Johannesburg Vrijwilliger Corps & ZARPs

Early Role

Siegfried van Lier served as 1st Lieutenant Quartermaster for the Staff of Infantry in the Johannesburg Vrijwilliger Corps (JVC) and during the Anglo-Boer War as Lieutenant . He also held the position of Artillery Lieutenant in the Johannesburg Police Corps (ZARPs), one of the most famous and disciplined units of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR). His leadership placed him at the forefront of some of the fiercest battles of the war.

Battle of Berg-en-Dal (Dalmanutha), 27 August 1900

Commandant van Lier played a central role during the last pitched battle of the Anglo-Boer War at Berg-en-Dal. Alongside Commandant Ph.R. Oosthuizen and Lieutenant F. Pohlman, van Lier commanded a detachment of only 60–70 men positioned on an isolated kopje. Facing overwhelming odds, their small unit endured:

• Bombardment from over 40 heavy artillery pieces, including lyddite shells and Maxim fire.
• A direct assault by 1,500–2,000 British troops, advancing in a semicircle under cover of fire.

Early on the morning of the 27th, Inspector Kommandant P.R. Oosthuizen and S. Van Lier (ZARPs) occupy trenches dug during the night. From there, the commanders go to the front guard post of the police on the hill. The group sat quietly behind their sconces, ready to take on the British.

Despite suffering heavy losses, van Lier’s detachment held their ground for hours. During the engagement, he was seriously wounded by shrapnel in the thigh and side, and at one point was nearly buried alive when a lyddite shell struck the rocks beside him.

Acts of Bravery

Van Lier’s courage was matched by his men:

• Lieutenant F. Pohlman was killed by a shot to the temple after encouraging his men under fire.
• Sergeant John Pretorius fell mortally wounded, remembered as a young man who often spoke fondly of his bride-to-be.
• Sergeant-Major Biljon risked his life to drag the badly wounded van Lier to safety, ignoring the storm of bullets around them.

Of the 67 Johannesburg Police Corps men, only 31 answered roll call the next day.

Recognition

Though forced to retreat under overwhelming pressure, van Lier and his men received personal commendations from General Louis Botha, General Ben Viljoen, and General Lucas Meyer. Their stand drew admiration even from foreign military observers who were astonished by their discipline and bravery against such odds.

Personal Account

Van Lier later described his experiences in a letter to his father in Amsterdam (November 1900), published in the Dutch press (NRC, 20 November 1900). His words captured both the horror of the bombardment and the unshakable determination of his comrades.

Historical Photograph

A photograph of the Johannesburg Police Corps (ZARPs), taken shortly before the Battle of Berg-en-Dal, was published in Neerlandia (Jaargang 5, 1901) from the Moesman Collection (University of Pretoria Special Collections).

• Van Lier is pictured top right, standing alongside Commandant Ph.R. Oosthuizen and Lieutenant F. Pohlman.
• The image captures the small group of men who became legendary for their stand at Berg-en-Dal.

(Image courtesy of University of Pretoria, Special Collections: Moesman Collection)

The Johannesburg Police Corps

Shortly before the well-known Battle of Berg-en-Dal on 27 August, this group photograph was taken. In the foreground are seven brave men who, under the name of the Johannesburg Police Corps, became so renowned.

The two articles dedicated to the storming of this same position — worth preserving beyond the fleeting life of a daily newspaper — were written by Commandant of the Volunteer Cavalry with the Johannesburg Police Corps, Mr. S. van Lier (pictured top right). These articles appeared in the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant of 20 November, and re-reading them while viewing this group is deeply moving.

At the top left is P. de la Rey, private; next to him, in order: Commandant Ph.R. Oosthuijsen, wounded and captured; F. Pohlman, First Lieutenant, killed by a shot to the right temple — he who had not seen his dear wife and children for more than a year, he who with Oosthuijsen and Van Lier for almost a year had faced countless dangers shoulder to shoulder, he, the hero of Colenso. Then Van Lier himself, who, with two shots in the right thigh and his side pierced by a shell fragment, incredibly escaped death, and to whom Botha and Viljoen came the morning after the battle to express their great satisfaction for his displayed bravery.

Bottom left: Sergeant John Pretorius, fatally struck in the head, the strong and handsome man who always spoke so lovingly of his bride, whom he had left on the eve of marriage to go to war; Sergeant-Major Biljon, missing, likely killed, after he had saved Van Lier from certain death; Sergeant-Major John Smith, wounded with two bullets in the leg.

At Helvetia, while the roar of cannon still echoed from Machadodorp, where some of General Viljoen’s commandos held back the enemy, roll call was held for the Police Corps. Of the 67, only 31 answered their names.

Neerlandia is not a war journal, but the names and images of these brave men rescue them from oblivion, full of admiration.

The Italian volunteers for the Boer cause.

By Alberto Rosselli (Translated by L. Pavese)

December 25, 1899, Austral Africa.

In a clearing near the city of Dundee, in Southern Transvaal, a tall and bearded officer of the Boer army wearing a worn broad-brimmed hat and carrying a Mauser rifle is reviewing a curious-looking unit, consisting of three hundred soldiers, dressed and armed in the most varied and colorful ways.

The officer is haranguing the soldiers, inciting them to fight the British oppressor who is bent on wiping out the Boer state’s freedom dream. At first sight, the scene would not be an incongruous one because, a few weeks before, the Boer president Paul Kruger had begun the mobilization of the Afrikaners against Her Majesty’s army. This unit, however, had been formed by Italians residing in the Transvaal who were determined to give their contribution (together with German, Austrian, Irish, French and American volunteers) to the cause of the African Dutch, whom Queen Victoria had promised to eradicate from the land of gold and diamonds.

At the head of the Italian legion (or, as General Piet Joubert called it, “Die Italiaanse Korps” or the “Italian Scouts”) was a thirty-four-year old Piedmontese fighter and war correspondent, Giuseppe Camillo Pietro Ricchiardi, born in Alba and already a veteran of many campaigns in the Philippines, Siam, and China, behind a sword as well as his typewriter.

The war between the Boers and Great Britain had broken out only a couple of months before (on October 10, 1899), and in Colenso, by that December, Ricchiardi already had had the chance to show off his worth as a fighter. At the beginning of November, near Chievelrey, he had led a victorious assault against a British armoured train and captured several enemy soldiers and officers, among whom there was a young reporter by the name of Winston Spencer Leonard Churchill, who had been attached to the South African Light Horse Colonial Regiment.

General Louis Botha had tasked Captain Ricchiardi, who already led a small group of 50 Italian volunteers, with organizing in Johannesburg a volunteer battalion formed almost entirely by Italian miners, cooks, hunters, farmers, ranchers and explorers; and the former Second Lieutenant of the 4th Cavalry Regiment “Genoa” had not waited to be asked twice. Thanks to his charisma, his persuasive eloquence, his looks that resembled the figure of a Garibaldian leader, and the help of First Lieutenant, Count Pecci and Major Caldara, Ricchiardi was able in record time to gather and train in the use of weapons about 280 compatriots.

In January 1900, Ricchiardi was promoted Feldcornet (Major) and was given permission to appoint his own curious and almost entirely Italian and aristocratic staff, consisting of Captain Edgardo Rossegger, from Trieste, the Genoese-Dutch-Italian Giobatta Van Ameringen, and the Lieutenants (and Barons) Von Carlsberg, Paratico di Lantieri and Von der Lippe. Lieutenant and reporter Eugenio Boccalone (from Genoa), Corporals Rizzola (from Cesena), and Carmelo and Francesco Degiovanni (from Catania) completed the group.

Ricchiardi, who was a gourmand, had also inserted in the staff the chief mule driver Silvio Sella, who, notwithstanding his name (sella means saddle in Italian) and his job, happened to be also the best chef in Johannesburg.

On January 24, 1900, during the bloody and famous battle of Spionkop, the members of the Italian legion covered themselves with glory, charging with bayonets a large British unit and causing it to flee. The following month, the Italian Brigade (as the Britons called it) took part in more fights and, because of its extraordinary maneuvering capability and aggressiveness, was mentioned several times in the war bulletins from Pretoria. In May, following the addition of many fresh French volunteers, the “Italian Legion” changed its name to the “Latin Brigade,” reaching a force of 2000 men.

On September 1st, 1900, Ricchiardi (who by now was known as the African Garibaldi) was promoted to Colonel and commander in chief of all the foreign volunteer units (the German Legion, the Austrian Corps, the International Irish Brigade, the American Explorer Group and the French Corps); but the Italians remained the hard core of the Latin Brigade.

When the Autumn of 1900 was approaching, horse mounted patrols of legionnaires specialized in sapping actions behind the British lines, harassing the enemy units. After blowing up an ammunition depot, the commandos led by the Genoese Giovanni Carcioffo left the following jeering message for Lord Roberts, the commander in chief of the British army: “We will be back again to see you. Tell your soldiers not to sleep so much! The Italian Legion!”

But notwithstanding the heroism of the Boer army and its international allies, the war was turning in favor of Great Britain. The Britons by then were enjoying an overwhelming, to say the least, superiority in terms of number and equipment. At the beginning of Fall of 1900, President Kruger, after having thanked and praised the Legion, ordered it to disband, but not before he had regularly compensated the troops. A few days later, all the volunteers crossed the border into Mozambique, heading to Lourenço Marquez (Maputo), where a steamer was waiting for them. Only a small group of diehards (not more than twenty and all Italian) remained behind in Boer land. Their names are unknown. They would fight till the end in the area of Komatipoort (in northern Transvaal) beside their Boer brothers.

Colonel Ricchiardi and the other Italian and foreign veterans (386 out of the original 2000) landed in Trieste on October 31, 1900, welcomed by a small crowd and a reporter from the daily newspaper “Il Piccolo,” who described the scene as follows: “I meet Colonel Ricchiardi aboard the steamer Stirya. Notwithstanding the suffering, he’s still young: he’s a splendid type of gentleman-soldier…Before ordering his men to disembark, he asks a boy to play the Boer national anthem, one last time, with the harmonica…all the volunteers uncovered their heads and followed… A solemn and sad song rose from the bridge and it ended with a thunderous Hurray for Kruger! Hurray for the free Transvaal!”

The epic of the “Italian Legion” was over.

Alberto Rosselli is an Italian historian and an author who also contributes to several daily newspapers. He edits the Italian magazine Storia Verità (appropriately called the “non politically-correct history magazine”), from which this article was taken and translated with his permission.

Extracts from http://planetoplano.blogspot.com/…/die-italiaanse-korps…