I
doubt there were poppies blowing in Kenya in World War 1, and there, it is a
forgotten war. Ask anyone in Britain, and facts they know about
WW1 are the Somme, the trenches, the mile upon mile of war graves in
countless cemeteries. But in 1914, Kenya was a British colony,
and the next country was the then Tanganyika, (now Tanzania), a
German colony. Anyone who saw the film 'Out of Africa' will
remember the camp of white civilians ... Lord Delamere and friends
... who were camped near Lake Natron, on the border with Tanganyika,
acting as scouts and mercenaries .... and that's all people know.
But
it certainly shouldn't be unknown. Probably a
million and a half
Africans and Asians were involved in the war in one way or another.
It was the longest war in East Africa, and continued after armistice
in Europe. Many Africans were recruited as soldiers, but the
majority worked as porters carrying ammunition, food and other
supplies for both sides. One area of Nairobi where the
Carrier Corps were based is to this day called 'Kariakor'.
African soldiers being taught how to shoot a rifle
On
8 August 1914 the British bombed Dar es Salaam, which was then the
capital of German East Africa (Tanganyika), and 11 days after the
start of the war in Europe, the first shots were fired in Kenya and
over the border in Tanganyika. Much of the fighting took place
along the border, mainly in the Kilimanjaro area and Taveta, with
incursions back and forth.
Kings African Rifles troops arriving at Tsavo en route for the fighting at Taveta
Place names tell the story .....
Salaita Hill (a Swahili corruption of 'Slaughter Hill') and Mwashoti
= more shots. Longido Hill in Tanganyika, west of Kilimanjaro,
was another famous battle of WW1. The
Germans were trying to disrupt and destroy the railway from Mombasa
via Nairobi to Port Florence (now Kisumu) which was a vital link
up-country for war supplies and food. They also had influence
in Ethiopia, and Somaliland, and so attacked Kenya from the north, in
the Northern Frontier District (the NFD).
The
German army continued to make advances after the peace deal was
signed in France - German commander Lt-Col Paul Emil von
Lettow-Vorbeck didn't receive a telegram with news of the German
defeat until 14 November 1918 and took another nine days to march his
troops to meet British troops and formally surrender himself.
It
is thought that around one and a half million Africans and Asians
living in Kenya and other parts of 'British' Africa, were involved in
the war; thousands died in the service of a 'mother' country they
knew hardly anything about, and which has up to now done little to
commemorate their part in the 'war to end all wars'.
Britain
had ‘recruited’ over a million African ‘carriers’ during the
war from within its own colonies. Of these no fewer than 95,000 died
from all causes including malnutrition, disease and overwork –
almost twice the number of Australian or Canadian troops who died
during the War. Among East and West African carriers the
death rate was 20% – almost double the 11.5% death rate for British
soldiers. One un-named Colonial Office official after the
war was reported to say that the East Africa campaign "only
stopped short of a scandal because the people who suffered most were
the carriers – and after all, who cares about native carriers?"
During
its East Africa campaign British forces maintained themselves partly
or sometimes wholly by the routine pillage of peasant settlements in
their path. To deny sustenance to ravenous German units operating in
the vicinity, African villages were blasted and burned, leaving
fields torched and livestock scattered .... and thus the Africans
with no means of supporting themselves and their families.
"Man's
inhumanity to man ...
Makes
countless thousands mourn ..."
Moreover,
a majority of the adult African men in the British territories
bordering German East Africa (Tanganyika) had been coerced into
manning Britain’s supply lines. This produced a manpower
drain unparalleled since the 1870's, when Arab slavers had transported
tens of thousands of Africans to the Middle East. The
result was a ‘severe impairment of the capacity for survival of
those left behind’, and the
failure of the rains in late 1917 and early 1918 compounded this dire
situation, leading to famine conditions.
John
Chilembwe, an African pastor in 1915 in what was then (British) Nyasaland,
wrote:- "Let the rich men,
bankers, titled men, storekeepers, farmers and landlords go to this
war and get shot. Instead, we the poor Africans, who have nothing to
own in this present world, who in death, leave only a long line of
widows and orphans in utter want and dire distress, are invited to
die for a cause which is not ours."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
(Sources: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-28836752
Old Africa magazine
various Wikipedia pages)
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