Jan Christiaan Smuts , was born on 24 as maypole as 1870 and died on November as September as 1950 , South African lawyer and marshal.
Biography of Jan Christiaan Smuts
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- 1 Biographical synthesis
- 2 World War I
- 3 Back in politics
- 4 Postwar
- 5 Sources
Biographical syntheses
He was born in South Africa , so he was a Boer (Afrikaneer) although British by birth. He was educated at Victoria College in Stellenbosch and later studied at the University of Cambridge in England where he received his doctorate in law. In 1895 he was admitted to the Bar of the Cape Colony. After Sir Leander Starr Jameson led a group of rebels in 1895 to raise up the Transvaal settlers and achieve unification, Smuts became convinced that Britain intended to conquer the Republic of South Africa and renounced his British nationality and traveled to Africa. Where, inIn 1898 he became a state attorney. Before traveling, he married Sybella Margaretha (Issie) on April 30 , 1897 . In February 1901 , during the War of the Borres , he commanded a guerrilla unit. In 1904 he became convinced that cooperation between the Boers and the British was essential for the development of South Africa and in union with Louis Botha he made efforts to achieve this alliance. He worked intensively for the creation of the Union of South Africa participating in the cabinet of Louis Botha when it was founded in 1910 . Later he was Minister of Defense, Minister of the Interior and Mines and Minister of Finance.
First World War
During World War I he thwarted a Boer uprising and in 1916 served as a general in the campaign against the German colony in East Africa. Between 1917 and 1918 he was a member of the Imperial War Cabinet in London and signed the Treaty of Versailles , however he protested because in his opinion the terms of the treaty cornered Germany, threatening harmony in the world order. After Botha’s death in 1919 , Smuts led the Unionist Party and between 1919 and 1924 he was Prime Minister and Minister for Native Affairs. In 1924his party lost the elections to the coalition of Labor and Nationalists. He retired from political life to write the book “Holism and Evolution.”
Back in politics
Again in 1933 and until 1939 he was Minister of Justice in the coalition cabinet but when Prime Minister Hertzog objected to participating in World War II Smuts replaced him in office and declared war on Germany on [[September 6, 1939 . However, due to the pro-German sentiment of the Boers, it was not easy to pass the draft of the law. Ultimately, all members of the Union armed forces who participated in the war were volunteers and only went into action in North Africa. In 1941He was appointed Field Marshal, although he spent most of the war in London performing political functions in the British War Council. Then he was very active participating in the creation of the United Nations .
Postwar period
After the war, Smuts’ party lost the elections in 1948 to the Nationalists. Smuts’ political thought represented the portion of South Africans who had a feeling of independence with the cooperation of the British Empire and who had fewer racial differences than the nationalists. Jan Christiaan Smuts, soldier, politician, philosopher, botanist, and grass expert, passed away on September 11 , 1950
