The Boer War

by Thomas Pakenham

  Heavens, the irony of that phrase of Chamberlain’s. He himself had at last begun to see the real drift of Milner’s policy: to provoke a war and so annex the Transvaal for the Empire. Chamberlain’s own policy, by contrast, was to accept a settlement over the franchise, if sincerely offered, and a new convention guaranteeing the Transvaal’s internal independence. The gap between these two policies had been widening ever since May. Chamberlain and the CO (the Colonial Office) were displeased by the abrupt way Milner had broken off the talks at Bloemfontein.45 Chamberlain and his staff were still more displeased when they read Milner’s despatches of May and June. The CO’s aim was to publish Milner’s despatches in order to educate the British public about the iniquities of Kruger’s government, and show the ‘studious moderation’ of the British proposals. There was nothing moderate about Milner’s later despatches. The ‘Helot Despatch’, intended by Milner to ‘break the crockery’, certainly rattled the cups and saucers in the CO. What made Milner imagine that this was the language of diplomacy? In the event, the CO published the ‘Helot Despatch’ in a muted form.46 Milner’s other outbursts, like the ‘Nightmare Despatch’ (one taunting Chamberlain for his complicity in the Raid), were considered too stiff even to show the Cabinet.47 And Chamberlain found it ‘really rather trying’ that, to cap it all, Milner was proposing that the War Office should sack Butler, the general at the Cape. In vain, Chamberlain attempted to laugh off their troubles to Selborne (actually a staunch Milnerite). Milner was ‘overstrained. I wish he would remember the advice to the lady whose clothes caught fire, “to keep as cool as possible”.’48

  The climax of this trying period was reached when Milner, intent on getting those ten thousand British troops sent to Natal, admitted that there was a case for a war – it was the only way of getting annexation. Milner cabled that if they sent troops ‘the most probable result …would be a complete climb-down … and, if not that, a war which, however deplorable in itself, would at least enable us to put things on a sound basis … better than even the best devised Convention can’.49

  At this, Fred Graham, the Assistant Under-Secretary at the CO, exploded:

  To speak frankly, I think there is some danger of our being ‘rushed’ by the party in So. Africa which, while its sympathy with the Uitlanders is genuine, has for its chief aim the wiping out of Majuba and the speedy annexation of the Transvaal. We are trusting, and rightly trusting to a High Commissioner of singular ability; but I begin to think that there is something excitable in the So. African air which prevents men taking a cool and dispassionate view, and that possibly Sir A. Milner is being carried as rapidly away in one direction as Sir Wm. Butler is in the other …’

  Chamberlain nodded. He rebuked Milner for suggesting that any concessions from Kruger were bound to be a sham. He told him, ‘If these appear to be substantial it is our policy to accept them as such and not to minimize them.’51 But the danger of losing control of the situation alarmed him. By his opportunism at the time of the Raid, Chamberlain had put himself at the mercy of Rhodes. Now, as the minister responsible, he had put himself at the mercy of Milner and the jingos in South Africa.

  For, as a result of the activities of Milner – and his capitalist allies (though Chamberlain cannot have known this) – the tension had risen throughout South Africa. In the Transvaal, the Uitlanders, who had in early June declared themselves in support of the Bloemfontein minimum, now stiffened their terms. They had formed an ‘Uitlander Council’ at Johannesburg – a kind of Uitlander Parliament – dominated by old members of the Reform Movement. Already the Council had made demands of the most provocative kind: Kruger must dismantle the forts and disarm his people. Now, five days after the Birmingham speech, they launched a manifesto demanding immediate and radical reform of the franchise and redistribution of seats in the Raad: in effect, a political takeover.52 This new belligerence was echoed at public meetings up and down the length of British South Africa: five thousand men at Cape Town on 28 June, and thousands more at Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown. The local British Press took up the war-cry. The Cape Times, edited by Milner’s close friend, Edmund Garrett, warned that ‘the gun must be loaded … [the Afrikaners] must be made to believe it is loaded even by its discharge, if no other way succeeds’.53 In Natal, mass meetings were held at Durban and Maritzburg, and these were followed by petitions, supporting a tough line with Kruger, signed by over half the white men in the Colony. The Natal Press was as jingoistic as the British Press at the Cape. The mood of belligerence spread in due course to the colonial government of Natal whose elected members had till now chosen to take a cool line towards Milner, partly for fear of offending their powerful neighbour, the Transvaal.54

  Then in mid July came at long last the details of Kruger’s latest offer: a retrospective seven-year franchise. It turned out that Kruger had been talked into the scheme by Abraham Fischer, State Secretary of the Free State, and it had as much the blessing of Afrikaners all over the Cape – including the Cape government’s – as the Uitlander Council’s manifesto had the blessing of the British party.55

  After the news of this ‘climb-down’ of Kruger’s on 18 July, Chamberlain told The Times lobby correspondent that the crisis was over, so Chamberlain believed and, as we have seen, The Times then said the crisis was over.56 (This crisis included the crisis of confidence in Milner, of which the public were of course unaware.) They seemed to have obtained a reasonable settlement. At any rate, they must not snub the Boers or minimize their concessions, however violent Milner’s reaction. Already the congratulations were beginning to flow into the Colonial Office. On 19 July Lord Salisbury wrote to congratulate Chamberlain on his ‘great diplomatic success’.57 The letter crossed one of Chamberlain’s, modestly expressing the same view. It was a ‘triumph for moral pressure – accompanied by 9 special service officers and 3 batteries of artillery’.58 (In fact, there were ten of the former, and the latter had not yet been despatched.)59

  But it was not in Chamberlain’s (or, indeed, Salisbury’s) nature to slacken their hold on their adversary at the very moment they saw him weakening. There was still the possibility that Milner was right: Kruger’s new offer might be a mere sham to ‘bamboozle’ the British public. So it was agreed between Chamberlain and Salisbury that the diplomatic screw must be kept tight on Kruger until the details of the settlement were finally arranged. What precisely were to be the effects of the new seven-year franchise? How many of the Uitlanders would immediately be offered the vote? How many would take it? How would the new voting power be distributed in the Raad? These were the great imponderables. And Chamberlain insisted that a joint enquiry must be held to establish whether the new franchise would meet the principle of giving the Uitlanders ‘immediate and substantial’ representation.60

  It was a cool, rational way to end a century of wrangling between Britain and the Transvaal, and if Kruger had trusted Chamberlain it might easily have succeeded. In fact ‘Oom Paul’ was as suspicious of ‘Pushful Joe’ as ‘Pushful Joe’ was of ‘Oom Paul’. Despite the pleading of Hofmeyr and the Cape Afrikaners, Kruger gave no reply to Chamberlain’s proposal for an enquiry. In fact he had rejected it, claiming that it threatened his country’s independence.61 And as July passed into August, the air of uncertainty and deadlock drifted back into Downing Street, intensified by a summer heatwave.

  Meanwhile, for the first and last time that session, the House of Commons debated South Africa. It had always been an axiom of Chamberlain’s (and Salisbury’s) South African policy that it must be bipartisan. Although the coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Unionists could always count on a massive parliamentary majority, Chamberlain wanted the support, or at least the acquiescence, of enough of the centre and right-wing Liberals to avoid a division in the House. It was on these terms that the previous year’s Fashoda crisis had been handled. Parliament had presented a united front against French encroachment in the Upper Nile, and the French, with no army behind them, had backed down. Despite the renewed uncer
tainties about Kruger’s intentions, Chamberlain was still hoping that he could repeat the triumph of Fashoda on a larger scale in the Transvaal.62

  Hence in his speech to the Commons on 28 July, Chamberlain had a delicate task. He must rouse his own imperialist supporters, of course; and continue to keep up the pressure on Kruger. Yet he must also reassure the centre Liberals, led by Campbell-Bannerman. This was one of the chief reasons why the Cabinet had set its face against sending reinforcements to South Africa. For in early July, those fiery minutes of Wolseley’s – call out the 1st Army Corps and send out a first instalment of ten thousand men – had been circulated by Lansdowne among the Cabinet. Chamberlain himself was attracted to the idea of sending the ten thousand but the rest of the Cabinet, including Lansdowne, had rejected it. Whatever military weakness this policy entailed, it certainly gave Chamberlain the whip hand in the Commons. His speech was a triumph. He castigated Kruger for his ‘retrograde’ policy, for breaking the spirit, if not the letter, of the London Convention. He detailed once again the Uitlanders’ grievances. He warned the House that Britain had proved impotent in the past to secure redress for British subjects – as even the natives were aware. If this situation were allowed to continue it might cause ‘in the future many wars and be the prelude to something like national disaster’. Yet he insisted that his own aim was a peaceful settlement. He announced his new proposal for the joint enquiry. It was Kruger’s chance for peace with honour. Chamberlain begged Parliament to give him their support and convince Kruger that he must yield before it was too late. And Salisbury stood shoulder to shoulder with Chamberlain, echoing the solemn words: they had set ‘hands to the plough’. In reply, Campbell-Bannerman made no attempt to deny them Chamberlain’s case for the Uitlanders, and was not prepared to rule out war as a means of achieving redress. Thus opposition gave qualified support to Chamberlain’s policy. The debate ended without a division and the House broke up for its five-month holiday.63

  With Parliament out of the way, the Cabinet felt it could reconsider once again that tiresome business of military reinforcements for South Africa. Wolseley was still calling for ten thousand men, and Symons, the Natal commander, had raised his own estimate from two thousand to five thousand.64 On 2 August Lansdowne recommended a token reinforcement after all: a battalion of about a thousand men could be sent to South Africa from England or the Mediterranean; add three batteries of artillery already under orders to go to Natal as a relief, and shift five hundred men from the Cape, and the total of Natal reinforcements would then be two thousand troops. Wolseley naturally protested that a relief was not a reinforcement; they would have no horses, and, anyway, the numbers were ridiculously small to protect the whole colony of Natal. The Cabinet took no notice of Wolseley.65 The Cabinet was less happy with their Minister of War, however, when Lansdowne revealed a few days later that the War Office had at length worked out the contingency plan for putting the 1st Army Corps (that is, the British invasion force) on the Transvaal frontier. It would take four months, as matters stood – or three months, provided a million pounds’ worth of mules, carts, clothing and so on were ordered immediately.66 Lansdowne’s forecast of a four-month delay, when they would be on the defensive, left members of the Cabinet aghast. George Goschen wrote to say that the delay was ‘preposterous’. Fortunately, the Boers had not read Lansdowne’s ‘sickening’ document, or they might ‘make a dash at Natal’.

  How could Lansdowne have made such a hash of things?67 Salisbury, however, took the news more calmly. He had never doubted the ‘futility’ of the War Office. But, of course, it would be ‘uncivil’ to criticize them at the moment. The question was: should they now spend the extra million in order to cut the delay from four to three months? And Salisbury replied with his splendid sense of detachment,

  I think the wiser plan is not to incur any extra serious expenditure until it is quite clear that we are going to war. It may add slightly to the initial delay in the operations: but as I have said I do not think that slight addition will increase materially the scandal which will certainly be created by the conditions of our military preparations.68

  A few hours after Salisbury had written these lines, extraordinary news reached him from Chamberlain. There was ‘another climb-down on the part of Kruger’. And this time it seemed to be ‘really complete’.69 And so indeed it appeared. After a further battering from his Afrikaner friends in the Cape, Kruger had made an offer that went, on the face of it, beyond the Bloemfontein minimum: a five-year franchise, with other complicated concessions thrown in.70

  In the light of the ‘scandal’ of Lansdowne’s war preparations, this news was even more welcome to the Cabinet than it would have been otherwise. Salisbury had by now retired to his official country residence, Walmer Castle, for the summer. He sent Chamberlain renewed congratulations about Kruger’s climb-down. And he added a sideways thrust at Milner, who was, predictably, trying to frustrate the new offer. Milner, said Salisbury, seemed to have been ‘spoiling for the fight with some glee, and does not like putting his clothes on again’.71

  Peace descended on the great departments of state in Whitehall, and the heatwave continued. Balfour left for Scotland, to play golf and ride his bicycle;72 Lansdowne had already withdrawn to the estate he loved best, Dereen in Kerry; even there, in Ireland, the sun shone and the grey sand sparkled under the blue waters of the Kenmare River.73 Chamberlain retired to Highbury, where he could tend his beloved orchids. The nights were warm, and he and his young wife strolled in the garden, enchanted by the curious lines of the flowers in the light of the moon.74

  Peace flooded England at the end of August, in that last golden summer of the century. While in the South African winter, six thousand miles away, Milner saw hope at last – and the hope was war.

  CHAPTER 8

  Preparing for a Small War

  Cape Town, London and Natal,

  20 July – 7 October 1899

  ‘My own opinion is, as it has always been, that both Milner and the military authorities greatly exaggerate the risks of this campaign.’

  Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, to Sir Michael Hicks Beach, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 7 October 1899

  The ‘crisis may be regarded as ended’. Those were the appalling words Milner read in The Cape Times on 20 July, cabled from The Times in London and inspired by Chamberlain himself. A month of desperate wrangling followed. Then, on 19 August, the crisis seemed ‘ended’ once again; this time, Kruger, by seizing on the Bloemfontein minimum, the five-year franchise, really did seem to have made his peace with Chamberlain. The thought left Milner gasping. ‘Things seem to have been going badly in England during the last few days,’ he noted in his diary, ‘and the Raad is making further concessions at a very alarming rate.’1 What could be more alarming than the prospect of Kruger’s concessions leading to a settlement that he and every British South African were certain would prove to be a sham? ‘Very great feeling of depression,’ he wrote on 23 July, ‘as I can see no good is coming of the long struggle against S.A.R. misgovernment. British public opinion is going to be befooled and that is the long and short of it.’2

  And although Milner’s advice had at last been taken, and General Butler was to be sent home, there were no positive answers to his three military questions. No reinforcements had yet landed, not a soldier – except those ten special service officers.3

  Milner’s fears that he was going to be sacrificed by Chamberlain were scarcely relieved by a long and highly confidential letter he received in mid-July from Fleetwood Wilson, Lansdowne’s second most senior civil servant at the War Office. Fleetwood Wilson was a crony of his from Whitehall days, and shared his own view, so he said, about taking a firm line with Kruger. But he warned Milner not to rely on anyone in England for active support. England was ‘gorged’ by its overseas conquests, and there was ‘icy indifference’ to the Transvaal question. The City ‘only cares to make money and is anxious to patch [things] up’. Even if the City had back
ed him, it would prove a dangerous ally. The public at large felt a strong feeling of resentment towards ‘the Beits, Barnatos, [J. B.] Robinsons’ and other South African millionaires.

  Fleetwood Wilson added the cheery news that two ‘bigwigs’ (presumably one was Lansdowne) described Milner as ‘panicky’ after they had seen one of his recent telegrams. There was little hope of his getting ‘one single drummer’ sent out as a military reinforcement, for Chamberlain was ‘freely credited with an absolute resolve not to fight’, and Hicks Beach ‘curses if one extra penny is to be found’. Hence the advice that Fleetwood Wilson gave Milner was this: ‘Make up your own mind … and then stick to your design like grim death.’4

  This was already Milner’s policy. How to pursue it, that was the question. Chamberlain and the Cabinet had allowed the raging crisis to continue ever since Bloemfontein, and absolutely refused to follow his advice about the next step: to turn the military screw and send out the troops. While British ministers thus dragged their feet at home, at the Cape the ministers of the Crown appeared to have sided with the enemy.

  For Milner’s long wrangle with Schreiner and the Cape Afrikaners had now reached an acutely painful stage.5 Schreiner’s ministry at the Cape was, as we have seen, a child of the Raid: the result of Rhodes’s downfall, the humiliation of his Progressive Party, and the polarization of Cape politics along the lines of the two communities, Afrikaner and British. In fact, Schreiner himself belonged to neither community; his father had been a German immigrant. But he had married into the heart of Afrikanerdom, as his wife was a sister of Francis Reitz, the ex-President of the Free State now serving as the State Secretary of the Transvaal. It was Schreiner’s wife whom Milner now believed to be the main obstacle to converting Schreiner to his own way of thinking. ‘I have wrestled with the Devil,’ he was later to tell his friend Garrett, ‘for the soul of that man [Schreiner]…. But in the end I am only left with two-thirds of it (the Soul I mean), his Afrikander wife, Reitz’s sister retaining the other third.6