Great War in Africa, 1914-1918

Great War in Africa, 1914-1918 by Byron Farwell.

Farwell, Byron. The Great War in Africa, 1915-1918. New York: W.W. Norton & Company,

Although World War I has been the subject of countless fictional as well as historical surveys in recent years, the fact that it was indeed a total 'world war,' encompassing Africa as well as Europe, Asia, and the Americas, is often forgotten. One of the reasons for this may be that the African theater was a largely colonial war, fought between England and France vs. Germany, and involving the conscription of their respective colonized peoples. America was not a 'key' player in Africa. However, it is important for all students of the period to study this part of the conflict, as it has had such an integral part in shaping the map and economy of Africa today. Byron Farwell attempts to rectify this deficit of knowledge in his book the Great War in Africa, 1914-1918.

Farwell's book covers four major campaigns: the German and English struggles in Togo, the struggle over the Cameroons, and the battles in Southwest Africa and East Africa. There is a greater focus on East Africa while Togo is dealt with, in contrast, over the course of only a few pages. This is perhaps understandable given that the events leading up to the East African conflict were particularly dramatic. While at first the governor of British East Africa believed that the colony would have no need to engage in fighting during the war, his hand was quickly forced when Germans invaded British soil and occupied the territory. Throughout the work, Byron Farwell stresses the impact of the African contribution to the war and that the campaigns in sub-Saharan Africa were fought primarily by African soldiers. Black Africans were often the most accomplished of the soldiers as they were used to fighting under such conditions. The Great War was far from a 'Great White War.' In the Cameroons, for example, "the rank and file were black Africans except for a few NCO [Non-combatant officers] s" (Farwell 71).

The intention of Farwell's work is primarily to provide an overview, although simply by highlighting the period it provides needed analytical balance in terms of how this period of history is frequently viewed. It highlights the conflict between the colonized and colonizers that existed during the period, and the clash of civilizations. Tropical diseases decimated the European armies, who had little experience in coping with malaria, dysentery, fiercely stinging bees and ants and wild animals. It also shows how the cruelty of trench warfare on the Eastern and Western Fronts of Europe was paralleled with similar callousness shown by the generals towards their troops fighting in Africa. This was evident as early as the conflict in Tongo. Ominously a solder, "who asked if his return passage would be paid, was informed that the question had never arisen," because it was assumed so many people would die and that would be taken care of in the unlikely even that a return proved necessary (Farwell 31).

European armies were woefully unprepared for the heat, and the heat often warped the wooden propellers of the airplanes and the glue that held the planes together (Farwell 193). The stench of heat and death was almost unbearable: "We lay there in the mud and retched from the stench of dead animals and watched the rats crawl over us" (Farwell 279). Farwell thus shows profound empathy for ordinary soldiers, forced to fight in a land far away from home under brutal conditions, amongst people they barely understood. Yet despite his willingness to acknowledge the role of Africans fighting the war, he does not seem to extend them the same emotional sympathy. Some of Farwell's more controversial assertions are his idea that in some areas, such as in German-controlled East Africa, colonial domination proved a boon to the natives. "German rule provided African people with new alternatives and a wider range of choices," he questionable asserts, because of the roads, mines, rail roads, new crops, and modern amenities bought to the nation (Farwell 117). He also shows British sympathies at times, such as when he calls the Kaiser's army "bellicose" but admits it was the British who caused the conflict to spill over into Africa, beginning with Togoland (Farwell 24-25). Yet Farwell's hero is the German leader Lettow-Vorbeck, whose extraordinary efforts and his ability to take advantage of "British inefficiency and sheet stupidity" won him an advantage time and time again, against all odds and allowed him to remain undefeated in the field, even after the British captured most of the territory containing valuable railroads and ports to the sea (Farwell 167). Farwell calls him a great general in the service of a bad empire and a bad monarch.