Last Boer War

Rider Haggard H.

Description

The author H. Rider Haggard is today best remembered for classics of the action-adventure genre such as She and King Solomon's Mines. But these masterworks of "lost world" fiction had their roots in Haggard's real-life experiences in what is now known as South Africa, where he lived for a time as a young man. In this nonfiction account of the brutal conflict that gripped the region in the late 19th century, Haggard explores the causes and long-term impacts of the Boer wars.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Military history

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776580576
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE LAST BOER WAR
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H. RIDER HAGGARD
 
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The Last Boer War First published in 1900 Epub ISBN 978-1-77658-057-6 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77658-058-3 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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The Last Boer War Author's Note Chapter I - The Transvaal - Its Inhabitants, Laws, and Customs Chapter II - Events Preceding the Annexation Chapter III - The Annexation Chapter IV - The Transvaal Under British Rule Chapter V - The Boer Rebellion Chapter VI - The Retrocession of the Transvaal Chapter VII Appendix Endnotes
The Last Boer War
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"I am told that these men (the Boers) are told to keep on agitating inthis way, for a change of Government in England may give them again theold order of things. Nothing can show greater ignorance of Englishpolitics than such an idea. I tell you there is no Government—Whig orTory, Liberal, Conservative, or Radical—who would dare, under anycircumstances, to give back this country (the Transvaal). They wouldnot dare, because the English people would not allow them."—( Extractfrom Speech of Sir Garnet Wolseley, delivered at a Public Banquet inPretoria, on the 17th December 1879. )
"There was a still stronger reason than that for not receding (from theTransvaal); it was impossible to say what calamities such a step asreceding might not cause.... For such a risk he could not make himselfresponsible.... Difficulties with the Zulu and the frontier tribeswould again arise, and looking as they must to South Africa as a whole,the Government, after a careful consideration of the question, came tothe conclusion that we could not relinquish the Transvaal."—( Extractfrom Speech of Lord Kimberley in the House of Lords, 24th May 1880.H.P.D., vol. cclii., p. 208. )
"Our judgment is that the Queen cannot be advised to relinquish theTransvaal."—( Extract from Reply of Mr. Gladstone to Boer Memorial,8th June 1880. )
Author's Note
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It has been suggested that at this juncture some students of SouthAfrican history might be glad to read an account of the Boer Rebellionof 1881, its causes and results. Accordingly, in the following pagesare reprinted portions of a book which I wrote so long ago as 1882. Itmay be objected that such matter must be stale, but I venture to urge,on the contrary, that to this very fact it owes whatever value it maypossess. This history was written at the time by one who took an activepart in the sad and stirring events which it records, immediately afterthe issue of those events had driven him home to England. Of theoriginal handful of individuals who were concerned in the annexation ofthe Transvaal by Sir Theophilus Shepstone in 1877, of whom I was one,not many now survive. When they have gone, any further accurate reportmade from an intimate personal knowledge of the incidents attendant onthat act will be an impossibility; indeed it is already impossible,since after the lapse of twenty years men can scarcely trust to theirmemories for the details of intricate political occurrences, evenshould they be prompted to attempt their record. It is for this reason,when the melancholy results which its pages foretell have overtaken us,that I venture to lay them again before the public, so that any who areinterested in the matter may read and find in the tale of 1881 the truecauses of the war of 1899.
I have written "which its pages foretell." Here are one or two passagestaken from them almost at hazard that may be thought to justify thewords:
"It seems to me, however, to be a question worthy of the considerationof those who at present direct the destinies of the Empire, whether itwould not be wise, as they have gone so far, to go a little farther,and favour a scheme for the total abandonment of South Africa,retaining only Table Bay. If they do not, it is now quite within thebounds of possibility that they may one day have to face a freshTransvaal rebellion, only on a ten times larger scale , and mightfind it difficult to retain even Table Bay."
And again: "The curtain, so far as this country is concerned, is downfor the moment on the South African stage; when it rises again, thereis but too much reason to fear that it will reveal a state of confusionwhich, unless it is more wisely and consistently dealt with in thefuture than it has been in the past, may develop into chaos."
One more quotation. In speaking of the various problems of SouthAfrica, I find that I said that "unless they are treated with morehonest intelligence, and on a more settled plan than it has hithertobeen thought necessary to apply to them, the British taxpayer will findthat he has by no means heard the last of that country and its wars."
Perhaps in a year from the present date the British taxpayer will be ina position to admit the value of this prophecy.
Nearly two decades have gone by since these words were written. Putvery briefly, what has happened in that time? In 1884, at the requestof the Transvaal Government, the Ministry, of which the late Lord Derbywas a member, consented to modify the Convention of 1881, and tosubstitute in its place what is known as the London Convention. Thisnew agreement amended the terms of the former document in certainparticulars. Notably all mention of the suzerainty of the Queen wasomitted, from which circumstance the Boers and their impassionedadvocates have argued that it was abrogated. There is nothing to showthat this contention is correct. Mere silence does not destroy soimportant a stipulation, and it appears to be doubtful whether even aLord Derby would have been prepared to nullify the imperial rights ofhis sovereign and his country in this negative and novel fashion. It ismore probable to suppose that had such action been decided on, effectwould have been given to it in direct and unmistakable language. Buteven if it could be proved that this view of the case is wrong, thegeneral issue would scarcely be affected.
That issue, as I understand it, is as follows: The Convention of 1881guaranteed to all inhabitants of the Transvaal equal rights—"Completeself-government subject to the suzerainty of her Majesty, her heirs andsuccessors, will be accorded to the inhabitants of the Transvaalterritory "—Mr. Kruger explaining verbally at a meeting of theconference, that the only difference would be that in the case of youngpersons who became resident in the Transvaal, there might be someslight delay in granting full burgher privileges, limited, it wouldappear, to one year's residence. [1] After that time, then, according tothe terms of this solemn agreement, which in these particulars were notmodified or even touched, by the supplementary and amending paper of1884, any one who wished to claim the advantages of Transvaalcitizenship might do so.
Some years later an event occurred fated profoundly to influence thedestinies of South Africa, namely, the discovery of the Witwatersrandgold deposits, perhaps the richest and the most permanent in the wholeworld. Instantly adventurers, most of them of Anglo-Saxon origin,flocked in thousands to the place where countless wealth lay buried inthe earth, and on the plains over which I have seen the wild gamewandering, sprang up the city of Johannesburg with its motley andcosmopolitan population, its speculators, company promoters, traders,miners, and labouring men.
To the Transvaal, at any rate in the beginning, the arrival of thesewealth-engendering hordes was what the fall of copious rain is to thesun-parched veld. By this time the country was once more almostbankrupt, but now, as though by the waving of a magician's wand, moneybegan to flow into its coffers. One of the characteristics of the Boeris his hatred of taxation; one of his notions of terrestrial bliss isto live in a land where the necessary expenses of administration arepaid by somebody else, an advantage, I understand, that among all thecivilised nations of the earth is enjoyed alone by the inhabitants ofthe Principality of Monaco. It is not usual, either in the instance ofcommunities or individuals, that such ideals should be absolutelyattained. Yet to the fortunate possessors of the South African Republicthis happened. For quite a long period they lived at ease in theirdorps and on their farms, while the dwellers at Johannesburg, delvinglike gnomes in the reefs of the Rand, provided them with magnificentand never-failing supplies of cash. Then questions began to arise, asthey will do in this imperfect sphere. The Uitlanders, as the strangerswere called, remembering the terms of the Conventions, drawn under avery different condition of affairs but still binding, hinted at a wishfor burgher rights.
The Boers, who if they liked their money objected to the money-makers,instantly took alarm. If the vote were given to the Uitlanders it wasobvious that very soon they would outnumber the original electors. Thenin a natural, but to them terrifying, sequence would come aredistribution of the burdens of taxation, the abolition of monopolies,the punishment of corruption, the just treatment of the native races,the absolute purity of the courts, and all the other things andinstitutions, in their eyes abominable, which mark the advent ofAnglo-Saxon rule. Behind these also loomed another danger, that of theultimate reappearance of the English flag. So legislation was resortedto, and bit by bit the Uitlanders were stripped of the rights inherentto their position as "inhabitants of the Transvaal territory," till atlas