Boer War - Opposition
The week which extended from December 10th to December 17th, 1899, was the blackest one known during to that generation, and the most disastrous for British arms during the 19th Century century. Britain had in the short space of seven days lost, beyond all extenuation or excuse, three separate actions. No single defeat was of vital importance in itself, but the cumulative effect, occurring as they did to each of the main British forces in South Africa, was very great. The total loss amounted to about three thousand men and twelve guns, while the indirect effects in the way of loss of prestige to Britain and increased confidence and more numerous recruits to Britain's enemy were incalculable.
That the Boers should have found sympathy all over the Continent is not unnatural; the mere disproportion of numbers and of force would alone be sufficient to account for this. Sympathy with the weaker party was further strengthened, on the one hand, by the astonishing courage and resolution which the Boers displayed in their struggle with a vast empire; and, on the other, by the 'splendid isolation' of Great Britain, which possessed no single assured political friend on the Continent, but, on the contrary, was encompassed by populations almost uniformly hostile. It is singular to glance at the extracts from the European press at that time and to observe the delight and foolish exultation with which British reverses were received. That this should occur in the French journals was not unnatural, since British history until that time had been largely a contest with that Power, and the British could regard with complacency an enmity which was the tribute to British success in that contest. Russia, too, as the least progressive of European States, had a natural antagonism of thought, if not of interests, to the Power which stood most prominently for individual freedom and liberal institutions. The same poor excuse may be made for the organs of the Vatican.
But it was in Germany that British defeats were received with the loudest shouts of triumph, in Germany that British commanders were made the butt of the most violent abuse, in Germany that the grossest caricatures were displayed-caricatures which did not spare the revered and aged Queen herself. Not even in Holland did the Press display such bitter animosity.
What was to be said of the insensate railing of Germany, a country whose ally Britain had been for centuries? In the days of Marlborough, in the darkest hours of Frederick the Great, in the great world struggle of Napoleon, Britain had been the brothers-in-arms of these people. So with the Austrians also. If both these countries were not finally swept from the map by Napoleon, it was largely to British subsidies and British tenacity that they owe it. And yet these were the folk who turned most bitterly against Britain at the only time in modern history when Britain had a chance of distinguishing friends from our foes. Never again, on any pretext, would a British guinea be spent or a British soldier or sailor shed his blood for such allies.
This circumstance requires explanation; and several explanations may be given. But, to pass over other causes, one thing is clear, namely, that the Pan-Germans found in the pro-Boer campaign an opportunity too good to lose. The pro-Boer agitation was not confined to Germany and the German parts of Austria, but extended over the whole continent. It flourished in Lisbon and St Petersburg, in Rome and Paris, as well as in Vienna and Berlin. Consequently, it cannot be regarded as by any means the product of Pan-Germanism; but the PanGermans adopted the movement in order to use it for their own ends, and have infused into it a peculiar malice.
Pan-Germanism regarded, or affected to regard, the war against the Boers as an insult and a challenge to the German nation. That the Dutch in Holland so regarded the war is no matter of surprise. But in the mouth of a German such a declaration is ridiculous, and only shows to what extravagant ambitions and absurd confusions of thought Pan-Germanism can lead; for, after all, the Boer was not German. He is, indeed, no nearer to the German than to the Englishman. But, if Holland is to become German, if the Rhine, from source to mouth, is to be a German river, and Rotterdam a German port, then no doubt the Germans become the natural protectors of the Boers - in the higher interests of Germany, be it understood in dealing with German designs on Holland. Hence the peculiar venom of the German attacks on England, for the establishment of British influence in South Africa puts a spoke in the Pan-German wheel, and deprives Germany of a very lucrative 'sphere of influence,' to use the mildest term, to which the ' connection' with Holland would have given her - had the Dutch republics not been conquered - a prior claim.
The political lesson of this war was that Britain should make itself strong within the empire, and let all outside it, save only the kinsmen of America, go their own way and meet their own fate without let or hindrance from Britain. It was amazing to find that even the Americans could understand the stock from which they were themselves sprung so little that such papers as the 'New York Herald' should imagine that the Britain defeats were a good opportunity for us to terminate the war. The other leading American journals, however, took another view of the situation, and realised that ten years of such defeats would not find the end either of British resolution or of British resources.
In the British Islands and in the empire at large these misfortunes were met by a sombre but unalterable determination to carry the war to a successful conclusion and to spare no sacrifices which could lead to that end. Amid the humiliation of these reverses there was a certain undercurrent of satisfaction that the deeds of the foemen should at least have made the contention that the strong was wantonly attacking the weak an absurd one. Under the stimulus of defeat the opposition to the war sensibly decreased. It had become too absurd even for the most unreasonable platform orator to contend that a struggle had been forced upon the Boers when every fresh detail showed how thoroughly they had prepared for such a contingency and how much we had to make up.
Many who had opposed the war simply on that sporting instinct which backs the smaller against the larger began to realise that what with the geographical position of these people, what with the nature of their country, and what with the mobility, number, and hardihood of their forces, Britain had undertaken a task which would necessitate such a military effort as Britain had not been called upon to make in some great time. When Kipling at the dawn of the war had sung of 'fifty thousand horse and foot going to Table Bay,' the statement had seemed extreme. Now it was growing upon the public mind that four times this number might not be an excessive estimate.
Such was the wave of feeling over the country that it was impossible to hold a peace meeting anywhere without a certainty of riot. The only London daily which had opposed the war, though very ably edited, was overborne by the general sentiment and compelled to change its line. In the provinces also opposition was almost silent, and the great colonies were even more unanimous than the mother country. Misfortune had solidified us where success might have caused a sentimental opposition.
If there were any who doubted that this ancient nation still glowed with the spirit of its youth his fears must soon have passed away. For this far-distant war, a war of the unseen foe and of the murderous ambuscade, there were so many volunteers that the authorities were embarrassed by their numbers and their pertinacity. It was a stimulating sight to see those long queues of top-hatted, frock-coated young men who waited their turn for the orderly room with as much desperate anxiety as if hard fare, a veldt bed, and Boer bullets were all that life had that was worth the holding. Especially the Imperial Yeomanry, a corps of riders and shots, appealed to the sporting instincts of our race. Many could ride and not shoot, many could shoot and not ride, more candidates were rejected than were accepted, and yet in a very short time eight thousand men from every class were wearing the grey coats and bandoliers. This singular and formidable force was drawn from every part of England and Scotland, with a contingent of hard-riding Irish fox-hunters. Noblemen and grooms rode knee to knee in the ranks, and the officers included many well-known country gentlemen and masters of hounds. Well horsed and well armed, a better force for the work in hand could not be imagined. So high did the patriotism run that corps were formed in which the men not only found their own equipment but contributed their pay to the war fund. Many young men about town justified their existence for the first time.
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