East Africa in World War I: A Geographic Analysis

Abstract

Most geographic analyses conducted during and after the First World War focused exclusively on the influence of physical geography on battles in Europe. In recent years, however, a growing body of research has emerged on the campaign fought in East Africa by the European powers, which includes the importance of the human landscape and environmental security. The war that raged across East Africa was linked strongly to competition for vital resources among Europe’s great powers and it illustrates the most problematic outcome of the environment–conflict nexus: i.e., interstate war. The scope of military geography has expanded and contemporary perspectives have advanced beyond describing the effects of the natural landscape on warfare. They include incisive analyses of the cultural landscape and how human geography shapes, and is shaped by conflict. This paper provides a military geographic perspective of the East African campaign, and analyzes how environmental factors and human geography dramatically influenced the course of this conflict. This paper will focus on salient aspects of physical and human geography that were decisive during the campaign. This analysis suggests that the region’s natural and human landscape inevitably compelled German and British forces to involve hundreds of thousands of Africans as soldiers and laborers; and that they suffered severe causalities and depredations because of this war.