World Conflicts involving the United States and Africa
Brian K. Eckhardt
World History II
John Durr
May 13, 2009
During the earths long history there are not many events that had a bigger effect on the world as the World Wars and the Cold War. These wars caused and ended the Great Depression, fueled advanced warfare, caused economic advances, and even made things like the race to space possible. Two Nations which were caught up in all three of these conflicts was the United States and Africa. The United States was an aggressive fighter and world power and Africa being a nation controlled by other nations who brought them for the ride and involved them in these conflicts.
During World War I Africa was split up into colonies, owned by other nations such as France, Britain, and Germany. The colonies consisted of Africans controlled by these other nations and they played a very important role in fighting World War I. These Africans fought along side their controlling nations and over 100,000 of them died on the western front. These soldiers were not forced to fight but instead were coaxed into volunteering by promises of gaining their independence from their controllers. These promises were of course lies and led to many liberation movements after the war. The British used most of the African troops for physical war labor such as digging trenches and clearing live military bombs and weapons from the field. They did not want to train and arm the Africans in fear of them retaliating against them in the future. On the other hand the French were not worried at all and armed many Africans from West Africa and sent them off to fight. Germans also used soldiers from their African colonies but kept them in Africa to fight because sea lanes to Europe were blocked. By the time the war was over it marked the end of Germany's very short overseas empire. Britain and France divided up the German African colonies between them, but their colonial rule...