A Short History of England, Ireland and Scotland Part 10

But the Hollanders were men of a different sort. They asked no indulgences from Nature; and when their roots had once grappled the soil, however disheartening the conditions, they were not to be lured away by glistening surfaces farther on. All they asked was a place on which to {173} grow. And so with stolid persistence they worked away in a field the least promising ever offered to human endeavor.

But the fates befriended them, and after the Revocation of the "Edict of Nantes," a touch of grace and charm was brought into their sterile life by the arrival of three hundred Huguenot refugees. And there, in that austere land, for more than a century these children from Holland and France patiently toiled, and with mild content watched their grazing cattle as they gradually spread over a huge expanse of territory; their only reward the feeling that this barren resting place on the way to India was all their own, and that they had a sense of independence which answered the deepest craving in their hearts; they were safe, forever safe from the Old-World tyrannies.

But there was another nation which also needed a resting place on the way to India. Great Britain, following closely in the footsteps of Holland, now had a Greater East India Company, and a larger empire {174} growing in the East. And clouds began to gather over the Dutch Colonists, as they saw their solitude invaded by Old-World currents.

Perhaps the irritation from this made them quarrelsome; for temper and temperament have been two most important factors in the story of the Dutch in South Africa. At all events, there were various outbreaks and insurrections, becoming at last so serious that the English Government felt impelled to aid in their suppression. And this they did so effectually that after a battle with the local forces in 1806, they were virtual rulers of Cape Colony, which, in 1814, upon the payment of six million pounds to the Stadtholder, was formally ceded to Great Britain.

So, by right of conquest, and by right of purchase, England had come into possession (although at the time unaware of it) of the greatest diamond mines, and the richest gold mines in the world. And it had turned out that the Dutch Colonists for a century and a half had been subduing man and nature simply to enrich the {175} English; and in return they were expected to live contentedly and peaceably in the land they had made habitable for human occupation!

Thus two contrasting people had been carelessly and hastily tossed together. The most conservative and the most progressive of nationalities were expected to fuse their uncompromising traits into a harmonious whole. The result should have been easy to foresee. The Dutch, coerced into this union, with embittered hearts and deep sense of injury, after twenty unhappy, stormy years, determined to escape.

They would cross the Orange River into the wilderness and there build up another State, which should be forever their own. And so, in the year 1835, there occurred what is known as "The Great Trek," when about thirty thousand men and women, like swarming bees, migrated in a body into the region north of the Orange River, later spreading east as far as the coast in what is now "Natal," the whole region then bearing the significant t.i.tle: "The Orange Free State."

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In the terms of the purchase, in 1814, not a word had been said about this _Hinterland_, the vast region stretching indefinitely towards the north; and here was the germ of all the trouble that was to come.

Through an oversight there existed a serious flaw in the British t.i.tle, which would severely tax statesmans.h.i.+p, diplomacy, and perhaps strain national morality to the breaking point. Had this people the right, or had they not the right to plant a State bearing a foreign flag, which should effectually bar the path to the north? Should the English Government allow a people fiercely antagonistic to itself to build up an unfriendly State on its border? Such were the questions which arose then, and which have been variously answered since, depending upon the point of view.

If the question had been what _would_ happen, there would have been greater unanimity in the replies! And, it must be acknowledged, however uncertain the claim to this disputed region, that the interests of civilization were more to be subserved by {177} British than by Dutch Sovereignty in South Africa.

The policies of these two people were absolutely opposed; and it was upon the question of the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves, at the time of the Emanc.i.p.ation Act, in 1835, that the final rupture and secession took place. These slaves const.i.tuted a large part of the property of the Boers; and great was their indignation when they were compelled to accept from the British Government a compensation for their property so far below their own appraisal of its value that it seemed to them a confiscation.

Then it was that they resolved to break away from their oppressors, and go where they could make their own laws, and follow their own ideals of right and wrong. And so they turned their backs upon the scene of their long toil.

In this strange exodus not the least important person, though un.o.bserved then, was a st.u.r.dy little fellow ten years old, energetically doing his part in rounding up the cattle and flocks as he trudged along beside the {178} huge oxcarts. His name was Paul Stepha.n.u.s Kruger. And this little man also took his first lesson in military exploits when one hundred and thirty-five Boer farmers, by ingenious use of horses and rifles, put to flight twelve thousand Metabeli spearsmen. But again the Boer was only clearing the way for British occupation, which, commencing at Natal in 1842, had, by 1848, extended over the entire Orange Free State. And then there was another trek. Again the Boers migrated, this time crossing the River Vaal, and founding a "Transvaal Republic."

In the history of the next thirty years we see not a vacillating, but rather a tentative policy, behind which was always an inflexible purpose to establish British rule in South Africa, peaceably, if possible, or by force, if compelled. The British Government was trying to bring to terms the most intractable race it had ever dealt with in all its colonizing experience. The thing which embarra.s.sed the English was that flaw in their claim; and the trouble with {179} the Boers was that they were archaic in their ideals, and obstructive to all policies which belonged to a modern civilization. They had stopped growing when they left Holland. The emanc.i.p.ation and the philanthropies forced upon them by a people who were stealing their land, exasperated them, and outraged their sense of justice; and when the English punished them for cruelties to the native savages, by executing four Boers, vitriol was poured upon an open wound, and peace was forever impossible.

In 1852 England, in placating mood, yielded the local control of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic. But in less than five years the Boers had thrown away their opportunity by strife and discord among themselves, and had separated into four small hostile Republics, which Paul Stepha.n.u.s Kruger, then President of the Transvaal, was vainly striving to bring together. The only time they were not at war with each other was when they were all fighting the natives, with whom they never established friendly relations. Perhaps it {180} is asking too much of a people so many times emptied from one region into another, to have established internal conditions, economic and political, such as belong to ordinary civilized states. But the condition of disorder had become such that the British Government believed, or at least claimed to believe, that as a measure of safety to their own Colonies, the Transvaal should be annexed to the Colony at the Cape.

The people were cautiously approached upon this subject, and even some of the leaders among the burghers advocated the measure as the best, and, indeed, only thing possible in the present state of demoralization.

So, in 1877, the annexation was effected. The Transvaal Republic was taken under the sovereignty of Queen Victoria.

By a treaty drawn up in 1881, it was declared to be a self-governing, although not an independent State. In all its foreign relations it was subject to the Suzerainty of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. In other words, it was a va.s.sal State.

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In that one word Suzerain there lurked the germ of a great war. In a revision of the terms of agreement made by the British, in 1884, this word, which was to play such an important part was omitted; whether by accident or design cannot be said. But the Executive Council of the Republic saw their opportunity, and claimed that the omission of the word was virtually a relinquishment of the claim, and an admission that the South African Republic was an independent and sovereign State.

Lord Derby, Minister of Foreign Affairs, replied that no such significance could be attached to the omission in the amended treaty; that the word Suzerain was not employed simply because it was vague and indefinite in its meaning; whereas, the rights claimed by the British were not vague, but precise and definite. These distinctly forbade the South African Republic from concluding any treaty with a foreign power.

And as such power _was_ vested in the Queen, as a matter of course it followed that the South African {182} Republic was _not a sovereign and independent State_.

While this diplomatic controversy was proceeding, other and less formal agencies were at work. The Transvaal, rich in resources beyond all expectation, was being developed by British capital, without which nothing could have been done. The _Uitlanders_, (or "Outlanders"), as these English-born men were called, complained that, instead of cooperating with them in this labor, which must result in the common good, everything possible was done to embarra.s.s and paralyze their efforts. Chief among the long list of grievances was the claim that, while they were the princ.i.p.al taxpayers, they were denied representation, and that as they furnished the capital for all the financial enterprises, it was but fair that they should have the franchise which was stubbornly withheld from them.

Out of these conditions came the "Jameson Raid," the most discreditable incident in the whole South African story; an incident which cast a cloud of suspicion over {183} the entire British att.i.tude, and enlisted wide-spread sympathy for the Boers. Under the leaders.h.i.+p of Dr.

Jameson, a gentleman closely a.s.sociated with Cecil Rhodes in the South African Chartered Company, an attempt was made to overthrow the Kruger Government, and, to obtain by force the redress denied by peaceable means.

When a revolt rises to the plane of a revolution it becomes respectable. The "Jameson Raid" never reached that elevation. In less than four days the entire force had surrendered and the leaders were under arrest. The attempt upon Johannesburg, and the acts of violence attending it, were denounced in unmeasured terms by the British Government. Dr. Jameson and his chief abettors were tried in England, and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment; four other prominent leaders--one of them an American--had sentence of death pa.s.sed upon them by a judge from the Orange Free State, which was finally remitted upon the payment of a large sum to the South African Republic. England {184} did her best to rehabilitate her name in the estimation of the world; and when the deplorable affair was over, it had done immense injury to the English cause, and benefited not a little that of the Republic.

Diplomatic negotiations were then resumed; Sir Alfred Milner presenting the British view, urged the propriety of granting to foreign-born residents the franchise; also the abolishment of certain monopolies which pressed heavily upon the miners, and last, but not least, that the sovereignty of Great Britain over the Transvaal, receive official recognition.

This latter President Kruger flatly rejected, upon the ground that the question of sovereignty had already been disposed of in 1884, when Great Britain virtually abandoned the claim by omitting the word _Suzerain_, or any reference to what it implied, from the amended agreement; offering at the same time to submit the other demands to arbitration.

On October 9, 1899, while Mr. Chamberlain was preparing new proposals, an {185} ultimatum was received from President Kruger, demanding an affirmative answer within forty-eight hours; failing in which, it would be considered a virtual declaration of war. Sir Alfred Milner replied: "You will inform your Government that the conditions demanded are such as Her Majesty's Government deem it impossible to discuss."

On the afternoon of October 11th, the war had commenced, with General Buller in command of the British forces, and General Joubert, aided by General Cronje, commanding the Boers.

Before November 2d three serious engagements had taken place, and the English had been compelled to fall back upon their base of supplies at Ladysmith, where, after an ineffectual sortie on October 30th, they were surrounded and their communications cut off.

The campaign continued to be a story of humiliating defeats until December, when Lord Roberts a.s.sumed supreme command, with Lord Kitchener as his chief of staff. {186} England thoroughly aroused was sending men and supplies in unstinted measure for the great emergency, and the world looked on in amazement as 200,000 British soldiers under the greatest British commanders were kept at bay for something less than three years by 30,000 untrained Boers. The British Government had forgotten that these South African colonists were the children of a French Huguenot ancestry which had defied Louis XIV., and of the men who cut the d.y.k.es when the Netherlands were invaded by that same tyrant. Some one had wittily said that no member of the Cabinet should be allowed to cast his vote for the war, until he had read Motley's "Rise of the Dutch Republic." And, indeed, it appeared to many that the view of the Government was focussed upon one single point, the establis.h.i.+ng of British authority at any cost in South Africa. At the same time many eminent Englishmen believed it was not to be expected that a community so long established in a home of its own {187} choosing, should upon demand be ready to bestow upon foreigners all the rights of citizens.h.i.+p; and many also believed that the grievances of the "Outlanders" were not greater than ordinarily existed when a ma.s.s of foreign immigrants were pressing in upon a people who suspected and disliked them. The sympathy of foreign states was strongly with the Boers; and in England itself the cause evoked a languid enthusiasm, until aroused by disaster, and until the pride of the nation was touched by loss of prestige. The danger, the enormous difficulties to be overcome, the privations and suffering of their boys, these were the things which awoke the dormant enthusiasm in the heart of the nation.

And when the only son of Lord Roberts had been offered as a sacrifice, and then a son of Lord Dufferin, and then, Prince Victor, October 29, 1900, grandson of the Queen herself, the cause had become sacred, and one for which any loyal Briton would be willing to die.

By September 1, 1900, the Orange Free {188} State and the Transvaal had been formally proclaimed by Lord Roberts, "Colonies of the British Empire."

This was the beginning of the end, and when the victorious commander (December 2, 1900) arrived in England amid the plaudits of a grateful nation, the victory was practically won, and the time was at hand when not far from twenty thousand British soldiers would be lying under the sod six thousand miles away, in a land, which no longer disputed the sovereignty of England!

We have yet to see whether the South African colonial possessions have been paid for too dearly, with nine fierce Kaffir wars (another threatening as this is written), and the blood of princes, peers, and commoners poured as if it were water into the African soil. Is England richer or poorer for this outpouring of blood and treasure? Has she risen or fallen in the estimation of the world, as she uncovers her stores of gold and diamonds among those valiant but defeated Boers, sullenly {189} brooding over the past, with no love in their hearts.

Not the least pitiful incident in the whole story was the voluntary exile of the man who had been the brain and soul of the South African Republics. Indeed, the life of Paul Kruger, from the day when he trudged beside the bullocks at the time of the great northward trek, until he died a disappointed, embittered old man, a fugitive and an exile, seems an epitome of the cause to which his life was devoted.

No story of this war, however brief, can omit the name of De Wet, the most distinguished of the Boer generals, and perhaps the one genius, certainly the most romantic figure in the whole drama. It was De Wet's faculty for disappearing and reappearing at unexpected place and moment which prolonged the war even after the end was inevitable, thus justifying the t.i.tle "Three Years' War," which he gave to a subsequent history of the conflict.

The dedication to this book bears pathetic testimony to the character of the {190} man: "_This work is dedicated to my fellow-subjects of the British Empire_." When one reflects what these words meant for De Wet, one is inclined to believe that his highest heroism was not attained on the battle field!

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CHAPTER XV

In less than three weeks after the return of Lord Roberts, and the agitating interview for which she had been impatiently waiting, England's beloved Queen succ.u.mbed to a brief illness, and died January 22, 1901.

Her son Albert Edward was immediately proclaimed King of Great Britain and Ireland.

The change of Sovereigns has not materially altered the course of events in the Empire. The King, with much dignity and seriousness, a.s.sumed the responsibilities of his great inheritance, and England seems to be in safekeeping. The terms finally agreed upon at the Peace Conference, in May, 1902, bear the signature of Edward _Rex_, instead of Victoria _Regina_--a {192} signature that peace-loving Sovereign would so gladly have affixed.

In the year 1904 a British military force entered the hitherto sacred domain of Tibet with the avowed purpose of obtaining redress from Tibetan authorities for having violated a commercial agreement made between China and British India in 1893; which convention was binding upon Tibet as a va.s.sal State to China. In addition to this, a letter from the Viceroy of India to the Grand Lama, had been returned unopened, which, it was claimed, was an insult to the King he represents.

The time selected for this hostile demonstration, when the Russo-j.a.panese War fully engaged the attention of the nations chiefly interested, was, to say the least, significant; and some were so unkind as to insinuate that the recently discovered mineral wealth of this lofty plateau--"this Roof of the World"--was, like that of the Transvaal in South Africa, a factor in this sudden romantic adventure.

Nature has guarded well this home of {193} mystery; a vast plateau, from 10,000 to 15,000 feet above the sea-level is held aloft upon the giant shoulders of the Himalaya, surrounded by deep valleys filled in with the detritus of an older world. This inaccessible spot is the home of the Grand Lama, the earthly representative of Buddha, and Lha.s.sa is the Holy City where this sacred being resides, a city never profaned by infidel feet until the morning of August 4, 1904, when it fell, and was desecrated by the presence of red-coated soldiers, and the blare of military bands, and still worse the plundering of treasure-houses and monasteries.

It was a rude awakening from the slumber of centuries! The Western mind can scarcely realize how seriously this has wounded the sensibilities of millions of people throughout the East; and the question arises whether England may not some day have to pay more dearly than now appears for the concessions she has obtained.

The treaty in its early form throws light upon the results expected when the {194} expedition was planned. It bound the Tibetan authorities to establish British markets at certain designated points; and stipulated that, without the consent of Great Britain, no Tibetan territory could be leased to any foreign power. Of course many people could see in this the ultimate purpose of a British occupation of Tibet, and an open way to the Yangtse Valley!

But with the Russo-j.a.panese War over, and Russia free to exert her control over China, a stand was taken by the Chinese Government which has resulted in modifying the terms of the treaty, which has recently been signed at Pekin, by which Great Britain affirms that she does not seek for herself any privileges which are denied to any other state or the subjects thereof.

Two very important measures have been under consideration during the new reign; one of these seeming to have afforded a solution for the Land-problem in Ireland, which has for so long been the nightmare of British politics. Further details of this {195} will be found in the "History of Ireland," separately treated in this volume.