General JC Smuts. Cape Town , 1949 DUSTCOVER PREVIEW a constant struggle against the political This biography of one of the greatest creed which is the root cause of the and most respected men of our time troubles in the Union today. has a very special intimacy and Smuts began life on a South African authenticity. No other man could have farm, completed his education in brought to it such a full knowledge England where he read law at Cam- and understanding, for this is a record bridge, was called to the Bar and of Smuts’s life by his own son. The returned to South Africa to practise as official biography, freely documented a lawyer. His friendship with President and substantiated in the smallest Kruger led him into politics, and a detail, is in course of preparation by a passionate love of his own country group of scholars accredited by into the Boer War. His training in Smuts’s own family and the South England, however, and his under- African Government, but that work standing of the British point of view cannot be ready for some years. Mean- gave him his great opportunity for while, this life of the greatest man statesmanship when he and his great South Africa has produced is of friend Botha together brought their special interest, both for the portrait it country back into prosperity by way of paints and for the inside history of Union at home and peace and friend- South Africa which it relates. For the ship with Britain. With the death of story of Smuts is the story of South Botha the leadership of South Africa Africa and his whole fife was spent in fell wholly on the shoulders of Smuts. In the First World War his drive and foresight kept South Africa free of the Germans and in the darkest days of 1917 he was appointed a member of the British War Cabinet. At the Peace Conference at Versailles he fought hard for a just treaty which would bring lasting peace and it was he who was responsible for much of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Until the moment of his death on September 11th, 1950, he brought all his great powers to the fight to keep South Africa on an undeviating course based firmly on prosperity for his own country through constant and whole- hearted co-operation with Great Britain and the Commonwealth of Nations. JAN CHRISTIAN SMUTS BY J.C. SMUTS with 23 pages of halftone illustrations and 3 maps

South Africa CONTENTS 20 Responsible Government INTRODUCTION 21 Gandhi 22 National Convention PART I: THE BOER LEADER 23 Union 1 The Old Cape 24 The South African Party 2 Riebeeck West 25 Hertzogism 3 The Republics 26 Labour Unrest 4 Boyhood 27 Rebellion 5 Stellenbosch 6 Cambridge PART 2: THE FIRST WORLD WAR 7 Cape Town 28 First World War 8 Cecil John Rhodes 29 South-West African Campaign 9 Kruger and the Jameson Raid 30 East African Campaign 10 State Attorney 31 Sidelights on the Campaign 11 Uitlanders 12 Dark Clouds 32 War in Europe 33 The Commonwealth 13 Boer War 14 Pretoria Falls 34 African Problems 15 Expedition into the Cape 35 The Western Front 16 Rain and Mountains 36 Work on Committees 17 Vereeniging 37 Ideas on Peace 18 The Hardened Warrior 38 A Practical Suggestion 19 Reconstruction 39 Peace Conference 40 Controversy 59 Distant Rumblings 41 Signing of the Peace 60 Freedom 61 International Affairs PART 3 : UNEASY PEACE 62 Uneasy Peace 42 Suffer Fools Gladly 63 Dark Clouds 43 Returns Home 64 The Storm Breaks 65 Building an Army 44 Political Troubles 66 In Parliament 45 The Great Strike

46 Groote Schuur PART 4: SECOND WORLD WAR 47 Eclipse 48 Doornkloof 67 War 49 Home 68 Walking and Exercise 50 Library 69 Abyssinian Campaign 51 Holism and Evolution 70 Fortunes of War 52 Hertzog Government 71 Offensive Phase 53 The Rhodes Lectures at Oxford 72 El Alamein 54 Native Problem 73 Second Wartime Visit to 55 Scientific World Picture of England Today 74 Work in London 56 The Gold Standard 75 Explosive Speech 57 The Scientist 76 Third Wartime Visit to England 58 Fusion 77 Overlord 78 Fourth Visit to England 79 Prime Ministers’ Conference 80 San Francisco Conference 81 The United Nations 82 Crest of the Wave 83 London and Paris 84 Royal Visit 85 Elections and Rejection 86 Transformation 87 The End Biographical Summary Bibliography Index LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS J. C. Smuts aged 33 General J. C. Smuts – Cape Town, J.C. Smuts with Mrs. Smuts and 1949. V. K. de Vries, Cape Town daughter Santa – 1903. Duffus Bros., The House at Boplaas, Riebeeck West, Cape Town where General Smuts was born in J.C. Smuts at the wheel of his first car 1870. Cape Times – 1911 Mr. and Mrs. J.A. Smuts, parents of J.C. Smuts with the Writer – August General Smuts – 1893 1914. Adolf Steger, Pretoria Sybella Margaretha Krige, 1888, later Smuts and Botha – 1918 to become Mrs. J. C. Smuts Lieut.-Gen. J.C. Smuts – 1917. General Smuts with his Boer War J.Russell and Sons, London horse “Charlie” – 1901 Groote Schuur, official residence of General Smuts with his senior Boer Union Prime Ministers, Cape Town. War officers, van Deventer and Louis Weyers Maritz, O’okiep, Cape –May 1902 General Smuts’s home at Doornkloof, J.C. Smuts as Student at Stellenbosch near Pretoria – 1891 He loved to play with children. J.C. Smuts at Cambridge – November Grandchildren Sibella, Richard and 1892 Petronella Clark. Bancroft Clark General Smuts in typical attitude General Smuts addressing troops at listening to a Debate – 1941 Mersa Matruh, Egypt – August 1941 His beard never failed to intrigue his Looking from the window of his grandchildren. With Sibella Clark – Lodestar at Kilimanjaro – 1940 1944 Field Marshal Smuts. A fine General Smuts – 1930. Navanna photographic study – October 1942. Vandyk, London Fayer, London General Smuts broadcasting a New General Smuts writing at his desk – Year Message to the Empire from his 1943 home – 1939 General Smuts with Mr. Churchill, Mountaineer Smuts on Table Moun- Cairo – 1942 tain, overlooking Cape Town – 1940. General Smuts. An informal snap Cape Times taken on his farm Doornkloof, near Pausing to talk to friends on the way Pretoria – 1943 up Table Mountain – 1938. With General Smuts addressing a joint acknowledgement – W.C. Davies sitting of British Houses of Parliament General Smuts with the Writer at in 1942. On his left are Mr. Lloyd Wajir, North Frontier District, Kenya George and Mr. Churchill. Fox – November 1940 Photos, London Mrs. J. C. Smuts – 1941. John General Smuts with granddaughter Dodgson, Pretoria Mary Smuts at Irene the day before his death. This was the last photograph Three generations of Jan Christian taken of him. Smuts – Rooikop 1944 General Smuts looking out over San Francisco Bay – 1945. United Nations Photo General Smuts addressing the Plenary Session of the United Nations at the San Francisco Conference – 1945. United Nations Photo General Smuts with King George VI on Table Mountain – 1947 Cape Times General Smuts with the Royal Family at Mout-aux-Sources, Natal – 1947. Natal Mercury General Smuts on his 80th Birthday at Irene. He was looking thin and far from well. MAPS AND FACSIMILES South Africa Facsimile of letter of 1886 Orange Free State and Natal The Boer War Ladysmith Smuts’s Route to the Cape Portion of notes for the “Explosive Speech”, 1943 INTRODUCTION mountain above the level plains of humanity. But he never forgot the In 1870 a blue-eyed boy was born on a modest farmhouse where he was born. farm in the Cape. Eighty years later, Throughout his life, though honoured grown to maturity but undimmed by by almost every country of the world, the years, and at heart still a simple he kept with him that gift of simpli- child of the veld, he died on a farm in city; it never forsook him and he the Transvaal. Between those eighty ended his days in a house as simple as years and those thousand miles lies a that of his spartan forebears. His romance of achievement. This simple memory of the mountain, too, marched farm lad was to bring much lustre and with him throughout life and imbued fame to the land of his birth. He was, him with those sublime and lofty in his time, to become a prophet and ideals which he preached so consist- interpreter of mankind, a figure loved ently. and revered by peoples far beyond his native land, for he brought to them the When he was twenty his doctor at breadth of the veld, and the Cambridge despaired of this youth expectation of better things. ever growing old: he was right. At eighty that youth still had not grown Born in the shadow of Riebeeck old, for the passage of years had Kasteel, that mountain buttress rising touched him lightly. conspicuously from the plains of Riebeeck West, this boy was himself Greatness never turned his head nor in years to come to tower like a great did defeat embitter him. Success was merely an incentive to greater effort about the integration we now know as and more unselfish service. the Union of South Africa. This man from Malmesbury was to Throughout life he carried with him a reintroduce the code of simplicity and clear conception of relative values. higher spiritual and ethical values into From his assessment of these values the council chambers of the world and he never turned, even though often to teach men anew the meaning of criticised and misunderstood. The fairness and magnanimity. This man ultimate greatness of this man lay in preached the benign concept of British the fact that he saw clearly what was Imperialism which helped to form a right and strove fearlessly and new relationship between the English- unflinchingly for the attainment of this speaking elements of the far-flung view. Once he had made up his mind, Empire and led directly to that nothing deterred him, nor was he brotherhood which came to be known disillusioned or embittered by obstruc- as the Commonwealth. He was the tion or criticism. father or the idea of Commonwealth Into the eighty years was crowded and also her most illustrious great service and achievement, for he spokesman. It was perhaps the holistic was a man of many parts. He was a concept of an integrated whole being warrior of three great wars and in all larger than the sum of its constituent these he attained high distinction, parts that gave him this idea. No less becoming the greatest soldier and was it this holistic vision that brought strategist South Africa has produced. As a statesman he attained a unique honour of his life; for it carried with it position in his fatherland and indeed the greatest crown that science could beyond in the great world about him. offer. Britain honoured him with the Order As a politician I think he was the of Merit, the highest civilian award to greatest his country has produced, which South African or Briton can though he never attained this through aspire. He came to be known not only an eloquence of oratory. He was a as the ambassador of South Africa, but great politician, as he had been a great as the Henchman of the Empire and general, both in victory and in defeat. the Founder of the International Peace Parliament was indeed graced by the Organisations. presence of this patient silver-haired As a scientist and philosopher he sage. gained supreme honours in many I was privileged to live with this man fields. In his treatise on Holism, he as a son and friend for many years. I suggested a link between the physical think I can claim to have known him and metaphysical and expounded his better and more intimately than most thesis with a preciseness of reasoning men. I have studied him lovingly and and pureness of prose. His chairman- carefully. I have seen him in many ship at the centenary celebrations of countries and in many moods, and I the British Association for the would like to put down here my Advancement of Science, in 1931 was, knowledge of him. he always considered, the Supreme I write this account of my father’s life I write this interim biography merely with diffidence. I am no journalist, no to give a son’s point of view. Perhaps I historian, no scientist, no politician suffer from the disadvantage of having and no military expert. I tackle the task known him too well to be able to in a sense of duty, of love and admira- unravel sentiment from fact, or to see tion. Much of it is written in a mood of my way out of the detail of the history eulogy. It would have been too much with which I have grown up. to expect otherwise of a person who In reviewing the past biographies and had lived for almost forty years with books written about my father, I have one of the world’s great dreamers and noticed some deficiencies and distor- idealists. For this human weakness I tions. Sometimes the historic setting make no apologies. has been painted with too lavish a This is not the Official Life of my brush and the man has been given only father. The time is not yet ripe for it. a minor role. It is difficult to avoid, in Many aspects still stand too close to view of my father’s intimate, architec- history and living personalities. Much tural connection with our past. is still secret and confidential. Much, Unfortunately during most of those in the form of correspondence, still years I had been too young to assess remains to be collected. Documents properly the moods and highlights of have to be sorted. So, from many what I saw. Unfortunately, too, with points of view, a weighty Life is not the rest of the family, I failed to keep a possible for some years. diary. All our memories are therefore locked up merely in our heads. It is much as by his great achievements that only during certain of his Second my father will be remembered. World War visits to England and If I succeed even in small measure in America, on which I accompanied depicting the simplicity, integrity and him, that I kept comprehensive notes. consistency of that complex character This is regrettable, for my father was a we all knew as the “Oubaas”, I shall perfect raconteur of stories and be well satisfied. My father was no anecdotes on events and people. They tight-lipped enigma or hard grey ingot covered almost every topic imaginable of steel. He was a warm friendly from the outer spaces of our expanding human, with a strongly developed Universe to the commonplace non- family instinct, living simply and entities of our daily life. On all these frugally. I trust I shall be able to topics he was knowledgeable and lucid convey something of this in the pages with a wealth of vision that enthralled that follow. He was no bespectacled both old and young. bookworm, or tight-lipped idealist, or highbrow scientist, or dogmatic These, alas, are now only vague politician. He was a generous, kindly memories, dimmed by the passing of and chivalrous man. Greatness never the years. But in the sum total of the made him too big for the old tin home complete personality, these minute at Irene or for the narrow confines of facets all play their part. For it is by his fatherland. the simplicity of little things almost as With this great figure I would couple the name of my modest little mother – “Ouma” to many. Her encouragement, understanding, courage and support were an immense help to my father in his career. She too is a great person- ality, and will rank as one of the most remarkable women produced by South Africa. It was indeed fortunate that these two people should have been privileged to work together. But one thing is certain as the glorious sun that rises above our limitless veld – the name of Jan Christian Smuts, his deeds, his aspirations, his words and ideals, will live on as long as men take pride in great achievements, and will grow in stature with the passing of the years. To those who follow him he has bequeathed a glorious legacy. It is for history to prove whether we are worthy of this great gift. PART 1 essentially of the Herculean mould of THE BOER LEADER nation-builder and statesman., a man of broad-minded tolerance. The other, 1 : THE OLD CAPE Daniel François Malan, onetime In the flat wheat-growing area of henchman of General Hertzog, was a Malmesbury, in the south-western man of narrow nationalism. Combine Cape, stands the sleepy little hamlet of this contrast and there is revealed that Riebeeck West, dating back to the strange though colourful part the Boer early years of European settlement in people have played in the history of the eighteenth century. Quiet as is the South Africa. setting of this rustic village, its bearing Yet essentially these two men are of on South African history has been similar extraction and environment. It profound. For there, within the shadow is difficult to explain the gulf between of the massive rampart of rock known them. It has its origin possibly in some as the Kasteel (Castle), on two farms distant and obscure genetic back- within a stone’s throw of each other, ground which goes into the compo- were born, at almost the same time, sition of the Boer race. Usually the two men who have had a marked products are a stable type like my effect on South African history. Close father; but not infrequently, by some as has been their origin, no paths could inexplicable Mendelian mutation, un- later have diverged more sharply. One, stable types are initiated with eruptive Jan Christian Smuts, my father, was characteristics, who unfortunately always seem to have a gullible follow- also an indication of the dangers and ing. Our history abounds with these difficulties that lie before us. crusty types. No useful purpose will be The English-speaking element, which served by endeavouring to explain the constitutes about forty per cent of the vagary of the Boer people on an population, by contrast to the historic basis. For history will show Afrikaans-speaking element, seems to not only deeds of great daring and be over-compensated with stable, initiative, but also acts of a suicidal passive attributes. One of the most and futile nature. It will show that fatal of these is apathy to all matters even under the dire stresses and ever- political, and general disregard of the prevalent dangers from the native active side of government. Nothing hordes during the Great Trek, there will induce them to attend meetings or was quarrelling rather than co- show any enthusiasm, and wild horses operation, and serious differences of can barely drag them to the polling opinion on questions of leadership and booths. The political approach to the direction. two sections therefore varies. We must accept the instability in the ***** Boer people as an inherent and indelible trait. And it is in the light of In 1486 the Portuguese explorer this that we must measure the extent of Bartholomew Diaz was rudely my father’s work and the size of his buffeted past the Cape in a gale. This achievements. At the same time it is was the first rounding by European explorers since the days of Pharaoh beginning of the seventeenth century Necho, seven centuries before Christ. the Dutch East India Company had Diaz christened this jutting headland grown into an important concern. In the Cape of Storms. Eleven years later, 1652 Jan van Riebeeck was sent out another Portuguese navigator, da with three ships to establish a revic- Gama, while on the way to the East, tualing station to provide for the needs also passed within view of Table of the company on its long and Mountain with its cloth of mist. It was hazardous voyages. And so began the calm with a brilliant sun shining. He first serious attempt by the white man rechristened it the Cape of Good at settlement in the sub-continent. That Hope. This was a more happy augury foothold, precarious at first and lodged for the birth of a new country, but the largely in a fort built on the foreshore, fate of storms predicted by Diaz has grew and expanded steadily, till by the been ever close to us. time of van der Stel it had spread inland to Stellenbosch and Paarl and Thereafter the Cape, with its heavy even beyond into the mountains. It seas and forbidding coastline, was left was evident that the white man had in peace for a long while. The few come to stay. travellers that ventured ashore, or were shipwrecked, were set upon and mur- At about the same time as van dered by the indigenous savages. But Riebeeck’s Europeans were establish- trade between Europe and the East was ing their foothold in the Cape, the steadily increasing and by the Bantu tribes were swarming into South Africa from the north. Between them of these stout French folk sought were squeezed the ancient indigenous asylum at the Cape in 1688. They Bushman and Koranna stock, who brought with them not only ideas on because of their pilfering and the Cultivation of the vine but a predatory habits were looked upon as measure of culture and enlightenment. vermin and exterminated on contact by Soon their language had been both invaders. Remnants escaped for swallowed up by the Dutch and their sanctuary into the arid fastnesses of blood diluted by intermarriage. This the Kalahari, where they survive in blending of the Dutch and French limited numbers to this day. The stock resulted in that sturdy race which Bantu, or Natives, as they are more has come to be known as the Boers. usually known, are Central African The British first became represented in negro migrants with considerable any numbers in the early years of the admixtures of Hamitic blood. They nineteenth century, when five moved southwards in a series of thousand 1820 settlers made their separate waves, and between them homes in the eastern portion of the there was constant raiding and Cape Province near Port Elizabeth. For conflict. geographical reasons, if for no other, intermarriage between Boer and Briton So far, the immigrants had been never progressed as had been the case exclusively Dutch, but with the with the French Huguenots. This was a Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and pity. the persecution of the Huguenots, 180

The House at Boplaas, Riebeeck West, where General Smuts was born in 1870 2 : RIEBEECK WEST obscuring Table Mountain and the Cape peninsula, rose the three- MY father was born on the 24th of thousand-foot Kasteel. By contrast to May, 1870, in the humble white- the flatness of its surroundings it washed homestead on the farm Onge- formed a conspicuous feature. The gund, three miles from Riebeeck West. homestead on Bovenplaats, or Boplaas He was the second eldest in a family as it was more popularly known, was of four sons and two daughters. The not by any standards a pretentious house was situated on the upper place, for its thatched roof and narrow section of the farm, and as the lower construction lent it an almost barn like portion was occupied by another appearance. The houses were already branch of the Smuts’s this upper part many generations old and had always came to be known as Bovenplaats been inhabited by Smuts’s. (Upper farm). His christian names he inherited from My father was fortunate to be born his maternal grandfather Jan Christian into the world in an era which offered de Vries. Like his grandfather, he spelt perhaps more opportunity for an able Christian with one “a”. young man than any previous one. In South Africa the Industrial Revolution Around, on the undulating plains of was just starting and we were on the Malmesbury, billowed the endless threshold of the far-reaching wheat-fields of the great Swartland. discoveries of diamonds and gold. His Behind the simple, gabled farmhouse, life-span was to encompass not only the great age of steel and electricity, of the invention of the internal combus- tion engine and the aeroplane, but also the golden age of science and the opening phases of the epoch-making atomic age. Each was in itself a world apart – something new the human mind had not previously conceived. Has youth ever before had such an endless abundance of opportunity? He was perhaps fortunate, too, to find himself in South Africa in the forma- tive years of her history. The farmers of the Swartland did not have the wealth or inclination for the artistic Dutch architectural type of buildings of Constantia or Stellen- bosch. They were simpler here, living farther from the centres of civilisation, Mr. and Mrs. J.A. Smuts, parents of General and wheat farming was a more exact- Smuts – 1893 ing occupation than the cultivation of the vine of the fertile plains of the Cape proper. So in some ways, though near it geographically, the Swartland formed a world apart from the environs of the mother city. People were judged rather by the fervour with which they embraced the Calvinistic doctrines of the Dutch Reformed Church, and by the pious merits of their deeds. By any standards, the population of the Cape was conserva- tive, and the heavy atmosphere of the coast and the warmth of the sunshine lent a certain self-satisfaction to those who lived there. Jacobus Abraham Smuts, my paternal grandfather, was a man of some prominence in these parts, for he was member for Malmesbury in the old Cape Legislature or supreme parlia- ment of the province. Photographs Sybella Margaretha Krige, 1888, later to become Mrs. J. C. Smuts show him as a stocky round-faced rial and impressionable temperament. man, broad of forehead and round of She was a woman of culture and had head, a typical Hollander in appear- studied music and French in Cape ance. His appearance did not belie his Town. As a great teller of stories she extraction, for though the sixth impressed her young family of four generation of Smuts’s to be born in the sons and two daughters. At the time of Cape, he was of almost pure Dutch the Boer War my father wrote: “How extraction. well I remember the spiritual teaching of my mother.” The first Smuts to settle in the Cape was Michiel Cornelis, who came out Boplaas was, in the 1870s, considered from Zeeland in the service of the quite an attractive farm, lying high up Dutch East India Company in 1692. on the sloping ground below the Kasteel, with fine vineyards and lands, My father’s mother was plump and an attractive view across the broad Catharina (Cato) Petronella de Vries, a plains below it to the distant, some- sister of Bodewyn, the local padre. times snow-capped, mountains of the She was a seventh generation descend- Groot Winterhoek range in the north. ant of Jacob Cloete who arrived in 1652 with van Riebeeck’s entourage, In summer, during the height of the and in old age was murdered on a farm dry season the aspect was arid and by natives. In Ouma Cato’s veins was uninviting, but with the winter rains it about one-sixth French blood, which became an enchanting panorama of perhaps accounts for her more mercu- emerald green, which was slowly transformed into a rich gold as the probably still a confirmed Nationalist, wheat ripened. lives elsewhere. Shortly before the Second World War In 1945 an old pear tree in the orchard considerable limestone deposits were was beginning to show signs of decay, discovered on Boplaas, which was so the hamlet of Malmesbury secured thereupon taken over by the Cape it and had a casket made from the Portland Cement Company. A wood, which it presented to my father descendant, van der Byl Smuts, was at on his seventy-fifth birthday. It is with the time living in the old homestead, me at present for safe keeping. My on the walls of which he had hung father well remembered scrambling photographs of General Hertzog and about in the tree as a boy. Dr. Malan. When Sir Alfred Hennes- The setting at Boplaas was quiet and sy, Chairman of the old South African peaceful, forming a striking contrast to Party, mentioned this fact to my the seething conditions of the father, the latter remarked casually that republics beyond the Orange River. the main branch in old families was Almost three-quarters of a century often inclined to degenerate! earlier the British had taken over the The house, which was at that time in a Cape after a brief skirmish at Blaauw- state of neglect, has since been reno- berg, but as annexation was achieved vated and is now once more being with comparatively little bloodshed, cared for; Mr. van der Byl Smuts, the incident had long since ceased to rankle in the minds of the old colonists. Nor did the problem of mixed European population obtrude itself upon the Smuts environs, for they were here in an exclusively Boer world. Consequently my father grew up in an atmosphere devoid of prejudices and one benevolent towards the British. Though shaken on one occasion, that benign heritage never left him and was to form one of the dominant themes of his life. In the Boplaas household Afrikaans was spoken exclusively and it was not until my father went to school that he first heard English. 3 : THE REPUBLICS ment by Governors of the Cape and misrepresentation by missionaries, IN the north, on the distant frontiers decided that the time had come to and in the Transvaal and Free State move on. Whether the decision was republics, the process of establishing a based upon the burden of the foothold was still going on apace and grievances or whether it was due there was constant conflict and war, equally to the inherent restlessness of often not without good reason, the Boer people, it is difficult to say. between white and black. There was Whatever the reason, they succumbed equally constant conflict between Boer to their feelings and insatiable wander- and Briton, the Boer love of freedom lust, and set out on a migration into the and independence often clashing with unknown interior with their families the then expansionist phase of British and belongings, their stock and their imperialism. There is much to be said wagons, on what is known as the either in mitigation or in condem- Great Trek. There were various nation of both parties, for the two branches to this trek and they courses were largely incompatible. encountered varying fortunes in their In 1836 the Boers of the frontier, wanderings. As an epic of bravery and irritated by a series of grievances the unflinching facing of great hard- against the British administration, such ships and odds it has few equals in our as the compensation swindle following the emancipation of the slaves, lack of understanding or sympathetic treat-

Orange Free State and Natal colourful history, but as a record of Transvaal the ruthless Moselekatze, organisation and co-operation it gave fugitive lieutenant of Chaka’s, whose but a foretaste of the Confused future. very name meant “Trail of Blood”, still ravaged the country from end to Neither the Smuts’s nor Kriges end in a series of sweeps of annihi- participated in the migration, for they lation. Before the Boers finally broke dwelt in areas far to the south of those his power at Marico, it is estimated which felt the urge of discontent. Piet that he had murdered about a half a Retief, the redoubtable trek leader, million hapless natives, a record that was, however, closely related to the even Genghis Khan might have stock of my mother. envied. Chaka’s own record of over a The hardy trekkers, except those who million is surpassed only by the liqui- moved into the densely populated Zulu dations of Adolf Hitler and Josef domain of Natal, moved northwards Stalin. into a country almost devoid of native population. This in no small measure But the battles for white supremacy explains much of the success of the were fought out mainly in Natal, and trek; for northwards the country had there, too, only after considerable loss come into the orbit of the raiding Zulu of life was the Zulu power finally hordes and indigenous tribes had been broken at Blood River, and the Royal almost completely wiped out. Only the Kraal at Umgungundhlovu burnt comeliest marriageable maidens were down. spared by the conquerors. In the With the coming of the white man the and gold, and these were soon not only natives, probably for the first time in to attract covetous eyes, but also to their very ancient tribal history, bring pressing problems. At the time learned to know the meaning of peace the Boers were expanding their grip in and freedom from fear; for these a black empire by a series of blessings had never existed under the skirmishes with the indigenous various barbarous and cruel native populations. These onslaughts upon potentates. The Bantu are quick to the black man, often defensive, ran forget this inestimable boon brought to counter to deep convictions in Britain, them by the white man. where they were almost invariably misjudged, and British intolerance of With the crushing of the Zulu tyrants a the state of affairs was heightened by mild form of peace ensued in the vast the misrepresentations of certain hinterland. It was not till 1879 that missionaries of the stamp of van der trouble once more flared up under 1 Cetewayo, who inflicted a major Kemp and Philip. defeat upon Lord Chelmsford’s forces at Isandhlwana. At Ulundi, three days 1 T.T. van der Kemp was sent out by the later, the Zulu power was finally London Missionary Society in 1799, and on broken. his arrival in Cape Colony made his way inand By a stroke of fate, the Boers and began work among the Kafirs and Hottentots. He was prominent in a movement happened to stumble into a country for emancipating them from Boer hands. His containing a great wealth of diamonds work was taken up after his death in 1811 by Even that peace-loving missionary The result of all these suspicions David Livingstone did not escape the mounted up in the end, in many parts, suspicions of the Boers, being accused to a strained feeling between the two of complicity in a gun-smuggling white sections. Taking all the factors racket to the natives. In actual fact into account, it has nevertheless poor Livingstone was quite innocent amazed me how remarkably restrained of gun-running, and it was more likely those feelings have generally been. It that the hunter Gordon-Cumming2 was says a great deal for the tolerance of dealing in this trade. both parties that it did not. grow into something much deeper.

Dr. John Philip, who was sent by the Society to visit their stations in 1819. He remained in Cape Town and devoted his life to the cause of the native peoples. One of his more impractical schemes was to erect independent native states in South Africa. 2 R. G. Gordon-Cumming (1820-66) was well known as a hunter. He resigned his commission in the Cape Mounted Rifles in 1843 and spent five years in a senseless slaughter of wild beasts under the guise of big- game shooting. In 1848 he returned to England where he toured the country with his lecture on lion hunting. 4 : BOYHOOD wizened Hottentot Adam, who, to my youthful father, was a fount of strange BUT in the world of my father’s information. It was old Adam who childhood all was peace and quiet. informed him, at a very early age, that Though not a weak or sickly boy, his the English, though a great people, constitution was not robust. Further- were as nothing compared to the other more, he was the second son in the people farther across the seas, the family, which in the Dutch hierarchy Scots. They really were God’s chosen consigned him to a very much lower race! This little story, suitably embell- status in the house than his brother ished, my father told in 1934 as Rector Michiel. Michiel was the eldest son at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland and on him rested the hopes of the during his famous address on family. He was to be ordained a Freedom. minister. So my father was very much of an Life on the farm, though humdrum in unspoiled, though not neglected, many ways, was never monotonous, second fiddle. He was left a fairly free for the veld and the farm held so much hand to do as he wished, providing he of interest. The early associations with carried out the prescribed family Boplaas and the mountain formed in duties of tending his father’s flocks of my father that indelible love of the geese, goats, horses and cattle. This veld, farm life and simplicity. Adam brought him into contact with that gave him an early glimpse into the philosophical old farm hand, the psychology of the native in which he ever after took an understanding me. In my childish way I communed interest. His feelings for these people with these as with my own soul; they were always governed more by this became the sharers of my confidence.” practical understanding than by the Throughout life he retained a strong theorising of books or the senti- sentimental attachment to his farming mentalism of the philanthropist. forebears. At the age of seventy-seven, As a man of thirty-two he wrote: when receiving the Freedom of “How well I remembered the years I Malmesbury in England, he still spent tending the cattle on the large claimed with pride: “I am just a son of farm, roaming over all its far expanse the veld. Malmesbury in South Africa of veld, in which every kloof, every is a wheat-growing district not far valley, every koppie was endeared to from Cape Town. The whole country me by the most familiar associations. is covered with wheat farms. I am a Month after month I had spent there in farmer’s son, and my people have lonely occupation – alone with the been farmers throughout the centuries. cattle, myself and God. The veld had In 1692 the Smuts family migrated to grown part of me, not only in the sense South Africa from Holland. Last year I that my bones were part of it, but in went to Middelburg in the Netherlands that more vital sense which identifies where the Smuts’s came from. There I nature with man. ... Having no human saw the ancient homeland of the companion I felt a spirit of comrade- Smuts family where they had been ship for the objects of nature around farmers for centuries before coming to which he bore all his life. He described South Africa.” this encounter with the mules as the most dangerous and terrifying he ever That his early life on the farm was met with. never dull was reflected in the stories he used to tell us – and later our On another occasion, I once heard him children – about the incidents of his tell to my son, aged four, the story of a youth. There were the disconcerting troop of baboons coming down from occasions when he was chased by his the mountain into the orchard behind father’s geese. He used to tell of what the house. The three farm dogs spotted he called a miraculous escape from them and gave chase. The big leader of death when he was five. He was the baboon pack, whether from playing in the loft above the stables, arrogance, or to cover the retreat of his when something gave way and he troop, refused to be stampeded and crashed through the ceiling amongst climbed into a big fruit tree instead. the startled mules tethered below. In Here he was bayed by the furious its panic, one began kicking viciously dogs, and he vented his feelings by backwards, but mercifully on each roaring his defiance even above the occasion it missed the boy’s head by din of their barking. Aroused by this inches. One kick, however, did graze noise, old Jacobus Smuts, muzzle- the back of his head and laid him out. loader in hand and followed by the rest It produced a scar, not far from the of the family, including my father, scar of his 1927 carbuncle operation, rushed out to see what all the noise was about. He took a shot at the child. Perhaps this incident accounted baboon which fell badly wounded for my father’s life-long aversion to amongst the hounds, but the poor beast dogs. still had some strength left, and before Life on the farm was not all fun, for it died, it killed the biggest and finest much hard work devolved upon the of the dogs and mauled both the farm lad of those days. In the others. ploughing season he had to be up With this self-same gun my father was before the first grey signs of dawn, and taught to shoot when he was nine lead the ox span along the plough years old. I still have the old weapon furrow all day long till late in the in my possession. Another terrifying evening. In the mornings it was cold incident which my father was fond of and cheerless and at noontide the sun relating was an encounter with a fierce scorched the earth. But young Jan’s dog. It happened during the periodic constitution, especially after his fourth visit to the farm of a smous or peddler, year, belied his weedy appearance and when he was a lad of four or five. This he came through his strenuous days smous had a big dog with his wagons well. and the great brute broke loose and His grandfather sometimes took pity attacked my father, knocked him down on him during the coldest mornings and stood snarling over him. In this and carried him to the fields in his position he was shot by old Jacobus, arms. falling dead on top of the terrified 5 : STELLENBOSCH HIS brother Michiel died of typhoid when my father was twelve. It was now left to this younger boy to carry on the traditions of the family, and it was decided that he should be educated and enter the Church. Not only was this natural, as Dominie A.J. Louw, the Dutch parson, was a close friend of old Jacobus, but it was also reasonable, as my father showed a serious turn of mild for his age. Though he had had some elementary tuition from his mother at home, it was not till the age of twelve that he was sent to school for the first time, and it was with misgiving that he said J.C. Smuts as Student at Stellenbosch – 1891 farewell to the old surroundings and went to board at “Die Ark”, which as photographs show, was appro- formed part of the school of Mr. T.C. priately named, for it looked rather Stofberg in Riebeeck West. “Die Ark”, like the superstructure of a boat. It nestled at the foot of the Kasteel and him and to put reading matter at his was well placed for rambles up the disposal. mountain slopes. Mr. Stofberg later became an inspector When my father was eight the family of Schools in the Transvaal and by a had moved to a new inheritance on queer turn of events, by no means Klipfontein which lay fifteen miles on unusual in this country, in 1915 the other side of Riebeeck West. The forsook his inspectorship and entered red-shuttered farmhouse here was a politics to contest, unsuccessfully, the larger and better building than the old Rustenburg parliamentary seat with a homestead at Boplaas and looked out Smuts candidate. upon the broad valley of the Berg My father’s brother, Michiel, when at River in the distance. school in Riebeeck West, had not My father entered school with a mind lodged at “Die Ark” but had boarded so empty, yet so craving for know- with the Malan Family on the farm ledge, that he absorbed all the learning Allesverloren, alongside the village. Mr. Stofberg had to proffer him. His There was a youngster, Daniel brain was clear and receptive. He François, about the house whom my mastered his studies with a photo- father opposed for years in politics in graphic faithfulness, readily memori- later life. The old Smuts’s and Malans sing much of what he read. Stofberg were very close friends, and eventually was quick to sense the abilities of his when they retired from their farms and pupil and went out of his way to help went to live in the village at Riebeeck West, they not only saw to it that they old-fashioned creation that I think occupied adjoining houses, but even parts deserve to be quoted here again: went to the extent of leaving a broad Klipfontein, gap in the intervening hedge in order that the two houses might be as one. June 12, 1886 After a few years at “Die Ark” my Mr C Murray, father went up for his matric in Professor, Stellenbosch. Stellenbosch. In the four years at Riebeeck West he had gone through Dear Sir, the work which took the normal boy Allow me the honour of your reading eleven years. So he set off to the and answering these few lines. I intend Victoria College in Stellenbosch, coming to Stellenbosch in July next, where he lodged with Mr. Ackermann and, having heard that you take an on the Eerste Rivier end of Dorp exceptionally great interest in the Street, in the older portion of the town. youth, I trust you will favour me by His ambition was keen, but his heart keeping your eye upon me and helping was filled with forebodings of the me with your kindly advice. More- worldly distractions that lurked in this over, as I shall be a perfect stranger great centre of learning. The quaint, there and, as you know such a place, naïve, letter he wrote at the time to where a large puerile element exists, Professor Charles Murray has been affords fair scope for moral, and, what widely quoted, but it is such a pure, is more important, religious tempta- tion, which, if yielded to, will eclipse friend, and also if informed on these alike the expectations of my parents points... and the intentions of myself, a real Your obedient servant, friend will prove a lasting blessing for me. For of what use will a mind, J. C. Smuts. enlarged and refined in all possible This letter, so unlike any other he had ways, be to me, if my religion be a received, impressed the Professor and deserted pilot and morality a wreck? he put it to one side. In 1933 he To avoid temptation and to make the returned it to my father. “After the proper use of my precious time, I lapse of many years,” the Professor purposely refuse entering a public wrote, “I can recollect distinctly that boarding department, as that of Mr. de this letter stood out very clearly from Kock, but shall board privately (most the run of such communications – the likely at Mr. W. Ackermann’s) which writer knew what he wanted… The will, in addition, accord with my letter tempts me to reminiscences and retired and reserved nature. reflections…” [He then makes a few queries about The letter was written in English, syllabuses and text-books. and which he had been learning for four concludes:] years; it was in a thin, timid hand, unlike any I have seen my father use. Sincerely assuring you of my deep gratitude if I may have you for a My father negotiated the first year at Victoria College with flying colours, matriculating with distinction and coming third on the lists. My mother, Sybella Margaretha Krige (better known as Isie) came only slightly lower. Her home was in the fine Dutch gabled house “Klein Libertas”, along- side the beautiful oak-lined avenue of Dorp Street. Nine years later she was to marry my father. She was the daughter of Japie Krige, a well known and respected wine and dairy farmer, and their home was a pious one. She was as serious minded as my father. Photographs show her as a lovely girl, slender and small, with curly brown hair and blue eyes. She was two-thirds French by extraction, and had inherited their daintiness rather than the more ponderous build of the women of purer Dutch descent. My Facsimile of letter of 1886 mother’s forebears were Huguenots The Smuts and Krige families did not who came to South Africa at the know each other till these Stellenbosch beginning of the eighteenth century. days. “It was at this stage that I first met the girl, then my class-mate, who The Kriges were an able family, many was to become my wife ten years of its members having reached the top afterwards,” my father was to write of their various professions. They were years afterwards in a diary. “Less also noted athletes and Rugby players. idealistic than I, but more human ..., But like most people in Stellenbosch she first like the spirit of poetry in they did not love the English. Goethe, recalled me from my After matriculating, my mother spent intellectual isolation and made me five years at Helderberg, near return to my fellows.” Stellenbosch, as a school teacher. There was nothing particularly On their way to school, my father and romantic about the courtship. They mother chatted animatedly as they were rather reserved and walked under the massive oaks, some undemonstrative, and from planted in the seventeenth century by questioning and teasing our mother, Simon van der Stel. Sometimes my we decided that it was rather an odd father carried her books for her. In this and old-fashioned courtship. The two quiet way the friendship ripened and young people, though probably not they studied and read books on botany oblivious of the fine surroundings, saw and poetry together. more of the beauties of the classics and the poets than of the fine scenery were, till they learned to understand around them. But what the courtship this prodigy, inclined to accuse the lacked in impetuosity it gained in youngster of cribbing, for many of his depth of friendship and understanding. answers were verbatim from the text- That friendship, unscathed and books. At Stellenbosch his faculty for undiminished, withstood the test of memorising was at its peak, he used to time, and was the basis of a fruitful say, and by the time he reached and exemplary married life. Cambridge it had already waned somewhat. Yet at the age of sixty and Greek formed part of the curriculum. seventy, while working at his botany My father tackled it for the first time he was still memorising the tens of during the six-day holiday before his thousands of intricate Latin names of final term, and locking himself up in plants with the greatest facility. But as his room memorised the books and eighty approached I noticed that he mastered Greek to such effect that he often had to fumble for a name. This not only passed his exams, but actually was partially due, I think, to the headed the Cape lists in this subject. pressure of work during World War II, He considered that the most which gave him little time to keep up remarkable feat of memorising in his this hobby. Many might consider life. prodigious memory a blessing, yet as In those days he could memorise large an old man my father was to remark to portions of books by, reading through my mother how happy he was now them. At Stellenbosch his examiners that he was losing this gift and College. After services he would hold growing forgetful. Bible classes for coloured youths to whom he expounded the truths about Cecil Rhodes, Prime Minister of the the book. He also belonged to a Bible Cape, paid a visit to Victoria College circle. He never lost his love for the in 1888. My father was asked to make Bible, though his religious feeling for a speech of welcome on behalf of the it gradually changed in after life to an students. The substance of this speech interest in it as a panorama of life and was remarkable for a boy of seven- a psychological study, and as the teen. He spoke of PanAfricanism, a supreme classic of the English theme dear to Rhodes. Rhodes made language. . no effort to meet the boy but remarked to J.H. Hofmeyr, who was sitting next During the six hectic days in which he to him: “Keep your eye on the young was memorising his Greek books for fellow Smuts.” John X. Merriman, that his matriculation examination, he read distinguished figure of the old Cape Shelley as a diversion. He became parliament, said to my grandfather deeply engrossed in this young poet, Jacobus: “Jan will be the first man in and throughout life preferred Shelley, South Africa.” in whom he found more of the philosopher, to other poets. He later At this stage my father was of a went on to Keats, Milton and religious frame of mind and regularly Shakespeare and other classics, though attended Sunday services in the Dutch of these, Shakespeare is the one in Reformed Church near the Theological whom he sustained the greatest profound impression on Dr. Leyds, a interest. In later life he was to develop member of Kruger’s government. a special passion for Shakespeare’s Years later the superb Netherlands tragedies, which as a group, he Dutch of his Century of Wrong was considered the greatest fictional works also to draw praise from Dr. Gustav in English. Preller, the South African historian. As a youth he read the German poets, At nineteen my father contributed especially Goethe and Schiller, but “Homo Sum”, a learned dissertation these he appreciated perhaps more as on slavery. His pen was never idle. psychological studies than as Dutch and English flowed from it with examples of classical art. equal facility, and the newspapers were full of his leaders, letters, articles While at Stellenbosch, under Professor and reviews. The tremendous energy Mansveld, he learned Netherlands of the man, which in those days found Dutch; and with his quick and expression through the pen, was a life- thorough mind became one of the long characteristic. most proficient scholars in the country. In it he wrote a paper on the “The five years I spent at Victoria “Commerce and Prosperity of the College, Stellenbosch,” he wrote years Netherlands During the Eighty Years afterwards, “were probably the War”, which was acclaimed as a fine happiest of my life. I read much and example of the Dutch language. For its widely, but especially the poets and sheer purity of diction, it created a philosophical writers. I had not yet any defined channel of thinking or feeling. My mind was simply dazzled and attracted by beauty in all its intellectual forms... My passion for nature made me spend most of my free time in the mountains, along the streams and in the innumerable winding valleys.” 6 : CAMBRIDGE IN 1891 my father took his degree in Science as well as Literature and obtained honours in both. This success won for him the Ebdin Scholarship for overseas study, which at that time was worth only £100 a year. He decided to take Law at Cambridge and, selling his farm stock and borrowing an addi- tional £380 from Professor Marais, he set out in the Roslyn Castle for England. In 1894 an additional £100 per year was voted to Smuts “in consideration of his distinguished success as a student at Cambridge”. His application in 1892 for additional assistance from the Trustees had been J.C. Smuts at Cambridge – November 1892 withdrawn, as he was told it was in- College remembered the serious-faced opportune and that its strong wording youth at Cambridge. He preferred to would create a bad impression. further his studies rather than have a Many of his contemporaries at Christ’s good time. In any case his frugal means did not permit such a course. irresponsible, rollicking type of under- One can well imagine his fellow graduate he had little praise. students looking upon him as a some- And so, in the beauties of the English what anti-social type. He took part in countryside and the atmosphere of the no organised sport, and preferred, as at University, the days passed pleasantly Stellenbosch, to go walking in the and fruitfully. All the time that country. On these rambles he would brilliant brain was active; he not only take books with him, books on poetry found time for an immense amount of and philosophy rather than standard study, but also in his leisure began, in works for his studies. Here, in the 1894, a lengthy treatise entitled “Walt solitude of the walks alone along the Whitman – A Study in the Evolution Cam, or in the woods or on the hills of Personality.” The connection with farther afield, he would pore over Whitman is slender, for it is in these books and no doubt scheme for essentials an abstract study of person- the future. ality. The angle of approach to the “At Cambridge”, he says in his diary, subject is a new one and the concept “I read much, walked much and not dissimilar to that which brought thought much; and when I left the fame later to Sigmund Freud. But this University I had probably drunk as treatise differed from a psycho-analyst deeply of the well of knowledge as text-book in that it did not split most... I did not, however, mix much personality into the conscious, sub- in the social life of the place.” For the conscious and other parts, but con- sidered it as one integrated whole. It was unfortunate that my father chose This conception of wholes was to Whitman for his study, for Whitman mature slowly in his mind, and thirty was a man that attracted little attention years later to appear in his book at the time. Had he selected Goethe, it Holism and Evolution. “Walt Whit- is possible that he might have got a man” holds the germ of holism; that publisher for his book, so laboriously the whole is something greater than copied out in freehand by my mother. the mere sum total of its parts – that it Messrs. Chapman & Hall refused it as has gained a new character by this “not opportune” and “unlikely for the unity. In this earlier work my father present to win any readers”. George says: “Every individual form of life is Meredith read it for them. Unfor- a unity, a centre of activity dominated tunately the real purpose of the book by one fundamental property. It is this escaped him, for he considered it as a ultimate internal unity that shapes the merely literary study of Whitman. innumerable products of life into an In a letter to the publishing firm of orderly and harmonious whole.” He Longmans Green, written on 18th says also: “In every individual form of May, 1895, my father describes his life this fundamental property operates book as “an attempt to apply the according to its own laws and forms. method of Evolution synthetically to By studying the mental life as a whole the study of Man”. He goes on: “You ... we shall soon get beyond the range will perhaps ask why I took Whitman, of the pure psychologist.” who is certainly not popular in this country. I took him, not only because interested in his early work, remark- he is perhaps the most difficult ing, “I have read some of the chapters Personality that could be taken and again, and not without amazement. It thus supplies a very severe test of my is full of puerility, but it has general theory, but because his life and remarkable stuff, as coming from a work raise so many of the great youngster of twenty-four. Indeed in questions which surround personal some respects it is better than Holism evolution.” He concludes naively: “I and Evolution written thirty years anticipate a good circulation in later.” He said it would never be America.” Longmans Green were not published now, for it was a “boy’s tempted to publish it. Finally, when book”. Perhaps one day “Walt Whit- already back again in South Africa, man” may appear as a study of my father tried to get it published in Smuts’s personality. England in serial form by the His studies at Cambridge were a Nineteenth Century, but they too triumph, and though he did both parts returned it unpublished. of the Law Tripos simultaneously he After this unsympathetic treatment the gained distinction in both, a feat work reposed quietly on a dusty shelf claimed by the Cape Times as “quite in my father’s study for forty years unparalleled”, and described by the before he chanced to glance at it again. Encyclopaedia Britannica as “unpre- Holism had already appeared some cedented”. Professor Maitland long years previously. He was much afterwards described him as the most brilliant law student he had ever Christ’s College offered him a taught. fellowship in Law, but he turned it down. The amazing thing about my father’s brain was that it came from a family My father never forgot his old background that had, so far as we University or his debt of gratitude for know, never produced anything that what it had meant to him in early life. might be described as exceptional, far Whenever he was in Britain, in war or less brilliant. in peace, he always made a point of paying Christ’s College a visit and He won the George Long prize in seeing the Master. Nor did Cambridge Roman Law and Jurisprudence, a prize ever forget its protégé, for it appointed only awarded in cases of exceptional him Chancellor in 1948, and with due merit. In December, 1894, the Council ceremony inducted him into the post. of Legal Education awarded him a My brother Japie also spent two very prize of £50 for the best paper on pleasant years at Christ’s where he Constitutional Law (English and gained a double first in the Engin- Colonial) and Legal History. It was eering Tripos. indeed “an amazing series of suc- cesses”! He entered the Middle Apart from the tedium of study, Temple after passing the entrance Smuts’s Cambridge days were un- exam with distinction, and practised as eventful. He had not the money to go a barrister with some success. He was abroad or to travel. He got about now twenty-five. mostly on his own two feet. He took out a life insurance policy which he occasion, when wandering alone on ceded to Professor Marais as security the hills at Irene, was he frightened by for his loan. The insurance agents did a storm. It smote the earth with the not want to grant him comprehensive noise and intensity of an artillery coverage, as they were uncertain about barrage on the Western Front and his slender appearance and hereditary seeing “fireballs” bowling across the background of diabetes. His doctor veld, he lay down for protection. examined him at Cambridge and said, Twice, long afterwards, aircraft in “Drink beer, my boy. It will do you which he was flying were struck by good!” In 1950 he still drank beer lightning. because he enjoyed it. But my father was a son of the Perhaps my father’s most vivid sunshine; the drear skies of Britain memory of the University was an depressed him and he yearned for the incident when they were walking in veld of his homeland and, maybe, for procession to some ceremony. Out of a that attractive young lady of clear sky a solitary flash of lightning Stellenbosch. struck dead a student walking ten feet So in 1895 he sailed for home and I ahead of him. Throughout his long know with what feeling of delight he outdoor life he weathered many a wild saw the dim grey shape of Table African thunderstorm, but he was Mountain once more looming into indifferent to them, beyond admiring view. the vivid display. Only on one Soon he was to hear the Atlantic was fair with blue eyes, golden wavy beating heavily on the familiar shore- hair and a transparent skin. Photo- line and to feel the impatient south- graphs show him as attractive in easter tugging at his clothes as it appearance, with certainly no hint of rushed past, to sense the warm gauntness. Perhaps his high and atmosphere of this sunny land, and slightly prominent cheek-bones might breathe the fragrance of the wild Cape suggest that; maybe his over- heath. It was indeed good to be back – developed orbital bosses, the forehead with all the prospects and ambitions of bumps above his eyes, would tend to a new young life stretching limitlessly make him look formidable. In build he before hum. was slender though the sloping shoulders belied their breadth. His Before we pass on let us pause to take chest was big and deep. a good look at this youth, Jan Christian Smuts. He has been I think my father must have been a described by various biographers as presentable and comely youth, fair and gaunt and taciturn, as hollow-faced clean looking, and serious of and serious, as physically feeble and countenance. Not for nothing did those unsociable. It is impossible to refute blue eyes of his develop the these descriptions too strenuously. surrounding deep puckers that denote Take a look at this slender youth of a sense of humour. five feet nine and see if any of these Old friends of his, especially my assertions were true. In appearance he mother, deny that he was unsociable or unfriendly. They did not even notice to indulge in an extravagance of that he was over-serious, for in the pleasure. sleepy God-fearing hamlets of the From the number of friends my father Boland of those days, it was the had and from the full house of visitors normal demeanour of the people. The he always kept in Pretoria, he must gaiety of Cape Town of the earlier have been a hospitable and agreeable days of the British occupation, as well 3 host. The house was not only full, but described by Lady Anne Barnard, usually overflowed into the annexe, never touched the more serious where young men such as Deneys hinterland to the north. Farms were too Reitz, Jimmie Roos, my uncle Tottie far apart and people too hard-working Krige, etc., were lodged. A huge tub stood in the garden alongside the annexe, and in summer some 3 Lady Anne Baruard (1750-1825) was a embarrassment was caused to other daughter of the Earl of Balcarres and wife of visitors by the naked bathers of the Andrew Barnard, whom she accompanied in 1793 to South Africa on his appointment as annexe in this tub. colonial secretary to Lord Macartney, In short, the worst that can be said Governor of the Cape. On her husband’s death in 1807 she returned to England, and settling about my father was that he took life a in London, her Berkeley Square home became little too seriously; in every other the centre of a considerable literary coterie. respect he was a pleasant person and a Her letters from South Africa were published good companion. At Cambridge he in 1901 as South Africa a Century Ago. may have lacked a raucous sense of humour or an appreciation of youthful mother played a decisive part in it. She ribaldry, but it could never be said of was a girl who knew the great writers, him that he lacked an extremely well- and it was she who provided much of developed sense of humour, even the inspiration, who read and recited to when a witticism was at his own him and encouraged him to do expense. likewise. From all accounts both of them wrote poetry in those days, and it In later years, when my father was an is a pity that my mother some years old man, I saw him in the company ago destroyed all she had written. To and the councils of the great men of this day she still has a great knowledge his day. The impression always given of the older poets and it must be was that in appearance, in intellect and indeed a difficult quotation she cannot in personality he stood above his place. illustrious contemporaries. During his time at Stellenbosch, and until he married and left for Pretoria – a period of about eight years – my father was in a romantic frame of mind. Not only did he greedily study the great poets and philosophers, but he began to write poetry and philosophy himself. This is a phase in every young person’s life, and my 7 : CAPE TOWN under the terms the British maintained their suzerainty over the Transvaal and In 1877, barely half a dozen years after the liberties of the Boers were still the discovery of diamonds, Joseph substantially restricted. The Pretoria Chamberlain, upon the slender pretext Convention of 1881, however, of an alleged violation of the Sand restored the Transvaal to full indepen- River Convention, ordered Sir Theo- dence. But if victory was swift; it was philus Shepstone to annex the Trans- equally indecisive, and the British vaal. The Boers rose in righteous smarted under their solitary defeat. indignation at this act of aggression, What was significant to subsequent and the result was the First Anglo- history, however, was the fact that Boer War of 1880-81. In a crucial they had not learned their lesson from battle at Majuba4 on the green border this episode. Nor were they to learn it of Natal, the British suffered a reverse from the abortive Jameson Raid in which General Colley was killed; scarcely a dozen years later. Britain peace was once more restored. But was in a belligerent mood of expan- sion. The logical successor to the Raid 4 At Majuba Hill Sir George Colley, in command of 650 men, was defeated on the was the Second Anglo-Boer War, and 27th February, 1881. The British had climbed that set up a chain reaction which still the hill in the darkness of the previous night, reverberates around the world. and had established themselves, but a surprise attack from a superior force of Boers wiped The discovery of diamonds was as them out. nothing to the mad rush that succeeded the discovery of gold, in Barberton in 1883 and on the bleak plateau of the Witwatersrand three years later. The old prospectors never realised what they had stumbled upon when they first struck the gold-bearing outcrops in the tall grass at Langlaagte. Here was wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. Here were problems that would lead to war. It was into this hectic world that my father returned from the shelter of Cambridge, though as yet he was not aware of the forces about him. He was intent only on making a career in the legal world of the Cape. So he set up in practice in Cape Town, but though a J. C. Smuts aged 33 great reputation had preceded him, he English, and his contributions covered lacked experience and his briefs were many subjects from book reviews and few. To supplement his income he odd scraps of poetry, to descriptive wrote for the papers, in Afrikaans and articles on the life of the times, and to politics. He spent some of his spare time in Parliament, reporting the Dutch element of the electorate. He debates and pondering the ways of was a mild and conciliatory man, and politicians. His interest in politics co-operated with other parties, not grew and he began to feel that his because his majority was indecisive future lay not in the quiet chambers of but because he felt that salvation for the Law, but in the rough and tumble the country lay only in the welding of the political world. From the together of the two great sections. A Gallery in the House of Assembly he nephew of his, of similar name, was saw seated in the Legislature the one day to make an even greater name illustrious men of his day. His father for himself, and his broader co- was still there, but was known rather operation embraced the non-Euro- for his long silences than for brilliance peans as well. of repartee. There below him sat My father, scholar and dreamer that he Jameson, John X. Merriman, Jan was, fell under the spell of the House. Hendrik Hofmeyr, and many others who later became famous. He marvelled at the superb debating skill with the purpose of removing British power and influence from S. Africa. Its headquarters of Merriman, standing tall, thin and was at the Cape but it had affiliations swaying on his huge feet. Hofmeyr throughout S. Africa. J. H. Hofmeyr and J. X. was the Leader of the Afrikaner Bond Merrimau acquired predominant influence in Party,5 which embraced mostly the the Bond, however, and under their guidance it lost its animosity and worked for the cause

of a united country. 5 The Afrikaner Bond was founded in 1879 The struggle to supplement his income continued and he worked harder than ever. He had little spare time from Parliament and his legal tuition classes, but even in those days Table Mountain became a life-long solace and friend to him and he often struggled up its rugged face for inspiration. It was a proud day for my father when John X. Merriman told him that J.H. Hofmeyr wanted to see him. He wanted my father to take up politics openly on the side of Rhodes, who was being severely criticised for his native policy and other matters.

J.C. Smuts with Mrs. Smuts and daughter Santa – 1903. 8 : CECIL JOHN RHODES acquired very cheaply, so his scheme prospered. But Barney Barnato, Solly ON the 5th July, 1853, there was born Joel and others had had similar to the Vicar of Bishop’s Stortford a visions, and ere long Kimberley was son to become famous as Cecil John split between these big competitors. It Rhodes, a somewhat tubercular lad in was at this stage that Rhodes, aided by a family of five. As a young man he Alfred Beit, showed his mettle, and by went to South Africa for his health, shrewd business diplomacy swallowed and was there when the diamond rush up some of his adversaries. It brought to Kimberley started; so he set off with him unlimited wealth, and with wealth his brother Frank to seek health and went power. He was not satisfied with fortune in this dusty land of promise. either, for he had a strange complex Rhodes has been called an arrogant that craved the aura of culture, and he materialist. He was not a man of decided to take a degree at Oxford. As abnormal intelligence, but he had a a sentimentalist and man of means he remarkable faculty for business, and a had big ideas and in his dreams he had cool and ruthless brain. He saw that sweeping visions. By the grace of God the salvation of the chaos at Kimberley those visions were mostly sound, but lay in the amalgamation of the even these he was prepared to impair multitude of struggling small claims for material gains, as the Jameson and grouping them into larger units. Raid revealed. The diggers were in bad straits in those days, and claims could be Rhodes dreamed of an All Red route Matabele potentate Lobengula, and by to Cairo, and in the memorial above his own very great personal courage in Groote Schuur he is fittingly depicted parleying with the natives, he managed as gazing to the hinterland in the to secure this important tract of land North. from under the very noses of the grabbing Germans. The entry of his The mad rush for the partition of pioneer column into this new Southern Africa was on. Rhodes, Chartered Company area was across having made a success of diamonds Providential Pass. For South Africa it failed to grasp the chance the new was indeed providential to have a goldfields of Johannesburg offered and friend on her northern frontiers; but was badly outwitted by some of his the famous hunter, Frederick Courtney old Kimberley adversaries. By the 6 time he saw his error, it was too late. Selous, who acted as guide to the What was more natural, therefore, than that he should turn his attention beyond the Limpopo, to the great 6 F. C. Selous (1851-1917) was a hunter and empty tract of country that now bears ivory trader from 1871 to 1881, when he his name, for there, his intuition told entered the service of the British South Africa him, were to be found fabulous reefs Company. He negotiated between Cecil of gold. So by virtue of his wealth, the Rhodes and Lobengula in 1890 and was instrumental in securing Mashonaland for good services of his friend Dr. L. S. Britain. He was killed near Kissaki in German Jameson, who doctored the rheumatic East Africa in World War I. column, did not realise this when he and he saw a greater future in the new named the road. Republic in the north. It took Rhodes some time to realise The “colossal materialism” of the how badly his intuition had misled seething gold town of Johannesburg him. Perhaps it was this realisation, staggered him, with its numerous perhaps just ruthlessness, that induced adventurers, all intent on making him to get embroiled with Kruger on quick fortunes. Pretoria, that quiet the Rand. little town lying warmly in a cup of hills, with its bearded patriarchs and But at this stage Rhodes appeared to unpretentious houses, was very my father as a great idealist and his different. “I was agreeably surprised”, visions were those which my father he wrote, “by the aristocratic quiet could himself readily appreciate. How pervading this handsome little town.” was he to know that Rhodes’s co- operation with Jan Hofmeyr was On the 29th of that month he merely a shallow veneer? Even addressed his first big political Hofmeyr himself could not see meeting. It was in Kimberley Town through this ambitious friendship. Hall, under the chairmanship of the Mayor. The purpose of the address In October, 1895, my father paid a was to rebut certain charges of forced hurried visit to the Transvaal to spy native labour levelled at Rhodes, and out the land. The ways of the sleepy to counter the criticism of his native old Cape were too leisurely for him policy by the Cronwright Schreiner.7 soon become untenable in the face of The charge came about as the result of the overwhelming majority of prolific the Glen Grey Act which persuaded barbarism.” He dwelt also upon the natives to vote by taxing those who Bond, diamonds, fair and free trade, did not. At that time certain local Mr. Rhodes’s dual position in negrophilists, of whom the best known Rhodesia and the Cape Confederation. was Mr. Saul Solomon, were “The theory of democracy as currently becoming very active. Mr. Rhodes’s understood and practised in Europe championship of the phrase “equal and America”, he declared in one rights for all civilised men south of the portion of his address, is inapplicable Zambesi” did not, however, render to the coloured races of South Africa... him averse to the small measure of You cannot safely apply to the discrimination of the Glen Grey Act. barbarous and semi-barbarous natives My father took this opportunity of the advanced political principles and reading the Europeans a brief homily: practice of the foremost peoples of “Unless the white race closes its civilisation. Too often we make the ranks”, he warned, its position will mistake of looking upon democracy as a deduction from abstract 7 Mrs Cronwright Schreiner (1862-1920), wife principles, instead of regarding it of S. C. Cronwright Schreiner, was better rather as the outcome of practical known as Olive Schreiner, author of The Story politics.” The speech received a mixed of a South African Farm. Her husband was a reception. The Bond organs naturally member of the Cape Parliament. defended him, but others launched the English and Boer peoples would bitter attacks. This was my father’s dwell together in happy concord. first taste of politics, but he had In 1895, and at the very time when the already come to the conviction that chief conspirators of the Jameson Raid silence is golden, and he made no were most busy hatching and attempt to defend himself. preparing for their criminal schemes, I Perhaps I may quote here my father’s made a speech at Kimberley, which, own impression of this Kimberley while normally a defence of the Bond- speech, written in a diary during the Rhodes alliance in Cape politics, was Boer War: really intended to set forth the general principles of a broader common politi- When Mr. Cecil Rhodes appeared on cal platform on a reconciled basis for the scene in 1889 as Premier of the both the white peoples of the Cape Cape Colony under Bond auspices, Colony. This speech, although it was with a platform of racial conciliation, called by a hostile daily newspaper of political consolidation of South Africa the day the “ablest and clearest expo- and northern expansion, my natural sition yet given of the principles of the bias as well as the glamour of Bond-Rhodes alliance” did not attract magnificence which distinguished this much attention and was indeed policy from the “parish pump” politics completely overshadowed by a pam- of his predecessors, made me a sort of phlet written by Olive Schreiner and natural convert to his views. I began to her husband, in which it was pointed dream of a great South Africa in which out with prophetic accuracy that the was on him. He could not wait. In his alliance would never last and its dying words he identified himself with influence would in any case be most this urge. In Paul Kruger he met a detrimental to the public welfare, rocklike obstinacy. because the motives of Mr. Rhodes were neither honest nor public spirited. I gave no heed to their warning for I had yet to learn that a politician of such standing and influence as Mr. Rhodes would openly and shamelessly deceive, not his enemies, but his very friends and associates. Upon the failure of his quest for gold in Rhodesia Rhodes switched his attention to the rich reefs of Johannes- burg on which Kruger was now sitting so smugly. At all costs he must now get control of these. His ruthless business brain swept aside his saner political judgment. Perhaps it was the realisation that his days were limited that spurred him on. His fatal illness 9 : Kruger And The Jameson Raid solid barnacled mass, now turned into an old and irritable patriarch, Rhodes THE better to assess the events that charged with his impetuous ambition. followed we must realise how com- Kruger was not impressed. In fact, at pletely Paul Kruger differed from their one and only meeting the Cecil Rhodes. Kruger as a lad of Englishman irritated him. With that twelve had moved off with his parents went all reasonable hopes of friendly on the Great Trek and in the harsh discussion and compromise on the school of this rough-and-tumble life he problems which intimately touched grew up. The atmosphere of his them. Kruger had no desire to see the surroundings, though a godly one, 60,000 alien Uitlanders of the combined deep distrust of the British Johannesburg goldfields dominate the and hostility to the natives. His policy of his Republic of 30,000 education and code of behaviour he burghers, but he was prepared to took from the Old Testament; his permit them franchise rights after shrewdness from the school of bitter fourteen years of residence. When one experience. As a youth he had considers the amorphous nature of the extraordinary physical strength and to mining fraternity, Kruger’s concession this day the natives of the northern was not ungenerous. Under extreme Transvaal have a legend of this pressure the period of qualification remarkable white athlete. The addition was later reduced to five years. of great courage made him a resolute and formidable opponent. Into this But Rhodes wanted not the little finger his men he was set upon by Piet – he wanted the whole hand, and he Cronje at Doornkop, not far from was not a man to let scruples bar his Johannesburg, and well beaten, and way. So he not only encouraged, but members of the Reform Committee of actively aided and abetted, the growth Johannesburg were also taken into of elements subversive to Kruger on custody. This, in essence, was the the goldfield. The Reform Committee unhappy incident known as the was formed and organised on a quasi- Jameson Raid. military basis, and arms were smugg- In spite of its futility, the repercussions led by every means into the golden of the Raid were serious and far- city. The intention was that a rising reaching, for it was established that within the town should correspond some of the highest in the Empire with an invasion of 500 sympathisers were party to it. Sir Henry Lock, under Dr. Jameson, from the Bech- British High Commissioner at the uanaland border at Pitsani. The organi- Cape, the British Prime Minister, Lord sing ability and security measures of Rosebery, and the Colonial Secretary, the Reform party were, however, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, were inferior to their business acumen, and implicated. Europe was staggered by information reached the President of this act of “international brigandage” what was happening and in the end the and Germany adopted a hostile timing of the move also broke down. attitude. The Bond denounced Cecil So when Dr. Jameson approached with Rhodes in the strongest terms and he was ousted from the premiership of solace in the fact that shrewder the Cape and from the chairmanship of politicians such as Hofmeyr had been the De Beers and Chartered Compa- taken in by Rhodes. He had come to nies. Racialism flamed in the Cape, his first big crossroads in life, and it and the Transvaal and Free State turned him towards Kruger. Republics were driven into each He wrote bitterly in 1902: other’s arms. The Raid was to echo across the world and across the years. How shall I ever describe the sensations with which I received the It was on New Year’s Day, 1896, news on New Year’s Day of 1896 of exactly two months after my father that fatal and perfidious venture... had made his Kimberley speech, as he When during the political storms that was sitting on the stoep of his parents’ arose after the Jameson Raid l quietly home at Riebeeck West, that the news asked myself whether I had really been of the Raid reached him. He was wrong in striving so hard for the aghast. This was not only a major national fusion and concord of the breach of faith, but it stung him white races, I came to the conclusion personally, for Rhodes had made a that I had not been wrong, that my fool of him. The duplicity of the man ultimate political lodestar was not a left him furious. In one rash move was will-o’-the-wisp and was worthy of demolished the good work of being followed in the future even more friendship and co-operation between seriously than I had done in the past. the two white races. He did not take In the course of 1896 it became so professional work and abstain from all clear to me that the British connection politics and thus allow my mind to was harmful to South Africa’s best mature quietly. interest that I feared my future position as a Cape politician would be a false one. I therefore left the old Colony for good and settled in Johannesburg where the next two years were spent in quiet isolation and hard professional work... During these two years I was a silent but intensely interested spectator of the whole South African drama as it was being played in the Golden City where grievances were made quite as systematically as money... My profession brought me behind the scenes... I felt convinced the inevitable struggle was approaching... I also felt very strongly that I was very young and inexperienced and that it would be far better for me to devote myself for some years purely to my 10 : STATE ATTORNEY he told my grandfather. “The day after tomorrow I have to leave for the IN September, 1896, Ons Land Transvaal again. We would like to get announced that Advocate Smuts married tomorrow, failing which Isie would seek admission to the Transvaal will have to come up by train to marry Bar. “It would be a cause for regret if me.” The old man said it was all very the Cape were to lose one of its sudden, but having visions of possibly cleverest, most promising sons.” But having to accompany his daughter up my father had made up his mind, and to Johannesburg, he decided that the the Cape did lose one of its most next day it should be, and made promising sons, for not long after he arrangements accordingly. On the 30th left for Johannesburg and set up in Isie and Jan were quietly married chambers Commissioner Street. The before Professor J. F. Marais, and on practice, though steady, never really the following day the couple entrained flourished and to assist he also for Johannesburg. They set up house lectured in Law. on the spot now occupied by Ingram’s At the end of April, 1897, he paid a Pharmacy at the corner of Twist and flying visit to Stellenbosch. Arriving, Coetzee Streets, on Hospital Hill. unexpectedly to all except Isie, at the Johannesburg was then small, with Krige home on the 29th, he suddenly houses dispersed about the veld, and disclosed his plans for getting married. my mother lived in such mortal fear of “I am down here on brief business and natives that when my father was away Isie and I would like to get married,” at his office she carefully locked all Lippert that angered the mining the doors. In the Cape she had come community of Johannesburg so much. across only the Cape Coloureds. Their Others were connected with the first visitor in Johannesburg was Hatherly Distillery, Selati Railway and Daniel François Malan, boyhood mining concessions. friend from Riebeeck West. Later they Kruger ruled despotically by moved to new apartments in Buxton “resolution”, and few records were Street, Doornfontein. Here premature kept in government offices. He was twins were born to them in 1898, but now in his seventy-fourth year and the the infants survived but a few weeks. fact that he had the most painful Meanwhile all was not well in affliction of in growing eyelashes did Kruger’s house in the Transvaal. He little to improve his humour. His auto- had grouped about him numerous cratic rule brought him into constant incompetent relatives and friends and collision with the Supreme Court, and there was much criticism of his as the resolutions increased in number appointment of Hollanders to high so did the disagreement. When Mr. offices. Graft and corruption were Justice Kotze ruled a grondwet case, considerable, but Kruger, though not involving over £300,000, in favour of personally implicated, shut his eyes to a mining company, Kruger was it. For small favours he was in the wrathful. Kotze was dismissed. habit of granting concessions. One The country was scandalised and was the dynamite concession to hardly a supporter for Kruger could be found. My father was just then about strongly of the man’s “meddling in to step into the most interesting case politics”. he had yet undertaken, the defence of Meanwhile Dr. Leyds,8 big, genial, the notorious von Veltheim, who had blond, had resigned as State Secretary shot Woolf Joel, nephew of Barney to take up a diplomatic appointment, Barnato. He dropped this case at once, to which his charms were eminently for he saw in the Kruger controversy a suited. Abraham Fischer refused to ex- much more important issue. He change Bloemfontein for Pretoria, and stepped in to uphold the President in a so for a while, before the appointment very cleverly devised document, of ex-President F.W. Reitz, father of quoting at length from the Roman Deneys, the post was vacant. One of Dutch Law, in which he probably had the names mentioned in the press for no peer in the country at the time. The that vacancy had been that of my sum of his argument really showed father. There were, however, obstacles only that the President was not neces- in the way, in that he was still two sarily wrong. The document met with years too young to sit in the Executive much hostility from the legal fraternity; but it impressed the President. There can be no doubt of my father’s sincerity in interfering in 8 Dr. in. J. Leyds (1859-1940) was Attorney- this Kotze dispute, for he disapproved General of the South African Republic in 1881. He was later appointed plenipotentiary of the Republic in Europe. Committee; moreover he was not a from the Cape – that was all in his burgher of the Republic. favour. Shortly afterwards Dr. J. Coster, the My father secured the appointment. State Attorney, a Hollander, resigned On the 2nd June the Star remarked, after serious differences with the “Though he may have all the President. The name of Jan Smuts was precociousness of a Pitt, we still mentioned as a possible successor. consider that twenty-eight is rather too Here a friend, Henri Malan, came to young an age for the State Attorney of my father’s help by introducing him to the South African Republic.” Kruger’s young nephew Piet Grobler, One of the nicest letters of who was also his private secretary. congratulation upon his appointment Grobler took my father along one was from D. F. Malan. morning and introduced him to the President, remarking diplomatically “I might have hesitated”, my father that he would make a good State wrote subsequently, “to undertake Attorney. Kruger was taken aback at such a tremendous responsibility as the boyish looks of the young man that office entails, for I was conscious, before him, but he needed in the not only of my youth and failings, not Transvaal young men who were both only of the temptations of power, but naturally clever and highly educated. especially of the tempests which the Jan Smuts was also a young Afrikaner State would have to weather probably during my term of office. I thought that I might yet be able to help the He eulogised my father as “one of the great cause of reconciliation ..... cleverest lawyers in South Africa and a man of versatile attainments besides. Kruger had given my father his chance He is personally a very simple man in life. He seized it with zest. Though and to meet him one would not suspect their collaboration was destined to be that he possessed so iron a will or so of limited duration, a firm friendship determined a character... Smuts will grew up between these two opposite yet play a great part in the future of types, Kruger old, stolid and bigoted, South Africa.” my father youthful, brilliant and idealistic. From the first, Kruger liked The office of State Attorney was not a this young man, and in the days that political one, for the Attorney was not followed he saw his value and leaned a member of the Executive Council upon his judgment. The relationship, and only addressed them by request, or he said, was as “between a father and in explanation or elucidation of Bills. his son”. To legalise my father’s appointment, Kruger created him a second-class “When long afterwards I asked the burgher. President what had induced him to offer so important a post to an The new job was beset with a hundred inexperienced, unknown youth like and one personal little difficulties, “but me,” my father said, “he replied these”, my father wrote, “were as laughingly, because he had heard that nothing compared to the intrigue by my wife was much better than I” which I was surrounded, by political and official enemies, by liquor syndicates, scheming concessionaires and powerful evildoers in high places. At times I was so completely worn out by this increasing intrigue and persecution that I would have thrown up the sponge were it not for the unfaltering support of the President, who was aware of the magnitude of the forces arrayed against me.” 11 : UITLANDERS “I succeeded”, my father wrote, “in clearing out the Augean Stable of the MY father’s position as State Attorney corrupt Detective Administration and in the Kruger Government was an established in its stead a system which interesting if peculiar one. All around has worked with admirable results.” were corruption and maladminis- Strangely enough, Bob Ferguson tration, these mostly sprouting seemed to bear him no ill-will. indirectly from the presidential front. It was, therefore, a matter of delicacy The Raid had done much to bolster to know just where to tackle matters or Kruger’s waning prestige with his how far to go. My father said as much countrymen. The young German to Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, the leader of Emperor William II congratulated him the Uitlanders, when the latter came to on quelling the Raid without external complain about the state of affairs. assistance. Outside interference was One of my father’s first actions, in further consolidating his position. face of considerable opposition in the My father’s recollections of Kruger Volksraad, was to sack Bob Ferguson, were vivid, for the old man made a the head of the C.I.D., who, he said, deep impression on him. I have at was a “particularly smart man, singu- times heard him describe the President larly unsuccessful in getting at as the “greatest” of all Afrikaners. criminals”. He took on the department Clearly he did not really mean the himself. greatest statesman, but the most colourful character or personality. For Kruger was indeed unique in his, Meanwhile international relations ancient ruggedness, and might fittingly between the President and Britain have stepped back into the days of were steadily worsening. Rhodes Abraham or Joshua. effectively controlled the English- speaking press of South Africa, and Of his personal integrity my father the Uitlanders’ grievances and was never in doubt. True, the old man countless small points of friction were was not averse to stretching a point, magnified out of all proportion. but he was never amenable to Rhodes, like Milner, was determined professional graft. It was his to force the war issue by any means. surroundings that were rotten, but he The 20,000 Uitlanders petitioned was too old and weary to deal with the Queen Victoria to come to their problem. assistance in the Transvaal. The papers In June, 1898, my parents went to live condemned the “warmongers” Kruger in Pretoria, taking a house in and Smuts. Once and for all the Sunnyside on the corner of Walker and Uitlander Question must be solved. As Buite (now Bourke) Streets. Here in the English author A.M.S. Methuen April of the following year, a son was wrote, “The South African press born to them, who died eighteen became a manufactory of outrages” months later when my father was against the Republic. fighting in the Western Transvaal. That the Uitlanders, many of them no more than gentlemen of adventure, had genuine grievances is only too patent. Transvaal burghers. They declined to There was the amazing neglect of the serve in the Defence Force or to con- teaching of English in schools, even tribute towards its upkeep. As my though the Uitlanders contributed 90 father remarked, they were there per cent of the fees for education. simply to make money. There was the appalling state of the Meanwhile Kruger was going ahead sanitary arrangements of Johannes- with his proposed extension of the burg; and there were the irritating dynamite concession. The Uitlanders monopolies, more especially the raised their voices in wrath at this half- iniquitous dynamite concession grant- a-million-pound racket. Milner ed to Lippert. All this was added to protested. Conyugham Greene, the and distorted out of all reason by British Agent, says that the attitude of Rhodes and his clique. Uitlander E. B. my father and others was defiant Rose condemned the propaganda “as because they believed that the Imperial part and parcel of the crusade of Government would threaten but not calumny upon the Boers, having for its act. object eventual British intervention and destruction of Boer indepen- The arrest of five prominent people in dence”. Johannesburg on charges of treason did little to soothe ruffled feelings, The Uitlanders demanded citizenship even though the charges were later rights and privileges, yet refused to dropped as unfounded. A warrant for renounce their nationality and become the arrest of two British journalists in Johannesburg, Moneypenny of the was not unmindful of the warning of Star and Pakenham of the Transvaal its Governor. Leader, was issued because of the Another unfortunate incident now “flagrant and provocative untruths” occurred in Johannesburg when an they were publishing. Little except Uitlander named Edgar was shot dead worsened feelings came of this. by a Republic policeman after a brawl. From London Dr. Leyds cabled a word Opinion was divided on the provo- of warning on May 15: “England has cation for the use of firearms in this now everywhere a free hand. I doubt if case, and the policeman Jones was anybody will do anything for us.” A fined £300 in a court of law. Such a fortnight later he cabled from Berlin, cry went up that my father ordered a “Minister of Foreign Affairs says retrial, in which Jones got off. This Germany still friendly to South was nearly the last straw. The people African Republic, but cannot assist in were sick and tired of the bullying case of war because England is master methods of the “Zarps” (police). Meet- of the seas. Hope South African ings of protest were held and there was Republic will concede, as much as is a minor clash in Johannesburg. consistent with independence.” In the Cape Milner adopted a firmer attitude towards any show of sympa- thy with the north. He sent naval units round the coast to Durban. The Cape 12 : DARK CLOUDS have generally been kind to the Alfred Milner of this period, but he stands ALFRED MILNER appeared on the revealed before history by his own scene after the Jameson Raid, and as Papers. In the worsening conditions Britain’s senior representative was that followed, it was not the Boers destined to play a decisive part in the who were spoiling for a fight, certainly storms that followed. He graduated not the Boer Government, but Milner brilliantly from Balliol. From his himself, who was determined to bring German father he had inherited a matters to a head and to crush the strong streak of ruthlessness, from his Republics. To this same idea he grad- Irish mother a certain perversity. He ually converted Joseph Chamberlain. was a determined and capable man. Though the problems of the day at first There is reason to believe that he came appeared to centre round gold and the to South Africa with the fixed idea of Uitlander grievances, these merely Forcing the Boer issue. How, did not camouflaged the broader intention of really matter, for he had little outright annexation. Kruger and my sympathy with the Boers. If he was father saw the problem approaching. not contemptuous of them, he certain- The attitude they adopted towards ly distrusted them. Britain was hostile only in the abstract Britain had therefore, either by design sense. They were not foolish enough or accident, exported to South Africa to want a war against the greatest the most dangerous man she could possibly have chosen. Biographers Empire in the world, with her almost hand, instead of through the biased inexhaustible resources. eyes of Milner, my father felt certain that war would have been averted. I have on numerous occasions heard Contentious topics such as this, how- my father discuss in private conver- ever, he always said were better left to sation the part played by Milner in the the historians. The facts were so well months before the war. He always established that there was little he discussed this subject purely as a could now add to guide historians. historian, without any trace of rancour Needless to say, he was an encyclo- and with complete detachment and paedia on the inside stories of events absence of bias. He was also, quite of the last fifty years. The failure to obviously, speaking as the greatest write his memoirs, which we all urged living authority on the subject. He him to undertake, was a loss to history. never had any doubts that Milner was determined to provoke the war. No Sir William Butler, who acted while compromise would have satisfied him Milner was away in England for a short of complete surrender of sover- while, did his best to patch up things. eignty. Milner was the guilty party; He lost no opportunity of warning his Joseph Chamberlain was only his home government that Milner was gullible henchman. misleading them. But Chamberlain, under the spell of Milner, turned a deaf Had Chamberlain himself come out to ear. Nor did he heed the mounting South Africa in 1899, instead of in voice of the Liberal Opposition. 1903, and seen conditions at first Campbell-Bannerman’s and Lloyd to England, are now being worked George’s words fell on deaf ears. by... a colossal syndicate for the Catastrophe was fast approaching. spread of systematic misrepresenta- tion.” So the two governments availed them- selves of the good offers of the Free Nor did the Conference make an State Government to hold a Con- auspicious start, for at a reception ference in Bloemfontein. This Confer- given by President Steyn of the ence, which lasted a week, started on Orange Free State, Milner pointedly 30th May, 1899, and was attended by refused to shake the outstretched hand Milner, assisted by his aide Hanbury- of Kruger who came to greet him. This Williams and secretary, Lord Bel- little incident typified Milner’s attitude grave, and three clerical assistants, on at the Conference which followed. He the one side, and Kruger, Schalk Bur- had not come here to bargain, but to ger, Wolmarans and my father on the dictate. He is said to have greeted my other. Abraham Fischer acted as inter- father with civility. Perhaps he thought preter. Sir William Butler did not view this might win the young man over the prospects of the Conference with and make him more pliable. But as the optimism. He distrusted Milner as days progressed be was to find that much as he did Rhodes. Some while this spirited young man could not be earlier he had remarked: “All political swayed. Milner demanded far-reach- questions in South Africa and nearly ing franchise rights for the Uitlanders, all information sent from Cape Town but Kruger pointed out that this was unreasonable as was burghers would before every possible effort at settle- be out-voted by two to one. “If we ment had been explored. The Republic give them the franchise we may as were now prepared to bring the well give up the Republic,” he said. qualifying period for complete fran- But demand mounted on demand and chise down to seven years. Milner Kruger, getting more and more harass- flatly rejected it. So the haggling went ed, refused each with increasing on, Kruger getting more and more irritation. My father, however, did not weary. At last he could stand it no lose his equanimity; he was constantly longer: “It is my country that you at Kruger’s elbow to restrain and want,” he cried. “It is our indepen- advise. He felt it a grave responsibility dence you are taking away.” He refer- not to fail Kruger or his friends at this red with feeling to the stream of hour, and it was soon apparent that it British army reinforcements that were was my father, and not Kruger, whom pouring into the country. “I am not Milner had to deal with. The young ready to hand over my country to man kept on bobbing up so frequently strangers,” he concluded. That was his to whisper to Kruger, that Milner final word, and on this inconclusive, began to grow exasperated. but disturbing, note the Conference broke up. It had been unsatisfactory in Much as he disliked doing so, my every respect, and my father remarked father preached compromise at this later to Piet Grobler, “It is perfectly stage. The odds were too great to permit the Conference to break down clear to me that Milner is planning to in Pretoria, might show a way out. make war.” These lasted from 12th July till 28th August and were to end in failure, but Milner says in his diary that he arrived a sincere effort had been made by both at the Bloemfontein Conference with Greene and my father to explore the intention of being friendly and co- hopeful channels. These discussions operative. But as the Conference were subsequently the centre of a progressed he grew to dislike Kruger controversy. Several meetings occurr- and his henchmen. He did, however, ed and there was some correspondence make a note in his diary about all of which is set out by my father in “Kruger’s brilliant State Attorney”. a Government Green Book. The Republic was meanwhile thinking things over carefully. On August 19 From this it is clear that there could Kruger wrote that he was prepared to never have been any doubt in Greene’s concede the Uitlanders a five years’ mind that my father was acting residential franchise. This was actually privately without mandate from his what Milner had initially demanded. Government and that the talks were Joseph Chamberlain rejected the offer. purely exploratory. Greene, no doubt under diplomatic pressure, after nego- On his return from Bloemfontein my tiations had broken down denied that father saw but one further ray of hope. he was aware of this. My father said Perhaps informal discussions with that he was certain that he could obtain Conyngham Greene, the British Agent from the Volksraad seats for ten Uitlander members for Johannesburg ing “Immediate withdrawal of Her and Barberton in the Government. The Majesty’s forces”. “Kruger”, wrote Volksraad confirmed their readiness to W.T. Stead in the Review of Reviews, do this. Greene was friendly and well- “would have been a traitor to his own disposed towards my father, and it is people if he had not launched the certain that the breakdown of the ultimatum.” negotiations was engineered under “God alone knows how deeply I instruction from superior authority and wished, how hard I worked that peace did not originate from Greene. In his might be maintained,” my father wrote final note to Greene my father said, “I in his diary. “In the teeth of the most do not believe that there is the slightest violent opposition and of the bitterest chance that these terms will be altered calumny, I succeeded in inducing the or amplified. Your decision will there- Executive Council and the Volksraad fore have to be arrived at on these to accept the five years’ franchise terms as they stand.” President M.T. scheme of Sir A. Milner, with addi- Steyn sent a last desperate message of tional clauses as to parliamentary peace to Britain through the High representation which made it even Commissioner, but to no avail. more liberal than the original propo- On September 22 Chamberlain sever- sal... I was prepared to sacrifice my ed diplomatic relations with the Trans- position, myself, even to compromise vaal. My father drafted an ultimatum the dignity and honour of the to Great Britain on October 9 request- Republic.”

The Boer War 13 : Boer War True, he never spoke about it, but that was because he was sick of the politi- There now appeared a Boer manifesto cal use that was made of it, and of entitled Century of Wrong. It was an having its anti-English quotations cast exhortation to the people on the eve of at him. It was simply a shrill, clear battle, listing the wrongs perpetrated bugle-call to the nation, and it is unfair by the British in South Africa during to quote it out of its context or historic the past hundred years. It was written setting. by my father in High Dutch, from facts he and Jimmie Roos had col- Many were subsequently to forget that lected. The language was said by Britain had made amends for this experts to be superb Netherlands and it unhappy century. Politicians in South abounded in classical idiom. My Africa make the past die hard. My mother translated it into English. As father’s message was always for the the manifesto appeared over no name future. So, in fact, was Kruger’s; he and as it was published by State had said, “Take only what is good out Secretary Reitz, he was at first thought of the past.” to be the author. On the way from Irene to our bushveld It is said that in after years my father farm the road passed two spots which was ashamed of this hot-headed little never failed to awaken in my father manifesto. That is not so, for how can old memories of the Boer War, and he exception be taken to it if the purpose would then reminisce about these stir- of this document is taken into account. ring times. The one spot was where the road crossed the low concrete would begin. The Boers felt convinced causeway over the Boekenhout Spruit, that in these circumstances Britain the other was the view of the gap would be prepared to make an early through the mountains near Premier peace rather than be involved in a long Mine, known to the Boers as and costly war. The Transvaal had Donkerhoek and to the British as concluded a mutual assistance pact Diamond Hill. For it was at Diamond with the Free State Republic, the Hill that some of the heaviest fighting general state of arming of the Boers occurred, and it was the Boekenhout was satisfactory, and they were all Spruit down which my father passed well-trained hunters and marksmen. on his way to the Western Transvaal at There was also the understanding that the start of the guerrilla phase of the their countrymen of the Cape would be war after the fall of Pretoria. A careful sympathetic, if not helpful, and that plan for the conduct of the war had some reinforcements might come from been drawn up by the Republic, he there. told me. The strategy briefly was for The Boer commandos of the two the Boers to strike down swiftly at Republics were mobilised in good Durban and the other ports upon the time, and before the ultimatum to outbreak of hostilities, in order to Britain expired a vast mounted force prevent the British landing rein- was already gathered on the Natal forcements. That phase completed, the border at Sandspruit, under Comman- mopping up of troops in the country dant-General Piet Joubert. Well led, this force might, by a rals White and French at Nicholson’s lightning stroke, have produced Nek, taking 400 prisoners, but inex- decisive results. The fly in the plicably failing to pursue the broken ointment, however, was the age and foe. When remonstrated with, he is decrepitude of this hoary old general, reported to have remarked, “It would and his conservative and passive be barbarous to pursue a beaten Chris- outlook on military matters. My father tian foe.” The British forces withdrew described him as already passé at that into the perimeter of Ladysmith where, time, and “hopelessly incompetent”. instead of by-passing it and pressing True, the old veteran had in his day on to the coast, the Boers were delayed had considerable successes in the by a long and fruitless siege, for it was Kaffir wars, but against resourceful not strongly garrisoned and tactically adversaries such as the British he was of minor importance. The error at out of his depth. Ladysmith, my father felt, probably cost the Boers the war. The Boers entered Natal in two columns, one under General Lukas The concentration of Boer forces on Meyer and the other under General the hills around Ladysmith left the Joubert. The war started off with a ports clear and the British rushed in a heartening series of victories for the steady stream of reinforcements. Boers. Meyer decisively defeated General Buller’s earlier attempts at the General Penn-Symon’s forces at relief of Ladysmith led to his defeats Talana Hill, and Joubert routed Gene- at Colenso and Spion Kop. Methuen

Ladysmith was trounced by Cronje and de la Rey A British train returning from a recon- at Modder River, and Gatacre, sent to naissance was captured between Frere Burghersdorp to check the raiding and Chievely on 15th November, Free State commandos, was repulsed 1899. Amongst the prisoners was the by Grobler at Stormberg. Woolhope young correspondent of the Morning was defeated by Cronje at Magers- Post, Winston Spencer Churchill. His fontein. He himself was killed and a captor was Commandant Louis Botha. battalion of the Black Watch virtually The “defiant young man”, my father wiped out. recounted, was brought before him looking “dishevelled and most The avalanche of reverses shocked and indignant and claiming immunity as a dismayed the British nation. It was non-combatant. It was pointed out, many a year since there had been such however, that he was carrying a pistol a bleak series of disasters. But rein- when captured and so he was sent on forcements were pouring in and new detention to Pretoria.” The story of hope was centred in the two crack Mr. Churchill’s subsequent escape to generals, Lord Roberts of Kandahar, Lourenço Marques is well known. I the Commander-in-Chief, and Lord heard him recount it at Chequers forty- Kitchener of Khartoum, his Chief of five years after the event, and was Staff, who had been sent post-haste to amazed at the wealth of place names stem the tide and to take over from and detail he still remembered. Here, Britain’s aged Zulu War V.C., General too, I heard my father tell Mr. Redvers Buller. Churchill an aspect of the story of When things went badly for the Boers which he had not previously been they grew suspicious of this corres- aware. It appears that my father had pondent, be it added quite without developed quite a liking for the high- reason, and sitting one night in his tent spirited young man he had interro- Mr. Amery heard himself discussed in gated, and so, some days afterwards, unfriendly terms. He took the hint and he persuaded General Joubert that discreetly departed. there was not much point in detaining Meanwhile General Joubert had died him, for he was, after all, a newspaper and Louis Botha had taken over correspondent and his infringement supreme command. The change, had only been a technical one. His though it infused new hope in the Boer release was, therefore, authorised, but forces, came too late to have decisive before it could be put into effect he results. had escaped. Mr. Churchill was delighted to hear this, for he realised During these days my father was kept that by doing so he had doubly extremely busy not only running the outwitted his adversaries. Government in Pretoria and seeing to security measures, but also paying Attached to the Boer forces was frequent visits to the front. From there another British correspondent repre- he would bring back to the Govern- senting The Times, Leo S. Amery, ment first-hand reports of the fighting. through the long years to become He carried out these inspections another firm friend of my father’s. because he saw the urgent need for hurry, and was forever infusing de Wet were slowly rolled backwards urgency into the torpid old Boer towards the Transvaal. From the Natal generals who would not bother about side, too, Botha and de la Rey were his exhortations. falling back towards Pretoria. At last the British were ready. An Deneys Reitz says that after the initial overpowering mass of men had been Boer successes in Natal, the troops in assembled on South African soil. the field had hoped that Britain might Roberts struck, and soon Kimberley, be prepared to call the war off as she Mafeking and Ladysmith had been had done after her reverse at Amajuba relieved. Cronje was encircled at in the Anglo-Boer War of 1881; but Paardeberg and capitulated with 3,700 his father, ex-President Reitz of the men. This was the first big Boer Free State, told him it was a vain hope. disaster, but was merely a foretaste of The older man was right: this time what was to follow. On 13th March, Britain had sustained grievous losses, 1900, Bloemfontein fell and General and she was determined, once and for French pushed on with his armada of all, to see this struggle through to its 1,000 wagons on the heels of the bitter end. retreating commandos. The flat plains Behind the retreating Boers came of the Free State and the slowly and relentlessly the long overwhelming nature of the opposition columns from Britain. Even when they gave the Boers no chance of a stand. were out of view their presence could President Steyn and General Christian readily be detected by the great clouds of red dust on the horizon. The Boers’ golden opportunity had come and gone. After Natal it was to be for them, with few exceptions, a long and depressing war of retreat, always vastly outgunned, hopelessly outnumbered, and relentlessly pursued by the massive columns. As an epic of struggle against overwhelming odds this war has few equals, and to many it has always been a source of amazement that any semblance whatever of morale remained. Yet the two years that were to follow proved that it had survived. 14 : PRETORIA FALLS history of Southern Africa, without melancholy emotion. IT was on the hills to the north of Pretoria that the Boers were to make Rising like a bastion on the lower their final stand. Perhaps it would be slopes of the Highveld, it looks on the appropriate to quote here from a brief South at the smiling grassy plains and account written in English by my uplands of the Highveld and on the father shortly after the war: North at the endless dreary prospect of the lowveld bush. And with the same This Magaliesberg was destined soon cold callous look which it wears today to be the scene of the biggest battle it has regarded the beautiful valleys fought by the Boer forces after the North and South along its slopes occu- great actions on the Tugela and the pied and cultivated by successive races Modder River, and was thereafter, in of men. It saw the nation of the consequence of the activity of de la Magatese grow up here in comparative Rey and his lieutenants, to become one peace until it was the greatest Bantu of the most famous theatres of the war people in the Transvaal and it took its in South Africa. name from Mamagali, Great Chief of It is impossible to contemplate this this people. It saw the Magatese power bleak and uninviting and apparently broken and annihilated by the Zulu insignificant mountain range, the silent armies under Moselekatze who cleared and grim spectator of so much in the the whole country North of the Orange River in order to found on its ruins a kingdom of his own. And where the of plenty for more than 80 years. And Magatese bones were bleaching in the now it was to see the curtain rise on sun it saw an endless chain of Zulu the most tragic spectacle of all, and a kraals and fortifications arising, fresh tide of racial war sweep over stretching from a point North of these fair regions and convert them Pretoria to the confines of the Kalahari into ruin and desolation such as even desert, which can still be seen today. It the ruthless barbarians of Moselekatze saw in turn the Zulu power smashed in had failed to effect. 1837 by the Emigrant Boers in the The fall of Pretoria forms in many great actions at Mosega and Maricos- respects a turning point in the history poort and this Attila of Central South of the war. Africa flee for refuge Northward to the territory of the former glorious Since the retreat from the Modder kingdom of Monomotapa, where a River and Tugela, victory had but renewed career of conquest was only seldom and then very briefly smiled to lead to the melancholy fate of his ou the Boer arms. It was everlastingly people under his son and successor retreat; retreat – wearying, dispiriting Lobengula. It saw the country all retreat. At every stage of the retreat the around converted into one of the most Boer cause became more hopeless, the beautiful and fertile parts of South Boer army smaller in numbers, and the Africa, and Boer and Magatese Boer resources more exhausted. enjoying the fruits of peace in a land Pretoria – that holy of holies of the Republic in South Africa – was generally expected to mark a decisive They did not know that in the inner stage of the war; to the British circle of their Government it had commanders the expected final stand already been decided to abandon at Pretoria and its capture seemed to Pretoria without a serious resistance be the coup de grâce to the Republics; and that the hope of those who saw to the Boer rank and file it appeared in furthest and thought deepers in the advance as the great Armageddon Boer cause was not in the fortified where the Boer force, concentrated town but on the illimitable veld. Paul from all points of the compass in Kruger and his advisers saw quite defence of their central stronghold, clearly that a siege of Pretoria would would deliver that final united blow be of but brief duration and inevitably from which perhaps the British forces fatal to the Boer cause. And there is no might be sent reeling back to the coast. doubt that they were right; if the Boers Perhaps and perhaps not; at any rate had staked their last chalice on the the action there would be decisive and defence of Pretoria, the war would thousands of burghers stuck to their have been over in June or July of commandos in the course of this 1900, at any rate so far as the disastrous retreat simply because they Transvaal was concerned. believed that the decisive battle would A prolongation of the war was of be fought at Pretoria, and at that battle course undesirable, but it was a better they were determined to be present. alternative than early and final defeat at Pretoria. And so it happened that, while the Boer forces were still falling the enemy to the capital that same back on the forts and fortifications of night. The Boer forces were still Pretoria, many with a strange hope beyond Johannesburg and nothing born of faith in their cause, the could be heard from them. Here Republican Government had already evidently was a case for swift left the place and had moved on to decision. The President called a Middelburg on the Delagoa railway meeting of the Executive at his house line. late that afternoon where it was decided that he with the State This happened some days before the Secretary and some other prominent actual fall of Pretoria. During the day officials should leave that same night telegrams had arrived to the effect that for Middelburg; and to prevent the Boksburg was threatened or taken, that sudden departure attracting too much Germiston had been taken, and that a attention it was decided that he should large mounted body of the enemy was go out by cart by the Eastern road and moving rapidly on in the direction of take the train in the direction of Pretoria. In the course of the afternoon Koedoespoort. It was further decided driblets of alarmist news came; first that Schalk Burger and myself should one and then another and then yet remain behind to represent the another station on the road to Pretoria, Government and maintain order at the was reported to have been reached by capital. an advanced British force, and it was feared that a forced march would bring As soon as the Government had left We then returned to town and sent that night and while the alarmist news forward scouts to look for the enemy. about the rapid advance of the British The alarm proved to have been a false was still spreading consternation, we one as the British had not advanced started to take steps to prevent the beyond Rietfontein Station and had town from falling bloodlessly into gone back from there towards evening. their hands that night. Orders were Ridiculous as the whole affair may given for the commandeering of every appear, it must not be forgotten that a available burgher in the town and night march such as was over and over between 9 and 10 that night we left again performed by the British Pretoria with a motley crowd of about columns in the later stages of the war 400 or 500 men in the direction of would have brought them to Pretoria Irene to intercept the advance of the that night and that but for the show of invaders. resistance which would have come Schalk Burger unfortunately became from us they might have captured ill that night and could not accompany Pretoria without firing a shot. us but we had the veteran Lukas At that time Pretoria still held all our Meyer to lead us to battle. We held the reserve money and all our reserve hills sloping down to Six Mile Sprint ammunition, and the ignominy of such with anxious determination and were a bloodless capture would have been not a little relieved when morning only equalled by its disastrous came without the dreaded foe. effects… The days that followed were a most members. This committee consisted of anxious time; the Government had left those patriots who had during the Schalk Burger and myself behind to coarse of the war come to conceive a represent them but had unfortunately horror of warfare in general and of omitted to confer on us any special heavy artillery in particular; as they authority. were not in the know and were under the impression that Pretoria was going My colleague immediately thereafter to be defended with determination, left Pretoria to take his family to their principal anxiety was to devise Lydenburg and I was left behind alone ways and means to prevent the with such authority as the law confers bombardment of the town by an early on the State Attorney in ordinary surrender, so that they acquired the peaceful times. I had to contradict the unenviable name of the “surrender wild rumours which the sudden committee”. Indeed rumour had it that disappearance of the Government had there was a strong rivalry in the given rise to, and I had to maintain committee between the various order; while to add to my misfortunes candidates for the honour of going out my authority did not remain in a black coat and with a white flag in unquestioned and a rival started up in order to surrender the town to Lord the shape of a so-called “rust en orde” Roberts. committee of which the Burgomaster Piet Potgieter and the Chief Justice Another trouble was the absence of the Gregorowski formed prominent regular police and police officers which compelled us to improvise a It was towards the end of that eventful force for the maintenance of order. week that a memorable gathering of Nor were we quite successful in this, Boer commanders took place in a for although there was an unusual room at the telegraph offices for the absence of crime, we could not purpose of laying before the President prevent the Government stores from by telegram the pitiful plight of the being broken into by the populace and Boer cause. There were Botha, de la looted in broad daylight. The populace Key, Tobias Smuts, Lemmer, Ben at any rate saw no sense in hoarding Viljoen and most of those who had stores for the invaders; and when the either become famous or were still to hungry Boer forces arrived at Pretoria become famous in the following two some days afterwards they scarcely years. After mature consideration that found anything to eat and thousands gathering submitted to the President passed with sad hearts and empty the tentative suggestion to end the war stomachs through the ungrateful at Pretoria. capital. Their motives for doing so were the On the arrival of the Commandant- deplorable state of the Boer army General military authority was at once which had melted away so that scarce resumed over the town, military 7,000 could be mustered at Pretoria; officers appointed and intriguers and the certainty of an inglorious ending if the surrender committee cowed into the war was continued any longer, the inactivity. strong probability of the complete devastation of the country and the utter President also, for his reply was that hopelessness of achieving any success he would consult President Steyn on after the losses and defeats of the past. their suggestion. I shall never forget the bitter This happened on Friday night (1 humiliation and despondency of that June) and on Saturday morning a great awful moment when the stoutest hearts War Council was to be held to and strongest wills in the Transvaal consider what further steps were to be army were, albeit but for a moment, to taken for the defence of Pretoria. In sink beneath the tide of our the meantime the two Presidents were misfortune. What all felt so deeply communicating over the telegraph was that the fight had gone out of the wires and the suggestion of the Boers, that the heroes who had stood Transvaal officers received an answer like a stone wall on the Tugela and the from the Free State President which Modder River, who had stormed Spion was to have momentous effects on the Kop and Ladysmith and many other future not only of the war but of the forlorn hopes, had lost heart and hope, Boer people. had gone home and forsaken their To the despairing cry of the Transvaler officers. It was not Lord Roberts’s Steyn replied expressing unalterable army that they feared, it was the utter opposition to peace, practically collapse of the Boer rank and file accused the Transvaalers of which staggered these great officers. cowardice, pointed out that after they And it staggered the iron-willed old had involved the Free State and the Colonial rebels in ruin they were now in Sunnyside, after the British shelling to conclude a selfish and disgraceful of the railway line. peace as soon as the war had reached My mother was in Pretoria at the time their borders, and concluded with the it fell. She tells of the feverish activity statement that whatever the that went on at our house which more Transvaalers might do the Free State or less became the Boer tactical would fight on even if it stood alone to headquarters as the end approached. the bitter end. She saw the thousands of British troops plod past on their way out. She The telegrams that passed between tells of the numerous officers who had President Kruger’s Headquarters and come in search of something to eat. my father at Pretoria, my mother Twice the house was searched, the carefully rolled into wads and secreted first time by an officer named Hughes in the massive brass curtain rods of and next by one Silver. They were our house, before the British marched civil but formal and needless to say into Pretoria. These she retrieved found nothing. unharmed after the war and they now form part of my father’s documents. My mother had in her possession 200 golden sovereigns which she feared From the siege of Pretoria I still have a would fall into British hands. When dozen heavy fragments of shrapnel they came on their first search she picked up by my mother in our garden dropped the money into the hot water boiler of the stove, and all the time the search was on she was on tenterhooks Krugersdorp and after having crossed lest her hoard would melt. As soon as the Magaliesberg had turned East so the party left she darted to retrieve the that in a day’s time he would be coins and they were subsequently used behind the Boer lines and would cut in the detention camp at Maritzburg. off their retreat to the North or attack Pretoria from the rear. The fall of Pretoria occurred about a week before the battle that was to So far as I am aware there was nothing follow. There was still much to do in memorable about the fight at Pretoria the doomed city as the British and I shall therefore leave its details to approached. I quote here from my be dealt with by the historians. All I father: need say and really the only matter of importance in connection with the So dawned Monday – the eventful 4th fight was that the Boer show of of June. Lord Roberts had reached Six resistance completely succeeded in its Mile Spruit with an enormous force object; which was to keep the British which was more than sufficient to out of Pretoria that day and to give the break the show, of resistance of less officials time to remove the money than 7,000 dispirited and demoralised and gold belonging to the Government Boers. Between him and Pretoria there and the vast quantities of reserve was only the low line of hills in which ammunition, and some guns that were some of the Pretoria toy forts are still at Pretoria. situated. Meanwhile General French had kept in a Northerly direction from The removal of the money and gold of obtained delivery of all the gold in the Government, which was lying at question. At the suggestion of General the National Bank and in the Mint was Botha I looked for and found further a my special business. I had been in special war fund of £25,000 standing friendly negotiations for some days to the credit of the Commandant- with the directors of the bank in order General. After suitably rewarding the to obtain peaceable possession of the officials of the Mint for their arduous money and gold of the Government work in coining money for the which still remained in their custody Government during the war I started to the value of between 400 and 500 for the station, put all the gold on a thousand pounds sterling. When these special train in charge of a reliable negotiations failed nothing remained force of police and had the train for me but to issue a warrant for their despatched that Monday afternoon arrest and to threaten them with while shells were burning all round the criminal proceedings which proved station and a number of howitzers effectual. On the Monday morning the were being vainly used to wreck the directors informed me that if I railway at Sunnyside going East to employed force they would consent to Delagoa Bay. hand over the gold which was the So on the Magaliesberg to the north of property of the Government. I Pretoria the 7,000 Boers took up their therefore got a special body of about positions, holding a line mainly to the 50 police, entered the bank, and east of the town. The English were trying vainly to break through the few The four forts on the heights gaps. For some days a big battle raged surrounding Pretoria, built under at one of these, at Diamond Hill, for contract by Lippert, proved to be, as here the British launched their major feared, remnants of an antediluvian attack. This battle, though critical, at concept of strategy and fell without first gradually turned in favour of the firing a shot. Boers, and my father says that after The British were now turning their about the fifth day they began to feel attention to the eastern flank held by distinctly hopeful. The weakness in General Tobias Smuts, a distant the position lay in the fact that the relative. One morning at 2 a.m. Koen Magaliesberg, which here rose 1,000 Brits, his staff officer, burst into the feet above the Highveld, gradually tent my father was sharing with petered out and merged with the flat General Botha at Donkerhoek to the country some twenty miles north-east, east of Pretoria, and told with emotion near Springs. Very heavy fighting that the enemy had burst through the went an around Diamond Hill for a Tobias Smuts sector. So the Boer week. On the farm Kameelfontein, position was outflanked and the whole which my father bought shortly after Magaliesberg line rendered untenable. the war, General Methuen was trapped Pretoria was finished and with it the with a thousand men and in desperate last hope of large-scale Boer plight. Relief came in the nick of time. resistance. In this brief account my father went on He was advancing to Pretoria with an as follows: enormous army vastly outnumbering the Boer forces, he knew that the Boer The history of the Boer War is in force opposed to his advance was the many respects the history of grave miserably inadequate one which had strategical blunders, which had been retiring before him ever since the momentous effects not only on the defeat of Cronje, reduced now to a duration but also on the ultimate issue skeleton of its former self by continual of the war. From the British point of defections from the commandos and view the blunder made by Lord by the Free State commandos Roberts in his march to Pretoria was remaining within their borders. The probably one of the most momentous commandos operating on the Western of the whole war. border at Fourteen Streams and The war was nearly ended at Pretoria Mafeking had been ordered to by the wavering of the officers. Pretoria, but most of them never However, Lord Roberts could not be arrived in time and, besides, their supposed to know the intentions of the numbers were comparatively Boer officers and what he did not insignificant. The Natal commandos know cannot enter into the were still on the Drakensberg to block consideration of any mistake which he the advance of Buller, and were so did make. But how much did he know reduced in number that it was at this time and what ought he, as a impossible for them to spare any prudent commander, to have foreseen? reinforcements for Pretoria. Lord their communications with their Roberts therefore knew that he had Government and their line of retreat only to do with the miserably towards the East were cut off or to be attenuated forces of Botha and de la cut off, and that the only alternative Rey in front of him. was a retreat to the inhospitable Bushveld of the North, that might have It might have been foreseen too that decided their hesitating resolution. the Boer line of retreat, if there was to be any retreat from Pretoria, was to be And even if there was to be no retreat towards the East so that the Boer from Pretoria Lord Roberts had quite forces might keep in touch with their sufficient men at his disposal both for Government and might continue to the siege of Pretoria and for cutting off utilise the Delagoa Railway for the Boer communications to the East. supplies and communication with the Springs, on the railway line East of outside world. To have retired North Boksburg, had been occupied shortly towards Pietersburg would have been after Johannesburg, and, if instead of an altogether foolish undertaking as putting French on the left wing and the unhealthy, sparsely populated and making him describe the useless poor Bushveld to the North of Pretoria detour North of Magaliesberg, he had could offer no inducement whatever placed him on his right and sent him for such a step. If the Boer officers from Springs to Middelburg or who met at the telegraph office at the Balmoral simultaneously with his own meeting already described knew that advance towards Pretoria, Lord Roberts would have completely upset and sulking of Buller after the capture the Boer plan – which was also the of Ladysmith could not be explained obvious plan – for the further on any other ground known to the prosecution of the war and would have Boers. The proper thing for Lord dealt a staggering if not fatal blow at Roberts was to have allowed or further resistance by the Transvaal. ordered Buller to accelerate the snail- like pace of his advance, so that when If Lord Roberts found it impossible or Lord Roberts arrived at Pretoria, inexpedient to adopt this strategy with Buller might have been at or far on his his own forces, Buller, who was still way towards the Delagoa railway. below the Drakensberg should have been ordered to carry it out. The simultaneous capture of this railway either by Buller or a portion of To the Boers the inactivity of Buller in Lord Roberts’s force would have made the North of Natal seemed the fall of Pretoria an event of capital inexplicable except on the theory, at if not decisive importance – as Lord that time generally believed by the Roberts intended it to be. Its capture, Boers, that owing to jealousy between in the manner it was effected by Lord the two principal officers in the British Roberts’s short-sighted strategy, was army, Buller’s advance had been not only an empty event for the artificially stayed in order to give his British, but turned out to have been a rival a chance of first entry into the blessing in disguise for the Boer Transvaal. This belief, if unfounded, forces, as the inactivity which was due to the fact that the dawdling followed it gave the Boer officers the necessary breathing space for the reorganisation of their forces and consideration of their future plan of campaign.

Smuts’s Route to the Cape 15 : EXPEDITION INTO THE CAPE was the last occasion on which my father saw the old President. WITH the fall of Pretoria yet another phase of the war had come to a close. My father’s role as politician had now The Boer leaders forgathered at Bal- ceased for a time; he became a man of moral, near Witbank, to take stock of action in the battlefields. So in June, in the position, and after deliberation the bitter cold of mid-winter, the decided that it would be impossible to commandos dispersed to their respec- continue operating as one big army tive theatres. My father set out with and that they should split up into his small forces westwards down the smaller units and operate indepen- Boekenhout Spruit, past Hammans- dently. My father took this proposal kraal on the Great North Road, and on down to President Kruger at Waterval to the Magaliesberg beyond. He Boven, and with his approval this new passed Slagters Nek the day after de la scheme, of guerrilla tactics, was set Rey’s setback there, and scenes of the into operation. Botha was now to go to encounter were still evident. Rusten- the Eastern Transvaal, de Wet and burg he found strongly held by Gene- Hertzog were to take the Free State, de ral Baden-Powell, and so by-passing la Rey and my father were to go into it, he made for Zwartruggens. Here he the Western Transvaal, while Beyers came upon a force of about a thousand was to harass the British in the Water- Australians, which he immediately berg. This Waterval Boven meeting attacked, driving them into a small area near the river. A message had, however, been got through to Mafe- farm-houses and slaughtering stock king and General Corrington set out was being widely felt by the comman- with reinforcements. Between Zeerust dos, whose existence depended on and Zwartruggens, Corrington was what they could forage from the land. intercepted by de la Rey’s men and This scorched-earth policy of General driven back. French, which Milner did not like, was a sound one from the replenishment As the operation against the Austra- aspect, but many of its other virtues lians unavoidably became drawn out, were dubious, for though it kept the which was against the settled Boer commandos short of supplies it served strategy, my father trekked on again. to stiffen morale and in the aftermath Wherever possible British forces were left a strong taste of bitterness, which attacked, this being part of the hit-and- even in these days is a weapon of run tactics to replenish tobacco, sugar propaganda value. and such-like from defeated British units, and also to get fresh stores of For about two weeks my father ammunition. In these skirmishes the operated in the Rustenburg area, but in Boers had some successes, but they the Western Transvaal he and de la were exacting in their way and Rey found it increasingly difficult to strength was being whittled away in move about. From all sides they were casualties. The British policy of beset by the British. So once more carrying out vast “sweeps” and of they decided to part company, de la destroying Boer potential by burning Rey remaining in the west while my father went farther south. The whole Towards the end of his Transvaal of this portion of the Transvaal was campaign he made plans to retake covered by scattered Boer units, with Johannesburg, and was actually somewhat larger concentrations at assembling his force at Zuurbekom, Potchefstroom and Vereeniging. My about ten miles south of Krugersdorp, father’s operational strength was about when he received orders to start on a 300, mostly men from the Gatsrand sortie into the Cape. area of Krugersdorp and to the south. My father had always attached far In May, 1901, the picture was grim, more importance to the Cape than had and it looked to the British as though any of his colleagues. In fact, he results might be achieved by negotia- believed that it was almost as much tion. Accordingly Kitchener generous- the failure of the Republics to get ly allowed my father to contact Presi- more active support from here as poor dent Kruger at Utrecht by wire, from leadership in the first battles of the Standerton. Needless to say, Kruger, war, that led to final defeat. At a far away and completely out of conference of senior Boer leaders on contact, said “Fight on!” 20th June, 1901, at Waterval near Standerton, he had once more It was in the Vereeniging and advocated an expedition into the Cape Potchefstroom areas largely that my Midlands. father operated, continuing his hit-and- run harassing tactics, and keeping From the discussions at the conference considerable British forces locked up. it was clear that the Free State held out no further prospects of fighting and civilian population had long since that the Transvaal had become almost cracked. untenable, so it was decided to shift My father’s sortie into the Cape was the focus back to Natal, where Louis not the first of its kind, but it turned Botha was to keep the kettle boiling, out to be the classic of the war. With and to the Cape, into which my father 1,500 men de Wet had crossed the was to lead an exploratory force. The Orange River in February, 1901, but purpose of this latter trip was to see if the effort had not proved a success. there was any possibility of getting General Hertzog had also previously recruits for the depleted forces (and in been into the Cape and had penetrated this there was a small measure of as far as van Rhynsdorp, but he had success) and to cause a tactical diver- few men with him and his journey had sion. The Cape also happened to offer been precipitate. The people of the the only “unscorched” territory in Cape spoke disparagingly of Hertzog’s which troops could still subsist. sortie. They said he had come down Affairs in the Free State were at a and asked for their support and had standstill, and the country had been then left again as abruptly as he came, laid bare by the British. My father was leaving them embarrassed and in to find de Wet and Hertzog hiding in trouble with the authorities. My father the Fauresmith hills with a handful of assured them, however, that he had men (Hertzog had only 20) leading a come to stay. precarious existence. Morale in the My father’s Cape trip has been The Organisation of the Boer variously described not only as the commandos was commendably most daring manoeuvre, but also the simple. In charge of a large group most brilliant of the war. With a hand- would be a Vecht Generaal; under him picked band of 362 men, he set out on would be two or three veld cornetcies a journey which was to carry him each of 150-250 men, these in turn 2,000 miles and to keep locked up a being sub-divided into corporalships British force of fully 35,000. When of 25 men each. My father’s two field peace came his force had swelled to cornets were Jacobus van Deventer between 3,000 and 4,000, though of (later one of his generals in the First his original Krugersdorp men only half World War) and Ben Bouwer. had survived. My father himself While gathering his men for the Cape always considered his sally into the trip they were caught one night in a Cape the most successful military terrible storm near Krugersdorp and manoeuvre of the war. General French six were killed, as they slept, by a long afterwards told him that it had single flash of lightning. been one of his most troublesome problems. However, when later The jumping-off place for the Cape summoned to the armistice conference sortie was between Vereeniging and my father was forced to admit that Vredefort. In order to elude the British even the Cape held out little promise more easily my father divided his for the prolongation of the war. forces in two, first taking 250 men under van Deventer a short way on their journey into the Free State. He then returned to Rietpoort near Vrede- fort to collect the remaining hundred men under Bouwer and left with them a few days later, on the 1st of August, 1901. On the way back from van Deventer he and some others slept, on the night of the 20th July, near a native kraal at Paardekop, in a small wood, in the Gatsrand Hills. Their boots had got wet in fording the Mooi River that afternoon and against their usual practice they took them off before lying down. But a native had treache- rously disclosed their whereabouts to the British. My father, who usually slept a little apart from his snoring General Smuts with his senior Boer War men, awoke to the sound of rifle fire officers, van Deventer and Maritz, O’okiep, and scuffling, and found himself in the Cape –May 1902 midst of the enemy. His native orderly Kleinbooi was shot dead, but in the the second detachment, they were darkness and confusion, and by dint of attacked by a large force of mounted speaking English, my father managed Australians, their old friends of the to edge away slowly and make off in Zwartruggens encounter. After a short his bare feet, leaving behind every- sharp skirmish the Australians were thing, including the saddle-bags beaten off and the Boers went back to containing his confidential documents. finish their meal. My father felt sure A little farther he was challenged in that this reverse would rankle and that the dark by a person who turned out to the enemy would return again later, so be his secretary and brother-in-law, he took up position accordingly. Sure P.S. (“Tottie”) Krige, and soon one or enough, they did, and this time the two more stragglers joined them. My Boers gave them a sound thrashing father’s feet were badly lacerated and and took many prisoners. Being in no his friends wrapped towels round position to be encumbered with these them, but progress was slow till they men, they took from them what they later found mounts again. His saddle- wanted and sent them back in their bags, complete with confidential shirt-tails to Vereeniging, where there despatches, he later recovered where were not only concentrations of British he had abandoned them. troops but also large numbers of Boer women. The embarrassment of the While in the Vereeniging area one Australians as they rode back into the morning while cooking breakfast town never failed to provoke a chuckle before setting off on the Cape trip with of mirth from my father, who I think animals. Water undrinkable. Veld enjoyed this incident to the full. covered with slaughtered herds of sheep and goats, cattle and horses. On the 2nd August they crossed the Hungry lambs run bleating around.” Vaal River at Koppieskraal Drift and thence moved along the Rhenoster At Touwfontein, where they arrived on River, sleeping the following night at the 16th, my father pulled up for a few Bothaville. Beyond, they crossed the days. Here he sent for “Rechter9 Vet River and trekked on to Hertzog”, who arrived on the night of Bultfontein. Thirty-five miles farther the 19th to discuss the situation in the on, on the night of the 14th, they Free State. Hertzog showed my father crossed the Modder River at Brits Kitchener’s proclamation of the 15th farm, within a few hundred yards of a September, 1901, about the British camp where a jolly party was banishment of men and officers, and in progress. Then Brandfort, the confiscation of property. At this Bloemfontein, Reddersberg and so on point my father notes in his diary: southwards, past Jagersfontein “Nine English columns drawing in towards the Orange. around me, so I am trying to cross railway tonight below Jagersfontein All along the route was evidence of Station and Springfontein.” On the the scorched-earth policy. Farms were 25th, near Edenburg, he noted: “Found desolate and deserted. In his field diary my father noted (in Afrikaans): “Dams everywhere filled with rotting 9 Judge myself surrounded on all sides and the British. Accordingly General driven on railway line. Had to flee French was ordered by Kitchener to from sun-up to sunset...” Next day the hold all possible crossings of the story was the same: “Enemy still in Orange River. Four large mounted pursuit... My position is precarious; pursuit columns were also organised, horses much done up; burghers and in the weeks to come they were to dispirited. Still I shall press on till stick relentlessly to my father’s heels end.” and to harass and chase him unmercifully. Thereafter they moved on past Dewetsdorp and crossed the Caledon By this time the scorched-earth policy River near Vechtkop, reaching the had already been completed and the Grootrivier, or Orange River, on new block-house and river-line system September 4 at Kafferskop. was nearing perfection. Not only were there now tents and troops every- The move into the Cape failed to take where, but along all railway lines were the British by surprise. In their passage chains of blockhouses linked by southwards through the Free State my tangles of barbed wire. These barriers father’s commandos unwittingly were formidable and could really only moved into the biggest of all sweeps be forced at night, when there was Lord Kitchener had yet staged. This always the hazard of getting lost and necessitated a considerable amount of blundering into danger. dodging and delay, and at the same time revealed the Boer intentions to For the survivors of those who sandals and they were clad only in undertook the Cape trip the weather ragged trousers and coats. Their shirts will always be a nightmare memory, and vests had long ceased to exist. As for they ran into almost unprecedented the campaign progressed they were wet and cold. Yet though some died of reduced to improvising apparel out of exposure and all were shivering and hessian grain bags. Later on they cap- miserable, the bad weather had its tured British uniforms with which they compensations; had it been better it is gladly clothed themselves, and it was doubtful if the excursion would have only subsequently that they learned. been possible. Not only was visibility that by Kitchener’s proclamation all reduced and the Boers thus enabled to Boers so captured were to be sum- slip through the narrowest of gaps marily shot. Some unwittingly paid the between the enemy, but the weather penalty through being unaware of this equally impeded the enemy’s British proclamation. Later when they cumbersome movement. The Boers, heard of it they speedily retook to their travelling light, struggled through. grain bags. But in any case British subjects from the Cape knew only too Deneys Reitz graphically describes the well that they would be shot upon trip in his great book Commando. He capture as rebels. Some paid this says that at the start he had only four penalty. The British were most rounds of ammunition for his rifle, and anxious to get hold of my elusive that others were little better off. On their feet they had tattered home-made father and put a price of £1,000 on his the British territory of the Cape, on the head, dead or alive. bare open veld, and hurried south- wards to reach the Waschbank My father’s detachment of a hundred Mountains. On the plateau across the men had now safely joined up at river, opposite Herschell, stragglers of Zastron with van Deventer. This the commando were attacked by a village lies just north of the Orange force of some 300 mounted Basuto River, about twenty miles from the natives. Six men and thirty horses Basutoland border. Beyond, the were lost, some of the men being approaches to the river and all its mutilated and dissected for medicine. crossings were heavily guarded. Here This hostile attitude of the natives who Louis Wessels, with a party who were sympathised with the British brought conversant with this area, was able to forth no retaliation from the Boers indicate a little-known precipitous path whose policy it was to concentrate down the escarpment to where the exclusively on the war with the river flowed swiftly down a narrow British. gorge. This unguarded crossing they negotiated in the dark on September Lady Grey was strongly garrisoned 4th and by daybreak all were safely and so they by-passed it and made into across the deep swirling waters. The the Witteberg Mountains beyond. That way through the Free State had been night they pressed on, determined to arduous. Only 250 men remained to shake the enveloping forces off in the make this crossing. They were now in darkness. By daybreak they were looking down on Jamestown, but here whether they had not already taken up again they could see tents and troop positions in the gap itself. My father columns. So they sought sanctuary in set out to investigate at four that the misty Stormberg Mountains. afternoon with a party of four, including Tottie Krige and Johannes The fine weather of recent weeks Neethling. Halfway along the poort barely gave them time to cross the they met with another reconnoitring Orange before the rains set in and party consisting of Japie Neethling, from now on, with little variation, they the two Adendorff brothers and were to be cold and wet for weeks on another person who had just come end. back from the British end of the pass, To add to their trials they were now and said the pass was clear but that the continually to find themselves beset by British were camped immediately British troops and wherever they beyond. My father still did not feel looked down from the mountain were happy about the position, so he took white tents. with him Johannes Neethling and the Near Dordrecht on the 7th September two Adendorff brothers and went to the way out from the mountains led investigate. He brought up the rear and through a narrow defile known as in view of the bushy cover in the pass “Moordenaars Poort”. The British and its ideal setting for an ambush, it were known to be at the other side of was decided that at the first sign of this poort and the question was danger it would be a case of every man him. He told me that in the predica- for himself. ment of the moment he was worried more by the shame of capture than by Now it so happened that a British the fear of being killed. During the party had entered the poort just as the half-hour it took him to elude the party first reconnoitring party were he had a lot of rough-and-tumble withdrawing, and they observed the scrambling, so when he arrived back two parties of Boers when they met. footsore in camp at midnight he was So they went into ambush positions in indeed a sorry sight. a bush on one shoulder. When the Boers came to within twenty to thirty The ambush took place late in the yards they opened fire, killing one afternoon, and by the time the British Adendorff and all the horses, and had got the two wounded men to the badly wounding Neethling and the farmhouse of Mrs. Schoeman it was other Adendorff. Though my father’s already dark. Both men died shortly horse Charlie was shot from under after, but before Neethling succumbed him, he himself was not hit and was he asked Mrs. Schoeman to retrieve able to make off under a fusillade. By the saddle-bags. Next morning she judicious running from cover to cover sent out her old native servant girl and he eventually reached a donga down the bags were buried. In 1903 they which he disappeared. How the British were returned to my father by Mrs. missed him was a mystery, for all this Roodt still intact. She, had only taken while bullets steadily pinged round out a photograph of my mother, which

General Smuts with his Boer War horse “Charlie” – 1901 she kept as a momento. The contents of the situation. Many of the British of the bags were four books: a Greek failures he attributed to indifferent New Testament, an English Bible, a reconnoitring. My father made a habit, Complete Works of Schiller, and a not only in this war, but also in the Greek Anabasis. This last my father two World Wars, of going forward had found at Jagersfontein and it was personally to see things for himself. It only partly read when he lost it here. was a risk, but it paid dividends. At Parys he had found a History of Philosophy, but this he had finished previously. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason he was only to find later at Leliefontein near Calvinia. The bags and books now form part of his collection. It was customary for the Boers to send out senior men on these reconnoitring missions. My father said this was one of the most striking operational differences between the British and the Boers, for the former sent only very junior officers who usually were incompetent to make true assessments 16 : RAIN AND MOUNTAINS reported that my father had been wounded. IN the ambushing party of British was an officer named Hughes, the selfsame It was bitterly cold in the Stormberg who had searched our house in Mountains, and the troops, clad mostly Sunnyside at the start of the war. Later only in their grain-bag clothes, were he became a firm friend of the family, drenched and thoroughly miserable. At and as a colonel in the First World Allemanspoort, near Jamestown, con- War was one of the two staff officers ditions were so severe that thirty to see my father off at Irene Station horses died of exposure during the when he set out for East Africa. When night. Local sympathisers were to be my mother pulled Colonel Hughes’s found everywhere who not only gave leg about the poor shooting of the what food they had, but also acted as British at Moordenaars Poort, he said guides. it had appeared to all that my father After marching all night they still were was hit, for he seemed to stumble as to find no rest on the 10th at he ran and his one arm hung limply at Allemanspoort, and that morning they his side. But at all events, he declared, were in action again. In his diary my it was providential that their father noted: “Allemanspoort: enemy marksmanship had been so poor. My repulsed; eleven forces move to mother was shown a newspaper while surround me.” Next day he added: she was under detention by the British “Enemy surrounds me still further. I at ‘Maritzburg in which it was retire to Labuschagne’s Nek. Marched by Gardiner’s bridle path through two trap and for the moment hoped that English forces half an hour apart... they had finally eluded the British. Towards afternoon [of the next day] an My father often recounted the story of enemy force overtook me and an the courageous hunchback, and the action took place on Stapelberg… six-hour scramble down the Enemy losses 50 or 60.” mountainside. It was one of his This happened near Dordrecht in the favourite stories of the war. Stormberg Mountains. They were At the foot of the mountain they came surrounded on a high plateau by forces across the railway line from Maclear, under Colonel Monro with little hope and seeing a train approaching the men of escape. Here a courageous wanted to roll rocks on to the line. But hunchback volunteered to lead them my father, fearing there might be down a remote mountain path, bob- civilians in it, let it pass unharmed. bing ahead on a horse in the biting rain Little did they realise at the time what and wind, and bringing them out on a they had missed. route as near the vertical as horses have ever had to negotiate. They On May 15, 1917, at a dinner given by gratefully bade the hunchback good- the combined British House of bye and left him hobbling back in the Commons and House of Lords in his darkness on his crutches. Darkness honour, over which Lord French luckily hid the abysses they negotiated presided, my father recalled the and by daylight they had sprung the incident: “At night I came out of those Kitchener to the effect that all mountains to the railway. It was a very burghers caught under arms after 15th dark night, and my small force was September, 1901, would be banished just on the point of crossing the from South Africa. This raised a railway when we heard that a train was derisive laugh. coming. I allowed the train to pass, At last, after a gruelling sixty hours of and we stood alongside and looked on. continuous marching, came the first You can imagine my feelings when I rest. But it was not for long; on the heard some time afterwards that the 14th they were on the run again. only freight on that train was Lord British forces appeared everywhere French, who was moving from one and as fast as they shook one column part of the front to the other to find out off, they moved into the next. The how I had broken through. If I had not following night proved the worst of missed that chance Lord French would the war, for they were lashed by rain, have been on that occasion my guest. sleet and wind. The wet grain bags No doubt a very welcome, though a froze solid on their backs as they somewhat embarrassing, guest!” floundered through the mud, and when Five miles east of Dordrecht they daylight came they found that twelve came upon another train, which this of their number had dropped by the time they captured. In it, amongst way from exhaustion, presumably to other things they found a newspaper die of cold; though they were leading with the proclamation by Lord their weary horses, about sixty of the beasts succumbed. The survivors Adelaide, did they learn of Kitchener’s described it as the worst ordeal of the proclamation. war, and proudly called themselves Maraisburg to the west they found “Men of the Great Rains”. At one occupied by the enemy and so, skirting stage it took them six hours to cover it, they made into the Bamboesberg three miles in a heavy mist. Mountains. Once again they found On the 17th, at Tarkastad, they were in their paths blocked by troops, and contact with two columns, one under once more they slipped down an Colonel Gorringe and the other under obscure steep mountain path into the Colonel Doran. At Elandsrivierpoort Bedford district. Here the population, they set upon the camp of the 17th though English, proved not unfriendly, Lancers and after a short sharp though not co-operative. The skirmish captured it with much booty Winterberg Mountains into which they including an Armstrong gun and now moved were wild and beautiful, Maxim. This success was not perhaps with deep valleys of dense primeval the blessing it appeared to be, for woods. From now on, food, for both though their tea and food supplies themselves and their horses, was a were replenished and they were en- problem. In one valley they had to abled to get fresh horse mounts and abandon thirty half-starved mounts. ample stocks of ammunition, they They found Adelaide occupied and so wore the warmer uniforms of the by-passed it, moving into the valley of British and not till long after, near the Great Fish River. That night, while sleeping in a fold in the ground near from every angle by the British. Many the railway line at Commadagga, an improved during the night, but my armoured train passed, firing shots at father was still in a critical condition random at them in the dark. Next they when daylight came. He was tied to sought safety in the Zuurbergen where, his horse and by a clever ruse the sick on the 30th, in a ravenously hungry party, who were far behind the main state, after living sparingly for days on body, managed to slip off at an angle the flesh of mountain tortoise, they and elude the pursuing British. came upon an appetising-looking fruit That Boesmans Brood left my father called “Boesmans Brood” (Encepha- with a weakened stomach all his life. lartos Alteaisteinii) growing on a This was also one of his favourite cycad and looking like a big pine- Boer War stories. So they moved apple. Not knowing that the plant was swiftly southwards through this edible only in certain seasons of the rugged mountain mass until year, at other times being a deadly eventually, on October 5th, in the prussic acid poison, about seventy distance ahead they could see white burghers partook heartily of it. Soon sand-dunes and a grey mass which all were overcome by acute abdominal they new to be the Indian Ocean. They pains and many, including my father, were elated, for they realised now that lay retching and writhing on the they had come farther south than any ground. Being thus incapacitated was previous commando. After dark the most embarrassing, as they were beset lights of Port Elizabeth shone out in the distance. The men seemed puzzled the mountains they made their way out that my father did not make for the once more into the Somerset district. town; but he was content with this In five weeks they had covered 700 distant view, for his mission lay with miles under the severest possible the Dutch of the Western Cape. conditions. It had been bitterly cold Moreover, Port Elizabeth was far too throughout and each man’s solitary strongly garrisoned. Everywhere were blanket had offered little comfort at buffalo tracks and wallows, and there night. They slept, where possible, two were abundant signs of elephant, for in a bed for warmth, and when it was they were not far from the present wet they simply lay down on bushes Addo Park. A hunter in the party and rocks to keep out of the water. On recognised the area and knew of a path the march they huddled under their out south through the mountains to the blankets, which afforded little village of Bayville in the Sunday’s protection against the pelting rain. River valley. There was fighting and They had been harassed and chased by skirmishing with the enemy all the the British almost without respite and way and also in the valley of the Little their horses were too weak to carry on. Sunday’s River, where they eluded the In the trek they had not only crossed enemy by taking an old disused pass four of the highest mountain ranges of down the mountains constructed by Sir the Cape, but had actually operated Henry Smith during the Kaffir wars of extensively in them. the fifties. So after five hectic days in On October 4th Colonel Gorringe, to command the second party. My who had been hard on their heels for father had great confidence in this some time, decided to press home an commander and it is said that van attack up a steep mountain slope. The Deventer was the only man In whom Boers, in a strong position, turned he confided his plans. round and struck back, driving him My father set off first and after down the hillside and inflicting heavy occasional light patrol skirmishes losses. It is said he suffered 200 reached the village of Hobsonville, casualties during the action and lost thereafter crossing the Port Elizabeth- 900 horses. Graaff Reinet railway line near It had become increasingly plain to my Kendrew Siding on the 8th, later father that in view of the problems and passing within seven or eight miles of the harassing tactics of the enemy, it garrisoned Aberdeen and thence into would be better to split his force. So the Camdebo Mountains. Here the on the 4th October he called the men spell of fine weather they had latterly together and told. them that a turning enjoyed once more gave place to bitter point had been reached by the cold and drizzle. In the mountains they expeditionary force and that they were appeared cornered for a while, but now to split into two parties and to later a bridle-path led them out to move independently westwards to the safety again. On the plain below they Atlantic seaboard where they were narrowly averted an ambush. later to unite again. Van Deventer was They were now on the flat expanses of Boers and twice by the British, on the Karoo, but still in constant contact each occasion having the pleasure of with the enemy. On the 14th, beyond seeing more of his stock devoured by Karega, my father had a narrow escape his guests. when an Armstrong shell burst right On the 19th they ambushed a British alongside him, covering him in dust column moving through Meirings and soil. That same day, due to faulty Poort and took some booty. Four days pickets, they were nearly caught by later, at Rooikraal, my father had Colonel Scobell while resting. The another lucky escape from a shell, next day they moved into the Beaufort again being covered in grit and smoke. West district and marched on all day Still travelling steadily westwards, and the next night. The following day they moved into Longkloof the next found them at the foot of the Zwart- day. bergen, where they were joined by Commandant Scheepers with a In the Kamanassi River valley his hundred men. Crossing over the commando were hotly pursued by a mountains they moved on into the big British mounted column, but he Uniondale and Oudtshoorn districts. reached the arid plains of the Calvinia From valley to valley they moved, in district safely and pushed, on to one coming upon a Mr. Guest, who, in Elandsvlei, an oasis complete with the space of a day, had the mortifi- waving palm trees. Thence they cation of being twice visited by the moved in leisurely fashion to Biddow and Kobbee and so on to van Rhynsdorp, where Manie Maritz had wound in his chest, but he made light recently been. Maritz was not only a of it. man of courage but a ruthless person Patrolling was carried out from the van of tremendous physical strength, and Rhynsdorp area to as far afield as many years later he was to prove a beyond Porterville, and within sight of thorn in my father’s side. Table Mountain. My uncle Tottie ***** Krige penetrated into the Malmesbury district where he went to visit my Here in the South-Western Cape the grandfather, Jacobus Smuts, from commando paused during December, whom he brought back money for my 1901, for the purpose of consolidating father. He also took a letter, written at into three commandos the small bands Nieuwoudtville, near Calvinia, on 4th of Boers that operated in the district. January, 1902, from my father to his Many of the troops for the first time brother Koos. My father seemed in a saw the sea and they rushed wildly on , depressed frame of mind and worried their horses into the Atlantic surf. On about my mother’s state of health at Christmas Day Deneys Reitz, of my Pietermaritzburg. He concluded: “I father’s staff, linked up with van have had numerous narrow escapes in Deventer’s commando, and Maritz, this war, for which I am grateful; but too, was found at Tonteldoos, 80 miles each person has his time... I hold out to the north. Maritz had been repulsed little hope of seeing you, all again: I there the day before and had a gaping know you will do your best to help stormed the house at the head of a Isie.” troop of British horsemen, seventeen casualties being inflicted before the My father now made a long Boers escaped. reconnaissance with his staff to Kakamas on the Orange River, 300 Later on my father combined his miles to the north, to organise the forces again to attack the nearby town commandos there, on the way back of Windhuk where the British had pausing at Tonteldoos. On the farm established themselves after being Middelpoort on the Fish River he driven from van Rhynsdorp. The town came upon van Deventer’s commando was taken with much booty and 200 in the midst of an attack on a British persons, amongst whom Colyn was camp of 100 wagons, which they took identified. He was brought before my after a sharp skirmish. Meanwhile father, who knowing what had Bouwer had been left in charge of my happened sent him to be tried by a father’s commando in van Rhynsdorp. Court Martial presided over by Here they were visited by a stocky, Commandant L. Boshoff, at Aties, on middle-aged colonist named Lambert 25th February, 1902. At this court Colyn, who professed a desire to fight Colyn handed in a sworn statement in the British. After a while, though not which he admitted his complicity and quite unnoticed, he slunk off on his other witnesses also testified to the horse. The belief that he had come to same effect. He was found guilty of spy was later confirmed when he spying and my father signed the execution order. The documents of this father, but to soldiers in the field such case are also in my father’s collection. actions are natural, and in cases like this, trivial. “Take him away and shoot him,” he said briefly to the guards. Though From van Rhynsdorp my father kept in Colyn collapsed and begged for constant touch with his command in mercy, and though the women of the the Transvaal and with President van Zyl household fled the house in Kruger, who had by that time gone to terror, it made no impression on the Europe and was living in Holland. precise legalistic mind of my father. Early in 1902 he sent the President an When I was young I remember hearing optimistic account of conditions in the him recount the Colyn incident and he Republics and the Cape. He wrote of did so in such matter-of-fact terms that the dangers threatening the British in I was left without any doubt that he the Cape, where there were thousands considered it merely a minor incident of disciplined Boer veterans fighting of the campaign. splendidly, all living well by their depredations on the British army. Colyn’s execution, though based on sound military justice, has not been At Darling, near my father’s without subsequent political birthplace, a burgher named repercussions, but these may be safely Boonzaaier, an adjutant of Maritz, and relegated to ignorance or political some of his comrades fired a few rifle malice. Biographers have utilised the shots at a British cruiser lying offshore incident to show a hard streak in my at Lambert’s Bay and then decamped O’okiep, was to be attacked first, then again. Concordia, and finally O’okiep itself. The defence system was based on In the beginning of January, at a blockhouses and the attack therefore conference on the farm Soetwater, my resolved itself into a series of father explained to his officers that he experiments with home-made had decided to split up his commando dynamite hand-grenades, some of into smaller units and to disperse them which eventually breached the to many parts of the Cape. This would defences. Finally, after much bomb- lock up larger numbers of British throwing, the last fort was demolished troops and would also facilitate their by a mammoth bomb hurled by the living-off-the-land tactics. herculean Maritz and the outer To the north, 150 miles away, lay the defences of O’okiep fell into Boer copper-mining town of O’okiep with hands. O’okiep itself was, however, a its satellite villages Springbok and tougher nut and Colonel Shelton was Concordia. These were British held, determined to hold out at all costs. My and in order to draw off the attentions father therefore decided on blockade of troops in other areas, it was decided tactics, as these served his purpose as to attack them. The commando was to well as any. split into small parties and to make for a point in the Kamiesbergen where they were to re-form. Springbok, which lies about three miles from 17 : VEREENIGING board the battleship Monarch at Simonstown. Everywhere they were ONE morning towards the end of treated with the utmost civility and April, 1902, a cart flying a white flag courtesy by their enemy, and Deneys was noticed approaching from the Reitz was moved to recording: “The south. The two officers carried a British, with all their faults, are a communication from Lord Kitchener generous nation, and not only on the to say that a meeting between the man-of-war, but throughout the time British and Boer leaders was to be we were among them, there was no held at Vereeniging as soon as word said that could hurt our feelings possible. A safe-conduct was enclosed or offend our pride, although they signed by Colonel D. Haig. This same knew that we were on an errand of Douglas Haig, later Field Marshal and defeat.” Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in the First World War, was to On the way up to the Transvaal by see much of my father during those train there were frequent guards of harrowing years. My father, honour at various stations; General accompanied by Tottie Krige and French came to see them at Deneys Reitz, was then escorted to Matjesfontein, and at Kroonstad Lord Port Nolloth with full military honours Kitchener, on a black charger accom- and put aboard the troopship Lake Erie panied by a bodyguard of Pathans, which then steamed to Cape Town. came to meet the train and have Here they were to spend a week on discussions with my father. He stressed that he was eager to end the sacking, their bodies covered in sores. war, and referred repeatedly to the Their appearance was a great shock to hopelessness of the Boer resistance, us who came from the better- pointing out that he had 400,000 conditioned forces in the Cape. They troops in South Africa against the had reached the limit of physical Boer 18,000. He would he endurance.” magnanimous to the enemy if they Subsequently delegates from all over surrendered. My father made no the country were brought together in a comment. large tented camp prepared by the Thence, still under escort, my father British at Vereeniging. Every leader of proceeded first by armoured train and note was there, including de la Rey, later by cart to the Eastern Transvaal Christian de Wet, President Steyn, for a conference with General Botha. Beyers, Kemp, Hertzog, Botha, my Here were gathered 300 delegates father and others. from every commando in the Eastern The Dutch Premier, Baron Kuyper, Transvaal for the purpose of electing had sometime earlier offered the representatives for the Peace services of the Netherlands Conference at Vereeniging. Deneys Government as an intermediary Reitz says: “Nothing could have between the two parties, but Lord proved more clearly how nearly the Lansdowne had not accepted this. He Boer cause was spent than these insisted that negotiations must be starving, ragged men clad in skins and direct with Kitchener. Acting- President Burger, of the Transvaal, orderly peace now under the best shortly afterwards approached the possible terms than to be crushed later British Commander-in-Chief, and later and have ignominious terms thrust the two Republics held discussions at upon us”. Klerksdorp with the permission of He put the case clearly to them: “The Kitchener, who also provided facilities great danger before this meeting is that for the election of delegates. Thirty of it will come to a decision purely from these representatives from each State the military point of view... If we met therefore at this Vereeniging consider it only as a military matter, Peace Conference on 15th May, 1902. then I must admit we can still go on There was considerable divergence of with the struggle... But we are not here opinion amongst the Boers on the as an army. We are here as a people... question of surrender. Steyn and de Everyone here represents the Wet of the Free State were “bitter- Afrikander people... Burghers, we enders” and opposed to any idea of decided to stand to the bitter end. Let surrender. Botha, my father and the us now, like men, admit that the end Transvaal delegates realised that the has come for us, come in a more bitter game was up and that surrender was shape than we ever thought... We bow unavoidable, though de la Rey, while to God’s will.” concurring, was still far from After considerable deliberation even convinced. My father’s feelings were de la Rey was forced to exclaim, “Has that “it was better to negotiate an the bitter end not come?” What was the point in carrying on? Finally a earnest discussion. What finally commission consisting of Botha, de clinched matters was when Kitchener Wet, de la Rey, Hertzog and my father said, “I can only give it to you as my was appointed to negotiate with opinion, but my opinion is that in two Kitchener and Milner in Pretoria. years’ time a Liberal Government will be in power, and if a Liberal At the conference there was Government comes into power, it will considerable difference of opinion grant you a constitution for South between Milner and Kitchener. Africa.” Here, though not a certainty, Kitchener, a kindly understanding was a ray of hope. The British man, as a soldier appreciated the Commander’s words had turned the feelings of a vanquished foe, and scale, though unconditional surrender favoured moderation with certain was in any case inevitable. It concessions. Milner, businesslike as sweetened the pill. They returned to ever, demanded unconditional Vereeniging with a draft agreement surrender and wrote home unflatter- bearing Milner’s approval. ingly of Kitchener’s bargaining. My father tried vainly for a compromise. The Commission’s report was Late into the night they argued to accorded a mixed reception. It was break this impasse. Towards morning received by the majority without someone gently touched my father’s enthusiasm, and it took all President arm. It was Kitchener. They went Steyn’s efforts to placate de Wet. outside and walked up and down in To my father with that distant sight of There may be some who feel that I his, the promise of a bright future was have written of the Jameson Raid and already visible. He had statesmanlike the Boer War with a strong pro-Boer visions of a reunited Boer nation bias; this would, however; be an unfair dwelling as a peaceful state with its criticism, for in fact, Britain has no own constitution within the framework stauncher friend and admirer than of the British Empire. myself. This period of history was one in which imperialism went berserk, From the Cape to the Limpopo the and it is one of which many Britons map was now red. Rhodes had not themselves are far from proud. There lived to see it, for on March 26, is, moreover, a certain justification for several weeks before hostilities writing so critically of British policy ceased, he had died in his small of this period, for it serves, by cottage at Muizenberg. “So much to contrast, to indicate the wonderful do – so little done!” were said to have change of heart that came about after been his last words. the Boer War. Since then Britain has My father was now only thirty-two made ample amends for her sins and years of age. For almost fifty further South Africa has had no truer friend. years he was to toil in the service of his country. They were a glorious fifty While most of us are quick to years, in which he was to be both pilot appreciate this hand of friendship, and architect. there are still misguided countrymen of mine living in the chilly, dead past, who have failed to realise that a new Given time and understanding, sanity world order has arisen since the Boer will one day prevail. War, and still harbour a bitterness in their hearts which time and reason seem incapable of sweetening. They remember only those unpleasant incidents we have long since gladly forgotten. Two World Wars have since shaken civilisation to its foundations, but they have passed unnoticed over the heads of these bitter people. At present the pendulum, which started at the beginning of the century on the side of imperialism, appears to have passed its mid-point and now moves, strangely, into the area of aggressive Afrikanderism. This, as with all revolutions in the bosoms of men, will run its course, and prove, like its predecessors, a mere fleeting phase. We must not grow impatient. 18 : THE HARDENED WARRIOR In those long months in the open air he formed a philosophy of life and an MY father took as much pride in his understanding of the world which he exploits of the Boer War as in any followed ever after. other. If the frequency with which he reminisced is any criterion, this There was nothing harsh or artificial certainly is so. I think it was due to the about it, for as in nature, all depended fact that in it he found satisfaction for upon the beneficent factor of Time. the first time in physical expression Time was the great Creator, the great and achievement, in hardships and in healer. Time must not be rushed but really intimate association with his given a fair chance to function. fellow men. It was a return to the veld My father also believed that young life of his boyhood, and an opportunity nations had to pass the fires of testing to explore that vast homeland of his. before they could attain nationhood. Explore it he certainly did, from the Had the war ended tamely at Pretoria, Portuguese border in the east, to the the Boers would have missed those Atlantic at Port Nolloth in the west; great testing times, and would not from the Waterberg in the north to the have been fused into such a solid plains near Malmesbury. Exacting mass. Whether this advantage was not conditions tempered and matured him. over-stressed and whether the The experience gave him a respite subsequent cooperation with the from his books and administrative British elements was not jeopardised duties and time to ponder and to plan. by this very fact, history alone will be wounded alongside him in the able to tell. battlefields, he had seen once prosperous farms charred and It is said that my father was an blackened masses, he had seen the embittered man after the Boer War. work of generations razed to the That I think is an overstatement. ground, and the population reduced to Certainly he did pass through a period the precarious life of wild animals. of depression and despair. It is a known fact that wars produce in all My mother felt these tragic events active combatants, whether victors or acutely. The kindest, gentlest and most vanquished, a psychological reaction forgiving person I have ever known, of cynicism and disillusionment. This she felt bitter towards the British. She has been amply demonstrated by the says she felt bitter for a long while, problem of rehabilitation of ex- and had it not been for the fact that she Servicemen. In judging my father’s and my father became close friends reaction one should bear this post-war with Lord Methuen some years later, psychosis in mind. I think it will be falling under the spell of that fine and agreed that his reactions were friendly Englishman, the feeling might remarkably restrained. He had just have persisted longer. Lord Methuen passed through the most searing fires was fittingly the first visitor to stay at in life, and had been called upon to our new house at Irene when he and make far-reaching decisions. He had his daughter Seymour spent New Year seen his companions killed and there in 1910. In fairness to my mother I must here of responsibility, the call of duty. The add that her bitterness was perhaps not beard he grew hid the youthful line of without provocation, for in the years his features. When he went to visit his of the war she had lost her baby son, father (his mother had died in she had seen a price of £1,000 placed February, 1901) the old man failed to on her husband’s head, and she herself recognise this mature son. In conver- had been taken from her home in sation, those searching pale blue eyes Pretoria and kept in detention in a dominated one’s attention. They were house in ‘Maritzburg from January, remarkable eyes and formed perhaps 1901, to August, 1902. Her treatment the most striking feature in his at ‘Maritzburg, she has always been physical personality. In the great ones quick to add, was scrupulously fair. of the world I have never come across But perhaps it would have been more similar eyes. Yet they were generous of the English to have sent understanding and expressive, not her down to her parents at without a warmth of friendliness. Stellenbosch. Their remarkable clearness carried with them a feeling of clarity of soul My father emerged from the Boer War as well. They never grew frosty or with an improved constitution, a great cloudy with his change of mood. It reputation, and considerable was the tone of voice and general experience of leadership. He had demeanour rather than the eyes that tasted power and felt the exhilaration of action. Well did he know the feeling denoted his pleasure or chagrin. There said: “Only a generation ago this was no mistaking either. country was locked in a grim and deadly struggle with the old British In studying my father at this time one Empire. We Boers fought for freedom is apt to forget his youth. When he and independence. We found it in a became State Attorney he was only strange way, where we least twenty-eight and even now, at expected.” Vereeniging, he had barely turned thirty-two. He had become In a political speech in Bloemfontein accustomed to moving in the company in November, 1939, he observed, of experienced men of twice his age, “There is talk today of the Boer War, and the respect with which his word of concentration camps, and attempts and reasoning were treated was all the are being made to make our flesh more remarkable. He must, even then, creep about what happened in the old have had a developed personality. He times. But let us rather think of what commanded not only the respect of the has happened since. Let us think also public, and the confidence of his of the fine treatment, the generosity troops, but also that of hardened and the helping hand we have politicians, and diplomats in their experienced from Great Britain ever council chambers listened to him with since. We render the people of this attention. country no service by continually harking back to what happened in the In 1935, at an Imperial Press Conference in Cape Town, my father distant past and forgetting what has Nolloth diamond fields of happened since.” Namaqualand. This western Orange River area was not only the driest in He kept carbon copies of his reports the Union but also the hottest. and dispatches during his Boer War Goodhouse has a record of high sojourn in the South-West Cape. They temperatures unsurpassed by any other are mostly still rolled as they had been spot in the country. carried in his saddle-bags. They are written in Dutch and are mostly brief Here is a translation of a typical field in character and signed J.C. Smuts, dispatch: Assistant Comdt.-General. The hand- Olivenhouts Rivier, writing is unmistakable and little 27.3.1902. changed. The only difference is that while in the Boer War it was rather V. Genl. van Deventer, angular, it became more rounded and Dear Sir, free-flowing. Until people got to know it, strangers found it difficult to read. I was pleased to receive your report and intend moving north from here as These reports and dispatches are as fast as possible. Naude and Bouwer’s much concerned with such practical commandos are already at Arkoep matters as fodder for the horses as north of Bowesdorp, while Comdt. with the fighting, for they were Bouwer himself has moved on ahead operating in a semi-desert corner of with a detachment to Rietfontein west the arid Karoo, not far from the Port of Mestklip. My plan is to move towards Williston. There is ample suddenly to between Mestklip and fodder at Vischrivier. Springbok with the object of cutting (Sgd.) J.C. SMUTS. off the enemy at Mestklip, and then to Asst. Comdt. Genl. attempt to storm Springbok and O’okiep. You must move north with The earlier diaries from which I have all possible speed to between quoted were written in English. This is Springbok and Mestklip, sending out a remarkable fact when it is runners to contact me in the vicinity of remembered that at the time he was Rietfontein. I shall also endeavour to fighting the English. But it does bear establish contact with you. out that, even then, he was doing most of his serious thinking in English – a I have also instructed V. General characteristic he retained throughout Maritz to move there. He will leave his life. I often got the impression behind a party to keep watch on the when he was speaking that he was enemy from Garies. thinking in English and doing a sub- As forage is scarce we must work conscious translation, especially in the swiftly to make use of the present way he had sometimes to feel for the favourable position. Afrikaans idiom. Comdt. Wessels reported to me at I might here add, too, that he never Leliesfontein. He and Theron drove lost the queer “Malmesbury” guttural back some columns from Vischrivier way he had of pronouncing his “r”. You could tell without any doubt that the wreckage while in Europe people it was not an Englishman speaking. sat back to take stock and to ponder After the Boer War, hecklers at the implications of what had occurred. political meetings often belittled his Britain, though victorious, came to pronunciation, forgetting that even at feel it was a hollow victory and was that age he had perhaps as extensive a shocked and even shamed. She vocabulary and as wide a reference as became convinced that her aggressive any Englishman in the country. “I Imperialism was fraught with grave admit my English is not flawless,” he dangers, and her heart demanded a would say. Yet that Malmesbury “r” more ethical approach to relationships. survived across the generations, and in With that realisation began a new era dark times to come men listened to it of tolerance and prosperity, which in gladly as a symbol of hope and years to come was to bring her much optimism. lustre. I might here remark that the guttural In Germany, much thought had “r” is at least infectious, if not brought that nation to the conclusion hereditary, for only two of us in a that without a navy they were family of six have managed to avoid impotent. To become a great power, it. especially one that spanned the oceans, she had to have a first-class navy. This The Boer War was over. South Africa started Germany off on a building rolled up her sleeves and set about the programme which by direct linkage task of salvaging what remained from was twelve years later to enable her to plunge the entire world into war. 19 : RECONSTRUCTION “Kindergarten” of young experts was a novel one it had much to commend it. Milner, newly created a viscount on In any case the right men were not the strength of his Boer War success, available in South Africa. On the and Governor of the new Transvaal whole it worked with great benefit to and Orange River Colonies, estab- the country and all its members have lished his headquarters in Johannes- since become famous: Geoffrey burg and set about the task of Dawson was for long to be a distin- reconstructing the shattered country. guished editor of The Times; John To his credit it must be noted that he Buchan became famous as a novelist had turned down the attractive offer by and historian, and later, as Lord Mr. Chamberlain of a Colonial Secre- Tweedsmuir, Governor-General of taryship, and had done this in order Canada; Philip Kerr, as Marquess of that he might reconstruct South Africa. Lothian, became Britain’s Ambassador His decision to stay on in the country in Washington during World War I; F. deepened my father’s depression. B. Smith, a Nobel Prize winner, was to Lord Milner, undeterred as ever by the become a famous professor of Agri- feelings of the people. about him, was culture at Cambridge; Patrick Duncan determined to model a new country stayed on in South Africa and in years according to his own ideas. From to come was my father’s right-hand Oxford he had brought a group of man and the first Union-domiciled graduates to aid him in this task. person appointed to the Governor- Though the idea of bringing out this Generalship; R.H. Brand, economist, back from the concentration camps served in many capacities with great and rehabilitated on their farms. After distinction. five years Britain had paid out £9,500,00 in compensation to the A vast array of problems faced the Boers – more than three times the Milner regime: there was the question amount asked for by my father at of the repatriation of the 32,000 Boer Vereeniging. The problem of exiles, the return of refugees and compensation threatened to become 110,000 concentration camp inmates, farcical, for the spate of demands from the restitution of prisoners of war, the the Boers knew no bounds. People transfer from military to civilian were out to get all they could from government, the establishment of law Britain. and order, the revival of trade and industry, reparations, re-establishment My father, who returned to his house of agriculture and a hundred and one in Sunnyside, was distressed to find other difficulties. his cherished library of law books wrecked, but he put in no claim. All these tasks were tackled Throughout his life he never put in any simultaneously with vigour. By claim against governments. It was his March, 1903, all the prisoners of war conviction that people leading public had been repatriated. The evacuation lives should not do so. of British troops was expeditiously carried out, and by March only 30,000 But the manner in which remained. Boer families were brought compensation was paid out left much discontent. To give immediate relief young architect and had given him the Milner decided to give assistance at job, amongst others, of designing his once and to ask for proof afterwards. own residence at Groote Schuur, on He distributed £3,000,000 at the rate the slopes of Devil’s Peak. By his of £25 per burgher, regardless of great gifts of broad vision and whether the assistance was required or sympathetic feeling, Baker created a not, and was later to make the fine series of buildings. He remained adjustments deemed necessary. The throughout his life a great admirer and “protected burghers”, the despised firm friend of my father’s. Boer “handsuppers”, were granted an My mother, returned from her nineteen additional £1,9000,000 and the Uit- months’ sojourn in Pietermaritzburg, landers £2,000,000. This occasioned looked tired and thin. Under the strain much bitterness, and the general lack of the war years, her weight had of equity caused much hardship. In dropped to little over seven stone, but addition £3,000,000 was distributed on her spirit was undiminished. Her short-term loan. bitterness did not obscure from her the To Herbert Baker, another fact that a fresh life had now to be Kindergarten member, was entrusted started. the design of the new public buildings My father returned to the Bar in that were erected throughout the Pretoria as a junior. He was now well country. Years before, Rhodes had known and he did not have to struggle been impressed by the idealism of this to make a living as had been the case in Johannesburg. He had friends In June, 1902, General Lyttelton everywhere and the country was replaced Kitchener. swelled with British money. So his There were signs that the country was practice prospered and he devoted his recovering. An indication of this was time and energies to it. that land values were rising. This had The most celebrated case that came his the effect of placating the farming way at this time was the defence of a people. It was unfortunate that a grandson of Paul Kruger, a Mr. S.J.P. severe drought occurred at the end of Smit, who had murdered an unpopular 1902, followed later by floods and moneylender named Davis at Swart- locusts; the extremely high cost of spruit near Pretoria. My father living was also proving a trial to the introduced a defence that was at that people. time new to this country, that of In 1903, a deputation of Boers led by hereditary insanity. Apparently there Botha went to England to try to obtain was evidence of epilepsy in the family. financial assistance. They were Much to his surprise, this flimsy received most courteously, and were defence was accepted; Smit was sent feted and lionised as only Britain can to a mental institution for a year or lionise a vanquished foe. But they got two and then released. Strange to nothing beyond goodwill and relate, this same Smit rebelled in 1914 friendliness; nor did they meet with against the man who so narrowly better luck on the Continent. So they saved him from the gallows. returned to South Africa with the chastened conviction that they would those of the whole Boer race. have to settle down and make ends Chamberlain listened sympathetically meet as best they could. but made no immediate concessions. When he departed he told Milner, In January, 1903, Joseph Chamberlain however, to treat these matters with visited Pretoria at Milner’s invitation. greater tolerance. He had been He was received by the people at a big favourably impressed by the bearing reception in the Raadsaal. The Boers of the Boers during his visit. My father were granted permission to put their says their behaviour, which was calm grievances before him. It was and dignified, made a better significant that my father, as he was impression on Chamberlain than that then no politician, was deputed to put of his own English countrymen. their case to Chamberlain in preference to all the other illustrious This goodwill, spurred on no doubt by leaders present. He spoke in the impatience of the Boers, bore fruit, Afrikaans, through an interpreter. and in 1903 Milner offered seats in his English was the official language of nominated Legislative Council to the land and he now asked that Botha, de la Rey and my father. concession be made in respect of the Through my father this offer was Afrikaans language; he spoke also of refused. The time was not ripe yet for the burden of war taxation, and popular representative institutions; it requested an amnesty for the Cape would be better to wait till the country rebels whose crimes had merely been was more settled. It was only right that as the government at the moment had and themselves draw the cart to the all the power, it should also shoulder centre of festivities. This little surprise all the responsibilities. was kept secret from Milner. Imagine, therefore, the poor man’s conster- The refusal was just what Milner nation, when, as he got to the wanted. It bore out his contention that boundary, a group of husky young the Boers were completely unco- men rushed his entourage trailing operative. wicked ropes. He was convinced that Long ago, my father was fond of his assassination was imminent, and recounting a little incident which went thinking discretion the better part of to show how distrustful Milner still valour, jumped to the ground and was of the Boers and how out of touch decamped as fast as he could go. The with the people. He was to attend a master of ceremonies, sensing this public function at some place in the hitch in the programme, ran after him south-western Transvaal, if I shouting lustily, “My Lord! My remember rightly, Potchefstroom or Lord!” but it was some time before thereabouts. The town, which was they impressed on the King’s repre- almost completely Boer, decided to sentative that they were merely acting give him a rousing welcome And in a friendly spirit. The picture of made arrangements accordingly. As Milner doing that desperate sprint, Milner’s horse-drawn coach entered gave my father great pleasure. the village a group of young men were to rush forward, unhitch the animals He was still very despondent and his Glen Grey Act, that unless a native disillusioned. He wrote to Merriman male is compelled to work by firm that he sometimes despaired of the persuasion he is very likely to prefer a future. “One lives here in an life of ease, lying happily in the sun. atmosphere which is entirely devoid of To Milner, therefore, the only solution culture” and “frankly materialistic”. lay in indentured Chinese labour and Much of Milner’s scheme of in this he had the full support of reconstruction was based on funds to George Farrar, leader of the English be derived from the taxation of profits party in the House of Assembly. This of a rejuvenated gold mining industry. was not South Africa’s first taste of But in this he was to be disappointed, foreign labour. In the 1860’s the for the industry was passing through people of Natal had brought in about lean and difficult times. Native labour six thousand low caste Madras Indians was almost unobtainable, not only to help in their sugar-cane fields. The because natives had been spoiled by Indians bred prolifically and at the turn the readiness with which they made of the century presented a formidable easy money during the war, but also problem to Natal and elsewhere. In because the wages offered by the their easy-going fashion the people of mines had dropped from 45 shillings Natal, though perplexed by the in pre-war days to 30 shillings. Milner problem, had done little to solve it, failed to appreciate, as Rhodes had and instead of raising a clamour to get done earlier on and had remedied in the coolies repatriated, merely crossed their arms in resignation. Hence the burdened his bruised feelings. He serious problem of the Indian in the condemned the intention to import Natal of today – a people liked by Chinese in the strongest terms; he neither whites nor blacks. slated Milner; he castigated the mining industry of which he said that little My father saw clearly the implications better than 80 per cent were bogus of the proposed importation of concerns. We were “merrily spinning Chinese to the Rand. We already had to perdition” he wrote in despair. sufficient problems of race and colour in this country. The idea outraged him Kind-hearted and well-meaning Miss and his countrymen. Hobhouse, without my father’s concurrence, had this long letter A middle-aged Quaker spinster, Emily published in full in The Times of 15th Hobhouse, came from England as a April. It was hard to conceive of a welfare worker amongst the Boer more foolish or damaging act. families in the concentration camps during the war. She had earned high The reactions were instantaneous. gratitude and praise for her labours. There was an immediate outcry My parents met her for the first time against my father. He wrote to Miss after the war and thereafter my father Hobhouse, “A tremendous sensation was to carry on correspondence with was created last week by the cables of her, somewhat in the form of a diary, my letter which you published. As for many years. He wrote her a letter later letters were hostile to Lord in February, 1903, in which he un- Milner and their publication would have meant my enforced departure of queries whether a swing towards a from this country, I took the Liberal Government was already precaution of warning you against discernible, and whether she thought, further publication. if the Liberals came into power, they would “stop Chinese importation”. He “On the whole I feel sorry the letter was much depressed: “I see no ray of was published, as I would have hope,” he wrote in May, 1904. expressed myself more cautiously had I known it would be published. As it During the First World War Miss is, it appears exaggerated and unfair... Hobhouse turned as pro-German as Lord Milner is said to be very pleased, she had previously been pro-Boer and as the letter confirms his view that I denounced my father for his part in the am the great Irreconcilable still at war against Germany. She said some large in this blessed satrapy.” Later he hasty things for which my mother has wrote of “a storm of execration” never forgiven her. But my father against him in Johannesburg, espe- remembered only the good work she cially by the mining houses. In a long did amongst the Boer families. He poem by Sir Owen Scaman Punch realised that Miss Hobhouse was that caricatured him unflatteringly. earnest type of soul who always championed an underdog. It was Yet after Miss Hobhouse’s unpar- through Miss Hobhouse that we were donable indiscretion he bore her no ill- to get to know the Gillett family of will, but wrote as before. His letters Oxford. Mrs. Gillett (nee Clark) work- were full of the Chinese problem and ed with Miss Hobhouse at one stage out here teaching weaving crafts to Boer women. The Gilletts became my father’s lifelong friends. Milner himself did not like the idea of importing Chinese labour at first. It was only when his reconstruction programme became endangered that he warmed to it. Once he had made up his mind he was inflexible. In June, 1904, the Chinese started to come. By the end of the year there were 23,000 Chinese on the mines and eventually by December, 1908, about 54,000. The people in South Africa, with the exception of the mineowners and shareholders, were enraged. Serious crime on the Rand had become disturbing since the arrival of the Orientals. People lived in fear of their safety. The clamour against the Chinese was constant and vehement. It was to echo all the way across the way back to England, where now he seas to England, though by the time it was to spend ten years in the political reached there, it had assumed a wilderness. different meaning. In England the by- On 2nd April, 1905, my father wrote word became “Slavery”. It was the to the departing Governor: “Will you hardship of the Chinese coolies they allow me to wish you a bon voyage pitied there, these poor indentured now that you are leaving South Africa creatures cooped up brutally in mine for ever? I am afraid you have not “prisons”! Campbell-Bannerman cried liked us. But I cherish the hope that, as loudly in protest against the “slave- our memories grow mellower, and the laws” and the “indentured labour”. nobler features of our respective ideas The British are a kind-hearted, if often become clearer, we shall more and misconstruing, people, and they took more appreciate the contribution of this propaganda to their hearts. Camp- each to the formation of the happier bell-Bannerman’s protests gathered in South Africa which is certainly force, and the clamour against the coming, and judge more kindly of Government mounted to such effect each other. that by December, 1905, it sufficed at a general election to unseat them and “At any rate it is a consolation to think bring in the Liberals. what is noble in our work will grow to larger issues than we foresaw, and that Before this, however, Milner’s term of even our mistakes will be covered up office had expired and he was on his ultimately, not only in merciful oblivion, but also in that unconscious mellowing effect and he was an easy forgiveness which seems to me to be and pleasant person to work with. an inherent feature of all historic They became firm friends. growth. History writes the word Lord Selborne succeeded Milner and ‘reconciliation’ over all her quarrels, proved a wise choice. He was a quiet, and will surely write it over the kindly and understanding man, with unhappy differences which have wide sympathies, keen on farming and agitated us in the past. What is good in affairs of the land, and with his our work is not disposed of in the coming there was an instant present but can safely appeal to the ear improvement in the atmosphere. He of the future. Our respective was a good friend to Botha and my contentions will reach a friendly father. settlement which no one foresees today.” On my father’s thirty-fifth birthday Lord Selborne spoke of him as “Mr. My father stigmatised the Milner Smuts, that brilliant lawyer, the Administration of 1902-5, “the darkest brilliant soldier”. period in the history of the Transvaal”. Milner himself considered his work during this period as the best of his life. My father was to meet him again in the First World War. By that time his period of adversity had had a 20 : RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT had come on private business. They were not convinced. The world had MEANWHILE, in the Transvaal the begun to realise that his presence Afrikaans people had founded the Het always meant something. Volk party under the leadership of Botha, de la Rey and my father. Its His mission was to see the Liberal objects were responsible government Government on the question of and conciliation between the two Responsible Government. But it was white races. The offer of difficult to know how to approach representation under the Lyttelton them, for of their front-benchers he Constitution was still too near the had so far met only Winston Churchill. Crown Colony type of representation So he saw Churchill. first, but to make possible its acceptance by Churchill was frankly dubious. Morley them. They wanted full responsible he saw next, but though he had representation. previously been pro-Boer, he now said there was public opinion to consider. With Campbell-Bannerman in power my father was hopeful and active. In Campbell-Bannerman asked him why 1906 he left for England quietly and he had refused Milner’s first offer of unobtrusively, but not so quietly but representation on the Legislative that the press took notice. In London Council. My father’s reply was that it he stayed at Horrex’s Hotel, in the would have led only to friction, for Strand, where Kruger had put up that government was appointed and previously. He told reporters that he not elected. It would have left the Boer minority on the Council with no power Campbell-Bannerman addressed his except to talk. They would have been Cabinet. Lloyd George is said to have bitterly criticised by their people. The told Lord Riddell: “It was all done in a Lyttelton Constitution was hardly any ten-minute speech at the Cabinet – the better. There was only one solution, most dramatic, the most important ten that of self-government. – minute speech delivered in our time... At the outset only two of us “I went on explaining,” my father said. were with him... But his speech “I could see Campbell-Bannerman was convinced the whole Cabinet. It was listening sympathetically. Without the utterance of a plain, kindly, simple being brilliant he was the sort of man. The speech moved at least one personality – large-hearted and honest member of the Cabinet to tears. It was – on whom people depended. He the most impressive thing I ever saw.” reminded me of Botha. Such men get Britain extended the hand of things done. He told me there was to friendship and understanding. be a Cabinet meeting the next day and said, ‘Smuts, you have convinced My father returned to South Africa a me.’” That talk settled the future of proud man. He considered this one of South Africa.10 the greatest achievements of his life. He said it was “one of the wisest political settlements ever made in the history of the English nation”. 10 Quoted from Sarah Gertrude Millin. The Lyttelton Constitution was In 1906 my father was appointed a revoked and in May a Royal King’s Counsellor, to the disgust of Commission came to Pretoria to settle General Hertzog, who considered it a the details of responsible government. despised British appendage. A photo of Campbell-Bannerman to Meanwhile things were going better in this day hangs behind my father’s desk the country. The mines once more in his study. He felt warmly for the became prosperous, and with that the kindness shown him. At his study prosperity of the whole country took door, in an equally commanding on a new lease. The repatriation of the position, hangs a photo of Paul Chinese now began. They had served Kruger, the other man to whom he was their purpose and local natives could eternally grateful. take over the work. But the evacuation was not to be complete till March, In December, 1906, the Transvaal was 1910. accorded Responsible Government and the Orange River Colony shortly In Het Volk the leadership had now after. Said my father: “They gave us clearly passed into the hands of Botha back our country in everything but and my father. They were an ideal name. After four years. Has such a partnership: my father provided the miracle of trust and magnanimity ever brain and drive, Botha the solid happened before? Only people like the personal side in contact with all types English could do it. They may make of people. They had frequently mistakes, but they are a big people.” discussed the future as they sat on the stoep of Botha’s house in Sunnyside Unie was to diverge further and further and had decided to devote their efforts from the paths of conciliation and to to the rebuilding of a united South harden to a tone of great bitterness; it African nation. To this purpose they was to initiate a two-stream policy travelled the country making speeches. from which even her best friends have Their theme was always conciliation been unable to save South Africa. and goodwill. The response was Hertzogism was a canker with small gratifying. beginnings, but it was deep-seated and grew steadily, undermining South In the Orange River Colony General African nationhood. It was too big a Hertzog had, in 1905, founded the burden to thrust on to a small, war- Orangia Unie. It was built on the ravaged country. narrower lines of nationalism and Afrikanderism. Hertzog had not in him The electioneering campaign of Botha that breadth of view or the forgiving and my father in the Transvaal was nature that stamps the statesman. He designed to counter the Hertzog cult. was irrevocably ingrained with the Nor were their efforts at conciliation hard kernel of Afrikanderism which no unsuccessful, for they gained support reason or argument could shake. It was from considerable British elements the obstinate, almost blind, who came forward to join their party. unreasonableness of the Boer race. So In February, 1907, elections were held far it had not become a major problem, for the Responsible Government. The but as the years passed the Orangia upper house was appointed by nomination. On the 28th July, 1906, reason to be ashamed, but at the same my father spoke at Ventersdorp of “a time it remarked that “we happen to new and great nation, neither Boer nor regard Mr. Smuts as a particularly British, but a nation that shall make dangerous political guide for a young South Africa into a big, free country”. British Colony”. The Chinese must go, he said In February, 1907, the elections were repeatedly. At Daspoort near Pretoria held and of the total or 69 seats Het he said on the 23rd January, 1907: Volk had 37, with the diehard British “The introduction of the Chinese was a Progressives securing only 21. Six crime. We shall not rest until the last went to the Affiliated Nationalists Chinaman has left the shores of South (Responsibles) and 5 to Labour and Africa.” Yet at the same time he was Independents. George Farrar was quick to reassure the mines that this leader of the Progressives and would not be done precipitately or to Christian Beyers Speaker of the their detriment. “No Chinese will be House. Sir Lionel Philips was allowed to leave unless proper President of the Chamber of Mines. substitutes have been previously At about this time the English press found.” for the first time began referring On the 14th November, 1906, the consistently to my father as General Johannesburg Star praised my father Smuts. There was considerable talk at for his consistency, saying there was the time of making him Premier, for in nothing in his past of which he had ability and intellectual attributes he had no equal in the Government. heavy that it sapped his vitality. He Wisely, and at the same time with due was of a dark almost swarthy modesty, he deprecated such a move. complexion, with prominent black He wrote to Merriman, “I think it bushy eyebrows and big protruding would be a mistake to take precedence eyes – a pleasant handsome face with over Botha who is really one of the features suggesting humour and finest men South Africa has ever kindness rather than intellectual fire. produced.” To Dr. F.V. Engelenberg Botha was by nature and outlook a he wrote in similar vein: “I agree with farmer, with all a farmer’s liking for you that no one more than General protracted conversation, coffee and Botha is entitled to appreciation and tobacco, and always accessible and gratitude. The victory of the people’s approachable. At the same time there party at the polls is largely due to his was in him something solid, which constant labours... These excellent suggested the massiveness of the services deserve to be worthily mountains of his birthplace. recognised.” With the Boer people Botha’s stature Louis Botha was eight years older than and popularity were unsurpassed. my father, and a British subject of They could feel he was one of them. Natal by birth. Where my father was Of his transparent honesty and light of bone structure and slender of integrity there was never a question. build, Botha was big-boned and What he lacked in education he made massive, with a frame in later life so up in human understanding, and he had displayed rare powers of Volksraad in Pretoria. The friendship leadership in the old Transvaal Volks- was formed in the testing days of the raad, and in the war. His one grave war, and it was clinched during those disability was that he spoke little great days of planning the future of the English and his efforts to learn it at country. It was the closest public this stage of his career were too friendship my father formed in his life; belated. it was, he said, the intimate friendship of brothers. My own childhood memories of General Botha are those of a big jovial In all matters the partnership man, ample of girth and friendly of functioned admirably, for both were demeanour. When my father was away selfless men working only for the on the German East African campaign good of their country. Botha was the he came to see how we were all solid power, my father the dynamic getting on at Irene, and on one planner and phenomenal worker. occasion found my little sister and While Botha talked and contacted myself down with whooping cough people, my father sat in his office and my poor mother worn out with working, always working, running not looking after us. Kind soul that he only his own portfolios but those of was, he took us each in his arms and most of the Cabinet as well. Union carried us around till we were asleep. Cabinets in those days, to a much greater extent than at present, carried a My father’s association with Louis lot of dead-wood, and ministers were Botha dated back to the days of the as yet inexperienced in the tasks of Minister of Education. His vigour and government. My father did their forcefulness and his administrative thinking and their work for them. He ability were plain, and cartoons in the also did much of General Botha’s, for press stressed the multiplicity of the the General’s lack of English often man. kept him out of the House. Botha went to England almost My father said he seldom in life had immediately after the formation of the worked harder than during that period. Cabinet, leaving my father, the It is said he was even curt and off- youngest member, in charge. He took hand with deputations, though I find it an early opportunity to pay an official hard to credit that. visit to the Portuguese in Delagoa Bay, and shortly after went to take a look at At the same time he still found time to Beira, travelling via Salisbury. be cheerful and informal at home. The pleasant old Stellenbosch pastime of During this period his work was reading poetry aloud returned to the noteworthy for perhaps four major house, and my mother says they even items of legislation. The first was the sang volkslieder and Scottish songs Education Bill, which stands in together, she playing the accom- principle to this day. It was in essence paniment on the piano. one of language equality. All education was put under government In the new Government my father was control; English was made a appointed Colonial Secretary and compulsory language and Dutch optional. At the same time, to obviate Next came his stand against Labour. any possible Church interference, all His offer of relief employment at two denominational religious education shillings per day, with keep, was flatly was banned. My father felt “it might rejected by Labour, whose demands have been better if we had only one were five shillings plus keep, and language, but we must deal with facts relief in forms specific to their own and find a solution”. Religion was choice. On my father’s thirty-seventh introduced because, “this is a Christian birthday three hundred disgruntled country. Nine-tenths of the population men marched from Johannesburg to are Christian and wish their children to Pretoria to press their case. It looked be educated in the Christian manner... as though matters might get out of No clergyman will be allowed to come hand so he called out two British into the schools... There are different regiments, the Cameron’s and the opinions... The educational system of Queen’s Bays, to patrol the Reef. The the country shall not be run by the trouble subsided, but a cry was raised Churches.” He piloted his Bills that foreign troops had been used in a skilfully through the House. The domestic affair. At the time, however, Volkstem said, “Oom Jannie has a way there was no option. of dealing with a complicated matter Thirdly came the unpleasantness over as if it were the simplest thing on the Cullinan diamond. This superb earth.” gem of 3,025 carats was discovered near Pretoria On 26th January, 1905. Its value was beyond computation, but still drying on the deed of gift when it was provisionally insured for London sanctioned the £5,000,000 £250,000. Botha and my father Land Bank Loan which was so thought it might be a fine and worthy essential to the Transvaal. gesture for this new colony to present The fourth matter referred to the the stone to the King. Indians. My father’s trouble with The Boers supported the motion, but Gandhi began in July, 1907. It never the English members were critical and really finished. By the time an Indian hostile, pointing out that it scarcely assassin’s bullet ended Gandhi’s life in befitted an impoverished small 1948 the whole Commonwealth had country to be so magnanimous. An become involved with this diminutive acrimonious debate raged for two days man. before the motion was passed. My It was almost by accident that he came father was prompted to remark to be connected with South Africa. scathingly that, “When I see the Knight Commanders and D.S.O.’s rise and unblushingly oppose the motion it shows me that although there may be great financial power among them, there is little political insight.” And political insight on my father’s side there certainly was, for the ink was 21 : GANDHI of another train which ended in his having his ears boxed. He changed IN 1893 a court case was pending in carriages and proceeded uneventfully Pretoria which involved Indian to Johannesburg. There he was told interests. Gandhi came out to Africa to hotels were full, and had to change defend the case. His journey up from into his frock coat and top hat in a Durban to Pretoria was an eventful cloakroom. Once more he took a first- one,. for it introduced him drastically class ticket and proceeded to Pretoria, to the system of race discrimination, where he arrived at night. Not being in known as the colour bar, which possession of a “pass”, a document all operated in this country. It did not help non-Europeans have to carry at night, him that he had spent five years he was arrested. studying Law in London and was a man of culture. The colour bar was a Needless to say this reception did not hard-and-fast innovation working endear the Transvaal to him. For all regardless of all these things. Gandhi his diminutive size he was a man of learned this in the train on the way up. moral courage and tenacity. He spent First a European refused to sit in the only a few days in Pretoria before same compartment and to save face returning to Durban on the way home, Gandhi got out of the train and spent but there he learned from a newspaper the night on Pietermaritzburg Station. that Natal was about to disenfranchise Near Standerton the following day he the Indians. It was, so far as Natal was had a disagreement with the conductor concerned, a measure of self- protection to ensure that the country During the Boer War he formed a should remain white. The Indian corps of Indian stretcher-bearers which people were breeding like rabbits and were attached to the British. the country was fast becoming In 1903 he decided to return to the swamped by them. Even a £3 annual Transvaal, but Milner did not want head tax had not deterred them from him or any other Indians back again. coming to South Africa. Eventually a compromise was arrived Gandhi saw there was work for him to at whereby such Indians as had their do in South Africa. He drew up a thumbprints taken might return. petition of protest against the Bill. For Gandhi enrolled as a qualified attorney three years he stayed in Natal, and practised in the Supreme Court of organising the Natal Indian Congress, the Transvaal. In 1904 the Indian a forerunner of the Congress Party of cause suffered a severe setback, for India he was to initiate later. In India, after continuous heavy rains, cholera where he went for a holiday, he broke out in their community in painted such lurid stories of the Johannesburg. The case against having brutality of the white man and the Indians in the Transvaal was now disabilities of the non-whites, that strong. After a further effort at people wanted to lynch him on his stretcher-bearing in a minor Zulu return to South Africa in s.s. rebellion in 1906 Gandhi went to Courtland. England to plead the cause of the Indians. He was told to wait, as the Transvaal was just then about to be comply and marched at the head of a granted Responsible Government. crowd into the Central Prison in Pretoria, where he was detained for a In July, 1907, he organised his first year. Passive Resistance campaign and was joined by a thousand Chinese under While in prison, in an interview with Leong Quinn. In August my father my father, he endeavoured to arrive at warned him that he would not tolerate a compromise, but my father assured breaches of the law “and if the Indians him that only Parliament could alter its resisted they would only have own Act. At the next sitting the themselves and their leaders to blame Asiatic Act and Immigration Act were for the consequences”. Gandhi’s reply repealed and Indians already in the was that he was merely striving for the Transvaal had their certificates made repeal of the Asiatic Land Amendment valid, but no further Asiatic Act, and for the recognition of the immigration was permitted. Gandhi status of educated Indians. claimed this was a breach of my father’s promise, and he and his The first Transvaal parliament shortly followers burned their certificates in afterwards passed severe immigration protest. laws which demanded the taking of the fingerprints of the entire hand to We were not quite finished with obviate forging of documents. A Gandhi yet. Some years after, when deadline for finger-printing was set at the Union of the four Provinces had 30th November. Gandhi failed to already been completed, he demanded the repeal of the £3 head-tax of Natal. He not only achieved neither of these He demonstrated by marching at the aims, but even failed to make any head of 3,000 Indians across the Natal headway. His only achievement had border into the Transvaal, where he been to get the repeal of the two Bills was promptly arrested and removed to in 1907, and this, in effect, had no Bloemfontein gaol. material bearing on his ambitions. His outwitting by my father had been By this time the dark clouds of World complete, and it was in this sense of War I were already blowing up, and failure that he set out dejectedly to Britain, desirous of maintaining the brood and scheme in India. goodwill of her peoples in India, interceded on India’s behalf. Gandhi The 6,000 Indians originally imported was released, and just as the war burst had by 1950 multiplied to a quarter of upon the world in 1914 he sailed for a million. The Indian’s tendency to India, never again to return to these increase prolifically, coupled with his shores. ability to live frugally and undersell the white man, as well as to exploit the It is said that once or twice in this African native, has created one of tussle Gandhi got the better of my South Africa’s most serious problems. father. This is a distortion of facts. The situation is further complicated by Gandhi’s cause had been, as he the fact that the problems of India and himself had said, the removal of Empire are often projected on to our discriminating immigration laws and domestic ones. In 1911 further the recognition of the educated Indian. immigration of Indians into the and bore no grudge. In fact, even when country was prohibited, but the he really had reason to feel sore with movement still progresses apace in the my father, at the time when he spent a remainder of British Africa. year in Pretoria Central Gaol, he showed his friendly spirit by making Gandhi had, however, succeeded in my father a stout pair of leather stirring up a hornets’ nest in the sandals. These, like Gandhi’s relations between India and South friendship, my father kept safely Africa, which to this day grows more through the years. acrimonious and dangerous. An ideal platform has been afforded them in the At the end of the first session of the Chambers of the United Nations new government the Johannesburg Organisation. It is a disturbing Star remarked: “Practically the whole problem and its end appears more of the government business has fallen distant than ever. By now it has to Mr. Smuts, who dominates and assumed the guise of the iniquity of overshadows his party. Opinions may discrimination against all non-white differ about the value of his races, and to Britain, as a colonial achievements in practical legislation... power, it is proving most but it would be churlish to refuse to embarrassing. recognise the colossal industry and persuasive tact which the Colonial Gandhi, though clashing frequently Secretary has almost always brought with my father in the old days, was an to his parliamentary duties.” The understanding and forgiving person “Mr.” denotes that the Star was at that time no particular disciple of my father’s. 22 : NATIONAL CONVENTION realised that it was no use waiting, as Milner had done, till the British MEANWHILE a new trend had become section in the country were strong discernible in politics. It was an urge enough to write the federal for “closer union”. That such ideas constitution. In fact, by the end of should arise was perhaps a natural 1906 it was perfectly clear that the sequel to the constant stream of Boers were rapidly overtaking the goodwill, co-operation and British, and that the latter would never conciliation that was being preached, be strong enough to dictate this not only by Botha and my father in the constitution. It was now clear that the Transvaal, but also in the Cape, where Boers would write this document. Merriman (the Prime Minister), F.S. Malan and Dr. Jameson strongly But in the Orange River Colony Steyn supported the idea. and Hertzog displayed scant interest. In a memo Lord Selborne strongly Lord Selborne, the Governor, was urged the desirability of a closer asked, as Milner had been, to achieve integration as the best solution to a federation. He was convinced from number of problems that only really what he saw that the Crown Colony arose because of the artificially constitution was unsuited to the separate entity of the four Colonies. diverse conditions in South Africa. Strangely enough, by their haggling Botha had already taken the first step the railways were a source of division by discussing with the Chief Justice of rather than a bond of union. Selborne the Cape11 the desirability of Though the urge for closer relationship establishing a federal court of appeal. was strong, there were no less strong It was most desirable to standardise controversial problems in the detail of the legal code. this move. Many influential people felt the project would be detrimental to In May, 1908, a conference was their own interests, and the Provinces called, ostensibly to adjust customs were one and all chary lest they should differences and railway problems. lose power and identity through the Here my father proposed six marriage. The Transvaal and Cape resolutions, which were seconded by were really the only two that had solid Mr. Merriman, demanding “a national assets to offer. Natal and the Orange convention to discuss the closer River Colony were insignificant by political and economic union of the comparison. The Transvaal was South African colonies”. These fabulously rich. The others were but resolutions were passed and later duly poor neighbours. It was obvious that ratified by the four Parliaments. the major sacrifices would devolve upon the Transvaal. Much as the other 11 J. Henry de Villiers, first Baron de Villiers (1842-1914), was a South African by birth. He provinces coveted the wealth of this was called to the Bar of the Inner Temple in jewel-box, they had strong 1865, became Attorney-General for the Cape reservations on questions of language of Good Hope in 1872 and the following year and of personal prestige. Natal was no was appointed Lord Chief Justice. He was lover of the dual language system, and raised to the peerage in 1910. the Orange River Colony had rooted factor in the South African situation, it antipathies to English. is also largely independent of any particular colony, and can therefore Union did not appeal to the Reef. view the situation with comparative Uitlander pro-British ideas were equanimity. Hence the chief danger running as strongly as ever and there and opposition will always come from were fears, possibly not unfounded, the Transvaal, where you have a that an Afrikaner bloc might be set up. strong section who would prefer to Here was a delicate, almost snap their fingers at the rest of British insuperable problem that would test South Africa, and another equally the best in statesmanship. The only strong section who see in Federation way of tackling it was the long and only a consolidation of “Dutch” in- hard way of patience and persuasion. fluence, and therefore an issue to be My father, more than others, was fought at all hazards. Besides these aware of the difficulties and pitfalls two you have here a third section who that beset the way. On these he say that federation is near Chauvinism, touched briefly in a letter to Chief and that it would be better far to Justice Sir Henry de Villiers on 22nd devote our energies to less showy July, 1907: tasks, to repair the losses of the past, ... from a purely selfish point of view to further the material welfare of the the Transvaal has little to gain from people, before we begin a federation federation. Economically the strongest policy. A fourth section (chiefly, I believe, bickering of the past – we are prepared represented by the older and wiser to sacrifice much – not to Natal or the generation of politicians at the Cape) Cape, but to South Africa. exhorts us to achieve national unity Next year, no doubt, Federation first before we attempt political unity. Commissions will be appointed from What with all these views and the real the various South African parliaments difficulties of the situation, the cause to go into the matter. But the real of federation is by no means assured tussle will probably come in February as far as the immediate future is or March of next year when the concerned. And I don’t think it is Railways and Customs Conference really advanced by a one-sided will have to take place. That will statement such as the memo attached probably be the most important to Lord Selborne’s minute. Conference to be held in South Africa But I do not despair. We who love for many a day, and on its issue will South Africa as a whole, who have our largely depend the cause of Union or ideal of her, who wish to substitute the Federation. I sincerely hope that the idea of a united South Africa for the various colonies will send their very lost independence, who see in breadth best men to that Conference, which I of horizon, in a wider and more hope will be held at Pretoria. If we embracing statesmanship, the cure for succeed in establishing an economic many of our ills and the only escape union, not on mere patchwork lines from the dreary pettiness and but on a broad and permanent policy which will do away with all local over-rate my influence in this friction and irritation, I do not see why connection... we should not soon move further and As regards the Court of Appeal I quite convert this economic into a political agree with what I gather to be your union. view – that if federation is at all The subject is most difficult and in possible, it should be part and parcel many ways awkward for a Transvaal of a federation settlement of South politician, but I shall always do my Africa. Should federation be relegated best to keep the larger aspect of the by the developments of the immediate case before me and to contribute future to a more distant day, then the something towards the achievement of Appeal Court will have to be permanent union. If the end of all our considered by itself. past losses and sufferings is the attain- The Transvaal government are doing ment of a united South Africa in which their best to pave the way for larger its people will find peace and things by a policy of conciliation satisfaction, that will indeed be a great conceived on broad South African day. I hope you, who have done so lines. The outlook economically is far much to keep before South Africans from bright, but on all hands one that wider outlook, will live to see that notices a desire on the part of the day. I shall do my best to hasten it by various sections of the population to all legitimate means, though you much let bygones be bygones and to draw together in spite of or perhaps because of disappointments and adversity. I “We must have Union,” he declared hope the same spirit will also prevail emphatically. “Two such peoples as in other parts of South Africa and that the Dutch and English must either politicians will recognise that our unite or try to exterminate each other. strength does not lie in isolation, but in There is only one road to salvation ... union. the road to Union ... to a South African Nation.” In that way Union will come about not as a forced thing but as a ripe fruit “The Boer has fought for lus fallen from the tree. General Botha’s independence; the Englishman for his attitude in England will, I hope, have Empire; all have fought for what they had a beneficial effect all over South consider highest. ... Now the highest is Africa. In his profound commonsense Union... Let us have Union – not of I see deeper statesmanship than in all top dog and under dog, but of brothers the astuteness and cleverness of ... we are now in for a bigger task than smaller men. ever before. Let us see it through... Let us make one big South Africa and do The time for a National Convention our best as wise and prudent sons of was now ripe. In order to wean the South Africa to start a Union here and Transvaal from her independence and to rule the country from Table Bay to isolation my father and Botha toured the Congo and even beyond that. Let the country extensively, addressing us be inventors of a great South many public meetings. Africa.” It was decided to hold the Convention no document limiting the powers of of the four Colonies in Durban. Parliament. Yet it was obvious that South Africa could not be like that, but My father worked on his brief for the it would be advantageous if a conference. The first task was to make constitution with a maximum a thorough study of all the federal and flexibility could be designed. union constitutions obtainable in order to see which would be most suitable He wrote to Lord de Villiers for our rather peculiar conditions in concerning his proposals about Union: South Africa. He studied especially the “The paper represents merely my American Constitution, of which Walt personal opinions. If the main ideas Whitman had given him an intimate are approved, I propose to prepare a understanding. It was obviously too draft constitution which might largely rigid, however, and it gave the expedite the work of the convention: separate federal states too much power and time is of enormous importance in and the central authority too little. this matter.” “We have no right to attempt to Assisted by experts, including Brand, hamper and bind ourselves down by Curtis and members of the any cast-iron system which only a Kindergarten, he had perfected his revolution can attend,” he decided. plans down to the smallest detail. The There was much to be envied in scheme he had devised he submitted to England’s freedom from a binding the four Provinces for criticism and written constitution, for here there was suggestions. With the receipt of these he drew up his final memorandum and It is said that he wanted this closeness left for Durban. of union in order that he might wield greater personal power, as he had done Lord de Villiers, Chief Justice of the in the Transvaal Parliament. This is no Cape, was appointed chairman of this more than sensational journalism. My conference. The delegates brought father was never a seeker of power for with them a high optimism but no power’s sake. There was nothing experience in constitution-making. My personal in his desire for power. father had to shepherd them. He had Power was obviously required to thought out everything, even to the provide the great cohesive effort minutest pitfalls. which would be necessary to keep the The work of the conference amounted four strange bed-fellows together. to a study and watering down of my Power was merely a means to an father’s draft. This was necessary if ultimate national end. It provided the the whims, fears and sensitiveness of authority for good legislation and delegates were to be satisfied. Some leadership. Natal delegates favoured federation after the Australian model, but my Even the sultry summer heat of father convinced them that such a Durban did not deter him though the loose federation would not suit our majority of the delegates wilted conditions. Something closer was visibly. desirable. In his Inner History of the South African Convention, Sir Edgar Walton gives an account of my father’s the people of South Africa and must opening address at the Conference: trust each other. Distrust and suspicion would be fatal. They must also trust In his opening sentences at the future South Africans, trust their National Convention which decided wisdom, and they had no right to on Union and drafted our present hamper them and bind them down by constitution, General Smuts appealed any cast-iron system or constitution to the Convention to fix their minds on which only a revolution could amend. great principles and not to allow their In the second place he urged an open work to be spoiled by too much mind on the part of the delegates and attention to material interests or hoped they would avoid the danger of difficulties of the day. Material following too closely the precedent interests were evanescent, the handed down to them by former problems of the future would not be constitution framers. They should the problems of today, and they were endeavour to profit by the errors and working for the future and were experiences of other countries and endeavouring to lay down a with their own knowledge of South constitution which the people of South Africa do their best to solve the special Africa would live under for many problems of this country. In the third generations to come. place their problem was easier of There were three points which he solution than that of either Canada or thought the delegates should bear in Australia. Canada was divided by race, mind. In the first place they must trust religion and interest, Australia was what grave trouble had arisen purely economically divided, while in South from the nature of the Constitution. Africa we already had a Customs Such a machinery for legislation Union and other close connections. would be unworkable in South Africa, for the sovereign power was so Turning to the resolution General dispersed as to be ineffective for the Smuts pointed out that they had before essential purposes of civilised them three courses. They might adopt government. In South Africa we federation, or a Union such as that of already had adopted the British system the United Kingdom, or they might of responsible government, which take the middle course suggested by worked well and which the people Mr. Merriman of a Legislative Union understood; in the United States of with a system of provincial govern- America they had a Legislature, one ment under the authority of the central Chamber of which represented the power. With regard to the first, in his people and the other represented the opinion, federation was inapplicable to States, and they found the power of South Africa. Federation, he took it, the Upper Chamber or Senate was a treaty or a pact, an agreement increasing. In those States there was between independent powers. In South no power responsible for order among Africa they were not independent the States, no power to punish wrong- powers, but brothers. doing by a State. In establishing the Let them study the history of the Commonwealth of Australia they United States of America, let them see adopted the American principle for The hands of South Africa should not forming Parliaments and for investing be so tied and they had no right to the individual States with sovereign shackle future South Africans. He power, but the British system of supported Mr. Merriman’s .contention responsible government. It would (he that corruption was almost inevitable believed) be found that in Australia the under federation because power was real power was vested in the Senate so dispersed that there was no and that a deadlock was inevitable. authority able to punish and it was difficult to fix the responsibility. He They could only be altered by hoped sincerely that they would avoid unanimous consent. The Constitution a situation in South Africa under of the United States had only twice which honest men would decline to been altered, for the difficulties in the enter public life. way of alteration were almost insuperable and the States were now The alternative to federation was the working under a Constitution made in union as it existed in the British the eighteenth century when the Islands. It was, he believed, the most conditions of the country were entirely successful system the world had ever different from what they were today. seen and it was a model which all free Machinery for alteration was devised people could safely copy. It was true but it was found to be almost that in Great Britain there was a unworkable and the experience of the demand for greater local powers and States was an object-lesson for us. with a sovereign parliament in the United Kingdom it was possible to satisfaction of South Africa and that delegate any powers which it was therefore there must be local Parlia- necessary for localities to exercise. It ments to control and promote local was now being contemplated to grant interests. such powers to Ireland and to carry General Smuts said he had much that measure would merely require an sympathy with that argument, but in Act of the Imperial Parliament. They his opinion South Africa required a were told that there were exceptional whipping boy and that whipping boy difficulties in South Africa and that would be most safely found in the under Union the Central Parliament Central Government and Central would be overloaded with work and Parliament. To meet the argument become congested. It was also advanced he was in favour of a Central objected that the interests of the Sovereign Parliament together with respective Colonies were very diver- local Legislatures (Provincial gent and required special attention. Councils), with delegated and defined There were the wine farmers of the powers and, of course, subject to the western side of the Cape, the tea and Central Parliament. In his opinion that sugar planters of Natal, the gold mines middle course would give the least of the Transvaal and the diamond possible occasion for friction in the mines, and it was urged that one future for it could accommodate itself Central Parliament would be unable to to the needs of the people from time to do all the work required of it to the time and the powers of the loca1 Legislatures could be extended or Thirty-three men forgathered at the curtailed as occasion demanded. What Conference – men, Lord Curzon said, was essential was that they must create “whose names a few years ago were machinery which “will work” and that anathema to each other; men who not they must as far as was humanly only would have put each other to possible ensure themselves against death, but were within an ace of doing future trouble or deadlock. so; men who had never before been in the same room... And there was not Finally, and in solemn and impressive one of them who, while loyal to his words, General Smuts urged the colony or his race or his following, Convention to remember that if they was not more loyal to the wider cause were not successful in drafting a of South African Union within the constitution which South Africa would sheltering embrace of the British accept, if they were not able to bring Empire.” about union in South Africa, then there was grave trouble in the future for My father had with him nineteen their common country. Union, he secretaries and advisers, a staff larger believed, was the only means of by half than the total from all the other averting terrible disaster and he urged Provinces. This comprehensive staff of upon every delegate present to come to experts was able to handle all a determination that the Convention problems expeditiously. There could should not separate without having be no delay which might impair the come to an agreement. smooth functioning of the National Parliament, a national deliberations. executive and trust to them for a solution of those questions that have Snags and pitfalls confronted them at troubled us in the past,” he pleaded. every turn. There were questions of the location of the future capital, to Hertzog was on the point of starting which great prestige was attached, and his language quarrels in the Free State. a corresponding sensitiveness. There Had the Convention been held less was the native problem which was than a year later it would have broken much entangled by the question of old down on this. Even now he displayed rights of the coloured folk of the Cape. little enthusiasm at the substance of There was the Indian problem. There the Conference, and at times proved was the highly controversial problem somewhat difficult. All his life, in fact, of language rights, and many other he was to prove difficult. For though a difficulties each of which by itself friendly and chivalrous person, a might have been quite capable of demon seemed to enter his blood once wrecking the Conference. he got to his feet at public meetings, for his passions would run riot with his At my father’s suggestion it was reasoning, making him say outrageous decided, eventually, to leave the native things. He never mastered these problem for solution at some future distressing symptoms; in fact, they date. He also did his best to steer the became aggravated with age. But he Conference clear of details and other was never repentant and never sources of deadlocks. “Give us a withdrew anything he said. He was, bears the impress of a Higher Hand.” indeed, the stormy petrel of our public However that may be, the records life. show much of the constitution to have been written in his own hand. But my father remained calm and persuasive, and in the end the Sir Roderick Jones writing in Conference accepted his proposals. Nineteenth Century, in November, The convention was later to meet in 1915, wrote thus of the Conference: Cape Town and Bloemfontein, where “Often difficulties sprang up from the further amendments were considered, inability of delegates, men of different the documents rounded off and the race, of different political parties, and final constitution decided upon. This from different provinces, to agree proposed constitution was thereafter upon fundamental principles which passed by the Parliament of the four entailed a sacrifice; sentimental or Colonies. material, perhaps both in one direction or another. Then it was that Smuts, “You have probably heard it stated”, with his nimble brain, his facile pen, my father declared when the came to the rescue. The Convention constitution was published, “that a after hours of earnest exchange and small number of men, having their exhausting debate, would adjourn the own ends to serve, rushed this matter day’s proceedings, face to face forward in the face of public apathy apparently with a deadlock. Next and public opposition... The morning Smuts would appear on the constitution is not a man’s work. It scene with a formula, simple, lucid bloodshed, devastation and horrors of and comprehensive, that reconciled war, and of the difficulties of peace”. what had seemed to be irreconcilable It passed the Commons with only a and enabled the Convention to proceed minor amendment concerning smoothly to the consideration of the Asiatics, and then went on to the next problem... I think all who are Lords where its passage was equally acquainted with the proceedings of simple. that momentous conclave are agreed While in London Botha, my father, that he, more than any other delegate, Hertzog, Jameson and Steyn were was the one to whom, in the last invited to lunch with the King. Queen resort, they looked for sagacious and Alexandra was wearing the superb resourceful draughtsmanship.” Cullinan diamonds. A deputation of nine members, led by Before the Act of Union took effect, Botha and my father, took the draft on the 31st May, 1910, the Transvaal document to England where it passed Parliament had two more tasks to both Houses of Parliament in due perform before being dissolved. Both course as an Imperial Bill, which, concerned the surplus funds in the before the year was out, was signed by Treasury. Whatever ideas the other the King and became law. Balfour Provinces might have had about the described the Bill as “the most sharing of this wealth for the common wonderful issue out of all those weal, the Transvaal had its own ideas. divisions, controversies, battles, She was going to deal with them under an old Act which makes provision far power, but because he believed it to be such unauthorised expenditure, pro- for the ultimate good of the spirit of viding the Governor puts his signature Union. to it. To help introduce a more friendly The second item was to vote spirit into the Transvaal members of £1,500,000 for the erection of the parliament, to drive out the last germ Union Buildings on Meintje’s Kop in of isolationism by an act of goodwill, Pretoria. These stand as the greatest and to remunerate the members for masterpiece to the credit of Herbert this premature termination of their Baker, and the finest modern buildings services, my father decided to give in the southern hemisphere. The old them each a bonus of £250. This storm over their erection has turned to involved a mere £20,000. As the idea unabashed adulation. We take pride in met with violent opposition, he the noble edifice as one of the finest thought it safest to short-circuit the showpieces in our country. But as yet Upper House and go straight to the Baker’s dream is incomplete, for he Governor for his signature. After a drew up plans for additional buildings great outcry about questions of an behind the present one, higher up on ethical and constitutional nature, the Koppie. which may one day Britain finally authorised the consummate his vision. embarrassed Governor to sign the document. My father had got his way – not because he wanted to show his 23 : UNION honourable parliamentary career. He died two years after his retirement. LORD Gladstone was appointed Governor-General on the recommen- Merriman himself felt strongly about dation of Botha and my father, and his claims to the Premiership. When arrived in the beginning of May. His Botha was elected, he felt not only first task, the appointment of a Prime hurt but almost betrayed. Botha was Minister., was no easy one. Both his inferior in intellect, in age and in Merriman and Botha had claims. experience. The old man was frankly Merriman, “the Premier of the Mother pessimistic about the future. Some State of South Africa and the Grand years later my father told Parliament, Old Man of South African politics”, “Mr. Merriman admitted to me that he had been a member of Parliament had doubted General Botha and since the year before my father was myself. He used to think that, in the born. He was a gifted scholar and a hour of trial, we should not stand by skilful debater, with a certain caustic the policy we preached.” He served humour, his oratorical skill being under Botha only with reluctance and unsurpassed by any South African. In never again became the great figure he 1924 he retired after sitting fifty-five had been in the old Cape House. The years in Parliament, and was revered fire had gone out of him. He ascribed alike by Boer and Briton. No one in being overlooked to the fact that King the Empire has had a longer or more Edward did not like him, and the fact also that he had antagonised Lord Selborne by saying he would decline where he tried to persuade him to take to attend the Convention if Selborne a seat on the Court of Appeal in lieu of presided. More probably his super- a Cabinet portfolio. This was flatly cession was due to my father’s cham- rejected. People were yet to learn that pionship of Botha, for Botha would Hertzog could be more stubborn than carry both the Transvaal and the the proverbial mule. He visited the Boers. Mount Nelson again, this time at Botha’s invitation. “There”, Hertzog Hertzog and Steyn, significantly, wrote afterwards, “I was taken by backed Merriman. Hertzog was deeply General Smuts to his room, where I jealous of Botha. Consequently, when was informed that I should be included the latter came to draw up his Cabinet in the Cabinet with the Portfolio of his chief difficulty lay with Hertzog. Justice. Afterwards I met General Yet he was the Free State’s first Botha, who did not speak a single choice. At the same time Hertzog was word to me on the subject... There was also far from persona grata with the no mistaking the reluctance with British, largely because of his quarrel which the Prime Minister accepted me on the language position. The English as a colleague.” press opposed him. My father and Botha were much There were nine portfolios in the worried about Hertzog, for they sensed Cabinet. My father was given three, all rocks ahead. So my father invited him important ones: Mines, Defence and to breakfast at the Mount Nelson Hotel Interior. When, some while later, Botha asked a My father’s efforts during the National prominent Free Stater, who was later Convention he looked upon as his elected to the Legislature, what he greatest single work for his country. thought of the new Cabinet, the latter He did so not only because the said: “As far as I can make out they constitution which he pushed through are satisfied with it except, perhaps, in the teeth of considerable genuine for the inclusion of General Smuts.” opposition has since stood the test of Botha was silent for a while as if time, but also because his energy and stifling a feeling of emotion, and then drive rushed it through just before it burst out, “Old chap, you people don’t grew too late. I think it was success in know Jan Smuts yet. Our country is this battle against time he relished as still too young to meddle with brains.” much as anything else. My mother says she has never seen a ***** closer friendship than that between Meanwhile our old home in Sunnyside Botha and my father. She said, “They had settled down happily after its seemed to need each other in their ordeals of the war. My father had not work. They could not stay away from only repaired the damage to his books, each other for long before one sent for but had expanded his collection. The the other, either for help or for shelves were full of a variety of advice.” Its benefits for the country volumes, but mostly works on Law were numerous and enriching. and travel, Africana and books on

J.C. Smuts at the wheel of his first car – 1911 poetry and literature. Books on philosophy and science had at this stage not crept on to the shelves in any profusion. The house became a regular staging post for people coming in from outlying districts, mostly Boer War or Government cronies of my father’s. Schalk Burger stayed there for long spells on end, and General Koos de la Rey was also a frequent visitor. They looked upon the place as a second home. In the middle of 1903 my mother persuaded Deneys Reitz to return from his self-imposed exile on Madagascar, and thereafter he spent some years with us. The draft of his famous book Commando had already been scribbled J.C. Smuts with the Writer – August 1914. in Madagascar between bouts of malaria and arduous transport jour- neys: He was the chief plunger in the big tub in the garden. Sometimes justice de Villiers of the Free State returned to his legal practice in would also stay with us. He was a Pretoria and this brought him in quite highly cultured man and would join a lucrative income, the proceeds of my parents in their music and singing. which he invested in land. First he bought himself, in conjunction with Here my sister Santa was born in his friend Jimmy Roos, two farms 1903, as well as, in their turn, my outside Pretoria, one Onderstepoort sister Cato, my brother Japie and my near the Bon Accord dam, and the sister Sylma. My youngest sister Louis other Kameelfontein in the hills near and myself were born at Irene, ten Premier Mule. The latter attracted him, miles from Pretoria, where my parents I think, because of its associations had gone to live in 1909. There we all with the battle of Diamond Hill. Some grew up in the carefree ways of the years later this farm was declared an farm. My father lived there till his alluvial diamond diggings and turned death in 1950. I mention this merely in upside-down, so he reluctantly sold it. passing, for I shall describe Doorn- kloof, our farm at Irene, in some detail In the Western Transvaal, upon the later. advice of his old friend General Koos de la Rey, he bought three farms, My father’s love of farming is Barberspan, Kromdraai and reflected in the number of farms he Welgevonden. Though good fertile acquired at various times, all bought to lands and fine farming propositions, satisfy a possessive, not a speculative they were nevertheless in a bleak and instinct. After the Boer War he had uninviting flat setting, without trees about 1930 he sold them when in need and hills from horizon to horizon, so of funds. here again I think there was an In 1908 he bought the beautiful farm association with the Boer War rather Doornkloof, a few miles outside than general attractiveness. Pretoria, and this purchase probably Shortly afterwards followed his brought him more pleasure and acquisition of Buffelspan, in the satisfaction than any other of his life. massive primeval crater of Pilanders- Lastly, while on campaign in East berg, near Rustenburg. Though he Africa in 1916, during the First World knew this feature from his operations War, he bought two farms, Rooikop in this vicinity during the war his and Droogegrond, in the bushveld near attraction to it was a geological one, Rust der Whiter, fifty miles north-east for it was from this extinct vent that of Pretoria, These two he considered the igneous rocks were spewed forth to good farms and there he conducted form the beds of the Transvaal serious farming operations through a bushveld. Topographically, too, it was manager, with considerable success attractive country. Not far away on the and pride. Marico River he bought at about the By 1928 he was still in possession of same time two additional farms ten of these eleven farms, an area Wydhoek and Klipdrift. These two totalling about 25,000 morgen (53,000 latter farms he never exploited, and in acres). After that he was soon to sell Barberspan and the two farms at Groot Marico, but the remainder he kept, in was abstract, and actual ideas of 1945 making them over by deed of money never entered his head. donation to his children. Three of these farms he had farmed actively himself through managers, but the remainder he had fenced in and turned over to tenants. From what I know of my father I am convinced that he acquired these farms purely because he was an inveterate lover of the land. It was a sort of symbolic ritual from which he derived great satisfaction but no pecuniary gain. Financial aspects never obtruded, though he was wont to remark that the possession of land afforded a great element of security. Perhaps he was thinking of his old age. As the years went by the farms appreciated many times in value, and he was then inclined to remark with pride on the bargains he had made. But the pride 24 : THE SOUTH AFRICAN PARTY not for personal satisfaction but for the common good. In any case, he himself ONE of the first acts of Botha and my was working harder than any of his father after Union was to form the subordinates. South African Party. It was predominantly Afrikaans, comprising The period of harmony and good elements of the Cape Bond, Het Volk feeling was, however, short-lived. It and the Orangia Unie, together with could hardly have been otherwise after fair numbers of English-speaking all the country had been through. It people. The tide for unity after the was now only eight years since the convention was running strongly, and war. The first general elections were Botha and my father threw themselves approaching. There was therefore a whole-heartedly into their work. As tendency to gloss over difficulties and before, my father accomplished the to appease where possible. This, in the lion’s share; but he was sorely tried by case of General Hertzog, was a the large number of incompetent political necessity if unity was to be people who cluttered up the preserved, though it galled the English Government departments. In his section. To them Hertzog was an impatience he drove them on unpalatable pill. mercilessly to get the work done, and A major trend at the time was the this naturally resulted in a certain cumbrous stirrings of the Afrikanders. measure of displeasure. No doubt his They were determined to catch up with ways were inclined to be autocratic, the world which had outstripped them and to shake off an inferiority complex But he had to climb down over his that weighed down on them. Hertzog pro-Afrikaans education policy in the early sensed this mood and determined Free State. He did it with reluctance, to make use of it. He did not initiate and liked Botha none the better for the mood he merely spurred it on in having to do so. This had been his biting speeches. The language General Hertzog’s first quarrel with “inequality”, which he said my father the Government. It was the forerunner had purposely introduced into his of a life of quarrels. Education Act in which Afrikaans was On the 1st March, 1911, my father, as made optional whilst English was Minister of Defence, drafted a scheme made compulsory, rankled with him. for military organisation which He was still further angered when, in received much favourable comment. November, 1910, Sir C.P. Crewe In the same month he introduced his moved in Parliament that the Free Miners’ Phthisis Bill. This disease, State Education Act was in conflict better known as silicosis, is an with the spirit of the Act of Union. occupational disability contracted by Hertzog replied to the charge with those who work in rock dust. It was a customary vigour and sufficient ability real scourge amongst underground to attract some support from the workers on the Rand who worked in Afrikaans section of the House. By dusty atmospheres deep down in such acts he came gradually to be poorly ventilated mines. The average known as the champion of the Dutch. life of the miner at the time was eight years of underground work before composed of men of high position. succumbing to this curse. In the Bill Some of them are advanced in years my father initiated the principle of and their hairs have grown grey in the compensation for silicosis in its service of the State. But there are advanced stages. Though the vast younger ones who are perhaps too majority of miners always voted energetic and excessively prone to act consistently against my father, few on the inspiration of the moment. Ours probably realised that he was the great is a very mixed team; we have men benefactor of the silicosis legislation. with strong volition, who press their own views; hence, no absolute Nor are many aware that he was the unanimity can be asked for. These father of our Mining Regulations. men are determined to fight for their They are said to be the best and most opinions whenever opportunity offers. comprehensive in existence and have There is one test which, however, I been imitated since by other countries. hope none of us will fail to pass; I He was, as is known, also the father of shall call it the South African spirit.” our Education system, and of our Defence Force legislation. There is, in In February, 1912, he introduced his fact, very little in South Africa that did Defence Bill. The Cape Times, not not spring from his fertile brain. given at the time to an over-friendly feeling, said, “If General Smuts had My father gave a hint of impending before him a splendid task this Cabinet troubles at a meeting in the afternoon, his severest critics will Rambler’s Hall. “The Cabinet is admit that it was splendidly Beyers complained that it was “based performed. The General is not exactly on a foreign system” but allowed an orator in the sense that Mr. himself to be persuaded of its virtues Merriman is, but rhetoric was not when he himself was offered the necessary to his purpose. For two and position of Commandant-General of a half hours he held the House with a the Forces. masterly review of the principles My father, some while afterwards, governing the defence of South addressed Staff Officers at Africa... This astonished a House Bloemfontein: “We want a force that already fully aware of General will be able to defend South Africa Smuts’s almost terrible ability and against anyone who may come against genuine eloquence, prompted not by a us... Things may happen that nobody conscious effort, but by the very ever foresaw; therefore it behoves us nature of the subject. As a physical to look forward... At present the effort alone it was prodigious. Smuts nations all seem to be preparing as if speaks in a highly-pitched but melli- doubtful of each other... We want an fluous voice, which carries clearly to organisation that shall not be Boer or every part of the House. He hardly English, but a South African army... paused to consult a note. He never Do your duty ui a broad, national faltered for a moment. spirit.” There were few critics of the Bill and The English disliked Hertzog and few efforts at amendments. General there was growing dissatisfaction at his place in the Cabinet. It was perhaps an indication of this feeling that caused General Botha’s defeat in his Pretoria East seat by Sir Percy Fitz- patrick in the elections. Though Botha was quickly given a safe seat at Losberg, he felt strongly that Hertzog had brought about his fall. 25 : HERTZOGISM should start its own navy, which showed a considerable measure of THE liberal views of Botha and my woolly thinking. father and the extremist nationalist views of Hertzog resulted in an ever- When Botha unveiled the magnificent widening rift between the two memorial to Rhodes, designed by Sir elements. The first session of Parlia- Herbert Baker, on the slopes of ment was full of Hertzog’s bickerings. Devil’s Peak behind Groote Schuur, Botha shortly afterwards departed for his tribute, with memories of the past an Imperial Conference in London, still fresh, was too much for the more where he not only committed the conservative Boers. indiscretion of appearing in knee My father was nervous about the breeches and silk stockings but also future of the Government. At a South accepted a Privy Councillorship and African Party congress in an honorary Generalship in the British Bloemfontein he said, “I do not know Army. The nationalist cry was that he how long this Government is going to had become a dupe of Britain. When last; it sometimes happens that he later advocated the desirability of Governments disappear sooner than making a contribution towards the people think.” A little more than a year upkeep of the Royal Navy and stressed later this did happen, though Hertzog the advantages of immigration, the had not been the direct cause of the Hertzogite fury knew no bounds. fall. It had come about after serious Hertzog suggested that South Africa differences in the Cabinet between H.C. Hull and J.W. Sauer on matters Opposition than with his own back- of railway finance, in consequence of benchers; and if that is true, it is true which the former resigned. A Cabinet not because his intellect is hard, but reshuffle took place. My father gave because it marches ahead of his up Mines and interior, but retained the supporters. His arguments are logical, important Portfolio of Defence, and he his style is precise, and his manner now in addition took over Finance. disarms opposition, while he can be The Volkstem remarked... we regret subtle to obscure.” the diversion of his unmistakable Hertzog was given Native Affairs in talents to relatively less important addition to justice, with the hope that duties”. it might placate him. It was a vain Mr. Ernest Glanville, in the course of hope. He made speeches of marked an article in the Johannesburg Sunday secessionist flavour most notably at Post, observed: “It has been said that Vrededorp and Nylstroom. In he is a man of cold intellect, without December, 1912, on Louis Esselen’s any personal following, but his streak farm at de Wildt, he made his most of humour rejects that verdict, for a notorious speech. “South Africa must man balanced with humour has the be governed by pure Afrikanders...” he weakness, the strength, and the charm said. “The main object is to keep of human nature, which means that he Dutch and British separated... I have does not stand coldly aloof. It may be always said I do not know what that he has more influence with the conciliation means ... I believe in imperialism only so far as it benefits similes and the distinctly unfavourable South Africa. Wherever it is at trends. variance with the interests of South At Albany, in the Eastern Province, in Africa I am strongly opposed to it. I a by-election following upon Dr. am ready to stake my future on this Jameson’s retirement, the Government doctrine.” candidate was beaten on the Hertzog The speech was not only a grave issue. embarrassment to his colleagues, but it Unionists at meetings heckled my roused the British to demand his father mercilessly about the bricks expulsion even more insistently than Hertzog was constantly dropping. He before. managed to parry the blows In one of his usual tirades Hertzog had judiciously and in good taste, often made some derogatory reference to my putting up quite a good apology for his father, involving such terms as “caked colleague, without committing himself dung” and “bastard sheep”. When or condemning his fellow minister. later questioned at a meeting about his A minister from Natal, Sir George colleague’s unseemly farmyard Leuchars, resigned. The de Wildt homily, my father replied lightly that speech had been more than he could they were to be regarded simply as bear. He told General Botha that he “veld similes”. Nevertheless he was was going because he “could not not happy about Hertzog’s many endure the anti-imperial and anti- British sentiment – and the speeches Hertzog was now out of the Cabinet, of General Hertzog”. but he remained in the South African Party for another year. Abraham Fischer, Hertzog’s close friend, and other Orange Free State The final break came in November, members, asked Hertzog to apologise 1913, at the annual South African for his de Wildt outburst and to behave Party congress in Cape Town. After in future. Hertzog apparently discern- heated exchanges, Hertzogites, led by ed my father’s hand in the document, Christian de Wet, stamped dramati- and pushed it away in disgust, with the cally out of the hall. suggestion that a person who could Abraham Fischer dissociated himself write such rubbish should be confined from Hertzog in a speech to his to a lunatic asylum. He stubbornly constituents at Bethlehem. “He has refused to resign, even under strong made impossible demands. He lost the pressure. To do so would be to harm support of the Free State largely the Afrikander cause, he said. through his want of tact. He has the Botha had to be rid of him at all costs. faults of his youth. There are members There was only one other course open. of his Government who have done for Botha himself resigned. When called the country ten times as much as he upon by the Governor-General to form did. They don’t deserve to be called a new Cabinet the names of Hertzog traitors and men without principles.” and Leuchars were omitted. The farmers listened attentively and then passed a vote of no confidence in their lifelong leader, by 261 to 152. of hairsplittings and tedious repeti- Broken-hearted, Fischer retired from tions. As ever, he kept on losing his politics and died a few months later. thread. One could almost see him gesticulating wildly as he wrote. Hertzog had now walked out alone into the political wilderness. Only five He had a son, Albert, who was in high Orange Free State members out of a school at the time. Albert followed in House of 121 stood by him. The full his father’s footsteps and also became fury of the entire press was turned on a politician. He was to concentrate on him. Few would, at that stage, have the Mine Workers’ Union and cause predicted a political future for him. the Transvaal Chamber of Mines much But they were failing to take into uneasiness through his attentions to account the dogged obstinacy of the their affairs. man, his driving fanaticism and General Hertzog returned to the Free spirited courage. State, dismayed but unchastened, to In his manifesto after his expulsion he preach his virulent gospel in every declared “... General Botha, the dorp. His attendances were good and unconcerned surrenderer of the Dutch his words fell on receptive ears. people’s rights, I, their champion...” Shortly afterwards the Nationalist It was a long manifesto, running into a Party came into existence. Its titular full six newspaper columns in his leader was Hertzog. Dr. D.F. Malan involved and cumbersome style, full was to lead the party in the Cape. He had started life in the Church but farmer of the Free State; on Hertzog’s found it rather humdrum. He then eventual political eclipse, he was to indulged in considerable social work. follow his leader into the wilderness. This the Dutch Reformed Church did Other adherents of Hertzog were ex- not like. So he dropped Holy Orders President Steyn, de Wet and and took to politics. But he has never F.W. Reitz, who had served with my succeeded in shaking off the heavy father under Kruger. atmosphere of the pulpit. There were as yet no English Tielman Roos was to be the Transvaal adherents, though Creswell and leader, and his great roaring was to Labour were to support them later earn for him the title of “Lion of the against Botha and my father. It was North”. It rather flattered him. By incongruous to find an Englishman contrast with Dr. Malan he was of a like Creswell in such strange boisterous and cheerful disposition. company. For his private secretary Hertzog had a This was the real start of Botha’s and Dr. Hans van Rensburg, a capable my father’s troubles. The racial young man, who was later to become cleavage was now far developed. The Commandant-General of a subversive vendetta of hate, which was carried on political organisation known as the for many years, was levelled chiefly at Ossewa Brandwag. In the Boer War my father, who to them personified the Hertzog had had an adjutant by name whole Government. It was a little- Nicolaas Havenga, a progressive desired compliment. For forty years this struggle was to continue, Malan of Riebeeck West taking over when Hertzog dropped out. We had, in fact, arrived on the threshold of contemporary South African history. From now on the patterns were fixed. To counter this surge of Afrikanderism my father counselled Botha to take a stronger pro-Boer line and to avoid too obvious contacts with Jameson’s Unionist British elements, and also to have less embarrassing contacts with England and the Royal Navy. 26 : LABOUR UNREST Square, Johannesburg; but the miners disregarded the warning and thousands THE year 1913 was one of crowded into the Square. Bain, considerable labour unrest, and labour Morgan and Matthews, their leaders, troubles and strikes were to occur were there on the platform, as well as acutely over the next nine years. But the Chief of Police, Colonel Truter, the 1913 trouble was especially who begged the men to disperse serious in view of the already clear peacefully in compliance with the indications of the impending world Government’s request. This was cataclysm. South Africa could ill greeted with howls of derision. Bain afford this phase of unrest, of sabotage rose and shouted: “We are here for the and anarchy. rights of free speech.” The meeting On the 4th of July, 1913, the trouble grew out of hand and police rushed the started on the New Kleinfontein Gold speakers, and general scuffling and Mine at Benoni. A dispute arose fighting ensued. between the General Manager and the men. Trade Unions took up the matter A woman with a red flag harangued and declared a general strike on the the crowd which surged down the whole Rand. The mine owners rushed streets bent on trouble. In the to my father for support, but he afternoon they set on fire the railway refused to intervene in this purely station and the Star newspaper offices. domestic affair. He did, however, Looting began and soon became too prohibit a monster meeting on Market much for the police. Strikers vainly hunted for the mine bosses, who my father were in no position to luckily had fled. My father rushed bargain. They knew the troops would Imperial troops to Johannesburg to not be able to hold the crowd if trouble reinforce the police. arose. So they signed the strikers’ document on their own terms. It was Next afternoon the Rand Club was capitulation, but temporary stormed, but the crowd were held back capitulation dictated by force of by the troops. A miner, Labuschagne, circumstance. My father declared, baring his bosom, defiantly cried “We made peace because the Imperial “Shoot!” The soldiers did. forces informed us that the mob was Labuschagne sank dead to the ground. beyond their control... Anything could Twenty others were killed and forty- happen in Johannesburg that night: the seven injured, many of them innocent town might be sacked and the mines bystanders. The situation was now permanently ruined… Later he told more dangerous than ever. Botha and Parliament the signing of the my father rushed to the city in an open document was “one of the hardest car, without escort, and at great things I have ever had to do”. personal risk. In the Carlton Hotel they held a conference with the four strike Botha and he drove away through the leaders. It was an unfavourable hostile mob. Botha replied to some of atmosphere for a parley, for these their jeers and threats; but my father ruffians were armed, and outside the sat white and mute with anger. Not a crowd looked menacing. Botha and word passed his lips, but in his heart he had decided to see that such a state all strikers off the railway line or of affairs never again arose. His first railway premises. Don’t hesitate to step, as Minister of Defence, was to shoot if any attempt to enter after organise the Defence Force. warning, or if on apparent malicious intent.” The situation was well in Times were hard, and with the hand. The strike leaders in the Drill retrenchments in the railways at the Hall quickly surrendered when my end of the year came fresh resentment. father ordered de la Rey to train his Trade Unions were drunk with their field guns on the building. power. The large measure of co- operation between Unions threatened The strike was over. to paralyse almost the whole country. My father seized the nine leaders, In January, 1914, a strike, involving none of whom had been born in the twenty thousand workers, was called. country, and sent them straight to This time my father was ready. He had Durban by special train, where they prepared for just such an emergency to were put on board the Umgeni and the limit of his powers under the deported to England. There had been Defence Act. He called up the Active no trial. Just swift decisive action. Citizen and Burgher Forces and pro- Unconstitutional, admittedly. claimed Martial Law on the Rand. To When the news leaked out next day the Officers’ Commanding the Rand there was consternation, and an appeal Light Infantry he sent instructions: was made to the Supreme Court for a “Exercise the greatest severity – keep writ of habeas corpus. The judges “authority in cold blood to expel the expressed their dismay at my father’s men in question... The only crime precipitate action. But it was too late; which fits this state of affairs is high the strike leaders were gone and even treason but you attempt to indict these Creswell’s efforts to intercept the people for high treason and see what Umgeni by a specially chartered tug, will be the result. Our law of high failed. treason dates back to the Middle Ages. Our treason law does not fit these new In Parliament a Bill was subsequently and extraordinary conditions which carried by 95 votes to 11 to indemnify have arisen in the present case, and if the Government, after long and bitter you were to indict these people for a attacks on my father by Labour crime they have really committed, you members and others. So violent was will never obtain a conviction.” the Labour denunciation that all the members were suspended in turn by During this debate my father made no the Speaker. My father spoke for personal explanations or raised any almost six hours in defence of his personal defence. He was concerned action. He claimed that the illegality of purely with the logical development of the act was justified by events. No the facts of the case. The Labour Party other course was open. He had to gave no credit to the Government for resort, he said, to the “illegal its good intentions. The Unionists deportations” because he knew that disliked the Bill, but were forced to Parliament would never give him vote for it. Creswell indulged in a series of tirades and scenes; he had will stand, and we think stand for ever brought this dubious gift to perfection. as one of the most marvellous orations of which South Africa can boast.” Of his speech in Parliament in defence of the Umgeni deportations the Cape It was, of course, rather drastic to Argus said in a leading article, “The deport men from a free country Minister made out a much stronger without a fair hearing. Much of the case all round than was generally world thought so, too. Yet we must not expected.” The same paper’s gallery forget what the country was saved correspondent added: “... The speech from, and in this case few can doubt was a great effort, effortlessly made. that the end justified the means. For epigram, finish of phrase; for wit, The matter was referred to in the whether in the form of sly humour or House of Commons, where the biting sarcasm; for the evidence Secretary of State for Colonies throughout of a scholarly, cultured reminded the members that South mind; but, above all, for the power of Africa was a self-governing Colony, flinging facts into the right perspective and quite capable of deciding her own –or, at any rate, for the blending of all actions. The Governor-General’s these qualities, I have never heard a “acquiescence” was also justified in speech to excel it.” view of the subsequent Parliamentary The friendly Volkstem spoke in even indemnity. greater terms of eulogy: “After all that has been said this historical exposition Merriman spoke of my father as “that supported for years, and attach itself to ruthless Philosopher”. Though my Hertzog. father’s heavy hand had incurred The Government was growing visibly hatred among the workers it unpopular. The sweeping Labour nevertheless shook them to their victories in the Provincial Council senses and frightened them into a new elections testified to it. The semblance of stability. The effect had Government was twice defeated in the been salutary. House on financial matters. There was The deportees later returned to South a deficit in the Budget, but my father Africa. One became a South African advised Botha to carry on. Party organiser under my father; In the midst of all these troubles, the another got an important post in the roar of great guns convulsed Europe. Chamber of Mines; another joined the War had started. Government Service, where he prospered; a fourth became a Member of Parliament. Racialism had now taken a temporary back seat in favour of industrial and labour problems. But Labour felt compelled to break away from the South African Party, which it had 27 : REBELLION There was a considerable tide of pro- Boer and anti-British feeling running, FOR South Africa, the outbreak of war but this was more political than racial. was a calamity. It came too close upon It was those Boer elements who the heels of her own war. Memories supported Botha and my father who and feelings were still too fresh. came under the lash far more severely To the Boers, mostly ignorant of the than the actual English themselves. world about them, and somewhat illiterate, the implications of the The effect of the war was to transform conflagration were not clear. It was to the superficial political feelings into a them of little consequence that it was deep-seated hatred and bitterness. not a war with Britain but a World General Botha and my father saw the War. Rather did it appear as a golden implications clearly, but were opportunity to throw off the irksome powerless to avert them. They were, in British connection. It did not occur to fact, faced with a dual war; one on them to question whether it was right their own doorstep against their own to tackle England in this critical hour. people; the other against the German Had not some of their famous Boer enemy in South-West Africa. War leaders told them that now was They well understood the feelings of the heaven-sent opportunity to reassert those Boers who did not agree with themselves? At the same time it would them. Many had been their comrades give them a fine chance to teach the in arms in the Boer War. Some were traitors Botha and Smuts a lesson. distinguished men of great integrity. Many were their closest personal The person who was to come most friends. Yet they did not allow their poorly out of the Rebellion was feelings to obtrude on their sense of General Hertzog. He sat resolutely on duty. the fence. While lending vociferous lip-service and much underground There was, in reality, only one course moral support to the rebels, he did not open; that of going ahead slowly. take up arms openly in the field. He Tactical reasons also imposed this had numerous apologists; but they condition. The German foe was well voiced an unconvincing series of prepared and a big force had to be excuses. When the Rebellion was assembled if we were to make sure of finally over, Hertzog himself made a victory. Recruiting, equipping and long statement of explanation of his training were started expeditiously, but conduct; he always stood dead against even so, it took time. It is, therefore, the unconstitutional overthrow of incorrect to say that the three months’ authority, he declared. The amazing pause before we marched into South- thing was that his followers swallowed West Africa was due to the delay these explanations and remained as caused by internal mopping-up loyal to him as ever. operations. From the military aspect it was almost a blessing that the rebels As soon as war broke out Botha told gave an excuse for not moving Britain that she could safely withdraw prematurely into enemy territory with her eight thousand troops and that an insufficient force. South Africa would take care of her own security. Seven thousand left Beyers was working quite openly immediately. against the Government; so were the other rebel leaders. There was nothing Britain requested the Union on the of the cloak and dagger about their first possible opportunity to send an activities. Rifles were being collected expeditionary force to destroy the from the English regiments of the wireless stations at Luderitzbucht and towns who were loyal to the Govern- Swakopmund. But South Africa was ment and issued to rebel supporters in not ready for this big task yet; first she 12 had to put her own house in order. the platteland. Maritz collected an army of 600 men and marched across There was considerable opposition the South-West African border to join throughout the country to the the Germans. The majority of his men Government’s decision to participate did not realise what he was up to. in the war and invade South-West Many were loyalists. Africa. There was wild talk of rebellion in country districts. A pathetic figure of the rebellion was Disturbances occurred at General Koos de la Rey, now grown Potchefstroom, where the magazines old and perhaps not so clear of mental were stormed and burned down, and in perception. Oom Koos was the old Pretoria where fire was set to the Boer type, who had always remained Imperial Military Stores. Certain at heart a republican. But he had diamond mines closed down temporarily in consternation. 12 Rural areas entered into the spirit of Union prophet’s interpretation which was to because of his great affection for the effect that Britain would go under Botha and my father. My mother says and Germany prevail. Botha he could three closer friends could not have see returning happily to his people, but been imagined. My father venerated de my father was to disappear overseas la Rey almost as a parent, and there and not return. He had seen too, was nobody, with the exception of amongst other things, a figure fifteen, Botha, for whom he had a closer with de la Rey, and a carriage, and a feeling. In this confused mental state cloud dripping blood. These he could de la Rey now came strongly under the not interpret. influence of the prophet Nicholaas van De la Rey was impressed. His course Rensburg. This shrewd seer had was now clear. A meeting was to be served under him in the Boer War held in Lichtenburg on August 15. where he had done some very Trouble was expected. He would here creditable “seeing”. People knew de la speak out for the rebel cause. On the Rey’s weakness for van Rensburg. In 14th Botha and my father sent for the national interest his son-in-law Oom Koos and spent many hours Bennie Krige tried unsuccessfully to talking him round. Next day at the keep the two apart. meeting, de la Rey, to the amazement Van Rensburg expounded to the old of everybody, made a conciliatory man a vision of fighting bulls: The speech. Go home quietly, he significance of the story lay in the counselled the gathering. They were may be drawn into the vortex.” The dumbfounded, but did as he advised. soldiers cheered wildly. They knew the words were directed at Beyers. Meanwhile Government recruiting was going on apace in Pretoria and on Pretoria was the hottest spot. The the Rand, and a sizeable force was English were loyal and impatient, but concentrated at Booysens. The bearded men talked open sedition. Germans had crossed the border at Beyers did much talking in coffee Nakob and dug in on Union soil. At houses as well. The Government knew Schuit Drift, on the Orange River, they all about it. In the midst of all this attacked a party of Boers and forced subversiveness Hertzog decided to them to take refuge on an island. hold a Nationalist Party Congress in the city. Outrageous speeches were On August 29 Beyers turned up at made by Senator Wolmarans and Booysens and addressed the troops. others. De la Rey, who had merely Later my father appeared there. “Many attended as a spectator, pleaded for people in this country”, the latter said, unity in this time of crisis. “do not appreciate the tremendous gravity of the crisis in which South On the 4th of September a special ten- Africa, together with the whole day session of Parliament was called. Empire, is placed today. Although Hertzog vehemently defended apparently we stand outside, and at Germany, who, he said, had some distance from the actual scene of committed no act of aggression. Three the conflict, yet at any moment we days later came the news that the 12th Regiment had departed for an and de la Rey were on their way to unknown destination. Lichtenburg, where a meeting of protest at our participation in the war Meanwhile Maritz was already at was being held. Beyers had come to Upington, thirty miles from the Pretoria specially to talk de la Rey German border, and from there he sent round. a secret emissary – P.J. Joubert – to Beyers to say that all was going well It was also the day on which all police and that the German Governor Seitz in Johannesburg had been alerted to be was expecting him on the 15th. on the look-out for the notorious Foster Gang bandits who were On the 13th Beyers resigned. My terrorising the town. They believed the father took over the post of gang would attempt a break-out, and Commander-in-Chief. In accepting had issued instructions to watch all Beyers’s resignation he declared “... I roads for a big black car with three cannot conceive anything more fatal occupants, and to take drastic action if and humiliating than a policy of lip- it failed to stop. Beyers and de la Rey loyalty in fair weather and a policy of were on their way to the neutrality and pro-German sentiment Potchefstroom camp where they were in days of storm and stress...” to appear at 4 a.m. to start a rising. Governor Seitz did not see Beyers on When called on to stop at a road block, the 15th, for on that day our forces had they told the driver to drive on. The set sail for Luderitzbucht, and Beyers sentry took drastic action, but the bullet aimed at the back wheel graveside. Van Rensburg had been ricocheted off the road and went right about the fifteenth. through de la Rey’s head. His honour On 13th September my father had was partially saved, but he was dead. wired Maritz to come to Pretoria. He My father had no doubts that his old refused. My father thereupon ordered friend was on the wrong path that Koen Brits, who commanded our night. His daughter Polly, who is a forces in the Upington area, to move very old friend of our family, also against Maritz, but the latter became feels certain that her father was under suspicious and moved his men to Van the influence of Beyers that night. The Rooisvlei, near the German border. shooting was obviously accidental, but There a car met him and drove him a hue and cry was raised that de la Rey into German territory. On the 7th had been deliberately murdered. October he returned. The English were My father learned of his death at the enemy, he told his men, and Kimberley, on his way up from loyalist elements under Major Enslin Parliament. The funeral took place at were arrested and interned. Brits sent Lichtenburg. Botha, my father and Major Bower to Maritz to demand his Beyers were there. Botha’s eyes were surrender. Bower found Maritz filled with tears. My father was not dressed in a German uniform and was given to outward emotion. Beyers shown German guns and equipment. A swore loyalty to his cause at the safe-conduct for Hertzog, Beyers, Kemp and de Wet was demanded; failing that, he would attack. My expectoration. British officers who at father’s patience with Maritz was now various times saw him in action, were exhausted; he ordered Brits to attack moved to admiration. immediately, and in an action at In East Africa he was one of my Kiemoes and Schuit Drift Maritz was father’s senior gunners, and here again defeated and driven into South-West he preferred his own rough estimates Africa. of distance to the use of the modern Koen Brits was a remarkable rangefinders. My father tells the story character. He was a rough-hewn man of when they were about twenty miles standing six foot six inches in his from Kilimanjaro, and he asked old socks, and was said to respect only Koen how far they were from the Botha among man or beast. When mountain. Brits viewed the massive Botha wired him to collect troops for land mass through one eye, and not South-West Africa, it is said he wired realising the psychological deception back that he was quite ready to do so, of this nineteen-thousand-foot moun- but whom was he to fight, England or tain, said quite blandly, “Six miles.” Germany? He used to greet friends No argument would convince him he with a slash of his sjambok in lieu of a was wrong. At last my father said, more formal military salute, and his “Well then, lay your gun at six miles propensities for alcohol were a and fire a round.” Brits did. There was byword. He had also developed to a a puff of dust just nearby on the plain. nicety the ancient art of precision Brits was amazed. It might here be noted that there was from the bank to Pretoria for safe- considerable divergence of opinion keeping from the rebels. They arrived amongst the rebel leaders on their at our house at Irene at midnight, course of action. Beyers wanted a having come much of the way in the relatively passive though armed form complete dark. of resistance – the type that came to be My father tells a rather amusing story known as a “coup” in the Second of Aunt Polly one day in those distant World War. He was against civil war. years, when she was motoring with De Wet, more fiery and impetuous, him to a meeting in the Western was for vigorous action and pushing Transvaal. She was sitting in the back through to connect up with Maritz. In of one of those ancient open cars when his zeal he forgot that he was poorly it struck both a bad bump and a sandy armed, had no field guns, and was patch simultaneously, and in the short of ammunition. He also failed to bucking antics that followed she was reckon with the mobility afforded the bounced unceremoniously out into the Government by the much-extended dust. Everybody rushed back to render railway system, or the advent of the assistance, but Aunt Polly was luckily petrol driven motor-car. unhurt. My father’s secretary, Ernest When the rebellion broke, General de Lane, was so unnerved that he la Rey’s daughter Polly, and her unwittingly consumed the contents of husband Bennie Krige, manager of the the first-aid flask of brandy, to the Lichtenburg bank, rushed the money mortification of the patient and upbraiding of the others. Many a laugh Beyers and de Wet called upon Botha has been had at their expense! to resign. During the earlier part of the rebellion My father’s reply to that was to call up my father lived on the farm at Irene. four mounted and one unmounted Usually he went in to work by train regiment, totalling 35,000 men of every day, but during this period of whom 70 per cent were Dutch. This trouble he used his old Napier car. One was a Boer squabble, he said, and he evening a party of rebels lay in wanted to keep it in the family. ambush in Fountains Valley to Up to this stage Botha and my father intercept him on the way home. But had shown infinite patience with the providentially, he did a thing he rebels. They had warned and warned seldom did normally; he went home again. They had begged, they had via Roberts Heights. The police got to appealed; but they had not acted. hear of the affair and thereafter There was no deep bitterness in the forbade him to travel in the dark, and feelings of the rebels and it was hoped in future three armed policemen that perhaps they might see reason and accompanied him in his car. disperse of their own accord. My Trouble was now starting in the father and Botha were prepared to go Western Transvaal and the Free State. to almost any lengths to obviate The Dutch Reformed Church Synod bloodshed. warned the people against the folly of civil war and condemned Maritz. Matters were now coming to a head. on the Marne and at Ypres, but the Beyers in the Western Transvaal and position was still insecure. A strong de Wet in the Free State were German naval squadron had had interfering with recruiting, were successes against British naval units holding up trains and looting. off the coast of Chile; had it come eastward there would have been On October 25 Martial Law was nothing to stop the bombardment of declared throughout the Union and South African coastal ports or inter- rebels were once more called upon to ference with our landings at Luderitz- go home, but without result. Twelve bucht. days later the order was repeated. By now there were twelve thousand rebels At the review of a motor brigade held on the rampage. Pretoria was being in Johannesburg on November 7 my threatened. My father ordered father said: “The Dutch people of Transvaal Scottish and Irish regiments South Africa feel that their honour is to the hills around the city. People touched. They are determined to do were nervous and restive at the delays. their duty and wipe out this disgrace... There was no news of developments in Out of the late great war, the Boer the papers and there was no hint of people brought little except their good action. name. That is what they value as their greatest asset in the world. They are Outside South Africa the general not going to allow anyone, no matter situation was extremely grave. The how great a part he has played in the German juggernaut had been stemmed past, to drag that good name in the tried to negotiate with Beyers through mire. We are going to see this Meintjes, also without result. Later through.” The Government had they tried once more through the matters well in hand and people “could magistrate of Wolmaranstad, again sleep peacefully”. without result. In the beginning of November fighting Meanwhile de Wet, after the loss of started in earnest. At Treurfontein his son, had gone berserk and was Colonel Alberts defeated the rebel tearing up the Free State. Hertzog Kemp, who, however, managed made a revolutionary Speech in personally to get away. Later Kemp Parliament mourning the poor rebels gathered eight hundred men about him who were being “murdered”. again and captured Schweizer Reneke, On November 11 Botha attacked de where he foully desecrated the Union Wet’s 3,500 men at the head of a big Jack. The Natal Light Horse, under army and drove them towards General Colonel Royston, tried to intercept Lukin at Koraanberg, but owing to him at Khies Drift but were tricked sabotage in the signals lines Lukin was with a white flag, and lost many men, too late to intercept. At Mushroom while Kemp fled through the Kalahari Valley Botha finally cornered his into South-West Africa. quarry, but again de Wet, together Botha and my father asked General with Harm Oost and two others, Hertzog to use his moderating managed to escape across the Vaal. influence. He did not reply. Later they Here he collected a new force of 250, and dashed westwards across the appeared to be in difficulties, calling, desert to the German border. He was “I can’t keep it up.” One of his men pursued by Koen Brits’s columns in tried to help him but was stopped by a cars and captured by Colonel Jordaan bullet. Shooting now ceased and at Waterbury, in the Kalahari. Botha troops from the Transvaal side thrust had used artillery and machine guns out branches for him to grasp, but and there were heavy casualties. shouting that his coat was entangled with his legs, he disappeared suddenly Meanwhile Beyers had been decisively under the raging brown waters. Rescue defeated by Botha near Rustenburg. attempts were foiled by rebels once He seems to have panicked in those more opening fire. Three days later his latter weeks and his moves lacked body was recovered after the floods purpose. Loyalists disclosed his had subsided. His coat was missing presence on the Transvaal side of the and his bootlaces were tightly Vaal near Greylings Request where he entangled. These laces had been his was surrounded. Telling Field-Cornet undoing. Boshoff that he was going to make a fight of it he sprang on to a strange Beyers had been a firm friend of my horse and plunged into the river. The mother’s and had been a frequent horse grew restive with the shooting, visitor to us at Irene and in Pretoria. so Beyers slipped off and started to He grew up in Stellenbosch with my swim for the bank, which was quite Krige uncles, with whom he did much near. He turned on his back and swimming in the local dam. He was said to have been a very good he was captured by Colonel swimmer. N.J. Pretorius at Nooitgedacht, near Pretoria. He had acted treacherously My father was genuinely distressed at and twelve of our troops had lost their the ignominious way in which Beyers lives in the encounter. Now in mufti, had met his end, and himself sat down and with a huge beard, Jopie Fourie and drafted his wife a letter of boasted of his crimes and was condolence. He also put at her disposal unrepentant. a special train in order that all the relatives might attend the funeral, and At a South African Party congress, helped her in many other ways. There held in Bloemfontein in 1915, my was no bad blood between the two father gave this description of Fourie’s families. capture and court martial: “Fourie was called out with the Defence Force Last to surrender was Commandant Regiment of which he was an officer. Joseph Fourie, a permanent force He discussed matters with General officer and protégé of Beyers. From a Botha and myself, giving us the Boer War wound in the knee be had impression that he had no grievance. contracted a slight limp. At the start of But he rebelled, and a number of men the rebellion he had treasonably gone belonging to his regiment went out over to Beyers in our full military with him. He has shed more blood uniform and was therefore in a slightly than any other officer. I was obliged to different category of rebel. On take him seriously... The rebellion was Dingaan’s Day, the 16th of December, subsiding. Beyers was drowned. Had I refused to confirm the sentence, General de Wet surrendered when he I could not have faced the parents of saw himself hopelessly surrounded. At the young men who met their deaths Reitz, General Botha had taken a large through Fourie’s fault. There is number of prisoners. Only Fourie’s something to be said for many a rebel, band remained contumacious. Twelve but in this case I conferred a great of our men were killed at benefit on the State by carrying out my Nooitgedacht. There was no most unpleasant duty... “ justification for that. Some of them He had been captured on Dingaan’s were shot at a range of twelve yards. Day and executed by a firing squad on Fourie was captured by Colonel a Sunday. Frantic last-minute efforts Pretorius, a grandson of the late were made by his friends to obtain a President Pretorius and a cousin of reprieve, and delegations tried desper- Fourie’s... A court martial was ately to see my father. But he was not appointed, strictly according to at home at the time, and in any case, military law. One of its members told he said, he would not have interfered me he felt compunction about serving, in the course of justice. because he was a friend of Fourie’s. I replied that that was an additional Cheered by the news that Admiral reason why he should be on the Sturdee’s battle-cruisers had destroyed tribunal. On Saturday Fourie was the German Pacific squadron off the unanimously condemned to death... Falkland Islands on December 20, Botha was in a position to declare the “I personally have not the slightest rebellion over. doubt that it was a direct outcome of our preceding political warfare. That it Twelve hundred rebels were sent was essentially a party quarrel is home on parole. When Parliament proved by the fact that every member reassembled four thousand men were of the South African Party stood by still in prison awaiting sentence. A General Botha, and while not every court of three judges was established Nationalist was a rebel, it is literally to try the more important rebels and true that every rebel, without a single shortly the remainder were released exception, was a Nationalist. subject to certain civil disabilities for ten years. “Furthermore, the rebellion was a domestic dispute among the Boers Deneys Reitz summed up the position themselves, and hostility towards the very clearly when he wrote in British had comparatively little part in Trekking On, in 1933: “The rebellion it... The rising was crushed by Boer was over. With a great conflict raging commandos under Boer officers, and in Europe, it passed almost unnoticed to this day the ill-feeling that was in the outside world, but in South engendered lies not between the Dutch Africa the aftermath is with us yet, and and British, but between the two the motives and origin are still the sections of the Boer people in South subject of fierce controversy. Africa.” During the necessarily acrimonious supported the Government without debate following my father’s getting into trouble with one or the introduction of his second Indemnity other. A Unionist member for the Bill within a year, he summed up the Rand, J.W. Quinn, said bluntly: “I origins of the rising briefly as follows: would have shot the honourable “One of the most powerful member for Smithfield.” contributory causes to the rebellion My father had been tireless during the was the campaign of calumny against rebellion and had worked well into the Prime Minister. The Dutch people every night throughout these trying do not draw any fine distinctions, and months. During this time he drove by a process of reiteration a soil was both himself and his subordinates created into which the fertile seed remorselessly. Botha paid him this fell...” well-merited tribute: “Nobody can Hertzog said in Parliament: “‘The ever appreciate sufficiently the great Government has done its duty in work General Smuts has done – suppressing disorders and violence in greater than that of any other man the country. I have never accused the throughout this unhappy period.” Government of having done anything The rebels were dealt with liberally on wrong in so doing.” When tackled principle, partly as a friendly gesture about his negotiations with Maritz he and partly to avoid creating martyrs. made the excuse that he could neither De Wet got six years, but only served have reproached the rebels nor eighteen months before being released. Kemp and the prophet van Rensburg, politics, there would have been no who had escaped into South-West Botha... Smuts directs all the Africa, surrendered when General machinery of government and oils all Botha invaded the colony, and Maritz the parts. He is always in the fled to Europe. All were later allowed background, planning, calculating, to return without penalty. plotting. Smuts burrows his way from morning till night through mountains My father has always felt that the of official documents... When the policy of leniency was justified by Government does anything heroic it is subsequent history. The one martyr he always ‘Bravo, Botha!’ When it created, Fourie, gave him quite bumps up against public opinion, it is sufficient trouble. always ‘Smuts’s slimness’. He never The weekly The Cape wrote in 1915: takes a holiday... He alone appears not “From whichever side a criticism of to feel the need. What a fortunate thing the Government comes, be sure that this is for the Botha Ministry!” the odium will fall on General Smuts. There could hardly be any greater tribute than this to the power which he wields in present-day politics. I do not subscribe to the view that General Botha is merely a puppet in the hands of General Smuts, but I do think that, if there had been no Smuts in Union PART 2 South-West Africa was handed over THE FIRST WORLD WAR against the advice of the Cape Government, which itself had been 28 : FIRST WORLD WAR unable to secure it. Dr. Karl Peters and GERMANY was not a colonising power. two confederates acquired Tanganyika Unlike the British, the Portuguese and by going out disguised as artisans and the Dutch, who acquired their overseas secretly conducting treaties with the possessions by the courage and native chiefs. The greater part of the enterprise of their pioneers, the Cameroons was gained in similar Germans were content to get theirs fashion. The remainder was got from less heroically by annexation or France in 1911 as a favour for keeping exchange. South-West Africa was her hands off Morocco. virtually a gift from Britain in 1884. Equally striking is the difference in The scramble for Africa was just method of administration between beginning. Previously Germany had German and English colonies. In the been much too busy with her wars on British system a great deal of latitude the Continent to have time for is permitted the colonies in their own colonies. Even now Bismarck was so administration. The German involved he could barely spare the possessions were ruled very much time. But the lectures of the explorer from the Fatherland and were H.M. Stanley were awakening German exploited for exports and consolidated interest. as military bases. The German flag was hoisted on 6th turn of the century, and none at all five August, 1884, at Luderitzbucht, four years later. What had Germany put centuries after Bartholomew Dias had into the country in return? A few landed there. Nine years later a shabby towns, two strategic wireless ruthless series of native wars began - stations and a raging incidence of which went on till 1908. The German venereal disease. ideal of colonisation was the same as German penetration of Tanganyika in the old Americas – extermination. also started in 1884. Its advent was Thereafter there was no Red Indian marked by continual Arab and native problem. In South-West Africa rising, caused by harshness and Germany determined there wou1d be unsympathetic treatment. Methods of no Herero problem. A British suppression were of the well-known commission estimated the Herero ruthless pattern. Wherever they went population at 80,000 in 1877. When they built protective “bomas” or forts. the punitive efforts had subsided after From these they scarce dared venture the 1911 rebellion there were barely far. The first rising was the Bushiri 15,130 left. It was not straightforward rebellion, brought about by the extermination, but sadistic ill- exploitation of the natives by Karl treatment, flogging, interference with Peters. In two years there was nothing women and brutality. left. The Chagga chiefs of Kilimanjaro The Herero’s had 150,000 head of were next to revolt. Then followed a cattle in 1892, less than 50,000 at the two-year war with the Hele of Iringa, farther inland. Rather than be captured very heart. It has two tolerable the native chiefs committed suicide. harbours which might readily be Seven years later came the Maji-Maji turned into U-boat nests, with rebellion. As a punitive measure native incalculable effect on the Atlantic sea crops were burnt, which resulted in routes. Above South-West Africa lies widespread starvation. Hundreds of Angola, and on our east coast marches natives were strung up from trees. In the Mozambique, both territories of all, about 120,000 perished. our honourable and ancient, but weak, ally Portugal. Between the Rhodesia’s The German record in the Cameroons and Kenya, next to the Belgian Congo, and Togoland is little better. lies Tanganyika. With two fine ports Her mark upon Africa has not been a in Tanga and Dar-es-Salaam, she happy one. menaces the whole centre part of What was the strategic significance of Africa. She also looks out on a large Germany’s possessions in Africa? part of the Indian Ocean. Contrary to South-West Africa, a territory 800 general sub-continent practice, miles long and 400 wide, three- Germany trained native levies in quarters the size of the Union of South military tactics. These askaris we were Africa, runs more than halfway up the soon to meet. west side of the Union. Even though The Germans have always been much the arid Kalahari intervenes, it interested in forming a strategic “bloc” nevertheless points a dagger at our in the heart of Africa. It was part of what they called their “Mittel-Afrika” transports leaving for the front. In concept, defined at various times by 1904 there was to be trouble over Leutwein, Zimmerman and Delbrück Morocco in the so-called Tangier and including more or less the whole Episode, when the German Emperor southern half of the continent. If this steamed there in his private yacht, and could not be acquired by peaceful made a speech on Morocco’s means, perhaps one day she would be independence which was a distinct strong enough... challenge to Britain and France. In 1906, in a treaty, the independence of ***** Morocco was guaranteed by all the The first Great War was no sudden major powers of Europe. Perhaps all conflagration stealing stealthily upon might have been well had the Sultan the world out of the dark. It did not been a strong man and able to keep his come silently and unnoticed. The subjects in order. But by 1911 there gathering storm had been observed was so much internal trouble that approaching plainly for all to see, but France felt herself constrained to humanity seemed powerless to avert intervene. This intervention annoyed the catastrophe. We have already seen Germany and she despatched two the start of the strained feeling during gunboats to Agadir. Though the move the Jameson Raid and its worsening was ostensibly to protect her subjects, during the Boer War, when Germany it was a hostile display of power by glowered, impotently, across the Germany. For a month or two there screen of warships at the British was suspense, and it was only after the 1912 followed the First Balkan War, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, initiated by Venizelos of Greece and Mr. Lloyd George, had made it plain Ferdinand of Bulgaria. The Turkish that Britain was quite ready to side army was defeated and the whole of with France in this squabble that Turkey in Europe was conquered Germany grew more tractable. France, except the outposts of Constantinople unimpeded, went on to arrange a treaty and the Peninsula of Gallipoli. The with the Sultan for a French protecto- terms of the abortive Treaty of London rate, while Germany was actively having failed to be brought into effect, spurred an in her naval building the Second Balkan War ensued a year programme and was raising an extra later in which Bulgaria faced Greece, £50,000,000 for her army. Serbia and Roumania, till peace was concluded at Constantinople. During France and Germany, though at peace, this war Turkey had managed to regain were in opposite camps, and Britain her place in south-eastern Europe. had professed her love for France. Britain did her best to reduce the German influence had steadily tension by despatching Lord Haldane improved with the Turks to the and others on friendly missions to detriment of that of Britain. It was Germany. aggravated by the friendship of Britain with Russia, Turkey’s old enemy. On Europe had been in an unsettled state 11th August, 1914, the Turkish over the past few years. In 1908 there Government permitted the German had been a revolution in Turkey. In warships Goebeh and Breslau to use or confine. Russia began to get her the Dardanelles. An endeavour was armies ready to help Serbia. On 1st made to keep the Turks neutral, but on August Germany presented an October 29 Turkey threw off the mask ultimatum to Russia. When this and declared war. expired Germany forthwith attacked Russia’s ally, France, through neutral In 1911 the Triple Entente Powers, Belgium. Britain, France and Russia, had shown the Triple Alliance Powers, Germany, On 4th August Britain declared war on Austria and Italy, that none of the Germany. Entente powers stood alone, and by And so started what was at that time sound diplomacy had averted war. In the biggest human upheaval of all the crisis of July, 1914, it was unable ages. It was indeed a world war in the to do so. On 28th June the Archduke true sense, for though the major Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian fighting occurred on the Western Front throne, had been assassinated at of Europe, it involved bloody Sarajevo in Bosnia. Austria alleged the struggles with Turkey in the foul deed had been due to Serbian Dardanelles, in Mesopotamia and intrigues and on July 23 sent an North Africa; it involved major naval ultimatum to Belgrade. Forty-eight battles at the Falkland Islands and hours of grace were allowed and Jutland; and it involved outpost thereafter Austria began war on fighting in South-West Africa and in Serbia. This it was impossible to limit East Africa; and at the same time there was the continuous and relentless and often nearly double the struggle with the U-boat menace over corresponding German losses.” the Seven Seas. The trouble with the war was that it The Allies, in the bloody years that was never fully completed and followed, were to realise that they had Germany was never crushingly tackled the most ruthless and efficient defeated. Victory came about when the military machine the world had ever German home front cracked as a result seen. Not only did Germany at first of relentless blockade. When the line enjoy a numerical superiority, but man on the frontiers was pierced the for man the war was to bring the Germans suddenly capitulated. As an frightening realisation that the German army they were still intact. Their soldier had no equal, and certainly no country had not been invaded or superior, in the armies of the world. treated to the ravages of war. The This was amply borne out by casualty German population, though starved, figures for the war. Mr. Churchill never admitted that they had been says: “During the whole war the beaten. Germans never lost in any phase of the In the half-completed war, and in the fighting more than the French whom half-baked treaty at Versailles, lay the they fought, and frequently inflicted germ for the still bigger war that was double casualties upon them... in all to follow in 1939. But that we must the British offensives the British leave for later chapters. casualties were never less than 3 to 2 Shortly before the outbreak of the The major battles of the war were revolution in Russia, Lord Milner, contested grimly on the Western together with Sir Samuel Hoare, had Front, chiefly in the mire of Belgium been sent there to report on the and France. Hindenburg and Luden- possibilities of an upheaval. These dorf had swung round to apply the were the days of a lavish Russian famed strategy of a right hook on court, of a royal line suffering from the Paris. The French capital was nearly dread bleeders’ disease, haemophilia, reached. The South African Brigade at and of the scoundrel healer Rasputin, Delville Wood, in the vast battles of who was murdered just before they the Somme, played their small but left. To Hoare, the imminence of a immortal part in stopping the rising was only too patent, but Milner, avalanche. out of touch, wrote in his report on Germany was finally checked in a board ship that he did not consider a muddy world of trenches and barbed revolution likely. There was wireless wire. Names such as Ypres, the silence at the time, and it was only Somme, Verdun, Passchendaele and when he landed in England that he many others are household words. heard for the first time that the Millions of young men perished in revolution had already been in these battles, the flower of England progress for some weeks. His report and France. France had borne the was useless and he tore it up and wrote earlier brunt of the juggernaut. Britain another. took over later, and near the end America also came in to apply the coup d’etat, but her effort had been too belated to be of crucial value. In Africa Germany had to be driven from her colonies in South-West Africa and in Tanganyika. South African troops played a dominant part in these campaigns. In the Middle East, Turkey was only subdued after much fighting by Viscount Allenby. The Holy Land had heard the booming of guns and thundering of horses’ hoofs. Allied blood lay on the beaches at the Dardanelles. Much of it was Anzac blood. Mr. Churchill bore the brunt of the criticism. 29 : SOUTH-WEST AFRICAN estimation of the capabilities of the CAMPAIGN Union troops and their organising skill. For neither Botha nor my father SOUTH-WEST AFRICA is a vast arid had been idle during the troublous territory of over 317,000 square miles times of the rebellion. They had, with a thousand-mile-long coast-line. rightly, foreseen that the Germans Almost half of it is desert, especially would deem the desert crossings im- the flat coastal plains which are possible, and they had set about the billowing, sandy, waterless wastes. task of rendering the impossible Well inland the highlands enjoy a possible. In the art of desert warfare better rainfall and form attractive my father had had considerable ranching country. experience in the South-West Cape. For the defence of this distant outpost He saw that with proper organisation a of Das Vaterland the Germans had commando crossing of the desert only a little over 8,000 troops. The would be by no means impossible. The remainder of the defence was left to first task was to assure a water supply. the broad belt of surrounding This was done by putting down a inhospitable desert, which was thought chain of boreholes. Supplies were to be impassable to armies encum- taken care of by the new-fangled bered with their water and motor-car. In any case, it was going to commissariat problems. Where the be a lightning campaign, and the Germans, in all their thoroughness, troops would have to travel light, and erred, however, was in their under

Smuts and Botha – 1918 : Lieut.-Gen. J.C. Smuts – 1917 rough it as best they could. By striking sitting back in the Reich Chancellery swiftly and decisively he believed he in Berlin, was out of touch and his could obtain clear-cut victories, reduce poor contact possibly cost Germany casualties, and shorten the agony. But the war. hard as he drove his men, he drove General Botha arrived at Swakopmund himself equally relentlessly. His was on 11th February, 1915. My father did not a static headquarters days behind not reach Luderitzbucht till mid-April. the fighting line; he would always be This port had previously been taken by found well up with his troops. In British units. In front of the armies lay Africa, with its poor communications, shifting sands, dust storms, scorching this was essential if a general was to heat and thirst. remain in touch with his forces. My father could do it because of his frugal South-West Africa was divided into way of living, his tremendous fitness two zones of command. General Botha and vitality, and his unbounded made Walfish Bay his main base and physical endurance. tackled the enemy in the northern portion of the territory. My father This close tactical command paid operated in the southern half. dividends. It enabled quick decisions and swift moves. Rommel proved it in Moving swiftly from Walfish, Botha North Africa in the Second World attacked the Germans at Jakalswater War, and in those gigantic mobile tank and drove them backwards. Without battles it was often decisive. Hitler, losing impetus he passed through Otjimbingwe, where the noted African the fourth column, under Myburg, was explorer Charles John Anderson had to strike out for the Otavi junction. once established himself, and seized The speed of the move, executed in Karibib, Friedriksfelde, Wilhelmsthal hard forced marches, cut off the 4,000 and Okahanja in turn, entering German troops, who were forced to Windhoek, the capital, on 12th May. capitulate. Governor Seitz and Colonel Having now driven a wedge across the Francke wanted to argue, but Botha territory from west to east, Botha demanded unconditional surrender, divided his force into four columns, and the terms were signed on 9th July. for mopping-up operations. The first One of Botha’s columns covered 120 he put under his trusted Koen Brits, miles of marching in difficult desert who was to move up northwards on conditions. the west side of the railway to Otjivarongo and beyond to Outjo and Meanwhile my father had not been the Etosha Pan, by so doing severing idle. His attack was a three pronged the German line of retreat to the one. He sent Mackenzie across the Cunene and the Kaokoveld. The desert plains from Luderitz in the second column, under Lukin, was to west, van Deventer up from the move up along the railway line; the Orange River in the south across the third, under Maine Botha, was to Kalahari, and Berrange from Kuruman move along east of the line to Tsumeb; ill the east. In a series of gruelling rushed marches he took Keetman- shoop and Gibeon by the beginning of May. There was hardly enough water our moves enabled us to capture some to keep body and soul together and intact. All around was a “scorched- even the occasional tin of bully beef earth” policy applied in a land that was a luxury. The supply services had nature had already long ago decided been far outstripped in this land of was to be a scorched earth. heat and sand. At first the troops lived My father avoided frontal attacks. He on a minimum ration of distilled sea was an inveterate exponent, like all water, and it was not till they reached Boers, of the enveloping flanking the highlands after Garus that they move. Thus Aus, an important point came on fresh water. on the road to Keetmanshoop, though The Germans had exhibited their well held and tactically strong, fell characteristic thoroughness in their without trouble. As ever, my father retreat by poisoning and polluting all had the habit of wishing to do his own water supplies and blowing up or reconnaissance work wherever booby-trapping all installations. Along possible. Near Keetmanshoop he was their roads of retreat they planted returning from one of these trips ahead numerous land mines, and there were of his troops when he ran into, and constant explosions and casualties as was captured by an outlying screen of the advancing troops set them off. our men. He, rather than his Some of the wells were filled with subordinates, saw the humour of such foetid corpses of animals which reeked situations. They left his senior officers to high heaven; but the swiftness of worried but helpless. The Kalahari column accomplished and my father. The cost to the the almost incredible feat of crossing Treasury had only been £15,000,000. nearly 700 miles of desert on horses. It was also the first campaign of the They made a beeline for Allies to be brought to a successful Keetmanshoop. It was a brilliant conclusion in this war. march, and took the enemy by After the campaign my father surprise. expressed to his troops his pride in Beaten in the south, the Germans their accomplishments: “If you go swung up towards Windhoek, only to through the history of wars, you will find they had been driven up against perhaps only in the Boer War find General Botha. The campaign was records like these... If you tell of this over. It had been a walk-over for the march from Nonandas to Karabib 45,000 Union troops. The casualties – people will not believe you; if you tell 530 dead and wounded – were only them how little water you drank and half those of the rebellion; this was as how few biscuits you ate, they will not much due to superior tactics and good believe you.” handling as to overwhelming strength. In July, 1915, General Botha and my The swiftness and the detailed co- father returned to the Union as heroes. ordination of movements over vast Botha thanked my father: “South distances was a revelation to students Africa might well be proud of having of military history; it was a distinct produced a man of such talents,” he feather in the caps of General Botha said. In Cape Town, Johannesburg and thousands of broken hearts. At other towns they were given Edenburg he said, “South Africa has tumultuous ovations; but in the done enough for the Empire. Person- countryside there was a strong ally, I object to any more money being undercurrent of hostility. There they expended on the cause of the Empire.” were not heroes returning triumphant The five-year term of office of the from the fields of battles, but just Government was about to expire as the despised tools of Britain. The cry was troops returned from South-West that they were subordinating South Africa. It was not a propitious time Africa to the interests of the Empire, coming so shortly after the rebellion. which at the time was struggling at South African Party prospects at the Gallipoli, gravely threatened by the election were uncertain, though it was first U-boat campaign, and helpless to known that the Unionists would stand aid a tottering Russia. These solidly by them on the war issue. opponents were not appeased by victory, or the acquisition of a big Feelings were running high. The slice of new territory. Few people are sinking of the Lusitania brought about more difficult to impress than the a series of emotional demonstrations Boers when they have set their hearts which only served to aggravate the against a thing. Hertzog harped cleavage. The sad and disturbing incessantly on imperialism, the blood exodus of the Afrikaner from the of brothers that had been shed and the Botha-Smuts kraal was in full swing. It was one of those baser manifestations of ingratitude that it were a personal question, I should chequered my father’s public life. like nothing better than to be out of this hell into which I have wandered, In August my father cast back at and in which I have lived for the last Hertzog his cry that General Botha had two years... the Government will not become an Englishman. “Since then leave you in the lurch... I shall work [the National Convention] others have with my last breath for the good of changed, not we... We want one South South Africa.” Africa, one united people. Five years hence, or fifty years hence, our party In September electioneering started in will still stand where it now stands... grim earnest. Meetings were hectic. Before the Boer War we had a divided There was constant heckling and people – the old population and the interruption. The case of Jopie Fourie Uitlanders. The result of that system featured prominently, even his widow was blood and tears... Within the past stepping into the fray. Nationalists couple of years there has been a accused the Government of having reaction against the one-stream policy. deliberately murdered General de la Have we not had bloodshed in the past Rey. A deluge of alleged crimes twelve months as a consequence of descended upon the Government. My this?...” father had the distinction of being the best-hated and most-maligned man on On October 15 he remarked: “I am a the Government side. He was also man of peace. General Hertzog says their chief and most indefatigable Botha and Smuts must be got rid of. If speaker. There were few dull moments could answer more easily,” my father at his meetings. Speeches were said. “The interests of South Africa drowned by the vociferous, organised, will always be first with me.” But clamour of discontent. South Africa, he might have added, could only be great if Britain and the One day when travelling by car in the Commonwealth were strong and great. chilly weather of the highveld, with At a meeting on 9th September, in his coat well up over his ears, between Pretoria, he left, after having been two political meetings, my father said refused a hearing, very much the wistfully to Levi, a newspaper worse for rotten eggs and over-ripe correspondent, who was with him: tomatoes. “Do not complain. You have enough to eat. You have no one whose fate We must not over-estimate opposition depends on you.” You have thoughts at these meetings, for even in those to call your own, and a certain amount days the Nationalists had organised of leisure. Look at me! Thousands, I roving break-up gangs. They followed suppose, envy me my place and principal speakers from meeting to power. Yet what are they? My own meeting with the express purpose of people curse me; to tens of thousands denying them a hearing. The Nazi my name is a by-word. Be satisfied!” thugs of Adolf Hitler used similar tactics. At Brits a questioner asked which came first with him, South Africa or On September 23, occurred an outrage the Empire: “There is no question I at Newlands, a poorer suburb of Johannesburg. My father had been the child away,” my father said, “or it warned by friends not to appear there will get killed.” After a brief as serious trouble was expected. But softening-up process with stones and he was not one to be deterred by bottles, some of the crowd rushed the threats of personal violence, for fear platform and a general melee ensued. formed no part of his physical make- Sticks and boots were used freely. up. When the lamps were smashed my father decided it was time to go. It was The suppressed hum burst into a full- plain that the most serious personal blooded angry roar as he entered the violence was contemplated. The party hall. His chauffeur, George Hodgson, had to fight its way out under a hail of left the Napier parked at the door – brickbats and blows from sticks and just in case. Barely had the official clubs. My father was knocked down, party mounted the platform when but managed to struggle to his feet and Mary Fitzgerald, a Labour agitator, got to the door with the rest of them. stepped forward with a baby in her Meanwhile Hodgson had started the arms. “This is the child of car, but the mob dragged him from his Labuschagne whom you murdered,” seat and switched it of. Twice this she shouted, referring to the person of happened before my father arrived. 1913 strike fame. Rotten eggs and Here, as he was boarding the vehicle, a tomatoes rained on to the platform, as vicious blow aimed at him with a pick- well as objects of more solid handle missed and felled a hostile composition. “For heaven’s sake take miner alongside. A warning shot was My earliest recollections are of the fired by a detective and thereafter as appearance of my father’s coat the the car drove off there were more morning after he got back from shots, not fired by the detective. It is Newlands. I was three at the time. My presumed that these were the efforts of mother called us outside to come and a would-be assassin. look at it, for it was not in a fit state to come indoors. That coat made such a My father got away with little worse deep impression on me that I decided than bruises and ruffled feelings. there and then that the political world The Times, commenting on the was not for me! Newlands disorder, remarked: “Perhaps South Africans who have The results of the elections were hitherto admired, without sympathy, disappointing. In the Free State where the rather hard brilliancy of General in 1910 they had made a clean sweep Smuts, may realise, having so nearly the South African Party did not win a lost him, his value to South Africa and single seat. Of the entire country 50 the Empire. His enemies may thus per cent of the rural area vote went to have secured for him what, in Hertzog and three Ministers lost their comparison with other South African seats. The Nationalists had polled public men of less ability, he has more than 30 per cent of all votes and curiously lacked hitherto – a popular had improved their position in the following.” House from five to twenty-seven seats. Labour had four seats, independents six and the Unionists thirty-nine. The future for the South African Party was therefore insecure and they could only hope to carry on effectively with the help of the Unionists and Independents. 30 : EAST AFRICAN CAMPAIGN began sending out more troops. But even so, Major-General Tighe did not SINCE the outbreak of the war British seem able to get going and a naval and German contingents had been assault on the port of Tanga proved a skirmishing incessantly on the failure. frontiers of East Africa. The position was unsatisfactory, but Britain had her Beyond sending a few troops to hands too full in Europe to tackle this Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia the outpost campaign seriously. She had Union had not been in a position to merely kept the pot simmering, send men abroad till South-West waiting no doubt till South Africa had Africa was cleared up. But now the cleared up her troubles in the south campaign in East Africa was being and was in a position to help. Under freely talked about and volunteers von Lettow Vorbeck the Germans had were being called for service there as been more enterprising, and his small well as to make up an infantry brigade but efficiently bush-trained army of and five battalions of heavy artillery 2,000 German officers and 20,000 for service in Europe. native askaris had crossed the borders South African troops had been well of Nyasaland and the Congo and were paid in the South-West African attacking the Kenya-Uganda railways. campaign, but in these new campaigns In the second half of 1915, however, they were to receive only the King’s Britain was in a position to take the shilling per day. There was East African war more seriously and considerable pressure, especially from the Unionists and Labour, to bring the Early in 1916, General Smith-Dorrien pay into line with that of the other was appointed. But on the way to Dominions; so the Government South Africa he was taken seriously decided to make up the difference to ill; at Cape Town he was carried off on three shillings per day, though this was a stretcher and taken to Muizenberg, not to apply to the brigade for Europe. and it soon became apparent that he would need a long convalescence It was an open secret that in the before he would be fit for active duty. beginning of November my father had Once more the command. was offered been offered the command of all to my father. By this time he felt he troops in East Africa, but in view of could be spared; in any case he was the position in South Africa he had felt tired of the bickerings of the political constrained to refuse the appointment. world. and yearned for action. Whether this offer had been made as a compliment to his military It was with reluctance, however, that achievements or in deference to the he left his friend Botha. behind, now fact that South Africa would be burdened in addition with another supplying the major portion of the portfolio. East African contingent, is not known. In Europe the Germans were grimly Britain might have been more pleased but slowly bludgeoning; their bloody to see Botha in this position, but his way into Verdun. absence from the Union was out of the question. On 10th February, 1916, it was would say that General Smuts was officially announced that my father successful in spite of being a politi- had accepted the command in East cian.” Concerning the converging Africa with the rank of Lieutenant- movements of my father’s three General in the British Army – columns on Keetmanshoop Crowe Britain’s second youngest general. says: “The operations were Brigadier-General J.H.V. Crowe says: characterised by peculiarly daring and “It was a bold stroke to entrust the successful strategy.” command of these bodies of troops Lloyd George summed up the position and the carrying out of these of a politician becoming a general very operations to a man who was not a succinctly when he says of generals: soldier, who had practically no “... there is no profession where experience in handling any experience and training count less in considerable force. Knowing what one comparison with judgment and flair.” does now, one can only say that the Government were wonderfully lucky, My father left Irene Station on the for it would have been difficult to have night of 11th February. As a small boy found a more suitable commander than I had grown weary of the protracted General Smuts proved himself to be.” proceedings of the evening, so my He cannot resist adding the pleasant father carried me on to the platform in quip, however, that: “Lest other poli- his arms and took me ‘into the train ticians should attempt a similar role, I with him. When the time came for the train to depart he kissed my mother good-bye and also the rest of the making a personal reconnaissance to family, and then with a sigh, Levi within two miles of the base of the says, set me down and gave a last Hill. He then went by car to Kajiado wave as the train clattered into the and later to Longido West, whence he might. had a good view of Meru and Kampfontein, Engare Nanyuki and At Durban he paused for only twenty Ngare Nairobi, all focal points in his minutes before boarding a steamer for immediate strategic position. He then Kilindini. continued on his way to Nairobi, The Pretoria News remarked, “The where he arrived on the 23rd. Here he appointment is a tribute to his military established his headquarters. The genius and a compliment to South settlers and citizens wanted to lionise Africa.” Mr. Asquith said in the House and entertain him, but he would not of Commons of the new Commander- have this, for the rains were coming in-Chief: “We can have the utmost and he had work to do. confidence in General Smuts, in view of his varied military experience. The natural strength of the German positions in East Africa was On 19th February he arrived in formidable. They started at Mombasa. While on board he had Kilimanjaro and ran down a series of heard that our forces had received a high mountains and big rivers to the severe check at Salaita Hill. To this coast. It was a land of dense bush, of position he proceeded with all haste, mosquito, jigger flea and horse- J.H.V. Crowe, his G.O.C. Artillery in sickness fly. East Africa. I make no apology for quoting thus freely, for I feel that not His army was an amazingly polyglot only does my father speak better for one. There were men from the United himself than anybody else could, but Kingdom, from South Africa, Cape also that a better study of the man is Corps, Gold Coast, Nigeria and the afforded by this means. This foreword West Indies; from Kashmir, Jhind, 13 Bhurtpur and Kaparthalu; Boer settlers to Crowe’s book is one of the fullest from East Africa; Rhodesians, King’s and most lucid of the forewords African Rifles native troops, Uganda written by him. It is also the most contingents, Arabs, as well as Belgian authoritative summary of the and Portuguese troops. campaign. His staff he took over almost without Several of the minor side-shows of the world-war [my father says] are not change from General Smith-Dorrien. only replete with incident, adventure, Some were highly-trained regular and interest to the general reader, but officers; most were just enthusiastic deserve the careful attention of the militant citizens. military student as types of campaigns I can here do no better than let my successfully conducted under very father describe the campaign himself, as he did so ably in a long foreword to 13 General Smuts’s Campaign in East Africa, a book by Brigadier-General with acknowledgement to Mr. John Murray. novel conditions. General Botha’s more general features of this South-West African campaign, for campaign. instance, will ever remain a model During the nineteen months which had desert campaign in which water and elapsed since the outbreak of the war transport difficulties, considered before my arrival in East Africa, the insuperable by the enemy, were enemy had on the whole been superior successfully overcome, and brilliant to us both in strategy and effective and daring strategy resulted in the striking force, and it says much for the rapid collapse of the enemy. Our East tenacity of our defence that during that African campaign of 1916, again, period British East Africa was not presents a striking instance of a overwhelmed. The enemy, while tropical campaign in which within the entrenching himself in our territory space of ten months a vast territory and successfully striking minor blows was occupied in the face of a resolute at us in many directions and and powerful enemy backed up by unceasingly threatening our long natural obstacles and climatic railway communications with the difficulties of the most formidable coast at many points, wisely foresaw character. These matters are dealt with that the real struggle would come later, in considerable detail by General and devoted his attention mainly to the Crowe, but it may be permitted me recruitment and training of a large here to direct attention to some of the native army under German officers. The word had gone forth from Berlin that East Africa, the jewel of the on the country, largely untroubled by German Colonial Empire, was to be transport difficulties, and with a held at all costs, and the German morale in some respects higher than commander, Colonel von Lettow that of our troops, who, in inferior Vorbeck, was the man to carry out this strength, had borne the heat and the order to the bitter end. The initial burden of defence for the last eighteen stocks of guns, machine-guns, rifles, months. and ammunition were from time to Powerful as was the enemy’s military time very largely augmented by force, the physical and climatic several blockade runners, and heavy difficulties of the country added vastly artillery was supplied by the to his power of defence. For 130 miles Königsberg and other warships on that from the coast to the neighbourhood of coast. When, therefore, I arrived in the Kilimanjaro Mountain the enemy February, 1916, with South African territory was protected by the high reinforcements to take the offensive, I mountain ranges of the Usambara and found opposed to me a very large Pare Mountains. The only practicable army, in effective strength not much gap in this natural rampart was a space smaller than my own, well trained and about four or five miles wide between ably commanded, formidably the northern extremity of the Pare equipped with artillery and machine- Mountains and the foothills of the guns, immune against most tropical Kilimanjaro, in which Taveta lies and diseases, very mobile and able to live in which the enemy had been entrenching and fortifying himself for South African troops attacked they ran the previous eighteen months. This into deadly machine-gun and small- dangerous gap, in which the main arms fire in the bush itself, before enemy force was concentrated, was the reaching the base of the hill. This gateway – then very much closed – to surprise, combined with the almost German East Africa, and towards it completely restricted visibility, made my predecessor, Major-General the various formations lose contact M.J. Tighe, had been building a and brought about a state of confusion. railway and laying water pipe lines When, therefore, my father took over over the waterless Serengeti Plains. after this Salaita Hill disaster he found About eight miles in front of the the troops generally somewhat shaken Taveta gap stands like a sentinel in morale. It did not take him long to Salaita Hill, on which our forces had rectify this. The secret was person- made a disastrous attack the very day ality, aggressiveness and success. on which I sailed from South Africa. After this initial setback, the South African troops conspicuously disting- It must here be interposed that the uished themselves and brought great Salaita Hill setback had been a serious honour to our arms. Let us turn again one. This conspicuous hill rises to my father’s description: abruptly from flat, dense bush, and owing to faulty intelligence or poor This gap had to be forced at whatever reconnaissance it was believed that cost. I preferred to maneuver the only the hill itself was held. When the enemy out of it, and after spending a week in the most searching over the Ruwu into the Pare reconnaissance of the weak spots of Mountains and down the Tanga the enemy’s dispositions and in Railway towards the Usambara misleading movements and ruses, I Mountains. Never had I seen so advanced the bulk of my force by sudden and complete a transformation night against the enemy’s left flank, in the spirits of opposing forces; our took from him the foothills of men, who had retreated before the Kilimanjaro by surprise and without enemy in the confusion at Salaita Hill, any effort on the morning of March now advanced with dauntless élan 8th, and within twenty-four hours against the hidden foe in the dense compelled him to evacuate his bush of the mountain slopes or the practically impregnable Taveta Ruwu swamps. positions. There followed the series of The enemy, on whom fortune had actions at Reata and Latema Hills, at hitherto almost invariably smiled, now Euphorbia Hill, at Rasthaus, at found himself suddenly and repeatedly Massaikraal on the Soko Nassai River, manoeuvred or hurled out of his at Kahe Hill and station, and on the carefully prepared entrenchments. And Ruwu River which, within the next this spirit of our men was destined in twelve days, gave us complete the following ten months to carry them possession of the entire Moschi- through the greatest privations and Aruscha area, and finally drove the over the most appalling obstacles to enemy army after repeated defeats the distant valleys of the Rufiji and Ulanga Rivers in the south of German danger that the enemy forces might East Africa. The campaign henceforth split up into guerrilla bands doubling assumed more and more the character back in all directions and rendering of a campaign against nature, in which effective occupation of the country climate, geography, and disease fought impossible. In view of the size of the more effectively against ‘us than the country it was therefore necessary to well-trained forces of the enemy. invade it from various points with columns strong enough to deal with The pause which followed on the any combination that could be brought occupation of the Moschi-Aruscha against them, and for these columns as districts gave an opportunity for the they advanced to clear the country also full consideration of the strategical laterally. problems ahead of us, and the rainy season which set in with extreme General Northey was operating violence forced us to consider how the eastwards and north-eastwards from climate and seasons were going to Lake Nyassa; a Belgian column was affect our campaign. Our object was launched eastwards from Lake Kivu not merely the defeat of the enemy, (to the north of Lake Tanganyika); in but the effective occupation of his April another Belgian column and a huge territory in the shortest possible British column were set in motion in a time. Merely to follow the enemy in southerly direction from the Uganda his very mobile retreat might prove an border west of Lake Victoria Nyanza; endless game, with the additional a mounted brigade under van Deventer was launched southwards from including Iringa. The successful Aruscha to Kondoa Irangi, which is occupation of so much country in so the most important strategic point on short a time was largely due to the the interior plateau of the enemy careful adoption and coordination of territory; and finally, towards the end the various lines of advance, which of May, three columns advanced compelled a general retreat of the south-eastward from the Moschi area enemy without the chance of any other against the Pare Mountains and forces remaining behind or doubling towards the Usambara Mountains. back to molest our lines of communication. The combined result of all these movements, as far as possible co- It is impossible for those unacquainted ordinated for mutual assistance into with German East Africa to realise the groups according to the anticipated physical, transport, and supply strength of the enemy in the various difficulties of the advance over this localities, was that by the beginning of magnificent country of unrivalled September two-thirds of the enemy scenery and fertility, consisting of country had been effectively occupied great mountain systems alternating up to and including the whole of the with huge plains; with a great rainfall Central Railway from Dar-es-Salaam and wide, unbridged rivers in the to Lake Tanganyika; and to the south regions of the mountains, and of this railway General Northey had insufficient surface water on the plains occupied a large territory up to and for the needs of an army; with magnificent bush and primeval forest white man in that country far from a everywhere, pathless, trackless, except pleasure. trip; if, in addition, he has to for the spoor of the elephant or the perform real hard work and make long narrow footpaths of the natives; the marches on short rations the trial malaria mosquito everywhere, except becomes very severe; if, above all, on the highest plateaux; everywhere huge masses of men and material have belts infested with the deadly tsetse fly to be moved over hundreds of miles in which make an end of all animal a great military expedition, against a transport; the ground almost mobile and alert foe, the strain everywhere, a rich black or red cotton becomes unendurable. And the chapter soil, which any transport converts into of accidents in this region of the mud in the rain or dust in the drought. unknown! Unseasonable rains cut off In the rainy seasons which occupy expeditions for weeks from their about half the year much of the supply bases; animals died by the country becomes a swamp and thousand after passing through an military movements become unknown fly belt; mechanical trans- impracticable. And everywhere the port got bogged in the marshes, held fierce heat of equatorial Africa, up by bridges washed away or moun- accompanied by a wild luxuriance of tain passes demolished by sudden parasitic life, breeding tropical floods. And the gallant boys, marching diseases in the unacclimatised whites. far ahead under the pitiless African These conditions make life for the sun, with fever raging in their blood, pressed ever on after the retreating they were to leave him white, weak, enemy, often on much reduced rations but undaunted. For the rest of his life, and without any of the small comforts whenever he plunged suddenly into a which in this climate are real cold climate he would get mild necessities in the story of human recurrences of this old malady. This endurance this campaign deserves a was especially so when air travel came very special place, and the heroes who into vogue. The attacks were not went through it uncomplainingly, severe, but for a day he would have doggedly, are entitled to all shivering fits and be listless and recognition and reverence. Their peevish. commander-in-chief will remain Some idea of the ravages of malaria eternally proud of them. may be gained from the fact that in Here I would like to add that their 1916, of the 58,000 troops, 50,000 proud Commander-in-Chief, my went down with attacks. In 1917 the father, was himself a fever-ridden figure rose to 72,000 of whom 499 wreck. He had been bitten by an cases were fatal. The incidence of infected anopheles mosquito some- disease casualties to battle casualties where in the Pangani region and had was in the ratio of 31 to 1. been laid up at Luchomo with a bad He continues the narrative, giving bout for some days. Like the rest of his these reasons for his great hurry: men he never quite recovered from his attacks of malaria, and for a long while It may be said that I expected too promise of big prizes. The most much of my men, and that I imposed important centre of Kondoa-Irangi too hard a task on them under the could only have been captured almost awful conditions of this tropical bloodlessly after that famous forced campaigning. I do not think so. I was march of van Deventer’s from sure it was not possible to conduct this Aruscha; Wilhelmstad was occupied campaign successfully in any other bloodlessly after a relentless pursuit of way. Hesitation to take risks, slower the enemy for 130 miles from the moves, closer inspection of the Ruwu River; Dar-es-Salaam, Moro- auspices, would only have meant the goro, and the Central Railway were same disappearance of my men from captured without opposition after the fever and other tropical diseases, tremendous march from the Lukigura without any corresponding River north of the Nguru Mountains, compensation to show in the defeat of in which continuous fighting took the enemy and the occupation of his place all the way and every man who country. Timid Fabiau strategy would, did not fight was occupied behind in of all, have been the most fatal in this bridge-building, road-making, and country and against this enemy. bush-cutting. And even when these Besides we had often to hurry to get places had been captured the advance out of a deadly stretch of country or to was continued southward without cover a wide waterless belt, or because pause for another 100 miles of great and rapid moves held the continuous fighting through the Ulugura Mountains to Kissaki and the true that efforts like these cannot be Mgeta River in the strong hope that made without inflicting the greatest this supreme effort might end the hardships on all, but it is equally true campaign. One hundred and eighty that the commander who shrinks from miles of the most difficult mountain such efforts should stay at home. The and river country had been covered in transport and supply difficulties which one month in the face of an enemy arose from these great efforts were who was fighting every inch of the enormous and had to be dealt with ground of which he was out- mostly by improvised staffs. The way manoeuvred by wide and difficult they were dealt with and finally turning movements. Simultaneously overcome deserves the close attention General van Deventer on my right was of the military student. making even a longer march from Yes, here certainly had been no Kondoa-Irangi southwards to “Timid Fabian Strategy”. Here was the Kilimatinde and the Central Railway, same full-blooded dash and élan he and from there eastwards to Kilossa, had displayed in the Boer War. He and from there again southwards to the took risks, he said, but we can rest Great Ruaha River – all in one conti- assured that those risks had all been nuous advance, with fighting most of carefully weighed and that they had the way, a march in which some of his . been justified. His moves were all units actually covered 800 miles in based on meticulous assessment. That that awful country and climate. It is is why his men had such blind, a most restoration of that wrecked port and worshipping, confidence in him. the railway from it enabled us very materially to shorten our lengthy He goes on: railway communications to the The problems created by so big a interior; in September Dar-es-Salaam campaign and so rapid an. advance in had to be adopted and restored as our a country which was still virgin soil, sea-base, and as everything there had practically untouched by the hand of been effectively destroyed, and such civilisation, without roads or bridges appliances as had existed were never or any communications, except two meant for an undertaking of the effectively destroyed railway lines, magnitude of our campaign, it took us were very great indeed. The several mouths’ unremitting labour to establishment of means of prepare it for our purposes. In October, communication, the creation of sea- again, we commenced the preparation bases as our advance rapidly of Kilwa as a new sea-base from progressed southward, were tasks of which big forces could operate south great magnitude, involving time and of the Rufiji River; there was a prodigious labour, and requiring magnificent natural harbour, but appliances which could not be secured absolutely nothing in the way of in those distant parts. I found landing appliances or arrangements. Mombasa our only sea-base in Finally, before I left in January, 1917, February, 1915; in the following July I had begun the preparation of Lindi the occupation of Tanga and the farther south as our final sea-base, in Kilwa harbour was being made ready case the enemy forces should escape to for the reception of a large force which the southern frontier of German East was being transferred to it, my Africa. Only those who have had attention was also preoccupied with experience of improvising sea-bases the two other tasks; the evacuation of for the operations of large forces can our sick from the country, and the appreciate what the preparation of situation which had arisen in the these four bases meant to us in labour interior on General Northey’s front. I and trouble of all kinds. The devotion believe between October and of our administrative staffs and the December we evacuated between work of our pioneer, railway, and 12,000 and 15,000 patients, mostly labour units in that tropical moist heat malaria cases, from our hospitals and of the African coast and low country ambulances along the Central have been above praise. Railway. Nothing could show more eloquently the deadly nature of the While during the months from country into which we had now September to December, 1916, Dar-es- moved, and our only consolation was Salaam was being prepared as a base, that the Rufiji Valley into which we and the Central Railway from it was had driven our enemy was more being restored, and the sixty or deadly still. While this evacuation was seventy wrecked bridges along it, going on, General Northey was, with many of very considerable van Deventer’s assistance, waging a dimensions, were being rebuilt; while grim struggle in the direction of Iringa General Hoskins, who was based on against the enemy forces which had Kilwa, moved northwest in order by broken away from the Belgian and this converging movement either to British columns in the Tabora area. enclose the enemy on the Rufiji or The retreat of these German forces compel his retreat to the southern from the north impinged violently frontier of his colony. All our moves against Northey’s lines of com- were successful, and the great Rufiji munication and broke them in some River was, on January 3rd, crossed by places, but by December the situation General Beves after a flank march had cleared and Northey had given the which will remain memorable even in enemy some staggering blows and this campaign of fine marching. Every reduced him to the defensive. effort was made, after flinging the enemy across the Rufiji, to join hands By the middle of December most of with Hoskins and cut off his retreat. this work on our bases and But once again it was proved to us that communications had been completed, in the African bush, with its limited the short rainy season was passing, visibility, it is practically impossible to and I was prepared to resume what I enclose an enemy determined to hoped would be our final advance. By escape. Christmas van Deventer and Northey were on the move in the interior, and While these operations were going on January 1st, 1917, I moved forward, I was, about the middle of southwards to the Rufiji; while January, ordered to relinquish my command in order that I might, at the Before concluding, he pays tribute to request of the South African the German commander and points out Government, represent South Africa the significance of the East African on the forthcoming Imperial Campaign: Conference, and on January 20th I The enemy’s stubborn defence of his sailed from Dar-es-Salaam, with the last colony is not only a great tribute deepest regret that I had not been to the military qualities of General von allowed the privilege of finishing my Lettow, but is a proof of the supreme work. After I left the heavy rainy importance attached by the German season set in almost immediately and Imperial Government to this African put a stop to our further moves, and colony, both as an economic asset and the enemy was thereby enabled to as a strategic point of departure for the retreat to the south. The rainy season establishment of the future Central lasted till June, when the advance was African Empire which is a cardinal vigorously resumed by General van feature in the Pan-Germanic dream. Deventer, with the result that by the With German East Africa restored to beginning of December the bulk of the the Kaiser at the end of the war., and a enemy’s remaining forces had been large askari army recruited and trained captured, and the remnants still in the from its 8,000,000 natives, the field had retired over the Rovuma conquest or forced acquisition of the River into Portuguese East Africa. Congo Free State, Portuguese East and West Africa, and perhaps even the recovery of the Kameroons may be health, where under the most terrible only a matter of time. In this way this and exacting conditions human loyalty immense tropical territory, with almost and human service were poured out so unlimited economic and military lavishly in a great Cause, may never possibilities, and provided with excel- be allowed to become a menace to the lent submarine bases on both the future peaceful development of the Atlantic and. Indian seaboards, might world. I am sure my gallant boys, dead yet become an important milestone on or living, would wish for no other or the road to World-Empire. The East greater reward. African campaign, therefore, while apparently a minor side-show in this The East African campaign, fought great world-war, may yet have over 160,000 square miles of some of important bearings on the future the most difficult and unhealthy history of the world. And it is to be country on earth, had been not only a hoped that our rulers will bear these lightning stroke but a great success. It wider and obscurer issues in mind might have borne decisive results right when terms of peace come to be at the start had my father’s old friend, arranged at the end of this war. I Jaap van Deventer, not been tardy in cannot end these few introductory coming up to close a gap as arranged. words without expressing the fervent Van Deventer arrived too late and the prayer that a land where so many of trap was sprung and Von Lettow lived our heroes lost their lives or their to tell another tale. However, com- munications were virtually non- existent, and dense bush shut out the less?” my father asked. “No, sir: four world. My father readily forgave him. weeks is the bare minimum.” This was For his services van Deventer was depressing news. But while my father knighted after the war. was still on the river a major in the Engineers came along. He put the My father tells this story of an incident same question. to the major. The of the campaign which shows how officer thought for a while. “Ten days, completely unwilling he was ever to sir,” he said. “Well then, go ahead,” accept defeat. The retreating German my father said, “I will give you all army was streaming down the opposite available help.” In ten days, true to the bank in the bush between the major’s word, they were across. mountains and the broad river. To head him off before he took up very In a work by Brigadier-General strong positions in the mountains, we J.J. Collyer, my father paid this tribute had to get across the swollen river. It to his “real heroes of the East African was a tactical requirement of great campaign – the South African civilian urgency. My father got along his Chief soldiers”: “They kept marching and of Engineers and asked how long it fighting on. From the Lumi to the would take his sappers, with Rufiji, from the Indian Ocean to the everybody assisting, to put a, bridge Great Lakes they fought their way across the river for his troops, through, and in eleven months had transport and guns. “Four weeks, sir,” mastered a huge stretch of primeval the Chief replied. “Can’t you do it in Africa. They stood a test almost beyond human endurance... They have This one to Crowe’s work is a case in received scant recognition... Let us not point. It is one of his best. But quite begrudge the heroes of the Western his nicest is the one to Deney’s Reitz’s Front the glory that is theirs and that is Commando. No South African volume South Africa’s. But equally let us not was considered complete without an forget that there was no less heroism introduction by my father. It took up in East Africa, no less endurance to the much of his time, but he never utmost limit of human nature, no less a grumbled. contribution to the heroic record of South Africa. Thousands of them lie there, in the farthest north of our African Trek...” In his time my father must have written more forewords to books than any other person. They cover every branch of activity and invariably add much to the literary as well as the intrinsic value of the works. All have a distinct character and pleasant flavour. They differ considerably from the more formal forewords that usually adorn books. 31 : SIDELIGHTS ON THE CAMPAIGN him throughout his career. Everyone believed in his fortune no less than in WHAT my father, as a personality, his attainments; and it was this belief meant to his troops is ably described that sent us so happily on our way... In by Francis Brett Young, who was a this war with this General nothing was medical officer with the forces, in his impossible.” Marching on Tanga: “I think the thing which most sustained our confidence After my father’s bout of malaria at and made us embark with such high Luchomo Brett Young wrote: “Smuts hopes upon the second phase of the was going back to the front. Again we East African operations was our began to feel as if the campaign were absolute confidence in the leadership getting under way. The more I think of of Smuts. That he was a fine strategist, it the more I realise how the the move on Moschi, in spite of the personality of that one man dominated failure of the northern enveloping the whole conduct of the war in East column, had shown us. Of his personal Africa. And I sometimes wondered courage we had been assured by the what would have happened if fortune incidents of the Lumi fight; but there had not carried him safely through the was yet another factor – in this case risks he faced daily... We should have one might almost have called it a lacked the enormous psychical asset personal attribute – in his success which his masterful courage gave us, which demanded our confidence, and and I think that we should have that was the luck which had followed endured our privations and our sickness with a less happy con- swamp with huge overhanging trees, fidence.” large enough to shelter even a cruiser. Pretorius knew the Rufji well for he My father had with him in East Africa had hunted and farmed there before the famous Major P.J. Pretorius, one the war. It did not take him long to of Africa’s greatest elephant hunters. I locate the Königsberg, hidden about heard him recount to some friends twenty miles inland. So the monitors once how he came across Pretorius. In Severn and Mersey were despatched, 1915 a German raider, the cruiser and from a great distance, with their Königsberg, disappeared suddenly off massive guns, knocked out the raider. the coast of East Africa, and it was After that my father made Pretorius his suspected that it had taken refuge in chief scout. He was an absolutely the mouth of the Rufiji, but the Navy deadly shot and the natives knew and were unable to locate it. The first my venerated him. Under him he had father heard of it was, while he was about 150 native askaris, and with still in the Union, getting a cable from these he used literally to live well the Admiralty, “Have you an elephant behind the enemy lines and send in hunter Pretorius in South Africa? We valuable reports. My father says he would like him for a special mission.” was worth a small army in himself. This was a bit vague and cryptic, but Once the enemy tried to ambush him they managed to get held of Pretorius in some grass, but in a flash he had and sent him up. The Rufiji near its mouth turns into a vast mangrove coolly shot eight of them and much to cheer up his weary, fever- decamped. ridden armies. He had come up primarily to see his men, but also to I came across Pretorius in 1927, have discussions with my father on the poaching elephants along the then problems that beset him, as was his undefined Rhodesian-Mozambique wont. border near Pafuri, and again during the Abyssinian campaign in the After the Kilimanjaro line fell, my Second World War, by which time, father for a time made his headquarters however, he had grown rather old for high up on the mountain slopes in the active service. old German boma at Moschi. From here on clear days he could see the The Königsberg was to be very smooth domed head of this most troublesome for a long while to come, majestic mountain towering with its for the enterprise of Lieutenant- eternal cap of snow, into the blue Commander Schoonfeld had salvaged heavens above. The prospect of climb- her ten 4 1-inch high-velocity guns. ing it fascinated him, but time never These were to be converted into allowed him the opportunity to mobile land guns and to outrange our conquer Kibo. He spoke with a own artillery throughout the campaign wistfulness all his life of his ambition and to harass our men incessantly. to scale this massive old volcano. He In July, 1916, a visit to his troops in never did find time, and it was left to East Africa by General Botha did my brother, returning from Cambridge in 1929, to climb to the summit and to While my father was away in East put his name with the then dozen Africa, and subsequently when he was others in the little tin at Kaiser in England, he never failed regularly Wilhelm. Spitze. But the mountain did to send each of us a brief scribbled not quite beat my father, for during the postcard. My mother faithfully kept East African campaign in March, my East African postcards for me. 1941, he flew over it in his Lodestar They are as one would expect from a aircraft at a height of 21,000 feet and fond parent to a toddler, starting looked down upon the vast ice- usually “Greetings, Jannie”, having plugged crater and giant glaciers. Of some short remark about big rivers or this he took a very fine Kodachrome mountains or wild animals and usually colour film with his ciné. My wife was ending, “Look well after Mamma, with him in the plane, and though she Love, Pappa.” and the others felt dizzy with the For this touching paternal devotion, I altitude, she says my father moved regret my youthful filial affections left about with his ciné quite unaffected much to be desired, for a few months and delighted with events. They had after his departure, I told my mother to no oxygen apparatus with them, and write to him that I had now found a this last-minute decision to fly over new “father” in my uncle, Jimmie Kilimanjaro was merely a whim Krige, and that he need not bother to developed when he saw the mountain return from the war! My mother did, loom alongside in the clear air.

Looking from the window of his Lodestar at Kilimanjaro – 1940 and my father found it a huge joke and found it most amusing, and had many never failed to tell the story at my a laugh over it. expense. When my father reminisced about East About this same tender age in life I Africa, it was seldom about the war, had been much impressed by the but rather about the breathtaking bellowing and dust-pawing antics of a beauty of parts of the country or of huge Friesland bull, Jan, we had on the such homely matters as jigger fleas in farm. In a mood of great confidence I one’s toes. True, he did mention the asked my father one day: “Which is building of the bridge across the river the most powerful, God or Jan:” He or the guns of the Königsberg, but he has frequently quoted this question preferred to talk about the vast crater since as a problem in relative values. of Ngorongoro, of Kibo and Mawenzi, Years after, my young son Jan, who of the great craters Meru, Longonot, had just begun school and was much Longido and of the Pare and Usambara impressed by his teacher, asked my mountains. To him the interest and wife, equally naively, whom she beauty of the country had transcended thought cleverer, Oupa14 or Mrs. the horrors of war. Hibbins. This happened during my While my father was away in East father’s long fatal illness, and when Africa my mother got me a small my wife recounted the tale to him he khaki uniform, which I wore with great pride. On the shoulder epaulets 14 Grandfather were elephants sent by my father from East Africa. I called myself the “King My father also used to recount, with a of the Elephants”. The Nationalist chuckle, stories of his dinner parties newspapers called me a damn Khaki on the campaign, when he invited his and were so annoyed that they did me senior officers to bully beef and hard the privilege of putting me in their tack. Their faces could never quite cartoons. Eventually I grew tired of hide the look of surprise as this frugal this prickly uniform, and all the fuss repast was ushered in. and saluting, and got rid of it. In the early nineteen-thirties my father From East Africa my father brought attended a dinner in London in honour back his camp stretcher, over which a of von Lettow Vorbeck. It was a mosquito-proof canopy of gauze and pleasant affair at which mutual canvas fitted. To this contraption I compliments were paid. The design took such a liking that I insisted for a was also to improve relations with long while on sleeping in it next to my Germany. father in his room. When I grew tired My father has always had a high of it eventually, it was taken over by regard for von Lettow, and thereafter Fido the Airedale and subsequently by they remained friends. After the Jackie the monkey. The green Second World War my father sent the Vauxhall car which he had used in the old man food parcels – which were campaign he also brought back, much appreciated, They corresponded together with George Hodgson, his on occasions, and after my father’s chauffeur for many years. death vou Lettow wrote my mother a most touching letter. 32 : WAR IN EUROPE these were stirring words, but his opponents scoffed at this British IN mid January, 1917, while still on imperialist, this reincarnation of the Rufiji, my father was recalled to Rhodes, who compared himself with the Union. Here he was told that he the Voortrekkers. He had got too big would have to proceed to England for his boots. Let him rather go to immediately to attend the first England, where they liked him so Imperial Conference, for which Botha much, and stay there. himself could not be spared. General Hoskins succeeded my father. Von To those who jeered that he had grown Lettow was still at large, using the tired of his own small country he vastness of Africa for his elusive retorted: “I have heard it stated that guerrilla tactics. He was never South Africa is now too small for me. captured and surrendered voluntarily I do not want to speak personally: it is upon hearing of the armistice. not a time now to speak personally. But let me say this, that South Africa Back in the Union my father spoke in is not too small for me, and that every glowing terms of the conquest of East drop of blood and every bit of courage Africa: “Through our own efforts and and determination I have in me will go our sacrifice we have secured a voice to the service of my country. Whether in the ultimate disposal of this sub- it is here in the Union, whether it is continent... We have followed in the away in East Africa, or whether it is in steps of the Voortrekkers and the Council Chamber of the Empire, I pioneers... To those well disposed, pray that I may have the strength to do the Allies. The unlimited German U- my duty with courage and boat menace was in full stride and determination, and I trust that nothing threatening to beat England to her I shall ever do will injure the position knees. Serious mutinies were of South Africa.” occurring in the exhausted French armies and there had been changes in In the Union Parliament Merriman the Government and the Army. The condemned the ingratitude of the German forces were as yet unchecked Nationalists, after all my father had and were slowly battering to a pulp the done for the Boer cause in the Boer flower of England and France. German War and after. “That is what he did for morale was high and her belief in you, his own people, and for that we ultimate victory explicit. remember him; for, thank God, we English are men enough to The United States was yet to make its acknowledge the gallant deeds of our belated appearance. enemies.” By contrast to his mixed reception in On March 17 my father arrived in South Africa, England hailed him as London. He arrived in England’s the hero of the hour, the conqueror in deepest hour of gloom. The revolution the first big successes of the war. The in Russia had almost attained its propaganda value of this former Boer climax; the Tsar and his family had general, now fighting for Britain, was been murdered, and the defeated exploited to the full. England needed Russian armies were about to desert cheering news. Into this world of weariness, dejection and disaster my shrewdness. He has led raids at father burst with a new message of desperate odds and conquered hope and encouragement. He was provinces by scientific strategy... His referred to in such eulogistic terms as astonishing career and his versatile “the most conspicuous figure in Great achievements are only the index of a Britain... a remarkable combination of profound sagacity and a cool, far- talents not usually found in the same reaching comprehension...” person, unless, indeed, that person My father was overwhelmed by the belongs to the small and select class of warmth of the reception and the which the Caesars and Cromwell’s, spontaneous homage of the people. He and the Napoleons are the outstanding brushed aside the adulation, protesting types”. that he was only a simple Boer. Mr. Churchill wrote: “At this moment On the 20th of March, Lloyd George there arrives in England from the outer introduced him to the Imperial War marches of the Empire a new and Cabinet as “one of the most brilliant altogether extraordinary man... The generals in this war”. This Cabinet stormy and hazardous roads he has consisted of visiting Dominion Prime travelled by would fill all the acts and Ministers who were attending the scenes of a drama. He has warred Imperial Conference, together with against us – well we knew it. He has members of the British War Cabinet. It quelled rebellion against our own flag was a large body devoted primarily to with unswerving loyalty and unfailing an exchange of views, without any direct power. Britain has always of the French capital. Shortly after, the believed in the idea that it was sound Russians were decisively defeated at policy to have Prime Ministers’ Tannenberg and in October the conferences, where, as my father said, Belgian Cabinet fled to France. Britain “the Prime Ministers can blow off had had her blooding at Ypres. In steam”. This safety valve was an 1915 she had failed at the Dardanelles, integral part of the Commonwealth Poland was ravished and countless system. Allied troops were dying on the Western Front. Italy, after a long In this Imperial War Cabinet my father delay, made a disastrous entry into the soon shone forth in his full brilliance. fray. Bulgaria decided the easiest prey Lloyd George, the fiery Celt, had was Serbia, and Britain and France left succeeded Mr. Asquith in the half a million men to languish Premiership only a short while before. abortively at Salonika. Up to now the war had been far from a 1916 brought no better luck. A series of unbroken triumphs for the combined offensive failed. There was Allies. Hardly had hostilities been Verdun, the Somme, Romania’s opened when the French and Belgians failure, huge losses by Russia and were in full retreat, as also the handful Italy, and the inconclusive naval clash of British that had crossed the at Jutland. Channel. The Germans were sitting in Brussels and clamouring at the gates There were strikes and mutinies and changes in the Government and the forces. Kitchener was drowned on the the case fell through. Albert of the way to Russia. Churchill paid for the Belgians was worried only about Dardanelles. French and Jellicoe went, Belgium itself. He had been unnerved and the Chief of Staff, Robertson. So by events. did Austen Chamberlain and Carson. At the end of April my father paid a Wilson was talking of war aims. special visit to Headquarters in France. Ludendorf had sanctioned “unlimited” On his return he submitted to the War submarine warfare. There was the Irish Cabinet a lengthy survey of the Rebellion and Roger Casement. “General Strategic and Military The Lusitania had gone to the bottom Situation and Particularly that on the two years before, and still America Western Front”. While stressing here was struggling to make up her mind. that Germany had to be defeated he stated: Two weeks after his arrival my father was entrusted with a mission to the I repeat here my frank opinion that French Prime Minister Painlevé and to that will not be merely or even entirely the King of the Belgians. The visits a military defeat. A certain substantial were exploratory to see what the mini- measure of military success will be mum demands on Germany would be. necessary and must be achieved not Painlevé was for an early and easy only because it is necessary for our peace. When my father pointed out ends, but also as a lasting lesson to that South Africa could not be quite so Prussian militarism. broad-minded over South-West Africa But greater forces are fighting for us may have to be revised and than our armies. This war will be contracted... settled largely by the imponderable – Next in importance to the detachment by the forces of public opinion all over of Bulgaria from Central Europe the world which have been mobilised would be the detachment of Turkey, by German outrages ... we should ever which might become feasible if the strive to keep this world opinion on Russian Government would definitely our side and not be deflected by waive their rights under the Bosphorus German methods of barbarism... agreement. The danger, however, of In Salonika, where half a million Russia going out of the War on some Allied troops were languishing in what pretext or other is so serious and Germany termed her finest internment would have such far-reaching camp, my father advocated a consequences that I do not think we contraction of the front and the release should moot the question with her at of all those not required for a small present... I therefore proceed on the defensive line. assumption that our campaign against the Turkish Empire will continue in Possibilities of offensive action which full vigour. at earlier stages of the War were open to us are no longer possible and As regards Mesopotamia, we have several brilliant ideas will not now be achieved all that we were aiming at put to the test of trial. On the contrary and can now consolidate our position even our present fields of operation and make it impregnable to any future It is essential to our ends that we counter-attack... should keep the initiative and offensive, but both are enormously The Palestine campaign presents very difficult... I have no confidence that interesting military and even political we can break through the enemy lines possibilities. As it progresses to on any large scale... Jerusalem and Damascus, it will threaten the Turkish Empire far more We have entered the War in a very gravely than anything we have so far small way with a small military force undertaken except the Dardanelles and and not as a principal combatant but Gallipoli campaign... rather as an auxiliary to France. This fact was reflected in our general There remains for consideration the far military policy, which was of more important and complicated necessity one of great modesty and question of the Western Front. I have almost complete subordination to that always looked upon it as a misfortune, of France... we should, after the no doubt inevitable under the present offensive, resume the circumstances, that the British forces independence of our military have become so entirely absorbed by direction... The impressions which I this front. The result now is that in a brought from the Front have since theatre mainly of the enemy’s been reinforced by the rumour that choosing, the two most important several important members of the armies of the Entente are locked up in French Government do not approve of front of almost impregnable positions. General Nivelle’s present offensive bases, than in the present offensive... and consider a defensive policy the Sir William Robertson, the Chief of wisest one for the French Army to Staff, had said that France appeared pursue... I feel the danger of a purely unwilling to continue offensive defensive policy so gravely that I operations. If that was true it would would make the following suggestions mean a drastic change in the military in case the French carry out such a situation. policy. Lloyd George had been impressed by He suggested that in this contingency my father’s advocacy of pushing on we should ask the French so take over with the Palestine campaign. It was a portion of our line and that we perhaps natural that he should have should concentrate our forces further offered my father the command of that to the north and endeavour to “recover theatre. He writes: the northern coast of Belgium and In reviewing the course of this drive the enemy from Zeebrugge and [Palestine] campaign on 23rd April, Ostend. This task will be most the War Cabinet came to the formidable... But however difficult the conclusion that it was desirable to task, something will have to be done introduce more resolute leadership into to continue our offensive... I see more the command of the Egyptian advantages in an offensive intended to Expeditionary Force... In regard to the recover the Belgian coast and deprive choice of a successor to Sir Archibald the enemy of two advanced submarine Murray, it was pointed out that General Smuts had expressed very hold high military command without decided views as to the strategical long training in the regular army. importance of Palestine to the future of The career of General Smuts furnishes the British Empire. He would therefore a practical demonstration of the be likely to prosecute a campaign in absurdity... In East Africa he had that quarter with great determination, shown himself a brilliantly efficient, and there was a strong feeling that he resourceful and energetic Commander- would be one of the most suitable in-Chief of our forces. Had he selections for the Chief Command of consented to take in hand the Palestine the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. campaign, I have not the least doubt On the other hand, the War Cabinet that it would, under his charge, have were aware that there was a growing been one of our most successful opinion in favour of the retention of efforts. General Smuts in a central position in My father thought the matter over this country, with a view to the carefully and what Sir William utilisation of his great qualities in the Robertson had to say confirmed his higher conduct of the war. conclusions. It was probable, as the General Smuts was a standing disproof past had so richly proved, that of the theory tenaciously held by the Palestine would merely develop into British War Office (despite the classic one of the many forgotten fronts, with example of Oliver Cromwell to the too few men to carry out decisive contrary) that no one was competent to manoeuvres and that inevitable stagnation would set in. It might even The time for my father’s return to develop into a defensive retreat. There South Africa was approaching. The were perhaps others who could handle Prime Minister had, however, decided such tactics better. He felt he could that England could not, under any serve a more useful purpose here in circumstances, afford to lose the Britain at the nerve centre, where he services of this man. could watch this campaign and help Lloyd George says: “I retained wherever possible. General Smuts here by making him a To Lloyd George he wrote on 31st member of the War Cabinet – a step May, 1917: “The most careful which secured general approval, consideration has merely strengthened though it called forth some indignant my first impression that the Palestine protests from members of my campaign will be a mistake unless at Ministry, who were horrified at the least Jerusalem is made a reasonable unprecedented step I was taking. Mr. certainty, and all the reinforcements Walter Long deemed it necessary to necessary for that purpose are assured. enter a protest as Colonial Secretary. A limited advance which stopped short In his opinion ‘it was quite clear that of the capture of Jerusalem, would Smuts could only join for Military serve no particular purpose, and might questions. This appears to raise all easily be a disappointment to the sorts of difficulties…’ “ public and appear as a fresh failure... The professional soldiers were, ***** however, to complain that in my father was merely a politician in the guise of body of six men who were Britain’s a general and that he was therefore brains behind the war. In them was hardly competent to preside over vested the supreme power. Lloyd matters at military strategy. Lloyd George was chairman, and the other George quickly silenced them: “That members were Curzon, Milner, General Smuts should be classed as Carson, Bonar Law and Barnes, with ‘no soldier’ is surely a consummate Maurice Hankey as Secretary. There example of the working of the was only provision for six members; professional military mind. True, he my father was the seventh, a sort of had not devoted all his life to minister without portfolio, but with soldiering: neither had Sir Douglas powers equal to the others. In truth, it Haig’s Chief of the Staff, Sir Herbert was impossible to legalise or define Lawrence. Those who had campaigned his position, because he was still against Smuts in the South African Minister of Defence of South Africa War could hardly deny his remarkable and not a British Minister: Both he and military quality. And in the Great War, Botha had decided that he could not after a brilliant campaign in German accept a ministership in Britain in South-West Africa, he commanded view of the political implications. So during 1916 our forces in East Africa in the fine informality of the British in the fight with von Lettow Vorbeck.” system he was just a member of the War Cabinet, supreme military My father took, his seat in the British tribunal of Britain. He was also the War Cabinet in June. This was a select only colonial sitting on that body. In Suggesting that Lloyd George would this position he derived no pay and be wise to make my father a member made it clear that he was to deal purely of the Cabinet, Winston Churchill told with military matters and not with Lord Riddell that he was “the only internal politics. unwounded statesman of outstanding ability in the Empire”, meaning, as My father told Colonel Repington Lord Riddell says, “the only one who after his appointment: “I am going to is fresh and bright, unwounded advise on military matters and will mentally and physically”. steer clear of politics.” Christopher Addison confirms that he “was at all The majority of my father’s colleagues times very scrupulous lest he should did not really impress. Milner he grew become involved in any differences of to like and Lloyd George he admired opinion or controversies that were of a tremendously. “Lloyd George is more strictly domestic character”. Colonel than fascinating. He has genius. His House, Woodrow Wilson’s special mind is brilliant, energetic, envoy, wrote on 13th November, 19I7: resourceful, and courageous without “Nearly everyone I have met has asked limit. History will show him the me to be certain to meet Smuts. He has biggest Englishman of them all.” grown to be the lion of the hour... He F.S. Oliver wrote in a letter to his is one of the few men I have met in the brother: “I regard the taking in of Government who does not feel tired. Smuts to the War Cabinet as a most He’s alert, energetic and forceful.” important step. So far as pure intellect goes he is the superior of any member understanding man... His rare gifts of at present on it; and by intellect I don’t mind and heart were strengthening mean only the power of understanding elements in this hour of savage temper what is written ... but a curious and and pitiless carnage.” more rare quality of seeing into the Whatever my father’s position in the very heart of a subject, coupled with War Cabinet, it worked. the further and still rarer quality, in combination with the foregoing, of being able to state clearly what he has seen. ...” Lloyd George in his War Memoirs gives this description of my father: “General Smuts, the gifted and versatile Dutchman, who could be safely trusted to examine into the intricacies of any of our multifarious problems and unravel and smooth them out... “General Smuts was one of the most remarkable personalities of his time – that fine combination of intellect and human sympathy which constitutes the 33 : THE COMMONWEALTH It is inevitable where you have so many difficulties to face that one ON 15th May, 1917, a banquet was should forget to keep before oneself held in the Royal Gallery of the House the situation as a whole; and yet this is of Lords in honour of my father. This very necessary. It is most essential that was a most unusual distinction and the even in this struggle, even when first accorded a Dominion statesman. Europe is looming so much before our Lord French, of Boer War days, eyes, we should keep before us and see presided and the guests included the steadily the problem of the whole mighty of the land. Milner sat on my situation. I would ask you not to forget father’s right. French paid tribute to in these times the British my father’s prowess as a soldier. My Commonwealth of Nations... father told about Moordenaars Poort and the train with French he had let It is apparently a very inopportune pass in 1901. moment, but the calling together of the Conference has helped to turn The rest of the speech was devoted to attention once more to that aspect of a definition of the Commonwealth and the whole situation which is so its affairs, which stands today as important to us. It is not only Europe clearly as it did thirty-five years ago. we have to consider, but the future of Speaking of the great convulsion that the great Commonwealth to which we was shaking the world with its all belong. This Commonwealth is multiplicity of problems he said: peculiarly constituted. It is scattered over the whole world. It is not a that once more you can consider the compact territory, and it is dependent problem of your future as a whole. for its very existence on world-wide When peace comes to be made you communications – communications have all these cards in your hand, and which must be maintained or this you can go carefully into the question Empire goes to pieces. of what is necessary for your future In the years of peace behind us we see security and the future safety of the what has happened. Everywhere on Empire, and can say what you are your communications Germany has going to keep and what you are going settled down; everywhere on your to give away. I hope. that when the communications you will find a time comes – I am speaking for myself German colony or a German and expressing nobody’s opinion but settlement, small or large; and the day my own – when the time comes for might come when you would be in peace to be made we shall bear in jeopardy through your lines of mind not only Central Europe, but the communication being cut. One of the whole British Empire. As far as we are by-products of the war has been that concerned, we do not wish this war to the whole world outside of Europe has have been fought in vain. We have not been cleared of the enemy. Germany fought for material gain or for has been swept from all the seas and territory, but we have fought for all the continents except Central security in the future. If we attach any Europe... You are now in this position: value to this group of nations which composes the British Empire, then in we really disguise the main fact that settling the terms of peace we shall our whole position is different, and have to look to its future security and that we are not one State or nation or safety... empire, but a whole world by ourselves, consisting of many nations, I think that we are inclined to make of many States, and all sorts of mistakes in thinking about this group communities under one flag. of nations to which we belong, because too often we think about it as We are a system of States, and not a one State. We are not a State. The stationary system, but a dynamic British Empire is much more than a evolving system, always going State. I think the very expression forward to new destinies. Take the “Empire” is misleading, because it position of that system today. Here makes people think we are one you have the United Kingdom with a community, to which the word number of Crown Colonies. Besides “Empire” can appropriately be that you have a large Protectorate like applied. Germany is an Empire. Rome Egypt, an Empire by itself. Then you was an Empire. India is an Empire. have a great Dependency like India, But we are a system of nations. We are also an Empire by itself, where not a State, but a community of States civilisation has existed from time and nations. We are far greater than immemorial, where we are trying to any Empire which has ever existed, see how East and West can work and by using this ancient expression together. These are enormous problems, but problem is presented. If you want to beyond them we come to the so-called see how great it is, you must indulge Dominions, independent in their in comparison. Look at the United government, which have been evolved States. There you find what is on the principles of your free essentially one nation, not perhaps in constitutional system into almost the fullest sense, but what is more and independent States, which all belong more growing into one nation; one big to this community of nations, and State consisting, no doubt, of separate which I prefer to call “the British parts, but all linked up into one big Commonwealth of Nations”. continuous area. The United States had to solve the problem which this You can see that no political ideas presented, and they discovered the which have been evolved in the past federal solution – a solution which will apply to this world which is provides subordinate treatment for the comprised in the British Empire; and subordinate parts, but one national any name we have yet found for this Federal Government and Parliament group is insufficient. The man who for the whole. will find a proper name for this system will, I think, do real service to the Compare with that State the enormous Empire. system which is comprised in the British Empire. You can see at once The question is: How are you going to that a solution which has been found provide for the future government of practicable in the case of the United this Commonwealth? An entirely new States will never work in the case of a freely on the principles of self- system such as we are comprising a government, and therefore your whole world by itself. idea is different from anything that has ever existed before. That is the What I feel in regard to all the empires fundamental fact we have to bear in of the past, and even in regard to the . mind – that this British Com- United States, is that the effort has monwealth of Nations does not stand always been towards forming one for standardisation or denation- nation. All the empires we have alisation, but for the fuller, richer, and known in the past and that exist today more various life of all the nations are founded on the idea of assimi- comprised in it. lation, of trying to force human material into one mould. Your whole Even the nations which have fought idea and basis is entirely different. against it, like my own, must feel that You do not want to standardise the their cultural interests, their language, nations of the British Empire; you their religion, are as safe and secure want to develop them towards greater, under the British flag as those of the fuller nationality. These communities, children of your own household and the offspring of the Mother Country, your own blood. It is only in or territories like my own, which have proportion as this is realised that you been annexed after the vicissitudes of will fulfil the true mission which is war, must not be moulded on any one yours. Therefore it seems to me that pattern. You want them to develop there is only one solution, and that is a solution supplied by our past traditions stake. You cannot make a republic of – the traditions of freedom, self- the British Commonwealth of Nations. government, and of the fullest In regard to the present system of development for all constituent parts Imperial Conferences, it will be of the Empire. necessary to devise better machinery The question arises: How are you for common consultation than we have going to keep this Commonwealth of at present. So far, we have relied on Nations together? If there is to be this Imperial Conferences which meet once full development towards a more in every four years or thereabouts. varied and richer life among our However useful has been the work nations, how are you going to keep done at these Conferences, they have them together? It seems to me that not, in my opinion, been a complete there are two potent factors that you success. must rely upon for the future. The first What is necessary is that there shall be is your hereditary kingship, the other called together the most important is our Conference svstem. I have seen rulers of the Empire, say, once a year, some speculations recently in the to discuss matters which concern all newspapers about the position of the parts of the Empire in common, in kingship in this country – speculations order that causes of friction and by people who, I am sure, have not misunderstanding may be prevented or thought of the wider issues that are at removed. We also need a meeting like that in order to lay a common policy in common matters concerning the and a policy which will in the end lead Empire as a whole, and to determine to less friction and greater safety. the true orientation of our common Far too much stress has been laid in Imperial policy. There is, for instance, the past on instruments of government. foreign policy on which the fate of the People are inclined to forget that the Empire might from time to time world is growing more democratic, depend. Some such method of and that public opinion and the forces procedure must lead to very important finding expression in public opinion results and very, great changes. are going to be far more powerful than You cannot settle a common foreign they have been in the past. Where you policy for the whole of the British build up a common patriotism and a Empire without changing that policy common ideal, the instrument of very much from what it has been in the government will not be a thing that past, because the policy will have to matters so much as the spirit which be, for one thing, far simpler. In the actuates the whole. other parts of the Empire we do not understand diplomatic finesse. If our foreign policy is going to rest not only on the basis of our Cabinet here, but, finally, on the whole of the British Empire, it will have to be a simpler policy, a far more intelligible policy, 34 : AFRICAN PROBLEMS all cheered and encouraged to move forward in the hope that as our task IN the Savoy Hotel on 22nd May, has not been too difficult for us in the 1917, under the chairmanship of Lord past it may not prove entirely beyond Selborne, my father delivered a us in the future. memorable address on African problems: But in South Africa we always feel that there is something more. With us When I look around tonight and see all it is never a question of merely who are sitting here at this table, I feel, material progress and of prosperity, and you all feel, that we are lifted out although we are always very eager to of the world of commonplace into a have those good things too; we always strange world. We feel that whatever feel that under our peculiar historical the past has been, whatever mistakes and racial conditions there are very we have made – and we have all made large problems in the background mistakes – whatever services we have which always press for solution. And been able to render to our South that is what gives profound interest to Africa, a kind Providence has life in South Africa. We have made intervened and has woven all those very great progress in recent years. If mistakes and all those services into a you remember that it was within seven strange and wonderful texture which years of the Boer War that we had all we call the history of South Africa and the British Colonies of South Africa in of which we are very proud. When we one great Union you will see how look at that wonderful history we are great and rapid that progress has been. always remain English, to whom even But although we have achieved the sunshine and the wide spaces of political union, our aim has always South Africa are not sufficient to bring been far greater; we have aimed not about the great transformation of soul. only at political union, but also at We look forward patiently in such national unity; and when you have to cases to the next generation. We have deal with very hard-headed races, such also a large section of my own people, as our people in South Africa, both the Dutch people in South Africa, who English and Dutch, you can well think that the best policy is for them to understand that it takes more than stand aside and to remain in isolation. seven years to bring about that con- They think that in that way they will summation. We have grave difficulties be better able to preserve their in this respect. We have different language, their traditions, and their racial strains, different political national type, and that they will in that tendencies. way not be swallowed up and be submerged by the new currents. They We have people in South Africa who point to the precedent in Canada, prefer isolation, who prefer, to stand where French-Canadians are also aside from the great currents that are standing aside from the general current carrying South Africa to her new and of Canadian life and national greater destiny. These are not merely development for the same reasons. Dutch; many of them are English. We have English fellow-citizens who will The policy General Botha and his Germany. The man who preached the associates have stood for is that we doctrine most eloquently is a must have national unity in South Germanised Englishman, Houston Africa as the one true basis of future Chamberlain. The doctrine is to the stability and strength – and that effect that the governing races of the national unity is entirely consistent world are pure races, and that they with the preservation of our language, simply debase themselves and become our traditions, our cultural interests, degenerate if mixed with alien blood. and all that is dear to us in our past. They must remain pure, and in so far The view we have taken is this, that as they do so they will play a great the different elements in our white part in the world. It is more than populations ought really to be used to hinted at that the German race must build up a stronger and more powerful guide the world because it is one of nation than would have been possible these pure races. What arrant if we had consisted of purely one nonsense! particular strain. All great Imperial We do not pretend in South Africa to peoples really are a mixture of various listen to these siren voices. We want to stocks. Your own history is one of the create a blend out of the various completest proofs of that doctrine, and nationalities and to create a new South it is only in recent years that this African nation out of our allied racial remarkable doctrine of the pure race stock, and if we succeed in doing that has come into vogue, and largely in we shall achieve a new nationality embracing and harmonising our environment in South Africa. Whether various traits and blending them all we shall succeed in solving that other into a richer national type than could larger question of the black man’s otherwise have been achieved. The future depends on many factors on ideal of national unity means a which no one could feel very much continuous effort towards better assurance at present. We know that on relations, towards mutual respect and the African Continent at various times forbearance, towards co-operation, and there have been attempts at civilisa- that breadth of view and character tion. We read of a great Saracen which will be the most potent civilisation in Central Africa, and of instrument for dealing with our other the University of Timbuctoo, to which problems. Although in South Africa students came from other parts of the our national progress is marked by the world. Rhodesia also shows signs of ox-waggon and not by the train or former civilisation. aeroplane, I am sure in the end we Where are those civilisations now? shall achieve success and a new They have all disappeared and nationhood. barbarism once more rules over the And this is all the more important land and makes the thoughtful man because in South Africa we are not nervous about the white man’s future merely a white man’s country. Our in Southern Africa. There are many problem of white racial unity is being people in South Africa – and not very solved in the midst of the black foolish people either – who do not feel certain that our white experiment will unique in its way. In the United States be a permanent success, or that we there is a similar problem of black and shall ever succeed in making a white white with the negro population. But man’s land of Southern Africa; but, at there you have had an overwhelming any rate, we mean to press on with the white population with a smaller negro experiment. It has now been in element in the midst of it. In South progress for some two hundred and Africa the situation is reversed. There fifty years, as you know, and perhaps you have an overwhelming black the way we have set about it may be population with a small white the right way. Former civilisations in population which has got a footing Africa have existed mostly for the there and which has been trying to purpose of exploiting the native make that footing secure for more than populations, and in that way, and two centuries. probably also through inter-mixture of ... With us there are certain axioms blood, carried in them the seeds of now in regard to the relations of white decay. and black; and the principal one is “no We have started by creating a new intermixture of blood between the two white base in South Africa and today colours”. It is probably true that earlier we are in a position to move forward civilisations have largely failed towards the North and the civilisation because that principle was never of the African Continent: Our problem recognised, civilising races being is a very difficult one, however; quite rapidly submerged in the quicksands of the African blood. It has now success of their great country. Of become an accepted axiom in our course, this doctrine applies to other dealings with the natives that it is countries besides South Africa. dishonourable to mix white and black We were not aware of the great blood. military value of the natives until this We have settled another axiom, and war. This war has been an eye-opener that is that in all our dealings with the in many new directions. It will be a natives we must build our practice on serious question for the statesman of what I believe Lord Cromer has called the Empire and Europe whether they the granite bedrock of the Christian are going to allow a state of affairs like moral code. Honesty, fair-play, justice, that to be possible, and to become a and the ordinary Christian virtues must menace not only to Africa, but perhaps be the basis of all our relations with to Europe itself. I hope that one of the the natives. We don’t always practise results of this war will be some them. We don’t always practise that arrangement or convention among the exalted doctrine, but the vast bulk of nations interested in Central Africa by the white population in South Africa which the military training of natives believe sincerely in that doctrine as in that area will be prevented, as we correct and true; they are convinced have prevented it in South Africa. It that they must stick to the fundamental can well be foreseen that armies may Christian morality if they want to do yet be trained there, which under their duty to the natives and make a proper leading night prove a danger to sea route through the Red Sea to the civilisation itself... East. It is a matter of gratification to us South Africans here tonight that South You will have further questions in African troops have taken such a large regard to the territorial settlement of and leading share in securing these Central Africa which will follow the extremely valuable results... war. We are now, after the conquest of the German Colonies, in the happy We shall always have a difficult position of having a through land route question not only in Central but in from Egypt to the Cape. We are in the Southern Africa. Unlike other British secure position of having no danger on Dominions, our future as a white the Atlantic seaboard or on the Indian civilisation is not assured for the seaboard to our very essential sea reasons which I have given. communications as an Empire. What Many thoughtful people are in doubt will happen to these communications about our future, and in any case no after the settlement will depend on that cheap and easy victory will be scored settlement itself, but I hope it will be in South Africa. borne in mind that East Africa gives us not only this through land We know we have tremendous communication from one end of the problems to contend with. We know Continent to the other, but that East we have tremendous tasks before us, Africa also ensures to us the safety of and in dealing with these problems the sea route round the Cape and the and in trying to fulfil these tasks one generation of South Africans after another will brace its nerves and strengthen its intellect and broaden its mind and character. Although these difficulties may seem to us, and indeed are, grave perils to our future, I trust that in the long run these difficulties may prove a blessing in disguise and may prove to have afforded the training school for a large-minded, broadminded, magnanimous race, capable not only of welding together different racial elements into a new and richer national type, but capable of dealing as no other race in history has ever dealt with the question of the relations between black and white... 35 : THE WESTERN FRONT Lloyd George decided to hold further talks with Mensdorff and my father ONE of the few bright spots in the dark was chosen as the British delegate. He array that faced the Allies in 1917 was did not view the prospects of the internal weakness of Austria. War detaching Austria highly, certainly not weariness, food shortages, labour unless Italy waived her claims to troubles and dissension on military Austrian territory. But he felt that the matters had made her a progressively talks might serve a useful purpose. more uncertain partner among the Accordingly they met in Geneva, my Central Powers. Both the Emperor father travelling under the name of Mr. Karl and his Bourbon wife were using Ashwarth Von Weden, the German their influence in the cause of peace Ambassador, says Mensdorff’s and it looked as though Austria was instructions from the Czernin were to almost ripe for a break-away. find out if peace was possible for both A preparatory contact had been Austria and Germany. My father arranged between Count von insisted that he had only come to study Mensdorff and a British Envoy in the problem of Austria. Copenhagen, but under fear of a suspected leakage the meeting never Colonel Repington says Briand’s took place. version of the talks was that my father put a number of questions to Mens- In December, in the face of violent dorff to which iie wanted definite opposition from the Foreign Office, “yes” or “no” answers. My father’s version was:15 “I spent two days with Austria. That was what we wanted to Mensdorff. The mission was after- know. That was what I had gone to wards held to be a failure. But the find out... There the whole business mission was neither a failure nor not a ended... failure. The abject was not to make There was afterwards severe criticism peace, but to find out if there was an of the Government especially by the opportunity to make peace. Von Socialists, at having sent a simple Mensdorff and I went over the same Boer like my father, unversed in the old ground, and the longer I stayed the ways of diplomacy, to cross swords clearer I became that von Mensdorff with a trained diplomat like might want to know if I had anything Mensdorff. to say to him. But he had nothing to say to me. He never made those That my father was much depressed proposals he had spoken of in his during these wearying days of the war messages. He was not in a position to are revealed in a letter dated 6th negotiate at all. Austria was absolutely August, 1917, to Professor Wolsten- held by Germany. holme, an old Cambridge friend. Yet his faith in the future remained “So I came back and reported to the unshaken: “I have faith in the ultimate Prime Minister. I was satisfied no Good of the Universe,” he wrote, “in loophole existed for a peace with the undercurrents whose drift is in the direction of progress and the slow 15 Quoted from Mrs. Sarah Gertrude Millin. gradual perfecting of the soul and mutiny and insubordination. The mechanism of Good. French had grown tired of dying: tired in fact of the whole war. “But for that Faith I would be of all men most miserable, especially in The French sectors had grown static these sad times, when the human race and their leaders were set on a costly suffers in a more acute and policy of war by attrition. At a stretch, concentrated form than at any previous the mood might turn into outright time.” defeat, or peace at almost any price. By the autumn of 1917 the Allies were Britain was now shouldering the main weary of the war, France even more so burden of the fighting. She had than Britain. America had only just reached the peak of her military entered. After the Nivelle setback the potential. French were despondent and nearly But at sea the submarines were sinking broken. They seemed to be losing too much shipping and Admiral countless men without achieving any- Jellicoe had warned that these losses thing. For three years they had borne could not be faced indefinitely. the heat and burden of the fighting. Something had to be done to the There had been no more dogged and German bases at Zeebrugge and courageous troops than these Ostend on the Belgian coast if Frenchmen. Up to now France had lost shipping was to survive during the nearly two million men. Nivelle was coming year. the last straw and there had been Haig and Robertson, too, on the Army were sceptical. But at last he side, decided that something drastic convinced them, all agreeing that it was to be done on the Western Front if was worth a trial. Haig undertook it France was to be saved from imminent under these conditions. Lloyd George, collapse. possibly influenced by Wilson, insists that Haig and Robertson misled them To this purpose, Haig, Jellicoe and purposely on many points and Robertson put before the War Cabinet withheld much unfavourable plans for an operation to punch a hole information in the knowledge of which through the front and to sweep around the Cabinet would never have and clear the coast of Belgium. The sanctioned the plan. War Cabinet were not impressed by this scheme, but they felt the urgency What also facilitated its acceptance of immediate action. They had already was the fact that just at this time Italy had sufficient experience of this had suffered a disastrous defeat at deeply-defended type of trench Caporetto, and she, too, had now to be warfare to realise that big or quick impressed by Allied strength if she advances were impossible. My father was not to drop out of the fight. After had gone over the plans carefully with the news of the disaster of the Italian Haig and Robertson and had decided armies at Caporetto, Lloyd George that it was worth an attempt. He put invited my father to accompany him to his case to the Cabinet. Lloyd George Rome for discussions on future policy. was cautious; Milner and Bonar Law “The Rome Conference saved Italy,” combination of seamanship and luck says Lloyd George. which enabled us to survive and repair its unutterable folly.” “... with the One thing is certain, that had the War Somme and Verdun it will always Cabinet or my father known the true rank as one of the most gigantic, position of weakness in the French tenacious, grim, futile and bloody army after Nivelle, they would not fights ever waged in the history of have risked the Haig plan. The battles war. Each of the battles lasted for came to be known as the months. None of them attained the Passchendaele Offensive. As a single object for which they were fought.” military manoeuvre it was a disaster. But it had broader aspects. Lloyd The offensive corresponded with the George spoke scathingly of it. I onset of the rains. The mightiest remember my father doing likewise. artillery preparation of the war was They were not criticising the decision laid down on the German positions. to start the offensive, but Haig’s Over twenty-five million shells were failure to call it off once he saw that fired during the first forty days. The none of his objectives were being result was not to dislodge the attained. Germans, but to turn the front into the most churned-up area of mud of the Lloyd George said: “Passchendaele whole war. A competent observer was indeed one of the greatest describes it thus: “After our disasters of the War, and I never think preliminary bombardment ... the whole of it without feeling grateful for the surface of the ground consisted of more unsuitable spot could have been nothing but a series of over-lapping discovered… shell craters, half-full of yellow, slimy The battle raged from July to water. Through falling into these November, not even the first objective, ponds hundreds upon hundreds of simple by comparison to the rest, was unwounded men, while advancing to captured. Britain lost 400,000 men, the attack, lost their lives by drown- Germany only 270,000, a ratio of 5 to ing...” Unemotional General Gough 3. Lloyd George says that short of sums up the position thus: “Many pens dismissing Haig and Robertson he have tried to describe the ghastly could not have called off the offensive. expanse of mud which covered the This step for various reasons he could water-logged country, but few men not take. Nothing would prevail on have been able to paint a picture Haig himself to discontinue it. My sufficiently intense.” This is what father never forgave Haig his pig- Brigadier-General Baker-Carr said headed obstinacy. He described him as about the front which was chosen for an “unimaginative man” and was the offensive: “To anyone familiar critical of the tactical handling. His with the terrain in Flanders it was dogged courage, too great under the almost inconceivable that this part of circumstances, no one questioned. the line should have been selected. If a careful search had been made from the On 3rd November the Canadians took English Channel to Switzerland, no Passchendaele ridge and village. Less than half a dozen miles had been gained in the entire autumn offensive. He had turned out to be right. They Was it worth the cost of 400,000 could not. They had failed us in the lives? summer campaign – had not carried out their undertakings concerning our In 1932 my father answered this offensive, had postponed promised question for Mrs. Millin : attacks on which we relied. It was not I don’t think, however – I never did – their fault. They were the most gallant that the naval objective in itself of people. Their endurance, as a justified a campaign on the Flanders people, living as they were, in the scale... midst of war, had been heroic in the There was a second objective: extreme. The circumstances were Following the appointment of Nivelle beyond them. in the place of Joffre, and his initial The Germans, on the other hand, were success, the French had been com- strengthened by forces released from pletely smashed in the Compiégne and the Russian campaign. Near as they Nivelle thrown out. American came to winning the war in the spring reinforcements had not appeared in of 1918, in the autumn of 1917, with sufficient numbers to stiffen them. the French so weak, and the There was serious mutiny under Americans so slow, they had an ever Pétain. Paris itself was in danger. Sir better chance. There was, in short, a Henry Wilson had warned us months more urgent reason than the naval ago that the French could do no more. demand for the Flanders offensive: nothing less than saving the war. It venture, my father was able to seemed likely that if we did not persuade the sanest and most august succeed in drawing the Germans away tribunal in Britain to give it a trial. I from the French, not only would have also shown how cool and Petain fail to hold his line, but Paris resolute he could be provided he felt might be taken and the war lost, before the end justified the means. Not many the weight of the American army men would have been able to write could be felt. There were only the with a steady hand “Losses at 100,000 British to prevent it. I think that by per month – less than half a million pinning the Germans down in whom we can make good.” Yet he said Flanders, they did prevent it. I still to a fellow climber on Sneeuberg in think my instinct and reasoning in the the Cape, who wanted to pick a rare awful choice were right. flower for him, “Worship – and pass on!” As it happened the Channel ports were not freed by the offensive, and we lost At various times much harm was done four hundred thousand men. What to the war effort by strikes. It was there is to put against this terrible cost perhaps a reaction to the long tiring is that it probably saved the war. years of the conflict and the austerity of a nation living precariously in the I have stressed Passchendaele because shadow of the submarine. My father I have wanted to show, how even had had experience of strikes in the against their gravest doubts and Transvaal. There he had dealt with misgivings about the success of the them with firmness and resolution. He on for another week, we should be settled a police strike in London paralysed and finished.” without difficulty. The strike by fifty Here was work for a Boer rather than a thousand munition workers at Briton, thought Lloyd George and his Coventry was more serious. But aided Cabinet. As my father was leaving by the Labour Leader George Barnes, hurriedly for Wales, Lloyd George it was soon over and he was back in gave him a tip: “Remember my fellow London. His colleagues never failed to countrymen are great singers.” marvel at his success. In truth it was due to his life-long companions: good At Cardiff the University honoured nature and friendliness. him with a doctorate. In the afternoon he moved into the coalfields. There In the coal mines of Wales there was were strikers everywhere, and more serious trouble. It was brought frequently he stopped his car to on largely by trouble-mongers and address them, much as though on a pacifist agitators. Times were critical. political tour in South Africa. In the There was no more vital commodity. evening he arrived at Tonypandy. Here “A paralysing blow was being struck tens of thousands of miners had at us,” said my father, “at the very gathered, probably out of curiosity; he time when we were being told by our was a great attraction as the first navy that they only had reserves of statesman they were to see from coal for a week, and if the strike went Africa. Gentlemen, I come from far away, as Front. You know your comrades in you know [he said soothingly]. I do their tens of thousands are risking their not belong to this country. I have lives. You know that the front is just come a very long way to do my bit in as much here as anywhere else. The this war, and I am going to talk to you trenches are in Tonypandy, and I am tonight about this trouble. But I have sure you are moved by the same spirit heard in my country that the Welsh are as your comrades in France. It is not among the greatest singers in the necessary for me to add anything. You world, and before I start, I want you know it as well as I do, and I am sure first of all to sing me some of the you are going to defend the Land of songs of your people. your Fathers, of which we have sung here tonight, and that no trouble you There was a brief silence, and then a may have with the Government about man in the crowd started singing pay or anything else will ever stand in “Land of my Fathers”. The rest joined the way of your defence of the Land of with characteristic fervour, and sang your Fathers. through all the stirring lines. The effect was amazing. Deeply moved, a He addressed other meetings in similar great silence came over the crowd. fashion that night. There was singing Then my father spoke: and emphasis on this Land of their Fathers. Their sullen mood left them. Gentlemen, it is not necessary for me My father felt happy and confident. to say much here tonight. You know what has happened on the Western Back at a Cabinet meeting in London the following afternoon his colleagues said to him in admiration: “What happened? All the men are at work. How did you settle it?” “Well,” replied my father, “it is news to me that the men are at work.” Long afterwards he said, “The Land of my Fathers’ saved us.” 36 : WORK ON COMMITTEES of strategy and visiting the fronts, he was engaged also on social, political FAILING a successful campaign on the and economic activities. Here he was Western Front, my father advocated a to meet the scientist Dr. Chaim campaign in Turkey. He did not like Weizmann, now President of Israel, Lloyd George’s idea of attacking inventor of a new process for making Austria through Italy, for there was the explosive TNT, with whom he little chance of detaching Austria established a lifelong friendship. while Italy laid strenuous claims to portions of Austrian territory, no Weizmann was a professor of matter how tempting it would be to chemistry at the University of secure a release for the Allied troops Manchester. The Allies were short of locked up in Mesopotamia, Egypt and this vital explosive. Weizmann Salonika. Turkey was attractive devised a new and simplified because with her elimination it would manufacturing process. For this be possible to use the Dardanelless, to inestimable service Lloyd George push back Russia and coerce Bulgaria wished to reward him, but Weizmann out of the war. asked nothing personally but for a home for Jewry in Palestine. Great Full use of my father’s versatility was Britain undertook solemnly to made during his stay in England. establish such a home. My father says There was no end to the missions and the undertaking was given to “rally jobs he was given. Apart from Jewish sympathy for the Allied cause examining and reporting on questions in the darkest hour of the war”. By the In 1917 he worked out the Alexan- Balfour Declaration, upon which he dretta campaign against the Turks and and Lord Balfour had worked for a a year later he planned the advance long time, the Jews got their home. northwards, through Palestine. Here also he was to work with the In February, 1918, he visited the economists J.M. Keynes, Henry Middle East, and after holding Strakosch and Thomas Lamont. consultations there with our leaders reported on the 15th in favour of a He did so much in such diverse lines more defensive disposition by the that he came to be known as the Mesopotamia forces, and concen- “Handyman of the Empire”. He was trating rather on a thrust by Allenby up appointed to serve on many towards Aleppo. The Cabinet agreed committees. He became a member of to this, but it was delayed by the the Middle East Committee, whose dangerous German break-through on purpose it was to help Allenby’s the Western Front. campaign against the Turks. Lloyd George asked him if he was He was a member of the Northern “ready to take on the Russian Neutral Committee, under Curzon, enterprise”, but my father did not like which watched North-Western Europe, the idea, for he “doubted whether and later he became a member of a anything could still be done with that secret committee to keep an eye on the country”. Netherlands whose neutrality was liable to violation by Germany at any Minister of Munitions. It was the start moment. of a long and great friendship. But perhaps his greatest work was as To maintain the peace amidst these chairman of the War Priorities warring factions was not easy. “Never, Committee. When he got to England I suspect,” wrote Mr. Churchill, “in all my father was forcibly struck by the the vicissitudes of his career has confusion and lack of co-ordination on General Smuts stood more in need of questions of production and supply ... tact and adroitness.” between the various departments in the My father’s next great work was in war. There was rivalry to get weapons, connection with the Air Force. At the over-lapping and inefficiency. To start of hostilities, flying was in its introduce order into this scramble, he infancy and the machines and their conceived the idea of a War Priorities armaments were crude and Committee. On it, under my father, elementary, with little bearing on the were the First Lord of the Admiralty, course of military warfare. But this the Secretary of, State for War, the new fledgling made rapid strides, and Minister of Munitions, the Secretary with the increase of speed and for Air, and the Minister of National performance came refinements of Service. My father, as a member of the offensive armament. Machineguns War Cabinet, presided. The took the place of pistols, and aerial arrangement worked with efficiency bombs were carried. The aeroplane and expedition. Mr. Churchill was the became a formidable weapon. The conservative army and naval chiefs you in the Cabinet with a special had not, however, perceived the obligation to keep, as Minister, the significant development and were not supervision of Air Departments.” prepared to recognise its importance. When my father first became They brushed aside its urgent requests interested in the flying services the for assistance in men and equipment. army and navy each had their own Milner had noticed this great change separate and exclusive air Components stealing over the situation. “Say what and competed with one another for you like,” he wrote to my father, “the personnel and materials. Lord Derby, soldiers and sailors at the War Office and later Curzon, had failed to make and Admiralty do not yet grasp the the peace between these ardent rivals. fact that there is a new kind of warfare Fundamental differences made before us and that, besides the help collaboration difficult. they have to give the army and navy, With air attacks on Britain the the airmen will have to fight battles of Ministry of Munitions was quick to their own. supply aircraft in such numbers that “If you were Air Minister with an Air the air force soon justified its Council of your own selection under independent existence. It looked as you, I should feel easy – in my mind though unification at this stage would on this point. But I recognise the be of great benefit. difficulty of this and I see that it may be an even better arrangement to have In July the Germans had grown Germany. He had been alarmed at the sufficiently bold to attack London not backwardness of matters relating to only at night with their Zeppelins but the air weapon. even to send over squadrons of Now that women and children were bomber aircraft in daylight hours. being killed in raids on London, the There were casualties. People grew people were clamouring for bombing restive. Something must be done. reprisals against Germany. My father’s Parliament in a secret session endorsed conclusion was that “we can only this. Lloyd George and my father were defend this island effectively against to tackle the problem, but Lloyd air attack by offensive measures, by George backed out and left the matter attacking the enemy in his air bases on in the hands of my father, who held the Continent and in that way consultations with representatives of destroying his power of attacking us the Home Forces, the Admiralty and across the Channel”. He ended up by the General Staff not only dealing with the defences of My father had previously pointed out London, but also with the unification that the enemy was superior in the air. of the air services. This he did so We must devise an air weapon not subtly that even Jellicoe and Winston only to serve in a defensive role to Churchill were placated. check these raids, but also an offensive Upon the acceptance of his suggestion one that could carry the fight into the that a committee should go into the industrial and munition centres of question of establishing an Air Ministry, he himself was appointed the first flight from England to the chairman to that committee. This Union. body, between August and October, In London my father occupied a drafted a Bill for a new Air Ministry luxurious suite of rooms in the Savoy which was passed by Parliament a Hotel, overlooking the Thames. While month later without opposition. The he enjoyed the comfort of his First Air Minister was Lord Rother- surroundings, he was a man of simple mere. And so by his unification of the tastes and would have been equally at various branches of the air services, home with less ostentation. But he had my father justly came to be known as little time to consider his own likes the Father of the Royal Air Force. and dislikes, for he was constantly The air raids were gradually mastered working. The same zeal and energy he and switched to Paris. My father’s had displayed at the National work had borne fruit. Convention he now exercised again, though here it was of necessity much At Biggin Hill, near London, a young more prolonged. “I had no time for air ace Pierre van Ryneveld was anything but work,” he used to stationed who had made a name for remark. “There was no end to the work himself. He was later to become my they wanted me to do. I have never father’s Chief of Staff in the Second worked so hard in my life. My hair World War. In 1920, in the Silver became white.” There was little time Queen, with Quentin Brand, he made for relaxation. Whenever possible he would escape into the country or to the gaps. At that critical hour Foch was Gilletts at Oxford, where he would go given supreme command of all the for long walks and enjoy a few brief Allied Armies. moments of simple life. In London his America’s slowness in entering the alert figure could often be seen war was most disconcerting to Britain striding briskly, as was his wont, and France. Her preparations began a through the many lovely parks. In year before she entered the war and winter the sombre skies depressed him much enthusiasm had been displayed and he longed for the warm cheer of in New York. By the spring of 1918 Irene. My mother sent him biltong to they had promised seventeen recall days spent on the sunny veld. divisions, each of a size almost twice Towards the end of March, 1918, the that of their British counterparts. German army was crashing forward in During the critical days of this March spectacular fashion. Already they were offensive there was actually only a closing on Amiens. The road to Paris single American division in the line, seemed wide open. Only a miracle with three others preparing to move could save the British lines, declared up. The thousand aeroplanes promised my father, after a tour of inspection. In per month transpired to be a mere March and April there were dangerous handful, and Americans themselves breaches in the line and penetrations of were using what they had previously up to forty miles. Americans and described as “unsuitable” British and young lads were hurled in to plug the French guns. Woodrow Wilson had entertained to continue the fight, but their navy hopes that the American entrance into had mutinied, and Austria, Turkey and the war might persuade the Germans Bulgaria had surrendered. Hungary to request an armistice. He had made and parts of Germany were in a state plain his peace manifesto of Fourteen of revolution, and the Kaiser and Points. Crown Prince fled in panic to Holland. The Germans invoked the aid of By June the position had improved President Wilson in restoring peace. and Americans were pouring into the front at thirty thousand per month, and On the terms of the Fourteen Points, proving themselves worthy soldiers. an armistice was signed in Foch’s carriage in the Forest of Compiègne, at On July 15 the Germans launched an 5 a.m. on November 11. all-out attack on this unified line, but it stood firm. The enemy army had spent The war was over. itself. On August 8 it was clear even to the Kaiser that Germany could not hope to win the war. This day, Ludendorff said, “was the blackest day of the German Army in the history of the war”. The collapse of the Central Powers was sudden. The German army wanted 37 : IDEAS ON PEACE I am persuaded this war will end in decisive results one way or the other AFTER the Armistice the pent-up and not merely in stalemate. But when floods of emotion burst. There was you talk about victory – victory is a great revulsion of feeling against vague term – you must know what you Germany. “Hang the Kaiser”, Lloyd mean. There are people who mean by George’s election cry, echoed an Allied victory that we must smash throughout the country. The Allies had Germany, that we must march to won the war. My father was Berlin, occupy the capital of the determined to see that they won the enemy and dictate terms there... I peace as well. His standpoint, unlike don’t think an out-and-out victory is that of Lloyd George, Clemenceau, possible for any group of nations in Orlando and others, was entirely this war because it will mean an objective. He remained calm, detached interminable campaign. It will mean and supremely rational. He was that decimated nations will be called shocked and dismayed by the hysteria upon to wage war for many years to of his colleagues, but powerless to come and what would the results be? intervene. ... The results may be that the In the middle of May, 1918, my father civilisation we are out to save may be made a speech at Glasgow in which he jeopardised itself... said: But at least victory was our goal [he internally. As I said in my first month explained years after].16 Only what in England, other forces were fighting sort of victory? Lloyd George wanted for us than man and machine. What a knock-out blow. I felt that if a decent finished Germany was mutiny in the peace could be achieved – something fleet and at home – the revolution of short, as I said, of marching to Berlin, the people. It was on account of the not something short of retreating to mutiny and revolution that the Kaiser Paris – it would be wrong to sacrifice fled. The army stood firm and fought a the human lives and the world’s future magnificent rearguard action back to chances for a knock-out blow. Some the Rhine. The Germans never failed of our best soldiers were convinced as a war machine. My line was right. that if we fought on to 1919 such Everything shows it today. I was for a exhaustion might result as to make peace that would give the world a recovery impossible. What was there chance. Not Absolute victors and in winning the war if we were ruined absolute defeated. We are ruined today ourselves? I am not a believer in because the world is divided into barren revenge. We might not even get victors and defeated. to that knock-out blow. By God’s My father was right. The war was mercy the Germans broke down inconclusive. There were no victors and no vanquished – not in the

16 Quoted from Mrs. Millin, General Smuts, military, nor in the material, sense. In by courtesy of Messrs. Faber & Faber Ltd. the circumstances the imposing of peace terms that were indecisive – themselves, require our helping hand. neither harsh nor lenient – was a Let us extend it in all generosity and tragedy from which the world has not magnanimity.” recovered. The claim for Allied magnanimity was In the flush of victory, and the a strong one. It had paid Britain “emotions of the moment”, my father handsomely after the Boer War. We said, it is not merely that thrones and were to find, however, that the empires are falling, and ancient Prussian spirit was not as amenable as institutions suddenly collapsing. A that of the Boer, though no one could world order is visibly passing before foretell it at the time. They thought our eyes, and the danger is that things that the harsh feelings of Clemenceau may go too far and a setback be given and others were just a misplaced to Europe from which she does not mania. recover for generations... What a doom turned to the Westminster, resolution: has come over Germany! What a price she has paid for her ambitions and At an early stage in the war my crimes... Now as we organise the father’s thoughts had already turned to world for victory, let us organise it the machinery of peace. In a speech in against hunger and unemployment. Central Hall, Westminister, on 14th Not only the liberated territories of our May, 1917, he moved the following Allies, not only our small neutral resolution: neighbours, but the enemy countries That it is expedient in the interests of things ... Well – it is high time that mankind that some machinery should something were done. be set up after the present war for the The losses and sufferings of this war purpose of maintaining international truly baffle description; one cannot rights and general peace, and this contemplate without the profoundest meeting welcomes the suggestion put emotion this horror that has come over forward for this purpose by the Christendom, this spirit of self- President of the United States and destruction which has overtaken our other influential statesmen in America so-called civilisation. After all the fair and commends to the sympathetic promises, all the fair hopes, all the fine consideration of the British peoples enthusiasm of the nineteenth century, the idea of forming a union of free this is what we have come to. It is nations for the preservation of computed that nearly 8,000,000 people permanent peace. have already been killed in this war – He went on: not the old and decrepit, not the unfit, but the best – the very best, those who ... progress has been made, and the should have been the natural creators subject is no longer merely academic, of the new world, they lie buried on no longer merely Utopian. If the war the battlefields of civilisation, while has done nothing more, it has at any larger numbers have been maimed and rate done this – it has stamped into the rendered unfit for the rest of their hearts of millions of men and women lives. It is probable that the number of an intense desire for a better order of killed and wounded in this war is not life, or what would be the use of far short of that of the total white civilisation, if those are the fruits of all population of the British Empire. Is our efforts and all our endeavours? that not a matter to stir humanity to its The scale of the disaster is so vast that depths? I think the time has come for the whole matter seems to be very, very serious consideration of this uncontrollable. Our nineteenth-century matter. You see the most criminal science taught us how to mobilise the disregard of all laws, human and forces of nature, but it did not divine. You see civilisation itself strengthen our social conscience almost crumbling to pieces, and I am correspondingly, and the result is that sure if some means were not provided all these forces have been collected by which such calamities could be into some horrible engine of prevented in future, and the repetition destruction which now moves like the of wars like this was still possible in cursed thing it is, like some blind the future, then the whale fabric of our destiny which is treading over our civilisation will be in danger, people civilisation... This is a time for action: will become filled with universal this tragedy that has come over us despair, and you will find the nations calls for action. What the human of the world saying, as the poet said in intelligence has done the human his despair, “From the world’s bitter intelligence can undo again. And I feel wind seek shelter in the shadow of the sure that if one-hundredth part of the grave.” For what would be the use of consideration and the thought that have been given to the war is given to On the other hand, I have also this schemes of peace, them you will never feeling, and I am sure it is the right see any war again... feeling, that deeper than that has been the good work that the war has done – Now at first blush it does seem as if the creation of a better feeling in the the end of this war would be about the hearts of men... And when Europe most hopeless time imaginable to talk rises from her sick bed in a long of schemes of lasting peace. For at the period of convalescence, as no doubt end of this war you will find the world she will have to do, the germs of many divided into two hostile camps, with a good ideas will be able to develop in chasm of hatred between them such as her, and let it be our effort to see that probably has never been seen in the among those germs none will develop world before. You will find an more strongly and more vigorously atmosphere of hatred and ill-will and than this idea of peace which we are of international estrangement such as here this afternoon to foster... has never been seen before in the history of the world. And when you Now I mention what occurs to me as come to think of creating machinery the second condition, also very for lasting peace, you will have to bear important, and that is that at the end of in mind that the time, in a certain this was we must conclude a good sense, will be the most unpropitious peace, because I do not see how you possible for the effort you are trying to are going to have a perpetual peace, or make. the chance of perpetual peace, in future if this war is going to be ended to carry conviction to my mind that like so many other wars as mere they are practical and that they will patchwork compromise between achieve the objects we have in view. I various conflicting interests... would favour something more elastic, something more flexible, something The third condition of lasting peace is which will be capable of adapting that in some form or other we must itself to the very complex circum- bring about a league or a union of stances which arise from time to time nations with some common organ of in our complex European relations, consultation on all vital issues. Of and it is perhaps possible in that way course the matter is extremely to achieve more real good... difficult, and I am not, as I have said, in a position to dogmatise, and in my There remains another condition – the own mind I am not clear as to the best condition, namely, that in any course to pursue. I can quite well see arrangement for future peace there that we may fail in our object if we should be at the back of it some start with too elaborate or too sanction, some force – otherwise it ambitious a scheme. The subject is remains merely talk, otherwise it enormously difficult, and you can by remains simply a vision... trying to achieve too much fail in There remains the question of achieving anything at all, and I must disarmament. It is a very difficult honestly confess that all the schemes question – more difficult than any that I have heard of so far have failed other aspect of the subject, but from many points of view the most war shall contain as an integral part of important. It is no use trying to it the fundamental provision, not in prevent war when nations are armed to detail, but in principle, which will the teeth... safeguard the future peace of the world. If that is done, then this war One more consideration – and it is will not have been fought in vain... this. I do not refer to this as a condition of any future peace treaty, In January, 1918, Woodrow Wilson but I think it is most important and published a treatise on the League of essential that the fundamental provi- Nations. It bristled with the idealism sions to safeguard peace in future of which he was such an unrivalled should be included in the peace treaty exponent. Unfortunately his was not itself which is made after this war. the rugged type of personality that This war has not been fought, at any held the masses, and tragically he soon rate as far as we are concerned, for the lost American political support. His purpose of gain or material interests. plans and aspirations simply became Millions of men have given their lives engulfed in the oblivion of isola- in this war, millions more are prepared tionism. But he represented a great to give their lives in this war in order power and it was essential to maintain to achieve a good peace and to ensure his enthusiasm. it for the future, and I think it would A month after the collapse of the be the proper course that the peace Central Powers, on 14th December, treaty which is concluded after this 1918, my father resigned from the War Cabinet. His task was done. On that to work in close collaboration with day he wrote to Lloyd George: you for that victory which has finally crowned the Allied cause. Now that the Elections are over I must ask you to release me from further For the invariable courtesy and service on the War Cabinet. I would consideration which I have received have taken this step earlier, but while from you and all my other colleagues other Ministers were preoccupied with during that trying time the Election I thought it necessary to I am indeed grateful, and it is with carry on my work, especially as warm feelings that I part from you Chairman of the Cabinet Committee now. on Demobilisation. Now, however, that will no longer be necessary. My father was under no illusions about the difficulties that faced When in May, 1917, you did me the statesmen at the peace table. As early honour to invite me to join the War as September, 1917, he had written Cabinet, I agreed in the end to accept Lord Loreburn: your offer as I thought that was perhaps the best way in which I could ...Difficult as it has been to wage this do the war service which I was terrible war, I am not sure that the anxious to render. Since then we have making of peace will not be an even been through a tremendous period, and more difficult business, requiring I am glad to think that during all its greater courage and statesmanship and ups and downs I have had the privilege far sightedness. Germany is manoeuvring in order to get the belligerent Government round a conference table, as she knows that that motley crowd is sure to disagree among themselves and perhaps break up, and that she will win at the Conference Table more than she has lost in the field... 38 : A PRACTICAL SUGGESTION have to occupy a much greater position, and perform many other ON the 15th, the day on which General functions besides those ordinarily Botha arrived for the Peace assigned to it. Peace and War are Conference, my father published a resultants of many complex forces, comprehensive pamphlet on “The and those forces will have to be League of Nations – A Practical gripped at an earlier stage of their Suggestion”. This “short sketch”, growth, if peace is to be effectively which, he says, “was hastily written at maintained. To enable it to do so, the the last moment, and amid other League will have to occupy the great pressing duties, in view of the early position which has been rendered meeting of the Peace Conference,” vacant by the destruction of so many was to become famous, for it of the old European Empires, and the embodied the major portion of ideas passing away of the old European that were subsequently incorporated order. The League should be put into into the constitution of the League. He the very forefront of the programme of says in his foreword: the Peace Conference, and be made My reflections have convinced me that the point of departure for the solution the ordinary conception of the League of many of the grave problems with of Nations is not a fruitful one, nor is which it will be confronted. it the right one, and that a radical transformation of it is necessary. If the He goes on in this “Practical League is ever to be a success it will Suggestion” to view the League not only as a possible means for civilisation. It must function so preventing future wars, but much more strongly in the ordinary peaceful as a great organ of the ordinary peace- intercourse of States that it becomes ful life of civilisation, as the irresistible in their disputes; its peace foundation of the new international activity must be the foundation and system which will be erected on the guarantee of its war power... ruins of this war, and as the starting The attempt to farm empires or point from which the peace leagues of nations on the basis of arrangements of the forthcoming inequality and the bondage and Conference should be made. Such an oppression of the smaller national orientation of the idea seems to me units has failed, and the work has to be necessary if the League is to become a done all over again on a new basis and permanent part of our international an enormous scale. The vast elemental machinery. It is not sufficient for the forces liberated by this war, even more League merely to be a sort of deus ex than the war itself, have been machina called in in very grave responsible for this great change. In emergencies when the spectre of war the place of the great Empires we find appears; if it is to last, it must be much the map of Europe now dotted with more. It must become part and parcel small nations, embryo states, derelict of the common international life of territories. Europe has been reduced to States, it must be an ever-visible, its original atoms. For the moment its living, working organ of the policy of political structure, the costly result of so many centuries of effort, has place, if Alsace-Lorraine is annexed to disappeared. But that state of affairs France, that would be a case of must be looked upon as temporary. disannexation, as it has been put; that The creative process in the political is to say, it is a case of restoring to movement of humanity cannot be France what was violently and paralysed; the materials lie ready for a wrongfully taken from her in 1871 new reconstructive task, to which, let against the protests not only of France, us hope, the courage and genius of but of the population of Alsace- Western civilisation will prove equal... Lorraine speaking through their elected representatives... Its restitution As a programme for the forthcoming to France would therefore satisfy, Peace Conference I would therefore instead of violating, the moral sense of begin by making two the world. recommendations: (1) ...the Conference should regard In the second place, the German itself as the first or preliminary colonies in the Pacific and Africa are meeting of the League, intended to inhabited by barbarians, who not only work out its organisation, functions, cannot possibly govern themselves, and programme... but to whom it would be impracticable to apply any ideas of political self- ... The case of Germany stands on a determination in the European sense. different footing which is clearly They might be consulted as to whether distinguishable in principle. In the first they want their German masters back, but the result would be so much a store on precedents. Our problem is foregone conclusion that the gigantic and entirely novel; its solution consultation would be quite will depend, not so much on following superfluous. The disposal of these precedents never meant for such a Colonies should be decided on the novel and complex situation, but in principles which President Wilson has boldly facing the situation and, if need laid down in the fifth of his celebrated be, creating a new precedent to meet Fourteen Points... it. The grand success of the British Empire depends not on its having [Next he comes to Mandates, where he followed any constitutional precedent commends:] of the past but on having met a new (4) That any authority, control, or situation in history with a new creation administration which may be in law; and as a matter of fact the new necessary in respect of these territories constitutional system grew empirically and peoples, other than their own self- and organically out of the practical determined autonomy, shall be the necessities of the colonial situation. So exclusive function of and shall be it will have to be here. And above all vested in the League of Nations and let us avoid cut-and-dried schemes exercised by or on behalf of it. meant as complete, definitive, and Now in discussing a problem like the final solutions of our problem. Let its Constitution of the League of Nations remember that we are only asked to we must be careful not to set too much make a beginning...... we must be equally careful to avoid ...Then, again, there is the vast subject the mere ineffective debating society of industrial conditions, involving at the other end. The new situation international labour conditions, which does not call for a new talking shop. will call for expert inquiry and states- We want an instrument of government manlike handling by the League. All which, however much talk is put into these thorny subjects will call for the it at the one end, will grind out appointment of expert committees or decisions at the other end... commissions on the Staff of the League which could prepare the The League will never be a great material for a final expression of success until there is formed as its opinion by the League. main support a powerful international public opinion... Now it seems to me that some people expect too much from the new After peace there will be a new and machinery of international Arbitration most important group of matters and Conciliation which emerges as the calling for the study or control of the chief proposal for preventing future permanent Staff. Thus the due wars. War is a symptom of deep- execution of the provisions of the seated evils: it is a disease or growth Peace Treaty will have to be carefully out of social and political conditions. watched. New conditions of free While these conditions remain transit by land, water, and air will unaltered, it is vain to expect any good become necessary, and require regula- from new institutions superimposed on tion and control by the League... those conditions... The new institution The effect of such a complete of peace must not be something automatic trade and financial boycott additional, something external, super- will necessarily be enormous. The imposed on the pre-existing structure. experience of this war has shown how It must be an organic change; it must such a boycott, effectively maintained be woven into the very texture of our chiefly through sea power, has in the political system... end availed to break completely the most powerful military Power that the There follows a long section on world has ever seen; and the lesson is disarmament and disarmament not likely to he lost on future intending problems. Of these he considers the evildoers. It is because of this power abolition of conscription the most of the economic and financial weapons important. that many writers are of opinion that Thereafter he proceeds to sanctions: the obligation for action by members ... No declaration of war should be of the League should not go beyond necessary, as the state of war arises the use of these weapons. My view, automatically on the law-breaker however, is that they will not be proceeding to hostilities, and the enough if unsupported by military and boycott follows automatically from the naval action. A powerful military State obligation of the League without may think that a sudden military blow further resolutions or formalities on will achieve its object in spite of the part of the League. boycotts, provided that no greater military reaction from the rest of the humanity is once more on the march. League need be feared. This fear may Vast social and industrial changes are under certain circumstances be a more coming, perhaps upheavals which effective deterrent than even the may, in their magnitude and effects, be boycott; and I do not think the League comparable to war itself. A steadying, is likely to prove a success unless in controlling, regulating influence will the last resort the maintenance of the be required to give stability to moratorium is guaranteed by force. progress, and to remove that wasteful The obligation on the members of the friction which has dissipated so much League to use force for this purpose social force in the past, and in this war should therefore be absolute, but the more than ever before. These great amount of the force and the functions could only be adequately contribution from the members should fulfilled by the League of Nations. be left to the recommendation of the Responding to such vital needs and Council to the respective Governments coming at such a unique opportunity in each case... in history, it may well be destined to mark a new era in the Government of Finally he draws to an end: Man, and become to the peoples the ... mankind is once more on the move. guarantee of Peace, to the workers of The very foundations have been all races the great International, and to shaken and loosened, and things are all the embodiment and living again fluid. The tents have been struck, and the great caravan of expression of the moral and spiritual unity of the human race. 39 : PEACE CONFERENCE admitted that he “was unable to foresee the variety of circumstances WOODROW WILSON was captivated with which the League would have to by the phrase “Europe is being deal. I was unable, therefore, to plan liquidated and the League of Nations all the machinery necessary to meet must be heir to this great estate”. differing and unexpected Lansing says he kept on repeating it contingencies.” over and over. He had been equally struck by the rest of my father’s The answers to many of these differing treatise. It crystallised his thoughts on and unexpected contingencies were many points which so far had been supplied to him, as often as not, by my only vague ideas. father. He told the American Senate that he had rewritten his draft on the He therefore proceeded to redraft his League “in the light of a paper by scheme, in which he incorporated General Smuts, who seemed to have virtually all my father’s suggestions. done some very clear thinking in There is no controversy on the point of regard to what was to be done to how much of the drafting of the pieces of the dismembered Empires”. Covenant is Wilson’s work. Colonel House and most authorities declare At Versailles my father was elected to that not a single idea of Wilson’s the Commission of the League of league plan was original. He merely Nations, over which Wilson presided. edited and compiled. At a preliminary Other members were Lord Cecil for meeting of the Peace Conference he Britain, Leon Bourgeois for France, Roman Dmowski for Poland and again said little and left to Cecil the Venizelos for Greece. task of explaining the important problem of protection of minorities, On 19th January, 1919, it was felt to published as Article 22 in my father’s be high time that agreement was treatise of 15th December, 1918. reached between the views of Britain and the United States, so that a united The conduct of the delegates at the front could be put up to the other Peace Conference was hardly edifying. countries, who talked interminably. A All ideas of restraint and reason meeting was arranged. Wilson was appeared to have snapped, and greed accompanied by Colonel House. My and rapaciousness prevailed. There father was strangely silent and left was an undisguised and sordid Cecil to do the major portion of the scramble for booty and material gains. talking. Several important decisions With the bare exception of Wilson and resulted from this small meeting, my father, all seem to have among others the plan for a Permanent succumbed. Lloyd George threw Court of International Justice. himself into the fray with all his Celtic frenzy; on occasion he even clashed From the 3rd to the 13th of February with my father. The French ardour the big Commission held three-hour turned into a burning fever. The meetings every day. Orlando of Italy jackals, hyenas and lesser fry all and Dr. Kramarsch the Czech were danced around and yapped impatiently very loquacious. Wellington Koo of for their portions. China spoke but seldom. My father It was not only the passion of greed, Wilson dealt firmly with others who but also of revenge and vindictiveness. wished to annex conquered territory. It was inevitable after a great war. The best they got was a Mandate. Such were his scruples that he even Wilson, the man of the hour, was turned down all the mandates offered pained by what he saw. For a while he to America. Of his integrity at was almost disillusioned. Yet he never Versailles there can be no question. ceased to conduct himself like the When America herself clamoured for great idealist and gentleman. The the sole right to the Panama Canal, he greedy did not have an easy passage alone insisted that it should be a world with him. My father saw it was not the gateway. time to press for the incorporation of South-West Africa into the Union. He My father had a very high regard for did the next best thing. In his Mandate Wilson’s idealism. He was not quite so System, he had devised various eulogistic about his leadership at categories of mandates. He saw to it Versailles. He was too much of a that the Union took over South-West dreamer and too little of a practical Africa under a “C” Mandate, which man. The rough and tumble of the was almost tantamount to annexation Conference diplomacy was rather and left the future incorporation open beyond his control. Moreover he had for decision by plebiscite. Virtually about him a group of advisers that left South Africa’s only obligation was to much to be desired. send annual reports to Geneva. But for all that he thought him a I don’t say Wilson made no mistakes. greater man than Lincoln. Lincoln, he He made a mistake in coming to said, was a luckier man, however, for Europe with a poor staff, and a worse after four years of a poorly directed mistake in coming without his war against the South all censure of opponents. He should have included him was averted by the bullet of an some of his opponents – for instance, assassin, and his memory has grown Elihu Root and Taft – among the ever greater at the expense of poor delegates he brought with him, and it Grant on whom all the opprobrium has would have become a non-political fallen. There was no assassin in affair and gone through, and all history Wilson’s case. He had to bear the would have been different. mistakes of the Conference himself, Instead, he left his opponents in and it broke him and perhaps shattered America to conspire against him, and a great name in the eyes of posterity. they used the tragedy of Europe for It was [my father says] Wilson’s their own political ends. They made it reputation that was murdered. They a party business to turn down the murdered it with ridicule. Nobody Treaty and the League in order to remembered that he was a man with throw out the Democrats. the hand of death on him, standing There are some who think Wilson alone against his country’s betrayal of should not have come to Paris at all. I principles to which it was pledged. don’t agree with them. Only Wilson could have put through the League. The other statesmen weren’t He was not, as Keynes says in concerned about the League except as Economic Consequences – I saw him a an instrument for their own ends – that great deal and you can take it from me is to say, their country’s ends: Wilson – so bamboozled that he could not put the League above this greedy even be de-bamboozled. If, for squabbling. It was for the League he instance, he yielded his point about the compromised on other things; Freedom of the Seas, it wasn’t simply whereupon everyone fastened on his because the other Allies insisted on it, small surrenders. or because of bamboozlement. He had to yield it because it could not be Believe me, the trouble did not lie in squared with the fundamental the small surrenders, or in the fact that conception of the League. Freedom of Wilson did not bring home what he the Seas implies neutrality on the seas. called “the fabric” intact. He was not a If the League was to be effective – to practical man. He had this vast be able to act in time of war – there structure of a plan, which needed to be could be no neutrality, no freedom of adapted to varying facts and the seas... circumstances and filled in with details, and as he got little help or The truth is, America wanted a reason understanding from his staff, he for repudiating Wilson. The world looked to others for these facts and wanted a scapegoat. At that opportune details. moment Keynes brought out his Economic Consequences of the Peace. There were a few pages about Wilson But for Keynes’s description of in it which exactly suited the politics Wilson, nothing worse might have of America and the world’s mood. been fairly said of him than that he When I encouraged Keynes to write handled Congress ineptly when he that book, I knew his views about the took the League back to America or statesmen at Paris. But I did not expect that he did not understand party a personal note in his book, I did not politics. I remember saying to him, expect him to turn Wilson into a figure “Can you carry the treaty? Can you of fun. get your two-thirds majority?” “I absolutely can,” he said; and he was These few pages about Wilson in struck down in the middle of his Keynes’s book made an Aunt Sally of single-handed fight for it. the noblest figure – perhaps the only noble figure – in the history of the He had no disciples. Perhaps it was a war, and they led a fashion against deficiency in him that he found none. I Wilson that was adopted by the can’t help remembering that if it intelligentsia of the day and is not yet depended on the intelligentsia of the past – the intelligentsia (not the day, our knowledge of Christ would be intellectuals) – the people who, a casual and contemptuous remark in admiring only their own cleverness, Tacitus. A few fishermen in Galilee despise real goodness, real thought, prevented it.17 real wisdom... 17 Quoted from Mrs. Millin, op. cit. The failure of Wilson to carry America pleaded that unnecessarily heavy was more than a disaster, for it meant tribute should not be exacted from not only that America did not come Germany, committees were into the League, but also that she deliberating to see how much they remained undivorced from her ancient could squeeze out of the vanquished. path of isolationism. To the League Wilson and my father disagreed fund- this was a crippling blow, for it amentally on the question of repara- signified that from its very inception it tions. Wilson maintained that was bereft of its chief member and the indemnities should be limited to only one that could really have material war damage. My father felt enabled it to be a force to be reckoned they should be used as compensation with. Those who later came to judge for damage to civilians. the League by its failures and Meanwhile a British committee under shortcomings would do well to Hughes of Australia had agreed that consider what might have been the compensations should be paid to case had the United States not left it in civilians, and provisionally assessed the lurch. the damage at over twenty-four The question of reparations, or as thousand million pounds. The French Woodrow Wilson preferred to call had worked out even more farfetched them, “indemnities”, caused one of the ideas on compensation to civilians, major controversies of the Conference. including pensions to widows and It raged for months. While my father disabled soldiers. Germany must be made to pay for her sins and to restore My father prepared a memorandum the world to its pristine condition. which “was the final argument” and convinced the President. When The Americans were more moderate Wilson’s legal advisers told him that and realistic. They suggested they were strongly opposed to the something like two thousand million pension scheme as “all logic was pounds during the first two years and against it”, he flew into a frenzy and then interest and capital repayment of said he did not “care a damn for logic” twelve thousand million pounds over and was going to include pensions. thirty-five years. Wilson stuck to his point for months. My father’s point in insisting on the Then, to break the impasse, he called inclusion of allowances and pensions on my father to “establish a was to ensure that the war-ravished compromise between Lloyd George’s countries of Europe did not get the election pledge to the British people to lion’s share, while financially demand the entire costs of the war, and exhausted England was left in the the assurance to the contrary given to cold. It was only later, when France the enemy by the Allies at the time of swelled her reparation amount to the Armistice”. Wilson held my father fantastic proportions, my father said, in high esteem both because of his that it became not only a farce but ability and for his championship of the “one of those things that are League. responsible for the Germany of today...” The idea of having the delegates from To my father his period in Paris was the Dominions sign the Peace terms akin to purgatory. The prodigies of independently of the United Kingdom work he had been performing for the did not appeal to Lloyd George and past months, and was still performing, other British statesmen, but my father had left him somewhat jaded, though pressed the point that it might stress Colonel House says that of all the the unique partnership of the delegates my father appeared the only Commonwealth. one not tired. He lived only for the work of the Conference and shunned General Botha had joined my father in the distractions of Paris, in which London. He was tired and far from other delegates found a pleasant outlet. well, and had lost much weight. The Always it was just his suite in the family liver disease was upon him and Hotel Majestic and the Conference already it had gone to his heart and tables. Nothing could have been more legs, and he himself had a premonition depressing than those committee that he would not see the year out. In rooms, with their interminable South Africa he had found the burden wrangles, unabashed greed, and since my father had left almost more inevitable deadlocks. Nobody was in a than he could bear. For the past three mood for seeing the broader picture or years he had had to bear alone the for planning for posterity. They were taunts and jeers of the Opposition, as out simply to get all they could – and well as the vast responsibilities of a to leave the future to take care of nation at war. itself. It cut across the idealism of my Welshman must have been father and shook his faith – though. phenomenally highly developed, for it only momentarily – in human nature. made an impression on my father It was not that he was out of his unsurpassed even by the immortal ora- element here; it was just that he tions of Winston Churchill during the despaired of good and sanity Second World War. It was not till prevailing. He has described it as the 1943 that he was prepared to put Mr. “unhappiest time” of his life. At times Churchill on an equal footing with the he wondered whether ten million lives Welshman. Lloyd George must have had not been shed in vain. been a great and wonderful personality; but like Wilson, he was Clemenceau had seen Paris in flames eventually killed by a political system. in 1871 and never forgot it. He hated Germany with a deep and implacable ***** hatred. He was for France only. He Hungary was in the clutches of a Red was ancient, determined and eloquent. revolution. At the head was an With this crusty, often openly unscrupulous Jew named Bela Kun, contemptuous, veteran Woodrow who had deposed Count Karolyi and Wilson had to compete. Unfortunately established his brigand clique in it was beyond his powers or his nature. power. In Paris the Big Four were Often he found the stormy eloquence perturbed at this revolutionary of Lloyd George equally difficult to manifestation, for they felt it cope with. This gift in the great endangered their European reconstruction programme, and might For Sir Thomas Cunninghame, Head well spread to Germany and other of the British Military Mission, the countries. visit started off badly, for at Sachers he got into disfavour with my father At first they decided to send General for taking the delegation to a sumpt- Mangim to restore authority, but later uous meal costing 1,200 kronen, in they changed their minds and asked this land of starvation: My father said my father to go instead. With him he it was a “gross error in taste” and that had his aide Captain Ernest Lane, R. henceforth they were to feed only on Leeper, Colonel Heywood, Cyril their own army rations. Butler and Harold Nicolson of the Foreign Office. Nicolson wrote: “The Hungary had been looted and ostensible purpose of our mission is to plundered and this terror was fix an armistice line between the continuing daily. When the news of Hungarians and Roumanians, yet the my father’s impending visit got about, real idea at the back is to see whether the plundering was temporarily Bela Kun is worth using as a vehicle suspended and people breathed freely for getting into touch with Moscow.” once more after weeks of terror. At the They travelled at slow speed through same time, the importance of a visit by Austria, and my father could not help my father lent considerable support to noticing the pinched, starved look of Kun, who was merely one brigand the people. Vienna was littered with among many. rubbish, and in a much neglected state. On the morning of 4th April they can accept. There must be no arrived at Budapest station. Bela Kun reservations.” So briefly bidding them arrived later, a small insignificant good-bye he got into the train and figure in a frock coat and top hat. At gave the order to depart, leaving Kun midday he left, seemingly pleased and company standing bewildered on with his visit. My father declined his the platform. He had decided that Kun invitation to stay in the Hungaria, really had no authority and was of no which was specially beflagged and use to them. decorated for the purpose, saying he “We then dine,” Nicolson writes in his would remain in his train. So they diary. “Smuts is delightful, telling us continued living frugally in the train stories of the veld with a ring of deep where, Nicolson says, “Smuts presides homesickness in his voice. A lovely over our trench meals as if giving us a man... banquet at the Savoy.” Nor would my father consent to attend a banquet in On the 7th in Prague, he drove to the the Ritz, whereupon Kun, much palace to visit Masaryk, with whom he affronted, also stayed at home. conversed for an hour. On the evening of the next day Kun Back in Paris later, they found that the and retinue paid a visit to my father in press had described their mission as a the train and handed him a note. “fiasco”. It was not that, nor even Having read it he said: “No, unfruitful, for it had revealed that Kun gentlemen, this is not a note which I was a mere puppet and Hungary in a hopeless condition. To my father the trip had been a pleasant interlude from the depression of Paris. 40 : CONTROVERSY patched up by another Berlin or Vienna conference”. AT Paris my father spared no effort to support the Covenant and to save the He kept on complaining that we were peace. He never wearied of the insisting on impossible peace terms. struggle. R.S. Baker says that he, Frequently he protested vigorously to “more than any other man, typified Lloyd George and Wilson on the way British Liberal opinion at Paris”. the treaty was being drafted. “We cannot destroy Germany without At the opening of the Conference in destroying Europe... We cannot save his simple language and forceful logic Europe without the co-operation of he begged that the enemy be treated Germany... My fear is that the Paris with “pity and restraint”, pointing out Conference may prove one of the that “civilisation is one body and we historic failures of the world. are all members of one another”. He pressed doggedly for the “generous “You may strip Germany of her treatment of Germany as a vital factor colonies, reduce her armaments to a in the restoration of human civilisa- mere police force and her navy to that tion”. of a fifth-rate power; all the same, in the end, if she feels that she has been In 1919 E. T. Raymond wrote “... he, unjustly treated in the peace of 1919 above all other statesmen, realises that she will find means of exacting this is no dynastic struggle to be retribution from her conquerors.” He never wearied of speaking and beneficent operation of the League of writing about the evils of the Peace Nations impossible; the fires will be Treaty. He worked on the various kept burning and the pot be kept delegates and his associates. He wrote boiling until it again boils over, either to Lloyd George and to Wilson. He in a new war, or in the breakdown of wrote to them again and again, even at the European system under the the cost of tediousness, of his deep onslaught of social and industrial pride, for he felt it was his duty. anarchy... I would urge... even at this twelfth hour, and even at the risk of He condemned the wisdom and our losing some diplomatic credit, that doubted the practicability of some of we remove the most objectionable the terms in the strongest fashion. In features from the Peace Treaty. May he said to the British Delegation; Unfortunately the wrong procedure we They are such that I personally would have hitherto followed in the dramatic hesitate before I subscribed my name publication and presentation to the to them, even if the Germans are Germans makes the course I propose willing to submit under duress... If the very difficult for us and almost Germans are prepared to swallow this humiliating. But that surely is a minor Treaty, I still consider its provisions consideration where so much is at such as to make future peace and stake for the world... goodwill in Europe unlikely; an international atmosphere will be My proposal is as follows: Germans created which will make the have been invited to state their objections to provisions of the Draft years, under an undefined regime of Treaty. They are now pouring forth a martial law. East and West, blocks of great volume of ponderous notes Germans are put under their historic embodying their views. These views enemies. Under this Treaty Europe we should be prepared to consider will know no peace; and the fairly and sincerely on their merits, undertaking to defend Europe against and where we find a good case made aggression may at any time bring the out against our draft we should be British Empire also into the fire. prepared to modify our proposals. I am grieved beyond words that such should be the result of our In the middle of May he wrote to statesmanship. I admit it was hard to Lloyd George and Wilson: appear to fight for the German cause The more I have studied the Peace with our other Allies, especially with Treaty as a whole, the more I dislike it. devastated France. But now that the The combined effect of the territorial Germans can state their own case, I and reparation clauses is to make it pray you will use your power and practically impossible for Germany to influence to make the final Treaty a carry out the provisions of the Treaty. more moderate and reasonable And then the Occupation Clauses document. come in to plant the French on the Rhine indefinitely, even beyond the Wilson replied: “I feel the terrible already far-too-long period of fifteen responsibility of the whole business, but inevitably my thought goes back to this is so. Subject to the two the very great offence against reservations made by the Allies before civilisation which the German State the Armistice, we are bound to make a committed, and the necessity for peace within the four corners of your making it evident once and for all that Points and Principles, and any such things can lead only to the most provisions of the Treaty which go severe punishment.” either contrary to or beyond their general scope and intent would My father wrote to Wilson again: constitute a breach of agreement... Even at the risk of wearying you I There will be a terrible disillusionment venture to address you once more. The if the peoples come to think we are not German answer to our draft Peace concluding a Wilson Peace, that we Terms seems to me to strike the are not keeping our promises to the fundamental note which is most world or faith with the public. But, if dangerous to us and which we are in so doing, we appear also to break a bound to consider most carefully. formal agreement deliberately entered They say in effect that we are under into (as I think we do), we shall be solemn obligation to them to make a overwhelmed with the gravest Wilson Peace, a peace in accordance discredit, and this Peace may become with your Fourteen Points and other an even greater disaster to the world Principles enunciated in 1918. To my than the war was. mind there is absolutely no doubt that Forgive me for troubling you with this populations, which we have no right matter, but I believe it goes to the root under these formulas to tear off of the whole case... Germany... And it is not necessary for the future Poland that there should be There was also heated correspondence a free Danzig under Polish suzerainty, between Lloyd George and my father. any more than it is necessary to have a In a mood of exasperation Lloyd free Hamburg as an outlet for future George taunted my father on the Czechoslovakia. . . . question of reparations and South- West Africa. My father replied calmly: With regard to the German colonies, I do not for a moment contemplate their I am sorry to involve you in any return to Germany as one of the correspondence at a time like this, concessions we should make. No when you are preoccupied with the doubt in future, when a new gravest difficulties. I write to you in atmosphere has grown up, the German no polemical sense... claims to colonial mandates will come to be viewed in a different light and Whatever view one holds of these that contingency has to be kept in view [Wilson’s] formulas, I should say that of whatever arrangements we make our proposed disposal of the Saar now. But please do not have the Basin, of Danzig, and of Memel impression that 1 would be generous violated them. They are indisputably at the expense of others, so long as the German territories with German Union gets South-West Africa. In this great business South-West Africa is as destroyed and a stain is put on their dust compared to the burdens now conscience, they will not stop to look hanging over the civilised world. And at a bit of desert. No, even as regards that is how the matter will be viewed South Africa, I view the situation in the Union also. People who have created by the Peace Treaty with the been under the harrow have been in gravest concern... the greatest of all schools. And believe Prime Minister! do not for a moment me the percussion of this Peace Treaty imagine that I write in any other but a in South Africa is going to be most friendly and sympathetic spirit tremendous. Events may soon prove which I am sure you will not resent. that it has made the position of men Perhaps the main difference between like General Botha and myself very us is that you are struggling in the difficult, if not impossible. The water, while I shout advice from the strength of our position has been the shore! But I feel deeply this is no time belief of a large section of the Dutch to mince matters. When you are up population in the spirit of fair play and against a position so terrible in its moderation as characteristic of British possibilities for good and evil, you can policy. Whether that belief will only do one thing, even if you fail survive this Peace Treaty time alone utterly. And that is the right thing, the can show, but the signs are ominous. thing you can justify to your And when the sense of fair play of conscience and that of all other people is outraged and their faith is reasonable fair-minded people. This Treaty breathes a poisonous spirit of opposition to what seems your policy revenge, which may yet scorch the fair will only waste time where speed is face – not of a corner of Europe, but of right. For the imposition of reparations Europe. on a broken, bankrupt, economically impossible state like Austria, or a new, Elsewhere he remarked in regard to friendly allied state like Czecho- Poland: “Poland is an historic failure slovakia ... seems to be a hopeless and will always be a failure, and in policy which could only lead to the this Treaty we are trying to reverse the most mischievous results. I am against verdict of history... payment of all reparation of these How true these prophecies have countries for damage done by the dead unfortunately become! and dismembered Austro-Hungarian Empire. And if it is (as it appears) When Lloyd George invited my father your policy to exact reparation in these to become a member of a commission cases ... I hope you will excuse me on Austrian reparations he turned it from serving on the commission...” down; he had had more than enough of reparations, already, and wrote in From such wranglings and cross- reply to Mr. Lloyd George: “While I currents and indecision at the am willing, and indeed anxious, to Conference dangerous new moods help with the work I do not think ... rose. On 23rd June Focla threatened to that my going on the commission will reopen the war and to cross the Rhine. serve any useful purpose, and my Finally the terms of the surrender were agreed upon. On the 28th June, 1918, the fifth anniversary of Sarajevo, the Peace Treaty was signed. My father and Botha signed under protest. America did not sign at all. consider representations from a minority group. Hertzog’s mission was 41 : SIGNING OF THE PEACE a failure, but he returned to the Union PARIS was a happy hunting ground for with the happy conviction that the delegations of small disgruntled and Nationalists would treat this as a discontented groups. There had been personal rebuff, and that it would fan much talk of sacred rights and the their anti-British feelings. equality of partnership within the Commonwealth. Hertzog brought a Woodrow Wilson returned home and delegation to seek a republican toured America to gain support for the constitution for South Africa. When Treaty and the League. The American they embarked on their mission at people were not in a mood to be Cape Town the crew of the Union- moved. Wilson was rapidly going to Castle liner refused to man the vessel. pieces himself. His failing health was The British admiral’s offer of H.M.S. aggravated by insomnia, and Minerva at Simonstown was refused sometimes he would break down and by Hertzog, who Preferred to board a weep in public. In the end his efforts Dutch ship and reach Europe via New were defeated, and a stroke at the York. At Paris he was courteously conclusion of his tour left him received by Lloyd George, who firmly paralysed. explained to him that Botha and my In the Hall of Mirrors, in the historic father were the official representatives palace at Versailles, where Germany and that he was afraid he could not had once dictated peace terms to France, the nations forgathered on down to draft his criticism of the June 28 to sign the Peace. Of the many Treaty. delegates assembled who signed, only Even as the bells in Britain were Foch, Botha and my father had borne pealing the joyous tidings of the peace, active arms against the enemy. this lengthy protest appeared in the Some days before the signing of the British press, where it was regarded as terms, my father told General Botha one of the most striking events of the that he was not prepared to sign this day. document, and that he had decided to I have signed the Peace Treaty [he leave shortly for South Africa. Botha recorded], not because I consider it a cabled the Governor-General, “while I satisfactory document, but because it share his difficulties against the is imperatively necessary to close the Treaty, I have decided to sign because war; because the world needs peace my position as Prime Minister is above all, and nothing could be more different from his, and my signature is fatal than the continuance of the state necessary to make the Union a of suspense between war and peace. member of the League of Nations and The six months since the armistice secure for her the new status in the was signed have perhaps been as world”. Lloyd George’s advice to my upsetting, unsettling, and ruinous to father was to sign under protest and to Europe as the previous four years of record his objections afterwards. This war. I look upon the Peace Treaty as advice he accepted and forthwith sat the close of those two chapters of war and armistice, and only on that ground a fairer, better world; are not written in do I agree to it. this Treaty, and will not be written in Treaties. “Not in this Mountain, nor in I say this now, not in criticism but in Jerusalem, but inspirit and in truth,” as faith; not because I wish to find fault the Great Master said, must the with the work done, but rather because foundations of the new order be laid. I feel that in the Treaty we have not A new heart must be given, not only to yet achieved the real peace to which our enemies, but also to us; a contrite our peoples were looking, and because spirit for the woes which have over- I feel that the real work of making whelmed the world; a spirit of pity, peace will only begin after this Treaty mercy, and forgiveness for the sins has been signed, and a definite halt has and wrongs which we have suffered. A thereby been called to the destructive new spirit of generosity and humanity, passions that have been desolating born in the hearts of the peoples in this Europe for nearly five years. This great hour of common suffering and Treaty is simply the liquidation of the sorrow, can alone heal the wounds war situation in the world. which have been inflicted on the body The promise of the new life, the of Christendom. victory of the great human ideals, for which the peoples have shed their And this new spirit among the peoples blood and their treasure without stint, will be the solvent for the problems the fulfilment of their aspirations which the statesmen have found too towards a new international order, and hard at the Conference. There are territorial settlements which in my The real peace of the peoples ought to humble judgment will need revision. follow, complete, and amend the peace of the statesmen. There are guarantees laid down, which we all hope will soon be found out of In this Treaty, however, two harmony with the new peaceful temper achievements of far-reaching import- and unarmed state of our former ance for the world are definitely enemies. recorded. The one is the destruction of Prussian militarism; the other is the There are punishments foreshadowed, institution of the League of Nations. I over most of which a calmer mood am confident that the League of may yet prefer to pass the sponge of Nations will yet prove the path of oblivion. escape for Europe out of the ruin There are indemnities stipulated, brought about by this war. which cannot be enacted without grave injury to the industrial revival of But the League is as yet only a form. It Europe, and which it will be in the still requires the quickening life, interests of all to render more tolerable which can only come from the active and moderate. interest and the vitalising contact of the peoples themselves. The new There are numerous pin-pricks, which creative spirit, which is once more will cease to pain under the healing moving among the peoples in their influences of the new international anguish, must fill the institution with atmosphere. life, and with inspiration for the specific ideals born of this war, and so has gone immeasurably further. We convert it into a real instrument of witness the collapse of the whole progress. In that way the abolition of political and economic fabric of militarism, in this Treaty unfortunately Central and Eastern Europe. confined to the enemy, may soon Unemployment, starvation, anarchy, come as a blessing and relief to the war, disease, despair stalk through the Allied peoples as well. land. Unless the victors can effectively extend a helping hand to the defeated And the enemy peoples should at the and broken peoples, a large part of earliest possible date join the League, Europe is threatened with exhaustion and in collaboration with the Allied and decay. Russia has already walked peoples learn to practise the great into the night, and the risk that the rest lesson of this war, that not in separate may follow is very grave indeed. ambitions or in selfish domination, but in common service for the great The effects of this disaster would not human causes, lies the true path of be confined to Central and Eastern national progress. Europe. For civilisation is one body, and we are all members of one This joint collaboration is especially another. necessary today for the reconstruction of a ruined and broken world. A supreme necessity is laid on all to grapple with this situation. And in the The war has resulted, not only in the joint work of beneficence, the old utter defeat of the enemy armies, but feuds will tend to be forgotten, the roots of reconciliation among the their obligations under the Treaty to peoples will begin to grow again, and the extent of their ability. They will ultimately flower into active, fruitful, find the British people disposed to lasting Peace. meet them halfway in their unexampled difficulties and To the peoples of the United States perplexities. But any resort to subter- and the British Empire, who have been fuges or to underhand means to defeat exceptionally blessed with the good or evade the Peace Treaty will only things of life, I would make a special revive old suspicions and rouse anger appeal. Let them exert themselves to and prove fatal to a good the utmost in this great work of saving understanding. the wreckage of life and industry on the Continent of Europe. They have a And in the second place, our Allied great mission, and in fulfilling it they peoples must remember that God gave will be as much blessed as blessing. them overwhelming victory, victory far beyond their greatest dreams, not All this is possible, and I hope capable for small selfish ends, not for financial of accomplishment; but only on two or economic advantages, but for the conditions. attainment of the great human ideals In the first place, the Germans must for which our heroes gave their lives, convince our peoples of their good and which are the real victors in this faith, of their complete sincerity war of ideals. through a real honest effort to fulfil ***** At the Conference my father, as a Smuts he would go to a meeting of the personality, was possibly surpassed by ‘Big Four’ with proposals which made Lloyd George alone. As an influence M. Clemenceau wonder (sometimes in the councils none surpassed him. aloud) whether the Allies were to ask Lloyd George had more faith in him Germany’s pardon for having taken than in any other member, and paid the liberty of beating her”. him this tribute: “He is one of the most Milner’s admiration of him and remarkable personalities of his time. confidence in him was greater than he He is that fine blend of intellect and felt for any of the others. Count Sforza sympathy which constitutes the described my father as, one of the rare understanding man ... his sympathies original brains at the Peace were too broad to make him a mere Conference”. fighting man... He had rare and fine gifts of mind and heart. Of his The American journalist, I.F. Marcos- practical contributions to our councils san, wrote in 1921, “in that gallery of during these trying years, it is difficult treaty-makers ... it was Smuts who to speak too highly.” contributed largely to the mental power plant that drove the work... He Lloyd George’s biographer, E. T. saw the treaty as a new declaration of Raymond, tells us that the prime war instead of an antidote for discord. Minister “was particularly susceptible His judgment, sadly enough, has been to the influence of the last speaker confirmed.” (Smuts), and from a talk with General The English people loved him and accorded him an affection undimmed by party or politics. I myself am of opinion that this was one of the greatest constructive periods of his life. He accomplished greater things in the Second World War, and his standing in the affections of the peoples of the world attained a more exalted position; but he seldom worked so hard or so persistently and with such result as here in London and Paris. By the sweat of his brow he carved his niche among the immortal great. PART 3 of his family were prone to this UNEASY PEACE nervousness. Personal contacts of this nature, in consequence, lost much of 42 : SUFFER FOOLS GLADLY their attractiveness, and it is perhaps IT is sometimes said that my father pardonable that my father should on was not a man to suffer fools gladly. occasion have been inwardly bored. Though he did not always suffer them To make up for embarrassment in the he almost invariably showed extra- presence of greatness people either ordinary kindness and patience with talked nonsense or asked interminable tedious people. He was not only a questions. phenomenally busy person all his life, The conversation of strangers with my but also a harassed and lionised one. father, however, usually took the form He had to put up a defensive facade of questions and answers. Answers and to turn people away in self- were naturally governed by whether he defence. Yet he was quite the most thought a serious answer worth while, patient, approachable and long-suffer- whether it would be better to shift the ing person I have ever known. emphasis on to some other aspect, It is a strange thing, but I have noticed whether he was desirous of changing that many people in the presence of the topic, what use was going to be my father, either from fear or awe, lost made of his replies and whether a the faculty of being able to make reply would serve a good purpose. normal conversation. Even members As often as not he would be asked source of incompatibility, we knew rhetorical questions. On such that we had to keep these people away occasions he never argued but simply from him. Many of them were famous said “Yes”, or “Perhaps” or made men in public life, not only innocuous some non-committal remark. There but really well meaning and friendly. was no point in arguing with well- My father often seemed to crystallise meaning, but stupid, humanity. If they his likes and dislikes before meeting found satisfaction in their own people. This was one of his most particular views there was no point in human weaknesses. I don’t think he disillusioning them. could explain it himself. He would vent his feelings by muttering vaguely It was the pseudo-clever who really “that damn fool” or “tiresome person” bored him. Their views he could not or “troublesome old woman” (applied suffer gladly. A stupid person could be to a man usually), or by just making pardoned for stupidity; at least his irritable grunting noises and gestures. views were elementary and human. A cloud of displeasure would cross his Highly educated people should know brow. “Tell them I am not here,” he better, and here one could not just say would say curtly; and his protectors yes, politely, and leave it at that. would then have to say that General So, the clever and the pseudo-clever Smuts was away on his bushveld farm he often avoided. We of the family or out on a long walk. Sometimes learned to know his pet aversions, and contact was unavoidable and he would though we could never fathom the then grow glum and uncommunicative I must here emphasise the point that – never really rude; but as time went my father was quite the most on he would, as often as not, relent disarmingly astute man I have ever and probably end by being most come across. He had a mild, quiet way charming. That was a case of kindness of talking or answering questions that and generosity overcoming distinctly was most soothing and satisfying, and human feelings over which he had one left with the feeling that the little control. interview had been entirely satisfactory. Only afterwards, in the It was noticeable, too, that he was cool of night, when you came to more tolerant of women than of men, analyse the interview, did you realise and more generous and forgiving. how confused your impressions were, Perhaps it was because he considered and how little you had gleaned. In fact, them childlike; or maybe it was you were often not quite aware of because he had a surfeit of seeing men what the general impression had been and liked a change. But I think the real at all. All you could remember was answer was that women were less that he appeared to be talking sound nervous in his presence and more logic and that you had agreed with natural. At all events, women, with the him. exception of the really talkative society type, he suffered without The secret of all this was a mixture of demur, though not always with any disarming friendliness and astuteness. real gladness. I sometimes found myself unable to break through his defences, but here I those asking the question than my must emphasise that out of deference father’s true opinions. This is so, too, to my father we never pressed a point of people who have written about him. or tried to extract views from him. I do not think they always understood That would have been unfair and his mood or his meaning. ungenerous. He exercised his mild, evasive technique by sheer force of personality, whether he was at a public meeting or on a commission. In the War Cabinet people had marvelled, and at San Francisco I saw how good- naturedly he twisted the polyglot medley of delegates of the various nations round his finger. It was a revelation to all privileged to see it. Knowing my father as well as I did, I would treat with considerable reserve statements attributed to him by interviewers. Many of them, from my personal knowledge, were wide of the mark and reflected more the views of 43 : RETURNS HOME After the years overseas it is said that he found the decision to return to IN August my father returned to South South Africa a hard one. In England he Africa. In less than a month General had lived in an atmosphere free of Botha was dead – killed at the age of bitterness and personalities and had fifty-eight no less by the bitter and been able to accomplish prodigies of unequal political struggle than by his solid work. The people loved and illness. admired him and great pressure was “He had no equal as a friend,” said my brought to bear on him to accept a father at his graveside. “We have Cabinet position and remain. There worked together with a closeness was talk of him as a successor to seldom vouchsafed to friends. This Lloyd George and of elevation to the entitles me to call him the greatest, peerage. There was the suggestion of a cleanest, sweetest soul of all my days. Vice-royalty of India or Governorship Great in his lifetime, he was happy in of Palestine. He was much drawn to his death. To his friend is left the bitter tasks, such as the League, which he task of burying him and of defending had not yet completed. He is quoted to his works, which were almost too have remarked that the decision to tear heavy for him to perform.” himself away from Britain was the Henceforth my father was left to face “hardest” of his life. No doubt when the future alone. he said that he had visions of the dreary front of political bitterness the incompleted labours there of half a facing him in the Union. life-time. His home, his family and all the familiar attachments of over fifty “The world was beginning, “ he said, years were there. Also the brilliant “and I had been present at its birth. sunshine and limitless spaces. Nothing There was the League – my thoughts could resist that ingrained call. were in it. To leave Europe in 1919, meant to give up any intimate share in He arrived in South Africa to run up working for these things – the New against a solid phalanx of criticism Order and the League. It meant and vituperation. The position had coming to a land where too often my worsened during his absence and was countrymen hated my ideas and now aggravated by the inevitable despised my larger hopes...” aftermath of the war. While loyal South Africans had been shedding It was an expression of wistfulness their blood on the battlefields of the and no more. Perhaps it was just a world Hertzog and the Nationalists generous comment on the wonderful had not been idle. They had been way the British people had treated permitted almost unlimited latitude for him. There was certainly no factual subversiveness; now they boldly substance in the statement. He did not fastened their teeth in my father’s find it hard to make the decision, for person. The republican urge was he had, in fact, no decision to make. running strongly, and feelings were There was no question of his not high, as my father had predicted, over returning to South Africa to carry on the unsatisfactory mandatory position black and white, by family and of South-West Africa. South Africa, strangers alike. Friends still called him they clamoured, had vainly sacrificed General or Oom Jannie to his face, but her sons and treasure for that territory, behind his back they spoke of him and my father and the Imperialists had affectionately as the “Oubaas”. As the swindled her out of her rightful claim. years passed and feelings mellowed, it It was no good arguing that he had came to mean more than old master, done his best at the Peace Conference; for it was transformed into a distinct would to heaven he had remained in term of endearment and homage. We England with his miserable Imperialist all used it. My father liked it. In one of friends, they cried. my early visits to Chequers during the Second World War I spoke of him to My father returned to South Africa and Mr. Churchill as the “Old Man” – I to his farm Doornkloof. Here there could not very well use the were now many white men, all called unintelligible Afrikaans “Oubaas” nor “baas” or master by the native could I say “Old Master”. Mr. labourers. The time had come for dis- Churchill was clearly annoyed and criminatory designation. In deference upbraided me for lack of filial to his now grey hair, my father was deference; I found it difficult to called the “ou baas” or old master; so explain to him that I was merely the name “Oubaas” gradually crept making a far from disrespectful into conversation and received a translation from the Afrikaans idiom. broader use, coming to be used by Needless to say, I never tried it in that wanted to enforce demands for quarter again! payment upon Germany. Baruch solicited my father’s support. He ***** cabled: “Your voice is one of high The policy of extracting reparations, as authority because your motives are my father had warned, never worked. unquestioned and your character and The more the Allies tried to extort attainments eminent in your time. If payment from Germany the less co- anyone can bring about a realisation of operative she became, and the more the facts it is you ...”. This brought good feelings deteriorated. France was forth a retort from my father which proving specially insistent in exacting must have startled Baruch. her pound of flesh. Germany was being driven into a sullen and resentful Four or five years ago [he declared] mood. Finally, in ill-conceived, we were singing our own songs of exasperation, France occupied the rich victory. Today we are all marching to Ruhr area in January, 1923. This preci- certain and inevitable defeat – victor pitate action startled the world, and the and vanquished alike. The Germans in the occupied territory international chaos is growing. The decided on a damaging go-slow work economic and industrial structure of policy. Europe is cracking in all directions... Military hysteria is sapping their Bernard Baruch, of the United States, depleted financial resources. supported by Woodrow Wilson, Everywhere you see armed men, everywhere gigantic armies, even Unless the Reparation issue is speedily among the small new States which got out of the way, Europe may soon cannot possibly afford them. ... be faced with a situation in which the Famine for large numbers is not far Reparation issue will be swallowed up off... and disappear in far more grave issues... I call for a gallant attempt now to save Europe from the dangers that The British people will no doubt be threaten... The time has come for the invited to share in the sports of the convocation of a great conference of Ruhr... My advice is to have nothing the Powers who are mainly interested to do with the Ruhr... We should make in the Reparation question... The it perfectly clear, in friendly but United States should be there as an unmistakable language, that in certain active member and bear her full circumstances this country (Britain) weight... will have regard to its own interests and take whatever steps necessary to ... It is now universally recognised that that end... There is a serious danger this amount fixed by the Reparations lest a policy of excessive generosity on Commission in May, 1921 our part, or on the part of America, (£6,600,000,000) was too high and may simply enable France still more could not be paid... The amount has to effectively to subsidise and foster be reduced to a reasonable figure... militarism on the Continent. I sympathise with France. But I am States. South Africa alone of all equally moved by profound pity for countries paid off her war debt in full. Europe. Let France in the day of her It is interesting to note, as Mr. victory and greatness not forget her Churchill points out, that while noble historic mission as the great reparations were being dragged out of bearer of liberal tradition in Europe... a reluctant Germany, Britain and the The Liberals in England were United States found it incumbent to delighted. “If we had at the head of assist her with considerable loans. affairs in England today a statesman of Thus while the Allies extracted only the moral and intellectual calibre of about a thousand million pounds from General Smuts the European outlook Germany, they actually put into her an would be transformed.” The amount exceeding that figure by two Conservatives were not so well thousand million pounds. There can be pleased and laid the blame at the feet no more damning evidence against the of Germany for “defaulting even to the policy of reparations. length of ruining her own currency”. France was furious. By 1931 not only had Germany persistently defaulted, but even Britain herself, and the other powers, were falling in their payments to the United 44 : POLITICAL TROUBLES “The new Smuts”, it was remarked, “was more than the head of the NOW that General Botha was gone Government. He was the Government. there was more work than ever for my He was the Cabinet – all the father to do. Botha’s loss was more departments of the state – the party than that of a friend of twenty years’ caucus – the civil service – the Army standing, or of a wise and soothing – Parliament.” Much as the counsellor. It was the loss of an Nationalists fumed and ranted, they important bridge between the had grudgingly to admit that the Government and the conservative personality of this man controlled the masses of Afrikanderdom. destiny of the country. Though he had My father wasted no time with not come back with South-West Africa formalities. At forty-nine he was still in his pocket, he had come back with in the fullest flush of physical vigour. something near it. He had considered He galvanised his ministers, by a little the annexation of the Belgian Congo necessary prodding, into a spate of and Portuguese East Africa with such greater activity, and thereafter ruled seriousness that strongly-worded them with an almost undemocratic protests followed from the two firmness. He found it the best way of governments. The question of incor- getting work out of them. poration of Southern Rhodesia was The effect of his return to the Union also revolving in his mind. There was did not take long to make itself felt, much to be said for it – and, beyond that the National Party is firmly prejudice, little against it. resolved”, he said, “to continue the propaganda of fanning the fires of He tried to counsel his opponents at secession and of driving the European home into more constructive channels races apart from each other, the of reasoning by suggesting that they moderate elements of our population would do better to concentrate on the have no other alternative than to draw present and future than everlastingly closer to one another in order to fight casting back their memories to the that policy. A new appeal must, past. “It is dangerous: it paralyses a therefore, be made to all right-minded people to live in the past.” South Africans, irrespective of party or On the 10th March, 1920, there was a race, to join the new party, which will general election. The results were be strong enough to safeguard the disturbing. The Nationalists headed permanent interests of the Union the poll with forty-four seats. They against the disruptive and destructive had taken eleven rural constituencies policy of the Nationalists.” from my father and were ten thousand votes and three elected members Sir Thomas Smartt and the Unionists, ahead. Under Creswell, Labour staged in a spirit of great generosity; a come-back by winning twenty-one responded to my father’s appeal for seats, and the Unionists secured assistance. It was not to be a case of twenty-five. My father’s only course coalition for the Unionists, but of was to seek Unionist assistance. “Now actually giving up their identity in this merger with the South African Party. to the polls again, early in 1921, after a The Nationalists jeeringly said that my lightning campaign. In the few father had now definitely allowed intervening months there had been a himself to be swallowed up by the marked change for the better, when Rand capitalists. stories of Russian atrocities and the corruption of the Bolshevik regime With Parliament in such a precarious began to filter through. There was a position he had to tread warily, to do a marked swing away from General lot of adjusting of differences and of Hertzog because of his wooing of the pleading, and to forestall dangerous Reds. My father got seventy-nine Opposition manoeuvres. It was a busy seats, Hertzog forty-five and Labour and exciting time. One division was succeeded in winning only nine, even carried by a majority of only two Colonel Creswell losing his seat. The votes. But not once during the long South African Party now had a safe session did he allow a decisive majority of twenty-four in the House. division to materialise. In a world of Three Unionist ministers were brought fluid events he was playing for time. into the Cabinet. Sir Thomas Smartt But at the end of the Session in July, became Minister of Agriculture, a despite all efforts, the position was as position he filled with distinction; menacing as ever. J.W. Jagger accomplished wonders The impasse had to be broken. This with the Railways; and Patrick was achieved by calling the electorate Duncan, one-time chief secretary to Milner, took over the portfolio of the By now it was becoming plain that the Interior. Nationalists were wooing Labour, an act inspired by Tielman Roos, their My father himself held the portfolios leader in the Transvaal. The object of of Defence and Native Affairs, in all the Nationalist efforts was to unseat addition to being Prime Minister. my father. No trouble was too great, In South Africa conditions were daily no device too low. They spared neither growing more difficult and the effort nor decency. Personal political situation more boisterous. vituperation became their accepted The financial position of the order of the day. Labour at the time Government was embarrassing, and seemed to understand this type of talk; the resulting increases in taxation and it was still in its wild and woolly days. retrenchment were answers to Moreover, the agitators of foreign Hertzog’s prayers. In the rural areas countries were abroad, sowing the the Nationalists vehemently poisonous Red doctrines of Trotsky. denounced the Government as Imperialists, while in the towns they In 1919 there were native strikes in sympathised with the public because Johannesburg, Pretoria and of the unbearable burdens of taxation Bloemfontein. A year later, mine and poor handling of the financial natives on the Rand struck for more position: My father was personally pay. My father drove them back blamed for the economic illness of the unceremoniously. In Port Elizabeth a country. crowd gathered before the local gaol to protest against the imprisonment of them. The Israelites, with God on their their Native Labour Union leader. side, charged down on the repre- When the fire hoses were turned on sentatives of the law with assegais, them they retaliated with sticks and shouting “The hour for the black man stones. A stray shot started a panic, is at hand!” At thirty yards the police after which the police opened fire; opened fire. There were close on three there were six European and sixty- hundred native casualties. eight native casualties. The country Though the Nationalists cared little for was shocked. My father had to the loss of native lives, Hertzog shoulder the blame. attacked my father violently for the Soon there was an even more serious incident. There was some defection clash with natives at Bulhoek near from the ranks of the South African Queenstown. The followers of Enoch, Party. Some .said my father had been the high priest of a religious sect, too slow in action, that he should have camped as usual during their festival stepped in earlier. on some Crown Land. When it was While this storm was on, he had to over they refused to move. They leave for an Imperial Conference in refused to leave at the behest of a London in June. It was a rushed visit. posse of police; only God was their He concentrated on the problem of Master. The Government decided on Japan and the Pacific, which he action. Colonel Truter with a strong declared were “the world problems of force of police was sent to disperse the next fifty years. There Europe and preoccupied with the problem of Asia and America meet... opening the Ulster Parliament and wanted advice about the opening “If we look to world peace, we must address. My father assured him that it do nothing to alienate Japan... The . was a wonderful opportunity for some only path of safety for the British quiet elaborating on the Com- Empire is a path which she can walk monwealth theme. Though the official together with America. In a certain speech drafted for the King was a number of years we shall be in a great “blood-thirsty document”, His Majesty crisis in Europe, and not all the time in was so impressed with my father’s a position of independence, but conciliatory ideas that he asked him to involved with France and all the jot down headings for a draft speech. odium which her policy may bring So that evening my father drafted a upon us, and not really strong and speech which he handed to the King. independent to act according to our interests. That is why I am looking Next day Lloyd George invited my more and more in other directions – father to a special Cabinet meeting to that is, to America.” consider the King’s speech. The draft produced there, though nobody knew During this visit, while he was it, was a typed copy of the one my spending a quiet week-end with the father had written out the evening Gilletts at Oxford, where he had before. After discussion, it was passed attended a Rhodes dinner, the King with minor modifications. The results sent for him. His Majesty was were historic, and the tone a pattern Boer.” As an outsider and Boer, he for Britain’s future relations. went, not as a representative of the British Government. “No one else Next Tom Casement called on my knew. Not another member of the father in London with an invitation Cabinet. We kept it an absolute from de Valera and other leaders to secret.” He went as Mr. Smith. At meet them in Ireland. De Valera was Kingstown he slipped unnoticed from obsessed with the problems of the ship and took a taxi to Dublin. The Northern Ireland and of neutrality. Sir driver protested about dangers ahead, Horace Plunkett wrote to my father: but my father said cheerfully “carry “From my pretty full knowledge of my on”. countrymen at home and abroad I can truthfully say that no living statesman In Dublin he joined De Valera, would be more acceptable to the Erskine Childers, Arthur Griffith and majority of the Irish people as a others. He was glad to see Griffith political adviser than yourself.” He there, for he had been a journalist in sent an invitation for an informal Johannesburg before the Boer War and meeting at his home. When told about would be able to confirm what my it, “Lloyd George”, my father said, father said. My father took the line that “was delighted. He said it was the very it was pointless to go on with the thing to follow the King’s speech, and rebellion. It would get them nowhere also, he said, I was the very man to do and England was bound sooner or later the job – no Englishman, an outsider, a to crush it. No one would come to their help. He referred to the King’s “I asked them if they would agree to speech saying it was obvious that an immediate armistice with the England would welcome a settlement. military now in Ireland, and a They wanted a republic, they said. conference with the British England would want facilities for her Government... They agreed before I Navy, my father said. They quite left.” understood that. Before my father left London De He told them the story of the South Valera, and later a mission, came to African Republic and how their vain discuss details. My father put on struggles led almost to their record his ideas for Dominion status annihilation. But later they were saved for Ireland before returning to the and regained their complete turmoil of South Africa. “I pray God independence under the new that you may be wisely guided and Dominion Status. He described the that peace may now be concluded virtues of this new status in glowing before tempers again change and terms. “Make no mistake about it; you perhaps another generation of strife have more privilege, more power, ensues.” more peace, more security in such a If the effort transpired to be a partial sisterhood of equal nations than in a failure to some, my father was not a small, nervous republic having all the party to such a view. “It has not been a time to rely on goodwill, and perhaps failure, and in the end I feel persuaded the assistance, of foreigners. success will come to the movement that has been set going.” The armistice came in the nick of time, for a massacre was narrowly averted. A large number of gunmen had been detailed to shoot down, at an appointed time, all uniformed people and British agents in Dublin. 45 : THE GREAT STRIKE The actual trouble arose over the terms of the September Agreement, which AS my father disembarked at Cape laid down that whites would not be Town the unemployed booed him; the replaced by blacks and that the present Nationalists cried that he had brought ratio of Europeans to natives would be the country to the verge of ruin. He maintained. Economic conditions had been gallivanting in Britain and necessitated a deviation. The Trade neglecting his own country. Unions were confident of their power Deputations of every nature flocked to to break the Chamber of Mines. see him. All came with grievances. All sought assistance. There were ominous On January 1st, 1922, wages on coal rumblings on the goldfields. mines were reduced by five shillings per shift and the miners went on strike. By 1922 the mines were in straits. The mine owners flatly refused to take Miners’ wages stood at a high level, the dispute to arbitration. A few days while high-grade ore was running out later the status quo on the colour bar and working costs were mounting. The was abrogated on the gold mines, and industry had to rectify the position, if twenty thousand miners went on it was to survive. It was also set on strike. All attempts at arbitration were breaking, once and for all, the bluntly refused. The great struggle stranglehold of the Trade Unions. At between the magnates and the miners the same time there were disturbing was on. signs of an impending slump. My father looked upon this as a them for years (and he went on doing domestic affair and refused to so for another twenty years) to take a intervene. Apart from his democratic more intelligent interest in their outlook on the rights of individuals, he political welfare and to do something had other reasons for refusing. It was by way of influencing their workmen, clear to him that a real show-down by propaganda methods, to a more was imperative to break the present amenable attitude of mind. The impasse. Those who attribute his magnates’ answer was always the tardiness in taking control to same. They were not prepared to indecision and dilatoriness, would do meddle in “politics”. So obsessed were well to bear this in mind. Half they in their fear of the body politic measures at this stage would not have that they complacently allowed the succeeded decisively in bringing Trade Mine Workers’ Union and Dr. Albert Unionism to its senses. Hertzog to move in with that same weapon and to undermine the industry The strikers said that my father was a from one end to the other. “paid agent of the Chamber of Mines”. The Chamber itself was hardly more By now the strikers had marshalled complimentary. This was no surprise themselves into commandos and were to my father, who said the Chamber patrolling the mines to ward off was always quick to run to the “scabs” from slinking back to work. Government for help but slow in doing There were frequent clashes with the anything for itself: He had begged police; there were other more disturbing incidents, and feelings were revolutionaries who called themselves mounting. My father advised the the Council of Action. Under these the miners to return to work – on the strike soon assumed grave proportions, terms of the Chamber. This shattered and striker commandos were active all the last hopes of an amicable over the Reef. Their trail was marked settlement. by violence and even murder. Mine officials and some natives were Disturbances were now occurring all clubbed or shot in cold blood. There over the Rand. On February 27th there were acts of pagan brutality. was a clash outside the Boksburg gaol, and three strikers were shot by the Up to this stage my father had let police in Parliament, Tielman Roos matters develop. Now he took swift demanded an instant enquiry. My action. All available police were called father turned down the suggestion up and Active Citizen Force flatly: “I think we shall allow things to commandos were mobilised. Martial develop,” he said. They developed law was proclaimed. swiftly. On 4th March the Chamber During the earlier phases of the strike refused a request from the Industrial my father remained at his office in Federation for a round-table con- Pretoria. I remember these times ference. After that the tempo of events vividly. Threats on his life were became too much for the leaders of the pouring in by every post. Once more Industrial Federation to control, and he was the focal point of all hatred. they made way for a group of five Our home at Irene was turned into a small fortress, with police guards, had left the tracks, only to be deflected bloodhounds and machine-gun posts. back a little farther along by a guard The security authorities were well rail. prepared. A wild peach tree now My father’s business with Parliament grows in a derelict machine-gun pit on was brief in declaring martial law he the bend in the road near the white said, “The Government was very gates at Doornkloof. reluctant to declare martial law, When my father eventually decided to knowing the temper of the people and go down to Parliament in Cape Town, that in the end there would be serious for security reasons he took with him bloodshed ... the choice had been my mother, my sister Louis and taken away from the Government. myself. The other children were safely This morning from practically one side at boarding school. We went in a of the Reef to the other the special train consisting of two coaches commandos attacked, and fighting has and two trucks with our cars. The been going on over a large part of the journey took twenty-seven hours Rand, and is still going on, and there which was a record that stood for have been heavy casualties... All many years. There were many essential services have been brought to unavoidable delays at stations, but a standstill, and from one end of the when we moved we travelled at great Reef to the other the natives are in a speed. At one station, marks on the state of wild turmoil...” ground showed that part of the train Having completed his business he drove them in to Johannesburg where prepared to return to Johannesburg. He they made for headquarters at the Drill took with him his party secretary Hall. Frequently they came under Louis Esselen and Hodgson, his heavy rifle fire. Hodgson drove chauffeur, and his car. At Potchef- furiously. They had rifles with them in stroom Esselen tried to persuade him the car. Louis Esselen returned the fire to leave the train and proceed by car, for all he was worth. In his excitement as it was not certain that the line ahead he said to my father, “Shoot, Oom had not been blown up. My father Jannie, shoot!” But my father just sat would not hear of it. Finally, after impassively. Later on a striker’s bullet Esselen had exhorted him repeatedly punctured the back tyre and a little to “reconsider” the matter, my father, farther on they pulled up to change the who appeared to be listening atten- wheel. Then my father said to Esselen: tively, said suddenly: “Louis, I have “You have kept on telling me to shoot, thought it out carefully and I am now now how many bullets have you left?” absolutely convinced that we need six Oom Louis replied that he had used up more bulls for Rooikop.”18 Louis was all his. “A fine fix we might now be beaten. in,” my father retorted, “if I had also used up all my ammunition.” They left the train near Randfontein, untrucked the Cadillac, and Hodgson It appears that during the shooting one of the occupants ducked low behind 18 His bushveld farm. the bodywork for shelter. Though this seemed to me a wise precaution, my Louis, in himself, who was such an father spoke very scornfully of it. He asset to the Party. was, as has so often been repeated, a Once in the Drill Hall that evening my man without physical fear. I am father listened briefly to the latest uncertain whether it was a vice or a reports and then set briskly about virtue. counter-measures. Everything was in a Louis Esselen was like his uncle state of chaos. The police were thinly Ewald, a great friend of any father’s scattered over the Reef guarding mine and the family. He was a person of shafts and crucial points, but beyond very cheerful disposition and was on this the strikers were in possession of intimate terms with friend and foe practically the whole Rand. alike. Consequently, as a source of Government troops had been timidly contact and listening post, he was and poorly handled and had suffered invaluable. But to say that he was a heavy casualties. By dawn his plans “backroom boy” whose advice swayed had been put into operation. The my father’s judgment would be an crackle of heavy rifle fire was plainly over-statement. My father took advice audible from all directions. Troops from nobody. He always listened everywhere had gone into action. The carefully, but preferred to make his strikers were swiftly driven out of own assessments and decisions. Louis their strongholds along the ridges at Esselen fared no better than others in Brixton and Langlaagte and from the his efforts to sway my father. It was Reef towns of Benoni and Boksburg. Sniping and dirty methods of fighting Government, and it drove Labour took a heavy toll of Government straight into the arms of Hertzog. It troops, but they pushed on briskly. In had also engendered a bitterness of Fordsburg, not far from the heart of feeling that was eventually to drive my the city, the strikers made their last lather’s party from power. stand. Aircraft dropped on the The general feeling was that he had insurgents warning pamphlets and an delayed too long before taking drastic ultimatum. At 11 a.m. artillery opened measures. For myself, I keep an open a bombardment of the strikers’ mind on the matter. As a long-term headquarters. At noon the white flag policy, however, it has paid ample was run up. It was all over. Two of the dividends, for it served to break and extremist leaders, Fischer and Spendiff crush the too-powerful Mine Workers’ committed suicide. Union and cleared the atmosphere, in In the course of a few days my father difficult times, for a fresh start by the had quelled this full-blooded mines. It also taught the miners a revolution. Once he had assumed salutary, if bloody, lesson which they personal command matters sped to a have not yet forgotten, and put a fear swift conclusion. Once more he had of strikes into them. So much so, that revealed his brilliance as a military though the workers of the industry are tactician. In all other respects, preponderantly Nationalist, they made however, the strike was a disaster of no attempt to hold up my father’s war the first magnitude for the effort during the Second World War. I think, therefore, that his handling of jeered. All this expense and bloodshed the strike has been justified by the test could have been avoided, they of time. shouted, had my father chosen it. Hertzog opposed the motion with a But unfortunately time and popularity characteristic speech. He paraded my do not necessarily go together. father’s long sequence of bloody The mines, which were in dire straits events from the 1913 strike to the before the revolt, turned into present one, ending on a high shriek- flourishing concerns within a few ing note: “The Prime Minister’s foot- months of the conclusion of the steps drip with blood! His footsteps go trouble. Some dividends improved by down history in that manner!” In ten over a hundred per cent. years my father had declared martial In lives the cost had been heavy, being law three times, and on each occasion double that of the South-West African Parliament had been asked to campaign. There had been 535 indemnify the Government. European and 152 native casualties. For three full days derision and scorn My father knew he would suffer, for were poured upon him. He sat silent the spilling of blood by a politician is and impassive. always a mortal sin. He returned to After the strike several strikers were Parliament. His first action was to ask executed for murder. The two the House to indemnify the Govern- Hanekom brothers were shot out of ment. The Nationalists howled and hand when caught sniping red-handed. Stassen was hanged for killing two spectator. There was also strong natives. There was a considerable evidence of a Red hand. delay in carrying out Stassen’s My father was fated to be born into a sentence, and as in the case of Jopie turbulent period of history. South Fourie, the Opposition made the best Africa can thank God he was there to of the position. A white man hanged cope with events. Hardly had the for the murder of natives! It outraged shouting over the Johannesburg strike the feeling of the negrophobes. died down when there was fresh A commission of enquiry also serious trouble. This time it was in revealed how deeply implicated the South-West Africa. The Bondelswarts, Nationalist Party had been in the a mixed Hottentot race of the strike. It had, in fact, hoped to turn it Warmbad district, refused to pay a into something akin to a rebellion, certain tax and were openly defiant. with Free State and Western Transvaal After persuasion had failed, they were burghers coming to assist the strikers. briskly bombed into submission by It had also done its best to fan the fires aircraft, a small number being killed in of discontent in order to bring the process. additional hatred to bear on the Serious charges were made against the Government. Hertzog, as before in the authorities concerned, and later the rebellion, steered clear of personal Permanent Mandates Commission of implication, but he can certainly be the League declined to accept the said to have been a very interested Administrator’s version of the incident and demanded a more authoritative account of the operations. Though they accepted this, and a reassurance and explanation by my father, the Bondelswarts affair nevertheless left a bad taste. Britain later adopted a similar punitive bombing technique in the Middle East against Arab rebels and on the North-West Frontiers of India against the wild tribesmen. It proved effective in result and light in casualties. In Parliament, the Bondelswarts affair was fought bitterly all over again. As before the trouble was all laid at my father’s door.

Groote Schuur, official residence of Union Prime Ministers, Cape Town. 46 : GROOTE SCHUUR scripts. Little was saved. Whereupon Baker designed a new Groote Schuur, IN the seventeenth century the Dutch slightly bigger, but conforming gene- East India Company built three rally to the old foundations. Once granaries on the slopes of Devil’s Peak more it was stocked with valuable above Rondebosch, a few miles out- furniture and relics. side Cape Town. One of these was known as de Groote Schuur or Big The style was old Cape Dutch, with Barn. Groote Schuur frequently chang- the characteristic curved gables and ed hands and was rebuilt many times. twisted chimneys. The windows were In 1893 Cecil Rhodes bought it and teak-shuttered and the doors and all considerable areas of surrounding land other woodwork heavy and massive. from a Mrs, A.J. van der Byl of The front of the house looked out upon “Fairfield”, Caledon. terraced lawns and ancient oaks. The view was pleasant but restricted. Baker Rhodes had met Herbert Baker, the did not like it. He had begged Rhodes architect, a year previously and had to build the house a few hundred yards been fascinated by the young man’s farther up the slopes, directly above idealism; so he commissioned him to the impressive hydrangea crescent. For remodel Groote Schuur and to collect sentimental reasons Rhodes wanted it antique furniture. In 1896 the thatched on the site of the former granary. roof caught alight and the house burned down with all its old furniture, As an architectural conception Groote glassware, silver, books and manu- Schuur is beautiful. But as a house to live in it left much to be desired. It more were presented to my father was more a museum than a home. The during. the Second World War to heavily-panelled walls and beamed complete the set. One of these he gave ceilings gave it a dark and gloomy to Libertas, the official residence of atmosphere. It lacked warmth. With its the Prime Ministers in Pretoria, the twelve bedrooms and many other halls second now hangs with the others in and chambers it was a large house. A Groote Schuur. long marble verandah ran along the In his will Rhodes bequeathed Groote back, which was warm and sunny in Schuur to the Prime Ministers of the the afternoons and looked upon the United South Africa, a dream that was mountains. Rhodes’s bedroom, togeth- at the time still eight years distant. er with the others, was on the upper General Botha was the first to occupy floor. His had a lovely view on to the the house. My father took over in 1919 wooded slopes of Table Mountain and when he became Premier, and during Devil’s Peak, but most of the other the parliamentary sessions he used to bedrooms faced forward on Ronde- live there. The rest of the family came bosch, and did not enjoy the enchant- down in relays to keep him company, ment. for we always considered Irene as our Everywhere were massive chests and home. on the verandah stood huge green My mother did not like the place, with vases. The dining-room was adorned its darkness and heavy atmosphere. with two Gobelin tapestries. Two But we as children enjoyed its vast spaces. My father appreciated its said, and in his ignorance Rhodes was privacy and its wonderful views of the simply wasting his money. mountains. He took a small, plain In May, 1923, my father scrambled bedroom for himself looking out on briskly up Skeleton Ravine to the Devil’s Peak. He liked it in summer, summit of Table Mountain, where he but in winter the heavy drip-drip of the unveiled a memorial at Maclear’s rain from the enveloping oaks Beacon to those who fell in the First depressed him. World War. He was in a buoyant In Rhodes’s den, called the Smoking mood, as he always was on the moun- Room, are about three hundred books, tain tops, with the distant panoramas many typed and bound in red leather. stretching away into the hazy hinter- This collection never failed to amuse land and the mists swirling in the crags my father. It appears that Gibbon had below, and the crisp air of the lofty been a great favourite of Rhodes, and spaces fanning the heated brow. Here, so he gave Hatchard of London to a group of hardy climbers squatted instructions to translate all the authori- on the grey rocks around him, he ties used in the Decline and Fall. Half delivered the greatest and most the books consisted of these typed inspired oration of his life. It has been translated volumes which cost Rhodes compared to Lincoln’s oration at £8,000. The works were already Gettysburg. I shall quote this speech available in translations, my father fully. It came to be known as the “Spirit of the Mountains”.

Mountaineer Smuts on Table Mountain, overlooking Cape Town – 1940. Those whose memory we honour subtler music and saw wider visions today lie buried on the battlefields of and were inspired with a loftier spirit. the Great War, where they fell. But Here in life they breathed the great air; this is undoubtedly the place to here in death their memory will fill the commemorate them. upper spaces. And it is fitting that in Nothing could be more fitting and this cathedral of Table Mountain the appropriate than this memorial which lasting memorial of their great the Mountain Club of South Africa sacrifice should be placed. Not down erected to the memory of their there in the glowing and rich plains, members who fell in the Great War. but up here on the bleak and cold And this, the highest point on Table mountain tops. As Browning put it: Mountain, is the place to put the Here, here’s their place, memorial. The sons of the cities are Where meteors shoot, remembered and recorded in the Clouds form, streets and squares of their cities and Lightning’s are loosened, by memorials placed in their churches Stars come and go. and cathedrals. But the mountaineers deserve a loftier pedestal and a more Here for a thousand years their appropriate memorial. To them the memory shall blend with these great true church where they worshipped rock masses and humanise them. The was Table Mountain. Table Mountain men and women of the coming was their cathedral where they heard a centuries, who will in ever-increasing numbers seek health and inspiration on the greatest in human history – will be this great mountain summit, will find remembered, and the memory of the here not only the spirit of Nature, but great sacrifice here recorded will also the spirit of man blending with it, endure as part of it. the spirit of joy in Nature deepened Standing here today as we do on the and intensified by the memory of the summit of Table Mountain, may I add great sacrifice here recorded. a few words in reference to the spirit Geologists tell us that in the abyss of of the place? time Table Mountain was much more The attraction of the mountains for us of a mountain than it is today. Then it points to something very significant was more than 18,000 feet high, of and deep in our natures. May I which barely one-fifth remains today. illustrate the matter by a little story And in another million years no trace which is not quite true, but neither is it may be left of it. Here there is no entirely mythical, aa it finds some abiding city, neither is there an abiding support in the testimony of science. mountain. Human life itself may be but a passing phase of the history of Once upon a time, in the far-off this great globe. But as long as human beginning of things, the ancestors of memory lasts, as long as men and the present human race lived far down women will remember and be in deep blue pools of the ocean, amid interested in the history of their storied the slimy ooze from which they had past, so long the Great War – perhaps themselves sprung. There they lived and developed a long time, and in the depths, but with full lungs expanding sounds of the sea, in the rhythm of the in the invigorating air. The rising from waters, and of the rising and falling the sea was the most glorious advance tides they learnt that sense of music in the forward march of terrestrial life. which is so mysterious a faculty in us, But it was not enough. and which is in a much smaller degree The same process of development and shared by so many marine animals. advance continued on the seashore. In The music in a sea shell pressed to our the course of time the heavy air of the ears carries us back to the very sea levels became too much for the beginnings of life on this planet. It is a ever-forward movement of the forms far-off echo of our most ancient of life. The pressure on the lungs was experience as living things. As our too great, and the forward movement ancestors thrived and developed they seemed to be arrested in a sort of gradually found the pressure of the atmospheric morass, in which a great waters too much for them. They felt heaviness hung, on the spirit of life. At stifled and longed for more freedom to this stage a new great advance was breathe. And so they rose slowly on to registered. The rise to higher levels the beaches, and finally emerged into took place. Some animals developed the air on the seashore. What a blessed wings with which they could fly relief was there, what an unconscious upward and for longer or shorter sense of lightness and exaltation! No periods remain in the high places and longer submerged in the stifling breathe a keener air. And in this rise they shook off their ancient intellectual or moral or spiritual sluggishness and lethargy, and attainments we use the language of the developed a spirit of joy which had altitudes. We speak of men who have hitherto been unknown to them. The risen, of aims and ideals that are lofty, skylark, rising in an ecstasy of song we place the seat of our highest high up into the air, is an illustration of religious ideals in high heaven, and we the new great advance. consign all that is morally base to nethermost hell. Thus the metaphors Other forms of life developed other embedded in language reflect but the means of locomotion and of ascent realities of the progress of terrestrial from the heavy low levels. As the dull, life. deadweight was removed from the lungs a new sense of lightness, of The Mountain is not merely something progress, of joy and gladness dawned externally sublime. It has a great on the ever higher rising forms of life. historic and spiritual meaning for us. It The great relief was not only of a stands for us as the ladder of life. Nay, physical character, but had the most more, it is the great ladder of the soul, far-reaching and spiritual values. And and in a curious way the source of so it has come about that finally in religion. From it came the Law, from man all mortal and spiritual values are it came the Gospel in the Sermon on expressed in terms of altitude. The low the Mount. We may truly say that the expresses degradation, both physical highest religion is the Religion of the and moral. If we wish to express great Mountain. What is that religion? When we reach arising from the fret, worry and the mountain summits we leave behind friction of our daily lives. We must us all the things that weigh heavily feel that we are above it all, that the down below on our body and our soul is essentially free, and in freedom spirit. We leave behind a feeling of realises the joy of living. And when weakness and depression; we feel a the feeling of lassitude and depression new freedom, a great exhilaration, an and the sense of defeat advances upon exaltation of the body no less than of us, we must repel it, and maintain an the spirit. We feel a great joy. The equal and cheerful temper. Religion of the Mountain is in reality We must fill our daily lives with the the religion of joy, of the release of the spirit of joy and delight. We must soul from the things that weigh it carry this spirit into our daily lives and down and fill it with a sense of tasks. We must perform our work not weariness, sorrow and defeat. The grudgingly and as a burden imposed religion of joy realises the freedom of on us, but in a spirit of cheerfulness, the soul, the soul’s kinship to the great goodwill and delight in it. Not only an creative spirit and its dominance over the mountain summits of life, not only all the things of sense. As the body has on the heights of success and achieve- escaped from the over-weight and ment, but down in the deep valleys of depression of the sea, so the soul must drudgery, of anxiety and defeat, we be released from all sense of must cultivate this great spirit of weariness, weakness and depression joyous freedom and uplift of the soul. We must practise the religion of the members of the Mountain Club or not, mountain down in the valleys also. make a habit of ascending her beautiful slopes in their free moments, This may sound a hard doctrine, and it will reap a rich reward not only in may be that only after years of practice bodily health and strength but also in are we able to triumph in spirit over an inner freedom and purity in an the things that weigh and drag us habitual spirit of delight, which will be down. But it is the nature of the soul, the crowning glory of their lives. as of all life, to rise, to overcome, and finally to attain complete freedom and May I express a hope that in the years happiness. And if we consistently to come this memorial will draw practise the religion of the mountain myriads who live down below to we must succeed in the end. To this breathe the purer air and become better great end Nature will co-operate with men and women. Their spirits will join the soul. with those up here, and it will make us all purer and nobler in spirit and better The mountains uphold us and the stars citizens of the country... beckon to us. The mountains of our lovely land will make a constant appeal to us to live the higher life of joy and freedom. Table Mountain, in particular, will preach this great gospel to the myriads of toilers in the valley below. And those who, whether 47 : ECLIPSE Rhodesia’s livelihood was based largely on her mineral wealth, and AT this time the Chartered Company’s more specifically on her gold mines, contract in Southern Rhodesia was which were situated on small ore about to expire and the people were bodies and very much of the nature of given the choice between self- wasting assets. Her farming potential, government and incorporation by the like that of all southern Africa, was Union. Naturally my father wanted distinctly limited and not sufficient to Rhodesia to join us in the south, for sustain a country dependent largely on we had much in common. Little more imports. Geographically she was a than the sandy bed of the Limpopo land-locked country, living at the divided us. In order to facilitate mercy of her neighbours for outlets to discussions he decided to pay the the sea. Strategically she was a colony a visit. By some it is said it was satellite. Against all this were arrayed a political manoeuvre to enhance the only two factors; one was the Government’s voting strength. But in Rhodesian distrust of the Boers and truth the visit was planned because the the Afrikaans language, for the hour for amalgamation seemed Rhodesians were at that time largely propitious. English; the other was Rhodesia’s Rhodesians will perhaps forgive me somewhat inflated idea of her own for saying that their country, though a importance. She did not relish the idea fine one, is a poor one so far as earning capacity is concerned. of coming in merely as a fifth province voted against incorporation. A golden of the Union. opportunity had been lost by both countries. Negotiations went on for some while, the Union offering very generous At the time of the Second World War, terms to both the Chartered Company when my father was once more in and the settlers. Financial authorities power, discussion again took place on in Britain praised the magnanimity of the question of a merger. Times were the Union Government, and Lord very favourable: we had fought for a Milner said that Rhodesia could hardly common cause – Rhodesian soldiers hope for better terms. Considerable with Springboks in the Union Defence pressure by the Imperial Government Force, under the overall command of was brought to bear an Rhodesia to my father. Mutual regard was good accept. The publication of the Smuts- and South African terms attractive. Malcolm agreement caused a great Rhodesia was feeling her financial boom in Chartered Company shares. straits and was looking for a way out. What more natural for her than to look While my father’s visit was in towards her wealthy southern neigh- progress it looked as though the bour. But once again the question of merger might be successful, but after prestige dragged out the negotiations, he left, the Rhodesians had second and in the end my father’s government thoughts and all their old misgivings was ousted from power and the project returned. So, when the plebiscite was died a natural death. Since then, held, a majority of 2,785 of the 15,000 Rhodesia has had to cast covetous the many defects of the Nationalists. eyes on the wealthy Northern Rhode- The Government, which a short while sian Copperbelt mines, and to concoct before had a majority of twenty-four, the unwieldy idea of a federation of could now muster a lead of only Central African States. Britain has had fourteen. misgivings about this ambitious Merriman and many other supporters scheme, pointing out that she fails to of my father were now old and in see what Southern Rhodesia has in indifferent health; they could not be common with native-saturated Nyasa- counted upon to be present in the land. My father’s views were that House during voting. So the majority Rhodesia’s incorporation in the Union was in effect considerably smaller. It was inevitable, but that there was no was clear that the days of the point in endeavouring to hurry the Government were numbered. Tielman matter; it would come in its own good Roos was working to bring Hertzog time. Responsible opinion in Rho- and Creswell together. On 23rd April, desia, I believe, shares these views. 1923, his efforts were rewarded when The Rand strike opened an ever- a coalition between the two parties widening rift between the Government was formally agreed to. It was a black and the Labour Party. Though Labour day for South Africa. It is hard to had little in common with Hertzog, forgive Labour for this unprincipled their deep hatred of the South African act. My father called it an “unholy Party was sufficient to blind them to alliance”. Events now occurred swiftly. His angry and resentful, as well they might majority had by now been reduced to be. But truth to tell he had decided on eight and the first of the post-war this precipitate action because he fear- slumps had reached its peak. A by- ed his Party might decide to struggle election occurred at Wakkerstroom, a on as before. He felt the House could rural constituency in the Eastern not do constructive work with such a Transvaal. The Government had held slender majority. the seat for three successive general The election was notable for the elections and staked all on winning bitterness of the attacks levelled at my again. They persuaded the well-liked father and for the parading of all the A.G. Robertson, Administrator of the old bogeys. Such attacks never failed Transvaal, to stand. It came, therefore, to form rallying points for the as a great shock when the Nationalists Nationalists. On June 17, 1924, it won the seat. proved so once again. Hertzog won Without consulting his Cabinet, or the sixty-three seats against my father’s Party caucus, my father decided to fifty-three, and Labour increased the resign and to test the feeling of the majority by an additional eighteen. country in a general election. A few My father resigned before the House hours after the result of the by-election met. Hertzog became Prime Minister. became known he told the House of He remained Prime Minister for four- his decision. It was a bombshell. The teen years. It was the end of an era – House was startled. His friends were Part One of the Smuts Era.

Doornkloof 48 : DOORNKLOOF MY father moved into what is known as the “political wilderness”. In reality, apart from the affront to his personal feelings, he merely moved out to the quiet of his farm at Irene. Here, in the peacefulness of these congenial sur- roundings, he was at last able to take a well-earned rest after twenty exacting and crowded years of political and public labours. Doornkloof has been through the years a wonderful refuge and inspiration to him. When my father returned home to Irene after his public trips he would sigh contentedly as he crossed the threshold and say: “Isn’t this wonderful!” For he never forgot the irresistible call he first heard at Riebeeck West. The passing of the years had, in fact, merely served to General Smuts. An informal snap taken on his farm Doornkloof, near Pretoria – 1943 strengthen and mature his deep-rooted now almost obliterated near the Irene love for the veld and the wide Golf Club. unspoiled spaces of nature. We were no newcomers to At the time of the National Conven- Doornkloof, for in the 1880’s two tion Britain decided to withdraw her uncles of my another, Petrus and Jan garrison from the Transvaal and Schabort, had farmed here for some evacuate the various cantonments. In years. It was on the advice of Jimmie 1908 my father bought for £300 a Roos that my father bought the farm large wood-and-iron officers’ mess hut from Mr. Erasmus, the price being from the camp at Middelburg and this £6,000. he re-erected on Doornkloof. On the The first manager of the farm was Jan 24th November, 1909, he moved into Krige, my mother’s uncle, and one- this house with his four elder children. time market master of Johannesburg. My youngest sister (named Louis after He took over in 1910. Before the Boer General Botha) and I were subse- War, when my parents lived in Johan- quently born in this old tin shanty, and nesburg, Oom Jan lived with them. we all grew up on the farm. When my father took my mother to Doornkloof is one of the oldest farms Johannesburg, in 1897, the old man in the Transvaal, the first title deeds did not realise that they were married, having been taken out by General and being of pious disposition, was Erasmus in 1844. His modest grave is much worried that they should be living in sin, and seriously counselled friends to speak to them. He remained tall ashes and oaks, planted by my at Doornkloof till Andries Weyers, parents. subsequently to marry my eldest sister In the upper reaches of the farm, above Santa, took over as manager after the the Rietvlei Dam, where Kaalspruit First World War. pierces the hills, rises a conspicuous Doornkloof lies in the rolling conical feature known as Bays Hill, Dolomite country, with its rocky hills which is surmounted by a derelict and tall grass. Here the Hennops blockhouse that had been manned by a River, the headwaters of the Limpopo, Derbyshire Regiment during the Boer which flows round the northern War. Across the valley, immediately boundary of the Union, breaks in front of the house, rises a further picturesquely through the hills and low rocky koppie, the grey of the meanders quietly down a rich loamy dolomite blending attractively with the valley. This, when my parents first green grass and wild kippersol bushes. arrived, was a dense virgin wood of On it are the ruins of another thorns, which had given the name of blockhouse, now almost overgrown by Thorn Valley to the farm. The woods a cluster of tall gums. were cleared to make way for the At the back of the house, and in fact broad strip of land bordering the on all sides, rise rocky ridges, dotted stream. Along its banks was left a here and there with indigenous trees, narrow margin of the original trees, bristling with jagged outcrops of chert and it now has as well a fine facade of which, inter-bedded with the dolomite, form the most grotesque rockery There was nothing on the farm when shapes. Everywhere is the tall, waving we arrived excepting its attractive canopy of highveld grasses. wildness and the prospect of much satisfying development. The only Lying at an altitude of 4,800 feet discordant feature was the twelve Boer above sea level, the atmosphere is bywoner families sprawled along the exhilarating, making one feel it is rivers. White “squatters” and pro- good to be alive. No country on earth gressive farming are quite boasts a finer climate than the incompatible, and so from the first, my Transvaal highveld. Small wonder my father set about their slow father always took a deep breath displacement. It took many years, and whenever he got back from his long signs of their humble habitations are journeys. still evidenced by the tumbled heaps Though the setting and climate were of stone and neglected fruit trees, the idyllic, Doornkloof was not a farming latter now a source of joy to the native proposition, for the profusion of rock piccanins. considerably curtailed cultivation. Realising that, my father was quite The house was erected on the sloping content to do his best, to see the ground overlooking the centre of the development grow under his eyes and valley and a pleasant sweep of the to foot the inevitable annual bill of river. From the front could be seen the deficit. two blockhouse koppies, and in the trees in the distance, smoke from the little village of Irene. In the crinkle of The house, as befitted a good officers’ the river immediately in front of the mess, was a large sprawling one, with house is a cluster of wild yellow peach big mess rooms and numerous smaller trees, remains of a large British camp apartments. These, by suitable here during the 1880 war. At Irene manipulation, we turned into ten quite itself there had been a big concen- comfortable bedrooms. It was a tration camp during the Boer War. A corrugated-iron structure, lined with railway line runs through Irene and wood, perched well off the ground on past the front of the farm. I grew up tall foundations. In summer it was hot, with the noise of the trains clattering and in winter bitterly cold, with water noisily over the bridge. It was a distant freezing in the bedroom jugs, and friendly sound in the night. In the chilly draughts filtering through the daytime there was the cooing of the walls. It was an ideal refuge for stoics. turtle doves in the trees. The original idea was that this house would be temporary and that a Though the house has no architectural permanent home would be built higher beauty it nevertheless has the virtue of up on the hillside one day. Needless to spaciousness and pliability. Three- say the family grew so attached to this quarters of the way round runs a broad old “Groothuis” (big house) that the stoep. This was most useful to us as other idea gradually fell away. The children, and as we grew up parts were Groothuis was like a big meccano set, partitioned off as additional rooms. for it was easy to dismantle the internal walls and alter its shape at on the tin in summer. So, at the cost of will. Besides, my mother loved it and occasional painful stings, we have had would not hear of a change. an inexhaustible supply of honey within our walls. Its size came in useful not only to store the constant stream of books that My father grew very attached to his flowed in, but also to accommodate birds and bees, and he made it, to the the number of visitors inseparable last, a special duty to see that the from a public life. The hillside was hollow stone bird baths had a constant bare at the time, but my parents set supply of water. In some strange way about tree-planting with vigour, and the bees sensed his sympathy, for he later also found time to put in half a was almost immune to their wrath. But million blue gums for mine prop we, as well as many a visitor, were not timber farther afield. With the always so fortunate. establishment of the trees, the wild To my father Doornkloof was not only bees discovered the virtues of the a farm and a home, it was a refuge. house, and numerous swarms made Here, away from the bustle of the hives In the partitions between the cities, and far from clamouring wood and iron. We have, for as long as humanity, he could relax and live a I can remember, harboured about a natural life. Without this quiet dozen permanent swarms and though contrast, existence would have been docile in winter, the inhabitants were quite intolerable. For the life of a apt to grow irritable as the hot sun beat public man in South Africa is more exacting than in the Old World. Here managers, and to these he gave an people feel that they have a distinct almost free hand. They had the right to call on their public men, and pleasure of pouring money into the on the slightest provocation come farm, and my father, disregarding his along to see them, whether it be a personal financial affairs, enjoyed business call or an excuse for a chat. seeing the farms grow. On Doornkloof Some come from distant parts with his interest was centred largely on his greetings and messages of goodwill; pedigree Friesland dairy herd, but in some come with grievances; some the bushveld he took great pride in his merely come to talk; they arrive in an red Afrikander cattle and his wheat endless stream. They leave one no crops, while in the Western Transvaal time for privacy and little for work. his interest was mealies (maize). The For this reason it is absolutely bushveld farms satisfied a botanical essential with us in South Africa to interest in the tree and shrub line and have a secluded refuge, some the other farms afforded an interest in inviolable castle in the wilds. grass types. Nearby, in Irene, was his Doornkloof was that, and my father botanical friend and mentor, Dr. Pole took full advantage of it. Evans, onetime head of the Government Departments of Botany He had always taken an intimate and Horticulture. interest in farming, but time pressed too heavily to permit active farming My father’s farming efforts were not himself. Instead, he employed always free from malicious meddling. A fine Friesland bull, Bloemhof quite a good shot. When my brother Sondag, for which he paid £1,200, had and I grew up, he gladly passed on to its tail cut off by some maniac one us all his firearms and wartime night, and a few months later was souvenirs. fatally poisoned. Since then quite a The dolomite area of Irene is few cows have succumbed to arsenical honeycombed with caves, which we poisoning. With such crude feelings children loved to explore. My father running wild, it was obvious that the never showed any desire to go down owner of the farm himself might not them, though he took an active interest always be clear of hostile attentions, in their associations. He told us of the so in times of crises the State provided last lions that were shot here, about guards. Though my father found being 1850, by General Erasmus. A male guarded most irksome, the authorities and female were encountered at the nevertheless insisted. On some big white stink-wood tree near the dangerous occasions I remember him house, and the male being wounded, going off alone at nightfall wrapped in both made off into the big cave on the his greatcoat to the safety of the hill river below Bays Hill. They never behind the house. In his bedroom reappeared. cupboard was always a loaded revolver, though I doubt whether he When we were children he used to tell would have known how to use it. how, in the days of the ruthless Rifles he understood well and was Matabele Chief Moselekatze, in the 1820s and ‘30s, natives had sought refuge in the caves. Moselekatze heard conspicuous cluster of rocks. Here, in of this and by lighting huge fires in the this picturesque corner of our sunny entrances, asphyxiated his hapless veld, with familiar views all around, victims. We often came upon their we scattered his ashes. He had made skulls and bones in our fossickings. no request about what was to be done with his mortal remains, for the matter But perhaps the biggest service was one of indifference to him; but we Doornkloof rendered my father was all felt that this was a fitting resting- the scope it offered for walking, riding place. and other forms of exercise. He greatly enjoyed walking, and there was no Doornkloof was much like a corner for many miles around he did menagerie, for we always had wild not know from tramping and re- animal pets roaming about. In the days tramping repeatedly. If Table before the First World War we started Mountain afforded him the religion of off with elands, largest of African the lofty spaces, in Doornkloof antelopes, but one after another these assuredly was centred his worship of had accidents and the experiment the veld. It was his favourite farm, and petered out. Later on, we had an ill- I feel convinced that his decision to tempered leopard, Spice, and at buy it in 1908 was one of his most various times two lions. The first, satisfying and beneficial decisions. Sally, was almost fully grown at fourteen months before we returned On the northern shoulder of the low her to the Pretoria Zoo. She was a koppie behind the house - rises a good-natured and playful animal, and Still wilder and more restful was the like the rest, roamed about at will. We bushveld farm. It was warm there and had two stately kudu antelopes, unspoiled, and about the nearest spot numerous frolicsome copper-coloured of untamed Africa to Pretoria. In that impala, many prancing springbuck and peaceful atmosphere one could feel the lesser duiker and steenbuck. A second ties with the primeval past. It had an attempt at establishing elands proved irresistible attraction for my father. He no more successful, but we were more went out there frequently whenever he successful with our blesbuck, and a had a chance. In the old days, before herd of some hundreds of these roam we had a house, we used to camp out happily on the hills. in small bivouac tents, which got waterlogged or blew away during We have also had some large birds as storms. The journeys there along old pets, such as ostriches, various cranes ox-wagon roads in the unreliable and wild geese, canaries and motor-cars of the past were veritable budgerigars. Some of these, like many adventures, and I have vivid memories of the other animals that had grown of pushing through patches of mud or too tame and familiar, lost their fear of stretches of sand. man and grew aggressive. None could be said to have the docile habits of our In 1930 we had an emergency landing ordinary domestic friends. They were strip prepared in the bush and my purely elements to stimulate the eye father used sometimes to fly down and interest. from Pretoria for week-ends. On one occasion his Wapiti only just cleared the trees on its take-off. Here, as elsewhere, he went for long walks, and from these rambles he sometimes returned hot and covered in minute ticks. For the next few days he would carefully pick these tiny pests from his person. On one occasion I came across him walking back home in the road, minus his trousers, which had become too heavily infested with these parasites. 49 : HOME father by his Imperial Staff after the East African campaign of the First THE attractions of the old shanty at World War. On an ebony base stands Irene lie in its associations, rather than an arch of elephant tusks from which appearance. The approach to the house are suspended two shell-cases of the along the narrow dirt road is winding 4.1-inch guns of the Königsberg. On and informal and the house is the left and right are the doors to the obscured by a haphazard jumble of sitting- and dining-rooms. Ahead trees. There is no garden, the rectangle stretches a long dark passage, lined all of Kikuyu grass being merely enclosed the way with high shelves of books. At by indigenous white stinkwood trees, the end of this passage is a big mess where formerly there had been a room with high beamed roof with hedge. The first impression of the glass ceiling fittings to admit more building is of a tall red iron roof and light. For this was once the billiards white wooden palings enclosing a room. My father made it his study. broad verandah. The red granolithic Another door going off to the right at steps have an impression of age and the end of the passage is my father’s rough usage. As a boy I did much bedroom. hammering on them to test their hardness. The rest of the house does not really warrant description except that my Inside, in the hall which is dark father’s side was separate. There is because the stoep shuts out light, one one thing common throughout the sees first the gong-stand given to my house, however, and that is that all members of the family in their youth, rooms everywhere are crammed with and of grandchildren. Crude little overflowing bookshelves. sketches made by various grandchildren in their earlier years of My father’s bedroom was as plain and infancy, were thumb-tacked on to the unpretentious as any in the house. It walls. My father was a homely man was in fact little better than a broad with a keen family sense, and these passage, eleven feet wide and fifteen intimate little knick-knacks gave him feet long. A door and window faced on great pleasure, and at times, I think, to a fly-screened stoep. Beyond that solace. one looked abruptly on to walls. Until 1928 he used to sleep regularly on a The room was extremely tidy. My hard iron bed on this stoep, but father was a careful and fastidious thereafter he sought refuge from the person. He would neatly fold his cold in his room and later surrendered clothes before putting them away and himself to the luxury of a spring there was no disorder. mattress. The furniture was plain, In this room he kept a tin of biscuits consisting of a three-quarter bed, and a tin of peppermints. These he washstand, wardrobe, cupboard and used sparingly himself on occasion, chairs. Clothing overflowed into a but really they were there as a lure for curtained bracket screwed on the his grandchildren. These small folk walls. There are numerous photo- were to be found there with their Oupa graphs on the walls, mostly of at all times, both parties obviously enjoying the exchange of credentials. and their Oupa on such occasions Though their parents often felt they looked guilty as he handed them back were proving a nuisance, their to their mothers. grandfather obviously felt differently, There can be no doubt that my father no matter how unorthodox their enter- derived great joy from the presence of tainment. As he lay on his bed reading little children. They seemed to denote they would pile their toys and his to him the wild, unspoiled, basic boots on top of him, or clamber all human animal from which we have over him and sit on his tummy. His drifted an our devious ways in life, beard never failed to intrigue them and often without any distinct credit to our he had to answer endless questions. simple origins. They seemed to rest his We have sometimes arrived on the mind and at the same time to restore scene to find them shining his torch his faith in human nature. They were a into his mouth, the fond patient good- wonderful tonic. The younger they naturedly submitting to their were the more fuss he made of them. attentions. And at the same time they were also a When we remonstrated, he assured us protection to him when very talkative that they were all having a good time. visitors arrived, far by drawing They often had equally good times attention to the children he usually when out on walks along the farm succeeded in diverting the conversa- roads, for the youngsters usually came tion. back looking like dishevelled tramps

Below the house, near the lands, was a dam, and here we all used to swim and canoe in summer. As toddlers the water was too deep for us and my father used to carry us in his arms. He was a strong swimmer, and as in walking, he covered long distances and loved the exercise, swimming quietly with a breaststroke action. Physical exercise in one form or another formed quite a fetish in his life. After the Boer War he kept in trim by doing physical culture exer- cises under the eyes of Arthur Collard, preferring the brisk Swedish methods to the other more ponderous muscle- building ones. Another secret of his amazing physical fitness was his perfection of the idea of relaxation.

When he really sat in comfort, he Pausing to talk to friends on the way up Table Mountain – 1938. always put his feet up an a stool, and even an long journeys in aircraft he only in swiftly running waters. did this where possible. Needless to remark the question of bathing costumes seldom obtruded. On The chill of water never worried him one occasion while out walking with a and when at the Cape he bathed in the party which included a young woman cold Atlantic at Hout Bay and Wit- he suggested they all take .1 dip in an sands quite as readily as in the warm attractive stream, saying “take my waters of the Indian Ocean at Melkbos costume”. This happened to be one of Strand or Christian Beach. After one the cut-away male type and when the of his climbs of Table mountain in young lady protested he said, “Goad 1933 he came down via Constantia heavens, child. A woman has nothing Nek and before cooling down took a to be ashamed of in exposing her plunge in the frigid waters of Hout bosom!” Convention, however, Bay. The result was a bad chill and an thought otherwise! He undressed next admonition from Dr. Moffat. to his car on public beaches with While walking and climbing he bathed complete nonchalance. where he wished, in the clear pools in the mountains or in the tropical stream My father’s habit of swimming far out of Central Africa. Crocodiles he to sea was always a matter of concern avoided by venturing only into exten- to us, for both sharks and angry sive shallows, and bilharzia, a backwashes lurked beyond the microbic schistosoma hazard of all breakers. During the war his guards African rivers, he outwitted by bathing took the precaution of having a life- saving apparatus handy in the back of return my father, not even noticing the the car. The fact that my father had change, criticised the darkness of the been swept out to sea at Hermanus by wall paint, though he had complained the powerful backwash as a youth, and about the lights when he got back from had succeeded in getting back only by the Peace Conference in 1919. dint of keeping cool and casting To our intense joy he also brought a himself upon the incoming waves, had radio back with him in 1923, but it not deterred him. At the treacherous crackled so and reception in those days beach at Witsands he expected us, too, was so poor that we had to turn it off as children to swim in the powerful whenever he was about as the noise undertow. It was a streak of abandon irritated him. With the advent later of in him, rather than the reckless. It was better sets, and as the standard of news an imp which appeared whenever he services improved, he became inclined drove an automobile as well. But here, to listen to this portion of the too, by skill and cool judgment, his programmes. During the hectic years luck held. of the rise of Nazism, he liked to listen Up to 1923 we had worked on the to the radio news services, and during candle and paraffin principle as far as the war itself he insisted on hearing his lighting went, but as a surprise, when radio news. No matter how often he he was away in England, my mother had already read the same reports in had had a small electric plant installed. the press, he always listened in, not She was disappointed when upon his only to the local but also to the Daventry service from England. The 7 wireless news?” whereupon Her a.m. service he listened to while Majesty obligingly took us off to her shaving in his bedroom, but the sitting-room. Mr. Churchill too, I midday service and the 7 p.m. one noticed, always had his small portable corresponded with meal times, and all brought in to the dinner table at present then had to sit hushed and Chequers. patient while this item dragged on. As parents, the two in our family left Frequently we said to him, “But, little to be desired, though at times my Pappa, you have already heard all this father was away so frequently and so before!” To which he would always long that he became almost a stranger retort, “Yes, but you never know. You to us. My mother did not usually might just pick up something new!” At accompany him on his travels, but Irene, with only the family present, stayed at home to look after her large these hushed meals were not so bad, family, which she did good-naturedly, but at Groote Schuur, no matter what giving us great freedom. She saw to guests were being entertained, the comforts of the house and left the everybody would be hushed and the public duties to my father. same ritual gone through. I remember him glancing at his watch and saying The dual system in the Union of to the Queen at Windsor Castle during having our Parliamentary seat in Cape the war after a late tea, “Would it be Town and Administrative capital in possible, Mam, for us to listen to the Pretoria is a relic of the days of the National Convention, and a compromise to satisfy the prestige of prevailed upon to let nature take its the two provinces, but it is course. The rectangular row of wild troublesome in every other respect. Transvaal white stinkwoods marks the For it means that up-country position of an erstwhile hawthorn parliamentarians, like ourselves, had to hedge and had their origins in bird have two homes, one in the Cape droppings. In about 1920, the young during the four months annual sessions trees started coming up through the of Parliament, and one in the Trans- hedge and my father decided to take vaal for the rest of the year. With the hawthorns away to make room for families at school, the move down to them. And the flower-beds slowly the Cape became quite impossible for made room for lawns. us, and we had to evolve some form of So gradually the colour disappeared compromise. We felt it our duty for from the front of the house, but in its somebody always to be at the Cape place grew up a wilderness with a with my father. character of its own. But the view There is no garden in front of the from the front verandah was house at Doornkloof now. My mother sufficiently pleasant, especially in was a keen gardener when we first summer, to need no garnishings. And came to live here, but my father in the evenings the gorgeous Transvaal preferred his wild, indigenous plants sunsets painted enchanting pictures in and scorned the exotic varieties of the western skies. But now the trees gardens. So gradually my mother was have hemmed in the garden so effectively that it is difficult to see driving himself. In the open he drove even the sunsets. with skill, but he never quite mastered traffic, robots or stop streets. In the old days my father used to go to Consequently his driving was at times his office by train, walking the mile a bit nerve-racking. My wife tells of a and a half to the station. There was no trip round the precipitous Marine bridge till the First World War (when Drive of the Cape with the Montagu my mother had one built as a surprise) Normans. Lord Norman had been and when the river came down in spate warned about my father’s driving and after heavy thunderstorms, we were insisted that my wife should sit in sometimes cut off for a while. When front as a restraining influence. This the floods were not too high, we were made matters worse because my father still able to scramble across the trunks now not only found it necessary to of two huge fallen willows. On the point things out with his hands, but way to the station nay father would faced backwards when talking. The escort his elder children to the local result was a winding and uncertain school in the village. course – with a drop of a thousand In times of crises, he took, however, to feet, sheer, at the side. The Normans his car, and after the First World War were too petrified to appreciate the he went regularly to office by this superb scenery and only prayed for the means. He learned to drive an old end of the drive. Even my wife on Buick in 1911 and thereafter he drove many cars, always preferring to do the occasion felt moved to draw my of the Game Reserve. When he got to father’s attention to his driving. the hotel at Louis Trichardt he chanced to look at the hands of the young man Much as my father had to commend who had been driving. These were his driving, he had little to boast of as white and unsoiled. The contrast spoke a mechanic. Beyond being able to for itself. He just gave an eloquent change a wheel, he was quite helpless grunt! with the machine. He was really not good with his hands at all. Their In the earlier days, in Johannesburg slender shape and long tapering and Pretoria, he had been a keen fingers truthfully indicated the artist. cyclist and on week-ends used to ride They were expressive rather than out for miles into the countryside. I strong. Hence, as a handyman about have never seen him on a bicycle, but the house, he left much to be desired. I my mother remembers quite clearly don’t think I ever saw him using a the Raleigh he bought for £31 which screwdriver, and I never saw him gave him so much fun. From his lone using a hammer. cycling jaunts he used to return badly sunburnt and exhausted, but having But I will say this for his motoring enjoyed his outing. efforts, that when stuck in sand or mud, he pushed and pulled with the As a father of a large family he was best of us, in preference to sitting absolutely ideal, for he had the behind the wheel. He once spent all unbounded physical energy to join in day pushing his car through the mud our vigorous games, and the only complaints were from the smaller ones who said that he was too rough. The big house on Doornkloof was well suited to these vigorous indoor games at night, and after supper there would be absolute pandemonium, with everybody rushing about wildly, followed by my father with a stick. The idea was not to be caught with your feet on the ground, or a painful smack from the stick would result. My mother says he played this self conceived game with her young brothers and sisters at Stellenbosch, he played it with us, his children, and later he played it with his numerous grandchildren. Even my mother was not always proof against the penalties of the game. 50 : LIBRARY There is a good Africana collection of about 400 volumes. MY father’s library of books showed his range of interests. His collection In this same passage, in gaps, and was not large, numbering a mere above the level of the bookshelves, 6,000, but it can truthfully be said that hang photographs of J.H. Brand, he had read them all and knew their Kruger, Emily Hobhouse, de la Rey contents, as the marginal notes in and Botha leaving the Houses of many will show. Some of the books Parliament just before the Rebellion, are valuable, many are authors’ the First Union Cabinet and the 1919- inscribed copies, and some are of 20 Cabinet. considerable age. Also in this passage, at the lower end, In the passage leading up to the Study are many hundreds of books on fiction are his books on travel, native study, which my mother considered her Africana and wars. There are about 70 preserve. They range from the Walter volumes of the wars in Africa, chiefly Scott classics to present-day light the World Wars. On the World Wars Afrikaans reading. in Europe there are 250 volumes. The Study houses the main collection. There are also in these shelves Here in this 30-by-20-foot room there numerous books on South African are seven-layer shelves round the history, South African reminiscences, entire perimeter except for the 28 feet native folk-lore, anthropology and taken up by doors and desks. On the ethnology. two end walls used to hang the four original cartoons by Ward of German flags of South-West and of Punch. East Africa. These are now stored The furniture consists of two large elsewhere for safety. There used also desks, a safe, two settees, chairs, club- to be numerous Zulu shields and easies and my father’s leg rest. Legal clusters of assegais, East African bows books form the largest and best part of and arrows, guns and other articles the collection, filling one complete which I removed elsewhere some wall. Of these there are forty large years ago. Now there remain only the very old Law books in English, French bronze emblem of a German train at and Dutch, as well as 125 old volumes Keetmanshoop, sawfish teeth,. my in various languages. There is a large father’s Boer War sjambok, cartoons collection of Gluck’s German and pictures. Over the door is a large Pandecten and other German books: signed photo of the delegates of the there is the French Causes Célèbres National Convention, and just and Codes Fraçais and other French alongside a large autographed one of works: there are considerable numbers the Imperial War Cabinet of the First of English Law books, including World War. There are smaller photos Maritime Law; there are the Grotius af Botha, Merriman, Schalk Burger, Society books and many others in Campbell-Bannerman, J.H. Hofmeyr Dutch. and my father at forty. There are also About 300 of these references are still used in present-day legal practice. Elsewhere there is an old Dutch Bible Bohr, Rutherford, Lodge, Faraday, du from Antwerp dating back to 1534, but Toit and numerous others. These more otherwise all the books are modern. or less fill one wall. They include works on Relativity and The rest of the shelves are crammed Evolution; the Quantum theory, with books of every conceivable Physics and Chemistry; the atom, character, as well as numerous Biology and Genetics; Cytology, pamphlets, publications by various Biochemistry, Heredity, Geology, societies and government publications. Darwinism and Evolution; The books cover such topics as history Anthropology and Palaeontology; (of many countries), travel, poetry, Metallurgy; The Nature Of Matter; education, sociology, ethics, Agriculture and Ecology; Psychology international affairs, wars, eugenics, and Ethics and many others of philosophy, government, military scientific and philosophical interest. operations, Commonwealth affairs, The authors rover the famous League of Nations, political problems, scientists of our time: Einstein, exploration, Poor White problems, Eddington, leans, Tutin, Aston,, farming, psychology, finance, Gregory, Blaikie, Huxley, Lindemann, numerous biographies and Millikan, Younge, Russell, Perry, autobiographies, constitutional Poulton, Bews, Keith, Infeld, Wagner, histories, mining, religion, German Kayser, Passarge, Soddy, Milne, books on Foreign Policy, Bragg, Haldane, Hogben, Max Planck, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, versions of the Bible, Shakespeare’s plays, books are rare and precious. Some poetry, Keats, Goethe and the Brontës, represent the only copies in this Walt Whitman, and much else besides. country. By and large, therefore, it is probably the best private collection in In the north stoep annexe, just outside the Union. the Study, are his 300 botany books containing such works as Dr. Then there is an additional southern Marloth’s complete series of the Flora annexe on the other side of the study Capensis; Flowering Plants, Natal containing mostly books on foreign Plants, Orchids of the Cape; books by and international affairs, education and Engler on African botany; Portuguese such-like, as well as books on the First botany books, general botany, World War. Californian and Pacific plants, It was throughout a modest collection, volumes on the Stapeliat, Euphorbiae neatly stored and all arranged and and Lithops, Flora Groccae, Das stacked by my father personally. The Kaapland, British botany, Andrew’s family seldom interfered with his Heaths, Ferns of Great Britain and books, except periodically to dust Ireland, Forest Flora of the Cape, them, where after he would complain American Wild Flowers; books on that they had been mixed up. palxo-botany by Seward and Marie Stopes, books by Pole Evans and The rest of the books in the house Hutchinson; and various additional belonged to my mother and books and journals. Some of the older overflowed to every room. They were mostly books on fiction and the listened to while shaving, and classics, and to suit taste, even depending on the time of arrival of the detective thrillers were included. morning paper, he might then already he almost through it. Breakfast was at ***** 8, my father standing up and walking After dinner it was the habit of my about during much of this meal. Yet it father to retire to his study to read or was a contented impatience, and after work, and here no one dared disturb a boiling cup of tea he would go him. At 9.30 he would return to the outside into the sunshine to finish the dining-room, which we used as a paper. living room, and here he would join in family chatter while drinking his This completed, he would prepare to nightcap cup of scalding, weak tea. At leave for his office in Pretoria. At ten, he would go to bed where he Groote Schuur in Cape Town his ritual would tune in first of all to the late was the same. There was never any radio news, and after that he would fuss or bother or ill-humour. My father read till about eleven, when he would invariably started off the day fresh and turn out the light and drop off to sleep. cheerful. The worries with which he He was a very light sleeper, but had gone to bed, he had long since usually he slept soundly till about 4 solved during the night. Once having a.m., when having slept his fill he come to a decision he never worried. would switch on his light and read till His mind was absolutely decisive. daybreak. The 7 a.m. news he usually There were always grandchildren In 1923 the Earl of Athlone brought around him while he was eating, and Lord and Lady Milner out to the farm for these he would prepare a special for lunch. Lady Milner mentions this plate of bread and honey cut into small visit in a publication of her diaries in squares. They were usually rather 1950. She refers to my mother as a noisy and when the news service came “plump Boer woman”, though at the on we had to shoo them away. time my mother weighed only 107 pounds. She says we seemed awed by Work he did in prodigious quantities. the presence of a great man (Milner). He was never idle like normal person. Doornkloof has seen many great men, He never took time off just to sit and and we are not easily awed. And the ponder. When he wanted to do a little “scrub cattle” she saw were prize heavy thinking, he often went for a studbook Frieslands. However, my long walk and did both together. He father was very pleased to see Milner was always either reading, writing or and to show him hospitality. It was an talking. Ordinary novels he virtually informal, enjoyable occasion. never found time to read. We once, for the fun of it, prevailed upon him to read a detective story by Dorothy L. Sayers and he grew so engrossed in the plot that he did not turn out the light till he got to the end. Thereafter he never read another. 51 : HOLISM AND EVOLUTION For many years he had been reading, studying and arranging his ideas on a IN the quiet of this rambling home my book on philosophy he intended father now found himself in the writing. He therefore now sat down, summer of 1924. The electorate had and with little additional preparation, decided to put him on the shelf. set about writing feverishly. He had George Hay, a Labour candidate, had read all the philosophers and his ideas ousted him from his seat in Pretoria were so clear that he had seldom to West. As Leader of the Opposition it refer to them again. In laborious was essential that my father should longhand, he wrote on and on. It was have a seat. Numerous successful all done so unobtrusively and with so South African Party candidates little fuss and bother that we barely immediately offered him their seats. realised he had tackled his great work. He chose to accept Gert Wessels’s one There were no stenographers about at Standerton. and no experts in consultation. In eight Now for the first time he was free to months the task was completed. do as he wished. At home he did not Holism and Evolution was in go round moping like a defeated man. manuscript form. To his secretary, Jan He seemed buoyant, and almost glad Dommisse, fell the difficult task of to be out. There was not going to be an deciphering the handwriting and idle moment, for he had already long typing it all out. Only at this stage did ago planned what he would do one day when he had leisure. we assess the extent of the activity that Holism will stand out as a message of was afoot. perfection, building up and leading to still greater perfection, of fragments In many respects Holism is a leading to wholes which are superior remarkable book, quite apart from the to the mere sum total of their con- fact that it is a link between the stituent parts. It is a doctrine of physical. and metaphysical. It is optimism and elevation. remarkable for the speed in which it was written. It is remarkable because Yet these great ideas my father had my father wrote it as a relaxation when carried modestly in his head all these he must have been suffering years. He never spoke of them in the considerable mental depression after family, and even after the book had his rough political drubbing. Nor was been published, he could seldom be he able to devote his time exclusively drawn into discussion. It was part of to writing, for at the same time he was his life-long reticence. He often spoke busy with the domestic affairs of his more openly on the public platform Party, which was threatening to than in the small private circle. crumble. Yet under all these varied Holism ran into three editions in circumstances he set out his ideas in a England and a special edition was also clarity of prose that is arresting and printed in America. The Germans were almost poetic in parts. much interested in the work, and a It is not a book for light or casual German edition is also available. reading. On the fly-leaf to the Second Edition, personalities than in their mere words. on which he had done extensive It was in studying their personalities corrections, he scribbled: that he came upon the conception of the whole. When he returned to South “To see a world in a grain of Africa from Cambridge just before the sand, Jameson Raid, he found the country And a heaven in a wild flower torn by racial strife. After the Raid Hold infinity in the palm of the came years of friction which hand culminated in the Boer War. The Boer And eternity in an hour:” War had left him his first big problem Holism, like the theory of the build-up in holism. “We were left fragments out of wholes it propounds, is itself a child of which we were to make a whole, of complex creation. It was as a youth and it was the problem of South when he was fond of poetry that the African statesmen to follow up the germ of holistic concept occurred to ideal in the solution of our political him, for to him poetry brought the problems. We did so and I think not fundamentals of reality. In studying without some success. Gradually we the works of Goethe and Walt have seen emerging out of these Whitman, he said in a lecture at the discordant elements the lineaments of Witwatersrand University on 21st a new South Africa. We have not yet September, 1927, it seemed to him the whole, we have not yet a really that there was something greater in united South Africa, we have not yet them than in their works and in their attained to the unity which was an simply tried to hammer out some rule ideal. There is still too much of the old of thought to carry my action along. division and separation in our national In our day it is all the more necessary elements, but still the effort has been for us to hammer out a new point of made, and today you see in South view. There is no doubt that we are Africa the biggest problem facing us living in a most extraordinary era, and being solved along holistic lines.” I think the words of the poet apply In the vast complexity of the world here: around him my father was groping for “The old world is dead, some solution – some key to the and the new unready to be amazing pattern of events around him. born!” As a scientist he was disinclined to the belief that the world was a mere We have left behind us a great era in haphazard jumble of disconnected the history of the world. We do not see factors. There must be guiding laws in it yet, and we are in the transition nature and science, if only one could period between the two. It is one of the find them. most interesting and one of the most difficult periods for any generation to We all feel we have to be guided by pass through: some light through the maze of life. What I have done in philosophy is What we want is some larger more from a general standpoint, synthesis, some concepts that will without any technical thought. I have bring together the vast details with which we have to deal. There has been not a system of philosophy. I do not an immense movement forward in believe very much in systems. They thought, science, philosophy and all are sometimes helpful, but it is most forms of human development. We are difficult, in matters so complex as life now running the risk of getting lost, and thought, to take any one concept becoming submerged in the details, that might embrace adequately the and it is all important for us to get whole. Holism – the theory of the some larger view of all this vast mass. whole – tries to emphasise one aspect We want what Professor Hoernle of thought that has been hitherto a would call after Plato, the “synoptic neglected factor. I am trying to vision” over all these details. hammer out this neglected factor, which is, to my mind, all important in If we could have that vision much of getting the “synoptic vision”! our present-day perplexities would disappear. I have no “synoptic vision”. After the First World War there was, I have only an idea which occurred to even more than in the pre-war years of me and which may, to some small intense, morbid nationalism, the same extent, help to guide ns through the problem in holism. “I think the League surrounding difficulties. of Nations is a genuine effort in Holism is an attempt at synthesis, an reconstructing the broken front of attempt at bringing together many European civilisation, of once more currents of thought and development reforming unity out of division and such as we have seen in our day. It is discord. The American word ‘league’ was hardly the correct one. I prefer the was the idea of creative evolution. It French word ‘society’. The phrase meant a fundamental change in our ‘Society of Nations’ seems to me to outlook. We had all been brought up bring out the points essential to the to look upon the world as something unity of spirit which that ‘Society of ready-made and completed and Nations’ seeks to produce. moving forward as a fixed, rigid entity. Science had shattered that idea “In the years to come when people and shown that the world was far from look back on the changes in our rigid. It was a growing, creative human attitude, they will probably say universe, a world in a state of flux the greatest change has been wrought, with increases in all directions. not by these events, but by science. Science has proved the greatest The realisation of that concept would constructive force in the world, but it mean a complete metamorphosis in had also proved the greatest our outlook in life. That change was destructive agent. Our world of ideas embracing the world in all its many had been practically shattered by the details. There was nothing constant changes in science. What was needed about its components. The Universe was the elaboration of ideas to help the changed and grew and developed, just world to get back once more to a sane like a human being. You realised that and wise road.” the world at bottom was not substance but flexible changing patterns. He thought the most notable change science had made in the world of ideas Time and space had changed their personality. At the same time the parts character and become flexible. Only had influenced the whole in him by ratios still appeared to be constant. mutual service and adaptation. Matter had gone by transformation Switching the argument from man to into energy. Only patterns and dead things the same principle must structures remained. apply. The idea that matter was “If you take patterns as the ultimate determined by its elements must be structure of the world, if it is abandoned. arrangements and not stuff that make The effect of this change in point of up the world, the new concept leads view is far reaching. In philosophy it you to the concept of wholes. Wholes is difficult to estimate values: the have no stuff; they are arrangements. beauty, the truth, the goodness of Science has come round to the view things. They seem to be additional to that the world consists of patterns, and the substance of things. On the other I construe that to be that the world hand, if you adopt the idea of patterns, consists of wholes.” you get away from substance and get The wholes and parts formed and patterns in which truth, goodness, shaped each other. Yet the whole was beauty and value become bound up in greater than the sum of its parts. the nature of things. To be a whole is Human personality was the highest to be real... whole. A man shaped all his thoughts, all his actions by the whole in him, his The world consists of a rising series of additional building and creation was wholes. You start with matter, which continuing. is the simplest of wholes. You then Wholes are the very basis of reality. rise to plants and animals, to mind, to Matter is more than it appears, for in it human beings, to personality and the there is a pattern, a whole which is its spiritual world. This progression of very inmost nature. “That explains wholes, rising tier upon tier, makes up how it is possible for matter to the structure of the universe. blossom into such forms as mind and This reasoning must effect the concept life.” of causality. The present theory was He spoke also of the peace of mind his that there was equality between cause theory produced: and effect. If that were so the world would now be just as simple as in the We find, instead of the hostility which beginning. Holism postulated that is felt in life, that this is a friendly slightly more was produced in the universe. We are all inter-related. The effect than was contained in the one helps the other. It is an idea that antecedent causes. If this were so, it gives strength and peace and is bound would necessitate a re-writing of the to give a more wholesome view of life laws of logic. The universe of today and nature than we have had so far. was bigger than that of long ago. By Wholeness is the key to thought, and an infinity of increments this when we take that view we shall be able to read much more of the riddle of way to ultimate solutions. Something the universe. holistic is at the heart of things and in the nature of this universe, which is In July, 1948, my father replied to not a mere chance or random Professor Adolf Meyer-Abich, the assemblement of items. The detailed well-known German philosopher of things derive most of their meaning, Hamburg, who had written to him at significance and functioning from the length about Holism: whole of which they are but the parts. At the present moment I can do They are not mere parts but really nothing about Holism. My political members of wholes. Both as a responsibilities at my age [78] are so metaphysical and as a scientific heavy that I cannot find time for the concept the whole is basic to an under- revision of the old book, nor the standing of the world. And in writing of the new book which has sociology and religion this is more been simmering in my mind for some clearly the case. Relativity is only a years. When I look at the world unrest halfway house to this more today and the confusion which fundamental concept. prevails in science, in philosophy, in This being my conviction, you will religion and in our whole human realise how much importance I attach outlook and set-up, I feel more and to Holism, and how anxious I am to more that in the concept of Holism we give the concept a further push have the key to many a door, and the forward. But at present I can do nothing about it... My political for the simple reason that we often position in South Africa, and to a less find it hard to analyse our own beliefs. extent in the world, is such that I To fathom my father’s ideas on cannot say goodbye to that aspect of religion and a Superior Being has my work. But I still hope against hope always been a problem. If one were to to return to Holism at the end... judge by the extent he read the Bible, one might assume that he was of a Please give no further thought to a pious disposition, in the lay sense of degree for me from the Hamburg the word. But that would be an over- University. I thank you for the kind simplification, for he read the Bible as thought, but I have already so many a gem of literature and wisdom and as honours, and do not wish for more at a saga of family life of distant days. my time of life. I feel deeply concerned about the Whether he believed in God depends world position, and not least about on the implications of the question. He Germany, which is at the heart of the certainly did not believe in a European, and indeed the human supernatural being in the form of a problems facing us today. No more man, or the narrow definition of the critical situation has faced the world in Jehovah of the Israelites. But he did all history. believe in some deity, some overall holistic personality, some supreme law Questions on the private religious that controls the destiny of all in the feelings of people are always difficult, realms of space. In essence this is a broader interpretation than that of the Greatest Personality and. he pondered Old Testament, but is it in reality, not over the genius of Christ continually. just the same idea grown more As a person who prized the intellectual comprehensive? qualities of man well above his more The New Testament he preferred to bovine attributes, it goes without read in Greek, again as a classic of saying that my father placed great language and a study of people. That store on education. It was this factor, Christ had actually lived he had no he said, which distinguished man, the doubt, but he thought of him as a very pinnacle product of evolution, from remarkably gifted young man, rather the beasts of the fields. Education than as the Immaculate Son of God. should have as broad a base as Few people have studied the New possible, with considerable leavenings Testament more meticulously, and of the humanities, arts and classics. It hence few, he said, realise just how was the function of education to teach short the active phase of Christ’s people how to think, not what to think. career was. It must be a difficult study, It should not consist of a parrot-like for it took him years to unravel the cramming of facts and figures. Rather details to his satisfaction. He was should it emphasise the appreciation of always thinking of the problem of these facts and figures. And it should Personality and of Christ as the include a training on how to seek Greatest Personality. The world could detail from works of reference. History only advance through the efforts of the should be studied not in the narrow national sense, but as a study of past events from which we might learn lessons and avoid pitfalls. Mathematics should introduce an idea of orderliness as well as proportion and perspective. Latin should envisage life in the Roman times rather than declensions and conjugations. Geography should stress the oneness of the human race and science a poetry of the Universe. All are inseparably intermixed. Education is universal. And with education, he grouped the need to foster hobbies. They were not only a great source of interest and education, but kept off the deadening hand of boredom which seemed to overtake so many old people. 52 : HERTZOG GOVERNMENT He had now moved across the floor of the House to the seat of the Leader of IN Hertzog’s 1924 Cabinet the Labour the Opposition. His attendance was Party got two portfolios, Creswell scrupulous, and early or late, dull or taking on Labour and Defence, and bitter, he was always to be found in his Boydell Posts and Telegraphs and place. In demeanour he did not appear Public Works. The other Cabinet buoyant or happy, giving the impres- positions were filled by Tielman Roos sion more of serving a penance. It was who took over justice; Charlie Malan, no more than an impression, for in fact Railways; Beyers, Mines; the two his thoughts and moods were well gentlemen of the 1913 Rebellion, controlled and almost inscrutable. He Kemp and Piet Grobler, took on simply sat there, impassive and un- Agriculture and Lands respectively. ruffled, usually alert, but otherwise Dr. Malan administered Education, with his eye focussed vaguely into the Public Health and Interior. All the old unseeing distance. Never did he show friends were now rewarded. that great hurt and humiliation which If my father had been great in victory, he harboured in his bosom. His burn- there are many who now conceded that ing pride would never permit that. he was at least as great in eclipse. As the years went by, even his opponents The Government were jubilant at their had, grudgingly, to admit that he had victory and did their best to rub it in. that divine spark. As usual, they concentrated, in repre- hensible manner, on the person of my father. He took it all without complaint Finance was also to earn the nickname or the flicker of an eyelid. Only the “Lucky Havenga”. impatient drumming of his slender The Prince of Wales, who had fingers or the way he kept folding and arranged to visit the Union during the unfolding his hands showed his mental Premiership of my father, now did a tension. So bitter were the attacks on triumphal tour of the country. His him that the Speaker had frequently to treatment by the Nationalists left call honourable members to order. nothing to be desired and they feted Roos and Hertzog were the chief him everywhere. Quite a major boom offenders. was brought about by his visit. The This amateur jobs-for-pals govern- Athlones brought him out to Doorn- ment, my father had predicted, would kloof, where he was interested in our not last long. But he had, for once, pedigree dairy herd. miscalculated, for hardly had they When he left the Union, Arthur come into power when the dark clouds Barlow, then a Labourite, suggested in began to lift. Virtually the best rains Parliament that the King be requested for a generation soaked the earth, and to refrain from conferring titles on the world depression was turning into people after the Prince’s visit. Hertzog a time of plenty. New discoveries of and the Nationalists supported this platinum in the Transvaal brought a suggestion and it broadened into the measure of relief. Not only was banning of all titles for South Hertzog lucky, but his Minister of Africans. My father did not oppose the idea. It had much to commend it. In matter, it cut deep into the sentiments Parliament many matters that were of people, especially as the whole idea controversial and contentious were was obviously tinged with animus. discussed. In one speech lasting an Feeling mounted. during the debates, hour and a quarter Hertzog spent and irresponsible people were even almost all his time attacking my father, talking of civil trouble. The difficulty and a reporter in the Press Gallery was to arrange an acceptable compro- counted at least twenty different mise. The English were firm in uncomplimentary adjectives he had demanding a prominent place for the coupled with my father’s name. Union Jack in the flag, while at the same time the Nationalists were press- Oswald Pirow placed a big order for ing equally hard for a dominance of locomotives for the railways with the old Republican motifs. Every Germany, an act which met with the member of Parliament, and the public, strongest disapproval from the South became flag-drafters, but efforts were African Party. For years Britain had all too elaborate and complicated. So made all our locos. was my father’s effort. At last, just as Next, in 1927, cropped up the Flag stalemate was about to overtake the Question. The Nationalists had no House, the Governor-General initiated particular love for the Union Jack and a final effort, which proved accept- decided that, as an independent domin- able. ion, it was time we had our own flag. Now, while this was a seemingly small At the next Imperial Conference “whether such an interpretation would General Hertzog decided to press for a be finally and definitely acceptable.” clearer recognition of the indepen- A dozen years later these views were dence of members of the British to be put to the practical test. Commonwealth. In London these Next the Government steam-rollered views on Dominion status seemed through a very much criticised trade acceptable, though my father was agreement with Germany. The pro- critical of what he called the weaken- German element was very strong in ing of certain bonds that tied this Government circles. At this stage the commonwealth of nations together. Labour Party had domestic trouble, Statesmanship in Britain was at a low which resulted in a split into Creswel- ebb and my father was nervous of lite and National Councilite factions. what might follow. Walter Madeley became Minister of At a meeting in Paarl General Hertzog Posts and Telegraphs. His views were told his audience: “As a result of what rather far to the Left, and one of his the imperial Conference has done, first acts was to raise native wages. nothing remains of the Old Empire.” Anything of this nature was to the He declared in Parliament that in the Nationalists like a red rag to a bull. case of war the right of remaining They clamoured for his resignation, neutral rested with every individual but he stubbornly refused. Finally Dominion. My father did not consider Hertzog himself resigned and was this practicable. “I doubt”, he said, called upon to form a new Cabinet, in behaviour were the order of the day. which Madeley did not reappear. Often the windows of halls were smashed and chairs battered, resulting The 1929 elections were approaching. in considerable damage. The country My father made a Pan-African type of grew quite accustomed to these speech at Ermelo, in which he suggest- Nationalist methods. ed a great federation of states, extend- ing over a large part of Africa. The Townspeople were not worried by this Nationalists, as ever on the lookout for warped type of propaganda, but the something to distort, seized upon this. gullible public of the country districts Tielman Roos, aided by General believed that a vote for the South Hertzog, issued the “Black Mani- African Party meant equality with the festo”; a piece of evergreen colour natives. Consequently, when the elec- propaganda. “Smuts wants a Kaffir tion occurred my father’s Party took a State in which we are to be members,” bad beating. Hertzog secured 78 seats he croaked –” a black hegemony in against our 61. which we are all to be on an equal The Pact Cabinet was now reorga- footing.” nised. Roos retired, ostensibly for At political meetings an element of health reasons, and went overseas for organised hooliganism prevailed and treatment, and Pirow took his place in frequently my father was shouted justice. We had already had numerous down without a hearing. Missiles flew apologists in the Cabinet for Germany freely and rowdyism and unruly before, but now we had a person who was openly pro-Nazi. 53 : THE RHODES LECTURES AT Otherwise the visit, like all previous OXFORD ones, was a triumphal one, for the English hearts never failed to warm to AT the end of 1929, during the this doughty old Boer. In Edinburgh Michaelmas term, my father went to and Glasgow he lectured to large Oxford to deliver a series of Rhodes audiences on David Livingstone. Lectures. He also lectured on David Livingstone. This trip to England was His work in Britain completed, he a welcome break from the bitterness accepted an invitation to attend the and tedium of Parliament. The stipend Tenth Annual Meeting of the League of £500 also afforded an essential and of Nations in New York, and later to welcome element of financial relief. travel the States and Canada on a He spent two months at the University. lecture tour on League matters. He had In these lectures he set out his ideas on long looked forward to such a trip, but the Native Problem clearly and this was the first occasion on which he concisely. It was a faithful and could spare the time. authoritative presentation, but the The Press showered him with students, like many people in England, bouquets. By some he was described had their own strange ideas about the as the greatest living statesman. He natives and largely failed to appreciate was loaded with civic honours and his lectures. Few were really honorary university degrees. In no enthusiastic, while the outright Negro- time he had endeared himself to the phils were frankly disappointed. Americans. They were amazed at his intimate knowledge of their Country, confetti as he drove down the deep and even more so by his knowledge of ravines of the city. It was different their writers Poe, Irving and Whitman. from other experiences. He received the honours modestly, He travelled through the States and protesting that he was just a simple Canada, lecturing about the League. Boer farmer. Everywhere he was received with The severe monolithic architecture of enthusiasm. It was an exacting, non- the New York skyscrapers impressed stop tour, which left him exhausted but him more as a form of human happy. ingenuity than an exposition of The Hearst papers were critical of his architectural beauty. It would have presence in America. “Why should we been too much to expect the contem- harbour these foreign ‘peace’ plation of a troglodytic mode of living propagandists?” The Negroes loved to exercise his enthusiasm. But the him until he indiscreetly, but with the farming developments interested him best intentions in the world, happened immensely. It was all so well planned to remark that they were “the most and on such a mammoth scale, and patient creatures next to the ass”. He quite unlike the mediaeval methods of had offered this remark in sincere his homeland. praise of that most commendable side His welcome in New York was a of the black man’s make-up, but it boisterous one and he never forgot the gave offence. overhead snowstorm of ticker tape and In the Southern Hotel in Baltimore, on troubles that arise and lead to war, to the 16th January, 1930, he made these be treated in the family spirit. Gather remarks: “... I have passed through them around the table. Don’t let them many things in my life. I am not a look askance at each other. Don’t let pacifist, and I have not come to the them frown at each other at a distance. peace movement as a pacifist. I have Don’t let them negotiate at a distance. always believed, and I believe today, Let them gather round the table, that there are greater things than members of one family, in the family peace, that there are ideals of justice, spirit. of fair play, of right, for which any Well, that is what the League of decent human being ought to be Nations has done. The League of prepared to give his life at any Nations is the family table. You may moment. Certain ideals, certain not like it. I know some of you don’t convictions transcend questions of life like it at all, and I am not here to and death...” convert you. It is for you to decide. I Regarding the value of round table cannot speak to you as freely as Dr. conferences he had this to say: Duggan. He can speak to you as an American, from the fullness of his ... Since there is a human family, conviction. I can only speak to you as gather them, with all their troubles, a world citizen. You have to decide in around the family table. I want the your own national wisdom as to your disputes of mankind in the future, the national course and policy in the future. I can only bear testimony from ... I do not say that disarmament is the the outside as a man who does not only road to peace. It is not the only wish to indulge in propaganda in a step to be taken to ensure world peace. foreign country, but who holds to faith The maintenance of peace is a very in the human race and points the awful complex affair which will depend lessons of the Great War... upon many conditions. You cannot, for instance, have peace in a world in ... That we have today fifty-four which there is no social justice; no nations of the world, almost all of honour and respect and high courtesy them sitting around that table, is among the nations. Nor can you have probably the greatest advance which peace for long in a world of chaos, in has been made in the whole course of which each nation is a law unto itself, human history. It is a wonderful thing. in which the supranational interests of Eleven years ago these nations were mankind are not organised into gripped in the most titanic death definite institutions, in which the struggle in history. They were killing society of nations is not each other by the million. Today they constitutionally recognised and does are sitting around the table... not find organised expression. Thus, In the Basil Hicks Lecture delivered to firstly, there must be a rule of justice the University of Sheffield in October, and fair play; secondly, there must be 1931, he expounded further on the a permanent institution continuously “disarmed peace”: controlling its application; and thirdly, the means and temptation to use thousand pities that the League is private force must be carefully limited called to such an ordeal in its very and controlled. These are the essential infancy. If it were firmly in the saddle, conditions of good order within the if it had established its authority State; and they are no less essential beyond question, the case would be foundations of international order and different. But it is no more than an peace. Let us see how we stand at infant yet, it has barely begun its long present in regard to these three career for the leadership of the world, conditions of peace. . . . it may yet take a generation or more before it will be sure of itself. And [Speaking of disarmament, he went now at the very beginning, the on] ... This is beyond all doubt the heaviest task is laid upon it. And the greatest and heaviest task before the present time and temper appear League. That task is now confronting unfavourable for settling the vast issue it in all its grimness. In February next of Disarmament. Well might the year, the Disarmament Conference young League say with Hamlet; will meet, and it is felt on all hands that it is fraught with fateful issues for “The time is out of joint; O cursed the League, if not for the world. If that spite Conference fails-which God forbid – That ever I was born to set it the whole hopeful international right.” situation which has been arising since Personally I take a more hopeful and the Peace will receive a setback. It is a perhaps longer view of the situation which confronts the League. It would vision is realised and swords are be a cruel and fatal mistake to expect finally beaten into ploughshares. Of the impossible from the Disarmament the final result I feel as confident as I Conference, and then, if it fails to am of the League itself. But it may realise the highest expectations, to take many long years before mankind give up all as lost. Disarmament is not is ripe for that final step... going to be carried at one bound, so to Why should we disarm? There are say, and it would be foolish to expect several cogent and indeed imperative such a result of the coming Confer- reasons for this step, which cannot be ence. I do not believe the Armageddon delayed any longer without the gravest of Peace is going to be fought out at risks. We have, to begin with, the that Conference. That is not the way of obligations created by the Peace history. I believe that a beginning is Treaties and the Covenant of the going to be made, a great first step will League. The Versailles Treaty, for be taken, which will be continuously instance, in imposing compulsory followed up until the ghost of the past, disarmament on Germany, expressly the spectre of war, is finally laid. provided in the opening clause of Part Disarmament will not be a matter for V that that was only the first step in a one conference, but for many general scheme o’ disarmament which conferences, and for continuous it would be necessary to carry out in unwearied effort, prolonged perhaps future in the interests of mankind. for decades to come, until the great When the German delegates protested against the drastic measure of question raised is thus not merely one disarmament imposed on Germany, of disarmament, but of status, of the Allied spokesmen renewed the equality among the Powers. It must be assurance that it was only the clear that the present position is in- preliminary to a great scheme of herently untenable, and that unless a disarmament which would affect all. beginning is made with the policy of These assurances and undertakings disarmament, Germany could and constitute an obligation which it is might claim the right to arm herself impossible to evade much longer. But once more, and might decline to sit that is not all. Even if no assurance among her peers in the League as an had been expressly given to Germany inferior. The question of allowing in the Peace Treaty, the inherent Germany to re-arm would raise even anomaly which has been created by more difficult and dangerous issues her exceptional disarmament would than the question of general call for early action. Germany, the disarmament, and thus the anomaly of greatest potential power on the the present untenable position in Continent of Europe, sits on the Europe and in the League is forcing us Council of the League as one of the to take a step, which we are in any Great Powers. She is disarmed while case in honour bound to take, in order the others are fully armed. Her status to carry out our assurances and is affected, she a placed in a position undertakings under the Peace Treaty. of inferiority among her equals. The We know what an armed Germany means, and we dare not run that risk Armed Peace, the maintenance of again. In this connection, may I peace through superarmaments, express the hope that German coupled with alliances and the balance statesmen will never succumb to the of power. It proved the most disastrous temptation to renew the race of step in the history of our race. Let us, armaments and thereby to court the grown wiser from experience, try the dangers of her former position again? converse experiment of the Disarmed ... Peace, coupled with a universal organisation in support of it. We could In settling the details of disarmament not fare worse, and with reasonably policy, I think the growing good fortune, we may achieve a consideration should be the measure of success which would importance of securing the lag to justify all the labours and sufferings of which I have referred earlier. the past. Armaments should be such that the conversion of the fighting forces from In America in 1929 he made his a peace to a war footing should famous declaration in favour of a definitely involve an interval of time, Jewish Home in Palestine. There had during which the peace functions of at the time been some friction between the League could operate, freely and the Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land. effectively... He spoke of the wonderful services of Jewry throughout the course of time To conclude. The generation before us and of the great debt of humanity to tried the novel experiment of the them. He spoke of the promises at Jochanan, is named after him in Versailles. Palestine was theirs to go recognition of his work. back to. Britain had been a party to On board ship on the way back to this solemn vow. South Africa he learned that the Quota My father had always looked upon the Bill had been introduced into Jewish problem as a great human Parliament during his absence. It was problem. With his knowledge of the aimed at curbing the rapid influx of Old Testament, and of the history of Jews into the Union. It seemed a the Jews and their historic desirable protective measure at the persecutions he felt a warm sympathy time as many of the immigrants were with the Jewish cause. His concept of of a very low type and hardly desirable a home in Palestine was a legalistic as citizens. The Jews were specifically and humanitarian one. He thought of named in the Bill, which was also the Jews not as a people, or a chosen intended to limit immigration from the race, but as a cause. As a people it Central European States. would be incorrect to say that he liked My father arrived back in Parliament them more than other peoples, for he during the Third Reading of the Bill. was in fact a lover of all humanity. His Party had given it almost Jewry will long remember the services unanimous support. He raged at them of this man for them, often in the teeth and took them so to task, that during of the strongest opposition. A rich new the final division they voted to a man settlement, not far from Haifa, Ramat against it. Here again, he was sup- porting a legalistic principle, not a people. It was a case of justice. 54 : NATIVE PROBLEM man, for he has freely admitted their mental superiority. He has been quite THOUGH the problem of mixed contented in this acceptance, for it has populations is not a new one in long been the tradition in native history, it nevertheless presents certain custom for him to serve novel aspects in South Africa and the unquestioningly some authority, rest of the continent. Normally it takes whether it be a black potentate or a the form of a minority living in the white master. Now that the white man midst of an overwhelming mass of has introduced the poll tax and pro- other people, often under conditions of hibited the old tribal pastime of pillage some disability. Here in South Africa, and war, he has been forced to forsake however, the small minority of whites his beer and his blanket for the live not under the normal conditions of location and the factory. Few people sufferance, but actually rule the realise what a revolution in custom majority with an iron hand. They have this has involved, for traditionally the retained in their possession full native male is a warrior who does no initiative in so far as tactical power manual work other than fighting. and intellectual advantage is When not so occupied he was content concerned and they have clung aggres- to laze happily on a kaross outside his sively to what they consider their hut, to drink his beer and to sleep off rights in wealth and leadership. The his torpor, while his poor wives, like native, so far, has accepted quite beasts of burden, tilled the fields and willingly the overlordship of the white kept his home. It was the ingrained polygamous system which completely custom of the centuries. After all, upset the system of the pastoral kraal, husbands bought wives with cattle in and he applied a legal code which marriage and it was only reasonable seemed to the natives mild and that wives should serve as beasts of anaemic by comparison to their own. burden. The fact that they were often He interfered constantly and broke pregnant and always had little down the authority of the chief and piccanins strapped to their backs was routine of the home, and yet he was quite incidental. annoyed when the black man, degenerated to the ways of the white, When the white man came to the did not show him gratitude for all country he very unreasonably these not-unmixed blessings. demanded that the lazy warriors should work – the very work they had The white man came out to South for millennia forced their wives to do. Africa not merely to missionise and to He brought with him, also, a system of settle on a trusteeship basis. He made monetary remuneration which did not it clear he had come to stay. For three involve the accepted standard of the hundred years he has been here and he cow. He taught them the rudiments of is determined to stay indefinitely. But Christianity which said we were all with the advancement of civilisation equal under the sun, yet this teaching and gradual evolution of the native the was scrupulously disregarded by him. gap between white and black has He frowned upon the native narrowed alarmingly. It is doubtful if the old master-servant relationship Different people read the signs will be tenable for many more years to differently. The philanthropist come. The white man sees a grave advocates the granting of numerous danger for his children. The black man further concessions. The dour Boer thinks he sees the days of farmer of the Platteland feels that emancipation approaching. Both are harsher measures and a sterner white straining to further their ambitions. front are the only solutions. Troublemongers and agitators, mostly International bodies from overseas, half-educated natives, some Indians most notably at UNO, quite ignorant and a few misguided whites, are at of the true facts of the case, are loud in work among the native masses. They their condemnation of the white man. use persuasive words and draw But so far South Africa has refused to illuminating, over-simplified com- be browbeaten by this criticism. parisons. The gullible native is not The native problem in South Africa proof against this insidious differs from that in the United States, propaganda. He is growing restive and for there the whites outnumber the unhappy. It is idle to maintain that this negroes by almost twenty to one. phase of unrest is the result of poor Under those circumstances people can housing conditions. It goes much afford to be broad-minded and deeper than that, for it is in fact a tolerant. Here the white man, at a four national madness, a surging phase of to one disadvantage, has to struggle unrest. for his existence, and the future for his old philanthropic outlook of the Bible. children is ever uncertain. Apart from displaying an honest though over-easy outlook it has little Segregation, both racial and realism to commend it. Its basis of geographical, is a strong urge in both reciprocity of goodwill is a fictitious the white, the black and the coloured one as far as the native is concerned, peoples here. They have studiously and anthropologists are quick to point abhorred fraternisation and out that the native has no gratitude in hybridisation and each has faithfully his social code. It is a weakness bred his own pure type. This in itself is unknown to him. He will take all he a unique feature in history, and even can get quite gladly, and then blithely more so in colonial history. I am not ask for more. There is no convincing concerning myself here with the argument based on sound fact, so far political doctrine of “apartheid”. I am as I can see, to back up this ethical referring to the separateness which is approach. It is simply a noble white inherent in the feelings of all white urge to see fair play. The idea of and black men. equality is based upon shifting sands, What then are the basic facts of this and in fact the native is wise enough insoluble Native Problem? The not to ask for it. All he asks for is problem may be viewed from three unhampered opportunity. different angles. There is firstly the ethical approach which purports to The second approach is the scientific show that all men are equal. It is the one in which are automatically visualised grades of evolutionary But certainly the massiveness of the advancement. It is easy for us to do so facial bone structure suggests a in South Africa, for we have had connection with the old Neander- before us that arrested type in thaloid group of man. anthropological development known Thirdly there is the tactical approach. as the Bushman, like the Australian It takes into account that the white aborigine, a freak survival from some man in the Union is outnumbered by primitive age. We have never accorded four to one. It takes into account the this small evolutionary enigma an fact that the black man is increasing in equal status. Nor has the native. numbers more rapidly than the white It is therefore not difficult to imagine man. It assumes that two peoples the Bantu an intermediate form cannot indefinitely go on living side between the European and Bushman. by side without some major future In fact, from the scientific aspect it has eruption. For this day of reckoning we much to commend it, for undoubtedly must prepare. We must see that we the Bantu has features in his bone have in our power all those things structure that we associate with Stone which can ensure tactical and military Age races. His very skull, for example, superiority. We must prohibit non- is almost half as thick again as that of Europeans from possessing firearms, the European. Yet, so far, study of his or the training in their use. brain size and convolutions has not Manufacturing industry, wealth and shown an inferiority to the European. education must be kept in white hands. All these add up to military strength. compromise must be reached, and We must frown upon trade unionism depending upon the government of the amongst the Bantu or upon the forma- day, it may be well-disposed or not so tion of political bodies, for that leads friendly towards the natives. to potentially dangerous consolidation. The native policy of governments in The emotional fear complex is not to South Africa is not the policy of be misconstrued with these military political parties. It is the actual policy prerequisites. of people, based upon their deep Lastly we must take into account the convictions. Parliament cannot change divergent views held on the native the relationship simply by a stroke of problem by the English and Boer the pen. It has first to convince and races. Broadly the British outlook is convert public opinion. Mostly public one of goodwill and tolerance, opinion has been hard against granting however misguided and over- too many concessions. emphasised it may seem at times. The From old Adam at Riebeeck West my Boer, after centuries of fighting for a father learned to know and to respect foothold in this country, takes a sterner the native. From his scientific view of things. He is far less tolerant knowledge of anthropology he got the or sympathetic. idea of gradations in the scale of In arriving at a settlement of the native evolution. His sound reasoning powers problem due cognisance must be taken never allowed sentimentalism to of these divergent views. Some obtrude. From his Boer forebears he inherited the harder Boer viewpoint possible. He did not favour the And from his legalistic studies ideas of artificial half-baked white ideas we are justice and fairness. His general kindly foisting upon them. outlook on life broadened that into an Nor was he an advocate of over-hasty outlook of sane tolerance. Yet he artificial advancement. Civilisation he looked upon over-liberal views on the believed to be a slow process which colour question as extremely should be over accelerated only at dangerous. peril. He preferred to see the natives My father had complete confidence in building slowly but solidly. This is the intellectual and administrative also in line with the tactical concept. superiority of the white man. He was In the Rhodes Memorial lectures at convinced that, come what will, these Oxford University in 1929 he gave a would sec him safely through all lucid exposition of his views on the trouble. It would also enable him to native problem which is worth quoting live indefinitely in a state of semi- in some detail: overlordship over the blacks. He considered this mental superiority the We are concerned today with these white man’s greatest asset. He had racial reactions in so far as they affect great faith in the inherent stability and Europe and Africa – a small question, good faith of the Bantu and was a but still a very large human question, strong advocate of breaking down fraught with immense possibilities for their local tribal customs as little as the future of our civilisation as well as that of Africa. What is wanted in this temperament the African is the Africa today is a wise, far-sighted only happy human I have come across. native policy. If we could evolve and No other race is so easily satisfied, so pursue a policy which will promote good-tempered, so carefree. If this had the cause of civilisation in Africa not been the case, it could scarcely without injustice to the African, have survived the intolerable evils without injury to what is typical and which have weighed on it like a specific in the African, we shall render nightmare through the ages. A race a great service to the cause of which could survive the immemorial humanity. For there is much that is practice of the witch doctor and slave good in the African which ought to be trader, and preserve its inherent preserved and developed... simplicity and sweetness of disposition, must have some very fine Here in this vast continent, with its moral qualities. The African easily wide geographical variety and great forgets past troubles and does not climatic difference, this unique human anticipate future troubles. This happy- type has been fixing itself for go-lucky disposition is a great asset, hundreds of years... This type has but it also has its drawbacks. some wonderful characteristics. It has largely remained a child type, with a There is no inward incentive to child psychology and outlook. A improvement, there is no persistent child-like human cannot be a bad effort in construction, and there is human... Perhaps, as a direct result of complete absorption in the present, its joys and sorrows... No indigenous the African type, to de-Africanise the religion has been evolved, no African and turn him either into a literature, no art since the magnificent beast of the field or into a pseudo- promise of the cavemen and the South European. And yet in the past we have African petroglyphist, no architecture tried both alternatives in our dealings since Zimbabwe (if that is African) ... with the African. First we look upon They can stand any amount of physical the African as essentially inferior or hardships and suffering... These sub-human, as having no soul, as children have not the inner toughness being only fit to be a slave. As a slave and persistence of the European, nor he became an article of commerce, and those social and moral incentives to the greatest article of export from this progress... But they have a continent for centuries... temperament which suits mother Then we changed to the opposite Africa. extreme. The African now became a It is clear that a race so unique and so man and a brother. Religion and different in its mentality and its politics combined to shape this new cultures from those of Europe, requires African policy... The political system a policy very unlike that which would of the natives was ruthlessly destroyed suit Europeans. Nothing could be in order to incorporate them as equals worse for Africa than the application into the white system... of a policy, the object or tendency of In some of the British possessions in which would be to destroy the basis of Africa the native just emerging from barbarism was accepted as an equal European world, but which will citizen with full political rights along preserve her unity with her own past, with the whites. But his native conserve what is precious in her past, institutions were ruthlessly proscribed and build her future progress and and destroyed. This principle of equal civilisation on specifically African rights was applied in its crudest form, foundations. That should be the new and while it gave the natives a policy... semblance of equality with whites, It is a significant fact that this new which was little good to him, it orientation of African policy had its destroyed the basis of his African origin in South Africa, and that its system which was his highest good. author was Cecil Rhodes in his These are the two extreme native celebrated Glen Grey Act. Rhodes’s policies which have prevailed in the African policy embodied two main past, and the second has been only ideas: white settlement to supply the slightly less harmful than the first. If steel framework and the stimulus for Africa has to be redeemed, if Africa enduring civilisation, and indigenous has to make her own contribution to native institutions to express the the world, if Africa is to take her specifically African character of the rightful place among the continents, natives in their future development we shall have to proceed on different and civilisation. African policies lines and evolve a policy which will should arise in Africa, from the not force her institutions into an alien experience of the men and women who are in daily contact with the the universal native system throughout living problems... Africa... Prior to the Glen Grey legislation it A third feature of his system was a had been the practice in South Africa, labour tax of ten shillings per annum, as it had been the practice in all imposed on all native heads of European-occupied territory in Africa, families who did not go to work to rule the natives direct through beyond their district for three months Government officials – direct rule, as in the year. The object of the tax was it has been called... The native chiefs obvious. The whites wanted labourers, were either deposed and deprived of and the natives were supposed to authority, or where use was made of require some inducement to go to them, they were incorporated into the work instead of sitting on their official system and appointed as holdings and seeing their women officers of the Government, from work... The tax, however, was whom they derived all their authority, unpopular with the natives from the and in whose name that authority was start and soon appeared to be an exercised... His second innovation was unnecessary irritation... The native, to make it possible for natives in their although a slaw worker, is not lazy, tribal areas to become possessed of and does not require any special their own separate plots of agricultural inducement... His main incentive is his land instead of the traditional common rising scale of needs in food and holding and working of land which is clothing... The universal experience in Africa is the natural resources ... the tribal lands that, although it takes some time at the become a barren waste. beginning for the native to enter white This sad phenomenon can be seen in employment, his rapidly-growing one degree or another all over the economic needs in a white African continent... environment, and with a rising scale of living, soon make him take his full Practical agricultural education must share of the burden without any indeed become one of the principal necessity to resort to special subjects of native education. measures... The main object of the Glen Grey The native system of land socialism is legislation was, however, to give the not only primitive but most wasteful in native his own institutions for self- its working... The result is that the development and self-government... communal farms rapidly deteriorate The new policy is to foster an and become exhausted, and have to be indigenous native culture or system of abandoned after a few years’ use. cultures and to cease to force the Then the farm shifts to another area of African into alien European moulds. the tribal domain where the same As a practical policy of native process of uneconomic exhaustion is government it has worked most repeated. ... In the course of years this successfully. Gradually the system of shifting cultivation works havoc with native councils has been extended from one native area to another in the Cape Province, until today about two- The introduction of the Christian thirds of the Cape natives, or roughly religion meant not only the breakdown over a million, fall under this system of the primitive belief in spirits, in and manage their own local affairs magic and witchcraft, and the according to their own ideas under the abandonment of the practice of supervision of the European polygamy; it meant the breakdown of magistrates. the entire integral native outlook on life and the world... After the new system has worked successfully and with ever-increasing If the bonds of native tribal cohesion efficiency for twenty-five years, I and authority are dissolved, the thought the time ripe in 1920 to extend African governments will everywhere it to the whole Union... sit with vast hordes of detribalised natives on their hands, for whom the The new system is far-reaching and traditional restraints and discipline of has come none too soon. Already the the chiefs and elders will have no African system is disintegrating force or effect... The results may well everywhere over the whole African be general chaos... Such a breakdown continent... Many factors have should be prevented at all costs. combined to produce this situation. Missionaries share the blame with This policy of dealing with peoples governments... not yet able to stand by themselves in the colonies and territories taken from the defeated powers in the First World War, is in effect, enshrined in the antipathy and clashes, and to many Covenant of the League of Nations other forms of social evil... It is, and its mandates. My father was however, evident that the proper place responsible for this mandate principle of the educated minority of the natives and for its inclusion in Article 22 of is with the rest of their people, of the Covenant. whom they are natural leaders, and from whom they should not in any In this same lecture my father stressed way be dissociated. the need for a certain measure of segregation. Far more difficult questions arise on the industrial plane. It is not This separation is imperative, not only practicable to separate black and white in the interests of a native Culture, and in industry... to prevent the native traditions and institutions from being swamped by There remains the big question how the more powerful organisation of the far the parallelism of native and white whites, but also for other important institutions is to go. Is it to be confined purposes, such as public health, racial to local government, or is it to go all purity and public good order. The the way up to the level of full political mixing up of two such alien elements or parliamentary government? Should as white and black leads to unhappy black and white co-operate in the same social results – racial miscegenation, parliamentary institutions? Few moral deterioration of both, racial acquainted with the facts and difficulties can profess to see clear The present Government has proposed daylight in the tangle of this problem... to scrap this system for the future, and to give separate representation in I do not think there can be, or at the Parliament to native and non-native bottom there is, among those who voters. A policy which might have have given the subject serious been easy and, from certain points of attention, any doubt that in the view, even commendable, with a clean supreme legislature of a country with a slate before us, has become mixed population all classes and enormously difficult because of what colours should have representation... has been done in the past, and the There can be only one sovereign body justifiable fervour with which the in a country and that body should Cape non-Europeans cling to their represent the weaker no less than the vested rights, which they have enjoyed stronger. To that extent there should for three-quarters of a century. be agreement. As to the mode of representation of colour in the If we had to do only with the tribal supreme parliament there can be native voters the question would not legitimate difference of opinion... In be so difficult, and the application of South Africa ... we started with the the general segregation principle to the older system of mixed constituencies particular case of political rights might in the Cape Colony, and this system is be justified... Urbanised natives living embodied and entrenched in the Act of among the whites constitute the real Union which forms our Constitution. crux and it is a difficulty which goes far beyond the political issue. They the farms and towns, which should be raise a problem for the whole principle prevented... of segregation, as they claim to be At the same time I wish to point out civilised and Europeanised, and do not that the prevention of this migration wish to be thrust back into the will be no easy task, even where ample seclusion of their former tribal funds are guaranteed to the natives. associations or to forgo their new The whites like to have the families of place in the sun among the whites... their native servants with them. It Were it not for this case of the means more contentment and less urbanised or detribalised natives, the broken periods of labour, and it means colour problem, not only in South more satisfied labourers. Africa but elsewhere in Africa, would be shorn of most of its difficulties... He concludes by suggesting that the system of segregation is perhaps more It is only when segregation breaks workable at present than in the past. down, when the whole family migrates Women and children are to be left at from the tribal home and out of the home to carry on their domestic tasks tribal jurisdiction to the white man’s as they have done from the farm or the white man’s town, that the immemorial past. tribal bond is snapped, and the traditional system falls into decay. The men, instead of lying in the sun, And it is this migration of the native or brawling over their beer, or family, of the females and children, to indulging in the dangerous sport of tribal warfare, will go out to work and youthfulness. The natives, sensing an supplement the family income... inherent kindness in their old master, Without breaking down what is good treated him with veneration and in the native system, it will graft on to worked steadily on the farm for years. it a wholesome economic It was the little piccanins, however, he development, which will yet not preferred, with their shiny, shaven disturb too deeply the traditional ways heads and big, dark eyes, and with of Mother Africa. their wide, white flashing smile. Their In his own home and on his own farms behaviour suggested to him the he always took a kind and patriarchal elemental wild animal of nature of view of his native wards. To Annie, which he was so fond. Their eyes, in the old Bantu servant girl who had fact, held a surprised doe-like look worked faithfully with our family for which strengthened this feeling. These many years, he left a small legacy in wild, colourful people, he was fond of his will. photographing with his cine whenever he had the opportunity. He always took a keen interest in the native labourers on his farms, At Christmas time he would ask my especially in the old ones who had mother to prepare parcels of sweets for been with him for years. These he took the various native families on his pleasure In greeting cheerfully “môre farms. He did this for as long as I can booi”, “boy” being an Afrikaans remember. Sometimes he would have derivation having no connection with a little party for them in the garden, and after listening to their singing or father’s feelings towards his watching their dancing efforts, he neighbours. would have cool drinks and refreshments dispensed. The little piccanins loved the parties, and I think they really loved their “Oubaas” too. On the northern boundaries of the bushveld farms are extensive native trust areas. These, here, as elsewhere, are hopelessly overcrowded and the fertile bush tracts are rapidly being transformed into semi-arid wastelands. There is considerable overgrazing, especially by the noxious goats, and the trees have mostly been chopped down for firewood. Consequently these native settlements have grown progressively more parasitical on our property, our fences offering little security from depredations by natives and goats alike. Though this made our managers indignant it did not sour my 55 : SCIENTIFIC WORLD PICTURE OF of Today”. Five thousand delegates, TODAY from all over the world, including some of the most illustrious scientists IN 1931 my father was invited to of the day, attended. It was a busy time London to preside at the Centenary for my father. He was on many Meeting of the British Association for committees. Some days he delivered the Advancement of Science. Science several addresses, and on one held no higher honour, for this was the particularly busy day no less than greatest meeting of the scientists of the thirteen. The topics varied from world. He considered this invitation farming to philosophy. On all these he the crowning honour of his life. spoke with confidence and authority. Nothing ever pleased him more. He also presided at the Sir James jeans “No president”, says Professor J.B.S. address, and at Maxwell’s centenary Haldane in a letter to my father, “in celebrations at Cambridge. Wherever recent (or, indeed, in former) times has he went, crowds flocked after him and had anything like the same knowledge halls were invariably filled to of philosophy, as well as science, as overflowing. Never before in his life you have.” had he been so lionised – not only by First he delivered the opening speech the people, but by the great scientists at the Faraday Exhibition. as well. These meetings left proud memories with him. At the Centenary Meeting the lecture was on “The Scientific World Picture From London the Association went to father of Aseptic Surgery, and Lord York, where further meetings were Kelvin the physicist...” held. My father’s main address, covering a My old friend, Professor full sweep of the fields of science, was J.A. Wilkinson of Johannesburg, who a masterly one. It was free of jarring was a delegate, wrote to me: “Today detail, yet explicit and. well the British Association ends its proportioned. Here are some extracts centenary meeting, one which will from it: never be forgotten by those who have [Science] has been continually had the good fortune to attend it. I am changing with the changing know- sure that your father has enjoyed it and ledge and beliefs of man. Thus, there for him it has been one long triumph was the world of magic and animism, right from the very beginning. The which was followed by that of the night before last [28.9.3I] the honorary early nature gods. There was the degree of D.Sc. was conferred on him geocentric world which still survives by the University of London, a very in the world of commonsense. There is great distinction indeed, as in the the machine or mechanistic world- whole history of the University, which view dominant since the time of is now almost a century old, only two Galileo and Newton, and now, since honorary degrees had previously been the coming of Einstein, being replaced conferred, namely on Lord Lister, the by the mathematician’s conception of the universe as a symbolic structure of which no mechanical model is with a solid basis of actual experience possible. All these world-views have and facts behind it... in turn obtained currency according as But underneath this placid surface, the some well defined aspect of our seeds of the future were germinating. advancing knowledge has from time to With the coming of the twentieth time been dominant... century, fundamental changes began to Science arose from our ordinary set in. The new point of departure was experience and commonsense outlook. reached when physical science ceased The world of commonsense is a world to confine its attention to the things of matter, of material stuff, of real that are observed. It dug down to a separate things and their properties deeper level, and below the things that which act on each other and cause appear to the sense, it found, or changes in each other. To the various invented, at the base of the world, so- things observable by the senses were called scientific entities; not capable of added the imperceptible things – space direct observation, but which are and time, invisible forces, life and the necessary to account for the facts of soul. Even these were not enough, and observations. Thus, below molecules the supernatural was added to the and atoms still more ultimate entities natural world. The original inventory appeared; radiations, electrons and was continually being enlarged, and protons emerged as elements which thus a complex empirical worldview underlie and form our world of matter. arose, full of latent contradictions, but Matter itself, the time-honoured mother of all, practically disappeared concept of space, owing to the into electrical energy. injection into it of time, has destroyed the old passive homogeneous notion of “The cloud-capp’d towers, the space and has substituted a flexible, gorgeous palaces, variable continuum, the curvatures and The solemn temples, the great unevennesses of which constitute to globe itself.” our senses what we call a material Yea, all the material forms of earth world. The new concept has made it and sky and sea were dissolved and possible to construe matter, mass and spirited away into the blue of energy... energy as but definite measure The physical concept or insight of conditions of curvature in the structure space-time is our first revolutionary of space-time... innovation, our first complete break I pass on to an even more with the old world of commonsense. revolutionary recent advance of Already it has proved an instrument of physics. The space-time world, amazing power in the newer physics. however novel, however shattering to In the hands of an Einstein it has led commonsense, is not in conflict with beyond Euclid and Newton, to the reason. Indeed, the space-time world is recasting of the law and the concept of largely a discovery of the gravitation, and to the new relativity mathematical reason and is an entirely conception of the basis structure of the rational world. It is a world where world. The transformation of the reason, as it were, dissolves the refractoriness of the old material behave like a particle, but a particle substance and smoothes it out into out of space or time... forms of space-time. Science, which From the brilliant discoveries of began with empirical brute facts, physical science we pass on to the seems to be heading for the reign of advances in biological science which, pure reason. But wait a bit; another, although far less revolutionary, have fundamental discovery of our age has been scarcely less important for our apparently taken us beyond the bounds world-outlook. The most important of rationality, and is thus even more biological discovery of the last century revolutionary than that of space-time. I was the great fact of organic evolution; refer to the Quantum theory, Max and for this fact the space-time Planck’s discovery at the end of the concept has at last came to provide the nineteenth century, according to which necessary physical basis. It is energy is granular, consisting of unnecessary for my purpose to canvass discrete grains or quanta. The world in the claims and discuss the views space-time is a continuum; the represented by the great names of quantum action is a negation of Lamarck, Darwin and Mendel, beyond continuity. Thus arises the saying that they represent a contradiction, not only of progressive advance in biological commonsense, but apparently of discovery, the end of which has by no reason itself. The quantum appears to means been reached yet. Whatever doubts and differences of opinion there may be about the methods, the which it has in common with the mechanism, or the causes, there is no organic world. Stuff-like entities have doubt about the reality of organic disappeared and have been replaced by evolution, which is one of the most space-time configurations whose very firmly-established results in the whole nature depends on their principle of range of science... organisation. And this principle, which I have ventured to call holism, appears The general trend of the recent to be at the bottom identical with that advances in physics has thus been which pervades the organic structures towards the recognition of the of the world of life. The quantum and fundamental organic character of the space-time have brought physics material world. Physics and biology closer to biology. As I have pointed are beginning to look not so utterly out, the quantum anticipates some of unlike each other. Hitherto the great the fundamental characters of life, gulf in nature has lain between the while space-time forms the physical material and the vital, between basis for organic evolution. Physics inorganic matter and life. This gulf is and biology are thus recognised as now in process of being bridged. The respectively simple: and more new physics, in dissolving the material advanced forms of the same world of commonsense and fundamental pattern in world- discovering the finer structure of structure... physical nature, has at the same time disclosed certain fundamental features A living individual is a physiological step by step through organic nature to whole, in which the parts or organs are conscious mind. Gone is the time but differentiations of this whole for when Descartes could divide the world purposes of greater efficiency, and into only two substances – extended remain in organic continuity substance or matter and thinking sub- throughout. They are parts of the stance or mind. There is a whole world individual, and not independent or of gradations between these two self-contained units which compose limits. On Descartes’ false dichotomy the individual. It is only this the separate provinces of modern conception of the individual as a science and philosophy were dynamic organic whole which will demarcated. But it is as dead as the make intelligible the extraordinary epicycles of Ptolemy, and ultimately unity which characterises the the Cartesian frontiers between multiplicity of functions in an physics and philosophy must largely organism, the mobile, ever-changing disappear, and philosophy once more balance and interdependence of the become metaphysic in the original numerous regulatory processes in it, as sense. In the meantime, under its well as the operation of all the harmful influence, the paths of matter mechanisms by which organic and mind, of science and philosophy, evolution is brought about... were made to diverge farther and farther, so that only the revolution now ... From matter, as now transformed by taking place in thought could bring space-time and the quantum, we pass them together again. I believe, arises which gives to nature whatever however, their reunion is coming fast. significance it has. As against the We have seen matter and life physical configurations of nature we indefinitely approaching each other in see here the ideal patterns or wholes the ultimate constituents of the freely created by the human spirit as a world... home and an environment for itself. The highest reach of this creative Among the human values thus created process is seen in the realm of values, science ranks with art and religion. In which is the product of the human its selfless pursuit of truth, in its vision mind. Great as is the physical universe of order and beauty, it partakes of the which confronts us as a given fact, no duality of both. More and more it is less great is our reading and evaluation beginning to make a profound of it in the world of values, as seen in aesthetic and religious appeal to language, literature, culture, civili- thinking people. Indeed, it may fairly sation, society and the state, law, be said that science is perhaps the architecture, art, science, morals and clearest revelation of God to our age. religion. Without this revelation of Science is at last coming into its own inner meaning and significance the as one of the supreme goods of the external physical universe would be human race. but an immense empty shell or While religion, art and science are still crumpled surface. The brute fact here separate values they may not always receives its meaning, and a new world remain such. Indeed, one of the greatest tasks before the human race entities cannot be understood without will be to link up science with ethical the most abstruse mathematics, nor, values, and thus to remove grave apparently, without resort to dangers threatening our future... epistemological considerations. We seem to have passed beyond the I have now finished my rapid and definitely physical world into a necessarily superficial survey of the twilight where prophysics and more prominent recent tendencies in metaphysics meet, where space-time science, and I proceed to summarise does not exist, and where strictly the results and draw my conclusions, causal law in the old sense does not in so far as they bear on our world- apply. From this uncertain nebulous picture. underworld there seems to crystallise In the first place we have seen that in out, or literally to materialise, the the ultimate physical analysis science macroscopic world which is the proper reaches a microscopic world of sphere of sensuous observation and of scientific entities, very different in natural laws. The pre-material entities character and behaviour from the or units condense and cohere into microscopic world of matter, space constellations, which increase in size and time. The world of atoms, and structure until they reach the electrons, protons, radiations and macroscopic stage of observation. As quanta does not seem to be space-time, the macroscopic entities emerge, their or to conform to natural law in the space-time field and appropriate ordinary sense. The behaviour of these natural laws (mostly of a statistical universe itself appear to be a house character) emerge pari passu. We divided against itself. For a while the seem to pass from one level to another stream of physical tendency in the evolution of the Universe, with throughout the universe is on the different units, different behaviours whole downward, towards and calling for different concepts and disintegration and dissipation, the laws. Similarly, we rise to new levels organic movement, on this planet at as later on we pass from the physical least, is upward, and life structures are to the biological level, and again from on the whole becoming more complex the latter to the level of conscious throughout the course of organic mind. But – and this is the significant evolution. From the viewpoint of fact – all these levels are genetically physics, life and mind are thus related and form an evolutionary singular and exceptional phenomena, series; and underlying the differences not in line with the movement of the of the successive levels, there remains universe as a whole. Recent astrono- a fundamental unity of plan or mical theory has come to strengthen organisation which binds them this view of life as an exceptional together as members of a genetic feature off the main track of the series, as a growing, evolving, creative universe. For the origin of our universe... planetary system is attributed to an unusual accident, and planets such as But ... another dualism of a wider ours with favourable environment for reach has appeared, which makes the life are taken to be rare in the universe. embarrassed phantom in an alien, if Perhaps we may even say that at the not hostile, universe. present epoch there is no other globe Such are some of the depressing where life is at the level manifested on speculations of recent astronomical the earth. Our origin is thus accidental, theory. But in some respects they have our position is exceptional, and our already been discounted in the fate is sealed, with the inevitable run- foregoing. For even if life be merely a ning down of the solar system. Life terrestrial phenomenon, it is by no and mind, instead of being the natural means in an alien environment if, as flowering of the universe, are thus we have seen reason to think, this is an reduced to a very casual and inferior essentially organic universe. In its status in the cosmic order. A new organic aspects the universe is on the meaning and a far deeper poignancy way to life and mind, even if the goal are given to Shakespeare’s immortal has been actually reached at only one lines: insignificant point in the universe. The “We are such stuff potencies of the universe are As dreams are made of, our little fundamentally the same order as its life actualities. The universe might say, in Is rounded with a sleep.” the words of Rabbi Ben Ezra – According to astronomy, life is indeed “All I could never be a lonely and pathetic thing in this All man ignored in me, physical universe – a transient and This I was worth to God.” Then, again, the very possibility of universe. So far from the cosmic status perception, of knowledge and science of life and mind being degraded by the depends on an intimate relation newer astronomy and physics, I would between mind and the physical suggest an alternative interpretation of universe. Only thus can the concepts the facts more in accord with the trend of mind come to be a measure for the of evolutionary science. We have seen facts of the universe, and the laws of a macroscopic universe born or nature come to be revealed and revealed to consciousness out of a interpreted by nature’s own organ of prior microscopic order of a very the human mind. Besides science we different character. Are we not, in the have other forms of this inner relation emergence of life and mind, between the mind and the universe, witnessing the birth or revelation of a such as poetry, music, art and religion. new world out of the macroscopic The human spirit is not a pathetic physical universe? I suggest that at the wandering phantom of the universe, present cosmic epoch we are the but is at home, and meets with spectators of what is perhaps the spiritual hospitality and response grandest event in the immeasurable everywhere. Our deepest thoughts and history of our universe, and that we emotions and endeavours are but must interpret the present phase of the responses to stimuli which come to us, universe as a mother and child not from an alien, but from an universe, still joined together by a essentially friendly and kindred, placenta which science, in its divorce from the other great values, has sciences. The ancient spiritual goods hitherto failed to unravel. and heirlooms of our race need not be ruthlessly scrapped. The great values Piecing together these clues and and ideals retain their unfading glory conclusions we arrive at a world and derive new interest and force from picture fuller of mystery than ever. In a cosmic setting. But in other respects a way it is closer to commonsense and it is a strange now universe, kinder to human nature than was the impalpable, immaterial, consisting not science of the nineteenth century. of material or stuff, but of Materialism has practically organisation, of patterns or wholes disappeared, and the despotic rule of which are unceasingly being woven to necessity has been greatly relaxed. In more complex or simpler designs. In ever-varying degree the universe is the large it appears to be a decaying, organic and holistic through and simplifying universe which attained to through. Not only organic concepts, its perfection of organisation in the but also, and even more so, far-distant past and is now regressing psychological viewpoints are to simpler vorms – perhaps for good, becoming necessary to elucidate the perhaps only to restart another cycle of facts of science. And while the purely organisation. But inside this cosmic human concepts, such as emotion and process of decline we notice a smaller value, purpose and will, do not apply but far more significant movement – a in the natural sciences, they retain streaming, protoplasmic tendency; an their unimpaired force in the human embryonic infant world emerging, much aspects of nature as energy and throbbing with passionate life, and entropy. Thus “in eternal lines to time striving towards rational and spiritual it grows”. An adequate world-view self-realisation. We see the mysterious would find them all in their proper creative rise of the higher out of the context in the framework of the whole. lower, the more from the less, the And evolution is perhaps the only way picture within its framework, the of approach to the framing of a spiritual kernel inside the phenomenal consistent world-picture which would integuments of the universe. Instead of do justice to the immensity, the the animistic, or the mechanistic, or profundity and the unutterable mystery the mathematical universe, we see the of the universe. genetic, organic, holistic universe, in Such in vague outline is the world- which the decline of the earlier picture to which science seems to me physical patterns provide the to be pointing. We may not all agree opportunity for the emergence of the with my rendering of it, which indeed more advanced vital and rational does not claim to be more than a mere patterns. sketch. And even if it were generally In this holistic universe man is in very accepted, we have still to bear in mind truth the offspring of the stars. The that the world-picture of tomorrow world consists not only of electrons will in all probability be very different and radiations but also of souls and from any which could be sketched aspirations. Beauty and holiness are as today. It was a memorable address on a memorable occasion. Sir Alfred Ewing in his presidential address before the Association the following year paid this tribute to his predecessor: “We had long known General Smuts as soldier and statesman: to some it may have come as a surprise when they found him also a philosopher, a student of ideas no less than a maker of history and a leader of men. It would be an impertinence for any successor in this chair to praise General Smuts: to follow him is perforce to follow far behind... His occupancy of the chair not only added to the lustre of our rejoicings; I like to think it also has a deeper significance. May we not regard it as a harbinger of the spirit of goodwill and sanity which civilisation longs for but does not yet see?” 56 : THE GOLD STANDARD came to was that it would be greatly to our advantage to follow Britain. AT the end of 1929 the bottom dropped suddenly out of Wall Street. So he forthwith sent a cable to South There was a bad slump in diamonds, Africa advocating that we should go wool, maize and other things in off gold immediately. The Nationalist general, and South Africa soon found Government treated everything done itself, with the rest of the world, by Britain or my father with suspicion drifting to an economic collapse. and did so in this case. They Meanwhile other ideas, quite apart obstinately decided to remain on gold. from his activities at the Centenary, Minister of Finance Havenga had said were revolving in my father’s head. it was the best thing, and he had some For, while the conference was on, support from the public, commerce, Britain suddenly decided to go off the and a few university professors. gold standard. He took the opportunity Meanwhile the financial position of of discussing the implications of the South Africa was steadily growing move with some of the leading more precarious. Lucky Havenga’s economists. So far as Britain was luck seemed to have turned against concerned the advantages of him. The exchange rate was playing devaluation were readily discernible, queer pranks, and trade had dropped but the question of its effects on a alarmingly. There were many country like South Africa were more bankruptcies. Our Reserve Bank was controversial: The conclusions they in difficulties. But the more my father pleaded that we should go off gold, the this debate that my father surprised the more obstinately the Government House by objecting to an insulting clung to it. personal reference – only the second time he had ever done so. He had been Under the pressure of these events called a “political trickster”. The there was a rapid change in the Minister of Finance showed an political situation. At Colesberg in the estimated budget deficit £200,000. In Cape, a Nationalist stronghold, the the debate my father produced a Government narrowly scraped home in budget, calculated on an “off gold” a by-election. In December, 1932, at basis, which showed, on a Germiston, near Johannesburg, Mr. conservative estimate, a surplus of J.G.N. Strauss, against all Government three-quarters of a million pounds. The predictions, won the seat for the South Nationalists laughed. African Party. People said that this, like Wolmaransstad, was a straw in the But the depression was steadily wind. The Government’s days were worsening, and to aggravate matters a numbered. bad drought hit the farming community. The Budget Debate in Parliament lasted twelve days. Tempers were It was at this stage of stalemate that ruffled, and Hertzog in one speech was attention was dramatically drawn to four times called to order by the Tielman Roos. I have already Speaker for uncomplimentary explained how he fell out with General references to my father. It was during Hertzog and how he had retired for health reasons to the Bench. But Roos re-entry into the fray. Newspaper had now grown tired of the quiet life reporters frantically scoured the of the law courts and wanted to return country to find him. We of the family to politics. He had asked Piet Grobler said we thought he was in the to sound General Hertzog on the bushveld. Eventually a reporter ran possibilities of his return, but the him to earth in Schoeman’s Kloof, General had said no. Roos was deeply where he was quietly botanising on the hurt at this brusque rebuff, but awaited Crocodile River. To the reporter’s his opportunity. amazement, instead of discussing the new developments, my father simply On 22nd December, 1932, he resigned brushed them aside and expounded on from the Bench and stormed the the beauty of the Kloof and mountains. country with the cry of “off gold”. It In actual fact, he was waiting for was no new cry, but his loud roaring matters to develop on their own. There seemed to awaken the country. There was no point in blundering in at this was a landslide in opinion. Overnight stage with pronouncements. Roos became the hero of the hour, and gold the bogy. On December 28th the Government said it would perish rather than go off Meanwhile, as it was Christmas time, gold. For fifteen months they had my father took the opportunity to obstinately clung to it. The cost to the snatch a few days’ holiday in the country of this suicidal policy has Eastern Transvaal. He had gone off, been calculated at fifty million pounds. opportunely, just after Roos’s dramatic Now in 1933 they suddenly went off overseas friends, to give him the gold. Immediately the price of gold privacy of a home in preference to the rose from four guineas an ounce fine Civil Services Club where he normally to six pounds. Shares boomed. Gold stayed, bought a home for his use in mines were rejuvenated and low-grade Bowwood Road, Claremont, a properties were saved from closing pleasant suburb on the slopes of Table down. There was a new prosperity and Mountain, ten miles out of Cape confidence everywhere. Lucky, Town. “Tsalta” was to find a warmer undeserving, Havenga. place in the hearts of the Smuts family than Groote Schuur. It was not far In January, 1933, Roos publicly called from the lovely Kirstenbosch upon the two political parties to unite Botanical Gardens and had a fine view under him. He had always been an of the mountain slopes. Other good but ambitious man, and now the warmth anonymous friends had made him the of his reception by the public seemed gift of a new Hudson car in 1924, to have given him an inflated idea of though for many years he still retained his own importance. His terms were a soft spot for his old war-time that he was to be Prime Minister and Vauxhall, now somewhat unreliable. that each of the parties was to have five ministers under him, with an My father got into touch with Roos. additional Labour minister. He came out to “Tsalta” one evening to discuss his merger ideas. It was When my father had lost the use of rumoured that Roos had the support of Groote Schuur in the Cape, a group of eleven Nationalist members of At the end of January my father Parliament. Could he count on these, moved in the House what was my father asked him, and who, in fact tantamount to a vote of no confidence were they? Roos said, frankly, he was in the Government. They had said they not quite certain. This, coupled with a would stand or fall on the gold noticeable cooling off in public standard issue. We were now off gold enthusiasm, convinced my father that and they must honour their obligation. Roos was already a spent force. But in It was an abortive appeal. the South African Parry Caucus strong The Roos business, however, had set support was to be found for Roos. It is my father thinking. He had long since said that there was even talk of tired of the political bitterness with disloyalty to my father. which he had been living for over But by now Roos had run his meteoric twenty years. Almost anything would course and people were tiring of him. be preferable to this. Roos had turned It was the lot of most politicians. The down the plan for coalition. But was same crowds were not in places to that necessarily the end? Might not a meet and to cheer him. My father more ambitious plan of coalition with offered him only four seats in a Hertzog now be explored? He turned coalition government. He was to be the proposition over in his mind one of the four, and only the Deputy during his rambles on the mountains Prime Minister. This Roos refused. one week-end. When he got back from this walk he My father said that he had been found J.H. Hofmeyr awaiting him at turning this possibility over in his “Tsalta”. This brilliant scholastic mind, and that it had his blessing. prodigy had already in his twenties Perhaps it would be better and make been Principal of the Witwatersrand things easier if he himself dropped out University and later Administrator of of politics. But the Party would not the Transvaal. At thirty he had turned hear of his retirement. They wanted down the offer of a High their old leader. This insistence Commissionership in London and cheered him. My father said he would come into politics on my father’s side. like to sleep on it. He weighed up what In political leanings he was a liberal, it would mean to him personally to not unlike his famous uncle of similar work under a man who had cursed and name in the old Cape Parliament. maligned him for so long. Yet, if the Already Hofmeyr had helped in the experiment worked, if he could bear it, previous negotiations between Roos think of the glorious future it held out and my father. for the country. Regardless of his own feelings, he decided it was worth What Hofmeyr had now come to say trying. was that Nationalist contacts had hinted that there might be a chance of Hertzog accepted my father’s hand. He a Smuts-Hertzog coalition. My father was to remain Prime Minister and my had only to make the offer in father was to be his Deputy. Each was Parliament. It would not be refused. to nominate five ministers. As Minister of Justice my father was now The. May General Elections showed back in the exact position of State how truly the public endorsed this Attorney (even to the salary) he effort. The Coalition took the country occupied thirty-five years ago. by storm. My father’s name was actually cheered in Smithfield, Only my father knew what the Hertzog’s constituency. He spoke, extension of the hand of friendship to with success, in favour of Dr. Malan’s Hertzog meant to him. He banished all candidature at Calvinia, and he helped personal ambition and submerged his a Nationalist to defeat Tielman Roos. feelings and emotions. The next He did all this gladly at the time, for elections would have brought certain who could then tell that these men victory. Of that there was no doubt. , would turn against him? The Government were thoroughly beaten and spent. This was the end of Roos. Once more he retired from public life, dying not All that he brushed aside. For the sake long after, a poor man, filled with of unity he was prepared to go to these worries about his young family. My lengths – and much more. It saddened father unveiled a memorial to him. him that aspiring young Cabinet Ministers would not get their chance. Speaking in Cape Town in March, They, too, had to be sacrificed on the 1933, my father said that Coalition had national altar. Nor was he under any not been the work of any particular illusion about what the years ahead leader. It had been practically forced would demand of him. on the leaders by public opinion. There had been an overwhelming we have not laid the foundations of feeling in favour of unity... The people something very big for South Africa.” had been wiser than their leaders. ***** They had wanted Coalition, and they had got it... The South African Party It is a strange thing that though my was probably making a greater father had at one time been Minister of contribution to the future peace and Finance and played a leading part in welfare of the country by the action the discussions of finances at the time they were taking than they could have of the gold standard crisis, he took done by any victory at the polls. “My little interest in his personal money prayer is that the people of this matters. The feeling was one of country, who have been primarily distaste and disinterestedness, not of responsible for this coalition ignorance. movement, will look upon this work as Consequently, though he had made a their own, and will not allow party good Minister of Finance, he made a divisions to act as a wedge between poor show of his own financial affairs, them. See that the experiment is a and except for the early years when he success... Let peace now percolate had a lucrative legal practice, he was from the top to the bottom, and let the almost constantly on the red side of spirit of peace pass from the leaders to the ledger. But usually he was quite the hearts of the people... Who knows unaware of this, for my mother ran his that by coming together at this time, domestic affairs for him. She paid the accounts and made up his income-tax ease his burdens were at a loss to returns and worried about his bank know how to help him, for they knew balances. It took a petty burden off his that he would never accept any shoulders. It was typical of my father’s assistance. philosophy that having decided that The only exceptions to his general rule there was little he himself could do by occurred late in life, when he accepted worrying about it, he turned it over to a legacy left him by Sir Henry capable hands and forgot about it. Strakosch, an old friend whom he had Though a comparatively poor man, he helped at the start of his career. He did never refused assistance to friends. I this only because he felt in old age the feel that if any of the family had at any need for security, so as not to be a time asked for financial assistance he burden on his family. would certainly not have disappointed But if he took no direct interest in us. On numerous occasions during his money for his own use, he took a life he received gifts of money from lively interest in it in the public sense, grateful public bodies or wealthy and he was constantly striving and friends. These he never touched contriving to get funds for his Party himself but turned straight over to machine. Here many of his old friends, public education purposes and trust who all prefer to remain anonymous, funds. He was scrupulous in the some long since departed, came to the extreme about receiving financial Party’s assistance and my father gifts, and well-wishers who wanted to always remembered them with gratitude. It was all done modestly and that “the best way to make an enemy discreetly and the public will never of a person is to lend him money”! know about the services of these benefactors. Throughout life he frequently lent friends money. We knew of about a dozen people to whom he lent (for him) large sums of money, but the number must be considerably in excess of this. To a man with a bank overdraft it was an act of considerable generosity to be owed some thousands of pounds. I doubt if he expected to get his money back. We know of only a single instance in which these debts were repaid. When we twitted him about his money-lending efforts, pointing out that he not only had not got the cash back, but that the recipients had frequently turned his bitterest political enemies, he remarked philosophically 57 : THE SCIENTIST reasoning and perspective which some have attributed to his legal training. DURING the quieter years when my father was out of the Government he So, basically, let us look upon my found time for many things that had father as a patient and painstaking been dear to him for years. Primarily scientific worker, irrespective of for him it was a period of great whether he was dealing with abstract international speeches and great factors, or the teeming peoples of the scientific activity. earth. His clarity of thought and method of reasoning never varied. Let us trace the development of my father as a scientist. People are Rather let us say that he was a good inclined to think of him as a scientist general and good politician because he merely in addition to being already a was a versatile scientist. soldier and a politician. Here they are At an early age he showed these really putting the cart before the horse, leanings. But in his youth the study of for whatever other qualities my father science was still a comparatively new possessed, he was above all a scientist. art, with little literature and little It was from this attribute he inherited publicity. Consequently my father had the characteristic of careful analysis – to grope for a mode of expression. the taking apart of things to discover This he found by his reading of the basic factors and principles. It was poets and philosophers and his from this he inherited a clarity of communion with nature. Crude as these methods were, they helped him to write his novel and far-reaching treatise on Walt Whitman. The analysis of Whitman followed him as an intriguing problem for many years and he was not satisfied until he had expressed himself more maturely in Holism and Evolution. Yet Holism was only an introduction to the problem, and if he had leisure one day he hoped to complete it in a second volume. Though dealing with inanimate elements and impersonal laws, my father believed that these laws were in fact expressions of a form of personality, and the very atoms and electrons were no less than basic communities of regulated things. General Smuts – 1930 Holism (pronounced as if spelt late a link between life and matter. It “Hollism”) was an endeavour to postu- involved a process of evolution, which after all is a concept of a living trend. It is a long time since Newton gazed dimensions, and the remainder he musingly at the gravitational attraction filled in from other scientists. upon an apple, or Faraday dabbled The study of Geology fascinated him with the elementary phenomena of from an early age. Born in the rugged electricity, but this was the mountain land of the Cape, it would background in which my father spent have been strange had a study of the his early years. When he was at Cam- crust of the earth not intrigued him. It bridge he pursued the course of law would have been difficult for a and rhetoric and had little tutored mountaineer to stand upon the top of experience in scientific matters. All Table Mountain and gaze northwards the science he learned he gleaned across the great jagged buttresses, painstakingly for himself by private rising one behind the other into the reading and study. In chemistry he blue distance, without feeling an taught himself about Rutherford’s ambition to unravel the riddle of the atoms and the symbols and reactions crust. of the various elements. Kelvin taught him about electrical behaviour, So my father, by reading and Edington and jeans about the com- observation, soon had a good working position of the celestial spaces, Planck knowledge of the rudiments of crustal and Einstein about the abstract behaviour. Joly’s hypothesis of behaviour of matter and space in all its isostasy, or rising and falling continental masses, interested him, for it personified the pulsations of a living continent. But the Taylor-Wegener friendship and association. Du Toit theory of continental drift was his was our leading geologist, and perhaps great love in the geological realms. the greatest modern protagonist of the For not only did it solve a large continental drift hypothesis. My father number of formerly inexplicable spotted his brilliance early on and took phenomena, but it had a satisfying an active interest in him till his death purposeful trend about it, and shortly after the Second World War. purported to show, too, that Africa The fact that he had failed to indicate was the stable mother continent from satisfactory water boring sites on my which the subsequent disruption and father’s bushveld farm did not in any drifting had taken place. way shake my father’s faith in him. When Professor Schwarz was His interest in continental drift was expounding his Kalahari redemption stimulated by the inspiring spectacle scheme in the early 1920s my father of the Great Rift Valley of East Africa sent du Toit to investigate the matter he saw during his campaigning there on behalf of the Government. Though in the First World War. For the Great this survey was hurried and not Rift might well be the manifestation or completely conclusive it showed that embryo of a new rift and movement, water would have to be persuaded to which in the fullness of geological flow uphill to fill some of the old time, might amount to a new division desert depressions. Many of Schwarz’s of the African continent. With Dr. other premises did not meet with A.L. du Toit he had close ties of general acceptance. Du Toit had also from old preconceived ways of been intrigued by the personality of looking at many scientific problems... Schwarz, who apparently displayed The Northern Hemisphere, and in but scant interest during the trip in the particular the European continent, is geological and topographical investi- the home of nineteenth-century gations, but was wildly interested in science, its birthplace and the great the studies of native life he came field of its labour and triumphs... No across. The impression was, du Toit wonder it has come to be considered told my father, that Schwarz had the centre of the world, perhaps the already lost interest in his own original seat and centre of all grandiose scheme. terrestrial evolution... As President of the British Association From many points of view Africa for the Advancement of Science when occupies a key position among the it met in Cape Town on the 6th July, continents of the world; it has the most 1925, my father delivered an address curious affinities with all of them; on “Science from the South African more than any other continent it has Point of View”, in which he touched special scientific relationships with all briefly on some of his pet ideas in so the rest. And the character of these far as they concerned us. relationships shows that it occupies not only geographically but also In the first place [he said] the South scientifically a position among the African point of view will liberate us rest, a position which may yet supply the key and the explanation to many may be right in assigning to the problems that are at present obscure or African continent a central deter- unexplained by science... mining position in many of the great unsolved problems of Geographical Within the last five years a great Distribution... impetus has been given to this way of looking at Africa by the Wegener One important line of research which theory, or rather hypothesis, for it is, it suggests to us is the East-West perhaps, not yet more than an aspect, in addition to the hitherto hypothesis... The Wegener hypothesis prevalent North-South line of orien- purports to explain the origin, the past tation... We have looked to the north and the present of all continents and for explanations as well as our origins. oceans of this globe... in future ... we shall look more to East and West. ... We shall look upon For us in this part of the world the Southern Africa as the centre of the most interesting feature of the scheme Southern Hemisphere and correlate all is that in it Africa assumes a central the relative scientific problems of this position among the continents... It hemisphere from that new point of appears as the mother continent from view... which South America on the one side and Madagascar, India, Australia and Let us first take the case of Geology... their surrounding areas on the other, Several of our formations at the Cape have split off and drifted away... The seem to be continued or paralleled by evidence for all this is strong; ... It identical or similar formations in India South Africa; the one, the South and South America... African flora, which covers most of sub-tropical Africa and is clearly of We may be enabled thereby to explain tropical origin; the other, a temperate just why they are practically the sole flora, found only in the south-west of producers of the world’s diamonds; the Cape Province on the seaward side why the diamond fields of South-West of the first great mountain barrier, with Africa are situated on the one edge of outliers extending to the north along the Atlantic and those of Brazil on the the mountain systems into the tropics. other; why the coalfields of these three countries and of Australia are confined The two floras are, apparently, quite to the eastern portions of each of these different and distinct and are engaged land masses; and why the curious and in a mortal conflict with each other. ancient banded ironstones are so This Cape flora forms, indeed, a widely spread in South Africa, Brazil, problem of profound and baffling peninsular India and Western interest. What is its origin, and what is Australia, though absent from Europe. its relation to the South African flora? Northern Europe is the source and the But it is when we came to the north temperate flora of Europe is the biological sciences that such a com- origin of both our South African and parative study promises the most Cape floras. The north temperate flora fruitful results... Consider, for of Europe is supposed to have been instance, the problems affecting our driven south by the onset of the last Botany. We have two distinct floras in great Ice Age in Europe and ... to have mystery might, perhaps, hold also the migrated southwards along the eastern secret of the origin of the Angio- mountain systems of Africa until sperms... southern Africa was reached. The Cape Province ... is a narrow This common view of the European corner of the African continent... Its origin of our floras will, however, wealth of endemic forms is out of all require very careful reconsideration... proportion to its area... Is it not more It may, for instance, yet be found that probable that the south-western corner our floras are not of northern origin, of Africa is the remains of a land but come from the ancient lands of the which extended much farther in the Southern Hemisphere which are Southern Ocean? ... In other words, covered by the Wegener hypothesis ... this flora points ... to an origin even Similarly, the Cape flora has peculiar farther south than the ancient Gon- affiliations with the floras of certain dwanaland is commonly supposed to countries in the Southern Hemisphere. have extended. May we not venture The current view of the northern origin the suggestion that the Cape temperate may therefore not be the last word so flora is the survival of an Antarctic far as Botany is concerned... and sub-Antarctic flora which has perished in the climate changes of the Here it is necessary to point out that past? Darwin, while holding to the northern origin, yet continued to be haunted by [My father then switched to zoology the idea of a southern continent whose and so on to past climates.] Indisputable evidence of the severe masses in many parts of the world. and long-continued convulsions of Conditions grew steadily more frigid, Africa during the Tertiary times exists. until eventually Europe was in the full The vast cracks and fissures which grip of the last ice Age, though in the rent it from south to north exist today more temperate climes increased still in the chains of great lakes and rainfall took the place of the snow and “rift valleys” which extend across ice. Primitive man, the fore-runner of Africa from the Zambesi to the Red homo sapiens, made his bow during Sea, the Dead Sea and the deep valley the Ice Age and is represented by the of the Jordan. Farther north the crust fossil remains found in caves and river of the earth folded up slowly like a drifts. crumpled scroll, and as a result the Three finds of outstanding importance huge mountain chains of the Atlas and have in recent years signalled South the Alps, the Taurus and the Africa as a great field of research into Himalayas were formed. Volcanoes the human past. The first was the burst forth in Africa in many places discovery of the Boskop skull, which, along the lines of weakness, while in according to Professor Dart, represents the south the diamond pipes were a still existing strain among our native formed. peoples. The second was the discovery During the closing phase of the of Homo rhodesiensis at Broken Hill, Tertiary there occurred elevations of which Professor Elliot Smith is the Scandinavian shield and other land reported to have declared to have been one of the most significant finds ever nothing singular in such an idea. After to have been made in human all, such a situation is typical of South palaeontology. Finally we have Africa in more respects than one. Our Australopithecus africanus, which Bushmen are nothing but living largely breaks new ground in palaeon- fossils, whose “contemporaries” disap- tology... peared from Europe many thousands of years ago. The interest of South It will be seen at once what a change Africa as a field for anthropological Professor Dart’s discovery brings into research is partly just this, that it is the situation. For in Australopithecus possibly ten thousand years behind the africanus we have just such an times, as measured by the standards of anticipated transitional form between European cultures... the ape and the human; we have a creature which is still indisputably an It is not only one of the oldest land ape, but with certain facial features surfaces, but since the end of the and a brain development which take it Mesozoic period it has generally some way towards the human... The enjoyed a fairly habitable, though on deduction has been made that Homo the whole, dry climate... No wonder rhodesiensis was living quite out of his therefore that it should contain not proper geological horizon, and was only some of the most ancient fossil surviving in South Africa long ages records of the human race, and that after his compeers in Europe had among its living races it should passed away... But there is really include what are “fossils” in other continents. Its little Bushmen are The guess my father hazarded at the unique; its little pigmy population that “unexplored grottos” was indeed hide in the tropical and sub-tropical prophetic, for ten years afterwards, an forests are representatives of the long- old friend of his, Dr. Robert Broom, vanished human past. Going a little began to make the most important farther back, we find in Africa the series of ape-man discoveries that home of the great anthropoid apes have occurred in the age of human which are nearest to us in the affinities palaeontology. Here, in the old of life... limestone caves near Krugersdorp, were found a wide range of advanced The scope for scientific work in South fossil anthropoids dating back between Africa in this department of know- one and two million years, who ledge is therefore immense; the ground showed characteristics far in advance lies literally cumbered with the of any living ape and who walked possibilities of great discoveries. upright. The different types varied in Our coasts are covered with raised size from small apes weighing perhaps beaches and caves which have never a hundred pounds to giant brutes of six been explored and which probably hundred pounds. hold precious secrets. Our limestone and dolomite formations are honey- These epoch-making finds pleased my combed with unexplored grottos... father quite as much as they did Dr. Broom, for it was my father who, in the early days, had been impressed by the remarkable work Dr. Broom, then like Milner’s entourage, but old well a medical practitioner, was doing on tried veterans. the Karoo fossils, and had persuaded Darwin he had already studied and him to take up research work in the mastered as a young man. At an early Transvaal Museum. Broom, more than age it had made a convert of him to the any other scientist, has brought lustre concept of evolution. Evolution led to this country. through palaeontology and anthro- His belief in the raised beaches was pology to the broad aspect of pre- also justified long after during the history. Prehistory brought him into intensified studies of ocean levels and contact with the caves and Stone-Age past climates, which culminated in the artefact cultures of this country. He remarkable results of the investi- persuaded van Riet Lowe to give up gations of the noted French anthro- his structural engineering work with pologist the Abbé Henri Breuil. Breuil the Public Works Department and to was another old friend of my father’s, start a new Bureau of Archaeology at whom after the collapse of France he the Witwatersrand University. had prevailed upon to come to South For myself I can only say how Africa to study our prehistory. patiently and painstakingly he These and other illustrious scientists encouraged me as a child when he saw who my father grouped about him and that I had a certain flair for prehistory. encouraged, were his proud “kinder- He never developed any marked garten”. They were not young men proficiency as a practical archaeologist, but on the theoretical address of 1925 I have just quoted, side his knowledge was enormous. was a remarkable document and even When out fossicking or camping he now, almost twenty years later, I still would spend his time botanising, consider it the best of its type while I dabbled in the simpler and produced in this country. I say it is more mundane pastime of collecting remarkable, for here my father was stone implements. Such is the dealing in great detail with a subject profusion of the handiwork of he had not really studied intimately primitive man in this country, that one before, but one which was still fluid can readily assemble collections and controversial and one which the almost anywhere. On returning from timid experts shrank from tackling. He our tramps I would show him my was dealing with the highly stones, and he would then enthuse contentious details of man’s over them almost as much as over his evolutionary path, he was working on own botanical specimens; which I a time scale over which there was as need hardly add, were always very yet no general agreement, and he was dear to his heart. attempting correlations between various countries that had not In July, 1932, at Durban my father previously been linked, The result was delivered a lecture to the South a well-balanced, lucid and well- African Association for the Advance- presented paper which astonished ment of Science on “Climate and Man many people who looked upon him as in Africa”. This, no less than the a botanist or philosopher or broad- and that prehistory held out much aspect scientist. better evidence. So he switched the basis of the study to the Stone Age. This present paper on man and climate really had its origins on his bushveld The result was the most specialised farm. Here he had twenty enormous scientific paper he ever produced. I Apiesdoring (Acacia galpinii) thorn shall not try to set out his ideas in this trees growing. They are as big as any book. He indicated, in detail, the in the sub-continent and were a source events of the last Ice Age in Europe, in of great pride to him. But they are also so far as it concerned both climate and an indication of a former wetter primitive man. These results he then climate, for they are moisture-loving correlated with those of the Union, trees. They suggested to him the idea using East Africa as a stepping-stone, of exploring the past climates of our showing that the various separate country from the botanical aspect. The advances of the ice sheets of this idea was fortified by the gnarled camel period had corresponding phases of thorn trees (Acacia giraff) growing rainfall or drought in Africa. It sounds near by, which in turn are remnants of comparatively simple, but it is a highly a formerly drier climate. So he turned delicate study, which even now, with over in his mind the idea of this the passage of many years, still climatic paper, but the more he produces conflicting emotions in the thought of it the more he realised that breasts of scientists. He concludes the botanical aspect had limitations with this tragic reflection on the But two points may, perhaps, be Bushman: usefully stressed in this connection. In the first place, if environment has any As they were racially and physically influence on human evolution, we may not very different 15,000 years ago, look to the physical conditions under what has caused the immense which the Bushman and his ancestors difference between the European and have lived for this last 8,000 years and Bushman today? We see in one the more as an excuse for his degeneracy. leading race of the world, while the No doubt he has gone backward; his other, though still living, has become a brain capacity is even smaller than that mere human fossil, verging on of Fish Hoek man, who, in turn, shows extinction. We sec the one crowned a smaller brain capacity than Boskop with all the intellectual and spiritual Man. The Bushman has been glory of the race, while the other still physically dwarfed and shrivelled and occupies the lowest scale in human mentally stunted by nature. Nobody, existence. If race has not made the who has seen him in his present haunts difference, what has? Of course the in the Kalahari, or who knew him a question is far too speculative, and our generation or two ago in other parts of ignorance of all the essential condi- the Union, will deny that he has tions far too profound, to make any become a desert animal, carved and attempt at an answer worth while! moulded by the desert, just as much as the rest of our desert animals or plants. His desert nature is inbred in him, and in fact he kept continuously abreast of he is an additional proof of the semi- scientific matters at all times. The arid environment which South Africa explanation is, of course, that this must have presented for many period corresponds with the time he millennia. And now that desert was out of government office. It meant conditions are being ameliorated by that now, for the first time, he had the the ironic touch of civilisation, there is leisure to sit down and put his ideas on nothing left for him but to disappear... paper. To lead the masses of his people has meant a loss to Professor M. R. Drennan of Cape contemporary science and philosophy. Town University described it as “... a To him personally, too, it was a real landmark in the science of sadness that he could not do what he Anthropology and I feel certain it is really liked. going to be much sought after as a classic on the subject”. Holism he started writing almost immediately his Government was ***** defeated in 1924. His frenzied tackling The interesting thing to note about my of the task was perhaps a measure of father’s entry on to the scientific stage chagrin and frustration at his treatment is that it lasted only eight years, from by the public, but I think it was more 1925 to 1932. That does not mean that the realisation of a long pent-up urge this was necessarily a period of abnor- to tackle his magnum opus. He wrote mally intensified effort on his part, for it hastily, too hastily, he feels, to do the subject real justice. But his grasses. This really active phase of intention had always been to finish off collecting and studying corresponded his ideas in a final volume. in duration with the same quiet political period 1925 to 1934. His great mental activity at this time Thereafter, though his interest never was by no means confined to his slackened or cooled off, he simply did exposition of the holistic concept. At not have the leisure to devote to his the same time he was delving almost hobby, though he would still often be boyishly into the joys of botany, both found with his books or looking written and in the field. He had always through the collections in his small taken a mild interest in botany, ever herbarium. In the active period he since he had wandered about the planned trips whenever possible into mountains at Stellenbosch in his the wilds for botanical research. These college days. But it was a mild, semi- trips led him as far afield as Lake dormant interest always, which never Tanganyika, Lake Nyasa, the Victoria really obtruded forcibly on his daily Falls, the Zimbabwe Ruins, the life and habits. Zoutpansberg (which he said was Now the study of plants burst forth as particularly interesting), the a full-fledged insatiable hobby. He Blaauwberg, Portuguese East Africa, never proceeded into the veld without etc., quite apart from expeditions in his magnifying glass or his clipping the Transvaal bushveld and the shears, and as far as he wandered he mountains of the Cape. Many of these paused and examined plants and areas had not been seriously touched And in addition he had considerable by collectors before and his collections knowledge of the botany of other were therefore of special interest and countries. contained many new species. His In botany, as in prehistory, Southern mountaineering ability and great Africa is a country of great interest. energy took him to remote places. The vastness of the geographical areas, But his virtues as a great botanist lay the differences in climate and not only in his field work. He was also elevation, the profusion of grasses as a well-read botanist and knew the well as shrubs and trees, and the bibliography and history of botany. He additional strange flora of the Cape read not only English botanical works, make it a country unsurpassed in but also those of the famous German number or variety. The Union has writers. He knew not only about ten thousand different species of contemporary botanists but was an grasses, and these with their intricate authority on the works of the old Latin nomenclature form more than a travellers and naturalists. And he was full-time study. Add to that an also well acquainted with the works of additional thirty or forty thousand the palaeo-botanists such as his old plants, shrubs and trees and the friends Professor Seward and Dr. formidable nature of botanical study in Marie Stopes and others. He knew the this country will be appreciated. The botany of Mesozoic Gondwanaland flora of the tip of the Cape alone is as almost as well as the Flora Capensis. extensive as that of the whole of Great scrambles along precipices to collect Britain. tempting-looking specimens. Sometimes a whole protracted No wonder that in botany my father expedition would be planned with the found a hobby to test his mettle. sole object of finding some rare plant To him botany was a study of living collected long before by some of our things set in indigenous surroundings. noted explorers. Travelling with my The artificials and exotics of our man- father by car was often quite an ordeal, made gardens did not interest him. for he would stop frequently and True, he liked a blaze of colour, but wander off into the bush to make his that was all. He appreciated only wild collections, leaving one sitting hot and plants, growing undisturbed in their disconsolate in the car. But though he wild setting. Once having collected a took our chidings and complaints in certain plant he would be satisfied good nature, he never mended his merely to admire it and leave it undis- ways. He brushed away opposition turbed in future. The plants he took here, as in public life. home he either put in his presses or studied carefully before discarding Botany to him was largely an African them again. When in doubt he study and though I have fossicked consulted experts and collections in with him in England and America, I herbariums. He often went to great noticed he never took the same active pains to collect certain specimens. interest in plants there. Tales are told by friends of hair-raising 58 : FUSION For it, he deserves full credit. In private life he had always been a UPON the death of Tielman Roos, Dr. courteous and chivalrous man, and he Malan became heir apparent to now brought these attributes to bear in Hertzog. For various reasons, one of the Coalition. He had no light task, for which was that he considered Hertzog in his ranks were many who did not too aged for leadership and too agree with him and attacked him moderate, he declined to serve under whenever possible. He remained loyal his old leader and now split off and to my father, and turned his ferocity on formed a small group of his own, his new critics. known as the Purified Nationalist Party. He was not interested in a post My father added the major share to the in the new Cabinet. success of the Coalition movement. To do so he completely effaced himself. To many people the most remarkable This was not difficult, for personal thing about coalition was the complete position and status in life held no great change of heart it brought about in lure for him. He was quite prepared to General Hertzog. It was a really withdraw quietly into the background commendable effort. No person could and to allow Hertzog the limelight. It have tried harder than the General to was, in fact, a sound policy to follow. make the partnership work, or to have But there were times when the Prime co-operated more actively. Nor was it Minister wandered off the beaten a shallow veneer. He saw to it that it track, when my father found it almost was to be the greatest work of his life. impossible to remain impassive and to followers, already sorely annoyed at swallow things that went against his Coalition, now broke away completely principles. He did this for the sake of from Hertzog whom from now on they the country. attacked vigorously. The personal side of the association of The 1934 Session was notable for the the two leaders presented no passing of the Status Bills. Malan had difficulties, for though Hertzog and been the prime mover in raising the my father had differed for years on issue with Hertzog. These Bills were political matters, they had throughout, introduced to “clarify” the position in private, remained on friendly terms. brought about by the 1932 Statute of My father had never taken Hertzog’s Westminster, which accorded the wild outbursts to heart, and I never Dominions an equal partnership with once in private heard him complain Britain, in so far as external affairs about his opponent’s attacks. General were concerned. The actual purpose of Hertzog, away from politics, was, in Dr. Malan’s motion was, however, to fact, a retiring and likeable person. whip up the old bogy of complete independence from Britain, an idea A brief Session of Parliament followed which was tied up with republicanism the elections of 1933. Resolutions and other factors. were flowing in from Party branches all over the country requesting that the My father did not favour the Status partnership should ripen into some- Bills. He did not see the need for thing closer, called Fusion. Malan’s them, but saw, instead, a great danger in tampering with the Union’s major source of contention in later constitution, and felt that it would years. In the Act of Union of 1910 have been wiser to leave the position there were certain entrenched clauses, as defined in the past. If he had had his and certain other clauses were way the Bills would never have been prescribed to protect them. These introduced. But once having made up safeguarding clauses laid down that his mind, Hertzog insisted. Thereafter the entrenched clauses could only be my father did his best to moderate and altered by a two-thirds majority of placate the Afrikaans and English sec- both Houses sitting together. The Act tions. The attachment to the Kill, in of Union and the Statute of many was deep-rooted. Colonel Westminster are both British Stallard maintained that the Bills parliamentary pacts. The contention, undermined the sovereign position of later to be introduced by certain the monarch and weakened the ties of constitutional lawyers and Nationalist Commonwealth, and resigned to form politicians, was that as both acts are a strongly pro-British Dominion Party. British, the Statute superseded our Act His few adherents were mostly from of Union, and that we were now at Natal. liberty to modify our own Act at will, without regard to the old two-thirds The implication of the Statute of West- majority safeguard. minster, which brought about a natural consummation of the Balfour In 1951 this point was to become one Declaration of 1926, was to form a of the biggest issues yet faced by our Parliament, when Dr. Malan’s clined to regard it as an academic issue Government introduced a change in and it got little support. General the Cape Coloured franchise, which Hertzog, who did not share my happens to be entrenched in our Act. father’s anxiety, willingly accepted an Coloureds have enjoyed franchise amendment by my father “that the rights in the Cape since 1853. proposed legislation will in no way derogate from the entrenched My father, as the architect of the Act provisions of the South Africa Act”. of Union, must have been well aware He confirmed it still further, by stating of the intentions and implications of that “man to man – it is our view that that Act. In addition he was also an the protection of Section 152 cannot authority on constitutional law. His be taken away”. views, both private and public, were that the entrenched clauses of the Act When the Act of Union was being were in no way affected by the Statute drafted the question of the of Westminster. incorporation into the Union of the three British Protectorates, At the time the Statute became Basutoland, Bechuanaland and operative in 1931 he foresaw the Swaziland, was considered. The idea possibility of future trouble and did his met with full approval, but at the time best to get the House to declare that it was felt that the Union would have the Act of Union was in no way so much to attend to in the next few affected. Members, not so far-sighted, years that it should not be burdened at while agreeing on this point, were in- that stage with the incorporation of the and might have to do an over-hasty Protectorates. The idea was that and undignified withdrawal. With a Britain was to continue their Nationalist Government in power, the administration for perhaps half a issue might well have its hazards. dozen years, where after the Union Soon after completing the final was to take over all responsibilities. It arrangements of Fusion, my father was has been a long six years, for in 1951 on his way to Britain again. He could the transfer was still hanging fire. well afford to leave the Union, for The position now is that while South matters were proceeding more Africa owns the title deeds of the smoothly than for many years, and the Protectorates, Britain still administers country was prosperous and booming. them. The stumbling-block has been largely one of colour prejudice. Britain does not approve of the South African views on the native question, and throughout the years this has been her standpoint for refusal to transfer. My father has for many years, in private, impressed on Britain the need for a timely, but gradual, transfer. Otherwise, he said, Britain would one day find herself ill a difficult position 59 : DISTANT RUMBLINGS the strength or the will to enforce its clauses or to impose sanctions. In 1924 the British, having grown tired of Mr. Lloyd George, rejected this Manchukuo in 1932 was the first test great fighter. Thereafter followed case. Here Japan in flagrant violation Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin of international law and without any and Neville Chamberlain. It was not a pretext, except self-aggrandisement, glorious phase in the history of invaded helpless Manchukuo and Britain. It was a period of indecision proceeded to conquer it. It was a clear- and vacillation and in the end appease- cut case of aggression. The League ment: not the appeasement of power met to consider the position. Nothing and confidence, but humiliating more happened and the incident was appeasement from weakness. Britain accepted with little more than a shrug still remained a first-class power on of the shoulders. land and at sea only because the rest of This conspicuous display of weakness the world at the time was luckily also was not lost upon the other would-be at a low ebb. aggressors. This weakness was to have far- In 1936 Franco, grown tired of the reaching repercussions, for evil men in corruption in Spain, and intolerant of other countries were to see their opposition, and also seeing a great chance and take their risk. For the opportunity for an ambitious man, League it was also catastrophic that started a long and bloody war which Britain and the other powers had not cost a million lives and brought untold greatest works being associated with misery on the population. The great the peasantry and agriculture. In later powers used Spain as a testing days, to symbolise their earlier laboratory for their new weapons. beginnings, he used to help in the Here Germany, in support of the harvesting of the wheat during the Franco regime, for the first time tried festivals. With his rise in popularity out her guns, her tanks and her dive came a swelling of the head and more bombers. On their success here she pugnacious thrusting out of his based her assessments of their future massive chin. His oratory impressed effectiveness in a world war. the populace and stirred them to renewed activity. But greatness was Russian volunteers supported the Left, incomplete unless it was backed by as did volunteer men from Ireland and military might. So Mussolini dreamed elsewhere. In the end Franco’s cause of a mighty Italian army and the prevailed, and with it once more might restoration of Nice, Corsica and Jibuti. over justice. Later he became fanatical about their In Italy Benito Mussolini, a bombastic return. But meantime there was other showman, had visions of making Italy work to do. There was the stigma of a once more great. He had had limited distant disaster at Adowa in Abyssinia, success as a newspaper man, but had in 1896, to wipe out. And so, fully ambition and energy. As a platform he confident that the impotence of the championed the underdog and rapidly League would preclude any drastic rose in popularity, his earlier and reactions, he attacked this wild African actions could be closely watched, she State and Emperor Haile Selassie in decided to withdraw. Germany had 1935. General Grazziani pushed the already done so a few years campaign on with great vigour and previously, and henceforth her military ruthlessness, at times not even preparations were wrapped in neglecting the advantage of the use of dangerous obscurity. Just how mustard gas. After hectic League dangerous, the world was to find out meetings sanctions were agreed upon in 1939. and a mild form of blockade ensued. It Let us see what happened in Germany was left to the Royal Navy to apply it after the war. The peace terms and in the Mediterranean. Here one of her reparations rankled sorely with her, vessels was mysteriously torpedoed by and all those dangerous complexes, what everybody knew to be an Italian which my father had predicted at submarine, but the Fleet was too short Versailles, materialised. She became of ammunition to risk a showdown. uncooperative and resentful. The The issue was never in doubt. country was poor and exhausted and Abyssinia succumbed and once more beset with unemployment and labour might had prevailed. difficulties. It proved a fertile ground for discordant elements. All the more In 1934, despite my father’s previous so because of the lack of strong advice that everything should be done leadership. Hindenburg, when he to remain friendly with Japan, and became President of the Reich in keep her in the League where her 1925, was ancient and passe, and unconquered. One day she would unable to cope with the situation. again be great. He hypnotised the Earlier on my father had hoped that masses. They grew to believe him. He von Lettow Vorbeck might assume claimed the former German colonies. control, but a petty indiscretion had While in prison, he wrote a book put him out of the running. called Mein Kampf, which set out his ideas and aspirations, and which was In a beer cellar in Munich Adolf Hitler to become the bible of the German and his die-hard supporters were people. holding rallies and evolving ambitious plans. They organised big While Britain was still preaching and demonstrations which the police were practising disarmament, Hitler began powerless to break up. By 1933 it was to build up a great war machine. The plain that the fuming fanatic was best scientific brains went into the becoming a leader. In the following design of equipment, and production year he became Chancellor of the went on apace under the financial German Reich. He had been a corporal wizardry of Dr. Schacht. And so, with in the First World War. He was a loud the growth of his Wehrmacht and his and tempestuous speaker with a great Luftwaffe and Navy, Hitler became power over .the masses. His doctrine more confident and bellicose. Britain was the fruitful one of the injustices under Baldwin and Neville done to Germany. Germany was not Chamberlain was still placidly beaten in the last war. She was still sleeping, naively believing that it was governments came and went with the a time for butter, not for guns. phases of the moon. France was drifting. The outlawing of Commu- Russia made one sign as if to awaken nism, later, only had the effect of from her obscure Asiatic slumbers and forcing it underground where, as my lunged out against Finland; but father had predicted, it became far Finland, under Mannerheim, fought more dangerous and insidious. back with such effect that Russia was only too glad to come to terms. This France blamed Britain for much. campaign falsely convinced the world When Hitler marched into the of Russian weakness. It was later, Rhineland she begged that they should providentially, to lead Hitler into his drive the Germans out again; for at the greatest blunder. time France was still comparatively strong and Germany weak. Britain France was in a poor plight. Utterly refused and France liked Britain none exhausted, impoverished and devas- the more for it. It was an uneasy tated by the First World War, in which partnership. she had borne the brunt of the Prussian might, she was now in no state to Hitler said he had no quarrel with settle down. The masses were Britain beyond the question of dispirited and workless, and Leftist colonies. At one time I really think he ideas were turning to outright Commu- meant it. But later his feelings changed nistic persuasion. Leadership was into something more sinister. Yet lacking or of the poorest order, and many in Britain were still not to doubt Hitler’s intentions. They were the dangers and the dark forces that were appeasers, and there were very large threatening freedom, and the numbers of them. monstrous evils that were abroad undermining the minds of peoples in In vain the voice of Winston Churchill the totalitarian states. The task was cried out to awaken and to warn. In long and difficult. In Britain Prime vain Henry Strakosch sent confidential Minister Neville Chamberlain, a well- reports to Britain of what was taking meaning and sincere, but out-of-touch place on the Continent. The mood was idealist, was being outwitted by the one of unshakable complacency. Axis and was hoping to gain time by Nothing but the rumble of guns would means of concessions to Hitler. From dissipate it. the abortive Munich Conference with Firm in his convictions about the the German Fuehrer he came back, coming storms on the international confident and elated, with a little slip horizon, my father did his best, like of paper in his hand. He had concluded Mr. Churchill, to awaken Britain and an agreement with Hitler, and there to warn the world. This was no easy would be “peace in our time”. Never matter. The people were in no mood to for a moment did the apostle of be shaken from their happy-go-lucky appeasement doubt the word of the air of complacency, even though they Fuehrer. The poor Czechoslovak had grave misgivings about the trend people who were the victims of his of events. My father lost no betrayal and who had on the flimsiest opportunity of pointing out the pretext lost the Sudetenland on the Fascist countries. Personal liberties grounds of self-determination to a were one after another curtailed or German minority, felt differently abolished. They became fear states. about Mr. Chamberlain and his scrap The Gestapo were there to see to it. No of paper. whisper, no thought, was any longer safe. It was this problem of gullibility and complacency and make believe that The full hatred of the Nazis was the lone voices had to combat. At his poured out upon the hapless Jews. It is rectoral address to St. Andrews not clear what they had done to incur University in Scotland in 1934 the Nazi scorn and envy, and even odium. theme was “Freedom”, and my But the Nazis turned on them with un- father’s speech here on this occasion, suppressed hatred, and as time went on which I rank among one of his most with active persecution. Millions of memorable, made a great impression. Jews were to perish before the Nazi It was a call to Britain to wake up and machine was curbed. Liberties had to take heed of what was happening on gone. Germany became a great hand- the Continent. It was a timely warning, raising, heel-clicking “yes” state. for already Nazism and Fascism were This was the dim pattern of events. beginning to swallow up rapaciously My father saw it all clearly. all those freedoms that were so dear to us. With the rise of Fascist ideas a great intolerance began to grow in 60 : FREEDOM more clearly or courageously. What these talks meant to the Empire only MY father’s 1934 visit to Britain was a history will one day be able to assess. memorable one, for during his stay he delivered two extremely important On the 17th October he delivered his speeches on international affairs and Rectoral Address at St. Andrews many lesser ones. University in Scotland. In this time of the awakening of the dark forces of These two addresses I would Fascism and Nazism, the title was unhesitatingly rank among his fittingly “Freedom”. And equally greatest. His speeches on international fittingly it was addressed to the young affairs are all unique. They were people of the oldest University in addressed to world audiences and were Scotland. Here, as in all his great clarion calls to peoples rather than addresses, he was in good humour. reviews of events. In all, the trend of The mood could never be mistaken events was stressed and remedies and he carried himself and his proffered to forestall disaster. Often audiences along in the same good they became the adopted policies of humour. So it was at St. Andrews. I nations. They carried not only shall quote his speech fairly fully. warnings, but also messages of hope. The language was simple and the facts Professor Blyth Webster, introducing and reasoning lucid and my father, said: “Skilled in war, no straightforward. When he wanted to be less potent in peace as an administrator explicit no one could state his case and statesman ... True as only the brave are ... he is at once our advocate enthralled. At that time the first Boer and our example of that peace ‘whose War – the one that ended at Majuba – name is one with honour born of war’. was going on, and I remember asking He showed us the practice and taught him whom he thought would win. us the persistence of our own best From his great military knowledge he ideals.” had no doubt that the British would win. I asked him whether he thought After expressing thanks for his the English were the greatest nation in election and paying tribute to his the world, and he replied “No”; there defeated opponent, my father said: was one nation still greater who lived The principal’s remark carried my in the farthest land in the world; they mind back to the first occasion I had were the greatest of all nations and heard mention of the Scots. My people even the British were very much afraid were small farming folk in the old of them. They were called the “Scots”. Cape Colony, and when I was a very That was my first introduction to the small boy I used to frequent the Scots – and such was my introducer! company of an old Hottentot shepherd The principal must be right. Now, 54 of my father, who used to delight me years after those historic with stories from his native folklore. conversations, I find myself the rector He had also been to several Kaffir of a famous university of this land – of wars, and could tell me of his own romance, as the principal calls it – of wonderful feats of arms in those border campaigns. I listened the greatest of peoples, as old Adam, character. There are the ties of kinship the Hottentot, called it. in the distant past, of a common religious faith, of common moral I shall not venture to flatter you, and ideals. john Calvin and John Knox so I am bound to confess that in the both belong to our invisible founda- sense of greatness meant by old Adam, tions, and there remains a community he was wrong about Scotland. I have of spiritual outlook and moral values subsequently learnt that the Scots are, between our peoples which are among in fact, one of the small nations, the most precious things we bring although I do not intend to say so from our past. outside Scotland. To me and to us in our small beginnings in South Africa In particular we both cherish and you are all the dearer on that account. practise liberty as the fundamental rule We small ones of the earth feel of life... mutually drawn to each other in a You in Scotland have a great story world which has largely gone crazy behind you while we in Africa are with the problems of size and scale. only at the beginning of things. The Both of us have learnt from Athens best I could wish for my own young and Jerusalem that the real values were people, now beginning to set up house no respecters of dimensions. There on its own account, is that its future were also other ties which link us story may not be so very different in together in common interests and outline from yours. Like you, we have sympathies of a more intimate started in trouble and bloodshed. We still have our tribes just as you have all over the world, and most of all in had your clans. We are trying to come undeveloped countries like those on and grow together in nationhood, just the African continent... as you have gloriously succeeded in But, as I said, we are still at the your own union and internal peace- beginnings. At this moment we are making. But more: you have set us an trying to lay the enduring basis of example how, while living your own peace in our national life. Nowhere in life and maintaining and developing the Dominions has more good blood your own peculiar characteristics, to been shed. Nowhere has the political join in the larger life of a wider group, aftermath of war been more unpleasant and thereby to make your contribution and bitter. But we believe we are at to the upbuilding of human civilisation last approaching the end of that and the establishment of a chapter. In our politics and our racial Commonwealth which today secures relations we are at present concluding peace and opportunities for the good the grand pact of union and of fusion... life to one-fourth of the human race. The young nations of the world have Your success in this wider theatre has their own contribution to make to the gone far to justify old Adam the human causes, and they can best begin Hottentot in his high opinion of the to do so by setting their house in order Scots. They have overflowed their and pledging themselves afresh to the narrow national boundaries and have great human principles on which our reinforced human life and endeavour Western civilisation rests. In the old world – in the motherlands Mankind stands perplexed and baffled of out European civilisation – those before the new situation and the new principles are no longer considered problems. There is fear, a sense of sacrosanct and are being widely insecurity among the nations. The challenged and even openly defied. primeval dread of the unknown is once The things which Thomas Carlyle in more upon us, and the dark irrational the past century classed with the forces of the past are once more eternal verities are today being stalking forward from their obscure relegated to his limbo of old clothes. background. We have the paralysing With the cataclysm of the Great War sense of having failed. The fair the whole European order threatens to promise of nineteenth-century collapse and in the ruins to involve the progress has ended in defeat and most precious treasures along with the frustration and disillusion. There has accumulated rubbish of the nineteenth been a double failure. There was the century. The catastrophe has been so failure of the Great War, which sudden and unexpected that we have seemed to be a negation of the not yet had time to do the necessary principles on which the comity of our sifting, to save the treasures from the Christian civilisation had been waste of the middenheap. There has laboriously built up, and there was the been no time yet to readjust our no-less deep and poignant failure of viewpoints, to take new bearings. the peace, when at a vital moment, a critical occasion for Western civilisation, human goodwill appeared No wonder there is abroad a spirit of to be unequal to its task, and the great pessimism and even of despair. So hopes for a better ordering of the many high hopes have been dashed. future were rudely disappointed. Such Science, the proudest product of the a chance comes but once in a whole human reason, the greatest instrument era of history, and we missed it. The of human progress, the voice of God politics which is founded on despair or to our day and generation, has at the desperation, which covers many same time become the most dangerous European countries today with weapon for our self-destruction. dangerous political experiments, and Democracy, with its promise of in others endangers peace and international peace, has been no better paralyses disarmament, has sprung guarantee against war than the old largely from this second failure and dynastic rule of kings. International the slaughter of ideals which it trade and commerce, which were involved – a slaughter no less grievous supposed to pave a sure way to better than that of our millions in the war. understanding among the nations and a There was this double human failure, peaceful world, have instead led to which has wounded, so to say, the economic nationalism, and thereby very soul of mankind, and left it with opened up new sources of insufficient faith and confidence to international friction and trouble. One sustain the causes and the institutions by one the vast expectations born of which are essential to our civilisation. the progress of the last century have been falsified, and today we face a impression of life I can give you in bleak world, bereft of the vast capital words which most of you know from destroyed in the war, even doubting your childhood. They occur on the the principles on which our civilisation first page of the greatest book in the is built, without confidence in world. They come from the youth of ourselves and our destiny, and with no the world, and today in its maturity clear vision of the road before us. We they are truer than ever. The world is console ourselves with the truism that good. This is a good world. We need we are living in most interesting times. not approve of all the items in it, nor But the hard truth is that they are the of all the individuals in it; but the most anxious and critical times that world itself, which is more than its mankind has faced for many centuries. parts or individuals, which has a soul, Speaking here today to you, the young a spirit, a pull, a fundamental relation people of this university, an old hard- to each of us deeper than all other bitten campaigner like myself might relations, is a friendly world. It has be asked how I view the prospect borne us; it has carried us onward; it before us. What message I have from has humanised us and guided our my own experience, as one who has faltering footsteps throughout the long gone through the immense experience and slow advance; it has endowed us of our generation to those who now with strength and courage; it has stand on the threshold of this strange proved a real vale of soul-making for new world... My fundamental us humans, and created for us visions, dreams, ideals which are still further sanctions and the guarantee of its own moulding us on, eternal lines. It is full highest fulfilments and perfections. of tangles, of ups and downs. There is That is my ultimate Credo; and it is always enough to bite on, to sharpen not founded on hearsay, but on my wits on, to test our courage and first-hand experience in that cross- manhood. It is indeed a world built for section of the world which I have lived heroism, but also for beauty, through... I remain at heart an tenderness, mercy. I have passed optimist. through pretty rough passages. In spite of the international friction of I have sampled the world and human today there is today more real nature at many points, and I have goodwill and good feeling in the world learnt that it takes all sorts to make a than ever before. Contact with the world. But through it all my common people everywhere is conviction has only deepened that sufficient to convince us of that fact. there is nothing in the nature of things There is no decadence abroad, but which is alien to what is best in us. everywhere the signs of new life and There is no malign fatalism which of new forces on the move. In all our makes fools of us in our dark striving feverish activity I see no spirit of towards the good. On the contrary, defeatism. Indeed, much in the purely what is highest in us is deepest in the human situation is deeply nature of things, and as virtue is its encouraging... own reward, so life carries its own But discounting the serious risk of war The sturdy individualism which in the near future, there still remain inspired progress in the past, which other grave dangers facing our made Rome, which made Scotland, civilisation. There is a decay of which has created all our best human principles, which is eating at the very values, seems to be decaying in the vitals of free government, and to me atmosphere of lassitude and disillusion that appears to be a far more serious of our day. Men and women have danger to our future than the risk of suffered until they are abdicating their war. There is today a decay of the rights as individuals. In their misery individual’s responsibility and share in and helplessness they are surrendering government which seems to strike at to the mass will which leads straight to the roots of our human advance. autocracy. The feebleness of Continental democracy, its For me the individual is basic to any ineffectiveness in a crisis calling for world order that is worth while. swift and decisive action, has Individual freedom, individual contributed to this defeatist attitude of independence of mind, individual the individual. And the result is that participation in the difficult work of with this individualist prop of freedom government seems to me essential to gone, freedom itself seems to be in all true progress. Yet today the danger. A new sort of hero worship is individual seems more and more at a arising, very different from that which discount in the new experiments in Carlyle preached, which saps the very government which are being tried out. foundations of individuality and happening in the world, and cannot be makes the individual prostrate himself evaded. before his national leader as before a The danger signals are up in many god. That way extreme danger lies. colours and in many lands. The new The disappearance of the sturdy, tyranny, disguised in attractive independent minded, freedom loving patriotic colours, is enticing youth individual, and his replacement by a everywhere into its horrid service. servile mass mentality is the greatest Freedom must make a great counter- human menace of our time. Here we stroke to save itself and our fair reach what I firmly believe is the heart Western civilisation. Once more the of the problem, the issue round which heroic call is coming to our youth. The the greatest battles of this and the fight for human freedom is indeed the coming generation will be fought – if supreme issue of the future, as it has the cause of our civilisation itself is to always been in the past. be saved. As an old soldier in this Although the ancient homelands of cause I hope you will excuse me when constitutional liberty in the West are I state thus bluntly my views on the not yet seriously affected, we have to dangers ahead as I see them. The issue confess sadly that over large parts of of freedom, the most fundamental Europe the cult of force – what in the issue of all our civilisation, is once Great War we used to call Prussianism more squarely raised by what is – has for the moment triumphed. Popular self-government and parliament are disappearing. The shows its head. In many, if not most, guarantees for private rights and civil European countries the standard of liberties are going. Minorities are human freedom has already fallen far trampled upon; dissident views are not below that of the nineteenth century. tolerated and are forcibly suppressed. Perhaps I do not exaggerate when I For those who do not choose to fall say that of what we call liberty in its into line there is the concentration full meaning-freedom of thought, camp, the distant labour camp in the speech, action, self-expression – there wilds or on the islands of the sea. is today less in Europe than there has Intellectual freedom is disappearing been during the last 2,000 years. In with political freedom. Freedom of ancient Athens, in ancient Rome, there conscience, of speech, of the Press, of was at any rate freedom of thought and thought and reaching is in extreme speculation and teaching, and danger. One party in the State usurps generally of religion. Now in the power, and suppresses its opponents twentieth century, intolerance and becomes the State. The Press is threatens once more to become the made to write to order, and public order of the day. In spite of all our opinion is manufactured for the scientific expansion, our essential support of the autocracy. Even human rights are contracting. freedom of religion is no longer safe, The new dictatorship is nothing but and religious persecution, after being the old tyranny writ large. I fear the long considered obsolete, once more new tyranny more than I fear the danger of another great war. Tyranny denial of liberty – not as a temporary is infectious. As Burke said, it is a expedient, but on principle. weed which grows in all soils, and it is The assertion that they aim at the its nature to spread. Even in this island eventual enlargement of liberty is vain home of constitutional freedom, I do in view of the fundamental negation of not know that you are quite immune. liberty on which they are based, and Democracy seems to be going out of the absorption of the individual by a favour and out of fashion, and unless State or group, which is their real its methods can be overhauled, its objective. unpopularity may involve the cause of liberty itself. I maintain that such a basis of human government is an anachronism, and a Let me state quite clearly that I am not moral impossibility in our Western against new experiments in human civilisation. The denial of free human governments. The extraordinary rights must in the long run lead to a difficulties and complications of cataclysm... Dictatorship can only be modern government call for revised tolerated as a temporary expedient, methods and new experiments. What I and can never be a permanent am here concerned with is the serious substitute for free self-government. threat to freedom and self-government Freedom is the most ineradicable which is involved in the new experi- craving of human nature. Without it ments now being tried out on the peace, contentment and happiness, Continent. They are all based on a even manhood itself, are not possible. The declaration of Pericles in his great In the long run only the spirit of inter- funeral oration holds for all time... national comradeship can solve the problems of freedom and of peace. But “Happiness is freedom, and freedom is in the meantime the supreme cause has courage.” That is the fundamental to be kept going and to be safeguarded equation of all politics and all human from all danger till the coming of a government, and any system which new renascence of the European ignores it is built on sand... spirit... In these days of widespread backsliding, of luke warmness or The inner freedom and harmony of the downright disloyalty to our funda- soul; social freedom and equality mental human ideals, the countries before the law as the foundation of the which have always been in the State; international freedom in the rule forefront of the historic fight for of peace and justice; these should be human liberty have a very grave duty the creative ideals of the new age, imposed on them. They cannot refuse instead of sterilising the repressions of the challenge of the times. They dare the past and still more sterilising the not abandon the cause which our tyrannies which are forging new forefathers rightly placed along with shackles for the human spirit. Creative religion itself as calling for the highest freedom is the watchword of the new loyalty and the greatest sacrifices... order to the realisation of which we should bend our energies. I have no doubt that the present disquieting phase will pass and a new renascence of the European spirit will follow. What a glorious opportunity to our youth today to live in times when the situation is once more fluid and the world is once more in the re-making. Are we going to leave a free field to those who threaten our fundamental human ideals and our proudest heritage from the past? Or are we going to join in battle – an age long battle which has been going forward from the dawn of history – for the breaking of our bonds and the enlargement of our range of free choice and free action? Remembering the great appeal of Pericles which rings through the ages let us seek our happiness in freedom, and bravely do our part in hastening the coming of the great day of freedom. 61 : INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Both are dangerous complexes, the symptoms of disease and not of THE speech which my father made in healthy growth, and unless they are November before the Royal Institute treated on wise lines they may in the of International Affairs on British long run produce very serious foreign policy was of even greater consequences for the public mind and importance, and was at the time life of the world... Fear, the meanest of acclaimed by the British press. He human motives, is today the master of pleaded for a generous recognition and us all. The victors of the Great War, so equal status for Germany, for a policy far from feeling secure in their victory, of friendship with Japan, for a are, in fact, obsessed with this almost strengthening of the influence of the neurotic fear. And the vanquished are League of Nations and for a firm reacting in the obvious and inevitable tackling of the problem now facing way by refusing to accept their Manchukuo. Once more I quote fairly enforced inferiority and their position freely: as second-class nations in the comity Looking at the European situation of civilisation... today, as distinct from the wider world situation (to which I shall refer later), I If Europe is to get back to the right am deeply impressed by the fact that road again, it seems to me necessary two underlying forces are today that the nations, both victors and creating and shaping policies – the fear vanquished, should be cured of their complex and the inferiority complex. Freudian obsessions, should recover their commonsense and sanity, and it is an open forum for discussion should once more see things in their among the nations; it is a round table right and normal relations... Once for the statesmen, around which they Europeans admit to themselves that can ventilate and debate their they are perhaps a little mad, the cure grievances and viewpoints... would come of itself. ... There is no There are those who say that this is not doubt that the present spell will pass, enough – that as long as the League but what irreparable mischief is not remains merely a talking shop or being done while it is on! Let states- debating society, and is not furnished men become the courageous doctors to with “teeth” or proper sanctions, the their sick peoples, and the spell will sense of insecurity will remain, and soon pass... the fear complex will continue to The remedy for this fear complex is dominate international relations. It is the Freudian way of dragging it out also felt that the inability of the from its hidden depths, bringing it into League to guarantee the collective the open, and exposing it to the light system by means of force, if of day. And this is exactly the method necessary, is discrediting it and of the League of Nations. The League leading to its rapid decay. It is said may not be a satisfactory source of that the crucial case of Manchukuo has security; it may be wanting in that exposed its real weakness and shown element of sanctions which many that, unless armed with force to carry consider so necessary. But, at any rate, out its policies, it is doomed. My necessary. And remember the U.S.A. answer to this is twofold. has still to join the League before it will ever be its real self. Membership In the first place, I cannot visualise the of the U.S.A. was the assumption on League as a military machine. It was which the League was founded; not conceived or built for that purpose; defection of the U.S.A. has largely it is not equipped for such functions. defeated its main objects. And the And if the attempt were now made to joining up of the U.S.A. must continue transform it into a military machine, to be the ultimate goal of all true into a system to carry on war for the friends of the League and of the cause purpose of preventing or ending war, I of peace... think its fate is sealed. I cannot conceive the dominions remaining in But, in the second place, experience such a League and pledging since the inception of the League. has themselves to fight the wars of the Old in fact taught us the way out. Locarno World, and if the dominions leave it, has been incorporated into the League Great Britain is bound to follow. of the collective peace system. And Locarno establishes the principle of I cannot conceive anything more limited sanctions, of a smaller group calculated to keep the U.S.A. for ever within the League entering into mutual out of the League than its defensive arrangements under the transformation into a fighting aegis, and subject to the control, of the machine, pledged to carry out its League. This does not throw the decisions by force of arms if obligation to use force willy-nilly on While one understands and all members, but binds only those who sympathises with French fears, one on grounds of their special situation cannot but feel for Germany in the and interests, choose to enter into such position of inferiority in which she arrangements... still remains sixteen years after the conclusion of the war. The How can the inferiority complex continuance of her Versailles status is which is obsessing and, I fear, becoming an offence to the conscience poisoning the mind, and indeed the of Europe and a danger to future very soul of Germany, be removed. peace. Surely there is sufficient human There is only one way, and that is to fellow-feeling left in Europe to see recognise her complete equality of that the position has become status with her fellows, and to do so intolerable and a public danger. There frankly, freely and unreservedly. That is no place in international law for is the only medicine for her disease. second-rate nations, and least of all And when we have summoned up should Germany be kept in that sufficient courage to treat her in that position half a generation after the end human way, as our equal in the comity of the Great War... of nations, then, and not till then, will the old wound cease to fester and Some people consider magnanimity poison the life of Europe and the out of place in international affairs. I world... have seen it in my own country change a position of dangerous potentialities into one of everlasting friendship ever. It is the story of the Sibylline between victor and vanquished. That is books... the way we humans are built... So far I have confined my remarks to Germany’s equality of status has the European situation. Europe, like already been conceded in principle. the poor, is always with us. But in the This was done in December, 1932, Far East a cloud is appearing which, when the Great Powers at the although it is at present no greater than Disarmament Conference agreed to a man’s hand, may come to accord Germany “equality of rights in overshadow the whole international a regime of security”. If this sky in time. declaration had been followed up and Already on its mere appearance it has acted on in the Conference itself severely shaken the League and led to Germany would today still be a menacing reactions in several member of the League, and not a directions. disturbing factor outside it, and we should probably, have had an People instinctively realise that here is agreement on a far-reaching measure a phenomenon of first-class order, of disarmament. Now she is out of the which may have the most far-reaching League, her armament position is effects on the fortunes of peace, and wrapped in obscurity and danger, and indeed of our civilisation. Manchukuo the opportunity for a general measure is perhaps not yet the parting of the of disarmament seems farther off than ways, but it is the warning that we are coming to the parting of the ways and Far East. There the hand of destiny is may soon have to make a very solemn still writing in its unknown script – in choice in national policy. a language and in ideas which are scarcely intelligible to the Western I have always looked upon the mind. Washington Treaties of 1922 as probably the greatest step forward yet The achievement of the Washington taken since the peace on the road to a Conference was just this – that in this stable future world order. In 1921, at new danger zone of the future a the Imperial Conference of that date, I concert or collective system of the stated my view that a great change was Powers concerned had been built up, a coming over world politics, and that loose conference system, founded on the scene was shifting from the certain vital issues, which might do for Atlantic to the Pacific. It was felt, and the Far East what the Geneva League not by me only, that the future of the was attempting to do in the West. world would probably be decided, not Comparative naval power, the integri- in the Atlantic, but the Pacific Ocean ty of China, the open door in that and countries. The pot might continue immense potential market, were to boil in Europe for perhaps another agreed in principle, and in case of any generation, but in the end it would differences or danger arising the simmer down... The storm centre will Conference would meet for discussion. pass away from the countries of Here was the most promising thing for Christian civilisation and shift to the world peace which had yet taken place since the Covenant. The question She has already given notice of which is now being raised is whether withdrawal from the League. If, in the promise of Washington will be addition, she withdraws from the fulfilled and not prove to be a mere Washington Treaties the whole mirage. Manchukuo, as I said, pointed collective system goes, so far as she is the danger signal. Now the treaty on concerned... naval ratios seems to be in danger; and In the third place, everything possible if that goes the other issues settled at in the power of diplomacy should be Washington may also be re-opened done to avoid even the appearance of and the whole Pacific concert may antagonism between the East and collapse... West. The potentialities of the ... Adversity makes strange situation are inherently serious bedfellows, and those who have in the enough, and should not be rendered past talked loudest of the Yellow Peril worse by one-sided diplomacy. Asia is may in future be tempted to look for at a curious phase of her awakening. friends in that unlikely quarter... Complexes there, too, are forming. The old exploitation or ascendancy In the second place, I would appeal policies are out of place in such a most earnestly and in the friendliest situation, and should be carefully spirit to Japan as our old friend and avoided for the future. The past record war-time ally, to pause before she puts of the West in the East is not one to be in motion machinery which will in the proud of or to be further copied... end imperil the concert in the Pacific. Fourthly, and subject to what I have the future of our common civilisation. just said, I wish to make another point Nobody can forecast the outcome of which I consider no less important and the stormy era of history on which we vital. This is a difficult world, in are now probably entering. Our best which we have to walk warily, in insurance in this unknown territory is which even good will may not be to be with those with whom we have enough, and in which we are called an instinctive and historic sympathy. upon to exercise a wise discretion as The British Commonwealth has its an insurance for the future. In this feet in both worlds. Through Great spirit I would say that to me the future Britain its one foot is firmly planted in policy and association of our great this old continent. Through the British Commonwealth lie more with Dominions it has its other foot as the U.S.A. than with any other group firmly planted in the outer newer in the world. If ever there comes a world, where the U.S.A. already plays parting of the ways, if ever in the so great a part. The Dominions have crises of the future we are called upon even stronger affiliations towards the to make a choice, that, it seems to me, U.S.A. than Great Britain has. should be the company we should prefer to walk with and march with to There is a community of outlook, of the unknown future. On that path lie interests, and perhaps of ultimate our past affiliations, our common destiny between the Dominions and moral outlook, our hopes and fears for the U.S.A. which in essence is only the first and most important of them. Through the Dominions British policy solution of our present discords. Here is ultimately tied up with the U.S.A. in lies the true line of progress for the a very profound sense, which goes future. And the more we recognise this much deeper than the occasional jars wholeness of mankind, this integral which, perhaps, are more acutely felt character of all our relationships, the at any particular moment. That surer our success will be in the great fundamental affinity, coming from the adventure of human government, and past, stretching to the future, is, or the brighter the prospects will be for must be, the real foundation of all that world of ordered liberty and peace British foreign policy. Any policy which we are out to build. The driving which ignores it, or runs counter to it, force in this human world of ours is calculated to have a disruptive effect should be, not morbid fears or other on the Commonwealth as a whole. We sickly obsessions, but this inner urge are here on bedrock, which we ignore towards wholesome integration and at our peril. cooperation. The drive towards holism, which I have elsewhere ... More and more we are recognising pointed to as at the basis of nature and that, in spite of racial and political the creative process in this universe, is barriers, humanity is really a whole. equally operative in our human It is in this steadily-growing mutuality society. Unless it is artificially of our relations, in this ever increasing interfered with and thwarted, it will wholeness of our human relationships, lead us forward to sanity, wholeness that I see the only possible ultimate and wholesomeness and rid us of the field and imperilled what centuries of pathological obsessions which are European effort have accomplished for today producing so much friction and our human advance. I feel the hour of dislocation at every step of our action has come, or is rapidly coming, adventure. and we all pray that our leadership, for which we feel the profoundest ... Ever since Versailles, where I sympathy, will not fail us in this crisis entered my first protest, I have felt of our fate. very deeply that the real peace was still to come, and that it would be a A column writer on the Daily Sketch peace not merely of mechanical wrote: “I have seen many arrangements of the territorial or distinguished gatherings, but never economic kind, but something such a mass meeting of distinction as psychological, something in the nature there was at the dinner of the Royal of European reconciliation, something Institute of International Affairs in reaching down to and resting on our honour of General Smuts. If all the common’ human and Christian O.Ms, K.C.Bs, LL.Ds and other foundations. In that spirit I have once alphabetical trimmings of the guests more pleaded for peace tonight. I hope had been placed end to end they would that our statesmen will yet lead us to have gone twice round the big that peace before it is too late – that is banqueting room at the Savoy with a to say, before new, sinister forces have bit to spare...” advanced and taken possession of the The Manchester Guardian declared: enables him to grasp and state what he “The dinner which the Royal Institute regards as the essentials of a situation of International Affairs gave tonight to in a way which one wishes that any General Smuts was a remarkable member of our own Government could gathering of talent and experience. emulate.” Lord Derby, who fittingly presided The Lancashire Post said that the over it as the greatest non-party speech “is expected to have an politician in England, described it as important influence upon the course of ‘probably the most representative events in several parts of the world. dinner at which any of us has ever History, present circumstances and been present’.” The paper continues, intellectual distinction give the “General Smuts, erect, neat, pink and General an entirely unique position in white, speaking in a high voice with a the councils of the Empire, and his touch of accent more Latin than unrivalled clarity of utterance sends Dutch, gave it a speech worthy of his what he has to say echoing round the powers. No politician in England for globe”. many a day has combined his sweep, his detachment, and his subtlety. What The South Wales Argus wrote: “Once impressed one most was the way in more General Smuts has revealed which his mind cuts down to essentials himself as a statesman with the and declares them without cir- international mind. He is one of the cumlocution ... this clarity of mind comparatively few great men in international politics, and he is great because his heart is right as well as his world at large, the Old and the New, head. He is a philosopher and the Nations and the great psychologist. He sees the working of Commonwealth of the British men’s souls behind their actions. He Empire... The farewell banquet in his knows that we find the explanation of honour at the Savoy on Monday the follies and crimes of nations – as evening was one of the most notable of individuals – in the hidden working tributes ever paid to any man in this of these instincts and impulses which country. What other public man, I are the make-up of human nature.” wondered, looking round the crowded tables, could have attracted such a The African World described the gathering. It was not the size of the speech as the “crowning oration of his audience but its character that was so visit, and, profuse as it has been with impressive. brilliant speeches and accustomed as we have become to the pearls of The Times published the speech in wisdom falling from the lips of pamphlet form at the request of the General Smuts, his address on public. It ran into three editions. Monday night, in world importance, The Johannesburg Sunday Times transcended anything he has said remarked in an editorial: “There is during the crowded month of his stay probably no precise parallel in history among us, not even excepting his for the remarkable enthusiasm aroused famous ‘Freedom’ exhortation at St. by General Smuts during his visit to Andrews. It was a clarion call to the Great Britain. So might Hannibal have been welcomed in Rome as a wise and friendly elder statesman of a Carthaginian dominion. It is no exaggeration, we think, to say that the speeches delivered by General Smuts during the six weeks of his visit overseas have placed a new complexion on the broader aspects of world affairs and inspired weary nations, over-wrought by distrust of each other, with fresh hope for the future. 62 : UNEASY PEACE expelled from the Chamber, Colonel Stallard following him as he walked IN May, 1936, the following little out. incident occurred in the House. It was a sequel to a hunting expedition My poor father was unaware of what undertaken by my brother, myself and had occurred in 1933, as we had kept party into Portuguese East Africa in it a dead secret from the family. Much 1933. On our way back into the Union taken aback at this new situation, he it was found that we had unwittingly nevertheless rose to the occasion and contravened a new foot-and-mouth passed it off with one of his classic disease regulation promulgated in our evasions: “The Committee will forgive absence, and we found ourselves in me,” he said, “for saying that I am trouble with the police. Now in 1936 very proud of my boys.” (Cheers.) there was an investigation, going on Mr. Derbyshire: “Wouldn’t you spank into alleged irregularities in the Police them for it? ... How old are these Force, and a Dominion Party member, boys?” My father: “They are quite big Mr. Marwick, brought this case up as now. I would not advise my hon. one of irregularity and claimed that we friend to try to spank them.” had run clear of trouble only because (Laughter.) we were the Minister of Justice’s sons. An altercation ensued between Mr. And with little more ado, Parliament Marwick and Mr. Blackwell which proceeded with its business. grew so heated that the former was In March, 1937, my father was ... In other directions again you learn installed as Chancellor of the of the vast commotion in the great University of Cape Town. It was a world, of the political, economic and distinction that appealed to him social experiments today being tried greatly. He took the opportunity of out in many countries on a scale such giving the students a pleasant fatherly as has never been attempted before in talk on education: history. You learn at close range of the moral and intellectual unrest which is ... The bookworm is generally a sapping the basis of the old order and narrow type, moving in one groove or heralding the advent of the coming another, and never reaching the broad age. You become alive to that daylight and the wide vision which atmosphere of hope and fear, of faith goes with universality. Not seldom the and defeatism, which accompanies the scientific or scholastic expert is great transition and which shows itself singularly devoid of that breadth of in such development as economic and outlook and perspective, that sense of political nationalism, general proportion which is essential to true rearmament and warlike preparations, culture. Just as you may be rich in alongside of brave and by no means earthly possession and yet remain poor forlorn attempts to organise human co- in spirit, so you may amass much operation and security on a, world- learning with much weariness without wide basis. In short, you are flung into acquiring real poise or intellectual a world of intellectual and social and balance, and spiritual sensitiveness... moral ferment which carries you far, overwhelm you. Academic training, very far from the simple home academic life can disclose to you environment. In all this upheaval in certain dominant landmarks by which the contemporary world and in your you can steer your course. Let me own experience you have to remain mention a couple of them. yourself and true to yourself, you have Here you will begin to see this world, to preserve your personal integrity, not as matter of chance, a chaos, a and you have to adjust yourself to all mere jumble of different jarring this strange new world without warring things flung together at damage to your real self. In other haphazard, but as a unity, as a whole words, you have to remain loyal to pervaded by law and order, in which your individuality and at the same our human life links up with and time to adjust yourself to universality. crowns life universal and forms the Starting from the simple pieties of the climax of activities which pervade all home, you have to assimilate what is things. This vision of harmony in the best in this larger thought and life of universe, of principles of order and the contemporary world, and of our beauty which are its very nature and human record throughout the ages. constitution – this vision of truth and Here you can in a very real sense get beauty once seen – will ever remain the key, the clue to guide you through with you as the most satisfying and all this confusing inrush of abiding experience of your life. It will experiences which threaten to give you peace in a world of unrest. Your soul will feed on that vision of He warned the students against the order and beauty in the world, and it slavish acceptance of catchwords and will continue to grow on you till the clichés: end of your days. Science, philosophy, ... Amid the evils of our public world poetry, religion – all will help you to of today, where the tendency is to clarify and deepen that great follow slogans, to run after experience for you. catchwords, to worship ideologies, or Then again you will learn one of the to exalt party politics unduly, the hardest and most valuable lessons of sovereign remedy is this disinterested life – to appreciate and be loyal at all loyalty to fact, this gospel of the costs to fact, objective impartial fact. sacredness of facts which is the We begin life in a childish atmosphere supreme message of science to the of sentiment and prejudices, and world. This is a world of fact. It is thence as we grow older we move on based on facts and not on opinions, to a world of opinions and passions. propaganda or ideologies, which are But really to know the world is to get but the froth on the surface of the down to a true sense of fact, which deeper movement of facts... remains true in spite of all our After that be passed on to Fascism: opinions and partialities and attitudes. This lesson of the true value of fact is Whatever may be the ultimate perhaps the greatest lesson that science outcome of the rival Fascist and can teach us... Communist systems now contending for mastery in Europe, I would ask His association in this capacity with you to believe that their hostility to the the University was a very happy one principle of toleration, of racial, till his death. This, and his connection religious and political toleration, must with the Mountain Club, were surely be a passing phase, a symptom probably amongst his happiest of the confusion and unrest of the memories of the Cape. times. The human spirit having once broken its primeval shackles and emerged from its bondage will never again submit to them for good. Evolu- tion never reverts back to discarded forms or organs. And the light that has dawned on our human horizon can never permanently set again. To believe the contrary would be to despair of human nature and to blaspheme our Maker. There may be temporary eclipse, but never again can there be a return, for good to the dark age for the human spirit. Time has one direction and never moves back... 63 : DARK CLOUDS admirals were dreaming of a revived German navy with myriads of U- MY father was under no illusion about boats. Among the army chiefs, ideas the approach of war. He had seen the of a new tactical concept, the swift, same signs before. Here were the signs crushing blitzkrieg, were crystallising of intolerance and aggressiveness that out. marked the fever of war in a nation. Hitler was steadily growing hysterical, Opposition within the Reich was not ranting and raving and threatening in a only discouraged but ruthlessly way that left no doubt that he was stamped out by a Gestapo system later going to act. His beer-hall friends of brought to perfection by Heinrich Munich held high positions and there Hammer. Bloody purges took place of was no doubt that he would receive the all people thought to be a danger to the fullest support in all he did. The Nazi regime. These putsches took in German Fuehrer believed he was a all the senior men of the country man of destiny with a mission to without fear or favour. Slowly the perform for his people. This, he streets of the towns and villages were gradually came to believe, was to beginning to echo to the hobnailed enslave other peoples and to Naïf all boot and the goosestep, and the Europe. Since 1933 the munitions handshake and salute had long since production machine had been set in changed to the Nazi heil! full-scale motion. Goring was toying Ribbe trop, suave ambassador and with the idea of a vast air armada, and one-time village wine merchant, tried to soothe Britain with honeyed words. the man whom he hoped would save The British Government, longing for Germany, played his cards badly, he an excuse to avoid rearmament, had had misgivings about the future of reluctantly swallowed his sweetened Germany. Von Lettow was young, pills. In vain did Winston Churchill strong and able, but Hindenburg was warn of the coming dangers. People an old and tired figurehead under were either too disinterested or too whom things might slide dangerously. afraid to face up to realities. Geneva Adolf Hitler saw the weakness of the preached disarmament and Stanley situation, and his great opportunity, Baldwin and others were only too and lost no time in putting his ready to listen. If Hitler and Mussolini ambitions into effect. Hindenburg was were foolish enough to squander no match for him. money on armaments that was their My father recognised that his ranting business. Britain would not indulge in and raving about the former German this madness. colonies were blinds to cover much But my father was not a man of such deeper motives. The return of South- easy persuasion. From his distant West Africa, Tanganyika and the vantage-point he saw that those dark Cameroons would not appease an clouds approaching were no mere insatiable Germany. wisps of mist. All the signs of the At the same time Mussolini set about approaching storm were manifest. arms production, turning out weapons Long ago, when von Lettow Vorbeck, of poor quality and obsolete pattern, a navy of ships possessing speed rather complete, and Germany was ready for than fighting power, and millions of war. soldiers of poor quality and morale, In March, 1936, the German who should have remained peasants. remilitarisation of the Rhineland took In the Chambers at Geneva there was place, not only destroying a safeguard vacillation and disagreement. Litvinov of French Security, but bringing the the Russian representative did not great munition centres in Cologne, agree with Samuel Hoare the British Dusseldorf, Mannheim and Lud- representative, and nobody was pre- wigshafen under German control and pared to do anything but talk through rendering the Ruhr industries barely all these troublous times. This defensible. precious international machine, which Exactly two years later came the my father had done so much to set up, annexation of Austria. Hitler had was being turned into a mere talking planned it in 1934, when he had shop. Caused the Chancellor Dollfuss to be An informal but fairly effective call-up murdered, but it is said Mussolini had in Germany began under von Papen in restrained him. With Austria, Hitler 1932. Three years later conscription acquired seven million more German was started. Hitler completed the call- subjects. Schuschnigg was hurried up by drafting the 1938 conscripts a away into captivity and the position of year early. The preparation was Czechoslovakia became more vulner- able than ever. But the Czechs were protected by a treaty with Britain and failed to stay the Nazi war machine; at France which, if defied, would mean dawn on the 1st September, 1939, war. Hitler advanced a claim for self- German troops streamed across the determination by the Sudetenland Polish frontiers at many points. German minority. Britain had not The Second World War had begun. started the mass production of the munitions of war till 1937 and was in Meanwhile Nazism was gradually no position to stand up to him. In growing in South Africa. Agents were September, 1938, Britain and France widespread and they were indulging in concluded at Munich one of the great fairly open propaganda methods. They capitulations of history. Militarily the were enabled to do this not only Allies only gain by this had been time. because a portion of the populace In every other respect the armaments sympathised with them, but because, gap had been widened. Six months in the very Cabinet itself, there were later the whole of Czechoslovakia had those who were tolerant of the germ. become Hitler’s. He was now ready Our Trade Treaty with Germany also for full-scale war. Germany had for brought about many points of long been working a sixty-hour week, unavoidable contact. There were many but Britain was still plodding along German tourists in the country about quietly on a forty-hour cycle. whose activities we were suspicious. Poland’s alliance with Britain and The Press and the more sober public France stood her in poor stead. It were crying out against these agents. My father preferred to watch and to considered life in these countries to be keep silent. Suggestions from him at a low ebb. By contrast the Fascist would only cause serious dissension doctrines seemed the very epitome of and make the situation worse. vigour and progress. Weichardt had founded his Greyshirt Times were still prosperous, but there Movement and active training on a were signs that the enthusiasm for quasi-military scale was going on. Fusion was waning and that an Soon too a Fascist Blackshirt element of strain had crept in. True, Movement sprang up and gained the most discontented had followed considerable support. Colonel Stallard into a new party, but Up to now people had been over- there were many others who felt tolerant of these activities in their almost as strongly but stayed behind. midst. But with the advent of the Italo- They remained on with uneasy Abyssinian War, they realised that the feelings, daily growing more rest of Africa might not be free of the convinced that Afrikanderism was dictators’ ambitions. Under pressure rapidly swallowing up the British from my father, Hertzog consented to traditions. the application of sanctions against In the Cabinet there was disloyalty and Italy. But on the whole the a perceptible lack of harmony. On democracies were unimpressive when many fundamental problems the two it came to applying pressure on sections agreed to differ. But my Mussolini. Small wonder the dictators father’s genius and influence managed By this time criticism of Germany in to preserve a perilous peace. the daily press had become a feature, much to the annoyance of General In May, 1938, came a general election. Hertzog and friends. So now Hertzog Fear of events that were taking place began sending off cables of apology to in the outside world did much to lend the Fuehrer, and drafted legislation to an advantage to the United Party, and curb the press. It might have been not the election was a triumph for my without humour had it occurred in less father. He certainly had worked as strained times. hard as any man for it. During the last two months he had covered, in spare On Union Day, less than a fortnight moments, 2,000 miles by rail, 6,500 alter the elections, an unhappy incident by car and 1,000 by air, on occurred which did much to annoy the electioneering business, making English section. Indignation ran high numerous speeches each day. because of the omission of playing “The King” at military parades Of the 117 seats the United Party throughout the country. Only the retained 111. Their loss had been a Afrikaans “Die Stem” had been Malanite gain. But, significantly, an played. Rumour had it that both the interesting feature of the United Party Prime Minister and Minister of vote was the fact that it revealed a Defence Pirow were implicated. It was distinct swing in favour of my father’s one of those unhappy storms that blew group. up so frequently during those days. Barely had this crisis subsided when resigning. How does he think I feel fresh trouble arose over the seat of a about the whole business myself? Native Representative in the Senate, to Where would we be if we all lost our which Hertzog, without prior heads and resigned? It’s the very thing consultation, had appointed a friend, the Nationalists want.” Many hailed A.P.J. Fourie, who was not Hofmeyr as a hero and looked askance particularly suited to the post. This at my father as a person who had been time feeling was so outraged that two prepared to sell his birthright. Little of my father’s adherents in the Cabinet did they realise how grimly my father felt constrained to resign. was holding on and preparing for the dark day he now saw approaching with One was Mr. J.H. Hofmeyr, who such speed. Devoted as he grew to tendered his resignation on grounds of Hofmeyr during the war years, and principle and conscience. While this mindful of the superb work he was may have been a dramatic and performing, I don’t think the younger spectacular act, it had little else to man ever quite regained my father’s commend it, and it did nothing to ease former esteem. my father’s difficult position im the Cabinet. My father, I remember, was Again my father had to soothe and very critical of Hofmeyr’s defection placate. on the occasion. He remarked to me: In 1938 came the Czechoslovakian “It’s all very well Hofmeyr talking debacle, which brought with it, once about principles and conscience and more, the question of neutrality. On this occasion, but only as a specific Members of the Cabinet with pro-Nazi instance, my father agreed that events feelings, who had been outwitted by at that time did not warrant the risk of my father, fumed in silence. But the full-scale military intervention. rest of the Opposition gave vent in full to its outraged feelings. It was nothing Shortly before Hitler’s birthday in short, they claimed, of an act that April, 1939, my father, without the might provoke an enemy. And it was concurrence of the Cabinet, as perpetrated by the same person who in Minister of justice sent a force of 300 1914 had led the Union into war with policemen to South-West Africa. It Germany. Dr. Malan said it reminded was one of his characteristic, old-time, him of the Nakob incident of 1914. lightning strokes. Intelligence had But for all their feelings, it was revealed that one of the now standard subsequently proved that the despatch German “coups” would shortly be of the Force had been amply justified attempted in the mandated territory by in avoiding serious trouble. trained German elements, and he was determined to forestall events. Now followed Italy’s invasion of “Austria and other small states,” he Abyssinia and the intensification of declared, “have been invaded on the Germany’s propaganda war against plea that they could not keep internal Poland. The question of, neutrality, order, but the Union will never lay which had previously been looked itself open to invasion on that ground.” upon purely as an academic issue, briskly assumed a more practical guise. But Hertzog and his followers Northern Rhodesia and to the jewelled were still of opinion that neutrality wonderland of the Western Rift Valley was a practicability in time of war. of the Belgian Congo. Here in a fertile land of breathtaking scenic grandeur My father bided his time. Words were he spent a few very pleasant days of little avail in times like this. surveying the superb cluster of giant The British element in Parliament volcanoes that rose thousands of feet insisted that neutrality in time of war from the Rift Floor. Nyamlagira was at was an impossibility. The Malanites the time in action, pouring forth a were loud in their denunciation of three-mile wide stream of molten lava those who said they would fight by the from its 10,000 foot-high summit into side of Great Britain. Was not England idyllic Lake Kivu, causing a great the only country that had ever attacked cloud of steam to rise into the sky. South Africa? They flew over the top of this “boiling Matters were now swiftly moving to a cauldron” and “the whole spectacle climax. On 1st September Hitler’s was awe-inspiring – indeed armies streamed into Poland. Two inexplicably so”, he said. days later France and Britain were at The other giants, including Ninagongo war with Germany. and Karisimbi (with the grave of the In the middle of July, 1939, my father United States explorer Carl Akeley on accompanied Sir Ernest Oppenheimer its slopes) were dormant, but at any on a flying trip to the Copper Belt in moment might burst forth again. In the dense mountain forests dwelt the minute pigmy and the gorilla, while in the plains below lived the tall nilotic Watussi farmer, noted for his feats of high jumping. To a friend my father wrote after this inspiring flight over the volcanoes: “For me it has been the day of the trip. I can never have a greater experience than a real volcano in full action and now can feel calm at the spectacle of Dictator volcanoes spouting forth on the European stage. How ridiculous our human antics are in comparison with the real business of nature! ... I closed the day with a fine swim in the lake (Kivu) in front of our hotel.” 64 : THE STORM BREAKS Parliament was luckily in session at the time, having been prorogued to NEUTRALITY was no longer an extend the term of the Senate which academic question. It became, had run to a close. The House met in a immediately, a burning issue. tense atmosphere on September 4 to Hertzog and his henchmen were debate our role in the conflict. determined at all costs, to remain Numerically there was little between neutral. Having secretly conducted a those for and those against, and the poll of adherents in the House, they matter hung critically in the balance. It were convinced of a majority vote on was at this stage that the long years of the issue. In a flash General Hertzog tolerance and patience exercised by had reverted in type to the old pattern. my father in the Fusion Government His movements and motives were all bore fruit. His behaviour had been so hidden under a cloak of secrecy, and exemplary that it had won him many not an inkling of what was happening friends on the other side. This good was allowed to reach my father. will now came to his aid, and was, he My father, in turn, was equally always claimed, the factor that carried determined that South Africa should the day for him. General Hertzog said lose no time in severing relations with to his “regret there appeared to be a Germany. Hertzog had had a good serious difference” in the Cabinet, an start and there was much leeway to “unbridgeable division ... make up. It must not be forgotten that we are will, in so far as the Union is concerned here in a war in which the concerned, persist unchanged and Union has not the slightest interest. continue as if no war is being We are not interested in the war waged...” between Poland and Germany... My father rose to reply: “I think it England has certain obligations would be right and fair and proper,” he towards Poland. We have no such said quietly, in a hushed but tense obligations ... it is urged we should House, “on an occasion like this, when take part in the war because the issues are raised which go to the very German Chancellor has demonstrated foundations of our national life, that I that he is out to obtain world dom- should make clear the exact points ination... Where can we find proof?” where I, and some of my colleagues, He went on to justify the German differ from the policy which the Prime seizure of the Rhineland, Austria, Minister has sketched to the House. I Czechoslovakia and Danzig and spoke shall move an amendment in due of the “monster of the Treaty of course, but before I do so I should like Versailles”. And finally he moved to say, Sir, that I hope the House will “that this House approves and accepts look upon this extraordinary situation as the policy of the Government of the which has arisen as being of the most Union that the existing relations serious character. I am not going to between the Union of South Africa make reproaches; I am not going to and the various belligerent countries introduce debating points. I wish this House and the people of this country We are, dealing with a nation whose to realise as clearly as I see it what policy not only today, but tomorrow really is the position and what is at may touch us most vitally in this stake... country.” “I have never in all these years of our He therefore moved “that this House political collaboration made a serious declares that the Public of the Union in point of differences on small issues. I this crisis shall be based on the have always been prepared to give following principles and way, to hold the peace, and to see that considerations, viz.: the young life of this nation is given a “(1) it is in the interests of the Union chance, and for the people to have an that its relations with the opportunity to grow together.” He German Reich should be severed spoke of the “gravest tangles possible” and that the Union should refuse in regard to the Prime Minister’s to adopt an attitude of neutrality policy of “modified” neutrality, which in this conflict. Germany certainly will not recognise. Of Germany’s demands after Danzig “(2) The Union should carry out the he had no doubt that South-West obligations to which it has Africa and the German colonies would agreed, and continue its co- come next. “To me it is quite clear”, operation with its friends and he said, “that we are not dealing with a associates in the British far-away problem in Eastern Europe. Commonwealth of Nations...” When the motion was put to the Vote position to tackle the future with the my father’s amendment was carried by greatest vigour and enthusiasm. a majority of 80 votes to 67. ***** Hertzog tendered his resignation to the The War, in one cruel stroke, sent all Governor-General. Sir Patrick Duncan the work of conciliation of my father, was in a quandary as to what to do all his unselfish efforts for Coalition next, but after discussing the matter and Fusion, which had held out such privately with my father, called upon glorious prospects for the future of the him to form a new Government. We nation, tumbling down. For the were all at our radios that evening question of the Union’s participation tensely awaiting the news. I was living in a war was no easier now than it had in a northern suburb of Johannesburg been in 1914. Perhaps those against at the time. When the good news came our entry into the fray were not so over, muffled shouting and cheering numerous as they had been in former could be heard all over the times, but they were, nevertheless, neighbourhood. very considerable. The Government Our honour had been saved. And once itself, as will be seen, was split from more we had a great helmsman at our top to bottom on the issue. head. Now in his seventieth year, my Let my father himself describe what father, still in the prime of life and happened in those confused days. Let wonderfully fit and alert, was in a him tell us, too, how difficult some of the days of Fusion had been. Let him South Africa will be grateful to the explain this, as he did at a Party Parliament of this year for deciding to meeting in Bloemfontein on 3rd sever relations with Germany and keep November, 1939. By that time, this country moving along the same General Hertzog had resigned and my lines as those upon which we have father had formed a new Cabinet. been progressing so well in recent years. Night by night [he said] this country is being attacked and bombarded with Now I return to the address which propaganda from Germany, in a way General Hertzog gave here within the far more dangerous, subtle and insi- last few days, and I shall reply to the dious than any attack by armies. Night accusations he made. Speaking of the by night the soul of the people of happenings which led to Parliament’s South Africa is being sapped and their decision on the 4th of September, convictions undermined by that broad- when, General Hertzog says, “Smuts cast from Zeesen. There are other lay in wait for a good chance to broadcasters going about this country break,” it is not necessary for me to from platform to platform and they are deny that accusation, for the whole even more dangerous than the history of what actually happened announcer from Zeesen. No, we were denies it. I must say that I was more at the crossroads, but we took the right than surprised when I read this, but if turning. In the years to come, when the there was this suspicion, if this was in situation has cleared up, the people of the heart of General Hertzog, did he really trust me in those six years we one wish I had for my old age – to see worked together? that the party should remain as strong as a rock for South Africa, and after I I am human. I must admit it was a had disappeared the generation who shock to realise this after all the trust I would follow would have an had placed in him from year to year, impregnable foundation on which to after the support I gave him, after the build. I prayed God to prevent a break. blood and sweat I gave to see the United Party through its difficulty. I General Hertzog talks about small do not boast when I say that the incidents such as flags, anthems and United Party was, in a great measure, oaths. Everything I did was designed my work – my best work for South to keep the United Party together. I Africa, my pride and honour. It was smoothed those incidents over. the ideal for which I sacrificed General Hertzog said I objected to the everything, for which I sacrificed my singing of “Die Stem”. That is false. personal interests. After I had done all His memory must have failed him, for that, why should I break down my if he remembers correctly he will own work? Am I fitted for a lunatic acknowledge that I gave him whole- asylum? Again I ask you, why should hearted support in his suggestion to I look for an opportunity and lie in have “Die Stem” and “God Save the wait to jump out? It never occurred to King” played at the opening of me. I did everything I could to ensure Parliament. long life to the Party. There was only But the question before us at the about this for the first time on beginning of September was not one Saturday, the 2nd of September. I met of flags or anthems. It was a question him in his Chambers with Mr. which went to the very roots of our Havenga and Mr. Pirow. Their policy national life. It was the question of the of neutrality was laid before me and I road South Africa should follow in immediately said: “Impossible”. I told future. I saw we had now reached a them that I found it impossible to point where I would have to give away subscribe to it. We argued about it for everything which I regarded as right the rest of the morning, and I tried to for the people of South Africa when show them why I thought it was an General Hertzog came to us with a impossible policy for South Africa. ready-made plan of neutrality. We had When we could not arrive at an reached down to bed-rock. agreement I asked General Hertzog, in view of the seriousness of the General Hertzog had consulted his situation, to call the Cabinet together. friends and decided to stay neutral on And so the Cabinet was summoned certain lines. He did more. Before he and the matter laid before them. For spoke a word to me or one of my the whole of that afternoon and again colleagues to find out what we that night we discussed the matter. thought, he had an assurance that the And all this time General Hertzog had Nationalist Party would support him in in his possession the assurance of the a policy of neutrality. Here are the “Purifieds” that they would support facts: General Hertzog spoke to me him. General Hertzog did not tell me the Party. But this was also abruptly or a single one of my colleagues refused. It was refused because anything about the fact that he would General Hertzog was assured of his rely on the support of the “Purifieds” majority in Parliament, because he had in his policy of neutrality. the letter from the Nationalists in his pocket. The accusation I make against On Saturday night we agreed to meet General Hertzog is that he did not tell again. Parliament had been summoned his colleagues about this letter and that for Monday morning and there was at this critical moment he went over not much time left. Before the Cabinet the heads of his own Party members. It meeting on Sunday afternoon, General is being said that General Smuts and Hertzog again had the assurance – this his friends set a trap. If there was a time in black and white – that the trap, I ask you, Who set it?” No, my “Purifieds” would support him. Even conscience is clear. There was no at that final meeting he told us nothing intrigue on our side. But General about that promise from Dr. Malan Hertzog had the promise of support and his party. I myself heard about it a from the “Purifieds” in his pocket. week later, and for me it was a great shock... I expected something quite different. I thought when I saw which way things We asked General Hertzog on the were going, that General Hertzog Sunday afternoon why he was in such wanted to get rid of some of his a hurry and advised him that it would Cabinet colleagues; that he would then be better to call together the Caucus of reform his Cabinet – a thing which he Hertzog leaned on certain “slim” was quite entitled to do – and then go people in the Cabinet who advised to the country. He would have had a him. There was even an attempt to new Government and he would have drag in the Governor-General. But consulted the people. But instead of everything went wrong. All these that he went to Parliament because he miscalculations came to nothing, and was assured of a majority. They had the worst of all is that General Hertzog counted. But they counted wrongly. has given over his faithful followers General Hertzog told me and other into the hands of the Malanites, in the responsible persons that he was same way that he is now giving assured of a majority. But then came himself over to Dr. Malan... the Monday, the debate in Parliament, ... I am sorry that I have to talk like and the defence of Hitler, and then this of General Hertzog. I respect him, came the thunderbolt that smashed even though I ask for nothing in General Hertzog’s secret plans. return. General Hertzog has rendered I want to make it clear to the people of great service to this country. It grieves South Africa that our hands were clean me to see that in his old age he is busy throughout the entire occurrence. destroying the great work which he General Hertzog and his advisers did in the past six years, and I deeply made mistake upon mistake. I told you regret that he has become a tool in the what he could have done, but then I hands of Dr. Malan. I do not accuse am only a dull fellow. General him. He was misled by colleagues about him, and especially by one who were dissatisfied and complained of gives out to be a hundred per cent being ill-treated. The peace of Europe Afrikaner. But upon this man the seemed to be endangered on this people of South Africa look with the account, and nobody wanted to have deepest suspicion. This counsellor of Europe plunged into a war because of General Hertzog was General the demands of the Germans there. We Hertzog’s downfall, and today he is certainly had no interest in the matter. busy seeking favour with Dr. Malan... We had no good reason at the time to suspect Hitler of his evil intentions. He ... The charge against me, according to alleged that he was trying to right the General Hertzog, is this: That a year wrongs of his people and save the ago (in September, 1938) when the German minority in Czechoslovakia. Sudetenland trouble was afoot, we Mr. Chamberlain and the French and discussed the matter in the Cabinet British Governments conceded that and we decided that in this particular Hitler had a case, and they did not matter, the Sudetenland problem, we want war. were certainly not going to take part in any resulting war, but that we were At that time and in those going to remain neutral. You will circumstances we said that if war recall what the Sudetenland question should come in Europe over this was about. It affected a certain small dispute, South Africa would be section of the German population on neutral. I agreed that this was the right the fringe of Czechoslovakia, who course to take, but I must emphasise that our decision was confined to a particular case. It had nothing to do with any other problem that might arise. We never defined or formulated a policy of neutrality for the future...” 65 : BUILDING AN ARMY on his efforts would be to remark that when Hitler heard that the Union had MR. Oswald Pirow had been Minister declared war, he laughed. of Defence in the Fusion Government for six years. He was a young and It would be unfair to attribute Pirow’s active man, believed by many to be failure as Minister of Defence to capable. His defence plans were on a ineptitude. He was too able a man for grand Pan-African scale and he that. It was just that he was even more propounded them with eloquence. determined than General Hertzog that Foremost among his supporters was a South Africa should not go to war. But considerable proportion of the at the same time, too, it was patent that English-speaking public, now, as ever, as a strategist he completely failed to susceptible to the honeyed words of grasp the situation, for he believed in plausible speakers. Pirow, in his able an out-moded bushcart conception of way, took in all these good people. guerrilla warfare. It was based on a With his £3,000,000 Defence Vote in thin line of half-trained troops, moving 1939 he was going to build up a great light through the bush and living on army, specially adapted for African the country as far as possible. And all bush warfare. Yet, when my father this after he had been to Europe and took over the portfolio a year later, seen the massive units of the German almost the whole Vote was still intact. and Italian armies. Perhaps it would be Pirow’s army was merely in the fairest to say that his term as Minister realms of dreams. The best reflection was notable chiefly for his indiscreet pre-war visits to the Dictators, by Our Permanent Force consisted of whom he had been much impressed. only 1,350 men. Beyond the personal equipment of these men there were no Apart from our semi-military Boer uniforms and few rifles. Two of our commandos there was little in the four chief ports, East London and Port country. The weapons were mostly the Elizabeth, had not one single gun for now obsolete ones brought back by their defence. my father after the First World War. The nearest we had to front-line Our navy was the engineless training aircraft were two Blenheim bombers. ship the General Botha, moored The rest of the Air Force consisted of permanently at Simonstown. twenty-six long-obsolete Hawker At the start there was a distinct danger Furies and Harts and a few converted of risings in the Nationalist-dominated Junker airliners, and a few dozen rural areas. But thanks to an inventory trainers. In the tank line were two old of firearms compiled by the previous demonstration models of Flanders Government, my father was able to vintage. Our two armoured cars dated forestall trouble by calling in all back to the same period and had last privately-owned rifles, a measure been used to quell a native rebellion which also helped considerably in our many years ago. Our artillery had seen training requirements. honourable service against Kaiser Wilhelm. My father set about his new tasks as Prime Minister, Minister of Defence and Minister of External Affairs with a There was no department that did not vigour quite in keeping with any harbour some of these Broeders. The previous effort. From top to bottom he country was completely honeycombed. had to overhaul the country, and to Against some it was possible to take build up organisations from scratch. action, but the majority managed to He was concerned not only with the shelter smugly behind the Law. recruitment, equipping and training of It was in this background of confusion, his army, but also with initiating a unpreparedness, opposition and commensurate industrial effort. And at subversiveness that my father’s efforts the same time he was actively engaged of the war years have to be judged. in dealing with internal security Yet despite all these troubles our measures necessitated by such national effort progressed with ever- subversive organisations as the increasing momentum. By 1942 there Ossewa Brandwag and the were 150,000 European men in full- Broederbond. Investigations into these time units, and before the end of the organisations were comprehensive and war this figure had passed the 200,000 went on throughout the war. Many mark, of whom, strangely perhaps, senior Government servants were two-thirds were of Afrikaans implicated, as well as numerous parentage. If one bears in mind that Members of Parliament, some of South Africa’s total European male whom now hold the highest positions. population, between the ages of twenty and sixty, was only 570,000, and that all men in our forces were volunteers, Britain was at the time deeply the extent of the effort will be more involved in her own rearmament, but readily appreciated. It is said to be by virtue of our good name and credit unsurpassed among Allied nations. with the United States, we were able to purchase quantities of war material Of these, 100,000 men were to see from them, especially bomber aircraft. Active service abroad in foreign Such was our good standing with countries, the majority in the Middle America that we persuaded her to East theatre. And under the able waive certain clauses of her Cash and direction of Dr. H. J. van der Bijl we Carry declaration, and to transport war were to become the workshop of the materials to South Africa in her own desert armies, and a big manufacturing ships, a privilege extended to no other centre of war materials. The Pretoria nation. For our seaward defences my Mint turned out vast quantities of father roped in the small craft that small-arms ammunition, while Iscor, plied round our coast, which were our iron and steel works, the railways, swiftly adapted to mine-sweeping and the mines and other industrial patrol duty. A large Coastal Patrol arm concerns turned out the heavier of the Air Force was formed to assist bombs, shells, field guns and them and these scanned the seas for armoured cars. This industrial effort, great distances beyond our 2,500-mile in itself, was a considerable achieve- shore-line. ment for a small population. For internal security a force of 30,000 National Reserve Volunteers was recruited and these guarded all our essential points, as well as internment and prisoner-of-war camps. The Straits of Gibraltar at various times became too hazardous and most of the Middle East traffic went round the Cape. Our ports dealt with huge armadas of ships and many hundreds of thousands of troops in passage. During the first two years of the war 6,500 ships put in for repairs or replenishment. The inspiration behind these activities was the driving, restless personality of Jan Smuts. 66 : PARLIAMENT South African politics. Though both were giants and men of unsurpassed BY Tuesday, the 5th September, my intellect, they differed radically in father had formed his Cabinet. It was many ways. Hofmeyr, the child composed mostly of United Party wonder and brilliant student and adherents, with additional members professor, was brought up quietly in from Labour and the Dominion Party the seclusion of the academic world. who supported his war effort. So it He was undoubtedly one of the was that Walter Madeley became greatest contemporary orators in the Minister of Labour and Social Welfare English language, and almost as fluent and Colonel Stallard Minister of in Afrikaans. By nature a serious and Mines. deeply religious bachelor, and a man Our old friend Deneys Reitz was of great resolution and moral courage, second-in-command to my father. he tackled unflinchingly and There was Colin Steyn, another ex- efficiently the work of half a dozen President’s son. And there was ministers. But Hofmeyr lacked those J.H. Hofmeyr, Minister of Finance, the tempering fires of war that had most willing and ablest of his hardened my father for the battle of ministers. It would be no exaggeration life and made a practical man and a to say that the Cabinet consisted man of action of him. He was too largely of Hofmeyr and my father, for rigidly bound by a puritanical outlook here were teamed together the two to make a successful diplomat, though ablest ministers in the long history of he made a wonderful friend. He was Mr. Hofmeyr was heir-apparent to my too bigotedly unbending, and still too father, and as such he drew more than much of the professor. The divine a fair share of the Nationalist spark of leadership had eluded him vituperation which was normally and he was destined to follow and to reserved only for my father. But he sustain, rather than to lead. Yet, he attracted criticism also on his own will undoubtedly go down in history accord, for he belonged to a small but as one of our greatest men. My father distinguished school of liberals, who was first and most generous in praise wished to see a more moderate attitude of Hofmeyr, for he knew only too well adopted towards the non-Europeans. the strain of such an intense and The Nationalists critically avowed that sustained effort as his lieutenant was he was the greatest “Kaffir boetie” now enduring. (Negrophile) the country had ever seen. They were probably right, for Some people have endeavoured to Hofmeyr never lost an opportunity to compare Hofmeyr’s intellect with that champion the native cause, often to the of my father. They do not bear intense embarrassment of his friends comparison either in extensiveness or and his party. No inducement would intensiveness or in any other sense. prevail upon him to maintain a Hofmeyr’s would have fitted diplomatic silence. comfortably into a corner of my father’s, and still have been obscured. Nothing in South Africa runs deeper than our age-ingrained feelings on colour. They transcend our Christian he leaves a personal memory which I feelings. Friends tried to explain away shall cherish all my days.” Hofmeyr’s liberal native policy by The new Government set to work with saying he was ahead of his time. But a will, as befitted one in time of crisis. the Nationalists made his ideas the Now, more than ever in its history, focal point of attack. And in time their Smuts was South Africa. Nobody – attacks bore fruit. not even his opponents – denied it. I In view of Deneys Reitz’s failing think the eight years that followed health, my father, in 1942, induced were the greatest in the life of my him to take over the South African father. They were, also, the greatest in High Commissionership in London, a the history of South Africa. At a stage position he filled with great dis- in life when most men were tottering tinction. His sudden death in South slowly towards the grave, this man Africa House in October, 1944, was a was called upon to perform his major grievous loss to both countries. My task – and was striding briskly father felt the loss of this life-long forward, erect and buoyant, young in friend and disciple keenly. In tribute heart and undaunted in spirit, and he spoke of his “dear friend and eager to be of service to his country. comrade, a faithful companion through Mentally and physically he was still at the vicissitudes such as few have his peak. His doctors said he had the passed through. He was true, straight arteries of a man twenty years his and upright – every inch of him – and junior and he himself said he felt fit to live to a hundred. Had he not to vilify my father. My father forgot overworked himself, this might have and forgave all this after he had been a possibility. defeated him. As a first token he put, much to the annoyance of the public, The decision of the House on that one of the special ministerial coaches fateful 4th of September was the finish on the railways at the General’s of Hertzog. Age and disaster now disposal. On the ex-Prime Minister’s swiftly overtook him, and later, birthday he crossed the floor of the deserted by most of his fair-weather House, and after friendly greeting, sat friends, he retired, broken and next to him on his bench and chatted saddened, to live out his twilight on for a long while in most friendly his farm Waterval near Pretoria. Only manner. Subsequently, when Hertzog Havenga and a few old stalwarts retired, my father secured for him a followed him into the night, the rest pension of two thousand pounds per losing little time ill declaring their annum in recognition of his past allegiance to the dour, unbending Dr. services. Malan, leader of the Purifieds. My father was out of South Africa at the The problems that pressed were not time of Hertzog’s death in 1942, or he only those connected with the war. would unquestionably have made a There was the problem of those ranged point of attending the funeral. against the war. Once more the old issue of republicanism sprang to life, For more than half a lifetime Hertzog though it never attained its former had lost no opportunity to slander and proportions. There were mass meet- stages the Ossewa Brandwag and Dr. ings, but feelings were more academic Malan’s Nationalists worked together, and subdued. But, nevertheless, they but towards the end of 1941, after were embarrassing, especially as some sharp differences of opinion, many of the senior politicians were serious broke away with Dr. van Rensburg to about their preachings. form a new group. Additional elements with Nazi aims hived off in Certain subversive organisations, too, 1942 from the Nationalists to form the were serious and active. One was the New Order Party under Oswald Pirow, so-called Ossewa Brandwag which to await, hopefully, successful German was originally conceived more as a developments in the war. cultural organisation and received much support in 1938 from the My father tolerated all these, as well as symbolism of the Voortrekker Cen- the more dangerous Broederbond with tenary Celebrations. But gradually its the aggravating patience born of long aims strayed into turbulent political experience. His patience was almost waters and it developed into one of our more than his followers could bear, for two most dangerous Afrikaner it is difficult to be tolerant in time of organisations. Its leader was Dr. J.H. war. But he knew full well that van Rensburg, one-time Administrator nothing was quite so humiliating and of the Free State and Civil servant killing to these organisations as to under my father, and, strangely, ignore them completely. More active always an admirer of his. In its early interest would only have served to consolidate and to strengthen, and to of Debate, which much incensed the create unwanted martyrs. So he Opposition. And a little later, to ensure watched them intently and maintained that the House would finish its work in public security and order. Those who May, he introduced sittings in the perpetrated acts of terrorism by using mornings and at night, in addition to explosives were dealt with through the normal afternoon sittings. During police channels. A few hundred of the the last ten days he rushed through the worst extremists were swiftly rounded House an unprecedented volume of up and, together with avowed German work including the Electoral Laws nationals, put behind barbed wire. Amendment Bill, the Advertising and Ribbon Amendment Bill, the And so, as my father was fond of Industrial Development Bill, the quoting, “the dogs may bark, but the Unemployment Benefit Amendment caravan moves on”. Bill, the War Pensions Bill, the One of his first acts was to pass Income Tax Bill and the Rents Emergency Regulations. Amendment Bill. The Nationalists He was determined to rush ahead with complained bitterly at the haste, and the parliamentary work with all even my father’s followers appeared a possible speed. In order to curb little startled. But time was short, and verbosity in the War Measures Bill my father was in his stride. Even the and to expedite its passage, he pro-Government Forum rebuked my introduced the “guillotine” or Closure father for his “steam-roller methods”. The Session was stormy and the massive Magaliesberg rampart on unpleasant, quite as bad as any the north. previous one. But his enthusiasm and Groote Schuur still formed my father’s the nature of the tasks ahead sustained place of abode during parliamentary my father and kept him cheerful. sessions. Such of the rest of the family Since my father had last been Prime as were available would take it in turn Minister a fine new official residence, to keep him company, and my father modelled on the Old Cape Dutch style, looked forward to the pleasures and had been erected on the ridge near distractions of his grandchildren. Government House, in Bryntirion, Groote Schuur was little changed since Pretoria. This my mother decided to our last visits. Mr. Bennington, the name “Libertas” after the old family caretaker, we were delighted to find home in Stellenbosch, and also still there. “Mr. Benny”, who arrived because it seemed an appropriate name shortly after the days of Rhodes, was in time of war. We never lived in quite an institution. The place will Libertas, preferring to stay on in the never be the same without him. He old rambling farmhouse at Irene. My knew my father’s habits and they got father used it only to entertain official on splendidly. And he spoiled us all guests, and occasionally for a hurried when down there. lunch. The setting of the house is attractive with fine views of Pretoria In discussion with Sir Herbert Baker sprawling at its feet in the south, and in London at various times, both had agreed that Groote Schuur was too was slender, if one considers the great hemmed in by trees. So now my father tasks that lay ahead. Some of his had some of the decrepit ones behind adherents, though they had voted with the house thinned out. The aspect was him in the crucial neutrality issue, improved and the public liked it were only lukewarm adherents and because it gave a better view of the their support could not be counted on house from the road near the at all times. By a great mastery, my University. father managed to smooth over contentious legislation, and other Another botanical matter, this time points of disagreement. decided in collaboration with Dr. Pole Evans, was the clearing of the artificial At the same time he lent the pine woods from the slopes of Devil’s Opposition no advantage by attacking Peak above the Rhodes Memorial, to them. They were at the time a series of enable the fine Cape flora once more warring factions, each manoeuvring to re-establish itself. This met with for personal power. Any form of some public criticism, but soon the attack would merely have tended to lovely flora began to establish itself consolidate them. My father left them and made the experiment a success. alone with their squabblings. Though they were loud and subversive in the In Parliament my father again revealed House he did nothing to muzzle them. himself as an unsurpassed master and They were merely quarrelling showed his strategic skill. His themselves to destruction. But it was a numerical supremacy in the House trying policy to follow, and many of For once, during the blitz on Pirow on my father’s loyal supporters were March 15, my father departed from his restive at the latitude permitted them. inflexible habit never to launch a But my father felt he was right in personal attack on an opponent. He sticking to this tolerance. He was attacked Pirow for his failure to carry giving them sufficient rope to hang out his defence plan announced in themselves. 1934. “I have no objection to the plan itself,” my father declared caustically, Instead the whole United Party “I will fulfil it just as I have fulfilled machine was turned full blast against other promises made and broken by Pirow. Scorn, criticism and ridicule Mr. Pirow. Mr. Pirow’s work was were poured on him to such effect that more a danger to the country than a he was deflated and killed politically. protection. His plans were all right, He never succeeded in staging a but they were just grandiose plans and recovery, though he remained an talk. It was all something on paper... untiring preacher of anti-war Mr. Pirow dreamed for five years, propaganda. publicly and before all the country... It was a sound strategy to make Pirow Now we are working day and night, a focal point, for it roused little feeling not to make a plan, but to make an in the Opposition, while at the same army. That was Mr. Pirow’s duty in time it boosted our war morale those five years... We have to do it considerably. today.” PART 4 Belgian frontier. As yet they numbered SECOND WORLD WAR only two corps of three divisions each. Along the French frontier ran the 67 : WAR Maginot Line, an elaborate bastion of MEANWHILE events had not gone well steel and concrete, in which huddled a for us in Europe. The Polish campaign huge impassive French army. But lasted only three weeks. The twenty- along the Belgian frontier there was no five Polish divisions were no match fabulous concrete wall. for the fifty-four German ones, of With the onset of winter came which seven were armoured; nor was temporary stagnation. there serious opposition to the 2,000 front-line aircraft of the Luftwaffe. In December the German pocket battleship. Graf von Spee, was run to Warsaw was bombed into blazing earth by three British cruisers and submission. It was a blitzkrieg pattern scuttled off Montevideo in the River of battles to come. Plate. The British and French ultimatum Russia followed up the partition of expired, and on 3rd September they Poland by casting her eyes about for were in a state of war with Germany. fresh gains. At the end of November On 3rd October a British she invaded Finland. Sweden and Expeditionary Force under Lord Gort Norway blocked direct French took over a section of the Franco- support, and though the Finns at first had the best of exchanges, Russian Though preoccupied with Europe, my numbers told and by the Treaty of father nevertheless realised clearly that Moscow (13th March, 1940) Finland his problems lay in Africa. They lay capitulated to Russian aggression. more specifically with Mussolini, who, he had no doubt, would bring In middle February, following her now Italy into the war when he thought the standard technique of simultaneous moment propitious. That is the nature mass invasion at many points, coupled of the jackal. Britain did not feel quite with adroit use of internal fifth column so strongly about this Dictator, but elements, Germany fell on Norway France, doubting his intentions and Denmark. Denmark yielded intensely, kept an army of over half a without resistance. Norway put up a million men in readiness across the brief but ineffectual defence. Britain Alps. came to her aid, but in insufficient numbers to stem the tide. Our South African army was designed on the assumption of a campaign in The shock of Norway unseated the East Africa. It was a land of immense Government in Britain and on 6th size, located far from the big bases. May, 1940, Winston Churchill Emphasis was therefore laid upon succeeded Mr. Chamberlain. One of transport and mobility. Thanks to Mr. Churchill’s first acts was to set up Henry Ford we soon built up a large a Ministry of Aircraft Production. It fleet of lorries and troop carriers. With was a wise decision. Britain was going memories of the last war, we saw to it to need aircraft. that there were ample Medical units in hundred miles from this frontier lay support, as well as many specialist the key East African towns of Nairobi Engineer units to see to water and Mombasa. problems and communications. On the 10th of June, Mussolini, Lieutenant-General Sir Pierre van satisfied that Germany had already Ryneveld was the Chief of Staff, with won the war, struck at Moyale, a small Headquarters in Pretoria, while at outpost on the Northern frontiers of Premier Mine, a few miles outside the Kenya. That same evening he made an city, were vast training camps under impassioned speech from a balcony of canvas. The hard work on the parade the Palazzo Venezia in Rome: grounds and clouds of red dust failed to damp our ardour. “Italy has done all she possibly can to arrest this terrible war... This is the We knew Italy had 200,000 troops in hour of irrevocable decisions.” Italy Africa, and though some of these were was at war. On the South African radio native askaris (banda), there was no that same night my father delivered a question that it was a well established national broadcast. South Africa was and formidable army. The British at war with Italy. War was on our very force in Kenya at the time consisted of doorstep. elements of the King’s African Rifles, native troops, numbering little more That day, as the latest Italian bomber than half a division. A thousand miles aeroplanes sped to their targets in of frontier had to be defended. Six Kenya, four South African Air Force bombers struck at the same time at On the 10th of May Holland was Moyale with two tons of high explo- invaded and Rotterdam sacked by the sive bombs. Thereafter our bombing Luftwaffe, the Royal Family fleeing to of Italian targets in Abyssinia, such as Britain. Considering our racial origins Yavello, Kisimayo, Neghelli, Moga- in South Africa, this had a profound dishu, became steadily more frequent effect on people’s feelings, though and more massive, until finally we had strange to relate, the feelings were not literally swept the Italians from the as deep as one would have expected. skies of East Africa. Dr. Malan and the other die-hard Nationalists passed it off with a shrug, Numerous factors from time to time remarking that the move was no doubt occurred which proved favourable to dictated by purely strategic considera- the Government. In April, 1940, by a tions. Their excuses had a somewhat shrewd stroke my father concluded a hollow ring, but it seemed to satisfy wool sales agreement with the British their unenlightened followers. Government whereby they agreed to take over our entire wool clip for the “Now you see,” said my father in a period of the war. At the same time the national broadcast, “that neutrality price was raised by a third over the does not mean protection. Germany pre-war one of 8s. 3d. per pound. This stops at nothing.” The rape of the induced many wool farmers, who were Netherlands did serve, however, to predominantly Nationalist, to swing to expedite the flow of volunteers to the my father. colours. Our camps were full to over- From personal experience I know what flowing. awaits you. I know what war means – seven years of my life have been spent In April, 1940, General Sir Archibald in wars. They were among the hardest Wavell, Commander-in-Chief of the years of my life, but they were also Middle East, came down to South full of the richest experience that life Africa for consultations with my father can give. I would not exchange my on questions of strategy and South war experiences of the Anglo-Boer African participation in the war. Short- War and the last Great War for all the ly after, a fleet of 300,000 tons of gold of the Rand. transports anchored in Table Bay, by far the largest armada of troopships You are going to face danger, hardship ever seen in South African waters. and sacrifice – perhaps death itself – in They were bound for the Middle East. all its fierce forms. But through it all The first contingent of Springbok you will gather that experience of life troops left with them. and enrichment of character which is more valuable than gold or precious The main mass of our troops left later stones. for East Africa. At the Premier Mine training camp in July my father, You will become better and stronger dressed in his First World War men. You will not return the same as uniform, but now wearing the badge of you went. You will bring back rank of a full general, bade them good- memories which you and yours will bye in fatherly words: treasure for life. Above all, you will have that proud consciousness that you children of the Cross to fight for have done your duty by your country freedom itself, the freedom of the and rendered your contribution to its human spirit, the free choice of the future security and happiness. human individual to shape his own life according to the light that God has You will not be mere items in the given him. The world cause of population; you will come back as freedom is also our cause and we shall builders of your own nation, of its best wage this war for human freedom until traditions, of its lofty national spirit God’s victory crowns the end. and of its national pride... Many of you will revisit familiar This First South African Division, like haunts in the north. But to most of you the rest of our volunteer army, wore that will be a new world, full of great the distinctive “orange flash” on their interest of all kinds. You will see the shoulder tabs, signifying that they vastness of this continent, its immense were prepared to serve anywhere in variety, its richness and grandeur of Africa. scenery, its magnificence in every This was necessary as the Union respect. You go to it now as the Defence Act limited service to our strategic rampart and defence lines of own country. South Africa... Throughout these war years stringent We have fought for our freedom in the security measures were taken to past. We now go forth as crusaders, as protect the person of my father, as there were many fanatics about as well as Nazi agents. Wherever he went he was accompanied by guards, and security measures were also taken round his house at Irene and at Groote Schuur. He found it irksome having men about him always, but the authorities over-ruled his objections. Yet it was useful in some respects in that it provided him with energetic walking and climbing companions.. It was a matter of routine with him that he always walked new ones comple- tely off their feet. 68 : WALKING AND EXERCISE he expounded so eloquently at Maclear’s Beacon in 1923. THROUGHOUT his life my father had an implicit faith in exercise, especially My father was never an ardent walking and climbing, which he con- supporter of the organised forms of sidered most beneficial. Walking was sport. He preferred to accord these a an urge he developed as a boy on the more lowly place as something farm at Riebeeck West, when he mechanical and synthetic. He did not tramped the veld in company with the in his earlier days combine botany old Hottentot Adam. with his walking. About 1921 he first came into contact with Dr. I.B. Pole We in the family have lived and grown Evans and under his guidance that love up with a father who walked or for plants finally found its full climbed at every opportunity. We were expression. It followed him thereafter, in after years to come to look upon without diminution, like a great friend, this urge for exercise as the great and no matter where he went he doctor. Walking had the same effect always took with him some book on on my father as that turbulent “Old botany, even if it were only the slender Doctor” which sweeps the Cape volume of Burt Davie. Peninsula, the south-easter. We had come to look upon it both as a safety- My earliest memories of my father valve and a rejuvenator. It was really a stretch back almost thirty-five years, religion – that religion of the mountain and the most indelible of those memories were undoubtedly of jaunts into the veld, of walking, climbing and he was stricken down by his fatal riding, and later of botanising. Never a coronary thrombosis, though at the week-end or spare moment passed time he was much fatigued and feeling without his taking us on some outing. far from well. He enjoyed driving, for The walking we somewhat dreaded, it took his mind off worries. for he always walked too fast for us. During holidays, we went on camping The climbs we found still more expeditions, which usually took us difficult. The jaunts by car were more northwards from Pretoria. His love for to our taste, though driving in those the camp was a remnant of Boer War early days after the First World War days, and he liked to camp in most was very different from the spartan fashion. Other than a tarpaulin comfortable trouble-free travelling of or some small bivouac tents we took today. All his life, since 1911, my no shelter with us, and thunderstorms father was fond of driving his own car, left us bedraggled. These trips covered though a lack of insight into the sub-continent as far afield as Lake mechanical matters (the only subject Tanganyika (described in Dr. John in life in which his knowledge was Hutchinson’s book) and Lake Nyasa, limited) often made his trips the Zimbabwe Ruins; the Victoria hazardous. He continued driving to the Falls, the Kruger National Park, and last, to his eighty-first year. He drove much else in addition, all on separate the seventy-five miles back himself trips. The Pilandsberg (where he from his bushveld farm the day before owned a farm), the Blaauberg (where he was fond of botanising or seeing He inherited from the Boer War, too, a the blind old native chief Malaboch), fondness for horseback riding. Until Wyliespoort and the Sebasa Hills were about 1930 a long ride was always part favourite haunts of his, and though he of the weekend ritual. Unfortunately I never hunted, he often accompanied us am not a born horseman and must on shooting trips into Portuguese East confess that I found these long rides a Africa and elsewhere. On these trips trial. The satisfaction my father he collected botanical specimens derived from riding was, however, freely and his bulky botanical presses different from that of walking. He always formed a problem of stowage looked upon riding as a good mode of in our cars. The camp fires drew from exercise and not as one for him a fund of reminiscences. Some- communion with the universe. I think times in the chill of a winter’s night in that that, as well as his tummy trouble, camp he would rise from his cold bed was why in later years he dropped and kindle a fire, and before long we riding and took only to walking, for it shivering youngsters would all join was really only from walking that he him. He relished camp life to the full. derived that true inner satisfaction. Frequently I have heard him give Just exactly how he set about his expression to his satisfaction by that walking and what part the old exclamation of his: “Bountiful surroundings played I endeavoured to Jehovah!” Then you knew he was decide for years. The conclusions I really enjoying himself. came to are that the actual physical artistry of his surroundings played the full and to have the sweat running only a minor part. It was the down in rivulets. He preferred what he associations of sentiment with areas in called the “ups and down” to walking which he walked that he really saw. on the flat. A favourite walk of his at My father was no artist of landscape Irene was a ten-mile one which took in form. He loved a scene more for what seven low hills. Roads he shunned it symbolised in his mind’s eye than wherever possible, preferring a more for its outlines or colours. Not that he difficult way through the veld. Barbed- was unattuned to the beauties of wire fences lie took in his stride. He landscape. No lover of nature could be normally took no water or lunch with that. But he just did not see the vistas him, though sometimes he used to and panoramas as an artist or a carry an orange or an apple. In later photographer would compose them. years they gave him indigestion so he Yet for all that, I am certain he loved stopped. With him in his pocket he what he saw just as much, and always. carried an iodine pencil, probably with a deeper understanding. doctoring cuts and scratches on the spot. Slung on his shoulders he would When my father walked, he walked carry a pair of binoculars, though he with gusto and determination, and at a very seldom used these. I think it was hot pace, never pausing to rest or to an old wartime habit. In his hand he admire. He would maintain a steady carried a stout stick, which he seldom three and a half miles per hour, for he used. loved to feel his lungs expanding to He wore heavy boots and thick socks, had solved the problems he had had in for he had tender feet and his ankles mind at the start. He had also found had both been broken by treading in time to talk and to reminisce. In all, he holes, in his youth. On his head he had had a really good and satisfying would wear his oldest and most outing. Then followed a mug of cool battered panama hat, an almost beer and a bath or shower, after which unrecognisable article of headgear. In he settled down happily to a normal later years he often wore dark glasses working routine for the remainder of for the glare. For the rest he would be the day, as though he had had no dressed in a khaki shirt and slacks, the strenuous, exercise at all. shirt sleeves never being rolled up, but In 1926 we tried to get him interested unbuttoned when hot. That was in golf at Irene, but after a few swings because he was, rather susceptible to he said it was far too mechanical. He sunburn. was quite a familiar figure on the Irene From his walks he would come back golf course, however, not as a player,. sun-tanned and wet with perspiration, but as a figure crossing the fairways en not fatigued (for he had amazing route on some walk. He was also a stamina) but just nicely tired and familiar figure at the Pretoria Country contented, and at peace with the world. Club, for this was a terminal point on With the quickening of his pulses his cross-country walks between during the walking he had been able to Pretoria and Irene. get a clearer perspective of things and Mountaineering, like walking, was in these jaunts. All learned to admire his my father’s blood. physical stamina and his enriching philosophy. I have vivid memories of my father on the summit of Table Mountain. Here In all he must have accomplished over he would pause for a while and, 300 climbs of this mountain before he leaning on his long stick, take in the was finally advised in 1948, because glorious panoramas around him, his of his age, to stop these strenuous hat in his hand and his white hair climbs. For the twenty years the blowing in the breeze. His open khaki cableway was in existence, he never shirt and his unbuttoned sleeves would used it to get to the top, and on only flap about and complete the one occasion; in company with the informality of the picture. King and Queen in 1947, did he make a descent in it. He climbed mostly Of the first thirty-five of the forty from the north or Kirstenbosch side, years my father spent in the Houses of preferring Skeleton Gorge to any Parliament, he made an ascent of other, though in his time he made Table Mountain almost every week- many ascents up every possible route. end, climbing always on foot, some- He never did the hazardous Alpine times alone or sometimes with other form of rock climbing, however, pre- parties of climbers. On the mountain ferring the more normal forms of he was always friendly and approach- climbing. able. Many young mountaineers learned to know and to love him on In all the years he climbed he always terrifying one which he never failed to worked to a time schedule of about relate. It occurred in August, 1939, three hours from Kirstenbosch to when winter was already well Maclear’s Beacon. In 1896 it was advanced in the Cape. Parliament had three hours, and it was still three hours risen, but he had had to make a special in 1946. He made a point, where journey to Cape Town, as Deputy possible, of descending by a different Prime Minister, to see the Portuguese route. The rather different form of President Carmona off at the docks. exercise occasioned by descent he He arrived at the Civil Service Club a relished quite as much as that of day early, and to pass away the time climbing. decided to do a lone climb up Table Mountain. The weather looked He loved not only Table Mountain, but distinctly drizzly, for it was well into all mountains. In a long life of the Cape rainy season, but he thought climbing he found time to climb he might risk it. My sister, Louis, took virtually all the mountains of the Cape, him as far as the Cableway Station. as far afield as Ceres. He could never Platteklip Gorge was running strongly resist the lure of the mountain. with water, but he managed to make Though he preferred a fine day for a his way up without much difficulty. climb, he was not deterred by Near the top it started to rain and he unfavourable conditions. His was soon cold and drenched, but he experiences on the mountain have pressed on to the top. By the time he been numerous, but there was one reached Maclear’s Beacon it was as possible, from rock to rock. raining hard and had turned bitterly Conditions grew steadily worse and cold and windy, so he returned the one more dangerous, for by now it was and a half miles to the Cable Station, well into the afternoon and freezingly hoping to get a cage down. But the cold. Eventually, when near Maclear’s weather was too bad for that, and the Beacon, he slipped as he jumped and lower station was locked and the fell heavily with his right hip on a driver gone. There were now only two rock. For some moments, he said, he courses open; to remain here at the lay dead still, too afraid to attempt to Upper Cable Station, or to attempt the move, for he felt certain that he had descent. While the caretaker dried his broken his hip. But he found he could clothes before a fire he made up his sit up and that his hip, though very mind to return, for there was no phone painful, was intact. And so he pro- and friends below would worry. gressed on his weary, cold and painful way down the mountain. Skeleton So he set off back in the swirling mists Gorge was an endless series of roaring and rain to Maclear’s Beacon, finding waterfalls and quite impassable, but by great difficulty in this, for not only luck, in the gathering gloom, he was visibility almost completely managed to skirt the gorge by restricted, but the whole mountain top climbing down the series of steep was under water, only rocks and rocky cliffs at the side. All the time it boulders sticking out. He made a cold literally poured. and laborious way by jumping, as far Almost at the end of his tether from strain and exposure, he came out at the Kirstenbosch Kiosk at 8 p.m., and so set at rest many worried people. He told that story in my presence on three occasions with great pride, looking upon this day as one of his greatest victories over overwhelming forces. But he never omitted to remark that it had been a “terrible day! Really terrible!!” 69 : ABYSSINIAN CAMPAIGN Gifts and Comforts Committee, but it was at that time a very much smaller DURING the war my mother was no organisation. For her services she had less active than my father. With her been offered a C.B.E., but she had deep convictions on political issues declined this honour on the grounds and her warm motherly feelings for that there were other more deserving mankind, she quickly took my father’s people. troops to her heart. She was appointed Chairman of our Gifts and Comforts In October, 1940, my father inaugu- organisation, which proved small rated the National Reserve Volunteers luxuries for our army personnel, and for internal security duties, including speedily had the organisation flourish- the guarding of vital installations, ing on a nation-wide scale. Her enthu- internment or prisoner-of-war camps. siasm for the cause of “my boys” was At the end of October he paid an eight- infectious and the troops grew to love day visit to the front in East Africa, their “Ouma”. Groote Schuur and going first to Khartoum for a confe- Libertas became a hive of “work rence with Anthony Eden, British parties”, where staid housewives and Foreign Secretary, and General others knitted and sewed. It was an Wavell. Thereafter he returned to Nai- effort which the troops regarded with robi where he visited South African affection. hospitals and troops in forward areas. During the First World War my mother had also been Chairman of the Mr. Churchill did not favour a taking off from Nanyuki one morning campaign in Abyssinia but advocated for Garba Tula, in the North Frontier coming to grips directly with the District, he heard about the superb Italians in the crucial North African camouflage of our main air base at theatre. He wanted to send the South Archer’s Post, some miles off his African troops to Wavell in the route, and decided to go and see for Western Desert where he felt they himself. Archer’s Post he knew as the would be more usefully employed. erstwhile headquarters of the famous While there was much to be said on elephant hunter “Karamoia” Bell. the tactical side for concentrating on With him in the plane, which was a the Mediterranean, my father felt that converted German Junkers Ju. 86, was the need to shield. the people of Kenya General van Ryneveld, our C.G.S., and Southern Africa from an invader Lieutenant-General Alan Cunningham, outweighed simple tactical conside- the new General Officer Commanding, rations. At the Khartoum Conference East Africa, and Major-General with Eden my father pressed this point Godwin-Austin, under whom our and Wavell concurred. On the strength South African troops were fighting. of this it was decided to wage a vigo- All the eggs were in one basket. rous campaign in East Africa. Events By an unfortunate oversight, Archer’s have justified this decision. Post had not been informed of my The East African visit very nearly had father’s intentions, and by a further disastrous consequences, for after unfortunate oversight the pilot, Captain Raubenheimer, was not twice in the First World War, and instructed in the local recognition realised with horror that they were signals. So, after approaching the actually being attacked. The Hurricane aerodrome at a few thousand feet, he escort was in a quandary: short of did a right-hand circuit instead of a shooting down a friend, intervention left-hand one, and omitted to lower his was impossible. However, when the undercarriage or to waggle his wings. Fury made a second swoop he got in To those on the ground the plane and between and warded it off, and at the its behaviour appeared hostile and same time it also dawned on the some Hawker Fury fighters took off to attacker, who deserves the fullest intercept. credit, that the two Junkers aircraft were friendly. In order to get a better view, my father was sitting forward with Rauben- I saw the aircraft on Wajir landing heimer in the cockpit. ground where they came down a short while after. There were eight holes in General van Ryneveld noticed streaks the fuselage of my father’s machine, of dust on the aerodrome below as and one bullet had actually passed some machines took off, but thought between his legs. But nobody was hurt no more of it. But a few moments later and my father made light of it. At the he saw a Fury fighter making straight time I was a humble Second Lieute- for them and heard the staccato bark of nant in the South African Engineer machine-gun fire and saw dust rise in the machine. He had been shot down Moyale. After a few minutes conver- sation and the handing over of some parcels from home he was off again on a long reconnaissance flight along the Abyssinian frontier to assess the tactical position. In little over a week he was back from his 7,500-mile trip looking sunburnt and optimistic. His impressions lie recorded on the radio after his return:

Physically, our troops make a most favourable impression, and are prob- ably in advance of any force we have ever sent from this country – fit and well, and in stature and muscular development well above the average. I doubt whether anywhere in the world General Smuts with the Writer at Wajir, North troops of a finer physical type can be Frontier District, Kenya – November 1940 found. In height and breadth they are Corps working on the defences of this so striking that I have heard a British picturesque outpost to the south of General call them tanks among men! How could it be otherwise when as conditions for the honour of their volunteers, and not conscripts, they country and the security of its future. represent the flower of our Union I have spoken of our boys in East manhood. The provision for their Africa. Let me also add a word about health and physical welfare in that that wonderful country, that wonder- exacting climate is the best South land, which so many old warriors, who Africa can give with her hard expe- listen to me tonight, remember so well rience of the past to guide her. Long from their experience of the last war. training both here and in East Africa Two impressions stand out in my mind has produced a fitness and hardness of in reference to this visit – the greatness a very high standard... of that world and the goodness of man. Looking at these sons of the fathers As I flew hour after hour over those whom I was proud to lead in the same endless forests and great lakes, over historic field a generation ago, I could the Great Rift Valley studded with a not but feel high pride and emotion to jumble of high mountains and extinct see that they were worthy of the rock volcanoes more magnificent than any whence they were hewn. They some- to be found elsewhere, I had an over- times brought a lump to my throat – whelming impression of the vastness how proud one feels of South Africa and power of Nature and of the forces when one sees how much people are that had shaped the past of this prepared to give up at home and to do continent with unrivalled lavishness in far-away lauds and under hard and grandeur. In this gigantic world the human serve their fellows and make this a element seems dwarfed to utter insig- safer world for the spirit of man to nificance, and one bows one’s head in dwell in securely – that sight, that wonder before a sublimity so over- thought, made me realise that their whelming. Indeed, no words can souls were worthy to match this express the impression of the physical glorious setting of Nature, that the grandness which that world of East goodness of man was a worthy match Africa produces on one’s mind. for the greatness of Nature. The other impression comes nearer They are the happy warriors of the home, touches our hearts more closely, New Order, the champions of that warming them and raising them as no spiritual order of the universe which in mere external greatness of Nature can the end is more deeply founded and do. more secure than these ancient hills and craters. The New Order will not I am free to confess that the sight of arise under the swastika, which is the our boys in East Africa kindled a symbol of past tyrannies and the moral deeper emotion in me than even that enslavement of the human spirit. It can awe-inspiring natural scenery. How only arise wider the sign of the Cross, grand is Nature! How good is man! in the spirit of service and self- The sight of those young men, with sacrifice, which has carried man from their happy, eager faces, with the his brutal, bestial past to the height of thought of what they had given up to his spiritual vision. Not in mastery, but in service, not in dictatorship, but in soldiers rioted against the non-loyal freedom lies the secret of man’s elements in our Police Force. destiny. On New Year’s Day my father This is what these young South delivered his annual broadcast: Africans stand for, for what I trust We have come, any friends, to the end South Africa will stand for till the very of the darkest year in modern history. end. During it seven nations have fallen under the Nazi scourge – a new black It was one of his nicest and friendliest plague that sears the souls of men, and broadcasts. withers civilisation at its roots. Seven In South Africa Malan, fearing nations that were free are no longer Pirow’s competition, had invited the free. Seven peoples that cherished Ossewa Brandwag to join his party. liberty have been enslaved. South African politicians sometimes choose strange bedfellows. That has been calamity enough: but we cannot measure what it has meant, and Soldiers were getting tired of the what it still means, in the sum of Nationalists and others, and there were human suffering and in the destruction minor clashes in Johannesburg and of the treasured fruits of human elsewhere, the worst occurring in endeavour. January and February, 1941, when tile It has been a dark year; but there have been great flashes of light – that have illumined the darkness when the night steady and increasing flow from has been blackest. These flashes of America of material help, to supple- light, fitful and spasmodic at first, ment the moral sympathy that has have now become one broad conti- always been with our cause. In this nuous beam, flowing down the path to and in the growing spiritual and victory. This is the spirit of free men; material power of the whole British this is the beam of light that flashes Commonwealth, lies the assurance of through a world of darkness when the victory... flint of human courage is struck... The call for national unity is clear and Elsewhere I have spoken about the insistent. National unity is needed for probable developments of the war in the war; it is indeed, too, for the the year 1941, but to my own country- victory that is assured. The New Year men I would say that we have ample will bring us close to victory; and it grounds for confidence. We see today will, I trust, take South Africa far the unrivalled resources of the United along the path of unity and internal States of America being turned to our peace, to progress and prosperity. assistance. The people of that great democracy have realised that we of the After my father’s visit to East Africa British. Commonwealth are fighting we all realised that something big was their battle for them, and that if we fail in the air. On Dingaan’s Day, the 16th our defeat will be their defeat and their December, 1940, South African and humiliation. We can rest assured of a Gold Coast units, at divisional strength, launched the first big and our armies or its first-class troops and successful attack of the war on Italian swiftly their strong-points crumpled positions at El Wak. For this action the and were overrun. On April the 5th the South African brigade commander Transvaal Scottish ceremonially Dan Pienaar received the D.S.O. marched into Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s Pienaar was to achieve considerable capital, and at Amba Alagi, on the fame as a soldier before his tragic 16th May, the Duke of Aosta death in an air crash at Kisumu in surrendered with his Italian troops to 1942. Brigadier Pienaar. In October Wavell’s big North African In many respects it was one of the offensive had opened with conspi- most remarkable campaigns in history. cuous success. Its swiftness was unsurpassed. In fifty- three days 1,725 miles had been After El Wak the offensive in East covered in some of the wildest, most Africa began in earnest. Under the mountainous country in the world. able leadership of General Cunning- And we had had the privilege of ham the Allied army of two-divisional providing the Allies with the first big strength fell upon the hordes of victory of the war. Mussolini and drove them swiftly backwards. Indian troops had for long General Cunningham in his report on been hammering desperately at the the operations of the East Africa tough fortress of Keren in Eritrea. The Force, in 1940-41, remarks: “It would Italians were no match for the dash of be idle to close without reference to the assistance given by the Union of pooled for the common good of the South Africa, without which the whole Force... campaign could not have been under- Lord Wavell makes the interesting taken. Apart from fighting troops, I disclosure that before the operations to was indebted to the Union for much of be undertaken in East Africa were the mechanical transport which made decided upon, he was being pressed by the supply of troops over such great the Defence Minister in Britain to distances in front of railheads and move his forces from East Africa, ports possible, and to them also I owed where they were standing idle “with the provision of a large number of no prospect of successful special technical units, without which employment”, to Egypt, where, in Mr. operations in the type of terrain Churchill’s opinion, they could be covered could not have taken place. It more usefully employed. On the other was with remarkable forethought that hand, Lord Wavell was well aware of these units had been formed before the the feeling of nervousness, not only in war and furnished with the most Kenya but also in Rhodesia and even modern equipment. in South Africa, that the forces in East “Through the personal interest of Africa were not sufficiently strong to Field-Marshal Smuts I was at the start prevent an Italian invasion of Kenya able to knit the Force into a whole, and and the countries farther south, and my all the many resources which the father frequently impressed on him the Union placed at my disposal were danger of reducing the forces in East Africa. Fortunately, the Commander- Some people appear to be depressed in-Chief gave heed to the warning, by the turn of events in the Balkans. resisted proposals for any weakening The sudden and unexpected collapse or diversion of his forces until the of Yugoslavia after a brief resistance, enemy had been driven farther back, and the overwhelming of Greece after and gave his divisional commanders her heroic defence against terrible the word to go ahead... odds, make them fear for the future of the Allied cause. They also note that In March, 1941, my father flew up to British forces have once more retired Nairobi in his Lodestar. He then went before the superior force of the enemy. on to Cairo where he deliberated with They forget that in the last war the Eden, Wavell and Dill. At this meeting position of the Allies in that quarter of my father stressed the importance of Europe was far worse than it is today... the African theatre in the war. He held There is such a rush of events, the a firm conviction throughout that some canvas of the world war is so over- of the major battles would be fought in crowded with incidents, that people this area. are apt to become confused, to lose In two broadcasts in 1941 my father their sense of perspective, and fail to gave his views on the New Order that put events in their proper values and would follow victory. From Cape relations in the vast framework of the Town on 2-6th April he said: war...

General Smuts broadcasting a New Year Message to the Empire from his home – 1939 This war will not be settled in the To keep the developments of this war Balkans, and the commotion and in a proper perspective, one has confusion which Germany has stirred always to bear in mind what I consider up there will in the end only contribute to be the real crux of the situation. It is to her own undoing, whatever present this, that Hitler began the war, that he successes she may appear to achieve... is the aggressor and must continue in his aggression to the very end. The That Britain went to the assistance of role of Britain is essentially a Greece and other small countries at defensive one. If Hitler fails in his whatever cost to herself is to her attack on the fortress of Britain itself lasting credit. That she failed in he will have reached that end – his end Norway, Holland and Belgium is no – and will have lost the war. blame, no dishonour, for her helping hand stretched to them in the hour of ... The intrinsic importance of our her own sore plight, Britain is achievement in East and North Africa investing in friendships as Germany is and in the Mediterranean basin is very investing in hatreds in the process of great. For one thing, the bubble of the war, and Britain is thus building up Mussolini has been finally pricked. the moral capital with which the real Most of his fleet is at the bottom of his new world order will be floated after “mare nostrum”. His African Empire the peace. As has often happened lies in ruins and Haile Selassie is before. Germany is thus winning the marching to reoccupy his throne. One victories and losing the war. of the two Axis partners is hopelessly bankrupt and becomes a liability to the America participating in peace unless other. That is the way Austria went she had been through the crucible of last time, and Germany followed in the war with us. due course... A fortnight later he spoke of a new Hitler has roused the American giant World Order that would arise from from his slumbers – hence the election out-and-out Allied victory; of President Roosevelt, hence the Lease and Lend Act, hence the firm ... It seems to me that the day of the and unshakable alignment of all small independent sovereign State has responsible American opinion on the passed. That is the sign of the times. In side of the Allies. More will follow. the absence of a mighty world America will yet go all the way. This I organisation the sad fate of the small have for a long time foreseen. To me it independent States of Europe in our has long been evident that only day is likely to be their fate more and through America’s full participation more in the future. Hitler’s victorious would the way to victory be clear and course so far has at least proved that assured. I have looked forward to this much. Philip of Macedon and development, not only for the sake of Alexander the Great proved the same our victory but also for the sake of the for the Hellenic world. The Greek City peace that was to follow. I could not State of ancient history and the small see a real fruitful peace without independent nation State of today were America right in it. I could not see and are anachronisms in the circumstances of their respective of a common language and literary times. culture. The two thus form a very natural group... We are unmistakably in for larger human groupings in that holistic This new world society would follow process which fundamentally moulds positive and constructive policies for all life and all history... the future, and not concern itself particularly with the past and with In the inner circle, which now forms penal or revengeful action towards old the heart of the resistance to Hitler, is enemies. And in this way, in due the British Commonwealth of Nations. course, the world may forget its bitter I need not dilate on the particular links wrongs and once more move into which associate this world-wide circle paths of peace and friendly economic freely together, but their association is relations among the nations. The undoubtedly a precedent and a mistake of the League of Nations in prototype of the larger World attempting too wide and universal Association now in the process of membership on too loose and nebulous formation. a basis of organisation. and duties Closest to this inner circle of the would thus be avoided and the British group is the United States of Association would grow practically America, which has the same ethic of out of existing friendships and life and the same political philosophy. affinities, and might expand later into Both have, in addition, the strong link the wider international society of the future. We should not attempt to do at democratic circle in order, and ensure one stroke what could only be accom- as far as possible against the sort of plished in a long process of time and dangers which have now twice experience. overwhelmed us in one generation. Leave the rest to time, to the workings The crux of this next great step in the of ordinary prudence and sympathy organisation of our world will be the and reviving generosity, and do not let attitude of the United States of us attempt more than is wisely America. I wish to speak quite plainly possible for the immediate future after on this point. I feel convinced that the the war. Time is a real force, a great United States of America, in healer and a great builder. Let us leave abandoning the League of Nations to it its place and its function in our its fate, after taking the leading part in vision of the future... its foundation, helped to pave the way for the world war which is now devastating Europe and into which she will herself inevitably be drawn. Great is thus her responsibility for the world situation of today, although, of course, I do not deny the great responsibility of others... First and foremost we shall be called upon to put our own house in our own 70 : FORTUNES OF WAR wonderful fighter in the last war.” But France never threw in her reserves. IN Europe 1940 was a period of great She had none. What might have been disasters for the Allies. Holland was her reserve was snugly locked up with overrun in May and Rotterdam the million and a quarter men in the bombed into a flattened rubble with bowels of the Maginot Line. This Line considerable loss of life. Soon the never fired a shot. It was the undoing Meuse and Albert Canal were forced of France, psychologically and tacti- and the whole Belgian front line cally. crumbled. By mid-month German armoured divisions, quickly traversing On the 27th the Belgian king the difficult Ardennes, broke through surrendered, exposing the flank of the 9th French Army and crossed the Lord Gort’s British Expeditionary Meuse near Sedan, by so doing Force. Thereafter followed the British outflanking the Maginot Line which withdrawal to Dunkirk and the stopped farther to the south. The successful evacuation across the Germans sped on. The Allies had not Channel of most of the B.E.F. in one sufficient tanks or anti-tank guns to of the epic naval exploits of Britain’s stop the massed German panzers. long naval history. By stimulating seamanship 224,000 British troops and During these anxious days my father 112,000 other Allied troops, mostly kept trying to reassure himself, mutter- French, were successfully withdrawn. ing: “Now France will throw in her reserves. The Frenchman was a Britain had suffered a temporary tation and pledged Britain to go on knock-out blow. fighting alone, till the end. It was one of those decisive declarations that By now Weygand had succeeded mould history. It was a call that General Gamelin in command of the startled and awakened America. French Armies and a fresh effort was made to stem the German onrush. The Germany now controlled the coastline Wehrmacht was luckily in no position from the northern tip of Norway to the to, pursue the British across the southern tip of France. She was ready Channel, or the war might soon have to prepare for the invasion of Britain. been over. So now Hitler continued in But before she could cross the a great right hook on Paris,. which was Channel she had first to knock out the entered on 14th June. The French R.A.F. In the beginning of August the Government had withdrawn steadily daylight air attacks on Britain began. southwards, and Reynaud had made The crucial Battle of Britain had way for the Petain-Weygand combina- started. It did not finish till the end of tion. They lost no time in seeking; October, by which time British pilots peace terms, and these were ratified at and machines had established a clear Compiègne on the 21st in the same superiority. On the worst day in railway carriage used by Foch in the September, R.A.F. pilots claimed to 1918 armistice. have shot down 185 German machines. On the 17th, as France was dying, Mr. Churchill made his immortal exhor- By this time it was clear that Britain But as funds ran out it was modified in had won the battle. Goering fell into March, 1941, to Roosevelt’s fine considerable disfavour with Hitler and conception of Lease Lend, which plans for an invasion were more or ensured that monetary difficulties less indefinitely shelved. With these would not hamper supplies. In plans baulked, Goering now turned to September, 1941, Britain concluded an a nine months programme of terror – agreement with the United States bombing of British cities by night. whereby she was given fifty American London bore the brunt, 1,150,000 destroyers in exchange for United houses being damaged, but even in States rights to establish naval and air Portsmouth only 7 per cent of houses bases in Newfoundland, British escaped bomb damage. Up to the end Guiana and in the West Indies. of 1941 190,000 high-explosive On 27th September, 1940, Germany, bombs had been dropped on Britain, Italy and Japan signed a Tripartite Pact killing 43,700 civilians and injuring an of Alliance. Washington intelligence additional 50,000. But Hitler gained reports twice warned Russia of nothing except hatred and an impending German attack. She intensified resolve to fight on. slumbered peacefully on. American aid was steadily pouring in But Italy moved before Germany. on the “cash and carry” basis, which meant payment in advance and On 13th September large Italian forces transportation in Britain’s own ships. under Grazziani crossed the Egyptian frontier from Libya, and after skir- putting out of commission a major part mishes with light British forces, of the force as it lay at anchor, and paused for three months at Sidi decisively swinging naval supremacy Barram. Here, on the eleventh of the in the Mediterranean in Britain’s following month Wavell, reinforced favour. by Indians, Australians and New So far the war had gone well for us in Zealanders, launched a surprise attack, the Middle East, but Germany now which was spectacularly successful. intervened actively and it became a Within two months he had driven the long life-and-death struggle. First enemy out of Egypt and Cyrenaica, came her invasion of Greece and capturing 133,000 prisoners and much Yugoslavia in April, which were booty. Wavell had achieved this daring overrun after a brief but tenacious exploit with only 30,000 men and defence. Britain had a treaty with limited resources. Greece and decided, though she could In October Italy, using Albania as a ill .afford it on military grounds, to go base, had set upon Greece, but the to her aid. To do so she drew upon Greeks fought with surprising forces from Wavell’s Western Desert stubbornness and threw them back. A army, leaving Africa dangerously month later Admiral Andrew exposed. At great cost to the Navy, the Cunningham secured a notable victory vanquished forces on the Greek over the Italian fleet in Taranto, mainland were evacuated to Crete. carrier-borne torpedo Swordfish Here, in May, they were fallen upon by superior German airborne forces, At this time Germany had also landed and being deficient in anti-aircraft her Afrika Korps, a highly armoured defences and perplexed by this novel and mechanised force under the able form of parachutist attack, succumbed direction of Rommel, at Tripoli, and to the invader. this force moved swiftly eastwards to contact our Desert Army. With little My father gave the decision to effort they drove our depleted force intervene in Greece his fullest support. backwards to Sollum on the Egyptian It was not only a question of honour, frontier, where the line was stabilised. but an act of goodwill which would A garrison of Australians was left to bear fruit in the future. He also had a hang on grimly to the isolated fortress deep .admiration and affection for the of Tobruk on the coast. Greek people and made it his duty throughout the war to look after their Things having gone wrong, a interests. Much of his time in Cairo scapegoat was made of Wavell, who was usually taken up with their affairs. was succeeded by General Claude His affection for Greece had its roots Auchinleck, while General Cunning- in the classics, and their gallant stand ham, on my father’s recommendation in this war did much to enhance it. He and on the strength of his East African also had close ties of friendship with victory, was made Commander of the the Greek Royal Family, who sought Western Desert Force. The South sanctuary in the Union during the war. African First Division, together with

General Smuts addressing troops at Mersa Matruh, Egypt – August 1941 our Air Force and other units, had now off two long letters to Churchill and moved up to join this hardy desert Roosevelt once more stressing the army, and after marshalling at dangers of neglecting the vital Middle Amariya near Alexandria., were sent East theatre at the expense of a great up to Mersa Matruh, which was then a and premature build-up for a cross- key defence point. Tobruk, bombed Channel assault on Europe. Roosevelt, heavily and unceasingly from nearby and possibly British statesmen also, airfields, and frequently heavily did not always take the African war attacked by land, hung on grimly. sufficiently seriously. In August, 1914, my father, In November, 1941, Cunningham accompanied by my mother, made a launched his big offensive to drive flying three-day visit to Cairo, my back the Germans and to relieve mother on Gifts and Comforts Tobruk. For many days the battle, business and my father for troop fought like some great, mobile naval inspections and discussions. At El action on the limitless stony flatness of Alamein he saw our Second South the desert, hung perilously in the African Division busy training and balance, the German armour proving preparing defences, and at Mersa distinctly superior to the British. At Matruh, our First Division, under Sidi Rezegh, on the 21st, the South Major-General George Brink, were African 5th Infantry Brigade, battling holding a forward position. Back in to connect up the last few miles with the British Embassy in Cairo, he sent Tobruk, ran into a massed Panzer force and was wiped out. At the same we were unable to hold the line and time, not far away, the 1st South were driven back to a weak defensive African Brigade, under the leadership position behind minefields, known as of Brigadier Pienaar, was set upon by the Gazala Line. It ran for thirty miles a similar tank force, but due to fine from the Free-French-held strongpoint tactical handling and a masterly of Bir Hacheim to the coast, thirty concentrated use of his artillery, miles west of Tobruk. Here there was Pienaar drove off the Germans. The a lull while both sides gathered significance of this action was that it strength. was the first occasion on which it was In May, 1942, my father flew up to demonstrated that well-handled guns Cairo for discussions and found time could drive off mass tank assaults. to inspect the forces as far afield as Contact was eventually established Tobruk. Heslept at General Ritchie’s with Tobruk and the garrison relieved. Headquarters on a bay near Gambut The Germans withdrew swiftly to El which had been Rommel’s tank repair Agheila beyond Benghazi. Cunning- workshops, and bathed pleasantly in ham had meanwhile been superseded the warm Mediterranean. by General Ritchie. But we had badly Addressing his troops from the back of overrun our long lines of com- a truck under a palm tree on the dunes munication and our forward armoured at Mersa Matruh on 22nd May he said: units were out of petrol. So when “... we must hold this Middle East Rommel counter-attacked soon after, block, and we will hold it. There is the possibility that it will become the base Grant and Stuart tanks. Rommel struck for a great offensive. I have come to on May 26, and after a long and the conclusion that we will see a great almost disastrous struggle broke trial of strength. You may see it here through our wide minefields and drove in North Africa, which, I have always the French out of Bir Hacheim. Once felt, is destined to become one of the more German tanks proved superior great battlefields of this war.” both in fighting power and tactical handling, and soon our scarred but A young soldier who had seen my gallant army was falling back towards father pass in the desert wrote home to Alexandria. In the biggest tank battle his parents: “Thank God South Africa of the war, near Knightsbridge to the has such a man and thank God I am a south of Tobruk, we lost hundreds of South African. His visit did more good tanks in a single over-impetuous in two seconds than fourteen months action and our armoured force was of army training. He can rest assured virtually wiped out. Our Second South that if we are called upon to carry the African Division, which had Union Colours into the line, we will previously taken Bardia, Halfaya and carry them right round the world and Sollum, was in Tobruk at the time, but back again.” it was common knowledge that we By now both sides had amassed huge would not again commit the dangerous tank forces, the British having error of trying to hold this or any other acquired, in addition to their Crusaders isolated strongpoint. The minefields and Matildas, numerous American and other defences of Tobruk were resentful. And above all, it cast a quite therefore never properly prepared for a unwarranted stigma upon the South siege. Our tank forces, which had just African soldier, who became the been wiped out, were an integral part scapegoat of a strategic error. People of the defences of the fortress. It was were apt to make comparisons with the therefore obvious to all on the spot previous occasion when Tobruk was that Tobruk could never be held. The invested, forgetting that from the point last-minute decision by the highest of view of weight of attack it was like authority to hold it came as a complete comparing chalk and cheese. There surprise to us. This decision must was some consolation in the fact that it either have come from Mr. Churchill was the Indian lines of the perimeter, or some very high body. The fact that not the South African, that had been my father, while opposed to the pierced. decision, never pressed the enquiry, In South Africa my father now may perhaps be significant. launched a renewed effort to get 7,000 And so on 21st June Tobruk fell, and recruits for our depleted army. The with it South Africa lost the best part recruiting cry was “Avenge Tobruk”, of a first-rate division of 13,000 men. and the response was gratifying. It was a grievous blow to the country In Egypt, the beaten Allied army, and to my father. It gave the Opposi- including the reconstituted but tion endless grounds for criticism and unbeaten First South African Division, it made many friendly households were driven swiftly back by the famous 90th Light Division and On June 22, 1941, Germany attacked mobile units from the Panzer Russia in the full belief that the divisions, until on 1st July they campaign would be over in a few reached the defensible narrow thirty- weeks. It was Hitler’s most fatal mile waist between the impassable decision. On December 8 came Pearl Qattara Depression and the sea. Here, Harbour, a disastrous episode in at Alamein, our army turned and American history. Three days later the stood. It is a matter of pride to South British battleships Prince of Wales and Africans that the first three German Repulse were sent to the bottom by attempts to pierce this thin line were aircraft in the Gulf of Siam. Japan now made and repulsed on the South ruled these seas. But Russia, in African sector. There were, in fact, geographical size, in the inexhaustible during the first few critical days, little masses of man-power and in the frigid beyond Springboks and a few cold of her winter, after initial setback, remnants of battered British units in proved more than a match for the the line. Axis flags were flown in Germans. And so Russia, more than expectation in Alexandria and Cairo. any other, slowly wore down the strength of Hitler’s armies and gave us As the Allies were now close to the a breathing space. By the grace of God main base of Alexandria our build-up she fought on the same side as was brisk and the line soon stabilised ourselves against a common foe, but itself. she never really became an ally and was to be a great trial to Mr. Churchill “MY DEAR FIELD MARSHAL, and President Roosevelt. “I was hoping to present your field During these critical years in the marshal’s baton to you personally in Middle East my father never failed to England, but I well understand the stress the importance of this reasons why you do not want to be battleground. It held not only the away from South Africa for so long at secret of oil, but was also the wedge the present time. that prevented Germany and Japan “I am therefore asking the Governor- from a grand link-up. In the long ding- General as my personal representative dong and costly struggle here, there to hand it to you on my behalf. was always the danger that Britain and “I would like you to know how proud America might despair and my field marshals are to count you concentrate on the invasion of Europe. among their number. That would have been a disaster. “With all good wishes believe me, On the 30th September, 1941, at a Yours very sincerely, special investiture by Governor- “GEORGE, R.I” General, Sir Patrick Duncan, bestowed In his personal appreciation of the on my father, on behalf of the King, honour bestowed on my father Sir the rank of Field Marshal. The King’s Patrick said: “I can tell you from my letter read: own experience that there is no one inside or outside South Africa who has

seek and follow the advice and council of the General. He is a great rock in a weary world. On the one side General Smuts met flattery and approval, on the other the breezes and blasts of enmity. But he has been neither softened by the one, nor hardened by the other. He has pursued his own way ... this friend of ours is a man of many parts and of great distinction, a prophet not without honour save in his own country... In spite of many adverse blasts there are few South Africans today who are not in the depths of their hearts proud to acknowledge General Smuts as a son of South Africa.”

My father treated this birthday present Field Marshal Smuts. A fine photographic with characteristic modesty: “I trust study – October 1942. my friends and those who have known to make decisions, whether on military me as General Smuts for the last forty strategy or state policy, who would not years will not hesitate to use my old title. I am still General Smuts to my friends in South Africa, and I hope that the continuity of many years will not be broken by the new appointment. I am too old now to change names.” 71 : OFFENSIVE PHASE west, while Montgomery coped with Rommel in the east. By the personal A RESHUFFLE took place in August, intervention of Mr. Churchill with 1942, in the desert. General Alexander President Roosevelt, a large number of took over command of the Middle the new American Sherman tanks East from General Auchinleck and were diverted to the Eighth Army. General Montgomery succeeded Now for the first time these men could General Ritchie. The Army of the Nile fight the German Mark III and IV became known for the first time as the Panzers on equal terms. Eighth Army. These appointments were decided on personally by Mr. In a somewhat prophetic broadcast Churchill when he passed through after the Abyssinian campaign on 14th Cairo after the Moscow Conference, in July, 1941, my father had said: “The conjunction with what he called “the definite turn of the tide will probably massive judgment of Field Marshal begin in North Africa and the Smuts who flew from Cape Town to Springboks will have their share in the Cairo to meet me”. crowning glory, just as they have had in the first successes of the war.” He In November, 1942, a vast armada of went on to define our partnership with six hundred ships landed a British and Russia: “Nobody can say we are now an American army in French North in league with the Communists and are Africa. These armies, under Generals fighting the battles of Communism. Anderson and Clark, were to engage More fitly can the neutralists and the the Germans under von Arnim in the fence sitters be charged with fighting the country swung to my father’s side, the battle of Nazism. If Hitler in his and in by-elections we were invariably insane megalomania has driven Russia successful. to fight in self-defence, we bless her The advent of Japan into the war did arms and wish her all success, without not strike terror into the hearts of the for a moment identifying ourselves Nationalists, who failed to look with her Communistic creed. Hitler beyond their political noses. Rather has made Russia his enemy and not us did they rejoice in the mistaken belief friendly to her creed.” Mr. Churchill that the inevitable withholding of aid quoted, and identified himself with, from America might hasten the end of this latter part of the speech in the Britain. Now we had not only to cope British House of Commons the with the active U-boat menace round following day. our coasts, but had to safeguard our The Nationalists, after the advent of shores against a possible invader. The Russia into the war, switched to an fall of France had led briskly to the anti-Communist type of propaganda establishment of the pro-Nazi Vichy and never failed to attack my father for government of Pétain. Madagascar, fighting on the side of the Bolsheviks. lying Close to our shores, was French. But the Nationalists were throughout There was a distinct possibility that it fighting a losing battle, for people’s might be used as a U-boat refuge, or hearts were not in doctrines, but in the worse still, as a stepping stone for an war. And so more and more support in invader. So my father sent a South African brigade to accompany the sea as a security measure against British landing force which was marauding German aircraft. secretly despatched to the island. It The purpose of the visit was, as he was a smooth and swift conquest, but said, “the acceleration of the plans of my father was severely attacked in high strategy in the general conduct of Parliament for sending South African the war”. To reporters he said: “More troops outside the country in and more Africa is emerging as a contravention of their agreement. But dominant feature in our war strategy, after prolonged debate his explanation on which the future outcome of the that Madagascar was more or less war will largely depend. I have Africa, and that preparations against therefore continued to emphasise to possible Japanese invasion were the best of my ability the importance imperative, carried the day. of the African theatres of war. The In October, 1942, my father paid his central and vital position they occupy first wartime visit to Britain. After in our world strategy is becoming conferences in Cairo he boarded Mr. plainer every day... The purpose of Churchill’s semi-converted Liberator this visit was also for discussions on aircraft “Commando” and winged his general Allied war strategy and more way in the night deep inland across specifically on Eisenhower’s big Rommel’s territory to Gibraltar 2,500 North African landing just then being miles away. Next night they took off planned. His repeated stressing of the again for Britain, flying far out west to importance of the Middle East theatre was no idle obsession with him. It was assault craft were required for the a most vital necessity, for already eyes landings in Normandy, and in the were turning across the Channel. The Burma campaign, when badly needed Americans, especially, were insistent airlift was all employed across the that no time should be lost in getting Hump to China. These matters were going on the assault on Europe. It was settled as much by private cable a hopelessly premature idea but they between President Roosevelt and Mr. seemed greatly set on it. It worried Mr. Churchill as by the Allied War Churchill and my father considerably. Council. In these matters Mr. Churchill put considerable stock in the Another aspect of the war which was support he received from my father. to. worry these two leaders was that there was a tendency for Americans to My father’s sojourn in England was a want to send too much to the Far East. strenuous one. Twice daily he attended They were not interested so much in meetings of the War Cabinet, a the war against Hitler as against distinction extended him alone, of all Nippon. It was difficult to get them to Dominion ministers, whenever he was see that Europe must come first in a in London. He also attended meetings grand strategy. We should do little of the Defence Committee, the Privy more in the East than to ensure the Council and the Pacific War Council. safety of Australia and New Zealand. Together with Mr. Churchill, he This Far-East complex became addressed a secret meeting with 3,000 especially noticeable later on when coal miners in Westminster, to exhort them to greater efforts of production. invitation to address the combined He also had an audience with Queen Houses of Lords and Commons on Wilhelmina and broadcast a message 21st October, a distinction never pre- in Dutch to the Netherlands and viously accorded a Dominion states- Belgium. In addition he had audiences man. As my father entered, the with the King and kings of Yugoslavia thousand members that crowded the and Greece, foreign émigré prime hall rose to their feet and cheered him ministers, ambassadors and numerous for fully two minutes. It was an people of importance. He found time unprecedented ovation from one of the to pay Mr. Lloyd George a visit at most select audiences in the world. Churt and to look in at Christ’s The occasion had been much College, Cambridge. publicised, and it was estimated by the British Broadcasting Corporation that And on his journey back he stopped at an audience of fully fifteen millions Gibraltar in mid-November for was listening-in in Britain alone. discussions with Admiral Cunningham and others. Lloyd George introduced my father. “No one in calmness or discernment But to the public this visit will be exceeds him in this age,” he said with remembered more for one solitary deep emotion. Britain had been speech he made than for all the other through much, and a feeling of hard work. For my father had arrived weariness and depression was creeping in England at a “stern and sombre in. The object of my father’s speech, moment”. The occasion was an which came to be known as “The I have referred to two great actors in Offensive Phase”, was to awaken the this drama of our age. There is a third people and to stir up a new mood of and greater actor to be mentioned. I hope and vigour. refer to the British people and the spirit that animates them and the He spoke first of the “distinguished young nations around them in the leadership” of Lloyd George and of British Commonwealth of Nations. Winston Churchill, and of their “imperishable service”. He then went One occasionally hears idle words on: about the decay of this country, about the approaching break-up of the great I have spoken of the two great actors, world group we form. What folly and the two greatest actors, in the drama, ignorance, what misreading of the real the continuing drama of our age. I call signs of the times! In some quarters this a continuing drama because I view what wishful thinking! ... this war as a continuation of the last war, and the whole as perhaps another ... And now I have come back to a Thirty Years’ War, which began in country over which the fury of war has 1914, was interrupted by an armistice swept, a country whose people have in 1918, improperly called a peace, had to face in their grimmest mood the was resumed with greater ferocity in most terrible onslaught in its history. 1939, and may continue (who knows?) Many of its ancient monuments are till 1944... damaged or gone for ever. The blitz has passed over cities, ports, churches, Look at the wonderful resurgence of temples, humble homes and palaces, the brave little nations of Western Houses of Parliament and Law Courts. Europe, whom no adversity, no defeat, Irreplaceable treasures of one thousand dangers or chains can hold down... years of almost uninterrupted progress And looking farther afield, watch the and culture and peaceful civilisation young nations of the British have disappeared for ever. Commonwealth at the job. Last and War, the horror people still call war, greatest of all, see America in her but in its modern scientific form invincible might under one of the something very different from what greatest of leaders, marching to the passed under that name before, war flaming ramparts of the world in East has come to this favoured land and and West. attempted its worst. Much has gone And shall we forget France, not dead, which is lost for ever. but like Lazarus only sleeping, and But one thing is not lost – one thing, waiting for the dawn to shake off the the most precious of all, remains and torpor which has temporarily has rather increased. For what will it overcome her historic genius? ... profit a nation if it wins the world and The light of freedom which has guided loses its soul? The soul remains. Glory our slow and faltering advance has not departed from this land... through the ages still shines in the night which has overtaken us. The glory is still with us, and we shall Second, the treacherous attack of follow it with all our strength and Germany on Russia, in spite of the devotion to the new dawn which peace treaty between them.. surely awaits our race. Third, Pearl Harbour and its sudden But a rough and terrible passage lies and timely effect in carrying America before us, and it will call for all our 100 per cent into the war while combined resources, all our Admiral Nomura and Mr. Cordell Hull concentrated will and effort, all our were talking peace at the conference highest leadership to carry us to our table... goal. There is no place for compla- We have now reached the fourth year cency or wishful thinking... of this war, and the defence phase has I, therefore, pass on to the war now ended. The stage is set for the situation. For the first three years of last, the offensive phase. Let me set the war our role had necessarily to be a your minds at rest at once, I am not defensive one... going to discuss the future offensive strategy of the war. These are the steps that have marked our climb out of the abyss into which The amateur strategists can do that the fall of France had all but plunged with greater freedom and less us: responsibility in the Press. I only wish to emphasise that one phase has ended First, the defeat of the German and another must now begin... Luftwaffe over London. ... We are approaching the point when Christian advance which constitutes both on the war fronts and on the the essence of European civilisation... home fronts in enemy countries the I therefore come to the question: What situation is ripening for far-reaching is the sort of world which we envisage developments... as our objective after the war? What Once the time has come to take the sort of social and international order offensive and to strike while the iron is are we aiming at? These are very hot it would be folly to delay, to over- important questions, deserving of our prepare, and perhaps miss our most careful attention if we mean not opportunity. Nor are we likely to do only to win the war but also the peace. so-of that I feel satisfied... Our ideas on these matters twenty-two Hitler has tried to kill this spirit and to years ago were much too vague and substitute for it some crsatz thing, crude, and at the same time much too something which is really its negation. ambitions, with the result that when He has instilled into German youth a they came to be tested by hard new racial fanaticism. experience they proved wanting, and their failure helped to contribute to the He has sought strength in the ancient present conflict. With that experience discarded forest gods of the Teuton. before us we ought this time to His faith is a reversion to the pagan hammer out something more clear, past and a denial of the spiritual forces definite and practical... which have carried us forward in the We do not want a mere League, but something more definite and organic, even if to begin with more limited and less ambitious than the League. “The United Nations” is itself a fruitful conception, and on the basis of that conception practical machinery for the functioning of an international order could be explored... With honesty and sincerity on our part it is possible to make basic reforms both for national and international life which will give mankind a new chance of survival and of progress. Let this programme, by no means too ambitious, be our task, and let us now already, even in the midst of war, begin to prepare for it. And may Heaven’s Blessing rest on our work in War and in Peace. 72 : EL ALAMEIN was on. Seventy-three thousand priso- ners were taken of whom eight PEOPLE had not long to wait for the thousand were Germans. They were offensive phase to commence. parched and bewildered. In addition Montgomery, having completed his the Axis had lost a thousand guns and preparations, at dawn on 23rd October five hundred tanks. unleashed his “great thunderbolt of an assault”, as Mr. Churchill described it, It was a great victory. on the German lines at Alamein. Five But fortune favoured Rommel, for in hundred guns, standing twenty-three the beginning of November torrential yards apart along a six-mile front, rains turned the desert into a quagmire, brought down a concentrated barrage bogging down our pursuit armour. on enemy positions and at the same Had it not been for this, the enemy time infantry and sappers surged would undoubtedly have been rounded forward to clear a way through the up before reaching the Egyptian five-mile deep enemy minefield belt. border. Though stubbornly contested, all the first objectives were attained. Rommel got away, and reinforced, Thereafter the progress was slow for was to fight many an additional battle. ten days, but then our armour broke The biggest of these was at the Mareth through and in a ten-hour tank battle at Line in Tunisia. This happened just as El Aqqaqir the opposing armour was German armour was teaching the heavily defeated, and the big pursuit inexperienced Americans a salutary lesson at Kasserine and Had. Having aeroplanes, plus tremendous stores of learned the hard way that it was men ammunition and Supplies. 291,000 and sound tactics and not just Sherman prisoners were taken and enemy dead tanks that won battles, the Americans were estimated at 50,000, making a knuckled down and were to turn into total of 341,000. This was well in formidable fighters. excess of the numbers captured by Russia at Stalingrad. In all, North Eventually our forces converged on Africa had cost the Axis 600,000 men: Tunis and Bizerta, and having forced Germany lost 250,000, including those the strong Enfidaville hill positions, killed in battle, severely wounded or captured the two big towns and lost at sea. Italy lost 350,000, and to cornered von Arnim on the Cape Bon this figure must be added the 300,000 peninsula, where after unceasing she lost previously in East Africa (of bombing and attack, he was forced to whom many, however, were natives). capitulate on 13th May, 1943. General Alexander cabled to Mr: Churchill: “It In Africa we had seen hard and is my duty to report that the Tunisian strained times. Upon the collapse of campaign is over. All enemy France there had loomed large the resistance is ended. We are masters of question of the French fleet. There had North Africa.” been naval actions against French units at Dakar, Casablanca and The quantities of war materials Toulon. General Giraud, whom we captured were enormous, including had backed so heavily in our North over 1,000 guns, 250 tanks and 520 African Free French plans, had proved The general temper of the people had a grave disappointment and we had improved steadily. In Parliament my perforce to turn to the Vichyite father’s majority had swelled, through Admiral Darlan. An assassin soon put by-elections and resignations from an end to him. In Britain there was anti-war groups, to twenty. With the General de Gaulle, tank expert, and close of the Session the present five- reincarnation of Joan of Arc, a year term of Parliament expired. The difficult man with a difficult mission. time seemed propitious, and so my father decided on a General Election. Now all that was of the past, and we This took place on the 7th of July, rejoiced in the conclusion of a long special arrangements having been and hard phase of the war. From now made to enable all soldiers to vote. on the tempo of events was steadily increased. For the first time, there was The result was that 107 pro-war a definite smell of ultimate victory in members were returned against 43 of the air. It prompted President the anti-war Nationalists, a resounding Roosevelt at the Casablanca majority of 64. Never has a Govern- Conference in January, 1943, to ment policy been more clearly demand “unconditional surrender”. endorsed or a South African Premier had better support. Even Josef Stalin was impressed. The Parliamentary session opened at ***** Cape Town on 16th January, 1943. My father now introduced some slight as Mr. Churchill’s, and it worked just changes in his Cabinet: a Minister of as well. Economic Development superseded Emphasis in this new Government was the Minister of Commerce and on going full-steam ahead with the war Industries; the Ministry of Railways and industrial effort, and at the same and Harbours was broadened into a tine paving the way for the problems Ministry of Transport; and a new of demobilisation after the war. Minister of Welfare and Demobili- General Brink was appointed as sation was appointed to cope with Director of Demobilisation to assist social security problems. The general his Minister, Mr. Lawrence. criticism of this Cabinet, like all previous ones, was that it contained Two committees were established, a too much age and dead-wood. My National Supplies Council, and a father recognised this weakness, but Cabinet Committee on Reconstruction, seemed powerless to change it, for the with my father as chairman. provinces liked being represented by The years that followed were ones of their senior men, who were, inevitably, unprecedented activity and prosperity. their old stalwarts. An additional It was truly a Golden Age. Never weakness was that my father so before had so much been accom- overshadowed his ministers that the plished in this country. Never before Cabinet became positively lop-sided. had things run so smoothly. Nor had It was a dictatorship every bit as much our prestige and honour in the world abroad ever stood higher. The gold though we had shaken off our legacy mines were going at full blast turning of the past. out that precious commodity so urgently needed for payments in India and elsewhere. Everywhere new factories had sprung up to turn out the articles we had previously imported. Large concerns were turning out the heavier implements of war. In Parlia- ment the Opposition seemed swamped and stunned. Subversive activities, under stricter control, were nervous and quiet. Farming was booming and there were no surpluses. Even our normally erratic climate was kind. In our ports there was great activity and hundreds of thousands of soldiers in transit enjoyed our hospitality. In the north our armies fraternised happily with those of the rest of the world. It was an age of broadmindedness and tolerance. For a while it looked as 73 : SECOND WARTIME VISIT TO he could not refrain from exclaiming ENGLAND loudly to General Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, who was ABOUT the middle of September, sitting some way off to his left: 1943, after the conclusion of the North “Brookie, look – look at those fine African campaign, I was attached boys!” temporarily to my father as Aide on his second wartime visit to Britain. Italy, tired, well-beaten and dispirited, These duties I always found exacting. had capitulated on the 8th. Six weeks On the 27th my father arrived in Cairo, earlier Mussolini had resigned, but had spending some days in discussions on been kidnapped by German war and diplomacy, reviewing his 6th paratroopers before he could come Armoured Division in training at across to the Allies. Khatatba, and going to Alexandria for On 1st October my father flew out discussions with Admiral John west along the Mediterranean shores Cunningham, who took him for a trip towards Tunis, passing over the old round the outer harbour to see units of desert battlefields, now forsaken and the newly-surrendered Italian battle almost obliterated by the shifting fleet. sands, across orderly but deserted At Khatatba, while taking the salute as Italian “Ente” settlements and the his giant men marched past, eighteen green of Cyrenaica, touching down at abreast, my father was so overcome Castel Benito, Tripoli, for lunch. Then with pride at their size and bearing that on again, low across the ancient Roman ruins at Sabratha and El Djem, Alexander was considered by many remnants of days when this part of the most brilliant soldier of the war. Africa was still well-watered and the From Tunis my father made a rapid great granary of Rome. At Tunis he inspection of Sicily, flying round this was the guest of General Eisenhower rugged volcanic island, dominated by in his villa on the hill at Sidi Bu Said, Mount Etna; past Messina, with a view above the plains of ancient Carthage. across the two-mile wide straits to the Here my father met General Italian mainland, touching down at Eisenhower for the first time, forming Gerbini to inspect South African Air a favourable impression of this big, Force personnel. Then he left for bluff, friendly American. The next day Malta, battered survivor of 3,000 Axis was spent in conferences with bomber sorties, where he lunched with Eisenhower; Alexander and Tedder, the Governor, Lord Gort. the latter Commander of the Desert Air Forces and greatest wartime expert On the way across the Mediterranean on air-army co-operation. These three from here to Algiers our Lodestar were to prove a great and winning developed trouble in one engine and a team in the battles for Italy and Europe great stream of black oil poured out that were to follow. Eisenhower was to across the wing, causing us to look shine as the great peace-maker apprehensively at the white wind- between English and Americans, and a whipped sea below. Though the wonderful soother of ruffled feelings. engine never faltered, we felt it wisest to set course back to Tinus again. Next morning the trip to Algiers was hedgerows which go to make up the completed in General Spaatz’s private solid soil of England. At Northolt, Dakota, and in this dazzling city on a outside London, we touched down, broad crescent of a bay, we delayed till where a welcoming crowd awaited my 3 p.m., when we took off in Mr. father, and soon we were speeding to Churchill’s new four-engined Avro the Hyde Park Hotel, where my father York “Ascalon”, specifically sent to usually stayed. collect my father. Two hours later we The occasion was a meeting of turned through the narrow Straits of Commonwealth Prime Ministers, but Gibraltar and touched down a little this was only to form a minor portion later on an American airstrip at Rabat. of my father’s business. Britain was Here we tarried till early the next now in her fifth year of war. Though morning, when we took off along a the after-taste of the air blitz had not dim flare-path for England. At 8.15 I completely gone, a second minor blitz saw some baloons sticking through the was to start during the visit, and for clouds and enquired of the navigator those in the know, there was the whether we were passing over a prospect of the use at any moment of convoy. “No,” he said, “that is new and terrible secret long-range Exeter.” Soon we broke cloud, and weapons by the Germans against Eng- there, stretched before me, I saw for land, and more especially London. the first time the grey villages, the Since the start of the war Britain’s air green countryside and the innumerable force had grown out of all recognition and Air Chief Marshal Leigh made to walk such prodigious Mallory’s Tactical Air Force now distances in the blazing sun in this totalled about 5,000 first-line campaign, that he swore he would machines. Fighter Command, which never walk a yard again if he could formed part of it, consisted of 86 help it. So he joined the Royal Flying squadrons of day fighters and an Corps., where he became a famous additional 20 of night fighters, in all night-fighter pilot over London. A about 2,000 machines. Though our old man of singular mind and Mark IV Spitfires were inferior in determination, he made it his task to performance to the newer German build for Britain a great bomber fleet, Messerschmitts and Focke Wulfs, the for more than any other man he had ones currently in production were unlimited faith in this type of warfare. vastly superior. To these ideas of Harris; as much as to any other, we owe our victory in the Equally notable strides had been made war. in Bomber Command, where Air Chief Marshal Harris was rapidly At No. 10 Downing Street and at building up a formidable fleet of heavy Chequers, Britain’s equivalent of strategic bombers of the Halifax and Groote Schuur, I was privileged for Lancaster type. “Bomber” Harris, a the first time to see the two great men Rhodesian by birth, and once an infan- of the Empire, Mr. Churchill and my try man under General Botha and my father, together. Between these two father in South-West Africa, had been old friends there existed a warmth of feeling and mutual admiration that was while he is away and says that the touching to behold. In public it was British people will ask for nothing “Prime Minister” and “Field Marshal”, better than this...” but otherwise it was simply “Winston” I was to find Mr. Churchill a dynamo and “Jan”. Mr. Churchill had in him of mental action and resolution. This more than the average gift of kindness man was no mere figure-head. He and warmth of feeling, to which the ruled his Cabinet and military chiefs inherent friendliness of my father was with a rod of iron and stern peremp- quick to respond. In each other’s toriness. His personal physician had company they seemed to cast the cares no more influence over him than his of the world from their shoulders and valet Sawyers. My father was the only to assume a new animation. They were person he listened to with respect. It a tonic to each other. was incongruous, but lucky, that Mr. During the first week-end at Chequers Churchill in a democracy was allowed I jotted down in my note-book: “Mr. powers no less than those of the Churchill is very keen that the Oubaas Dictators. His judgment was seldom at should spend some months in fault. England, especially as Anthony Eden Once again my father regularly will be away in Russia, and he himself attended meetings of the War Cabinet, would soon be off to a Three Power which at the time was examining Conference (Teheran) as well. He closely disturbing reports of terrible wants the Oubaas to take over his job new secret German weapons. As much forced foreign labour was being the Dieppe coast and on the Cherbourg utilised on these projects, our intelli- Peninsula, but the public of Britain gence was unusually complete and this were luckily ignorant of all this. was further substantiated by constant Perhaps it was the fear of these aerial reconnaissance. It appears that weapons, perhaps fear of weariness various types of weapons were being and possible stalemate, that caused my developed at Peenemunde and Watten, father to stress the need for hurry in including huge rockets, pilotless his speech on 19th October in the old aircraft and glider-bombs. The War blitzed Guildhall. Fifteen hundred Cabinet was taking the threat very illustrious people crowded the hall, seriously, for it seemed not impossible and an additional three thousand that the Germans might drop 2,500 to listened in to loud-speaker extensions 10,000 tons of explosives on Britain outside. Here are some of the salient during November and December. The passages from this memorable speech: Germans were boasting openly that these “retribution” weapons would ... The British people are united to a produce a million casualties in London man behind the greatest leader they during the first week. Mr. Churchill’s have ever had – the leader of whom, it technical adviser, Lord Cherwell, put is now amusing to recall, a gentleman the figure more modestly at 90,000 per prominent in your public life told me month. Launching platforms for these only a couple of years before this war devilish devices were going up along that he had no party, no followers, and no hope of future leadership! Such are the ironies of history! I reminded my Then, at two points of this vast war informant that in the later stages of the front, things happened which last war I had heard from a well- transformed the whole course of the known diplomat exactly the same war and, perhaps, of history. The statement about Clemenceau, the battles of Stalingrad and El Alamein Tiger, and that within a month marked the real turning points in this thereafter he was Prime Minister of war and will rank in history with the France and led his own country to other decisive battles of the world... final victory in the war. ... The Russian contribution to the war You have found a greater man than is immense and, indeed, has surpassed Clemenceau, and he will lead you to a anything which even the most more conclusive and fruitful victory sanguine had expected of her. We are than that of the last war... Another under no temptation to detract from special reason which makes me feel the credit which is hers – which justly happier today is the immense change is hers... which has come over the scene since Our admiration for all this is my visit a year ago. I spoke then in a unbounded, but our high sense of somewhat optimistic frame of mind. I Russia’s service should not make us said the defensive phase of the war depreciate our own contribution and was over for us, and we were passing make us think less of it in comparison. over to the offensive which would lead From El Alamein onwards, we of the to final victory... British Commonwealth have done things on the battlefronts which will for the grand assault by our armies stand comparison with the next year... contributions of any of the Allies... One more concluding remark on the To this must be added our continuous war. The time is short. The time factor bombing campaign against the enemy in this fifth year of the war has become industrial centres and communications all-important, and from now on every both in Germany and the occupied moment counts. Already the moral and territories. Vast destruction has been physical conditions, especially in the wrought to the enemy resources and occupied countries, are indescribable, war effort... far worse than at the end of the last war. If Europe is to be saved from ... It may be no exaggeration to say immeasurable disaster we must look that our air bombing offensive against upon the earliest ending of the war as enemy centres has had, and is having of the first importance. the dimensions and effects of a large- scale additional front... The longer this agony lasts and the worse it becomes the more difficult, if We are now in the autumn of 1941... not impossible, it will be to restore the We have climbed out of the depths and continent to normal conditions after moved far forward... And by the this war. For carrying on his war coming winter we shall have closed in Hitler is draining occupied Europe of upon Hitler’s central fortress of all its resources of food, materials, and Europe and be making our dispositions manpower. Everywhere the enslaved populations are being reduced to perhaps some difference among the destitution and despair with the most Allies, war weariness, some brutal ruthlessness. Under threats of unforeseen development, or what not – starvation they are being conscripted coming to his assistance and for war service and labour service, producing a stalemate or compromise regardless of age or sex. They are peace. moved about like dumb cattle, far The answer to all this should be our away from home and friends, shot on relentless, ever-increasing pressure the least show of resistance, shot as exerted, without rest or pause, until the hostages even without any allegation crack in his defences comes, and the of guilt, while Jews and Poles and whole imposing structure begins to other sections of the population are topple. The policy of continuous being systematically exterminated... pressure, begun in the Russian And there is another reason of a more offensive since Stalingrad, and in our military character for avoiding delay. own increasing tempo of attack since Hitler is no longer fighting for victory, El Alamein in the Mediterranean but for time – for something to happen basin, should be prosecuted – for the accidents that so often set the ceaselessly so that the final decision run of events. could be forced as soon as possible next year... His only hope now is to prolong the war on the off chance of something But more difficult problems lie ahead happening – some new weapon, in connection with the peace: the problem of aggression, the basic Let the greatest war in human history problem before our race, and the become the prelude to the greatest future of our civilised society. It is the peace. To make it such will be the last obstacle to be overcome in our greatest glory of our age and its long upward climb from our primeval noblest bequest to the generation, to savagery. Here we come tip at last come. against the toughest and, let me add, one of the most heroic instincts of the race-the instinct of the animal in us, of the beast, but of the kings of beasts: the lion and the tiger. The Christian gospel still fights in vain against this earlier, more deeply founded gospel of our race, which is still upheld in some countries and circles as the code of honour and virtue for our society. The blond beast, the superman of nature, still hurls defiance at the Christian code with its gentle virtues. That last battle in the West – for our Western civilisation – our race must win, or die... 74 : WORK IN LONDEN The visit to Bomber Harris he found especially interesting, for here, in WHENEVER possible my father got out stereoscopic aerial photographs, he of London on trips of inspection. was able to see the terrible damage These included visits to Fighter Com- inflicted on Germany, a truly arresting mand Headquarters at Bentley Priory, spectacle of destruction which greatly near London; to a tank experimental impressed him. Harris said that there ground at Chobham; to Harris and his were only a hundred big towns in Bomber Command at High Wycombe; Germany, of which about fifty to a Photographic Interpretation unit contained major military objectives. near Uxbridge; to a Combined Opera- Knock out those fifty, and Germany tions display off the Needles, Isle of could not continue the war. So far, of Wight, which my father viewed from this fifty, seventeen had been 80 per aboard a steam gunboat; to General cent or more destroyed, and a further Pile’s Hyde Park anti-aircraft seventeen severely battered. All this defences, where he saw some of had been accomplished in the new London’s 500 heavy air defence guns, heavy bomber offensive of this year. rocket devices and aircraft detection Had we been able to double our effort, devices; to the South African Dr. Basil Harris said, Germany would by now Schonland’s Army Scientific Research have been on her last legs. His big Station at Roehampton; and to the complaint was that people in high Aircraft and Armament Experimental places did not appreciate sufficiently Establishment at Boscombe Down. the power of the bomber offensive. He The difference between Goering’s and wanted my father’s support for future Harris’s bombing was that the top-line councils. This he succeeded in Luftwaffe used light close-support doing, and Harris had no weightier machines, carrying a small bomb load, champion than my father. He said the whereas the R.A.F. used specially bomber offensive was keeping three designed four-engined heavy bombers million Germans tied up and an carrying a four-ton bomb load, with additional three million had been crews trained in night flying and using rendered homeless. all the most modern radar and other target-locating devices. Accuracy, Harris’s claim for victory through air aided by specialist “Pathfinder” target bombing alone was an impressive one, markers, was of a high order and but it proved somewhat over- bombing was done in devastatingly optimistic, for it failed to take into brisk “saturation” raids. And much account the amazing resilience of the bigger and better bombs were used. German people, or their ability to do The four-tonner was in regular service quick repairs and to transfer factories and already six-tonners were being underground. But even so, there can be used on reinforced concrete U-boat no doubt that it was bombing that pens. Official German sources quoted strangled Hitler and brought him to his 1,200,000 casualties up to date, and knees. Rundstedt, Keitel, Kesselring the homes of 6,000,000 people and Jodl subsequently testified to this. destroyed. On 4th September, 1943, in a national appear physically before this air broadcast, my father told his listeners onslaught by night and day. And its about the effects of the bomber effects on civilian morale will be even offensive on Germany: “Air attack is more devastating than its physical already laying in ruins one after effects. Already a nation-wide wail is another of the great German industrial going up from this blitz which is more and munition centres. With our than human nature can bear and which increasing tempo of bombing, most of even sears the imagination...” the great centres of Germany will in In Italy the Allies appeared bogged another twelve months be in ruins, if down on a line south of Rome, due to not nonexistent. If German internal a shortage of men. By the year-end morale broke in 1918 when Germany Alexander would have fifteen divi- was intact and had escaped all ravages sions, whereas the Germans already of the war which she had inflicted on had twenty-four to twenty-eight at her neighbours, how long will she their disposal in this theatre, with the endure a devastation worse than that of possibility of quickly increasing this to the Thirty Years’ War? Hitler’s sixty if they so wished it. reliance and banking on night fighters to counter this fury of the air will be The general preparations for war another vain hope, like the invasion of everywhere were going painfully Britain, or the secret weapon, or the U- slowly. It prompted my father to boat. The Fortress of Europe will dis- remark privately: “I doubt if we shall ever finish this war. America is more concerned about money matters than same commander, for the two theatres beating Germany.” But in the United were too distant and diversified. And States matters were brightening up, he warned that under no circumstances under the able direction of the Chief of must fighting be allowed to interfere Staff, George Marshall, and the with Bomber Command’s offensive. It country was ponderously getting must remain quite outside the scope of geared for war. The one bright spot army commanders. This memo, was what Mr. Churchill called the known as “Grand 17”, made a favour- “mastery of the U-boat”, which earlier able impression. on appeared to be gaining a While in London, the Polish Prime stranglehold on Britain’s long life- Minister and the Foreign Minister, lines. who were at loggerheads with Stalin, In a memorandum to President Roose- came to seek advice and assistance. velt and Mr. Churchill on the war “Put your case to President Roosevelt situation my father again stressed the and Mr. Churchill and trust to them,” importance of the Mediterranean my father said. “If anybody can help theatre. Here we had our teeth into you, they will. But don’t try to solid fighting, he said, whereas the negotiate direct with Russia. Your whole of the Channel assault plans future will be very hard for you – were still nebulous. He stressed, too, don’t place too much hope upon it.” that he did not favour the idea of After they had gone, he remarked to putting Europe and Italy under the me: “Poor devils, there is not much and the embodiment of optimism and one can do for them!” the higher values of life. They listen to him with bated breath, and I, for one, Towards the end of the visit to Britain will admit that he cuts a very I noted in my diary: “It has been a handsome and inspiring figure on the very great privilege to have been public platform, dressed in his military present with the Oubaas at all his uniform, lavishly adorned with red principal functions in London, for it insignias and bedecked with ribbons of has permitted a comprehensive study service. His face looks so strong and of public opinion regarding him... And handsome, with its healthy, rosy it has also brought me into contact colouring, his blue eyes, his trim white with the leading personalities now in beard, and snowy hair. When he talks Londen – English, American and his face lights up with expression and others. In this illustrious company the you cannot help being infected with Oubaas has always shown up his goodwill and sincerity. He may not sufficiently well to dwarf the others. be a great orator – as straightforward He stands out head and shoulders oratory goes – but he is a profound above any other person here. His pre- orator. He talks thoughts, not words ... eminence as a statesman no one has and that is why his utterances are so disputed, and I daily hear it confirmed full of precious substance.” with greater emphasis. To people he is both a tonic and an elixir. He is also a Though my father had probably done symbol of steadfastness and security, as much public speaking as any man, one never failed to gather the impres- speaker South Africa has produced. sion that he was speaking under some His speeches, no matter what the topic, nervous tension. It was not the were always light, uninvolved and expression on his face, for that was readily understandable and well laced pleasant, animated and soothing. with good humour and ready wit. Rather was it the somewhat jerky way There was nothing ponderous or he kept straightening his back and funereal about them.. bracing his shoulders, or the abrupt While spending a week-end with the way he kept putting his hand on the Royal Family at Windsor Castle, His back of his hip, or moving his fingers. Majesty asked my father to deliver the He seldom waved his arms or Sunday sermon in St. George’s gesticulated. He never banged his fist Chapel. My father confessed to me the to emphasise a point. Nor was he previous night that it was one of the given to slang or colloquial expres- most difficult requests he had ever had sions to obtain greater emphasis. to comply with. Yet he delivered a With the passage of years I thought he truly amazing sermon. He likened this was inclined to grow long-winded and war to a “great crusade for good ... he often repeated himself, though There had been many religious wars in admittedly in a diverse phrase. the past, but this was undoubtedly the greatest of them all”. And so he passed But for all these little weaknesses, he happily from one theme to another. A was undoubtedly the most versatile member of the Household remarked to and greatest, though not the best, me afterwards that it was the “most who were over every night in a religious sermon” he had ever listened strength of fifty or more. The all-out to. And yet the word “God” had been bombing of Germany was now getting used only twice. At Leo Amery’s into its stride. private birthday party the conversation turned on India. I heard my father telling friends how fatal it would be if Britain left India at this stage. It would be like taking the reinforcing steel rods out of concrete. The whole mass would simply crumble, and the good work of the past would lapse into contusion and bloodshed. On 18th November Bomber Harris dropped 1,600 tons on Berlin. On the 22nd 800 R.A.F. heavies dropped another 2,450 tons in thirty minutes. People in Britain, but not in Berlin, were delighted. On the following night yet a further 1,310 tons were sent down. All this was in addition to the regular efforts of Mosquito intruders

General Smuts addressing a joint sitting of British Houses of Parliament in 1942. On his left are Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Churchill. 75 : EXPLOSIVE SPEECH delivered what I consider the most thoughtful, far-reaching and profound WHILE in London the Empire Parlia- utterance he had ever made, and the mentary Association asked my father most impressive I have ever listened to deliver an address. He fittingly to. chose the theme “Thoughts on a New World”. On 25th October, a week Viscount Cranborne in introducing before returning to South Africa, he him said: “When I read the title of his addressed about three hundred parlia- Address I felt, as I expect most of you mentarians who crowded into Room gentlemen felt, how typical it was of 17 of the House of Commons. In this the Field Marshal, how characteristic it address he spoke from brief notes, not was of the whole of his life. If there is from a written draft as he almost one particular aspect of his character invariably does on important occa- in which he differs from the rest of us sions, and consequently he was able to I think it is that he never looks back... put much of his personality into his He is always looking forward into the words. A facsimile of a portion of his future, and he is always constructively notes will be found on the pages moulding the future. He combines the following this page. experience of the old with the vision of the young, That I think is the reason Here, in what he liked to term his why he has played so great a part in “Explosive Speech”, he said he was his own country; it is the reason, why merely “thinking aloud”. On this day he was at his scintillating best, and

Portion of notes for the “Explosive Speech”, 1943 he occupies such a pre-eminent posi- deal with these problems must either tion today among the leaders of the be sub-human or super-human... nation.” There are two dangers that face us in a Then my father rose and mildly and situation such as ours today. One is the quietly commenced his address: danger of over-simplification. In a world where the problems are so I intend to have a general informal talk complex we may feel tempted to over- with you this afternoon. I have no set simplify and thus falsify the real opinions; I have no dogmatic beliefs to character of the problems before us place before you; I am going to put and miss the real solutions. The other before you certain lines of thought danger is what I may call the danger of which are running through my own following slogans or catchwords, and mind. I think the times in which we so missing the real inwardness of the live do not really permit of very rigid problems before us. fixed opinions, or of any dogmatic outlook on life or on the problems Let us look at these two dangers, before us. We are facing today which are really the same, though I probably the most perplexing compli- wish to keep them separate for the cated human situation that has moment. Let me refer briefly to the confronted the world for many first danger of over-simplification. generations, and anybody who thinks Where you are faced with a situation he has a panacea at his command to and problems such as we are faced with, you dare not oversimplify. In such circumstances you can only they become catchwords and vague proceed towards a solution step by slogans, which in the end do not lead step in the old empirical British way, you very far... It must be quite clear to for if you begin to theorise and anybody who thinks of the real rationalise and simplify you are lost... problems that face us that you will only get to practical solutions in the That is one sort of situation that I end if you have a good mixture of both consider probable – that we may never democracy and freedom on the one come to a peace conference at all, and hand, and of leadership on the other... that we may have to be satisfied with a comprehensive armistice on a basis of ... This war has taught us not only that unconditional surrender, an armistice idealism is not enough, and that which will open the door to a long universality is not the solution for our series of investigations and researches, security problem, but it has also taught which may take a long number of us that we cannot get away from the years before finality is reached... problem of power. Again, take the other danger I have That is where this greatest war in referred to – the danger of following history had its origin. We have found slogans and catchwords. Today we that all our idealism, all our high hear a great deal of democracy. We are aspirations for a better world and a fighting the battle of democracy. We better human society, stand no ghost are fighting for freedom. Of course we of a chance unless we reckon with this are. But these words become clichés, fundamental factor, and we keep power well in our minds when we to leadership and to power. To my search for the solution of the problem mind that can be done much more of security. The question of power effectively than in the Covenant of the remains fundamental, and it is, I think, League of Nations, by giving a proper the great lesson of this war. Peace place to the three great Powers that are unbacked by power remains a dream. now at the head of our United Nations. Therefore, looking at the situation that Great Britain, the United States and faces us in the near future, I would say Russia now form the trinity at the head that in arranging for a new world of the United Nations fighting the organisation for security, as we shall cause of humanity. And as it is in war, have to do, we shall have to provide so will it have to be in peace. We shall not only for freedom and democracy, have to see to it that in the new which are essential, but we shall also international organisation the have to provide for leadership and for leadership remains in the hands of this power. If we leave the future security great trinity of Powers... of the world merely to loose I think it was largely because in the arrangements and to aspirations for a League of Nations as constituted after peaceful world, we shall be lost. the last war we did not recognise the We shall have to attend to the lesson importance of leadership and power we have learned, and see to it that in that everything went wrong in the end. the new organisation to preserve peace What was everybody’s business in the for the future, we give a proper place end proved to be nobody’s business. Each one looked to the other to take rolled up and a new map is unrolling the lead, and the aggressors got away before us. We shall have to do a great with it... deal of fundamental thinking, and scrapping of old points of view, before ... I think one other flaw or weakness we find our way through that new in the League organisation after the Continent which now opens up before last war was the fact that we did not us. pay sufficient attention, or indeed any particular attention to the economic Just look for a moment at what is question. The Covenant much too happening, and what will be the state exclusively followed political lines. of affairs, at the end of this war. In We looked too much to political Europe three of the Great Powers will solutions. We have learned our lesson have disappeared. That will be quite a there, too... unique development. We have never seen such a situation in the modern ... We have moved into a strange history of this Continent. Three of the world, a world such as has not been five Great Powers in Europe will have seen for hundreds of years, perhaps disappeared. France has gone, and if not for a thousand years. Europe is ever she returns it will be a hard and completely changing. The old Europe long upward pull for her to emerge which we have known, into which we again. A nation that has once been were born, and in which we have taken overtaken by a catastrophe such as she our vital interest as our Mother- has suffered, reaching to the Continent, has gone. The map is being foundations of her nationhood, will will follow this war Germany will be not easily resume her old place again. written of the slate in Europe for long, We may talk about her as a Great long years and after that a new world Power, but talking will not help her may have arisen. much. We are dealing with one of the We are therefore left with Great greatest and most far-reaching Britain and with Russia. Russia is the catastrophes in history the like of new Colossus in Europe – the new which I have not read of. The upward Colossus that bestrides this Continent. climb will be a bitter and a long one. When we consider all that has France has gone, and will be gone in happened to Russia within the last our day, and perhaps for many a day. twenty-five years, and we see Russia’s Italy has completely disappeared, and inexplicable and phenomenal rise, we may never be a Great Power again. can only call it one of the great Germany will disappear. Germany at phenomena in history. It is the sort of the end of this war will have thing to which there is no parallel in disappeared, perhaps never to emerge history, but it has come about... again in the old form. The old Bismarckian Germany may perhaps Then you will have this country of never rise again. Nobody knows. The Great Britain, with a glory and an Germans are a great people, with great honour and a prestige such as perhaps qualities, and Germany is inherently a no nation has ever enjoyed in history; great country, but after the smash that recognised as possessing a greatness of soul that has entered into the very substance of world history. But from a Then outside Europe you have the material economic point of view she United States, the other great World will be a poor country. She has put in Power. You will therefore have these her all. This country has held nothing three Great Powers: Russia the back. There is nothing left in the till. Colossus of Europe, Great Britain with She has put her body and soul and her feet in all continents, but crippled everything into it to win the battle of materially here in Europe; and the mankind. She will have won it, but she United States of America with will come out of it poor in substance. enormous assets, with wealth and resources and potentialities of power The British Empire and the British beyond measure. The question is how Commonwealth remain as one of the you are going to deal with that world greatest things of the world and of situation. I am just painting before you history, and nothing can touch that the picture of the new world that we fact. But you must remember that the shall have to face, which will be some- Empire and the Commonwealth are thing quite unlike what we have had to mostly extra-European. Those are the deal with for a century, or indeed for overflows of this great British system centuries. to other continents. The purely European position of Great Britain Many people look to a union or closer will be one of enormous prestige and union between the United States of respect, and will carry enormous America and Great Britain, with her weight, but she will be poor. Commonwealth and Empire, as the new path to be followed in the future, But then I am troubled with this in this world which I am describing as thought – and this is the explosive facing us. I myself am doubtful about stuff I am coming to. In that trinity that. I attach the greatest importance to you will have two partners of immense Anglo-American collaboration for the power and resources –Russia and future. To my mind it is, beyond all America. And you will have this doubt, one of the great hopes of island, the heart of the Empire and of mankind. But I do not think that, as the Commonwealth, weak in her what I might call a political axis, it European resources in comparison will do. It would be a one-sided affair. with the vast resources of the other If you were to pit the British two. An unequal partnership, I am Commonwealth plus the United States afraid. The idea has repeatedly floated against the rest of the world, it would before my mind, and I am just be a very lop-sided world. You would mentioning it here as something to stir up opposition and rouse other lions consider and to ponder – whether in the path. You would stir up inter- Great Britain should not strengthen her national strife and enmity which might European position, apart from her lead to still more colossal struggles for position as the centre of this great world power than we have seen in our Empire and Commonwealth outside day. I do not see human welfare, Europe, by working closely together peace, security along those lines... with those smaller Democracies in Western Europe which are of our way of thinking, which are entirely with us position, they are lost. Surely they in their outlook and their way of life, must feel that their place is with this and in all their ideals, and which in member of the trinity. Their way of many ways are of the same political life is with Great Britain, their outlook and spiritual substance as ourselves. and their future is with Great Britain. Should there not be closer union and the next world-wide British between us? system... Should we not cease as Great Britain Let me say a few words about the to be an island? Should we not work Commonwealth and Empire, because intimately together with these small after all we remain a very great world Democracies in Western Europe which community. It is not only the spiritual by themselves may be lost, as they are power which we command as no other lost today, and as they may be lost group on earth commands. It is not again? They have learned their lesson, only that we possess that strength of they have been taught by the expe- soul, that inner freedom which is rience of this war when centuries of greater than all the freedoms of the argument would not have convinced Atlantic Charter, but we are also a them. Neutrality is obsolete, is dead. very powerful Group, scattered though They have learned the lesson that, we are over the world. And we must standing by themselves on the look to our own inner strength, our Continent, dominated by one or other inner coherence, our system, our set- Great Power, as will be the future up and pattern, to see that it is on safe centralisation is focused in this lines for the future. country, in London. The question that arises in my own mind, looking at the What is the present set-up in our situation objectively, is whether such a group? We are an Empire and a situation can endure. To have the Commonwealth. We are a dual Empire centralised and the system. In that dual system we follow Commonwealth decentralised, to have two different principles. In the the two groups developed on two Commonwealth we follow to the limit different lines, raises grave questions the principle of decentralisation. In the for the future. Is this quality in our Commonwealth this group of ours has group safe? Should we not give very become wholly decentralised as grave thought to this dualism in our sovereign States. The members of the system? group maintain the unbreakable spiritual bonds which are. stronger ... The question is whether there than steel, but in all matters of should not be an approach between the government and their internal and two systems so as to eliminate external concerns they are sovereign gradually this dualism and have a States. closer approach between the two, and bring Empire and Commonwealth In the Colonial Empire, on the other closer together. hand, we follow quite a different principle. We follow the opposite Following that line of thought it has principle of centralisation. And the seemed to me that our colonial system consists of too many units. If there is know how this great show has grown to be decentralisation you will have to up historically, by bits of history here decentralise from the Colonial Office and there, without any planning, and, in London, and give administrative of course, inevitably so. But the time powers of all sorts, and all degrees, has come, or the time may be coming sometimes to very small units, or to now, when it is necessary to tidy up some still in a very primitive stage of the show, to reduce the number of development, and that might be a risky independent colonial units, to abolish thing to do. a number of these separate administrations scattered pell-mell Our colonial system consists of a very over the Colonial Empire, and to large number of units in all stages of reduce the consequent expenditure development, and if there is to be which is a burden on the local peoples, decentralisation and devolution of many of them very poor, undeveloped power and authority, it becomes, in and with very small resources. It is a my opinion, necessary to simplify the heavy burden on them, and their system, to tidy it up, to group smaller slender resources might be devoted to units, and, ill many cases, to do away better purpose than carrying on a with units which have simply arisen as heavy administrative machine, beyond an accident by historic haphazard. their capacity... They should never have existed as separate units, and in many cases their As you will solve this problem of boundaries are quite indefensible. You centralisation in the Colonial Empire you will also solve another equally operation, and you will bring to bear important problem. And this brings me on the problems of these colonial to the Commonwealth. In many of groups the experience and resources these cases of colonial reorganisation and leadership of the local Dominions, where there will be new and larger too. In this way you will tighten up colonial groups under a Governor- your whole system, and instead of General, you will find that it is quite being two separate systems, the one possible to bring these new groups decentralised and looking after its own closer to a neighbouring Dominion affairs, and the other centralised and and thereby interest the Dominion in centred in London, you will have a the colonial group. In this way, instead much more logical co-operative and of the Dominions being a show apart, statesmanlike arrangement... so to say, having little or nothing to do ... I look upon this Empire and with the Empire, and taking very little Commonwealth as the best missionary interest in it, these regional Dominions enterprise that has been launched for a will become sharers and partners in the thousand years. This is a mission to Empire. You will tighten up your mankind of good will, good whole show; you will create fresh government and human co-operation, links between the Empire and the a mission of freedom and human Commonwealth, and create a new helpfulness in the perils that beset our interest and life in the system as a human lot... whole. You will create better co- I utter no dogmatic conclusions, I have heard’. The First Lord of the no set ideas, I am simply giving you Admiralty, seconding Lord Woolton, the lines of thought that run in my quoted some appropriate lines from mind when I survey the new situation Emerson and said: ‘He has given us facing us in the world. I want us not some “explosive” thoughts, as he calls only to think about the other countries them, but they contain the who are today labouring in dire trouble fundamentals of the problems that he all over the world, but also to pay before us... He can stand before us at some attention to our own show, his age with a great record, with no which I think also requires a little turning to the right or to the left from looking after, and especially at a time those early great inspirations he had; like this, when a new world is in the and he is able to say, as perhaps all of making. us are not able to say, that he has never forsaken the pursuit of the truth which I noted in my diary on that day: “I he set himself to follow.’ “ listened to him enthralled. The rest of the audience were equally overcome, At the time all cheered the address and there was not a single question at enthusiastically, but France was to question time. The Chairman, who had take grave exception to her description been deeply moved, described it as a as a spent force. Mindful of this fact, ‘profound and thought provoking some Member of Parliament speech ... probably the most subsequently had second, diplomatic, remarkable that most of us have ever thoughts on this issue, but time so far has certainly proved my father right in down after 2,400 miles at Tunis at saying that the rise of France to her 1.15 p.m. Wing-Commander Slee to former position will be a slow and this day carries that ‘favourable’ met. difficult one. report in his pocket. A Dakota which left on the same route ten minutes after The return journey to Africa was our York was never. heard of again. delayed for two days at Portreath, on the attractive coast of Cornwall, while The following evening in Cairo my anticyclones made flying conditions in father dined quietly with President the Bay of Biscay too hazardous. But Roosevelt at Mena. All he would say at 3 a.m. in the dark of the 5th of to reporters was that “we two December, on a slightly more Dutchmen got on splendidly”. He had, favourable weather report, the York however, taken the opportunity of took off. As the weather closed in the once more stressing the importance of aircraft climbed higher and higher and the Middle East and warned that it soon we were flying at 16,000 feet, but should not be weakened in any way by still there was no break in the towering diverting troops to the European tumble of clouds. Eventually we flew theatre. He had also pointed out the most of the night, on oxygen, at dangers of trying to tackle Japan at the 22,000 feet, steering down the gigantic same time as Germany, which must valleys between the billowing masses, come first in the grand strategy. which were almost continuously lit up During their stay in Cairo, Mr. by vivid lightning flashes, touching Churchill, who had returned with Roosevelt from a conference with Stalin, found time to execute a few oil paintings of the pyramids, two of which he presented to my father. One now hangs in Libertas in Pretoria, while the other has remained with our family. The Teheran Conference was not an unqualified success. Russia surging forward in massive, bloody assault on a broad front, felt she was bearing the heat of the day alone, and to placate her, the Western Allies made concessions they were later to regret. Here, too, President Roosevelt showed his fateful failing in placing too much trust in Josef Stalin. Mr. Churchill was powerless to avert it. 76 : THIRD WARTIME VISIT TO At Cairo Mr. Churchill’s York ENGLAND “Ascalon” was awaiting my father, and at Algiers the journey was broken ON 21st April, 1944, my father left on for discussions with General Jumbo his third wartime visit to England. The Wilson. Thereafter he flew to Gibraltar occasion was a Commonwealth Prime and after a night trip across the sea Ministers’ Conference. arrived in London on the morning of In Cairo, as always, he was the 28th. strenuously involved in military and diplomatic conferences. The first-hand In the Middle East the Allies now had knowledge he gathered here he took a million and a half troops, consisting with him to the councils in London. of twenty-seven fighting divisions, On this occasion almost his entire against the German twenty-three. Our attention was focused on Greek tank superiority was two-and-a-half to matters. A wave of Communism had one. It was, from the military point of swept through the Greek fighting view, a satisfactory state of affairs, forces, and there had been mutinies in though it was indeed a moot point her naval units in Alexandria harbour whether we were creating a diversion and in her infantry brigade at Burg-el- for the Germans in Italy, or vice versa. Arab in the desert just outside the My father was never keen on fighting town. These had been quelled with in Italy, for with its mountains and minor loss of life by loyal Greek rivers it was a country ideally suited to elements and Allied troops.

General Smuts with Mr. Churchill, Cairo – 1942 defence. He always felt that Yugo- The preparations for the assault slavia held greater possibilities. involved the isolation of Normandy from the rest of Europe by a drastic Britain we were to find in full gear for severing of all communications. This the great Overlord assault across the meant the heavy bombing of the Channel. The preparations were French rail and bridge systems, a complete and everything was ready. procedure that might unfortunately The forces and equipment were involve the killing of 40,000 considered adequate, but there was Frenchmen. The implications of such a some disquiet about an acute shortage step were clear, but it was unavoidable of landing craft. America was the chief if the success of our landings was to manufacturer of these, and now, as be assured against the arrival of ever, had a tendency to concentrate too German reinforcements from much on the Far East. elsewhere in Europe. We spent the first week-end with Mr. Churchill at Chequers. He was looking Montgomery was to be the General-in- none the worse for his recent severe Charge across the water and his oppo- bout of pneumonia. He told my father nent was none other than Rommel. He that Overlord had been postponed remarked to me that he thought he had from May 8, but the reasons were not more than the measure of this old then quite clear. There appeared to be adversary. some differences of opinion in Army The Prime Ministers’ Conference councils.

General Smuts writing at his desk – 1943 involved two meetings daily. In bombs that London had. German addition to problems and matters of operational U-boat strength was 170. diplomacy, the general war situation So far we had sunk 400. Germany had was also reviewed. The German Air forty-six divisions in France, twenty- Force consisted of 5,700 machines of three in Italy and twenty-one in which half were fighters. Only 16 per Yugoslavia, where the interests were cent of these fighters were opposing oil and chrome. Russia, while 44 per cent were on the Southern England was one vast Western Front. The R.A.F. had an air military camp. Every bit of open superiority of 5 to 1 on the Western ground was occupied by soldiers, Front and Russia had a 3 to 1 tanks, guns and transport. It was superiority. The Allied bomber force almost impossible for my father to go had a total lift of 15,000 tons in the for his walks on the North Downs at European theatre. Germany had Box Hill and the Dorking Gap or throughout the war dropped only elsewhere. All were ready for 65,000 tons of bombs on Britain, embarkation at Portsmouth at a whereas last month alone we had moment’s notice. dropped 66,000 tons. In addition the R.A.F had, since the start of the war, The bombing tempo was slowly being laid 32,000 sea mines in German stepped up. In one raid in April we shipping lanes. Berlin had already dropped 4,800 tons, and the United absorbed four times the weight of States Air Force dropped 1,163 tons on Berlin in one daylight raid. This month the U.S.A.A.F. exceeded the Post-war financial topics were also R.A.F. bomb damage for the first time occupying much time at the Prime and from now on their effort was to Ministers’ Conference. My father mount steadily till it was almost twice remarked to me that they were simply that of the R.A.F. As all American chasing shadows, for before the war bombing was done during daylight was over, conditions would have hours, it meant that Germany for the changed so radically that all their first time was subjected to round-the- present decisions would be completely clock devastation. The American obsolete. “It was the same in the last Flying Fortresses also took a very war,” he said, “when all the lofty ideas heavy toll of German fighter aircraft and resolutions were proved to be that came up to intercept. quite worthless.” My father at this time was involved in He addressed the Conference a personal diplomatic tussle with his frequently. On one occasion it was on old friend Dr. Salazar, Prime Minister world affairs. The dominant note was of Portugal, over the question of his grave distrust of the Russia of the wolfram supplies to Germany. The future. Russia would swallow up the Foreign Office, too, were hard at Baltic States and part of Finland, “that Salazar and the struggle was to drag we could not prevent”, and thereafter on for a long time, for Portugal was in would insinuate her Communistic a difficult position in this matter. doctrines into Poland, France, the Balkans, possibly Germany, Iraq and Persia, and also China. She would be a Russia is fond of belittling the aid colossus without fetters, to roam the given her by the other Allies, but a world at will. He reiterated his belief perusal of figures does not bear this that France was sleeping even more out. Up to this stage, at great cost; deeply than Lazarus and that she along the hazardous Murmansk route, would have to be handled with care Britain had diverted over eleven and understanding. million tons of shipping, £39,000,000 worth of raw materials, 6,778 aircraft The Allied production machine was in and 5,031 tanks. American aid full swing. Aircraft were coming off amounted to 8,800 aircraft, 190,000 the lines at 14½ per hour; guns 8 per trucks, 16,000 Jeeps, 5,200 tanks and hour; shells 100,000 per hour and 30,000 other types of military small arms ammunition at three vehicles. million rounds per hour. All this was apart from the prodigious shipbuilding In Egypt King Farouk was at programme. loggerheads with his Prime Minister. Years before Farouk’s arrogance had The U-boat was by now largely been curbed when a squadron of our mastered. In 1939 we lost eleven ships armoured cars surrounded the Abdin for every U-boat sunk. Now the figure Palace. had dropped below parity. It was one of the most heartening signs in the In Italy on May 11 the front roared war. into life with a barrage three times as heavy as that of El Alamein. On 16th May the curtain was rung on the back. So we are all happy and down on the first Commonwealth beaming.” Prime Ministers’ Conference. “In On May 19, Birmingham conferred its many ways”, I noted, “it has been a Freedom on my father. Former great success, especially in so far as freemen included Lloyd George, the controversy has been completely three Chamberlains and Lord Roberts. avoided, and in the good will of the exchanges. It serves, too, to indicate Here in the Midlands was Britain’s that we merely differed in detail and greatest armaments manufacturing not in principle, and that we are centre, and factories stretched solidly moving along the same road to the for many miles. My father toured a future. The Conference has been portion of the vast Nuffield largely exploratory and no real Mechanisation group. In the town hall resolutions have been thrashed out, but he addressed a crowd of 2,800 leading it does indicate for the future that we citizens. Here once more he stressed can at least get together and discuss the urgent need for finishing the war contentious subjects in a friendly quickly. He reiterated his belief in a mood. The range of subjects covered federated Europe and a League of was very comprehensive and most of Nations backed up with powers the delegates will leave with a sound sufficient to maintain international background to current world affairs... peace. “We shall not see the same old There has been much mutual patting world after the war,” he said. We were coming to a world of social security for the common man. And finally he hunting five to ten times as effective at ended with a warning to the Leftist night; anti-aircraft gunnery was political elements: “Let us follow improved five times and searchlights rather the Russia of Tolstoi, not of ten times; and U.S.A.A.F. strategic Karl Marx.” bombing was made seven times as effective. The week-end he spent quietly with his daughter Cato in Somerset, where The Germans were feverishly busy he had a long walk in the Mendip with the launching devices for their Hills, overlooking Sedgemoor. secret pilotless weapons. Ninety-six VI and seven Giant Rocket (V2) sites Whatever factors we might have had were observed going up on the French aiding our cause in the war, none coast in the Pas de Calais and fought with quite such telling effect as Cherbourg areas. Since last year we the magic device Radar. We were had dropped 23,000 tons of bombs on luckily well ahead of the enemy in this these places, damaging 90 per cent of field of research. Here is some idea of the installations. But simpler modified what radar meant to us: it enabled one launchers were going up, and we were day-fighter to do the work for which now constantly hammering at these on three to five were required previously; the so-called “Invasion Coast”. it multiplied the usefulness of night- fighters up to fifty times on dark On 24th May the second phase of the nights; it improved mass area bombing Italian offensive commenced, the over fifty times; it made U-boat assault on the powerful Hitler Line. Forty divisions, including our South squadrons. We were stronger than the African 6th Armoured Division, were R.A.F. in this theatre and were locked in mortal combat. We were surpassed only by the U.S. 14th Air determined to see that Hitler could Force. Two-thirds of the Sappers in spare no reinforcements from here for the Middle East were South Africans. the Channel. Our intention in Italy was It was a fine record for a country not to advance all the way up to the which had started under the cloud of Brenner Pass and enter Germany from neutrality. that direction. We merely wished to Six weeks previously the final secure the valuable Foggia airfields, to “softening” of communications in liberate Rome and to establish a firm France had commenced. Vast air front on a suitable line between Pisa armadas were streaming out from and Rimini. Italy was a dead-end so England daily. It was an impressive far as entry into Germany was sight. It was plain to all that the big concerned. In this respect the “soft lunge was imminent. under-belly” of the Balkans offered much better possibilities. My father, London was taking the prospect of the and indeed Churchill, had always been impending cross Channel assault very a great champion of the Balkans. calmly. There was no evidence of panic, hysteria or enthusiasm. The My father had by now built up his people were just plodding along South African Air Force strength in quietly, in their solid, unruffled way. the Middle East to twenty-seven There were very few soldiers about on the streets, but long lorry convoys would pass through the city daily, and occasionally a few tanks and Bren-gun carriers would lumber noisily down Knightsbridge past our hotel. But those were the only outward signs of war – that is, if one excluded the constant drone of air armadas passing high over the city. Now and then you would catch a glimpse of a flight of Fortresses or Liberators very high up in the grey-blue skies, appearing like tiny bright specks as the sunlight glinted on their silver bodies. Sometimes, towards evening, squad- rons of Marauders would be observed streaking low across the city, heading in the direction of the “Invasion Coast”, moving very fast and making a great noise. 77 : OVERLORD across and sunk to form big harbours. They were to be connected to the MY father was growing impatient at shore by massive floating bridges the delay in launching our Second known by the code word Mulberry. Front offensive. There seemed to be all sorts of last-minute hitches, which All was ready now for the final word he attributed to over cautiousness. It from General Eisenhower. The favour- was a great pity, for weather able dates, corresponding to the moon conditions had been almost ideal a cycle, were 2 to 6 June. Failing that month ago. there would have to be a postponement of twelve days till the next favourable On June 2 he went with Mr. Churchill period. But as all the men were already to Portsmouth to see the troops briefed and on board, this, for security, embarking. Here, on a tour round the as well as for physical reasons, would harbour, he was to see not only a obviously be impossible. In any case portion of the myriads of assault craft, this would also throw out of phase the but also other strange floating devices. big synchronised Russian offensive. These were huge floating drums with mobile piping wound up in great coils On the afternoon of the 3rd my father, like rope. These were to lay pipelines with Mr. Churchill, attended a meeting across the ninety miles of Channel to at General Eisenhower’s forward the beaches. There were the vast headquarters in a wood just outside floating concrete blocks known as Portsmouth, to consider weather Phoenix which were to be towed conditions. The meteorological report was most unfavourable, and so the prepared to sacrifice a few thousand zero hour was put off till 4 a.m. next additional men at the start, for it would morning for reconsideration. But the pay handsomely in the long run. position did not look hopeful. My At 4 a.m. the weather was still foul, so father seemed as deeply depressed at Eisenhower called for a twenty-four- this news as I have ever seen him. He hour postponement. The present kept muttering that it was “terrible- weather conditions were the worst for terrible”. six years, the experts said, but better The beaches of Normandy were weather was predicted from Wednes- defended with elaborate underwater day onwards. They were wrong. stakes, blocks, explosive devices, General Eisenhower, the man upon hedgehogs and wire tangles. These whom the great decision depended, could only be tackled at low tide. was a man of iron nerve, and seemed Thousands of the hedgehogs were old the most unruffled of all. He was French anti-tank defences newly trans- sitting unmoved in his caravan planted by the Germans. enjoying a game of poker with his Both Mr. Churchill and my father felt staff. My father was filled with that we had based our landings on too admiration. Ike was a “big man”, he ideal conditions. We demanded a clear said. sky, a low tide and a smooth sea all at the same time. My father said: “We must be more audacious!” We must be In the afternoon our entourage could according to plan. He said that over wait no longer and returned to 4,000 ships and thousands of lesser London. It was a tense period. craft had been involved in the landings and that he had 11,000 aircraft Tuesday the 6th of June will long available to support the operations. remain a great day in the hearts of free men. At dawn five divisions streamed A woman who had a room below our ashore on the flat beaches. During the suite in the Hyde Park Hotel told night 20,000 paratroops had been friends that she had heard my father dropped far to the rear on strategic pacing up and down all night. This points, under conditions of complete was not true for I know that my father surprise. The whole move, in fact, slept soundly. surprised the Germans, who did not I was amazed to see how quietly consider invasion possible in such London took this great day of unfavourable weather. During the retribution for which she had waited night 5,197 tons of bombs had been so long. It was the greatest display of dropped on coastal batteries and strong suppressed emotion, almost complete points. indifference, I have ever witnessed. Amidst scenes of wild enthusiasm Mr. In spite of rapidly deteriorating Churchill announced at noon, in the weather conditions, by the night of the House of Commons, that the invasion 8th we had moved almost a quarter of had commenced, adding that a million troops across and vast everything appeared to be going quantities of stores and equipment. By had worked such wonders with the the end of the second day we had American armed forces. Without 159,595 men and 16,715 vehicles Marshall Normandy would not have across. Put in a different way it means been possible at this stage. that during these two days we had On the 16th, six days after the ferried across as many men, and invasion, my father accompanied Mr. infinitely more equipment, than it took Churchill to Normandy in the us eight months in the First World destroyer Kelvin, landing at War. And we were then using the Courseulles in the Canadian sector not narrowest part of the Channel and far from Dives, whence the Norman were disembarking in proper ports in a Conqueror had set out in the opposite friendly France. This was a direction nine centuries before. hundredfold improvement on our old Thereafter they made their way by effort, and it was accomplished during jeep to Montgomery’s headquarters stormy weather. near Bayeux. As the initial German True to his word, Stalin opened his retreat had been precipitate, there was great offensive on the 11th, in the not much sign of damage in this area, Karelia sector. though there was evidence of Bomber Harris’s work and also extensive At this stage my father met General inundations of law ground, while open Marshall, Chief of the American spaces were planted with poles as a General Staff, for the first time. He precaution against Allied glider was much impressed by this man who landings. The two Phoenix harbours, At 6 p.m. we said good-bye to with their Mulberry bridges, each Normandy, and soon the silvery glint 3,000 yards long, were each bigger from the 300 beachhead balloons was than Dover and working at full all that remained of a memorable day. pressure. There was also Rhinoceros, a We had gazed with interest on Hitler’s vast floating platform for unloading, much vaunted Iron Wall and the flat and Bombardon, the artificial dune-crested beaches up which our breakwater. At each of three points men had streamed on the 6th. along the coast there were other The initial assault was over, and we breakwaters formed by sinking ten to were now in the period of build-up, twelve ships of 8,000 tons. All these after which a renewed offensive would proved indispensable during the follow. stormy weather. In Italy Rome had fallen and our Off the mouth of the Orne Mr. troops were hot on the heels of Churchill felt he would like to fire a Kesselring. few shells from the Kelvin in anger at the German positions, and a few The war chiefs were at this time rounds were accordingly let off in the seriously considering the question of direction of Caen. They were, creating a big diversion to Overlord by however, anti-aircraft shells, set to a major invasion of southern France, safe, so would not have exploded on up the Rhone. My father, and most of contact. the British planners, did not favour this diversion, for Italy was serving the the anti-aircraft barrage roared away. purpose sufficiently well. The alert never lifted. On June 14 the first few V1 bombs fell This was the start of the flying bomb in London. It was not till midnight assault which was to go on for three June 15/16 that operation Crossbow months and to prove a great trial to started in earnest. The sky was full of London. Each bomb demolished a searchlight beams and bursting ack- whole block of houses, but only 4,200 ack shells and then there was the of the 9,250 launched, or 5,900 that rumble of a distant big explosion. Two crossed the Channel, were able to minutes later came the next, its reach London. Altogether 4,261 were impulse duct motor making a very brought down by fighter aircraft, loud purring noise, like some great barrage balloons and gunfire. Had they motor-cycle bearing down on one. A been a hundred miles an hour faster, it yellow glow issued from its tail, which would have been a different story. turned to red before it cut out and By the end of the first day people had plunged into the earth with a massive, grown more accustomed to the V1 and rocking rumble. The hotel shook and the anti-aircraft guns were no longer trembled. My father foolishly stood used. But the bomb was to kill a before his window watching the hundred people daily and injure 400, display. All night long these diabolical as well as damaging 20,000 houses. It devices kept purring along and dying was much more than a nuisance. off with an explosion. All night long At midnight on the 21st my father set and cratered battlefields of Anzio, out from the Cornish coast in his own landing at Ciampino outside Rome. new Avro York, with Piet Net at the Here my father had discussions with controls, landing at Algiers for General Alexander and other service discussions with General Jumbo chiefs, and the following day flew to Wilson. his 6th Armoured Division near Orvieto. Next day he crossed the I had come away from England with Apennines to visit South African Air heavy forebodings about our future Force personnel at Biferno near relations with France and Russia. In Foggia on the Adriatic. Then back past France there was a growing Vesuvius, Naples and the Isle of touchiness, and in Russia increasing Capri, past Stromboli and Etna, all mistrust and aggressiveness. great volcanoes, but mere toys In the war councils there was a compared to my father’s favourites of renewed tendency to divert men from the East African Rift Cairo was in the Italy to France. My father felt it would throes of a heat wave, so after brief be better to exploit our crushing military and diplomatic discussions he victory in Italy and to drive on into left for Pretoria, arriving on the 30th. Austria. The famous Danish atomic physicist From Algiers we flew across to the Professor Niels Bohr was a frequent broad Bay of Naples, past Vesuvius visitor to my father in London. I never and along the flooded Pontine Marshes questioned my father on any of his visits, but during a long walk on the reaction, and pressures were exerted of South Downs I was to learn something the order of millions of atmospheres of Bohr’s work. Bohr, who my father and temperatures a hundred times grouped with Einstein as the greatest greater than those in the heart of the living scientist, was engaged on the sun. One charge of this fissionable most hush-hush work of the war. Mr. material would produce an explosion Churchill naturally knew of it and also comparable with that of 20,000 tons of Sir John Anderson, Chancellor of the TNT. The material was Uranium 235 Exchequer, as he was financing part of which was found associated only in the work. But the rest of the War minute quantities with Uranium 238. Cabinet were unaware of it. Mr. Separation and production processes Churchill put my father in touch with were difficult and costly. Plants cost Bohr. hundreds of millions of pounds, and it was this factor which luckily had As we tramped along the crests of the deterred Hitler and made him pin his Downs, my father told me about it. faith to win in TNT. But we were not Briefly Bohr and a team were working sure how far Germany had got with in America, on the fission of the atom her researches. All we knew was that as a warlike weapon. They had solved she had worked on the atom and that this vast problem, and already we had she had at one stage been ahead of us. a bomb that could explode. The One of our big commando raids in success of the “explosion” depended Norway had been to destroy supplies upon a newly discovered chain of heavy water which were connected high pressure and top-line, and withal with this research. very exacting and tiring. Late nights, especially, my father did not like. It The bomb was being manufactured in was the one difficulty in his America, but as yet there was no hint collaboration with Mr. Churchill, who of its use. did most of his work in the small I mention all this, because it has hours of the morning. My father liked already previously been disclosed to to be in bed by ten. the public by Sir John Anderson and others. The visitors that came to see him varied from kings and princes of It certainly put a new complexion on occupied territories (all seeking advice warfare. and usually assistance as well), Prime This visit, like all others, was a most Ministers, Cabinet Ministers, strenuous one. The days were kept full diplomats, professors, business men, with interviews and visitors, official rich men, poor men, Britons, business, War Cabinet or Prime foreigners, experts, politicians, Ministers’ Meetings, official and financiers, High Commissioners, private luncheons,’’ inspections of soldiers and a host of others. Also military installations, planning, night many old friends. They constituted a meetings of the War Cabinet and complete cross-section of life. All dinners. Every luncheon or dinner were charmingly and courteously meant a brief speech. It was all very received and left much impressed. To the problems and troubles of all these In 1944, after four years of valiantly people he listened with interest and endeavouring to keep pace with my understanding, and to all he gave frank father, my mother was finally advice and soothing judgment. All overtaken by the penalty for overwork were impressed by his infectious and suffered a severe breakdown in optimism and steady philosophy. health, from which it took her many years to recover. This illness of my When my father was in London, his mother’s was most distressing to my hotel became a place of pilgrimage for father and was to be a long anxiety. important people. They came, as I Though still taking an undiminished have said, to get his views on a variety . interest in affairs my mother was of topics and events. But they also unable, thereafter, to take an active came to give him first-hand part. The rest did her good. My father, information. By these means, he kept unrestricted by his doctors, wore himself well informed of what was himself out. The result was that my going on and abreast of the times. frail mother outlived her restless He was a good listener. When they had husband. finished he would put a few pertinent questions, which left one in no doubt that he had taken in every bit of what he was told. I have never known another person able to get to the crux of matters so quickly or easily. 78 : FOURTH VISIT TO ENGLAND After that we settled down comfortably for the night. At 3 a.m. ON the night of April 1st, 1945, my we ran into a broad storm front over father left on his fourth and last the Rift Valley south of Lake wartime visit to England. It was an Tanganyika, and having tried various eventful flight. The take-off from ways of getting past it for half an hour, Pretoria was nerve-racking, for the decided to go through. We were at the York was a ton over-weight, and the time flying at 14,000 feet, and as the run was only two-thirds that normally passage was very rough Piet Nel had required at sea level, though we were disengaged the automatic “George” here at a height of almost 5,000 feet. and was flying by hand. The cloud This meant a very considerable was solid and glowed from the impairment in lift and engine power, constant flashes of lightning. Suddenly and in addition the aerodrome at there was a terrific explosion and the Zwartkop was concave, which meant plane rocked and plunged about. I an uphill run and a rise over a low hill thought that a time bomb had gone off. at the end. We only just cleared this But we had merely been heavily struck rise, the big machine wallowing by lightning. The trailing aerial was ominously in a stalled condition across severed completely, the thick erect the jagged chert outcrops. I aerial was badly fused, the wireless set subconsciously raised my feet off the was wrecked and a newspaper on the floor to clear the rocks. floor set alight. The bucking was caused by the fact that Nel had been I gave a sigh of relief when we temporarily blinded by the flash. At reached Northolt. My father had Northolt, mechanics were later to find shown not the slightest sign of considerable additional damage. The nervousness throughout the trip, and rivets in the nose of the machine had during the lightning incident did not all become spot-welded, the highly even bother to rise from his bunk to inflammable de-icing device had been investigate. fused into little globules of metal, and Six months later, on another trip to considerable damage had resulted to England, the York was again struck by the internal spar systems of the one lightning while over the Mediter- wing. As at the time we still had over ranean, but it was only a mild flash. a thousand gallons of aviation fuel on board, it will be realised what a narrow To complete the list of my father’s escape it had been. narrow escapes in the air I have two further incidents to recount. One But that was not quite the end of our occurred early on in the war when he troubles, for at Cairo it was found that was returning to land at Nairobi late one of our tail fins had a fatigue crack one afternoon. From three o’clock running three-quarters of the way Nairobi skies are usually completely down it. At any moment the break clouded over, and on this occasion might have become complete, with there was “cotton-wool” right down to disastrous results. within two hundred feet of the ground. Apart from its radio, his Lodestar had no special blind-landing devices, and, reckoning towards Cape Town. There considering the mountainous nature of was never so much as a solitary rift in the surrounding country, the operation the cloud. As they approached the end was hazardous. But Piet Nel brought of their run they were told that all the the machine through the clouds with Cape aerodromes were heavily unerring accuracy right over the obscured in mist and that landings landing ground, much to the relief of were absolutely impossible. Even an those in the plane, and the reception approach from the sea would have party. been out of the question. By now their fuel was very nearly exhausted and The other, and most dangerous flight there was no possibility of flying of all was made towards the end of the halfway back to the Transvaal to land. war when my father flew to Cape General van Ryneveld, veteran airman, Town in his Lodestar with General said he had never been in a more van Ryneveld to attend the funeral of hazardous position in all his General Collyer. It was mid-winter in experience. the Cape and beyond Beaufort West they ran into solid cloud. They But then, just for a moment, there was climbed to 14,000 feet to get above it a tiny break in the cloud, and they without success and became heavily espied below them Kalk Bay. That iced up. But at 16,ooo they eventually was all Piet Nel needed, and in a got above the flat white blanket and moment he was through this opening, the icing conditions and flew by dead and before the mist could close in again he had landed on an emergency which had been heavily inundated on strip nearby. Nothing could be less the Cherbourg peninsula, appeared ideal than the mountainous Cape for a effectively bogged down. But blind landing. suddenly in the end of July there came a lightning change. U.S. armour broke Once while travelling by train to the through west of St. Lo and went Cape my father had a nightmare and tearing into France, with dashing leapt out of the way of impending General Patton at their head. Three disaster. Unfortunately he translated weeks earlier Caen had fallen and on this dream into action and leapt out of August 12 a general German retreat his bunk towards the window, luckily from Normandy began. In the Falaise striking his head hard on the lintel and Pocket a large part of the retreating falling back again. German forces were trapped between ***** the British, American and Canadian Since our visit last year at the time of armies and almost wiped out. Overlord there had been heartening Observers described the carnage as the developments in the war situation. In most terrible of the war. On the 25th Normandy Montgomery, having Paris was liberated. Eisenhower and drawn the main German armoured Montgomery differed on subsequent strength, remained blocked for a long strategy. Montgomery advocating a while with his British forces outside swift spear thrust to the Ruhr. Eisen- Caen. The Americans, in an area hower felt that without the use of Antwerp such a stroke could not be outflank the Siegfried Line. But bad maintained and therefore moved up weather defeated this very gallant more cautiously on a broad front. The effort. This reverse came as a shock to port facilities at Antwerp were those who believed that German afterwards found to have been so morale had crumbled and that the methodically wrecked by the Germans closing phases of the war would be a that it was three months before the walk-over. first convoys could enter. Intelligence, German rocket bomb attacks on too, subsequently revealed that the Britain had commenced earlier in the Germans had taken up dispositions for month and of the 1,115 V25 launched, a spear thrust. 517 were to crash into Greater London The British and Canadians moved up before attacks terminated at the end of along the coast. The American armies March with the capture of the on the right flank did the more launching sites. There was no defence spectacular and dashing fighting. In a against these weapons, other than bold but justifiable gamble, which destroying their sources of origin. General Omar Bradley describes as From the beginning of 1944 onwards one of the “most imaginative” plans of there were signs that all was not well the war, Montgomery landed strong in Germany. Rommel and other were airborne forces well ahead of his convinced that Germany had lost the armies at Arnheim in an endeavour to war and were anxious to terminate capture the Rhine bridges and so to hostilities. Hitler, more fanatical than ever, had other ideas. In February with the object of capturing Liége, Rommel was persuaded to join an Brussels and even Antwerp. In his influential group who conspired to forty-mile penetration in this “Battle overthrow the Fuehrer. Rommel of the Bulge” Rundstedt very nearly thought the plan involved nothing achieved his objectives, and it took us worse than kidnapping, but in June the till February of the next year to others were to use an assassin’s bomb retrieve the lost ground and to push on unsuccessfully. Stulpnagel, one of the again. The Americans crashed through conspirators, tried to commit suicide the Maginot Line with little difficulty, but merely shot his eye out, and in his crossed the Rhine at Remagen on delirium he gave Rommel away. For March 7 and battered their way his role Rommel on the 15th October through the Siegfried Line during was compelled to take a phial of September and October. cyanide. The drastic purge of senior From the east the Russians were also persons that followed the attempt on closing in swiftly. Hitler’s life was an indication that Germany was near the breaking point. The race for Berlin was on. Few people at the time, however, realised This premature sense of victory in the that questions of occupation had air was rudely shattered on December already been settled at the Big Three 16 when von Rundstedt launched a Crimea Conference in February. In a very powerful surprise attack on the time of stagnation we made American lures in the Ardennes sector, concessions we were afterwards to regret. The Battle of the Bulge once more brought to the fore an old standing difference of view on Allied army strategy. My father was gravely disturbed by this lightning stroke of Rundstedt’s. He believed, with many, that Eisenhower, the most able administrator on our side, should be left to administer the political part of the war, whereas Alexander, our most able tactician, should be in charge of military operations. This he meant as no reflection on General Eisenhower’s great ability, or his brilliant work as a soother of warring factions and his overall command of Overlord work, which he held in the highest regard. 79 : PRIME MINISTERS’ rule Europe”. My father was afraid CONFERENCE that matters might deteriorate to a point which might jeopardise Russian THE purpose of this visit was to attend participation in the war against Japan. a Prime Ministers’ Conference intend- We had in our pocket a promise of ed as a prelude to the San Francisco help from her. Conference. It was hoped here, at this London Conference, which commenc- There was minor friction, too, between ed on 4th April, to establish an identity Britain and America on war aims in of views amongst Commonwealth Europe, Britain feeling that Montgo- delegates. mery’s future role of mopping up Germans in Northern Holland and There had been a radical deterioration sweeping round to the Baltic was not a in Russia’s attitude since Yalta, and just reward for his past labours. there remained only a faint glimmer of America appeared to be doing the her wish to co-operate. The belief in more spectacular fighting. Britain was that Stalin was no longer master of his own house and that he During March the Allies had dropped was taking instructions from what Mr. 206,000 tons of bombs. Our attacks on Churchill called his “back-room” oil plants, which were now given boys. My father did not subscribe to highest priority, had reduced German these views. He did not appear to hold production of oil to 11½ per cent and a very exalted opinion of the integrity petrol to 5 per cent of normal, while of Stalin and described him as “out to synthetic oil, too, was down to 6 per negotiating a separate peace behind his cent. back, and both denied this with vigour. My father told the Prime Ministers Mr. Churchill no longer appeared quite that the League of Nations had as confident of our future with Russia functioned well in most respects but as he had been last year, and inclined had been too idealistic. It failed also to my father’s less optimistic view. He because America had left it in the now said: “Our great hope lies in the lurch at the start. Otherwise this war Big Three; and if that fails there is might well have been avoided. The always the Big Two.” My father Dumbarton Oaks proposals introduced expounded to me his views on Russia. a new concept of security based on the “Look back on her history;” he said, Big Three Powers. “and you will see that she has been a country of tremendous ups and downs. News reached my father of the plight No phase has lasted very long. It is of five million starving people in by- therefore possible that this present passed Holland. He took the matter up state will pass as rapidly as it appear- immediately with Mr. Churchill and ed. The indications are that the the War Cabinet, and soon supplies of Kremlin cannot keep the people down- food were arriving by air and road. trodden for ever. One day the present In Italy the Germans sent out peace regime will be overthrown and Russia feelers to General Alexander. Stalin will once more plunge into the abyss. I accused Roosevelt and Churchill of am not pessimistic.” We learned now, too, of the V3 which Francisco Conference counselled the Hitler had been hoping to use against angry Mr. Churchill not, at this stage, London. It consisted of 400 foot long to break with Russia on this issue. stage-boosted cannon barrels which The Russian pattern was by now were to fire 6-inch shells into the city becoming clear: she wanted Poland, at the rate of fifty per minute. Each of the Balkans and much else as puppet these shells was to contain thirty states. But it did look as though she pounds of high explosive. The Inva- meant business with Japan. The defeat sion Coast had been overrun in the of 1905 at Port Arthur still rankled. nick of time to save the people from this ordeal. There was at this time talk of a last fanatical German stand in an Inner Poland was a source of constant Redoubt in the Bavarian mountains, friction between the Western Allies which was being given serious and Russia. At Yalta it had been consideration. agreed that the Polish Government would have a broad base of members This Second World War, fought not by both from Lublin (Communists) and men, but by machines, had not proved from the London émigré government, nearly as costly in life as the First under the premiership of Mikolajezyk. World War. To date Allied casualties Russia now insisted on almost in Europe totalled 697,000 of which exclusive Lublin representation. My only 125,000 were dead. And since D- father for the sake of the San day we had taken a million and a quarter German prisoners. The total My father was dubious of the British Commonwealth casualties for Conference’s chances of success: the whole war totalled only 1,126,802 Though little could be done about it, of whom less than a third of a million he viewed with misgiving the veto were killed. powers given to the Big Three at Yalta, and the mounting truculence of At this time, too, a bombshell was Russia. dropped in British political circles by Ernest Bevin, who attacked the There had been constant trouble in Conservatives at a Party meeting. This Palestine, and now for the first time initiated a drastic split between Labour my father agreed that partition offered and the Conservatives, and heralded the only solution. Extremism seemed the end of the Coalition Government, for the moment to have gained the The general elections were approach- upper hand in the Holy Land and ing and the party machines were Weizmann’s more moderate elements getting into their stride. were in eclipse. The time did not seem propitious for In 1947 my father was to advocate the the holding of the San Francisco idea of partition with greater Conference. The British felt it was emphasis: “To the Jews, partition may premature, but gave way to the be a bitter pill, but ancient Palestine Americans. itself was never a wholly Jewish state, as the Philistines always occupied the coastal plains which form the best part of it, and the promise of a national was convinced the war was lost, but home in Palestine never meant the Hitler was determined to fight till the whole of Palestine,” he said. bitter end. The Russian capture of Vienna had by now obviated any “Nor will the Arabs like partition, but possibility of a last German stand in they have come very well out of their the Harz Mountains redoubt near past subjection to Turkey and their rise Hitler’s eyrie. Tokyo was being into five Arab kingdoms by force of heavily bombed by the Americans, Allied arms. Compromise is necessary who, after sanguinary fighting, had to prevent internecine friction and crept close along the stepping-stones worse. Partition now appears the only of the Pacific. way out...” The war news was daily growing On April 13th, the shattering news better. On April 12 General Simpson’s came through that Roosevelt had died 9th U.S. Army had reached the Elbe suddenly at Hot Springs from a near Magdeburg, less than seventy cerebral haemorrhage. I told my father miles from Berlin. Simpson was the tragic news early in the morning determined to beat Zhukov to the while he was shaving. His face was German capital. Von Papen had been grey as he put down his razor. “God, captured in the Ruhr pocket and next how terrible,” he exclaimed. “This is a to Rudolf Hess was our biggest prize knock-out blow!” He was referring to so far. Count Bernadotte had had an the chances of the San Francisco interview with Himmler who said he Conference and of post-war peace. In South Africa, Dr. Malan turned down war, albeit with the providential help Mr. Hofmeyr’s suggestion that the of Pearl Harbour. House should adjourn as a token of He gave him credit for more astute respect. It would be difficult to think worldly capability than Woodrow of a more ill-conceived act of Wilson, but he never put him on the discourtesy. Yet this man was one day same exalted pinnacle as Churchill, to become Prime Minister of South either from the point of view of ability Africa. or achievement. He felt a very warm My father originally met Franklin admiration for his integrity and Roosevelt in the First World War, sincerity, and for his great when the latter was a United States humanitarian attributes. official at the Peace Conference. On the 16th we left in a Liberator for Thereafter there was the long gap to America. On the same day Alexander the present war, connected only by started his big spring offensive in Italy what he read of Roosevelt in the press. which was to prove the final blow. In The impression he formed then, and New York my father stayed for a day the one he carried through life, was with his old friends the Thomas that Roosevelt was a man of great Lamonts. Tom Lamont, like most courage. He admired his long, dogged wealthy people in America, opposed struggle against adverse public the Roosevelt administration because opinion and isolationism, and the way of its New Deal legislation. My father he finally brought America into the was to receive many disparaging letters from New Yorkers criticising his decision to stay with the Lamonts. These I consigned, where they belonged, to the waste-paper basket.

General Smuts looking out over San Francisco Bay – 1945. 80 : SAN FRANCISCO CONFERENCE else, but right here in San Francisco... We have fought the war for a new type ON the 20th we touched down at of human society... I think any Hamilton Airfield outside San Francis- document which concludes this war co, having flown for 2,600 miles and starts the future ought to include a across the waist of America at the statement of faith-the things we stand level of the Great Lakes, across some for.” of the most impressively rich and fertile country I have ever seen. Vast At the Prime Ministers’ Conference lie industrial areas and huge rail had warned: “If San Francisco fails I marshalling yards sprawled every- see nothing but stark disaster before where, emphasising the almost mankind. This war has warned us what unlimited war potential of this great new forms of war mean... Scientific country. Near Wichita we skirted one discoveries have been made in this war of the mammoth new Atomic Energy which have not yet been embodied in Installations, though at the time we did war weapons, have not yet not recognise it as such. The world materialised in a munitions pro- was as yet unaware of these ultra gramme – discoveries which if any secret atomic projects. But soon it was war were to take place in the future, to hit headlines. would make this calamity seem small by comparison ... might even mean the Upon arrival my father told the press: end of the human race.” “‘The last great battle of the war is not being fought in Berlin or anywhere President Truman officially opened the Stocky, bull-necked Molotov, colour- San Francisco Conference across the less, silent and unsmiling, blinked air on the 25th. My father was critical expressionlessly behind his pince-nez of the fact that he had not made a point glasses. He seemed indifferent to the of doing the opening in person. There bursting of flash bulbs and the could have been no weightier task frenzied attention. needing his attention at that time. It amazed me to find how little the The War Memorial Hall was crowded American people knew of my father or with 3,300 people. Twelve hundred of South Africa. Nothing illustrates this these were the delegates of the forty- better than a little incident that befell six nations represented and 200 were us on the way to the opening cere- press photographers and reporters. The mony when our car was held up in a flags of the nations draped the stage traffic jam. Two schoolboys peered in and thirty-four searchlights turned the at my father through the window. atmosphere into a scorched inferno. To After some discussion one decided render the occasion still more bizarre that it must be Smuts. “Oh yes,” almost unlimited latitude was allowed exclaimed the other joyfully, “King the news-crazy press representatives. Smuts!” Everywhere were stalking cameramen, In the hall itself was gathered about whirring cameras and exploding flash- the most cosmopolitan medley of light bulbs. mixed humanity the world had ever seen; there were the Whites of Western Europe; there were the Latins by Ambassador Gromyko and inter- and mixed extractions of the twenty preter Pavlov). That completed the Big South American States; there were the Three sponsoring powers. In addition Negroes of Liberia, the Mongolians of there were the Lesser Two; China, the East, the Arab types of Egypt and represented by T.V. Soong (brother-in- the Fuzzy-Wuzzies of Abyssinia; there law of Chiang Kai-shek) and Dr. was Bedouinlike Prince Feisal of Wellington Koo; and France, repre- Saudi Arabia with his quaint head- sented by the wartime leader of her dress. A member of Feisal’s delega- underground, Georges Bidault. tion asked the manager of the Fair- The remaining delegates consisted of mont Hotel if he could buy one of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, quaint Japanese lift girls to take home senior ministers and diplomats of other with him. He seemed surprised when countries and hangers-on who had told that the customs of this country merely come to enjoy the pleasures of forbade it. San Francisco. Young, white-haired Edward Stetti- Mr. Mackenzie King, Canada’s great nius Junior, Secretary of State and Prime Minister, paid my father a one-time chief of Lease Lend and handsome compliment early on in the close friend of Roosevelt, was Conference by suggesting in the President of the Conference. England Steering Committee that as my father was represented by debonair Anthony had a “standing in the diplomatic Eden and Russia by Molotov (assisted world unrivalled by any” and as many people were anxious to hear him, he be “in the Preamble a declaration of granted the special privilege of speak- human rights and of the common faith ing high up on the list at the Plenary which has sustained the Allied peoples Session. Mr. Eden, in support, referred in their bitter and prolonged struggle to my father as the “doyen of the for the vindication of those rights and Conference – quite unrivalled in that faith”. intellectual attributes and unsurpassed The difference between the Covenant in experience and authority’. of the League of Nations and the “This war has not been an ordinary United Nations Charter, my father one of the old type,” my father said in said, was that this new attempt at his address to the Plenary Session. “It peace machinery recognised that force has been a war of ideologies, of was necessary to maintain peace. Only conflicting philosophies of life ... let the combined force of the great powers us in this charter ... proclaim to the could guarantee the peace, and unity world and to posterity that this was no among them was essential. The other mere brute struggle of force between nations as well must agree to supply nations, but that for us, behind the armed forces against aggression. And material struggle was the vision of an regional defence groups must help to ideal ... the resolve to vindicate the maintain peace. fundamental rights of man and on that The Conference made little progress. It basis to found a better, freer, world for seemed bogged down on matters of the future.” The Charter must contain principle and procedure, and swamped by over loquaciousness. After three There were squabbles over days of fruitless haggling my father chairmanship. There were squabbles could restrain his impatience no over Polish representation. The longer. He addressed the Steering Ukraine and White Russia had already Committee on the question of the gained admission by the terms of the duration of the Conference. It was Yalta agreement. absolutely vital, he said, to conclude On April 27 the American and Russian the business as soon as possible. To armies joined hands on the Elbe. prolong the work would be to endanger the prospects of the Confe- The following day Italian patriots in rence seriously, for the Conference Milan rose and liberated the town. was merely an isolated meeting in a Amongst those captured in the vicinity world crowding with great events. was Mussolini. After a summary trial Soon the leading personalities would he was executed by a firing squad, be recalled to deal with affairs at together with seventeen of his home, and the Conference would end entourage. This bombastic man, who in a rump. He therefore proposed a had flung out his challenge to the definite timetable which would ensure world from the balcony of the Palazzo that the work was concluded in a Venezia on the 10th of June, 1940, month, which was the maximum time died like a cringing coward when lined we could risk. This advice was up. Thereafter his body was dumped in disregarded. the main square of Milan and horribly desecrated by the angry mob. And so passed another sawdust Caesar, a commanded a member of his personal rascal who had aspired to greatness in bodyguard to shoot Eva and himself. the world’s supreme hour of trial. A The bodies were incinerated in a blaze just retribution had overtaken him. of petrol in the garden outside. And so the last remains of this monster met its Hitler was a wiser man. He had no pyral end, just as his homeland was intention of being captured alive. His flaming to its final doom. Few paused dramatic last days in the Bunker of the to mourn the passing of this demon Reich’s Chancellory in Berlin have dictator who had brought such untold been faithfully described. In the smoke misery on struggling humanity. His is and dust of the doomed city, while the the responsibility for the fifty million Russians were battering their bloody casualties of the war. way through the outskirts, he made his final plans. According to eye- On May 1st Admiral Doenitz took witnesses he had become mentally over. The war would go on, he unhinged as the final rounds declared. Germany was crumbling into approached. He had for long partaken total destruction. Descriptions and heavily of drugs, and, near the end, photographs of German torture camps even as the Goebbels family were at Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Aus- drinking their draughts of poison, he witz and elsewhere were now coming married Eva Braun. It was an act not in. These centres of liquidation were without pathos. As the Russians drew not for prisoners-of-war, but for the close to the Bunker on April 30, he Jews and political prisoners. Here were revealed acts of cruelty and As the Conference floundered on, my sadism unparalleled in the annals of father grew steadily more impatient. civilisation. Death in these torture He said it was “drifting badly out of camps was not swift or clean. People control, and the difference between died slow, agonising, lingering deaths, this and the last Peace Conference at half starved, beaten, riddled with Paris is the absence of such domina- deadly bacteria, often flogged or ting personalities as Wilson, Clemen- kicked to death, often slowly strangled ceau and Lloyd George. We shall miss or gassed. They perished here in their them badly.” millions. The true numbers will never My father was appointed President of be known. the General Assembly, one of the four The pictures are gruesomely pathetic. big commissions of the Conference. It Thousands of corpses lie dumped in dealt, among other things, with the holes in grotesque postures, all Preamble and trusteeship. emaciated to a degree beyond compre- On 1st May the German army in Italy, hension. The faces are drawn and over a million strong, capitulated, and ghost-like, with agonised, staring eyes. signed armistice terms with General The transition from this world to the Alexander at Caserta. The commander, next had not been swift or merciful. Kesselring, had been captured some Even death could not wipe the terror days before. He said it was air power from their features. They bore mute that had beaten him in Italy. testimony to the scourge of Nazism. Halfway through the Conference I was to Germany herself I cannot see us to note in my diary: “Delegates have standing by while the population been pleasantly surprised at the brisk starve. You will find that human- and efficient way the Oubaas handles itarianism will prevail and we will his meetings. He has a mild and help them again on to their feet.” He benevolent manner which is very was in favour of meddling as little as deceptive, for under this cloak he possible in the internal affairs of hides the firm resolve of a dictator. Germany. We should only be there to But he does it so well that people do supervise and to see that law and order not realise that they are being dictated were maintained. Under no circum- to, and submit quite readily to his stances must we allow ourselves to be persuasions. So it was this morning. drawn into their domestic affairs, for By deftly steering the meeting, pitfalls that would only bring discredit and were avoided and the meeting broke odium upon our shoulders. up in high good humour.” To those conversant with the cross- People frequently asked my father currents which raged behind the what he thought we would do with scenes at the Conference there was Germany after the war. He always little that seemed reassuring. For gave somewhat guarded answers to myself, unversed in the ways of big this question. “Only two things are conferences, the proceedings seemed certain. We will bring the war to verge on the hypocritical. There was criminals to book and hang a few. As much else too that was disturbing. Regarding Russia’s future role in the Mission in Moscow has never yet been scheme of things I noted this down in permitted to visit the Soviet Front. Is my diary: “The future looks far from that trust and goodwill? bright. Russia makes a strange “A short while ago Russia tried to stir bedfellow to her other partners. Every up trouble over the capitulation nego- indication at the moment – and God tiations with Italy at Berne: Stalin sent knows there are ample indications – is Roosevelt and Churchill most that Russia is going to make little provocative cables. He has refused (or attempt to co-operate. In fact, the pretended to refuse) all explanations. opposite appears more probable at Some months ago the Soviet meddled present. I have already mentioned her in the oil question in Persia and was part in the Polish dispute: the fact that offensive to everybody. She did not she has gone against her Yalta word want at first to participate actively in and that she is actively fomenting the San Francisco Conference. De trouble cannot possibly be doubted. Gaulle had predicted that she was out Our request to be permitted to send to break the Conference. And now she observers there to see for themselves has suddenly accused us of treating has been flatly refused. Why? liberated Russian prisoners-of-war Likewise our wishes to send observers shockingly, which is an infamous lie. to Czechoslovakia and Vienna (both in She knows it is. the Russian zones) have been firmly turned down. Why? Our Military “What are her reasons for all this? “As I see it, there is only one explanation. Russia is looking for trouble. Mr. Churchill says it is largely bluff and bluster. My father agrees. Appeasement will never pay with the Russians. They understand only one thing – straight angry talk with military might in the background to back it up if necessary. “Our only hope is for England and America to maintain very big armed forces in post-war days. The safety of the world lies in arming to the hilt, not disarmament.” These seem strange words to be written during a conference of peace.

General Smuts addressing the Plenary Session of the United Nations at the San Francisco Conference – 1945. 81 : THE UNITED NATIONS of General Eisenhower in the little red schoolhouse at Rheims. The great day MEANWHILE in this atmosphere of for which anxious mankind had prayed fantasy the Conference was compla- for five and a half years had come at cently plodding on, In a world of last. But there was surprisingly little breathtaking events. On the 4th of display of elation at San Francisco, for May the Germans in Holland, Den- this city looked out on the East, and mark and West Germany surrendered there was still the nightmare of a long to Montgomery and armistice terms struggle with the suicidal Japanese. were signed by von Friedeberg. It was the biggest mass surrender since 1918, United States casualties in Europe and prisoners taken during the past totalled 996,089, of whom a quarter of month now totalled four million. a million were dead. Yet this was an There only remained isolated enemy almost insignificantly small figure in pockets of resistance in Norway and comparison with the Russian twelve to Bavaria. fifteen million casualties, half of whom were civilians, The Russians, Still bigger news broke on Monday the unlike ourselves, had fought with men, 7th, when the newspapers splashed not machines. across their front pages in heaviest type: “Germany Surrenders It was fitting that my father’s Unconditionally. War in the West is Preamble discussion should coincide Over.” The German Chief of Staff Jodl with these cataclysmic events. He signed armistice terms in the presence himself introduced his Preamble. The Charter was a cold legalistic TO re-establish faith in fundamental document. But the Preamble was a human rights, in the sanctity and warmer human document which set ultimate value of human personality, out plainly our hopes and aspirations. in the equal rights of men and women By it, perhaps more than anything of nations large and small, and else, the Charter will one day be TO promote social progress and better remembered. On the 3rd my father standards of life in larger freedom, submitted his draft Preamble. When and for these ends this is compared to the final Preamble, TO practise tolerance and to live it will be seen how little his original together in peace with one another as draft has been modified. His draft good neighbours, read: IN order that nations may work together to maintain International PREAMBLE TO THE CHARTER OF THE peace and security, UNITED NATIONS BY the acceptance of principles and THE HIGH CONTRACTING PARTIES: the institution of methods to ensure Determined that armed force shall not be used save in the common interest, TO prevent a recurrence of the BY the provision of means by which fratricidal strife which twice in our all disputes that threaten the generation has brought untold sorrow maintenance of international peace and and loss upon mankind, security shall be settled, and BY the establishment of conditions end in a fiasco”. Over 700 under which justice and respect for the amendments to the Dumbarton Oaks obligation of international law and Proposals were before the Conference. treaties and fundamental human rights My father suggested that the delegates and freedoms can be maintained, started with the twenty-seven BY the employment of international amendments of the sponsoring powers machinery for the promotion of and tackled the others later, in groups. economic and social advancement of Apart from the Veto, the greatest all peoples, AGREE O HIS HARTER T T C stumbling block at the meeting OF THE UNITED NATIONS. appeared to be ideas on Trusteeship. The Churches expressed Trusteeship, which super ceded the disappointment that the word God did Mandate idea of the League of not appear in the Preamble. Senator Nations, was Senator Vandenberg’s Vandenberg remarked to my father “grand idea”, and was powerfully that he would never be re-elected if he backed by America. There appeared to did not “put God into the Charter”! be much emotional and woolly think- ing, few people at first appreciating its On the 10th of May my father again far-reaching implications on strategic felt constrained to warn the conference and colonial problems. The United of the urgency of the time factor. ‘The States was not quite so broad-minded exodus of delegates had started. If when it came to sharing certain matters were to drag on much longer “strategic Pacific Bases”. They grew “there was every chance that it might even more unhappy when Russia said and other cities. I asked whether this she, too, would like strategic bases. was the type of dispute in which UNO Britain found it would mean medling might intervene. Theoretically yes, he in the internal affairs of her colonies, said, but being one of the Big Five she and South Africa held strong would invoke the Veto to forestall reservations on South-West Africa, enforcement action. declining, under pressure, to surrender On VE-day my father sent Mr. her old “C” Class Mandate. Churchill a cable congratulating him Various powers were out to stake their on the successful conclusion of territorial claims. Tito lost little time in hostilities and the memorable marching into Trieste, and we only contribution he had made. Mr. succeeded in dislodging him after Churchill wired back: “Nothing in considerable trouble. France tried to these past stirring days has brought me grab Aosta, and it needed much greater pleasure than your most kind persuasion to make de Gaulle change message. Your presence beside me in his mind. My father said “it is a good the councils of the Empire and at the reflection on the morality of the fronts in those long hard years has French and what we can expect from been to in a constant source of strength her in the future”. Barely had he made and inspiration for which I am most this prediction when France was sincerely grateful. I pray that you may causing fresh trouble in Syria and the long remain with its a trusty friend and Lebanon and was shelling Damascus guide in war and peace.” One of my father’s most pleasant Small wonder that in this setting, functions at San Francisco was to unique in my father’s long life of unveil a memorial plaque to President speech-making, he should deliver an Roosevelt in Muir Wood, a 400-acre oration which can compare with his park of giant sequoia redwoods not far Table Mountain speech. The speech outside the town. Here in a deep valley was a written one, but the glorious is the most superb glade of huge trees surroundings fired in him that spark I have ever seen. This sequoia is the which raised him above worldly tall coastal type (semper virens) which things, and he spoke with emotion. attains a height of over 300 feet and an “Here among the giant redwoods this age in excess of a thousand years. great man will find fitting and congenial company. Here henceforth In these idyllic surroundings we strode will be the company of the giants.” briskly up the valley to the “theatre”. The ground was springy underfoot and It was spring-time in California, and the air filled with the fragrance of pine San Francisco, jewelled city of seven tar. Presently we came to a small hills, was looking its best, nestling in platform in a crescent of mammoth green rolling country on one of the trees, the foliage meeting in a canopy world’s finest inland harbours. At the high above. Some were already old portals to this bay was the Golden trees when Columbus sailed out to the Gate, spanned by the 4,200-foot West. Some few might have stood suspension bridge of similar name, here at the time of Christ. greatest bridge on earth and one of man’s most spectacular creations. He found time one Sunday to do a Across the bay to Oaklands stretched 513-mile round trip to the superb another eight-mile bridge, longest of Yosemite National Park in the Sierra its kind in the world. Nevadas. Here the Merced River and the glaciers of days gone by have The countryside, though fashioned on carved out a narrow, lake-studded a more generous scale, had all the trough in the mountains, with grey lushness and verdure of England, with granite sides rising sheer for 4,000 feet valleys filled with indigenous oaks and in bare vertical faces. From the lip of pines, and hillsides ablaze with broad this chasm plunge a number of sheets of sweet-smelling blue lupins, exquisite waterfalls, surely yellow Californian poppies and orange unsurpassed anywhere on earth, fed by eschscholtzias. It was a setting in the snows of the Nevadas. Beyond the which my father went for long walks imposing granite buttress of El whenever he could. His favourite route Capitan the Yosemite, one of the was out beyond the Golden Gate, world’s famous waterfalls, leaped above Muir Woods, and up the slopes down the cliff. On this side was the of Tamalpais, the only mountain slender 1,600-foot Ribbon Falls, while feature in the area. By a strange across the valley were the 620-foot coincidence he was on the summit of Bridal Veil Falls. In the trough, and up Tamalpais at the time the Germans the mountain slopes were impressive were signing the armistice terms at woods of Douglas firs and the stocky Rheims. mountain type of sequoia redwoods stretched to mean much more. Britain (gigantia). At the Mariposa Grove we and the smaller powers were strongly gazed upon Grizzly Giant, a tree opposed to the veto, which was a child computed to be about 3,800 years old of Roosevelt’s. But we had tied our and still flourishing. It is staggering to hands in the Polish dispute by insisting reflect that this living object, which on the letter of the Yalta agreement. was the real reason for my father’s Now, to alter the veto, it would be visit to Yosemite, was only a thousand necessary to amend Yalta. years younger than the crumbling My father’s solution to the initial pyramids of Egypt. deadlock was to cut out the veto from Then back we came from this the Charter and to pass the rest. It did dreamland into the battles of the not meet with approval. The final Conference. A severe and prolonged compromise adopted after much impasse reigned over the veto, which haggling was that the veto would not on two occasions threatened to wreck apply to preliminary investigations by the Conference. This veto had been the Security Council, but only to written into the Dumbarton Oaks pro- subsequent serious discussion. Though posals to permit the Big Five to veto in public my father, as was his wont, matters in the Security Council. The expressed a fair measure of optimism initial intention had obviously been for at the work and achievements of UNO, the veto to apply only to drastic he was far less enthusiastic in private enforcement measures, but here it was and much less sanguine of its success. It was only when he considered San the Nazi ideology ... At the heart of Francisco as a mere preliminary, a our human problem is this issue of stepping stone, that he mustered ultimate beliefs, of religion, the optimism. recession or decay of which has been and may well be again the precursor of In a private appreciation of the work at untold misfortune to mankind. That UNO he wrote: “My reflections and great task falls beyond the scope of experience of life have led me to this Conference, and must be left to question the adequacy of the Marxian other hands, but it cannot be deferred view that human conflicts arise solely indefinitely by those who have the from material and economic causes, highest interests of our race and our and can be dealt with on that level civilisation at heart.” merely by economic and social reform. There is something else the human The best work of UNO my father spirit wants and craves for its considered was the regional idea satisfaction. A house swept clean and which it introduced, much as in the old garnished, but empty of spirit, still Monroe Doctrine. The intention early remains a place which seven devils on was that my father would be given may enter and occupy. For instance, I the honour of making the closing fail to believe that Hitler’s war ... was speech on the Conference. He was due merely to economic causes, not to then to proceed to Washington, where something deeper and more sinister in on the 26th June he had been invited human outlook and beliefs. There was by President Truman to address the Senate and House of Representatives. Charter with goodwill and sincerity – This was later scrapped when the and may God bless our efforts!” President himself decided to come A new Chapter had been written in down to wind up the Conference. human relationships. Okinawa fell on the 20th and we were My own most indelible memories of within 325 miles of Japan. 11,260 the Conference are the distrust and live Americans lost their lives in blotting suspicion with which Russia and the out the suicidal garrison of 90,401 Western Powers regarded each other. Japs. That had been a major contributing Five days later, at the penultimate factor to the slowness of the work. The Plenary Session, the adoption of the second point that impressed was the United Nations Charter was solidarity with which the twenty Latin unanimously carried. The next day, states of South America clung toge- after nine intensive weeks, the Confer- ther. Their voting power was out of all ence officially ended. President proportion to their intrinsic worth. Truman spoke last. My father spoke There was also the anaemic attitude just before him: “The Charter is a far adopted by the British delegation, from perfect document ... “ he said, which was inexplicable except on “but it is a good compromise... We grounds of allowing the United States must educate the world to have an to steal the limelight. And finally there abhorrence of war... Let us apply the was the impression that my father, albeit only the representative of a humble nation, was not accorded the Apart from his work at the merit of his unrivalled position in Conference, my father also did more almost every other respect. longhand drafting of speeches than ever before. First he did the opening He was also kept on a string by the speech for the Conference. Then State Department regarding his followed his graduation address at the appearance before Congress. Though Berkeley University and his memorial the President had provisionally address at Muir Woods. Thereafter he signified that the 26th June would be drafted his long closing speech which convenient, it soon became apparent was to wind up the Conference, which that all was not in order. First the fell through when President Truman speech was to be to the combined decided to do the closing himself. He Houses. Later it was altered to a then, instead, prepared a brief five- separate appearance in each. And minute closing address, which had finally, shortly before the end of the subsequently to be redone as he Conference, my father was asked if he discovered that he would still not be would mind standing down, as his the last man to speak. When he appearance in the American received an invitation to address parliament might be taken as a partisan Congress in Washington he prepared effort on the part of the President and another long speech for the occasion. hamper the passage of the Charter Subsequently when he learned that he there. would have to address Congress and the Senate separately, he scrapped his House. Prime Minister Mackenzie draft and wrote two long new ones. At King was delighted to have him in more or less the same time he wrote Canada. At the big Canadian Club another long address for Ottawa. All luncheon in the Chateau Laurier my this was in addition to the numerous father delivered a long address. semi-brief statements on occasions for To the press, the day before he set off the newspapers, as well as one long on his return journey, he said: “It is a and two short broadcasts. These were dangerous world in which we live. Let laborious tasks that took him many us not disarm again. We must be days. They were not the products of prepared for any eventuality.” The San mass production, each being Francisco Charter is far from perfect. considered separately on its merits. But it is at least. a step forward. It On June 27 my father left Hamilton takes account of economic and social Airfield for Ottawa, via the Grand matters that might endanger world Canyon and Kansas City. His peace. It leaves out, however, the great concurrence with my eulogy of imponderables, those inexplicable America was that it was “too traits of human madness and wonderful – too terrific”. He preferred fanaticism which lie beyond the the quiet ways of Africa, which he visible limits of our worldly spectrum. described as a continent “in reserve”. That great task is still left for the future. In Ottawa he stayed with his old friends, the Athlones, at Government At Chequers we found Mr. Churchill On 7 July my father arrived in Milan in an electioneering mood. He could on a brief tour of inspection in Italy: talk of little else and seemed confident He reviewed a large parade of Union of a majority of a hundred in the troops in the Stadium, and the Old House. The country was blowing hot Warrior addressing his young warriors and cold. The chief actors seemed to warned of difficulties ahead: “I cannot be Churchill, Attlee and Harold Laski. make you any promises for the future. We left England before the bubble I cannot promise you a new heaven burst. Our stay had been very brief. and a new earth. It will be a hard There was only time for a short visit to future of hard work and toil, but I shall see returned South African prisoners- be with you on the new road of peace, of-war at Brighton. and I think you will be with me.” Our “shuttle service”, whereby all Thereafter he spent two days at Stresa Union troops were flown back to on Lake Maggiore, where Neville South Africa, had already been in Chamberlain had parleyed with France operation for some months. It was a and Italy during the Abyssinian War. great success. It was one of the many At an official luncheon attended by little considerations that made South senior army personnel my father said African troops amongst the most that the world was continuously pampered (but not always the most passing through cyclic phases of appreciative) troops in the world. unrest and quiescence. He did not think the present unstable period had yet passed. The world of the future in 1950: “I thought Smuts one of the was going to be a dangerous one. most remarkable men I met during the war. Smuts’s personality was of the On an inspection of the Gothic Line he magnetic kind, but in addition he traversed, with General Poole, the impressed me as a ‘can do’ man – the difficult sector taken by the sort of leader who always has an Springboks, pausing at a dedication aggressive and optimistic outlook in ceremony at the picturesque tackling a job or problem. Castiglione Cemetery where five hundred of his troops lie buried. In the “Just looking at him you knew Smuts fighting in Italy Union troops had was not going to sit back in South regularly suffered only one-third of the Africa and merely do his part. He was casualties of their flanking formations, going to get out and do things.” which is the highest possible tribute to After brief business in Rome and their combat efficiency. At that time Cairo, my father arrived home on the the Union had in the Mediterranean 16th July from this 27,000-mile trip to theatre 58,000 European troops, of tackle the problems of demobilisation, whom 15,500 were Air Force rehabilitation and the switch over from personnel and 10,000 Engineers, in a war to a peace-time footing. addition to 20,000 non-Europeans. Halfway through the Potsdaan Big General Mark Clark, who took over Three Conference, news came through Montgomery’s command in Italy when the latter left for Europe, wrote that Mr. Churchill had been defeated On August 6, the first atom bomb was by Labour. dropped on Hiroshima. It killed not only 100,000 Japanese, but jolted old- To those who had admired the world ideas to their very foundations. prodigious war effort not only of the It was the dawn of a new and terrible Government, but also of Britain’s era. We had learned to harness the greatest Prime Minister, the result same source of energy as the sun. That came as a stunning shock. Such is the four-and-a-half-ton missile was a cruel shape of ingratitude. My father crude one. A newer version was mourned not only the eclipse of one of dropped three days later on Nagasaki. his closest friends, but was appalled at A day previously Russia had declared the implications for the future. He had war on Japan, but it was not this seen British Labour in action before. declaration, but the bomb on Nagasaki Potsdam also dismayed my father by that finished it. the extent to which Britain and the United States gave in to Russia. Here Those who say it was unethical to use it was decided to replace the Peace the atom bomb would do well to Conference at the year-end by a remember that General Arnold had Council of Foreign Secretaries, an promised the Japs two million tons of arrangement which my father ordinary bombs during the next twelve described as “hopeless”. months. The damage done by these two atom bombs would have been as nothing compared to the effects of this avalanche of old-fashioned ones. It intolerable strain, all the moral dangers was well in excess of the total tonnage passed, all the harrowing anxieties dropped on Germany. gone through. These were the years of endurance, of suffering, of the Japan surrendered on the 15th, and martyrdom of man. Hirohito was succeeded by Douglas MacArthur as unfettered dictator of “It is also the occasion for silent these islands. thought, of reverent and loving remembrance. In this surge of deep It was peace over all mankind. Twenty emotion we prefer to be silent before million had perished and countless an experience so overwhelming, millions dwelt as beasts in burrows. embracing the agonies and exaltations Five and three-quarter millions in the of six of the most terrible years of all Western Allied Zone of Germany were history. The release, the escape to an displaced persons. South Africa had ordinary world of experience, is spent £536,000,000. But her debts almost more than one can bear.” were paid, and she came out rich, prosperous and booming. All the world lay at our feet. In a national broadcast my father said: “It is a moment of rejoicing, of deep gratitude, of release and breathing freely again after all the long 82 : CREST OF THE WAVE Governor-General, the Right Honourable G. Brand van Zyl, had THE years 1946, 1947 and the first half assumed office, my father’s first of 1948 were the most glorious in choice, Deneys Reitz, having died South Africa’s history. Never had some while back. there been such prosperity; never had there been greater goodwill; never had Mr. Havenga, having vainly waited for our name and affairs stood higher in his friends to summon him back to the eyes of the outside world. It politics, decided to stage a come-back seemed like the golden millennium on his own. It was, however, a after the long years of struggle. changed Havenga we were to see from the loyal henchman of General True, there was a veneer of discontent Hertzog of pre-war days. My father at the irksome restrictions and soon summed him up and thereafter controls, such as the rationing of was under no illusions about the petrol, shortage of luxury course he would take in the future. In commodities, difficulties in obtaining the battle between principles and meat, and such-like, but industry was ambition he had no doubt which in full stride, the country was flooded would prevail. But few people at that with overseas money and more still time came to this conclusion. The kept pouring in. local English press, especially an ultra- The overseas boat queues, in both English paper of Natal, supported him. directions, were long ones. The new Like Oswald Pirow, he must have possessed the power to charm to a In personal stature and affection, my remarkable degree. He was again to father had attained a place in the hearts have considerable luck. of the people, yes even with his opponents, unsurpassed by any Only 30,000 of the 75,000 Italian previous South African. All were prisoners-of-war still remained to be proud of our Grand Old Man – our repatriated. In view of the shortage of Oubaas. manpower in South Africa it was decided to let out considerable In his New Year’s Day broadcast, numbers of Italian P.O.W.s towards 1946, my father said: “The the end of the war to work on farms. international community has at last Many farmers were impressed by come to life... The responsibility for these labourers and the cheapness of ensuring we have peace in our time the special service, and when it came and perhaps for ever is really that of to repatriation asked to retain their the ordinary man and woman, and it services. In certain cases the depends upon their realisation that Government agreed to this and only by co-operation as citizens and as numbers were retained as immigrants. nations can peace be guaranteed. One Needless to say this did not meet with of the things which the war has taught general favour, for quite sufficient us is the inter-dependence of nations immigrants of a more desirable type as of individuals on one another.” could have been obtained from At the beginning of 1946 he launched Western Europe. the People of Britain Fund: “There was a period of the war when the million pounds were to be spent, a enemy came within an ace of victory. figure which was subsequently It was then through the courage and broadened into a hundred million steadfastness of soul of the British. pounds in twenty-five years. people that they saw us through. These In February, when replying to a people refused to accept setbacks, but question in Parliament about the with grim confidence saw the situation intention of UNO to establish its through – a great people under headquarters in New York and not in incomparable leadership!...” Geneva, he said: “The site of the new In October he presented Prime organisation has gone to North Minister Attlee with a gold certificate America. To my mind, the problem of and cheques worth more than a million world defence or peace for a long time pounds, for use by the people of will be the European problem. The Britain. departure of UNO to North America seems to me like sending the general In March he introduced a White Paper far away from the field of action.” Yet setting out details of a long-range plan he seemed to find a certain virtue to revitalise agriculture in the Union, behind this move, for “it is quite with emphasis on soil conservation, possible that this step will increase the wool control and the modernisation of force behind the idea that Europe must methods to raise efficiency and have a charter to look after her own productivity. It also involved a certain affairs... A council in Europe might be measure of education. In five years ten a great buttress to the whole defence may take a generation or more. The system which we are attempting to world is going through the greatest erect for the world. I mention Europe revolution in history... because I think it is the most striking The Congress Party of Natal Indians case, but the same thing applies to had vainly for three years been regions in Asia or Africa.” clamouring for equal rights with In March Mr. Churchill made a speech Europeans, full franchise and at Fulton, Missouri, in which he unrestricted rights to own and occupy expressed views on Russia ‘which property. The European population came very close to those for long had equally vehemently implored my entertained by my father. Some papers father to “save white civilisation in erroneously interpreted his speech as a Natal”, claiming that Durban was fast call to “get tough with Russia”, but it becoming an Indian city. My father was, in fact, merely a policy of no therefore introduced the Asiatic appeasement and standing up to Representation and Land Tenure Bill. Russia. Firmness was the only thing The idea was too much for New Delhi, the Kremlin understood or and the Indian Government severed appreciated. trade relations with the Union as a counter-measure. The attitude of the Commenting on this Fulton speech in Indian community in Natal, supported the House my father said: “We are and encouraged by the nationalist living in a very dangerous world. movement in India, was plainly hostile Peace cannot come automatically. It to any solution which would be international point of view [he went acceptable to European South Africa. on], but essentially it is an internal measure to provide social peace and Nobody was in favour of the existing the good ordering of our society, and situation in Natal. Speaking on the Bill we are not going to be frightened by in Parliament my father said: any movement or propaganda. It was ... Neither European nor native African not true that the Bill was an insult or culture would be fostered by such a challenge to Asia...” development. We do stand for human rights. We are determined to discharge Both in the land tenure clauses and the our human duties in a fair way to all political clauses of the Bill we are not sections of our community and to breaking new ground. We are Indians also, but we are determined following well-known South African that we must preserve the European models. We are following principles orientation of our society and not and practices which have been adopted switch to Asiatic culture. That is the in the past and approved by Parliament fundamental issue in this Bill... The practically unanimously, and which time has come to settle once for all the we look upon as essential to the question of where Indians could live structure of our complex society in without being the playball of politics. South Africa. Fundamentally the principles of separate land tenure and ... I am the last person to minimise the residence and political representation importance of this Bill from the for Indians are the same in this Bill as for natives in the native legislation already in force. I do not see how Indians can consider that as an insult to them. Rather is the objection an insult to the native population... South Africa’s richest gold strike in a borehole was made in April when a core from a hole on the farm Geduld in the heart of the embryonic Free State goldfield assayed over 68 ounces per ton. This solitary phenomenal result from the area 150 miles to the south of Johannesburg, more than the weighty mass of previous satisfactory geo- physical and borehole exploration, convinced the general public that an extensive new minefield had been discovered which bade fair one day to rival the slowly expiring Rand. 83 : LONDON AND PARIS arrival in London the question of the defence of the South and South-West AT the end of April, 1946, my father Pacific was under discussion and it left for London to attend was agreed that joint military missions Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ should be established in London, discussions. In Egypt he paused Melbourne and Wellington. Now the briefly to talk to the Egyptian Prime subject was re-opened and my father Minister about the proposed revision said he considered the opening of such of the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian treaty. missions would conflict with the Over the Mediterranean his aircraft freedom of action of the Dominions was struck by lightning. themselves, a view accepted by the At the Conference my father stressed others. that the colonies lost by Italy should not be returned to her and that the At the same time in South Africa Dr. trusteeship of Tripolitania should not Malan, Leader of the Opposition, was be entrusted to Russia. accused of having dealings with an enemy agent, a Mrs. Denk, during the It had originally been the intention that war, a charge of which he was later this Conference should be a prelude to exonerated by a Select Committee. the Peace Conference, scheduled to take place on 1st May, but Mr. Byrnes After a brief visit to Berlin my father of America suggested that it be post- said to reporters: “It is very different poned till June 15. Before my father’s from the last time I arrived in Berlin. That was during the Bruning regime. of experience. Those things are an What a different world it is now.” enormous asset, and it weighs up against all the hundreds of millions of In an after-dinner address to guests at people in the other groups. a function to honour the American Ambassador Averill Harriman, my “These are our assets, and very father, who called himself a “barbarian valuable assets, and they are very from the outer marches”, told his necessary to the future peace o£ the listeners: “... When I look at this world world. I look upon the British group as in my simple way – and I am just as essential as UNO. All these accustomed to simple ways in my vast organisations that we devised for small country – it seems to me that the world peace are no greater, no better, world is shaping on these lines today – than the potentiality for world peace a vast, powerful, almost impregnable and world security that lies in our group in the East, and another vast, group ... almost impregnable Power in the far Speaking on the B.B.C. Home Service West. In between you have ourselves – in early June my father said: you have this British group, not so powerful, not so concentrated, but The establishment of UNO and its with immense imponderable assets. security system gives a strong ray of We have the experience of human hope for the future, but it would be outlook, the knowledge of affairs, of unwise to build our future solely on things you learn only by generations that hope... The British Commonwealth of Nations has proved they will be most severely felt in the itself a worthy worthwhile British zone, which is not only the organisation, and in the day when the most densely populated and most storm burst it was for a time the sole highly industrialised, but at the same refuge of the world in mortal peril... time the least food-producing part of The League broke but the Germany, and the part most heavily Commonwealth stood, and saved at destroyed by war bombing. Any least its smaller weaker members from human and economic collapse will extinction. So may it do again if a therefore be most severely felt in the greater storm should happen to British zone, and the inevitable odium, overwhelm UNO – which God however undeserved, will most forbid.” severely fall on Britain as the occupying power. The repercussions The problem of what others wanted to of all this not only in Germany but do with Germany disturbed him: here in Britain and in the world generally can be easily imagined. The ... What remains of Germany has been situation clearly calls for a revision cut up into four occupation zones with and reversal of policies which will at the unforeseen disappearance of her least minimise the terrible human and economic unity, and thus a slow social situation which looms in the strangulation of the whole economic not-distant future, and which the system. Bad as will be the effects of conscience neither of this country, nor all these restrictions and curtailments, of the world will long tolerate. It is no historic people, or their homeland, or use establishing UNO with its their means of livelihood... elaborate arrangements for security The immediate task before us is to and for maintaining human rights and save what can still be saved, and thus standards, if in the heart of this mother to preserve the foundations for the continent of our civilisation a situation future to be built upon... is allowed to arise which will be a reproach to all connected with it. During this brief visit he found time too to review the South African It would be a case of not merely victory contingent at Kensington punishing Germany for her sin against Gardens, and was with the King and mankind, but of punishing mankind Queen and other Commonwealth itself and thus adding to the sin and leaders at the saluting base in the great the wrong. Destroy the Germany of Empire march past. Bismarck and Hitler by all means, do away with the highly centralised Back in the Union for a short while he Germany whose military might proved delivered the oration at the unveiling a menace to the world, decentralise it of the monument to Louis Botha in a federal system which will be below the Union Buildings in Pretoria: rendered incapable of again becoming a menace, and which might be safely Louis Botha passed away from us integrated ultimately into UNO. But twenty-seven years ago, and many of do not attempt to destroy a great us here today still remember that moment of great sorrow and that sense Such was Louis Botha. Of the great of bitter loss which overwhelmed us South Africans I have known I put when we buried him shortly after his Paul Kruger and Louis Botha in a class return from the Peace Conference at by themselves, although as types, as the end of the last war. Deeply as we personalities, they were poles apart... felt the loss then, we would have felt it even more, if we had foreseen what At the Transvaal Head Committee of lay ahead of us – the ups and downs of the United Party my father announced a stormy era of history, ending in the his plans for large-scale immigration. greatest tragedy of all history. “Immigration is the call,” he said. “We want men and women. We want our I then at his burial called him happy in population to increase by leaps and the moment of his death, in the hour of bounds. Let us once more open our victory. We would have called him doors – we want to make hay while even happier if we could have known the sun shines. We are going to what lay ahead, and if we could have reshape our machinery both here and guessed the sad fate of the world in the overseas to establish an organisation generation that was to follow his for the selection of immigrants. As we going. He was fortunately spared that are on the Black Continent we want disillusion which turned our vast good Europeans. We can get hopes after that victory into Dead Sea thousands – hundreds of thousands – fruit... millions of them... In an official Government statement encourage the entry of persons who he amplified his ideas on immigration: have experience and means to set up industries, however small, and ... It is recognised that the shift in particularly enterprises that would world forces and the development of develop the Union’s base minerals and new weapons have given South Africa other resources. Indeed, every kind of a strategic importance greater than good and useful immigrant would be ever possessed in modern times. At the welcome. In order, moreover, to same time she is situated in an balance an increasing industrial exposed geographical position; and in population, there would be an a world still anxiously groping for increased scope for immigration of means of security she dare not neglect professional men, such as engineers of any opportunity of building up her various kinds and architects who are resources and defensive strength. The qualified to practise in this country... Union Government have, therefore, decided to take whatever vigorous and ... Other young countries are taking positive steps are practicable to attract steps to absorb the best class of to South Africa promising immigrants immigrants with all speed, and the from European and other countries. Union may be left with the leavings if it does not make provision for its While the most urgent need is for requirements without loss of time. skilled artisans, it is considered that every effort should also be made to Dr. Malan said the immigration policy Conferences in the troubled time after was an act of sabotage which must be the First World War. Yet the troubles resisted. He alleged that my father was in those days were as nothing attempting “to plough the Afrikaner compared to the difficulties that beset under” and displayed anxiety on the the world at present. future of the Afrikaner people under These views he emphasised at a the impact of this invasion. luncheon speech in Aberdeen when he ***** referred to the world-wide disappointment at the achievements of In mid-August, 1946, my father was the Conference: “The world has been off to Europe again to attend the Peace looking to the Paris Conference for Conference in Paris. He was the only some message that might bring hope, statesman among the twenty-one but people must have been delegates who had sat at the Versailles disappointed with the results so far tables a quarter of a century before. He achieved. They read of the held out little hope for the success of interminable debates, bickerings, the Conference. For the past few years quarrellings, and snarlings, and they he had been saying that the world was found it was not what they expected. still far too unsettled to permit the There were many reasons for this. success of such a conference. The best People had expected too much. They they could hope for was a prolonged could not expect immediately after a armistice until such time as stability war and catastrophe such as they had returned. He had seen enough of Peace passed through that people’s minds all hand and the Western group on the over the world would be attuned to the other have voted against each other. It future they had been looking forward has been the revelation of this to. Human nature did not respond so conference. The importance of it may quickly, and they had still much of the yet come to overshadow the mentality which actuated them during conference itself. I therefore think it the war .... right to stress this so that it should not be overlooked or hushed up, but Nor did he take a more hopeful line in openly discussed and ventilated before his speech to the Plenary Session a this conference. little later: “While on the whole this conference may fairly be considered a “This is a peace conference, the first of success, one main feature of it has a series of peace conferences to mark been disappointing and discouraging the final conclusion of this greatest to those who look beyond the con- world war. It should not be the ference. In debate and outlook a overture to bigger struggles to come. If cleavage has been revealed which, if there is one deep longing among the not cleared up and removed, may bode people today it is for peace...” ill for the future of this conference and In the Third Programme of the B.B.C. of world peace. Those who scan the one Sunday evening he gave his debates and votes will be struck by the listeners what might be considered a constancy with which those whom I contributory cause of the partial failure may call the Slav group on the one of the Conference by reminding them that the world was passing through a mighty efforts to achieve it. Of that difficult phase, and appealing to the spirit there is little evidence at Great Powers to make a fresh start: present...” “We do not realise,” he said, “that our My father did not return quite empty- world is passing not through a short- handed from the Conference, for he but a long-range cycle of change. We won us the concession that South thus become impatient and expect the Africa would be consulted regarding end almost immediately; we think that the disposal of the Italian colonies. He the journey’s end is just round the had renounced our claim to reparations corner and soon we shall enter the from Italy. promised land. We misunderstand the time factor, so all-important. Great ***** events often unfold slowly, often take During mid-October, 1946, he found a long time to mature and come to time to visit Holland and Belgium, pass. Even in physical science the addressing the legislatures in both importance of the time factor has come countries and appealing far settlers for to be recognised as fundamental... the Union. He also spent a few days in “... We must look upon world peace Switzerland and London, before not as a mere accomplishment, or leaving for New York on October 22 waiting just round the corner, but as a to attend the Assembly of the United long-range task, calling for a new Nations, where he was to press our spirit among the nations and for claim for the incorporation of South- West Africa and to answer the charges from these violent international brought by India of discrimination antagonisms, and it is the policy of the against the Indians of Natal, which had Union Government to keep it so. It is prompted her to impose a trade to prevent such conditions of social boycott and to recall her High clash arising in South Africa, where so Commissioner. many races, cultures and colours come together, that the Union is doing its This charge of discrimination came best on fair, decent and wise lines to strangely from an India which had keep the different elements, as much only just completed one of the most as convenient and possible, apart and savage massacres in modern history in away from unnecessary intermixture, Calcutta and Bengal, where half a and so prevent bloody affrays like million fleeing Moslem refugees were those in India or pogroms such as we mercilessly butchered. But India felt read of in other countries. she had a mission to consolidate the overwhelming non-White mass of the We are honestly trying to find a United Nations. It was partly animus human way of life for a racially, and partly ambition. socially and culturally mixed community such as South Africa, My father gave South Africa’s answer where different sections may dwell to Mrs. Pandit, Nehru’s sister: alongside each other in peace and with South Africa is still a peaceful, well- comparative goodwill... behaved and well-ordered country free Before the first vote was taken my and in the face of an attack which has father told the Assembly: included a suggestion that we occupy a position comparable to that of Nazi The South African Government has no war criminals, to an inquiry by any desire to baulk any inquiry into, or a outside political body. South Africa is, study of, the position of the Indians in and will remain, an independent the Union, but must maintain its state... position as a sovereign state that this matter is one for domestic jurisdiction. It was of no avail claiming that the My Government, however, has treatment of South African national consented to the matter being referred Indians in South Africa was purely a to the International Court. It will agree domestic affair. It was of no use to that reference being enlarged so as warning UNO of the dangerous to include facts as well as law. The precedent of meddling it was setting. Court may conduct any inquiry it The warnings of Britain and others thinks right on the facts, sending a went unheeded. The United States did commission to South Africa if it not support us. Dr. Wellington Koo of wishes, so as to establish the true facts China described my father as “the and to arrive at the true determination greatest living internationalist”, but of the law. nevertheless failed to support him. We are not able to agree, in the Before Mrs. Pandit left India Gandhi circumstances which have arisen here had said to her: “I don’t mind whether you come back having won your case In a long broadcast upon his return to or having suffered defeat. But you the Union my father said: “We found must come back as a friend of Field unbelievable misunderstandings about Marshal Smuts.” race and colour conditions and their handling in South Africa. We found a My father had tried unsuccessfully to solid mass prejudice against the colour get it classed as an “Important policies of South Africa which not question”, which would have required even the most efficient publicity could a two-thirds majority, have broken down in the time at our Mrs. Pandit won her case, and the two disposal... governments were requested to report at the next session. Regarding the incorporation of South- West Africa he remarked firmly: “The By the time the South-West African Union Government is determined to question came up for discussion it was maintain at least the position given it evident that so much feeling had been under the mandate and to discharge the aroused against South Africa by the trust it has undertaken to the Indian dispute, that it stood little inhabitants of South-West Africa and chance of success. And so, despite the to the Union itself, to whose security strong support of Britain and the Southwest Africa is essential...” In this Dominions (and the conspicuous my father was to get fullest support absence of support from America), we from every shade of opinion in South were again defeated. Africa. During his stay in New York he What he saw there filled him with visited the American Museum of forebodings for the organisation’s Natural History, of which he was an future. If only America had wise and honorary Corresponding Member, sagacious leadership and could cast off where he was introduced to Wendell her sentimental immaturity. There it Phillips, whom he invited to visit was a case of the blind leading the South Africa with a team of blind. anthropologists to study our fossil ape- men. On the way back from America he spent two days in London and a few in Athens. In South Africa, while resenting our rebuff at UNO, the Nationalists jeered that my father’s mission had been a failure and were full of criticism and advice after the event. This had been his first international check in many years, and they exploited it to the full. My father himself was angry, not to say worried, at his cavalier treatment.

General Smuts with the Royal Family at Mout-aux-Sources, Natal – 1947. 84 : ROYAL VISIT SOUTH AFRICA, too, was resentful of her rough treatment at UNO and feel- ings were running high at the Indian attitude there. In Natal a boycott of Indian traders was attempted, but nothing came of it. Immigrants from overseas, and especially Britain, were arriving in a steady stream. Yet many more were held back by shipping bottlenecks, even though two troopship-type Union Castle liners had been set aside especially for them. The passenger waiting list had swelled to thirty thousand. Some in desperation decided to venture along the long overland route to the Union, little realising what General Smuts with King George VI on Table tribulations lay along those seven Mountain – 1947 thousand miles of bush and desert. On the way back from Britain my father came across the Macallister family of “overlanders” stranded at Khartoum, and these he gave a lift down in his York. Immigration my father looked upon as the country’s greatest priority if its future as a permanent home for the white man was to be assured. He was determined to see the white man firmly established in the southern end of Africa, where climatic conditions were well suited to the propagation of a sturdy race. The African might well be left to other portions of the continent where he was capable of flourishing under more specialised conditions. In Parliament my father had to answer interminable criticism of his failure at UNO. Yet Dr. Malan agreed that “it was an attack on our freedom as a Mrs. J. C. Smuts – 1941. nation and our sovereignty”. He decision to continue submitting yearly criticised, however, my father’s reports to UNO as a measure of courtesy. The Indian problem Malan To those who suggested in dudgeon would solve by transferring them back that South Africa should withdraw where they came from. This was a from UNO, my father said: “South solution that had been tried before but Africa is behind the United Nations if proved a failure. When it came to the the United Nations plays the game and vote, my father’s work at UNO was carries out the Charter. If it does not, it approved in the House by a majority will go the way of the League of of 82 to 46. Nations. It will fail not because of us, but because it was unfaithful to the Mr. Hofmeyr now stepped in to tell Charter... For South Africa at this the House that Dr. Ma1an’s proposal stage to isolate herself would be for the revision of the Union’s colour disastrous,” he warned Parliament. legislation “on a basis of segregation” “Though the trend of events may could not be justified either morally or appear disquieting South Africa ethically, and certainly could not he should not be frightened into pursuing justified in the light of UNO. It was the wrong policy.” My father’s views one of the mild, liberal speeches he always were that it was better to stand often made which gained for him the inside an organisation, however hostile opprobrious Opposition nickname of it might appear, than to stand alone in “Kaffer boetie” (Negrophilist). the cold outside, a target for mud and Hofmeyr’s was a just and fair stones. reflection, but in this country of colour prejudice it did his party no good.

Three generations of Jan Christian Smuts – Rooikop 1944 In mid-February, 1947, occurred one Those of us who took part in the South of the pleasant highlights of our African War, or whose forebears took history, when the King and Queen and part, and who have since striven and two Princesses made a two months’ are still striving for a Republic in triumphant visit to the Union. It was South Africa, and other pro- partly a tribute to our fine war effort in Republicans, cannot take part in a the light of much difficulty, but more festivity which will strengthen the distinctly, as the press stressed, a monarchy in the Union.” This was a personal tribute to my father. He had general Nationalist attitude. But the also been an old friend of King George natural friendliness and warmth of the V and Queen Mary. In fact, as a token Royal Family were swift to melt the of homage, my father throughout the hearts of even the doughtiest war insisted on sending Queen Mary Republican, and the tour, though food parcels,, and he made a point of strenuous, was a great success. But seeing her whenever he was in strangely, one Nationalist newspaper England. In her letters to my mother was so busy sticking its head, ostrich- Queen Mary addresses her as “Dear like, into the sand that it failed to Ouma”. notice that a Royal Visit was on and omitted any mention of it. When the visit was first mooted a year before, General Kemp was quick in his During the visit my father made disapproval: “The position of the frequent appearances with the Royal Afrikaner and Republican is clear. party. He had the pleasure, too, of showing them, as he had Prince father was never able to show the King George before, the breathtaking view the view from the summit. from the top of Table Mountain. With Their Majesties also found time for a an ostrich feather from the Queen’s hat hurried visit, one afternoon, to my stuck in his best panama, he extolled mother and the rest of us in our old to Their Majesties the virtues of “tin shanty” on Doornkloof. I think mountaineering. “I could see a glow of this was the most informal visit of the enthusiasm, surprise and wonder on whole tour, and Ouma chatted to the the faces of the Royal Family,” he King and Queen as though she had said. “I am sure they went back with known them all her life. the feeling that Table Mountain was the grandest in the world.” At the end of the Royal Visit the Cape Times said: “We believe we are not Later on he was to spend a few days rash in hoping that as a consequence with the Royal Family at the fine of the Royal Visit here there will Mont-aux-Sources National Park in permanently be something a little the Drakensberg of Natal, when they sweeter, more sincere, in our public paused for a few days in their endless life.” 10,000-mile tour through the country. Here, in the heart of the highest My father was critical of the mountain mass of the Union, they arrangements for the Royal Tour. He were unfortunate in striking considered them far too strenuous, unseasonable drizzly weather, so my especially, he said, as he had promised Their Majesties a pleasant holiday thirteen million pounds had been paid when he had initially approached them out. It was a wonderful achievement. about the possibilities of the visit. He There was to be trouble during the genuinely intended the tour to be a next few months with the Native holiday as much as a welcome from a Representative Council, which Dominion. resigned as a body in protest at new ***** legislation, and even when my father announced new concessions in which Most of the returned soldiers were by natives were to be given executive now back in civilian occupations. The authority, especially in their reserves, Directorate of Demobilisation had by they still remained obstinate. The drift the end of November discharged of natives to the towns was creating 222,112 volunteers and those still on urgent problems, and even today we strength numbered only 17,732. The are no nearer their solution. It was the rate of release had been about 16,000 policy of the Government to maintain per month, though it was, naturally, residential segregation as fat as now slowing down. Financial possible. But because of an acute lack assistance and monetary benefits to of housing, native slum “shanty ex-volunteers totalled more than forty- towns”, which were ideal breeding seven million pounds, and grants and spots for vice, disease and discontent, loans each totalled over nine millions. were springing up on the outskirts of In addition war gratuities of over big cities. In one of these, Moroka, there was a serious riot during the year In October he was able to announce an in which three European policemen eighty million pound three-year gold were stoned to death. White feelings loan to Britain, a condition being that were outraged at this event which did she would annually import from South little good to the native cause. Africa twelve million pounds’ worth of fruit, food and wine. The Such was the prosperity of the country Nationalists naturally supported this that in his Budget Speech in March, loan as it benefited our farmers. They 1947, Mr. Hofmeyr was able to were in two years’ time to bless it. announce tax relief of over fifteen and a half million pounds. A few weeks Regarding a peace treaty with later we handed to America a cheque Germany my father had advocated an for twelve and a half million pounds, experiment there similar to the fruitful being half our total lease-lend payment one in this country after the Boer War. to be made in cash. This was the Any other basis for a peace treaty, no largest cash payment so far from any matter how attractive, would be an lease-lend country. idea built on shifting sands. It was dangerous to suggest cutting the Ruhr It was at this time that my father off from Germany. Germany was the secured for the South African Air heart of Europe, and by rendering Force 136 Spitfires which were to Germany powerless a situation could form the nucleus of our post-war air develop which would steer humanity force. on the wrong course for years to come. The solution must not be born out of it is based on convictions and on hopes revengefulness. for the future of mankind. It is also based on the trouble which has beset At the end of May he took the mankind. opportunity to review the international situation in the Senate: This movement is going on all over the world, not only in Russia. Russia There is no doubt that the political no doubt looks to these movements in situation may be a fruitful source of other countries for support and trouble in the world in the future, but therefore has a grave responsibility in this does not mean that I believe war the matter. The danger is that there to be imminent. I cannot believe this have been religious wars before with sort of danger exists. It is a mistake to devastating effects. While no Govern- think so. The world is tired. I do not ment wants war, these movements, if believe any of the big nations want they continue, if this aggressive war. They are exhausted by the war propaganda continues, may reach which has just ended. Their economies breaking point, resulting in -war... are disrupted. It is not that Britain is no longer a But war is not the only danger, There great Power. She is an invalid having is a struggle going on between been incapacitated by the great effort ideologies, and conditions may arise she had to make in the war. You may which will make this a great danger. be a strong man but nothing will keep Communism is like a new religion, but you out of hospital if misfortune say this not in criticism of UNO, but overtakes you. because UNO is so young and inexperienced. I do not like the position of the two super Powers in the world. It is The squabbling and disagreement in necessary for the peace of the world the Security Council had come as a that Britain shall recover her position bad blow to all who looked for world and maintain herself as one of the peace in the future. The veto right has super Powers in the world. That will been abused to such an extent that one happen. It is merely a matter of time. does not know whether it will be more of an incubus on the progress of The whole present position has mankind. The General Assembly also emerged as a result of the war. Take has not been very satisfactory. In the the dollar and sterling position. There atomic council also there had been is only one cause – the war. It is a very sharp disagreement and no position which has arisen simply from progress had been made. the war situation and one which will take time to right itself. To say Britain When I am asked to express my is down and out, as some say and as opinion on the United Nations I say some wish, is quite wrong and is that wishful thinking will not help us. wishing for calamity in the world. I go Judging from indications 1 have seen so far as to say I look upon British rule so far, I suspend judgment... as a safer guarantee of peace in the world than the United Nations itself. I 85 : ELECTIONS AND REJECTION IN 1947 the Party machines were geared for the elections which were due the middle of the following year. It was plain that it was going to be characteristically fierce and unscrupu- lous, and that it was going to be fought, as in 1929, on the colour question. Once more the Nationalists were going to appeal to the lower prejudices of the electorate. They were going to point accusing fingers at Hofmeyr and UNO, and scream about a black menace from within as well as General Smuts in typical attitude listening to a without. Dr. Malan had already made Debate – 1941 this clear. A win for my father, he visited South-West Africa in July, and said, would be a victory for Mr. in August he was the guest of the Hofmeyr, who stood for the removal Belgian Government during a friendly of the colour bar. call on the Congo. “Together we will In order to discuss its representation in strive for a new Africa,” he told the the Union Parliament, my father Belgians.

A month later in Johannesburg, my said to the Royal Institute of Philoso- father had the mortification of having phy: “We are passing through grave a Party meeting in the City Hall and critical times, times of deep heart broken up by several hundred striking searching. Men are hungry, not for building workers. He was just telling bread, but also, and just as much, for his audience that the past eight years things of the spirit. Are they not to be had been the most brilliant in South fed? ... We are starved not only for Africa’s history, and the most stormy, dollars, but for lack of spiritual when the noisy mob surged towards currency... the platform. Our danger today is surrender, giving My father attended the wedding of in, giving way either to blind Princess Elizabeth which took place in submission or blinder revolt.” London in November. On the way Back in Pretoria he was to express there he had discussions in Athens on concern over the relations between Greek matters and in Italy with Count Russia and the West. “It is a question Sforza on the Italian colonies. whether it is possible to stem this tide While in England he received the before it has gone too far.” Freedom of Malmesbury and of Absolute prodigies of work had been Southampton. accomplished by my father during After ten crowded days he was on his these years. Not only were there the way home again. Before leaving he exacting trips overseas, but on the home front, too, matters were steadily he was interested only in the great reaching a new tempo as the peace- atomic developments. It was disturb- time change-over progressed. The ing. I said to people who were plan- Opposition, having been dormant for ning his political work that they were most of the war, especially during the rapidly burning out our greatest asset, time when the Allies were winning but people kept on calling upon him to great victories, now became vocife- open fetes and bazaars and to cap rous and aggressive. beauty queens, and he kept flying hither and thither from one end of the There was so much to do, and with the country to the other. These were the onset of age, so little time left. He now duties of younger men. It might have seemed to live only for his work. been good political policy to display There was no time for leisure other my father to the public in this fashion, than an occasional long walk. I felt, but in every other sense it was a short- and said, that he was rapidly working sighted policy. True, my father could himself to death. Even a mighty have refused; but he was a gallant and machine needed to pause at times. Yet willing horse, and never did. though my father frequently looked weary, he never displayed this by his In a way he must have felt the hand of actions or his bearing. But I noticed time slowly stealing over him, for as that his hobbies were now almost far back as the last General Elections completely pushed into the back- he had talked about retiring and had ground and that in the scientific world said “this old war horse is running its much we differed in our views and last race”. methods.” The year 1948, though it started off Yet in 1946 he had not been so full of promise, was to turn to one of eulogistic of the work of Gandhi, great disappointment, disaster and when he remarked privately to some of sadness. From the point of view of us: “The attitude of Gandhi is anti the legislation it was comparatively material world and as the British unproductive, for it was an election personified the material world he is year. In January we acquired from automatically anti-British. Gandhi Britain two small islands, Marion and stressed the spiritual value of things, Prince Edward, in the Indian Ocean the religion and the soul of India. The 1,400 miles south-east of Cape Town, position in India is very complex: which were to serve as weather Fundamentally it is a battle of stations. The highest peak on Marion religions – the Hindu and the Moslem. was named after my father. It was only the presence and power of Britain that kept India together. At about this time came the news of Remove it, and you will have the sects the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. once more at each other’s throats and “Gandhi was one of the great men of India will once more split up into an my time,” said my father, “and my infinity of small states. The views of acquaintance with him over a period of Gandhi were aggravating matters and more than thirty years only deepened it would perhaps be a good thing if he my high respect for him, however could pass quietly away into the next an “awful mistake”. We are now faced world.” In May 1948 he remarked to with a tactical position in which the me that matters in India had improved participation of India on our side in the since Gandhi’s death and that he now event of war is not only problematical, felt more than ever convinced that he but one in which even more disturbing had been an “unsettling influence”. consequences might have to be faced. At the end of the Mountbatten regime A milestone in Commonwealth affairs the Socialist Government of Britain was passed when it was decided at a could resist the insistent clamour for Prime Ministers’ Conference to permit independence by India no longer and India to assume a republican status Hindustan and Pakistan were made while still remaining a full member of fellow partners with the older our group. The arrangement delighted Dominions. And so began a vast new only Nehru and the Nationalists of experiment which was fraught with South Africa. My father was filled incalculable dangers. Opinion in with grave misgivings and said this Britain was divided on the issue of would revive the Nationalists’ withdrawal from India, and those who, ambitions to obtain a republic for this like my father, warned of the dangers country. of removing the restraining and Speaking on the menace of guiding white hand, have had much to Communism in the House of Assem- bear out their apprehensions since. My bly, Cape Town, in March, he said that father described our decision to quit as more and more of Europe was coming the danger, and that is why we have under the shadow of Communism: the Marshall Plan... From Britain there is another plan – Western Union. It is Czechoslovakia is the last warning ... a beginning on a small scale, and if it model republic has gone ... South were a success, it could be extended. Africa is not out of danger ... if the dam breaks I see no point where the On another occasion when speaking of danger can be stopped... Dr. Malan has the menace of Communism he used the word “war” ... Why declare described how it had engulfed Asia, war if the goal can be reached without which had now become a Lost it by means of infiltration? I believe Continent. “The prospect of Asia is a the whole world can go down without pitiable one from the human point of war. We are keeping watch on the view.” If the white man withdrew changes going on in the world. There from Africa the same fate would await is this new technique, the new method. it. Though Africans could speak the language of the West, that was not the Hitler developed a technique which same thing as leadership or govern- went very far, and this technique is ment. There were heavy responsi- being followed by others today. What bilities resting on the white Hitler did not achieve, others might, communities in Africa: “If Europe is by using his technique. to be saved from Communism and Dangers exist in all countries... The anarchy, the gap between differing people of the United States also see native policies will have to be bridged. The Union of South Africa will have At a Rotary Club lunch in to play its part in this co-ordination of Johannesburg he declared that “the policy.” United Nations itself is becoming a problem. So far from being an effec- By this time the Nationalists had tive means of dealing with world issued a long statement on their policy problems, the organisation itself is a of “apartheid” (segregation) and made difficulty”. Dealing with Palestine, it clear that they were going to fight where the Arab and Jewish popula- the election on colour lines. It was to tions were in a state of ferment, he be the old “black menace” all over said: again, and the chief target was Mr. Hofmeyr. In the problem of Palestine there is My father had reaffirmed that he had tragedy at our doorstep. Britain has no idea of retiring: been trying for twenty years to deal with the problem, but she has failed, “I shall be in the political field as long and no wonder she is getting sick and as I have the strength of today and the tired of it all. Failure in Palestine will mind to do so,” he told the electorate. not only be a British failure. Other He despised the Nationalists for nations have also taken a hand, making a “kaffer boetie” and including America, and they have also “gogga”19 of Hofmeyr. failed. Palestine is not a small problem. It is one of the great 19 Frightening insect. problems of the world and can have a area of Egypt as well, a factor which great effect on the future of the world. filled my father with anger. In a B.B.C. broadcast he said: Palestine lies on one of the great highways of history – on the highway ... Our sea power has suffered heavy between Africa and Asia – and has losses, which can, however, he been a problem through history. We repaired and even improved by the have thought to let the Arabs and Jews new scientific discoveries. But our lost fight it out, but we cannot do that. communications will never be Palestine is closely connected with the recovered. I refer to our life line big issues in the world. Power is on through the Mediterranean and on to the move and Palestine lies on that the Middle East and to the Far East – road. from the Commonwealth point of view It is a question of oil – one of the perhaps the greatest loss we have instruments of war, of power. But it is suffered. not only oil, for Palestine also lies We still hold certain points in the very close to the border which divides Mediterranean, but Egypt has gone, the great powers of the world, and and with it our position as of right to some of those great powers are use it as a base. What such a base keeping in the background... meant was proved in the last war. But Britain had not only given up India. for it nothing might have prevented She had withdrawn from the strategic Germany from overrunning the Middle East and linking up with Japan votes. He brushed aside my in India. From that base we broke the admonition with words to the effect Italian Empire and Italy itself, so that that I was talking nonsense. the final attack on Germany could be On Wednesday the General Elections made from the West. That line has were held. In view of the wonderful gone, and other dispositions will have record of the Government, my father to be made for the Commonwealth to hoped for a considerable majority, make good that grievous loss... though he expected that controls and restrictions would lessen his lead. The On his seventy-eighth birthday, the result, a Nationalist victory with a 24th May, 1948, my father announced majority of five in the House, came as the Union’s de facto recognition of the a stunning shock. He had been present State of Israel. In view of the run of in his Standerton constituency during a terrorism against British soldiery by portion of the voting and had come the Stern Gang and Irgun, feelings away with some apprehension about against the Jews were running high in his own position, but he never this country, no less than in Britain. To expected such a complete landslide. It make such an announcement two days also took nine out of ten Nationalists before a General Election was by surprise, and Dr. Malan himself therefore an act which I considered described it as a “miracle”. unwarranted. I said to my father that I thought he had committed an error of But as the night of the counting wore timing and that he would lose many on and one after another of the rural seat results were announced in the personal slap in the face. He felt, like Nationalist favour, my father grew Churchill, that it was the unjust and more and more gloomy. When the ignominious sacking of an old war- result of the defeat of his first Cabinet horse that had deserved well of its Minister, Major Piet van der Byl, country. Even the superlative self- came through on the radio he said, control of this iron old man could not “There goes my first Minister!” He did hide his bitter disappointment. But the not wait to hear his own result. By this thought that it would not be for long time the issue was a foregone cheered him. Their meagre majority conclusion. W.C. du Plessis defeated would make a long term impossible. him by 224 votes. But he was not reckoning with their cunning manipulation of numbers, or One of the first phone calls that came of Sir Stafford Cripps’s heaven-sent through after this result was succour of devaluation just when announced was from a woman Malan’s Government seemed down purporting to be the sister of Jopie and out. Fourie. “Now Jopie Fourie is aveng- ed!” she taunted. Three days after the elections, I went with him to the bushveld. Perhaps here The result of these elections, occurring he would find solace. We let him drive just when the country was at the peak because we felt it would do him good, of its development, shocked my father but it was plain that his thoughts were more gravely than any event I have very far from the roads, and on one witnessed. It was far worse than a occasion we barely negotiated a fast stew in their own juice – under Dr. bend. Near Rooikop he ran over a poor Malan! I said again that it was Liberal Rhode Island cock standing in the elements in our midst that had killed middle of the road. He never noticed him. “Why not do as you so wisely the cock nor saw the flurry of feathers. counselled Mr. Churchill,” I said. He was alone with his thoughts, “Why not become an elder statesman looking pale and weary. It was, and exercise your influence in the perhaps, too late now to start the long background, without getting involved battle all over again. in everyday active politics? Why not retire while you still have strength to After breakfast I went for a long walk do your writing, which you owe to with him. I was feeling angry and posterity? It is no use fighting all the depressed. He never uttered a word. I weary old battles over again. You will thought it might cheer him if I gave never make headway while you have a him a soliloquy of my thoughts. I colleague like Hofmeyr. Let the young remarked to him what wretched and men now carry on. Let them for once ungrateful creatures I considered his stand on their own feet and fend for countrymen, what turncoats many of themselves. It’s their turn to struggle his soldiers must have been in this now. If they want advice they can election, how fickle some of the always come to you.” English, how narrow many of his own Boer stock. What was the use of He listened attentively and now and fighting for these wretches? Let them then appeared to express agreement with my argument, and I came away would run again and accepted the offer with the impression that he had of Charlie Clark’s Pretoria East seat. definitely decided to retire. He agreed This decision acted like a tonic and it might be sound advice to retire to an immediately he began to cheer up and active background. He expressed a low take an active interest in life. “I look opinion of the integrity of the new forward with confidence to the Cabinet, whom he described as “a eventual completion of the task for thoroughly bad lot”. What he liked which fifty years has been all too short least of all about the elections was the a period,” he announced. “I hope to opening of a wide rift between town continue to take my part and do my and country. duty as leader. We respect the On Monday 31st Senator Andrew constitutional verdict of the people, Conroy came to see my father on what although in actual results a minority of he called a “vital point”. He had come electors are in charge of the to persuade my father not to retire government of the country. from politics. If he retired it would “Whatever the ultimate effects of this mean the complete break-up, and the anomalous position may be for South end for all time, of the United Party. Africa, let us minimise the possible Conroy must have been eloquent and evil and do our best to win it to insistent, and this, combined with the ultimate good. I know many of you fact that it was Union Day, turned the have me in your thoughts at this time – tide. Next day he announced that he I am now an old man, after fifty years’ hard labour for the advance of South honour, he said: “It was well that this Africa. If there is blame for the present Commonwealth aspect should be failure, let it be mine, as no doubt the specially emphasised, as a large heavy punishment will be. I can take number of Dominion students have it.” received and are receiving their highest academic training at the two Another factor which swayed my old British Universities. This recog- father was the fact that the majority of nition therefore comes to the whole the electorate were still behind him, Commonwealth. I am naturally very even though be had a minority in the proud and grateful for this high House. Of the million people who had honour,” adding: “What I specially voted, a hundred thousand more had appreciate is the great good will voted for the United Party than for the behind it which is shown by the Nationalists, a majority of about 20 nomination having been unanimous.” per cent. We were thus in the anomalous position of being ruled by Three days after his talk with Conroy what was very definitely a minority he flew to England, to his installation government. at Cambridge. Here he told the students: “... My view of the present In January, 1948, my father had been situation is much influenced by the nominated to the office of Chancellor thought that our perspective of the of the University of Cambridge made immediate future is too much influ- vacant by the death of Lord Baldwin. enced by the two world wars, which Appreciating this very touching are but the most prominent feature of temptation to the would-be something deeper moving in our age. aggressor...” We do not realise that we are in fact Die Burger, a Nationalist newspaper, passing through one of the great approved of the speech. “We may secular revolutions of history, and that differ from him on many issues,” it deeper forces are at work which – war said, “but the honour which he has or no war – may completely reshape won for the Afrikaner does not leave our world, and are already in fact us untouched. The thought expressed transforming our human scene... War by General Smuts could in essence is only an incident of this secular have come from Dr. Malan.” That was change... The fact, however, is that all the highest compliment possible. the Great Powers are anxious to avoid war. None of them are in a position to During this visit, which lasted little fight another great war...” He referred over a week, he received a Doctorate to the “aggressive diplomacy” of those of Law from Leyden University, and “East of the Curtain” and warned of then returned home to his land of the danger of this: “... unpreparedness taunts. accentuates this danger. Pacifism, disarmament, unpreparedness, act as direct incentives to this form of aggression. They afford a great 86 : TRANSFORMATION tion of the loan my father described as a disgrace, as it would not help in the JUST what the name of my father development of the country and would meant to South Africa became evident merely gain the Government within the first few days of his eclipse. temporary respite. Overnight, literally, two hundred million pounds, some of it “funk” We were moving into a dark period of money, but most of it sound invest- totalitarian politics. Gone was the fine ment, left the country, and we who a national spirit of co-operation; gone week before had been the most the feeling of tolerance; gone the flourishing country in the world now esprit de corps in our Army. became one of the poorer, struggling General van Ryneveld reached the ones. The efforts of the Minister of retiring age. General Poole, his Economic Affairs, Eric Louw, to keep obvious successor, was sent off to down the cost structure were a failure, Berlin on a flimsy political pretext. and Lucky Havenga’s Department of General Len Beyers, the new Chief of Finance struggled to keep afloat and the General Staff, soon resigned. drew heavily on my father’s Throughout the Civil Services biling- £80,000,000 gold loan to Britain, ualism came before efficiency. The which they swiftly exhausted, before traitors Leibrandt and Holm, who being compelled to clamp down a would have been hanged but for the rigorous control on imports from clemency of my father, were pardoned England and America. The exploita- and released, and much was made of Government felt moved to appoint Mr. them. Charles te Water, Hertzog’s unsuc- cessful first choice as locally-born There were to be Grievances Commis- Governor-General, as a “roving sions to help the “poor people” who Ambassador” of goodwill abroad. It had been “victimised” or “unjustly” had little effect. interned or dismissed by my father during the war. They were reinstated These disasters were bad enough in without loss of seniority. It happened themselves, but towards the close of in the Railways and Police. It the year still sadder and more shaking happened everywhere. It was the old events were to occur. story of 1924 of pals helping pals. On the 10th of October, after an illness “South Africa does not deserve a of only a few hours, my brother Japie Government like the present one,” my died suddenly of an acute attack of father said, “a Government whose cerebral meningitis. We had not even policies are leading to constriction and been aware that he was ill. The first ultimately to depression. South Africa news we got was at midnight when I has behaved too grandly, too beauti- was knocked up and told that my fully, in the years behind us to deserve brother had died suddenly at Welge- that fate, to have that sentence dacht Mine. I had to break this terrible inflicted upon it. news to my father. He seemed In the eyes of the overseas world our incredulous. But it was true, and it was stock had fallen so low that the a staggering blow to him, for Japie was the brilliant one of the family and Am I the one to complain of what I, our cornerstone. The event aged my too, personally have lost? I who buried father and made him work harder than my great friend, Louis Botha, at a ever. moment of South Africa’s greatest need, and had with my poor strength Barely seven weeks later came the to continue his work. I, who now lose death of the industrial giant, and friend my right hand who, I had fondly of my father’s, Dr. H.J. van der Bijl. hoped, would have continued my Two days later, on the 3rd of work, if he had been spared... The December, followed the still greater sense of what South Africa has lost in blow of the death of Mr. J.H. Jan Hofmeyr remains almost more Hofmeyr. “Within two days of each than one can bear. Once more my other these two highly gifted sons of thoughts revert to what I personally South Africa have left us,” my father owe him throughout those years of the mourned. “Happy young country great struggle in the Second World which could, within a few years of War... During my frequent absences he each other, produce two such brilliant added my heavy burdens in the sons! Unhappy country which could, Cabinet to his own, and carried them within a couple of days of each other, all with ability and distinction, with lose both of them!” even a gay and buoyant spirit... Speaking at Hofmeyr’s funeral he said: Hofmeyr was gone, his ablest Minister and hardest worker. It would mean renewed hard work. That work would prepared to concede them more than devolve largely upon my father’s three. Dr. Malan did this because he shoulders. His ex-Cabinet colleagues felt certain the majority of the seats were not men of private means and all would be Nationalist. It was politics at were desperately struggling to re- its lowest ebb. So far from the Union establish themselves in their former annexing South-West Africa, my occupations. They could spare little father said, it appeared as though the time to help with politics. reverse had occurred. In August the Ossewa Brandwag had My father declared at a fete that he joined hands with Mr. Havenga, could not “sit still and keep quiet” Leader of the Afrikaner Party. They when he saw his country “being run on had little in common. Dr. van the rocks ... If I had a voice of thunder, Rensburg continued to live on his I would speak out in these last years of island in the Vaal River. But it was a my life when so much of what we sign that all the old elements were have built up in these last fifty years is coming together again. being thrown away”. Meanwhile Dr. Malan with his Towards the end of the year he Government of unscrupulous men had reviewed world affairs on the B.B.C. not been idle. To improve his majority Third Programme in what he called in the House he had promised South- “The Changing World Picture”. I West Africa six seats in our Assembly, quote briefly: where formerly my father had not been ... In 1945 the second world war came Occupying Power to the Elbe, and to an end, both in the west and east. enabled her to place much of helpless Simultaneously the San Francisco eastern and central Europe behind her Conference drafted the Charter of the Iron Curtain... United Nations. Could any happier As against the phenomenal and conjunction of events have been menacing rise of Russia we must, conceived? To a world that had passed however, now place the even more through its greatest tragedy the Charter spectacular rise of North America to a looked like the rainbow in the sky no-less unprecedented position as a after the great deluge. And yet it did great world power. The U.S.A. is the not take long before disappointment answer of history to the U.S.S.R. But and disillusion once more clouded that that is not the whole story. For prospect... Even before the San Russian communism is already Francisco Conference the mistaken showing signs of a reaction against assumption that Russia would play and itself. It is a disease which creates its could be trusted to be co-operative own anti-bodies. The menace of among the other Great Powers had led communism, both as a Great Power to another serious mistake. In a spirit and as a political creed, is already of trust, and to induce her to make her beginning to rouse the west as nothing maximum effort for ending the war, else could have done. And who knows Russia was accorded an exaggerated what is going on among the satellites role, which carried her as an behind the Curtain or in Russia itself? Tito’s case is a flash of light behind partition of Germany would be a fatal the dark Curtain... blot on this picture of unity which is unfolding. In Europe a no-less spectacular change is taking place, which fits into the It was not only the security motive pattern of the American change. Gone which was helping to bring Europe also are the days of President Wilson’s together after the last war. The self-determination of peoples, which economic motive was equally urgent. became a disruptive force in Europe A motley collection of European states and led to its breaking up into many – every one of which had been brought national units, and to changes which, to the brink of economic collapse by through the new Austria, Czechoslo- war damage and exhaustion, and still vakia, and Poland, marked out the separated by the old pre-war trade route which led to the second world barriers, to which war had added new war. Now at last Europe is once more barriers – was of course an impossible resuming the historic movement to set-up from the point of view of greater unity, instead of further economic recovery. A new set-up had disruption. Both European security become necessary. Small tentative and European economic prosperity are approaches through the Benelux dependent on closer European unity. proposals, followed by the Brussels That lesson has now at last been burnt Pact, in which France and Britain into the consciousness of Europe. joined Benelux, have swiftly led, From this point of view, the possible through the Marshall Aid Plan, to the new Organisation for European Churchill, has been the foremost Economic Co-operation. Here again advocate. That movement aims at a was the insight of a great statesman, more ambitious and enduring union of backed up by the generosity of a great European democracies, which in the people. The inspired war-time gesture long run will build up a United of Lend-Lease Aid has been followed Europe, or United States of Europe, by the still more impressive peace- which will form a powerful middle time gesture of Marshall Aid, and the bloc of Powers between the two Great O.E.E.C. is in being and already in full Powers of the U.S.A. and the operation. Nothing finer has been done U.S.S.R.. . . in the history of human solidarity. It ... The success of the Council of covers western and southern. Europe, Europe will take time. Meanwhile with the unfortunate exception of European security has to be safe- Spain. The fundamental idea was that guarded. And so a third organisation if the European democracies agreed to has been decided upon under the combine in a scheme of mutual self- Atlantic Pact. Under this great instru- help, the United States of America ment North America joins with the would supplement their financial west European democracies in a needs from its resources... regional pact of mutual self-defence. It Independently of this there is another – is now in force and the details are a political unity movement, of which being worked out by the military staffs the world’s grand old man, Winston of the Atlantic Powers. This is the largest and farthest step yet taken forgotten continent and the reserve towards a peaceful world. With area of this globe, with its vast American power and defence resourc- resources and inexplicable backward- es behind it, stricken Europe can now ness, will thus also come into the total proceed to build up her security human picture, and make its contri- system and render any gamble on bution towards its own and world aggression unpayable for the future. progress. Mankind may at last reap the fruits of its immense labours and ... There remain other large issues on suffering during which I have not touched. There is the . this era of history immense problem of Asia, from which through which we are passing, and the European is being extruded and World Power may pass to a state of into which communism is marching. It more stable equilibrium. is a bleak and grim prospect which one In South Africa a marked deterioration can only contemplate with grave had occurred in the feelings between anxiety. It is all still wrapped in black and white. This was partly due darkness... to the fact that the moderate Native ... The Truman initiative in promoting elements had now decided to withdraw development of backward areas is their co-operation from the Govern- another grand insight, like the ment and partly because subversive Marshall Plan, and may help to lift the propagandists saw the moment ripe to food and raw materials problem for press their advantage. mankind on to a new plane. Africa, the In Durban early in 1949 there was a a white English girl. The case was severe riot between Zulus and Indians further bungled by the vacillating and in which over a hundred lives were belated action of the British authori- lost. This was no reflection on the ties. Dr. Malan lost no time in white man, for it was an indication expressing his frank disapproval of the merely of the measure of anger of the marriage or its probable repercussions natives at their exploitation by the on feeling in the subcontinent. unscrupulous Indian merchants. Very Southern Rhodesia did likewise. similar rioting was later to take place This incident also served to draw in Newlands in Johannesburg, and attention anew to the question of the though it was on a smaller scale, it had Protectorates, the Nationalists being the same basic causes. Once more quick to point out that Britain was units of the police and army had to be blundering so badly that the time had called out. These riots served to show come for us to assume control of these how near the surface was the old territories. Dr. Malan even talked of savagery of the Bantu and how taking our case to the Privy Council. unstable the vast volcano of South My father did not think the time Africa. propitious and said he hoped we Early in the year South African would not press our claims, for “a feelings were outraged at the marriage good case can be destroyed by urging of Seretse Khama, paramount chief of it at the wrong time”. the Bamangwato of Bechuanaland, to At the beginning of the Session Dr. concept is tampered with or destroyed Malan had a “black-out” while and it is still proposed to continue the speaking and stood distressed and Commonwealth system, there would fumbling for words. It was an have to be a new basis of agreement embarrassing moment for all in the between the member States with a House and the Prime Minister’s written constitution on the lines of the colleagues seemed paralysed by League of Nations or the organisation events. My father was the first to act, of the United Nations,” he said. “It is going up and talking to the distressed assumed that neither India nor any of doctor, and at the same time the members of the Commonwealth beckoning the ex-Minister of Health, would favour such a plan. What India Dr. Gluckman, to come and take a appears to wish is therefore not professional look at him. compatible with the Commonwealth and cannot be achieved in terms of it.” The Prime Ministers’ Conference in London in April was attended by Dr. He went on to warn: “Great care Malan, and here it was decided to should be taken not to empty the admit India as an independent republic concept of the Commonwealth of all into the Commonwealth group. My substance and meaning and not to father declared that this “violated whittle it away until nothing but the every concept of the Commonwealth... word remained with no real meaning You are either in the Commonwealth or significance. Far better would it be or out of it. If the Commonwealth to drop it altogether...” He said further: “Despite the general My father flew to Cambridge in June chorus of approval wherewith the to attend the graduation ceremony. It declaration on the Commonwealth was a very brief visit. To a Press Prime Ministers’ Conference on India Conference he said: “Something is has been received, I cannot forbear happening in the East. We are expressing my misgivings about the retreating there. The only little people way wherein India’s claim to full who have stood up to it are the Dutch. membership of the Commonwealth They have done a wonderful thing in despite its being an independent Indonesia.” republic has been dealt with. If only we had had courage in Egypt “The only satisfactory feature about and India. the declaration is that although the link The new Citizenship Bills which were of allegiance to the King is scrapped introduced in June caused a storm of for India, it is left intact for other protest. The Bills proposed, in place of members of the Commonwealth.” the existing system under which The principle which it had introduced British citizens qualified after two was revolutionary and if applied to years’ residence, to substitute a other cases “may yet come to affect waiting period of five years. They profoundly the future of the Common- were patently anti-British measures. wealth”. The country he had in mind My father attacked them with vigour. was South Africa. “Men and women who came to this country came under the impression – and perhaps it was more than an thank him for his services during the impression – that they would be South war. This brusque termination caused African citizens and that they would a storm of protest from more civil not be foreigners. We have in a sense men. broken faith with all those immigrants Shortly afterwards my father who joined us... All I can say is to enunciated a nine-point charter far the repeat that our Party, when it comes United Party: “... The United Party back into favour, will see that these stands by the constitution as framed injustices are done away with.” under the Act of Union; a united South My father had repeatedly declared that African nation; freedom and dignity of he would repeal the harmful the individual; European leadership legislation enacted by “this blight that with justice; the Western way of life; has come over South Africa – this housing, employment and security for Broederbond Government”. the breadwinner and his family; improved standards of living through In October the Minister of Defence the efficient development of all the suddenly noticed that my father was nation’s resources; a true South still, technically, Commander-in-Chief African culture, and the restoration of of the South African forces. It had for confidence in the Union .... us at home been a standing joke that this was still so. The Minister wrote Having thrown out this new challenge, my father a letter on October 7 termi- he flung himself with renewed energy nating his appointment but omitting to into the fray. He had been doing far too much as the spearhead of the so- it caused him to walk with a decided called action committee, but now he limp. redoubled his efforts. He was ageing But he never complained and never rapidly, and I personally felt that the faltered. His even temper and end was approaching. It filled me with cheerfulness never varied. indignation that an old man should be so mercilessly worked. In November, 1949, he unwisely flew to London to attend a dinner in honour In one of his walks from Pretoria to of Dr. Weizmann’s seventy-fifth Irene across the hills he had stubbed birthday. I thought his attendance his toe, and this for some time had unnecessary and told him so. But he been giving him trouble, often being was determined to go. quite painful. It caused him to walk with his foot in an unusual position On Dingaan’s Day, the 16th of and this put a strain on his ankle. December, my father was one of the speakers at the unveiling of the Towards the end of the year he massive £350,000 Voortrekker developed an acute undiagnosed pain Monument at Pretoria, where a crowd in his left hip which did not respond to of 400,000 people were gathered to treatment. The correct treatment would pay homage to these pioneers. The have been rest, but this he refused. It other speakers dwelt sentimentally on was at times extremely painful, and the feats of the past. My father, while disturbed his nights. As time went on praising the achievements of the hardy trekkers, said that one must look to the River near our shooting camp in future and not blindly follow the Portuguese East Africa. Voortrekkers, for the history of the And so the year drew to a close with Great Trek held many examples of the depressing prospect that the squabblings and bickerings, even in Government was no nearer ejectment the face of danger and sorrow. “Let us than it had been eighteen months rather be a new order of happy before. Trekkers,” he said. For my father, who had for fifty years My father knew his Great Trek as well painstakingly built up greatness and as anybody, and he admired especially happiness and a co-operative spirit in the wonderful record of the Louis the Union, it was more than depressing Trichardt party who mostly to see his life’s work being so swiftly succumbed to malaria in the and unscrupulously torn asunder. Zoutpansberg. Many were the pleasant holidays he spent in the mountains trying to trace the path followed by Trichardt in his remarkable crossing of the great Strydpoort range. He was also much interested in trying to find some relics of the van Rensburg party who were murdered on the Limpopo 87 : THE END THERE remains little to recount. Many towns were eager to show their affec- tion on the occasion of my father’s eightieth birthday and an exacting programme had been planned. There were to be huge public functions, dinners, speeches and free- doms. He would have had to fly backwards and forwards across the country to fit it all in. At Stellenbosch on 21st April he said at his birthday celebrations: “Safe- guard your honour, your integrity, your tolerance, your faith, and look to the future... I do not look to the past, but to the future, and my advice to young South Africans is also – Look His beard never failed to intrigue his to the future!” grandchildren. With Sibella Clark – 1944 Johannesburg., where he had first established himself as a barrister, appropriately, with its massive popula- tion, gave him the biggest welcome. Three hundred thousand people cheer- ed him as he drove smilingly down their ranks. At the City Hall he inspected a guard of honour of ex- soldiers, limping perceptibly as he walked straight-backed down the long line. It was a happy day for him. But he was far from well. Many people remarked on his pale appear- ance. The Mayor presented the Freedom of the City in the Council Room. My father replied in a moving little speech which had a distinct note of pathos. It was as if he had suddenly realised that he had grown old and was handing over. It filled me with sadness. “I have General Smuts on his 80th Birthday at Irene. He was looking thin and far from well. served to the best of my ability, with what strength God gave me,” he said At the banquet in the evening a humbly. recorded tribute from Mr. Churchill was played: “... I can hardly recall any occasion where we did not reach the same conclusions by simultaneous and independent travail of thought. And now here we have him in our midst, an august octogenarian. Here is the man who raised the name of South Africa in peace and war to the highest rank of respect among the freedom-loving nations of the world. Let us pray that this may not be swept or cast away in the demoralisation which so often follows the greatest human triumphs. Such a melancholy stroke will certainly not fall on South Africa if Smuts’s life and strength are prolong- ed, and that is why we rejoice in his presence here tonight, and why I call upon you to drink his health and wish him from the bottom of all our hearts many, many happy returns of the day.”

He loved to play with children. Grandchildren Sibella, Richard and Petronella Clark. My father took the opportunity here of This was the first and last big illness once more pleading for Germany to be of his life. treated as an equal by the West. If we I have mentioned recent ailments of did this it “may also lead to that the ankle and hip, but this affliction of equilibrium of world power which will the heart was the last thing we in the long run be the real safeguard of expected. It was only after he was world peace and security”. taken ill that we of the family learned It was his last earnest plea for a more that there had been warning signs rational attitude to what lie considered during the parliamentary session. the very heart of the European In July, 1949, my father accompanied problem. us on one of our trips into Portuguese Pretoria next evening gave him a East Africa, and I was distressed on birthday banquet, and a few days after this occasion to see how his walking he was due to fly down to Durban for and climbing powers had deteriorated. a similar function, and thereafter he It came as a very rude shock to me to was to leave for Cambridge to attend a find, for example, that we had to pause graduation ceremony. But the prog- twice while ascending a low steep ramme never got beyond Pretoria, for escarpment, a climb he would not have on Saturday night, three days after his noticed a year before. birthday, he was suddenly stricken But now, in the 1950 parliamentary down with a coronary thrombosis. session, he wrote casually in his letters to us of a tightness about his chest, caught up with him. The end had been which he somehow associated with his hastened by the incredible volume of throat. He said it sometimes made him work lie had taken upon himself over uncomfortable. Later he experienced the last few years. The aeroplane was acute pains with this constriction, as much the cause of his downfall as pains not only of the chest but of the anything, for it enabled him to dash arms as well. Every symptom pointed hither and thither without respite. And to heart trouble, yet the almost even in themselves, these flights were infallible cardiograph failed to reveal exacting for a man of eighty. any trouble in this region. On Sunday morning 28th May the I must here add that we in the doctors put him to bed, though he still Transvaal knew nothing of these insisted on walking about in his agony extremely painful attacks. My father for some hours. After that he was on made light of them, even though each oxygen and drugs for a month and in prostrated him in agony for hours. His almost constant delirium. In addition close friends in the Cape, thinking we to the extensive area of the heart knew all about it, did not pass on the affected by the thrombosis, he had also information. his painful hip and swollen ankle. Later, despite the most superb doctor- And so, with unbelievable fortitude, ing and nursing and the use of all the both mental and physical, he attended most modern drugs, he also developed to his normal tasks in Parliament and pneumonia, and on three occasions elsewhere. But the years had at last fragments of clots breaking away We were apprehensive too of the caused severe pulmonary embolisms effect the knowledge of his crippling (clots on the lungs). illness might have in political circles. The South-West African general elec- For a man of his age, or any age for tions were at that time about to take that matter, to survive such a series of place. mortal afflictions was almost unknown in our medical history. But this hardy We told him that he had merely had a old campaigner, with his superb bad bout of pneumonia. It would have constitution did, and after seven been a great unkindness to shake his weeks, thin and haggard, he was once faith in his indomitable old heart. more sitting up and going about in a He was utterly exhausted. All his wheel chair. Later he moved about reserves were used up, and he was too without the aid of a stick and old to build them up again. At frequent sometimes he was taken into the intervals he continued having severe countryside on long drives. heart attacks without warning, each of He did not know the nature of his which was nearly the finish. We knew illness, and we asked that it should not that sooner or later the final one would appear in the press, for he still insisted occur. on reading the papers and listening to We allowed him to get up and move the radio news. about as we found that he got very depressed lying in bed and that his vitality fluctuated with his mood. As limit. It is a fateful prospect, not only there plainly appeared no chance of for the Far East, but for Europe and staging a recovery we all agreed that the whole world. I sometimes think we his remaining days should be made as do not realise the significance of this pleasant as possible and that he should moment in world history. The only be allowed every freedom. We have cheerful possibility is that she may never regretted this decision. leave the West alone and give it an opportunity to integrate and In a way I think my father would have consolidate itself an a scale which will welcomed the end, rather than linger be worthy of the opportunity.” on as an invalid. He was much He was also much worried lest we depressed at the Korean affair and the should be misled by this Russian- trend of international events. In March sponsored diversion in Korea and he had written to Leo Amery: concentrate on this distant sideline to “Personally I expect very little real the detriment of the real focal point of response from Russia. Russia is on the the danger, which was Europe. It march unopposed to virtual occupation would be absolutely fatal to weaken of the Far East, which other European our already weak position in Europe Powers have evacuated. This is a by waging a major war in the Far East. conjunction of circumstances which has given her a unique opportunity of He was also distressed to find that he which she will avail herself to the could no longer go for walks. But even this disability he said he hoped to overcome by again taking to horse- take his boots off and to help him to back riding. bed. He was constantly asking to have a While they were busy he suddenly look at the bushveld farm and no slumped forward. The time was 7.40 excuse would satisfy him. So we took p.m. There were no dramatic last him there and back one Monday, and words. he rejoiced in the warm sunshine and Louis is a doctor and did all that was the sight of the green wheat fields. possible. But it was beyond mortal On Sunday the 10th of September he powers. A clot had gone to his brain. seemed well and cheerful, and I took The Oubaas had climbed his last Great some pleasant photographs of him on Mountain. the lawn with the grandchildren. “A light has gone out from the world Next evening, without warning the end of free men,” Mr. Attlee aptly came. He had been remarkably well all remarked. day and had gone for two long drives. At dinner that evening he sat at the And so from our scene passed this head of the table as usual and had a legendary figure, the last link with so good meal. After the meal he rose much of our past history – the last from the table and walked to his member of Kruger’s Government; the bedroom and sat on his bedside chair last senior general of the Boer War; for my two sisters Sylma and Louis to the last Minister of the old Transvaal Colonial Government; the last member anyone who lived in any country of the National Convention; the last, during his epoch.” but one, of the Peace of Versailles; the The Government offered a State last member of the War Cabinet of the funeral. We declined: no Nationalist First World War – and almost the last should have the honour of carrying of an age of really great men. this great man to his last rest. Instead a In a cable of sympathy to my mother deeply impressive military funeral the King said: “In peace or in war his procession took place in Pretoria. Even counsel and his friendship were of in a moment of sorrow I could not inestimable value both to my father help being moved to reflection as the and to myself, while the force of his coffin, with my mother’s wreath of intellect has enriched the wisdom of Cape heath, moved past the statue of the whole human race.” President Kruger at the railway station before it started on its last train Winston Churchill wrote to my journey. mother: “There must be comfort in the proofs of admiration and gratitude that By far the biggest crowd Johannesburg have been evoked all over the world had ever seen turned out to pay its last for a warrior-statesman and philoso- respects and stand silently as the pher who was probably more fitted to hearse wound its way to the Braam- guide struggling and blundering fontein Crematorium. humanity through its sufferings and perils towards a better day, than It was the end of a long journey. But what a glorious journey. What a wonderful legacy for a young country.

General Smuts with granddaughter Mary Smuts at Irene the day before his death. This was the last photograph taken of him. BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY BORN: 14th May, 1870, on the farm Boplaas at Riebeeck West, Cape. SCHOOL: 1882-1888 at Riebeeck West, Cape. UNIVERSITY: 1889-1891 Stellenbosch University College. Graduated B.A. in Science and Literature. 1892-1894 Cambridge University (Ebden Scholarship). Double First Law Tripos. ” WROTE “WALT WHITMAN: A STUDY IN THE EVOLUTION OF PERSONALITY : 1895- 1896. PRACTISED AS LAWYER: 1903 - 1906 (Cape Town and Johannesburg). MARRIED: 1897 – Sybella Margaretha Krige. STATE ATTORNEY: (South African Republic): 1898-1900. BOER GENERAL: 1901-1902 (Command Boer Forces in Cape). PRACTISED AS LAWYER: I903-1906 (Pretoria). MINISTER OF INTERIOR: (Colonial Secretary) (Transvaal Colony 1907-1909). MINISTER OF EDUCATION: (Transvaal Colony 1907-1909). NATIONAL CONVENTION: 1909-1910. Transvaal delegate and Chief drafter of Constitution of Union of South Africa. MINISTER OF MINES: Union of South Africa 1910-1915 MINISTER OF INTERIOR: Union of South Africa 1910-1915 MINISTER OF DEFENCE: Union of South Africa 1910-1915 MINISTER OF DEFENCE: Union of South Africa 1915-1919 MINISTER OF FINANCE: Union of South Africa 1915-1919 GERMAN SOUTH-WEST AFRICAN CAMPAIGN: (Major-General –1914): 1915 GERMAN EAST AFRICAN CAMPAIGN: (Lieut.-General 10.02.1916): 1916-1917 General Officer Commanding all Forces. WAR CABINET: (Great Britain): 1917-1918 SIGNED PEACE OF VERSAILLES: 1919. Plenipotentiary for South Africa. PRIME MINISTER: 1919-1924 MINISTER OF DEFENCE: 1919-1924 MINISTER OF NATIVE AFFAIRS: 1919-1924 LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: 1924-1933 WROTE “HOLISM AND EVOLUTION”: 1924 PRESIDENT BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE: 1931 DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: 1933-1939 MINISTER OF JUSTICE: 1933-1939 PRIME MINISTER: 1939-1948 MINISTER OF DEFENCE: 1939-1948 MINISTER OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS: 1939-1948 COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF SOUTH AFRICAN AND RHODESIAN FORCES: Second World War: 1940-1945 FIELD MARSHAL: From 24.05.1941 LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: 1948-1950 DIED: 11th September, 1950 (80 years), on the farm Doornkloof, Irene. HONOURS-AWARDS-DECORATIONS:

COMMONWEALTH APPOINTMENTS AND DECORATIONS: Privy Councillor Efficiency Decoration Order of Merit King’s Counsel Companion of Honour Fellow of the Royal Society Dekoratie voor trouwe Dienst Bencher of the Middle Temple STARS AND MEDALS-COMMONWEALTH AND SOUTH AFRICAN: Boer War Medal Africa Star 1914/15 Star Italy Star Victory Medal France and Germany Star General Service Medal Defence Medal King George V’s Jubilee Medal War Medal King George VI’s Coronation Medal Africa Service Medal FOREIGN DECORATIONS AND MEDALS: Order of Merit (U.S.A.) Service Medal (Mediterranean Area) U.S.A. Order of the Tower and Sword for Valour, Loyalty and Merit (Portugal) Grootkruis van die Orde van de Nederlandsche Leeuw (Netherlands) Grand Cordon of the Order of Mohamed Ali (Egypt) Grand Cross of the Royal Order of the Saviour (Greece) Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold (Belgium) Croix de Guerre (Belgium) Legion d’Honneur Croix de Commandeur (France) La Grand Croix de L’Ordre de L’Etoile Africaine (Belgium) King Christian X Frihedsmedaille (Denmark) Ariston Andrias (Greece) Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts WoodrowWilson Peace Medal FREEMAN OF THE CITIES OF: London, 1917 York, 1931 Manchester, 1917 Dundee, 1934 Edinburgh, 1917 Aberdeen, 1942 Glasgow, 1917 Birmingham, 1944 Bath, 1917 Malmesbury, 1945 Cardiff, 1917 Southampton, 1945 Bristol, 1917 Athens, 1947 Sheffield, 1917 Ithaca, 1947 Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1918 Johannesburg, 1950 HONORARY DEGREES: LL.D. University of Cape of Good Hope, 1915 LL.D. University of South Africa, 1915 LL.D. Cambridge University, 1917 LL.D. Edinburgh University, 1917 F.R.C.P. Edinburgh LL.D. Glasgow University, 1917 LL.D. University of Wales, 1917 LL.D. Dublin University, 1917 LL.D. Manchester University, 1917 D.C.L. Durham University, 1918 LL.D. Cardiff- University, 1921 D.C.L. Oxford University, 1929 LL.D. Witwatersrand University, 1921 LL.D. McGill University, Montreal, 1930 LL.D. Toronto University, 1930 LL.D. Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, 1930 LL.D. Columbia University, New York, 1930 D.Litt. University of Pretoria, 1930 D.Sc. University of Cape Town, 1931 Ph.D. University of Stellenbosch, 1931 D.Sc. London University, 1931 LL.D. Sheffield University, 1931 LL.D. St. Andrews, 1934 LL.D. University of Utrecht, 1936 PPh.D. Berkeley University, California, 1945 LL.D. Leyden University, 1946 F.R.C.O.G. (England), 1947 F.R.C.P. (London), 1948 PPh.D. Athens. MISCELLANEOUS HONOURS: Chancellor. University of Cambridge Clothworkers’ Company, 1917 Bencher Middle Temple, June, 1947 Trinity Brethren, September, 1918 Sword of Honour, Pretoria, October, 1919 Skinners’ Company, 1929 Great Seal of the State of Massachusetts, January, 1930 President of the S.A. Association for the Advancement of Science, 1925 (Oudtshoorn) President of the British Association (Centenary Meeting London and York), 1931 Rector of St. Andrews, Scotland, 1931/4 Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (Great Britain) Hon. Fellow Christ’s College, Cambridge. SUMMARY PRIME MINISTER: for 14 years. DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Officially for 5 years: unofficially for 9 years. MINISTER: for 17 years, during which he held portfolios of Education, Interior, Mines, Defence, Finance, Native Affairs, Justice and External Affairs. LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: for 10 years. MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT: for 45 years, of which 41 years were since Union. FREEMAN: of 18 Cities. HONORARY DEGREES: from 29 Universities. VERY MANY COMMONWEALTH AND FOREIGN DECORATIONS, APPOINTMENTS AND MEDALS. FIELD MARSHAL. ORDER OF MERIT. BIBLIOGRAPHY Amery, L. S., The Times History of the War in South Africa. London. S. Low, Marstom & Co., Ltd, 1900-1909(7 vols.). Armstrong, H. C., Grey Steel. London. A. Barker, Ltd., 1937. Baker, Herbert, Cecil Rhodes. London. Oxford University Press, 1934. Baker, Sir Herbert, Architecture and Personalities. Country Life, 1944. Baker, R. S., Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement. N.Y. Doubleday, Page & Cu., 1922. Baker, R. S., Woodrow Wilson. Life and Letters. N.Y. Doubleday, Page & Co., 1927- 39. Baruch, Bernard, The Making of the Reparation and Economic Sections of the Treaty. N.Y. and London. Harper & Bros., 1920. Birkby, Karl, Springbok Victory. Libertas Publications, 1941. Blackwell, Leslie, African Occasions. Bradley, General Omar, A Soldier’s Story. Eyre & Spottiswode, 1952. Brand, Hon. R.H., The Union of South Africa. Oxford. The Clarendon Press, 1909. Brett, B.L.W., Makers of South Africa. Nelson & Co., 1944. Butler, Sir in., From Naboth’s Vineyard. Chilvers, Hedley A., Out of the Crucible. London. Cassell & Co., Ltd., 1929. Churchill, Winston S., The World Crisis, 1911-18. London. T. Butterworth, Ltd., 1931. Churchill, Winston S., The Unrelenting Struggle. Cassell & Co., 1948 Churchill, Winston S., Their Finest Hour. Cassell & Co., 1950. Churchill, Winston S., The Hinge of Fate. Cassell & Co., 1951. Collyer, Brig. Gen., The South Africans with General Smuts in German East Africa. Pretoria. Government Printer, 1939. Colvin, Ian. The Life of Jameson. London. E. Arnold & Co., 1922. Crafford, F.S., Jan Smuts. Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1944. Crowe, Brig. Gen. J.H.V., General Smuts’ Campaign in East Africa. John Murray, 1918. Cunningham, Admiral of the Fleet, Viscount, Sailor’s Odyssey Hutchinson, 1951. Engelenburg, Dr. F.V., General Louis Botha, Pretoria. J.L. van Schaik, 1938. Fitzpatrick, J. P., The Transvaal from Within. Heinemann & Co., 1899. Fort, G. Seymour, Dr. Jameson. London. Hurst & Blackett, Ltd., 1918. Fry, A. Ruth, Emily Hobhouse. London. J. Cape, 1929. Garvin, J.L., The Life of Joseph Chamberlain. London. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1931- 32. Graumann, Sir Harry, Rand Riches and South Africa. Cape Town. Juta & Co., Ltd., 1935. de Guingand, Sir Francis, Operation Victory. Hodder & Stoughton, 1947. Harris, Marshal of the R.A.F., Sir Arthur, Bomber Offensive. Collins Sc Co., 1947 Hofmeyr, J.H., Het Leven van J.H. Hofmeyer. Hofmeyr, J.H., South Africa. London. E. Benn, Ltd., 1931. Juta, Marjorie, The Pace of the Ox. London. Constable & Co., Ltd., 1937. Keynes, J.M., A Revision of the Treaty. Macmillan & Co., 1922. Keynes, J.M., The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Macmillan & Co., 1920. Kolbe, Monsignor, A Catholic View of Holism. N.Y. The Macmillan Co., 1928. Kraus, Rene, Old Master. E. P. Dutton & Co., 1944. Kruger, Paul, The Memoirs of Paul Kruger. N.Y. Century Co., 1902. Lansing, R., The Big Four and Others at the Peace Conference. Boston & N.Y. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1921. Laurence, Sir Perceval, The Life of John Xavier Merriman. London. Constable & Co., Ltd., 1930. Levi, N., Jan Smuts. London. Longmans, Green & Co., 1917. Lloyd George, D., War Memoirs of David Lloyd George. London. I. Nicholson & Watson, 1933-36. Lucas, Sir Charles P., The Empire at War. London. H. Milford, 1921-26. Macaulay, N., Mandates. London. Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1937 Macdonald, J. Ramsay, What I Saw in South Africa. London. “The Echo”, 1902. Mackenzie and Stead, South Africa, Its History, Heroes, and Wars. Chicago, Philadelphia. Monarch Book Co., 1899. Marcossan, I.F., An African Adventure. John Lane & Co., 1921. Marriott, Sir John, The Evolution of the British Empire, etc. London. Nicholson, 1939. Methuen, A.M.S., Peace or War in South Africa. London. Methuen & Co., 1901. Miller, D.H., The Drafting of the Covenant. N.Y., London. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928. Millin, S.G., The South Africans. London. Constable & Co., Ltd. Millin, S.G., General Smuts. London. Faber & Faber, Ltd., 1936. Molteno, Sir James Tennant, South African Recollections. Methuen, 1926. Molteno, Sir James Tennant, Further South African Recollections. London. Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1926. Montgomery of Alamein, Field Marshal, Viscount, Normandy to the Baltic. Printer and Stationer Series. British Army of the Rhine, 1946. Montgomery of Alamein, Field Marshal, Viscount, El Alamein to the Sangro River. Printer and Stationer Series. British Army of the Rhine, 1946. Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field. London. Longmans, Green & Co., 1915. Morley, F., Society of Nations. Washington. The Brookings Institution, 1932. Nathan, Manfred, South Africa from Within. London. J. Murray, 1926. Nathan, Manfred, Paul Kruger, 4th ed., 1944. National Review, Smuts and the Protectorates. Neame, L.E., General Hertzog. London. Hurst & Blackett, Ltd., 1930. Nicolson, H., Peacemaking. Constable & Co., 1919. Noble, G.B., Politics and Opinions at Paris, 1919. N.Y. The Macmillan Co., 1935 Oliver, F.S., and Oliver, W.E., Anvil of War. London. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1936. Perham and Curtis, The Protectorates of South Africa. London. Oxford University Press, 1935. Phillips, Lionel, Some Reminiscences. London. Hutchinson & Co., 1924. Reed, Douglas, Disgrace Abounding. London. J. Cape, 1939. Reitz, Deneys, Commando. Faber & Faber, 1929. Reitz, Deneys, No Outspan. Faber & Faber, 1943. Reitz, Deneys, Trekking On. Faber & Faber, 1933. Repington, Col., The First World War, 1914-1918. London. Constable & Co., Ltd., 1920. Riddell, Lord, Lord Riddell’s Intimate Diary of the Peace Conference and After. London. V. Gollancz, Ltd., 1933. Robertson, Field Marshal Sir William, Soldiers and Statesmen. London. Cassell & Co., Ltd., 1926. Sauer, Dr. Hans, Ex Africa. London. Geoffrey Bles, 1937. Schreiner, Olive, An English South African’s View of the Situation. Schreiner, Olive, Thoughts on South Africa. London. T.P. Unwin, Ltd., 1923. Seymour, Charles, The Intimate Papers of Col. House. Boston & N.Y. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1926-28. Sforza, Count C., Europe and Europeans. Indianapolis & N.Y. The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1936. Simpson, J.S.M., South Africa Fights. London. Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., 1941. Smuts, J.C., A Century of Wrong. Smuts, J.C., Holism and Evolution. N.Y. The Macmillan Co., 1926. Smuts, J.C., and others, Our Changing World View. Johannesburg. University of Witwatersrand Press, 1932. Smuts, J.C., Greater South Africa. (Speeches.) Smuts, General J.C., Plans for a Better World. Hodder & Stoughton, 1942. Smuts, General J.C., Towards a Better World. World Book Co., 1944. Smuts, General J.C., Climate and Man in Africa. South African Journal of Science. October, 1932. Spender, Harold, General Botha, the Career and the Man. Boston & N.Y. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916. Stead, W.T., The Best or Worst of Empires – Which? Stead, W.T., The Review of Reviews (Jan. – Dec., 1901; Jan. – June, 1902), London. Tedder, Marshal of the R.A.F., Viscount, Air Power in War. Air Ministry Pamphlet, 1947. Toynbee, A.J., Study of History. London. Oxford University Press, 1934-39. van Hoek, K., Gesprekke met Dr. W.J. Leyds. Pretoria, 1939. von Lettow-Vorbeck, Reminiscences of Fast Africa, 1920. Walker, Eric A., A History of South Africa. London. Longmans, Green & Co., Ltd., 1928. Walton, Sir Edgar, The Inner History of the National Convention. M. Miller. Webb, H. S., The Causes of the Rebellion. Whittall, Lt.-Commander, With Botha and Smuts in Africa. London, N.Y. Cassell & Co., Ltd., 1917. Williams, Basil, Botha, Smuts and South Africa. Hodder & Stoughton, 1946. Worsfold, W.B., Lord Milner’s Work in South Africa. New York. Dutton, 1906. Young, Brett F., Marching on Tanga. London. in. Collins Sons & Co., Ltd., 1918. Young, D., Rommel. Collins & Co., 1950. INDEX The index below is as it was in the original paper book but in this e-book the page numbers have all changed and have therefore been removed. Otherwise the original index is left unchanged to display the authors choice and readers should use their program’s search facility to locate the item. Aberdeen, Cape Colony Africa, German aims in, fighting in, in First World War, Smuts speaks on Aberdeen, Scotland problems of, former civilisations of, Abyssinia, Italy conquers, repercus- native problem of, et seq.; military sions in S. Africa, S. African bombers training of natives of, and Wegener over, reconquest of Theory, Climate and Man in, Germany W. Ackermann demands back colonies in, importance of, as theatre of war, and Truman plan Active Citizen and Burgher Forces African World, on Smuts’s speech Addis Ababa Afrikaans language Christopher Addison Afrikander Bond Party, in alliance Addo Park with Rhodes, denounces Rhodes, and Adelaide South African Party Adendorff brothers Afrikanderism, revival of aggressive, and Hertzog, Botha falls foul of; gaining control of Fusion Government, Algiers of Malan Allemanspoort Agadir Incident Allenby, Viscount Air Ministry, establishment of Allesverloren Akeley, Carl Alsace-Lorraine Alamein Amariya Albany by-election Amba Alagi Albert, King of the Belgians Amery, Leo S. Alberts, Colonel Anderson, General Aleppo Anderson, Sir John Alexander, General, in Western Anglo-Boer War, First Desert, announces end of war in Africa, in Italy, German peace feelers Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, proposed revi- to, Germans surrender to sion of Alexandra, Queen Angola Alexandretta Antwerp Alexandria, mutiny of Greeks in Aosta Aosta, Duke of Asquith, H. H. (Lord Oxford and Asquith) “Apartheid” policy Hofmeyr rejects Arabs, and partition of Palestine, fight Athens Jews Athlone, Earl of Archer’s Post Aties Ardennes, Germans break through Atlantic Pact Arkoep Atomic: research, bombs, dropping of, council of U.N.O. Arnhem, airborne landing at Arnim, General von Attlee, Rt. Hon. Clement Arnold, General Auchinleck, General, Claude Aruscha Aus Asia, Communism in, See also Far Australia, Constitution of, geological East origin of Asiatic Land Amendment Act Australian troops in Boer War, in Western Desert, in Tobruk, Asiatic Representation and Land Tenure Bill Australopithecus africanus Austria, declares war on Serbia, Balmoral Smuts’s exploratory talks on peace Baltic States with, attack on, through Italy, surrender of, in 1919, reparations Baltimore, speech at from, Hitler’s annexation of Bamangwato tribe Bamboesberg Mountains Baden-Powell, General Bantu tribes Baker, R. S. Barberspan Baker, Sir Herbert, designs Groote Barberton Schuur, designs Union Buildings, designs Rhodes Memorial Bardia Baker-Carr, Brigadier-General Barlow, Arthur Baldwin, Lord (Stanley) Barnard, Lady Anne Balfour Declaration Barnato, Barney Balkan Wars Barnes, George Balkans, German victories in, Baruch, Bernard Communism in, invasion route Basil Hicks Lecture through Basutoland Basutos attack Boer troops Benelux Bavaria Bengal Bays Hill Bennington, Mr. Bayville Benoni Beaufort West Berg River Bechuanaland Berlin, air attacks on, race for, last days of Hitler in Beira Beit, Alfred Bernadotte, Count Belgian Army, in East African Berrange, General campaign Bethlehem Belgian Congo, German troops in, Beyes, General Smuts considers annexation of, Bevin, Rt. Hon. Ernest volcanoes of, Smuts visits Beyers, General Christian, in Boer Belgium, in First World War, attempt War, at Vereeniging, Speaker of to recover coast of, overrun by House, Commandant-General of Germany, Smuts in Forces, joins Rebellion, death of, Belgrave, Lord Beyers, General Len Bidault, Georges Boer War, initial Boer successes in, British take offensive in, Boer stand Biddow near Pretoria, fall of Pretoria, nearly Biferno ended at Pretoria, British strategic Bir Hacheim blunders in, guerilla phase of, et seq. British “scorched-earth” policy in, Birmingham, Smuts in carried into Cape, Conference called to Bizerta end, a testing time, reconstruction after, leaves problem in holism Blaauberg, the Boers, genetic vagaries of, racial “Black Manifesto” origins of, conflicts between British Blackshirt Movement in South Africa and, Great Trek of, and native tribes, manifesto of, consider ending war at Blackwell, Mr. Pretoria, guerilla tactics of, Bloemfontein, fall of, Gandhi organisation of commandos of, imprisoned in, National Convention hardships of, on Cape sortie, in, speech to staff officers in, native reconnoitres of, hopelessness of strike in, Party meeting at resistance of, value of war to, Bloemfontein Conference compensation paid to, seek concessions from Chamberlain, Blood River, battle of offered seats in Legislative Council, Boekenhout Spruit Milner’s distrust of, predominant in South Africa, and Rebellion, and Botany, Smuts’s interest in, curiosities participation in First World War, in of S. African gratitude of, to Smuts, Rhodesian Botha, General Louis, takes Churchill mistrust of, attitude of, to native prisoner, takes over command, falls problem, back on Pretoria, in Pretoria, Bohr, Professor Niels demoralized army of, campaign of, in E. Transvaal, Natal campaign of, Boksburg, strikers at conference with, before Peace Bon Accord Dam Conference, at Vereeniging, and Bonar Law, Rt. Hon. Arthur surrender, leads Boer deputation to England, refuses seat in Legislative Bond, the, see Afrikander Bond Council, leader of Het Volk, works for Bondelswart affair Union, his partnership with Smuts, Premier of Transvaal, appearance and Boonzaaier, Burgher character of, in England, becomes Booysens South African Premier, Hertzog and, his friendship with Smuts, forms Boshoff, Commandant L. South African Party, parliamentary Boshoff; Field-Cornet defeat of, at Imperial Conference, Boskop skull accused of being pro-British, unveils Rhodes memorial, forms new Cabinet, forced to capitulate to strikers, loyalty of, to Britain, and de la Rey, Brits and, Brand, Quentin takes action against rebels, campaign Brand, R. H. of calumny against, on work of Smuts, South-West African campaign of, left Brandfort to carry on, in Smuts’s absence, visits Braun, Eva East Africa, stands for national unity, at Peace Conference, signs peace Brazil, geological affinities of, to S. treaty, death of, at Groote Schuur, Africa unveiling monument to, mentioned Breuil, Abbé Henri Botha, Manie Briand, M. Bothaville Brink, Major-General George Bourgeois, Leon Britain, Battle Of Bouwer, Ben British, settle in South Africa, take Bovenplaats (Boplaas) over the Cape, conflicts between Boers and, Smuts’s attitude towards, wrongs Bower, Major perpetuated by, in South Africa, errors Bowesdorp in strategy in Boer War, “scorched earth” policy of, indifferent Boydell, Mr., in Coalition Cabinet reconnoitring of, Reitz’s tribute to Bradley, General Omar qualities of, dislike Hertzog, colonising system of, system of Brooke, General Alan Imperial Conferences, attitude of, to Broom, Dr. Robert native problem, Smuts on qualities of, Brussels Pact British Army, on Western Front, subordinate to French, offensive action Buchan, John for, air components of, at Budapest Passcheudaele, on Franco-Belgian frontier, withdraws at Dunkirk Buffelspan British Association for Advancement Bulfontein of Science, Centenary Meeting of, Bulgaria, in Balkan Wars, in First Smuts’s lectures to World War, surrender of British Empire, unique quality of, and “Bulge, Battle of the” Commonwealth, centralisation in Bulhock, native riot British Guiana, U.S. bases in Buller, General Sir Redvers Brits Burger, Die Brits, Koen Burger, Schalk, and Vereeniging Briston Peace Conference, at Sunnyside Broederbond, the Burghersdorp Burma Campaign Camdebo Mountains Bushiri rebellion Cameroons, Germany secures Bushmen, “living fossils” Germany demands back Bushveld, Smuts’s farm in, thorn trees Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, at, last visit to, drive to, after losing warnings of, on Chinese labour, Smuts seat gains Responsible Government from Butler, Cyril Canada, union problems in, French- Canadians of, Smuts’s lecture tour in Butler, Sir William Canadian Army, at Passchendaele, in France Caen Cape, The, on Smuts’s work in Cairo, Smuts confers at, Axis flags Government flown in, Smuts meets Roosevelt in Cape Argus, on Smuts as speaker Calcutta riots Cape Province, first settlers in, life in Caledon River (1870), British take over, Parliament, Calvinia Bond-Rhodes alliance in Politics of, 32; effect of Jameson Raid on, Smuts Cambridge University, Smuts at, leaves, Transvaal expects help from, Smuts appointed Chancellor of Smuts’s guerilla campaign in, et seq., Boer troops cross into, dangers Carmona, President of Portugal threatening British in, and Union Carson, Sir Edward question, Nationalist Party in, land route to Egypt from, native councils Casablanca in, native Representation in, flora of Casement, Tom Cape of Good Hope Caserta Cape Times, on Smuts’s Defence Bill, Castiglione Cemetery on Royal visit Cecil, Lord Cape Town, gaiety of, Smuts practises in, National Convention in, South Century of Wrong African Party Congress in, journey to, Cetewayo during Great Strike, Parliamentary capital of Union, Smuts’s home in, Chagga rebellion speech in, meeting of British Chamberlain, Houston Association in, dangerous flight to Chamberlain, Joseph, orders Cape Town, University of, Smuts annexation of Transvaal, and Jameson Chancellor of Raid, influenced by Milner, visits Caporetto, Battle of Pretoria Cardiff, Smuts visits Chamberlain, Neville Chamberlain, Sir Austen Chelmsford, Lord Minister, against Abyssinian campaign, Dunkirk speech of, and Chequers, Smuts stays with Churchill Tobruk, changes Western Desert at commanders, obtains tanks from Cherbourg Peninsula America, plane of, carries Smuts, and Cherwell, Lord relative importance of theatres of war, “dictatorship” of, Smuts stays with, Childers, Erskine Smuts on leadership of, painting of, China, Communism in, and San and Roosevelt’s trust in Stalin, and Francisco Conference launching of Overlord, and atomic research, works at night, loses Chinese labour confidence in Russian co-operation, Christian Beach defeated at election, Fulton speech of, and European unity, tribute from, on Christ’s College, Cambridge Smuts’s eightieth birthday, letter of Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S., sympathy of, mentioned prisoner of Boers, on Germans as Citizenship Bills soldiers, and Dardanelless campaign, on Smuts, his friendship with Smuts, Claremont, Smuts’s home in oratory of, on loans to Germany, Clark, Charlie listens to wireless news, warns Britain of German threat, becomes Prime Clark, General Mark Clemenceau, Georges, and peace Smuts drafts King’s speech on, terms, at Versailles weakening of bonds of, and United States, at war against Germany, Cloete, Jacob achievements of, in battle, and Empire, Coalfields, strikes on, of Southern war casualties of, importance of, in Hemisphere world politics, republican India a Colenso, Battle of member of, meaning of loss of Egypt to Colesburg Communism, in South Africa, among Collard, Arthur Greeks in Egypt, spread of, reaction Colley, General Sir George against Collyer, Brigadier-General J. J., Concordia foreword to book of Congress Party of Natal Indians Cologne Conroy, Senator Andrew Colyn, Lambert Constantia Commadagga Constantinople Commando (Reitz), foreword to Continental drift theory Commonwealth, Smuts father of idea Corrington, General of, Smuts speaks on, and Peace terms, Coster, Dr. J. Cunningham, Admiral Andrew Coventry, munitions strike in Cunningham, General Alan, narrow escape of, East African campaign of, Cranborne, Viscount in Western Desert Creswell, Colonel, supports Hertzog, and deportation of strike leaders, loses Cunningham, Sir Thomas seat, in coalition with Hertzog, Curzon, Lord Minister of Labour and Defence Cyrenaica, British victory in Crete Czechoslovakia, reparations from, Crewe, Sir C. P. loses Sudetenland, Hitler annexes, Russia and Cripps, Sir Stafford Cronje, Piet, defeats Jameson Raid, at Daily Sketch, on Smuts’s speech. Modder River and Magersfontein, Dakar capitulation of Danzig Crowe, Brigadier-General J. H. V., on Dardanelless campaign Smuts’s East African campaign Dar-es-Salaam Smuts’s foreword to book of Darlan, Admiral Cullinan diamond Darling Cunene, the Dart, Professor Delagoa Bay Darwin, Charles Denk, Mrs. Daspoort Denmark, German conquest of Dawson, Geoffrey Derby, Lord De la Rey, General Koos, in Boer Derbyshire, Mr. War, guerilla campaign of, at Descartes, René Vereeniging, refuses seat in Legislative Council, leader of Het Devil’s Peak, clearing pine woods Volk, at Sunnyside, advises buying from farms, helps end strike, and Rebellion, Dewetsdorp death of Diamond fields, discovery of, De Valera, Eamon, Smuts’s Rhodes’s exploitation of mines, at discussions with Kameelfontein, of South Africa and De Wet, General Christian de, in Boer Brazil War, at Vereeniging, and surrender, Diamond Hill, Battle of supports Hertzog, in Rebellion, sentence on Diaz, Bartholomew De Wildt, Hertzog’s speech at “Die Stem” Defence Act Dill, Sir John Disarmament, Conference Prince of Wales visits, Royal family visits Dmowski, Roman Doenitz, Admiral Doornkop, Jameson Raid defeated at Dollfuss, Chancellor Doran, Colonel Dordrecht Dominion Party, supports Smuts’s wartime government Drakensberg Mountains Dominions, sign Peace terms, Ireland Drennan, Professor M. R. and, Hertzog and status of, and Statute Droogegrond of Westminster, and armed League, and United States, question of military Dublin, Smuts in missions in, See also Commonwealth Dumbarton Oaks Dommisse, Jan Duncan, Sir Patrick, member of Donkerhoek “Kindergarten”, Minister of Interior, Governor-General, presents Field Doornfontein Marshal’s baton to Smuts Doornkloof, Smuts’s home, the farm, Dunkirk State protection for, the house, surroundings of, Smuts’s ashes Durban, naval units sent to, Boers aim scattered at; menagerie at, library at, at, National Convention at, strike leaders deported from, meeting of South African Association at, Ebdin Scholarship Indianization of, Indian-Zulu riots in, Economic Consequences of the Peace mentioned (Keynes) Dusseldorf Economic Developments, Ministry of Dutch, settle in South Africa, Eden, Rt. Hon. Anthony, at San Indonesia, See also Holland Francisco Dutch East India Company Edenburg Edgar, shooting of East Africa, strategic value of, Great Edinburgh Rift Valley of Education, Smuts’s ideas on East African Campaign, Brits during, polyglot Army fighting in, climatic Education Acts and geographical hazards of, transport Edward VII, King, Cullinan diamond difficulties in, disease casualties in, given to, gives lunch to S. African sea-bases for delegates East African Campaign (1940-1), Egypt, troops locked up in, Italy troops leave for, Smuts’s visits front in invades, Allied Armies driven back in, East London revision of British Treaty with, Britain withdraws from Eighth Army, in Western Desert, tanks Empire Parliamentary Association for, Enfidaville Einstein, Albert Engare Nanyuki Eisenhower, General Dwight, N. Engelenberg, Dr. F.V. African campaign of, Smuts confers with, and launching of Overlord, and Enslin, Major strategy in France, Germans surrender Erasmus, General to Eritrea El Agheila Ermelo El Alamein Esselen, Louis El Aqqaqir Etosha Pan El Wak Euphorbia Hill Elandsrivierpoort Europe, unsettled state of, before First Elandsvlei World War, post-war collapse of Elizabeth, Princess Central and Eastern, result of Reparations policy in, as origin of Elizabeth, Queen Cape flora, Ice Age in, aftermath of Elliot Smith, Professor war in, cult of force in, feat complex in, inferiority complex in, need for speed in saving, changes in, Russian Ferdinand, King of Bulgaria domination of Eastern, moves towards Ferguson, Bob unity, Council of Fiad Evans, Dr. I. B. Pole Finland, conquers Russia, conquered Ewing, Sir Alfred by Russia Fischer, suicide of Falkland Islands, Battle of Fischer, Abraham Far East, storm centre passing to Fish Hoek man American bias towards, Russia marching into Fish River Faraday Exhibition Fitzgerald, Mary Farouk, King, of Egypt Fitzpatrick, Sir Percy Farrar, George, and Chinese Labour, Flag Question leader of Progressives Flying bombs (VI) Fascism, rise of Foch, Marshal Fauresmith hills Fordsburg Feisal, Prince, of Saudi Arabia Foreign Secretaries, Council of Foster Gang Communism in, invasion of South, makes trouble in Syria, joins Benelux Fountains Valley Fourie, A.P.J. Francke, Colonel Fourie, Commandant Joseph, Franco, General execution of Free French in N. Africa Fourteen Points of Woodrow Wilson, French, settle in South Africa and German colonies French, General Sir John, in opening Fourteen Streams campaigns of Boer War, advances on Pretoria, “scorched earth” policy of, France, and Morocco, Germany and Smuts’s Cape sortie, holds attacks, trench warfare in, mutinies in crossings of Orange River, narrowly Army of, Smuts visits, relations with, escapes capture, presides at banquet to and San Fransisco Conference, Smuts, mentioned, French North defensive policy of; war weariness of, Africa, Anglo-U.S. invasion of, and reparations, occupation of German territory by, weakness of Munich Friedeberg, General von, Agreement, declares war on Germany, Friedriksfelde Indian threat to, Germans overrun, “asleep, not dead”, difficulties Fusion Government regarding fleet of, no longer a Great Power, bombing of, before Overlord, Gallipoli Geneva, Smuts meets Mensdorff, in Gama, Vasco da Geology of South Africa Gambut George V, King, Smuts drafts speech for Gamelin, General George VI, King, appoints Smuts Gandhi, Mahatma, Smuts and, Field Marshal, Smuts has audience encounters race discrimination, in with, asks Smuts to preach, at Empire Transvaal, in Natal, forms corps of march past, visits South Africa, letter stretcher bearers, imprisoned, of sympathy of assassination of Garies George, David Lloyd, on granting self government to South Africa, and Garus Agadir Incident, on generals, Prime Gatacre, General Minister, offers Palestine command to Smuts, on qualities of Smuts, Smuts’s Gatsrand Hills admiration for, on Passchendaele Gaulle, General de Offensive, sends Smuts to Welsh coal strikers, promises Jews a Palestine Gazala Line home, and separate Air Force, post- Geduld, gold strike at war hysteria of, Smuts’s letter to, on resigning from War Cabinet, at General Botha, the, Versailles, Smuts’s letters to, on peace terms, and Hertzog, advises Smuts to actions of, and Turkey, attacks France, sign treaty, Smuts’s influence and never militarily defeated, strong Smuts’s visit to Ireland, Smuts visits, position of, need for defeat of, mentioned threatens communications of Commonwealth, and doctrine of racial Gerbini purity, disposal of colonies of, Austria German Air Force, fighting strength of held by, attacks London by air, German Army, not defeated in First collapse of, post-war feeling against, World War, 1918 advance of, peace terms for, reparations from, blitzkrieg tactics of, in N. Africa, need for generous treatment of, loans African losses in, disposition of to, exceed reparations from, problem of, S. Africa orders locomotives from, German East Africa, see East African trade agreement with, disarmament of, Campaign; Kenya; Tanganyika tries out arms in Spain, leaves League, Germans; in South-West Africa, rise of Hitler in, demands return of campaign against, Maritz joins, Colonies, rearms, inferiority complex colonising system of, native levies of, of, successful aggression of, Hertzog in East Africa, campaign against, justifies actions of, conquers Denmark Germany, fails to get Rhodesia, and Norway, conquers Balkans, sympathises with Transvaal, starts “invests in hatreds”, conquers W. building navy, African colonies of, Europe, attacks Britain, member of strategic aims in Africa, provocative Tripartite Pact, African campaigns of, attacks Russia, secret weapons of, air Glen Grey Act attacks on, no longer a Great Power, Gluckman, Dr. wolfran supplies to, atomic research of, Allied Armies in, bombing oil “God Save the King” plants of, peace feelers from, defeat of, Godwin-Austin, General horrors of concentration camps of, surrender of, displaced persons in, Goering, Hermann, air force of, bombs occupation zones of British cities, weakness of bombing of Germiston Goethe Gibeon Gold Coast, troops from Gibraltar Gold standard Gifts and Comforts organisation Goldfields, discovery of, Rhodes seeks, in Rhodesia, labour difficulties, Gillett, Mrs. Chinese labour for, great strike on, Giraud, General new Free State Gladstone, Lord, Governor-General of Gondwanaland South Africa Goodhouse Glanville, Ernest, on Smuts Gordon-Cumming, R.G. Glasgow, Smuts speaks at Gorringe, Colonel Gort, Lord, Governor of Malta and United States, punitive bombing by, policy of, towards natives, goes off Gothic Line gold standard, S. African Protectorates Gough, General of, period of vacillation and Graf von Spee, the appeasement in, France and, fails to take warning of Hitler’s intentions, Grazziani, General helps Norway, S. African wool sales Great Britain, attempts to annexe to, American aid to, “invests in Transvaal, relations between Kruger friendships”, threatened invasion of, and, Liberal Opposition in, goes to help of Greece, Smuts on sympathises with Boers, severs qualities of, threatened by secret long- relations with Transvaal, results of range weapons, and India, a poor Liberal Government of, makes country, and Europe, Colonial system amends, on Chinese labour, grants of, prepared to invade Continent, self-government to S. Africa, supplies to Russia from, differs from Constitution of, passes S. African help U.S. as to conduct of European in S. W. Africa, sides with France, fighting, post-war General Election in, declares war on Germany, U-boat and Trusteeships, opposed to Veto, menace to, appreciates Smuts, war weak attitude of, at San Francisco, weariness of, shoulders main burden gives in to Russia, S. African loan to, of fighting, air attacks on, and need for powerful, withdraws from reparations, unable to pay war debts, Egypt, joins Benelux, Great Rift Valley, Smuts’s plane Groot Winterhoek Mountains struck by lightning over Groote Schuur, Rhodes’s memorial Great Ruaha River above, building of, Smuts in, thinning trees round, state protection for Great Trek Greece, in Balkan Wars, in Second Guest, Mr. World War, mutiny among nationals of, in Egypt Haig, Field Marshal Earl Greene, Conyngham Haile Selassie, Emperor Gregorowski, Chief Justice Haldane, Lord Greylings Request Haldane, Professor J.B.S. Greyshirt Movement Halfaya Grievances Commissions Hamanskraal Griffith, Arthur Hamburg University Grobler, Piet, introduces Smuts to Hanbury-Williams, Sir John Kruger, at Stormberg, in Coalition Cabinet, mentioned Hanekom brothers Gromyko, M. Hankey, Maurice Harriman, Averill Smuts, at Vereeniging, and surrender, anti-British feeling of, Afrikanderism Harris, Air Chief Marshal of, uninterested in Union, at National Havenga, Nicolaas, follows Hertzog, Convention, and language question, Minister of Finance, and neutrality, political obstreperousness of, lunches returns to public life, Ossewa with King, jealous of Botha, Minister Brandwag joins of Justice, disliked by English, de Hay, George Wildt speech of, leaves Cabinet and South African Party, Nationalist Party Helderberg of, during Rebellion, holds Nationalist Hele rebellion Party Congress, defends Germany, rural area vote goes to, leads Hennessy, Sir Alfred delegation to Paris, swing away from, Hennops River attacks Smuts, and Great Strike, Creswell in coalition with, becomes Hereros, extermination of Prime Minister, and Roos, Smuts in Hermanus coalition with, and Status Bills, and Herschell Act of Union, agrees to sanctions against Italy, apologises to Hitler for Hertzog, Dr. Albert press criticisms, and omission to play Hertzog, General, guerilla campaign “The King”, determined to remain of, discusses Free State situation with neutral, deceives his colleagues, Hitler Line resignation of, retirement and death of Hoare, Sir Samuel, and Russian Hertzogism, See also A£rikanderism Revolution Het Volk party, in South African Party Hobhouse, Emily Heywood, Colonel Hobsonville Highveld Hodgson, George Himmler, Heinrich Hofmeyr, Jan Hendrik, advises Smuts to take up politics, and Rhodes, Hindenburg, Marshal approaches Smuts on Coalition Hindustan question, resigns from Fusion Govern- Hiroshima ment, in Smuts’s wartime Cabinet, attacked for his native sympathies, Hitler, Adolf, strategic planning of, Budget Speech of, death of, mentioned rise of, hoodwinks Chamberlain, prepares for conquest, aggressive role Holism and Evolution, need for of, plans invasion of England, attacks revision of, writing of Russia, secret weapons of, fighting for Holland, offers to act as intermediary, time, defeated by bombers, plot danger of German invasion of, Kaiser against, fights to bitter end, death of, and Crown Prince in, invasion of, technique of mopping up operations in, food Imperial Conferences, Botha at, Smuts supplies to, Smuts in at, Smuts speaks on, Hertzog at Homo rhodesiensis Imperial War Cabinet, Smuts at Hoskins, General Indemnity Bills Hottentots Independent Party House, Colonel, on Smuts, on India, geological origin of, British and, Wilson’s League plan severs relations with S. Africa, charges S. Africa before Assembly of racial Hout Bay discrimination, massacres in, assumes Hughes, Rt. Hon. W.M., and republican status inside reparations Commonwealth Hughes, Colonel Indian Ocean, Boer commandos reach, Huguenots, S weather stations for S. Africa in Hull, Cordell Indian troops in Eritrea, in Western Desert Hull, H.C. Indians, in Natal, in Transvaal, race Hungary, Smuts’s mission to discrimination against, prohibition of, riots between natives and Indonesia International Justice, Court of Africa’s danger from, enters war, loses African Empire, member of Tripartite International Peace Organisation Pact, defeated in N. Africa, naval Iraq defeat of, capitulation of, advance held Ireland up in, no longer a Great Power, fighting in, German Army in, fall of Irene, storm at, Smuts home at, Rome, Smuts visits Army in, German attempt to ambush Smuts near, peace feelers in, big offensive in, departure to East Africa from, wreaks vengeance on Mussolini, protection for Smuts’s house at, Germans surrender in, disposed of village of, favourite walk near colonies of Irgun Iringa Jagersfontein Isandhlwana, battle of Jagger, JW. Isostasy, Joly’s hypothesis of Jakalswater Israel, S. Africa recognises State of Jameson, Dr. L.S., in Cape Parliament, Italy, in Triple Alliance, enters First doctor’s Lobengula, “Raid” of, works World War, claims of, to Austrian for united South Africa, lunches with territory, defeated Caporetto, rise of King, retirement of Mussolini in, takes Abyssinia, re-arms, Jameson Raid, planning of Jamestown incidents in, Smuts plans to retake, Milner’s headquarters in, Smuts’s Japan, need for friendship with, unpopularity in, labour unrest in, invades Manchukuo, Smuts appeals to, Gandhi in, Indian community of, member of Tripartite Pact, attacks Foster Gang in, Smuts’s speeches in, Pearl Harbour, threat to Africa from, violent obstruction to meetings, in, Russian promise to fight, bombing of, native strike in, soldiers riot in, Indian- surrender of native riots in, honours Smuts’s Jellicoe, Admiral of the Fleet Lord eightieth birthday, Smuts’s funeral in, Jerusalem Jones, Sir Robert, on National Jews, promised home in Palestine, Convention Nazi persecution of, and partition of Jordaan, Colonel Palestine, fight Arabs, jog; attack British soldiers in Palestine Joubert, Commandant-General P.J. Jodl, General Jutland, Battle of Joel, Solly Joel, Woolf Kaalsprint Johannesburg, goldfields of, “colossal Kafferskop materialism” of, Uitlanders of, Reform Kahe Hill Committee of, Smuts ill, inflammatory Kajiado Kasserine Kakamas Kasteel Kalahari Desert, rebels in, crossing of, Keetmanshoop in S.-W. African campaign, Schwarz’s Keitel, Field Marshal redemption scheme for, Bushmen of Kelvin, H.M.S. Kalk Bay Kemp, General, at Vereeniging, in Kamanassi River Rebellion, surrender of, in Coalition Kameelfontein Cabinet, and Royal visit Kamiesbergen Kemp, J.T. van der Kampfontein Kendrew Siding Kaokoveld Kenya, British force in, Italy attacks, protection for Karega Karibib Kenya-Uganda Railways Karisimhi, Mount Keren Karl, Emperor, of Austria-Hungary Kerr, Philip Karoo, the Kesselring, General Keynes, J.M., Economic Kirstenbosch Consequences of the Peace of Kisimayo Khartoum, conference in, immigrants Kissaki to S. Africa in Kitchener, Earl, of Khartoum, in Boer Khatatba War, proclamations of , Free State Khies Drift sweep of, meets Boers at Vereeniging, magnanimity of, replaced by Lyttelton, Kiemoes death of Kilimanjaro, Mount. German position near, Smuts’s H.Q. on, flying over Kivu, Lake Kilimatinde Klipdrift Kilossa Klipfontein Kilwa Knightsbridge Kimberley, Rhodes gains wealth at, Kobbee Smuts’s speech at (1895), relief of Koedoespoort “Kindergarten”, Milner’s Kondoa Irangi King, Rt. Hon. Mackenzie Königsberg, the, in East Africa, guns King’s African Rifles of, trophy from shellcases of Koo, Dr. Wellington Kroonstad Koppieskaal Drift Kruger, Paul, Rhodes and, and Uitlanders, autocratic rule of, Koraanberg dynamite concession of, relations with Koranna tribes Smuts, personal integrity of, at Korea Bloemfontein Conference, ultimatum of, to Britain, leaves Pretoria, Kotze, Mr. Justice considers ending war, decides on Kramarsch, Dr. guerilla warfare, orders fighting to go on, Smuts writes to, in Holland, Smuts Krige, Bennie defends grandson of Krige, Jan Kruger National Park Krige, Japie Krugersdorp, men from, follow Smuts, Krige, Jimmie prehistoric remains at Krige, P.S. (“Tottie”), in Boer War, at Kun, Bela Vereeniging Conference Kuruman Krige, Polly (nee de la Rey) Kuyper Krige family Kromdraai Labour Party, British., and end of Lansdowne, Lord coalition, defeats Churchill, Labour Laski, Harold Party, South African, turns towards Hertzog, denunciation of Smuts by, Latema Hills election results for, Nationalists woo, Lawrence, Mr. in coalition with Nationalists, Split in, supports Smuts’s wartime Government Lawrence, Sir Herbert Labour Tax League of Nations, Smuts on need for, Wilson’s treatise on, Smuts’s Labuschagne, shooting of, child of “Practical Suggestion” for, Labuschagne’s Nek Constitution of, Wilson redrafts scheme for, Commission of, United Lady Grey States turns down, institution of, Ladysmith, siege and relief of Smuts loath to leave, and Bondel- swarts affair, Smuts on, Tenth Annual Lambert’s Bay Meeting of, disarmament and, and Lamont, Thomas native policy, failure of, Germany and Lancashire Post, on Smuts’s speech Japan withdraw from, need to strengthen, question of force behind, a “Land of my Fathers” talking shop, mistakes in Organisation Lane, Captain Ernest of Langlaate Lebanon Leigh Mallory, Air Chief Marshal Lobengula Leliefontein Locarno Pact Lend-Lease Aid, S. Africa repays Lock, Sir Henry Leoug Quinn London, air attacks on, in First World War, air attacks on, in Second World Leuchars, Sir George War, threatened by secret long-range Leyden University weapons, defences of, on eve of Leyds, Dr. W.J Overlord, flying bombs on, rockets on Libertas London University, confers degree on Smuts Lichtenburg Long, Walter Lindi Longido West Lippert, dynamite concession to, forts built by Longkloof Little Sunday’s River Loreburn, Lord Litvinov, M. Losberg Livingstone, David, Smuts’s lectures Lothian, Marquess of on Louw, Dominie A.J. Louw, Eric Madagascar, Deneys Reitz in, geological origin of, conquest of Luchomo Ludendorf, General Madeley, Walter Luderitzbucht, wireless station of, S. Mafeking, relief of African troops embark for, capture of Magaliesberg Mountains, Boer stand in Ludwigshafen Lukigure River Magatese peoples Lukin, General Magersfontein, Battle of Lumi Maginot Line Lusitania, the Maitland, Professor Lyttelton, General Maji-Maji rebellion Lyttelton Constitution Majuba Hill, Battle of Malan, Charlie MacArthur, General Douglas Malan, Dr. Daniel François, early association of, with Smuts, leads MacDonald, Ramsay Nationalist Party, in Coalition Cabinet, Maclear’s Beacon, 261 Purified Nationalist Party of, Status Bills of, and Cape Coloured franchise, on Smuts’s action regarding S.-W. Mamagli, Chief Africa, and neutrality, Hertzog’s Manchester Guardian, on Smuts’s followers transfer to, Ossewa speech Brandwag and, on invasion of Holland, and death of Roosevelt, Manchukuo, Japanese invasion of , accused of dealings with enemy agent, League and against immigration policy, criticises Mandate system Smuts’s work at UNO, his solution of Indian problem, “apartheid” plans of, Mangin, General election tactics of, wins election, Mannerheim, General increases S.-W. African seats, objects to Seretse Khama’s marriage, “black- Mannheim out” of, at Prime Minister’s Con- Mansveld, Professor ference, mentioned Marais, Professor J.F. Malan, F.S. Maraisburg Malan, Henri Marching on Tanga (Young) Malan family Marcossan, I.F. Malmesbury, Cape Colony Mareth Line Malmesbury, Wilts. Margaret, Princess Malta Marico River, Battle of war, superiority of forces in, South African strength in Maricospoort Marion Island Mein Kampf (Hitler) Mariposa Grove Meirings Poort Melkbos Strand Maritz, General Manie, in Boer War, in Rebellion, condemned by Church Memel Marshall, General George Mensdorff, Count von Marshall Plan Merced River Marwick, Mr. Meredith, George Mary, Queen Merriman, John X., recognises promise of Smuts, in Parliament, Masaryk, President Smuts’s letters to, works for Union, Mashonaland and Premiership, on Smuts,; on Massaikraal ingratitude of Boers, an old man Matjesfontein Mersa Matruh Mediterranean Theatre, transports Meru bound for, importance of , as theatre of Mesopotamia, campaign in, troops locked up in Mestklip of, Kindergarten of, offers Boers seats in Legislative Council, distrustful of Methuen, A.M.S. Boer intentions, inaugurates Chinese Methuen, Lord, defeated by Boers, labour policy, returns to England, and Smuts friend Russian Revolution,: in War Cabinet, Methuen, Seymour at banquet to Smuts, on need for separate Air Force, his admiration for Meyer, General Lukas Smuts, on S. African terms to Meyer-Abich, Professor Adolf Rhodesia, visits Doornkloof, mentioned, Mgeta River Milner, Viscountess Middelburg, Government move to Mine Workers’ Union Middelpoort farm Miners’ Phthisis Bill Middle East Committee Minerva, H.M.S. Milan Mines, Chamber of, and Great Strike Milner, Viscount, determined to force war issues, protests to Kruger, at Mining industry, unrest in Bloemfontein Conference, demands Mining Regulations unconditional surrender, work of, as Governor of Transvaal and Orange “Mittel-Afrika” concept River, Smuts dislikes administration Modder River, Battle of Moroka Moffat, Dr. Moschi, Mogadishu Moscow, Treaty of Molotov, M., at San Francisco Mosega Conference Moselekatze Mombasa Mountain Club of South Africa Monomotapa Moyale Monro, Colonel Mozambique Mont-aux-Sources National Park Muir Wood Montgomery, General, in Western Munich Agreement Desert, in invasion of France, Germans surrender to Murmansk route to Russia Mooi River Murray, Professor Charles, Smuts letter to Moordenaars Poort Murray, Sir Archibald Morley, Lord Mushroom Valley Morocco, Germany and Morogoro Mussolini, Benito, rise of, arms National Convention, calling of, production of, brings Italy into War, British garrison withdrawn at time of pricked bubble of, fall of, death of National Reserve Volunteers National Supplies Council Nagasaki Nationalist Party, formation of , Nairobi, Smuts’s H.Q. at, South Labour supports, in Rebellion, tactics African troops in, dangerous flight to of, improved position of, ingratitude of, reactionary policy of, setback to, Nakob reaps benefit from country’s economic Namaqualand straits, Labour, implicated in strike, in Natal, White settlers in, Boer coalition with Labour, in office, and successes in, Boers retreat from, gold standard, in Coalition with S. commandos of, on Drakensberg, African Party, “Purified”, fuses with Buller’s inactivity in, guerilla S. African Party, and neutrality, campaign in, Indian problem of, attacks Hofmeyer, Malan leads, Gandhi in, and Union question, and Smuts’s tolerance towards, and inva- Dominion Party, attempted boycott of sion of Holland, anti-Communist Indian traders in propaganda of, exploits failure of Smuts’s mission, and Royal visit, Natal Light Horse, in Rebellion exploits racial prejudices, and Indian republic, wins election with minority, New Zealand troops in Western Desert financial troubles of Newfoundland, U.S. bases in Native problem of South Africa, and Newlands Protectorates, election fought on Ngare Nairobi Native Representative Council Nguru Mountains Nazism, rise of, and persecution of Jews, in S. Africa Nicholson’s Nek, Battle of Neethling, Japie Nicolson, Harold Neethling, Johannes Nieuwoudtville Neghelli Ninagongo, Mount Nel, Piet Nivelle, General Netherlands, see Holland Nomura, Admiral Neutrality, Dominions’ right to Nonandas maintain, question of South African Nooitgedacht New Order Party Norman, Lord New York, Smuts in, UNO Normandy invasion, shortage of headquarters in, Assembly of United landing craft for, German retreat in Nations in North African Campaign Ongegund Northern Neutral Committee O’okiep Northern Rhodesia, S. African Troops Oost, Harm in, question of federation of, Copper Oppenheimer, Sir Ernest Belt of Orange Free State, white settlers in, Northey, General effect of Jameson Raid on, Conference Norway, German conquest of, in, joins Transvaal at war, British destruction of heavy water plant in victories in, refuses to end War, commandos of, remain in their Nyamlagira, Mount borders, guerilla campaign in, defeat Nyasa, Lake in, Smuts’s commandos cross, Nyasaland, German troops in representatives of, at Vereeniging, pro- Afrikaans education policy in, Hertzog Nylstroom loses support of, election results in, gold strike in Okahanja Orange River, crossings of, Germans attack Boers on Okinawa Orange River Colony, granted self- Oliver, F.S. governments, Orangia Unie party in, Onderstepoort and Union question, antipathy to Britain in, See also Orange Free State Paardeberg, Battle of Orangia Unie Party Paardekop Organisation for European Economic Paarl Cooperation Pacific Ocean, future importance of Orlando, Signor Painlevé, M. Orvieto Pakistan Ossewa Brandwag Palestine, campaign in, Smuts offered Ostend command in, Jews promised home in, Otavi partition of, Jews and Arabs fight in, terrorism against British soldiers in Otjimbingwe Otjivarongo Panama Canal, U.S. seek sole right to Ottawa Pandit, Mrs. Oudtshoorn Pangani Outjo Papen, Herr von Overlord, Operation, Oxford, Smuts Pare Mountains delivers Rhodes Lectures in, Paris, German threat to, air raids on, in Persia First World War, Germans take, Petain, Marshal, in First World War, liberation of, Peace Conference in capitulates to Germans, Vichy Parys Government of Pas de Calais Peters, Dr. Karl Patton, General Philip, Dr. John Pavlov, M. Philips, Sir Lionel Peace Conference (1919), Smuts Phillips, Wendell proposes programme for, preliminary Pienaar, Brigadier Dan meetings of, conduct of delegates to, mandates question, reparations Pietermaritzburg, Mrs. Smuts interned question at, Gandhi in Peace Conference (1946), Pietersburg postponement of Pigmies, African Pearl Harbour Pilandersberg Peenemunde Pile, General Penn-Symons, General Pirow, Oswald, orders locomotives People of Britain Fund from Germany, in Cabinet, and omission to play “The King”, and Port Elizabeth, native riot in, lacks neutrality, failure of, as Minister of defences Defence, visits Dictators, New Order Port Nolloth Party of, Smuts attacks Porterville Pitsani Portreath Planck, Max Portsmouth Plate, River, Battle of Portugal, African possessions of Plessis, W.C. du supplies wolfram to Germany Plunkett, Sir Horace Portuguese East Africa, German Poland, in First World War, Danzig troops in, Smuts considers annexation and, “a historic failure,” invasion of, of, shooting expeditions into hard road before, Communism in, Potchefstroom, disturbances at Anglo-Russian friction over, representation of, at San Francisco Potgieter, Burgomaster Piet Police Force, investigation into alleged Potsdam Conference irregularities of, non-loyal elements in Prague Poole, General Preller, Dr. Gustav Premier Mine, Army training camps at Pretoria, Smuts makes his home in, Pretoria Convention, Pretoria Mint, Churchill a prisoner in, Boers retreat Small-arms manufacture of on, fall of, Government leaves, looting Pretoria News in, removal of Government reserves from, Roberts’s blunder at, Boer line Pretorius, Colonel N.J. of retreat from, Boers surrender in, Pretorius, Major P.J. Smuts’s law practice in, Chamberlain in, Royal Commission in, Gandhi in, Prime Ministers’ Conferences, Smuts Union Buildings in, military stores in England for, Dr. Malan at burnt in, recruiting at, sedition in, Prince Edward Island threatened by rebels, Smuts unable to speak at, native strike in, tapestry for Prince of Wales, H.M.S. Prime Ministers’ house in, Providential Pass Administrative capital of Union, road to, from Irene, Smuts loses seat in, Prime Ministers’ residence in, Army Qattara Depression headquarters in, dangerous take-off Quantum Theory from, monument to Botha in, Smuts accepts seat in, Voortrekker Queenstown, native riot near Monument at, celebrates Smuts’s Quinn, J.W. eightieth birthday, Smuts’s funeral procession in Quota Bill Reform Committee Rabat Reitz Radar Reitz, Deneys, on Boer successes, Commando of, at Vereeniging Railways and Customs Conference Conference, at Sunnyside, on Rebel- Ramat Jochanan lion, in wartime Cabinet, death of, Rand, Chinese labour for, General mentioned, strike on, Martial Law declared on, Reitz, F.W. recruiting on, native strike on Relativity Rand Light Infantry, suppresses strike Remagen Rasthaus Reparations, from Germany from Raubenheimer, Captain Austria Raymond, E.T. Repington, Colonel Reata Repulse, H.M.S. Rebellion of, political origins of, Retief, Piet punishment of rebels Reynaud, M. Reconstruction, Cabinet Committee on Rheims Reddersberg Rhenoster River Riebeeck, Jan van Rhine, the Riebeeck West, old Adam of Rhineland, French occupation of, Rietfontein Hitler marches into, remilitarisation of Rietpoort Rhodes, Cecil Smuts’s speech of, Rietvlei Dam welcome to, career of, memorial to, Smuts supports, and Jameson Raid, Ritchie, General Glen Grey Act of, platform of, as Roberts, Lord, of Kandahar, advance Premier of Cape, meets Kruger, of, on Pretoria determined to force war issue, death of, and Groote Schuur, books of, Robertson, A.G. native policy of Robertson, General Sir William, and Rhodes, Frank Passchendaele Offensive Rhodes Lectures Rockets Rhodesia, see also Northern Rhodesia; Rome Southern Rhodesia Rome Conference Ribbentrop, Herr Rommel, General, in North Africa, in Riddell, Lord France, death of Rondebosch Roodt, Mrs. Rothermere, Lord, first Air Minister Rooikop Rotterdam Rooikraal Roumania, in Balkan War, in First World War Roos, Jimmie Rovuma River Roos, Tielman, Nationalist leader in Transvaal, demands enquiry on Royal Air Force, establishment of, in Boksburg clash, achieves Nationalist- Battle of Britain, growth of , Bomber Labour coalition, Minister for Justice, Command of, attacks Germany, attacks Smuts, retires, re-enters superiority of, Royal Institute of Inter- politics on gold question, seeks merger national Affairs, Smuts’s speech to of parties, death of Royal Institute of Philosophy, Smuts’s Roosevelt, President Franklin D., speech to Lend-Lease scheme of, Churchill’s Royal Navy, South Africa and, air correspondence with, demands components of, loses vessel in “unconditional surrender”, Smuts blockade of Italy, U.S. destroyers for meets, has too great trust in Stalin, death of, unveiling plaque to, and Veto Royston, Colonel Rose, E. B. Rufiji River, Königsberg in Rosebery, Lord, and Jameson Raid Ruhr, the Rundstedt, General von, Battle of the Rustenburg, Smuts farm near, rebels Bulge launched by defeated at Russia, in Triple Entente, revolution Ruwu River in, and Turkey, Smuts offered charge of enterprise in, defeated by Finland, invades Poland and Finland, warned of Saar Basin impending attack, German attack on, a St. Andrews University, Smuts’s difficult partner, Smuts on partnership rectoral address to with, contribution of, to war, Polish leaders and, phenomenal rise to Power Salaita Hill, battle of of, air superiority of, Smuts’s mistrust Salazar, Dr. of, Allied aid to, offensive of, at time of Overlord, participation of, in war Salonika, Allied troops at against Japan, European aims of, San Francisco mounting truculence of, casualties San Francisco Conference, preliminary sustained by, seeks strategic bases, Prime Ministers’ Conference, doubts suspicions of Western Powers, at as to success of, and death of Potsdam Conference, need for Roosevelt, delegates at, lack of firmness with, seeks trusteeship of progress at, territorial claims at, Tripolitania, and spread of closing speech at Communism, and Far East Sanctions, against Italy, limited, Rust der Winter Sand River Convention, Science, constructive force of, Smuts on, as weapon of destruction Sandspruit Sauer, J.W. Scobell, Colonel Schabort, Petrus and Jan Scots, old Adam on, Smuts’s speech to Sebasa Hills Schacht, Dr. Scheepers, Commandant Security Council, and Veto Schoeman, Mrs. Seitz, Governor Schoeman’s K1oof Selborne, Lord, Governor of South Africa, advises union of South African Schoenfeld, Lieutenant-Commander Colonies, and grant of bonus to Schonland, Dr. Basil, Army Scientific Transvaal Members of Parliament, Research Station of antagonised by Merriman, mentioned Schreiner, Olive, and S.C. Cronwright Selous, Frederick Courtney Schuit Drift September Agreement Schuschnigg, Dr. von Serbia, in Balkan War, Austria declares war on, Bulgaria attacks Schwarz, Professor Serengeti Plains Schweizer Reneke Seretse Khama Seward, Professor Smartt, Sir Thomas Sforza, Count Smit, S.J.P. Sheffield University, lecture at Smith, F.B. Shelton, Colonel Smith, Sir Henry Shepstone, Sir Theophilus Smith-Dorrien, General Sicily Smithfield Sidi Barrani Smuts, Catharina Petronella (“Ouma Cato”) Sidi Rezegh Siegfried Line Smuts, Cato Silicosis legislation Smuts, Dr. Louis Simonstown Smuts, General Tobias Simpson, General Smuts, Jacobus Abraham Six Mile Spruit Smuts, Jan Skeleton Gorge Smuts, J.C., childhood memories of, father says good-bye to, “King of the Slagters Nek Elephants”, calls father “Oubaas”, at Slee, Wing-Commander Chequers, interest of, in prehistory, contravenes foot-and-mouth disease moves to Transvaal, marriage of, regulations, in East African campaign, upholds Kruger, State Attorney, with father in England, with father in relations with Kruger, on Milner, at United States, on Peace Conference, Bloemfontein Conference, seeks to on Russia, feels father makes error of prevent war, Century of Wrong of, and timing, seeks to persuade father to Churchill, work of, in early months of retire, mentioned war, left in charge in Pretoria, saves Government gold, last sees Kruger, Smuts, Jan Christian, childhood of, guerilla campaigns of, Cape sortie of, ideals of, health of, as soldier, as salvaged saddlebags of, price on head statesman, receives Order of Merit, as of, books of, makes own scientist, as philosopher, as politician, reconnaissances, poisoned by the man, and Malan, birthplace of, “Boesmans brood”, orders execution attitude of, towards British, his of spy, at Vereeniging Peace understanding of native peoples, his Conference, effects of Boer War on, love of veld, providential escapes of, depressed spirits of, eyes of, education of, memory of, courtship of, dispatches of, diaries of, thinks in and Rhodes, religious feeling of, early English, pronunciation of, defends writings of, Netherlands Dutch of, at Smit, puts Boer case to Chamberlain, Cambridge, in England, Holism and refuses seat on Legislative Council, on Evolution of, amazing brain of, Chinese Labour, letter of, in Times, practises Law, returns to S. Africa, as unpopularity of, gains Responsible a youth, visits Transvaal, speeches of, Government for Africa, appointed and execution of Fourie, odium of King’s Counsellor, works for united S. unpopular action falls on, African Africa, his partnership with Botha, campaign of, S. Africa comes first electioneering of, and Premiership, with, prevented by violence from homelife of, Colonial Secretary and speaking, offered command in E. Minister of Education, deals with Africa, leaves his family, East African labour unrest, and Gandhi, letter of, on campaign of, forewords of, malarial Union, prepares constitution, at attacks of, qualities of leadership of, National Convention, and Act of relinquishes command, at Imperial Union, lunches with King, and bonus Conference, flies over Kilimanjaro, for Transvaal Members of Parliament, sends postcards home, British tributes approaches Hertzog, Minister of to, exploratory missions of, writes Mines, Defence and Interior, his survey of “Strategic and Military friendship with Botha, farms of, a Position”, offered command in worker and a driver, forms S. African Palestine, member of War Cabinet, his Party, Bills introduced by, as a admiration for Lloyd George, banquet speaker, Minister of Defence and in honour of, on British Finance, Hertzog’s attacks on, forced Commonwealth, on African problems, to capitulate to strikers, deports strike and Passchendaele Offensive, and leaders, loyal to Britain, and de la Rey, Middle East campaign, “Handyman of Commander-in-Chief, attempt to Empire”, chairman of War Priorities ambush, takes action against rebels, Committee, life of, ill England, seeks rational peace terms, and League of Chairman of British Association Nations, resigns from War Cabinet, Centenary Meeting, advises going off proposes programme for Peace gold standard, his interest in botany, Conference, at Versailles, and S.-W. discusses merger with Roos, in African mandate, seeks generous coalition with Hertzog, personal treatment of Germany, signs treaty finances of, his interest in geology, his under protest, his relations with others, interest in prehistory, “kindergarten” “Oubaas”, on results of Reparations of, oil Climate and Man in Africa, and policy, head of government, drafts Status Bills, and transfer of King’s speech, meets Irish leaders, Protectorates, warns Britain of danger State protection for, at Groote Schuur, from Germany, on Freedom, on his love for mountains, and Southern goodness of world, on British foreign Rhodesia, resigns office, cattle of, policy, Chancellor of University of scattered ashes of, his love of children, Cape Town, realises war is coming, as swimmer, physical fitness of, listens and Hofmeyr’s resignation, forestalls to wireless news, at Windsor Castle, as German coup in S.-W. Africa, visits car driver, daily routine of, loses seat volcanoes of Belgian Congo, on need in Pretoria West, letter of, on Holism, to declare war, forms Government, on educational theories of, Leader of division on neutrality question, Opposition, Pan-African speech of, organises country for war, generosity Rhodes Lectures of, on native of, to Hertzog, “steamroller methods” problem, on “disarmed peace”, of, attacks Pirow, concludes advantageous wool sales, speaks to Charter, unveils Roosevelt memorial, troops, his love of walking and on UNO, speeches written, but not exercise, camping holidays of, delivered in U.S.A., in Canada, broadcasts of, on importance of Africa immigration plans of, at Peace and Middle East as theatre of war, on Conference (1946), answers Indian new World Order, his sympathy for charges at U.N. assembly, on Greece, visits N. African front, international situation (1947), soldier’s tribute to, appointed Field overworks himself, speaks on Marshal, wartime visits to England, Communist menace, recognises Israel, addresses Houses of Lords and defeated at election, advised to retire, Commons, improved majority of, accepts seat, Chancellor of Cambridge “dictatorship” of, at Prime Ministers’ University, on Malan’s Government, Conferences, visits of inspection of, on loses son, on weakening bonds of bomber offensive, on Britain in India, Commonwealth, lameness of, eightieth “Explosive Speech” of, in birthday of, illness of, death of, Birmingham, and delay in launching biographical summary, Honours Overlord, visits Normandy front, visits awards and decorations of troops in Italy, visitors to, in London, Smuts, Japie, at Cambridge, climbs on Russia, on partition of Palestine, Kilimanjaro, death of hears of death of Roosevelt, at San Francisco Conference, President of Smuts, Koos General Assembly, Preamble of, to Smuts, Michiel Smuts, Michiel Cornelis Smuts-Malcolm agreement Smuts, Mrs. J.C., on Smuts’s driving Soetwater farm Smuts, Santa Soko Nassai River Smuts, Sybella Margaretha (Isie), Sollum Smuts’s courtship of, literary tastes of, Solomon, Saul marriage of, translates Century of Wrong, in fall of Pretoria, detained at Soong, T.V. Pietermaritzburg, bitter towards South Africa, Union of, Dutch in, British, on friendship of Smuts for motives of, French in, British in, Botha, home of, garden of, Lady battles for white supremacy in, need Milner on, names official residence in for national unity in, Rhodes controls Pretoria, Gifts and Comforts press of, British troops in, hope of organisation of, breakdown in health Constitution for, revival of of, and Queen Mary, letters of Afrikanderism in, Britain makes sympathy to amends to, work of rehabilitation in, Smuts, Sylma language problem in, objects to Chinese labour, Smuts and Botha Smuts, van der Byl work for united, Hertzog’s disruptive Smuts family, origins of, in Holland, influence on, Indian problem of, steps and Malans, pets of, home life of, towards united, railways of, federal camping expeditions of Court of Appeal for, Constitution for, Customs Union of, diverse interests of, Jews, native land system in, native problems before, first parliament of Representation in, native trust areas in, Union of, elections in, labour unrest slump in, goes off gold, geology of, in, Rebellion in, participation of, in botanical problems of, prehistoric First World War, recruiting in, remains in, climate and, fusion of Germans on soil of, Martial Law parties ill, and British Protectorates, declared in, mixed reception of S.-W. growth of Nazism in, question of African victors in, comes first with neutrality of, German propaganda in, Smuts, Smuts speaks on problems of, unprepared for war, wartime isolationism in, racial problems of, achievements of, transport of troops first flight from Britain to, mandate of, and supplies round, feelings in, on for S.-W. Africa, republican colour question, subversive elements constitution sought for, pays off war in, declares war on Italy, turns to debts, Smuts head of Government of Smuts’s party, changes in Cabinet of, (1920), deteriorating conditions in, period of prosperity in, troops flown Dominion status of, homes for Prime back to, Italian prisoners-of-war , in,; Minister of, question of incorporation immigration into, plan to revitalise of Southern Rhodesia in, improved agriculture in, India severs relations conditions in, banning of titles in, with, rich gold strike in, to be orders locomotives from Germany, consulted regarding disposal of Italy’s choosing flag for, trade agreement of, colonies, charged by India with racial with Germany, discriminates against discrimination, talk of withdrawal of, from UNO, Royal visit to, treatment of regarding, wartime strength of, returned service men in, native designed for mobility, Smuts disturbances in, makes loan to Britain, addresses, departs for action, fine acquires islands as weather stations, physical types in, in Western Desert, menace of Communism to, in Madagascar, in Italy, flown home, “apartheid” policy for, financial effect demobilisation of on, of Smuts’s loss of office, South African Association for the totalitarian politics in, deterioration of Advancement of Science relations between black and white in South African Party, formation of, South Africa a Century Ago (Barnard) Bloemfontein congresses of, South African Air Force, at outbreak Herzogites leave, Labour leaves, loses of war, Coastal Patrol arm of, bombs popularity, in Rebellion, insecure Italian targets in Africa, in Western tenure of, Unionists merge with, loses Desert, in Sicily, strength of, in Italy, majority, in Opposition, Quota Bill, in Mediterranean theatre, Spitfires for support for Roos in, in coalition with Nationalists, funds of, fuses with South African Army, Beyers Nationalists Commander-in-Chief of, recruitment for, Smuts Commander-in-Chief of, in South African Republic, see Transvaal S.-W. Africa, takes action against South America, geological origin of, rebels, in Flanders, in E. Africa, solidarity of Latin states of Smuts’s tribute to, Pirow’s failure South Wales Argus, on Smuts’s speech Spendiff, suicide of Southampton Spion Kop, Battle of Southern Rhodesia, question of Springbok incorporation of, seeks federation with Springfontein Northern, objects to Seretse Khama’s marriage Springs South-West Africa, campaign against Stalin, Generalissimo Josef, Polish Germans in, rebels in, troops sail for, leaders and, Roosevelt’s trust in, German administration of, natives of, Smuts’s opinion of, accuses Allies of strategic significance of, S. Africa’s negotiating separate peace, mentioned mandate for, Bondelswarts affair in, Stalingrad Germany demands back, Smuts forestalls German coup in, Smuts Stallard, Colonel, Dominion Party of, seeks incorporation of, Smuts visits, Minister of Mines representation of, in Assembly, Standerton, Smuts’s seat at elections in Stanley, H.M. Spaatz, General Stapelberg Space-time, Star, Johannesburg, on Smuts Spain, Civil War in Stassen, execution of Status Bills Stormberg Mountains, battle of guerilla warfare in Stel, Simon van der Stellenbosch, S; buildings of, Smuts at Strakosch, Sir Henry College at, Krige family in, Smuts Strauss, J.G.N. married at, Beyers in, honours Smuts’s Stresa eightieth birthday Stulpnagel, Herr Stern Gang Sudetenland Crisis, S. African Stettinius, Edward decision on neutrality during Steyn, Colin Sunday Times, Johannesburg, on Steyn, President M.T., strives for Smuts’s speeches peace, driven back to Transvaal, Sunday’s River refuses to end war, at Vereeniging, and surrender, uninterested in Union, Sunnyside, Smuts’s home in lunches with King, backs Merriman, Swakopmund supports Hertzog, mentioned Swartland Stofberg, T.C. Swaziland Stopes, Dr. Marie Switzerland Syria Teheran Conference Table Mountain, Smuts’s climbs up, Tighe, Major-General M.J. unveiling of War Memorial on Times, The, Smuts’s letter published Tabora in, on Smuts’s lack of following, reprints Smuts’s speech on inter- Talana Hill, Battle of national affairs Tamalpais, Mr. Tito, Marshal Tanga, Railway Tobruk Tanganyika, Germany secures, strategic significance of, Germany Togoland demands back, see also East Africa Toit, Dr. A.L. du Tanganyika, Lake Tokyo, bombing of Tangier Episode Tonteldoos Taranto, Battle of Tonypandy Tarkastad Toulon Taveta Touwfontein Te Water, Charles Trade Unions, breaking stranglehold of Tedder, Air Chief Marshal Transport, Ministry of Transvaal Scottish Transvaal, white settlers in, British Treurfontein attempt to annexe, discovery of Trichardt, Louis diamonds and gold in, Smuts in, effect of Jameson Raid on, Kruger’s rule in, Trieste corrupt Detective Administration of, Tripartite Pact Uitlanders of, ultimatum of, to Britain, strategic plan of, Boers fall back on, Tripolitania, trusteeship of despairing suggestion from, Bushveld Truman, President, opens San of, guerilla campaigns ill, gathering of Francisco Conference, makes closing defeated Boers in, representatives of at speech, plan of, for developing Vereeniging, Milner the Governor of, backward countries Het Volk party in, granted self- government, regains prosperity, Trusteeship election in, language in, Cullinan Truter, Colonel diamond disagreement in, British loan “Tsalta” to, race discrimination in, immigration laws of, and Union question, last tasks Tsumeb of Parliament of, extinct volcano of, Tugela, Battle of the Nationalist Party in, platinum found in Tunis Transvaal Leader Tunisia, fighting in Turkey, before First World War, Uniondale campaigns against, Smuts favours Unionist Party, and war issue, merges campaign in, surrender of with S. African Party Tweedsmuir United Nations Charter, Preamble to, adoption of, Smuts on United Nations Organisation, conception of, and S. U-boat warfare, African coasts African Indian problem, and S. vulnerable to “unlimited”, Germany African native problem, three Great prepares for, victory over Powers at head of, Smuts on, site for Uitlanders, franchise rights for, headquarters of, and S.-W. African grievances of, mistrusts idea Union question, talk of S. African withdrawal Union from, disagreement in Ukraine United Party, results of elections for, in wartime Cabinet, loses election, Ulanga River nine-point charter of Ulster, Smuts drafts King’s speech to United States Constitution of, Ulugura Mountains federation in, in First World War, and League of Nations, seeks sole right to Ulundi, Battle of Panama Canal, and reparations, war Union, Act of, entrenched clauses of debts owing to, British Commonwealth and, Smuts lectures in, negro problem of, S. Africa buys Usambara Mountains war material in, helps Britain, need for Utrecht full participation of, in War, Lend- Lease Act of, exchanges destroyers for bases, enters War, sends tanks to N. Vaal River Africa, impatient for European landing, bias of, towards Far East, Van der Bij1, Dr. H.J. slowly gets geared for war, World Van der Byl, Major Piet Power of, supplies to Russia from, Britain differs from, as to conduct of Van der Byl, Mrs. A. J. European fighting, Smuts in, for San Van Deventer; Sir Jacobus, in Cape Francisco Conference, seeks strategic sortie, dispatch to, in S.-W. African bases, gives in to Russia, does not campaign, in E. African campaign support S. Africa, Van Rensburg, Dr. J. Hans United States Air Force Van Rensburg, Nicholaas, prophecy United States Army, in First World of, surrender of War, in North Africa, in France, Van Rensburg party on Great Trek European casualties of Van Rhynsdorp Universe, levels in evolution of, relationship of life to, holistic Van Riet Lowe, Mr. Upington Van Rooisvlei Van Ryneveld, General Sir Pierre Victoria Falls narrow escape of, reaches retiring age Victoria Nyanza, Lake Van Zyl, Rt. Hon. G. Brand Vienna, capture of, Russia and Vandenberg, Senator Viljoen, Ben Vechtkop Villiers, Baron de (Sir Henry) Venizelos, M. Vischrivier Ventersdorp Volkstem, on Smuts as speaker Vereeniging, Conference at Von Lettow Vorbeck, General, in E. Versailles, Peace Conference at (see Africa, Smuts’s tribute to, dinner in Peace Conference) honour of, and post-War Germany Versailles, Treaty of, holds germ of Voortrekker Monument at Pretoria next war, Smuts criticises terms of, Vrededorp violates Fourteen Points, signing of, and disarmament of Germany Vredefort Vet River Vries, Bodewyn de Veto, the Vries, Jan Christian Victoria College, Stellenbosch Wakkerstroom Waterval Boven Wales, South, Smuts prevents coal Watten strikes in Wauchope, General Walfish Bay Wavell, General Sir Archibald, visits Walton, Sir Edgar, on Smuts at South Africa, Smuts confers with, on National Convention, War Cabinet, E. African campaign, victory of, in Smuts and, and Passchendaele plan, Western Desert, succeeded by and German secret weapon Auchinleck War Priorities Committee Webster, Professor, Blyth Warsaw Wegener theory of continental drift Waschbank Mountains Weichardt, Greyshirts of Washington, Smuts asked to address Weizmann, Dr. Chaim Senate and Congress in Welfare and Demobilisation, Ministry Washington Treaties (1922) Welgevonden Waterberg, the Wessel, Gert Waterbury Wessels, Louis Waterval West Indies, U.S. bases in Western Desert, campaigns in, tanks in William II, German Emperor, and Tangier Episode, flees to Holland Western Front, battles of, need for offensive action on Williston Western Rift Valley Wilson, General Sir Henry Maitland (Jumbo) Western Union Westminster, Statute of Wilson, President Woodrow, Fourteen Points of, and League of Nations, at Weyers, Andries Versailles, fails to carry America, Weygand, General Smuts on, and reparations, Smuts’s correspondence with, on peace terms, White, General failing health of White Russia Wilson, Sir Henry Whitman, Walt, Smuts’s treatise on Windhoek Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands Windhuk Wilhelmstad Windsor Castle Wilhelmsthal Winterberg Mountains Wilkinson, Professor, J.A. Witbank Witsands Witteberg Mountains Wydhoek Witwatersrand, discovery of gold on, Wyliespoort See also Rand

Witwatersrand University, Bureau of Yalta Conference Archaeology at Yavello Wolmarans, Senator York Wolmaranstad Yosemite National Park Wolstenholme, Professor Young, Francis Brett, on Smuts in E. World War, First, outbreak of, Africa position in November, 1914, unsettled state of Europe before, course and Yugoslavia, Germans overrun, as termination of, Allied reverses in, invasion point, German Army in Smuts surveys position (1917), difficulties of peace making after, aftermath of Zastron World War, Second, approach of Zeebrugge outbreak of, planning a new world to Zeerust follow, less costly in lives than First, peace conference, after Zeppelins Zhukov, General Zimbabwe Ruins Zoutpansberg, the Zulus Zuurbekom Zuurbergen Zwartbergen, the Zwartkop Aerodrome Zwartruggens