The Project Gutenberg e-Book of My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War

152 Pages·2015·3.6 MB·English

Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the
original. The author's spelling has been maintained.
Page 453: The sentence "which [missing word] consider it as still improper to disclose." has been changed
to "which I consider as still improper to disclose."

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GENERAL BEN VILJOEN AND HIS SECRETARY (MR. J. VISSER).
MY REMINISCENCES OF THE ANGLO-BOER WAR
BY
GENERAL BEN VILJOEN
(ASSISTANT COMMANDANT-GENERAL OF THE TRANSVAAL BURGHER FORCES AND MEMBER FOR
JOHANNESBURG IN THE TRANSVAAL VOLKSRAAD)
MAPS FROM DRAWINGS BY P. VAN BREDA

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LONDON:
HOOD, DOUGLAS, & HOWARD,
11, CLIFFORD'S INN, E.C.
1902.
PREFACE.
General Ben Viljoen, while engaged on this work, requested me to write a short introduction to it. This
request I gladly comply with.
General Viljoen was a prisoner-of-war at Broadbottom Camp, St. Helena, where, after two years' service
in South Africa, I was stationed with my regiment. It was at the General's further request that I conveyed this
work to Europe for publication.
The qualities which particularly endeared this brave and justly-famous Boer officer to us were his
straightforwardness and unostentatious manner, his truthfulness, and the utter absence of affectation that
distinguishes him. I am certain that he has written his simple narrative with candour and impartiality, and I
feel equally certain, from what I know of him, that this most popular of our late opponents has reviewed the
exciting episodes of the War with an honesty, an intelligence, and a humour which many previous
publications on the War have lacked.
During his stay at St. Helena I became deeply attached to General Viljoen; and in conclusion I trust that
this work, which entailed many hours of labour, will yield him a handsome recompense.
THEODORE BRINCKMAN, C.B.
Colonel Commanding,
3rd, The Buffs (East Kent Regt.)
TARBERT,
LOCH FYNE,
SCOTLAND.
September, 1902
INDEX TO CONTENTS.
Page
PREFACE BY COL. THEODORE BRINCKMAN, C.B. 5
THE AUTHOR TO THE READER 9
CHAPTER
I. THE WAR CLOUDS GATHER 19

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II. AND THE WAR STORM BREAKS 24
III. THE INVASION OF NATAL 30
IV. DEFEATED AT ELANDSLAAGTE 40
V. PURSUED BY THE LANCERS 44
VI. RISKING JOUBERT'S ANGER 59
VII. THE BOER GENERAL'S SUPERSTITIONS 68
VIII. "GREAT POWERS" TO INTERVENE 72
IX. COLENSO AND SPION KOP FIGHTS 78
X. THE BATTLE OF VAALKRANTZ 88
XI. THE TURN OF THE TIDE 100
XII. THE GREAT BOER RETREAT 110
XIII. DRIVEN FROM THE BIGGARSBERGEN 124
XIV. DISPIRITED AND DEMORALISED 133
XV. OCCUPATION OF PRETORIA 145
XVI. BATTLE OF DONKERHOEK ("DIAMOND HILL") 150
XVII. I BECOME A GENERAL 161
XVIII. OUR CAMP BURNED OUT 175
XIX. BATTLE OF BERGENDAL (MACHADODORP) 181
XX. TWO THOUSAND BRITISH PRISONERS RELEASED 185
XXI. A GOVERNMENT IN FLIGHT 193
XXII. AN IGNOMINIOUS DISPERSAL 204
XXIII. A DREARY TREK THROUGH FEVERLAND 212
XXIV. PAINS AND PLEASURES OF COMMANDEERING 237
XXV. PUNISHING THE PRO-BRITISH 246
XXVI. BATTLE OF RHENOSTERKOP 258
XXVII. THE SECOND CHRISTMAS AT WAR 278
XXVIII. CAPTURE OF "LADY ROBERTS" 285
XXIX. A DISMAL "HAPPY NEW YEAR" 302
XXX. GENERAL ATTACK ON BRITISH FORTS 307
XXXI. A "BLUFF" AND A BATTLE 322
XXXII. EXECUTION OF A TRAITOR 333
XXXIII. IN A TIGHT CORNER 339
XXXIV. ELUDING THE BRITISH CORDON 348
XXXV. BOER GOVERNMENT'S NARROW ESCAPE 358
XXXVI. A GOVERNMENT ON HORSEBACK 377
XXXVII. BLOWING UP AN ARMOURED TRAIN 382
XXXVIII. TRAPPING PRO-BRITISH BOERS 388
XXXIX. BRUTAL KAFFIRS' MURDER TRAIL 402
XL. CAPTURING A FREEBOOTER'S LAIR 411
XLI. AMBUSHING THE HUSSARS 416
XLII. I TALK WITH GENERAL BLOOD 421
XLIII. MRS. BOTHA'S BABY AND THE "TOMMY" 425
XLIV. THE LAST CHRISTMAS OF THE WAR 435
XLV. MY LAST DAYS ON THE VELDT 442
XLVI. I AM AMBUSHED AND CAPTURED 449
XLVII. SHIPPED TO ST. HELENA 462
XLVIII. LIFE IN BONAPARTE'S PRISON 471
XLIX. HOW WE BLEW UP AND CAPTURED TRAINS 485
L. HOW WE FED AND CLOTHED COMMANDOS 496
LI. OUR FRIEND THE ENEMY 506
LII. THE FIGHTING BOER AND HIS OFFICER 515
APPENDIX 523

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THE AUTHOR TO THE READER.
In offering my readers my reminiscences of the late War, I feel that it is necessary to ask their indulgence
and to plead extenuating circumstances for many obvious shortcomings.
It should be pointed out that the preparation of this work was attended with many difficulties and
disabilities, of which the following were only a few:—
(1) This is my first attempt at writing a book, and as a simple Afrikander I lay no claim to any literary
ability.
(2) When captured by the British forces I was deprived of all my notes, and have been compelled to
consult and depend largely upon my memory for my facts and data. I would wish to add, however, that
the notes and minutiæ they took from me referred only to events and incidents covering six months of
the War. Twice before my capture, various diaries I had compiled fell into British hands; and on a third
occasion, when our camp at Dalmanutha was burned out by a "grass-fire," other notes were destroyed.
(3) I wrote this book while a prisoner-of-war, fettered, as it were, by the strong chains with which a
British "parole" is circumscribed. I was, so to say, bound hand and foot, and always made to feel
sensibly the humiliating position to which we, as prisoners-of-war on this island, were reduced. Our
unhappy lot was rendered unnecessarily unpleasant by the insulting treatment offered us by Colonel
Price, who appeared to me an excellent prototype of Napoleon's custodian, Sir Hudson Lowe. One has
only to read Lord Rosebery's work, "The Last Phase of Napoleon," to realise the insults and indignities
Sir Hudson Lowe heaped upon a gallant enemy.
We Boers experienced similar treatment from our custodian, Colonel Price, who appeared to be possessed
with the very demon of distrust and who conjured up about us the same fantastic and mythical plans of
escape as Sir Hudson Lowe attributed to Napoleon. It is to his absurd suspicions about our safe custody that I
trace the bitterly offensive regulations enforced on us.
While engaged upon this work, Colonel Price could have pounced down upon me at any moment, and,
having discovered the manuscript, would certainly have promptly pronounced the writing of it in conflict
with the terms of my "parole."
I have striven as far as possible to refrain from criticism, except when compelled to do so, and to give a
coherent story, so that the reader may easily follow the episodes I have sketched. I have also endeavoured to
be impartial, or, at least, so impartial as an erring human being can be who has just quitted the bloody
battlefields of a bitter struggle.
But the sword is still wet, and the wound is not yet healed.
I would assure my readers that it has not been without hesitation that I launch this work upon the world.
There have been many amateur and professional writers who have preceded me in overloading the reading
public with what purport to be "true histories" of the War. But having been approached by friends to add my
little effort to the ponderous tomes of War literature, I have written down that which I saw with my own
eyes, and that which I personally experienced. If seeing is believing, the reader may lend credence to my
recital of every incident I have herein recounted.
During the last stages of the struggle, when we were isolated from the outside world, we read in
newspapers and other printed matter captured from the British so many romantic and fabulous stories about
ourselves, that we were sometimes in doubt whether people in Europe and elsewhere would really believe
that we were ordinary human beings and not legendary monsters. On these occasions I read circumstantial
reports of my death, and once a long, and by no means flattering, obituary (extending over several columns
of a newspaper) in which I was compared to Garibaldi, "Jack the Ripper," and Aguinaldo. On another
occasion I learned from British newspapers of my capture, conviction, and execution in the Cape Colony for

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wearing the insignia of the Red Cross. I read that I had been brought before a military court at De Aar and
sentenced to be shot, and what was worse, the sentence was duly confirmed and carried out. A very lurid
picture was drawn of the execution. Bound to a chair, and placed near my open grave, I had met my doom
with "rare stoicism and fortitude." "At last," concluded my amiable biographer, "this scoundrel, robber, and
guerilla leader, Viljoen, has been safely removed, and will trouble the British Army no longer." I also learned
with mingled feelings of amazement and pride that, being imprisoned at Mafeking at the commencement of
hostilities, General Baden-Powell had kindly exchanged me for Lady Sarah Wilson.
To be honest, none of the above-mentioned reports were strictly accurate. I can assure the reader that I was
never killed in action or executed at De Aar, I was never in Mafeking or any other prison in my life (save
here at St. Helena), nor was I in the Cape Colony during the War. I never masqueraded with a Red Cross,
and I was never exchanged for Lady Sarah Wilson. Her ladyship's friends would have found me a very poor
exchange.
It is also quite inaccurate and unfair to describe me as a "thief" and "a scoundrel". It was, indeed, not an
heroic thing to do, seeing that the chivalrous gentlemen of the South African Press who employed the epithets
were safely beyond my view and reach, and I had no chance of correcting their quite erroneous impressions.
I could neither refute nor defend myself against their infamous libels, and for the rest, my friend "Mr.
Atkins" kept us all exceedingly busy.
That which is left of Ben Viljoen after the several "coups de grace" in the field and the tragic execution at
De Aar, still "pans" out at a fairly robust young person—quite an ordinary young fellow, indeed, thirty-four
years of age, of middle height and build. Somewhere in the Marais Quartier of Paris—where the French
Huguenots came from—there was an ancestral Viljoen from whom I am descended. In the War just
concluded I played no great part of my own seeking. I met many compatriots who were better soldiers than
myself; but on occasions I was happily of some small service to my Cause and to my people.
The chapters I append are, like myself, simple in form. If I have become notorious it is not my fault; it is
the fault of the newspaper paragraphist, the snap-shooter, and the autograph fiend; and in these pages I have
endeavoured, as far as possible, to leave the stage to more prominent actors, merely offering myself as guide
to the many battlefields on which we have waged our unhappy struggle.
I shall not disappoint the reader by promising him sensational or thrilling episodes. He will find none such
in these pages; he will find only a naked and unembellished story.
BEN J. VILJOEN.
(Assistant Commandant-General of the Republican Forces.)
ST. HELENA,
June, 1902[Back to Table of Contents]

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