Occasion:
A promise of intervention was sent by the British Government in reply to a petition from the Outlanders in 1899. Attempts to reach a compromise with Kruger failed. Both sides were preparing for war, and the mining interests exerted great pressure. On October 9, 1899, the Transvaal issued an Ultimatum.
Course of the War:
The Boers invaded Natal and Cape Colony; Ladysmith, Mafeking, and Kimberley were invested. British defeats at Magersfontein, Stormberg, and Colenso (December 1899) led to Lord Roberts being sent out to supersede General Buller. Kimberley and Ladysmith were relieved, Bloemfontein fell. In May 1900 Mafeking was relieved, and in June Johannesburg and Pretoria were occupied. The attempt to insist on unconditional surrender prolonged the war for two more years.
Political Result:
By the Treaty of Vereeniging, May 1902, the Transvaal lost its independence. The Orange Free State had been annexed in 1900. Under pressure from the financial interests Chinese were introduced to work the gold-mines. This was one of the chief reasons for the fall of the Conservative Government in 1906. Campbell-Bannerman, who became Prime Minister, solved the problem of the future of the Transvaal by granting them full self-government, and the importation of Chinese was stopped.
Remarks:
The origin of the war can be directly traced to far less worthy causes than that of redressing the grievances of the Outlanders. The war was unnecessarily prolonged by an underestimate of the strength of the Boers and the desire to humiliate them. But the grant of self-government was the act that saved the war from being barren in results and from being the precursor of further trouble. The Union of South Africa was established in 1909.
The Powers of Europe, with the exception of Italy, adopted an unfriendly attitude towards Great Britain during the war.