THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY
A visitor in one of the laagers in Natal once spoke of a Boer burgher as a
"soldier." A Boer from the Wakkerstroom district interrupted his speech
and said there were no Boer soldiers. "If you want us to understand
concerning whom you are talking," he continued, "you must call us burghers
or farmers. Only the English have soldiers." It was so with all the Boers;
none understood the term soldier as applying to anybody except their
enemy, while many considered it an insult to be called a soldier, as it
implied, to a certain extent, that they were fighting for hire. In times
of peace the citizen of the Boer republics was called a burgher, and when
he took up arms and went to war he received no special title to
distinguish him from the man who remained at home. "My burghers," Paul
Kruger was wont to call them before the war, and when they came forth from
battle they were content when he said, "My burghers are doing well." The
Boers were proud of their citizenship, and when their country was in
danger they went forth as private citizens and not as bold warriors to
protect it.
There was a law in the two republics which made it incumbent upon all
burghers between the ages of sixteen and sixty to join a commando and to
go to war when it was necessary. There was no law, however, which
prevented a man, of whatever youthfulness or age, to assist in the defence
of his country, and in consequence the Boer commandos contained almost the
entire male population between the ages of thirteen and eighty years. In
peaceful times the Boer farmer rarely travelled away from his home unless
he was accompanied by his family, and he would have felt the pangs of
homesickness if he had not been continually surrounded by his wife and
children. When the war began it was not an easy matter for the burgher to
leave his home for an indefinite period, and in order that he might not be
lonely he took with him all his sons who were strong enough to carry
rifles. The Boer youth develops into manhood early in life in the mild
South African climate, and the boy of twelve and thirteen years is the
equal in physical development of the American or European youth of sixteen
or seventeen. He was accustomed to live on the open veld and hunting with
his elders, and, when he saw that all his former companions were going to
war, he begged for permission to accompany the commando. The Boer boy of
twelve does not wear knickerbocker trousers as the youth of like age in
many other countries, but he is clothed exactly like his father, and,
being almost as tall, his youthful appearance is not so noticeable when he
is among a large number of his countrymen. Scores of boys not more than
twelve years were in the laagers in Natal, and hundreds of less age than
the minimum prescribed by the military law were in every commando in the
country. When Ladysmith was still besieged one youth of eleven years was
conspicuous in the Standerton laager. He seemed to be a mere child, yet he
had the patriotism of ten men. He followed his father everywhere, whether
into battle or to the spring for water.
[Illustration: BATTLEFIELD OF COLENSO, DECEMBER 15, 1899
1 GENERAL LOUIS BOTHA'S COMMANDO
2 BOKSBURG COMMANDO
3 COLENSO
4 KRUGERSDORP COMMANDO
5 WAKKERSTROM COMMANDO
6 ERMELO COMMANDO
7 SWAZILAND POLICE
8 ERMELO COMMANDO
9 BRITISH CAMP, CHIEVELY
10 TUGELA RIVER]
"When my father is injured or killed, I will take his rifle," was his
excuse for being away from home. When General De Wet captured seven cannon
from the enemy at the battle of Sannaspost two of the volunteers to
operate them were boys aged respectively fourteen and fifteen years.
Pieter J. Henning, of the Potchefstroom commando, who was injured in the
battle of Scholtznek on December 11th, was less than fifteen years old,
yet his valour in battle was as conspicuous as that of any of the burghers
who took part in the engagement. Teunis H.C. Mulder, of the Pretoria
commando, celebrated his sixteenth birthday only a few days before he was
twice wounded at Ladysmith on November 9th, and Willem François Joubert, a
relative of the Commandant-General, was only fifteen years old when he was
wounded at Ladysmith on October 30th. At the battle of Koedoesrand,
fifteen-year-old Pieter de Jager, of the Bethlehem commando, was seriously
injured by a shell while he was conveying his injured father from the
field. With the army of General Cronje captured at Paardeberg were no less
than a hundred burghers who had not reached the sixteenth year, and among
those who escaped from the laager in the river-bed were two Bloemfontein
boys named Roux, aged twelve and fourteen years. At Colenso a Wakkerstroom
youth of twelve years captured three English scouts and compelled them to
march ahead of him to the commandant's tent. During one of the lulls in
the fighting at Magersfontein a burgher of fifteen years crept up to
within twenty yards of three British soldiers and shouted "Hands up!"
Thinking that there were other Boers in the vicinity the men dropped their
guns and became prisoners of the boy, who took them to General De la Rey's
tent. When the General asked the boy how he secured the prisoners the lad
replied, nonchalantly, "Oh, I surrounded them." These youths who
accompanied the commando were known as the "Penkop Regiment"--a regiment
composed of school children--and in their connection an amusing story has
been current in the Boer country ever since the war of 1881, when large
numbers of children less than fifteen years old went with their fathers to
battle. The story is that after the fight at Majuba Hill, while the peace
negotiations were in progress, Sir Evelyn Wood, the Commander of the
British forces, asked General Joubert to see the famous Penkop
Regiment. The Boer General gave an order that the regiment should be drawn
up in a line before his tent, and when this had been done General Joubert
led General Wood into the open and introduced him to the corps. Sir Evelyn
was sceptical for some time, and imagined that General Joubert was joking,
but when it was explained to him that the youths really were the
much-vaunted Penkop Regiment he advised them to return to their
school-books.
When a man has reached the age of sixty it may be assumed that he has
outlived his usefulness as a soldier; but not so with the Boer. There was
not one man, but hundreds, who had passed the Biblical threescore years
and ten but were fighting valiantly in defence of their country.
Grey-haired men who, in another country, might be expected to be found at
their homes reading the accounts of their grandsons' deeds in the war,
went out on scouting duty and scaled hills with almost as much alacrity as
the burghers only half their age. Men who could boast of being
grandfathers were innumerable, and in almost any laager there could be
seen father, sons, and grandsons, all fighting with equal vigour and
enthusiasm. Paul Kruger is seventy-five years old, but there were many of
his burghers several years older than he who went to the frontier with
their commandos and remained there for several months at a time. A
great-grandfather serving in the capacity of a private soldier, may appear
like a mythical tale, but there were several such. Old Jan van der
Westhuizen, of the Middleberg laager, was active and enthusiastic at
eighty-two years, and felt more than proud of four great-grand-children.
Piet Kruger, a relative of the President, and four years his senior, was
an active participant in every battle in which the Rustenburg commando was
engaged while it was in Natal, and he never once referred to the fact that
he fought in the 1881 war and in the attack upon Jameson's men. Four of
Kruger's sons shared the same tent and fare with him, and ten of his
grandsons were burghers in different commandos. Jan C. ven [Transcriber's
note: sic] Tander, of Boshof, exceeded the maximum of the military age
by eight years, but he was early in the field, and was seriously wounded
at the battle of Scholtznek on December 11th. General Joubert himself
was almost seventy years old but as far as physical activity was
concerned there were a score of burghers in his commando, each from five
to ten years older, who exhibited more energy in one battle than he did
during the entire Natal campaign. The hundreds of bridges and culverts
along the railway lines in the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, and
Upper Natal were guarded day and night by Boers more than sixty years
old, who had volunteered to do the work in order that younger men might
be sent to localities where their services might be more necessary.
Other old Boers and cripples attended to the commissariat arrangements
along the railways, conducted commissariat waggons, gathered forage for
the horses at the front, and arranged the thousands of details which
are necessary to the well-being and comfort of every army, however
simple its organisation.
Among the Boers were many burghers who had assisted Great Britain in her
former wars in South Africa--men who had fought under the British flag,
but were now fighting against it. Colonel Ignace Ferreira, a member of one
of the oldest Boer families, fought under Lord Wolseley in the Zulu war,
and had the Order of the Commander of the Bath conferred upon him by the
Queen. Colonel Ferreira was at the head of a commando at Mafeking. Paul
Dietzch, the military secretary of General Meyer, fought under the British
flag in the Gaika and several other native wars.
It was not only the extremely old and the extremely young who went to war;
it was a transfer of the entire population of the two Republics to the
frontiers, and no condition or position was sufficient excuse to remain
behind. The professional man of Pretoria and Johannesburg was in a laager
which was adjacent to a laager of farthest-back veld-farmers. Lawyers and
physicians, photographers and grocers, speculators and sextons, judges and
schoolmasters, schoolboys and barkeepers--all who were burghers locked
their desks and offices and journeyed to the front. Even clergymen closed
their houses of worship in the towns and remained among the commandos to
pray and preach for those who did the fighting. The members of the
Volksraads, who brought on the war by their ultimatum, were among the
first in the field, and foremost in attacking the soldiers of their enemy.
Students in European universities, who hastened home when war-clouds were
gathering, went shoulder to shoulder into battle with the backwoodsman,
the Boer takhaar. There was no pride among them; no class distinction
which prevented a farmer from speaking to a millionaire. A graduate of
Cambridge had as his boon companion for five months a farmer who thought
the earth a square, and imagined the United States to be a political
division of Australia.
[Illustration: BOERS WATCHING THE FIGHT AT DUNDEE]
The Boer who was bred in a city or town good-naturedly referred to his
country cousin as a "takhaar"--a man with grizzly beard and unkempt hair.
It was a good descriptive term, and the takhaar was not offended when it
was applied to him. The takhaar was the modern type of the old voortrekker
Boer who, almost a hundred years ago, trekked north from Cape Colony, and
after overcoming thousands of difficulties settled in the present Boer
country. He was a religious, big-hearted countryman of the kind who would
suspect a stranger until he proved himself worthy of trust. After that
period was passed the takhaar would walk the veld in order that you might
ride his horse. If he could not speak your language he would repeat a
dozen times such words as he knew, meanwhile offering to you coffee,
mutton, bread, and all the best that his laager larder afforded. He
offered to exchange a pipe-load of tobacco with you, and when that
occurred you could take it for granted that he was your friend for life.
The takhaar was the man who went to the frontiers on his own
responsibility weeks before the ultimatum was sent, and watched day and
night lest the enemy might trample a rod beyond the bounds. He was the man
who stopped Jameson, who climbed Majuba, and who fought the natives. The
takhaar was the Boer before gold brought restlessness into the country,
and he was proud of his title. The fighting ability of the takhaar is best
illustrated by repeating an incident which occurred after the battle of
Dundee when a large number of Hussars were captured. One of the Hussar
officers asked for the name of the regiment he had been fighting against.
A fun-loving Boer replied that the Boers had no regiments; that their men
were divided into three brigades--the Afrikanders, the Boers, and the
Takhaars--a distinction which carried with it but a slight difference.
"The Afrikander brigade," the Boer explained, "is fighting now. They fight
like demons. When they are killed, then the Boers take the field. The
Boers fight about twice as well and hard as the Afrikanders. As soon as
all the Boers are killed, then come the takhaars, and they would rather
fight than eat." The officer remained silent for a moment, then sighed and
said, "Well, if that is correct, then our job is bigger than I thought it
was."
The ideal Boer is a man with a bearded face and a flowing moustache, and
in order to appear idyllic almost every Boer burgher, who was not thus
favoured before war was began, engaged in the peaceful process of growing
a beard. Young men who, in times of peace, detested hirsute adornments of
the face allowed their beards and moustaches to grow, and after a month or
two it was almost impossible to find one burgher who was without a growth
of hair on his face. The wearing of a beard was almost equal to a badge of
Boer citizenship, and for the time being every Boer was a takhaar in
appearance if not in fact. The adoption of beards was not so much fancy as
it was a matter of discretion. The Boer was aware of the fact that few of
the enemy wore beards, and so it was thought quite ingenious for all
burghers to wear facial adornments of that kind in order that friend and
foe might be distinguished more readily at a distance.
Notwithstanding their ability to fight when it is necessary, it is
doubtful whether twenty per cent of the Boer burghers in the commandos
would be accepted for service in any continental or American army. The
rigid physical examinations of many of the armies would debar thousands
from becoming regular soldiers. There were men in the Boer forces who had
only one arm, some with only one leg, others with only one eye; some were
almost totally blind, while others would have felt happy if they could
have heard the reports of their rifles. Men who were suffering from
various kinds of illnesses, and who should have been in a physician's
care, were to be seen in every laager. Men who wore spectacles were
numerous, while those who suffered from diseases which debar a man from a
regular army were without number. The high percentage of men unfit for
military duty was not due to the Boer's unhealthfulness, for he is as
healthy as farmers are in other parts of the earth. Take the entire male
population of any district in Europe and America and compare the
individuals with the standard required by army rules, and the result will
not differ greatly from the result of the Boer examination. If all the
youths and old men, the sick and maimed, could have been eliminated from
the Boer forces, eighty per cent, would probably have been found to be a
low estimate of the number thus subtracted from the total force. It would
have been heartrending to many a continental or American general to see
the unmilitary appearance of the Boer burgher, and in what manner an army
of children, great-grandfathers, invalids, and blind men, with a handful
of good men to leaven it, could be of any service whatever would have been
quite beyond his conception. It was such a mixed force that a Russian
officer, who at the outset of the war entered the Transvaal to fight,
became disgusted with its unmilitary appearance and returned to his own
country.
The accoutrement of the Boer burgher was none the less incongruous than
the physical appearance of the majority of them, although no expensive
uniform and trappings could have been of more practical value. The men of
the Pretoria and Johannesburg commandos had the unique honor of going to
the war in uniforms specially made for the purpose, but there was no
regulation or law which compelled them to wear certain kinds of clothing.
When these commandos went to the frontier several days before the actual
warfare had begun they were clothed in khaki-coloured cloth of almost the
same description as that worn by the soldiers whom they intended to fight.
These two commandos were composed of town-folk who had absorbed many of
the customs and habits of the foreigners who were in the country, and they
felt that it would be more warlike if they should wear uniforms made
specially for camp and field. The old Boers of the towns and the takhaars
looked askance at the youth of Pretoria and Johannesburg in their
uniforms, and shook their heads at the innovation as smacking too much of
an anti-republican spirit.
Like Cincinnatus, the majority of the old Boers went directly from their
farms to the battlefields, and they wore the same clothing in the laagers
as they used when shearing their sheep or herding their cattle. When they
started for the frontier the Boer farmers arranged matters so that they
might be comfortable while the campaign continued. Many, it is true,
dashed away from home at the first call to arms and carried with them,
besides a rifle and bandolier, nothing but a mackintosh, blanket, and
haversack of food. The majority of them, however, were solicitous of their
future comfort and loaded themselves down with all kinds of luggage. Some
went to the frontier with the big, four-wheeled ox-waggons and in these
they conveyed cooking utensils, trunks, boxes with food and flour,
mattresses, and even stoves. The Rustenburg farmers were specially
solicitous about their comfort, and those patriotic old takhaars
practically moved their families and household furniture to the camps.
Some of the burghers took two or three horses each in order that there
might be no delay or annoyance in case of misfortune by death or accident,
and frequently a burgher could be seen who had one horse for himself,
another for his camp utensils and extra clothing, and a third and fourth
for native servants who cooked his meals and watched the horses while they
grazed.
Without his horse the Boer would be of little account as a fighting man,
and those magnificent little ponies deserve almost as much credit for such
success as attended the campaign as their riders. If some South African
does not frame a eulogy of the little beasts it will not be because they
do not deserve it. The horse was half the Centaur and quite the life of
him. Small and wiry, he was able to jog along fifty and sixty miles a day
for several days in succession, and when the occasion demanded it, he was
able to attain a rate of speed that equalled that of the ordinary South
African railway train which, however, makes no claims to lightning-like
velocity. He bore all kinds of weather, was not liable to sickness except
in one season of the year, and he was able to work two and even three days
without more than a blade of grass. He was able to thrive on the grass of
the veld, and when winter killed that product he needed but a few bundles
of forage a day to keep him in good condition. He climbed rocky
mountain-sides as readily as a buck, and never wandered from a path by
darkest night. He drank and apparently relished the murky water of
mud-pools and needed but little attention with the currycomb and brush.
He was trained to obey the slightest turn of the reins, and a slight
whistle brought him to a full stop. When his master left him and went
forward into battle the Boer pony remained in the exact position where he
was placed, and when perchance a shell or bullet ended his existence, then
the Boer paid a tribute to the value of his dead servant by refusing to
continue the fight and by beating a hasty retreat.
In the early part of the campaign in Natal the laagers were filled with
ox-waggons, and, in the absence of tents which were sadly wanted during
that season of heavy rains, they stood in great stead to the burghers. The
rear half of the waggons were tented with an arched roof, as all the
trek-waggons are, and under these shelters the burghers lived. Many of the
burghers who left their ox-waggons at home took small, light, four-wheeled
carriages, locally called spiders, or the huge two-wheelers or Cape-carts
so serviceable and common throughout the country. These were readily
transformed into tents, and made excellent sleeping accommodations by
night and transport-waggons for the luggage when the commandos moved from
one place to another. When a rapid march was contemplated all the heavy
waggons were left behind in charge of native servants with which every
burgher was provided.
It was quite in keeping with their other ideas of personal comfort for
many Boer burghers to carry a coloured parasol or an umbrella to protect
them from the rays of the sun, and it was not considered beneath their
dignity to wear a woman's shawl around their shoulders or head when the
morning air was chilly. At first sight of these unique spectacles the
stranger in the Boer country felt amused, but if he cared to smile at
every unmilitary scene he would have had little time for other things. It
was a republican army composed of republicans, and anything that smacked
of the opposite was abhorred. There were no flags or insignia of any kind
to lead the burghers on. What mottoes there were that expressed their
cause were embroidered on the bands of their slouch-hats and cut on the
stocks of their rifles. "For God and Freedom," "For Freedom, Land, and
People," and "For God, Country, and Justice," were among the sentiments
which some of the burghers carried into battle on their hats and rifles.
Others had vierkleur ribbons as bands for their hats, while many carried
on the upturned brim of their hats miniatures containing the photographs
of the Presidents.
Aside from the dangers arising from a contact with the enemy and the
heart-burns resulting from a long absence from his home, the Boer
burgher's experiences at the front were not arduous. First and foremost he
had a horse and rifle, and with these he was always more or less happy. He
had fresh meat provided to him daily, and he had native servants to
prepare and serve his meals for him. He was under no discipline whatever,
and he could be his own master at all times. He generally had his sons or
brothers with him in the same laager, and to a Boer there was always much
joy in this. He could go on picket duty and have a brush with the enemy
whenever he felt inclined to do so, or he could remain in his laager and
never have a glimpse of the enemy. Every two months he was entitled to a
ten days' leave of absence to visit his home, and at other times during
the first five months of the war, his wife and children were allowed to
visit him in his laager. If he was stationed along the northern or western
frontiers of the Transvaal he was in the game country, and he was able to
go on buck-shooting expeditions as frequently as he cared. He was not
compelled to rise at a certain hour in the morning, and he could go to bed
whenever he wished. There was no drill, no roll-calls, nor any of the
thousands of petty details which the soldiers of even the Portuguese army
are compelled to perform. As a result of a special law there was no work
on Sundays or Church-holidays unless the enemy brought it about, and then,
if he was a stickler for the observance of the Sabbath, he was not
compelled to move a muscle. The Boer burgher could eat, sleep, or fight
whenever he wished, and inasmuch as he was a law unto himself, there was
no one who could compel him to change his habits. It was an ideal
idle-man's mode of living and the foreign volunteers who had leaves of
absence from their own armies made the most of their holiday, but in that
respect they did not surpass their companion, the Boer burgher.
The most conspicuous feature of the Boer forces was the equality of the
officers and the men, and the entire absence of any assumption of
superiority by the leaders of the burghers. None of the generals or
commandants wore any uniform of a distinctive type, and it was one of the
most difficult problems to distinguish an officer from the burghers. All
the officers, from the Commandant-General down to the corporal, carried
rifles and bandoliers, and all wore the ordinary garb of a civilian, so
that there was nothing to indicate the man's military standing. The
officers associated with their men every hour of the day, and, in most
instances, were able to call the majority of them by their Christian
names. With one or two exceptions, all the generals were farmers before
the war started, and consequently they were unable to assume any great
degree of superiority over their farmer-burghers if they had wished to do
so. General Meyer pitched quoits with his men, General Botha swapped
tobacco with any one of his burghers, and General Smuts and one of his
officers held the whist championship of their laager. Rarely a burgher
touched his hat before speaking to an officer, but he invariably shook
hands with him at meeting and parting. It is a Boer custom to shake hands
with friends or strangers, and whenever a general visited a laager
adjoining his own, the hand-shaking reminded one of the President's public
reception days at Washington. When General Joubert went from camp to camp
he greeted all the burghers who came near him with a grasp of the hand,
and it was the same with all the other generals and officers. Whenever
Presidents Kruger and Steyn went to the commandos, they held out their
right hands to all the burghers who approached them, and one might have
imagined that every Boer was personally acquainted with every other one in
the republics. It was the same with strangers who visited the laagers, and
many a sore wrist testified to the Boer's republicanism. Some one called
it the "hand-shaking army," and it was a most descriptive title. Many of
the burghers could not restrain from exercising their habit, and shook
hands with British prisoners, much to the astonishment of the captured.
Another striking feature of life in the Boer laagers was the deep
religious feeling which manifested itself in a thousand different ways. It
is an easy matter for an irreligious person to scoff at men who pass
through a campaign with prayer and hymn-singing, and it is just as easy to
laugh at the man who reads his Testament at intervals of shooting at the
enemy. The Boer was a religious man always, and when he went to war he
placed as much faith in prayer and in his Testament as in his rifle. He
believed that his cause was just, and that the Lord would favour those
fighting for a righteous cause in a righteous spirit. On October 11th,
before the burghers crossed the frontier at Laing's Nek, a religious
service was conducted. Every burgher in the commandos knelt on the ground
and uttered a prayer for the success and the speedy ending of the
campaign. Hymns were sung, and for a full hour the hills, whereon almost
twenty years before many of the same burghers sang and prayed after the
victory at Majuba, were resounding with the religious and patriotic songs
of men going forward to kill and to be killed. In their laagers the Boers
had religious services at daybreak and after sunset every day, whether
they were near to the enemy or far away. At first the novelty of being
awakened early in the morning by the voices of a large commando of
burghers was not conducive to a religious feeling in the mind of the
stranger, but a short stay in the laagers caused anger to turn to
admiration. After sunset the burghers again gathered in groups around
camp-fires, and made the countryside re-echo with the sound of their deep,
bass voices united in Dutch hymns and psalms of praise and thanksgiving.
Whether they ate a big meal from a well-equipped table, or whether they
leaped from their horses to make a hasty meal of biltong and bread, they
reverently bowed their heads and asked a blessing before and after eating.
Before they went into battle they gathered around their general and were
led in prayer by the man who afterwards led them against the enemy. When
the battle was concluded, and whether the field was won or lost, prayers
were offered to the God of battles. In the reports which generals and
commandants made to the war departments, victories and defeats were
invariably ascribed to the will of God, and such phrases as "All the glory
belongs to the Lord of Hosts who led us," and "God gave us the victory,"
and "Divine favour guided our footsteps," were frequent. When one is a
stranger of the Boers and unacquainted with the simple faith which they
place in Divine guidance, these religious manifestations may appear
inopportune in warfare, but it is necessary to observe the Boer burgher in
all his various actions and emotions to know that he is sincere in his
religious beliefs and that he endeavours to be a Christian in deed as well
as in word.
The Boer army, like Cromwell's troopers, could fight as well as pray, but
in reality it was not a fighting organisation in the sense that warfare
was agreeable to the burghers. The Boer proved that he could fight when
there was a necessity for it, but to the great majority of them it was
heartrending to slay their fellow human beings. The Boer's hand was better
adapted to the stem of a pipe than to the stock of an army rifle, and he
would rather have been engaged in the former peaceful pursuit had he not
believed that it was a holy war in which he was engaged. That he was not
eager for fighting was displayed in a hundred different ways. He loved his
home more than the laagers at the front, and he took advantage of every
opportunity to return to his home and family. He lusted not for battle,
and he seldom engaged in one unless he firmly believed that success
depended partly upon his individual presence. He did not go into battle
because he had the lust of blood, for he abhorred the slaughter of men,
and it was not an extraordinary spectacle to see a Boer weeping beside the
corpse of a British soldier. On the field, after the Spion Kop battle,
where Boer guns did their greatest execution, there were scores of
bare-headed Boers who deplored the war, and amidst ejaculations of "Poor
Tommy," and "This useless slaughter," brushed away the tears that rolled
down over their brown cheeks and beards. Never a Boer was seen to exult
over a victory. They might say "That is good" when they heard of a Spion
Kop or a Magersfontein, but never a shout or any other of the ordinary
methods of expressing joy. The foreigners in the army frequently were
beside themselves with joy after victories, but the Boers looked stolidly
on and never took any part in the demonstrations.