Old Master - The Life Of Jan Christian Smuts The Life of Jan Christian Smuts

OLD MASTER Thereof Jan Christian Smuts RENE KRAUS 1944 E. P. DUTTON CO., Inc. New Tork To Audrey, the inspiration, in gratitude. CONTENTS Part One-STORM AND STRESS CHAPTER PAGE 1. PROBLEM CHILD 11 2. TRANSVAAL INTERLUDE 18 3. SPRINGTIME IN STELLENBOSCH 29 4. ENGLAND YES AND NO 38 5. TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION 46 6. MISTER STATE ATTORNEY 59 7. UNTIL THE RAINS FALL 77 8. PRETORIA PRIDE AND FALL 91 9. COMMANDO 104 Part Two-POWER 10. VEREENICTNG STANDS FOR UNION 111 11. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH 121 12. RECONCILIATION 133 13. EARLY TRIUMPH 143 14. GANDHI 153 15. UNION 164 16. THE RISE AND FALL OF GENERAL HERTZOG 177 7 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE 17. PRELUDE TO CIVIL WAR 188 18. THfi-DKMH OF GENERAL DE LA REY 206 19. THE FIVE SHILLING REVOLUTION 219 20. TWO-FRONT WAR 240 21. ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD 259 22. GENERAL SMUTS DILEMMA 267 Part Three-PHOENIX 23. UPS AND DOWNS 285 24. DOWNFALL 293 25. THE LEAN YEARS 307 26. THE SHADOW OF THE SWASTIKA 321 27. PRELUDE TO WAR 331 28. ELL GAMELAYO WAAH 347 29. TWO-FRONT WAR AGAIN 356 SO. BLITZ OVER ENGLAND THUNDER IN SOUTH AFRICA 371 31. OSSEWA ERANDWAG 389 32. AS THE TIDE FLOWS 403 33. THE FALL OF TOBRUK 416 34. SOUTH AFRICA FIGHTS 425 35. AT THE HELM 443 36. VISION OF THE FUTURE 452 BIBLIOGRAPHY 461 INDEX 463 8 OLD MASTER NOTE Field Marshal Smuts was christened Jan Christiaan. During his development which has made him an ardent Briton, while remain ing a proud Boer, he dropped the second a from his second Christian name. The correct spelling 7 is now Christian. The Old Master, however, signs his name merely J. C. Smuts. During the period this book covers the Afrikander dropped the d. Today he prefers to be called Afrikaner. Defense is spelledwith c when the word forms part of a name or title Defence Force, or Minister for Defence. This is in South Africa the official spelling. Part One STORM AND STRESS Chapter 1 PROBLEM CHILD THE OLD MASTER IS A SON OF SOLITUDE. DESCENDED FROM THE early Boers who were so enamoured of loneliness that they sel dom saw smoke rising from a neighbors chimney, a delicate infant at the beginning, raised on a cattle and sheep ranch close to the Cape of Good Hope, he grew during the first seventy-four years of his life into that patriarchal loftiness that makes his people compare him to Table Mountain, the crest towering above the confluence of the Atlantic and the Indian oceans. No other man in our times has devoted his life so entirely to bringing people and nations together, to making a whole out of parts, to co-operation, union, fusion, to the brotherhood of mankind. But his brothers leave him alone. Except for a model marriage, the effect of which has deeply influenced the fate of South Africa, and for his strong feeling for his family, another predominant trait of the Boers, his innermost self has remained solitary. He became the chief architect of a new country, the Union of South Africa, and of a new people, the South Africans. He suffered the birth pangs, yet seemed indifferent to the pain he endured. For half a century he steered his people through every storm. But the waves never succeeded in engulfing him. The Old Master remained untouched, secluded, very much himself. The twenty-fourth of May, 1870, was joyously celebrated in 11 OLD MASTER the old Cape Colony. So, of course, was every twenty-fourth of May, the birthday of the gracious Queen. The sturdy Dutch, the majority of the whitepeople in tie colony, were eager to prove their loyalty to their exalted sovereign. It was, to quote an old French proverb, a little love and a little faithfulness, and just a grain of falsehood admixed. Loudly proclaimed allegiance to the Queen was, first, an expression of a genuine personal feeling, and, secondly, a perfect excuse for the Dutch peoples own national self-assertion, which, at about this time, began to show itself...