DENNIS MCDONALD of Soetvlei Farm near Bethulie in the southern Free State – a valued friend and Toverview contributor – has sent us a fascinating and hugely valuable document, namely an account of participation in the Anglo-Boer War written by his grandfather, Dennis Johannes McDonald.
Written in Afrikaans, it has been translated into English (using AI, nogal) by Dennis’s son, Ryan. The version offered here starts with the translation, followed by the original in Afrikaans.
Introductory material on the background to the war, a glossary of terms, and information about key events mentioned in the memoirs have been added to the English-language version – again with the assistance of AI.
This account covers a wide range of experiences, including participation in the Battle of Stormberg; going on commando; capture, and life as a prisoner of war in the Trichonopoly camp in southern India; an attempt to escape and reach the coast; recapture, and eventual return to South Africa and post-war life.
Besides the vivid descriptions of life under arms in various stages of the war, it deals frankly and revealingly with two controversial aspects of the conflict — the hensoppers, or ‘joiners’ (also called ‘Rooikoppe’), as well as the bitter internal debates among prisoners of war and others about havingi to take the Oath of Allegiance.
While he does not use this term about himself, the author was clearly a ‘bittereinder’ – one of a small minority of Boers who continued the struggle in the face of increasingly insurmountable odds, to the ‘bitter end’ of the war.
Movingly, his own introduction reads as follows:
‘These stories are taken from notes still in my possession, recounting what I personally experienced during the last War of Independence of the Republics. A portion of this writing appeared under my name fifty-one years ago in the Stellenbosch Quarterly, September 1904.
On the 1st of December 1955, I was seventy-seven years old. Now, so near the end of my life, I wish to describe my experiences briefly but more fully, and leave this account behind for my grandchildren and their descendants. My own children are two sons and one daughter. They are married to English speakers who also speak Afrikaans well. The grandchildren, the youngest of whom is six years old, are all bilingual. They often ask me to tell them what led to the war and about the war itself. They listen with the greatest interest and ask questions.
Fortunately, I have first-hand information, and also recall what I personally saw and lived through. I also possess pictures of the main battles, which, for me who was there, depict them very clearly. I can also assure the reader of these stories that I do not intend with this writing to incite any form of racial hatred. I am writing what I saw happen with my own eyes. …
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FEATURED IMAGE: An illustration kept by the author of the Boer War Stories, Dennis Johannes McDonald, titled ‘DEATH OF COLONIAL MURRAY OF LOVAT’S SCOUTS’. A handwritten note reads: ‘I was in this scrap.’
This is one of the most fascinating accounts of the Anglo Boer War taken from a handwritten diary of a boer soldier. Well worth reading . Thank you Dennis for sharing your grandfather’s diary.
Most interesting. An awful time in our country which is still raging on with battles, this time racial.
However, the British were filled with greed to take parts of the world, rich in items they wanted. But where they are today is a sorry state of affairs and the pending failure of Great Britain , is nigh.
Just for interest, my grandfather fought for the British.