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African Manpower Statistics for the British Forces in East Africa, 1914–1918

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

G. W. T. Hodges
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For the campaign in East Africa from 1914 to 1918, the British used over 50,000 African troops, and over one million African followers. In 1914 no carrier organization existed, so this had to be rapidly improvised. There were three main carrier forces, based on the East Africa Protectorate, on Uganda and on Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia. German East Africa was overrun in 1916 and 1917, but the German forces were not defeated. These offensives necessitated huge numbers of followers. Despite much improved rations and medical services, deaths among followers averaged 10 per cent; over 100,000 must have died. Over 10,000 troops died of disease or were killed, a death rate of 20 per cent. Deaths were most numerous amongst those followers who served for long periods far from home; this applied particularly to those from the East African Protectorate. About half of the million followers were, however, on short contracts or were casual labour. Since they worked nearer home and for shorter periods, their death rate was much lower. During 1916 the carrier force from the East African Protectorate was reinforced from conquered parts of German East Africa, but diminished by 100,000 men through releases, desertions and deaths. Numbers reached a climax in 1917, with the mass levy. The possibility that men enlisted more than once is hard to prove, but long-service carriers on release were unlikely to be fit again for a long time. Many recruits were medically unfit for the mass levy of 1917. During the war very many of the able-bodied male populations of these territories must have served, probably over 80 per cent, but not all at any one time. As it was the main theatre of war, German East Africa probably suffered most, conscriptions being carried out by both Germans and British.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , January 1978 , pp. 101 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 The statistical Summary on p. 116 which illustrates this essay is based upon evidence in the various sources cited below.

2 Hordern, C., Military Operations in East Africa, I: 1941–1916 (London, 1941)Google Scholar; for vol. ii, CAB. 44 (3–10) and CAB. 45 (6–74) in the Public Record Office, London (P.R.O.). The ‘exception’ is CAB. 45/14; see p. 114 below.

3 Lucas, C., The Empire at War (London, n.d., 1925), ivGoogle Scholar; Murray, S. S., A Handbook of Nyasaland (Zomba, 1922), 271–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Clifford, H., The Gold Coast Regiment in the East African Campaign (London, 1920), Appendices I and IIIGoogle Scholar; Downes, W. D., With the Nigerians in East Africa (London, 1919).Google Scholar

5 Moyse-Bartlett, H., The King's African Rifles (Aldershot, 1956).Google Scholar

6 Savage, Donald C. and Munro, J. Forbes, ‘Carrier Corps Recruitment in the British East Africa Protectorate 1914–1918’, J. Afr. Hist., vii, 2 (1966), 313–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Clayton, A. and Savage, D. C., Government and Labour in Kenya, 1895–1963 (London, 1974). PP. 81–107Google Scholar. The statistical sources are in the Kenya National Archives (KNA): for Nyanza, see PC/NZA/1/10–13. In the present essay, statistics for Kenia Province are mostly derived from PC/Cp. 4/1/1 and PC/Cp. 1/1/1: for Ukamba, from PC/Cp. 4/2/2, and for Seyidie mostly from 16/49 I and II.

7 ‘Report by Lieutenant-Colonel O. F. Watkins, C.B.E., D.S.O., Director of Military Labour to the B.E.A. Expeditionary Force’, typescript (Nairobi, 1919)Google Scholar: two copies in the Central Government Library, Nairobi, and one in the P.R.O., CO. 533/216/4603, with complete appendices. In the present Summary, figures for territories 1 to 8 are from the Report, Appendix I, Tables 6–10 (Followers: Recruitments and Deaths). But only 10,947 of the Uganda Carriers (Column C) were with the Military Labour Corps. For statistics of those listed as missing, see Kenya Secretariat Circular 104 of 18 Dec. 1922 (copy in University of Nairobi, History Department, Research Project Archives, War F/1/2.

8 P.R.O., W.O. 106/46 ‘Scheme for Operations against German East Africa’ was one of several plans for invading German colonies, made when relations were deteriorating. Though not detailed, this plan (dated 1897) did establish the Voi-Moshi sector as the obvious route for an invasion from the E.A.P. See also Watkins Report, para. 50.

9 Ibid., paras. 6–23 and 35. See also K.N.A. 37/577, vol. I, ‘Porters for the Military’, John Ainsworth to Provincial Commissioners, 21 Mar. 1917, on his appointment as Military Commissioner for Labour to run the mass levy of 1917. Also Watkins to D.A.A.Q.M.G., 30 June 1917, in the Watkins Papers (by the kindness of his daughter, Mrs E. J. F. Knowles).

10 Watkins Report, paras. 33 and 49.

11 P.R.O., CAB. 45/29, Major-General Giffard, G. J., ‘The Organisation of Labour in a Campaign in Tropical Africa’Google Scholar. This was put to effective use in the Second World War: the new M.L.C. was inspected by Mr S. H. Fazan (conversation July 1971) and Senior Chief Josiah Njonjo (conversation Nov. 1970.

12 Military Labour Bureau Handbook (second edition, 1917), para. 19, ‘The Duties of Carrier Officers’Google Scholar, was reproduced in the Kenya, Official Gazette, 1921, 184–6Google Scholar, as ‘Instructions for the Care of Labour by Government Departments’, a point to which Dr Anthony Clayton kindly drew my attention. See also Kenya Medical Journal, ii (1926), 12Google Scholar: DrWilson, C. J., ‘Native Diet: a lesson from Rhodesia’Google Scholar. The only known copy of the M.L.B. Handbook is in the Library of the Royal Commonwealth Society, by the kindness of the late Mr H. B. Thomas. For a discussion of the impact of labour recruitment in the E.A.P., see Clayton, and Savage, , Government and Labour in Kenya.Google Scholar

13 Watkins Report, para. 37; Watkins Papers, secret file: Ainsworth to Watkins, 31 May 1917: the poor physique of recruits ‘has been a revelation to me’.

14 Moyse-Bartlett, , King's African Rifles, 701, Appendix E.Google Scholar

15 P.R.O., CO. 534/49, Chief Secretary, Nyasaland, to Colonial Office, 22 Feb. 1922, cited by Page, M. E., ‘The War of Thangata’, in this issue, p. 95 n. 36Google Scholar; Murray, , Handbook of Nyasaland, 271Google Scholar; M. E. Page, pers. comm.

16 Page, Melvin Eugene, ‘Malawians in the Great War and After’ (Ph.D. thesis, Michigan State University, 1977), 49Google Scholar. P.R.O., CO. 534/22/2356, Report on recruiting progress for the K.A.R., 31 Oct. 1917 to 12 Jan. 1918.

17 K.N.A. 37/577, vol. V; many references to Class B rejects from the mass levy doing road work in Jubaland.

18 Keane, G. J. and Tomblings, D., The African Native Medical Corps in the East African Campaign (Kampala, 1921).Google Scholar

19 Watkins Report, Appendix I, Table 6.

20 P.R.O., CO. 533/216/7624, Bowring to Milner (Colonial Secretary), 31 Dec. 1919.

21 M.L.B. Handbook, para. 51.

22 Watkins Report, para. 80.

23 Ibid., para. 47.

24 Ibid., para. 13: there were nine units nominally of 1,000 men each. Assistant Director of Transport to Chief Secretary, 12 Mar. 1917. National Archives of Uganda, Secretariat Minute Paper 4290 (copy deposited in University of Nairobi, History Department, Research Project Archives, War F/1/2).

25 K.N.A. 43/921, Labour for the Voi Military Railway 1915; K.N.A. 16/49, vols. i and ii, Seyidie Province Annual Reports, 1915–16: 2,500 Taita railway workers; K.N.A. 37/577 File A (Taita), Ainsworth to D. C. Voi asking for another 1,000 railway workers, 18 Apr. 1917.

26 Watkins Report, paras. 33 and 45.

27 Uganda S.M.p. 4290 as cited in n. 24.

28 Watkins Papers, report by Senior Military Liaison Officer with the Belgian Forces undated, probably by E. S. Grogan: ‘in all matters concerning porters their Hibernian propensity to interpret “hopes” as facts is ineradicable’. Also telegram, Troopers London to Gen. Smuts, copies dated so Dec. 1916. See P.R.O., CO. 879/119, memo dated 27 Oct. 1918, ‘Belgian occupied territory in German East Africa’. The published Belgian accounts of the campaign say very little about African porters. The strength of the ‘Kabaka's Carrier Corps’ raised in Uganda in 1916 was supposed to be maintained at 5,000: Belgium, Ministry of National Defence, Les Campagnes Coloniales Beiges, 1914–1918, ii (Brussels, 1929), 126–30 and annex, 91Google Scholar. The total number of porters in Belgian service at any one time was said to vary between 10,000 and 15,000; their mortality was almost 25 per cent in 1917–18 (that of African troops under the Belgians in the same period was 4–8 per cent): Rodhain, J., ‘Observations médicales recuellies parmi les troupes coloniales Beiges pendant leur campagne en Afrique Orientale 1914–1917’, Bulletin de la Société de Pathologie Exotique, xii (1919), 137–58.Google Scholar

29 Wallis, , typescript of the Handbook of Uganda (second edition)Google Scholar, in P.R.O., CO. 536/90/60006 (used by Lucas, , Empire at War, iv, 234–9)Google Scholar; according to this source, 173,056 carriers had been recruited in Uganda up to Feb. 1917.

30 Watkins Report, Appendix I, Tables 6 and 9. A typist's error in the former adds 100,000 to the Uganda carriers, of whom only 10,947 were registered with the M.L.C.

31 This is dealt with at length in P.R.O., CO. 536/86/52618 and CO. 536/88/50149.

32 Ainsworth Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford, MSS. Air. 379–82, Gen. Hoskins to Belfield (Governor, E.A.P.), 27 Feb. 1917.

33 P.R.O., CO. 536/88/50149, van Deventer to Wallis, 18 July 1917, and to Secretary, War Office, 28 July 1917. CO. 536/86/52618, Colonial Secretary to Wallis, 31 Oct. 1917.

34 Lucas, , Empire at War, iv, 270Google Scholar, and Murray, , Nyasaland, 271.Google Scholar

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36 Thomas, H. B., ‘The Logistics of Caravan Travel’, in The Nile Quest (Speke Centenary Celebrations: Kampala, 1962), 12Google Scholar; and Thomas, H. B. to author, 28 May 1971.Google Scholar

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38 Lucas, , Empire at War 270.Google Scholar

39 See p. 101 above and note 6.

40 Watkins Report, Appendix I, table 2.

41 K.N.A., PC/NZA/1/12. There was also a fall-back in Kenia Province in 1916–17: see K.N.A., PC/CP.4/1/1.

42 Watkins Report, para. 33. See p. 106 above for the difference between the figures of Watkins and those of Wallis.

43 Watkins Report, Appendix I, Table 3.

44 Ibid., paras. 27 and 28.

45 Ibid., remarks on Appendix I, Table 6, ‘Deaths according to Statistical Records’.

46 See Downes, , Nigerians, 111Google Scholar for his lurid account of the conditions on the Duthumi Road, and 185–244 for his accounts of the autumn fighting, especially of the battle of Mahiwa, , 16–17 Oct. 1917.Google Scholar

47 Page, , ‘Malawians’, 154Google Scholar. 37 gun-porters from Nyasaland are commemorated on the K.A.R. War Memorial Tower in Zomba (M. E. Page, pers. comm.).

48 Watkins Report, comments on Appendix I, Table 7.

49 Watkins Report, para. 29 on desertion. Hopelessness was a recognized cause of death. To augment diet, breweries were introduced (Watkins Report, para. 126) ‘to combat the depression and nostalgia to which the sick native so readily yields, dying without a struggle because he can summon up no interest in a life in which he feels he will never be well enough to get home’. Ainsworth organized convalescent camps: K.N.A. 37/577, vol. V, Ainsworth to D.A.D.M.L. Nairobi, 16 July 1917.

50 P.R.O., CO. 822/34, Moore, H. M. M. (acting governor) to Col. Sec, 7 Feb. 1931)Google Scholar, is a long despatch giving the history of ‘the porters' claim’. The award was recommended in the report of the Kenya Land Commission, 1934 (Cmd. 4556), paras. 2041–68, and the summary of conclusions (Cmd. 4580), paras. 27–8.

51 P.R.O., CO. 536/86/52618, correspondence and minutes make it clear that the mass levy was to be restricted to the Eastern Province because, being grain eaters, the men might not be so prone to gastric disease as the Ganda and Soga.

52 K.N.A. 75/47 Ukamba Inward, Ainsworth to Crawfurd, 16 May 1899. The death rate is from Hobley, C. W., Kenya from Chartered Company to Crown Colony (London, 1929), 103–5.Google Scholar

53 Obituary of H. R. Wallis by H. B. Thomas, who kindly gave me the details: East Africa, 14 Mar. 1946, 704Google Scholar; Uganda S.M.p. 4290 as cited in note 24.

54 Watkins Report, para. 48. Watkins Papers: Dundas to Secretary to Administrator, G.E.A., 3 Nov. 1917. See also K.N.A., DC/MKS/1/1/10, Machakos District Annual Reports 1916–18, on the ‘lamentable condition of repatriates’. For medical standards, see p. 103 above, n. 13. This applied probably even more to Uganda. As a carrier officer at Mjanji depot, H. B. Thomas saw two out of every three Uganda recruits rejected during the mass levy (letter to the author, 19 Jan. 1970). This bears out figures given in Wallis to Col. Sec, 25 Oct. 1917, in P.R.O., CO. 536/86/52618.

55 Remarks in Watkins Report, on Appendix I, Table 6.

56 Watkins Papers, Watkins to D.A.A.Q.M.G., 15 Mar. 1918; his request for a full colonelcy was not granted. See also correspondence in Apr. 1917 with Inspector-General of Communications, a brigadier-general, who had tried to alter rations locally.

57 Ibid., Watkins, to Ainsworth, , 4 Dec. 1914)Google Scholar, also the correspondence with the I.G.C. See also Watkins Report, para. 111.

58 Watkins Papers, Watkins to Pike (Surgeon-General) 6 Jan. 1918, enclosing a large file of correspondence on the history of carrier rations.

59 Ibid., letters of MajorLyon, , commanding Ibo carriers, on his relations with officers of the Nigerian Brigade, Sept. to Dec. 1917.Google Scholar

60 Watkins Report, para. 73.

61 Ibid., para. 49. See correspondence in the Watkins Papers between Watkins and Major F. M. S. Stokes, May and June 1918; see also the Report, para. 132, for Stokes' work on pay and the finger-print section of the M.L.C.

62 Watkins Report, para. 102.

63 Ibid., paras. 7 and 22. Interviews with Marius N'gang'a Karatu near Limuru, June and Nov. 1969, assisted by Peter Kinyanjui, Ngureh Mwaniki, Njagi Gakunju, Geoffrey Maina and Danson Kimani. See also Rosberg, Carl G. and Nottingham, John, The Myth of ‘Mau Mau’ (New York, 1966).Google Scholar

64 Watkins Report, paras. 94–108.

65 Interview with Muasya Maitha (ammunition carrier) and Umoa Mbatha (carrier headman), Muthetheni, Machakos District, 14 June 1969, assisted by Raphael Thyaka and Ezekiel Musau.

66 K.N.A, 37/577. vol. i; Director of Surveys to Hobley (P.C.), I Jan. 1915; Beech (Malindi, D. C. to Hobley, , 4 Mar. 1915)Google Scholar; MajorO'Grady, H. de C. to Hobley, , asking for gun carriers at Rs. 15 a month; correspondence between Hobley and Chief Secretary, July 1915.Google Scholar

67 The War Council, mainly a settler body, recommended this wage, rising to Rs. 6 after three months, to the Governor who made it official policy; Watkins notified carrier depot officers and provincial commissioners by telegram-K.N.A. 37/577, vol. I, 21 Sept. 1915. This was at first questioned because, as Hobley pointed out, the War Council was only an advisory body.

68 M.L.B. Handbook, para. 51 on Pay: Rs. 15 for gun-, signal- and stretcher-bearers, who also had boots, brassards, tarbooshes and other items not issued to ordinary carriers (p. 34, on Equipment).

69 Although East and Central African gun carriers could not win medals, there are many instances of their bravery in action in campaign literature, though none very specific. See Cranworth, Lord, Profit and Sport in British East Africa (London, 1919), 46–7Google Scholar. Gun carriers had to be warned off using K.A.R. Badges; see M.L.B. Handbook, Circular 21, 2 May 1916.

70 Murray, , Nyasaland, 271.Google Scholar

71 Watkins Report, para. 30. For instances of hiding, Philp, H. R. A., God and the African in Kenya (London and Edinburgh, n.d.), 131Google Scholar. Interview with Wabunya Kahindo and others at Kabati Market, 25 Nov. 1970. See K.N.A., DC/MKS/1/3/6 Kitui District Report 1915–16 for ‘whole locations’ taking to the bush. See also K.N.A., PC/Cp. 6/3/1 ‘Emigration from the Reserves 1917’.

72 K.N.A. 37/577, vol. Hobley, V. to Ainsworth, , 28 May 1917.Google Scholar

73 P.R.O., CAB. 45/14, Wallace as cited in n. 37 above; cf. Lucas, , Empire at War, IV, 296.Google Scholar

74 Perrings, Charles, ‘“Good Lawyers but Poor Workers”: Recruited Angolan Labour in the Copper Mines of Katanga, 1917–1921’, J. Afr. Hist., xviii, 2 (1977), 241Google Scholar; and for further details, idem, Black Mineworkers in Central Africa (in press).

75 P.R.O., CO. 536/85/30772 contains correspondence about the importance of cotton, which was recognized in London and by the general staff. CO. 536/86/52618, Col. Sec. to Wallis, 31 Oct. 1917: ‘I specially resent the suggestion … that I should regard a diminution of the cotton crop as a greater evil than a shortage of carriers…’.

76 Ibid., figures given by Wallis, in telegram to Colonial Secretary, 25 Oct. 1917.Google Scholar

77 Boell, L., Die Operationen in Ostafrika (Hamburg, 1952), 148, 158, 427–8.Google Scholar

78 Interview with Leah Nyamuiru Karuga near Limuru, Nov. 1969, assisted by her grandson Ngureh Mwaniki, and Njagi Gakunju. See also Huxley, Elspeth, Red Strangers (London, 1938), 272–86.Google Scholar