Transvaal Civil War
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The Transvaal Civil War was a series of skirmishes during the early 1860s in the
South African Republic The South African Republic (, abbreviated ZAR; ), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer republics, Boer republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it was annexed into the British Empire as a result ...
, or Transvaal, in the area now comprising the
Gauteng Gauteng ( , ; Sotho-Tswana languages, Sotho-Tswana for 'place of gold'; or ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts f ...
,
Limpopo Limpopo () is the northernmost Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the province's western and northern borders. The term Limpopo is derived from Rivombo (Livombo/Lebombo), a ...
,
Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Nguni languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It shares bor ...
, and North West provinces of
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
. It began after the British government had recognised trekkers living in the Transvaal as independent in 1854.Some information
/ref> The Boers divided into numerous political factions. The war ended in 1864, when an
armistice An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from t ...
treaty was signed under a karee tree south of the site of the later town of Brits.


Background

In late 1859, the president of Transvaal,
Marthinus Wessel Pretorius Marthinus Wessel Pretorius (17 September 1819 – 19 May 1901) was a South African political leader. An Afrikaners, Afrikaner (or "Boer"), he helped establish the South African Republic (''Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek'' or ZAR; also referred to ...
, was invited to stand for President in the
Orange Free State The Orange Free State ( ; ) was an independent Boer-ruled sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeated and surrendered to the British Em ...
, where many burghers now favoured union, partly as a means to overcome the Basotho. The Transvaal constitution that he had just enacted made it illegal to hold office abroad, but he readily did so and won. The Volksraad attempted to side-step the constitutional problems by granting Pretorius half-a-year of leave in the hope that a solution might come about, and the president duly left for Bloemfontein and appointed Johannes Hermanus Grobler to be acting president in his absence. Pretorius was sworn in as President of the Free State on 8 February 1860 and sent a deputation to Pretoria to negotiate union the next day. Commandant-General Paul Kruger and others in the Transvaal government disliked Pretorius's unconstitutional dual presidency and worried that Britain might declare the Sand River and Orange River Conventions void if the republics joined. Pretorius was told by the Volksraad on 10 September 1860 to choose between his two posts. To the surprise of his supporters and detractors, he resigned as President of the Transvaal and continued in the Free State. After Stephanus Schoeman unsuccessfully attempted to use force to supplant Grobler as acting president, Kruger persuaded him to submit to a volksraad hearing, where Schoeman was censured and relieved of his post. Willem Cornelis Janse van Rensburg was appointed acting president while a new election was organised for October 1862. Having returned home, Kruger was surprised to receive a message urgently requesting his presence in the capital, the volksraad having recommended him as a suitable candidate. He replied that he was pleased to be summoned but his membership in the Dopper Church meant that he could not enter politics. Van Rensburg promptly had legislation passed to give equal political rights to members of all Reformed denominations.


War

Schoeman mustered a commando at Potchefstroom but was routed by Kruger on the night of 9 October 1862. After Schoeman returned with a larger force Kruger and Pretorius held negotiations and agreed to hold a special court on the disturbances in January 1863 and soon thereafter fresh elections for president and commandant-general. Schoeman was found guilty of rebellion against the state and banished. In May the election results were announced, with Van Rensburg becoming president and Kruger as commandant-general. Both expressed disappointment at the low turnout and resolved to hold another set of elections. Van Rensburg's opponent was now Pretorius, who had resigned his office in the Orange Free State and returned to the Transvaal. Turnout was higher, and on 12 October, the volksraad announced another Van Rensburg victory. Kruger was returned as commandant-general with a large majority. The civil war ended with Kruger's victory over Jan Viljoen's commando, raised in support of Pretorius and Schoeman, at the Crocodile River on 5 January 1864. Elections were held yet again, and this time Pretorius defeated Van Rensburg. Kruger was re-elected as commandant-general with over two thirds of the vote. The civil war led to an economic collapse in the Transvaal, weakening the government's ability to back up its professed authority and sovereignty over the local chiefdoms, though Lydenburg and Utrecht now accepted the central administration. By 1865 tensions had risen with the Zulus to the east and war had broken out again between the Orange Free State and the Basotho. Pretorius and Kruger led a commando of about 1,000 men south to help the Free State. The Basotho were defeated and Moshoeshoe ceded some of his territory, but President Johannes Brand of the Free State decided not to give any of the conquered land to the Transvaal burghers. The Transvaal men were scandalised and returned home ''en masse'', despite Kruger's attempts to maintain discipline. The following February, after a meeting of the Volksraad in Potchefstroom, Kruger capsized his cart during the journey home and broke his left leg. On one leg, he righted the cart and continued the rest of the way. The injury incapacitated him for the next nine months, and his left leg was thereafter slightly shorter than his right. In 1867, Pretoria sent Kruger to restore law and order in Zoutpansberg. He had around 500 men but very low reserves of ammunition, and discipline in the ranks was poor. On reaching Schoemansdal, which was under threat by the chief, Katlakter, Kruger and his officers resolved that holding the town was impossible and ordered a general evacuation, and Katlakter razed the town. The loss of Schoemansdal, once a prosperous settlement by Boer standards, was considered a great humiliation by many burghers. The Transvaal government formally exonerated Kruger over the matter by ruling that he had been forced to evacuate Schoemansdal by factors beyond his control, but some still argued that he had given the town up too readily. Peace returned to Zoutpansberg in 1869 after the intervention of the republic's Swazi allies.


Aftermath

Pretorius stepped down as President in November 1871. In the 1872 election Kruger's preferred candidate, William Robinson, was decisively defeated by Thomas François Burgers, a church minister from the Cape who was noted for his eloquent preaching but controversial because of his liberal interpretation of the scriptures; for example, he did not believe in the
Devil A devil is the mythical personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conce ...
. Kruger publicly accepted Burgers's election and announced at his inauguration that "as a good republican", he submitted to the vote of the majority but had grave personal reservations regarding the new president. He particularly disliked Burgers's new education law, which restricted children's religious instruction to outside school hours, which was in Kruger's view an affront to God. That, coupled with the sickness of Gezina and their children with malaria, caused Kruger to lose interest in his office. In May 1873, he requested an honourable discharge from his post, which Burgers promptly granted. The office of commandant-general was abolished the following week. Kruger moved his main residence to Boekenhoutfontein, near Rustenburg, and for a time absented himself from public affairs.


See also

* First Boer War, 1880–81 *
Second Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...
, 1899–1902


Notes


References


Sources

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Transvaal Civil War Conflicts in 1862 Conflicts in 1863 Conflicts in 1864 19th-century guerrilla wars Wars involving the South African Republic Paul Kruger Civil wars of the 19th century 1862 in South Africa 1863 in South Africa 1964 in South Africa