TOPIC:

What makes Corrie Vermaak so interesting is that he was one of that are breed who not only fought on both sides of the South African coin in matter of 12 years but was a Cape Rebel to boot, with consequently, a lot more to lose that his Boer compatriots in the Orange Free State and Transvaal.

Cornelius Petrus Vermaak

Burger, Kommandants’ Malan & Botha Kommando - Anglo Boer War
Rifleman, 4th S.A.M.R. (South African Mounted Rifles) – WWI
Corporal, South African Police

- Anglo Boere Oorlog Medal to Burg. C.P. Vermaak
- 1914/15 Star to Rfm. C.P. Vermaak, 4th S.A.M.R.
- British War Medal to Rfm. C.P. Vermaak, 4th S.A.M.R.
- Victory Medal to Rfm. C.P. Vermaak, 4th S.A.M.R.
- S.A.P. Faithful Service Medal to No. 8444 Const. C.P. Vermaak

Cornelius Vermaak or “Corrie” as he was probably known this being the diminutive form of the Afrikaans Christian name, was born on the farm “Leliekloof” in the Cradock district of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa in 1882 into a small, close-knit farming community. Life for him would have been pretty much care-free in his formative years and he would have been employed primarily helping his father with the running of the farm, looking after the livestock and tending to whatever crops were grown in the district.

At the outbreak of the Anglo Boer war in October 1899 Cradock and other small Karoo towns like it were anything but a hot-bed of insurrection against the ruling Brits. If anything there was stability in the region with the Cape Government being loyal to the Empire although remaining neutral in the fight against the two Boer Republics to the North. The first Boer foray into the Cape from the Free State was a minor affair and the many and various Town Guards which had been created as a buffer and to support the British effort by protecting their towns from Boer incursions were, by and large, able to fend off unwarranted attacks. The Boers had, in any event, their hands full in the Free State and Transvaal trying to repel a British force steadily growing in size and mobility.


The Vorm B detailing his service

The first part of the war saw some reversals for the British side but this was soon overcome and the Boers were forced to adopt a guerrilla style of hit and run warfare in order to continue the fight. This was especially so after the fall of the two capitals, Bloemfontein and Pretoria. Hard pressed for numbers with many Boers deserting and returning to their farms in droves, the Boer leadership had decided that there was an urgent need to augment their numbers and saw a possible solution to this problem in going south to recruit among their Cape Dutch comrades who shared a similar culture and among whom they were bound to find a sympathetic ear.

It was into this cauldron that an eighteen year old Vermaak entered the fray in May 1901 joining Commandant Wynand Malan’s Commando. Although not proven it is possible that his father was Jacobus Vermaak a 54 year old from the same farm who served as batman to Malan. This would be a good fit and might be the primary reason why young Vermaak took up arms.

The decision must have been a difficult one for Vermaak and his friends and comrades. Being, as they were, British subjects under the rule and protection of the Crown any subversive activity let alone an overt act such as taking up arms against the Empire was treasonable and, in a time of war, punishable by death should they be caught. This was the added danger facing any “Cape Rebel” as those who joined the Boer cause were known.

From the very outset these Cape Rebels, combined with the few surviving members of the various commandos which had come south, were deployed in the hit and run tactics referred to earlier. Gone were the days of the pitched battles with the two opposing sides facing one another in a final bid for dominance. The British, awake to the threat posed by these small and highly mobile Boer Commandos left no stone unturned in their pursuit of them and the cat and mouse game was always afoot.

To get a better idea of quite where Vermaak and the Commando he was attached to were in action we turn our attention to the Vorm B – the application for the issue of the Anglo Boer War Medal – which was completed by Vermaak in 1923, 20 years after the cessation of hostilities. In this form he confirms that he served with the Commandos of Kommandant Malan (of the Doornhoek area of Maraisburg, Cape Province) and that he saw action at Betje’s Kraal, in Richmond and at Doornhoek.

To provide context to these places it is necessary to visit an account of the Commando’s doings from the beginning of May 1901, the date Vermaak joined their ranks. Malan’s Commando, on 2 May, had attacked a patrol of Diamond Fields Horse near Cradock, capturing 8 men; a day or two later he blew up the line at Mortimer south of Cradock before moving off eastwards and back into the Koudeveld Mountains, but by 23 May had been driven north into the Richmond district. All of this terrain would have been familiar to Vermaak – his “back –yard” so to speak.

The Boers continued to move about the countryside much as they willed and any small patrol which came their way was sure to be overwhelmed. No commando stayed in one place for long. They split up under different leaders and re-grouped for action; by night they were constantly on the move. They kept moving in wide circles, so that they could leave tired horses to recover, and pick them up again later, on their return to the same hidden valley or flat-topped mountain. In addition the activities of the Boer commandos caused farming in the district to suffer severely. Loyalist farmers, fearing the visits of commandos, moved with their families into the town of Graaff-Reinet where they would at least have the protection of the imperial garrison of Coldstream Guards. Farming was further hampered by the attempts of the military authorities to deprive the Boer commandos of provisions. In May 1901 all forage was ordered to be brought into Graaff-Reinet and if it could not be transported it had to be burnt.

In June 1901 the British commander-in-chief, Lord Kitchener, gave Gen J D P French supreme command for combating guerilla warfare in the Cape Colony. Due to the expanding activities of the Boer commandos in the Cape more British troops had to be detailed to guard the Cape railways and from July 1901 onwards blockhouses were built, eventually all the way down to Wellington in the Western Cape. Lord Kitchener was also forced to divert increasing numbers of troops from the occupied Boer Republics to aid the colonial detachments in dealing with the Boer commando threat. Counter-measures against the commandos were tightened up. Many families, both Dutch and English, were brought in from the farms on the Sneeuberg to live in the town of Graaff-Reinet, so that they could not supply the men of the commandos. All horses had to be registered and all bicycles had to be handed in to the authorities.

Regardless of these intensified efforts by the British the Boer commandos continued to wreak havoc, eluding the special 'flying columns' and raiding villages to replenish supplies. On 21 June Malan and Kritzinger captured a British patrol at Waterkloof near Swaershoek killing 9, wounding 12 and taking 66 prisoners. Leaving Kritzinger, Malan had moved westwards and attacked Richmond on 25 June. Towards the end of June 1901 Malan had left the Camdeboo Mountains and rode eastwards south of Graaff-Reinet over Petersburg and to the north of Cradock up to Maraisburg. At the beginning of July he crossed into the OFS with a small deputation in an effort to raise recruits for the commandos in the Cape.

From November 1901 onwards the main commando activity was concentrated in the north west Cape under Generals Smuts, Malan and Manie Maritz with the Cape Midlands area around Graaff-Reinet relatively quiet.

In early 1902 the commando forces in the north-west divided up and four commandos (those of Pypers, Smit, Hugo and Van Reenen) under Gen Malan were delegated with the task of returning to the Midlands area. During early March, Malan and Rudolph were active in the Richmond and Middelburg districts but on 11 March Rudolph was captured and Carel van Heerden, a rebel from Aberdeen who had joined Scheepers early in 1901, was appointed commandant. In late February Fouche and Cmdt Stoffel Myburg had left the north-east Jamestown district) and entered the Midlands, meeting up with Malan on 18 March 1902. With their constant movement the Boer horses were in poor condition and, to give them adequate rest, it was decided to remain for a time in the Camdeboo and Koudeveld Mountains and, during April and part of May, they were active in this area.

Around this time there occurred the death of a local man, Lt Robert H Murray. On 2 May 1902 Lt Murray, out on patrol, was killed near the farm Groenvlei. The patrol had met up with Boers dressed in khaki whom Murray mistakenly took to be native scouts. He went out to meet them but on discovering his mistake tried to make a getaway and was killed by a volley fired by the Boers. (His men had carried his body back to their bivouac on the farm Tweefontein, hence the official designation of his place of death as Tweefontein.)

On 18 May Malan and Fouche assisted Van Heerden in his attack on Aberdeen. Malan and Fouche guarded the escape route while 80 of Van Heerden's men and 20 of Fouche's entered the town and surprised the garrison. They made off with a large number of horses but in the process Van Heerden was killed. Malan and Fouche now moved south towards the Rooiberge and on past Jansenville and Waterford. On 27 May 1902 Malan was severely wounded and captured near Sheldon station (only four days before the final peace treaty was signed at Vereeniging) while Fouche, on being informed of the war's end, surrendered in the Cradock district on 3 June. (Of those who surrendered 134 were colonial rebels of which the biggest number came from the Aberdeen district.)

Vermaak, now officially designated as a Cape Rebel, was tried and sentenced under Proclamation 100/1902 at Cradock, his home town, on 13 June 1902. Unlike some of the Boer leaders like Scheepers and Kritzinger, he wasn’t to be sentenced to death for his treason but was probably awarded a prison sentence which, in many cases, was reduced to the payment of a fine in order to secure one’s freedom.

As has been mentioned Vermaak applied for his medal in 1923. There was a compelling reason why most chaps who fought on the Boer side in the war only applied for their medals at that time and this was down to the fact that official permission for the award of the medal had only been granted in about 1921. The story goes that men like Vermaak who, as we will see, had WWI service as well, felt at a disadvantage when on parade with their squadrons who, if they had fought on the British side, sported either the Queens South Africa Medal, and, in many cases, the Kings South Africa Medal whereas the Boer chaps had nothing to show for their efforts.

Post-war Vermaak’s movements are vague although it is known that he was employed in the Public Service as a Constable since 19 August 1908.On 26 October 1910 he joined the ranks of the South African Mounted Rifles at Pretoria as a Constable. The S.A.M.R. were a para-military outfit divided into 4 sections and constituted the first S.A. Permanent Force, the forerunner to a permanent army. Vermaak joined the 4th S.A.M.R.

1914 saw the outbreak of the Great War – the war to end all wars – on August 4th and South Africa under General Louis Botha, was asked by the British Government to cancel out the German threat to the sea traffic which could possibly emanate from the nearby German controlled territory of South West Africa. It was rich irony that brought about the situation where men who had fought against one another a mere 12 years earlier were now to fight side by side against a common foe. Vermaak was such a man.

On 6 August 1914, the day South Africa declared war on Germany, Vermaak was placed on the payroll for the duration of the war as a Rifleman with no. 1645. His home address and next of kin he provided as Mrs D.R. Vermaak of 31 Market Street, Cradock, Cape Province. Physically he was 5 feet 6 ½ inches with a fresh complexion, brown eyes and black hair. Having been required to suppress an internal rebellion by disaffected Boers who saw this as an opportunity to rise up and claim sovereignty of their own, he was dispatched to the front aboard the Galway Castle on 27 May 1915.

Having arrived in German South West Africa Vermaak, like almost everybody else, was struck by the arid, desert like conditions encountered which were far more worrisome than the German threat. Long route marches in stifling heat and sand as fine as powder was the order of the day and men were hard pressed to survive the elements. Fortunately, after sustained pressure, the Germans were driven into the north of the country where they surrendered at Otavi on 9 July 1915. This was also the day that Vermaak was discharged to return to his Police duties with the S.A.M.R. For his efforts he was awarded the 1914/15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal – all of which were posted to him in 1921.

Post war Vermaak was deployed to the Office of the Provost Marshall at the Wanderers in Johannesburg where he was employed as a Military Policeman. In 1917 he applied for leave to marry and, on 3 October 1918, he took leave to return to Cradock on “private affairs” – his address was 31 Market Street, the same as where he had lived some 4 years earlier.

According to his Certificate of Discharge from the South African Police (the original is in my possession) Cornelius Petrus Vermaak was discharged on 5 July 1932 in consequence of Superannuation. He had 21 years 315 days service and had been awarded the Police Faithful service Medal. His conduct had been Exemplary and he took his discharge at East London. His intended occupation was that of a Farmer. Vermaak, at the age of 50, was returning to his roots.

Very nice indeed, I like all ABO medals and in particular those in groups.

"The SAMR were a para military outfit" you can't say that!
Good heavens Messr's Rush and Dawson will be turning, doubtless spinning, in their graves!