The Askaris

This post being prompted by coming across reference 2 in connection with the novel which was the subject of reference 1. I have now skim-read the first four chapters of reference 2 – but have failed to trace its author.

In reporting that thesis here, I have been reminded of my interest in the academic exercise of the précis. Which leads to the thought that the present post uses this thesis as a seed, rather than as something to précis. Rather like what literary journals are pleased to call book reviews.

The novel was set around the time of the Kenyan Emergency and I was prompted to inquire into East African participation in the Second World War, with some reports suggesting aggressive conscription into the King's African Rifles (KAR) – including here for brevity support as well as combat roles. This attracted some controversy here in the UK at the time and was part of the transition to the Emergency after the war. Bing turned up the rather different reference 2, while the emergency is to be found at reference 3.

Reference 2 is very much a white British view of the KAR at the time of the Second World War, taken from the written record. Conscription – not to say press-ganging – is present, but very much as an unfortunate part of a bigger picture. In mitigation, the author says that travel to the region to speak directly with some of those who had been involved was not practical (at least for her) at the time of writing, presumably because of the troubles attendant on the arrival of Idi Amin in Uganda.

The officers of the KAR were white, while most of the NCOs and all of the other ranks were natives –  called Askaris, from the Arabic. There was also some attempt to make the KAR into a sort of tribe in its own right, with loyalty to the regiment trumping loyalty to the tribe – of which many were present. To the extent that he KAR needed to use the NCOs as interpreters between the British officers and the rest. Maybe in combat, sign language is good enough, that being what they do in war films.

The whites of the KAR were of variable quality, with varying amounts of African experience. Too many of them had none prior to their posting to the KAR.

Some context

The East African region – particularly the south-west quarter of the map above - was occupied by European powers during the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. A region which contained various kingdoms, but where the modern Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia did not exist as nation states. Rather a complicated patchwork of tribes, often fighting among themselves and with the Arab traders and slavers working the east coast. One of the drivers was a (church driven) desire to put down the Arab slave traffic.

What was then called Tanganyika was taken from the Germans by the British at the end of the First World War and there were worries about German activity there at the start of the second.

The Italians had invaded Ethiopia (then Abyssinia) and were a concern to the north.

Pro-Vichy forces were in control in Madagascar to the south.

And after the fall of Singapore, the Japanese navy was to the east. Their submarines did appear off Madagascar from time to time.

In the round, the UK was in dire straits and the policy was to extract as much as possible from the colonies to support the war effort. Support which was sold as fighting for the free world – which was a bit tricky given the lack of freedom for the natives – and the loss of much of their land to white settlers.

A large number of languages were spoken in the region and there was no lingua-franca, certainly not the Kikuyu of reference 1. Nowadays, the nearest are the English of the colonists and the Swahili of the east coast.

One forgets that pictures and diagrams in documents was not as easy in 1985 as it has become since. This thesis would have been easier going with better quality, pull-out maps – it not occurring to me to use the Snipping Tool for the job until it was too late!

Some more social matters

The economy was largely agricultural and pastoral, with the most prized possessions in many tribes being wives and cattle – of which last there were rather too many for the climate and the British tried to bear down on numbers – not least by turning them into bully-beef for the army.

A lot of local administration, such as it was, was in the hands of (village) chiefs, who might be hereditary, elected (after a fashion) or appointed by the colonial occupier. Administration which was said to be accompanied by a good deal of favouritism and corruption.

There was need for troops to help keep order; the police were not enough. In the beginning, this was the main business of the KAR.

At the start of the Second War, the general standard of health and education in the region was poor, with a lot of the poor health arising from malnutrition – and there was also a lot of venereal disease. Alcohol could also be a problem and I dare say they had their share of mental health problems too. The result of all of which was that a lot of recruits in the 1930s and 1940s were rejected by the army on medical grounds. 

Illiteracy was another problem – and I associate today to the difficulty the Soviets had in the 1920s and 1930s breaking their peasants to factory conditions.

There was a tendency for the colonists to divide the tribes into grain eaters and banana eaters, with the latter being regarded as lazy and not well suited to soldiering.

There was another tendency to divide the tribes into martial tribes and others, largely based on their record of resisting various intruders such as the Arab slavers and the Europeans.

Yet another to classify people according to their tribe, with little regard for their individual qualities. All of which made for difficulties at a time when large numbers of natives were wanted for the army or for work on farms, both the large farms of the white settlers and the usually much smaller native holdings.

KAR

A proper history of the KAR can be found at reference 4. What follows concerns recruitment during the Second World War.

The KAR expanded from a pre-war strength of a few thousands to a quarter of a million by the end of the war, with a good proportion serving away if not overseas, seeing service in North Africa, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Burma. With some Europeans making the mistake of thinking that all jungles were much the same and that the KAR would do just fine in the jungles of Burma. Which, in the event, they largely did, despite the jungles. I suspect that, like the French, although perhaps not so blatantly, we rather minimised the native contribution after the event.

In the beginning, KAR (and its various predecessors) included contingents from the Sudan, Somaliland and from India. KAR continued to draw on recruits from all over East Africa, not just Kenya. Furthermore, borders were porous and plenty of recruits were attracted from neighbouring countries to the west. In terms of tribes, a very mixed force. Mainly Protestants of various stripes, but also Catholics, Muslims and pagans. I got the sense that recruiting, as here in the UK, tended towards poorer, peripheral areas whose young men would more likely be attracted by a military life. 

Pay and conditions were generally attractive compared to the alternatives, mainly farm work on the family holding or on one of the large settler farms - but the KAR was taking a lot of young men from what was then a quite a small country. Agriculture, also important for the war effort, was suffering and the government had to work harder to get recruits for the KAR, working harder which included sending travelling propaganda units around the country and giving chiefs quotas to fill, chiefs who sometimes had resort to trickery, compulsion and something very like the press gangs of old.

A lot of the Askaris did not want to serve a long way from home, necessarily for long periods without home leave, which caused some trouble, despite various efforts to mitigate the unrest. And widespread illiteracy did not help with writing letters – in either direction.

Later on, a lot of effort was put into demobilisation back into civilian, often agricultural, life; taking it slowly and attempting to provide suitable training, training which would capitalise on skills learned with the army. A lot of which did not catch on, with the demobilised Askaris just putting their newly acquired skills aside and returning to their farms.

Maybe at that time, there was, for example, just not enough work to go round for thousands of mechanics and drivers.

Oddments

At one point, reference 2 talks of the Tende tribe, which I was unable to find with either Bing or Google. But Google did turn up reference 5, from which I learn that the Wa-Tende are part of a group called the Kavirondo; some Bantu, some Nilotic (see the language map above), who do exist at reference 6 and elsewhere. I also learn that the two subgroups rather differ in their attitude to female virginity – with the Bantus taking a more sensible line to my mind. Everybody could be a bit more relaxed about what went on before marriage.

Reference 5 being a Facebook post, a company of which I do not approve – but I am reminded reading that Facebook provides Internet access of a sort to all sorts of far-flung places which otherwise would have no access at all. 

Then there was the matter of the large meat cannery operated at Nairobi by Liebig, competent to produce tinned meat fit for Muslim consumption. The company certainly exists and I read at reference 7 that they were the people behind both Oxo and Fray Bentos. But while I can find a large derelict factory far to the south, at West Nicholson in Zimbabwe, probably roughly in the middle of the snap above, I failed to find any trace of the factory in Nairobi.

As with all the names of people at reference 1, I found all the names of tribes here a bit heavy going, albeit on a superficial reading. If I try again, perhaps a Powerpoint would be in order.

Conclusions

While plenty of bad stuff went on, one needs to have regard to the wider context. Context which does not make some of what was done right, but which does make it understandable.

PS 1: the snap above was lifted from reference 5. I did not look closely enough to find any context, but I do wonder now when such an elaborate head dress would have been worn. Hopefully not just for reenactments.

PS 2: Tuesday morning: cloud burst of maybe 5-10 minutes yesterday evening. A proper hammering down; maybe to the extent of flooding the bottom of Longmead Road when the water gets down from the Common. Then this morning, a fine view of Jupiter above Venus to the east, rapidly fading with the advancing dawn. Need to check whether the clock at timeanddate is BST or GMT. And which way around they are...

PS 3: regarding the water towers of the opening map above, see references 9 and 10. In this context, forested upland areas supplying significant amounts of water to the surrounding lowlands - a lot of which are dry and prone to drought.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/08/more-first-impressions.html. 

Reference 2: Recruitment and service in the King's African Rifles in the Second World War - Jennifer Ann Warner - 1985. A dissertation from the University of Bristol. 220 odd pages of typescript, double spaced for legibility.  

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_rebellion. 

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_African_Rifles. 

Reference 5: https://www.facebook.com/HistoryKE/posts/given-that-they-have-geographically-been-neighbours-the-luhya-luo-and-kisii-comm/1985925594855244/.   

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavirondo.  

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig%27s_Extract_of_Meat_Company. 

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/form-over-substance.html. The start of the précis excursion. Episode 2 remains on the stocks.

Reference 9: Land use and climate change effects on water yield from East African forested water towers - Charles Nduhiu Wamucii, Pieter R. van Oel, Arend Ligtenberg, John Mwangi Gathenya, Adriaan J. Teuling - 2021.

Reference 10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evapotranspiration.