DEATH OF BOTHA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2022, 30 August 1919, Page 3

DEATH OF BOTHA.

SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. VICTIM OP INFLUENZA. Capetown, Aug. 28. General Botha died at midnight from influenza. The news .of General Botha’s death has caused universal grief, for no statesman was more generally beloved. General Botha’s symptoms, had for some time past been causing anxiety, apart from the fact that he bad periodical attacks of weakness for years. His work in Europe bad exhausted him, and the voyage to Africa was marked by ominous incidents. On the day of landing he was very weak, and intimate friends marvelled that he was able to bear the strain of public receptions. Nevertheless, the full seriousness of the position w-as not realised. The Premier caught a chill a few days ago, when on a visit to his farm, and was confined to bed on his return to Pretoria, but nothing serious was anticipated, but the illness took a sudden turn for , the worse last night. At 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon he' fell into a gentle sleep, from which there was no awakening, and his death was absolutely peaceful. Mrs Botha and Captain Botha were present when he died, but no other relatives were there, owing to the suddenness of the crisis.

There will be a State funeral on Saturday. General Smuts, as the senior Minister, will act as Premier.

General Louis Botha, who had only recently returned from the Peace Conference, to which he was, in his capacity as Premier, the chief South African delegate, was 56 years of age, and a native of Natal. He was a member of the first Transvaal Parliament, but the British community first realised his importance during the Boer War. He entered the conflict as a simple burgher, but after bis first engagement, outside Ladysmith, was unanimously elected by the Vryhcid Commando to succeed Lukas Meyer. He later succeeded Joubert in the chief command of tho Boer forces, then badly disintegrated, and reconstructed a vigorous fighting force, which maintained the struggle for two years. When the British penetrated into the Eastern Transvaal, he realised that the moment had arrived to organise that guerilla opposition which cost Britain so many millions. To the end he was the spirit of this form of resistance. Not only had he become a tactician and strategist of great and rapid execution, but he had developed an unerring faculty in estimating the quality of the generals opposed to him by their methods in battle, march and camp.

After the war, Botha, who had been born a British subject, became, when peace was made, a firm ally of Britain, and devoted himself to the improvement of- the status of the South African Union. General Botha was married to a lady who was a Miss Emmet, and who has been somewhat indefinitely described as being “ a descendant of the Irish patriot.” This has given rise to the erroneous impression that Mrs Botha is a descendant of Robert Emmet, who was executed in Dublin in 1803 for open rebellion. Robert Emmet died a bachelor, and it is from Thomas Ellis Emmet, the elder "brother of Robert., that Mrs Botha is descended.