Tip & Run

by Edward Paice

  Northey’s Christmas offensive soon put paid to the festivities. The rains had arrived early, and as his troops assembled in the pouring rain and pitch dark they could not muster much enthusiasm for carols extolling the virtues of ‘peace on earth and good will to all men’. Murray’s Rhodesians swept down the Ruhudje Valley with the intention of seizing the crops around Ifinga, fifty miles south-east of Mkapira, and soon Wahle was pushed back to the Ruhudje. The conditions were grim, with rain falling almost continuously, and the British soldiers were required to subsist on little more than a biscuit a day. As they advanced they were sniped at continuously at all hours of the day and night.

  By the middle of January 1917 Wahle had been pushed back over the Ruhudje at Mkapira and then assumed command of all German troops concentrated on the Mahenge plateau. On 24 January Kraut’s companies abandoned their positions, narrowly avoiding encirclement by Murray, and they retired onto the plateau around Gumbiro before being ordered by Wahle to occupy the region between Ifinga and Mpepo, on the lower Ruhudje. Meanwhile Wintgens was sent south to Kitanda, near the source of the Luwegu River. The defeat at Mkapira in October had, in the opinion of his opponents, caused Kraut, von Lettow-Vorbeck’s principal commander in the defence of the north-east earlier in the year, to lose his nerve. As one officer later recalled, ‘his force was now thoroughly demoralised, and would not face us at any cost’.15 In his new position, the impending harvest would at least enable his troops to survive while the opportunistic Wintgens could reconnoitre the possibility of raiding British convoys on the Songea–Wiedhafen road, or even attacking Songea itself.

  At the north end of the plateau, van Deventer’s advance against Lincke, the former Deputy Chief of the colony’s police, was equally indecisive. As an officer with the remnants of 4/SAH remarked, ‘the capture of [Lincke] looked easy enough on paper, and . . . van Deventer had the enemy surrounded on the map with a ring of indelible pencil. But having seen the forest, the deep gorges, and the size of the country in which we were to operate, I was not so sure.’16 The aim was to get in the rear of Lincke’s three companies at Muhanga Mission. Lincke, however, proved ‘too clever for that’ and any further pursuit was mitigated by an acute shortage of rations. The South African troops were ordered back to Dodoma and received their ticket home. ‘We were glad to go,’ wrote the mounted officer. ‘The campaign had degenerated into something like searching for a needle in a haystack, with a handful of Germans hidden in thousands of square miles of bush. They had made a splendid stand, but they were not the real enemy. The real enemy were the deadly climate, the wild regions, and the swamps and forests, and scrub’.17 Meanwhile, Lincke and Aumann remained on the loose at the north end of the plateau, and Northey was forced by the rains to call off the pursuit of Wahle and withdraw all his units to the western side of the rapidly rising Ruhudje River.

  The temporary respite was welcomed by Wahle but the shortage of foodstuffs on the plateau soon became acute. Furthermore, his decision to send Wintgens to forage around Kitanda and seize the new harvest when it was ready involved a good deal of risk. The rains did not prevent Northey from operating to the south of the plateau, and just as Wintgens set out for Kitanda, British troops advanced against Major von Grawert’s 7/FK and 12/FK, which had been sent by Kraut to Songea district in October and, after failing to support an unsuccessful attack by Falkenstein’s 5/FK against Songea boma in November, had remained near Likuyu ever since – von Grawert being unable or unwilling to oppose Colonel Byron’s 5/SAI, which had been reconstituted in South Africa and sent to garrison Songea. Von Grawert was an experienced soldier from the Reuss principalities in eastern Thuringia, and knew Mahenge district better than anyone, having served there for fifteen years. But when, on 22 January 1917, he found himself surrounded by a 500-strong force of 5/SAI, RNR and sundry levies led by Major J.J. McCarthy of the NRP he surrendered without a fight. It was an astonishing decision, considering his local knowledge and the fact that his force was only outnumbered by McCarthy’s by a factor of less than two, but von Grawert had decided that his supply situation was hopeless. Von Lettow-Vorbeck subsequently accused von Grawert of ‘exaggerating the difficulties of supply’, and reminded him that ‘there is almost always a way out, even of an apparently hopeless position, if the leader makes up his mind to face the risks’.18 Von Grawert had clearly had enough, and as a result would carry the stigma of having kapituliert on his service record until his death in 1941.

  When Wahle first heard the news he assumed that von Grawert’s men must have been all ‘more or less ill’ to have surrendered. A message soon reached him, however, that eighty men, led by Sergeant-Major Winzer, had refused ‘to give themselves up so shamefully’ and had escaped southwards towards Likuyu. This made the capture of 230 officers and askari, two machine-guns, and a valuable naval anti-aircraft gun even more unpalatable. For Northey, on the other hand, it was the best news since the capture of Hübener’s detachment, and McCarthy’s success had prevented a link-up between Wintgens and von Grawert which would have threatened Songea. He was also encouraged by Murray’s simultaneous capture of Ifinga, which made the position of Kraut’s four companies on the lower Ruhudje untenable and forced him north-east towards Mpepo.

  Northey’s relentless pressure, exerted despite the pouring rain, unnerved Wahle. The Mahenge plateau was protected to the west by the rising rivers but to the south the path was open for ‘an easy march towards Mahenge [and] the heart of the Westtruppen’19 after the rains – unless Northey was stopped. Two companies under Captain Lincke were immediately ‘rushed’ from Muhanga on a forced march lasting two weeks to the southern end of the plateau; and Kraut was ordered to Gumbiro district where he would be in touch with Wintgens, whose column had become isolated after the surrender of von Grawert. In the coming month the actions of their two columns would preclude any assault on the plateau from the south, and just as Northey seemed to have Wahle and Kraut hemmed in on the plateau, his well-laid plans to bring them to battle would lie in ruins.

  During these first eight months of Northey’s campaign the men of Hawthorn’s 1/KAR were never on full rations for more than two to three days at a time, and newspapers and letters took three to four months to arrive at the front. The reason for this was simple: Northey’s supply lines were judged to be ‘the most precarious and difficult [of the campaign]’, and ‘were certainly the longest communications with which any British force was involved during the course of the war’.20 They began in South Africa. Most supplies were first shipped from Durban to Beira, then transferred onto smaller steamers for the eighty-mile journey to Chinde, then onto river boats for the journey up the Zambezi to Chiromo, then on to the railway to Blantyre, then overland to Lake Nyasa – and another 200-mile trip on the lake steamers. A subsidiary line originated in the docks at Cape Town. From here a 700-mile trip by rail to Livingstone was followed by a further 700-miles by carrier and canoe through Northern Rhodesia to Fife. But these only brought the supplies to the rear of Northey’s field of operations, the point from which he had started in May 1916. From the borders of Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia carriers had to negotiate distances of up to 200 miles over mountains and through dense bush into German East Africa.

  ‘The Girls They Left Behind’ – King’s African Rifles recruits leave for the war

  Portuguese troops embarking at Lisbon for East Africa

  Allied troops prepare to advance, March 1916

  South Africans bring their guns into action as Jan Smuts (inset) orders the invasion of German East Africa in March 1916

  Königsberg gun during the German retreat down the Usambara Railway

  German prisoners being led into captivity; and at a concert hall performance at the Fort Napier prison camp in South Africa

  In the north-west Belgian troops commanded by Charles Tombeur (inset) advance towards Tabora, capturing the town in September 1916; while in the south-west General Northey’s troops capture Fort Namema before converging on Iringa

 
; German attempts to stir up an anti-British jihad in Abyssinia and elsewhere in north-east Africa were finally frustrated at the end of 1916 with the defeat of emperor Lij Iyasu and his replacement by Ras Tafari (centre), seen here flanked by the British Consul-General in Addis Ababa Wilfred Thesiger (right) . . .

  . . . but in German East Africa there was no let-up in the fighting

  German askari play cards, and Nigerian gunners wrestle, in their camps; but discipline for malefactors was harsh

  The naval campaign continued unabated throughout 1916; ratings, such as these stokers (‘clinker-knockers’) on the Kinfauns Castle, toiled under appalling conditions

  HMS Hyacinth tilted to fire inland at German positions along the Lukuledi River

  More than 70,000 Africans had already been employed in this capacity by the end of the first phase in February 1917, a sobering figure as Nyasaland’s total population was no greater than one million. Most convoys were led by missionaries belonging to British missions or the White Fathers in a well-meant (though futile) attempt to ensure the welfare of the carriers; but nothing could protect them from the ravages of disease and, after Wahle’s appearance from the west, the danger of attack. ‘I would award the palm of merit to the tenga-tenga [porters]’,21 was Northey’s verdict on these largely unwilling participants in the war. When the question of committing their story to paper was raised after the war, however, the verdict in the Colonial Office was the less said about it the better.

  Maintaining communication between his columns was another Herculean challenge for Northey, the more so after the appearance of Wahle’s Westtruppen. Telephone and telegraph lines were frequently cut and often runners or motorcyclists were the most reliable means of transmitting messages, though they were slow in relative terms and, worst of all, could be captured. The construction of a durable surface on the Stevenson ‘Road’, previously little more than a track running for 300 miles from Lake Nyasa to Lake Tanganyika, opened this lateral route to motor transport and improved matters considerably; and during 1916 South African engineers (two-thirds of whom were invalided from any further war duty) also organised the construction of roads to Madibira, Malangali, Lupembe, Songea and Tandala. By early 1917, some 1,500 miles of motor road had been constructed, saving many combatant and carrier lives in the process. But the rains necessitated a repetition of much of the work and caused commensurately higher casualties among conscripted labourers.

  Given the problems confronting him, and the constant changes to his objectives caused by Wahle and Kraut, Northey’s achievements were considerable. His troops, with whom he was required to clear the enemy from a corridor measuring approximately 200 miles by 100, numbered fewer than 3,000 at the outset. That they succeeded at all was due to Northey’s leadership. He was a commander who would insist on a stranded despatch rider joining him in the back of his Staff car. He would visit the sick in the hospital at Njombe, his headquarters, every Sunday morning and sit on the men’s beds for a chat. On many occasions he sent his own car to pick up wounded. Such things were greatly appreciated and, whatever the hardships, Northey was recognised as a general who ‘would see to it that his troops were properly cared for’.22 He also had two outstanding commanders serving him. Hawthorn was indomitable and, after the early debacle at Namema, Murray was considered by Northey to be ‘one of the finest soldiers I have ever come across’.23 As for Northey’s scouts, once met they were never forgotten. Often operating far behind the German lines and even mixing with German troops, these men ‘were considered quite reckless and completely mad’, and were wont to send messages such as ‘Encountered [German] patrol with mg [machine-gun] crossing river stop what shall I do with mg stop’.24 With the assistance of troops such as these Northey had, like Wahle, achieved the seemingly impossible in late 1916.

  Smuts, on the other hand, was facing mounting criticism in South Africa as early as the summer of 1916, and this reached a crescendo as the first 8,000 South African troops returned home in November with hair-raising tales of the conditions they had endured. One sergeant remarked, as he watched two South African infantry battalions begin their journey home from the front: ‘it was a long drawn out crowd and they reminded me of the picture of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. The men were all done in – pale, fever stricken, many in rags . . . how different they were a year ago when full of life and fun. Now they are listless and worn out. The men are plucky enough but the fever finishes them and they struggle along – chins on their chests – dragging one foot after the other.’25 ‘I’m afraid,’ he added, ‘that many mothers won’t recognise their young sons.’26 Smuts the politician needed an urgent answer to his predicament every bit as much as Smuts the soldier. His plans to corner von Lettow-Vorbeck’s main force lay in tatters, and on 4 December 1916 news had reached him that a long-awaited Portuguese advance into southern German East Africa had met with disaster. The name Newala meant little to any British troops. But it was a name that would never be easily forgotten in Portugal.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘The Condemned’

  The rumours circulating in late 1915 of an impending invasion of Portuguese East Africa by German troops had quickly dissipated when South African troops began arriving in British East Africa. From then on it was clear that von Lettow-Vorbeck was going to be fully occupied far to the north. Relative calm was restored, but not for long. In Lisbon the government of General Joaquim Pimenta de Castro had been overthrown in a violent revolution in May 1915 and by the end of the year elections had put Afonso da Costa’s democrats in power. In order to try and tackle the ongoing instability in Portuguese politics, the new government had decreed that no criticism could be directed at the armed forces. This was ‘a perilous tactic’.1 But, after Portugal had found (or been found) a suitable pretext to provoke Germany to declare war on 9 March 1916, it paved the way for further action on the border between Portuguese and German East Africa.

  Lisbon set its sights on the Kionga Triangle, north of Palma, as a suitable target. It covered 215 square miles and had been a bone of contention between the Portuguese and German colonies for more than two decades. Seized by a German gunboat in 1894, a move which had forced the Portuguese to withdraw to Cape Delgado, it was a potent symbol of Portuguese fears for its future as a colonial power. Patriotic pride demanded its recapture, as did strategic necessity. Without a foothold on the Rovuma delta military operations upriver, between the sea and Nhica, would be virtually impossible; and the cross-border smuggling by the Germans which so irked Britain would remain a fact of life. In April 1916, Major da Silveira assembled a force 400-strong at Palma, ten miles south of the frontier, and advanced on Kionga. There were only a few border guards standing between him and his objective, and on 10 April the reoccupation of Kionga was achieved without difficulty. It was to prove the high point of Portugal’s involvement in the campaign in East Africa.

  Despite having already lost nearly a quarter of the Second Expeditionary Force to sickness, the hapless Major Mendes’s suggestion that garrisoning Kionga would best be undertaken by indigenous troops was overruled by Álvaro de Castro, the Governor-General. Flush with success, Castro also ordered Mendes to prepare to clear the north bank of the Rovuma delta of German troops. The Governor-General himself took command of this operation, but the task proved too formidable even with an overwhelming superiority in numbers. On 21 May a small force of Marines crossed the 2,000-yard-wide Rovuma to land near ‘Fábrica’, a German sugar factory on the north bank and, supported by a bombardment from the cruiser Adamastor and gunboat Chaimite, burnt everything they could find. Six days later, a larger force left Namiranga and Namaca with the intention of permanently occupying the north bank. But this time naval reservist Lieutenant Sprockhoff, commander of the Kilwa Abteilung, had prepared a reception. He had set out from Kilwa on 23 April, Easter Day, to counter the Portuguese threat and his 100 rifles and two machine-guns now waited, ‘with unbelievable audacity’,2 until the Portuguese landing was well under way before strafing the
enemy with machine-gun fire. Two Portuguese gunboats were captured and the landing force abandoned its mission in ignominy, no more able to achieve their limited objective than were the Portuguese to defend the Tagus. Thirty-three men died in the ‘Battle of Namiranga’ on 27 May, twenty-four were wounded and eight, including the captain of the Chaimite, were taken prisoner.3 A senior British Intelligence officer described the landings as ‘a smaller and worse edition of the Tanga fiasco’.4

  In Lisbon, the battle was overlooked. The recapture of Kionga, executed in the grand tradição de heroismo, was all that mattered. As The Times History of the War succinctly put it, ‘the laurels gathered’ in Lisbon, and a new issue of Kionga stamps was produced in Lourenço Marques, even though ‘the results obtained . . . did not in fact correspond to the effort made’.5 More than ever, ‘the issue of Portugal’s attitude to the war [was] inseparable from party and political interests’6 at home, and the men sent out by Lisbon ‘without science or conscience’7 were soon simply referred to as os condenados – ‘the condemned’.