Boer History1906 in South Africa: Amery’s Times History, Beak’s Aftermath, Worsfold’s Milner, and Spoelstra’s Bouwstoffen
Amery’s Times History Begins at London
At London this year L. S. Amery began The Times History of the War in South Africa, volumes I to VI, to run from 1906 to 1909. Peace between Britain and the two Boer republics — the South African Republic and the Orange Free State — was signed at Vereeniging on the 31st of May 1902. Last year’s print had been Johanna Brandt-Van Warmelo’s Het Concentratiekamp van Irene at Amsterdam: one named camp, written from a nurse’s diary. This year’s first volumes were not another camp diary. They were a Times history of the whole war, begun at London four years after Vereeniging. The bibliography that listed Blake at Boston in 1903, Brink at Amsterdam and Capetown in 1904, and Brandt-Van Warmelo at Amsterdam in 1905 now listed Amery at London from this year. [6]
That history, even as it excelled at passing over or covering British misdeeds in the war, still told how General Babington, on a reconnaissance of the 8th of January 1900 from Heuningneskloof, north of Graspan, toward Koffiefontein, destroyed 2 houses on Commandant Lubbe’s farm and 1 on Zwiegler’s with fire and explosives, supposedly because the farms had been used as a rendezvous for Boer spies. The presidents’ protest of February 1900 named the burning, the dynamiting, and the stripping of unprotected farmhouses, in the Cape Colony as in the Republics, as contrary to the rules of civilized war. Bossley of the First Australian Horse wrote from Arundel, south of Colesberg, on the 28th of December 1899 that his division seized horses, sheep, and poultry, and that the soldiers could get the fowls only by running them down and spitting them with lances. Whole detachments went out each morning on plunder for firewood; in a country already short of fuel they broke furnished houses and destroyed chairs, tables, even pianos, to burn. Those leaves were in the war’s print. A Times history begun this year still had to carry them or to cover them. [6]
The proclamations of Lord Roberts of the 14th of August and the 14th of September 1900 found echo among his subordinate officers, and the spring of 1900 opened with a campaign of devastation that recalled the Thirty Years’ War. Wherever the British armies moved in the Transvaal and the Free State they sowed destruction and laid dwellings in ruin. For September alone, by the British returns, they destroyed more than six times as many dwellings as in the three preceding months together; in October twice as many, and in November two and a half times as many, as in September. Those three months — September, October, and November 1900 — were the period in which Roberts made his mailed fist felt in the two Boer republics before he handed the command to Lord Kitchener and went home. The British figures for the three months were given as 99, 189, and 226 dwellings; those numbers were far too low and were not to be taken as even a roughly faithful picture of the houses destroyed. Winburg, Senekal, Bethlehem, and other parts of the eastern Free State paid; the rest of the country was not spared. How far a district was laid waste depended in great measure on the temper of the several commanders. The difference in treatment was so marked that Roberts found it necessary, on the 28th of September 1900, to issue another proclamation to insure uniformity in treatment of the inhabitants of the various districts. A Times history begun this year at London had that spring behind it. [6]
In the Times history of the three years’ war Amery wholly condemned the principle of farm-burning as a means of intimidation and acknowledged that it was a complete failure, as anyone who knew the Boer people and their history would readily have predicted. “The application of a system which, even in India, has long provoked criticism and disapproval,” he argued, “was the least happy of Lord Roberts’s inspirations and must be plainly set down as a serious error of judgment, due to the fact that he persisted in regarding the Boers when once their chief towns had been occupied, not as regular combatants but as rebels, who rather required punishment than defeat.” Dillon, speaking in the British parliament on Wednesday the 31st of July 1901, said that when they failed to crush the Boers in the veld they turned their weapons against the women and children and had to take recourse to an infamous policy of farm-burning. He predicted that the farm-burning and its miserable consequences would brand an unforgettable hatred into the memories of the children and children’s children of the Boer people. Flynn spoke of whole families turned out on the veld because the male members were fighting, of furniture ruthlessly destroyed, of homes burned, and of helpless women and children swept into concentration camps where disease was prevalent. Swift MacNeill declared that the war was waged with a maximum of cruelty and a minimum of humanity, and that the farm-burning could scarcely be surpassed by the bloodstained annals of Turkey. Those sentences, already spoken, were the sentences a Times history begun this year still had to set beside its own condemnation of the system. [6]
From the beginning of December 1900 — within a week after Roberts handed the chief command to Kitchener — there was a great decrease in the destruction of dwellings, lasting into the new year. Just before laying down the command Roberts issued an order binding the burning of farmhouses: henceforth all cattle, wagons, and foodstuffs were to be removed from the farms or, if that was impossible, destroyed; but the burning of the farmhouses themselves would be allowed only as punishment for acts of treason or for the destruction of lines of communication, or when they had been used as operating bases for raids, and then only with the written consent of the chief commander in the district. Kitchener, already advised by Milner in October not to continue his predecessor’s policy of destroying dwellings, did not immediately withdraw that order. He counted on bringing the struggle to a speedy end by an intensive propaganda campaign calculated to undermine the morale of the burghers in the field, and at once set himself to send Burgher Peace Committees of Boers who had laid down arms through the lines of the fighting burghers to convince them that the struggle was hopeless. The decrease in the destruction of dwellings — for the destruction of food stocks, vehicles, and the stripping of cattle went on without interruption — was only the stillness before the great storm. A Times history whose first volumes London issued this year still opened on that storm. [6]
Beak’s Aftermath: Repatriation in the Orange River Colony
Beside Amery on this year’s particular list stood G. B. Beak’s The Aftermath of the War, an account of the repatriation of the Boers and the Natives in the Orange River Colony, 1902–1904, issued at London. Last year’s book was one camp, written from a nurse’s diary, put into type at Amsterdam three years after the tents at Irene came down. This year’s aftermath was not another camp diary. It was the return, named for the Orange River Colony, of the people who had been in the camps and on the devastated farms, written through 1902 to 1904 and put into type at London four years after Vereeniging. The bibliography that listed De Kok’s Empires of the Veld at Cape Town in 1904 now listed Beak at London in 1906. What hung on that listing was that the Orange River Colony’s return, already named among the years after the tents came down, was no longer only a heading. It was a book. [6]
What that aftermath had to return people to was the country Roberts’s mailed fist laid waste before Kitchener took the command. The British returns for September, October, and November 1900 gave 99, 189, and 226 dwellings destroyed; those numbers were far too low. Of 10 cases of burned dwellings in the district of Winburg that were brought to Milner’s attention, only 1 was named in the relevant blue book, Cd. 524; the rest were simply passed over in silence. Winburg, Senekal, Bethlehem, and the eastern Free State were the districts that paid first; the rest of the land was not spared. Some commanders had an aversion to those methods and tried to keep destruction to a minimum; others seemed to take pleasure in laying the country waste. A book of repatriation issued this year at London still had to send people home across that difference, and still had to name, at page 7, the Winburg cases the blue book did not name. [6]
The camps themselves were broken from June 1902. The last camp schools closed in December 1902 with 1816 children still on the roll. Botha’s list of the 12th of November 1902 still named the towns partly destroyed: Ermelo to Wolmaransstad, Vredefort to Ventersburg, Lichtenburg, Lydenburg, Vrede. The Orange River Colony camps from Bloemfontein to Winburg were among the names of places the people had left. What Beak’s London book of this year named was not those camps as camps. It was the repatriation that followed them, of Boers and of Natives, in that colony, through 1902–1904 — the years after the tents came down and before Sargant’s director’s report closed to February 1904. The people who had been on half-rations, who hung the meat on the tent-lines, who were counted among the 26251 women and children and the 1676 men above 16, were the people an aftermath issued this year still had to send home. [6]
Milner had those Winburg cases brought to his attention and still saw only one of them in Cd. 524. He advised Kitchener in October 1900 not to continue Roberts’s policy of destroying dwellings. He was the high commissioner to whom Maxwell wrote from Pretoria on the 23rd of December 1901 of arrangements for frozen Australian meat at the camps. He was the high commissioner whose work this year’s other London book would name in full. Beak’s aftermath and that Milner book belonged on the same particular list, issued in the same city in the same year, one of repatriation in the Orange River Colony, the other of the high commissioner’s work in South Africa. [6]
Worsfold’s Milner, Sargant, and the Teachers
The third particular book London issued this year was W. Basil Worsfold’s Lord Milner’s Work in South Africa. Last year’s print named Irene. This year’s print named the high commissioner whose invitation brought Sargant from Canada and New Brunswick to the Cape, and whose work the camps’ schools, the overseas teachers, and the director’s report had begun to measure. Milner sat as high commissioner over the new colonies after Vereeniging. The bibliography that later listed Stockenström’s Die Vrou in die Geskiedenis van die Hollands-Afrikaanse Volk at Stellenbosch in 1921 still listed Worsfold at London in 1906 among the particular works of the war. [6]
The person on whose shoulders the task of heading the new education administration would fall arrived in South Africa — E. B. Sargant, then travelling through the British colonies to inquire into the several educational systems. In 1900 Lord Milner sent an invitation to Sargant, then travelling in Canada and New Brunswick, to accept the post of acting director of education in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony. Sargant accepted the invitation but modestly doubted whether he possessed the capacity to manage so colossal an administration. On the 6th of November 1900 he stepped ashore at Capetown from Quebec, and after several weeks immersed in administrative matters he undertook, in December, a tour through the northern colonies. Toward the end of January 1901 he was back in Capetown, utterly discouraged by the prevailing conditions and in strong doubt about the possibility of camp schools. Those dates, already in the director’s report of 1904, were the dates this year’s London book of Milner’s work still carried at pages 520 and 521. [6]
At that point he was informed of the school the prisoners had erected in the camp at Green Point (Sea Point) and at once decided to visit it, to find out whether the British government could possibly venture the undertaking of camp schools. Though he found there a great shortage of teachers and a serious lack of the necessary school supplies, he was pleasantly surprised at the eagerness and progress of the young burghers. The success of that undertaking was a spur, and he at once decided to take the lead in founding camp schools. He then went to the nearest concentration camp of the northern provinces, Norvalspont, because it was the nearest depot for camp supplies. In company with a certain Mills he arrived there on Saturday the 2nd of February 1901. The camp commandant, Captain Du Plat Taylor, was eager that a school should be established in the camp. Those first camp schools, already counted in last year’s print of Irene and in the director’s report closed to February 1904, were the schools this year’s Milner book still named from the high commissioner’s side. [6]
Before the conclusion of peace there were already 200 women teachers from England and Scotland in service. In March a further 50 English teachers arrived, and in April another 50. In June 1902 another 40 women teachers landed from Canada, 20 from New Zealand, and in August a further 40 from Australia. With the passage of time still more overseas teachers came, so that in July 1903 no fewer than 475 overseas teachers from a total of 1306 were taken into service. The Educational Gazette for the Transvaal and Orange River Colony of the 1st of July 1902 already gave the names of 1046 teachers. This year’s London book of Milner’s work still carried those counts at page 523, beside the director’s report of 1904. What last year still last counted as Sargant’s standing machinery, this year printed as Milner’s work. [6]
Sargant addressed circulars to both the imported and the established teachers, asking the camp teachers already in place to receive the new ones heartily, to put them at their ease, and to inform them of the chief requirements of teaching in the camps. They were to take the newcomers to the tents of those among their countrymen from whom they could learn all that was dignified and religious in the lives of the Afrikaner farmers; they were to learn so much of the speech of their people as would enable them to unlock the hearts of those with whom they had thrown in their lot; and they were to prevent petty jealousies and continue to teach side by side, with a single eye to the advancement in knowledge of the children entrusted to their joint care. Experienced and capable teachers would not lose their posts; the incompetent and the younger would necessarily be set aside and would have the opportunity of better training at normal schools. To the newcomers he asked cooperation with the Dutch teachers on the only ground where the two races could work together on a common and friendly footing — the school — since the teaching had now been made non-political in character. Those circulars of the 31st of December 1901 were the circulars this year’s book of Milner’s work still stood over, with the overseas counts of July 1903 already in type at London. [6]
Maurice’s Official History Closes, 1901–1906
The official volumes that this year closed were F. Maurice’s (The Official) History of the War in South Africa, volumes I to IV, London, 1901–1906. Amery’s Times history began this year and would run to 1909. Maurice’s official history had been issuing since 1901 and this year reached its last volume. The bibliography that listed Penning’s De Oorlog in Zuid-Afrika at Rotterdam in 1903 and the Gedenkboek van den Oorlog in Zuid-Afrika at Amsterdam and Capetown in 1904 now listed Maurice’s four volumes as closed at London in 1906. What the Times history began, the official history this year finished. [6]
Those four volumes closed on a war whose camps were already broken, whose last camp schools were already closed, and whose dead still stood at 26251 women and children and 1676 men above 16, mostly greybeards, with 1421 old men named in a later count. The erection of the concentration camps was no act of magnanimity on the British side with the object of protecting the non-combatant Boer families — as Joseph Chamberlain and other British government persons proclaimed with so much emphasis. It was the outcome of the British military ideal of bringing the war to a speedy end. From March 1900 the military increasingly set themselves to soften the resistance of the burghers in the field by inflicting suffering on their families. At first they confined themselves to the destruction — under all sorts of pretexts — of the dwellings of fighting burghers in the neighbourhood of the rail and other connecting roads; when that achieved little, they, following the methods of General Weyler in Cuba, went over to a policy of total devastation. When that too failed of the intended object, Lord Roberts tried to break Boer resistance by sending to the burgher commandos the families who, after the devastation of the farms, had sought shelter in the towns. The Boers were willing to receive those families and to let them move to Europe; with that the military value they could have for the British enemy would have been lost. The military therefore decided, in further following of the Weyler policy, to pen those families in concentration camps. The aspect of starved women and children in the camps — so the British authorities apparently meant — would soon make the burghers beg for peace. That account, written of the camps, was the account the official volumes this year still closed under. [6]
In the camps the families of the fighting burghers were not given the treatment to which they as prisoners of war could lay claim under the Hague Convention. From the outset the camps — often erected on badly chosen grounds — were completely overcrowded and therefore ideal places for the spread of epidemics. No provision was made for proper medical supply, still less for an effective system of sanitation, so that the camps in fact developed into breeding-places of disease. The camp population was also not supplied with sufficient food, cleansing materials, and clothing. On the contrary, the families of fighting burghers were even placed on half-rations, and the food issued — especially the meat, sugar, and meal — was of wretched quality, while various essential kinds of food, among them vegetables, fruit, and fresh milk, were not supplied at all. The resistance of these families was soon exhausted. So many camp inmates died that the whole civilized world was shocked. Child mortality in particular was terrible, and soon — especially after the epoch-making revelations of Emily Hobhouse — raised a storm of criticism inside and outside England against the British government. Irene’s nurse wrote that meat, sugar, and meal from inside the model camp; Amsterdam last year issued her pages beside that general account. The official volumes this year closed beside both. [6]
To protect its good name, England was at long last obliged to send out a committee of ladies to investigate and, following their report, to bring revolutionary improvements into the camps. Those improvements were however carried through only after the end of 1901. It was therefore only during the last few months of the war that conditions in the concentration camps were bearable. That state of affairs was reflected by the death-rate, which from the end of 1901 fell sharply in increasing measure, until against March 1902 it was normal. The Boer generals and fighting burghers did not know of this sharp decrease, and the camps in the end served the military object for which they were founded. The dying there of 26251 women and children besides 1676 men above 16 softened the resistance of the Boers in the field. Between a quarter and a fifth of those brought to the camps perished during a period of about 8 months, May to December 1901. The fear gradually seized the leaders among the fighting burghers that if no end were made to the concentration camps the whole Afrikaner people would die out. The chief considerations that led, on the Boer side, to the Peace of Vereeniging were therefore two: the total devastation of both Republics, and the placing of the captive families in the camps, where in a comparatively short time about 20000 of their dear ones died. When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman put it, the concentration-camp system would always shine as an offence against civilization, as a military mistake, and as a political disaster. The official volumes this year closed on that war. [6]
Spoelstra’s Bouwstoffen at Amsterdam: Drakenstein and the French Refugees
The paper that named this year among the church’s print was the Reverend C. Spoelstra’s Bouwstoffen voor de geschiedenis der Nederduitsche Gereformeerde Kerken in Zuid Afrika, issued at Amsterdam. It was a very useful source regarding the congregation and church of Drakenstein. It contained correspondence with the Classis of Amsterdam, extracts from the church minutes of the various congregations, and in volume two verbatim extracts relating to the French Refugees — the Huguenots who settled at the Cape from 1688. Last year’s church print at the Cape was Rudolph’s lecture at Maritzburg, printed at Greytown, of the 1834 party that looked at Natal. This year’s church print was not another lecture. It was the minutes and the Classis letters of Drakenstein, gathered at Amsterdam, so that the congregation along the Berg River, named in 1687, now had its bouwstoffen in type. [8]
In 1687 that beautiful and fertile valley was named by Commander Simon van der Stel after one of the family seats in Holland of the high commissioner Hendrik Adriaan van Reede, Lord of Mydrecht, who came out to the Cape in 1685 to inspect the Company’s affairs. In the same year 23 farms along the Berg River were marked out, each measuring 60 morgen in extent, and given to a like number of agriculturists. When the French newcomers landed, everything was arranged to receive them and convey them to their new homes along the Berg River in the Drakenstein Valley. 6 wagons were supplied by the burgher councillors of the Cape and 6 by the heemraden of Stellenbosch, to transfer the new arrivals and their baggage to Drakenstein. The Company supplied provisions which would last them for a few months, and planks to build temporary shelters. When the farms were allotted, care was taken to scatter the French among the Dutch farmers already settled there and those arriving at the same time. Some were given ground in the Stellenbosch district, but the greater number were at Drakenstein and French Hoek. Those leaves, already in the settlement’s story, were the leaves volume two of this year’s Amsterdam bouwstoffen still printed as verbatim extracts relating to the French Refugees. [8]
Only those who have been to the valley where the first Frenchmen settled can realise what a well-selected spot it was. The Berg River ran its course through the Drakenstein Valley; fine trees grew in abundance on the mountain slopes and along the river banks; the tall peaks stood like sentinels over the valley. At that time the border of the Colony did not extend very far from where they were settled; and for some years after the settlement was established at Drakenstein, even the corpses buried in the open fields were scratched out by wild animals. That fact stood in a letter of the 26th of March 1713 from the Kerkenraad of Drakenstein to the Classis of Amsterdam — a letter this year’s bouwstoffen still printed at volume I, page 129. The names of the inhabitants and of many of the very old farms still showed the early settlement of the French Refugees. In choosing names for their homesteads at Drakenstein and French Hoek they did not forget the land of their birth. [8]
In 1713 the Kerkenraad wrote to the Classis of Amsterdam that they had been without a permanent clergyman for 6 years, and complained of the want of a church, parsonage, and minister, as a result of which they said this flourishing community, which then totalled about 700 souls, children and adults, was daily becoming more unruly and degenerate. They said that the church had become ruinous and would not stand another year. The Classis was asked that a minister be appointed who could speak French, and even if he might not preach in both languages, that at least he be allowed to admonish and comfort the older members of the congregation, many of whom did not understand Dutch, in the French tongue. As regards the children, these were instructed in Dutch and would in course of time learn the word of God in that language. That letter of the 26th of March 1713, Spoelstra volume I, pages 128–129, was among the Classis correspondence Amsterdam issued this year. [8]
When the Reverend le Boucq was appointed to take charge of the Drakenstein congregation he refused to go there, and wrote to the Classis of Amsterdam on the 14th of April 1707 saying that he had held a consistory meeting at Drakenstein and, after producing his credentials, had enquired about the school and church, but had learnt to his regret that there was no parsonage, sickcomforter, Dutch parish clerk, or proper graveyard. Valentyn, who visited the Cape at different times between 1685 and 1714, mentioned the church at Drakenstein, badly built both inside and outside and more like a barn than a church. In 1708 the Cape wrote to the Seventeen at Amsterdam for authority to build, if not a church, at least a respectable place of worship and likewise a decent house for the clergyman. “The services are at present conducted in a shed or barn of very homely appearance” — en werd thans de godsdienst daar in een hok of schuur van zeer sober aansien nog verrigt — was the description they gave of the place of worship at Drakenstein, in a letter of the 18th of April 1708. In October 1716 severe rains and winds passed over the country districts and caused the church at Drakenstein further damage. Those minutes and those letters, already in the church’s story, were the minutes and letters this year’s Amsterdam bouwstoffen still gathered from the Classis and from the several congregations. [8]