Howard C. Hillegas - With the Boer Forces

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He had been at Glencoe only a short time when the news reached him that
the burghers in the Free State had lost their courage, and were retreating
rapidly towards Bloemfontein. He abbreviated his visit, hastened to the
Free State, and met the fleeing Boers at Poplar Grove. He exhorted them to
make a stand against the enemy, and, by his magnetic power over them,
succeeded in inducing the majority to remain and oppose the British
advance. His own fearlessness encouraged them, and when they saw their old
leader standing in the midst of shell fire as immobile as if he were
watching a holiday parade, they had not the heart to run. While he was
watching the battle a shell fell within a short distance of where he
stood, and all his companions fled from the spot. He walked slowly away,
and when the men returned to him he chided them, and made a witty remark
concerning the shell, naming it one of "the Queen's pills." While the
battle continued, Kruger followed one of the commandos and urged the men
to fight. At one stage of the battle the commando which he was following
was in imminent danger of being cut off and captured by the British
forces, but the burghers fought valiantly before their President, and
finally conveyed him to a place of safety, although the path was shell and
bullet swept.

He returned to Bloemfontein, and in conjunction with President Steyn,
addressed an appeal to Lord Salisbury to end the war. They asked that the
republics should be allowed to retain their independence, and firmly
believed that the appeal would end hostilities, inasmuch as the honours of
war were then about equally divided between the two armies. To those who
watched the proceedings it seemed ridiculous to ask for a cessation of
hostilities at that time, but Kruger sincerely believed that his appeal
would not be in vain, and he was greatly surprised, but not discomfited,
when a distinct refusal was received in reply.

Several weeks after the memorable trip to the Free State, President Kruger
made another journey to the sister-republic, and met President Steyn and
all the Boer generals at the famous Krijgsraad at Kroonstad. No one who
heard the President when he addressed the burghers who gathered there to
see him, will ever forget the intensity of Kruger's patriotism. Kroonstad,
then the temporary capital of the Free State, was not favoured with any
large public hall where a meeting might be held, so a small butcher's
stand in the market-square was chosen for the site of the meeting. After
President Steyn, Commandant-General Joubert, and several other leading
Boers had addressed the large crowd of burghers standing in the rain
outside the tradesman's pavilion, Kruger stepped on one of the long
tables, and exhorted the burghers to renewed efforts, to fight for freedom
and not to be disconsolate because Bloemfontein had fallen into the hands
of the enemy. When the President concluded his address the burghers raised
a great cheer, and then returned to their laagers with their minds filled
with a new spirit, and with renewed determination to oppose the enemy--a
determination which displayed itself later in the fighting at Sannaspost,
Moester's Hoek, and Wepener. Kruger found the burghers in the Free State
in the depths of despair; when he departed they were as confident of
ultimate victory as they were on the day war was begun. The old man had
the faculty of leading men as it is rarely found. In times of peace he led
men by force of argument as much as by reason of personal magnetism. In
war-time he led men by mere words sent over telegraph wires, by his
presence at the front, and by his display of manly dignity, firm
resolution and devotion to his country. He was like the kings and rulers
of ancient times, who led their cohorts into battle, and wielded the sword
when there was a necessity for such action.

During the war President Kruger suffered many disappointments, endured
many griefs, and withstood many trials and tribulations; but none affected
him so deeply as the death of his intimate friend, Commandant-General
Joubert. Kruger and Joubert were the two leading men of the country for
many years. They were among those who assisted in the settlement of the
Transvaal and in the many wars which were coincident with it. They had
indelibly inscribed their names on the scroll of the South African history
of a half-century, and in doing so they had become as intimate as two
brothers. For more than two score years Kruger had been considered the
Boers' leader in peaceful times, while Joubert was the Boers' warrior. The
ambition of both was the independence of their country, and, while they
differed radically on the methods by which it was to be attained, neither
surpassed the other in strenuous efforts to secure it without a recourse
to war. The death of Joubert was as saddening to Kruger, consequently, as
the Demise of his most dearly-beloved brother could have been, and in the
funeral-oration which the President delivered over the bier of the
General, he expressed that sense of sorrow most aptly. This oration,
delivered upon an occasion when the country was mourning the death of a
revered leader and struggling under the weight of recent defeats, was one
of the most remarkable utterances ever made by a man at the head of a
nation.

"Brothers, sisters, burghers, and friends," he began,--"Only a few words
can I say to you to-day, for the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
We have lost our brother, our friend, our Commandant-General. I have lost
my right hand, not of yesterday, but my right hand since we were boys
together, many long years ago. To-night I alone seem to have been spared
of the old people of our cherished land, of the men who lived and
struggled together for our country. He has gone to heaven whilst fighting
for liberty, which God has told us to defend; for the freedom for which he
and I have struggled together for so many years, and so often, to
maintain. Brothers, what shall I say to you in this our greatest day of
sorrow, in this hour of national gloom? The struggle we are engaged in is
for the principles of justice and righteousness, which our Lord Has taught
us is the broad road to heaven and blessedness. It is our sacred duty to
keep on that path, if we desire a happy ending. Our dear dead brother has
gone on that road to his eternal life. What can I say of his personality?
It is only a few short weeks ago that I saw him at the fighting front,
humbly and modestly taking his share of the privations and the rough work
of the campaign like the poorest burgher, a true general, a true
Christian--an example to his people. And he spoke to me then and even more
recently; and, let me tell you, that the days are dark. We are suffering
reverses on account of wickedness rampant in our land. No success will
come, no blessings be given to our great cause unless you remove the bad
elements from among us; and then you may look forward to attaining the
crowning point, the reward of righteousness and noble demeanour. We have
in our distinguished departed brother an example. Chosen, as he was, by
the nation, time after time, to his honourable position, he had their
trust to such an extent that everything was left in his hands; and he did
his work well. He died, as he has lived, in the path of duty and
honour. Let the world rage around us, let the enemy decry us, I say,
Follow his example. The Lord will stand by you against the ruthless hand
of the foe, and at the moment when He deems it right for interference
peace will come once more. Why is the sympathy of the whole world with us
in this struggle for freedom? Why are the strangers pouring in from Europe
to assist to the maintenance of our beloved flag, to aid us in the just
defence of our independence? Is it not God's hand? I feel it in my
heart. I declare to you again, the end of our struggle will be
satisfactory. Our small nation exists by the aid of the Almighty, and will
continue to do so. The prophets say the closed books shall be opened, the
dead shall arise, darkness be turned into light; nothing be concealed.
Every one will face God's judgment throne. You will listen to His voice,
and your eyes shall be open for the truth of everything. Think of the
costly lives given by us for our cause, and you will rally to the fight
for justice to the end. Brothers, to the deeply bereaved widow of our
Commandant-General, to his family, to you all, I say trust more than ever
in the Almighty; go to Him for condolence; think and be trustful in the
thought that our brother's body has gone from amongst us to rise again in
a beautiful and eternal home. Let us follow his example. Weep not, the
Lord will support you; the hour of all our relief is near; and let us pray
that we may enter heaven, and be guided to eternity in the same way as he
whom we mourn so deeply. Amen."

Early in his life Kruger formed an idea that the Boers were under the
direct control of Providence, and it displeased him greatly to learn that
many petty thefts were committed by some of the burghers at the front. In
many of the speeches to the burghers he referred to the shortcomings of
some of them, and tried to impress on their minds, that they could never
expect the Lord to took with favour on their cause if they did not mend
their ways. He made a strong reference to those sins in the oration he
delivered over Joubert's body, and never neglected to tell the foreign
volunteers that they had come into the country for fighting and not for
looting. When an American corps of about fifty volunteers arrived in
Pretoria in April he requested that they should call at his residence
before leaving for the front, and the men were greatly pleased to receive
and accept the invitation. The President walked to the sidewalk in front
of his house to receive the Americans, and then addressed them in this
characteristically blunt speech: "I am very glad you have come here to
assist us. I want you to look after your horses and rifles. Do not allow
any one to steal them from you. Do not steal anybody else's gun or
horse. Trust in God, and fight as hard as you can."

Undoubtedly one of the most pathetic incidents in Kruger's life was his
departure from Pretoria when the British army was only a short distance
south of that city. It was bitter enough to him to witness the conquest of
the veld district, the farms and the plantations, but when the conquerors
were about to possess the capital of the country which he himself had seen
growing out of the barren veld into a beautiful city of brick and stone,
it was indeed a grave epoch for an old man to pass through. It hurt him
little to see Johannesburg fall to the enemy, for that city was ever in
his enemy's hands, but when Pretoria, distinctly the Boer city, was about
to become British, perhaps for ever, the old man might have been expected
to display signs of the great sorrow which he undoubtedly felt in his
heart. At the threshold of such a great calamity to his cause it might
have been anticipated that he would acknowledge defeat and ask for mercy
from a magnanimous foe. It was not dreamt of that a man of almost four
score years would desert his home and family, his farms and flocks, the
result of a lifetime's labour, and endure the discomforts of the field
merely because he believed in a cause which, it seemed, was about to be
extinguished by force of arms. But adversity caused no changes in the
President's demeanour. When he bade farewell to his good old wife--perhaps
it was a final farewell--he cheered and comforted her, and when the
weeping citizens and friends of many years gathered at his little cottage
to bid him goodbye he chided them for their lack of faith in the cause,
and encouraged them to believe that victory would crown the Boers'
efforts. Seven months before, Kruger stood on the verandah of his
residence, and, doffing his hat to the first British prisoners that
arrived in the city, asked his burghers not to rejoice unseemingly; in May
the old man, about to flee before the enemy, inspired his people to take
new courage, and ridiculed their ideas that all was lost.

Whether the Boers were in the first flush of victory or in the depths of
despair Paul Kruger was ever the same to them--patriot, adviser,
encourager, leader, and friend.

It was an easy matter to see the President when he was at his residence at
Pretoria, and he appeared to be deeply interested in learning the opinions
of the many foreigners who arrived in his country. The little verandah of
the Executive Mansion--a pompous name for the small, one-storey
cottage--was the President's favourite resting and working place during
the day. Just as in the days of peace he sat there in a big armchair,
discussing politics with groups of his countrymen, so while the war was in
progress he was seated there pondering the grave subjects of the time. The
countrymen who could always be observed with him at almost any time of the
day were missing. They were at the front. Occasionally two or three old
Boers could be seen chatting with him behind Barnato's marble lions, but
invariably they had bandoliers around their bodies and rifles across their
knees. Few of the old Boers who knew the President intimately returned
from the front on leaves-of-absence unless they called on him to explain
to him the tide and progress of the war.

According to his own declaration his health was as good as it ever was,
although the war added many burdens to his life. Although he was
seventy-five years old he declared he was as sprightly as he was twenty
years before, and he seemed to have the energy and vitality of a man of
forty. The reports that his mind was affected were cruel hoaxes which had
not the slightest foundation of fact. The only matter concerning which he
worried was his eyesight, which had been growing weaker steadily for five
years. That misfortune alone prevented him from accompanying his burghers
to the front and sharing their burdens with them, and he frequently
expressed his disappointment that he was unable to engage more actively in
the defence of his country. When Pretoria fell into British hands Kruger
again sacrificed his own interests for the welfare of his Government and
moved the capital into the fever-districts, the low-veld of the eastern
part of the Transvaal. The deadly fever which permeates the atmosphere of
that territory seemed to have no more terrors for him than did the British
bullets at Poplar Grove, and he chose to remain in that dangerous locality
in order that he might be in constant communication with his burghers and
the outside world rather than to go farther into the isolated interior
where he would have assumed no such great risks to his health.

Mr. Kruger was not a bitter enemy of the British nation, as might have
been supposed. He was always an admirer of Britons and British
institutions, and the war did not cause him to alter his convictions. He
despised only the men whom he charged with being responsible for the war,
and he never thought to hide the identity of those men. He blamed Mr.
Rhodes, primarily, for instigating the war, and held Mr. Chamberlain and
Sir Alfred Milner equally responsible for bringing it about. Against these
three men he was extremely bitter, and he took advantage of every
opportunity for expressing his opinions of them and their work. In
February he stated that the real reason of the war between the Boers and
the British was Rhodes's desire for glory. "He wants to be known as the
maker of the South African empire," he said, "and the empire is not
complete so long as there are two Republics in the centre of the country."

Whatever were the causes of the war, it is certain that President Kruger
did not make it in order to gain political supremacy in the country. The
Dutch of Cape Colony, President Steyn of the Free State, and Secretary
Reitz of the Transvaal, may have had visions of Dutch supremacy, but
President Kruger had no such hopes. He invariably and strenuously denied
that he had any aspirations other than the independence of his country,
and all his words and works emphasised his statement to that effect.
Several days before Commandant-General Joubert died, that intimate friend
of the President declared solemnly that Kruger had never dreamt of
expelling the British Government from South Africa and much less had made
any agreement with the Dutch in other parts of the country with a view to
such a result. It was a difficult matter to find a Transvaal Boer or a
Boer from the northern part of the Free State who cared whether the
British or the Dutch were paramount in South Africa so long as the
Republics were left unharmed, but it was less difficult to meet Cape
Colonists and Boers from the southern part of the Free State who desired
that Great Britain's power in the country should be broken. If there was
any real spirit against Great Britain it was born on British soil in Cape
Colony and blown northward to where courage to fight was more
abundant. Its source certainly was not in the north, and more certainly
not with Paul Kruger, the man of peace.

President Steyn, of the Orange Free State, occupied even a more
responsible position than his friend President Kruger, of the Transvaal.
At the beginning of hostilities, Steyn found that hundreds of the
British-born citizens of his State refused to fight with his army, and
consequently he was obliged to join the Transvaal with a much smaller
force than he had reckoned upon. He was handicapped by the lack of
generals of any experience, and he did not have a sufficient number of
burghers to guard the borders of his own State. His Government had made
but few preparations for war, and there was a lack of guns, ammunition,
and equipment. The mobilisation of his burghers was extremely difficult
and required much more time than was anticipated, and everything seemed to
be awry at a time when every detail should have been carefully planned and
executed. As the responsible head of the Government and the veritable head
of the army Steyn passed a crisis with a remarkable display of energy,
ingenuity, and ability. After the army was in the field he gave his
personal attention to the work of the departments whose heads were at the
front and attended to many of the details of the commissariat work in
Bloemfontein. He frequently visited the burghers in the field and gave to
them such encouragement as only the presence and praise of the leader of a
nation can give to a people. In February he went to the Republican lines
at Ladysmith and made an address in which he stated that Sir Alfred
Milner's declaration that the power of Afrikanderism must be broken had
caused the war. Several days later he was with his burghers at Kimberley,
praising their valour and infusing them with renewed courage. A day or two
afterward he was again in Bloemfontein, arranging for the comfort of his
men and caring for the wives and children who were left behind. His duties
were increased a hundred-fold as the campaign progressed, and when the
first reverses came he alone of the Free Staters was able to imbue the men
with new zeal. After Bloemfontein was captured by the British he
transferred the capital to Kroonstad, and there, with the assistance of
President Kruger, re-established the fighting spirit of the burgher army.
He induced the skulking burghers to return to their compatriots at the
front, and formed the plans for future resistance against the invading
army. When Lord Roberts's hosts advanced from Bloemfontein, President
Steyn again moved the capital and established it at Heilbron. Thereafter
the capital was constantly transferred from one place to another, but
through all those vicissitudes the President clung nobly to his people and
country.

CHAPTER IX

FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR

In every war there are men who are not citizens of the country with whose
army they are fighting, and the "soldier-of-fortune" is as much a
recognised adjunct of modern armies as he was in the days of
knight-errantry. In the American revolutionary war both the colonial and
British forces were assisted by many foreigners, and in every great and
small war since then the contending armies have had foreigners in their
service. In the Franco-Prussian war there was a great number of
foreigners, among them having been one of the British generals who took a
leading part in the Natal campaign. The brief Graeco-Turkish war gave many
foreign officers an opportunity of securing experience, while the
Spaniards in the Hispano-American war had the assistance of a small number
of European officers. Even the Filipinos have had the aid of a corps of
foreigners, the leader of whom, however, deserted Aguinaldo and joined the
Boer forces.

There is a fascination in civilised warfare which attracts men of certain
descriptions, and to them a well-fought battle is the highest form of
exciting amusement. All the world is interested in warfare among human
beings, and there are men who delight in fighting battles in order that
their own and public interest may be gratified. It may suggest a morbid or
bloodthirsty spirit, this love of warfare, but no spectacle is finer, more
magnificent, than a hard-fought game in which human lives are staked
against a strip of ground--a position. It is not hard to understand why
many men should become fascinated with warfare and travel to the ends of
the earth in order to take part in it, but a soldier of fortune needs to
make no apologies. The Boer army was augmented by many of these men who
delighted in war for fighting's sake, but a larger number joined the
forces because they believed the Republics were fighting in a just cause.

The Boer was jealous of his own powers of generalship, and when large
numbers of foreigners volunteered to lead their commandos the farmers gave
a decidedly negative reply. Scores of foreign officers arrived in the
country shortly after the beginning of hostilities and, intent on securing
fame and experience, asked to be placed in command, but no request of that
kind was granted. The Boers felt that their system of warfare was the
perfect one, and they scoffed at the suggestion that European officers
might teach them anything in the military line. Every foreign officer was
welcomed in Pretoria and in the laagers, but he was asked to enlist as a
private, or ordinary burgher. Commissions in the Boer army were not to be
had for the asking, as was anticipated, and many of the foreign officers
were deeply disappointed in consequence. The Boers felt that the
foreigners were unacquainted with the country, the burgher mode of
warfare, and lacked adroitness with the rifle, and consequently refused to
place lives and battles in the hands of incompetent men. There were a few
foreigners in the service of the Boers at the beginning of the war, but
their number was so small as to have been without significance. Several
European officers had been employed by the Governments of the Republics to
instruct young Boers in artillery work---and their instruction was
invaluable--but the oft-repeated assertion that every commando was in
charge of a foreign officer was as ridiculous as that of the _Cape Times_
which stated that the British retired from Spion Kop because no water was
found on its summit.

The influx of foreigners into the country began simultaneously with the
war, and it continued thereafter at the rate of about four hundred men a
month. The volunteers, as they were called by the burghers, consisted of
the professional soldier, the man in search of loot, the man who fights
for love of justice, and the adventurer. The professional soldier was of
much service to the burghers so long as he was content to remain under a
Boer leader, but as soon as he attempted to operate on his own
responsibility he became not only an impediment to the Boers, but also a
positive danger. In the early stages of the war the few foreign legions
that existed met with disaster at Elandslaagte, and thereafter all the
foreign volunteers were obliged to join a commando. After several months
had passed the foreigners, eager to have responsible command, prevailed
upon the generals to allow the formation of foreign legions to operate
independently. The Legion of France, the American Scouts, the Russian
Scouts, the German Corps, and several other organisations were formed, and
for a month after the investment of Bloemfontein these legions alone
enlivened the situation by their frolicsome reports of attacks on the
enemy's outposts. During those weeks the entire British army must have
been put to flight scores of times at the very least, if the reports of
the foreign legions may be believed, and the British casualty list must
have amounted to thrice the number of English soldiers in the country. The
free-rein given to the foreign legionaries was withdrawn shortly after
Villebois-Mareuil and his small band of Frenchmen met with disaster at
Boshof, and thereafter all the foreigners were placed under the direct
command of General De la Rey.

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