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The Maritz rebellion, also known as the Boer revolt, Third Boer War, [2] or the Five Shilling rebellion, [3] was an armed pro-German insurrection in South Africa in 1914, at the start of World War I. It was led by Boers who supported the re-establishment of the South African Republic in the Transvaal .
Many Boers had German ancestry and many members of the government were themselves former Boer military leaders who had fought with the Maritz rebels against the British in the Second Boer War. The rebellion was put down by Louis Botha and Jan Smuts , and the ringleaders received heavy fines and terms of imprisonment.
Manie [1] Maritz (26 July 1876 – 20 December 1940), also known as Gerrit Maritz, was a Boer officer during the Second Boer War and a leading rebel of the pro-German 1914 Maritz Rebellion. [2] Maritz was also a participant in the Herero and Namaqua genocide. In the 1930s, he became an outspoken Nazi sympathizer and proponent of Nazi Germany.
Compared to the fate of leading Irish rebels in the 1916 Easter Rising, the leading Boer rebels got off lightly with terms of imprisonment of six and seven years and heavy fines. Two years later, they were released from prison, as Louis Botha recognised the value of reconciliation.
By late October, over 12,000 armed Boer rebels had been recruited and had gone on to occupy local towns, launching uncoordinated attacks on trains. Rejecting outside British or Imperial assistance, Botha decided to confront the rebellion with his own force of 32,000 loyalists, who were mostly Afrikaners themselves. [5]
The First Boer War (Afrikaans: Eerste Vryheidsoorlog, lit. ' First Freedom War '), was fought from 16 December 1880 until 23 March 1881 between the United Kingdom and Boers of the Transvaal (as the South African Republic was known while under British administration). [2]
Fresh Boer forces under Jan Christiaan Smuts, joined by the surviving rebels under Kritzinger, made another attack on the Cape in September 1901. They suffered severe hardships and were hard pressed by British columns, but eventually rescued themselves by routing some of their pursuers at the Battle of Elands River and capturing their equipment.
The leading Boer rebels who were captured got off relatively lightly with terms of imprisonment of six and seven years and heavy fines. Two years later they were released from prison. One notable exception was Jopie Fourie, who had failed to resign his commission before joining the rebellion. He was executed.