“A Federal Army for East Africa”: Late Colonial Visions for the Future of the King’s African Rifles and East African Federation

The aim of this paper is to explore the possibility and viability of an East African political federation project. Since the late 1800s under the then British East Africa, the countries of East Africa have been searching for ways to integrate. The search led to the establishment of the East African Community (EAC) in December 1967, which later collapsed in 1977. The argument of the paper is that it appears that among the current crop of leaders of the region there is the political will to establish the East African federation. However, it will take more than political will to bring the federation to fruition, as conditions in the region currently do not augur well for the project. Also, the leaders have not carried the people along with them on the integration journey. One main problem of attempts at integration in East Africa in particular and Africa in general, has been that they have been leader-led. Whether it was the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) or now the African Union (AU), the people at the grassroots have played no role in their establishment and consolidation. The question therefore is: Do existing conditions in the region advance the project of an East African federation?

Pan-Africanism and East African Federation Get access Pan-Africanism and East African Federation, by Joseph S. Nye Harvard UP, London, OUP, 1966. 307pp. 45s. Federation in East Africa: Opportunities and Problems, edited by Colin Leys and Peter Robson. OUP, Nairobi, 1965. 244pp. 27s. 6d. GEORGE BENNETT GEORGE BENNETT Oxford University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 66, Issue 263, April 1967, Pages 166–167, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a095600 Published: 01 April 1967

The following article covers testimonies of former military and associated personnel fighting the Mau Mau 1 insurgency in Kenya between 1952 and 1960. Three questions underlie the study: How did British officers and others view what became labelled as an emergency? What was their impression of Mau Mau rebels? And how did they judge African soldiers of the King’s African Rifles (KAR) who carried a large share of the military effort? The memories reveal a rather technical view of the conflict. According to the personnel quoted in the paper, an archaic movement was pitched against disciplined but ruthless ‘Askaris’ 2 in a conflict whose roots their officers struggled to fully understand. The article relies to a large degree on interviews and private papers held at the Imperial War Museum (London) and the Bodleian Library (Oxford).

The early growth of military forces in British Central Africa, British East Africa and Uganda was not governed by an established military policy, nor was there co-ordination between the three territories. During the period 1890 - 95, native levies were raised by Lugard, Johnson, Portal and the officials of the Imperial British East Africa Company. In 1895 these forces were organized into three regiments: the Central Africa Rifles; the Uganda Rifles, and the East Africa Rifles. During the 1890's these regiments were required, with the help of the Indian army, to establish internal security and to combat Arab opposition to the spread of European influence. In 1901 proposals were put forward for the amalgama-tion in a single regiment of all the military forces in east and central Africa, under the supervision of an inspector-General, seconded to the Foreign Office as military adviser. The purpose of this reform was to ensure a common policy in administration and training, and mutual support between the torritories in time of emergency. On 1 January 1902 the King's African Rifles was accordingly continued with an Initial establishment of six battalions, formed from the three early regiments an Indian Contingent, and the tribal levies of British Somaliland. During the ensuing 12 years the Regiment fought in several campaigns against the 'Mad Mullah' of Somaliland, and carried out a number of punitive expeditions in support of the extension of civil administration in British Hast Africa and Uganda. In spite of these growing commitments the constant demand for economy as the new protectorates strove to balance their budgets reduced the Regiment to a strength of three battalions, and in 1912 brought British East Africa to the verge of military collapse. Military consolidation had however, proceeded far enough to enable the threat of invasion to be averted in 1914.

The marine officers interest in the exploits of Colonel Lettow-Vorbeck reflects an earlier period, now superseded, at least as far as academic military history is concerned, in the historiography of the East African theater of the First World War. The new academic scholarship on the East African theater of the First World War reflects the considerable changes that have taken place since the 1970s in the way that both African and military history are written. Recent years have seen a relative flood of new writing on the troops who carried most of the burden of fighting on the Entente side in East Africa, the askaris of the King's African Rifles (KAR). The askaris, who did the bulk of the fighting for the Allies in East Africa, were excluded from service in Europe by the British command. Keywords: Allies; askaris; Colonel Lettow-Vorbeck; East African theater; First World War; King's African Rifles (KAR); military history

ABSTRACTAttitudes towards a regional military force are of paramount importance when exploring public support for regional integration. Until now, however, scholarly research has not considered the influence of attitudes towards a regional military mechanism in the sub-Saharan African context. Using Afrobarometer data, we demonstrate that military concerns are vital when exploring Tanzanian attitudes towards the proposed political federation of the East African Community (EAC), the East African Federation (EAF). More specifically, opposition to military cooperation strongly influences Tanzanian scepticism of the EAF. This finding is highly relevant given that referendums in the participating member states must be passed to facilitate political integration. Heightened opposition towards military cooperation raises the possibility of the public rejecting a politically integrated EAC. This poses a potential obstacle to the implementation of joint security policies and crucial mechanisms to provide a more stable region at large. We account for alternative explanations of Tanzanian opinion formation and reflect on the strength of military-orientated concerns for investigating public support for the East African project specifically and regional integration in sub-Saharan Africa more widely.

R OBERT A. NAYLORP's article entitled The British Role in Central America Prior to the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850,' sets forth a sweeping thesis of commercial determinism which demands careful scrutiny before being accepted. Mr. Naylor declares that British policies in mid-America before 1850 determined not by political considerations but rather by commercial interests, and to a considerable degree were formulated by British inerchants in Central America, Belize, and Great Britain rather than by functionaries in the Foreign Office. '2 It is to be noted that this rather narrow thesis expressly rules out political and strategic factors in British policy formulation. Few historians today would wish to deny the great importance of trade considerations to the British in the first half of the nineteenth century. But to say that commercial interests determined the policies of the London Foreign Office is quite another matter. Such an interpretation, on the one hand, tends to obscure the fundamental inseparability of economic, political, and strategic matters, while on the other it implies that British policy makers were peculiarly insensitive and unresponsive to the major strategic forces that led directly to the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. It would be strange indeed to learn that functionaries of the Foreign Office failed to give heed to non-commercial factors in Central America during the turbulent years that preceded the negotiation of the controversial treaty of 1850. Is it possible that the shattering defeat of Mexico by the United States, the increasing Yankee interest in Central America, and the serious talk of a trans-isthmian canal route of these years could have been ignored by British officials because they were preoccupied with the returns of trade? If the strategic threat of Manifest Destiny went unnoticed by the British in Central America, then we may conclude that the policy makers of that nation were unaccountably negligent.

ABSTRACTThe funeral of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president, offers revealing evidence of the intimacy and depth of Britain’s continuing relationship with this former colony 15 years after independence. First approached by leading Kenyans for assistance in planning the funeral in 1968, British policy-makers willingly became involved, and continued low-level preparations for this over the following decade. When Kenyatta finally died, in 1978, British advice and planning lay behind the central elements of a funeral which incoming president Daniel arap Moi used to publicly demonstrate his succession. Yet the story of the funeral also shows that the relationship was sometimes incoherent and drew on multiple, sometimes cross-cutting, personal ties and institutional links, both political and military; neither the funeral itself nor Kenya's politics worked to a script written by British officials.

If events had turned out differently, Britain might have been a founder member of the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Agency (Euratom). Instead, it took nearly two decades and two rebuffs by France under President Charles de Gaulle before the United Kingdom finally acceded to the EEC in 1973. Just why Britain rejected the invitation to join the Six-Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany-in forming the EEC has long been the subject of discussion. The opening of the British government's official papers for 1955 provides an opportunity for a reassessment. The files give a clear picture of the assumptions on which British policy was based and reveal the policy process within which most British officials and ministers misread the seriousness of purpose of the Six. They also show how Whitehall practice, and only intermittent ministerial attention, compounded the early misjudgements that were made. The dominant theme in the existing literature on this episode is one of missed opportunity. Future historians, wrote Max Beloff in 1963, will be required to analyse a series of British 'miscalculations':

132 Reviews REFERENCES 1. / Tetárti Avgústu (The Fourth of August). Athens, 1975. 2. / epangelia tis adinatis epanástasis (The Promise of the Impossible Revolution) Athens, 1976. 3. Penguin Books, 1969. 4. Thanos Veremis, /epemvásis tu strata stin ellinikÃ-politiki, 1916-1936 (The Interventions of the Army in Greek Politics, 1916-1936). Athens, 1977. 5. I.A. Peponis, Nikólaos Plastirasstagegonóta, 1909-1945 (Nicholas Plastiras in the Events, 1909-1945), 2 vols. Athens, 1948. 6. Meleiimatayiro apo ton Venize'lo ketin epohitu (Studies on Venizelos and His Times), ed. O. Dimitrakopoulos and Th. Veremis. Athens, 1980. 7. See, for instance, a series of articles on the National Schism of World War I, in Kathimerini of 1934-1935, and particularly the concluding articles. 8. The Journal of Modem History, 54:4 (Dec. 1982), 746-65. 9. The American Historical Review, 84:2 (Apr. 1979), 367-98. 10. Greece and the British Connection, 1935-1941. Oxford, 1977, 59. 11. Ofasismós ke i Tetárti Avgustu (Fascism and the Fourth of August). Athens, 1977. George Alexander. The Prelude to the Truman Doctrine: British Policy in Greece, 1944-47. New York: Oxford University Press. 1982. $46.00. Mr. George Alexander is a counter-revisionist on the subject of Anglo-Greek relations at the end of the second world war. The revisionist thesis, which has held the field for many years, may be summarized thus: that EAM was a genuinely democratic organization, which happened to include a minority of Communists; that its armed force, ELAS, was solely concerned with resistance to the German occupation; and that Churchill (and later Bevin, the Labour Foreign Secretary from 1945) ruthlessly crushed them both in order to reimpose the unpopular monarchy of George II, supported by a tyrannical right-wing government. Mr. Alexander rejects this account both of the nature of EAM/ELAS and of British policy. EAM/ELAS, he argues, was the instrument with which the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) sought to obtain its objectives. "Its immediate objective was a multi-party government under communist hegemony; its ultimate aim, a Bolshevist Greece" (p. 8). This claim, which was the basis of British policy forty years ago, is Reviews 133 not easily proved even now, since KKE records are only selectively available and Soviet records not at all. But leading Communists have published reminiscences which tend to support this rather than the revisionist view. Mr. Alexander quotes Ioannis Ioannidis, writing in 1979, to the effect that the KKE's object in 1944 was to convince the British that "we were not intending to seize power by violence in order that they should not bring . . . their troops to Greece and so we would catch them sleeping and not them us" (p. 46). A number of similar remarks could be cited. With regard to British policy, it is not necessary to have recourse merely to inferences from reminiscences, because virtually all the relevant documents are now open for examination in the Public Record Office. Mr. Alexander has made very thorough use of them. His conclusion is exactly what British policy-makers would have hoped and expected: that the intention was not to crush a popular movement or to impose a monarchy by force, but "to produce a friendly, stable and democratic ally" (p. 251). Given this moderate objective, a clash with the revolutionary aims of the KKE is seen to have been inevitable. On the question of the restoration of the King, Mr. Alexander shows that neither British officials nor the Foreign Secretary (Anthony Eden) were committed to a policy of restoring him if the Greek people did not want him. Sir Rex Leeper, the Ambassador to the Greek government-in-exile, was impressed in 1943, soon after taking up his post, "by the strength of republican feeling in the cabinet" (p. 10), which reflected the even stronger feeling in Greece. Eden said in 1944 that there was "no question of our forcing any particular form of government on the Greeks . . . nor were we in any way committed as regards the position of the King" (p. 48). Churchill was more ardent than in his colleagues in hoping that the King would be restored, but had no...

The Politics of Partnership: The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, An East African Federation, The Political Development of Tanganyika, Political Parties in Uganda 1949–62 and History of East Africa. Vol. I

In this work, Richard E. Mshomba offers an in-depth analysis of economic integration in Africa with a focus on the East African Community (EAC), arguably the most ambitious of all the regional economic blocs currently in existence in Africa. Economic Integration in Africa provides more than just an overview of regional economic blocs in Africa; it also offers a rich historical discussion on the birth and death of the first EAC starting with the onset of colonialism in the 1890s, and a systematic analysis of the birth, growth, and aspirations of the current EAC. Those objectives include forming a monetary union and eventually an East African political federation. This book also examines the African Union's aspirations for continent-wide integration as envisioned by the Abuja Treaty. Mshomba carefully argues that maturity of democracy and good governance in each country are prerequisites for the formation of a viable and sustainable East African federation and genuine continent-wide integration.

This was the second in a series of three conferences on public policy, organised by the University of East Africa and financed by the Ford Foundation, whose aim is to bring together policy-makers and academics for discussions on major public issues.In attendance were delegations, of at least a dozen each, from Uganda, Kenya, and Tanganyika, consisting mainly of Cabinet Ministers, parliamentary secretaries, other M.P.s, and civil servants, as well as representatives of public corporations, political parties, and trade unions. Small delegations from Ethiopia, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Southern Rhodesia, and Zanzibar were also invited. A group of 10 ‘visiting specialists’ from overseas with experience of federal systems and problems elsewhere were invited to take part. Among these were six economists: Ursula Hicks and Arthur Hazlewood from Oxford, Pitamber Pant of the Indian Planning Commission, Vladimir Kollontai from Moscow, Jan Auerhan from Prague, and Benton Massell (who was unable to attend but contributed a paper) from the United States. The others were a lawyer, S. A. de Smith from the London School of Economics, and three political scientists, Arthur MacMahon of Columbia University, A. H. Birch from Hull University, and myself. A group of a dozen ‘local specialists’ drawn mainly from E.A.C.S.O. and from the economists, lawyers, and political scientists at the University Colleges in East Africa also presented papers and played a significant role in the discussions. The total number of participants, including 22 observers, amounted to over 90.

This article looks at the final years of French colonial rule in Dahomey through the lens of development policies concerning the territory’s main resource: the oil palm tree. It examines how the Dahomean leaders dealt with the issue of development once the Loi Cadre allowed them to have a say in the matter. I argue that the Dahomeans were crucial in finding new development strategies even before formal independence. It also tries to assess the extent to which these solutions followed or departed from previous colonial attempts. The article therefore first describes the main features of colonial oil palm development in Dahomey since the end of the Second World War. Second, it depicts how Dahomean leaders rethought the development approach and why they found in the “syndicate association” the institutional tool to implement it. Finally, it argues that this solution, which combined features of Soviet and Israeli cooperatives with approaches specific to African socialism, was different from any other option previously considered by the colonial administration. By analysing late colonialism from a non-French perspective, this article argues that the Africans were no less crucial actors than the Europeans in the making of the late colonial state.

FEW PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO acknowledge or recognize the extent to which political factors thwart the achievement of optimum economic arrangements. The problem of federation is a case in point. Whether in the West Indies, South America, the Middle East or West Africa, wide territorial integration seems to offer substantial economic benefits. Nevertheless, despite economic and indeed non-economic advantages, progress toward unity in these areas remains painfuly slow. Leaders in these areas are surely aware of the advantages of closer union; however their attention is riveted upon particular and immediate rather than general and ultimate interests. Such a viewpoint is likely to magnify disputes unless held in check by a steady dedication to the larger objective of union. A necessary prerequisite therefore is the existence of a consensus as to principle. At the same time particularistic tendencies must be moderated in their effects by a willingness to compromise over a variety of specific differences. Given agreement on the need for federation, such non-fundamental differences are negotiable. Yet even within the context of this agreement, particular interests can obstruct the formation of federations.