Childish delusions, and sowing the wind

‘The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naïve theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind’.
— Air Marshal Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris,[1] Commander in Chief, RAF Bomber Command

Every farm is an intelligence agency and a supply depot.^[2]
— Lord Kitchener, December 1900

At first glance, the RAF’s Area Bombing campaign (which helped force Nazi Germany to its knees), might not seem to have much in common with the Scorched Earth strategy of the Boer War, (which was an integral part of winning the Guerrilla phase of the war). However, and though markedly different in both  execution and aim,[3] the similarities in how both campaigns are perceived by some today are somewhat striking.

Firstly, there are squeals of indignation about both, and an unseemly rush to paint them as heavy-handed, or barbaric, or even – by some especially stupid people – ‘genocidal’. When it comes to the area bombing, the quote by ‘Bomber’ Harris highlights this shrill hypocrisy: as he rightly stated, Nazi Germany (the nation which started the war) had no hesitation in flattening the cities of her enemies, and yet – the moment the worm turned – suddenly they, and their modern-day apologists, started squawking about ‘war crimes’.

No one can take terribly much joy from the fact that RAF Bomber Command leveled towns and cities in Germany, but – equally – no one has yet explained what a practical alternative would have been. Do those who clutch their pearls, and bleat about ‘war crimes’, genuinely believe that the German industrial machine (and associated rail transport etc) should have been left completely unmolested, so it could continue to churn out and supply tanks, guns and ammunition? That would be completely ridiculous.

Similarly, in the Boer War, supporters of the republics (again, the nations which started the war) seem to want to have it both ways. Picking a fight with the Greatest of the Great Powers of the Age was an act of almost unbelievable geopolitical stupidity, and the Boers started the war by invading and annexing British territory. The invading Boers had no qualms about burning and looting as they rampaged their way through Natal,^[4] but suddenly their modern-day apologists get all high-and-mighty the moment the boot was on the other foot. Swiftly defeated in the Conventional War, the Boers then decided to fight on in a pointless and unwinnable guerrilla campaign; a campaign over which their latter-day supporters display a similarly ‘childish delusion’, indignantly squawking that the aggressive actions of the Boers should have yielded absolutely no negative consequences whatsoever.

Indeed – and just as the Germans had no worries about the bombing of civilian targets (until it started happening to them) – the Boers had even used ‘Scorched Earth’ tactics themselves in their invasion of Basutoland in the late 1860s.^[5] And, in the Boer War, the guerrillas had no hesitation in targeting the farms of surrendered burghers or loyalists – even rejecting Kitchener’s proposal to have all farms declared off-limits. During the Middelburg peace talks in February 1901, Kitchener said that he would stop his troops from burning farms as long as the Boers stopped using them as bases and—more importantly—stopped burning farms themselves:

‘I told him that if he continued such acts I should be forced to bring in all women and children, and as much property as possible to protect them from the acts of the burghers. I further enquired if he would agree to spare the farms and families of neutral or surrendered burghers, in which case I expressed my willingness to leave undisturbed the farms and families of burghers who were on commando, provided they did not actively assist their relatives.’

Botha was not going to give up his favourite method of subjugating his own people, however, and rejected Kitchener’s proposal out of hand: ‘I am entitled by law to force every man to join, and if they do not do so, to confiscate their property and leave their families on the veldt.’

When Kitchener asked him how best he could protect the surrendered burghers and their families, Botha callously declared: ‘The only thing you can do is to send them out of the country, as if I catch them, they must suffer.’^[6]

All in all, therefore, the whole faux horror over the Scorched Earth policy in the Boer War is similar to the reaction of some to the area bombing in WW2. Plenty get their knickers in a twist about it now, but what practical alternative have they ever offered? With Kitchener’s proposal rejected, and with the Boers gleefully attacking and burning farms themselves, are we really being told that the British forces should have ignored the Boer guerrillas’ network of supply sources and depots, and let them pop back to re-arm and pick up new horses whenever they felt like it? Targeting the logistics of an enemy force is a perfectly legitimate strategy in war, and – indeed – it would be utterly ridiculous for the British not to have struck at this. Pretending that doing it was in some way ‘unfair’ or ‘callous’ is ludicrous.

The Padre of the Guards Brigade, the Rev. E.P. Lowry, summed up the reality of the situation, and the hypocrisy of those – both then and now – who frantically paint the Boers as the innocent victims in all this:

‘Later in the day, to my sincere grief, a beautiful Boer house was set on fire by our men, after careful enquiry into the facts by the provost-marshal, because the farmer occupying it had run up the white flag over his house, and then from under that flag our scouts had been shot at. Such acts of treachery became lamentably common, and had at all cost to be restricted by the only arguments a Voortrekker seemed able to understand; but the Boers in Natal had long before this proved adept at kindling similar bonfires, though without any such provocation, and cannot therefore pose as martyrs over the burning of their own farms, however deplorable that burning be.’^[7]

Of course, separating a guerrilla / terrorist force from their supplies and supporters is a well-established counter-insurgency tactic,^[8] and, if anything, the British were actually guilty of being a little too soft-hearted about it. Roberts himself considered Scorched Earth tactics to be a ‘sad necessity’ which needed to be employed to end the war. Lord Methuen agreed, and was proud to be able to say he had ‘never burned down a farm that he didn’t have to’. More than that, he often gave several warnings to the wives of burghers on commando before taking action.^[9]

Would the other Great Powers have shown such reluctance? Captain Slocum, an American Army officer who served as a military observer in the Boer War, noted: ‘The British have been too merciful, and I believe, had a more rigorous course been adopted when the army first entered this capital and the enemy been thoroughly stampeded, the war would have been materially shortened’. Perhaps Slocum was comparing the kid glove approach the British adopted in South Africa, to the much more robust methods the Americans were employing in the Philippines at that time.

The American-Philippine War of 1899–1903 (thus fought almost simultaneously with the Boer War) saw US troops adopting tactics far harsher than those employed by Imperial forces in South Africa:

‘…the behaviour of American soldiers in the Philippines was officially governed by General Orders 100. GO 100 had been written during the Civil War to help Union forces deal with the task of controlling occupied Southern territories. The author, a distinguished lawyer named Frances Lieber, had had sons fighting both sides, and he aimed the orders to be stern but fair … GO 100 demanded the fair treatment of enemy soldiers and of civilians in occupied terrain. But it also required that those enemy soldiers and occupied civilians meet certain rules of behaviour. Enemy soldiers had to wear uniforms. Occupied civilians could not act to hide or assist enemy soldiers without fear of repercussion … if the civilian population acted to hide or assist such guerrilla forces, the occupying army was justified in punitive destruction of civilian property, as long as that destruction was not ‘wanton’ … captured insurgents could be executed summarily. Towns giving support to Aguinaldo’s forces could be destroyed’,^[10]

and:

‘…the population [of one area which was an insurgent stronghold] was forced into zones of concentration around the major towns and anything left outside was considered fair game. American units burned villages, killed animals, and destroyed crops … one officer who took part in the campaign, recalled, ‘We did not take any prisoners. We shot everybody on sight.’’^[11]

And this was by no means the occasional excess: Major Littleton Waller of the US Marines received the following orders from his general: ‘I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn, the better it will please me.’ When Waller questioned what the lower age limit was on the killing, he was told ‘ten years of age’.^[12]

After an insurgent attack on American forces at Balangiga in the Philippines had left forty-eight US troops dead, ‘the town of Balangiga was razed to the ground, such that nothing there remains to this day but the bare walls of the church used to conceal the ambushers’.^[13] One American officer had cages measuring fifteen by 30 feet and six feet high constructed from railway tracks, and crammed up to fifty prisoners in them for months at a time. He proudly posed in front of his cages for a press photographer, and cheerfully answered questions about the death rates they caused.^[14]

An American soldier wrote home to tell his family:
‘The town of Titatia [sic] was surrendered to us a few days ago, and two companies occupy the same. Last night one of our boys was found shot and his stomach cut open. Immediately orders were received from General Wheaton to burn the town and kill every native in sight; which was done to a finish. About 1,000 men, women and children were reported killed. I am probably growing hard-hearted, for I am in my glory when I can sight my gun on some dark skin and pull the trigger.’^[15]

Of course, this is not to say that, because the US armed forces took this hard-line approach in the Philippines, it would have been acceptable for the British to do similarly in South Africa. But it is important to note that, for all the huffing and puffing, and the manufactured fluffing of feathers which it provokes, the British Scorched Earth policy of the Boer War was hardly unique. And nor was it especially harsh, when one takes the time to compare it to other 20th Century counter-insurgencies. As Professor Michael Howard observed in 1971, ‘seventy years’ further experience of insurgency and counter-insurgency in warfare may lead us to wonder, not that Lord Kitchener’s pacification campaign took so long and involved some incidental brutalities, but that it did not take still longer and involve yet more’.^[16]

Was it a glamorous and triumphant part of the conflict? Clearly not – just as the area bombing of German cities in WW2 also lacked much in the way of glamour. But, and whether or not it upsets some delicate souls today, both had to be done. Unpleasant things tend to happen in war, but this could easily have been avoided by the Germans and Boers; all it would have taken was for them not to start the wars in the first place. Actions have consequences and, as the Rev Lowry pointed out, it is a bit rich to begin a war, and then play the martyr.

As it was, they sowed the wind, and thus they were responsible for the whirlwind that followed.

NOTES:

[1] Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet, GCB, OBE, AFC (1892 – 1984). Born in Gloucestershire, Harris emigrated to Rhodesia at the age of 17, and thereafter always considered himself ‘primarily as a Rhodesian’. He volunteered for service in the 1st Rhodesia Regiment in the Great War, before switching to the Royal Flying Corps / Royal Air Force, and making it his career

[2] Nasson, The War for South Africa, p.243

[3] The RAF’s Area Bombing was on a completely different scale to the Scorched Earth of the Boer War, as noted by Harris himself: ‘The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive … should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany … the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories’. See Garret, Ethics and Air Power in World War II: The British Bombing of German Cities, p.32-33

[4] Stott, The Invasion of Natal, p.122; Currey, Vinnicombe’s Trek, p.143; Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, Vol.2, p.301, and dozens of others

[5] Theal, History of South Africa Since 1795, Vol.8, p.285

[6] Martin, The Concentration Camps: 1900‒1902: facts figures, and fables, p.8

[7] Lowry, With the Guards Brigade, p.51

[8] Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies, p.25

[9] Miller, Lord Methuen and the British Army, p. 215

[10] Silbey, A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902, p.157

[11] Silbey, A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902, p.196

[12] Miller, Benevolent Assimilation, p.220

[13] Silbey, A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902, p.194

[14] Miller, Benevolent Assimilation, p.238

[15] Miller, Benevolent Assimilation, p.88

[16] Thomas Pakenham and The Boer War, a fresh look after thirty years