The Life of King Edward VII
by letter, dated March 16th, declined. The details of this cabled
correspondence and the proposed terms were, of course, submitted to the
King and approved by His Majesty, and it is certain that had the war
then ended the Coronation would have taken place at an earlier date than
was afterwards fixed.
The question of honours conferred by the Crown in peace or war has
always been one of considerable discussion in Colonial, if not in home
circles. How far the Sovereign acts in this connection with, or without
the advice of responsible Ministers, cannot be exactly known. The action
is unquestionably guided by circumstances based primarily upon the
admitted fact that all honours and titles, constitutionally as well as
theoretically, lie in the hands of the Sovereign. It is probable that
the recommendations made are generally accepted; that the name of any
one known to be disapproved of by the King would never be submitted;
that the slightest hint of disapproval would suffice for any name to be
at once dropped; that any suggestion made by the Sovereign is at once
included in the official list as a matter of course; that the interest
taken by the Sovereign in the honours bestowed depends somewhat upon
whether they are conferred in the ordinary way for routine services or
granted for special reasons of action or state; that Colonial honours
are seldom changed as they come from the hands of the Governor-General
or Viceroy.
On the other hand it may be reasonably assumed that King Edward took
more interest in this subject than did the late Queen. His many years of
active association with public life and men of all classes and political
opinion had made him keenly and impartially aware of personal claims and
merits and more than usually able to judge amongst the great numbers who
desire or deserve Royal recognition from time to time. His Majesty's
first Honour List dealt with services in the South African War under
terms of a multitudinous catalogue submitted by F. M. Lord Roberts up to
November 29th, 1900. Amongst those who were made Knights Commander of
the Bath, or K.C.B. were Lieut.-General Charles Tucker,
Lieutenant-General Lord Methuen, Major-General Reginald Pole-Carew,
Major-Generals W. G. Knox and H. J. T. Hildyard, Lieut.-General Ian S.
M. Hamilton, Major-General Hector A. Macdonald, Lieut.-General J. D. P.
French, Brigadier-Generals Henry S. Settle, Edward Y. Brabant and J. G.
Dartnell--all well-known officers in the South African conflict. The
Grand Cross of St. Michael and St. George, or G.C.M.G. was conferred
upon General Sir Redvers Buller, Lieut.-General Lord Kitchener,
Lieut.-General Sir Frederick Forestier-Walker and General Sir George
White. The K.C.M.G., or Knight Commandership in the same Order, was
given to Major-General Sir C. F. Clery, Major-General Sir Leslie Rundle,
Major-General E. T. H. Hutton, Lieut.-Colonel E. P. C. Girouard and
others. A number of minor honours were bestowed upon British, Canadian,
Australian, New Zealand and South African officers and men and an
Investiture of various Orders was held at St. James's Palace on June
3rd, 1901. In such a list much discrimination was necessary and it is
probable that the tact and knowledge of the King would have a very
controlling influence apart altogether from his constitutional rights
and powers.
VARIOUS CEREMONIES AND INCIDENTS
On May 24th, His Majesty helped to make the welcome home to Sir Alfred
Milner splendid and impressive and worthy of the statesman who had
toiled amidst personal danger and depressive surroundings, public
disasters and continuous misrepresentation, to maintain British rights
and justice in South Africa. The High Commissioner was received at the
station by Lord Salisbury, Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Roberts, Lord
Lansdowne, Mr. Balfour and many others. Thence he was driven to
Buckingham Palace and received by the King in a prolonged and private
audience. The honour of a peerage was conferred upon him and on the
following day Lord Milner was entertained at a large luncheon given by
the Colonial Secretary and Mrs. Chamberlain and attended by the most
eminent public men of the Metropolis--outside of the Liberal party
ranks. On the same day the King presented colours to the Third Scots
Guards.
On June 13th a most imposing ceremony was held by His Majesty on the
Horse Guards Parade when thirty-two hundred officers and men from South
Africa were presented with war medals by the King amid scenes which had
not been duplicated since the memorable function when the late Queen
Victoria and the Crimean soldiers had been the central figures. The
Royal platform was covered with crimson cloth and in its centre was
spread a beautiful Persian silk carpet above which a canopy of crimson
and gold, supported on silver poles, had been erected. Around the
platform was a bewildering display of splendid uniforms and, after the
arrival of the King and Queen Alexandra, accompanied by Princess
Victoria, the distribution of the medals lasted over two
hours--Major-General Sir Henry Trotter handing them to His Majesty who,
in turn, presented them to the officer or soldier as he filed past. The
first recipients were Lord Roberts, Lord Milner and Sir Ian Hamilton. A
most brilliant and successful function concluded with cheers and the
National Anthem.
The war now dragged on its weary way. Victories and occasional defeats
marked the stages of attrition by which the bravery and obstinacy of a
determined foe was gradually worn down. On August 16th, 1901, Lord
Kitchener issued his proclamation banishing all Boer leaders taken in
arms after September 15th: three days later the Duke of Cornwall landed
at Cape Town; on August 27th Lord Milner returned to take up his arduous
duties. Mr. Cecil Rhodes died on March 26th, 1902, and on April 9th Boer
delegates met at Klerksdorp under safe conducts from Lord Kitchener, and
there Mr. Steyn, General Delary and General De Wet, and others,
conferred upon the possibilities of peace. Three days later they
proceeded to Pretoria and were given every facility for discussion and
consultation by the British authorities. On April 18th they temporarily
dispersed to consult their Commandos after being given the terms and
concessions which it was decided to grant. There were supposed to be, at
the most liberal computation--London _Times_ of April 25th--some 10,000
Boers in the field at this time, while the women, children and Boer
residents of the refugee camps, who were being fed and cared for by the
authorities, numbered 110,000.
The keenest interest had been taken by the King in the course of the war
during this period and in the negotiations which ensued. He had been
hoping for its termination before his Coronation and, some months prior
to this, on January 15th, had addressed a re-inforcement of the
Grenadier Guards in rather sanguine terms: "I trust that the duties you
will be called upon to perform will be less arduous than those of some
of the men who have gone before you and that the war will shortly be
brought to a close. But, whatever duties you may be called upon to
perform, I am sure you will fulfil them efficiently and will keep up the
old spirit and traditions for which the Guards are famous." His wishes,
like so many entertained throughout the Empire, were not speedily
realized, but it is safe to say that His Majesty would no more have
unduly hurried the course of negotiations or changed their effective and
final character in order to attain his natural desire for a peaceful
celebration of the Coronation--as was asserted in some sensational
quarters--than he would have cut his own hand off.
It is sometimes forgotten that the King not only embodies the authority
of his vast realm in his position, but must concentrate in his own
person a natural strength of pride in his Empire so great as to be far
beyond the possibility of a reflection upon its patriotism. He would
hardly be human in his qualities if the most intense patriotic pride in
the unity and power of his realms was not the first and strongest
instinct of his nature. But this in passing. Lord Salisbury illustrated
the attitude of both the Sovereign and his Ministers when speaking at
the Albert Hall, London, on May 7th, during the pending negotiations: "I
only wish to guard against misapprehension which I think I have seen, to
the effect that the willingness we have shown to listen to all that may
be said to us is a proof that we have retreated or receded from our
former position and are willing to recognize that the rights we claimed
are no longer valid. There is no ground for such an assertion. We cannot
afford after such terrible sacrifice, not only of treasure but of men,
after the exertions, unexampled in our history, that we have made--we
cannot afford to submit to the idea that we are to allow things to slide
back into a position where it will be in the power of our enemy again,
when the opportunity suits him and the chance is favourable to him, to
renew again the issue that we have fought this last three years."
TERMINATION OF THE WAR
Meanwhile the negotiations were proceeding. At first the Boer delegates
proposed that the two Republics should merely concede what had been
demanded before the outbreak of the war. When this was refused, even as
a matter for consideration, and they were referred to previous
statements as to terms, the request was made that some of the leaders be
allowed to consult their friends in Europe, or at least to have one of
the European refugee leaders come over and assist them in their
decision. To this Lord Kitchener gave an instant veto, and intimated
that unless their proposals were to be serious the negotiations had
better drop. Then they asked for an armistice in order to consult the
burghers in the field, but Lord Kitchener would not stop military
operations a moment further than to allow the delegates to hold meetings
of their Commandos. But in that event they were to return to Pretoria
armed with full powers to conclude peace--if they returned at all. As a
result of this decision the leading officers of the Boer forces met
their respective Commandos, and delegates were duly appointed to a total
number of one hundred and fifty. These met on May 16th at Vereeniging
and spent a couple of weeks in discussion, in obtaining absolutely final
terms for acceptance or rejection from the British authorities, and in
presenting these again to the Commandos. The opponents of peace during
these preliminaries were generally believed to include Mr. Steyn and
Commandants Wessels, Muller, Celliers and Herzog, while Generals Delarey
and De Wet were in favour of accepting the British terms. Finally, on
May 31st, the conditions of surrender were signed. Mr. Steyn was the
only important absentee from the final conferences at Pretoria.
Thus ended a war in which Great Britain had spent L200,000,000, raised
and equipped some three hundred thousand men, of whom one-sixth were
Colonial troops, and performed the unparalleled feat of supplying quick
and satisfactory transport and subsistence for this great body of troops
to a distance of seven thousand miles from the seat of Government. The
people had never wavered, the Government had, apparently, never