Tip & Run

by Edward Paice

  From the Njoro drift two ‘Peggies’, 4-inch naval guns salvaged from HMS Pegasus, opened fire on Salaita at 9 a.m., and this was the signal for the 4th Battery, positioned east of the drift, and the 5-inch howitzers and sundry other batteries which had moved up behind the South African left to commence their bombardment as well. But as Colonel Freeth pushed his battalion on under cover of the bombardment to within 300 yards of the closest German entrenchments he began to notice that all was not as he had been led to expect: the bombardment was not making the slightest difference and enemy rifle fire was ‘going along merrily . . . while [their] machine-guns were rattling furiously’. Worse still, it was not only obvious that the German defenders had artillery and machine-guns in greater quantities than Malleson had predicted, but their main entrenchments were around the foot of the hill – not on the slopes being ‘thoroughly searched’16 by the British guns. At 9.45 a.m. Captain Collas of the 2nd Loyal North Lancs’s Mounted Infantry reached the same conclusion on the east side of the hill, but a message sent back to the guns prompted no alteration in their pattern of fire until well after noon. Fearful of hitting the South African troops, many of whom were within a few hundred yards of the German trenches at the foot of Salaita, the gunners continued to fire at the hill-top fort, where the German and Mahommedan flags still flew defiantly, and its surrounding trenches.

  Despite the unexpectedly ferocious, and persistent, response from Salaita’s defenders, the South African battalions pressed on with their attack and casualties were surprisingly light. ‘It was difficult to see any enemy, and only occasionally was a black head seen for a second’,17 noted one South African; and the German machine-gunners had similar difficulties in picking out targets in the thick bush beyond their cleared fields of fire. To the right of the South African line, Colonel Molyneux, on approaching one such cleared area, requested permission from Beves to open 6/SAI’s formation. It was refused, with the result that when crossing the 100-yard strip the battalion came under concentrated German artillery fire. Like 7/SAI to their left, the battalion made it to the relative safety of the bush beyond the clearing and overran a German trench extending due north from Salaita; but in so doing the men were no longer in a position where they could be contacted by Belfield’s Scouts if they sent a messenger to warn of German reinforcements moving up from Taveta.

  Molyneux’s success in clearing even one German entrenchment was a considerable achievement: all the enemy trenches were ‘at least six feet deep, with steps up the sides to enable the riflemen to shoot through portholes, and thorn bush was stacked up in front to make a formidable barricade against the advancing troops’. Furthermore, as Sergeant Jones of 7/SAI observed, ‘between the lines of trenches the enemy had dug deep pits. The earth removed had been scattered around to hide all traces of digging, and each pit was covered by reeds and light sticks with a thin covering of grass laid on top of the whole. In the bottom of the pit, spiked stakes had been firmly driven, and barbed wire was entwined around the stakes, so that if a man happened to walk over this trap he would be precipitated into the pit and either staked or disembowelled.’18 The achievement of 6/SAI was not matched by the other South African battalions. Although 5/SAI and 7/SAI were within just a few hundred yards of the enemy they were pinned down by increasingly ferocious fire. Bullets ‘came sounding through the air like a swarm of bees’, and one ‘particularly annoying machine-gun [being] fired from the back of a mule [was] standing in a pit and covered over with bush and grass’. It was ‘practically impossible to locate him’, one soldier remarked, ‘but finally our armoured motor cars came to the rescue and, serving bursts of fire in likely directions, drove the mule out of its lair, the appearance of this strange “Jack-in-the-Green” being greeted with shouts of laughter by our troops’.19 Less amusing was the realisation that snipers, cleverly concealed as the South Africans had advanced past them, were now even firing at them from trees and anthills in their rear. At 11 a.m., with South African casualties mounting rapidly, Beves gave the order for 5/SAI and 7/SAI to fall back and Malleson ordered the East African Brigade, the General Reserve, to attack. Although the brigade was formed only from troops with plenty of experience of the conditions confronting them, its advance fared no better on the eastern face of Salaita. The 2nd Rhodesia Regiment’s attack was repulsed just before noon, the 2nd Loyal North Lancs were equally unsuccessful in their attempt to cross 500 yards of open ground in front of the German trenches, and soon after noon it was clear that neither battalion would be able to make any further progress – or to relieve the pressure on the South Africans to the north of Salaita.

  Von Lettow-Vorbeck was in constant touch with Kraut by phone as the battle unfolded, and even before the East African Brigade had launched their attack he had decided, just as he had done at Tanga, that ‘the favourable opportunity’ he sought ‘now presented itself ’.20 By the time he arrived at the front from Moshi, Schulz’s 6/FK, 9/FK and 24/FK had advanced from their positions between Salaita and Taveta and past the rear of a detachment of 15/FK to the west of the hill. In doing so, they outflanked Molyneux’s 6/SAI and all four of the German companies then began their counter-attack in earnest. No warning of this move from Belfield’s Scouts had been received by Molyneux and to the South African troops Schulz’s three companies seemed to have materialised out of thin air. Total confusion and disorder ensued as Molyneux, whose orders were to cover the withdrawal of 5/SAI and 7/SAI, found his battalion bearing the brunt of Schulz’s attack. It would never be clearly established whether Beves’s command to withdraw was issued before or after Schulz’s counter-attack began; what was certain was that it was a ‘very anxious time’21 for the South Africans, especially when recrossing tracts of open ground; and by the time von Lettow-Vorbeck arrived on the scene by car the entire South African Brigade had been put to flight. Their supporting artillery units simply had to ‘get out as best as they could’. In contrast to the bizarre eightsome reel being executed by the infantry as each battalion fought to counter attacks on the others, the guns at least pulled back ‘splendidly’.22 ‘I don’t know how we got out’,23 was the simple conclusion of a trooper with 7/SAI.

  In the first instance it was Lieutenant-Commander Whittall’s armoured cars – nicknamed kifaru (rhinos) by Africans who observed them for the first time – which saved the situation. Although for years after the battle von Lettow-Vorbeck dismissed reports of their presence on the battlefield as pure fantasy,* if the armoured cars had not been present the last stages of the battle ‘would have been a massacre’.24 The 1st East African Brigade was also instrumental in preventing the retreat from turning into a rout. At 1 p.m. they were ordered to move north to cover the South Africans and the 2nd Loyal North Lancs, led by Colonel Jourdain, and the 130th Baluchis, led by Major Dyke, did so in determined fashion. The 130th Baluchis stood firm in the face of a German bayonet charge, and Schulz’s counter-attack was stopped in its tracks. Malleson’s entire force then began to pull back towards Njoro drift, skirmishing all the way and skilfully covered by a light battery of two 12-pdrs and the 28th Mountain Battery. The last troops reached the drift at 6.15 p.m., and only then did ‘Heinie’s askari’, as they were referred to by the South African troops, relent.

  As daylight gave way to what was indisputably ‘a lovely cloudless night’, Sergeant Lane attended to the wounded and countless cases of sunstroke back at Serengeti camp. No one had eaten anything except a few biscuits before dawn, and the bedraggled men were hoarse from having had no water except the little they each carried to see them through an entire day of marching, fighting and retreating chaotically in the searing heat preceding the rainy season. ‘Our evening meal was not a jovial one,’ Lane remarked; ‘we were told to expect an attack.’25

  February 12 1916 was the South Africans’ Tanga, its ‘welcome to East Africa’ from von Lettow-Vorbeck. Like the Indian Expeditionary Force fifteen months earlier, the 2nd South African Brigade had now had their own experience of assaulting a heavily defended position,
deadly sniping from front and rear, and rapid counter-attack. With only one stretcher per company and the nearest dressing station 1,000 yards east of Njoro drift, 7/SAI was forced to leave thirty casualties in the field, and von Lettow-Vorbeck claimed his troops buried sixty men – just under half the South African Brigade’s 138 casualties. In military terms, even when the thirty-four casualties among the East African Brigade were included, the loss of life was not disastrously high. But in political terms it was a catastrophe for Smuts: in this single ‘reconnaissance in force’, which he had been led to believe would be virtually unopposed, one third as many South Africans had been killed and wounded as in the entire German South-West Africa campaign.* To add indignity to injury, Freeth’s 7/SAI had also lost 100 rifles during its retreat as well as a mass of kit and thousands of rounds of ammunition; and the day after the ‘First Salaita Show’ it was the 130th Baluchis and 2nd Loyal North Lancs who were sent out to retrieve as much South African equipment from the battlefield as they could find.

  ‘The despatch dealing with this attack on Salaita’, wrote one regimental historian, ‘is a model which might well be adopted by the Staff College when training its future Generals on how to gloss over unpleasant defeats.’ It read: ‘the enemy was found to be in force and counter-attacked vigorously. General Malleson was compelled to withdraw to Serengeti, but much useful information had been gained and the South Africans had learned some valuable lessons in bush fighting, and been given the opportunity of estimating the fighting qualities of the enemy’.26 More prosaically, and a full year after the battle, the South African Forces’ magazine remarked that ‘to say . . . the Salaita hill fight created a painful impression in South Africa is but mildly to express it, especially as it was many weeks before details were allowed to come through’.27 ‘Far from Salaita I want to be / Where German snipers can’t snipe at me’ became a familiar ditty around South African campfires in East Africa; and it was four months before the Johannesburg Star carried any detailed news of ‘an action the story of which will never be told in its entirety’. ‘The loss in human life was small,’ the editor conceded, and there were individual ‘incidents in [the action] which redeemed a generally dark day’.28 But the damage to morale at home and in the ranks was substantial. The myth of invincibility which had accompanied victory in German South-West Africa – the fledgling Union of South Africa’s first war – lay in ruins.

  The recriminations began immediately. There were plenty among the British and Indian troops who found some vindication of the shame of Tanga in seeing the newly arrived, some thought cocky, South Africans ‘run like so many sheep’29 for want of discipline;* and even Vere Stent, editor of the Pretoria News, agreed. While pointing out that ‘a retirement in the face of a pursuant and victorious enemy is the most trying task that can be imposed even upon veteran soldiers’, he conceded that ‘the South Africans retreated with unnecessary hurry’.30 For this, Beves’s reputation as a cautious commander lay in tatters: for the rest of the war he would frequently stand accused of recklessness, and his battalion commanders were bitterly critical of his decision to make them advance in massed ranks as if he were repeating his successful 230-mile march from Karibi to Otavifontein during the campaign in German South-West Africa (a feat accomplished in just sixteen days, but over open ground). The ‘reconnaissance in force’ was of course not of Beves’s devising; and, in his defence, he had correctly identified many of its potential shortcomings, made it clear that he thought he was a battalion short, and was compromised by a bombardment that had been ‘wrongly directed, and was therefore quite ineffective’.31 Nor was Malleson’s woeful under-estimation of the strength of the enemy any fault of Beves’s; and Malleson, of all people, should have known how quickly and effectively von Lettow-Vorbeck could counter-attack after witnessing the disaster at Tanga.

  As for Mickey Tighe, he had been desperate to seize Salaita and to present it as a trophy to Smuts. Given the numerical advantage of his force, victory should have been attainable. But even eighteen months after Tanga too little had seemingly been learnt about von Lettow-Vorbeck’s tactics and capability, British commanders continued to adhere too rigidly to inappropriate field regulations, and in choosing Malleson to command the attack, because of rank not record, Tighe made a fateful error. As a result of Salaita Malleson became universally condemned as a man who, whatever his abilities as a Staff officer, ‘ought never to have been given a command in the field’32 – yet within a month he was inexplicably to be given another chance (with equally disastrous consequences). In the meantime Tighe, as if in as great a state of shock as the battered South African troops, waited four whole days before informing the War Office of the outcome of the battle. The response from Kitchener, whose attention at the time was first and foremost on the desperate defence of Verdun, was predictably censorious: ‘I hope that the necessity of not undertaking premature operations, unless circumstances absolutely compel you, is realized by you.’33

  SIXTEEN

  The ‘Robbers’ Raid’1

  Jan Smuts arrived in Mombasa on 19 February 1916, and was not best pleased with the news that greeted him. In November the two South African officers sent to Nairobi to study the situation in East Africa had come to the conclusion that the campaign could easily be finished in ‘a few months’;2 and the capitulation of German troops in the Cameroons on 15 February had briefly seemed like a favourable portent. But as he boarded the train in Mombasa station the full details emerged of how Tighe and Malleson had landed him with a defeat before he’d even arrived in the country. The effect on the morale of his volunteer army and the political situation back home was little short of disastrous.

  Smuts immediately set off on a tour of both the Longido and Taveta fronts, and made one important change to the troop dispositions by moving van Deventer’s Mounted Brigade from the former to the latter. Smuts wanted his old comrade ‘Jaap’ close at hand, and was sure that he could be a great deal more useful in turning German positions around Kilimanjaro, no matter how difficult the terrain, than crossing the open steppe between Longido and Mt Meru; and he knew that the advance against Taveta would be the most important element of his invasion plan. In all other respects he adhered to the plan agreed between Smith-Dorrien and the War Office, though he dismissed the option of launching a coastal ‘demonstration’ by the Royal Navy at the same time as unfeasible. This was understandable: Smuts had no experience of naval landings, Tanga had proved an object lesson in their potential shortcomings, and he was desperately short of time if he wanted to strike a major blow against his opponent before the rainy season. But his decision was fortunate for von Lettow-Vorbeck, who feared a simultaneous attack on Dares-Salaam or Tanga more than anything.

  By 23 February Smuts reported that he was confident of ‘turning the enemy out of the Kilimanjaro and Meru areas’3 before the rains, and the following day his plans were duly approved by the War Office. (See Appendix Three.) His gamble with the weather would have backfired disastrously had the rains arrived early, but it was still dry ten days later and, with the arrival of the Cape Corps and the 3rd South African Infantry Brigade, his forces were complete and at the ready on 4 March. The next day General Stewart began his advance with the 1st Division from Longido, traversing thirty-three waterless miles at night to reach the swamp at Engare Nanyuki by dawn on 6 March, and later the same day Nagasseni Hill was occupied by Stewart’s mounted column. It was a considerable achievement, reaching his first objective a day earlier than he had agreed with Smuts to leave Longido. But its effect on Stewart’s troops was to have important consequences. The regimental historian of the 129th Baluchis described how

  this march . . . over semi-desert country, in a tropical sun, in column and on a strictly limited water supply, was an extremely exhausting task requiring good march discipline. All the troops, except a small number in the advance guards and on the flanks, were enveloped in a thick haze of dust from the moment the march started until the halt, at the end of the day. Only those wh
o have done such marches know what they mean. It is one thing to picture war in terms of smartly aligned columns marching on good roads, it is another to see the reality – columns of filthy, sweating men, staggering with fatigue, at the end of such a march, and with parched mouths gasping for water. And to see these troops, in such a condition, pull themselves together for battle with an entrenched enemy, is to see real soldiers and to know the meaning of discipline.4

  On the Taveta front, van Deventer’s Mounted Brigade and the 3rd South African Infantry Brigade – Smuts’s ‘Flanking Force’ – were despatched northwest at dusk on 7 March in a wide turning movement towards Lake Chala which, it was hoped, would dislodge German troops from Salaita Hill without a repetition of the previous month’s fiasco; and Tighe, with the all-British 2nd Division, was detailed to march past Salaita, clearing it of any remaining defenders, and on to the Lumi River to the east of Taveta. At dawn on 8 March the South African troops were at the Lumi, which was bridged by the 61st Pioneers, and most of the infantry were across by midday while the mounted troops moved against German positions to the north of Lake Chala. Little resistance was offered to either as the German troops fell back on Taveta, and that same afternoon Tighe unleashed ‘a hurricane of artillery fire’ on Salaita Hill. There was to be no second battle there. On 9 March Tighe’s troops found the hill unoccupied, and without any detectable trace of irony he wrote that had it been otherwise, this ‘truly formidable [position] . . . would have cost us 1,500 men’.5 Smuts’s turning movement had worked, although it was unfortunate that the retreat from the hill by 1,000 German troops was not intercepted, and on the morning of 10 March Kraut also withdrew from Taveta through the forest to two hills commanding a nek through which ran the main track from Taveta into German East Africa.