With the Boer Forces

by Howard Clemens Hillegas

“The enemy have fixed their faith in Psalm 83, where it is said that this people shall not exist and its name must be annihilated; but the Lord says: ‘It shall exist’ Read also Psalm 89, the 13th and 14th verses, where the Lord saith that the children of Christ, if they depart from His words, shall be chastised with bitter reverses, but His favour and goodness shall have no end and never fail. What He has said remains strong and firm. For, see, the Lord purifieth His children, even unto gold, proven by fire.

“I need not draw your attention to all the destructiveness of the enemy’s works, for you know it, and I again point to the attack of the Devil on Christ and His Church. This has been the attack from the beginning, and God will not countenance the destruction of His Church. You know that our cause is a just one, and there cannot be any doubt, for it is with the contents of just this Psalm that they commenced with us in their wickedness, and I am still searching the entire Bible, and find no other way which can be followed than that which has been followed by us, and we must continue to fight in the name of the Lord.

“Please notify all the officers of war and the entire public of your district of the contents of this telegram, and imbue them with a full earnestness of the cause.”

When the President learned that Commandant-General Joubert had determined to retreat from the neighbourhood of Ladysmith he sent a long telegram to his old friend, imploring him not to take such a step, and entreating him to retain his forces at the Tugela. The old General led his forces northward to Glencoe, notwithstanding the President’s protest, and a day afterward Kruger arrived on the scene. The President was warrior enough to know that a great mistake had been made, and he did not hesitate to show his displeasure. He and Joubert had had many disagreements in their long experiences with one another, but those who were present in the General’s tent at that Glencoe interview said that they had never seen the President so angry. When he had finished giving his opinion of the General’s action the President shook Joubert’s hand, and thereafter they discussed matters calmly and as if there had been no quarrel. To the other men who were partly responsible for the retreat he showed his resentment of their actions by declining to shake hands with them, a method of showing disapprobation that is most cutting to the Boers.

“If I were five years younger, or if my eyesight were better,” he growled at the recalcitrants, “I would take a rifle and bandolier and show you what we old Boers were accustomed to do. We had courage; you seem to have none.”

After the President had encouraged the officers, and had secured their promises to continue the resistance against their enemy he wandered about in the laagers, shaking hands with and infusing new spirit into the burghers who had flocked together to see their revered leader. When several thousand of the Boers had gathered around him and were trying to have a word with him the President bared his head and asked his friends to join him in prayer. Instantly every head was bared, and Kruger’s voice spread out over the vast concourse in a grand appeal to the God of Battles to grant His blessing to the burgher army. The grey-haired old man was conspicuous in a small circle which was formed by the burghers withdrawing several paces when he began the prayer. On all sides there spread out a mass of black-garbed, battle-begrimed Boers with eyes turned to the ground. Here and there a white tent raised its head above the assemblage; at other points men stood on waggons and cannon. Farther on, burghers dismounted from their horses and joined the crowd. In the distance were Talana Hill, where the first battle of the campaign was fought; the lofty Drakensberg where more than fifty years before the early Boer Voortrekkers had their first glimpses of fair Natal, while to the south were the hills of Ladysmith of sombre history. There in the midst of bloody battlefields, and among several thousand men who sought the blood of the enemy, Kruger, the man of peace, implored Almighty God to give strength to his burghers. It was a magnificent spectacle.

He had been at Glencoe only a short time when the news reached him that the burghers in the Free State had lost their courage, and were retreating rapidly towards Bloemfontein. He abbreviated his visit, hastened to the Free State, and met the fleeing Boers at Poplar Grove. He exhorted them to make a stand against the enemy, and, by his magnetic power over them, succeeded in inducing the majority to remain and oppose the British advance. His own fearlessness encouraged them, and when they saw their old leader standing in the midst of shell fire as immobile as if he were watching a holiday parade, they had not the heart to run. While he was watching the battle a shell fell within a short distance of where he stood, and all his companions fled from the spot. He walked slowly away, and when the men returned to him he chided them, and made a witty remark concerning the shell, naming it one of “the Queen’s pills.” While the battle continued, Kruger followed one of the commandos and urged the men to fight. At one stage of the battle the commando which he was following was in imminent danger of being cut off and captured by the British forces, but the burghers fought valiantly before their President, and finally conveyed him to a place of safety, although the path was shell and bullet swept.

He returned to Bloemfontein, and in conjunction with President Steyn, addressed an appeal to Lord Salisbury to end the war. They asked that the republics should be allowed to retain their independence, and firmly believed that the appeal would end hostilities, inasmuch as the honours of war were then about equally divided between the two armies. To those who watched the proceedings it seemed ridiculous to ask for a cessation of hostilities at that time, but Kruger sincerely believed that his appeal would not be in vain, and he was greatly surprised, but not discomfited, when a distinct refusal was received in reply.

Several weeks after the memorable trip to the Free State, President Kruger made another journey to the sister-republic, and met President Steyn and all the Boer generals at the famous Krijgsraad at Kroonstad. No one who heard the President when he addressed the burghers who gathered there to see him, will ever forget the intensity of Kruger’s patriotism. Kroonstad, then the temporary capital of the Free State, was not favoured with any large public hall where a meeting might be held, so a small butcher’s stand in the market-square was chosen for the site of the meeting. After President Steyn, Commandant-General Joubert, and several other leading Boers had addressed the large crowd of burghers standing in the rain outside the tradesman’s pavilion, Kruger stepped on one of the long tables, and exhorted the burghers to renewed efforts, to fight for freedom and not to be disconsolate because Bloemfontein had fallen into the hands of the enemy. 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. In times of peace he led men by force of argument as much as by reason of personal magnetism. In war-time he led men by mere words sent over telegraph wires, by his presence at the front, and by his display of manly dignity, firm resolution and devotion to his country. He was like the kings and rulers of ancient times, who led their cohorts into battle, and wielded the sword when there was a necessity for such action.

During the war President Kruger suffered many disappointments, endured many griefs, and withstood many trials and tribulations; but none affected him so deeply as the death of his intimate friend, Commandant-General Joubert. Kruger and Joubert were the two leading men of the country for many years. They were among those who assisted in the settlement of the Transvaal and in the many wars which were coincident with it. They had indelibly inscribed their names on the scroll of the South African history of a half-century, and in doing so they had become as intimate as two brothers. For more than two score years Kruger had been considered the Boers’ leader in peaceful times, while Joubert was the Boers’ warrior. The ambition of both was the independence of their country, and, while they differed radically on the methods by which it was to be attained, neither surpassed the other in strenuous efforts to secure it without a recourse to war. The death of Joubert was as saddening to Kruger, consequently, as the Demise of his most dearly-beloved brother could have been, and in the funeral-oration which the President delivered over the bier of the General, he expressed that sense of sorrow most aptly. This oration, delivered upon an occasion when the country was mourning the death of a revered leader and struggling under the weight of recent defeats, was one of the most remarkable utterances ever made by a man at the head of a nation.