‘Independence means Dutch independence, of a Dutch-ruled State, in which the resident foreigner cannot become a citizen. Defence means defence of the rule of a privileged race. No aggression on the British power means no present aggression; only aggression at a favourable opportunity’.[1]
Michael Farrelly, advisory counsel to the Transvaal government in the years prior to Kruger’s invasion
‘I hoped that a time might arrive when the Uitlander element would be so enormously powerful in [the Transvaal], and so overwhelmingly superior to the Boers in numbers and in organisation and intelligence, that the revolution would be a tranquil one. I expressed that view several times to my superiors in the War Office in the course of 1896, but I still urged that we ought to prepare for what possibly might happen any day, which was that the Boers having become so powerful, and having armed themselves, and having the great support which the creation of the Bond in Cape Colony had given them, might make up their minds that they were strong enough to face the British and force us into war—which actually happened’.[2]
Major-General Sir John Ardagh, Director of Military Intelligence, giving evidence to the post-war Royal Commission
One of the most enduringly perennial myths of the Boer War is that President Kruger was ‘forced to attack’ in October 1899, as a massive British army was being mobilised to invade the republics. And therefore, or so the theory goes, poor old, peace-loving Kruger really had no choice but to attack before this happened. Quite why simply defending his borders was not an option is never explained because, as appealing as this myth still is to some in South African academia, it is – quite simply – untrue. The fact is that no significant British reinforcements were ordered to South Africa until 8 September 1899[3] – and even then, only after much pressure had been applied on London by the Natal government, who could clearly see the Boers were preparing to invade their colony.[4]
The backstory of the ordering of these reinforcements is also often (conveniently) forgotten: the British Cabinet met on 8 September and finally bowed to the sustained pressure from the leaders of Natal.[5] The troops involved in this mobilisation are sometimes (rather misleadingly) called ‘the Indian reinforcements’ – though, in reality, not all the units involved mobilised to South Africa from India, and those that did were British army units of the Indian garrison, rather than Indian army units.[6]
Furthermore, and despite the later National Party fantasies, and the continuing work of their modern-day useful idiots, this mobilisation was in no way aggressive. As we shall explore, when one bothers to understand that timeline, the decision to reinforce the garrison in Natal and the Cape was clearly a reaction to the warmongering of the republics – not the reason for the war that Kruger declared. Indeed, rather than flooding South Africa with British troops in preparation for launching an attack on the republics, the Cabinet actually agreed on three courses of action, none of which could in any way be considered bellicose:
First of all to raise the garrison of South Africa without delay to a strength sufficient to repel any aggression on the part of the Boers and to protect the whole territory of the colonies. Secondly, to continue its efforts for peace. Thirdly, to await the effect of its despatch of September 8 before making up its mind to embark on the expensive preparations necessary for the equipment of the army corps.[7]
Moreover, even after these reinforcements[8] arrived in theatre, the British garrison was still paltry in comparison to the number of men the two republics could readily mobilise.[9] Even when the ‘Indian reinforcements’ were added, the British army garrison was still only about 20,000 strong – compared to the 50,000 – 60,000 men fielded by the republics at the start of the war. Or to put it another way: the ‘Indian reinforcements’ only increased the size of the (widely scattered) British army garrison in the region to just one third of that which the Boers could readily mobilise. One would have to be clinically insane to claim that this in some way ‘threatened the independence of the republics’. To pretend, therefore, that the reinforcements ordered to South Africa on 8 September ‘proved aggressive intent’ by London, thereby justifying Kruger’s (long-planned-for) invasion, is duplicitous nonsense.
To further illustrate just how ridiculous and far-fetched the self-serving, post-facto ‘but we had no choice!’ excuse is, all one needs to do is understand the timeline. So let’s flick back through the calendar, and examine a few of the things that prompted the leaders of Natal to demand Imperial protection, and which (finally) prompted the deployment of the ‘Indian reinforcements’.
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As I have explored at length in other articles,[10] Kruger’s war-mongering intentions and ambitions were perfectly clear as far back as the Secret Conferences of 1887 – talks held between the two Boer republics and which are (of course) completely overlooked by Pakenham, and the rest of the myth-defending gaggle.
This is not the place to go over all the details of the talks again, but do please take a look at the blog article I referenced if you are interested. For our purposes, a direct quote from one of the Orange Free State delegation should be sufficient to leave the open-minded reader in no doubt as to Kruger’s aims:
‘… 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.’[11]
All a little different from the normal True Believer rubbish about poor old Kruger ‘never gazing across his borders’.[12] British Intelligence would later divine that Kruger’s ‘cherished animosity’ had developed into a definite plan – one which shamelessly clutched at the farce of the Jameson Raid to provide a fig leaf of legitimacy to mask his long-held imperial ambitions. What is remarkable is that anyone still falls for this excuse today – but such, I suppose, is the power of Apartheid-regime propaganda, combined with confirmation bias, wishful thinking, and rampant Anglophobia.
Writing way back in 1900, Sir Percy FitzPatrick[13] exposed this excuse as the nonsense it is, and did so by quoting the Transvaal’s government gazette. This showed that, far from being a reaction to it, the republic’s expenditure on ‘Military’ had actually exploded prior to the Raid: spending on ‘Military’ had risen from £19,340 in the year of 1893, to £28,158 in 1894, and then to £87,308 in 1895.[14] Whatever else Jameson’s folly was responsible for, it obviously cannot have been the reason that Kruger more than quadrupled his expenditure on weaponry between 1893 and 1895 – unless we are asked to believe that the ignorant old troll could see into the future. As usual, the Defenders of the Myth are unthinkingly putting the cart before the horse, then pleading victimhood.
Of course, and despite being a well-placed man on the spot, and a first-hand witness of the events leading up to the war, FitzPatrick’s account will simply be waved away by the True Believers – for the simple fact that it doesn’t fit the violently anti-British agenda they are so desperate to push. As a leading Uitlander, FitzPatrick was, of course, far from being an unbiased recorder of events – but that is hardly a good enough reason to blithely ignore the inconvenient figures he presented.
It is remarkable that the same people who carelessly dismiss FitzPatrick (despite him quoting official ZAR government expenditure stats), will nevertheless blindly trot out Smuts’ (unsubstantiated and self-serving) claim that the Jameson Raid was ‘the real declaration of war’. As usual, we are asked to believe that any writer who supports the myths has absolutely no bias whatsoever, while anyone who offers a different perspective is ‘a Jingo’ and should be completely ignored. And this despite Smuts’ claim being demonstrably untrue: whatever rubbish they teach at the University of Pretoria, it is absolutely undeniable that South Africa was at peace on 10 October 1899, and was plunged into a state of war on 11 October 1899 – for the simple, straightforward reason that ‘Saint’ Kruger stupidly declared war on the British Empire.
Besides, it is hardly as if FitzPatrick was alone in these claims: a newspaper report of 29 February 1896 stated, ‘the Transvaal government is engaged in extraordinary military preparations. Besides receiving a large amount of ammunition from Hamburg in German steamers over the last six months, there have been shipped at Antwerp between two and three million pounds of ball cartridge and forty-six tons of ammunition for field artillery’.[15] Of course, as the ‘large amount of ammunition’ had been flooding into the Transvaal ‘over the last six months’, this means it commenced several months prior to the Jameson Raid.
Needless to say, the panic-stricken (and resolutely-blinkered) True Believers will unthinkingly wave this away too, frantically twisting on the hook and squealing that this is simply sensationalist reportage… anything, indeed, except opening their eyes to historical reality for a moment.
So let’s present yet more evidence.
Michael Farrelly[16] was a brilliant Irish barrister who served as the advisory counsel to the Kruger government in the years prior to the war. Luckily, Farrelly left a superb account his time at the very heart of the Kruger regime – an explosive, first-hand account which is, of course, absolutely and resolutely ignored by Pakenham, Pretorius and all the other usual myth-mongers.
His description of the men running the Transvaal was telling:
‘The Afrikaner party kept steady in view the Pan-Afrikaner anti-British goal. To preserve the nucleus round which was to group the Dutch domination from the Zambesi to the Cape, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, a most jealous grasp was to be kept on political power, on the gold in the reef, on the command of rifles, forts, and armaments, on the exclusive use of the Dutch tongue’.[17]
Way back in 1891, while working at the Middle Temple in London, Farrelly had become acquainted with a fellow-lawyer who was a member of the Afrikaner Bond, the shadowy quasi-secret society which was something of a power behind the throne across the various territories of South Africa.[18] During a discussion on international law, Farrelly’s new friend boasted that before long, ‘in South Africa, we shall drive the British into the sea’. They met again in Bloemfontein in March 1897, by which time Mr Farrelly’s friend was holding high office in Steyn’s Orange Free State Government – which had just signed the offensive alliance with the Transvaal. Again, his friend mentioned the threat, though generously announced that the British could ‘keep Simonstown and the bay’. The two met again in September 1899, this time in Johannesburg, in the weeks leading up to hostilities. Faced with the reality of war, Farrelly’s highly placed friend’s bravado seemed to be waning and he confided: ‘we should have preferred this war 20 years later; we may fail, but we shall do our best. You did not believe my prophecies years ago; you believe them now’.[19]
We are always sagely assured that the Transvaal Boers ‘only ever wished to be left in peace’. Farrelly, on the other hand, clearly saw that the aggressive ambitions of the clique running the Transvaal could only end in war:
‘So within two months of succeeding to office in Pretoria, the Young Afrikanders had brought South Africa and the Empire to the verge of war … it was at that point, in October 1898, after many doubts and long enquiry, that I realized the real trend—notwithstanding the most pacific professions—of the Afrikander movement. It meant war. The question was one only of time. That the leaders were absolutely assured that actual fighting would be necessary is another matter. If the Empire were at war with another Great Power, possibly the Imperial Government would peaceably cede South Africa to the Dutch-speaking dominion, and even accept a subsidy for policing the sea by its fleet, until the new dominion could spare time to create one of its own.
My absolute conviction that there would be war was induced by the fact that I had learned to know the mind of the Young Afrikander, and well knew the mind of the British people. It was as if one were looking through a stereoscope, from two points of view at once. In England, no one could believe in the combined ignorance and audacity of two petty States, rashly challenging the world-wide Empire; and so, no one dreamt of war. In the Transvaal and among the mass of half-educated Afrikanders, not to mention the veldt Boer, although war was conceived as possible, their invincible ignorance of the extent of the resources, of the reserve of military power, of the determination of the Imperial people was as great as British incredulity as to the magnitude of an audacity, the result of 100 years of Imperial mistakes.’[20]
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Relaxing with a brandy and soda in the comfort of their faraway London Clubs, Her Majesty’s politicos and pen-pushers could afford to be somewhat blasé about it all – but not everyone was quite so incredulous to the impending threat. The loyalists of northern Natal were squarely in the cross-hairs of the looming Boer attack, and were fully alive to the danger of their volatile neighbours. As early as May 1899, the coal mining companies based in Newcastle and Dundee approached the Natal Ministry concerned about their vulnerability to attack.[21] By July, loyalist farmers in the area had become increasingly concerned with developments over the frontier;[22] the veldt had been burned unusually early to encourage a speedy grass crop after the first rains and OFS farmers who normally grazed their livestock in Natal during the winter had driven them to safety behind the Drakensberg Mountains.[23]
By September, the colonial authorities in Natal reported that Transvaal Secret Service agents were spreading sedition among the ‘loyal natives’ and endeavouring to ‘set tribe against tribe in order to create confusion and detail the defensive forces of the colony’.[24] Similarly, part of the Transvaal Secret Service’s work was to sponsor various dissident Irish republicans in southern Africa. As early as 1896, the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police’s Special Irish Branch[25] reported that a stream of nationalist agitators was leaving for the Transvaal. A leading firebrand, John McBride,[26] was one especially bellicose and unpleasant such fellow. Described as a ‘short, red-headed, vehement whirlwind’, McBride ‘launched into a no-hold-barred battle to win the local Irish over to militant republicanism’.[27] Months before the war, British army Intelligence reported that these troublemaking traitors had been sent over the borders to test the loyalty of the Imperial garrison’s Irish regiments[28] and to foment mutiny. These endeavours were entirely unsuccessful.[29]
Indeed, the pre-war antics of the Transvaal’s Secret Service is another thing that rarely gets a mention in many histories of the Boer War – for the simple reason, one must assume, that doing so would shatter the ‘poor innocent Boers / wicked British bullies’ myth. This all-too-convenient omission is truly remarkable, given that Kruger’s spooks had spent an enormous £286,000 in the three years prior to the Boer attacks against British territory.[30] In stark contrast, and to put this into perspective, Britain (with her vast global empire and the long-simmering ‘Great Game’ against Russia) spent a total of £20,000 a year on such things,[31] only £2,000 of which was spent in Southern Africa.[32]
British Intelligence noted the Transvaal Secret Service was ‘spending, in 1898, monthly, £850 in Johannesburg, £1,500 in the Cape and Natal Colonies, and £900 in fixed salaries to agents in England. The agents at the Cape receive £15 to £50 a-month, according to their abilities, and are given almost carte blanche as to expenses’.[33]
In December 1895, prior to the Jameson Raid, a certain Henning Pretorius,[34] lieutenant-colonel of the Transvaal Staats Artillerie, entered Rhodesia. Though ostensibly on a hunting trip, the Colonel’s busy mind was concerned with greater matters than shooting game, for he was actually an agent in Kruger’s Secret Service.[35] According to a Daily Telegraph correspondent, Pretorius and his agents smuggled 175 rifles and 30 cases of ammunition—all ‘made in Germany’ and ‘bearing the Transvaal government mark’ having been drawn from the Transvaal’s magazine at Middelburg—into Rhodesia for distribution to potential rebels and troublemakers.[36]
Given that the Transvaal’s efforts to expand north across the Limpopo had been thwarted back in 1891,[37] it is reasonable to assume that these agents aimed to destabilize Rhodesia and spark an insurrection that would ultimately drive the British out. This would, it was no doubt hoped, leave a vacuum into which the Transvaal could move. Indeed, when the Matabele rebelled in 1896 the Transvaal poured yet more weapons (another 200 rifles and 16 cases of ammunition) into the hands of the insurgents. Coming just a few years after the thwarted attempt to occupy Mashonaland, Pretorius’ mission also ended in failure when British and Rhodesian forces put down the insurrection. The devious efforts of Henning Pretorius in this (almost completely overlooked) shadow war were duly recognized, however, and a statue of him was erected in Pretoria.
The agents of the Transvaal’s Secret Service—including Kruger’s son, Tjaart[38]—were also busy elsewhere: situated in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, the rugged Langberg Mountains were the scene of a rebellion against imperial stewardship in 1896–7. Like the Matabele rebellion, one of the catalysts for this uprising was the British response to the rinderpest outbreak.[39] And as with the Matabele rebellion, agents of Kruger’s Secret Service were hard at work, whipping up resentment and supplying weapons to the rebels behind the scenes.
All this was confirmed when, after the arrest of the principal rebel chief, Galishiwe, he confessed that another Transvaal secret agent, a certain Piet Bosman, had actively encouraged him to fight the British. At first, Galishiwe had rejected Bosman’s advances, claiming, ‘I cannot fight the Englishmen, I am the Englishman’s child’. Bosman dismissed this, using the veterinary culls implemented by the British in tackling the rinderpest outbreak to trick Galishiwe. Bosman then offered to purchase powder and ammunition for Galishiwe, providing him ‘six bags of powder, five boxes of caps, and five packets of Martini-Henry cartridges’,[40] and later providing additional Westley-Richards ammunition. Indeed, a feature of the rebellion was how well supplied the insurgents were with ammunition.[41]
Galishiwe asked Bosman also to provide him with rifles. Bosman refused, however, fearing that the British would be able to trace these back to the Transvaal: ‘The Englishmen will see the guns. I will get my people together and come myself to your assistance when you fight the Englishmen.’ Despite having a 200-strong commando at his disposal, Bosman did not honour this promise and left the unfortunate Galishiwe and his people to carry the can.[42]
Secret agents of the Orange Free State were also busy in the British Protectorate of Basutoland and, in July 1899, reports were spread through native workers that ‘the Boers would soon be the undisputed masters of southern Africa’.[43] So much for the bizarre and far-fetched notion that the federal attacks which started the war were in some way ‘defensive’, or were prompted by the British reinforcements which were only ordered to South Africa three months later. In August 1899, these Free State agents also approached one dissident Basuto chief, Joel Molapo, and agreed a deal whereby a 500-strong commando would be sent to aid him against his half-brother, the pre-eminent pro-British chief, Jonathan.[44] These two had been in conflict for almost 20 years, and so the Boer agents implemented their time-honoured tactic of supporting one faction against the other.
Boer secret agents also attempted similar tactics in Bechuanaland well prior to the war. In July 1899—ie. months before any significant British reinforcements were ordered to the region, and a time at which we are meant to believe poor old Kruger was desperate to concede anything for peace—King Khama received a visit from a certain Petrus Viljoen who attempted to turn him against the Imperial Government. Khama, always a loyal friend to the British, sent him off with a flea in his ear, declaring, ‘You must not think you can frighten me, and my people, with your war talk. You must know that I am a son of the white Queen. I do as they instruct me. If I find you in my country, I shall help to drive you out’.[45]
These were not the only operations which involved gun-running to potential rebels in British territory: a Cape hotelier wrote to his friend Sir Bartle Frere,[46] urgently warning him that Mausers had been smuggled into the Cape Colony and distributed as far south as Paarl.[47] Several years earlier, a party of young Afrikaners and a few British-born colonials had been dispatched to the Cape, ostensibly on a cycling holiday. Giving us yet another reason to hate cyclists, in reality they were on an intelligence gathering exercise, the aim being to test the loyalty of the Cape Dutch. Significantly, this quaint sounding mission convinced the anti-British party in Pretoria that it could rely on the majority of the Cape Boers.[48]
Despite the blind eye resolutely turned by many today, the 1890s clearly saw republican secret agents trying all they could to incite rebellion against British rule in several of her territories—utterly belying the modern-day myth that the Boers were innocent victims.
And though they were also completely overlooked in Pakenham’s (ahem) ‘magisterial’ account on the war, Kruger’s Secret Service hatched other operations – however amateurishly – rather closer to home. On 16 May 1899, sensational news broke in the European press of a British plot to seize power in Johannesburg. Echoing the fiasco of the Jameson Raid, the dastardly scheme involved a group of Imperial officers smuggling arms into the town, snatching the fort, and holding out for the arrival of troops from Natal. The arrest of these plotters was trumpeted by the Transvaal Government and reported across the world, and every effort was made to foster the suspicion that the British had been behind a treacherous attack on the South African Republic.[49]
This nefarious plot is completely overlooked in most modern accounts for the simple reason that it was a false-flag, put-up job, dreamed up by Kruger’s spooks. The main players in what became known as the ‘Bogus Conspiracy’ were Chief Detective de Villiers, Kruger’s youngest son, Tjaart, and Commissioner of Police Schutte. The so-called conspirators were all members of the Transvaal Secret Service,[50] though a Mr Nicholls, a respectable miner (who had talked about raising a corps to defend the town) was slung into gaol. Nicholls was initially refused access to a legal advisor and his letters to the British Agent and the American Consul went undelivered for some time. The Transvaal Republic’s chief detective swore an affidavit that Nicholls—together with two other men, Tremlett and Ellis—was guilty of high treason, despite the fact that he was entirely innocent and the other two were actually in cahoots with the chief detective to stitch up Nicholls.[51]
This was nothing less than a blatant attempt to turn international opinion against the British, whip up the people of the Transvaal in readiness for war, and justify an attack on Natal—one newspaper described it as the kind of affair ‘got up in Paris during the reign of Napoleon III, for the purpose of striking terror’.[52]
The unfortunate Mr Nicholls, who was kept in gaol from 18 May to 25 July,[53] faced some serious irregularities during his trial. The British agent in Pretoria came under pressure from the Transvaal State Attorney to make as little of the case as he could, ‘so as to prevent insinuations as to the British Government being bandied about in a Court of law’. Sir Alfred Milner, having absolutely nothing to hide, ignored this pressure and stated that far from wishing to hush-up the matter, he wanted it dealt with the fullest of publicity.[54] The British Agent duly appointed a very capable lawyer and, despite the Transvaal Secret Service’s best efforts, the case was eventually thrown out on 25 July.
One witness later signed an affidavit stating that Tjaart Kruger had offered him £200 to lie in court and claim that the conspiracy had been hatched by the British Government and the uitlanders.[55] This amateurish plot, widely reported,[56] would have brought down most governments, but Kruger’s was not a normal regime. The Secret Service agents and various other Transvaal officials were not reprimanded in any way and no apology was made to the British Government or to Mr Nicholls. Some in South Africa were left with no doubt that the plot was evidence of Kruger’s determination to force a war on the British.[57] If, on the other hand, the British were (as we keep being assured) desperate to provoke war with the ZAR, nothing would have been easier than to have sent an ultimatum demanding a public apology, an indemnity for Mr Nicholls and the immediate dismissal of all those involved in the Transvaal Secret Service and police.[58] Of course, London took no such action.
But what is truly incredible is that this blatant act of warmongering is almost completely unknown, and has been pretty much air-brushed out of the story of the Boer War.[59]
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And if even all that is not enough for the scales to fall from your eyes, I’m not finished yet: there’s still much, much more.
After the war, a far-reaching Royal Commission was held in late 1902 and well into 1903, the minutes of which are readily available for anyone who is genuinely interested in the topic. One of the more damning findings of the Commission was that, quite simply, there was no plan in place in the event of a war with the Boer republics, let alone a scheme to invade them.[60] And far from this admission of a complete lack of preparedness being a cover-up, it was actually deeply embarrassing for the War Office and the British army. As The Spectator thundered in August 1903, the report was so damning as to be
‘surely one of the most amazing documents to which a General can ever have had to sign his name. Not only had there been no preparation for the Boer War, but there had been no preparation for any war of any kind whatever. Every arrangement that was made seems to have been made on the supposition that the British nation, even three weeks before the Boer commandos marched into Natal, was about to enjoy the blessings of eternal peace’.[61]
Again, in ever-increasing panic, the True Believers will frantically squeal that this was just a distortion by the press, so let’s leave them to wallow in their NP fantasies, and dive into some of the actual minutes themselves.
Major-General Sir John Ardagh[62] – the British army’s Director of Military Intelligence at the outbreak of the Boer War – gave evidence to the Royal Commission on 31 October 1902 (the 13th Day of Evidence). Ardagh was asked a series of questions by The Earl of Elgin and Kincardine,[63] the Chairman of the Commission:
5028. Was it not the case that before the Jameson Raid, the idea in this country had been that any advance would have been made by us and not by the Boers?
—Yes, I think the result of the Zulu Wars and the Sikukuni Expedition and the War of 1881, the Majuba campaign, left in the minds of the British public an idea that whatever the Boers did, they could not really do anything outside their own country; and it took a very long time to impress on the public the fact that the whole position of the Boers had entirely changed between 1881 and 1895.
5029. And that was the base from which you started, that the position had changed?
—Yes. Until the discovery of gold, the Boers could not possibly have got the money to arm themselves. The moment that they began to profit by the gains of the gold producers at Johannesburg, then they got a war fund, which they immediately proceeded to devote to arming themselves. I do not think there is any doubt at all that the Dopper Boers of the Bond from their first start always looked forward to the day when the Africanders in South Africa should be sufficiently powerful to kick out the British.[64]
And, despite what we keep being told, this was most certainly not prompted by Jameson’s folly:
5098. But even before the Jameson Raid, when Captain Wemyss and Major Northcott reported, you felt in the Department that there were dangers in the situation?
—Yes.
5099. And those were brought under the notice of the Government at that time?
—These reports of Captain Wemyss and Major Northcott were brought under the notice of the Government in the respective years which I mentioned (‘1890, or a year or two after that’)
5100. And did they draw attention to the increase of armament of the Boers and other matters of that kind?
—The increase of armament had not commenced in 1891.
5101. So that the reasons for taking special precautions really began on your accession to office?
— Yes, the increase of armament began before 1896; it began about 1894, when the Uitlanders commenced to be clamorous.[65]
So unless we are now being asked to believe that Major-General Ardagh was blatantly (and inexplicably) lying to the commission, we have to accept that Kruger’s splurge of weaponry pre-dated the Jameson Raid, and that the Intelligence department was warning of Boer aggressive intent several years prior to it. And as we also have a firsthand account of the ‘animosity cherished against the British Government’ by Kruger back in 1887, the normal excuses are collapsing like a house of cards in a hurricane.
And Ardagh’s questioning by the committee continued, with Sir John Edge KC,[66] asking a series of questions. The responses to which should be enlightening to those who are not blinded by Apartheid-era propaganda:
5216. As a matter of fact had you information in March or April, 1897, that the Boers were preparing for war, and would advance in three directions on or before the outbreak of war, namely, on Mafeking and Rhodesia, on Kimberley, and on the rail- way lines favourable for cutting Warrenton, Colesberg and Aliwal?
—Yes, we used to receive very frequent information about what the Boers were proposing to do. They were singularly talkative, and they were not at all particular whom they spoke to, so that up to the last we generally had no difficulty in finding out what they really meant to do, about the invasion of Natal, for instance.
5217. Then you had no doubt at any rate that they intended to attack us even so far back as March, 1897?
— Yes, and we had begun already making preparations at Kimberley, which was the most important place of the three.
5218. I think I am correct in saying that the intention of the Boers that was indicated to you early in 1897 was subsequently carried out?
—Yes.[67]
Major-General Ardagh was not the only Intelligence officer who was questioned by the Commission. Lieutenant-Colonel Altham had been attached to Military Intelligence since April 1896, and was questioned by the Earl of Elgin on 15 October 1902. His answers make it very clear that, from as far back as 1896, the British army was receiving intelligence reports which predicted an attack by the Boers:
465. It appears that a good deal of attention was paid in the Intelligence Division to preparation for the war?
—At the time I joined the Intelligence Division there was great anxiety about South Africa, and from that time forward we used every exertion we could to obtain information and to study the whole question.
466. Do you mean that it was one of the prominent parts of your work?
—Decidedly so. From time to time, of course, other urgent questions cropped up in other parts of the world, which occasionally appeared to over- shadow it for the moment, but it was never lost sight of the whole time.
467. Throughout the whole of those years, from 1896 onwards, it was regarded as an outstanding danger, which you were bound to deal with?
—It was.
468. Are you prepared to give us any information with regard to the sources from which you collected the groundwork of the reports which you submitted?
— I should not like any evidence as to that to go on the public notes.[68]
Altham was asked further questions about what the Intelligence Department recommended in terms the paltry Imperial forces available to defend Natal and the Cape Colony:
478. Without seeing the memoranda one cannot speak very accurately, but my impression from reading the statement was that the memoranda certainly pointed out from time to time that the forces were deficient?
—Yes, that was certainly our view.
479. But you did not go further and say how far they were deficient?
—I do not think so; personally, I have not seen any paper in which my chief at the time expressed any definite opinion upon that subject. I recollect on one particular occasion we urged that a certain force should be sent to Cape Colony as local reinforcements there, as distinct from Natal.
480. You did not work out in the office what number of men would be required for defensive operations?
—No, because at that time I do not think we should have been regarded as responsible, as the proper branch to deal with a matter of that kind.
483. Does not a defence scheme almost imply that there must be some statement of the number of men required to carry out the defence?
—Quite so; but my duty was the strategical review of the scheme. We pointed out the defects; as you will see in the memoranda, we constantly say, “The existing force is insufficient.”[69]
577. You said, to take another point, that it was assumed that the Boers would take a defensive attitude as in 1881, but I see here, on page 4 (vide Appendix to Report Vol., page 155), referring to the Memorandum of 1898, that “it was also stated that projects for offensive operations had been drawn up in Pretoria, although at that time (September, 1898) it was held in the Intelligence Division that these attacks would be limited to an attempt on Kimberley the occupation of the northern apex of Natal, and raids of 2,000 to 3,000 men in other directions.” That shows that the Intelligence branch had in its mind the possibility of an invasion?
—Yes, undoubtedly we had. We considered it quite possible, if not probable.[70]
The Intelligence which pointed to the possibility / probability of an invasion ‘against Natal or Kimberley’ included comments made 18 months before Kruger’s attack, by the Transvaal’s Commandant-General himself:
‘General Joubert said, in conversation in March 1898, that a scheme for such offensive action had been drawn up by a German officer, but not yet approved.’[71]
Another piece of Intelligence, dated June 1899, confirmed ‘the present Boer plan of campaign contemplates a concentration with the Free State forces west of the Drakensberg, and an advance on Ladysmith through Van Reenen’s Pass’.[72]
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On 23 June 1899,[73] the Orange Free State government not only placed orders for more artillery pieces, 3,000 tents, field telegraph equipment, and provisions wagons, but they also mobilised gunners of their artillery reservists.[74] The last mentioned fact is a fascinating one, yet something which is – as far as I have seen – totally ignored by most histories of the war. One has to note the enormous importance of this move; these were men who were pulled from their civilian lives / jobs, and was thus not something done purely on a whim.
Further Intelligence revealed that reserve elements of the Transvaal’s Staats Artillerie were also called-up in early August. The regular element of the Staats Artillerie were some 500 strong, but – in the time of war – could be boosted to 800 by calling-up reservists:[75] ‘Further reports of the military preparations in the Transvaal have been received. Several hundred reserve artillery men have been quietly ordered to come into Pretoria. Energetic efforts have been made to get everything ready for an appeal to arms, and enormous supplies of rifles, ammunition and forage are available’.[76]
Again, this is a highly noteworthy fact – if one conveniently overlooked by the True Believers – as it was not something to be done lightly. It is not entirely clear to me whether or not the artillery reservists could expect to be paid a day rate,[77] but it would seem logical they must have been as their (‘quiet’) mobilisation meant giving up their civilian jobs and pay for many months.[78] Either way, with these men suddenly removed from their normal jobs, the disruption to everyday life in the republic would have been considerable, and is not something any sane government would do unless they were actively mobilising to start a war.
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Of course, all the aforementioned evidence will fail to convince particularly resolute and fanatical souls – but one cannot reason a man out of a position he didn’t reason himself into. In fact, I accepted long ago that, so passionately wedded to their comfort-blanket of myths are some, that absolutely nothing could convince such people. One might as well try to reason with a suicide bomber, so we shall leave them to their pleasing fantasies and desperately muddling up the timeline. But for the more open-minded and intelligent reader, the secret memorandum sent by Jan Smuts to the Transvaal Executive on 4 September 1899 leaves no doubt as to the Imperial ambitions of the Boers, and the real cause of the war:
‘South Africa stands on the eve of a frightful blood-bath out of which our Volk shall come … either as … hewers of wood and drawers of water for a hated race, or as victors, founders of a United South Africa, of one of the great empires [rijken] of the world … an Afrikaans republic of South Africa stretching from Table Bay to the Zambezi.’[79]
Anyone – assuming they have the intellectual horsepower to understand how a calendar works – should be able to grasp that this republican rabble-rousing, gun-running, war-mongering, calling-up of reserves, intrigue and chicanery all pre-dated the orders issued on 8 September 1899 to (belatedly) move a relatively small number[80] of reinforcements to South Africa. Indeed, as we have seen, much of Kruger’s blatant belligerence pre-dated Milner’s arrival on the scene in mid-1897, and even the Jameson Raid of about 18 months before that.
The despatch of the ‘Indian reinforcements’ certainly impacted Kruger’s thinking. When the grass turned green that summer,[81] had he been able to unleash some 60,000 Boers against just 10,000 scattered British troops, the war might have gone in a very different direction – perhaps, even, his fantasies of carving out a vast Empire might have come true. However, as soon as he realised that London was finally making moves to properly defend her territory, the ancient, Bible-bashing troglodyte knew he had to strike before he lost his chance. Unluckily for Kruger, and for all his utterly deluded expectation of Divine Intervention, 20,000 British troops[82] were enough to contain all the Boers he could throw at them – proving that the reinforcements did not arrive a moment too soon.
As one writer on the Natal Campaign put it, ‘The Boers, it was thought, had let slip their opportunity. Had they sent their ultimatum a month earlier, they might have lost an excuse for war, but they would certainly have conquered a colony. Happily, Natal was no longer defenceless’.[83]
And an ‘excuse’ was exactly what it was, and all it ever was. Despite its lingering appeal to some extremists and pseudo-academics even today, the National Party version – which farcically painted London as the ‘aggressor’ in the war that Kruger declared – was a complete fabrication. In reality, the most remarkable aspect is that, in the face of the long-standing, flagrant and ever-growing threat from the republics, HM Government was so negligently slow in despatching reinforcements to defend Natal and the Cape.
NOTES:
[1] Farrelly, The Settlement After the War, p.163
[2] Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p.212
[3] Just two battalions (1st Manchesters, and 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers) had been ordered to South Africa in August, but had not arrived in theatre by the time the orders for the extra reinforcements were issued
[4] Conan-Doyle, The Great Boer War, p.60
[5] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p.45
[6] Though how useful might a few battalions of Gurkhas have proven in Natal?
[7] Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, 1899–1902, Vol.1, p.105
[8] Orders were sent to the Viceroy of India to dispatch, with the least possible delay, a cavalry brigade, an infantry brigade, and a brigade division of field artillery to Durban. The cavalry component of these ‘Indian reinforcements’ comprised the 19th Hussars, the 5th Dragoon Guards, and the 9th Lancers. The brigade division of guns comprised the 21st, 42nd, and 53rd Batteries RFA, all manning 15-pdrs. The infantry brigade was made up of the 1st Devonshire Regiment, 2nd Gordon Highlanders, 2nd King’s Royal Rifle Corps, and the 1st Gloucestershires. As well as these units from India, 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers set sail from Egypt and 2nd Rifle Brigade sailed from Crete – neither would be in theatre before the Boers invaded. Another brigade division of guns, and the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers, were sent out from Great Britain, while the 1st Border Regiment sailed from Malta, and half of the 2nd King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry left their rather desirable garrison duty on Mauritius. These urgent reinforcements totalled some 10,000 men
[9] Carver, The National Army Museum Book of the Boer War, p.14, and Hall, The Hall Handbook of the Anglo-Boer War, p.4. The notion that the republics were ‘threatened’ by the arrival of the reinforcements ordered to South Africa on 8 September is utterly ridiculous – even though some so-called academics still desperately cling to this lie today
[10] https://www.chrisash.co.za/2020/09/22/secret-conferences-pretoria-june-1887/
[11] John Fraser, Episodes of my Life, p.145-147
[12] Scholtz, Why the Boers Lost the War, p.6
[13] Sir James Percy FitzPatrick, KCMG (1862 – 1931), was a South African who worked in mining, before moving into politics and writing. FitzPatrick was heavily involved in the pre-war Reform Committee in Johannesburg, and served time in gaol for his part in the Jameson Raid. Thereafter, he helped to raise the Imperial Light Horse and, in 1907, famously wrote the classic South African novel ‘Jock of the Bushveld’. A collection of wild animals he had caught on various hunting trips formed the initial stock of Johannesburg Zoo, and it was he who initiated the concept of Two Minutes of Silence being observed on Remembrance Day
[14] FitzPatrick, The Transvaal from Within, p.viii
[15] Hull Times, 29 February 1896 – clipping kindly shared by Alistair Parker
[16] Michael James Farrelly (1859–1903), Irish barrister, studied at Trinity College, Dublin and became a recognized authority on international law. Farrelly immigrated to South Africa in 1896 and became an advisory counsel to the government of the ZAR. He served in this capacity in the years prior to the war and would later be admitted as an advocate of the Cape Supreme Court. Far from being ‘a Jingo’, Farrelly always supported the Krugerite view that the British claim of ‘suzerainty’ over the Transvaal was meaningless and, indeed, wrote to Chamberlain on the subject. Despite this, Farrelly’s close contact with Kruger quickly gave him cause for concern and he repeatedly challenged Kruger’s unreasonable stance during negotiations with the British, though to no avail. Indeed, such was Kruger’s fury at Farrelly’s attempts to convince him to take a conciliatory path that the Irishman soon realized that Kruger had absolutely no interest in reaching a peaceful settlement. For more on this remarkable (and remarkably ignored) man, do try to find a copy of his The Settlement After the War, and also see Hancock & van der Poel, Selections from the Smuts Papers, Vol. IV, p.321, and New Zealand Tablet, 25 October 1900
[17] Farrelly, The Settlement After The War, p.173
[18] Formed shortly after the First Boer War, the Bond was a rather fractious amalgamation of two pro-Afrikaner groups: the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners (Fellowship of True Afrikaners) led by the Reverend S. J. du Toit, and the Zuid Afrikaansche Boeren Beschermings Vereeniging (South African Farmers’ Protection Association) led by Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr. The resultant Afrikaner Bond was part quasi-secret society, part pressure group, and part political party — a group which accommodated a range of opinions. The first congress of the Bond was held at Graaff-Reinet in March 1882, where the fledgling organisation defined its aims as ‘The formation of a South African nationality by means of union and co-operation as a preparation for the ultimate object, a United South Africa’. Though we were always assured The Bond was completely benign and blameless (and to dare to suggest otherwise is ‘Jingo nonsense’), Professor Walker made the aims of the shadowy organisation clear: ‘The Bond was intended to be Pan-Afrikaner and in spirit bitterly anti-British’. No wonder his work was frowned upon by the Apartheid regime
[19] Farrelly, The Settlement After the War, p.96
[20] Farrelly, The Settlement After the War, p.178
[21] Atkins, The Relief of Ladysmith, p.3
[22] Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, Vol.2, p. 120
[23] Conan-Doyle, The Great Boer War, p.60
[24] Conan-Doyle, The Great Boer War, p.61
[25] The unit was later renamed simply to the ‘Special Branch’ we know today as its responsibilities expanded
[26] Robert McBride, who claims to be related to John McBride, continued the family tradition, joining Umkhonto we Sizwe and blowing up the crowded Magoo’s Bar in Durban in 1986. For his efforts he was later appointed chief of the Metro Police for the East Rand in 2003
[27] Hyslop, The Notorious Syndicalist, p.137
[28] The 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers had formed part of the Natal garrison since 1897
[29] War Office, Military Notes on the Dutch Republics of South Africa, p.14
[30] War Office, Military Notes on the Dutch Republics of South Africa, p.14
[31] Pakenham, The Boer War, p.76
[32] Soldiers of the Queen, Issue 123, December 2005
[33] War Office, Military Notes on the Dutch Republics of South Africa, p.14
[34] Henning Petrus Nicolaas Pretorius (1844–1897). His father, Marthinus Pretorius, was killed in the First Boer War, and his maternal grandfather was the famous Voortrekker, Piet Retief.
[35] Heyer, A Brief History of the Transvaal Secret Service System, p.16
[36] Heyer, A Brief History of the Transvaal Secret Service System, p.15
[37] In 1891, a planned Boer Trek to invade Mashonaland was thwarted at the border by a handful of BSACP troopers, a Maxim gun, and Dr Jameson himself. For more on this completely over-looked attempt to expand the borders of the Transvaal still further, see The If Man, p.134-138
[38] Hyslop, The Notorious Syndicalist, p.113
[39] This highly infectious virus rampaged throughout much of southern Africa in the 1890s, killing somewhere around 80 to 90% of the cattle in the region.
[40] Star (NZ), Issue 6695, ‘The Transvaal Secret Service Stirring Up The Natives’, 17 January 1900, p.1
[41] The unedifying tendency of Boers to covertly supply and encourage HM’s African enemies dated back many decades. In 1835 at a truce during the Sixth Cape Frontier War (of which there were nine, spread out over 100 years) two Xhosa Chiefs informed British commanders not to trust their Boer allies: ‘The Boers are your enemies. We have been supplied with powder by some of them; and they have told us to continue the war; others have told us also not to submit’. For more on this fascinating period, read The Great Trek Uncut, by Robin Binckes.
[42] Heyer, A Brief History of the Transvaal Secret Service System, p.20
[43] Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899–1902, p.58
[44] Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899–1902, p.58
[45] Schmitt, The Bechuanaland Pioneers and Gunners, p. 69
[46] Major Sir Bartle Compton Arthur Frere, 2nd Baronet (1854–1933), son of the more famous Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere, 1st Baronet (1815–84) of Zulu War fame (infamy?)
[47] Frere, Letters from an Uitlander, p.21
[48] Blackburn & Caddell, Secret Service in South Africa, p.131
[49] Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p.301
[50] Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p.302
[51] The Spectator, 23 September 1899
[52] The Spectator, 23 September 1899
[53] Worsfold, Lord Milner’s Work in South Africa, Chapter V
[54] The Spectator, 23rd September 1899
[55] Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p. 302
[56] The Age, 8 August 1899, The Spectator, 23 September, and many others
[57] Currey, Vinnicombe’s Trek, p.134
[58] Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p.303
[59] Many years ago, when I broached the subject with my friend, the late, great Ken Gillings – battlefield guide extraordinaire and writer of several books on the war – he admitted he had never even heard of it
[60] Evidence given by Field Marshall Roberts, Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p.429
[61] The Spectator, 29 August 1903
[62] Major-General Sir John Charles Ardagh KCMG KCIE CB (1840 – 1907). Yet another of the Anglo-Irish ‘Junker class’ that dominated the upper-echelons of the British army of the time, Ardagh was commissioned into the Royal Engineers after studying at Trinity College, Dublin – where he won a prize in Hebrew and honours in mathematics. After a long career which saw him in Engineering, Intelligence and Staff roles, he was appointed Director of Military Intelligence in April 1896 – just a few months after the Jameson Raid
[63] Victor Alexander Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin, 13th Earl of Kincardine (1849 – 1917). Born in Montreal, Canada, and educated at Eton and Oxford, he was known as Lord Bruce until 1863. Elgin served as Viceroy of India from 1894 to 1899. Elgin was appointed by Prime Minister Arthur Balfour to head the commission into the conduct of the Boer War. The Elgin Commission was the first of its kind in the British Empire, and the members travelled to South Africa and took oral evidence from men who had actually fought in the battles
[64] Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p.212
[65] Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p.215
[66] Sir John Edge KC (1841 – 1926). An Anglo-Irishman educated at Trinity College, Dublin, Edge served as the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, India, from 1886 to 1898. He was a member of the Middle Temple, and was also appointed a judicial member of the Council of India, and a member of the Privy Council
[67] Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p.219
[68] Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p.19
[69] Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p.20
[70] Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p.24
[71] War Office, Military Notes on the Dutch Republics of South Africa, p.52
[72] War Office, Military Notes on the Dutch Republics of South Africa, p.52
[73] Also on 23 June 1899, the Transvaal’s agents in Europe requested quotations for 10,000,000 rounds of ammunition to be manufactured in Belgium, and shipped in via Delagoa Bay – see Military Notes, p.28
[74] War Office, Military Notes on the Dutch Republics of South Africa, p.36
[75] War Office, Military Notes on the Dutch Republics of South Africa, p.27
[76] Jersey Evening Post, 14 August 1899 – clipping kindly shared by Alistair Parker
[77] The Transvaal had previously had a Volunteer Force, which could be mobilised for active service, rather than calling out the Commandos. The Volunteers were paid 5/- a day, which caused resentment from the ‘normal’ burghers, who couldn’t count on any regular day rate when called-up. That said, it is not often mentioned that the burghers were paid bonuses for their Commando service – in the 1895 campaign against Malapoch, for example, some £60,000 was paid out in such bonuses
[78] Answers on a postcard, please
[79] Roberts, Salisbury, Imperial Titan, p.734
[80] As mentioned, and though we are asked to believe that this c.10,000 strong force was enormous, it only brought the total number of British army troops in theatre up to about a third of the Boers they could expect to face
[81] Pakenham, The Boer War, p.104
[82] Plus, locally volunteer units raised in Natal, the Cape Colony and Rhodesia
[83] Atkins, The Relief of Ladysmith, p.1
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