ry
precautions in view of the imminence of war.

[Sidenote: Reinforcements requested.]

The friction between the High Commissioner and the General-in-Command
in South Africa was the most disastrous manifestation of a disregard
of the necessity for timely military preparations on the part of the
Imperial Government, which, when war broke out, jeopardised the
success of the British arms. For quite distinct reasons both General
Butler and the Imperial Government were opposed to any preparations
for war. The Salisbury Cabinet were reluctant to take any step that
might seem to indicate that they considered that the door to a
peaceful solution of the dispute was closed. In thus subordinating the
needs of the military situation to those of the political, they acted
in direct opposition to the maxim _si pacem vis, bellum para_. They
carried this policy to such a point that they disregarded the advice
of Lord Wolseley, the Commander-in-Chief, and that of the Intelligence
Department,[75] with the result that when the war did break out the
available British forces in South Africa were found to be in a
position of grave disadvantage. The motive of General Butler's
opposition was entirely different. His view was that what made the
situation dangerous was not President Krueger's obduracy, but what he
called the "persistent effort" to "produce war" made by the British
inhabitants who desired Imperial intervention in the Transvaal. And
he, therefore, held that any reinforcements sent by the Home
Government would "add largely to the ferment which he (General Butler)
was endeavouring to reduce by every means."[76] The position in June
and July, from a military point of view, was as extraordinary as it
was harassing to Lord Milner. In England the civil authority, the
Cabinet, was refusing to make the preparations which its military
adviser declared to be necessary. In South Africa the civil authority,
the High Commissioner, was provided with a military adviser who cabled
to the Home Government political reasons for not sending the
reinforcements which the High Commissioner then urgently required. In
these circumstances it is obvious that nothing but the supreme efforts
of Lord Milner could have saved England from an overwhelming military
defeat, or from a moral catastrophe even more injurious to the
interests of the empire.

[Footnote 75: See p. 319 (note 2).]

[Footnote 76: Cd. 1,791.]

When Lord Milner saw, befo