War with the Boer

By Adrian Musgrave

This is a hard-hitting chronological account of the second Boer war, introduced with a strong and searching question about the easy methods followed by some authors of writing war histories by sitting at home and compiling "fat newspaper dispatches." In his preface, George Clarke Musgrave argues that this prevents a true analysis and understanding of the war and shows contempt for those, on both sides, seeking to explain their conflicting views and aspirations. He then sets out his position that, while one cannot be blind to the machinations of capitalism or the blunders of imperialists, a careful review of the facts will lead to the realisation that the ideals of the Boer are in fact, in antithesis to the very independence, liberty and progress that they seek.
The scene is set with the sending of the Boer ultimatum from President Kruger to England, followed by an overview of the South African republics and the key factors which led to the war, building to the opening of hostilities at Kraaipan in October 1899, and the military operations that followed. In vivid and graphic detail, based on his own experiences, and with special emphasis on the actions of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Redvers Buller and his General Staff, the narrative can be commended for its clarity and comprehensiveness. The Boer sieges and the subsequent battles for the relief of Kimberley, Mafeking and Ladysmith are covered both in strategic terms and in the intimate detail that is the reality of individuals fighting, suffering and dying for their country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adrian Musgrave
• Release date: Aug 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005603458

Adrian Musgrave

Following nine years service in the RAF, I qualified as a teacher and spent several years as a freelance teacher/trainer before setting up an internet service business. We sold this business in 2004 at which time me and my wife semi-retired, bought a property in Bulgaria and travelled around Europe, coming back to the UK in 2010. A year or so before we returned, my granddaughter had taken up an interest in genealogy and had constructed a family tree, revealing my great-uncle, George Clarke Musgrave. I worked with her on this and with relatively straightforward first stage research, we discovered that George Clarke was a war correspondent and journalist, seeing action with both British and American forces in West Africa, Cuba, South Africa, China, the Balkans and France. A further decade of more detailed research, including trips to most of the locations where he was an active correspondent, gave us entry to his entire library; press reports, essays, letters and diary notes. His articles from the conflicts that he experienced were published in many national and international journals such as: the Illustrated London News, the London Chronicle, the Daily Mail, Strand Magazine, Black and White Review and the New York Times. He also wrote a number of books which were readily published and well received by audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, these are now out of print and first editions are rare and expensive. I believe, though, that his words should be read and, together with my granddaughter, I am now committed to bringing the library of George Clarke Musgrave back to life.

Book preview

WAR WITH THE BOER

Adrian Musgrave

An account of the second Boer war with a general

overview of the South African republics and

the key factors which led to the opening

of hostilities in October 1899

Book 3 of the Wars and Words series

Copyright 2021 : Wars and Words

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal use only and may not be re-sold or transferred to others. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please obtain an alternative copy. Thanks for respecting the work of the author.

Table of Contents

Foreword

From Cuba to Campaigning for Roosevelt

An Ultimatum from the Transvaal

The Opening of Hostilities

Defeat at Dundee and the Siege of Ladysmith

General Buller Arrives at Cape Town

To Eastcourt with Winston Churchill

With General Buller at the Front

Downfall of a Commander

Arrival of the New Commander

The Battle for Spion Kop

Ladysmith and Kimberley Relieved

Afterword

About the Author

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FOREWORD

It is too early, at this date, to record the history of the South African war. Thanks to electricity and newspaper enterprise, though gifted writers now erect very readable books around the slender fabric of cable despatches. The author who has gathered his material at the risk of life and health, and at great expenditure of energy and money, returns to find his work anticipated by perhaps half a dozen books written by men who have never left the security of their own homes. It is a noteworthy fact that after the Spanish-American war, with perhaps one exception, the most successful books were penned by writers who never were in Cuba. Their works are a comedy of errors, but they were issued when the popular feeling was inflamed with victory, and their accuracy was not questioned. Hence the need of rapid preparation.

The dust and heat of South Africa do not inspire literary style, and chapters written on horseback, after sixteen hours in the saddle, lack the polish bestowed by writers reclining in comfort and clean linen. I had planned to write a personal story, after the prevailing fashion, but finding that peerless artists were preparing word pictures of the campaign, I concluded that a plain account of the war and its causes, based on personal observation and investigation, would supply a want within my limitations.

Thanks to prominent Afrikanders, who were exceedingly anxious that I should present their side in the United States, their views and aspirations were freely brought to my notice. But familiarity with the Taal is apt to breed contempt, and though one cannot be blind to the machinations of capitalists and the blunders of imperialists and ultra-loyalists, a careful review of facts will lead true Americans, as lovers of universal liberty, to realise that the only hope for South Africa lies in its federation under the almost republican constitution guaranteed by the British flag.

The Orange Free State, founded as a republic by the British Foreign Office, was in part induced to take up arms against a traditional friend by the possibilities of Dutch supremacy in South Africa, and the money provided by corrupt concessionaires in the Transvaal subverted the allegiance of thousands of the more ignorant Taal-speaking British subjects by the same idea. This was, from first to last, a war of conquest and subjugation. The great sympathy that I had for the Boers vanished when I saw their ruthless devastation and method of extending their rule toward Cape Town.

Patriots seeking to fight an army that may menace their existence do not war on women and children, or force citizens to take up arms against their own country, turning out on the bare veldt those who refuse, looting their homes and crops. I have seen much of revolution. For three years I was a sympathetic witness of the Cubans in their struggle for freedom from Spain’s grip and I would that the ultra Afrikanders could take a lesson from those ignorant but self-sacrificing peasants.

At 2 pm. today, the British flag was hoisted over Pretoria. There are many indications that the devoted burghers, who have fought so bravely and suffered so vainly for what they deemed right, will ere long return to their homes to help build up a united South Africa. They have proved the fallacy of the exegesis of their leaders, whose greed and lust of territory has been one of the many causes of the inevitable war; and it rests with British statesmen to form a tactful administration that alone can win their confidence and respect.

GEORGE CLARKE MUSGRAVE

SS ETHIOPIA June 5th 1900

FROM CUBA TO CAMPAIGNING FOR ROOSEVELT

Despite the pleasures of my recuperation under the Red Cross and the tender ministrations of my lovely volunteer nurse, Mary, I knew that I had to leave my hospital bed and rally again to the cry else all that had been achieved in Cuban fields might be for nought.

My book Under Two Flags in Cuba was to have been published in the spring of 1898 but the manuscript, together with three hundred photographs illustrative of Weyler's regime in Cuba, and some historical letters that had passed between the Captain General and Premier Canovas, were seized in Havana with my effects when I was deported to Spain at the beginning of the war. Thus the circulation of that work was curtailed and now, during my convalescence from a prolonged attack of fever contracted in the campaign, and a chest wound from the pistol of an incensed Spanish officer, I must prepare a new work. Yet even as I write, a number of books on Cuba are being issued from the pens of writers who have never set foot on Cuban soil. In each of these the primary cause of the war is omitted, and frequent criticism of the Cubans, based entirely on misconception, is raising doubts of the justification of American intervention in the Island. With the State elections now just a few short weeks away, these false and sycophantic accounts are being taken up as the clarion call of the Democrats, in their pandering to the post war, anti-imperialist sway of public opinion.

Returning from Cuba as a war hero, my friend and mentor, Theodore Teddy Roosevelt, now has the Republican nomination for State Governor of New York. An air of over confidence has somewhat weakened the Republican resolve, though, and Roosevelt is under pressure from The Democrats, headed by Richard Croker who has backed the nomination of Augustus Van Wyck, brother of Robert, the incumbent puppet Mayor of the consolidated City of New York. It is, of course, well known that, as head of Tammany Hall, Croker receives bribe money from the owners of brothels, saloons and illegal gambling dens; and that within Robert Van Wyck's administration, he completely dominates the government of the city. Even though the New York Times has described the Van Wyck administration as one mired in black ooze and slime, there is much to be done if Roosevelt is to take his rightful position as Governor. So this time, it was at the ballot rather than the battle that we had to be victorious, and it was with some urgency that I sent a note by courier to Jacob Riis of the New York Sun, volunteering my services to Roosevelt's campaign. By return, I received an invitation to a meeting with the lieutenants; Timothy Woodruff, Sereno Payne, David Healey, Frank Smith and Buck Rogers, who pulled me to safety from the sights of a Spanish sniper at San Juan Hill. It was soon decided that under the banner cry of No Croker Domination, the real record of the war, and of Roosevelt's own heroic and defining action as leader of the Rough Riders, must be told. My role was to deliver as vividly as I was able, a series of free public lectures laying out in graphic fashion the facts and the truths about the war. Other orators would then pick up the themes of patriotism and support for the national administration, with a special emphasis on the fact that only those men with clear and assured records of action should be considered for office. With venues booked, details circulated to every New York newspaper, and public meetings scheduled for every night through September and October, support for Roosevelt quickly picked up. Whether or not my lectures helped the cause will never be known; nor does it matter. The elections were to be held on November 8th with forecast results that not even the most optimistic could have hoped for. Roosevelt was sure to become Governor, and for the first time in history, the Republicans also led every poll for the seven posts in the New York State cabinet office.

Through the spring and early summer, I was also busy with the rewriting and updating of my book which is now to be published as Under Three Flags in Cuba. 1899 was a year of turmoil in New York and tensions were also escalating on the world stage. In Britain, Lord Salisbury's political manoeuvrings and negotiations on the issues of the rights of the Uitlanders, control of the gold mining industry, and the British desire to incorporate the Transvaal and the Orange Free State into a federation under British control, were causing chaos within the South African Republic. The Boers recognised that this would eventually result in the loss of ethnic Boer control and, under a blatant display of filibustering, they ensured that the June 1899 negotiations in Bloemfontein failed. In response, Salisbury's Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, formally demanded full rights and representation for every Uitlander residing in the Transvaal. This left the Boer with no options and it could now be only a matter of time before war with the British was declared.

1899 drew towards its turbulent conclusion during the first few days of October. My book was published on the 1st; and on the 3rd, I received a telegram from the editor of Black and White Review, informing me that passage to South Africa was booked for me on the SS Assaye, leaving in two days’ time. Salisbury's force of 10,000 extra troops landed in Capetown on the 4th, and war with the Boer was now imminent. On top of all this, my head was in even more of a spin because I had fallen hopelessly in love with Mary, my ministering angel. I could not imagine life without her so, as I was leaving to join my ship on the 5th, I plucked up the courage to propose, and left a much happier man when she accepted.

AN ULTIMATUM FROM THE TRANSVAAL

The fiasco of the 1895 Jameson raid had alienated many Cape Afrikaners from the British, and united the Transvaal Boers behind President Kruger and his government. In spite of the four years of truce that followed, it also had the effect of drawing the Transvaal and the Orange Free State together in opposition to perceived British imperialism. In 1897 a military pact was concluded between the two republics as they silently and grimly prepared for the inevitable.

By August 1899 the Transvaal army had been transformed; approximately 25,000 men equipped with modern rifles and artillery could be mobilised within two weeks. However, President Kruger’s victory in the Jameson incident had done nothing to resolve the fundamental problem; the impossible dilemma continued, namely, how to make concessions to the Uitlanders, or foreigners, without surrendering the independence of the Transvaal.

The failure to gain improved rights for Uitlanders became a catalyst for war and a justification for a major military build-up in the Cape Colony. The case for war was developed and espoused as far away as the Australian colonies. Several key British colonial leaders favoured annexation of the independent Boer republics. These figures included Cape Colony Governor Sir Alfred Milner, Cecil Rhodes, British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain, and mining syndicate owners such as Alfred Beit, Barney Barnato, and Lionel Phillips. Confident that the Boers would be quickly defeated, they planned and organised a short war, citing the Uitlanders’ grievances as the motivation for the conflict.

Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister, believed that the British government had an obligation to British South Africans; and that the Boers’ treatment of black South Africans could not be tolerated. He mistrusted the abilities of the British army but it is difficult to understand why the British government went against the advice of its generals to send substantial reinforcements to South Africa before war broke out. One argument is that they simply prevaricated in accepting that the Boers were preparing for war, and also believed that if Britain were to send large numbers of troops, it would strike too aggressive a posture and so prevent a negotiated settlement being reached.

President Steyn of the Orange Free State invited Governor Milner and President Kruger to attend a conference in Bloemfontein. The conference started on 30th May 1899, but negotiations quickly broke down, despite Kruger’s offer of concessions. In September 1899, Chamberlain sent an ultimatum demanding full equality for British citizens resident in Transvaal. Kruger, believing that war was now inevitable, simultaneously issued his own ultimatum prior to receiving Chamberlain’s.

News of the ultimatum reached London on the day it expired. Denouncing it as an extravagant farce, the editor of the Times said when he read it that, an official document is seldom amusing and useful, yet this was both. The Globe ridiculed this trumpery little state,