The Great Depression and World War Two
The NP remained in power alone till 1933, when the effects of the Great Depression forced a coalition government with the pro-reconciliation faction under the former Boer War general Jan Smuts. This coalition ruled till the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.
When the Second World War broke out, certain small factions of Afrikaners were decidedly pro-Hitler and had even formed tiny Nazi parties, none of whom received any significant electoral support. A bare majority of the South African parliament voted in favor of entering the war on Britain's side: as a result the coalition government broke down and the NP went into opposition, having voted against going to war for Britain.
Outside of parliament, militant Afrikaners organized themselves into a movement known as the "Flaming Ox Wagon Sentinel" and through this organization engaged in numerous acts of sabotage and violence in an attempt to keep the country's volunteer army deployed internally, rather than being used against the Germans and for the British.
South African troops fought against the Italians in Abyssinia, and in North Africa as part of the British Eighth Army, taking part in numerous famous battles such as El Alamein. They then went to take part in the invasion of Italy in 1943, fighting at Monte Casino, being part of the occupation troops in Rome and ending the war in northern Italy. The South African prime minister, Jan Smuts, was instrumental in founding the United Nations and held to draft its founding charter.
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