The Ballade Of Commandant Gideon Jacobus Scheepers Poem by Gert Strydom

I
Where he does believe in victory through bravery,
Gideon Scheepers ride with his Witkoppen-Commando
and as a heliographer and scout and commander,
his citizens do turn the Cape Colony upside down.

II
Chorus:
Desperate to stop the destruction of trains and telegraph-lines,
where Scheepers do in the towns order equipment, food and horses to be given,
do lock up magistrates and the police in their own cells and do set citizens free,
lord Kitchener tries to stop him with colonel Scobell.

III
Two black men that spied for the British are shot by Scheepers,
from town to town in the Cape Colony guerrilla war is waged,
the brave deeds of Scheepers and his teenagers embarrass the British
and the 10th Hussars are beaten and to stop Scheepers seems in vain.

IV
At a order and a proclamation by president Steyn and general Christiaan de Wet,
against the British scorching earth policy Scheepers burn down farms in resistance
in the Cape Colony against the people that do give resistance against the Boers,
and with Scheepers and his Witkoppen-commando the fat is in the fire,

V
with two hundred and seventy men ambushes are laid everywhere for the British,
at Oudtshoorn many horses are taken and to surrender towns are commanded,
at Calitzdorp a Hugo (a British spy and assassin)do join them as a rebel
and at Koppieskraal Gideon Scheepers is left behind where he is deadly ill.

VI
The British takes him prisoner and in their hospitals his health is restored,
they do deny him as a Boer officer from Middelburg and do try him as a rebel,
of murder, robbery and loss of property Gideon Scheepers is accused,
before a firing squad in the Karoo a Boer warrior is blindfolded and murdered.

VII
Gideon Jacobus Scheepers is buried in an unmarked and unknown grave,
to stop his commando to find his body on the same night it is exhumed,
he is buried again and lime is spread out over him,
where he was captured as an ill man and peacefully did surrender

VIII
but until their death Jacobus and Sophia Scheepers searched for the grave of their child,
they and the British military authority could not find the resting place that was denied.
Gideon Jacobus Scheepers a Boer commandant from Middelburg in the Transvaal,
is killed as a rebel at the command of lord Kitchner who is blinded by his British hate.

[Poet's note: "In May 1898 Gideon Scheepers (a citizen of the Zuid-Afrikaanse Republic)who served in the ZAR-state Artillery was seconded to the Orange Free State Artillery (of the Orange Free State republic) .""After recruiting Cape rebels, Gideon Jacobus Scheepers was promoted at the age of 22 years to the rank of commandant of a unit of 150 men, the Witkoppen-commando (White-head-commando)(after the white band around their hats)and they were ordered to go to war against the British troops in the Cape Colony."His commando did grow to 270 men before he was poisoned and could not fight further. The prisoner of war Gideon Jacobus Scheepers was killed by a British firing squad while the second Anglo-Boer war was still raging as a rebel and he had never been a British subject or British citizen in his life.

A commandant was an officer with the rank equivalent to that of lieutenant colonel. The
rank between major and colonel. It was an officer in control of a Boer commando during the second Anglo-Boer war.

"Because of the British scorched earth policy, where innumerable properties were torched and razed by the British (an estimated 33000 during the war)Boer leaders President Steyn and Commandant-general Christiaan de Wet issued a proclamation on the 14th of January 1901:"Warn the officers of Her Majesty's troops, as we have already done, that unless they cease this destruction of property in the Republics we shall wreak our vengeance by destroying the property of Her Majesty's subjects who are not kindly disposed toward us."

Commandant-general: Supreme commander. Persons in this position during the
second Anglo-Boer war: Orange Free State Republic: Commandant-general
Ferreira and after his death commandant-general Christiaan de Wet.

There are three of my English poems and six poems of other poets that had been written before this poem of which the Afrikaans version of the encyclopaedia Wikipedia does note.Still I felt that I could not write the poem about commandant Gideon Scheepers that I wanted to until I did write this poem after further research about him.The other poems of which I do bare knowledge about Gideon Scheepers or in which he is mentioned are: "Gebed om die gebeente" (prayer of the bones)by D. J. Opperman, "Gideon Scheepers" by H. J. Pieterse, "Scheepers" by Elizabeth Molteno, "The cry of South Africa" by Olive Schreiner, "Droom en doen" (Dream and do)by C. Louis Leipoldt, "Gideon Scheepers, ""Commandant Gideon Scheepers" and "Commandant Gideon Scheepers (2) " by myself (Gert Strydom) .]

© Gert Strydom