With the Boer Forces

by Howard Clemens Hillegas

The leaders of the Boer army were elected by a vote of the people in the same manner in which they chose their presidents and civil officials. Age, ability, and military experience did not have any bearing on the subject except in so far as they influenced the mind of the individual voter. Family influences, party affiliations, and religion had a strong bearing on the result of the elections, and, as is frequently the case with civil authorities in other countries, the men with the best military minds and experience were not always chosen. It was as a result of this system that General Joubert was at the head of the army when a younger, more energetic, and more warlike man should have been Commandant-General. At the last election for Commandant-General, Joubert, a Progressive, also received the support of the Conservatives, so that two years later he might not be a candidate for the Presidency against Paul Kruger. In the same manner the commandants of the districts and the field-cornets of the wards were chosen, and in the majority of the cases no thought was taken of their military ability at the time of the election. The voters of a ward, the lowest political division in the country, elected their field-cornet more with a view of having him administer the laws in times of peace than with the idea of having him lead them into a battle, and in like manner the election of a commandant for a district, which generally consisted of five wards, was more of a victory for his popularity in peace than for his presumed bravery in war. The Boer system of electing military leaders by vote of the people may have had certain advantages, but it had the negative advantage of effacing all traces of authority between officers and men. The burgher who had assisted in electing his field-cornet felt that that official owed him a certain amount of gratitude for having voted for him, and obeyed his orders or disobeyed them whenever he chose to do so. The field-cornet represented authority over his men, but of real authority there was none. The commandants were presumed to have authority over the field-cornets and the generals over the commandants, but whether the authority was of any value could not be ascertained until after the will of those in lower rank was discovered. By this extraordinary process it happened that every burgher was a general and that no general was greater than a burgher.

ELECTING A FIELD-CORNET

The military officers of the Boers, with the exception of the Commandant-General, were the same men who ruled the country in times of peace. War suddenly transformed pruning-hooks into swords, and conservators of peace into leaders of armies. The head of the army was the Commandant-General, who was invested with full power to direct operations and lead men.

Directly under his authority were the Assistant Commandant-Generals, five of whom were appointed by the Volksraad a short time before the beginning of hostilities. Then in rank were those who were called Vecht-Generals, or fighting generals, in order to distinguish them from the Assistant-Generals. Then followed the Commandants, the leaders of the field-cornets of one district, whose rank was about that of colonels. The field-cornets, who were in command of the men of a ward, were under the authority of a commandant, and ranked on a par with majors. The burghers of every ward were subdivided into squads of about twenty-five men under the authority of a corporal, whose rank was equal to that of a lieutenant. There were no corps, brigades, regiments, and companies to call for hundreds of officers; it was merely a commando, whether it had ten men or ten thousand, and neither the subdivision nor the augmentation of a force affected the list of officers in any way. Nor would such a multiplication of officers weaken the fighting strength of a force, for every officer, from Commandant-General to corporal, carried and used a rifle in every battle.

When the officers had their men on the field, and desired to make a forward movement or an attack on the enemy, it was necessary to hold a Krijgsraad, or council of war, and this was conducted in such a novel way that the most unmilitary burgher’s voice bore almost as much weight as that of the Commandant-General. Every officer, from corporal to Commandant-General, was a member of the Krijgsraad, and when a plan was favoured by the majority of those present at the council it became a law. The result of a Krijgsraad meeting did not necessarily imply that it was the plan favoured by the best military minds at the council, for it was possible and legal for the opinions of sixteen corporals to be adopted although fifteen generals and commandants opposed the plan with all their might. That there ever was such a result is problematical, but there were many Krijgsraads at which the opinion of the best and most experienced officers were cast aside by the votes of field-cornets and corporals. It undoubtedly was a representative way of adopting the will of the people, but it frequently was exceedingly costly. At the Krijgsraad in Natal which determined to abandon the positions along the Tugela, and retire north of Ladysmith the project was bitterly opposed by the generals who had done the bravest and best fighting in the colony, but the votes of the corporals, field-cornets, and commandants outnumbered theirs, and there was nothing for the generals to do but to retire and allow Ladysmith to be relieved. At Mafeking scores of Krijgsraad were held for the purpose of arriving at a determination to storm the town, but invariably the field-cornets and corporals out-voted the commandants and generals and refused to risk the lives of their men in such a hazardous attack. Even the oft-repeated commands of the Commandant-General to storm Mafeking were treated with contempt by the majority of the Krijgsraad who constituted the highest military authority in the country so far as they and their actions were concerned. When there happened to be a deadlock in the balloting at a Krijgsraad it was more than once the case that the vote of the Commandant-General counted for less than the voice of a burgher. In one of the minor Krijgsraads in Natal there was a tie in the voting, which was ended when an old burgher called his corporal aside and influenced him to change his vote. The Commandant-General himself had not been able to change the result of the voting, but the old burgher who had no connection with the council of war practically determined the result of the meeting.

The Krijgsraad was the supreme military authority in the country, and its resolutions were the law, all its infractions being punishable by fines. The minority of a Krijgsraad was obliged to assist in executing the plans of the majority, however impracticable or distasteful they might have been to those whose opinions did not prevail. There were innumerable instances where generals and commandants attended a Krijgsraad and afterward acted quite contrary to the resolution adopted by the council. In any other army such action would have been called disobedience of orders, with the corresponding punishment, but in the Boer army it amounted to little beyond personal animosity. According to Boer military law an officer offending in such a manner should have been arraigned before the Krijgsraad and tried by his fellow officers, but such occurrences were extremely rare.

One of the few instances where a man was arraigned before a Krijgsraad for dereliction of duty was after the enemy succeeded in damaging one of the “Long Tom’s” around Ladysmith.

The artillery officer who was in charge of the gun when the dynamite was exploded in its muzzle was convicted of neglect of duty and was disgraced before the army. After the battle of Belmont Vecht-General Jacob Prinsloo, of the Free State, was court-martialled for cowardice and was reduced to the rank of burgher. It was Prinsloo’s first battle, and he was thoroughly frightened. When some of his men came up to him and asked him for directions to repel the advancing British force Prinsloo trembled, rubbed his hands, and replied: “God only knows; I don’t,” and fled with all his men at his heels.

Two instances where commandants acted contrary to the decisions of Krijgsraad were the costly disobedience of General Erasmus, at Dundee, and the still more costly mistake of Commandant Buis at Hlangwe. When the Boers invaded Natal and determined to attack the British forces then stationed at the town of Dundee, it was decided at a Krijgsraad that General Lucas Meyer should attack from the east and south, and General Erasmus from the north. General Meyer occupied Talana Hill, east of Dundee, and a kopje south of the town, and attacked General Penn-Symons’s forces at daybreak. General Erasmus and the Pretoria commando, with field pieces and a “Long Tom,” occupied Impati Mountain on the north, but when the time arrived for him to assist in the attack on the enemy several hundred yards below him he would not allow one shot to be fired. As a result of the miscarriage of plans General Meyer was compelled to retire from Talana Hill in the afternoon, while the British force was enabled to escape southward into Ladysmith. If General Erasmus had followed the decision of the Krijgsraad, and had assisted in the attack, there is hardly any doubt that the entire force of the enemy would have been captured. Even more disastrous was the disobedience of Commandant Buis, of the Heidelberg commando, who was ordered to occupy a certain point on the Boschrand, called Hlangwe, about February 19th. The British had tried for several weeks to drive the Boers from the Boschrand, but all their attempts proved fruitless. A certain commando had been holding Hlangwe for a long time, and Commandant Buis was ordered to take his commando and relieve the others by night. Instead of going to Hlangwe immediately that night he bivouacked in a small nek near by, intending to occupy the position early the following morning. During the night the British discovered that the point was unoccupied and placed a strong force there. In this manner the British wedge was forced into the Boschrand, and shortly afterwards the Boers were obliged to retreat across the Tugela and secure positions on the north bank of the stream. Of less serious consequence was General De la Rey’s refusal to carry out a decision he himself had assisted in framing. It was at Brandfort, in the Free State, several weeks after Bloemfontein was occupied, and all the Boer generals in the vicinity met in Krijgsraad and voted to make a concerted attack upon the British force at Tafelkop, midway between Bloemfontein and Brandfort. Generals Smuts and Botha made a long night trek to the positions from which they were to attack the enemy at daybreak. It had been arranged that General De la Rey’s commando should open the attack from another point, and that no operations should begin until after he had given a certain signal. The signal was never given, and, after waiting for it several hours, the other generals returned to Brandfort only to find that General De la Rey had not even moved from his laager.

When the lower ranks of officers—the field-cornets and corporals—disobeyed the mandates of the Krijgsraads, displayed cowardice or misbehaved in any other manner, the burghers under their command were able to impeach them and elect other officers to fill the vacancies. The corporals were elected by the burghers after war was begun, and they held their posts only so long as their behaviour met with the favour of those who placed them in authority. During the first three months of the war innumerable changes of that nature were made, and not infrequently was it the case that a corporal was unceremoniously dismissed because he had offended one of his men who happened to wield much influence over his fellows in the commando. Personal popularity had much to do with the tenure of office, but personal bravery was not allowed to go unrewarded, and it happened several times in the laagers along the Tugela that a corporal resigned his rank so that one of his friends who had distinguished himself in a battle might have his work recognised and appreciated.