Cultural, Historical and Battlefields

Sub-Saharan Africa entered the global political stage as a surrogate of the established European powers, so, with very limited exceptions, the international war history of the continent has had either a flavour of internecine European conflict, or wars of colonial conquest and occupation.

Of the handful of major contests fought in the sub region, the Anglo/Boer War, the Anglo/Zulu War and the East Africa Campaign of WWI are the most notable. Each of these in one way or another involved South Africa in concert with Britain, and so it is in South Africa that the richest fields of commemoration and memorial can be found. From the many Anglo/Boer War battlefields and memorials, to those of the Anglo/Zulu War, and others more recently related to the bitter anti-Apartheid Struggle, there is an enormous amount of interest for the history traveller to explore. Beyond this there are battle sites throughout Tanzania, where the bulk of the fighting of WWI took place, and others throughout Zimbabwe that saw fighting during the colonial occupation of the late 19th century, and the more recent civil war of the 1970s.

The Liberation Period, and the Independence Period that followed, has seen an unhappy continuum of violence, militancy and war on the continent. From the armed demagogues of the 1970s and 1980s, and the Warlords of the 1990s, numerous high profile and historically significant wars have been fought on the continent. A human history forged in slavery, armed struggle and blood, and anointed in triumph and despair, there is no other corner of the world quite like Africa.