Page 66 - Bulletin 11 2007

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Allies, Admiral Beatty, Marshal Foch, Field-Marshal Haig, and the “Springboks”. The
occasion concluded with Kipling’s “Recessional” and the singing of the National Anthem.

The following day was proclaimed a national holiday.

During the following weeks troops began returning to South Africa by ship and special

celebrations awaited them. (Fig. 1.40). They would be taken by train from the Victoria
Basin to the Goods Yard at the foot of Adderley Street, formed up, and then marched

through a triumphal arch along Adderley Street, which was lined with lady war workers
dressed in white who showered them with flowers and confetti, to the City Hall and Drill

Hall on Darling Street where they were addressed by the Governor-General and the
Administrator and then entertained.

It was another seven months before the signing of the peace at Versailles on 28 June 1919.
Peace Celebrations in Cape Town took place on 2 and 5 August of that year. All returned

soldiers gathered in town, with massed choirs and bands, to observe The Mid-Day Pause

and sing the Te Deum, watch the release of Peace Doves, and other formalities. The
weather was not good and so a planned Naval and Military display on Green Point

Common was cancelled. During the evening open-air cinema and band performances were
given in the town centre, the principal roads were illuminated, and a firework display was

put on at the Adderley Street Pier Head.

On 4 August the Mayor hosted a Civic Reception for Generals Botha and Smuts who had

returned from the Peace Conference. The mayor reiterated British Prime Minister Lloyd
George’s eulogy on them: “two statesmen of indubitably Dutch origin have won for South

Africa an extraordinary influence in the affairs of the world”.