October 14, 2026

Archive

Links are to the Colonial Film website which contains a good synopsis and other details of each film.

1915 – Outposts Of Empire: British East African Troops Entraining On An Expedition Against German Territory (footage held by BFI: ID: 512962)
1916 – Operations of the British Expeditionary Forces in East Africa – Cherry Kearton (25th Royal Fusiliers (Legion of Frontiersmen) footage held by Imperial War Museum: ID: IWM 84)
1928 – Safari in East Africa featuring the 5th Battalion King’s East African Rifles returning from a route march (footage held by BFI: ID: 457935)
1930 – King’s African Rifles on parade (footage held by BFI: ID: 603060)
1940 – British News No. 22: SOUTH AFRICA BUILDS ITS OWN ARMOURED CARS; SOUTH AFRICAN TROOPS IN KENYA (footage held by BFI: ID: 671099)
1940 – Men of Africa – no mention of the war despite being released during the conflict: synopsis states: Development programmes in Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika illustrate that “even in the midst of war, Great Britain does not shirk her responsibilities to her colonies.” – contrast with 1945 Father and Son (footage held by BFI: ID: 13340 and Imperial War Museum: ID: CCE 200)
1941 – War Came to Kenya (footage held by Imperial War Museum: ID: CCE 202)
1942 – Showing Natives Of East Africa Being Taught And Trained To Become Effective Units Of A Water Transport Company (footage held by Imperial War Museum: ID: AYY 832)
1943 – British News No. 152: INDIANS IN TUNIS; KENYA POLICE AT FOOTBALL; LIGHTER MOMENTS IN THE DESERT; SOUTH AFRICA COAST DEFENCE (footage held by BFI: ID: 671317)
1944 – Lt. Gen. Stone Presents B.E.M. To East African Private Valentino Owori of the East African Pioneer Corps (footage held by Imperial War Museum: ID: AYY 754)
1944 – Road to Victory – South African Army at war (footage held by Imperial War Museum: ID: COI 839)
1944 – East Africa Army Exhibition in Nairobi in September 1944 (footage at Imperial War Museum: ID: AYY 809)
1944 – An East African Army Field Bakery (footage held by Imperial War Museum: ID: AYY 1171)
1944 – An East African Entertainment Unit (footage held by Imperial War Museum: ID: AYY 1172)
1945 – Father and Son British Navy, generation/cultural topics – watch online
1945 = East African Chiefs in Colombo – heads of tribes represented in 11th East African Division fighting in Burma (footage held by Imperial War Museum: ID: JFU 271)
1945 – African Home Life – recruiting for King’s African Rifles (footage held by BFI: ID: 3003)
1945 – Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver Leese visits 11th East African Division – Leese was commander Allied Land Forces South East Asia (ALFSEA) (footage held by Imperial War Museum: ID: JFU 260)
1945 – No 1 East African Entertainment Unit (footage held by Imperial War Museum: ID: JFU 259)
1945 – Colonial Cinemagazine No.3 – rehabilitation of African soldiers in East Africa and a victory parade in Nairobi (footage held by BFI: ID: 4625)
1946 – Colonial troops in England for the Victory Parade on 8 June 1946 (footage held by BFI: ID: 21304)

Info on watching films at BFI

Sourcing information on those involved in World War 1 Africa can cover numerous countries depending on where people were born, where resident and employed before the war, which force they enlisted with, where they resided after the war and where they died.

It is also worth bearing in mind that some archive material has over the years been destroyed by fire and other disasters. These include:
UK Burnt docs (and info on destroyed documents)
A list of references to UK National Archives Colonial Office African files can be found in an excel spreadsheet under Resources
Cameroon – German documents smuggled to Fernando Po, then Spain to Hamburg and Berlin in Germany where they were destroyed in 1945 in a bombing raid. (Schulten, p234) Britain took some files from Yaunde to Lagos. These are now in the National Archive in Buea. Some records remain in the archive in Yaunde while others are in the UK National Archive.
Kenya fire in 1925 destroyed some archive material but material on World War 1 is kept in Nairobi (see Hodge’s bibliography)
Malawi while the old secretariat burned in 1919, the fire did not destroy all or even most of the First World War records. See Mel Page’s The Chiwaya War, p.236 (first edition) and pp.262-263 (second edition).

Digitised archival collections – general (including indexes)
https://core.ac.uk/ eg includes 1916 German East Africa newspaper (Deutsch Ostafrika Zeitung)
The Jean-Marie Derscheid collection – University of Florida: 3 microfilms (index)
African Pictures One to watch for photographs – has some 1914-1918 coverage eg Ethiopia

Belgium
Belgian archives
Royal Military Museum Brussels – includes information on personnel files
Foreign Affairs – includes Ruanda-Burundi from 1917
Photos of the Military campaign in Congo 1916-1918 provided by Royal Library of Belgium
Newspaper archive

Britain
The Gazette World War 1 Despatches
The National Archives, UK on Flickr
Kenya Regiment – Imperial War Museum
National Army Museum has various collections connected with Africa due to units having served on the continent.
Bodleian Library (Weston Library), Oxford, has Moyse Bartlett’s records on the King’s African Rifles, Geoffrey Hodge’s collections on the Carrier Corps and other various records from West, East and Southern Africa.

France
Inventory – Ministere des Armees. Historical Defence Service concerning Africa in WW1

Germany
Colonial archive (Archivfuhrer)
Colonial sources
Digital archive Portal
Bundesarchiv digital search (need to register to access)
German East Person database

Kenya
University of Nairobi – search German East Africa (contains Colonial Office scans covering the war years)

Namibia
Find Aid for the Secretary of the Protectorate – from 1915

South Africa
SANDF Doc Centre in Irene (near Pretoria) has personnel cards and other records – there is no online catalogue

Tanzania
Moshi Evangelical Lutheran Church
Kirey, Reginald – on Tanganyikan colonial records 1914-1960s

War dead
Britain and the Commonwealth – Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Germany – Denkmalprojek – East Africa GSWA (all). Note: this is only the German army, not local forces