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The story of the colonial wars in Africa is normally told from the European point of view, perhaps inevitably given the relatively limited sources available to present the African point of view. This book provides the other side of the picture, looking at a series of African societies and the armies that they produced, using the available sources to examine the social structure of each society, the impact that had on their military capabilities and the weapons, strategies and tactics they used. Peers then moves on to examine each of these society's military encounters, both against European and other African opponents.
This book concentrates on those African societies that came up against the British, the Germans and the armies of the independent colony in the Congo run for the King of Belgium. The book covers much of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, with something of a focus on the later parts of the nineteenth century, the period of the 'scramble for Africa'. This saw the colonial powers attempt to expand their power into remote areas, bringing them into contact with an increasingly wide variety of peoples.
This is a valuable contribution to the military history of Africa, bringing together in one volume a series of very readable accounts of the most successful African armies, examining how they fought, how they achieved their successes, and in most cases how they were eventually defeated.
Chapters
1 - 'Sultan of Africa': The Impact of Firearms
2 - 'That Terrible Wandering Race': The Zulus and Their Northern Cousins
3 - 'The Most Horrible War': The British and the Ashanti
4 - 'That Inhuman Field': Kabarega's Twenty-Seven-Year War
5 - 'The Zulus of the Congo': The Azande
6 - 'An Impossible Rider Haggard Romance': The Rise and Fall of the Congo Arabs
7 - 'A Splendid People': The Masai and Nandi
8 - 'He Fears the Spear, but Not the Big Guns': The Hehe and the Kaiser
9 - 'No Law but Blood for Blood': British East Africa's Northern Frontier
10 - Conclusion: 'The White Man Beat Everyone Now'
Author: Chris Peers
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 236
Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
Year: 2010