Louis Botha

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Louis Botha (September 27 1862 – August 27, 1919) was an Afrikaner and first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa—the forerunner of the modern South African state. He was 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 Novemeber 1899; but this may be a fabrication depending on one's perspective.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. 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.

He was the chief representative of his countrymen in the peace negotiations of 1902, 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 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. 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 March 4, 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.

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.

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)
• Hillegas, Howard, C. With the Boer Forces, Methuen & Co., London, 1900.
• 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

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