DE WET, CHRISTIAAN RUDOLPH

Christian Rudolph de Wet (October 7, 1854-February 3, 1922) was a Boer general during the South African Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.

PHOTO CAPTION: Christian Rudolph de Wet. SOURCE: EA Library

De Wet was born on the Leeuwkop farm near Smithfield in the Orange Free State. He received only a few months’ formal education. At the age of eleven he served with his father in the second war against the Basuto. In 1873 he married Cornelia Margaretha Kruger who proved to be a pillar of strength to him throughout his life, sharing his deep religious feelings. He was restless by nature and frequently moved about. In the first Anglo-Boer War of 1880-81 he represented the Heidelburg district of the neighbouring South African Republic as acting commandant, participating in the famous storming of Majuba Hill on February 27, 1881. His wanderings brought him back to the Orange Free State where he became Member of Parliament for Upper-Modder River in 1889, an office he held for nine years.

Representing a less conservative element in the Volksraad (parliament), he nevertheless identified himself completely with the upsurge of Afrikaner nationalism in the wars preceding the outbreak of the South African War of 1899-1902. Soon after war was declared on October 11, 1899, De Wet was chosen acting commandant of a commando, and was subsequently promoted to combat general in December 1899. He was unable to prevent General Piet Cronje and 4,000 burghers from surrendering in February 1900, but the changing nature of the war saw De Wet as the exponent of guerrilla warfare par excellence. He demonstrated this by his highly successful surprise attacks on isolated British detachments at Sannaspost (March 3, 1900) and Roodewall (June 7, 1900).

By May 1900 De Wet was commander-in-chief of Orange Free State commandos. With President M.T. Steyn he became the soul of the Boer fight for freedom. Several attempts to capture him with mobile columns failed. His forceful leadership, calmness in face of danger, ability to assess military situations and to apply them to his own advantage, his unpredictability, mobility and brilliant reconnoitering and thorough knowledge of the veld by day and night, secured the safety of his core of faithful burghers and earned their admiration and respect.

Having signed the peace agreement of Vereeniging on May 31, 1902 as acting state president of the Orange Free State, De Wet left for Europe with Generals Louis Botha and J.H. de la Rey to raise funds for Boer widows and orphans. On board ship he wrote his experiences of the war in Three Years War, published in English and Dutch in 1902, and which was subsequently translated into several other languages, including Russian.

Impoverished by the war, De Wet continued farming in 1907 and became minister of agriculture in what was then the Orange River Colony. He was a delegate to the National Convention of 1908-09 which prepared the way for the unification of South Africa in 1910. When the schism between Premier Louis Botha and General J.B.M. Hertzog occurred, De Wet supported the latter in forming the National Party in 1914. When Botha invaded German South-West Africa in the First World War, some Afrikaners organised an anti-British protest which soon led to open rebellion. De Wet, one of the leaders of the rebellion, was captured and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment but was released after six months due to popular demand. Still dismayed at Afrikaner disunity, he died at Dewtsdorp on February 3, 1922 and was buried next to his spiritual father, M.T. Steyn, at the foot of the National Women’s Monument in Bloemfontein.

FRANSJOHAN PRETORIUS