Grahamstown 1914-1918: Four wartime themes

Abstract

This study of Grahamstown during World War I illustrates four themes which serve to demonstrate the essentially British, frontier, commercial and martial attitudes that went into its making. Wartime conditions exacerbated the social and economic problems of white Grahamstown and its black population. In so volatile a community the hyper-charged atmosphere of wartime unleashed a strident Germanophobia. There were also two days of protest by blacks to which most whites reacted with alarm. The concluding episode of the article deals with the effects of the Spanish influenza epidemic on Grahamstown during the last weeks of the war.