ABSTRACT
The First World War extended to four German territories in Africa: Togoland, Cameroon, South West Africa and East Africa, whilst British troops were diverted during the war years to Egypt and Somaliland for actions against the Senusi. In addition, men and women from the white settler colonies enlisted for service in Europe. Initially, each campaign had its own recruitment strategy localised to immediate demands and pre-war conditions. However, from late 1915 into 1917, recruitment for service elsewhere in Africa and for Europe saw different strategies employed, and as a complete anomaly, troops who had fought for the enemy in East and West Africa were recruited into British forces in the last years of the war. Using local newspapers and official correspondence where possible, supplemented with archival-based secondary material, this chapter compares the various recruiting strategies across the sub-Sahara African campaigns and the European recruitment drives in the years 1914–1918. The study allows attitudes towards empire and service to be discerned and emphasises the diversity of the British Empire across Africa in its achievement of a common goal.
