The rebellion grew from a grief that had never healed. Only twelve years earlier, the Second Boer War had ended with the British crushing the independent Boer republics, herding Afrikaner women and children into concentration camps where tens of thousands died of disease and hunger. The men who had fought to the bitter end were called Bittereinders, and many never reconciled themselves to defeat. Some, like Deneys Reitz, had even refused to sign the loyalty pledge demanded at the war's close and were exiled for it. So when World War I erupted in August 1914 and the British asked South Africa - now a self-governing dominion - to invade neighboring German South-West Africa, the request struck a raw nerve. For some Boers, Germany had been their old friend and Britain their tormentor. The bitter-enders saw England's war as their long-awaited chance, paraphrasing the old Irish nationalist line: England's misfortune was their opportunity.

What followed was less a war than a tragedy among comrades, for the men on both sides had once fought together. Prime Minister Louis Botha and his deputy Jan Smuts - both former Boer generals - chose to stand with Britain. Others could not. The respected General Koos de la Rey was killed at a police roadblock under murky circumstances, and rumors of assassination poured fuel on the fire. Then Lieutenant Colonel Manie Maritz, commanding Union forces on the German border, defected outright, proclaiming a free South African republic. General Christiaan de Wet seized the town of Heilbron and raised three thousand men. In all, some 12,000 rebels rallied. Botha met them with roughly 32,000 troops - of whom about 20,000 were themselves Afrikaners, ordered to fire on their own kin.

The government declared martial law on 12 October 1914, and the suppression was swift and merciless to the cause if not always to the men. Maritz was defeated on 24 October and fled to the Germans. General Beyers escaped one battle only to drown in the Vaal River that December. De Wet was run down on a farm in Bechuanaland; "Thank God it was not an Englishman who captured me," he remarked. The cruelest blow fell on General Kemp's commando, which attempted to cross the Kalahari Desert to reach German territory. Over a month and 1,100 kilometers of waterless waste, 300 of his 800 men perished, along with most of their horses. The survivors surrendered in February 1915.

Botha, who understood the value of mercy, treated the captured ringleaders gently - prison terms of six or seven years, heavy fines, and release within two. Jopie Fourie was the exception. A serving Union Defence Force officer, he had never resigned his commission before joining the revolt, and his commando had inflicted heavy casualties, even firing during a truce. Tried for high treason, he was condemned to death. A delegation including the future prime minister D. F. Malan pleaded with Smuts for clemency, and was refused. Fourie's execution turned a rebel into a martyr. The outrage it stirred helped feed the rise of Afrikaner nationalism - the very fruit, as it turned out, that his final letter had foretold.