1914–1919: (Wartime Resistance and Protest Migrations — Young Men Fleeing Across Borders to Avoid Recruitment, Uprisings Against Conscription Crystallizing D…

1914–1919: (Wartime Resistance and Protest Migrations — Young Men Fleeing Across Borders to Avoid Recruitment, Uprisings Against Conscription Crystallizing Deeper Grievances, the Ottoman Empire Entering the War and Envisaging Universal Jihad, Sanusiyya Offensives Against Italy and Britain Funded by Germany, the British Clamping Down on Egypt and Subduing Darfur in 1916, and John Chilembwe’s Fierce Insurrection in Nyasaland in 1915): African refusal to participate in the Europeans’ war took many forms. In French territories, young men fled across borders, hiding until recruiting sergeants had moved on — protest migrations that were also common in the avoidance of tax and labor demands. Uprisings ostensibly against conscription were in fact the crystallization of deeper grievances festering since the late nineteenth century — there was armed resistance against the British in Nigeria and the French in Dahomey, and the Barwe rose against the Portuguese in Mozambique in 1917. The Ottoman empire, which had entered the war on Germany’s side in late 1914, envisaged universal jihad across the colonial world, though it never materialized. The Sanusiyya, funded and armed by Germany and the Ottomans, defeated the Italians in Libya in early 1915 and launched offensives against the British in Egypt. The British clamped down hard on Egypt, declaring a protectorate and suppressing nationalist activity, and in 1916 subdued the Darfur sultanate. Militant Christianity also played its part — in Nyasaland in 1915, the preacher John Chilembwe led a fierce but short-lived insurrection, one of its central motives being the large-scale conscription and heavy death toll from campaigns against the Germans.