South Africa enters the history as a place whose wartime role shifts from declared neutrality to consequential intervention: during the Euro-American War it stayed outside the conflict, while in the later East–West War South Africans poisoned the sources of the Nile, contributing to Egypt’s devastation.

Neutrality During the Euro-American War

In the account of the war’s effects on the British Colonies, South Africa is named among the places that declared neutrality when hostilities began. The passage distinguishes this decision from Australia’s subsequent neutrality, which it attributes to conflicting loyalties. It gives no further account of South Africa’s policy or conduct during that war, marking its position principally by its nonparticipation at the outset.

The Nile and the East–West War

South Africa’s later appearance is tied to a specific act with consequences beyond its own borders. During the quarter-century East–West War, South Africans poisoned the sources of the Nile. The narrative identifies the result directly: Egypt became an uninhabitable no-man’s-land. This places South African action within a conflict that had transformed control of whole regions: by its close, Africa was mostly in the hands of the United States, while Europe was under Chinese military rule.

Narrative Significance

The two episodes give South Africa a brief but distinct place in the book’s account of global conflict. Its earlier neutrality shows that the political status of places associated with the British Colonies did not determine a single response to war; its later action links South Africa to the use of environmental resources as instruments of large-scale conflict. The contrast is not presented as a developed national history, but as a change in the scale and consequences of the country’s recorded role: from standing aside at a war’s outbreak to an act that helped render a major river valley’s destination uninhabitable.