WORLD WAR 1 WAS ABOUT CONQUEST AND

EMPIRE BUILDING, NOT A DEFENCE AGAINST

GERMANY.
I have read a piece by Peter in one of our new papers, informing us of
the relics of World War 1 in East Africa. I am sure like many fellow
Africans were not aware of this colonial memorabilia. I personally
believe that such relics should be preserved as it is of our history on this
continent. In the same vein, I think its very important to get that history
corrects and a correct history is one that is written from a peoples point
of view. As Tom Mboya said, ANational without history is like a face
without a nose.
Normally history is written by a victor, in this case our colonial masters!
Its our responsibility to reinterpret it from our perspective, and
otherwise it remains HIS-TORY. As a Christian, World War I was
fought from 1914 to 1918 and resulted in the death of ten million men,
fifteen million insecure while nine million became prisoners of war.
Almost all were working class people. It was a war between European
powers, so why did we get involved? The adage goes When
elephants make love the grass suffers because some of these powers
(Britain and Germany) had invaded and grabbed our territories
(Zimbabwe as a good example) just as they had done on the Indian sub
continent and elsewhere.
Thus it is that our territories became a terrain for the fight and that our
men, Africans and Indians died in these battles. And let it be clear we did
not volunteer to fight for a great cause We were forced into it.
World War I was hailed in bourgeois history as a war to end all wars.
Well, events since have proved otherwise. The exercise for the war ran
through a whole catalogue of pretexts from humanitarism war through a

struggle for a survival and defense against Germans. The reality was
different, The war was a clash of empire, a war to re-divide the global
fought between great capitalist states and of these, the British empire
was the largest, the most rapacious and most powerful. In the course of
19th century, the British state had extinguished the independence of more
countries than the rest of the greatest powers put together. This was
accomplished by massacre, rape and pillage (ICC would have had a lot
of work then). The Indian sub continent, Burma, Afghanistan, Tibet,
and other countries had been invaded and conquered.
The British controlled Opium trade and in China, it stands as one of the
worst crimes of the 19th century. The biggest prize of World War I for
Britain was getting hold of the oil fields in the Middle East, some of the
riches in the world.
Our own continent had been arbitrarily divided apportioned to the great
hyenas in December 1884 to January 1885 chaired by Rev Von
Bismarck and scramble for Africa started? By the time the 2nd pan
African congress took place in 1919 to claim for Black space in the
racist world, some of their land had been already grabbed at home.
World war I enabled victorious Britain to take over Germany controlled
territory of Tanganyika and incorporated it into British East Africa,
Uganda was already a British Protectorate. The rest is history!
One may ask, what about our valiant men who were coerced and forced
into this war between European powers and for which many died. We
know what imperialist soldiers were materially rewarded with our lands,
our labour etc, the African soldiers were not recognized, yet their role as
soldiers and porters was an essential to the war effort. Germanys defeat
been presented by military historians as a hard fought struggle to the
bitter end.

The truth lies elsewhere, it was the gradual change of altitude by the
front line soldiers resulting in waves of draft dodging, dissertations
mutinies and voluntary surrenders which finally ended the war. The
revolution that followed this mass disobedience brought down three
European empires and the Otto man empire of Turks. By the time the
Americans joined WWI in April 1917, almost half the French army had
over stayed its home leave, deserted or mutinied. Many soldiers lost
moral and enrollment by 1917 fell from 1.4 million soldiers to 0.6
million. Like Napoleon when he was defeated at the battle of Trafalgar
and said that even the brutes (fools) have learnt something?
It is therefore important for us to always present history from our
perspective, otherwise distortions will not help this generation to
understand the impact of colonial hangover, they may think the role of
missionaries was to take us to heaven but that would be one of the points
on Agenda but I am sure it was A.O.B (Any Other Business), the truth
was about raw materials and human labour before industrialization.
Again before Napoleon Bornapate died in 1821, he told his children
study history reflect on it its the true philosophy.

ASIIMWE STEPHEN
A HISTORIAN, PAN AFRICANIST & RDC KABAROLE!