THE reader is probably familiar in a general way with the course of political events that led up to one of the greatest of those international crises climaxed by the World War---the Morocco or Agadir crisis of 1911.(1) Beginning in 1902, under Foreign Minister Delcassé, France negotiated secret agreements with Italy, England, and Spain promising France a free hand in Morocco in return for French acquiescence in the ambitions of these powers elsewhere. Then a process of "peaceful penetration" commenced. French bankers and business men were urged to interest themselves in Morocco, military expeditions went in on various pretexts from the neighboring colony of Algeria, and French diplomacy became the dominant influence at the court of the Sultan. But while bartering for the non-interference of other powers, France had neglected to deal with Germany. German trade in Morocco ranked third in volume, immediately after that of England and France, and when France made her peace in advance with all other European states which might possibly show an interest in the country and deliberately(2) overlooked Germany, German statesmen felt that the snub could not be accepted in silence. There is evidence also that sinister influences in the German Foreign Office, of which it was purged a few years later with the dismissal of Baron von Holstein, were committed to the "preventive war" theory and were, therefore, seeking to stir up a quarrel with France.(3) Thus it was that in 1905 the Kaiser went ashore at Tangier to deliver a speech which, by phrases emphasizing the independence of the Sultan, in effect was a challenge to France on the Morocco issue. The political tension which ensued was the first Morocco crisis and culminated in the Conference of Algeciras. At this international conference (1906) French diplomacy was, in the main, victorious, though Germany did secure the adoption of a body of rules (the Algeciras Act) which put the affairs of Morocco under international regulation and affirmed the independence of the Sultan.
It soon became clear that France had no intention of allowing the Algeciras Act to impede her "pacific penetration," and several times incidents occurred to aggravate the tension with Germany. At length the leading German statesmen began to doubt the wisdom of quarreling over Morocco. The Kaiser wrote upon a memorandum in 1908, "The wretched Morocco affair must be brought to a close, quickly and finally. Nothing can be done, Morocco will become French. So get out of the affair gracefully in order that we may at last end the friction with France, now, when great questions are at stake.(4) The result of this new conciliatory policy was the Franco-German Accord of February 8, 1909, in which Germany recognized the paramount political interests of France in Morocco, while France agreed to do nothing to hamper German commercial or industrial activity there. A third clause of the accord provided that France and Germany should endeavor to associate their nationals to joint economic enterprises in Morocco.(5) This agreement did not put an end to the Moroccan difficulties, however. Matters went from bad to worse, and at length the German gunboat Panther was dispatched to the port of Agadir on the southwest coast of Morocco, again challenging France and demanding, in effect, a settlement with Germany. The international crisis which ensued was long and severe (July 1-November 4, 1911), England and other powers found themselves involved in the tangle, and a general European war was narrowly averted. Finally the question was settled peaceably by a compromise which allowed France to establish a protectorate in Morocco, on condition that all nations should enjoy economic equality there, while by way of compensation Germany received 100,000 square miles of the French Congo.
It is against this background that the story of the Mannesmann mining interests must be told.
Reinhard Mannesmann, the eldest of six brothers, sailed along the coast of Morocco in 19o6 on a wedding trip. At various ports where the boat touched natives showed him specimens of iron ore. Reinhard Mannesmann knew something about ore and its uses, for at home in Remscheid, Germany, his family was engaged in the metallurgical industry, manufacturing seamless iron tubes, the so-called Mannesmann tubes, by a process which they had invented. So he questioned the natives closely and made a list of the localities from which their finds had come; then he proceeded to Tangier intending to obtain a concession from the Sultan for the right to work these deposits.(6)
At Tangier, Mannesmann conferred with the German minister, Dr. Rosen, who, it appears, gave him the sort of assistance that a diplomat in such a country customarily gives to a business man from the country he represents.(7) The partisans of the Mannesmanns claimed some years later, after controversy had arisen as to the support which ought to be accorded their claims by the German government, that the government actually urged and pushed them onward at first.(8) This would seem to accord with the general line of German policy from the Kaiser's landing at Tangier (1905) until 1908, in certain respects, at least. We know that the tactics usually employed by a national government attempting to block the penetration of another in a given area include urging and pushing its own nationals into enterprises in the disputed territory. The situation of the German government in Morocco after the Algeciras Conference (1906) was a bit peculiar, however. It was interested in sustaining the authority of the international Act of Algeciras and in holding France to strict accountability under it. Now, it so happened that Article 112 of the Act of Algeciras had prescribed that the Sultan should issue a firman or law on the subject of mining rights, in order to establish a regular procedure by which concessions should be granted. This law was to be based upon the existing European practice in such matters, and it was generally understood that until the law had been proclaimed no concessions at all could be issued. Thus, if the German government was to avoid supplying the French with a pretext for utter disregard of the Algeciras Act it had to be wary about its assistance to the Mannesmanns.
The dispatches in the Whitebook(9) submitted to the Reichstag toward the end of 1909 show that on June 4, 1906, Reinhard Mannesmann informed Dr. Rosen that he had discussed mining concessions with Sultan Abdul Asis at Fez and that the Sultan seemed favorably inclined. Rosen asked Berlin for instructions and was told to let the Mannesmanns go their own way for the time being. Later(10) he was authorized to help bring the matter to the Sultan's attention, since such a procedure might possibly give the Mannesmanns a certain claim to priority of consideration once the mining law had been promulgated. After all, the Mannesmanns were German citizens and the only ones in the field.
Dr. Rosen thereupon obtained a private audience with the Sultan and got him to accept and certify a priority announcement. Dr. Rosen also made the situation under the Algeciras Act perfectly clear to Reinhard Mannesmann, however. He explained that priority might prove of some value if two provisions could be put into the mining law: (1) a provision that claims announced to the Sultan before the adoption of the law were to be considered, and (2) a provision for taking the priority of such claims into account. There was a good chance of securing the insertion of the required paragraphs in the law when issued, for the Mannesmann filing had been kept secret. Rosen also helped to draft and to bring to the attention of the Sultan a mining law suited to these German interests.
In November, 1906, the Mannesmann firm handed in further requests to the Sultan for concessions in all parts of Morocco covering many minerals. The Berlin Foreign Office, apprised of the fact by Rosen, observed that this had the appearance of monopolistic intentions and that Germany must be careful to hold to the spirit as well as to the letter of the Algeciras Act, since she was endeavoring to hold other nations to it. She could not afford to have damaging charges against her policy in Morocco get abroad.(11)
Soon after the Algeciras Conference several drafts were submitted to Sultan Abdul Asis to guide him in framing the new mining law required by Article 112. One was that prepared at Tangier by the German minister, representatives of the Mannesmanns, and Moroccan officials. Another was proposed by the French. The French draft was generally supposed to provide that the Sultan should be free to choose at his discretion among the applicants for any mineral concession. This was a provision that the Germans were especially anxious to avoid, for the very good reason that the Sultan, tottering on his throne, was falling more and more into dependence on the French.
On June 23, 1908, a representative of the Moroccan government informed the diplomatic corps that the Sultan had decided to intrust the framing of a mining law to his public works engineer---a Frenchman. The Germans immediately took alarm. To counter this French move the German minister, supported by Berlin, insisted that before the final adoption of such a law it must be submitted to the diplomatic corps for approval. With great difficulty he succeeded in getting an official expression of the corps in this sense at a sitting held August 20, 1908. In so acting to prevent the adoption of a law which might give free choice of concessionaires to the Sultan, says the German Whitebook, the government was proceeding in accordance with requests directed to it by German interests in Morocco, including the Mannesmanns themselves.(12)
It appears that the decision of the diplomatic corps was not made public, and defenders of the Mannesmanns say they first learned of it semiofficially in January, 1909. Meanwhile, they were concentrating their efforts on a pretender to the throne who had raised the standard of revolt. The crafty pretender, Mulay Hafid, who later reigned as Sultan but had not yet been recognized by the Powers, needed money for extending his sway. He did not bother himself with legal niceties, therefore, but took care to replenish his empty treasure chest on first payments, gifts, and fees from hopeful concession-hunters. Among the most hopeful were the Mannesmanns, and the reason that their proposals were given more consideration than others was that they had the necessary cash in hand.(13) On October 7, 1908, the yet unrecognized Sultan signed a mining "law" proposed by them and issued a sweeping concession thereunder in their favor. Neither of these documents was published, but the Mannesmann representative took the concession itself to the German consulate in Fez, where it was accepted by Vice-Consul Vassel for official registration with explicit reservations as to its validity. Vassel knew of the decision of the foreign diplomats in Tangier and knew that Mulay Hafid, if recognized, would be bound to accept all the international obligations of his predecessor, including that of submitting the mining law for approval to the diplomatic corps.(14)
One of the Mannesmann brothers stayed on and negotiated further with Mulay Hafid. "If he remains," wrote Dr. Rosen in June, 1909, "he is going to get rid of a great deal of money."(15) Rosen kept advising the Mannesmanns not to play Mulay Hafid's game further but to make an agreement with a powerful competitor which had entered the field---the Union des Mines Marocaines.
This Union des Mines was an international association founded in 1907 by M. Carbonel, a French engineer connected with Schneider-Creusot, and included among its adherents powerful French, German, British, Spanish, Italian, Austrian, Belgian, and Portuguese metallurgists, bankers, and even political personages. The French group, composed of Schneider et Cie., its filial the Compagnie Marocaine, the firm of Chatillon-Commentry, the Banque Française pour le Commerce et l'Industrie, Count Armand, and others, owned 50 per cent of the capital, named the president, and elected eight members of the board of directors. The German participation of about 20 per cent, with four seats on the board, was in the hands of Krupp, Thyssen, Gelsenkirchen, the Metallurgische Gesellschaft, and the National Bank für Deutschland.(16) The purpose of the Union was to explore for mineral deposits and to obtain concessions in Morocco. In other words, it was a société d'études and, in fact, never conducted any actual mining operations.
The Union des Mines, according to one of its leading personalities, was organized on the initiative of the industrialists concerned and for purely industrial reasons. At the time of founding, it had no political significance. It was an organization of consumers of iron ore, international in scope in order to assure a wide market for the important deposits it hoped to find.(17)
After the Accord of 1909, which, it will be recalled, provided that the French and German governments should "seek to associate their nationals" in Moroccan enterprises, the statesmen of the two nations undertook to fit the mining interests of their citizens into the frame of that policy. Particularly was this the wish of the German government, for it found itself embarrassed by the Mannesmann claims for diplomatic support while other German citizens with equal right to assistance---among them the important firm of Krupp---were interested in the rival prospects of the Union. For this reason particularly, as well as on account of the snarl of overlapping concessions which we have seen to be developing in Morocco, it seemed to the German government that compromise was the only way out. This view was shared by the French, and it thereupon became a preoccupation of both French and German diplomacy to bring about some sort of a fusion or understanding between the Mannesmann brothers and the Union des Mines.
In January, 1909, the Mannesmanns were advised by the German Foreign Office that it could not undertake to defend the validity of their claim based on the Mulay Hafid concessions. They were urged to put themselves in touch with the international syndicate in order that their interests might be cared for along with those of the larger and more powerful concern. Early in March the Foreign Office again sought to bring about an arrangement between the Mannesmanns and the German members of the Union, informing them that a representative of Krupp had offered them one-fourth of the German participation in the Union on consideration of abandoning their separate claims in Morocco. These preliminary negotiations came to nothing.(18)
Early in 1909 the Mannesmann brothers seem to have been spreading the rumor abroad that the German government would insist upon the full validity of their claims under the Mulay Hafid concessions. At any rate, on March 24, 1909, Foreign Secretary von Schön wrote to Max Mannesmann that he had instructed the German diplomatic representatives in Paris and Tangier to contradict all such impressions and to leave no doubt that the official support vouchsafed to the Mannesmann brothers would remain within certain well-defined limits. "I was forced to take this step," he said, "because the fear which I expressed to you has already begun to prove well-founded; namely, the Imperial Government is acquiring the reputation of defending special German rights bought in secret from the Sultan of Morocco contrary to the principle of the Open Door and the spirit of the Algeciras Act."(19) Von Schön points out in his memoirs that the government could not back the Mannesmanns in all their claims, because to do so would have put Germany in the position of seeking to sidestep those very international controls which she herself had been largely instrumental in shaping. "Entering on such a battle," says he, "would have been to court a sure diplomatic defeat."(20)
A goodly portion of the international aggravations which followed may be charged to the peculiarly obstinate and hesitating attitude exhibited by the Mannesmanns. Throughout the long-drawn-out negotiations with the Union they manifested a stubbornness, indecision, and inability to agree which proved most annoying to all concerned, perhaps to the Germans even more than to the French. Some of the participants even describe their behavior as unaccountable except on the assumption of some abnormal mental quirk. It is certain that the Mannesmanns did not show the usual businessman's readiness to make a deal but stood like adamant for the complete acceptance of their own extreme interpretation of their rights and thereby considerably snarled the already complicated skein of Franco-German relations.
The first formal attempt to bring about a compromise settlement was made in April, 1909, at Paris, where Mannesmanns and the Union bargained under the eyes of their respective governments. Diplomatic dispatches from Morocco carried the warning that the attitude of the Mannesmann firm was awakening distrust and endangering relations to France; so von Schön wired Ambassador Radolin in Paris that he should press the two parties urgently (dringend) toward agreement. "If we are not successful in bringing about such an agreement the result will be a difficult and disagreeable situation both for those whose interests are involved and for their governments."(21)
The desired agreement was possible in either of two directions: first, fusion, whereby the Mannesmanns would become shareholders in the Union; second, division of the field of action in Morocco. The Mannesmanns preferred to explore this latter possibility first, for they announced that they could accept no less than a half-interest in the Union, which would have made it more than half German---a solution wholly inacceptable, of course, to the French government. Representatives of the Union thereupon indicated their willingness to divide the known mineral districts in Morocco into two portions of approximately equal promise. Then the Mannesmanns could take their choice. After long and painful negotiations on this basis it seemed that agreement had finally been reached, when the Mannesmann brothers suddenly decided that they could sign nothing without the approval of their brother Reinhard, who was in Tangier. He refused to come to Paris or to deal by telegraph. Negotiations were thus broken off, though the German government strongly advised the Mannesmanns to accept the Union offer, since there was no hope of obtaining terms as good by pushing their original claims. Radolin reported his growing conviction that the Mannesmanns would not agree to anything (es den Herren Mannesmann um eine Einigung nicht zu tun ist).(22)
Shortly thereafter Baron von Lancken of the German embassy staff prevailed with great difficulty upon M. Peyerimhoff, representative of the Union, to journey to Tangier for a consultation with Reinhard Mannesmann. Peyerimhoff set out determined to reach an agreement at almost any cost. It was much more important to him and to the Union that the matter be settled than that one party or the other gain a few more or less of the unproved ore deposits. There were more claims in Morocco than both together could work in many years.(23) Both governments exerted their influence in favor of a settlement. Von Schön wired Rosen that he should do all in his power to bring about agreement and asked Radolin to get the French government to instruct its diplomatic representative in Tangier likewise. "It would create a very difficult situation for all concerned in case no agreement should be obtained." The French Foreign Office sent the desired instructions. But in spite of the anxious efforts of both governments M. Peyerimhoff's trip was fruitless. Though he yielded point after point, he met in Tangier the same hesitating indecision, changes of mind, and inhibition against agreement which had been encountered in Paris. "If Peyerimhoff had offered Reinhard Mannesmann all the mines in Morocco against one franc," said a German diplomat acquainted with the affair and interviewed by the writer, "Mannesmann would have hesitated and finally could not have brought himself to agree." Dr. Rosen reported from Tangier that Peyerimhoff had shown the greatest imaginable willingness to coöperate and stood ready to grant the Mannesmanns advantages which would have given them a property position equal to that of the Union. "That the Mannesmann brothers have rejected this offer is incomprehensible to me."(24)
At home, in Germany, the Mannesmann brothers were inspiring a newspaper propaganda which quickly assumed large proportions and caused grave concern to the government. They demanded that the Foreign Office defend the entire validity of their concessions and created such a furor that von Schön wished to quit his post.(25) The Bülow government was not very popular anyway, and many dissatisfied persons were glad to attack it through its foreign policy. The clamor against von Schön came from many quarters. In fact, the Socialist papers comprised the only important group defending him against the Mannesmann attacks, and that because they saw in the whole Moroccan mess nothing but capitalistic profit-seeking.(26)
One need not suppose that the Mannesmann brothers controlled any large portion of the German press directly or paid in every case for the championship of their cause---though they did spend considerable sums of money on propaganda.(27) There is always a certain section of the press in any country eager to wave the flag, to demand a strong foreign policy, and to accuse a government with scruples about international obligations of abandoning the national interests in favor of foreigners. The Mannesmanns had at their service the vociferous organs of the Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband), which had long been shouting that Germany should annex part of Morocco in order to provide a market for German industry, a settlement territory under the German flag for German emigrants, a source of raw materials, and, not least, a naval base for the growing German fleet.(28) The petty tradesmen and professional people who formed the membership of the League were fertile soil for the Mannesmann agitation. They probably knew little more about Morocco than its location on the map, and what they could learn from hastily written newspaper articles, but they found a welcome relief from the ordinary drabness of their lives in patriotic enthusiasm. A German commentator rightly observes that the excitement over Morocco centered not around groups of stockholders with investments at stake but around romantisierende Stammtische.(29)
The methods employed by the Mannesmanns to influence public opinion are instructive. They asserted that they were impelled in their undertakings by patriotic motives and had refused to agree to the Union's offers for the sake of their country's future. A supply of iron, said Mannesmann pamphlets, Mannesmann partisans, and hundreds of editorials, was a question of life and death for German industry. "This is the age of iron." Germany must be freed from dependence on foreign sources for this strategic raw material. Sixty per cent of her iron ore had to be imported from foreign nations, and the dangers of this situation were shown by Sweden's recent action limiting the amount of ore which might be exported. Were the Mannesmann brothers to agree to minority participation in the Union des Mines, their objective of a German-controlled iron supply for Germany could never be attained. Furthermore, ran many of the arguments, the Mannesmanns had been urged forward in Morocco at first by the German government itself, only to be unceremoniously dropped, after they had expended much time and money, so soon as their activities no longer suited the purposes of the Foreign Office.
As to the validity of the concessions which they demanded that German diplomacy support, the Mannesmanns were tireless in adducing legal opinion in their favor. They obtained learned opinions from distinguished international lawyers and professors, all of whom concluded that the Mulay Hafid grants were binding. Not only German authorities, but also Spanish, English, Swiss, and even French, were induced to give out such statements.(30) These were published by the Mannesmanns in elaborate brochures and widely circulated.
So a battle of words raged on, with well-nigh disastrous results for Franco-German relations. The German government, under attack in the Reichstag, issued a Whitebook in defense of its policy, and the Mannesmann brothers replied with an impressively documented answer, well supplied with affidavits and legal opinions.(31) Whenever the government gave out a semiofficial explanation of its attitude the Mannesmann reply was carried by a long list of newspapers, accompanied by criticism of German diplomacy. Men of science wrote articles on Germany's need for iron, on her need for territorial expansion, and on the justice of the Mannesmann claims. Petitions poured in from scattered Chambers of Commerce and from such influential bodies as the Hamburg Ship-Owners' Association, which saw in Moroccan ore a prospect of great benefit to the transportation industry.
The Mannesmanns also organized a syndicate to take over their concessions and interested influential Austrians in it to the extent of 25 per cent. The Austro-Hungarian government was soon inquiring of the German government about the status of the Mannesmann claims. A written agreement was reached with the Duke of Povar in Spain. Six French members were taken into the Mannesmann syndicate. One of these was a former Parisian prefect of police, Andrieux, who soon thereafter (reports the German ambassador) paid a call upon the foreign minister. The French government informed him that all French citizens were equally entitled to support in their foreign business operations.(32) Thus the Mannesmanns partly internationalized their patriotic enterprise!
Confronted by a menacing tide of public opinion at home, the German government sought desperately again early in 1910 to bring about an agreement between the Mannesmann syndicate and the Union des Mines. Walter Rathenau, a man who had the confidence of Kaiser William II, journeyed to Paris and met M. Stephen Pichon, French foreign minister, who introduced him to the officers of the Union des Mines. Under pressure for conciliation from high places a draft agreement was ready on May 28th, and three days later one of the Mannesmanns arrived. With his arrival the atmosphere changed. "Each day there was a new proposal, a fresh exaction." The Union conceded many points, and once more an accord was reached. June 8th was set as the day on which it should be signed. On that day the directors of the Union were assembled for the purpose when Rathenau entered, declared that the Mannesmanns were demanding new modifications which he considered unjustifiable, and announced that he had resigned his mandate. Negotiations were therewith broken off.(33)
Yet again in the latter part of 1910 and the first months of 1911 there were attempts, always impelled by the governments, to bring the Union and the Mannesmanns together. One scheme called for the organization of a bank which should acquire the rights of both parties and in which the Mannesmanns, the Union, and a neutral Anglo-German group should hold shares. The division proposed would have given French interests less than half the stock in the enterprise and was not acceptable to them. The Mannesmanns, in order to satisfy the Pan-German press, demanded the assurance that 40 per cent of all iron mined should be available to German factories at the market price. This project likewise fell through.(34)
Meanwhile other phases of the dangerous Moroccan question had been growing more troublesome. The poison injected by the Mannesmann agitation and its reflection in the French and English press had certainly been making their solution no easier. At last the French occupied Fez, Germany sent the Panther to Agadir, an English cabinet minister made a bellicose speech, and war clouds lowered. At the height of the tension, while the German government was endeavoring to preserve peace on the basis of territorial compensation in equatorial Africa against a French Morocco, the Pan-German press, "influenced primarily by the Mannesmann Brothers," as Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg thought, continued, despite official efforts to still its clamors, to demand a part of Morocco for Germany. "That," added the Chancellor in a memorandum to the Kaiser, "is in my humble opinion a chief cause of the nervousness of the German public."(35)
The Morocco crisis of 1911 ended with the signature of a Franco-German convention on November 4. The detailed stipulations in the convention regarding equality of treatment under the French protectorate for mining enterprises of all nationalities attested once more the great prominence which public opinion in Germany had forced the government to give this subject.
Now that Morocco was definitely French an agreement between the Mannesmann syndicate and the Union des Mines could finally be brought about, and on November 13, 1911, the long and difficult negotiations came to an end. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. "Ouf!" wrote Jules Cambon, French ambassador in Berlin, to the German foreign minister, von Kiderlen, "this hasn't been very easy, but it will facilitate many things for us."(36)
.
In a single individual, Cecil Rhodes, one sees exemplified the complex interweaving of political and economic motives, purposes, and methods which this book seeks to examine in the larger social organization composed of many individuals. He was at once financier and politician, capitalist and statesman, profit-seeker and visionary empire builder. Chief of the British South Africa Company (itself a politico-economic mixture), owner of great diamond and gold mining enterprises in South Africa, leading politician and premier of Cape Colony, inspirer of expansionist enthusiasm among the population of Great Britain, it is never possible to say where the political imperialist in him stopped and the business man began, or that he did this to make money and that to realize the dreams of British glory which he had cherished from his youth. His biographers record that he early conceived high ambitions for the expansion of Britain and for a sort of Anglo-Saxon hegemony over the whole world---a pax Britannica which would be a boon to humanity. A will made at the age of 24 already directed that his still unmade but prospective fortune be devoted to the promotion of that purpose, presaging the Rhodes Scholarship trust left at his death for uses designed to the same end. And yet his dreams of imperial glory were not unrelated to the profit-making of his economic enterprises. "Pure philanthropy is all very well in its way," he said, "but philanthropy plus five per cent is a good deal better."(37) To Rhodes, indeed, finance and politics were simply two aspects of the same thing: Power.(38) Money gave him power to plan an all-British railway from the Cape to Cairo and to pursue his other political dreams; political manipulation and imperialist projects helped him to make money. The fascinating thing about Rhodes is that the interaction between politics and finance, which is ordinarily a social process---it ordinarily takes place between more or less specialized interest groups within a larger community where some individuals are mainly business-minded and others mainly political-minded---in his case demonstrated almost all its various aspects within this one personality. Interested readers should turn to a good biography of Rhodes. Only a brief account of one episode in his fascinating career can be given here, and that in order to illustrate certain techniques employed by the financier-imperialist to influence public opinion and governmental action.(39)
On December 29, 1895, Dr. Jameson, an employee of Rhodes and a manager of the British South Africa Company, crossed the border of the Transvaal Republic at the head of several hundred armed men and marched toward Johannesburg. The purpose was to overthrow the government of Dutch settlers (Boers) and to establish a regime more satisfactory to the foreign mine owners who had acquired a large stake in the new and rich gold mines of the Rand. This was no chance action of an irresponsible hothead. The plot had been carefully laid and long prepared in Cape Town and even in London; it had been instigated, directed, and financed by Rhodes and others, working with a group of foreign miners in Johannesburg. Despite the careful preparations, the plan seems to have gone awry at the last moment and Dr. Jameson "went in" at the actual time without authority from Rhodes while the latter was vainly trying to countermand the scheduled sally. Uprisings that had been counted upon in Johannesburg failed to take place. The Boers captured Dr. Jameson and his little army and put them in prison. Rhodes accepted full responsibility for the raid, and with his associate, Beit, paid costs and fines amounting to more than a million dollars. The whole incident aggravated the long-standing quarrels between the Transvaal and the British of Cape Colony which culminated a few years later in the South African or Boer War. It also occasioned an immense increase in hostility between Great Britain and Germany and thus contributed its part to the naval rivalry and ill-feeling which prepared the World War; this because Kaiser Wilhelm II dispatched a telegram of congratulation to President Kruger of the Transvaal on his capture of Jameson, and thus brought British opinion to boil with indignation.
The part played by international investments in this particular international difficulty is fairly plain. The discovery of gold on the Rand had led to an influx of foreigners until they far outnumbered the Boers. The policy of President Kruger was to restrict the political influence of the newcomers to the utmost and to maintain the ruling aristocracy of Boer landowners. His leading idea, almost an obsession, was to keep his republic for the Dutch settlers, unpolluted by British interference. He obstinately refused to accord political rights to the fortune-seekers who flocked into his country and even rejected such apparently reasonable demands as municipal freedom for the beehive of mining activity, Johannesburg. Still worse, from the point of view of mine profits, he gave encouragement to disreputable concession-hunters of every nationality except English to exploit the diggers' needs. The most famous grievance of the foreigners on this score was the dynamite monopoly, which raised the price of dynamite to such a point that it was equivalent to an extra tax of many hundreds of thousands of pounds on mining. Against the resistance of the stiff-necked old Boer president to their headlong quest for gold the miners chafed and plotted, especially the financier-owners like Rhodes and Beit who manipulated from outside.(40)
When Rhodes later explained the Raid to a committee of the British parliament he said that discontent had been caused by restrictions on the gold industry in the Transvaal, by the denial of civil rights to the rapidly growing foreign population, and by corrupt administration of the government. After long efforts to remedy an intolerable situation(41) he continued, leading persons in Johannesburg despaired of redress by constituted means and were resolved to seek by extra-constitutional means such a change in the Government as would give to "the majority of the population, possessing more than half the land, nine-tenths of the wealth, and paying nineteen-twentieths of the taxes in the country" a due share in its administration. "I sympathized with, and as one largely interested in the Transvaal shared in, these grievances. . ." Beit expressly stated in his testimony that the scheme for assisting an insurrection in Johannesburg originated with Rhodes himself, and it appears that Rhodes' proposal was not immediately accepted at Johannesburg. Many of the rank and file there were luke-warm about rising at all. One of Rhodes' subordinates, moved almost to tears by the hesitation of Johannesburg, telegraphed in the picturesque code of the conspirators to Jameson waiting on the border: "All our foreign friends are dead against flotation and say public will not subscribe one penny towards it even with you as director. . . We cannot have fiasco."(42) The driving initiative in the affair evidently came from the outside financier-imperialists. The motives, as stated by Rhodes, were not related solely to mining enterprise: ". . . further, as a citizen of the Cape Colony, I felt that the persistently unfriendly attitude of the Government of the South African Republic towards the Colony was the great obstacle to common action for practical purposes among the various States of South Africa.... I must admit that in all my actions I was greatly influenced by my belief that the policy of the present Government of the South African Republic was to introduce the influence of another Foreign Power into the already complicated system of South Africa, and thereby render more difficult in the future the closer union of the different States."(43) Rhodes told a deputation from Johannesburg before the Raid that he had two objects in embarking on the revolution: first, to get rid of abuses which affected him as one of the largest mine proprietors, and secondly, to obtain free trade with the other South African states, which would lead to a customs union, a railroad amalgamation, and ultimately to the South African federation that was one of his dreams.(44)
So Rhodes prepared for the rebellion with purse and influence. He sent his brother, a cavalry colonel, to Johannesburg to take charge of the plot there and provided him with unlimited credit. As managing director of the British South Africa Company he arranged for a military force under Dr. Jameson to be stationed on the border. His diamond mining organization at Kimberley, the DeBeers Mining Company, smuggled arms over the boundary concealed in oil drums or under truck loads of coal---a hostile act which the Premier of Cape Colony, Rhodes, might have been expected to prevent. A DeBeers employee was sent to buy supplies and horses and place them at suitable points on the route between Jameson's station and Johannesburg.(45)
The highly successful methods employed by Rhodes and his associates to turn public opinion at home in favor of their cause constitute one of the most interesting aspects of the affair. It is remarkable that the Jameson Raid, an outrage against the law of nations to begin with, and a rather wretched and unheroic fiasco at the end when Jameson and his entire column surrendered, was nevertheless greeted by a jingoistic outburst of popular enthusiasm in England. Jameson even became something of a popular hero. The reasons are not far to seek.
In the first place, Cecil Rhodes had skillfully won over the English public to his ventures long before the Raid was thought of. The shareholders of the British South Africa Company numbered eight or nine thousand---a compact body of favorable opinion---and the roster of the board of directors included some of the noblest names in England. The annual shareholders' meetings were always crowded, for Rhodes used them less to make prosaic reports than to expound his views on political and imperial affairs in general. Furthermore Rhodes saw to it that he was on friendly terms with newspapermen, politicians, financial houses, and society leaders. In the second place, the South African press and the flow of news from South Africa to England was well under the control of the financier-imperialist group.(46) The expenses of the conspiracy, paid by Rhodes and Beit, included a press fund to secure a favorable public opinion,(47) and the publicity for the Raid had been prepared with particular care and cleverness.
Rhodes had won over Moberly Bell, the powerful manager of the London Times to his South African projects, and as preparations for the Raid went forward Miss Flora Shaw, writer on South African affairs for the Times and one of the most brilliant and accomplished members of its staff, shared in the secret. She became a confidential representative of Rhodes in London and was expected to prepare the way discreetly.(48) On December 10th she cabled Rhodes: "Can you advise when you will commence the plan. We wish to send at earliest opportunity sealed instructions representatives of the London Times European capitals; it is most important having their influence in your favour."(49) Colonel Younghusband, Times correspondent in South Africa, was in the confidence of the Reform Committee at Johannesburg and carried messages to Rhodes for them.(50)
Another curious propaganda preparation was made by the plotters. Towards the end of November, 1895, as soon as preparations for the Raid were well advanced, Dr. Jameson, who had been with Rhodes at Cape Town, went to Johannesburg and procured a letter signed by the leaders there.(51) This letter described the disturbed and discontented state of the city, the likelihood of a conflict with the government and the consequent danger to "thousands of unarmed men, women and children . . . at the mercy of well-armed Boers," and concluded with a request to Jameson that he should come to their help if a disturbance took place. The date was purposely left blank; Jameson was to fill it in when all was ready and use its appeal on behalf of helpless women and children as justification for invading Boer territory. One of the conspirators later testified that the letter was given to afford a pretext which might justify Dr. Jameson with the directors of the British South Africa Company and induce the officers and men under him to participate in the Raid, and that it was never intended to be published. Jameson read this letter to his troops before their start, and it was used by him as ground for his action both to the Boer commandant and to a messenger sent by the British High Commissioner to order his return. As soon as the Raid became known, the letter was cabled on Rhodes' orders to Miss Shaw for insertion in the Times, with a date filled in which made it appear that it had been sent as an urgent appeal from Johannesburg just before the Raid.(52) In London it stirred up a wave of popular enthusiasm for the Doctor and his troopers and "inspired one of the worst sonnets ever indited even by a poet-laureate."(53) While any hope remained that Jameson might win through, Rhodes and his associates did their best to promote his success, and they kept up the appearance of success as long as they could. A report was circulated that a victory had been won and Johannesburg nearly reached. But news of the surrender came through. Jameson had not been assisted by the Johannesburgers and it even began to look as though he had not been wanted by them. However, this was the moment obligingly selected by the Kaiser to send his telegram to Kruger, and this aroused patriotic fervor, diverted attention from Rhodes and Jameson, and enabled them to hint at the ambitions of a foreign power as justification for their actions. The fact is that in many quarters in England there was little condemnation of the Raid. Rhodes appeared before a parliamentary committee of investigation, but, he said, "I found all the busmen smiling at me when I came to London; so I knew it was all right."(54)
