Introduction 1. Colonization and the settler state 2. Racial constructs and martial theories 3. Precedents of military pragmatism 4. Dominion Defence Acts 5. 1914: subjugated spectators 6. 1915-16: King and country call 7. 1917-18: all the King's men 8. Indigenous soldiers 9. The home front 10. Peace with prejudice Conclusion Bibliography Index.

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Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War

In the vast literature on warfare in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, relatively little has been written about the recruitment, organization and deployment of non-combatant labour required to service and supply the fighting line. The hundreds of thousands of general labourers, drawn from all parts of the globe, who served on the Western Front in 1914-18 have been almost completely ignored by historians.' So also have the porters and carriers employed for military operations in tropical Africa during the colonial period. Most moder campaigns in tropical Africa wars of conquest, punitive expeditions to enforce alien rule, and the first world war were fought in regions where terrain, climate, inadequate roads, and the ravages of the tsetse fly made it virtually impossible to use animal transport. Mechanical means of transport were rarely available before 1940 and most military operations were labour intensive, dependent upon large numbers of carriers to sustain long supply lines and fighting soldiers. A few articles have examined particularly the large-scale recruitment of military porters in East Africa and elsewhere during the first world war.2 More generally, details about conscription of labour for war and the social and economic consequences this had on African communities are thinly scattered in a limited number of monographs and unpublished theses based on papers in the Public Records Office and in African archival collections. One or two researchers have collected oral evidence, but that is a rapidly disappearing source.3 The African labourer toiling with his load rarely left any personal record and only a few observers thought his lot worth more than a passing reference. This article describes the policies and practices of the British colonial authorities in tropical Africa to raise large numbers of labourers for military campaigns,

Labour Exploitation for Military Campaigns in British Colonial Africa 1870-1945

FOUNDATIONS OF THE COLONIAL EXPORT ECONOMY The economic changes that took place in Africa in the period under review have been summarised in terms of varied implication, as the economic revolution, the second stage of Africa's involvement in the world economy, the intensification of dependent peripheral capitalism, the completion of the open economy, or simply as the cuffing of Africans into the modern world. The concrete fact, however, from which these descriptions take off in different directions is not itself in much dispute. Between 1905–9 and 1935–9, exports from African countries between the Sahara and the Limpopo increased by about five times in value and by nearly as much in volume; import values rose by some three-and-a-half times, import volumes between two-and-a-half and three times. Total trade thus grew in real terms at an annual average rate of a little over 3 per cent. At first sight this is hardly a momentous expansion. For even though it was nearly double the rate of growth of world trade taken as a whole, it started from such low levels that the global impact was hardly perceptible, and was not of primary significance for the economies of the colonial powers themselves; before the Second World War, trade with sub-Saharan Africa (South Africa still excluded) never accounted for a twentieth part of the United Kingdom's exchanges. So inconspicuous, indeed, were the short-term and even the mediumterm commercial gains accruing from the European conquest of tropical Africa that many metropolitan observers, unaware that the investment was a long-term pre-emption, have concluded either that it was a mistake or that it must have been undertaken for reasons that were not commercial.

The Colonial Moment in Africa: Aspects of economic history

Abbal, Odon. Soldats oubliés: Les prisonniers de guerre français. Bez-etEsparon, 2001. ———. ‘Die französische Gesellschaft der Zwischenkriegszeit und die ehemaligen Kriegsgefangenen’. In Kriegsgefangene im Europa des Ersten Weltkriegs, ed. Jochen Oltmer. Paderborn, 2006. Afflerbach, Holger. ‘“. . . nearly a case of Italy contra mundum?”: Italien als Siegermacht in Versailles 1919’. In Versailles 1919: Ziele – Wirkung – Wahrnehmung, ed. Gerd Krumeich with Silke Fehlemann. Essen, 2001. Ageron, Charles-Robert, and Charles-André Julien. Histoire de l’ Algérie contemporaine. Paris, 1964–79. ———. Les Algériens musulmans et la France, 1871–1919. 2 vols. Paris, 1968. ———. ‘Clemenceau et la question coloniale’. In Clemenceau et la justice: Actes du colloque de décembre 1979 organisé pour le cinquentenaire de la mort de G. Clemenceau. Paris, 1983. Anderson, Ross. The Forgotten Front: The East African Campaign, 1914–1918. Stroud, 2004. Applebaum, Anne. Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps. London, 2003. Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New ed. New York, 1973. Asiwaju, A.I. ‘Migration as Revolt: The Example of the Ivory Coast and the Upper Volta before 1945’. Journal of African History 27 (1976): 577–94. Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane. La guerre des enfants (1914–1918). Paris, 1993. ———. ‘Kinder und Jugendliche’. In Enzyklopädie Erster Weltkrieg, ed. Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerd Krumeich, and Irina Renz. Paderborn, 2004. Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane, and Annette Becker. La Grande Guerre, 1914–1918. Paris, 1998. ———. 1914–1918: Understanding the Great War. London, 2002.

List of references

In 1913, Africa as a whole accounted for about 7 per cent and 10 per cent respectively of the external trade of Britain and France. By and large, the overriding concern of the colonial powers was to prevent their colonial possessions becoming financial burdens to the metropolis. In France, a colonial ministry had been created in 1894, but its responsibilities in Africa were confined to West Africa, Equatorial Africa, French Somaliland and Madagascar. The economic depression of the 1930s was a new stimulus to reappraise imperial attitudes to Africa. The trend towards imperial protection in economic policy accelerated the growth of trade between Africa and the metropolitan powers. This was most marked in France: Africa's share of her external trade rose from about one-tenth in the 1920s to over one-fifth by 1935. The involvement of rural Africa in the operations of capitalist enterprise was a major theme of social research in the 1930s.

The imperial mind

For the campaign in East Africa from 1914 to 1918, the British used over 50,000 African troops, and over one million African followers. In 1914 no carrier organization existed, so this had to be rapidly improvised. There were three main carrier forces, based on the East Africa Protectorate, on Uganda and on Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia. German East Africa was overrun in 1916 and 1917, but the German forces were not defeated. These offensives necessitated huge numbers of followers. Despite much improved rations and medical services, deaths among followers averaged 10 per cent; over 100,000 must have died. Over 10,000 troops died of disease or were killed, a death rate of 20 per cent. Deaths were most numerous amongst those followers who served for long periods far from home; this applied particularly to those from the East African Protectorate. About half of the million followers were, however, on short contracts or were casual labour. Since they worked nearer home and for shorter periods, their death rate was much lower. During 1916 the carrier force from the East African Protectorate was reinforced from conquered parts of German East Africa, but diminished by 100,000 men through releases, desertions and deaths. Numbers reached a climax in 1917, with the mass levy. The possibility that men enlisted more than once is hard to prove, but long-service carriers on release were unlikely to be fit again for a long time. Many recruits were medically unfit for the mass levy of 1917. During the war very many of the able-bodied male populations of these territories must have served, probably over 80 per cent, but not all at any one time. As it was the main theatre of war, German East Africa probably suffered most, conscriptions being carried out by both Germans and British.

G. W. T. Hodges

Papers

African Manpower Statistics for the British Forces in East Africa, 1914–1918