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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Eugene P. A. Schleh
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Extract

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.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , August 1968 , pp. 203 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

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References

Page 203 note 1 African colonial troops had previously served in territories other than their own, most notably in the campaigns in Germany's African colonies during World War I. Britain did not, however, follow the French example of using African troops outside Africa between the wars. In 1939 there were 8,000 men on active duty in British West Africa and 11,000 in East Africa.

Page 204 note 1 The largest overseas contingent consisted of the 81st and 82nd West Africa Divisions and the 11th East Africa Division, which, together with various smaller supporting units, served in Ceylon, India, and Burma from 1943 to final repatriation in 1946.

Page 204 note 2 Directives from the Colonial Office in London were infrequent and general in nature, although they did provide a pattern for colonial governments to follow: for example, a communication from Lord Hailey dated 14 January 1942 (Uganda Secretariat File 4391); later, there were suggestions from London for training programmes. The actual implementation of resettlement was in the hands of individual territories. Despite a central mobilisation office for East Africa in Nairobi, there was little co-ordination between East African Governments and even less between East and West. As late as June 1948 the Governor of Nigeria cabled the Governor of Uganda to ask what Uganda had done about resettlement (Uganda Secretariat File F 23/335/12). Yet most of the problems faced in each territory were quite similar and so too were the policies formulated to deal with them.

Page 204 note 3 Sabben-Clare, E. E., ‘African Troops in Asia’, in African Affairs (London), LXIV, 177, 10 1945, p. 157.Google Scholar

Page 205 note 1 Fortes, Meyer, ‘The Impact of the War on British West Africa’, in International Affairs (London), XXI, 2, 04 1945, p. 206.Google Scholar

Page 206 note 1 Letter dated 31 Jaunary 1946 from Saville, Anthony G., ex-Brigade Major, R.W.A.F.F., in African Affairs, LXV, 179, 04 1946, p. 98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 206 note 2 In the long-range process of building bases for modern political movements, the role of ex-servicemen was more significant than some colonial officials may have been aware of. Describing leaders of the various urban societies, committees, and clubs in Northern Rhodesia by 1935, Rotberg, Robert I. has identified ‘clerks, teachers, capitǎos (foremen), tailors, artisans, drivers, and messengers’; ‘The Rise of African Nationalism: the case of East and Central Africa’, in World Politics (Princeton), XV, 4, 10 1962, p. 82.Google Scholar One could hardly construct a more inclusive list of the most common non-agricultural occupations of World War II ex-servicemen. In Ghana, however, where the concern dealt with in this paper was openly expressed, such groups and organisations were already well established. Exservicemen might increase membership, but would not initiate a new stage of political development in a system already on the verge of moving into modern political parties. In Uganda the possibility was more applicable, but officials did not feel it was pressing.

Page 206 note 7 See, for example, Austin, Dennis, Politics in Ghana, 1946–1960 (London, 1964),Google Scholar or Stephens, Hugh W., ‘Predicting Political Change: the case of Tanganyika’, mimeo. paper for the 1966Google Scholar annual meeting of the American Political Science Association.

Page 207 note 1 Lawrence, J. C. D., The Iteso: fifty years of change in a Nilo-Hamitic tribe of Uganda (London, 1957), p. 38.Google Scholar

Page 207 note 2 Hawkins, E. K., Roads and Road Transport in an Underdeveloped Country: a case study of Uganda (London, 1962), p. 120.Google Scholar

Page 208 note 1 Protectorate, Uganda, The Advancement of Africans in Trade (Entebbe, 1955), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

Page 208 note 2 A discussion of this situation and its more contemporary significance may be found in two books by Gutteridge, William: Armed Forces in New States (London 1962),Google Scholar and Military Institutions and Power in the New States (London, 1964).Google Scholar

Page 208 note 3 Nigeria, , Annual Reports for the Northern, Western, Eastern Provinces and the Colony 1946 (Lagos, 1946), p. 26.Google Scholar

Page 208 note 4 Report dated 25 May 1945, Uganda Secretariat File F 23/335 II.

Page 209 note 1 In Uganda the bride-price trend was noted throughout Western Province though ‘more particularly in Acholi perhaps than anywhere’. Annual Reports on the Kingdom of Buganda, Eastern Province, Western Province for the Period 1939–1946 (Entebbe, 1949), p. 68.Google Scholar

Page 209 note 2 Ibid. p. 78.

Page 210 note 1 An outline history of the Union may be found in Lt. R. C. K. Hewlett, ‘The Ghana Legion: a brief sketch’, mimeo. paper prepared for delivery to the Yugoslav Union of Fighters, Belgrade (1962).

Page 210 note 2 See Report of the [Watson] Commission of Enquiry into the Disturbances in the Gold Coast (London, 1949).Google Scholar

Page 211 note 1 The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (Edinburgh, 1959), p. 63—italics mine.Google Scholar

Page 211 note 2 When the Brigade came into being it absorbed almost all unemployed ex-servicemen and even attracted some already employed. One regional organiser estimated to the author that from 20 to 40 per cent of the Brigade's intake were ex-servicemen. The Brigade, whose membership ranged from 10,000 to 20,000, was not armed, but was run on the basis of military discipline, its leaders trained by the military. For a time at least in 1961, the Brigade itself was attached to the Ghana Army.

Page 212 note 1 Survivors, ex-soldiers.

Page 213 note 1 Uganda Argus (Kampala), 8 04 1963.Google Scholar

Page 214 note 1 Ibid. 6 March 1964.

Page 214 note 2 The Baganda ex-servicemen at Ndaiga continued to act as though they were still in Buganda. Bunyoro complained occasionally throughout 1965, of a ‘self-styled Katikiro of Ndaiga’ (Uganda Argus, 26 Jaunary 1965) and of armed resistance by Baganda, when Banyoro officials tried to carry out their duties; East African Reporter (Nairobi), 22 10 1965.Google Scholar

Page 214 note 3 Uganda Argus, 19 February 1965.

Page 215 note 1 ‘The Obote Revolution’, in Africa Report (Washington), XI, 6 March 1966, p. 8.Google Scholar

Page 215 note 2 For all but a handful of the best-educated African soldiers (often also traditionally prominent), non-commissioned status was the highest they could hope to reach in the army of the 1940s. The few officers generally became prominent or continued to be so in the postwar era, but were not notably attached to the modern nationalist movements. In Uganda, examples include Michael Kawalya-Kagwa, son of Katikiro Sir Apolo Kagwa and named Katikiro of Buganda in his own right in 1945, and the Kabaka's brother, Prince George Mwanda. In Ghana, Major Seth Anthony joined the colonial administration after leaving the service and later received diplomatic posts from the independent Ghana Government, and Capt. Joseph de Graft Hayford was active in the Ex-Servicemen's Union and later the Ghana Legion, although cool to the C.P.P.; he also received military (air commodore) and diplomatic appointments from the Government.

Page 216 note 1 Total élite data drawn from an article explaining the Who's Who survey, Wilson, Gordon M., ‘The African Elite’, in Diamond, Stanley and Burke, Fred G. (eds.), The Transformation of East Africa (New York, 1966);Google Scholar ex-service data extracted from Who's Who in East Africa, 1963–1964 (Nairobi, 1964).Google Scholar

Page 217 note 1 West African ex-soldiers sought wage-employment more actively than East Africans. In Ghana, although ex-service unemployment was an issue behind the 1948 Accra march, labour and ressettlement advice centres had already mitigated the problem by placing over 22,000 ex-servicemen in jobs up to Jaunary 1948. By the time the work of resettlement was merged with regular Labour Department duties in April 1950, 34,775 such placements had been made.

Page 217 note 2 Most colonial officials resisted the idea of land settlement of ex-servicemen on contiguous plots, feeling that such proximity would keep alive their identification of themselves as a group apart and hinder reabsorption into their societies. The Kabaka's Government in Buganda, however, did carry out a major soldier settlement scheme, placing over 400 in three locations. The largest of these, at least, was still associated with ex-soldiers in the mid-1960s and provided settlers for the Ndaiga scheme.

Page 218 note 1 ‘Social Mobilization and Political Development’, in The American Political Science Review (Baltimore), LV, 3, 09 1961, p. 494.Google Scholar

Page 218 note 2 E.g. the Forty Group in Nairobi and the role of some ex-soldiers in Mau Mau. For a recent first-person narrative on these subjects see Waruhiu Itote (General China), ‘Mau Mau’ General (Nairobi, 1967).Google Scholar

Page 219 note 1 Stephens, Hugh W., ‘Social Mobilization and Political Development in Tanganyika’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1965), p. 67.Google Scholar

Page 219 note 2 Ibid. p. 5.