N. V. GROMOVA

Doctor of Philological Sciences

M. R. URB

Candidate of Philological Sciences

Institute of Asian and African Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University

Keywords: World War I, East Africa, memorials

In 1914, the First World War began. In Russia, it was called the Second Patriotic War, in the world-the Great One. At the opening of the Monument to the Heroes of the First World War on Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow on August 2, 2014, President Vladimir Putin noted the historical significance of this war, which led to the decline of the former world order, and its results are still relevant for the whole world.

The year is 1916... Two years have already passed since the beginning of the war (July 28, 1914), but there are still two years left before the surrender of Germany (November 11, 1918).

The war began in Europe, but Africa is also drawn into it, the territory of which is divided into colonies of warring metropolises, and its civilian population is forced to fight on the side of opponents - both against Germany and against the Entente.

About 2 million African soldiers and support personnel participated in the First World War. One of the main tasks in the war of the countries participating in the Entente bloc was to capture the African colonies of Germany, including German East Africa.

Let's briefly recall the story. German East Africa (Tanganyika, Burundi, Rwanda, Lake Tanganyika and Victoria)

It was a vast territory inherited by Germany after the colonial division of Africa at the end of the XIX century. It can not be said that the German government was peaceful: now and then there were uprisings of "aborigines". Since 1887, when the German colonial leader Karl Peters bought the 140-kilometer coastal strip of East Africa, ¹ anti - German protests of the local population continued: in 1988, the Abushiri uprising on the Indian Ocean coast in Pangani and Bagamoyo, and in the same year, armed resistance to the Germans in the coastal areas of Tangye and Saadani.

These coastal uprisings were suppressed, and the Germans advanced their borders as far as Mozambique. In 1894-1897, in the continental part of Tanganyika, the leader of the ethnic group hehe Mkwawa (who committed suicide after defeat) put up a stubborn resistance. In the south of Tanganyika, in Kilwa in 1895, Hassan bin Omari, nicknamed Makunganya, spoke out against the Germans.

The most famous revolt is Maji-Maji ² in 1905-1906 against forced labor on cotton plantations. The resistance, which temporarily united many tribes from the coast of the Indian Ocean to the eastern shores of Lake Nyasa, covering 2/3 of the territory of Tanganyika, ended only after approximately 250-300 thousand Africans of Tanganyika died in merciless battles or died of starvation. This rebellion was by far the bloodiest in Tanganyika.

After the brutal suppression of this uprising, a relatively calm situation reigned in the German possessions in East Africa. The German administration was engaged in organizing social life, involving the local population in management, building schools and roads (including railways), encouraging the use of the Swahili language, etc. ³

By 1916, the German colonies in Africa (Togo, South-West Africa, and Cameroon) had been conquered by the Allies, and only in East Africa did the German armed forces manage to resist them seriously.

At the beginning of the war (in 1914-1915), the opposing forces were almost equal: about 5 thousand military personnel on each side, and the parties were limited to conducting local operations. So, the German cruiser " Konigsberg "in 1914, after the declaration of war, sank the British cruiser"Pegasus" that entered the harbor on the island of Zanzibar. The British were able to destroy the enemy cruiser only in 1915.

The German East African forces were commanded by Colonel Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck. His main task in this war, he saw in drawing off as many enemy troops as possible, which otherwise could be transferred to the European theater of operations.

The main source of replenishment for P. Lettov-Forbeck was the recruitment of volunteers-askari ⁴. In total, he was able to gather about 12 thousand people, mainly from the local population, but well-trained by German officers and disciplined ⁵. About 200 thousand people were recruited to transport weapons, ammunition and food. porters. Left without the support of the mother country due to the naval blockade, the German colonial authorities built small enterprises for the production of army equipment (ammunition and ammunition) in Dar es Salaam and Morogoro. At the same time, in order to create stocks of raw materials and food, they expanded the acreage for agricultural food and industrial crops.

The advantage of the anti-German kaolitsia was only apparent in 1916, when the British, Belgian and Portuguese colonial forces (numbering more than 300 thousand soldiers) launched a joint offensive in East Africa. But they could not defeat the German army at this time: knowledge of the terrain and climate of East Africa helped Colonel Lettov-Vorbeck, who led a partisan war, to resist for a long time. The British, Portuguese, West African and South African divisions suffered serious losses, including from disease.

In November 1917, relentlessly pursued by the enemy, Lettov-Vorbeck led his remaining two-thousandth army to the territory of the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, and from there, blocked from all sides, in 1918 retreated to the territory of Northern Rhodesia, where he learned about the end of the war, and laid down his arms.⁶

You can read about how Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck fought in his memoirs ⁷. And the composition of the Allied forces that fought in East Africa, tell, in particular, memorial complexes of war graves in modern Tanzania, which once made up most of the colony of German East Africa.

After the end of the First World War, the British Commonwealth of Nations made great efforts to preserve and perpetuate the memory of those who fought under the flag of Great Britain. So, on the Grave Island near Zanzibar there are monuments to all those who died in the sinking of the cruiser "Pegasus" (26 tombstones). In Dar es Salaam alone, there are two military cemeteries with unified gravestones for those who died on the East African fronts, without distinction of race or religion, but with an indication of military ranks and military affiliation.

One of the memorials is located in the center of the former capital of Tanzania - in Dar es Salaam and is dedicated to soldiers of the First and Second World Wars. The second memorial, which is much larger in its territory and

located in the north of Dar es Salaam and dedicated exclusively to the memory of the soldiers of ^the First World War8. According to the British researcher K. Whittingham9, ^the desire for such memorialization of those who did not return from the fronts of the Great War stemmed from the natural need of the British people to perpetuate the memory of their dead compatriots and to note the significance of the victims of the war.

The personification of each victim on the tombstones in the memorials of Dar es Salaam allows you to name almost all the allied military formations. So, the British armed forces were represented by detachments of the Royal Dublin Riflemen, the army medical and Engineering corps, an artillery regiment, a detachment of Hussars and grenadiers, etc. In addition to the British regiments, the South African Corps and the South African police detachment, the infantry regiment of the British-Indian Army, the French Gascony regiment, the Jalalabad Light Indian Infantry detachment and the Punjab Infantry regiment, the Rhodesian division, the Canadian militia regiment, etc. took part in the battles.

The coats of arms of military units adorn the tombstones of British subjects who died in the First World War. Many of the coats of arms have mottos in Latin, Dutch and German (Nemo me impune lacessit - No one will touch me with impunity; Eendracht maakt macht - In unity-strength; Ich dien - I serve, etc.).

The tall marble monument is dedicated to the Indians who fell in the First World War in East Africa. Two large stelae, more than three meters long and one and a half meters high, are inscribed with the names of those military leaders, soldiers, porters and other participants in military operations ¹⁰ whose burial sites are unknown, or burned according to Indian rites.

It is worth noting the ideal maintenance of memorials in Dar es Salaam and on Grave Island. Every year on November 11, the British Embassy and representatives of the embassies of its allies in the First World War solemnly celebrate the victory and pay tribute to the victims of this war.

In the center of Dar es Salaam is the Askari Monument, dedicated to Africans who fought in the First World War. The inscription on the monument in Swahili reads::

"This is a monument to local African soldiers who fought in the [First] World War. It is also a monument to the porters who were the feet and hands of the troops. It is also a monument to all those who fought and died for the king and their homeland in East Africa during the World War from 1914 to 1918.

If you fought for your homeland and died, your children will [forever] remember your name."

* * *

During the First World War, African countries played an important role in providing the mother Countries with strategic mineral resources, food products, and human resources. At the same time, the main burden of military trials fell on the Africans. It was from them that the rank and file of the army was formed as a result of forced mobilization. The longest battles were fought in vast areas of East Africa, where the largest human casualties were recorded. Military operations in Africa were not decisive for the victory of the Entente in World War I, but continued throughout the war, and, according to modern estimates, about 100 thousand Africans lost their lives.¹¹

^{Shlyonskaya S. M.} 1 United Republic of Tanzania, Moscow, 2014, p. 49. (Shlyonskaya S. M. 2014. Obedinyonnaya Respublika Tanzaniya. M.) (in Russian)

² The name of the rebellion is associated with the belief in the miraculous power of enchanted water (in Swahili - maji), which makes a warrior invulnerable to bullets. The famous Tanzanian writer E. N. Hussein wrote a play "Kinjeketile" about the Maji Maji uprising and one of its leaders-Kinjeketile, published in Dar es Salaam in 1969.

³ In 1924, ten years after the outbreak of World War I and six years of British rule, an American named Phelps, who visited Tanganyika, reported that the Germans had achieved miracles with regard to schools. Some time must pass before education reaches the level it was under the Germans. See: History of Tanzania - http://ru.knowledge.com

⁴ In Swahili, askari means warrior, soldier.

⁵ And if at the beginning of hostilities, Africans still volunteered, because they were paid a good reward, then from 1915 they were sent to the front forcibly. Only in the ranks of the French army fought 450 thousand recruits from West and North Africa.

⁶ German East Africa, as a result of the colonial division, became two League of Nations mandated Territories, Tanganyika under the United Kingdom and Rwanda-Urundi under Belgian rule, while northern Mozambique became a Portuguese mandated Territory.

^{Lettov-Forbeck.} 7 My memories of East Africa. Military Bulletin, Moscow, 1927.

⁸ In addition to the two memorials in Dar es Salaam, there are also similar burials in other cities of Tanzania-Iringa, Morogoro.

^{Whittingham C.} 9 Mnemonics for War: Trench Art and the Reconciliation of Public and Private Memory // Past Imperfect. 2008. N 14, p. 86 - 119.

¹⁰ According to the customs of African tribes, the deceased is buried in their homeland. This custom, as a rule, remains to this day.

¹¹ See: Ellis John, Cox Michael. The World War I Databook: The Essential Facts and Figures for all the Combatants. Aurum Press, London, England, UK. 2004.

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