Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner

Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner, was a British statesman and colonial administrator who played a very important role in the formulation of British foreign and domestic policy between the mid-1890s and the early 1920s. From December 1916 to November 1918, he was one of the most important members of Prime Minister David Lloyd George's War cabinet.
Milner was born in the Grand Duchy of Hesse in 1854 and was educated in Germany and England before attending Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first class in classics. Though he was called to the bar in 1881, Milner instead became a journalist before entering politics as a Liberal before quickly leaving the party in 1886 over his opposition to Irish Home Rule. He joined the staff of Chancellor of the Exchequer George Goschen and was posted to Egypt as under-secretary of finance. He briefly chaired the Board of Inland Revenue until April 1897, when he was appointed Governor of the Cape Colony and High Commissioner for Southern Africa by Joseph Chamberlain following the disastrous Jameson Raid.
As Governor and High Commissioner, Milner was a leading advocate for British subjects of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, and his policy precipitated the Second Boer War. During the war, Milner received praise and criticism for his civilian administration in South Africa, including the establishment of concentration camps to intern the Boers. Following the British victory and annexation of the Boer republics, Milner was named their first British governor. Upon his return to England in 1905, he faced censure for the use of corporal punishment against Chinese labourers. He remained a firm advocate for British imperialism for the remainder of his life. Through his influence on young civil servants and imperialists, including Lionel Curtis and Leo Amery, Milner's influence on the British Empire extended through the Second World War.
During the First World War, Milner served as a key advisor and cabinet member to Prime Minister David Lloyd George. During the March 1918 collapse of the Western Front, Milner coordinated the consolidation of Allied forces under the commander of Ferdinand Foch, whom he personally selected as Supreme Allied Commander. Foch won the Battle of Amiens, repelling the German advance and turning the tide of the war. Milner was appointed Secretary of State for War for the duration of the conflict, which resulted in an Allied victory and armistice in November 1918. At the subsequent Paris Peace Conference, Milner was a leading delegate and a signatory to the Treaty of Versailles. He served as Secretary of State for the Colonies for the remainder of his public career.

Early life and education

Alfred Milner was born on 23 March 1854 in Giessen, Upper Hesse, Grand Duchy of Hesse. His father was Charles Milner, a London physician with a German mother and English father who was a reader in English at the University of Tübingen. His maternal grandfather, John Ready, was Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island and the Isle of Man.
Alfred Milner was educated first at Tübingen, then at King's College School and from 1872 to 1876 as a scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, studying under the classicist theologian Benjamin Jowett. Having won the Hertford, Craven, Eldon and Derby scholarships, he graduated in 1877 with a first class in classics and was elected to a fellowship at New College, leaving, however, for London in 1879. At Oxford he formed a close friendship with the young economic historian Arnold Toynbee. He wrote a paper in support of Toynbee's theories of social work and, in 1895, twelve years after Toynbee's death at the age of 30, a tribute titled Arnold Toynbee: a Reminiscence.

Early career

Although authorised to practise law after being called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1881, he joined the staff of the Pall Mall Gazette under John Morley, becoming assistant editor to Morley's successor William Thomas Stead. In 1885, Milner abandoned journalism for a brief political career, standing as the Liberal candidate for the Harrow division of Middlesex but lost in the general election.
In 1886, Milner supported the breakaway Liberal Unionist Party over his opposition to Irish Home Rule. He became private secretary to Liberal Unionist George Goschen and rose in rank when Goschen became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1887. Two years later, Goschen used his influence to have Milner appointed under-secretary of finance in Egypt. Milner remained in Egypt from 1889 to 1892, his period of office coinciding with the first great reforms under Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer, after the danger of bankruptcy which precipitated British control had been avoided.
Returning to England in 1892, he published England and Egypt which, at once, became the authoritative account of the work done since British occupation began in 1882. Later that year, he received an appointment as chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue where he remained until 1897. While at Inland Revenue, he established relationships with Michael Hicks-Beach, 1st Earl St Aldwyn and Sir William Vernon Harcourt.
In 1894, he was made CB and in 1895, KCB. Milner remained at the Board of Inland Revenue until 1897, having established a reputation as one of the clearest-headed and most judicious British civil servants, a position as a man of moderate Liberal Unionist views, and strong political allies in Goschen, Cromer, St Aldwyn and Harcourt.

South Africa

Relations with the Boer republics

The South African Republic, more commonly referred to by the British as the Transvaal, was established in 1852 by Afrikaner farmers who had emigrated from the Cape Colony in the Great Trek in to live beyond the reach of British colonial administration. These farmers, known as Boers, successfully defended their independence from the British Empire in the First Boer War from 1880 to 1881, which established self-government under nominal British suzerainty in the Pretoria Convention. Following the discovery of gold in the Transvaal in 1884, thousands of fortune seekers flocked there from Europe, but mostly from Britain. This new influx of foreigners, whom the Boers called Uitlanders, was received negatively in the republic, and they were refused the right to vote.
In 1896, British colonial administrator Leander Starr Jameson, under the employment of Cecil Rhodes, attempted and failed to trigger an uprising against President Kruger by the Uitlanders. The raid dramatically worsened relations between the British Cape Colony and the Boer republics, and the latter began increasing their importation of guns and ammunition from Germany. By April 1897, Lord Rosmead resigned as High Commissioner for Southern Africa and Governor of Cape Colony. Secretary of State for the Colonies Joseph Chamberlain sought to replace Rosmead with a statesman who could restore public confidence and uphold British interests in dealing with the Transvaal and Orange Free State governments, and he chose Milner at the suggestion of William Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne. The selection was cordially approved by the Liberal Party and warmly recognised at a farewell dinner on 28 March 1897, presided over by H. H. Asquith.
Reaching the Cape Colony in May, Milner resolved difficulties with President Kruger over the treatment of the Uitlanders under the Transvaal Aliens' Law, then set out on a tour of British South Africa. Between August 1897 and May 1898 he travelled Cape Colony, the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Rhodesia, and Basutoland. To better understand the point of view of the Cape Dutch and the burghers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, Milner learned both Dutch and Afrikaans. He came to the conclusion that there could be no peace or progress while there remained the "permanent subjection of British to Dutch in ". The Transvaal also obstructed British ambitions for a "Cape to Cairo" railway and trading network, and Milner realised that with the discovery of gold in the Transvaal, the balance of power in South Africa had shifted in favor of the Boers. He feared a newly wealthy Transvaal would unite with Cape Afrikaners and jeopardise the entire British position in the region.
In a history of the Second Boer War in 1909, Milner later wrote:

"The Dutch can never form a perfect allegiance merely to Great Britain. The British can never, without moral injury, accept allegiance to any body politic which excludes their motherland. But British and Dutch alike could, without moral injury, without any sacrifice to their several traditions, unite in loyal devotion to an empire-state, in which Great Britain and South Africa would be partners, and could work cordially together for the good of South Africa as a member of that great whole. And so you see the true Imperialist is also the best South African."

Milner became the most prominent voice in the British government advocating war with the Boer republics to secure British control over the region. After meeting Milner for the first time, Boer soldier Jan Smuts predicted that he would become "more dangerous than Rhodes" and "a second Bartle Frere".

Second Boer War

Pre-war diplomacy

After the February 1898 Transvaal election, which Kruger won by a landslide, Milner concluded that the Pretoria government would never redress the grievances of the Uitlanders on its own initiative. This gave Milner the pretext to use the question to his advantage. In a speech delivered on 3 March 1898 at Graaff Reinet, an Afrikaner Bond stronghold in the British Cape Colony, Milner outlined his determination to secure freedom and equality for British subjects in the Transvaal, and he urged the Boers to induce the Pretoria government to assimilate its institutions to those of the free communities of South Africa. His pronouncement, along with the resumption of control of the Progressive Party by Cecil Rhodes, greatly alarmed the Afrikaners. At the March 1898 elections, opponents of the Progressives won a majority in the House of Assembly and William Schreiner formed a government opposed to British intervention in the Transvaal.
Convinced his position in the Cape Colony had become untenable, Milner returned to England in November 1898, where he secured Chamberlain's support to back the Uitlanders before returning to Cape Colony in February 1899. In the ten weeks Milner spent away from the Colony, relations with the Boers had deteriorated after acting High Commissioner William Francis Butler had allowed the inference that he did not support Uitlander grievances. On 4 May, Milner penned a memorable dispatch to the Colonial Office arguing for intervention to ensure Uitlander enfranchisement, which he posited was the only means of stabilizing the situation in South Africa and ensuring the predominant position of British interests in the region. He notably did not base his argument on the Pretoria Convention and argued "suzerainty" was an "etymological question". Instead, he stated that the condition of thousands of British subjects in the Transvaal as "helots" was undermining the prestige of Britain throughout South Africa, and he called for "some striking proof" of the intention of the British government to preserve its position. This dispatch was telegraphed to London for immediate publication; but it was kept private for a time by the home government. At the insistence of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, a peace conference was held at Bloemfontein between Milner and Kruger from 31 May to 5 June. Kruger rejected Milner's three demands: for Uitlander enfranchisement, for the use of English in the Transvaal parliament, and for the right of the British Parliament to review all Transvaal laws.