ABSTRACT
Africa’s colonial period, roughly 1880–1960, was dominated by the two world wars. During both the global conflicts, the European colonial powers took different sides, which meant that military campaigns were fought in Africa and the continent became a wartime reservoir of manpower and resources. However, the two world wars had profoundly different impacts on colonial Africa. World War I (1914–18) resulted in the final reconfiguration of the colonial map of Africa and a general strengthening of the colonial system that stabilized during the inter-war years of the 1920s and 1930s. Conversely, World War II (1939–45) served to weaken the colonial powers, inspired African nationalist movements and broadly set the stage for the decolonization of Africa during the 1950s and 1960s.
