In August 1914, the United Kingdom declared war on the German Empire at the start of World War I. The settler society in Southern Rhodesia, which was administered by the British South Africa Company, received the news with great patriotic enthusiasm. The Company administrator, Sir William Milton, wired the British government, saying, "All Rhodesia... ready to do its duty". Although it supported the British Empire, the company was concerned about the possible financial implications for its chartered territory to make direct commitments to the war effort, particularly at first. As a result, most of the colony's contributions to the war were made by Southern Rhodesians individually—not only those who volunteered to fight abroad but also those who remained at home and raised funds to donate food, equipment, and other supplies.
Starting immediately after the outbreak of war, parties of white Southern Rhodesians paid their own way to England to join the British Army. Most Southern Rhodesians who served in the war enlisted in this way and fought on the Western Front, taking part in many of the major battles. They fought alongside an assortment of British, South African, and other colonial units, most commonly the King's Royal Rifle Corps, which recruited hundreds of men from the colony and created homogeneous Rhodesian platoons. Troopers from Southern Rhodesia became renowned on the Western Front for their marksmanship, a result of their frontier lifestyle. Some of the colony's men served in the Royal Flying Corps, one of the two predecessors of the Royal Air Force. The Rhodesia Regiment, the Rhodesia Native Regiment, and the British South Africa Police served in the African theatre of the conflict, contributing to the South-West African and East African campaigns.
Though it was one of the few combatant territories not to raise fighting men through conscription, proportional to the white population, Southern Rhodesia contributed more manpower to the British war effort than any other dominion or colony and more than Britain itself. White troops numbered 5,716, about 40% of white men in the colony, with 1,720 of these serving as commissioned officers. The Rhodesia Native Regiment recruited 2,507 black soldiers; approximately 30 black recruits served as scouts for the Rhodesia Regiment, and approximately 350 black soldiers were assigned to British and South African units. Over 800 Southern Rhodesians of all races died on operational service during the war, with many more seriously wounded.
The territory's contributions during the First World War became a major entry in many histories of the colony and a great source of pride for the white community, as well as for some black Rhodesians. It played a part in the UK government's decision to grant self-government in 1923. The contribution remained prominent in the national consciousness for decades to come. When the colonial government unilaterally declared independence from Britain in 1965, it deliberately did so on Armistice Day, 11 November, and signed the proclamation at 11:00 local time. After the territory's reconstitution and recognized independence as Zimbabwe in 1980, the government removed many references to the war, such as memorial monuments and plaques from public view, regarding them as unwelcome vestiges of white minority rule and colonialism. The Zimbabwean cultural memory largely forgot the First World War. Some monuments remain, including the Bulawayo Cenotaph, which was restored in 2017. A number of memorials are maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Background
At the time of World War I (also known as the First World War or the Great War), Southern Rhodesia was administered by the British South Africa Company, which had controlled it and Northern Rhodesia since acquiring them through diplomacy and conquest during the 1890s. The white population in Southern Rhodesia stood at 23,606 in 1911 (a minority of 3%), while Northern Rhodesia had about 3,000 white settlers (less than half of 1%). With the company's charter expiring in late 1914, most Southern Rhodesian public attention was focused on this issue before the outbreak of war. The settlers were split between those who backed continued administration by the Chartered Company and those who advocated responsible government, which would make Southern Rhodesia a self-governing colony within the British Empire. Still, others favored the integration of Southern Rhodesia into the Union of South Africa, which had been formed in 1910. Following the intervention of the war, the charter was renewed for 10 years in early 1915.
Before 1914, Southern Rhodesia's police force was the British South Africa Police (BSAP), first raised in 1889 and reconstituted into a more permanent form in 1896. This paramilitary, mounted infantry force was theoretically also the country's standing army. Organized along military lines, it served in the First and Second Matabele Wars of the 1890s, operated on Britain's side in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902 (alongside the specially-raised Rhodesia Regiment), and by 1914, it comprised about 1,150 men (including officers). Reserves existed in the form of the Southern Rhodesia Volunteers, an all-white amateur force with a paper strength of 2,000, intended for mobilization against local uprisings. Few doubted the Volunteers' enthusiasm, but they were not extensively trained or equipped; though perhaps useful in a Rhodesian bush skirmish, most observers agreed they would be no match for professional soldiers in a conventional war. In any case, the Volunteers' enlistment contracts bound them for domestic service only.
Outbreak of war
Announcement and reception
When Britain declared war on Germany at 23:00 Greenwich Mean Time on 4 August 1914, the British Empire's dominions and colonies automatically became involved as well. Word of this reached the Southern Rhodesian capital city Salisbury during the night. Early on 5 August, the Company administrator Sir William Milton wired Whitehall: "All Rhodesia united in devoted loyalty to King and Empire and ready to do its duty." A few hours later he officially announced to the populace that Southern Rhodesia was at war. The Rhodesia Herald and Bulawayo Chronicle newspapers published special editions the same day to spread the news; it took about half a week for word to reach the whole country, but jingoistic demonstrations began in the major towns almost immediately.
In the words of the historian Peter McLaughlin, the Southern Rhodesian settlers "seemed to out-British the British" in their patriotic zeal, so it was to the frustration of many of them that the Company did not immediately commit to any martial action. While it sent supportive messages to Whitehall, the Company felt it could not raise any kind of expeditionary force without first considering the implications for its administrative operations; as a commercial concern, it was possible for the company to go bankrupt. Who would foot the bill for war expenditure, its hierarchy pondered: the Company itself, the Rhodesian taxpayers or the British government?
As the local newspapers filled with letters from readers clamouring for Rhodesian troops to be mustered and despatched to Europe post-haste, the administration limited its initial contribution to posting a section of BSAP troopers to the Victoria Falls Bridge to guard against possible German attack from South-West Africa though the Caprivi Strip. In early September, an indignant letter to the Rhodesia Herald from Colonel Raleigh Grey, a major figure in local business, politics and military matters, accused the Company of bringing "a slur on a British country" by doing so little.
Rhodesian Reserves A few days after the war began, the Chartered Company formed the Rhodesian Reserves, an amorphous entity intended to accommodate the many white men who were keen to put on uniform, as well as to make a start towards organizing what might eventually become an expeditionary force. Eminent citizens and elected leaders formed their own platoons, each bringing 24 volunteers; three or four of these 25-man troops made a company. Units representing the Caledonian Society, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Society, the Legion of Frontiersmen and other local organizations mirrored the Pals battalions in Britain. Volunteers could opt to serve overseas, within Rhodesia or only locally; around 1,000 had volunteered in all by 13 August.
The Company suggested to the UK government that it might dispatch 500 troopers from the Rhodesian Reserves to Europe to act as an all-Southern Rhodesian unit on the Western Front (in Belgium and France), but the War Office in London replied that such an expeditionary force would be more practically deployed in Africa, within the South African forces. When the Company relayed this idea south, the South Africans said they were happy to take the Southern Rhodesians, but only if they enlisted independently in existing Union regiments. The Company found itself in the unusual position of having a prospective expeditionary force that nobody wanted. Unwilling to wait, some Southern Rhodesian would-be soldiers made their own way to Britain to join the British Army directly, as individuals or in groups. By the end of October 1914, about 300 were on their way.
Europe
Western Front
In terms of fighting manpower, Southern Rhodesia's main contribution to World War I was in the trenches of the Western Front. As the white Southern Rhodesians in this theatre joined the British Army separately, at different times and under their own steam (or were already connected to specific units as reservists), they were spread across dozens of regiments, including the Black Watch, the Coldstream Guards, the Grenadier Guards, the Royal Engineers and the Royal Marines, as well as many South African units and others. During the war's opening months, Southern Rhodesian volunteers who could not afford to travel to England were assisted by a private fund set up by Ernest Lucas Guest, a Salisbury lawyer and Anglo-Boer War veteran who also organized an accompanying recruitment campaign for European service. Guest stopped recruiting at the company's request after it created the 1st Rhodesia Regiment, an expeditionary force to South and South-West Africa, in October 1914.
A link developed during the war with the King's Royal Rifle Corps (KRRC), whose Southern Rhodesian contingent—numbering a few hundred, chiefly in its 2nd and 3rd Battalions—was the largest on the Western Front. The connection with this particular corps began as the result of a chance conversation aboard the ship that took the first batch of Southern Rhodesians from Cape Town to Southampton in late 1914. The 16th Marquess of Winchester, who had links with Rhodesia dating back to the 1890s, was also aboard the ship, returning from a visit to the colony. Encountering Captain John Banks Brady, the officer of Irish origin who led the volunteers, the Marquess asked where his party was headed. Brady enthusiastically replied that they were going to war together in France. The Marquess suggested to Brady that since it might be difficult to prevent his men from being split up during the enlistment process, it might be a good idea for the Rhodesians to join the KRRC, where he could keep an eye on them through his connections with the Winchester-based regiment. The Southern Rhodesian contingent duly mustered into the KRRC. A designated Rhodesian platoon, widely referred to thereafter as "the Rhodesian Platoon", was formed under Brady at the KRRC training camp at Sheerness, on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.