|
Louis Botha (27 September 1862 – 27 August 1919) 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. A Boer war hero during the Second Boer War, he would eventually fight to have South Africa become a British Dominion. ==Biography== He was born in Greytown, Natal as 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 The name Louis runs throughout the family, with every generation since General Louis Botha having the eldest son named Louis. Botha led "Dinuzulu's Volunteers", a group of Boers that supported Dinuzulu against Zibhebhu in 1884. He later became a member of the parliament of Transvaal in 1897, representing the district of Vryheid. In 1899, Botha fought in the Second Boer War, initially under Lucas Meyer in Northern Natal, and later as a general commanding and fighting with impressive capability at Colenso and Battle of Spion Kop. On the death of P. J. Joubert, he was made commander-in-chief of the Transvaal Boers, where he demonstrated his abilities again at Belfast-Dalmanutha. After the battle at the Tugela, Botha granted a twenty-four hour armistice to General Buller to enable him to bury his dead.〔Boer War to Easter Rising - The Writings of John MacBride, Jordan Anthony J., p. 43, Westport Books 2006, ISBN 978-0-9524447-6-3〕 Winston Churchill revealed〔Winston Churchill, ''My Early Life'', p. 250, Eland Publishing Ltd (2000 ed.)〕 that General Botha was the man who captured him at the ambush of a British armoured train on 15 November 1899. Churchill was not aware of the man's identity until 1902, when Botha travelled to London seeking loans to assist his country's reconstruction, and the two met at a private luncheon. The incident is also mentioned in Arthur Conan Doyle's book, ''The Great Boer War'', published in 1902. But more recent sources claim that Field-Cornet Sarel Oosthuizen was in fact the Boer-soldier who, at gunpoint, captured Churchill.〔http://www.prominentpeople.co.za/churchill-sir-winston-hamilton.aspx〕 Another version claims that to capture Churchill was the Italian Volunteer Legion and its commander, Camillo Ricchiardi. After the fall of Pretoria in June 1900, Botha led a concentrated guerrilla campaign against the British together with Koos de la Rey and Christiaan de Wet. The success of his measures was seen in the steady resistance offered by the Boers to the very close of the three-year war. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Louis Botha」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|