Christiaan de Wet defied the British to become one of the best-known and most intrepid Boer heroes of the South African War. His book on the war, De Strijd Tusschen Boer en Brit, was published in several languages and has become a classic war memoir. In 1914, De Wet was one of the leaders of the Afrikaner rebellion which wanted a return to republican independence. On 1 December 1914 he was apprehended by government forces and locked up in the Johannesburg Fort. He was sentenced to six years in prison and a fi ne of £2 000, but was released eleven months later after funds were raised to pay the fi ne. His last years were spent quietly on his farm Klipfontein outside Dewetsdorp in the Orange Free State. (Also see box on page 241.)
A substantial parliamentary majority voted in favour of the government’s war policy, and it is probable that the majority of white voters were in favour of the decision to invade German South West Africa. There was also, however, no doubt about what Smuts called ‘the people’s genuine dislike of the German South West African expedition’.
Commandant-General C.F. Beyers of the Union’s armed forces declared that he was not prepared to lead an invasion of German South West Africa. Shortly thereafter members of the government heard disquieting reports from the western Transvaal about the intentions of the highly respected and influential General J.H. (Koos) de la Rey who had been one of the most distinguished leaders of Boer forces during the South African War and who was an elected Transvaal senator representing the ruling South African Party in 1914.
In August 1914 Nicolaas (Siener) van Rensburg, a frail 50-year-old man from the Wolmaransstad district who had impressed De la Rey and others with his apparent psychic powers during the South African War, ‘saw visions’ again. There is speculative evidence that Van Rensburg suffered from epilepsy that brought on these ‘visions’. In his prophecies Van Rensburg made it clear that the war would lead to an easy recovery of Boer republican independence. In part this contributed to the restlessness among Afrikaners in the western Transvaal. It became known that De la Rey planned a meeting at Treurfontein (Coligny) on 15 August and that burghers had been told to come armed to the gathering.
In a meeting with Botha and other government officials De la Rey warned that the South West African expedition would have serious consequences. He talked of recovering republican independence and of Siener van Rensburg’s prophecies. He told Botha, ‘The prophet cannot see what month it is, but he can see it is the fifteenth.’ De la Rey was apparently disillusioned that Botha and Smuts would not support him in a movement to regain the independence of the Boer republics, but he promised that he would do nothing rash.
De la Rey was killed on 15 September on the outskirts of Johannesburg when, in a case of mistaken identity, he was hit by a ricocheted bullet fired by a policeman trying to stop what he thought was a criminal gang. Unfounded rumours of government complicity swept the country and added considerably to the tension. Shortly afterwards Botha was compelled to proclaim martial law as former Boer generals Christiaan Beyers, J.G. Kemp, Manie Maritz and Christiaan de Wet went into rebellion with at least 11 472 men. Along with ex-President Steyn, De Wet was the greatest hero in the Free State with a considerable personal following (See Jacobus Hercules De la Rey). Thus the government had legitimate reason to fear the rebellion.
But the rebels were no match for the 32 000 troops the government pushed into the field and were further disadvantaged by the state’s access to motorised transport, which rendered the Boer War tactics of fighting on horseback obsolete. Within four months the rebellion was suppressed.
African soldiers who served in World War I against Germany. Although King George V praised the South African Native Labour Contingent for its contribution to the war effort, none of these troops received a medal or ribbon.
A well-informed British official in South Africa who had close imperial ties believed that the rebellion ‘came up like a thunderstorm out of a fairly clear sky, and was . . . an ebullition of midsummer madness rather than the result of a deep laid plot’. Cape politician John X. Merriman drew a parallel between the rebellion and the nineteenth-century Xhosa cattle-killing episode and the role of ‘seers’, finding it ‘strange that two convulsions. . . should have largely been brought about by prophets’. But what made so many leading Afrikaners and their followers so susceptible to accepting rebellion as a credible course of action
It would seem that the ill-planned coup d’état – scheduled to start on 15 September and to be led by De la Rey, Maritz, Kemp, De Wet and possibly Beyers – was aimed not only at changing the government’s decision to invade German South West Africa, but also had as its goal the overthrow of the Botha government and the establishment of a Boer republic. Many Afrikaners followed the men, who had built up formidable reputations as leaders during the South African War, into rebellion without clear consideration. A fair number of the rank and file were indeed ‘poor whites’ lured by promises of a better future. In addition, there is evidence that family influences and kinship pressures also played a part in steering men towards rebellion.
But there was more to the rebellion than disenchantment with the government’s war policy and a desire to regain republican independence. The rebellion had its greatest appeal in the western Transvaal, where De la Rey had strong personal support the northern Orange Free State and the northwestern Cape, all depressed areas that had suffered three years of disastrous drought before 1914. As Unionist politician Patrick Duncan, who was chairman of the parliamentary select committee of inquiry into the rebellion, pertinently remarked, ‘rebellion does not seem such a serious thing to desperate men’.
Hertzog sympathised with the motives of the rebels, but disapproved of the use of violence. He was not, however, prepared to repudiate the rebellion. Historian Noel Garson is probably correct in stating that ‘the rebellion turned people into Nationalists who had not been Nationalists before’. The Nationalist cause gained martyrs, in particular as a result of the execution of Jopie Fourie, who had failed to resign his Defence Force commission before going into rebellion. Executing him was a grave political mistake on the part of Botha and Smuts, alienating vast numbers of Afrikaners from the South African Party.
Although the rebellion was in some respects a civil war among Afrikaners, all the inhabitants of the Union including black, coloured and Indian people were affected. The government appointed a so-called Native Intelligence Branch to report on rebel intentions and movements in the northern and western Transvaal. Black men were also used as scouts by the government in the Orange Free State. On the rebel side, black servants were used as agterryers and accompanied their masters in the field, as many black men had done before during the South African War. Other black men were intimidated and forced to act as servants to rebel commandos. Government forces and rebel commandos seized blacks’ stock and supplies.
Black and coloured commentators found it difficult to understand why Afrikaners who had ample constitutional means at their disposal should have resorted to rebellion. They contrasted black loyalty with Afrikaner disloyalty. The APO newspaper declared that ‘these very men who are now in rebellion have been loudest in proclaiming what they alleged was an ever-present danger, a Native rebellion’.
