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Updated: May 29, 2025
They could not, as yet, accept the hard saying of Macaulay: 'There is only one cure for the evils which newly-acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom. How would they have regarded Britain's three years' war with the Dutch republics of South Africa and the entrusting of them immediately afterwards to the Boers and General Louis Botha?
I was back at Abraham's Kraal by nine o'clock on the morning of March the 18th. I found that our forces had been placed in position by Generals De la Rey, Andreas Cronje, Philip Botha, Froneman and Piet de Wet, the last-named having arrived with his commandos from Colesberg a few days before the rout at Poplar Grove.
When Botha left for the south he instructed B. Viljoen to carry on for him; but when he joined the itinerant Transvaal Government at Amsterdam he was disappointed to find that little or nothing had been done in his absence, thanks chiefly to the mobile energy of Benson, who hovered like a hawk over the terrorized laagers.
A man of weaker fibre than the British leader would have been daunted by the disasters of that day, for there he lost ten guns and a large number of men. But Buller carried in his blood all the old grit of our race, and the heavier the check the more his soul was set upon ultimate victory. I have been over that battle ground, and have looked at the positions taken up by Louis Botha.
Wristlets, watches, spy-glasses, chocolate, cigarettes, were now as common as in ordinary times they were rare. Heliographic and telegraphic instruments by the cartload. No doubt about it, Roodewal came at an opportune moment. Roberts was pressing Botha hard in front, and this stunning blow at his lines of communication compelled him to pause.
Undaunted, Hertzog carried on the fight. He soon had the supreme advantage of having the field to himself because Botha was off fighting the Germans and Smuts had gone to England to help mould the Allied fortunes. The Nationalist leader made hay while the red sun of war shone. Every South African who died on the battlefield was for him just another argument for separation from England.
He therefore ordered these posts to be taken, entrusting to his brother C. Botha the attack on Itala, and to Emmett and Grobler the attack on Prospect. The failure of each attack with considerable loss on September 26 made Botha reconsider his position. There was no more thought of another campaign on the Tugela, and he determined to retire.
As one English paper dramatically phrases it: "One used to see pictures of Botha in the illustrated papers in those days, a gaunt, bearded, formidable figure, with rifle and bandoliers the most dangerous of our foes.
Even the Nationalists trusted him and they do not trust Smuts. It is the old story of the prophet in his own country. There are many people in South Africa today who believe that if Botha were alive there would be no secession movement. The Boers who oppose him politically call Smuts "Slim Jannie." The Dutch word "slim" means tricky and evasive.
A man less handsome, of less commanding appearance than Botha might have possessed such a power, and been considered less extraordinary than he, but it was not wholly his personal appearance for he was the handsomest man in the Boer army which aroused the admiration of men. His voice, his eyes, his facial expression and his manner all combined to strengthen the man's power over others.
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