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Jan Smuts

Jan Christiaan Smuts was a South African soldier and politician.

Person

Willem van de Poll. Collectie van de Poll. Nationaal Archief, Den Haag.
  • Jan Christiaan Smuts
  • Born on: May 24, 1870
  • Born in: Riebeeck West, Zuid-Afrika
  • Died on: Sept. 11, 1950
  • Died in: Irene, Centurion, Zuid-Afrika

Jan Smuts

Willem van de Poll. Collectie van de Poll. Nationaal Archief, Den Haag.

Publiek domein

Jan Christiaan Smuts (1870-1950) was a South African soldier and politician.[1] Under his government, conscription was introduced in South Africa in early 1941. Since the Boer War, the white population had had strong anti-British sentiments. The Netherlands was popular because of the support it had provided in this conflict. In 1939, Smuts found it difficult to persuade his country to join the British side. Many in his country saw him as a turncoat, while the Dutch participation in the coalition against Germany was not well received either.

Smuts[2] had a great deal of influence on the British Prime Minister Churchill,[3] in whose company and that of the Chief of the British General Staff he visited in the war zone in France in June 1944.[4]

Footnotes

  1. ^ Wikipedia: Jan Smuts.
  2. ^ Anne refers to him as Smutz. Anne Frank, Diary Version A, 13 June 1944, in: The Collected Works, transl. from the Dutch by Susan Massotty, London [etc.]: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2019.
  3. ^ L. de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog : deel 7: mei '43 - juni '44 : eerste helft, Den Haag, Nijhoff, 1976, p. 404; tweede helft, Den Haag, Nijhoff, 1976, p. 701-702.
  4. ^ Churchill bezoekt Frankrijk, Amigoe di Curaçao, 13 juni 1944.