South Africa would have caused Great Britain to intervene.
Unfortunately they had complicated matters by asking for outside
help. Mr. Cecil Rhodes was Premier of the Cape, a man of immense
energy, and one who had rendered great services to the empire. The
motives of his action are obscure--certainly, we may say that they
were not sordid, for he has always been a man whose thoughts were
large and whose habits were simple. But whatever they may have
been--whether an ill-regulated desire to consolidate South Africa
under British rule, or a burning sympathy with the Uitlanders in
their fight against injustice--it is certain that he allowed his
lieutenant, Dr. Jameson, to assemble the mounted police of the
Chartered Company, of which Rhodes was founder and director, for
the purpose of co-operating with the rebels at Johannesburg.
Moreover, when the revolt at Johannesburg was postponed, on account
of a disagreement as to which flag they were to rise under, it
appears that Jameson (with or without the orders of Rhodes) forced
the hand of the conspirators by invading the country with a force
absurdly inadequate to the work which he had taken in hand. Five
hundred policemen and three field guns made up the forlorn hope who
started from near Mafeking and crossed the Transvaal border upon
December 29th, 1895. On January 2nd they were surrounded by the
Boers amid the broken country near Dornkop, and after losing many
of their number killed and wounded, without food and with spent
horses, they were compelled to lay down their arms. Six burghers
lost their lives in the skirmish.

The Uitlanders have been severely criticised for not having sent
out a force to help Jameson in his difficulties, but it is
impossible to see how they could have acted in any other manner.
They had done all they could to prevent Jameson coming to their