Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook718 pages10 hours
General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa, 1914–1917
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
A new assessment of Jan Smuts’s military leadership through examination of his World War I campaigning, demonstrating that he was a gifted general, conversant with the craft of maneuver warfare, and a command style steeped in the experiences of his time as a Boer general.
World War I ushered in a renewed scramble for Africa. At its helm, Jan Smuts grabbed the opportunity to realize his ambition of a Greater South Africa. He set his sights upon the vast German colonies of South-West Africa and East Africa – the demise of which would end the Kaiser’s grandiose schemes for Mittelafrika. As part of his strategy to shift South Africa’s borders inexorably northward, Smuts even cast an eye toward Portuguese and Belgian African possessions.
Smuts, his abilities as a general much denigrated by both his contemporary and then later modern historians, was no armchair soldier. This cabinet minister and statesman donned a uniform and led his men into battle. He learned his soldiery craft under General Koos De la Rey's tutelage, and another soldier-statesman, General Louis Botha during the South African War 1899–1902. He emerged from that war, immersed in the Boer maneuver doctrine he devastatingly waged in the guerrilla phase of that conflict. His daring and epic invasion of the Cape at the head of his commando remains legendary. The first phase of the German South West African campaign and the Afrikaner Rebellion in 1914 placed his abilities as a sound strategic thinker and a bold operational planner on display. Champing at the bit, he finally had the opportunity to command the Southern Forces in the second phase of the German South West African campaign.
Placed in command of the Allied forces in East Africa in 1916, he led a mixed bag of South Africans and Imperial troops against the legendary Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and his Shutztruppe. Using his penchant for Boer maneuver warfare together with mounted infantry led and manned by Boer Republican veterans, he proceeded to free the vast German territory from Lettow-Vorbeck’s grip. Often leading from the front, his operational concepts were an enigma to the British under his command, remaining so to modern-day historians. Although unable to bring the elusive and wily Lettow-Vorbeck to a final decisive battle, Smuts conquered most of the territory by the end of his tenure in February 1917.
General Jan Smuts and His First World War in Africa makes use of multiple archival sources and the official accounts of all the participants to provide a long-overdue reassessment of Smuts’s generalship and his role in furthering the strategic aims of South Africa and the British Empire in Africa during World War I.
World War I ushered in a renewed scramble for Africa. At its helm, Jan Smuts grabbed the opportunity to realize his ambition of a Greater South Africa. He set his sights upon the vast German colonies of South-West Africa and East Africa – the demise of which would end the Kaiser’s grandiose schemes for Mittelafrika. As part of his strategy to shift South Africa’s borders inexorably northward, Smuts even cast an eye toward Portuguese and Belgian African possessions.
Smuts, his abilities as a general much denigrated by both his contemporary and then later modern historians, was no armchair soldier. This cabinet minister and statesman donned a uniform and led his men into battle. He learned his soldiery craft under General Koos De la Rey's tutelage, and another soldier-statesman, General Louis Botha during the South African War 1899–1902. He emerged from that war, immersed in the Boer maneuver doctrine he devastatingly waged in the guerrilla phase of that conflict. His daring and epic invasion of the Cape at the head of his commando remains legendary. The first phase of the German South West African campaign and the Afrikaner Rebellion in 1914 placed his abilities as a sound strategic thinker and a bold operational planner on display. Champing at the bit, he finally had the opportunity to command the Southern Forces in the second phase of the German South West African campaign.
Placed in command of the Allied forces in East Africa in 1916, he led a mixed bag of South Africans and Imperial troops against the legendary Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and his Shutztruppe. Using his penchant for Boer maneuver warfare together with mounted infantry led and manned by Boer Republican veterans, he proceeded to free the vast German territory from Lettow-Vorbeck’s grip. Often leading from the front, his operational concepts were an enigma to the British under his command, remaining so to modern-day historians. Although unable to bring the elusive and wily Lettow-Vorbeck to a final decisive battle, Smuts conquered most of the territory by the end of his tenure in February 1917.
General Jan Smuts and His First World War in Africa makes use of multiple archival sources and the official accounts of all the participants to provide a long-overdue reassessment of Smuts’s generalship and his role in furthering the strategic aims of South Africa and the British Empire in Africa during World War I.
Unavailable
Author
David Brock Katz
David Brock Katz is a lecturer at the South African National Defence Force Army and Defence Colleges and is an active member of the Andrew Mlangeni Regiment (formerly the South African Irish Regiment). He completed his Masters degree (cum laude) and PhD in Military History at Stellenbosch University. He has published extensively on South African military history and doctrine.
Related to General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa, 1914–1917
Related ebooks
General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa, 1914–1917: Incorporating His German South West and East Africa Campaigns Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMozambican Civil War: Marxist-Apartheid Proxy, 1977–1992 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Fall of the Asante Empire: The Hundred-Year War For Africa'S Gold Coast Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pyramids and Fleshpots: The Egyptian, Senussi and Eastern Mediterranean Campaigns, 1914 - 16 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zulu Battle Piece: Islandhlwana Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsZulu!: The Battle for Rorke's Drift 1879 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Three years of war in East Africa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTotal Onslaught: War and Revolution in Southern Africa Since 1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJan Smuts: A Biography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTracing Your Great War Ancestors: The Egypt & Palestine Campaigns: A Guide for Family Historians Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEast Africa and Its Invaders: From the Earliest Times to the Death of Seyyid Said in 1856 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom the Somme to Victory: The British Army's Experience on the Western Front 1916–1918 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Somme Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Britain at War with the Asante Nation, 1823–1900: "The White Man's Grave" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDavid Rattray's Guidebook to the Anglo-Zulu War Battlefields Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/56th Battalion, The Manchester Regiment in the Great War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great War Lives: A Guide for Family Historians Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnd the World Went Dark: An Illustrated Interpretation of the Great War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWorld War I: The Great War to End All Wars Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnderstanding the Somme 1916: An Illuminating Battlefield Guide Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lean, Brown Men: Experiences in East Africa During the Great War: with the 25th Royal Fusiliers-The Legion of Frontiersmen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Crisis of Rome: The Jugurthine and Northern Wars and the Rise of Marius Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great Battles of the Great War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Britain’s War for the Mediterranean: The Fight against Revolutionary France Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Siege of Tsingtau: The German-Japanese War, 1914 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Empire and Espionage: Spies in the Zulu War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHistories of the Unexpected: World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWest Sussex: Remembering 1914-18 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Somme 1916: The First of July Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Military Biographies For You
Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Alexander the Great Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mein Kampf: The Original, Accurate, and Complete English Translation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTo Hell and Back: The Classic Memoir of World War II by America's Most Decorated Soldier Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Scars and Stripes: An Unapologetically American Story of Fighting the Taliban, UFC Warriors, and Myself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Personal Memoirs Of U.s. Grant Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars: The Story of the First American Woman to Command a Space Mission Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Delta Force: A Memoir by the Founder of the U.S. Military's Most Secretive Special-Operations Unit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Right Kind of Crazy: My Life as a Navy SEAL, Covert Operative, and Boy Scout from Hell Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Rumor of War: The Classic Vietnam Memoir (40th Anniversary Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Tudors: The Untold Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Guerrilla Warfare Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Caesar: Life of a Colossus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Rediscovered Books): A Triumph Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nature of Alexander Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Staring Down the Wolf: 7 Leadership Commitments That Forge Elite Teams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer - The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for General Jan Smuts and his First World War in Africa, 1914–1917
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews