BOARDGAME, OR FROM THE RANKS TO FIELD MARSHAL

From the Ranks to Field Marshal is a World War I game of obstacles and rewards. In this Union of South Africa adaption recruitment is micro-managed. Home is denied by the Land Act. Weapons are replaced by tools of labour. Accommodation is controlled within a system of closed compounds. Recruits board ships for France to the sound of S.E.K Mqhayi’s sarcasm-laden poem The Dark Army: “Oh yes, of course we’re grateful, when our mother country spares us a thought and sets us to work in the harbours when it finds itself in trouble.”