Smuts

Jan Christiaan Smuts was born 24th May 1870 in Riebeck-West in the Cape, South Africa and was a cousin to Louis Botha. 

On 10th October 1899, as Attorney General, he drafted the ultimatum that President Kruger sent to the British Government. Like De Wet, Smuts reeked havoc havoc countrywide with his guerrilla warfare until the signing the Treaty of Vereeniging at which time he actively took to politics and became Colonial Secretary under Botha’s Premiership. In 1907 he was instrumental in securing self-government from the British. During World War 1 he commanded the British Imperial Forces in East Africa from 1916-1917 and held the rank of Lieutenant General in the British Army. He represented South Africa in the British War Cabinet from 1917-18 and was to help in forming the League of Nations. When Botha died Smuts succeeded him as Prime Minister of South Africa from 1919-1924. Although liked by the rest of the commonwealth leaders, he and the Afrikaners did not see eye to eye. From 1933 to 1939 he was Deputy Prime Minister to J.B.M. Hertzog after which he once again became Prime Minister and brought South Africa into World War 2 on the side of the Allies, where he rose to the rank of Field-Marshall in the British Army. It was as State Attorney that he and Winston Churchill first met and he was responsible for negotiating Churchill’s release from prison in Pretoria only to be told that Churchill had escaped the night before.

A secret memorandum for the Transvaal Executive from Jan Smuts dated 4th September 1899 states:

“South Africa stands on the eve of a frightful blood-bath out of which our volk shall come…either as…hewers of wood and drawers of water for a hated race, or as victors, founders of a United South Africa, of one of the great empires of the world…an Afrikaner republic in South Africa stretching from Table Bay to the Zambezi”

He left office in 1948 and died in 1950.