Africa’s role in the war has been neglected by historians and largely forgotten by the general public. Africans fought in the deserts of North Africa, the jungles of Burma and over the skies of Germany. A decreasing band of troupers, who are now living in poverty, and bitterly being written out of history.
Africa’s fallen did not just belong to the allied nations, rather, they were on both sides of the war. At various times during the conflict, different groups of African soldiers had to fight each other because they were wearing the uniforms of rival imperial powers. “The fighting at the river Songwe border was particularly notorious because some of the soldiers and carrier corps involved in it were related to enemy soldiers.” (Masebo, 2015).
Much as the world remembers their fallen in the various wars, Africa’s involvement in both world wars remains a footnote. There is little mention of the plight of our African brothers and sisters who took part in quarrels of which they were ignorant.
As one of the ways of remembering our fallen, I have listed below some of the snippets of Africa’s involvement in both the 1st and the 2nd World Wars.
First World War
- When war broke out in 1914, Europe looked to their colonies for resources. The French sent 450,000 African soldiers from their colonies in West and North Africa to fight against Germany on the frontline in Europe. Some were sent to places as far as Turkey.
- South Africans, Ghanaians, Nigerians, Sierra Leoneans, Gambians, Kenyans and Beninese fought under the British Flag to fight against German’s Southwest African troops to seize the German African colonies. More than 200,000 bearers transported weapons, ammunition, and food for the troops. On the opposite side of the war, Germany is known to have coscripted 45,000 carriers.
- Even more men, as well as women and children, were recruited, often forcibly, as carriers by the German and British troops to support armies whose supplies could not be moved by conventional methods. These “native carriers” hauled food supplies, arms, and artillery across precarious areas. They cooked, scrubbed, and tended to the alien soldiers’ needs. Some of these recruits died on the job due to exhaustion, malnutrition, or disease.
- Although some recruitment was voluntary in the hope of a better life after the war, most was done by chiefs who were expected to deliver the numbers required of them by their imperial political officers.
- The African population was torn from their roots. Harvests suffered due to a lack of labour. Some of the crops were plundered by the troops passing through who wanted to ensure that there would be no food left for their enemies.
- It is estimated that about 2 million people from across Africa were actively involved in military confrontations, as soldiers or bearers, in both Europe and Africa.
- It is estimated that a million people died in East Africa as a direct result of the war.
- The outbreak of the Spanish flu, which spread rapidly among the weakened population shortly after the war ended, accounted for a further 50,000 to 80,000 deaths
- No accurate figures are saying how many people died of hunger. However, the fact that Tanzania lost 20 per cent of its population in 1917/18 gives some indication of the deprivation and misery that the African peoples were subjected to.
- When the victorious powers signed the Treaty of Versailles to seal the end of the war, they laid down peoples’ right to self-determination. This, however, did not apply to Africa. For example, the South African National Congress which had travelled specially to Versailles for the Treaty was not received.
- The war in Africa is generally treated as just a minor skirmish in which hardly anyone was hurt.
Second World War
The List below depicts some figures for African’s involvement from their various colonial masters
| Britain | 334,000 | South Africans |
| 289,530 | Kings Africa’s Rifles KAR : Kenya Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, | |
| 100,000 | Egypt | |
| 77.767 | Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe | |
| 6,500 | Mauritius, Seychelles | |
| French | 190,000 | Algeria, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Chad, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Niger, Republic of Congo |
| Italy | 30,000 | Eritrea |
| Independent | 30,000 | Ethiopia |
| Belgium | 24,000 | Congo |
- In the first few years of the war, the Royal Air Force [RAF] recruited 10,000 West Africans for ground duties in the British West Africa colonies of the Gold Coast [now Ghana], Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia.
- Italy invaded Egypt in September of 1940, and in a December counterattack, British and Indian forces captured some 130,000 Italians (The Atlantic).
- Hitler responded by forming his Afrika Korps under Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. Known as the Desert Fox, Rommel was one of Germany’s most popular generals during World War II, and he gained his enemies’ respect with his victories as commander of the Afrika Korps.
- Nigerians made up more than half of the total force of 90 000 West African soldiers deployed to Southeast Asia after 1943 as part of the British Army’s 81st and 82nd (West Africa) Divisions.
- Approximately one million sub-Saharan Africans served in some capacity during the Second World War. On the civilian front, even more, African women and men produced vast quantities of food and strategic materials for the Allied war effort.
African contributions to the two World Wars do not get highlighted in the grand narratives of the Second World War. This is a call to Action for Africans to narrate their involvement in the two World Wars.
We Will Remember them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pRabavi2rU&t=300s.
https://youtu.be/DWIHOIZVZtE?si=ekfRe2mNX1klajCE
References
Fischer , Hilke. (2014) Africa and World War 1 https://www.dw.com/en/africa-and-world-war-i/a-17573462
Joe Harris Lunn (2015) War Losses (Africa) https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_losses_africa
Kathleen Bomani, 2014 WW1’s untold story: The forgotten African battlefields https://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/08/world/africa/world-war-in-africa/index.html
Masebo, Osward (2015) The African soldiers dragged into Europe’s war, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33329661
Parsons, Timothy (2015) Africa’s Role in WWII Remembered http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2015/08/africas-role-in-wwii-remembered/
Proust, Martin. (2009) The Africans who fought in WWIIhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8344170.stm
Unesco (1985)The first World War and Its Consequences in General History of Africa, Volume VII, HEINEMANN- CALIFORNIA – UNESCO Publishing https://en.unesco.org/courier/news-views-online/first-world-war-and-its-consequences-africa.
https://www.britishlegion.org.uk
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/09/world-war-ii-the-north-african-campaign/100140/