World War One and in Africa

WORLD WAR ONE AND/IN AFRICA

Brett Shadle

Department of History

Virginia Tech

First shot fired by

soldier in British

service in WW1:

Sgt.-Major Alhaji

Grunshi (Aug. 12,

1914) Last German

general to

surrender: Col.

Paul von Lettow-

Vorbeck (Nov. 25,

1918)

WEST & SOUTHWEST AFRICA

• Togo: Germans had few troops there,

conquered by the British by the end of August

• Cameroon: Germans held out longer, but by

February defeated by French (invading from

south and east) and British (from the west)

• Although a several thousand troops remained

in Spanish territory until the end of the war, in

hopes of retaining a claim to the colony after

the war

• South-west Africa: Germans had few troops,

spread across the colony, by July defeated by

South African troops

EAST AFRICA

• British largely distracted with

Cameroon for first part of the war

• German commander von Lettow-

Vorbeck more concerned with

tying up Allied troops than

retaining the colony or preventing

African rebellion

EAST AFRICA: BUSH WARFARE

• Germans made some brief incursions

into British East Africa – mainly to

disrupt railway

• Early 1916: South Africa and

Portuguese troops prepared to enter

the fighting in East Africa

• von Lettow-Vorbeck decided to engage

in defensive, hit-and-run warfare

• For the next 30 months trekked

across East Africa, fighting but

avoiding pitched battles

EAST AFRICA: CIVILIANS IN WARFARE

• Living off the land – for Germans and

Allies

• Requisition of food and cattle

• British official, December 1916, on

Dodoma:

• “The whole district has been

ransacked for cattle.”

• Germans had taken 26,000 head of

cattle, British in five months took

5,600 head and 100,000 kilograms of

flour

• November 1917 rains failed, as many

as 30,000 people died

EAST AFRICA: CIVILIANS IN WARFARE

• Living off the land – for Germans and

Allies

• September 15, 1918, diary of German

Dr. Ludwig Deppe

• “Behind us we leave destroyed fields,

ransacked magazines and, for the

immediate future, starvation.

• We are no longer agents of culture;

our track is marked by death,

plundering and evacuated villages,

just like the progress of our own and

enemy armies in the Thirty Years

War.”

EAST AFRICA: CIVILIANS IN WARFARE

• Living off the land – for Germans and

Allies

• British official, 1916, after Belgians

went through Tabora region:

• “It is like proceeding through a

deserted plague stricken land.”

• Transportation and supplies

• Railways?

• Roads?

• Animals?

• People.

• Poor record keeping, informal

recruitment, means number of porters

ultimately uncertain

• Possible numbers:

• At the peak (March 1916), Germans

used 45,000

• Allies used over the course of the war

500,000 to 1,000,000

EAST AFRICA: CIVILIANS IN WARFARE

PORTERS’ EXPERIENCES• According to one source, fewer than 400 employed by the British died in action

• More deadly:

• Disease

• new disease environments (malaria) or contaminated water (dysentery)

• Malnutrition (either not enough or poorly prepared food)

• Climate

• Exhaustion

• Execution for attempted desertion

• Belgian officer: Another two porters’ corpses on

the road! Shot by the soldiers detailed to

guard them. Not a day passes without one or

more of these unfortunates paying with their

lives for their love of freedom.

PORTERS’ EXPERIENCES

• According to one source, fewer than 400 employed by the British died

in action

• Official British figure for deaths in Carrier Corps: 44, 911

• Likely underestimate

• Second half of 1917: recorded deaths reached 2% per month, while

“wastage” (loss of manpower through illness, desertion, etc.) was

15% per month

• One scholar estimates at least 100,000 Africa porters died, perhaps 2-

3 times that number

MEMORIES OF THE PORTERS

• At least in Kenya and Tanganyika, when word of a new war first began circulating

in the late 1930s, many young men deserted their jobs, some went into hiding, for

fear of being caught up in a new Carrier Corps

AFRICAN SOLDIERS

• Despite some hesitation of using African

troops in a white man’s war, all the

combatants made use of them

• British, Germans, employed them only in

Africa

• French envisioned the colonies as an almost

limitless source of manpower for the war in

Europe

• Had used them extensively in their conquest

of West Africa

FRENCH WEST AFRICA

• At first, French desired African soldiers

mainly as garrison troops to allow French

soldiers to go to front

• After major losses in first two years of the

war, decided instead to put African (and

other colonial) troops in the front lines

• Eventually around 140,000 from French

West Africa fought in France

• 29,000 from Senegal

• 2.4% of the population

FRENCH WEST AFRICA• Recruiting soldiers

• Through 1917, very few volunteers

• Instead, each chief (many of whom had little

legitimacy) required to fulfill their quota

• Those most likely to be brought forward

• Youth from marginal families

• Orphans

• Younger children

• Children of secondary wives in polygamous

families

FRENCH WEST AFRICA• Recruiting soldiers

• Compared to slave raids

• Thousands fled

• At times, number of those fleeing equal to

number conscripted

• Armed resistance in areas farthest from French

centers of control

• Called ‘tax in blood’

FRENCH WEST AFRICA

• In France

• Africans often used as “shock

troops” ahead of white units

• Lt. Col. Debieuvre, April 1917:

• [The Senegalese are] above all

superb attack troops permitting

the saving of the lives of whites,

who behind them exploit their

success and organize the positions

they conquer.

“THE WAR FOR RIGHTS”• Blaise Diagne, representative for Four

Communes, negotiated new rights for soldiers in

exchange for new recruitment campaign

• Veterans to be exempt from corvée (unpaid

communal labor), indigénat (“law” that could be

enforced by French officials without recourse to

the courts), given preference in government jobs

• More volunteers came forward

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WORLD WAR ONE

• Death and destruction in Africa, death and debilitating injuries for many soldiers

• Impact of colonialism felt in many areas that had had only limited contact with

European rule

• New political map (with German colonies becoming “Mandates” under the League of

Nations, ruled by Britain, France, South Africa, and Belgium)

• New political ideas in circulation in some areas