British Colonies
The Imperial British East Africa Company raised units of askaris from among the Swahili people, the Sudanese and Somalis. There was no official uniform, nor standardised weaponry. Many of the askaris campaigned in their native dress. Officers usually wore civilian clothes. From 1895 the British askaris were organised into a regular, disciplined, uniformed force called the East African Rifles, later part of the King's African Rifles. The designation of "askari" was retained for locally recruited troops in the King's African Rifles, smaller military units and police forces in the colonies until the end of British imperial rule in Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda during the period 1961-63.
Read more about this topic: Askari
Famous quotes containing the words british and/or colonies:
“Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.”
—William Golding (b. 1911)
“What is music. A passion for colonies not a love of country.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)