Joseph P. Smaldone

The Sokoto caliphate was the leading state in nineteenth century northern Nigeria, established by an Islamist revival at the beginning of the century and finally overthrown by the British in 1903. Reviewing its military traditions and institutions, Smaldone argues that its military history was shaped by two military "revolutions"; the first from the initial mostly infantry Islamist insurgents to a cavalry-dominated imperial army of conquest, the second a switch from feudal organization and reliance on traditional weapons to a standing gunpowder army. I put "revolutions" in quotation marks because the first was really a reversion to the traditional pattern of Sudanic empires, the second in Smaldone's phrase an "incipient revolution", cut short by the British conquest before changing all that much - the last Sokoto armies were till primarily armed with bow, spear and sword, and failed horribly in the face of British machineguns.

An annoyance is that Smaldone implicitly accepts Usuman dan Fodio, the Sokoto founder's, claim that anyone opposing his jihad was ipso facto not a true Muslim, and therefore echoes the usage that his followers were simply "the Muslims" and their foes infidels - despite that, from an outsider's PoV, some of those foes having perfectly good claim to being just as "true" members of the faith. Another oddity is that he refers to the armoured elite cavalry as "dragoons" - surely "knights" or "cataphracts" would have given a more appropriate idea.

But those are minor issues - don't let them discourage you if you're interested in Sudanic military history. The book's quite good overall.… (altro)