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The Composition of the Rhodesia Native Regiment during the First World War: A Look at the Evidence1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

Tim Stapleton
Tim Stapleton*
Affiliation:
Trent University
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Extract

Several scholars of the First World War in Southern Africa have briefly looked at the composition of the Rhodesia Native Regiment (RNR), which was formed in Southern Rhodesia in 1916 and fought in the German East Africa campaign until the armistice in November 1918. According to Peter McLaughlin, who has written the most about Zimbabwe and the Great War, “[b]y 1918 seventy-five per cent of the 2360 who passed through the ranks of the regiment were ‘aliens;’ over 1000 came from Nyasaland. The Rhodesia Native Regiment had thus lost its essentially ‘Rhodesian’ character.” This would seem to suggest that because the RNR had many soldiers who originated from outside Zimbabwe, this regiment was somehow less significant to Zimbabwe's World War I history. While McLaughlin admits that “the evidence on the precise composition of the Rhodesia Native Regiment is not available”, he claims that “approximately 1800 aliens served in the unit.”

In a recent book on Malawi and the First World War, Melvin Page agrees with McLaughlin's estimate that “probably more than 1000 Malawians joined the Rhodesian Native Regiment.” However, Page freely admits that the evidence on which this approximation is based is far from conclusive. By looking at the available evidence, particularly a previously unutilized regimental nominal roll in the Zimbabwe National Archives, it is possible to gain a clearer picture of the composition of the only African unit from Zimbabwe to have fought in the First World War. This analysis will not only deal with the nationality of the soldiers, which is what the two previous writers focused on, but also their ethnic/regional origin and pre-enlistment occupations.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 30 , 2003 , pp. 283 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2003

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Footnotes

1

I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its support of this work.

References

2 McLaughlin, Peter, Ragtime Soldiers: The Rhodesian Experience in the First World War (Bulawayo, 1980), 75Google Scholar.

3 McLaughlin, Peter, “The Legacy of Conquest: African Military Manpower in Southern Rhodesia During the First World War” in Page, Melvin, ed., Africa and the First World War (London, 1987), 128Google Scholar.

4 Page, Melvin, The Chiwaya War: Malawians and the First World War (Boulder, 2000), 78Google Scholar.

5 Ibid.

6 National Archives of Zimbabwe (hereafter NAZ) A3/11/20/1:2, D. Chaplin to BSAC London, 30 September 1915.

7 NAZ A3/11/20/1:2, Cablegram from Chaplin to BSAC London Office, 4 October 1915.

8 NAZ A3/11/20/1:2, Telegram from High Commissioner to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 15 February 1916.

9 NAZ A3/11/20/1:2, Telegram from Commandant-General, Cape Town, 23 November 1915.

10 Ibid.

11 NAZ A3/11/20/1:2, Cablegram to London, 12 April 1916.

12 NAZ A3/11/20/1:2, A.P. Millar, Assistant Secretary BSAC to Undersecretary of State for the Colonies, London, 29 March 1916.

13 NAZ A3/11/20/1:2 A.P. Millar, Assistant Secretary BSAC to Under-secretary of State for the Colonies, London, 8 April 1916.

14 NAZ A3/11/20/1:2, War Office B.B. Cubitt to Undersecretary for Colonial Office, London, 18 April 1916.

15 NAZ A3/11/20/1:2, H.W. Just to Secretary of BSAC, Downing Street, 19 April 1916.

16 NAZ B2/2/7 Annual Report, Edwards to High Commissioner, 14 January 1918.

17 NAZ A3/11/20/1:2, Edwards to Secretary for Administration, Salisbury, 27 April 1916; Secretary for Administration to Edwards, 3 May 1916

18 NAZ TO 1/2/1/1 Diary of Lieutenant Colonel A.J. Tomlinson, Rhodesia Native Regiment.

19 NAZ S2294/24 Discharges

20 NAZ N3/32/4 Correspondence of Native Department

21 NAZ A3/11/24/7 Nominal Roll, Rhodesia Native Regiment.

22 Page, , Chiwaya War, 78Google Scholar.

23 NAZ B4/7/5 Nominal Roll, Rhodesia Native Regiment

24 Ibid.

25 NAZ A3/11/24/7 Nominal Roll, Rhodesia Native Regiment

26 NAZ B1/5/7, L. Wallace, “Northern Rhodesia: Work Done During the Great War,” n.d., 57.

27 NAZ N3/32/4, Taylor to Secretary of the Administrator, 7 August 1916.

28 NAZ N3/32/4, reports by native commissioners and superintendents of natives on recruiting, July 1916.

29 NAZ B1/5/1/1-4, Edwards to Buxton, 14 January 1918.

30 McLaughlin, , “Legacy of Conquest,” 128, 135n49Google Scholar. Also see idem., “Collaborators, Mercenaries or Patriots? The ‘Problem’ of African Troops in Southern Rhodesia During the First and Second World Wars,” Zimbabwean History 10(1979), 28n30.

31 NAZ N3/32/4 N. Jackson to Chief Native Commissioner, 5 August 1916.

32 NAZ N3/32/4 Native Commissioner Penhalonga to Superintendent of Natives Umtali, 5 July 1916.

33 NAZ N3/42/4 Superintendent of Natives Gwelo to Chief Native Commissioner, 14 July 1916.

34 NAZ ORAL/CR 3, interview with F.A. Cross, Borrowdale, Salisbury, 1 November 1973, conducted by J.D. McCarthey.

35 Interview with Chief Kaisa Ndiweni, 15 August 2001, Ntabazinduna, Zimbabwe. Chief Ndiweni's father had been among the first 500 volunteers for the RNR and was killed in action in April 1917 in German East Africa. He stated that “a few sons from each chief had to go.”

36 Page, , Chiwaya War, 78Google Scholar.

37 NAZ B4/7/5 Nominal Roll, Rhodesia Native Regiment.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 McLaughlin, , “Legacy of Conquest.” 127Google Scholar

41 Langham, R.W.M., “Memories of the 1914-18 Campaigns with Northern Rhodesian Forces,” Northern Rhodesia Journal 2/1(1953), 257Google Scholar.

42 Phimister, Ian, An Economic and Social History of Zimbabwe 1890-1948: Capital Accumulation and Class Struggle (London, 1988), 91Google Scholar.

43 NAZ A3/11/24/7 Nominal Roll, Rhodesia Native Regiment

44 Page, , Chiwaya War, 78Google Scholar. Page counts 32 KAR veterans on the complete nominal roll. In fact, there are 35 on that list.

45 NAZ B4/7/5 Nominal Roll, Rhodesia Native Regiment

46 NAZ N3/32/4 Superintendent of Natives Gwelo to Chief Native Commissioner, 14 July 1916.

47 NAZ A3/11/24/7 Nominal Roll, Rhodesia Native Regiment