Louis Botha’s War

SOMETIME DURING THE last week of July 1914, two men had a brief exchange in the courtyard of the House of Commons shortly after question time.

‘What’s going to happen?’ one asked anxiously. On receiving the answer he left looking grave. That evening he cabled Pretoria with the following message: ‘Tell Botha, Churchill thinks it’s war and Britain is involved.’

Louis Botha, prime minister of the fledgling Union of South Africa, however, was not in Pretoria. He and his wife, Annie, were far away in Northern Rhodesia. They were due to return to South Africa in the first week of August on a steamship sailing from Beira in Portuguese East Africa. Nevertheless, 1st Baronet Sir David de Villiers-Graaff’s cable from London was immediately relayed north, where it reached Botha just before he was due to board. Cancelling the sea passage, he instead returned to Pretoria by train.¹

Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914. As a dominion of the British Empire, South Africa was automatically drawn into the conflict. The news of a European war could not have come at a worse time for Botha. It was a mere twelve years since the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging which brought an end to the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902, a bitter conflict that pitted Briton against Boer, and the wounds still ran deep. The Union, made up of two former colonies and two previously independent states, was itself only four years old and already the Afrikaners were fighting among themselves over the path the new country should take. Botha’s own policy was to pledge reconciliation between the two disparate groups of whites, the one English, the other Afrikaans, but his fellow countrymen were still smarting from defeat at the hands of their traditional foe. Botha’s placatory tonic was too bitter to swallow for many South Africans of Dutch descent. Despite gaining self-governance, and even though that government was led by a famous Boer general, with fellow Afrikaners and generals in the cabinet, many die-hard Boers or bittereinders (bitter-enders) still hankered after notions of an Afrikaner republic and remained vehemently anti-British.

As recently as January 1914, the Afrikaner ranks within Botha’s own cabinet had splintered over government policy. Those with nationalist and republican sentiments broke away under the leadership of General James Barry Munnik Hertzog to form the National Party, an organisation that would, after a few modifications, one day plunge the country into the now infamous racial system of apartheid. The schism in the prime minister’s own ranks was a blow to his delicate policy of reconciliation, but he was feeling pressure from both sides. The Union had just endured a spate of violent miner strikes on the Rand, where communist and socialist elements of the largely English-speaking Labour Party did little to assuage the negative perceptions of their conservative and pious agricultural brethren on the other end of the white spectrum.

To add to the turmoil, the land was rife with racial tension. In 1913, the Natives Land Act had effectively removed much of the black population from white-owned areas and placed them in reserves. These relocations were the hallmarks of apartheid, still thirty-five years away from being formalised, and have forever tarnished Botha’s name. In direct response to these measures, the South African Native National Congress was formed. This socio-political party of mainly black and some concerned liberal white South Africans was the forerunner of the African National Congress that now governs the country after almost a century of struggle against white domination. The ‘native question’ was a contentious issue among policy-makers and did little to help Botha’s road to reconciliation.

Then there was Mohandas Gandhi, a young Indian lawyer and resident South African, who, showing a quality that would one day make him a legend, initiated a peaceful and successful campaign to repudiate the second-class treatment of Indians in the country. This, too, did little for Botha’s reputation both at home and abroad. By mid-1914, he was immersed in domestic strife and could ill afford to fight an international war.

To make matters worse, in 1914 South Africa had a weak and fledgling defence force. Since the end of the Boer War in 1902, the Boer commandos had disbanded, and the permanent imperial force that Britain maintained had diminished in size as the decade wore on. In 1912, Botha passed the Defence Act, which made provision for an all–South African army, one that would ambitiously include both Afrikaner and English elements. The Union Defence Force was initially made up of an odd combination of volunteers and conscripts, and by 1914 it was still a long way from being war-ready, consisting of both English- and Afrikaans-speaking mounted militia and infantry who were not only largely untrained but who also regarded one another with deep suspicion and mistrust.

The bulk of the army was made up of the Active Citizen Force, which included volunteers between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one and older men from rifle associations and clubs. According to the Defence Act, if the volunteers fell short of the 64 000 deemed necessary for an effective citizen force, the government would be compelled to conscript to make up for the shortfall. At the outbreak of the war in 1914, there were only 44 000.

Among the ranks of the Active Citizen Force there were widely differing ideas on how an army should function. The English officers, being regimented, had a penchant for khaki uniforms and clean-shaven faces. The Boers, who typically democratically elected their officers based on districts and were quite happy in informal mufti and slouch hats, found the new regime too British.² Although consummate horsemen and sharpshooters, and brilliant guerrilla fighters, the Afrikaners tended to eschew authority and baulked at pushing home an attack, because of their inadequate chain of command and general military indiscipline. Nonetheless, the Boer commando system was a potent fighting force, well honed to the style of warfare on the subcontinent, as the British had discovered to their cost over a decade earlier. The commandos lent themselves to mobility and allowed for leadership intuition and instinct in battle, and, as a result, were adept at employing hit-and-run guerrilla tactics in the African veld. This style of fighting, however, was debatable as a method for sustained constructive defence or even attack.

In any case, the commando system was practically dormant, having not been utilised since the burghers handed in their weapons and went home to their farms in 1902. Nevertheless, Botha knew that around 20 000 experienced and loyal veterans from the Boer War could be called upon from the Transvaal and Orange Free State should they be needed, although there was a serious lack of commanding expertise among them.³ The only officer in South Africa who had ever directly commanded a force of over 600 soldiers or more was the prime minister himself. All the other Boer commanders had operated with small, mobile mounted units without an adequate staff system and with no experience of formal supply lines, lines of communication, reserve units, medical supplies or auxiliary personnel – all essential tenets for a formal defence force. When they were eventually called up, the volunteer officers of the Active Citizen Force suddenly found themselves commanding many thousands of troops, a task they struggled to handle.⁴

The rest of the Union Defence Force was made up of the Permanent Force, which consisted of just five regiments under the command of Brigadier General Henry Timson Lukin, an ex-officer of the British Army. Lukin was held in the highest regard by all who knew him. Colonel B.C. Judd, who fought with him throughout his career, writes:

[Lukin gave] every problem the most ponderous consideration as he was a slow thinker. However, having solved the problem to his satisfaction he would act quickly and usually successfully and he was completely fearless. He could berate an erring subordinate in masterly style, yet, if he later considered that he had been unjust would send for the man and apologize. Lukin was, fundamentally, a kind and loyal man. Holding himself accountable for the success or failure of any enterprise in which the men under his command might be engaged, he would support a subordinate who in his opinion had done his best to carry out orders.⁵

Some of his idiosyncrasies were, nevertheless, a source of great amusement to the men. He had, for example, a peculiar way of placing his feet when walking along a veld path, which usually resulted, sooner or later, in a fall, from which he would rise, in accordance with the regimental motto, in increased splendour. [The regimental motto of the Cape Mounted Rifles was Aucto Splendore Resurgo – ‘I rise again with increased splendour’.] Lukin was always insistent that his men should be immaculately turned out both in peace and wartime; his own turnout, however, was frequently not what it should have been. He would often be observed to have unfastened buttons and to have neglected to remove toothpowder and blood from his face, the latter caused by his dashing efforts with a cut-throat razor!⁶

Lukin’s Permanent Force was modelled on the highly structured imperial army, complete with parades, drills and chain of command. The general, however, was separate from and independent of the commander of the Active Citizen Force, the intractable Boer War general, Commandant General Christiaan Frederick Beyers, at one time Lukin’s sworn enemy. The emergent defence force, therefore, was made up of two disparate sections with neither commander holding rank over the other.⁷

Worst of all, there was no proper supreme command, such as a commander-in-chief or even an official chief of staff. The minister of defence held the defence force’s top job, while his secretary acted as chief of staff. It just so happened that the defence minister was none other than Jan Smuts, Botha’s right-hand man and a general of sound military acumen and experience, yet only as a guerrilla fighter. His secretary had no military background whatsoever.⁸ Furthermore, as a minister ensconced behind a desk in Pretoria, the ‘commander-in-chief’ was far too detached from military operations. Even if he were to take to the field, Smuts, like many of his Boer War contemporaries, had no prior experience commanding a large body of men. What could he hope to achieve against the well-trained and acclimatised German Schütztruppe (colonial armed forces), who had proved brutally effective in the Herero and Nama wars in 1904–1907?

At the outbreak of war, Botha could only hope that South Africa would be tasked with simply organising the country’s defence in the unlikely event of a German attack from the colony to the north-west. The unlikelihood of an invasion from these quarters was in part due to the fact that the German colonial forces occupying South-West Africa were, despite their experience and weaponry, almost as incapable of attack as the new South African army.

The German colony had just a few thousand active soldiers at its disposal – 7 000 at most – so invading South Africa would be suicidal. But, unlike the Union Defence Force, this was a war-ready, homogenous army with an undivided supreme command, far superior artillery and an excellent supply of ammunition. The German Empire’s ruthless campaign that all but destroyed the rebellious native Herero and Nama people of South-West Africa less than a decade before meant that the Schütztruppe were well acquainted with their own terrain and, like their southern neighbours, were mobile and effective bush fighters. Defence of their colony was deemed more viable than the attack of another, and the German military command was particularly concerned about a possible South African invasion.

As it happened, the British imperial command in London cabled Botha two days after the declaration of war requesting that South Africa act against German South-West Africa. It was not the news that Botha, by now safely back in his country, had wanted to hear.

On 5 August, the day before Botha received the audacious request, a subcommittee of the Committee of Imperial Defence in London laid out its military objectives for the German-held colonies in Africa. Their primary concern was not the Schütztruppe on the ground, an infinitesimal threat at best, but rather the ports and wireless stations that could effectively relay messages to the much-touted German Asiatic and Atlantic naval fleets.⁹ Denying the German navy of these all-important points of communication would deal a crippling blow to its ability to operate effectively. There was a huge wireless station at Kamina in German-occupied Togoland (today part of Ghana and Togo) that could relay messages from Berlin to the fleet in the Atlantic. Another, in Windhoek, the capital of German South-West Africa, could expand the field of direct communication via Kamina deep into the South Atlantic, South America and even the Indian Ocean. While a small British imperial force in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) would mount an expedition to attack an even smaller German force guarding the tower in neighbouring Togoland, it was decided that the mission in South-West Africa would go to the South Africans.

It was by all accounts a cheeky request, given the recent animosity between Britain and the Boer republicans, but Winston Churchill claimed that a year prior to the war, he and Botha had had an interesting private conversation in London, just after the latter had returned from a spell at a health spa in Germany.

‘Mind you are ready,’ Botha allegedly warned his friend. ‘Do not trust those people … they mean you mischief. I can hear things you would not hear. I can feel there is danger in the air.’

According to Churchill, Botha then declared that when the day came for Britain to attack Germany, South Africa would be ready. ‘I am going to clear them out of South-West Africa for good,’ he boldly claimed.¹⁰

Botha’s personal anti-German sentiments originated with the kaiser’s failure to convert his vociferous anti-British sabre-rattling into action during the Boer War. Botha had never forgiven him and was furthermore unimpressed with the subsequent German treatment of the Herero. Despite passing the questionable and racially motivated Natives Land Act in 1913, Botha had a paternalistic outlook on the black tribes of the region, and was especially fond of the Zulu, whose language he could speak fluently. He was an old friend and comrade in arms of Zulu king Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo. A young Botha had successfully helped Dinuzulu in a battle for the succession of the Zulu throne in 1884. As a sign of gratitude, Dinuzulu granted Botha’s mercenaries a large slice of Zululand, which became the short-lived Boer republic of Vryheid, where Botha served as a parliamentary minister. Decades later, in 1910, Botha freed the Zulu king from prison where he had been languishing since 1906 after being accused by the British of masterminding the Bambatha Rebellion. Dinuzulu’s pardon was one of Botha’s first acts as prime minister of the Union of South Africa.

Yet, aside from any personal sentiment against the Germans, Britain’s impudent request for the Union to be a belligerent in their war was secretly unwelcome. It was just too soon. In South Africa in 1914 the biggest question on everyone’s lips was one best formulated by another of Botha’s old comrades in arms and a general in the Active Citizen Force, General Coen Brits. When Botha asked him to begin mobilising his units, Brits responded: ‘My men are ready. Whom do we fight? The English or the Germans?’¹¹

Brits, a hulking, hard-drinking, sjambok-cracking, unprincipled and battle-hardened soldier, was fiercely loyal to his prime minister. It was said that Botha once saved his life under great personal danger during a skirmish in the Boer War. The general would therefore have fought whomever his leader told him to, but his question was well founded in terms of the national psyche. The country was split in its allegiance between Britain and Germany. On the one hand, many Afrikaners felt a linguistic and cultural kinship with Germany, although this was tempered a little in the first few months of the war when the Germans violated the sovereignty of Belgium, also a country with which the Afrikaners shared strong ties. On the other hand, most English-speaking South Africans, who supported the Unionist Party and the truculent Labour Party, believed that, as a dominion of the British Empire, going to war against German South-West Africa was a foregone conclusion.¹²

While Parliament, thanks to strong Unionist presence, could be swayed to accept Britain’s request, the majority of the white population was not so easily convinced. Most South Africans were neutral and believed that a war between Germany and Britain was of no concern to them. This was certainly Hertzog’s view. He saw no reason for South Africa to become a belligerent against a hitherto peaceable neighbour.¹³

With public sentiment so divided, staying neutral perhaps would have been the most sensible thing to do, especially in light of a more sinister danger lurking in the undercurrent of Afrikaner politics. Many of the old Boer generals had been simmering with hatred of Britain for taking away their beloved republics. They had not forgotten Lord Kitchener’s controversial scorched-earth policy and the internment in concentration camps of captured Boer women and children, who died by the thousands due to poor sanitation and neglect. They were biding their time, waiting for the moment when they could snatch independence back from their traditional foe. It is alleged that in order to persuade these bittereinders to accept a secession of hostilities during the peace negotiations at Vereeniging in 1902, Botha had promised them that sometime in the future Britain would be preoccupied with a European war and, when that day came, the Afrikaners would rise up once again and take back what was rightfully theirs.¹⁴ While Britain’s subsequent cordiality and considerable leniency in hastening South Africa towards self-governance in Botha’s mind rendered his promise null and void, the generals were not so easily placated.

Botha considered good relations with Britain as being vital to achieving independence, but his view was not held by all Afrikaners. One such was Botha’s mentor and close friend General Koos de la Rey, an old fighter nicknamed ‘the Lion of the West’, who felt that the moment had now come to declare South Africa a republic.

The old general was a mysterious fellow. Tall, heavily bearded and hook-nosed, he looked like Rasputin, the Russian ‘holy man’, and had a similar temperament. De la Rey was fired up by visions; or rather by a siener or visionary named Niklaas van Rensburg, who, it was said, could predict the future. During the Boer War, De la Rey had relied heavily on his ‘oracle’, with uncanny success. At the time, his men and the other generals, including Botha, found his reliance on visions the quirk of a man they otherwise admired for his astute ability as a guerrilla fighter. Twelve years on, however, Van Rensburg’s predictions had become wilder and more embarrassing for Botha, who began to wonder if the old lion had completely lost his mind.

The siener predicted that, like Moses, De la Rey would rise up and lead his people to freedom from British bondage. According to Johannes Meintjes, who wrote the only detailed biographies on Botha and De la Rey, in July 1914, one month before the outbreak of war, Van Rensburg paid an unusual visit to the general’s farm (since the end of the Boer War they had corresponded exclusively via messenger). According to De la Rey’s daughter, who was the only other person present, the siener told her father about a recurring vision of the number ‘15’ on a piece of white paper against a black sky. He also saw two bulls fighting – one red and one grey. The grey killed the red.¹⁵

When war was declared between Britain and Germany the following month, De la Rey took it as a sign to act. The vision clearly indicated that Germany (represented by the grey bull) would defeat Britain (the red bull), and the number ‘15’ obviously pointed to 15 August 1914. (Meintjes points out that the numbers of the date ‘1914’ also add up to fifteen.)¹⁶ De la Rey set this as the date for an armed uprising against the British, in which he would ride up to Pretoria with an army of men and declare a republic with Botha as president. The time had come for the prime minister to act on his so-called promise at Vereeniging.

Because of the old general’s enormous influence among Afrikaners, Botha was genuinely concerned that anti-British sentiment would grow. In addition, as Botha’s friend, De la Rey was convinced of the prime minister’s support against Britain and was dragging him into his own precipitous cause. However, the other Boer veterans hankering after a republic were not so sure the time was yet ripe to act against Britain. Major Jan Kemp, an officer in the Active Citizen Force, thought De la Rey was acting prematurely and went to visit him on his farm in order to persuade him to rather await the outcome of the war before declaring a republic.¹⁷ Kemp was echoed by other republicans like Manie Maritz (also an officer in the citizen force), Christiaan de Wet and C.F. Beyers, who, having just returned from Europe after witnessing German army manoeuvres, was under the impression that the Germans would easily defeat the British. Yet he too counselled patience.

Botha faced a tough decision. If he invaded South-West Africa with an unready and fractious army, he risked jolting the more moderate republicans out of their moratorium and into armed protest. He was also keenly aware that he would face stiff opposition from the nationalists under Hertzog, whose clamours advocating neutrality grew more and more hysterical. Plus there was the real threat that if Germany did defeat Britain in the war, as Beyers believed, South Africa could find itself in the unenviable position of facing the full wrath and might of imperial Germany. It was also no secret that the kaiser was hankering after an African super-colony, similar or even bigger in size than the British Raj in India. The desired colony would include all previous British, Portuguese, French and Belgian territories, and most of South Africa, save for a small republic around Swaziland and present-day KwaZulu-Natal set aside for pro-German Boers.

But if Botha remained neutral or went over to the Germans, his grand designs for reconciliation would be scuppered. English-speaking South Africans would never accept such conditions and armed protest from this quarter was equally likely. Besides, he was under no illusions as to what Britain would do if South Africa did stay neutral or go to the other side.

In any case, the prime minister had become Britain’s close ally. He had come to understand and accept the Empire’s world vision and had visited the island a few times since the Boer War, where the British public treated him, and the other generals, magnanimously. Botha had struck up close friendships with men like Churchill and even Dr Leander Starr Jameson, once the most hated man in the old Boer republics. Jameson, who had become prime minister of the Cape Colony just prior to union in 1910, was leader of the Unionist Party that had contested Botha in the first elections. Jameson was subsequently leader of the official opposition in the first South African Parliament. After the schism with Hertzog, the Unionists, whose ideology differed little from Botha’s South African Party, became the prime minister’s strongest support base in Parliament. He would need them to ratify his decision if he chose to accept Britain’s appeal.

By the time Britain renewed its request on 8 August, Botha had already sounded out both his cabinet and Parliament and knew which way they would swing. He also knew that pro-invasion sentiment across the four provinces was marginally greater among the general populace than anti-invasion, but that did not mean the pro-republican minority in the Orange Free State and Transvaal would accept a decision to invade without more than a voiced protest, which was about as far as other anti-invasion elements like Hertzog were prepared to go.

There was one other matter for Botha to consider: the considerable territorial gain to his country should South Africa ally itself with a victorious Britain. If the South Africans, without the support of British imperial troops, were indeed to kick the Germans out of South-West Africa, they could potentially secure the huge German colony as their own. This idea appealed to Botha, who, like the kaiser, had designs on an enlarged southern African state, which would also include the British protectorates of Bechuanaland, Basutoland, Swaziland and Nyasaland, as well as Southern and Northern Rhodesia, and perhaps the southern half of Mozambique.¹⁸ If he, without Britain’s help, defeated the German detachments across the border, he could see no reason why Britain would not grant him his wish.

He was also convinced that if he could defeat the four or five regiments of Schütztruppe rapidly and cost-effectively, it would nullify the opposition of the nationalists and republicans, who would then be won over by the immense economic and social benefit for Afrikaner prestige and culture, which could be developed and enhanced if a ‘Greater South Africa’ were achieved.

In truth, Botha’s mind was already made up when he received the first cable from De Villiers-Graaff while in Northern Rhodesia. The fact that he cancelled his sea passage home in favour of rail is indicative of this. The boat that would have taken him home flew the German flag and Botha must have known that if he was on board when war was declared, he may well have been taken hostage or at least interned until he pledged allegiance to the kaiser. Botha was correct in his prediction, no siener required, because he would indeed have been on board far out to sea on 4 August. As it happened, the steamer was recalled mid-passage to Dar es Salaam in German East Africa.¹⁹

And so, despite an unready army, despite the republicans and despite the rankling of the nationalists, Botha replied to London on 8 August 1914, unequivocally accepting their request. South Africa would undertake to neutralise the ports of Windhoek, its artificially constructed neighbour Swakopmund, and Lüderitz, as well as the wireless station in Windhoek. Botha was going on the offensive in German South-West Africa.

The decision now made, Botha knew he needed to neutralise De la Rey, so he summoned his old friend to Pretoria on 12 August for a heart-to-heart discussion. Apparently during the all-night vigil Botha was able to persuade De la Rey not to mobilise against Britain, reasoning that while the siener had mentioned the 15th, he had never said which month.²⁰ This seemed to placate the general, who finally agreed not to act. The following morning, Beyers also contacted De la Rey asking him to exercise restraint, at least until the Germans had Britain on her knees. For the time being, at least, the fiery republican elements against invasion were doused.

The 15th of August passed without incident. As South African forces mustered in the remote north-western harbour of Port Nolloth, Parliament prepared to formally ratify Botha’s decision to invade the German colony. On 14 September, with troops already mobilised, Parliament officially gave the green light. Upon hearing this news the next morning, Commandant General Beyers and Major Kemp, along with a number of other senior Boer War officers, resigned their posts in protest.²¹

In a move that would prove the prophetic value of ‘15’ after all, De la Rey aligned himself with Beyers the following morning. Later that day, 15 September, the two men left Pretoria in the commandant’s Daimler, headed for Potchefstroom where they were to meet Kemp. A roadblock had been set up in an outlying Johannesburg suburb in order to capture a notorious gang of criminals that had killed a police officer a few hours earlier. Tensions among the police were high and, as Beyers and De la Rey approached, a nervous officer opened fire, apparently mistaking De la Rey for a member of the gang. The old war veteran was killed instantly.

De la Rey’s death rocked the nation and galvanised the republicans. They believed De la Rey was killed to quash anti-imperialist sentiment, and openly accused Botha and the government of conspiracy and murder. There was a widespread call for an armed uprising, but the prime minister managed to quell the tension with a hastily called special meeting with the remaining republican leaders – Beyers, Kemp and De Wet. Although the meeting was by no means successful – the trio asked Botha to refrain from pursuing the invasion on Britain’s behalf, but he would not budge – it adjourned reasonably amicably, with the republicans reinforcing their intention to protest, albeit in a non-violent fashion. The three were clearly still following a wait-and-see policy as far as the war in Europe was concerned, convinced that Germany would soon be victorious and the anti-republican Botha resolutely discredited.

The prime minister, however, was now more steadfast in his decision to invade than ever.