The Storm That Shook the World

by Walter Soellner

  “So this is what happened. First of all Tanga is not a good town to invade from the sea because the bay is too shallow for transports, and there are a lot of coral reefs around. But the British thought the town was very lightly defended and would be easy to take … and you know what, Markus? It was! There were only fifty policemen in the town for the whole defense!” Levi let out a laugh, and Markus looked puzzled.

  “But this is the important part. The night before the attack, the enemy sent in a few lighters, shallow enough to come in close to shore to reconnoiter the landing sites. We spotted them and realized what was up, so they lost the element of surprise.”

  Levi was gesticulating as he continued, “Vorbeck heard this and immediately dispatched the 7th, 8th, 13th, 16th and 17th field companies plus HQ from around Kilimanjaro, down the railroad to Tanga. I was with headquarters company.” Levi smiled. “We arrived about four o’clock in the morning, in time to set up in-depth machine gun defenses between the town and the beaches.”

  Levi’s smile disappeared and his voice changed to a lower and slower cadence. “It was a disaster for them … a massacre really. We cut down whole companies of Indian troops, whole companies wiped out, along with their British officers. We learned later that their commander, General Aitken, didn’t even land any artillery or the sappers who had grenades and other explosives. And the Royal Navy Cruiser Fox was just off shore and didn’t fire a shot to assist in the landing of troops … not a shot! It’s hard to believe the level of incompetence among their general staff—apparently, too little planning and no coordination.” He threw up his hands and pursed his lips in an expression of silent amazement.

  Markus and Levi sat there discussing how an overwhelming force put together by the British High Command could have bungled such a comparatively easy target. The gross negligence in leadership, they agreed, could never occur in the Imperial German Army.

  “Finish the story, my friend. How did it end?” Markus asked. Levi closed his eyes for a moment.

  “The end was almost too painful for a professional military man to watch. It was pathetic, really. More Indian troops were landed, and as the earlier troops panicked and ran for the beaches, along with their black porters, through the ranks of the new arrivals, they must have demoralized the new troops! Only the 101st British Grenadiers and the Loyal North Lancasters fought bravely, but to no avail. By the end of the third day, a full retreat was called and an attempt was made for an orderly re-embarkation.” Levi paused a moment to take a drag on his cigarette.

  “At the end, it turned into a full panic … soldiers throwing away their new rifles and wading out into the sea, up to their necks, waiting to be picked up. Some Indian troops tried to swim to the transports and, I imagine, many drowned. Several of our men, using field glasses, actually observed these goings on. Later, we found out that orders were given that all supplies, ammunition, and even machine guns were to be left behind. It was mindless! Senseless!”

  “What a story!” Markus said. “It seems the British learned a hard lesson about our ability to defend this colony.”

  “Yes, and we gained much-needed supplies, equipment, ammunition, and rifles for our askari. We’ll need all we can get because they’ll be back!”

  The train slowed as it approached the town of Dar es Salaam. Levi continued to fill Markus in. “Since that failed invasion attempt at Tanga, things have been pretty quiet. We’re busy recruiting the white farmers and other colonials, with training camps all over the colony, and we’re enlisting large numbers of askari. We’re going out to the various tribal chiefs and getting them to assist in recruiting porters.”

  “Five minutes. Dar es Salaam in five minutes,” the conductor announced.

  Levi ignored him. “Vorbeck is going to need lots of porters. When the enemy invade again, as they surely will, this war will be fought in the bush, inland most times, and far from our railroads. Victory and survival will depend on transport of troops and supplies. Porters are about the only way to carry food and ammunition in this road-less, trackless country.”

  Markus accepted a cigarette and lit it using Levi’s.

  “At headquarters, last week, the colonel spelled out how we’re going to defend the colony. We’ll fight a hit-and-run war—no frontal battles, if we can avoid them, because of the numbers disparity. We’ll be outnumbered soon when they invade in force with the British to the north, the Belgians west, the South Africans to the South West, and the Portuguese to our south.” Levi looked serious with deep furrows on his face. Before he concluding, “And no outside assistance from the sea, now that the Konigsberg is gone.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Kalvarianhof, August 1915

  So much seemed the same as Katherina gazed out of their upstairs bedroom window at Kalvarianhof, the ancestral estate of the Levis. The lace curtains, freshly washed, were pulled back by her hand on which she wore her wedding ring. The same hand that had dug and scraped at ancient tombs and monuments in Mesopotamia a short twelve months ago, but now it had the slightest tremble when she looked out across the fields to the woods and thought of her husband far off in Africa. It had been a year since she saw him last in Baghdad.

  Her precious Levi’s last short telegram to her, now months old:

  AM SAFE. STOP. ALL IS WELL. STOP. AWAITING WORD ON MARKUS. STOP. LOVES ALWAYS. STOP. LEVI. STOP.

  She knew telegrams were kept short for military reasons and that, in fact, the relay stations in Togo, Cameroon, and German South West Africa had ceased broadcasting.

  But she hoped a letter or a message of some kind, possibly through a neutral country, would arrive. She waited every day for the sound of the postman’s bicycle on the gravel road ending at Kalvarianhof, but nothing came. Everything in her world was changing before her eyes it seemed.

  How could all this be happening, this war and the deaths? They said thousands, tens of thousands, of soldiers killed in this one year. And Papa, who fled Russia to Uruguay to save his sons, my brothers, from the Tsar’s army, now fears they’ll be called to service in the Kaiser’s army. What he and Mama must be going through!

  “Ah, there you are,” her father-in-law’s voice sounded reassuring. Otto approached her and also pulled back the curtain and looked out.

  “It’s always beautiful in the summer like this … everything in full season.”

  He glanced sideways at her and knew she was thinking of his son. He put his hand on her arm. “I know, I know. We’re all concerned about Levi and this war dragging on as it has.”

  She put her hand on top of his and forced a slight smile as he continued, “I truly believe he is safer in Africa than if he were fighting in France or Belgium or Poland. This trench fighting is terrible, a bloody hell for our boys. But East Africa is a wide-open country and with fewer people; surely the fighting doesn’t amount to much there. You mustn’t worry yourself so, Kathi.”

  He turned her from the window and added, “Let’s go down to the kitchen and see what Mama is cooking.”

  She nodded and took his hand as they walked down the hall to the front staircase, the floor boards creaking in the old house as they went. She was silent the whole way down, and he knew his words helped only a little.

  Otto Levi was right about the fighting in France and Belgium; it was hell. It was death and destruction for hundreds of miles along newly dug trenches that zigzagged across shell-cratered earth from the North Sea south to the Swiss border.

  In one year of war, the number of casualties was staggering. Hundreds of thousands were dead and untold numbers wounded. Not even Napoleon’s plundering of Europe all the way to Moscow, a hundred years earlier, had created such appalling numbers of casualties. It stunned civilians from Berlin to Paris, from St. Petersburg to London, and from Vienna to dozens of other cities.

  Gone was the euphoria of the first months of war, with young men rushing to enlist and their sweethearts cheering them on. Now the casualty lists were the dreaded focus, with families scanning the names, hoping th
eir trembling fingers did not stop at a name that would cause untold grief.

  In many ways, life went on as before at Kalvarianhof. The fields were tilled; the cows were grazed in the pastures and woods;, timber was cut in the forest but each month, fewer and fewer men were available to work the land. Even Otto and Freidl helped Willie and the few other farmhands with the work, mostly in the barn, taking care of the animals. And there were plenty to feed: six draft horses, two carriage horses, several milk cows, and a sow with nine piglets. Even Otto, in his senior years now, drove the farm wagon out to the fields during haying or cabbage harvest time, something he had not done since his youth. And when the crops were ready, he let it be known in town that he wanted to hire young girls and women to help.

  Enlistment posters were everywhere in the village, appealing to patriotic virtue but depleting farm workers. Military parades and recruitment drives stirred young men to do their duty. Chivalry was not dead, and the militarization of the country had gone on for a generation under Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II. It had prepared the population to serve the Fatherland. No one, in late 1915, conceived of the war going badly for Germany.

  “Anji is coming for dinner and bringing her new beau!” Frau Levi exclaimed as Otto swung open the door to the kitchen. She had a smile on her face as she busied herself helping the cook prepare fillet of carp with cucumber cream sauce. The cook chopped fruit for the apple carrot salad.

  “We’ll be served in the dining room. I laid the Meissen, the pattern with the roses; we haven’t used it in ages.” She hesitated and stopped work. “Not since Levi—since Levi …” her voice trailed off and ended with a sniffle.

  Katherina came over and hugged Freidl from behind and said almost exactly what Otto had told her a few moments ago up in the bedroom.

  “He’s safe. I know it, Mama. Africa is big, with few people. How could there be much fighting there?” She looked down at Freidl’s hands resting on the breadboard.

  “Dinner smells so good and—”

  “They’re here! Anji and her young man!” Otto said on hearing the bell. He headed for the front door.

  “Come, Mama, let’s go take a look at this new young man.”

  Anji flowed through the door as lovely as a summer dream. Her pastel green, floor-length summer dress flowed gently around her body as her companion, Rolf, followed. The first image the Levis had was of the obviously new military uniform.

  “Herr Levi, Frau Levi, Katherina, may I introduce Rolf Kepler, Lieutenant, North Bavarian Medical Corps, stationed in Nuremberg, and presently on a five-day leave.” Anji was all smiles. “We met in medical school in Munich.”

  Iron Cross

  CHAPTER 39

  1916: The Greater Peril

  Did you hear? Colonel von Vorbeck received the Iron Cross first class!” Markus, dripping wet, came huffing into the tent he shared with Levi.

  “The Iron Cross given by the Kaiser, for the Tanga victory? What an honor!” Levi replied. He sat on his folding chair, examining the railroad maps of the colony next to several candles in the gloom of a rainy evening. “Ja, well, you have two Iron Crosses. And one of those is also first class.” Smiling, he turned and looked up at Markus. “I suppose I should be grateful to be able to share a dry tent with you.”

  “A good point,” Markus said, “and I suppose that means you’ll wring out my wet clothes, right?”

  They both had a good laugh.

  Markus grew serious, “We just picked up several uncoded wireless messages. The Brits are bringing in native Nigerian and Gold Coast regiments from their colonies to beef up their ranks, now that Cameroon has fallen.”

  “That’s General Smut’s work,” Levi added, “He’s assembling a massive force for a serious invasion. Fortunately for us, the rainy season will last at least several more weeks, and nothing’s going to move in these rains.”

  The rains did stop, and the invasion did come with full intensity. The British navy landed at four sites along the coast and occupied the capitol city Dar es Salaam without a fight. Colonel von Vorbeck evacuated his troops on the eve of the landings. It would have been futile to try to hold the city, see it destroyed, against overwhelming odds. Levi and Markus, having seen the British fleet off the coast, moved out with headquarters company.

  “Don’t blow the bridge till you hear from me directly, Sergeant. We have to make sure everyone’s over, including the baggage train. Those supplies are vital,” Captain Levi shouted over the thunder of battle as the rear guard of the German forces retreated toward the doomed bridge.

  He was on the safe side of the gully the bridge traversed and could see the puffs of smoke shooting skyward as the coal- and wood-burning locomotive strained under an especially long string of boxcars crammed with military equipment and food from the abandoned city. The last several cars were flatbeds, piled high with sandbags and bristling with machine guns blasting away toward the invaders.

  “Hold! Hold—now!” commanded Levi, who, with others, ducked for cover as the last railcars crossed safely. The gully was deep and narrow. The blast charges were set at the base of the train trestle, and when it blew, the blast geysered almost directly skyward. Timbers and rails, rocks and trees and dirt mushroomed into the humid air and began raining down in a surprisingly wide circle.

  “Keep that train moving … Keep moving!” someone shouted. Several soldiers jumped over the sandbags of the end car and ran into the jungle for protection.

  The deafening blast and dust-filled smoke mixed with the sounds of assorted pieces of the trestle slamming down onto the rail bed and surrounding jungle. There was no more shooting from across the gully, but the German soldiers moved quickly out of sight and range of enemy guns.

  “Did you manage to collect the telegraph wire?” Levi asked Markus as they both crouched behind a thicket of dense, green foliage, staring across the gully.

  “Ja, we spooled most of it. It’ll be vital in maintaining communications when we’re in the bush.”

  They were silent for a few moments, and then Levi said, “Don’t you find it ironic that I came here to repair a bridge, and now I’m asked to blow them up?” He shook his head slightly in disgust. Markus said nothing.

  Over the next several months, the combined South African, British, Belgian, and native troops from India, Nigeria, and the Gold Coast pushed Colonel von Vorbeck’s army out of the northern half of the colony. But British and South Africans paid an enormous price in men killed, wounded, and, especially, sick.

  Some British regiments lost 60-70 percent of their strength, making those units unable to function as a fighting force.

  The war in German East Africa, for the invaders, became a war of survival, not from the war as much as against nature herself. Hundreds of troops were lost to lion attacks, elephant attacks, hippo attacks, and from snake bites, poisonous insects, and crocodiles. Nature took an appalling toll.

  Diseases like malaria, cholera, swamp blindness, and yellow fever killed or disabled thousands of men, requiring, in many cases, their repatriation home. The logistics were a nightmare for the British, with military units far out beyond their supply and communication lines. It often took weeks for a local commander to send a message to headquarters hundreds of miles away. In some areas of the German colony, extreme dehydration, even starvation, among British troops, was not uncommon.

  In addition, the British task of commanding a large army from several nations, many speaking obscure languages, was overwhelming. The fighting was over a vast, inhospitable geography of swamps, jungles, savannahs, and desert-like tracts, ranging in the thousands of square miles. There were numerous mountain ranges, with hundreds of rivers and streams. The two rainy seasons a year made it impossible to move supplies, equipment, and troops during these downpours. All this, while fighting a brilliantly led German colonial army on its own territory led by a guerrilla commander highly revered by both his white officers and his black askari soldiers.

  All the hardships and expended resources of
the British forces were exactly the goal and objective of Colonel von Vorbeck. To engage the enemy in hit-and-run attacks, to avoid entrenched battles where he was overwhelmingly outnumbered, and to tie up vast British resources in Africa for as long as possible was his only objective. British and South African troops and others could not be deployed to fight in France against the Fatherland—if they had to fight in Africa.

  Levi had a blanket around his shoulders to ward off the night chill. It was mid-January, 1916, and the rains were slacking off, with day temperatures in the seventies, evenings in the low fifties. Whenever their duties allowed, Levi and Markus tented together

  The dwindling numbers of able-bodied German troops continued in high spirits, even as the forced marches seldom eased up. It was a will of the wisp campaign, at least that’s how the British saw the campaign.

  Through good scouting, the Germans were able to choose when and how to attack, taking advantage of their knowledge of the terrain. In most cases, the strategy was simple: ambush, sustain attack until nightfall, then slip away, and be gone by dawn.

  The British forces were constantly in the position of having to react to German maneuvers, not knowing when or where the next battle would be. This type of warfare was very hard on the morale of the British forces. Many of them called Vorbeck a ghost, an apparition never to be caught.

  After one battle, a British soldier was captured, Lance Corporal Hopper of the 25th Royal Fusiliers. In his possession was his personal diary. Levi, one of the officers who questioned the young prisoner, “borrowed” the diary with the promise of returning it.

  “Here, Markus,” Levi ducked into their tent, “I just finished reading this. It’s the diary of one of the prisoners.” He handed it to his friend who rolled over in his cot.

  “What?” Markus rubbed his eyes.

  “It’s a prisoner’s diary. Very revealing, I think. The poor man just wants to go home … like the rest of us.”