Botha, Louis, Dutch burgher general in the Boer War with England (1899–1902), was a native of Natal, where he was born about the year 1861. In the war he defended the line of the Tugela River against Sir Redvers Buller, recaptured Spion Kop, and on the death of Joubert succeeded him as commandant-general of the Boer army. He has the reputation of being an able and attractive man, instinctively humane and even peace-loving and an ideal soldier.
