Maritz rebellion

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The Maritz Rebellion was an anti-British uprising that began in South Africa in October 1914 at the beginning of the First World War . Led by Boer officers such as Manie Maritz , Christiaan de Wet , Christiaan Frederik Beyers and Jan Kemp , however, the insurgents did not succeed in gaining enough support from their compatriots to seriously question British rule. The rebellion was essentially suppressed by the end of 1914, with the last Boer leader surrendering to the British in February 1915.

prehistory

After the end of the Second Boer War through the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902, not all Boer commanders had taken the required oath of allegiance to the British Crown and instead went into exile. Many of them returned to South Africa in the following years up to the beginning of the First World War, with a larger number again refusing to take the oath of allegiance. These Boers were also referred to as Bitterinders ("those who fight to the bitter end"). A major European war with British participation, such as the one that broke out in August 1914, was seen by the bitter Indians as an opportunity to shake off British foreign rule. However, this was by no means the dominant political attitude among the Boers, rather there were positions ranging from neutrality to support for the South African Union as part of the British Empire .

After the British entry into the world war on August 5, 1914, the British government called on the Dominions of the Empire over the next few days to come to the aid of the motherland with troop contingents. The South African government of Louis Botha agreed to deploy parts of the Union Defense Force (UDF) to manning radio stations in German South West Africa . The government also declared that it could defend South Africa solely with the UDF troops, so that the British garrison troops could be transferred to the front in France. From 9th to 12th September the government received a mandate from the House of Assembly and the Senate to take action against the German presence in South West Africa. Meanwhile, the troops were mobilized on the border under British Brigadier General Henry Lukin and preparations were made for the occupation of Lüderitz Bay .

As early as August 15, there was a meeting of up to 800 Boers in Treurfontein , at which the former Boer General and now Senator Koos de la Rey spoke out against the participation of the South African Union in the war. De la Rey was under the influence of the "seer" Niklaas "Siener" van Rensburg , who had predicted the independence of the former Boer republics as a result of the war. De la Rey, however , had been influenced by his former co-generals Botha and Jan Christiaan Smuts (now defense minister) not to call for active measures against the government before his appearance . Even Barry Hertzog , the secession of the ruling South African Party (SAP) led, from the still during the war Nasionale Party emerged, was set against a South African participation in the war. When rumors spread that the government was planning to call up civilians for the upcoming campaign in South West Africa, Boer attitudes intensified. Brigadier General Christiaan Frederik Beyers , Commandant-General of the UDF, Major Jan Kemp and other officers resigned from the army in protest. This was in contrast to the behavior of the district commander in the North Cape , Salomon Gerhardus (Mania) Maritz , who remained in the army even though he was already secretly preparing for the armed uprising.

Prelude: Tod de la Reys and the invasion of German South West Africa

On September 15, 1914, General Beyers and Senator de la Rey left Pretoria to attend a meeting with Kemp and other senior officers at a military camp in Potchefstroom . A unit of around 2,000 UDF soldiers, many of whom were believed to be sympathetic to the resistance to the South West African campaign, had just completed their mobilization there. There are a number of indications that the meeting in Potchefstroom was planned to spark a major insurgency that would culminate in the march on Pretoria and the proclamation of the Republic. On the way, her car was shot at by police officers and de la Rey was killed while trying to break a roadblock at Langlaierter. De la Rey's death temporarily took the wind out of the sails of the ambitions of the militant Boer leaders and conspirators. Nonetheless, theories of a targeted murder of the Boer general were voiced at de la Rey's funeral on September 20. At a meeting in Lichtenburg the day after the funeral, Kemp, Beyers and de Wet called for nationwide protest against participation in the South West Africa campaign. The government tried to smooth things over by saying that only volunteers would be deployed in German Southwest.

The invasion of South West Africa began in the second half of September without an open Boer uprising. The Force C under Colonel Percival Scott Beves occupied on September 18 without resistance the Luderitz, while the Force A under General Lukin of Port Nolloth set off to the border river Oranje to exceed Raman's Drift and Seeheim reach. The Force B under Manie Maritz was from Upington German South West Africa to attack her from the east. Lukin's advance was halted at the Battle of Sandfontein in late September . Maritz, who should have assisted Lukin, refused to begin his operations and was subsequently summoned to Pretoria. Instead of doing so, in early October he moved his headquarters from Upington to Kakamas , closer to the south-west African border, and entered into secret negotiations with the Germans. Presumably he had been in touch with them for a long time through fellow countrymen on the other side of the border. Defense Secretary Smuts subsequently sent the trustworthy General Coen Brits to Upington, apparently to replace Maritz.

Course of the uprising

Maritz then decided to give up his game of hide and seek. On October 7th he concluded an agreement with the Germans and on October 9th openly proclaimed the uprising with the aim of establishing a South African republic free from British hegemony. He referred to himself as a general in his proclamation and declared war on behalf of the Republic of Great Britain. The government responded on October 11 by declaring a state of emergency.

At a meeting in Kopjes , Free State, on October 13, the majority of those present decided to send a delegation to Botha to call for the South West Africa campaign to end. De Wet and Kemp, on the other hand, had spoken in vain to join forces with Maritz immediately. Understandably, the government did not respond to the demands of the dissatisfied Boers. As a result, there was another meeting in Kopjes on October 22nd, at which it was decided to give Beyers in the Transvaal and de Wet in the Free State a free hand to organize the resistance against the government. De Wet was supposed to mobilize the commandos in the Free State and combine them with Maritz's troops, while Beyers was to lead a command from the Transvaal through the Kalahari .

De Wet had considerable success in mobilizing the commandos in the Free State, with around 7,000 armed men joining him. The uprising in the Transvaal was less successful, partly because of Beyers' wait-and-see attitude. At Commissie Drift near Rustenburg , Beyers' command was attacked and defeated by government troops on October 27, making further negotiations between the commanders and the government difficult. An amnesty offered by the government for insurgents who lay down their arms did not have the desired effect and further fighting broke out in November. An offer to de Wet to negotiate in private with Marthinus Steyn was rejected by him after his son Danie was killed in one of the skirmishes.

The uprising in the Free State was suppressed militarily in November and de Wet was captured on December 2nd near Kuruman on the way to Maritz. Beyers drowned on the run on December 8th in the Vaal , whereupon the uprising in the Transvaal also collapsed. Kemp managed to cross the Kalahari to unite with Maritz. Together they occupied Upington on January 25th. However, Kemp gave up on February 4th in a hopeless situation. Maritz withdrew to South West Africa, from where he evaded to Angola after the occupation by Union troops in early 1915 .

consequences

Around 32,000 UDF soldiers were deployed against almost 11,500 rebels. The official government report puts the number of victims at 132 dead and 242 wounded on the government side and 190 dead and around 325 wounded on the part of the rebels.

The insurgents caught were treated with leniency by the government and the majority of them were sentenced to imprisonment or fines. Only one death sentence , against the UDF officer Jopie Fourie , was pronounced and carried out. All those sentenced to prison terms were released by the end of 1916. Mostly Boer troops were deployed to suppress the uprising in order to prevent the ethnic conflict with the British population from flaring up again.

A total of three investigation commissions were set up to investigate the incidents. The first, headed by Professor Leo Fouché, published its report ( Blaubuch ) under the title Report on the Outbreak of the Rebellion and the Policy of the Government with regard to its Suppression as early as the spring of 1915. A second report prepared under Patrick Duncan under the title Report of the Select Committee on Rebellion for the House of Assembly also appeared in 1915. A third report was published under the direction of Judge JH Lange in 1916 under the title Report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Causes and Circumstances relating to the recent Rebellion in South Africa released. The files of the high treason trials against the ringleaders of the uprising have not been preserved.

The dead of the uprising, including de la Rey, Beyers and Fourie, were transfigured into martyrs in Boer circles. The Boer self-help organizations founded to support the defeated insurgents also exerted a formative influence on the further ideological development of Boer nationalism. The split between the Boers who were willing to compromise, who remained loyal to the SAP, and the radical supporters of the Nasionale Party worsened under the impact of events, which resulted, among other things, in the splitting off of the Gesuiwerde Nasionale Party under Daniel François Malan after the unification of SAP and NP 1934 put it.

See also

literature

  • TRH Davenport: The South African Rebellion, 1914. In: The English Historical Review , 78 (306), January 1963, pp. 73-94.
  • Bill Nasson: World War One and the People of South Africa. Table Mountain, 2014.
  • Hew Strachan: The First World War in Africa. Oxford University Press, 2004.
  • Defense HQ (Ed.): The Union of South Africa and the Great War 1914-1918. Government Printing and Stationery Office, Pretoria 1924.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anne Samson: Britain, South Africa and the East African Campaign, 1914-1918: The Union Comes of Age. IB Tauris, 2006, p. 84.
  2. ^ Hew Strachan: The First World War in Africa. Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 70.
  3. ↑ Fouché report in full text on archive.org .