Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Captain W. J. L. McDonald, South African Mounted Irregular Forces, late Prince Alfred’s Volunteer Guard

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 2 clasps, Cape Colony, Orange Free State (Lieut. W. J. McDonald, Prince Alf. Vol. Gd.); King’s South Africa 1901-02, 2 clasps (Capt. W. J. L. McDonald, S.A.M.I.F.) nearly extremely fine (2) £400-500

With copied Q.S.A. roll extract confirming Lieutenant W. J. L. McDonald as an officer in Prince Alfred’s Volunteer Guard, with the note that he later transferred to the Intelligence Department; and with a copied K.S.A. roll extract confirming him as an officer in the South African Mounted Irregular Forces.

Captain W. J. L. McDonald was the prosecutor in the trial against Charel Gerhardus Johannes Nienaber (36), Jan Petrus Nienaber (24) and Johannes (Jan) Andries Nieuwoudt (23), held at De Aar, on 5 March 1901.

In the South African Guerilla War it was often difficult to decide who was and who was not a bona fide combatant. On 18 February 1901, General Wynand Malan with 25 commando members derailed a train near Taailbosch siding, near Hanover, killing the stoker, two soldiers and two black labourers. Following on from the attack, Charel and Jan Nienaber and Jan Nieuwoudt, from the De Bad Farm, near Hanover, together with several others, were arrested for high treason, murder and robbery. It was established they were not part of a Boer commando. Evidence against them came from Jan van der Berg, one of the men who had been arrested and who had turned Crown evidence, and from several native African witnesses who claimed they recognised the attackers despite it being a dark night. Captain McDonald successfully proved his case and the military court, presided by Lieutenant-Colonel A. E. Codrington, Coldstream Guards, found them guilty and sentenced the three to death. A fourth man was also sentenced to death, but had this reduced to five years imprisonment and a fifth man was given a five year prison sentence. Van der Berg, as a Crown witness, was acquitted but was later accused of perjury. The three men were executed by firing squad at De Aar on 19 March 1901. After peace had been achieved in 1902, General Malan, swore under oath that none of the men tried, nor Van der Berg, had ever been part of his commando and had certainly not been involved in the attack on the train. A memorial to the three executed men bears the words, ‘Innocently condemned to death by a Military Court’ and ‘I behold the vengeance: I shall repay sayeth the Lord.’

Sold with a paperback copy of the book, Innocent Blood, Executions during the Anglo-Boer War, by Graham Jooste and Roger Webster, which gives a full account of the incident and aftermath.