I
'No room, sir!'
This was the phrase that greeted my friend De C---- and myself at the
door of every carriage we tried.
The fast train for Marseilles leaving Paris at 8.25 was, indeed, full to
overflowing that night of December 23; by eight o'clock not a place was
left.
Finally, after treading on a good many toes, and exchanging a good many
elbowings, we installed ourselves more or less comfortably--a good deal
less, to be accurate--one in the front of the train, the other close to
the luggage-van.
A last clasp of the hand to the comrades who have come to the station
with us, and we are off.
The lights of Paris begin to die out in the distance; conversation
languishes; the monotonous rumble of the train lulls the travellers into
drowsiness; heads nod and droop in the dim light of the lamp.
'La Roche! Wait here five minutes!'
We jump out. C---- and I meet again.
'Well, how are you getting on?'
'Not very well. And you?'
'Very badly!'
And, much depressed, we return to our respective carriages.
At last the patience under discomfort habitual to men of our unsettled
lives asserts itself, and we sleep soundly till we reach Arles, when we
find two seats together.
At Marseilles we were kindly received by a pleasant cousin of mine, and
by a delightful lady, also of my kindred.
The 24th we spent with some comrades, officers of the neighbouring
garrison, and on the 25th we and our baggage were safely on board the
_Natal_, of the Messageries Maritimes.
I make special mention of our baggage, which, in preparation for the
campaign we are about to undertake, consists of two little canteens.
The two together weigh exactly 38 kilos, making about 19 kilos each.
They hold all our belongings, including our two revolvers and two
hundred cartridges. We are not overloaded with baggage.
The _Natal_ is one of the 'fine steamers' of former days, fairly large.
We first take possession of our cabin, which opens into the
dining-saloon. Then we go up on the bridge, where we are introduced to
Colonel Gourko, who is also on his way to the Transvaal, as Russian
military attache. We had met him the evening before at the station, for
he arrived by the same train as ourselves. But his fluent French, and
his rosette of the Legion of Honour, which he always wears by courtesy
in France, had made us take him for some important functionary on his
way to Madagascar!...
We ask his pardon. But the minutes pass. Hand-shakings, good wishes,
bursts of emotion, the time-honoured formula of departure have been gone
through; the gangways are taken up, the ropes cast off; we steam out of
port. The handkerchiefs that flutter on the quay and on the pier
gradually diminish, the houses seem to flatten, Notre Dame de la Garde
dwindles, becomes smaller and smaller, till at last it is a mere speck
on the horizon. Then it disappears altogether; we are on the open sea.
I shall not thrill with ecstasy, nor pour out a tribute of emotion to
the 'blue immensity,' for, though I have many parts--as you, my readers,
will readily believe, especially such of you as do not know me--I am no
poet. The dinner-bell finds De C---- and me prosaically wrangling over
150 points at piquet.
The dining-saloon is large, but there are few diners. We take a general
survey.
The captain, who is supposed to preside over the meals, is not well, and
does not appear. In fact, we scarcely see him at table during the
passage.
Colonel Gourko, Captain Ram, and Lieutenant Thomson, the Dutch military
attaches, Captain D---- of the Marines, with his charming young wife and
their son Guy--who is soon one of our firmest friends--an engineer, a
naval doctor, a young lady on her way to set up as a milliner at
Tananariva, an English journalist, and Henry de Charette, a volunteer
for the Transvaal, where his health will prevent him from playing a very
active part, make up the sum total of diners, or very nearly so.
We further discovered on board Messieurs de Breda, a former cavalry
officer, Pimpin, Michel, a distinguished artillery officer, and a few
others destined to be our pleasant comrades in the future.
As at least fifteen of us are bound for Lourenco Marques, and as we have
reason to fear a visit from some English cruiser not unaccustomed to
such travellers, we have all adopted the most extraordinary callings.
One of us is a commercial traveller in the wine or drug trade; another
is a dealer in apparatus of various kinds. I also met a bird-seller, a
manufacturer of blinds, and an agent for bitumens!
C---- and I are modest! We are in quest of purchasers for 'Calaya,' a
febrifuge of extraordinary virtues, a specific for fever, dysentery,
headache, toothache, etc.
The weather is superb; but our boat is slow, and we rarely make 300
miles in the twenty-four hours.
We reach Port Said on December 31. For New Year's Day we get up an
entertainment with a lottery on board, and, thanks to Madame D----, it
proves a great success.
The profits, amounting to nearly a thousand francs, were handed over to
the Widows and Orphans' Fund of the Messageries Maritimes.
The prizes offered by the passengers were of the most curious
description, and as we were bound for sunny climes, there were more than
twenty umbrellas among them. Chance, with perhaps a little extraneous
help, made a good many of these fall to the share of Colonel Gourko, who
took the little joke in excellent part.
Breda undertakes the refreshment buffet, with the help of a charming
young girl, and presides with great dignity.
After leaving Port Said the company is increased by the members of a
Russian ambulance going to the Transvaal. They keep very much to
themselves, and every evening they meet together on the lower deck to
sing their vesper prayer. The sacred chant, in itself very imposing,
takes on a solemn grandeur in the picturesque setting of the Red Sea.
At Aden we go on shore, and make an execrable lunch, washed down,
however, by some excellent Chianti and Barolo; then we go to see the
famous cisterns, in which there is hardly ever any water now.
We also pick up a new passenger, Captain B----, of the Royal Field
Artillery, who also is for Durban on warfare bound. Our approaching
hostility does not prevent us from being the best of friends throughout
the passage. He wears the medal of the Soudan, too, which gives him a
further title to our sympathies. He describes his very interesting
campaigns in India and Egypt. He was present at Omdurman--'the great
battle,' as he calls it.
Ever since we started we have been hearing terrific accounts of
Guardafui. Few vessels, it appears, escape disaster at this point! But
the sea is like oil, to the great mortification, no doubt, of all our
ancient mariners.
Now we are bound straight for Madagascar. For eight days we shall be
between sky and water. Let us turn them to account for a rapid
retrospect of the causes which have led to the war in which we are about
to take part.
It will not, I think, be necessary to dwell on the origin of the
Boers.[#]
[#] Boer means peasant; Burgher denotes a citizen.
Colonists sent out in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company, they landed
at the Cape of Good Hope, discovered two centuries before (1486), and
settled there, employing themselves in agriculture and cattle-breeding.
At the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 300 French
Huguenots joined them, bringing up the number of the colonists to about
1,000. The fusion of the two races was rapid, and the French tongue
disappeared among them. Many of the French names even were
corrupted--Cronje was originally Crosnier--but many, on the other hand,
have persisted in their Gallic form--Villiers, Marais, Joubert, Du
Toit--and their bearers are very proud of their French descent. But
England, anxious to acquire the colony when it began to prosper, sent
out a number of emigrants, reinforcing them steadily, till they became
an important factor in the community.
From 1815, when Cape Colony was recognised as a British possession by
the Treaty of Vienna, English policy has been hostile to the Boers, who,
for their part, received the English settlers in no friendly spirit.
About 1835 the Boers, under the pressure of the vexations to which they
were subjected, began their exodus to the north--the Great Trek, as they
still call it--and founded the Orange Free State, recognised in 1869 by
Europe, and the Transvaal.
They were not left long in the enjoyment of the territory they had
wrested from the Kaffirs. Diamondiferous deposits were discovered in the
Orange Free State in 1871; the English promptly confiscated the find on
the pretext that it belonged to a native chief under their protection.
In 1877, the Zulus having risen against the Boers, England intervened
for the alleged pacification of the country, sent her troops to
Pretoria, and annexed the Transvaal.
But in 1880 the Boers revolted, and under Joubert inflicted a crushing
defeat on the English at Majuba Hill, on the frontier of Natal, February
27, 1881.
The treaty of August 3, 1881, recognised the independence of the
Transvaal under the suzerainty of the Queen. Another treaty, signed in
London, February 27, 1884, recognised the absolute independence of the
Transvaal.
On January 2, 1896, the famous Jameson Raid, still fresh in men's
memories, was checked at Krugersdorp.
Wishing to satisfy the claims of the Uitlanders, the President reduced
the term necessary for the acquisition of electoral rights from fourteen
to nine years. Finally, in 1899, England, constituting herself the
champion of the foreigners, instructed Sir Alfred Milner, Governor of
the Cape, to demand a further reduction of the term to five years.
This measure meant the rapid intrusion of the alien into the
administration, and the gradual swamping of the Boers. It would have
been the ruin of Boer autonomy. The President refused. 'Her Majesty's
subjects,' he said, 'demanded my trousers; I gave them, and my coat
likewise. They now want my life; I cannot grant them that.'
All these demands were but so many pretexts intended to mask the true
designs of England from the European Powers. But they are manifest to
the least discerning. On the one hand, there are gold-mines in the
Transvaal, and speculators demand them. On the other, Cecil Rhodes has
declared that 'Africa must be English from the Cape to Cairo.' War had
therefore long been foreseen, and the Transvaal quietly prepared for the
struggle.
Under cover of an expedition into Swaziland, which was nothing but a
march of some few hundred Burghers who had never fired a shot except at
game, considerable armaments had been made from 1895 onwards.
Krupp supplied them with field-guns of 12 and 15 pound.
Maxim-Nordenfeldts were bought. These quick-firing guns throw
percussion-shells to a distance of about 5,000 metres; their calibre is
35 millimetres. The English have a great respect for these little
pieces, which they have christened 'pom-poms,' in imitation of the noise
made by their rapid fire. The same firm supplied small calibre Maxim
guns for Lee-Metford cartridges. The cartridges are fixed to strips of
canvas (belts), which unroll automatically, presenting a fresh cartridge
to the striker the instant its predecessor has been fired.
Lastly, the Creusot factories received orders for guns of the latest
pattern: four 155 centimetres long, with a range of about 10,000 metres,
which the Boers call 'Long Toms,' and two batteries of 75 millimetre
field-guns.
These cannon (model 95) were furnished with all the latest improvements.
They fire very rapidly, and the brakes, situated on either side of the
piece, absorb the recoil, the carriage being the fulcrum, and the
trunnions the points of contact with the piece. They have a range of
about 7,000 metres. They are loaded by means of cartridges, the whole
charge enclosed in a single metal case. When efficiently served, they
will fire from fifteen to twenty shots a minute.
We have advanced indeed since the year 1881, and the cannon made in the
Transvaal itself, with cartwheel axle-trees riveted and braised
together![#]
[#] This is preserved in the museum at Pretoria, side by side with a
mitrailleuse labelled 'Meudon,' given to the President by the Emperor
William.
A large stock of Mauser, Martini-Henry and Steyr rifles (1887 pattern),
with plentiful ammunition, was also bought by the Boer Government.
The weapon most in favour is the Mauser rifle of 1891, calibre 7.5
millimetres. It is sighted up to 2,000 metres. It has a magazine
containing five cartridges. The movable straight-levered breech-block
has a safety-bolt.
The cavalry carbine, also much appreciated, is a reduced model of the
rifle. The mechanism is the same, and it also has a magazine holding
five cartridges, but the movable breech-block has a bent lever. This
carbine is sighted up to 1,400 metres.
These two weapons are of great precision, but I have heard it objected
since my return that the wooden grip which covers part of the barrel
causes an unequal heating and cooling of the metal between the covered
and uncovered parts, giving rise to occasional explosions or
distortions. Personally, I saw no instance of this.
The Martini-Henry rifles, carbines, and muskets are sometimes preferred
by the older Boers. They are of an obsolete pattern, and have an
insignificant range of only 800 metres for carbines and muskets. They
are 11 millimetres in calibre, and their leaden bullets have no casing
of harder metal. To some persons they have the advantage of disabling a
man more rapidly and effectually at a short range than bullets of
smaller calibre.
Events now follow closely one on another. On September 26, 1899, the
Volksraad issued the following proclamation from Bloemfontein:
'The Volksraad, considering paragraph 2 of the President's speech, and
the official documents and correspondence submitted therewith, having
regard to the fact that the strained state of affairs throughout the
whole of South Africa, which has arisen owing to the differences between
the Imperial Government and the Transvaal, threatens to lead to
hostilities, the calamitous consequences of which to the white
inhabitants would be immeasurable, being connected with the Transvaal by
the closest ties of blood and confederacy, and standing in the most
friendly relationship with the Imperial Government; fearing that, should
war break out, a hatred between European races would be born which would
arrest or retard peaceful developments in all States and colonies of
South Africa, and produce distrust in the future; feeling that the
solemn duty rests upon it of doing everything possible to avoid the
shedding of blood; considering that the Transvaal Government during the
negotiations with the Imperial Government, which extended over several
months, made every endeavour to arrive at a peaceful solution of the
differences raised by the aliens in the Transvaal, and taken up by the
Imperial Government as its own cause, which endeavours have
unfortunately had only this result, that British troops were
concentrated on the border of the Transvaal, and are still being
strengthened--resolves to instruct the Government still to use every
means to maintain and insure peace, and in a peaceful manner to
contribute towards a solution of existing differences, provided it be
done without violating the honour and independence of the Free State and
the Transvaal; and wishes unmistakably to make known its opinion that
there exists no cause for war, and that a war against the Transvaal, if
now undertaken by the Imperial Government, will morally be a war against
the whole white population of South Africa, and in its consequences
criminal, for, come what may, the Free State will honestly and
faithfully fulfil its obligations towards the Transvaal, by virtue of
the political alliance existing between the two Republics.'
On the 29th Mr. Chamberlain, more aggressive than ever, laid down
certain impossible conditions:
1. The franchise to every Uitlander after five years of residence,
unencumbered by any formalities that might restrict the privilege.
2. An absolute separation of the executive and judicial power in the
Transvaal.