Description
Book SynopsisWorld War I ushered in a renewed scramble for Africa. At its helm, Jan Smuts grabbed the opportunity to realise his ambition of a Greater South Africa. He set his sights upon the vast German colonies of South-West Africa and East Africa - the demise of which would end the Kaiser's grandiose schemes for Mittelafrika. As part of his strategy to shift South Africa's borders inexorably northward, Smuts even cast an eye toward Portuguese and Belgian African possessions.
Smuts, his abilities as a general much denigrated by both his contemporary and then later modern historians, was no armchair soldier. This cabinet minister and statesman donned a uniform and led his men into battle. He learned his soldiery craft under General Koos De la Rey's tutelage, and another soldier-statesman, General Louis Botha during the South African War 1899-1902. He emerged from that war, immersed in the Boer manoeuvre doctrine he devastatingly waged in the guerrilla phase of that conflict. His daring and epic invasion of the Cape at the head of his commando remains legendary. The first phase of the German South West African campaign and the Afrikaner Rebellion in 1914 placed his abilities as a sound strategic thinker and a bold operational planner on display. Champing at the bit, he finally had the opportunity to command the Southern Forces in the second phase of the German South West African campaign.
Placed in command of the Allied forces in East Africa in 1916, he led a mixed bag of South Africans and Imperial troops against the legendary Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and his Shutztruppe. Using his penchant for Boer manoeuvre warfare together with mounted infantry led and manned by Boer Republican veterans, he proceeded to free the vast German territory from Lettow-Vorbeck's grip. Often leading from the front, his operational concepts were an enigma to the British under his command, remaining so to modern-day historians. Although unable to bring the elusive and wily Lettow-Vorbeck to a final decisive battle, Smuts conquered most of the territory by the end of his tenure in February 1917.
General Jan Smuts and his Great War in Africa makes use of multiple archival sources and the official accounts of all the participants to provide a long-overdue reassessment of Smuts's generalship and his role in furthering the strategic aims of South Africa and the British Empire in Africa during World War I.
Trade ReviewSmuts is usually portrayed as a great statesman but an indifferent military commander. He emerges from David Brock Katz’s account as a much more substantial general than many other historians believe. Katz’s argument about a distinctive South Africa style of warfare which clashed with the British approach is not wholly original … but it is an important idea which needs to be placed into the broader context of the history of the armies of the British Empire in the twentieth century. General Jan Smuts is a significant contribution to the military history of the Great War in Africa.”—Professor Gary Sheffield, Stand To * Stand To! *
Table of ContentsIntroduction Acknowledgements 1: Smuts Emerges: From Scholar to Intellectual—From Adversity to Reconciliation (1870–1910) 2: South Africa’s entry into the First World War 1910–1914 3: The German South West African Campaign and The Afrikaner Rebellion 1914 4: The German South West African Campaign 1915 (Phase II) 5: Smuts and the Kilimanjaro Operation in East Africa March 1916 6: Smuts and the Kilimanjaro Operation in East Africa March 1916 Conclusion Endnotes Bibliography Index
