remembering the unremembered
The East African Campaign of the Great War is a story of heroic human endeavour and terrible suffering set in some of the most difficult terrain in the world. More than a century later, Tom Lawrence explains why it is time it is Remembered.
The East African Campaign in WWI has frequently and inaccurately, been dubbed as a 'sideshow' to the main theatre of war battled out on the European Western Front, but it is an unfortunate trivialisation and diminishes the enormity of the human loss and what became Britain’s most financially costly and ultimately tragically ineffective conflict of the Great War. It did not suffer the horror of the trenches, but it was a no less significant campaign with horrors all of its own. Not only was it the longest campaign of the Great War, BEA was the only British colony to be invaded and occupied by the Germans; it was the first territory to legislate mandatory conscription and a huge assembly of different armies was drafted in from all over the Empire, including approximately one million Africans as porters to carry food, equipment and ammunition. By the end of the campaign, the diversity of troops and countries involved in East and Central Africa was unrivalled in any other single theatre of war. In all, 23 countries deployed troops to the campaign, and around 75 per cent of those serving died from malnutrition, malaria, dysentery, blackwater fever and wild animals disease killed or incapacitated 30 men for every man killed in battle on the British side. 18
Photos courtesy Louisa Thornhill & Lotte Rasmussen What is generally forgotten is that the EA Campaign was all part of a 'World War,' which stretched from the Far East to Africa. The first casualty from a shot fired in anger was nowhere near Flanders but in Africa. One day after the Declaration of War (4 August 1914) the British and French made a fast
move to destroy a radio mast at Kamina in the German colony of Togoland in West Africa (now Togo). This was critical as it meant that the more southern colonies of German East Africa and German South West Africa were now isolated from the Fatherland. In East Africa General von Lettow-
Envoys from Tanzania, Britain, Malawi, Sudan and Belgium - all representing the combatant nations in East Africa, attended the third Remembrance Weekend held in Taita Taveta in 2020.
Muthaiga Country Club January – March 2021
www.mcc.co.ke
