Carrier Corps
The Carrier Corps was a
Service
Whereas the Germans, commanded by
The effect on many of the native East African population, then still largely tribal, of being mobilised and then enduring considerable hardship for a remote and largely irrelevant foreign cause had significant effects in the long term, both highlighting the fallibility of the European presence in Africa (as armed Askaris readily killed white men), and raising the political awareness of Africans as to the need to stand up for their own interests. The organisation of the Carrier Corps was a remarkable feat of improvisation by a small number of officials of the
Legacy
The Carrier Corps is commemorated on the War Memorials in Kenyatta Avenue, Nairobi and Jomo Kenyatta Avenue, Mombasa. The 14,000 men of the Northern Rhodesian contingent of the Carrier Corps are commemorated on the Mbala War Memorial at the entrance to the town of Mbala (formerly Abercorn) in Northern Zambia. They came from across the territory, with a large contingent from what was then Barotseland in North-Western Rhodesia. The Barotse were recruited by the British South Africa Company Native Commissioner, John Henry Venning, who marched with them to the East African border.
Several East African towns have quarters named after the carrier corps presumably because members of the corps were given housing in these places. Such quarters include Kariakor in Nairobi, Kariakor in Voi, Kariakoo in Dar es Salaam and also in Dodoma.
See also
- John Arthur (missionary)
- History of Kenya – Colonial History
- History of Tanzania – First World War
- I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson
- Frank Weston (bishop of Zanzibar)
References
This article includes a improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2014) ) |
Sources
- Hodges, Geoffrey (1997). Kariakor – The Carrier Corps: The Story of the Military Labour Forces in the Conquest of German East Africa, 1914–1918 (2nd revised ed.). Nairobi: Nairobi University Press. ISBN 978-9966-846-44-0.
- Killingray, David; Matthews, James (1979). "Beasts of Burden: British West African Carriers in the First World War". JSTOR 484636.
- Page, Melvin E. (1978). "The War of Thangata: Nyasaland and The East African Campaign, 1914–1918". S2CID 163075126.
- Paice, Edward (2007). Tip and Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-84709-0.
- Savage, Donald C.; Munro, J. Forbes (1966). "Carrier Corps Recruitment in the British East Africa Protectorate 1914–1918". The Journal of African History. 7 (2): 313–342. S2CID 163079542.
External links
- Mahon Murphy: Carrier Corps, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.