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In the vast 6terature on warfare in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, relatively little has been written about the recruitment, organization and deployment of non-combatant labour required to service and supply the fighting line. The hundreds of thousands of general labourers, drawn from all parts of the globe, who served on the Western Front in 1914-18 have been almost completely ignored by historians.' So also have the porters and carriers employed for military operations in tropical Africa during the colonial period. Most modem campaigns in tropical Africawars of conquest, punitive expeditions to enforce alien rule, and the first world warwere fought in regions where terrain, climate, inadequate roads, and the ravages of the tsetse fly made it virtually impossible to use animal transport. Mechanical means of transport were rarely available before 1940 and most military operations were labour intensive, dependent upon large numbers of carriers to sustain long supply lines and fighting soldiers.A few articles have examined particularly the large-scale recruitment of military porters in East Africa and elsewhere during the first world war.2 More generally, details about conscription of labour for war and the social and economic consequences this had on African communities are thinly scattered in a limited number of monographs and unpublished theses based on papers in the Public Records Office and in African archival collections. One or two researchers have collected oral evidence, but that is a rapidly disappearing source.3 The African labourer toiling with his load rarely left any personal record and only a few observers thought his lot worth more than a passing reference. This article describes the policies and practices of the British colonial authorities in tropical Africa to raise large numbers of labourers for military campaigns,

Britain maintained small colonial armed forces in the African territories for internal security and local defence. In four periods of international crisis, when the British Empire was faced with a shortage of military manpower, it was proposed that African troops be used in imperial roles outside Africa. These proposals were closely related to the increasing opposition by India to the Indian Army being used for imperial defence in Asia and the Middle East. During 1916–18 a parliamentary and press lobby in Britain clamoured for a ‘million black army’. In the years 1919–21 the War Office attempted to raise an African army for use in the Middle East. On both occasions the Colonial Office vigorously opposed these schemes and the crises were resolved without using African troops. The emergencies of 1939–42 changed Colonial Office policy. African troops were used in the East African campaign against the Italians, as labour units in the Middle East, and then, after 1943, as combatants in Asia where they fought as complete formations within the Commonwealth forces. At the end of the Second World War the Colonial Office wished to maintain a sizeable African army at Imperial expense. However, post-war defence cuts reduced the African armed forces although a small parliamentary and service lobby unsuccessfully urged that an African Army be created as an imperial instrument, and to take the place of the Indian Army.

During the Second World War the British West African colonies supplied raw materials and manpower for the war effort. The small peacetime army of the Gold Coast increased to nearly 70,000 men, including technical and service corps, and was used in overseas campaigns. Most soldiers were drawn from the supposed martial peoples of the Northern Territories but recruiting was extended to Asante and the south in mid-1940. Although formal conscription was only applied to drivers and artisans, a large number of recruits were forcibly enlisted through a system of official quotas imposed on districts and through chiefs. Opposition to military service, especially for overseas compaigns, was widespread and is indicated by the attempts to evade recruiting parties and also the large number of desertions. In order to release labour for the military and also conserve scarce supplies of raw materials, some gold mines were closed. Wartime shortages, inflation and the lack of jobs after the war led to discontent in the Gold Coast but there is little evidence to indicate that this resulted in a significant number of ex-servicemen being drawn into political activity.

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