by Edward Paice
All that could be done initially was for the British Consul-General in Lourenço Marques, Errol MacDonell, to keep close tabs on German comings and goings. This he did with quite outstanding efficiency and enterprise. One of his agents, Alan Black, established among other things that the Portuguese-German firm of Oswald Hoffman was in regular contact with the German Legation in Lisbon, that a German missionary wireless station in Port Nyassa was relaying news to German East Africa, that the Deutsche Ostafrika-Linie was stockpiling mangrove bark, and that in November a vessel belonging to the Empreza Nacional de Navegação was despatched by a German agent in Lisbon to Portuguese East Africa carrying medicines, leather, boots, socks and other vital supplies for the German war effort. But a letter sent in August by the manager of the Philippi shipping company in Beira to his superiors in Hamburg illustrates what MacDonell was up against. ‘The latest news I have received from German East Africa,’ it read, ‘states that our friends fighting there are well and cheerful. As you will have seen from the official news, things in the Colony are going well for us. The lack of munitions need now no longer be feared since the successful arrival of the Norwegian steamer [the Kronborg]. As far as I can judge, it seems certain that we shall manage to keep the colony.’12
Schnee’s boldest attempt to exploit the neutrality of his neighbours to the south was thwarted by MacDonell. In November 1914 Schnee had despatched an agent, Lothar Bohlen, to Portuguese East Africa with cables for Berlin, £1,500 in gold and a letter of credit for one million rupees (£50,000). His instructions were to open a supply line for khaki, petroleum, flour, chemicals and surgical materials, boots, 1,000 rifles and a million cartridges. What is significant about his mission was not the small quantities of these supplies which undoubtedly found their way into German East Africa before Bohlen was rumbled, but the way in which it was stymied by the British. Alarmed by the hot air emanating from Lisbon, Britain simply tightened the noose around Portuguese East Africa and by the end of 1915 the man who ran the colony, inasmuch as anyone ran it, was Errol MacDonell, supported by his agents and the Royal Navy. Bohlen, an employee of the Deutsche Ostafrika-Linie, found the Governor-General of Mozambique province ‘not inimically inclined towards the Germans, but his hands were tied on every side’; Britain owned the only cable between the province and Lourenço Marques; every ton of coal entering and leaving the colony had to be accounted for to MacDonell; and as the naval blockade became more effective the sea routes to German East Africa and from India – even for large dhows – were effectively closed. Bohlen’s pessimistic conclusion was that MacDonell ‘ruled autocratically in the colony’ over the verrottet – ‘degenerate’ – Portuguese, and that even exploiting Portuguese officials who were not ‘expressly inimical’13 to Germany would be fraught with difficulties.14 Although Palma remained ‘a centre of German intrigue’, and German influence continued to be ‘very strong’15 in the territory controlled by the Companhia do Niassa, inland from the coastal ports German smuggling effectively ceased.16
By late October 1915 MacDonell’s actions had proved so successful that, amid a crescendo of protests at the restriction of the free passage of mail through Portuguese East Africa, a German incursion into Portuguese East Africa was a distinct possibility. Even the infinitely resourceful MacDonell was not up to stopping a military threat single-handed, but at his behest HMS Hyacinth and an armed merchantman, the Laconia, were immediately ordered to stand by off Palma. For their part, the Portuguese were as worried about an ‘invasion’ from South Africa as one from German East Africa: rumours were rife that Botha was about to land a force at Palma which would attack von Lettow-Vorbeck’s southern flank in conjunction with a British force from Zanzibar.
TWELVE
‘Swallows and Amazons’
In December 1915, the key question for Spicer-Simson was whether the Germans knew about the arrival of his ‘secret weapons’ on Lake Tanganyika. For over a year Captain Gustav Zimmer’s 130-strong naval detachment, drawn from the crews of the survey ship Möwe (scuttled in Dar-es-Salaam harbour in the first week of the war), the Königsberg and Deutsche Ostafrika-Linie merchant ships, had held sway over Lake Tanganyika with just two small craft, the 60-ton gunboat Hedwig von Wissman and the 38-ton tug Kingani. It was these vessels, armed with the Möwe’s six guns, which had sunk the Belgian steamer Alexandre Delcommune and the British steamers the Cecil Rhodes and the Good News in 1914, and since then they had caused endless trouble to the Allies with forays from the fortress port at Kigoma.
In June 1915 German supremacy on the lake was further enhanced by the launch of the magnificent Goetzen, the Kaiser’s Central Africa flagship, and as fine a craft as would ever be seen on African inland waters. Her main importance lay in being large enough to ship 800–900 troops at a time anywhere on the lake, and her presence was felt by the Allies almost immediately. In September, she enabled General Wahle, still commanding von Lettow-Vorbeck’s Westtruppen – Western Force – in spite of the rebuff of his attack on Saisi, to move six companies in double-quick time along the Central Railway to Kigoma and then up the lake to Usumbura, from where they struck north towards Luvungi, the key Belgian position on the Rusisi ‘front’. On the night of 27 September the German force, led by Captain Schulz, crossed the Rusisi in pirogues and pounced on the Belgian garrison, defended by fewer than 200 men. All day the battle raged, and had Major Muller not been camped two hours to the west with a similar number of men from the Belgian II Bataillon, Schulz would almost certainly have succeeded in driving a wedge between Belgian troops around Lake Kivu and those stationed on Lake Tanganyika. The attack was eventually beaten off, but Luvungi was bombarded twice in October and intense pressure was maintained by the German troops on the Rusisi front even when the attack force was withdrawn and only two companies – von Langenn-Steinkeller’s Urundi Company and the 14th Reserve Company – were left facing the Belgians.
The speed with which half a dozen German companies from elsewhere in the colony had concentrated for the attack on Luvungi caused huge alarm to the Belgian military authorities; and when the Goetzen had been used in similar fashion in the attack on Saisi in July, the British also discovered just how vulnerable the Northern Rhodesia border was to amphibious operations launched with rapidity from Lake Tanganyika. German naval supremacy on the lake in effect conferred supremacy over German East Africa’s entire western borderlands, and when Major Olsen began moving the Belgian I and III Bataillons north from their positions covering the Northern Rhodesia border in November the German advantage in mobility became all too obvious: his troops would take two months to reach the Rusisi front on foot, whereas German troops could be moved the entire length of Lake Tanganyika in just four days on the Goetzen. The men of Zimmer’s naval detachment, the Möwe Abteilung, were proving their worth: though few in number they had responded to their wartime role with alacrity, and Zimmer’s network of African spies along the lakeshore was so extensive that he was always one step ahead of any attempt by the Belgians to counter his next foray. Furthermore, if Zimmer did know about Mimi and Toutou’s arrival on the lake there was a substantial risk that they would be attacked before they were even launched.
Zimmer would later claim to have heard a rumour about Spicer-Simson’s expedition as early as March 1915 (before John Lee had even suggested it to the Admiralty). Although his memory of the exact date may have been erroneous, Belgian telegraph messages intercepted in November and December confirmed growing suspicions that something was going on at Lukuga, the principal port on the Belgian shore of Lake Tanganyika. It appears that by then Zimmer had forgotten about the earlier rumour of a British naval expedition, or dismissed it as unlikely to pose any threat to the Goetzen; and his main concern was whether the Belgians were close to completing their own large steamer, the 700-ton Baron Dhanis. Such a sizeable vessel would not threaten him in his own lair at Kigoma, especially as two of the Königsberg’s guns had arrived by rail to protect the port. But Zimmer did not want anything to challenge the Goet
zen’s freedom of movement on the lake itself, and decided to mount one of the Königsberg guns on board, thereby rendering her practically invincible. With that, he turned his attention to discovering what exactly was happening at Lukuga so that he could institute what he described as ‘counter-measures’.1
Zimmer’s curiosity produced some extraordinarily daring exploits in late November. On one night he sent Lieutenant Odebrecht in a dinghy full of dynamite up the Lukuga River, and on another Lieutenant Rosenthal and Leading Seaman Müller even tried to enter the Belgian camp from the land side disguised as Africans. Both ruses were thwarted by Belgian and British vigilance, and Rosenthal’s subsequent capture of a patrol boat manned by a Belgian askari merely confirmed what Zimmer ‘already knew’2 – that work was proceeding apace on the Baron Dhanis. What he wanted were details and on 1 December the intrepid Rosenthal, an officer from the Königsberg, returned to Lukuga on the Hedwig and succeeded in photographing Lukuga at dawn from a distance of one cable. A building slip was clearly visible, but Rosenthal was forced to beat a hasty retreat before any further information could be gleaned as the six huge guns of the Belgian shore defences opened fire on the Hedwig. Undeterred, Rosenthal returned the next night and braved the storm surf and crocodiles to swim to within sixty yards of Lukuga’s slipway. When he was ready to leave, however, he was unable to see the Hedwig through the darkness and had to remain in the water until dawn; and when he finally spotted his boat it was steaming off to the north out of range of the Belgian guns. Rosenthal was left with no alternative but to swim ashore, into captivity; had he returned successfully from his mission, on the other hand, the existence of Mimi and Toutou would have been revealed. In addition to the Baron Dhanis, Rosenthal had also seen ‘the shapes of two motor boats at the slip’ – information which he recounted in urine on the back of an innocuous message which he succeeded in persuading the Belgians to send to Zimmer. The message did not reach Kigoma until months later, however, and the existence of the secret ‘addendum’ was not discovered until some time after that. Luck was once again on Spicer-Simson’s side.
By Christmas, Spicer-Simson had abandoned Lukuga for a new harbour he had been building at Kalemie, three miles south of the Lukuga River. Relations with his Belgian hosts had become strained after he was denied the opportunity to interrogate Rosenthal, and he had also decided that Lukuga was a highly unsatisfactory port. With the onset of the rains spectacular storms often blew up on the lake, and Kalemie offered much better shelter from the prevailing winds while still being protected by the Belgian shore defences. The weather was not Spicer-Simson’s only source of concern: the rains also brought more frequent bouts of malaria among his men, and disenchantment with life in grass huts, subsisting on a staple diet of bully beef and raisins, began to escalate. Spicer-Simson was sympathetic up to a point but reminded his crew that it was wartime – and that he had coped with far worse during three years on the Upper Yangtze. His stories, some taller than others, about his life on the ocean (and river) wave were by now a feature of camp life. So too was the khaki drill kilt that he had adopted as his ‘uniform’, the macabre tattoos from his time in the east which revealed themselves at bath-times, the monogrammed cigarettes, and a host of other idiosyncrasies.
Despite the daily discomfort, and the hard graft involved in constructing the new harbour at Kalemie, Mimi and Toutou were finally launched on Lake Tanganyika in the week before Christmas. It was a triumph for what would later be recognised as Spicer-Simson’s ‘indefatigable energy and inexhaustible resourcefulness’,3 and the tenacity of his team. Christmas Eve was spent mounting the guns fore and aft, ‘a long, hard day’s work’, and in trials the newly armed Mimi and Toutou were found to be capable of 13.5 knots. As this was fast enough to enable them to outrun the Goetzen and any other German vessel they might encounter, the news was greeted with considerable relief and the expedition celebrated with ‘a really good Christmas’.4 Spicer-Simson spliced the mainbrace – in the absence of Pusser’s Navy Rum a double tot of whisky was issued – and was pleased to learn that his Belgian counterpart, Commandant Goor, had decided to recognise his talents by placing all Belgian small craft at Lukuga under his command.
It was just as well that full watches were maintained throughout the festivities. Rosenthal’s capture had alerted Spicer-Simson to the possibility that ‘the enemy knew we were up to something’,5 and in somewhat unfestive spirit Zimmer had in fact despatched Captain Werner Schönfeld and his team of explosives experts across the lake. They had proved instrumental in defending the Rufiji delta during the Königsberg’s incarceration, and since the sinking of the German cruiser had been orchestrating the demolition raids against the Uganda Railway. But German supremacy on Lake Tanganyika was deemed so important by von Lettow-Vorbeck that he decided Schönfeld should be sent to assist Zimmer in putting paid to whatever the Belgians were up to at Lukuga; and at 6 a.m. on 26 December, just as Spicer-Simson was conducting Sunday prayers, the Kingani was spotted reconnoitring offshore. The service was hastily concluded, Spicer-Simson ordered the beat to quarters, and at 11 a.m. Mimi and Toutou were launched into the choppy waters of the lake. After a dogfight lasting just eleven minutes their first combat was over. Sub-Lieutenant Junge and four of the crew of the Kingani had been killed by the time she hove to, and at that moment the months of hardship borne by the men of the Lake Tanganyika Expedition suddenly all seemed worthwhile.
When the captured German vessel had successfully been beached Commandant Goor greeted Spicer-Simson with a kiss on both cheeks. ‘His embarrassment was extreme, so was our amusement’,6 wrote one of the British crew. A guard of honour was drawn up by Lukuga’s Belgian officers, buglers played a fanfare and the guns from one of the shore batteries fired a salute. Frank Magee, the expedition’s scribe, recorded that people ‘had flocked to the coast from inland villages to watch a spectacle they had never seen before . . . they covered every hill-top and crest along the coast, and when it became known that the German ship had been captured, their excitement knew no bounds’. Spicer-Simson was hailed as a ‘Great White Chief ’, and clay models of him were suddenly to be found everywhere.7 ‘Simson’s Circus’ had seemingly confirmed its entertainment value as well as its commander’s unstinting optimism, and a message arrived from London which read: ‘His Majesty The King desires to express his appreciation of the wonderful work carried out by his most remote expedition.’
After the German dead were buried with full military honours much valuable intelligence – about Kigoma, about the impress of African carriers, and about the forces ranged against him – was gleaned from his prisoners by Spicer-Simson. Not a word was said about Schönfeld and his team of explosives experts on board the Hedwig, which, in Zimmer’s words, ‘failed to get near [Kalemie]’8 and fled at the first sound of gunfire. But Salimu, usually the Hedwig’s stoker, confirmed that only the Hedwig and Goetzen now opposed Spicer-Simson and that ‘no ships [were] being brought up’9 from Dar-es-Salaam. Lieutenant Junge’s ‘boy’, an Angoni who’d been with him at Dar-es-Salaam, Tanga and in the Rufiji delta, also provided the disquieting news that the Goetzen now possessed a gun from the Königsberg. Armed with this information, there were to be no German ‘surprises’ for Spicer-Simson as had so often occurred elsewhere in the campaign. But he was now aware that the Goetzen could, if Zimmer so chose, heave to well offshore and systematically obliterate Lukuga and Kalemie.
It was fortunate for Spicer-Simson that Zimmer did not choose this course of action. Why he did not is a mystery, but his fears that the Baron Dhanis might have been made ready may well have acted as a deterrent, and the recall of Schönfeld’s explosives team by von Lettow-Vorbeck put paid to any prospect of blowing up Lukuga in a commando operation. It was also strange that Zimmer did not immediately investigate the disappearance of the Kingani – the only possible explanation being that the Goetzen was too busy transporting troops and supplies to Usumbura and the Rusisi Front and that he dared not risk sending the Hedwig: January was th
e storm season on Lake Tanganyika and the offshore waters would have been off-limits to any vessel smaller than the Goetzen. In the meantime, Spicer-Simson’s secret weapons remained secret and were soon joined by Fifi (the French equivalent of ‘Tweet-Tweet’), as the Kingani had imaginatively been renamed, which had her 6-pdr gun moved aft and a 12-pdr semi-automatic gun from a shore battery mounted on the foredeck. Measuring twelve feet in length, the gun’s recoil had the effect of stopping fifty-six-foot Fifi dead even when she was cruising at full speed.
Only on 8 February did Zimmer finally order the Hedwig to investigate the disappearance of the Kingani off Lukuga – and she too promptly vanished. In the morning of the following day distant gunfire was heard by the crew of the Goetzen, which was waiting at an offshore rendezvous, and when there was still no sign of the Hedwig at 1 p.m. the Goetzen steamed back to Kigoma. Zimmer would later write that ‘as we still knew nothing of any hostile [British] vessels, it was assumed that the Hedwig had approached too close to the shore batteries and had been destroyed by them’.10 What had really happened was that Spicer-Simson had unleashed four craft against the Hedwig – Mimi, Toutou, a Belgian motor boat known only as Vedette, and Fifi – the minute the alarum had been raised at Lukuga. In blisteringly hot and hazy conditions a thirty-mile chase had ensued, the Hedwig sometimes appearing to its British pursuers only ‘as a dark blob suspended above the horizon’.11 It was Mimi which first caught up with the Hedwig and, buzzing around her quarters like a mosquito and firing repeatedly, forced her to make continual changes in direction. In so doing, the Hedwig lost speed and came within the 7,500-yard range of Fifi’s heavy gun, capable of firing twenty-eight rounds a minute. At 11.15 a.m. the Hedwig, commanded by Lieutenant Odebrecht, went down in flames with the loss of seven of her crew. Fifi had scored forty direct hits out of sixty shells fired and les cruisers Spicer-Simson,as the Belgians referred to them, had won their second decisive victory on Lake Tanganyika.
