The Rank and File of the Colonial Army in Nigeria, 1914–18

John Barrett

doi:10.1017/S0022278X00014518

The Rank and File of the Colonial Army in Nigeria, 1914–18

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008

John Barrett

Show author details

John Barrett: Affiliation:
lately at the Department of History, University of Ibadan1

Article contents

Extract
References

Get access

Rights & Permissions

Extract

In the first full-scale fighting between white forces on African territory, the Boer War, Africans had been cast by the opponents in the rôle of an animated geographical background.3. When, however, the European struggle of 1914–18 was projected onto the continent, Africans were enrolled by both sides into the dramatis personae of the conflict. World War I resulted in a European mobilisation of African manpower on a scale unknown until that time,4 with the possible exception of the South African mines. The Nigerian Administration alone recruited 13,980 troops,5 and supplied approximately 10,000 carriers,6 so that the British armed forces in this period even outpaced the tin mines and railways as an employer of Nigerian manpower.7 Indeed, given the relative size of the population and degree of British administrative control it is arguable that the effect of this scale of recruitment was equivalent in its local impact to the later military mobilisation of 10,000 Nigerians during World War 11.8

Type: Africana
Information: The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 105 - 115

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X00014518 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

^{Page 105 note 2} Cited by Andrzejewski, Stanislav, Military Organisation and Society (London, 1968), p. 1.Google Scholar

^{Page 105 note 3} Denoon, Donald, ‘Participation in the “Boer War”: People's War, People's Non-War, or Non-People's War?’, in Proceedings of the 5th Annual Conference Social Science Council (Nairobi, 1969), p. 21.Google Scholar

^{Page 105 note 4} Savage, D. C. and Forbes-Munro, J., ‘Carrier Corps Recruitment in the British East African Protectorate, 1914–18’, in Journal of African History (Cambridge), VII, 2, 1966, p. 313.Google Scholar

^{Page 105 note 5} Crowder, Michael, West Africa Under Colonial Rule (London, 1968), p. 267n.Google Scholar

^{Page 105 note 6} This figure is arrived at from the Cameroons and the East African expeditionary forces, and is likely, therefore, to be an underestimation. See C.S.O. 20/3, N.C. 124/1915; C.S.O. 20/4, N.C. 141/1916; C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 39/1917, N.C. 42/1917, N.C. 158/1917, and N.C. 163/1917.

^{Page 105 note 7} Ekundare, R. Olufemi, An Economic History of Nigeria, 1860–1960 (London, 1973), p. 178Google Scholar, and Oyemalcinde, J. O., ‘A History of Indigenous Labour on the Nigerian Railway, 1895–1945’, Ph.D. dissertation, Ibadan, 1970.Google Scholar

^{Page 105 note 8} Miners, N.J., The Nigerian Army, 1956–1966 (London, 1971), p. 14.Google Scholar

^{Page 106 note 1} Haywood, M. A. and Clarke, F. A. S., History of the West African Frontier Force (London, 1964), p. 84.Google Scholar This contrasts with recruitment for the police where comparatively few Hausa were enlisted in 1907. The Yoruba, Ibo, and Ben-Ben provided by far the highest proportion of the police. Tamuno, T. N., The Police in Modern Nigeria, 1861–1965: origins, development and role (Ibadan, 1970), pp. 46 and 50.Google Scholar

^{Page 106 note 2} C.S.O. 20/2, N.C. 162/1914: file concerning the pay of troops in the Northern Provinces following amalgamation.

^{Page 106 note 3} Ibid.

^{Page 106 note 4} For detailed figures, see the quarterly returns for 1917 and 1918 which included a classification of the Regiment by races; C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. III/17, and C.S.O. 20/6, N.C. 93/18.

^{Page 106 note 5} Major Moran reported on recruitment for the training centres in a file dealing with quarterly returns for 1917; C.S.O. 20/4, N.C. 150/1917.

^{Page 106 note 6} Ibid. The Shua or Shuwa had formed an important element, mainly as light cavalry, in the pre-colonial armies of Bornu.

^{Page 107 note 1} For the estimates by Residents of the carrier potential of the non-combatant ethnic groups of the Southern Provinces, see C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 47/17. In 1917, this area of Nigeria supplied approximately 3,000 carriers for the Overseas Expeditionary Force to East Africa, chiefly from Owerri, Ogoja, Calabar, and Benin.

^{Page 107 note 2} Report on Ezza recruits from Captain Stewart, O.C. 3rd Training Centre, Okigwi; C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 55/17.

^{Page 107 note 3} C.S.O. 20/6, N.C. 37/1918.

^{Page 107 note 4} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 55/1917.

^{Page 107 note 5} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 161/1917.

^{Page 107 note 6} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 158/1917.

^{Page 107 note 7} C.S.O. 20/6, N.C. 37/1918.

^{Page 108 note 1} C.S.O. 20/6, N.C. 150/1918.

^{Page 108 note 2} C.S.O. 20/6, N.C. 158/1918.

^{Page 108 note 3} Ibid.

^{Page 108 note 4} Crowder, Michael, ‘The 1939–45 War and West Africa’, in Ajayi, J. F. A. and Crowder, Michael (eds.), History of West Africa, Vol. II (London, 1974)Google Scholar, citing Asiwaju, A. I., ‘The Impact of French and British Administration on Western Yorubaland, 1889–1945’, Ph.D. dissertation, Ibadan, 1971, p. 214.Google Scholar

^{Page 108 note 5} de St Jorre, John, The Nigerian Civil War (London, 1972), p. 138.Google Scholar

^{Page 108 note 6} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 64/17.

^{Page 108 note 7} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 58/17.

^{Page 108 note 8} Quarterly reports for training centres, 1917 and 1918; C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 158/17.

^{Page 108 note 9} Meek, C. K., The Northern Tribes of Nigeria, Vol. II, (London, 1925), p. 229.Google Scholar

^{Page 109 note 1} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 158/17.

^{Page 109 note 2} C.S.O. 20/4, N.e. 139/16, and N.C. 142/16.

^{Page 109 note 3} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 47/17.

^{Page 109 note 4} Personal graph drawn from the monthly recruiting figures given in C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 158/17.

^{Page 109 note 5} Ibid.

^{Page 109 note 6} Berg, Elliot J., ‘Backward-Sloping Labour Supply Functions in Dual Economies – the African Case’ (1961), in Wallerstein, Immanuel (ed.), Social Change – the Colonial Situation (New York, 1966), p. 129.Google Scholar

^{Page 109 note 7} See Armstrong, R., ‘The Nightwatchmen of Kano’, in Middle Eastern Studies (London) III, 3, 04 1967, pp. 269–82.Google Scholar

^{Page 109 note 8} C.S.O. 20/2, N.C. 162/14: a petition by arIlly officers for a rise in the rate of pay offered to recruits.

^{Page 110 note 1} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 162/14.

^{Page 110 note 2} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 50/17.

^{Page 110 note 3} The translation of this song is ‘He who accepts European [wage] employment pawns himself, just as he who joins the army plunges himself into trouble.’ Oyamakinde, J. O., ‘A History of Indigenous Labour on the Nigerian Railway, 1895–1945’, Ph.D. dissertation, Ibadan, 1970, p. 67.Google Scholar

^{Page 110 note 4} Ibid. Yoruba disenchantment with service in the colonial army has been attributed to the bad reputation gained in the suppression of the Egba rising in 1918. While there is certainly evidence of widespread desertions after this event, it is by no means the total explanation since a rapid fall-off in the rate of Yoruba recruitment dates from 1911. See Gutteridge, W. F., ‘Military and Police Forces in Colonial Africa’, in Gann, L. H. and Duignan, Peter (eds.), Colonialism in Africa, 1870–1960, Vol. II, The History and Politics of Colonialism, 1914–1960 (Cambridge, 1970), p. 288.Google Scholar

^{Page 110 note 5} C.S.0. 20/4, N.C. 100/16. For a description of the conditions which the troops had to endure in East Africa, see Lugard to Secretary of State, C.S.0. 20/5, N.C. 140/17.

^{Page 110 note 6} For an earlier useof music in a recruiting campaign at Ibadan, see Tamuno, op. cit. p. 36.

^{Page 110 note 7} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 58/17.

^{Page 111 note 1} C.S.O. 20/5, N.e. 12/17.

^{Page 111 note 2} Lugard, Frederick, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (Edinburgh, 1922; London, 5th edn. 1965), p. 575n.Google Scholar

^{Page 111 note 3} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 158/17.

^{Page 111 note 4} Ibid.

^{Page 111 note 5} Atanda, J. A., ‘The Changing Status of the Alafin of Oyo Under Colonial Rule and Independence’, in Crowder, Michael and Ikime, Obaro (eds.), West African Chiefs: theirchanging status under colonial rule and independence (Ile-Ife, 1970), p. 212.Google Scholar Also Atanda, J. A., ‘The Iseyin– Okeiho Rising of 1916: an example of socio-political conflict in colonial Africa’, in the Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria (Ibadan), IV, 4, 06 1969, pp. 497–514.Google Scholar

^{Page 111 note 6} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 55/17.

^{Page 111 note 7} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 121/17.

^{Page 111 note 8} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 64/17.

^{Page 112 note 1} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 47/17 and N.C. 58/17.

^{Page 112 note 2} C.S.O. 20/4, N.C. 139/16, N.C. 141/16, and N.C. 142/16.

^{Page 112 note 3} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 55/17.

^{Page 112 note 4} C.S.O. 20/4, N.C. 56/16.

^{Page 112 note 5} West Africa (London), 26 05 1917, p. 289, and 7 07 1917, p. 384.Google Scholar

^{Page 112 note 6} The narrative which follows is based on the proceedings of the Court of Enquiry regarding the ‘Stamboul’ incident, dated 12 March 1917; C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 49/17.

^{Page 113 note 1} The verdict of the Court of Enquiry was that Sergeant Tanko Kura had used his religious influence to persuade a substantial number of men to desert.

^{Page 113 note 2} C.S.O. 20/4, N.C. 115/16.

^{Page 113 note 3} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 121/17.

^{Page 113 note 4} Haywood and Clarke, op. cit. p. 297.

^{Page 113 note 5} This system of differential pay soon led to friction. Troops enlisted in the North had therefore to be ‘segregated’ from those enlisted in the South until a new system was introduced in 1916.

^{Page 113 note 6} The word ‘modernisation’ is here taken to mean an increase in the use of non-animate sources of energy and the effect of this on the society concerned.

^{Page 114 note 1} C.S.O. 20/3, N.C. 40/15, and also Kirk-Greene, A. H. M., ‘Indian Troops with the W.A.F.F.’, in Journal of the Society for Army History Research (London), XL, II, 1964.Google Scholar

^{Page 114 note 2} C.S.O. 20/4, N.C. 141/16.

^{Page 114 note 3} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 158/17.

^{Page 114 note 4} Ibid.

^{Page 114 note 5} Estimates for the Nigeria Regiment, 1970; C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 96/77.

^{Page 114 note 6} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 53/17.

^{Page 114 note 7} Haywood and Clarke, op. cit. p. 255.

^{Page 114 note 8} C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 53/17.

^{Page 114 note 9} E. P. Skinner, ‘Labour Migration and its Relationship to Socio-Cultural Change in Mossi Society’ (1960), in Wallerstein (ed.), op. cit. p. 137.

^{Page 115 note 1} Letter of 1 October 1917 from Seliya Werepe on behalf of her son Theophilus Harding to Lieutenant-Governor, Southern Province; C.S.O. 20/5, N.C. 137/17.

Article contents

The Rank and File of the Colonial Army in Nigeria, 1914–18

Extract

Access options

References

Save article to Kindle

Save article to Dropbox

Save article to Google Drive

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests