Jameson Raid

The Jameson Raid was a failed incursion into the South African Republic, also called the Transvaal, between 29 December 1895 and 2 January 1896. Leander Starr Jameson, administrator of the British South Africa Company for Matabeleland, led a column of several hundred company police and volunteers out of Rhodesia on behalf of Cecil Rhodes. The plan was to dash to Johannesburg and back an uprising by the Uitlanders, the largely British settlers and workers there, but no uprising came. Transvaal forces tracked the column from the border, blocked it at Krugersdorp and forced Jameson to surrender at Doornkop to Commandant Piet Cronjé. The affair embarrassed the British government, cost Rhodes the premiership of the Cape Colony, strengthened Boer control of the Transvaal and its gold mines, left Rhodesia exposed to the Second Matabele War and was a contributory cause of the Second Boer War.