Boer Wars & the Zulu:
the French-European 'New World' Revolutions
Enlightenment · Belgian Independence · Dutch East India Company · Isandlwana · Concentration Camps
The Revolution in France which overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, and eventually culminated in a dictatorship under Napoleon; was sparked by successive generations of philosophers, bearing witness to the colonial realities of their 'new world'. Based most innocently in scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffee houses and through the advances in printed books and pamphlets, the scientific revolution was readying for a realist world order, despising the inferior indoctrination's of tradition, and propelling contemporary vanguardism. Idealizing the social contract and enforcing a separation of Church and State, Lockean sentiments were for 'Life, Liberty and Property' and surrounding Rousseau, and Hobbesian thought, belief for the natural rights of man were to security in property as so valid in deriving from direct labor. The value of material certainty hence wasn't in attributions of the divine right which the British had similarly displaced in favor of liberal democracy, rather and as which by what King Louis XVI fell in-line and was ultimately martyred for; in liberation. In reforming his French government in accordance with Enlightenment ideas Louis came under fire from his upper class. In efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the taille, and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics. French nobility rejected Louis' implementations for deregulation of the grain market further, and advocation for economic liberalism. Nature though dealt an unfortunate blow too as bread prices soared among bad harvests, and food scarcity would prompt revolt.
From 1776, Louis XVI who had interceded British sovereignty in a North American Colonial revolt, was directly underpinning his French colony in Canada, however sowed the republican revolutionary seed of which would be his demise. Seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realized in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, the USA's influence in France was to swell over its ensuing debt and financial crisis, all contributing to the unpopularity of the Ancien Régime. This led to the convening of the Estates-General of 1789 when discontent among the members of France's middle and lower classes resulted in strengthened opposition to the French aristocracy and to the absolute monarchy, of which Louis and his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, were final representatives. Increasing tensions and violence marked by events such as the storming of the Bastille during which riots in Paris forced Louis to definitively recognize the legislative authority of the National Assembly; led to a famous demise of the Royal line, precluding Louis' execution (similarly as Charles faced the guillotine in England). It was Marie Antoinette's audacious statement on the rebel cause which endured, as said of those invading dissenters; "Let them have their cake, and eat it".
The War of the First Coalition & Belgian IndependenceIn the aftermath of the French Revolution, the War of the First Coalition broke out in 1792 and France was invaded by Prussia and the Holy Roman Empire. After two years of fighting, the Austrian Netherlands and Liège were captured by the French in 1794 and annexed into France. The Dutch Republic collapsed in 1795 and became a French client state. The Belgian Revolution broke out on 25 August 1830, inspired by the recent July Revolution in France. A military intervention in September failed to defeat the rebels in Brussels, radicalizing the movement. Belgium was declared an independent state on 4 October 1830. A constitutional monarchy was established under King Leopold I. William I, Prince of Orange and the first King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg, refused to accept the secession of Belgium, and launched the Ten Days' Campaign in August 1831, a major military offensive into Belgium. Though initially successful, the French intervened to lend incontrovertible support to the Belgians. As tensions abated a settlement was agreed at the Treaty of London in 1839, whence the Dutch recognized Belgian independence, in exchange for territorial concessions. The frontier between the two countries was finally fixed by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1843 when additionally Luxembourg was granted autonomous status in personal union with the Dutch. The impact of the regional dispute was to reverberate across the globe however, and lead to prolonged infighting among vassal states, and deeply concern the viable colonial mandates of the traditional imperial regimes, expressed as the necessity of suzerainty.
Dutch South Africa — The East India Company & the FreeburghersFrom 1652 to 1795 the Dutch East India Company had controlled the rich lands of South Africa, but and due to the said political accords, the United Kingdom incorporated the country into the British Empire in 1806. At the time the term Afrikaner was generally used in modern-day South Africa for the Afrikaans-speaking white population of South Africa, and descendants of boer settlers. From time to time, servants in the direct employment of the Dutch East India Company were endowed with freedoms known as the right of freeburghers, however the company indeed retained the power to reacquire these free-folk for direct service if deemed necessary. This inevitably created wide scale fear and tension since likewise any freeman's children would also be committed to duties. The freeburghers who would go on to wage a guerrilla war and set the stage for prolonged oppression had their origins as so no different from the colonial united states of the new world. The advancing boundaries of their 'white territories' were originally limited to beyond Sneeuberge, the northern boundary of the colony, and as new lands were sought in classed 'treks' by forcing distance between the freemen and the company, the company initiated an authoritarian standard for these emigrants, and established then in magistracy at Swellendam in 1745, and another at Graaff Reinet in 1786. The Gamtoos River had been declared, c. 1740, the eastern frontier of the colony; whence that was breached the Great Fish River was earmarked, and bringing the colony into danger with the local warlike Bantu tribes. In 1795 the heavily taxed burghers of the frontier districts, who were afforded no protection against the Bantus, expelled the officials of the Dutch East India Company, and set up independent governments at Swellendam and Graaff Reinet.
The Boer Wars weren't soon to commence but in 1795 Holland who having fallen under the revolutionary government of France, saw the British force under General Sir James Henry Craig embark for Cape Town to secure the colony for the Prince of Orange, a refugee in England at the time in so escaping prosecution by the French. The governor of Cape Town at first refused to obey the instructions from the prince; but, when the British proceeded to take forcible possession, he capitulated. His action was hastened by the fact that the Khoikhoi, traditionally nomadic pastoralist non-Bantu indigenous population of southwestern Africa, in deserting their former masters, embraced the British. The burghers of Graaff Reinet did not surrender until a force had been sent against them; in 1799 and again in 1801 they rose in revolt. In February 1803, as a result of the peace of Amiens (February 1803), the colony was handed over to the Batavian Republic (ended on 5 June 1806, with the accession of Louis I to the throne of Holland), which introduced many needed reforms, as had the British during their eight years' rule. One of the first acts of General Craig had been to abolish torture in the administration of justice. Still the country remained essentially Dutch, and few British settlers were attracted to it. Its cost to the British exchequer during this period was £16,000,000. The Batavian Republic entertained very liberal views as to the administration of the country, but they had little opportunity for giving them effect.
When the War of the Third Coalition broke out in 1803, a British force was once more sent to the Cape. After an engagement (January 1806) on the shores of Table Bay, the Dutch garrison of Castle of Good Hope surrendered to the British under Sir David Baird, and in the 1814 Anglo-Dutch treaty the colony was ceded outright by Holland to the British crown. At that time the colony extended to the line of mountains guarding the vast central plateau, then called Bushmansland, and had an area of about 120,000 sq. m. and a population of some 60,000, of whom 27,000 were whites, 17,000 free Khoikhoi and the rest slaves, mostly imported blacks and Malays. The Boer population of course were little embracing of the British whose presence was considered a cultural and economic threat, they set about founding independent status in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. As most similarly the colonial British derived from British East India Company who competed for control over the counties vast Gold, and Diamond resources. One rebellion which soon occurred was known as Slachters Nek, in 1815, and was called 'the most insane attempt ever made by a set of men to wage war against their sovereign'.
The Zulu Kingdom — Shaka, Dingane & the Anglo-Zulu WarBy the 1850s the British Empire had colonies in southern Africa bordering on various Boer settlements, native African kingdoms such as the Zulus, the Basotho and numerous indigenous tribal areas and states. Natal in south-eastern Africa was proclaimed a British colony on 4 May 1843 after the British government had annexed the Boer Republic of Natalia. Fierce conflict with the Zulu population had led to the evacuation of Durban, and matters were brought to a head when three sons and a brother of the Zulu chief Sirayo organized a raid into Natal and carried off two women who were under British protection. Shaka Zulu, of course had wraught his nation as the first Zulu king through war and conquest, building the small Zulu tribe into the Zulu Kingdom by 1825 which encompassed an area of around 11,500 square miles (30,000 km2). In 1828 he was assassinated at Dukuza by one of his inDuna's and two of his half-brothers, one of whom, Dingane kaSenzangakhona, succeeded him as king. By the 1830s migrating Boers came into conflict with the Zulu Kingdom, then ruled by Dingane. Dingane suffered a crushing defeat on 16 December 1838, when he attacked a group of 470 Voortrekker settlers led by Pretorius at the Battle of Blood River. Dingane's half-brother, Mpande kaSenzangakhona, then defected with some 17,000 followers and allied with the Boers against Dingane. Dingane was assassinated and Mpande became king of the Zulu empire.
In 1877, Sir Bartle Frere was made High Commissioner for Southern Africa by Lord Carnarvon. Carnarvon appointed Frere to the position on the understanding that he would work to enforce a confederation plan which was tried and tested in Canada. In return Frere was to become the first British governor of a federated southern African dominion. Frere was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner to bring this plan about but first faced the challenge of the independent states of the South African Republic, informally known as the Transvaal Republic, and the Kingdom of Zululand. Bartle Frere wasted no time in putting the scheme forward by manufacturing a casus belli against the Zulu, exaggerating the significance of a number of recent incidents. The British would then annex the Transvaal, which represented their biggest incursions into southern Africa to date. This was familiar grounds already however as in 1868 the British annexed Basutoland (modern Lesotho in the Drakensberg Mountains, surrounded by the Orange Free State and Natal), following an appeal from Moshesh, the leader of a mixed group of African refugees from the Zulu wars who had sought British protection against both the Boers and the Zulus. The Zulu wars really fired up during the 1870s over skirmishes within the Transvaal between the Boers and indigenous local tribes. In particular intensifying struggles between the Boers and the Pedi led by Sekhukune I over labor and land resulted in the war of 1876, in which the attacking Boers were defeated, in part because of the firepower bought with the proceeds of early Pedi labor migration to the Kimberley diamond fields.
There were also serious tensions between the Transvaal Republic and the Zulus led by King Cetshwayo. The Zulus occupied a kingdom located to the southeast, bordered on the one side by the Transvaal Republic and on the other by British Natal. Upon taking the throne, King Cetshwayo had expanded his army and reintroduced many of the paramilitary practices of the famous Shaka, king of the Zulus. He had also started equipping his impis with firearms, although this was a gradual process and the majority had only shields, knobkerries (clubs), throwing spears and the famous stabbing spear, the Iklwa. Over 40,000 Zulu warriors were a formidable force on their own home ground, their lack of modern weaponry notwithstanding. King Cetshwayo then banished European missionaries from his land, and there were suggestions that he might also have become involved in inciting other native African peoples to rebel against the Boers in the Transvaal. The Transvaal Boers became more and more concerned, but King Cetshwayo's policy was to maintain good relations with the British in Natal in an effort to counter the Boer threat.
The Transvaal Boers, who led by Paul Kruger (the future Transvaal President), thereafter elected to deal first with the perceived Zulu threat to the status quo, and local issues, before directly opposing the British annexation. Kruger made two visits to London for direct talks with the British government. In September 1878, on his return from his second visit, Kruger met the British representatives, Sir Bartle Frere and Lieutenant General Frederic Thesiger (shortly to inherit the title of Lord Chelmsford), in Pietermaritzburg. It had seemed an alliance against the natives might be sufficient to quell any lasting British-Dutch cultural division. Fortuitously on 22 January 1879 Anglo-Zulu conflict indeed escalated with the Zulu's strike upon the British, who lost more than 1,600 soldiers at the Battle of Isandlwana. Shortly after the main battle, a British outpost at Rorke's Drift on the Zululand-Natal border, withstood a second Zulu attack with great losses to the Zulus this time as with the British fighting defensively in and around the stone buildings of a small trading store which had been hastily fortified. After reinforcements arrived the British won a series of skirmishes and in time eventually conquered the Zulu capital at Ulundi on 4 July 1879. This war to all intents and purposes signaled the end of the independent Zulu nation. The British consolidated their power over Natal, the Zulu kingdom and the Transvaal in 1879 ending the Anglo-Zulu War.
The Boer Wars — Witwatersrand Gold & the Concentration CampsIn the 1880s, Bechuanaland (present-day Botswana, located north of the Orange River), became the object of dispute between the Germans to the west, the Boers to the east, and the British in the Cape Colony to the south. Although Bechuanaland had at the time almost no economic value, the "Missionaries Road" passed through it toward territory farther north. After the Germans annexed Damaraland and Namaqualand (modern Namibia) in 1884, the British didn't annex Bechuanaland until 1885. The Transvaal Boer would following the Anglo-Zulu war attempt to berid themselves likewise of the British dominion. Boers consequently following a police-dispute, ambushed and destroyed a British Army convoy. From 22 December 1880 to 6 January 1881, British army garrisons all over the Transvaal became besieged. At the battle of Laing's Nek on 28 January 1881, the Natal Field Force under Major-General Sir George Pomeroy Colley attempted with cavalry and infantry attacks to break through the Boer positions on the Drakensberg mountain range to relieve their garrisons. The British were repelled with heavy losses by the Boers under the command of Piet Joubert. Of the 480 British troops who made the charges, 150 never returned. Furthermore, sharpshooting Boers had killed or wounded many senior officers. The Boer tactics proved overwhelming and in several battles which decimated the British forces outside of their forts.
Hostilities continued until 6 March 1881, when a truce was declared, the British agreed to complete Boer self-government in the Transvaal under British suzerainty. The Boers accepted the Queen's nominal rule and British control over external relations, African affairs and native districts. The Pretoria Convention was signed on 3 August 1881 and ratified on 25 October by the Transvaal Volksraad (parliament). This led to the withdrawal of the last British troops. The Pretoria Convention was superseded in 1884 by the London Convention which provided for similar complete self-government, although still with British control of foreign relations. The transitional peace was of course doomed when in 1886 a second major mineral find was made at an outcrop on a large ridge some thirty miles south of the Boer capital at Pretoria, it reignited British imperial interests. The ridge, known locally as the "Witwatersrand" (literally "white water ridge"—a watershed), contained the world's largest deposit of gold-bearing ore. Although it was not as rich as the gold finds in Canada and Australia, its consistency made it especially well suited to industrial mining methods. By 1899, tensions erupted into the Second Boer War.
On October 9, the Boer issued an ultimatum to the British government, declaring that a state of war would exist between Britain and the two Boer republics if the British did not remove their troops from along the border. The ultimatum expired without resolution, and the war began on October 11, 1899. This time with sizable investment and the application of a notorious policy, the British government would prevail. Lord Kitchener applied 'scorched-earth' during the latter part of the Second Boer War (1899–1902), to ensure military victory over the Boer's guerrilla warfare tactic, but only also after the capture of both Boer capital cities. As a result, the British ordered destruction of the farms and the homes of civilians, along with salting of the farming lands to prevent crop yields. In cutting off the food supply for the Boer fighters, their wives and children were also left without means to survive. As the Guerrillas were slowly captured for exporting, the women and children were forcibly housed in concentration camps, of which the size and scale grew quickly out of control. The humanitarian measure, determined to care for displaced persons until the war was ended, eventuated in catastrophe with an astonishing 27,927 innocent Boer deaths of which more than 22,000 were under the age of 16. The failure of the Boer to accede in a treaty and their tactical demise was nothing but a hoodwink surrounding colonial domestication. Until the bitter end actually, such a frightening result saw the Australian-British Lieutenant 'Breaker' Morant infamously executed, after professing to follow senior orders, and in a rushed trial claimed oft as orchestrated martyrdom. The future of South Africa remains contested of course and over the transition of Europeans seeking liberties in life, and amid forced suffering. This would only escalate as the State's vigor for revolutionary vanguardism, which turned toward attainment of the ultimate form of equality; a racial equality.
Written by Jason Steven Jowett. Sourced from historical fact. This blog may not be reproduced in whole without the author's express permission. Copyright © 2024. greatbrittania.blogspot.com
