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Duty to Empire? South Africa's Invasion of German South West Africa, 1914-1918

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

Anne Samson
Anne Samson*
Affiliation:
Great War in Africa Association
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Extract

Before war broke out in August 1914, the Union of South Africa had determined to include the German colony of South West Africa in the Union fold if ever an opportunity arose. So, when Britain went to war on 4 August 1914, the British War Cabinet request that South Africa put the German wireless stations in the South West African territory out of action was likely to be met with favourable response. It was, but not by all as this paper will set out.

In 1914, South Africa as a country was only four years old and was still trying to heal the wounds caused by the Anglo-Boer or South African War of 1899-1902. The Union Defence Force (UDF) was even younger, having been approved in 1912. Where the Union had already had a number of years to develop, the UDF was in effect starting from zero.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Research and Documentation , Volume 128: Papers from Scolma's 2015 Conference: “There came a Darkness”: Africa, Africans and World War I, Friday, 17 July 2015, The British Library Conference Centre , 2015 , pp. 10 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2015

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Footnotes

1

Unless otherwise specified, material is drawn from Anne Samson, Britain, South Africa and the East Africa Campaign, 1914-1918: the Union comes of age (London I.B. Tauris, 2006) and Anne Samson, World War 1 in Africa: the forgotten conflict of the European powers (London I.B. Tauris, 2013)

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