Language could not be plainer. It was the British government’s demand that the South African Republic must accept British control of her internal affairs—of affairs so purely domestic as the franchise and the representation of her citizens[[248]]—or fight. It is not a little remarkable in this connection that Germany, France, the United States of America and other powerful nations whose subjects were mingled with the English in that vast foreign population in the Transvaal, heard of no grievances inflicted on their subjects by the South African Republic sufficient to call forth even a friendly diplomatic representation and request for redress.
On the morning of August the 8th, the day after Mr. Chamberlain’s warlike speech, the London papers announced that the Liverpool and Manchester regiments, then at the Cape, had been ordered to Natal; that the Fifteenth Hussars were to embark on the 23d of August, and that troops were to be massed along the Transvaal frontier. On the 11th of August it was announced that 12,000 British troops were to be dispatched from India to South Africa, and on the same day a large consignment of war stores, including medical requisites, was given out from the royal arsenal, Woolwich, for shipment to Natal, and the sum of $2,000,000 in gold was sent to South Africa for the War Office account. British troops began to arrive in South Africa from India and from England in the first week of October. By the 10th some 15,000 had landed. [[249]]These were hurried to the frontiers of the Orange Free State—both west and east—most of them being concentrated along the northern boundary of Natal, convenient to the southern frontier of the Transvaal.
The government of the South African Republic made no mistake as to the meaning of Chamberlain’s belligerent speech in the House of Commons. On the 8th of August orders were given for the purchase of 1,000 trek oxen, to be used in the operations of the commissary department. On the 11th the German steamer Reichstag arrived at Lorenzo Marquez with 401 cases of ammunition. On the 12th it was decided to proceed at once with the construction of fortified camps at Laing’s Nek and Majuba Hill, and orders were issued for the preparation of armored trains. The mobilization of artillery was begun on the 13th, and the next day that force went into camps of instruction to learn the handling of guns of the latest pattern. On the 14th of August the Field Cornets were ordered to distribute Mauser rifles to the burghers, and the government began the purchase of mules, provisions and general war supplies. Large quantities of arms and ammunition were dispatched on the 15th of August to Oudtshoorn, Aliwal Bethany, [[250]]and other points in Cape Colony and the Orange Free State for the use of any Africanders who should rise against Great Britain when hostilities began. On the 19th of August another German steamer, the Kœnig, arrived in Delagoa Bay with 2,000 cases of cartridges for the Transvaal government. The same day fifty cases of ammunition each were dispatched to Kimberley, Jagersfontein and Aliwal North for the arming of sympathizers in those districts of Cape Colony. On the same day 300 Transvaal artillerists, with guns, ammunition and camp equipage, left Johannesburg for Komati Pass, in the Libombo Mountains.
And so it went on during the “friendly diplomatic correspondence,” which terminated on the 25th of September—awaiting the “later dispatch” from the British cabinet, which never came; both sides arming and maneuvering for strategic advantages in preparation for the struggle that was seen to be inevitable.
Perceiving that all the days spent in waiting for that “later dispatch” were being used by Great Britain in massing her gigantic powers of war in South Africa and along the Transvaal frontier, and believing that no such dispatch would now come until the points of war were all [[251]]secured by his great antagonist, President Kruger at last astonished the world—and, most of all, Great Britain—by issuing an ultimatum sufficiently bold and defiant to have come from any of the first-rate powers of the earth.
The document was dated 5 o’clock, p. m., on Monday, October the 9th, and read as follows:
“Her Majesty’s unlawful intervention in the internal affairs of this republic, in conflict with the London convention of 1884, and by the extraordinary strengthening of her troops in the neighborhood of the borders of this republic, has caused an intolerable condition of things to arise, to which this government feels itself obliged, in the interest not only of this republic, but also of all South Africa, to make an end as soon as possible.
“This government feels itself called upon and obliged to press earnestly and with emphasis for an immediate termination of this state of things, and to request Her Majesty’s government to give assurances upon the following four demands:
“First—That all points of mutual difference be regulated by friendly recourse to arbitration or by whatever amicable way may be agreed upon by this government and Her Majesty’s government. [[252]]
“Second—That all troops on the borders of this republic shall be instantly withdrawn.