Pax Britannica and Imperial Conflict Strategies

Sonderdrucke aus der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

JÖRN LEONHARD

Pax Britannica and imperial conflict strategies

The Indian Uprising 1857/58 and the South African War in comparison

Originalbeitrag erschienen in: Jörn Leonhard (Hrsg.): Comparing empires : encounters and transfers in the long nineteenth century. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011, S. [393] - 408 Schriftenreihe der FRIAS School of History

Edited by Ulrich Herbert and Jörn Leonhard

Volume 1

www.frias.uni-freiburg.de Comparing Empires

Encounters and Transfers in the Long Nineteenth Century

Edited by Jörn Leonhard and Ulrike von Hirschhausen

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© 2011 Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen / Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht LLC, Oakville, CT, U.S.A. www.v-r.de Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Das Werk und seine Teile sind urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung in anderen als den gesetzlich zugelassenen Fällen bedarf der vorherigen schriftlichen Einwilligung des Verlages. Hin- weis_zu § 52a UrhG: Weder das Werk noch seine Teile dürfen ohne vorhe- rige schriftliche Einwilligung des Verlages öffentlich zugänglich gemacht werden. Dies gilt auch bei einer entsprechenden Nutzung für Lehr- und Unterrichtszwecke. Printed in Germany. Satz: Dörlemann, Lemförde Druck und Bindung: 0 Hubert & Co, Göttingen Redaktion: Agnes Fellner, Jörg Später Redaktionsassistenz: Leonard Bowinkelmann Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem Papier. Ill WEN Table of Contents

Ulrike von Hirschhausen and Jörn Leonhard: Beyond Rise, Decline and Fall — Comparing Multi-Ethnic Empires in the Long Nineteenth Century 9

Exploring and Mobilizing — The Challenge of Imperial Space

Valeska Huber: Highway of the British Empire? — The Suez Canal between Imperial Competition and Local Accommodation 37

Frithjof Benjamin Schenk: Mastering Imperial Space? — The Ambivalent Impact of Railway-Building in Tsarist Russia 60

Marsha Siefert: "Chingis-Khan with the Telegraph" — Communications in the Russian and Ottoman Empires 78

Murat Özyüksel: Rail and Rule — Railway-Building and Railway-Politics in the Ottoman Empire 109

Karl Schlögel: Commentary — Mastering Imperial Spaces in the Age of Engineers 137

Mapping and Classifying — Surveying Composite States and Multi-Ethnic Populations

Ulrike von Hirschhausen: People that Count — The Imperial Census in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Europe and India 145

Mehmet Hacisalihoglu: Borders, Maps and Censuses — The Politization of Geography and Statistics in the Multi-Ethnic Ottoman Empire 171

Ute Schneider: Commentary — Empires and the Tension between Difference and Likeness 211 6 Table of Contens

Mediating and Representing — The Monarchy as an Imperial Instrument

Ulrike von Hirschhausen: The Limits of Ornament — Representing Monarchy in Great Britain and India in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century 219

Daniel Unowsky: Dynastic Symbolism and Popular Patriotism — Monarchy and Dynasty in Late Imperial Austria 237

Richard Wortman: The Tsar and the Empire — Representation of the Monarchy and Symbolic Integration in Imperial Russia . . . 266

Hakan T. Karateke: From Divine Ruler to Modern Monarch — The Ideal of the Ottoman Sultan in the Nineteenth Century 287

Peter Haslinger: Commentary — Failing Empires? Strategies and Impacts of Imperial Representation during the Nineteenth Century . 302

Believing and Integrating — Religion and Education as Media for Imperial Images

Benedikt Stuchtey: One Big Imperial Family? — Religion and Missions in the Victorian Age 31'1

Martin Schulze Wessel: Religion, Politics and the Limits of Imperial Integration — Comparing the Habsburg Monarchy and the Russian Empire 337

Joachim von Puttkamer: Schooling, Religion and the Integration of Empire — Education in the Habsburg Monarchy and in Tsarist Russia 359

Azmi Özcan: Imperial Legitimacy and Unity — The Tradition of the Caliphate in the Ottoman Empire 373

Fikret Adanir: Commentary — Challenging Religion's Supranational Character in a Period of International Competition 385

Ruling and Bargaining — Confronting Conflicts within the Empires

Jörn Leonhard: Pax Britannica and Imperial Conflict Strategies — The Indian Uprising 1857/58 and the South African War in Comparison 393

Alice Freifeld: Conflict and De-escalation — The Hungarian People and Imperial Politics from 1848-1849 to the Ausgleich of 1867 • • • • 409 Table of Contens 7

Alexey Miller and Mikhail Dolbilov: "The Damned Polish Question" — The Romanov Empire and the Polish Uprisings of 1830-1831 and 1863-1864 425 Maurus Reinkowski: The Imperial Idea and Realpolitik — Reform Policy and Nationalism in the Ottoman Empire 453

Jürgen Osterhammel: Commentary — Measuring Imperial `Success' and `Failure' 472

Defending and Fighting — The Empires' Experience of the First World War

Santanu Das: "Heart and Soul with Britain"? — India, Empire and the Great War 479 Martin Zuckert: Imperial War in the Age of Nationalism — The Habsburg Monarchy and the First World War 500 Eric Lohr: Politics, Economics and Minorities — Core Nationalism in the Russian Empire at War 518 Erik-Jan Zürcher: Demographic Engineering, State-Building and the Army — The Ottoman Empire and the First World War 530 Jörn Leonhard: Commentary — Conflicting Loyalities and the Crisis of Efficiency: The Imperial Test of the First World War . 545

Acknowledgements 553

List of Authors 555 Jörn Leonhard

Pax Britannica and Imperial Conflict Strategies The Indian Uprising 1857/58 and the South African War in Comparison

For Karl Marx, the case was clear: As one of the most prominent contemporary observers, he combined an indictment of British imperial rule with a sardonic commentary on the biases of the British press in his reports for the New York Daily News about the rebellion in India in 1857. Moreover, he compared the eruption of violence in India to contemporary European events and explained the Indian Mutiny with the very character of British imperial rule. What Britain used to welcome when taking place in other European societies, now seemed to reflect the inhuman practice of British imperial rule in India:

"The outrages committed by the revolted sepoys in India are indeed appalling, hideous, in- effable — such as one is prepared to meet only in wars of insurrection, of nationalities, of races, and above all of religion; in one word, such as respectable England used to applaud when perpetrated ... by the Spanish guerrillas on the infidel Frenchmen, by Serbians on their German and Hungarian neighbours, by Croats on Viennese rebels, by Cavaignac's Garde Mobile or Bonaparte's Decembrists on the sons and daughters of proletarian France. However infamous the conduct of the sepoys, it is only the reflex, in a concentrated form, of England's own conduct in India ... To characterize that rule, it suffices to say that torture formed an organic institution of its financial polity. There is something in human history like retribution; and it is a rule of historical retribution that its instrument be forged not by the offended, but by the offender himself':' Marx' comments shed light on a fundamental aspect of Britain's imperial nineteenth century: The numerous small wars of the British Empire con- tested the view that the ethnic groups in the British Empire were merely passive subjects witnessing an ever expanding imperial rule.' Contrary to the invented and much popularized image of a universal Pax Britannica, the

1 K. Marx, "The Indian Revolt'; New York Daily Tribune, 16 September 1857, quoted in Politics and Empire in Victorian Britain, ed. A. Burton (Basingstoke, 2001), 103-104, quotation: 102. 2 See C. E. Callwell, Small Wars. A Tactical Textbook for Imperial Soldiers, (London, 21899). 394 Pax Britannica and Imperial Conflict Strategies

British Empire experienced almost continuous military interventions and colonial wars throughout the century. Different categories of violent conflicts can be differentiated: commercial wars to force open new overseas markets for British goods as the Opium Wars in China, conflicts over land rights and race relations in settlement colonies such as the Maori War in New Zealand, open rebellion against British colonial rule as it developed in the Indian Sepoy Uprising, and finally military conflicts over secessionist movements as in South Africa. 3 British contemporaries were well aware of these perpetual geographically distant wars. In comparison with other European nations, and particularly with France prior to and after the defeat of 1871, James Ram in his Philo- sophy of War published in 1878 stressed the vitalizing effects of war: "Was any pure nation ever known with whom war was not a sacrifice enthusiastically offered in defence of what it holds holy? In what country is public life so pure as in England? And the English are always at war in some part of the world." 4 The positive view of the numerous colonial wars and military interventions within the empire in this context highlighted a bellicose culture that could not easily be harmonized with the vision of an international Pax Britannica corresponding to the self-image of the British Empire as a bond of peace and trade. Against this background, this paper focuses on a symptomatic analysis of two major imperial crises by looking at, first, the different characters of the Indian crisis and the South African War and, second, at the British conflict strategies during and after the crises and their long-term consequences. Such an asymmetric and diachronic comparison is necessarily symptomatic rather than systematic, but it may help to better identify problems and trans- formations of British imperial rule in the course of the century and, thereby, deconstruct the myth of a Pax Britannica from the point of view of imperial military interventionism. The aim of this contribution is not to give a de- tailed account of events in these two imperial crises, but to focus on a com- parative analysis of structural causes, British strategies and long-term consequences: What was -the character of imperial crisis in India and South Africa? What were the factors that determined the British strategies during and after the crises? What do they reveal about the way in which British contemporaries dealt with imperial conflicts in the nineteenth century? What was special about conflict management in the case of the British Empire?

3 See A. Jackson, "The Colonial Empire and Imperial Defence", in Imperial Defence. The Old World Order 1856-1956, ed. G. C. Kennedy (London, 2008), 234-250. 4 J. Ram, The Philosophy of War (London, 1878), 40; see J. Leonhard, Bellizimus und Nation. Kriegsdeutung und Nationsbestimmung in Europa und den Vereinigten Staaten 1750-1914 (Munich, 2008), 788. Jörn Leonhard 395

1. The Indian Uprising of 1857/58 and the Contradictory Character of Imperial Rule

The impact of the events in India was so profound because the conflict stood in the context of a number of other contemporary revolts, starting with the Kandy rebellion in Ceylon 1848, and the Blue Mutiny in Bengal 1859-62. When the mutiny broke out, Britain's involvement in the Crimean War had just ended and she still was at war in Persia, where the conflict only ended in 1857, as well as in China, where the intervention lasted from 1856 to 1860. 5 The Indian rebellion started as a mutiny in some units of the East Indian Company Army, but quickly expanded and radicalized. The crisis revealed ambiguities and contradictions that dominated already contemporary reactions. Was it a military mutiny, or a national revolt, or a native rebellion or uprising? Were the causes to be seen in cultural backwardness and native superstition, or were the British confronted with planned plotting and anti- colonial insurgence? 6 The `Asiatic Mystery' was a common image in British reactions, both inside parliament and in the press. Benjamin Disraeli went beyond the explanation of a mere military mutiny, and spoke of "a reflex of the national mind:" 7 In order to properly understand imperial conflict strategies and the meaning of the events one has to take a closer look at the East India Com- pany's administration of India before 1857. Contemporary critics of the Company saw the origins of the events in the Company's administrative practice. Robert Clive's victory in the battle of Plassey in 1757 and — more important still — Warren Hastings as first Governor General between 1773 and 1785, in their eyes, had already prepared the way for the subsequent annexation of the materially and culturally rich region of Bengal. Critics of the Company had often been progressive Orientalists who had insisted that Brit- ish colonial rule in India could only be successful if Indian rituals and traditions and their customs in legal culture and religion were respected. From that point of view the Company's policy of new taxation, land seizure, the practical absorption of native states, the disruption of indigenous adoption

5 See P. Burroughs, "Defence and Imperial Disunity'; in The Oxford History of the Brit- ish Empire, vol. 3: The Nineteenth Century, ed. A. Porter (Oxford, 1999), 320-345. 6 See D. A. Washbrook, "India 1818-1860: The Two Faces of Colonialism'; in History, vol. 3, ed. Porter, 395-421. 7 See M. Carter, "Introduction. The `Asiatic Mystery': The Sepoy Mutiny, Rebellion, or Revolt', in Archives of Empire, vol. 1: From the East India Company to the Suez Canal, ed. B. Harlow and M. Carter (Durham, 2003), 391-395, 391; "Asiatic Mystery" refers to a well-known contemporary satirical sketch of Disraeli as an Indian Sepoy, see "The Asiatic Mystery. As Prepared by Sepoy D'Israeli'; Punch 33, 8 August 1857, 55; see Harlow and Carter, eds., Archives, vol. 1, 407. 396 Pax Britannica and Imperial Conflict Strategies

and traditions of inheritance were regarded as major long term causes of the revolt. Three exemplary imperial strategies applied by the British and the Corn- pany prior to 1857 reveal the particular potentials of conflict in India: First, during his period of rule from 1847 to 1856, the Governor-General Lord Dalhousie was regarded as a symbol of an imperial strategy against Indian native traditions. 8 In particular, he challenged the native, rulers' system of inheritance. According to tradition, adoption policies guaranteed Indian rulers an heir if a couple did not have a child or if the child died prematurely. Dalhousie gave the Company the right to refuse an adopted son as a ruler of a regional native state. The throne would, thus, be declared vacant, and the property be taken into the Company's protection and administration. As a paramount power among many regional Indian states, Britain followed a dual strategy of conquering territory by war and by subversive intervention. Thus, the limits between informal and formal empire rule proved flexible. After 1830 the notion of `mismanagement' served as a pretext to legitimize interventions, as in the Northern Indian region of Awadh, which became one of the centres of the uprising of 1857. 9 Second, other reforms of the 1840s and 1850s equally provoked resistance. In Bombay, a special commission, the so-called Bombay Presidency, was set up to look at the so-called Inam, the traditional rent-free landholdings. The Commission's investigative attempts to locate documentary evidence like titles and deeds that granted the Indian native rulers their rights alarmed many ruling families. Land settlement investigation was started in Awadh, where in 1837 a special treaty had guaranteed the region's independence. Al- though Company officials had signed the treaty in India, the Company's Board in London never ratified it. Since Oude was one of the only surviving Mohammedan states, linked to the great Mogul Empire, the formal annexation by Dalhousie in 1856 provoked bitter feelings, and made Oude a centre of the violent revolt in 1857. 1° Third, apart from the Company's strategy there was another major aspect of British presence in India which limited a successful anticipatory conflict management. Native unrest was certainly nurtured by the activities of many missionary societies and contemporary rumours of their attempts to achieve widespread conversion." Contemporary sources reveal a particular `moral'

8 See E. Arnold, The Marquess of Dalhousie 's Administration of British India, 2 vols. (London, 1862-65). 9 See C. H. Philips and M. D. Wainwright, eds., Indian Society and the Beginnings of Modernisation, c. 1830-1850 (London, 1976). 10 See Carter, "Introduction'; 392. 11 See A. Powell, Muslims and Missionaries in Pre-Mutiny India (London, 1993); K. W. Jones, Socio-Religious Movements in British India (Cambridge, 1989). Jörn Leonhard 397

aspect, and missionaries feared the colonial administrators' respect for In- dian religious cultures and traditions. For them, stable, rational and morally good government had to be based on Christianization, whereas `barbaric' native religions could only mean a constant threat to stable rule and civili- zation. That explains why `Mohammedans, Indians of Islamic faith, were usually portrayed as the most savage and brutal amongst the rebels in British contemporary sources. These motives combined with local rulers' anxieties, provoked by their waning wealth and power. 12 This complex overlapping of motives underlines that the long-term origins of the crises went far beyond the immediate cause of action which most contemporary articles referred to: a rumour about the use of beef fat and pork fat on rifle cartridges, affecting and provoking both Hindus and Mos- lems. It was against this background that the British responses to the uprising and the imperial conflict strategies developed on various levels, which can be differentiated according to diachronic processes and structural factors.l3 First, the immediate reactions were very much dominated by news of rape and murder of Christian women and their children, which made the mutiny a major topic for the popular press in Britain herself. As a consequence, the immediate responses focused on a merely military act of violent suppression.l4 Second, in a subsequent phase, starting early in 1858, official colonial policy became much more conciliatory." In a major turn away from the tradition of an active and dominant role played by chartered companies in expanding the British Empire, the government in London replaced the East Indian Company's authority with a system of direct rule from London. In an open address Queen Victoria officially assured the Indian subjects of British bene- volence and promised improvement and protection. 16 Contrary to the Company's policy, no more princely territories were acquired after 1858. If the later proclamation of the Queen as Empress of India, so carefully designed by Disraeli, and reflecting the functional change of monarchy in Bri- tain herself, had any significance, it was to conciliate the princes by offering a

12 See Washbrook, "India', 416-419; Carter, "Introduction', 393. 13 See R. J. Moore, "Imperial India, 1858-1914'; in History, vol. 3, ed. Porter, 422-446. 14 See D. French, "The British Army and the Empire, 1856-1956'; in Imperial Defence. The Old World Order 1856-1956, ed. G. C. Kennedy (London, 2008), 91-110. 15 See T. R. Metcalf, The Aftermath of Revolt: India, 1857-1870 (Princeton, 1964). 16 Royal Proclamation 1858, quoted as: "Copies of ... the Proclamation of the late Queen Victoria on the 1" Day of November 1858 to the Princes, Chiefs and People of India', in Parliamentary Papers 1908, vol. 74 (London, 1908), 2-3; see J. Samson, ed., The British Empire (Oxford, 2001), 172-173. 398 Pax Britannica and Imperial Conflict Strategies

personal tie with something the princes felt was more valuable and dignified than the Company's officials. The new self-invention of the imperial monarchy went together with attempts to present the Empress of India as the legitimate heir to the Mogul Empire, thus constructing a line of historical continuity in order to generate imperial legitimacy. The ornamental character of the subsequent durbars, ceremonial gatherings that were meant to demonstrate the harmony between the imperial monarchy and the Indian princes, stood in this context. The shift away from Westernizing educational models was accompanied by a new oriental symbolism for the imperial monarchy, but at the same time this process excluded the dynamic elements of Indian society, the urban middle classes. In their perception the monarchy's oriental symbolism referred to an imagined and artificial world of myths and history, which did not provide a reliable basis for India's future development. From this perspective the durbars provoked resistance and underlined the "hollow crown of the Raj" as well as the growing gap between an imagined India, the ornamental quality of monarchical representation and India's political reality, which lacked a convincing system of political participation and representation." Third, as a consequence of the experiences of 1857/58 religious reforms were stopped. India was now seen as essentially conservative. Many contemporaries regarded the mutiny as a reaction to changes that, in their eyes, had been too radical an attack on Indian religious feelings. Still, in 1854 the government had agreed to support missionary schools as a cheap way of extending Western education. During and after the mutiny a major change with re- gard to this policy took place: In July 1857 the British government vetoed a scheme by which a grant had been offered to the Church Missionary Society to educate the backward Santal people. Western educational ideals became replaced by a new concept of toleration that went together with a negative stereotype of the primitive who could not be transformed into a Christian by education. Bible classes were stopped in governmental schools.' 8 Fourth, social reform projects were also stopped. New social initiatives of the later century came almost exclusively from Indian social reformers. The best example to illustrate the changes was the shift in land policy as a consequence of the mutiny, though the reaction proved to be rather short-lived, lasting only into the 1870s. The mutiny had shown the disaffection of the peasantry, so the established system of granting land settlements to peasants at the expense of landlords was now regarded as a major mistake and

17 See J. Leonhard and U. von Hirschhausen, Empires und Nationalstaaten im 19. Jahr- hundert (Göttingen, 2009), 23-30. 18 See Washbrook, "India'; 420; B. S. Cohn, "Representing Authority in Victorian India'; in idem, An Anthropologist Among the Historians and other Essays (Delhi, 1990), 632-682. Jörn Leonhard 399

stopped. Previously officials of the East Indian Company had identified the peasantry as the main agency for social progress, but after the mutiny, the landowners (taluqdars in Awadh, zamindars in Bengal), who had remained loyal, were given more power. The new Viceroy Lord Canning insisted on confiscating the land granted to peasants in order to restore it to the landowners if they were prepared to profess allegiance to the crown.l 9 Fifth, British responses to the crisis cannot be reduced to only these reactions and alterations. The events' epic quality was portrayed in numerous narratives of crime and punishment and images of the heroism of Christian martyrs. In the long term, these dichotomous narratives of Christian heroism and barbaric Orientalism served to stabilize the invention of a new kind of empire patriotism in British society. Although in 1878 Gladstone criti- cized that his political opponents had focused too much on colonial rule and had, thus, given up the "old English love of liberty," he acknowledged the new meaning of empire after the experience of the Indian Mutiny: "The sentiment of empire may be called innate in every Briton ... It is part of our patrimony: born with our birth, dying only with our death; incorporating itself in the first elements of our knowledge, and interwoven with all our ha- bits of mental action upon public affairs. It is °a portion of our national stock:'20 W. H. Fitchett, in his widely read Tale of the Great Mutiny of 1901, summed up the popular perception of the Indian events: "What a demon- stration the whole story is, of the Imperial genius of the British race! "21 These reactions of the metropolis were important because they fuelled the imagined antagonism between western ideals and oriental character and, hence, defined the perception of India in the second half of the nineteenth century.22 Against this background the image of Indian subjects changed considerably. The concept of inclusive westernization which had dominated in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s was replaced by a negative expectation of oriental otherness. In contrast to the rapid development of progressive infrastructures and the economic boom of the 1860s, the ideal of a westernized Indian gave way to stereotypes that would fulfil the British expectations of the barbaric native. Colonial anthropology became a major tool for generating and

19 See Ronald Hyam, Britain's Imperial Century, 1815-1914. A Study of Empire and Ex- pansion (Basingstoke, 32002), pp. 142-143. 20 W. E. Gladstone, "England's Mission", in The Nineteenth Century (September 1878), 565-573, quotations 565 and 569. 21 W. H. Fitchett, .The Tale of the Great Mutiny (s.l., 1901), 21-22. 22 See G. Chakravaty, The Indian Mutiny and the British Imagination (Cambridge, 2005), 1-18; V. Nünning, "`Dass jeder seine Pflicht thue. Die Bedeutung der Indian Mu- tiny für das nationale britische Selbstverständnis'; Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 78 (1996), 363-391; Leonhard, Bellizismus, 658-661. 400 Pax Britannica and Imperial Conflict Strategies

legitimizing these new images. This stood in stark contrast to the 1830s when the historian Thomas B. Macaulay, as one of the leading represen- tatives of the British colonial administration in India, had worked on a legal code intended to replace native legal traditions. Macaulay believed that a complete westernization of the Indian would not only be possible but necessary in order to generate stability. A full transformation from Indian natives into perfect Indian gentlemen by means of a western education and a respective legal system seemed the appropriate way to go. James Mill's contemporary History of India with its focus on rational systems and utilitarian structures included a positive counter-model to Indian native traditions. 23 The mutiny and the contemporary responses to the crisis revealed some major and highly significant contradictions of British imperial rule. On the one hand, the British, in many ways, and contrary to their own intentions, helped to invent and establish an oriental society, as the history of the very concept of caste showed. `Caste' was an example of a self-orientalization of Indian society by the import of a European concept of Portuguese origin. 24 On the other hand, the British westernizing reforms aimed at abolishing exactly these traditions. This paradoxical constellation was often the result of counter-productive effects of uncompromising westernization, which Dalhousie had represented in the 1840s and 1850s: The Company's practices were based on the recruitment of collaborators according to the criteria of caste, racial ascription and blood heritage. The Company state also reflected a concept of military fiscalism, if not oriental despotism. Furthermore, there were clear limits of westernizing reforms: Macaulay's much celebrated re- commendation to promote western education in 1835 never got strong support from the Company. In Northern India Persian was not replaced by Eng- lish, but by Urdu.25 More important, the effect of many religious reforms turned out to be counter-productive: For example, legislative attacks on Hindu customs, es- pecially the treatment of women, were mainly directed at the upper castes. But in a society increasingly aware of caste differences it meant that many lower castes began to adopt the practices that were closely associated with high-caste status. As a result, traditional rituals such as female infanticide or bans on the remarriage of widows became more, not less widespread. These examples demonstrate that the application of reforms, meant to foster the westernization and acculturation of Indians, often failed because of Indian

23 See J. Majeed, Ungoverned Imaginings: James Mill's `History of India' and Oriental- ism (Oxford, 1992) . 24 See S. Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age (Cambridge, 1999). 25 See Washbrook, "India" 415-416. Jörn Leonhard 401

society's complexities and hierarchies, which had themselves been the result of colonial rule. 26 Contradictions persisted even after the mutiny or led to new ambivalent patterns. India, after 1858, and as a result of dynamic railway building, of the construction of new ports and steam shipping, experienced an economic boom based on the development of new markets around the world and global economic entanglements. 27 Yet economic change and market capitalism did not necessarily lead to a transformation of colonial rule in India. Because the most important and lasting response to the mutiny experience referred to the army, it remained the most important institution guaranteeing British imperial rule in India and dominating the character of the colonial state. Al- though military structures were now, and in contrast to the situation since the eighteenth century and the Company state, subordinated to civil government, the army remained the most fundamental imperial institution with an ever increasing importance for the empire as a whole. 28 In the officers' mi- lieu racial divisions and suspicions continued. Thus, it was the army that ensured a certain degree of continuity between the Company state and imperial India: Muslims and Sikhs of the Punjab army, who had remained loyal during the uprising, replaced those who were identified with India's martial spirit. Instead of other ethnic groups within the Bengal Army, which had been a centre of violent revolt, the Punjab became the prime region for Brit- ish recruitment in India after 1858. Costly irrigation projects were set up, because it was thought that the traditional martial races there could only be preserved if the traditional village communities continued to exist. 29

26 See R. O'Hanlon, "Issues of Widowhood", in Contesting Power: Resistance and Everyday Social Relations in South Asia, ed. G. Prakash and D. Haynes (Delhi, 1991), 62-108; Washbrook, "India" 416. 27 See P. Robb, Ancient Rights and Future Comfort: Bihar, The Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885, and British Rule in India (London, 1997), chapter 10; B. R. Tomlinson, The Economy of Modern India, 1860-1970 (Cambridge, 1993), chapter 2; Washbrook, "India', 419-420. 28 See E. Omissi, The Sepoy and the Raj. The Indian Army, 1860-1940 (Basingstoke, 1998); D. M. Peers, Between Mars and Mammon: Colonial Armies and the Garrison State in India, 1819-1835 (London, 1995) and idem, "The Marital Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Era", in A Military History of India and South Asia: From the East India Com- pany to the Nuclear Era, ed. D. P. Marston, C. S. Sundaram and S. Philip (Westport, 2006), 34-52. 29 See D. A. Washbrook, "Law, State and Agrarian Society in Colonial India', Modern Asian Studies 15 (1981), 649-721,697. 402 Pax Britannica and Imperial Conflict Strategies

2. The South African War and the Cost of the Dominion-Model

Contrary to the experiences of the small colonial wars of the earlier century, the second South African War between 1899 and 1902 revealed the complexities of a major imperial war, which anticipated the empire's role for Britain in the First and the Second World War. Contrary to the experience of the In- dian uprising of the 1850s, which had contributed to the colonial self-image of a western mission civilatrice, the South African War developed in a different context and challenged British imperial conflict-management. 30 First of all, the war meant a conflict with a strong settler culture, symbolized by the Boers and their own nation-building. Furthermore, the war proved the empire's fundamental resources but also its basic vulnerability became obvious. Thus, the South African War became a major turning point in experiencing the limits of imperial conflict-management. Slavery had been abolished in the Cape Colony in 1833, which led a large number of Afrikaners to move further to the North in the `Great Trek', which became a foundation myth of Afrikaners' nation-building. The proclamation of two independent republics, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, was regarded as a threat to Brit- ish colonial rule and territorial expansion in Africa. On the other hand, Cecil Rhodes, the openly expansionist premier of the Cape Colony, pushed British interests further to the North. In 1895 Rhodes encouraged a coup in the Transvaal in order to obtain control, but the Jameson Raid failed miserably, and Rhodes was forced to resign. The details of the Jameson Raid's failure further contributed to the negative image of British colonial rule among the Afrikaners. When it came to open military conflict, many native Africans joined with the British against the Afrikaners. Even more important and, in the end, decisive was the support from the white Dominions fighting on the British side.31 Contrasting the imperial crises of the 1850s in India and of the 1890s in South Africa one needs to stress three preliminary differences: First, a major difference between contemporary responses to the Indian mutiny and the

30 See K. Wilson, "The Boer War in the Context of Britain's Imperial Problems') in The International Impact of the Boer War, ed. idem (Chesham, 2001), 158-177; D. Omissi and A. Thompson, The Impact of the South African War (Basingstoke, 2002); A. Porter, "The South African War (1899-1902): Context and Motive Reconsidered") Journal of African History 31/1 (1990), 43-57; idem, "The South African War and Imperial Britain: A Ques- tion of Significance?" in Writing a wider War: Rethinking Gender, Race, and Identity in the South African War, 1899-1902, ed. G. Cuthbertson, A. M. Grundlingh and M. L. Suttie (Ohio, 2002), 287-302. 31 See C. Saunders and I. R. Smith, "Southern Africa, 1795-1910'; in History, vol. 3, ed., Porter, 597-623; I. R. Smith, The Origins of the South African War, 1899-1902 (New York, 1996). Jörn Leonhard 403

South African War clearly lay in the infrastructure of news media, which by 1899 had a profound impact on British society. Towards the end of the century Britain became a society that was much more integrated through contemporary mass media than other European societies at the time. The introduction of intercontinental telegraph systems meant that news about the events in South Africa could reach London within hours. From that point of view the Boer War was a media war, as was the Boxer Rebellion in China or the Spanish American War of 1898. Special war correspondents and the presence of the war in the new penny press increased public pressure on political decision-making and meant that public perception of the war was a much more prominent factor than in 1857 or in response to earlier small wars of the empire. 32 Imperial conflict-management was certainly under much pressure and it was judged by the public much faster. The half-time of commenting on the results of decisions had been considerably reduced — this explains the dynamics of controversial discussions of the war's benefits and costs, contrasting a new wave of imperial patriotism with open criticism of the warfare and the moral as well as financial cost of the conflict. British war efforts in South Africa needed support abroad and at home — much more so than in any earlier military conflict. Second, the personnel of empire building became prototypes of public figures in an age of media coverage. Thus, the banner headline of the Review of Reviews' `Topic of the Month' in September 1899 read "Shall We Let Hell Loose in South Africa?" The article asked where the question of Transvaal stood relative to the French Dreyfus trial or the social condition of the London poor. Contrary to 1857, the contemporary comparison between imperial wars and earlier crises played a major role, stressing the fact that the empire now had a history of imperial conflicts and experiences. Thus, the Anglo-Saxon Review of December 1899 compared the South African crisis to the Crimean War and the Mutiny of 1857 and warned politicians not to make the same mistakes again by underrating the enemy's strength.33

32 See S. Badsey, "War Correspondents in the Boer War'; in The Boer War. Direction,

Experience and Image, ed. J. Gooch (London, 2000), 187 -202; M. Hampton, "The Press, Patriotism, and Public Discussion: C.P. Scott, The Manchester Guardian, and the Boer

War, 1899 - 1902'; Historical Journal 44 (2001), 177 - 197; J. Beaumont, "The British Press during the South African War: the Sieges of Mafeking, Kimberly and Ladysmith", in War and the Media: Reportage and Propaganda, 1900-2003, ed. M. Connelly and D. Welch

(London, 2005), 1 - 18; S. Badsey, "Propaganda and the Defence of Empire, 1856-1956'; in Imperial Defence. The Old World Order 1856-1956, ed. G. C. Kennedy (London, 2008), 218-233. 33 See B. Harlow, "Introduction. The Boer War: Accusations and Apologias'; in Archives of Empire. vol. 2: The Scramble for Africa, ed. idem and M. Carter (Durham, 2003), 629-634, quotation: 630-631; Leonhard, Bellizismus, 791-797. 404 Pax Britannica and Imperial Conflict Strategies

Third, a major difference lay in the character of the conflict, which prompted imperial military intervention in 1899. Whereas in 1857 there had been a complex interaction of military mutiny, religious protest and local rebellion in favour of traditional rights and traditions, the motives behind the escalation of violence in the South African War combined annexation politics, secessionist nationalism and the global problems of the British Em- pire as reflected in the crisis of imperial defence. As Colonial Secretary, Jo- seph Chamberlain aimed at consolidating the empire as a network of trade, influence and imperial defence in a period of dynamic and increasingly ag- gressive international competition with the United States and Germany. Britain, with her expansion on the African continent, the commitment to military re-conquest of the Sudan and her resistance to the French at Fa- shoda, could simply not afford to be challenged in South Africa. The unifi- cation of the region and a safe British supremacy were seen as vital to the empire's geopolitical and geostrategic position. With the appointment of the openly imperialist Alfred Milner as new High Commissioner in 1897, Chamberlain's position in South Africa was clearly strengthened. When Paul Kruger was re-elected President of the Boer Republic of Transvaal, a con- frontation seemed inevitable. Since Milner calculated that an annexation of the Transvaal could not be achieved without war, he soon concentrated on "working up to a crisis." A short war would make the integration of Trans- vaal with the rest of South Africa decisive and would solve the South African problem once and for all. 34 Hence, there was no conflict management in order to avoid military con- frontation but rather a war strategy at work. Imperial conflict-management did become visible only when the Boers' military forces were able to inflict heavy losses on the British. The Boers had hoped that, as in 1881, the British government, under the impression of advancing Boer troops into the Natal and Cape Colony and confronted with a possible rebellion amongst the Cape Afrikaners against British rule, would choose negoti- ations and a settlement instead of sending a massive expeditionary force. Yet Lord Salisbury's government acted from a stronger position than that of Gladstone in the 1880s. Salisbury was determined to demonstrate "that the real point to be made good to South Africa is that we, not the Dutch, are Boss."35

34 See A. Porter, The Origins of the South African War: Joseph Chamberlain and the Di- plomacy of Imperialism, 1895-99 (Manchester, 1980) and idem, "The South African War (1899-1902): Context and Motive Reconsidered', Journal of African History 31 (1990), 43-57. 35 Selborne to Milne, 27 July 1899, quoted in The Crisis of British Power: The Imperial and Naval Papers of the Second Earl of Selborne, 1895-1900, ed. D. G. Boyce (London, 1990), 92; see Saunders and Smith, "Africa'; 617. Jörn Leonhard 405

The military response to the Boers' initial successes in what may be called the twentieth century's first anti-colonial guerrilla war, resulted in a policy of scorched earth with over 30,000 Boer farms burnt down, and the incarcer- ation of Boer women and children in `concentration camps'. In the end the high numbers of civilian deaths — an estimated 10 per cent of the population of the two Boer republics died — by far outnumbered the regular combatants killed in military actions. Against the background of accelerated media coverage of the war this radicalization of violence provoked international reactions and put Britain under increasing pressure. 36 Two other military strategies became obvious, which were lacking in 1857, and both were necessitated by the military crises: The British were forced to go beyond a mere British expeditionary force, so that the South Af- rican War became an imperial war with thousands of volunteers from the white Dominions of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. 37 Furthermore, and contrary to the image of a white man's war, about 30,000 Africans served on the British side as scouts, spies and labourers. In contrast to the Boers, the British enjoyed widespread support amongst the native African populations: The war created a boom in employment opportunities in Natal and Cape Colony for them, and in several territories the British even armed and encouraged them to take over land and cattle from the Boers. 38 Many Africans hoped that the civil and franchise rights that they already enjoyed in the Cape Colony would be extended to other parts as well. 39 The war's long-term consequences revealed yet another conflict strategy. Different from military practices applied during the war, the Treaty of Vereeniging of May 1902, which followed the Boers' military defeat, included very generous regulations: The two republics would surrender their independence and recognize the British Crown in return for eventual self- government. Thus, South Africa would follow the Dominion-model of former white settler colonies such as Canada and Australia. Yet at the same time Article 8 of the Treaty made it clear that the question of extending the

36 Ibidem, 618. 37 See S. M. Miller, "In Support of the Imperial Mission?, Volunteering for the South African War?", Journal of Military History 69 (2005), 691-712. 38 See D. J. Denon, "Participation in the `Boer War': People's War, People's Non-War, or Non-People's War", in War and Society in Africa: Ten Studies, ed. A. B. Ogot (London, 1992), 109-122. 39 See H. T. Siwundhla, "White Ideologies and Non-European Participation in the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902'; Journal of Black Studies 15 (1984), 223-234; W. R. Nas- son, "Africans at War", in The Boer War: Direction, Experience and Image, ed. J. Gooch (London, 2000), 126-140; W. R. Nasson, "Why They Fought: Black Cape Colonists and Imperial Wars, 1899-1918'; International Journal of African Historical Studies 37 (2004), 55-70. 406 Pax Britannica and Imperial Conflict Strategies

franchise to Africans in the two former Boer republics would not be decided until after the implementation of self-government. 4o Assisted by a group of young Oxford graduates called `Kindergarten, im- mediately after the war Milner started a program of outnumbering Boers engaged in nation-building by increasing British immigration and settlement. A focus on English language and English education was designed to de-nationalize the Afrikaners' strength. However, the expensive settlement schemes failed and never attracted many European settlers, who preferred to emigrate to established white settler colonies like Canada or Australia. Even worse, Milner's Anglicization policy provoked another wave of Afrikaner nationalism.41 At the same time, the black elite's expectations, which had been nurtured by the war, were deeply disappointed. The Peace Treaty's articles ensured that there would be no extension of the franchise in the near future. Contrary to earlier promises, the 1905 report of the South African Native Af- fairs Commission, which Miller had set up, ensured the foundations of a racially segregated society. Thus, the British response do the war followed the model of the other white Dominions, a process completed by the new constitution of the South African Union of 1909. For contemporary de- fenders of the British Empire it meant a reconciliation between the British and the Boers. The Union was also seen as a model for a wider federation of the Empire. However, the momentary success was founded on racial segregation and the exclusion of native Africans. 42

3. Conclusion: Weakness out of Imperial Strength? Piecemeal Engineering and the Price of Postponement-Strategies

First, the diachronic comparison between British contemporary reactions and responses developed during and after the crises around the Indian Mu- tiny and the South African War highlight obvious structural differences: on the one hand a conquered colony without a settler tradition in India, on the

40 See Saunders and Smith, "Africa", 619; for the broader context see also D. M. Schreuder, Gladstone and Krüger: Liberal Government and Colonial `Home Rule, 1880-85 (London, 1969). 41 See Saunders and Smith, "Africa", 619 and S. Trapido, "Lord Milner and the South

African State, History Workshop 8 (1979), 50 -80 and idem, "Lord Milner and the South African State Reconsidered', in Imperialism, the State and the Third World, ed. M. Twaddle

(London, 1992), 80-94. 42 See M. Legassick, "British Hegemony and the Origins of Segregation in South Africa, 1901-14'; in Segregation and Apartheid in Twentieth Century South Africa, ed. W. Beinart and S. Dubow (London, 1995) and Saunders and Smith, "Africa'; 620. Jörn Leonhard 407

other the Dutch and British white settler colony in South Africa; a number of localized and regional revolts without a clearly defined political or national program in 1857, secessionist state- and nation-building leading to anti-imperial guerrilla-warfare versus annexation policy in the 1890s. Second, the crises also revealed different conflict strategies and different consequences. In India the result of the crisis was certainly no transfer of power, but rather an ambivalent constellation: a shift away from an older westernization ideal of inclusive Europeanization to a new negative and ex- clusive notion of oriental barbarism; economic and infrastructural modern- ization; a `self-orientalized' monarchy; stagnant or blocked religious, land and social reforms; and, to a certain degree at least, a return to the fiscal military state with its strong reliance on the military. In many ways India became the British Empire's military barracks of the East. The effect was to postpone conflicts and to undermine the Indian elites' trust in Britain's willingness and capacity to undertake substantial reforms in India. Despite imperial promises, formulated after 1858, the perception of westernization amongst Indian elites provoked the development of a new kind of Indian nationalism that would concentrate not only on more rights within the empire, but also on formal independence. Third, in contrast to the Indian uprising, the South African War demon- strated the consequences of the media's war coverage, an international audi- ence of war news and, hence, a different role played by the public. Empire patriotism, imperial scepticism and the radicalized European and global competition meant that the experience of 1899-1902 challenged the British notion of the geographically distant imperial wars. The South African War, in this view, endangered Britain's position in Europe as well. The response to the South African crisis ultimately consisted of a transfer of power to the dominant white elite, applying the model of other former white settler colonies. The Dominion-model seemed to establish a firm basis to secure Brit- ish interests in that area, but it excluded native Africans from political participation. The origins of racial segregation and apartheid lay in the British supremacy after the Boer War. Fourth, the British focus on the Dominion-model had originally been in- fluenced by the trauma of 1776. At first glance, it seemed more successful and pragmatic than permanent suppression of secessionist nationalism. Yet at the same time it revealed the empire's structural weakness: The increasing independence of Dominions from London served as a model for all parts of the British Empire. At the same time, and as a result of weaker bonds between Britain and her Dominions, Britain came under increasing pressure to ex- pand into new territories or to control others in order to keep them as safe geopolitical bases. This complex constellation, which reflected the changing freedom of imperial action, characterized the late nineteenth century empire. 408 Pax Britannica and Imperial Conflict Strategies

Fifth, the lack of integration as a result of the empire's heterogeneous character regarding geography, ethnic composition, and religion proved to be a major structural weakness of imperial rule in critical moments. In that respect the crises of 1857/58 and 1899-1902 anticipated the limits of imperial rule in the age of the two World Wars: Making India the `barrack in the Eastern seas' or giving South Africa Dominion status meant changing their respective weights within the Empire. The result was a transforming equation between imperial contributions in times of war and political status within the empire. The analysis of both cases underlines that apparent military success was not accompanied by decisive and carefully planned integration strategies but rather led to piecemeal solutions that tended to postpone major problems in order to solve others. Thus, the momentary suppression of defeat and the successful defence of imperial reputation postponed many political problems of failed integration and blocked participation into the twentieth century. They could neither be compensated by imperial infrastructures, nor by invented symbols, nor by economic progress alone. Although the historian is well advised not to measure `success' and `failure' too fast and too easily from a perspective of retrospective causality, i.e. from an interpretation that is based on the knowledge of long-term consequences and results, there is certainly no reason to over-idealize the British Empire's ability of imperial integration against the apparent failure of continental empires.