Tip & Run

by Edward Paice

  The South African victory over her German neighbour and Botha’s promise to raise further troops for the Empire’s war effort soon prompted the War Office to devote serious attention to its options in East Africa where, in the words of Major-General Callwell, the Director of Military Operations in London, ‘the enemy enjoyed such initiative as there was and the situation was an eminently unsatisfactory one’. Ever since Tanga the vexing question of ‘what was to be done’ had gone unanswered, not least because of more pressing priorities elsewhere, but now the possibility of deploying South Africans to ‘[come] to the rescue on the farther side of the Dark Continent, and of their getting our Indian and native African contingents . . . out of the scrape they were in’12 seemed to give genuine cause for optimism.

  The problem for Britain (and Botha) was that an election was approaching in South Africa, and the rebellion had not only made martyrs of its defeated commanders but involved the death of some 350 of their followers. At first glance this was hardly an extensive casualty list, but it was comparable to that of the entire German South-West Africa campaign and was therefore sufficiently long for Hertzog’s purposes. With renewed vigour he set about appealing to the many paranoid and ‘bully-boy’ elements of the South African electorate, and focused on undermining Botha by heaping vitriol on his more authoritarian, austere deputy, Jan Smuts.

  During the campaigning Smuts told his wife that he was certain that he must be ‘the most hated man in South Africa’. Labourites resented his handling of the economy and the strikes in 1913 and 1914 (when Smuts had been Minister of Finance), Nationalists accused him of having the blood of Afrikaner ‘heroes’ on his hands, and death threats arrived at his home almost daily. But this brilliant scholar and lawyer who had risen to be Kruger’s Attorney-General at the age of just twenty-eight, and had helped Botha to forge the Union, was as steely (and humourless) as Botha was jovial. He did not enjoy the loneliness and abuse, professing at one point that he ‘would like nothing better than to get out of this hell into which I have wandered’,13 but his determination to raise South Africa above the pettiness of fratricidal turmoil was as great as his ambition for the country. Like Hertzog, Smuts would never forget the ‘grievous wrong’ and ‘great misery’14 wrought by Britain during the Anglo-South African War. But like Botha, he was adamant that a ‘Greater South Africa’ could only be created alongside the British Empire, and that the German political system was ‘a menace to the world even worse than Bonapartism’.15

  Botha and Smuts carried the election, their South African Party winning fifty-four seats to the Nationalists’ twenty-seven. The predominantly ‘British’ Unionist Party took second place with forty seats. The result seemed like an overwhelming display of support for their stance on the war, and Botha immediately began to plan for a still greater South African involvement. Two high-ranking South African officers were despatched to appraise the military situation in East Africa and the situation that confronted them was distinctly gloomy.

  The ‘Brilliant Affair’ at Bukoba had been but a temporary fillip. Within a week of the destruction of the Königsberg, British troops had been given a severe bloody nose when they tried to eject a German force numbering between 600 and 800 rifles and commanded by Captain Vorberg and Lieutenant Merensky, from Mbuyuni, twenty miles east of Taveta. Mbuyuni was the German forward post for raids against both the Uganda Railway and a new military railway being constructed to support an eventual advance by British troops from Voi towards Taveta. By the end of June this line had reached Maktau, within a day’s march of Mbuyuni, and Tighe decided that Mbuyuni needed to be cleared of the enemy. Brigadier-General Malleson, who had nearly been killed during a patrol towards the German positions during May, and was only saved by the intervention of Subadar Ghulam Haidar of the 130th Baluchis, was ordered by Tighe to lead the attack on 14 July. Malleson was given 1,200 reliable troops – men from the Loyal North Lancs, 130th Baluchis, 29th Punjabis, KAR and the 2nd Rhodesians – with whom to seize Mbuyuni, but the attack went badly wrong. Colonel Vallings, commanding the 29th Punjabis, was killed, and on learning that British casualties were well in excess of 100 men the prevailing opinion among those who had taken part was that there had been ‘no military reason, tactical or strategical, for undertaking this hazardous attack on a known prepared position’. Tighe’s ‘impatience . . . [and] desire to do something’ attracted as much criticism as Malleson’s handling of the operation, which had achieved nothing more than ‘the strengthening of the already fine morale of the enemy’.16

  More ‘reverses’ followed soon afterwards. In August a British post on the mountain of Kasigau, thirty miles from Voi, was overrun; and the following month an attempt to retake Longido by a force 450-strong, led by Colonel Jollie, commanding officer of the 17th Cavalry, was beaten off after incurring heavy casualties. This latest Longido ‘Affair’ was immediately hushed up, for fear of further damaging the morale of British troops buckling before the ‘aggressive attitude of the enemy’s advanced troops’,17 the raids on the Uganda Railway and the effects of disease. At the end of August Tighe admitted to the War Office that although the ration strength of his force had swelled to almost 15,000 men over the summer, only 4,000 British and Indian troops and 3,600 askari of the KAR were actually fit for duty – a combined strength no greater than that of IEF ‘B’ almost a year earlier. Certain regiments, like the 13th Rajputs, had been so decimated by malaria and dysentery that Tighe had to declare them unfit for any further action; of the 1,100 men who had seen action with the 2nd Loyal North Lancs fewer than one in four had not been admitted to hospital at some point; while among the 2nd Rhodesia Regiment, for example, ‘nerves stretched to breaking-point [were causing] many breakdowns’.18 In Tighe’s estimation, the greatest strike force he could put into the field in British East Africa would comprise 2,500 infantry with eighteen field guns and thirty-five machine-guns; and he concluded that ‘against such odds as I have now to meet, if all my troops were fit, I could probably hold my own . . . [but] should the enemy make an advance on the [Maktau-Mzima] lines, a contingency which I regard as quite possible, the situation would be serious’. Furthermore, he warned Whitehall that the Königsberg’s guns had mostly been refurbished and were being deployed, as were the millions of rounds of ammunition, six field guns and modern rifles salvaged from the Kronborg. Given the circumstances, it is perhaps unsurprising that the courageous and determined, but hapless, Mickey Tighe began to earn a reputation for sporadic bouts of bibulousness.

  Von Lettow-Vorbeck, on the other hand, had every reason to be optimistic. By mid summer a recruitment drive for askari had raised the number of indigenous troops in the Schutztruppe to nearly 9,000 and the full mobilisation of German East Africa’s reservists had put some 2,000 European combatants into service on the various fronts. British Intelligence, which had improved considerably since Tanga under the direction of Captain Richard Meinertzhagen, reckoned that von Lettow-Vorbeck could actually field as many as 20,000 troops; and German armaments – sixty-six machine-guns and sixty field guns – gave their troops a considerable superiority in firepower. Thanks to a superior medical establishment and number of trained medical staff, who drew on the knowledge gained by German doctors in the course of two decades of experimentation and innovation in Africa, sickness rates among the German troops, European and African alike, were also considerably lower than those afflicting the British ranks.

  Meanwhile, Schnee’s administration was proving highly adept at coping with the shortages caused by the British naval blockade. In time, there would be almost nothing for which scientists working in laboratories at Amani, in the Usambara Mountains, and Dar-es-Salaam could not create a substitute. Candles were fashioned from beeswax; salad oil was made from pressed peanuts; soap was manufactured using charcoal, or soda from Lake Natron; ships’ lifebelts, euphorbia wood and corn cobs provided the wherewithal to make ‘cork’; and kifefe, a soup of salt and beef fat favoured by many askari, was found to be a potent balm for ridding dogs of
fleas. Most important of all, a foul-tasting quinine known as ‘Lettow-schnapps’ began to be locally manufactured from the bark of cinchona trees (and the Schulze brewery in Dar-es-Salaam had sufficient stocks of hops to see it through 1915). Efficient supply networks were also established to bring huge quantities of foodstuffs from all around the colony to Korogwe, Mombo and Neu Moshi, whence they were distributed to the front lines in the north-east. The resourcefulness and ingenuity of both von Lettow-Vorbeck and Schnee soon became known in the British ranks, and a rumour that they were even about to launch their own ‘home-made’ submarine began to circulate. Fanciful though this idea may have been, it was quite clear that German East Africa had no intention of capitulating in the same way as German South-West Africa; and Schnee publicly declared that ‘we won’t allow ourselves to surrender here – we shall fight to the last man’.19

  The prognosis of the two South African officers inspecting the situation in East Africa was mixed. Many aspects of the conduct of the campaign thus far were criticised, but their report concluded that von Lettow-Vorbeck could be defeated if sufficient numbers of South African troops could be raised for the task. In the meantime, however, Tighe had to consider the possibility that it might be his colony that faced imminent invasion, and his thoughts turned to persuading British East Africa’s settlers to take to the field once again. Settlers had done rather well, however, since most of them had been encouraged to return to their farms and businesses at the end of 1914. Certainly there were hardships: German East Africa was now a closed market, machinery was difficult to obtain from overseas, and many input prices had soared. The Leader even remarked in April that ‘women who were quite pretty in normal times suddenly became plain and uninteresting-looking’, developing what it called ‘knitting faces’.20 But African dominance of the agricultural sector was rapidly being eroded by the settlers, partly due to substantial investment made before the war, and partly due to a plentiful supply of labour: as the military labour requirement for Africans began to rise, exemption for those willing to squat on European farms and hire out their work became a popular way of avoiding military call-up. In order to lure the settlers back to the front, Tighe therefore needed help from someone who had real authority in the settler community; and he called on the services of Ewart Grogan.

  ‘Cape-to-Cairo’ Grogan had already distinguished himself as the British Liaison Officer with the Belgian forces, and was not only the most prominent businessman in British East Africa but also its finest orator. He readily agreed to make a ‘call to arms’ on Tighe’s behalf and his presence on 7 September 1915 at Nairobi’s Theatre Royal guaranteed a packed house for what would subsequently be heralded as ‘the greatest meeting in the history of British East Africa’. The evening began with a stirring performance from the orchestra and the singing of patriotic songs. Then Grogan, immaculate in his captain’s uniform, rose to his feet and the cheer from the 1,500-strong audience was deafening. Many minutes elapsed before he could begin his hour-long speech, delivered, as was his wont, without the assistance of a single note.

  Grogan began with a resumé of the war. He fulsomely praised the ‘magnificent work’ being done by fellow colonists from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa – a compliment which brought further cheers – and reminded his audience that the conflict in East Africa was ‘but a small part of the whole’. Many in the protectorate, he declared, had done what was expected of them, whereupon he singled out the exemplary bravery and loyalty of the askari of the King’s African Rifles. But many, he added, fixing on his audience a rapier-like gaze, had not. Indeed there were settlers who were ‘chaffering in the market, dodging about attending to twopenny-halfpenny bits of business and thinking of shambas’ instead of fighting, and there were officials happily tending their gardens and playing tennis on the Hill while continuing to draw salaries far in excess of the bob a day to which enlisted men were entitled. It was possible, Grogan mocked, ‘to walk into any club and see half a dozen men between twenty and twenty-five passively reclining in chairs with illustrated papers on their knees’; and he poured scorn on the Public Works Department, accusing it of doing nothing to help anyone at the front. Given the situation, in which so many were behaving like ‘white rabbits’, he asked whether it was any wonder that Andrew Bonar Law, leader of the Conservative Party and Colonial Secretary in Asquith’s coalition government, had pointed out that British East Africa was the only protectorate in the Empire that had called on outside help. This deplorable state of affairs, thundered Grogan, had to change.

  His rebuke was met – paradoxically – with ecstatic acclaim. Then, carrying the crowd with him, Grogan turned to exhortation. It was time for everyone to realise that ‘these were times of war, war – red war; not games’. Everyone, he stressed, had to be prepared to assume responsibility for some part of the war effort: conscription should be imposed, Provincial Commissioners should help to run the farms of absent settlers, and women should play their part to the full since it was well known that they were indispensable ‘if you want anything well done’. In short, it was time for sacrifice by all. With that, Grogan gestured to the chairman of the meeting, an American millionaire with a sixty-three-inch sword-belt called Northrup McMillan, and pointed out that he had offered Chiromo – a grand Nairobi home which he had leased from Grogan – as well as his farm at Juja for use as hospitals; and Grogan declared that he was ready to follow this magnificent example by offering his estate at Turi as a camp for women and children.

  Grogan saved his most emotive appeal for last: he asked everyone to realise that they were facing the ‘ultimate challenge’ and to ensure that ‘when the history of the war comes to be written and the children ask “what did your Daddy do in the war?”, let no man shrink from having the question asked. When we pass on our account of what we have done, let us be sure the answer from home will be “Well done thou babe of Empire”.’21 It took several minutes for the clapping, hollering and stamping of feet to abate, causing Mr Radley, the manager of the Theatre Royal, to worry that the roof might cave in. The meeting was then thrown open to the audience. Affirmations of loyalty were given by leaders of British East Africa’s Indian and Goan communities, three cheers were given for Grogan and, with a rousing rendition of the National Anthem, the meeting drew to a close. ‘I look on this moment as being the turning point in the history of British East Africa,’ Captain Meinertzhagen wrote in his diary. ‘The colony has found itself.’22

  By the end of 1915 1,000 settlers and over 300 officials were again on active service; and of the 1,200 adult males who were not, half were either unfit or too old for the rigours of bush fighting. ‘Stokers’ – those who kept the home fires burning with an eye to personal gain – became few and far between. Many years later, after Churchill’s famous exhortations during World War II, old men and women would look back to that night in the Theatre Royal and bestow upon Grogan the title of ‘Kenya’s Churchill’.

  By the end of November Botha had promised the War Office the services of five batteries of artillery, one mounted and one infantry brigade and a battalion of the Cape Corps (a unit of ‘coloureds’ raised in the Cape) for the East Africa campaign; and within a month the force was greater still. As an avid lover of auction bridge, Botha’s motto was ‘never make an original trump declaration unless you have either the ace or king of the suit’,23 and he meant to provide it. It was an act of considerable brinkmanship: a closer inspection of the election results showed that the South African Party had only polled 18,000 votes more than the Nationalists’ 77,000, and it was not long before rumours of a second rebellion began to circulate. Even the loyalty of the small Boer community in East Africa came under suspicion when one of their number, a Captain Wessels who had served in the East African Mounted Rifles, was found to have been spying for the enemy and was hastily deported to Ceylon.

  Encouraged by Botha’s optimism, and anxious to find some front on which it could secure a rapid and decisive victory, the War Office finally
began to pay attention to Tighe’s reports of a ‘radically altered’24 situation in East Africa. If von Lettow-Vorbeck launched an offensive prior to the end of the year, and Tighe’s ravaged troops gave way at Taveta and on the coast, the Germans could easily cut the Uganda Railway. Such a move, in the opinion of the War Office, ‘would probably be decisive’;25 and it would inflict irreparable damage on British ‘prestige’ in Africa. But there was nothing that could be done to counter it except ‘thrash [the situation] out thoroughly’,26 and await the arrival in East Africa of the first South African troops in the hope that they were not too late.

  On 12 November 1915 – almost exactly a year after Tanga – the Committee of Imperial Defence formalised its plan for a second attempt at invading German East Africa. Lord Kitchener wanted ‘nothing to do with it’ because he ‘looked on sideshows with no kindly eye’, the more so after the Dardanelles fiasco, and believed that humiliating Germany in the colonies would be to the detriment of any peace agreement. But his influence in the British War Cabinet was on the wane, and the prevailing view was that ‘this sideshow, even if it had begun in the interests of protecting British sea-power, had become both necessary and unavoidable’.27 The plan hastily drawn up by Whitehall required Botha to find at least 10,000 South African troops, a realistic possibility as recruitment was proceeding well; and also required him to approve the appointment of a commander in whom those troops would have confidence. This was not so easy for the South African Premier. The political future of Botha and Smuts, indeed the whole future of South Africa as a part of the British Empire, rested on a swift and decisive victory being achieved in East Africa at a cost in men and money comparable to that of the German South-West Africa campaign.