African Unification Front
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COLONIAL ERA 652AD - Present
This period is characterised by the disintegration of African society under the burden of international slave trade in African persons, the rise of anti-African racism, the explusion of Africans from Asia and Europe, followed by the occupation of Africa.
The struggle to end international slavery, the colonial occupation, and racism preoccupies Africans in a period that is marked by unprecedented levels of conflict, repression and military disorder. The Africans are required to accomodate foreign forms of social organization and to adopt new cultures.
By 1994 the Africans have been able to defeat the occupation, but are plagued with lack of cohesion and pressure from former conquering colonial powers to accede to, and to conform to foreign economic and political demands.
Some of the seminal events during this era include the African conquest of Spain/Portugal in 711 AD, the Saharan resistence led Al Kahina, the Battle of Adowa, the Battle of Isandhlwana, and Mau Mau War, the Algerian War of Independence, the Simba Rebellion, and others.
Isandhlwana, view from the top of the plateau
Both WWI and WWII compelled the colonial regimes in Africa to create all African armies of mixed units from all over Africa. For example when Italy declared war in June 1940 a massive force of Africans was deployed in East Africa.
The force in 1940 was called the East African Force. Its units included hundreds of forces from all over Africa, including the East African Expeditionary Force, the 24th Gold Coast Infantry Brigade, the Mauritius Territorial Force, the Somaliland Camel Corps, the Southern Rhodesia Armoured Car Regiment, the 23rd Nigeria Infantry Brigade and other famous units.
In 1942 it was replaced by the East African Command. The EAC was an expansion of EAF, and comprised troops from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Italian Somaliland, British Somaliland, Kenya, Zanzibar, Tanganyika, Uganda, Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia, as well as all the other contingents from West Africa. The General Officer Commanding commanded and administered all land forces in the area.
Both the EAF and EAC were constituted in part by an All-African army known as the Kings Africa Rifles made up of Senegalese and Sudanese units. Initially KAR were instrumental in enforcing the colonial occupation and in suppressing African resistence against the occupation. However, later on many of the men who served in the KAR were useful in organizing military insurrection and commando operations against the colonial government in the struggle for independence.
Troops serving in the King's African Rifles took part in combat operations against the Asante on the Gold Coast in 1900, and in Somaliland (1901-04), and in other parts of Africa and Europe during the First World War. In 1924 the King's African rifles consisted of six battalions (1st and 2nd in Nyasaland, 3rd and 5th in Kenya, 4th in Uganda, and 6th in Tanganyika). The 5th Bn disbanded in 1925, but was re-formed in 1930. The units of the KAR were disbanded or renamed whenever the African states became independent.
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