Doctoral Degrees (Military History)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Military History) by browse.metadata.advisor "Monama, Fankie Lucas"

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    General Louis Botha: farmer, soldier, statesman, 1862–1919
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2020-03) Garcia, Antonio; Van der Waag, Ian J.; Monama, Fankie Lucas; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Sciences. School for Security and Africa Studies. Dept. of Military History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Louis Botha (1862-1919) is a towering figure on the South African historical landscape. Raised as a farmer in Natal and the Free State, he rose to prominence through a combination of military service and government office and became successively the premier Boer combat general and later a British lieutenant general, premier of the Transvaal Colony, and then the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa. Botha’s influence on South Africa, and the wider British Empire, is recorded in the five existing biographies. While these works explain aspects of his life, they do not provide a comprehensive academic study. This dissertation bridges that gap in the discourse. Three of the Botha biographies - those of Harold Spender, Sydney Buxton and Frans Engelenburg – were written by colleagues and contemporaries, while the remaining two biographers – Johannes Meintjes and (more recently) Richard Steyn had no personal connection. Collectively these works are not archival studies, lack the customary academic apparatus, and mostly treat particular aspects of Botha’s life, as do the other studies that focus on Botha’s role during specific periods of his career, including but not limited to the Anglo-Boer War, the political development of the Transvaal and the Union of South Africa, as well as the Afrikaner Rebellion and First World War campaign in German South West Africa. This dissertation bridges this gap by providing a critical examination of the political and military career of Louis Botha, in a full-length portrait. It is, at the same time, a reappraisal, providing a fresh look at the man who helped shape modern South Africa. It offers new insights into his life and highlights both the positive and the negative aspects of his dealings. The man lionised for his military prowess, political nous, and governing competence, was at the same time badly flawed, wavering at times, and making crucial errors, side-lining whole sectors of South African society and sacrificing people of colour on the altar of ‘white’ unity. Botha was very human, imperfect, inconsiderate, and insecure, but he was also charming, attractive, emotionally intelligent, and confident. Botha was thus a complex man, general, administrator, politician, visionary leader, patriarch and racist who lived by the norms of his time, while moulding the agenda for a modernising South Africa. Botha is painted by some as the charming farmer and accidental politician. This dissertation provides an alternate view. He was undoubtedly a successful farmer and he proved to be an effective minister of agriculture. But he had realised too that his personal passion provided a lever of power. His career was founded in the old commando tradition that linked farming and landowning, to military service, government office and economic and further political opportunity. While he excelled at farming, military service and its reward brought territorial aggrandisement and social escalation. From landowner, Botha became a veld cornet, and this led him into the meeting hall of the Transvaal volksraad. From there, harnessing the opportunities presented by the Anglo-Boer War, he rose rapidly in rank to become the Transvaal commandant general, a position that he converted after the war into political office. Towards the end of his career, when South African prime minister, he once again had the opportunity to combine military command and conquest with territorial acquisition but in the name of a greater South Africa.