National Scouts

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 guerrilla 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. == References==