and mortality rates among them during the campaigns were high. At the same time, the recruitment of porters created a shortage of labour which increased the economic pressures on Africans in Nyasaland. Millenarians at the time believed that World War I would be a form of Armageddon, which they believed would destroy the colonial powers and pave the way for the emergence of independent African states. Chilembwe opposed the recruitment of the Nyasan people to fight what he considered to be a war totally unconnected to them. He promoted a form of Christian pacifism and argued that the lack of civil rights for Africans in the colonial system should exempt them from the duties of military service. In November 1914, following reports of large loss of life during fighting at Karonga, Chilembwe wrote a letter to The Nyasaland Times in Blantyre, explicitly appealing to the colonial authorities not to recruit black troops: Preparations Preparations for the uprising had begun by the end of 1914. Exactly what Chilembwe's objectives were remains unclear but some contemporaries believed that he planned to make himself "King of Nyasaland". He soon acquired a military textbook and began to organise his followers and wider support. In particular, he formed close ties with Filipo Chinyama in Ncheu, to the north-west and received his assurance that he would also mobilise his followers to join the rebellion when it broke out. The colonial authorities received two warnings that a revolt was imminent. A disaffected follower of Chilembwe reported the preacher's "worrying intentions" to Philip Mitchell, a colonial civil servant (and future governor of Uganda and Kenya), in August 1914. A Catholic mission was also warned but neither took any action. Brian Morris notes that no action was taken as the colonial regime had no way to confirm the rumours, given the secretive way of the uprising. Rebellion Outbreak During the night of Saturday 23–24 January, the rebels met at the Mission church in Mbombwe, where Chilembwe gave a speech stressing that none of them should expect to survive the reprisals that would follow the revolt but that the uprising would draw greater attention to their conditions and destabilise the colonial system. This, Chilembwe believed, was the only way change would ever occur. A contingent of rebels was sent to Blantyre and Limbe, about to the south, where most of the white colonists lived and where the insurgents hoped to