1899-1901

"A war in South Africa would be one of the most serious wars that could possibly be waged. It would be in the nature of a civil war. It would be a long war, a bitter war and a costly war...It would leave behind it the embers of a strife which I believe generations would be hardly long enough to extinguish." -- Joseph Chamberlain (British Colonial Secretary), May 1896.

The major political issue within the British Empire in 1899 is the future of the southern African colonies. At this time, there is no single country of South Africa: the four major territories in the region are the self-governing British colonies of Natal and Cape Colony, and the Boer (Afrikaner) republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State which enjoy internal autonomy, but under British suzerainty. The Boer republics are suspicious of British designs to force them into a united South Africa under British control. The Boers jealously guard their autonomy, and aspire to full independence. Transvaal has already successfully resisted one British attempt at annexation, in the First Boer War of 1880-81.

In the Wood family...

27 May 1899 - Eleventh son, Peter Percy Wood, born in Belvedere, Kent. 1899? - Oldest son, Richard Thomas Wood, joins British Army. Posted to South Africa. 27 May 1900 - Richard Thomas Wood dies of disease in Kroonstad, Orange Free State. 11 April 1901 - Twelfth son (and last child), Charles Christopher Wood, born in Erith, Kent.

Southern Africa on the eve of the Second Boer War, 1899

Boer territories - 1. The Republic of Transvaal 2. The Orange Free State British - 3. Cape Colony 4. Natal 5. Basutoland 6. British Bechuanaland Other - 7. German Southwest Africa 8. Bechuanaland 9. Swaziland 10. Portuguese East Africa

As the century draws to a close, the flashpoint which threatens to ignite a second Boer War is the status of the "Uitlanders": the tens of thousands of non-Boer white immigrants working in the Transvaal's goldfields. These include thousands of Britons and British colonials, who call upon Britain to safeguard their civil rights in the Boer-dominated republic, especially the right to vote, which is repeatedly denied them. The Boers of Transvaal fear losing control of their own republic if thousands of foreign immigrants are allowed the vote. They regard British pressure for votes for Uitlanders as a backdoor attempt at annexation by Britain.

"When a community of some 60,000 adult males of European and mainly English birth find themselves subjected to the rule of the privileged class numbering only a quarter of that figure, and are refused the enjoyment of the elementary liberties now conceded to the subjects of the pettiest German principality, we know there can be only one ending to the matter". -- The London Times

During the Spring of 1895, Cecil Rhodes (the Prime Minister of Cape Colony and a major investor in Southern Africa's gold and diamond industries) and leading members of the Uitlander community begin to plot an armed uprising by the British community in Transvaal against the Boer government. Rhodes will reinforce the rebels inside Transvaal by sending in five hundred of his own Matabeleland militia, under the command of Leander Jameson. When Jameson hears on 28 December 1895 that the rebellion has been delayed, he leads his irregulars into Transvaal regardless, confidently expecting that the Uitlanders will rise up in his support. When this fails to happen, the Pretoria government captures Jameson's troop without a fight. In the popular view of Englishmen, the Jameson Raid is a daring effort to protect legitimate British interests. But the British government - aware of its commitment to respect Transvaal's internal autonomy - quickly repudiates the raid, and denies having any part in its planning or execution. Nevertheless, reaction in Germany to this attempt to force the issue of British rights in Transvaal is uniformly hostile. Some 15,000 of the foreigners in Transvaal are are not British at all, but are German miners and businessmen. The sympathies of the German public lie with them, and with the Boers of Transvaal, which the Kaiser describes as "..a little nation which [is] Dutch - and hence Lower-Saxon German in origin - and to which we [are] sympathetic because of the racial relationship." William is so angered by the Jameson Raid that he suggests sending German marines to intervene, but instead he has to settle for sending a telegram to President Kruger, congratulating him on capturing the raiders:

"I express my sincere congratulations that, supported by your people and without appealing for the help of friendly Powers, you have succeeded by your own energetic action against armed bands which invaded your country as disturbers of the peace, and have thus been able to restore peace and safeguard the independence of the country against attacks from outside." -- Kaiser William to President Kruger, 3 January 1896

British reaction to "the Kruger Telegram" is first amazement that Germany should publicly takes sides in the British Empire's internal affairs, then overwhelming hostility. In his telegram, the Kaiser has endorsed the "independence" of Transvaal, which technically is not independent at all but a protectorate of the British Crown. Furthermore, by congratulating Kruger on repelling the raid "without the help of friendly Powers", he seems to suggest that German military intervention would have been forthcoming if Transvaal's government had requested it. The Jameson Raid and the Kruger Telegram alter the relationship between Great Britain and Imperial Germany. Until publication of the telegram, Britons traditionally looked upon France as their potential enemy; the German Empire, ruled by the Queen's grandson, was assumed to be England's friend. The Kruger Telegram surprises British public opinion, revealing an unsuspected level of German animosity towards Britain. The Princess of Wales declares that "...in his telegram to Kruger, my nephew Willy has showed us that he is inwardly our enemy, even if he surpasses himself every time he meets us in flatteries, compliments and assurances of his love and affection". Even Germany's own statesmen - including Bismarck, Hatzfeldt and von Bulow - warn that the Kaiser has made a terrible mistake in sending the Kruger Telegram.

"England, that rich and placid nation, was goaded into her present defensive attitude towards Germany by continuous threats and insults on the part of the Germans. The Kruger telegram began it all". Friedrich von Holstein, German Foreign Ministry, writing in retirement, 1907.

When the Bloemfontein Conference of 31 May - 5 June 1899 fails to resolve the issue of Uitlander enfranchisement, Presidents Kruger of Transvaal and Steyn of the Orange Free State call up the 40,000 men of the Boer militias. British troops stationed in South Africa total fewer than 15,000 men so, on 8 September, the British Cabinet announces plans to send an addition 10,000 men to Durban, to reinforce immediately the Natal garrison. The entire British 1st Army Corps (35,000 men) is to follow them to South Africa within four months. Before British reinforcements can arrive to upset their numerical superiority, Boer cavalry columns invade Cape Colony, Natal and Bechuanaland on 11 October 1899. By 2 November, they have besieged the British garrisons in the border towns of Kimberley, Ladysmith and Mafeking, and the Second Boer War has begun.

"I don't think the Boers will have a chance, although I expect there will be one or two stiff little shows here and there. I think they are awful idiots to fight, although we are of course very keen that they should". Lt. Reggie Kentish, Royal Irish Fusiliers, Sept-Oct 1899

This war proves to be unlike anything that the British Army has faced in its relatively bloodless 19th-century campaigns in India, Egypt and Sudan. It is the first "twentieth century" war, against an enemy entrenched in strong defensive positions and armed with machine guns and high velocity rifles, all of which turn the odds heavily in favour of the defender. The British Army will become very familiar with this kind of war in 1914-18, but is slow to come to terms with it in the early campaigns of 1899, and undergoes repeated reverses in its attempts to relieve the beleaguered garrisons at Kimberley, Ladysmith and Mafeking. During the week of 10 December, the British Army suffers 2,000 casualties, a scale of loss not encountered since the Crimean War, almost fifty years earlier. "Black Week" has the unexpected effect of energising a previously-apathetic British public, and there is a surge of recruitment into the Army. One of the thousands of new recruits is the Wood's oldest son, nineteen-year-old Richard, who becomes No. 5137 Private Wood, of the 1st Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment. Richard is shipped out to South Africa as one of a contingent of 45,000 new troops, whose arrival will finally allow British commander, Field-Marshal Roberts, to relieve the besieged garrisons in Cape Colony and Natal, and go on the offensive into the Boer Republics.

Significant locations in the Second Boer War

Key :

P - Pretoria J - Johannesburg B - Bloemfontein Kr - Kroonstad C - Cape Town D - Durban L - Ladysmith K - Kimberley M - Mafeking

On 15 February 1900, Lord Roberts' troops finally relieve the beleaguered garrison at Kimberley, and less than two weeks later General Redvers Buller's Natal contingent breaks through to Ladysmith (at the fifth attempt). Roberts follows up his success at Kimberly by advancing into the Orange Free State, and on 13 March he captures the capital, Bloemfontein, without a fight. The Boer republic's government withdraws to the provisional capital of Kroonstad, but on 12 May Kroonstad too is abandoned to the advancing British. However, Lord Roberts' troops have advanced through the Free State so quickly that they have outrun their support - especially medical - services, and have exceeded the ability of their transport system to evacuate their sick and wounded from the front line. When typhoid breaks out in Kroonstad's overcrowded field hospitals in May 1900, the outbreak quickly becomes an epidemic. In a single month, the British Army loses more men to typhoid in Kroonstad's hospitals than it has lost on the battlefield, even in the heaviest reverses of Black Week. (In fact, by the time the Boer War finishes in 1902, three times as many British soldiers will have died in hospital as on the battlefield).

"Far more people have been killed by negligence in our hospitals than by Boer bullets. Men are dying by hundreds who could easily be saved." - Lady Violet Cecil, 30 May 1900

The long-awaited relief of Robert Baden-Powell's besieged garrison at Mafeking on 17 May is the cause of national rejoicing back in Britain. This victory is rapidly followed by the capture of Tranvaal's two main cities, Johannesburg and the capital, Pretoria, which falls to Roberts on 5 June. With both enemy capitals now captured, the British celebrate the apparent end of the struggle. (Though the durable Boers will revert to guerilla warfare, and the conflict will drag on with increasing bitterness and devastation for two more years before the final surrender). Back in Kent, however, news of the British victories of May and June 1900 is bittersweet to Frederick and Charlotte Wood, as they learn that their son Richard is one of the thousands of British soldiers who succumbed to disease in Kroonstad's field hospitals during the epidemic of May 1900. Richard Wood died there on 27 May 1900, one month after his twentieth birthday, and was buried in Marais Street Cemetery, Kroonstad. The Boer War formally ends with the surrender of remaining Boer forces at Pretoria on 31 May 1902. The immediate result of the war is that the republics of Transvaal and Orange Free State finally come under undisputed British control, and are eventually incorporated with Cape Colony and Natal into the Union of South Africa. An equally important result of the war is Britain's increased awareness of just how alone her policy of Splendid Isolation has left her. All the major powers of Europe have sided with the Boer republics during the war, and Britain's sense of vulnerability in the face of a universally hostile Europe refocusses the attention of the British government on the need for a defensive alliance, preferably -- but not necessarily -- with Germany.

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