Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
On the eve of World War II, the Union of South Africa found itself in a unique political and military quandary. While it was closely allied with the United Kingdom, being a co-equal Dominion under the 1931 Statute of Westminster with its head of state being the British king, the South African Prime Minister and head of government on 1 September 1939 was J.B.M. Hertzog – the leader of the pro ...
The Union of South Africa was tied closely to the British Empire, and automatically joined with 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 fought against the British, but then became active and respected members of the Imperial War Cabinet.
Both South Africa and Cuba claimed victory at the decisive battle of Cuito Cuanavale, which have been described as "the fiercest in Africa since World War II". [193] However, the South African military had lost air superiority and its technological advantage, largely due to an international arms embargo against the country. [194]
View history; Tools. Tools. move to ... This is a list of the dates when African states were made colonies or protectorates of ... South Africa: 1879 United Kingdom:
The main period of decolonisation in Africa began after World War II. Growing independence movements, indigenous political parties and trade unions coupled with pressure from within the imperialist powers and from the United States and the Soviet Union ensured the decolonisation of the majority of the continent by 1980.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has records of 11,023 known South African war dead during World War II. [20] However, not all South Africans supported the war effort. The Anglo-Boer war had ended only thirty five years earlier and to some, siding with the "enemy" was considered disloyal and unpatriotic.
Troops took much of the territory, including Walvis Bay in the north, in 1915. In early 1915 the South African troops began moving into German South-West Africa. South African forces quickly moved through the country, but the Germans fought until cornered in the extreme north-west before surrendering on 9 July 1915.
The Transvaal Colony (Afrikaans pronunciation: [transˈfɑːl]) was the name used to refer to the Transvaal region during the period of direct British rule and military occupation between the end of the Second Boer War in 1902 when the South African Republic was dissolved, and the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910.