In the evening it was reported that we had suffered a check, and had lost ten guns.
The last report was, unhappily, the only true one.
Baden-Powell, whom Lord Roberts had asked in April to hold on till May 18, had been relieved on the 17th, after a siege of 118 days.
The last few days, it seems, had been very hard ones, for on April 22 the ration had been reduced to 120 grammes of meat and 240 grammes of bread a day.
The little garrison had been greatly tried, losing more than half of its numbers during this siege, the longest in modern times after those of Khartoum (341 days) and Sebastopol (327 days), though a trifling affair as compared with the ten years of Troy, or the twenty-nine years of Azoth recorded by Herodotus.
We found our waggons awaiting us at Vereeniging on the 15th; we were thoroughly disgusted, as may be supposed. We had been retreating and retreating continuously, without a struggle, without an effort, offering no resistance.
However, we found that a _Long Tom_ had been brought up, mounted on a truck. It was protected by a steel shield and a rampart of sandbags. A second truck, also casemated with logs and sandbags, served as a magazine for powder and sh.e.l.l. But the kind of armoured train thus formed remained idle in the railway-station.
I inquired whether we were to attempt an attack and push forward. The answer was that we could not venture to cross the Vaal with the gun, because it was feared that the Free State Boers, who were displeased at the war, might blow up the railway bridge while the "armoured train" was in the Orange territory, and thus deliver it into the hands of the English. Such was the spirit of confidence that reigned!
In spite of all this, we wished to try once more to organize an effective foreign legion. De Malzan, a former officer in the German army, was appointed Adjutant of the Uitlanders" Corps under Blignault, by the Government of Pretoria; his commission was signed by Reitz and Souza. He went, his jaw still bandaged for a wound received at Platrand, to confer with General Botha. He was very badly received.
"I do not recognise anyone"s right to make appointments. Blignault is not a General, and you are nothing at all. The Europeans can all go back to their own countries. I don"t want them. My Burghers are quite enough for me"--a remark he might have spared the European legion, which, out of about 280, had in the last two months lost fifteen killed, nineteen prisoners and eighty-seven wounded on the battlefields of Boshof, Taba N"chu, Brandfort and Zand River.
Anxious to clear up the question definitively, I left my camp on the other side of the Vaal, and made for Pretoria on the evening of the 18th in a coal-truck.
On the 19th I found Lorentz there. He had been made a Colonel. We held a council of war--Lorentz, still lame from his two wounds; Wrangel, with his arm in a sling; Rittmeister Illich, the Austro-Hungarian, and myself. It was decided that we should lay before the President a scheme of organization, from which I will quote a pa.s.sage, as it shows the state of mind in which we all were:
"We earnestly hope that on the lines we have laid down, and with the active support of the Government--which no one has yet obtained--a good result may be achieved.
"This plan, taking into account the rapidity with which events are following one upon another, depends for its success on the swiftness with which it is carried out. But we much fear that a fresh rebuff from the Government, after so many others, would irrevocably discourage its well-wishers."
We obtained an interview with De Korte, who had influence. He approved the plan, but feared to see it fail, like so many others. Our representations became more and more pressing.
On the 24th I went to Johannesburg to see Dr. Krause, who is also influential. He was very amiable, but irresolute, and did not know what to say.
The English continued to advance. A despatch-rider came to tell me that my convoy had arrived. It joined me, indeed, at Johannesburg on the 26th, without any "boys," all of them having deserted; the waggons battered and broken by fording the rivers, the beasts dead or exhausted by a journey without rest or food, the men worn out by continual vigilance, and by their double duties as "boys" and combatants, disgusted at the retreat and the disorder.
Many of them laid down their arms, and found work at the cartridge-factory and in the mines at from twenty-five to thirty shillings a day. One, more desperate than the rest, left his arms with us, and went off to the English lines to surrender. Only a very few remained, waiting for the President"s decision as a last resource.
The Landdrost allots a piece of waste ground to the twenty mules, twenty-one oxen, thirty-two horses and two "boys," which const.i.tute the debris of our convoy. The men find lodging where they can.
On Sunday, the 27th, one of my men arrived from Pretoria with a letter from Lorentz, dated Sat.u.r.day morning. The scheme had been signed and approved. Afterwards he handed me a proclamation by Lorentz, dated the evening of the same day. At two o"clock everything was retracted and refused. Furious and despairing, Colonel Lorentz adjured all the foreigners to lay down their arms:
"As the honourable Government of the Z.A.R. cannot accede to our modest but just demands, we, the foreigners of various nationalities, being without means of livelihood, are no longer in a position to sacrifice our lives for the maintenance of the Federated Republics.
"I, the under-signed, hitherto commandant of the international corps, hereby invite all persons who voluntarily joined me to lay down their arms on Tuesday, May 29, 1900, at ten o"clock in the morning, at the Old Union Club at Pretoria, or at any other place where they may happen to be.
"(Signed) C. LORENTZ.
"HAUPTMANN v. L."
I hesitated to show the proclamation to my companions, they were already so depressed.
On the morning of Monday, the 28th, a policeman, furnished with an order from the Landdrost, requisitioned our beasts at the grazing-ground without even giving us notice. I believe he sold them. I had almost certain proof of this later on. We never found them again.
In the night three of our waggons out of the five were pillaged in spite of the man on guard. Such behaviour to Europeans who were being cut up into mincemeat for them! ... It was too much! The cup was full. I handed Lorentz"s proclamation to the men. It did not raise a regret; they were all sick of the business.
Those in authority had refused them a few shillings, scarcely the pay of a Kaffir, of which they were sorely in need, for they were utterly dest.i.tute, and had not the means to escape from the English and return to their countries.
And now the authorities were taking advantage of our exhaustion to steal our horses--under a pretext of legality--to give, or, rather, to sell them to Boers who were going back quietly to their farms. For if a few thousand still stood their ground, the majority had lost heart, and had returned to their homes, only leaving them when their wives, more patriotic than themselves, drove them back to the front.
It was generally the old men, those who had taken part in the "Great Treks," who set the example of resistance. These men have inherited the virtues of their ignorant and rustic ancestors. If they can read at all, the Bible is their only book; and even if they cannot read it, they know its grand pages, and try to live up to its precepts.
Many Burghers of the younger generation, on the other hand, have inhabited towns; they have become greedy of gain, very English in their habits and customs, and have lost the princ.i.p.al virtues of their race, subst.i.tuting for them the faults, often much aggravated, of those who have given them the shady civilization of South African cities.
In the army of Natal, round about Amajuba, there were seven guns and about 200 men. Of these just _six were Burghers_, the rest were Afrikanders and foreigners. And while former officers and non-commissioned officers of the European artillery were begging for cannon, two of these seven guns were idle for want of men to serve them.
They prefer to leave them thus rather than to give them over to foreigners. I was told this by a Burgher, an artilleryman of twenty, who was going to his post. I travelled with him from Pretoria to Elandsfontein on the morning of May 24. He himself did not conceal his indignation at this method of proceeding.
At Pretoria the Government had given up all pretence of action. A general panic seemed to reign. Rumour reported that influential persons were mainly occupied in dividing the public money among themselves.
It is a fact that none of the tradespeople, whether they were hotel-keepers who had lodged and fed troops on presentation of requisition warrants, or dealers in clothes and provisions, had been paid. They all now declined to lodge persons or provide goods for the State.
A woman, Mrs. S. D., who had had a contract for saddles, was obliged, after many fruitless appeals, to enter the Government offices horsewhip in hand, like Louis XIV. when he intimidated his Parliament.
Thanks to this vigorous proceeding, she received a credit-note, on which a certain number of bars of gold were given her, for the national bank-notes had fallen to about two-thirds of their nominal value. But this was an exceptional case, and most of the trades-people were less fortunate.
What became of the gold that for eight months was taken out of seven mines working for the State? No one knows!
It is true that, from the highest functionary to the humblest Burgher, all were intent on the most shameless pillage. I saw army contractors, on whom no sort of check existed, charged with the provision of every kind of necessary, food, clothing, horses, oxen, etc., and making fine fortunes in no time; while the honest and worthy Boer received from the State horses and harness which he afterwards sold to it again with the utmost coolness.
I know, too, that very large sums were devoted to a press propaganda in favour of the South African Republics. And how many skilful middlemen, by means of round sums judiciously distributed, secured orders for the most expensive and useless commodities!
In all countries and in all ages it is notorious that out of ten army contractors nine are thieves and one is a rogue, especially in war-time.
Their depredations date back to the inst.i.tution of armies, and the Boer contractors had only to follow on a path already clearly marked out for them by their European confreres. But few of these have displayed such a degree of proficiency in their calling.
I might quote the case of a famous Parisian firm of balloonists, to which nearly 10,000 francs were paid in ready money for waterproof silk, cord, and various utensils for the construction of a balloon. An aeronaut was also engaged at a salary of 2,000 francs a month, all expenses paid, and when he arrived at Machadodorp, where the President was at the time, he was greeted with:
"A balloon? What for?"
After awaiting a solution for three weeks, the aeronaut returned to France, noting on his return journey a number of stray packages on the quay at Lourenco Marques. They contained the silk and the rest of the apparatus.
It was by a scientific application of these Boer principles that Mrs. S.
D. came by the very pretty sum we have seen her collecting with her horsewhip!
She had engaged to deliver 500 saddles a week at 10 each; but a good many of the Burghers to whom the saddles were distributed sold them back to the worthy lady"s agents for 4 or 5, and she then sold them again to the State, after changing the more conspicuous of them a little. So that these wretched saddles were always reappearing on the scene, as in a review at the Chatelet; but each of their migrations brought in a solid sum to Mrs. D----.
It is not difficult to see why there was no money for the combatants.