The Boer Wars - Personalities - Second Boer War

Joseph Chamberlain, the son of a shopkeeper, was born in London 1836. After being educated at University College School he became a successful businessman in Birmingham. A member of the Liberal Party he became involved in local politics and in 1868 was elected as a town councillor. Chamberlain became mayor in 1873 and for the next three years introduced a series of social reforms. The council's acquisition of land and public utilities and the pioneering slum-clearance schemes, made Chamberlain a national political figure.

Chamberlain was extremely popular in Birmingham, and was elected unopposed in a parliamentary election held in 1876. Chamberlain soon made his mark in the House of Commons and after the 1880 General Election, William Gladstone appointed Chamberlain as President of the Board of Trade.

In 1885 General Election Chamberlain was seen as the leader of the Radicals with his calls for land reform, housing reform and higher taxes on the rich. However, he was also a strong supporter of Imperialism, and resigned from Gladstone's cabinet over the issue of Irish Home Rule. This action helped to bring down the Liberal government. Chamberlain now became leader of the Liberal Unionists and in 1886 he formed an alliance with the Conservative Party. As a result, Marquess of Salisbury, gave him the post of Colonial Secretary in his government. Chamberlain was therefore primarily responsible for British policy during the Boer War.

In September 1903, Joseph Chamberlain resigned from office so that he would be free to advocate his scheme of tariff reform. Chamberlain wanted to transform the British Empire into a united trading block. According to Chamberlain, preferential treatment should be given to colonial imports and British companies producing goods for the home market should be given protection from cheap foreign goods. The issue split the Conservative Party and in the 1906 General Election the Liberal Party, who supported free trade, had a landslide victory.

Chamberlain was struck down by a stroke in 1906 and took no further part in politics. Joseph Chamberlain, whose son Neville Chamberlain also became a leading figure in politics, died in 1914.

[Source: Spartacus School Net]

Jameson Raid

In November 1895, a piece of territory of strategic importance, the Pitsani Strip, part of the Bechuanaland Protectorate and bordering the Transvaal, was ceded to the British South Africa Company by the Colonial Office, overtly for the protection of a railway running through the territory. Cecil Rhodes, the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony and managing director of the Company was eager to bring South Africa under British dominion, and encouraged the disenfranchised Uitlanders of the Boer republics to resist Afrikaner domination. Rhodes hoped that the intervention of the Company's private army could spark an Uitlander uprising, leading to the overthrow of the Transvaal government. Rhodes' forces were assembled in the Pitsani Strip for this purpose. Chamberlain informed Salisbury on Boxing Day that an uprising was expected, and was aware that an invasion would be launched, but was not sure when. The subsequent Jameson Raid was a debacle, leading to the invading force's surrender. Chamberlain, at Highbury, received a secret telegram from the Colonial Office on 31 December informing him of the beginning of the Raid. Sympathetic to the ultimate goals of the Raid, Chamberlain was uncomfortable with the timing of the invasion and remarked that "if this succeeds it will ruin me. I'm going up to London to crush it". He swiftly travelled by train to the Colonial Office, ordering Sir Hercules Robinson, Governor-General of the Cape Colony, to repudiate the actions of Jameson and warned Rhodes that the Company's Charter would be in danger if it was discovered that the Cape Prime Minister was involved in the Raid. The prisoners were returned to London for trial, and the Transvaal government received considerable compensation from the Company. During the trial of Jameson, Rhodes' solicitor, Bourchier Hawksley, refused to produce cablegrams that had passed between Rhodes and his agents in London during November and December 1895. According to Hawksley, these demonstrated that the Colonial Office 'influenced the actions of those in South Africa' who embarked on the Raid, and even that Chamberlain had transferred control of the Pitsani Strip to facilitate an invasion. Nine days before the Raid, Chamberlain had asked his Assistant Under-Secretary to encourage Rhodes to 'Hurry Up' because of the deteriorating Venezuelan situation.[4]

In June 1896, Chamberlain offered his resignation to Salisbury, having shown the Prime Minister one or more of the cablegrams implicating him in the Raid's planning. Salisbury refused to accept the offer, possibly reluctant to lose the government's most popular figure. Salisbury reacted aggressively in support of Chamberlain, supporting the Colonial Secretary's threat to withdraw the Company's charter if the cablegrams were revealed. Accordingly, Rhodes refused to reveal the cablegrams, and as no evidence was produced showing that Chamberlain was complicit in the Raid's planning, the Select Committee appointed to investigate the events surrounding the Raid had no choice but to absolve Chamberlain of all responsibility.

South Africa

The growing wealth of the Transvaal was the cause of concern to the British government, and in particular, to Chamberlain. Having long wished for the federation of South Africa under the British crown, it appeared that the commercial attraction of the Transvaal would ensure that any future union of Southern African states would be as a Boer dominated republic outside the British Empire. Chamberlain sought to use the disenfranchised Uitlanders in the Transvaal and Orange Free State as a means by which to bring British domination over the Boer republics. By successfully pushing for Uitlanders' civil rights, British influence in the governance of the Boer republics would markedly increase, thereby warding off the prospect of Afrikaner supremacy in South Africa. Twinned with the strategy of championing the Uitlanders was the steady exertion of military pressure. In April 1897, Chamberlain asked the Cabinet to increase the British garrison in South Africa by three to four thousand men – consequently, the quantity of British forces in the area grew over the next two years. The government appointed Sir Alfred Milner to the posts of High Commissioner and Governor-General of the Cape in August 1897 to pursue the issue more decisively. Within a year, Milner concluded that war with the Transvaal was inevitable, and he worked with Chamberlain to publicise the cause of the Uitlanders to the British people. A meeting between President Kruger and Milner at Bloemfontein in May 1899 failed to resolve the Uitlander problem - Kruger's concessions were considered inadequate by Milner, and the Boers left the conference convinced that the British were determined to settle the future of South Africa by force. By now, British public opinion was fully supportive of a war in support of the Uitlanders, allowing Chamberlain to successfully press for further troop reinforcements. By the beginning of October 1899, nearly 20,000 British troops were based in the Cape and Natal, with thousands more en route. On 9 October, the Transvaal sent an ultimatum demanding that British troops be withdrawn from her frontiers, and that any forces destined for South Africa be turned back. When the British government rejected the ultimatum, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State declared war on 12 October.

Boer War: early defeat and false dawn

The early months of the war were disastrous for Britain. Boer commandos besieged the towns of Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberley, and ten thousand Cape Afrikaner rebels joined the Boers in fighting the British. In mid-December 1899, during 'Black Week', the British Army suffered reverses at Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso. In private, Chamberlain was critical of the British Army's military performance and was often vexed by the attitude of the War Office. When the Boers bombarded Ladysmith with Creusot ninety-four pounder siege guns, Chamberlain pushed for the dispatch of comparable artillery to the theatre of war, but was exasperated by the Secretary of State for War, Lord Lansdowne's argument that such weapons required platforms that needed a year of preparation, even though the Boers operated their 'Long Tom' without elaborate mountings. Chamberlain was also prominent in stiffening the country's resolve amidst the British Army's early defeats by making a number of speeches to reassure the public. Furthermore, he worked to strengthen bonds between Britain and the self-governing colonies, gratefully taking receipt of imperial contingents from Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In particular, the contributions of mounted men from the settler colonies helped fill the British Army's shortfall in mounted infantry, vital in fighting the mobile Boers. Showing further sensitivity to the colonies, Chamberlain steered the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act through the House of Commons, hoping that the newly established federation would adopt a positive attitude towards imperial trade and fighting the war. Wishing to reconcile the British and Afrikaner populations of the Cape, Chamberlain was resistant to Milner's desire to suspend the constitution of the colony, a move that would have given Milner autocratic powers. Chamberlain was the government's foremost figure in the defence of the war's conduct, facing a barrage of abuse from prominent anti-war personalities, including David Lloyd George, a former admirer of the Colonial Secretary. When in January 1900 the government faced a vote of censure in the House of Commons over the handling of the war, Chamberlain conducted the defence. On 5 February, Chamberlain spoke effectively in the Commons for over an hour while referring to very few notes. He defended the war, espoused the virtues of a South African federation and promoted the empire; speaking with confidence which earned him a sympathetic hearing. The vote of censure was subsequently defeated by 213 votes. British fortunes changed after January 1900 with the appointment of Lord Roberts to command British forces in South Africa. Bloemfontein was occupied on 13 March, Johannesburg on 31 May and Pretoria on 5 June. When Roberts formally annexed the Transvaal on 3 September, the Salisbury ministry, emboldened by the apparent victory in South Africa, asked for the dissolution of Parliament, with an election set for October.

With Salisbury ill, Chamberlain dominated the Unionist election campaign. Salisbury did not speak at all, and Balfour made few public appearances, causing some to refer to the event as 'Joe's Election'. Fostering a cult of personality, Chamberlain began to refer to himself in the third person as 'the Colonial Secretary', and he ensured that the Boer War featured as the campaign's single issue, arguing that a Liberal victory would lead to defeat in the war in South Africa. Controversy ensued over the use of the phrase "Every seat lost to the government is a seat sold to the Boers" as the Unionists waged a personalised campaign against Liberal critics of the war – some posters even portrayed Liberal M.P.'s praising President Kruger and helping him to haul down the Union Jack. Chamberlain was in the forefront of such tactics, declaring in a speech that "we have come practically to the end of the war…there is nothing going on now but a guerrilla business, which is encouraged by these men; I was going to say those traitors, but I will say instead these misguided individuals." Some Liberals also resorted to sharp campaigning practices, with Lloyd George in particular accusing the Chamberlain family of profiteering. References were made to Kynochs, a cordite manufacturing firm run by Chamberlain's brother, Arthur, as well as Hoskins & Co., of which the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, Austen, held some shares. Many Liberals rejected Lloyd George's claims, and Chamberlain dismissed them as unworthy of reply, although the charges troubled him more than he was prepared to make evident in public.

Twenty-six year old Winston Churchill, famous for his escape from a Boer Prisoner of War camp and his journalism for the Morning Post, successfully stood as a Conservative candidate in Oldham, where Chamberlain spoke on his behalf. Churchill recalled that

' I watched my honoured guest with close attention. He loved the roar of the multitude, and with my father could always say "I have never feared the English democracy." The blood mantled in his cheek, and his eye as it caught mine twinkled with pure enjoyment. '

Churchill also commented on Chamberlain's status in British politics at the time of the election campaign, writing that 'Mr. Chamberlain was incomparably the most live, sparkling, insurgent, compulsive figure in British affairs…'Joe' was the one who made the weather. He was the man the masses knew.' Chamberlain used his popularity and the cause of imperialism in the election to devastating effect, and with the Liberals split over the issue of the war, the Unionists won a huge majority in the House of Commons of 219. The mandate was not as comprehensive as Chamberlain had hoped, but satisfactory enough to allow him to pursue his vision for the empire and to strengthen his position in the Unionist alliance.

[Source: Wikipedia: Joseph Chamberlain]

	Rt Hon Joseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain, the son of a shopkeeper, was born in London 1836. After being educated at University College School he became a successful businessman in Birmingham. A member of the Liberal Party he became involved in local politics and in 1868 was elected as a town councillor. Chamberlain became mayor in 1873 and for the next three years introduced a series of social reforms. The council's acquisition of land and public utilities and the pioneering slum-clearance schemes, made Chamberlain a national political figure. Chamberlain was extremely popular in Birmingham, and was elected unopposed in a parliamentary election held in 1876. Chamberlain soon made his mark in the House of Commons and after the 1880 General Election, William Gladstone appointed Chamberlain as President of the Board of Trade. In 1885 General Election Chamberlain was seen as the leader of the Radicals with his calls for land reform, housing reform and higher taxes on the rich. However, he was also a strong supporter of Imperialism, and resigned from Gladstone's cabinet over the issue of Irish Home Rule. This action helped to bring down the Liberal government. Chamberlain now became leader of the Liberal Unionists and in 1886 he formed an alliance with the Conservative Party. As a result, Marquess of Salisbury, gave him the post of Colonial Secretary in his government. Chamberlain was therefore primarily responsible for British policy during the Boer War. In September 1903, Joseph Chamberlain resigned from office so that he would be free to advocate his scheme of tariff reform. Chamberlain wanted to transform the British Empire into a united trading block. According to Chamberlain, preferential treatment should be given to colonial imports and British companies producing goods for the home market should be given protection from cheap foreign goods. The issue split the Conservative Party and in the 1906 General Election the Liberal Party, who supported free trade, had a landslide victory. Chamberlain was struck down by a stroke in 1906 and took no further part in politics. Joseph Chamberlain, whose son Neville Chamberlain also became a leading figure in politics, died in 1914. [Source: Spartacus School Net] Jameson Raid In November 1895, a piece of territory of strategic importance, the Pitsani Strip, part of the Bechuanaland Protectorate and bordering the Transvaal, was ceded to the British South Africa Company by the Colonial Office, overtly for the protection of a railway running through the territory. Cecil Rhodes, the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony and managing director of the Company was eager to bring South Africa under British dominion, and encouraged the disenfranchised Uitlanders of the Boer republics to resist Afrikaner domination. Rhodes hoped that the intervention of the Company's private army could spark an Uitlander uprising, leading to the overthrow of the Transvaal government. Rhodes' forces were assembled in the Pitsani Strip for this purpose. Chamberlain informed Salisbury on Boxing Day that an uprising was expected, and was aware that an invasion would be launched, but was not sure when. The subsequent Jameson Raid was a debacle, leading to the invading force's surrender. Chamberlain, at Highbury, received a secret telegram from the Colonial Office on 31 December informing him of the beginning of the Raid. Sympathetic to the ultimate goals of the Raid, Chamberlain was uncomfortable with the timing of the invasion and remarked that "if this succeeds it will ruin me. I'm going up to London to crush it". He swiftly travelled by train to the Colonial Office, ordering Sir Hercules Robinson, Governor-General of the Cape Colony, to repudiate the actions of Jameson and warned Rhodes that the Company's Charter would be in danger if it was discovered that the Cape Prime Minister was involved in the Raid. The prisoners were returned to London for trial, and the Transvaal government received considerable compensation from the Company. During the trial of Jameson, Rhodes' solicitor, Bourchier Hawksley, refused to produce cablegrams that had passed between Rhodes and his agents in London during November and December 1895. According to Hawksley, these demonstrated that the Colonial Office 'influenced the actions of those in South Africa' who embarked on the Raid, and even that Chamberlain had transferred control of the Pitsani Strip to facilitate an invasion. Nine days before the Raid, Chamberlain had asked his Assistant Under-Secretary to encourage Rhodes to 'Hurry Up' because of the deteriorating Venezuelan situation.[4] In June 1896, Chamberlain offered his resignation to Salisbury, having shown the Prime Minister one or more of the cablegrams implicating him in the Raid's planning. Salisbury refused to accept the offer, possibly reluctant to lose the government's most popular figure. Salisbury reacted aggressively in support of Chamberlain, supporting the Colonial Secretary's threat to withdraw the Company's charter if the cablegrams were revealed. Accordingly, Rhodes refused to reveal the cablegrams, and as no evidence was produced showing that Chamberlain was complicit in the Raid's planning, the Select Committee appointed to investigate the events surrounding the Raid had no choice but to absolve Chamberlain of all responsibility. South Africa The growing wealth of the Transvaal was the cause of concern to the British government, and in particular, to Chamberlain. Having long wished for the federation of South Africa under the British crown, it appeared that the commercial attraction of the Transvaal would ensure that any future union of Southern African states would be as a Boer dominated republic outside the British Empire. Chamberlain sought to use the disenfranchised Uitlanders in the Transvaal and Orange Free State as a means by which to bring British domination over the Boer republics. By successfully pushing for Uitlanders' civil rights, British influence in the governance of the Boer republics would markedly increase, thereby warding off the prospect of Afrikaner supremacy in South Africa. Twinned with the strategy of championing the Uitlanders was the steady exertion of military pressure. In April 1897, Chamberlain asked the Cabinet to increase the British garrison in South Africa by three to four thousand men – consequently, the quantity of British forces in the area grew over the next two years. The government appointed Sir Alfred Milner to the posts of High Commissioner and Governor-General of the Cape in August 1897 to pursue the issue more decisively. Within a year, Milner concluded that war with the Transvaal was inevitable, and he worked with Chamberlain to publicise the cause of the Uitlanders to the British people. A meeting between President Kruger and Milner at Bloemfontein in May 1899 failed to resolve the Uitlander problem - Kruger's concessions were considered inadequate by Milner, and the Boers left the conference convinced that the British were determined to settle the future of South Africa by force. By now, British public opinion was fully supportive of a war in support of the Uitlanders, allowing Chamberlain to successfully press for further troop reinforcements. By the beginning of October 1899, nearly 20,000 British troops were based in the Cape and Natal, with thousands more en route. On 9 October, the Transvaal sent an ultimatum demanding that British troops be withdrawn from her frontiers, and that any forces destined for South Africa be turned back. When the British government rejected the ultimatum, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State declared war on 12 October. Boer War: early defeat and false dawn The early months of the war were disastrous for Britain. Boer commandos besieged the towns of Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberley, and ten thousand Cape Afrikaner rebels joined the Boers in fighting the British. In mid-December 1899, during 'Black Week', the British Army suffered reverses at Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso. In private, Chamberlain was critical of the British Army's military performance and was often vexed by the attitude of the War Office. When the Boers bombarded Ladysmith with Creusot ninety-four pounder siege guns, Chamberlain pushed for the dispatch of comparable artillery to the theatre of war, but was exasperated by the Secretary of State for War, Lord Lansdowne's argument that such weapons required platforms that needed a year of preparation, even though the Boers operated their 'Long Tom' without elaborate mountings. Chamberlain was also prominent in stiffening the country's resolve amidst the British Army's early defeats by making a number of speeches to reassure the public. Furthermore, he worked to strengthen bonds between Britain and the self-governing colonies, gratefully taking receipt of imperial contingents from Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In particular, the contributions of mounted men from the settler colonies helped fill the British Army's shortfall in mounted infantry, vital in fighting the mobile Boers. Showing further sensitivity to the colonies, Chamberlain steered the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act through the House of Commons, hoping that the newly established federation would adopt a positive attitude towards imperial trade and fighting the war. Wishing to reconcile the British and Afrikaner populations of the Cape, Chamberlain was resistant to Milner's desire to suspend the constitution of the colony, a move that would have given Milner autocratic powers. Chamberlain was the government's foremost figure in the defence of the war's conduct, facing a barrage of abuse from prominent anti-war personalities, including David Lloyd George, a former admirer of the Colonial Secretary. When in January 1900 the government faced a vote of censure in the House of Commons over the handling of the war, Chamberlain conducted the defence. On 5 February, Chamberlain spoke effectively in the Commons for over an hour while referring to very few notes. He defended the war, espoused the virtues of a South African federation and promoted the empire; speaking with confidence which earned him a sympathetic hearing. The vote of censure was subsequently defeated by 213 votes. British fortunes changed after January 1900 with the appointment of Lord Roberts to command British forces in South Africa. Bloemfontein was occupied on 13 March, Johannesburg on 31 May and Pretoria on 5 June. When Roberts formally annexed the Transvaal on 3 September, the Salisbury ministry, emboldened by the apparent victory in South Africa, asked for the dissolution of Parliament, with an election set for October. With Salisbury ill, Chamberlain dominated the Unionist election campaign. Salisbury did not speak at all, and Balfour made few public appearances, causing some to refer to the event as 'Joe's Election'. Fostering a cult of personality, Chamberlain began to refer to himself in the third person as 'the Colonial Secretary', and he ensured that the Boer War featured as the campaign's single issue, arguing that a Liberal victory would lead to defeat in the war in South Africa. Controversy ensued over the use of the phrase "Every seat lost to the government is a seat sold to the Boers" as the Unionists waged a personalised campaign against Liberal critics of the war – some posters even portrayed Liberal M.P.'s praising President Kruger and helping him to haul down the Union Jack. Chamberlain was in the forefront of such tactics, declaring in a speech that "we have come practically to the end of the war…there is nothing going on now but a guerrilla business, which is encouraged by these men; I was going to say those traitors, but I will say instead these misguided individuals." Some Liberals also resorted to sharp campaigning practices, with Lloyd George in particular accusing the Chamberlain family of profiteering. References were made to Kynochs, a cordite manufacturing firm run by Chamberlain's brother, Arthur, as well as Hoskins & Co., of which the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, Austen, held some shares. Many Liberals rejected Lloyd George's claims, and Chamberlain dismissed them as unworthy of reply, although the charges troubled him more than he was prepared to make evident in public. Twenty-six year old Winston Churchill, famous for his escape from a Boer Prisoner of War camp and his journalism for the Morning Post, successfully stood as a Conservative candidate in Oldham, where Chamberlain spoke on his behalf. Churchill recalled that ' I watched my honoured guest with close attention. He loved the roar of the multitude, and with my father could always say "I have never feared the English democracy." The blood mantled in his cheek, and his eye as it caught mine twinkled with pure enjoyment. ' Churchill also commented on Chamberlain's status in British politics at the time of the election campaign, writing that 'Mr. Chamberlain was incomparably the most live, sparkling, insurgent, compulsive figure in British affairs…'Joe' was the one who made the weather. He was the man the masses knew.' Chamberlain used his popularity and the cause of imperialism in the election to devastating effect, and with the Liberals split over the issue of the war, the Unionists won a huge majority in the House of Commons of 219. The mandate was not as comprehensive as Chamberlain had hoped, but satisfactory enough to allow him to pursue his vision for the empire and to strengthen his position in the Unionist alliance. [Source: Wikipedia: Joseph Chamberlain]
Last updated 19 March, 2009

Personalties Menu Copyright © www.boer-war.com 2005-

Rt Hon Joseph Chamberlain