European colonial powers recruited hundreds of thousands of Africans for war service as soldiers, carriers or war workers. They were deployed in all African theatres of war as well as in Europe and the Middle East. This article considers the ways these young men were recruited, their attitudes towards service for their colonial masters, and organised resistance against war service in several parts of Africa.
It is difficult to establish the exact number of Africans mobilised for the war effort of the colonial powers, yet figures for individual theatres of war suggest that more than two million Africans saw deployment on African, European, and Middle Eastern battlefields. German troops in Africa (the so-called “Schutztruppen”) overwhelmingly consisted of African soldiers. Their numbers were relatively low: 1,200 in Togo, 3,200 in Cameroon, 5,000 in Namibia, and 14,000 Askari as well as 2-3,000 irregulars in East Africa. More impressive are the figures for African carriers serving in the German colonial armies: 11,000 in Cameroon and even 200,000 in East Africa.
In all African theatres of war, more African soldiers served in the Entente armies than in the German “Schutztruppen”. In Togo, the overwhelming majority of the 25,000 French and British troops were Africans. The same is true for the 30,000 French and British troops deployed in Cameroon. South African troops attacking the German colony in Namibia were overwhelmingly composed of settlers of European extraction, but they included Africans in non-combatant roles as well. Entente forces in East Africa totalled 240,000 soldiers from Europe, India, and Africa. At the outbreak of the war, native units in the British East African colonies were as small as their German counterparts: the “King’s African Rifles” in Kenya, Uganda and Nyasaland mustered only 2,300 Askari, and in Northern Rhodesia 800 Africans served as militarized police. Until the end of the war, the strength of the “King’s African Rifles” would increase to 33,000 soldiers; and the British also deployed about 25,000 soldiers of their “West African Frontier Force” in the East African theatre of war. Again, the number of carriers in this theatre, some 750,000, massively exceeded that of combatants. Altogether, the British recruited no fewer than 930,000 carriers for deployment in the different African theatres of war, with recruitment extending to fourteen different territories (East African Protectorate, Uganda, German East Africa, Portuguese East Africa, Zanzibar and Mafia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Seychelles, Gambia, Gold Coast, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, and South Africa). In Nyasaland, for instance, approximately 30 percent of the adult male population was recruited for military labour. The Belgians deployed 15,000 African soldiers of their Congolese “Force Publique,” as well as 260,000 carriers. Four thousand African soldiers from Mozambique saw deployment in the Portuguese forces, whilst the number of carriers used by the Portuguese is unknown.
As for deployment overseas, the overwhelming majority of Africans served in the French army. African units deployed in Europe included 135,000 West Africans, at least 134,000 Algerian Arabs, and contingents from Tunisia (60,000 men), Morocco (37,000 men), Madagascar (34,000 men), and the Somali coast (2,000 men). Furthermore, the French also recruited a considerable number of war workers for metropolitan deployment: 76,000 in Algeria, 35,000 in Morocco, 18,000 in Tunisia, and 6,000 in Madagascar. On the other hand, a suggestion made by Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929) in 1918 to hire up to 200,000 Ethiopian mercenaries was not pursued. Italy tried to deploy African troops in Europe as well, which resulted in a disaster: in 1915, some 2,700 soldiers from Libya were shipped to Sicily. However, they did not enter the front lines because many died from pneumonia immediately after their arrival, and so the survivors were shipped home again. The Belgian government repeatedly discussed shipping in several thousand soldiers from the Congo, 