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 have been taken either to prevent them from attempting to recover by personal action, or even to supervise them in the process of doing so, with the inevitable consequence that seizures of land and cattle, spasmodic before, became thenceforth systematised. This iniquitous order was forced upon the Dependency by the vested interests concerned despite the Governor's protest.

It was the final provocation. Profiting by the Governor's absence in the south in connection with one of the perennial Hottentot troubles and believing the report of his death, spread by the settlers by whom he was hated, for their own purposes, the Hereros, led by Maherero, rose in a body and fell upon the officials and settlers, killing as many as they could reach. In a letter to Governor Leutwein, replying to the latter's remonstrance, Maherero wrote:

Reinforcements were sent out under General von Trotha, a perfect type of the ruthless Prussian soldier. Until recalled, owing to the indignation aroused by his brutalities, von Trotha carried out for twelve months a war of expulsion and extermination against the Hereros, who, encumbered by their women, children, and cattle, driven from place to place, were killed in great numbers, or perished in the desert regions into which they were mercilessly hunted. Peace could have been made with them after their signal defeat in August, 1904. But von Trotha would not hear of peace. The war degenerated into wholesale, retail, and indiscriminate daughter of both man and beast.