There are only two important themes in the small number of Smuts papers for 1915—the short campaign in German South West Africa and the general election in October. In February Botha took command in the northern part of the vast German colony leaving Smuts to organize recruiting and supplies. Botha's letters describing the progress of the campaign up to the surrender on 9 July are valuable records, not only for their content, but because, so far, no collection of Botha Papers has been made and they may have been destroyed. Seven of his campaign letters are printed below. In mid-April Smuts took command of the invasion forces in the south. But since there was little resistance and the country could be rapidly occupied, he soon returned to his administrative post (630, 632).

Appraisals of the political situation before the general election are the subject of a typical group of Merriman–Smuts letters, in which Merriman notes with concern the increasing sharpness of English–Afrikaner conflict and the growing number of ‘poor whites’, and Smuts rejects these pessimistic views and looks hopefully to the future. Yet he was not easy about the results of the election (668) and, in spite of himself, the dimensions and possible consequences of the war in Europe began to disturb him (619, 632, 668).