Tanzania Army - World Wars
In the East African campaigns of the Great War, several thousand African troops acquitted themselves well in the service of the Germans as well as in the service of the Allies. On the German side most of the African troops were from the Nyamwezi group, and in retrospect it would seem that they should have been over-whelmed from the beginning by the much stronger British, Belgian, and South African forces. Under the brilliant leadership of General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, however, the Tanganyikan force fought and ran, then fought and ran again during the entire four years of the war. Again a legend was born: not only a legend about the great leadership of Lettow-Vorbeck but also about the tenacity, loyalty, and combat effectiveness of his Tanganyikan soldiers.
No German foreign dependency, not even German Southwest Africa, revealed such a thorough preparation for the great war as German East Africa. Although the white force consisted of only three regiments, there had been organized, armed, and drilled a native Arab and negro force of 50,000 under white officers. Over 100 Krupp 77-millimeter fieldpieces had been imported, together with several hundred machine guns and quantities of barbed wire, engineering implements, and munitions of all sorts. Finally, a great wireless station had been erected in the Kilimanjaro, which, via the station at Togoland, on the other side of the continent, could communicate with Berlin.
Though construction had been kept back by native troubles, by administrative complications, and by engineering difficulties, the thousand miles of central railway from Dar-es-Salcm to Ujiji had just been completed and opened for traffic, and, whether by design or by accident, there were in the colony a number of German officers who had come out to assist in the celebration of the event. They were, needless to say, extremely useful in increasing the native levies, and as a reserve. The German planters and settlers fit for active service, some 3,000 in number, were of course called out. Of guns, machine-guns, rifles, ammunition, and military stores of all kinds there had been a steady accumulation, for the chances of replenishment from oversea were at best uncertain.
Besides the forces actually in the territory, the German administration had not ceased to carry on a propaganda among the Arabs of the Eastern Soudan, and confidently, and as it proved correctly, reckoned upon raising an appreciable total of auxiliaries in that quarter. In contrast with their attitude towards the Mohammedans along the coast, the Germans in these remote inland districts gave themselves out as firm friends of Islam, had provided for distribution a stock of green flags decorated with a crescent and a star, and neglected no means to turn fanaticism to profit.
Appreciating, too, the importance of the Great Lakes as a line of communication, they had been careful to ensure for themselves a superiority in armed vessels. On the Lakes means for shipbuilding and ship repairing had been set up. Materials and parts of war craft, shipped from Germany and transported up from the coast at great labor and expense, were "assembled" on these lake-side slips. The result was that, Lake Nyassa excepted, Germany had command of these inland waters.
So elaborate had been the German preparation that the Allies could do little during the first year of the war. With the conquest of German Southwest Africa completed, however, the army of the Union of South Africa was released, and preparations were made to reduce the vast territory by investing its most populous and civilized regions, which resulted in its conquest.
Defeat in the Great War brought the forfeiture of Germany's colonies. The conquest of East Africa deprived Germany of her largest colonial possession. Its area—about 384,170 square miles—is almost double that of Germany. Great Britain, in effect, had been ruling German East Africa since the capture of Dar es Salaam in 1916 even though Lettow-Vorbeck was still at large and still fighting. It wasn't until 1922 that the League of Nations mandate made the British administration of the Tanganyikan part of the former German colony official.
Throughout the 40 years that Tanganyika was under British control, the Tanganyikan Army was under British command and tutelage. Although Tanganyika was not a battlefield during World War II, the territory felt the impact of war especially in terms of manpower requirements. During the war, approximately 92,000 African Tanganyikans served under the banner of the King’s African Rifles, including Nyamwezi. Tanganyikan elements of the King's African Rifles fought against Italians in Ethiopia and Somalia, against Germans in North Africa, and against Japanese in Burma.
Returning World War II soldiers brought with them a sense of nationhood and togetherness gained while representing their country in combat in distant lands. This feeling of n ationhood, however , was never translated to political terms or activity. This is probably the result of association with British soldiers and their basically apolitical nature.
A small force of less than 2000 were retained in the army and performed self—defense and internal security missions. The only other experience the army had in combat occurred between 1952 and 1954 when a small contingent was sent to Kenya during the Mau Mau uprisings.
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