Meanwhile, recent history has had to concern itself largely with groupings or alliances, which have in the main resulted from ambition, distrust, or fear.  As has already been shown, the Partition of Africa was arranged without a resort to arms; but after that appropriation of the lands of the dark races, the white peoples in the south came into collision late in 1899.

Much has been written as to the causes of the Boer War; but the secret encouragements which those brave farmers received from Germany are still only partly known.  Even in 1894 Mr. Merriman warned Sir Edward Grey of the danger arising from “the steady way in which Krueger was Teutonising the Transvaal.”  Germany undoubtedly stiffened the neck of Krueger and the reactionary Boers in resisting the much-needed reforms.  It is significant that the Kaiser’s telegram to Krueger after the defeat of Jameson’s raiders was sent only a few days before his declaration, January 18, 1896, that Germany must now pursue a World-Policy, as she did by browbeating Japan in the Far East.  These developments had been rendered possible by the opening of the Kiel-North Sea Canal in 1895, an achievement which doubled the naval power of Germany.  Thenceforth she pushed on construction, especially by the Navy Bill of 1898.  Reliance on her largely accounts for the obstinate resistance of the Boers to the just demands of England and the Outlanders in 1899.  A German historian, Count Reventlow, has said that “a British South Africa could not but thwart all German interests”; and the anti-British fury prevalent in Germany in and after 1899 augured ill for the preservation of peace in the twentieth century so soon as her new fleet was ready[496].

[Footnote 496:  E, Lewin, The Germans and Africa, p. xvii. and chaps. v.-xiii.; J.H.  Rose, The Origins of the War, Lectures I.-III.; Reventlow, Deutschlands auswaertige Politik, p. 71.]

The results of the Boer War were as follows.  For the time Great Britain lost very seriously in prestige and in material resources.  Amidst the successes gained by the Boers, the intervention of one or more European States in their favour seemed highly probable; and it is almost certain that Krueger relied on such an event.  He paid visits to some of the chief European capitals, and was received by the French President (November 1900), but not by Kaiser William.  The personality and aims of the Kaiser will concern us later; but we may notice here that in that year he had special reasons for avoiding a rupture with the United Kingdom.  The Franco-Russian Alliance gave him pause, especially since June 1898, when a resolute man, Delcasse, became Foreign Minister at Paris and showed less complaisance to Germany than had of late been the case[497].  Besides, in 1898, the Kaiser had concluded with Great Britain a secret arrangement on African affairs, and early in 1900 acquired sole control of Samoa instead of the joint Anglo-American-German protectorate, which had produced friction.  Finally, in the summer of 1900, the Boxer Rising in China opened up grave problems which demanded the co-operation of Germany and the United Kingdom.