When you picture World War I, your mind probably
jumps straight to the mud, right? Oh, absolutely,
the trenches. Yeah, the freezing trenches of
the Western Front. You picture the barbed wire,
the artillery craters, the soldiers huddled in
France or Belgium. That is the standard image,
yeah. But today, we are completely flipping the
script. We are taking a deep dive into the African
theater of World War I. Which is just a totally
different reality. Completely. When you really
look at this massive, often ignored piece of
global history. You find cavalry charges in the
blazing desert. You find gunboats being literally
dragged through dense jungles. And a really staggering
human cost. A cost that fundamentally reshaped
an entire continent. Our mission with this deep
dive today is to basically shortcut your way
to being well informed on this. We're unpacking
the bizarre military operations, the guerrilla
warfare, and the really tragic reality of how
these global empires used Africa. Right, and
to truly understand this conflict, you know,
you have to realize that this was, in many ways,
the final violent chapter of the scramble for
Africa. Late 19th century land grab. Exactly.
The European powers had spent decades carving
up the continent, just drawing these arbitrary
lines on maps. And when war broke out in 1914,
it became the ultimate chaotic collision of all
those imperial ambitions. But the wild thing
is, and we really need to start here, this conflict
was never actually supposed to happen on African
soil. No, not at all. If we go back a few decades
to the 1884 Berlin conference, the European powers
actually established this gentleman's agreement.
A very fragile agreement, as it turns out. Very
fragile. The idea was straightforward. If a war
ever broke out back home in Europe, their African
colonies were supposed to remain strictly neutral.
They didn't want their European drama messing
up their colonial profit machines. Precisely.
They wanted to protect their colonial projects.
OK, let's unpack this, because the historical
irony is just thick here. You have these European
colonialists stationed across Africa in August
1914. They hear the news of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
being assassinated, and they are terrified. Panicking,
really? Yes. There is this incredible piece of
primary source material, an editorial in the
East African Standard, from August 22, 1914.
This editorial openly argued that white colonialists
should not be fighting each other. Right. It
argued they needed to collaborate to maintain
the repression of the indigenous populations.
It's just out there in the open. And if we step
back and look at the bigger picture, you can
clearly see why that terror existed. European
control across Africa was incredibly fragile.
It was mostly an illusion. Exactly. You had tiny
numbers of white administrators and military
officers ruling over massive local populations.
Their power relied heavily on the myth of European
supremacy. Right, that was the myth. They were
terrified that if they armed Africans to fight
against other Europeans, if they showed any vulnerability,
it would completely destroy that myth. It would
show they could bleed. Exactly. War was entirely
against their local interests because their conquests
were recent, unstable, and the economic exploitation
was still in its early stages. But of course,
imperial greed wins out. That gentleman's agreement
didn't last a month. The strategic temptation
was just too high. Yeah, and it started with
this massive race for communication lines. The
Togoland campaign. That was the spark. Togoland
was a German colony in West Africa, and it had
something highly strategic, the Kamino wireless
station, which in 1914 was cutting edge tech.
State of the art. This massive station linked
Berlin to its African colonies, to ships in the
Atlantic, even to outposts in South America.
So taking it offline was priority number one
for the allies. So you get this wild scenario.
August 6th, French forces invade from the east,
from Dahomey. A few days later, British forces
invade from the Gold Coast to the west. It was
a literal race. A mad dash through the jungle
to capture or destroy this hub. The German defenders
tried to hold them off at places like Buffalo,
but by August 26th, they had to surrender the
colony. But shutting down a wireless station
was really just the prologue. Right. The war
in East Africa is where the scale just explodes.
And that is largely because of one guy. Paul
von Leto Vorbeck. The master of guerrilla war.
He commanded the German Schutztruppe, the colonial
forces in East Africa. And Leto Vorbeck understood
instantly that he could never win a conventional
war against the combined British, French, and
Belgian empires. He was completely surrounded.
So he pivoted. His goal wasn't to win territory.
It was to tie down as many allied troops as possible
in Africa. Keep them away from Europe. Exactly.
Force the British to commit massive resources,
shipping, and manpower to chasing him through
the bush. The mechanics of how he actually pulled
that off are astonishing. especially the Battle
of Tonga in November 1914. Oh, Tonga is a perfect
example. The British decide to capture this coastal
city using an amphibious assault. They send in
roughly 8 ,000 troops. Leo Vorbeck is outnumbered
roughly 8 to 1. 8 to 1 and he completely routes
them. He completely destroyed the British offensive.
The official British history calls it one of
the most notable failures in British military
history. Because it was a textbook example of
asymmetrical warfare, the British forces were
totally ill -equipped for the climate. They struggled
with the dense coastal vegetation. While Leto
Vorbeck is using the terrain. Right. Rapid movement,
outmaneuvering a much larger, heavily supplied
force. And he kept this up for the entire war.
But while that huge land campaign is happening,
the naval operations are, well, they're almost
surreal. They feel like a different genre of
history. How do you even have a naval battle
in a jungle? Out of sheer necessity, take the
German light cruiser, the SMS Koningsberg. When
the war started, this powerful ship was out in
the Indian Ocean. Sinking British ships. Yeah,
but eventually it needed to hide, refit, and
dodge the massive British fleet hunting it. So
the captain navigates this huge warship deep
into the refugee river delta. Using the jungle
canopy as camouflage. Literally hiding a warship
in the trees. And the logistics of how the British
got it out are wild. They couldn't get their
standard warships up the shallow river. So they
decide to tow two heavy monitors. the HMS Mersey
and the HMS Severn. All the way from Malta. Yes.
From the Mediterranean down through the Red Sea
into the Indian Ocean. And for those listening
who don't know, monitors are basically slow,
flat bottom boats built around massive heavy
artillery. The loading gun platform. Exactly.
They towed these platforms across the world just
to go into this river after the Konigsberg. And
the battle itself was this bizarre mix of advanced
tech. and raw jungle fighting. The British used
early aircraft to spot artillery fire from the
sky. Trying to find the ship in the mangroves.
While the Germans actually had spotters tied
into the tops of jungle trees directing their
return fire. A massive artillery duel in a river
delta. And the Konigsberg was ultimately destroyed.
But the crew survives. They salvage the ship's
massive main guns, drag them through the jungle,
and join Liko Vorbeck's land forces. which is
incredible on its own. It is. But the Lake Tanganyika
expedition, that is on a whole other level of
absurdity. Oh, definitely. So Lake Tanganyika
is this massive deep lake right between the Belgian
Congo and German East Africa. And it's totally
landlocked. Right. But the Germans controlled
it with three armed steamers, giving them a huge
strategic advantage for moving troops. The British
knew they needed control of the water, but they
had no ships there. So their solution, and I
love this detail, their solution was to take
two motorboats, hilariously named Mimi and Tutu.
Great names for warships. Incredible names. And
they transport them 3 ,000 miles overland, not
just on a train. No, they used traction engines.
Dragging these boats through dense jungles, chopping
down trees to clear paths, building temporary
bridges over gorges. Oh, just to get these vessels
to the lake. And it worked. They got Mimi and
Tutu in the water, captured one German ship,
sank another, and completely flipped the balance
of power. And there's a fascinating physical
remnant from that specific naval history that
still exists. Yes, the trivia on this is amazing.
The Germans had a large ship on the lake called
the Graf von Gutzen. In 1916, when they knew
the Allies were taking the area, they scuttled
it, intentionally sank it to keep it out of enemy
hands. But they greased the engines first, right?
Yes, they packed it with grease so it could be
saved later. And after the war, it was refloated,
modified, and put back into service. And it is
still in service today. For you listening, this
exact ship plies the waters of Lake Tanganyika
right now under the Tanzanian flag as the MV
Liemba. A World War I warship still ferrying
passengers over a century later. It's such a
strange, enduring piece of history. But behind
all these bizarre naval chases and land maneuvers,
the war was causing intense internal fracturing
across the continent. That's a crucial point.
It wasn't just a clean line of Britain and France
versus Germany. Local politics violently intersected
with the global war. Look at the Merits Rebellion
in South Africa. Here's where it gets really
interesting, because South Africa was technically
part of the British Empire, so they were expected
to fight for the Allies. But you have to remember
the context. Many of the South African Boers,
the descendants of Dutch settlers, had just fought
a brutal war against the British only a dozen
years earlier. Right, the Boer War. Exactly.
Generals like DeWitt, Byers, and many merits
had absolutely no desire to fight for the British.
They saw World War I as the perfect chaotic opportunity
to win back their independent republic. And their
motivations get even stranger. They were heavily
influenced by this guy, Senor van Rensburg. The
crazed seer. Yeah, a guy who claimed to have
prophetic visions. He convinced these prominent
Boer leaders that the war in Europe was a divine
signal. If they rebelled, the Republic would
be restored. So you had military men like Maritz
openly allying with the Germans in neighboring
southwest Africa, gathering thousands of troops
and declaring war on the British government.
It created a massive internal crisis. The government
had to declare martial law. It took 30 ,000 pro
-government troops to finally crush the uprising.
The logistics of that rebellion were harrowing.
Rebels trying to cross the Kalahari Desert to
join the Germans, losing hundreds of men to the
environment. brutal. And while the Germans are
supporting Boers in the south, they and the Ottomans
are trying a totally different strategy in the
north. The global jihad attempt. Right. The Senussi
campaign. The Senussi were a Muslim political
religious order based in the Sahara. When the
Ottomans entered the war, they called for a global
uprising against the British, French and Russian
empires. And the strategic goal there was specifically
to distract the British. And threaten the Suez
Canal in Egypt? Exactly, because the canal was
the absolute logistical lifeline for the British
Empire. Connecting them to India. The Ottomans
tried a direct attack on the canal and failed.
So the backup plan was to encourage the Senussi
to attack the British from the Libyan desert
in the west. And it actually worked at first.
It was highly effective initially. German U -boat
sinking supply ships, Senussi forces overrunning
Egyptian outposts. The British had to desperately
pull troops from other fronts just to hold the
line. The combat sounds almost anachronistic.
It was. At the action of Agagia in 1916, you
had British volunteer cavalry. a full horseback
charge across open desert while taking Senussi
machine gunfire? And the British were so terrified
of this pan -Muslim uprising spreading that they
resorted to blatant psychological intimidation.
Oh the propaganda trip? Yes. They were worried
about Somali populations rising up so they actually
organized a trip for a group of prominent Somali
elders to go to Egypt. A fully guided tour of
British military might. Exactly. Yeah. It wasn't
diplomacy. They showed these elders massive warships
anchored off the coast, extensive military railways
and prison camps overflowing with captured German
and Ottoman soldiers. Higher intimidation. A
deliberate exhibition just to terrify them into
staying loyal. But that desperation showing off
prison camps, it wasn't just colonial paranoia.
It was a reaction to the sheer crushing toll
the war was taking. Which brings us to the hardest
part of this history. We really need to shift
the focus here because for all the talk of gunboats
and spies, this wasn't an adventure story. It
was a humanitarian catastrophe. It truly was.
The statistics are genuinely hard to comprehend.
It is estimated that 750 ,000 African civilians
died from famine and disease directly caused
by this war. And that number doesn't even account
for the millions forced into the logistics machine.
The carrier corps. Right. Because there were
very few roads or railways across the African
interior, the European armies relied entirely
on human beings to carry their war material.
Conscription into this carrier corps was massive
and brutal. These porters were forced to carry
immense weights, artillery shells, rations, camping
equipment on their heads and backs. Marching
for miles every single day. Through dense jungles,
over mountains, across malaria -infested swamps.
The physical demands were impossible. The food
rations were terrible. And disease just ravaged
them. Dysentery and malaria devastated the ranks.
The British Carrier Corps in East Africa alone
recorded the deaths of roughly 95 ,000 porters.
And the Germans operated similarly, impressing
hundreds of thousands of carriers, rarely paying
them, and systematically stealing food from civilian
villages to feed their armies. The institutional
callousness is deeply unsettling. There's a specific
quote from a British Colonial Office bureaucrat
reflecting on this massive death toll. It's a
chilling quote. He wrote that the campaign hadn't
become a massive public scandal back in London
only, and I quote, because the people who suffered
most were the carriers. And after all, Who cares
about native carriers? It's just infuriating
to hear. It is, but it lays bare the reality
of the colonial mindset. Millions of lives were
viewed as entirely disposable resources for a
European war. When you absorb that quote, you
realize the true scale of the exploitation. So
for you listening today, why is understanding
this so essential? Why does this deep dive matter?
Because it forces you to expand your map of global
conflict. This war fundamentally disrupted the
continent. The massive conscription physically
depopulated entire agricultural districts. The
men were forced away so farms were abandoned.
Exactly. Combine that with the military requisitioning
local food and a devastating failure of the rains
in 1917 and you get widespread famines. And then,
as if the famine wasn't enough, the Spanish flu
hits Sub -Saharan Africa right at the end of
the war in 1918. Because the civilian population
was already weakened by starvation and because
massive columns of troops and quarters were still
moving across the continent, the virus spread
with devastating speed. It's a perfect storm
for a pandemic. In sub -Saharan Africa alone,
it's estimated that 1 .5 to 2 million people
died in the epidemic. It's just staggering. And
geopolitically, the landscape was entirely rewritten.
Under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany's African
colonies were stripped away and partitioned among
Britain, France, Belgium and South Africa. Foreign
empires redrawing the lines on the map once again.
Exactly. It is a scale of impact that reverberated
for generations. Yeah. So to summarize what we've
covered today, we've explored a theater of war
where global empires essentially treated the
African continent as a massive chessboard. A
very destructive game. They exported their European
conflicts to African soil. They dragged gunbooks
through jungles, sparked rebellions in the deserts,
and forced millions of people into a brutal logistical
machine. And while the empires played their games
of global dominance, it was the people living
in Africa who paid the ultimate, horrifying price.
Thank you for taking the time to go on this intense
historical journey with us today. And I want
to leave you with one final thought to mull over.
The historical records note that many of the
African soldiers who fought in this war did so
with incredible loyalty and skill. Right. But
that loyalty was largely based on strict military
professionalism and unit cohesion. It wasn't
a sense of patriotic nationalism toward the empires
that commanded them. That distinction is important.
It is because consider the psychological shift
that occurred by forcing millions of Africans
to actively participate in this brutal European
war, by forcing them to witness Europeans killing
other Europeans to see the desperation, the vast
strategic blunders, and the physical vulnerability
of the white colonialists, the colonial powers
entirely shattered the myth of their own invincibility.
They exposed themselves. Completely. So if the
European powers had actually honored their 1884
agreement to keep Africa neutral, if they hadn't
dragged the continent into their own destruction,
it raises a huge question. What's that? How much
longer might that illusion of European supremacy
have lasted before the inevitable African push
for independence began.