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Christiaan de Wet, 1900

Christiaan de Wet

Statue of Christiaan de Wet before the old Raadsaal, Bloemfontein

Christiaan Rudolf de Wet (7 October 1854 - 5 February 1922) was a Boer general, rebel leader and politician.

He was born on the farm Leeuwkop, in the district of Smithfield in the Boer Republic of the Orange Free State and later resided at Dewetsdorp, the latter which was named after his father, Jacobus Ignatius de Wet. He served in the first Anglo-Boer War of 1880-81 as a Field Cornet, taking part in the Battle of Majuba Mountain, where the Boers achieved a victory over the British forces under Major General Sir George Pomeroy Colley, which eventually led to the end of the war and the reinstatement of the independence of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, more commonly known as the Transvaal Republic. From 1881 to 1896 he lived on his farm, becoming in 1897 member of the Volksraad.

He took part in the earlier battles of the Boer War of 1899 in Natal as a commandant and later, as a general, he went to serve under Piet Cronjé in the west. His first successful action was the surprise of Sanna's Post near Bloemfontein, which was followed by the victory of Reddersburg a little later. Thenceforward he came to be regarded more and more as the most formidable leader of the Boers in their guerrilla warfare. Sometimes severely handled by the British, sometimes escaping only by the narrowest margin of safety from the columns which attempted to surround him, and falling upon and annihilating isolated British posts, De Wet continued to the end of the war his successful career, striking heavily where he could do so and skilfully evading every attempt to bring him to bay.

He took an active part in the peace negotiations of 1902, and at the conclusion of the war he visited Europe with the other Boer generals. While in England the generals sought, unavailingly, a modification of the terms of peace concluded at Pretoria. De Wet wrote an account of his campaigns, an English version of which appeared in November 1902 under the title Three Years War. In November, 1907 he was, elected a member of the first parliament of the Orange River Colony and was appointed minister of agriculture. In 1908-9 he was a delegate to the Closer Union Convention.

De Wet was one of the leaders in the rebellion which broke out in 1914. He was defeated at Mushroom Valley by General Botha on November 12, 1914, taken prisoner by Colonel Brits on December 1, and sentenced to a term of six years imprisonment and to pay a fine of £2000. He was released after one year's imprisonment, however, giving a written promise to take no further part in politics.

• De Wet, Der Kampf zwischen Bur und Brite - Der dreijährige Krieg, (Leipzig, 1902)
• De Wet, Three Years' War. (Charles Scribner's Sons N.Y., 1902) [Translated from Dutch]
• P. J. Sampson, Capture of De Wet and the South African Rebellion of 1914. (London, 1915)

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.