July 7, 2023 • 35 mins
“If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss..."
Those words - from Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" - were based on charismatic nineteenth century doctor, Leander Starr Jameson. In Britain, Jameson was worshipped as a plucky hero: a bastion of courage and mental fortitude. Ironically, he was also responsible for the Jameson Raid, a South African coup that was an unmitigated disaster.
Kipling's champion might have spearheaded a fiasco - but could the poem "If" hold clues for triumph in another arena?
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Rudyard Kipling is perhaps best known as the author
of The Jungle Book, the story of the man cub
Mowgli raised by animals such as Blue the Bear and
Bagheera the Black Panther. Kipling wrote poems two. When surveys
(00:39):
ask the British public for their all time favorite poem,
Kipling's If is routinely at the top of the list.
If you can keep your head when all about you
are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you
can walk with crowds and keep your virtue. If you
can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of
(01:01):
distance run. If is written in the form of paternal
life advice from Kipling to his son, and what will
happen if you do all the things Kipling recommends in
the poem? Well then you'll be a man, my son.
But when Kipling wrote this poem, he had a particular
(01:21):
man in mind as his role model. That man was
doctor Leander Starr Jameson. Dr Jameson is known today for
two things. The first is inspiring Kipling to write If.
The second is the utter fiasco that became known as
the Jameson Raid. The year is eighteen ninety five, and
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doctor Leander Starr Jameson is all set to invade the
South African Republic. He has a private army of fewer
than five hundred men at his command, but he reckons
that will be more than enough to overthrow the country's government.
Anyone could take it with half a dozen revolvers. I
shall get through as easily as a knife cut through.
(02:09):
Butter RODGERD Kipling wasn't alone in his admiration for Dr Jameson.
By all accounts, the short and balding Scotsman had remarkable charisma.
I suppose he must have done. A couple of decades earlier.
Fresh out of medical school and working as a surgeon
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at a London hospital, Jameson saw an advert for a
doctor to join a practice in a fast growing mining
town in Cape Colony, then a part of the British
Empire in what today is South Africa. And now here
he is no longer practicing medicine, but leading a small
army and casually plotting to topple the government of the
(02:52):
next country over. You don't have that kind of career
path unless you've got something about you. It had been
so far a life filled with triumphs. But triumph isn't everything.
As Kipling reminds us in perhaps his poems most famous line,
if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat
(03:14):
those two impostors just the same. Dr Jameson was about
to meet with disaster. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening
to cautionary tales. If you can meet with triumph and
(03:50):
disaster and treat those two impostors just the same. Those
words are written above the entrance to Centre Court Wimbledon.
They seem to resonate with tennis players. Before one classic
men's final, the BBC asked Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal
to recite the poem for them. Serena Williams likes the
(04:12):
poem too. She recorded a version for International Women's Day,
and she brought Kipling's embarrassingly dated closing line into the
twenty first century. You will be a woman's sister. It's
not hard to imagine why the All England Lawn Tennis
Club might have inscribed that line about triumph and disaster
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above the entrance to center court. It reminds the players
that it's bad form to gloat when you win or
sulk when you lose and yet treat them just the same.
We want to see both winners and losers behave with
grace and magnanimity, of course, but we don't expect their
reactions to be emotionally indistinguishable. But there is another sporting
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sense in which those words fit better. Tennis matches are
made up of sets and games and points. There's plenty
of scope for mini disasters and triumphs as the match unfolds.
High level sport is at least as much about mental
fortitude as physical skill. Let's visit Wimbledon in nineteen ninety
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three for the women's final. Yarna Novotna is facing off
against stephie Graff. There's no doubt who's expected to win.
Stephie Graff has established herself as one of the all
time greats. She's won twelve Grand Slams already, including four
of the last five Wimbledon's. She's the top seed. Jarna
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Novotna is seeded eighth. She's never been past the quarter
finals before. She might never get another shot at a
Grand Slam title. The first set is closely fought. The
underdog Novotna takes it all the way to a tie
break which Graf only narrowly wins. This puts Graf in
a strong position. She needs to win just one of
(06:02):
the two remaining sets, while Novotna must win both. It
would be all too natural for Novotna to get disheartened
at this setback. She's played hard for over an hour
and now faces a more difficult task than when she started.
But there's a risk for Graph as well. She might
react to the mini triumph of winning the first set
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by getting lulled into a sense of complacency. Maybe that's
what happens, because Graf proceeds to lose the next five games.
Novotna easily takes the second set to level the match.
In the final set, Novotna's brilliant play continues. Miss Nevotna
leads by four games to one final set. There's nothing
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stephie Graff can do. Novotna is inspired. She's cruising to
victory for thirty. If she wins the next point, Novotna
will be just one game away from the championship. Novotna's
first serve goes into the net. No matter that happens,
generally a player will be more careful on their second
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set to try to make sure they don't lose the
point with a double fault. But this second serve is terrible.
It goes both long and wide, missing not by a
few inches, but by a good three feet deuce. It's
a double fault in itself. It doesn't matter too much.
It's just one point lost, plenty more chances to come.
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But this will later be called the most iconic double
fault in the history of tennis because of what happens next.
Sometimes a sportsperson just can't put it out of their
mind when something's just gone wrong. Disaster compounds upon disaster.
Every bad shot makes the next shot worse, until they've
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somehow contrived to let the whole match slip away. There's
a word for this, several phrases, in fact, getting the yips,
bottling it choking. When you get within sight of the
winning line, then you inexplicate fall apart. Jarna Novotna walks
back to the baseline, looking faintly puzzled, wiping sweat from
(08:17):
her cheek on the shoulder of her shirt. She is
about to endure one of the most mortifying chokes in
sporting history. Rodgyard Kipling was a tennis fan when he
lived in Vermont with his American wife. He built the
state's first tennis court at his house. But he wasn't
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thinking about tennis when he wrote his poem if he
was thinking about Doctor Leander Star Jameson. Although Jameson didn't
always live up to the values the poem espoused. If
you can wait and not be tired of waiting, Dr
Jameson was very much tired of waiting for the green
(09:02):
light to mobilize his army and ride into the South
African Republic. But what exactly was he invading for Bear
with me for a bit of colonial history. The South
African Republic was run by Bors, descendants of Dutch people
who had come to Southern Africa centuries before, and it
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was rich. In the last few years, vast deposits of
gold had been found. A new town called Johannesburg had
sprung up as fortune seekers rushed in. Many of those
fortune seekers weren't bore. The Utlanders, as the Boors called them,
came from all around the world, from Britain and Australia,
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Ireland and America. This motley crew of gold hunters soon
came to outnumber the Boors. But the Boors wouldn't give
them a vote in how the republic was run. The
Utlanders began to grumble in their discontent. Another man spied
an opportunity, Cecil Roads in Southern Africa. The British Empire
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and Cecil Rhodes's business empire were much the s same thing.
Rhodes ran a company that controlled vast swathes of territory
under license from the British government. His company employed police
in effect kind of private army, and in charge of
a chunk of that army, Rhodes had put his great
friend Dr Jameson. Rhodes and Jameson hatched a plan. They'd
(10:32):
quietly encouraged the Utlanders to stage an uprising. The Utlanders
would make a plea for help. They'd say that the
dastardly Bores were threatening their women and children. Dr Jameson
would just happen to be right on the border with
five hundred armed men. He'd ride to Johannesburg to rescue
the Utlanders, topple the Boer government and get Cecil Roads
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in on the gold mining action. You may have noticed
who's missing from this cast of characters. The African inhabitants
of this resource rich land. And if you're wondering when
they're going to get a say in all this. I'm
afraid they aren't. Neither the Boors nor the British cared
much what the Africans thought. The uprising was scheduled for
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December eighteen ninety five, but as the date grew near,
the Utlander conspirators began to get cold feet. Cecil Rhodes
was asking them to risk their lives in a fight
against the Boors. But what exactly was he suggesting would
happen if they won? Would the Utlanders run a new
republic or would it end up as another British colony.
(11:40):
Why would the American Utlanders in particular want to risk
their lives for the British Empire at the border? Jameson
was getting more and more itchy. Delay came the message
again and again. Damn those dithering Utlanders, thought Jameson. And
then he had another thought. Perhaps I could spur them
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into action if I invaded anyway. Will hear how that
worked out? After the break, Cecil Rhodes and Leander Starr
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Jameson had carefully laid the ground for their invasion of
the South African Republic. They had persuaded some leading Utlanders
to put their names to a letter addressed to Dr Jameson.
The letter was a plaintive appeal. Our women and children
are at the mercy of armed boars. The circumstances are
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so extreme that we cannot but believe that you and
the men under you will not fail to come to
the rescue. They left the letter undated. Jameson would fill
in the date on the day he crossed the border,
but when was that going to be? In early December,
Jameson received a coded telegram from the conspirators in Johannesburg.
(13:10):
The polo tournament here postponed for one week. The British
government wanted to give the impression that they knew nothing
about the conspiracy. That would have looked terrible because officially
they were on friendly terms with the Boors. In reality,
the British governor of neighboring Cape Colony knew exactly what
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Cecil Roads was thinking, and so did his ministerial boss.
Back in London. The British government was surreptitiously trying to
sound out the Utlanders about just how much empire they
might accept. What if you fly the Union flag but
elect your own governor Once again, a date for the
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uprising was set. Once again, the Utlanders backed out. In desperation,
Cecil Roads turned to the local reporter from the London Times.
Won't you lead them? The journalist politely demurred, we must
stop Jameson. At last, Rhodes bowed to reality. The uprising
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simply wasn't going to happen. The conspirators sent Jameson a
message the invasions off. As Chris Ash vividly describes in
The If Man, they hastily dispatched one of Jameson's friends
to explain the situation. The friend doesn't seem to have
tried too hard to change Jameson's mind. He dutifully passed
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on the message to Jameson not to go, and then asked,
so what are you going to do? I'm going, replied Jameson,
thought you would. What are you going to do going with?
You thought you would? What on earth is Jameson thinking?
Perhaps there's a clue in his love of high stakes poker.
(15:04):
One evening, when he still worked as a doctor, he
lost all his cat, then his house, his carriage, horses,
and finally his medical practice. He asked a friend to
lend him some money and played on by dawn. He'd
want it all back and made a healthy profit. I
(15:24):
knew I would be able to rely on my luck.
Jameson was a gambler. He'd gathered his men and dramatically
produced the letter from the leading Utlanders. It filled in
the date. Women and children needed them, who would ride
with him to Johannesburg. They'd get through without any fighting
at all. Probably the invasion had been carefully planned out.
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Step one cut the telegraph lines to Pretoria, the seat
of the Boer government. It would take Jameson's men several
days to ride the one hundred and seventy miles to Johannesburg.
He wanted the Boar leaders to hear the news of
his attack as late as possible, but there were two
telegraph lines, and Jameson's men cut only one of them.
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A rumor later went round that they had mistakenly snipped
a farmer's wire fence instead. In Pretoria, the Boors quickly
heard what was happening. They mobilized their army, helped by
another Jameson blunder. He had invaded at Christmas, when men
of fighting age who usually lived on far flung farms,
(16:33):
had gathered in towns to celebrate. The plan for the
uprising called on the conspirators to make a surprise attack
on the Boar's store of weapons, which was usually lightly guarded.
But by the time the conspirators heard that Jameson was coming,
so had the Boors, and then beefed up security. The
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Boar leader reached out to the Utlanders. Let's talk about
your grievances. He made some promises. The Utlander leaders agreed
to a deal. Jameson meanwhile, marched on towards Johannesburg, blithely,
confident that an uprising must soon be underway. Cecil Rhodes
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was in despair. Twenty years we've been friends, and now
he goes in and ruins me. The British governor of
Cape Colony was equally horrified. Sir Hercules Robinson best name ever,
worried that his own foreknowledge of the plan might come
to light. Sir Hercules sent a messenger to ride through
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the night and catch up with Jameson's march, tell Jameson
and the officers with him that her Majesty's government repudiate
their violation of the territory of a friendly state, and
that they are rendering themselves liable to severe penalties. Jameson
debated with his senior officers what to do about this message.
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By now they were more than half way to Johannesburg.
They knew the boors would have mobilized behind them in
the areas they had passed, so they couldn't turn back
without a fight. May as well keep going, then, Jameson
wasn't afraid of a high stakes gamble. He later shrugged.
If I'd succeeded, I would have been forgiven. A little
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further towards Johannesburg, another messenger arrived from an increasingly shrill
Sir Hercules. Her Majesty's government entirely disapprove of your conduct.
You are ordered to retire at once from the country
and will be held personally responsible for the consequences of
your unauthorized and most improper proceeding. It must have seemed
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to Jameson that all around him were losing their heads
and blaming it on him. He sent a reply, of course,
I'd like to obey, Sir Hercules, but if we turned
around now, we won't have enough supplies to last us
through the journey back. We have to press on to Johannesburg.
Youcy if only to get the men and horses a
bite to eat. With thirty miles to go, Jameson received
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his next set of messengers, two men on bone shaker bicycles,
which they'd ridden from Johannesburg. They were carrying three messages.
The messages don't survive, but their overall effect seems to
have been confusing. One message correctly informed Jameson that there
had been no uprising and Utlander leaders had agreed a
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peace deal, But another message apparently suggested that the Utlanders
might nonetheless send reinforcements to meet Jameson at Krugersdorp, a
village that have to pass on the way to Johannesburg.
The men on bicycles, though, had just passed through Krugersdorp
themselves and seen hundreds of boar fighters, apparently lying in
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wait for Jameson to arrive. What to do, Charge straight
into Krugersdorp in the hope of encountering the reinforcements, or
skirt around the side of Krugersdorp in the hope of
avoiding the bores. Skirt around the outside, said Jameson's second
in command, an experienced military man was kipling said about
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taking advice if all men count with you, but not
too much. No, no, said Jameson, charged straight into Krugersdorp.
So that's what they did. After losing sixty men, Jameson
decided that perhaps they'd better skirt around the outside after all.
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As night began to fall, they suddenly heard gunfire in
the distance. It was coming from Krugersdorp, the reinforcements, said Jameson,
we'll have to turn back and help them fight. But
the gunfire hadn't been reinforcements at all. It had been
yet more bore fighters arriving to join the party and
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firing their guns in the air in celebration. By the
time Jameson realized there were no reinforcements, he had no
option but to stop where he was and camp for
the night. Morning brought yet another messenger from Sir Hercules.
I do command Doctor Jameson and all persons accompanying him
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to immediately retire from the territory of the South African
Republic on pain of penalties attached to their illegal proceedings.
You can probably imagine how Jameson reacted to this one
last push to Johannesburg. It's only twelve more miles. Come on,
we can do this if you can force your heart
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to nerve and sinew to serve your turn. Long after
they are gone, Jameson's men weren't just using their hearts
and nerves and sinews, but also their eyes and brains.
They could see that they were surrounded now by bores
and heavily outnumbered. Jameson stopped by a stream and got
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off his horse to take a drink of water. Standing
nearby was an old African woman wearing a white apron.
When Jameson looked up from the stream, he was horrified
to see his soul surrendering by waving that white apron
urgently in the direction of the nearest bors. It was over.
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The Boer commander sent a message to Jameson, lay down
your flag and your arms. I fight under no flag
my arms. I am prepared to surrender, but as I
have never done so before, I don't know how to
proceed about it. Jameson had demonstrated many of the qualities
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that Kipling's poem extoles, but those virtues weren't the ones
that the situation demanded. The Jameson raid had been an
unmitigated disaster. Portionary tales will return after the break. Yarna
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Novotna has just served a double fault to miss the
chance of getting within one game of winning the nineteen
ninety three Wimbledon Championship, but she's still in a great position,
well ahead in the deciding set. She serves again. Stephie
Graff's return is weak, giving Navotna plenty of time to
choose where to smash what should be a routine winner,
(23:36):
but instead she smacks the ball along way past the
baseline advantage Miss Graff. That's two bizarre errors in two points.
Graf wins the next point and the game gay Miss Graff.
Mister Vatner leads by four games to two. Final seven
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should have been five to one, instead it's four to two.
At this point, any sports psychologist would tell Novotna to
forget what just happened. She's played a few bats shots,
but she hasn't suddenly become a bad player. But Novotna
seems to be struggling to refocus. Graf wins the next
game four to three, and the next and the next
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ms Graff leans by five games to four. Final set.
Novotna now has to win the next game just to
keep the match going fifteen thirty, But it's not going well.
She whiffs a backhand into the net fifteen forteen, a
weak lob, and it's all too easy for stephie Graff
(24:45):
to smash the championship, winning point game set and mat
mis rap. It's only when Novotna is receiving the runners
up trophy that the enormity of her choke sinks in
how on earth did she lose? That? She takes the
silver plate from the Duchess of Kent, a minor British royal. Don't,
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says the Duchess, you'll win it one day. Novotna starts
to well up. The Duchess reaches out a comforting arm.
Novotna puts her head on the Duchess's shoulder and sobs.
What happens when a sportsperson chokes like Yanna Novotna. Psychologists
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have a few theories. One is that playing high level
sport demands all your attention, and if you start attending
to other thoughts instead, I'm so close to winning, or
it's all going wrong you can no longer perform at
your peak. Another theory is almost the reverse. It holds
that high level sport depends on skills that are so
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well honed you don't have to think about them, and
when you choke, you trip yourself up by consciously analyzing
the kind of split second decisions that are usually automatic.
Whichever theory is right, Kipling told us how to avoid it.
If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat
those two impostors just the same, it's great advice for
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the heat of a battle on center court. You win
a point, you lose a point, you should play the
next point in just the same way. That's not easy,
But as soon as we step out of the sporting arena,
I don't think it's great advice for life. Far from it. Generally,
when you have a disaster, you don't want to shrug
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it off and plug on doing the exact same things.
You want to ask why the disaster happened and what
you might learn from it. We'll hand you over to
the government in Pretoria, said the Boar fighters to doctor Jameson.
They can decide what to do with you. They confiscated
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a bag of documents that Jameson was carrying. It contained
not only the coded messages from the conspirators in johanna Burg,
but also the codebook to decipher them. The conspirators were
not happy to find themselves being rounded up and joining
Jameson under lock and key back in Britain, though the
nationalistic public didn't see Jameson as a blundering incompetent. They
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thought he was a plucky hero. The Doctor had Aird
said the times of London only through excess of zeal
for empire. The poet laureate rushed out some verses, there
are girls in the gold Reef city. There are mothers
and children too, and they cry hurry up for pity.
(27:46):
So what can a brave man do? In Pretoria, the
boar leader resisted demands to make Jameson face a firing squad.
There was no point creating a martyr. Instead, he passed
Jameson on to the British authorities in the nearest colony,
and they put him on the first boat back to London,
where he was lionized. He received many offers of marriage,
(28:09):
including one from an attractive and wealthy widow who explained
that she had two marriageable daughters, and the gallant doctor
might make his choice of the three veterans of Jameson's
raid would work the pubs of London, collecting money and
the odd glass of whiskey in exchange for vivid tales
(28:30):
of their adventures. Not just veterans either. One newspaper archly
noted that South African dress was easily obtained from theatrical suppliers,
adding that there are more felt hatted, high booted individuals
now working the public houses of London than ever saw Krugersdorp.
(28:51):
The hero worship of Jameson and his raiders gave Britain's
government a headache. He might be popular, but Jameson had
invaded an ostensibly friendly state. They had to put him
on trial. But they also knew Jameson had incriminating messages
from Sir Hercules Robinson, showing that the government had been
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well aware of the plan to ferment an uprising. Sir
Hercules sent his deputy to talk to Jameson. Well, said Jameson,
I have made a nice mess of it. I suppose
you've come to reproach me. Certainly, not came the reply,
but I want you to help your country out of
(29:33):
the mess. How could Jameson do that? Go to prison
with your mouth shut? He was told Jameson did stoically
taking all the blame, despite some skeptical questioning, Sir Hercules
must have known of your planned invasion, wouldn't it have
been the proper thing for you to have told him?
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Indeed it would, said Jameson. But if I was concerned
about doing the proper thing, I wouldn't have been planning
the invasion in the first place. For Rudyard Kipling, Jameson's
cheerful willingness to trash his own reputation with deeply impressive.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
(30:14):
twisted by Knaves to make a trap for fools. Jameson
served his time in prison, then went back to Southern Africa.
He stood for parliament in Cape Colony and soon worked
his way up to be Prime Minister. A demonstration of
astonishing incompetence, it seemed, was no impediment to success in
(30:35):
British politics. Some might wonder how much has changed? But
what had Jameson learned from the disaster of the Jameson Raid.
If there's an answer to that question, we don't know it.
Jameson never talked about it. When his friends asked, he'd
simply laughed. That he'd made a bloody fool of himself.
(30:58):
It's hard for us today to see doctor Jameson through
the admiring eyes of Rudyard Kipling. What, after all, was
the Jameson raid about? Not right or wrong, not some
deep point of principle. No, it was about which set
of white men would get to exploit the minerals of
Black Africans, Which very rich man, the British businessman Cecil Roads,
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or the boor leader Paul Krueger would get richer. Still,
it's clear to us that this is all beside the point.
What matters is the inequality the exploitation. But for Jameson,
it seems gaining territory was little more than a game.
So perhaps it's no coincidence that the famous line about
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triumph and disaster feels so well suited to playing games.
And I don't think that's the only line from Kipling's
poem that's brilliant advice for sports, but terrible advice for life.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss
(32:04):
and lose and start again at your beginnings and toss
is a simple, silly gambling game. Jameson would probably have
loved it, but I can't help feeling that it's generally
a good idea not to risk everything you own on
one turn of pitch and toss if you can help it.
(32:25):
In sport, you can't help it, And if the risk
doesn't pay off, then exactly the right response is to
start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word
about your loss. Or how about that line about knaves
twisting the truth to make a trap for fools. It's
a common enough problem nowadays, But is the right response
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really to bear it? I'm not so sure. Again, except
for sport, you'll often see a cunning player fooler referee
into giving an unfair decision. The best response for the
opposing player is generally to suck it up and stay
coolly focused on winning the match. You can complain about
the refereeing standards when the match is over, and when
(33:08):
the match is over then you can ask what you
can learn from it to stand you in better stead
for next time. That's what Yarna Novotna tried to do
after her defeat in the Wimbledon final of nineteen ninety three.
Novotna said later I'm always trying to take only the
positive things from that final and put it in a
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good way for the future. Novotna got to the final
of Wimbledon again five years later. Once again she walked
on to center court under the words about treating those
two impostors just the same. This time she won. There
again to present the trophy was the Duchess of Kent.
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Before she handed over the big gold plate, not the
little silver one, she warmly clasped both of Novotna's hands
in hers and said, I'm so proud of you. Treat
those two in Posta's just the same while playing. Yes,
but Novotna had learned from her disaster, you couldn't begrudge
(34:17):
her enjoying the triumph. The key source on the Jameson
raid is Chris Ash's book The If Man. For a
full list of our sources, please see the show notes
at Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales is written by me
(34:41):
Tim Harford with Andrew Wright. It's produced by Alice Fines
with support from Edith Huslow. The sound design and original
music is the work of Pascal Wise. Julia Barton edited
the scripts. It features the voice talents of Ben Crowe,
Melanie Guttridge, Jemma Saunders and rufus Wright. The show wouldn't
(35:02):
have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilly,
Greta cohne Let, Al Mallard, Carlie mcgliori and Eric Sandler.
Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It was
recorded in Wardall Studios in London by Tom Berry. If
(35:22):
you like the show, please remember to share, rate and
review go on you know it helps us and if
you want to hear the show ad free, sign up
for Pushkin Plus on the show page in Apple Podcasts
or at pushkin dot Fm, slash plus
Pushkin. Rudyard Kipling is perhaps best known as the author
of The Jungle Book, the story of the man cub
Mowgli raised by animals such as Blue the Bear and
Bagheera the Black Panther. Kipling wrote poems two. When surveys
(00:39):
ask the British public for their all time favorite poem,
Kipling's If is routinely at the top of the list.
If you can keep your head when all about you
are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you
can walk with crowds and keep your virtue. If you
can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of
(01:01):
distance run. If is written in the form of paternal
life advice from Kipling to his son, and what will
happen if you do all the things Kipling recommends in
the poem? Well then you'll be a man, my son.
But when Kipling wrote this poem, he had a particular
(01:21):
man in mind as his role model. That man was
doctor Leander Starr Jameson. Dr Jameson is known today for
two things. The first is inspiring Kipling to write If.
The second is the utter fiasco that became known as
the Jameson Raid. The year is eighteen ninety five, and
(01:48):
doctor Leander Starr Jameson is all set to invade the
South African Republic. He has a private army of fewer
than five hundred men at his command, but he reckons
that will be more than enough to overthrow the country's government.
Anyone could take it with half a dozen revolvers. I
shall get through as easily as a knife cut through.
(02:09):
Butter RODGERD Kipling wasn't alone in his admiration for Dr Jameson.
By all accounts, the short and balding Scotsman had remarkable charisma.
I suppose he must have done. A couple of decades earlier.
Fresh out of medical school and working as a surgeon
(02:29):
at a London hospital, Jameson saw an advert for a
doctor to join a practice in a fast growing mining
town in Cape Colony, then a part of the British
Empire in what today is South Africa. And now here
he is no longer practicing medicine, but leading a small
army and casually plotting to topple the government of the
(02:52):
next country over. You don't have that kind of career
path unless you've got something about you. It had been
so far a life filled with triumphs. But triumph isn't everything.
As Kipling reminds us in perhaps his poems most famous line,
if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat
(03:14):
those two impostors just the same. Dr Jameson was about
to meet with disaster. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening
to cautionary tales. If you can meet with triumph and
(03:50):
disaster and treat those two impostors just the same. Those
words are written above the entrance to Centre Court Wimbledon.
They seem to resonate with tennis players. Before one classic
men's final, the BBC asked Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal
to recite the poem for them. Serena Williams likes the
(04:12):
poem too. She recorded a version for International Women's Day,
and she brought Kipling's embarrassingly dated closing line into the
twenty first century. You will be a woman's sister. It's
not hard to imagine why the All England Lawn Tennis
Club might have inscribed that line about triumph and disaster
(04:33):
above the entrance to center court. It reminds the players
that it's bad form to gloat when you win or
sulk when you lose and yet treat them just the same.
We want to see both winners and losers behave with
grace and magnanimity, of course, but we don't expect their
reactions to be emotionally indistinguishable. But there is another sporting
(04:57):
sense in which those words fit better. Tennis matches are
made up of sets and games and points. There's plenty
of scope for mini disasters and triumphs as the match unfolds.
High level sport is at least as much about mental
fortitude as physical skill. Let's visit Wimbledon in nineteen ninety
(05:18):
three for the women's final. Yarna Novotna is facing off
against stephie Graff. There's no doubt who's expected to win.
Stephie Graff has established herself as one of the all
time greats. She's won twelve Grand Slams already, including four
of the last five Wimbledon's. She's the top seed. Jarna
(05:39):
Novotna is seeded eighth. She's never been past the quarter
finals before. She might never get another shot at a
Grand Slam title. The first set is closely fought. The
underdog Novotna takes it all the way to a tie
break which Graf only narrowly wins. This puts Graf in
a strong position. She needs to win just one of
(06:02):
the two remaining sets, while Novotna must win both. It
would be all too natural for Novotna to get disheartened
at this setback. She's played hard for over an hour
and now faces a more difficult task than when she started.
But there's a risk for Graph as well. She might
react to the mini triumph of winning the first set
(06:23):
by getting lulled into a sense of complacency. Maybe that's
what happens, because Graf proceeds to lose the next five games.
Novotna easily takes the second set to level the match.
In the final set, Novotna's brilliant play continues. Miss Nevotna
leads by four games to one final set. There's nothing
(06:47):
stephie Graff can do. Novotna is inspired. She's cruising to
victory for thirty. If she wins the next point, Novotna
will be just one game away from the championship. Novotna's
first serve goes into the net. No matter that happens,
generally a player will be more careful on their second
(07:08):
set to try to make sure they don't lose the
point with a double fault. But this second serve is terrible.
It goes both long and wide, missing not by a
few inches, but by a good three feet deuce. It's
a double fault in itself. It doesn't matter too much.
It's just one point lost, plenty more chances to come.
(07:31):
But this will later be called the most iconic double
fault in the history of tennis because of what happens next.
Sometimes a sportsperson just can't put it out of their
mind when something's just gone wrong. Disaster compounds upon disaster.
Every bad shot makes the next shot worse, until they've
(07:53):
somehow contrived to let the whole match slip away. There's
a word for this, several phrases, in fact, getting the yips,
bottling it choking. When you get within sight of the
winning line, then you inexplicate fall apart. Jarna Novotna walks
back to the baseline, looking faintly puzzled, wiping sweat from
(08:17):
her cheek on the shoulder of her shirt. She is
about to endure one of the most mortifying chokes in
sporting history. Rodgyard Kipling was a tennis fan when he
lived in Vermont with his American wife. He built the
state's first tennis court at his house. But he wasn't
(08:41):
thinking about tennis when he wrote his poem if he
was thinking about Doctor Leander Star Jameson. Although Jameson didn't
always live up to the values the poem espoused. If
you can wait and not be tired of waiting, Dr
Jameson was very much tired of waiting for the green
(09:02):
light to mobilize his army and ride into the South
African Republic. But what exactly was he invading for Bear
with me for a bit of colonial history. The South
African Republic was run by Bors, descendants of Dutch people
who had come to Southern Africa centuries before, and it
(09:22):
was rich. In the last few years, vast deposits of
gold had been found. A new town called Johannesburg had
sprung up as fortune seekers rushed in. Many of those
fortune seekers weren't bore. The Utlanders, as the Boors called them,
came from all around the world, from Britain and Australia,
(09:43):
Ireland and America. This motley crew of gold hunters soon
came to outnumber the Boors. But the Boors wouldn't give
them a vote in how the republic was run. The
Utlanders began to grumble in their discontent. Another man spied
an opportunity, Cecil Roads in Southern Africa. The British Empire
(10:06):
and Cecil Rhodes's business empire were much the s same thing.
Rhodes ran a company that controlled vast swathes of territory
under license from the British government. His company employed police
in effect kind of private army, and in charge of
a chunk of that army, Rhodes had put his great
friend Dr Jameson. Rhodes and Jameson hatched a plan. They'd
(10:32):
quietly encouraged the Utlanders to stage an uprising. The Utlanders
would make a plea for help. They'd say that the
dastardly Bores were threatening their women and children. Dr Jameson
would just happen to be right on the border with
five hundred armed men. He'd ride to Johannesburg to rescue
the Utlanders, topple the Boer government and get Cecil Roads
(10:54):
in on the gold mining action. You may have noticed
who's missing from this cast of characters. The African inhabitants
of this resource rich land. And if you're wondering when
they're going to get a say in all this. I'm
afraid they aren't. Neither the Boors nor the British cared
much what the Africans thought. The uprising was scheduled for
(11:17):
December eighteen ninety five, but as the date grew near,
the Utlander conspirators began to get cold feet. Cecil Rhodes
was asking them to risk their lives in a fight
against the Boors. But what exactly was he suggesting would
happen if they won? Would the Utlanders run a new
republic or would it end up as another British colony.
(11:40):
Why would the American Utlanders in particular want to risk
their lives for the British Empire at the border? Jameson
was getting more and more itchy. Delay came the message
again and again. Damn those dithering Utlanders, thought Jameson. And
then he had another thought. Perhaps I could spur them
(12:05):
into action if I invaded anyway. Will hear how that
worked out? After the break, Cecil Rhodes and Leander Starr
(12:25):
Jameson had carefully laid the ground for their invasion of
the South African Republic. They had persuaded some leading Utlanders
to put their names to a letter addressed to Dr Jameson.
The letter was a plaintive appeal. Our women and children
are at the mercy of armed boars. The circumstances are
(12:45):
so extreme that we cannot but believe that you and
the men under you will not fail to come to
the rescue. They left the letter undated. Jameson would fill
in the date on the day he crossed the border,
but when was that going to be? In early December,
Jameson received a coded telegram from the conspirators in Johannesburg.
(13:10):
The polo tournament here postponed for one week. The British
government wanted to give the impression that they knew nothing
about the conspiracy. That would have looked terrible because officially
they were on friendly terms with the Boors. In reality,
the British governor of neighboring Cape Colony knew exactly what
(13:31):
Cecil Roads was thinking, and so did his ministerial boss.
Back in London. The British government was surreptitiously trying to
sound out the Utlanders about just how much empire they
might accept. What if you fly the Union flag but
elect your own governor Once again, a date for the
(13:52):
uprising was set. Once again, the Utlanders backed out. In desperation,
Cecil Roads turned to the local reporter from the London Times.
Won't you lead them? The journalist politely demurred, we must
stop Jameson. At last, Rhodes bowed to reality. The uprising
(14:16):
simply wasn't going to happen. The conspirators sent Jameson a
message the invasions off. As Chris Ash vividly describes in
The If Man, they hastily dispatched one of Jameson's friends
to explain the situation. The friend doesn't seem to have
tried too hard to change Jameson's mind. He dutifully passed
(14:40):
on the message to Jameson not to go, and then asked,
so what are you going to do? I'm going, replied Jameson,
thought you would. What are you going to do going with?
You thought you would? What on earth is Jameson thinking?
Perhaps there's a clue in his love of high stakes poker.
(15:04):
One evening, when he still worked as a doctor, he
lost all his cat, then his house, his carriage, horses,
and finally his medical practice. He asked a friend to
lend him some money and played on by dawn. He'd
want it all back and made a healthy profit. I
(15:24):
knew I would be able to rely on my luck.
Jameson was a gambler. He'd gathered his men and dramatically
produced the letter from the leading Utlanders. It filled in
the date. Women and children needed them, who would ride
with him to Johannesburg. They'd get through without any fighting
at all. Probably the invasion had been carefully planned out.
(15:49):
Step one cut the telegraph lines to Pretoria, the seat
of the Boer government. It would take Jameson's men several
days to ride the one hundred and seventy miles to Johannesburg.
He wanted the Boar leaders to hear the news of
his attack as late as possible, but there were two
telegraph lines, and Jameson's men cut only one of them.
(16:11):
A rumor later went round that they had mistakenly snipped
a farmer's wire fence instead. In Pretoria, the Boors quickly
heard what was happening. They mobilized their army, helped by
another Jameson blunder. He had invaded at Christmas, when men
of fighting age who usually lived on far flung farms,
(16:33):
had gathered in towns to celebrate. The plan for the
uprising called on the conspirators to make a surprise attack
on the Boar's store of weapons, which was usually lightly guarded.
But by the time the conspirators heard that Jameson was coming,
so had the Boors, and then beefed up security. The
(16:54):
Boar leader reached out to the Utlanders. Let's talk about
your grievances. He made some promises. The Utlander leaders agreed
to a deal. Jameson meanwhile, marched on towards Johannesburg, blithely,
confident that an uprising must soon be underway. Cecil Rhodes
(17:14):
was in despair. Twenty years we've been friends, and now
he goes in and ruins me. The British governor of
Cape Colony was equally horrified. Sir Hercules Robinson best name ever,
worried that his own foreknowledge of the plan might come
to light. Sir Hercules sent a messenger to ride through
(17:35):
the night and catch up with Jameson's march, tell Jameson
and the officers with him that her Majesty's government repudiate
their violation of the territory of a friendly state, and
that they are rendering themselves liable to severe penalties. Jameson
debated with his senior officers what to do about this message.
(17:56):
By now they were more than half way to Johannesburg.
They knew the boors would have mobilized behind them in
the areas they had passed, so they couldn't turn back
without a fight. May as well keep going, then, Jameson
wasn't afraid of a high stakes gamble. He later shrugged.
If I'd succeeded, I would have been forgiven. A little
(18:18):
further towards Johannesburg, another messenger arrived from an increasingly shrill
Sir Hercules. Her Majesty's government entirely disapprove of your conduct.
You are ordered to retire at once from the country
and will be held personally responsible for the consequences of
your unauthorized and most improper proceeding. It must have seemed
(18:39):
to Jameson that all around him were losing their heads
and blaming it on him. He sent a reply, of course,
I'd like to obey, Sir Hercules, but if we turned
around now, we won't have enough supplies to last us
through the journey back. We have to press on to Johannesburg.
Youcy if only to get the men and horses a
bite to eat. With thirty miles to go, Jameson received
(19:04):
his next set of messengers, two men on bone shaker bicycles,
which they'd ridden from Johannesburg. They were carrying three messages.
The messages don't survive, but their overall effect seems to
have been confusing. One message correctly informed Jameson that there
had been no uprising and Utlander leaders had agreed a
(19:26):
peace deal, But another message apparently suggested that the Utlanders
might nonetheless send reinforcements to meet Jameson at Krugersdorp, a
village that have to pass on the way to Johannesburg.
The men on bicycles, though, had just passed through Krugersdorp
themselves and seen hundreds of boar fighters, apparently lying in
(19:48):
wait for Jameson to arrive. What to do, Charge straight
into Krugersdorp in the hope of encountering the reinforcements, or
skirt around the side of Krugersdorp in the hope of
avoiding the bores. Skirt around the outside, said Jameson's second
in command, an experienced military man was kipling said about
(20:10):
taking advice if all men count with you, but not
too much. No, no, said Jameson, charged straight into Krugersdorp.
So that's what they did. After losing sixty men, Jameson
decided that perhaps they'd better skirt around the outside after all.
(20:32):
As night began to fall, they suddenly heard gunfire in
the distance. It was coming from Krugersdorp, the reinforcements, said Jameson,
we'll have to turn back and help them fight. But
the gunfire hadn't been reinforcements at all. It had been
yet more bore fighters arriving to join the party and
(20:53):
firing their guns in the air in celebration. By the
time Jameson realized there were no reinforcements, he had no
option but to stop where he was and camp for
the night. Morning brought yet another messenger from Sir Hercules.
I do command Doctor Jameson and all persons accompanying him
(21:15):
to immediately retire from the territory of the South African
Republic on pain of penalties attached to their illegal proceedings.
You can probably imagine how Jameson reacted to this one
last push to Johannesburg. It's only twelve more miles. Come on,
we can do this if you can force your heart
(21:36):
to nerve and sinew to serve your turn. Long after
they are gone, Jameson's men weren't just using their hearts
and nerves and sinews, but also their eyes and brains.
They could see that they were surrounded now by bores
and heavily outnumbered. Jameson stopped by a stream and got
(21:57):
off his horse to take a drink of water. Standing
nearby was an old African woman wearing a white apron.
When Jameson looked up from the stream, he was horrified
to see his soul surrendering by waving that white apron
urgently in the direction of the nearest bors. It was over.
(22:19):
The Boer commander sent a message to Jameson, lay down
your flag and your arms. I fight under no flag
my arms. I am prepared to surrender, but as I
have never done so before, I don't know how to
proceed about it. Jameson had demonstrated many of the qualities
(22:39):
that Kipling's poem extoles, but those virtues weren't the ones
that the situation demanded. The Jameson raid had been an
unmitigated disaster. Portionary tales will return after the break. Yarna
(23:14):
Novotna has just served a double fault to miss the
chance of getting within one game of winning the nineteen
ninety three Wimbledon Championship, but she's still in a great position,
well ahead in the deciding set. She serves again. Stephie
Graff's return is weak, giving Navotna plenty of time to
choose where to smash what should be a routine winner,
(23:36):
but instead she smacks the ball along way past the
baseline advantage Miss Graff. That's two bizarre errors in two points.
Graf wins the next point and the game gay Miss Graff.
Mister Vatner leads by four games to two. Final seven
(23:58):
should have been five to one, instead it's four to two.
At this point, any sports psychologist would tell Novotna to
forget what just happened. She's played a few bats shots,
but she hasn't suddenly become a bad player. But Novotna
seems to be struggling to refocus. Graf wins the next
game four to three, and the next and the next
(24:23):
ms Graff leans by five games to four. Final set.
Novotna now has to win the next game just to
keep the match going fifteen thirty, But it's not going well.
She whiffs a backhand into the net fifteen forteen, a
weak lob, and it's all too easy for stephie Graff
(24:45):
to smash the championship, winning point game set and mat
mis rap. It's only when Novotna is receiving the runners
up trophy that the enormity of her choke sinks in
how on earth did she lose? That? She takes the
silver plate from the Duchess of Kent, a minor British royal. Don't,
(25:09):
says the Duchess, you'll win it one day. Novotna starts
to well up. The Duchess reaches out a comforting arm.
Novotna puts her head on the Duchess's shoulder and sobs.
What happens when a sportsperson chokes like Yanna Novotna. Psychologists
(25:31):
have a few theories. One is that playing high level
sport demands all your attention, and if you start attending
to other thoughts instead, I'm so close to winning, or
it's all going wrong you can no longer perform at
your peak. Another theory is almost the reverse. It holds
that high level sport depends on skills that are so
(25:54):
well honed you don't have to think about them, and
when you choke, you trip yourself up by consciously analyzing
the kind of split second decisions that are usually automatic.
Whichever theory is right, Kipling told us how to avoid it.
If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat
those two impostors just the same, it's great advice for
(26:18):
the heat of a battle on center court. You win
a point, you lose a point, you should play the
next point in just the same way. That's not easy,
But as soon as we step out of the sporting arena,
I don't think it's great advice for life. Far from it. Generally,
when you have a disaster, you don't want to shrug
(26:40):
it off and plug on doing the exact same things.
You want to ask why the disaster happened and what
you might learn from it. We'll hand you over to
the government in Pretoria, said the Boar fighters to doctor Jameson.
They can decide what to do with you. They confiscated
(27:02):
a bag of documents that Jameson was carrying. It contained
not only the coded messages from the conspirators in johanna Burg,
but also the codebook to decipher them. The conspirators were
not happy to find themselves being rounded up and joining
Jameson under lock and key back in Britain, though the
nationalistic public didn't see Jameson as a blundering incompetent. They
(27:25):
thought he was a plucky hero. The Doctor had Aird
said the times of London only through excess of zeal
for empire. The poet laureate rushed out some verses, there
are girls in the gold Reef city. There are mothers
and children too, and they cry hurry up for pity.
(27:46):
So what can a brave man do? In Pretoria, the
boar leader resisted demands to make Jameson face a firing squad.
There was no point creating a martyr. Instead, he passed
Jameson on to the British authorities in the nearest colony,
and they put him on the first boat back to London,
where he was lionized. He received many offers of marriage,
(28:09):
including one from an attractive and wealthy widow who explained
that she had two marriageable daughters, and the gallant doctor
might make his choice of the three veterans of Jameson's
raid would work the pubs of London, collecting money and
the odd glass of whiskey in exchange for vivid tales
(28:30):
of their adventures. Not just veterans either. One newspaper archly
noted that South African dress was easily obtained from theatrical suppliers,
adding that there are more felt hatted, high booted individuals
now working the public houses of London than ever saw Krugersdorp.
(28:51):
The hero worship of Jameson and his raiders gave Britain's
government a headache. He might be popular, but Jameson had
invaded an ostensibly friendly state. They had to put him
on trial. But they also knew Jameson had incriminating messages
from Sir Hercules Robinson, showing that the government had been
(29:13):
well aware of the plan to ferment an uprising. Sir
Hercules sent his deputy to talk to Jameson. Well, said Jameson,
I have made a nice mess of it. I suppose
you've come to reproach me. Certainly, not came the reply,
but I want you to help your country out of
(29:33):
the mess. How could Jameson do that? Go to prison
with your mouth shut? He was told Jameson did stoically
taking all the blame, despite some skeptical questioning, Sir Hercules
must have known of your planned invasion, wouldn't it have
been the proper thing for you to have told him?
(29:54):
Indeed it would, said Jameson. But if I was concerned
about doing the proper thing, I wouldn't have been planning
the invasion in the first place. For Rudyard Kipling, Jameson's
cheerful willingness to trash his own reputation with deeply impressive.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
(30:14):
twisted by Knaves to make a trap for fools. Jameson
served his time in prison, then went back to Southern Africa.
He stood for parliament in Cape Colony and soon worked
his way up to be Prime Minister. A demonstration of
astonishing incompetence, it seemed, was no impediment to success in
(30:35):
British politics. Some might wonder how much has changed? But
what had Jameson learned from the disaster of the Jameson Raid.
If there's an answer to that question, we don't know it.
Jameson never talked about it. When his friends asked, he'd
simply laughed. That he'd made a bloody fool of himself.
(30:58):
It's hard for us today to see doctor Jameson through
the admiring eyes of Rudyard Kipling. What, after all, was
the Jameson raid about? Not right or wrong, not some
deep point of principle. No, it was about which set
of white men would get to exploit the minerals of
Black Africans, Which very rich man, the British businessman Cecil Roads,
(31:23):
or the boor leader Paul Krueger would get richer. Still,
it's clear to us that this is all beside the point.
What matters is the inequality the exploitation. But for Jameson,
it seems gaining territory was little more than a game.
So perhaps it's no coincidence that the famous line about
(31:43):
triumph and disaster feels so well suited to playing games.
And I don't think that's the only line from Kipling's
poem that's brilliant advice for sports, but terrible advice for life.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss
(32:04):
and lose and start again at your beginnings and toss
is a simple, silly gambling game. Jameson would probably have
loved it, but I can't help feeling that it's generally
a good idea not to risk everything you own on
one turn of pitch and toss if you can help it.
(32:25):
In sport, you can't help it, And if the risk
doesn't pay off, then exactly the right response is to
start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word
about your loss. Or how about that line about knaves
twisting the truth to make a trap for fools. It's
a common enough problem nowadays, But is the right response
(32:46):
really to bear it? I'm not so sure. Again, except
for sport, you'll often see a cunning player fooler referee
into giving an unfair decision. The best response for the
opposing player is generally to suck it up and stay
coolly focused on winning the match. You can complain about
the refereeing standards when the match is over, and when
(33:08):
the match is over then you can ask what you
can learn from it to stand you in better stead
for next time. That's what Yarna Novotna tried to do
after her defeat in the Wimbledon final of nineteen ninety three.
Novotna said later I'm always trying to take only the
positive things from that final and put it in a
(33:31):
good way for the future. Novotna got to the final
of Wimbledon again five years later. Once again she walked
on to center court under the words about treating those
two impostors just the same. This time she won. There
again to present the trophy was the Duchess of Kent.
(33:55):
Before she handed over the big gold plate, not the
little silver one, she warmly clasped both of Novotna's hands
in hers and said, I'm so proud of you. Treat
those two in Posta's just the same while playing. Yes,
but Novotna had learned from her disaster, you couldn't begrudge
(34:17):
her enjoying the triumph. The key source on the Jameson
raid is Chris Ash's book The If Man. For a
full list of our sources, please see the show notes
at Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales is written by me
(34:41):
Tim Harford with Andrew Wright. It's produced by Alice Fines
with support from Edith Huslow. The sound design and original
music is the work of Pascal Wise. Julia Barton edited
the scripts. It features the voice talents of Ben Crowe,
Melanie Guttridge, Jemma Saunders and rufus Wright. The show wouldn't
(35:02):
have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilly,
Greta cohne Let, Al Mallard, Carlie mcgliori and Eric Sandler.
Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It was
recorded in Wardall Studios in London by Tom Berry. If
(35:22):
you like the show, please remember to share, rate and
review go on you know it helps us and if
you want to hear the show ad free, sign up
for Pushkin Plus on the show page in Apple Podcasts
or at pushkin dot Fm, slash plus
Host
Tim Harford
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