BOER COMMISSARY---"MEALIE PAP" AS A RATION--I TAKE COMMAND OF THE IRISH
BRIGADE--WAR DECLARED.
Before we begin to fight I must say something about the fighters, and
will commence with the Boer and his readiness for war. The Boer is a
simple, unpretentious farmer, with a long beard, rather long hair,
a powerful physical frame, a man inured to all kinds of hardships,
who daily looks after his horses, cattle and sheep. He has a lot of
Kaffir families on his farm, to whom he gives all the land they wish
for cultivation, on the condition that they put in his little patch
of mealies (corn), and oats. To the Kaffir boys who stay at the farm
house, and make themselves useful at all kinds of odd jobs, he gives
each a cow at the end of the year. This means a great deal to the
Kaffir boy, for when he has as many as eight head of cattle, he has the
price he must pay for a wife; and to have a wife is every Kaffir boy's
ambition.
Every night and every morning the Boer has religious services in his
house, and all the family attend. A visitor may attend or not as he
pleases.
The Boer cares not what your religion is, nor of what your church may
be, and it does not concern him whether you have any religion or not.
He looks after his own soul, and grants you the privilege of looking
after yours. He will never impose his beliefs upon you, nor will he
ask you your religion. He simply takes it for granted that you are
a Christian, a God-fearing individual. He is a domestic man whose
greatest happiness is in his home, with his wife and children--and
he generally has plenty of children. When he visits his neighbors on
Sunday, the whole family visits with him. They all go to church on
Sunday, and after the services are over, they all remind me of a happy
reunion of a family that has long been separated. In his way, he is as
simple as a child, hospitable and generous to a fault, ready to extend
the helping hand to friend or stranger, modest and retiring; but when
once you try to deprive him of his liberty, you will find that he will
fight to the bitter end, regardless of the odds against him.
For months previous to the war, the English Press was busy trying to
let the world know what a savage the Boer really was, and especially
how intolerant he was, as regards the Catholics. There was an object
in spreading broadcast all these outrageous lies; because England
wished the world to believe, that in waging war against the Boer, she
was really doing a service toward God and humanity. The Irish people
were Catholics; so the press told how bitter the Boer is against the
Catholic, how he tramples him down, and tries to drive him out of the
country. All this infamous lying was for the sole purpose of inducing
the Irish to enlist in the British army, and I regret to say that the
Irish fell into the trap. Thousands of them joined the British army,
and to-day thousands of them are buried in South Africa. Few English
are buried in South Africa, but the graves of the Irish and Scotch can
be counted by the thousand.
Leaving aside the religious aspect of the man, the Boer reminds me very
forcibly of our South-westerners, in appearance; and especially in his
riding and shooting ability. I have given a lengthy, but an honest and
faithful portrait of the Boer, because the subsidized press of England
spent itself in trying to disgrace him in the eyes of the world, for
no other reason than to cover up the English Government's infamy in
forcing a most unholy and damnable war on the God fearing Boer race of
South Africa.
During the time of intense excitement in the towns of South Africa,
and in London, the unmindful Boer was quietly and religiously pursuing
his daily routine work on his remote farm. It never occurred to him
that his quiet was liable to be disturbed at any moment by an exploding
bomb that might force him to leave his wife and little ones for two
years and eight months, and possibly forever. Occasionally he heard the
distant rumble of impending war, but he gave it no heed, for his ear
had become accustomed to such sounds during the last twenty years. He
could see no reason for war and therefore dismissed the subject from
his mind. The Transvaal Government and the Free State Government had,
all told, a standing army of about 900 artillerymen who manned their
forty cannon and sixty maxims. The artillerists were farmer boys,
smooth-faced, and from sixteen to eighteen years old. They were trained
by Boer officers principally. I think there were as officers, also,
two young Hollanders, and two Germans, who had long resided in the
Transvaal.
These young Boer officers and smooth-faced farmer boys proved
themselves the most remarkable artillerists in the world. The Free
State and Transvaal were exactly on the same footing as to readiness
for war, and neither was, therefore, in any sense of the word, prepared
for a struggle with the mightiest Empire of the world.
The total population of the Free State and Transvaal combined did not
exceed 250,000 men, women and children; while that of Great Britain
and her colonies runs up to something like 350,000,000. The Transvaal
and the Free State are two inland countries several hundred miles from
the coast; so England had no reason to fear trouble in landing her
troops at any of her many coast towns. The Transvaal and the Free
State are divided into districts, and each district is divided into
veldtcornetcies. In each veldtcornetcy there is a veldtcornet, elected
by his constituents, who is a civil officer in time of peace and the
military leader of the men in his veldtcornetcy, in time of war.
A commandant is appointed, and given command of one, two, or more
veldtcornetcies, depending upon circumstances. Each veldtcornet
divides up his men into corporalships of twenty-five men, and over
each corporalship he appoints a corporal. The commandant general
(commander-in-chief), who is elected by the whole people, appoints
a vecht-general (fighting general), who commands one, two or
more commandancies, also depending upon circumstances. Assistant
commandant-generals are appointed by the chief, to assist him
in various districts; these, of course, hold command over the
vecht-generals. In time of peace there is but one general, and that is
the commandant-general, who is also a member of the President's staff,
called the Executive Council. In time of war all the other generals are
appointed as they are required.
At the beginning of the war, there existed what you might call a
Commissary and Quartermaster Department. These Departments load the
trains with rations and clothing, and ship them to the front for the
supply of the burghers. Each veldtcornet, on their arrival, sends his
wagons, and gets all they can haul without requisition. The corporal in
charge simply signs a receipt for what he gets. On the wagons arriving
at the camp, the burghers go and help themselves to what they want.
This never causes any trouble, for the burghers are always ready to
divide up with each other whatever food or clothing they may have. I
mention these two departments, because it is the first time in Boer
history that they ever existed. They continued to exist for about ten
months and then disappeared, and it is my opinion that all were better
off; for then we had to come down to straight mealie pap (corn meal
mush), and fresh beef. Commissary Departments kill more soldiers than
are killed by bullets. When living on nothing but "mealie pap" and
fresh meat, all are healthy, strong, energetic and full of fight. The
Boer war has proved this; for during the last two years of the war we
had nothing else to eat, and we lost but one man from sickness; and did
the hardest work and best fighting, and in the end, when the general
surrender came, the world had never seen 24,000 stronger, healthier and
more dashing patriots than those who laid down their faithful rifles to
save their women and children from extinction.
I now arrive at the point when the rapidity with which telegrams were
passing back and forth on the telegraph lines was such, that the iron
poles were fairly melting to the ground, and when President Kruger was
finally convinced that war could not by any possibility be averted,
and that the so-called great Christian nation, his foe, was bent on
spilling the blood of thousands of innocent people, in order to satiate
its thirst for gold.
The feeble old man, the time-battered old soldier, the fervent old
patriot, the bulwark of the Boer nation, now prayed God to direct him
and his people and give them strength to preserve and enjoy their
liberty and independence. Commandant-General Piet Joubert, being
authorized to proceed to the defence of the land, sent messengers to
all the veldtcornets, with directions to call the burghers to arms, and
proceed to Laing's Nek, on the Natal border, to meet the invasion of
the British Army. The same orders were given in the Free State, for the
burghers to go to the Cape Colony border, and resist the British Army
assembled there. A small body of burghers was sent toward Mafeking to
protect the western border. These orders were issued during the last
days of September, 1899.
On October 1st, there were more than 10,000 burghers on the Natal
border, and at the same time the Free State burghers had assembled on
the border of the Colony.
[Illustration: COMMANDANT GENERAL PIET JOUBERT.]
It was at this time that the Irish and the Irish-Americans of
Johannesburg and Pretoria, about 300 strong, had assembled, and
asked me to take command of them to help the Boers in their battle for
freedom. I accepted the command on the condition that not one of them
would _expect_ or _accept_ one cent of money for his services, and that
all would fight purely for their love of liberty, and for down-trodden
Ireland. This condition having been unanimously accepted, horses, arms,
ammunition, etc., were at once procured, and off we went for the Natal
border, where we joined the Boers on October 6th. It was quick work,
but it is so easy to do things quickly, with a command of true and
patriotic Irishmen, overjoyed and brimming full of enthusiasm at the
prospect of giving a blow to Ireland's life-long enemy and oppressor.
Laing's Nek and Majuba Hill are on the border, between Natal and the
Transvaal. We were on one side of the Nek, and the English on the
other, both parties awaiting further developments. Finally, on October
9th, General Joubert sent a demand to the British Government for the
recall of the English troops from the Transvaal border. The British
declined, all communications were broken off, and war was declared on
the following day, October 11th.