Louis Botha was prime minister of the Union of South Africa when Britain declared war on Germany in 1914. As South Africa was a dominion of the British Empire, Botha was asked to lead his country on a campaign against the Germans across the border in South West Africa. In light of the relatively recent Anglo-Boer War, many Afrikaners balked at the request, but the prime minister was committed politically to unifying Boer and Brit and came down heavily in favor of taking up arms against Germany.