he worked out with Viscount Haldane the scheme for a South African defence force, which proved so valuable both to South Africa and to the Empire a few years later. The more he came to London the more surely he won the regard of Englishmen. His few brief speeches, always given in Dutch, sounded a note of sincerity and gallant courtesy and of convincing loyalty to the Crown. In his own country the verdict of the immense majority of both English and Dutch was the same. Some of those who, like Hertzog, parted company with him, thought him too deferential to the English element in the population: but all felt him to be essentially a simple God-fearing man, with an attractive nature, not clever, but of great wisdom, patience, and loving-kindness. He was at his best and certainly happiest in his own beautiful farm, where he lived a patriarchal life with his family, entertaining simply and always the best of hosts. Smuts, the colleague most unlike him in most ways but the one who knew and loved him best, said at his graveside: ‘His was the largest, most beautiful, sweetest soul of all my land and days.’
A portrait of Botha is included in J. S. Sargent’s picture ‘Some General Officers of the Great War’, painted in 1922, in the National Portrait Gallery. Another portrait, painted by J. Blair Leighton from photographs and information supplied by relations and friends, was presented to the House of Commons by Sir W. Mitchell Cotts in 1925.
[Sir J. F. Maurice and M. H. Grant, (Official) History of the War in South Africa, 1906-1910; ‘The Times’ History of the War in South Africa, 1900-1909; G.S. Preller (editor), General Botha, Pretoria, 1920; H. Spender, General Botha, 1916; P. J. Sampson, Capture of De Wet, 1915; W. Whittall, With Botha and Smuts in South Africa, 1917; Ian Colvin, Life of Jameson, 1922; Earl Buxton, General Botha, 1924; Cape Times; private information; personal knowledge.]
BOURCHIER, JAMES DAVID (1850-1920), correspondent of The Times in the Balkan Peninsula, was born at Baggotstown, Bruff, co. Limerick, 18 December 1850, the fourth son of John Bourchier, of Baggotstown, a property which had descended from father to son since 1651; his mother was Sarah Aher, of La Rive, Castlecomer, co. Kilkenny. Bourchier was an exhibitioner at Trinity College, Dublin, and took his degree there (1873), with a gold medal for classics. He subsequently won a scholarship at King’s College, Cambridge, and was placed seventh in the first class of the classical tripos (1876). In 1888, after ten years as a master at Eton, where his deafness proved a handicap, Bourchier went to Roumania and Bulgaria on a mission for The Times, definitely joining its staff in 1892. For fifteen years he made his headquarters at Athens, afterwards at Sofia. Active in mind and body, a linguist and a musician, and, in spite of his deafness, excellent company, Bourchier knew every one of note in the Balkans and was behind the scenes of Balkan politics for a generation. He wrote excellently on archaeology and travel, as well as on politics. His sympathy with patriots and with the oppressed, together with his honesty of purpose, fearlessness, and power of identifying himself with a cause, won for him a unique place in the Balkan Peninsula. He often served as intermediary between the Cretan insurgents and the Greek authorities, and he acted unofficially as confidential adviser to Prince George of Greece when, in 1898, the latter became high commissioner of Crete. When the Bulgarian peasants in Macedonia rose against the Turks in 1903, Bourchier brought their sufferings and the justice of their cause before the public with great insistence and ability. In 1911-1912 he was entrusted by King George of Greece and M. Venizelos on one side, and by King Ferdinand of Bulgaria and M. Gueshov on the other, with many of the secret negotiations preceding the Balkan alliance. Bourchier regarded this alliance as the only remedy for Balkan troubles. Much as he deplored the part played by Bulgaria in the second Balkan War and in the European War, he did not withdraw his sympathy from the Bulgars, whose national character he warmly admired.
In 1915 Bourchier went to Roumania and later to Odessa and Petrograd, reaching England early in 1918. He then retired from The Times, and devoted himself to the forlorn attempt to secure what seemed to him a just and final settlement in the Balkans. He died at Sofia 30 December 1920, and was buried with high honours at Rilo monastery. He was unmarried.
[Bourchier’s diaries and papers; his contributions to The Times, 1888-1920, and to the Quarterly, Fortnightly, and other Reviews; his articles on Balkan subjects in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th edition); Lady Grogan, Life of J. D. Bourchier, 1924; private information; personal knowledge.]
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