This blog, as its name implies, deals with the conflicts that opposed at the end of the XIXth century the two European populations of South Africa, on one hand the Boers (or Afrikaners), who are the descendants of the Dutch and French (huguenots) settlers who live on the African continent since the XVIIth century and the British who annexed the colony in the XVIIIth century.

These conflicts were two in number : the first Boer War from 1880 to 1881 and the second Boer War from 1899 to 1902, which specifically deals with this blog. These conflicts opposed the boer republics of Transvaal and of the Orange free State to the hegemonic will of British Empire.

The purpose of this blog is to show how these conflicts were determinant in the process of creating a unified South-African state, the South african Union, ancestor of the South african Republic that we know today and its consequences on the future of this ethnic conglomerate (Afrikaners, British, Indian-coolies, “Bantous”) especially on the proclamation of the policy of Apartheid in 1948 by the government of the afrikaner National Party. It also aims to showcase this people of proud and brave pioneers who fought for its freedom and the defense of its identity with heavy suffering ; it will also be interesting to understand how this War contributed to the transformation of their struggle, from the fight for their political independence by war to the defense of their ethnic identity by segregation.

For this purpose, I'll devote the first part to the events that preceded these conflicts in order to understand their context and issues (history of the Boer people). Then I'll study the different phases of the conflict and finally I'll see its result in the medium and long term for South Africa.

The causes of the war

1. The Boers, origin and mentality

The Boers are Dutch, German and French populations (Huguenots) who have settled in South Africa in the middle of the XVIIth.

The sixth of April 1652, Jan van Riebeeck established an outpost for the famous Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the area of the cape of Good-Hope. This outpost quickly became the city of Cape-Town.

In the following decades, more and more Dutch and German settled in the Cape colony, joined by French huguenots after 1685 (Edit de Fontainebleau which repealed the Edit de Nantes).

These setllers will constitute a class of free farmers called burghers, and then Boers. They founded an original society and culture of farmers-pionners based on slavery.

At that time, the lands around the Cape were free of occupation. The only men that lived there were some nomad tribes of Khoïsan (cousins of Boshiman) which did not practice agriculture. The great black kingdoms (Bantous tribes, especially the Zoulous who settled S-A in the beginning of the XIVth century) were 1500 km in th east. 

Map of the Bantu language area in South Africa

 

This situation had a great impact on the Boers mentality : they do not think themselves as « colonists », « they stole the land of nobody », they are a « white tribe of Africa », the Afrikaaners.

In their protestant-calvinist spirit, they are the new elected people and god gave them this « empty land » to grow and prosper.

In 1706, lots of Boers who refused the autority of the VOC because they felt themselves « arikaans » started to leave the Cape colony to settle in the lands behind the frontier, repelling the Khoïsans (who will be finally massacred by the Zoulous). In 1795, a rebellion burst in Cape-Town against the Dutch. The Boers wanted their independence but the events in Europe (French revolution) stopped this process. France invaded Holland and the British decided to annex the Dutch colonies.

2. The arrival of the English and the founding boers republics

In 1806, the English conquerred the cape colony against the Dutch. Immediately their will of supremacy clashes with the Boers traditions. Quickly, the British took control of the politics, culture and economy while the Boers remained farmers.

The Boers were relegated to “obedient subjects of this gracious majesty”. In 1828, english replaced dutch as official language and the boer language, the afrikaans, was considered as a vulgar patois. Worst of all for the Boers, in 1833, slavery is abolished, so a part of their rural economy collapses.

Face these attacks against their way of life, thousands of Boers decided to leave the Cape colony to found their own states where they would be free to live like their ancestors always live.

Painting depicting the "Great Trek"

Between 1835 and 1845, the Boers migrated to the north and the west of South-Africa in great convoys of trolleys that remind the “Far West” : it is the “Great Trek”. During this adventure, the Boers thought themselves as the Hebrews during the Exode. They entered inside the Zulu territory and, after great battles as the famous battle of Blood-River in 1838 (500 Boers with their trolleys against 15 000 zulus), they founded their own republics : in the first time Natalia in 1837 (but the British conquerred it in 1843), then, after a new exile, Orange free State in 1854 (capital-city Bloemfontein) and Transvaal in 1857 (capital-city Pretoria, with the great city of Johannesburg, founded in 1886 ).

The Boer republics

3. The march to war

During 30 years, the Boers lived in peace in their new republics. The re-built their rural society around the towns of Bloemfontein, Pretoria and Johannesburg. The migration of the Boers was so important that in the Orange free state, yet founded in heart of Zulu territory, the whites represented 50% of the population in 1880. Boers republics were egalitarian republic of small land-owners, farmers and soldiers. The blacks were (of course) excluded of this messianic protestant society. 

A Boer farm

 

But the British, in their desire for expansion and annexation of the entire South African territory, will again try to annex the Boer lands, where diamonds and gold had been discovered.  

In 1880, taking advantage of the permanent war between Boers and Zulus, they invaded the Boers republics. The inadaption of their technical of war and their unknowing of the land forced the English to sign the peace with the Boers in 1881 (winning this war would have needed numerous reinforcement and an important financial effort that the metropole was not ready to consent yet).

After this “first boer war”, and faced with the influx of British miners, the Transvaal government refused them the right to vote ; the level of tension was high and the peace was very precarious.

Then comes a new character, who is a very important character : Cecil Rhodes, the man of the banks and of the big colonial business, the man of the Empire. His ambition was to capture the gold of Transval, to destroy the Boer republics for founding a big South african federation under the British rule and a railway between Cairo and the Cape. He despised this boer peasant who wanted to live as their ancestors lived, who were proud of their culture and of their identity.

With his friend Alfred Milner, governor of the Cape, he causes a series of diplomatic incidents (especially the revolt of the british citizens of Transvaal) which led to the war in 1899.

Paul Kruger, president of Transvall, said to the British ambassador during diplomatic discussions : “This is our country that you want !“

Paul Kruger

2. The War

1. The Boer offensive (October 1899 to December 1899)

The English thought fighting peasants, they will actually face an army of determined and well-armed militiamen. The Boer republics bought guns of 75 in France and machine guns and Mauser rifles in Germany. Faced with an outnumbered and disorganized enemy, they invade the Cape Colony. To fight this mobile militia practicing guerrilla and ambushes, the old british generals applied the Waterloo strategy and the « redcoats » in battle order were massacred. With their light weapons and machine guns, the Boers assieged the city of Kimberley and defeated the professionnal British army at Magersfontein, Stormberg, and Colenso (10-15 december).

During these battles, the Boer machine guns massacred rows of British soldiers while afrikanner troops were sheltered of aritillerie in trenches : it is an announcement of WWI. Moreover, except France which gave a discrete support (internal divison between the will of revenge after the incident of Fachoda in 1898 and the perspective of the future “entente cordiale” against Germany), the main european ally of the Boers is Germany, which seeks to prevent the British thalassocratic hegemony theorized by Joseph Mackinder (the opposion between the British empire and the continental power of Germany is largely responsible for the Great War). So the Boer War is a key to understand the future XX^th century.

2. The British offensive (January to September 1900)

Contrary to the first Boer War, the economic and geo-strategic issues are very important and the British empire is determined to continue the fight until the final victory. Indeed, even more than mineral wealth, it is the control of the road from Cairo to Cape Town and thus a global geo-strategic control over the Indian Ocean (and the British total naval power over the world) which is the goal of Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Milner.

Controlling Cape Town and the coast, the British carried guns and troops from all the Empire (Canadian, Australian...). There will be ultil 450 000 soldiers in South-Africa, more than all the Boer people... The Boer are logically submerged and the Boers republics are invaded. In the battle of Paardeberg, in february 1900, 15 000 british soldiers attacked 5000 Boers resistants. The Boer army finally surrended after having killed more ennemies than thier opponent. Bloemfontein, capital city of the Orange free state, fall on the 13^th of March and Pretoria is conquered on June the fifth. Boer republics are completely invaded but the Boer people refused to lay down their arms.

3. Guerrilla war and British terror (September 1900 – May 1902)

Boer armies decided to lead a war of harassment against the British troops to force them to leave the territory. Their knowledge of the field and their art of guerrilla allow them to inflict heavy casualties on an occupying army everey day more numerous but unable to respond. Faced with this situation the new commander of the British Army, Lord Kitchener, decided to answer by the Terror : systematic destruction of boer farms and detention of civilians (wemen and children) which means the first concentration camps of history : one third of the all Boer people will be put into concentration camps (old men, women and children) : 120 000 people. 27 927 Boers died (of which 22 074 were under 16 years). Moreover, 14 154 blak men (agricultural employees, guardians of the farms, soldiers in the Boer army) died. Starvation and disease are the main causes.

In 1901 the first peace negotiations are open but the last Boer soldiers surrended in 1902. On May 31^st 1902, the treaty of Vereeniging confirmed the loss of Boer republics which are integrated into the British Empire but the rights of Boers are recognized : Dutch is authorized in schools and tribunals, the civil autonomy is recognized for the former Boer republics.

Boers in a British concentration camp

Lizzie van Zyl, victim of the British terror

3. The consequences

1. The creation of the South-African Union and the triumph of the British Empire

The conquest and annexation of the Boer republics allowed the British to dominate the whole of South Africa. In 1910, the United Kingdom decided to unite the four political entities (Cape Colony, Natalia, Transvaal and Orange State) in a South African Union, ancestor of the present Republic of South-Africa. This entity is an ethnic conglomerate of 4.5 million inhabitants including 1 million whites, 2/3 are Boers. It is a colonial entity in which, as in the rest of the British Empire, a regime of racial segregation is in place (this is thus not Apartheid which introduced it in the South African state). Dominion of the British Empire, the South-African Union obtained its independence in 1931 with the treaty of Westminster.

The flag of the South African Union

This process of unification has been done with the agreement of the Boers, who fought for their independence since the XVIII^th century. Why?

2. The "metamorphosis of the fight of the Boers"

After their defeat in 1902 and the atrocities of the British terror which threatened the Boer people of quasi-extermination, the Boer population understood that the fight for their political independence was in vain. They resigned themselves to accept the union with British and concentrated their efforts on the defense on their ethnical and cultural identity. The defense of their identity was especially important because their people was now integrated into an ethnic conglomerate where the Boers were in important minority (and the white majority). In this sense, the system of segregation established by the English which gave the majority for the whites was an opportunity of revenge for them because the Boers represented the two-thirds of the white people. Abandoning to the English the economic power, the Boer began trying to take back the political power in the new South-African union : ultimately, the main goal of the Boer nationalists is to take the power to restore an autonomus state for the Boer people, a Volkstaat.

3. The Apartheid

So, the ultimate consequence of the Boer Wars is the Apartheid policy. The strategy of conquest of the political power by the Boers lead to the victory of the boer National Party in 1948.

To preserve the identity and future of the Boer people within a confederation where Bantu populations are largely the majority with important population growth, the Boer government decided to establish a policy of “separate development” or Apartheid, characterized by a strict separation between the populations. Its architect was Hendrik Verwoerd.

The ultimate goal of Apartheid is the creation of an autonomous Boer Volkstaat within a Southern African Confederation including other states and in particular "black states": the Bantustans.

The segregation period, in this point of view, is just a transition before the creation of these two political entities : a black state and a white state which would have been the new asylum for the Boer population.

Hendrik Verwoerd

But we know there was gap between theory and practice : racial prejudice and the protestant biblical spirit of the Boers led them to believe that blacks were far from being ready for independence and that they had to be beforehand educated by the "chosen people" of South Africa. Gradually the famous “Bantustans”, embryos of black states, became kinds of “animal reserves for humans” while the black suburbs or townships concentrated poverty. The reason for this failure is that the Boer nationalists, supported in this by the majority of the whites and the United States of America (Cold War strategy), wanted to keep as long as possible the benefit from the wealth of South African territory while making sure, by the segregation policy, to not being "overwhelmed" by the blacks ; the goal of the Volkstaat became secondary. In French, they wanted "le beurre et l'argent du beurre”, a new Boer ethnic state inside the Confederation and the wealth of the whole South African Confederation...

In 1966, after the murder of Verwoerd, the final goal of creation of two states is abandonned and the Apartheid policy, deprived of its substance, became a simple segregationnist system that fall in 1994.

Map of the "Bantustans" inside the South African Union

Epilogue : From democracy to Zulu dictatorship?

The president Jacob Zuma

Nelson Mandela

The defense of their independence at all costs led the Boers to lose their republics while the defense of their identity led to the installation of a kind of Zulu dictatorship in South Africa (Jacob Zuma). Now, South-Africa is a country where the killing of boer farmers are daily : since 1994, 4000 farmers have been killed. Lot of them flee the country of their ancestors : the whites are now only 9% of the population.

Here the Boers persecuted on the land their ancestors conquered and fought for...

Against the Dutch, against the British, against the Bantous, the Boer people, by any means and at any cost, fought for the defense of its existence but, ostensibily, in vain. Was the Boer War the beginning of the fall and of the end of the Afrikaaner nation?

Maybe. But the Boers have shown to all the peoples of the earth what was fighting with honor for its land and the legacy of its ancestors.

This is the essential.

In 1899, the Boer republics of the Transvaal and the Orange free State, had gone to war with Britain, invading the British dominions of Natal and the Cape and laying siege of the town of Ladysmith, Kimberly and Mafeking. The Transvaal president Paul Kruger had belived that war was inevitable and that his people's independance was gravely threatened by Britain's imperial ambitions for the region. In the last decade of the XIXth century, gold-mining have transformend the Transvaal from one of the poorest to one of the richest countries in the world upsetting the balance of power and undermining Britain's hitherto undisputed dominance in the area. Gold also enabled the Boers to arm themselves with the most modern European weapons, enhancing their traditional marksmanship to an astonishing accuracy. In the first months of their war, the Boers had inflicted a series of crushing reverses on the British but their natural caution had prevented them from following up these victories and overrunning large areas of the Cape. The new century found them holding essentially defensive positions on the frontiers of their homelands. Time however was not on their side. From months, British troops have been disembarking in the Cape ports in ever-increasing number. In December, general Buller has been replaced as commander in chief for Britain's forces in the region by Field Marshall Roberts. Roberts appointment signaled if anything a hardening of resolve.

Web Link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCJqxezKYDo

Bibliography

David Harrison, The White Tribe of Africa, Los Angeles, 1981.

Bernard Lugan, Histoire de l'Afrique du Sud, 2010.

Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War, New York, 1979.

Internet and Wikipedia (pictures and video)

A Boer family in front of its farm.

"Notre terre nous donne une discipline et nous sommes le prolongement de nos morts"
 Maurice Barrès