The New Year Coup

feature / the new year coup

Matthew Blackman

ecember may, for some, be a

Dtime to set off to another part of SA with a bag of light summer attire and a decent book or two, with the only troubling thought being where to spend New Year’s Eve. For others in our history, it’s been a time to relocate—w it h some heavy military hardware in tow, and the goal of displacing a people or overthrowing a government.

The first, third, sixth and eighth of the nine frontier wars all began in the December/January period. And let’s not forget the Battle of Blood River on December 16 1838 (a day that’s accrued more names than Gqeberha:Di ng a ne’s Day, Day of the Vow, Day of the Covenant, Day of Reconciliation).

The First SA War also started in December (and ended with the Boers kicking t he British out of the Transvaal, in 1881).

On aless brutal note, some may recall December 31 1987, when a 32-year-old Bantu Holomisa led abloodless coup in the Tr a n s ke i while homeland prime minister Stella Sigcauwas on holidayin Durban.

Ho lo m i s a’s military intervention was a response to the level of graftin the Transkei. Under his subsequent rule, former leader George Matanzima was charged with nine counts of corruption and spent three years in jail.

But if there’s one event in SA’s history that truly joined the holiday spirit to catastrophic effect, it’sthe Jameson Raid. Ce c i l John Rhodes’s attempt to overthrow Paul Kruger over New Year 1895/1896w o u ld reverberate for years,politically and socially.

“Before the Jameson Raid my father used to write to my mother in English,”j u dge Kowie Marais said some 80 years after the event. “After the Jameson Raid he never allowed English to be spoken in the house a g a i n .”

A special bond In our research for Ro g u e s ’Gallery: An Irreverent History of Corruption in South Africa, from the VOC to the ANC —and the soon-tobe-published Spoilt Ballots —Nick Dall and I were surprised at how often we came across Rho de s ’s partnershipwith the anti-imperialist Afrikaner Bondin the Cape Colony.

In fact, Rhodes had become prime minister of the Capelargely because of the rural Afrikaners of “On z e”Ja n Ho f mey r ’s group.

But that was all before December 29 1895, when Rhodes’s“best man”, Leander Starr Jameson, rode into Kruger’s ZuidAfrikaansche Republiek (ZAR) with about

Botched effort: Not all the telegraph lies were cut as

planned Su p p l i e d

HOW NOT TO SEE IN THE NEW YEAR

The Jameson Raid was a dangerous, drunken affair, with a hangover that would plague SA for years

500 men, armed to the teeth and with a healthy dose of Dutch courage.

The whole escapade was to turn into a drunken and ill-managed shooting party.

The scene was set in the year p r e ce d i ng these events, with Jameson and US mining engineer John Hays Hammondp e r s u a d i ng Rhodes that a military overthrow of Kruger’s government was both possible and desirable.

The economic motive was obvious: co nt r o l of the gold mines. But there were alsomo r a l reasons to do so, Hammond argued. Not only was Kruger’s regime backward and corrupt, but it also refused political representation to the Uit l a n de r s (British and other immigrants), who had swarmed into the republic after the discovery of gold. For an American, a lifeof taxation without representation meant teatime —Bo s t o n - s t y le .

The planwas simple enough: the Ui t l a n de r s , led bythe “Reform Committee”(including Hammond and Rhodes’s brother Frank), would rise in rebellion in Joburg. They would then call on Ja me s o n —sup ported by a military force made up largely of troops from Rho de s ’s British SA Company (BSAC)—to ride to the rescue.

The planning started off well enough. Rho de s used his BSAC to buy a truly extraordinary arsenalfor both Jameson’s invading army and the Reform Committee in Joburg. Rifles, Maxim guns and ammunition were smuggled into the city in oil drums.

Satisfied that the committee was ready to rise by the end of 1895, Jameson gathered his troops on the Bechuanaland border, waiting fo r the call.

But there weretwo fatal problems with the plan. First, getting the Ui t l a n de r s to actually rouse themselves to action. Theirgripes with Kruger, though legitimate in part, were not as annoying to them as Rhodes and the British pressclaimed. Most werehappy to ne go t i at e with Kruger, and had no real interest in a war that might damage their beloved gold mines.

Second, Rhodes knew he couldn’tinclude his long-standing Afrikaansallies in the Cape in the conspiracy. Though the Afrikaner Bond’s politics were not quite the same as Kruger’s, the group was protective of the ZAR’s independence from Br it a i n .

As it later turned out, there had been a fair amount of collusion between Rhodes and British colonial s e c r et a r y Joseph Chamberlain — which went downlike a leadballoon with the Afrikaner Bond.

Rhodes himself was entirely ambivalent as to what flag would fly over the ZAR after the r a id : British or that of a new independent r ep u bl ic , he d id n ’tcare. He was only ever interested in being able to pull the strings after Kruger’s violent removal. He would have been happy to leave Britain out of this, but the jingoes were eager and ready, while the Afrikaner Bond was not.

The problems began in the lead-up to Christmas. Despite Frank Rhodes’s best efforts to instigate an uprisingin Joburg, nothing happened. So Jameson was left on the border with an army of 500—and they were beginning to drink.

With no sign of rebellion forthcoming, Hammond and Frank Rhodes concocted a letter c l a i m i ng “unarmed men, women and children of our race will be at the mercy of well-armed Bo e r s ”.

The letter was, of course, totally bogus: no threat of this nature existed. But with no sign of an uprising, Jameson took matters into his own hands. After reading the fraudulent letterto his men, he galloped across the border ahead of his column of 500.

But what state were his men in? Several people at the time claimed the raid was simply “a drunken frolic”. Their first slip was failing to cut the telegraph lines to Pretoria (they mistak enly identifieda farmer’s fence as a telegraph line), leaving communication lines open. One particularly drunken trooper is said to have buried the farmer’s fence, with the great satisfaction of a job well done.

What was more, Jameson’s right-hand man, Sir John Willoughby, accidentally crossed the b o r de r , taking with him Major Bobby White’s dispatch case, or t r om m e l . It contained a diary with all the Ui t l a n de r co n s p i r at o r s ’names. There was also a stash of secret documents written in code —along with the cipher key to read t he m .

After Jameson’s border incursion was reported to Krugervia telegraph, a commando under Piet Cronjé rode out to shadow the r a ide r s .

At Doornkop, nearmodern-day Soweto, C r o nj é struck. Jameson, hopelessly outclassed and outmanoeuvred, was forced to surrender after 17 of his troops (manystill in their teens) were killed and 55 wounded.

The Boerslo s t four men.

As the Boers swept the area, they discovered, in the dirt outside Krugersdorp, de trommel van Bobby White. The dispatch case, which had fallen out of a raider’s cart, gave up the family jewels: not only did it incriminate all the members of the Reform Committee, it also pointed to Rhodes’s collusionwith British au t ho r it ie s .

Kruger gleefully had de trommel se co nt e nt s published in local papers. Mopping up Politics being what it is, Jameson and his office r s would spend only a short time in a ZAR

jail. Kruger handed them over to the British government on agreement that they would be prosecuted in London for invading a foreign state. There, they were each sentenced to 15 months in prison. After literally getting away with murder, Jameson would go on to becomeprime minister of the Cape. As for the Reform Committee, Kruger lined them up for special treatment. Four, including Hammond and Frank Rhodes,Rhodes the were tried and sentenced to Afrikaner has death —though the sentencesbecome an were later commuted to a i m p o ss i b i l i t y fine (essentially a bribe) of—thus now £25,000 each and they werebegins the released on June 11 1896. career of On the surface, the Jame-Rhodes the son Raid might seem ajingo slightly innocuous joyride by Onze Courant a group of revellers that saw What it means: t he m greeting the new year Oddly enough, the raid in a ZAR prison, all the worse for wear. But t he swung US sentiment hangover would last for decades —and not just away from Kruger and lo c a l ly . drew the US closer to Ge r m a ny ’s Kaiser Wilhelmsent a telegraph Britain congratulating Kruger on Jameson’s defeat — proof, the British press said, of Germany’s interests in its Southern African colonies. The rift between the two countries grew significantly wider as a result. What was more, the British establishment was rocked by the scandal.Even high-powered Americans such as media tycoon William Randolph Hearst stuck their oarin, outraged that Hammond (an American) was being held and t r ie d . Public sentiment in the US had been largely pro-Kruger and anti-British before the raid. But this swung around, and according to at least one historianwas a significant factor in drawing the US and Britain closer together. Locally, of course, the effects amounted to a social cirrhosis. Having lost the backing of the Afrikaner Bond, Rhodes had to step down as prime minister. Many in the Bond felt he had been “u n m a s ke d ”as an imperialist provocateur and refused to work with him ever again. As the Bond-aligned newspaper Onze Courant stated: “Rhodes the Afrikaner has become an impossibility —thus now begins the career of Rhodes the jingo.” A giant rift emerged, too, between English and Afrikaans speakers. For the century to come, English speakers became suspects and outsiders, with one foot in Britain. Rhodes himself would set SA oncourse for a far more devastating war. The Jameson Raid would turn out to be one of his many unnec essary and carelessly thought-throughgifts to the nation. x