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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