Rebellion in Heilbron – To Be Or Not To Be Shot Dead?
From Trekking On - in the company of brave men
by Deneys Reitz
On the morning of 23 October 1914, a man came into my office and, locking the door behind him, whispered in my ear that David van Coller, the District Commandant, was coming with a strong force that night to take the town on General De Wet’s behalf, and that I was to be shot in my backyard. Having delivered himself of this at a gulp, he unlocked the door and quickly vanished.
I telephoned the information to General Smuts in Pretoria, and suggested that I should collect volunteers to defend the place. He gave me peremptory orders to do nothing of the kind. He said that if Van Coller came in and we fired on his men, the Nationalists would raise a cry throughout the country saying that we had started the trouble. He said he did not like leaving me in the lurch, but they were expecting outbreaks at other centres, so I was to look after myself.
In view of this, I saw no reason why I should tamely remain to be captured by my political opponents. I did not believe that I would be shot, for the Boers are not given to assassination, but in the heat of long quarrels I had made many enemies, and the least that would happen to me would be arrest and indignities.
I decided therefore to make my escape. I was able to ascertain that already, out of sight, there were rebel pickets on every road leading from the town, so a daylight attempt was out of the question, and my only hope was a getaway after dark.
In the meanwhile, I pretended to be ignorant of what was afoot, and attended to my affairs until four in the afternoon, when I went home to prepare for flight, and ordered Ruiter to get our horses ready. Ruiter had been with me for years. He was a bandy-legged, diminutive Hottentot, the ugliest and loyalest servant a man ever had. My horse was a thoroughbred named Bismarck, one of the best in the country, and Ruiter had a fast Basuto pony. When I explained matters to him, he said we had the legs of any animals in the district.
As we were waiting, ready saddled, for darkness to fall, two young farmers, Daniel Malherbe and Fritz Weilbach, came galloping to my house. They were Government men, and they had both taken a prominent stand in the political war, so they had decided that the town was the best place for them. They said that all the countryside had risen, that mounted bands were patrolling in every direction, and that it was only by hard riding that they had got through. When I told them of the orders received from General Smuts, they agreed to join my attempt to bolt.
By now, standing in my yard, we could see rebel horsemen dotting the skyline, so there was no time to lose, and the moment it was dark enough we set off and, slinking by the gaol and the municipal pound, slipped quietly out of town.
We left not a moment too soon, for we found afterwards that, within twenty minutes of our passing, every exit was occupied by pickets, which must even then have been closing silently in as we went.
Next Day
Towards three in the afternoon we approached Wolwehoek Station, on the railway line that comes up through the Free State to Johannesburg and Pretoria. We had ridden twenty-five miles by then, and most of the rebels had dropped out. About a dozen of them, however, better mounted, or more determined than the rest, made a final bid to get within range before we reached the cover of the station buildings, and they came hurrying towards us in a cloud of dust. We were uncertain whether the station was held by rebels or not, but we were relieved, as we rode, to see the mail train steaming in from the south. It was the last train to get through before the line was broken up, and passengers leaned from every window to view what must have seemed to them like a cinema performance, three armed men and a servant riding for their lives, and something like a sheriff’s posse coming on behind.Zulu and Rhino Impressions – 1923
From No Outspan
by Deneys Reitz
In the winter of 1923, Deneys Reitz and Jan Smuts, Cabinet and Prime Minister respectively, and comrades since Anglo-Boer War days, travelled together to Zululand on something of a holiday. In No Outspan, the third book of the published trilogy Adrift on the Open Veld, Reitz describes their meeting with ten thousand assembled Zulu warriors, and concludes with a few rhino stories and other matters for good measure, as follows.
‘Mankulumane was a magnificent savage of over ninety years, tall and erect, and every line of his heavy jowl spoke of strength and character. He had been chief counsellor to Cetewayo and Dinizulu as he was now to Solomon, and the Zulus look on him as the greatest orator of all time.
He spoke in court Zulu, a more involved language than was in everyday use, but with some knowledge of their tongue and with the help of an interpreter I was able to follow him.
He played upon his audience in masterly fashion. One moment he worked them into a rage and whole batches of warriors sprang to their feet to glower at their hereditary foes across the common border; then by a dexterous turn he sent them rocking with laughter at some witty tale of cattle or the chase.
Next, in lowered tones, he spoke of the former glories of the Zulu people, of the spirits of the dead and of great battles of the past, and when he chided them for their quarrels they sank their heads between their knees and rocked and moaned in unison.
What struck me most in his peroration was his reference to Dinizulu, his former lord.
Dinizulu was sentenced to prison in 1906 by the Natal Courts for alleged complicity in the Bambata rising. Many people at the time doubted the justice of the verdict, and an advocate uncle of mine, Mr W P Schreiner, went to great personal expense to defend him, free of charge, in a trial that lasted for months. In 1910, when General Botha became Prime Minister of the Union, he released Dinizulu who died soon after. His conviction and imprisonment are still deeply resented by the tribes.
Mankulumane had been at Dinizulu's burial and, referring to it in his speech, said: “I am not an Usutu. I belong to the M’Gangkwe tribe. We were conquered by Panda. But the Usutus, once we submitted, gave us their trust. Although we had fought against them, I rose to high honour, even to being chief counsellor of their kings. Throughout many wars that confidence, once given, was never withdrawn.
“But see how the white man treated Dinizulu! He submitted to them and they pretended to accept his word, but it was make-believe. When Bambata rose at Nkandhla forest they, whilst lulling the king with soft words, surrounded him. He lies dead of a broken heart.”
Mankulumane ended in slow measured tones, and there was dead silence as he finished. All of us were impressed by what he said, and some of us perhaps a little ashamed.
Then came a war dance, each tribe in its own territory. It was magnificent, but we were relieved when it was over without a breach of the peace. We returned on horseback to Nongoma and the great impis marched off in clouds of dust.
Next morning we continued the homeward journey, passing several European villages on the way. At one of these the people told us that a white rhino had recently paid them a visit. There are two kinds in Zululand, the white and the black. The black rhino is smaller and more vicious than the square-lipped variety. Both are shortsighted and inclined to charge at anything they scent but cannot clearly see. On this occasion the white rhino walked through several garden lots, coming away with a tangle of fencing-wire around his head. Then he entered the village and lumbered down the street. Seeing the open door of a cottage, he put his head inside and dislodged the electric bell and battery, both of which hung on the horn of his nose when he backed out. Unperturbed by this, he ambled into a yard and collected a clothes line and the family washing, with all of which he disappeared into the forest beyond. As he went the electric bell made contact and started to ring, while the fencing wire still trailed behind, and the multicoloured garments fluttered along his flanks like a battle ship on gala day.
A Zululand game ranger told me he was once walking along a path, with a piccanin behind him, when they saw a white rhino lying asleep in a clearing. The piccanin ran ahead and kicked the rhino in the ribs. He started angrily to his feet, but on seeing his tiny aggressor he gave a snort of disgust and moved off.
We went via Eshowe and Melmoth, and we passed the spot where Dingaan’s capital had stood. Under a rude cairn lay the bones of Piet Retief and his men, who were murdered there in 1836.
Further on we went by the place where the Prince Imperial, son of that upstart Napoleon III, was killed by the Zulus. I had seen his mother, the Empress Eugénie, in 1917 at Aldershot. She was then old and shrunken, but my father had seen her in the heyday of her youth at the Paris Exhibition, and he told me she had been a very beautiful woman.
When we reached the Natal railway line, a special train was ready for us and we returned to Pretoria in July 1923.’
In the Withaak's Shade – An Extract
by Herman Charles Bosman
Leopards? – Oom Schalk Lourens said – Oh, yes, there are two varieties on this side of the Limpopo. The chief difference between them is that the one kind of leopard has got a few more spots on it than the other kind. But when you meet a leopard in the veld, unexpectedly, you seldom trouble to count his spots to find out which kind he belongs to. That is unnecessary. Because, whatever kind of leopard it is that you come across in this way, you only do one kind of running. And that is the fastest kind.
I remember the occasion when I came across a leopard unexpectedly, and to this day I cannot tell you how many spots he had, even though I had all the time I needed for studying him. It happened at about midday, when I was out on the far end of my farm, behind a koppie, looking for some strayed cattle. I thought the cattle might be there because it is shady under those withaak trees, and there is soft grass that is very pleasant to sit on. After I had looked for the cattle for about an hour in this manner, sitting up against a tree-trunk, it occurred to me that I could look for them just as well, or perhaps even better, if I lay down flat. For even a child knows that cattle aren’t so small that you have to stand on stilts or something to see them properly.
So I lay on my back, with my hat tilted over my face, and my legs crossed, and when I closed my eyes slightly the tip of my boot, sticking up into the air, looked just like the peak of Abjaterskop.
Overhead a lonely aasvoël wheeled, circling slowly round and round without flapping his wings, and I knew that not even a calf could pass in any part of the sky between the tip of my toe and that aasvoël without my observing it immediately. What was more, I could go on lying there under the withaak looking for the cattle like that all day, if necessary.
The more I screwed up my eyes and gazed at the toe of my boot, the more it looked like Abjaterskop. By and by it seemed that it actually was Abjaterskop, and I could see the stones on top of it, and the bushes trying to grow up its sides, and in my ears there was a far-off humming sound, like bees in an orchard on a still day. As I have said, it was very pleasant.
Then a strange thing happened. It was as though a huge cloud, shaped like an animal’s head and with spots on it, had settled on top of Abjaterskop. It seemed so funny that I wanted to laugh. But I didn’t. Instead, I opened my eyes a little more and felt glad to think that I was only dreaming. Because otherwise I would have to believe that the spotted cloud on Abjaterskop was actually a leopard, and that he was gazing at my boot. Again I wanted to laugh. But then, suddenly, I knew.
And I didn’t feel so glad. For it was a leopard, all right – a large-sized, hungry-looking leopard, and he was sniffing suspiciously at my feet. I was uncomfortable. I knew that nothing I could do would ever convince that leopard that my toe was Abjaterskop. I wanted to get up and run for it. But I couldn’t. My legs wouldn’t work.
Every big-game hunter I have come across has told me the same story about how, at one time or another, he has owed his escape from lions or other wild animals to his cunning in lying down and pretending to be dead, so that the beast of prey loses interest in him and walks off. Now as I lay there on the grass, with the leopard trying to make up his mind about me, I understood why, in such a situation, the hunter doesn’t move. It’s simply that he can’t move. That’s all. It’s not his cunning that keeps him down. It’s his legs.
Those were terrible moments. I lay very still, afraid to open my eyes and afraid to breathe. Sniff-sniff, the huge creature went, and his breath swept over my face in hot gasps. You hear of many frightening experiences that a man has in a lifetime. I have also been in quite a few perilous situations. But if you want something to make you suddenly old and to turn your hair white in a few moments, there is nothing to beat a leopard – especially when he is standing over you, with his jaws at your throat, trying to find a good place to bite.
The leopard gave a deep growl, stepped right over my body, knocked off my hat, and growled again. I opened my eyes and saw the animal moving away clumsily. But my relief didn’t last long. The leopard didn’t move far. Instead, he turned over and lay down next to me.
Yes, there on the grass, in the shade of the withaak, the leopard and I lay down together. The leopard lay half curled up, like a dog, and whenever I tried to move away, he grunted. I am sure that in the whole history of the Groot Marico there have never been two stranger companions engaged in the thankless task of looking for strayed cattle.
Next day, in Fanie Snyman’s voorkamer, which was used as a post office, I told my story to the farmers of the neighbourhood, while they were drinking coffee and waiting for the motor-lorry from Zeerust.
At first people jested about this leopard. They said it wasn’t a real leopard, but a spotted animal that had walked away out of Schalk Lourens’s dream, and the upshot of this whole affair was that I too began to have doubts about the existence of the leopard.
But when, a few days later, a huge leopard was seen from the roadside near the poort, and then again by Mtosas on the way to Nietverdiend, and again in the turf-lands near the Malopo, matters took a different turn. And when his spoor was found at several waterholes, people had no further doubt about the leopard. It was dangerous to walk about in the veld, they said.
Exciting times followed. There was a great deal of shooting at the leopard and a great deal of running away from him. The amount of Martini and Mauser fire I heard in the krantzes reminded me of nothing so much as the First Boer War. And the amount of running away reminded me of nothing so much as the Second Boer War.
But always the leopard escaped unharmed. Somehow, I felt sorry for him. The way he had first sniffed at me and then lain down beside me that day under the withaak was a strange thing I couldn’t understand. I thought of the Bible, where it is written that the lion shall lie down with the lamb.
I also wondered whether I hadn’t dreamt it all. The manner in which these things had befallen me was unearthly, and the leopard began to take up a lot of my thoughts. Also, there was no man I could talk to about it who would be able to help me in any way. Even now, as I’m telling you this story, I’m expecting you to wink at me like Krisjan Lemmer did. (You know that kind of wink. It was to let me know that there was now a new understanding between us, and that we could speak in future as one Marico liar to another.)
Still, I can only tell you the things that happened as I saw them, and what the rest was about only Africa knows.
It was some time before I again walked along the path that leads through the bush to where the withaaks are. But I didn’t lie down on the grass again. Because when I reached the place, I found that the leopard had got there before me. He was lying on the same spot, half curled up in the withaak’s shade, and his forepaws were folded as a dog’s are sometimes. But he lay very still. And even from the distance where I stood I could see the red splash on his breast where a Mauser bullet had gone.
The Disabled Hero – Cape Rebel Par Excellence
by Hennie Jansen
In the bitterly cold winter of 1901, during the Anglo-Boer War, General Jan Smuts and his commando invaded the Cape Colony. They did so in the belief that the use of Boer guerrilla tactics in the Cape Colony would distract and divide the enemy forces, and in this way help bring relief to the hard-pressed Republics up north. The invasion also carried with it the possibility of an uprising in the Colony should Cape Afrikaners (and others) be disposed to take up arms in support of the Republics.
The Smuts commando crossed the Orange River in the easterly district of Zastron. This was not achieved without considerable difficulty, for British forces were monitoring their progress, harrying them and trying to head them off, to nip this threatened incursion in the bud.
By September 1901, the commando of some 250 burgers and about 500 horses had marauded high into the Stormberg mountains, up a pass and onto a flat, grassy tableland about three miles wide, from which there was no apparent escape. The commando found itself isolated on this plateau, surrounded by rocky precipices where the face of the mountain fell sharply away to the plains below. When British soldiers began arriving on the plateau, the burgers could see the seriousness of their predicament: they were trapped on the flat mountain top as all passes were now controlled by the advancing enemy forces. By dusk, encircled by soldiers and precipices, the commando was sheltering defensively in a low-lying area around a small farmhouse and a kraal.
Believing that they had the commando cornered, the British forces seemed to be waiting until morning, when the commando would have had no option but to surrender.
In Commando – Of Horses and Men, Deneys Reitz, who was part of the Smuts commando, tells what happened next.
‘General Smuts stood before the homestead in whispered conversation with his two lieutenants, while the rest of us leaned on our rifles, too weary to care very much what happened. Then out of the house came a hunchbacked cripple, who said that he would lead us through the English troops to the edge of the tableland, by a way that was unlikely to be watched, for it ran through boggy soil. His offer was eagerly accepted, and orders were given to mount at once. Six or seven men had been wounded during the day, two of them so badly that they had to be left behind, but the others chose to accompany us, and in a few minutes we were silently filing off into the darkness, the cripple crouching insecurely on a horse at our head. He took us along a squelching path, that twisted for a mile or two, so close to the investing troops that we could hear voices and the champing of bits, but by the end of an anxious hour he had brought us undiscovered to the escarpment. From here the mountainside fell sharply away into black depths below, how steeply we could not tell, but our guide warned us that it was very steep indeed. Dropping from his horse he plodded off into the night on his crutches, carrying with him our heartfelt thanks, for he had risked his life and goods on our behalf.’
What followed was probably the closest to a vertical descent by any mounted force during the war. The commando, men and horses, went glissading into the black depths, bumping and banging their way down, but they landed below without any serious damage. The British forces had not considered the possibility of the commando being so foolish as to plunge over a precipice with their horses, but of course they were unaware that this part of the escarpment was covered with a thick matting of grass to cushion the fall. Thus both men and horses were able to continue their incursion into the Cape Colony, thanks to the courage of a Cape Rebel extraordinaire.
A Late Night Visit
From Commando – Of Horses and Men
by Deneys Reitz
After about an hour, I heard the sound of a hymn and the wheeze of a harmonium, such as stands in almost every Dutch farmhouse, and knew that I was nearing friends. When I knocked at the door, there was a hush at first, for in these disturbed times a visit late at night meant military requisition, but then I heard a shuffle of feet and the door opened.
A whole family was peering from within. When I told them who I was, they almost dragged me into the house, so eager were they to help. I must have looked very dishevelled, for the women wept with pity while removing the boot from my sore foot, and during the more painful process of extracting a thorn, nearly an inch long, that had run into the palm of my hand when I was thrown from my horse that afternoon. They fetched hot water and tore up clean linen for bandages; a meal was laid, with coffee, and the kindly people almost quarrelled for the right to serve me, so keen was their sympathy, although they knew that it might mean for them fines and imprisonment. Having attended to my wants, they took further counsel. It was agreed that I could not remain here, for even if the continuous patrols did not ferret me out, my presence was certain to be reported by the coloured farm labourers, who all over the Cape sided with the British. As I assured them that I was well able to walk, it was decided that I must continue westward on the off chance of coming up with General Smuts ... I made ready to start as soon as my boot had been sufficiently repaired.
The head of the family, a patriarch of seventy, insisted on acting as my guide during the first stage of the journey, and firmly refused to waive the right in favour of his sons, who offered themselves. A grain-bag was packed with food and, after an affecting leave-taking, the old man and I set out. We trudged along, hour after hour, until his strength gave out and I made him turn back, his voice shaking with emotion as he wished me God-speed. ...
At last, as day was breaking, I heard the whicker of a horse and, going forward carefully, found all seven men asleep beneath the trees. They were astonished to see me, as they had been certain that I was either dead or taken.
The 1914 Rebellion and the Helpmekaar Rag Doll
by Marthinus van Bart
This year marks the centenary of an event that shook South Africa to its foundations. The 1914 rebellion – an armed uprising involving more than 12 000 Afrikaners – erupted at the end of October 1914 as an understandable outpouring of opposition to South Africa’s participation in the Great War on the side of Britain, which had been a bitter enemy of the Boer Republics a mere 12 years before. By Christmas 1914 the rebellion had been crushed, but not without considerable violence, bloodshed and loss of life. Leading former Anglo-Boer War generals, such as Christiaan de Wet, Koos de la Rey, Manie Maritz, Kemp and Beyers were involved. De la Rey and Beyers were shot dead; others landed in jail and were fined; and yet others, such as Maritz, fled the country.
Not only were thousands of rebels fined, they had to pay enormous ‘war-debts’ as a result of damage to property and the commandeering of supplies. Most of the rebels were poor and could not afford to pay, and many faced court action to recover what was owed, with the auction of their houses and belongings dangling over their heads like a sword. Fate intervened, however, in the form of an auction of a very different kind. This auction did not take place at the instance of any judgment creditor; quite the opposite, it was a spontaneous, communal attempt by Afrikaners to help each other – a helpmekaar to save many former rebels from financial ruin.
On Wednesday, 4 August 1915, some 6 000 Afrikaner women marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to deliver a petition, signed by 65 000 women across the country, to the Governor-General, Lord Buxton. They marched arm-in-arm, in lines of six, with men on either side to prevent intimidation or molestation, and they demanded the release of rebel officers and the reduction of fines and damages claims. The leader of the protest was Mrs Hendrienna Joubert, widow of Commandant-General Piet Joubert, head of the former Transvaal Republic army under President Paul Kruger at the beginning of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902).
Lord Buxton did not wish to react to the petition without consulting the Prime Minister, General Louis Botha, and the Minister of Justice and War, General Jan Smuts, so the women gave him a day within which to respond.
Next morning the women were addressed by their leaders, in order to keep their spirits strong, and the Helpmekaar Fund, which had been initiated at Reitz in the Free State a short while before, was promoted as a means whereby Afrikaners could help each other financially so that the fines and the damages could be paid.
It was then that the eighty-five-year-old Mrs Joubert, who had lived through the Great Trek as a child, the First Boer War of 1880-1881 as the young wife of General Joubert, and the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 as the mature companion of the Commandant-General, rose to address the gathering. She donated a Voortrekker Rag Doll, clad in typical Voortrekker dress, to be auctioned for the benefit of the Helpmekaar Fund. The highest bid – six pounds and 5 shillings, an enormous sum in those days of poverty and struggle – came from Mrs G W van Heerden, of the farm Beestekraal in Victoria-West.
No response was forthcoming from Lord Buxton, and on top of this Botha and Smuts were angry that these women, who had neither the vote nor any legal standing in the community, had dared to make demands of the government. (The vote was first granted to white women in 1930 by the government of General J M B Hertzog.)
The Helpmekaar Fund became so successful that not only was all the rebel debt fully paid, but the Helpmekaar Study Fund was established for Afrikaner youth, to enable them to further their studies. Professor Christiaan Barnard, the famous heart surgeon, was one of these Helpmekaar students.
Afrikaans Sosaties
From Leipoldt’s Food & Wine
by C Louis Leipoldt
There is probably no other dish that can be regarded as more genuinely Afrikaans than
Tant Alie says: ‘Those aren’t sosaties – they’re just some of that French rubbish you get in their restaurants.’ She knows all about it because when she was still young enough to go a-courting, she paid a visit to Paris. According to her, it was then a very strange place, certainly not what it is today – or was in my day. I managed to avoid the misfortune of eating any rubbish in Paris, although I must agree that I never encountered any genuine sosaties there.
‘Nee,’ says Tant Alie, ‘the truth, my child… the truth is that you no longer get sosaties like Ouma Liesbet made them. Now those were real sosaties.’
She went on to explain at great length exactly what kind of sosaties they were. I must say Ouma Liesbet – I never knew her, for by the time I was born she had exchanged her earthly for a heavenly existence, and what remained was the lingering talk of her unrivalled cooking, especially when it came to making pannas, brawn and Spanish-reed chops, about which I may have something to say at a later stage – Ouma Liesbet was exceptionally orthodox and strict about following the rules for making sosaties. I can do no better than tell you how she went about it. …
13 June 1945
