When Lord Milner saw, before the Bloemfontein Conference, that the situation was becoming dangerous--and still more after the Conference--he desired that preparations for war should be made by the Imperial Government as a precautionary measure. Between December 1st, 1896, and December, 1898, the South African garrison had been raised from 5,409 to 9,593 men.[77] It remained at a little under 10,000 up to the end of August, 1899. Lord Milner had repeatedly impressed upon the Home Government, from the middle of 1897 onwards, that 10,000 men was the minimum force consistent with safety. In view of the increased tension after Bloemfontein and of the enormous armament of the South African Republic, he felt that this minimum had become inadequate, and that it was desirable, and would strengthen the chance of a peaceful submission of the Boers, to steadily but unostentatiously increase the garrison. And what he desired especially was that the general on the spot should do, locally and quietly, all that could be done to advance these preparations. The measures which he urged were that plans should be prepared for the defence of Kimberley and other towns on the colonial borders, and that all supplies and material of war necessary to put these plans into effect should be accumulated, and, as far as possible, distributed.
[Footnote 77: War Commission, Cd. 1,791.]
General Butler, as we have seen, was opposed to all preparations for war; and it is not surprising, therefore, that everybody who offered assistance, or advice on the military situation, was coldly received by him. Mr. (now Sir) Aubrey Wools-Sampson, who, after the failure of the Bloemfontein Conference, threw up lucrative civil employment in Rhodesia in order to come to the Cape and place himself, as a volunteer, at the service of the military authorities in the event of war, was so completely discouraged that he went to Natal to form the nucleus of the splendid fighting force afterwards known as the Imperial Light Horse. When Colonel Nicholson, then head of the British South Africa Police in Rhodesia, suggested that, in the same event, an attack on the Transvaal, launched from the north, might prove valuable as a means of diverting a portion of the Burgher forces from employment against the Cape Colony and Natal, General Butler is said to have looked upon his proposal as another Jameson Raid.[78] And when, after the Bloemfontein Conference had been held, the Home Government, in response to Lord Milner's repeated appeals, proposed to send out the very inadequate reinforcements which formed its first effort to strengthen the British military position in South Africa, General Butler immediately represented to the War Office that these additional troops were unnecessary, and protested against their being despatched.