Idealism and realism: Conan Doyle, imperialism and the Anglo-Boer War

Abstract

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's responses to his experiences during the AngloBoer War typify the dilemma of any idealist when confronted with the practical implementation of his beliefs. The creator of the quintessential logician, Sherlock Holmes, encountered during that conflict ambiguities inherent in the profession of a heroic destiny for the British Empire that had never previously been encountered. His reaction can best be described as an example of cognitive dissonance; denial of flaws in the ideology coupled with acknowledgement of its agents' imperfections. This article therefore focuses on these two aspects of Doyle's South African experiences, manifested in his roles as a doctor and subsequently as a historian of the conflict. Antagonistic attitudes to Kruger's government in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (popularly known as the Transvaal) began to emerge in both Britain and South Africa soon after the Jameson Raid. The South African League, whose support extended throughout the two Br i t i shco lon ies and the Uitlander community of the Transvaal, envisaged the ultimate absorption of the republic as a component of the Empire. The league's British equivalent was the Imperial South African Association, whose members included imperialist stalwarts like Kipling and Rider Haggard. Founded ostensibly to propagandise the 'imperial viewpoint' by means primarily of meetings and pamphlets, its fundamental purpose was to 'uphold British supremacy and to promote the interests of British subjects in South Africa'. When Alfred Milner ('a British race patriot' , in his own words) became High Commissioner in South Africa in May 1897, the league willingly endorsed his increasingly antagonistic attitude towards the Transvaal. The counterweight to this organisation, informally launched in Britain in November 1899 after the outbreak of war, was the South African Conciliation Committee, a non-party group led by the Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament (MP) Leonard Courtney, Rhodesian