Natal

Main article: Colony of Natal

Indian indentured labourers arriving in Durban

Indian slaves from the Dutch colonies had been introduced into the Cape area of
South Africa by the Dutch settlers in 1654.[60]

By the end of 1847, following annexation by Britain of the former Boer republic of
Natalia, nearly all the Boers had left their former republic, which the British
renamed Natal. The role of the Boer settlers was replaced by subsidised British
immigrants of whom 5,000 arrived between 1849 and 1851.[61]

By 1860, with slavery having been abolished in 1834, and after the annexation of
Natal as a British colony in 1843, the British colonialists in Natal (now kwaZulu-
Natal) turned to India to resolve a labour shortage. Men of the local Zulu warrior
nation were refusing to adopt the servile position of labourers. In that year, the
SS Truro arrived in Durban harbour with over 300 Indians on board.

Over the next 50 years, 150,000 more indentured Indian servants and labourers
arrived, as well as numerous free "passenger Indians," building the base for what
would become the largest Indian community outside India.

By 1893, when the lawyer and social activist Mahatma Gandhi arrived in Durban,
Indians outnumbered whites in Natal. The civil rights struggle of Gandhi's Natal
Indian Congress failed; until the 1994 advent of democracy, Indians in South Africa
were subject to most of the discriminatory laws that applied to all non-white
inhabitants of the country.
Griqua people
Main article: Griqua people
Nicolaas Waterboer, Griqualand ruler, 1852-1896

By the late 1700s, the Cape Colony population had grown to include a large number
of mixed-race so-called "coloureds" who were the offspring of extensive interracial
relations between male Dutch settlers, Khoikhoi females, and female slaves imported
from Dutch colonies in the East.[62] Members of this mixed-race community formed
the core of what was to become the Griqua people.

Under the leadership of a former slave named Adam Kok, these "coloureds" or Basters
(meaning mixed race or multiracial) as they were named by the Dutch, started
trekking northward into the interior, through what is today named Northern Cape
Province. The trek of the Griquas to escape the influence of the Cape Colony has
been described as "one of the great epics of the 19th century."[63] They were
joined on their long journey by a number of San and Khoikhoi aboriginals, local
African tribesmen, and also some white renegades. Around 1800, they started
crossing the northern frontier formed by the Orange River, arriving ultimately in
an uninhabited area, which they named Griqualand.[64]

In 1825, a faction of the Griqua people was induced by Dr John Philip,

superintendent of the London Missionary Society in Southern Africa, to relocate to
a place called Philippolis, a mission station for the San, several hundred miles
southeast of Griqualand. Philip's intention was for the Griquas to protect the
missionary station there against banditti in the region, and as a bulwark against
the northward movement of white settlers from the Cape Colony. Friction between the
Griquas and the settlers over land rights resulted in British troops being sent to
the region in 1845. It marked the beginning of nine years of British intervention
in the affairs of the region, which the British named Transorange.[65]

In 1861, to avoid the imminent prospect of either being colonised by the Cape
Colony or coming into conflict with the expanding Boer Republic of Orange Free
State, most of the Philippolis Griquas embarked on a further trek. They moved about
500 miles eastward, over the Quathlamba (today known as the Drakensberg mountain
range), settling ultimately in an area officially designated as "Nomansland", which
the Griquas renamed Griqualand East.[66] East Griqualand was subsequently annexed
by Britain in 1874 and incorporated into the Cape Colony in 1879.[67]

The original Griqualand, north of the Orange River, was annexed by Britain's Cape
Colony and renamed Griqualand West after the discovery in 1871 of the world's
richest deposit of diamonds at Kimberley, so named after the British Colonial
Secretary, Earl Kimberley.[68]

Although no formally surveyed boundaries existed, Griqua leader Nicolaas Waterboer

claimed the diamond fields were situated on land belonging to the Griquas.[69] The
Boer republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State also vied for ownership of
the land, but Britain, being the preeminent force in the region, won control over
the disputed territory. In 1878, Waterboer led an unsuccessful rebellion against
the colonial authorities, for which he was arrested and briefly exiled.[70]
Cape Frontier Wars

In early South Africa, European notions of national boundaries and land ownership
had no counterparts in African political culture. To Moshoeshoe the BaSotho
chieftain from Lesotho, it was customary tribute in the form of horses and cattle
represented acceptance of land use under his authority.[71][72] To both the Boer
and the British settlers, the same form of tribute was believed to constitute
purchase and permanent ownership of the land under independent authority.

As British and Boer settlers started establishing permanent farms after trekking
across the country in search of prime agricultural land, they encountered
resistance from the local Bantu people who had originally migrated southwards from
central Africa hundreds of years earlier. The consequent frontier wars, known as
the Xhosa Wars, were unofficially referred to by the British colonial authorities
as the "Kaffir" wars. In the southeastern part of South Africa, The Boers and the
Xhosa clashed along the Great Fish River, and in 1779 the first of nine frontier
wars erupted. For nearly 100 years subsequently, the Xhosa fought the settlers
sporadically, first the Boers or Afrikaners and later the British. In the Fourth
Frontier War, which lasted from 1811 to 1812, the British forced the Xhosa back
across the Great Fish River and established forts along this boundary.

The increasing economic involvement of the British in southern Africa from the
1820s, and especially following the discovery of first diamonds at Kimberley and
gold in the Transvaal, resulted in pressure for land and African labour, and led to
increasingly tense relations with African states.[38]

In 1818 differences between two Xhosa leaders, Ndlambe and Ngqika, ended in
Ngqika's defeat, but the British continued to recognise Ngqika as the paramount
chief. He appealed to the British for help against Ndlambe, who retaliated in 1819
during the Fifth Frontier War by attacking the British colonial town of
Grahamstown.
Wars against the Zulu
King Cetshwayo (ca. 1875)

In the eastern part of what is today South Africa, in the region named Natalia by
the Boer trekkers, the latter negotiated an agreement with Zulu King Dingane
kaSenzangakhona allowing the Boers to settle in part of the then Zulu kingdom.
Cattle rustling ensued and a party of Boers under the leadership of Piet Retief
were killed.

Subsequent to the killing of the Retief party, the Boers defended themselves
against a Zulu attack, at the Ncome River on 16 December 1838. An estimated five
thousand Zulu warriors were involved. The Boers took a defensive position with the
high banks of the Ncome River forming a natural barrier to their rear with their ox
waggons as barricades between themselves and the attacking Zulu army. About three
thousand Zulu warriors died in the clash known historically as the Battle of Blood
River.[73][74]

In the later annexation of the Zulu kingdom by imperial Britain, an Anglo-Zulu War
was fought in 1879. Following Lord Carnarvon's successful introduction of
federation in Canada, it was thought that similar political effort, coupled with
military campaigns, might succeed with the African kingdoms, tribal areas and Boer
republics in South Africa.

In 1874, Sir Henry Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner for
the British Empire to bring such plans into being. Among the obstacles were the
presence of the independent states of the South African Republic and the Kingdom of
Zululand and its army. Frere, on his own initiative, without the approval of the
British government and with the intent of instigating a war with the Zulu, had
presented an ultimatum on 11 December 1878, to the Zulu king Cetshwayo with which
the Zulu king could not comply. Bartle Frere then sent Lord Chelmsford to invade
Zululand. The war is notable for several particularly bloody battles, including an
overwhelming victory by the Zulu at the Battle of Isandlwana, as well as for being
a landmark in the timeline of imperialism in the region.

Britain's eventual defeat of the Zulus, marking the end of the Zulu nation's
independence, was accomplished with the assistance of Zulu collaborators who
harboured cultural and political resentments against centralised Zulu authority.
[75] The British then set about establishing large sugar plantations in the area
today named KwaZulu-Natal Province.
Wars with the Basotho
King Moshoeshoe with his advisors

From the 1830s onwards, numbers of white settlers from the Cape Colony crossed the
Orange River and started arriving in the fertile southern part of territory known
as the Lower Caledon Valley, which was occupied by Basotho cattle herders under the
authority of the Basotho founding monarch Moshoeshoe I. In 1845, a treaty was
signed between the British colonists and Moshoeshoe, which recognised white
settlement in the area. No firm boundaries were drawn between the area of white
settlement and Moshoeshoe's kingdom, which led to border clashes. Moshoeshoe was
under the impression he was loaning grazing land to the settlers in accordance with
African precepts of occupation rather than ownership, while the settlers believed
they had been granted permanent land rights. Afrikaner settlers in particular were
loathe to live under Moshoesoe's authority and among Africans.[76]

The British, who at that time controlled the area between the Orange and Vaal
Rivers called the Orange River Sovereignty, decided a discernible boundary was
necessary and proclaimed a line named the Warden Line, dividing the area between
British and Basotho territories. This led to conflict between the Basotho and the
British, who were defeated by Moshoeshoe's warriors at the battle of Viervoet in
1851.

As punishment to the Basotho, the governor and commander-in-chief of the Cape

Colony, Sir George Cathcart, deployed troops to the Mohokare River; Moshoeshoe was
ordered to pay a fine. When he did not pay the fine in full, a battle broke out on
the Berea Plateau in 1852, where the British suffered heavy losses. In 1854, the
British handed over the territory to the Boers through the signing of the Sand
River Convention. This territory and others in the region then became the Republic
of the Orange Free State.[77]

A succession of wars followed from 1858 to 1868 between the Basotho kingdom and the
Boer republic of Orange Free State.[78] In the battles that followed, the Orange
Free State tried unsuccessfully to capture Moshoeshoe's mountain stronghold at
Thaba Bosiu, while the Sotho conducted raids in Free State territories. Both sides
adopted scorched-earth tactics, with large swathes of pasturage and cropland being
destroyed.[79] Faced with starvation, Moshoeshoe signed a peace treaty on 15
October 1858, though crucial boundary issues remained unresolved.[80] War broke out
again in 1865. After an unsuccessful appeal for aid from the British Empire,
Moshoeshoe signed the 1866 treaty of Thaba Bosiu, with the Basotho ceding
substantial territory to the Orange Free State. On 12 March 1868, the British
parliament declared the Basotho Kingdom a British protectorate and part of the
British Empire. Open hostilities ceased between the Orange Free State and the
Basotho.[81] The country was subsequently named Basutoland and is presently named
Lesotho.
Wars with the Ndebele
Boer Voortrekkers depicted in an early artist's rendition

In 1836, when Boer Voortrekkers (pioneers) arrived in the northwestern part of

present-day South Africa, they came into conflict with a Ndebele sub-group that the
settlers named "Matabele", under chief Mzilikazi. A series of battles ensued, in
which Mzilikazi was eventually defeated. He withdrew from the area and led his
people northwards to what would later become the Matabele region of Southern
Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).[82]

Other members of the Ndebele ethnic language group in different areas of the region
similarly came into conflict with the Voortrekkers, notably in the area that would
later become the Northern Transvaal. In September 1854, 28 Boers accused of cattle
rustling were killed in three separate incidents by an alliance of the Ndebele
chiefdoms of Mokopane and Mankopane. Mokopane and his followers, anticipating
retaliation by the settlers, retreated into the mountain caves known as Gwasa, (or
Makapansgat in Afrikaans). In late October, Boer commandos supported by local
Kgatla tribal collaborators laid siege to the caves. By the end of the siege, about
three weeks later, Mokopane and between 1,000 and 3,000 people had died in the
caves. The survivors were captured and allegedly enslaved.[83]
Wars with the Bapedi

The Bapedi wars, also known as the Sekhukhune wars, consisted of three separate
campaigns fought between 1876 and 1879 against the Bapedi under their reigning
monarch King Sekhukhune I, in the northeastern region known as Sekhukhuneland,
bordering on Swaziland. Further friction was caused by the refusal of Sekhukhune to
allow prospectors to search for gold in territory he considered to be sovereign and
independent under his authority. The First Sekhukhune War of 1876 was conducted by
the Boers, and the two separate campaigns of the Second Sekhukhune War of 1878/1879
were conducted by the British.[84]

During the final campaign, Sekukuni (also spelled Sekhukhune) and members of his
entourage took refuge in a mountain cave where he was cut off from food and water.
He eventually surrendered to a combined deputation of Boer and British forces on 2
December 1879. Sekhukhune, members of his family and some Bapedi generals were
subsequently imprisoned in Pretoria for two years, with Sekhukhuneland becoming
part of the Transvaal Republic. No gold was ever discovered in the annexed
territory.[85]
Discovery of diamonds
Cecil John Rhodes, co-founder of De Beers Consolidated Mines at Kimberley

The first diamond discoveries between 1866 and 1867 were alluvial, on the southern
banks of the Orange River. By 1869, diamonds were found at some distance from any
stream or river, in hard rock called blue ground, later called kimberlite, after
the mining town of Kimberley where the diamond diggings were concentrated. The
diggings were located in an area of vague boundaries and disputed land ownership.
Claimants to the site included the South African (Transvaal) Republic, the Orange
Free State Republic, and the mixed-race Griqua nation under Nicolaas Waterboer.[86]
Cape Colony Governor Sir Henry Barkly persuaded all claimants to submit themselves
to a decision of an arbitrator and so Robert W Keate, Lieutenant-Governor of Natal
was asked to arbitrate.[87] Keate awarded ownership to the Griquas. Waterboer,
fearing conflict with the Boer republic of Orange Free State, subsequently asked
for and received British protection. Griqualand then became a separate Crown Colony
renamed Griqualand West in 1871, with a Lieutenant-General and legislative council.
[88]

The Crown Colony of Griqualand West was annexed into the Cape Colony in 1877,
enacted into law in 1880.[89] No material benefits accrued to the Griquas as a
result of either colonisation or annexation; they did not receive any share of the
diamond wealth generated at Kimberley. The Griqua community became subsequently
dissimulated.[90]

By the 1870s and 1880s the mines at Kimberley were producing 95% of the world's
diamonds.[91] The widening search for gold and other resources were financed by the
wealth produced and the practical experience gained at Kimberley.[92] Revenue
accruing to the Cape Colony from the Kimberley diamond diggings enabled the Cape
Colony to be granted responsible government status in 1872, since it was no longer
dependent on the British Treasury and hence allowing it to be fully self-governing
in similar fashion to the federation of Canada, New Zealand and some of the
Australian states.[93] The wealth derived from Kimberley diamond mining, having
effectively tripled the customs revenue of the Cape Colony from 1871 to 1875, also
doubled its population, and allowed it to expand its boundaries and railways to the
north.[94]

In 1888, British imperialist Cecil John Rhodes co-founded De Beers Consolidated

Mines at Kimberley, after buying up and amalgamating the individual claims with
finance provided by the Rothschild dynasty. Abundant, cheap African labour was
central to the success of Kimberley diamond mining, as it would later also be to
the success of gold mining on the Witwatersrand.[95][96] It has been suggested in
some academic circles that the wealth produced at Kimberley was a significant
factor influencing the Scramble for Africa, in which European powers had by 1902
competed with each other in drawing arbitrary boundaries across almost the entire
continent and dividing it among themselves.[97][98]
Discovery of gold
Main article: Witwatersrand Gold Rush
Johannesburg before gold mining transformed it into a bustling modern city

Although many tales abound, there is no conclusive evidence as to who first

discovered gold or the manner in which it was originally discovered in the late
19th century on the Witwatersrand (meaning White Waters Ridge) of the Transvaal.
[99] The discovery of gold in February 1886 at a farm called Langlaagte on the
Witwatersrand in particular precipitated a gold rush by prospectors and fortune
seekers from all over the world. Except in rare outcrops, however, the main gold
deposits had over many years become covered gradually by thousands of feet of hard
rock. Finding and extracting the deposits far below the ground called for the
capital and engineering skills that would soon result in the deep-level mines of
the Witwatersrand producing a quarter of the world's gold, with the "instant city"
of Johannesburg arising astride the main Witwatersrand gold reef.[100]

Within two years of gold being discovered on the Witwatersrand, four mining finance
houses had been established. The first was formed by Hermann Eckstein in 1887,
eventually becoming Rand Mines. Cecil Rhodes and Charles Rudd followed, with their
Gold Fields of South Africa company. Rhodes and Rudd had earlier made fortunes from
diamond mining at Kimberley.[101] In 1895 there was an investment boom in
Witwatersrand gold-mining shares. The precious metal that underpinned international
trade would dominate South African exports for decades to come.[102]

Of the leading 25 foreign industrialists who were instrumental in opening up deep

level mining operations at the Witwatersrand gold fields, 15 were Jewish, 11 of the
total were from Germany or Austria, and nine of that latter category were also
Jewish.[103] The commercial opportunities opened by the discovery of gold attracted
many other people of European Jewish origin. The Jewish population of South Africa
in 1880 numbered approximately 4,000; by 1914 it had grown to more than 40,000,
mostly migrants from Lithuania.[104]

The working environment of the mines, meanwhile, as one historian has described it,
was "dangerous, brutal and onerous", and therefore unpopular among local black
Africans.[105] Recruitment of black labour began to prove difficult, even with an
offer of improved wages. In mid-1903 there remained barely half of the 90,000 black
labourers who had been employed in the industry in mid-1899.[106] The decision was
made to start importing Chinese indentured labourers who were prepared to work for
far less wages than local African labourers. The first 1,000 indentured Chinese
labourers arrived in June 1904. By January 1907, 53,000 Chinese labourers were
working in the gold mines.[107]
First Anglo-Boer War
Main article: First Boer War

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Regional geography during the period of the Anglo-Boer wars:
South African Republic/Transvaal
Orange Free State
British Cape Colony
Natalia Republic

The Transvaal Boer republic was forcefully annexed by Britain in 1877, during
Britain's attempt to consolidate the states of southern Africa under British rule.
Long-standing Boer resentment turned into full-blown rebellion in the Transvaal and
the first Anglo-Boer War, also known as the Boer Insurrection, broke out in 1880.
[108] The conflict ended almost as soon as it began with a decisive Boer victory at
Battle of Majuba Hill (27 February 1881).

The republic regained its independence as the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek ("South

African Republic"), or ZAR. Paul Kruger, one of the leaders of the uprising, became
President of the ZAR in 1883. Meanwhile, the British, who viewed their defeat at
Majuba as an aberration, forged ahead with their desire to federate the Southern
African colonies and republics. They saw this as the best way to come to terms with
the fact of a white Afrikaner majority, as well as to promote their larger
strategic interests in the area.[citation needed]

The cause of the Anglo-Boer wars has been attributed to a contest over which nation
would control and benefit most from the Witwatersrand gold mines.[109] The enormous
wealth of the mines was in the hands of European "Randlords" overseeing the mainly
British foreign managers, mining foremen, engineers and technical specialists,
characterised by the Boers as uitlander, meaning aliens. The "aliens" objected to
being denied parliamentary representation and the right to vote, and they
complained also of bureaucratic government delays in the issuing of licenses and
permits, and general administrative incompetence on the part of the government.
[110]

In 1895, a column of mercenaries in the employ of Cecil John Rhodes' Rhodesian-

based Charter Company and led by Captain Leander Starr Jameson had entered the ZAR
with the intention of sparking an uprising on the Witwatersrand and installing a
British administration there. The armed incursion became known as the Jameson Raid.
[111] It ended when the invading column was ambushed and captured by Boer
commandos. President Kruger suspected the insurgency had received at least the
tacit approval of the Cape Colony government under the premiership of Cecil John
Rhodes, and that Kruger's South African Republic faced imminent danger. Kruger
reacted by forming an alliance with the neighbouring Boer republic of Orange Free
State. This did not prevent the outbreak of a Second Anglo-Boer war.
Second Anglo-Boer War
Main article: Second Boer War
Emily Hobhouse campaigned against the appalling conditions of the British
concentration camps in South Africa, thus influencing British public opinion
against the war.

Renewed tensions between Britain and the Boers peaked in 1899 when the British
demanded voting rights for the 60,000 foreign whites on the Witwatersrand. Until
that point, President Paul Kruger's government had excluded all foreigners from the
franchise. Kruger rejected the British demand and called for the withdrawal of
British troops from the borders of the South African Republic. When the British
refused, Kruger declared war. This Second Anglo-Boer War, also known as the South
African War lasted longer than the first, with British troops being supplemented by
colonial troops from Southern Rhodesia, Canada, India, Australia and New Zealand.
It has been estimated that the total number of British and colonial troops deployed
in South Africa during the war outnumbered the population of the two Boer Republics
by more than 150,000.[112]

By June 1900, Pretoria, the last of the major Boer towns, had surrendered. Yet
resistance by Boer bittereinders (meaning those who would fight to the bitter end)
continued for two more years with guerrilla warfare, which the British met in turn
with scorched earth tactics. The Boers kept on fighting.

The British suffragette Emily Hobhouse visited British concentration camps in South
Africa and produced a report condemning the appalling conditions there. By 1902,
26,000 Boer women and children had died of disease and neglect in the camps.[113]

The Anglo-Boer War affected all race groups in South Africa. Black people were
conscripted or otherwise coerced by both sides into working for them either as
combatants or non-combatants to sustain the respective war efforts of both the
Boers and the British. The official statistics of blacks killed in action are
inaccurate. Most of the bodies were dumped in unmarked graves. It has, however,
been verified that 17,182 black people died mainly of diseases in the Cape
concentration camps alone, but this figure is not accepted historically as a true
reflection of the overall numbers. Concentration camp superintendents did not
always record the deaths of black inmates in the camps.[114]

From the outset of hostilities in October 1899 to the signing of peace on 31 May
1902 the war claimed the lives of 22,000 imperial soldiers and 7,000 republican
fighters.[115] In terms of the peace agreement known as the Treaty of Vereeniging,
the Boer republics acknowledged British sovereignty, while the British in turn
committed themselves to reconstruction of the areas under their control.
Union of South Africa (1910–1948)
Main articles: History of South Africa (1910–48) and Union of South Africa
Union Buildings, government administrative centre, Pretoria, c. 1925

During the years immediately following the Anglo-Boer wars, Britain set about
unifying the four colonies including the former Boer republics into a single self-
governed country called the Union of South Africa. This was accomplished after
several years of negotiations, when the South Africa Act 1909 consolidated the Cape
Colony, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange Free State into one nation. Under the
provisions of the act, the Union became an independent Dominion of the British
Empire, governed under a form of constitutional monarchy, with the British monarch
represented by a Governor-General. Prosecutions before the courts of the Union of
South Africa were instituted in the name of the Crown and government officials
served in the name of the Crown. The British High Commission territories of
Basutoland (now Lesotho), Bechuanaland (now Botswana), and Swaziland continued
under direct rule from Britain.[116]

Among other harsh segregationist laws, including denial of voting rights to black
people, the Union parliament enacted the 1913 Natives' Land Act, which earmarked
only eight percent of South Africa's available land for black occupancy. White
people, who constituted 20 percent of the population, held 90 percent of the land.
The Land Act would form a cornerstone of legalised racial discrimination for the
next nine decades.[117]
Daniel François Malan, National Party leader from 1934 to 1953

General Louis Botha headed the first government of the new Union, with General Jan
Smuts as his deputy. Their South African National Party, later known as the South
African Party or SAP, followed a generally pro-British, white-unity line. The more
radical Boers split away under the leadership of General Barry Hertzog, forming the
National Party (NP) in 1914. The National Party championed Afrikaner interests,
advocating separate development for the two white groups, and independence from
Britain.[118]

Dissatisfaction with British influence in the Union's affairs reached a climax in

September 1914, when impoverished Boers, anti-British Boers and bitter-enders
launched a rebellion. The rebellion was suppressed, and at least one officer was
sentenced to death and executed by firing squad.[119]

In 1924 the Afrikaner-dominated National Party came to power in a coalition

government with the Labour Party. Afrikaans, previously regarded as a low-level
Dutch patois, replaced Dutch as an official language of the Union. English and
Dutch became the two official languages in 1925.[120][121]

The Union of South Africa came to an end after a referendum on 5 October 1960, in
which a majority of white South Africans voted in favour of unilateral withdrawal
from the British Commonwealth and the establishment of a Republic of South Africa.
First World War
Main articles: Jan Smuts and Military history of South Africa during World War I
The British Empire is red on the map, at its zenith in 1919. (India highlighted in
purple.) South Africa, bottom centre, lies between both halves of the Empire.

At the outbreak of World War I, South Africa joined Great Britain and the Allies
against the German Empire. Both Prime Minister Louis Botha and Defence Minister Jan
Smuts were former Second Boer War generals who had previously fought against the
British, but they now became active and respected members of the Imperial War
Cabinet. Elements of the South African Army refused to fight against the Germans
and along with other opponents of the government; they rose in an open revolt known
as the Maritz Rebellion. The government declared martial law on 14 October 1914,
and forces loyal to the government under the command of generals Louis Botha and
Jan Smuts defeated the rebellion. The rebel leaders were prosecuted, fined heavily
and sentenced to imprisonment ranging from six to seven years.[122]

Public opinion in South Africa split along racial and ethnic lines. The British
elements strongly supported the war, and formed by far the largest military
component. Likewise the Indian element (led by Mahatma Gandhi) generally supported
the war effort. Afrikaners were split, with some like Botha and Smuts taking a
prominent leadership role in the British war effort. This position was rejected by
many rural Afrikaners who supported the Maritz Rebellion. The trade union movement
was divided. Many urban blacks supported the war expecting it would raise their
status in society. Others said it was not relevant to the struggle for their
rights. The Coloured element was generally supportive and many served in a Coloured
Corps in East Africa and France, also hoping to better themselves after the war.
[122]

With a population of roughly 6 million, between 1914 - 1918, over 250,000 South
Africans of all races voluntarily served their country. Thousands more served in
the British Army directly, with over 3,000 joining the British Royal Flying Corps
and over 100 volunteering for the Royal Navy. It is likely that around 50% of white
men of military age served during the war, more than 146,000 whites. 83,000 Blacks
and 2,500 Coloureds and Asians also served in either German South-West Africa, East
Africa, the Middle East, or on the Western Front in Europe. Over 7,000 South
Africans were killed, and nearly 12,000 were wounded during the course of the war.
[123] Eight South Africans won the Victoria Cross for gallantry, the Empire’s
highest and prestigious military medal. The Battle of Delville Wood and the sinking
of the SS Mendi being the greatest single incidents of loss of life.