THE KRUGER TELEGRAM.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 453, 6 April 1909, Page 3

THE KRUGER TELEGRAM.

THE NEW VERSION OF THE KRUGER MESSAGE. It was asserted in January, in a book by Herr Adolf Stein, that the telegram sent to Kruger by the Kaiser on the occasion of the Jameson Raid in 1896 was in reality drawn up by the German Foreign Office, and that the Kaiser was not responsible for it. The importance of the latest cablegram is Prince Billow’s authoritative and official confirmation that the telegram was not the result of the Kaiser’s personal initiative. Herr Stein, who states that he has obtained his information from the best sources, gives the following account of events of that period : Four weeks before the Jameson Raid, when proposals to carry it out were discussed in Pretoria, the Transvaal Government addressed an inquiry to Berlin as to what attitude Germany and other European Powers would adopt towards the outbreak of hostilities between Great Britain and the two Boer Republics. The reply of the German Government, which was communicated through Baron von Maltzahu, a German nobleman then living in South Africa, was to the effect that the Transvaal Government could count on Germany’s diplomatic support, inasmuch as German interests would be served by the maintenance of the Independence of the Boer Republics, but that Boers could not expect anything more than diplomatic help from Garmany, or from any other European Power. This reply was on its way to South Africa by mail when the Jameson Raid ensued.

The text of the famous telegram to President Kruger was composed, Herr Stein states, in the German Foreign Office. It congratulated President Kruger that “without appealing to the aid of friendly Powers, you and your people have succeeded in repelling with your own hands the armed bands which had broken into your country; and in maintaining the independence of your country against foreign aggression.” Prince Hohenlohe, the Imperial Chancellor ef that day, together with Baron Marschall von Biebersteiu, then secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and now Ambassador in Constantinople, had an audience of the Emperor on the morning of January 3, 1896. The telegram announcing the Jameson Raid had arrived at Potsdam during the night, and the Emperor came to Berlin in the early morning, and drove straight from the station to Prince Hohenlohe’s official residence in the Wilhemstrasse. Prince Hohenlohe and Baron Marschall von Beiberstein, both told the Emperor that it would be advisable to congratulate the Boers on having repelled an attack by their own strength without foreign assistance, this being a polite form of indicating that they could not expect any foreign aid. The Emperor raised several objections to sending this telegram, but ultimately allowed himself to be persuaded by the two statesmen to sign the telegram. The “ Kruger telegram,” which was so often ascribed to the Kaiser’s impulsive haste, was thus, according to Herr Stein, really the result of the wisdom of the German Foreign Office. The telegram produced a wave of proBoer enthusiasm in Germany ; and was not understood in Pretoria as a gentle hint that foreign aid could not be expected, but as an encouragement to pursue an antiBritish policy. In England, of course, it was regarded as an insult by the whole nation, and exercised an extremely unfavourable influence on Anglo-German relations. Notwithstanding the effect so produced, no one responsible German statesman found it necessary to correct German public opinion by explaining that the telegram was only meant to be a polite indication to the Boers that they could not expect any active assistance from Germany.