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The Aftermath
The war had demanded huge sacrifices of people in Africa, intertwining the fate
of Africa and Europe more intimately. The idea grew on the part of Europe of
obligations to Africa, but not liberation and equality.
An increasing number of Africans reasoned that a war in which Europeans slaughtered
fellow Europeans, meant that colonial regimes had little right to lecture African
leaders and people about how to conduct their affairs.
The savage effects of the war were compounded by a world wide influenza pandemic
in 1918-1919. It is estimated that two percent of the population in Africa fell
victim to the spread of this dangerous type of influenza and died.
THE PEACE SETTLEMENTS
In 1919, the Versailles peace Conference was
convened to provide for a lasting peace in Europe and punish Germany. African
nationalists saw this as an opportunity for their grievances to be heard.
However India was the only country allowed to send delegates. Others were turned
away. For example, Liberia was not allowed to attend. Members of the ANC (known
then as the South African Natives Congress), and the Egyptian nationalist, Sa'ad
Zaghlul, wanted to attend Versailles along with Egypt's Prime Minister Husayn
Rushdi. Sierra Leoneans also felt their demands should be taken into account.
Instead the European powers divided up Germany's African colonies without consulting
anyone in Africa, and without any attention being paid to the geographical spread
of different ethnic groups.
"After Africa's sons had shed their blood on the
altar of liberty and after having experienced that terrible plague called the
influenza epidemic, are we not the same manna loving people?
The South African Natives Congress has decided to send a delegation to England
to place before the Imperial authorities the disabilities of which the coloured
people complain. Liberia has asked for a place in the Peace Conference. What
is Sierra Leone doing? We have been sleeping too long. It is high time we take up the world's cry and work - reconstruction!"
Sierra Leone Weekly News, 8 March 1918.
EFFECTS OF THE WAR IN AFRICA
Although some railways were built for military
reasons, the First World War generally had a negative effect on trade and development.
Many major public works projects such as buildings and the construction of roads
were postponed.
Within Africa, the price of commodities went up. However, in the case of cotton
grown in Egypt, the increase was not passed onto the growers.
All negotiations ceased with Germany, which had been a big trading partner to
many colonies. Sierra Leone's trade had been 80 per cent dependent on Germany.
In Calabar, on the Coast of Nigeria, there were shortages of milk, sugar and
salt, causing panic hoarding.
As large numbers of Europeans went off to fight, more Africans moved into key
positions. This was particularly true in French West Africa where jobs previously
held only by Europeans, were now held by Africans. But when Europeans came home
Africans were again demoted.
In Britain the demobbing of black seamen and service men resulted in bitter
competition for jobs. In 1919 racist mobs caused riots and waves of vicious
anti-black feeling in Liverpool, Cardiff and London. Many seamen were simply
signed off from work to make way for demobbed white soldiers. The Trinidadian
Felix Eugene Michael Hercules voiced the bitterness suffered by people from
the Caribbean as well as Africa.
"He (Caribbean and African man) fought with the
white man to save the white man's home...and the war was won… Black men all
the world over are asking to-day: "What have we got? What are we going to get
out of it all?
The answer, in effect, comes clear, convincing and conclusive: 'Get back to
your kennel you damned dog of a nigger."
Felix Eugene Michael Hercules, quoted by Peter Fryer in his book Staying Power.
The shabby treatment of African and Caribbean
people in Britain prompted a large number to return home, disaffected, but also
politicised and radicalised. There was a growing sense of solidarity among people
of African descent in America, the Caribbean as well as Africa, and the black
Diaspora took political expression in a number of
Pan African Congresses.
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