Editing Second Boer War (section)

=== Jameson Raid ===
{{Main|Jameson Raid}}

[[File:Leander Starr Jameson00.jpg|thumb|A sketch showing the arrest of [[Jameson Raid|Jameson]] after the failed raid, in 1896]]

In 1895, a plan to take Johannesburg and end the control of the Transvaal government was hatched with the connivance of the Cape Prime Minister Rhodes and Johannesburg gold magnate [[Alfred Beit]]. A column of 600 armed men was led over the border from Bechuanaland towards Johannesburg by Jameson, the [[Company rule in Rhodesia|Administrator in Rhodesia]] of the [[British South Africa Company]], of which Cecil Rhodes was the chairman. The column, mainly made up of [[Rhodesia (name)|Rhodesian]] and [[Bechuanaland]] [[British South Africa Police]]men, was equipped with [[Maxim machine gun]]s and some artillery pieces.

The plan was to make a three-day dash to Johannesburg and trigger an uprising by the primarily British expatriate uitlanders, organised by the [[Johannesburg Reform Committee]], before the [[Boer commando]]s could mobilise. However, the Transvaal authorities had advance warning of the Jameson Raid and tracked it from the moment it crossed the border. Four days later, the weary and dispirited column was surrounded near [[Krugersdorp]], within sight of Johannesburg. After a brief skirmish in which the column lost 65 killed and wounded—while the Boers lost but one man—Jameson's men surrendered and were arrested by the Boers.<ref name="Pakenham1979" />{{rp|1–5}}

The botched raid had repercussions throughout southern Africa and in Europe. In Rhodesia, the departure of so many policemen enabled the [[Northern Ndebele people|Matabele]] and [[Shona people|Mashona]] peoples' rising against the British South Africa Company. The rebellion, known as the [[Second Matabele War]], was suppressed only at a great cost.

A few days after the raid, the [[German Emperor|German Kaiser]] sent a telegram—known to history as "the [[Kruger telegram]]"—congratulating President Kruger and the government of the South African Republic on their success. When the text of this telegram was disclosed in the British press, it generated a storm of anti-German feeling. In the baggage of the raiding column, to the great embarrassment of Britain, the Boers found telegrams from Cecil Rhodes and the other plotters in Johannesburg. Chamberlain had approved Rhodes' plans to send armed assistance in the case of a Johannesburg uprising, but he quickly moved to condemn the raid. Rhodes was severely censured at the Cape inquiry and the London parliamentary inquiry and was forced to resign as Prime Minister of the Cape and as Chairman of the British South Africa Company, for having sponsored the failed ''coup d'état''.

The Boer government handed their prisoners over to the British for trial. Jameson was tried in England, where the British press and London society, inflamed by anti-Boer and anti-German feeling and in a frenzy of jingoism, lionised him and treated him as a hero. Although sentenced to 15 months imprisonment (which he served in [[Holloway (HM Prison)|Holloway]]), Jameson was later rewarded by being named Prime Minister of the Cape Colony (1904–1908) and was ultimately anointed as one of the founders of the Union of South Africa. For conspiring with Jameson, the uitlander members of the Reform Committee (Transvaal) were tried in the Transvaal courts and found guilty of high treason. The four leaders were sentenced to death by hanging, but the next day this sentence was commuted to 15 years' imprisonment. In June 1896, the other members of the committee were released on payment of £2,000 each in fines, all of which were paid by Cecil Rhodes. One Reform Committee member, Frederick Gray, committed suicide while in Pretoria [[gaol]], on 16 May. His death was a factor in softening the Transvaal government's attitude to the surviving prisoners.

Jan C. Smuts wrote, in 1906:

{{blockquote|The Jameson Raid was the real declaration of war&nbsp;... And that is so in spite of the four years of truce that followed&nbsp;... [the] aggressors consolidated their alliance&nbsp;... the defenders on the other hand silently and grimly prepared for the inevitable".<ref name="Pakenham1979" />{{rp|9}} }}