Anyone have interesting family stories from your country's former empire/colonies?

It wasn't that many generations ago when European countries ran half the world: Germans in Namibia, Belgians in the Congo, Portuguese in Macau, Dutch in Jakarta, French in Algeria, Austro-Hungarians in Trieste, British...everywhere. What interesting stories - good, bad, and ugly - have you heard about great-great-aunts and uncles who went out to soldier and settle for a few years and came back...or perhaps never came back?