British Inhumanity During The Second Anglo-Boer War Poem by Gert Strydom

(in answer to Thérése Bartman)

The Boer's extensive
and masterly-planned guerrilla warfare
did almost paralyse the British army
where most Boer citizens
were snipers and expert horsemen,
their generals and commandants,
especially generals Christiaan de Wet and Koos De la Rey
did use superb strategy
and the Boers were experienced in fire in movement tactics,
could live from the veldt
if there was any wild food
and could get food from their farms

but Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener's
severe tactics, which do accentuate British inhumanity
caused the British to win the war
as they did devastate the farms of the Boers,
did burn down the homes, possessions
and the fields unto the ground,
did scorch and did singe the earth on the farms totally
did catch and take all of the animals
or shot them just were they were,

did take non-combatants,
mainly Boer women and children
by severe force into concentration camps,
did even aim rifles as firing squads at mere children
as happened to Japie Greyling
and near to thirty thousand
women and children did die
from illnesses such as inflammation of the lungs,
typhoid, measles and dysentery

but still more than this
the local black population were armed
by the British with rifles and send out
to the farms to cause amok
and according to Veldt-coronet Jacobus Potgieter
various farms were looted in this way and many women
were assaulted and raped on the farms by armed black men
when the farms were being plundered.

In the Pietersburg concentration camp in 1901
it was as if the angel of death did go through the camp,
as in every tent people were deadly ill
where mainly Boer women and children
were held as if they were people under a sentence.

The cattle were infected with fire-illness and lung-disease
and the sheep with measles and heart-water,
were slaughtered in front of the Boer people in the camp
and the British did know of these illnesses
but it was the food
that they gave the Boer women and children to eat
and these illnesses were carried over to the women and children.

Daily Veldt-coronet Jacobus Potgieter
did dig seventeen graves
and he was one of many people that were digging graves,
he did urge the women and children
not to eat the meat
and with the women and children did insist
that the English doctor
should examine the animals
and that doctor did find
all of the animals to be infected too severally to be eaten
after which the sheep was slaughtered and buried.

Subsequently they did received tinned meat
with grain and sometimes grinded glass
and fishhooks that was in it,
then also sometimes grinded glass
in the little flower that they got.

After only two weeks in that camp
the children of Jacobus Potgieter were ill,
many people did get measles
and all of them did die from that illness
where all of these things as utterly inhuman
do hang over the shoulders of the British people to today.

Powerless Veldt-coronet Jacobus Potgieter
and his wife did pray together three times a day
for God to protect and heal their children.

[References:"Bloemfontein-konsentrasiekamp" (Bloemfontein-concentration camp)and "Springfontein-konsentrasiekamp" (Springfontein concentration camp)by Thérése Bartman.

Poet's note: This poem is based on the true events in the life of Veldt-coronet Jacobus Johannes Potgieter during the second Anglo-Boer war as rendered by the "J. J.Potgieter Manuscript: Eric Swardt. My own great-grandmother did die in a British concentration camp and my great-grandfather was send to St. Helena as a prisoner of war and my grandfather (Gert Strydom)did grow up in the langlaagte orphanage. The historic heroic story of Japie (Jacobus Johannes Cornelis)Greyling during the second Anglo-Boer war, the poem "Japie Greyling" by J.F.E Celliers, the book "Fear and Be Slain" by the British captain Jack Seeley affirm the heroism of the boy Japie Greyling in front of a British firing squad.

Terms:Veldt-coronet: During the second Anglo-Boer war: "A official burdened with (military)order in a district. A officer with a rank equal to that of a captain." National Dictionary."A important official, in the local government that was subordinate to the magistrate and did practice functions of great significance as far as local, administrative, judgemental and police matters did go; in his district the Veldt-coronet did represent the magistrate." Hand woordeboek van die Afrikaanse taal. (Hand Dictionary of the Afrikaans language) .

Commandant: An officer with the rank equal to a lieutenant colonel.The rank between major and colonel.An officer in command of a Boer commando in the second Anglo-Boer war.]