The War of Legs

Transfers ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-120
Author(s):  
Michael Pesek
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Medical Care ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Transport Infrastructure ◽  
World War ◽  
East African ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
Belgian Congo

This article describes the little-known history of military labor and transport during the East African campaign of World War I. Based on sources from German, Belgian, and British archives and publications, it considers the issue of military transport and supply in the thick of war. Traditional histories of World War I tend to be those of battles, but what follows is a history of roads and footpaths. More than a million Africans served as porters for the troops. Many paid with their lives. The organization of military labor was a huge task for the colonial and military bureaucracies for which they were hardly prepared. However, the need to organize military transport eventually initiated a process of modernization of the colonial state in the Belgian Congo and British East Africa. This process was not without backlash or failure. The Germans lost their well-developed military transport infrastructure during the Allied offensive of 1916. The British and Belgians went to war with the question of transport unresolved. They were unable to recruit enough Africans for military labor, a situation made worse by failures in the supplies by porters of food and medical care. One of the main factors that contributed to the success of German forces was the Allies' failure in the “war of legs.”

scholarly journals THE EGYPTIAN LABOR CORPS: WORKERS, PEASANTS, AND THE STATE IN WORLD WAR I

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle J. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Human Resource ◽  
Rural Society ◽  
Resource Mobilization ◽  
World War ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dialectical Relationship ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIn this article, I detail the British imperial system of human resource mobilization that recruited workers and peasants from Egypt to serve in the Egyptian Labor Corps in World War I (1914–18). By reconstructing multiple iterations of this network and analyzing the ways that workers and peasants acted within its constraints, this article provides a case study in the relationship between the Anglo-Egyptian colonial state and rural society in Egypt. Rather than seeing these as two separate, autonomous, and mutually antagonistic entities, this history of Egyptian Labor Corps recruitment demonstrates their mutual interdependence, emphasizing the dialectical relationship between state power and political subjectivity.

scholarly journals World War I and Gendering of the Army in Colonial Punjab

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (Special Issue) ◽  
pp. 12-20
Author(s):  
Anisha Deswal
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
Gendered Spaces ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Masculine Ideology ◽  
British Raj ◽  
Gender Perceptions ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

This paper seeks to investigate the impulses that encouraged a ‘gendering’ process and its crystallization in colonial Punjab in relation to the masculine culture propagated by the institution of a military-martial structure by the British Raj. The imperial/colonial gender perceptions led to the creation of gendered spaces in a manner conforming to the masculine ideology of the army. This is highlighted through different aspects of the lives of both men and women – their struggles, works, contributions, dreams and politics – before, during and after the First World War (1914-18). As a result, there emerged amongst the soldiers’ new high-class martial castes, middle-class patriarchal structures, and ideological pillars keen on constructing and upholding ‘ideal masculinity’ and ‘safe femininity’. The paper argues that the process of ‘gendering’ took place at two levels. On the one hand, the army structure of the colonial state paved the way for military-martial culture to exist on extreme masculine lines and, on the other hand, this ‘high’ masculine ideology percolated in the society and presented itself in contrast to the women of the region by further relegating them to the feminine spaces. Thus, the society in colonial Punjab presented a layered martial structure, which, in turn, dichotomized the gender binary. The paper attempts to reveal such ‘gender’ realities and experiences witnessed by the region of Punjab. In this context, the operation of imperial power and the resistance of the colonized to it; the space that was denied to the disadvantaged gender – women – and; the changes they imbibed along with the history of the mutual roles of women and soldiers become crucial to understand the ‘gendering’ process.

Polish Camps for Red Army Prisoners of War in the 1919–1924s: Modern Russian-Polish Approaches

2020 ◽  
pp. 233-246
Author(s):  
Oksana Kornilova
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Medical Care ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
World War ◽  
Red Army ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Army Soldiers ◽  
Modern Russian

The article discusses modern Russian and Polish historiography, devoted to the organization, functioning and liquidation of Polish camps for the Red Army prisoners of war who were captured during the Soviet-Polish War of 1919–1920. The history of the camps for the Red Army prisoners of war Polish authors begin with the creation of German camps in Poland during World War I. After the repatriation the camps continued to contain interned members of anti-Soviet armed groups and members of their families. Without considering the methodology of establishing the total number of prisoners and deceased, the author raises the question of interpreting the causes of the Red Army prisoners of war massive loss in Polish captivity. The researchers’ opinions range from the objective impossibility of the Polish authorities to provide prisoners with proper conditions to a targeted policy of destroying the Red Army soldiers by famine, cold, and refusal of medical care.

The War of thangata: Nyasaland and the East African Campaign, 1914–1918

1978 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melvin E. Page
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Medical Care ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
World War ◽  
East African ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Military Campaign

During World War I, Africans in Nyasaland were called upon to provide large numbers of soldiers and military labourers for the war effort in eastern Africa. Although a few willingly volunteered, many more objected, and some resisted. In this situation, colonial officals used force to secure the necessary manpower. Africans, therefore, called the conflict ‘the war of thangata’, referring to the growing colonial demands for taxes and for labour rent on European estates. The tasks which the soldiers and carriers were called upon to perform were equally likened to thangata, being ‘work which was done without real benefit’. So far from receiving rewards, Africans found that inadequate food, clothing, and medical care contributed greatly to the sufferings associated with a military campaign. Between 1914 and 1918 wartime manpower requirements, and war service, gave full meaning to colonial rule throughout the protectorate. The response to these demands and this suffering brought, in the form of both traditional and modern religious and social institutions, the first tentative stirrings of African nationalism in Nyasaland.

Colonial Policy and Education in British East Africa, 1900-1950

1966 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Beck
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
World War ◽  
East African ◽  
Native Contact ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
Native Education ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right

Since World War II much emphasis has been placed on the key role which education must play in East African affairs to promote the economic and cultural growth of the new African states. The problems of the intensification and the spread of education in East Africa deserve particular attention because they are different in nature from those of well-established countries and have been complicated by peculiarities in the history of the region.Between 1900 and 1920 the groundwork for native education was laid by missionary schools. Though limited in their objectives, they achieved tangible results. In spreading the knowledge of reading and writing among a substantial number of natives, they facilitated native contact with western civilization. After 1919 British officials in East Africa, humanitarians, and leaders in missionary movements became concerned with the spread of native education and demanded a change in the existing system. At the same time there emerged new native political movements, the leaders of which took a determined stand on matters of native education. They criticized the existing facilities and demanded the right of the African to be educated. To analyze the complexity of the problems of East African native education, particularly in the period from 1920 to 1950, is the purpose of this paper. It is necessary, however, first to look at the broader picture of the situation in East Africa in the immediately preceding decades and then to examine the achievements and limitations of East African education in the period from 1900 to 1914.

Drugs, Consumption, and Supply in Asia: The Case of Cocaine in Colonial India, c. 1900–c. 1930

2007 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Mills
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War I ◽  
New Products ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
World War ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
New Drug ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
History Of

This article examines the market for cocaine in India during the early twentieth century and the efforts of the colonial state to control it. The British authorities issued regulations to prohibit the drug's use as early as 1900, and yet by the start of World War I, cocaine's appeal had become socially diverse and geographically wide. This account of a significant market for a powerful new drug suggests that Indian society was able to rapidly develop a demand for such products even when the colonial state had no part in their introduction. Indians used these new products in complex ways—as medicines, as tonics, and as intoxicants, albeit through the localized medium of the everydaypaanleaf. The study points to a reconsideration of a number of debates about the history of drugs and modern medicines in Asia.

East African Christians and World War I

1978 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Louise Pirouet
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
East African ◽  
Indigenous Leadership ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Lutheran Church ◽  
Missionary Work ◽  
Eventual Return ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

It has usually been supposed that World War I was ‘an injury to the Christian cause’ because of the disruption of missionary work when mission personnel were called up, interned or not replaced. This view is questioned. Evidence is adduced from the history of the church in East Africa to show that African Christians responded to the situation by shouldering responsibilities in a way which surprised the missionaries on their return. The churches best placed to survive were those in which a beginning had been made to train African clergy. Only the Anglicans and Catholics had made any progress in training indigenous leadership by 1914. But even where this had not been done, leaders emerged, and some churches even grew considerably in numbers without any loss of quality. One example of this is drawn from the Usambara–Digo synod of the Lutheran Church in Tanzania. The missionaries' attitudes and actions on their eventual return are surveyed. Often they were surprised to find that in their absence the Christian communities had not disintegrated as they had feared. But almost always their concern was to ‘discipline’ the church, and return to the ways of doing things at the outbreak of war, instead of building on the developments which had occurred in the meantime. This sometimes had disastrous consequences as natural leadership became frustrated. The greatest ‘injury to the Christian cause’ may have been the missions' failure to see that a new method of working was now required of them rather than a return to the old.

Press Propaganda and Subaltern Agents of Pan-Islamic Networks in the Muslim Mediterranean World prior to World War I

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Odile Moreau
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
North Africa ◽  
World War ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
The Press ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of

This chapter explores movement and circulation across the Mediterranean and seeks to contribute to a history of proto-nationalism in the Maghrib and the Middle East at a particular moment prior to World War I. The discussion is particularly concerned with the interface of two Mediterranean spaces: the Middle East (Egypt, Ottoman Empire) and North Africa (Morocco), where the latter is viewed as a case study where resistance movements sought external allies as a way of compensating for their internal weakness. Applying methods developed by Subaltern Studies, and linking macro-historical approaches, namely of a translocal movement in the Muslim Mediterranean, it explores how the Egypt-based society, al-Ittihad al-Maghribi, through its agent, Aref Taher, used the press as an instrument for political propaganda, promoting its Pan-Islamic programme and its goal of uniting North Africa.

scholarly journals History of the Military Nurse Corps and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic: Lessons for the 2019 Coronavirus Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura A Talbot ◽  
E Jeffrey Metter ◽  
Heather King
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Patient Outcomes ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Treatment Options ◽  
Primary Therapy ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Nursing ◽  
History Of ◽  
1918 Influenza ◽  
The Military

ABSTRACT During World War I, the 1918 influenza pandemic struck the fatigued combat troops serving on the Western Front. Medical treatment options were limited; thus, skilled military nursing care was the primary therapy and the best indicator of patient outcomes. This article examines the military nursing’s role in the care of the soldiers during the 1918 flu pandemic and compares this to the 2019 coronavirus pandemic.

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