Tip & Run

by Edward Paice

  TWO

  Phoney War

  Sir Henry Conway Belfield, the Governor of British East Africa, had not only the appearance but also the dwindling faculties and preoccupation with health matters of a much-loved grandfather. After a long career in the Malay States Nairobi was an exacting posting for a man in the twilight of his career. Its climate was infamously enervating, and the persistent (and vociferous) demands of its European settlers were a source of more or less continual friction with the Colonial Office. War simply complicated Belfield’s life still further, and his role as commander-in-chief was not one to which he took with alacrity. His principal wish was that sufficient troops would be sent by the mother country to subdue his increasingly aggressive Teutonic neighbours swiftly. Then his life could revert to normal.

  In the meantime the lack of authoritarianism and dynamism displayed by Belfield was in marked contrast to that of Schnee and von Lettow-Vorbeck. Although a lawyer by training, his enforcement of martial law was extraordinarily lax. Mail went largely uncensored during August and September, and the process of deporting German civilians resident in the colony did not begin until October. In German East Africa, a Greek discovered sending signals to British troops from the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro was hanged within days of his capture. But a report of the existence of a German ‘cell’ operating from Kijabe Sanatorium, which overlooked the Uganda Railway less than fifty miles from Nairobi, was not followed up by the British authorities for months; even then the spies were merely deported, despite having been caught in possession of 20,000 rounds of ammunition and twenty-one assorted firearms. Belfield’s oversights could not be attributed to British policy: on Zanzibar the censorship of civilian mail, and the rounding up and hanging of spies, began on the very first day of the war.

  Given the overwhelming numerical superiority of German troops and weaponry, Belfield’s initial refusal to let any government officials enlist was also ill-judged. Settlers, many of whom were former army officers or registered reservists, had emerged from the bush to sign up in droves in the first week in August, much to the Governor’s surprise as he had no idea there were so many ‘active, intelligent, and adventurous young officers . . . stationed on our side of the frontier’.1 Yet even by the end of the month, when volunteers accounted for more than a third of the 1,622 rifles available for the colony’s defence and the civilian population was well on the way to being fully mobilised, only a handful of officials with skills desperately needed by the newly formed intelligence, medical and veterinary corps had been released for military duty.* Meanwhile the majority of civil servants continued to draw their salaries and to take leave as the first settlers fell in combat. The antagonism this caused was considerable, the more so as the entire European population of British East Africa was no greater than 4,000 men, women and children – the size of a small town at ‘home’.

  Belfield’s lackadaisical attitude and his overarching confidence in the imminent deliverance of a ‘knock-out blow’ to German East Africa soon became infectious. Mr Bremner, a mechanic in the railway workshops in Nairobi, wrote to his mother as early as 20 August telling her that ‘we are going to take over German East Africa . . . eight battalions are coming from India to do the job’;2 and a Boer War veteran who had remained on his farm was roundly dismissive of German tactics in a letter to his sister written soon after the ‘Taveta Affair’. ‘I don’t understand the German scheme of campaign in these parts,’ he wrote; ‘they seem to be sending small forces here there and everywhere – more like sort of raiding forces than forces attacking with any idea of conquest. I suppose they have been told by their Colonial Office to fight, and think that any old sort of fighting will do, knowing that it will all be the same in the long run.’† Most damaging of all was Belfield’s failure to encourage reconnaissance across the border at a time when forays were still just possible.

  Belfield’s confidence was not entirely fanciful. On 25 August Germany lost its first colony in Africa when Togo surrendered to an Anglo-French expeditionary force, and on 1 September the 29th Punjabis, the first of more than 2,000 troops comprising Indian Expeditionary Force (IEF) ‘C’, arrived in Mombasa. The force was commanded by Brigadier-General ‘Jimmie’ Stewart, a former Commandant of the 5th Gurkha Rifles with a reputation for being ‘a safe pair of hands’; and by 6 p.m. that same evening the first troops of the 29th Punjabis were already on a train bound for Voi accompanied by a 12-pdr naval gun from HMS Fox. Four companies of each of the Jhind, Bharatpur, Kapurthala and Rampur Imperial Service Troops – the armed forces of independent Indian potentates – a Volunteer Maxim Gun Company, the Calcutta Field Battery and the 27th Mountain Battery followed, and by mid September had been ordered to take up positions protecting the Uganda Railway. (See Appendix Two.) IEF ‘C’ was not quite what Belfield had hoped for: due to the more pressing requirements of the war in Europe and the Middle East the invasion of German East Africa, originally planned for 28 August, had been delayed until more troops could be mustered in India. But it was sufficient for Belfield to declare the situation ‘entirely satisfactory’3 pending the despatch of a larger invasion force which would have ‘every prospect of success’. His ‘period of great anxiety’4 seemed to be over.

  The arrival of IEF ‘C’, of which he was fully aware, provided the final confirmation for von Lettow-Vorbeck that Britain intended to ‘quietly snaffle’5 German East Africa; and if his principal foe was underestimating both his resolve and ingenuity, that suited him well. In addition to his previous experience of campaigning in Africa von Lettow-Vorbeck had been entrusted by the Imperial General Staff with conducting a study of the military requirements of Germany’s African colonies a decade before; and on arrival in German East Africa he had immediately set off on a reconnaissance of the entire country with a view to ensuring that its defence scheme was on a proper footing. With a trained force of just over 5,000 police and askari even before he had mobilised German East Africa’s civilian reservists, he not only had a considerable superiority over British East Africa in manpower but also in machine-guns and artillery.* But the task of mobilising them to best advantage was fraught with complications as the troops were spread all over a colony encompassing almost 400,000 square miles – an area twice the size of the German Reich – whose borders were ‘almost half as long again as all the [future] battle-fronts in Europe put together’.6 Von Lettow-Vorbeck was therefore barely exaggerating when he claimed that to move a single company ‘required about the same consideration as would a division in Germany’7 and, although he had persuaded Schnee to agree to moving ‘the bulk of our forces to the north-east’,8 he was yet to convince the Governor that the only role for the civilian government in war was one of unquestioning support for his strategy.

  By mid August the German field companies stationed at Dar-es-Salaam, Ujiji, Tabora, Usambara and Kissenyi were concentrated at Pugu, outside Dares-Salaam, and those from Kondoa-Irangi and Arusha at Moshi, to the south of Mt Kilimanjaro. But the next phase, marching the former grouping north, could not possibly be completed before September. Communications systems between HQ and the newly deployed units needed to be set up; a line of supply established from Morogoro to the north-east; roads had to be built from Morogoro to Korogwe, from Dodoma to Kondoa-Irangi through to Arusha; and a trolley-line built from Mombo to Handeni via Mkalamo.* All this took time, completely precluding a full-scale attack during August and providing the answer to a question posed subsequently by the editors of Nairobi’s The Leader – namely, why ‘the Germans did not take full advantage of their opportunity and wreck the Uganda railway, destroy the telegraph and occupy Voi and Mombasa, thus cutting off [British East Africa and Uganda] from outside help’.9

  While all these preparations were under way, with increasingly enthusiastic assistance from civilians and government officials alike, von Lettow-Vorbeck was determined not to let the British consolidate their defences across the border. During September Taveta was used as the launch post for a multitude of daring German r
aids across waterless terrain to the Uganda Railway. Armoured trains were placed on the line and British troops patrolled the most vulnerable stretches closer to the coast as best they could, and sharp engagements occurred on the Tsavo River, at Mzima Springs and at Campi Ya Marabu between rival forces numbering hundreds of rifles. At night the task of the British patrols was particularly exacting, not least due to the presence of huge numbers of lions, and many of the German raids went undetected.

  The closest that any incursion to British East Africa came to resembling a full-scale invasion was the advance of Captain Baumstark’s 15/FK, 16/FK and 17/FK towards Mombasa in late September, wreaking havoc throughout the southern coastlands. Baumstark’s 600 men were accompanied by the ‘Arab Corps’ of Mbarak, a slave trader whom the British had expelled some years earlier, and they began by attacking a British fort at Majoreni on 25 September. After putting up a stout defence its small garrison fell back on Gazi, only twenty-five miles south of Mombasa, to await reinforcements; and until they arrived the safety of Mombasa rested solely in the hands of Captain Wavell’s British ‘Arab Corps’, 300 or so Swahilis raised from Mombasa jail and the bazaars of Malindi and Lamu.† For ten days Wavell and a small detachment of 3rd King’s African Rifles (3/KAR) recently shipped by sea from Jubaland, the north-eastern province of British East Africa, resisted all German attempts to push on to Mombasa; but women and children were moved inland from the port, all specie was packed up, the Uganda Railway’s rolling-stock was removed, and the Town Guard prepared for a visit from the Königsberg.On 8 October Baumstark launched what was to be his final attack on Gazi, only to be foiled by the arrival of Captain Hawthorn with three companies of 1/KAR. In the ensuing battle Wavell and Hawthorn were both severely wounded, but Baumstark was denied his ‘golden opportunity’* to march on Mombasa and British troops pursued his force right back to Majoreni and Vanga. For the time being Mombasa, British East Africa’s principal port and the railhead of the Uganda Railway, was safe.

  September also witnessed attacks far to the west, the most alarming occurring when Captain Wilhelm Bock von Wülfingen, an officer who was visiting the colony from the Schutztruppe General Staff in Berlin, led 7/FK from Bukoba district and marched straight into British East Africa to seize the undefended British boma at Kisii, in the hills to the east of Lake Victoria. A prompt response by Captains Thornycroft and Lilley with three companies of 4/KAR saw Kisii retaken after a very fierce battle which cost Thornycroft and seven askari their lives, but grave concerns lingered about the likelihood of a follow-up attack on the Uganda Railway’s terminus on Lake Victoria at nearby Kisumu.

  In Uganda the situation was considered equally precarious. Even by comparison with British East Africa, it had been unprepared for participation in an inter-colonial war: in August 1914 two of the colony’s four companies of 4/KAR were mounting an expedition against the Turkana in northern British East Africa and its tiny settler population was in no position to raise a volunteer force comparable to that of neighbouring British East Africa. The first three months of the war were therefore adjudged ‘somewhat critical’10 in Uganda as the military authorities endeavoured to defend their 180-mile boundary with German East Africa with 200 European and Indian volunteers and 3,000 Baganda spearmen (with a further 15,000 in reserve). In contrast to the situation in British East Africa, a majority of government officials were also released for military service, and the combined defence force had succeeded in driving a large German detachment back over the Kagera River at the end of August. An elaborate system of watchposts along the river was then developed, and much-needed reinforcements were finally made available by the arrival of IEF ‘C’ in British East Africa. But even then Uganda’s commanding officer judged the colony’s defence plan with the words ‘so much for the idea’.11

  Not all the raids launched by German troops were at the direct behest of von Lettow-Vorbeck, who was fully occupied in effecting his troop concentration in the north-east. His personal diary merely noted the casualties resulting from Baumstark’s action on the coast, and German officers in the more distant reaches of the colony continued to act with a considerable degree of independence.* One such action, led by Schutztruppe veteran Major Erich von Langenn-Steinkeller, exactly mirrored von Lettow-Vorbeck’s capture of Taveta, a dozen miles inside British East Africa; and if equally successful it would have resulted not only in the seizure of control of the whole of British Nyasaland but would also have avenged the disabling of the Hermann von Wissmann.

  Von Langenn-Steinkeller’s sights were set on Karonga, whose District Commissioner, Mr Webb, had had a worrisome time since the ‘naval victory’ on Lake Nyasa. Nyasaland’s entire European male population, in a country of one and a quarter million Africans, was just 500, so there was not much of a volunteer defence force to augment the presence of a company of 1/KAR as rumours of an impending attack from across the border grew increasingly persistent: the total number of men available to Captain Barton, commanding the company of 1/KAR, was only about 400. But on 7 September Barton decided on a sally towards the border, deliberately avoiding the main track along the lakeshore, to see if he could ascertain the intentions of the enemy’s 5/FK stationed near Neu Langenburg.

  At exactly the same time von Langenn-Steinkeller was leading 5/FK, supported by 500 African levies, across the Songwe River into Nyasaland at Ipiana. Part of his force, led by Lieutenant Aumann, looped to the west while von Langenn-Steinkeller headed straight down the lakeshore track. Eighteen miles of flat plain lay ahead of him and at some point on 8 September, with Barton’s Nyasaland Field Force moving through wooded country a little to the west, the two passed within a mile of each other. Barton, unlike his German counterpart, learnt of the proximity to the enemy; but for reasons that would long be hotly debated he pressed on northwards leaving von Langenn-Steinkeller to continue on his way and attack Karonga, where Barton had left Lieutenant Bishop and a garrison of just seventy rifles, the next morning. The battle, like that at Kisii, was surprisingly fierce in the opinion of many a volunteer who had been lamenting that they seemed ‘right out of the way of all the fun that [was] going on at home’.12 Some would later say that it was an aged muzzle-loading cannon in Karonga which swung the tide, although its first shot had only ‘carried the length of a tennis court’;13 altogether more decisive was the fact that when Barton first heard gunfire from the direction of Karonga he immediately despatched a relief column there. The reinforcements fell on the German force, over 800 strong, among the long grass and banana groves outside the settlement, and forced von Langenn-Steinkeller to retreat. On the road north his troops ran straight into Captain Barton’s other columns, well concealed in the thickets either side of the road. The German force was routed: casualties among the African native levies were severe, but those incurred by 5/FK were a staggering seventy per cent. Among them, von Langenn-Steinkeller was himself seriously wounded and later lost the use of one eye. British casualties amounted to thirteen killed and forty-nine wounded in this rare example of a battle fought as both commanders were returning to base; and Lieutenant Bishop won the first Military Cross to be awarded in East Africa.

  Northern Rhodesia was also seriously threatened for the first time in September, and its capacity for defence looked even more precarious than that of Nyasaland. As a British territory administered by the British South Africa Company, as opposed to the Colonial Office, it was not allowed to maintain a standing defence force and the outbreak of war with Germany found it with just five companies of African paramilitary police and two of district police – a total of 800 men – with which to counter any incursions. It was a tall order: Northern Rhodesia encompassed 275,000 square miles and its border with German East Africa, running from Abercorn to Fife, was 200 miles long. Nor were there many volunteers available as fewer than 2,300 Europeans resided among the country’s 850,000 Africans.

  The first attack on Northern Rhodesia came from the direction of Lake Tanganyika, controlled by the Germans since the sinking of the Bel
gian steamer the Alexandre Delcommune. As was the case at Kisii, the simultaneous assault was led by a chance visitor to German East Africa: retired General Wahle had recently arrived from Europe on the SS Feldmarschall and was enjoying a holiday with his son when war broke out. Now, having offered his services to von Lettow-Vorbeck, Wahle found himself leading a force of 100 askari and 250 ruga-ruga against Abercorn. Wahle’s first attack was beaten off by the garrison’s forty Northern Rhodesia Police askari, commanded by Lieutenant J.J. McCarthy, but the German troops then put Abercorn under siege and only after Major Stennett arrived with 100 reinforcements on 9 September – having completed a ninety-nine-mile march from Kasama in just sixty-six hours – was the town’s safety assured. Stennett was awarded the DSO for his feat, and after Wahle was chased back across the border he was summoned to the north-east by von Lettow-Vorbeck to oversee the immense and complicated logistical requirements of the main German force.

  Despite the success of the Northern Rhodesia Police askari in countering Wahle’s incursion, it was clear that they would be unable to withstand a more determined attack. The Belgians in the Congo’s mineral-rich Katanga province were therefore asked to provide assistance, and Major Olsen soon arrived with 500 askari of the Force Publique to bolster the Northern Rhodesian defences. Hundreds of miles to the south, where Northern Rhodesia marched with German South-West Africa along the so-called Caprivi Strip, the NRP also moved to counter any threat to Victoria Falls by seizing Schuckmannsburg in late September in a joint action with Southern Rhodesia’s British South Africa Police. It was a horrifying outpost to have to occupy: Lieutenant O’Sullevan of the NRP lamented that the Caprivi bred ‘the largest, most vindictive, and venomous mosquitoes I have seen . . . in the wet season it is a swamp and unhealthy; in the dry weather the heat is terrific, whilst the sand is deep and uncomfortable to walk in’;14 but by the end of December, to the great relief of its garrison, the possibility of an attempt by German troops in South-West Africa to link up with their compatriots in East Africa appeared to have diminished.