Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/720

548 General History oj Europe victorious two Boer weak Transvaal and the Orange Free State boldly declared war on England. The Boers made a brave fight, and the English managed the war badly. Many Englishmen thought it a shame to be fighting Paul Kruger and his fellow farmers, and the greater number of foreign nations were in sympathy with the Boers, but no one of the powers intervened. Finally England, after some humiliat- ing defeats, was and annexed the republics. 993. Formation of the South African Union. With a wise liberality toward the conquered Boers, Britain pro- ceeded to give them self- government like other parts of the empire. In 1910 an act of Parliament formed a South African Union on the General Smuts became premier of the union of South Africa and used his in- fluence against a movement to break away from Great Britain in 1921. He showed himself deeply concerned for the success of the League of Nations and expressed a high esteem for the role played by President Wilson in promot- ing its organization. (From a painting by Francis Dodd. Used by permission) GENERAL JAN CHRISTIAN SMUTS model of Canada and Austra- lia. This includes the flour- ishing Cape Colony, with its great diamond mines about Kimberley, Natal to the north- east, and the two Boer repub- lics the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. These are now managed as a single federation by a representative of the British ruler and a parliament which makes laws for the whole union. When war broke out between England and Germany in 1914 the Germans expected the Boers to rise against England, but they were disappointed. The prime minister of the South African Union, General Botha, who had been the best Boer general in the war against England fifteen years before, not only