Chapter X

THE DISARMAMENT OF THE DUTCH POPULATION

The new year (1901) opened with a full revelation of the magnitude of the task which lay before the Imperial troops. Lord Roberts had frankly recognised that the destruction of the Governments and organised armies of the Republics would be followed by the more difficult and lengthy task of disarming the entire Boer population within their borders.

"Recent events have convinced me," he wrote from Pretoria on October 10th, 1900, "that the permanent tranquillity of the Orange River Colony and Transvaal is dependent on the complete disarmament of the inhabitants; and, though the extent of the country to be visited, and the ease with which guns, rifles, and ammunition can be hidden, will render the task a difficult one, its accomplishment is only a matter of time and patience."

That this task proved altogether more lengthy and more arduous than Lord Roberts at this time expected, was due mainly, though not exclusively, to the same cause as that which had placed the British army in a position of such grave disadvantage at the outbreak of the war—the play of party politics in England. Lord Roberts had foreseen that the process of disarming the Boers would be slow and difficult; but he had not anticipated that the Imperial troops would be hindered in the accomplishment of this task by the political action of the friends of the Boers in England, or that the public utterances of prominent members of the Liberal Opposition would re-act with such dangerous effects upon the Afrikander nationalists that, after more than a year of successful military operations, the process of disarmament would have to be applied to the Cape Colony as well as to the territories of the late Republics.

An injurious influence.

Peace party among the Boers.

There is another element in the attitude of the burgher population at this critical period, a knowledge of which is essential to a correct understanding of the methods and conditions of the guerilla war. The existence among the republican Dutch of a considerable body of opinion in favour of submission was a circumstance of which the Imperial authorities were aware, and one of which they desired, naturally enough, to take the fullest advantage. It was known also to the militant Boer leaders; and it is obvious that any estimate of the degree in which these leaders are to be held directly responsible for the loss and suffering entailed by the decision to continue the war, will depend largely upon the manner in which they dealt with those members of their own community who were prepared, after Lord Roberts's victories, to become peaceable citizens of the British Empire.

The action of the Boer leaders in this respect is established by the indisputable testimony of the official documents which fell into the hands of the British authorities in the subsequent progress of the war. Every endeavour of the peace party to make itself heard was punished with rigorous, sometimes brutal, severity; fictitious reports, calculated to raise false hopes of foreign intervention, were circulated among the burghers in the field; and every effort was made to prevent a knowledge of the British Government's proposals for the future administration of the new colonies from reaching the rank and file of the burgher population. The details of this action on the part of the Boer leaders constitute collectively a body of evidence sufficient to have justified the employment of measures infinitely more severe than those which were in fact adopted by the British military authorities for the capture of the Boer commandos and the disarmament of the Dutch inhabitants of South Africa; and in the face of this evidence, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's reiterated charges against the Government, whether of "methods of barbarism" or of prolonging the war by the neglect to offer reasonable terms to the Boers, must be held as wanton in their origin as they were injurious in their results.

Administrative changes.

Lord Roberts relinquished the command of the British forces in South Africa on November 29th, 1900. The Home Government at this time attached great importance to the issue of a proclamation setting out clearly the generous terms upon which the Boers would be received into the empire; and, in connection with this question, Lord Milner, during his recent visit to Pretoria, had discussed with Lord Kitchener the methods by which the influence of the surrendered Boers and the more moderate Afrikanders, who were in favour of submission, could be brought to bear upon the general mass of the fighting burghers. Lord Milner, however, upon his return to the Cape Colony, expressed the opinion that the issue of a proclamation in the then existing circumstances would be a mistake, since it would only be regarded as a sign of weakness. And in support of this opinion he states, in a telegram of December 11th, that the cabled summary of Mr. Chamberlain's

Both Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener confirmed this judgment at the time; and on January 28th, 1901—when de Wet was on the point of breaking through the British troops into the Cape Colony—the latter telegraphed to Lord Milner:

Three days afterwards Lord Milner received a further telegram from Lord Kitchener on the same subject, which he also forwarded to the Colonial Office:

Boer leaders irreconcilable.

In view of this irreconcilable attitude on the part of the Boer leaders, Mr. Chamberlain abandoned the proposal, and the proclamation was not issued until six months later, when the blockhouse system had been successfully initiated.

"that those who had already surrendered would have means not open to us of communicating with the bulk of the Boers still under arms, persuading them of the hopelessness of their resistance, and removing the misapprehension of our intentions, which some of the commanders who were still holding out had sedulously fostered."

It was in these circumstances and with these objects in view that, after Lord Roberts's departure, the Burgher Peace Committee was formed at Pretoria; and it is to the address which Lord Kitchener then delivered (December 21st, 1900) to this Committee that we must look for the origin and purpose of the Burgher, or Concentration Camps.

Origin of the Burgher camps.

"It having been brought to Lord Kitchener's notice," says the published report, "that the principal difficulty that burghers, desirous of surrendering, experienced was that they were not allowed to remain in their own districts, and were afraid of the penalties attached to not having adhered strictly to the oath of neutrality, which they had, in most cases, been made to break by the coercive measures of Boers out on commando, he wished to give the burghers still in the field every opportunity of becoming acquainted with the treatment he proposed now to extend to them, their families, and their property.

"Instructions had been issued to form laagers for all surrendered burghers, their wives, families, and stock, on the railway in their own districts under military protection; and, except where it was proved that a burgher had voluntarily broken his oath and gone out on commando, no difference would be made between those who had not taken the oath. To protect deserted women and children they would also be brought into these laagers, where their husbands and sons, who desired to live peacefully, could freely join them.

The report of Lord Kitchener's speech from which these paragraphs are taken was printed in Dutch and circulated by the Burgher Peace Committee. It is certainly significant that a measure which was subsequently held up to the execration of the civilised world by the official leader of the Liberal party and the friends of the Boers in England, should have been carefully explained by Lord Kitchener to an audience of Boers at Pretoria, and accepted by them as a means of enabling the peaceably disposed burghers to escape from the compulsion of their leaders. In this, as in many other matters, the English friends of the Boers were plus royalistes que le roi même.

Boer coercive measures.

These, then, were the means employed by the British military authorities to avert a needless protraction of the war. We have now to observe the methods by which the Boer leaders prevented their efforts from producing the desired result. In view of the destruction of the organised resistance of the Republics, Lord Roberts had made known by proclamation that all burghers who surrendered their arms and took the oath of neutrality would be allowed to return to their homes, or, if at home, to remain there undisturbed. This implied an intention on the part of the British authorities to provide such protection as would enable the surrendered burghers to remain in peaceable possession of their property. General Botha, as we have already noted, was personally in favour of a general surrender after the battle of Dalmanutha; but, when once the majority of the Boer leaders had decided to continue to resist the establishment of British authority by force of arms, it became his business to keep every fighting burgher in the field. Here, again, the work of the Intelligence Department provides us with instructive evidence of the purposes and acts of the enemy. In the course of the subsequent military operations Sir Bindon Blood captured a number of official documents in the Boer Government laager at Roos Senekal. One of these, referring to the period in question, sufficiently indicates the nature of the "coercive measures" to which Lord Kitchener had alluded. Under date October 6th, 1900, General Botha gives instructions to the Boer commandant at Bethel to telegraph round to the Boer generals and officers certain military instructions, and he then adds:

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

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

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

"Not civilised warfare".

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

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

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

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

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

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

Policy of the Bond.

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

De Wet in the colony.

If this account of the attitude of the Bond stood alone, its value would be merely that of an ex parte statement by a competent observer on the spot. But it does not stand alone. The accident of the capture of the Boer official papers at Roos Senekal, to which we have referred before, has provided us with a record of the thoughts which were in De Wet's mind at the time when Mr. Kipling's words were written. In a report dated "On the Veld, February 14th, 1901," Commandant-General Botha is informed that "De Wet's last news is that the Cape Colony has risen to a man, and has already taken up arms. They refused to give up to the British Government. Many more are only waiting operations on part of De Wet to join him; and General De Wet concludes this report with the words: 'It is certain that the ways of the Lord are hidden from us, and that, after all, it seems that the day of a united South Africa is not far off.'"

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

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

Effect of Cape rebellion.

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

Afrikander statesmanship.

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

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

Lord Milner's survey.

Two reasons, Lord Milner writes, have prevented him from sending for a long time past any general review of South African affairs. "I am occupied," he says, "every day that passes from morning till night by business, all of which is urgent, and the amount and variety of which you are doubtless able to judge from the communications on a great variety of subjects which are constantly passing between us." And in addition to this, he has always hoped that "some definite point would be reached, at which it might be possible to sum up that chapter of our history which contained the war, and to forecast the work of administrative construction which must succeed it." Now, however, it is useless to wait longer for a "clear and clean-cut" situation. Although he has not "the slightest doubt of the ultimate result," he foresees that the work which still lies before the Imperial troops will be "slower, more difficult, more harassing, and more expensive than was at one time anticipated."

"It is no use denying that the last half-year has been one of retrogression. Seven months ago this Colony was perfectly quiet, at least as far as the Orange River. The southern half of the Orange River Colony was rapidly settling down, and even a considerable portion of the Transvaal, notably the south-western districts, seemed to have definitely accepted British authority, and to rejoice at the opportunity of a return to orderly government and the pursuits of peace. To-day the scene is completely altered."

The "increased losses to the country," due to the prolongation of the struggle and to the guerilla methods adopted by the Boer leaders, are obvious.

"The fact that the enemy are now broken up into a great number of small forces, raiding in every direction, and that our troops are similarly broken up in pursuit of them, makes the area of actual fighting, and consequently of destruction, much wider than it would be in the case of a conflict between equal numbers operating in large masses. Moreover, the fight is now mainly over supplies. The Boers live entirely on the country through which they pass, not only taking all the food they can lay hands upon on the farms—grain, forage, horses, cattle, etc., but looting the small village stores for clothes, boots, coffee, sugar, etc., of all of which they are in great need. Our forces, on their side, are compelled to denude the country of everything moveable, in order to frustrate these tactics of the enemy. No doubt a considerable amount of the stock taken by us is not wholly lost, but simply removed to the refugee camps, which are now being established at many points along the railway lines. But even under these circumstances the loss is great, through animals dying on the route, or failing to find sufficient grass to live upon when collected in large numbers at the camps. Indeed, the loss of crops and stock is a far more serious matter than the destruction of farm buildings, of which so much has been heard."

And to this loss incidental to the campaign there has been added recently "destruction of a wholly wanton and malicious character." This is the injury done to the mining plant in the outlying districts of the Rand by the Boer raiders, a destruction for which there is no possible excuse.

"It has no reason or justification in connection with military operations, but is pure vandalism, and outside the scope of civilised warfare.... Directly or indirectly, all South Africa, including the agricultural population, owes its prosperity to the mines, and, of course, especially to the mines of the Transvaal. To money made in mining it is indebted for such progress, even in agriculture, as it has recently made, and the same source will have to be relied upon for the recuperation of agriculture after the ravages of war.

"Fortunately the damage done to the mines has not been large, relatively to the vast total amount of the fixed capital sunk in them. The mining area is excessively difficult to guard against purely predatory attacks having no military purpose, because it is, so to speak, 'all length and no breadth'—one long thin line, stretching across the country from east to west for many miles. Still, garrisoned as Johannesburg now is, it is only possible successfully to attack a few points in it. Of the raids hitherto made, and they have been fairly numerous, only one has resulted in any serious damage. In that instance the injury done to the single mine attacked amounted to £200,000, and it is estimated that the mine is put out of working for two years. This mine is only one out of a hundred, and is not by any means one of the most important. These facts may afford some indication of the ruin which might have been inflicted, not only on the Transvaal and all South Africa, but on many European interests, if that general destruction of mine works which was contemplated just before our occupation of Johannesburg had been carried out. However serious in some respects may have been the military consequences of our rapid advance to Johannesburg, South Africa owes more than is commonly recognised to that brilliant dash forward, by which the vast mining apparatus, the foundation of all her wealth, was saved from the ruin threatening it."

Material destruction.

As the result of the last six or seven months of destructive warfare, "a longer period of recuperation will be required than was originally anticipated." At the same time, Lord Milner points out that, with Kimberley and the Rand, the "main engines of prosperity," virtually undamaged, the economic consequences of the war, "though grave, do not appear by any means appalling."

"The country population will need a good deal of help, first to preserve it from starvation, and then, probably, to supply it with a certain amount of capital to make a fresh start. And the great industry of the country will need some little time before it is able to render any assistance. But, in a young country with great recuperative powers, it will not take many years before the economic ravages of the war are effaced."

He then turns to consider the "moral effect" of the recrudescence of the war, which is, in his opinion, more serious than the mere material destruction of the last six months. In the middle of 1900 the feeling in the Orange River Colony and the western districts of the Transvaal was "undoubtedly pacific."

"The inhabitants were sick of the war. They were greatly astonished, after all that had been dinned into them, by the fair and generous treatment they received on our first occupation, and it would have taken very little to make them acquiesce readily in the new régime. At that time, too, the feeling in the Colony was better than I have ever known it."

Recrudescence of the war.

If it had been possible to screen those portions of the conquered territories which were fast settling down to peaceful pursuits from the incursions of the enemy still in the field, the worst results of the guerilla war might have been avoided. But the "vast extent of the country, and the necessity of concentrating our forces for the long advance, first to Pretoria and then to Komati Poort," made this impossible. The Boer leaders raided the country already occupied, but now left exposed; and, encouraged by the small successes thus easily obtained, the commandos reappeared first in the south-east of the Orange River Colony, then in the south-west of the Transvaal, and finally in every portion of the conquered territory.

Those among the burgher population who desired to submit to British rule now found themselves in a position of great difficulty.

"Instead of being made prisoners of war, they had been allowed to remain on their farms on taking the oath of neutrality, and many of them were really anxious to keep it. But they had not the strength of mind, nor, from want of education, a sufficient appreciation of the sacredness of the obligation which they had undertaken, to resist the pressure of their old companions in arms when these reappeared among them appealing to their patriotism and to their fears. In a few weeks or months the very men whom we had spared and treated with exceptional leniency were up in arms again, justifying their breach of faith in many cases by the extraordinary argument that we had not preserved them from the temptation to commit it.

"The general rising at the back of our advanced forces naturally led to the return of a number of our troops, and to a straggling conflict not yet concluded, in which the conduct of our own troops, naturally enough, was not characterised by the same leniency to the enemy which marked our original conquest. We did not, indeed, treat the men who had broken parole with the same severity with which I believe any other nation would have treated them. Entitled as we were by the universally recognised rules of war to shoot the men who, having once been prisoners in our hands and having been released on a distinct pledge to abstain from further part in the war, had once more taken up arms against us, we never in a single instance availed ourselves of that right. But as our columns swept through the revolted country, meeting on every hand with hostility, and even with treachery, on the part of the people whom we had spared, no doubt in some cases the innocent suffered with the guilty. Men who had actually kept faith with us were, in some instances, made prisoners of war, or saw their property destroyed, simply because it was impossible to distinguish between them and the greater number who had broken faith. This, no doubt, resulted in further accessions to the ranks of the enemy. And this tendency was augmented by the evacuation, necessary for military reasons, of a number of places, such as Fauresmith, Jagersfontein, and Smithfield, which we had held for months, and in which we had actually established a reasonably satisfactory civil administration. Latterly, something has been done to check the general demoralisation, and to afford places of refuge for those willing to submit, by establishing camps along the railway lines to which burghers may take themselves, their families, and their stock for protection. No doubt this is a very inadequate substitute for the effectual defence of whole districts. Consequently the camps are mostly tenanted by women and children whose male relatives are, in many cases, in the field against us. But, as far as it goes, it is a good measure, and there can be no doubt that, whenever we succeed in striking a decisive blow at any of the numerous commandos roaming about the country, a good many of their less willing members will find their way to one or other of these camps in order to avoid further fighting."

As the guerilla warfare thus swept back over the new colonies, the Dutch in the Cape Colony, who at one time, about the middle of the preceding year (1900), had seemed disposed to acquiesce in the union of all South Africa under the British flag, became once more restless and embittered.

A carnival of mendacity.

"Every act of harshness, however necessary, on the part of our troops, was exaggerated and made the most of, though what principally inflamed the minds of the people were alleged instances of needless cruelty which never occurred. Never in my life have I read of, much less experienced, such a carnival of mendacity as that which accompanied the pro-Boer agitation in this Colony at the end of last year. And these libels still continue to make themselves felt. It is true that excitement has subsided somewhat during the last two months, partly because some of the worst inventions about the conduct of the British troops have been exposed and utterly discredited, and partly because the general introduction of martial law has tended greatly to check seditious writing and speaking. But even now the general feeling in most of the country districts is very bad, and the commandos which invaded the Colony in December and have been roaming about ever since, while they have not gained many adherents among the colonial farmers, have nevertheless enjoyed the very substantial aid which the sympathy of the majority of the inhabitants was able to give them, in supporting themselves, obtaining fresh supplies of food and horses, and evading the forces sent in pursuit of them."

Of the general attitude of the Cape Dutch at this time Lord Milner writes with the lenient judgment of complete understanding:

"I am satisfied by experience that the majority of those Dutch inhabitants of the Colony who sympathise with the Republics, however little they may be able to resist giving active expression to that sympathy when the enemy actually appear amongst them, do not desire to see their own districts invaded or to find themselves personally placed in the awkward dilemma of choosing between high treason and an unfriendly attitude to the men of their own race from beyond the border. There are extremists who would like to see the whole of the Cape Colony overrun. But the bulk of the farmers, especially the substantial ones, are not of this mind. They submit readily enough even to stringent regulations having for their object the prevention of the spread of invasion. And not a few of them are, perhaps, secretly glad that the prohibition of seditious speaking and writing, of political meetings, and of the free movement of political firebrands through the country enables them to keep quiet, without actually themselves taking a strong line against the propaganda, and, to do them justice, they behave reasonably well under the pass and other regulations necessary for that purpose, as long as care is taken not to make these regulations too irksome to them in the conduct of their business, or in their daily lives.

"That there has been an invasion at all is no doubt due to the weakness of some of the Dutch colonists in tolerating, or supporting, the violent propaganda, which could not but lead the enemy to believe that they had only to come into the Colony in order to meet with general active support. But this was a miscalculation on the part of the enemy, though a very pardonable one. They knew the vehemence of the agitation in their favour as shown by the speeches in Parliament, the series of public meetings culminating in the Worcester Congress, the writings of the Dutch Press, the very general wearing of the republican colours, the singing of the Volkslied, and so forth, and they regarded these demonstrations as meaning more than they actually did. Three things were forgotten. Firstly, that a great proportion of the Afrikanders in the Colony who really meant business had slipped away and joined the republican ranks long ago. Secondly, that the abortive rebellion of a year ago had left the people of the border districts disinclined to repeat the experiment of a revolt. Thirdly, that owing to the precautionary measures of the Government the amount of arms and ammunition in the hands of the country population throughout the greater part of the Colony is not now anything like as large as it usually is, and far smaller than it was a year ago."

British population in arms.

In these circumstances the object to be aimed at is to screen off as much of the country as possible from raids. But the Cape Colony is considerably larger in area than France and the United Kingdom put together; it has "an immense length of frontier that can be crossed anywhere," and "exceedingly primitive means of communication." The exclusion of mobile guerilla bands from across the frontier is, therefore, "something of an impossibility." There is one method, and one only, by which "the game of the invaders can be frustrated." It is to provide each district with the means of defending itself. And so a local defence force has been formed in all districts, with the exception of those—happily the least important in the Colony—in which the population is extremely small and the loyalists are very few.

"In the other districts, the response on the part of the British population to the general call to arms recently made by the Ministry has been better than the most sanguine expected. It was always admitted, by their friends and foes alike, that the bulk of the Afrikander population would never take up arms on the side of the British Government in this quarrel, even for local defence. The appeal was, therefore, virtually directed to the British population, mostly townspeople, and to a small, but no doubt very strong and courageous, minority of the Afrikanders who have always been loyalists. These classes had been already immensely drawn on by the Cape police, the regular volunteer corps, and the numerous irregular mounted corps which had been called into existence because of the war. There must have been twelve thousand Cape Colonists under arms before the recent appeal, and, as things are now going, we shall get as many more under that appeal—a truly remarkable achievement under a purely voluntary system. The fact that, if the war continues for a few months longer, so large a number of the South African British will be under arms (for, it must be remembered, in addition to the Cape colonists we have about one thousand Rhodesians, and, I should say, at least ten thousand Uitlanders) is one that cannot be left out of account in considering either the present imbroglio or the settlement after peace is restored.

"It is, indeed, calculated to exercise a most important and, I believe, beneficial influence upon the South African politics of the future. Among the principal causes of the trouble of the past and present was the contempt felt by the Afrikander countryman, used to riding and shooting, and generally in possession of a good rifle and plenty of cartridges, for other white men less habituated to arms than he was himself. That feeling can hardly survive the experience of the past twelve months, and especially of the last six weeks. The splendid fighting of the despised Johannesburgers of the Imperial Light Horse, and of the other South African Colonial Corps, has become a matter of history, and the present levée en masse of the British people, including the townsmen, of this Colony, is proof positive that when the necessity is really felt they are equal to the best in courage and public spirit. In this respect the events of the past few months, unfortunate as they have been in many ways, have undoubtedly their brighter side. The mutual respect of the two principal white races is the first condition of a healthy political life in the South Africa of the future. It is possible that if the extreme strain of the most recent developments of the war had never been felt throughout Cape Colony, the British inhabitants would never have had the opportunity of showing that they were inferior to none in their willingness to bear all the burdens of citizenship, including that of personal service."

Remember the loyalists.

And Lord Milner urges that in the future England should not forget that there are loyalists in South Africa as well as Boers; and that the loyalists are Dutch as well as British.

"The important part now played, even from the purely military point of view, by the South African loyalists ought, as it seems to me, to have a good effect not only in South Africa but in England. The inherent vice, if I may say so, of almost all public discussion of our South African difficulties is the tendency to concentrate attention too exclusively on the Boers. Say what we will, the controversy always seems to relapse into the old ruts—it is the British Government on the one hand and the Boers on the other. The question how a particular policy will affect not merely our enemies, but our now equally numerous friends, seems seldom to be adequately considered. And yet it would seem that justice and policy alike should lead us to be as eager to consider the feelings and interests, and to retain the loyalty, of those who are fighting on our side, as to disarm the present enmity and win the future confidence of those who are fighting against us. And this principle would seem all the easier to adhere to because there is really nothing which the great body of the South African loyalists desire which it is not for the honour and advantage of the mother country to insist upon.

"Of vindictiveness, or desire to oppress the Afrikanders, there is, except in hasty utterances inevitable in the heat of the conflict, which have no permanent significance, or in tirades which are wholly devoid of influence, no sign whatever. The attitude of almost all leading and representative men, and the general trend of public feeling among the loyalists, even in the intensity of the struggle, is dead against anything like racial exclusiveness or domination. If this were not so it would be impossible for a section of pure-bred Afrikanders, small no doubt in numbers but weighty in character and position, to take the strong line which they do in opposition to the views of the majority of their own people, based as these are, and as they know them to be, upon a misconception of our policy and intentions. These men are among the most devoted adherents to the Imperial cause, and would regard with more disfavour and alarm than any one the failure of the British nation to carry out its avowed policy in the most complete manner. They are absolutely convinced that the unquestioned establishment of British supremacy, and the creation of one political system from Capetown to the Zambesi, is, after all that has happened, the only salvation for men of their own race, as well as for others."

"One Country, One Flag."

And, in conclusion, he writes of the "predominant, indeed the almost unanimous, feeling of those South Africans who sympathise with the Imperial Government," that—

"they are sick to death of the war, which has brought ruin to many of them, and imposed considerable sacrifices on almost all. But they would rather see the war continue for an indefinite time than run the risk of any compromise which would leave even the remotest chance of the recurrence of so terrible a scourge in the future. They are prepared to fight and suffer on in order to make South Africa, indisputably and for ever, one country under one flag, with one system of government, and that system the British, which they believe to ensure the highest possible degree of justice and freedom to men of all races."

In this luminous review of what Lord Milner terms "if by no means the most critical, possibly the most puzzling" state of affairs since the outbreak of the war, it will be observed that he puts the time required by South Africa to recover from the economic ravages of the war at "not many years." In point of fact, two and a half years after the surrender of Vereeniging nothing remained but the scattered graveyards upon the veld, the empty tins still tinkling upon the wire fences by the railways, and an occasional blockhouse, to remind the traveller of the devastating struggle from which the country had so recently emerged. This estimate of the period of recuperation affords a measure of the magnitude of Lord Milner's achievement in the three concluding years of his administration. For the rest, we look in vain for any trace of bitterness, or even of partisanship, in his frank and penetrating analysis. It is the survey of a man who is completely master of the situation; who is absolutely convinced of the justice of the British cause; who has no illusions and no fears.

Feeding the enemy.

Lord Kitchener's task.

An incident that happened after the occupation of Pretoria exhibits the remarkable generosity of the British attitude. At a time when, owing to the Boer attacks upon the railway, the utmost difficulty was experienced in getting supplies from the thousand-miles'-distant base at the coast, Lord Roberts was compelled to send away a part of the civilian population to General Botha, and they were removed by the Boer Commandant-General to Barberton. That is to say, while the British, on the one hand, were giving part of the supplies on which the existence of their troops depended, to the non-combatant population of the enemy, the enemy, on the other hand, was doing his utmost to destroy the single line of railway which alone stood between the British Army and starvation. When, therefore, Lord Kitchener succeeded to the command of the British forces in South Africa (November 29th, 1900), he found the task of disarmament complicated by two factors. There was the desire of the Home Government that the war should be conducted upon the humane lines hitherto adopted, and there was also the fact that the Imperial troops were not numerous enough to occupy effectively the whole territory of the Republics, or, in other words, to do the one thing of all others necessary to make this humane conduct of the war consistent with military success. It was impossible, with the troops at his disposal, for Lord Kitchener to hold the enormous territory of the conquered Republics. It was impossible, perhaps, to support a larger force in a country so poorly provided with food supplies and means of communication. An alternative plan had to be found. This plan was to remove the horses, cattle, and food supplies from the areas which he was unable to occupy, and to transport the non-combatant inhabitants to places where they could be both fed and protected. And, when this had been done—or, more correctly, while it was in process of being done—he had to capture the small, mobile bodies of burghers operating over the whole of the unprotected area of the late Republics and the Cape Colony, and to collect gradually the fighting Boers, captured or surrendered, into the colonial or over-sea prisoners' camps.

Certain districts, of which those surrounding the towns of Kimberley, Bloemfontein, Pretoria, and Johannesburg were the more important, had from the first been effectively occupied and securely held. All the troops at Lord Kitchener's disposal, that were not absorbed in the work of garrisoning these districts and maintaining the lines of communication, were organised into mobile columns, which were distributed among General Officers respectively attached to a particular area. In a despatch of July 8th, 1901, Lord Kitchener was able to report that, as the result of the recent work of these mobile columns, the Boers, although "still able, in case of emergency, to concentrate a considerable number of men," were, in his opinion, "unable to undertake any large scheme of operations." Apart from the heavy drain from prisoners captured and deaths in the field, the loss of their ox-waggons had seriously affected their mobility and supply arrangements.

"Divided up into small parties of three to four hundred men," he writes, "they are scattered all over the country without plans and without hope, and on the approach of our troops they disperse, to reassemble in the same neighbourhood when our men pass on. In this way they continue an obstinate resistance without retaining anything, or defending the smallest portion of this vast country."

But it had become evident that some more systematic effort was required for the capture of the commandos, unless the slow task of wearing down the Boer resistance was to be almost indefinitely protracted; and this same month of July, 1901, witnessed the extension of the blockhouse lines, which proved the turning-point in the guerilla war. The origin of Lord Kitchener's system of blockhouse defence is described by him in his despatch of August 8th, 1901.

The blockhouse system.

In July, therefore, Lord Kitchener made arrangements for the construction of three additional lines of blockhouses. The first ran from Aliwal North westward, following the course of the Orange River, to Bethulie, and was continued thence alongside the railway through Stormberg, Rosmead, Naauwpoort, and De Aar, northward to Kimberley. The second commenced at Frederickstad and ran northward by the source of the Mooi River to Breed's Nek in the Magaliesberg, from which point it was connected with the British garrison at Commando Nek, and thus screened the western side of the Pretoria and Johannesburg area. The third, running from Eerste Fabriken in the north, by Springs and Heidelberg, southward to the Vaal River, protected the same district from attack upon the east. These new blockhouse lines, Lord Kitchener wrote, promised to be of much assistance in the future. Not only did they protect the British communications, and render inter-communication between the different portions of the Boer forces difficult, but, in the absence of frontiers, natural or artificial, they served as barriers against which the British mobile columns were able to drive bands of the enemy and force them to surrender. Indeed, the blockhouse lines proved the chief instrument of success; for with the gradual extension of the system, the area of active hostilities was confined in an increasing degree to the vast half-deserted regions through which the commandos roamed, and the British columns swept at intervals in pursuit of them.

"But," says Lord Kitchener, "though there has been no general surrender, the device to which the Commandant-General resorted for turning the thoughts of his burghers in another direction has probably cost him and his cause [a heavier loss] than a simple pursuance of the usual evasive tactics would have even entailed."

Large captures of Boers.

The precise extent of this loss is shown in the returns for September, which record captures and surrenders almost as numerous as those of the preceding month.

The railway lines secured.

It remains to consider two questions which cannot be omitted from any account; however brief, of the manner in which the disarmament of the Dutch in South Africa was effected. The first of these is the charge of inhumanity brought against the Imperial military authorities in respect of the deportation of the Boer non-combatants to the Burgher Camps; and the second is the actual effect produced upon the burghers in the field by the public denunciations of the war by members of the Liberal Opposition in England.

The Burgher camps.

In charging the British Government and Lord Kitchener with inhumanity in the conduct of the war, Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman and other friends of the Boer cause relied in the main upon the circumstance that a certain proportion of the Boer population was removed compulsorily from districts which the British troops were unable to occupy effectively, and upon the further fact that the Burgher Camps exhibited an unusually high rate of mortality. The necessity for the removal of this non-combatant population will scarcely be disputed in view of the methods adopted by the Boer leaders to compel the burghers to continue their resistance to the Imperial troops, and the fact that nearly every house in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, inhabited by the Dutch, served as an intelligence office, a recruiting depôt, and a base of supplies for the roving commandos. Nor will it be denied that the responsibility for the unnecessary suffering incurred by the Boer people in the guerilla war rests upon those of the Boer leaders who formed and enforced the decision to continue the struggle, and not upon the British Government. The alleged "inhumanity," therefore, of the Imperial military authorities consists in the circumstance that, instead of leaving these helpless non-combatants to be supported by the Boer leaders, they removed them to places of security, where they were fed, housed, and generally maintained, in as little discomfort as circumstances permitted. If the lesser suffering of the Burgher Camps was the only alternative to greater suffering, and possibly starvation, on the veld, the Boers had only their own leaders to thank for the position in which they found themselves. The death-rate of the Burgher Camps was exceptionally high as compared with that of any ordinary European community. But the population of the camps was no less exceptional. It consisted of women and children, with a small proportion of adult males; and of all these the majority had come to the camps as refugees, insufficiently clothed, weakened by exposure and often by starvation. Obviously the death-rate of such a refugee community would be much higher, under the most favourable conditions, than that of an ordinary European town; and, in order to find a valid point of comparison, we must seek statistics provided by similar collections of refugees, brought together under the like exceptional circumstances. We are unable to find any such parallel case, for the sufficient reason that history records no other example of a nation at war which, at the risk of impairing the efficiency of its own forces in the field, has endeavoured, not merely to feed and clothe, but to house, nurse, and even educate the non-combatant population of its enemy.

Reduction of the death-rate.

Why the war was prolonged.

Campbell-Bannerman's reply.

"Now I declare, ladies and gentlemen, for myself, that from first to last I have never uttered one syllable that could be twisted by any ingenuity into encouragement by the Boers. No, I have never even expressed ordinary pity for, or sympathy with them, because I did not wish to run the risk of being misunderstood. What I have done, and what I hope I shall continue to do, is to denounce the stupidity of the way in which the Government were dealing with the Boers."

There is only one method by which the amazing effrontery of this denial can be sufficiently exhibited. It is to place underneath it quotations from speeches delivered by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman himself at Stirling on October 25th, by Mr. Thomas Shaw, M.P., at Galashiels on October 14th, and by Mr. E. Robertson, M.P., at Dundee on October 16th, as printed in the "Official Organ of the Orange Free State Government," dated September 21st, 1901, a copy of which was found in a Boer laager on the veld. The extracts selected are these:

Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman:

"The whole country in the two belligerent States, outside the mining towns, is a howling wilderness. The farms are burned, the country is wasted. The flocks and herds are either butchered or driven off; the mills are destroyed, furniture and instruments of agriculture smashed. These things are what I have termed methods of barbarism. I adhere to the phrase. I cannot improve upon it. If these are not the methods of barbarism, what methods did barbarism employ?... My belief is that the mass of the British people ... do not desire to see a brave people subjugated or annihilated."

Mr. Thomas Shaw, M.P.:

"The war was unnecessary, and therefore unjust.... He wished he could agree that we were fighting in a just cause, that we had always fought according to acknowledged civilised methods; but as an honest man he could not do so."

Mr. Edmund Robertson, M.P.:

Can any human being of ordinary intelligence believe that these passages, containing denunciations of the war, were circulated by Ex-President Steyn for any other purpose than that of encouraging the burghers to continue their resistance to the Imperial troops?

And to this evidence may be added the protest made by "An Old Berliner" in The Times of November 27th, 1901:

"Methods of barbarism".