Proclamation.
Whereas, small parties of raiders have recently been doing wanton damage to public property in the Orange River Colony and South African Republic by destroying railway bridges and culverts, and cutting the telegraph wires; and, whereas, such damage cannot be done without the knowledge and connivance of the neighboring inhabitants and the principal civil residents in the districts concerned;
Now, therefore, I, Frederick Sleigh, Baron Roberts of Kandahar and Waterford, K.P., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., V.C., Field Marshal, Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty’s Troops in South Africa, warn the said inhabitants and principal civil residents that, whenever public property is destroyed or injured in the manner specified above, they will be held responsible for aiding and abetting the offenders. The houses in the vicinity of the place where the damage is done will be burnt, and the principal civil residents will be made prisoners of war.
Roberts,
F. M.
A few days later it was followed by another proclamation, even more harsh:
Proclamation.
Referring to my proclamation dated Pretoria, 16th June, 1900, I, Frederick Sleigh, Baron Roberts of Kandahar and Waterford, K.P., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., V.C., Field Marshal, Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty’s Troops in South Africa, do hereby declare, proclaim, and make known that, should any damage be done to any of the lines of railway, or to any of the railway bridges, culverts, or buildings, or to any telegraph lines or other railway or public property in the Orange River Colony, or in that portion of the South African Republic for the time being within the sphere of my military operations, the following punishment will be inflicted:
1. The principal residents of the towns and district will be held, jointly and severally, responsible for the amount of damage done in their district.
2. In addition to the payment of the damage above mentioned, a penalty depending upon the circumstances of each case, but which in no event will be less than a sum of 2s. 6d. per morgen on the area of each farm, will be levied and recovered from each burgher of the district in which the damage is done, in respect of the land owned or occupied by him in such district. Furthermore, all receipts for goods requisitioned in such district on behalf of the military authorities will be cancelled, and no payment whatsoever will be made in respect of the same.
3. As a further precautionary measure, the Director of Military Railways has been authorized to order that one or more of the residents, who will be selected by him from each district, shall from time to time personally accompany the trains while travelling through their district.
4. The houses and farms in the vicinity of the place where the damage is done will be destroyed, and the residents of the neighborhood dealt with under martial law.
5. The military authorities will render every facility to the principal residents to enable them to communicate the purport of this proclamation to the other residents in their district, so that all persons may become fully cognizant of the responsibility resting upon them.
(Signed) Roberts,
F. M., Commander-in-Chief,
South Africa.
I say these proclamations were cruel, because they struck the innocent for the doings of the guilty. War is essentially merciless, but these orders made it unnecessarily infernal. The reason given for the burning of farms near where the line was cut was that such work could not have been done without the knowledge of those who lived in the vicinity; but that reason was wholly untrue, for in some cases farms were burned and destroyed several miles away from the railroad—in fact, not even in sight. How could it be expected that the occupants of a farm several miles away could know what was going on while they slept? I know of cases where the same damage has been done to the railroad under the very noses of British sentries put there to prevent it, and yet Lord Roberts assumed that the occupants of the farmhouses must know all that went on for miles about. On the majority of the farms there were only women. They and hundreds of other innocent people who had no hand in the railway destruction, although their hearts were undoubtedly with the cause, were made homeless by the torch.
The Guards and mounted infantry at Pretoria Station.
The drastic measures taken by the British have reacted against them. One of the principal obstacles in the way of ending the war has been that the homes and farms of the greater number of the burghers in the field were destroyed, and there was nothing left for them to do but to fight. Outside of this wholesale burning, the British policy has, in most instances, been very liberal indeed towards the residents of the territory occupied; they have in most cases paid high prices in cash for everything that was needed for the use of the military, and the people have not been annoyed any more than was absolutely necessary for the good of the operations of the army; but these two orders stagger belief. They were not mere threats, but were actually carried out to the letter, and are still in operation. The one most damaging blow that a force inferior in strength can strike is at the enemy’s line of communication; therefore, so long as the fighting goes on, the railway will be broken as often as possible. More homes will be burned and more men will be forced into the field; few farms will be left undestroyed, and the country is likely to be left desolate of inhabitants.
Thus it is that the railroad plays such an important part in the war of to-day. The railroad reconquered the Soudan, and will eventually conquer the entire continent of Africa. It is working down from the north and up from the south, slowly but surely throwing out its network of iron, from which nothing can escape. It has reclaimed the great territory of Siberia as it did our Western plains. It is the mightiest engine of civilization in peace; it is the very vitals of an army in war.