Twisted claim on British concentration camps

The ridiculous, twisted, false and unfounded claims made by the seemingly amateur historian Mike Oettle in his letter to The Herald of February 5, “National Party propaganda distorted truth about camps”, requires an informed and unbiased response.

It is shocking and incredible how presumptuous and arrogant Oettle is to accuse the previous correspondent on the matter, Onlooker, of ignorance and being brainwashed by National Party propaganda.

All aspects of the AngloBoer War are well researched by local and international scholars, and their results are published in peer-reviewed articles.

When Kitchener succeeded General Roberts in November 1900, he drastically escalated the “scorched earth policy” started by his predecessor.

This strategy entailed the systematic destruction of homes, farms, churches, crops, and livestock, with Boer civilians forcibly sent to concentration camps, where 26,000 of them died (A Forth, 2017, p129-130 in the book BarbedWire Imperialism: Britain’s Empire of Camps; E Van Heyningen, 2013, p58-63 in The Concentration Camps of the Anglo-Boer War: A Social History).

The deaths were not merely a consequence of Kitchener’s military strategy.

Kitchener himself declared that women were legitimate targets since “it is the women keeping up the war” by providing supplies and intelligence to the Boer commandos (G Arthur, 2007, p12 in Life of Lord Kitchener, Volume 2), and that “all Boers without exception are targets” (B Nasson, 2007, p95 in Civilians in the Anglo-Boer War).

This line of argument is untenable, however, since Kitchener’s military objectives had already been achieved before the first internment camps had even been constructed at the end of 1900 (Forth, 2017 above, p150-151).

All major towns were quickly captured (for example Kimberley in February 1900; Bloemfontein in March 1900; Mafeking in May 1900) and fortified by the British Army, with many Boer civilians from nearby farms and villages consequently concentrated within them.

Following Kitchener’s policy, those Boer civilians in these fortified towns were transferred en masse to the newly constructed concentration camps.

This forced removal was therefore not a military necessity. The forced removal of civilians on farms was totally indiscriminate, and just “an order to empty the country” (AWG Raath, 1999, p50 in The British Concentration Camps of the Anglo-Boer War).

This policy constituted an act of ethnic cleansing, as it involved the targeted and forced removal of all members of a particular ethnolinguistic group (the Boers), from a specific geographic area.

It is therefore clear that the concentration camp system was not instituted purely to deprive Boer commandos of supplies and intelligence, since it could easily be accomplished without the costly and complicated process of constructing purpose-built camps.

The camp system, however, had a different objective.

Why would civilians be transferred from safe fortified towns, where living conditions were good, to camps where thousands would knowingly die?

The various diseases responsible for the high mortality rate in the camps were worsened by various factors directly under the army’s control.

These included grossly inadequate sanitation, overcrowding, and insufficient medical supplies and services, food, fuel and bedding.

One army doctor warned that “death from sheer starvation would probably result within a few months”.

It is highly unlikely that an officer of Kitchener’s experience would be unaware that the concentration of malnourished people in poorly equipped camps would likely result in a high death rate.

Alfred Milner, the governor of the Cape Colony and administrator of the occupied Boer territories during the war, acknowledged that the high mortality rate was avoidable and inexcusable, and was the result of continuous and intentional neglect that originated from the highest levels of the British Army (A Milner, 1901, Letter to Joseph Chamberlain, Milner Papers, British Library, London).

British officers and soldiers alike considered the Boers to be inferior to Europeans, claiming Boers did not deserve the same treatment as civilians in European war zones. (Forth, 2017, above, p138).

John Buchan, Kitchener’s private secretary, referred to Boers as “half-savage ” (J Buchan, 1903, p34-35 in The African Colony: Studies in the Reconstruction).

Milner described the war as a clash of modern civilisation against barbarism, embodied by the Boers, who he described as “a low type of the genus homo” (JE Wrench, 1958, p13-17, Alfred Lord Milner: The Man with No Illusions, 1854-1925).

These racial attitudes resulted in genocidal rhetoric calling on soldiers to “blot out the Boers as a nation”.

In Kitchener’s mind, Boer civilians were both subhuman, and a legitimate military target, and therefore their confinement in camps, where knowingly thousands would die, was both rational and morally conscionable.

It is clear that the deaths of thousands of Boer women and children were not unintentional. The concentration camp system was a successful attempt by the British, vested with formal authority and with preponderant access to the overall resources of power, to reduce the number of Boers as a minority group.