HELP! - Belgium WW1 Askaris...can they be anyone else?

[italwars]

. The Abyssinians in the 1890s would mutilate captured Italian askari by cutting off their hands and feet

Exactlly the left foot and the right hand..as punishment to have dared to point arms VS the Negus
and from a statistical approach it seems that captured Italian European soldiers...above all the iconic and feared Bersaglieri (also if they certainly were'nt an élite at all) had something else cutted..something very precious..
While Ncos and Officers..not all but many more or less unwillingly ones..were offered and strongly required and appreciated as factotum and "lover" to affluent aged and fat  "Uizerò" bourgeois/noble women of Adis Abeba who were quite influental in that typical matriarcal society..
really if i would have been a prisoner at Adwa i woul'dnt had been able to decide which was worst or better for me

[warrenpeace]

On the original topic, how to use those Brigade Games WW1 Belgian Askari figures: Came across an interesting tidbit in the Osprey "Armies in East Africa 1914-1918" by Peter Abbott, on page 10. The Katanga Chartered Company Corps de Police was incorporated into the Force Publique only in 1910. Those troops constituted 7 out of 21 companies of the Force Publique in 1914, and included a cyclist company. How this relates to those figures is that the men in the Katanga companies were armed with the Belgian M1889 7.65mm Mauser rifle instead of the old 11mm single shot Albini rifles that armed the rest of the Force Pulique. Would be interesting to know when they got the Mausers, but perhaps the private company funds were used for this before 1910.

By the way, I certainly also view King Leopold and his minions as very evil (King Leopold's Ghost was particularly gut wrenching), but that doesn't set them too far apart from most other factions in the scramble for Africa, whether European or African. That won't make much difference in the storyline of my colonial games, but it may feature more in the storyline in my Pulp games set in the Congo.

[Happy Wanderer]

Thanks again to all those that replied...lots of good ideas and a useful LAF archive.

Thanks chaps.

Happy W