In sending this book to press I have only two remarks to make by way of preface. The first is wholly personal. It has been my good fortune to reside twice for a considerable period in South Africa—first in the neighbourhood of Capetown (1883-5), and afterwards in Johannesburg (1904-5). During these periods of residence, and also during the long interval between them, I have been brought into personal contact with many of the principal actors in the events which are related in this book. While, t

DOWNING STREET AND THE MAN ON THE SPOT The failure of British administration in South Africa during the nineteenth century forms a blemish upon the record of the Victorian era that is at first sight difficult to understand. If success could be won in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, in India and in Egypt, why failure in South Africa? For failure it was. A century of wars, missionary effort, British expansion, industrial development, of lofty administrative ideals and great men sacrificed, had

THE CREED OF THE AFRIKANDER NATIONALISTS [16] Carl Borckenhagen. In the face of the colossal resistance offered to the British arms by the Boers and their colonial kinsmen in the South African War, it may seem unnecessary to produce any evidence in support of the contention that the military strength then displayed by the Dutch in South Africa was the result of long and careful preparation. But the same inability to grasp the facts of the South African situation which kept the Army Corps in Engl

A YEAR OF OBSERVATION Sir Alfred Milner. Lord Rosmead retired early in 1897. It is said that three men so different in character as Lord Salisbury, Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. Stead, each separately fixed upon the same name as being that of the man most capable of undertaking the position of High Commissioner in South Africa—a position always difficult, but now more than ever arduous and responsible. To nine out of every ten men with whom he had been brought into contact there was little in Sir Alf

UNDER WHICH FLAG? The Uitlanders' petition. Upon his return Lord Milner found that the storm clouds had gathered in the Transvaal. In a despatch of January 13th, 1899, Mr. Chamberlain had informed the Pretoria Executive that the proposed extension of the dynamite contract in its new form ( i.e. as, in effect, a "privileged importation by one firm," although nominally "a State undertaking") was held by the law officers of the Crown to be as much a violation of the Convention as the original monop

PLAYING FOR TIME On June 8th, 1899, Mr. Chamberlain declared in the House of Commons, that with the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference, a "new situation" had arisen. If the Imperial Government had translated this remark into action, the South African War would have been less disastrous, less protracted, and less costly. But the same order of considerations which prevented the Salisbury Cabinet from recalling General Butler in June, caused it to withhold its sanction from the preparations adv

THE ULTIMATUM The British people were destined to pay a heavy penalty for the ignorance and irresolution that caused them to withhold, from June to September, the mandate without which the Government was unable to prepare for war. What that penalty was will be made sufficiently clear when we come to consider the position of grave disadvantage in which the British forces designated for the South African campaign were placed at the outbreak of the war. For the moment it is enough to notice that, j

THE FALL OF THE REPUBLICS With the presentation of the Boer ultimatum the first and most difficult part of Lord Milner's task was accomplished. The actual pretensions of President Krüger and his republican confederates in the Free State and the Cape Colony were declared in a manner that could not fail to make them understood by the British people at home. The nationalists were unmasked. To what assurance of victory their military preparations had led them may be seen from the story of Mr. Amery'

THE REBELLION IN THE CAPE COLONY The direct share which Lord Milner took in the skilful disposition of the handful of British troops available at the outbreak of the war for the defence of the north-eastern frontier of the Cape Colony has been mentioned. The part which he played during the first period of the war in his relationship to the military authorities is sufficiently indicated by the words which appear in Lord Roberts's final despatch. "This despatch," writes the Commander-in-Chief on A

THE "CONCILIATION" MOVEMENT The correspondence forwarded to the Colonial Office during the first half of the year 1900 by Lord Milner, and presented to the House of Commons in time for the Settlement debate of July 25th, furnishes a complete record of the origin of the "conciliation" movement. The whole of this interesting and significant collection of documents is worthy of attention; but all that can be done here is to direct the notice of the reader to one or two of its more salient features—

THE DISARMAMENT OF THE DUTCH POPULATION The new year (1901) opened with a full revelation of the magnitude of the task which lay before the Imperial troops. Lord Roberts had frankly recognised that the destruction of the Governments and organised armies of the Republics would be followed by the more difficult and lengthy task of disarming the entire Boer population within their borders. "Recent events have convinced me," he wrote from Pretoria on October 10th, 1900, "that the permanent tranquill

PREPARING FOR PEACE We have already noticed that arrangements were made in October, 1900, under which the High Commissionership was to be separated from the Governorship of the Cape Colony in order that Lord Milner might be free to undertake the work of administrative reconstruction in the new colonies. In pursuance of this decision of the Home Government, Lord Milner became Administrator of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony upon the departure of Lord Roberts (November 29th, 1900); but circu

THE SURRENDER OF VEREENIGING The gold industry re-started. With the beginning of the year 1902, the question of the ultimate submission of the Boers had become a matter of months, or even weeks. The guerilla leaders had been beaten at their own game. In spite of the extension of the area of the war, the terrorising of the peaceably inclined burghers, the co-operation of the Afrikander nationalists, and the encouragement derived from Boer sympathisers in England, the most important districts of t