Jan Smuts
Jan Christian Smuts
Soldier-statesman who was twice prime minister of the Union of South Africa and went to Budapest as the Entente’s envoy in April 1919
Born to Afrikaner parents in the British Cape Colony, he studied law at Cambridge. He fought as an officer in a commando unit in the Second Boer War and played a key role in negotiating the Treaty of Vereeniging in 1902. He led the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, was responsible as defence minister for the Union Defence Force in the First World War and joined the Imperial War Cabinet in London in 1917. At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 he championed the League of Nations, and on 4 April he went to Budapest, offering Béla Kun’s government a neutral zone more favourable than the Vix note and the lifting of the blockade; when Kun rejected the terms he ended the talks. He was prime minister of the Union of South Africa in 1919–1924 and 1939–1948 and became a field marshal in 1941. He died of a heart attack in 1950.
Career timeline
- 1899–1902Commando officer in the Second Boer War
- 1910Creation of the Union of South Africa; interior, mines and defence minister
- 1917Imperial War Cabinet
- 1919Delegate at the Paris Peace Conference; envoy to Budapest
- 1919–1924Prime minister of the Union of South Africa
- 1939–1948Prime minister of the Union of South Africa