Background
He was born on the 27th of September 1862 at Grey town (Natal). One of 13 children born to Louis Botha Senior (26 March 1827 – 5 July 1883) and Salomina Adriana van Rooyen (31 March 1829 – 9 January 1886).
He was born on the 27th of September 1862 at Grey town (Natal). One of 13 children born to Louis Botha Senior (26 March 1827 – 5 July 1883) and Salomina Adriana van Rooyen (31 March 1829 – 9 January 1886).
He briefly attended the school at Hermannsburg before his family relocated to the Orange Free State.
His family moved to the Orange Free State, where young Botha established contacts with the Zulus which were to change the course of his life.
Before King Cetshwayo of the Zulus died, he had indicated that his son, Dinuzulu, would succeed him.
Prince Zibebu's challenge to the young monarch's authority resulted in civil war.
Botha later became a member of the parliament of Transvaal in 1897,
representing the district of Vryheid.
In the Anglo-Boer war (1899 - 1902) Botha's genius as a military strategist came to the fore.
A field cornet when hostilities commenced, Botha was appointed aide-de-camp to Gen. Lucas Meyer, who commanded the Boer forces in northern Natal.
Meyer's task was to secure the southern borders of the republic.
Botha fought in the battles around Dundee (1899), where his resourcefulness first received attention.
Botha met him near Colenso and wrought havoc on the British forces.
Buller regrouped his army, Botha withdrew during the night, and Buller bombarded empty trenches.
Botha again mauled the British on Spion Kop.
But the eventual relief of Ladysmith in 1900 was a bitter blow to the Boers. Fortune was against the Boers.
The British were converging on the Transvaal, and demoralization had developed among some of the Boers.
He organized a crack force and was able within a few months to put it on the field.
Roberts could consider unconditional surrender only, and by September Pretoria had fallen. For Botha and the Boers, however, the war was not over.
Roberts's rejection of the armistice offer had transformed it into a people's war.
The British retaliated by burning farms suspected of harboring saboteurs.
Concentration camps were built to restrict the rebels. A second attempt to end hostilities followed.
Botha met the British in Middelburg in March 1901.
Negotiations broke down when the Boers insisted on the retention of their independence and wanted an amnesty for their followers.
In September, Kitchener announced that the Boers who did not surrender would be banished permanently and that the cost of maintaining their families would be charged against their property.
Botha replied to this with increased guerrilla activity. Botha tried once more to find a way to peace, and the treaty of Vereeniging was signed with the British on May 31, 1902.
Its terms displeased the Boers, and Botha joined a delegation to England to plead for modification.
Failing in this mission, they returned to South Africa, determined to extort maximum advantage from the Vereeniging settlement.
The wounds of the war had not healed when World War I broke out.
Botha was convinced that it was in South Africa's interest to fight with Britain.
He persuaded Parliament to approve his declaration of war against Germany and led the army which marched into South-West Africa.
The German governor, Dr. Theodor Seitz, surrendered near Tsumeb on July 9, 1915.
Botha imposed provisional military rule over the territory and then returned to Pretoria to start preparations for the expeditionary forces he was to send to Tanganyika and Europe.
The British asked him to sit on the War Cabinet, and in 1919 he was at Versailles, pleading for more humane treatment of the Germans.
In 1905 Botha and Jan Christiaan Smuts founded a Boer party, Het Volk (The People), which stood for conciliation and cooperation with the British.
Among the problems he had to face were the rise of Afrikaner nationalism, the segregation of the Africans, discontented Indian labor, and restive white workers. Botha's Boer critics were offended by his conciliation with the English, charged that cooperation served English ends at the expense of Afrikaner cultural interests, and demanded separate development for the Boers and the Britons.
For Botha, their demands struck at the roots of Afrikaner security and survival.
Crisis point was reached when James Hertzog insisted that the Dutch and English should be treated on a footing of real equality.
Botha sympathized with Hertzog's demand but asked for his resignation, fearing that Hertzog's demand would split the nation.
He supported the bill that Hertzog had drafted in 1912, prohibiting the sale of land in white areas to the Africans and vice versa.
Botha also had to deal with two serious strikes by white workers in 1913 and 1914.
