Louis Botha

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The South African soldier and statesman Louis Botha (1862-1919), one of the most important Boer leaders, helped to establish the Union of South Africa and became its first prime minister.

Conflict had featured prominently in the relations between black and white on the one hand and Boer and Briton on the other during the greater part of the 19th century. In this setting the Boer had often been in danger of being crushed between the numerical superiority of the Africans and the economic, cultural, and military power of the British. Partly as a result, the Boer developed a nationalism whose moods ranged from a fierce pride in all things Afrikaans to distrust and, sometimes, hatred of the outsider. Considerations of security for the Afrikaner influenced the attitude of Louis Botha to the Africans, the British, and the nationalists in his community.

Botha was born into a farming family of Voortrekker (pioneer) and Irish stock near Greytown in Natal on Sept. 27, 1862. The turbulence of the times and the paucity of schools made higher education a luxury many farmers could not give their children. Botha grew up with little formal schooling. His family moved to the Orange Free State, where young Botha established contacts with the Zulus which were to change the course of his life.

Military Career

Before King Cetshwayo of the Zulus died, he had indicated that his son, Dinuzulu, would succeed him. Prince Zibebu's challenge to the young monarch's authority resulted in civil war. In 1884 Botha joined the commando unit sent by the Boers to fight by Dinuzulu's side. The rebels were crushed, and the Boers acquired 3, 000, 000 acres of Zulu territory as payment for their help. A member of the surveying team, Botha was instrumental in transforming this land into the New Republic, which became a part of the South African (Transvaal) Republic when the British annexed Zululand in 1887. The union with the Transvaal led to Botha's election to the Volksraad (parliament).

In the Anglo-Boer war (1899-1902) Botha's genius as a military strategist came to the fore. A field cornet when hostilities commenced, Botha was appointed aide-de-camp to Gen. Lucas Meyer, who commanded the Boer forces in northern Natal. Meyer's task was to secure the southern borders of the republic. Botha fought in the battles around Dundee (1899), where his resourcefulness first received attention. Meyer fell ill during the fighting near the besieged British city of Ladysmith - the gateway to the Transvaal and the Orange Free State - and Botha assumed command.

Sir Redvers Buller was coming up from the coast to relieve Ladysmith. Botha met him near Colenso and wrought havoc on the British forces. Buller regrouped his army, Botha withdrew during the night, and Buller bombarded empty trenches. Botha again mauled the British on Spion Kop. But the eventual relief of Ladysmith in 1900 was a bitter blow to the Boers.

Fortune was against the Boers. Their communications were poor, and discipline was at a low ebb. In February 1900 the commander in chief of the Boer forces, Gen. Petrus Jacobus Joubert, appointed Botha his deputy. After Joubert died in Pretoria on March 21, President Paul Kruger asked Botha to assume provisional command of all the Boer forces with the rank of acting commandant.

Botha did not have much of an army to lead. The British were converging on the Transvaal, and demoralization had developed among some of the Boers. He organized a crack force and was able within a few months to put it on the field. It was this army which was later to make him the hero of Bakenlaagte. The Boers continued to lose ground, and by June 4 Botha was forced to send a letter to Lord Roberts, the British commander, requesting an armistice to discuss the capitulation of Pretoria, the capital. Roberts could consider unconditional surrender only, and by September Pretoria had fallen.

For Botha and the Boers, however, the war was not over. Roberts's rejection of the armistice offer had transformed it into a people's war. The front line was wherever there were Boer men, women, and children. The British retaliated by burning farms suspected of harboring saboteurs. Concentration camps were built to restrict the rebels.

A second attempt to end hostilities followed. Botha met the British in Middelburg in March 1901. Negotiations broke down when the Boers insisted on the retention of their independence and wanted an amnesty for their followers. In September, Kitchener announced that the Boers who did not surrender would be banished permanently and that the cost of maintaining their families would be charged against their property. Botha replied to this with increased guerrilla activity.

Botha tried once more to find a way to peace, and the treaty of Vereeniging was signed with the British on May 31, 1902. Its terms displeased the Boers, and Botha joined a delegation to England to plead for modification. Failing in this mission, they returned to South Africa, determined to extort maximum advantage from the Vereeniging settlement.

World War I

The wounds of the war had not healed when World War I broke out. Botha was convinced that it was in South Africa's interest to fight with Britain. He persuaded Parliament to approve his declaration of war against Germany and led the army which marched into South-West Africa. The German governor, Dr. Theodor Seitz, surrendered near Tsumeb on July 9, 1915. Botha imposed provisional military rule over the territory and then returned to Pretoria to start preparations for the expeditionary forces he was to send to Tanganyika and Europe. The British asked him to sit on the War Cabinet, and in 1919 he was at Versailles, pleading for more humane treatment of the Germans.

The Statesman

In 1905 Botha and Jan Christiaan Smuts founded a Boer party, Het Volk (The People), which stood for conciliation and cooperation with the British. The Transvaal was granted responsible government in 1907, and on May 31, 1910, the Union of South Africa came into being, with Gen. Botha heading its first government. Among the problems he had to face were the rise of Afrikaner nationalism, the segregation of the Africans, discontented Indian labor, and restive white workers.

Botha's Boer critics were offended by his conciliation with the English, charged that cooperation served English ends at the expense of Afrikaner cultural interests, and demanded separate development for the Boers and the Britons. For Botha, their demands struck at the roots of Afrikaner security and survival. Crisis point was reached when James Hertzog insisted that the Dutch and English should be treated on a footing of real equality. Botha sympathized with Hertzog's demand but asked for his resignation, fearing that Hertzog's demand would split the nation. Hertzog refused and Botha formed a new cabinet - without Hertzog. This action widened the gulf between the Boers and the Britons and deepened the rifts in the Afrikaans community.

Like the Voortrekker leaders who had preceded him, Botha was an advocate of segregation of the races. He supported the bill that Hertzog had drafted in 1912, prohibiting the sale of land in white areas to the Africans and vice versa. This measure went through Parliament as the Natives Land Act of 1913 and created widespread ill-feeling among the Africans.

Botha's difficulties with the indentured Indian laborers transformed Mohandas K. Gandhi, a prosperous Johannesburg lawyer, into the father of nonviolent resistance. Botha also had to deal with two serious strikes by white workers in 1913 and 1914. He died in Pretoria on Aug. 27, 1919.

Further Reading

Three important biographies of Botha are Harold Spender, General Botha: The Career and the Man (1916; 2d ed. 1919); Lord Buxton, General Botha (1924); and Frans V. Engelenburg, General Botha (1929). Recommended for general historical background is Eric A. Walker, A History of Southern Africa (3d ed. 1968).

Additional Sources

Malan, Jacques, General Louis Botha (1862-1919), Pretoria: National Cultural History and Open-Air Museum, 1979.

The Right Honourable  Louis Botha
1st Prime Minister of South Africa
In office 31 May 1910 – 27 August 1919
Monarch	George V
Governor–General	Herbert Gladstone, 1st Viscount Gladstone Sydney Buxton, 1st Earl Buxton
Preceded by	Position Created
Succeeded by	Jan Christiaan Smuts
1st Prime Minister of Transvaal
In office 1907 – 31 May 1910
Monarch	Edward VII George V
Preceded by	Position Created
Succeeded by	Himself (As Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa)
Born	27 September 1862 Greytown, Colony of Natal
Died	27 August 1919 (aged 56) Pretoria, Transvaal Province, Union of South Africa
Resting place	Hero's Acre, Church Street, Pretoria
Nationality	South African Boer
Political party	South African Party
Other political affiliations	Het Volk Party
Spouse(s)	Annie Emmett
Profession	Career military officer, politician
Military service
Allegiance	South African Republic Union of South Africa British Commonwealth
Years of service	1899 - 1902 (Transvaal commandos)
Rank	General
Commands	Boer, South African Republic
Battles/wars	Second Boer War: -- Colenso -- Spioen kop -- Retreat from Pretoria First World War: -- South-West Africa Campaign

Louis Botha (27 September 1862 – 27 August 1919) was an Afrikaner and first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa—the forerunner of the modern South African state. He was born in Greytown (now in KwaZulu-Natal) as one of 13 children born to Louis Botha (26.3.1827 - 5.7.1883) and Salomina Adriana van Rooyen (31.3.1829 - 9.1.1886).

He became a member of the parliament of Transvaal in 1897, representing the district of Vryheid. Two years later Botha fought in the Second Boer War, initially under Lucas Meyer in Northern Natal, and later as a general commanding and fighting with impressive capability at Colenso and Spioen kop. On the death of P. J. Joubert, he was made commander-in-chief of the Transvaal Boers, where he demonstrated his abilities again at Belfast-Dalmanutha. Claims exist that Botha captured Winston Churchill at the armoured train ambush in Natal on 15 November 1899; but this may be a fabrication. Certainly Churchill did not mention it in his book on The Boer War London to Ladysmith via Pretoria (1900), though later he made such a claim.^[1][2] It is, however, mentioned in Arthur Conan Doyle's book, The Great Boer War, published in 1902. After the fall of Pretoria, he led a concentrated guerrilla campaign against the British together with Koos de la Rey and Christiaan de Wet. The success of his measures was seen in the steady resistance offered by the Boers to the very close of the three years' war.

Contents 1 Role after the Boer War 2 Later career 3 Books on Botha 3.1 Historical 3.2 Fiction 4 References 5 External links

Role after the Boer War

Louis Botha

He was the chief representative of his countrymen in the peace negotiations of 1902, and was signatory to the Treaty of Vereeniging. After the grant of self-government to the Transvaal in 1907, General Botha was called upon by Lord Selborne to form a government, and in the spring of the same year he took part in the conference of colonial premiers held in London. During his visit to England on this occasion General Botha declared the whole-hearted adhesion of the Transvaal to the British Empire, and his intention to work for the welfare of the country regardless of (inter-white) racial differences (in this era referring to Boers/Afrikaners as a separate race to British South Africans).

He later worked towards peace with the British, representing the Boers at the peace negotiations in 1902. In the period of reconstruction under British rule, Botha went to Europe with de Wet and de la Rey to raise funds to enable the Boers to resume their former avocations.^[3] Botha, who was still looked upon as the leader of the Boer people, took a prominent part in politics, advocating always measures which he considered as tending to the maintenance of peace and good order and the re-establishment of prosperity in the Transvaal. His war record made him prominent in the politics of Transvaal and he was a major player in the postwar reconstruction of that country, becoming Prime Minister of Transvaal on 4 March 1907. In 1911, together with another Boer war hero, Jan Smuts, he formed the South African Party, or SAP. Widely viewed as too conciliatory with Britain, Botha faced revolts from within his own party and opposition from James Barry Munnik Hertzog's National Party. When South Africa obtained dominion status in 1910, Botha became the first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa.

Later career

Kommandantgeneraal Louis Botha

After the First World War started, he sent troops to take German South West Africa, a move unpopular among Boers, which provoked the Boer Revolt.

At the end of the War he briefly led a British Empire military mission to the Second Polish Republic during the Polish-Soviet War. He argued that the terms of the Versailles Treaty were too harsh on the Central Powers, but signed the treaty. Botha was unwell for most of 1919. He was plagued by fatigue and ill-health that arose from his robust waist-line.^[4] That he was fat is certain as related in the marvellous account of Lady Mildred Buxton asking General Van Deventer if he was bigger than Botha, to which Van Deventer replied: “I am longer, he is thicker.”^[5] (In Afrikaans thicker literally means fatter.)

General Louis Botha died of Heart Failure on 27 August 1919 in the early hours of the morning. His wife Annie was at home and was very soon joined by Engelenburg who had acted as a private secretary to Botha.^[6] While other speculative theories of his death may exist they remain speculative and entirely unsubstantiated. Botha was laid to rest in Heroes Acre Pretoria.

Of Botha, Winston Churchill wrote in Great Contemporaries, "The three most famous generals I have known in my life won no great battles over a foreign foe. Yet their names, which all begin with a 'B", are household words. They are General Booth, General Botha and General Baden-Powell..."^[7]

Books on Botha

Historical

• Coetzer, Owen, The Anglo-Boer War: The road to Infamy, 1899-1900, Arms and Armour, 1996 (Claimed (p. 30) that Botha captured Churchill at train ambush 15 Nov 1899)
• Farwell, Bryon. The Great Boer War, Allen Lane, London, 1976. (insights of Botha)
• Williams, Basil. Botha Smuts and South Africa, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1946. (comprehensive commentaries on Smuts and Botha, or as William's titled them in the last chapter of this book par nobile fratrum(p. 203)

Fiction

• O'Brien, Antony. Bye-Bye Dolly Gray, Artillery Publishing, Hartwell, 2006. (an heroic Boer character in this Australian/Boer War novel)

References

1. ^ Owen Coetzer, The Anglo-Boer War, p. 30. Cf. Winston Churchill, The Boer War: London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and Ian Hamilton's March, Longman's, 1900 and subsequent editions
2. ^ Winston Churchill, My Early Life, p. 250, Eland Publishing Limited, 2000 edition. First published 1930.
3. ^ "Boer Leaders Coming Here: Botha and De la Rey to Visit America", The New York Times: 3, 30 July 1902, http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9804E4DB113DEE32A25753C3A9619C946397D6CF 
4. ^ Dr. F.V. Engelenburg, ‘’Genl Louis Botha’’, J.L. Van Schaik BPK, Pretoria, 1928, pp. 350 – 353.
5. ^ Johannes Meintjes, ‘’General Louis Botha A Biography’’, Cassel, London, 1970, p. 292.
6. ^ Dr. F.V. Engelenburg, ‘’Genl Louis Botha’’, J.L. Van Schaik BPK, Pretoria, 1928, p. 355; Johannes Meintjes, ‘’General Louis Botha A Biography’’, Cassel, London, 1970, p. 302.
7. ^ Winston Churchill, (1937), Great Contemporaries, Odhams, London, 1948, p.287.

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Peace of Vereeniging

Political offices
Preceded by ???	Member of South African Republic Parliament, Vryheid District 1897 – 1899	Succeeded by ???
Preceded by New office	Prime Minister, Transvaal 1907 – 1910	Succeeded by Merged with other territories to form Union of South Africa
Preceded by New office	Prime Minister, Union of South Africa 1910 – 1919	Succeeded by Jan Smuts
Party political offices
Preceded by New office	Leader of the Het Volk Party 1907 – 1910	Succeeded by Merged with others to form South Africa Party
Preceded by New office	Leader of the South African Party 1910 – 1919	Succeeded by Jan Smuts

v • d • e Prime Ministers, Vice State President, and Deputy Presidents of South Africa Prime Ministers Louis Botha · Jan Smuts · James Barry Munnik Hertzog · Jan Smuts · Daniel François Malan · Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom · Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd · Balthazar Johannes Vorster · Pieter Willem Botha Vice State President Alwyn Schlebusch Deputy Presidents Frederik Willem de Klerk/Thabo Mbeki · Thabo Mbeki · Jacob Zuma · Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka · Baleka Mbete

v • d • e Governments of South African Republic and Transvaal Commandants-General A. Pretorius Lijdenburg W. F. Joubert Zoutpansberg A. H. Potgieter · P. J. Potgieter · Schoeman Marico Enslin Potchefstroom-Rustenburg A. Pretorius · M. W. Pretorius Chairmen of the United Volksraad A. Pretorius · Jobszoon · H. Pretorius State Presidents M.W. Pretorius · Grobler · Schoemam · Renseburg · M.W. Pretorius · Erasmus · Burgers Administrators Shepstone · Layon Governor Wolseley · Triumvirate in rebellion: Kruger/Pretorius/Joubert State presidents Kruger · S. W. Burger Governors Milner · Palmer Prime Minister Botha

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