20 Battles. Searching for a South African Way of War, 1913-2013, by Evert Kleynhans and David Brock Katz.

20 Battles. Searching for a South African Way of War, 1913-2013, by Evert Kleynhans and David Brock Katz. Delta Books, Jonathan Ball Publishers. Johannesburg, South Africa 2023. ISBN 9781928248224 / ISBN 978-1-92-824822-4

The concept for 20 Battles. Searching for a South African Way of War, 1913-2013, by Evert Kleynhans and David Brock Katz, was born in the lecture rooms of the Army, War and Defence colleges of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).

The authors have enjoyed a profitable decade-long association through their academic endeavours in the Department of Military History at the Faculty of Military Science of Stellenbosch University. Dr Evert Kleynhans is a senior lecturer in the Department of Military History, while Dr David Brock Katz is a research fellow in the same department. During our lectures at the various defence force colleges, it emerged that there was a lack of instructional material concerning examples of South African warfare through the ages. Students expressed frustration at the lack of African content and demonstrated their hunger for South African-oriented material - no matter its supposed political sensitivity. They appealed for military history directly relevant to the defence force s various historical deployments on the African content and further afield. Our journey revealed not only the glaring lacuna in South African military historiography but also the existence of a distinct, and yet largely uncodified, South African way of war. South African military doctrine evolved from centuries of internecine conflict among the peoples of southern Africa, including the all-encompassing South African War (1899-1902). In addition, South African forces, after the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, took part in the suppression of internal unrest, both world wars, the Korean War and the decades-long Border War, bringing them into conflict, at one time or another, with the Axis powers (Italy and Germany), the Soviet Union indirectly, the liberation movements, Cuba and its proxies and the armed forces of Angola. South Africa's unique doctrine and way of war evolved with every historical engagement and, in the process, it was constantly modified and built up. Upon closer inspection it becomes evident that the SANDF and its predecessors, the Union Defence Force (UDF) and the South African Defence Force (SADF), indeed developed a distinctive method of manoeuvre warfare and directive command style. Unfortunately, to the present day the doctrine remains an enigma and largely uncodified. True to the nature of warfare, South Africans have learned and re-learned the lessons of earlier conflicts. Numerous false starts, misdirected efforts and spurious or irrelevant mentors have hindered various attempts to record South Africa's tactical and operational doctrine. Jan Smuts followed the common trend of one on the losing side and, following his experience in the South African War, tried to emulate the British victors. He was determined that, upon the establishment of the UDF in 1912, its discipline, uniforms and doctrine would be modelled on those of the British Army. Fate dealt his modernisation endeavours a cruel blow when he was forced to use reservists from the moribund Defence Rifle Associations (DRAs) to put down the strikes of the Witwatersrand mineworkers in 1913-1914 and then later the 1914 Afrikaner Rebellion. Incidentally, the bulk of Smuts's reservists were veterans of the erstwhile Boer republican commandos. During the First World War, circumstances again obliged him to reverse his anglicisation policy in the latter stages of the campaign in German South West Africa in 1915, when the UDF adopted a distinctive Boer republican doctrine based on the deployment of a large mounted infantry component. The same mounted infantry and their doctrine would accompany Smuts to German East Africa in 1916, where they were central to his operations in that theatre. However, on the Western Front, the nature and conduct of the war were entirely different, which largely removed the South Africans'freedom of movement and prevented them from taking the operational initiative. [...]

20 Battles. Searching for a South African Way of War, 1913-2013, by Evert Kleynhans and David Brock Katz.

Title: 20 Battles
Subtitle: Searching for a South African Way of War, 1913-2013
Authors: Evert Kleynhans, David Brock Katz
Imprint: Delta Books
Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers
Johannesburg, South Africa 2023
ISBN 9781770077690 / ISBN 978-1-92-824822-4
Softcover, 15 x 23 cm, 338 pages, several b/w photographs and maps