“ZULU CHIEF DIES A SOLDIER’S DEATH” – Buried at Arno’s Vale

“With military honours, a Zulu Chief who served with the South African Labour Battalion was buried at Arno’s Vale on Saturday. His name was Private Mrogoy Modlala (sic) who died at Southmead War Hospital of honourable wounds sustained while serving his Great White Chief. The body was carried in a gun carriage and a bearer party was supplied by the Royal Engineers. The deceased chief who leaves three wives and eighteen children was buried in Soldiers’ Corner. Wreaths were sent by the Red Cross and Colonel J. Goss.”

(Western Daily Press. 20^th August 1917)

Private Madhlala Mrogoyi Tshikwase, aged 55, the son of Gatshu, who of wounds on 16^th August was survived by four wives and eighteen children in Natal.

In Bristol, Private Tshikwase was given a send-off appropriate to his station, (though “his Great White Chief” grates against present ears).

Another SANLF man Private Jacobus Mozupe who died in Bristol on the 28^th August, was perceived perhaps as a more lowly individual, for his funeral went unreported. He was 48, survived by his wife, Sanna and his father Mr. R. Mozupe of the Transvaal. Both men were buried at Arno’s “Soldiers’ Corner” numbered 2. 674 and 675, and their names are inscribed on the Screen Wall. Private Mozupe is simply recorded as “Jacobus”.

A long way from home

The South African Native Labour Force was used to dig trenches and act as porters in France and Flanders during the War so that white labourers could be freed up to fight. The men of the SANLF lived in separate compounds and could not go out unless accompanied by a white officer. They were not allowed to have guns though they frequently came under fire and if they were killed they were buried in local graveyards, unlike white South Africans who were buried in special military cemeteries. (This distinction appears not to have applied, thankfully, in Bristol.) In 2014 to right this wrong, a symbolic reburial of one member of the SANLF, Private Myengwa Beleza, took place at Delleville Wood, to represent the 90,000 men of the SANLF who served but did not even get a war medal.

For details of the above, and others buried at Arno’s Vale who died of their wounds see the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC).

This is an extract from “We Shall Remember Them” : Brislington and St Anne’s in the Great War 1914-1919.