Louis Botha's War Tpb

Twelve years after fi ghting against the British during the Anglo-Boer War, Louis Botha went to war on Britain’s side. As prime minister of the Union of South Africa at the outbreak of the First World War, Botha agreed to lead his country on a campaign against the Germans

across the border in South-West Africa. But fi rst he would have to deal with a conflict at home.
 

Many Afrikaners balked at the prime minister’s decision, and so began a war on two fronts. While Union Defence Force troops gathered on the border and prepared to launch an offensive, a handful of Botha’s former comrades incited an Afrikaner rebellion intent on

keeping South Africa out of the war, or worse, siding with Germany.
 

Louis Botha’s War is the story of how a former Boer War fi ghting-general-turned-politician crushed a rebellion, rallied his country’s fi rst united army to fi ght in harsh conditions and defeated the enemy in the Great War’s fi rst successful Allied campaign. Botha’s actions and

these events would determine the fate of South-West Africa, and its relationship with its southern neighbour, for the next eighty years.