Siege of Mafeking keenly followed in British press

Baden-Powell commandeered all the food for white people

WITH a population of just 1 500 white and 5 000 black inhabitants from the nearby settlement of Mafikeng, tiny Mafeking seemed the unlikeliest of towns for the Boers to have wanted to besiege during the South African AngloBoer war. But this is precisely what they did – for 217 days – from October 1899 to May 1900. It was a strange siege… The Boers, led by General Piet Cronje, made no real effort to capture the town under the command of an eccentric British colonel named Robert BadenPowell, while the small British garrison was as reluctant to make any real effort to break out of the Boer stranglehold.

So it became a stalemate, with both sides sitting tight, emerging just occasionally to exchange short, sharp volleys of gunfire.

But despite this, Mafeking’s troubles proved to be a major event in Britain, with the public (including Queen Victoria) lapping up every item of news that was published by British newspapers via their correspondents in southern Africa, among whom was the editor of the Cape Times, Edmund Garrett, who kept readers of London’s Daily Mail abreast of events.

The story of the siege, often embellished by the newspapers, turned Baden-Powell into a hero – undeservedly so, according to military experts – in Britain and its Southern African colonies.

He did, however, do some interesting things, such as giving the go-ahead for the printing of “siege” banknotes in 1899. The notes, underwritten by Standard Bank, carried the facsimile signatures of Robert Urry, the branch manager of Standard Bank, and Captain Herbert Greener, the chief paymaster of the British South Africa police, and were produced in denominations of 1, 2, 3 and 10 shillings by a local printing company called Townshend & Son.

More seriously, though, Baden-Powell proved to be exceedingly racist in his dealings with the black inhabitants of the town. As the siege kicked in, and fearing Mafeking would run out of food, he started commandeering all the food for the white population, while encouraging the black people to forage for food in the veld outside the town.

Those who followed his advice were quickly picked off by Boer snipers.

An estimated 1 000 people, mainly women and children, starved to death, while many hungry black inhabitants were flogged or shot for stealing food.

Feeding

Defenders of Baden-Powell pointed out afterwards that he had regretted sending people out to be killed – and to some extent had made up for this “mistake” by ordering pots of soup, with horsemeat, to feed the hungry.

But detractors said that late into the siege, when the order was given, there were not many horses left in the town.

On May 17, 1900, British forces led by Lord Roberts of Kandahar and Colonel Bryan Mahon fought their way into Mafeking and lifted the siege, unleashing waves of joy and jingoism in Britain and parts of Southern Africa.

The report in the Cape Times reflected the newspaper’s decidedly pro-British stance. “Beleaguered Mafeking is a free city once more, the siege having been raised at 5 this morning by the combined forces of Mahon and Plumer,” it trumpeted.