Doc,The British kept meticulous records of those who died for their cause in
Tanganyika.
Wilfred Owen described WWI in:
Red lips are not so redAs the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
The rest of the dead in Tanganyika, including a few thousand Indians troops and
uncounted thousand Africans in Tanga and Tanganyika were not important.
During WWI, African troops were sometimes left to rot in the sun. The Kaiser's
honour was much more important.
Mervyn
On Friday, March 1, 2024 at 07:21:48 p.m. CST, Mel de Quadros
<ymirconsult...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thank you Mervyn I’m slowly working my way thru Gurnah’s books. A great
writer, his language is so nuanced and lovely to read.
I happened to have gone with summer fieldwork from Makerere in 1962, working
for the Tanzania Geological Survey, mostly in the Handeni-Korogwe-Lushoto
area. Camping in tents with the African field staff, I made lots of friends
with the locals. The Englishmen in the teams had their separate camps, posher
and nicer.
You must know Lushoto and Usambara Mountains were a favorite place for the
German settlers due to the cold climate; and they grew tea in these mountains,
sisal rope at lower altitudes.
So there were a few old men who had served the Germans as laborers and soldiers
before 1918. So many stories about the old days over chai, beer and
cigarettes!! And bao, of course, till the Mwalimu made bao illegal during work
hours.
It was always very sad to come across little iron fenced graveyards for the
young whites who died in the WWI. They were German, Belgian and English.
Walking thru the bush mapping and prospecting, one came across these cemeteries.
The same applied in the /Bukoba area later in 1964. There were no similar
gravesites for the dead African and Indian soldiers who participated in these
battles
