Why able men fled from Kiambu to Rift Valley in 1917

Colonial administrators at a village during the Mau Mau crackdown in the 1950s. [File, Standard]

Desperate times call for desperate measures. There was a time Kiambu District ran out of men.

This was because nearly all young and healthy men had been forcibly conscripted into the army to offer auxiliary services to fight the Germans 105 years ago.