Gladstone won the 1880 election on the back of his Midlothian campaign against Disraeli's support for the Ottoman Empire. He proceeded to reverse Disraeli's foreign policy by withdrawing the British garrison in Kandahar in Afghanistan and wanted to cede Cyprus to Greece, although he was dissuaded from this by Lord Granville. Although he had denounced the annexation of the Transvaal in the election campaign, he announced in January 1881 that self-government was not going to happen. The Boers rebelled against this in February and drove the British out by force at the Battle of Majuba Hill. Gladstone implemented the Pretoria Convention later in August which ended the First Boer War. In October in a speech at Leeds, Gladstone proclaimed: "While we are opposed to imperialism, we are devoted to the empire".