Spioenkop, cosmos, Ukraine and the collapse of South Africa’s regional roads

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Mass graves at Spioenkop

The battle of Spioenkop occurred on 24 January 1900 during the second South African (Anglo-Boer) war. At least 400 men were killed in the engagement, when British soldiers – mostly reservists from the Lancashire Regiment – attempted to defend the hill they had captured the night before. Thinking their capture of Spioenkop (spy hill) would allow them to breach the Boer lines and relieve the besieged town of Ladysmith, 30 km away, the British soldiers got a nasty shock when the morning mist lifted and the Boer units on surrounding peaks were able to pummel them with artillery shells and sniper fire as they huddled ineffectually behind small rocks and in the shallow trenches they had dug under cover of darkness. Little did they know they were digging their own mass grave.

I visited Spioenkop on a recent work trip to KwaZulu-Natal. I was the only soul there in the late afternoon sunshine, with glorious vistas of the distant Drakensberg. The bones are silent up there, despite the gory massacre of 124 years ago. Yet the implications of that battle spoke to me. These few hours of fighting saw one of the highest numbers of casualties within such a small space of any battle recorded – some 1,200 British and 300 Boers, of which about 300 British and 80 Boers died. It was a harbinger of the mass slaughters in the First World War, complete with arrogant Victorian generals, who told young troopers to get on with it (with no water, no protection and no leadership) while they sipped tea and watched the proceedings through field-glasses from a safe distance. The Boers gained a stunning victory, but also lost men themselves, largely in close combat as they tried to storm the hill. 

Memorial to the stretcher-bearers

Fascinatingly, both Winston Churchill and Mohandas (later Mahatma) Gandhi were present at the battle of Spioenkop. It is peculiar to think that these two great figures of the 20th century were on the hillside on that fateful day at the century’s dawn. Churchill was working as a messenger for the British General, while Gandhi had raised a group of Indian stretcher-bearers and ambulance men in Durban, who showed great courage in removing the wounded. Of course, these two men’s storied paths would cross again decades later when Gandhi was fighting to end the British Raj, and Churchill was a senior politician in the British government, rabidly opposed to Indian independence. In fact, Churchill – celebrated as the heroic leader of the Allied war against Nazi Germany – was highly disparaging of Gandhi, commenting in 1931, “It is alarming and nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir … striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal Palace."

The Second Boer War was about British Imperial conquest and the desire for control of mineral resources, specifically gold, which had been discovered in the South African Republic (Transvaal) in 1886. A bloody conflict ensued when the British invaded the two Boer Republics, sparking a guerrilla war in which Britain undertook a brutal scorched-earth policy and imprisoned thousands of Boer women and children. Many of those in the concentration camps died, another precursor of 20th-century events. The British, and their magnates like Cecil John Rhodes, were part of an endeavour to exploit Africa’s resources, whatever the human cost.

Late summer on the highveld and the roadsides leading up to Spioenkop are beautifully awash with pink and white of the flowering cosmos, against the yellow-green of long grass. It is incredibly picturesque scenery. Not many know, though, that cosmos was introduced to South Africa through horse fodder imported from Mexico during the Boer War. Manure from thousands of war horses seeded these flowers across the highveld, producing an annual bloom which evokes the poppies of Europe. Britain and Mexico were not the only countries to leave their fingerprints on contemporary South Africa. The Russian people were hugely sympathetic to the Boers; a sizeable group of Russian soldiers came out to join the commandos. Yet those in power in Russia clandestinely sold thousands of horses to the British army in South Africa. Boer weapons were also supplied by the Germans. Global geopolitics focussed on resource extractivism and imperialism, while profiteering from war drove things back then.

If only these dynamics were but an interesting piece of history.

I travelled from Ladysmith via Dundee and Vryheid down to Ulundi, in the heart of Zululand. I drove this route two years before, in May 2022. These regional roads leading from the Mpumalanga highlands down to the coast are also lined with cosmos, but they are being destroyed. Two years ago, this was a pleasant drive with little to worry about besides a few stray cattle and goats. Today the roads are literally collapsing and you have to drive slowly and carefully lest your wheels hit the deep potholes or trenches which stretch right across the road. Likewise, gullies and ridges are forming in the road. Overtaking becomes a risky business of trying to avoid slamming into a pothole as you accelerate. But what has caused this rapid deterioration?

The answer lies again in global geopolitics, imperial conquest and resource extractivism – once again leaving their ugly mark on South Africa. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, and the resultant Western sanctions, disrupted Russia’s coal exports, which in turn led to a spike in demand for South Africa’s coal. Just as the regional backroads in the Free State are being wrecked by a constant stream of heavy vehicles transporting manganese ore from the Northern Cape mining boom, so too are the regional roads in Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal as transporters rush to get the coal to the coast. The destination for this black rock is both Europe and China, whose thirst for Africa’s resources continues – despite their lip service to clean energy.

Although some might argue that this is good for South Africa’s economy, I wonder at what cost? There is of course the environmental cost of burning fossil fuels and the pollution from the extraction and lugging of the ore across the globe. Many new mining companies have also popped up and are scrambling to join in, often after dodgy environmental impact assessments. This is having highly deleterious effects on our precious farmland and water resources in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga for a very short-term gain. Much as these commodity rushes create jobs and opportunities for some, they also come at a high and hidden social cost for many others. The bottom line is that this is not “sustainable development”, but more of a feeding frenzy from which the poorest are largely excluded, and for which we will continue to pay a high price for generations.  

In fact, the extraction and export of Africa’s mineral resources closely resembles the Rhodes–Lobengula model of the 1890s – where local elites make deals with foreign imperialist magnates and only these two parties benefited. Those who already have cash are profiting, for sure. It is said that many civil servants and politicians run fleets of trucks as a side hustle, and are making a killing from the coal rush. These commodities should all be transported by rail, but vested interests in keeping the trucks in the game are strong, and Transnet’s failure to run an effective rail system are to the truck owners’ advantage. I’ve heard of cases where the same municipal managers who are watching the roads under their care being pulverised have also invested some of their hefty salaries in a fleet of trucks. Where are these same municipalities going to find the money to repair the roads when the last trucks have rumbled through?

So, global geopolitics and Putin’s imperialism in Ukraine have led directly to this unfortunate situation on South Africa’s roads and in the countryside. And, once again, people are profiting off war and resource extractivism, while South Africa’s government of crony elites is seemingly not interested in regulating this process properly. Soon, it will take as long to get from Ladysmith to Ulundi as it did for our ancestors in 1900. Ordinary people in South Africa – by which I mean those not connected to the small elite that profits from this extractivist model – can only stand and watch, and live with the associated environmental, social and health costs. Many of those brave souls who have tried to stand up to the elite know that they are endangering their lives even more.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.