The Netherlands Fought the Anglo-Boer War... with Ink

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Before we begin, a brief note. Over the past year, many viewers have told me that they enjoy listening to these stories as much as watching them. So, from time to time, I'll be opening a midweek Lost History file in audio form in addition to my regular Sunday video uploads. This is the first. I'd love to hear your thoughts on both the format and the topic. Now, to our story.

[00:00:31]Amsterdam, 1899.

[00:00:34]A war is about to begin 6,000 miles away, and the Dutch will fight it, too, with ink.

[00:00:43]Newspapers stack up along the Damrak.

[00:00:46]Pamphlets are passed from hand to hand.

[00:00:49]In cafes near the Kalverstraat, people argue over maps of Southern Africa.

[00:00:55]There, the British Empire has gone to war with two small republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State. In the Netherlands, the names are shorter. People say the Transvaal, the Boers, and they stop talking like spectators. Paul Kruger's image, old, bearded, and stubborn, appears everywhere in sermons, editorials, and public meetings. He's a symbol of stubborn independence of a small people facing a great power. In lecture halls in Amsterdam and Utrecht, professors explain why this war matters. In working-class districts, collections are taken for the women and children in South Africa. Coins are dropped into boxes for people no one has ever met.

[00:01:46]Officially, the Netherlands is neutral.

[00:01:49]Unofficially, the country is busy.

[00:01:52]Committees form. The Dutch South African Society, the Nederlandsch Zuid-Afrikaansche Vereeniging, NZAV.

[00:02:00]prints circulars and organizes meetings.

[00:02:03]Journalists write to editors in London and Paris.

[00:02:08]Publishers rush out pamphlets like A Century of Wrong. In churches, prayers are said for places most people couldn't find on a map: Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Kimberley. This is not a story about Dutch soldiers. No one is marching. No one is loading rifles. But this war is being fought twice. Once in South Africa with rifles, artillery, and troops. And once in Europe with ink, paper, lectures, sermons, and headlines. In offices in Amsterdam and The Hague. In newsrooms in London. In apartments where letters from the front are read aloud.

[00:02:50]People argue about what this war means.

[00:02:53]Who is the aggressor? Who is the victim?

[00:02:56]Who is modern? Who is imperial?

[00:02:58]Behind all of this is a simpler question. One that keeps returning in newspapers, meetings, and private conversations. What does a small country do when it cares deeply about a war it cannot control?

[00:03:12]The Netherlands can't send an ultimatum to the British Empire. It can't change the balance of power at sea. But it can print, organize, collect money, and tell stories. And from 1899 to 1902, it will try to fight an empire that way. With names like Kruger, Smuts, Kuyper, and Leyds appearing again and again in print.

[00:03:38]Long before the first shots are fired in 1899, South Africa is already familiar in the Netherlands. Travel books sit in shop windows in Amsterdam and Leiden.

[00:03:50]Adventure stories are read in schoolrooms, in lecture halls. Lantern slides show landscapes like the Highveld and the Vaal River. Newspapers print reports from correspondents in Pretoria and Cape Town. And in these descriptions, one idea keeps returning: "Stamverwantschap" kinship.

[00:04:12]The Boers, many Dutch writers insist, are not just settlers. They are descendants. They speak a language that looks like Dutch. They read the same Bible.

[00:04:23]To readers in Rotterdam or Groningen, they feel less like foreigners and more like distant relatives. But, this is not simple. In books and journals, people argue about how Dutch the Boers really are.

[00:04:38]Some point to French and German influences. Others complain about the roughness of the language and the distance from Europe. There are debates about schooling, spelling, and whether Afrikaans should follow High Dutch or become something else. Language is already a battlefield.

[00:04:57]Then the war simplifies everything. Two small republics against the largest empire in the world.

[00:05:05]In Dutch newspapers, British politicians and generals appear next to Boer leaders like Paul Kruger and Jan Smuts. Maps are printed. Front lines are drawn in ink.

[00:05:17]Kinship turns from an argument into a slogan. South Africa becomes a moral stage, a place where people in Amsterdam, Utrecht, and The Hague project their own history of small states and lost independence. This is why the war doesn't stay far away. It moves into newspaper offices, churches, [snorts] classrooms, and committee rooms. By the time the fighting begins, the Netherlands is prepared, not with troops, but with stories.

[00:05:50]But caring by itself does nothing. So, it is turned into structure. Letters are written. Minutes are taken. The NZAV becomes a clearinghouse for information, fundraising, and coordination. Teachers, journalists, businessmen, and politicians argue about what can actually be done. The Dutch government remains neutral. Ministers in The Hague know how far British power reaches. They also know what is at stake in the Dutch East Indies. South Africa matters emotionally, the Indies matter strategically. So, the state steps carefully.

[00:06:30]The public, however, does not. Money is collected in churches and town halls.

[00:06:36]Boxes are labeled for South African women and children. Pamphlets are printed in their thousands. Publishers in Amsterdam and Leiden rush out books explaining why this war is different.

[00:06:49]There are quieter projects, too. Funds are raised for schools. Books are shipped south. Teachers are recruited.

[00:06:57]Keeping Dutch alive in Pretoria and Bloemfontein becomes a policy, not just a preference.

[00:07:04]Some even talk about building a New Holland in South Africa. Not a colony, but a cultural bridgehead. A place where newspapers and classrooms might succeed where diplomacy and warships cannot. But every plan hits the same wall. The Netherlands is not a great power. It cannot threaten Britain or close sea lanes. But there is a space the Netherlands can operate in. Not the map of empires, but the map of information.

[00:07:36]Pamphlets multiply. Sermons are printed and reprinted. Bookshops display urgent volumes. Jan Smuts, A Century of Wrong, circulates.

[00:07:47]>> [snorts] >> Abraham Kuyper's pamphlets are translated and sold across Europe.

[00:07:52]Writers do not pretend to be neutral.

[00:07:55]They describe this as a war of opinion as much as a war of rifles. In London, Paris, and Berlin, letters arrive from Dutch correspondents correcting reports and disputing casualty figures. South Africa may be far away, but the argument is everywhere. Maps of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State are printed. Names like Kimberley, Mafeking, and Ladysmith become familiar. When British troops advance, headlines follow. When Boer commandos win a skirmish, Dutch pamphlets celebrate it. Early in the war, optimism is easy to manufacture.

[00:08:33]The Boers are described as expert marksmen, their leaders as stubborn but modern, their cause as just. But, even inside the pro-Boer camp, the story is not unified. The Transvaal gets more attention than the Orange Free State.

[00:08:49]Boer representatives argue about space in European newspapers. Old rivalries reappear, now fought with editorials.

[00:08:58]Every article answers another. Every setback has to be explained or postponed in print. Money is short. People argue about priorities. There is constant fear of leaks. Over all of this hangs one name, Reuters.

[00:09:15]>> [snorts] >> Almost everything the Dutch public reads comes from this British news agency.

[00:09:20]Pro-Boer organizers complain about bias.

[00:09:24]They send corrections to newspapers in London and circulate their own bulletins. This is not a sleek operation. It's messy, underfunded, and constantly worried about failure. And then there are the people. As the war drags on, refugees and deportees arrive in Europe. Some from camps, some from burned farms. They bring stories of scorched earth, separation, hunger, and disease. These stories are amplified, quoted in pamphlets, and printed in newspapers. They become evidence, arguments, fuel. When British critics call this a factory of lies, the response is indignant. Organizers insist they are correcting distortions and giving voice to people who would otherwise not be heard. By 1901, the tone has changed. The Boer armies are no longer winning set-piece battles. The war becomes slower and harsher. Camps, deportations, and scorched earth replace the language of quick victories. But the printing does not slow down. Hope has to be maintained. Outrage has to be organized. Suffering has to be made visible at a distance. When the war ends in 1902, the fighting stops. The paperwork doesn't. The Boer Republics are gone. The British Empire is in control. But in the Netherlands, Willem Leyds treats this not as an ending, but as a change of method. Before the war, he was the Transvaal's representative in Europe. During it, he organized information and contacts. After it, he becomes a manager of memory. From offices in the Netherlands, Leyds moves Transvaal money into new projects.

[00:11:16]Dutch-language newspapers in South Africa are bought and restarted. Press contacts in London and Europe are maintained. Correspondents are paid, fired, replaced. And there are books.

[00:11:30]Leyds works through British Blue books like a lawyer preparing a case. He calls them his arsenal. The purpose is to fix the story of the past before someone else does. Archives are moved, letters are preserved, documents are copied and shipped. The war is over, but the argument about what it meant is not.

[00:11:53]In the end, the result in South Africa is not decided in Amsterdam or The Hague. The British Empire wins the war.

[00:12:01]The Boer Republics disappear from the map. No pamphlet changes that, but the paper war is not meaningless. For a few years, the Netherlands built a second front out of ink and envelopes.

[00:12:17]The Netherlands did not fight the Anglo-Boer War on the battlefield. It fought it on the page. And in the end, for the Dutch, that is where the memory of the war was decided.

[00:12:37]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Mhm.