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Authors: Niall Ferguson
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BOOK: Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power
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Once again the battle was witnessed by Churchill in his capacity as war correspondent. The contrast between this débâcle and the scenes he had witnessed at Omdurman just seventeen months earlier could hardly have been more marked. With Boer shells raining down ‘at the rate of seven or eight a minute’, he could only stare in horror as the ‘thick and continual stream of wounded flowed rearwards. A village of ambulance waggons [
sic
] grew up at the foot of the mountain. The dead and injured, smashed and broken by shells, littered the summit till it was a bloody reeking shambles’. ‘The scenes at Spion Kop’, he confessed in a letter to a friend, ‘were among the strangest and most terrible I have ever witnessed’. And Churchill was not in the eye of the storm of steel. One survivor described seeing his comrades incinerated, blown in half and decapitated; he himself lost his left leg. For newspaper readers at home, who were spared such grisly details, the news was still scarcely credible. Greater Britain was being beaten hollow – by 30,000 Dutch farmers.
83
Mafekingsic
] grew up at the foot of the mountain. The dead and injured, smashed and broken by shells, littered the summit till it was a bloody reeking shambles’. ‘The scenes at Spion Kop’, he confessed in a letter to a friend, ‘were among the strangest and most terrible I have ever witnessed’. And Churchill was not in the eye of the storm of steel. One survivor described seeing his comrades incinerated, blown in half and decapitated; he himself lost his left leg. For newspaper readers at home, who were spared such grisly details, the news was still scarcely credible. Greater Britain was being beaten hollow – by 30,000 Dutch farmers.
83
What Vietnam was to the United States, the Boer War very nearly was to the British Empire, in two respects: its huge cost in both lives and money – 45,000 men dead
84
and a quarter of a billion pounds spent – and the divisions it opened up back home. Of course, the British had suffered reverses in Africa before, not only against the Boers but also against the Zulu
impis
at Isandhlwana in 1879. This, however, was on an altogether larger scale. And at the end of it all it was far from clear that the British had achieved their original objective. The challenge for the jingoists of the press was to make something that looked so like a defeat feel like another imperial victory.
84
and a quarter of a billion pounds spent – and the divisions it opened up back home. Of course, the British had suffered reverses in Africa before, not only against the Boers but also against the Zulu
impis
at Isandhlwana in 1879. This, however, was on an altogether larger scale. And at the end of it all it was far from clear that the British had achieved their original objective. The challenge for the jingoists of the press was to make something that looked so like a defeat feel like another imperial victory.
Mafikeng – as it is now spelt – is a rather dusty, scruffy little town: you can almost smell the Kalahari desert to the north-west. It was even less to look at a hundred years ago: just a railway station, a hospital, a Masonic hall, a gaol, a library, a courthouse, a few blocks of houses and a branch of the Standard Bank: in short, the usual dowdy imperial outpost. The only building with more than one storey was the distinctly un-British Convent of the Sacred Heart. Today it hardly seems worth fighting over. But in 1899 Mafeking mattered. It was a border town, practically the last in Cape Colony before the Transvaal. It was from there that the Jameson Raid had been launched. And even before the war began, it was there that a regiment of irregulars were stationed, with the idea of mounting another, bigger raid into Boer territory. It never happened. Instead, the troops found themselves under siege. Fears began to grow that, if Mafeking fell, the many Boers living in the Cape might throw in their lot with their cousins in the Transvaal and Orange Free State.
The siege of Mafeking was portrayed back in Britain as the war’s most glorious episode, the moment when the spirit of the public school playing fields finally prevailed. Indeed, the British press treated the siege as a kind of big imperial game: a seven-month Test match between England and the Transvaal. As luck would have it, on this occasion the English managed to field the ideal captain: the old Carthusian ‘Stephe’ Baden-Powell, now the colonel in command of the First Bechuanaland Regiment. To Baden-Powell, the siege was indeed the ultimate cricket fixture. He even said as much in a characteristically light-hearted letter to one of the Boer commanders: ‘... Just now we are having our innings and have so far scored 200 days, not out, against the bowling of Cronje, Snijman, Botha ... and we are having a very enjoyable game’. Here was the hero that the war – or at least the war correspondents – so desperately needed: a man who instinctively knew how to ‘play the game’. It was not so much Baden-Powell’s stiff upper-lip that impressed those around him as his indefatigable boyishness, his ‘pluck’ (a favourite B.-P. word). Every Sunday he organized real cricket matches followed by dancing. George Tighe, a civilian who joined the Mafeking Town Guard, never doubted that Baden-Powell was ‘thoroughly able to beat the Boers at their own “slim” game’. A talented mimic, he did comic turns on stage to boost morale. Humorous stamps were issued for ‘the independent republic of Mafeking’ with Baden-Powell’s head on them in place of the Queen’s. Not even the
Boys’ Own Paper
could have made that up.
Boys’ Own Paper
could have made that up.
For 217 days Mafeking held out against a Boer force that was substantially larger and had lethally superior artillery. The defending force had two muzzle loading 7-pounders and an ancient cannon which fired balls ‘exactly like a cricket ball’ (what else?), against Cronje’s nine field guns and a 94-pounder Creusot Long Tom, nicknamed in true schoolboy fashion ‘Old Creechy’. Reports from newspaper correspondents inside the town, particularly Lady Sarah Wilson’s for the
Daily Mail
, kept readers in a state of agonized suspense. Would B.-P. hold out? Would the Boer fast bowlers prove too much even for him? When at last Mafeking was relieved on 17 May 1900 there were scenes of hysterical jubilation (‘mafficking’) in the streets of London – as if, in the words of the anti-imperialist Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, ‘they had beaten Napoleon’. Baden-Powell was rewarded with the command of a new force, the South African Constabulary, the uniform of which he enthusiastically set about designing.
Daily Mail
, kept readers in a state of agonized suspense. Would B.-P. hold out? Would the Boer fast bowlers prove too much even for him? When at last Mafeking was relieved on 17 May 1900 there were scenes of hysterical jubilation (‘mafficking’) in the streets of London – as if, in the words of the anti-imperialist Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, ‘they had beaten Napoleon’. Baden-Powell was rewarded with the command of a new force, the South African Constabulary, the uniform of which he enthusiastically set about designing.
But what was the price of holding on to this one-horse town? True, more than 7,000 Boer troops had been diverted into a sideshow in the opening phase of the war, when they might have achieved more elsewhere. But in terms of human life this had been anything but a game of cricket. Nearly half the original defending force of 700 were either killed, wounded or taken prisoner. And what the papers did not report was that the real brunt of the defence of Mafeking was borne by the black population, despite the fact that this was supposed to be a ‘white man’s war’. Baden-Powell not only drafted more than 700 of them (though he later put the number at less than half that); he also excluded them from the protective trenches and shelters in the white part of town. And he systematically reduced their rations in order to feed the white minority. Civilian casualties of both colours totalled more than 350. But the number of black residents who died of starvation may have been twice that number. As Milner cynically remarked: ‘You have only to sacrifice “the nigger” absolutely, and the game is easy’.
The British public had been given their symbolic victory; the poetasters could rush into print:
What! Wrench the Sceptre from her hand,
And bid her bow the knee!
Not while her Yeomen guard the land,
And her ironclads the sea!(Austin,
To Arms!
)So front the realms, your point abashed;
So mark them chafe and foam;
And if they challenge, so, by God,
Strike, England, and strike home!(Henley,
For England’s Sake
)
But it was a triumph of newsprint only. As Kitchener shrewdly noted, Baden-Powell was ‘more outside show than sterling worth’. He could have said the same of Mafeking’s relief.
By the summer of 1900, the tide of the war appeared to be turning. The British Army, now under the more effective leadership of the Indian Army veteran Lord Roberts, had relieved Ladysmith and advanced into Boer territory, capturing both Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State, and Pretoria, capital of the Transvaal. Convinced he was winning the war, Roberts rode in triumph through the streets of Bloemfontein and installed himself in the Residency. In the spacious ballroom on the ground floor, his officers came to dance.
It was supposed to be a dance of victory. Yet despite the loss of their principal towns the Boers stubbornly refused to surrender. Instead, they switched to guerrilla tactics. ‘The Boers’, complained Kitchener, ‘are not like the Soudanese who stood up for a fair fight, they are always running away on their little ponies’. If only they would charge the British Maxims with spears like good sports! In frustration, Roberts therefore adopted a ruthless new strategy designed to hit the Boers where they were most vulnerable.
Sporadic destruction of their farms had been going on for some time, usually on the grounds that particular farmhouses were sheltering snipers or supplying the guerrillas with food and intelligence. But now British troops were authorized to burn down the Boers’ homes systematically. In all, around 30,000 were razed. The only question this begged was what to do with their wives and children, whom the Boer guerrillas had left behind when they joined their commandos in the
veld
, and who were now being rendered homeless in their thousands. In theory, the scorched earth tactic would soon force the Boers to surrender, if only to protect their loved ones. But until that happened, those loved ones were the responsibility of the British. Should they be treated as prisoners of war or refugees? Roberts’s initial view was that ‘to feed people whose relatives are in arms against us will only encourage [the] latter to prolong resistance besides being [a] severe burden on us’. But his idea that they should be compelled ‘to join their relatives beyond our lines unless the latter come in to surrender’ was not realistic. After some dithering, the generals came up with an answer. They herded the Boers into camps – to be precise, concentration camps.
veld
, and who were now being rendered homeless in their thousands. In theory, the scorched earth tactic would soon force the Boers to surrender, if only to protect their loved ones. But until that happened, those loved ones were the responsibility of the British. Should they be treated as prisoners of war or refugees? Roberts’s initial view was that ‘to feed people whose relatives are in arms against us will only encourage [the] latter to prolong resistance besides being [a] severe burden on us’. But his idea that they should be compelled ‘to join their relatives beyond our lines unless the latter come in to surrender’ was not realistic. After some dithering, the generals came up with an answer. They herded the Boers into camps – to be precise, concentration camps.
These were not the first concentration camps in history – Spanish forces had used similar tactics in Cuba in 1896 – but they were the first to earn infamy.
85
Altogether, 27,927 Boers (the majority of them children) died in the British camps. That was 14.5 per cent of the entire Boer population, and they died mainly as a result of malnourishment and poor sanitation. More adult Boers died this way than from direct military action. A further 14,000 of 115,700 black internees – 81 per cent of them children – died in separate camps.
85
Altogether, 27,927 Boers (the majority of them children) died in the British camps. That was 14.5 per cent of the entire Boer population, and they died mainly as a result of malnourishment and poor sanitation. More adult Boers died this way than from direct military action. A further 14,000 of 115,700 black internees – 81 per cent of them children – died in separate camps.
Meanwhile, at the Bloemfontein Residency, the band played on. Eventually, after several months of the Gay Gordons and Strip the Willow, the ballroom floor began to wear thin. To avoid any mishaps befalling officers’ wives, the old floorboards obviously had to be replaced, and so they were. Happily for the accounts of the officers’ mess, a use was found for the old ones. They were sold to Boer women to make coffins for their children, at the price of 1s 6d a plank.
The combination of scorched earth and concentration camps certainly undermined the Boers’ will to fight. But it was not until Kitchener, who succeeded Roberts in November 1900, had covered the country with a deadly web of barbed wire and blockhouses that they were forced to the negotiating table. Even then, the final outcome was anything but unconditional surrender. True, under the Treaty of Vereeniging (31 May 1902), the two Boer republics lost their independence and were absorbed into the Empire. But that meant that the British had to pay for the reconstruction of what they had destroyed. At the same time, the treaty left the question of black and coloured voting rights to be settled after the introduction of self-government, thus disenfranchizing the vast majority of South Africa’s inhabitants for nearly three generations. Above all, the peace could do nothing to prevent the Boers from capitalizing on the restricted franchise. In 1910, exactly eight years after the Treaty, the self-governing Union of South Africa was created, with the Boer Commandant-General Louis Botha as its premier and several other war heroes in his Cabinet. Within three years, a Native’s Land Act had been passed which effectively confined black South African land ownership to the least fertile tenth of the country.
86
In effect, the Boers now ruled not only their original states but the British territories of Natal and the Cape as well, and had taken the first step towards imposing apartheid throughout South Africa. Milner had hoped that the future would be ‘2/5ths Boers and 3/5ths Britishers – Peace, Progress and Fusion’. In the event, not enough British emigrants went to South Africa to achieve that.
86
In effect, the Boers now ruled not only their original states but the British territories of Natal and the Cape as well, and had taken the first step towards imposing apartheid throughout South Africa. Milner had hoped that the future would be ‘2/5ths Boers and 3/5ths Britishers – Peace, Progress and Fusion’. In the event, not enough British emigrants went to South Africa to achieve that.
In many ways the consequences of the Boer War in Britain were even more profound than in South Africa, for it was revulsion against the war’s conduct that decisively shifted British politics to the Left in the 1900s, a shift that was to have incalculable implications for the future of the Empire.
On the outskirts of Bloemfontein stands a sombre and imposing monument to the Boer women and children who died in the concentration camps. Buried there, next to the wartime President of the Orange Free State, are the remains of a Cornish clergyman’s daughter named Emily Hobhouse, one of the twentieth century’s first anti-war activists. In 1900 Hobhouse got wind of ‘poor [Boer] women who were being driven from pillar to post’ and resolved to go to South Africa to assist them. She established a Relief Fund for South African Women and Children ‘to feed, clothe, harbour and save women and children – Boer, English and other – who were left destitute and ragged as a result of the destruction of property, the eviction of families or other incidents resulting from ... military operations’. Shortly after her arrival in Cape Town in December 1900 she secured permission from Milner to visit the concentration camps, though Kitchener tried to confine her access to the camp at Bloemfontein, then home to 1,800 people. The grossly inadequate accommodation and sanitation, with soap regarded by the military authorities as ‘an article of luxury’, profoundly shocked her. Despite Kitchener’s obstructive efforts, she went on to visit other camps at Norvalspont, Aliwal North, Springfontein, Kimberley, Orange River and Mafeking. It was the same story in all of them. And by the time she returned to Bloemfontein conditions had worsened.
BOOK: Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power
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