Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology of Events
- Maps
- 1 The “Abode of the Blacks”
- 2 Lords of Mountain and Savanna
- 3 The Ends of the Turkish World
- 4 Darfur at the End of Time
- 5 Between an Anvil and a Hammer
- 6 “Closed District”
- 7 Unequal Struggles, 1939–1955
- 8 Colonial Legacies and Sudanese Rule, 1956–1969
- 9 Darfur and “The May Regime,” 1969–1985
- 10 Third Time Unlucky
- 11 The State of Jihad
- 12 The Destruction of Darfur
- Glossary
- Abbreviations in the Bibliography and Notes
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Unequal Struggles, 1939–1955
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology of Events
- Maps
- 1 The “Abode of the Blacks”
- 2 Lords of Mountain and Savanna
- 3 The Ends of the Turkish World
- 4 Darfur at the End of Time
- 5 Between an Anvil and a Hammer
- 6 “Closed District”
- 7 Unequal Struggles, 1939–1955
- 8 Colonial Legacies and Sudanese Rule, 1956–1969
- 9 Darfur and “The May Regime,” 1969–1985
- 10 Third Time Unlucky
- 11 The State of Jihad
- 12 The Destruction of Darfur
- Glossary
- Abbreviations in the Bibliography and Notes
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
…we are really a bit behind hand in everything here – Education, Health, Agriculture, Town Amenities. The sad thing is that while we can manage the important things, such as public security and Local Government, we cannot get departments to help us in our very modest departmental proposals. Modest they have to be: we are remote and have a skeleton staff.
G. D. Lampen, governor, Darfur, to the civil secretary, Khartoum, 23 February 1946DARFUR AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Touchdowns and Landings
Although the Sudan played no role in the First World War, its position, sandwiched between Italian colonies and upstream from Egypt, made it a front for a time during World War II. And although the occupation of Darfur in 1916 was a footnote in the history of the First World War, the province would play an important supporting role in the Allies' defeat of the Axis Powers of 1939–45. The overall impression of the war years in Darfur, however, is of political and administrative stasis and, indeed, of continuing neglect by Khartoum and the emerging Sudanese political elite.
The Sudan's position when Britain and France declared war on Germany in 1939 was extremely vulnerable. The 6,000-man Sudan Defence Force (SDF) was designed and organized for internal security rather than national defense, its famous Camel Corps and other units well trained and resourceful but hardly a match for a modern army.
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- Information
- Darfur's SorrowThe Forgotten History of a Humanitarian Disaster, pp. 144 - 176Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010