I was recently made aware that a Defender of Apartheid-era Myth posted this extraordinary claim online:
The narrative that the Boer Republics fell into a trap set by the British to dismantle them is not purely a National Party or Afrikaner nationalist construct. One only has to read the copious amounts of British literature of the period, which expresses outrage at the British conduct leading up to the Boer ultimatum. There was a strong and vociferous “pro-Boer” movement among many very prominent British personalities in and outside of parliament. Their indignation is strong evidence that the Boers did not deliver their ill-advised ultimatum in a vacuum but did so largely out of frustration and desperation.
All very damning to the uninformed, of course, but – as usual – there is absolutely no attempt to present the full picture.
Firstly, lumping in the Orange Free State with the Transvaal, as ‘the Boer republics’, is the usual tactic of the True Believers, despite the fact that London had absolutely no quarrel with the former whatsoever. It was only thanks to the sheer stupidity of the clique that was in power in the OFS just prior to the Boer War that they got dragged in to Kruger’s Crusade – much against the will of many Free Staters.[1]
Secondly, I have yet to hear anyone claim that Kruger’s declaration of war occurred in a ‘vacuum’. In reality, it was simply the culmination of many years of what was essentially a ‘Cold War’ in the region, with the expansionist Transvaal constantly agitating to replace Great Britain as the pre-eminent power in Southern Africa. This aim can be traced back to the aftermath of the First Boer War, and a speech given by the Reverend du Toit at a diplomatic function in Holland back in 1883:
‘The South African Flag shall yet wave from Table Bay to the Zambezi, be that end accomplished by blood or by ink. If blood it is to be, we shall not lack men to spill it.’[2]
And as much as it pains the True Believers, Kruger’s ultimatum was far from issued in ‘desperation’. In reality, it is undeniable that Kruger started pushing for an Offensive Alliance against Great Britain at the Secret Conferences held way back in 1887 – more than eight years prior to the Jameson Raid, and a decade before Milner arrived in South Africa. The warmongering insanity of the Kruger clique astounded the members of the Orange Free State delegation, one of whom wrote:
‘President Kruger declared that he placed an offensive and defensive alliance as the primary and essential basis of any negotiations with the Orange Free State, and he declined to agree to anything until that was accepted by it’.[3]
and:
‘the South African Republic desired nothing more nor less than the offensive and defensive alliance which, in my opinion, would have been a breach of the Convention of the 23rd February, 1854, by virtue of which we held Sovereign Independence. That independence would have been imperiled thereby, and ourselves made sharers in the animosity cherished against the British Government, which appeared very clear to me during the conference in Pretoria in June, 1887’.[4]
Then there was the constant expansion of the Transvaal in all directions during the 1880s and 90s, including their efforts to grab parts of Bechuanaland, an attempt to invade Rhodesia, and the annexation of the lands of the Venda in 1898.[5] Additionally, Kruger expanded his borders to snatch Swaziland and vast swathes of Zululand. If that was not bad enough, there was the constant shenanigans of Kruger’s well-funded Secret Service, who engaged in rabble-rousing and gun-running[6] in British territory, aiming to destabilise these areas. Of course, there was also the blatant and completely unfair discrimination against the Uitlanders and non-whites in the Transvaal, and the vast expenditure on armaments.[7] Then there was the clumsy (and strangely over-looked) false-flag ‘Bogus Conspiracy’.[8] Studiously ignored by Pakenham and the True Believers, this took place just before the Bloemfontein talks with Milner, and was a cack-handed attempt to whip up support for a war against Britain, and sway international opinion against London.
So, no – no one would possibly claim that Kruger’s insane declaration of war against Great Britain happened ‘in a vacuum’. Yes, it was launched a couple of years ahead of the plan,[9] but it was, nevertheless, simply the result of his long-held dream to drive British influence from the region, and, in its place, establish an Afrikaans Empire, ‘from the Zambesi to the Cape’.[10]
Thirdly, what ‘trap’ did the British set? The cunning ‘trap’ of making sure that they had hardly any troops in theatre, and no plan in place for war? Goodness: what a truly devious ‘trap’ that was.
But most laughable of all is the claim that, as there was sympathy for the Boer republics in some sections of British society, that somehow means Kruger’s declaration of war can be excused as being only done from ‘frustration and desperation’, and absolves the old troll of all responsibility for the war he started.
It appears to have escaped this particular Defender of the Myth that, in any free nation, there will always be a range of opinion on any topic. In the run up to the Second World War, for example, there was ‘strong and vociferous’ support for Nazi Germany at very high levels of the British establishment[11] – which, if we follow this True Believer’s frazzled logic, presumably means he excuses poor old, misunderstood Adolf, and thinks this means there is ‘strong evidence’ he only started the Second World War out of ‘frustration and desperation’? Indeed, even after Germany started the war, there were many in the British government who advocated suing for peace, rather than fighting the ghastliest regime in the history of mankind. But the views of these myopic fools are utterly irrelevant when it comes to determining culpability for the war.
And more recently, there were ‘very prominent British personalities’ who instantly, and unthinkingly, took the side of the Argentinean military junta when they invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982. Unpatriotic leftist buffoons like Jeremy Corbyn,[12] Tony Benn,[13] and Tam Delyell[14] were only the most prominent of these, but there were plenty of others who instinctively adopted the stance, ‘my country – always wrong’. Indeed, polls suggest some 18% of Britons think it was wrong to liberate the Falklands from the Argentine invaders.[15] Again, the fact that some self-loathing idiots took the side of Galtieri’s fascist dictatorship in 1982, does not justify their invasion of the Falklands – just as the fact that there were some unpatriotic fools who backed Kruger’s invaders over their fellow British subjects, in no way justifies his attack against Natal and the Cape.
I have read a lot of panic-stricken excuses by those who are desperate to explain away the awkward fact that Kruger started the Boer War… but squealing that the Victorian-era equivalent of Jeremy Corbyn (an anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas, pro-IRA, Marxist) would have supported the Boers, well, that must be one of the most far-fetched yet.
NOTES:
[1] Buttery & Cooper-Key, Why Kruger Made War or Behind the Boer Scenes, p.16
[2] Rethman, Friends and Enemies, p.6
[3] Fraser, Episodes of my Life, p.137
[4] Fraser, Episodes of my Life, p.145-147
[5] Welsh, A History of South Africa, p.130
[6] Frere, Letters from an Uitlander, p.21, Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899-1902, p.65, Conan Doyle, The Great Boer War, p.61
[7] Stalker, The Natal Carbineers, p.122-123
[8] Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p. 301
[9] Stevens, Complete History of the South African War, in 1899‒1902, p.12
[10] Farrelly, The Settlement After the War, p.173
[11] https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/britain-adolf-hitler-dictator-admiration-appeasement-relationship-britain-germany/
[12] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-43737547
[13] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-26575258
[14] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/26/tam-dalyell-obituary
[15] https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/18279-jeremy-corbyn-right-side-public-opinion-foreign-po
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