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Twelve years after fighting against the British during the Anglo-Boer War, Louis Botha went to war on Britain’s side. As prime minister of the Union of South Africa at the outbreak of the First World War, Botha agreed to lead his country on a campaign against the Germans across the border in South-West Africa. But first he would have to deal with a conflict at home.  Many Afrikaners balked at the prime minister’s decision, and so began a war on two fronts. While Union Defence Force troops gathered on the border and prepared to launch an offensive, a handful of Botha’s former comrades incited an Afrikaner rebellion intent on keeping South Africa out of the war, or worse, siding with Germany.  Louis Botha’s War  is the story of how a former Boer War fighting-general-turned-politician crushed a rebellion, rallied his country’s first united army to fight in harsh conditions and defeated the enemy in the Great War’s first successful Allied campaign. Botha’s actions and these events would determine the fate of South-West Africa, and its relationship with its southern neighbour, for the next eighty years.    Paperback, 240 pages.  Release Date: January 2015

Twelve years after fighting against the British during the Anglo-Boer War, Louis Botha went to war on Britains side. As prime minister of the Union of South Africa at the outbreak of the First World War, Botha agreed to lead his country on a campaign against the Germans across the border in South-West Africa. But first he would have to deal with a conflict at home.  Many Afrikaners balked at the prime ministers decision, and so began a war on two fronts. While Union Defence Force troops gathered on the border and prepared to launch an offensive, a handful of Bothas former comrades incited an Afrikaner rebellion intent on keeping South Africa out of the war, or worse, siding with Germany.  Louis Bothas War  is the story of how a former Boer War fighting-general-turned-politician crushed a rebellion, rallied his countrys first united army to fight in harsh conditions and defeated the enemy in the Great Wars first successful Allied campaign. Bothas actions and these events would determine the fate of South-West Africa, and its relationship with its southern neighbour, for the next eighty years.    Paperback, 240 pages.  Release Date: January 2015

The War for Africa: Twelve Months That Transformed a Continent - Fred Bridgland - Ashanti -1990- Hard cover -No dust cover - Book in very good condition. Before southern Africa's peace there came the war. Between August 1987 and July 1988 Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, the south African Defence Force, Angolan government forces directed by Soviet officers and an Angolan opposition guerrilla army trained by Red China, France and the United States clashed in the biggest land battles in the history of black Africa. It was a fierce collision of ideologies and of modern warplanes, missiles and tanks across one of the world's most remote and undeveloped terrains known to Angola's former Portuguese colonial rulers as the Land at the End of the Earth. Thousands of men died and thousands more were terribly maimed. Weapons and ammunition worth billions of collars were destroyed and expended. The Angolan economy was crippled. The budgets of Cuba, South Africa and the Soviet Union were subjected to terrible strains. It was a War for Africa's very soul. It culminated in a peace agreement, the New York Accords, signed on 22 December 1988,. The reader will learn what it is like to encounter an advanced Soviet MiG fighter in a French Mirage warplane 30,000 feet above the forests of Africa; what emotion grip a reconnaissance commando lying unseen inside Cuban lines within feet of enemy soldiers; how it feels in an armoured car to face a Soviet T-55 tank at just 30 feet in burning bush and swirling dust and smoke. This is, however, far more than just an account of men in battle.   

  The War for Africa.Twelve Months That Transformed a Continent Bridgland, F   ISBN 10: 187480012X ISBN 13: 9781874800125   Item Description: Ashanti Publishing Limited, Gibraltar, 1990. Pale Brown Boards. Book Condition: Very Good +. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First Edition, Second Impression. viii + 403 pp. Maps to end-papers. Illustrated, primarily in black and white. Lamination of the dust-jacket rubbed. Slight spinal lean. Acid-tape marks to the free, end-papers. The final 12 months of the war in Angola in which South Africa fought Cuba's revolutionary armed forces and Angola's Marxist Army, was conceivably the most important combat in the history of the African continent since the end of World War II. It was, however, also a secret war and only now, in this account of the fighting, are many of the wraps removed from the cloak-and-dagger Angolan operations.;The deep crises within South African and Cuban ranks are laid bare. There were disagreements between South African battle-front commanders and their politicians and generals as to how the war should be fought. The war is seen mainly through the eyes of ordinary soldiers who fought it, not those of generals and politicians hundreds of kilometres from the blood, sweat and dust. Size: Royal Octavo. Hard Cover. Bookseller Inventory # 05561 Tall  Stories  Price: R 1250.00 Ordinary  postage within  South  Africa: R 40.00

1990. Hard cover with dust cover. 403 pages. Very good condition. Tightly bound, neat and clean. Front endpapers have rubber stamps and marks where paper was attached. Under 1kg. Between August 1987 and July 1988 Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, the south African Defence Force, Angolan government forces directed by Soviet officers and an Angolan opposition guerrilla army trained by Red China, France and the United States clashed in the biggest land battles in the history of black Africa. It was a fierce collision of ideologies and of modern warplanes, missiles and tanks across one of the world's most remote and undeveloped terrains known to Angola's former Portuguese colonial rulers as the Land at the End of the Earth. Thousands of men died and thousands more were terribly maimed. Weapons and ammunition worth billions of collars were destroyed and expended. The Angolan economy was crippled. The budgets of Cuba, South Africa and the Soviet Union were subjected to terrible strains. It was a War for Africa's very soul. It culminated in a peace agreement, the New York Accords, signed on 22 December 1988,. The reader will learn what it is like to encounter an advanced Soviet MiG fighter in a French Mirage warplane 30,000 feet above the forests of Africa; what emotion grip a reconnaissance commando lying unseen inside Cuban lines within feet of enemy soldiers; how it feels in an armoured car to face a Soviet T-55 tank at just 30 feet in burning bush and swirling dust and smoke. This is, however, far more than just an account of men in battle. Woven through are details of the political background to the conflict and the diplomatic initiatives which governed the lives and deaths of young Cuban, South African and Angolan men at the front. It is, all in all, a story of African fighting on an unprecedented scale, the international intrigue spanning several continents, and the new opportunities it opened up for democracy to 100 million people in five countries.

The climactic death-throes of Soviet Communism during the 1980's included a last-gasp attempt at strategic franchise expansion in Southern Africa. Channelled through Castro's Cuba, oil-rich Angolan armed forces (FAPLA) received billions of dollars of advanced weaponry including MiG 23 and Sukhoi fighter jets, SAM 8 missile systems and thousands of armoured vehicles. Their   intent - to eradicate the US-backed Angolan opposition (UNITA), then push southwards into South Africa's protectorate SWA/Namibia, ostensibly as liberators. 1985 saw the first large-scale mechanized offensive in Southern African history. Russian Generals planned and oversaw the offensive but without properly accounting for the tenacity of UNITA (supported by the South African Defence Forces - SADF) or the treacherous terrain typical in the rainy season. The '85 offensive floundered in the mud and FAPLA returned to their capital Luanda. The South Africans stood down, confident their 'covert' support for UNITA had demonstrated the folly of prosecuting war so far from home against Africa's military Superpower. The South Africans were mistaken. Fidel and FAPLA immediately redoubled their efforts, strengthening fifteen battalions with even more Soviet hardware while Russian and Cuban specialists oversaw troop training. As Cuban and Angola fighter pilots honed their skills over the skies of Northern Angola, David Mannall, a normal 17-year old kid completing High School, was preparing for two years of compulsory military service before beginning Tertiary education. Through a series of fateful twists he found himself leading soldiers in a number of full-scale armoured clashes including the largest and most decisive battle on African soil since World War II. This is the David and Goliath story that, due to seismic political changes in the region, has never been truthfully told. The author lifts the hatch on his story of how Charlie Squadron, comprising just twelve 90mm AFVs crewed by 36 national servicemen, as part of the elite 61 Mechanised Battalion, engaged and effectively annihilated the giant FAPLA 47th Armoured Brigade in one day - 3 October 1987. Their 90mm cannons were never designed as tank-killers but any assurances that it would never be used against heavy armour were left in the classroom during the three-month operation and never more starkly than the decisive 'Battle on The Lomba River'. The Communist-backed offensive died that day along with hundreds of opposition fighters. 47th Brigade survivors abandoned their remaining equipment, fleeing north across the Lomba, eventually joining the 59th Brigade in what became a full-scale retreat of over ten thousand soldiers to Cuito Cuanavale. The myth perpetuated by post-apartheid politicians goes something like this "The SADF force that destroyed 47th Brigade on 3 October numbered 6,000 men and that all the hard yards were run by the long suffering UNITA!" The inconvenient truth is that there were just 36 South African boys on the front-line that day, but it is also true to say they would never have achieved such a stunning victory without the support of many more. This is their story. Paperback, 192 pages First Published October 2014, Second Revised Edition May 2015        

The climactic death-throes of Soviet Communism during the 1980's included a last-gasp attempt at strategic franchise expansion in Southern Africa. Channelled through Castro's Cuba, oil-rich Angolan armed forces (FAPLA) received billions of dollars of advanced weaponry including MiG 23 and Sukhoi fighter jets, SAM 8 missile systems and thousands of armoured vehicles. Their   intent - to eradicate the US-backed Angolan opposition (UNITA), then push southwards into South Africa's protectorate SWA/Namibia, ostensibly as liberators. 1985 saw the first large-scale mechanized offensive in Southern African history. Russian Generals planned and oversaw the offensive but without properly accounting for the tenacity of UNITA (supported by the South African Defence Forces - SADF) or the treacherous terrain typical in the rainy season. The '85 offensive floundered in the mud and FAPLA returned to their capital Luanda. The South Africans stood down, confident their 'covert' support for UNITA had demonstrated the folly of prosecuting war so far from home against Africa's military Superpower. The South Africans were mistaken. Fidel and FAPLA immediately redoubled their efforts, strengthening fifteen battalions with even more Soviet hardware while Russian and Cuban specialists oversaw troop training. As Cuban and Angola fighter pilots honed their skills over the skies of Northern Angola, David Mannall, a normal 17-year old kid completing High School, was preparing for two years of compulsory military service before beginning Tertiary education. Through a series of fateful twists he found himself leading soldiers in a number of full-scale armoured clashes including the largest and most decisive battle on African soil since World War II. This is the David and Goliath story that, due to seismic political changes in the region, has never been truthfully told. The author lifts the hatch on his story of how Charlie Squadron, comprising just twelve 90mm AFVs crewed by 36 national servicemen, as part of the elite 61 Mechanised Battalion, engaged and effectively annihilated the giant FAPLA 47th Armoured Brigade in one day - 3 October 1987. Their 90mm cannons were never designed as tank-killers but any assurances that it would never be used against heavy armour were left in the classroom during the three-month operation and never more starkly than the decisive 'Battle on The Lomba River'. The Communist-backed offensive died that day along with hundreds of opposition fighters. 47th Brigade survivors abandoned their remaining equipment, fleeing north across the Lomba, eventually joining the 59th Brigade in what became a full-scale retreat of over ten thousand soldiers to Cuito Cuanavale. The myth perpetuated by post-apartheid politicians goes something like this "The SADF force that destroyed 47th Brigade on 3 October numbered 6,000 men and that all the hard yards were run by the long suffering UNITA!" The inconvenient truth is that there were just 36 South African boys on the front-line that day, but it is also true to say they would never have achieved such a stunning victory without the support of many more. This is their story. Paperback, 284 pages First Published October 2014, Second Revised Edition May 2015