WI: South Africa stays out of WWII

Chilperic

Banned
I believe General Hertzog of SOuth Africa wanted to stay out of the war, but was defeated and replaced with Smuts. What would have happened if he had been given approval?
 
Fewer troops for North Africa and Italy, so more manpower problems for the British. But many SAs would join the war effort effort in other armed forces and the naval bases in SA were British territory so could still be used.
 
In the long run, even stronger anti-South African opinion in Britain?

I'd imagine so.
They's take a far dimmer view of the move towards apartheid if SA has in the past indirectly aligned itself with fascists (via with us or against us)
 
In the long run, even stronger anti-South African opinion in Britain?

There wasn't OTL very strong anti-SA opinion in the UK because of apartheid, outside of politicians and academics, unions etc. (Remember, SA wasn't doing anything that Australia wasn't doing to it's aboriginal population prior to the late 1960s/early 1970s.)

I could see them being neutral, but with volunteers from among the white British population there enlisting, much as with Ireland, but if an Afrikaaner extremist clique had sided with the Axis I think they'd have been civil disorder if not outright civil war between the whites. And it'd have made a tasty diversionary operation during 1940/41 for the British to send troops in to remove the administration (having the support of the British SAs, many other whites and the coloureds and blacks).
 
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