The Colonies and the War.
One of the most striking and perhaps important historical features of
the South African crisis of 1899 was the sentiment of sympathy
expressed by other parts of the Empire and the co-operation offered, or
given, by the Colonies in the ensuing conflict. The number of men who
actually participated from Canada, or Australia, or New Zealand was not
great. But the possibilities of aid shown by the enthusiasm in
despatching the Contingents, the keen interest taken in the origin and
nature of the war, the sudden recognition of Colonial responsibilities
for the defence of the Empire, and the fresh and vivid appreciation of
the vast Imperial burdens of Great Britain, were exceedingly and
vitally important. Some three thousand men went from Canada and over
five thousand from the Australian Colonies and New Zealand. Ceylon
contributed Contingents and troops were offered by the Malay States,
Lagos, Hong Kong, the West Indies and the leading Princes of India.
When it was found that colored forces could not well be accepted the
various native Governments of India proffered money, armament and
horses; while Lumsden's Horse was raised and equipped amongst the white
population.
[Sidenote: Australians and Canadians in the Soudan]
The history of the sudden movement which resulted in the sending of
these Contingents from the Colonies is most interesting. To
participate in the defence of the Empire was not, it is true, an
absolutely new thing. In 1885 New South Wales had sent some troops
from Sydney to share in the Soudan campaign for the relief of Gordon
and they had duly received their baptism of hardship and
disappointment. They left Australian shores amid scenes of wild
enthusiasm and under the initiative of Mr. W. Bede Dalley, an eloquent
Irishman who was then Acting-Premier of New South Wales; and they were
received in a similar manner on their return. At the same time there
had been carping criticism of the action taken, a certain amount of
political discontent amongst the Radical element in the Colony had
existed, and in some measure a reaction took place after the war was
all over. There were not wanting bitter opponents of Imperial unity to
prophecy that it was the last force which would ever leave Sydney to
fight the battles of Britain. But there were other Colonies in
Australasia besides New South Wales and, even there, the little wail of
the pessimist was soon neutralized. Dalley died shortly afterwards,
though he had lived long enough to receive the blue-ribbon of political
honour--a place in the Imperial Privy Council; and to be given after
his death a commemorative tablet in St. Paul's Cathedral and a lasting
place in British history. At this time, also, Canada sent a small
force of _voyageurs_ or boatmen, under the command of
Lieutenant-Colonel F. C. Denison, to help Wolseley's troops in their
difficult expedition up the Nile. But it was neither a Government
action nor one which the public had thought much about, and it
consequently wielded little influence, although the Canadians did their
duty well and received the warm approbation of Lord Wolseley.
[Sidenote: Canadians in the Wars With the United States]
Of course, the country had fought for the Crown in days of war with the
United States, and in 1812-14 nearly every able-bodied man in the
British Provinces had stood beside the scattered line of British
regulars in defence of their hearths and homes. They were doing then
what 10,000 Cape Colonists and 5000 of the men of Natal are doing in
the present war. But it was, of course, a struggle upon Canadian soil
just as the little rebellions of 1837 in Upper and Lower Canada, the
Red River troubles of 1870, the Saskatchewan rebellion of 1886, or the
Fenian Raids of 1866, had been. So far as Canada was concerned,
therefore, no real precedent existed for the Imperialist demonstrations
of 1899. Large numbers of Indian troops--chiefly Sikhs and
Ghoorkas--had, it is true, been brought to Malta in 1878 by Lord
Beaconsfield and Europe in this way electrified by a revelation of
unexpected British military resources; while similar Contingents had
been used against Arabi in Egypt and during the expedition up the Nile.
In a naval sense too, the Australian Colonies had led the way in
contributing to the Imperial defence system of the seas by paying for
the maintenance of a British fleet on the Australasian station from
1887 onwards. But this exhausts all possible comparisons, or partial
precedents, and to those who know the Canadian sentiment of a few years
since regarding Imperial armaments and the assumption of increased
defensive responsibilities the present situation seems very striking.
[Sidenote: Change of Sentiment in the Dominion Since 1885]
I had something to do with the movement for Imperial Federation which
commenced in the Dominion in 1885, and, with many others, shared in the
missionary work done during succeeding years. It is without
hesitation, therefore, that I assert the greatest of the early
obstacles, experienced by the advocates of closer union with Great
Britain, to have been the fear of compulsory participation in wars of
all kinds and in all parts of the world with which, perhaps, Canadian
interests might have little connection and Canadian feeling no
particular sympathy. The change of sentiment since then has been very
great. It had already been shown in other ways by such official action
as the granting of a tariff preference to the Mother-Country, in 1898,
of twenty-five per cent. The war with the Boers, it should be also
remembered, was a Colonial war in which British subjects had been
attacked as they had for years been insulted and menaced and in which
the general supremacy of the Crown in an important part of the Empire
was threatened. Moreover, the liberties and equality of position asked
for by the Uitlanders in the Transvaal were of a kind which Great
Britain and Canada had a century since given to the French population
of British America with the greatest eventual success. The diplomatic
contest was, therefore, watched with continuous interest in Canada, and
local talk of volunteering for the front was only checked by a mistaken
feeling that if war came it would be but a small and insignificant
struggle.
[Sidenote: The Premier and Parliament]
But amongst military men there was a strong undercurrent of desire to
raise some kind of volunteer force for active service. In this
connection Lieutenant-Colonel S. Hughes, M.P., was particularly
enthusiastic. He introduced the subject in Parliament, on July 12th,
while negotiations were still pending between President Kruger and Mr.
Chamberlain. The result was that, despite the fact of Queensland
having already offered troops and his own expression of opinion that
five thousand men would readily volunteer in Canada, it was thought
best not to take any immediate action, and the Premier, Sir Wilfrid
Laurier, expressed the hope and belief that in view of the absolute
justice of the Uitlanders' claims, recognition would eventually be
given them and war averted. On July 31st more definite action was
taken, and the following Resolution moved in the House of Commons by
Sir Wilfrid Laurier and seconded by the Hon. G. E. Foster in the
absence, but with the approval of, Sir Charles Tupper as Leader of the
Opposition, was carried unanimously:
"That this House has viewed with regret the complications which have
arisen in the Transvaal Republic, of which Her Majesty is Suzerain,
from the refusal to accord to Her Majesty's subjects now settled in
that region an adequate participation in its Government.
"That this House has learned with still greater regret that the
condition of things there existing has resulted in intolerable
oppression and has produced great and dangerous excitement among
several classes of Her Majesty's subjects in Her South African
possessions.
"That this House, representing a people which has largely succeeded, by
the adoption of the principle of conceding equal political rights to
every portion of the population, in harmonizing estrangements and in
producing general content with the existing system of government,
desires to express its sympathy with the efforts of Her Majesty's
Imperial authorities to obtain for the subjects of Her Majesty who have
taken up their abode in the Transvaal such measure of justice and
political recognition as may be found necessary to secure them in the
full possession of equal rights and liberties."
[Sidenote: Popular Enthusiasm]
The members, after passing the motion, sprang to their feet and sang
"God Save the Queen" amid a scene of striking enthusiasm which was
duplicated a little later in the Senate. Following this expression of
feeling Colonel Hughes endeavored, upon his own responsibility, to
raise a regiment for foreign service and in doing so naturally came
into collision with the head of the Militia--Major-General E. T. H.
Hutton. The result of this enthusiastic rashness was, of course,
failure in the attempt though at the same time, he was able to afford a
distinct indication of the general feeling in favour of something being
done should war break out. Leading papers took up the subject and
favoured the sending of a force in case of necessity and, on October
2d, a few days before the war began, a large and representative meeting
of Militia officers was held in Toronto and the following Resolution
passed with unanimity and enthusiasm on motion of Lieutenant-Colonels
George T. Denison and James Mason: "That the members of the Canadian
Military Institute, feeling that it is a clear and definite duty for
all British possessions to show their willingness to contribute in the
common defence in case of need, express the hope that, in view of
impending hostilities in South Africa, the Government of Canada will
promptly offer a contingent of Canadian Militia to assist in supporting
the interests of our Empire in that country." On the following day the
Prime Minister was interviewed at Ottawa, and expressed the opinion
that it would be unconstitutional for the Militia, or a portion of it,
to be sent out of Canada without the permission of Parliament, and that
it would take some weeks to call that body together. Sir Wilfrid
Laurier declared[1] that "there is no doubt as to the attitude of the
Government on all questions that mean menace to British interests, but
in this present case our limitations are very clearly defined. And so
it is that we have not offered a Canadian Contingent to the Home
authorities." Meantime, however, the matter had been under
consideration, all the independent offers to serve from individuals or
regiments had been duly forwarded to the Colonial Office, and each had
received the stereotyped reply that while negotiations were in progress
no further troops were required.
[1] Toronto _Globe_, October 4, 1899.
[Sidenote: Forces Sent with Great Enthusiasm]
Public sentiment soon proved too strong for what might have been in
other circumstances a legitimate constitutional delay. On September
27th Sir Charles Tupper, in a speech at Halifax, offered the Government
the fullest support of the Conservative Opposition in the sending of a
Contingent, and on October 6th telegraphed the Premier to the same
effect. The British Empire League in Canada passed a Resolution
declaring that the time had come when all parts of the Queen's
dominions should share in the defence of British interests, and the St.
John _Telegraph_--a strong Liberal paper--declared on September 30th
that "Canada should not only send a force to the Transvaal, but should
maintain it in the field." The Montreal _Star_ sought and received
telegrams from the Mayor of nearly every town in the Dominion endorsing
the proposal to dispatch military assistance to fellow-subjects in
South Africa. Mr. J. W. Johnston, Mayor of Belleville, represented the
general tone of these multitudinous messages in the words: "It is felt
that the Dominion, being a partner in the Empire, should bear Imperial
responsibilities as well as share in Imperial honors and protection."
The Toronto _Globe_--the leading Ontario Liberal paper--also supported
the proposal, and soon the country from Halifax to Vancouver was
stirred as it had not been since the North-west Rebellion of
1885--perhaps as it has never been in the sense of covering the entire
Dominion.
[Sidenote: The Opposition Which Occurred]
There was, inevitably, some opposition, and it was largely voiced by
the Hon. J. Israel Tarte, Minister of Public Works in the Dominion
Government. It was not a note of disloyalty; it was simply the
expression of a lack of enthusiasm and the magnifying of constitutional
dangers or difficulties. No one in Canada expected the French
Canadians, amongst whom Mr. Tarte was a party leader, to look upon the
matter with just the same warmth of feeling as actuated English
Canadians; and very few believed that the absence of this enthusiasm
indicated any sentiment of disloyalty to the Crown or to the country.
The people of Quebec had not yet been educated up to the point of
participation in British wars and Imperial defence; they were, as a
matter of fact, in much the same position that the people of Ontario
had been in ten or fifteen years before. The influences making for
closer Empire unity could never in their case include a racial link or
evolve from a common language and literature. The most and best that
could be expected was a passive and not distinctly unfriendly
acquiescence in the new and important departure from precedent and
practice which was evidenced by the announcement, on October 12th, that
a Canadian Contingent had been accepted by the Imperial Government and
was to be dispatched to South Africa. There was no active opposition
to the proposal except from a section of the French-Canadian press
edited by Frenchmen from Paris, and from a Member of Parliament who
resigned his seat as a protest and was afterwards re-elected by
acclamation--both parties deeming it wisest to treat the matter as of
no importance. Mr. Tarte eventually fell into line with his
colleagues, but with the public announcement that he did not approve
the principle of sending troops abroad without Parliamentary sanction;
that he had obtained the Government's approval to an official statement
that this action was not to be considered as a precedent; and that he
thought the only way to adequately meet similar situations in future
was by definite and permanent arrangement with the Imperial authorities
and representation in Imperial Councils. Upon the subject as a whole
his attitude was certainly logical and loyal, but in effect it was
untimely, unpopular and unnecessary. And the continued utterances of
his paper--_La Patrie_, of Montreal--were of a nature calculated to
irritate loyal sentiment and arouse serious misapprehension amongst
French Canadians.
However, the feeling of the country generally was too fervent to permit
of this obstacle having anything more than an ephemeral and passing
influence. And any opposition which might exist amongst French
Canadians assumed an essentially passive character. Toward the end of
October an already announced pledge from an anonymous friend of Sir
Charles Tupper's to insure the life of each member of the Contingent to
the extent of $1,000, was redeemed, and on October 24th the following
message was received through the Secretary of State for the Colonies:
"Her Majesty the Queen desires to thank the people of her Dominion of
Canada for their striking manifestation of loyalty and patriotism in
their voluntary offer to send troops to co-operate with Her Majesty's
Imperial forces in maintaining her position and the rights of British
subjects in South Africa. She wishes the troops Godspeed and a safe
return." The first Contingent of one thousand men steamed down the St.
Lawrence from Quebec on October 30th, after farewell banquets to the
officers and an ovation from immense crowds in the gaily decorated
streets of the "Ancient Capital." For weeks before this date little
divisions of 50, or 100, or 125 men had been leaving their respective
local centres amidst excitement such as Canada had never witnessed
before. St. John and Halifax, on the Atlantic coast, were met by
Victoria and Vancouver, on the shores of the Pacific, in a wild
outburst of patriotic enthusiasm. Toronto and Winnipeg responded for
the centre of the Dominion, and at the Quebec "send-off" there were
delegations and individual representatives from all parts of the
country. Every village which contributed a soldier to the Contingent
also added to the wave of popular feeling by marking his departure as
an event of serious import, while Patriotic Funds of every kind were
started and well maintained throughout the country. It was, indeed, a
manifestation of the military and Imperial spirit such as Canadians had
never dreamed of seeing, and for many months the words upon every lip
were those of the popular air, "Soldiers of the Queen." To quote the
Hon. F. W. Borden, Minister of Militia and Defence, at the Quebec
Banquet on October 29th: "This was a people's movement, not that of any
Government or party; it emanated from the whole people of Canada, and
it is being endorsed by them as shown by the words and deeds of the
people at all points where the troops started from." The Earl of
Minto, as Governor-General, in bidding official farewell to the troops
on the succeeding day, expressed the same idea, and added, in words of
serious importance when coming from the Queen's Representative and
bearing indirectly upon the much-discussed question of alleged
Government hesitancy in making the first offer of military aid, that:
[Sidenote: An Act of Loyalty]
"The people of Canada had shown that they had no inclination to discuss
the quibbles of Colonial responsibility. They had unmistakably asked
that their loyal offers be made known, and rejoiced in their gracious
acceptance. In so doing surely they had opened a new chapter in the
history of our Empire. They freely made their military gift to the
Imperial cause to share the privations and dangers and glories of the
Imperial army. They had insisted on giving vent to an expression of
sentimental Imperial unity, which might perhaps hereafter prove more
binding than any written Imperial constitution."
[Illustration: THE LONDON CONTINGENT OF THE CANADIAN TRANSVAAL
REGIMENT. MAJOR D. STEWART ON THE LEFT]
[Illustration: GROUP OF OFFICERS CANADIAN TRANSVAAL CONTINGENT. PLATE
I]
[Sidenote: Canadians, Australians and British Comrades]
The principal officers of the Contingent were its Commander,
Lieut.-Colonel W. D. Otter, who had seen active service in the
North-west Rebellion, Lieut.-Colonel Lawrence Buchan, Lieut.-Colonel O.
C. C. Pelletier, Major J. C. MacDougall and Major S. J. A. Denison,
afterwards appointed to Lord Roberts' Staff. The troopship _Sardinian_
arrived at Cape Town on the the 29th of November, and the Canadians
were given a splendid reception--Sir Alfred Milner cabling Lord Minto
that: "The people here showed in unmistakable manner their appreciation
of the sympathy and help of Canada in their hour of trial." The
Regiment was at once sent up to De Aar, and later on to Belmont, the
scene of Lord Methuen's gallant fight. From here a portion of the
Canadian troops took part in a successful raid upon Sunnyside, a place
some distance away, where there was an encampment of Boers. A number
of the enemy were captured, but the incident was chiefly memorable as
the first time in history, as well as in the war itself, when Canadians
and Australians have fought side by side with British regular troops.
Meanwhile public feeling in Canada seemed to favor the sending of
further aid, and its feasibility was more than shown by the thousands
who had volunteered for the first Contingent over and above those
selected. But it was not until some of the earlier reverses of the war
took place that the offer of a second Contingent was pressed upon the
Home Government. On November 8th, however, it was declined for the
moment, and a week later Mr. Chamberlain wrote the following expressive
words to the Governor-General:
"The great enthusiasm and the general eagerness to take an active part
in the military expedition which has unfortunately been found necessary
for the maintenance of British rights and interests in South Africa
have afforded much gratification to Her Majesty's Government and the
people of this country. The desire exhibited to share in the risks and
burdens of empire has been welcomed not only as a proof of the staunch
loyalty of the Dominion and of its sympathy with the policy pursued by
Her Majesty's Government in South Africa, but also as an expression of
that growing feeling of the unity and solidarity of the Empire which
has marked the relations of the Mother Country with the Colonies during
recent years."
[Sidenote: Additional Contingents Sent]
On December 18th events in South Africa and the pressure of loyal
proffers of aid from Australia and elsewhere induced the Imperial
Government to change its mind, the Second Contingent was accepted, and
once again the call to arms resounded throughout Canada. The first
Regiment had been composed of infantry, the second was made up of
artillery and cavalry. Eventually, it was decided to send 1,220 men,
together with horses, guns and complete equipment, and they duly left
for the Cape in detachments toward the end of January and in the
beginning of February. A third force of 400 mounted men was recruited
in the latter month and sent to the seat of war fully equipped and with
all expenses paid through the personal and patriotic generosity of Lord
Strathcona and Mount Royal, the Canadian High Commissioner in London.
In addition to "Strathcona's Horse" another independent force of 125
men was offered in similar fashion by the British Columbia Provincial
Government and duly accepted at London and Ottawa, while a movement was
commenced to proffer an organized Dominion Brigade of 10,000 men, if
required. Little wonder, when such a popular spirit was shown, and
when the anxiety to enlist and the influence used to obtain a chance of
going to the front were greater than men show to obtain positions of
permanent financial value, that Lord Roberts, shortly after his
appointment to South Africa, should have cabled his expression of
belief that: "The action of Canada will always be a glorious page in
the history of the sons of the Empire. I look for great things from
the men she has sent and is sending to the front." Meantime even the
slightest opposition to the policy of aiding the Empire had died
out--in fact, its assertion would have been dangerous, or at least
unpleasant, and when Parliament met early in February the Government
announced its intention of asking a vote of two million dollars for
expenses in the despatch of the Contingents and for the payment after
their return, or to their heirs, of an addition to the ordinary wage of
the British soldier. This brief description of Canada's action during
an eventful period may be concluded by a quotation from the speech of
the Hon. G. W. Ross, Prime Minister of Ontario, at a banquet given in
Toronto on December 21st to Mr. J. G. H. Bergeron, P.M., of Montreal--a
French-Canadian who also expressed in fervent terms what he believed to
be the loyalty of his people to the British Crown. Mr. Ross declared
in emphatic and eloquent language that:
[Sidenote: "Canada and the Empire"]
"It is not for us to say that one or two Contingents should be sent to
the Transvaal, but to say to Great Britain that all our money and all
our men are at the disposal of the British Empire. It is not for us to
balance questions of Parliamentary procedure when Britain's interests
are at stake, but to respond to the call that has been sent throughout
the whole Empire and to show that in this western bulwark of the Empire
there are men as ready to stand by her as were her men at Waterloo. It
is not for us to be pessimists, but to have undying faith in British
power and steadily to maintain the integrity of her Empire. He hoped
that the present strife might soon pass, and that at its close
Canadians will feel that they have done their duty to the flag that has
protected them and under whose paternal Government they have prospered
in the past. Their motto should be 'Canada and the Empire, one and
inseparable, now and forever.'"
Throughout Australasia, from the commencement of the crisis, there was
great interest taken in the question. The press and the public
discussed its phases with ever-increasing sympathy for the British
cause and the liberties of the Uitlanders. There has always been in
recent years much good feeling between these Colonies--partly from the
development of trade, partly from Australian admiration of Cecil
Rhodes, partly from the common ties of life in a tropical or
semi-tropical climate, partly from the keen and mutual interest felt in
Gordon during his last lonely campaign in the deserts of Northern
Africa, partly from such incidents as the proffer by the Rhodes'
Ministry of financial aid to the Australian Governments during the
banking crises of 1893. The relation in sentiment and practice has, in
fact, been much closer than that between Canada and the Cape, although
the desire to help in time of need could hardly be greater. During the
earlier period of the controversy public meetings were held to discuss
its details in the various capitals of Australia and New Zealand, and
resolutions passed somewhat in the terms of the following motion,
proposed by Sir Henry Wrixon, M.L.C., seconded by the President of the
Chamber of Commerce, and accepted with enthusiasm by a great gathering
in the Melbourne Town Hall, on May 16, 1899:
"Twenty-one thousand British subjects in the Transvaal having
petitioned the Queen through the High Commissioner, Sir Alfred Milner,
to extend her protection to them, to cause an inquiry to be held into
their grievances, to secure the reform of abuses, and to obtain
substantial guarantees from the Transvaal Government and recognition of
the petitioners' rights, this meeting desires to record its sympathy
with their fellow-countrymen in the Transvaal, and hopes that Her
Majesty may be pleased to grant the prayer of her subjects."
[Sidenote: Australia's Sympathy]
With the progress of events this feeling of sympathy grew stronger, and
culminated in a wave of military and loyal enthusiasm such as few had
thought possible and none had considered probable. In July the
Governments began to consider the subject of active participation in
what seemed to be an impending struggle, and troops were offered to the
Imperial authorities in the following order: Queensland on July 11th,
Victoria on July 12th, New South Wales on July 21st, New Zealand on
September 28th, Western Australia on October 5th, Tasmania on October
9th, South Australia on October 13th. The first offers were declined,
for the time being, on the ground that it was hoped war would be
averted and that, meanwhile, it was not desirable to assume an openly
hostile attitude. The Legislature which first moved actively in the
direction of organization was that of New Zealand, and the speeches of
its leaders on September 28th indicate the general view taken by the
people themselves. The Premier, the Right Hon. R. J. Seddon, declared
that "the Colony shared the privileges of the Empire, and ought to
share its responsibilities." The Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. W.
R. Russell, supported the action of the Government strongly, and
declared that "the Colony was loyal at heart to the Imperial idea. It
was not merely the sending of a few men, for the power of England was
more than enough to cope with the trouble. He hoped the British flag
would float over South Africa, and that another empire like India would
be formed in that part of the world. The present proposal would do
more to consolidate the Empire than any speeches of politicians."
[Sidenote: A Meeting of the Colonies of Australia] Meanwhile an
agitation commenced in Australia proper for a federal, or united,
contingent, and culminated on September 28th in a meeting of the
Military Commandants of the various Colonies at Melbourne. Victoria
was represented by Major-General Sir Charles Holled-Smith, K.C.M.G.,
C.B.; New South Wales, by Major-General G. A. French, C.M.G.;
Queensland, by Major-General H. Gunter; Western Australia, by Colonel
G. H. Chippendall; Tasmania, by Colonel W. V. Legge; South Australia,
by Colonel J. Stuart. A plan was carefully evolved and submitted to
the respective Governments, but was frustrated at the last moment by
the hesitancy of the recently formed Ministry in New South Wales. Mr.
W. J. Lyne had not long since defeated the Right Hon. G. H. Reid in the
Legislature, and did not seem to know his own mind upon this new
subject; or else he was seriously afraid of a possibly hostile Labor
vote. At any rate, he refused to move in the matter until Parliament
met again, and gave reasons not dissimilar to those adduced in Canada
by Sir Wilfrid Laurier for the brief delay which afterwards occurred at
Ottawa. On October 5th it was announced that the Queensland offer of
troops, made some three months before, had been accepted, and that the
voluntary proffer of service by some seventy-five Mounted Rifles from
New South Wales, who happened to have been drilling at Aldershot, had
also been considered favorably by the War Office. On October 10th this
latter body marched through the streets of London on its way to the
front with bands playing and banners fluttering to the breeze, and amid
a reception which the city seldom accords to events of less importance
than a state visit of the Queen or the departure of an army. It was
not the little line of mounted men in the characteristic uniform of the
Australasian trooper that caused a manifestation of almost
unprecedented popular enthusiasm from the densely crowded streets of
the metropolis; it was the fact that this tiny force represented a
living loyalty in the breasts of Colonists in great countries all
around the globe. Naturally such a "send-off" had its effect in
Australia, and a week later the Melbourne _Argus_ was able to say with
patriotic enthusiasm regarding the universal desire to aid the Mother
Country that:
[Sidenote: Australia's Appreciation of England's Protection]
"The event shows to the world that the Empire, as a whole, will stand
and fall together. Nothing appears to have impressed our critics more
than the ease with which 10,000 men could be withdrawn from India and
landed at the scene of action, and the Canadian and Australian
demonstrations indicate also that there are still larger reserves
(though not so complete) to draw upon. And we in Australia know that
the feeling is reciprocal. We realize that, while we are ready to make
real sacrifices for Great Britain if she requires them, the Mother
Country would exhaust her last man and her last shilling to guard our
Austral shores from insult or injury. Saturday week will be one of the
memorable days in the history of the Empire. It will imply that
British victories in future will not be merely insular, but that the
Colonies, by sharing the perils, will earn a right to share also the
triumphs of the flag."
[Sidenote: Various Contingents Leave for Africa]
As in Canada, every little town and village and country centre
contributed its quota of enthusiasm and recruits, from end to end of
the island-continent, throughout little Tasmania and in beautiful New
Zealand. The latter Colony was the first to get its troops away, and
on October 21st they sailed from Wellington amid scenes of wild
enthusiasm and in the presence of 25,000 people. The Governor, the
Earl of Ranfurly, briefly addressed the Contingent, and, during the
Premier's speech, when he asked the significant question: "Shall our
kindred in the Transvaal be free?" there was a tremendous shout of
"yes" from thousands of throats. A few days later the Governor
received a cable from the Colonial Secretary expressing the
gratification of Her Majesty's Government at home and the appreciation
of the people generally. The Queensland troops left on October 28th
under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Ricardo, and Brisbane, for the time
being, was the home of immense masses of people and the scene of
banquets, speeches and unlimited enthusiasm. From Melbourne, Sydney,
Adelaide and Perth the various other Contingents sailed about the same
time and amid scenes such as the pen finds it hard to describe in cold
type. It was literally a wave of patriotism in which the Governors and
Premiers--Lord Brassey and Sir George Turner, of Victoria, Earl
Beauchamp and the Hon. W. J. Lyne, of New South Wales, Lord Tennyson
and the Right Hon. C. C. Kingston, of South Australia, Sir Gerard Smith
and Sir John Forrest, of Western Australia--simply represented in their
speeches the feeling of the people, and were supported in doing so by
Opposition Leaders and by every important element in their respective
Colonies; even the Labor organizations having fallen into line where,
in some cases, they had been antagonistic. The Sydney _Daily
Telegraph_ declared, in this connection that "the remarkable
demonstrations in the two great cities of Australia (Melbourne and
Sydney) on Saturday must have convinced the most callous soul of the
deep-seated hold which the idea of Empire has upon the people.... In
offering troops to Great Britain for service in South Africa the
underlying feeling is that we are part of the Empire whose supremacy in
one part of the globe is threatened." Lord Brassey, in addressing the
Victorian and Tasmanian Contingents on October 28th at Melbourne,
clearly and eloquently voiced the same sentiment:
"It was not through apprehension for the peace and security of
Australia, nor through the influence of Governors, or Ministers, or a
few men in positions of power, of wealth and responsibility. It was
under the irresistible impulse of popular feeling that the resolve was
taken to offer Her Majesty the services of her citizen soldiers
dwelling beneath the Southern Cross. On the shores of South Africa you
will wheel into line with the Canadian Contingent. All this marks an
epoch, I would rather say a turning-point, in British history. It
speaks of the firm resolve of the people of the Empire on which the sun
never sets to stand together, and in the hour of stress and strain to
rally round the old flag. It is a noble and wise resolve. It makes us
from this time forward absolutely secure against foreign aggression."
[Sidenote: The Empire a Unit]
The total force thus despatched numbered 1480 officers and men, and
included 386 from New South Wales, 258 from Queensland, 250 from
Victoria, 213 from New Zealand, 104 from South Australia and 80 from
Tasmania, besides the troop of Lancers from Aldershot. In connection
with the latter body, which, of course, was the first of the external
Colonial volunteers to arrive at Cape Town, the _Cape Times_ of
November 3d declared that they "come to us as a symbol of something
greater and deeper and more durable than any display of military power
or of patriotic ardor. Their presence represents in concrete form the
Imperial idea, never before expressed with such forcefulness and
vigor." As in Canada, Patriotic Funds were everywhere started, and
before long hundreds of thousands of dollars were subscribed for the
aid of sick and wounded or of possible widows and orphans. Incidents
of striking generosity were many. Mr. R. L. Tooth, of New South Wales,
subscribed $50,000; a South Australian gentleman gave $5,000 for the
purchase of horses; a Victorian officer gave $5,000 for the equipment
of new troops; a citizen of Sydney gave $15,000 toward sending out a
force of Bush-riders, and another contributed $25,000 for the same
purpose. By the middle of January, 1900, the various Patriotic Funds
had assumed large proportions--that of Sydney, N.S.W., being $115,000;
Brisbane and Queensland, $80,000; New Zealand, $300,000; Melbourne,
$50,000. Meantime the first reverses of the war had occurred in South
Africa, and the feelings of the people been greatly and deeply stirred
by the news. Second Contingents were at once offered by all the
Colonies, and upon this occasion the effort to combine them as one
federal body was successful.
[Sidenote: Large Funds Raised in the Colonies]
The general sentiment was well expressed by a motion of the Queensland
Legislative Assembly, on December 20th, which was proposed by the
Premier and seconded by the Leader of the Labor party. It expressed
the pride of the Colony in the splendid gallantry of the British troops
in South Africa, authorized the Government to co-operate with the other
Colonies in despatching an additional Australian force, and was carried
unanimously amidst great cheering. At first it was proposed that a
thousand men should go from the combined Colonies; then it was found
that each Colony was anxious to send more than was thus provided for;
and eventually 1,700 men were despatched by the middle of January, of
whom New South Wales alone contributed seven hundred. But this was not
all. Continued preparations were made for the despatch of more troops.
On January 11th the Premier of Queensland telegraphed to Mr. Lyne, at
Sydney, suggesting that the second Contingent should be increased so as
to ultimately form a body of 5,000 men. To this the New South Wales
Premier agreed, but pointed out at the same time that his Colony was
already increasing its contribution to 840 men, besides 500 Bush-riders
who were being sent by private subscription, and that many more were
being drilled for service. Mr. McLean, of Victoria, replied to a
similar telegram that: "I do not think that the number of our
Contingent should be limited. We will send men as rapidly as they are
trained and equipped." In saying farewell to the second New Zealand
Contingent of 242 officers and men, on January 20th, the Premier of
that Colony declared that another would follow, and that "if occasion
arose every man who could bear arms in the Colony would volunteer; as
in helping the Empire in South Africa they were securing New Zealand
and upholding the Queen, the country and the constitution." By the
middle of February 1,000 Bush-riders were also trained and equipped and
almost ready to embark as a special Contingent from Queensland,
Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales.
[Sidenote: Cause for Demonstrations of Loyalty]
And so these revelations of patriotic feeling and Imperial unity have
gone on in increasing volume from day to day. To theorists like
Goldwin Smith, political economists like Mr. James Bryce, or
philosophical politicians such as Mr. John Morley, such demonstrations
of loyalty are incomprehensible. To the man who really understands the
history of the Empire and the evolution of its system, who reaches down
into the hearts of the people and comprehends the undercurrents of
sentiment, it is not so difficult to grasp the reasons. Speaking of
Australasia more particularly, Dr. W. H. Fitchett, the well-known
editor of the _Australasian Review of Reviews_, recently summed up a
part of the situation very concisely: "Why," he said, "have the
Colonies stood by the side of England? For Jingoism? Don't you
believe the men who tell you that. Our people are too hard-headed and
too businesslike to be carried away by mere Jingoism. They come
because they know that the Transvaal question is a Colonial question, a
question that intimately concerns all of them. To-day these little
settlements of white men, planted down on the coastline of great
continents, are able to remain secure, notwithstanding the earth-hunger
of every great Power, because the might of the Empire is behind them."
This, in part, is the reason. But there is more at the back of it than
the mere principle of self-interest. A liberty common to all the
Colonies has been threatened, a new-grown pride in the Empire was
struck at, a feeling of manly aversion to further dependence was
touched, an inherent but sometimes dormant love for the Mother Land was
aroused.
[Sidenote: Other Colonies Eager to Assist]
Nor have these manifestations of affectionate allegiance to the Crown
and the flag been limited to Australia and New Zealand and Canada.
Back on the 17th of July the Malay States volunteered a body of troops;
on the succeeding day the Lagos Settlements did the same; on the 21st
of September Hong-Kong joined in the proffer of help; later on Ceylon
offered a Contingent, and toward the end of January 130 officers and
men, completely armed and equipped, sailed from there for the Cape. As
already stated, however, it was not deemed well to use colored
soldiers, so that the loyalty of the first-named Colonies was not
utilized. Englishmen in India were keen to go to the front, and from
every rank of life and labor came the offer to serve. Finally, in
January, a mounted corps was accepted with Colonel Lumsden in command.
Not only did men in large numbers volunteer, but money in immense sums
was proffered. As native troops could not be accepted, the native
rulers, Princes and great merchants did the next best thing. They all
offered cavalry horses, money or guns. The Nizam of Haidarabad, on
December 28th, at a Vice-regal banquet in Calcutta, told Lord Curzon
that "his purse, his army and his own sword were ever ready to defend
Her Majesty's Empire." The Maharajah of Gwalior asked to be allowed to
serve on Lord Roberts' staff, and offered to send troops, horses and
transport to South Africa. The Maharajahs of Mysore and Jodpore joined
in the latter part of his request. The Maharajah of Kuch Behar wrote a
stirring letter to the Calcutta _Englishman_ proposing the enrollment
of the Indian Princes and their sons in a sort of "Empire army," and,
at the same rime, he contributed 350 guineas to the Indian Patriotic
Fund which, on January 14th, amounted to $100,000. Amongst other
contributors the Maharajah of Tagore had given 5,000 rupees.
[Sidenote: Natal Forces]
Meanwhile what of the South African Colonies? Seldom in history has
there been such a spontaneous response to the call to arms as in Natal
and Cape Colony; never has there been a more fervent belief in the
righteousness of their cause than amongst the first and greatest
sufferers from the inevitable agonies of war. The fleeing Uitlanders,
almost to a man, volunteered; and by the middle of January little
Natal, with its English population of about 40,000, had the following
list of troops in active service:
Natal Naval Volunteers . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Natal Carbineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Natal Mounted Rifles . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Border Mounted Rifles . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Umvoti Mounted Rifles . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Natal Field Battery . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Natal Royal Rifles . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Durban Light Infantry . . . . . . . . . . . 400
Medical Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Veterinary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Natal Mounted Police (Europeans) . . . . . . 649
Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry . . . . . . 500
Bethune's Mounted Infantry . . . . . . . . . 500
Imperial Light Infantry . . . . . . . . . . 1,000
Imperial Light Horse . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Colonial Scouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Ambulance Bearers (1st Section) . . . . . . 1,000
Ambulance Bearers (2d Section) . . . . . . . 600
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7,139
[Sidenote: Cape Colony Forces]
Cape Colony, with its larger population, had, however, greater local
dangers to face from possible rebels, and men were anxious to organize
for local defence as well as for service at the front. But at the same
date as the above figures are given for Natal the mother Colony had ten
thousand men at the disposal of the General commanding the forces.
They included the Kaffrarian Rifles, with 600 men; the Queenstown
Rifles, 200 men; the Port Elizabeth Guards, 520 men; the Grahamstown
Rifles, 310 men; the Cape Town Volunteers, 3,000 men; the Kimberley
Volunteers, 200 men; and the Protectorate Regiment, 800 men. Of
Mounted Infantry there were the Cape Mounted Rifles, 800 men; Brabant's
Horse, 800 men; Cape Police, 600 men; Kaffrarian Mounted Infantry, 100
men; Frontier Mounted Rifles, 200 men; Diamond Fields' Horse, 400 men;
Mafeking Mounted Infantry, 500 men; South African Light Horse, 800 men;
Grahamstown Horse, 120 men; Rimington's Scouts, 350 men.
[Sidenote: Future of the Colonies]
Such was the remarkable military development, in a Colonial sense,
which has arisen out of the Transvaal trouble of 1899 and the ensuing
war. Its result is in the womb of the future, but there can be little
doubt as to the important effect which the evidences of loyalty and
unity thus produced must have, not only upon the constitution of the
Empire, but upon its _prestige_ and practical power. The day, indeed,
is not far distant when the Colonies will have their full share in the
Councils as well as in the defence of British dominions. The voice of
Canada in the control of matters affecting the British West Indies and
Newfoundland and Alaska, or other American interests touching the
Empire, will be then as fully understood by foreign nations to be a
great and permanent factor as will be that of Australasia in matters
connected with the Indian Empire, the New Caledonia question, or the
islands of the Pacific generally. A new and greater power in the
world's history is, in fact, being born amid the throes of South
African warfare, and the incoming century must witness developments in
this connection even more marvellous than those of the one which is
passing.
PART II.
OF VOL. I.
TROUBLE BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN
AND THE BOERS
INCLUDING THE WAR OF 1899-1900
BY
MURAT HALSTEAD
[Illustration: GENERAL SIR REDVERS BULLER, C.B. (From Photo, Charles
Knight, Aldershot). MAJOR GEN'L SIR W. S. SYMONDS (From Photo, Cowell,
Simla)]
[Illustration: BOERS HELIOGRAPHING ON THE NATAL FRONTIER]
INTRODUCTION
[Sidenote: The Origin of the Recent War]
The origin of the war breaking out in the later months of the last year
of the nineteenth century between the Boers and the British may be
traced to the famous defeat of the latter at Majuba Hill in 1881, the
influence of which was intensified by the failure of the Jameson Raid,
that had a good cause, but was irresponsible and disorderly. The Boers
were entirely persuaded by these incidental successes of their army
that they could always get the better of those they called intruders
into their own country, which they had made a long journey to find and
shed a great deal of blood of the natives to conquer. Their preference
in the two pilgrimages away from the Cape country was to become
herdsmen, raising cattle, shooting game, farming in a rude way, and
enjoying the right to which they attached great importance to hold
property in man. The first chief objection they had to the English,
who superseded the Dutch at the Cape, was that they had prejudices
against human servitude, and the slaveholders were sensitive as to
interference with their high privileges and thought themselves greatly
aggrieved that their scriptural institution was disapproved. It is
true the Boers established a civilization immensely superior to
barbarism of the natives, but they indulged all the passions of
slaveholders, and were but little advanced in civilization. Something
akin to semi-barbarism seemed the normal condition of Africa for
countless centuries, and the light dawned gradually in South Africa
from the occupancy of territory by the Dutch, the Portuguese and the
English successively, and it may be fairly said that broad daylight
came with the English, who in the lower regions of the Dark Continent
were the stronger and the more persevering antagonists of barbarous
peoples and made the greatest advancements to civilization. It was the
nerveless policy of dealing with South Africans following the British
defeat at Majuba Hill that produced in the Boers contempt for English
military capacity and the personal courage of English speaking people,
and led them to enter upon the policy of restriction of English
speaking immigrants that appeared in great numbers after the
discoveries of diamond mines and gold mines, assuming indeed that new
comers had no rights, civil or military, as citizens or squatters, that
the Boers were bound to respect. [Sidenote: Boers' Policy Against
Immigrants] So distinct was the impression the Boers made of their
exclusive policy to govern the immense territory upon which they had
settled for the purpose of raising cattle and ruling the natives, that
the circulars sent abroad in the United States by the enemies of
England to form public opinion favorable to the presumption of the
Boers, presented the specific complaint urged on behalf of the
Transvaal people and government that the British would not cease to be
subjects of their "Empire," and must not be allowed a share in local
government, because in the gold country they were three times as
numerous as the Boers themselves. It seems reasonable to say the
English had as good a right to improve upon the Transvaal methods of
aiding the good works of progressive humanity beyond the Boer
limitations as the Boers had to take grazing land and game and forests
from the original savages. The Boers made war upon the savagry and
therefore upon the natives and were intolerant in the extreme in their
exactions. There were between the original African tribes and their
earliest invaders many wars and constant rumors of wars, and bloodshed
frequently and profusely. When the diamond and gold mines that
interested the whole world were discovered, it was as righteous to work
them as it was for the Boers to open farms where there had been only
hunting grounds. The great cause of South African advancement demanded
British organization then just as it had required Boer enterprise in
the beginning.
[Sidenote: The Centre of the Diamond Mine Country]
It should be well understood for the location of influential events
that the city of Kimberley is the center of the diamond mine country.
The Boers do not seem to have had the spirit of adventure, the breadth
of understanding and the executive faculty to interest themselves
largely in the development of the unparalleled riches found under their
feet. They parted with the farms containing gold in such quantity that
they are believed to be the Ophir Land of Solomon, of which the Bible
contains a specific and most interesting account, and they, disgusted
with the discovery of this wealth, that they had the shrewdness to see
threatened their supremacy, were resentful toward the immigrants--the
gold and diamond seekers that poured into the Transvaal impetuously, as
the Americans crossed the deserts and the mountains to possess
California fifty years before.
[Sidenote: Characteristics of the Boers]
The Boers are people whose hardihood, bravery, manliness, high spirit,
marksmanship with the rifle, attachment to the soil, and content as
farmers, fortified with solemn appreciation of religious duty, compel
respect, but they are at fault in their attitude of determined
obstruction of progress in the Dark Continent that is chiefly committed
to the English. They interfere not merely with the people who have
found and worked the most productive mines of diamonds and gold ever
known, they have held those who have done in Africa what the Americans
did in their acquisitiveness in Mexico in contempt, and in the name of
a "free republic" have been apostles of class and personal tyranny and
ruthless in regard to the rights of those who have enriched their
country and the world with their adventurous industry--with their
organization of prospecting, engineering machinery, chemistry,
transportation and mastery of the elements and forces that have in
great and good works in Europe and America crowded a millennium into
the nineteenth century.
It is easy to assert that as people cannot eat precious stones and
metals, the things that are most beautiful and costly are less useful
than corn and potatoes, and yet the human race for several thousand
years has attached importance to the sands and rocks that have yielded
diamonds in Golconda and Brazil and gold in California and Australia;
and it is a record and tradition that the gold of California gave the
nations of the earth "Californian good times," a phrase that was
historical and an inspiration, and significant of the prosperity of the
people of the generation that had its enjoyment. The diamond cannot be
converted into food save by exchange, for the dust of the ground stone
is rather imperishable than palatable and nourishing, but it is "a
thing of beauty" that is "a joy forever;" and even if the prejudices of
the Boers were inflamed against the most beautiful and enduring forms
of value, that should not commend them as heroes of civilization; and
it does not prove their Republicanism to refuse the rights of
self-government to a people certainly among the most enlightened on the
earth because they are in the majority in the great and flourishing
communities, where they founded splendid cities, opened railroads and
established a commerce additional to the world's wealth of more than
one hundred millions of dollars a year. Whatever may be said to the
contrary, these achievements should command the respect of all nations
and peoples.
[Sidenote: Antagonism to English Rule]
The English speaking inhabitants of the gold and diamond country of
Africa are treated as hostiles by the Boers who were the first settlers
and slaughtered the natives, and the English are held out of favor
because they are so numerous and prosperous, and, it may be added, so
superior in their intelligence and elevated in their purposes and
resolute in their determinations, that the Boers must keep them
disarmed and deny them the ballot and all consideration in local
affairs. The English offense is that they have made the country
flourish, have built cities in deserts, spanned rivers and penetrated
mountains with roads of steel. These improvements may be bad for the
peculiar civilization and hardy endowments of the Boers, but do not
seem to vindicate the belligerent rancher in his ferocious antagonism
to those who are leading in their day and generation those affairs that
are working out the betterment of the race of man. There are
boundaries that must be removed for the broad benefits of the general
welfare of mankind that the forces of the age may overcome the most
stubborn resistance to the triumphant processes by which civilization
spreads abroad and acquires stability.
It is the semi-barbarous theory that gold and diamond hunters are
offenders against liberty, that it is the holy duty of the Boers as
cattle drivers and stalkers of game, to reduce intrusive English
speaking people to a subordination down to the level of the native
tribes, so that they may not become masters over the aristocracy of the
African cowboys. What better title is there anywhere for
self-government than a people in the majority? This is most obvious
where racial questions arise, and there is more and more declared the
rights of men under the sanction and rule of the majority to govern
themselves. A higher civilization, greater property and educational
qualifications and the output of "wealth beyond the dreams of avarice,"
are incidental to and co-operate with majority government in South
Africa. But all this on behalf of Boerdom is denied.
The English have possessed a great quantity of land in Africa, and they
are justified by the establishment of comparative peace under stable
form of government, by the increase of prosperity of the people,
irrespective of race or previous condition of servitude or of shades of
color. The ancient despotism at the Cape which was a prohibition of
progress, for it was the tyranny of an absolute monopoly, has been
swept away; and there has been growth in human liberty as well as
augmentation of wealth and comfort, and there is white light on the
dismal shores of the Dark Continent.
[Sidenote: English Government in South Africa]
It has been the English policy to form a federation of colonies
pressing by steady and encouraged advancement of the sovereign rights
of intelligent people, forming states in South Africa. The objection
to this first urged is that the British have insisted upon the flag of
the Empire over the movement. That flag has not prevented the
wonderful growth of Australia, for that world newly risen from the seas
has become of imperial proportions. Under that flag in this new world
are more remarkable experiments undertaken, testing the theories of
municipal socialism and industrial unity than in any other part of the
globe. Under the same flag the population of India has doubled. The
inference is that it would not blast the bloom of Africa.
The racial complications on South Africa demand for the greatest good
of the people at large (and we include in that phrase the greatest
number of people) that the best form the rule of the land can take is
that of British supremacy--this positively for an indefinite period of
transition. It has been the British policy to set apart for natives a
vast tract of good land, and that would seem to be better and more
human than to devote them to extermination, unless they themselves
insist upon exterminating others. In Natal over 500 miles of railroads
have been constructed. These roads connect with harbors at Cape Town
and Durban. The improvement of the country has turned out to the
advantage of the military operations of the British. Good roads are a
great help to a people, but, it must be admitted, they do favor the
rapid movement of masses of armed men in these days as they did in
those of the Romans.
[Sidenote: A Few Telling Statistics]
Consider the simple statistics of the productions of the territory
contested between the British and the Boers. The yield of the diamond
mines in 1897 was valued at $21,676,776, and the gold of the White
Water range region in 1899, if the output continued as in September,
was closely estimated at $76,647,375, putting that territory at the
head of the gold producing regions of the world. With order, security
for industry and its varied fruits, fair play for men of all races, the
gold yield by the Transvaal would speedily equal one hundred millions
annually. It is the result of an investigation by the use of the
drills and the chemistry of experts that there is a certainty in the
soil of an amount of gold equal to 3,500 millions of dollars, and
probably a great deal more; and this addition to the metal that is the
world's standard of value in the greater commercial and military
transactions would, according to the logic of all examples in history,
be a guarantee of good times for those identified with all the
productive industries in the shops and on the farms. The yield of
diamonds will be equal to the demands of trade, whatever it is. The
store of them in the soil about Kimberley seems to be inexhaustible.
It is these tremendous endowments of nature in the heart of South
Africa that caused the immigration there, and has aroused the cupidity
and excited the ambition of the Boers, causing them to array themselves
against the growth of communities whose importance has been increasing
so fast as to threaten the rule of the caste that has held the
Transvaal with an iron hand.
[Sidenote: A Plea Unworthy of Consideration]
The very plea of the Boers that the English speaking people are too
numerous to trust with the right of suffrage and too rich to be allowed
a share of self-government, and that the discovery and developments of
mines of gold and diamonds, the most concentrated and attractive forms
of the wealth of Nature, is unworthy not only of deference but of
consideration. It is opposed to the spirit and substance of the
surprising realizations of the century that have made it the most
memorable epoch in the history of man in the appropriation of the
resources of the earth he inherits. Never until now has mankind had
the labor and capital, the courage, the machinery, the intelligence, or
the tools provided by marvelous inventions--the conquering capacity to
give the gigantic continent of Africa--nearly 12,000,000 square
miles--into the hands of the people who need room for industry, thus
making an addition to the good land available for the lucrative
employment of countless millions through the coming ages.
[Sidenote: A Magnificent Project]
There is one people, and one only on earth, that has the ability and
the purpose, the will and the force, the experience and the energy to
make this gift to mankind, and that power is the British Empire.
Whatever the resources or the ambition or the faculties of other great
nations, none with the exception of Great Britain is so situated as to
make it possible to do this. British influence and territory, from the
Cape of Good Hope to the mouth of the Nile, are interrupted by a space
less than 600 miles, and 480 miles of that are navigable water! The
British have thousands of miles of railroad there now, and the work to
pierce Africa with lines of steel, on the lines of longitude, is under
way. Less than the cost of the war caused by the obstruction of
English enterprise in Africa by the boorishness of the Boers would have
completed a safe and magnificent highway from Cape Town to Alexandria.
After all, war will not stop, but will promote that project. The study
of the war history will so advertise the marvels of Africa that the
money will be found to build the road and its branches from the
Mediterranean to the South Sea, and that speedily; and this will be
recorded as one of the mightiest works of man--one that profoundly
interests all nations and all races.
[Sidenote: England cannot Give up Africa]
England cannot afford to give up Egypt or South Africa, and, of course,
will not do it, for there she fights for India, and for every form and
feature of her imperialism. The world could not afford to have her
give up Africa. If she was weak enough to be willing to do it, that
weakness would mark her decline and declare her fall. The British
Empire is the chosen instrument of Providence that rough-hews the ends
of the earth, and that includes the conquest of Africa, for the sake of
mankind. That Empire is the only one that has the enabling equipment
to do the work, and the advancement will be the achievement of one of
the proudest and most beneficent of all victories of men for man.
A great deal of the journalism of the world is wickedly and wretchedly
wrong and extremely misleading in its treatment of this superb and
lofty theme. The Boers have been cruelly deceived by interludes of
feebleness displayed in the government of England, permitting a halting
interference with the perpetuation of the policy that has made the
British Empire what it is. It was this unfaithfulness that sacrificed
Gordon at Khartoum. It is the same sort of moral malady, a choice of
that which is inadequate, that would have surrendered the Philippines
to an impostor and prevented the expansion of American commerce in Asia.
The Boers are men of strength and generously sustained with many
virtues, but they have had the misfortune to be trained in narrow ways
and are forced by deplorable circumstances of environment to fight for
a cause without hope, for it is one that is against the courses of the
stars and the irresistible currents of the forward movements of our
generation--against the mastery of the world by man for man's own sake.
This awful war is the bitter fruit of a want of candor among the
nations and the races that have enlightenment, and of the incapacity of
the obstructionists in South Africa to resist the blandishments of the
crude vanity and the criminality of the tyranny that is based upon the
ignorance whose violent presumption sheds the blood of heroes, but may
not change the majestic progress of the twentieth century, in which all
the living nations and vital people, the Boers and the British, shall
participate--for it is duty and destiny.
[Sidenote: Opinions of the Canadians]
The substantial unanimity of the Colonial people in the support of the
British Empire in asserting the rights of British civilization in South
Africa as imperative, is an impressive circumstance and shows the
solidity of the people of English speech--when the intense advocacy of
the independent nationality of Ireland is eliminated--in support of the
African policy of the British government. In the Dominion the
contention between the party of the Administration and that of the
Opposition is whether the one or the other has been the more zealous
and practical friends of the Empire. There is not as much diversity of
opinion and heat of political friction in British Africa over the
continuance of the colonial system, supplemented by conquest, if
needful, in the African crisis of the Empire, as there is in the United
States in applying to the Philippine Archipelago, the great principles
of the fathers that the Republic shall grow continuously as the
generations come and go. The people of the United States, however, can
better afford to refrain from accepting the goods the gods have
provided for them in Asiatic waters and for the expansion and
cultivation of our commerce with Asia and the increase of our puissance
on the Pacific--than England can to be balked, beaten and discredited
in Africa, which is the land of the great hereafter of Europeans, next
to Europe itself.
The people of the United States can put aside their sublime opportunity
of gaining at a stroke advantages on the greater ocean of the globe,
that any other people would consider it irrational and suicidal to
abandon, and yet go on, though it would be a collapse of ambition for
Americans to acquiesce in conservative stagnation instead of moving on
ever westward. They have possessions on and in the Pacific, including
the states of California, Oregon and Washington, the territory of
Alaska and the Aleutian, Hawaiian and Philippine Islands, greater than
any other people. Why should they be bounded in enterprise in the way
all the stars have led, any more than eastward whence comes the light
of day? England can no more consent to give up Africa than yield
India, Egypt, Malta, Gibraltar, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle
of Wight. Indeed the greater growth of England's hereafter is in
Africa, or the end of her greatness and the grave of her glory is there.
MURAT HALSTEAD.
CHAPTER I.
The Battle of Majuba Hill.
[Sidenote: Lord Rosebery's Reflections]
The Earl of Rosebery, under date of October 11, 1899, wrote
that he could speak "without touching politics, for a
situation had been created beyond party polemics, and it was
needless to discuss how we could best have attained our simple
and reasonable object of rescuing our fellow-countrymen in the
Transvaal from intolerable conditions of
subjection and injustice, and of securing equal rights
for the white races in South Africa, for an ultimatum
has been addressed to Great Britain by the South African
Republic which is in itself a declaration of war."
Lord Rosebery continued that the people would close their
ranks and relegate party controversy to a more convenient season,
and there was in addition this to say: "Without attempting to
judge the policy which concluded a peace after the reverse at Majuba
Hill, I am bound to state my profound conviction that there is no
conceivable Government in this country which could repeat it."
In a speech at Bath, unveiling the mural tablets to the Earl of
Chatham and William Pitt, Mr. Gladstone's brilliant lieutenant and
successor said of the Boer ultimatum, it was such as, he thought,
the proudest empire in the world would have hesitated about
sending. But since the commencement of the war the Boers had
engaged in the strange policy of issuing decrees of annexation of
British territory, which were, apparently, desirable additions to the
Republic of the Transvaal.
[Sidenote: Lord Rosebery's Speech at Bath]
There had been a great misunderstanding about the Majuba
Hill transaction. It was a mere skirmish, and concurrently with
that there was an attempt on the part of the then Government to
settle peaceably the issue in the Transvaal. Now, whatever they
might think of the result of that attempt, the thing in itself was a
sublime experiment. Mr. Gladstone, with his overpowering
conviction of the might and power of England, thought that she could
do things which other nations could not do, and, therefore,
endeavored to treat with the Boers after the reverse which took place.
We knew how Mr. Gladstone's magnanimity was rewarded. He
(Lord Rosebery) felt a deep misgiving at the
time in respect to this course of policy, and
his fears had been realized in the result. The
Boers had regarded that magnanimity as a proof of weakness,
and they rewarded Mr. Gladstone's magnanimity with a deliberate
and constant encroachment on the terms of the settlement. Then
there came the discovery of gold. If they might judge from all
that they had read, the income secured by the discovery of gold
produced great corruption in the Transvaal. The bill of
salaries--public salaries in the Transvaal--amounted, on a calculation, to
about £40 a head of the population, and it could not but be
considered that that was a liberal allowance for the working of so
simple a republican Government. The Jameson raid was not
merely a deplorable incident from a diplomatic point of view, but
it was also the symptom of a deplorable state of things. They might
be quite certain that no English gentleman would have engaged
in what might be called a filibustering raid had it not been for the
strong cry of distress that proceeded from within the Transvaal.
But it was unfortunate from many points of view. In the
first place, it gave the Transvaal Government very much the best of
the argument. They had then a great grievance to complain of, and
we in those circumstances could not urge those grievances of which
our subjects had to complain. In the meantime, almost all the
taxation of the country was drawn from our fellow-countrymen--the
very people who were not subjects of the Transvaal. Our
fellow-subjects combined in vain for the most elementary form of
education. They were losing face, so to speak, in the eyes of the
natives and of the world at large. And the most important
element of all was beginning to attract attention--which was that
with the money derived from the gold the Transvaal Government
was gradually piling up a great military power, armed to the teeth.
That was a standing menace to to our dominion. If it had
continued we should have had to consider whether we who rule so
many nations were to become a subject nation in our turn in South
Africa; and had we become a subject nation, or remained even in
the position in which we were, it was scarcely possible to doubt
that we should have lost South Africa itself.
[Sidenote: The Sting of Majuba Hill]
Nothing has happened showing more distinctly than Lord
Rosebery's utterance, the sting that has rankled
in England of the unfortunate campaign that
closed in the surrender at Majuba Hill; and
the history of that event, with the influential circumstances
before and after, has been obscured rather than cleared by the
strenuous spirit of controversy on both sides. Every point is
contested except the defeat of the British. The Boers claim that 120
of their riflemen assailed the British soldiers and made prisoners
of them, though they were 600 strong. The British version is that
they were caught in an untenable position and overwhelming forces,
outnumbering them four to one, were their assailants. There is
bitter feeling in the British Army on the relative responsibilities of
disaster, and the reinforcements sent from England, arriving at Cape
Town soon after the battle were in a desperate state of
dissatisfaction with the peacemaking that followed, and felt themselves
not only aggrieved but insulted.
[Sidenote: The Gordon Highlanders at Majuba Hill]
A despatch from Bombay about
the embarkation to take part in the present Boer and British war
of the Gordon Highlanders, contained the following: "The stern,
grim Highlanders were curiously quiet. Every Englishman who
saw them knew the reason. The Gordons are one of the finest
regiments in the army. They have a splendid fighting record. But
in the last Boer war a strong detachment of the Second Battery
broke and turned on the bloody hill of Majuba. It was an
inexplicable occurrence, for the men were bronzed veterans who had just
fought their way through Afghanistan and made the famous march
with Lord Roberts from Kabul to Kandahar. The regiment has
brooded over the stain for nineteen years. No man has ever dared
to mention Majuba before a Gordon Highlander.
Everyone who saw them embark this morning
knew what their rigid faces portended. Their
chance had come. This time there would be no mistake.
Highlanders have long memories and the 'Gay Gordons' are
in the mood to allow themselves to be hewn to pieces rather
than take a single step backward before the Boers or any
other foe."
[Sidenote: An Eyewitness About Majuba Hill]
John Boyd of Galt, who was of the Gordon Highlanders
Regiment for 21 years, regards this as a "foul aspersion." He says
of his old regiment:
"Its reputation can dispense with both personality and
egotism. Its deeds speak for themselves, and at Majuba Hill the
bonnie Gordons upheld their honor and glory. I was there, and I
know that I speak truth. As distinctly as if the events took place
yesterday, I remember all that occurred on that awful night, when
121 Gordon Highlanders braved thousands of enemies in ambush.
I am not exaggerating. Hundreds of Boers were concealed on the
hill, while 2000 lay hidden across the nek, and pitted against such
overwhelming odds were 100 Highlanders, and barely 300 other
troops.
"And the writer of that London dispatch says that we
'broke and turned'; that, in short, we retreated. Let me tell you
that of the 121 Gordons, 60 were killed or wounded, and 27 were
taken prisoners. And these men who fought against fate, yet
who--I solemnly declare--stood their ground to the last, are accused
of showing the white feather. Dead men tell no tales, nor can
they defend themselves from such calumnies. But how, I ask,
could they play the craven when one-half were stark and stiff,
dying, as they had lived, for their country? And of the handful
who escaped the Boers and their bullets all
were on the hill when morning broke. I was
one, with a wounded comrade at my side.
"I am not in the habit of talking of what I have or have not
done, nor do I proclaim from the housetops the Gordons' enviable
past. But I was with them at Majuba Hill; in spirit I am with
them now; and the man who says that the Ninety-second ever
disgraced its colors or its Queen, does the regiment a grievous
wrong, and himself a greater one."
The claims of Great Britain to sovereignty in the Orange
Free State were withdrawn in 1854, and this seemed to give
additional force to the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877, and that,
it must be admitted, was in a sense a mistake, because it was done
under the impression that the Boers really desired it. That was
evidently an error when the time came for the fulfillment of the
policy, but what amount of demagogy occurred in the meantime to
change the sentiments of the ruling class of the Transvaal is a
matter of doubt; and there are other difficulties that do not
necessarily enter into the consideration of the subject.
[Sidenote: Proclamation of President Steyn]
The proclamation of President Steyn of the Orange Free
State entering unreservedly into an alliance, defensive and offensive,
with the Transvaal Boers, states with vehemence the principles
contended for and the attitude assumed in antagonism with the
British during the present conflict. President
Steyn said that the Orange Free State was
bound "with the sister republic not only by
ties of blood, of sympathy and of common interests, but also
by formal treaty, which has been necessitated by circumstances.
This treaty demands of us that we assist her if she should be
unjustly attacked, which we unfortunately for a long time have had
too much reason to expect;" and President Steyn added:
[Sidenote: What the Proclamation Charges]
"Our own unfortunate experiences in the past have also made
it sufficiently clear to us that we cannot rely on the most solemn
promises and agreements of Great Britain when she has at her
helm a Government prepared to trample on treaties, to look for
feigned pretext for every violation of good faith by her committed.
This is proved among other things by the unjust and unlawful
British intervention after we had overcome an armed and barbarous
black tribe on our eastern frontier, as also by the forcible appropriation
of the dominion over part of our territory where the discovery
of diamonds had caused the desire for this appropriation, although
contrary to existing treaties. The desire and
intention to trample on our rights as an
independent and sovereign nation, notwithstanding
a solemn convention existing between this State and Great
Britain, have also been more than once and are now again
shown by the present Government by giving expressions in public
documents to an unfounded claim of paramountcy over the whole
of South Africa, and therefore also over this State."
[Illustration: ADVANCE OF THE GORDONS AGAINST THE BOERS AT ELANDSLAAGTE,
OCTOBER 21, 1899.
THE BATTLE OF ELANDSLAAGTE--THE DEVONS, MANCHESTERS AND GORDONS
CHARGING BOER GUNS]
[Illustration: A COLUMN OF THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE
MARCHING TO MAFEKING.
THE ILL-FATED TENTH MULE BATTERY CAPTURED BY THE BOERS
(From Photo by H. Johnstone)]
The Orange proclamation charges that it is the discovery of
gold mines in the country that causes the claims made upon the
Republic, and adds:
"The consequence of these claims would be, moreover, that
the greater part of the power will be placed in the hands of those
who, foreigners by birth, enjoy the privilege of depriving the
country of its chief treasure while they have never shown any
loyalty to a foreign government. Besides, the inevitable
consequence of the acceptance of these claims would be that the
independence of the country as a self-governing, independent sovereign
republic would be irreparably lost."
[Sidenote: Boers not Capable of Modern Mining]
This statement does not seem to be made in the fullness of
candor. The Transvaal people are not capable of working gold
mines by the modern methods. They are essentially the masters
of cattle ranches and of farming in an
extensive and rather rude way. Their country is
much like Western Kansas, New Mexico and
Colorado in some respects; and the interest they have taken
in the gold mines has been not to get the gold by digging for it.
They have neither capital nor labor to put into the mining operations,
but they have insisted upon their pre-eminence in authority
and profited through the taxation of the gold product and of the
accumulations of property by the British, and held the immigrants
to the gold region to be intrusive and a disagreeable and
troublesome people who must be subordinated, because they were
adequate in the business of mining, the methods of which have
become exceedingly complicated. Unquestionably the Boers have
got more gold than they would have acquired if they had worked
the mines for themselves. The Newcastle _Chronicle_, one of the
most important provincial papers of England, because it is
assuredly representative of the public opinion of the country, says
plainly in reply to the proclamations of the Boers and of the
President of the Orange State:
[Sidenote: Newcastle "Chronicle" on the War]
"We are fighting to prevent men of British blood from being
treated as 'helots' on British territory by a sordid oligarchy which
British arms saved from extinction and British generosity endowed
with autonomy.
"We are at war for the purpose of preventing our brethren
in South Africa from being taxed without representation; from
being placed under the control of courts whose judges take their
orders from a corrupt Executive; from being
refused the right to carry arms while their
oppressors flourish theirs with insolent brutality;
from being compelled to contribute to schools in which
English is treated as a foreign tongue; in short, from being denied
the elementary rights of self-government in territory undoubtedly
British.
"We ask no privilege for ourselves that we would not give
to the Boers, but we will not submit to be ostracized and
domineered over in our own dominions.
"We cherish no revengeful feelings.
"The British flag is the herald of mercy as well as might.
"But we will have justice for our countrymen and control of
our own Empire, come what may."
The language of President Steyn as to gold mines is: "The
British Government, now that gold mines of immense value have
been discovered in the country, make claims on the republic, the
consequences of which, if allowed, will be that those who or whose
forefathers have saved the country from barbarism and have won
it for civilization with their blood and tears, will lose their control
over the interests of the country to which they were justly entitled
according to divine and human laws."
[Sidenote: The First Right to the Transvaal Gold]
The British resent as the greatest injustice the accusation that
they are fighting expressly for the diamond and gold mines, that,
indeed, are already the property of the English speaking people
who discovered and developed them. As the claim of proprietorship
is made by President Steyn, it amounts to the announcement
of the confiscation of this property if the Almighty, whom they
call upon so familiarly, gives them the victory they solicit in their
prayers. If we must go back to the beginning, the aborigines
have the first right to the precious stones and metals, if the rights
of discovery, investment and labor are to be absolutely disregarded.
There is an unyielding spirit on both sides, and war has
been in the air and unavoidable ever since that
English aberration which the Earl of Roseberry
called the "sublime experiment of Mr. Gladstone
in magnanimity" after the Majuba Hill defeat of the British.
There is no question that the fight must be fought out. The
issues are racial and radical.
The war that ended in the magnanimous policy after the
defeat at Majuba Hill began with the Boer's resistance to taxation.
They are as determined not to be taxed by others without
representation as they are to tax others and refuse representation,
because they have the power to do it or make war. Having
subjugated and in a great measure enslaved the natives, it seems to be
the temper and the passion of their lives to treat the English as
inferiors and forbid them to exercise local authority, or assert that
they have rights beyond those of paying for being on the ground.
[Sidenote: The Broukhorst Spruit Affair]
The first of the war, when the English assumed to have
annexed the Transvaal, was caused by the seizure of a Boer wagon.
A great wagon and a string of oxen are to the Boer almost sacred
objects, and his sense of propriety of an immense structure on
wheels drawn by ten long-horned oxen, propelled with a whip, the
handle as long as a fishing pole, is something extraordinary. The
Boers rose at once and took the wagon from the Sheriff, resisting
what the Uitlanders have been resenting. They had suspected
trouble was ahead and prepared for it, collecting
ammunition and storing it in their wagons.
A portion of the Ninety-fourth British Regulars
was stationed at Leydenburg, north and east of Pretoria, and
ordered to go to that city, The Boers came to the warlike
resolution to oppose the march of the British, and ordered them to
halt, with the placid purpose of discussing an accommodation, but
the commander of the detachment of the Ninety-fourth had his
orders and proceeded. A fight ensued, and the British, after
suffering severe losses, were surrounded and surrendered. This was
the Broukhorst Spruit affair.
[Sidenote: The Laing's Nek]
Mr. Gladstone was at the time too deeply interested in Irish
affairs to give much attention to those in Africa, and Sir George
Colley, who had been appointed High Commander over the Transvaal
and Natal, took charge of the leading responsibilities. Sir
George had visited Pretoria in 1875, and thought public opinion
favorable to British rule over the Transvaal. When he heard of
the Boers fighting for their wagons to be free, he collected available
troops and led them into the difficult country encountered in
advancing from Natal to the Transvaal. The Boer forces upon
Natal territory commanded the pass across Laing's Nek. In
January, 1881, Sir George attacked the pass
and fought on the precise plan followed by the
British officers in the present war. First he
used the artillery, shelling the Burghers, followed it up by an
infantry attack straight in front, while the mounted men made
flank diversions. The Boers stood shelling as well then as
recently, met the assaults in front with a deadly fire, and soon stood
off the mounted men, endeavoring to turn the flanks. The Boers
were very successful in picking off the gunners of Sir George's
artillery, and his attacks proved failures all around.
[Sidenote: Majuba Hill]
The Burghers thought the British would have to surrender,
but they managed by great exertions to recross the Ingogo River
and returned to their camp at Mount Prospect. Both sides were
of the judgment after the conflict that serious business was on hand,
and there was an informal and perhaps an involuntary suspension
of hostilities, with a great deal of talk about making peace.
Sir Evelyn Wood was on his way to take command, and Sir George
Colley concluding not to wait for him, made a rush for the summit
of Majuba on the night of February 26th, 1881, and, dragging
artillery, reached the table-land at the top, after excessive
exertion. The plateau contains about four acres,
curiously surrounded by a confusion of rocks,
and in the center is a considerable depression. It seemed
that the capture of the mountain was a decisive success, as
the British forces had turned the position of their enemy. The
Boers were greatly surprised, their camp was overlooked by the
English. One doesn't always have an advantage over an enemy
when he gets into a high place, and it happened that the ground
was well suited to the peculiar tactics of the Boers. Instead of
retreating, there was a call for volunteers to attack the British, and
the matchless riflemen of the Transvaal were ardent and energetic
in undertaking the seemingly desperate but really rather simple
task before them. They took shelter behind the rocks, and, by
rushes and dodges reached the fringe of stones that were like a
framing beam around the plateau of four acres at the top with the
depression in it, and then it appeared the British were entrapped
in their position that they had sought, believing that it was one
that commanded the situation. The fringe of rocks became a ring
of fire. Sir George was killed and his troops defeated as decidedly
as Braddock's regulars were by the French and Indians near
Pittsburg.
The camp of Sir George at Mount Prospect is distinguished
now for the cypress trees that surround his grave. After his fall
there was no intelligent resistance by his forces. They were simply
shot down by the Boers from their ambuscade in the tumbled
rocks, until the slaughter was terminated by a surrender.[1]
[Sidenote: Terms of Settlement]
This called Mr. Gladstone's attention to the conditions in
South Africa, and it was his understanding that the majesty of
England was so great that she could afford to
do anything that he thought was right. The
President of the Orange Free State became
useful as a mediator, and terms of settlement, to which
Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Kruger, then Vice President of the Transvaal,
with some minor disagreements omitted, were signed on the 24th
of March, subject to ratification by the Transvaal Volksraad; and
Sir Frederick Roberts, with reinforcements, met peace men at
Cape Town. Mr. Kruger, Pretorius and Joubert had a good deal
of trouble to carry the terms of settlement in the Boers'
representative Assembly, for they had conceived ideas of sovereignty, and
their successes appeared to warrant them in extensive assertions of
themselves. They were very pressing for further concessions
from Mr. Gladstone, and had a list of points of their dissatisfaction
with the protocol that had been signed. The leading objection
they made was the reference of foreign affairs to British
supervision; Mr. Gladstone, however, insisted upon that. It was the
Boers' idea the British should have nothing to do with the
Transvaal, that there was to be no interference in any form with the
legislation of the country, whether it was about foreign or domestic
affairs. The negotiations were terminated by a continuation of the
truce, and the gold discoveries and increasing importance of the
Uitlanders caused a succession of difficulties and exasperations,
culminating at last in the Jameson Raid, and, after an intermission
of disquietude, the war that is on.
When the death of Sir George Colley, the High Commissioner
in Southeastern Africa, occurred on Majuba Hill, it developed upon
Sir Evelyn Wood to become Governor of Natal, and his Chief of
Staff was Sir Redvers Buller. It was a very distasteful task that
Sir Evelyn Wood and Sir Redvers Buller had, to talk peace in the
shadow of British defeat, but they did their duty in that respect.
In the course of the adjustments Sir Redvers and Mr. Kruger,
President of the Transvaal, met personally, but the negotiations
were fruitless until President Rand, of the Orange Free State,
exerted his mediating capacity and won great reputation as a
peacemaker.
[1] The British force at Majuba Hill numbered 554,
of whom three companies, 180 rifles, were of the 92nd Highlanders,
two companies, 170 rifles, of the 58th Regulars,
two companies, 140 rifles, of the 60th, and 64 rifles of the Naval Brigade.
The men carried 70 rounds of ammunition, three days rations,
great coats and blankets. General Colley made this
move hastily, and if he had perfected any plan in connection
with it, it was never known except that when he found the
top of the hill was greatly exposed to the fire of the Boers,
and that they had the advantage of position, he repeatedly
said to the men that he only wanted them to hold it
"for three days." He said to one of the officers that he meant to
return to the camp at Mount Prospect. The idea upon which
he acted seemed to be that his position on top of Majuba
Hill gave him command of the pass through which he desired
to make his way, and he meant to return to the camp and
conduct in person the movement which he believed to be
feasible when he called upon the detachment he accompanied
up the hill to make the desperate effort to get there.
The plateau he had fancied was a place of security and command,
was larger than he expected. It was nearly a mile in
circumference, and as soon as the Boer riflemen took their
positions to attack the British it was shown to be utterly
untenable and the fight from first to last was a massacre of the
British. The story that artillery was taken up the mountain
is a mistake; 200 men were detached to keep open
communication with Camp Prospect, leaving 354 to make the fearful
climb and place themselves in a helpless situation
exposed to the Boer marksmen in possession of piles of rocks
from which they could pick off their enemies. The heart
of the position was searched by a rifle fire from a ridge
at the northwest angle. There was time after reaching the top
of the hill to have used the rocks to throw up a barricade
and shelter some of the men, but it was the order of Sir George
Colley, the Commander, that the troops should rest,
and they were resting when the fire and slaughter began. Major
Wright says that when the first shot was discharged
by the British, it was ordered by General Colley; the Boers
galloped back to their camp with the news. Immediately
all the camps were like wasps' nests disturbed, and it really
was an imposing sight to see, that Sunday morning,
all turn out, fires lighted for breakfast, and then a morning hymn
sung; after which all the wagons were inspanned,
and the Boers turned out for battle. A storming party of about 200
men immediately rode under the second ridge.
By crossing round under the naval brigade's position they could do it
without being seen. There they left their horses,
and climbed up right under the hill, where we could not see them
without going to the very edge of the hill, and exposing
ourselves entirely to the fire from the two ridges. In this
position we remained till about twelve noon, the Boers climbing
towards us step by step, and I may almost say unsuspected
by any but Hamilton and myself, who could see them.
Twice I went to the General and told him we couldn't hold our
position with so few men if any serious attack were made.
All he said was, 'Hold the place three days.'"
The Commander of the Boers, General Schmidt,
told Major Douglas and Captain Cunyngham that he "had 2000
rifles in the attack." The regimental records
of the Gordon Highlanders contain this:
"About one P.M.," says Wright, "we saw some heads
appearing over the top. The 92nd rushed forward in a
body and drove them for the moment back--we lost about
fifty killed and wounded. Then, strange to say, the word to
'cease fire' came distinctly to where Hay and I were,
and immediately after, 'retire.' We all ran back to the ridge in
the middle of the hill, which allowed the Boers
to gain the hill. Then came the murder! In the meantime more Boers
came up, round where the navy men were, and began
to fire into the hospital, and so took us in rear. Hamilton and I
both went to the General and asked to be allowed to charge."
"Wait," he said, "send a volley or two first; I will give the order!"
"Hamilton then said to me, 'Let's call on the 92nd,
and charge on our own account. Are you ready, Harry?'"
"I answered, 'Yes,' drew my sword and laid it beside me."
"Macgregor (I think it was he) came up then and said,
'We've got to die now.'
"Just then I heard the General say, 'Retire in as orderly
a manner as you can,' when they all jumped up and ran
to the rear. Hay and I and two men of ours remained
where we were, all using rifles and firing our best.
"Macdonald still held his position and would not budge,
neither would we. About a quarter of an hour or twenty
minutes after the retirement, no firing had been going
on from the rest of our troops, which neither Hay nor I could
understand, as we thought by 'retiring' it was meant
to hold the brow on the east side, where the 58th were posted.
"We were now being sorely pressed, hiding our bodies
behind stones, and for another five minutes the unequal
combat went on. Then Hay said, 'The battle 's over;
we can't fight a multitude; let's try and get away.'
"So off we four started in the direction which the others
had previously taken, under a most awful volley from the
Boers on the navy side and the ridge where we had been
latterly firing at the enemy only twenty yards distant. Both
the men were killed. Hay was shot in the leg and arm,
and I was hit in the foot and turned head over heels. I had to
crawl on my stomach a yard or two back to get my rifle,
and so lost Hay, who got under cover somewhere."
General Colley was killed soon after giving the order
to fire, by a bullet that struck just over his right eye and
'made an enormous hole at the back of his head.' The Highland
account is that the General was waving a white
handkerchief when shot down. It is presumed he had
despaired of success or of withdrawing the men, and was
anxious to save them by surrender. His movement
had been so venturesome and so awkwardly handled that when the
General fell there was a great deal needing explanation
of the strategy of the operation and no one living knew anything
about it. It has been thought that General Colley,
already beaten twice by the Boers, was dazed upon realizing that
his expedition was a murderous failure; and it is believed
that while endeavoring to take care of the men, he exposed
himself purposely to secure death."
Of the Highlanders in the fight (two companies) 33
were killed and 63 wounded. Colonel Napier says:
"Although stationed some miles from Majuba Hill,
I was able, with the aid of a telescope, to see some portions of
the engagement, and I afterwards made a careful study
of the ground and positions occupied. The disaster was the
result of a series of inexcusable blunders in the art
and practice of war. In the first place, there was nothing to gain
and everything to lose by premature action.
There was no question of the enemy being reinforced,
taking the offensive,
or even shifting their position; while, on the other
hand, General Colley's strength might have been doubled within
twenty-four hours' notice by moving up troops from
Newcastle. In fact, General Wood had himself gone down to
Newcastle to bring up other regiments, and it was
during his absence that the Majuba disaster occurred. Moreover, it
was almost universally known in camp that General
Wood had desired that no offensive movement was to be undertaken
by his second in command till his return. General
Colley staked his all in occupying a position the extent and
nature of which were unknown to him, while its distance
from Laing's Nek deprived it of any value, it being out of
rifle range of the Boer lines. The General had neglected
to provide himself with mule guns, which might have been
used from Majuba heights with good effect as a covering
fire to an infantry attack from below. As it was, General
Colley, after a hard and exhausting night march, found
himself in an untenable position, with a handful of men,
composed of detachments of four distinct corps. He had
actually lost his supports and separated himself from his reserve
ammunition. When day came no systematic steps were taken
either to hold the hill or effect a retreat, although he had
four or five hours of daylight before an attack commenced."
CHAPTER II.
The President of the South African Republic.
[Sidenote: Birth, Education Etc.]
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, President of the Transvaal--the other
side of the Vaal River, is the name of the country--was born in the
Cape Colony, October 10th, 1825. It is the commendation of the
naturalist Mr. Distant, that Mr. Kruger has a "very large amount of
natural wisdom," which is the softer way of saying that he is not an
educated man, but one of the statesmen of Nature. He is, on the
authority already quoted, "undistinguished in appearance," but has "a
prodigious memory;" and "a weakness in resisting flattery and adulation
which is not good for him," because, as his will is so pronounced and
his authority so absolute, he is perpetually surrounded by the
representatives of the rascalities in a strange variety of
"concessions." The flattering description of this historical personage
is that he is "very pious and self-reliant, which is provocative of
bigotry and hot temper," and he is also "a rough diplomat of no mean
rank."
[Sidenote: A Story Picture of President Kruger]
In Fitzpatrick's "The Transvaal from Within" we find this strongly
drawn picture of Mr. Kruger:
"To an English nobleman, who in the course of an interview remarked,
'My father was a Minister of England, and twice Viceroy of Ireland,'
the old Dutchman answered, 'And my father was a shepherd!' It was not
pride rebuking pride; it was the ever-present fact which would not have
been worth mentioning but for the suggestion of the antithesis. He,
too, was a shepherd, and is--a peasant. It may be that he knows what
would be right and good for his people, and it may not; but it is sure
that he realizes that to educate would be to emancipate, to broaden
their views would be to break down the defences of their prejudices, to
let in the new leaven would be to spoil the old bread, to give unto all
men the rights of men would be to swamp forever the party which is to
him greater than the State. When one thinks on the one-century history
of this people, much is seen that accounts for their extraordinary love
of isolation, and their ingrained and passionate aversion to control;
much, too, that draws to them a world of sympathy. And when one
realizes the old Dopper President hemmed in once more by the hurrying
tide of civilization, from which his people have fled for
generations--trying to fight both Fate and Nature--standing up to stem
a tide as resistless as the eternal sea--one sees the pathos of the
picture. But this is as another generation may see it. To-day we are
too close--so close that the meaner details, the blots and flaws, are
all most plainly visible; the corruption, the insincerity, the
injustice, the barbarity--all the unlovely touches that will by and by
be forgotten, sponged away by the gentle hand of Time, when only the
picturesque will remain."
[Sidenote: Paul Kruger at ten Years]
In 1836 a company of trekkers about 300 strong, the second that crossed
the Orange River, was under the command of Hendrick Potgeiter and
attacked by native warriors, twenty-five trekkers were killed, but the
main body were warned and forming a laager of wagons with barricades of
thorn bushes. They were able to beat off the assailants. Paul Kruger,
a boy of ten years, was one of the defenders.
Henry M. Stanley, M.P., the famous African explorer, writing at
Pretoria in November, 1897, gives a graphic sketch of President Kruger,
"fully dressed in the usual black suit and little old-fashioned top
hat, smoking on the veranda of his house." This was the first glimpse
Mr. Stanley had of the great ruler upon whom he was calling, and the
historical correspondent was shown into the spacious saloon, finding
opposite to him "a large and coarse oil painting" of Kruger. Stanley
says in his striking and unreserved way:
[Sidenote: Not a Bad Likeness of President Kruger]
"The history of the painting I do not know, but as it is permitted to
be hung so prominently in the reception room, it is to be presumed that
the President and his friends regard it as a faithful likeness, and are
consequently proud of it. This small fact proved to be the ABC of my
study of the man of destiny of South Africa. It was clear that neither
Kruger nor his friends knew anything of art, for the picture was an
exaggerated reproduction of every defect in the President's homely
features, the low, narrow, unintellectual brow, over small eyes, and
heavy, massive expanse of face beneath. The man himself was almost
beautiful in comparison with the monster on the canvas, and I really
could not help pitying him for his innocent admiration of a thing that
ought to be cast into the fire. But presently the President spoke--a
mouthful of strange guttural sounds--in a voice that was like a loud
gurgle, and as the great jaws and cheeks and mouth heaved and opened, I
stole a glance at the picture, and it did not seem to me then as if the
painter had libeled the man. At any rate, the explosive dialect so
expanded the cheeks and widened the mouth, that I perceived some
resemblance to the brutal picture."
Mr. Stanley made his call, according to information about the habits of
the great natural statesman, very early, but the President of the South
African Republic had already prepared himself for the day by reading a
chapter of the Bible, and when he remarked to his visitor, "What I have
said shall be done," Stanley naively remarks he discovered in the
manner of the words, "When I learned how he had been engaged, I knew he
had been infected with the style of the Pentateuch," adding, "He has
fully arrived at that stage of life that made Mr. Gladstone so
impossible in the Cabinet. There is abundance of life and vitality in
the President, but he is so choleric that he is unable to brook
opposition. Any expression suggesting him to be mistaken in his views
or policy arouses his temper, the thunderous gurgle is emitted, the
right arm swings powerfully about, while the eyes become considerably
buried under the upper eyelids, I suppose from the photograph of him
now on sale at Pretoria, which represents his eyes looking upward, he
fancies this to be his impressive gaze. He receives a stranger with
the air of a pedagogue about to impress a new pupil, and methodically
starts to inculcate the principles of true statesmanship; but soon
heats himself with the dissertation, and breaks out in the strong
masterful style which his friends say is such a picturesque feature in
his character, and his critics call the 'humbug pose'. If by the
latter is meant the repetition of stale platitudes, and the reiteration
of promises which will never be carried out, I fear I must agree with
the critics."
[Sidenote: His Appearance and Manners]
Mr. Stanley continues: "In appearance he is only a sullen,
brutal-looking concierge, dressed in old-fashioned, ill-made black
clothes. He appears to know absolutely nothing outside of burgherdom;
he has neither manners nor taste; his only literature seems to be
limited to the Bible; he has no intrinsic excellence of character that
should appeal to the admiration of the public; but what he does know,
he knows well. He knows the simplicity of his rude and bearded
brethren of the veldt; he can play upon their fears and their creed,
with perfect effect, and it is in the nature of his ill-conditioned
personality to say 'no.' All the rest has fallen to him because he is
so stubborn, so unyielding, and others so vacillating and so pitifully
weak.
[Sidenote: The Boer of Boers]
"I do not suppose there are any people in the world so well represented
by a single prominent man as the Boers of South Africa are by Mr.
Kruger. He is pre-eminently the Boer of Boers in character, in
intellect, and in disposition, and that is one reason why he has such
absolute control over his people. His obstinacy--and no man with a
face like his could be otherwise--his people call strength. Age and
its infirmities have intensified it. His reserve--born of self-pride,
consciousness of force--limited ambitions, and self-reliance, they call
a diplomatic gift. His disposition, morose from birth, isolation
fostered by contact with his kind, is unyielding and selfish, and has
been hardened by contempt of the verbose weaklings who have measured
themselves against him."
Mr. Howard C. Hillegas is a singularly specific writer, and in his
instructive volume, "Oom Paul's People," is careful to say, and it is a
point worth making, that the President is "less than five feet seven
inches in height, body large and fat, legs thin and short, eyebrows
bushy, white and projecting half an inch. * * * When he smiles the big
fat circles above his cheeks are pushed upward, and shut his small gray
eyes from view. When pleased the President generally laughs
hilariously, and then his eyes remain closed for the greater part of a
minute. Mr. Kruger's nose and mouth are the chief features of his
face. Both are more extensive than his large face demands, but they
are such marvels in their own peculiar way as to be distinguishing
marks. The bridge of the nose grows wide as it goes outward from the
point between the eyes, and before it reaches the tip it has a gentle
upheaval. Then it spreads out on either side, and covers fully two
inches of area above his upper lip. It is not attractive, but in that
it follows the general condition of his facial landscape.
"The mouth is wide and ungainly. The constant use of a heavy pipe has
caused a deep depression on the left side of his lower lip, and gives
the whole mouth the appearance of being unbalanced. His chin is large
and prominent, and his ears correspond relatively in size and symmetry
with his face. When in repose his features are not pleasant to look
upon, but when lighted up by a smile they become rather attractive, and
generally cause his laughter to be contagious among his hearers.
"The thin line of beard which runs from ear to ear combines with the
hair on his head in forming what is not unlike a white halo around the
President's face. The lines in the man's face are deep, irregular, and
very numerous."
[Sidenote: His Daily Life and Family]
It is said this great man takes particular care of his health which is
an affair of international importance. He rises at half-past five and
drinks several cups of "intensely black coffee," and smokes several
"full pipes of very strong tobacco," reads the Bible for half an hour,
and goes to work.
Mrs. Kruger is the President's second wife, the niece of his first
wife. The first wife had one child, who is dead, and the second wife
is the mother of sixteen children, nine of whom are dead. Two sons are
living, one acting as the President's private secretary, the other one
in a responsible government position, and the President has a
son-in-law, Captain Elopp, described as several times a millionaire,
living in a $250,000 house.
In his proclamation after the Jameson Raid, President Kruger said: "I
am inexpressibly thankful to God that the despicable and treacherous
incursion into my country has been prevented, and the independence of
the republic saved, through the courage and bravery of my burghers."
The famous telegram from the Emperor of Germany to Oom Paul is highly
prized by the President. It is considered a priceless treasure, and
runs as follows:
"Received January 3rd, 1896.
"From William I.R., Berlin.
"To President Kruger, Pretoria.
"I tender you my sincere congratulations that, without appealing to the
help of friendly powers, you and your people have been successful in
opposing with your own forces the armed bands that have broken into
your country to disturb the peace, in restoring order, and in
maintaining the independence of your country against attacks from
without. "WILLIAM I.R."
[Sidenote: President Kruger's Grand Passion]
President Kruger's grand passion is hatred of the British, and he holds
them in such distrust and contempt that he refuses to see the
accredited correspondents of the principal London newspapers, but will
see an American newspaper man, emphasizing the reason why by the
statement that "they do not lie" about him and that the English do, and
he desires Americans to hear the inside of things from himself. The
first thing he asked the author of "Oom Paul's People," himself an
American newspaper correspondent, whose valuable letters were published
by Appleton & Company, was, "Have you any English blood in your veins?"
This was delivered in the Boerish dialect, and the correspondent had
been told the President always opened a conversation by inquiring as to
the health of the person introduced, and this time he got the answer
back that the English blood was abundant and good. This was considered
a portentous joke, and struck Oom Paul as extraordinarily funny. The
story of the expression of his delight is useful in its disclosure of
character. Then the correspondent was informed the old statesman was
in a better humor than he had been seen for some time, and that
anything could be got out of him. An extremely interesting
conversation followed.
The majority of the people of the United States have accepted the
newspaper celebration of President Kruger as a wonder in courage,
diplomacy, integrity, piety, and all that makes up excellent manhood.
The record of his duplicity, cunning, evasiveness and crooked
selfishness is practically excluded from those journals, and even
headlines that approximate to the truth are confined to a few papers
that care for international commentary. It is supposed that our local
market for intelligence desires a constant flavor of Boerdom.
[Sidenote: Fair Summaries of Both Sides]
The collection of historical matter--"The Transvaal from Within"--is in
terms and tone very persuasive that it has unusual merit as
truthful--giving from the records fair summaries of both sides of
disputed questions, whether they are commercial, political, racial or
personal. The author is Mr. J. P. Fitzpatrick, the publisher Mr.
William Heineman, London, and the work is brought well up to date. It
opens with a note that shows a spirit of consideration for all that is
admirable; and it is the desire of the author of this book that it
should apply thoroughly. We quote: