Orange Free State - Orange Free State - Renewal of Hostilities

Renewal of Hostilities

In January 1889 F. W. Reitz was elected president of the Free State. His accession to the presidency marked the beginning of what turned out to be a new and disastrous line of policy in the external affairs of the country. Reitz had no sooner got into office than a meeting was arranged with Paul Kruger, president of the South African Republic, at which various terms were discussed and decided upon regarding an agreement dealing with the railways, terms of a treaty of amity and commerce, and what was called a political treaty. The political treaty referred in general terms to a federal union between the South African Republic and the Orange Free State, and bound each of them to help the other, whenever the independence of either should be assailed or threatened from without, unless the state so called upon for assistance should be able to show the injustice of the cause of quarrel in which the other state had engaged. While thus committed to a dangerous alliance with its northern neighbour no change was made in internal administration. The Free State, in fact, from its geographical position reaped the benefits without incurring the anxieties consequent on the settlement of a large Uitlander population on the Rand. The state, however, became increasingly identified with the reactionary party in the South African Republic. In 1895 the Volksraad passed a resolution, in which they declared their readiness to entertain a proposition from the South African Republic in favour of some form of federal union. In the same year Reitz retired from the presidency of the Orange Free State, due to ill-health. He was succeeded in February 1896 by M. T. Steyn (q.v.), a judge of the High Court. In 1896 President Steyn visited Pretoria, where he received an ovation as the probable future president of the two Republics. A further offensive and defensive alliance between the two Republics was then entered into, under which the Orange Free State took up arms on the outbreak of hostilities between the British and the South African Republic in October 1899.

In 1897 President Kruger, bent on still further cementing the union with the Orange Free State, had visited Bloemfontein. It was on this occasion that Kruger, referring to the London Convention, spoke of Queen Victoria as a kwaaje Vrouw (angry woman), an expression which caused a good deal of offence in England at the time, but which, to any one familiar with the homely phraseology of the Boers, obviously was not meant by President Kruger as insulting.

In order to understand the attitude which the Orange Free State took at this time in relation to the South African Republic, it is necessary to review the life history of Reitz. Previously to his becoming president of the Orange Free State, he had acted as its Chief Justice, and still earlier in life he had practiced as an advocate in the Cape Colony. In 1881 Reitz had, in conjunction with Steyn, come under the influence of an ambitious German named Borckenhagen, the editor of the Bloemfontein Express. Together, the three were principally responsible for the formation of the Afrikander Bond (see Cape Colony: History). From 1881 onwards they cherished the idea of an independent South Africa. President Brand had been far too sagacious to be led away by this pseudo-nationalist dream, and did his utmost to discountenance the Bond. At the same time his policies were guided by a sincere patriotism, which looked to the true prosperity of the Orange Free State as well as to that of the whole of South Africa. After his death in 1888 sentiments changed, although some politicians remained favourable towards close cooperation with Great Britain, including 1896 presidential candidate and Volksraad member John G. Fraser.