'The Anglo-Boer War' - Apartheid's Last Hurrah!

Quote from Steve on January 3, 2023, 12:29 pm

In 1985 I bought a copy of Bill Nasson's 'Abraham Esau - A Calvinia Martyr in the Anglo-Boer War', (W. R. Nasson &* J. M. John, Social Dynamics, Volume 11.)* at the CNA in Cape Town. At that time there was a constant hint of teargas and insurrection in the air. Coming out of the darkness at night from the far side of town one heard the muffled rattle of small arms fire, even the thump of grenade explosions. What was going on? Tucked up and asleep in their beds, most suburbanites dreamed on, unaware of the reality of social change and resistance to the Apartheid state.

The aim of Nasson ' John's article in Social Dynamics was to create a anti-racist Black hero from the bones of our history, one that provided an encouraging example to those involved in the anti-Apartheid 'struggle'. It doing this it revealed that the 'Anglo-Boer War' was no restricted to Anglos and Boers only. Black people also participated in it, mostly as victims. Despite the mix of fact and fiction in this spurious and tendentious article on Esau's war of resistance in Calvinia, it accurately revealed that the 'Anglo-Boer War' was not the exclusive 'White Man's War' of my White South African Christian National education. It was more complicated than that, so complicated in fact that even the language we took for granted and used without thinking invariably led to a heated debate.

Part of that language and debate is the phrase 'Anglo-Boer War'. Today, I am of the opinion that the term 'Anglo-Boer War is an offensive anachronism whose use, like that of racist pejoratives, should be proscribed except when used in a historical context. The 'Anglo-Boer War' is a term that while not coming directly from the lexicon of Apartheid, (my limited research shows early use in London by Lady E. C. Briggs in 1901), gained widespread use in the post-war years, most especially in the Union of South Africa. In fact, the term 'Anglo-Boer War' was barely used elsewhere in the Empire. The the term 'South African War' was the preferred name  for it.

So, how did the use of this term come about? You may disagree but this is how I see it.

When most people consider the history of South Africa, they see it as a conflict between Black and White. As a broad generalisation that is certainly true. However, what most people neglect is that ever since Britain occupied the Cape for the second time in 1806 a conflict had developed between White and White, between Boer and Brit. By the late 1890s, Great Britain led by England was it the height of is Imperial power. For many, particularly the English in the colonies, this bred an arrogant assumptive sense of racial superiority. In South Africa the Dutch-speaking Boers (farmers) were regarded by the newly arrived English-speaking Uitlanders (foreigners) come to work on the goldfields as ignorant, slow, stupid and dirty Dutchmen. Japies, rock spiders, hairy-backs and worse. As Afrikaner nationalism developed, the perceived 'Boerhaat' of the English (Afr. hatred of Boers), became one of its most strident clarion calls.

The British believed that the Boers stood in the way of progress. For Britain the Empire represented progess. The Boers mistrusted the English, remembered their history, and knew they wanted to keep their independence at all costs. The two sides' dislike for each other was made worse by the long, bitter, humiliating and exhausting war of 1899 - 1902. Ultimately Britain and its Empire prevailed but not without Britain realising that any Pax Brittanica in South Africa would have to include the Boers who made up the majority of the White South African population. However, in 1902 some 65% of the South African population was Black. If there was one thing the Boers and English-speaking South Africans could agree on it was that both wanted Black South Africans to remain politically powerless.

Victory came with a recognition that Union, Britain's long-held political goal for southern Africa, would require English-speaking South Africans to share power with the majority Boers, (Afrikaners). Power-sharing with the old Boer enemy was fraught with risk unless many of them could be made Empire Loyalists. In victory the English-speaking community in South Africa trumpeted the Empire's virtues and its tribal superiority over the Boers by raising memorials to those who had fallen in what they now called the 'Anglo-Boer War'. (The Boers did not call it the Anglo-Boer War. Britain and its Empire called it the 'South African War'.) The choice of 'Anglo-Boer War' was a decision made by leaders of South Africa's insecure English-speaking community who wanted to laud their victory over the Boers as a reminder that they had been defeated by the Anglophone world which then constituted the greatest Empire ever known. 

By 1910 the Boers agreed to surrendered their republican independence in exchange for a political dispensation that excluded Black South Africans. The British agreed to this. In fact they had no choice as the English-speaking colonists demanded the same thing. Two ex-Boer Generals, Louis Botha and Jan Smuts, formed the first post-Union government. Much was made of a marriage between Boer and Brit and the birth of a new nation of 'White South Africans'. Botha's and Smuts' time in office would be marked by their loyalty to the Empire. When WW1 broke out, they made the decision to invade German South West Africa despite knowing that this was unpopular with die-hard Boers. It led to a rebellion in South Africa which they loyally crushed before completing their conquest of GSWA, the only colonially led campaign of WW1. It was also the first successful British campaign of WW1. It was the victory of the Empire's  'White South Africa'. The Anglos and the Boers had triumphed together.

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When Britain created the Union of South Africa in 1910 it placed political power in the hands of Boers and British settlers, thereby creating an illusion for segregationists called  'White South Africa'. This fantasy had at its heart a myth based largely on the Boer's Great Trek and the 'Boer War', a phrase commonly used  in Britain and popularised by Conan Doyle in 'The Great Boer War' (1902). This term continued to be used by a many British historians, like Thomas Pakenham, ('The Boer War', 1979). However, what is significant is that  the term 'South African War' enjoyed widespread use in the UK, one seen on almost all post-war British war memorials. It is only relatively recently that 'Anglo-Boer War' has gained any traction in the UK, probably as a result of South Africa's near exclusive use of it.

The difference between Britain and South Africa's choice of name in the immediate aftermath of the war is clearly seen in Richard Stroud RDPSA's "coffee table book",  the unfortunately named 'Memorials to the Fallen in the Anglo-Boer War 1899 - 1902,' (The Anglo-Boer War Philatelic Society. 2021). It unintentionally highlights the extraordinarily stark and remarkable difference between Britain's choice of 'South African War' on its memorials and South Africa's use of 'Anglo-Boer War'. Perhaps many will not see it like that but for me, as someone who grew up there a long time ago and who was made to listen to racist justifications for all manner of thngs, it is hard not to see the unsubtle hand of South Africans making segregationist propaganda out of the use of  'Anglo-Boer War'. It was even said by my teachers to be 'the last White Man's War', one fought in Africa with no Black people as combatants or victims.

Both sides made extensive well-documented use of Black auxillaries, almost every Boer having an 'agetr-ryer', a sort of Black squire to do their menial work. Thousands were used as labourers by both sides. That they did not participate in the fighting with a rifle in hand (some did!) did not prevent them from being shelled at long rage, shot at and if captured, badly treated or summarily executed. The Empire Loyalist spy Abraham Esua was beaten senseless, then shot. The British did arm blacks, especially as town guards. Their loyalty was unquestioned and greatly resented by the Boers. Denys Reitz describes how Smuts' commando was chased by Basuto horsemen. My great-uncle participated in the Leliefonten massacre where Blacks were killed for defying and resisting Boer authority in the Cape. Over 16, 0000 Blacks died in concentration camps. The British Arm rounded up thousands to work as forced labour buiding defences along railway lines. It was slavery by another name. Some say as many as 120,000 were relocated and imprisoned in camps as labourers. At Holkrantz the Zulus slaughtered a large part of a sleeping Boer commando9s. The list would go on but for White South Africa's great racist reluctance to fully document Black participation in what it wanted to preserve as a 'White Man's War', one fought solely between Anglos and Boers, the 'Anglo-Boer War'.

In my capacity as editor of the South African Philately Club I recognise that the war of 1899 - 1902 affected all of South Africa's people, not just 'Anglos' and Boers. Consequently, I will no longer accept use the term 'Anglo-Boer War' except where it is used in a historical context. Our emerging editorial style sheet now requires the use of  the broader, more inclusive 'South African War' in any discussion about aspects of this conflict. Historic displays which reference the anachronistic term 'Anglo-Boer War', like Stroud's book, can be presented on this web site subject to a qualification that use of the term ignores the experience of all of South Africa's people in this conflict and as such it is misleading and out-of-date. I realise this will annoy some people. I advise them to get over their cherished delusions.

*Nasson and John's article contains spurious references unsubstantiated by the National Army Museum. Parts of it were little more than a fabricated 'Boy's Own' yarn intended to create a South African War Black resistance figure as a role model during the height of the Anti-Aparthed Struggle. Nassonand John's article and the reasons he wrote it have become history. At the time I chose not to challenge the accuracy of his article because I sympathised with his political motivation. Interestingly and deservedly so, Nasson is a well-regarded historian today, one who now uses 'South African War' almost exclusively. Clearly his penny dropped long before mine! The time has now come to write about Nasson and John's article as a curious and interesting item of South African history.

Images

1]. Richard Stroud RDPSA's "coffee table book", 'Memorials to the Fallen in the Anglo-Boer War 1899 - 1902', available from him and or  the Anglo-Boer War Philatelic Society. (Copyright 2021. John Richard Stroud.  The Anglo-Boer War Philatelic Society.) This British book clearly reveals a prefernce for use of the term 'Anglo-Boer War' in SA as opposed to the greater use of 'South African War' in GB, its Empire and Commonwealth today. The fact that the  Anglo-Boer War Philatelic Society is British is neither here nor there.

2]. Souvenir of the Unveling of the Darlington War Memorial in 1905 erected "in Honour of the Men who Took Part in the South African War".

3]. Army Post Office Corps Plaque of 1904 to the "men who lost their lives ... during the South African Campaign". This was another common war descriptor in the years before and after the the First World War.

4]. Port Elzabeth's wonderful Horse Memorial erected 1905 "in recognition of the gallant animals which perished in the Anglo-Boer War". It is one of only a handful of statues worldwide that commemorates horses in warfare. A national treasure!

5]. Damage to Port Elizabeth's Horse Memorial by politically motivated activists. Richard Stroud RDPSA says in his book, "The memorial was severely vandalised on 6th April 2015 by a group from the ANC's "Economic Freedom Fighters" (EFL) (sic) who partly dismanteed it, throwing the soldier to the ground. The E.F.L. later claimed responsibility". Stroud, an acclaimed 'Anglo-Boer War' historian, is wrong in his contemporary comment. The EFF is not nor was a part of the ANC ( African National Congress). Julius Malema, the leader of the EFF, is an expelled ANC Youth League President who founded it as a new political party in 2013.

Would this 'vandalism' have happened if the perpetrators had felt that their ancestors had shared in the 'South African War' rather than being excluded from the Anglo-Boer War by White South Africa?