This offer was gladly accepted, and it was conveyed to Botha that the best help the Union could give would be to invade German South-West Africa. This also Botha agreed to do; but it is characteristic of his cautious and deliberate methods that for some weeks the English in South Africa were left in suspense, as no public announcement of his intentions was issued. From the outset he had seen that he would have to: tread warily with his own people; and before he could deal with the Germans he was suddenly faced by a serious revolt. Christian Frederick Beyers, the commandant-general of the burgher forces, De Wet in the Free State, and Solomon G. Maritz, commanding on the German frontier, took up arms against the policy of active intervention in the war, some of them in concert with the Germans. Botha’s own distress at this revolt of his own people, many of whom had recently been his trusted companions in arms, and his unflinching determination to do his duty are plain from his answer to a deputation from Pretoria: ‘For myself I am willing to submit to any personal humiliation if this is necessary rather than take arms against my own people, many of whom fought with me through the war. But I will not betray my trust, and if, after I have tried every method of negotiation, they still refuse to come in, I will move out against them with the commandos that I know will stand by me.’ It was characteristic too of Botha that, when he did take the field against the rebels, he called out the commandos' almost exclusively from the Dutch districts, to avoid the danger of renewing a racial conflict. On 28 October he smote Beyers’s main force near Rustenberg so effectually that it never recovered. The leader, after wandering about with small detachments, was drowned in the Vaal on 8 December. A week earlier De Wet was captured after a long flight through the desert, his forces in the Free State having been scattered by Botha on 11 November. By the end of February 1915 the last rebels had surrendered. In dealing with the delinquents Botha showed clemency; a few of those who had broken their military oath were shot, the other leaders, including De Wet, were given comparatively short terms of imprisonment, while the rank and file were dismissed to their homes.
Botha’s campaign against German South-West Africa, in which he himself took the chief command, was one of the prettiest pieces of strategy in the war. He himself advanced from Swakopmund against the main German forces at Windhoek, while three columns under Smuts entered the country from south, east, and west and drove all opposing force towards Botha at Windhoek. The actual fighting was not serious, but the country with its sand-storms, its villainous tracks, and its vast desert spaces in which many of the wells had been poisoned by the Germans, was & more serious obstacle than the enemy. Botha’s careful arrangements and the fine marching and fighting qualities called out among the South African troops, this time drawn from both races, by the confidence felt in their commander, surmounted all difficulties. The campaign, which had begun in March 1915, was concluded in the following July by the unconditional surrender of the German forces and of their colony. Botha gave generous terms to the Germans, both military and civilians, and signalized the moment of victory by issuing a proclamation in which he deprecated some anti-German rioting at Johannesburg, and stated that the war was being waged against the German government, but not against individual Germans, and that it was unworthy of the nation to forget its dignity.
To the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919 Botha went with Smuts as delegates for South Africa. Though under continuous medical treatment, Botha attended assiduously both the full meetings and the committees, and took a firm line in supporting the rights of the Dominions. He impressed all the delegates as one of the most commanding figures of the Conference, and whenever he spoke his opinion carried great weight. His hearers were, indeed, deeply moved by a speech from Botha pleading for compromise and lenient terms, in which he reminded them that ‘he also came from a conquered nation’. After signing the treaty he returned as quickly as he could to South Africa. But he was already a dying man. Shortly after reaching Pretoria he died, on 27 August, within a month of completing his fifty-seventh year.
Botha visited England several times after the Boer War, in 1902 in a private capacity, in 1907 when he had just assumed office in the Transvaal, in 1909 with the scheme for South African union, in 1911 for imperial conferences, and lastly at the time of the Peace of Versailles. Whenever he was in London his chief preoccupation was to guard the interests of South Africa. In 1907 he secured an advantageous loan from the imperial government; and in 1911
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