National Scouts facts for kids

Frédéric de Haenen: "Surrendered Boers at Belfast anxious to join the National Scouts after being addressed by Lord Kitchener." Drawing after a photograph of a scene in the aftermath of the Battle of Belfast, 21 - 27 August 1900, lost by the Boers.

Boer general Pieter Daniel de Wet.

Boer general Andries Cronjé with ammunition.

The National Scouts were a military unit in South Africa created by the British authorities in 1900 during the Second Boer War (11 October 1899 – 31 May 1902). Its membership consisted of former Boer Orange Free State and South African Republic military. They were recruited in significant numbers towards the end of the war from Afrikaner prisoners and defectors, and were commonly known as hensoppers (Afrikaans for Hands-uppers) or joiners among the Boers. Many of their fellow citizens despised them as traitors so that the label of National Scout became a swear word. According to official figures there were 1,480 members in May 1902. After the war, they were largely ostracized by the community and a number of them founded their own church, known as the Kruiskerk (Church of the Cross) in the Transvaal Colony.

Second Boer War

A few months after the occupation of Pretoria by the British forces on 5 June 1900, a first public meeting was held in the Rex Bar at Kerkplein in Pretoria to recruit National Scouts from the ranks of the citizens. In most cases, they were initially employed as "cattle guards" (Afrikaans: beeswagters) to collect and protect the livestock of farms against seizure by roaming Boer commandos. However, some took part in military action against them.

The so-called hensoppers were men who had surrendered immediately to the enemy, sometimes even before the actual start of hostilities, or later after only a short time in the field. The joiners on the other hand were Boers who offered their services to the enemy by acting as National Scouts or guides to the British troops in the field.

Prominent members of the National Scouts were former Boer generals Andries Cronjé (1849 – 1923), brother of general Piet Cronjé who had surrendered at Paardeberg and was sent to Saint Helena, and Piet de Wet (1861 – 1929), brother of general Christiaan de Wet, who kept up a guerilla war against the British.

The hostility ran high among the Boer population against those joiners, which was summed up in a poem sent to the National Scouts' membership during the war:

Aftermath

After the Boer War, only 10 percent of the total of 1.750 Boers serving on the British side as National Scouts claimed their Queen's South Africa Medals. Ostracized by the Boer Bittereinders and their womenfolk, they had to found their own separate Afrikander church organisation, the Kruiskerk (Church of the Cross) in Pretoria. Towards the end of 1902, General Louis Botha decided to destroy the list of National Scouts compiled by the Boers during the war, to so keep their descendants in ignorance about their actions during the war.

See also

• Lovat Scouts, a similar British Army unit first formed during the Second Boer War as a Scottish Highland yeomanry regiment.