Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner

"Lord Milner" redirects here. For the Labour peer, see Baron Milner of Leeds.

See also: Violet Milner and Milner's Kindergarten

The Right Honourable The Viscount Milner KG, GCB, GCMG, PC
Secretary of State for the Colonies
In office 10 January 1919 – 13 February 1921
Preceded by	Walter Long
Succeeded by	Winston Churchill
Secretary of State for War
In office 18 April 1918 – 10 January 1919
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	David Lloyd George
Preceded by	Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby
Succeeded by	Winston Churchill
1st Governor of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony
In office 23 June 1902 – 1 April 1905
Monarch	Edward VII
Preceded by	Himself as Administrator of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony
Succeeded by	William Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne
Administrator of the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony
In office 4 January 1901 – 23 June 1902
Monarchs	Queen Victoria Edward VII
Lieutenant	Hamilton John Goold-Adams
Preceded by	Office Established Christiaan de Wet As State President of the Orange Free State (31 May 1902) Schalk Willem Burger As President of the South African Republic (31 May 1902)
Succeeded by	Himself As Governor of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony
Governor of the Cape Colony and High Commissioner for Southern Africa
In office 5 May 1897 – 6 March 1901
Monarchs	Queen Victoria Edward VII
Prime Minister	John Gordon Sprigg William Schreiner John Gordon Sprigg
Preceded by	Sir William Howley Goodenough
Succeeded by	Sir Walter Francis Hely-Hutchinson
Personal details
Born	Alfred Milner 23 March 1854 Gießen, Upper Hesse, Grand Duchy of Hesse
Died	13 May 1925(1925-05-13) (aged 71) Great Wigsell, East Sussex, England
Resting place	Saint Mary the Virgin Church, Salehurst, East Sussex, England
Nationality	British
Spouse	Violet Milner
Alma mater	University of Tübingen King's College London Balliol College, Oxford
Occupation	Colonial administrator, statesman
Signature

Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner, KG, GCB, GCMG, PC (23 March 1854 – 13 May 1925) was a British statesman and colonial administrator who played a very important role in the formulation of British foreign and domestic policy between the mid-1890s and early 1920s. From December 1916 to November 1918, he was one of the most important members of Prime Minister David Lloyd George's War cabinet.

Milner was born in the Grand Duchy of Hesse in 1854 and was educated in Germany and England before attending Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first class in classics. Though he was called to the bar in 1881, Milner instead became a journalist before entering politics as a Liberal before quickly leaving the party in 1886 over his opposition to Irish Home Rule. He joined the staff of Chancellor of the Exchequer George Goschen and was posted to Egypt as under-secretary of finance. He briefly chaired the Board of Inland Revenue until April 1897, when he was appointed Governor of the Cape Colony and High Commissioner for Southern Africa by Joseph Chamberlain following the disastrous Jameson Raid.

As Governor and High Commissioner, Milner was a leading advocate for British subjects of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, and his policy precipitated the Second Boer War. During the war, Milner received praise and criticism for his civilian administration in South Africa, including the establishment of concentration camps to intern the Boers. Following the British victory and annexation of the Boer republics, Milner was named their first governor. Upon his return to England in 1905, he faced censure for the use of corporal punishment against Chinese labourers. He remained and advocate for British imperialism for the remainder of his life.

Early life and education

Alfred Milner was born on 23 March 1854 in Giessen, Upper Hesse, Grand Duchy of Hesse. His father was Charles Milner, a London physician with a German mother and English father who was a reader in English at the University of Tübingen. His maternal grandfather, John Ready, was Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island and the Isle of Man.

Alfred Milner was educated first at Tübingen, then at King's College School and from 1872 to 1876 as a scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, studying under the classicist theologian Benjamin Jowett. Having won the Hertford, Craven, Eldon and Derby scholarships, he graduated in 1877 with a first class in classics and was elected to a fellowship at New College, leaving, however, for London in 1879. At Oxford he formed a close friendship with the young economic historian Arnold Toynbee. He wrote a paper in support of his theories of social work and, in 1895, twelve years after Toynbee's death at the age of 30, penning a tribute, Arnold Toynbee: a Reminiscence.

Early career

Although authorised to practise law after being called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1881, he joined the staff of the Pall Mall Gazette under John Morley, becoming assistant editor to William Thomas Stead. In 1885, Milner abandoned journalism for a brief political career, standing as the Liberal candidate for the Harrow division of Middlesex but lost in the general election.

In 1886, Milner supported the breakaway Liberal Unionist Party over his opposition to Irish Home Rule. He became private secretary to Liberal Unionist George Goschen and rose in rank when Goschen became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1887. Two years later, Goschen used his influence to have Milner appointed under-secretary of finance in Egypt. Milner remained in Egypt from 1889 to 1892, his period of office coinciding with the first great reforms under Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer, after the danger of bankruptcy which precipitated British control had been avoided.

Returning to England in 1892, he published England and Egypt which, at once, became the authoritative account of the work done since British occupation began in 1882. Later that year, he received an appointment as chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue where he remained until 1897. While at Inland Revenue, he established relationships with Michael Hicks-Beach, 1st Earl St Aldwyn and Sir William Vernon Harcourt.

In 1894, he was made CB and in 1895, KCB. Milner remained at the Board of Inland Revenue until 1897, having established a reputation as one of the clearest-headed and most judicious British civil servants, a position as a man of moderate Liberal Unionist views, and strong political allies in Goschen, Cromer, St Aldwyn and Harcourt.

South Africa and the Second Boer War

Relations with the Boer republics

The South African Republic, more commonly referred to by the British as the Transvaal, was established in 1852 by Afrikaner farmers who had emigrated from the Cape Colony in the Great Trek in to live beyond the reach of British colonial administration. These farmers, known as Boers, successfully defended their independence from the British Empire in the First Boer War from 1880 to 1881, which established self-government under nominal British suzerainty in the Pretoria Convention. Following the discovery of gold in the Transvaal in 1884, thousands of fortune seekers flocked there from Europe, but mostly from Britain. This new influx of foreigners, whom the Boers called Uitlanders, was received negatively in the republic, and they were refused the right to vote.

In 1896, British colonial administrator Leander Starr Jameson, under the employment of Cecil Rhodes, attempted and failed to trigger an uprising against President Kruger by the Uitlanders. The raid dramatically worsened relations between the British Cape Colony and the Boer republics, and by April 1897, Lord Rosmead resigned as High Commissioner for Southern Africa and Governor of Cape Colony. Secretary of State for the Colonies Joseph Chamberlain sought to replace Rosmead with a statesman who could restore public confidence and uphold British interests in dealing with the Transvaal and Orange Free State governments. The choice of Milner was cordially approved by the Liberal Party and warmly recognised at a farewell dinner on 28 March 1897, presided over by H. H. Asquith.

Reaching the Cape Colony in May, Milner resolved difficulties with President Kruger over the treatment of the Uitlanders under the Transvaal Aliens' Law, then set out on a tour of British South Africa. Between August 1897 and May 1898 he travelled Cape Colony, the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Rhodesia, and Basutoland. To better understand the point of view of the Cape Dutch and the burghers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, Milner learned both Dutch and Afrikaans. He came to the conclusion that there could be no peace or progress while there remained the "permanent subjection of British to Dutch in [the Transvaal]". The Transvaal also obstructed British ambitions for a "Cape to Cairo" railway and trading network, and Milner realised that with the discovery of gold in the Transvaal, the balance of power in South Africa had shifted in favor of the Boers. He feared a newly wealthy Transvaal would unite with Cape Afrikaners and jeopardise the entire British position in the region.

In a history of the Second Boer War in 1909, Milner later wrote:

"The Dutch can never form a perfect allegiance merely to Great Britain. The British can never, without moral injury, accept allegiance to any body politic which excludes their motherland. But British and Dutch alike could, without moral injury, without any sacrifice to their several traditions, unite in loyal devotion to an empire-state, in which Great Britain and South Africa would be partners, and could work cordially together for the good of South Africa as a member of that great whole. And so you see the true Imperialist is also the best South African."

Milner became the most prominent voice in the British government advocating war with the Boer republics to secure British control over the region. After meeting Milner for the first time, Boer soldier (and future politician) Jan Smuts predicted that he would become "more dangerous than Rhodes" and "a second Bartle Frere".

Second Boer War

Pre-war diplomacy

After the February 1898 Transvaal election, which Kruger won by a landslide, Milner concluded that the Pretoria government would never redress the grievances of the Uitlanders on its own initiative. This gave Milner the pretext to use the question to his advantage. In a speech delivered on 3 March 1898 at Graaff Reinet, an Afrikaner Bond stronghold in the British Cape Colony, Milner outlined his determination to secure freedom and equality for British subjects in the Transvaal, and he urged the Boers to induce the Pretoria government to assimilate its institutions to those of the free communities of South Africa. His pronouncement, along with the resumption of control of the Progressive Party by Cecil Rhodes, greatly alarmed the Afrikaners. At the March 1898 elections, opponents of the Progressives won a majority in the House of Assembly and William Schreiner formed a government opposed to British intervention in the Transvaal.

Convinced his position in the Cape Colony had become untenable, Milner returned to England in November 1898, where he secured Chamberlain's support to back the Uitlanders before returning to Cape Colony in February 1899. In the ten weeks Milner spent away from the Colony, relations with the Boers had deteriorated after acting High Commissioner William Francis Butler had allowed the inference that he did not support Uitlander grievances. On 4 May, Milner penned a memorable dispatch to the Colonial Office arguing for intervention to ensure Uitlander enfranchisement, which he posited was the only means of stabilizing the situation in South Africa and ensuring the predominant position of British interests in the region. He notably did not base his argument on the Pretoria Convention and argued "suzerainty" was an "etymological question". Instead, he appealed to the condition of thousands of British subjects in the Transvaal as "helots" was undermining the prestige of Britain throughout South Africa, and he called for "some striking proof" of the intention of the British government not preserve its position. This dispatch was telegraphed to London for immediate publication; but it was kept private for a time by the home government. At the insistence of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, a peace conference was held at Bloemfontein between Milner and Kruger from 31 May to 5 June. Kruger rejected Milner's three demands: for Uitlander enfranchisement, for the use of English in the Transvaal parliament, and for the right of the British Parliament to review all Transvaal laws.

Civilian administration

A caricature of Milner from Vanity Fair in 1897

Photograph of Lord Milner in 1902

When the Second Boer War broke out in October 1899, Milner supported and advised the British military efforts in South Africa. In the words of Lord Roberts, his "courage never faltered" during this early phase of the war. Milner set out to influence British education in the area for the English-speaking populations in order to Anglicise the Transvaal. He founded a series of schools known as the "Milner Schools", including modern-day Pretoria High School for Girls, Pretoria Boys High School, Jeppe High School for Boys, King Edward VII School (Johannesburg), Potchefstroom High School for Boys and Hamilton Primary School.

In February 1901, though the war was still in progress, Milner was called upon to undertake the administration of the two Boer states, both now annexed to the British Empire. He thereupon resigned the governorship of Cape Colony but retained the post of high commissioner. During this period, his government established numerous concentration camps to intern the Boer civilian population. Milner's efforts to reconstruct the civil administration were limited while operations continued in the field, and he therefore returned to England to spend a "hard-begged holiday," mainly occupied in work at the Colonial Office. On his arrival to London on 24 May 1901, had an audience with Edward VII, received the GCB and was made a privy councillor. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Milner of St James's in the County of London and of Cape Town in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. Speaking the next day at a luncheon in his honour, he asserted that the war had been unavoidable, as the British were asked to "conciliate" was "panoplied hatred, insensate ambition, invincible ignorance". In late July, Milner received the Honorary Freedom of the City of London and gave another speech in which he defended the government policy.

Despite these honors, opposition to Milner within the Liberal Party grew over both his failed diplomacy before the war and his conduct during the war. Leonard Courtney characterised his as a "lost mind", and Liberal leader Henry Campbell-Bannerman was among those to agitate for his recall. However, these efforts failed, and he returned to South Africa in August 1901.

On his return, he plunged into the herculean task of remodelling the administration. As the chief civilian administrator in South Africa, he bitterly fought Lord Kitchener, the Commander-in-Chief in South Africa, who ultimately won out. However, Milner ultimately drafted the terms of the Boer surrender, signed in Pretoria on 31 May 1902. In recognition of his services he was, on 15 July 1902, elevated to the title of viscount.

Post-war administration

On 21 June, immediately following the formal end of hostilities, Milner published the letters patent establishing Crown colony governments in the Transvaal Colony and Orange River Colony and changing his title of administrator to that of governor. He established a 10% tax on the annual net produce of the gold mines and devoted his attention to the repatriation of the Boers, land resettlement by British colonists, education, justice, the constabulary, and the development of railways.

After Joseph Chamberlain's surprise resignation on 18 September 1903 due to ill health, Milner declined the vacant post of Secretary of State for the Colonies, considering it more important to complete his work in South Africa, where economic depression was becoming pronounced. Milner's two-stage economic plan, which he called "Lift and Overspill", called for increases in government revenue through economic prosperity and government spending to spread prosperity. Mining labour was essential to this plan, and in December, Parliament passed a Labour Ordinance to import Chinese labourers to avert a shortage.

Winston Churchill, in the House of Commons on 22 February 1906, said the about the Chinese labour ordinance:

....it cannot in the opinion of His Majesty's Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude.

In the latter part of 1904 and the early months of 1905, Milner elaborated a plan to provide the Transvaal with a system of representative government, between Crown colony administration and self-government. Letters patent providing for this representative government were issued on 31 March 1905.

Speaking in Johannesburg on the eve of his retirement and departure, he recommended promotion of the material prosperity of the country and the equality of Afrikaners and the British. Referring to the war, he added, "What I should prefer to be remembered by is a tremendous effort subsequent to the war not only to repair the ravages of that calamity but to re-start the colonies on a higher plane of civilization than they have ever previously attained". He concluded with a reference to the subject of imperial unity. "When we who call ourselves Imperialists talk of the British Empire," Milner said, "we think of a group of states bound, not in an alliance or alliances that can be made and unmade, but in a permanent organic union. Of such a union, the dominions of the sovereign as they exist today are only the raw material."

Milner's Kindergarten

Milner's Kindergarten

In the aftermath of the war, at Milner's suggestion, the British government sent Henry Birchenough, a businessman and old friend of Milner's, as special trade commissioner to South Africa with the task of preparing a Blue Book on trade prospects. To aid him in his task, Milner recruited a team of gifted young lawyers and administrators, most of them Oxford graduates, who became known as "Milner's Kindergarten".

Return to England

Return and censure motion

By April 1805, Milner had been suffering health difficulties from the incessant strain of work and determined a need to retire, leaving Pretoria on 2 April and sailing for Europe the following day. He left South Africa during an acute economic crisis and under widespread criticism but was praised by colonial secretary Alfred Lyttelton for laying deep and strong the foundation upon which a united South Africa. Upon returning home, Oxford bestowed upon him the honorary degree of DCL.

On 20 March 1906, a motion was moved by William Byles, a radical Liberal member of the House of Commons, censuring Milner for his infraction of the Chinese labour ordinance by not forbidding light corporal punishment. On behalf of the Liberal government, an amendment was moved by Winston Churchill, stating, "This House, while recording its condemnation of the flogging of Chinese coolies in breach of the law, desires, in the interests of peace and conciliation in South Africa, to refrain from passing censure upon individuals". Churchill further argued,

"Lord Milner has gone from South Africa, probably forever. The public service knows him no more. Having exercised great authority he now exercises no authority. Having held high employment he now has no employment. Having disposed of events which have shaped the course of history, he is now unable to deflect in the smallest degree the policy of the day. Having been for many years, or at least for many months, the arbiter of the fortunes of men who are 'rich beyond the dreams of avarice', he is today poor, and honourably poor. After twenty years of exhausting service under the Crown he is today a retired Civil Servant, without pension or gratuity of any kind whatever... Lord Milner has ceased to be a factor in public life."

The amendment was carried by 355 votes to 135. A counter-demonstration was organised by Sir Bartle Frere, and a public address, signed by over 370,000 persons, was presented to Lord Milner expressing high appreciation of the services rendered by him in Africa to the Crown and empire.

Business interests

Upon his return from South Africa, Milner occupied himself mainly with business interests in London, becoming chairman of the Rio Tinto Zinc mining company. In 1906 he became a director of the Joint Stock Bank, a precursor of the Midland Bank. In the period 1909–1911 he was a strong opponent of the People's Budget of David Lloyd George and the subsequent attempt of the Liberal government to curb the powers of the House of Lords.

Imperialist advocacy

Having established himself in his Johannesburg farewell address as a leading advocate of imperial unity, Milner continued to press the issue in Britain. He further developed his thesis in a magazine article written in view of the 1907 Imperial Conference in London which advocated the creation of a permanent deliberative imperial council and favoured preferential trade relations between the United Kingdom and the other members of the empire. In later years, he took an active part in advocating the causes of tariff reform and Imperial Preference.

According to historian Caroline Elkins, Milner "firmly believed in racial hierarchy." Milner advanced ideas of British superiority and state-directed social engineering. Milner published his nationalist-imperialist credo:

"I am a Nationalist and not a cosmopolitan .... I am a British (indeed primarily an English) Nationalist. If I am also an Imperialist, it is because the destiny of the English race, owing to its insular position and long supremacy at sea, has been to strike roots in different parts of the world. I am an Imperialist and not a Little Englander because I am a British Race Patriot ... The British State must follow the race, must comprehend it, wherever it settles in appreciable numbers as an independent community. If the swarms constantly being thrown off by the parent hive are lost to the State, the State is irreparably weakened. We cannot afford to part with so much of our best blood. We have already parted with much of it, to form the millions of another separate but fortunately friendly State. We cannot suffer a repetition of the process."

The Round Table

In 1910, Milner founded The Round Table, a journal which helped to promote the cause of imperial federation and expansion.

The introduction to the journal, first published in November 1910, reads:

It is a common complaint, both in Great Britain and in the Dominions, that it is well-nigh impossible to understand how things are going with the British Empire. People feel that they belong to an organism which is greater than the particular portion of the King's dominion where they happen to reside, but which has no government, no Parliament, no press even, to explain to them where its interests lie, or what its policy should be. Of speeches and writings about the Empire there is no end. But who has time to select what is worth reading from the multitude of newspapers and reviews? Most people have no access to the best among them, and such as have are haunted by the fear that what they read is coloured by some local party issue in which they have no concern. No one can travel through the Empire without being profoundly impressed by the ignorance which prevails in every part, not only about the affairs of the other parts, but about the fortunes of the whole.

The journal, still in publication, was renamed in 1966 The Round Table: Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs.

First World War

Politics

From a letter published in The Times on 27 May 1915, Lord Milner was asked to head the National Service League during the First World War. As an advocacy group for conscription at a time when it did not exist (it did not come into effect until 1 January 1916), Milner pressed for universal conscription. His strong position forced a meeting with the King at Windsor Castle on 28 August 1915.

Known as the Ginger group meetings, Lord Milner held small meetings at his home on 17 Great College Street to discuss the war. On 30 September 1915, Lloyd George, at that time Minister of Munitions and an advocate of conscription, attended one of these meetings. The two established close relations. Lord Milner was also an outspoken critic of the Gallipoli campaign, speaking in the House of Lords on 14 October 1915 and 8 November 1915, and suggesting a withdrawal. Starting on 17 January 1916, the ginger group attendees (Henry Wilson, Lloyd George, Edward Carson, Waldorf Astor, and Philip Kerr among others), discussed the setup of a new, small war cabinet. Lord Milner, thinking that the Liberal-led Asquith coalition ministry could be defeated, also envisioned a new political party composed of trade workers, to be called the National Democratic and Labour Party. Although weak on a social platform, the National Party emphasised imperial unity and citizen service. Empowered by the ginger group, the National Party got off to a slow start in 1916, running just one candidate, but it eventually ran 23 candidates in the 1918 general election.

The need for a change in the administration of the war was summed up by Leo Amery who described the old cabinet as an "assembling of twenty three gentlemen without any idea of what they were going to talk about, eventually dispersing for lunch without any idea of what they had really discussed or decided, and certainly without any recollection on either point three months later".

Lord Milner's speech in the House of Lords on 19 April 1916 strengthened the new law conscripting married men, "making all men of military age liable of being called up to service until the war ends." With the sinking of the Hampshire on 5 June 1916, both The Times (8 June 1916) and the Morning Post supported Lord Milner's replacement of Lord Kitchener at the War Office, although the job of Secretary of State for War went to Lloyd George. Bonar Law then asked Lord Milner to head the Dardanelles Commission. However, Milner had previously committed himself to supervising the government's three coal committees, at the request of Lord Robert Cecil. His report, which addressed coal production problems, was submitted on November 6.

With the government's principal internal critic, Lloyd George, now occupied with the duties of Secretary of State for War, Lord Milner was now the government's most forceful critic outside of government, and behind the scenes. The ginger group tried to convince the members of Asquith's coalition government to resign; with this, they had no luck. They then tried to take down the Asquith coalition in a dual approach, with Lord Milner making speeches in the House of Lords, and Sir Edward Carson, who was Leader of the Opposition, making speeches in the House of Commons. The group knew nothing about the Conservative Leader Bonar Law, but both Milner and Carson had contacts with Lloyd George, the leading member of the cabinet, so they focused on him. On 2 December 1916, Lord Milner dined with Arthur Steel-Maitland, Chairman of the Conservative Party, where he was asked to draft a letter describing the war committee he envisioned. This letter was then sent to Bonar Law.

The next day, Lloyd George met Prime Minister Asquith, and a reconciliation deal was thought to have been reached, one that would have created a small war committee headed by Lloyd George, but still reporting to Prime Minister Asquith. However, The Times published an editorial on 4 December 1916, "Reconstruction", critical of Asquith and announcing a reforming of the coalition government, and the enhanced position of Lloyd George. Asquith blamed this news release on Lord Northcliffe (of The Times) and Lloyd George. He insisted that he himself must chair the war committee, causing Lloyd George to resign from the government. Asquith demanded the resignations of his ministers, with a view to reconstructing his government. After the leading Conservatives Lord Curzon, Lord Robert Cecil and Austen Chamberlain declined to serve under him again, he submitted his resignation as Prime Minister to the King on 6 December 1916. The King immediately asked Bonar Law to form a government, but he declined, for Asquith refused to serve under him. The King then turned to David Lloyd George, who was up to the task, and who took office the same day.

On 8 December 1916, Lord Milner received a letter from Prime Minister Lloyd George, asking him to meet him, and to join the new war cabinet, which was to meet the next day at the War Office. Milner happily accepted. Despite not heading any government department (in common with all the members of the war cabinet except Arthur Henderson), Lord Milner was paid a salary of £5,000 (£350,000 in 2020).

Wartime minister

Since Milner was the Briton who had the most experience in civil direction of a war, Lloyd George turned to him on 9 December 1916 when he formed his national government. He was made a member of the five-person War Cabinet. As a Minister Without Portfolio, Milner's responsibilities varied according to the wishes of the Prime Minister. According to War Cabinet Secretary Maurice Hankey:

With the exception of Bonar Law, the members of the War Cabinet were all Ministers Without Portfolio. The theory was that they were to devote all their time and energy to the central direction of the British war effort, on which the whole of the energies of the nation were to be concentrated. To enable them to keep their minds on this central problem they were freed entirely from departmental and administrative responsibilities.

— Hankey 1961, p. 579

In addition to war matters, all domestic related issues pertaining to the war fell in his lap, such as negotiating contracts with miners, agriculture, and food rationing. Considering his background, as a former High Commissioner in South Africa, and a Tory intellectual leader, these other matters were not ideally suited for him. However, he remained one of Prime Minister Lloyd George's closest advisers throughout the war, second only to Bonar Law.

Upon conclusion of the first war cabinet meeting on 9 December 1916, which lasted seven hours, Lloyd George got along very well with Lord Milner. He told his press contact, George Riddell, "He picked out the most important points at once", and, "Milner and I stand for the same things. He is a poor man and so am I. He does not represent the landed or capitalist classes any more than I do. He is keen on social reform and so am I." To fill in the Garden Suburb (junior positions at 11 Downing Street that assisted the war cabinet), Lloyd George turned to Lord Milner, who filled vacancies with capable men from his past: Leo Amery, Waldorf Astor, Lionel Curtis and Philip Kerr. It is this connection that gave rise to rumours in quarters of the liberal press of a sinister side to Lord Milner, with long-lived rumours of behind-the-scenes "Milnerite penetration" influencing crucial government decision-making.

Lord Milner's mission to Russia

The Imperial War Cabinet in 1917. Milner is seated, second from the left.

Following the death of Lord Kitchener aboard HMS Hampshire on 5 June 1916, on 20 January 1917 Milner led the British delegation (with Henry Wilson as chief military representative and including a banker and two munitions experts) on a mission to Russia aboard the Kildonan Castle. There were 51 delegates in all including French (led by Noël Édouard, vicomte de Curières de Castelnau) and Italians. The object of the mission, stressed at the second Chantilly Conference in December 1916, was to keep the Russians holding down at least the forces now opposite them, to boost Russian morale and see what equipment they needed with a view to coordinating attacks. However, a feeling of doom prevailed over the meetings once it was discovered that Russia had huge equipment problems, and that Britain's ally operated way behind that of the west, which negated its manpower advantage. Instead of helping its ally, British assistance was reduced to intervening with a task force to prevent allied stockpiles from falling into the hands of revolutionaries at the port of Archangel. The official report in March said that even if the Tsar were to be toppled—which in fact happened just 13 days after Milner's return—Russia would remain in the war and that they would solve their "administrative chaos".

It was Milner's idea to create an Imperial War Cabinet, similar to that of the War Cabinet in London, which comprised the heads of government of Britain's dominions. The Imperial War Cabinet was an extension of Lord Milner's imperial vision of Britain, whereby the Dominions (her major colonies) all had an equal say in the conduct of the running of the war. The problems of Imperial federation were encapsulated here, whereby if all of Britain's colonies were elevated to the same status as the mother country, her say was diluted by foreigners with different points of view. In the closing days of the Imperial War Conference in 1917, the Imperial War Cabinet decided to postpone the writing of an Imperial Constitution until after the war. This was a task it never took up.

Due to the U-boat campaign and the Kaiser's attempt to starve Britain in early 1917, Lord Milner assisted the Royal Agricultural Society in procuring 5,000 Fordson tractors for the ploughing and planting of grasslands, and communicated directly with Henry Ford by telegraph. It is said that without the aid, Britain may not have met its food crisis.

Milner became Lloyd George's firefighter in many crises and one of the most powerful voices in the conduct of the war. He also gradually became disenchanted with the military leaders whose offensives generated large casualties for little apparent result, but who still enjoyed support from many politicians. He backed Lloyd George, who was even more disenchanted with the military, in successful moves to remove the civilian and military heads of the Army and Navy. First Sea Lord (professional head of the Navy) Admiral John Jellicoe had lost the confidence of the government over his reluctance to organize ships into convoys to reduce the threat from submarines. In July 1917 Sir Edward Carson was replaced as First Lord of the Admiralty (navy minister) by Eric Geddes (Carson was promoted to the war cabinet, only to resign over Irish Conscription early in 1918). Infamously, Admiral Jellicoe was finally dismissed on Christmas Eve, 1917. General William Robertson was removed as Chief of the Imperial General Staff (head of the Army) early in 1918 due to his inability to agree to an allied command structure set up in Versailles, France. Milner himself replaced Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby as Secretary of State for War (Army minister) in April 1918.

On at least one occasion the conservative Milner came to the aid of people from the other end of the political spectrum. He was an old family friend of Margaret Hobhouse, the mother of imprisoned peace activist Stephen Henry Hobhouse and was Stephen's proxy godfather. In 1917, when Margaret was working to get her son and other British conscientious objectors freed from prison, Milner discreetly helped, intervening with high government officials. As a result, in December 1917 more than 300 COs were released from prison on medical grounds.

Milner was involved in every major policy decision taken by Prime Minister George's Government in the war, including the Flanders Offensive of 1917, which he initially opposed, along with Bonar Law and Lloyd George. Lloyd George spent much of 1917 proposing plans to send British troops and guns to Italy to assist in an Italian offensive (this did not happen in the end until reinforcements had to be sent after the Italian disaster at Caporetto in November). The War Cabinet did not insist on a halt to the Third Battle of Ypres offensive in 1917 when the initial targets were not reached and indeed spent little time discussing the matter—around this time the CIGS General Robertson sent Haig (CinC of British forces in France) a biting description of the members of the War Cabinet, who he said were all frightened of Lloyd George—he described Milner as "a tired and dispeptic old man". By the end of the year Milner had become certain that a decisive victory on the Western Front was unlikely, writing to Lord Curzon (17 October) opposing the policy of "Hammer, Hammer, Hammer on the Western Front", and had become a convinced "Easterner", wanting more effort on other fronts. As an experienced member of the War Cabinet, Milner was a leading delegate at the November 1917 Rapallo Conference in Italy that created an Allied Supreme War Council. He also attended all subsequent follow up meetings in Versailles to coordinate the war.

Milner was also a chief author of the Balfour Declaration, although it was issued in the name of Arthur Balfour. He was a highly outspoken critic of the Austro-Hungarian war in Serbia arguing that "there is more widespread desolation being caused there (than) we have been familiar with in the case of Belgium".

The Doullens Conference

"Statesmen of World War I", depicting the low point of the war. Lord Milner is seated between PM Lloyd George and Winston Churchill.

The Stained Glass at Doullens Town Hall, commemorating the Doullens Conference and the Unity of Command. Lord Milner is standing, centre.

On 21 March 1918 the Germans attacked. For the first three days of the offensive, the War Cabinet was uncertain of the seriousness of the threat. General Philippe Pétain was waiting and expecting the main assault to come in his sector of Compiègne, about 75 miles south of where it actually took place. Having secured victory on the Eastern Front in 1917, the Germans turned their attention to the Western Front in the winter of 1917–18 by moving their combat divisions in the east, by rail, to France. It was thought that Germany had in place over 200 divisions on the Western Front by the spring of 1918 (compared to France's 100, and England's 57). When the Germans struck on March 21, they concentrated their manpower and hit the allies at their weakest point, at the junction between the English and French lines. They were helped by a number of factors: 1) a recent redeployment of the B.E.F. to cover a 28-mile longer line on the front, 2) the lack of a central reserve of soldiers that the civilian leadership had ordered, but which the military had ignored, 3) the pre-deployment of British and French divisional reserves to the north and south of the line, opposite from where they were to be needed, in the middle, 4) the lack of an overall Allied leader, which, in a time of crisis, caused the military leaders to look out for their own national interests, and not that of the whole, 5) the intense retraining of German infantry divisions into new forms of soldiers called "stormtroopers", 6) dry weather that made otherwise swampy ground hard, 7) intense fog on the morning of the first two days of the assault, and 8) complete surprise.

The artillery barrage commenced at 4:45 am, it lasted four hours, and when it ended, the German infantry advanced through no man's land and right up to the trenches without being seen. They easily routed the British Fifth Army, and part of the Third Army, to its left. Within a day, they opened a gap 50 miles wide and penetrated seven miles deep. Within a week, they were almost halfway to Paris. The allied generals were paralyzed. On 25 March, Field Marshal Haig of the B.E.F. communicated an order to the French that he was slowly withdrawing to the Channel Ports, and he requested 20 French divisions to cover his right flank, to prevent German encirclement. General Pétain, a day earlier, ordered his Army to fall back and cover Paris. The lack of an allied leader, and the lack of reserves to plug the gap caused the generals to look out for their separate interests. As a result, the hole in the front widened, and the Germans were about to pour in.

In London, the British War Cabinet was unaware of the seriousness of the problem. On the third day of the battle, an officer from the front, Colonel Walter Kirke, was flown in to brief them. Major General Frederick Maurice, who was present, said, the "War Cabinet (was) in a panic and talking of arrangement for falling back on the Channel ports and evacuating our troops to England." Meanwhile, an all-out effort was made to get as much manpower to the front as fast as possible. Lord Milner wrote,

On March 23rd, my birthday, I received a call from the Prime Minister who wanted me to go over to France and report personally on the position of affairs there. I left the next day. On March 26th, at 8 in the morning, I drove to a meeting at Doullens, France, arriving there at 12:05pm. Immediately I met Generals Haig, Petain, Foch, Pershing, their staff officers, and President Clemenceau. The front had broken wide open in front of us, threatening Paris. There was confusion in the ranks as to what to do, and who was in charge. I immediately took the generals aside, and using the powers entrusted with me as the Prime Minister's representative, I deputised General Foch, making him the Allied Commander at the front, and told him to make a stand.

That stand was taken at Amiens, a town with a critical railway station, that, if taken, could have divided the Allies in half, driving the British into the sea, and leaving Paris and the rest of France open for defeat. When Milner returned to London, the War Cabinet gave him its official thanks. On 19 April he was appointed Secretary of State for War in place of the Earl of Derby, who had been a staunch ally of Field-Marshal Haig, and presided over the Army Council for the remainder of the war.

Captain Leo Amery, who was stationed in Paris at the time, was ordered to pick Milner up at the Port of Boulogne and to drive him to Paris. He did this, and the next morning, 25 March, drove Milner to meet Prime Minister Clemenceau. Amery waited outside Clemenceau's office. When Milner reappeared 30 minutes later, he told Amery what had happened. Clemenceau had pressed for a single command, but preferred General Pétain. Milner preferred Foch, he was firm about it, and Clemenceau agreed. He then said to Amery, "I hope I was right. You and Henry have always told me Foch is the only big soldier." Henry was General Henry Wilson, Lord Milner's recently installed Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), who, like Milner, was in France to assess the military situation. Although Prime Minister Clemenceau tried to set up a meeting that afternoon to finalise things, the British generals were too far away, and the meeting was postponed until the next morning, at the town hall of Doullens, France.

British War Cabinet member George Barnes noted this about Lord Milner:

No better selection could have been made as British representative when the time came to bring about unity of command in France. He never got the recognition due to the part he played in the proceedings at Doullens when General Foch was appointed Generalissimo of the Allied Forces. It has been said that every one was by that time in favour of the step being taken, but even if that were so-and it had by no means been made clear to Downing Street-to Lord Milner belongs the credit of having given it the final push. At the Doullens Conference it was he who took out Haig and then Clemenceau and got their assent, one by one, so preparing the ground for final and unanimous adoption of the proposal.

— Barnes 1924, pp. 177–178

Historian Edward Crankshaw sums up:

Perhaps the most striking of all his exercises ... and certainly one of the most fruitful of good, was when as a member of the War Cabinet in 1918 he signed Foch into the supreme command, as it were between lunch and tea.

— Crankshaw 1952, p. 11

The appointment of Ferdinand Foch had immediate consequences. Before the Doullens meeting broke up, he ordered the Allied generals to make a stand, and to reconnect the front. Whatever panic that might have been underway ended. Both General Petain's and Field Marshal Haig's orders were nullified by Foch's appointment. The front slowly came back together. By late July 1918, the situation had so improved that General Foch ordered an offensive. The Germans were slowly pushed back at first, until momentum gave way to the allies. This part of the war became known as the 100 Days Offensive. It ended with the Germans requesting an armistice. This occurred at 11:00 am, on the morning of November 11, 1918. Finally, the war was over. Lord Milner's decision is best summed up by an inscription at the front of Doullens Town Hall that reads ..."This decision saved France and the freedom of the world."

Postwar

Following the khaki election of December 1918, Lord Milner was appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies and, in that capacity, attended the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, where, on behalf of the United Kingdom, he became one of the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles, including the "Orts-Milner Agreement" allowing to Belgium the administration of Ruanda-Urundi territories to reward the Belgo-African army ("Force publique") for its war effort which highly contributed to pushing German troops out of the future Tanganyika Territory, as in the victorious Tabora and Mahenge battles.

In the years after the First World War, Lord Milner was unhappy with what he saw as Labour inheriting the Liberal "indifference, not to say hostility to the Empire". It would have to rid itself of this if it was to ever become a "great National party". For example, while Labour was enthusiastic for the League of Nations, why had the League of British Nations found no support? He attributed anti-national bias to "superior persons" more interested in eradicating working class patriotism and substituting it with class-consciousness.

The peace treaty

Due to his responsibilities at the Colonial Office, Milner travelled back and forth to France as a Paris Peace Plan Delegate. From February 1919 until the treaty signing, he made five trips to Versailles, each lasting on average one to two weeks. On 10 May 1919, he flew to Paris for the first time. The trip took two-and-a-half hours, halving the time it took by train, boat, and car. As part of the British Empire Delegation (over 500 members of Britain's colonies and Dominions travelled to Paris), the Prime Minister asked Milner and Arthur Balfour to stand in for him whenever he returned to England for political business. As Secretary of State for the Colonies, Milner was appointed to head up the Mandates Commission by the Big Four, which would decide the fate of the German colonial empire.

Rue Nitot: England objects to the Treaty of Versailles, June 1, 1919.

Milner was present at an important meeting at 23 Rue Nitot, Lloyd George's flat in Paris, on 1 June 1919, when the Empire Delegation discussed Germany's counterproposals to the peace treaty.

The Peace Treaty of Vereeniging (pronounced "ver-eni-gang"), signed on 31 May 1902, ended the Second Boer War between England and the native Dutch settlers of South Africa. The costly conflict concluded with the complete surrender of the Boer foe. Recognizing this, Milner, the High Commissioner of South Africa, wanted tough terms. However, his military advisor, General Kitchener, thought otherwise. Benevolence prevailed, and a firm and lasting peace was made. Even when a new administration in Britain returned the government to the Boers, the Afrikaners remained firm allies with Great Britain in the First World War. To quote Lloyd George: "In Paris, Milner joined with his former antagonists in resistance to that spirit of relentlessness which would humiliate the vanquished foe and keep them down in the dust into which they had been cast..."

Present at the Rue Nitot meeting were Louis Botha and Jan Smuts, former Boer leaders during that war, but now Dominion leaders. On the anniversary of the signing of the South African peace treaty, Prime Minister Botha of South Africa put his hand on Lord Milner's shoulder and said: "Seventeen years ago my friend and I made peace in Vereeniging...It was a hard peace for us to accept, but as I know it now, when time has shown us the truth, it was not unjust - it was a generous peace that the British people made with us, and this is why we stand with them today side by side in the cause which has brought us all together."

In a last minute attempt to improve the conditions imposed on Germany, Lloyd George went back to Prime Minister Clemenceau and President Woodrow Wilson to ask for revisions. He told them that without substantial changes to bring the treaty closer in line with the Fourteen Points, Britain would not take part in an occupation of Germany, nor would its navy resume its blockade of Germany if it failed to sign the treaty. However, President Wilson was tired from all the hard work he had put into the original draft (all decisions and work were made at the top by the Big Four), and Prime Minister Clemenceau refused to budge on the war guilt clause and huge financial reparations, which in 2020 dollars amounted to close to $250 billion (and were not part of the 14 Points). In the end, minor territorial concessions were made, the most important being a reduction in the occupation of the Rhineland by the allies from 20 to 15 years.

The treaty signing

William Orpen's famous painting of the signing of The Treaty of Versailles. Lord Milner is seated, third from the right.

The Treaty of Versailles, with Lord Milner's signature

On 16 June, the Allies gave an ultimatum to Germany and fixed the date of the treaty signing for 28 June. This caused a collapse of the conservative government in Germany on 21 June, and a rise of a liberal one. Two delegates were then rushed to Versailles, arriving on 27 June. When the peace treaty ceremonies commenced at 3 pm on 28 June, and the German delegates entered the Hall of Mirrors, Lloyd George was unsure if they would sign or not, so he had them sign the document first, at 3:12 pm. The entire ceremony took an hour, with a total of 68 plenipotentiaries signing the treaty. Lord Milner, for his part, spent the morning in session with his mandates committee (colonial possessions were resolved after the treaty signing), and motored to the Hall of Mirrors after lunch. He arrived slightly after 2 pm, and he signed the treaty early. The British were the third group of delegates to sign, after the Germans and Americans, and Lord Milner was the 8th signatory to the Treaty of Versailles. He recalls the experience thus: "Though the occasion was such a solemn one and there was a great crowd, I thought it all singularly unimpressive." Marshal Foch commented, "This is not Peace. It is an Armistice for Twenty Years."

On thoughts of a sustainable peace, author John Evelyn Wrench wrote:

If humanity is to be saved from the nightmare of another Armageddon it will only be by the creation of a new world-order. These million-odd words of the Peace Treaty, with all its seals and signatures, will mean nothing if there is not a change in heart, not only in Germany, but in all nations. The League of Nations by which we set so much store will be reduced to impotence if it is not backed by the moral forces of an enlightened public opinion...

— Wrench 1958, p. 360

In May 1919, shortly after the Germans replied to the peace treaty proposals, American Peace Plan Delegate Dr. James T. Shotwell noted in his diary:

May 31, 1919:
"The day was spent mostly on the German negotiations; a hard day's work drafting the reply. I got the reparations committee to take up again the question of opening the Austrian archives, and spent some of the rest of the day on the text of the reply to the Germans, which is to be discussed with (George) Barnes at dinner this evening."

June 1, 1919:

"Things have got into a very bad condition here. This is no secret ... a part of the British Cabinet is up in arms." "A remark was made to me last night that just as it was Lord Milner who came in at the critical point in the War and forced through the Single Command, it may be Milner who will save the situation again. In any case, whatever comes of it, this meeting of the British Cabinet is of great historical importance. Just how the Conference will develop now is hard to say. We may conceivably have an entirely new peace conference."

— Shotwell 1937, p. 347

With Lord Milner's strong personal rapport with Georges Clemenceau, perhaps the two of them could have persuaded President Wilson to bring the peace treaty closer in line with the President's own 14 Points. Certainly, there were those in England who thought that the Prime Minister should have stayed at home and delegated the detailed task of peacemaking to subordinates. Of the Allies, the French were the main obstacle to a fairer peace, so the likes of Lord Milner in charge could have been the catalyst for a permanent peace, one that would have avoided the start, just three months later, of Adolf Hitler's rise to power.

Last years

Right until the end of his life, Lord Milner would call himself a "British race patriot" with grand dreams of a global Imperial parliament, headquartered in London, seating delegates of British descent from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Following the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, he undertook the Milner Mission, which eventually issued a report recommending some independence for Egypt. He retired in February 1921 and was appointed a Knight Companion of the Garter (KG) on 16 February 1921. He remained active in the work of the Rhodes Trust, while accepting, at the behest of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, the chairmanship of a committee to examine a new Imperial Preference tariff. His work, however, proved unsuccessful when, following an election, Ramsay MacDonald assumed the office of Prime Minister in January 1924.

Personal life and death

In 1899, Milner met Violet Cecil, the wife of Major Lord Edward Cecil, in South Africa. Edward Cecil was commissioned to South Africa after serving in the Grenadier Guards. Milner and Violet began a secret affair that lasted until her departure for England in late 1900. She had a noticeable effect on his disposition; Milner himself wrote in his diary that he was feeling "very low indeed". Edward Cecil learned of this affair and pushed for a commission to Egypt after Violet pushed to return to South Africa. After Lord Cecil's death in 1918, Milner married Violet on 26 February 1921.

Around the end of the Second Boer War, Milner became a member of the Coefficients dining club of social reformers established by the Fabian Society campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb.

Having worked closely with Cecil Rhodes in South Africa, Milner was appointed a trustee to Rhodes's will upon Rhodes's death in March 1902.

He was instrumental in making Empire Day a national holiday on 24 May 1916. In October 1919, it was Lord Milner's suggestion, from Leo Amery, that a two-minute moment of silence be heard on every anniversary of the armistice.

Seven weeks past his 71st birthday, Milner died at Great Wigsell, East Sussex, of sleeping sickness, soon after returning from South Africa. His viscountcy, lacking heirs, died with him. His body was buried in the graveyard of the Church of St Mary the Virgin, in Salehurst in the county of East Sussex. There is a memorial tablet to him at Westminster Abbey which was unveiled on 26 March 1930.

Depictions

Lord Milner is seated third from the right in William Orpen's famous Hall of Mirrors painting.

The town of Milnerton, South Africa is named in his honour.

He was lionised, along with other members of the British War Cabinet, in an oil painting, Statesmen of World War I, on display today at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

The Lord Milner hotel in Matjiesfontein, South Africa

Evaluation

According to the Biographical Dictionary of World War I: "Milner, on March 24, 1918 crossed the Channel and two days later at Doullens convinced Premier Georges Clemenceau, an old friend, that Marshal Ferdinand Foch be appointed commander in chief of the Allied armies in France." Today, at the entrance to Doullens Town Hall stand two plaques, one written in French, the other in English, that say, "This decision saved France and the freedom of the world."

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1922 edition: "it was largely owing to his influence that Gen. Foch was appointed Generalissimo of the Allied forces in France. It being vital to have a man of unusual capacity and vigour at the War Office in this critical spring of 1918, he was given the seals of Secretary of State for War on April 19; and it was he who presided over the Army Council during the succeeding months of the year which ended with victory."

According to Colin Newbury: "An influential public servant for three decades, Milner was a visionary exponent of imperial unity at a time when imperialism was beginning to be called into question. His reputation exceeded his achievements: Office and honours were heaped upon him despite his lack of identification with either major political party."

Honours

• CB: Companion of the Order of the Bath – 1894
• KCB: Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath – 1895
• GCMG: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George – 1897
• GCB: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath – 1 January 1901 – New Year's honours list
• KG: Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter – 1921

Works

• Alfred Milner, England in Egypt (1894) online free
• Alfred Milner, Arnold Toynbee: A Reminiscence (1895) online free
• Alfred Milner, Never Again: A speech given in Cape Town on April 12, 1900
• Alfred Milner, Speeches of Viscount Milner (1905) online free
• Alfred Milner, Transvaal Constitution. Speech at the House of Lords 31 July 1906
• Alfred Milner, Sweated Industries Speech (1907) online free
• Alfred Milner, Constructive Imperialism (1908) online free
• Alfred Milner, Speeches Delivered in Canada in the Autumn of 1908 (1909) online free
• Government, A Unionist Agricultural Policy (1913) online free
• Alfred Milner, The Nation and the Empire; Being a collection of speeches and addresses (1913) online free
• Alfred Milner, Life of Joseph Chamberlain (1914) online free
• Alfred Milner, Cotton Contraband (1915) online free
• Alfred Milner, Fighting For Our Lives (1918) trove subscription
• Alfred Milner, The British Commonwealth (1919) (summary of, pgs. 197–198, 352: Link)
• Government, Great Britain's Special Mission to Eqypt (1920)
• Government, Report of the Wireless Telegraphy Commission (1922) online free
• Alfred Milner, Questions of the Hour (1923) online free ('Credo' in 1925 edition)
• Alfred Milner, The Milner Papers: South Africa 1897-1899 ed by Cecil Headlam (London 1931, vol 1)
• Alfred Milner, The Milner Papers: South Africa 1899-1905 ed by Cecil Headlam (London 1933, vol 2) free online
• Alfred Milner, Life in a Bustle: Advice to Youth (2016), London: Pushkin Press, OCLC 949989454

Speeches

• Farewell speech in the Transvaal on 15 March 1905;
• Farewell speech in Pretoria on 22 March 1905;
• Farewell speech in Johannesburg on 31 March 1905

See also

• Oxford University - Lord Milner was elected Chancellor of Oxford University
• London School of Economics - Lord Milner was elected an Honorary Governor of the London School of Economics
• Pro-Jerusalem Society - Viscount Milner was Honorary Member of its leading Council

References

Bibliography

• Amery, Julian (1969). The Life of Joseph Chamberlain. Vol. Six, 1903–1968. London: MacMillan.
• Amery, Leo (1953a). My Political Life. Vol. 1, England Before the Storm 1896 - 1914. London: Hutchinson.
• Amery, Leo (1953b). My Political Life. Vol. 2, War and Peace 1914 - 1929. London: Hutchinson.
• Amery, Leopold Stennett; Williams, Basil; Childers, Erskine (1900). The Times History of the War in South Africa, 1899-1902. Sampson Low, Marston.
• Barnes, George N. (1924). From Workshop to War Cabinet. London: Herbert Jenkins.
• Buckle, George Earle (1922). "Milner, Alfred Milner, Viscount" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company.
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Milner, Alfred Milner, Viscount". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 476–478.
• Chapman-Huston, Desmond (1936). The Lost Historian: A Memoir of Sir Sidney Low. London: John Murray.
• Clemenceau, Georges (1930). Grandeur and Misery of Victory. London: George Harrp.
• Crankshaw, Edward (1952). The Forsaken Idea: A Study of Viscount Milner. London: Longmans, Green.
• Churchill, Winston S (1948). The Gathering Storm. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
• Dubow, Saul (1997). "Colonial nationalism, the Milner kindergarten and the rise of 'South Africanism', 1902–10". History Workshop Journal. 43 (43): 53–85. doi:10.1093/hwj/1997.43.53. JSTOR 4289491.
• Encyclopædia Britannica, current online edition
• Ford, Henry (1923). My Life and Work. Doubleday.
• Gilbert, Martin (1975). Winston S. Churchill, Vol, IV, "The Stricken World" 1917-1922. Heinemann.
• Gollin, Alfred (1964). Proconsul in Politics: a Study of Lord Milner in Opposition and in Power. London: Garden City.
• Hall, H. Duncan (1920). The British Commonwealth of Nations. London: Methuen.
• Hankey, Maurice (1961). The Supreme Command. Vol. II. London: George Allen.
• Hochschild, Adam (2011). To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-618-75828-9.
• Herwig, Holger H.; Heyman, Neil M. (1982). Biographical Dictionary of World War I. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-21356-4.
• Hunt, Barry D. (1982). Sailor-Scholar. Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
• Jeffery, Keith (2006). Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: A Political Soldier. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820358-2.
• Lloyd George, David (1936). War Memoirs of David Lloyd George. Vol. V. Boston: Little, Brown.
• Lloyd George, David (1938). The Truth About The Peace Treaties. Vol. I. London: Gollancz.
• Louwers, Octave (1958). "Hommage à Pierre Orts (3 novembre 1872 – 12 juin 1958)". Bulletin des Séances de l'A.R.S.C. (in French). 58 (4).
• Marlowe, John (a pseudonym) (1976). Milner: Apostle of Empire. London: Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 9780241894330.
• Milner, Alfred (1894). England and Egypt. London: Edward Arnold.
• Milner, Viscountess (1940). The National Review, Vol. CXV, "Clemenceau". London: The National Review.
• Newbury, Colin (2008). "Milner, Alfred, Viscount Milner (1854–1925)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35037. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Nicolson, Harold (1979). King George V: His Life and Reign. London: Constable. ISBN 9780094531819.
• O'Brien, Terence (1979). Milner. London: Constable.
• Parliament Debate Transcripts, 2 February 1917, pgs. 479-517.
• Pershing, John Joseph (1931). "Ch XXX". My experiences in the world war. Vol. 1. Frederick A. Stokes.
• Rhodes, Cecil (1902). W. T. Stead (ed.). The last will and testament of Cecil John Rhodes. London: Review of Reviews Office.
• Roskill, Stephen (1970). Hankey: Man of Secrets. Vol. I. London: Collins.
• Shotwell, James T. (1937). At the Paris Peace Conference. New York: MacMillan.
• Smuts, Jan Christiaan (1966). Hancock, William Keith; Van Der Poel, Jean (eds.). Selections from the Smuts Papers: June 1886 – May 1902. University Press.
• Stead, W.T., The Last Will and Testament of Cecil J. Rhodes, London: Review of Reviews, 1902
• Stein, Leonard (1961). The Balfour Declaration. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• Surridge, Keith Terrance (1998). Managing the South African War, 1899-1902: Politicians V. Generals. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. ISBN 978-0-86193-238-2.
• Thompson, J, Lee (2007). Forgotten Patriot: a life of Alfred, Viscount Milner of St James's and Cape Town, 1854-1925. Cranbury, NJ: Rosemont.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• UK National Archives,War Cabinet and X Committee Minutes.
• US Senate Document #354, pg. 7, Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 17 January 1921
• Woodward, David R. (1998). Field Marshal Sir William Robertson. Westport, Connecticut & London: Praeger. ISBN 978-0-275-95422-2.
• Wrench, John Evelyn (1955). Geoffrey Dawson and Our Times. London: Hutchinson. OCLC 639648891.
• Wrench, John Evelyn (1958). Alfred Lord Milner: The Man of No Illusions. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. OCLC 906140794.

Further reading

• Amery, Leo, My Political Life, Volume 3, The Unforgiving Years 1929 - 1940, London: Hutchinson, 1955
• Appleton, Louis, Britain and the Boers: Who is Responsible for the War in South Africa?, London: Simkin, Marshall, 1899
• Anonymous, Makers of the New World, London: Cassell, 1921
• Ascherson, Neal. "The War That Made South Africa", New York Review of Books (6 December 1979), p. 12.
• Baring, Evelyn, 1st Earl of Cromer, Political and Literary Essays, 1908-1913, London: MacMillan, 1919, pgs. 237–249.
• Buckle, George Earle (1922). "Milner, Alfred Milner, Viscount" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 31 (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company. p. 946. This describes Milner's post-1906 career in business, politics, and diplomacy.
• Callwell, Major General C.E. "Field-Marshall Sir Henry Wilson" Volume I, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927
• Callwell, Major General C.E. "Field-Marshall Sir Henry Wilson" Volume II, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927
• Cecil, Hugh and Cecil, Mirabel, Imperial Marriage: an Edwardian War and Peace, London, John Murray, 2002
• Churchill, Winston S., Great Contemporaries, London: Thornton Butterworth, 1937
• Courtney, W. L & Courtney, J. E., Pillars of Empire, London: Jarrolds, 1918
• Curtis, Lionel, With Milner in South Africa, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1951
• Davie, Lucille. Constitution Hill: Thomas Pakenham, the Boer War and the Old Fort (2004)
• Garrett, F. Edmund (1905). "Rhodes and Milner" . The Empire and the century. London: John Murray. pp. 478–520.
• Halperin, Vladimir, Lord Milner and the Empire, London: Odhams Press, 1952
• Iwan-Müller, Ernst Bruce, Lord Milner and South Africa, London: Heinemann, 1902
• Lloyd George, David (1933). War Memoirs of David Lloyd George. Vol. I. Boston: Little, Brown.
• Lloyd George, David (1933). War Memoirs of David Lloyd George. Vol. II. Boston: Little, Brown.
• Lloyd George, David (1934). War Memoirs of David Lloyd George. Vol. III. Boston: Little, Brown.
• Lloyd George, David (1934). War Memoirs of David Lloyd George. Vol. IV. Boston: Little, Brown.
• Lloyd George, David (1937). War Memoirs of David Lloyd George. Vol. VI. Boston: Little, Brown.
• Luke, W.B. Lord Milner, (London, S.W. Partridge, 1901)
• Marks, Shula, and Stanley Trapido. "Lord Milner and the South African State." History Workshop (1979) in JSTOR.
• Milner, Violet (Viscountess Milner) My Picture Gallery: 1886 - 1901 (London: John Murray, 1951). (a biography)
• Nasson, Bill. The South African War 1899–1902 (1999), 320pp a major scholarly history; also The War for South Africa: The Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902) (expanded 2nd ed. 2011)
• Nimocks, Walter. Milner's Young Men, Durham: Duke University, 1968
• Porter, Andrew. "The South African War (1899–1902): context and motive reconsidered." The Journal of African History 31#1, 1990, pgs. 43–57.
• Porter, A. N. "Sir Alfred Milner and the Press, 1897–1899." The Historical Journal 16.02 (1973): 323–339.
• Quigley, Carroll. The Anglo-American Establishment, New York: Books in Focus, 1981
• Stead, W. T., "Sir Alfred Milner", Review of Reviews, vol. xx., 1899
• Stokes, Eric, Milnerism, The Historical Journal, Vol I, 1962, pgs. 47–60.
• Thompson, J. Lee. A Wider Patriotism: Alfred Milner and the British Empire (Routledge, 2015).
• Turnor, Christopher. The Land and the Empire, London: John Murray, 1917
• Vandiver, Frank E. Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing, Vol. I, College Station: Texas A&M, 1977
• Vandiver, Frank E. Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing, Vol. II, College Station: Texas A&M, 1977
• Worsfold, W. B. Lord Milner's Work in South Africa London, 1906.
• Worsfold, W, B. The Reconstruction of the New Colonies Under Lord Milner Volume I (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench Trubner, 1913).
• Worsfold, W. B. The Reconstruction of the New Colonies Under Lord Milner Volume II (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1913).

External links

• Biographical entry for Alfred Viscount Milner at New College, Oxford College Archives
• Catalogue of the papers of Alfred Milner at the Bodleian Library, Oxford
• Catalogue of the additional papers of Alfred Milner at the Bodleian Library, Oxford
• NEXUS: A Short History of the Round Table – Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 12, Number 3 (April – May 2005)
• Works by Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner at the Internet Archive
• Newspaper clippings about Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
• The Times, 4 April 1905.
• Legislation Affecting Natives in the Transvaal, 1902
• Encyclopædia Britannica, Rise to Power of Adolf Hitler
• A Reference "Link to Lord Alfred Milner's facebook Page"