‘The Rise of Krugerism – a tacit conspiracy’

We shall perhaps never know why it is that certain failed History Professors and online fanatics (plus their various toadies and hangers-on) squeal and scream that there is ‘no evidence’ that Kruger was in any way responsible for the war that he planned for and started. The very fact that he declared war and invaded his neighbours would – to anyone with a brain – suggest that there might be at least a teeny-tiny bit of blame to be laid at Kruger’s door… but, no: his modern-day sycophants mindlessly bleat that poor old, innocent and misunderstood Kruger ‘never even gazed across his border’.[i]

However, those with rather more open-minds, and who were rather less gleefully embracing of Apartheid-era propaganda, might be interested in an article which appeared in the St. James Gazette on 11 May 1900, and which was kindly shared with me by one of the readers of this blog (yes, believe it or not, there are a couple).

I have typed it out in full, as I think it is well worth a read:

THE RISE OF KRUGERISM – A TACIT CONSPIRACY

The Rev. R. J. Campbell, a ‘Daily News’ correspondent, writes from Durban a long, interesting, and instructive article on the origin of the settlement after the war.

‘According to Sir Gordon Sprigg’, he says, ‘the British flag would now be flying over a federated South Africa but for the shifting and changing policy of the Home Government from 1877 to 1881. In support of this contention it should be remembered that the Orange Free State objected to the withdrawal of British rule in 1852, and that from then onward to 1877, largely owing to the enlightened administration of President Brand, the most cordial relations existed between this little community and the Imperial power. Bloemfontein was then, and is even now, largely Anglicised. Had the Transvaal question never become acute there is no doubt but that commercial and fiscal relations between the Free State and the Colony would have led to some sort of Federal Union, under which the autonomy of the former would have been guaranteed. But by working out the effect of the 1877 to 1881 policies in the Transvaal, assisted by the Krugerite and Bond propaganda, quite another situation arose, which it is instructive to trace. The first effect was the impression created of the bad faith, inconsistency, and weakness of the British Government.

CURSED THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT

‘Many British subjects cursed the British Government in 1881 as the agent of their ruin, for, relying upon the assertions of its representatives, they made ventures which Boer government converted into disaster. There are men fighting in the Boer ranks today whom the retrocession changed from loyalists to bitter Anglophones. People at home pooh-pooh this kind of statement, but it is absolutely true. Mr Rudyard Kipling well expresses a not uncommon sentiment in the words, ‘It does not pay to be loyal’. A few days ago an Englishman, lately a prisoner in Boer hands in Barkly West, told me that he asked one of the rebels why he had taken up arms against the Government. ‘What’, said he, ‘do you expect to gain that you not possess at present? What have you to complain of?’. ‘Nothing’, was the frank reply, ‘but we do not like to be the subject race, and Majuba has shown us that we can be on top is we care to be’. That is precisely the feeling which animates Dutch Afrikanderism.

KRUGER’S IDEAL

‘In Paul Kruger, Dutch Afrikanderism has found its focus, partly by force of circumstances, but chiefly by the character and ability of the man. Boer sympathisers in England utterly mistake Paul Kruger. For twenty years he has consistently worked towards one ideal, a United States of South Africa, an Afrikander Republic with himself as its George Washington. It is not so absurd as it seems, and assuredly not so impossible as we far-off islanders in our complacent self-confidence have imagined. Every act of his career since Majuba Day fits in with the supposition that his objective was Cape Town, though his policy was such that if the larger scheme failed, the smaller might succeed, and Pretoria become the capital of a sovereign international State, which should absorb its smaller neighbour on the south, and force its way to the sea on the east. The President is a millionaire, thanks to the British, and enormous sums have been paid to consolidate and render subservient the Kruger party in the State. Nor was this Kruger party confined to the Transvaal. Vast sums found their way across the border. At the last General Election the Bond Party defeated Sir Gordon Sprigg with Transvaal gold.

THE JAMESON RAID – A GODSEND TO THE BOERS

‘That the armaments antedated the raid is unquestionable. That event simply supplied an excuse for forcing the pace. At the time it must have seemed like a godsend to the Boer Executive. The President saw, or thought he saw, the game in his hands. European sympathy was assured, and practically the whole Afrikander population of South Africa was thrown into open antagonism with Great Britain. The whole thing has been worked with marvelous cleverness. No one can prove a ‘conspiracy’ to oust British authority; Mr Kruger and the Bond have been too wary for that. But if for ‘conspiracy’ we read ‘understanding’ then we can safely affirm that Afrikanderism has long known its own mind.

THE CONSPIRACY – A REMARKABLE AVOWAL

‘The Rev. W. Tees, Presbyterian minister in Durban, furnished me with a surprising piece of first-hand evidence of the Afrikander conspiracy. In his congregation there is, or was, a gentleman who was formerly Attorney- General in the Free State, and who is of avowed pro-Boer proclivities. When the war broke out, and the Boer success made it seem probably that Natal would be over-run, this gentleman made no pretence of concealing his satisfaction. Mr Tees, in conversation with him, referred to the general consternation at the thorough preparedness of the Republics for the struggle. ‘Yes’, was the calm rejoinder, ‘Great Britain has been completely taken by surprise. Sir, this has been preparing since 1884’.
‘In both States?’. ‘Yes, in both, and in the Colony also. The Transvaal has been the arsenal, but those in the know in the Free State and the Colony have worked in unison with Kruger’.
‘And the object was to oust the British from South Africa?’, ‘Precisely, but it was not intended to do it all at once. The first step was the consolidation of the two Republics as a sovereign international State, and later on an Afrikander rising at the right moment’.
‘Then, do you mean to say that when President Kruger attended the Bloemfontein Conference, he knew perfectly well that the proceedings were a farce, and that he really meant to fight?’. ‘Yes’.
‘And President Steyn’s announcement that the Free State had never thought of war was made in the full knowledge that was had long been prepared for?’. ‘Yes’.

NOTES:

[i] Other than, presumably, when he was expanding said borders to steal vast tracts of territory from black people