Mahatma Gandhi and Winston Churchill both came of age in South Africa, today they are the founding fathers of their respective countries, India and the United Kingdom. Both Gandhi and Churchill have come to face scrutiny in recent years for things they had said and done however they are still held in high regard almost universally. South Africa's founding father wasn't as lucky as these two great men.
Jan Smuts is a name you probably haven't heard of, he was a brilliant intellectual, who taught as well as created philosophy, he signed the UN Charter of Human Rights, he fought on the front in World War I and Winston Churchill considered him the only man he could confide in during Britain's Darkest Hour. Jan Smuts is the founding father of South Africa, however he was also instrumental in the creation of the Apartheid state, and posterity has left his reputation to insignificance and ruin.
This episode covers the foundation of The Union of South Africa, the events that led Mahatma Gandhi to create his Satyagraha or passive resistance, and South Africa's entry into World War I.
Mahatma Gandhi and Winston Churchill both came of age in South Africa, today they are the founding fathers of their respective countries, India and the United Kingdom. Both Gandhi and Churchill have come to face scrutiny in recent years for things they had said and done however they are still held in high regard almost universally. South Africa's founding father wasn't as lucky as these two great men.
Jan Smuts is a name you probably haven't heard of, he was a brilliant intellectual, who taught as well as created philosophy, he signed the UN Charter of Human Rights, he fought on the front in World War I and Winston Churchill considered him the only man he could confide in during Britain's Darkest Hour. Jan Smuts is the founding father of South Africa, however he was also instrumental in the creation of the Apartheid state, and posterity has left his reputation to insignificance and ruin.
This episode covers the foundation of The Union of South Africa, the events that led Mahatma Gandhi to create his Satyagraha or passive resistance, and South Africa's entry into World War I.
Apartheid III
History must be rewritten for every generation, for although the past does not change the present does. The facts do not, the present does. For Each generation asks new questions of the past.
-Christopher hill
Mahatma Gandhi and Winston Churchill both found themselves fighting against the Afrikaner-Boers in South Africa, during the 2nd Boer War. This was at a time when they were both relatively unknown, They have since become immortalized by their respective nations, India and the United Kingdom, You can think of them like how we Americans view Abraham Lincoln, not only a statesman but a Great Man. Those who rose during the most perilous times and saved their countries.
However not everyone has a positive view of these Great men.
On June 13th, 2016 former Indian president Pranab Mukherjee (pronounced like spelled) gave a gift to the country of Ghana in Africa to celebrate Indian-Ghanaian friendship.
Within 2 weeks the Hashtag #GandhiMustFall went viral, and the statue was taken down as quickly and quietly as it was erected. This to an Indian who grew up hearing about the great, Mahatma, or the great-souled one” would probably come off as rather offensive.
“Gandhi called us kafirs, one degree more than animals, and savages. He knew and understood the meaning of those terms, but still used them,” Senior research fellow Dr. Obadele Kambon told The Indian Express, adding that such a leader’s statue should not be find place anywhere in Africa.
Gandhi, who grew up as a young man in South Africa came to prominence there. He refused to comply with racial segregation rules and began protesting for Indians rights. Gandhi fought for Indians to be treated equal, Equal to the White Europeans, of the British empire he and his people found themselves apart of.
Winston Churchill since these times has also faced scrutiny for his actions. Often by the descendants of those Gandhi fought for. Indians both in South Africa, India and abroad.
Later in his life while Churchill was prime minister of the United Kingdom and dogmatically facing down Hitler
-We will never surrender quote—
Churchill controversially allowed for a famine to occur in Bengal, which was apart of the British colonial empire in India. It led to the deaths of 3 million people.
Historians usually characterize the famine as anthropogenic (man-made),[9] asserting that wartime colonial policies created and then exacerbated the crisis. A minority view holds, however, that the famine was the result of natural causes..
Churchill is consistently ranked as the greatest British Prime Minister of all time, and during the George Floyd protest a #ChurchillMustFall began creeping around the internet…
Around the same time a statue of Abraham Lincoln, often considered the greatest American statesman, the president who “Freed the salves” was taken down after an intense debate. The statue which was located in Park Square, Boston showed a formerly enslaved man kneeling at Lincolns feet, with the words EMANCIPATION scrolled below.
--INSERT DEBATE ON STATUES?--
South Africa has produced 2 great men of history, Nelson Mandela and Jan Smuts, the former has been written about and immortalized by the world, the latter has been written out of history.
Ironically the two come at odds with one another
Mandela has been idealized as the man who ended Apartheid.
Smuts has been accused by posterity of creating apartheid
RICHARD STEYN-
Jans Smuts is probably a name you haven’t heard of before, he was not only a South African Great man he was an intellectual. Regarded as one of Cambridge’s (where he studied) best law student ever. Einstein considered Smuts one of the few dozen or so people who could comprehend his theory of relativity. He also created the philosophy of Holism, where he attempted rather ambitiously to explain the universe. The Theory has been applied to many sciences including Psychology, where it can be best understood as, trying to understand the issues of a person by viewing their issues as a whole rather than breaking them down into separate parts.
Explaining his theory very basically…
Smuts seems to me like the South African Winston Churchill, he lived an amazing life, He started his military career as a Boer Afrikaner fighting against the British. Later he fought against the Germans in Both world wars; for the British crown, eventually rising to the rank of British Field Marshal, and South African Prime Minister.
Smuts signed the UN Charter, a champion of human rights and was the only signer of the treaty of Versailles to do so. He was instrumental in creating the RAF, Royal Air Force, he served on 2 British war cabinets.
He was instrumental in creating the Union of South Africa;n and on the more controversial side he was instrumental in the creation of Apartheid.
THE ANC today know his as a segregationist, a black stain on his reputation. Many South Africans don’t even know who he is.
the Afrikaners think he didn’t go far enough on segregation
In a similar light to maybe someone like Theodore Roosevelt, who to quote Dan Carlin “would have made Archie Bunker scream from his racism, however he was a liberal for the time on the topic of race”
When you get to understand the mind of Jans Smuts its difficult to put him in a close-minded ignorant category. He was a Liberal for the time on the topic of race. He believed that Apartheid, well ,rather separation of the races was a necessary evil, but South Africa would eventually evolve away from it.
In 1925 at the Imperial Conference hosted by Great Britain, he said:
If there was to be equal manhood suffrage over the Union, the whites would be swamped by the blacks. A distinction could not be made between Indians and Africans. They would be impelled by the inevitable force of logic to go the whole hog, and the result would be that not only would the whites be swamped in Natal by the Indians but the whites would be swamped all over South Africa by the blacks and the whole position for which the whites had striven for two hundred years or more now would be given up. So far as South Africa was concerned, therefore, it was a question of impossibility. For white South Africa it was not a question of dignity but a question of existence.
Smuts always regarded non-White South Africans as South Africans. He believed Apartheid would end with time, but the time wasn’t now. He was a liberal compared to the standard White South African, especially Afrikaner of the day.
Smuts called Apartheid “a crazy concept born out of fear”
But that doesn’t matter, Smuts due to the extremes of South African society has been all but written out of history. In America, this will come as a shock to many, we have the advantage of being less sensitive about race. Where a small portion of our population was oppressed, and systematically disadvantaged. In south Africa the Majority was oppressed, and disadvantaged. Due to this extreme a man as great as Smuts is confined to having his name replaced on streets and rather harshly all but lost to history in the country he was instrumental in creating, defending and loved.
Podcast beginning
Jan Smuts first came to prominence fighting for the Boer Afrikaners against the British crown in the 2nd Boer War. He along with his superior commander and lifelong friend Louis Botha decided to ambush a British train. On this train was a relatively unknown British war correspondent named Winston Churchill.
the two interrogated Churchill, who tried to get released as he was just a war correspondent.
Churchill was taken to a school turned into a military prison in Pretoria, where he was kept for a year. One day when the guards were distracted, he jumped the fence. He managed to sneak onto a cargo train, eventually he had to jump off because he was dying of dehydration. Churchill walked to a cottage which by luck, happened to be the only British owned cottage in the region, owned by a mining engineer who agreed to hide the young war correspondent.s With the help of the mining Engineer he was able to board a train to Portuguese East Africa (modern day Mozambique).
Churchill recalled: “I remember when we (Jans Smuts) met. I was wet and draggle-tailed (meaning he was wet and untidy). He was examining me on the part I had played in the affair of the armoured train—a difficult moment.”
It was not the best first meeting but eventually after the war, all 3 men formed intimate relationships
When louis botha died Winston Churchill sent his friend Jan's smuts a letter saying "he was one of the truly greatest men in the world and thank God of the British empire"
Churchill confided in Smuts deeply during the 2nd world war many commented that he saw Smuts as his superior intellectually, the only person whom Churchill would allow himself to be counseled by referring to him as the Modern Socrates,
Churchill later wrote of Smuts, an “altogether extraordinary man” from “the outer marches of the Empire.” Smuts’s story “would fill all the acts and scenes of a drama. He has warred against us—well we know it. [Smuts] has quelled rebellion against our own flag with unswerving loyalty and unfailing shrewdness. He has led raids at desperate odds and conquered provinces by scientific strategy…. His astonishing career and his versatile achievements are only the index of a profound sagacity and a cool, far-reaching comprehension.”
After the 2nd Boer war Botha and Smuts were present in the negotiations of The Treaty of Vereeniging.
The conditions of the treaty were that all Boer Republics would swear allegiance to the British crown, Amnesty would be given and Dutch would be allowed in schools and law courts…
Smuts and Botha both became loyal subjects of the British crown after the 2nd Boer war.
they were grateful to the British for getting self-governance. However, Afrikaners never forgave the British for the concentration camps and atrocities. Leading to a deep divide within white south Africa.
Remember almost 30,000 Boers died in British concentration camps, 80% of them children.
The Afrikaners, who were famous for fighting the native black tribes, and living a cowboy like existence on wagons and farms on the exteriors of society developed a deep isolationist policy that has existed in the Afrikaner mindset to this day.
The Boer Afrikaners being Dutch descendants found themselves more pro-German rather than Pro-British. The Germans shared a linguistic similarity, cultural similarities, and especially during the political movements of the 1930s and 40s shared segregationist and white supremacist ideologies.
The Stains of the 2nd Boer war never properly healed. And a deep divide was created in the colony between the British, English-speaking settlers and the Boer-Afrikaans speaking settlers. Both Louis Botha, who would later become the first Prime minister of the Union of South Africa and Jans Smuts would be seen as traitors to their people, The Afrikaners.
In 1910 with the unification of 4 independent separate colonies, The Cape, The Natal, The Transvaal, and the Orange River. Unie van Suid-Afrika or The Union of South Africa was created as a centralized self-governing dominion of the British Empire.
Even before the creation of the Union of South Africa, the White minority was stripping the other factions of the state’s power away.
In 1896 the South African Republic brought in two pass laws requiring Non-Whites of South AFrica to carry a badge.
In 1905 the General Pass Regulations Act denied blacks the vote and limited them to fixed areas,[27] and in 1906 the Asiatic Registration Act of the Transvaal Colony required all Indians to register and carry passes.[28] The latter was repealed by the British government but re-enacted again in 1908.
When it was created in 1910,The union of South Africa gave Enfranchisement to Whites, giving them complete political control over all other racial groups while removing the rights on nonwhites to sit in parliament,
Gandhi
Around this time a man named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was making a name for himself standing up for the rights of the rather large Indian minority of the Union of South Africa. The majority of Indians, even to this day are located in Durban. Gandhi arrived as a young lawyer at the age of 24, seeking to help an Indian client in court.
He was profoundly offended at the high levels of racism he oversaw in South Africa, both in London where he studied, and India racism was more subtle.
The Whites called Gandhi the Coolie Barrister, Coolie is a racial slur for Indians in South Africa. It similarly to the N-Word has been taken by modern Indians. In modern Indian popular culture, coolies have often been portrayed as working-class heroes or anti-heroes.
One day, Gandhi booked a first class ticket to Johannesburg from his province of Durban, a white man refused to share the compartment with a Darkie and demanded he move to 3rd class. Gandhi protested and was thrown out of the train.
This moved Gandhi, originally, he was there only temporarily to help his client. This act changed him and he refused to return to India, he would suffer in the name of bringing Justice and equality to the Indians of South Africa.
The key word is the INDIANS of South Africa
One of the interesting anthropological and sociological things about humans is how tribal we can be. With Whites being the oppressor you would think the Indians, Coloredsand native blacks would all rise up together to fight injustice. It was after all the Indians who were the slaves and indentured servants of the whites of South Africa not the native blacks. This however didn’t happen.
Former Cape Colony Prime Minister, Mining Magnate and Ardent Believer in British Imperialism, Cecil Rhodes's had a slogan, `equal rights for all civilized men'.
Civilized men, which can be interpreted differently
When the South African government implemented a bill revoking Indians of participation in Pariliment, Gandhi said "the Bill would rank the Indian lower than the rawest Native". Indians, In an attempt to protect their own position, believed they had to separate themselves from the native Blacks. They wanted to present themselves, with their long cultural heritage, as among the civilized peoples. In their view, the Blacks were not civilized; they were "raw".
Gandhi's earliest statements about Africans show a great sense of distance from them. Speaking in Bombay after three years in Africa, he told his audience.
Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness.
In 1904, he wrote to a health officer in Johannesburg that the council "must withdraw Kaffirs" from an unsanitary slum called the "Coolie Location" where a large number of Africans lived alongside Indians. "About the mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians, I must confess I feel most strongly."
The same year he wrote that unlike the African, the Indian had no "war-dances, nor does he drink Kaffir beer". When Durban was hit by a plague in 1905, Gandhi wrote that the problem would persist as long as Indians and Africans were being "herded together indiscriminately at the hospital".
One of the first achievements of the Natal Indian Congress which Gandhi established was the creation of a third separate entrance to the Durban Post Office. The first was for Whites, but previously Indians had to share the second with the Blacks. Though they would have preferred to enter with the Whites, they were satisfied with achieving a triple segregation.
Even when Gandhi was famously sent to prison for his protests, he complained of Indians having to share Jail cells with native Africans, He experienced some physical abuse and admitted fear of more while in prison with them.
Gandhi, today is a hero to Indians, and before he is judged too harshly It should be noted that just a few decades before this time
A man from Illinois, was running for senate, and in a series of debates he was pressed upon the issue of emancipation for the Blakcs of America.
During these debates, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites.
Lincoln’s position on social and political equality for African Americans would evolve over the course of his presidency. In the last speech of his life, delivered on April 11, 1865, he argued for limited Black suffrage, saying that any Black man who had served the Union during the Civil War should have the right to vote.
Gandhi’s position on race also evolved with time
in August 1906, the Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance was signed into law in the Transvaal. It was a humiliating and discriminating law forcing Indians in the Transvaal to register with the 'registrar of Asiatics,' submit to physical examinations, provide fingerprints, and carry a registration certificate at all times.
Gandhi replied by saying “I shall die but not submit to the anti-Asiatic Law”
It was here that Gandhi developed his ideology of Passive Resistance, or Satyagraha. This ideology has gone on to influence some of the greatest minds, from all over the political and societal spectrum, just a few of the people who have listed Gandhi or Satyagraha as influencing them
Ho Chi Minh, Richard Attenborough, Will Durant, Martin Luther King JR, Albert Einstein, and of course Nelson Mandela.
Indians led by Gandhi responded with the Asiatic Law by marching and answered with Satyagraha, Gandhi was arrested.
General Smuts promised to repeal the act. Gandhi and his colleagues were released from jail.
However Smuts went back on his word and re implemented the act a few years later
Gandhi and his crew went back and began protesting peacefully.
After 21 years of struggle in South Africa Gandhi felt he had accomplished what he came to do, Indians who originally were brought to south Africa as slaves, had achieved more rights thanks to Gandhis work
The government conceded the recognition of Indian marriages and the abolition of poll tax for Indians
Although Gandhi and Smuts were adversaries in many ways, they had a mutual respect and even admiration for each other. Before Gandhi returned to India in 1914, he presented General Smuts with a pair of sandals (now held by Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History) made by Gandhi himself. In 1939, Smuts, then prime minister, wrote an essay for a commemorative work compiled for Gandhi's 70th birthday and returned the sandals with the following message: "I have worn these sandals for many a summer, even though I may feel that I am not worthy to stand in the shoes of so great a man”
It wasn’t just the Indians who were marching for justice and equality, in 1912 the African National Congress, ANC was created “in direct response to the injustices against BLACK south Africans at the hands of the government in power.
the Natives Land act of 1913 created a true Apartheid state, the creation of the Bantustan system. Bantustans were Native Lands given to the Black African Natives, of the territory of Souht Africa it amounted to a mere 8% of the land. It was later expanded, very generously to 13% years later.
Natives overnight saw their land dispossessed from them, they were shipped off and forced onto poor districts of low quality land. The goal of the land act was to force Native Africans into subjugation, to mobilze them as laborers, miners and farmers.
It destroyed blacks, made them underpaid workers and excluded them from receiving rights
Prime Minister, Botha thought it would be good to reduce crime and racial tension, Leading to the heated debates about land expropriation years later
Botha believed blacks should exercise their rights in bantustans
The act decreed that natives were not allowed to buy land from whites and vice versa. Exceptions had to be approved by the Governor-General.
The Act further prohibited the practice of serfdom or sharecropping. It also protected existing agreements or arrangement of land hired or leased by both parties.[5]
This land was in "native reserve" areas, which meant it was under "communal" tenure vested in African chiefs: it could not be bought, sold or used as surety. Outside such areas, perhaps of even greater significance for black farming was that the Act forbade black tenant farming on white-owned land. Since so many black farmers were sharecroppers or labor tenants that had a devastating effect, but its full implementation was not immediate. The Act strengthened the chiefs, who were part of the state administration, but it forced many blacks into the "white" areas into wage labor
WW1
The Native Land Act of 1913 was overshadowed however by the Great War. South Africa seems rather inconsequentially far from the European nightmare that was World War 1, this is true. But during the scramble for Africa, Germany took a land which would become integral to both South Africa and the Apartheid state. German South-West Africa, Today known as Namibia.
Many Boer settlers during the 1st and 2nd Boer Wars, had gone to Namibia as well as the Orange Free State and Transvaal, They set up settlements and their own Apartheid states. At the Outbreak of the Great War, South Africa was required to join as a dominion of the British Empire
Prime Minister Louis Botha informed London that South Africa could defend itself and that the imperial garrison could depart for France; when the British government asked Botha whether his forces would invade German South-West Africa, the reply was that they could and would.
MARITZ rebellion- Boer Rebellion
In a Nationalistic Fervor All of the races and factions of South Africa came together, The Indians stopped their Natal protests, The ANC pledged complete national support for the war effort, The Colourds of Cape town gathered in mass with the crowd being so large the police were called in to control the crowd. And of course, The British White South Africans, pledging support to the motherland.
However, this list excluded, The Afrikaner Boers-
A proclamation on behalf of a provisional government was stated by 2nd Boer War, Afrikaner Veteran, LT-Col Maritz, it stated that "the former South African Republic and Orange Free State as well as the Cape Province and Natal are proclaimed free from British control and independent, and every White inhabitant of the mentioned areas, of whatever nationality, are hereby called upon to take their weapons in their hands and realize the long-cherished ideal of a Free and Independent South Africa."
Another 2nd Boer War veterain and hero, General Koos de la Rey who by at this time was a senator crossed the border into German South-West Africa to visit German Major Jan Kemp. His goal was to defect and call for a rebellion against the Botha government.
On the way to the meeting de la Rey's car was fired upon by a policeman at a road block set up to look for a local gang. De la Rey was hit and killed. At his funeral, however, many Nationalist Afrikaners believed and perpetuated the rumour that it was a government assassination, which added fuel to the fire.
The government declared martial law on 12 October 1914,[11] and forces loyal to the government under the command of General Louis Botha and Jan Smuts proceeded to destroy the rebellion. General Maritz was defeated on 24 October and took refuge with the Germans. The Beyers commando was attacked and dispersed at Commissioners Drift on 28 October, after which Beyers joined forces with Kemp, but drowned in the Vaal River on 8 December. General de Wet was captured in Bechuanaland on 1 December 1914, with 52 others on a farm called Waterbury. His remark when captured was: "Thank God it was not an Englishman who captured me after all".
The Rebellion was quickly put down and over 1,000 people were killed or wounded. Prime Minister Botha encouraged national reconciliation and often showed mercy, to the Boer defectors.
Many noted how leniency was given to the White Afrikaners compared to how the government handled the Zulu Rebellion of 1906.
Afrikaner nationalists continued to celebrate the rebels well into the 20th Century, and in August 1915 7,000 Afrikaner women marched in Pretoria to demand total amnesty.[45]
Invasion of German colony
The Border between German South-West Africa and South Africa is the Khalahari desert one of the driest places on earth. The South Africans invaded across the border, about 3,000 German Schutztruppe or colonial troops and 7,000 militia fended off the first South African wave, leading to heavy casualties.
Due to delays caused by the Boer-Rebellion, the German and Boers launched a counter invasion crossing the Orange River. . After numerous disagreements between German and Boer commanders, a badly coordinated attack at Upington in January 1915 was repulsed by South African forces
Prime Minister Botha Personally took command of the northern invasion force that landed a the coastal town of Swakopmund, He would be the only allied prime minister to actually fight on the field in the first World war
His aggressive style can be compared to the Blitzkrieg of the 2nd world war and A few months later the colonial capital of Windhoed was captured.
The German colonial forces soon capitulated and offered terms of surrender however Botha was more interested in territorial expansion and continued his invasion. He believed the capture of German South-West Africa, with its large Boer populations could be added to South Africa as a territory,
Smuts and Botha also considered taking German East Africa (modern day Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania located north of South Africa’s neighbor, the Portuguese Mozambique)
They had a plan to negotiate with Portugal to cede lands in neighboring Mozambique, which would maximize the industrial Boer homeland of Transvaal as well as give them the ports of Beira and Maputo in exchange for German East Africa
This decision however was not up to them,
Perhaps for their brave efforts and call to arms in defense of the British crown They would be given the neighboring British colonies of Basutolan (Lesotho) Bechuanaland (Botswana) and Swaziland.
While Botha was capturing Windhoek, General Smuts landed another South African force at the coastal town of Lüderitz and advanced inland. After capturing Keetmanshoop, Smuts was met by two other South African columns that had pushed up from Port Nolloth and Kimberley. After marching along the railway line towards Beseba, Smuts captured the village of Gibeon after two days fighting. German forces retreated north seeking support from their capital, however, were met by General Botha instead where they duly surrendered.
GERMAN EAST AFRICA
Over in German East Africa, After a disastrous British Indian Army amphibious landing in November 1914, South Africa was requested by London to lead the campaign, defeat the German General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, and occupy German East Africa.
After 2 years of decimating the Germans in south-West Africa By early 1916, Jan Smuts had succeeded The British General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien as commander of British forces in East Africa and began replacing British officers with South Africans.
Smuts idea was to do what he had done in South-West Africa which had been a massive success, deploy large and fast sweeping operations that would encircle German forces and avoid high numbers of casualties.
However, The South Africans who come from a climate ranging from desert in the west to temperate in the east, similar to what we have in the southern United states. Experienced something they were unprepared for… Jungle warfare.
the debilitating effect of the jungle would have a disastrous effect on the South Africans,
Commanding a force of roughly 40,000 South African and Indian soldiers, Smuts’ offensives pushed German Guerilla commander, Von Lettow-Vorbeck and his 4,000 men into a slow and determined fighting withdrawal southward towards the interior of the colony.
In May 1916, a force of 3,000 South Africans under a Boer commander threatened a major central railway after capturing the town of Kondoa Irangi. However, due to the rainy season, the force became completely cut off as roads and bridges were swept away.
Left to scavenge for food locally, the fall in health and morale was considerable. By the end of June one-third of the troops were sick and only 1,000 out of 4,000 horses were fit as the rains, thick jungle and tropical diseases took hold.
Along the coastline offensives were significantly more successful with the key port of Dar es Salaam falling by the end of September 1916
military operations for the interior became increasingly frustrated and hindered by disease. in an environment where vehicles were of limited use, between June and September over 53,000 draught animals had died from illness, with most South African units losing half their number to disease and poor nutrition. By the end of 1916, Smuts was advocating that his ill-suited European troops be replaced by Black-Africans that could better deal with the harsh conditions. After just six months of the offensive, over 12,000 white South Africans were invalided home due to sickness and exhaustion.
Smuts, with the campaign stalling, left his East African Command after being asked to join the Imperial War Cabinet in London. Although Smuts’ offensives had been successful, securing three-quarters of German East African territory and its entire infrastructure, Von Lettow-Vorbeck and his small force refused to surrender and continued to engage in a strategy that drew disproportionate amounts of Allied resources away from Europe.
During a brief command under British General Reginald Hoskins, the exhausted and derailed campaign underwent mass reorganisation and reform. Conscious of the poor health of his men and significant supply problems, all offensives were delayed until after the heavy rains, medical services and transport were improved, lines of communication became better developed and more European soldiers were replaced with African soldiers, particularly the dramatically expanding King’s African Rifles. Native Africans from the Jungle regions of East Africa.
The South Africans were mostly replaced in German East Africa, and put on other fronts. Including the European front where during the Somme offensive, a White South African Brigade reportedly gained a reputation for imitating Zulu war songs and dances when at the front.
During the Somme they suffered a 2/3rds casualty rate, South Africa won great respect for their courage and holding their objective.[75][76] In 1920, South Africa purchased the land from France and erected a National Memorial in remembrance, a monument that is still cared for today.
RESULTS of the great WAR
SOUTH WEST AFRICA
In South West Africa, the South African armies were massively victorious, losing less than 300 soldiers, and conquering the German Colony rapidly.
Although South Africa had desired to incorporate German South West Africa into the Union officially, in 1919 the League of Nations granted only a Class C mandate to administer the colony until ready for self-government.[54] Despite this, South-West Africa became a de facto ‘fifth province’, as well as having representation in the South African Parliament.
German East Africa was more inconclusive, finally after the signing of the armistice in Europe, the German Guerilla general, Von Lettow-Vorbeck finally surrendered. He evaded capture for 4 years. He was massively successful in his strategy, which was never to conquer the massive continent of Africa for the Germans but to drain allied resources away from Europe. Von Lettow-Vorbeck had 14,000 mostly colonial soldiers, against the British empire who fielded a combined 114,000 European, Indian and African men. Of which 10,000 died mainly from disease and over 100,000 African carries died of sickness and exhaustion.
South Africa’s territorial ambitions were not heeded, German East Africa became a British administered mandate.
INFO WW1
With a population of roughly 6 million, between 1914 - 1918, over 250,000 South Africans of all races voluntarily served their country. Thousands more served in the British Army directly, with over 3,000 joining the British Royal Flying Corps and over 100 volunteering for the Royal Navy.[103] It is likely that around 50% of white men of military age served during the war. More than 146,000 whites, 83,000 black Africans and 2,500 Coloureds and Asians also served in either German South-West Africa, East Africa, the Middle East, or on the Western Front in Europe. Suffering roughly 19,000 casualties, over 7,000 South Africans were killed, and nearly 12,000 were wounded during the course of the war.
The assistance that South Africa gave the British Empire was significant. Two German African colonies were occupied, either by South Africa alone or with significant South African assistance. Manpower, from all races, helped Allied operations not just on the Western Front and Africa, but also in the Middle East against the Ottoman Empire. South Africa’s ports and harbours on the Home Front were a crucial strategic asset when conducting a war on a global scale. Providing important rest and refuelling stations, the Royal Navy could ensure vital sea lane connections to the British Raj, and the Far East stayed open.
Economically, South Africa supplied two-thirds of gold production in the British Empire, with most of the remainder coming from Australia. At the start of the war, Bank of England officials in London worked with South Africa to block gold shipments to Germany, and force mine owners to sell only to the British Treasury, at prices set by the Treasury. This facilitated purchases of munitions and food in the United States and neutral countries.[105]
Versailles
At Versailles both Botha and Smuts made great impressions
Botha and Smuts both former adversaries of the British Empire and now some of its most important members defended the Germans at Versailles.
The Boers were given amnesty and the Germans must be given the same, if they can recover they will and rise with a vengeance.
The allies and French especially had suffered 4 years of bankruptcy and almost complete destruction. They wanted retribution.
Botha gave a speech about amnesty to the Germans which Woodrow Wilson said was the most impressive speech he had ever heard
While participating in the Versailles conference Louis Botha got extremely sick
On his way home he suffered a minor heart attack. He thought that if he went to his country home that he could rejuvenate. However His health continued to deteriorate. And he was taken by Spanish flu shortly after arriving
The new prime minister Smuts was devastated calling first prime minister Louis Botha, his greatest friend.
However Many of his comrades, the Boers boycotted his funeral
Blacks And Minorities
Botha feared integration of South African Blacks. as early as 1916 black South Africans arrived in France, they would serve in general labor forces, tasks revolved around the construction and maintenance of infrastructure related to the war effort.[1] Employed in French dockyards, railways, quarries and logging camps, the Native Labour Corps often won great praise, even from the Commander in Chief of the British Army Douglas Haigh, for their vital contributions to the war effort.
The white officers and NCO rigorously enforced racial segregation during their time in France, minimizing European and African contact by operating closed compounds. As dissatisfaction among black Africans grew, a disturbance in July 1917 led to 13 being shot dead by their white officers. British officers increasingly called for black South Africans in France be given more liberties and be allowed more freedoms
In January 1918, Botha unexpectedly announced that the SANLC would be withdrawn from France and disbanded. Officially, the Government claimed that the Corps was withdrawn due to the threat of enemy submarines to troopships. It is presumed however that having black Africans mixing freely in Europe was becoming too politically embarrassing and risked fomenting African nationalism.[81] Two Cape Corps battalions and the Cape Auxiliary Horse Transport, recruited in June 1916, continued to provide labour in France until late 1919.
Although the Coloured, Indian, and black communities had hoped that enthusiastic and genuine support for the war would be an opportunity to gain equal status, they were to be left bitterly disappointed as they went unrewarded and civil rights continued to be denied after the Treaty of Versailles.
Unfortunately, due to South African racial policies, employment support and official gratitude was never given to the Coloured, Black and Indian racial groups that had served. As the Great War concluded, Disenfranchisement of non-White South Africans continued.
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