A General Survey and Summary of Events 189 



declared that he was actually the cause of the war, 

 because on behalf of Paul Kruger he had at the last 

 election for President destroyed 500 of Piet Joubert's 

 votes, on account of Joubert being against declaring 

 war with Great Britain and being prepared to 

 adopt measures to avert war, and to maintain the 

 independence of the South African Republic. I 

 have heard that Schoeman repeated this statement 

 on other occasions. After the war he was killed 

 by the explosion of a shell which he was showing 

 to his children. This same H. Schoeman told 

 me in Pretoria in 1899 (at the time that Presi- 

 dent Kruger had gone to meet Sir Alfred Milner 

 in Bloemfontein), that he would soon see me in 

 Cape Town, as the Cape Colony Boers would seize 

 the railways at Hex River Pass, and that some of the 

 Cape officials were on their side, etc. He was a 

 commandant at Colesberg during the war, having 

 invaded the Cape Colony ; but did not get beyond 

 that point. He was a great friend of President 

 Kruger's and quoted texts from the Bible on every 

 possible occasion. I am of the opinion, that had 

 Piet Joubert been elected President at the last ballot 

 instead of Paul Kruger there would have been no 

 war with Great Britain, and the Republics would 

 have continued to exist, at any rate for some time, 

 possibly for generations. Piet Joubert distrusted the 

 Hollanders and Germans, considering them no true 

 friends of the Afrikander people ; merely exploiting 

 them to further their own schemes this was a sore 

 subject between Kruger and Joubert. 



Shortly before the outbreak of the war I was in 

 Pretoria and walking up to Joubert's house with him 

 he said to me, pointing to some German officers in 

 uniform " those are the fellows that are going to 

 get us into trouble," and later in his house, while 



