War, then, for the Boer meant "an opportunity of annexing the Cape
Colony and Natal, and forming the Republican United States of South
Africa." When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Mr. John Morley, Lord
Courtney, Mr. James Bryce, and other Liberal leaders saw no reason why
the British Government should make military preparations--did, in
fact, do all in their power to induce the English people to withhold
the support necessary to allow the British Government to make these
preparations--there were, twelve thousand British troops in South
Africa to oppose the "forty-six thousand fighting men who had pledged
themselves to die shoulder to shoulder" to secure the independence,
not of the Transvaal but of "South Africa".