Part 12 (1/2)

On Friday, December 27, a German gentleman from the Free State also informed the Field-cornet that Dr. Jameson and his troopers might be expected at any time. 'On hearing this confirmation of the letter,' said Mr. Bodenstein, 'I went at once to Pretoria. I arrived there at eleven o'clock at night, and early the next morning I saw the President and informed him about the letter and what I had been told. He remarked quietly: ”Yes, I have heard all about it” The General (Joubert) then said: ”All right; I will send you the ammunition you require.”'

In the report of the Select Committee of the Cape House of a.s.sembly (Blue Book A 6 of 1896, page 76) there is the evidence of the Hon. J.A. Faure, M.L.C., which shows that he and Sir Thomas Upington, the Attorney-General of Cape Colony, were on a visit to Johannesburg on December 27, and heard it publicly stated that Dr. Jameson with 800 men was on the border for the purpose of invading the Transvaal. Mr. Faure testifies that he learned this from a very prominent Free State Dutchman. Among others, one would suppose that the Transvaal Government must also have heard something of it.

Dr. Veale, a well-known Pretoria doctor, states that at daybreak on Thursday, January 2, Commandant Hendrik Schoeman called on him to secure his professional attendance for a member of his family who was very ill. The Commandant said that he had been sent out on Monday to watch the invading force and to ascertain their numbers, and also stated that he had been following the troop with others for a considerable time and that he was sure Jameson had not 800 but between 450 and 500, as he had repeatedly counted them; that the force was being delayed by small parties drawing it into useless fighting and so losing time; that he himself had been obliged to come on ahead, having been recalled on account of his wife's serious illness, but that it made little difference as there were others to take his place, and they had arranged not to tackle Jameson until they had drawn him among the kopjes at Doornkop, where it would be quite impossible for him ever to get through. This statement it should be noted was made in Pretoria some hours before the Jameson force surrendered at Doornkop.

So certain do the Boers appear to have been, and so confident of their ability to carry out their plans, that they stated to a reporter of the Government newspaper that they intended to stop Jameson at Rietspruit (Doornkop), and this statement was published in a Johannesburg paper on the morning of January 1, but was of course regarded as mere gossip of a piece with that which flooded the newspapers at the time. It is only right to add that there were numbers of other announcements at the same time which by no means agreed with this one, and it is stated that the editor was as much surprised as the public to find that he had been right.

In reviewing the whole of the circ.u.mstances of the raid, not the most biased and most interested of persons can withhold a tribute of admiration to the President's presence of mind, skill, and courage in dealing with circ.u.mstances wholly without precedent; and in quiet moments, when recalling all that has happened, if human at all, his Honour must indulge in a chuckle now and then to think how completely he jockeyed everybody.{32} Not the least amusing recollection must be that of the 'great trek' (Banjailand Trek), which his burghers threatened to make into Mashonaland via Rhodes' Drift when Sir John Willoughby gained his first experience of Oom Paul. The military commander of Dr. Jameson's force had called on the President to add weight to the remonstrances which were being made against the action of the burghers in invading the Chartered territory, and the President, playing his cards for a favourable settlement of Swaziland, had replied that he had done all that he could, and events must take their course. 'Tell him,' said Sir John to Dr. Leyds who was interpreting, 'that if the trek is not stopped of course the result will be war!' 'If it must be, let it be,' the old gentleman answered quietly. 'Then tell him,' Sir John replied, 'that in that case he will have to reckon with the British Army.' 'And tell him', said the President, pointing placidly at his interviewer with his big pipe, 'that I have reckoned with the British Army once before.' If the recollection occurred to both men on January 2, it must have been with different emotions.

In dealing with President Kruger's personal att.i.tude it is not perhaps pertinent but, it is interesting, to recall an incident of his earlier career-a parallel between the prisoner and the President. Oddly enough President Kruger was a rebel and a filibuster himself in the days of his hot youth, and one of his earliest diplomatic successes was in securing the release and pardon of men who, in 1857, stood in exactly the same position as the Uitlanders whom he imprisoned.

The story of the Potchefstroom revolt is little known in England, but it is told in Theal's 'Standard History of South Africa,' and very instructive reading it is. Dr. Hillier, of Johannesburg, one of the Reformers, called attention just before the outbreak to the extraordinary parallel between the revolt of Potchefstroom in 1857 against the dominance of Lydenburg and the condition of Johannesburg in 1895 under the despotism of Pretoria. Dr. Hillier in his pamphlet said:

In 1857 the Republic north of the Vaal attained its twentieth year. It had increased in population, and had taken on, to some extent, the habits and mode of life of a settled community. Mr. Pretorius and his followers began to feel that in the altered circ.u.mstances of the State the time had arrived for a remodelling of the Const.i.tution. Among these followers of Pretorius, these advocates of reform, it is interesting to find was Mr. Stepha.n.u.s Johannes Paulus Kruger.

Mr. Theal says:

'During the months of September and October, 1856, Commandant-General M. W. Pretorius made a tour through the districts of Rutsenburg, Pretoria and Potchefstroom, and called public meetings at all the centres of population. At these meetings there was an expression by a large majority in favour of immediate adoption of a Const.i.tution which should provide for an efficient Government and an independent Church.'

And again, later on, we have in the words of South Africa's historian the gist of the complaint against the then existing state of things:

'The community of Lydenburg was accused of attempting to domineer over the whole country, without any other right to preeminence than that of being composed of the earliest inhabitants, a right which it had forfeited by its opposition to the general weal.'

Such was the shocking state of things in this country in 1856. It was a great deal too bad for such champion reformers as Mr. Pretorius and his lieutenant, Mr. S.J.P. Kruger, as we shall see later. Shortly after these meetings were held, a Representative a.s.sembly, consisting of twenty-four members, one for each field-cornetcy, was elected for the special purpose of framing a Const.i.tution and installing the officials whom it should decide to appoint.

On January 5, 1857, the Representative a.s.sembly appointed Mr. Martinus Wessels Pretorius President, and also appointed members of an Executive Council. The oaths of office were then taken, the President and Executive installed, and the flag hoisted. When intelligence of these proceedings reached Zoutpansberg and Lydenburg, there was a violent outburst of indignation. At a public meeting at Zoutpansberg the acts and resolutions of the Representative a.s.sembly at Potchefstroom were almost unanimously repudiated, and a manifesto disowning the new Const.i.tution and everything connected with it was drawn up. Mr. Pretorius then issued a proclamation, deposing Commandant-General Schoeman from all authority, declaring Zoutpansberg in a state of blockade, and prohibiting traders from supplying 'the rebels' with ammunition or anything else. This conduct on the part of the new Government under Mr. Pretorius appears to me distinctly adroit. Having taken upon themselves to remodel the entire Const.i.tution of the country, they turn round on the adherents of the older Government, whom, by-the-by, they had not thought it worth while to consult, and promptly call them 'rebels.' And so you have this striking political phenomenon of a revolutionary party turning on the adherents of the Government of the State, and denouncing them, forsooth, as 'rebels.'

The 'Republic of Lydenburg' then declared itself into a sovereign and independent State. And thus two Republics, two Volksraads, two Governments, were formed and existed simultaneously in the Transvaal. And all this without a shot being fired, each party finding sufficient relief to its feelings by calling the other party 'rebels.' In order to strengthen its position, the party of Pretorius now determined on a bold stroke. They sent emissaries to endeavour to arrange for union with the Free State. The Free State Government rejected their overtures, but Pretorius was led to believe that so many of the Free State burghers were anxious for this union that all that was necessary for him to do, in order to effect it, was to march in with an armed force. He therefore placed himself at the head of a commando, and crossed the Vaal, where he was joined by a certain number of Free State burghers.

But Pretorius, with whom was Paul Kruger, found, like Dr. Jameson, that he had reckoned without his host. When intelligence of this invasion reached Bloemfontein, President Boshoff issued a proclamation declaring martial law in force throughout the Free State, and calling out burghers for the defence of the country. It soon appeared that the majority of the people were ready to support the President, and from all quarters men repaired to Kroonstad. At this stage the Free State President received an offer of a.s.sistance from General Schoeman, of Zoutpansberg, against Pretorius, in which object he believed Lydenburg would also join.

On May 25 the two commandoes were drawn up facing each other on opposite banks of the Rhenoster River, and remained in that position for three hours. Threatened from the north as well as the south Pretorius felt his chance of success was small, and he therefore sent out Commandant Paul Kruger with a flag of truce to propose that a pacific settlement should be made.

Here indeed is a very close parallel, but the climax is still to come. The treaty arrived at was practically an apology on the part of the South African Republic. Many citizens of the Free State who had joined the northern forces moved over the Vaal after this event. Those who remained and those who had been previously arrested were brought to trial for high treason. One man was sentenced to death, but the sentence was mitigated subsequently to a fine; others were fined. These fines were again still further mitigated at the solicitation of Messrs. Paul Kruger and Steyn, until it came to little more than a ten-pound note apiece.

There we have the story of President Kruger and his friends playing exactly the part Dr. Jameson and the Johannesburg Reformers tried to do. As Potchefstroom rose under Mr. Kruger against the oligarchical rule of Lydenburg, so Johannesburg was to rise against Pretoria. The Potchefstroom Republic under Pretorius and Kruger made a raid a la Jameson into the Orange Free State for political purposes, to encourage those who were believed to be anxious to effect a union. And just as Jameson failed against the Government of Pretoria, so Pretorius failed against the Government of the Orange Free State. In 1857 it was Paul Kruger not Dr. Jameson who hoisted the white flag. The Free Staters who had tried to help Kruger's raid were arrested just as the Johannesburgers were; but although one of them was condemned to death all of them were released, by the intervention of Mr. Kruger himself, on paying a slight fine.

History has repeated itself indeed; but the offence of Dr. Jameson is surely less than that of Mr. Kruger, if we are to pay heed to the records of the Free State Volksraad, wherein it is written that on a certain day the President stated in open Raad that proof had been obtained of a proposed combined attack on the Free State by the Transvaal Boers, led by Pretorius and Kruger on the one side, and the Basutos under Moshesh on the other-a horrible and unnatural alliance which was not effected only because Moshesh could not trust his professed allies. The Raad thereupon publicly gave thanks to the Almighty, Who had revealed and frustrated this 'hideous complot.'

Footnotes for Chapter VI

{24} In the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons the following questions and answers occur, Mr. Blake questioning and Major Heany replying:

'Having got the message you went off with it and you got in, as we see by the evidence, as quickly as you could, and you just gave the message as accurately as you could to Dr. Jameson?-I read the message from my note-book absolutely accurately to Dr. Jameson.

'And he did not lose much time in making up his mind?-No; he went outside his tent. He was in a bell-tent when I arrived and he went outside and walked up and down for about twenty minutes, and then he came in and announced his determination.'

{25} In the course of the Inquiry at Westminster, Dr. Jameson himself took occasion to explain this reference, when answering a question put by Mr. Sidney Buxton.