Issue 99
March / April 2008
Contents
news
Was missing body a Dutchman in Scotland?
Can international support save antiquities scheme?
features
Stonehenge: now what?
With the tunnel scheme scrapped, BA asks about the future
The wreck of the SS Mendi
John Gribble tells the story of forgotten war labourers
Stanway
Philip Crummy and colleagues report on an elite cemetery at Camulodunum
on the web
Recommended websites
Seriously good free texts, and new Welsh date index
letters
CBA correspondent
Campaigns, comment and communications from the CBA
Mike Heyworth introduces a new initiative to promote archaeology in the community
ISSN 1357-4442
Editor Mike Pitts
features
The SS Mendi, a forgotten story of prejudice and loss
On the bed of the English Channel lies one of Britain's most tragic and unsung war wrecks. John Gribble, a South African working for Wessex Archaeology, hopes the ship can focus attention on the first world war's neglected foreign labourers.
On the morning of February 21 1917, the British troopship Mendi was on the last leg of a voyage carrying 824 men and officers of the South African Native Labour Corps (SANLC) from Cape Town to France. Shortly before 5am and roughly 11 nautical miles (20km) south-west of the Isle of Wight, another British vessel, the Darro, collided with the Mendi in thick fog. Such was the damage to the Mendi that she sank within 20 minutes, with the loss of 649 lives.
Many of the black SANLC labourers refused the order to abandon ship: most had no experience of the sea and very few could swim. Oral tradition, probably apocryphal, describes how the reverend Isaac Wauchope Dyobha, a SANLC interpreter, rallied these men and led them in a death dance as the Mendi slipped beneath the waves. "I, a Xhosa", he supposedly cried, "say you are my brothers. Zulus, Swazis, Pondos, Basothos and all others, let us die like warriors". Dyobha was one of the 607 black casualties.
Ninety years later the story of the Mendi and the contribution of the SANLC to the war effort has slipped from memory into history. The direct personal link that existed between the present and the first world war has been severed as witnesses have passed away. Today, the only way of telling the neglected story of the Mendi, the SANLC and the war's labour system, is through historical research and archaeology.
Strict military discipline
The enormous contribution by the British and foreign labour contingents seems to have been largely ignored in the vast literature relating to the war. Today the entire system is almost unknown and forgotten.
When the British Expeditionary Force landed in France in the opening months of the first world war in 1914, it had no formal labour component. Much of the movement of stores and munitions, the repair or construction of roads and railways, and the building of defences fell to fighting men. These activities often took precedence over periods of rest behind the lines, and increasingly strained the physical and mental condition of the frontline troops.
The War Office reacted in 1915 by creating labour companies, whose members were drawn from within the UK and formed the nucleus of what was to become the British Labour Corps. By the end of the war in November 1918, the BLC was some 389,900 strong and constituted 11% of the British army's total strength.
But the scale of the conflict and toll in men – on the Western Front in particular – meant that far more labourers were required than Britain could supply, and it was decided to recruit foreign labour on fixed-term contracts from British overseas territories and beyond. Between late 1916 and the end of the war roughly 300,000 foreign labourers were engaged from across the globe. Of these, 195,000 served on the Western Front, including more than 21,000 black South African labourers and contingents from China, Egypt, Fiji, Madagascar, Mauritius, the Seychelles and the British West Indies.
At the outbreak of war in August 1914, the South African government, fearful of the potential consequences of allowing the black majority to receive military training, turned down an offer by black political leaders to raise 5,000 black troops for service. But the use of black South Africans as noncombatants in colonial territories elsewhere in Africa was acceptable. It would not disturb the established black/white relationship and "there was little chance of South African blacks being exposed to significantly different ideological influences" which could later pose a threat to white control in South Africa. As a result, more than 33,000 black labourers were enlisted to provide logistical support for white and coloured fighting troops during the campaign in German South West Africa (modern Namibia), and a further 18,000 later served in the long and bitter campaign in German East Africa (Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania).
Nonetheless, there was strong opposition in South Africa to requests from Britain in early 1916 for labourers on the Western Front. As the pressure for labour increased during the summer of the Somme offensive, however, the South African government eventually agreed to send a black contingent, on condition "that the natives should not only be under strict military discipline during the whole period of their employment in France but should also be housed under the closed compound system".
South Africa was attempting to ensure that SANLC members would not be "spoiled" by exposure to "the social conditions of Europe" – widely believed to be the inevitable result of sending the SANLC to France. Welfare was said to be the primary concern: but white South Africans wanted to keep blacks cocooned from anything that might make them question their subservient social, political and labour position at home.
My recent research suggests that similar sentiments were attached to at least some of the other foreign labour corps that served in France – principally the Chinese and Egyptians. Despite their diverse origins their experiences on the Western Front were similar, if not identical, to the South Africans', and in many respects were marked by overt and covert discrimination.
The foreign labour corps seem to have been employed under fairly standard conditions. Recruits were hired on fixed-term contracts – a year for South Africans and three or five years for Chinese. They were expected to work 10 hours a day and, in the case of the Chinese contingent, seven days a week. The greater part of their daily wage was automatically remitted to their families each month, or deferred to completion of their contracts. The pay for the SANLC was higher than the going rate for labourers in South Africa, and many Egyptian fellahin, or agricultural labourers, probably sought employment in the Egyptian Labour Corps because it paid relatively well.
They were clothed, fed and accommodated in purpose-built camps. However uniforms, rations, and the closed compounds proved to be a source of immediate and ongoing dissatisfaction and unrest within the SANLC. There are suggestions that similar issues also marked the employment of both the Chinese and Egyptians in France.
Unruly behaviour
The terms of most foreign labourers stipulated that they were to be employed outside the combat zone behind the front lines – in contrast to the British labour companies and units, which performed in forward areas, often coming under intense enemy fire. This can be understood in terms of the work they did – unloading ships, loading trains, quarrying, logging and so on. However, there was also a desire to segregate foreign labourers from other units, one of the key conditions under which South Africa agreed to supply labour in France. In the case of the SANLC this also involved segregating the labourers from the civilian population, particularly European women. When not at work, the SANLC labourers were confined to their camps, secure compounds with strict access controls surrounded by barbed wire and corrugated iron fencing.
The South African government in 1917 was very familiar with the closed compound system, as it had been developed on the Kimberley diamond mines during the 1880s. It played an important role as the country developed its mining and heavy industry sectors, allowing employers to maintain and control a pool of experienced labour, while hindering the development of an organised working class. It is hardly surprising that the system was transplanted to France along with the South African labour contingent.
The historian Albert Grundlingh has suggested that the SANLC was the only labour corps to be housed in compounds in France, but my research has found evidence that the system was also applied to the other foreign labour corps. Again, this is perhaps not surprising. As a result of discussions with the South African government about their requirements for the accommodation for the SANLC in France, the Directorate of Labour, responsible for managing wartime labour, produced an Appendix to Notes for Officer of Labour Companies (South African Native Labour) in late 1916 which laid out rules for compound construction. Descriptions of the experiences of other foreign labourers suggest that this convenient system of labour control was not just applied to the South African contingent.
"The uprising was brutally suppressed: one labourer was executed"
The closed camps left a deep impression. "The compounds... cannot be forgotten as they were like prisons", said one SANLC veteran. They were blatantly discriminatory, and debased those forced to occupy them. Where they exist, official descriptions give the impression of a happy labour force. But throughout 1917 and 1918 the South African, Chinese and Egyptian labour corps all experienced persistent unrest and strikes, which at times resulted in the death of some of those involved, usually because of heavy-handedness in dealing with the protests.
For example, Egyptian workers at a camp in Marseilles engaged in a spontaneous revolt over repatriation at the expiry of their contracts. The uprising was brutally suppressed, and one labourer was court-martialled and executed. There were similar incidents at Chinese camps. In July 1917 four members of the SANLC were killed and 11 wounded when British troops opened fire during a confrontation over an arrest. This incident was never reported in South Africa.
The men were contract labourers, but what should perhaps have been treated as labour issues were instead dealt with by military law, and participants were accused of mutiny. This might be expected in the context of war. However, it does seem from reports and descriptions of the incidents that they were dealt with in a manner that also reflected prevailing attitudes to non-Europeans.
During 1917 and 1918 resistance within the SANLC against the compound system increased, and the authorities became very concerned about frequent "unruly behaviour". Lieutenant-Colonel Godley, second in command of the SANLC, admitted in a confidential letter in late 1917 that "the temper of a large proportion of the men is distinctly nasty", and that there was a "constant undercurrent of feeling amongst the Natives that they of all the King's soldiers are singled out for differential treatment". He added that "it is unfair to ask, or even allow men to bind themselves down indefinitely under conditions which are unique, as all other units in France, both white and black are free to move about".
In early 1918 the South African government, under increasing internal political pressure, seems to have taken fright at the worsening situation, disbanded the SANLC and brought it home.
No legal protection
The 4,230 ton steamship Mendi was launched on the river Clyde in Glasgow in 1905, built by Alexander Stephen and Sons. She was owned by the British and African Steam Navigation Company, part of the Elder Dempster Group, and used on the Liverpool to West Africa mail and cargo run, a route that followed part of the earlier slave trade, from Britain to Africa and then America [see feature, May/Jun 2007].
In autumn 1916 the Mendi was contracted to the British government for war service, and sent to Lagos, Nigeria to be fitted out as a troop ship. Three cargo holds were converted for troop accommodation. The officers were housed in the existing passenger accommodation above deck. The Mendi then transported Nigerian troops to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to fight in German East Africa before returning to South Africa and on to her fateful voyage to France.
"From divers' reports it appears that the ship sits upright on the seabed"
A few photographs of the Mendi survive, and technical drawings in the National Maritime Museum show her construction. Even at war she retained her steamship livery. Her hull and funnel were painted black, the bridge and cabins were buff, and the waterline was red. Apart from the gun that was added to the stern in Sierra Leone, changes were mostly internal.
The wreck was charted by the UK Hydrographic Office for the first time in 1945, south-west of St Catherine's Point in 35–40m of water, and wrongly identified as a probable concrete lighter. It was not until 1974 that this charted position was investigated. An Isle of Wight recreational diver, Martin Woodward, discovered that the wreck was in fact a large steel steamship. He recovered several artefacts, including a small white ceramic bowl carrying the name and logo of the British and African Steam Navigation Company.
He concluded that this was the Mendi, an identification which has been confirmed by further recoveries from the wreck.
From divers' reports it appears that the ship is largely coherent along her length and sits upright on the seabed, with a slight lean to starboard. The bow and stern are still structurally intact, but the entire amidships section has collapsed, exposing the engines and boilers. Total collapse is expected within 50 years. Unconfirmed reports suggest many artefacts have been removed and dispersed.
During the summer of 2007, at the request of Wessex Archaeology and English Heritage, a suite of geophysical data was collected over the wreck site, as part of a Marine Aggregate Levy Sustainability Fund programme of regional seabed mapping. These data should provide the first clear picture of the wreck, and are essential for the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and diver survey of the Mendi that Wessex Archaeology is planning for this summer, and for which funding is being sought. These surveys aim to answer questions about the wreck's condition, address issues of site stability and vulnerability, and gather data for future site management and for publicity and outreach.
The wreck currently enjoys no legal protection. However, as a vessel lost on active wartime service, with large casualties, the Mendi may be eligible for care under the Ministry of Defence's Protection of Military Remains Act (1986). Alternatively, it could be designated under the terms of the Protection of Wrecks Act (1973) as a site of historical importance relating to, or representative of a forgotten aspect of the history of the first world war. Once more has been learned about the wreck and its wider story, this sensitive site may hopefully be secured.
From my limited research it is clear that there is far more to the foreign labour corps than is acknowledged by the brief lines they warrant in a few historical sources. Their fascinating story poses some uncomfortable questions about the true nature of imperial and colonial attitudes and prejudices during the early 20th century, but it has immense potential for acknowledgement, for recognition, and for reconciliation. The SS Mendi, and the remains that lie on the sea bed, are a poignant focus for such powerful actions.
It is a story which must be told.
Wessex Archaeology would like to acknowledge the support of English Heritage who funded the initial Mendi desk-based assessment (see www.wessexarch.co.uk/projects/marine/eh/ssmendi).
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