Tes Rogers
What About the Men
The Lampens and Heysteks had no idea of the volcanic eruption of wars that would follow in the next century after their President Kruger decided to resist Britain’s land grab for the second time in twenty years. Most Boere believed the success of winning the First Anglo-Boer War would be repeated in a few months’ time. Could they have foreseen that half the world would descend on our tiny corner of Africa in a mad explosion of armies and volunteers? Some came to defend the largest and most glorious of the world empires of that era, others jumped to the aid of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek and its handful of Bible-clutching farmers being swallowed up by the greed of men like British politician/entrepeneur Cecil John Rhodes, and his fellow imperialist Lord Alfred Milner who said he was going to “break the power of Afrikanerdom”. After meeting Milner five months before the war broke out, Jan Smuts discerned that Milner would actually be “more dangerous than Rhodes”. Rhodes had already made his life calling clear way back in 1877: “Why should we not form a secret society with but one object the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule for the recovery of the United States for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire.” – he had quite a beef with the U.S.’s independence from England. Concerning Africa, Rhodes had famously envisioned a continuous “red line” of British dominions from Cape to Cairo, declaring “..if there be a God, I think that what he would like me to do is paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible…”
