Forgotten soldiers

We have celebrated Victory in Europe Day but I want to turn to WW1. In Britain, that war is regarded as having been fought in the mud of Flanders by the British Army and a little bit in the Dardanelles by the Australians but I want to focus on Africa beginning in South Africa in 1914. That era has already motivated two books King or Kaiser and Shadows in the Veldt but they are only the start of what was to be a five book series. What peaked my interest was reading that, no more than thirteen years after surrendering to the British, Jan Smuts was a general in the army of the British empire. That change intrigued me and in researching the conundrum, I found a plethora of personal memories and character sketches that were irresistible. Like 1820, the events have been put under the bed by history but they include The Five Shilling Rebellion, which broke out when the Afrikaans nation was split over whether the country should side with the Kaiser or the Empire. Churchill instigated the split by requesting the South African government to destroy the radio mast at Windhoek in German South West, now Namibia, as, on a good day, it could relay information about shipping round the Cape directly to Berlin and the submarines. Once the rebellion was settled, Smuts went of to German East Africa, Tanzania, and with the help of the Cape Corps, a regiment of men of mixed race, chased the local Germans all over the place. The stiff upper lip Brits of the trenches complained he never brought the enemy to a decisive battle where they could slaughter each other but it was Smuts kind of war, one of movement and a minimum of casualties. The downside is that no one knows how many local tribesmen, who acted as bearers, where killed by gunfire, eaten by lions, or just died. In a way, it’s like the American’s contribution to that struggle, and even the dessert war of WW2.