WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.859 When you picture World War I, your mind probably 00:00:02.859 --> 00:00:04.620 jumps straight to the mud, right? Oh, absolutely, 00:00:04.719 --> 00:00:06.660 the trenches. Yeah, the freezing trenches of 00:00:06.660 --> 00:00:08.900 the Western Front. You picture the barbed wire, 00:00:08.980 --> 00:00:11.619 the artillery craters, the soldiers huddled in 00:00:11.619 --> 00:00:13.900 France or Belgium. That is the standard image, 00:00:13.900 --> 00:00:17.320 yeah. But today, we are completely flipping the 00:00:17.320 --> 00:00:20.280 script. We are taking a deep dive into the African 00:00:20.280 --> 00:00:22.920 theater of World War I. Which is just a totally 00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:25.539 different reality. Completely. When you really 00:00:25.539 --> 00:00:28.059 look at this massive, often ignored piece of 00:00:28.059 --> 00:00:31.370 global history. You find cavalry charges in the 00:00:31.370 --> 00:00:34.070 blazing desert. You find gunboats being literally 00:00:34.070 --> 00:00:36.710 dragged through dense jungles. And a really staggering 00:00:36.710 --> 00:00:39.530 human cost. A cost that fundamentally reshaped 00:00:39.530 --> 00:00:42.439 an entire continent. Our mission with this deep 00:00:42.439 --> 00:00:44.920 dive today is to basically shortcut your way 00:00:44.920 --> 00:00:47.539 to being well informed on this. We're unpacking 00:00:47.539 --> 00:00:50.320 the bizarre military operations, the guerrilla 00:00:50.320 --> 00:00:53.840 warfare, and the really tragic reality of how 00:00:53.840 --> 00:00:56.600 these global empires used Africa. Right, and 00:00:56.600 --> 00:00:58.280 to truly understand this conflict, you know, 00:00:58.380 --> 00:01:00.640 you have to realize that this was, in many ways, 00:01:01.140 --> 00:01:03.820 the final violent chapter of the scramble for 00:01:03.820 --> 00:01:07.140 Africa. Late 19th century land grab. Exactly. 00:01:07.599 --> 00:01:10.120 The European powers had spent decades carving 00:01:10.120 --> 00:01:12.480 up the continent, just drawing these arbitrary 00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:15.879 lines on maps. And when war broke out in 1914, 00:01:16.519 --> 00:01:19.579 it became the ultimate chaotic collision of all 00:01:19.579 --> 00:01:21.640 those imperial ambitions. But the wild thing 00:01:21.640 --> 00:01:24.739 is, and we really need to start here, this conflict 00:01:24.739 --> 00:01:26.700 was never actually supposed to happen on African 00:01:26.700 --> 00:01:30.379 soil. No, not at all. If we go back a few decades 00:01:30.379 --> 00:01:33.859 to the 1884 Berlin conference, the European powers 00:01:33.859 --> 00:01:37.079 actually established this gentleman's agreement. 00:01:37.359 --> 00:01:39.680 A very fragile agreement, as it turns out. Very 00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:42.359 fragile. The idea was straightforward. If a war 00:01:42.359 --> 00:01:44.900 ever broke out back home in Europe, their African 00:01:44.900 --> 00:01:47.219 colonies were supposed to remain strictly neutral. 00:01:47.500 --> 00:01:49.420 They didn't want their European drama messing 00:01:49.420 --> 00:01:51.420 up their colonial profit machines. Precisely. 00:01:51.420 --> 00:01:53.319 They wanted to protect their colonial projects. 00:01:53.560 --> 00:01:55.459 OK, let's unpack this, because the historical 00:01:55.459 --> 00:01:58.000 irony is just thick here. You have these European 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:00.420 colonialists stationed across Africa in August 00:02:00.420 --> 00:02:04.180 1914. They hear the news of Archduke Franz Ferdinand 00:02:04.180 --> 00:02:07.359 being assassinated, and they are terrified. Panicking, 00:02:07.420 --> 00:02:11.259 really? Yes. There is this incredible piece of 00:02:11.259 --> 00:02:14.300 primary source material, an editorial in the 00:02:14.300 --> 00:02:17.650 East African Standard, from August 22, 1914. 00:02:18.389 --> 00:02:21.909 This editorial openly argued that white colonialists 00:02:21.909 --> 00:02:24.460 should not be fighting each other. Right. It 00:02:24.460 --> 00:02:26.840 argued they needed to collaborate to maintain 00:02:26.840 --> 00:02:28.960 the repression of the indigenous populations. 00:02:29.020 --> 00:02:31.180 It's just out there in the open. And if we step 00:02:31.180 --> 00:02:33.060 back and look at the bigger picture, you can 00:02:33.060 --> 00:02:36.219 clearly see why that terror existed. European 00:02:36.219 --> 00:02:39.520 control across Africa was incredibly fragile. 00:02:39.639 --> 00:02:42.560 It was mostly an illusion. Exactly. You had tiny 00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:44.979 numbers of white administrators and military 00:02:44.979 --> 00:02:48.060 officers ruling over massive local populations. 00:02:48.639 --> 00:02:51.560 Their power relied heavily on the myth of European 00:02:51.560 --> 00:02:54.509 supremacy. Right, that was the myth. They were 00:02:54.509 --> 00:02:56.770 terrified that if they armed Africans to fight 00:02:56.770 --> 00:02:59.289 against other Europeans, if they showed any vulnerability, 00:02:59.490 --> 00:03:01.509 it would completely destroy that myth. It would 00:03:01.509 --> 00:03:04.430 show they could bleed. Exactly. War was entirely 00:03:04.430 --> 00:03:07.009 against their local interests because their conquests 00:03:07.009 --> 00:03:10.389 were recent, unstable, and the economic exploitation 00:03:10.389 --> 00:03:12.889 was still in its early stages. But of course, 00:03:13.490 --> 00:03:16.110 imperial greed wins out. That gentleman's agreement 00:03:16.110 --> 00:03:18.370 didn't last a month. The strategic temptation 00:03:18.370 --> 00:03:20.490 was just too high. Yeah, and it started with 00:03:20.490 --> 00:03:23.610 this massive race for communication lines. The 00:03:23.610 --> 00:03:26.530 Togoland campaign. That was the spark. Togoland 00:03:26.530 --> 00:03:29.090 was a German colony in West Africa, and it had 00:03:29.090 --> 00:03:31.629 something highly strategic, the Kamino wireless 00:03:31.629 --> 00:03:35.050 station, which in 1914 was cutting edge tech. 00:03:35.349 --> 00:03:37.949 State of the art. This massive station linked 00:03:37.949 --> 00:03:40.870 Berlin to its African colonies, to ships in the 00:03:40.870 --> 00:03:43.229 Atlantic, even to outposts in South America. 00:03:43.439 --> 00:03:46.219 So taking it offline was priority number one 00:03:46.219 --> 00:03:48.580 for the allies. So you get this wild scenario. 00:03:49.300 --> 00:03:51.819 August 6th, French forces invade from the east, 00:03:51.919 --> 00:03:55.419 from Dahomey. A few days later, British forces 00:03:55.419 --> 00:03:57.740 invade from the Gold Coast to the west. It was 00:03:57.740 --> 00:04:00.280 a literal race. A mad dash through the jungle 00:04:00.280 --> 00:04:02.699 to capture or destroy this hub. The German defenders 00:04:02.699 --> 00:04:04.439 tried to hold them off at places like Buffalo, 00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:07.039 but by August 26th, they had to surrender the 00:04:07.039 --> 00:04:08.930 colony. But shutting down a wireless station 00:04:08.930 --> 00:04:11.229 was really just the prologue. Right. The war 00:04:11.229 --> 00:04:13.689 in East Africa is where the scale just explodes. 00:04:13.949 --> 00:04:16.470 And that is largely because of one guy. Paul 00:04:16.470 --> 00:04:19.209 von Leto Vorbeck. The master of guerrilla war. 00:04:19.509 --> 00:04:22.329 He commanded the German Schutztruppe, the colonial 00:04:22.329 --> 00:04:25.930 forces in East Africa. And Leto Vorbeck understood 00:04:25.930 --> 00:04:28.350 instantly that he could never win a conventional 00:04:28.350 --> 00:04:30.889 war against the combined British, French, and 00:04:30.889 --> 00:04:33.069 Belgian empires. He was completely surrounded. 00:04:33.350 --> 00:04:36.730 So he pivoted. His goal wasn't to win territory. 00:04:37.029 --> 00:04:40.230 It was to tie down as many allied troops as possible 00:04:40.230 --> 00:04:42.850 in Africa. Keep them away from Europe. Exactly. 00:04:43.250 --> 00:04:45.850 Force the British to commit massive resources, 00:04:46.370 --> 00:04:48.610 shipping, and manpower to chasing him through 00:04:48.610 --> 00:04:50.970 the bush. The mechanics of how he actually pulled 00:04:50.970 --> 00:04:53.790 that off are astonishing. especially the Battle 00:04:53.790 --> 00:04:57.250 of Tonga in November 1914. Oh, Tonga is a perfect 00:04:57.250 --> 00:04:59.730 example. The British decide to capture this coastal 00:04:59.730 --> 00:05:03.029 city using an amphibious assault. They send in 00:05:03.029 --> 00:05:06.689 roughly 8 ,000 troops. Leo Vorbeck is outnumbered 00:05:06.689 --> 00:05:09.250 roughly 8 to 1. 8 to 1 and he completely routes 00:05:09.250 --> 00:05:11.490 them. He completely destroyed the British offensive. 00:05:11.920 --> 00:05:14.060 The official British history calls it one of 00:05:14.060 --> 00:05:16.180 the most notable failures in British military 00:05:16.180 --> 00:05:18.519 history. Because it was a textbook example of 00:05:18.519 --> 00:05:21.259 asymmetrical warfare, the British forces were 00:05:21.259 --> 00:05:23.759 totally ill -equipped for the climate. They struggled 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:26.439 with the dense coastal vegetation. While Leto 00:05:26.439 --> 00:05:29.399 Vorbeck is using the terrain. Right. Rapid movement, 00:05:29.899 --> 00:05:32.680 outmaneuvering a much larger, heavily supplied 00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:35.959 force. And he kept this up for the entire war. 00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:38.899 But while that huge land campaign is happening, 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:41.759 the naval operations are, well, they're almost 00:05:41.759 --> 00:05:43.980 surreal. They feel like a different genre of 00:05:43.980 --> 00:05:46.139 history. How do you even have a naval battle 00:05:46.139 --> 00:05:48.740 in a jungle? Out of sheer necessity, take the 00:05:48.740 --> 00:05:51.600 German light cruiser, the SMS Koningsberg. When 00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:54.639 the war started, this powerful ship was out in 00:05:54.639 --> 00:05:57.560 the Indian Ocean. Sinking British ships. Yeah, 00:05:57.699 --> 00:06:00.560 but eventually it needed to hide, refit, and 00:06:00.560 --> 00:06:03.420 dodge the massive British fleet hunting it. So 00:06:03.420 --> 00:06:06.040 the captain navigates this huge warship deep 00:06:06.040 --> 00:06:08.660 into the refugee river delta. Using the jungle 00:06:08.660 --> 00:06:11.300 canopy as camouflage. Literally hiding a warship 00:06:11.300 --> 00:06:13.600 in the trees. And the logistics of how the British 00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:15.639 got it out are wild. They couldn't get their 00:06:15.639 --> 00:06:18.079 standard warships up the shallow river. So they 00:06:18.079 --> 00:06:21.139 decide to tow two heavy monitors. the HMS Mersey 00:06:21.139 --> 00:06:23.959 and the HMS Severn. All the way from Malta. Yes. 00:06:24.600 --> 00:06:27.000 From the Mediterranean down through the Red Sea 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:29.360 into the Indian Ocean. And for those listening 00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:32.699 who don't know, monitors are basically slow, 00:06:33.060 --> 00:06:36.240 flat bottom boats built around massive heavy 00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:38.339 artillery. The loading gun platform. Exactly. 00:06:38.480 --> 00:06:40.939 They towed these platforms across the world just 00:06:40.939 --> 00:06:43.740 to go into this river after the Konigsberg. And 00:06:43.740 --> 00:06:47.300 the battle itself was this bizarre mix of advanced 00:06:47.300 --> 00:06:50.920 tech. and raw jungle fighting. The British used 00:06:50.920 --> 00:06:54.139 early aircraft to spot artillery fire from the 00:06:54.139 --> 00:06:56.300 sky. Trying to find the ship in the mangroves. 00:06:56.420 --> 00:06:58.720 While the Germans actually had spotters tied 00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:00.959 into the tops of jungle trees directing their 00:07:00.959 --> 00:07:03.740 return fire. A massive artillery duel in a river 00:07:03.740 --> 00:07:06.399 delta. And the Konigsberg was ultimately destroyed. 00:07:06.800 --> 00:07:09.579 But the crew survives. They salvage the ship's 00:07:09.579 --> 00:07:12.100 massive main guns, drag them through the jungle, 00:07:12.240 --> 00:07:15.319 and join Liko Vorbeck's land forces. which is 00:07:15.319 --> 00:07:18.100 incredible on its own. It is. But the Lake Tanganyika 00:07:18.100 --> 00:07:20.899 expedition, that is on a whole other level of 00:07:20.899 --> 00:07:22.699 absurdity. Oh, definitely. So Lake Tanganyika 00:07:22.699 --> 00:07:26.060 is this massive deep lake right between the Belgian 00:07:26.060 --> 00:07:28.819 Congo and German East Africa. And it's totally 00:07:28.819 --> 00:07:31.459 landlocked. Right. But the Germans controlled 00:07:31.459 --> 00:07:34.139 it with three armed steamers, giving them a huge 00:07:34.139 --> 00:07:37.079 strategic advantage for moving troops. The British 00:07:37.079 --> 00:07:39.199 knew they needed control of the water, but they 00:07:39.199 --> 00:07:41.980 had no ships there. So their solution, and I 00:07:41.980 --> 00:07:44.120 love this detail, their solution was to take 00:07:44.120 --> 00:07:47.439 two motorboats, hilariously named Mimi and Tutu. 00:07:47.639 --> 00:07:50.759 Great names for warships. Incredible names. And 00:07:50.759 --> 00:07:54.300 they transport them 3 ,000 miles overland, not 00:07:54.300 --> 00:07:56.959 just on a train. No, they used traction engines. 00:07:57.180 --> 00:08:00.139 Dragging these boats through dense jungles, chopping 00:08:00.139 --> 00:08:02.980 down trees to clear paths, building temporary 00:08:02.980 --> 00:08:05.100 bridges over gorges. Oh, just to get these vessels 00:08:05.100 --> 00:08:07.839 to the lake. And it worked. They got Mimi and 00:08:07.839 --> 00:08:10.100 Tutu in the water, captured one German ship, 00:08:10.339 --> 00:08:12.540 sank another, and completely flipped the balance 00:08:12.540 --> 00:08:15.519 of power. And there's a fascinating physical 00:08:15.519 --> 00:08:18.199 remnant from that specific naval history that 00:08:18.199 --> 00:08:20.819 still exists. Yes, the trivia on this is amazing. 00:08:21.060 --> 00:08:22.980 The Germans had a large ship on the lake called 00:08:22.980 --> 00:08:26.379 the Graf von Gutzen. In 1916, when they knew 00:08:26.379 --> 00:08:28.360 the Allies were taking the area, they scuttled 00:08:28.360 --> 00:08:30.939 it, intentionally sank it to keep it out of enemy 00:08:30.939 --> 00:08:33.059 hands. But they greased the engines first, right? 00:08:33.159 --> 00:08:35.120 Yes, they packed it with grease so it could be 00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:38.460 saved later. And after the war, it was refloated, 00:08:38.679 --> 00:08:41.179 modified, and put back into service. And it is 00:08:41.179 --> 00:08:44.440 still in service today. For you listening, this 00:08:44.440 --> 00:08:47.620 exact ship plies the waters of Lake Tanganyika 00:08:47.620 --> 00:08:51.580 right now under the Tanzanian flag as the MV 00:08:51.580 --> 00:08:55.399 Liemba. A World War I warship still ferrying 00:08:55.399 --> 00:08:58.240 passengers over a century later. It's such a 00:08:58.240 --> 00:09:01.259 strange, enduring piece of history. But behind 00:09:01.259 --> 00:09:03.980 all these bizarre naval chases and land maneuvers, 00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:07.259 the war was causing intense internal fracturing 00:09:07.259 --> 00:09:09.379 across the continent. That's a crucial point. 00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:12.279 It wasn't just a clean line of Britain and France 00:09:12.279 --> 00:09:15.679 versus Germany. Local politics violently intersected 00:09:15.679 --> 00:09:18.139 with the global war. Look at the Merits Rebellion 00:09:18.139 --> 00:09:19.759 in South Africa. Here's where it gets really 00:09:19.759 --> 00:09:21.500 interesting, because South Africa was technically 00:09:21.500 --> 00:09:23.500 part of the British Empire, so they were expected 00:09:23.500 --> 00:09:25.360 to fight for the Allies. But you have to remember 00:09:25.360 --> 00:09:27.779 the context. Many of the South African Boers, 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:30.320 the descendants of Dutch settlers, had just fought 00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:32.600 a brutal war against the British only a dozen 00:09:32.600 --> 00:09:35.409 years earlier. Right, the Boer War. Exactly. 00:09:35.769 --> 00:09:38.370 Generals like DeWitt, Byers, and many merits 00:09:38.370 --> 00:09:41.009 had absolutely no desire to fight for the British. 00:09:41.570 --> 00:09:45.409 They saw World War I as the perfect chaotic opportunity 00:09:45.409 --> 00:09:48.029 to win back their independent republic. And their 00:09:48.029 --> 00:09:50.289 motivations get even stranger. They were heavily 00:09:50.289 --> 00:09:52.690 influenced by this guy, Senor van Rensburg. The 00:09:52.690 --> 00:09:55.549 crazed seer. Yeah, a guy who claimed to have 00:09:55.549 --> 00:09:58.029 prophetic visions. He convinced these prominent 00:09:58.029 --> 00:10:00.590 Boer leaders that the war in Europe was a divine 00:10:00.590 --> 00:10:03.070 signal. If they rebelled, the Republic would 00:10:03.070 --> 00:10:06.169 be restored. So you had military men like Maritz 00:10:06.169 --> 00:10:08.750 openly allying with the Germans in neighboring 00:10:08.750 --> 00:10:11.610 southwest Africa, gathering thousands of troops 00:10:11.610 --> 00:10:13.470 and declaring war on the British government. 00:10:13.669 --> 00:10:16.629 It created a massive internal crisis. The government 00:10:16.629 --> 00:10:20.009 had to declare martial law. It took 30 ,000 pro 00:10:20.009 --> 00:10:22.049 -government troops to finally crush the uprising. 00:10:22.429 --> 00:10:24.789 The logistics of that rebellion were harrowing. 00:10:24.789 --> 00:10:27.149 Rebels trying to cross the Kalahari Desert to 00:10:27.149 --> 00:10:29.690 join the Germans, losing hundreds of men to the 00:10:29.690 --> 00:10:33.149 environment. brutal. And while the Germans are 00:10:33.149 --> 00:10:35.769 supporting Boers in the south, they and the Ottomans 00:10:35.769 --> 00:10:37.809 are trying a totally different strategy in the 00:10:37.809 --> 00:10:41.750 north. The global jihad attempt. Right. The Senussi 00:10:41.750 --> 00:10:44.730 campaign. The Senussi were a Muslim political 00:10:44.730 --> 00:10:47.809 religious order based in the Sahara. When the 00:10:47.809 --> 00:10:50.070 Ottomans entered the war, they called for a global 00:10:50.070 --> 00:10:52.970 uprising against the British, French and Russian 00:10:52.970 --> 00:10:56.269 empires. And the strategic goal there was specifically 00:10:56.269 --> 00:10:59.350 to distract the British. And threaten the Suez 00:10:59.350 --> 00:11:01.950 Canal in Egypt? Exactly, because the canal was 00:11:01.950 --> 00:11:04.250 the absolute logistical lifeline for the British 00:11:04.250 --> 00:11:07.019 Empire. Connecting them to India. The Ottomans 00:11:07.019 --> 00:11:09.399 tried a direct attack on the canal and failed. 00:11:09.779 --> 00:11:12.460 So the backup plan was to encourage the Senussi 00:11:12.460 --> 00:11:15.019 to attack the British from the Libyan desert 00:11:15.019 --> 00:11:17.100 in the west. And it actually worked at first. 00:11:17.279 --> 00:11:20.019 It was highly effective initially. German U -boat 00:11:20.019 --> 00:11:23.080 sinking supply ships, Senussi forces overrunning 00:11:23.080 --> 00:11:25.799 Egyptian outposts. The British had to desperately 00:11:25.799 --> 00:11:28.440 pull troops from other fronts just to hold the 00:11:28.440 --> 00:11:30.379 line. The combat sounds almost anachronistic. 00:11:30.480 --> 00:11:33.539 It was. At the action of Agagia in 1916, you 00:11:33.539 --> 00:11:36.720 had British volunteer cavalry. a full horseback 00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:39.299 charge across open desert while taking Senussi 00:11:39.299 --> 00:11:41.720 machine gunfire? And the British were so terrified 00:11:41.720 --> 00:11:44.779 of this pan -Muslim uprising spreading that they 00:11:44.779 --> 00:11:47.159 resorted to blatant psychological intimidation. 00:11:47.419 --> 00:11:50.100 Oh the propaganda trip? Yes. They were worried 00:11:50.100 --> 00:11:52.960 about Somali populations rising up so they actually 00:11:52.960 --> 00:11:56.990 organized a trip for a group of prominent Somali 00:11:56.990 --> 00:12:00.149 elders to go to Egypt. A fully guided tour of 00:12:00.149 --> 00:12:02.470 British military might. Exactly. Yeah. It wasn't 00:12:02.470 --> 00:12:05.909 diplomacy. They showed these elders massive warships 00:12:05.909 --> 00:12:08.830 anchored off the coast, extensive military railways 00:12:08.830 --> 00:12:11.669 and prison camps overflowing with captured German 00:12:11.669 --> 00:12:14.549 and Ottoman soldiers. Higher intimidation. A 00:12:14.549 --> 00:12:16.710 deliberate exhibition just to terrify them into 00:12:16.710 --> 00:12:19.649 staying loyal. But that desperation showing off 00:12:19.649 --> 00:12:22.850 prison camps, it wasn't just colonial paranoia. 00:12:22.850 --> 00:12:25.950 It was a reaction to the sheer crushing toll 00:12:25.950 --> 00:12:28.070 the war was taking. Which brings us to the hardest 00:12:28.070 --> 00:12:30.129 part of this history. We really need to shift 00:12:30.129 --> 00:12:32.970 the focus here because for all the talk of gunboats 00:12:32.970 --> 00:12:35.090 and spies, this wasn't an adventure story. It 00:12:35.090 --> 00:12:37.809 was a humanitarian catastrophe. It truly was. 00:12:38.370 --> 00:12:40.350 The statistics are genuinely hard to comprehend. 00:12:41.110 --> 00:12:44.330 It is estimated that 750 ,000 African civilians 00:12:44.330 --> 00:12:46.809 died from famine and disease directly caused 00:12:46.809 --> 00:12:48.970 by this war. And that number doesn't even account 00:12:48.970 --> 00:12:51.090 for the millions forced into the logistics machine. 00:12:51.190 --> 00:12:53.809 The carrier corps. Right. Because there were 00:12:53.809 --> 00:12:56.809 very few roads or railways across the African 00:12:56.809 --> 00:12:59.750 interior, the European armies relied entirely 00:12:59.750 --> 00:13:02.309 on human beings to carry their war material. 00:13:02.769 --> 00:13:05.009 Conscription into this carrier corps was massive 00:13:05.009 --> 00:13:08.240 and brutal. These porters were forced to carry 00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:12.580 immense weights, artillery shells, rations, camping 00:13:12.580 --> 00:13:14.940 equipment on their heads and backs. Marching 00:13:14.940 --> 00:13:18.039 for miles every single day. Through dense jungles, 00:13:18.179 --> 00:13:21.320 over mountains, across malaria -infested swamps. 00:13:21.720 --> 00:13:23.860 The physical demands were impossible. The food 00:13:23.860 --> 00:13:26.320 rations were terrible. And disease just ravaged 00:13:26.320 --> 00:13:29.139 them. Dysentery and malaria devastated the ranks. 00:13:29.500 --> 00:13:31.840 The British Carrier Corps in East Africa alone 00:13:31.840 --> 00:13:35.259 recorded the deaths of roughly 95 ,000 porters. 00:13:35.920 --> 00:13:38.960 And the Germans operated similarly, impressing 00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:41.279 hundreds of thousands of carriers, rarely paying 00:13:41.279 --> 00:13:44.179 them, and systematically stealing food from civilian 00:13:44.179 --> 00:13:46.580 villages to feed their armies. The institutional 00:13:46.580 --> 00:13:49.259 callousness is deeply unsettling. There's a specific 00:13:49.259 --> 00:13:51.919 quote from a British Colonial Office bureaucrat 00:13:51.919 --> 00:13:54.460 reflecting on this massive death toll. It's a 00:13:54.460 --> 00:13:57.100 chilling quote. He wrote that the campaign hadn't 00:13:57.100 --> 00:13:59.480 become a massive public scandal back in London 00:13:59.480 --> 00:14:02.120 only, and I quote, because the people who suffered 00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:05.139 most were the carriers. And after all, Who cares 00:14:05.139 --> 00:14:07.740 about native carriers? It's just infuriating 00:14:07.740 --> 00:14:10.840 to hear. It is, but it lays bare the reality 00:14:10.840 --> 00:14:13.820 of the colonial mindset. Millions of lives were 00:14:13.820 --> 00:14:16.279 viewed as entirely disposable resources for a 00:14:16.279 --> 00:14:18.879 European war. When you absorb that quote, you 00:14:18.879 --> 00:14:22.179 realize the true scale of the exploitation. So 00:14:22.179 --> 00:14:25.299 for you listening today, why is understanding 00:14:25.299 --> 00:14:28.139 this so essential? Why does this deep dive matter? 00:14:28.360 --> 00:14:31.200 Because it forces you to expand your map of global 00:14:31.200 --> 00:14:34.429 conflict. This war fundamentally disrupted the 00:14:34.429 --> 00:14:36.750 continent. The massive conscription physically 00:14:36.750 --> 00:14:39.769 depopulated entire agricultural districts. The 00:14:39.769 --> 00:14:41.610 men were forced away so farms were abandoned. 00:14:42.009 --> 00:14:44.509 Exactly. Combine that with the military requisitioning 00:14:44.509 --> 00:14:46.649 local food and a devastating failure of the rains 00:14:46.649 --> 00:14:49.889 in 1917 and you get widespread famines. And then, 00:14:50.049 --> 00:14:52.549 as if the famine wasn't enough, the Spanish flu 00:14:52.549 --> 00:14:54.690 hits Sub -Saharan Africa right at the end of 00:14:54.690 --> 00:14:57.830 the war in 1918. Because the civilian population 00:14:57.830 --> 00:15:00.389 was already weakened by starvation and because 00:15:00.389 --> 00:15:02.570 massive columns of troops and quarters were still 00:15:02.570 --> 00:15:05.149 moving across the continent, the virus spread 00:15:05.149 --> 00:15:07.850 with devastating speed. It's a perfect storm 00:15:07.850 --> 00:15:10.450 for a pandemic. In sub -Saharan Africa alone, 00:15:10.590 --> 00:15:13.809 it's estimated that 1 .5 to 2 million people 00:15:13.809 --> 00:15:16.009 died in the epidemic. It's just staggering. And 00:15:16.009 --> 00:15:18.389 geopolitically, the landscape was entirely rewritten. 00:15:18.809 --> 00:15:21.350 Under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany's African 00:15:21.350 --> 00:15:23.509 colonies were stripped away and partitioned among 00:15:23.509 --> 00:15:27.299 Britain, France, Belgium and South Africa. Foreign 00:15:27.299 --> 00:15:29.779 empires redrawing the lines on the map once again. 00:15:30.200 --> 00:15:32.600 Exactly. It is a scale of impact that reverberated 00:15:32.600 --> 00:15:35.460 for generations. Yeah. So to summarize what we've 00:15:35.460 --> 00:15:38.299 covered today, we've explored a theater of war 00:15:38.299 --> 00:15:40.879 where global empires essentially treated the 00:15:40.879 --> 00:15:43.120 African continent as a massive chessboard. A 00:15:43.120 --> 00:15:45.940 very destructive game. They exported their European 00:15:45.940 --> 00:15:49.120 conflicts to African soil. They dragged gunbooks 00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:52.100 through jungles, sparked rebellions in the deserts, 00:15:52.159 --> 00:15:54.860 and forced millions of people into a brutal logistical 00:15:54.860 --> 00:15:57.700 machine. And while the empires played their games 00:15:57.700 --> 00:15:59.960 of global dominance, it was the people living 00:15:59.960 --> 00:16:02.919 in Africa who paid the ultimate, horrifying price. 00:16:03.539 --> 00:16:05.700 Thank you for taking the time to go on this intense 00:16:05.700 --> 00:16:08.019 historical journey with us today. And I want 00:16:08.019 --> 00:16:10.220 to leave you with one final thought to mull over. 00:16:10.940 --> 00:16:13.320 The historical records note that many of the 00:16:13.320 --> 00:16:15.500 African soldiers who fought in this war did so 00:16:15.500 --> 00:16:18.179 with incredible loyalty and skill. Right. But 00:16:18.179 --> 00:16:21.139 that loyalty was largely based on strict military 00:16:21.139 --> 00:16:23.899 professionalism and unit cohesion. It wasn't 00:16:23.899 --> 00:16:26.700 a sense of patriotic nationalism toward the empires 00:16:26.700 --> 00:16:28.899 that commanded them. That distinction is important. 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:31.799 It is because consider the psychological shift 00:16:31.799 --> 00:16:34.419 that occurred by forcing millions of Africans 00:16:34.419 --> 00:16:37.019 to actively participate in this brutal European 00:16:37.019 --> 00:16:39.860 war, by forcing them to witness Europeans killing 00:16:39.860 --> 00:16:43.179 other Europeans to see the desperation, the vast 00:16:43.179 --> 00:16:45.879 strategic blunders, and the physical vulnerability 00:16:45.879 --> 00:16:48.539 of the white colonialists, the colonial powers 00:16:48.539 --> 00:16:51.120 entirely shattered the myth of their own invincibility. 00:16:51.259 --> 00:16:53.779 They exposed themselves. Completely. So if the 00:16:53.779 --> 00:16:56.460 European powers had actually honored their 1884 00:16:56.460 --> 00:16:59.220 agreement to keep Africa neutral, if they hadn't 00:16:59.220 --> 00:17:01.240 dragged the continent into their own destruction, 00:17:01.639 --> 00:17:04.460 it raises a huge question. What's that? How much 00:17:04.460 --> 00:17:06.920 longer might that illusion of European supremacy 00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:09.480 have lasted before the inevitable African push 00:17:09.450 --> 00:17:10.690 for independence began.