Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T16:34:21.318Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - ‘We don't want to die for nothing’: askari at war in German East Africa, 1914–1918

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2014

By
Michelle Moyd
Edited by
Santanu Das
Michelle Moyd
Affiliation:
Indiana University in Bloomington
Santanu Das
Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London
HTML view is not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

Summary

The First World War initially came to East Africa as a rumour. Mzee Ali, a senior askari, recalled how he first heard in late 1914 of the ‘great and terrible war’ that would soon engulf German East Africa:

From the talk around the campfires we knew this was to be no ordinary war. The sheer scale of it set it apart from any war we had known or been involved in … We knew from the gravity of the discussions that this war would come to our land and that only then would we fully comprehend its nature.

German officers of the Schutztruppe commenced an ‘intense’ military training programme to whip the veteran soldiers back into shape after years of garrison life, and to train a new generation of recruits. A seasoned veteran of East African warfare, Ali nevertheless felt great anxiety about this war's potential ‘scale and horror’ which ‘had magnified out of all proportion in [the askaris’] minds'. Waiting to go into battle against Allied forces in East Africa in April 1915 and struggling to overcome his fear that he would mishandle his weapon in battle, he experienced agitation and sleeplessness. Finally, he pulled himself together: ‘Breathing deeply to control my nervousness, I determined to put my faith and indeed my life in my training and in our officers.’ Relying on his officers and comrades renewed his resolve, and he found that he could sleep again, even while waiting for battle to commence.

Type
Chapter
Information
Race, Empire and First World War Writing , pp. 90 - 107
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

References

MacDonell, Bror Urme, Mzee Ali: The Biography of an African Slave-Raider Turned Askari and Scout (Johannesburg: 30 Degrees South Publishers, 2006), 167Google Scholar
Gardner, Brian, German East: The Story of the First World War in East Africa (London: Cassell, 1963)Google Scholar
Miller, Charles, Battle for the Bundu: the First World War in East Africa (London: Macdonald and Jane's, 1974)Google Scholar
Mosley, Leonard, Duel for Kilimanjaro: An Account of the East African Campaign, 1914–18 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963)Google Scholar
Deppe, Ludwig, Mit Lettow-Vorbeck durch Afrika. (Berlin: A. Scherl, 1919)Google Scholar
Lettow-Vorbeck, Paul, Meine Erinnerungen aus Ostafrika (Leipzig: K. F. Koehler, 1920)Google Scholar
Strachan, Hew, The First World War in Africa (Oxford University Press), 103.
Boell, Ludwig, Die Operationen in Ostafrika, Weltkrieg 1914–1918 (Hamburg: W. Dachert, 1951), 424Google Scholar
Killingray, David, ‘The War in Africa’ in Strachan, Hew (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 93Google Scholar
Anderson, Ross, The Battle of Tanga 1914 (Stroud: Tempus, 2002).Google Scholar
Anderson, Ross, The Forgotten Front: The East African Campaign 1914–1918 (Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2004)Google Scholar
Paice, Edward, Tip and Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2007)Google Scholar
Schnee, Heinrich, Deutsch-Ostafrika im Weltkriege: wie wir lebten und kämpften (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1919).Google Scholar
Iliffe, John, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge University Press, 1979), 168–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, Felicitas and Beez, Jigal (eds.), Der Maji-Maji-Krieg in Deutsch-Ostafrika, 1905–1907 (Berlin: Links, 2005)
Wenig, Richard, Kriegs-Safari: Erlebnisse und Eindrücke auf den Zügen Lettow-Vorbecks durch das östliche Afrika (Berlin: Scherl, 1920), 11.Google Scholar
Moesta, Karl, ‘Die Einwirkungen des Krieges auf die Eingeborenenbevölkerung in Deutsch-Ostafrika’, Koloniale Rundschau, 1–3 (1919), 5–25Google Scholar
Taute, M., ‘A German Account of the Medical Side of the War in East Africa, 1914–1918’, Tanganyika Notes and Records 8 (1939), 1–20.Google Scholar
Maddox, Gregory H., ‘Mtunya: Famine in Central Tanzania, 1917–20’, Journal of African History 31, 2 (1990): 181–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mader, Friedrich Wilhelm, Die rätselhafte Boma: Erzählung aus den Kämpfen der deutschen Schutztruppe in Ostafrika im Sommer 1918 (Berlin: Steiniger Verlag, 1942)Google Scholar
Lutteroth, Ascan, Tunakwenda: Auf Kriegssafari in Deutsch-Ostafrika (Hamburg: Verlag Broschek & Co., 1938), 156.Google Scholar
Miller, Charles, Battle for the Bundu: The First World War in East Africa (London: Macdonald and Jane's, 1974), 326.Google Scholar
Clifford, Hugh, The Gold Coast Regiment in the East African Campaign (1920; repr. Nashville: Battery Press, 1995), 76.Google Scholar
Hauer, August, ‘ “Watoto”, die Kleinsten der Lettow-Truppe’ in Zache, Hans (ed.), Die deutschen Kolonien in Wort und Bild (Augsburg: Bechtermünz, 2003), 460–3Google Scholar
Fonck, Heinrich, Deutsch-Ost-Afrika: Eine Schilderung deutschen Tropen nach 10 (Berlin: Vossische Buchhandlung, 1910), 65Google Scholar
Rehfeldt, Walter, Bilder vom Kriege in Deutsch-Ostafrika nach Aquarellen (Hamburg: Charles Fuchs, 1920), 6–14Google Scholar
Hodgson, Dorothy and McCurdy, Sheryl, ‘Wayward Wives, Misfit Mothers, and Disobedient Daughters: “Wicked” Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 30, 1 (1996): 1–9.Google Scholar
Vieweg, Burkhard, Macho Porini – Die Augen im Busch: Kautschukpflanzer Karl Vieweg in Deutsch-Ostafrika; authentische Berichte 1910–1919 (Weikersheim: Margraf Verlag, 1996), 380.Google Scholar
Miller, Joseph C., Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade 1730–1830 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), 695–700.Google Scholar
Hajivayanis, G. G., Motowa, A. C., and Iliffe, J., ‘The Politicians: Ali Ponda and Hassan Suleiman’, in Iliffe, John (ed.), Modern Tanzanians: a Volume of Biographies (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1973), 229.Google Scholar
Weisse Helden, Schwarze Krieger: Zur Geschichte kolonialer Männlichkeit in Deutschland 1918–1964 (Cologne: Böhlau, 2006), 67.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×