Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day was two weeks ago on November 11th, the date chosen because, at the end of the First World War, the armistice came into effect at 11am on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
Despite the armistice fighting - and dying - continued elsewhere, particularly in eastern Africa, where the last of the German troops, including many Africans who fought as askaris, only heard of the armistice on 14th November. Both sides then waited for confirmation, so the Germans only formally surrendered on 25th November - that is, a hundred years ago today. The picture above (*), by an anonymous African artist, shows the surrender.

The German commander, General von Lettow-Vorbeck, was keen to have the British recognise that his little army was undefeated, so the British forces, many of whom much admired the guerrilla campaign which the Schutztruppe had fought, agreed that, after the German officers had ceremonially handed over their weapons, they would immediately be returned to them.

All this is history but it has relevance to my life. German East Africa became Tanganyika Trust Territory under the League of Nations, which was handed over to the UK to govern. While many Germans remained in Tanganyika, many British people moved in to help run the administration and to trade. My mother worked for the Tanganyika government and my father worked as a ships' agent in Dar-es-Salaam, the capital of Tanganyika, and both my brother and I were born there.

(*) Picture courtesy Wikipedia - National Museum of Tanzania, link here.

See previous post about the askari statuette, here