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Two decades ago, I acquired a collection of correspondence and other ephemera sent in the years following WW2 by Fritz Joubert Duquesne to his lawyer by the name of Coyle. One of the items in that collection was a copy of a weighty tome “The Man who Killed Kitchener” a story about Duquesne’s life penned by one Clement Wood. If we were to take Wood’s narrative at face value, we quickly learn we had it wrong all along where it comes to who was the true hero in the Boer War. Move over Chris, Koos, Louis, Deneys and Danie and make place for Fritz Joubert Duquesne aka the Black Panther, aka Major Reginald Anson, Fred Fredericks, George Fordham, Captain Claude Stoughton, Colonel Bezan, Piet Niacud von Richthoven, Frank de Stafford Craven and aka two dozen more.

For any forum member who is not familiar with the man in question, herewith the most salient aspects of Fritz Joubert Duquesne’s life in a nutshell:

• Fritz was born in December 1877 in East London, Natal but grew up in the Transvaal near Nylstroom.
• He was a nephew of General Piet Joubert
• Aged 12 he killed a Zulu who attacked his mother
• Sent to school in the UK aged 13
• He went to Oxford aged 17, moved to Brussels after a year to study at the École Militair. There he learnt Russian, mastered Military tactics and became Europe’s best swordsman, killing 3 opponents in the process
• Returned to SA in 1899 just in time to join his uncle’s staff.
• Shot in the shoulder at Ladysmith, he became Captain of the Artillery and was captured by the enemy at Colenso
• He escaped twice, once killing his guard.
• Fritz was in command of the gold shipped from Pretoria and after killing many a prospective thief was responsible for burying the treasure in the high veld
• Fought heroically at Berg-en-Dal
• Made his way to Portuguese territory and was again interned.
• POW’d in Portugal, he escaped by bedding the daughter of the camp warden
• Made his way to Paris, then travelled to the UK where he enlisted in the British Army at Aldershot where he obtained an Officer’s Commission
• With the commission under the arm Duquesne travelled back to South Africa in 1901
• In South Africa he stumbled upon the burnt remnants of his paternal house, learned about the rape and murder of his sister and found his mother dying in a concentration camp, these events occasioned a deep and lasting hatred for Kitchener
• Fritz set out on a double mission: to blow up installations in Cape Town and kill Kitchener. He was captured in Cape Town and received the death sentence, but he avoided execution by providing his captors with a false version of the Boer Military Code.
• Fritz fell during his escape from the Castle prison in Cape Town and was found unconscious outside. Reinterned he was quickly shipped off to a camp in Bermuda in irons.
• By seducing a young English girl, he managed to escape from the camp on a yacht headed for the US of A.
• In the US he became reporter for the New York Herald, travelled the world, became a famous big game hunter, writer and personal hunting advisor to President Teddy Roosevelt a.o.
• Was tasked by Roosevelt to introduce the Hippotamus to Louisiana swamps and introduce Hippo meat into American diets.
• Joined the international lecture circuit under the synonym Captain Claude Stoughton of the West Australian Light Horse, bedding many a fair maiden in the process
• Married in 1914 (to the girl who had helped him escape from Bermuda) and became a US citizen.
• With the outbreak of WW1 Duquesne travelled to Brazil where he put time bombs on 22 British ships taking minerals to Britain. All of these ships disappeared without a trace.
• Faking his death, he travelled to Holland and assuming the identity of a Russian count, made his way to Britain where he joined Kitchener on the latter’s morale-boosting trip to Russia on the HMS Hampshire.
• From the Hampshire Duquesne signaled a waiting German U-boot. The U-boot torpedoed the Hampshire and all but 12 onboard drowned. Fritz cunningly got away on a rubber dinghy and was rescued by the U-boot crew. Duquesne sailed to Germany where he received an Iron Cross for his efforts.
• Fritz travelled back to the US but was arrested in 1917 for assurance fraud relating to his activities in Brazil.
• Filed patents for an underwater electromagnetic mine
• By feigning paralysis for two whole years Fritz escaped from prison hospital in 1919 and disappeared into the crowd.
• Under the alias Frank de Stafford Craven, Fritz started working for the Motion Picture Herald.
• In 1939 Duquesne co-established the largest WW2 Pro German spy ring that was responsible for some National Defense secrets to get into German hands.
• The spy ring was blown in 1941 and Fritz and his German conspirators were arrested and imprisoned
• Fritz lingered in prison until 1954 when he was released for health reasons
• He moved into a very modest flat where he died semi forgotten and in poverty two years later.

Before you rip out your checkbook to make a donation for a belated statue to a badly sung Boer War hero, you should know that most of Fritz Joubert Duquesne’s claims are figments of his imagination or creative appropriations of other men’s achievements. Art Ronnie, who spent years researching Duquesne, wrote a book about the man and titled it “Counterfeit Hero.” We Dutch would say that is a neat case of “The Flag properly covering the Cargo”

Hard facts about Fritz Joubert Duquesne’s Boer War exploits are few and far between. There is no indication he was directly related to General Piet Joubert, there is no record of him serving on Joubert’s staff nor of him attaining an officer’s rank and manning canons at Colenso. His claims about the Kruger Millions are ludicrous, his participation in the August 1900 fight at Berg-en-Dal is unverified, there is no record of him being imprisoned in Portugal, nor of him ever been at Aldershot, let alone of him obtaining an officer’s commission in the British Army. That does not mean Fritz was not involved in the Boer War at all. After a few tries, I located on the Bloemfontein museum website a Fritz Jean Du Quenne, 24 years of age, of Brussels as being taken prisoner on the 11th of October 1901 in Cape Town and carted off as POW to Bermuda. The tale of his subsequent daring escape from the camp on the Island could also be taken with a liberal pinch of salt as the escape happened almost a month after the war had ended and apparently involved him casually strolling from a barely guarded enclosure.

Nonetheless, the events that followed, with notable exception of his claimed involvement in the death of Lord Kitchener and the Iron Cross awarded therefore, were mostly true or have elements of truth in it. His lecture circuit, relationship with Teddy Roosevelt and aborted efforts to put Hippo meat on the American dinner table are documented. So is the fact that he married the girl who arranged for his travels from Bermuda to the USA (they divorced in 1919). Duquesne was indeed convicted for causing an explosion on a British vessel that subsequently sank, but there is no information that would support his assertion this vessel was just one of 22. Also true is that he feigned paralysis and subsequently sawed himself from a prison hospital in 1919. Joubert Duquesne’s leading role in the WW2 German spy-ring is also well documented, as is his capture and subsequent imprisonment.

Fritz Joubert Duquesne is often dismissed as a self-aggrandizing bullshit artist; a sobriquet entirely of his own making. The sad thing for Duquesne -a man undoubtedly of above average intelligence and charisma- is that if he had stuck to the actual facts, the story of his life would still have made an interesting read and allowed him an, albeit minor, place in history.

Most of the documents about Fritz in my collection concern correspondence relating to legal matters and are of limited interest to a Boer War scholar. I will however over future posts share a few items that give a bit of insight into his complex personality.

Below is signed photo of Joubert Duquesne in full military regalia, sadly missing an ABO, DTD and wounded ribbon. The portrait is dedicated to the lawyer who stood by him until the sad end of his life. I think Ronnie (I don’t have his book handy at the moment) had the insignia analyzed and came to the conclusion that they were a concoction of random items readily available at any flea market.