Union Defence Force Officers

In 1910 the Act of Union brought the Transvaal and Orange Free State into the self-governing Union of South Africa. The South African Defence Act of 1912 established a Union Defence Force in order to bring the military establishments of the South African Provinces under a single unified command. The UDF was made up of a permanent army of career soldiers alongside the Active Citizen Force (ACF) of temporary conscripts and a Coastal Garrison Force.

British regiments had remained in country after the Boer War but there were locally raised regiments which would form the core of the new Permanent Army. These were the Cape Mounted Rifles raised in 1878, the Natal Police raised in 1874, the Transvaal Police raised in 1908 and the Cape Mounted Police raised in 1904. In 1913 as a result of the South African Defence Act they were reformed into the 1st, 2nd 3rd 4th and 5th SA Mounted Rifles.

The Active Citizen Force consisted largely of the old, and not so old, British colonial units. These were joined by additional regiments raised in 1913. It should be noted that given the prevailing racial attitudes at the time, only white South Africans were permitted to be armed and serve in combat. All white males between seventeen and sixty years of age were technically eligible to serve in the military although in reality a lottery system operated for those aged between seventeen and twenty-five of which roughly half that age group were drafted. Black South Africans could play a role in the Armed Services but only as non-combatants and usually in a logistics capacity.

The newly created UDF soon found itself tested when World War One broke out. As a Dominion, the Union of South Africa was automatically considered at war with Germany in 1914 and they had the German Colony of South-West Africa to their North. The UDF launched a hasty and poorly coordinated invasion of the colony to try and attempt to capture German communication stations. The small concentrated German colonial troops pushed the South Africans back. This setback emboldened a significant numbers of Boers sympathetic to the German cause to rise up in what was called the Maritz rebellion. Prime Minister Botha (himself a Boer General from the Boer War) used largely Afrikaner UDF forces to crush this rebellion. Some rebels fled to join the Germans in South West Africa, but the situation had at least been stabilised in South Africa. Consequently in 1915, a larger and better organised invasion of South West Africa saw the isolated German forces be pushed back and eventually surrender in July 1915. South West Africa was later granted to South Africa as a League of Nations Mandate to administer at the Treaty of Versailles.

In 1922 as a result of the experiences of the First World War, the Permanent Force was reorganised into: Staff Corps, Instructional Corps, Naval Service, Field Artillery, 1st Regiment, Mounted Riflemen, the Permanent Garrison Artillery, the Engineer Corps, the Air Force, SA Service Corps, SA Medical Corps, Ordnance Corps, Veterinary Corps and the Administrative, Pay and Clerical Corps.