Episode 40 - Making Lord Kitchener’s acquaintance as de Wet’s farm burns

We continue to rid4 with General Jan Smuts and he has just entered the Cape Colony, an invasion that has been planned to coincide with Spring in early September 1901. The master guerrilla fighter and his commando of around 400 men are in a spot of bother, however. As they entered the Cape, their route took them through Basutho territory where they were set upon by around 300 warriors armed with rifles, spears and knobkerries. As we heard last week, they managed to fight off the attack, but lost 3 dead and seven wounded. They had also used up spare reserves of ammunition which was a big problem. This commando was supposed to immediately begin sowing mayhem inside the Cape but couldn’t do so without Lee Metford Rounds - their new choice of firearm replacing the German Mauser’s. The Boers were now armed with the same weapons as the British because their supply chains had dried up and were using attacks on the British to replenish ammunition and other material. Our narrator since the start of this podcast series, Deneys Reitz, had joined General Smuts along with ten others just before they crossed the Orange River into the Cape. He had only four rounds left after the clash with Basutho warriors that almost cost him his life. Invading hostile territory with a virtually empty rifle was not going to build confidence and Reitz fretted about this.

8 Sep 201919min

Spring is upon is in this podcast - so too the long-awaited invasion of the Cape Colony by General Jan Smuts and his commando. It has taken him almost a month of zig-zagging across the Free State from his base in the Eastern Transvaal to arrive at the border. Other Boer leaders had already been busy in the Cape, but they were operating in smaller units and were regarded as less significant at least from the point of view of the British occupying the territory. Smuts’ arrival was a completely different kettle of fish. He was the very symbol of resistance, but also a symbol of the contradictions that many Boers encapsulated as I’ll explain. While he remains literally a giant in the pantheon of South African heroes, he was not an easy man to travel with as Deneys Reitz would find out. Remember last week Reitz had ridden to within sight of the Orange River and its junction with the Calendon River in the southern Free State. That’s when Jan Smuts’ commando rode into view and our youthful narrator was seeking to invade the Cape himself with his new found friends - nine extremely young and radicalised teens who wanted to fight the British inside their own territory. But first a quick look at Smuts and why he was such an enigma in South African early politics. He deserves an entire podcast series himself his life was so rich - from his incredibly brave acts as a youthful Boer leader, all the way through to his involvement in the formation of the Royal Air Force during the First world War, his leadership during the second world war, his diplomatic skills and crucial role in the formation of first the league of Nations and then United Nations, and of course, as South Africa’s prime Minister decades after the Boer war. Strangely, he studied American poet Walt Whitman, and then wrote a book which remained unpublished until 1973 called Walt Whitman: A study in the evolution of personality. But as soon as General Smuts and his commando crossed the Orange River into the Cape Colony, they came under attack by Basotho warriors hired by the British to police the border.

1 Sep 201919min

This week we hear about the Dandy Fifth and Deneys Reitz. It’s also time to ride with General Christiaan de Wet as he sums up the Blockhouses. Reitz has fallen in with “this little band” as he calls them - and most would die tragically. There were Dandy fifth were actually nine in number and led by Jack Borrius who was a short thick-set man of 28 from Potchefstroom. We must stand back and take a look at what was happening across the battlefields at this time. For most of South Africa the winter period was a time of stagnation but significant developments were taking place. Remember how General Jan Smuts was already riding south towards the Cape Colony border and was planning an invasion with a crack squad of Boers. His plan was simple. Destabilise the colony and convince the Cape Afrikaners to rise up and join the two Boer states of the Transvaal and the Free State in their long war against the British. In the Free State, while drives, columns and patrols continued across the desolate plains, a lightning raid on General Hertzog’s commando laagered in the South West on the 25 August indicated new methods. The British were finally going Boer in their tactics. After the start of the guerrilla campaign in late 1900, the British continued concentrating their forces around the logistic centres like railway lines and towns. They also preferred moving during the day and the Boers had taken to sniping at these large columns but never facing them, then riding away and resting before resting for the night and then continuing the skirmishes the next day. IN the Eastern Transvaal Boer tactics had been successful in attacking the British during the night. Now things were changing in the Free State much to the chagrin and frustration of leaders like Christiaan de Wet who’d figured out long ago how to fight this war of attrition against the British Empire. Lord Kitchener, the Commander in Chief in South Africa, now ordered that each large column which moved through the veld to hand pick the most daring and skilled men on horseback to operate as special units. These were lightly equipped but proactive soldiers - the same kind of man as the Boer if you like. They could spend days on the veld living on next to nothing and sleeping in short bursts, but could pop up anywhere within a 50 mile radius of the columns and possibly catch the Boers unprepared. Kitchener went further. He set up special mobile columns in August which worked along a logic that would be called special force raids rather than a stolid slow march across the veld. The Drives as they were known were co-operative and therefore slow. Each section would have to move in relation to the other.

25 Aug 201918min

It’s an amazing to think that back in 2017 I was thinking about this podcast and whether I should go ahead and cover a topic that was missing on both iTunes and general podcasting. Jumping in and starting in October 2017, the plan was to follow the war as it wound its way through the next three or so years. Now we're on episode 100! We’re now well into year two and this podcast series will wrap up at the same time as the Boer war - in May next year. I’ve tracked the incidents, events and issues through the war on a week by week basis so we’re now in August 1901 and as you heard last week, Breaker Morant and his murderous Bushveld Carbineers have been busy across the north of the Transvaal. In the Free State, hundreds of Boers are beginning to arrive close to the Cape Colony border where they’ll join up with General Jan Smuts who has been riding from the Transvaal and plans an invasion into the colony. The winter temperatures begin to ease in August. South Africa’s high veld as I’ve explained experiences quite bitter winters with below freezing conditions for most of June and July. However by mid to late August, winds begin to blow and the sun which has been angled low in the north starts rising earlier, setting later and warming everyone. Not a moment too soon. In the Concentration camps now dotted around the interior, the death rate has been creeping up. There are now officially 100 000 Boer civilians - mostly women and children, who are incarcerated in these camps, with another 60 000 black civilians at least. These numbers are now known to have been conservative. Lord Kitchener had published his infamous proclamation of August 7th with an ultimatum to all the Boers’ political and military leaders from commandants down to the heads of what he called ‘armed bands’. Anyone who hadn’t surrendered by 15th September would be exiled from South Africa for life. What’s more, those who had families in the Concentration Camps would be forced to pay for their maintenance which naturally meant their land and property would be seized. This would hit them where it hurt most, he thought. And of course, it would. But General Christiaan de Wet and other hardliners shrugged off Kitchener’s threat. There were other ideas beginning to float around at this time. Why shouldn’t the British rid themselves of the Boers altogether? This has an ominous sound to it, doesn’t it? Kitchener ran his idea of rounding up all the Boers, women, children, old, young, from the camps as well as the 20 000 men in prisoner of war camps overseas. Why not pack these people off to a new region - Fiji perhaps? Willem Leyds had heard some of these wild plans before, but in August 1901 he was shocked when one of these wild plans came from a man by the name of Hyram Maxim. He was a 61 year-old American who had become a naturalised British subject and one of the last people that Queen Victoria had bestowed a knighthood before she died as I mentioned in an earlier podcast. The honour was conferred on Maxim as an inventor. He claimed to have invented the lightbulb, but that was debatable, but he had invented a number of machines including the mousetrap, the merry-go-round and, terrifingly, the machine gun. At the beginning of the letter dated August 1901, Maxim professed to be well disposed towards the Boers. Maxim wrote to Kruger that because of the British numerical superiority, they were inevitably going to win the war. But, there was a way out of this morass believed Maxim. And the horrible truth is that he was completely correct in his basic analysis. The British, by pure dint of their numerical and financial superiority, were going to win the war because they still wanted to win it. So what to do, thought Maxim? Simple, he said. The Boers were going to leave South Africa en masse to establish a new colony in the north of Mexico.

18 Aug 201916min

It’s early August 1901 and a series of events in a far off corner of the war would end up resonating internationally for the next one hundred and 18 years. These involved the Bushveld Carbineers, the unit of irregular troops from Australia that was eventually disbanded. I covered part of this story in an earlier podcast, Episode 72. Because most of these events happened in August 1901, and that's where we are in our podcast series, we must reconsider the story of Breaker Morant. The events that led to the Morant and his partner in crime, Lieutenant Handcock, are still clouded in controversy. Very few stories resonate so continuously as this. We need to take a closer look once more. By February 1901 a 320-man regiment had been formed by Australian colonel Robert Lenehan which was based in Pietersburg 180 miles north of Pretoria. It was called the Bushveld Carbineers As I’ve described, the northern Transvaal area where they were based is largely lowveld, extremely hot and dry, dusty in summer, warmer than the high veld where Pretoria is based. There’s a slow descent from Pretoria to the low veld town of Pietersburg which is known as Polokwane today. It was also a slow descent into the madness of war for the Bushveld Carbineers and their officers as we will hear. By the summer of 1901, rumours had reached the Officer Commanding at Pietersburg "of poor discipline, unconfirmed murders, drunkenness, and general lawlessness in the Spelonken.” That was the name of the region - Spelonken which itself has a discordant feel. Spelonken means caves in Dutch. The main example of indiscipline was rape. A local woman had accused British Army Officer James Robertson, the officer commanding of the Bushveldt Carbineers A Squadron of sexual assault. In response, Robertson was recalled to HQ and given an ultimatum. Court Martial, or resign his commission. He submitted his resignation and quit the British Army. Modern organisational planning includes what’s known as the culture of organisations. And alas, the culture of the the Bushveld Carbineers was steeped in abuse. Former Kitchener Fighting Scout Lieutenant Percy Frederick Hunt was ordered to the northern Transvaal and given command of the Bushveld Carbineers B Squadron. Before leaving Pietersburg in July 1901, the newly promoted Captain Hunt asked for a number of officers to be transferred with him to his new field of command. These officers were Lieutenant’s Morant, Charles Hannam and Harry Picton. An emblematic moment as we'll see. The Bushveld Carbineers were building a name for themselves in this region and it wasn't positive. With Hunt officer commanding the detachment at Fort Edward in Spelonken, both lieutenant Morant and Handcock began to reimpose discipline which had been lacking. They would take the concept of retribution far beyond what is acceptable in war.

11 Aug 201924min

It’s time for an exchange of letters and a proclamation or two. General Jan Smuts and his commando have broken into smaller units and are traveling from the Transvaal to the Free State / Cape border. They’re going to launch an invasion in a last-ditch attempt to entice their Afrikaner brothers living in the Cape Colony into an uprising. So far it's failed. The Cape Afrikaners are threatened with execution should they take part in the Boer war, as the British consider the Cape their Colony and all citizens should support the Empire. The Free State and Transvaal have also been seized by the British, but the rules of warfare still govern these two territories. That means any Boer citizen seized or taken prisoner is accorded the protection of the rules. But it also means that the Cape Afrikaners have much more to loose if they take part in this war. Not only will they be executed for treason, but it's likely their property will be seized and their families will lose everything. The cost of the war rose and by this period it was around 1.25 million pounds a week. The British government has been borrowing money to pay for the material and men its poured into South Africa - 250 000 in all. Lord Kitchener, who is commander-in-chief in South Africa, is trying to rush the war to an end but the bitter-einders are refusing to stop fighting. General Christiaan de Wet is active in the Free State and President Steyn has not been captured yet, although he has had two narrow escapes as we’ve heard. The British were also quickly building their blockhouse system along the railway line between Cape Town and Pretoria. They were also extending these military defensive positions along the lines to the western and eastern transvaal. They were immediately successful, as Boer generals have attested in their personal memoirs, including de Wets called "Three Years War" and published in 1902 at the war’s conclusion. “I now impressed upon my officers as forcibly as I could the importance of intercepting the communications of the enemy by blowing up their trains…” he writes. “A mechanical device had been thought of by which this could be done. The barrel and lock of a gun in connexion with a dynamite cartridge, were placed under a sleeper so that when a passing engine pressed the rail on to this machine, it exploded and the train was blown up…” Thus the Boers devised one of the first ever examples of an IED or improvised explosive device. I mentioned right at the beginning of this series how this war produced a number of firsts - or at least a modern use of new technology and the IED here was the first of its type. “It is terrible to take human lives in such a manner, still however fearful, it was not contrary the rules of civilised warfare and we were entirely within our rights in obstructing the enemy’s lines of communication in this manner…” But he must have felt discomfort in the idea that it was not a direct attack - it was indirect. It was a tactic we’ve come to know and fear as conventional soldiers in the world today. The carnage that has been sewn by IEDs and its more extreme cousin, the suicide bomber, is so established in guerrilla armies now its more usually found in training schedules than a knowledge of mine laying or grenade use.

4 Aug 201918min

This week we will hear about bandits at the Southern Border who are making the most of the guerrilla war raging around the Transvaal, parts of the Cape and the Free State. These motley laggards lurked close to towns and sometimes waylaid unfortunate men and women who passed by as they in turn were fleeing from the British - or the Boers. Of both. The small town of Fauresmith is a classic desert town on the edge of the karoo close to where the Free State and Cape colony border lay. This town had seen its fair share of skirmishes and battles during the first phase of the war and its residents were now exhausted by the ongoing fighting swirling around the veld. Riding towards this small town was Deneys Reitz and his new friend, Jacobus Bosman. Little did they know that also riding towards this part of the Free State was General Jan Smuts who was to meet up with his initially small commando of 350 men and launch a lightning raid into the Cape Colony. Meanwhile, Lord Kitchener was aware of the Smut’s commando plans and had mobilised another 15 000 men to march onto the semi-desert southern plains of the Free State in an attempt to surround this commando and once and for all deal a terminal blow to Boer sentiment. But we’ll start this week riding with Reitz and Bosman. They had begun their ride after bidding good bye to their commando led by Field Cornet Botha who had turned back saying it was impossible to cross into the Cape now. And disappointingly, his two German friends Haase and Pollatchek had decided to turn back as well. The Dirty dozen members had been reduced to two idealist youngsters - Reitz almost Quixotic in his belief in some divine order that was calling him to the Cape - Bosman equally motivated which was to be a terrible miscalculation as we’ll hear in later podcasts. So after spending the night at a graveyard where British soldiers were killed in an shootout with Boers in 1848 - the two awoke to a real problem. That night the little Shetland Pony that had wondered into the Boers camp shortly before had taken off again - and this time Bosman’s horse joined it on the expedition. Reitz and Bosman spent five hours on foot, hunting for the horses. Finally they located the two and rode them back to the graveyard to collect their saddles and other belongings. But these had disappeared. Bandits were busy and they obviously had spied on the two - perhaps even tried stealing their horses. They had made a big mistake however, as Reitz was by now more than an expert tracker. They had lost their bridles, saddles, cooking tins, blankets.

28 Juli 201917min

It’s the third week of July 1901 and this winter has been cold even by the standards of South Africa’s high plains. As I’m writing this, snow has blanketed parts of the semi-desert known as the Karoo and it was no different then. And Deneys Reitz is close to this region. He had found a bolt hole near the Lesotho border where he’d been hiding out with a handful of fellow travellers and his German colleagues. They’d been able to bathe for the first time in months having found a copper cistern. Reitz recovered during his short stint of R&R and was itching to rejoin the war. By the end of June the small band led by Field Cornet Botha started back down the mountains heading towards the Orange River which is the border between the Free State and the Cape Colony. AS they descended they saw a rider approaching. It was a young man named Jacobus Bosman. He would have been shot as a traitor. But Mr Bosman said it was worth the risk, so Reitz and his German troop enlisted him. Unfortunately for Bosman, he should have listened to the advice for as we’ll see, his is not a happy ending. After three days of progress the Quixotic group, or the dirty dozen as Dutch historian Martin Bossenbroek calls them, are back on the flat open plains within sight of the Johannesburg-Bloemfontein railway line. By now Lord Kitchener’s blockhouse system is causing the Boer guerrilla army some problems because these are close together and crossing the railway line has become very difficult during the day.

21 Juli 201919min