No Jameson Raid

Arguably this may belong in the after 1900 section as although the event was in 1896 its consequences lasted some time afterwards.

In 1896 Dr Jameson lead a raid into the Transvaal in the hopes of fermenting an Uitlander uprising against the Boers. It was a failure, Jameson and his nmen were captured and the Uitlanders didn't rise up in support. However the raid increased the Boers distrust of Britain and the Kaiser's message of congratulation to Preisent Kruger may have started the chain of events that lead to Britain's entry in the the First World War. In Hidden History the Secret Orgins of the First World War the authors claim it was all part of a conspiracy by a wsecret elite masterminded by Cecil Rhodes however the fiasco suggests more a group of incompetents who if finance capital(largely in the hands of the Rothschilds)was a powerful as the authors suggest it could have controlled the goldfields without any need to annex them and if Cecil Rhodes had anything like a credible intelligence service he would have called the raid off.

Had the raid either been called off what would have happened? No Second Boer War? No naval arms race and entente cordiale and Britain staying neutral in the First World War? The long term consequences? No aprtheid in British South Africa but what about in the Boer republics an even earlier apartheid and possibly a later war with a multiracial South Africa?
 
Well, first of all... Hidden History: The Secret Orgins of the First World War belongs to the pathetic type of pseudohistorical conspiracy nonsense that one should read only to mock it without mercy. Terms like "secret elite" and "finance capital (largely in the hands of the Rothschilds)" are useful indicators that you are, in fact, reading blatant poppycock.

So you are right. There was no conspiracy, there was a whole lot of clumsy foul-ups by all parties involved.

Second of all: preventing the raid raid most likely doesn't prevent another Boer war, but merely delays it.

Third of all: even if, in the event of that later Boer war, the kaiser can be convinced to be sensible and keep his mouth shut about foreign affairs that do not concern him, Britain was already wary of German power. Many, myself included, would argue that this British fear was rather ungrounded... but the fact remains that Germany had already started expanding its fleet, and had already demanded to be let in on the 'Great Game' of colonial expansion.

Both these developments were perceived in Britain as a threat, and both were initiated well before the raid.
 
Well, first of all... Hidden History: The Secret Orgins of the First World War belongs to the pathetic type of pseudohistorical conspiracy nonsense that one should read only to mock it without mercy. Terms like "secret elite" and "finance capital (largely in the hands of the Rothschilds)" are useful indicators that you are, in fact, reading blatant poppycock.

So you are right. There was no conspiracy, there was a whole lot of clumsy foul-ups by all parties involved.

Second of all: preventing the raid raid most likely doesn't prevent another Boer war, but merely delays it.

Third of all: even if, in the event of that later Boer war, the kaiser can be convinced to be sensible and keep his mouth shut about foreign affairs that do not concern him, Britain was already wary of German power. Many, myself included, would argue that this British fear was rather ungrounded... but the fact remains that Germany had already started expanding its fleet, and had already demanded to be let in on the 'Great Game' of colonial expansion.

Both these developments were perceived in Britain as a threat, and both were initiated well before the raid.

I saw a copy of that in my local Waterstones the other day. It made me giggle and then got me good and angry that people might take that kind of twaddle seriously. A massive waste of paper.
 
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