Africa in the 19th century was filled with opportunity, and no less filled with opportunists. The potential to make or break were equally spectacular, and nowhere more so than in South Africa. The great diamond discoveries of Kimberley in 1866 followed by the Witwatersrand Gold Rush of 1886 both helped to establish South Africa as
The life of Léopold Sédar Senghor spanned a century of change in Africa, a century during which the colonial occupation of the continent reached it’s zenith, began to topple and ultimately fell. An award winning poet, decorated scholar, pioneer of negro cultural autonomy and liberation icon, Senghor was, as he remains, one of the towering
This is an excerpt from Rhodesia: Last Outpost of the British Empire. Article by Jeremy Brickhill highlighting the matter in more detail. On the battlefield, meanwhile, the intensity of reprisal and counter-reprisal grew, and as manpower shortages in the armed services became critical, any and every type of force multiplier was considered. The Selous Scouts
Buried somewhere in my memories of childhood is an image of that broken ridge deep in the hazy distance during fire season, as the family drove between Chipinga and Melsetter sometime in the early 1970s. Those were the days before the war, before convoys, landmines, ambushes and all the rest of it; when the Chimanimani
In April 1915 Captain Derek Wetherall Pawle, 2nd Battalion The Border Regiment, was aged 27 and serving on secondment with the 2nd Battalion of The Nigeria Regiment, West African Frontier Force. At that time British, French and Belgian allied forces had invaded the Cameroons, Germany’s largest West African colony. The Germans put up a spirited
In September 2002 I had a very interesting experience. At the time Rachel and I were living in Harare and were owners of a small guest house in Avondale. On one particular evening I fell into conversation over a few beers with a guest by the name of Anthony Oberdorfer. The discussion quickly turned to
The best source currently available for the journey of the Mimi and Toutou from Furungume to the Lake is the October 1922 National Geographic article written by Frank Magee. Spicer-Simpson himself submitted a series of notes and a lecture on the Expedition, but this has generally been agreed to be so filled with hyperbole and
Frederick Courtney Selous was one of the more interesting characters of Imperial Africa and one of the great white sons of Africa. Probably the most potent illustration of how Selous impacted the popular British consciousness at the time is the fact that he is the recognised prototype of Ryder Haggard’s popular character Allan Quartermaine of
