Three Years' War

by Christiaan Rudolf De Wet

I further notice that your Excellency thinks that our fight is hopeless. I do not know on what grounds this assumption is based. Let us for a moment compare our mutual situations of to-day with those of a year ago, after the surrender of General Prinsloo. Then, the Cape Colony was altogether quiet, and free from our commandos. The Orange Free State was almost entirely in your hands, not only as regards the principal townships, railway lines and villages, but also the whole country, except where Commandant Hasebroek was, with his commando. And in the South African Republic the situation was very similar. That country was also mainly held by you, except in the parts which General De la Rey and General Botha occupied with their commandos, far up in the Boschveldt.

How do matters stand now?

The Cape Colony is, so to speak, overrun by our commandos, and they are really in temporary possession of the greater part of Cape Colony. They go about there as they choose, and many of our nationality and others also are continuing to join us there, and uniting forces with us against the cruel injustice that is being done to the Republics.

In the Orange Free State I willingly acknowledge that your Excellency is in possession of the Capital, the railways, and some other towns not on the railways, but that is all that your Excellency has got. The whole of the Orange Free State, except the parts which I have just mentioned, is in our possession. In most of the principal towns there are landdrosts[100] appointed by us; thus in this State the keeping of order and the administration of justice are managed by us, and not by your Excellency. In the Transvaal it is just the same. There also justice and order are managed by magistrates appointed by our Government.

May I be permitted to say that your Excellency's jurisdiction is limited by the range of your Excellency's guns. If your Excellency will look on the matter from a military point of view then it must be acknowledged that notwithstanding the enormous forces that are brought against us in the field, our cause, in the past year, has made wonderful progress. Therefore we need be in no way discouraged, and, if your Proclamation is based on the assumption that we are so, then it has now even less justification than it had a year ago. I am sorry that anything I say should appear boastful, but the assertions in your Excellency's Proclamation compel me to speak in this manner.

With regard to the 35,000 men which your Excellency says are in your hands, I cannot speak as to the numbers, but this much I will say, I am not referring to those men who were led astray by the Proclamation of your Excellency's predecessor, and so failed in their duty to their Government; nor to those—thank God they are but few—who from treachery or other cause have gone over to the enemy; but of the remainder who have been taken, not too honestly, as prisoners of war, and are still kept as such. Of these I will say that they are either old men and feeble, or young boys not yet of age, who were carried off by force from their farms by your Excellency's troops, and shut up against their will in your Excellency's camps. To say of these therefore, that they are "dwelling peacefully with you," is an assertion which can hardly be taken seriously. I am able to say with perfect truth, that except the prisoners, and the few who have gone over to the enemy, the overpowering majority of the fighting burghers are still under arms. As regards those who have gone over from us to the enemy—a rare occurrence now—I can only say that our experience is not unique, for history shows that in all wars for freedom, as in America and elsewhere, there were such: and we shall try to get on without them.

As regards the 74,000 women and children who, as your Excellency alleges, are maintained in the camps, it appears to me that your Excellency must be unaware of the cruel manner in which these defenceless ones were dragged away from their dwellings by your Excellency's troops, who first destroyed all the goods and property of their wretched captives. Yes, to such a pass had it come, that whenever your men were seen approaching, the poor sacrifices of the war, in all weathers, by day and by night, would flee from their dwellings in order that they might not be taken.

Does your Excellency realize that your troops have not been ashamed to fire (in the full knowledge of what they were doing) with guns and small arms on our helpless ones when they, to avoid capture, had taken flight, either alone or with their waggons, and thus many women and children have been killed and wounded. I will give you an instance. Not long ago, on the 6th of June, at Graspan, near Reitz, a camp of women, falsely reported as a convoy to your Excellency, was taken by your troops. This was rescued again by us, whilst your troops took shelter behind our women, and when your reinforcement came up, they opened fire with guns and small arms on that camp, notwithstanding the fact that they knew it contained women only.

I can quote hundreds of cases of this kind, but I do not think it necessary, because if your Excellency will take the trouble to ask any soldier who respects the truth, he will be compelled to confirm my assertion. To say that the women are in your camps of their own free will is not in accordance with the facts, and for any one to assert that they are brought to the camps because the Boers are unwilling to provide for the maintenance of their families as it is said that His Excellency the Minister for War has asserted in Parliament, is to make himself guilty of calumny, that will do more harm to the calumniator than to us, and is a statement which I am sure can never meet with your Excellency's approval.

Now, as regards the Proclamation itself, I can give your Excellency the assurance as far as I am myself concerned, that it will make no difference to my fulfilling my duty faithfully to the end, for I shall be guided by my conscience and not by the enemy. Our country is ruined; our hearths and homes are wrecked; our cattle are looted, or killed by the thousand; our women and children are made prisoners, insulted, and carried away by the troops and armed Kaffirs; and many hundreds have already given their lives for the freedom of their fatherland. Can we now—when it is merely a question of banishment—shrink from our duty? Can we become faithless to the hundreds of killed and prisoners, who, trusting in our firmness, offered their lives and freedom for the fatherland? Or can we lose faith in a just God, who has so wonderfully upheld us till now? I am convinced that should we do so, we should be despised not only by your Excellency and all honest men, but also by ourselves.