of ‘manifest destiny’ in conventional American transcontinental terms: Whether we win, whether we die: freedom will rise in Africa like the sun from the morning clouds, inasmuch freedom rose in the United States … Then it will be from the Zambesi to Simon’s Bay: Africa for the 32 Africander.

Even enemies could portray the Boers as heroic. In 1896, W. E. H. Lecky, leading historian and Liberal Unionist MP for Dublin University, regarded President Kruger as the personification of the Boer spirit and almost a reincarnated Roundhead: [The Transvaal Boers] have at their head a man who, with greatly superior abilities, represents very faithfully their characters, ideals and wishes … In many ways he resembles strikingly the stern Puritan warrior of the [Cromwellian] Commonwealth – a strong stubborn man with indomitable courage and resolution, with very little tinge of cultivation, but with a rare natural shrewdness in judging men and events … In a semi-regal position … he lives the life of a peasant; and though I believe, essentially a just, wise and strong man, he has all his countrymen’s dread of an immigration of an alien element, and all their dislike and suspicion of an industrial and mining 33 community.

Although anti-Boer propagandists sought to portray Kruger as a savage and his administration as a ‘medieval’ tyranny, this romanticised view largely survived the outbreak of hostilities. In 1901, Arthur Conan Doyle, a popular historian of the war, depicted the Boers as descendants of a unique blend of Dutchmen, who had challenged the might of sixteenth-century imperial Spain, and the progeny of unyielding French [ 209 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Huguenots, who were then toughened by generations of environmental adversity in Africa. ‘Napoleon and all his veterans’, he wrote admiringly, ‘have never treated us so roughly as these hardbitten farmers with their ancient theology and their inconveniently modern rifles.’34 Frederick Russell Burnham, an American scout who fought on the British side, took a similarly romantic, if somewhat barbed, view: Two hundred years of open veldt life developed them into tall, big-boned men, fine horsemen and good shots … Much that has been written about the Boers has been false and misleading. He has been depicted as a sort of nomad mongrel, part Dutch and part Negro, with the additional blood of any other nation that has happened to be in Africa during the last few hundred years. He has been accused of being uncleanly, treacherous, and of such negligible courage that a handful of trained European soldiers could easily defeat any number of Boers … The Boer is worthy of admiration for many qualities of value. He is a peculiar product of colonial Africa, and is very probably destined to influence its history for all time to a very marked degree … Yet I would not wish to see my own country relying for security reasons wholly 35 upon such qualities as have made the Boer famous.

The war attracted the attention of a remarkable range of prominent contemporary figures. The Marxist Gyorgy Lukács quarrelled with his pro-British father on the issue, while Karl Kautsky, the major populariser of Marxist theory after the death of Engels and chief theorist of the German Social Democratic Party, believed that the conflict was less of a struggle to conquer new markets than a campaign to conquer new fields for the military, bureaucracy and high finance.36 Pope Leo XIII, whose nephew, Lieutenant Count Pecci, was fighting for the Boers, used the occasion of the war to express his indignation at the exclusion of the Holy See from the Hague Peace Conference, largely as a result of Italian government pressure; thus preventing the use of papal mediation to limit the ‘atrocity of war’. He nevertheless expressed sympathy for the Boer cause in an allocution commemorating the anniversary of his pontificate.37 The Chinese nationalist Sun Yat-sen found it bizarre that his country, the most ancient, civilised and populous nation in the world, could not equal the ability of 200,000 Transvaal Boers to resist the British for three years. If only the Chinese could unite and emulate the Boers, he reflected, their power would be immeasurably greater.38 Rosa Luxemburg was one of the few leading thinkers to recognise that the black majority would be the ultimate losers in the war.39 Another was Henry Hyndman of the Social Democratic Federation, who came to regard the conflict as a war between two burglars; between seventeenthcentury pirates and slave-drivers and twentieth-century capitalists, with [ 210 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

‘the splendid native tribes’ as the losers.40 Other anti-war activists were, however, not so dependable in their defence of indigenous populations. More typical was Michael Davitt, ex-Fenian, founder of the Irish Land League, firebrand enemy of imperialism and supporter of Indian nationalism and the Russian revolutionary movement. He resigned his parliamentary seat in protest at the war and wrote a polemical account of his travels among the Boers. Although a staunch defender of Russian Jews against tsarist persecution, he too identified capitalist machinations with ‘Anglicized German Jews’, and he charged Britain with arming ‘African savages to help her in a war which had its origin in motives as base and as odious as ever prompted a Sultan of Turkey to burn an Armenian village or to massacre his rebellious subjects’.41 Women played a particularly influential part in controversies over the conduct of the war and its impact on Boer women and children. The social reformer Josephine Butler regarded Britain’s cause as just, like the campaign against slavery, while Maud Gonne, the fervent Irish nationalist, led a fierce crusade against British army recruitment in Ireland. Apparently, only the intervention of Rudyard Kipling saved his Aunt Georgie from the wrath of a local jingo crowd, having hung out an anti-war banner from her Sussex home. Women were also prominent in humanitarian relief, including Margot Asquith, wife of the Liberal politician, Alice Stopford Green, who reported on Boer prison camps in St Helena, and Jane Cobden Unwin, daughter of the free-trade leader, Richard Cobden, who was among the leaders of W. T. Stead’s Stop-theWar Movement. Mary Kingsley, the West African explorer and niece of Charles Kingsley, died of enteric fever while nursing Boer prisoners at Simonstown. The suffragist leader, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, presided over a Ladies’ Committee sponsored by the War Office and charged with investigating conditions in the camps. In spite of criticism over the Conservative bias of the group, significant reforms were effected as a result of their intervention. There were also leading women in sections of other organisations such as the South African Conciliation Committee, the Society of Friends and the South African Women and Children Distress Fund. The greatest of the reformers was Emily Hobhouse who visited concentration camps in the Orange River Colony in early 1901. Although deported back to Britain by the colonial authorities later in the year, Hobhouse had a major impact both on British public opinion and on camp administration and she became a particular heroine to Boer women.42

[ 211 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

The foreign contingents The first significant manifestation of foreign support for the Boer cause occurred in South Africa itself, where several volunteer corps, comprising naturalised burghers and foreigners resident in the South African Republic, were formed at the beginning of the war. The largest of these were the German and Hollander Corps which suffered major casualties on the Natal front, while the Scandinavian Corps was virtually annihilated at the battle of Magersfontein. The remnants of various foreign units were temporarily reunited under the command of General de Villebois-Mareuil. There were in all about 1,650 foreigners in the various volunteer corps, and another 1,000 in the ordinary Boer commandos.43 The Times historian of the war vividly described their assembly: Rarely has a more motley gathering been seen than that which collected in Pretoria in the opening weeks of the year. Intending warriors of every nationality, resplendent in the uniforms of every army under the sun or in the still more picturesque garb and terrifying armoury which the individual buccaneer’s bold fantasy might devise, jostled each other in the galleries of the Government building or displayed their equestrian prowess in the 44 astonished marketplace of the sleepy little capital.

The Boer forces included individual volunteers from France, Germany, the Low Countries, Hungary and the United States, in addition to designated French, German, Scandinavian, Dutch, Irish, American and Russian corps, which were more mixed in nationality than their titles might suggest. There was also an Italian Corps which numbered some veterans of the Abyssinian campaign. These contingents contained a number of prominent individuals who added a certain glamour to pro-Boer propaganda and in several cases went on to lead somewhat unusual careers. There was Colonel Ricchiardi, for example, according to Davitt, ‘handsome, dashing … tall and dark, quite a woman’s ideal soldier-hero’, who later married a relative of Kruger and accompanied him during part of his European exile.45 The German Corps included Fritz Brail, who had established a reputation in Europe as an international anarchist, and a former Uhlans officer, Captain Graf von Zeppelin, who, it was said, when he ran out of ammunition, attacked the Gordon Highlanders with his whip, until he fell mortally wounded. Among the Hollander Corps was Cornelius van Gogh who committed suicide, like his famous brothers Vincent and Theodore, while held captive by the British. The Russian Corps comprised an ambulance of Russian doctors and nurses and a unit of Scouts, many of whom were Cossacks, including the playboy and giant hetman Prince Bagration of [ 212 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

Tiflis, and Count Alexis de Ganetzky. Very different from these was Alexander Guchkov, a liberal idealist grandson of a serf, who after service in the Transvaal went on to take part in the suppression of the Boxer Rising in China, before returning to Russia to found the Octobrist Party. He became Chairman of the Duma and Minister of War in the Provisional Government in March 1917, but fled abroad at the outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution later that year. The most prominent of the Russians was Colonel Eugène (Yevgeny) Maximov, who in 1900 was appointed second-in-command of the International Legion. Officially – like a number of leading foreign volunteers – Maximov arrived in South Africa as a correspondent for several Russian newspapers. He was later killed in the Russo-Japanese War. Among the French volunteers was Prince Louis d’Orleans et Braganze, cousin of the pretender to the French throne, and René de Charette, descendant of the famous Vendéan counter-revolutionary guerrilla fighter General de Charette. Not surprisingly, perhaps, parallels between the Vendéan and South African conflicts were frequently drawn. The French poet Théodore Botrel sang the praises of ‘Les Vendéens du Transvaal’ and the ‘Chouans’ of the veld.46 Also in the French unit was Robert de Kersauson de Pennendreff, who was born at Kerouazle Castle near Brest, and known as ‘Robert the Frenchman’.47 A descendant of one of the most noble of Breton houses and a cousin of Villebois-Mareuil, he decided to volunteer for the Boer forces and served on commando in the eastern Transvaal and later in the Free State with Danie Theron’s scouts. From there he raided into the Cape Colony with General de Wet in December 1900 and into the northern Cape with General Maritz in the following year. He played a significant covert role in 1902 when he was sent by the Boer generals on a secret mission via German South-West Africa to Europe to meet with President Kruger and the Boer envoy Dr Leyds. Many of the American Scouts had seen action in Cuba, including James Foster, the ‘Arizona Kid’, who had been one of Teddy Roosevelt’s ‘Rough Riders’. There was also the Irish-American West Pointer Colonel John Blake, who headed the Irish Transvaal Brigade, and who, it seems, later took his own life in a New York hotel room. His second-incommand, Major John MacBride, who later married Maud Gonne, William Butler Yeats’s unrequited love, was executed by the British after 48 the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916. A second Irish Transvaal Brigade was commanded by Colonel Arthur Lynch, an Irish-Australian journalist, engineer and physician, who was sentenced to death. It was widely but wrongly believed that he was the last person sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered for high treason. He was simply sentenced to be hanged, but almost immediately this was commuted to life [ 213 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

imprisonment. Released within a year, he practised as a doctor, before becoming in turn a nationalist MP, a colonel in the British army and a prominent London literary figure in later life. Humility was not his strongest characteristic, however, and, believing himself to be one of the finest minds of his generation, he later argued that his service with the Boers vindicated the superiority of the intellectual over the man of action. The American Scouts also included a number of Filipinos who had only recently been fighting against the American occupation of their country. Even more remarkable was Mahomed Ben Nasser, a former spahi in the French colonial forces in North Africa, surely the only Arab to gain citizenship of the Transvaal. After quarrelling with his French commander, he transferred to an Austrian unit commanded by a Hungarian hussar, and ended the conflict as a British prisoner of war in 49 Ceylon. The doyen among the foreign volunteers, however, was the twentieth Count de Villebois-Mareuil, a retired French army colonel, who had volunteered for the position of military adviser to the Transvaal. His career provides us with an interesting example of the linkage between foreign military adventure and political crisis at home. Born into one of the most distinguished noble and military families of France, he became a highly decorated veteran of campaigns in Indochina, North Africa and the Franco-Prussian War. He became disillusioned by the Dreyfus Affair which he believed had tarnished the honour of the French army, and, together with other writers, including Maurice Barrès and Georges Maurras, founded the ultra-conservative organisation, Action Française. He did not, however, share the movement’s antisemitism and narrowly royalist outlook. Disappointed by further political scandals and French humiliation by the British at Fashoda, the South African War appeared to provide an opportunity to rise above what he regarded as the decadence of the age. South Africa offered, moreover, an escape from a potentially embarrassing liaison with a prominent married woman, Mme Hochon. On his arrival in South Africa he took a prominent part in a number of major battles, but he was scathing about the amateurism of the Boer leadership, with the exception of Louis Botha, whom he had advised on the eve of the battle of Colenso. In 1900, by now a Boer general in charge of the International Legion, he was a leading supporter of the transition to guerrilla warfare, and he recalled the tactics of the French Chouans of a century before: La Vendée is an example of how seasoned troops may be checked by an enemy inferior in numbers, discipline and armour, but possessed of certain counter-balancing resources due either to the nature of the country, to his own natural characteristics, or to a combination of both. [ 214 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

His chief ambition had been to capture Cecil Rhodes, now at bay in the stronghold of Kimberley: ‘History will add a fresh flower to the glory of France’, he recalled in his diary. ‘To take Kimberley and see the face of the Napoleon of the Cape.’50 But it was not to be, for he was killed in a reckless attack near Boshof in April 1900. He was celebrated by generations of French army officers for having redeemed the honour of France with his death and he is believed to have provided his cousin, Edmond Rostand, author of Cyrano de Bergerac, with the basis for his fictional heroic archetype.51

The pro-Boer campaign in Europe Meanwhile in Europe and America the Boers were well served by the propaganda of their envoys, Dr W. J. Leyds, Dr H. R N. Muller, Edgar Roels (Paris) and Montagu White (USA). Pro-Boer feeling was particularly strong in the Netherlands and Germany. The Algemeen Nederlands Verbond, based in Doordrecht, gave its strong backing and the pro-Boers could depend on the support of prominent journalists. Substantial funds were raised in support of such schemes as the Christlijk Nationaal Boerencomité, which opened a home for Boer exiles in Amsterdam. In Belgium the Algemeen Nederlands Verbond was the leading vehicle for pro-Boer activity, and Flemings and Walloons combined to support the Boers. Pro-Boer committees were formed in Ghent and Antwerp and a Belgian-German field ambulance was dispatched to the Transvaal. In Scandinavia the pro-Boers enlisted the support of Björnstjerne Björnson, a Nobel Prizewinner, and news of the activities of the Scandinavian volunteers was keenly followed. A pro-Boer committee was formed in Turin, and 12,000 Hungarians signed a petition of support of Kruger in 1901. France, the homeland of republican patriotism, was also swept by Boer fever, partly due to the renewed atmosphere of Anglophobia which had been heightened by the Fashoda crisis of the previous year. Pro-Boer feeling was especially promoted by the press, particularly Le Temps, Le Petit Journal and Le Monde Illustré. Only Le Siècle, edited by Yves Guyot, took a pro-British line. Some of these journalists suggested that the war would culminate in a wider Anglo-French-Russian war. Generally, proBoer feeling in France drew on two traditions: the anti-colonialist and anti-militarist lobby on the one hand, and on the other, nationalist, Anglophobic and both republican and anti-republican elements. Germany also provided vociferous support for the Boers, with memories of German support for Kruger during the Jameson Raid still vivid. By 1899, however, having largely resolved Anglo-German colonial differences the previous year, Kaiser Wilhelm II and his government [ 215 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

were keen to play down hostility to the British – indeed, the Kaiser was now offering the British advice on how best to subdue the Boers – but they were unable to control public opinion on the South African issue. Elements of the Pan-German League, and other nationalist movements which had been formed in the Bismarck era, used the occasion of the war to demonstrate that, contrary to Bismarck’s hopes, they had a momentum of their own. Popular nationalism could not be turned on and off like a tap, and they were not mere creatures of what they regarded as a timid government. In November 1899 a petition of support signed by 4,000 Germans was received by Dr Leyds, the Transvaal’s roving ambassador in Europe. The All-deutscher Verband, a pan-German organisation, obtained a petition of almost a million signatures and the Deutsche Zentrale für Bestrebungen zur Beendigung des Krieges (the German Centre for the Struggle to End the War) sent an address to the Reichstag on behalf of 70,000 people. By December 1901, more than 200 petitions signed by 166,000 had been sent to the government, in addition to the earlier appeals. Also in 1901, the Frauenhilfsbund mobilised financial and political support for destitute Boer inmates in British concentration camps. These movements fostered an almost uncontrollable popular anti-Britishness in Germany, which in the new century encouraged a growing British conviction that Germany posed a 52 threat to their interests. In Russia, most opinion on the war was enthusiastically pro-Boer, although there were some Liberals who supported the British. Boer supporters ranged from traditionally anti-British Russian nationalists to socialists and peasant radicals, to whom the Boers were armed narodniki, and the exploits of Russian volunteers and nurses in South Africa were widely reported. Under the inspiration of a Dutch clergyman, H. A. Gillot of St Petersburg, Boer support became widespread throughout major Russian cities. As in other European countries the war gave rise to a host of memorabilia, popular iconography and the renaming of streets after Boer heroes, and the struggle was re-enacted in many school playgrounds. Seventy-thousand Russians supported the presentation of an enormous silver ceremonial cup mounted on a stand of Russian marble to General Piet Cronjé. The war also provided inspiration for popular Russian folk songs, one of which had a chorus line: ‘Transvaal, Transvaal, my country, you are all 53 in flames’. Kruger was particularly moved by Russian support. Shortly before his death in 1904, the exiled president sent a donation of five hundred roubles to help the Russian wounded in the war with Japan, while other exiled Boers tried to enlist Russian support for a Boer rebellion against the British.54 The emotional high point of the pro-Boer campaign in Europe was [ 216 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

the dispatch by Queen Wilhelmina of the Dutch warship Gelderland to bring President Kruger to Europe. This move was a response by the Dutch government to widespread criticisms of timidity. On his arrival in France in November 1900 Kruger became the toast of Europe, where he was presented with numerous illuminated addresses, commemorative medals and ceremonial swords. His visit further enhanced the Transvaal Pavilion at the Paris International Exhibition as a place of pilgrimage for pro-Boers. He was also received by Queen Wilhelmina at The Hague, where he was presented with addresses by both Houses of Parliament, and another sword of honour by German veterans of the Unification and Franco-Prussian Wars. At this time several Dutch and Belgian streets and hotels were renamed for Kruger and his generals. A bust of General Christiaan de Wet was unveiled at Schierstein near Wiesbaden, and a statue of Kruger erected in Dresden. When General Cronjé visited the Netherlands, he was also received by Queen Wilhelmina and presented with addresses from the Dutch parliament. By 1902, some 6,000 gifts presented to Kruger and his generals were housed at the Zuid-Afrikaansh Museum in Dordrecht. Not since Garibaldi’s South American campaigns and the American Civil War had there been such international interest in the ‘moral’ issues of a struggle waged outside Europe, but the public welcome for Kruger was mirrored by a cold reception from most European governments, which did not wish to antagonise the British. As the war began to go against the Boers after 1900, pro-Boer and pacifist activity was increasingly focused on humanitarian relief for 55 concentration camp victims. Although more than 14,000 Africans died in these camps, international opinion was almost exclusively concerned with the 28,000 Boer fatalities. Emily Hobhouse, for example, who had been energetic in exposing conditions in the Boer concentration camps, later maintained that she had been unable to investigate the black camps. She did, however, raise the issue with the Aborigines Protection Society, which had already launched a Zulu Relief Fund following a request from Harriete Colenso.56 The figurative impact of the war in Europe was extensive. The various sites associated with presidents Kruger and Steyn, and Dr Leyds at Lake Geneva, Baden, Brussels, Deventer, Utrecht and The Hague were commemorated in monuments, plaques and statues. There was also the house at Clarens, near Lake Geneva, where the exiled Kruger spent his last days in 1904, which became a place of pilgrimage for the pro-Boers. From there he issued his valedictory address to his defeated republic: Born under the British flag, 1 do not wish to die under it. I have learned to accept the bitter thought of death in a foreign land as a lone exile, far from kith and kin whose faces 1 shall not likely see again, far from the soil of [ 217 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Africa, upon which I am not likely ever to set foot again, far from the country to which my whole life has been devoted.

The poignancy of a stateless, fugitive president, attended by his heroic generals, dying in exile, was not lost on European nationalists and Anglophobes.57 With the end of the war in 1902, however, much of the enthusiasm of the European pro-Boers dissipated. When the Boer generals Botha, de la Rey and de Wet toured Europe in July 1902 to raise funds for distressed Boers they raised only £103,819, much less than they had expected.58

Pro-Boerism in the United States The American government, with greater conviction than its European counterparts, wanted the British to win the war, although popular sentiment prevented a public admission of this. The conflict occurred against the background of a perceived British policy of neutrality during the Spanish-American War of 1898, and this was widely regarded by Americans as having been instrumental in preventing a European, possibly German-led, alliance in support of Spain. The American government used Britain’s stance to justify its own benevolently proBritish neutrality in 1899–1902. These were, moreover, the years of American imperialism in the Philippines, celebrated by Rudyard Kipling in his poem, ‘The White Man’s Burden’, which called on the Americans to join the British in promoting an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ civilising mission against the ‘lesser breeds without the Law’ – that is, other imperial powers led by Germany.59 Cecil Rhodes had recently added two scholarships for each American state to his Oxford bequest to facilitate Anglo-American reconciliation, if not reunification. Continuing American military difficulties in Cuba and an awakening fear of German power further encouraged closer cooperation with Britain.60 Mark Twain believed that Britain must be upheld, even though wrong, because not to do so would invite Russian and German ‘degradations’. Theodore Roosevelt admitted to the explorer and hunter Frederick Courtney Selous that he used to be rather anti-British until Britain’s conduct in the Spanish-American War.61 Secretary of State John Hay was an avowed Anglophile who hoped wholeheartedly for a British victory. In 1898, while ambassador to Britain, he had voiced his belief in an AngloAmerican partnership: We are joint ministers of the same sacred mission of liberty and progress, charged with duties we cannot evade by the imposition of irresistible hands … for all nations of the world will profit more or less directly by any [ 218 ]

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

extension of British commerce and the enterprise and enlightenment that go 62 with it.

The appointment of Hay’s son as US Consul in Pretoria scarcely encouraged Boer faith in American neutrality. Samuel E. Moffat, chief editorial writer of the New York Journal, remarked that within two years of the war American attitudes, though still largely sympathetic towards the Boers, were no longer intensified by hostility but moderated by friendship for Britain.63 Even Henry Cabot Lodge, the highly influential senator for Massachusetts reputed to be suspicious of British imperial motives, told Roosevelt in February 1900: I think we shall manage to keep our neutrality, and that the government will be kept from doing anything in the way of meddling in the Transvaal War. There is a very general and solid sense of the fact that however much we sympathize with the Boers the downfall of the British Empire is something which no rational American could regard as anything but a 64 misfortune to the United States.

Theodore Roosevelt, who became president in 1901, echoed these sentiments. He sympathised with the Boers, but he regarded the downfall of the Kruger regime as inevitable, analogous to the recent fall of Spain’s ‘medieval’ empire. He believed that the Transvaal would and ought to fall into ‘progressive’ British hands as surely as Mexico or Texas had been absorbed into the United States earlier in the century. Significantly, perhaps, he does not in his surviving correspondence mention gold as a factor in this process; he appears to have been a territorial rather than economic determinist on the issue. Not the least consideration in American policy was, however, the immense increase in British business as a result of the war. In spite of an appeal from the South African Republic to ban the export of mules, horses and other contraband, nearly 200,000 mounts and large quantities of ammunition were exported to Britain, while similar support was denied to the Boers. The volume of American trade with Britain during the war increased by approximately a fifth, and the New York Times reminded its readers that 38 per cent of US exports went to Britain and over half to the British 65 Empire as a whole. There was nevertheless a significant strand of Anglophobia in American opinion, heightened by the South African conflict and based not least on the Irish-American lobby newly invigorated and united by the war, which frustrated government ambitions for a closer relationship with Britain. Irish Americans were prominent in organising public meetings across the country and in supporting the visit of a Boer diplomatic delegation in 1900. Others advocated direct attacks on Canada and Bermuda, where Boer prisoners of war would be freed.66 Hay [ 219 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

complained to his assistant secretary that domestic politics, together with the ‘present morbid state of the public mind’ resulting from the South African War, precluded an alliance with Britain, whose interests were ‘identical’ with America’s, leaving the Americans to ‘look idly on’ while Britain made terms with Germany instead of America.67 John Daly, Mayor of Limerick and a former Fenian prisoner, was exaggerating when he suggested that no administration would dare contract an alliance with Britain because of the strength of the Irish-American electorate. Nevertheless, as a result of the war, powerful realignments took place which would largely over the next two decades push Ireland to the forefront of Anglo-American relations.68 As in Ireland itself, the South African War provided an opportunity to reunite various factions of constitutional and physical force nationalists who had been so divided after the fall of Parnell. It provided a key incentive for the recovery of the Clan na Gael movement under the leadership of the old Fenian John Devoy, and Daniel F. Colohan, a lawyer and rising star in Irish America. Prominent Irish Americans sought to make political alliances with other American anti-imperialists, especially those within the Democratic Party, as well as from other hyphenated ethnic groups such as the German-Americans. In many cities across America newly founded United Irish societies provided umbrellas for a number of pro-Boer Irish groups, including the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Clan na Gael and such newspapers as the Boston Pilot, the Chicago Citizen and the Irish World.69 Covert American government cooperation with the British extended to the provision of Pinkerton detectives to investigate reports of IrishAmerican and Boer arms purchases and recruitment in support of the Boer War. Teddy Roosevelt threatened to ‘clap in jail’ Irish filibusters who threatened to invade Canada, while the bulk of its troops were in South Africa, but the government was unable to prevent the establish ment of an Irish-American ‘Ambulance Corps’, outwardly affiliated to the International Red Cross, which was in fact intended for a combat role in South Africa.70 Support for the Boers was so widespread and pro-Boer propaganda perceived to be so effective that the government dreaded the inflammatory impact of a rumoured visit by Kruger. President McKinley, somewhat half-heartedly, privately received the delegation and accepted a request to ask the British to accept his good offices in settling the conflict, and both the Republicans and the Democrats felt obliged to include the Boer issue in their platform in the 1900 elections. While Republicans advocated non-intervention, the Democrats criticised McKinley and the Republicans for allegedly entering into a secret alliance with England. The war also caused the defection of some influential [ 220 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

German and Irish members of the Republican party into the Democratic Party, including the German owner of the New York Staats Zeitung, and the veteran Irish-American Congressman Bourke Cockran. The latter, ironically, later helped to organise Winston Churchill’s lecture tour of the USA following his escape from the Boers and was linked romantically to Churchill’s staunchly imperialist mother. In his personal memoirs published on his return to the United States in 1903, Colonel John Blake, former commander of the Irish Brigade, accused the Washington political elite of betrayal of American republicanism in the Transvaal’s hour of need.71 The South African War thus continued to impinge on domestic debates about the nature of the American national character and developing world role. Although the Irish-American pro-Boers were unable to alter American policy, their agitation marked the coming of age of the IrishAmerican lobby on the centre stage of American political life, a process which alarmed the American ‘Protestant Establishment’ as much as it did the British Foreign Office. In 1900, for example, John Hay commented that: The Irish and the Germans, for the first time in my knowledge, seem to have joined their several lunacies in one common attack against England and incidentally against the Administration for being too friendly to England. I do not imagine this coalition can survive for many months, but for the 72 moment it lifts all our lightweight politicians off their feet.

Roosevelt was also depressed by the internal ethnic tensions aroused in America by the war, as much as by British reverses in South Africa. He believed that the conflict demonstrated grave signs of racial deterioration not only in the British soldier but in America’s own ‘English-speaking’ population, whose falling birth rate filled him with ‘foreboding’.73 African-American leaders also avidly followed the course of the war, some of them even adopting a pro-Boer position. Booker T. Washington, for example, joined other prominent public figures in calling on President McKinley to intervene diplomatically ‘to prevent the wiping out of two of our sister republics’. Henry Y. Arnett criticised the ‘British greed for gold’ and felt that African-Americans should emulate the patriotism of the Boers. While there was much talk about ‘the Plucky little Boers’, the great majority of African-American leaders, however, supported a British victory in the hope that this might deliver some 74 meaningful measure of African political rights.

The impact on the United Kingdom The immediate effects of the conflict on British politics are well known. [ 221 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Much of Britain’s military manhood was revealed to be physically ‘degenerate’ and apparently lacking in the yeoman qualities which had sustained their forefathers. While the impact of the war on imperial defence should not be exaggerated, British military failure in South Africa strengthened the hand of those who had been calling for drastic military reform. The conflict also heightened fears that Britain was falling seriously behind its competitors in almost every field, from trade and technical education to maternal care of the future generation. It temporarily split the Liberal Party and brought into prominence the 75 ideology of ‘national efficiency’. It could, of course, be argued that the war had provided only a temporary shock to the system. After all, the British won the war in the end. Moreover, the ‘national efficiency’ debate pre-dated the conflict; the reverses of 1899–1902 merely strengthened these critiques. It could also be argued that the struggle provided no useful compass to the British in their military preparations for a conventional European conflict, for when the slaughter began in 1914, the South African War was soon dwarfed, and seemed a world away, even to those many veterans of South Africa who had remained in the ranks. Yet hindsight should not be allowed to cloud the perceived enormity of the South African War in the Edwardian decade. British failures in the conflict had indeed fundamentally altered the way they regarded imperial strength. Those who had long warned of British decline in the years before 1899 might well have remained ineffective but for the shocking defeats of ‘Black Week’, while politicians and public health officials who disputed the evidence of ‘race deterioration’ now 76 found themselves at odds with public opinion. ‘Whatever else the war may do or undo’, George Bernard Shaw observed, ‘it at least turns its fierce searchlights on official, administrative and military perfunctoriness.’77 The conflict gave an added urgency to campaigners for women’s suffrage. Millicent Garrett Fawcett believed that British emphasis on the granting of the franchise to Uitlanders made the withholding of such rights to women untenable.78 It also strengthened, if ultimately to no avail, the determination of constructive imperialists such as Chamberlain and Milner to campaign for tariff reform and closer ties with the dominions and so preserve Britain’s world strength.79 The war, then, had at least brought an end to complacency about the Empire across the political spectrum. Much of the music-hall swagger which had manifested itself so ebulliently on Mafeking Night, went out of imperialism at the close of the war and the Empire now had to be presented as a more peaceful and progressive institution. In 1904, for example, the British government was reluctant to annex Tibet, not least on the grounds that this kind of action was no longer in keeping with public opinion, although it is not clear how far this can be attributed to [ 222 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

the wartime activities of the ‘pro-Boers’.80 On the other hand, the British were far from giving up their faith in empire, at either the popular or official level.81 The war also encouraged popular militarism, manifested in such movements as the National Service League (NSL) and the Boy Scouts. As M. D. Blanch has argued, large sections of the working class supported the war and formed a natural constituency for the popular movements which followed it. Even if the NSL failed to gain its objective of compulsory service in peacetime, it did much to foster a culture of volunteering in the decade before 1914.82 The war was traditionally thought to have enjoyed less support in the ‘Celtic fringe’, due not least to the prominence in the anti-war movement of David Lloyd George, Herbert Lewis and other pro-Boers. Most Welsh Liberal MPs, however, were imperialists and, with only a minority of Welsh Liberal constituency associations in the hands of proBoers, the war seems scarcely to have figured in the 1900 ‘khaki election’, which confirmed the Liberal Party as the party of Wales.83 If in Wales the war had less of an immediate impact than traditionally thought, the repercussions in Scotland were much more profound. There, as in Wales and Ulster, the war excited little sense of Calvinist fellow-feeling with the Boers, and anti-war activists risked physical attack when they visited such regions as Glasgow and the industrial west which benefited from lucrative military contracts. One of the most serious British riots of the war years was occasioned in the spring of 1900 by the Scottish tour of S. C. Cronwright Schreiner, sponsored by the Stop-the-War Committee and the Independent Labour Party. The supporting presence of such figures as Lloyd George, Keir Hardie and representatives of the Irish National League heightened the anger of jingo mobs in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee, urged on by the Unionist press and often led by university students. The Liberal imperialist Lord Rosebery hoped that the war might facilitate a purge of the party’s radical elements but his plans were frustrated by the failure to achieve a quick British victory, as well as public unease about the policy of farmburning and concentration camps. Rank-and-file Scottish Liberals rejected the Liberal imperialists’ wartime pressure to subordinate Scottish national identity to a British imperial state ruled by a wealthy, educated elite. Instead they reasserted the Scottish Liberals’ commitment to home rule and a Scottish radical identity.84 Generally, however, the conflict and its aftermath continued to find resonance in Britain’s ‘Celtic fringe’. In Wales, the South African conflict and the subsequent conciliation of the Boers formed a backdrop to the ceremony investing the new Prince of Wales in 1911. There were frequent references to the supposed parallels between Welsh and Afrikaner [ 223 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

nationality, and General Louis Botha, Prime Minister of South Africa, was guest of honour and the only colonial premier to attend.85 The war had a particularly dramatic impact in Ireland, where nationalists were seized by ‘Boer fever’. Recruitment to cultural nationalist organisations such as the Gaelic League rocketed, while prominent members of the literary intelligentsia rallied to the Boer cause, including William Butler Yeats and Maud Gonne, who proposed a fantastic plan to sink British troopships with grenades disguised as coal, a suggestion which reputedly shocked the Boer envoy, Dr Leyds. Lady Gregory believed that widespread Irish peasant prophecies about an apocalyptic battle referred to the South African conflict. Arthur Griffith, who later founded Sinn Féin and became first President of the Irish Free State, inflamed public opinion in favour of the Boers, having recently worked as a journalist in South Africa. Pro-Boer ballads were composed and widespread rioting led some officials to fear an uprising against British rule. Rural sports teams were named after Boer heroes who were also given the freedom of Irish cities.86 Like Sun Yat-sen, D. P. Moran, leading cultural nationalist, chided his compatriots for their apparent lack of Boer fighting spirit. ‘Boers have no sentimentality in them’, Moran wrote: ‘We have little else … The Transvaal is led by men, and not by ranters and exploded heroes.87 The war played a key role in the reunification of the Irish parliamentary party following the Parnellite split and reinvigorated separatism and cultural nationalism at a crucial moment. An Irish Transvaal Committee formed to oppose the war became the nucleus for the creation of Cumann na Gaedhal (League of the Gael) which in turn grew into Sinn Féin.88 In November 1899, the Irish syndicalist James Connolly – destined to be executed by the British in Dublin after the 1916 Easter Rising – advocated the seizure of Dublin Castle while the British were tied down in South Africa and believed that the war marked the ‘beginning of the end’ of the British Empire: This great, blustering British Empire; this Empire of truculent bullies, is rushing headlong to its doom. Whether they ultimately win or lose, the Boers have pricked the bubble of England’s fighting reputation. The world knows her weakness now. Have at her then, everywhere and always and in every manner. And before the first decade of the coming century will close, you and I, if we survive, will be able to repeat to our children the tale of how 89 this monstrous tyranny sank in dishonour and disaster.

More than a decade later, writing in Zurich, in the heart of a continent torn by a struggle immeasurably greater in scale than the South African War, James Joyce gave fictional expression to the almost [ 224 ]

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

millenarian effect of the Boers on Irish separatism. In his novel Ulysses, ‘Skin-the-Goat’ leans over the bar in a Dublin public house:

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

a day of reckoning, he stated crescendo with no uncertain voice – thoroughly monopolising the conversation – was in store for mighty England, despite her power of pelf on account of her crimes. There would be a fall and the greatest fall in history. The Germans and the Japs were going to have their 90 look in, he affirmed. The Boers were the beginning of the end.

Although the war by no means marked ‘the beginning of the end’ of British imperial power (which did not reach its fullest territorial extent until after the First World War and which had other rallies to come), Joyce captures much of the mobilising significance of that belief for Irish nationalism. The conflict had, however, a contrary influence on Irish loyalists, who claimed the ethnic allegiance of a number of leading British commanders, including Sir George White, Sir John French, Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener, and the war also deeply influenced the coming generation of Ulster Unionist leaders. To loyalists the Boers were not fellow Protestants but republican enemies of the Empire who were, moreover, in effective alliance with the most extreme of their ancestral enemies. Unionist sympathies were largely with the English-speaking South African loyalists. Significantly, therefore, the war polarised Irish 91 opinion along secular rather than religious lines.

‘The world’s no bigger than a kraal’: the dominion impact One of the few comforts drawn by imperialists during the war was the spectacle of British colonials from prairie and outback assembling to support the motherland in South Africa, and many would have read with approval Arthur Conan Doyle’s popular account which depicted the panBritannic family reunion: All the scattered Anglo-Celtic race had sent their best blood to fight for the common cause … For the British as for the German Empire [in the FrancoPrussian War of 1870–71] much virtue had come from the stress and strain of battle. To stand in the market square of Bloemfontein and to see the warrior types around you was to be assured of the future of the race. The middle-sized, square-set, weather-tanned, straw-bearded British regulars crowded the footpaths. There also one might see the hard-faced Canadians, the loose-limbed dashing Australians … the dark New Zealanders … the gallant sons of Tasmania, the gentlemen-troopers of India and Ceylon, and everywhere the wild South African irregulars … The man who could … doubt that the spirit of the race burned now as brightly as ever, must be [ 225 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

devoid of judgement and sympathy. The real glories of the British race lie in the future, not in the past. The Empire walks with an uncertain tread but … 92 its weakness is that of waxing youth and not of waning age.

Whatever the varying motivation and performance of individual combatants, or even the scale of recruiting, there is no doubting the symbolic importance for British imperialism of the contingents provided by Canada and Australasia.93 While Kipling shared Conan Doyle’s admiration for the colonial contingents, he did not revere what he regarded as their stunted and amateurish metropolitan ‘cousins’. For Kipling, the colonials were the ‘Wards of the Outer Marches’, the ‘bloomin’ Atlases’, the ‘men who could shoot and ride’, the men from ‘Calgary an’ Wellington, an’ Sydney and Quebec’ – rugged individualists who had taught that the ‘world’s no bigger than a kraal’.94 ‘The war has given us a new nation – Australia’, which provided an example for the ‘Home’ British, he reflected optimistically in May 1901: We’ve seen a lot of them down south and a cleaner, simpler, saner, more adequate gang of men I’ve never met up with. Indeed, taking it all round, one may hope that England (by which I mean the Island) may almost, in time, 95 learn to work and be less of a fatted snob than at present.

In Australia the war powerfully advanced the newly established Commonwealth’s sense of belonging to the British Empire. Indeed, some historians attribute the end of Australian republican idealism to the federation’s involvement in an imperialist war at its very moment of birth. Such a transition is evident perhaps in the career of sometime socialist and Australian prime minister, William Morris ‘Billy’ Hughes, who opposed the war in 1899, but who by the close of the First World War had become – like Lloyd George – an avowed imperialist and 96 For Australian imperialists the South African War expansionist. seemed to announce the arrival of ‘the Coming Man’, that healthy ‘Independent Australian Briton’ improved by the better nutrition, climate and lack of deference to be found in the Antipodes, who would crown their newborn federation’s achievements in the next century.97 On the other hand, Australian separatists and republicans were provided with another member of the anti-heroic canon in the form of Englishborn Harry ‘The Breaker’ Morant, who, together with a fellow officer from the Bushveldt Carabineers, was executed for shooting Boer prisoners. Popular balladeer and sometime husband of the explorer Daisy O’Dwyer Bates, Morant provided suitable material for myth-making. In 1980, in an era when republicanism was recovering and revulsion against Australia’s participation in the Vietnam War was at its height, Morant became the subject of a much acclaimed motion picture in which he was depicted as a colonial scapegoat, which seemed to provide a timely [ 226 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

symbol of national victimhood at the conspiratorial hands of British imperialists and their Australian adherents.98 The South African War strengthened the advocates of ‘national efficiency’ in New Zealand, giving its nascent welfare state a distinctly social-imperialist character, and a leading historian of New Zealand has dated a distinctly ‘New Zealand voice’ to participation in the conflict.99 The war also, as Carman Miller has argued, divided Canadian opinion and deepened pro-Boer sentiment among French Canadians. It left a lasting impression on the character of French separatism, bringing its leader, Henri Bourassa, to hate British imperialism and its supporters in Canada. La Ligue nationaliste, which directly resulted from the war, developed its critique of imperialism around the South African conflict, which anticipated French-Canadian opposition to conscription during the First World War.100

Later echoes of the South African War In Europe, in spite of the enormous scale of the world wars, South African influences survived. As Keith Jeffery shows in Chapter Eleven, several general officers of the Great War had served in the South African War, including Sir Douglas Haig, Sir Hubert Gough, Sir John French, Sir Henry Wilson, Sir John Maxwell, Lord Plumer, Lord Byng and Lord Trenchard, founding Marshal of the Royal Air Force. While the war on the Western Front was notoriously static, the campaign against the Turks in the Middle East after 1917 recaptured much of the mobility of the South African conflict under the able command of Edmund Allenby, who had earned a sound cavalry reputation in the advance to Pretoria in 1900. The South African War had, moreover, provided a major influence on the development of British intelligence services before 1914.101 Even after so colossal a conflict as the Great War, Winston Churchill regarded South African events of 1896–99 as essential ‘milestones to Armageddon’, which set off a much wider chain reaction: I date the beginning of these violent times in our country to the Jameson Raid … this was the herald, if not indeed the progenitor, of the South African War. From the South African War was born the Khaki Election, the Protectionist Movement, the Chinese Labour cry and the consequent furious reaction and Liberal triumph of 1906. From this sprang the violent inroads of the House of Lords upon popular government … [which] led directly to the Parliament Act, and to the Irish struggle, in which our country was brought to the very threshold of civil war. Thus we see a succession of partisan actions … until it seemed that the sabre itself must be invoked to cool the 102 blood and the passions that were rife. [ 227 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Historians may well question Churchill’s explanation, but the continuing importance he attached to South African issues is significant Meanwhile, pro-Boer recollections of the South African War remained active in Europe. In 1909, when Lionel James, experienced war correspondent, encountered the Prince of Montenegro then in territorial dispute with the Austrians, he was quizzed about the Boers’ ‘successful prolongation of [their] war’ against Britain.103 In 1922, a statue of General Christiaan de Wet sculpted by J. Mendes da Costa was unveiled at Apeldoorn in the Netherlands. In 1948, Orange Free State President Steyn’s elderly widow was chosen to represent South Africa at Queen Wilhelmina’s golden jubilee celebrations, and in 1954 the South African government acquired, with Swiss government assistance the Kruger house at Clarens as a national museum.104 Ironically, it was not uncommon, at least until the Second World War, for European and American radicals and anti-imperialists to regard the Boers as a subject nationality of indigenised republicans not settlers, alongside Egyptians, Indians, Iraqis and other victims of colonialism, in sharp contrast to the Afrikaners’ later international notoriety.105 In 1920, for example the director of the vociferous American Friends of Irish Freedom, Daniel T. O’Connell, included the treatment of the Boers in his condemnation of British imperialism: There is not in the history of any country, nor in criminal annals anywhere a record of crimes so shameful, so callous, as vile as Eng opium war or England’s present opium trade, or the rape of the Boer Republics, of the crimes in India 106 and in Persia and in Ireland and in Egypt, of Amritsar and of Cairo.

The South African War found other resonances in the years leading up to and during the Second World War. French army officers continued to be encouraged to emulate the sacrificial example of Villebois Mareuil, whose statue at Nantes narrowly missed being blown up by the invading Wehrmacht in 1940 on the grounds of the ‘French Colonel’s’ death in battle against the British.107 In the 1930s leading Nazi Hermann Goering responded to British criticism of Nazi cruelty by citing the entry for ‘concentration camp’ in the German encyclopedia which erroneously attributed its invention to the British in the South African War.108 One of the most successful Nazi propaganda feature films of the Second World War, Ohm Krüger (1941), depicted embattled president and the martyrdom of Afrikaner women and children at the hands of brutal British imperialists -including a camp commandant who resembled Winston Churchill – which the German public were expected to liken to the RAF bombing offensive.109 Significantly, the South African concentration camps also figured prominently in Michael Powell’s [ 228 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

controversial The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), which traced the life and loves of a fictional Clive Candy VC from the South African War to the Second World War. The film opens with Candy’s return from South Africa in 1902. He sets off to Berlin on a personal mission to counter the propaganda of a German double agent who is spreading rumours about British massacres of Boer women and children. All of Germany is aroused by pro-Boer sympathy and the film suggests that the South African conflict marked the tragic beginning of Anglo-German antagonism.110 This was not without foundation. Nazi propaganda in this period continued to draw on the memory of the South African War as an archetype of ‘Anglo-Jewish’ ambitions for world domination.111 However, although the British concentration camps continued to figure prominently in anti-British propaganda, it should be noted that one of the most talented enemies of the Axis in the North African campaign was an Afrikaner soldier who had spent his early life in one of the British concentration camps, and whose elder brothers had fought as Boer commandos against the British: the South African general Dan Pienaar.112 While Colonel Blimp depicted the South African War as a last gasp of a chivalrous, bygone age, there were still, even in this era of mechanised warfare, a number of active politicians and high-ranking British officers who had cut their political and military teeth in the South African War. Winston Churchill, that former correspondent of the Morning Post, had become Prime Minister, and his South African experience was still vivid. In September 1940, with the Battle of Britain at its height, he discussed the earlier conflict with his secretary: Towards bedtime the P.M. very animated, reminisced about the South African War (the last enjoyable war, he called it) and the beauties of the 113 Veld. His thirst for talking military strategy is unquenchable.

As a leading military historian points out, for Churchill the South African conflict was a crucial formative experience. Boer defiance had convinced him of the capacity of an armed citizen population to resist an invader, while their guerrilla tactics and the strategies employed by the IRA against the British in 1919–21 combined to reinforce his ‘natural enthusiasm for the daring and unexpected stroke’. This fascination with cloak-and-dagger operations led him to engage in controversial campaigns in Greece, Dakar, the Middle East and Norway and to support the creation of a Special Operations Executive to set Hitler’s Europe ‘ablaze’. Units of special elite troops had existed before the war, but Churchill – with his keen sense of history – now authorised these to be unified under the powerfully evocative Boer title of ‘Commando’. As he [ 229 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

instructed the Chiefs of Staff in June 1940, as France was in its death throes:

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Enterprises must be prepared with specially trained troops of the hunter class, who can develop a reign of terror first of all on the ‘butcher and bolt’ policy. I look to the Chiefs of Staff to propose me measures for a vigorous, enterprising and ceaseless offensive against the whole of the German114 occupied coastline.

The escape kits of RAF aircrew also included a reminder of Churchill’s ability to avoid recapture by the Boers. Churchill’s Chief of the Imperial General Staff at the time was the aptly named William Ironside who, as an officer in the Royal Artillery, had escorted General Smuts to the peace negotiations at Vereeniging in 1902. A skilled linguist, nicknamed ‘Tiny’ for his six-foot-four-inches height and fifty-inch chest, Ironside had later passed himself off as a Boer transport driver in German SouthWest Africa, where his spying exploits later inspired the novelist John Buchan, former member of Milner’s ‘Kindergarten’, to create the character of ‘Richard Hannay’. On his retirement in 1940, Ironside became President of the South African Veterans’ Association. Other South African old hands remaining in key positions during the Second World War included Field Marshal Sir John Dill, Chief of the Imperial Defence Staff, General – later Field Marshal – Wavell, Commander-in-Chief in the Middle East and later Viceroy of India, and Field Marshal Sir Henry ‘Jumbo’ Maitland Wilson, veteran of Ladysmith, now commander of the Army of the Nile. Wilson was architect, under Wavell, of early British successes in the Mediterranean theatre, where he 115 Leo Amery, former became Supreme Allied Commander in 1944. Times historian of the South African War, was now Secretary of State for India, where he and Wavell confronted that other South African old hand, Gandhi. Smuts was again South African Prime Minister and, by personal command of George VI, a field marshal. He now renewed his near guru status among the British and allied councils. In December 1943, while attending the allied summit in Cairo, Smuts dined with American president Franklin Roosevelt, the former President of the Harvard University Boer Relief Committee. ‘We two Dutchmen got on 116 South Africa’s enthusiastically splendidly’, Roosevelt told reporters. pro-allied High Commissioner to London was Smuts’s loyal lieutenant, the ubiquitous Deneys Reitz, author of Commando (1929), who had once been among the most bitter of bitterenders.117 Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, who had served in the Imperial Light Horse in the South African War, went on to succeed the ailing Louis Botha as head of the British Military Mission to Poland in 1919, before commanding the Central Norwegian Expeditionary Force in 1940. After [ 230 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

a spell as a prisoner of war, he ended his career as Winston Churchill’s personal representative to the Chinese generalissimo, Chiang Kaishek.118 Furthest of all from the generational image of Colonel Blimp was Lionel Cohen (1875–1960), a veteran of the Ndebele Uprising of 1896 and of the South African War, in which he ran operations against gun-runners in Portuguese East Africa. He won the DSO and MC in the First World War in East Africa as an observer in the Royal Naval Air Service. During the Second World War he attained the rank of Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force, and wangled himself into the role of air observer on Coastal Command bombing missions against the Germans. In 1944, as the oldest frontline airman in the RAF, he was awarded the DFC by 119 George VI, followed two years later by the US Air Medal.

The later impact on Ireland and India In the imperial context, however, the most direct effects of the South African War and its aftermath were to be found in Ireland and, to a much lesser extent, in India, where South African events influenced the development of nationalist movements in the new century. Irish and South African issues had been twinned as imperial problems in the British ‘official mind’ for almost a generation.120 The restoration of responsible government by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s Liberal ministry in 1907 led John Redmond and other Irish constitutional nationalists to expect that Britain would shortly concede a form of home rule which would approach dominion status, and the popular backbench Liberal demand in the pre-war years was to ‘make Redmond an Irish Botha’.121 Erskine Childers, enigmatic imperialist-turnednationalist and author of the fifth volume of the Times History of the South African War, went on to write an influential work on home rule in which he argued that ‘the whole history of Ireland bears a close resemblance to the history of South Africa’.122 This analogy was not lost on Redmond who, during the passage of the third home rule bill shortly after the outbreak of war in 1914, held up the example of South African reconciliation: The whole world is struck by the spectacle of unity in the Empire – from India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and last, not least, from South Africa and Ireland. No one can have read unmoved the magnificent speeches of General Botha and General Smuts. Just as Botha and Smuts have been able to say … that the concession of free institutions to South Africa has changed the men who but ten or a little more years ago were your bitter enemies in the field into your loyal comrades and fellow-citizens in the Empire, just as can I truthfully say to you … that Ireland has been transformed … into one 123 of the strongest bulwarks of the Empire. [ 231 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Remarkably, Ireland provided a unique venue for political activists with South African connections in the decades following the South African War. Sir James Craig, later Lord Craigavon, founding Prime Minister of Northern Ireland (1921–40), had served in the Royal Irish Rifles, was wounded at Lindley and had been briefly captured by the Boers. The war ‘recruited him into a freemasonry of military-minded Irish unionists who emerged from their wartime experiences with a revivified imperial zeal and aggression’.124 These connections were reinforced by the Conservative and Unionist opposition to the Liberal government’s home rule plans, brandishing a conspiracy of Lord Roberts of Kandahar, Jameson of the Raid, General Sir John French of Kimberley, Rudyard Kipling and above all Lord Milner, who regarded the Ulster loyalists as virtually another set of uitlanders facing helot status in a home-ruled Ireland. To Milner, whose mother’s first husband had been murdered by Irish agrarian activists, home rule appeared to pose an even more mortal threat to imperial security than Kruger’s Transvaal. In 1914, the illegal gun-running of arms from Hamburg to Ulster loyalists at Larne, with the connivance of Milner and the British Conservative and Unionist hierarchy, seemed to recapture some of the jingoistic derring-do of the Jameson Raid, but with the Ulster Unionist Council providing an infinitely more resolute group of associates than the Uitlander reformers of Johannesburg in 1895.125 Faced with such polarisation, the South African precedent became foremost in the minds of British politicians who sought a constitutional settlement of the Irish question, with the Ulster loyalists cast in the role of Uitlanders and British South Africans, and Irish nationalists playing the part of the Afrikaners. The Irish Convention of 1917, the last British attempt at an all-Ireland settlement, drew heavily on British experience in South Africa in the aftermath of the war. The idea for such a gathering had come from a conversation between Redmond and the Marquess of Crewe, a veteran of the South African Convention, on the occasion of a state banquet in honour of General Smuts. Sir Francis Hopwood, who had played a leading role in the South African Convention which had led to Union in 1910, became secretary of its Irish namesake, and Walter Long, leading Irish Unionist and Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1916 to 1919, recalled the apparent success of its South African predecessor. The leader of the southern Irish Unionists was the Earl of Midleton who, as St John Broderick, had been Secretary of State for War from 1900 to 1903, during which he reformed the War Office and created the Committee of Imperial Defence. His South African experience at the Colonial Office underlined for him the need for political moderation which became crucial in reassuring southern unionist population in the [ 232 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

transition to independence. It was widely assumed that either Botha or Smuts would act as chairman of the Irish Convention, but they both declined and in the event the position went to Sir Horace Plunkett. He was the pioneer of the cooperative movement, Unionist reformer and correspondent of Cecil Rhodes Smuts and John Xavier Merriman, sometime premier of the Cape Colony Plunkett was so moved by the South African parallel that he modelled the veranda of his house in the Dublin mountains on Rhodes s stoep at Groote Schuur, where he anticipated the signing of an Irish national settlement.126 More menacing South African parallels and connections were at work in Ireland as well, however, which ultimately would literally engulf Plunkett’s constitutional dream-house in flames. The South African War had continued to inspire those Irish nationalists who advocated an armed insurrection against British rule. ‘Whenever England goes on her mission of empire, we meet and we strike at her’, warned Patrick Pearse in 1914: ‘Yesterday it was on the South African veldt, 127 tomorrow it may be on the streets of Dublin.’ In 1916 he presided over the short-lived Irish Republic in the Easter Rising, asserted by insurgents wearing de Wet caps’ and uniforms fancifully modelled on those of the Boer commandos. The Irish Citizen Army which participated in the the Insurrection had been trained by the South African veteran Captain Jack White DSO, maverick son of the renowned field marshal of Lady smith fame.128 A number of ex-Boer rifles were captured by the British, one of them with Kruger’s image carved on the stock. Although strongly opposed to the rising Redmond hoped in vain that the imperial government would exercise the relative restraint shown by Louis Botha to Afrikaner rebels in 1914. Those executed included Pearse, the veteran pro-Boers Thomas Clarke and James Connolly, and – it would seem largely because of his record as a Boer officer – Major John MacBride, who contemptuously reminded his firing squad that he had looked down 129 Sir Roger Casement, former the barrels of British rifles before. diplomat and humanitarian, was hanged in London for his part in the rising, having unsuccess fully modelled his recent attempt to recruit Irish prisoners of war in Germany on the Irish pro-Boer schemes he had witnessed as a British spy in Lourenço Marques (now Maputo, Mozambique) during the South African War.130 The rising had moreover, reassembled in Dublin a number of imperial officers and administrators whose reactions to Irish issues were based not least on their South African experience, including Sir Matthew Nathan, Under-Secretary of State for Ireland and former Governor of Natal, and the Viceroy, Lord Wimborne, a veteran of the South African War. After the crushing of the rising,’ Sir Leander Starr Jameson was briefly considered for the post of Irish Chief Secretary, although his role in the Raid and involvement in [ 233 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

the Ulster conspiracy of 1912–14 would scarcely have equipped him for such a sensitive post.131 The Irish War of Independence (1919–21) brought about a virtual reunion of officers who had served together in the South African War, which remained an ‘indispensable guide’ for counter-insurgencies in the Empire.132 The Western Front had provided them with little scope to use their experience in mobile warfare, but Ireland seemed to provide a renewed chance for Boer-hunting, made more innovative by the use of mechanised and armoured units and air power. Field Marshal Sir John French, appointed as Viceroy in 1918, supervised the extension of martial law in 1920–21 on South African lines. Responsibility for the crushing of the 1916 Rising, together with its courts martial and curfews, had been largely in the hands of General Sir John Maxwell, who had been Military Governor of Pretoria in the South African War. General Sir Bryan Mahon, former leader of a famous flying column in South Africa, was British Commander-in-Chief in Ireland from 1916– 1918. His successor in 1920–22 was the former Military Governor of Port Elizabeth, General Sir Nevil Macready, who drew on his South African experience in planning British sweeps against the IRA.133 Another South African old hand, Major-General Hugh Tudor, was asked by Winston Churchill, now Secretary of State for War, to raise a new division of the Royal Irish Constabulary, comprising units of tough ex-British soldiers, the notorious ‘Black and Tans’, which would maintain the fiction of a policing action. Adding Ireland to his South African training in counterinsurgency, Tudor went on to become military commander in Palestine in the interwar period, where the IRA furnished the kind of model for Jewish guerrilla warfare which the Boers had previously provided for them.134 Brigadier-General Frank Crozier, who was appointed administrative commander of the RIC Auxiliary Division, drew a different lesson from his South African encounter. Finding the Irish campaign even more ruthless and ill disciplined than that waged against the Boers, he resigned his commission to the great embarrassment of the government.135 Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army also remained influenced by the South African conflict and settlement. The IRA’s secret organiser, Michael Collins, was known as ‘the Irish de Wet’ because of his admiration since childhood for the Boer general and his modelling of IRA ‘flying columns’ on the Boer commandos’ hit-and-run tactics. This continuing veneration was shared by leading IRA commanders, including Dan Breen and Tom Barry, two of the most dangerous enemies or British power in Ireland.136 One guerrilla fighter recalled being inspired to fight by the fireside stories of his childhood in a remote area of Cork: [ 234 ]

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

The stories of, and the discussions on, the Boer War never ended without a reference to Ireland. Small wonder. The handful of farmers who stood up against an empire and humiliated it set an example for the oppressed and downtrodden of the world. The example was not lost on the militantminded in our own country. My uncle was one of these and it was from him 137 that I first heard of the only sure way to shake off the foreign oppressor.

Winston Churchill and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, veteran of the relief of Ladysmith, hesitantly contemplated a Boer War-style reconquest of Ireland, complete with blockhouses and concentration camps. Another South African connection intruded, however, in the form of General Smuts, now close confidant of King George V and Lloyd George, who, at the behest of both sides, intervened to bring about a truce on the basis of dominion status.138 The South African settlement provided the British with their sole model for negotiating with republican guerrillas, with Churchill and Lionel Curtis, formerly of Milner’s ‘Kindergarten’, casting Collins and Arthur Griffith in the role of Botha and Smuts. In the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations Griffith, former editor of the South African Middleburg Courant, attempted to counter Lloyd George’s control of the Simonstown naval facility as a precedent for securing Irish bases.139 Meanwhile Collins was impressed by the South African settlement as an example of dominion freedom. He wrote admiringly to General de Wet, who, although an uncompromising republican, now advised Irish acceptance of dominion status as the freedom to gain further freedom, confirming Collins’s own developing arguments on this question. As in South Africa, however, the settlement accepting membership of the Empire was opposed by republican bitterenders, resulting in a vicious civil war.140 ‘I shall not last long; my life is forfeit’, Collins told Churchill in a tense meeting in London. ‘After I am gone it will be easier for others. You will find they will be able to do more than I can do.’ In response, Churchill repeated the phrase of President Brand which he had heard during the debate on the Transvaal Constitution Bill, ‘Alles sal regt kom’ (All will come right), but Churchill never saw him again.141 Shortly afterwards, when Collins was killed in an ambush fighting his former comrades, the analogy of Boer division in the 1914 Rebellion was again recalled: ‘We have lost our young Louis Botha’, Tom Casement, brother of the executed rebel, lamented to Smuts.142 The South African War and the creation of the Union can thus be said to have helped to shape the parameters of Anglo-Irish relations for at least a generation, and the association was enduring. Irish nationalists were not impressed by the Boundary Commission chaired by Richard [ 235 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

Fectham, member of Milner’s ‘Kindergarten’ and Town Clerk of Johannesburg during Reconstruction. Smuts moreover expended much of the goodwill he had enjoyed with Irish nationalists. Nevertheless the two dominions formed a ‘fellowship of disaffection’ in the interwar period, particularly warm during the premiership of General Hertzog, which would prove significant in the attainment of dominion sovereignty in the Statute of Westminster of 1931. Hertzog paid an official visit to Ireland in 1930 and he was awarded an honorary LLD by the National University of Ireland. The citation in Virgilian Latin, recalled Hertzog, his ‘Batavians of Africa and their Irish allies gathering for their common struggle against British imperialism.143 In 1954, the Irish Minister of External Affairs Sean MacBride, son of Major John MacBride of the Irish Transvaal Brigade and a former IRA chief-of-staff, ceremoniously returned a famous Boer scout’s rifle which had found its way to Ireland after the South African War, while he and leading members of the nationalist establishment gave their patronage to the erection of a monument in Johannesburg to the memory of the Irish Transvaal Brigade. Mise Éire (1959), a landmark documentary film of the Irish Revolution, gave due prominence to the Boer War – An Cogadh Bórach – in this process of ‘national reawakening’.144 The South African War and the constitutional settlement which followed it also had a somewhat ambiguous impact on India. On the one hand, as Balasubramanyam Chandramohan has argued in Chapter Nine, South Africa exposed the shallowness of Britain’s claim to uphold Indian equality by refusing Indian military assistance and negotiating a settlement based on the effective exclusion of Indians from South African political life. 145 On the other hand the apparent generosity of the dominion settlement persuaded leading Indian nationa1ists such as G. K. Gokhale, Annie Besant and Pandit Jagat Narain that there might be a place for a self-governing India within the Empire. B. C. Mitter of the Calcutta Conference of the All India Moderate party was convinced – like Redmond – that British ‘magnanimity’ in South Africa had transformed defeated rebels into ‘staunch supporters of her imperial system’.146 At this time, it should be remembered, Indian opinion was not yet fully sensitised to the wider issues of discrimination in the Empire. Just as the ‘early’ Gandhi could in 1896 assert that Africans needed pass laws because ‘they are yet being taught the dignity and necessity of labour’, so as late as 1923 Srinivas Sastri could tell the Council of States that ‘the natives of Africa are, as everybody knows, not quite civilised’.147 The young Jawaharlal Nehru had been impressed by the fighting spirit of the Boers, notwithstanding Indian treatment at the hands of white South African authorities, and Gandhi linked his [ 236 ]

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

developing theory of swaraj to the apparently stoic indifference of Boer women to the death of their husbands and sons: In the Boer war thousands of Boer women became widows, but they never cared. It did not matter in the least if the husband or the son was lost; it was enough and more than enough that the country’s honour was safe. What booted the husband if the country was enslaved? It was infinitely better to bury a son’s mortal remains and to cherish his immortal memory than to bring him up as a serf. Thus did the Boer women steel their hearts and cheerfully give up their darlings to the angel of death … Such people become 148 the objects of the world’s adoration. They are the salt of the earth.

The aftermath of the South African War found further echoes, when Clement Attlee, in moving the Indian Independence Bill in 1947, recalled that this was the second occasion in a generation that Britain had given self-government to a dependent people, and he cited the supposedly successful and ‘magnanimous’ experiment of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s restoration of self-government to the defeated Boers.149 By 1960, when any analogy between an apartheid-ruled South Africa and independent India seemed worn indeed, if not diplomatically wholly inappropriate, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan revealingly returned to this theme in his famous ‘Winds of Change’ speech to the South African parliament. Here he used the memory of Boer anti-imperialism in a futile attempt to flatter and convince the Afrikaner nationalist government of the need for a major change in attitude towards African nationalism: Of course you understand [nationalism] better than most … in the history of 150 our times yours will be recorded as the first of the African nationalisms.

Even in a world made immeasurably more sensitive to racial discrimination by Nazi atrocities, before the Afrikaner Nationalist victory in the 1948 general election it was just possible for western governments – several of them still imperial powers – to regard a whiteruled South Africa as a sovereign member of an international diplomatic system that was still largely centred on states ruled by Europeans and their descendants. There was general awareness that the majority of the Population was excluded from the franchise, but outside South Africa the terms ‘racialism’ and ‘reconciliation’ continued to be applied primarily to the relationship between the two dominant white ethnic groups rather than to the disenfranchised majority. Apart from the internal workings of segregation, South Africa had been formally an imperial power since its acquisition of the former German South-West Africa at the end of the First World War, yet Afrikaner republicans [ 237 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

engaged in a gigantic measure of self-deception in continuing to regard themselves as an anti-colonial people, drawing not least on the Boer legend of 1899–1902. Ironically, in contrast to the speeches of their English-speaking compatriots and Canadian, Australian and New Zealand public rhetoric, much Afrikaner discourse continued to resemble the emergent nationalisms of the colonial empires rather than the rhetoric typical of imperial powers.151 The condemnation at the United Nations in 1946 of South African racial policies by Mrs Pandit of the Indian delegation marked the beginning of the end of South Africa’s international acceptance. In the following year Nehru declared that ‘We of Asia have a special responsibility to the peoples of Africa. We must help them to their rightful place in the human family’, even if Indian diplomats continued to cooperate with South Africa on the issue of India’s right to republican status within the Commonwealth.152 With the death of Field Marshal Smuts in 1950, nascent international references to the disenfranchised majority population of South Africa were temporarily hushed amid the abundant and fulsome foreign tributes to his reputed conciliatory genius, born in the settlement of 1902, which had gone on to influence profoundly the conduct of imperial and world affairs. Among these accolades was the message sent by the British Labour Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, who recalled Smuts often saying that British imperialism had died with the South African War. ‘No one more than he’, Attlee affirmed, ‘gave form to the concept of the evolution of the Empire into the Commonwealth … [and] 153 with his passing a light has gone out of the world of free men.’ Smuts had managed, it seemed, to combine the role of upholder of white supremacy in South Africa with that of scholarly theorist of universal rights and peaceful coexistence in international affairs, a juggling act which many of his critics regarded as hypocrisy, particularly indefensible in a man of such manifest intellectual ability. In spite of his failure to reform South African segregation, Gandhi had continued to hold him in high regard, and he was invited to contribute an essay to his seventieth 154 Smuts had presided over the birthday memorial volume in 1939. United Nations Commission on the General Assembly and played a leading role in the drafting of the preamble to the UN Charter which ultimately introduced the principle of ‘fundamental human rights’. This concept would come to haunt South Africa in the decades to come, when, under the leadership of his bitter enemies in the National Party, South Africa was pushed further into isolation as a result of its racial policies. His reputation within Afrikanerdom had long been controversial, but with his passing went the last link to the ‘heroic age’ of the generals, along with what remained of the international 155 romanticised memory of the Boers. [ 238 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR

In 1970, while on an official visit to Pretoria, the Deputy-Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Dr A. J. Bakker, presented the South African government with the desk and chair used by President Kruger on his voyage into exile on board the Gelderland. A year later the remains of ‘Franse Kolonel’ de Villebois-Mareuil were removed from Bosh of Cemetery and reburied with full military pomp in the presence of French government and military officials in the Boer burial ground at Magersfontein, and in 1975 a memorial to the Irish Transvaal Brigades was belatedly opened in Johannesburg.156 By then, however, the pro-Boer movements of the turn of the century had found a paradoxical successor in the ever-widening campaign against apartheid. Eleanor Roosevelt, widow of the pro-Boer Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for example, became a leading sympathiser of the early campaign against apartheid, which would draw on much of the same constituencies of public opinion as its pro-Boer predecessor. Sean MacBride, son of the Transvaal major erstwhile and friend of the Afrikaner Nationalists, became UN Commissioner for Namibia, Lenin and Nobel Peace Prizewinner and a leading champion of the Anti-Apartheid Movement.157 The Afrikaners were now acknowledged as racial oppressors rather than victims of imperialism, and few could remember or even imagine a time when entire continents seemed to be moved by the Boer ‘heroes of liberty’.

Notes 1 2

3

4 5

6

7 8 9

See G. M. Fredrickson, White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History (Oxford, 1981). See C. van Onselen, Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand, 1886–1914, vol. 1: New Babylon (London, 1982), ch. 3; D. Cammack, The Rand at War, 1899–1902: The Witwatersrand and the Anglo-Boer War (London, 1990). R. Macnab, The French Colonel: Villebois-Mareuil and the Boers 1899–1900 (Cape Town, 1975), ch. 7; E. P. Skinner, African Americans and United States Policy towards Africa, 1850–1924 (Washington, 1992), p. 195. E. E. Morison (ed.), The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge, MA, 1952), pp. 1103, 1131, 1143, 1147. C. Benbow, Boer Prisoners of War in Bermuda (Hamilton, 1994); S. A. Royle, ‘St Helena as a Boer prisoner of war camp, 1900–2: information from the Alice Stopford Green papers’, Journal of Historical Geography, 24:1 (1998), pp. 53–68; J. N. Brink, Recollections of a Boer Prisoner-of-War at Ceylon (Amsterdam, 1904); W. A. C. Emmett, ‘Reminiscences of a Boer prisoner-of-war at Bermuda’, African Notes and News, 28:1 (1988), pp. 16–28; R. Laurent, ‘St Helena honours Boer prisoners’, History Today, 41 (1991), pp. 2–3; R. Macnab, Journey into Yesterday: South African Milestones in Europe (Cape Town, 1962), pp. 21–2. R. Kruger, Good-bye Dolly Gray: A History of the Boer War (London, 1967 edn), p. 13. For the international dimensions of war literature, see M. van Wyk Smith, Drummer Hodge: The Poetry of the Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902 (Oxford, 1978). P. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914 (London, 1980), p. 242; A. J. Marder, The Anatomy of British Seapower, 1880–1905 (London, 1964), ch. 18. T. Pakenham, The Boer War (London, 1992 edn), p. 388. Quoted in J. Mentjes, President Paul Kruger (London, 1974), p. 240.

[ 239 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40

Weekly News (Freetown), 23 December 1899. D. Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald (London, 1977), p. 65. ‘Johannesburg Today’, Manchester Guardian, 28 September 1899, in S. Koss (ed.), The ProBoers: The Anatomy of an Anti-War Movement (Chicago, 1973), p. 26. E. Carpenter, ‘Boer and Briton’, 1 January 1900, ibid., p. 55. J. Bums, ‘Speech in the House of Commons’, 6 February 1900, ibid., p. 94. K. Surridge, “‘All you soldiers are what we call pro-Boer”: the military critique of the South African War, 1899–1902’, History, 82:268 (1997), pp. 582–600. S. B. Spies, Methods of Barbarism?: Roberts and Kitchener and Civilians in the Boer Republics: January 1900-May 1902 (Cape Town, 1977), p. 148. F. R. Karl and L. Davies (eds), The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1986), p. 207. Weekly News (Freetown), 28 June 1902. P. Kaarsholm, ‘Pro-Boers’, in R. Samuel (ed.), Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity, vol. 1: History and Politics (London, 1989), p. 115. ‘A capitalist war’ (6 January 1900), quoted in Koss (ed.), The Pro-Boers, p. 54. E. Carpenter, ‘Boer and Briton’ (1 January 1900), ibid., pp. 55–6. K. Harris, Attlee (London, 1982), p. 9. G. K. Chesterton, Autobiography (London, 1937), p. 115; M. Taylor, ‘Imperium et libertas?: rethinking the radical critique of imperialism during the nineteenth centur’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 19:1 (1991), pp. 1–23, and A. S. Thompson, ‘The language of imperialism and the meanings of Empire: imperial discourse in British politics, 1895–1914’, Journal of British Studies, 36 (1997), pp. 147–77. For British ‘pro-Boerism’ generally see Koss (ed.), Pro-Boers, especially chs 2–3; A. Davey, The British Pro-Boers (Cape Town, 1978); B. Porter, ‘The pro-Boers in Britain’, in P. Warwick (ed.), The South African War (London, 1980); B. Porter, Critics of Empire: British Radical Attitudes towards Colonialism in Africa (London, 1968), pp. 123–37, 200–6; H. H. Hewison, Hedge of Wild Almonds: South Africa, the ‘Pro-Boers’ and the Quaker Conscience, 1890–1910 (London, 1989). C. M. Andrew, Theophile Delcassé and the Making of the Entente Cordiale: A Reappraisal of French Foreign Policy, 1898–1905 (London, 1968), p. 158. W. LaFeber, The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860–1898 (Ithaca, 1963), pp. 370–9; M. Wilkerson, Public Opinion and the Spanish-American War: A Study in War Propaganda (Baton Rouge, 1932), ch. 2. New York Herald, 30 December 1900. See also M. Twain, To the Person Sitting in Darkness (New York, 1901), p. 7. F. Pretorius, The Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902 (Cape Town, 1985), pp. 83–7. R. First and A. Scott, Olive Schreiner (London, 1989 edn), p. 195. Kaarsholm, ‘Pro-Boers’, pp. 110–26. Macnab, French Colonel, p. 109; Roosevelt to Selous, 7 February 1900, Morison (ed.), Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 1, pp. 1175–6. J. E. Moser, Twisting the Lion’s Tail: Anglophobia in the United States, 1921–48 (London, 1999), p. 84. Mentjes, Kruger, p. 112. Quoted in D. McCracken, The Irish Pro-Boers, 1877–1902 (Johannesburg, 1989), p. 118. A. Conan Doyle, The Great Boer War (London, 1901), p. 1. F. R. Burnham, Scouting on Two Continents (New York, 1926), pp. 273, 279. D. Geary, Karl Kautsky (Manchester, 1987), p. 50. Macnab, French Colonel, p. 163; ‘Ex actis consistorialibus, 14 Decembris 1899’, Acta Sanctae Sedis, 33 (1900–01), pp. 321–3. I am grateful to Fr Stephen Innes OFMCap of Greyfriars, Oxford, and to Fr Norman Tanner SJ of Campion Hall, Oxford, for their assistance in tracing this reference. Sun Yat-sen, ‘Prescriptions for saving China’, in A. J. Andrea and J. H. Overfield (eds), The Human Record: Sources of Global History since 1500 (Boston, 1998), p. 81. P. Frölich, Rosa Luxemburg’s Ideas in Action (London, 1970), pp. 156–7; R. First and A. Scott, Olive Schreiner (London, 1989 edn), p. 244. Scott and First, Olive Schreiner, p. 240.

[ 240 ]

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR 41 42

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

43

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

53 54 55

56 57 58 59

60

61

62 63 64 65 66 67

M. Davitt, The Boer Fight for Freedom (New York, 1902), pp. 72, 104, 168–76, 593. S. B. Spies, ‘Women and the war’, in Warwick (ed.), The South African War, pp. 180–2; Royle, ‘St Helena as a Boer prisoner of war camp, 1900–2: information from the Alice Stopford Green papers’, pp. 53–68; J. Fisher, That Miss Hobhouse (London, 1971). For the foreign volunteers see B. Pottinger, The Foreign Volunteers: They Fought for the Boers (Melville, 1986); Davitt, Boer Fight for Freedom, chs 25–6; J. Y. F. Blake, A West Pointer with the Boers (New York, 1903); Macnab, French Colonel, esp. ch. 7; A. Davidson and I. Filatova, The Russians and the Anglo-Boer War (Cape Town, 1997), pp. 49–164. Macnab, French Colonel, p. 168. Davitt, Boer Fight for Freedom, p. 333. Macnab, French Colonel, pp. 86–7, ch. 7. See R. de Kersauson de Pennendreff, Ek en die Vierkleur (Cape Town, 1960). D. P. McCracken, MacBride’s Brigade: Irish Commandos in the Anglo-Boer War (Dublin, 1999). Pottinger, Foreign Volunteers, pp. 164–5; Macnab, French Colonel, pp. 183, 230. Macnab, French Colonel, pp. 125, 155. Ibid., pp. 19–20, 65, 244; R. Macnab, ‘Villebois-Mareuil and the Boers’, History Today, 23 (1973), pp. 792–800. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, pp. 240–6, 251; P. R. Anderson, The Background of Anti-English Feeling in Germany, 1890–1902 (Washington, 1939), pp. 285– 361. Davidson and Filatova, Russians and the Anglo-Boer War, pp. 183–94; E. Kandyba-Foxcroft, Russia and the Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902 (Pretoria, 1981), ch. 3. Davidson and Filatova, The Russians and the Anglo-Boer War, pp. 241–9. G. W. T. Omond, The Boers in Europe: A Sidelight on History (London, 1903); A. von Müller, Der Krieg in Süd Afrika, 1899–1900 (Berlin, 1900); G. D. Scholz, Europa en die Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, 1899–1902 (Cape Town, 1939); U. Kröll, Die Internationale BurenAgitation, 1899–1902: Haltungen der Öffentlichkeit und Agitation Zuunsten der Buren in Deutschland, Frankreich und den Niederlanden Während des Burenkrieges (Münster, 1973). Spies, ‘Women and the war’, p. 182. Macnab, Journey into Yesterday, p. 79, chs 3–4. J. Mentjes, General Louis Botha (London, 1970), p. 120. See A. Ferrer, ‘Cuba, 1898: rethinking race, nation and Empire’; M. F. Jacobson, ‘Imperial amnesia: Teddy Roosevelt, the Philippnes, and the modern art of forgetting’; O. V. Campomanes, ‘1898 and the nature of the New Empire’, in Radical History, 73 (1999), pp. 22–46, 116–27, 130–46. R. J. Barr, The Progressive Army: US Army Command and Administration, 1870–1914 (London, 1998), pp. 59, 86; E. Ranson, ‘British military and naval observers in the SpanishAmerican War’, Journal of American Studies, 3:1 (1969), pp. 33–66; J. Smith, The SpanishAmerican War: Conflict in the Caribbean and the Pacific, 1895–1902 (London, 1994), pp. 226, 229–30. A. Orde, The Eclipse of Great Britain: The United States and British Imperial Decline, 1895–1956 (London, 1996), pp. 26–7. More generally see H. S. Wilson, ‘The United States and the War’, in Warwick (ed.), The South African War; John. H. Ferguson, American Diplomacy and the Boer War (Philadelphia, 1939); T. J. Noer, Briton, Boer or Yankee: The United States and South Africa, 1870–1914 (Carthage, 1978), pp. xii, 57–66, 74–80. Quoted in Wilson, ‘United States and the War’, p. 321. Orde, Eclipse of Great Britain, p. 27. Henry Cabot Lodge (ed.), Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884–1918, vol. 1 (New York, 1924), pp. 444–6. Ferguson, American Diplomacy, pp. 45, 50; Barr, Progressive Army, p. 76. Ferguson, American Diplomacy, pp. 151–6; J. Krige, American Sympathy in the Boer War (Pietersburg, 1933), pp. 242–5. Hay to Alvey A. Adee, 14 September 1900, McKinley MSS, vol. 63, cited in A. J. Ward, Ireland and Anglo-American Relations, 1899–1921 (London, 1969), p. 32; H. V. Brasted, ‘Irish nationalism and the British Empire’, in O. MacDonagh (ed.), Irish Culture and

[ 241 ]

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED

68 69 70 71 72 73

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

74 75

76

77 78 79 80 81

82

83

84

85 86 87 88

Nationalism (Canberra, 1983), passim. Ward, Ireland and Anglo-American Relations, pp. 32,45; F. M. Carroll, American Opinion and the Irish Question (Dublin, 1978), pp. 9, 57–8. Ward, Ireland and Anglo-American Relations, p. 33. Ibid., pp. 34–7. Blake, West Pointer, pp. 215–17. A. Nevins, Henry White: Thirty Years of American Diplomacy (New York, 1930), pp. 152–3. Roosevelt to Anna Roosevelt Cowles, 17 December 1899, in Morison (ed.), Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, pp. 1112–13. Skinner, African Americans and United States Policy, pp. 190–2. G. Searle, The Quest for National Efficiency: A Study in British Politics and British Political Thought (London, 1970); B. Semmel, Imperialism and Social Reform (London, 1960); R. Williams, Defending the Empire: The Conservative Party and British Defence Policy, 1899–1915 (New Haven, 1991), ch. 2; P. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London, 1991), pp. 135, 232, 244, 248–9, 256, 276; Jose Harris, Private Lives, Private Spirit: Britain 1870–1914 (Harmondsworth, 1993), pp. 206, 216, 231, 235. R. A. Soloway, Demography and Degeneration: Eugenics and the Declining Birthrate in Twentieth-Century Britain (Chapel Hill, NC, 1990), pp. 41–3, 46–7; K. T. Surridge, Managing the South African War, 1899–1902: Politicians v. Generals (London, 1998), pp. 181–2. Quoted in K. Fedorowich, Unfit for Heroes: Reconstruction and Soldier Settlement in the Empire between the Wars (Manchester, 1995), p. 14. Spies, ‘Women and the war’, p. 184. A. S. Thompson, ‘Imperial ideology in Edwardian Britain’, in A. Bosco and A. May (eds), The Round Table, the Empire/Commonwealth and British Foreign Policy (London, 1997), p. 13. Porter, ‘The pro-Boers in Britain’, in Warwick (ed.), The South African War, pp. 254–5. See J. M. Mackenzie, Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880–1960 (Manchester, 1984); J. M. Mackenzie (ed.), Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester, 1986). M. D. Blanch, ‘British society and the war’, in Warwick (ed.), The South African War, pp. 210–38; A. Summers, ‘Edwardian militarism’, in Samuel (ed.), Patriotism, pp. 241–3; S. Pyke, ‘The popularity of nationalism in the early British Boy Scout movement’, Social History, 23:3 (1998), pp. 309–24; C. Townshend, ‘Military force and civil authority in the United Kingdom, 1914–1921’, Journal of British Studies, 28 (1989), pp. 262–92; P. Parker, The Old Lie: The Great War and the Public School Ethos (London, 1987), pp. 55, 60–1, 130, 146–7; W. J. Reader, ‘At Duty’s Call’: A Study in Obsolete Patriotism (Manchester, 1988), ch. 6. See H. Pelling, ‘Wales and the Boer War’, Welsh Historical Review, 4 (1968), pp. 363–5; K. O. Morgan, ‘Wales and the Boer War – a reply’, ibid., pp. 367–80; K. O. Morgan, Rebirth of a Nation: Wales 1880–1980 (Oxford, 1981), pp. 30, 33, 45. M. Fry, Patronage and Principle: A Political History of Modern Scotland (Aberdeen, 1987), p. 117; S. J. Brown, “‘Echoes of Midlothian”: Scottis Liberalism and the South African War, 1899–1902’, Scottish Historical Review, 71 (1992), pp. 156–83; C. W. Hill, Edwardian Scotland (Edinburgh, 1976), pp. 74–5, 147–53, 155–7; J. S. Ellis, “‘The methods of barbarism” and the “rights of small nations”: war propaganda and British pluralism’, Albion, 30:1 (1998), pp. 49–75. J. S. Ellis, ‘Reconciling the Celt: British national identity, Empire and the 1911 Investiture of the Prince of Wales’, Journal of British Studies, 37 (1998), p. 416. See McCracken, The Irish Pro-Boers-, passim. D. P. Moran, ‘If the Boers were Irish’, Leader, 15 September 1900. I am grateful to Professor Roy Foster of Hertford College, Oxford, for this reference. See McCracken, The Irish Pro-Boers; F. S. L. Lyons, John Dillon: A Biography (London, 1968), p. 217; T. Denman, ‘The “red livery of shame”: the campaign against army recruitment in Ireland, 1899–1902’, Irish Historical Studies, 29 (1994), pp. 213–19; R. F. Foster, W. B. Yeats: A Life, vol. 1, The Apprentice Mage (Oxford, 1997), p. 239; D. Ryan, ‘The Munster Fusiliers and the South African War, 1899–1902’, Part 1, Old Limerick Journal, 34 (1998), pp. 10–14; Part 2, ibid., 35 (1998), pp. 36–41.

[ 242 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR 89 Workers’ Republic, 18 November 1899, quoted in James Connolly, Collected Works, vol. 2 (Dublin, 1988), p. 29. 90 James Joyce, Ulysses (London, 1941 edn), p. 602. 91 A. Jackson, ‘Irish unionists and the empire, 1880–1920’, in K. Jeffery (ed.), ‘An Irish Empire’í: Aspects of Ireland and the British Empire (Manchester, 1996), pp. 132–3; A. Jackson, Colonel Edward Saunderson: Land and Loyalty in Victorian Ireland (Oxford, 1995), pp. 33, 132–3, 137. Kitchener was Irish-born of English parents, rather than AngloIrish. He was nevertheless claimed as an Irish loyalist by contemporary supporters. 92 Conan Doyle, Great Boer War, pp. 369–70. 93 For dominion participation see C. Miller, Painting the Map Red: Canada and the South African War, 1899–1902 (Montreal, 1993); C. Miller, ‘The unhappy warriors: conflict and nationality among the Canadian troops during the South African War’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 23:1 (1995), pp. 79–104; D. Morton, ‘Canada’s first expeditionary force: the Canadian contingent in South Africa, 1899–1900’, in M. Milner (ed.), Canadian Military History (Toronto, 1993); B. Penny, ‘Australia’s reactions to the Boer War: a study in colonial imperialism’, Journal of British Studies, 7:1 (1967), pp. 98–104; B. Penny, ‘The Australian debate on the Boer War’, Historical Studies, 14:36 (1971), pp. 527– 45; C. N. Connolly, ‘Manufacturing “spontaneity”: the Australian offers of troops for the Boer war’, ibid., 18:70 (1978), pp. 106–17; C. N. Connolly, ‘Class, birthplace, loyalty: Australian attitudes to the Boer war’, ibid., 18:70 (1978), pp. 210–32; A. P. Haydon, ‘South Australia’s first war’, ibid., 11:42 (1964), pp. 222–33; L. M. Field, The Forgotten War: Australian Involvement in the South African Conflict of 1899–1902 (Melbourne, 1978), pp. l-34; J. Gray, A Military History of Australia, 1870–1901 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 54–67. 94 R. Kipling, The Five Nations (London, 1903), pp. 133–40, 177–8. 95 Quoted in H. Ricketts, The Unforgiving Minute: A Life of Rudyard Kipling (London, 1999), pp. 270–1. 96 E. Scott, ‘Australia and the Empire’, and J. Rickard, ‘Loyalties’, in J. Arnold, P. Spearitt and D. Walker (eds), Out of Empire: The British Dominion of Australia (Victoria, 1993), pp. 20, 35–6; M. van Wyk Smith, Drummer Hodge: The Poetry of the Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 86–92; L. F. Fitzhardinge, William Morris Hughes: A Political Biography (Sydney, 1964), pp. 97–8. 97 R. White, Inventing Australia: Images and Identity, 1688–1980 (St Leonards, 1992), pp. 73, 79–80, 82. 98 K. Denton, The Breaker (London, 1980 edn). 99 K. Sinclair, A History of New Zealand (Harmondsworth, 1959), p. 214; W. D. McIntyre, ‘Imperialism and nationalism’, in G. W. Rice (ed.), The Oxford History of New Zealand (Oxford, 1992 edn); W. H. Oliver, “‘Social Efficiency” or “Social Welfare’”, New Zealand Journal of History, 13:1 (1979), pp. 25–33; W. D. McIntyre and W. J. Gardner (eds), Speeches and Documents in New Zealand History (Oxford, 1971), pp. 260–4. 100 C. Murrow, Henri Bourassa: French Canadian Nationalist Opposition to Empire (Montreal, 1968), p. 45; Miller, Painting the Map Red, p. 444; M. Wade, The French Canadians (Toronto, 1956), pp. 447–50, 477–97, 511–19, 566–8, 585, 649, 683, 692, 718–20, 737, 840, 882, 1046. 101 R. Neillands, The Great War Generals on the Western Front, 1914–1918 (London, 1999), pp. 330–1, 364–5; Viscount Wavell, Allenby: A Study in Greatness, 2 vols (London, 1940–43); C. Andrew, Secret Service (London, 1987), pp. 58–70. 102 W. S. Churchill, The World Crisis, 1911–1915 (London, 1923), pp. 26–7. 103 Rhodes House, Oxford: Lionel James Papers, Lionel James to Margaret James, 31 January 1909. I am grateful to Jacqueline Beaumont for this reference. 104 Macnab, Journey into Yesterday, p. 38. 105 Moser, Twisting the Lion’s Tail, pp. 3, 12, 127, 135. See also S. Howe, Anticolonialism in British Politics: The Left and the End of Empire, 1918–1964 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 46, 78; P. S. Gupta, Imperialism and the British Labour Movement, 1914–1964 (London, 1975), pp. 119– 21. 106 Quoted in C. Hitchens, Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies (London, 1990), p. 56. 107 Macnab, French Colonel, pp. 248–9.

[ 243 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED 108 The Spanish General Weyler had used such a system three years before in Cuba, and the Americans began to employ similar tactics in the Philippines in early 1899. See Spies, Methods of Barbarism?, p. 296. 109 D. Welch, Propaganda and the German Cinema, 1933–1945 (Oxford, 1983), pp. 271–80. 110 A. Aldate and J. Richards, Best of British: Cinema and Society from 1930 to the Present (London, 1999), pp. 79–94; A. Aldate and J. Richards, Britain Can Take It: The British Cinema and the Second World War (London, 1986), pp. 17, 196. 111 R. Koebner and H. D. Schmidt, Imperialism: The Story and Significance of a Political Word, 1840–1960 (Cambridge, 1965), p. 293. 112 A. M. Pollack, Pienaar of Alamein: The Life Story of a Great South African Soldier (Cape Town, 1943), p. 3; J. L. Keene, ‘Dan Pienaar’, Museum Review [Cape Town], 2:2 (1989), pp. 37–47. 113 J. Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955 (London, 1985), pp. 244–5. I am indebted to Kent Fedorowich of the University of the West of England for this reference. 114 J. Keegan, ‘Churchill’s strategy’, in R. Blake and W. R. Louis (eds), Churchill (Oxford, 1996), p. 343. See also, D. Stafford, Churchill and Secret Service (London, 1997), pp. 139, 188. 115 B. Bond, ‘Ironside’, A. Danchev, ‘Dill’, I. Beckett, ‘Wavell’, and M. Dewar, ‘Wilson’, in T. Keegan (ed.), Churchill’s Generals (London, 1991). 116 J. C. Smuts (Jnr), fan Christian Smuts (London, 1952), p. 448. 117 D. Reitz, No Outspan (London, 1943). 118 A. Carton de Wiart, Happy Odyssey (London, 1950), pp. 22–6, 92–3. 119 I. Uys, The South African Military Who’s Who, 1452–1992 (Germiston, 1992), p. 46. 120 See D. M. Schreuder, Gladstone and Kruger: Imperial Government and Colonial ‘Home Rule’, 1880–1885 (London, 1969), pp. 82–3, 152, 180, 197, 236, 310–11; Harcourt to Campbell-Bannerman, 20 October 1901, quoted in G. B. Pyrah, Imperial Policy and South Africa, 1902–10 (Oxford, 1955), pp. 62, 83, 247; P. Lewsen (ed.). Selections from the Correspondence of John X. Merriman, 1899–1905 (Cape Town, 1966), pp. 96, 98, 162, 180, 207. 121 N. Mansergh, South Africa 1906–1961: The Price of Magnanimity (London, 1962), pp. 97, 99; R. Hyam, Elgin and Churchill at the Colonial Office, 1905–1908 (London, 1968), pp. 55, 165, 183, 533 n.2; J. Ring, Erskine Childers (London, 1996), p. 106. 122 E. Childers, The Framework of Home Rule (London, 1911), p. 120. Childers would later be executed by fellow nationalists as a republican ‘bitterender’ in the Irish Civil War, 1922–23. 123 D. Gwynn, The Life of John Redmond (London, 1932), p. 384. See also T. Hennessy, Dividing Ireland: World War 1 and Partition (London, 1998), pp. 89, 113–15, 141–2. 124 Jackson, ‘Irish unionists and the empire, 1880–1920’, pp. 132–3; St John Ervine, Craigavon: Ulsterman (London, 1949), pp. 55–65. 125 See A. T. Q. Stewart, The Ulster Crisis: Resistance to Home Rule, 1912–1914 (London, 1969); A. M. Gollin, Proconsul in Politics: A Study of Lord Milner in Opposition and in Power (London, 1964), chs 8–9; Donal Lowry, ‘Ulster resistance and loyalist rebellion in the Empire’, in Jeffery (ed.), An Irish Empire, pp. 191–3. 126 Gwynn, Redmond, p. 532; R. B. McDowell, The Irish Convention, 1917–18 (London, 1970), pp. 76, 101–2; J. Kendle, Walter Long, Ireland and the Union, 1905–1920 (Dun Laoghaire, 1992), pp. 50, 140; G. Peatling, ‘The last defence of the Union? the Round Table and Ireland, 1910–1925’, in A. Bosco and A. May (eds), The Round Table, the Empire/Commonwealth and British Foreign Policy (London, 1997), pp. 287, 289; M. Digby, Horace Plunkett, an Anglo-American Irishman (Oxford, 1949), pp. 217, 239–40; South African Library, Cape Town, Merriman Papers: Plunkett to Merriman, 22 October 1917, Merriman to Plunkett, 28 July 1917, 12 December 1917, 19 February 1925, 2 April 1925; Plunkett Foundation, University of Oxford, Plunkett Papers: Southborough to Plunkett, 31 July 1918, Plunkett to Merriman, 22 October 1917. 127 P. MacAonghusa (ed.), Quotations from P. H. Pearse (Cork, 1979), p. 10. 128 J. R. White DSO, Misfit: An Autobiography (London, 1930). 129 E. Lee, To the Bitter End: A Photographic History of the Boer War, 1899–1902 (Harmondsworth, 1986), pp. 53–6. 130 R. Sawyer, Casement: The Flawed Hero (London, 1984), pp. 34–5, 111.

[ 244 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE WIDER IMPACT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR 131 Kendle, Walter Long, pp. 127–8. 132 K. Surridge, ‘Rebellion, martial law and British civil-military relations: the war in Cape Colony’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 8 (1997), pp. 39, 53, 57. 133 Sir Nevil Macready, Annals of an Active Life, 2 vols (London, 1924), vol. 2, p. 552. 134 C. Townshend, ‘Policing insurgency in Ireland, 1914–23’, in D. Killingray and D. Anderson (eds), Policing and Decolonisation: Politics, Nationalism and the Police, 1917–65 (Manchester, 1992), pp. 32–9; C. Townshend, ‘The Irish Republican Army and the development of guerrilla warfare, 1916–21’, English Historical Review, 94 (1979), p. 327; T. P. Coogan, Michael Collins (London, 1988), p. xii. 135 See the following works by Brigadier F. P. Crozier, DSO: Angels on Horseback (London, 1932); Impressions and Recollections (London, 1930), p. 28; A Word to Gandhi (London, 1931), p. 73; Ireland For Ever (London, 1932), pp. 77–88, 215. 136 Coogan, Michael Collins, p. 13; D. Breen, My Fight for Irish Freedom (Dublin [1924], 1991 edn), p. 8; T. Barry, Guerrilla Days in Ireland (Tralee [1949], 1971 edn), p. 108; K. Griffith and T. O’Grady, Curious Journey: An Oral History of Ireland’s Unfinished Revolution (Cork, 1998 edn), pp. 11–12, 100, 228–9. 137 M. O’Suilleabhain, Where Mountainy Men Have Sown: War and Peace in Rebel Cork in the Turbulent Years 1916–21 (Tralee, 1965), p. 22. 138 W. K. Hancock, Smuts, vol. 2, The Fields of Force, 1919–1950 (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 49–61. 139 P. Canning, British Policy Towards Ireland, 1921–1941 (Oxford, 1985), p. 14; N. Mansergh, The Unresolved Question: The Anglo-Irish Settlement and its Undoing, 1910–1972 (London, 1994), pp. 34, 82, 103; D. Lavin, From Empire to International Commonwealth: A Biography of Lionel Curtis (Oxford, 1995), pp. 195–214; T. Jones, Whitehall Diaries, vol. 1, Ireland 1918–1925, ed. K. Middlemas (London, 1971), pp. 120–5, 130–2, 140. 140 McCracken, Pro-Boers, p. 169; M. Collins, The Path to Freedom (Dublin, 1922), pp. 89–90. 141 W. S. Churchill, The World Crisis: The Aftermath (London, 1929), p. 336. 142 State Archives, Pretoria, Smuts Papers, Al/208/43, Tom Casement to Smuts, 24 May 1923. 143 ‘Ireland proud of General Hertzog’, Rand Daily Mail, 3 November 1930; Address on presentation of honorary degrees, 26 November 1930, printed programme provided by Thomas A. Twoomey, senior administrative officer, National University of Ireland. For a more detailed discussion of these connections see D. Lowry, “‘Ireland shows the way”: Irish-South African relations and the British Empire-Commonwealth ca. 1902–1961’, in D. McCracken (ed.), Ireland and South Africa in Modern Times (Durban, 1996), pp. 89–135. 144 D. Keogh, Twentieth Century Ireland: Nation and State (Dublin, 1994), pp. 234–5; National Archives of Ireland, Department of the Taoiseach Papers, S15333. I am grateful to Dr Senia Paseta of Hertford College, Oxford, for this reference. 145 Sir A. Rumbold, Watershed in India, 1914–1922 (London, 1979), p. 7. 146 Mansergh, South Africa 1906–1961, pp. 94–5. 147 A. Gupta, ‘A note on Indian attitudes to Africa’, African Affairs, 69 (1970), p. 171. See also P. F. Power, ‘Gandhi in South Africa’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 7:3 (1964), pp. 441–55. 148 J. Nehru, An Autobiography (London, 1936), p. 12; M. Gandhi, ‘The fear of death’, Young India, 13 October 1921. 149 Mansergh, South Africa 1906–1961, p. 98. See also P. N. S. Mansergh, ‘Some reflections on the transfer of power in plural societies’, in C. H. Philips and M. D. Wainwright (eds), The Partition of India: Politics and Perspectives, 1935–1947 (London, 1970), p. 45; T. G. Fraser, ‘The Round Table and the problem of divided societies’, in Bosco and May (eds), Round Table, pp. 408–9; Rumbold, Watershed in India, p. 57. 150 ‘The Wind of Change’, in A. N. Porter and A. J. Stockwell (eds), British Imperial Policy and Decolonization, 1938–64, vol. 2 (London, 1989), p. 525. For Britain’s post-war relationship with South Africa, see R. Hyam, ‘The parting of the ways: Britain and South Africa’s departure from the Commonwealth, 1951–61’, in P. Burroughs and A. J. Stockwell (eds), Managing the Business of Empire: Essays in Honour of David Fieldhouse (London, 1998), pp. 157–75; P. J. Henshaw, ‘Britain and South Africa at the United Nations: South-West Africa, the treatment of Indians, and race conflict, 1946–61’, South African Historical Journal, 31 (1994), pp. 80–102. 151 T. Dunbar Moodie, The Rise of Afrikanerdom: Power, Apartheid and the Afrikaner Civil

[ 245 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR REAPPRAISED Religion (Berkeley, 1975), pp. 224, 227, 240, 247. 152 W. K. Hancock, Smuts, vol. 2, The Fields of Force, 1919–1950 (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 469– 73. India continued to cooperate with South Africa over the issue of Indian republican status within the Empire. Ironically, D. F. Malan, after 1948 Prime Minister of the most overtly racist state in the Commonwealth, supported India’s continued membership of the Commonwealth, no doubt mindful of asserting South Africa’s own implicit right to republican status. See M. Brecher, ‘India’s decision to remain in the Commonwealth’, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 12 (1975), pp. 78, 229; S. Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography, vol. 2 (London, 1979), p. 53. 153 The Times, 13 September 1950. 154 William Plomer, ‘General Smuts’, in H. C. Armstrong et al., Great Contemporaries (London, 1935); L. Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (London, 1981 edn), pp. 151–2. 155 Hancock, Smuts, vol. 2, pp. 429, 432. B. Schwarz, “‘The only white man in there”: The reracialisation of England, 1956–1968’, Race and Class, 38:1 (1996), pp. 68–9, provides a thought-provoking appraisal of his post-war image in Britain. 156 Macnab, French Colonel, p. 249; D. McCracken, ‘Irish identity in twentieth-century South Africa’, in McCracken (ed.), Ireland and South Africa in Modern Times, p. 36. 157 See C. Gurney, ‘When the boycott began to bite’, and D. Nash, ‘The Boer War and its humanitarian critics’, History Today, 49:6 (1999), pp. 32–4, 42–9; Hewson, Hedge of Wild Almonds, p. xiii.

[ 246 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

INDEX

Abdurahman, Dr A., 161

anti-semitism, 30, 205, 211, 229

Aborigines Protection Society, 217

apartheid, 15, 237–9

Abyssinia, 212

Armstrong, Rev. George, 177

Action Fran5aise, 214

Army Service Corps, 197

Afghanistan, 190, 204

Arnett, Henry Y., 221

African-Americans, 140, 203, 221

Ashanti campaign, 5

African National Congress, 16, 146, 149 n.31

Asquith, Herbert, 97, 193

African role in the South African War, 2–4, 7– 8, 11, 24, 104–19, 140–9, 159, 161, 173, 189, 217 Afrikaans, 25 Afrikaner Bond, 10, 69, 121, 122, 124, 126, 128–31, 133, 135–6 Afrikaner nationalism, 11–12, 15, 25–6, 128, 130–3, 136–7, 237–9 Afrikaner Rebellion (1914), 12, 192

Asquith, Margot, 211 Atmore, Anthony, 36 Attlee, Clement, 16, 206, 237–8 Atwood, Margaret, 14 Australia, 3, 9, 15, 53, 91, 188–9, 197, 203, 207, 225–7, 231, 238 Australian Corps of Bushmen, 189 Aveling, Rev. F. W., 177 Baden-Powell, Gen. Robert, 15, 106–7

agterryers, 113–18

Bagration of Tiflis, Prince, 212

Aked, Dr Charles, 173

Baker, Sir Herbert, 4

Algemeen Nederlands Verbond, 215

Bakker, Dr A. J., 239

Algeria, 203, 214

Balfour, Arthur, 17, 75–6, 84, 86–7, 190

All-deutscher Verband, 216

Ballinger, Margaret, 11

All India Moderate Party, 236

Balmforth, Rev. Ramsden, 181–2

Allenby, Field Marshal Lord, 227

Bambatha (Zulu) Rebellion, 4, 158

Ally, R., 43

Bank of England, 43–4

American Civil War, 23, 26–7, 79, 203, 217

Bannerjee, Babu Panchkouri, 156

Amery, Leo, 15, 26–8, 34, 68–73, 76, 78, 81,

Baptist Times, 178

150, 190, 197, 200, 230

Baptists, 169–71, 173–4, 179

Amritsar massacre, 16

Barkly, Sir Henry, 91

Ancient Order of Hibernians, 220

Barnard, Jan, 106

Anglicans, 177, 179; see also Church of

Barrès, Maurice, 214

England Anglo-French Entente, 191 Anglo-German agreement, 41, 43 Anglo-Irish Treaty, 86 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 191, 203–4 Anglo-Russian agreement, 191 Anglo-Transvaal War (1881), 4, 25, 132, 207 Anglo-Zulu War (1879), 92, 144

Barry, Gen. Tom, 234 Basmuthi, 156 Basters, 109, 110; see also Coloureds Basutoland, 113, 141–2 Bebbington, David, 169 Bechuanaland, 54, 92, 106, 141–2 Beit, Alfred, 33, 98 Belgium, 215

[ 247 ]

INDEX

Bell, C. F. Moberly, 51–3, 55, 57, 62, 68–72,

Buller, Gen. Sir Redvers, 71, 73, 77, 99, 196,

76, 78, 98 Bell, Thurburn, 73 Bermuda, viii Besant, Annie, 236

Burgers, President T. F., 207

Beyers, Gen. C. F., 111, 116

Burnham, Frederick Russell, 210

Biddulphsberg, 116 Bixler, R. W., 34 Björnson, Björnstjerne, 215

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

199 Burger, Gen. S. W., 114

Black and Tans, 234 Black Week, 74, 188, 222 Blainey, Geoffrey, 33 Blake, Col. John, 213, 221

Burns, John, 205, 207 Bushveldt Carabineers, 226 Butler, Josephine, 211 Butler, Gen. Sir William, 99 Buxton, 1st Earl, 10, 93 Byng, Field Marshal Lord, 227

Blanch, M. D., 223 Bloch, J. S., 195

Cain, P., 41–3, 91

Bloemfontein, 127

Calcutta, 151–2, 162

Bloemfontein Convention, 90

Callwell, Maj.-Gen. Sir Charles, 195

Bloemfontein Friend, 71

Cammack, Diana, 169

Blunt, Wilfred Scawen, 98

Campbell, Rev. J. A., 175

Boer prisoners of war, vii–viii, 160, 204, 211,

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 2, 67, 79,

214, 219–20 Bolshevik Revolution, 213

97, 174, 179, 195, 231, 237 Canada, 3, 9, 14, 15, 39, 91, 188–90, 192–3,

Bombay Gazette, 155

203, 207, 219–20, 225–7,

Bose, Subhas Chandra, 15 Boston Pilot, 220 Botha, Annie, 8 Botha, Gen. Louis, 8, 10, 111, 161–2, 224, 230–1, 233, 235 Botrel, Théodore, 213 Bourassa, Henri, 227

231, 238 Cape Afrikaners, vii, 10, 69, 76–7, 121–39 Cape Colony, 3, 10, 11, 54, 56, 95–6, 108, 121–39, 141–3, 157, 165, 181–2, 213 Cape Times, 98 Cape Town, 182; see also Cape Colony

Bouwer, Ben, 117

Capper, T., 59

Brail, Fritz, 212

Carnarvon, Lord, 94

Brand, President J. H., 235

Carpenter, Edward, 205–6

Breen, Dan, 234

Carr, E. H., 86

Breytenbach, J. H., 24

Carton de Wiart, Lieut. Gen. Sir Adrian, 230

Brink. J. N., 116–17

Casement, Sir Roger, 233

British Bechuanaland, 92

Casement, Tom, 235

British East Africa Company, 52

Ceres, 131

British South Africa Company (Chartered

Cetshawayo, King, 92, 144

Company), 32, 51–2, 54, 56, 62, 93, 142 British Weekly, 174, 177–9

Ceylon, viii, 189, 204, 225 Chamberlain, Joseph, 1, 6, 7, 27, 29, 30, 35,

Brodrick, St John (later Earl of Midleton), 88,

40, 45, 54–5, 57–9, 68, 85–100, 105, 123,

198, 167 n.32, 232

127, 143, 157, 172, 177, 179, 188, 190, 205,

Buchan, John, 230 Buckle, G. E., 55–6, 58–9, 98 Bulgarian Agitation, 171

222 Chandravarkar, Sir Vithal, 157

[ 248 ]

INDEX

Chartered Company, see British South Africa

Conference of States and Colonies on the Alien Question, 126, 154

Company Chesterton, G. K., 206–7

Congregationalists, 169, 172–9

Chiang Kai-shek, 231

Connolly, James, 224, 233

Chicago Citizen, 220

Conrad, Joseph, 206

Childers, Erskine, 5, 231

Conservative Party, 17, 86–8, 97, 172, 179, 194, 200, 232

China, 40, 207, 210, 213

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Chinese Boxer Uprising (1900), 5, 166 n.22 Chinese labour, 3, 17, 100, 154, 227 Chively, battle of, 162 Chopra, Sarandas, 160 Christian World, 178 Christlijk Nationaal Boerencomité, 215 Church of England, 172; see also Anglicans churches and public opinion, 13–15, 141–2, 158, 169–87; see also non-conformist churches Churchill, Winston, 5, 15, 86, 221, 227–30, 234–5

Cook, E. T., 98 Cossacks, 212 Craig, Sir James (Lord Craigavon), 232 Crance, Walter, 206 Crewe, Marquess of, 232 Crimea, 2, 198 Critchley, Rev. G., 177 Cromer, Earl of (formerly Sir Evelyn Baring), 51, 89 Cronjé, Gen. Piet, 107, 117, 216–17 Crowther, Gen. Jan, 116–17 Crozier, Brig.-Gen. Frank, 234 Cuba, 213, 218; see also Spanish-American

CID (Committee of Imperial Defence), 191, 193, 232

War Cumann na Gaedhal, 224

Cincinnatus, 207

Curtis, Lionel, 72, 235

City Imperial Volunteers (CIV), 195

Curzon, Lord, 89, 155, 164

Clan na Gael, 220 Clarke, Sir George, 71, 74, 191

Daily Graphic, 5

Clarke, Thomas, 233

Daily News, 98, 178

Clifford, Dr John, 13–14, 172–3,

Daily Telegraph, 67

175–6

Daly, John, 220

Cockran, Bourke, 221

Darbhanga, Maharaja of, 155

Cohen, Lionel, 231

Davitt, Michael, 211–12

Colenso, battle of, 73, 74, 196, 200–1

De Beers, 52

Colenso, Harriet, 217

de Charette, René, 213

Collins, Michael, 15, 234–5

de Ganetsky, Count Alexis, 212

Colohan, Daniel F., 219 Colombia, 5 Colonial Office, 51, 84–103, 122, 123, 170–2 Coloureds, 4, 143, 157–8, 161, 163–5 Commonwealth, the, 15, 135–6, 165, 238 Communist Party of South Africa, 146 concentration camps, 8, 16, 61, 78, 80, 113, 182, 217, 223, 228–9

de Kersauson de Pennedreff, Robert, 213 de la Rey, Gen. Koos (J. H.), 15, 109, 112, 218 de Négrier, Gen., 196 de Villebois-Mareuil, Col. Georges, 5, 208, 212, 214–15, 228, 239 de Villiers, Sir Henry (1st Baron), 35, 96, 123, 126 de Villiers, J., 135 de Villiers, Marq, 13. de Vos, Professor R J. G., 133

[ 249 ]

INDEX

de Waal, A. W., 107

Evening News, 5

de Wet, Gen. Christiaan, 15, 213, 217–18,

Everett, R. L., 176

228, 233–5 de Wet, D. J., 135

Fabians, 172, 206

de Wet, Sir Jacobus, 94

Fairbridge, Dorothea, 8

Delagoa Bay, 40, 51

Fashoda, 207

Democratic Party (USA), 220–21

Fawcett, Millicent Garrett, vii, 8, 14,

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Denoon, Donald, 9 Derdepoort, skirmish at, 106, 112 Derrida, Jacques, 23 Deutsche Zentrale für Bestrebungen zur Beendigung des Krieges, 216 Devoy, John, 220 Dill, Field Marshal Sir John, 230

80, 211, 222 Federation of the Free Churches, 175 Feetham, Richard, 236 Fiddes, Sir George, 88, 98, 153 Filipinos, 203, 214; see also SpanishAmerican War; Philippine-American War

Disraeli, Benjamin, 86 d’Orleans et Braganze, Prince Louis, 213

First World War, 196–7, 200, 227, 234

Douglas, R., 72 Douglas, Rev. R. B., 183

Fischer, Abraham, 69.

Doyle, Arthur Conan, 209, 225–6

Fitzpatrick, Sir Percy, 99

Drew, Rev. Dewdney, 182

Foster, James (the ‘Arizona Kid’), 213

Dreyfus Affair, 207 Drifts Crisis, 88

France, 89, 191, 204, 207–10, 212–13, 215, 239

Drus, Ethel, 35

Franco-Prussian War, 214, 217, 225

du Plessis, H., 116

Frauenhilfsbund, 216

du Toit, S. J., 10

Freetown, see Sierra Leone

Dubow, Saul, 9

French, Gen. Sir John, 72, 199, 225, 111, 232,

Dundee, 223 Dutch Reformed churches (DRC), 104, 179– 81, 183, 209

234 Frere, Sir Bartle, 91–2, 144 Frere, Lady, 91

Dutt, R. C., 156 Gaelic League, 224 Easter Rising (Dublin, 1916), 213, 224, 233 Eastern Cape, 11, 90, 182 Eastern Province Magazine, 182 Edinburgh, 223 Egypt, 32, 38, 51–2, 89, 98 Elandslaagte, battle of, 74 Elgin, Lord, 161 Elizabeth II, Queen, 16

Gallagher, J. A., 38–9, 84, 92, 137, 191 Gandhi, Mohandas K., 11, 14, 15, 152–3, 157– 64, 236–7 Garrett, Edmund, 67, 98 Garvin, J. L., 35, 96 Gatacre, Gen. Sir William, 72, 74, 76 George, David Lloyd, 11, 17, 79, 106, 206, 223, 226, 235

Entente Cordiale, 191 The Englishman, 154

George V, King, 235

Erasmus, J. L. P., 160

George VI, King, 16, 231

Escombe, H., 161

German-Americans, 220–1

Esher Committee, 198

German Corps, 212

Ethiopia, 5; see also Abyssinia

German East Africa, 5, 164

[ 250 ]

INDEX

German South-West Africa, 5, 213, 237

Hardie, James Keir, 17, 206, 223

Germany, 40, 62, 85, 147 n.6, 148 n.13, 191,

Harmsworth, Alfred, see Lord Northcliffe

195, 198, 200, 207, 210, 212, 215–18, 225,

Harris, Frank, 56

228–9

Harris, Dr Rutherfoord, 54, 56, 59

Gillot, Rev. H. A., 216

Harvard University Boer Relief Committee,

Gladstone, William, 86–7, 97–8 Glasgow, 223

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Glen Grey Act, 62 Glencoe, battle of, 74 Goeiman, 116 Goering, Hermann, 228 Gokhale, G. K., 236

209, 230 Hay, John, 218–19, 221 Heilbron, 117 Hely-Hutchinson, Sir Walter, 95, 154 Henshaw, Peter, 40 Herbert, Bron, 73

Gonne, Maud, 211, 213

Herbert, Sir Robert, 51

Gore, Canon Charles, 179

Herero Uprising, 5

Gough, Gen. Sir Hubert, 227

Hertzog, Gen. J. B. M., 12, 149 n.31, 236

Graaff Reinet, 125 Gray, Rev. James, 183

Hewison, Hope, 170

Green, Alice Stopford, 211

Hicks-Beach, Sir Michael, 88

Greene, Conyngham, 94, 95, 98

Hirst, F. R., 173

Gregory, Lady, 224

Hocking, Silas, 173

Grey, Albert (Lord), 54, 94

Hobhouse, Emily, vii, 8, 79–80, 178, 180, 211,

Grey, Sir Edward, 97

217

Grey, Sir George, 90

Hobson, J. A., 13, 28–33, 36, 84–5, 205, 207

Griffith, Arthur, 224, 235

Hoffman, Dr J. M., 133, 135

gold, 5, 23–49. Goschen, G. J., 87 Great Trek, 25 Greenlees, J. M., 72 Grenville, J. A. S., 6, 86 Griqualand West, 91–2 Guchov, Alexander, 213

Hofmeyr, Rev. Adrian, 72, 80, 180 Hofmeyr, J. H., 10, 96, 124, 126, 128–9, 134 Holdsworth, Col. G. S., 106 Hollander Corps, 212 Hollowell, J. Hirst, 176 Holy See, 210

Guild of Loyal Women, 8

Hopkins, A. G., 41–3, 91

Guyot, Yves, 215

Hopwood, Sir Francis, 232

Gwynne, Howell, 71, 80

Horne, Charles Sylvester, 176 Horton, Dr R. F., 176

The Hague, 217

Howard, Michael, 195

Hague Peace Conference, 210

Hughes, William Morris, 226

Haig, Maj.-Gen. (later Field Marshal) Sir

Hungary, 212, 215

Douglas, 197, 227 Hajee Dada, Hajee Mohamed, 163

Hyderabad, Nizam of, 155 Hyndman, Henry, 210

Haldane, Richard, 97 Hamilton, Angus, 72 Hammond, John Hays, 33 Hancock, W. K., 35 Hankey, Sir Maurice, 193 Harcourt, Sir William, 97

imperial conference (1902), 190 imperial defence, 14–15, 188–202 imperial federation, 155 Imperial Light Horse, 70, 230

[ 251 ]

INDEX

Imperial South Africa Association, 98

Japan, 203; see also Anglo-Japanese Alliance;

Imvo Zabantsundu, 143

Jeeves, Alan, 37

India, viii, 1, 9, 10, 89, 146, 150–68, 190–2,

Johannesburg, 52, 54, 60–1, 77, 163, 205

228, 231, 236–8

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Russo-Japanese War

Independent Labour Party, 223

Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce, 37, 41

India Office, 164

Johannesburg Chamber of Mines, 37, 41

Indian Ambulance Corps, 159, 162

Joubert, Helena, 8

Indian army, 150–1, 158–9, 165, 189

Joubert, G. J., 117

Indian National Congress, 151–2, 156–7, 161,

Joubert, Gen. Piet, 52, 69, 107

165,211,

Joyce, James, 15, 224–25

Indian Opinion, 160–1 Indian Princely States, 154–6

Kautsky, Karl, 210

Indian South Africans, 143, 148 n.7 and n.17,

Kemp, Gen. J. C. G., 111–13

150–68

Kgatla, 106, 110–11, 161

Indochina, 214

Kimberley, 8, 52, 71, 215

Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union,

‘Kindergarten’, 3, 199, 230, 236

146

King, Martin Luther, 142

Inter-Colonial Council, 3

Kingsley, Mary, 211

International Legion, 213

Kipling, Rudyard, 17, 71, 126–7, 206,

International Red Cross, 220 Ireland, 16, 86–7, 135, 209, 211, 227,

211,226,232 Kitchener, Field Marshal Lord, 6, 61, 73, 74,

231–6

76, 89, 99, 105, 108, 159, 190, 195, 199,

Irish-Americans, 219–21

225

Irish Convention, 232–3

Knight, E. F., 5, 70

Irish World, 220

Knutsford, Earl of, 93

Irish nationalists, 81, 87, 192, 223–4, 229,

Kolbe, Rev. F. C., 181, 187 n.106

231–6, 239

Koss, Stephen, 178

Irish Transvaal brigades, 5, 213, 224, 236, 239

Krige, G. J., 134

Irish War of Independence, 15, 86,

Krikler, Jeremy, 7

233–5 Ironside, Gen. William, 230

Kritzinger, Gen. P. H., 105, 107–9 Kruger, Paul, 1, 24, 26, 31–5, 37–9, 41, 43–5,

Isandlwana, battle of, 92, 192

53–4, 60, 69, 93, 95, 107, 123–4, 126, 129,

Italian Corps, 212

135,154, 177, 205, 207, 209, 212–13, 215–

Italy, 5, 208, 210, 215 Izwi Labantu, 143

19, 232–3, 239 Kruger, Rayne, 7 Kubicek, R. V., 33

Jabavu, D. D. T., 146 Jabavu, John Tengo, 143

La Ligue nationaliste, 227

James, Lionel, 68, 70–3, 75, 77, 79–81,228

Lady’s Committee, 211

Jameson, Leander Starr, 17, 45, 54–7, 232–4

Ladysmith, 8, 70, 72, 156, 197

Jameson Raid, 6, 10, 25, 29, 31–4, 39, 50, 54–

Lancaster, Osbert, 17

5, 58–9, 62–3, 93, 121–2, 128–32, 175, 205,

Landon, Perceval, 71–2, 76

207, 215, 232

Landsdowne, Lord, 88

[ 252 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

INDEX

Langden, Sir Godfrey, 3

McCracken, Donal, 169–70

Langer, W. L., 34

Macdonald, Gen. Sir Hector, 76

Laurier, Wilfrid, 190, 193

McDonald, R. D., 104, 109

Le May, G. H., 35, 86

MacDonald, Ramsay, 206

Le Monde Illustré, 215

MacDonnell, P. J., 73

Le Petit Journal, 215

Mackennal, Alexander, 176

Le Siècle, 215

McKinley, President William, 220–1

Le Temps, 215

Maclaren, Ian, see Watson, Dr John

League of Nations, 8

Macmillan, Harold, 237

Lecky, W. E. H., 209

Macready, Gen. Sir Nevil, 234

Lenin, V. I., 29, 205

Madagasgar, 5

Lentshwe, 106, 111–13

Madras, 152

Leo XIII, Pope, 15, 210

Mafeking, 8, 72, 106–7

Lepper, C. H., 72

Mafeking Night, vii–viii, 17, 177, 222

Lewis, Herbert, 223

Magersfontein, battle of, 76, 212

Lewisham, 177

Mahabharata, 162, 167 n.46

Leyds, Dr W. J., 25, 36, 95, 213, 215–17, 224

Mahan, Admiral Alfred T., 204

Liberal Party, 16–17, 81, 97, 100, 105, 173,

Mahdi, 5

179, 194, 223, 231

Mahon, Gen. Sir Bryan, 234

Liberal Unionists, 86–8, 93, 97, 179, 200, 209

Maji Maji Revolt, 5

The Lije and Death of Colonel Blimp, 229

Majuba, battle of, 92, 95, 134

Lincoln, Abraham, 205

Malan, F. S., 131

Lindley, battle of, 232

Malay States, 188

Links, Barnabas, 110

Manchester Guardian, 51–2, 178

Liverpool, 175

Manchuria, 196, 207

Lloyd, Rev. John T., 182–3

Mandela, Nelson, 15, 16, 17

Loch, Sir Henry, 53, 59, 92

Maori, 148 n.11, 188

Lodge, Henry Cabot, 219

Marais, J. S., 36–8, 86

London Convention, 92

Marico, 106–7

London Missionary Society, 176

Maritz, Gen. Manie, 110, 213

Long, Walter, 232

Marks, Shula, 16, 36, 43

Lord Strathcona’s Horse, 188

Martin, Basil, 176

Lourengo Marques (Maputo), 72, 233

Matabele War (1893), see Ndebele War

Lovell, R. I., 34

Matabeleland, 5

Lukács, Gyorgy, 210

Matthews, Z. K., 149 n.25

Lugard, Sir Richard (later Lord), 50, 61

Maurras, Georges, 214

Luxemburg, Rosa, 8, 14, 210

Maximov, Eugène (Yevgeny), 5, 213

Lynch, Col. Arthur, 5, 213–14

Maxwell, Gen. Sir John, 227, 234 Mbenga, Bernard, 7

Mabal, Captain Iddimus, 112

Mendes da Costa, J., 228

MacBride, Major John, 213, 233, 236,

Mentz, J. F., 117–18

239 MacBride, Sean, 236, 239

Meredith, George, 51 Merriman, J. X., 52, 91, 96, 127, 136, 233

[ 253 ]

INDEX

Methodists, 169

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

free churches, 171

National Service League, 223 Ndebele War (1893), 93

Primitive, 171, 177

Ndebele Uprising (1896), 231

Wesleyan, 171–2, 179

Neethling, M. L., 135

Methuen, Gen. Lord, 71, 74, 188

Nehru, Jawaharlal, 236, 238

Mfengu, 141

Neser, Commandant J. P., 109

Middleburg Courant, 235

Netherlands, 8, 215, 228, 239

Miller, Carman, 227

New South Wales, 189

Mills, Sir Charles, 52

New South Wales Mounted Rifles, 189

Milner, Sir Alfred (later Viscount), 1, 2, 3, 5,

New York, 204

6, 10, 27, 29–30, 35, 40, 60, 63, 68–9, 77–8,

New York Journal, 219

81, 85–100, 105, 121–137, 143, 153–4, 157,

New York Staats Zeitung, 221

180–1, 192, 199, 205, 222,232

New York Times, 219

Mitter, B. C., 236

New Zealand, vii, 3, 15, 53, 148 n.11, 188, 193, 197, 203, 225–7, 231

Modder River, battle of the, 71, 74, 76 Moffat, Samuel E., 219

Nicholas II, Tsar, 14, 190

Molapo, Joel, 113

Nicholson, Sir William, 199

Molema, Silas, 146

Nicholson’s Nek, battle of, 74

Molteno, J., 91, 121, 127, 137 Montenegro, Prince of, 228 Monypenny, W. F., 68–70, 72, 98 Moran, D. P., 224 Morant, Harry (‘The Breaker’), 226 Morley, John, 78–9, 170, Morrison, D. M., 151 Mozambique, 41 Mqhayi, Samuel, 143 Muller, Dr H. P. N., 215 Munson, J., 171–2 Murray, Rev. Andrew, 179–81 Namaqualand, 109 Narain, Pandit Jagat, 236 Nasser, Mahomed Ben, 214 Nasson, Bill, 4, 105. Natal, 3, 8, 10, 53, 89, 92, 95, 114, 142, 152, 157–9, 165, 212, 233 Natal Indian Congress, 163 Natal Witness, 71

Nigeria, 188 nonconformists, 13–14, 169–87; see also churches and public opinion Northcliffe, Lord, 67, 98 Northern Ireland, see Ulster Nova Scotia, 189 nurses, 189, 198 O’Connell, Daniel T., 228 O’Dwyer Bates, Daisy, 226 Ohm Kruger, 228 Ons Land, 130–1, 133–4 Onze Courant, 134 Orange Free State, 1, 4, 45, 77, 90, 92, 100, 105, 112–13, 117, 156, 161, 182, 204, 228 Orange River Colony, 79, 211 Ordnance Corps, 197 Paardeberg, battle of, 71 pacifism, 173–4, 177–8, 208, 211, 223 Pakeman, R. J., 154 Pakenham, Thomas, 35

Nathan, Sir Matthew, 233

Palestine, 234

National Council of (Evangelical) Free

Pall Mall Gazette, 6, 51, 60, 97, 98

Churches (NCFC), 170–2, 176

Palmerstown, Lord, 86

national efficiency, 194, 222

Panama, 5

National Party, 12, 238

Pandit, Mrs Ranjit, 238

[ 254 ]

INDEX

Pan-German League, 216

Republican Union, 12

Pankhurst, Emmeline, 206

Reuters, 70–4, 78, 80, 151

Paris International Exhibition, 217

Review of Reviews, 52, 161

Parnell, Charles Stewart, 51, 220

Rhodes, Cecil John, 4, 6, 10, 31–4, 36, 51–7,

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Peace Committee, 173

59, 62–3, 68, 92–3, 95, 122, 124, 128–33,

Peace Society, 174

137, 142, 203, 205, 218, 233

Pearse, Patrick, 233

Rhodesia, see Southern Rhodesia

Pecci, Lieutenant Count, 210

Ricchiardi, Capt. Camillo, 212

Pedi, 110–11

Richard, Henry, 176

Philippine-American War (1899–1904), 5, 204, 207 Phillips, Lionel, 33 Phimister, Ian, 43 Pienaar, Gen. Dan, 229 Pitt, William, 86 Plaatje, Sol, 11 Plumer, Field Marshal Lord, 227

Ripon, Marquess of, 93, 163 Rivonia Trial, 15 Roberts, Aileen, 199–200 Roberts, Edwina, 199–200 Roberts, Freddie, 200 Roberts, Lady, 200 Roberts, Field Marshal Lord, 8, 35, 72, 74, 77, 81, 99, 105, 107, 188, 190, 197, 199–200,

Plunkett, Sir Horace, 233

225, 232

Pollock, Maj. Arthur, 71–2, 76, 81 poor whites, 12

Robinson, Sir Hercules (later Lord Rosemead), 45, 51, 53–4, 84, 92–3, 129

Port Elizabeth, see Eastern Cape Porter, Andrew, 35, 44, 86, 88, 183

Robinson, R., 38–9, 137

Portugal, 204; see also Lourenço Marques;

Roels, Edgar, 215

Mozambique

Roman Catholics, 189; see also Kolbe, Rev. F. C.; Leo XIII

Pottinger, Sir Henry, 90 Preller, Gustav, 25

Roos, J. de Villiers, 25

Presbyterians, 169, 174–5, 179, 182–3

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 239

Pretoria, 1, 77, 81

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 14, 207, 232, 239

Pretoria Convention, 87, 92

Roosevelt, Theodore, 15, 204, 207–8, 218–20

pro-Boerism, 14–15, 78–9, 169–84, 203–46

Rosebery, Earl of, 97, 179, 223 Rose-Innes, Sir James, 61

Quakers (Society of Friends), 169–70, 178–9, 211 Quebec, 192–3, 227 Queensland, 193

Rostand, Edmond, 215 Royal Army Medical Corps, 197 Royal Canadian Dragoons, 189 Royal Commission on the South African War

Queensland Regiment, 193 Rawlinson, Sir Henry, 197, 199 Reconstruction, 3–4 Reddy, E. S., 160 Redmond, John, 231–3, 236 Reitz, Deneys, 110, 230 Reitz, F. W., 69 Rendel, Sir Alex, 96

(1903), 199 Royal Irish Rifles, 232 Royal Niger Company, 52 Ruskin, John, 51 Russia, 147 n.6, 190–1, 204, 207, 211, 216 Russian Corps, 212–13 Russo-Japanese War, 5, 196, 213, 216

Republican Party (USA), 220–1

[ 255 ]

INDEX

South African League, 85, 95, 98

Rustenberg commando, 117

South African Native Congress, see African National Congress

Salisbury, 3rd Marquess of, 30, 39, 86, 88–9,

South African News, 179, 181–2

143, 192, 2.05 Santhals, 164

South African Republic, see Transvaal

Sastri, Srinivas, 236

South African Vigilance Committee, 180

Scandinavian Corps, 212

South African Women and Children Distress Fund, 211

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Scholtz, G. D., 24 Schreiner, Olive, 8, 28, 182–3, 208

South Australian Volunteers, 193

Schreiner, Samuel Cronwright, 177, 182–3,

Southern Rhodesia, 12, 54, 95, 130 Spain, 204, 209, 218

223

Spanish-American War (1898), 5, 13, 15, 15,

Schreiner, W. R, 35–6, 61, 96, 125–6, 133

204, 206–7, 218

Scotland, 135, 223 Second World War, 11, 17, 228–31

Spanish Civil War, 14, 208

Segale, Chief, 106, 161

Sprigg, Sir Gordon, 122, 125, 128

Selborne, 2nd Earl of, 1, 39, 88, 125

St Helena, viii, 204

Selous, Frederick Courtney, 218

Stafleu, Abraham, 107

Seme, Pixley, 149 n.23

The Standard, 72

Sharpville massacre, 17

Standard Bank, 37

Shaw, Flora (Lady Lugard), vii, 8, 50–63, 68,

Stanley, Brian, 169 Stanley, Col. Lord Edward (later Lord Derby),

73, 77–8

199–200

Shaw, Sir Frederick, 51 Shaw, George Bernard, 222

The Star, 68, 70, 72, 98

Shaw, Lulu, 59

Statute of Westminster, 236

Shepstone, Sir Theophilus, 144

Stead, W. T., 6, 50, 51, 60, 172, 174, 177, 203, 211

Sierra Leone, 205–6 Sinha, Hon. Rajit, 156

Stellenbosch, 135

Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), 5, 6

Stephen, Sir Herbert, 58–9

Slagtersnek rebellion, 25

Stewart, Hailey, 176

Smith, Sir Harry, 90, 94

Steyn, President Marthinus, 117, 204, 228

Smith, Iain, 84, 86, 91

Stokes, Eric, 86

Smuts, Gen. Jan Christiaan (later Field

Stop-the-War Committee, 173–4, 177–8, 211, 223

Marshal), 7, 11, 15–17, 25, 28, 31–2, 35, 37, 84, 95, 108, 110, 115, 116, 131, 147 n.2,

Stormberg, battle of, 72, 74, 76

162, 230–1, 233

Sudan, 5

Snyman, Gen. J. P., 107

Sun Yat-sen, 14, 210

Social Democratic Federation, 210

Surridge, Keith, 15

Soga, A. K., 143

Swaziland, 53

Solomon, Saul, 89

Switzerland, 217–18, 224, 228

South African Conciliation Committee, 174,

Symons, Penn, 74

178, 211 South African Confederation, 91

Tacitus, 208

South African Convention (1908–09), 232

Tasmania, 225

South African Constabulary, 189

Taylor, A. I. P., 2

[ 256 ]

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

INDEX

Theron, Gen. Danie, 213

van der Poel, Jean, 35, 86

Theron, T. P., 134

van Gogh, Cornelius, 212

Thomas, Urijah, 176

van Helten, J. J., 43

Tibet, annexation of, 222

Vendée, 213

The Times, 6, 7, 50–83, 98, 150

Vereeniging, Treaty of, 3, 110, 143, 145

Toynbee, Arnold, 87

Verwoerd, Hendrik, 17

Trades Union Congress, 177

Versailles Peace Conference, 144

Traill, Duncan, 73

Victoria, Queen, 8, 11, 90, 123, 134–5, 137, 142, 144–5, 148 n.10, 149 n.22, 155, 157,

Transkei, 142; see also Eastern Cape

159, 163, 166 n.27, 176

Transvaal (South African Republic), 1, 4, 5, 7, 24, 27, 33–6, 42–5, 53, 55–6, 78, 92–3, 95, 98, 100, 105, 110–11, 123–4, 130, 136– 7, 142, 151, 153, 156, 161, 163, 175, 180, 188, 203, 209, 212–13, 219, 232 Transvaal Leader, 154 Trapido, Stanley, 36, 43 Trenchard, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord, 227 Trevelyan, Sir Charles, 79 Tshidi, 106 Tswana, 110, 142 Tudor, Maj.-Gen. Sir Hugh, 234

Victoria League, vii Victorian Mounted Infantry, 188 Vietnam War, 226 Viljoen, Gen. Ben, 107 Vincent, Sir Howard, 195–6 Vincent, J. E., 74 Vlakfontein, battle of, 116 von Bismark, Otto, 216 von Zeppelin, Capt. Graf, 212 Voortrekker monument, 13 Vrouemonument, 13 Wagner, Helena, 8

Turkestan, 190

Wales, 179, 223–24

Twain, Mark, 14, 207, 218

Walker, Eric, 35 Wallace, Sir Donald Mackenzie, 55

uitlanders, 1, 24, 27, 29, 32, 37, 39–40, 44–5,

Walter, Arthur, 55, 57, 59

53–6, 60, 77, 80, 84, 88, 93, 99, 129, 132,

Walrond, Ozzy, 98

153, 169, 173, 175, 180, 203,232

Warre, Dr Edmond, 195

Ulster, 2, 223, 232

Warwick, Peter, 24, 106

Umteleti, 145–6

Washington, Booker T., 221

Union Buildings, Pretoria, 4

Watson, Dr John, 174–5

Union of South Africa, 3, 4, 5, 11, 140, 144,

Wavell, Field Marshal Lord, 230

148 n.17, 165, 232

Weekly News (Freetown), 206–7

Unitarians, 169–70, 172, 178–9, 181–2

Wernher-Beit & Co., 98

United Nations, 165, 238–9

Wesleyans, see Methodists

United States of America, 6, 11, 13, 15, 23,

West Indians, 188

33, 39, 78–9, 140, 191–3, 203–4, 207–10,

White, Gen. (later Field Marshal) Sir George, 74, 225, 233

212, 215, 218–21 Unwin, Jane Cobden, 211

White, Capt. Jack, 233

van den Heever, J. M., 133

Wilde, Richard, 35

van der Merwe, Kalie, 117

Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 191, 215–16

van der Merwe, N. J., 12

Wilhelmina, Queen, 8, 216–17, 228

White, Montagu, 215

Wilkinson, Spenser,

[ 257 ]

INDEX

Wilson, Maj. (later Field Marshal) Sir Henry,

Wyndham, George, 88, 98.

196–7, 199–200, 227 Wilson, Field Marshal Sir Henry ‘Jumbo’

Yeats, William Butler, 213, 224

Maitland, 230

Young Women’s Christian Association

Wilson, Monica, 144

(YWCA), 180

Wimborne, Lord, 233 Windvoël, ‘General’, 116

Zuid-Afrikaanshe Republiek (ZAR), see

Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Wodehouse, John (Earl of Kimberley), 91–2, 95

Transvaal.

Wolffe, John, 169

Zulu (Bambatha) Rebellion, 4, 158, 162

Wolseley, Field Marshal Lord, 71, 92

Zulu Relief Fund, 217

women and the war, 8, 211

Zululand, 95, 106

Wounded Knee, 5

Zulus, 110

[ 258 ]