The Boer Wars
South African settlers of Dutch descent could not escape the march of the British Empire.
1881-1902
Queen Victoria 1837-1901 to King Edward VII 1901-1910
South African settlers of Dutch descent could not escape the march of the British Empire.
1881-1902
Queen Victoria 1837-1901 to King Edward VII 1901-1910
In 1881 and again in 1899, Britain was drawn into a conflict with settlers of Dutch descent in the South African Republic, also known as Transvaal, as her Empire continued to grow apace under the twin forces of colonial emigration and international trade - much to the chagrin of her colonial rival, Germany.
IN 1836, disaffected colonists of Dutch descent from the British-run Cape Colony made their ‘Great Trek’ north, and founded Natal, Transvaal and Orange Free State. British governance followed close behind, however, occupying Natal in 1842, and invading Transvaal in 1877 after it fell into bankruptcy.
A fierce backlash from the Transvaal’s farmers, the Boers, drove the British out with victory at Majuba Hill on February 27th, 1881, but just five years later a gold rush saw Cape settlers come flooding back. The Transvaal’s President, Paul Kruger, realised that the immigrants would soon have enough numbers to hand the Province over to British rule in an election, and refused to grant them the political rights enjoyed by the Dutch.
That grievance appeared to Cecil Rhodes’s British South Africa Company to be the excuse they needed to force Kruger’s hand. On December 29th, 1895, an armed expedition of 470 men, led by Storr Jameson, crossed into Transvaal, but the raid was intercepted, and Jameson arrested.