African Empires
Popular culture's depiction of the pre-colonial peoples of the non-European world is a shameful thing, and the prevailing view of Africa is an excellent example of this. For whatever reason, the most common viewpoint seems to be that the peoples of Africa were a race of "noble savages" who lived, child-like, in an idyllic but abysmally primitive
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The troops are askari of the Imperial German schutztruppe (roughly translated as "defence force") the final picutre is also of an askari in German employ distinguished by the blue puttees.
Back to the pic training at the machine gun, the nearest askari has slung a Rifle Commission model 1888. Virtually NONE of the histories of the East African campaigns of WWI state that this arm was issued to these troops in this theater. Always mentioned are the single-shot Mauser model of 1871 and the 8-shot tubular magazine model 1871/84 as well as the better known Mauser model 1898. The '71 and 71/84 where used at the outbreak of war and both used smokey black powder charges that gave away the rifleman's position.
The M1888 was a step up in that it fired smokless rounds. And despite it's lack of mention in the major sources here we have visual evidence that at least one unit carried them.
Also noteworthy in this photo is the machinegun tripod with it's single large wheel. It was found in Africa that older-style machine gun mounts, standing taller with shields fitted were of greater use than in Europe. The higher mounting was needed to sight over vegitation and the shield was retained as combat tended to be at closer ranges (again thanks to the density of the local flora).
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