Disloyalty to the Crown
Correspondence from the Second Anglo Boer War
Among the most vivid characters in our family story is my ancestor Christoph Bartels, the missionary who came to South Africa in the service of the Hermannsburg Mission Society. His letters back to Germany form a remarkable archive, humble, dutiful, & strikingly consistent in one peculiar way.
Every single letter began with a detailed rant about his health. His stomach ailments were a constant torment: sharp pains, discomfort that never seemed to ease. He was a heavy smoker, pipe never far from his hand, yet he never appeared to draw the obvious connection between the two. After laying out his complaints in full, he would always catch himself. The pains were not that important, he would insist. There were far more pressing matters in the Lord’s work. Then came the apology for burdening the Mission Society with such trivial personal woes. Year after year, letter after letter, the pattern repeated like a familiar hymn.
But one letter broke the mould entirely. It concerned a matter so serious that even Christoph could not set it aside.
By that time, he had retired from frontline missionary work among the Zulu people & had been asked to care for the church & congregation at Wartburg in Natal. It was a small, rural German settlement where most of his flock were farmers, hard-working men & women tilling the soil, including his own sons. The community blended German settlers with a large number of Boer families. In that little village, the two streams of my own ancestry flowed together: the missionary Bartels line & the Boer lines of the Maritz & Bruyns families.
Christoph had not always worn a clerical collar. As a young man he had served as a Hussar in the army of the King of Hanover. He left the service before Bismarck’s Prussia invaded & annexed the kingdom. The King of Hanover, from the same royal house that had once linked Hanover & Britain, commanded a loyalty that Christoph never forgot. The bloodshed of war, however, had left deep scars on his soul. The lives he had taken weighed heavily upon him, those that he had run through with his lance. Seeking redemption & solace, he turned away from the sword & offered himself to the church as a missionary.
When the Second Anglo-Boer War broke out, Christoph found himself once more in the shadow of conflict. This brutal struggle between the British Empire & the Boer republics of the Transvaal & Orange Free State would last two years. It was fought over gold, diamonds, political rights, & imperial ambition, & it tore through the land with great suffering on all sides.
From the pulpit in Wartburg, Christoph took a clear & courageous stand. He told his mixed congregation of Germans & Boers not to choose sides. War, he said, was a hindrance to true faith & Christian living. “Avoid it,” he urged them. “Do not sell your stock or your crops to either side.” Neutrality & peace were the only paths worthy of followers of Christ.
The military authorities in Natal did not take kindly to such talk. They saw it as disloyalty to the Crown & hauled the elderly pastor before a tribunal convened by the Governor of Natal.
Christoph stood before his accusers without flinching. Looking the Governor straight in the eye, he asked:
“How can you accuse me of disloyalty to the Crown? Every Sunday in my church I pray for the safety & well-being of the Queen. I have honoured her & remained loyal. I was once a soldier in the service of her father’s crown, but now I am a man of God. My duty is not to stir up aggression, but to point the way to peace. Had I been disloyal, I would long ago have stopped those prayers.”
The Governor listened, then heaved a deep sigh. He turned to the military men & prosecutors with visible irritation. “Do not ever waste my time, or this man’s, by bringing a servant of the cloth before me again,” he said. The case was dismissed at once, & Christoph was sent back to his flock with an apology for the spectacle.
He returned to Wartburg, but the war ground on. Many who heard his words knew in their hearts that the old pastor was right. Yet the tides of fear, anger, & self-righteousness had already carried most too far down the road of conflict to turn back. Like every war, this one too eventually ended.
In the years since, whenever I think of Christoph Bartels, I see a man who carried the scars of one war into the pulpit of another, & chose peace. A heavy smoker who never quite solved the mystery of his aching stomach, yet whose faith was rock-solid. A former Hussar who became a true servant of the his Prince of Peace.
I like to imagine that in heaven the Lord shook His head at the follies of men, smiled at the stubborn old missionary from Wartburg, & marked his name with particular affection: a man of true faith & quiet honour, who refused to let war silence the Gospel of peace.
His blood runs in my veins, German missionary & Boer farmer alike, & I am proud of it.
