It was in these circumstances and with these objects in view that, after Lord Roberts's departure, the Burgher Peace Committee was formed at Pretoria; and it is to the address which Lord Kitchener then delivered (December 21st, 1900) to this Committee that we must look for the origin and purpose of the Burgher, or Concentration Camps.
Origin of the Burgher camps.
"It having been brought to Lord Kitchener's notice," says the published report, "that the principal difficulty that burghers, desirous of surrendering, experienced was that they were not allowed to remain in their own districts, and were afraid of the penalties attached to not having adhered strictly to the oath of neutrality, which they had, in most cases, been made to break by the coercive measures of Boers out on commando, he wished to give the burghers still in the field every opportunity of becoming acquainted with the treatment he proposed now to extend to them, their families, and their property.
"Instructions had been issued to form laagers for all surrendered burghers, their wives, families, and stock, on the railway in their own districts under military protection; and, except where it was proved that a burgher had voluntarily broken his oath and gone out on commando, no difference would be made between those who had not taken the oath. To protect deserted women and children they would also be brought into these laagers, where their husbands and sons, who desired to live peacefully, could freely join them.
"It was essential that the country should be thus cleared, because so long as the means of subsistence remained in and on the farms, so long small commandos were enabled to continue in the field. In return, Lord Kitchener expected every assistance from those to whom he gave protection. They must each and all help to the best of their ability by influencing in every way in their power those still in the field to surrender. These measures would be applied gradually, and extended if they proved successful. Burghers must understand that no responsibility could be accepted for stock or property, except for that which they brought in with them, and then only if they kept it within the limits of the protection he was prepared to afford."[241]
The report of Lord Kitchener's speech from which these paragraphs are taken was printed in Dutch and circulated by the Burgher Peace Committee. It is certainly significant that a measure which was subsequently held up to the execration of the civilised world by the official leader of the Liberal party and the friends of the Boers in England, should have been carefully explained by Lord Kitchener to an audience of Boers at Pretoria, and accepted by them as a means of enabling the peaceably disposed burghers to escape from the compulsion of their leaders. In this, as in many other matters, the English friends of the Boers were plus royalistes que le roi même.
Boer coercive measures.
These, then, were the means employed by the British military authorities to avert a needless protraction of the war. We have now to observe the methods by which the Boer leaders prevented their efforts from producing the desired result. In view of the destruction of the organised resistance of the Republics, Lord Roberts had made known by proclamation that all burghers who surrendered their arms and took the oath of neutrality would be allowed to return to their homes, or, if at home, to remain there undisturbed. This implied an intention on the part of the British authorities to provide such protection as would enable the surrendered burghers to remain in peaceable possession of their property. General Botha, as we have already noted, was personally in favour of a general surrender after the battle of Dalmanutha; but, when once the majority of the Boer leaders had decided to continue to resist the establishment of British authority by force of arms, it became his business to keep every fighting burgher in the field. Here, again, the work of the Intelligence Department provides us with instructive evidence of the purposes and acts of the enemy. In the course of the subsequent military operations Sir Bindon Blood captured a number of official documents in the Boer Government laager at Roos Senekal. One of these, referring to the period in question, sufficiently indicates the nature of the "coercive measures" to which Lord Kitchener had alluded. Under date October 6th, 1900, General Botha gives instructions to the Boer commandant at Bethel to telegraph round to the Boer generals and officers certain military instructions, and he then adds:
"Do everything in your power to prevent the burghers from laying down their arms. I will be compelled, if they do not listen to this, to confiscate everything moveable or unmoveable, and also to burn their houses. Get into direct communication with the Standerton men, and destroy the railway line between Heidelberg and Standerton, and especially derail and hold up trains. In this manner we will obtain a large quantity of food."[242]
And, while the peaceably inclined burghers were prevented from surrendering by the fear of these penalties, the courage of the commandos was maintained by the spread of false information. Among these same papers found at Roos Senekal is a telegram despatched on November 2nd, 1900, to General Viljoen, containing a number of encouraging statements bearing upon the political and military situation, of which the three following may be taken as characteristic: