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