The centennial commemoration of the outbreak of the First World War on August, 4, the date that Great Britain officially declared war on a belligerent Germany, was a significant occasion that was largely sidelined and, dare I say, somewhat ignored by the South African government, the press and the public at large.

Perhaps this can be put down to the fact that the significance and memory of the conflict have became lost on South Africans over the last 100 years. Similarly, as the First World War was primarily fought between European empires, with much of the conflict being concentrated on mainland Europe, the war has inevitably become far removed from a country situated at the very bottom of the African continent and its people.

However, the lack of remembrance or commemoration belies the fact that South Africa played a considerably significant role during the war, not only from a military perspective but also, more importantly, from a financial perspective.

When Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914, South Africa was but a fledgling State, having become a union just four years earlier. It was, along with Australia, New Zealand, Canada and New Foundland, a dominion of Great Britain, which meant it was a self-governing country but had no power over its foreign policy. So, when Britain declared war on Germany, it was committing not only its own men, but also those of its empire.

While there was initially some resistance to South Africa entering the war as an ally of Britain, especially among staunch Afrikaners, who sympathised with Germany and still bore considerable bitterness over the Second Anglo-Boer War (now referred to as the South African War), for the most part, the country entered the war willingly, determined to support Britain’s offensive against the Central Alliance.

However, South Africa’s greatest contribution to the war effort went beyond the number of soldiers that were enlisted and the military offensives in which South Africans were involved. In fact, it can be argued that it was the country’s mighty gold mining industry that played one of the most pivotal and, indeed, influential roles in that conflict, for it was the tens of thousands of tons of gold mined from the Witwatersrand basin during those four years that primarily financed Britain’s war effort.

When the conflict erupted, the world economy was underpinned by the Gold Standard, an economic unit of account based on a fixed weight of gold, which was used as a means of standardising the prices of various currencies, particularly those of European countries. By 1914, the metal had come to occupy a dominant position in the international economy: it was regarded as being immune to the vagaries suffered by other forms of money, especially in times of war and, thus, had become the most important bastion of a country’s wealth. It was for that reason that Britain and the other belligerent nations resolved to keep the Gold Standard at least legally intact. Thus, the question of supply of, and access to, gold stocks was to feature prominently in Britain’s war strategy.

To ensure that none of the gold produced in the British Empire would end up in enemy hands, the British authorities resolved to commandeer the entire gold output from its various dominions and colonies. This, in effect, meant commandeering South Africa’s entire gold production, which, at the time, accounted for over two-thirds of not only the empire’s output, but also the world’s.

To make such requisition legally binding, in mid-August, the British entered into negotiations with the South African government, the result of which would come to be known as the August Agreement. Economic historian Russell Ally writes: “On August 14, 1914, after considerable preliminary negotiations with the Union government, the Bank of England, acting on behalf of the British government, issued a special memorandum stating that it was prepared to purchase all the gold produced in South Africa at the fixed official rate of £3:17:9 per standard ounce. In return for the mining companies agreeing that they would only sell their bullion to the bank, it offered to advance 97% of the value of the gold to them, the balance to be paid once the gold had arrived in London.”

During those four long years of war, the Witwatersrand gold mining industry made an admirable effort to, if not increase, at least maintain a steady production in order to keep Britain supplied with gold. In 1914, the mines collectively produced 261 147 kg of gold at a value of £34 124 000. By 1917, production had increased, not unsubstantially, to 280 503 kg. The fact that the mines were able to increase production during this period is quite remarkable and is a testament to their perceived role in the contribution to the defeat of the Central Alliance. The increase was achieved despite a considerable shortage of skilled and semiskilled manpower (the mine owners had not prevented any members of their staff from enlisting), a sharp rise in production costs (by 1918, costs per ton milled were 4s 7d above the 1914 level) and a noticeable shortage of goods and equipment.

However, by 1918, as the ravages of the war took its toll, even on a country as far removed as South Africa, production fell to 261 841 kg and, owing to the considerable increase in the cost of working, three mines were forced to close.

In summing up, the South African gold mining industry’s role during the First World War, the country’s great mining historian, AP Cartwright notes: “Throughout the long dreary days of WWI, the poppet wheels and the mills of the Transvaal ran without interruption and rendered huge contributions to the Allied cause in the form of golden bullets. These money missiles were just as essential to the carrying on of the grim struggle against the immense fighting powers of Germany as were the shells and bullets of baser value which shattered Europe and turned France and Flanders into a shambles.”