Wartime recruiting practices, martial identity and post-World War II demobilization in colonial Kenya

Journal of African History

Volumn 46, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 103-125

  Brands, Hal ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Colonial policy; Kenya; Military; War

Indexed keywords

COLONIALISM; HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE; WAR;

AFRICA; EAST AFRICA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; KENYA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; WORLD;

EID: 17444374629     PISSN: 00218537     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0021853704000428     Document Type: Review

References (138)

1. Russell Smallwood, 'Native military development in East Africa', Fortnightly, 156 (1944), 314.
2. While conscription did characterize a small minority of recruiting efforts during World War II, especially in terms of securing military labor, volunteers were more than sufficient in most cases. On this point, see Timothy Parsons, The African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King's African Rifles, 1902-1964 (Portsmouth NH, 1999), 73-5.
3. O. J. E. Shiroya, African Politics in Colonial Kenya: Contribution of World War II Veterans, 1945-1960 (Nairobi, 1992). Shiroya integrated much of the analysis in the above study into a broader examination of army service, Kenya and World War II: African Soldiers in the European War (Nairobi, 1985). Each of these books draws heavily on his 1968 Michigan State University doctoral thesis. The 1992 work omits discussion of recruiting practices, while the 1985 book incorrectly argues that conscription was the dominant feature of KAR recruiting. Shiroya's treatment of the consequences of military service is based largely on the assertion that wartime experiences radicalized KAR veterans, leading them to take part in nationalist movements and the Mau Mau rebellion. In this view, soldiers returned from war with reasonable demands and expectations, and became alienated by governmental refusal to meet these needs. Accordingly, Shiroya focuses largely on the political consequences of military service, giving lesser treatment to economic issues, and offers almost no analysis of social change. Moreover, Shiroya's assertion of veteran contributions to Mau Mau is largely unfounded; he provides little documentation for this claim besides a narrow sampling of memoirs and material based on uprisings in other African colonies. A second author who ignores recruiting and military service in shaping ex-askari action is W. K. Opanga, author of 'From soldiering to politics and commerce: the impact of the returnee Second World War soldiers in Vihiga Division of Kakamega District from 1945 to 1963' (Staff Seminar Paper 4, University of Nairobi, 1984). As the title suggests, Opanga focuses on politics and economics, leaving untreated the social implications of military service. More importantly, Opanga begins his analysis in 1945, ignoring wartime experiences and recruiting practices as a source of later behavior.
4. Most representative of this trend is David Easterbrook's 'Kenya askari in WWII and their demobilization with special reference to Machakos District', in Bismarck Myrick (ed.), Three Aspects of the Colonial Crisis in Kenya (Syracuse NY, 1975), 27-58, which offers a brief analysis of postwar askari experiences. Easterbrook focuses on colonial actions rather than the sources of veteran discontent, thereby taking a rather narrow view of demobilization. The best treatment of the social and economic ramifications of colonial military service is Parsons, The African Rank-and-File. In this book and an earlier article, 'Wakamba warriors are soldiers of the queen: the evolution of the Kamba as a martial race, 1890-1970', Ethnohistory, 46 (1999), 671-701, Parsons amply demonstrates that, for Africans, military service was not - as colonial authorities believed it to be - a function of an ethnic group's martial prowess, but rather an economic and social opportunity. While generally excellent, this book fails fully to amplify the connection between recruiting and postwar actions because the author gives relatively little discussion to the chronologically unique nature of enlistment during World War II. Parsons's treatment of this period (pp.70-90) is largely devoted to analysis of how colonial authorities coped with challenges to the martial race doctrine, and measures taken to meet occasional shortfalls of military labor.
5. On these points, see KNA, Legislative Council Debates, Records, 1943 - Second Session 17 Nov. 1943;
6. ibid. 1944 - First Session, 6 June 1944;
7. ibid. 1944 - Second Session, 23 Nov. 1944;
8. Eric Broadbent, 'Africans in India', Spectator, 27 Oct. 1944, 384;
9. Smallwood, 'Native military development in East Africa', 156, 314-119;
10. and A. T. H. Taylor, 'The returned askari', Times of London, 28 Aug. 1945.
11. In 1943, top KAR commanders wrote that veterans should return to 'an Africa with wide scope and more facilities after the war'. See letter to the East Africa Command, 10 Mar. 1943, cited in Shiroya, African Politics in Colonial Kenya, 2.
12. As one semi-official statement put it, 'The [sub-Committee on Post War Employment of Africans] emphasizes that the problem of the employment of demobilized soldiers is only a part of that of postwar employment as a whole, and must be regarded in its relation to the general question of reconstruction'. R. Fane, ' The return of the soldier: East Africa', African Affairs, 43 (1944), 56.
13. On the power of settlers during World War II and in the immediate postwar period, see Ian Spencer, 'Settler dominance, agricultural production and the Second World War in Kenya', Journal of African History, 21 (1984), 497-514;
14. also Anthony Clayton and Donald Savage, Government and Labour in Kenya, 1995-1963 (London, 1974), 230-89;
15. and John Lonsdale, 'The depression and the Second World War in the transformation of Kenya', in David Killingray and Richard Rathbone (eds.), Africa and the Second World War (London, 1986), 97-142.
16. Speech given by Philip Mitchell, reprinted in Fabian Society, Colonial Bureau, Kenya Controversy (London, 1945), 5-10;
17. Sir Philip Mitchell, African Afterthoughts (London, 1954), 219.
18. See Kenya Colony and Protectorate, Land Utilization and Settlement (Nairobi, 1944), section eight.
19. Official Gazette of the Colony and Protectorate: 1945, Government Notice Number 1004, 27 Nov. 1945, 502.
20. See Official Gazette of the Colony and Protectorate: 1945, Government Notice Number 289, 27 Mar. 1945, 130;
21. ibid. Government Notice Number 674, 7 Aug. 1945, 330.
22. Several months after the war ended, a technical college opened its doors to former soldiers, though only a few hundred spots were available, and even these were not guaranteed to Africans. Two other training centers were eventually opened. 'Technical College on Non-Racial Lines', Kenya Daily Mail, 1 Mar. 1946.
23. On the civil service and discrimination, see Kenya Colony and Protectorate, Report of the Civil Service Commissioner (Nairobi, 1945);
24. and Great Britain, Colonial Office, Report of the Commission on the Civil Services of Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, and Zanzibar: 1947-48 (London, 11948), passim. Both reports reveal the extent to which African employees and applicants suffered discriminatory practices.
25. Tracy Phillips, 'Demobilizing the askari', East Africa and Rhodesia 20 Sept. 1945.
26. See KNA, Intelligence Reports, Machakos District Monthly Intelligence Reports, Dec. 1945, Jan. 1946, May 1946.
27. On the early history of the KAR, see Hubert Moyse-Bartlett, The King's African Rifles: A Study in the Military History of East and Central Africa, 1890-1945 (Aldershot, 1956);
28. Robert Foran, The Kenya Police, 1887-I960 (London, 1962);
29. C. P. Fendall, The East African Force (London, 1922);
30. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, East African Campaigns (New York, 1957);
31. William Lloyd-Jones, KAR: Being an Unofficial Account of the Origin and Activities of the King's African Rifles (London, 1926);
32. and Parsons, The African Rank-and-File, ch. 1.
33. In terms of size, the number of Africans in the KAR actually decreased between 1926 and 1938. In that year, only 1,087 askaris served in the KAR. See Public Records Office (PRO), Stanford University Collection, Colonial Office, Annual Unit Reports: Kenya Colony and Protectorate, 1926-38. See also Parsons, The African Rank-and-File, 67.
34. KNA, Intelligence Reports, Garissa District Monthly Intelligence Report, February 1938.
35. A Kenyan military circular made this case, arguing that many of the Kenyan tribes are agriculturalists and could not therefore be expected to produce likely gunners'. See East Africa Command Circular, cited in Shiroya, Kenya and World War II, 4.
36. PRO, Colonial Office, Annual Unit Reports: Kenya Colony and Protectorate, 1938.
37. KNA, Legislative Council Debates, Records, 1940 - Second Session, 6 Aug. 1940.
38. This belief was especially prevalent among officials assigned to the Samburu, who often argued that military service would ease social disruption. See, for instance, KNA, Intelligence Reports, Rift Valley Province, Samburu District Monthly Intelligence Report, Sept. 1939; KNA, Miscellaneous Correspondence, letter from District Officer, Laikipia Samburu, Rumuruti to PC Rift Valley, 22 Sept. 1939.
39. 'Message to colonial territories', Kenya Daily Mail, 9 Sept. 1939.
40. Waruhiu Itote, 'Mau Mau' General (Nairobi, 1963), 14, 16.
41. See Sir Humphrey Leggett, 'The British East African territories and their strategical implications', Journal of the Royal African Society 39 (1940), 209.
42. Colonial Secretary Macdonald reported to parliament that the African possessions were duly loyal to the imperial cause, an assessment that the Journal of the Royal African Society readily supported. See Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Official Report, Fifth Volume of Session 1939-40 (London, 1940, Macdonald Written Answers on African Populations, 18 Apr. 1940, 1158; and Leggett, 'The British East African territories and their strategical implications', 209.
43. Great Britain, Colonial Office, Colonial Reports -Annual: Kenya Colony and Protectorate, 1939-45 (London, 1948), 1-9.
44. Itote, 'Mau Mau' General, 16.
45. Bildad Kaggia, The Roots of Freedom (Nairobi, 1975), 21.
46. Parsons, The African Rank-and-File, 75.
47. Official Gazette of the Colony and Protectorate: 1941, Government Notice Number 22, 14 Jan. 1941, 24.
48. ibid. Government Notice Number 399, 13 May 1941, 298.
49. East Africa Commission, Government Publications Relating to Kenya, Blue Book: 1942, Legislative Summary, 'The pensions and gratuities (African personnel) regulations', Record Group 2, Reel 43.
50. KNA, Annual Reports, Elgeyo Marakwet District Annual Report, 1939.
51. Christopher J. Wilson, One African Colony (London, 1945), 12, pamphlet held by the Hoover Institution, Stanford, California;
52. and Official Gazette of the Colony and Protectorate: 1940, Government Notice Number 401, 21 May 1940, 447.
53. KNA, Annual Reports, Machakos District Annual Report, 1943.
54. Kenya Colony and Protectorate, Native Affairs Department, Report on Native Affairs: 1939-1945 (London, 1948), 59-60.
55. On these points, see Gregory Mann, 'Old soldiers, young men: masculinity, Islam, and military veterans in late 1950s Soudan Francais (Mali)', in Lisa A. Lindsay and Stephan F. Miescher (eds.), Men and Masculinities in Modern Africa (Portsmouth NH, 2003), 69-86, esp. 74;
56. and Luise White, 'Separating the men from the boys: constructions of gender, sexuality, and terrorism in Central Kenya, 1939-1959', International Journal of African Historical Studies, 32 (1990), 1-25.
57. See East African Standard, 29 June 1945;
58. Easterbrook, 'Kenya askari', 45.
59. KNA, Annual Reports, Elgeyo Marakwet District Annual Report, 1945;
60. KNA, Intelligence Reports, Machakos District Monthly Intelligence Report, May 1945;
61. KNA, Annual Reports, Kitui District Annual Report, 1945.
62. 'The demobilized askari', African Transcripts, 7 (Jan. 1946), 32.
63. KNA, Annual Reports, Central Province Annual Report, 1945.
64. See KNA, Annual Reports, Kitui District Annual Report, 1945;
65. KNA, Intelligence Reports, Machakos District Monthly Intelligence Report, Feb. 1946.
66. KNA, Annual Reports, Nakuru-Naivasha District Annual Report, 1945.
67. 'Left-hand drive vehicles', Kenya Daily Mail, 17 Sept. 1945.
68. KNA, Annual Reports, Nairobi District Annual Report, 1945. While the push to enter into trade and transport was not felt among askaris alone, there is substantial evidence to suggest that former soldiers were a driving force behind this demand. In one district, an official noted that 'most of the "companies" applying for bus or lorry licenses have a proportion of soldiers in their membership'. A summary report on native affairs for 1946 and 1947 made similar observations, noting that ex-soldiers seemed to be the most anxious to set up trade and transport enterprises. See KNA, Annual Reports, South Kavirondo District Annual Report, 1946; Kenya Colony and Protectorate, Native Affairs Department, Report on Native Affairs: 1946-1947 (Nairobi, 1949), 3.
69. KNA, Annual Reports, Fort Hall District Annual Report, 1945. What type of factory they started is not easily determined. This particular document is in very bad shape, and several words in the description of this endeavor are hopelessly obscured.
70. KNA, Annual Reports, Elgeyo Marakwet District Annual Report, 1946.
71. The African's place in modern society', African World Annual, 42 (1946), 53-5. What, exactly, Ndesafa manufactured remains unclear. The factory purchased by the veterans in charge of the company may have been the same operation referred to in some government reports, in which case the founders may have attempted to manufacture a range of commercial goods.
72. The demobilized askari', African Transcripts, 7 (Jan. 1946), 32.
73. KNA, 'Interim report on demobilisation', cited in Shiroya, African Politics in Colonial Kenya, 8.
74. Mr. Mathu answers askaris' questions', East African Standard, 20 Oct. 1945.
75. East African Standard, 21 Sept. 1946.
76. KNA, Annual Reports, Machakos District Annual Report, 1945.
77. KNA, Annual Reports, Nandi District Annual Report, 1946.
78. Letter from Mwaniki Mugweru to editor of Sauti ya Mwafrika, reprinted in 'Kenya and its African soldiers', African Transcripts 9 (May 1946), 84.
79. KNA, Annual Reports, Kitui District Annual Report, 1946.
80. As a summary of native labor in 1946 put it, despite some improvements, the labor position 'cannot be said to be encouraging when it is remembered that since 1945 over 40,000 natives have been discharged'. See Kenya Colony and Protectorate, Labour Department, Report of Native Labour Census: 1946 (Nairobi, 1947), 4.
81. Old Comrades' Associations for ex-askaris', African World, 172 (2 Mar. 1946), 148.
82. KNA, Annual Reports, Samburu Sub District Annual Report, 1946.
83. KNA, Annual Reports, Samburu Sub District Annual Report, 1947.
84. See Maurice Nyamanga Amutabi, 'Power and influence of African court clerks and translators in colonial Kenya: the case of Khwisero Native (African) Court, 1946-1956', in Benjamin Lawrance, Emily Osborn, and Richard Roberts (eds.), Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks: African Employees and the Making of Colonial Africa (Madison, forthcoming).
85. KNA, Annual Reports, Laikipia District Annual Report, 1945. See also Nakuru Naivasha District Annual Report, 1946.
86. William Platt, 'The East African soldier', National Review, 126 (Jan. 1946), 46.
87. Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, Report on Native Affairs: 1939-1945 11.
88. KNA, Annual Reports, Kisimu Londiani District Annual Report, 1945.
89. Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, Report on Native Affairs: 1946-1947, 2;
90. Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, Police Department, Annual Reports: 1945-1946 (Nairobi, 1946-7).
91. Great Britain, Colonial Office, Colonial Reports - Annual: Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, 1949 (London, 1950), 83.
92. KNA, Annual Reports, Fort Hall District Annual Report, 1946.
93. Kenya Colony and Protectorate, Report on Native Affairs: 1946-1947 2.
94. As one scholar has recently noted, bridewealth inflation during the 1940s and 1950s eventually led to the deterioration of traditional marriage and an increasing number of court disputes relating to unpaid bridewealth. See Brett L. Shadle, 'Bridewealth and female consent: marriage disputes in African courts, Gusiiland, Kenya', Journal of African History, 44 (2003), 241-62, esp. 244-8.
95. East African Standard, 22 June 1946.
96. KNA, 'Interim report on African demobilisation'.
97. KNA, Annual Reports, Kitui District Annual Report, 1946.
98. KNA, 'Interim report on demobilisation'. In another expression of this policy, the same official historian who noted the bravery of askaris took pain to point out that the African soldier's contribution to victory had been no greater than that of the civilian worker. See Kenneth Gandar Dower, Askaris at War in Abyssinia (Nairobi, 1943), 2.
99. KNA, Annual Reports, Nairobi District Annual Report, 1945.
100. KNA, Annual Reports, Kitui District Annual Report, 1946.
101. Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, African Affairs Department, Annual Report: 1948 (Nairobi, 1950), 51.
102. Parsons, The African Rank-and-File, 114-16.
103. Report of the Commission on the Civil Services of Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, and Zanzibar, Section 341.
104. Between 1946 and 1950, the number of Africans employed in the civil services grew from roughly 67,000 to approximately 86,000. See Great Britain, Colonial Office, Colonial Reports - Annual: Kenya Colony and Protectorate, 1946-1949 (London, 1947-51). It is difficult to determine how many of these openings were filled by veterans, but it seems that the number is likely quite small. Judging from a comparison between the frequency with which colonial officials noted African attempts to enter the civil service (rarely; I found less than five references to such a phenomenon in the reports I read) and ex-askari demands for trade and transport licenses (present in the vast majority of reports read), it seems that the civil service was not initially attractive to former soldiers.
105. East African Standard, 21 Jan. 1946.
106. Colonial Reports - Annual: Kenya Colony and Protectorate, 1946-48.
107. Shiroya, African Politics in Colonial Kenya, 13. My own calculations are slightly higher. Nearly 3,300 ex-askaris graduated from two government schools between 1947 and 1949. Taken with the fact that some askaris received training from other sources, and also that the available records are incomplete, without numbers for 1946 or 1950, the actual number may well be somewhat higher. At any rate, Shiroya believes that the limited amount of training available and negative white perceptions of African technical skills rendered these opportunities meaningless. This view, while partially correct, does not take into account the manner in which selectively providing specialized training to an already self-aware group of native Kenyans reinforced the messages conveyed by colonial recruiting practices.
108. Interview, cited in Parsons, The African Rank-and-File, 252.
109. KNA, Annual Reports, Central Province Annual Report, 1947.
110. KNA, Annual Reports, Kitui District Annual Report, 1946.
111. African Affairs Department, Annual Report: 1948, 51.
112. Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, Labour Department, Report of Native Labour Census: 1946 (Nairobi, 1948), 5.
113. Great Britain, Colonial Office, Colonial Reports - Annual: Kenya Colony and Protectorate 1947 (London, 1949), 20.
114. On the Kamba and martial identity, see Parsons, 'Wakamba warriors are soldiers of the queen'.
115. KNA, Intelligence Reports, Machakos District Monthly Intelligence Report, Oct. 1946.
116. KNA, Annual Reports, Samburu Sub District Annual Report, 1946;
117. KNA, Annual Reports, Kitui District Annual Reports, 1946-7.
118. Colonial Office, Annual Report: Kenya Colony and Protectorate, 1949 20.
119. KNA, Annual Reports, Kitui District Annual Report, 1946.
120. KNA, Annual Reports, Machakos District Annual Report, 1950.
121. See also Parsons, The African Rank-and-File, 248-51
122. KNA, Annual Reports, Central Province Annual Report, 1947.
123. KNA, Annual Reports, Machakos District Annual Report, 1947.
124. The degree to which military service promoted or retarded Kenyan nationalism has been the subject of serious historiographical debate. One on side of the issue, scholars argue that wartime experience pushed veterans to rethink the European-African relationship, resulting in an increased interest in national politics. See, for instance, Carl Rosberg and John Nottingham, The Myth of Mau Mau: Nationalism in Kenya (New York, 1966), 191-5;
125. Bethwell Ogot, 'Kenya under British rule, 1895-1963', in Ogot (ed.), Zamani: A Survey of East African History (Nairobi, 1974), 255-89;
126. and Shiroya, African Politics in Colonial Kenya, 62-80. Conversely, other historians maintain that veterans returned to African society with largely parochial interests that were generally incompatible with broader political movements.
127. On this side of the debate, see Parsons, The African Rank-and-File 254-7, 260;
128. Lewis Greenstein, 'Africans in a European war: the First World War in Africa with special reference to the Nandi of Kenya' (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1975);
129. idem, 'The impact of military service in World War I on Africans: the Nandi of Kenya' Journal of Modern African Studies, 16 (1978), 495-507.
130. KNA, Annual Reports, Fort Hall District Annual Report, 1946.
131. On the KAU, see John Spencer, The Kenya African Union (Boston, 1985).
132. See Itote, 'Mau Mau' General, 53, and Kaggia, The Roots of Freedom, passim.
133. The issue of veteran participation in Mau Mau has been hotly debated. Shiroya claims that veterans formed a substantial percentage of Mau Mau fighters and participants in other nationalist movements, writing that 'ex-soldiers played significant parts in such anti-colonial ... movements as trade unions, the Mau Mau uprising and political parties'. See Shiroya, African Politics in Colonial Kenya, 79. While KAR veterans such as Itote and Kaggia did lend important organizational and tactical expertise to their units, there is little evidence to support Shiroya's broad claim. In the memoir cited above, Itote bemoaned the fact that there were apparently no KAR veterans in his unit during Mau Mau. Furthermore, the military history of the conflict, particularly the strategic incompetence of many Mau Mau units, suggests that military training was hardly a common commodity among the rebels. Similarly, the overwhelming majority of Kikuyu KAR veterans were well past the ages of the young men who made up the core of the insurgency. See Rob Buijtenhuijs, Essays on Mau Mau: Contributions to Mau Mau Historiography (London, 1982), 74-6.
134. KNA, Annual Reports, Machakos District Annual Report, 1947.
135. Native Affairs Department, Report on Native Affairs: 1946-1947, 2.
136. See KNA, Annual Reports, Central Province Annual Report, 1947.
137. The number of veterans who succeeded in gaining some degree of economic and social mobility is difficult to determine. As discussed above, several thousand former soldiers received the training they sought, though not all of these veterans secured employment corresponding to their skills. The number of veterans who established successful commercial operations is similarly uncertain, as is the definition of 'success'.
138. Existing interpretations of the efficacy of colonial policy fall into two rather strict categories. Shiroya argues that colonial obstructionism failed by leading to politicization of former soldiers, who increasingly turned against the colonial state. Parsons, on the other hand, concludes that the Kenyan government managed to ensure the loyalty of a small number of ex-servicemen, sufficiently releasing pressure for substantive change. See Shiroya, African Politics in Colonial Kenya, 62-80; and Parsons, The African Rank-and-File, 224-60.