Abstract
The most valuable military contribution of the colonial empire to the war effort of 1939–45 was its provision of the military labour force upon which imperial troops fighting in the Middle East and Southern Europe depended.1 In North and East Africa, the British had by early 1941 extinguished the imperial ambitions and the core of the military forces of Italy through spectacular victories in Libya, Abyssinia and Somaliland. Yet these bold successes were overshadowed by the arrival of General Rommel in February 1941 to command the Afrika Korps, and his successful attacks prolonged the desert war for many months.2
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Notes
For the role of Bletchley Park intelligence in the African and Italian campaigns, see F. W. Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret: the Inside Story of Operation Ultra, Bletchley Park, and Enigma (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1974).
Vichy France aided the Germans, selling Rommel all French lorries in Africa, providing ships and permitting the use of the port of Bizerta. Martin Van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics From Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 186.
For example the official UK Military Series volumes, I. S. O. Playfair, C. J. C. Malony and W. Jackson, The Mediterranean and Middle East, 6 volumes (London: HMSO, 1954–88);
Neil Orpen, War in the Desert, volume III of South African Forces in World War Two (Cape Town: Purnell, 1971);
Anthony Farrar-Hockley, The War in the Desert (London: Faber & Faber, 1969);
James Lucas, War in the Desert: the Eighth Army at El Alamein (London: Arms & Armour, 1982);
Roger Parkinson, The War in the Desert (London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1976);
and Barry Pitt, Crucible of War: Western Desert 1941 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1980) and Crucible of War: Year of Alamein 1942 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982).
I. C. B. Dear, The Oxford Companion, p. 874. George Forty, British Army Handbook 1939–1945 (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998), p. 42.
See M. Van Creveld, Supplying War. Chapter 6 examines Rommel’s logistical problems. Julian Thompson’s study, Lifeblood of War: Logistics in Armed Conflict (London: Brassey’s, 1991) does not mention Pioneers.
Correlli Barnett, The Desert Generals (London: Cassell & Co, 1999), p. 28.
E. R. Elliott, Royal Pioneers 1945–1993 (Hanley Swan, Worcestershire: Self Publishing Association, 1993), p. 9.
E. H. Rhodes-Wood, A War History of the Royal Pioneer Corps 1939–45 (Aldershot: Gale & Polden, 1960).
See K. W. Mitchinson, Pioneer Battalions of the Great War: Organized and Intelligent Labour (London: Leo Cooper, 1997).
See Michael Summerskill, China on the Western Front: Britain’s Chinese Workforce in the First World War (London: M. Summerskill, 1982). It numbered 140 000.
See Robin Kilson, ‘Calling Up The Empire: the British Military Use of Non-White Labour in France, 1916–1920’, Ph.D Thesis (Harvard University, 1990).
For South Africa, see Brian Willan, ‘The South African Native Labour Contingent, 1916–18’, Journal of African History, 19, 1 (1978);
Norman Clothier, Black Valour: the South African Native Labour Contingent 1916–18 and the Sinking of the Mendi (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 1987);
and Albert Grundlingh, Fighting Their Own War: South African Blacks and the First World War (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987).
D. Killingray, ‘Labour Exploitation for Military Campaigns in British Colonial Africa, 1870–1945’, Journal of Contemporary History, 24, 3 (1989), p. 493.
E. H. Rhodes-Wood, A War History of the Royal Pioneer Corps 1939–45 (Aldershot: Gale & Polden, 1960), p. 157.
France R. Domingo, Les Mauriciens dans la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale: La 8eme Armée au Moyen-Orient et en Italie (1941–45) (Moka: Editions de l’Océan Indien, 1983). See part 1, ‘The 741 A. W. Company RE at Work in the Western Desert’.
Jean-Michel Domingue, ‘The Experience of the Mauritian and Seychellois Pioneers in, and Contribution to, the Egyptian and Western Desert Campaigns, 1940–43’, MA Thesis (SOAS: University of London, 1994), p. 34.
For a discussion of some aspects of racial tension in the Pioneer Corps, see A. Jackson, ‘African Soldiers and Imperial Authorities: Tensions and Unrest During the Service of HCT Soldiers in the British Army, 1941–46’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 25, 4 (1999).
J. Lee Ready, Forgotten Allies: the Military Contribution of the Colonies, Exiled Governments, and Lesser Powers to the Allied Victory in World War Two. Volume I: The European Theatre (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co, 1985), pp. 48–9.
J. Lee Ready, World War Two Nation by Nation (London: Arms & Armour, 1995), p. 201.
The Mauritian POWs form part of a novel written by George Andre Decotter, ‘Le Jour N’en Finit Plus’! (Port Louis: Editions Grand Océan, 1995).
See Michael Cohen, Fighting World War Three From the Middle East: Allied Contingency Plans, 1945–54 (London: Frank Cass, 1997), chapter 3, ‘The Middle East in British Global Strategy’.
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© 2001 Ashley Jackson
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Jackson, A. (2001). Colonial Military Labour in Europe and the Middle East. In: War and Empire in Mauritius and the Indian Ocean. Studies in Military and Strategic History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403919540_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403919540_5
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