opulation. German attempts to encourage defection of Muslim soldiers and to try to convince them to fight for the Ottoman Empire were of limited success, as only about 500 out of 8,000 North African POWs and defectors agreed to such a transfer. On the other hand, desertion rates in Africa were very high. They amounted, for instance, to 25 percent of those recruited by the British in Nigeria and the Gold Coast. Of the 14,000 Askari recruited and conscripted by the Germans in East Africa, no fewer than 3,000 deserted. Furthermore, the figures of 4,500 missing and 4,200 captured Askari are likely to include many more deserters. Most Askari recruited from the Gindo, Hehe and Ngoni, for instance, would desert when deployed near their home regions and wage a guerrilla war against all European armies. And the backbone of the big Tuareg rebellion in the central Sahara from 1916 to 1918 under Ag Muhammad Wau Teguidda Kaocen (1880-1919) was composed of several hundred deserters from the French and Italian colonial armies.
Active Resistance and Rebellion↑
The First World War witnessed dozens of minor revolts and a considerable number of major armed rebellions against colonial rule all over Africa, stretching from Algeria to the Cape of Good Hope and from French and British West Africa to German East Africa. Whilst the reasons behind these resistance movements are manifold, forced recruitment of soldiers and military labour accounted for many of them and in some cases recruitment can clearly be identified as the main trigger. In French West Africa, a revolt amongst the Bambara in Bélédougou (Mali) from February to November 1915 undoubtedly stemmed from opposition to recruitment. During the great revolt in West Volta from November 1915 to August 1916, which included tens of thousands of rebels of different ethnic groups, recruitment was at the very least a major trigger. The French had to deploy nearly 5,000 soldiers and policemen to quell this resistance, using brute force, destroying whole villages and killing many civilians. French recruitment practices were also partially responsible for the numerous rebellions in Benin during the war.
Of the many anti-colonial rebellions in North Africa during the war, which stretched from Morocco to Libya and Egypt, especially those in Algeria were linked to military recruitment. As in West Africa, French recruitment officers in Algeria faced all sorts of opposition. Back in the autumn of 1914, conscripts and their families had protested forced service in various locations. Resistance to recruitment culminated in the winter of 1916-17 in a major uprising in the South Constantinois. In Tunisia there were a few minor revolts in 1915 and 1916.
Other colonial powers’ recruitment drives faced organised African resistance as well. In Southern Nyasaland, for instance, John Chilembwe (1871-1915) led a revolt against British carrier recruitment. Several rebellions in Nigeria expressed general discontent with British colonial rule, to which the recruitment of soldiers and carriers had considerably contributed. The same is true for wartime revolts against Belgian rule in the Congo. German East Africa between 1914 and 1917 witnessed twenty-six oppositional movements, nine cases of armed resistance, and nine rebellions or attempted rebellions, many of which were directly or indirectly linked to recruitment of soldiers and carriers.
On balance, recruitment of more than two million young men, most often against their will, for war service was a major issue in large parts of wartime Africa. Whilst colonial propaganda and memorial culture stressed Africans’ eagerness to fight for their colonial masters, the reality was considerably different, with many men trying to avoid war service by hiding from recruitment missions, by desertion or even by active resistance. Forced recruitment thus had serious consequences, ranging from the flight of tens of thousands of young men, to major armed rebellions against colonial rule. Conversely many men, mainly for financial reasons, voluntarily joined colonial armies, especial