Concentration Camps during the South African
/ Boer War,
1899-1902
An example of classes and types of British
official documents in the Stanford libraries
for the study of primary sources.
The proper strategy consists in inflicting
as telling blows as
possible on the enemy's army, and then causing
the inhabitants so much suffering that they
must long for peace, and force the government
to demand it. The people must be left with
nothing but their eyes to weep with over the
war.
(U.S. Army General Philip Sheridan, advice to Otto Von
Bismark, 1870)
[Re: Union Army, house burning etc.,: C.O. Confidential
Print Africa (South) no. 653 pp. 28-29,
35, 39-40, 42-44. Nov. 1901 = Hoover Library
MFILM DT32.A258, reel 115]
"At Vereeniging [May 1902] Botha stated
that he had tried to send [Boer] families in
to the British, but they had  refused
to receive them," writes S.B. Spies, who
then quotes a Boer Commandant referring to Boer
women and children made refugees by Britain's
scorched-earth policy, "Our families are
in a pitiable condition
and the enemy uses those families to force
us to surrender." Spies adds, "and
there is little doubt that that was indeed the
intention of Kitchener when he had issued instructions
that no more families were to be brought into
the concentration camps." (1)
[W.O. 108/9 file no.1]
[W.O. 108/9 file no.3]
Thomas Pakenham writes of Kichener's policy
turn, "No doubt the continued 'hullabaloo'
at the death-rate in these concentration camps,
and Milner's belated agreement to take over their
administration, helped changed K's mind [some
time at the end of 1901]. By mid-December at
any rate, Kitchener was already circulating all
column commanders with instructions not to bring
in women and children when they cleared the country,
but to leave them with the guerrillas. . . .
Viewed as a gesture to Liberals,
on the eve of the new session of Parliament at
Westminster, it was a shrewd political move.
It also made excellent military sense, as it
greatly handicapped the guerrillas, now that
the drives were in full swing. . . . It was effective
precisely because, contrary to the Liberals'
convictions, it was less humane than bringing
them into camps, though this was of no great
concern to K." (2)
What then were the facts
of British policy towards Boer and African civilians
during the Boer War of 1899-1902 that leading
Boers can complain, in May 1902 (during the meeting
of Boer delegates at Vereeninging to negotiate
a peace settlement), that the British no longer
would take their women and children in to the
concentartion camps? Seven months earlier Boer
leaders (Burger and Reitz) had protested
directly to the British government in a letter
sent to K. and addressed to the Prime Minister,
Lord Salisbury, about the farm clearing and
camp conditions. [Cd.
902 p. 121-22]. Six months earlier still
in June, 1901, Liberal opposition party leader
Campbell-Bannerman, could answer the rhetorical "When
is a war not a war?" with "When it
is carried on by methods of barbarism in South
Africa," referring to those same camps and
the policies that created them.
Even prior to K's order to stop bringing Boer
women and children in to the camps (and this
order didn't apply to black Africans, caught
in British sweeps, who had their own camps and
story of death, neglect and war-related suffering),
there had been debates among military and Conservative
government officials on the efficacy of the camps
and the desirability of returning "refugees" to
the guerrillas -- aside from the moral debate waged in Britain and in Europe by opposition
M.P.s, reformers, and Pro-Boers in and out of
Britain. The director of Military Intelligence
had reported as early as July 1901 of evidence
that leaving women and children on the veldt
would necessarily shorten the conflict. [C.O.
417/334, 29838, Henderson to Altham, July 26,
1901]. Milner and Chamberlain also disagreed
over whether women and children in the camps
should be given the option of leaving the camps.
and Milner informed Chamberlain in November 1901
that "even if the war were to come to an
end tomorrow, it would not be possible to let
people in the concentration camps go back home
. . ." [Cd.
903 p. 135 Nov 15 1901, Milner to Chamberlain]
K, on the other hand, responding to the above-mentioned
November indictment by Burger
and Reitz, informed Boer leaders that he
presumed this meant that they were prepared to
take care of their own, and that he was prepared
to send back the women and children as soon as
the commandos told him where they would like
them. [W.O. 32/871, 7972]
K also wrote at this time to Brodrick defending
his policy of sweeps, and emphasizing that no
new Boer families were being brought in unless
they were in danger of starving. [Cd.
902, no.12, p.119-20] About
the same time and supporting Milner's viewpoint,
the Fawcett Commission report,
December 1901, stated:
to turn 100,000 people now being
held in the concentration camps out on
the veldt to take care of themselves would
be cruelty . . . [p.4] (3)
The private and public responses of Milner and
Chamberlain to the growing debate in England
over treatment of the internees recorded in their
own papers and official documentary sources form
an instructive study in political decision-making,
face-saving (who knew what when), and moral rationalizing
in a liberal democracy. They also show that moral
niceties can frequently be more easily overlooked,
both at the individual and governmental levels,
so as long as political goals are being met.
During this same time, though, Spies writes, "There
can be little doubt that Milner and Chamberlain
were responsible for injecting the administrative
staff of the camps with this sense of urgency" [after
the camps were transferred to civilian control
in November 1901]. Both the secretary of state and the high commisioner
had become extremely concerned about conditions
in the concentration camps, and about the consequent
unfavorable publicity. Their correspondence shows
concern with all aspects of camp administration
including such matters as the availability
of milk and the nutritional value of rations;
remarkable concerns for two of the most prominent
figures of the Empire. [Cd.
902] Chamberlain, in the first week of November,
impressed upon Brodrick (secretary of war) how
serious the matter was . . ." (4)
And Chamberlain soon thereafter placed a call
for medical officers for the camps and, somewhat
later, additional nurses.
[C.O. Confidential
Print 672, 673]
An example of the above in Milner's case compares
statements made in December 1901 and January
1902 that K's policy of concentartion camps as
a "mistake," "blunder," and "sad
folly," with the high commissioner's statement
to the Cabinet of June 26, 1901 proposing alternatives
to K's overall policy where he argues, "The
purely aggressive and destructive policy will,
sooner or later, have done all it can do. It
may yet prove completely successful. " [Cab
41/26 June 21 & 28 1901 = SUL MTXT microfilm
n.s. 942]. Spies states that Milner knew first-hand
what K was up to prior to the high commisioner's
English holiday, May, 1901. (Spies, p. 255-256).
When the war continued to drag on, or so at least
it seemed to the Cabinet, so they pressed K in
October on "the reason which had led Lord
Kitchener to a policy of sweeping instead of
a policy of reserving protected areas," the
latter approach the one emphasized by Milner.
(Spies, p. 247). [Cab 41/26,
22 Oct. 29 1901 = SUL MTXT microfilm n.s.
1500]
Public opinion
and political opposition to government
civilian policies in South Africa emerged for
the first time in Parliament in February 1901
in the instance of an attack on the policy,
the government, and the Army by radical Liberal
M.P. and leader of the "pro-Boer" pack,
Lloyd-George. [Hansard LXXXIX, 397-406,
Feb. 18, 1901] Kitchener had succeeded
Roberts as commander-in-chief in South Africa
November 29, 1900, and though his systematic
sweeps of the countryside would not get underway
in full-swing until March of the next year,
Roberts policy of farm burning had already
brought thousands of Boers and black Africans
into "refugee camps" established
by the Army to hold them.
In March 1901, just as Kitchener's troops begin
to bring tens-of-thousands of "refugees" into
the camps, Liberal members of Parliament C.P
Scott and John Ellis took up the attack on the
camp system and first used the term "concentration
camp." [Hansard
XC, March 1 1901]. Secretary for war Brodrick
replied that the camps were "voluntary" and
that inmates went as refugees (which was in some
cases true, but not most). Pakenham describes
the events in South Africa and this moment: in
order to break the stalemate K. initiated plans
to "flush out guerrillas in a series of
sytematic drives, organized like a sporting shoot,
with success defined in a weekly 'bag' of killed,
captured and wounded, and to sweep the country
bare of everything that could give sustenance
to the guerrillas, including women and children.
. . . It was the clearance of civilians -- uprooting
a whole nation -- that would come to dominate
the last phase of the war." Brodrick cabled
K for information on March 18; K replied by cable on
March 22. [Cd. 819,
p. 2-3]
Responding to these attacks on the Government,
secretary of war Brodrick insisted that the interned
Boers were "contented and confortable",
but still had no firm statistics from Kitchener.
[Hansard XC, col. 1026,
March 8, 1901] Also: [Hansard
XCVI, col. 148, June 27, 1901] In April the
Government gave the House of Commons the first
statistics on the camps, provided by Kitchener.
[Hansard XCII, col. 895-896, April 22, 1901] Also:
[Hansard XCIII, col.
407, May 2 & col. 929, May 7, 1901] Extensive statistical
tables were published in the Parliamentary
Papers [e.g., Cd. 939,
942, 1161], which were picked up and used
in anti-British pamphlets on
the Continent. [F.O. Confidential
Print 7720/39]
On May 8, 1901, Lord Milner, High Commissioner,
South Africa, boarded the Saxon for holiday
in England. Emily Hobhouse was also
on board, and would from this time on play
a key role in the camp  question. Milner, unfortunately for
both the Boer women and children and the British
government, had no time for Miss Hobhouse, a
Boer sympathizer and "trouble maker." (Pakenham,
p. 531-32, 536+.) On May 24, 1901 the Saxon arrived
in England, and Hobhouse got to work: The first
week of June 1901 she met with St. John Brodrick
at the War Office; and the following week with
opposition party leader Campbell-Bannerman. She
also talked to anyone else who would listen to
her, and many listened to perhaps the only person
in England, not in the Army, who had been in
the camps. Radical M.P. Ellis is among those
that paid attention, and sent a relative out
to South Africa on a fact-finding mission. When
his representative was refused entry to the camps
by Kitchener, "Ellis' instincts were arroused." [Hansard XCV, June 17, 1901] During this time, Hobhouse's
15 page Brunt of War report was distributed
to M.Ps. This report and her personal testimony
led to C-B's "Methods of barbarism" speech,
mentioned above, of June 14, 1901; and to another
attack on the Government in the Commons by Lloyd-George
on June 17, 1901. Lloyd-George asked, "Why
pursue this disgraceful policy, why pursue war
against women and children." Six other radicals
and one Irish Nationalist joined in his denunciation.
[Hansard XCV, 573,
June 17, 1901]. During this time C-B showed
his own new-found radicalism concerning the War.
[Hansard XCV, 583-622, June 17, 1901] Brodrick replied
for the Government. [Hansard
XCV, 590-597] LG's motion condemning the
camps was defeated 252 to 149. [Hansard
XCV, 622]
Then in July complete statistical returns from
camps were sent by K., and by August it was clear
to Government and Opposition alike that Miss
Hobhouse's worst fears were being confirmed (93,940
whites and 24, 457 blacks in "camps of refuge" and
the crisis was becoming a catatrophe as the death
rates appeared very high. [Cd. 608, Cd. 694]
Brodrick hoped to defuse the situation by constituting
a commission of inquiry, an all-ladies commission,
which was quickly selected, and sent out to South
Africa in August. The ladies remained in South
Africa through early December, at which time
they returned to England and quickly issued their
findings, which Pakenham calls "constructive
and pungent. If B expected a ladylike white wash
he was in for a surprise." [Fawcett Report: Cd.
893/1-2]
Pakenham sums up the affair:
Of course, they [Fawcett
report findings] were of no confort to
the government. But Chamberlain had at long
last got the message . . . Milner was in
theory the man responsible for the camps,
but the main decisions (or their absence)
had been left to the soldiers, to whom the
life or death of the 154,000 Boer and African
civilians in the camps rated as an abysmally
low priority.
. . . the terrible mortality figures were
at last declining. The commonsense of the Fawcett
Commission had a magical effect on the annual
death-rate, which was to fall by February to
6 per cent. and soon to 2 per cent., less than
the average in Glasgow.
Ten months after the subject
had first been raised in Parliament, Lloyd-George's
taunts and CB's harsh words at the Holborn
Restaurant had been vindicated. In the interval,
at least twenty thousand whites and twelve
thousand coloured people had died in the concentration
camps, the majority from epidemics of measles
and typhoid that could have been avoided.(5)
Colonial Office official H.W. Just summarized
the events, from the government's viewpoint,
in a memorandum dated January 16, 1902. It was
printed in the C.O. Confidential Print. [C.O.
Confidential Print 676]
Notes
1) S.B. Spies. Methods
of Barbarism: Roberts and Kitchener and Civilians
in the Boer Republics January 1900 - May 1902.
Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 1977, p. 260-261.
For Sheridan quote see Spies, p.296 and note
76. Return to text
2) Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War.
New York: Avon Books, 1979, p.581. Return to text
3) For a detailed account over the debate
on the release of internees, see Spies, p. 257+. Return to
text
4) Spies, p. 255-56. Return
to text
5) Pakenham, p. 549. Somewhat higher figures
for total deaths are given by Spies, p. 265. Return to text
Compiled by John Rawlings, rawlings@stanford.edu
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