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History Notes The South African War (Second Boer War) 1899-1902 Notes

Causes Of The War Notes

Updated Causes Of The War Notes

The South African War (Second Boer War) 1899-1902 Notes

The South African War (Second Boer War) 1899-1902

Approximately 82 pages

These notes correspond to a second year undergraduate History unit on The South African War 1899-1902.

The notes covered are:
- Chamberlain, Milner, and the British Politicians
- Cecil Rhodes and the Jameson Raid
- Causes of the War
- Black and Coloured Participation
- Methods of Barbarism

The notes are highly detailed, coloured, and contain essay plans, arguments and historiography surrounding each of the subjects. Potential essay questions are written at the top of the notes and the ...

The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our The South African War (Second Boer War) 1899-1902 Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

TOPIC 5: CAUSES OF THE WAR

GOLD

  • The discovery of gold in the Transvaal threatened the dominance of the British Empire as it provide the region with an opportunity to become geo-strategically empowered and, subsequently, an independent Republic

  • Discovery of the world’s largest deposit of gold-bearing ore in 1886 on a large cliff known as the ‘Witwatersrand’ had radical implications as it “turned the Transvaal’s Witwatersrand into the economic hub of the entire subcontinent”

  • 1898 27% of world’s entire output of gold produced in Transvaal

  • ‘Mineral revolution’ prompted a gold rush of foreign investors from around the world and from other British colonies to the region to seek their fortune e.g. Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Beit

  • In order to retain control of gold, it was important to create a labour supply, from within the region as well as from the other British South African colonies, and channel it to the mining centres

  • The requirement for labour attracted a large amount of skilled, mostly European, Uitlanders from overseas

  • These Uitlanders, who numbered over 100,000 (some 75,000 of them British) had no legitimate claim to citizenship because Kruger feared that if they were enfranchised then they could “tilt the balance of power towards…English profiteers”

ARGUMENTS RELATING TO GOLD

  • Marxist argument – J. A. Hobson & Marks and Trapido

  • Economic Argument – Cain and Hopkins

  • Imperialist Argument – A. Porter & P. Henshaw

Marxist Argument

  • J. A. Hobson – radical liberal – the South African War was about gold because it created a ‘Capitalist War’ whereby British politicians co-operated with the cosmopolitan capitalists, who were making profits from gold developments, and attempted to overthrow the Kruger government

  • Argues that the Transvaal gold prompted a war waged by sectional interests; it was ultimately a perversion of the Capitalist system

  • Hobson mining capitalists in the Transvaal ‘have found the need for controlling politics and legislation’ due to their desire for ‘the control of a large, cheap, regular, submissive, supply of labour’ (1900)

  • Marks and Trapido corroborated Hobson – argued that the South African War epitomized the way the capitalist system worked.

    • Argue that the system could not be reformed and so war was almost inevitable

  • Aftermath of Jameson Raid 1895 – soon became clear that the mining capitalists secured the connivance of Chamberlain in their attempt to overthrow the Transvaal government.

    • Hobson since the mining capitalists were planning to overthrow the Transvaal government in 1895, then they must have been behind war in 1899

  • PRIMARY SOURCE – The English Newspaper Editor, W. T. Stead supports this notion – in an extract from his article The Truth about the War (1899), Stead explains how Kruger, President of the Transvaal, was fully aware of Chamberlain’s role behind the Jameson Raid

  • Thus, Hobson and other Marxist historians argued that gold created the mining sector which then, as it did in 1895, conspired with key political individuals in London, and, due to the nature of Capitalism, prompted the South African War

Critique of the Marxist argument

  • Iain Smith disputed this notion that the mineowners played a major role in prompting war

    • Argued that Hobson’s explanation for the South African War lacks evidence, particularly because at the time of writing he did not have access to the records of either the government or the mining companies

    • “Once historians were able to test this hypothesis against the evidence, the ‘Hobson theses’ about the origins of the war…had to be abandoned.’”

  • Andrew Porter acknowledges the fact “that historically capitalist activity and war are intimately associated” but he urges historians to look at British policy in South Africa in a broader context

  • Both Porter and Smith argue that there is a lack of evidence to suggest that because the mining capitalists in South Africa were behind the Jameson Raid in 1895, that they caused the war in 1899

Economic Argument

  • End of 1890s “the Rand had become the largest single producer of gold, being responsible for over one-quarter of world output”

  • PRIMARY SOURCE Paul Kruger – in his memoirs – writes, “It is quite certain that, had no gold been found in the Transvaal, there would have been no war.” He continues to state “The British Government would not have lifted a finger…had it not been tempted by the wealth of the country.”

    • However, must treat this source with caution as Kruger was President of the Transvaal and thus by default hostile to Britain and suspicious of their motives

  • Cain and Hopkins agree with Kruger in emphasizing the importance of gold in economic terms

    • Argued that following the Transvaal’s newfound wealth, British policymakers felt it necessary to protect their economic interests in South Africa

    • This is because “it accounted for two-thirds of that continent’s total foreign trade and investment”

    • Britain feared that their position on the international trading system would be threatened if they did not have access to these South African ore reserves, particularly “at a time of anticipated shortages.”

Critique

  • Britain was impelled by the wealth generated by the ore deposits in the Transvaal, BUT this argument must be viewed in conjunction with how this wealth impacted Britain’s wider imperial interests

  • Jean Jacques van Helten “Neither Treasury minutes nor Bank of England correspondence ever hint that the solution to Britain’s apparent shortage of gold supply should be sought…by obtaining physical control over the Transvaal gold mining industry.”

  • The notion that Britain needed to be in political control over South Africa in order to have access to the gold is a misunderstanding of how finance works.

    • Britain was able to buy all the gold that it wanted on the open market and countries such as Australia and Canada were key to British investment and trade during this period

  • Bill Nasson “Britain’s end was not the gold supply as such, but the imposition of its...

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