Boer Commissary - "Mealie Pap” As A Ration - I Take Command Of The Irish Brigade - War Declared
Before we begin to fight I must say something about the fighters, and will commence with the Boer and his readiness for war. The Boer is a simple, unpretentious farmer, with a long beard, rather long hair, a powerful physical frame, a man inured to all kinds of hardships, who daily looks after his horses, cattle and sheep. He has a lot of Kaffir families on his farm, to whom he gives all the land they wish for cultivation, on the condition that they put in his little patch of mealies (corn), and oats. To the Kaffir boys who stay at the farm house, and make themselves useful at all kinds of odd jobs, he gives each a cow at the end of the year. This means a great deal to the Kaffir boy, for when he has as many as eight head of cattle, he has the price he must pay for a wife; and to have a wife is every Kaffir boy's ambition.
Every night and every morning the Boer has religious services in his house, and all the family attend. A visitor may attend or not as he pleases.
The Boer cares not what your religion is, nor of what your church may be, and it does not concern him whether you have any religion or not. He looks after his own soul, and grants you the privilege of looking after yours. He will never impose his beliefs upon you, nor will he ask you your religion. He simply takes it for granted that you are a Christian, a God-fearing individual. He is a domestic man whose greatest happiness is in his home, with his wife and children and he generally has plenty of children. When he visits his neighbors on Sunday, the whole family visits with him. They all go to church on Sunday, and after the services are over, they all remind me of a happy reunion of a family that has long been separated. In his way, he is as simple as a child, hospitable and generous to a fault, ready to extend the helping hand to friend or stranger, modest and retiring; but when once you try to deprive him of his liberty, you will find that he will fight to the bitter end, regardless of the odds against him.
For months previous to the war, the English Press was busy trying to let the world know what a savage the Boer really was, and especially how intolerant he was, as regards the Catholics. There was an object in spreading broadcast all these outrageous lies; because England wished the world to believe, that in waging war against the Boer, she was really doing a service toward God and humanity. The Irish people were Catholics; so the press told how bitter the Boer is against the Catholic, how he tramples him down, and tries to drive him out of the country. All this infamous lying was for the sole purpose of inducing the Irish to enlist in the British army, and I regret to say that the Irish fell into the trap. Thousands of them joined the British army, and to-day thousands of them are buried in South Africa. Few English are buried in South Africa, but the graves of the Irish and Scotch can be counted by the thousand.
Leaving aside the religious aspect of the man, the Boer reminds me very forcibly of our Southwesterners, in appearance; and especially in his riding and shooting ability. I have given a lengthy, but an honest and faithful portrait of the Boer, because the subsidized press of England spent itself in trying to disgrace him in the eyes of the world, for no other reason than to cover up the English Government's infamy in forcing a most unholy and damnable war on the God fearing Boer race of South Africa.
During the time of intense excitement in the towns of South Africa, and in London, the unmindful Boer was quietly and religiously pursuing his daily routine work on his remote farm. It never occurred to him that his quiet was liable to be disturbed at any moment by an exploding bomb that might force him to leave his wife and little ones for two years and eight months, and possibly forever. Occasionally he heard the distant rumble of impending war, but he gave it no heed, for his ear had become accustomed to such sounds during the last twenty years. He could see no reason for war and therefore dismissed the subject from his mind. The Transvaal Government and the Free State Government had, all told, a standing army of about 900 artillerymen who manned their forty cannon and sixty maxims. The artillerists were farmer boys, smoothfaced, and from sixteen to eighteen years old. They were trained by Boer officers principally. I think there were as officers, also, two young Hollanders, and two Germans, who had long resided in the Transvaal.
These young Boer officers and smooth-faced farmer boys proved themselves the most remarkable artillerists in the world. The Free State and Transvaal were exactly on the same footing as to readiness for war, and neither was, therefore, in any sense of the word, prepared for a struggle with the mightiest Empire of the world.
The total population of the Free State and Transvaal combined did not exceed 250,000 men, women and children ; while that of Great Britain and her colonies runs up to something like 350,000,000. The Transvaal and the Free State are two inland countries several hundred miles from the coast ; so England had no reason to fear trouble in landing her troops at any of her many coast towns. The Transvaal and the Free State are divided into districts, and each district is divided into veldtcornetcies. In each veldtcornetcy there is a veldtcornet, elected by his constituents, who is a civil officer in time of peace and the military leader of the men in his veldtcornetcy, in time of war.
A commandant is appointed, and given command of one, two, or more veldtcornetcies, depending upon circumstances. Each veldtcornet divides up his men into corporalships of twenty-five men, and over each corporalship he appoints a corporal. The commandant general (commander-in-chief), who is elected by the whole people, appoints a vecht-general (fighting general), who commands one, two or more commandancies, also depending upon circumstances. Assistant commandantgenerals are appointed by the chief, to assist him in various districts ; these, of course, hold command over the vecht-generals. In time of peace there is but one general, and that is the commandantgeneral, who is also a member of the President's staff, called the Executive Council. In time of war all the other generals are appointed as they are required.
At the beginning of the war, there existed what you might call a Commissary and Quartermaster Department. These Departments load the trains with rations and clothing, and ship them to the front for the supply of the burghers. Each veldtcornet, on their arrival, sends his wagons, and gets all they can haul without requisition. The corporal in charge simply signs a receipt for what he gets. On the wagons arriving at the camp, the burghers go and help themselves to what they want. This never causes any trouble, for the burghers are always ready to divide up with each other whatever food or clothing they may have. I mention these two departments, because it is the first time in Boer history that they ever existed. They continued to exist for about ten months and then disappeared, and it is my opinion that all were better off; for then we had to come down to straight mealie pap (corn meal mush), and fresh beef. Commissary Departments kill more soldiers than are killed by bullets. When living on nothing but "mealie pap" and fresh meat, all are healthy, strong, energetic and full of fight. The Boer war has proved this ; for during the last two years of the war we had nothing else to eat, and we lost but one man from sickness ; and did the hardest work and best fighting, and in the end, when the general surrender came, the world had never seen 24,000 stronger, healthier and more dashing patriots than those who laid down their faithful rifles to save their women and children from extinction. I now arrive at the point when the rapidity with which telegrams were passing back and forth on the telegraph lines was such, that the iron poles were fairly melting to the ground, and when President Kruger was finally convinced that war could not by any possibility be averted, and that the socalled great Christian nation, his foe, was bent on spilling the blood of thousands of innocent people, in order to satiate its thirst for gold.
The feeble old man, the time-battered old soldier, the fervent old patriot, the bulwark of the Boer nation, now prayed God to direct him and his people and give them strength to preserve and enjoy their liberty and independence. Commandani^General Piet Joubert, being authorized to proceed to the defence of the land, sent messengers to all the veldtcornets, with directions to call the burghers to arms, and proceed to Laing's Nek, on the Natal border, to meet the invasion of the British Army. The same orders were given in the Free State, for the burghers to go to the Cape Colony border, and resist the British Army assembled there. A small body of burghers was sent toward Mafeking to protect the western border. These orders were issued during the last days of September, 1899.
On October 1st, there were more than 10,000 burghers on the Natal border, and at the same time the Free State burghers had assembled on the border of the Colony.
It was at this time that the Irish and the IrishAmericans of Johannesburg and Pretoria, about300 strong, had assembled, and asked me to take command of them to help the Boers in their battle for freedom. I accepted the command on the condition that not one of them would expect or accept one cent of money for his services, and that all would fight purely for their love of liberty, and for down-trodden Ireland. This condition having been unanimously accepted, horses, arms, ammunition, etc., were at once procured, and off we went for the Natal border, where we joined the Boers on October 6th. It was quick work, but it is so easy to do things quickly, with a command of true and patriotic Irishmen, overjoyed and brimming full of enthusiasm at the prospect of giving a blow to Ireland's life-long enemy and oppressor.
Laing's Nek and Majuba Hill are on the border, between Natal and the Transvaal. We were on one side of the Nek, and the English on the other, both parties awaiting further developments. Finally, on October 9th, General Joubert sent a demand to the British Government for the recall of the English troops from the Transvaal border. The British declined, all communications were broken off, and war was declared on the following day, October 11th.
