""Arab" Infantry in WW1 East Africa" Topic
8 Posts
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Nick Stern | 23 Nov 2017 2:34 p.m. PST |
Reading about the early battles between the Germans and British, I noticed that a unit of "Arabs" is mentioned on the German side. Any idea who made up the members of this unit and, most importantly for the game table, what did they look like? |
Glengarry5 | 23 Nov 2017 3:22 p.m. PST |
There's little information on this group, around 400 of them at Tanga. From the descriptions of "wild shooting" and tendency to "panic" it would be likely this was an irregular formation lacking uniforms but instead wore their "native" dress. |
Nick Stern | 23 Nov 2017 5:12 p.m. PST |
So, something like the Foundry Zanzibaris? |
jurgenation | 23 Nov 2017 5:44 p.m. PST |
No they had the Askari uniform ,but arab headdress, no Fez.They were disbanded right after the Battle. |
Durban Gamer | 24 Nov 2017 2:17 a.m. PST |
I agree that they were uniformed. Although they were not impressive at Jassin, there were reports of an Arab unit fighting really bravely for the Germans at Bukoba. Jurgenation thanks for the info about the headress. Nice to have a different looking unit amongst the Germans. A British intelligence report mid-war commented that the German 9th field company had turban-like headgear different from the usual – this may have been an Arab unit. There is also a photo of a Coastal chief's unit in white robes and red fez – was on the German side, perhaps only briefly. There is also, for the British, an early photo of the Zanzibar rifles also showing Arab headress – but by mid 1917 I think they wore the pillbox like KAR. |
Cacique Caribe | 24 Nov 2017 7:30 p.m. PST |
So 400 of them were issued an actual uniform for a single battle? Did that happen a lot back then? Dan PS. For some reason, this Neal Adams painting came to mind when I read the title of the thread.
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Nick Stern | 25 Nov 2017 9:22 a.m. PST |
There were probably a lot of surplus Askari uniforms hanging around, and the Germans did love things to appear orderly. Seriously, I own the Funken book on uniforms of WW1 and the page on German colonial forces shows almost identical khaki uniforms from the neck down, only the headgear varies. Unfortunately, the Arabs are not shown. |
jurgenation | 27 Nov 2017 7:26 p.m. PST |
nick check out the website German Colonial Uniforms..by Chris Dale , |
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