CHAPTER V
WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA—ARABI PASHA'S REBELLION IN EGYPT—TEL-EL-KEBIR—MARRIAGE—LIFE IN CAIRO.
Shortly after Captain Wauchope's return home from Cyprus another opportunity for foreign service presented itself in South Africa, and he lost no time in offering himself to the War Office. He was accepted for staff duty, and received a commission to go out at once. So limited was the time given him for preparation that he had not even an opportunity to go to Aldershot, where his baggage was lying, to make up his kit, but he telegraphed from London to the quartermaster of the regiment—Captain Forbes—to throw him in a small kit into a bullock-trunk and forward it to Southampton at once, as he was off to South Africa next day.
The Transvaal
The country had drifted almost unconsciously into a trouble which has since cost so much in loss of life and treasure. The South African Republic, or the Transvaal, was founded some sixty or seventy years ago by Boer farmers from Cape Colony, who, being dissatisfied with British rule and its interference with them and their peculiar notions as to slavery, sought to establish an independent state for themselves where they might without hindrance carry out their ideas as they pleased. They, in fact, sought liberty to make the natives their slaves. Conflicts were, of course, the natural outcome of their attempts to acquire the land beyond the Vaal; but notwithstanding this, the new settlers in 1840 were so far established in possession, and their numbers had so much increased, that they formed themselves into a Republic for mutual protection. At that time the possibilities of the future importance of this part of South Africa, or indeed of our colonies there, were not sufficiently realised by either our Government or our people at home. Neither the Transvaal Republic nor the Boers seemed to be any concern of ours. It was left to a few Scotch missionaries such as Moffat, Livingstone, Stewart, and Mackenzie to make these known, and to endeavour to educate and civilise the degraded natives in the science of social life and in the truths of Christianity. In this effort they met from the first the virulent opposition of the Boer settlers, who neither wanted the natives to be educated nor to be Christianised.
Acts of oppression naturally brought their own retribution. The natives rose against their oppressors; feuds, murders, and thefts were acts of daily occurrence, until at last the infant Republic became so involved in native wars and internal troubles, that with a view to restore peace and order and to prevent anarchy and bankruptcy from spreading into Cape Colony, the British Government was constrained to interfere. In this intervention many of the Boers cordially acquiesced, and welcomed the protection of our troops, the more so that the financial difficulties of their independent action were in a measure cleared away. On the other hand there was a strong party among them who, in spite of mismanagement and debt, thought they could carry on a free Republican Government. The security of the British colonies was, however, of paramount importance, and it was deemed advisable in their interest as well as in the interest of the Transvaal Boers themselves that the Transvaal should have the benefit of British protection. Accordingly its annexation to the British Crown was in 1877 proclaimed by Sir Theophilus Shepstone, followed by the appointment of Sir W. Owen Lanyon as British Administrator. This necessary step by no means pleased the Boer faction who had attempted to rule, and they did not cease to agitate for the restoration of the old order of things, bad as these were. For a time English money and English enterprise worked wonders: markets were created for produce, and land rose in value.
In December 1880, however, a majority of the Boers took up arms against the British authority. They invested towns held by Imperial troops, and surprised a detachment on the march. The situation was becoming critical. The Government, which at the time was deeply engrossed in other matters, did not sufficiently realise the gravity of the situation, for although troops were at once despatched to the assistance of those at the Cape, these were insufficient, and arrived too late to be of service. The Boers, ever on the alert, had seized the passes of the Drakensberg Mountains, and had strongly fortified themselves at Laing's Nek. Here they were attacked by Sir G. P. Colley, but without success. He was defeated with considerable loss, and shortly afterwards, attempting to check the enemy at Majuba Hill with a small force of six hundred men, he was again defeated with loss and was himself killed in the action.
The Boer Treaty of 1881