Funded and founded by Cecil Rhodes, a select group of men were chosen for the inner circle or ‘elect’ that would secretly control British colonial and foreign policy. Other associates were drawn in from time to time, and may or may not have known what they were involved in.
Two essential components of their shared approach were secrecy and an understanding that the reality of power was much more important than the appearance of power.
They built on the longstanding power and patronage that the Salisbury and Rosebery families exercised in British politics, but also included the Rothschild dynasty of international financiers who were very close to the British Establishment.
In the early years, the leading activists were Cecil Rhodes, William Stead, Lord Esher, Alfred Milner and Lord Nathaniel Rothschild.
Renewal and strengthening of the bond between Britain and the United States of America was a central plank of Secret Elite policy.
By the mid nineteenth century, the House of Rothschild, based in London, Paris, Frankfurt and Vienna, dominated European finance.
Their holdings branched out across the world into new investments in steel, railways and oil; Cecil Rhodes’ diamond and gold companies were bankrolled by the Rothschilds.
The Rothschilds preferred to operate behind other companies so that few realised exactly what and how much they controlled.
They targeted and financed relatively indebted royalty, including members of the British royal family. They purchased the Suez Canal shares for Disraeli and gave generously to politicians whom they supported. In Britain, their generosity and patronage broke down many of the anti-Semitic barriers they had to endure.
Nathaniel Rothschild was intimately associated with Cecil Rhodes and his secret society from the outset. The powerful alliance of the ‘money men’, the ‘men behind the curtain’ and the emergence of Alfred Milner as leader gave the Secret Elite a cutting edge to make Rhodes’ dream a reality.
CHAPTER 2
South Africa – Disregard the Screamers
CECIL RHODES, THE SON OF an English vicar, left home as a 17 year old in 1870 to join his brother Herbert growing cotton on a farm in South Africa. The crop failed, but the brothers found work at the recently opened diamond fields of Kimberley.1 Rhodes attracted the attention of the Rothschild agent Albert Gansi, who was assessing the local prospects for investment in diamonds. Backed by Rothschild funding, Cecil Rhodes bought out many small mining concerns, rapidly gained monopoly control and became intrinsically linked to the powerful House of Rothschild.2 Although Rhodes was credited with transforming the De Beers Consolidated Mines into the world’s biggest diamond supplier, his success was largely due to the financial backing of Lord Natty Rothschild, who held more shares in the company than Rhodes himself.3 Rothschild backed Rhodes not only in his mining ventures but on the issues of British race supremacy and expansion of the Empire. Neither had any qualms about the use of force against African tribes in their relentless drive to increase British dominance in Africa. It was a course of action destined to bring war with the Boer farmers of the Transvaal.
In 1877, by the age of 24, Cecil Rhodes had become a very rich young man whose life expectancy was threatened by ill health. In the first of his seven wills he stated that his legacy was to be used for:
The establishment, promotion and development of a Secret Society, the true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom, and of colonization by British subjects of all lands wherein the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour, and enterprise, and especially the occupation by British settlers of the entire continent of Africa … the whole of South America … the whole United States of America, as an integral part of the British Empire and, finally, the foundation of so great a Power as to render wars impossible, and promote the best interests of humanity.4
Rhodes’ will was a sham in terms of altruistic intent. Throughout his life, he consorted with businessmen driven by greed,5 and did not hesitate to use bribery or force to attain his ends if he judged they would be effective.6 Promotion of the ‘best interests of humanity’ was never evident in his lifestyle or business practices. Advised and backed by the powerful Rothschilds and his other inner-core Secret Elite friends, the Rand millionaires Alfred Beit and Sir Abe Bailey,7 whose fortunes were also tied to gold and diamonds, Rhodes promoted their interests by gaining chartered company status for their investments in South Africa.
The British South Africa Company, created by Royal Charter in 1889, was empowered to form banks, to own, manage and grant or distribute land, and to raise a police force (the British South Africa Police). This was a private police force, owned and paid for by the company and its management. In return, the company promised to develop the territory it controlled, to respect existing African laws, to allow free trade within its territory and to respect all religions. Honeyed words, indeed. In practice, Rhodes set his sights on ever more mineral rights and territorial acquisitions from the African peoples by introducing laws with little concern or respect for tribal practices. The British had used identical tactics to dominate India through the East India Company a century earlier. Private armies, private police forces, the authority of the Crown and the blessing of investors was the route map to vast profits and the extension of the Empire. The impression that Rhodes and successors always sought to give, however, was that they did what had to be done, not for themselves but for the future of ‘humanity’. Imperialism has long been a flag of convenience.
The chartered company recruited its own army, as it was permitted to do, and, led by one of Cecil Rhodes’ closest friends, Dr Leander Starr Jameson, waged war on the Matabele tribes and drove them from their land. The stolen tribal kingdom, carved in blood for the profit of financiers, would later be named Rhodesia. It was the first time the British had used the Maxim gun in combat, slaughtering 3,000 tribesmen.8
Leander Starr Jameson was born in Stranraer, Scotland. He trained as a doctor in London before emigrating to South Africa, where he became Rhodes’ physician and closest friend. Jameson was more responsible for the opening up of Rhodesia to British settlers than any other individual.His place in history’s hall of infamy was reserved not by the thousands of Matabele he slaughtered but by his abortive attempt to seize Boer territory in the Transvaal.
To further his grand plans, Rhodes had himself elected to the legislature of Cape Colony and began extending British influence northward. His most ambitious design on the continent of Africa was a railway that would run from Cape Town to Cairo, which could effectively bring the entire landmass under British control. It would link Britain’s vast colonial possessions from the gold and diamond mines of South Africa to the Suez Canal, then on through the Middle East into India. It would similarly provide fast links from southern Africa through the Mediterranean to the Balkans and Russia, and through the Straits of Gibraltar to Britain. Every link in that chain would hold the Empire secure. Whoever was able to control this vast reach would control the world’s most valuable strategic raw materials, from gold to petroleum.9
1892–Rhodes as Colossus, with telegraph line from Cape to Cairo.
(Reproduced with permission of Punch Ltd., www.punch.co.uk)
In 1890, when Rhodes became prime minister of Cape Colony, his aggressive policies reignited old conflicts with the independent Boer Republics of Transvaal and the Orange River Colony. The Boers (farmers) were descendants of the Afrikaner colonists from northern mainland Europe, including Holland and Germany. Many Afrikaners remained under the British flag in Cape Colony, but in the 1830s and ’40s others had made the famous ‘long trek’ (Die Groot Trek) with their cattle, covered wagons and Bibles into the African interior in search of farmland and escape from British rule. A number settled in lands to the north across the Orange River that would become the Boer republic of the Orange Free State. Others trekked on beyond the Vaal River into what became the Transvaal. Further north,
across the Limpopo and Zambezi Rivers, lay the African kingdoms of the Matabele tribes.
Like the British settlers, many of the Calvinist Boers were racist, but, whatever their shortcomings, they were excellent colonisers with a moral code that was far better than that of the ‘money-grabbing, gold-seeking imperialist filibusters who were the friends of Cecil Rhodes’.10 The British government had promised not to interfere in the self-governing Boer Republics, but that was prior to the discovery of massive gold deposits in the Transvaal in 1886. Prospects of untold wealth raised the stakes and created a new gold rush with a large influx of fortune-seeking prospectors from Britain.11
By the 1890s, the Boer Republics had become increasingly problematic for Rhodes. They did not fit easily into Secret Elite plans for a unified South Africa, nor his dream of the trans-African railway. The explosion of wealth in the Transvaal immediately transformed its importance. Political control lay in the hands of the rural, backward, Bible-bashing Boers, while economic control was increasingly in the hands of British immigrants sucked into the interior by the gold rush. These outsiders, or Uitlanders as the Boers termed them, had money but no political power. Despite the fact that Uitlander numbers in the Transvaal rapidly rose to twice that of the original Boer settlers, President Paul Kruger disbarred them from full citizenship until they had settled for a minimum of 14 years.
Kruger had left Cape Colony aged ten to trek northward with his family, and never outgrew his hatred and suspicion of the British.12 His government placed heavy taxes on mining companies and made it almost impossible for the Uitlanders to acquire citizenship: two convenient reasons for the British to find fault.
British–Boer conflict was all about the Transvaal’s gold. The Secret Elite wanted it and decided to take it by force. In December 1895, they planned to provoke an Uitlander uprising in Johannesburg as an excuse to seize the republic. Cecil Rhodes’ close friend Dr Jameson, the British South Africa Company’s military commander, simultaneously launched an armed raid from across the border to support the uprising. It was a hare-brained scheme cooked up by Rhodes and British-born Johannesburg business leaders, with the support of the British government.13
Alfred Beit and other members of the Secret Elite were deeply involved in planning, financing and arming the assault on the Transvaal. Months before it was due to take place, Rhodes disclosed his intentions to a close friend and member of the Secret Elite, Flora Shaw, the South African correspondent of The Times.14 Shaw was a pioneering journalist in her own right and had worked closely with Stead at the Pall Mall Gazette. She was a personal friend of John Ruskin, who had encouraged her in her writings.15 Thereafter, she wrote pro-Uitlander, anti-Boer articles in the London paper to prepare public opinion in England and grease the path to war.16 Lord Albert Grey, yet another member of the inner core and a director of the British South Africa Company, sought official support for the uprising from Joseph Chamberlain, the colonial secretary in London.17 Chamberlain was also given advance notice of the raid by the Liberal leader, Lord Rosebery.18
The uprising never materialised, for the Uitlanders were neither as unhappy nor as oppressed as Flora Shaw portrayed in The Times. Word of the intended raid had been leaked in Johannesburg, and President Kruger had his forces ready. Jameson and his men were surrounded and captured. The entire venture was a fiasco.
Rhodes was forced to resign as Cape Colony prime minister and ordered to London to appear before a parliamentary select committee. He became the focus of an international scandal that could have fatally damaged the Secret Elite. Something akin to panic sent urgent messages flying between the conspirators. Immediately Rhodes disembarked in Southampton he was met by Natty Rothschild carrying a confidential message from Joseph Chamberlain, who had secretly approved the raid. In political terms, Chamberlain could have been obliged to resign, but that would have left the Secret Elite even more vulnerable to relentless recriminations. Rhodes carried official telegrams he had received from Chamberlain that exposed the colonial secretary’s complicity. A deal was there to be done. Consequently, this damning proof was withheld from the select committee, and the government made no attempt to limit the powers of the Rothschild/Rhodes British South Africa Company.19 It was an exercise in damage limitation.
In London, Rothschild, Esher, Stead and Milner met urgently to determine the Secret Elite strategy of denial.20 Barefaced lies were presented as truth. Chamberlain secretly visited Jameson in prison, and the good doctor agreed to keep his counsel.21 Whatever happened in law, Jameson knew that the Secret Elite would ultimately protect him. In a further defensive move, Sir Graham Bower from the Colonial Office was persuaded to offer himself as a scapegoat. Bower, who had personally handled negotiations between London and South Africa, agreed to lie before the committee by insisting that Chamberlain knew nothing about Jameson’s raid. Edward Fairfield, another Colonial Office civil servant who had handled the London end of the negotiations, refused to follow Bower’s lead and give false testimony. What incredibly good fortune for Chamberlain, Rhodes and the Secret Elite that Fairfield died suddenly from a ‘stroke’.22
In a manner that would become a regular occurrence down the years, every major witness who appeared before the select committee lied under oath. Prime Minister Salisbury, a member of the inner circle, insisted that Chamberlain himself should sit on the committee. When witnesses refused to produce documents or respond to questions, they were not pressed for answers. Whole fields of inquiry were excluded.23 The Secret Elite were thus able to whitewash all of the participants save Leander Starr Jameson, whose position was impossible. He had after all been caught in flagrante. He accepted sole responsibility and spent just a few weeks in prison.
The raid proved a setback for Rhodes in terms of personal position, for he had lost the respect and support he had previously enjoyed from many Boers. He and his moneyed friends regrouped while the storm blew over, but the Transvaal’s gold was always unfinished business. Soon after, pliant journalists began once more to flood Britain with propaganda about the alleged plight of the Uitlanders.24
The Jameson Raid elevated President Paul Kruger to legendary status in the Transvaal. He set about transforming his small army into an effective force of some 25,000 commandos armed with the most advanced guns and rifles. Combined with forces from the Orange Free State, the Boers could muster 40,000 men for action. Kruger was re-elected president of the Transvaal for a fourth term, and his standing amongst the Afrikaners there and in the Cape had never been higher.25
South Africa in 1900.
Cape Colony contained a majority of Afrikaners, though it was governed by Britain. Naturally, British rule was adversely affected both by the raid and Kruger’s growing popularity. Rhodes had put at risk the very survival of that part of the British Empire to which he had dedicated his life. How ironic that the lure of gold drove him to reckless stupidity.
Of greater irony was the fact that he and Jameson were saved from eternal ridicule by the man who would pay the ultimate penalty for appearing to challenge the British Empire. The German Kaiser sent a telegram on 3 January 1896 to Paul Kruger congratulating him on preserving the independence of his country ‘without the need to call for aid from his friends’.26 Kaiser Wilhelm’s telegram was portrayed in Britain as a veiled threat of Germany’s willingness to support the Boers in any struggle against the Empire. The jingoistic British press raised a lasting storm of anti-German sentiment. The Times misconstrued the kaiser’s note as an example of brazen German interference and proclaimed: ‘England will concede nothing to menaces and will not lie down under insult.’ The windows of shops owned by Germans in London were smashed, and German sailors attacked in the streets. In sharp contrast, the German diplomatic response was conciliatory. Taken aback by such unexpected reaction, Wilhelm replied to a letter from his grandmother, Queen Victoria: ‘Never was the telegram intended as a step against England or your Government …’27
But the tide of public opinion had been turned and it was in no mood t
o turn back. ‘A tawdry jingoism filled the air’ and a new respect was found for Cecil Rhodes and Dr Jameson. 28 The Secret Elite propaganda machine turned Jameson’s violence into an act of heroism and converted a shambolic, potentially very damaging incident to their advantage. Jameson, the butcher of the Matabele, was rewarded with a directorship of the British South Africa Company and would later be made prime minister of Cape Colony.29
Though his Secret Elite colleagues had saved him from derision and public disgrace, Rhodes’ leadership was damaged. He remained a totally ruthless servant of the Empire, but his reckless attempt to oust the Boer government revealed a lack of political cunning. Worse, he had left behind a trail of complicit embarrassment that stretched back to the Colonial Office in London, and he was viewed by even his colleagues as a potential liability: a spent force. The Secret Elite required someone of intellect, intelligence and political astuteness to lead the secret society, pick up the pieces and re-establish British authority in the wake of the embarrassment caused by Rhodes in South Africa. One man fitted the bill perfectly: their man, Sir Alfred Milner.
Milner’s appointment as high commissioner for South Africa was a coup for the Secret Elite. It was a post he had decided to take long before it was offered to him. The dangerous political tensions required a clear solution and could not be trusted to a less determined man. Milner was prepared to give the Empire the leadership it required by taking control of the South African government and confronting the Boers. His friend and colleague in the Society of the Elect, William Waldergrave Palmer, 2nd Earl Selborne, recommended him strongly to the colonial secretary at the same time as his other Secret Elite colleague Lord Esher was making a similar approach to the queen: a fair measure of the influence that the Secret Elite could exert inside the British government. The message put about by his friends was that Milner would have to be free to start de novo, pick his own team and be allowed to make his own decisions.30 Chamberlain’s first meeting with the new appointee remains a closed book, but though they differed in terms of the immediacy of a war, it later became apparent that both knew that it would be the only answer. Chamberlain insisted on patience because he had been personally damaged by the fallout from the Jameson Raid. He had to be sure that the public were behind him. Milner advocated an entirely different case for ‘working up to a crisis’.31 The difference between the two was temporal, and Milner used every contact he had to press the case urgently, even though it meant going behind his own boss’s back.
Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War. Page 4