General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa, 1914–1917 (David Brock Katz) & Botha, Smuts and the Great War (Antonio Garcia and Ian van der Waag)

The two books reviewed here represent detailed biographies of top South African political and military leaders of the First World War (1914War ( -1918)).Katz's treatment of Jan Smuts sustains a clear argument throughout the text.Previous historians have underestimated Smuts's military experience, portraying him as an amateur general, and unfairly denigrating his accomplishments in the war especially during the German East Africa campaign.The case is convincing in many ways, especially regarding Smuts's wartime qualifications.While some previous historians described Smuts's role in the South African War (1899War ( -1902) ) as leading a Boer commando of a few hundred men, Katz shows that Smuts planned the rudimentary Boer republican war strategy as attorney general of the Transvaal, learnt highly mobile Boer warfare under the mentorship of accomplished leader Koos de la Ray, and eventually led several thousand fighters during an incursion into the Cape.Subsequently, in 1914 and as deputy prime minister and cabinet minister in the Union government, Smuts played the leading role in planning the initial South African invasion of German South West Africa (GSWA, now called Namibia) involving simultaneous landings at the Atlantic ports of the territory and overland columns pushing up from the South African border in the south.Although this operation