The Ferreira Raid of 1906: Boers, Britons and Germans in Southern Africa in the Aftermath of the South African War

Abstract

This article emphasizes the 'South West African factor' in Anglo-German rivalry in southern Africa. German South West Africa and the Cape Colony had been uneasy neighbours since 1884. After the South African War (1899-1902), relations between the Cape and the German colony deteriorated further. In part, this flowed from internal conflict that absorbed the colonial authorities in each territory. While the British struggled to consolidate their rule in the wake of the war against the Boers, the Germans were tied up in a drawn-out African uprising (1904-1907). Germany and Great Britain did not quarrel only over the various political and military aspects of the war in South West Africa: the British believed that in the event of open conflict with Germany the collusion between Boer diehards in the northwestern Cape and the Germans in South West Africa could ignite a 'Second Boer War' in South Africa. When some Boers, who had been employed in the German colonial army, crossed the Cape border to rekindle Boer resistance to the British, these fears were temporarily substantiated. This article argues that the history of the Ferreira Raid reflected the tensions among the British, Boers and Germans, which were to erupt even more spectacularly in the Afrikaner Rebellion in 1914.