THE BRITISH SOLDIER IN SOUTH AFRICA
When Lord Roberts desired to sum up
the character of the soldiers whom he had led, he
declared that they had behaved like gentlemen.
I believe that statement to be no exaggeration, and
I think that when the bitter animosities of warfare
have subsided, it will be acknowledged by the Boers
themselves that it is true. They have had some
unsavoury work to do for guerilla warfare
brings much in its train which is hateful but
officers and men have ameliorated and softened the
asperities of warfare wherever it has been possible
to do so. Their character has been most foully
attacked by politicians at home, and by the ignorant
or malevolent abroad. Let us examine the evidence.
There were many military attaches
present with our Army. Have any of them reported
against the discipline of our soldiers? So far
as their reports are known, nothing of the sort has
been alleged. Captain Slocum, the American representative,
writes from Bloemfontein:
’The British have been too merciful,
and I believe, had a more rigorous course been adopted
when the Army first entered this capital and the enemy
thoroughly stampeded, the war would have been materially
shortened.’
The French military attache said:
’What I admire most in this campaign is the
conduct of your soldiers. Here they are trekking
and fighting daily in an uninteresting country, scorched
by day, cold by night, without drink, without women.
Any other soldiers in Europe would have mutinied long
ago.’
There were several foreign war-correspondents
with our army. Of these the only Frenchman, M.
Carrere of the ‘Matin’ was an ardent pro-Boer.
Read his book, ‘En pleine Épopée.’
He is bitter against our policy and our politicians.
His eyes are very keenly open for flaws in our Army.
But from cover to cover he has nothing but praise for
the devoted Tommy and his chivalrous officer.
Three American correspondents were
there there may have been more, but three
I knew. These were Messrs. Julian Ralph, James
Barnes, and Unger. The first two were much impressed
by the humanity and discipline of the British troops,
though Mr. Ralph was, I believe, like Captain Slocum,
of the opinion that it was occasionally pushed too
far. Mr. Unger’s published impressions
of the war confirm the same idea.
Here, then, is practical unanimity
among all the impartial witnesses. On the opinions
of our own correspondents I will not dwell. I
have the advantage of knowing nearly all of them,
and though among them are several gentlemen who have
a chivalrous and idealistic sympathy for the Boers,
I cannot recollect that I have ever once heard one
of them record a single instance where they had been
shocked by the conduct of a soldier.
I may, perhaps, be permitted to add
my own testimony. I went to South Africa with
great sympathy for the individual Boer, and with a
belief that I should find soldiers in the field very
different from soldiers in peace. I was three
months in Bloemfontein when there were from ten to
thirty thousand men encamped round the town. During
that time I only once saw a man drunk. I never
saw a man drunk during the short time that I was in
Pretoria and Johannesburg. I once heard of a soldier
striking a Boer. It was because the man had refused
to raise his hat at the burial of the soldier’s
comrade. I not only never saw any outrage, but
in many confidential talks with officers I never heard
of one. I saw twenty Boer prisoners within five
minutes of their capture. The soldiers were giving
them cigarettes. Only two assaults on women came
to my ears while I was in Africa. In each case
the culprit was a Kaffir, and the deed was promptly
avenged by the British Army.
Miss Hobhouse has mixed with a great
number of refugees, many of whom are naturally very
bitter against us. She is not reticent as to the
tales which they told her. Not one of them all
has a story of outrage. One woman, she says,
was kicked by a drunken soldier, for which, she adds,
he was punished.
An inmate of the Springfontein Refugee
Camp, Mr. Maltman, of Philippolis, writes: ’All
the Boer women here speak in the highest terms of
the treatment they have received at the hands of soldiers.’
Here is the testimony of a burgher’s
wife, Mrs. Van Niekirk:
’Will you kindly allow me to
give my testimony to the kindly treatment of the Dutch
women and children by the British troops? As the
wife of a Transvaal burgher, I have lived in Krugersdorp
since 1897, until three weeks ago. The town was
taken in June last, and since then there has always
been a fairly large force of men in, or quite near
it; indeed, on several occasions the numbers have
amounted to ten thousand, or more, and have been of
many different regiments, English, Scotch, Irish, and
Colonial.
’At such times the streets and
the few shops open were thronged with soldiers, while,
even when the town was quietest, there were always
numbers of them about. The women were at first
afraid, but they very soon discovered that they could
move about as freely as in ordinary times, without
fear of any annoyance. During the whole six months
I never saw or heard of a single instance where a
woman was treated with the slightest disrespect; the
bearing of both officers and men was invariably deferential
to all women, and kindly to children.
’Last July a detachment of Gordon
Highlanders was camped on the veldt for a week in
front of my house, which stands almost alone on the
outskirts of the town. My husband was away during
the time, and I was alone with my young children.
The nearest camp-fires were not a dozen yards from
my gate, yet I never experienced the least annoyance,
nor missed from my ground even so much as a stick
of wood.
’I could multiply instances,
but after this little need be said; if I had not seen
it I could not have believed that a victorious army
would behave with such humanity and consideration
in the territory of a people even then in arms against
them; and if they behave so in Krugersdorp a
place mind you, where during the last six months their
doings could not be openly criticised is
it likely that their conduct in other places will
be so entirely different? I am, &c.’
This is the testimony of a woman.
Here it is from a man’s point of view an
old burgher who had very special opportunities for
studying the conduct of British troops:
’Allow me to state here, once
for all, that throughout the entire war all the English
officers and a great many of all ranks came
to see us treated us with the greatest
kindness and courtesy. They knew, too, that I
was a burgher, and that I had several sons who were
doing their duty in fighting for the independence
of our country.
’I return once more to the conduct
of “Tommy Atkins.” We saw numbers
of convoys, some of which were more than sixteen kilometres
long, bringing a great many Boer prisoners and their
families to Pretoria. Tommy was everywhere, watching
the wagons, marching without a word in clouds of dust,
frequently in mud to the ankle, never rough towards
women or children, as has been so often repeated.
We have heard the contrary stated by our tried friends
and by our own children.
’During halts, Tommy was the
best and readiest creature imaginable; he got the
water boiled, laid himself out to attend to the children
in a thousand ways, and comforted the broken-hearted
mothers. His hand was ready with help for every
invalid. At our farm he helped of his own free
will in saving a drowning beast, or in removing a fat
pig that had been killed, sometimes even in rounding-in
cattle that had strayed out of bounds, and so on,
giving help in a thousand ways. For all that he
wanted no reward. Rewards he refused altogether
simply because it was good-feeling which made him
do these things.
’Sir, these are indisputable
facts, which I have repeated as accurately as I could,
leaving your readers to draw their own conclusions.
’OLD
BURGHER OF THE TRANSVAAL.
‘Rustenburg, Transvaal: July 1901.’
A long and curious letter appears
in the ‘Suisse Libérale’ from
a young Swiss who spent the whole time of the war
upon a farm in the Thabanchu district of the Orange
Free State. It is very impartial in its judgments,
and remarks, among other things talking
of the life of the local garrison:
’They make frequent visits,
send out invitations, and organise picnics. In
the town they get up charity concerts, balls, sports,
and horse-races. It is a curious thing that the
English, even when they are at war, cannot live without
their usual sports, and the conquered do not show
the slightest repugnance to joining the victors in
their games or to mixing in society with them.’
Is this consistent with stories of
military brutality? It appears to be a very modified
hell which is loose in that portion of Africa.
Mr. and Mrs. Osborn Howe were the
directors of the Camp Soldiers’ Homes in South
Africa. They have seen as much of the army in
South Africa as most people, and have looked at it
with critical eyes. Here are some of their conclusions:
’Neither we nor our staff, scattered
between De Aar and Pretoria, have ever heard of a
single case of outrage or ill-treatment. One and
all indignantly denied the accusations against our
soldiers, and have given us many instances of great
kindness shown by the troops towards helpless women
and children.
’We ourselves saw nothing which
we could not tell to a gathering of schoolgirls.
’When living in the Orange River
Colony we were in the midst of the farm-burning district,
and witnessed Lord Roberts’s efforts to spare
the people suffering by issuing warning proclamations.
We saw how the officers waited till the farmers had
had time to digest these repeated warnings, and then
with what reluctance both officers and men went to
carry out the work of destruction, but we never heard
of a case where there had not first been some overt
act on the part of the enemy.
’A story of reported outrage
at a Dutch mission-house in the slums of a large town
was found after personal investigation to have been
anything but an outrage as the result proved.
The young soldiers who entered the house when the
door was opened in answer to their knock, withdrew
after they had discovered that the ladies who occupied
the house were missionaries, nor had anything been
removed or injured. But the garbled story, with
its misuse of the word “outrage,” reached
a district in Cape Colony where it did no little mischief
in fanning the flames of animosity and rebellion.
Thus the reported “outrage” was not even
a common assault.
’It may be said that our love
for the soldiers has warped our judgment. We
would say we love God, and we love truth more than
the honour of our soldiers. If there was another
side we should not hide it.’
So much for the general facts.
But it is notoriously difficult to prove a negative.
Let us turn then to particular instances which have
been raked together, and see what can be made of them.
One of them occurred early in the war, when it was
stated that there had been two assaults upon women
in Northern Natal. Here are the lies duly nailed
to the counter.
The Vicar of Dundee, Colony of Natal,
on being requested by the Bishop of Natal to inquire
into the truth of a statement that four women of a
family near Dundee, named Bester, were outraged by
English soldiers, reported that he had had an interview
with the father-in-law of Bester, Jacobus Maritz,
who is one of the most influential farmers in the
district. Maritz said to him:
’Well, Mr. Bailey, you do right
in coming to me, for our family (Mrs. Bester is his
daughter) is the only family of Bester in the
district, and you can say from me, that the story
is nothing but a pack of lies.’
The other case, alleged at Dundee,
furnished no names. The only thing specified
was that one of the men was in the uniform of a Highlander.
The Vicar replies to this: ’As you are aware,
no Highland regiment has been stationed at Dundee
during the war.’
The weapons of slander were blunted
by the fact that about May 1900 the Transvaal Government,
wishing to allay the fears of the women in the farms,
published an announcement in the ‘Volksstem’
advising every burgher to leave his family upon the
farms as the enemy were treating women and children
with the utmost consideration and respect. We
know that both President Kruger and General Botha
acted up to this advice by leaving their own wives
under our protection while they carried on their campaign
against us. At the very instant that Kruger was
falsely stating at Marseilles that we were making
war on women and children, his own infirm wife was
being so sedulously guarded by British soldiers that
the passer-by was not even allowed to stare curiously
at the windows or to photograph the house.
There was a lull in the campaign of
calumny which was made up for by the whole-hearted
effort of M. van Broekhuizen. This man was a minister
in Pretoria, and, like most of the Dutch ministers,
a red-hot politician. Having given his parole
to restrain his sentiments, he was found to be still
preaching inflammatory political sermons; so he was
advised to leave, and given a passage gratis to Europe.
He signalised his arrival by an article printed in
the ‘Independence Belge,’ declaring among
other statements that 30 per cent. of the Boer women
had been ruined by the British troops. Such a
statement from such a source raised a feeling of horror
in Europe, and one of deep anger and incredulity on
the side of those who knew the British Army.
The letter was forwarded to Pretoria for investigation,
and elicited the following unofficial comments from
M. Constancon, the former Swiss Consul in that city,
who had been present during the whole British occupation:
’I am more than astonished,
I am disgusted, that a Lausanne paper should print
such abominable and filthy lies.
’The whole article from the
beginning to the end is nothing but a pack of lies,
and the writer, a minister of the Gospel, of all men,
ought to know better than to perjure himself and his
office in the way he does.
’I have lived for the last eighteen
years in or around Pretoria, and know almost every
Boer family in the district. The two names mentioned
by Broekhuizen of women assaulted by the troops are
quite unknown to me, and are certainly not Boer names.
’Ever since the entry of the
troops in the Transvaal, I have travelled constantly
through the whole of Pretoria district and part of
the Waterberg. I have often put up at Boer houses
for the night, and stopped at all houses on my road
on my business. In most of these houses the men
were away fighting against the British; women and children
alone were to be found on the farms. Nowhere
and in no instance have I heard a single word of complaint
against the troops; here and there a few fowls were
missing and fencing poles pulled out for firewood;
but this can only be expected from troops on the march.
On the other hand, the women could not say enough
in praise of the soldiers, and their behaviour towards
their sex. Whenever a camp was established close
to the homestead, the officers have always had a picket
placed round the house for the object of preventing
all pilfering, and the women, rich or poor, have everywhere
been treated as ladies.
’Why the Boer women were so
unanimous in their praises is because they were far
from expecting such treatment at the hands of the victors.
’Our town is divided into wards,
and every woman and child has been fed whenever they
were without support, and in one ward we have actually
five hundred of these receiving rations from the British
Government, although in most cases the men are still
fighting. In the towns the behaviour of the troops
has been, admirable, all canteens have been closed,
and in the last six months I have only seen two cases
of drunkenness amongst soldiers.
’We are quite a little Swiss
colony here, and I don’t know one of my countrymen
who would not endorse every word of my statement.
’Many may have sympathies with
the Boers, but in all justice they will always give
credit to the British troops and their officers for
the humane way this war is carried on, and for the
splendid way in which Tommy Atkins behaves himself.’
With this was printed in the ‘Gazette
de Lausanne,’ which instituted the inquiry,
a letter from Mr. Gray, Presbyterian minister in Pretoria,
which says:
’A few days ago I received an
extract from your issue of November 17 last entitled
“La Civilisation Anglaise en
Afrique.” It consisted mainly of a letter
over the signature of H. D. van Broekhuizen (not Broesehuizen
as printed), Boer pastor of Pretoria. Allow me,
sir, to assure you that the wholesale statements with
regard to the atrocities of British soldiers contained
in that letter are a tissue of falsehoods, and constitute
an unfounded calumny which it would be difficult to
parallel in the annals of warfare. It is difficult
to conceive the motives that actuate the writer, but
that they have been violent enough to make him absolutely
reckless as to facts, is evident.
’When I got the article from
your paper I immediately went out to make inquiry
as to what possible foundation there was for the charges
hurled so wildly at the British soldier. Having
lived in Pretoria for the last eleven years I am acquainted
with many of the local Boers. Those of them whom
I questioned assured me that they had never known a
case in which British soldiers had outraged a woman.
One case was rumoured, but had never been substantiated,
and was regarded as very doubtful. Let it be
granted that some solitary cases of rudeness may have
occurred, that would not be surprising under the circumstances.
Still it would not furnish a ground for the libelling
of a whole army. The astonishing fact is, however,
that in this country one only hears of the surprise
everywhere felt that the British soldier has been so
self-restrained and deferential towards women.’
To this M. van Broekhuizen’s
feeble reply was that there was no ex-consul of the
name of Constancon in Pretoria. The ’Gazette
de Lausanne’ then pointed out that the gentleman
was well known, that he had acted in that capacity
for many years, and added that if M. van Broekhuizen
was so ill-informed upon so simple a matter, it was
not likely that he was very correct upon other more
contentious ones. Thus again a false coin was
nailed to the counter, but only after it had circulated
so widely that many who had passed it would never know
that it was proved to be base metal. Incredible
as it may seem, the infamous falsehood was repeated
in 1902 by a Dr. Vallentin, in the ’Deutsche
Rundschau,’ from which it was copied into
other leading German papers without any reference
to its previous disproof in 1901.
Now we will turn for a moment to the
evidence of Miss Alice Bron, the devoted Belgian nurse,
who served on both sides during the war and has therefore
a fair standard of comparison. Here are a few
sentences from her reports:
’I have so often heard it said
and repeated that the British soldiers are the dregs
of London and the scum of the criminal classes, that
their conduct astounded me.’
This is the opinion of a lady who
spent two years in the service of humanity on the
veldt.
Here are one or two other sidelights from Miss Bron:
’How grateful and respectful
they all are! I go to the hospital at night without
the slightest fear, and when a sentry hears my reply,
“Sister,” to his challenge, he always
humbly begs my pardon.
’I have seen the last of them
and their affectionate attentions, their respect,
and their confidence. On this head I could relate
many instances of exquisite feeling on the part of
these poor soldiers.
’A wounded English soldier was
speaking of Cronje. “Ah, sister,”
said he, “I am glad that we have made so many
prisoners.”
’"Why?” I asked, fearing to hear words
of hatred.
’"Oh,” he said, “I
was glad to hear it because I know that they at least
would be neither wounded nor killed. They will
not leave wife nor children, neither will they suffer
what we are suffering."’
She describes how she met General Wavell:
’"You see I have come to protect you,”
he said.
’We smiled and bowed, and I
thought, “I know your soldiers too well, General.
We don’t need any protection."’
But war may have brutalised the combatants,
and so it is of interest to have Nurse Bron’s
impressions at the end of 1901. She gives her
conversation with a Boer:
’"All that I have to say to
you is that what you did down there has never been
seen in any other war. Never in any country
in the world has such a dastardly act been committed
as the shooting of one who goes to meet the white
flag.”
’Very pale, the chief, a true
“gentleman” fifty-three years old, and
the father of eleven children, answered, “You
are right, sister.”
’"And since we talk of these
things,” I said, “I will say that I understand
very well that you are defending your country, but
what I do not excuse is your lying as you do about
these English.”
’"We repeat what we are told.”
’"No,” I said, “you
all of you lie, and you know that you are lying, with
the Bible on your knees and invoking the name of God,
and, thanks to your lies, all Europe believes that
the English army is composed of assassins and thieves.
You see how they treat you here!"’
She proceeds to show how they were
treated. The patients, it may be observed, were
not Boer combatants but Cape rebels, liable to instant
execution. This is the diet after operations:
’For eight, or ten days, the
patient has champagne of the choicest French brands
(her italics), in considerable quantity, then old cognac,
and finally port, stout, or ale at choice, with five
or six eggs a day beaten up in brandy and milk, arriving
at last at a complete diet of which I, though perfectly
well, could not have absorbed the half.’
‘This,’ she says, ’is
another instance of the “ferocity” with
which, according to the European press, the English
butchers have conducted the war.’
The Sisters of Nazareth in South Africa
are a body who are above political or racial prejudice.
Here are the published words of the Mother Superior:
’I receive letters by every
mail, but a word that would imply the least shadow
of reproach on the conduct of the soldiers has never
been written. As for the British soldier in general,
our sisters in various parts of the colony, who have
come a great deal in contact with the military of
all ranks, state that they can never say enough of
their courtesy, politeness, and good behaviour at
all times.’
These are not the impressions which
the Boer agents, with their command of secret-service
money and their influence on the European press, have
given to the world. A constant stream of misrepresentations
and lies have poisoned the mind of Europe and have
made a deep and enduring breach between ourselves
and our German kinsmen.
The British troops have been accused
of shooting women. It is wonderful that many
women have not been shot, for it has not been unusual
for farmhouses to be defended by the men when there
were women within. As a matter of fact, however,
very few cases have occurred where a woman has been
injured. One amazon was killed in the fighting
line, rifle in hand, outside Ladysmith. A second
victim furnished the famous Eloff myth, which gave
material for many cartoons and editorials. The
accusation was that in cold blood we had shot Kruger’s
niece, and a Berlin morning paper told the story,
with many artistic embellishments, as follows:
’As the Boer saw his wife down,
just able to raise herself, he made an attempt to
run to her assistance, but the inhumans held him fast.
The officer assured him that she was shot through
the temples and must anyhow die, and they left her
therefore lying. In the evening he heard his
name called. It was his wife who still lived after
twelve hours’ agony. When they reached
Rustenburg she was dead. This woman was Frau
Eloff, Kruger’s niece. In addition to the
sympathy for the loss Kruger has suffered, this report
will renew the bitter feeling of all against the brutality
of English warfare.’
This story was dished up in many ways
by many papers. Here is Lord Kitchener’s
plain account of the matter:
’No woman of that name has been
killed, but the report may refer to the death of a
Mrs. Vandermerve, who unfortunately was killed at a
farmhouse from which her husband was firing.
Mrs. Vandermerve is a sister-in-law of Eloff.
The death of a woman from a stray bullet is greatly
to be regretted, but it appears clear that her husband
was responsible for the fighting which caused the
accident.’
So perished another myth. I observe,
however, now (Christmas 1901), a continental journalist
describing an interview with Kruger says, ’he
wore mourning on account of his niece who died of a
gun-shot.’ Might not his wife’s death
possibly account for the mourning?
And yet another invention which is
destined to the same fate, is the story that at the
skirmish of Graspan, near Reitz, upon June 6, the
British used the Boer women as cover, a subject which
also afforded excellent material for the caricaturists
of the Fatherland. The picture of rows of charming
Boer maidens chained in the open with bloodthirsty
soldiers crouching behind them was too alluring for
the tender-hearted artist. Nothing was wanting
for a perfect cartoon except the original
fact. Here is the report as it appeared in a German
paper:
’When the English on June 6
were attacked by the Boers, they ordered the women
and children to leave the wagons. Placing these
in front of the soldiers, they shot beneath the women’s
arms upon the approaching Boers. Eight women
and two children fell through the Boers’ fire.
When the Boers saw this they stopped firing.
Yelling like wild beasts, they broke through the soldiers’
lines, beating to death the Tommies like mad dogs
with the butt ends of their rifles.’
The true circumstances of the action
so far as they can be collected are as follows:
Early on June 6 Major Sladen, with 200 mounted infantry,
ran down a Boer convoy of 100 wagons. He took
forty-five male prisoners, and the wagons were full
of women and children. He halted his men and waited
for the main British force (De Lisle’s) to come
up. While he was waiting he was fiercely attacked
by a large body of Boers, five or six hundred, under
De Wet. The British threw themselves into a Kaffir
kraal and made a desperate resistance. The
long train of wagons with the women still in them
extended from this village right across the plain,
and the Boers used them as cover in skirmishing up
to the village. The result was that the women
and children were under a double fire from either side.
One woman and two children appear to have been hit,
though whether by Boer or Briton it must have been
difficult to determine. The convoy and the prisoners
remained eventually in the hands of the British.
It will be seen then that it is as just to say that
the Boers used their women as cover for their advance
as the British for their defence. Probably in
the heat of the action both sides thought more of the
wagons than of what was inside them.
These, with one case at Middelburg,
where in a night attack of the Boers one or two inmates
of the refugee camp are said to have been accidentally
hit, form the only known instances in the war.
And yet so well known a paper as the German ‘Kladderadatsch’
is not ashamed to publish a picture of a ruined farm
with dead women strewed round it, and the male child
hanging from the branch of a tree. The ‘Kladderadatsch’
has a reputation as a comic paper, but there should
be some limits to its facetiousness.
In his pamphlet on ‘Methods
of Barbarism,’ Mr. Stead has recently produced
a chapter called ‘A Glimpse of the Hellish Panorama,’
in which he deals with the evidence at the Spoelstra
trial. Spoelstra was a Hollander who, having
sworn an oath of neutrality, afterwards despatched
a letter to a Dutch newspaper without submitting it
to a censor, in which he made libellous attacks upon
the British Army. He was tried for the offence
and sentenced to a fine of 100_l._, his imprisonment
being remitted. In the course of the trial he
called a number of witnesses for the purpose of supporting
his charges against the troops, and it is on their
evidence that Mr. Stead dilates under the characteristic
headline given above.
Mr. Stead begins his indictment by
a paragraph which speaks for itself: ’It
is a cant cry with many persons, by no means confined
to those who have advocated the war, that the British
Army has spent two years in the South African Republics
without a single case of impropriety being proved
against a single soldier. I should be very glad
to believe it; but there is Rudyard Kipling’s
familiar saying that Tommy Atkins is no plaster saint,
but a single man in barracks, or, in this case, a single
man in camp, remarkably like other human beings.
We all know him at home. There is not one father
of a family in the House or on the London Press who
would allow his servant girl to remain out all night
on a public common in England in time of profound
peace in the company of a score of soldiers.
If he did, he would feel that he had exposed the girl
to the loss of her character. This is not merely
admitted, but acted upon by all decent people who
live in garrison towns or in the neighbourhood of
barracks. Why, then, should they suppose that
when the same men are released from all the restraints
of civilisation, and sent forth to burn, destroy,
and loot at their own sweet will and pleasure, they
will suddenly undergo so complete a transformation
as to scrupulously respect the wives and daughters
of the enemy? It is very unpopular to say this,
and I already hear in advance the shrieks of execration
of those who will declare that I am calumniating the
gallant soldiers who are spending their lives in the
defence of the interests of the Empire. But I
do not say a word against our soldiers. I only
say that they are men.’
He adds:
’It is an unpleasant fact, but
it has got to be faced like other facts. No war
can be conducted and this war has not been
conducted without exposing multitudes of
women, married and single, to the worst extremities
of outrage. It is an inevitable incident of war.
It is one of the normal phenomena of the military
Inferno. It is absolutely impossible to attempt
any comparative or quantitative estimate of the number
of women who have suffered wrong at the hands of our
troops.’
Was ever such an argument adduced
in this world upon a serious matter! When stripped
of its rhetoric it amounts to this, ’250,000
men have committed outrages. How do I prove it?
Because they are 250,000 men, and therefore must
commit outrages.’ Putting all chivalry,
sense of duty, and every higher consideration upon
one side, is Mr. Stead not aware that if a soldier
had done such a thing and if his victim could have
pointed him out, the man’s life would be measured
by the time that was needed to collect a military
court to try him? Is there a soldier who does
not know this? Is there a Boer who does not know
it? It is the one offence for which there would
be no possible forgiveness. Are the Boers so
meek-spirited a race that they have no desire for vengeance?
Would any officer take the responsibility of not reporting
a man who was accused of such a crime? Where,
then, are the lists of the men who must have suffered
if this cruel accusation were true? There are
no such lists, because such things have never occurred.
Leading up to the events of the trial,
Mr. Stead curdles our blood by talking of the eleven
women who stood up upon oath to testify to the ill-treatment
which they had received at the hands of our troops.
Taken with the context, the casual reader would naturally
imagine that these eleven women were all complaining
of some sexual ill-usage. In the very next sentence
he talks about ‘such horrible and shameful incidents.’
But on examination it proves that eight out of the
eleven cases have nothing sexual or, indeed, in many
of them, anything criminal in their character.
One is, that a coffin was dug up to see if there were
arms in it. On this occasion the search was a
failure, though it has before now been a success.
Another was that the bed of a sick woman was searched without
any suggestion of indelicacy. Two others, that
women had been confined while on the trek in wagons.
’The soldiers did not bother the woman during
or after the confinement. They did not peep into
the wagon,’ said the witness. These are
the trivialities which Mr. Stead tries to bluff us
into classifying as ‘horrible and shameful incidents.’
But there were three alleged cases
of assault upon women. One of them is laid to
the charge of a certain Mr. E n,
of the Intelligence Department. Now, the use
of Mr. and the description ’Intelligence Department’
make it very doubtful whether this man could be called
a member of the British Army at all. The inference
is that he was a civilian, and further, that he was
a Dutch civilian. British names which will fit
E n are not common, while the Dutch
name Esselen or Enslin is extremely so. ’I
have never been to the Intelligence Department to
find out whether he really belonged to that Department,’
said the woman. She adds that E n
acted as an interpreter. Surely, then, he must
have been a Dutchman. In that case, why is his
name the only name which is disguised? Is it
not a little suggestive?
The second case was that of Mrs. Gouws,
whose unfortunate experience was communicated to Pastor
van Broekhuizen, and had such an effect upon him as
to cause him to declare that 30 per cent. of the women
of the country had been ruined. Mrs. Gouws certainly
appears by her own account to have been very roughly
treated, though she does not assert that her assailant
went to the last extremity or, indeed, that
he did more than use coarse terms in his conversation.
The husband in his evidence says: ’I have
seen a great deal of soldiers, and they behaved well,
and I could speak well of them.’ He added
that a British officer had taken his wife’s
deposition, and that both the Provost-Marshal and the
Military Governor were interesting themselves in the
case. Though no actual assault was committed,
it is to be hoped that the man who was rude to a helpless
woman will sooner or later be identified and punished.
There remains one case, that of Mrs.
Botha of Rustenburg, which, if her account is corroborated,
is as bad as it could be. The mystery of the
case lies in the fact that by her own account a British
force was encamped close by, and yet that neither
she nor her husband made the complaint which would
have brought most summary punishment upon the criminal.
This could not have been from a shrinking from publicity,
since she was ready to tell the story in Court.
There is not the least indication who this solitary
soldier may have been, and even the date was unknown
to the complainant. What can be done in such a
case? The President of the court-martial, with
a burst of indignation which shows that he at least
does not share Mr. Stead’s views upon the frequency
of such crimes in South Africa, cried: ’If
such a most awful thing happened to a woman, would
it not be the first thing for a man to do to rush out
and bring the guilty man to justice? He ought
to risk his life for that. There was no reason
for him to be frightened. We English are not a
barbarous nation.’ The husband, however,
had taken no steps. We may be very sure that
the case still engages the earnest attention of our
Provost-Marshal, and that the man, if he exists, will
sooner or later form an object-lesson upon discipline
and humanity to the nearest garrison. Such was
the Spoelstra trial. Mr. Stead talks fluently
of the charges made, but deliberately omits the essential
fact that after a patient hearing not one of them
was substantiated.
I cannot end the chapter better than
with the words of the Rev. P. S. Bosman, head of the
Dutch Reformed Church at Pretoria:
’Not a single case of criminal
assault or rape by non-commissioned officers or men
of the British Army in Pretoria on Boer women has come
to my knowledge. I asked several gentlemen in
turn about this point and their testimony is the same
as mine.’
But Mr. Stead says that it must be
so because there are 250,000 men in Africa. Could
the perversion of argument go further? Which are
we to believe, our enemy upon the spot or the journalist
in London?