History of South Africa (1910–1948)

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1. The South African Army and Air Force helped defeat the Italian army of the Fascist Benito Mussolini that had invaded Abyssinia (now known as Ethiopia) in 1935. During the 1941 East African Campaign South African forces made important contribution to this early Allied victory.
2. Another important victory in which the South Africans participated, was the liberation of Malagasy (now known as Madagascar) from the control of the Vichy French who were allies of the Nazis. British troops aided by South African soldiers, staged their attack from South Africa, and occupied the strategic island in 1942 to preclude its seizure by the Japanese.
3. The South African 1st Infantry Division took part in several actions in North Africa in 1941 and 1942, including the Battle of El Alamein, before being withdrawn to South Africa.
4. The South African 2nd Infantry Division also took part in a number of actions in North Africa during 1942, but on 21 June 1942 two complete infantry brigades of the division as well as most of the supporting units were captured at the fall of Tobruk.
5. The South African 3rd Infantry Division never took an active part in any battles but instead organised and trained the South African home defence forces, performed garrison duties and supplied replacements for the South African 1st Infantry Division and the South African 2nd Infantry Division. However, one of this division's constituent brigades - 7 SA Motorised Brigade - did take part in the invasion of Madagascar in 1942.
6. The South African 6th Armoured Division fought in numerous actions in Italy from 1944 to 1945.
7. South Africa contributed to the war effort against Japan, supplying men and manning ships in naval engagements against the Japanese.

Of the 334,000 men volunteered for full-time service in the South African Army during the war (including some 211,000 whites, 77,000 blacks and 46,000 "coloureds" and Asians), nearly 9,000 were killed in action.

Aftermath of World War II

South Africa emerged from the Allied victory with its prestige and national honour enhanced as it had fought tirelessly for the Western Allies. South Africa's standing in the international community was rising, at a time when the Third World's struggle against colonialism had still not taken centre stage. In May 1945, Prime Minister Smuts represented South Africa in San Francisco at the drafting of the United Nations Charter. Just as he did in 1919, Smuts urged the delegates to create a powerful international body to preserve peace; he was determined that, unlike the League of Nations, the United Nations would have teeth. Smuts signed the Paris Peace Treaty, resolving the peace in Europe, thus becoming the only signatory of both the treaty ending the First World War, and that ending the Second.

However, internal political struggles in the disgruntled and essentially impoverished Afrikaner community would soon come to the fore leading to Smuts' defeat at the polls in the 1948 elections (in which only whites and coloureds could vote) at the hands of a resurgent National Party after the war. This began the road to South Africa's eventual isolation from a world that would no longer tolerate any forms of political discrimination or differentiation based on race only.

Further reading-

• Berger, Iris. South Africa in world history. Oxford University Press, 2009.
• Thompson, Leonard M. A history of South Africa (Yale University Press, 2001).
• Historicus Africanus, Der 1. Weltkrieg in Deutsch-Südwestafrika 1914-15, Volume 1, 2nd edition, Glanz & Gloria Verlag, Windhoek 2012, ISBN 978-99916-872-1-6
• Historicus Africanus, Der 1. Weltkrieg in Deutsch-Südwestafrika 1914-15, Volume 2, "Naulila", Glanz & Gloria Verlag, Windhoek 2012, ISBN 978-99916-872-3-0
• Historicus Africanus, Der 1. Weltkrieg in Deutsch-Südwestafrika 1914-15, Volume 3, "Kämpfe im Süden", Glanz & Gloria Verlag, Windhoek 2014, ISBN 978-99916-872-8-5