Monarch Profile: Emperor Bokassa I of Central Africa

The cause of monarchy in modern Africa has been a difficult one. In most of sub-Saharan Africa the tribal system of government persisted throughout the colonial period and still persists today under the surface of most regimes. Today, the only sovereign monarchies which exist in Africa are the Kingdom of Morocco and the small kingdoms of Lesotho and Swaziland which are, essentially, dependencies of South Africa. Previously, the only major Black African sovereign monarchy was the Empire of Ethiopia, restored by the British colonial and imperial armed forces during World War II and which was brought down by a communist coup in 1974. Many people in the African Diaspora (not quite so many in Africa itself) had looked to Ethiopia as the example they should aspire to. The same would not be said for the new imperial monarchy which sprang up thanks to one Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic which to many, then as now, strike most as farcical at best.

Jean-Bedel Bokassa was born in Ubangi-Shari in what was then French Equatorial Africa on February 22, 1921. Orphaned at a young age, he was educated in Catholic missionary schools, part of what the French proudly termed their ‘mission to civilize’ the primitive parts of the world. The young Bokassa proved himself to be not without ability, joining the French colonial army in 1939 as a private soldier. During World War II, he fought to secure the colony for the Free French forces from those of the Vichy regime and later fought on other fronts, including in southern France itself before the ultimate defeat of Nazi Germany. He remained in the army, deciding to make that his career when a new conflict soon arose with the outbreak of war against the communist revolutionaries of French Indochina. Unlike America later, France never sent French conscripts to Vietnam and so relied heavily on native troops, the Foreign Legion and colonial soldiers from other parts of the French empire. Bokassa earned the Legion of Honor and the Cross of War before the French withdrawal from Vietnam, the young African private had become an officer and risen to the rank of captain. He had also married a Vietnamese girl and had a child before his tour ended but he abandoned them both. Were they still around when the North Vietnamese concluded the war, their fate could not have been a happy one.

The idea that such service was evidence of any great loyalty to the French colonial empire was, however, a false one and in Africa, as in Indochina, the movement gained strength for the independence of the French African colonies and the dissolution of the French colonial empire. In 1960 Ubangi-Shari was granted independence from France as the Central African Republic, led by President David Dacko, a distant cousin of Bokassa. Like most who would come to power in post-colonial Africa, Bokassa was the son of a tribal chief and had aspirations for leadership which did not include playing subordinate to his distant relative. President Dacko gave Bokassa, no doubt because of his military record with the French as a company officer, command of the armed forces of the new republic. Granted those armed forces amounted to only 500 men but it was something Bokassa took very seriously and it was totally in keeping with local custom in post-colonial Africa for new national leaders to stock the government with their relatives.

Soon, because of his obvious ambition, people in the Dacko administration began to fear Bokassa. Most, however, dismissed him as a vain and silly man who was not clever enough to be a real challenge to them. Bokassa worked to expand the army and his own prominence (because of the size of the army his rank was only colonel). However, the situation in the C.A.R. worsened quickly after independence. The economy stagnated and then began to decline, the bureaucracy totally broke down and foreign guerilla groups routinely violated C.A.R. territory. Dacko reached out to Communist China for help and soon communist propaganda was spreading throughout the country. The Chinese also made large loans to the Dacko government but most of this went into the pockets of government officials and the economy continued to decline. Bokassa began to make noise about stepping up to save the country from financial ruin and communist subversion and this finally caused Dacko to take notice. When Bokassa went to France for Bastille Day, Dacko refused to allow him to return until President Charles de Gaulle demanded that Dacko reinstate him, speaking of Bokassa as his “comrade in arms” from World War II.

This was done but, obviously, there was no longer any trust or loyalty between the two and Dacko began taking steps to replace Bokassa and disperse his supporters. However, he was not very subtle about this and Bokassa soon saw what was going on and decided to get rid of Dacko before Dacko could get rid of him. In the early hours of January 1, 1966, in what was called the Saint-Sylvestre coup d’etat, Bokassa and his chief subordinate Captain Alexandre Banza, seized control of the capital and, in due course, his forces captured and arrested President Dacko. Once in power, Bokassa promised a new era of equality for all, abolished the constitution and ruled through a Revolutionary Council. He promised that after his forces had eliminated corruption and communism, allowing the economy to stabilize, new elections would be held for a new national assembly and a new constitution. He banned opposition parties, outlawed begging and made employment mandatory. Anyone without a job could be imprisoned. However, he also banned polygamy and female circumcision, established a bus line in the capital, a ferry service on the Ubangi and used government funds to establish two national orchestras. He also broke off diplomatic relations with Communist China. In short, he did make some positive changes.

The new regime was troubled by the slowness of foreign powers to recognize them, particularly the French. The economy also showed no signs of improvement and when Captain Banza pointed out that the lavish spending of Bokassa was not helping, he was immediately demoted. Banza then began planning his own coup to unseat Bokassa but his actions were reported by a loyalist and he was arrested and executed after being beaten nearly to death. This caused a degree of disgust in France but French recognition did finally come. Colonel Gaddafi in Libya lent support to Bokassa, subtly at first, and a strange sort of normalcy finally seemed to settle. In 1972, having previously promoted himself to general, Bokassa declared himself president for life. This still was not good enough and General Bokassa was rather frustrated at the situation in his country. It was not as grand and prosperous as it should be and he felt he was not receiving the full respect of the international community that was his due. Ultimately, he seemed to believe that if he could make the C.A.R. look like a great power, it would become a great power. So, he decided to give himself another, major, promotion. He would become a Napoleonic-style monarch and make the Central African Republic the “Central African Empire”. He envisioned an advanced, dazzling, empire in the heart of Africa that would entrance the world and inspire Africans everywhere. And he was serious.

Bokassa at his coronation

At the end of 1976, Bokassa dissolved his government, proclaimed the country the Central African Empire, issued a new constitution and, having previously converted to Islam, converted back to Catholicism. On December 4, 1977, to mark this shift, he held a lavish coronation ceremony for himself. He had designer robes and gowns, a diamond-encrusted crown and a huge throne made of gold as well as 19th Century Napoleonic style French uniforms made for his soldiers, most of which was all imported from France. The cost was a staggering $20 million, the entire French aid package for that year or one third of the entire annual budget. It was, he claimed, the will of the people that he be elevated to “Emperor Bokassa I” and also that this would gain the respect of world leaders, raise the status of his country in the international community and bring global attention to Central Africa. In that last regard, he was certainly successful as he did get the attention of many people around the world with this spectacle but almost no world leaders attended his coronation and most were convinced that the man was completely insane.

Idi Amin and Bokassa

The situation in the new Central African Empire did not immediately improve with the change in style and Emperor Bokassa came under ever increasing criticism. Stories began to emerge of violent repression of dissent, torture and accusations that Emperor Bokassa practiced cannibalism. Such accusations, it must be said, were quite common at the time (and not unknown even now) for African leaders. Though, to be fair, it must also be said that this does not disprove such allegations as cannibalism was most widespread in the area of central Africa and this does tend to be where such accusations are most prevalent. His love of titles, uniforms covered in medals and the allegations of cannibalism caused many in the western press in particular to compare Emperor Bokassa with the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada who had also proclaimed himself, “Conqueror of the British Empire” and, famously, King of Scotland.

In 1979 what little tolerance in the international community that Emperor Bokassa had been shown began to erode. Key elements of this were the emergence of his partnership with the notorious Libyan dictator Gaddafi and the massacre of a large number of people protesting against rising food prices and a considerable lack of food at any price in Bangui. The French, on whose assistance Central Africa continued to depend, began to waver and the French government began to wish for President Dacko to return. The “last straw” for many was the repression of a student protest in 1979. As part of his campaign to make the Central African Empire look affluent and modern, Emperor Bokassa had ordered all students to wear school uniforms with his portrait on them which were rather expensive and, some might argue, rather crass and tacky. When the students protested, about 100 were killed by government forces with Emperor Bokassa accused of severely beating several of the children himself.

This episode was publicized all over the world and brought down a torrent of condemnation on Emperor Bokassa, prompting the French government to intervene in their former colony. In September of 1979 the French government dispatched the First Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment of their special forces to topple Bokassa and restore President Dacko to power. Flying in from Chad, the French had little difficulty in seizing control as the operation had been timed to coincide with Emperor Bokassa being out of the country on a visit to Libya. Dacko was reinstalled as President and he announced the end of the empire and restoration of the Central African Republic. Bokassa first fled to the Ivory Coast but was later granted exile in France due to his being a veteran of the French army (for which he also continued to draw a pension). He wrote a book during these years but it was banned by the French government due to allegations he made about sharing women and giving lavish gifts to President Giscard d’Estaing.

Tried and sentenced to the death in absentia for repression and the murder of political rivals, Bokassa nonetheless returned to the Central African Republic in 1986. He was immediately arrested and charged with a long list of crimes including treason, murder, corruption and cannibalism. He pled not guilty and at his trial denied all charges made against him, often attributing the crimes to others in the government or denying them completely. He was finally found “not guilty” of cannibalism but “guilty” on all other counts and sentencing him to death. However, in 1988 the then-President Kolingba, commuted Bokassa’s execution and shortening his sentence to 20 years in 1989. In 1993 Bokassa was released as part of a general amnesty. His remaining years were not long but just as ‘colorful’ as his time in power had been. He added to his accumulated 17 wives and estimated 50 children, proclaimed himself to be the thirteenth apostle of Jesus Christ and said that he regularly met in secret with the Pope. He died of a heart attack on November 3, 1996 at the age of 75. In 2010 he was legally rehabilitated by President Francois Bozize and praised for the stability of his years in power and his love of country.

To date, no other African leader has tried to follow his example and in my experience most monarchists regard him as a despicable figure who made the institution of monarchy look ridiculous by his antics. That is probably true, however, his crimes were not that an unusual by the standards of post-colonial Africa were dictatorial leaders with big ambitions and no tolerance for opposition have been the rule rather than the exception. There were certainly others who were far worse.

Monarch Profile: King Reinaldo Frederico Gungunhana of Gaza

In the late Nineteenth Century, in the southern tip of what is now Mozambique, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers, existed the grandly named “Gaza Empire”. It was, like other African powers which later claimed the title, actually a collection of tribes ruled by whoever was able to seize control for as long as he could hold it. The Gaza empire consisted of tribes which migrated north out of what is now South Africa earlier in the century due to a combination of famine and the defeat of other African tribes following the “Great Trek” of the Boers after the British abolished slavery. The chieftains of Gaza continued to rely heavily on slavery with the Islamic slave merchants on the coast continuing to do business with them for a very long time. The other power in the neighborhood was, of course, the Kingdom of Portugal which had long claimed the whole area as Portuguese East Africa but whose actual control had, for centuries, been limited to the coastal area from which they did business with Africans who inhabited the interior.

Rough location of the "Empire of Gaza"

The man known by the Portuguese as Reinaldo Frederico Gungunhana was born around the year 1850 with the name Mdungazwe (or Mundagaz). His grandfather, Gaza, had been a local tribal chief who, during the migration, was able to accumulate several other chiefs subordinate to him and thus when they settled in what is now southern Mozambique and established themselves named their new country Gaza centered around the village of Chaimite. The Portuguese, long established in the region, though mostly farther north, sent a small delegation led by a junior army officer to establish relations with this new entity and negotiate a treaty with them on behalf of the King of Portugal. Though the envoys were received, Gaza refused to make any agreement with Portugal and small scale hostilities continued, mostly with other African tribes in the region and occasionally clashing with the Portuguese as well.

Gungunhana was thus born into a tribal society constantly in conflict and was raised with the sole purpose of being a great tribal warrior in the image of his grandfather. When his grandfather died, his father, Mzila, his uncle Mawewe and another chief all fought for dominance over Gaza. Mawewe was victorious and Mzila, with his son presumably, was forced to flee to the Transvaal in what is now South Africa as Mawewe, to prevent any threat to his hold on power, did his best to massacre his brother’s family which was fairly typical for the time and place. This upsurge in violence caused the Portuguese to peg Mawewe as a troublemaker and they arranged an alliance with the President of the Orange Free State (one of the Boer republics) to eliminate this mutual threat. Chief Mawewe did his best to prove the Portuguese correct, sending them a demand for tribute from every Portuguese colonist at Lourenco Marques under threat of their total annihilation. The Portuguese governor, not being the sort to tolerate such threats and having a flair for the dramatic, sent Mawewe a single rifle cartridge with the notice that this would be the only tribute he would receive from the subjects of the King of Portugal. The fact that their earlier offer of friendship had been rejected, naturally, did not make the belligerent attitude of Mawewe go down any better with the Portuguese.

Gungunhana

This, however, gave Gungunhana’s father, Mzila, an opportunity to advance his own cause. Learning of recent evens in the autumn of 1861, Mzila went to the Portuguese and offered them his allegiance as a vassal of the King of Portugal if the Portuguese would help him to overthrow his brother and take control of Gaza. Portugal agreed, Mzila declared himself the rightful king of the Gaza and launched a war. He was able to rally some supporters with the help of having Portuguese backing him up and an November 30, 1861 won the decisive battle which secured his control of the area. The following month he signed a formal treaty in which the Portuguese recognized him as the chieftain of Gaza and which made him a subject of the King of Portugal. The war dragged on for several more years though the outcome was never really in doubt as Mzila, despite having initially a much smaller army, had 2,000 antiquated flintlock muskets provided by the Portuguese authorities which allowed him to dominate his enemy.

Gungunhana began to rise in prominence among the other children of his father during these years but as the decades went by, tensions began to rise too as warriors from Gaza attacked Portuguese colonists. New agreements were made and Mzila would offer apologies and expressions of friendship, but such attacks continued sporadically and bad feelings continued to fester. Around this time, as his reign was nearing its end, the “Scramble for Africa” was also starting to get underway. British rule in Africa was expanding rapidly and the Germans and Belgians were also arriving on the scene, eager to make agreements with native rulers for control of local resources. The Portuguese colonial authorities had to move to actually occupy the areas long claimed and to make sure none of the chieftains in these territories were wooed away by other powers.

After attacks on two Portuguese settlements, Mzila went to Lourenco Marques to make his apologies and again pledge his allegiance to the King in Lisbon. Although irritated by the attacks, the Portuguese gave Mzila a welcome full of pomp and ceremony as well as more tangible gifts such as rice, livestock and liquor. At his request, they also gave him a Portuguese flag to fly over his village. The Portuguese also sent an ambassador to his village shortly thereafter. However, not long after, in 1884, Mzila died. Gungunhana was not the heir to the throne but, again, in typical fashion, made war on his brothers and was successful in forcing the heir and other rivals for power to flee the country. By the end of the year he was firmly ensconced on the throne and took the name Gungunhana or “son of the lion”. With his authority covering 90,000 square kilometers of territory and over a million Africans, Gungunhana, at 34, undoubtedly felt at the top of his game. However, the encroachment of the British and the Germans in the area meant that Portugal had to have, not just treaties but an actual presence in every area under her flag, otherwise it would be seen as “fair game” to the more recently arrived European powers.

With the British in the midst of a flurry of expansion, the Portuguese colonial government dispatched Casaleiro Alegria as the Portuguese resident at the court of Gungunhana in 1885. The following year, representatives in Lisbon agreed to a new treaty which would allow Portugal a presence in Gaza, freedom of movement for the Portuguese in Gaza and granting Gungunhana the rank of Colonel of the Second Line in the royal Portuguese army. Unfortunately, that agreement fell apart and a new delegation had to be sent to Lisbon in 1887 to negotiate a new treaty. The Africans were much more cooperative after the recent suppression of the fearsome Zulu kingdom by the British. This was done but events began to unravel very quickly.

Gungunhana decided to move his capital farther to the south, to an area held by tribes that were less than friendly to his own (the Nguni) and this set off a series of conflicts and, again, some sporadic attacks on Portuguese colonists. One reason for this was the presence of some mines in this region which the Africans learned were highly prized by the Europeans and Gungunhana believed that if he could take undisputed control of this region, he could buy the support of the British in helping him divorce himself from the Portuguese. It did not help that at the same time the oldest alliance in the world was being tested with the British expansion into the interior of Africa between the Portuguese colonies in Angola and Mozambique. There were even threats of a naval blockade and relations between the British and Portuguese had scarcely ever been worse. The time for niceties was over and the Kingdom of Portugal had to get very serious or risk losing their territory. To oversee the occupation of Mozambique, Portugal dispatched the respected soldier Lt. Colonel (with brevet promotion to general) Joaquim Mouzinho de Albuquerque as governor.

Battle of Marracuene

Gungunhana, alarmed at the sudden ‘no-nonsense’ attitude of the Portuguese in Africa, went ahead with his scheme to enlist the British on his side. However, the governments in London and Lisbon, unknown to him, had already agreed on where the border between their colonial holdings would be. The spread of Portuguese authority also caused a backlash in areas far removed from Gaza and in 1894 in particular there were large native uprisings against the colonial government. At first, Gungunhana tried to assure both sides of his support but eventually he did have to mobilize his warriors, though he tried to reassure the Portuguese that he simply wished to review them. Portugal responded with a formal military campaign for the pacification of Mozambique. On February 2, 1895 a small Portuguese force led by Major Caldas Xavier defeated a much larger African army at the Battle of Marracuene thanks to the discipline and superior weaponry of the colonial army. That episode got the attention of some of the African leaders but a last effort at a diplomatic reconciliation with Gungunhana fails later the same year. Gungunhana continuously put off the Portuguese, still thinking that he would receive word from the British any day of their support for his cause.

Finally, that summer, Gungunhana refuses a last Portuguese ultimatum and threatens openly to ally himself with the British. This was effectively an outright declaration of war against Portugal. It does not go well for the Africans. At the Battle of Magul on September 7, 1895 a Portuguese column, having formed square, bloodily repulses a massive native attack with their superior firepower. Nearby villages were burned as the Portuguese army moved in. The Africans fighting at Magul, however, were not from Gaza as Gungunhana was still holding back, expecting the British to come fight on his behalf. He is even forced, eventually, to demobilize his army of 40,000 men as he simply could no longer feed them and the men needed to return home to see to their crops. He sends still more messages to the British in South Africa but, as usual, receives no reply. With no other native forces between his own and the Portuguese, Gungunhana became the focus of a direct attack by a heavily armed column of 600 Portuguese soldiers and 500 African colonial troops led by Colonel Eduardo Galhardo.

Battle of Coolela

Amazingly, Gungunhana seemed to think that, as he and his father had done in the past, the Portuguese might be mollified with apologies and renewed promises of friendship. This time, however, that will not be enough and Gungunhana is only able to mobilize a fraction of his previous strength, roughly 13,000 native warriors, to meet the Portuguese. The result was the famous Battle of Coolela on November 7, 1895 in which, again, the Portuguese forces decimate the native army, the African warriors of Gaza losing hundreds of men compared to only five Portuguese being killed. In the aftermath of this disaster, Gungunhana accuses his family of betraying him and announces that he will surrender to the Portuguese, again, still thinking that new promises of friendship will be enough. About four days later the Portuguese take the capital of Gaza, Manjacaze, but find the chieftain not at home. The kraal is burned and the troops march on. Gungunhana had fled to the old capital, the village of Chaimite, where his witchdoctors perform human sacrifice to arouse the spirit of his famous grandfather for protection.

The capture of Gungunhana

With other African chiefs eager to make themselves vassals of the King of Portugal in wake of the recent battles, including members of Gungunhana’s own family, Mouzinho de Albuquerque decided to go himself, with only a handful of men, to capture Gungunhana. The African chieftain tries to stop Albuquerque with gifts, sending ivory and over 500 pounds of gold, later more gold, livestock and even his firstborn son but all to no avail. On the morning of December 28, 1895 Mouzinho de Albuquerque enters Chaimite with its remaining 300 warriors fleeing at the approach of the tiny party. Gungunhana is taken prisoner and the village is destroyed. That was not the end of all resistance but it was the end for Gungunhana who was packed up, along with his seven wives and a few servants, and marched to the coast and put aboard ship for Lisbon. When journalists are allowed in to see him, they are confronted by the pitiful site of a bewildered man, crying hysterically, desperately trying to bargain for his life, convinced that he is to face a firing squad.

This, of course, does not happen and in the midst of a media frenzy the group is moved to a prison fortress where they are such a popular attraction that viewing stands are erected. Not long after they are moved to better accommodations and given their favorite foods, wine and medical care. Gungunhana repeatedly asked to meet with King Carlos, wishing to pledge his allegiance again but, though it is talked about, the King refuses to meet with him. The African chieftain was quickly becoming problematic for the government. Caring for them and the horde of spectators that gathered around them was expensive and while some in Portugal wished for nothing better than for Gungunhana to be shot as a faithless traitor, leftist agitators and enemies of the monarchy were also starting to champion his cause and condemn the pacification campaign as wanton cruelty. Finally, on June 22, 1896, the group was quietly shipped off to exile in the Azores.

The exiled king and his seven wives

The former ruler of Gaza was, on orders from the Portuguese government, treated with all due respect, spending his time hunting rabbits and weaving baskets for sale at the local market. To his dismay, the Catholic nature of the Portuguese monarchy would not allow him to retain his seven wives and so, to assuage him and his sons, weekly trips to the local brothel satisfied them. Eventually they all learned to read, write and speak Portuguese and in 1899 were baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. They adopted western clothes and customs and eventually became accepted, if unusual, members of the local community. Reinaldo Frederico Gungunhana, former king of Gaza, died of a cerebral hemorrhage on December 23, 1906. Some of his descendants still live in South Africa today.

British Virtue Signaling and African Republicanism

The fact that liberal to leftist republics predominate in the countries of the world today can be traced back to two immediate and related causes; World War II and the subsequent end of European colonialism, particularly the end of the British Empire which was by far the largest. Prior to World War II, while certainly more prevalent than prior to World War I, the most common form of government in the world was still some variety of monarchy outside of the United States and Latin America. Even the French Republic maintained existing monarchies in parts of its colonial empire in Indochina. In Europe itself, monarchies remained in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Italy, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Monarchs reigned over the whole of the Middle East, from Egypt to Iran with the exception of the French mandates of Syria and Lebanon, the rest bound up in various ways with the British Empire. In the British Empire of India the King-Emperor in London reigned over a small army of colorful Indian rajas and maharajas, even a sultan or two, stretching all the way over to Burma whose last king had been exiled by the British but, again, the monarch in London took the title as the British soldiers took the country.

Growth of the British Empire

The Kingdom of Siam/Thailand was, then as now, still holding out, the French maintained the Emperor of Annam (in Vietnam) and the Kings of Laos and Cambodia, the British monarch presided over a collection of sultans in Malaysia as the Queen of the Netherlands did in the Dutch East Indies. To the north, China had gone republican and Mongolia had been occupied by the Soviet Union but the Dali Lama was still in Lhasa, the Korean royal family was still around, albeit within the orbit of the Emperor of Japan and as of 1931 the last Qing Emperor had been restored to his ancestral throne in Manchuria by the good graces of the Imperial Japanese Army. Other than the French colonies, most of Africa had a monarch either in London, Brussels or Rome and usually local chieftains closer to home who were maintained by the imperial system. Prior to 1936 the only independent countries in Africa were Liberia and Ethiopia. The most recent colonial readjustments in Africa had been the partition and annexation of the former German colonies after World War I. Other than the slices of Togoland and Kamerun that went to France, the native Africans simply exchanged a Kaiser for a King and German for English as the language of government.

World War II would change this state of affairs as no monarchy, no matter how briefly or nominally, who had anything to do with the Axis Powers would ultimately survive with the exceptions of Thailand and Japan (though it helped that in the case of Thailand the King was not even present in his country for the war). The fact that the Emperor of Japan maintained his throne was due entirely on the good graces of one General Douglas MacArthur who asserted removing the Emperor would plunge the country he was charged with occupying into unrest and irregular warfare so long as a single Japanese man, woman or child remained a live. Other than the “Land of the Rising Sun”, the war would see off the last Emperor of China, the monarchs of Indochina, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Italy and Albania. The aftermath saw the end of the European colonial empires and this brought about the biggest explosion in the number of republics around the world which brought about the state of affairs we have today.

Marshal Badoglio enters Addis Abeba

Winston Churchill set these events into motion during World War II but this was certainly not his intention. It was, nonetheless, the result, particularly with his post-war defeat and replacement by the socialist Clement Attlee. However, even before the war, Britain began a very bad habit of making a national policy of what we would today call “virtue signaling”. The British ultimately took this to the point of being like the stereotypical liberal, a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel (as Robert Frost famously said). The British decided, even before World War II, that the colonialism in which they had dominated and come to control more of the land and peoples of the earth than any other was suddenly a bad thing, originally for anyone other than themselves and shortly thereafter, for their own selves as well. One could, perhaps, excuse this sudden, and rather hypocritical, about-face if it were to have actually benefited the British monarchy but, as the plethora of post-colonial republics attests, it only ultimately diminished it. The first sign of this came with the outbreak of war in 1935 between the Kingdom of Italy and the African tribal empire of Ethiopia.

Britain, by use of sanctions and condemnatory speeches at the League of Nations, gave her moral support to Ethiopia and admonished Italy, taking the side of an African country Britain itself had previously invaded for her barbaric misdeeds, against a fellow western, European country which had been a friend and ally since the time of its formation. In purely liberal terms, there would seem no reason to consider one better than the other. Neither Italy nor Ethiopia were liberal, one was a monarchy ruled by a Fascist dictator, the other was a monarchy in which slavery was legal and widely practiced, something the British had themselves invaded other African countries for in the past. When a French woman challenged Winston Church on condemning Italy for doing nothing that Britain herself had not done, for more often and on a far greater scale, the future Prime Minister replied, “Ah, but you see, all that belongs to the unregenerate past, is locked away in the limbo of the old, the wicked days. The world progresses.” Would this make Churchill the first virtue-signaling progressive? It seems an odd fit for someone who served so proudly for the British Empire in India, the British subjugation of the Sudan and the British conquest of the Boers in South Africa. He never otherwise seem to consider these imperial expeditions “wicked” or “unregenerate”.

Ethiopia's Roman Emperor

On the face of it, British interests were not impacted at all by whether Ethiopia was ruled by the King of Italy or the King of Axum, however, the broader implications were that the British Empire stood to have its interests negatively impacted by alienating the Italians whose considerable fleet sat astride the British naval base at Malta and was well within striking distance of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal. However, in the end, this need to virtue signal meant that Britain lost an ally, gained an enemy, imperiled the central artery of the British Empire and gave Hitler the best friend he had long desired. Britain did eventually recognize the King of Italy as the Emperor of Ethiopia but after the outbreak of World War II fought a long, hard campaign to drive the Italians out of the country and set the Ethiopian ruler Haile Selassie back on the throne he had fled in the face of the advancing forces of ‘Roman civilization’.

This is, of course, all leading up to the final question of what the British Empire gained from this altruistic policy? Did they win a lasting ally in Haile Selassie? No, Haile Selassie responded in an odd way on one hand and a rather more understandable but still ultimately futile way on the other. Rather than cheer the cause of the British Empire which had restored him to his pre-war throne, he instead not only cheered but actually fought for the very cause which had failed him; that of collective security embodied in the post-World War II era by the United Nations. As for the British Empire, he showed more racial solidarity than the British had shown toward their fellow Europeans and cheered the process of decolonization that brought down the British Empire (all the while maintaining his own colonial rule over Eritrea which he seized shortly after returning to power). It is, again, entirely understandable that he should choose the side of people most like himself rather than those most different. However, in the end, this meant not only no British Empire but no Ethiopian Empire in Africa either as the anti-colonial movements were seething with Marxism and Haile Selassie was ultimately overthrown by a communist coup. Unfortunately for him, by that time there was no British Empire to put him back again a second time.

British Africa

However, if choosing the African side over the Italians did not end well, things were little different when the British government chose the African side over, well, the British side. It may be beneficial first though, to look at an African colony in which the non-native minority was less than significant but in an area of the continent with the longest ties to Great Britain such as west Africa. Keep in mind, the subject at issue here is not the right or wrong of colonialism but whether the actions of the United Kingdom in giving up the empire were of benefit to the British monarchy or even the cause of monarchy in general. A conscious decision was made, after all, to concede the independence of the colonies from the British Crown without a struggle on the grounds that it was the ‘virtuous’ thing to do. True enough, Britain could have had a difficult time holding on to a landmass such as India for example, should the British have chosen to fight to maintain themselves, however, the situation in Africa was not seen as so insurmountable. There was no small amount of talk at the time of a “third” British Empire (numbered as the first being lost with America and the second going with the loss of India) centered on Africa. For our first example, we will take the first in-line historically.

British officers with the Ashanti, 19th Century

In 1957 the British Parliament passed the Ghana Independence Act which ended the era of the British Crown Colony of the Gold Coast, renaming the country Ghana and making it an independent Commonwealth Realm. It was an independent country but with HM Queen Elizabeth II as sovereign, represented by a Governor-General and it was the first west African country to be given independence. This period of Ghana as an independent monarchy, however, lasted only until July 1, 1960 when a referendum was held on a new constitution which removed the Queen as head of state and made Ghana a republic with a President. So, unlike the United States for example, Ghana did not have to fight a war for eight years to win independence from Great Britain, instead, the United Kingdom graciously gifted independence to Ghana only for the people of Ghana to show their gratitude (or lack thereof) by, in only about three years no less, voting 88% to 11% to abolish the monarchy in Ghana and replace the Queen with a President. However, it did not end there for while the new President lectured about the benefits of communism and socialism, he also refused to take the side of the British in the Cold War, putting Ghana in the “Non-Aligned Movement”. Taken together, this is rather like saying, ‘we won’t help you and we won’t actively fight against you but we hope you lose all the same”.

Prempeh II of the Ashanti

Naturally, Ghana might have chosen to reject an Anglo monarch but restore to full sovereignty one of their own. Ghana was, of course, a creation of British colonialism and no such historic place existed prior to the British arrival but there were tribal kingdoms that could have been elevated to the position, although no expert on the subject, I would guess that the Ashanti chiefs would have been the most likely source of potential native monarchs of whom the candidate at the time would have been one Otumfuo Nana Osei Tutu Agyeman Prempeh II. However, as soon as independence was given to Ghana as a Commonwealth Realm (and independent country in union with the British monarchy), the local government began confiscating property of the Ashanti chief whose line had not very long before been allowed back from exile in the Seychelles where the British had sent them after losing the Anglo-Ashanti wars. It had been the British colonial government of the Gold Coast, bear in mind, which had allowed them back and granted the Ashanti tribal kingdom self rule in 1935. The first post-colonial government was less generous. Yet, nonetheless, the Ashanti king made peace with new President and has carried on in cooperation with the republic ever since. In the years since, one might say the Republic of Ghana has been less than a resounding success considering that currently 7% of the entire population has applied for visas to move to the United States. It may also interest readers to know that Ghana has a rather unusual name for, taken literally, “the Republic of Ghana” would translate to “the Republic of the Warrior King” which is rather contradictory.

Next, we will look at two more high-profile examples which have the commonality of both containing sizable British and/or European minority populations; South Africa and Rhodesia. Obviously, in South Africa, there was a history of unfriendly relations between the British and the Boers (White Afrikaners of Dutch and/or mixed European descent). The British took the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch in the Napoleonic Wars, after which the Boers withdrew into the interior, establishing their own republics which were later conquered by the British in the Boer Wars. However, not long after, around 1909-1910, the British granted considerable autonomy to the Boers and they proved their loyalty and gratitude by fighting for the British in the two world wars, though there were a sizable number who hated the British, always would and always have. However, there had long been some tension between the British and Boers over how each dealt with the native Black population. There had long been a strong republican presence among hard-line Boers but it had not gained real political momentum until after British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan came to Cape Town and spoke of the inevitable end of colonialism and criticized the apartheid (racial segregation) policies of the Afrikaner-dominated government.

Twilight of the British Crown in South Africa

This quickly destroyed any vestige of loyalty felt by Afrikaners towards the British monarchy. Only in Natal, which was the only area in which the White population was majority Anglo rather than Boer, was there opposition to the idea of a republic. They staunchly reaffirmed their loyalty to Queen Elizabeth II and warned that republicanism would be the ruin of South Africa. They were the one bright spot for monarchists in this entire period of South African history, however, they too did not seem to be too optimistic about the virtue-signaling coming from London, referring to Prime Minister Macmillan’s “winds of change” speech as “blowing up to hurricane force”. The Black African population also opposed the idea of a republic but made no secret of the fact that, being dominated by leftist ideologies and identity politics, this was simply out of opposition to unfettered Boer rule and not out of any actual support for the Crown. In any event, they would not be voting in any referendum anyway.

In 1960 a referendum was held on whether South Africa would retain the monarchy or become a republic. Those pushing for the republic conveyed the message that the British were abandoning South Africa, along with the rest of the empire, and that the republic was the only way to ensure the solidarity of the White population and their continuation in a majority Black country. Those campaigning for the monarchy mostly focused on the economic benefits of trade ties with the other Commonwealth Realms, the need for British military support against communism and, it should be noted, African racial nationalism. Others, and it is no surprise this was not successful, urged people to vote against the republic but that this did not imply support for the monarchy. Given that the British had already shown more inclination toward the Black majority than the White minority, the campaign to retain the monarchy was at a disadvantage from the outset with their argument. In the end, the republicans won the day, though not by a very wide margin.

Flag of apartheid era South Africa

Again, most opposition had come from Natal and some even talked of secession from South Africa, however the growing belief that Britain would support the Black population rather than the White population, undercut them and most were forced to go along with the republican Boers or face becoming not only a minority but a powerless and hated minority in their country. The Boer-dominated republic made a few conciliatory gestures to the monarchists but generally went their own way and severed all ties with the British Crown. Great Britain later more openly and vociferously condemned the racial policies of South Africa but held back from going as far as others did in the international effort to impose sanctions. Nonetheless, the effort to never stray too far to the left or to the right ultimately succeeded in pleasing no one. Effective support for the monarchy all but disappeared among the White population and had never been genuinely present in the political movements of the Black population either. As a result, when South Africa did end apartheid and gave political power to the Black population in 1994. The result, needless to say, was that the Black African government did not choose to restore the monarchy and become a Commonwealth Realm again nor did they elevate one of their own chiefs to be “King of South Africa”.

The most prominent of these were the Zulu kings and they have not always had the best of relations with the post-apartheid South African government, dominated by the African National Congress. King Cyprian was in place when the switch to republicanism came and King Goodwill has been in place since 1968. He has been the focus of a great deal of criticism for being out of step with fashionable political trends such as speaking disapprovingly of homosexuality and a little too approvingly of the era of White-rule in South Africa. He also provoked calls for an apology when he spoke in a critical way of Africans from outside South Africa moving into the country in such large numbers. In short, relations between the Zulu kings and the ANC government have been less than absolutely cordial. Once again, British virtue signaling and going along with the popular liberal trends of the day meant the loss of a crown for the British Queen, no restoration for the natives and a situation that is worse for everyone.

First Rhodesian parliament

The situation was even more stark in the nearby country of Rhodesia. Established under British colonial rule, Rhodesia had become the breadbasket of Africa with the most consistently productive farms, probably on the entire continent. It was a place of one of the most successful recreations of British society in a foreign land anywhere in the world. However, again, it was a land with a White (this time largely Anglo-Saxon) minority ruling over a much larger Black African majority. In 1923 the British colony of Southern Rhodesia had become, effectively, self-governing within the British Empire. Unlike South Africa had the history of the Boer Wars and thus tensions between the Anglo and Boer populations, Rhodesia had no such problems and the Rhodesians were as ardent defenders of the British Empire as one could ever hope to find and from 1923 to 1953 things seemed to be going fine. However, as decolonization continued and British pressure mounted to give the Black population the vote, which, given the size of their majority, would mean total political domination over the White population, the Rhodesian government began to grow nervous, particularly after witnessing what happened to Northern Rhodesia as it became Zambia.

Stamp showing post-UDI Rhodesia was still loyal

The British government, however, was adamant that the Black population had to be given the vote. There was a choice to be made and the British government chose to take the side of the Black population over the White population and the result was the unilateral declaration of independence in 1965. The Rhodesians established themselves as a Commonwealth Realm monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as their Head of State and Ian Smith as Her Majesty’s Prime Minister in Rhodesia. However, the British government refused to recognize the country and continued to apply pressure to end White rule and bring about Black rule. Ultimately, Rhodesia’s time as an unrecognized, independent monarchy did not last long under such circumstances. In 1970 Rhodesia officially became a parliamentary republic, severing all ties with the British Crown. There were probably no more reluctant republicans in the world but the British government was far more active than it had even been toward South Africa in forcing change on the Anglo population of Rhodesia with sanctions, diplomatic opposition and even a military blockade of sorts.

Ultimately, after holding out for decades, Rhodesia was finally forced to surrender. With the fall of the Portuguese empire after the Carnation Revolution and the weakening of the Boer regime in South Africa, Rhodesia was completely isolated and could not survive. Finally, in 1979 the first steps were taken toward Black majority rule and in quick order Rhodesia was destroyed and in 1980 the country became the Republic of Zimbabwe led by the Marxist dictator Robert Mugabe (still in power to this day) and the opening of a reign of terror against the White population. The British, who never recognized Rhodesia, did recognize the Republic of Zimbabwe and even allowed Zimbabwe to join the Commonwealth as a republic the same year though Mugabe eventually took the country out in 2003. It is the second most impoverished country in Africa today, which is a far cry from the prosperous colony that had such surpluses that it exported food which leads to an important point.

Still protesting Cecil Rhodes. It's not going away.

This is why virtue signaling and fashionable political trends make for bad policy. In the end, in every case detailed above, the Africans have ended up worse off than when they started. However, from a purely monarchist perspective, one thing *should* (and I emphasize should, because some do not seem to) be very clear. Robert Mugabe was no different than any other post-colonial African leader in one regard; not one of them chose to maintain the monarchy and retain the British monarch as their Head of State. Neither did any choose to become a monarchy with their own sovereign, though they certainly had plenty of options in most cases. The only Black, African monarchies today are Swaziland and Lesotho which never lost their status in the first place and which are, let us be honest, essentially dependencies of South Africa. The British had a choice between their own people and the Africans and they chose the Africans. Now, majority opinion says that was the right and virtuous choice to make, which remains so even though no one could call any of the post-colonial countries a resounding success. However, it certainly did not benefit the British monarchy at all.

Britain leaves Africa, Africans move to Britain...and
then protest against the British in Britain.

Today, no country in Africa has restored Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state even after Her Majesty’s government chose to empower the African people at the expense of the British minority populations in those countries. At the same time, by and large, the British surrendered forever the goodwill and support of that same White population which had previously been so loyal. The Rhodesians were, again, once the most ardent supporters of the British in the world. Today, however, it is not uncommon to find surviving Rhodesians who will damn the British in no uncertain terms, some even more than they damn Robert Mugabe and, frankly, it is not difficult to understand why. They have adopted a diehard Boer-level hatred of all things Anglo. Given all that has happened to them since 1980, it would be rather shocking if they did not harbor fierce resentment for the government, made up of people like themselves, who completely abandoned them and furthered their displacement. Yet, in spite of this, as I have mentioned (and refuted) in the past, the British monarchy is still accused of racism! Even when they support other races against their own, no sizeable population is won over and accusations of racism continue. So, how has this policy benefited the cause of the British monarchy in any way?

The short answer is that it has not. It has not even benefited the Africans as liberal opinion assumed that it would. All it has done is to increase the number of republics and grow the ranks of those bigoted against the British and Anglo-Saxon civilization. Yet, it does not yet seem that the lesson has been learned though there are signs that people are starting to come around. Hopefully, for the sake of the monarchy and a thousand years of British tradition, they will not adopt the Boer attitude when they do. Personally, I have come to my limit on the subject. Warm feelings of doing 'the right thing' is no substitute for victory and just because you think you are doing good for those who hate you, doesn't mean you really are. No one should abide those who are willing to let their own civilization fall in exchange for a feeling of moral superiority.

The Horror After Haile Selassie

It was on this day in 1974 that the last Ethiopian monarch, Haile Selassie, was overthrown by a communist ruled military clique, known as the Derg. Because this was the work of communists and because western media tended to ignore anything unpleasant that occurred in African countries after colonialism ended (which was supposed to solve everything) there is not much awareness about what followed but it was a living horror to put even the "Reign of Terror" to shame. After World War II, the Soviet Union made Ethiopia something of a priority and turned out massive amounts of propaganda in an effort to turn the Ethiopian people against their monarch. This was the same country that had backed Haile Selassie so long as he was fighting Italian Fascists, which had been allied with Haile Selassie in World War II and which had awarded him the military Order of Suvarov in 1959. Haile Selassie had himself also been cheering on the downfall of the European colonial empires in Africa, failing to appreciate the fact that most of the forces behind the movement were under communist control and would be no friend to him later. Likewise, when Haile Selassie was again overthrown, unlike the last time, in 1974 there would be no British Empire to set him back on his throne again. After a period of increasing unrest, instability and internal problems for the country, Haile Selassie was overthrown in a military coup and later murdered.

This military clique, known as the Derg, took absolute control of the country and was, of course, backed the whole time by the Soviet Union and their masters in Moscow. The emperor had certainly made mistakes which hurt his cause, however, he certainly cannot be held responsible for the treason of others and the issues they seized on in order to take power were almost invariably due to things far beyond the ability of the emperor to control (unless one assumes the King of kings should be able to control the weather or global oil prices). The mistakes he made shrink in insignificance compared to the mistake of his overthrow and the dismantling of the monarchy which was the only government Ethiopia had ever known in its entire, ancient history. Why was this so? A simple look at the subsequent history of the country proves it beyond all doubt. How did Ethiopia fare without a monarch? Well, there was one coup after another in this communist dictatorship that couldn’t even manage to agree on a single dictator. There were numerous rebellions, all of them bloodily suppressed, there was drought, famine, massive starvation and soon Ethiopians were fleeing their homeland in record numbers. Part of the country was even conquered by the Somalis and the Somali incursion was only beaten back with massive assistance from the rest of the communist bloc. I do not wish to sound too offensive here but, when you need the help of the Soviet Union, East Germany, North Korea and Cuba to defeat a country like Somalia -you are not doing very well.

The man in charge of all of this, the man who had taken the place of Emperor Haile Selassie, was Mengistu Haile Mariam. Remember that name. What Stalin was to Russia, what Choibalsan was to Mongolia, what Mao was to China, Mengistu was to Ethiopia. He instituted a reign of terror in Ethiopia on a scale that made even the French revolutionaries look like slackers. Hundreds of thousands of people were massacred, hundreds of thousands were arrested and tortured and hundreds of thousands more were starved to death. All told, even by conservative estimates, Mengistu caused the deaths of more than two million of his fellow Ethiopians. Some believe he may have killed his former emperor personally and given what a vicious, hateful man he is, it is not beyond the realm of possibility. The Ethiopian people experienced a level of suffering under his rule that none of them had ever known before. No emperor, nor even any foreign conqueror, was so brutal and barbaric toward the Ethiopian people as Mengistu was. He intentionally murdered people by slow starvation and if there was one constant throughout his decades in power it was probably widespread starvation, some of it purposely inflicted and much of it the result of his idiotic, Marxist policies. He remains one of the most despicable villains in African history. Thanks to him, even today, when foreign people think of "Ethiopia" they tend to picture starving children.

Now, most histories will tell you that the nightmare of Mengistu and his communist tyranny ended in 1991. Do not be fooled. The nightmare has not ended and will not until traditional government, the monarchy, is restored to Ethiopia. As the Soviet Union began to fold, the primary source of aid to Mengistu dried up and his regime was toppled. He fled to Zimbabwe and the open arms of his friend and fellow tyrant Robert Mugabe where he remains to this day, despite being indicted by an Ethiopian court for genocide. However, the party that replaced Mengistu was the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, a democratic socialist party. In other words, communism for slow learners. Unfortunately, this is not unique to Ethiopia as we have seen the same all over the world. When communist regimes fall, the party renames itself the social democrats or democratic socialists and continues on just as they did before. They took power and held on to it, giving the world some show-elections just to make everyone happy while continuing on the tradition of corruption, wars and poverty that characterized the preceding regime. It is still a country of starvation and repression.

What happened in Ethiopia, under communism, is not much remembered today but everyone would do well to learn from it. The misery, the mass murder, the oppression was on a scale such as was seen in Cambodia under Pol Pot with a death toll in the millions. In the "Qey Shibir" or 'Red Terror' alone the murdered numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The Derg tried to wash its hands of the matter but the bands of radicals who carried out the killings had been armed by them and organized by them as an instrument of punishment for "reactionaries". They only came to care about the horror when some of these radical groups began to target Derg officials and sympathizers as well in a way not too dissimilar from that of Mao's Red Guards in China. In the capital city alone, aside from the adults, well over a thousand young children were murdered and left in the streets. All of this would have been enough to retard the progress of even the most advanced countries and it certainly has in Ethiopia but recovery has been even more slow and painstaking since the government still, to a large extent, clings to the leftist policies of the communist era. This summer, protests broke out against the oppression of the government as well as demands for more wealth redistribution (a learned habit) and this resulted in a crackdown that has been more violent than the country has seen in decades.

Is there a way to end the cycle of misery? Certainly, and it is not difficult to see but it will require getting rid of the entrenched, ruling elite that has persisted since the days of the Derg. Ethiopia needs to take a "back to basics" approach, restore their traditional leaders, revive traditional values, end the policies that have proven so ruinous and adopt policies that have been proven to work around the world. It means an end to the culture of dependency and a revival of a healthy sense of national pride. It also requires an emphasis on faith as the Coptic Christians of eastern Africa are becoming an increasingly imperiled minority (see events such as the crackdown in Egypt, the horrors in the Sudan and the deportation of Ethiopian laborers from Saudi Arabia for evidence of the squeezing of African Christians). If that is done, Ethiopia is well placed to play an important part in pulling east Africa back from the brink of disaster and being, as she once was, an example for others to follow as a powerful and prosperous African state.

Thoughts on the Boer Republics (and their consequences)

I have, from time to time, been asked about my opinion on the Boer Republics and/or the Boer War which saw them fall to the forces of the British Empire. It is a subject I have mixed feelings about considering that I have a great deal of sympathy for both sides of the British-Boer divide. The fact of my own contrariness also plays a part as, during the Boer War, the vast majority of world opinion was on the side of the struggling, little Boer republics and very much against the big, bad British Empire that was at its peak of Victorian splendor and I get very nervous whenever I find myself in agreement with popular opinion. I also dislike the sort of envy-driven hatred that manifests itself against any country or people when they reach the pinnacle of success. It happened to Spain, in happened to Britain more than once, it happened to Germany in the build-up to World War I and it has been happening to the United States and I detest each and every instance of it. The British Empire is dear to my heart and, despite popular opinion today, was inarguably a force for good in the world taken as a whole. However, even Anglophile that I am, I cannot deny that there were occasions in which the British Empire behaved badly as is the case with any country or any people in the world from time to time.

The British Empire had a record of success in Africa that would be difficult to surpass and, again despite what modern detractors would say, it was generally more humane than otherwise. The African lands touched by the British Empire benefited greatly from it with the forces of the British Empire wiping out slavery, introducing modern medicine, agriculture, education and government and they tended to work with traditional native leaders whenever possible. However, no person and no people are totally immune from error and misdeeds and just as the British acted benevolently in India in eradicating certain barbaric practices, the British also acted quite badly such as in forcing opium on the Chinese. The British Empire was a force for good in suppressing the slave trade and yet, in Africa itself there was also instances of Britain acting in a less than altruistic way. The Boer War itself, I think, shows both negative and positive aspects of the character of the British Empire. Greed often seemed to be the driving force behind the start of the conflict and British actions in fighting the war were, sometimes inadvertently though few today would admit it, quite cruel. And yet, the conquered Boer republics were taken into the British Empire and became even more successful still and, after the conflict, the British were generously magnanimous toward their former foes.

For those who complain that I never have anything good to say about any republics, ever (even my own, which is certainly not true), take note that I have no fundamental objection to the Boer republics and moreover that I think the Boer republics had much to recommend them. The Boers were a rough-hewn, rugged, frontier type of people who were excellent horsemen, crack shots with a rifle and devoutly religious -all of which are qualities to admire in my book. Unlike the republics in places such as France or Russia or China, I have no problem with the creation of the Boer republics because of the nature of their birth. They were not born out of any sort of radical, revolutionary upheaval. If France or Russia represent the extreme left in the birth of republics, the United States would be much more to the right but the Boer republics would be even further to the right still. To explain, and for the benefit of those unfamiliar with the story, a brief summary of how the Boer republics came to be is probably in order.

The Dutch arrive on the Cape

Before the British ever arrived in the area, the Cape of Good Hope region of southern Africa was a Dutch colony, part of the very businesslike empire of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. However, then the French Revolution broke out, the French invaded the Netherlands, the Prince of Orange was overthrown and a French puppet state called the Batavian Republic was erected. This meant the ruin of Dutch trade and the loss of most of the Dutch empire with the British swooping in and, after a brief battle, seizing control of the Cape for the British Crown. As many of the locals, mostly Dutch but including some other peoples in the mix, did not desire to live under British rule, they packed up their wagons and left British territory to head deeper into the interior of Africa (the famous “Great Trek”). It was these people who finally established what eventually became known as the Boer republics.

The British became more established in the region and the Boers lived in peace beside them, mostly as farmers and ranchers. They lived simple lives but were accustomed to the hardships of frontier life and were content. However, things began to change when it was found that the Boer republics sat on top of extremely lucrative mineral deposits. They were quite literally ‘sitting on a gold mine’ (and a number of diamond mines too). This, of course, attracted more and more British settlers who moved into Boer territory and that, of course, began to arouse the opposition of the Boers. They began to enact laws to curtail the flow of the British into their territory and the influence they had. That was only natural. It was also then, only natural, for the British to object to their rights being restricted and the British Empire, also not surprisingly, took up the cause of their fellow countrymen against the Boer republics and soon this led to the outbreak of war. Looking back at the overall situation there are few historians who would try to deny that the bottom line was simply this: the Boers had control of vast riches that the British wanted for themselves and they were prepared to fight and conquer the Boer republics in order to obtain control of these mineral deposits. Would any other power, similarly placed, have done otherwise? Probably not. Still, it was hardly Britain’s finest hour.

Boer President Paul Kruger

The world was amazed though by how tenacious the Boers proved to be when confronting the greatest empire in the history of the world. The war, or actually “wars” were long and bitter struggles with the Boers putting up one Hell of a fight. They were not professional soldiers but their way of life had made them a tough and tenacious people and before it was all over you could say that they made the British earn all the gold under Johannesburg the hard way and the payment for all that wealth was in blood. In fighting the war, which eventually devolved into a guerilla conflict with those Boers who refused to surrender, the British resorted to methods that were brutal but effective. The most notorious strategy was to isolate the Boer commandos (a local term the British adopted for their own special forces later on such was their fighting reputation) from their civilian base of support by ‘concentrating’ the Boer population in guarded camps. So it was that the British invented the “concentration camp”.

Today, the unthinking mob tends to think of a “concentration camp” as a “death camp” thanks to the influence of Nazi Germany on the popular imagination. However, this should not be so and the British certainly did not put Boers into camps in order to systematically exterminate the Afrikaner people. Which is also not to say that these were nice places. They were certainly not and large numbers of civilian men, women and children died in these camps from disease, malnutrition and poor sanitation. It was, however, not due to intentional British cruelty but rather to supply shortages, logistical failures and bureaucratic log jam. In fact, it was a British woman who came to the rescue of the imprisoned Boers, raising a public outcry over the conditions in which they were being held and who mounted the effort to relieve their suffering through much more efficient private, charitable channels. Obviously, if the British were a cruel and heartless people, no one would have cared about the concentration camps, there would have been no public outcry and no massive effort to put a stop to it. The British also proved themselves to be gracious victors when the brutal bloodletting was over. Rather than rule the Afrikaners as a conquered people, the British made them partners in the new colonial enterprise that became South Africa and, as a result, many of the men who had fought the hardest against the British became ardent supporters of the British Empire, even taking up arms again to defend it in World War I.

Louis Botha, Boer leader

So, for me, though I am a great admirer of the British Empire, I also see much to admire in the Boer republics, I am not unsympathetic to them and, as republics go, they were acceptable in my book. The important point, for me at least, is that they were foundationally legitimate republics rather than illegitimate revolutionary republics. The Boer republics were, if you like, a ‘creatio ex nihilo’ which did not detract from any existing, established authority to which they should have held allegiance. At the time they were severed from their own, original, mother-country, that (republican) state had been deprived of its own legitimate government. The transfer of territory to the British was not applauded by the Boers but they did nothing to oppose it, preferring to move inland and carve out their own country from the wilderness. The first French Republic, by contrast, was plainly illegitimate but the Boer republics were clearly not and so I have no fundamental problem with them in their origins nor do I know of anything objectionable about their operation when they existed. As such regimes go, they were okay in my book.

Battle of Blood River

There was, it must be mentioned, one aspect to the Boer republics which attracts the most criticism today, given modern, liberal, western sentiments and that was their attitude toward the Black population. I think this deserves to be mentioned, not simply for the sake of full disclosure, but to show that the British Empire was not only hardly as terrible as it is often portrayed but that it acted in a way in which modern-day liberals would have demanded and yet has absolutely nothing to show for such benevolence. First of all, the idea that the Boers should receive no sympathy because, ‘the British stole land from the Boers which the Boers had stolen from the Africans’ is a false, simplistic notion based on current fashionable opinion and not the actual facts. The Boers who made the “Great Trek” came as settlers, not conquerors. They obtained land by peaceful purchase, some Boer families still having the records of such sales from the Black Africans of the time, but most of the land was unoccupied due to the previous wars of conquest by the Zulus who had annihilated much of the previous Black population of the region. There were of course, inevitably going to be clashes, such as the famous Battle of Blood River, by which the Boers fought hard and paid a heavy price for the land they settled but the idea that the whole enterprise was some massive, armed heist is simply not true. The Boers did, however, have a very different attitude toward race in contrast to the British.

The British had long abolished the slave trade and expended a great deal in suppressing it, had abolished slavery long before across the British Empire and even in Victorian times, while certainly not possessing the thinking about race that modern Britons do, tended to look on racism as something terribly uncivilized at the very least. The Boers, on the other hand, took a more old-fashioned and Biblical view of race. They outlawed slavery too though some observers felt that was more in name rather than fact and they certainly viewed Blacks as a people to be kept apart from themselves, people who were different and to be treated differently. Black Africans could not become citizens in the Boer republics, they had fewer rights and freedoms and all the rest of it (any non-Boers and anyone not Protestant also faced degrees of discrimination as well). British society tended to look down on how Blacks were treated in the Boer republics and the inferior position of the Black Africans in the Boer republics was one of the ways that British public opinion was turned in favor of military action against them though it could hardly be argued that this was ever the primary reason for the war. Nonetheless, that was an aspect which enemies of the British Empire today tend to overlook. The vast majority of Black Africans supported the British because the British offered them more rights and more equal treatment than the Boers.

This, of course, eventually culminated in the collapse of the British Empire in Africa as the British government supported granting the franchise to Blacks, effectively handing them total control over South Africa (and other colonies) from the white minority. This led to an ugly stand-off with Rhodesia and British participation in international boycotts against apartheid South Africa, forever alienating the white populations of these countries. Critics of the British Empire today willfully ignore the fact that in South Africa, and other Black-majority countries across the continent, the British government took the side of the Black Africans against the White Africans, their own kith & kin many of them, something unprecedented in the history of all peoples all around the world. This is a fact, yet, from a monarchist perspective, one is forced to conclude that did nothing at all to benefit the Crown, British influence or even goodwill towards the UK.

By taking the side of the Black Africans, another race against those of their own blood in South Africa, the Boers and other White Africans tended to view the British as race-traitors, the people who sold out their own kind and it is easy to find people still today who have never forgiven the British for the part they played in the eradication of the White population in South Africa. The Crown, as usual, does not escape such criticism due to the way people view the monarch as the pinnacle and representation of all British people, society and government. However, while that was to be expected, the actions of Britain have obviously not immunized the British from accusations of racism and upon attaining political power, the Blacks of South Africa did not rush to restore the monarchy and become a Commonwealth Realm again. No, as we all know, the republican form of government was one thing about apartheid South Africa that the new regime wished to retain. Some do still think well of the British in South Africa, but it is not something that can be expressed openly without a severe backlash, even if you are a prominent African chief. And, today, Red China has far more influence in South Africa than Great Britain does. Taken altogether, it is simply a fact that neither Britain nor the British monarchy gained anything tangible nor even in terms of much goodwill and gratitude from its history of pro-Black policies in Africa.

Field Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts

No one figure better represents the change in attitude towards the British monarchy on the part of Boers than the great Prime Minister and Field Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts. He fought against the British in the Second Boer War, yet later became pro-British and a staunch monarchist after it was over. When some Boers, during World War I, allied with Germany and tried to instigate a rebellion, Smuts and the loyal Boers suppressed them on their own. He was a major military leader in World War I on the side of the British Empire in Africa and was again one of the most prominent leaders on the Allied side in World War II, fighting for the British Empire against the Axis powers (he was even the favored candidate to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom if something were to happen to Mr. Churchill). He also supported racial segregation in South Africa and was very popular but later White South Africans came to view him less favorably as Britain took action against the racial policies of the country. When Black rule came to South Africa, Smuts fared no better as was seen in 1994 when the airport in Johannesburg, named in his honor, was renamed to the ‘Johannesburg International Airport’ and in 2006 was renamed again in honor of a prominent Black politician of the African National Congress. The Boers had fought fiercely against the British Empire but most later came to accept it and rose to prominence in South Africa. Many of them fought for the British Empire in World War I and World War II yet they reverted to republicanism due to British opposition to their racial policies and today one would be hard pressed to find a Boer in South Africa with much regard for Britain or the British monarchy. Thus did British opposition to apartheid alienate the Boers while still not garnering enough support among the Black population to restore the monarchy in a post-apartheid South Africa.