Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T20:52:16.131Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The South African War (1899–1902): context and motive reconsidered*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Andrew Porter
Andrew Porter
Affiliation:
King's College, London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Since 1899 the idea has been widely held that the South African War was no isolated episode but one illuminating the fundamental characteristics of British expansion, both in the nineteenth century and beyond. Cross-reference between the particulars of South African history and theories of imperialism has long been a fact of intellectual life. This process, however, often seems to reflect less the fruitful interplay of new knowledge and evolving hypotheses than the progressive entrenchment of separate schools of thought. The purpose of this article is to highlight the gulf between different approaches, with reference to recent work; and to suggest that, notwithstanding the work of the last decade, little headway has been made in linking the development of South Africa's economy and mineral resources to the War of 1899 in any but the most general and self-evident of ways. It argues that the case for interpreting the origins of the war in the main from a metropolitan and political perspective retains considerable persuasiveness and explanatory power. Finally it puts forward an alternative way of seeing in the struggle representative features of British expansion.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 1990 , pp. 43 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Semmel, Bernard, Imperialism and Social Reform. English Social-Imperial Thought 1895–1914 (London, 1960), 70Google Scholar, quoting from Shaw's, Fabianism and the Empire (London, 1900), 23.Google Scholar

2 May, G. H. L. Le, British Supremacy in South Africa 1899–1907 (Oxford, 1965), 29.Google Scholar

3 Milner, Lord, The Nation and the Empire (London, 1913)Google Scholar; idem, Questions of the Hour (London, 1923).

4 Hobson, J. A., The War in South Africa (London, 1900), 233.Google Scholar Hobson's work continues to be the subject of debate. P. F. Clarke, Norman Etherington and Peter Cain have different views of the extent to which Hobson's analysis provided a conspiracy theory of imperialism, rested on a view of limited structural maladjustments, or revealed a subtle understanding of an emergent ‘finance capitalist Britain’. Most recently, see Townshend's, J. introduction to his edition of Imperialism: A Study (London, 1988)Google Scholar; and Freeden, Michael (ed.), J. A. Hobson: A Reader (London, 1988).Google Scholar

5 Drus, E., ‘A report on the papers of Joseph Chamberlain relating to the Jameson Raid and the Inquiry’, Bull. Inst. Hist. Research, xxv (1952), 33–62Google Scholar; Drus, , ‘The question of imperial complicity in the Jameson Raid’, English Historical Review, lxviii (1953), 582–931CrossRefGoogle ScholarDrus, , ‘Select documents from the Chamberlain Papers concerning Anglo-Transvaal relations, 1896–99’, Bull. Inst. Hist. Research, XXVII (1954), 156–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Poel, J. Van der, The Jameson Raid (Cape Town, 1951)Google Scholar; Wilde, R. H., ‘Joseph Chamberlain and the South African Republic 1895–1899’, Archives Yearbook for South African History (1956), 1.Google Scholar

6 Marais, J. S., The Fall of Kruger's Republic (Oxford, 1961)Google Scholar; May, Le, British Supremacy; Grenville, J. A. S., Lord Salisbury and Foreign Policy (London, revised ed., 1970).Google Scholar

7 May, Le, British Supremacy, 214.Google Scholar

8 Thompson, L. M., ‘Great Britain and the Afrikaner republics’, in Wilson, M. and Thompson, L. M. (eds.), Oxford History of South Africa, 11 (Oxford, 1971).Google Scholar

9 Robinson, Ronald and Gallagher, John with Denny, Alice, Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism (London, 1961; second ed., 1981).Google Scholar

10 Fieldhouse, D. K., Economics and Empire 1830–1914 (London, 1973), 476.Google Scholar

11 Ibid. 362.

12 Hobsbawm, E. J., The Age of Empire 1875–1914 (London, 1987), 66.Google Scholar

13 Ibid. 74.

14 Oliver, Roland and Sanderson, G. N. (eds.), Cambridge History of Africa, VI, 1870–1905 (Cambridge, 1985), 478.Google Scholar

15 Etherington, Norman, ‘Theories of imperialism in Southern Africa revisited’, African Affairs, lxxxi (07, 1982), 397.Google Scholar

16 Ibid. 399.

17 Ibid.

18 Fieldhouse, , Economics and Empire, 362.Google Scholar

19 Hobsbawm, , Age of Empire, 74.Google Scholar

20 Van-Helten, J. J., ‘Empire and high finance: South Africa and the international gold standard, 1890–1914’, J. Afr. Hist., XXIII (1982), 529–48, at 534 n. 24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Marks, in Oliver, and Sanderson, , Cambridge History of Africa, VI, 478.Google Scholar

22 Cf. Denoon, Donald, Settler Capitalism: The Dynamics of Dependent Development in the Southern Hemisphere (Oxford, 1983)Google Scholar; Platt, D. C. M., ‘Canada and Argentina: the first preference of the British investor, 1904–1914’, in Porter, A. N. and Holland, R. F. (eds.), Money, Finance and Empire 1790–1960 (London, 1985), 77–92.Google Scholar On foreign competition, Brown, B. H., The Tariff Reform Movement in Great Britain 1881–95 (New York, 1943)Google Scholar, and Aldcroft, D. H., The Development of British Industry and Foreign Competition 1870–1914 (London, 1968).Google Scholar For further recent light on the politics and priorities of Britain's sectional economic interests, see Green, E. H. H., ‘Rentiers versus producers? The political economy of the bimetallic controversy’, English Historical Review, CIII (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Etherington, , ‘Theories of imperialism’, 398–9.Google Scholar

24 Pakenham, Thomas, The Boer War (London, 1980), e.g. xvi, 89.Google Scholar

25 Sykes, Alan, Tariff Reform in British Politics 1903–1913 (Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar; Green, E. H. H., ‘Radical Conservatism: the electoral genesis of Tariff Reform’, Historical J., XXVIII (1985), 667–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and his forthcoming book, The Crisis of Conservatism: The Politics, Economics and Ideology of the Conservative Party, 1880–1914 (London, 1989).Google Scholar

26 Marks, S. and Trapido, S., ‘Lord Milner and the South African State’, History Workshop, VIII (1979), 50–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Davis, Lance E. and Huttenback, Robert, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire. The Political Economy of British Imperialism, 1860–1912 (Cambridge, 1986);Google Scholar with discussion in Porter, Andrew, ‘The balance sheet of empire, 1850–1914’, Historical J., XXXI, 3 (1988), 685–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Cain, P.J. and Hopkins, A.G., ‘Gentlemanly capitalism and British expansion overseas. I. The old colonial system, 1688–1850’, Econ. Hist. Review, XXXIX, 4 (1986), 501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 idem, ‘The political economy of British expansion overseas, 1750–1914’, Econ. Hist. Review, xxxiii, 4 (1980), 486.Google Scholar

30 Hopkins, A. G., ‘The Victorians and Africa: a reconsideration of the occupation of Egypt, 1882’, J. Afr. Hist., XXVII (1986), 363–91. e.g. at 385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Cain, and Hopkins, , ‘The political economy’, 487.Google Scholar

32 I owe this point to Dr Rhodri Williams's stimulating comments on an earlier version of this paper.

33 Cf. Trebilcock, Clive, ‘War and the failure of industrial mobilization: 1899 and 1914’, in Winter, J. M. (ed.), War and Economic Development (Cambridge, 1975), 139–64.Google Scholar

34 Hopkins, , ‘The Victorians and Africa’, 370–3, 385–90.Google Scholar

35 See the discussion of works by Porter, Bernard and Kennedy, Paul in Porter, A. N., ‘Lord Salisbury, foreign policy and domestic finance, 1860–1900’, in Blake, Lord and Cecil, Hugh (eds.), Salisbury. The Man and his Policies (London, 1987).Google Scholar

36 Newbury, C. W., ‘On the margins of empire: the trade of Western Africa, 1875–1890’, in Förster, Stig, Mommsen, Wolfgang J. and Robinson, Ronald (eds.), Bismarck, Europe and Africa. The Berlin Africa Conference 1884–1885 and the Onset of Partition (Oxford, 1988), 35–58Google Scholar; Turrell, R. V. with Van-Helten, J.J., ‘The Rothschilds, the exploration company and mining finance’, Business History, XXVII, 2 (1986), 181–205CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Richardson, Peter and Van-Helten, J. J., ‘The development of the South African gold mining industry, 1895–1918’, Econ. Hist. Review, XXXVII, 3 (1984), 319–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 Porter, Andrew, Victorian Shipping, Business and Imperial Policy. Donald Currie, the Castle Line and South Africa (Royal Historical Society, Studies in History No. 49: Woodbridge, 1986).Google Scholar

38 E.g. ‘…pinpointing the role of vested interests in promoting the Raid or the 1899 war will not prove or disprove his [Hobson's] or anybody else's theory of imperialism’, Etherington, ‘Theories of imperialism’, 397.

39 Porter, A. N., The Origins of the South African War: Joseph Chamberlain and the Diplomacy of Imperialism 1895–1899 (Manchester, 1980).Google Scholar

40 Marks, Shula, ‘Scrambling for South Africa’, J. Afr. Hist., XXIII (1982), 105.Google Scholar

41 Ibid. 112–13.

42 Atmore, A. E., reviewing Porter, Origins, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, xliv (1981), 638. Atmore's emphases.Google Scholar

43 Marks, , ‘Scrambling’, 105, 106, 113Google Scholar; Van-Helten, (reviewing Porter, Origins), Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, xcv (1982), 292Google Scholar; Stanley Trapido, at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies seminar, referred to the war as ‘an accident waiting to happen’.

44 Daunton, M. J., ‘“Gentlemanly Capitalism” and British industry 1820–1914’, Past and Present, cxx (1989), 119–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Porter, ‘Lord Salisbury’, passim. Also Avner Offer, Property and Politics 1870–1914 (Cambridge, 1981).Google Scholar

46 Porter, , Origins, 247.Google Scholar

47 Porter, , ‘Lord Salisbury’, 158.Google Scholar

48 See Yakutiel, Marc, ‘The British Treasury and the South African War: changing expectations’ (unpublished paper, given at Nuffield College, 27 05 1988);Google Scholar and ‘“Treasury Control” and the South African War, 1899-c. 1905’ (D.Phil, thesis, Oxford University, 1989).Google Scholar Also Burke, Kathleen, ‘The South African War and the limits of British power ?’ (unpublished paper given at the Imperial History Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London, 6 February 1989)Google Scholar on the subject of American loans.

49 Cf. Porter, A. N. and Stockwell, A. J., British Imperial Policy and Decolonization 1938–1964, vol. II, 1951–1964 (London, 1989).Google Scholar