Louis Botha

Louis Botha (1862 - 1919) was a general Boer, a politician afrikaner and the 1st Prime Minister of South Africa of 1910 with 1919, then called Union of South Africa.

Origins

Louis Botha was born the September 27th 1862 close from Greytown with the Natal, 9th of a family of 13 children. German descendant of Thuringe come to settle with Wraps-Town in 1672, his/her grandfather paternal was a Voortrekker which had taken part in the Grand Trek. Louis Botha was high in the State free of Orange starting from 1869 and provided education for with the German local mission.

The general boer

Farmer, elected Veldkornet of the sector of Vryheid and member of the Parliament of the Transvaal in 1897, he was a partisan of the appeasing with the Britannique S, which did not prevent it engaging in the rows of the Kommando of Vryheid at the beginning of the Guerre of Boers and from being promoted later general two years. He took part in the combat of Colenso, Ladysmith and Spioenkop.

In February 1900, after the death of Piet Joubert, it is named commander-general of the armies of the Transvaal. It was then hardly 37 years old. Its catch of command was done under the worst conditions because on all fronts, Boers moved back. it tried nevertheless to slow down the British road roller. After the fall of Bloemfontein and the abandonment of Pretoria in 1900, with the assistance of Koos of Rey and Christiaan de Wet, it reorganized the Kommando S by dispersing them in their districts of recruitment so that they carry out the Guérilla to it.

In 1902, it carries out the negotiations with the British who end to the peace of Vereeniging signed in Pretoria the May 31st 1902.

The man of the reconciliation

Botha is reconverted into the policy and with Rey and De Wet undertakes a round in Europe to collect funds in order to rebuild the country economically. They collect only 125.000 £ and to convince British the Prime Minister to increase the sum, writes a persuasive article where it exposes all the advantages which would have the British Empire to help with the rebuilding of the 2 overcome countries. Little time after, the British Parliament resolves the sum of 8 million books to help with the rebuilding. Botha also obtains the amnesty for the rebels boers of the Cape and the Native one.

Returned to South Africa, Louis Botha undertakes to reconcile the people boers and British in the interest of the country. In 1903, however, its claims for the parity of the Afrikaans and the English are ignored just like its opposition and its warnings with the importation of Asian labor. In May 1904, with Jan Smuts and other veterans boers, it creates a political party afrikaner, “Het Volk” (people), sufficiently moderated to allure an anglophone electorate by preaching the national reconciliation and the autonomy of South Africa.

In 1905, the party already received the support of several business men and can be allowed to criticize the colonial system imposed on the old republics boers. After the victory of the liberals to the the United Kingdom in 1905, Botha sends Smuts to London to negotiate the principle of autonomy. In December 1906 the colony of Transvaal and in June 1907, that of Orange, receive finally the authorization to form their own government. The March 4th 1907, Het Volk, which rejoins english-speaking henceforth, gains the elections of Transvaal and Louis Botha becomes the Prime Minister about it.

At the time of the imperial conference, Botha affirmed the honesty of Afrikaners to the Empire and presented diamond Cullinan to the king Edouard VII. Whereas Botha was to face the critics boers who showed it to be British than boer, the British Parliament granted in thanks a budgetary extension of 5 million books which made it possible Botha in particular to create an agricultural bank of assistance to the farmers, to develop the Railroad and to introduce a free primary education.

The moderation of Botha led it to admit only English as official language whereas the question of the Chinese workers were settled by their repatriation in China.

The Prime Minister of South Africa

In 1910, the will of Botha to melt the 2 people in only one and to make admit the principle of a South-African dominium is put at evil when the British Parliament votes the South Africa Act the May 31st 1910 establishing the Union of South Africa. Lord Gladstone required of Louis Botha to rather form the first provisional government of the young Union than to anglophone the Prime Minister for the Cape, John X Merriman. Botha owes this honor with its prestige and its position among Afrikaners, more in addition than the British in South Africa.

Although it chooses to form a government monocolore and not of national union and moderated, Louis Botha decides to present himself to the elections of September 1910 against Percy Fitzpatrick in the district of Pretoria-Is. With the general surprise, Botha is beaten. In catastrophe, the elected deputy with Standerton resigns so that Botha can be presented to its place, be elected and control. The constitution of the dominion not including a declaration of the rights, it allowed the installation of constraining legislation for the blacks which lead to their territorial exclusion (Native Act Land) and policy, first steps of the Apartheid installation in 1948.

In 1911, with Jan Smuts, Botha forms the Parti South-African (South African Party - SAP). By naming James Barry Hertzog, a former general boer, Minister for justice and businesses indigenous, Botha alienate the moderate english-speaking dismayed by the nationalist declarations and anti-British of Hertzog what leads to the resignation of the commercial Minister, colonel Leuchars. The adoption of the law imposing bilingualism in certain services of state will cause the resignation of moderated anglophone ministers and a political crisis which leads to the dissolution of the cabinet and the expulsion of Hertzog of the government. Perceived like too reconciling by several of his/her former comrades of combat, Botha undergoes a revolt interns members of its party who claquent the door and will create in 1914 the national Parti taken in hand by James Barry Hertzog.

After the release of the First World War, Botha engages its government at the side of the British allies and sends troops to invade the South-western African German, which caused the Révolte of the boers and the accidental death of the general Of Rey killed by the police force. The setting with the step of the insurrection caused deep resentments in the boers and the former comrades of combat of Louis Botha.

In 1915, SAP gains the elections with a relative majority but its support weakened considerably in the community afrikaner which adopts the national party more and more. Botha takes again the wallet of defense with Smuts which, after having ordered the troops in German Eastern Africa, is sent in Europe to the cabinet of British war.

In 1917, to be combined Afrikaners of the National Party whose republican ideas have the wheel in motion, Botha tries to make vote the Native Affairs Administration Bill classifying and ségrégant black African between them of granting grounds to them where they will be able to live. This law is pushed back by the conjunction of the votes of the moderate ones which consider the law unrealistic and unjust and by the nationalists who consider it too liberal. In 1918, Botha faces the successive dissatisfaction with Afrikaners nostalgic of the republics boers of which they ask the restoration, of uncontrolled unionistic elements which draw on afrikaners and blacks which are put in strike at Johannesburg.

To the end of the year 1918, it goes to Paris to carry out the repatriation of the South-African troops personally and to join the conference peace with Versailles. In 1919, although hostile with the Treated of Versailles from which he denounces the intransigence, he signs it. Whereas he had asked the annexation of it, Botha receives only the mandate to manage African South-west under the control of future SDN.

Of return in South Africa, it contracts a Pneumonie. It is in Pretoria a few days later that he dies of an heart attack. August 30th, 1919, it is buried with the cemetery of Rebecca Street.

Homages

Today with many monuments and street names honor the memory with Louis Botha:

its equestrian statue in Pretoria in the park Louis Botha in front of the Unions Buildings.
another statue equestrian before the Parliament of Wraps-Town.
of tens of street names, in particular a place Louis Botha with Paris in France in the 20th district.

Until 1995, the airport of Durban was called Louis Botha Airport.

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