 In his posthumously published autobiography, "Something of Myself" (1937), Kipling said that, in writing the poem, he was inspired by the character of Leander Starr Jameson, leader of the failed Jameson Raid against the Transvaal Republic to overthrow the Boer Government of Paul Kruger.The failure of that mercenary "coup d'état" aggravated the political tensions between Great Britain and the Boers, which led to the Second Boer War (1899–1902).As an evocation of Victorian-era stoicism—the "stiff upper lip" self-discipline, which popular culture rendered into a British national virtue and character trait, "If—" remains a cultural touchstone.