Operation Anvil (Mau Mau Uprising) Operation Anvil (Mau Mau Uprising) Operation Anvil was a British military operation during the Mau Mau Uprising where British troops attempted to remove Mau Mau from Nairobi and place them in Langata Camp or reserves. The operation began on 24 April 1954 and took two weeks, at the end of which 20,000 Mau Mau suspects had been taken to Langata, and 30,000 more had been deported to the reserves. In the early 1950s militant nationalism emerged in the United Kingdom's colony of Kenya in East Africa. By 1952 guerrilla attacks against white settlers and indigenous moderates, perpetrated by the "Mau
Mau Mau Uprising noting the similarity between such analysis and the "simplistic" earlier studies of Mau Mau. This earlier work cast the Mau Mau war in strictly bipolar terms, "as conflicts between anti-colonial nationalists and colonial collaborators". Caroline Elkins' 2005 study, "Imperial Reckoning", has met similar criticism, as well as being criticised for sensationalism. Broadly speaking, throughout Kikuyu history, there have been two traditions: "moderate-conservative" and "radical". Despite the differences between them, there has been a continuous debate and dialogue between these traditions, leading to a great political awareness among the Kikuyu. By 1950, these differences, and the impact of colonial rule, had