Jan Smuts

Jan Smuts was a South African soldier, statesman and intellectual who moved from Boer resistance to a central role in the government of the Union of South Africa and the British Commonwealth. He fought against Britain during the Second Boer War, helped negotiate the peace, and later served twice as prime minister while playing prominent international roles during both world wars.

Smuts helped organise the Transvaal war effort and led a long commando raid into the Cape Colony. After the peace he became a leading architect of South African union and later served twice as prime minister.

Thomas Pakenham’s The Boer War then traces the British advance under Frederick Roberts and Herbert Kitchener, the occupation of the Boer capitals and the prolonged guerrilla war led by commanders including Louis Botha, Christiaan de Wet and Jan Smuts. In Max Hennessy’s Sunset at Sheba, A battle to decide their fate. South Africa, 1914. Diehard Boer generals led a new rebellion against the British-friendly governments of both Jan Smuts and Louis Botha. General Christiaan De Wet's attempt to join up with the Germans in South-West Africa failed, but the threat of the rebel forces was real to all of the men who lived through it.