TOPIC:

Any other examples of deliberately misleading reports, misinformation, or false propaganda by either side, that appeared in wartime newspapers?
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....It is an unfortunate thing for the rabid pro-Boer that alleged incidents selected to illustrate the unspeakably atrocious tactics adopted by the British are always met with a swift and irrefutable contradiction. So surely as some particularly un-British act is imagined and sent broadcast, per medium of a sympathetic press, just as surely there arises some eye-witness with unimpeachable testimony of the falsity of the allegations. A striking case in point has just come under notice. It has reference to an assertion made in a newspaper published in New York that an agency exists in St. Louis for the kidnapping of boys, who, on reaching Capetown, are forced into the British military service. The days of the press-gang have passed, and England has yet volunteers at her call, as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand has shown. However dire her need, Britain would not resort to the method of procuring bearers of arms charged against her by the artist in fabrication, whose ingenuity of mind fashioned the calumny referred to. The article is reproduced below, with headings and sub-headings just as published, and the paper, which distinguished itself by permitting it to appear in its columns is the "Irish World and American Industrial Liberator." The date of the publication is November 23 last. The extract reads: —
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"RECRUITING HERE FOR BRITISH ARMY—BOYS WHO GO TO AFRICA AS MULETEERS ON BRITISH TRANSPORTS FORCED INTO THE ENGLISH ARMY—A BRITISH KIDNAPPING AGENCY IN ST. LOUIS.
....WASHINGTON, November 18.—Frank Porter, of Logansport, Ind., paid a visit to the State Department to-day, and asked its assistance in securing the return home of his son, Lenon Porter, 15 years old, who sailed from New Orleans to Capetown, South Africa, on October 18. Mr. Porter said that, according to information received by him, the business of shipping boys to South Africa is being carried on by an employment agency in St. Louis. The boys are engaged as muleteers and placed on board the British animal transports, which are engaged in carrying horses and mules to the British forces in South Africa. Just before reaching Capetown, Mr. Porter is informed, the boys are told that they cannot go ashore unless they sign the ship's papers as British subjects. Only too glad to get on any land, the boys sign, and Mr. Porter's informants say that they are immediately pressed into the British military service. Mr. Porter said that he had received letters from young Americans who shipped from New Orleans on British animal transports, who asserted that many boys under 17 years of age were being secured for this service by the St. Louis employment agency. This agency, said Mr. Porter, received a commission of three dollars for every boy employed by it for the British Government. He believes that hundreds of American minors have been forced to go into the British military service througn the method referred to. His investigations have convinced him that for the past eighteen months transports have sailed from New Orleans for Capetown at the rate of one a week, each carrying an average of eighty Americans shipped as muleteers. The transport on which Lenon Porter shipped is due at Capetown, and the State Department sent a telegram to the United States Consul-General there to apprehend the boy when he came ashore, and send him back to the United States at Mr. Porter's expense."
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....Very quickly after the issue of the paper containing the article reached Sydney, a copy fell by chance into the hands of Mr. John Matthews, who resides at 'Teignville,' Woodville-road, Granville. As a member of "Brabant's Horse," Mr. Matthews has seen a good deal of what has transpired in South Africa. It so happens that one troop with which Mr. Matthews at one time served was made up largely of Australians, and included, also, many Canadians and Americans. Nearly all the latter, he explains, reached South Africa in charge of horses from America, and all joined the British military forces entirely of their own free will. There was no pressing into service. Knowing what he does of existing conditions, Mr. Matthews can, and does, assert that the allegations made in the article quoted above are absolutely and entirely false. As a sample of pro-Boer literature he looks upon it as the worst of all that is villainous and cruelly false that has yet come under his notice.
The Evening News [Sydney], Thursday 30th January 1902

Hi Berenice,

Here is a story that I have come across a few times whilst researching in period newspapers and appropriate for your post -



The above image is from 'Under the Union Jack', dated 3rd March 1900.



"McLACHLAN. - On Christmas Day, shot in the market Square, Harrismith, Orange Free State, South Africa, for refusing to fight against his own countrymen, John McLachlan, jun., aged 30 eldest son of John McLachlan, of Wandsworth, and grandson of the late John McLachlan, of Lambeth." - TIMES, Jan. 30, 1900.




The above story which I have seen is repeated in the period era press both here in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, but I have found no evidence to corroborate this event in the way of follow-up stories at any later time. Even researching now, I have found no relevant facts or proof to validate the story.

Was this a case of mis-information (shell we call it 'fake-news') or propaganda by the press to whip up support for the war cause in South Africa and put blame against the Boers who have once again committed another atrocity which they are so often reported to do by the press.





An article that I did find online which is dated June 1989 from the South African Military History Society, titled Harrismith by S. A. Watt was interesting reading in the fact that it spoke of the English population in Harrismith and the expectations of serving within the Boer Forces if war was to commence -

   'The advent of war with Britain provided an uneasy situation for the English-speaking people resident in Harrismith. According to law, after three years' residence in the Free State, they automatically became citizens, and as such were eligible to be called up for military service. Some of these men, while refusing to fight their kith and kin, undertook guard duties in the town in order to fulfil their obligations as citizens. It was understood that instructions from the Chief Commandant, M Prinsloo, (who had been elected to command the Orange Free State forces) were that no citizen of British extraction should be commandeered, but this pledge was broken. Those who refused to fight protested, were arrested and prosecuted. Thirty-five men were sentenced to a fine of 300 Pounds or three years imprisonment. Six, who had left the town were sentenced in absentia to a fine of 500 Pounds or five years. The remainder, who felt they owed allegiance to their country, joined the Boer ranks.'

At no time did this article speak of any atrocities towards the British subject residents of Harrismith such as that of being shot for refusing to fight against one's fellow countrymen.

Trev 

. ....John Gould, twenty-three, was on Monday sentenced at North London Police Court to seven days; imprisonment in the second division for fraudulently obtaing money by crying false news, at nine o'clock on Sunday night in Petherton Road, Canonbury. He shouted out "Terrible Battle! Horrible Slaughter of the British," and sold copies of a war edition of a Sunday newspaper at 2d. each.
....Mr. Fordham said that in this country at the present moment there were hundreds of thousands of families who had relatives at the seat of war, and every time men like the prisoner rushed into a street shouting false news some poor woman might be frightened well nigh to death. Had he thought prisoner had realised that he should have passed a heavy sentence.
The Leigh Chronicle, Friday 2nd February 1900