HISTORY
Address by Commander Charl Crous, WA Police Service at Kings Park, Perth at the Anglo-Boer War Memorial
Address at the 115th anniversary of the signing of the Vereeniging Peace accords
(The Boer War -11 Oct. 1899 – 31 May 1902)
Commemoration and reconciliation Service - Sunday 4th June 2017
South African War memorial Kings Park.
Theme: The Conflict from the Boer Perspective.
Title: The Boer War- Shaping a nation by Dr Charl Crous (APM)
Goeie More Dames, Here en Kinders / Good Morning Ladies, Gentleman & Children
Thank you for the opportunity to share with you a Boer perspective on the South African war (Boer war) of 1899-1902.
It is a great privilege for me as an Afrikaner living in Western Australia to reflect on the impact of the Boer War - 115 years on my people
The Boer War commenced at 17:00 on Wednesday 11 October 1899.
This was a war which devastated the Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State economically and psychologically. It was a war that saw 11 months of conventional war and 26 months of guerrilla war. The two tiny republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free Sate, with militia type forces, took on the might of the British Empire in a war effort they did not have a realistic chance of ever winning. The war that followed, was without doubt, the most destructive conflict in the history of South Africa.
Following the war the two Boer nations of the Transvaal and Free State were impoverished and widespread urbanisation followed in South Africa - resulting eventually in the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910.
Early perspectives on the war – divisions amongst a young nation
The divisions amongst the Afrikaner nations – or Boers – of the Orange Free State and Transvaal Republics were evident before the war commenced. The two Boer nations of 1899 were very young – they were people made up of mainly Dutch and French descendants who were residing in the Cape colony up to 1838. Merely 50 years prior to the war
In 1838 approximately 15 000 of these “Boers” embarked on the Great Trek from the Cape colony to settle the republics of the Transvaal and Free State. The Great Trek reflected a common trend among individual Boer communities to pursue an isolationist and semi-nomadic lifestyle, away from the developing administrative complexities in Cape Town and specifically the British control over the Southern point of Africa.
It might be this characteristic of being isolationistic and semi nomadic that contributed to great divisions amongst the Boers when they considered the feasibility of the two tiny Boer republics going to war against the might of the British Empire.
It might also be these specific characteristics of the Boer nation that influenced the prevalent strategy of guerrilla warfare the Boer leaders followed during the war.
No prospect of winning the war
Following the horrendous bombardment of Boer forces within 5 months of the war commencing at Paardeberg, near Kimberley, Boer general PA Cronje, surrendered to the British on 27 February 1900 with 4150 of his commandos- which were 10% of the total Boer force. As a direct result of Cronje’s surrender, Boer morale sank after the defeat at Paardeberg. This defeat was followed by the fall of the capital of the Orange Free State, Bloemfontein, without a shot being fired. Shortly after that Pretoria also fell into the hands of the British forces.
The Paardenerg battle was the watershed moment of the Boer war - arguably a watershed moment in the Afrikaner history. Irrespective of this huge setback for the Boer Militia the Boer War Council held at Kroonstad on 17 March 1990, decided that the independence of the two Boer republics needed to be maintained at all cost and the main strategy agreed on was one of guerrilla warfare.
In hind sight one might say that this decision of the Boer command prolonged the war significantly and contributed to significant trauma and suffering by Boer families in both republics. Following Paardeberg there was a great reluctance amongst the Boer militia to keep on fighting and a number of Boers defected to the ranks of the enemy at the time.
It needs to be said that it is especially the Boer women that were very strong in the commitment towards the war and keeping their husbands and sons fighting. Even with the increasing threat if detention in the British concentration camps the Boer women showed unique strength. They were more vehemently anti-British than the men, and their role in supporting the Boer guerrilla fighters was the main driving force for the commandos to continue under very difficult circumstances. Many of the Boer women lived in the open veld for up to two years with small children to avoid capture by the British forces
However the chances of success for the Boer Commando’s against the empire of Queen Victoria were always extremely slim. Even if the two Boer forces followed a large scale guerrilla offensive from the beginning of the war, as opposed to a conventional strategy that resulted in Paardeberg, there was never a realistic chance of the Boer militia of the Transvaal and Free State republics winning a war against the mighty British Empire.
The British forces were ill prepared for the guerrilla warfare strategy of the Boer forces- resulting in the Boer forces under the Command of Jan Smuts, Louis Botha and Koos Delarey enjoying great success during this phase of the war.
However the Boer war in 1900 became a war against open spaces and the only way to end the conflict from the British perspective, was to control these open spaces and to prevent the manoeuvrability of the Boer forces
Counter guerrilla tactics- Devastation for the Boers
Lord KITCHENER devised a counter guerrilla strategy to severely restrict the chances of the Boer forces and ironically the strategy of Kitchener became an accelerant for Afrikaner nationalism following the war.
Kitchener’s counter guerrilla strategy consisted of a number of key elements:
Scorched earth tactics
Internment camps
Psychological warfare
And increasing the mobility of British forces and the capability of the British on the ground with what we call today Pseudo Operations. This is a strategy whereby the one side enlists former enemy soldiers under duress to engage their erstwhile comrades. It is estimated that at least 5500 Joiners (previous Boer commandos) joined the British forces following the pressure they and their families were under especially due to the scorched earth and internment camp tactics. These joiners were enlisted in special units like the Natal Scouts and the Orange River Colony Volunteers in the act of war against their own countrymen.
By April 1902 the remaining Boer forces was approximately 21000 men - including about 4000 Cape Colony rebels- However the remaining Boer forces were now without weapons, ammunition and any logistical support as the Boer farms were destroyed and Boer families were detained in internment camps as part of Lord Kitchener’s anti-guerrilla war strategy. The days of the Boer farms and local Boer communities supplying Boer commandos with food, fodder for horses and information on the movement of British columns were over.
Kitchener effectively stripped the land and local Boer communities of any ability to support the Boer forces. Approximately 100 000 Boer farms houses and related infrastructure across the Transvaal and Free State were destroyed by 1902. By April 1902 at least 34 Internment camps were established for Boer families. In addition at least 66 internment camps were established for black or indigenous people. It is estimated that at least 31 0000 of the 145 000 Boer inmates and 23 000 of the 140 000 black or indigenous inmates perished in these internment camps.
By 31 May 1902 when the peace accord was agreed on and signed the British had muddled their way to victory and Lord Kitchener can be described as ruthlessly successful. The Boer nations of the Transvaal and Free State literally capitulated under the pressure exerted by the Kitchener counter guerrilla strategy.
The Boers, emerging mythology and the notion of Afrikanerdom
Afrikaner unity following the war
It was approximately 4 decades after the war that the Boer nation (known as Afrikaners by then) was being portrayed by authors, clergymen and politicians as a united nation who resisted the invasion of the British Empire of the Transvaal and Free State republics of 1899.
The reality leading up to the war and during the war was different though. The Boers of the war were mainly those Afrikaners living in the Transvaal and Free State republics and the Boer nation was not a homogenous nation at all. The support of Boers (or Afrikaners) of the Cape Colony and the Natal Colony was for example nor forthcoming as expected by the two Boer republics. This was indicative of the fact that unity amongst the Boers (and later the Afrikaners) was never a reality 1899– as President Steyn of the Free State remarked in the
early days of the Boer war ” It is your war (referring the Transvaal) - We (the Free State) are merely coming to your aid’’.
In closing It needs to be said that the Boer war contributed significantly to the notion of unity in South Africa and specifically unity amongst the rising of the Afrikaner nation as an entity in its own right.
The notion of Afrikanership was truly born from the war and in the course of the 20th century, the Afrikaners would rise as a formidable nation. There is no doubt that the Boer War shaped the rise of an aggressive nationalist paradigm through which the Afrikaner nation aspired to self-determination eventually dominating the political spectrum in South Africa up to 1994.
The Boers of 1899-1902 had tremendous spirit, characterised by pride, strength and desire for independence. Consequently they courageously took on the British Empire and while they did not win the ground war, and while they eventually signed the available peace deal their infectious spirit lived on making the Afrikaner nation.
By illustration of the above - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Homes and at the time of the Boer War a medical doctor for the British forces in South Africa - describes the Boer War and the Boer fighter as follows
“Take a community of Dutchmen of the type of those who defended themselves for fifty years against all the power of Spain at a time when Spain was the greatest power in the world. Intermix with them a strain of those inflexible French Huguenots, who gave up their name and left their country forever at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
The product must obviously be one of the most rugged, virile, unconquerable races ever seen upon the face of the earth. Take these formidable people and train them for seven generations in constant warfare against savage men and ferocious beasts, in circumstances in which no weakling could survive; place them so that they acquire skill with weapons and in horsemanship, give them a country which is eminently suited to the tactics of the huntsman, the marksman and the rider. Then, finally, put a fine temper upon their military qualities by a dour fatalistic Old Testament religion and an ardent and consuming patriotism. Combine all these qualities and all these impulses in one individual and you have the modern Boer- the most formidable antagonist who ever crossed the path of Imperial Britain.
Our military history has largely consisted in our conflicts with France, but Napoleon and all his veterans have never treated us so roughly as these bard-bitten farmers with their ancient theology and their inconveniently modern rifles.
Look at the map of South Africa, and there, in the very centre of the British possessions, like the stone in a peach, lies the great stretch of the two republics, a mighty domain for so small a people. How came they there? Who are these Teutonic folk who have burrowed so deeply into Africa? It is a twice-told tale, and yet it must be told once again if this story is to have even the most superficial of introductions. No one can know or appreciate the Boer who does not know his past, for he is what his past has made him.”
Thank you
