Fire in the Sky: The Destruction of the Orange Free State, 1899-1902

Abstract

Owen Coetzer. Fire in the Sky: The Destruction of the Orange Free State, 1899-1902. Weltevreden Park, South Africa: Covos-Day Books, 2000. xvi + 338 pp. Photographs. Map. Appendixes. Bibliography. Index. R120.00. Paper. Fransjohan Pretorius. The Great Escape of the Boer Pimpernel, Christiaan de Wet: The Making of a Legend. Translated and adapted by Stephen Hofstatter, assisted by Wilhelm Snyman. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 2001. xvi + 240 pp. Photographs. Illustrations. Maps. Bibliography. Index. $29.95. Cloth. These two works are examples of the Janus face of war in turn-of-the-century South Africa, reflecting the pity (Coetzer) and glory (Pretorius) of the Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. With the centenary of that war, there has been a revived interest in the conflict, expressed in a spate of academic conferences reevaluating previous interpretations, in battle reenactments, in the restoration of monuments and battlefields, and in the recognition of the many bit players in that war whose contributions have hitherto been ignored or marginalized. As Anna-Karin Evaldsson and Andre Wessels of the University of the Free State have pointed out (The Anglo-Boer War Centennial: A Critical Evaluation, Journal for Contemporary History [Bloemfontein] 27, no. 3 [December 2002]: 124-44), all the participating groups in that war have been accorded full recognition except for those Afrikaners from the two republics South African Republic [Transvaal] and the Orange Free State) who bolted from the cause by surrendering early in the war hands-uppers) and those who joined forces with the British (the joiners). In the same article, the authors estimate, incidentally, that the centenary generated in the neighborhood of two hundred books and one hundred academic essays. Owen Coetzer, a seasoned South African journalist, has attempted to deal with the sad, and long-remembered, part of the war in the Orange Free State. The and population resettlement policies of the British military forces can be considered components of counterinsurgency warfare against a tactically skilled and tenacious enemy. Although the British were roundly condemned in many circles for what Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, a prominent Liberal and future prime minister, called (in his speech of June 14, 1901, to the National Reform Union in London) of barbarism, it was not the first time these methods had been applied. Indeed, Coetzer points out that President William McKinley, in his message to Congress in 1898, excoriated the Spanish general Weyland for his forced relocation and policies in Cuba as an antidote to guerrilla warfare. The same charge could be applied to the U. S. Army in its campaign against the Navajos, as depicted in Lynn R. Bailey's The Long Walk: A History of the Navajo War, 1846-68 (Westernlore Press, 1988). Indeed, Bailey uses the terms scorched earth (165) and concentration camp (226) in his narrative. Visitors to the Canyon de Chelly National Monument in the Arizona portion of the tristate Navajo reservation are tactfully reminded by their Navajo guides of that lamentable part of history, a history that has striking parallels with the Afrikaners' experiences in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. What is so unusual about Coetzer's book, which revisits old topics in a fresh manner, is the way in which he quotes at considerable length from official British command papers (presented to Parliament) and then proffers comments and observations drawn from less well-known sources to corroborate or refute the claims in these published documents. Many of the sources he utilizes are testimonials by Afrikaners who lived in the various relocation centers (commonly termed concentration camps but without the pejorative meaning that the term subsequently acquired in the German Third Reich). He has availed himself of the original Afrikaans sources, many of which are located in the Museum of the Boer Republics in Bloemfontein, translated them, and placed them within the context of the more readily available official published British sources. …