Second Anglo Boer War propaganda poetry – the Boer side of things

Background

For those of you who do not know, a Boer is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for “farmer”.

Britain occupied the Cape in South Africa in 1795, ending the role of the Dutch East India Company in the region. After the British occupation, the infrastructure in the Cape Colony began to change as English replaced Dutch, the British pound sterling replaced the Dutch rix-dollar and a freehold system of landownership gradually replaced the existing Dutch tenant system.

Between 1835 and 1840, the Great Trek took place when approximately 12 000 Boers from the Cape Colony migrated into the South African interior to escape British control and to acquire cheap land.

Over time, the Boers achieved the independence of their two republics, the South African Republic (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State which shared borders with the British controlled Cape Colony.

When Sir Alfred Milner took over as Governor of the Cape Colony and High Commissioner for Southern Africa in May 1897, relations between Britain and the two Boer republics had been strained for some time. The Boers had already successfully defended the annexation of the Transvaal by the British during the first Anglo Boer War. Milner knew that an independent Transvaal stood in the way of Britain’s ambition to control all of Africa from the Cape to Cairo and that, with the discovery of gold in the Transvaal, the balance of power in South Africa had shifted from Cape Town to Johannesburg.

After the discovery of gold in the Transvaal, thousands of British and other gold seekers called Uitlanders, flocked to the Witwatersrand. The Boers considered that the Uitlanders threated the independence of their republic and refused to give them the vote. Milner used the Uitlander issue as a pretext to provoke the Boer government. The two republics declared war on the British Empire on 11 October 1899 and the second Anglo Boer War started.

Propaganda during the war

During the Second Anglo Boer War or South African War, there was a lot of propaganda on both sides. Propaganda is common in a war scenario. It is a significant tool used by government to get men sufficiently wound up against the enemy to shoot them without conscious.

As with all wars, some terrible things occurred during this war. One of the worst developments, in my opinion, were the concentration camps that Lord Kitchener created to incarcerate the families of fighting Boers. Approximately 48 000 people, a lot of whom were children, died in the concentration camps between September 1900 and May 1902.

Emily Hobhouse tells the story of the young Lizzie van Zyl who died in the Bloemfontein concentration camp: She was a frail, weak little child in desperate need of good care. Yet, because her mother was one of the “undesirables” due to the fact that her father neither surrendered nor betrayed his people, Lizzie was placed on the lowest rations and so perished with hunger that, after a month in the camp, she was transferred to the new small hospital. Here she was treated harshly. The English disposed doctor and his nurses did not understand her language and, as she could not speak English, labeled her an idiot although she was mentally fit and normal. One day she dejectedly started calling for her mother, when a Mrs Botha walked over to her to console her. She was just telling the child that she would soon see her mother again, when she was brusquely interrupted by one of the nurses who told her not to interfere with the child as she was a nuisance. Quote from Stemme uit die Verlede (“Voices from the Past”) – a collection of sworn statements by women who were detained in the concentration camps during the Second Boer War (1899-1902). 

While I was doing the research for my new novel that tells the stories of three ghosts who all experienced different aspects of this war, I came across the following propaganda poem about the concentration camps.

The refugee camps (so called)

Lord Roberts he boasts that he stands at the head

Of all that is noble, and nice, and wellbred,

So we’ve got to believe it, it’s only his due,

He says so himself – so it’s bound to be true.

If against the “cowardly ignorant Boer”

In a barbarous manner he carries on war,

Why! What does it matter to me or to you,

He says so himself – so it’s bound to be true.

The Boer has deserted his children and wife

For the purpose of leading a pleasanter life

Yes, “Such are those people, unnatural crew!”

Lord Kitchener says – so it’s bound to be true.

If he harries weak women and children tender

It is not to induce the men to surrender,

Oh no! that’s a thing he never would do,

He says so himself – so it’s bound to be true.

If the women and orphans he drags away

In his pest-smitten camps are willing to stay

Let no one assert he the Innocents slew,

He says so himself – so it’s bound to be true.

If by thousands they die of disease and starvation

In those sweet health-resorts they call “concentration”

No matter! Those people deserved it too,

He says so himself – so it’s bound to be true.

Lord Kitchener persecutes woman and child

Because he was always exceedingly mild

And the more they objected the kinder he grew

He says so himself – so it’s bound to be true.

Oh! He is so gentle, the Mahdi’s head

He cut that off when his foe was dead;

In uncivilized warfare, that’s nothing new

He says so himself – so it’s bound to be true.

The wife gets a pass and may go away

To bring in the man; but the child must stay;

This, of course, Lord Kitchener never knew,

He says so himself – so it’s bound to be true.

But Thanks to our wives, for they do not care

Whatever the hardships they have to bear,

They willingly suffer their woeful plight

If their husbands stand firm for God and the right.

By her noble example the Burgher’s wife

Still gives him strength to continue the strife

And she cheers him on with all her might

To stand up firmly for God and the right.

O Africander! Be staunch and true

For that’s what your wife is expecting from you

You will help her to make the burden light

By standing firm for God and the right.

This poem is published in The War Reporter The Anglo-Boer War Through the eyes of the Burghers by J.E.H. Grobler

A Ghost and His Gold by Roberta Eaton Cheadle – Cover reveal

About Roberta Eaton Cheadle

I am an author who has recently branched into adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my young adult and adult writing, these will be published under the name Roberta Eaton Cheadle. My first young adult supernatural novel, Through the Nethergate, has recently been published.

I also have two short paranormal stories in Whispers of the Past, a paranormal anthology edited by Kaye Lynne Booth.

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