General Jan Smuts and His First World War In Africa 1914-1917

Softcover 2022

Jan Smuts grabbed the opportunity to realise his ambition of a Greater South Africa when the First World War ushered in a final scramble for Africa. He set his sights firmly northward upon the German colonies of South West Africa and East Africa.Smutss abilities as a general have been much denigrated by his contemporaries and later historians, but he was no armchair soldier. He first learned his soldiers craft under General Koos de la Rey and General Louis Botha during the South African War (18991902). He emerged from that conflict immersed in Boer manoeuvre doctrine.