King's African Rifles Research Articles

The First World War Diaries of the King's African Rifles, the East African Campaig

This article describes the First World War diaries of the King's African Rifles, one of the British African colonial regiments. The documents are held, together with other related material, at The National Archives, Kew, London. The content of these daily accounts of the activities of individual Units is discussed and their position within the structure of the archive is outlined, as is their relationship with certain other categories of War Office and Colonial Office records. It is suggested that the information contained in the war diaries might potentially contribute, apart from the military history of the East African campaign, to a social history of the regiment and to an environmental history of the campaign.

DIE SOMALILAND BURGHER CONTINGENT

The Somaliland Burgher Contingent, consisting of Afrikaans and English speaking South Africans, was the first South African volunteer unit who fought on foreign soil. Volunteers hailed not only from South Africa but from Britain, Rhodesia, America, Ireland, Scotland, Canada and Austria as well. This truly cosmopolitan unit fought during the Third Expedition (1902-1903) in Somaliland against Mohammed Abdulle Hassan (1856-1920) - the so-called Mad Mullah. During this expedition the South Africans fought side by side with British troops of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, Indian troops and the King's African Rifles whose members consisted of Somalis, Sikhs, Sudanese and Yaos (Africans). These troops endured many hardships during the campaign: they had to march in extreme heat in thick bush country with meager rations and water. The Somaliland Burgher Contingent was involved in skirmishes with the Dervish forces of the Mullah but not in the disasters of Gumburu and Daratoleh during which two British forces were cut up. The Third Expedition was a military failure for the British and a victory for the Mullah who wanted to rid his country of the British infidel. The Mullah resisted British and Abysinian intrigues in his country until his death in 1920. Apart from the campaign, the composition, character, mobilization, demobilization and compensation of the Somaliland Burgher Contingent as well as the reasons why volunteers joined up, are discussed.

Photo Essay: Nowhere People

Photo Essay:Nowhere People Greg Constantine (bio) Greg Constantine presents images from two projects. One, "Nowhere People: The Global Face of Statelessness," documents the lack of citizenship in various places around the world. The other, "Kenya's Nubians: Then and Now," offers a visual account of a particular group pressed to the margins of a nation-state. More information about and further images from the projects can be found at the photographer's websites, http://www.nowherepeople.org and http://nubiansinkenya.com. Click for larger view View full resolution Nubians must prove their connection to Kenya at the age of eighteen. The process is called "vetting" and is required for Nubians to be issued national identity cards, which are essential for everything from finding employment to driving a car, obtaining a passport, or opening a bank account. Nubians are the only group in Kenya to be vetted. Nubian youth often have to wait years before they are issued identification. Two unemployed Nubian youths sit in their youth group's office in Kibera. [End Page 305] Click for larger view View full resolution A Nubian woman holds a family photo of her grandfather as an officer in the King's African Rifles. He served in the British army in World War II and held a British colonial passport. Click for larger view View full resolution Since Kenya's independence, the Nubians have been denied many civil, social, and economic rights. Until the most recent census in 2009, the Nubians were not formally recognized as a tribe in Kenya but were instead considered to be "others." Elders in the Nubian community sit in a soda shop in the Makina section of Kibera. [End Page 306] Click for larger view View full resolution In 1917, the British designated 4,000 acres of land outside Nairobi for Nubian settlement, because Nubians could not return to Sudan. The Nubians called the land Kibra or "land of the forest." Over the past forty years, hundreds of thousands of rural migrants flooding into Nairobi in search of work have been encouraged to settle in Kibra, even as Nubian claims to ownership of the land have been denied by Kenyan authorities. As a result, the Nubian have lost almost all of their land. Eventually, Kibra, originally a Nubian village, became Kibera, one of the most notorious slums in Africa. This Nubian family home is almost one hundred years old and was once situated amid bush, mango trees, and green grass. [End Page 307] Click for larger view View full resolution While people from larger tribes hold important positions in the public and private sectors in Kenya, few if any Nubians do so. Unemployed Nubian youth collect garbage to earn extra money. As land prices escalate in Nairobi, private development and unsuccessful slum upgrading programs surround Kibera. Click for larger view View full resolution While Nubians are now a minority in Kibera, they are determined to preserve their traditions and cultural identity. Nubian weddings draw people from all over Kibera. Over one hundred Nubians walk through the dusty paths in the Makina section of Kibera during a traditional Nubian wedding ceremony. [End Page 308] Click for larger view View full resolution When people question Nubians about their connection to Kibera, many Nubians will tell them about the cemetery. Nubians have been buried at a Kibera cemetery since World War I. Nubian men must make a final prayer at the Nubian cemetery in the Makina section of Kibera. It is the only graveyard in Kibera, since the dead from other tribes are sent on the long journey to their rural homes to be buried. [End Page 309] Click for larger view View full resolution Conflict in the Philippines in the 1970s and a need for laborers on palm oil plantations saw hundreds of thousands of people from the Philippines and Indonesia flood into Sabah, Malaysia. By 2005, one third of the residents of Sabah were foreigners. An estimated 10,000 to 30,000 children of Filipino and Indonesian descent in Sabah are stateless. [End Page 310] Click for larger view View full resolution Children roam through the fish markets in Kota Kinabalu looking for customers. Loads can vary in size...

The Memoirs of John M. Regan: A Catholic Officer in the RIC and RUC, 1909-48

Born in Belfast in 1889, John Regan devoted his life to the service of the British crown during a period of war, revolution, and devolution. Joining the RIC as an officer cadet, he had reached the rank of county inspector for Limerick by 1920, a rapid rise facilitated by the unsettled conditions of the time. During the Great War, he saw service in France as one of a small number of Catholic officers in the 36th Ulster Division, and in Africa as an officer in the King's African Rifles. Following the Irish War of Independence, he became the most senior Catholic officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, serving as county inspector for Tyrone between 1922 and the Second World War. Combining material from two autobiographical accounts (written by Regan in the early 1950s and early 1960s), Joost Augusteijn has edited an interesting memoir which deserves a wider audience, particularly given the paucity of accounts by Irish members of the Crown forces during the revolutionary period. The only criticism one might make of the editing concerns the frequent references to the vast CO 904 series (held in The National Archives) which are rendered pointless without the inclusion of further detail.

Alan Murray Baker

Murray Baker, tropical health administrator and committed Christian, had a unique medical career. He spent his national service time in the Royal Army Medical Corps attached to the 4th Battalion...

WARTIME RECRUITING PRACTICES, MARTIAL IDENTITY AND POST-WORLD WAR II DEMOBILIZATION IN COLONIAL KENYA

After World War II, African ex-servicemen in Kenya sought to maintain the socioeconomic gains they had accrued through service in the King's African Rifles (KAR). Looking for middle-class employment and social privileges, they challenged existing relationships within the colonial state. For the most part, veterans did not participate in national politics, believing that their goals could be achieved within the confines of colonial society. The postwar actions of KAR veterans are best explained by an examination of their initial perceptions of colonial military service. Indeed, the social and economic connotations of KAR service, combined with the massive wartime expansion of Kenyan defense forces, created a new class of Africans with distinctive characteristics and interests. These socioeconomic perceptions proved powerful after the war, often informing ex-askari action.

KiKAR: a Swahili variety in Kenya's colonial army

The paper discusses attitudes, identity construction, agents of linguistic change, and the outcome of dense language contact in Kenya's colonial army during the early decades of the twentieth century. The growth and development of a simplified Swahili variety in the Kenyan battalions of the King's African Rifles (KAR) during the inter-war period was influenced by the European officers' attitude towards Africans and their languages, the military's overarching desire to construct a distinct identity in the colony, and the diverse ethnolinguistic background of African soldiers. While the colonial military provided the ethnographic settings in which the new Swahili variety emerged, it was the African soldiers who were the principal agents in the restructuring and maintenance of KiKAR. The paper further illustrates the structural and lexical simplification of KiKAR based on data contained in KAR's language teaching manual: Newell's (1933) Notes on Ki-Swahili as Spoken by the K.A.R. KiKAR provides a rare glimpse into the outcome of an early contact situation involving diverse African languages and English during Swahili's pre-standardization era.

THE MARTIAL SPIRIT: YAO SOLDIERS IN BRITISH SERVICE IN NYASALAND (MALAWI), 1895–1939

During the colonial period, the Yao formed the main source of recruits for the King's African Rifles Nyasaland (Malawi) battalions. Originally, the main reason for the large number of Yao volunteers was probably the simple fact that the recruitment office was near Yao areas. However, due to prevailing racial ideals the British colonial military interpreted this as a sign of a ‘martial spirit’. This led to active encouragement to enlist the Yao, which in turn made military service ever more attractive among this group. They became the ‘martial race’ of Nyasaland, a concept which continued to affect British recruitment policies until the Second World War.

Book Review: The African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King's African Rifles, 1902-1964, Memoirs of the Maelstrom: A Senegalese Oral History of the First World War

Book Review: The African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King's African Rifles, 1902-1964, Memoirs of the Maelstrom: A Senegalese Oral History of the First World War

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

The African Rank and File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King's African Rifles, 1902-1964

The African Rank and File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King's African Rifles, 1902-1964

The African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King's African Rifles, 1902-1964

The King's African Rifles recruiting and the doctrine of martial race military life army women and military families discipline and resistance ex-servicemen.

Tales from the King's African Rifles

Tales from the King's African Rifles

The Post-War Careers of Ex-Servicemen in Ghana and Uganda

The modern military development of the British East and West African territories reached its highest level during World War II. Great Britain at that time put aside her standing policy of maintaining establishments sufficient only for colonial domestic needs and recruited forces for general use against Germany, Italy, and Japan.1 Building on a base provided by the Royal West African Frontier Force and the King's African Rifles of East and Central Africa, Britain recruited approximately 470,000 Africans during the war, including over 65,000 from the Gold Coast and 77,000 from Uganda; about 80 per cent of these were serving when the war ended. Although the majority enlisted in army infantry or service corps, tens of thousands served as artisans and technicians, and others in small naval and air establishments. Modern war requirements caused not only a restructuring of African colonial forces, but also forced considerable changes in military recruitment. The 'martial races' traditionally favoured by British officers had to be supplemented by large numbers of skilled and literate recruits from other African peoples; for example, the Ibo, Baganda, and Kikuyu. This rapid expansion of the forces also meant an increased need for British commissioned and non-commissioned officers, who were recruited from Great Britain as well as locally. The many different languages spoken by the new forces meant that simple English displaced Hausa in the west and, to a lesser degree, Swahili in the east, as the standard military language.

Regimental doctoring in a battalion of the King's African Rifles.

Regimental doctoring in a battalion of the King's African Rifles.

The King's African Rifles.

The King's African Rifles.

A preliminary report of an outbreak of kala-azar in a battalion of king's African rifles

Journal Article A preliminary report of an outbreak of kala-azar in a battalion of King's African rifles Get access A.C.E. Cole, M.D., M.R.C.P., Major, E.A.A.M.C., A.C.E. Cole, M.D., M.R.C.P., Major, E.A.A.M.C. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar P.C. Cosgrove, M.B., M.R.C.P., Capt., R.W.A.F.F., P.C. Cosgrove, M.B., M.R.C.P., Capt., R.W.A.F.F. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar G. Robinson, M.B., Dip.Bact. (Lond.), Major, R.W.A.F.F. G. Robinson, M.B., Dip.Bact. (Lond.), Major, R.W.A.F.F. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Transactions of The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Volume 36, Issue 1, 30 June 1942, Pages 25–34, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0035-9203(42)90053-1 Published: 30 June 1942

K. A. R.: Being an Unofficial Account of the Origin and Activities of the King's African Rifles.

K. A. R.: being an unofficial account of the origin and activities of the King's African Rifles K. A. R.: being an unofficial account of the origin and activities of the King's African Rifles. By W. Lloyd-Jones. 1926. (London: Arrowsmith. 8vo. 296 pp. 18s.) H. A. Wyndham H. A. Wyndham Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Volume 6, Issue 2, March 1927, Page 126, https://doi.org/10.2307/3015382 Published: 01 March 1927