The military history of Africa is one of the oldest military histories in the world. Africa is a continent of many regions with diverse populations speaking thousands of different languages and practicing an array of cultures and religions. These differences have also been the source of much conflict for millennia.
Like the history of Africa, military history on the continent is often divided by region. North Africa was part of the Mediterranean cultures and was integral to the military history of classical antiquity, and East Africa has historically had various states which have often warred with some the world's most powerful. The military history of modern Africa may be divided into three broad time periods: pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial.For modern Africa see Kelechi A. Kalu, ed. Civil Wars in Africa (2022) excerpt
Antiquity Ancient Egyptian and Nubian military history
In 3100 BC, Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt were united by Menes. The end of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt ushered in a period of instability that was not stabilized until Mentuhotep II solidified his rule in about 2055 BC to begin the Middle Kingdom. This period came to end with the invasion of the Hyksos, who introduced the war chariot. This new technology was quickly adopted by the Egyptians, who succeeded in expelling the invaders at the start of the New Kingdom in the 16th century BC.
The revitalized Egyptians expanded north and east into Eurasia to the Aegean Sea and into much of the Levant, as far as the Euphrates River. Egypt also moved west into Libya and south into Sudan.
The gradual disintegration in the Twentieth Dynasty allowed the founding of the Kushite kingdoms of Nubia, centered on Napata. Kush reached a height under Piye, who conquered Egypt and founded the Twenty-fifth Dynasty. However, the Kushites were gradually driven back to Napata by an Assyrian invasion and then the resistance of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty kings.
Ancient Aksumite military history
The Kingdom of Axum had one of the most powerful militaries in the world during its era. It was compared with Rome and other world powers of the time. The Empire ruled vast territories from today's western Yemen, Djibouti, southwestern Saudi Arabia, eastern Sudan, most of Eritrea and the north and central part of present-day Ethiopia.
Military history of modern Africa Adal-Ethiopian wars
While European exploration began with mapping of the western coasts by the Portuguese, the large-scale intervention did not occur until much later. During the 1529–1543 campaign of Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, which brought three-quarters of Christian Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia) under the power of the Muslim Sultanate of Adal (modern-day Somalia.Saheed A. Adejumobi, The History of Ethiopia, (Greenwood Press: 2006), p.178Encyclopædia Britannica, inc, Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 1, (Encyclopædia Britannica: 2005), p.163 With an army mainly composed of Somalis,John L. Esposito, editor, The Oxford History of Islam, (Oxford University Press: 2000), p. 501 which was equipped by the Ottoman empire with musketeers and troops. However, in the Battle of Wayna Daga, a combined Ethiopian-Portuguese force (including Portuguese musketeers) was able to kill Imam Ahmad in retaliation for the death of the former Portuguese commander, Cristovão da Gama and take back Abyssinian territories.
Ajuran-Portuguese wars
The European Age of Discovery brought Europe's then superpower the Portuguese empire to the coast of East Africa, which at the time enjoyed a flourishing trade with foreign nations. The wealthy southeastern city-states of Kilwa, Mombasa, Malindi, Pate and Lamu were all systematically sacked and plundered by the Portuguese. Tristão da Cunha then set his eyes on Ajuran territory, where the battle of Barawa was fought. After a long period of engagement, the Portuguese soldiers burned the city and looted it. However, fierce resistance by the local population and soldiers resulted in the failure of the Portuguese to permanently occupy the city, and the inhabitants who had fled to the interior would eventually return and rebuild the city. After Barawa, Tristão would set sail for Mogadishu, which was the richest city on the East African coast. But word had spread of what had happened in Barawa, and a large troop mobilization had taken place. Many horsemen, soldiers and battleships in defense positions were now guarding the city. Nevertheless, Tristão still opted to storm and attempt to conquer the city, although every officer and soldier in his army opposed this, fearing certain defeat if they were to engage their opponents in battle. Tristão heeded their advice and sailed for Socotra instead.The History of the Portuguese, During the Reign of Emmanuel pg.287 After the battle the city of Barawa quickly recovered from the attack.The book of Duarte Barbosa – Page 30
Over the next several decades Somali-Portuguese tensions would remain high and the increased contact between Somali sailors and Ottoman corsairs worried the Portuguese who sent a punitive expedition against Mogadishu under João de Sepúlveda, which was unsuccessful.The Portuguese period in East Africa – Page 112 Ottoman-Somali cooperation against the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean reached a high point in the 1580s when Ajuran clients of the Somali coastal cities began to sympathize with the Arabs and Swahilis under Portuguese rule and sent an envoy to the Turkish corsair Mir Ali Bey for a joint expedition against the Portuguese. He agreed and was joined by a Somali fleet, which began attacking Portuguese colonies in Southeast Africa.
The Somali-Ottoman offensive managed to drive out the Portuguese from several important cities such as Pate, Mombasa and Kilwa. However, the Portuguese governor sent envoys to Portuguese India requesting a large Portuguese fleet. This request was answered and it reversed the previous offensive of the Muslims into one of defense. The Portuguese armada managed to re-take most of the lost cities and began punishing their leaders, but they refrained from attacking Mogadishu, securing the city's autonomy in the Indian Ocean.Four centuries of Swahili verse: a literary history and anthology – Page 11 Ajuran's Somali forces would eventually militarily defeat the Portuguese. The Ottoman Empire would also remain an economic partner of the Somalis. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries successive Somali Sultans defied the Portuguese economic monopoly in the Indian Ocean by employing a new coinage which followed the Ottoman pattern, thus proclaiming an attitude of economic independence in regard to the Portuguese.COINS FROM MOGADISHU, c. 1300 to c. 1700 by G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville pg 36
Independence struggles Starting in the 1950s, anti-colonial movements agitated for independence from the colonial powers. This agitation, coupled with an international system that was increasingly hostile to colonialism, led killed to a process of decolonization that was often violent.
The first successful anti-colonial armed struggle in Africa was the Tunisian War of Independence (1952–1956), but the most famous may be the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962), both against France.
Other example of successful armed resistance is the Portuguese Colonial War (1961–1974), which led to the independence of Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique.Crawford Young, "Contextualizing Congo Conflicts: Order and Disorder in Postcolonial Africa" in John F. Clark, ed., The African Stakes of the Congo War, Palgrave MacMillan: New York, 2002, p. 15 The Rhodesian Bush War (1966–1979) was not against a colonial metropole, but the minority white government of Ian Smith.
These national liberation movements were informed by the successful guerrilla warfare doctrine used in the Indonesian National Revolution (1945–1949) and the First Indochina War (1946–1954). The insurgents' goal was thus not to win the war — and no colonial army was ever defeated — but simply not to lose, thus making the conduct of the war unbearable for the colonial power over the long term.
The writings of Frantz Fanon on the Algerian conflict became hugely influential on later African conflicts. These conflicts benefited from internal ideological and organizational cohesion, sympathetic diplomatic backing in global forums, some financial backing (in particular from the Nordic states) and military training and supplies from the Soviet bloc.
Two national liberation movements that became violent and were unsuccessful in that they did not lead to de facto capitulation and independence were the Mau Mau Uprising (1952–1960). Colonial security forces were reinforced by regular troops from the metropolitan power and the insurgent groups were hampered by a lack of military equipment and training, as well as the absence of a friendly adjoining country offering sanctuary.
There have been two liberation movements against an African power over the borders drawn during the colonial period. The Polisario Front began a struggle in 1973 for the independence of Western Sahara against Spain and then Morocco, when the North African country invaded.
In Eritrea, the Eritrean Liberation Front and later Eritrean People's Liberation Front carried out an independence struggle against Ethiopia that culminated successfully in 1991.
In two special cases, and in contrast to these bloody wars, both Namibia's South-West Africa People's Organisation (1960s–1990) and the activities of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of South Africa's African National Congress, utilized armed conflict comparatively less in their struggles.
Post-colonial
African nations have made great efforts to respect international borders as inviolate for a long time. For example, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which was established in 1963 and replaced by the African Union in 2002, set the respect for the territorial integrity of each country as one of its principles in OAU Charter. Indeed, compared with the formation of European countries, there have been fewer international conflicts in Africa for changing the borders, which has influenced country formation there and has enabled some countries to survive that might have been defeated and absorbed by others. Yet international conflicts have played out by support for proxy armies or rebel movements. Many states have experienced civil wars: including Rwanda, Sudan, Angola, Sierra Leone, Congo, Liberia, Ethiopia and Somalia.The Economist, March 28th 2020, page 7, "The forever wars". Wars of national liberation also often took up a Marxist, Marxist–Leninist, or Maoist character in ideological terms, where the independence of African nations was raised in Marxian terms. Early examples included the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon armed movement against French colonialism, a Marxist–Leninist insurgency, followed by similar movements in Congo (the Simba Rebellion). Che Guevara participated in the latter, and opined in 1967 that Africa was not ready for revolution. Despite this, in Zanzibar before and after unification with Tanzania, forms of socialism took hold. In Sudan under Gaafar Nimeiry, in Somalia under Siad Barre, in Ethiopia under the Dergue and Mengistu Haile Mariam, in Congo Brazzaville under various administration from the 1960s onwards including that of Denis Sassou-Nguesso, in Benin under Mathieu Kerekou, in the Seychelles under France-Albert René, in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau before Portugal's 1974 Carnation Revolution, Marxism–Leninism was fashionable. Even after 1990, there are some examples of Military Marxism, such as a militia established by Ernest Wamba-dia-Wamba in Eastern Congo in the 1990s.Adam Mayer: Military Marxism: Africa's Contribution to Revolutionary Theory, 1957-2023, Lexington Books, Lanham, 2025, pp. 37-90