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 eventually fought to have South Africa become a British Dominion.
Early life
Louis Botha was born in Greytown, Natal one of seven sons and eight daughters born to Louis Botha Senior (Somerset East, Eastern Cape, 26 March 1827 – Harrismith, Orange Free State, 5 July 1883) and Salomina Adriana van Rooyen (Somerset East, 31 March 1829 – Harrismith, 9 January 1886). Louis Botha 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 had three brothers who also served as generals in the Second Boer War: an older brother Philip Rudolf (1851–1901), and two younger brothers, Chris (1864–1902), a police officer, and Theunis Jacobus Botha (1867–1930).
Zulu conflict
Louis Botha led "Dinuzulu's Volunteers", a group of Boers that had supported Dinuzulu against Zibhebhu in 1884.
Politician
Botha later became a member of the parliament of Transvaal in 1897, representing the district of Vryheid.
Second Boer War
Early battles
In 1899, Louis Botha fought in the Second Boer War, initially joining the Krugersdorp Commando, continuing to fight under Lucas Meyer in Northern Natal, and later as a general commanding and leading Boer forces impressively at Colenso and 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 one of the battles at the Tugela River, Botha granted a twenty-four-hour armistice to General Buller to enable him to bury his dead.
Capture of Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill revealed that General Botha was the man who captured him at the ambush of a British armoured train on 15 November 1899. also claims that Botha captured Churchill at train ambush 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. However more recent sources claim that Field cornet Sarel Oosthuizen was in fact the Boer soldier who, at gunpoint, captured Churchill. Another version claims that the unit to capture Churchill was the Italian Volunteer Legion and its commander, Camillo Ricchiardi.
Later campaigns
After the fall of Pretoria in June 1900, Louis 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.
Role after the Boer War
Botha was prominent in efforts to achieve a peace with the British, representing the Boers at the peace negotiations in 1902, and was signatory to the Treaty of Vereeniging. In the period of reconstruction under British rule, Botha went to Europe with de Wet and de la Rey to raise funds to enable the Boers to resume their former avocations. Botha, who was still looked upon as the leader of the Boer people, took a prominent part in politics, advocating always measures which he considered as tending to the maintenance of peace and good order and the re-establishment of prosperity in the Transvaal. His war record made him prominent in the politics of Transvaal and he was a major player in the postwar reconstruction of that country, founding with Jan Smuts the Het Volk Party in the Transvaal Colony in 1904, which served as a springboard to campaign for responsible self-government for the colony.