The Petticoat Commando: Boer Women in Secret Service

The Petticoat Commando: Boer Women in Secret Service. 

The Petticoat Commando: Boer Women in Secret Service is an intimate and sometimes uncomfortable but always compelling portrait of women’s agency in war. For readers interested in espionage, women’s history or South Africa’s turbulent past, the book is unforgettable.

The book pulls back the curtain on a hidden front of the Anglo-Boer War: the women of Pretoria who ran a secret intelligence network under British occupation. Drawing on Johanna Brandt’s own clandestine diary – kept with “unusual fullness and vividness” during the war, not written up years later – the book offers what the foreword calls “a dramatic picture of the hopes and fears, the devotion and bitterness” with which these women watched and, as far as they could, took part in the struggle around them.

In the introduction, Brandt explains her aim: to show “what was done by Boer women … to keep their men in the field and to support them in what proved to be a hopeless struggle for independence and liberty,” and to record the perils and hardships of Boer secret service work. She and her mother, Mrs van Warmelo, turned their home Harmony into a hub of resistance – smuggling information in “white envelopes”, hiding diaries and notes, and writing their most dangerous secrets in invisible lemon-juice ink in a “White Diary” that could only be read through the application of heat and sunlight.

Chapter by chapter, Brandt recounts “martial law under the enemy”, “passes and permits”, “outwitting the censor”, tense meetings with spies at Harmony, the smuggling of detonators and dynamite fuse in a Parisian hat, the hunt for the “secret railway timetable”, betrayals, raids, and the constant threat of arrest, confiscation and concentration camp for everyone under her roof. The cost was very real: exhaustion, fear, divided loyalties, and the emotional toll of knowing that failure could mean execution for their comrades and ruin for their families.

At the same time, the book highlights the courage, ingenuity and agency of women who refused to remain on the sidelines. Modern readers may find some of Brandt’s attitudes troubling, yet this very complexity makes her story all the more compelling as a document of its time. More than a military narrative, The Petticoat Commando is an intimate, often gripping portrait of women’s underground war – essential reading for anyone interested in espionage, women’s history and the contested memory of the Boer War.

The Introduction, Table of Contents and List of Illustrations can be downloaded here.

Pages:   334 (English)
Format: Downloadable PDF (±5.1Mb)

The Petticoat Commando: Boer Women in Secret Service. 

The Petticoat Commando: Boer Women in Secret Service is 'n intieme, soms ongemaklike maar immer-boeiende vertelling van 'n aantal vroue se bydraes in die Anglo Boereoorlog. Lesers wat belangstel in verhale van spioenasie en intrige, die rol van vroue in die geskiedenis of in Suid-Afrika se stormagtige verlede sal hierdie boek hoogs interessant vind.

Die boek lig die sluier oor ’n vergete en selfs verborge dimensie van die Anglo-Boereoorlog: die vroue van Pretoria wat tydens die Britse besetting, ’n geheime inligtingsnetwerk opgebou het. Met Johanna Brandt se eie geheime dagboek – volgens die voorwoord met “ongewoonheid, volledigheid en lewenskragtigheid” tydens die oorlog bygehou, nie jare later nie – as basis, bied die boek soos die voorwoord dit stel, “’n dramatiese beeld van die hoop en vrees, die toewyding en verbittering” waarmee hierdie vroue die stryd om hulle dopgehou en, soveel as moontlik daaraan deelgeneem het.

VIn die inleiding verduidelik Brandt dat die boek ten doel het om te wys “wat deur Boerevroue gedoen is ... om hul mans in die veld te hou en hulle te ondersteun in wat geblyk het ’n hopelose stryd om onafhanklikheid en vryheid te wees,” en om die gevare en ontberinge van die Boere geheimediens te boekstaaf. Sy en haar moeder, mev. van Warmelo, se huis Harmony was ’n spilpunt van verset – hulle smokkel inligting in “wit koevertjies”, versteek dagboeke en notas, en skryf hul gevaarlikste geheime in onsigbare suurlemoensap in ’n “Wit Dagboek” wat net met hitte of sonlig gelees kan word.

Hoofstuk vir hoofstuk vertel Brandt van “krygswet onder die vyand”, “pasbriewe en permitte”, “die uitoorlê van die sensor”, gespanne ontmoetings met spioene by Harmony, die smokkel van slagdoppies en lont in ’n Parisiaanse hoed, die soektog na die “geheime trein-tydtafel”, verradderlike optredes, klopjagte en die voortdurende gevaar van arrestasie, konfiskasie en die konsentrasiekamp vir almal onder haar dak. Die koste was hoog: uitputting, vrees, verdeelde lojaliteite en die emosionele las van te weet dat mislukking teregstelling vir hul makkers en ondergang vir hul families kon beteken.

Terselfdertyd beklemtoon die boek die moed, vindingrykheid en aksies van vroue wat geweier het om net toe te kyk. Hoewel moderne lesers 'n afkeer mag hê in sommige van Brandt se houdings, is dit juis hierdie kompleksiteit wat haar verhaal des te waardevoller maak as dokument van haar tyd. Meer as ’n militêre vertelling is The Petticoat Commando ’n intieme, dikwels meesleurende uitbeelding van vroue se ondergrondse oorlog – noodsaaklike leesstof vir enigiemand wat belangstel in spioenasie, vrouegeskiedenis en die konfikterende beskouings oor die Boereoorlog.

Die Inleiding, Inhoudsopgawe en Lys van illustrasies kan hier afgelaai word.

Bladsye:   334 (Engels)
Formaat:  Aflaaibare PDF (±5.1Mb)