The path to a major Anglo-Boer clash was tortuous and involved conflicting interests and ambitions as well as ideologies. Exactly which forces were the dominant cause of war has long been a source of argument among historians. Still, there can be little doubt over some factors. The ultimate cause of war was not the responsibility of individuals like Rhodes or Milner, however powerful; all they did was light the flames. Nor was it all down to the Uitlander crisis; imperial concern over immigrant treatment and rights was essentially an excuse for British intervention to resolve the issue of absolute imperial authority over all of South Africa.
Even less was the war caused, as some imperial propaganda of the 1890s suggested, by Boer plans to exploit the ZAR’s new strength to impose Afrikanerdom on the whole country. There was no basis for any such thing. Left alone, republican interests had no burning quarrel with British power and, as in the case of the Orange Free State, were quite willing to co-exist with it. Additionally, colonial Boers and republican Boers had their own regional political and social cultures and did not necessarily all wish to sing to the same tune.
Keeping gold supplies in view as a crucial factor, there is much to be said for a broad explanation of Britain’s deliberate steps towards war in the 1890s. The ZAR had to be contained. Economic independence to back its republican sovereignty held out the troubling prospect of a wealthy and independent South African state beyond British reach. Its of policies of modernisation and economic protectionism spelled bad news for the preferential position of British financial interests and trade goods. The risk loomed of the British being squeezed out of Boer markets by German or French commercial rivals.
A parallel worry was the potential of the ZAR’s new rail and port connection to Delagoa Bay. This opened a door for other great powers to deal with the Boers at British expense, including the nightmarish possibility of gold supplies being diverted to other European money markets.
These were not the only anxieties. Mozambican port development to service the ZAR had unsettling implications for naval strategy. With handy access to coal from the Boer state through Delagoa Bay, any rival European sea power could station its navy in the Indian Ocean and menace Britain’s vital Cape maritime route. Finally, deep down, there was the issue of maintaining confidence in London as the world’s financial and commercial centre and upholding the security and prestige of its empire. As the empire’s global power began to decline in relative terms in the later nineteenth century, less and less could be left to chance. Given the critical significance of gold to Britain’s international financial position, it needed the assurance of a friendly ZAR administration to look after the mining industry, just as much as it needed the assurance that South African bullion would end up in London.
No less assuredly, imperial supremacy could not be compromised anywhere, be it India or South Africa. As Chamberlain put it, if Britain’s power in South Africa was challenged, it would put at stake its power and influence in its colonies and throughout the world. Seeing off that challenge would mean war. Yet, as the British were about to discover, forcing war on a beleaguered enemy was not the same as being able to dictate its course.
