1. Louis Botha was a South African politician who was the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa, the forerunner of the modern South African state.
22 Facts About Louis Botha
1. 2.
Louis Botha was born in Greytown, Natal one of seven sons and eight daughters born to Louis Botha Senior and Salomina Adriana van Rooyen.
3.
Louis Botha briefly attended the school at Hermannsburg before his family relocated to the Orange Free State.
4.
The name Louis runs throughout the family, with every generation since General Louis Botha having the eldest son named Louis.
5.
Louis Botha had three brothers who served as generals in the Second Boer War: an older brother Philip Rudolf, and two younger brothers, Chris, a police officer, and Theunis Jacobus Louis Botha.
6.
Louis Botha led "Dinuzulu's Volunteers", a group of Boers that had supported Dinuzulu against Zibhebhu in 1884.
7.
Louis Botha later became a member of the parliament of Transvaal in 1897, representing the district of Vryheid.
8.
In 1899, Louis Botha fought in the Second Boer War, initially joining the Krugersdorp Commando, continuing to fight under Lucas Meyer in Northern Natal, and later as a general commanding and leading Boer forces impressively at Colenso and Spion Kop.
9.
Winston Churchill revealed that General Louis Botha was the man who captured him at the Battle of Chieveley.
10.
Churchill was not aware of the man's identity until 1902, when Louis Botha travelled to London seeking loans to assist his country's reconstruction, and the two met at a private luncheon.
11.
Louis Botha was prominent in efforts to achieve a peace with the British, representing the Boers at the peace negotiations in 1902, and was signatory to the Treaty of Vereeniging.
12.
Louis Botha, who was still looked upon as the leader of the Boer people, took a prominent part in politics, advocating always measures which he considered as tending to the maintenance of peace and good order and the re-establishment of prosperity in the Transvaal.
13.
Louis Botha's war record made him prominent in the politics of Transvaal and he was a major player in the postwar reconstruction of that country, founding with Jan Smuts the Het Volk Party in the Transvaal Colony in 1904, which served as a springboard to campaign for responsible self-government for the colony.
14.
When South Africa obtained dominion status in 1910, Louis Botha became the first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa.
15.
Widely viewed as too conciliatory with Britain, Louis Botha faced revolts from within his own party and opposition from James Barry Munnik Hertzog's National Party.
16.
Louis Botha argued that the terms of the Versailles Treaty were too harsh on the Central Powers, but signed the treaty.
17.
Louis Botha was plagued by fatigue and ill health that arose from his robust waistline.
18.
Louis Botha married Annie Emmett at the Dutch Reformed Church in Vryheid on 13 December 1886.
19.
Annie Louis Botha later converted from Anglicanism to Dutch Reformed Protestantism.
20.
General Louis Botha died of heart failure at his home following an attack of Spanish influenza on 27 August 1919 in the early hours of the morning.
21.
Louis Botha was laid to rest in the Rebecca Street Cemetery in Pretoria.
22.
Sculptor Raffaello Romanelli won the competition to create the equestrian statue of Louis Botha that stands in front of the South African Parliament building but died before completing it.