General Notes

ABW
POW
refer also to scan: SKBMT36140331055100PDF
According to the war records he was from Vryheid, town.
The inscription on the official records states: "deur Zulus vermoor".
Burger Deaths:
Surname:         MAARTENS
First Names:    HENDRIK JACOBUS
Age:         34
Address:         N/A
Commando:     VRYHEID
Battle:         HOLKRANTZ, VRYHEID
Date:         06/05/1902
Buried:         N/A
I posted four pictures of the Holkrans Battle. There appears to be two memorials to the incident.
"A marble memorial commemorating the Holkrans incident stands in the grounds of the Dutch Reformed Church in Church Street, on it appear the names of the 56 Boers who were murdered. Most of the Boers were re-interred here on 20 January 1905. Veld-Cornet J.H. Potgieter's and L. Potgieter's remains were transferred to the same place on 6 May 1972. The remains of J.H. Labuschagne, the last of the 56 Boers to be re-interred under the memorial, were moved in 1976. On 6 May 1962 a plaque commemorating those who escaped or were captured was unveiled by P. B. Pratt and P.J. Fourie -two of the survivors still living exactly 60 years later."


Both HJ and JT Matens appear to have been from the Transvaal according to the historical caption below.

http://www.angloboerwar.com/forum/8-events/177-the-battle-of-holkrans

THE BATTLE OF HOLKRANS

On 6 May 1902 at Holkrans near Vryheid, men of a Zulu tribe, the abaQulusi, attacked a Boer commando that had been burning the homes of Zulus in the vicinity, destroying their crops and taking their livestock. There were heavy casualties on both sides, but the abaQulusi prevailed and retrieved their stolen cattle. This unusual battle came late in the war and was the first in which an indigenous impi clashed with one of the main protagonists of the war, the Boers. Histories of the Anglo-Boer War have mostly paid it scant attention. It has become a little-known footnote in a war of great battles and political events that that marked the acme of Imperial Britain and changed the course of history in South Africa.

In the December 2000 newsletter of the Durban branch of the South African Military History Society it was revealed that the military historians Ken Gillings, S B Bourquin and Tania van der Watt had researched the Battle of Holkrans with the view to publishing an article in the S A Military History Journal. Unfortunately for the historical record of the war, the issues relating to this battle were so controversial, the project was abandoned. Ken Gillings did, however, address the Durban branch of the SAMHS on the subject and the salient points of his talk were recorded in its newsletter, which can be accessed on the Internet. They are further abbreviated here.

In the dying days of the Boer War a stalemate existed in the occupied Boer territories of Utrecht and Vryheid. The British occupied the towns and patrolled near them, but the Boers still held sway in outlying areas, where they lived off the land. This brought them into conflict with the abaQulusi tribe. After several Boer farmers were murdered, General Louis Botha instructed his commandos to destroy abaQulusi settlements in the area.

A commando under Jan Potgieter raided and destroyed the abaQulusi settlement at Holkrans on the night of 3 May 1902. Potgieter allegedly insulted the local abaQulusi chief (Inkosi Sikobobo) and challenged him to come and retrieve his cattle. Sikobobo responded by attacking the Boer camp at Holkrans early in the morning of 6 May 1902. The abaQulusi overran the camp and most of the commandos were killed. Those that escaped the initial onslaught fought desperately and a few did get away. A total of 56 Boers were killed and three young boys were taken prisoner. The abaQulusi took back their cattle as well as all the Boer horses and their provisions. By the time avenging commandos arrived, the abaQulusi had dispersed.

That is essentially how history books have recorded the events of this battle, but it is worth adding Ken Gillings’ final assessment:

“This action crippled the Boer Forces in Northern Natal and, coming as it did, at a critical stage in the peace negotiations, it had a major effect on the “Bittereinders”. When Gen. Louis Botha was told of the disaster, he felt that it was pointless to continue the struggle when even the black population was turning against them. It is for this reason that this incident, arguably, can be described as one of the most decisive actions of the Anglo-Boer War, in that it was a major factor in getting the leaders of the Boer Republics to accept the final peace Treaty of Vereeniging on 31 May 1902.”

Not surprisingly, the Battle of Holkrans is better and more bitterly remembered by Afrikaans South Africans than other elements of this so-called “Rainbow Nation”. The bitterness is reflected in a website that lists the Boer casualties as having been “murdered”, not “killed in action”. (As an aside, it would be interesting to know how the compiler of that website would categorize the 68 men of the Imperial Yeomanry who were killed by the Boers while sleeping in their tents at Tweefontein on 25 December 1901.)

It is not only the galling fact that the enemy at Holkrans were Zulus that so upset the Boers then, and their descendents later, but also because 56 of the 73-strong commando were killed. There can have been few, if any, battles in the Boer War in which such a high proportion of men from a single unit were killed in a short engagement. The effect on the Boer inhabitants of the sparsely inhabited Vryheid district must have been devastating.

While there were many other reasons for the Boers to regret and resent the British victory in the Boer War, the Holkrans incident must have been especially significant to the inhabitants of the districts of Utrecht and Vryheid.