Chapter 39 - Page 2

however, at the end of the month the message was conveyed, and
resulted in the appearance of De Wet, De la Rey, and Steyn at the
British outposts at Klerksdorp. The other delegates had come north
again from Kroonstad, and all were united in the same small town,
which, by a whimsical fate, had suddenly become the centre both for
the making of peace and for the prosecution of the war, with the eyes
of the whole world fixed upon its insignificant litter of houses. On
April 11th, after repeated conferences, both parties moved on to
Pretoria, and the most sceptical observers began to confess that there
was something in the negotiations after all. After conferring with
Lord Kitchener the Boer leaders upon April 18th left Pretoria again
and rode out to the commandos to explain the situation to them. The
result of this mission was that two delegates were chosen from each
body in the field, who assembled at Vereeniging upon May 15th for the
purpose of settling the question by vote. Never was a high matter of
state decided in so democratic a fashion.

Up to that period the Boer leaders had made a succession of tentative
suggestions, each of which had been put aside by the British
Government. Their first had been that they should merely concede
those points which had been at issue at the beginning of the war. This
was set aside. The second was that they should be allowed to consult
their friends in Europe. This also was refused. The next was that an
armistice should be granted, but again Lord Kitchener was obdurate. A
definite period was suggested within which the burghers should make
their final choice between surrender and a war which must finally
exterminate them as a people. It was tacitly understood, if not
definitely promised, that the conditions which the British Government
would be prepared to grant would not differ much in essentials from
those which had been refused by the Boers a twelvemonth before, after
the Middelburg interview.

On May 15th the Boer conference opened at Vereeniging. Sixty-four
delegates from the commandos met with the military and political
chiefs of the late republics, the whole amounting to 150 persons. A
more singular gathering has not met in our time. There was Botha, the
young lawyer, who had found himself by a strange turn of fate
commanding a victorious army in a great war. De Wet was there, with
his grim mouth and sun-browned face; De la Rey, also, with the
grizzled beard and the strong aquiline features. There, too, were the
politicians, the grey-bearded, genial Reitz, a little graver than when
he looked upon 'the whole matter as an immense joke,' and the
unfortunate Steyn, stumbling and groping, a broken and ruined man.
The burly Lucas Meyer, smart young Smuts fresh