By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
President Cyril Ramaphosa attended the 110th Commemoration of the Battle of Delville Wood held at the South African Memorial in Longueval, France.
In July 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, the 1st South African Infantry Brigade was ordered to capture and hold a small wooded area near the French village of Longueval. It was called Delville Wood.
The South African soldiers were given an instruction to take and hold the wood- at all costs which saw more than 3,000 South African soldiers enter Delville Wood on 15 July 1916.
For six days and five nights, the South Africans endured relentless shelling, repeated attacks and close-quarter fighting.
While honouring their courage, the President said the conditions under which they died should not be romanticised.
“The true honour lies not in war itself, but in the courage, loyalty and humanity shown by those who endure it. The men of Delville Wood endured what few human beings should ever be asked to endure. Their sacrifice deserves the eternal gratitude of our country.”
He added that the story of South Africa in the First World War does not end at Delville Wood and cannot be told only through the experience of white combat soldiers. He said it must also include the thousands of Black South Africans who served in the South African Native Labour Contingent.
“Under the racial policies of the Union of South Africa, Black South Africans were generally not permitted to carry arms as equal soldiers in European theatre of war. They were willing to serve. But they were denied the status, recognition and dignity afforded to white combatants.”
More than 20,000 Black South African men travelled to France to perform essential labour in support of the Allied war effort, including unloading ships, maintaining railway lines and carrying supplies.
“The contribution of the labour contingents was therefore not secondary to the war effort. Yet, for decades, their service was treated as though it mattered less. Their names were absent from prominent memorials.”
The President also referred to the tragedy of the SS Mendi, which had been carrying over 800 members of the South African Native Labour Contingent towards France. The Mendi sank in February 1917 and its sinking, he said, remains one of the greatest maritime disasters in South African history.
“The men of the Mendi were not armed soldiers. But they died in the service of a war effort to which South Africa had committed them. Their deaths were deaths in service. But the nation did not fully acknowledge the debt it owed them. The same was true of many members of the Cape Corps and other South Africans of colour who served in various theatres of war.”
He said the task today was not merely to add forgotten names to old memorials but that a democratic South Africa must remember differently from the governments of the past.
“We cannot repeat a history that elevates some lives and diminishes others,” he said. He said the country cannot speak of national sacrifice while excluding the majority of the nation and that a common memory must be built.
He said future generations must be taught the full story of the past.
“We must tell them that South Africans fought with extraordinary bravery in the fields and forests of Europe. Above all, we must teach them that a nation is strengthened when it has the courage to confront all of its history.”