AHC: Could Jameson Raid lead to an earlier Boer War?

If you wish to make your response about a successful raid and Uitlander uprising, thats OK I guess, but I would be equally interested in seeing if a thwarted Jameson Raid could be followed up by an early Anglo-Boer escalation and Boer attack on British territories, leading to a decisive war.

Anything's possible. The Raid created a stir in Europe and not only in Germany but in France, Russia and the Netherlands as well. Its possible that Kruger takes up on the raid as an opening to gain his independence-

He begins executing the prisoners for murder and invasion. Once the hanging starts, the raiders start singing about Rhodes and Chamberlain's involvement. Kruger than demands that Rhodes and Chamberlain be turned over for execution and decalres all treaties with the Queen null and void by her government's involvement in the attack

The British, who only cared about expanding the Empire takes it as a declaration of war and attack.

What if Kruger ups the ante like this only after he gets the congratulatory telegram from the Kaiser-- could this result in a larger British Empire war against the German navy and colonies too?

They'd already had the 1880-81 war, so the Jameson

raharris1973 said:

If you wish to make your response about a successful raid and Uitlander uprising, thats OK I guess, but I would be equally interested in seeing if a thwarted Jameson Raid could be followed up by an early Anglo-Boer escalation and Boer attack on British territories, leading to a decisive war.

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They'd already had the 1880-81 war, so the Jameson Raid was part and parcel of a conflict that was already (essentially) just a gunshot or two from sparking off, anyway.

Best,

OK, so Lord Kalvert and TFSmith think it could happen easily.

Lord Kalvert suggests the Boers are going nuts with demands rather than attacks, so it's the British who declare war and attack first, I guess at some point in 1896.

What, if anything would be different about a Boer War starting in 1896 instead of 1899? Would the Boers just be beaten faster? Would the match their OTL run run of initial success? Will guerrilla warfare, concentration camps, and hostile world opinion be similar to OTL's war? Would that make any difference in the environment of 1896-99 as opposed to OTL 1899-1902?

If the Jameson Raid is the spark, there are a couple of immediate issues:

raharris1973 said:

OK, so Lord Kalvert and TFSmith think it could happen easily.

Lord Kalvert suggests the Boers are going nuts with demands rather than attacks, so it's the British who declare war and attack first, I guess at some point in 1896.

What, if anything would be different about a Boer War starting in 1896 instead of 1899? Would the Boers just be beaten faster? Would the match their OTL run run of initial success? Will guerrilla warfare, concentration camps, and hostile world opinion be similar to OTL's war? Would that make any difference in the environment of 1896-99 as opposed to OTL 1899-1902?

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If the Jameson Raid is the spark, there are a couple of immediate issues:

1) Unless the British completely disavow the raid, it is clear they are the aggressors, and fairly incompetent ones as well; think Italy at Adowa.

2) If they do disavow the raid, no war.

3) If they don't, and war breaks out, the reality is as ill-prepared as the Boers are, the British are as well; the reality is the Jameson raid was conducted at a time when the British garrison in the Cape and Natal was weaker than it was three years later;

4) If the Jameson raid and general British belligerancy is what prompts the war, the question of whether both Transvaal and the Vrystaat join in is a reasonable one.

Best,

The Boers weren't interested in a war of conquest, their religious views dictated that it would be a defensive war - they were only willing to fight if they knew they had the moral high ground. Also, Kruger and Reitz (president of the OVS), had signed a treaty some time before where the one pledged to come to her sister republic's defense if attacked by an outside force.

That said, it might scupper the Anglo-Franco-Russian entente, as well as isolate Britain from Europe politically due to the fact that, like most underdogs, the Boers were extraordinarily popular not just in Europe but the Americas too.

Also, the Brits, knowing the Boer mentality, wanted war. The Bloemfontein Conference a few months before the OTL Second Boer War was a last ditch attempt to preserve peace. The British were arrogant, their envoy deliberately insisted that the Free State PM couldn't be present, since he knew that Reitz would talk circles around him. When the Free State rep, Abraham Fischer informed Reitz of the British attitude, Reitz's response was "So talking won't help if the British want war."

A TL stemming from this-

Given the Jameson Raid occurred in 1896, and the alteration is Kruger is more demanding and the British do not completely disavow the raid, the Boer War begins in earnest in 1897, with Britain as the aggressor in the eyes of world opinion, and being not terribly successful militarily at first.

In 1897 in Europe and the United States, the Boers are more popular than the British.

But the US will be circumspect, especially as the McKinley administrations wants to be circumspect and the Venezuela crisis is over.

The European powers, while being anti-British in their hearts, are going to be wary of actually fighting Britain or provoking her to war.

The Russians, Germans and French main agenda will to act as they did in OTL, boosting their expansion/exploration in other areas and in particular, wringing concessions (Qingdao, Port Arthur, Guangzhouan) from China.

The British under Salisbury or Roseberry are going to be straining to make overtures to the French and Russians that neither will embrace.

Britain will have to think carefully if the present time is a good one to launch a campaign to crush the Mahdi. IF they do campaign in Sudan in 1898, and Marchand wants to march through from Central Africa to eastern Abyssinia, they better let Marchand pass and the French have their way. Because a Boer War and a Fashoda war at the same time are a very bad idea. A hot Franco-British conflict in Africa has a high probability of bringing Russia and possibly even Germany and Netherlands in on France's side due to outrage over the Boer War, Britain's demonstrated ambition and arrogance (shown by their hardline against the French in Africa) and the availability of an ally with some power projection onto the African continent and global stage to bear the brunt of British wrath.

(In this extreme variant of the continental coalition Britain will still be able to win in South Africa and the overseas world at least beyond Suez and Gibraltar, if not within the Mediterranean itself. If it's absolutely war to the extreme, Britain might lose in Persia, north China and Korea, while winning in all of Africa, Indochina, Indonesia and Oceania)

So, the British will probably put off the whole Sudan campaign and avoid the nightmare continental coalition altogether.

The British will turn the tide in South Africa and eventually win. They'll do enough to keep out of war with France or Russia. Out of their continental critics, the British will be most bitter against the Germans, because they'll blame them for encouraging Boer intransigence leading to war.

...but actually attacking Germany or its empire is far too risky a move for the British government to make, so there is no British declaration of war on anybody besides the two Boer republics, which do fight together the whole time. The British eventually secure a Boer surrender in 1899. With that war concluded, the British make an alliance with the Japanese, and can feel free to launch the Sudan campaign and be assertive against France there without risking a global war.

As far as further knock-ons are concerned, perhaps the Japanese attack Russia in 1902? If they do, perhaps the Austrians intervene in reaction to the regicide of the Obrenoviches in Serbia in 1903.

Thoughts?

You know, if the Continental powers ever wanted to

raharris1973 said:

Because a Boer War and a Fashoda war at the same time are a very bad idea.

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You know, if the Continental powers ever wanted to address the Eastern Question absent the RN, having Britain neck-deep in a frontier war with Europeans in southern Africa is probably the time...

The French have always had ambitions in the Med generally and the southern Med littoral specifically, by the 1890s; the Austrians and Russians want to carve up the Balkans and - the Russians especially - want the Straits and as much of the southern Black Sea littoral as they can get ... plus whatever they can grab and hang on to in Persia, especially the south Caspian littoral.

The Italians ... perhaps they can be bought with some of Anatolia or the Levant, rather than Libya or Ethiopia, as the focus of their imperial ambitions.

The Germans get a free hand in Scandinavia from the Russians? The Spanish help with Gibraltar from the French? The Greeks - Ionia? Cyprus?

There just might be enough to go around, in terms of the Ottomans' carcass, to keep them all away from each others' throats...

And if 400,000 British and Imperial troops are deep in the veldt...

The RN can defend Britain, and the sea lanes - but they might just not be able to hold the Med...

Interesting.

Best,

You know, if the Continental powers ever wanted to address the Eastern Question absent the RN, having Britain neck-deep in a frontier war with Europeans in southern Africa is probably the time...

The French have always had ambitions in the Med generally and the southern Med littoral specifically, by the 1890s; the Austrians and Russians want to carve up the Balkans and - the Russians especially - want the Straits and as much of the southern Black Sea littoral as they can get ... plus whatever they can grab and hang on to in Persia, especially the south Caspian littoral.

The Italians ... perhaps they can be bought with some of Anatolia or the Levant, rather than Libya or Ethiopia, as the focus of their imperial ambitions.

The Germans get a free hand in Scandinavia from the Russians? The Spanish help with Gibraltar from the French? The Greeks - Ionia? Cyprus?

There just might be enough to go around, in terms of the Ottomans' carcass, to keep them all away from each others' throats...

And if 400,000 British and Imperial troops are deep in the veldt...

The RN can defend Britain, and the sea lanes - but they might just not be able to hold the Med...

Interesting.

Best,

Click to expand...

Indeed, this can be interesting to develop. I'm curious as to whether this would be much more likely in an 1896-1899 Boer War as opposed to an 1899-1902 Boer War.

The main thing making it more likely I suppose is that the a crisis could break out based on a Franco-British encounter in Sudan a la Fashoda, right in the middle of the Boer War. Since Russia, Germany and France have recently cooperated in the Far East Triplice, Russia and then Germany might seize their moment as well. The Italians just lost Adua and have a new ministry and are bitter at the British for failing to back them up and at the French and Russians for helping Ethiopia. But, give them a chance to redeem spoils in the Mediterranean like Anatolia or Malta, and Italy may bandwagon against Britain.

On the other hand, French Anglophobia was probably so high at the time of the Boer War in OTL 1899 because the French were nursing bitterness over Fashoda, before then, the French might be too Alsace-Lorraine centric to make a deal.

Potential British oceanic allies, the US and Japan, are a little less strong and much less active at this time (1896) than later (1899).

TFSmith121 said:

You know, if the Continental powers ever wanted to address the Eastern Question absent the RN, having Britain neck-deep in a frontier war with Europeans in southern Africa is probably the time...

The French have always had ambitions in the Med generally and the southern Med littoral specifically, by the 1890s; the Austrians and Russians want to carve up the Balkans and - the Russians especially - want the Straits and as much of the southern Black Sea littoral as they can get ... plus whatever they can grab and hang on to in Persia, especially the south Caspian littoral.

The Italians ... perhaps they can be bought with some of Anatolia or the Levant, rather than Libya or Ethiopia, as the focus of their imperial ambitions.

The Germans get a free hand in Scandinavia from the Russians? The Spanish help with Gibraltar from the French? The Greeks - Ionia? Cyprus?

There just might be enough to go around, in terms of the Ottomans' carcass, to keep them all away from each others' throats...

And if 400,000 British and Imperial troops are deep in the veldt...

The RN can defend Britain, and the sea lanes - but they might just not be able to hold the Med...

Interesting.

Best,

Click to expand...

The other thing to remember is EVERYONE is sore with the British in 1896. The Germans over the Boer raid, everyone over her drastic Armenian policy, Italy because she refused to help them against Menelik, China because of her refusal to help during the Triple Intervention, Japan because she wouldn't help them either and then there's the Americans over the Guyana border.

If they could just agree on how to divide up the spoils, it might have been possible that everyone jumped her. Even Argentina had a fleet of sorts for the fun

LordKalvert said:

Anything's possible. The Raid created a stir in Europe and not only in Germany but in France, Russia and the Netherlands as well. Its possible that Kruger takes up on the raid as an opening to gain his independence-

He begins executing the prisoners for murder and invasion. Once the hanging starts, the raiders start singing about Rhodes and Chamberlain's involvement. Kruger than demands that Rhodes and Chamberlain be turned over for execution and decalres all treaties with the Queen null and void by her government's involvement in the attack

The British, who only cared about expanding the Empire takes it as a declaration of war and attack.

Click to expand...

Whoa, what?
The Transvaal Republic was independent and internationally recognized.

If you mean "free of Britain's covetous behavior", that can't be accomplished by being belligerent toward the Empire. I don't think he'd try it.

The Germans were rather angry over Britain's actions with regard to the Transvaal Republic (the Germans had a valid interest given the scale of their investment in the Republic), but the British quite deliberately threatened them with war and blockade if they didn't stand down. I would suggest that other nations likewise feared Britain's Big Cudgel, and would only risk war with Britain if they were sure that enough other nations would sign on, and coordinated their actions. This would also require adjudicating the division of anticipated spoils ahead of time. I don't think a broad enough coalition would have been able to do this, what with conflicting desires and jealousies.

Yep; the great strategic worry for the British throughout the

raharris1973 said:

Indeed, this can be interesting to develop. I'm curious as to whether this would be much more likely in an 1896-1899 Boer War as opposed to an 1899-1902 Boer War.

The main thing making it more likely I suppose is that the a crisis could break out based on a Franco-British encounter in Sudan a la Fashoda, right in the middle of the Boer War. Since Russia, Germany and France have recently cooperated in the Far East Triplice, Russia and then Germany might seize their moment as well. The Italians just lost Adua and have a new ministry and are bitter at the British for failing to back them up and at the French and Russians for helping Ethiopia. But, give them a chance to redeem spoils in the Mediterranean like Anatolia or Malta, and Italy may bandwagon against Britain.

On the other hand, French Anglophobia was probably so high at the time of the Boer War in OTL 1899 because the French were nursing bitterness over Fashoda, before then, the French might be too Alsace-Lorraine centric to make a deal.

Potential British oceanic allies, the US and Japan, are a little less strong and much less active at this time (1896) than later (1899).

Click to expand...

I don't see the US having any interest in a "European" war, certainly beyond selling everything they could to whoever had the specie to pay for it; in the 1890s, that is Britain, so I don't see any liklihood of US involvement with or against the British; depending on how things go, however, the US might express some interest in territorial adjustments in the Western Hemisphere in return for something less than a "cash and carry" policy.

The Japanese, of course, have their eyes set on Korea, Formosa, and China in this era; again, they are likely to sell the British whatever they have the British want to buy, but I see no reason for the Japanese to sign on to an alliance at this point with the British. There's no return and lots of risk.

But it is an interesting potential POD; the great strategic worry for the British throughout the Nineteenth Century was an simultaneous "imperial" war and a "European" war ... if the Russians had held off in the Balkans in the 1850s, and the Mutiny broke out, about all the British could do is send the RN to help move French and Turkish troops.

Likewise, in the 1880s and 1890s, if either South African war had blown up (or, as an alternate, the Jameson Raid made the balloon go up), the British have a lot of potential enemies...

The same thing holds true for the other European powers, of course; there's a reason the Alliance system came into being...

Best,

Yep - the problem with assembling a globe-girdling empire is

LordKalvert said:

The other thing to remember is EVERYONE is sore with the British in 1896. The Germans over the Boer raid, everyone over her drastic Armenian policy, Italy because she refused to help them against Menelik, China because of her refusal to help during the Triple Intervention, Japan because she wouldn't help them either and then there's the Americans over the Guyana border.

If they could just agree on how to divide up the spoils, it might have been possible that everyone jumped her. Even Argentina had a fleet of sorts for the fun

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...you have to defend it.

The British were economically strong in the 1890s, but not that strong...

Best,

Yeah, but ....

Tallil2long said:

Whoa, what?
The Transvaal Republic was independent and internationally recognized.

If you mean "free of Britain's covetous behavior", that can't be accomplished by being belligerent toward the Empire. I don't think he'd try it.

The Germans were rather angry over Britain's actions with regard to the Transvaal Republic (the Germans had a valid interest given the scale of their investment in the Republic), but the British quite deliberately threatened them with war and blockade if they didn't stand down. I would suggest that other nations likewise feared Britain's Big Cudgel, and would only risk war with Britain if they were sure that enough other nations would sign on, and coordinated their actions. This would also require adjudicating the division of anticipated spoils ahead of time. I don't think a broad enough coalition would have been able to do this, what with conflicting desires and jealousies.

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When the British had to mobilize 450,000 men to defeat the South African field forces (all 90,000 of them), that "cudgel" looks a little questionable.

The RN is a formidable force, but - and it is a huge but, obviously - if the French and Italians are potential co-belligerents in the Med, the Spanish are wavering, and the Russians and Germans are potentially alligned in the Baltic, I'm not sure even the RN can do a whole lot inside the Baltic and Mediterranean, much less the Black Sea...

Again, the prize is the Ottoman Empire, and all the European powers (even the Germans, oddly enough) had aspirations in the Balkans, Anatolia, the Mediterranean littoral, or points east ... and there was certainly enough (potentially) to go around.

Now, perhaps Alsace-Lorraine and Venetia and eastern Europe can trump all that, but ... perhaps not.

Best,

Tallil2long said:

Whoa, what?
The Transvaal Republic was independent and internationally recognized.

If you mean "free of Britain's covetous behavior", that can't be accomplished by being belligerent toward the Empire. I don't think he'd try it.

The Germans were rather angry over Britain's actions with regard to the Transvaal Republic (the Germans had a valid interest given the scale of their investment in the Republic), but the British quite deliberately threatened them with war and blockade if they didn't stand down. I would suggest that other nations likewise feared Britain's Big Cudgel, and would only risk war with Britain if they were sure that enough other nations would sign on, and coordinated their actions. This would also require adjudicating the division of anticipated spoils ahead of time. I don't think a broad enough coalition would have been able to do this, what with conflicting desires and jealousies.

Click to expand...

Your right- it would take a global effort (or at least a continental one) to take down Britian. But what good is a two party standard if you face a party of five?

The British were never strong enough to take on the continent. Hence their strategy of balance of power. A Napoleonic hegemon would spell the doom of Britain and that's why she fought Germany in WWI. A German victory would have ended the Empire


Now of course Kruger didn't push things so far as hanging the invaders- if he did though, yes it could have led to a war where Britain was seen as in the wrong. Everyone would then pursue their own interests. And an all in jump on Britain might just happen A reach, but if they think its the chance to bring her down? maybe

As for Britain fighting Germany- she could do limited damage by taking the colonies (Germany didn't really do much with them anyway) but a blockade would require that the Continent go along. Little chance of that. With railways a great European power could only be blockaded if all her land frontiers were closed.