Diamonds Gold & War3
•Download as PPT, PDF•
2 likes•702 views
Anglo-Boer War - Part 3
![Diamonds, Gold & War 3 ,[object Object],[object Object],Presented at OLLI at Duke - Fall 2009](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/diamondsgoldwar3-091210090100-phpapp01/85/Diamonds-Gold-War3-1-320.jpg)
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Similar to Diamonds Gold & War3
Similar to Diamonds Gold & War3 (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Diamonds Gold & War3
- 2. Summary of last class: Rhodes and the Rand Lords had plotted, with Chamberlain’s knowledge, to instigate an uprising in Johannesburg by the Uitlanders, supported by 1500 troops led by Jameson. This happened in Dec. 1895 and it turned into a fiasco, - nonetheless English sentiment remained against the Boers, especially after the Kaiser’s telegram. Chamberlain believes the Boer Republics will “step down” under pressure and fulfill his ambition of a united South Africa under British rule.
- 3. Enter Sir Alfred Milner, 1 st Viscount Milner KG, GCB, GCMG, PC High Commissioner for Southern Africa Arriving in the Cape in May 1897
- 4. Who was Alfred Milner? He was … the key British Empire figure in the events leading up to and following the Boer War of 1898–1902 and, while serving as High Commissioner, is additionally noted for mentoring a gathering of young members of the South African Civil Service, informally known as Milner's Kindergarten who, in some cases, themselves became important figures in administering the British Empire.
- 5. Snidely Whiplash Just a little humor!
- 6. Milner & his staff in South Africa Note: Violet Cecil (standing)
- 7. The Fraser Meeting – 23 Dec 1898 Jan Smuts met with the acting British Agent (Ambassador) to the Transvaal, Edmund Fraser. Although Smuts was of the opinion that although there were differences, peace was yet possible; - General Butler, CoC South Africa, had implied that “South Africa needs no surgical operations, it needs rest and peace …. However, in the meeting Edmunds launched into an extraordinary outburst ……
- 8. The Uitlander situation was in an uproar … mass meetings were being held in many towns A young Englishman named Edgar had been shot by a “trigger-happy” Zarp! A colored woman had been “assaulted” in her home and lost her baby … The Uitlanders were going to petition the British Government to intervene! See – A Century of Wrong - Reitz
- 9. “ Working up Steam” Milner “pulled out all the plugs”, with help from FitzPatrick and others they kept up the pressure – in the press and in continued mass meetings. Rhodes and the other “gold bugs” were not happy about this – it disrupted gold production. Chamberlain also kept working up pressure in the British Parliament. He prepared a “Blue Book” – a collection of all the “damning” evidence against the Afrikaners
- 10. The ‘Helot’ despatch Chamberlain wanted more ‘ammunition’ for his Blue Book which he was preparing to submit to Parliament – he requested Milner to give him more information. This is what Milner had been waiting for ….
- 11. On the 9 th May Parliament met – later that day Milner received a cable; ‘ The despatch is approved. We have adopted your suggestion’ However – A fortnight later Hofmeyr and Schreiner, leaders of the Cape Afrikaners, intervened with a proposal that Kruger and Milner meet to try and resolve their differences. President Steyn offered Bloemfontein as a meeting place. The Blue Book, and Helot despatch had not been made public much to Milner’s dismay. Nonetheless ……
- 12. Paul Kruger “ Oom Paul” Kruger Museum - Pretoria
- 13. The Bloemfontein Conference 31 May – 5 June 1898 Kruger had offered concessions but Milner did all he could to poison Chamberlain and the British press against accepting them.
- 15. With the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference Milner was now able to turn up “the war screw!”
- 18. ‘ It is perhaps not altogether remarkable under the circumstances described [the war inside the British War Office] that no plan of campaign ever existed for operations in South Africa.’ Report of the Royal Commission on the South African War (1903) Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne.
- 19. Field Marshal Lord Roberts Field Marshal Lord Wolseley
- 20. General Redvers Buller Commander in Chief British Army General George White
- 21. Kruger became convinced that Chamberlain was bent on war while Chamberlain was assured by Milner that Kruger would “climb down when faced with the mouth of a cannon.” On Sept 1 st President Steyn went to Pretoria on a last ditch effort to try to get Kruger to change his mind. But, by Sept 2 nd , like Chamberlain at the same time, Kruger reached his breaking point.
- 22. ‘ South Africa stands on the eve of a frightful bloodbath out of which our folk shall come . . . either as hewers of wood and drawers of water for a hated race, or as victors, founders of a United South Africa, one of the great empires of the world... An Afrikaner republic in South Africa stretching from Table Bay to the Zambezi.’ Jan Smut’s secret memorandum for the Transvaal Executive, 4 September 1899
- 23. Sept 8, 1899 the British Cabinet makes decision to “Press the Button” and send 8000 reinforcements to South Africa On Sept 22 they pressed the “second button” – the decision to send the Army Corps – On Sept 25 spy’s reported that the British were moving north to Dundee
- 26. Her Majesty’s Government to comply within 48 hrs or the South African Republic would “with great regret be compelled to regard the action as a formal declaration of war.” And so it began ….
- 27. And ever since historian writ, And ever since a bard could sing, Doth each exalt with all his wit, The noble art of murdering. Thackeray, ‘The Chronicle of the Drum’.
Editor's Notes
- Welcome comments Brenda Rosen - class assistant Brenda announcements Names - just call ‘em out Emails - periodic - any objections? Let me know - what about those without email? Weekly handouts Bibliography Glossary of terms - Intro to Afrikaans
- We saw how the British Empire had grown to be the richest and strongest nation on earth. How the discovery of diamonds and gold had made South Africa a key area for Britain's domain, if they could incorporate the Boer Republics . The region was controlled by Britain with the exception of the two Boer republics – Orange Free State and the Transvaal. Natal and the Cape colony remained British although many Afrikaners lived in the Cape. The attraction of gold in Johannesburg had led to a huge influx of “foreigners” known as Uitlanders who were now agitating for citizenship in the Transvaal. President Kruger of the Transvaal and the Boers resisted this as they could see that these Uitlanders would soon outnumber the Boers and take control of the Transvaal. It was a given that the Orange Free State would also follow the TvL’s outcome as they could not survive alone. Whether this would then lead to it becoming another British colony or a semi-autonomous British dominion depended on whether Chamberlain or Rhodes prevailed. After the failure of The Raid it was obviously moving in Chamberlains direction. Following the Raid and the inquiries in London, Parliament and Chamberlain made some changes in the Cape – the most significant of which is appointing Sir Alfred Milner as High Commissioner for Southern Africa
- Sir Alfred Milner reached the Cape in May 1897 and after the difficulties with President Kruger over the Aliens' Law had been patched up, he was free by August to make himself personally acquainted with the country and peoples before deciding on the lines of policy to be adopted. Between August 1897 and May 1898 he travelled through Cape Colony, the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Rhodesia and Basutoland. The better to understand the point of view of the Cape Dutch and the burghers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, Milner also during this period learned both Dutch and the South African "Taal". He came to the conclusion that there could be no hope of peace and progress in South Africa while there remained the "permanent subjection of British to Dutch in one of the Republics".
- More interestingly as a person I find him quite strange – He was part German, his mother was English and his father a half-German medical student when Alfred was born in Giessen – near Frankfurt. He was raised between England and Germany, his mother died when he was 15 and he was sent to school in England. He excelled in school, winning a senior scholarship to Oxford – he entered politics as private secretary to Goschen, Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer – he rose rapidly and after serving as Chairman of Inland Revenue, Chamberlain promoted him to High Commissioner, responsible for British Colonies in South Africa. Milner, he himself confessed, could not see two sides to the imperial question. In his eyes the nineteenth century in South Africa was a century of struggle for supremacy between Britain and Boer-and of abysmal blunders from the imperial standpoint. Following the Raid, Chamberlain and Milner met – afterwards – Pakenham continues; ‘Milner returned to his chambers in Duke Street with the result of his mission to see Chamberlain, an apparent anti-climax. Yet Milner was not depressed. He had taken a hint from Joe-from one of those nods and winks-that London's 'no-war policy' did not tie Cape Town's or Johannesburg's hands. To 'get things "forrarder" by my own actions', was how he described his policy after the interview, It was in South Africa that a way of working up to the crisis must be found.
- Dudley Doolittle Far from being a cartoon character, Milner was a very powerful and influential man. He had friends in “high places” in both parties – and he played his cards very carefully. When he lived in London he had a secret lady friend – Cecile. whose lodgings in Brixton were paid for by him. The story of this strange affair has never been told - even hinted at. A careful scrutiny of Milner's unpublished diary shows that Milner had set up Cecile in a house near, but not too near, his bachelor chambers at Duke Street. It was an ardent friendship that had lasted at least nine years already, and cost Milner about a quarter (at an average of £450) of his free income. Together they bicycled over the South Downs; went punting on the Thames, staying Friday to Monday at a hotel Marlow; they played piquet and whist when he came to stay in her lodgings. The obvious rule had to be kept: Cecile never came to his chambers, let alone met him in public. Apparently she never met one of friends. Milner's diary makes it clear that his friendship with Cecile was one of the dominant themes of his life, even during that working holiday in England in the first week of December )(1898?) -the busiest phase of his English tour, when he was only able to snatch a few hours successively with Chamberlain at Birmingham, with Salisbury at Hatfield, and with Queen Victoria at Windsor - Milner vanished into the blue on a six-day bicycling trip with Cecile.
- On 4 May 1898 Milner penned a memorable despatch to the Colonial Office, in which he insisted that the remedy for the unrest in the Transvaal was to strike at the root of the evil---the political impotence of the injured. "It may seem a paradox," he wrote, "but it is true that the only way for protecting our subjects is to help them to cease to be our subjects." (In other words – help them become citizens of the Transvaal) The policy of leaving things alone only led from bad to worse, and "the case for intervention is overwhelming." Milner felt that only the enfranchisement of the Uitlanders in the Transvaal would give stability to the South African situation. He had not based his case against the Transvaal on the letter of the Conventions, and regarded the employment of the word "suzerainty" merely as an "etymological question," but he realized keenly that the spectacle of thousands of British subjects in the Transvaal in the condition of "helots" (as he expressed it) was undermining the prestige of Great Britain throughout South Africa, and he called for "some striking proof" of the intention of the British government not to be ousted from its predominant position. Note: Violet Cecil was the wife of Major Lord Edward Cecil – son of the Prime Minister. She became a close companion to Milner, staying with him at Groote Schuur later. He called her “a godsend!.” They were eventually married after her husband was killed at Mafeking
- Fraser: 'We have now sat still for two years because our own officials put us a false position in the Raid. The time has now come to take action.’ Smuts: 'Action? Could you explain what you mean?’. Fraser: ‘Well, You see. Gladstone made a great mistake in handing you back the Transvaal after Majuba and before defeating your army. It encouraged your idea of a great Afrikaner republic throughout South Africa. If you ask my opinion the time has come for us to end this nonsense by striking a blow. We’ve got to show who’s the boss in South Africa . . . . Smuts: 'But, whatever would give you occasion for this?' Fraser: ‘England's fed up with the maladministration in this country, and especially with the ill-treatment of British subjects. This is the point on which England will take action. I know perfectly well that England won't go to war over abstract subjects like suzerainty – that means nothing to the man in the street. She’ll go to war about the things that everyone can understand . . . Go to war - Smuts was left gasping by the interview.
- The Edgar story – voetsak – the fight – the police arrive – Edgar had been drinking and hated the Zarps – the Police broke open the door and Edgar attacked one of the Zarps – named Jones!! Jones shot Edgar – killing him. It only takes a pebble to start an avalanche. My research into our great granddad (Johannes Christoffel Dissel), reveals his part in starting the Anglo Boer War! Now that I have got your attention, I felt you may be interested in my research thus far, although it does not cast him in a very good light. From the Pakenham book on the Boer War as well as the the book by F W Reitz, we know that an incident occurred in 1899 which Milner informed Chamberlain about, who in turn debated it in the British House of Commons. The incident became known as the Lombard Incident. In summary, a Field Cornet Lombard accompanied by several policeman forced their way into the home of a Coloured man, demanding to see his pass. In the fracas, a pregnant woman was assaulted and she then lost her child. Milner made a strong protest on the basis that the Coloured was a British subject, and deserved British protection. This incident together with the Edgar case were two motivators used by Milner to gain the support of the British Government (and the public) to mounting hostilities on the ZAR. In the early part of 1899, JCD applied for citizenship to the Zuid Afrika Republik, and in the 18 page file, we on several occasions come across Field Cornet Lombard's involvement in the application, per the attached example. Anyway the application was successful. (Two other signatories of interest are von Brandis and Reitz. ) After the war, JCD seeks compensation from the British authorities for money and cattle that were lost as a result of the death of his son, Barend Johannes Dissel who was killed in action near Lichtenberg. On one page of this application, in a statement, JCD states that he had been a police superintendent in charge of passes before the war! Relevant page attached. JCD joined the Johannesburg Commando at the outbreak of hostilities, but was captured at the Battle of Elandslaagte, three days later! I received the attached entry from the Anglo Boer War museum, and was amazed to see who he was serving under! - Field Cornet Lombard!
- TBW pg 52 – 53 The Uitlanders formed an “Uitlander Parliament” – mainly to attract more attention and they submitted a Second petition begging for British intervention. They began pushing for “franchise first” and they wanted it retroactively.
- (Pg 54) - It was the chance that Milner had been waiting for. Not for nothing had he once been the Assistant Editor of The Pall Mall Gazette. A few days later he cabled back one of the most flamboyant dispatches ever sent by a Viceroy, One that came to be known as the 'Helot Dispatch’. “The case for intervention is overwhelming. . . . The spectacle of thousands of British subjects kept permanently in the position of helots . . . Calling vainly to Her Majesty’s Government for redress. . . A ceaseless stream of malignant lies about the intentions of the British government’. For months Milner had been longing to rub 'some vitriol' into one of his public dispatches; but the part he had been forced to play had precluded it. Now, it was his job to 'break the crockery', as he told Philip Gell, even if it would seem a strange metamorphosis for the ‘calm and conciliatory diplomatist' to be the 'firebrand' spurring the British public to action. He saw no choice. Everything depended on arousing the public ---on 'stiffening the wobblers', as he put it. He alone could do the job. By nailing his own colours to the mast, he would also nail the government to his own policy.
- So Parliament had agreed to intervene – peacefully at present – on the side of the Uitlanders
- Chamberlain had called Kruger an ‘ignorant, dirty, cunning’ old man. Foreigners consistently underrated Kruger. It was partly a matter of style. The massive frame, the puffy features, half-covered by a mat of grey hair, had their counterpart in the gruff voice and the strange syntax. Here was the epitome, of the peasant, one of Brueghel's rustics escaped from the sixteen century; ‘an ugly customer' indeed (as Disraeli once called him in private) at the helm of government. In many ways he was crude – he did not possess Joubert’s European “finesse” Kruger often said too much before he said a sentence. He was born somewhere in the Cape in 1825 he was raised by his Trekboer parents and only read one book – the Bible. He believed the earth was flat and that the Boers were the people of the book, chosen by the Lord. And that the rooineks (English) deserved to be damned. He was headstrong and autocratic and tactless. One of his political opponents once described the extraordinary methods he used to woo the opposition: 'First he argues with me and, if that is no good, he gets into a rage and jumps round the room roaring at me like a wild beast. . . And if I do not give in then he fetches out the Bible and ... he even quotes that to help him out. And if all that fails he takes me by the hand and cries like a child and begs and prays me to give in. ... Say, old friend, who can resist a man like that?’ In 1895 his influence in the Transvaal government was waning and the Progressives, led by Joubert were close to taking over – change was happening. Then Jameson Raid literally rescued him.
- Read TBW pg 60 Also Chamberlain on pg 65 – also Milner to Selborne
- Milner made three demands, which he knew could not be accepted by Kruger: The enactment by the Transvaal of a franchise law which would at once give the "Uitlanders" the vote; Use of English in the Transvaal parliament and; That all laws of the parliament should be vetted and approved by the British parliament. Realizing the untenability of his position, Kruger left saying “it’s our country that you want!.” Kruger still did not trust Chamberlain – although Chamberlain really did not want go to war. Smuts also believed that keeping pressure on Milner may result in his recall to London although he saw parallels with the situation when Britain had annexed the TvL in 1877.
- ” Specifically, Milner wanted the War Office to replace General Butler (who was moderate re-SA) as Commander-in-Chief. He also wanted some competent officers sent out to organize the Cape border towns, like Mafeking and Kimberley. He also wanted an overwhelming force-the exact number was for military experts to decide, but he thought it might be as high as ten thousand men – pushed up into the dangerous northern triangle of Natal, where General Colley had come to grief at Majuba, both to frustrate a Boer attack and to prove 'irresistible' as a political lever. Unless they took the right military precautions 'before the crash', they might find themselves involved in not only a biggish war, but much civil dissension afterwards', However, he maintained ‘in spite of all those alarms and excursions, that if we are perfectly determined we shall win without a war or with a mere apology for one’ (Milner was well aware that moving British troops up into the triangle would provoke Kruger to retaliate with war.)
- The British War Office was in disarray as we shall see in a minute – these questions were crucial and there was not much consensus on how to answer them. However, Wolseley proposed mobilizing the Army Brigade - pg 68
- Milner’s point was that there were only about 8,000 British troops in the Cape and Natal – many more would be needed and where were they going to be posted. He tried to get the the Cape Parliament to agree to moving troops to Kimberly and Mafeking but they refused fearing this would provoke the Boers
- The Secretary of State for War was Lord Lansdowne. He “was an epitome of the mid-Victorian virtues - the victory of education over breeding, and of character over both (of priggery, so to speak, over Whiggery). He had triumphed over all his advantages.” Pakenham see’s him as a great procrastinator – “his own Cabinet colleagues regarded the War Office with a kind of amused contempt, as though war was not a serious subject-or could be left to the generals to quarrel over.” Whig – monarchist Priggery - A person who demonstrates an exaggerated conformity or propriety, especially in an irritatingly arrogant or smug manner.
- The War Office was a minor, messy place that consisted of a row of building that had been tied together. A “war” raged inside between the two senior Generals; Roberts (Indian) and Wolseley (African) rings. Field Marshal Lord Roberts was famous for his 41 years of service in India and was C in C Ireland, while Wolseley was C in C of the British Army. They constantly fought each other and each had his own “ring” of supporters. This caused some major mistakes to be made in strategy for the Boer War. Garnet Wolseley was also the inspiration behind the celebrated Gilbert and Sullivan character "Major-General Stanley" (from The Pirates of Penzance), who was " ... the very model of a modern Major-General ...". Frederick Roberts was a distinguished Anglo-Irish soldier and one of the most successful commanders of the Victorian era. He was affectionately known as 'Bobs' by the troops he commanded.
- Key Generals = Buller an “African” and White an “Indian” Wolseley was at daggers drawn with Lansdowne, Buller cold-shouldered by Wolseley, White isolated from both, and the Intelligence Department knew nothing of the enemy. Small wonder that when White sailed for Natal in mid September, he had no inkling of what lay ahead, and stumbled straight into the strategic trap laid by the Boers. Scramble pg 562 “If there was going to be …..”
- The gap which remained to be bridged at the end of August was actually small enough. Chamberlain's terms dating from Bloemfontein still on the table. If Kruger gave an unconditional five-year franchise to the Uitlanders, Chamberlain had promised to call it a day. Or Chamberlain was prepared to accept a seven-year franchise, coupled with a joint enquiry to guarantee its good faith. By the end of August, the pressures on Kruger to make one or other of these concessions had reached a climax. Smuts's patron in the Cape, Jan Hofmeyr, strongly criticized the conditional five-year offer they had finally made: 'You gave too much and you asked too much.' To have offered concessions in 'bits and pieces', and to have given the impression they were 'extorted' had ruined their effect on British public opinion. Such was the advice of Kruger's political allies. Their judgment, it seems today, was absolutely correct. If Kruger had accepted it, a settlement would surely have followed. Lord Salisbury, Hicks Beach and Balfour would have seized on the compromise. Chamberlain would have agreed (as Selborne ruefully admitted to Milner). No one-not even, Milner-could have prevented peace if Kruger had compromised. Here lay the underlying tragedy of the war; the narrowness of the margin by which the peace was lost. Pg 101 TBW
- Milner “greatly relieved” by these decisions General Butler to be replaced by General Redvers Buller – CinC British army The 8,000 reinforcements came from India – white seasoned troops. An “Army corps” was about 30,000 troops, plus cavalry and artillery, however it was soon found that the Army corps was by no means ready – it was estimated that it would take at least four months to prepare and get the the men to South Africa – Chamberlain and Salisbury where furious on hearing this – Wolseley wanted £1,000,000 to reduce the time by 1 month.
- Orientation map Dundee is adjacent to Glencoe
- The terms of the ultimatum, drafted it seems, by Smuts, were absolutely uncompromising. It accused Britain of breaking the London Convention of 1884 by interfering in the internal affairs of the Transvaal (that is, by taking up the Uitlanders' case) and by massing troops against it. It demanded that Britain should give the Transvaal immediate assurances on four crucial points. First, to agree to arbitration on 'all points of mutual difference'; second, that the British troops 'on the borders of this Republic shall be instantly withdrawn'; third, that all British reinforcements that had arrived after 1 June should be withdrawn from South Africa; fourth, that 'Her Majesty's troops which are now on the high seas shall not be landed in any port of South Africa'.
- And unless HMG complied within forty-eight hours, the government of the South African Republic (Transvaal) would “with great regret be compelled to regard the action as a formal declaration of war.” No wonder Ambassador Greene was astounded. This was not the voice of Kruger, of the exhausted old man who had said at Bloemfontein, 'It is our country you want.' This was something much more virile and dangerous. It was the voice of David as he took his sling to smite Goliath. News of the ultimatum reached London on the day it expired. Outrage and laughter were the main responses. The editor of the Times laughed out loud when he read it, saying 'an official document is seldom amusing and useful yet this was both'. The Times denounced the ultimatum as an 'extravagant farce', The Globe denounced this 'trumpery little state'. Most editorials were similar to the Daily Telegraph, which declared: 'of course there can only be one answer to this grotesque challenge. Kruger has asked for war and war he must have!'. Click - many said that Kruger had fallen into the trap set by Milner – maybe so!
- 3 Minutes!! Some British Propaganda -