Great War In German East Africa

Many tourists spending their holidays in the game-parks and on the beaches of East Africa, have no idea about the battles and the daring-do that took place there over 80 years ago in what was an important, if relatively minor, theatre of the 1914-1918 war. This lack of interest in the military campaign in German East Africa (GEA) - most of today's Tanzania - which lasted from November 1914 to November 1918, is all the more amazing since the sites of many the actions which made up this running war are generally little changed. Just as in parts of the Western Front in France and Belgium, time and reconstruction have largely alleviated any devastation wrought by the war. But unlike, say, Palestine the major sites are still to be seen in something approaching the same form that the various British and Indian expeditionary forces knew them. For the student of the Great War, it is an extremely interesting area and well worth the visit, allowing as it does the scope for so many pleasant diversions other than the study of the Great War.

Examples of interesting sites are: Ikoma Fort, situated in tsetse-fly country east of the Serengeti National Park, that is much as the Germans left it: ochre yellow and grim in its desperately isolated setting in The Bush. The coastal town of Bagamoya, 100 miles north of the present capital, Dar es Salaam, that still has its German garrison buildings and not far away, deep in The Bush, another fort, with its huge ramparts reminiscent of a Crusader medieval fortress, that looms huge amid the encroaching vegetation. In Independence Square in Dar es Salaam ("Harbour of Peace"), stands a bronze statue to the askaris (indigenous African soldiers) who formed the highly disciplined core of the GEA Defence Force (Schutztruppen). At Tanga (the capital of German East Africa), 300 miles north of Dar es Salaam, the beaches where the first elements of Indian Army Expeditionary Force (IAEF'B' - also see paras. 9 and 11) landed on 2 November 1914, that are relatively unchanged, apart from a scattering of bungalows. Nearby, in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, there are military graves of British and German soldiers dated November 1914.

Col. Von Lettow-Vorbeck's Army

The cause of the military mayhem that was to beset East Africa and last for four violent years, was a virtually unknown German soldier, Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, who in 1914 was appointed the commanding officer of the Colonial Army of German East Africa (GEACA). His skilful planning and prosecution of the four years of highly effective guerilla war, with a paucity of supplies and men, has gone down in the history of war as the classic campaign of its kind.

At the outbreak of war his resources were modest in the extreme; 260 Germans regular soldiers and settlers and 2,472 askaris, many newly recruited. Later the army grew in strength to around 10,000; less than a tenth of the forces that were eventually to be ranged against him. At the outset of the campaign, his army was organised into 14 companies of around 200 men. The operational companies were grouped together in threes and were expected to operate entirely independently. Initially the askaris were armed with obsolete German rifles (1871 model), but these were largely replaced by the up-to-date SMLE rifles that were captured from the British at Tanga, along with a vast amount of other munitions and supplies. However, each company was equipped with from two to four Maxim machine-guns. That meant in the early days they easily outgunned the British colonial forces in East Africa, who only had one machine-gun per company.

Portage was an important element in the mobility and effectiveness of the German colonial forces. Each Feldkompagnie (FK) and Schultzkompagnie (SchK) had an establishment of 250 African porters to carry its equipment. Having learnt from bitter experience that neither vehicles nor animals were suited to the terrain, the British eventually had 200,000 porters organised into a Carrier Corps.

For both of the fighting factions a lot of the terrain where the campaigning took place was infested with big and small game. No doubt some of the animal protein that was required to supplement the field rations of the soldiers came from this source; a large bull buffalo would make a lot of army beef stew! (Unfortunately, much of the game has disappeared over the last 30 years, so the visitor of today cannot expect to find much outside the areas set aside as national game-reserves or game-parks).

The British defence

If the GEACA was a modest defence force at the outbreak of war, the British were no better founded. The entire East African standing army consisted of the 62 officers and 2,317 askaris of the 3rd and 4th Kenya Africa Rifles (KAR). These troops were to form the key force as the war progressed. Once war was declared, 3000 European volunteers were recruited and formed into reserve units as the East Africa Mounted Rifles (EAMR) and the East Africa Regiment (EAR). There was no artillery. About 1,500 Europeans and 2,300 Africans were available to take part on the British side in the early battles along the border.

The most strategically important asset in East Africa, apart from the British East African port of Mombassa and the German East African ports of Dar es Salaam and Tanga, was the Uganda Railway located in British East Africa. It ran over 600 miles from Mombassa to Kisumu (formerly Port Florence) on the western shore of Lake Victoria. The military objective of the KAR and the volunteer units was the protection of British assets along the common border (now the Tanzania/Kenya frontier) and, in particular, the Uganda railway. The most vulnerable point on the railway line was where it ran closest to the GEA border just north of Mount Kilimanjaro; at that time it was very sparsely inhabited and in the home range of the Masai tribes. The principal GEA railway, which ran from Dar es Salaam, via Morogoro, Dodoma and Tabora, to Kigoma on Lake Victoria, was, in the early stages of the war, far from the battle zone.

The German strategy

From the outset of the hostilities von Lettow-Vorbeck began his long series of guerrilla attacks on the Uganda railway. This caused the British significant losses in material and men and upset the flow of essential material for both the war effort and the economy in general. In two months alone, 30 trains were derailed and two bridges destroyed. However, the attack on the town of Jasin, near Tanga, on the 15th January 1915 and capture of Taveta, at the foot of Kilimanjaro on the British East African border, were perhaps the most successful of these forays. The total British casualties from this first phase of the war were 800 against the Germans' 60.

The British strategy

The British quickly realised that a more effective force was required and two Indian Army Expeditionary Forces were quickly assembled and dispatched from Bombay by sea: IAEF 'B' and IAEF 'C', commanded respectively by Major-General A.E. Aitken and Brigadier-General J. M. Stewart.

IAEF 'C', left first on 1 September 1914, from Bombay en route to Mombasa, with the objective of re-inforcing the KAR. It comprised of 2 Imperial Service Battalions, the 29th Punjab Battalion and artillery support.

IAEF 'B' comprised of an Imperial Service Brigade, and the 27th Bangalore Brigade. (In fact it was largely made up of 'odds and sods' drafted together from all across India and some of these composite units were manifestly unfit for this kind of campaign). It departed from Bombay and landed at Tanga at beaches 'A', 'B' and 'C' on 2 November 1914 to find that the Germans had deployed their forces cleverly, and were well dug-in and prepared to receive them. The initial assault on Tanga town and port from Beach 'A' was easily repulsed and the campaign descended into confusion and rout. (The morale of the Force 'B' wasn't improved when angry and aggressive wasps, disturbed by their progress through the bush, continuously harried them). The GEACA, rapidly reinforced by rail from the garrison at Moshi, successfully repulsed the entire Force. Subsequently, only three days after its landing, the IAEF 'B' was evacuated on 5 November 1914, and returned to India in some disgrace. By any measure, it was not an auspicious start and the Germans were greatly encouraged by their success.

This forced relocation of British military resources was, of course, the purpose of von Lettow-Vorbeck's campaign and was strongly supported by the German High Command in Berlin. However, thereafter, apart from several unavoidable set battles, von Lettow-Vorbeck steadfastly refused to be enticed into battles that he had little chance of winning or which he thought would cost his force high casualties. By merely evading capture he and his men tied down British assets that the Germans rightly considered would otherwise be more productively used elsewhere. His own resourcefulness also included living off the land as far as possible and where the necessary material could not be purchased or captured from the enemy, he established cottage industries to produce it. A particularly useful product was the drug quinine. It was produced by the GEA Amani Biological Institute located in the Usumbara Mountains, west of Moshi. This prophylactic and curative malaria drug was of particular strategic importance as it kept the white German troops who had no, or little, immunity from malaria, in the field.

Once the IAEF 'C' had forged its way up-country from Mombassa, and concentrated its forces around the BEA side of Mount Kilimanjaro, the stage was set for the second phase of the war. A South African, Lieutenant-General Jan Smuts, was given the command of this composite colonial army. It now comprised two Divisions (1st and 2nd) plus 3 South African brigades and artillery support.This army, which eventually numbered around 130,000 men, pursued von Lettow- Vorbeck's army in a multi-front offensive launched from British East Africa, Lake Victoria, the GEA coast and the south (the Nyasaland-Rhodesia Field Force). In addition, a Congo based Belgian force under General Tombeur advanced from the west.

The Great War student can readily trace part of the British eastern route of attack from British East Africa (Kenya) by car, bus or train. The 1st Division of Force 'C' crossed the German East Africa border south of Nairobi on 5 March 1916 at, or near, the present day Kenyan border town of Namanga. It then marched around the western flank of Mount Kilimanjaro (and east of Mount Meru) to strike at the important town of Moshi, located on the main road and railway line from Tanga to Arusha. On the 8 March 1916, Smuts' 2nd Division, and the South African Brigades led by the South African Major-General J. van Deventer, crossed the border further south at Taveta. They then marched around the eastern flank of Mount Kilimanjaro to join the 1st Division at Kahe. Here Smuts reorganised the army into 3 Divisions. Whilst the 2nd Division struck out southwestwards under very difficult conditions across country to Dodoma - captured on 29 July 1916 - and onto Kisaki, the 1st and 3rd Divisions marched southeastwards down the railway and highway - which run closely parallel to one another - to Same, Buiko and Korogwe. Finally, at the end of June 1916, the 1st and 3rd Divisions captured the vital railhead and port of Tanga, scene of the rebuff of Force 'B' 18 months earlier.

At that time there wasn't any rail connection southwards from Tanga, so the route of march of the 1st and 3rd Divisions further southwards was via Handeni and Makinda. They took Morogoro on 26 August 1916 and Kisaki on 11 September 1916 and joined up with the 2nd Division. Meanwhile the Royal Marines and the Zanzibar Rifles had made an amphibious landing on the coast at Bagamoya on 15 August 1916. From there this formation marched on Dar es Salaam and captured it on 4 September 1916. Also, in September 1916, some elements of Force 'C' continued to march southward to link up with further British landings on the coast in at Kiwa, Lindi and Mikindani. In addition, a second detachment marched eastward along the German railway line towards Tabora and Lake Tanganyika to join up with the Belgians and the British Lake Force.

For the whole of this advance von Lottow-Vorbeck's army fought a continuous fighting retreat inflicting heavy casualties on the British whilst to his best ability conserving his own forces.

At this point of the advance in the southeast, in late 1916, there was a hiatus in the fighting as the exhausted British army halted to rally their forces; allowing the exhausted troops to rest, recuperate and to be re-equipped and re-inforced by new drafts. Also, by this time illness caused by malaria and other tropical diseases had wreaked a terrible toll on the cadres of British, white Colonial and Indian soldiers alike and many had to be repatriated. The only possible solution for the future was seen to be the replacement of the white British, white Colonial and Indian troops by black soldiers from East, West and Southern Africa. Belatedly, the British government authorised additional recruitment of KAR and other askaris and the campaign was restarted.

Conclusions

Thus, after a campaign of many vicissitudes, long strung out by von Lettow-Vorbeck's cunning deployment of his ever-diminishing forces, the denouement in German East Africa came about by the military isolation of one-third of his forces in the southeast corner of the G.E.A. These troops surrendered on the 28 November 1917. As far as the British were concerned the German East African campaign was over. But, earlier, on 25 November 1917, von Lottow-Vorbeck and the remainder of his army were facing almost certain extinction or capture, but managed to escape across the border into Portuguese East Africa - now Mozambique - at a point near Negomano. From here, aided by the inaction of an apathetic Portuguese colonial administration, he continued to wage a successful guerrilla war until the Armistice in 1918. Von Lettow-Vorbeck finally surrendered at Abercorn (now Mbala) in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) on 25th November 1918; his surviving army comprised of 175 Germans and about 3000 askaris.