JAN CHRISTIAN SMUTS AS A GENERAL IN EAST AFRICA, 1916-An appraisal

摘要

It is as a statesman and philosopher that Field-Marshal Jan Christian Smuts is mostly remembered. Others would describe him as a politician. He saw himself as being a general in his spare time (Hancock, 1962, p 107). However, few have tried to assess the competence of this part-time general. Importantly, Louis Botha, J C Smuts and J L van Deventer were the only South Africans to be commanders-in-chief in a theatre of operations in either of the two world wars.