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This work is a first‑hand account by Edward P. Lowry, a chaplain attached to the Guards’ Brigade during the South African War of 1899‑1902. The author explains that the narrative is drawn from letters published in contemporary Methodist periodicals and from earlier compilations, but he chooses to begin here with the “triumphal occupation of Bloemfontein” and to follow the brigade through its campaigns until its dissolution. Rather than offering a technical military analysis, Lowry aims to portray the varied life of the soldiers, their hardships, acts of bravery, moments of piety, and the broader social context of a volunteer army defending the Empire. The introductory chapter sets the stage with a concise overview of the political forces that led to war, while the subsequent chapters trace the brigade’s movements, encounters with civilians, and the chaplains’ own experiences on the front line.
Lowry writes in a straightforward, earnest style typical of early‑20th‑century memoirs, mixing descriptive reportage with occasional moral reflection. His voice is that of a participant who is aware of his limited expertise yet strives to give a balanced picture of both combat and humanitarian work. Readers interested in military history, colonial studies, or the social history of British soldiers will find the book rewarding, as will those who appreciate a period voice that combines factual detail with a personal, almost devotional tone.
The opening · free to read
The story of my long tramp with the Guards' Brigade was in part told through a series of letters that appeared in The Methodist Recorder, The Methodist Times, and other papers. The first portion of that series was republished in "Chaplains in Khaki," as also extensive selections in "From Aldershot to Pretoria." In this volume, therefore, to avoid needless repetition, the story begins with our triumphal occupation of Bloemfontein, and is continued till after the time of the breaking-up of the Guards' Brigade.
No one will expect from a chaplain a technical and critical account of the complicated military operations he witnessed at the seat of war. For that he has no qualifications. Nor, on the other hand, would it be quite satisfactory if he wrote only of what the chaplains and other Christian workers were themselves privileged to do in connection with the war. That would necessitate great sameness, if not great tameness. These pages are rather intended to set forth the many-sided life of our soldiers on active service, their privations and perils, their failings and their heroisms, their rare endurance, and in some cases their unfeigned piety; that all may see what manner of men they were who in so many instances laid down their lives in the defence of the empire; and amid what stupendous difficulties they endeavoured to do their duty.
We owe it to the fact that these men have volunteered in such numbers for military service that Britain alone of all European nations has thus far escaped the curse of the conscription. In that sense, therefore, they are the saviours and substitutes of the entire manhood of our nation. If they had not consented of their own accord to step into the breach, every able Englishman now at his desk, behind his counter, or toiling at his bench, must have run the risk of having had so to do. We owe to these men more than we have ever realised. It is but right, therefore, that more than ever they should henceforth live in an atmosphere of grateful kindliness, of Christian sympathy and effort.
"God bless you, Tommy Atkins, Here's your country's love to you!"
My authorities for the statements made in the introductory chapter are Fitzpatrick's "Pretoria from Within," and Martineau's "Life of Sir Bartle Frere." For the verifying or correcting of my own facts and figures, given later on, I have consulted Conan Doyle's "The Great Boer War," Stott's "The Invasion of Natal," and almost all other available literature relating to the subject.
EDWARD P. LOWRY.
PRETORIA, March 1902.
Two Notable Dreamers--A Bankrupt Republic--The Man who Schemed as well as Dreamed--The Gold Plague--Hated Johannesburg --Boer preparations for War--Coming events cast their shadows before--The Ultimatum--The Rallying of the Clans--The Rousing of the Colonies.
A capital little Capital--Famished Men and Famine Prices-- Republican Commandeering--A Touching Story--The Price of Milk.
Refits--Remounts--Regimental Pets--Civilian Hospitality and Soldiers' Homes--Soldiers' Christian Association Work-- Rudyard Kipling's Mistake--All Fools' Day--Eastertide in Bloemfontein--The Epidemic and the Hospitals--All hands and houses to the rescue--A sad sample of Enteric--Church of England Chaplains at work.
A Pleasure Jaunt--Onwards, but Whither!--That Pom-Pom again --A Problem not quite solved--A Touching Sight--Rifle Firing and Firing Farms--Boer Treachery and the White Flag--The Pet Lamb still lives and learns--Right about face--From Worlds Unknown--The Bushmen and their Australian Chaplains.
A Comedy--A Tragedy--A Wide Front and a Resistless Force-- Brandfort--"Stop the War" Slanders--A Prisoner who tried to be a Poet--Militant Dutch Reformed Predikants--Our Australian Chaplain's pastoral experiences--The Welsh Chaplain.
The Sand River Convention--Railway Wrecking and Repairing-- The Tale, and Tails, of a Singed Overcoat--Lord Roberts as Hospital Visitor--President Steyn's Sjambok--A Sunday at last that was also a Sabbath--Military Police on the March--A General's glowing eulogy of the Guards--Good News by the way-- Over the Vaal at last.
A Chaplain who found the Base became the Front--Pathetic Scenes in Hospital--A Battlefield Scene no less Pathetic--Look on this Picture, and on that--A third-class Chaplain who proved a first-rate Chaplain--Running in the Wrong Man--A Wainman who proved a real Waggoner--Three bedfellows in a barn--A fourth-class Chaplain that was also a first-rate Chaplain--A Parson Prisoner in the hands of the Boers--Caring for the Wounded--How the Chaplain's own Tent was bullet-riddled--A Sample Set of Sunday Services.
At Cape Town and Wynberg--Saved from Drowning to sink in Hospital--A Pleasant Surprise--The Soldiers' Reception Committee--The other way about--Our near kinship to the Boers --More good Work on our right Flank.
An elaborate night toilet--Capturing Clapham Junction--Dear diet and dangerous--No Wages but the Sjambok--The Gold Mines --The Soldiers' Share--The Golden City--Astonishing the Natives.
Whit-Monday and Wet Tuesday--"Light after Dark"--Why the Surrender?--Taking Possession--"Resurgam"--A Striking Incident--No Canteens and no Crime.
The State's Model School--Rev. Adrian Hoffmeyer--The Waterfall Prisoners--A Soldier's Hymn--A big Supper Party-- The Soldiers' Home--Mr and Mrs Osborn Howe--A Letter from Lord Kitchener--Also from Lord Roberts--A Song in praise of De Wet--Cordua and his Conspiracy--Hospital Work in Pretoria --The Wear and Tear of War--The Nursing Sisters--A Surprise Packet--Soldierly Gratitude--_The Ladysmith Lyre_.
The Boer way of saying "Bosh"--News from a far Country --Further fighting--Touch not, taste not, handle not--More Treachery and still more--The root of the matter--A Tight Fit --Obstructives on the Rail--Middleburg and the Doppers-- August Bank Holiday--Blowing up Trains--A peculiar Mothers' Meeting--Aggressive Ladies--A Dutch Deacon's Testimony--A German Officer's Testimony.
The Fighting near Belfast--Feeding under Fire--A German Doctor's Confession--Friends in need are Friends indeed--The Invisible Sniper's Triumph--"He sets the mournful Prisoners free"--More Boer Slimness--A Boer Hospital--Foreign Mercenaries--A wounded Australian--Hotel Life on the Trek-- A Sheep-pen of a Prison--Pretty Scenery and Superb.
A Surrendered Boer General--Two Unworthy Predikants--Two Notable Advocates of Clemency--Mines without Men, and Men without Meat--Much Fat in the Fire--More Fat and Mightier Flames--A Welcome Lift by the Way--"Rags and Tatters, get ye gone!"--Destruction and still more Destruction--At Koomati Poort--Two Notable Fugitives--The Propaganda of the Africander Bond--Ex-President Steyn--Paul Botha's opinion of this Ex-President.
Staggering Humanity--Food for Flames--A Crocodile in the Koomati--A Hippopotamus in the Koomati--A Via Dolorosa-- Over the Line--Westward Ho!--Ruined Farms and Ruined Firms-- Farewell to the Guards' Brigade!
Exhaustlessness of Boer resources--The Peculiarity of Boer Tactics--The Surprisers Surprised--Train Wrecking--The Refugee Camps--The Grit of the Guards--The Irregulars--The Testimony of the Cemetery--Death and Life in Pretoria.
Suzerainty turned to Sovereignty--Prince Christian Victor--A Royal Funeral--A Touching Story--The Death of the Queen-- The King's Coronation.
When the late Emperor of the French was informed, on the eve of the Franco-German War, that not so much as a gaiter button would be found wanting if hostilities were at once commenced, soon all France found itself, with him, fatally deceived. But when the Transvaal Burghers boasted that they were "ready to give the British such a licking as they had never had before," it proved no idle vaunting. Whether the average Boer understood the real purpose for which he was called to arms seems doubtful; but his leaders made no secret of their intention to drive the hated "Roineks" into the sea, and to claim, as the notorious "Bond" frankly put it, "all South Africa for the Africanders." The Rev. Adrian Hoffmeyer of the Dutch Reformed Church freely admits that the watchword of the Western Boers was "Tafelburg toc," that is, "To Table Mountain"; and that their commandant said to him, "We will not rest till our flag floats there."
Similarly on the eastern side it was their confident boast that presently they would be "eating fish and drinking coffee at sea-side Durban." There would thus be one flag floating over all South Africa; and that flag not the Union Jack but its supplanter.
Now the Dutch have undoubtedly as absolute a right to dream dreams of wide dominion as we ourselves have; and this particular dream had no less undeniably been the chief delight of some among them for more than a decade twice told.
Even PRESIDENT BRAND, of the Orange Free State, referring to Lord Carnarvon's pet idea of a federated South Africa, said: "His great scheme is a united South Africa under the British Flag. He dreams of it and so do I; but under the flag of South Africa." Much in the same strain PRESIDENT BURGERS, of the Transvaal Republic, when addressing a meeting of his countrymen in Holland, said: "In that far-off country the inhabitants dream of a future in which the people of Holland will recover their former greatness." He was convinced that within half a century there would be in South Africa a population of eight millions; all speaking the Dutch language; a second Holland, as energetic and liberty-loving as the first; but greater in extent, and greater in power.
Nevertheless, in this far-seeing President's day, the Transvaal, after fourteen years of doubtful independence, reached in 1877 its lowest depths of financial and political impotency. Its valiant burghers were vanquished in one serious conflict with the natives; and, emboldened thereby, the Zulus were audaciously threatening to eat them up, when Shepstone appeared upon the scene. "I thank my father Shepstone for his restraining message," said Cetewayo. "The Dutch have tired me out; and I intended to fight with them once, only once, and to drive them over the Vaal." The jails were thrown open because food was no longer obtainable for the prisoners. The State officials, including the President, knew not where to secure their stipends, and were hopelessly at variance among themselves. The Transvaal one-pound notes were selling for a single shilling, and the State treasury contained only twelve shillings and sixpence wherewith to pay the interest on a comparatively heavy State debt, besides almost innumerable other claims.
No wonder, therefore, that Burgers, in disgust, declared he would sooner be a policeman under a strong government. "Matters are as bad as they ever can be," said he; "they cannot be worse!" Hence its annexation, in 1877, by Sir Theophilus Shepstone, without the assistance of a solitary soldier, but with the eager assent of thousands of the burghers, bade fair to prove the salvation of the Transvaal, and probably would have done, had the easily-to-be-obtained consent of the Volksraad been at once sought, and Lord Carnarvon's promise of speedy South African Federation, together with a generous measure of local self-government, been promptly redeemed. But European complications, with serious troubles on the Indian frontier, caused interminable delay in the maturing of this scheme; and as the disappointed Boers grew restive, a "Hold your Jaw" Act was passed, making it a penal offence for any Transvaaler even to discuss such questions. In our simplicity we sit upon the safety valve and then wonder why the boiler bursts. To the "Hold your Jaw" policy the Boer reply was an appeal to arms; and at Majuba in the spring of 1881 their rifles said what their jaws were forbidden to say. Majuba was indeed a mere skirmish, an affair of outposts; but Magersfontein and Spion Kop are the legitimate sons of Majuba.
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