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(Left) General
Cronje, who
captured the
J
a-m
e s (')
n
,
THE BOER WAR:
The Failure
of
the
Jameson
Raid
The captured Jameson raiders being led offby Boer- commandos. On December
29, 1895,
Jameson led about
600
mounted men into the Transvaal, hoping to link
up
with discon–
tented non-Boer groups. But the Boers were readyJor him, and four days later he was
rait;lirs.
compelled
to,
surrender at Dornkoop. His raid
made
eventual .war almost certain.
unitY slowly by other means; But the numbered the Boerpopulation by fout
discovery of the world's richest gold
to
one, and contributed 95 per cent. of
fields on the Witwatersrand in
1886
the public revenue. They shattered the
made the Transvaal the ecQnomic heart pastoral
calm
of the Transvaal. They
of South
Africa.
It brought a rush of brought the natives into the towns to
settlers, gold-diggers, miners,
busin~s-
work on their mines and factories. But
men, industrialists,
firi3nclers,.
from
all
they were under the government of
ov~r
:aurope. '
/
it
group of men who hated foreiiwers,
Soon they swamped the Rand, out- suspected their
designs,
disliked. their
methods, and were
determin~
to with–
hold from them every possible political
privilege while taking 'from them every
possible penny.
President and virtual dictator of the
Transval!i was Paul Kruger, a
man
of
immense ' strength and
~pability,
but
with narrow outlook igld some rapa–
ciousness'. As a boy of ten, he had
--~------~~------~------------~------
accompanied
his
parents on the Great
Trek.
And he had not forgiven the
English who had squeezed them out of
the Cape. It
was
Kruger's
~
thm:
Britain, with, the help, perhaps, of
h~
Continen~
rivals, could
be
driven
o~t
of South: Africa. In the
meantim~,
he
was determined to make life for the
British and other UitIaD.ders in the
Transvaal
as
unc<lmfortable as he Could.
By their victory at Majuba in
1881-
dealt with
U:t
a previous article in
this
, series-the Dutch Republics had won
independence from Britain. Even the
British Crown's suzerainty over their
right to make treaties with ot:iter nations
was challengea\>le.
This
indepei Idence
Kruger
used
to
harm
British interests in
the gold-miping Rand. The Rand
population,
~early
all foreignerS, were
denied effective voting rights, and even
the right of municipal self-government
in Johannesburg, their capital. They
paid heavy taxes, and Kruger's
syst~m
of
granting
monopolies in/ essential
materials such
!IS
4ynamite, in liquor
and in
coal
transport, cost them a lot of
money. Yet they were not even allowed
to hold Wblic meetings out of doors,
and English was banned in law courts
and schools. ,
To meet
these
~ps,
the Rand
industrialists formed a Natiorial Union
for reform. They got no satisfaction
from Kruger. And soon it became
evident that the reform movement in
the Transvaal, liiilting up with Rhodes's
~~~~
expansionism in the Cape and with the
growing Imperial feeling in Britain, was
likely to lead to a clash with the Boer
Republics.
A
Typical Boer Detachment of October, 1899
In October
1899,
war broke out between the Boer Republics and Britain. In the first stage of the war, the Boers
had the advantage. They held interior lines of communication, were more mobile, and were well supplied with light
36
arms and ammunition. But they lacked heavy artillery.
In
1895,
war
was made
certain
by that
piece offolly and bad faith on the part of
Rhodes and the Imperialists known as
itIf
J~ei0l! ~d·c
1:h«ri'i plotted .an
armrd mvaslOn ofth'e 'fransvaal, to
link
non-Boer
lKalaa\1,lm.a'oIOtll~t
Kruger's
officials in