SOUTH AFRICA. 



633 



year. The number who went into the field from 

 first to last is estimated at 75,000. Their losses 

 during the war were 3,700 killed or died of wounds 

 and 32,000 prisoners of war, of whom 700 died. 



After the terms of peace were signed Lord 

 Kitchener appointed as commissioners to receive 

 the surrenders of armed burghers Gen. Bruce Ham- 

 ilton for the eastern and Gen. Walter Kitchener 

 for the western Transvaal; Gen. Elliot for the 

 Orange Hiver Colony, and Gen. French for Cape 

 Colony. Gen. Louis Botha, Gen. Delarey, Gen. 

 Christian de Wet, and other influential Boer lead- 

 ers accompanied the British commissioners and in- 

 duced all the burghers to surrender except some 

 that joined commandos in the remote wild regions 

 of the north and west that were British territory 

 or trekked beyond into German and Portuguese 

 territories. The commissioners received the sur- 

 renders of 11,166 armed Boers in the Transvaal, 

 6,455 in the Orange River Colony, and 3,635 in the 

 Cape Colony; total, 21,256. The surrendered 

 burghers who w r ere unwilling to take the oath of 

 allegiance were permitted to sign a declaration 

 that they accepted British sovereignty and would 

 not again take up arms against Great Britain. 

 The prisoners of war in St. Helena, Bermuda, In- 

 dia, and Ceylon were brought back to their own 

 country on subscribing to the oath or the dec- 

 laration, which, however, some of them refused 

 to do. 



Conclusion of Peace. On Jan. 25, 1902, the 

 Dutch Government, in view of the exceptional cir- 

 cumstances in which one of the belligerents was 

 placed, the Boer authorities in South Africa being 

 unable to communicate with the delegates in Eu- 

 rope, who bore no instructions later than those 

 drawn up in March, 1900, binding them so strictly 

 to the independence of the republics that they 

 could not even accept the status quo ante bellum 

 unless a mode of settling disputes were laid down 

 at the same time, seeing that the Boer delegates 

 were in Netherlands territory and accredited to 

 that Government alone, offered its good offices as 

 a neutral power to bring about negotiations for 

 peace that could not otherwise be opened. The 

 Dutch memorandum proposed that the Boer dele- 

 gates proceed under a safe-conduct to South Africa 

 in order to deliberate with the Boer leaders and 

 return with full powers to conclude a treaty of 

 peace binding the Boers in Africa and the Boers 

 in Europe, in which case the Netherlands Govern- 

 ment offered to place them in communication with 

 plenipotentiaries sent over to Holland by the Brit- 

 ish Government. 



The British Government declined to accept the 

 intervention of the Dutch Government, intimated 

 a belief that the Boer delegates in Europe have no 

 influence over the representatives of the Boers in 

 Sduth Africa, stated its understanding that all 

 powers of government, including those of negotia- 

 tion, were vested in Mr. Steyn and Mr. Schalk 

 Burger, and therefore inferred that the quickest 

 and most satisfactory means of arranging a set- 

 tlement would be by direct communication be- 

 tween the leaders of the Boer forces and the Brit- 

 ish commander-in-chief in South Africa, who was 

 already instructed to forward any offers he re- 

 ceived for the consideration of the British Gov- 

 ernment. 



On Sept. 5, 1901, Schalk Burger sent a commu- 

 nication to Lord Kitchener to ascertain what 

 measure of self-government would be left to the 

 republics and what conditions could be obtained 

 for the Cape rebels if the Boers should lay down 

 their arms. Lord Kitchener replied on Sept. 22 

 that the annexation of the republics must stand 

 to prevent South Africa from again being con- 



vulsed with war and to protect those who had ac- 

 cepted British rule, and that amnesty to rebels 

 was the prerogative of the ruler of the state, 

 pointing out that the Republican Government had 

 tried and shot traitors and that the commandant- 

 general had threatened to burn the farms and 

 confiscate the property of burghers who, after tak- 

 ing the oath of allegiance to Great Britain, re- 

 fused to rejoin the commandos. 



Presidents Steyn and Schalk Burger, supported 

 by Commandant-General Botha, Gen. de Wet, and 

 the rest of the Boer leaders, still held out in the 

 hope, not of intervention by any European power, 

 but of a revulsion of feeling in Great Britain, 

 caused in part by the farm-burning, the hanging 

 of Cape Colonists, compelling their neighbors and 

 relatives to witness the spectacle, the arming of 

 natives to fight the Boers, the concentration 

 camps, and other practises denounced by the Lib- 

 eral leader in the British Parliament as " meth- 

 ods of barbarism," and in part by the cost and ap- 

 parently interminable nature of the guerrilla war, 

 which kept a larger British army in the field than 

 ever and entailed heavier expenses than ever, the 

 total cost from the beginning having already ex- 

 ceeded 220,000,000, which was three times the 

 cost of the Crimean War and more than the in- 

 demnity paid by France to Germany. The Boers, 

 moreover, were encouraged to believe that the 

 British nation would recognize, now that formi- 

 dable hostile action on their part was no longer 

 possible, the unconquerable national spirit and 

 love of independence that they had inherited from 

 their fathers. 



The correspondence between the British and 

 Dutch governments was forwarded by the British 

 authorities to President Schalk Burger, who de- 

 cided to act on the intimation that, although the 

 British Government would not treat with the Boer 

 delegates in Europe, it would listen to proposals 

 from the Boer authorities in South Africa. Presi- 

 dent Burger went into the British lines and ob- 

 tained permission, on March 23, to consult Presi- 

 dent Steyn. Accompanied by Lucas Meyer, State- 

 Secretary Reitz, Attorney-General Krogh, and 

 their colleagues, Jacoby, Vanderwalt, and Van 

 Velden, he was conducted to Kroonstadt. There 

 the members of the Acting Government of the 

 South African Republic remained until the Gov- 

 ernment of the Orange Free State could be 

 reached. President Steyn and the chief command- 

 ers Louis Botha, De Wet, and Delarey, met them 

 in consultation at Klerksdorp, and on April 12 

 all went to Pretoria to open formal negotiations 

 with the British High Commissioner and the Brit- 

 ish commander-in-chief. Their first proposal was 

 that the two republics should concede the de- 

 mands made by the British Government before 

 the war as to the franchise for Uitlanders and 

 similar matters. Their proposals were franchise, 

 equal rights for the English and Dutch languages 

 in education, a customs union, dismantling of 

 forts, postal and railroad union, arbitration of 

 differences by Boer and British commissioners, 

 and mutual amnesty. If these terms were not 

 satisfactory they desired to know what the Brit- 

 ish Government would offer. When these pro- 

 posals were forwarded to the British Government 

 Mr. Brodrick telegraphed back his astonishment 

 that the Boer delegates should persist in misappre- 

 hending the situation and referred them to the 

 terms offered at Middelburg a your before as the 

 minimum. Although the reduction in the Boer 

 forces and the additional sacrifices thrown upon 

 the British by the rejection of those terms would 

 justify more onerous demands, the British Gov- 

 ernment was willing in the interest of permanent 



