History
Five million men and women from Africa, the Caribbean and Indian Subcontinent volunteered to serve with the Armed Forces during the First and Second World Wars. Of these, almost 1.7 million died in service or of causes attributable to their service.
This section of the website details campaigns pursued in each geographical territory and provides personal stories from World War I and World War II. As you explore the menu you will see Brigades and Regiments are highlighted for your interest and ease of navigation and links to personal stories add a personal touch to your understanding of the campaigns.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of Christopher Sommerville, journalist, broadcaster and author of Our War: The story of the unsung heroes of Her Majesty's Foreign Legions, in providing the content for the History section of this website.
This section of the website details campaigns pursued in each geographical territory and provides personal stories from World War I and World War II. As you explore the menu you will see Brigades and Regiments are highlighted for your interest and ease of navigation and links to personal stories add a personal touch to your understanding of the campaigns.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of Christopher Sommerville, journalist, broadcaster and author of Our War: The story of the unsung heroes of Her Majesty's Foreign Legions, in providing the content for the History section of this website.
The First World War (1914-1918)
The First World War came as no surprise to European statesmen, since Germany had been expanding her Navy since the 1890s in hopes of gaining an Empire and a world influence to rival that of the British. Alliances made in the first decade of the 20th century ensured that any state declaring war on any other would drag all Europe into the conflict. The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Within a month Austria had declared war on Serbia, and the nations of Europe lined up for war. Germany and Austro-Hungary opposed the Allies: Britain (who declared war on behalf of all the British Empire), France, Russia and a number of smaller allies.
The Germans attacked Belgium and France, but their rapid advance in the first days of the war was halted by lack of supplies and transport. The troops on both sides dug trenches in the Flanders region of north-east France and Belgium to stabilise their front lines and to get themselves below ground level out of the way of the bullets and shells. So began four long years of stalemate in Flanders, during which generals on both sides planned attacks and counterattacks over the same few bloodsoaked miles of muddy, shell-torn ground. Each year saw its terrible battles during which hundreds of thousands of men died – the Marne and the First Battle of Ypres in 1914, Neuve Chapelle and Second Ypres in 1915, the appalling slaughter at Verdun and on the Somme in 1916, Arras and Third Ypres in 1917, and Second Marne in 1918.
On the Eastern Front the Germans and Russians clashed ferociously, while in the Middle East it was the Turks of the Ottoman Empire who fought the Allies. In the early months the Turks nearly captured the vital supply corridor of the Suez Canal, but over the course of the war the Allies instigated a gradual, unstoppable advance through Mesopotamia (now Iraq), Palestine and Syria.
By November 1918, when the German alliance finally surrendered, some 16 million people had either died or gone missing, while 21 million had been wounded. No war in history had been comparable in scale, expense, devastation, suffering and far-reaching consequences. The cultural and political face of Europe would be changed for ever; and the stage had been set for the even more disastrous Second World War.
The Germans attacked Belgium and France, but their rapid advance in the first days of the war was halted by lack of supplies and transport. The troops on both sides dug trenches in the Flanders region of north-east France and Belgium to stabilise their front lines and to get themselves below ground level out of the way of the bullets and shells. So began four long years of stalemate in Flanders, during which generals on both sides planned attacks and counterattacks over the same few bloodsoaked miles of muddy, shell-torn ground. Each year saw its terrible battles during which hundreds of thousands of men died – the Marne and the First Battle of Ypres in 1914, Neuve Chapelle and Second Ypres in 1915, the appalling slaughter at Verdun and on the Somme in 1916, Arras and Third Ypres in 1917, and Second Marne in 1918.
On the Eastern Front the Germans and Russians clashed ferociously, while in the Middle East it was the Turks of the Ottoman Empire who fought the Allies. In the early months the Turks nearly captured the vital supply corridor of the Suez Canal, but over the course of the war the Allies instigated a gradual, unstoppable advance through Mesopotamia (now Iraq), Palestine and Syria.
By November 1918, when the German alliance finally surrendered, some 16 million people had either died or gone missing, while 21 million had been wounded. No war in history had been comparable in scale, expense, devastation, suffering and far-reaching consequences. The cultural and political face of Europe would be changed for ever; and the stage had been set for the even more disastrous Second World War.
The Second World War (1939-1945)
The Second World War, like its precursor the First World War, came as no surprise to anyone. Although many statesmen in Europe and the rest of the world did their best to turn a blind eye, the aggressive rise of Fascism during the 1930s could not be ignored. Neither could the re-armament and militaristic expansion of Germany under Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1936 with the intention of turning it into an African colony. The Japanese, too, were seeking an empire, and began brutal incursions into China. All these moves were noted but not acted upon by the erstwhile Allies. The horrors and waste of total war in 1914-1918 were all too clear in the collective memory.
A war became inevitable once Germany, Italy and Japan had created in 1936 what they termed an 'Axis' for mutual support. After Germany had bullied and disenfranchised its Jewish population, withdrawn from the League of Nations and launched invasive occupations of the Rhineland (1936), Austria and the Sudetenland (1938) and Czechoslovakia (1939), the British and their allies finally made a stand. Two days after Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, war was declared. This time the Dominions – Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa – were free to make up their own minds (they all joined the Allied cause within a week), but for the rest of the British Empire – as in 1914 – there was no choice but to follow the mother country into war.
This global conflict, in contrast to the First World War and its main theatre of action in France, was to spread its battlefields over much of the world, and to leave no corner of the planet unaffected. It began with six months of low-key manoeuvring – the so-called 'phoney war' – which ended abruptly in the spring of 1940 when the Germans launched their lightning 'Blitzkrieg' invasions of Scandinavia, followed by Belgium and France. By June they were in Paris, the British had been bundled out of mainland Europe, and Hitler was preparing to launch an invasion of Britain. His Luftwaffe air force was beaten off during the Battle of Britain.
In 1941 things went well for the Axis. The dark mood was capped at the end of the year when the Japanese announced war against the United States by bombing their fleet at its Pearl Harbor anchorage in Hawaii. In the end that proved a fatal mistake – as did the invasion of Russia which Hitler had launched in June 1941. On this Eastern Front the Russians engaged the invaders in a series of desperate battles during which the death toll far outstripped any of the First World War's worst encounters; while in the Pacific the Americans joined the Allies in bloody island-by-island fighting against the Japanese during the ensuing four years.
The Germans were beaten in North Africa in 1942 at the Battle of El Alamein, and the following year saw the Allies land in Italy and commence a long slog up that peninsula. Italy gave up, but the Germans fought on – even after the massive Allied landings on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, 6 June, which preceded their victorious advance through northern Europe towards Germany. By that time the long-drawn-out Battle of the Atlantic (German U-boat submarines against the supply ships of the Allied merchant navies) had turned decisively the Allies' way, and many German cities had been flattened by RAF and USAF bombing planes – German civilians, like British ones, finding themselves as vulnerable to sudden death as the fighting men on the front line.
In May 1945 Germany signed articles of unconditional surrender. In August, after the deaths of 200,000 civilians when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese, too, surrendered, and the long war was over. The total number of casualties will never be known, but it is calculated that more than 50 million people lost their lives.
The Second World War was an agent for profound global change, ushering in, as it did, the nuclear age. Within thirty years of 1945 almost all the countries still within the British Empire had claimed their independence. Almost all then voluntarily joined the British Commonwealth, a free association of sovereign independent states highly valued by its members. As for the war's effect on those who served during its six years' duration – that, too, was profound. Most are immensely proud of what they did, though many still carry outward or inward scars. Their stories, like those of the First World War servicemen and women, deserve to be told, and they themselves have earned the thanks and respect of the following generations for whose freedoms they fought so bravely.
A war became inevitable once Germany, Italy and Japan had created in 1936 what they termed an 'Axis' for mutual support. After Germany had bullied and disenfranchised its Jewish population, withdrawn from the League of Nations and launched invasive occupations of the Rhineland (1936), Austria and the Sudetenland (1938) and Czechoslovakia (1939), the British and their allies finally made a stand. Two days after Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, war was declared. This time the Dominions – Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa – were free to make up their own minds (they all joined the Allied cause within a week), but for the rest of the British Empire – as in 1914 – there was no choice but to follow the mother country into war.
This global conflict, in contrast to the First World War and its main theatre of action in France, was to spread its battlefields over much of the world, and to leave no corner of the planet unaffected. It began with six months of low-key manoeuvring – the so-called 'phoney war' – which ended abruptly in the spring of 1940 when the Germans launched their lightning 'Blitzkrieg' invasions of Scandinavia, followed by Belgium and France. By June they were in Paris, the British had been bundled out of mainland Europe, and Hitler was preparing to launch an invasion of Britain. His Luftwaffe air force was beaten off during the Battle of Britain.
In 1941 things went well for the Axis. The dark mood was capped at the end of the year when the Japanese announced war against the United States by bombing their fleet at its Pearl Harbor anchorage in Hawaii. In the end that proved a fatal mistake – as did the invasion of Russia which Hitler had launched in June 1941. On this Eastern Front the Russians engaged the invaders in a series of desperate battles during which the death toll far outstripped any of the First World War's worst encounters; while in the Pacific the Americans joined the Allies in bloody island-by-island fighting against the Japanese during the ensuing four years.
The Germans were beaten in North Africa in 1942 at the Battle of El Alamein, and the following year saw the Allies land in Italy and commence a long slog up that peninsula. Italy gave up, but the Germans fought on – even after the massive Allied landings on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, 6 June, which preceded their victorious advance through northern Europe towards Germany. By that time the long-drawn-out Battle of the Atlantic (German U-boat submarines against the supply ships of the Allied merchant navies) had turned decisively the Allies' way, and many German cities had been flattened by RAF and USAF bombing planes – German civilians, like British ones, finding themselves as vulnerable to sudden death as the fighting men on the front line.
In May 1945 Germany signed articles of unconditional surrender. In August, after the deaths of 200,000 civilians when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese, too, surrendered, and the long war was over. The total number of casualties will never be known, but it is calculated that more than 50 million people lost their lives.
The Second World War was an agent for profound global change, ushering in, as it did, the nuclear age. Within thirty years of 1945 almost all the countries still within the British Empire had claimed their independence. Almost all then voluntarily joined the British Commonwealth, a free association of sovereign independent states highly valued by its members. As for the war's effect on those who served during its six years' duration – that, too, was profound. Most are immensely proud of what they did, though many still carry outward or inward scars. Their stories, like those of the First World War servicemen and women, deserve to be told, and they themselves have earned the thanks and respect of the following generations for whose freedoms they fought so bravely.