PERSONALITIES

Southland Times, Issue 18975, 23 June 1923, Page 9 (Supplement)

PERSONALITIES

THE RETURNING REBEL

(By

“Ædilc.”)

The sole survivor of the quintet which attempted to lead South Africa into rebel- ! lion and shame at the beginning of the ' Great War, and the least worthy of them has appeared close enough to the South African frontiers for the Government to hear his whines to be allowed to re-enter the Union. Solomon Gerhardus Maritz at latest was at Beira, back from his exile in Germany, asking the South African Government to let him return. Maritz was not an admirable character at any time, and his part in the “rebellion” of 1914 was particularly inglorious. Men like Delarey and De Wet, who were deeply religious, moved because they firmly believed that they were upholding a righteous cause, and because they were courageous and entirely lacking in personal ambition. Beyers was of a different type, but on him there was the stigma which Maritz bore: that he held high office in the Union forces and had eaten the King’s salt. Captain Japie Fourie, the fifth of the leading lights of the conspiracy, had courage. The first sign of this revolt came from Beyers, who was then Com-mandant-General of the Defence Forces of the Union, when he wrote to General Smuts resigning his commission. The reply from General Smuts is worth quoting, because it reveals the case of Beyers fairly and squarely: You speak of duty and honour. My conviction is that the people of South Africa will, in these dark days, when the Government as well as the people are put to the supreme test, have a clearer conception of duty and honour than is to be deduced from your letter and action. For the Dutch-speaking section in partciular I cannot conceive anything more fatal and humiliating than a policy of lip-loyalty in fair weather and a policy of neutrality and pro-German sentiment in days of storm and stress. . . . Your resignation is hereby accepted.

There is a dignified austerity in this terrible lelter.

The Government had not long to wait. Delarey joined Beyers in Pretoria the day the latter handed his letter to General Smuts. Delarey, a deeply religious man, told Beyers he was lonely and greatly disturbed in mind, and we have Beyers’ word for it that he knelt and prayed for spiritual guidance. The same night at a very late hour both Generals started in a motor car for Potchefstroom and Lichtenburg, where some 1200 loyalists were in training. On the way the car was challenged by sentries at various points, but, ignoring all requests to “halt/’ The chauffeur continued on his way. Another challenge came at Langlaagte, near Johannesburg, and it, too, being ignored the sentry fired. Delarey toppled over in his seat dead. Thus fell one of the stalwarts of the old Boer cause, a man who, like De Wet, had never really surrendered, and who believed that his duty to his country demanded that he should resume the old fight when the opportunity offered. The death of Delarey was a terrible blow to the revolt, and his death robbed South Africa of a very fine, if a misguided, man. Beyers, when Delarey was shot, turned back for Pretoria, but he was not arrested, to his own astonishment, and so he set off for the south, where Maritz was ready for the rising. At the Vaal river he attempted to cross at an unguarded ford, but his horse lost its footing and the flood waters of the river did the rest. Fourie was captured after some desultory fighting between the loyalists and the rebels, was court-martialled, and condemned to death. Fearless, a born leader, and one of the handsomest of men, the misguided “Japi” Fourie sat with folder arms upon a chair placed against the wall in the prison yard at Pretoria, and, as he puffed a cigar, was riddled by the bullets of a firing squad of 12 men. * He died in the same yard and in the same way as did the Australian outlaw, Captain Harry Morant, in the Boer war 14 years before. Some time later the veteran De Wet was brought to an engagement and taken prisoner, his son, Daniel, being killed in the fight. The South African Government pardoned the old leader,, and showed equal clemency again where he once more harboured ideas of another rebellion.

But what of Maritz, of whom one man has written:

Several years before the war broke out I knew him in South Africa for a pompous person of great strength, overweening vanity, and little education. His eyes were quick and crafty, yet in his dominant blustering way he possessed great influence with those of his countrymen in whose hearts hatred of Britain still smouldered.

Maritz was general in command of the Union Defence Forces in the Cape province, but it is now clear that he was in touch with the Germans long before the war, and that in 1913 he sent an emissary to the German authorities. As soon as the signal was given Maritz —on December 14, 1914 issued a proclamation, styling himself Com-mandant-General of the Republican Forces in the Cape Province, and declared all the provinces of the Union, together with Natal free of British authority and independent. Instead of ending “God save the King,” he brazenly substituted “God save Country and People.” He next ceded Walfish Bay to the Germans, and boldly declared his intention to “hack through” with a force of 70,000 rebels and Germans from the west. Then Providence intervened. A fortuitous bullet fired by an unknown man struck Maritz in the knee, and delayed his movements for two months. Meanwhile General Botha took the field against the rebels, and was given a magnificent send-off by loyalists at Pretoria. Maritz’s wound saved him. It was reported that he had died of wounds, but it is now known that he slipped over the frontier and joined the Germans, with whom he served until the Union forces in their triumphal progress got uncomfortably close. Then it was that he fled northward over desolate land, into the Portuguese territory of Angolaland. There he was arrested by the Portuguese, and was for some time In custody. Having its hands so full, the Imperial Government was not anxious to claim him. The Union Government was similarly disinclined to call for his extradition, and the Portuguese were keen to get rid of him. It was an extraordinary reverse of fortune for the braggart maker of treaties. Notwithstanding what he might now say as chastened, penitent, it has been established beyond question that Maritz sent an emissary to the German authorities as far back as 1913, and that the Kaiser was well aware of the treachery contemplated. A telegram from the exEmperor to the Governor of German South West Africa was discovered, which read:— “I shall not only recognise the independence of South Africa, but will guarantee it, provided rebellion is started immediately.” Leading Afrikanders who knew him well say that Maritz went into the rebellion chiefly for what he could get out of it in German gold. He got little, else he would not have come sneaking back after the lapse of nine years, asking for clemency, though his hands be still red with the blood . of hundreds of. honest men upon them,