The history of the South African forces in France

There is no need to pursue the chronicle of the Brigade through the slow months of demobilization, till in the following June the bulk of its members embarked for home in a German liner handed over to Britain under the terms of peace. When on that grey November morning the guns fell silent, it had accomplished the task to which it had dedicated itself in the summer of 1915. It had travelled a long road in the three years. Brought suddenly, after its short campaign in Egypt, into the thick of the fiercest struggle in the West, it had performed every duty allotted to it with whole-hearted devotion and supreme competence. Never more than a few thousand in numbers, and perpetually short of drafts, it had won for its country of origin a name in the field as proud as that of far larger and more populous territories. There is no soldier living who would deny that in quality the South Africans ranked with the best troops of any army. Twice by its own self-sacrifice the Brigade had been reduced to a handful, and had lost all semblance of a unit, and on each occasion its loss had been the salvation of the British cause. At Delville Wood, at Marrières Wood, and at Messines it had proved to what heights of resolution a defence may rise: in attack at Arras, at Third Ypres, and at Le Cateau it had shown the world, in Napier’s famous words, “with what majesty the British soldier fights.” The little contingent, one among some hundred British brigades, occupied small space on the battle-map. But scale must not be confused with kind; the men of Leonidas were not the less Spartans because they were only three hundred.

In the long road to victory they had left many of their best by the wayside. The casualties in France were close on 15,000, nearly 300 per cent. of the original strength. Of these some 5,000 were dead. As evidence of the fury of the Western campaign, it may be noted that the South African contingent in East Africa was nearly twice the size of the forces in France from beginning to end, but its losses were not more than a quarter of theirs. How many, especially of the younger officers, whose names are recorded in the earlier actions, survived to advance on Le Cateau? Yet the amazing thing is that in a Brigade which was so often severely engaged, and in which the uttermost risks were cheerfully and habitually taken, any came through the three years’ struggle. There are men who fought from Agagia to Le Cateau and have now returned to the mine and the farm to be living witnesses to their miraculous Odyssey.

Wherein lay the peculiar strength of the Brigade? It has been a war of many marvels. We have seen pasty-faced youths from the slums of cities toughen into redoubtable soldiers, and boys new from office-stool and college classroom become on the instant leaders of men and Berserks in battle. The Brigade had the initial advantage of drawing upon men of a fine physique, and, in many cases, of practical experience in a rough and self-reliant life. Its recruits, too, as I have already said, showed a high average of education, and many who never left the ranks were well qualified for commissions. They developed rapidly a perfect esprit de corps, which, because they were so few and so far from home, was more than the solidarity of a fighting unit, and became something like the spirit of a race and a nation. I do not think a more perfect brotherhood-in-arms could have been found on any front. Lastly, they were commanded by officers who had their full confidence and affection. The successive brigadiers, the battalion and battery commanders, and every officer understood the meaning of “team-work,” and loved and respected the troops they led.

There is one quality of the South Africans which deserves especial mention—I mean their curious modesty. A less boastful body of men never appeared in arms. They had a horror of any kind of advertisement. No war correspondent attended them to chronicle their doings; no picturesque articles in the press enlightened the public at home. That may have been bad for the Allied cause; but assuredly it was what they wished themselves. They had in a high degree the traditional British love of understatement, and no old regular was ever a greater adept at pitching things in a low key. To talk to them after a hard-fought action was to hear a tale of quite ordinary and prosaic deeds, in which little credit was sought for themselves but much given to others. They had that gentle and inflexible pride which is too proud to make claims, and leaves the bare fact to be its trumpeter. I believe that to be a quality of South Africa. She is so ancient a land that she does not need to brag and hustle like newer peoples, but comports herself with the quiet good-breeding of long descent. She has been through so many furnaces that she has won dignity and simplicity. These were most notably the traits of her forces on the Western front. They feared very little on earth except the reputation of heroes; and if in this book I have done violence to that fine tradition, I can only make them my apology and plead the debt of the historian to truth.

The story which I have endeavoured to tell is to be regarded in the first place as the achievement of a people—that South African people in which the union of two race-stocks is in process of consummation. The war record of South Africa, from whatever angle it is regarded, is one to be proud of. To the different fronts she contributed over 136,000 white troops—nearly 10 per cent. of her total white population, and some 20 per cent. of her male white population. But, great as was her work in other battle-grounds, to my mind her chief glory is her achievement in France. The campaigns in German East and South-West Africa might be regarded as frontier wars, fought for the immediate defence of her borders and her local interests. But to come into line in the main struggle far away in Europe meant an understanding of the deeper issues of the Great War. Her sons in France did not fight in the narrow sense for Britain; they fought for that liberal civilization of which the British Commonwealth is the humble guardian; they fought for that South African nation which could not hope to live till Germany’s challenge to liberty was answered. There were many in the Brigade who had still quick in their hearts an affection for the northern islands from which they had sprung; but there were many to whom Britain was only a faint memory, and many in whom her name woke no enthusiasm. There were men of Dutch blood who had fought stoutly against us in the old South African War, and now fought like crusaders, not for our Empire, but for the greater faith by which alone that Empire can be justified. All honour to those who were not beguiled by the chatter of a shallow racialism, which, let it be remembered, is the eternal foe of nationality; who, without the homely sentiment and intimate loyalties which inspired the British-born, battled for an austere faith and an honourable ideal of their country’s future.

Ever since eighteen years ago I had first the privilege to know South Africa, I have cherished the belief that the Dutch stock there is one of the finest in the world, and the most akin in fundamentals to our own; and that the future must bring to the two races some such union in spirit and in truth as links to-day the “auld enemies” of England and Scotland. The War has enlarged that hope. Never during its three years was there a spark of racial feeling in the ranks of the Brigade. No Dutchman ever cavilled at the appointment of an Englishman; no Englishman or Scot but gave his full confidence to a Dutch superior. All were South Africans and citizens of no mean country. The Brigade was a microcosm of what South Africa may yet become if the fates are kind. It was a living example of true race integration.

The story may be regarded also as a record of plain human achievement, of what heights are possible in the “difficult but not desperate” life of man. To individuals, as to nations, comes at rare intervals the supreme test of manhood. It is often an open choice: there are excellent arguments why the smooth rather than the rough road should be taken. The men of the Brigade enlisted voluntarily, under no conscription of law—not even under the social coercion of universal recruiting; their pay was the slender wage of the British regular; they abandoned, most of them, good prospects in their different callings; there was no reward before them save honour and a quiet conscience. They made, in another sense than Dante’s Pope, the gran rifiuto, and preferred a rendezvous with death to comfort and ease. And having chosen, they were wholly resolved to endure to the end. Such a sacrifice is not made in vain, and against it the gates of death cannot prevail. The survivors face life with a new mastery over themselves and their fates, and the remembrance of the fallen will be a glory and inspiration to the generations to come.

Man cannot live always on the heights. It would not be well if he did, for the work of the world must be carried on among the flats beneath. But it is good to know that the hills are there, and it is better to have once sojourned among them.... In the bushveld under the scarp of the Berg one may move for days in a parched and thorny land, where the dust hangs in clouds over the road, and dank thickets fringe unwholesome rivers. But to the west above the foothills rise green lines of upland, which by day seem no more than the bare top of a mountain, but at sunset glow like jewels in the heavens. Such a sight is welcome to the traveller, for it tells him that somewhere, and not too distant, there is a land of cool meadows and shining streams; and from that secret country descend the waters which make fruitful the workaday plains.