Boer burgher

“ But even if England is able to put out her full might against us, it would be a long and bloody struggle. For every Burgher killed three or four British soldiers would bite the dust. In his native land, and amongst his native hills and mountains, the Boer can take long odds against himself. Then the fight will be on land and not on the sea, where England is supreme. Then again the Boers will always choose their own battlefield, and you ought to know by this time that a Boer knows how to choose a battlefield to his own advantage. ”

“ They came by instinct and not by acquisition, and they cannot be sufficiently accounted for as the outcome of experience in the pursuit of game on the veld. They were neutralized partially by characteristics the reverse of military. The Boers were not remarkable for personal courage. If there had been in the Boer Army a decoration corresponding to the Victoria Cross it would have been rarely won or at least rarely earned. There is scarcely an instance of an individual feat of arms or act of devotion performed by a Burgher. ”

“ The time appeared to be approaching when a strong force of military police stationed permanently in each district might prove a more efficient instrument. One interesting development of this phase of the war was the enrolment of a burgher police among the Boers who had surrendered. These men--well paid, well mounted, and well armed--were an efficient addition to the British forces. The movement spread until before the end of the war there were several thousand burghers under such well-known officers as Celliers, Villonel, and young Cronje, fighting against their own guerilla countrymen. ”

“ Every foreign officer was welcomed in Pretoria and in the laagers, but he was asked to enlist as a private, or ordinary burgher. Commissions in the Boer army were not to be had for the asking, as was anticipated, and many of the foreign officers were deeply disappointed in consequence. The Boers felt that the foreigners were unacquainted with the country, the burgher mode of warfare, and lacked adroitness with the rifle, and consequently refused to place lives and battles in the hands of incompetent men. ”

“ It was bravery of the highest kind, and they admired it, as only brave men do admire courage in a foeman. The people of Britain who read extracts taken from Boer newspapers, extracts which ridicule British pluck and all things British, must not blame the Boers for those statements. In nearly every case the papers published inside Burgher territory are edited by renegade Britons, and it is these renegades, not the fighting Boers, who defame our nation, and take every possible opportunity of hitting below the belt. ”

“ Notwithstanding their ability to fight when it is necessary, it is doubtful whether twenty per cent of the Boer burghers in the commandos would be accepted for service in any continental or American army. The rigid physical examinations of many of the armies would debar thousands from becoming regular soldiers. There were men in the Boer forces who had only one arm, some with only one leg, others with only one eye ”

“ One is, that both the Transvaal and the Orange Free State are practically deserted; and the second, that such a mad act as the attempt on the part of an escaping prisoner to cut into Natal, where the Boers are so strongly posted, would never cross their minds. These burghers are slim, very slim, but recklessness is a vice they cannot understand. Their motto is to take due care of themselves, and to attempt to creep through the enemy’s strongest position would mean as much as suicide to them. ”

“ Hardened to the fatigue of long rides over unfamiliar country in search of stray cattle, the Boer youth has often to subsist upon a bit of dried biltong (junked beef or venison) , endure at intervals scorching heat and drenching rains, swim rivers, and pass the night with a stone for a pillow and his saddle as the only shelter, while his horse, securely hobbled, feeds upon the grass around. Never will he lose his way; if landmarks fail him and clouds hide moon and stars, he is guided by wind, the run of water or his horse's instincts. ”

“ At two in the morning crowds of barefooted men were clustering round the base of the ridge, and threading their way, rifle in hand, among the mimosa-bushes and scattered boulders which cover the slope of the hill. Some working parties were moving guns into position, and the noise of their labour helped to drown the sound of the Boer advance. ”

“ The canard that the Boers go to bed without undressing is as absurd as the one of like origin that an entire family sleeps in one bed. Yet these fictions constantly appear, and frequently over the names of persons who have penetrated into South Africa no farther than Cape Town.
The Boer here depicted is the representative Boer--the one who shoulders his rifle and fights for his country; the one who watches his cattle on the plains and pays his taxes; the one who tries to improve his condition, and takes advantage of every opportunity for advancement that is offered. ”

“ Lord Roberts had issued a proclamation saying that, if the burghers took an oath of neutrality, and remained quietly on their farms, he would give them protection for their persons and property. But what happened? He himself ordered them to report to the British military authorities, should any Boer scout or commandos come to their farms, and threatened them with punishment if they did not do so. Old people also who had never stirred one step from their farms were fined hundreds of pounds when the railway or telegraph lines in their neighbourhood were wrecked. ”

“ His isolation, not only in a distant corner of the southern hemisphere, but in the great, wide, bare veldt over which his flocks and herds roam, has kept the Boer fast bound in the ideas and habits of a past age, and he shrinks from the contact of the keen restless modern man, with new arts of gain and new forms of pleasure, just as a Puritan farmer of Cromwell's day might shrink were he brought to life and forced to plunge into the current of modern London. ”

“ We passed one very large Boer laager, or military camp, on the line, which looked imposing enough in the bright sunlight, with its shining array of white-tarpaulin-covered waggons; companies of mounted burghers, armed to the teeth, and sitting their ragged but well-bred ponies as if glued to the saddle, were to be seen galloping to and fro. Although the teeth of the enemy had been drawn for the present, the Boers were evidently determined to keep up a martial display. ”

“ Burghers crept around the edge of the kopjes and emptied their carbines into the backs of the cavalrymen, cannons poured shell upon them from three different directions, and these men on the open [161] plain could not see even a brace of Boers to fire upon. Men and horses continued to fall, the wounded lay moaning in the grass, while shells and bullets sang their song of death more loudly every second to those who braved the storm. A tiny white cloth was raised, the firing ceased instantly, and the brave band threw down its arms to the burghers who sprang out from the spruit and rocky kopje. ”

“ I do not suppose there are any people in the world so well represented by a single prominent man as the Boers of South Africa are by Mr. Kruger. He is pre-eminently the Boer of Boers in character, in intellect, and in disposition, and that is one reason why he has such absolute control over his people. His obstinacy—and no man with a face like his could be otherwise—his people call strength. Age and its infirmities have intensified it. ”

“ These made life impossible for the Boers, who have always been a freedom-loving people.
Finally about ten thousand of the burghers got together and commenced their exodus from Cape Colony into the unknown territory beyond the Great Fish River. The Zulus and Basutus met the first party, there was a bitter fight, and every Boer man, woman and child was massacred. In many cases, when the men realized that there was no hope, they killed their own womenfolk so that they might not fall into the hands of the savages. ”

“ But the Gordons, after a brief check, swept on along the ridge, tearing down or cutting the barbed wire fences which in half-a-dozen places intersected it. Each fence, each stop, meant death to many gallant men. At last, however, the Boer guns were gained; the Devons too came pouring up the hill, and a torrent of British soldiery swept exultant upon the last Boer remnants. ”

“ They have been that sort of people from the start, and they will never change. They are used to waggons and oxen and sheep, and the waggons and oxen and sheep have got quite used to them. There is abundance of proof in the Dutch Republics to satisfy any ordinary person that a Boer, no matter if he can count his sovereigns by the million, would never dream of giving up his farm and turning country gentleman. ”

“ When the tide of war changed and the enemy drove the burghers to the soil of the Republics the work of the women became even more laborious and diversified. The widely-separated farmhouses then became typical lunch stations for the [283] burghers, and the women willingly were the proprietresses. Boers journeying from one commando to another, or scouts and patrols on active duty, stopped at the farmhouses for food for themselves and their horses, and the women gladly prepared the finest feasts their larder afforded. ”

“ Not a living being should have been left on the hill if the theories of artillerists were correct. But in actual fact the execution was by no means what was expected. A good many Boers were killed and wounded, but a number of determined men still held their ground and did not flinch. A Boer correspondent tells us:—"Scattered about, crouching low among the boulders, and in the innumerable tiny ravines, the Boers, with the phlegm of their race, patiently endured the storm and waited for Tommy Atkins to come within rifle range. ”

“ The sound of firing had ceased, and the battle was concluded. Waggons with Red Cross flags fluttering from the tall staffs above them, issued from the mountains and rumbled through the valleys. Burghers dashed over the field in search of the wounded and dying. Men who a few moments before were straining every nerve to kill their fellow-beings became equally energetic to [171] preserve lives. Wounded soldiers and burghers were lifted out of the grass and carried tenderly to the ambulance waggons. The dead were placed side by side, and the same cloth covered the bodies of Boer and Briton. ”

“ The Boers were in occupation of the whole line of the Biggarsberg from Helpmakaar westwards, and commanded the roads as well as the railway running through the range.
Buller on this occasion determined rightly upon a turning movement. All his previous attacks had either been frontal or had been made so by the enemy. His plan was to move eastwards with the IInd Division under Clery, while the Vth Division under Hildyard, who succeeded Warren when the latter was called away to Bechuanaland, advanced up the railway against the Boer centre. ”

“ There is a fellowship of brave men which rises above the feuds of nations, and may at last go far, we hope, to heal them. From every rock there rose a Boer—strange, grotesque figures many of them—walnut-brown and shaggy-bearded, and swarmed on to the hill. ”

“ On Monday morning it seemed as if the very blades of grass for miles around the Boer laager were belching shot and shell over the dongas and trenches where the burghers had sought shelter. Lyddite shells and shrapnel burst over and around them; the bullets of rifles and machine-guns swept close to their heads, and a few yards distant from them were the heavy explosions of ammunition-waggons [190] set on fire by the enemy’s shells. Burghers, horses and cattle fell under the storm of lead and iron, and the mingled life-blood of man and beast flowed in rivulets to join the waters of the river. ”

“ In the early months of peace it was a common thing to come on a Boer family living in a hut of biscuit tins or a torn tent, with scanty rations and miserably ragged clothes. But those people, in most cases, set the little they had gladly before the stranger. The Boer, who will perjure himself deeply to save a shilling, will part with a pound’s worth of entertainment without a thought. ”

“ He was sent in charge of two burghers to the Boer camp near Brandfort. On the way the Boers off-saddled and their horses strayed. Leaving their prisoner alone with their guns and ammunition, which they had laid down, they went after the horses. Here was an excellent opportunity. Both Boers were at his mercy, but it looked too much like murder, so awaiting their return, the (p. 218) scout, who could speak the Taal, appealed to them to let him go, telling them that he could easily have shot them, but the war was nearly over, and he would not take men's lives in that way ”

“ The smell of the lyddite was awful.' A pom-pom and twenty prisoners, including the commander of the police, were the trophies of the day. An outwork of the Boer position had been carried, and the rumour of defeat and disaster had already spread through their ranks. Braver men than the burghers have never lived, but they had reached the limits of human endurance, and a long experience of defeat in the field had weakened their nerve and lessened their morale. ”

“ It can well be imagined that the stock left in any of the towns by the burghers when they evacuated was not of a very high order, as they all went away mounted in the best possible style, and in many cases leading an extra horse. Every man in the Boer army is mounted, and well mounted, on native stock, that does not need to be fed with30 grain to be kept in good condition, as the veldt grass on which these horses live and thrive is similar to our prairie grass. ”

“ It is really marvellous how the burghers manage to fight effectively while keeping so perfectly concealed. A wounded English officer, who was brought into the laager after the fight, told me that the men who carried him off the field were the first Boers he had seen. During the fight he had not caught a glimpse of a single man." Some idea of the nature of the artillery fire concentrated upon this point may be gathered from the fact that this correspondent picked up a double handful of shrapnel bullets in a space only 50 feet square. ”