Procure General Smuts: South Africa Depicted By Antony Lentin Displayed In Manuscript

Smuts was one of the key figures behind the creation of the League of Nations Wilson was inspired by his ideas, including the mandates scheme, He pleaded for a magnanimous peace, warning that the treaty of Versailles would lead to another war, GENERAL SMUTS: THE FATHER OF RECONCILIATION

An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers

The World Cup may have raised South Africas sporting profile, but for our money, her history is much more fascinating hence the interest and timeliness of Tony Lentins latest historical biography of General Smuts.


General Smuts was South Africas Prime Minster at the time of the Second World War, fighting on Britains side as a British Field Marshal, In Churchills opinion, he was “one of the most enlightened, courageous and nobleminded men of the twentieth century, ”

The first thing you notice when you open the book is the quotation from Smutss remark to Sir Alfred Milner in: History writes the word reconciliation over all her quarrels.
One wonders whether Nelson Mandela was familiar with this utterance, took it to heart and enshrined it in the title of his Truth and Reconciliation initiative which continues to inform and inspire the continuing if difficult development of contemporary South Africa, with its agonizing mixture of almost intractable problems.
Well, who knows It seems apparent however, that reconciliation has become part of the collective mindset of South Africa,

Historians are aware but general readers all too often arent that Smutss achievements and influence were by no means local to South Africa, He was, as author Tony Lentin points out, the heart and conscience of the Paris Peace Conference in the aftermath of the First World War and is credited substantially for advocating the cause for magnanimity in victory, in the form of a different peace with Germany, rather than the punitive and vengeful peace which understandably eventually emerged.


An inspiration to Woodrow Wilson, Americas idealistic president, Smuts is credited with creating the plan which led to the formation of the League of Nations and inspired the Covenant of the League.
Lentins unshakeable belief in the importance of Smutss role at the Paris Peace Conference presents, in his words, another perhaps less familiar aspect of what happened at Paris,

Focusing on Smutss pivotal but frustratingly thwarted role at the Peace Conference, this eminently readable biography depicts a complex personality a Renaissance man of numerous gifts and talents.
The narrative follows his career first, as an assiduously studious academic at Cambridge, followed by a career as a barrister, followed by exploits as a commando leader in the Second Boer War and his subsequent statesmanlike role in the development of South Africa as an independent dominion.


However, Smuts seems also to have been a man of contradictory impulses, particularly in his attitude to Nazi Germany, Whilst he found Nazism absurd and repulsive, he saw it as a psychological consequence of the Treaty of Versailles whose revision he continued to urge even as the threat from German increased, says the author.
Some of the reasons for this stance are revealed in the book, Smuts believed in the inherent superiority of European civilization, primarily Anglo Saxon and Germanic, Compared with those of some of his contemporaries, his attitudes toward South Africas indigenous population were positively liberal, if paternalistic, yet as he told Parliament init is a fixed policy to maintain white supremacy in South Africa.


Nonetheless, despite some of his more unpalatable views, Smuts, towards the end of his life, apparently thought carefully about how, if he had remained in power, education and democracy might be extended to the black majority.
The magnanimity which was always his ideal and his watchword, undoubtedly served as an inspiration to Nelson Mandela, whose interesting and apposite opinion of Smuts, from Long Walk to Freedom appears in the book: I cared more that he had helped the foundation of the League of Nations, promoting freedom throughout the world, wrote Mandela, than the fact

that he had repressed freedom at home.


Smuts died in, Could he have foreseen the cruelties and horrifying injustices that were to be engendered by the apartheid regime

One would like to think not,

Antony Lentin, formerly a Professor of History at The Open University, is a senior member of Wolfson College, Cambridge, and the author of Guilt at Versailles: Lloyd George and the Pre History of Appeasement, Lloyd George and the Lost Peace: From Versailles to Hitlerand The Last Political Law Lord: Lord Summer.
A Barrister and former law tutor, he has contributed entries on lawyers, including Lords Sumner, Bowen, Loreburn, Reading and Maugham, to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, In SeptemberAnton Lentin wrote Jan Smuts: A Man of Courage and Vision, a book which reasseses the life of one of South Africas great leaders, Professor Lentins other main interest is eighteenth century Russ Antony Lentin, formerly a Professor of History at The Open University, is a senior member of Wolfson College, Cambridge, and the author of Guilt at Versailles: Lloyd George and the Pre History of Appeasement, Lloyd George and the Lost Peace: From Versailles to Hitlerand The Last Political Law Lord: Lord Summer.
A Barrister and former law tutor, he has contributed entries on lawyers, including Lords Sumner, Bowen, Loreburn, Reading and Maugham, to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, In SeptemberAnton Lentin wrote Jan Smuts: A Man of Courage and Vision, a book which reasseses the life of one of South Africas great leaders, Professor Lentins other main interest is eighteenth century Russia, on which he has published widely, He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, sitelink.