The Last to Know

It is probably by one of the strangest coincidences of the war that, as I stated earlier, President Kruger had effectively considered himself at war with the British for nearly four years. He had already started mobilizing his commandos for a full scale invasion of the Natal and Cape Colony’s in mid September. Now that he was assured the Orange Free State would join him in the attack he was free to pursue a military resolution to the problems in lower Africa. The grand coincidence, and one that many at the time (and even a few still do today) thought was no coincidence at all, is that Kruger set his invasion date for the first day of November, 1898.

Kruger’s choice of dates reflect his military situation and not the political one. As I hope would be clear by now, there was no way in mid September that anyone could have predicted the consequences of the brewing world crisis that diplomats had worked so furiously to resolve. Kruger most obviously did not care what that situation was since he had more immediate problems at home and little interest in what happened in Europe, North America, or Asia. There is also the little fact that Kruger most likely did not know what the situation was. Communications between Pretoria and the rest of world ran over telegraph lines that were controlled by Great Britain. Kruger had lost the use of these early on in the crisis.

In this light, Kruger’s action seems to be a very bold move on his part, although, some would call it foolish. The man was going to war with the largest empire in the world and he had no idea whether or not help was coming, or if it even existed. This would make Kruger seem to be either a visionary, or a madman. The truth is that he was neither. Kruger was simply a man who felt threatened and saw the situation as one that left him with very few options.

The collective Boer armies were broken down into units known as Commando’s. It was a force that was almost entirely made up of cavalry. Of course the Boers did not charge in recklessly on horseback. They used their mobility to do as Nathan Bedford Forrest once did. They would get there first with the most, dismount, and then fight on foot. They substituted numbers for speed which allowed them to gain local superiority which can translate into victory over a wider front.

Their armies were entirely militia, however, the quality of their non-professionals were not the usual caliber that is associated with part time warriors. The Boers were like the Confederates in the border states in that they knew their farms and families were in danger. They were even more keenly aware of this than were the men in Tennessee. They practiced their art, trained routinely, and paid for it all as individuals. It was a collective effort by the community to defend themselves in the only way they knew how. Only now they had help.

Kruger had began looking for guns almost as soon as the Jameson Raid had been captured. His initial impulse was to turn to the Kaiser who had congratulated him on a job well done. The United States, sensing an opportunity, simply beat Wilhelm to the punch and offered a much better deal. It was quite possibly one of the biggest diplomatic coups of the pre war era in that it assured Great Britain would have another front to fight on. As a result, when the Boer cavalry began moving south on the 1st of November, every man had modern, rapid fire, Winchesters or Colts. Each of their commandos had at least one Colt machinegun. The Boer’s would have both the advantages of speed and firepower.

Of course, the weapons themselves meant nothing without the know how to properly use them. American “adventurers” were showing up in direct proportion to the numbers of weapons that arrived. These men began attending meetings of the local commando’s and properly instructing the Boer farmers and ranchers on how to take care of their weapons. 

Most of the Boer’s were already proficient marksmen but they would get plenty of opportunity to practice fire their new rifles. The bullets were allegedly paid for by these adventurers and nobody even asked who was paying for the rifles. This made the Americans very popular fellows since everybody likes a guy who shows up with free and very useful tools that one could otherwise not afford. The Americans also had the virtue of being largely from Irish stock and they shared the Boer sentiment of a healthy loathing for the British Empire. For these reasons the Boer’s had little trouble listening to these foreigners explain the new tactics to them.

On the early morning of 2 November, Alan Capron Jr, was riding along side a prominent Boer commander named Jan C Smuts. They were both young men at the time, both proficient horsemen, both energetic and motivated, and as a result they had hit it off very well right from the start. Capron became Smuts’ aide to camp which, in real terms, left Capron as much a battle commander as it did Smuts. Capron was well trained for this job too.

What Capron Jr was unaware of, on that morning, was that his father, Capron Sr, was busy firing his field gun at Confederate forces that were advancing on Washington. Capron was second generation US Army. He was a graduate of West Point, and a commissioned officer in the United States Cavalry. All of the Americans in South Africa were military officers of one kind or another although not all were West Point grads. Most of these men were picked to make this trip due to their skills, proficiency, and most prominently their opinions on the British Empire. These men were not just American warriors, they were crusaders of the first degree.

Smuts on the other hand, despite the zeal he would prosecute this war with, did not hate the British to the degree that his fellow Boers, and American allies, almost universally did. Smuts was an educated man (and educated by the British no less). He had not only been prominent in the Boer republics but, at one time, he had lived in Cape Colony and worked for none other than Cecil Rhodes. At that time, Smuts had seen his peoples best interests lying with the Empire. He saw the British as the light of modernization and thought they were the path to a better future. As time went by, his opinions slowly began to shift and the Jameson Raid was the final nail in that coffin. By the time of the war he was completely committed to full Boer independence and, like so many other Boer moderates, fell in line behind Kruger.

Smuts was very aware of the fact that time was not on his side. It was summer in South Africa and that meant good forage. That was a serious issue for an army that consisted almost entirely of cavalry. It was one of the main factors in the Boer’s decision to go to war when they did. The only problem with living off the land was that any area had only a limited ability to support the Boer armies for more than a short period of time. This meant Smuts had to keep moving until he reached his final objective which was Port Natal.

Once that key port was seized then the French, from Madagascar, could supply the Boer’s with everything they needed and that included more modern artillery. This would more than likely give the Boer’s all the firepower they needed to complete the conquest of every British possession in South Africa. If they failed to take the port then it was more likely that the British would eventually destroy the Boer Republics by attrition.

Smuts knew that British reinforcements were arriving from India. Every moment he delayed only meant they would get stronger while his force would never be any larger than it was at the start of the campaign. Taking all these factors into account, it is a wonder that he chose to delay his army for a flag of truce that came unexpectedly on that morning of the 2nd of November. He and Capron were notified about the white flag, by the scouts, while they were just breaking camp. The request for a meeting came with a second flag, not long after. 

The British officer, with the white flag, was looking for a friend of his. Strangely, the man being sought out was an American by the name of Frederick Burnham. Capron knew who Burnham was but, had never actually met the man. Burnham had been recruited by Baker in 97 and, as far as Capron knew, the man was currently in Mozambique where he had been a part of the pipe line, that was funneling weapons into Pretoria.

With this information in hand, Smuts ordered his scouts to return with the message that Burnham was not in the column and that he, Smuts, would meet this British Officer anyway. Capron went with them to personally escort the British Officer back to camp. Smuts has often been criticized for doing this. With time being a vital factor it would seem that any delay could be costly. This seems too harsh a judgment given Smuts’ circumstances.

Smuts was keenly aware of the Boer’s lack of information about the larger picture. If the British had no idea how starved they were for information then this visiting enemy officer was likely to give away much without ever realizing it. Smuts had to have known that the flag of truce was just a stall for time but, Smuts was in control of the meeting and could end it whenever he pleased. He must have figured that he had very little to loose by talking to this man.

The British Officer was a colonel from the 5th Dragoon Guards, a regiment that was supposed to be stationed in India (Smuts first bit of good intelligence). His name was Lieutenant Colonel Robert Baden-Powell who, like his regiment, was normally stationed in India but, Powell had seen extensive service in Africa. Just two years before this he was instrumental in putting down the Matalbe uprising in Rhodesia and it was there that he had served side by side with the American mercenary, Burnham. 

BP, as his friends called him, had been one of the first of many British soldiers to leave India for South Africa. His regiment was still in India but, on November 2nd, it was loading up to make the trip to Port Natal. BP had left on an earlier ship with the advanced party. He had volunteered to speak with the Boers (mostly for personal reasons concerning Burnham) but, was obviously sent because it was believed that Smuts would think his regiment was already in Natal. That much of the deception worked.

The meeting took place in a tent that Smuts had erected specifically for that purpose. He treated BP amicably and, being well accustomed to British courtesies and protocol, treated BP to a meal as they talked. Both men, judging from their later writings, seemed to have gained a measure of respect for the other on a personal level. As for agreeing on anything else, it was too late for that. They were both well aware that this would be the case so the meeting was really little more than a fishing trip for both sides. Looking at the meeting from that point of view it would seem the Boers came out ahead.

Capron learned that his country was at war and he must have known that this fighting around Washington would involve his father. Smuts now discovered that the entire world was at war and that his nation was not standing alone. The meeting lasted a little over three hours and, when it concluded, Smuts wasted no time writing it up and getting this information on it’s way to President Kruger. Capron sent a similar report to his superior, Blake.

When Baden-Powell returned to his command he promptly reported in and the British forces, that were building around Ladysmith, began to fall back towards the city proper. Despite the recent arrival of reinforcements (and these troops consisted largely of provincial reservists), the British, were still out numbered and out gunned. Since it had been their forces in Natal that were skirmishing with the Boer’s, in the past few weeks, they had a fairly good idea of what they were facing. They knew that their force could not take the Boer’s on in the open country.

Within days the Boer’s had not only detected the withdrawal but, had also followed their opponents right back to the borders of the city. Here they found trenches that were filled with troops and protected by barbed wire and landmines. The defenses looked formidable from Smuts’ point of view however much of what was there was a ruse. Baden-Powell had put the time he had to good use. Many of the mine fields were little more than hastily dug holes that were quickly filled back in. Some of the wire fields were phantoms where BP would have his troops deliberately march, out of their way, around an area that was obscured from direct Boer observation. It would lead the Boer scouts to conclude that the area had been strung with barbed wire. The British defenses would improve with time but, the deceptions would become even more elaborate as well.

This same story would repeat itself all along the borders of the free republics and British colonies. The British army did attempt to engage the Boers, a few times, in open battles but, were slaughtered each time. It only took a couple of tries before every local British commander realized the futility of such a confrontation. In less than three weeks a host of border cities were under siege by Boer forces. Here the Boer’s found themselves out of their element with superiority in both mobility and firepower negated by British defenses. 

The simple truth was that the Boers had never anticipated, nor had they trained for, such an operation. Their artillery pieces were limited in number and spread out amongst their widely scattered forces. They could never concentrate enough of them in any one place, at any given time, for them to make a difference. The British, on the other hand, would have no easy time of it either. They had simply delayed the inevitable by falling back on their border posts. They were running short on supplies of every kind and were slowly being worn down by the invaders. Without relief their besieged cities would fall eventually. It was only a matter of time. 

Time was what the forward garrisons had bought the British Empire. While the Boer’s held the initial advantage, in all categories, the British garrisons that consisted largely of local militia, with a sprinkling of regular troops, had effectively contained the Boer invasion and stopped it right at the border. In south Africa the war became a race. Would the British be able to hold out long enough for reinforcements to arrive. If the wider war were not going on then this would almost be a certainty. Now it was a question that was on everyone’s mind, from Joseph Chamberlain in London, to Paul Kruger in Pretoria, to the average soldiers in the trenches. They all knew the answer too. This contest would be decided elsewhere.