A fitting companion to the Story of England's Empire in India, is that
of her South African Colonial Possessions.
It was about the year 1652, while Oliver Cromwell's star was highest in
the heavens, that the Dutch East India Company, needing a resting place
on the way to the East, planted the germ of an Empire at the Cape of
Good Hope. The Portuguese, those pioneers in exploration had only
lightly touched this uninviting spot, and then were away chasing rumors
of gold.
But the Hollanders were men of a different sort. They asked no
indulgences from Nature; and when their roots had once grappled the
soil, however disheartening the conditions, they were not to be lured
away by glistening surfaces farther on. All they asked was a place on
which to {173} grow. And so with stolid persistence they worked away
in a field the least promising ever offered to human endeavor.
But the fates befriended them, and after the Revocation of the "Edict
of Nantes," a touch of grace and charm was brought into their sterile
life by the arrival of three hundred Huguenot refugees. And there, in
that austere land, for more than a century these children from Holland
and France patiently toiled, and with mild content watched their
grazing cattle as they gradually spread over a huge expanse of
territory; their only reward the feeling that this barren resting place
on the way to India was all their own, and that they had a sense of
independence which answered the deepest craving in their hearts; they
were safe, forever safe from the Old-World tyrannies.
But there was another nation which also needed a resting place on the
way to India. Great Britain, following closely in the footsteps of
Holland, now had a Greater East India Company, and a larger empire
{174} growing in the East. And clouds began to gather over the Dutch
Colonists, as they saw their solitude invaded by Old-World currents.
Perhaps the irritation from this made them quarrelsome; for temper and
temperament have been two most important factors in the story of the
Dutch in South Africa. At all events, there were various outbreaks and
insurrections, becoming at last so serious that the English Government
felt impelled to aid in their suppression. And this they did so
effectually that after a battle with the local forces in 1806, they
were virtual rulers of Cape Colony, which, in 1814, upon the payment of
six million pounds to the Stadtholder, was formally ceded to Great
Britain.
So, by right of conquest, and by right of purchase, England had come
into possession (although at the time unaware of it) of the greatest
diamond mines, and the richest gold mines in the world. And it had
turned out that the Dutch Colonists for a century and a half had been
subduing man and nature simply to enrich the {175} English; and in
return they were expected to live contentedly and peaceably in the land
they had made habitable for human occupation!
Thus two contrasting people had been carelessly and hastily tossed
together. The most conservative and the most progressive of
nationalities were expected to fuse their uncompromising traits into a
harmonious whole. The result should have been easy to foresee. The
Dutch, coerced into this union, with embittered hearts and deep sense
of injury, after twenty unhappy, stormy years, determined to escape.
They would cross the Orange River into the wilderness and there build
up another State, which should be forever their own. And so, in the
year 1835, there occurred what is known as "The Great Trek," when about
thirty thousand men and women, like swarming bees, migrated in a body
into the region north of the Orange River, later spreading east as far
as the coast in what is now "Natal," the whole region then bearing the
significant title: "The Orange Free State."
{176}
In the terms of the purchase, in 1814, not a word had been said about
this _Hinterland_, the vast region stretching indefinitely towards the
north; and here was the germ of all the trouble that was to come.
Through an oversight there existed a serious flaw in the British title,
which would severely tax statesmanship, diplomacy, and perhaps strain
national morality to the breaking point. Had this people the right, or
had they not the right to plant a State bearing a foreign flag, which
should effectually bar the path to the north? Should the English
Government allow a people fiercely antagonistic to itself to build up
an unfriendly State on its border? Such were the questions which arose
then, and which have been variously answered since, depending upon the
point of view.
If the question had been what _would_ happen, there would have been
greater unanimity in the replies! And, it must be acknowledged,
however uncertain the claim to this disputed region, that the interests
of civilization were more to be subserved by {177} British than by
Dutch Sovereignty in South Africa.
The policies of these two people were absolutely opposed; and it was
upon the question of the emancipation of the slaves, at the time of the
Emancipation Act, in 1835, that the final rupture and secession took
place. These slaves constituted a large part of the property of the
Boers; and great was their indignation when they were compelled to
accept from the British Government a compensation for their property so
far below their own appraisal of its value that it seemed to them a
confiscation.
Then it was that they resolved to break away from their oppressors, and
go where they could make their own laws, and follow their own ideals of
right and wrong. And so they turned their backs upon the scene of
their long toil.
In this strange exodus not the least important person, though
unobserved then, was a sturdy little fellow ten years old,
energetically doing his part in rounding up the cattle and flocks as he
trudged along beside the {178} huge oxcarts. His name was Paul
Stephanus Kruger. And this little man also took his first lesson in
military exploits when one hundred and thirty-five Boer farmers, by
ingenious use of horses and rifles, put to flight twelve thousand
Metabeli spearsmen. But again the Boer was only clearing the way for
British occupation, which, commencing at Natal in 1842, had, by 1848,
extended over the entire Orange Free State. And then there was another
trek. Again the Boers migrated, this time crossing the River Vaal, and
founding a "Transvaal Republic."
In the history of the next thirty years we see not a vacillating, but
rather a tentative policy, behind which was always an inflexible
purpose to establish British rule in South Africa, peaceably, if
possible, or by force, if compelled. The British Government was trying
to bring to terms the most intractable race it had ever dealt with in
all its colonizing experience. The thing which embarrassed the English
was that flaw in their claim; and the trouble with {179} the Boers was
that they were archaic in their ideals, and obstructive to all policies
which belonged to a modern civilization. They had stopped growing when
they left Holland. The emancipation and the philanthropies forced upon
them by a people who were stealing their land, exasperated them, and
outraged their sense of justice; and when the English punished them for
cruelties to the native savages, by executing four Boers, vitriol was
poured upon an open wound, and peace was forever impossible.
In 1852 England, in placating mood, yielded the local control of the
Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic. But in less than five
years the Boers had thrown away their opportunity by strife and discord
among themselves, and had separated into four small hostile Republics,
which Paul Stephanus Kruger, then President of the Transvaal, was
vainly striving to bring together. The only time they were not at war
with each other was when they were all fighting the natives, with whom
they never established friendly relations. Perhaps it {180} is asking
too much of a people so many times emptied from one region into
another, to have established internal conditions, economic and
political, such as belong to ordinary civilized states. But the
condition of disorder had become such that the British Government
believed, or at least claimed to believe, that as a measure of safety
to their own Colonies, the Transvaal should be annexed to the Colony at
the Cape.
The people were cautiously approached upon this subject, and even some
of the leaders among the burghers advocated the measure as the best,
and, indeed, only thing possible in the present state of demoralization.
So, in 1877, the annexation was effected. The Transvaal Republic was
taken under the sovereignty of Queen Victoria.
By a treaty drawn up in 1881, it was declared to be a self-governing,
although not an independent State. In all its foreign relations it was
subject to the Suzerainty of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. In other
words, it was a vassal State.
{181}
In that one word Suzerain there lurked the germ of a great war. In a
revision of the terms of agreement made by the British, in 1884, this
word, which was to play such an important part was omitted; whether by
accident or design cannot be said. But the Executive Council of the
Republic saw their opportunity, and claimed that the omission of the
word was virtually a relinquishment of the claim, and an admission that
the South African Republic was an independent and sovereign State.
Lord Derby, Minister of Foreign Affairs, replied that no such
significance could be attached to the omission in the amended treaty;
that the word Suzerain was not employed simply because it was vague and
indefinite in its meaning; whereas, the rights claimed by the British
were not vague, but precise and definite. These distinctly forbade the
South African Republic from concluding any treaty with a foreign power.
And as such power _was_ vested in the Queen, as a matter of course it
followed that the South African {182} Republic was _not a sovereign and
independent State_.
While this diplomatic controversy was proceeding, other and less formal
agencies were at work. The Transvaal, rich in resources beyond all
expectation, was being developed by British capital, without which
nothing could have been done. The _Uitlanders_, (or "Outlanders"), as
these English-born men were called, complained that, instead of
cooperating with them in this labor, which must result in the common
good, everything possible was done to embarrass and paralyze their
efforts. Chief among the long list of grievances was the claim that,
while they were the principal taxpayers, they were denied
representation, and that as they furnished the capital for all the
financial enterprises, it was but fair that they should have the
franchise which was stubbornly withheld from them.
Out of these conditions came the "Jameson Raid," the most discreditable
incident in the whole South African story; an incident which cast a
cloud of suspicion over {183} the entire British attitude, and enlisted
wide-spread sympathy for the Boers. Under the leadership of Dr.
Jameson, a gentleman closely associated with Cecil Rhodes in the South
African Chartered Company, an attempt was made to overthrow the Kruger
Government, and, to obtain by force the redress denied by peaceable
means.
When a revolt rises to the plane of a revolution it becomes
respectable. The "Jameson Raid" never reached that elevation. In less
than four days the entire force had surrendered and the leaders were
under arrest. The attempt upon Johannesburg, and the acts of violence
attending it, were denounced in unmeasured terms by the British
Government. Dr. Jameson and his chief abettors were tried in England,
and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment; four other prominent
leaders--one of them an American--had sentence of death passed upon
them by a judge from the Orange Free State, which was finally remitted
upon the payment of a large sum to the South African Republic. England
{184} did her best to rehabilitate her name in the estimation of the
world; and when the deplorable affair was over, it had done immense
injury to the English cause, and benefited not a little that of the
Republic.
Diplomatic negotiations were then resumed; Sir Alfred Milner presenting
the British view, urged the propriety of granting to foreign-born
residents the franchise; also the abolishment of certain monopolies
which pressed heavily upon the miners, and last, but not least, that
the sovereignty of Great Britain over the Transvaal, receive official
recognition.
This latter President Kruger flatly rejected, upon the ground that the
question of sovereignty had already been disposed of in 1884, when
Great Britain virtually abandoned the claim by omitting the word
_Suzerain_, or any reference to what it implied, from the amended
agreement; offering at the same time to submit the other demands to
arbitration.
On October 9, 1899, while Mr. Chamberlain was preparing new proposals,
an {185} ultimatum was received from President Kruger, demanding an
affirmative answer within forty-eight hours; failing in which, it would
be considered a virtual declaration of war. Sir Alfred Milner replied:
"You will inform your Government that the conditions demanded are such
as Her Majesty's Government deem it impossible to discuss."
On the afternoon of October 11th, the war had commenced, with General
Buller in command of the British forces, and General Joubert, aided by
General Cronje, commanding the Boers.
Before November 2d three serious engagements had taken place, and the
English had been compelled to fall back upon their base of supplies at
Ladysmith, where, after an ineffectual sortie on October 30th, they
were surrounded and their communications cut off.
The campaign continued to be a story of humiliating defeats until
December, when Lord Roberts assumed supreme command, with Lord
Kitchener as his chief of staff. {186} England thoroughly aroused was
sending men and supplies in unstinted measure for the great emergency,
and the world looked on in amazement as 200,000 British soldiers under
the greatest British commanders were kept at bay for something less
than three years by 30,000 untrained Boers. The British Government had
forgotten that these South African colonists were the children of a
French Huguenot ancestry which had defied Louis XIV., and of the men
who cut the dykes when the Netherlands were invaded by that same
tyrant. Some one had wittily said that no member of the Cabinet should
be allowed to cast his vote for the war, until he had read Motley's
"Rise of the Dutch Republic." And, indeed, it appeared to many that
the view of the Government was focussed upon one single point, the
establishing of British authority at any cost in South Africa. At the
same time many eminent Englishmen believed it was not to be expected
that a community so long established in a home of its own {187}
choosing, should upon demand be ready to bestow upon foreigners all the
rights of citizenship; and many also believed that the grievances of
the "Outlanders" were not greater than ordinarily existed when a mass
of foreign immigrants were pressing in upon a people who suspected and
disliked them. The sympathy of foreign states was strongly with the
Boers; and in England itself the cause evoked a languid enthusiasm,
until aroused by disaster, and until the pride of the nation was
touched by loss of prestige. The danger, the enormous difficulties to
be overcome, the privations and suffering of their boys, these were the
things which awoke the dormant enthusiasm in the heart of the nation.
And when the only son of Lord Roberts had been offered as a sacrifice,
and then a son of Lord Dufferin, and then, Prince Victor, October 29,
1900, grandson of the Queen herself, the cause had become sacred, and
one for which any loyal Briton would be willing to die.
By September 1, 1900, the Orange Free {188} State and the Transvaal had
been formally proclaimed by Lord Roberts, "Colonies of the British
Empire."
This was the beginning of the end, and when the victorious commander
(December 2, 1900) arrived in England amid the plaudits of a grateful
nation, the victory was practically won, and the time was at hand when
not far from twenty thousand British soldiers would be lying under the
sod six thousand miles away, in a land, which no longer disputed the
sovereignty of England!
We have yet to see whether the South African colonial possessions have
been paid for too dearly, with nine fierce Kaffir wars (another
threatening as this is written), and the blood of princes, peers, and
commoners poured as if it were water into the African soil. Is England
richer or poorer for this outpouring of blood and treasure? Has she
risen or fallen in the estimation of the world, as she uncovers her
stores of gold and diamonds among those valiant but defeated Boers,
sullenly {189} brooding over the past, with no love in their hearts.
Not the least pitiful incident in the whole story was the voluntary
exile of the man who had been the brain and soul of the South African
Republics. Indeed, the life of Paul Kruger, from the day when he
trudged beside the bullocks at the time of the great northward trek,
until he died a disappointed, embittered old man, a fugitive and an
exile, seems an epitome of the cause to which his life was devoted.
No story of this war, however brief, can omit the name of De Wet, the
most distinguished of the Boer generals, and perhaps the one genius,
certainly the most romantic figure in the whole drama. It was De Wet's
faculty for disappearing and reappearing at unexpected place and moment
which prolonged the war even after the end was inevitable, thus
justifying the title "Three Years' War," which he gave to a subsequent
history of the conflict.
The dedication to this book bears pathetic testimony to the character
of the {190} man: "_This work is dedicated to my fellow-subjects of the
British Empire_." When one reflects what these words meant for De Wet,
one is inclined to believe that his highest heroism was not attained on
the battle field!
{191}