MILITARY LABOUR MOBILISATION IN COLONIAL LESOTHO DURING WORLD WAR II, 1940-1943

Abstract

In 1940, Great Britain’s wartime exploitation of the human and material
resources of its colonial empire was extended to colonial Lesotho (then known as
Basutoland). The aim of this article, therefore, is to trace the four-year military
labour mobilisation process in that colony, with special attention to the timing,
number and procedures of the recruitment campaigns that were launched, the
reasons for Basotho men’s willingness or resistance to enlist, and the overall
implications for Lesotho of large-scale absenteeism of able-bodied men as migrant
and military labour.