TOPIC:

“The King’s Royal Irish Hussars – Diary of the South African War 1900-1902”
By J W Morton, Orderly-room Sergeant 8th (King’s Royal Irish) Hussars
Originally published in 1905 by Gale & Polden Ltd, Wellington Works, Aldershot

Entry for 25th April 1901: “A large comet, visible at reveille this morning, appeared daily during the next few days”.

As you can tell James William Morton (1869-1927) compiled the published version of his diary from a rough one he kept during the war. He was rather off-hand about what was known as “The Great Comet of 1901” and was officially described as a “striking and beautiful” object in the night sky. This was probably because he remembered the “Great Comet of 1882”, when he would have been aged 13, and which is considered to have been the most spectacular comet of the 2nd Millennium. The 1882 Comet was visible in the British Isles but the 1901 version was only visible in the southern hemisphere. So, it is surprising that it does not get any mentions in the letters home which I have read, especially by younger soldiers who would not have remembered the 1882 version.

The Great Comet of 1901 is often called Comet Viscara after the man who first spotted it in on 12th April 1901 from Uruguay. It came closest to the earth on 30th April, achieved its maximum brightness on 5th May and remained visible to the naked eye until about 20th May although those equipped with telescopes followed its course into October 1901.

It is depicted in the postcard below over Lima, Peru.

"The brilliant comet now visible in South Africa is an object of great interest to the soldiers. A private in the Buffs, writing from Balmoral, says, 'When I first saw it I thought it was a veldt fire with a rocket ascending from it. A star of exceptional brilliancy was close to it.'
The Pembrokeshire Herald, 31.5.1901

Private EC Moffett, Scots Guards, in his With the Eighth Division: A Souvenir of the South African Campaign (1903) similarly commented about the comet but he added a twist. "Appearance of comets, showers of shooting stars, and other astronomical phenomena have always been looked on by the Dutch, in common with other peoples, as harbingers of good news or as mysterious tokens of impending evil."

British soldiers commented regularly on their perceptions of the Boers as a superstitious people. I was wondering if anyone knows of a Boer account of the comet.

Boers also describe the event. Deneys Reitz mentions “the Great Comet of 1901” in Commando, his narrative of the Boer War. Reitz writes:
There had been a magnificent double-tailed meteor in the sky of late, the two streamers of which looked like the letter “V” and Van Rensburg (1), the General’s prophet, had been giving out that this stood for Vrede (peace)., but on this night as we rode along, I heard a boyish voice from the darkness ahead call out”Mijnheer Van Rensburg, that letter V up there does not mean Vrede, it means Vlug (retreat) . There was a wry laughter in the ranks at this sally, which the discomfited oracle bore in meek silence, although it didn’t diminish his output of prophecies which continued right up to the peace.

Fransjohan Pretorius comments on Deneys’ writings that this comet appeared on April 23, 1901 and remained visible until May 18 of that year. He also states that quite a number of Boers made mention of it in their diaries and reminiscences.

(1) Nicolaas Pieter Johannes (Siener) van Rensburg (1864-1926) was a clairvoyant who gained a reputation among Boers when some of his predictions came through. He had quite an influence over General Koos DelaRey, a devout Christian, who saw him as a prophet. This man and his impact on the war proceedings would merit further discussion on this platform.

Thank so much. Very helpful.