The 1st South African Infantry Brigade emblem on a World War I headstone at Tyne Cot Cemetery in Zonnebeke, Belgium
When World War I broke out in 1914, the South African government chose to join the war on the side of the Allies. General Louis Botha, the then prime minister, faced widespread Afrikaner opposition to fighting alongside Great Britain so soon after the Second Boer War and had to put down a revolt by some of the more militant elements before he could send an expeditionary force of some 67,000 troops to invade German South West Africa (now Namibia). The German troops stationed there eventually surrendered to the South African forces in July 1915. (In 1920 South Africa received a League of Nations mandate to govern the former German colony and to prepare it for independence within a few years.) Later, an infantry brigade and various other supporting units were shipped to France in order to fight on the Western Front as the South African Overseas Expeditionary Force. The 1st South African Brigade consisted of four infantry battalions, representing men from all four provinces of the Union of South Africa as well as Rhodesia: the 1st Regiment was from the Cape Province, the 2nd Regiment was from Natal and the Orange Free State and the 3rd Regiment was from Transvaal and Rhodesia. The 4th Regiment was called the South African Scottish and was raised from members of the Transvaal Scottish and the Cape Town Highlanders; they wore the Atholl Murray tartan. The supporting units included five batteries of heavy artillery, a field ambulance unit, a Royal Engineers signals company and a military hospital.
Size: 5760px × 3840px
Location: Tyne Cot Cemetery, Vijfwegestraat, 8980 Zonnebeke, Flanders, Belgium, Europe
Photo credit: © DE ROCKER / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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