REBEL REFUSED TO RESIGN

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 92, 15 October 1914, Page 7

REBEL REFUSED TO RESIGN

"I REPORT TO NO ONE." MARITZ POSSESSES GERMAN GUNS CAPETOWN, 13th October. Since General Beyers resigned command of the Union forces there have been indications that something was wrong with the north-west Cape forces, under Colonel Maritz. The Government despatched Colonel Brits to supersede Colonel Maritz, and in reply to Colonel Brits's message to report himself, Colonel Maritz answered : "I report to no one." Colonel Brits therefore sent Major Bouwer to take over the command, and on arrival at Colonel Marilz's camp, Xajor Bouwer and his party were made prisoners. Major Bouwer was subsequently released, and returned with an ultimatum from Colonel Maritz to the Union Government, stating that unless he was given a guarantee that before 11 o'clock on Sunday morning the Government would consent to Generals Hertzog, De Wet, Beyers, Kemp, and Muller, meeting him, so that he could take their instructions, he would inlinediately attack Colonel Brits's force. Major Bouwer reported that Colonel Maritz possessed German guns, and the rank of a German General and Commander of the German forces^ Colonel Maritz arrested all 'the officers and ten men who were unwilling to join the Germans, and sent them to South-west Africa. Major Bouwer saw an agreement between Colonel Maritz and the Governor of South-west Africa, guaranteeing the Union's ..independence, ceding Walfisch Bay and other places to the Germans, and undertaking that Germans should only invade the Union at Maritz's request. Colonel Maritz boasted of the possession of large supplies of war munitions and money obtained from the Germans, and declared that he would overrun the whole of South Africa. The Government is taking drastic steps to quell the rebellion.