War of Words: Dutch Pro-Boer Propaganda and the South African War

409 Pages·2012·2.67 MB·English

by  Vincent Kuitenbrouwer

VINCENT KUITENBROUWER
WAR WORDS
of
Dutch Pro-Boer Propaganda and the South African War (1899-1902)
AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS
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war of words
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War of Words
Dutch Pro-Boer Propaganda and
the South African War (1899-1902)
Vincent Kuitenbrouwer
amsterdam university press
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The publication of this book is made possible by a grant from OAPEN.nl, Stichting
dr Hendrik Muller’s Vaderlandsch Fonds, the ZASM Foundation, the M.A.O.C.
Gravin van Bylandt Foundation, and the J.E. Jurriaanse Foundation.
This book is published in print and online through the online OAPEN library
(www.oapen.org)
OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) is a collaborative initia-
tive to develop and implement a sustainable Open Access publication model for aca-
demic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The OAPEN Library aims to im-
prove the visibility and usability of high quality academic research by aggregating
peer reviewed Open Access publications from across Europe.
This publication is based on the PhD thesis by Vincent Kuitenbrouwer from 2010.
Cover illustrations: covers of pamphlets provided by the Zuid-Afrikahuis, Amster-
dam.
Cover design: Studio Ron van Roon, Amsterdam
Lay-out: Adriaan de Jonge, Amsterdam
isbn 9789089644121
e-isbn 9789048515950(pdf)
e-isbn 9789048515967(ePub)
nur 697
© V. Kuitenbrouwer / Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2012
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no
part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner
and the author of the book.
Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations
reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this mate-
rial is advised to contact the publisher.
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Table of contents
Introduction 9
Historiography: Britain 12
Historiography: the Netherlands 18
Outline 25
Notes on vocabulary 29
part i
principles of propaganda (1880-1899) 33
Chapter 1
‘New Holland’ in South Africa? Building a bridgehead between
the Netherlands and the Boer republics 35
Pro-Boers in the Netherlands 38
Hollandersin South Africa 46
The Jameson Raid: a catalyst for pro-Boer propaganda 56
Conclusion 62
Chapter 2
‘Blacks, Boers, and British’: South Africa in Dutch literature 65
Adventurers and armchair scholars 69
The ambivalences of stamverwantschap 76
The language question 80
Dutch views on English Africana 86
The ‘native’ question 91
The Uitlanderquestion 95
Conclusion 99
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6 war of words
part ii
war of words (1899-1902) 103
Chapter 3
A ‘factory of lies’? The lines of communication of the Boers
and their supporters 105
Boer diplomats 109
Fraying at the edges: the Dutch policy of neutrality 116
Repatriates and refugees 119
Evading censorship 128
Letters from the front line 135
Conclusion 139
Chapter 4
‘A campaign of the pen’: the Dutch pro-Boer organisations 143
The nzavfrom within 146
Pro-Boers and pillarisation 151
‘A campaign of the pen’: the anvpress office 154
‘Practical support’ or ‘impractical plans’: emigration schemes 164
Fundraising 169
Conclusion 176
Chapter 5
‘Dum-dums of public opinion’: pro-Boer propaganda,
October 1899-June 1900 179
‘We know so well how you drifted into this war’ 181
‘Afrika voor den Afrikaner’? 186
The Boer people’s army 192
Britain’s grave 199
From The Hague to Derdepoort: war atrocities 205
Conclusion 212
Chapter 6
‘All will be well!’ Pro-Boer propaganda,
June 1900-June 1902 215
After the British occupation 217
Bittereindersand Handsoppers 220
‘Methods of barbarism’ 226
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Table of contents 7
‘The English have a red haze before their eyes’: farm-burning 230
‘That lethal idleness’ of being locked up: the treatment of pows 233
A ‘policy of torturing women’: concentration camps 238
The Peace of Vereeniging 245
Conclusion 249
part iii
the aftermath of pro-boer propaganda (post-1902) 253
Chapter7
‘Whoever wants to create a future for himself cannot lose sight
of the past’: Willem Leyds and Afrikaner nationalism 255
(Re)building Afrikaner nationalism 257
Willem Leyds and Afrikaner historiography 264
From Dordrecht to Pretoria: the collection of the Zuid-Afrikaansch
Museum 275
Conclusion 281
Chapter 8
From stamverwantschap to anti-apartheid: the significance of the
pro-Boer movement in the Netherlands 285
Pro-Boers and public opinion in the Netherlands 287
Dutch views on Afrikaner nationalism 288
The cultural ties between the Netherlands and South Africa 292
Dutch-South African relations after the Second World War 295
General concluding remarks 300
Abbreviations 307
Notes 309
Bibliography 377
Index of names 395
Index of subjects 401
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Introduction
It was already clear to contemporaries that the Dutch enthusiasm for the
Boers during the South African War (1899-1902) was to be seen in the con-
text of the history of modern imperialism. In his book The Psychology of Jin-
goism, the journalist J. A. Hobson drew a parallel between the Dutch depic-
tion of the conflict and the situation in Great Britain, where he argued that
the public had been manipulated by a small group of South African capital-
ists and mining magnates. Sneering at jingo propagandists, he wrote that:
[they] must admit that it is likely that the Dutch nation in Holland, draw-
ing nearly all their information from Dutch South African sources, are ani-
mated by a bias similar to, though not so strong as, ours [the British], have
received a mass of evidence directly contradictory to ours, and that their in-
tellectual judgement has been formed in a fashion similar to ours.1
Despite Hobson’s dislike of the jingoist views on the South African War, he
was certainly not of the opinion that propagandists who supported the Boer
republics were any better. In another book, he described Willem Leyds, the
most important diplomatic representative of the Transvaal in Europe, as an
‘evil genius’ behind ‘[t]he notion of an unqualified Dutch political supremacy,
with a complete dominance of Dutch language and ideas [in South Africa]’.2
Historians point out that Hobson’s ideas about the capitalist conspiracy
behind the prejudiced press coverage of the South African question were bi-
ased themselves, based on his own ideas about Britain’s duty in the world and
the role of the growing mass media. Still, his observations have shown their
value for the historical study of the imperial press.3 If anything, Hobson’s
writings show that contemporaries not only considered imperialism to be a
process that only took place outside Europe, they also saw a close connection
with public opinion in the metropole. His comparative remarks about the
coverage of the South African War suggest that this was not only the case in