Krugersdorp

“ After the seizure of the Transvaal and the suppression of the Boer government by England in 1877, the Boers fretted for three years, and made several appeals to England for a restoration of their liberties, but without result. Then they gathered themselves together in a great mass-meeting at Krugersdorp, talked their troubles over, and resolved to fight for their deliverance from the British yoke. (Krugersdorp—the place where the Boers interrupted the Jameson raid.) The little handful of farmers rose against the strongest empire in the world. ”

“ General Kemp reported that he had under him Krugersdorp, Rustenburg, and parts of Pretoria and Johannesburg. In the district of Krugersdorp no more sowing was possible, and the majority of cattle had been carried away. Yet there was no want. Why should he lack for anything when he was in possession of a great "commissariat" extending as far as the Zoutpansberg, where General Beijers was in command? He took what he wanted from the Kaffirs—it was not their property; he was only taking back what really belonged to the burghers. ”

“ I append (1) a sketch-map of the route from Pitsani to Krugersdorp, marked A. This distance (154 miles) was covered in just under 70 hours, the horses having been off-saddled ten times. The 169 miles between Pitsani and Doornkop occupied 86 hours, during 17 of which the men were engaged with the Boers, and were practically without food or water, having had their last meal at 8 a.m. on the morning of the 1st January at Van Oudtshoorn's, 17 miles from Krugersdorp.
The average weight carried by each horse was 16 stone. ”

“ Whenever we came to a farm we ate as much green fruit as possible by way of a change in our diet. On other occasions it would have been very bad for us, but now it seemed to have a very wholesome effect. As we moved on past Zwartkop over the Krokodil River in the direction of the railway, we realized that there was no chance of attacking Krugersdorp for the present, for General Beyers had apparently changed his plans. We were quite sure that it had originally been his intention, and some of our officers talked of the attack on the town as if it were an open secret. ”

“ The Krugersdorp Commando had been sent to its own district, from Pietersburg via Warmbad and Rustenburg, under Commandant Jan Kemp, in order to be placed under General De la Rey's command. Most of the burghers preferred being always in their own districts, even though the villages scattered about were in the enemy's hands, the greater (p. 247) part of the homesteads burnt down and the farms destroyed, and nearly all the families had been placed in British Concentration Camps ”

“ The Rand population is not, as some people imagine, a foreign population. The great majority of it is British, and a very large portion of it consists of as good, honest, hard-working men as are to be found in any constituency in this country. But there are also on the Rand a considerable proportion of Dutch. Krugersdorp Rural is Dutch, and has always been excluded from the Rand in the [32] discussions that have taken place in South Africa, and included in the "Rest of the Transvaal." ”

“ A number of memorials were read from Rustenberg, Waterberg, Piet Retief, Utrecht, Middelberg, Zoutpansberg, and Krugersdorp, signed by about 500 burghers, stating that while they valued the friendship of the peace-abiding Uitlanders they petitioned the Raad not to extend the franchise or alter last year's law. ”

“ It was vain for us to attempt stopping him on the open road, as he had the advantage of numbers, as well as having cannon and Maxims against our rifles. We resolved to cut across the veld towards the drift at Brinks’ farm, which Jameson must cross to reach Krugersdorp, unless he took the other road, on which our commando was waiting for him. We raced across the veld and arrived here, finding you in possession already. The rest you know yourself.’
‘Yes, but you say one hundred of you left the main commando to watch Jameson as he was dodging about; what has become of those hundred men? ”

“ A few cowardly burghers on the ridge took us for khakies and fired at us. Then I experienced the difference between the aim of Boer and khaki. The latter's bullets always flew far above our heads, but the former's fell terribly close to us.
As yet we had retired in good order, but soon we fled in a panic. The enemy had come from Krugersdorp in very large numbers, and already occupied the high Witwatersranden behind us.
Whoever has an incapable horse had better hide in a ditch or behind a wall along with the poor, frightened women. ”

“ The Krugersdorpers were no longer allowed to leave their places before they had permission from their corporal. Even those burghers who were most disorderly in the beginning now saw the necessity of discipline, and were obedient to the commands of their officers.
It was a mixed crew of old and young. But the majority were still in the prime of life, and proof against the privations of guerilla life. The old men among us were all men whose powerful constitutions were yet unbroken. ”

“ The president and the evil genius of the Transvaal through this epoch was Stephanus Paulus Johannes Kruger, born in Cape Colony on October 10, 1825. He was a man of indomitable courage and extraordinary force of character—a fighting man from his youth up. His coolness was shown on one occasion, when, out hunting, he suddenly one day, from the top of a kopje—a hillock such as cover the surface of the upland plains of South Africa—saw a large number of Kaffirs evidently advancing to attack him. ”

“ Distant, a naturalist, who visited the Transvaal about eight years ago. He said:—"President Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger was born on the 10th October 1825, in the district of Colesburg in the Cape Colony, and is without doubt the greatest and most representative man that the Boers have yet produced. Uneducated, or self-educated, he possesses a very large amount of that natural wisdom so often denied to men of great learning and of literary cultivation. With many prejudices, he is fearless, stubborn, and resolute, and he really understands Englishmen little better than they understand him. ”

“ Immediately after the ultimatum Natal and the Cape Colony were invaded by the Boers both of the Transvaal and the Free State. Yet one of the most memorable utterances made by Kruger at the Bloemfontein conference was couched in the following terms: “We follow out what God says, ‘Accursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark.’ As long as your Excellency lives you will see that we shall never be the attacking party on another man’s land.” The course of the war that followed is described under Transvaal. ”

“ On August 24th the tiny little town of Belfast was reached by General Pole Carew's division, including the Guards' Brigade; but though our advent was unopposed, there was heavy fighting on our right, where General Buller, newly arrived from Natal, had the day before approached the immensely strong Boer position at Bergendal. There the Johannesburg police, the most valorous of all the burgher forces, made their last heroic stand three days later, and were so completely wiped out, that Kruger is reported to have been moved to tears when the tidings reached him. ”

“ The police wink at small offenders where before they pounced upon them rigidly. A general tide of indulgence and generosity appears to be setting in towards us in every direction. There are rumours that the franchise and full burgher rights will be proclaimed on the tenth. This the Volksraad have already formally passed, with certain conditions which are to be told us by the president himself on that momentous day.”
“Yes,” replied Ned, grimly; “the conditions you might have suspected all along, knowing Kruger’s tactics of old. He seems to be an animal of instinct and habit. ”

“ He is a man of quite 75 years of age now, and his big massive frame is bent, but in his youth he possessed enormous strength, and many extraordinary feats are told of him. Once seen he is not easily forgotten. He has a certain natural dignity of bearing, and I think his character is clearly to be read in his face—strength of will and cunning, with the dulness of expression one sees in peasants' faces. 'Manners none, and customs beastly,' might have been a life-like description of Kruger. The habit of constantly expectorating, which so many Boers have, he has never lost. ”

“ Nevertheless, the upspringing as by magic of the great city of Johannesberg in the midst of the dreary veldt filled Kruger's soul with loathing. When once asked to permit prospecting for minerals around Pretoria, he replied, "Look at Johannesberg! We have enough gold and gold seekers in the country already!" The presence of this ever-growing multitude was felt to be a perpetual menace to Dutch, and more especially to Dopper supremacy. ”

“ To anyone who has studied the Boers and their ways and policy ... it must be clear that President Kruger does more than represent the opinion of the people and execute their policy: he moulds them in the form he wills. By the force of his own strong convictions and prejudices, and of his indomitable will, he has made the Boers a people whom he regards as the germ of the Afrikander nation; a people chastened, selected, welded, and strong enough to attract and assimilate all their kindred in South Africa, and thus to realize the dream of a Dutch Republic from the Zambesi to Cape Town. ”

“ Burger.—Schalk Burger, the reported “Acting President” of the Transvaal, vice Mr. Kruger, was born at Lydenburg in the year in which the Sand River Convention was signed. His grandfather, one of the original Voortrekkers, had the distinction of having the price of £300 set on his head by the British Government, in consequence of his share in a Natal rebellion. His grandson is more of a politician than a soldier. Enlightened and shrewd, but—progressive though he was inclined to be—he could never have rivalled Mr. Kruger in his influence over his countrymen. ”

“ 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 represented 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 than obstinate—his people call strength. ”

“ One must remember also, behind the homely and pious phraseology, that one is dealing with a man who has been too cunning for us again and again--a man who is as wily as the savages with whom he has treated and fought. This Paul Kruger with the simple words of peace is the same Paul Kruger who with gentle sayings insured the disarmament of Johannesburg, and then instantly arrested his enemies--the man whose name was a by-word for 'slimness' [craftiness] throughout South Africa. ”

“ When the President concluded his address the burghers raised a great cheer, and then returned to their laagers with their minds filled with a new spirit, and with renewed determination to oppose the enemy—a determination which displayed itself later in the fighting at Sannaspost, Moester’s Hoek, and Wepener. Kruger found the burghers in the Free State in the depths of despair; when he departed they were as confident of ultimate victory as they were on the day war was begun. The old man had the faculty of leading men as it is rarely found. ”

“ Kruger, the man who could spoof Great Britain, and drive his own people like a flock of sheep, appeared, before they saw him in their imagination, to be almost as colossal a character as their ideal hero, Cecil Rhodes. Throughout Africa these two giants stood facing each other, while the rest of the world watched and waited the result of their deadly duel. Kruger, the champion of everything that was despicable, oppressive, and false; Rhodes, the champion of chivalry, humanity, and progress. ”

“ Kruger's political platform is based on one of the paragraphs of a manifesto which he, as Vice-President of the Triumvirate, sent to Sir Owen Lanyon, the British Resident Commissioner, on Dingaan's Day, 1880, when the Boers were engaged in their second struggle for independence. The paragraph, which was apparently written by Mr. Kruger, reads:
"We declare before God, who knows the heart, and before the world: Any one speaking of us as rebels is a slanderer! The people of the South African Republic have never been subjects of Her Majesty, and never will be." ”

“ They therefore denied to the new immigrants all the rights of citizenship, and would not even permit them to manage the local affairs of Johannesburg. At the same time Kruger imposed heavy taxation upon the gold industry and the people who conducted it; and out of the proceeds he was able not only to pay the expenses of government without burdening the Boer farmers, but to build up the military power by means of which he hoped ultimately to carry out his great project. Thus the 'Uitlanders' found themselves treated as an inferior race in the land which their industry was enriching. ”

“ Kruger climbed down! It did not worry him, nor did he take shame that he had failed. He climbed down, as he had done before in the Stellaland affair, the Banjailand trek, the commandeering incident, and as he no doubt will do in others; for he may bluff hard, but it will take a great deal to make him fight. There is one matter upon which Mr. Kruger's judgment is perfect: he can judge the 'breaking strain' to a nicety. He climbs down, but he is not beaten; for as surely as the dammed stream will seek its outlet, so surely will the old Dutchman pursue his settled aim.
War is war, and always bad ”