Facts: - death place: pretoria - honorific suffix: zar cbe dtd dso - battles: world war i - death date: 17 october 1947 - allegiance: south africa 1928 - commands: chief of the union defense forces - birth date: 21 july 1877 - name: andries jacob eksteen brink - branch: south african army - image: andries brink.jpg - birth place: somerset west - rank: lieutenant general Based on these bullet points, write a short biography describing the life of andries brink .
The answer to this question is:
andries jacob brink -lrb- 1877 -- 1947 -rrb- was a south african military commander and lieutenant-general .an afrikaner veteran of the anglo-boer war , he joined the union defence forces as a staff officer in 1912 and served in world war i .he was chief of the general staff from 1920 to 1933 , initially in command only of defence hq but , from 1922 , of the whole udf .he was also secretary for defence , i.e. head of the civil service department of defence , from 1922 to 1937 .from 1937 to 1946 he was commandant-in-chief of the burger commandos , a home defence organisation .