War clouds were gathering over Europe while Louis Botha, first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, was visiting Southern and Northern Rhodesia in early August 1914. It was fortuitous that Botha did not find himself as a surprise captive when he hastily cancelled his booking on a German ship destined to pick him up in Beira and return him to South Africa. He chose instead to return via a safer overland route.

South Africa remained rudderless in the opening moments of the First World War with the absence of a Governor-General due to the early resignation of Lord Herbert John Gladstone, the first governor-general of South Africa in July. His replacement, Sydney Buxton, delayed his departure to South Africa due to the outbreak of the war. The Lord Chief Justice, John Henry de Villiers, temporarily stepped into the breach only to die two days before Buxton arrived on 2 September.

At the outbreak of the war, South Africa contained all the combustive elements suitable for a political inferno. Divisions along pro- and anti-British lines would deepen as the events unfolded in the coming weeks and months.

The British government forewarned South Africa of impending war on 1 August and at a very early stage requested that the Union Defence Force (UDF) provide Walvis Bay with guns and a garrison manned by “local troops”. Britain’s formal declaration of war on Germany on 4 August bound South Africa automatically and precluded any thoughts of remaining neutral.

Jan Smuts, as defence minister, and Botha seized the opportunity afforded by war and made an unsolicited offer to take over the duties of the imperial garrison in South Africa, consequently relieving them for duty in Europe. The removal of British troops fulfilled an objective of Smuts to elevate the status of South Africa, and many South Africans welcomed the opportunity to rid the country of “foreign forces”. Others greeted the British departure with more nostalgia such as Piet van der Byl who “felt that it was the end of a period that would never recur”.

Britain never doubted Botha and Smuts’s loyalty, and although JBM Hertzog agreed that South Africa was ipso facto at war once Britain was involved, doubts existed whether they would be able to elicit the same amount of loyalty from their fellow Afrikaners. Hertzog was dead set against an invasion of German South West Africa (GSWA) and sought a limited role for South Africa in defending its territorial integrity. Botha left it to Smuts to persuade the Cabinet that Germany was the aggressor and Britain deserved the Union’s unmitigated support.

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However, at this early stage of the conflict, Botha and Smuts, cognisant of certain deep reluctance to the war, had no inkling of the future rebellion. The reality was that Afrikaner unity, always a shaky prospect, was shattered with the exclusion of Hertzog from the Cabinet in 1912 and Botha and Smuts no longer enjoyed the support of most Afrikaners. They would have to look to the English opposition benches to bolster their parliamentary numbers in future elections.

There was little indication of the trouble brewing. The most vociferous in the opposition benches could accept that South Africa was at war and had a duty to defend herself. Smuts and Botha had yet to commit to any adventure, and the removal of the imperial garrison, if not welcome in all sectors, was undoubtedly not contentious. Botha, ever the leader, took the opportunity of calling all the commandants together to clarify the government’s position of having taken over the duties of the British imperial garrison. He also sought to assure those present of his intention to conduct the war “without commandeering the people”. This early reference to seeking volunteers for the military demonstrated Smuts and Botha’s sensitivity to the possible unpopularity of a European war among large sectors of the Afrikaners.

Smuts and Botha saw clear opportunities for South Africa after Britain’s declaration of war. South Africa would enhance her status within the British Empire while the war also brought the opportunity for immediate territorial expansion in the direction of GSWA, Delagoa Bay, and the High Commission Territories (Bechuanaland, Basutoland, Swaziland and Southern Rhodesia). Some Afrikaner nationalists also saw prospects for South Africa to take advantage of Britain’s perilous circumstances to declare a Boer republic once again. Former Free State president MT Steyn barely concealed his schadenfreude when referring to Britain’s discomfort. 

“Is it not a strange Nemesis that the same persons and influences who caused South Africa so much suffering and misery are now also busy causing Great Britain, in the Ulster question, as much, if not more, worry and trouble. And yet, if one considers the matter, one can see that the troubles in England are the result of the South African War. One sees still more. This war has driven England out of her ‘splendid isolation’ into her ‘ententes’ and her yellow alliances and today she has fallen foul of Continental entanglements. The mills of Providence grind slowly indeed!”

Large sectors of the Afrikaner community mirrored Steyn’s sentiments on Britain’s comeuppance and many, even though not overly sympathetic to Germany’s cause, revelled in Britain’s discomfort.

Lewis Harcourt, the British Colonial Secretary, accepted Botha’s offer of relieving the imperial garrison on 7 August but went a step further in asking them to “seize such part of German South West Africa as will give them the command of Lüderitzbucht, Swakopmund and the wireless stations there or in the interior”. German wireless stations posed a considerable risk to Allied shipping travelling around the Cape of Good Hope, and the prospect of denying GSWA ports to German shipping would enhance British sea power in the southern oceans.

At this early stage, perhaps anticipating a South African land grab, the British made their position quite clear as to the eventual fate of GSWA if conquered by the Union. The proviso was that German territory seized must be placed at the disposal of the Imperial government for purposes of an ultimate settlement after the war. All but a few thought the war would last beyond Christmas and that territory seized from Germany would form a bargaining chip at any peace conference to follow.

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The British possessed sound reasoning for involving South Africa as she was the only British dominion who shared a common border with a German territory which directly threatened British territory. No matter how remote the threat, it was exacerbated by divided loyalties within the Union.

The British believed the Germans could foment the situation due to their proximity to South Africa. There was even a humanitarian concern in sectors of the British government over the harsh black policy of the Germans in their colonies. A further consideration cited by the sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence was the decisive political effect of enticing South Africa to cooperate militarily. Lastly, Smuts and Botha’s sub-imperialist desires were wholly congruent with strong expansionist desires within the Imperial government, and all saw the opportunity to drive South Africa’s borders northward.

Smuts agreed with the general sentiment that the war would be over by Christmas of 1914. Historians need to judge the alacrity with which Smuts reacted to the unfolding situation in this light. Smuts was not alone in predicting a short sharp war in Europe. Although Kitchener, appointed as Secretary of State for War, was cautious in predicting a three-year war in his first Cabinet meeting on 7 August 1914, Sir John French, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) commander, believed it would be very short, as did his chief of staff, Sir Archibald Murray. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, told the British Admiralty departments to proceed on the basis that the war would only last 12 months and that the greatest effort would be required in the first six months.

The public expected a short war, and they were even more optimistic than the most optimistic among officialdom. As Hew Strachan puts it, “the long-war idea belonged in the imaginings of pessimists, while the short-war illusion reflected most of mankind’s continuing optimism.”

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Smuts, believing the opportunity to be fleeting, was anxious to waste no time in increasing South Africa’s world status and grabbing territory. 

Smuts’s enthusiasm and British urgency met with mixed feelings in a Cabinet meeting held on 7 August. Botha urged the Cabinet to immediately accede to the British request, but opinions were split. He raised the spectre of Australian or Indian troops overrunning GSWA instead of the South Africans which would remove South Africa’s territorial claim to GSWA.

FS Malan, HC van Heerden, Hendrik Schalk Theron, and David Graaf were bitterly opposed to going beyond the commitment offered on 4 August, while Smuts, Thomas Watt, Nicolaas de Wet, and Henry Burton fully supported Botha. Once Cabinet reconvened on 7/8 August, Malan adopted a Hertzogvite position of “South Africa first and then the British Empire”.

However, some of his concerns were worth consideration. Especially pertinent was that the invasion of GSWA would further destroy Afrikaner-English unity. ML/DM

Dr David Brock Katz is an author and historian who lectures at the Army and Defence Colleges of the South African National Defence Force, and a research fellow at the Faculty of Military Science at Stellenbosch University. He is the author of South Africans vs Rommel (2019).