‘A Campaign of Trivialities’: Reappraising the Deployment of the 7th South African Infantry Brigade to Madagascar, 1942

Abstract In May 1942, British forces captured the strategic naval base of Diego Suarez in northern Vichy-controlled Madagascar. From the outset, Jan Smuts, Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, argued that merely occupying Diego Suarez would not suffice; the entire island needed to be fully liberated from Vichy French control. Smuts, therefore, offered the 7 th South African Infantry Brigade (7 SA Inf Bde) to the British defence planners for this purpose. After some hesitation, the British agreed to deploy South African troops to Madagascar. However, the deployment of 7 SA Inf Bde to Madagascar from June to November 1942 remains understudied within the broader historiography of South Africa’s participation in the Second World War. Internationally, the campaign has also received little scholarly attention. This article strategically reappraises the wartime deployment of the 7 SA Inf Bde to Madagascar, by tying it into the larger operations to occupy the island.