by Edward Paice
It was fortunate that Hoskins knew what he was doing in increasing the regiment’s expansion rate. By the end of the war its establishment rose to twenty-two battalions; and British soldiers who fought alongside the KAR were unanimous in describing almost all of its battalions as ‘rippers’ who were ‘fit to fight against or alongside any troops in the world’.17 The same was true of the Gold Coast Regiment, ‘of whose behaviour’, wrote one signals officer, ‘it is impossible to speak too highly: they fight like heroes . . . [and there are] no better comrades in a scrap’;18 and also of the Nigerians. The recruitment of so many African troops was not an entirely smooth process. In Nigeria there was widespread opposition, the more so as its troops had already participated in the Cameroons campaign; and most of the KAR recruits in 1918 were former German askari. But military service was infinitely more attractive than service with a carrier unit, and many a willing volunteer took to it with alacrity. Joining the KAR was not only regarded as ‘one of the most lucrative and prestigious forms of employment open to unskilled Africans’19 but also, as was true for young Britons who had rushed to join ‘Kitchener’s Army’, an adventure – complete with smart uniforms, brass bands, dance societies, and the opportunity to learn new skills. Furthermore, volunteers knew that if they survived they would return home comparatively rich, able to marry well, and respected (or even envied); indeed many tribes, such as the Yao of Nyasaland and the Nandi of British East Africa, responded to such incentives by providing disproportionately high numbers of recruits.
The recruitment en masse of African soldiery was a source of concern in Whitehall as well as South Africa, and it was never taken to the extremes suggested by the ‘Million Black Army Movement’ (or by France). But whatever the fears of humanitarian groups and racial supremacists alike, the fact remained that such soldiers were cheap, courageous, and available in large numbers – and alternatives there were none. Even Smuts had realised this when he called for the recruitment of three new battalions of KAR just two months after his arrival in East Africa in February 1916; but by declaring victory prematurely he had sought to make quite sure that African soldiers would not be given the credit for succeeding where he and his white South African troops had failed.
While the expansion of the KAR proceeded apace the death toll among carriers, particularly on the Rufiji front, rose to alarming proportions and Hoskins realised that unless a mass levy raised the number of carriers recruited by the Carrier Corps since the start of the war to 160,000 his new troops would never become mobile. Dar-es-Salaam had been put on a proper footing as Base; Kilwa had become a sizeable port; extensive tram-lines were being built inland from Kilwa and Lindi; and the nightmare of obtaining the necessary provisions for battalions whose diets were radically different was almost solved. But without a full-strength Carrier Corps all these improvements would count for nothing. At the end of April 1917, Hoskins could finally see light at the end of the tunnel and informed Whitehall that he would be able to advance in two months’ time. It was not quick enough for his military superiors. Smuts had let it be known that he thought Hoskins was dawdling, and so great was his influence in Whitehall that his successor was ‘reassigned’ to Mesopotamia in May.
The news of their commander-in-chief ’s dismissal (on the grounds of ‘the consequent strain of prolonged service’20 in East Africa) was received with dismay by British officers in East Africa, all of whom thought that Hoskins had not been given a real chance. Hoskins was widely regarded as ‘one of the most gifted soldiers of the campaign’ and ‘certainly the most popular’;21 and there was no doubting that his demise had been hastened by what one member of the Committee of Imperial Defence called his refusal ‘to regard operations [in German East Africa] as a sort of picnic’ – an approach which had exposed gaping flaws in the myth of Smuts’s ‘victory’. Over the coming months Hoskins’s caution would be ‘proved right’,22 however, and at the end of the war many would voice the opinion that ‘had he remained in charge . . . there would have been no campaign in 1918’.23
The identity of Hoskins’s successor further illustrated the extent of Smuts’s influence in London (and his keenness to ensure that the myth of his victory should not unravel any further): ‘Jaap’ van Deventer was recalled from South Africa, and Colonel Sheppard was selected as his Chief of Staff. Both men had reputations as ‘fighters’. Indeed van Deventer’s ride to Kondoa had shown him to be enterprising almost to the point of recklessness: while Sheppard, the Army rackets champion, was considered to be ‘one of the very few men who really enjoyed fighting’ and was usually referred to by his soubriquet ‘Ha Ha Splendid’ (on account of his catchphrase ‘Ha Ha Splendid! Lots of fighting and lots of fun!’).24 Equally important, both men were popular; and it was hoped that this would enable them to extract the best from the handful of other generals who had proved their worth in East Africa – in particular Northey, and the Irishmen Hannyngton and O’Grady (who was said to be ‘brave as a lion . . . a man who, like the German leader himself, appealed personally to [African] troops’).25
The position that van Deventer inherited was as follows. Tafel had succeeded Wahle as commander of the 3,000 German troops on the Mahenge plateau, while von Lettow-Vorbeck’s main force of 5,000 rifles occupied a vast swathe of territory inland from Kilwa and Lindi. The plan was to dislodge Tafel and then surround, or bring to a decisive battle, all the enemy’s troops in the south-east. No thought was given to securing some sort of ‘peace without victory’, as had been advocated in Europe by Woodrow Wilson in April: von Lettow-Vorbeck was to be defeated outright and the rest of the German colony seized. But the pressure from London to finish the campaign quickly, combined with van Deventer’s predilection for ‘action’, resulted in an advance being attempted ‘a month too soon’ for the supply and transport services and attracted a familiar lament from Major Hazleton: ‘When would we learn not to advance until ready in every detail?’26 Only half the mechanised transport he had ordered had arrived in East Africa, ambulances were almost non-existent, and the mass levy of carriers had fallen far short of its target.
Worse still, while Hoskins was valiantly struggling to reorganise his force, the rainy season caused severe hardship for the troops in the field. On the Rufiji front, the failure to encircle the retiring German forces in January had appalling consequences for the British troops, in particular those from Nigeria who had only arrived a month before, and the Carrier Corps. Within two days of the start of the rains on 25 January the 120 miles of road from the railhead at Mikesse that had been so painstakingly constructed during the dry season were washed away and the entire Rufiji area became ‘a vast lake’. This meant that supplies could only be brought forward by carrier convoys – 12,000 men to feed 3,000 troops – which had to brave infestations of crocodiles (in the wet) and lions (on the dry ground). No fresh meat ever got through, and the Nigerian troops seldom received more than 13oz of foodstuffs per day. In desperation, they took to digging up roots and even the corpses of dead animals ‘with disastrous results on many occasions’.27 Hides used on bridges were removed and boiled up in soup, theft became commonplace, and delicacies such as bush rat pie and monkey’s brains on ration biscuits began to appear on the mess tables. February, March and April were described as ‘black months for the Nigerian Brigade’ by its officers, as their men ‘got terribly thin and wretched, till they became almost unfit to take the field in any active operations’. ‘The hardships passed,’ they concluded, ‘must be unparalleled in military operations of our time. Our condition could not have been worse even if we had been in a siege.’28
Patrol work did continue throughout the deluge from Mkindu, the Nigerian Brigade’s main camp, and, to the south, from an outpost at Kibongo, facing Ngwembe (the forward position of Otto’s five companies based at Kibambawe). Canoes were sometimes used but more often than not the patrols necessitated wading for miles through water waist-high (and sometimes neck-deep). An attack on Ngwembe planned for the second week in March had to be ab
andoned due to the critical shortage of supplies, and after Kibongo was attacked Hoskins decided that only 2nd and 4th Nigeria Battalions should remain at Mkindu while the others withdrew to Mpangas. Despite the appalling conditions they were attacked en route and in this ‘very unpleasant little show’29 the loss of the column’s guns and loads was only averted by the bravery of two young lieutenants who were awarded the Military Cross. This ambush on a track generally thought to be ‘as safe as any country road in England’ was subsequently judged to have had the intention of capturing General Cunliffe and the Staff of the Nigerian Brigade, who had fortuitously moved along the same route the day before. Such boldness on the part of the enemy stretched nerves to the limit. So too did the wildlife: the noise of a herd of hartebeest moving past Kibongo at night was indistinguishable from that which might be made by a German patrol.
By mid April 1917 the situation was so bad, and disease so prevalent, that the 1st and 4th Nigeria Battalions and the regimental battery were ordered back to the railway. While this was ‘the most cheerful news’ that any of the men had heard for months, what lay ahead was a trek never to be forgotten. A hippo attacked the ferry across the Rufiji, drowning eleven soldiers; crocodiles lay in wait in the swampland that constituted the track north, and ‘dead mules and donkeys and even dead carriers littered the road in various degrees of putrefaction’.30 The stretch from Duthumi to Tulo, a distance of just twelve miles, took eight and a half hours to traverse, and by the time Mikesse was reached more than one third of the troops had been abandoned along the way. It seemed ‘little less than a miracle’31 to those who struggled into the town that any supplies, let alone the single mail, had reached Mkindu at all during the rains.
Van Deventer had no idea of the extent of the damage inflicted on his troops during the rains when he first arrived from South Africa and ordered them to prepare for an advance ‘a month too soon’. Within weeks, however, he admitted that the state of half his troops was ‘not altogether satisfactory’. Disease had decimated the ranks of the West African troops on the Rufiji front, and among the Indian battalions the 40th Pathans were only fit for duty on the lines of communication, the 130th Baluchis were ‘worn out’, the 57th Rifles and 129th Baluchis could barely muster 100 men each, and the Cape Corps had evacuated two-thirds of its men. ‘What wouldn’t one give for the food alone in France,’ wrote an officer with the 40th Pathans who had served on the Western Front, ‘for the clothing and equipment! For the climate, wet or fine, and above all for the fighting where one knows one is up against the real thing. I am perfectly ready to be killed,’ he added, ‘but if that is to happen, please, I want to die a strong man, with all my faculties intact, not a half-starved weakling.’32
In fact only three battalions of Indian troops were thought to be ‘in a state to fight’,33 and it was this desperate situation that enabled van Deventer to persuade a reluctant Botha to send back some, at least, of the South African infantry regiments. There was one thing that Botha dreaded more than further casualties being inflicted on South African troops, and that was the prospect of van Deventer being humiliated and the myth of Smuts’s victory being unravelled. If such a calamity occurred South Africa’s war effort would have been in vain, and might even plunge the country into civil war.
The troops and carriers were not the only ones to suffer from the rainy season stalemate: the rains had also presented the Royal Navy, and the RNAS pilots, with a plethora of new challenges – and brought a tragedy whose effects were keenly felt throughout the blockading fleet. In early January Flight Lieutenant Moon’s seaplane came down in the Rufiji delta during an attempt to reconnoitre German troops dispositions inland and, after three days of trying to struggle to safety, without food or water, he was captured. His observer, Commander Bridgeman, was less fortunate: despite valiant attempts by Moon to save him, he drowned. The crews of the Mersey, the transport Bajune and the small cargo vessel Mafia also suffered terribly in their ultimately successful attempt to supply British troops cut off at Utete, seventy-five to eighty miles up the Rufiji, and in Mohoro district, from the sea. Without their efforts the troops would undoubtedly have starved, but almost every seaman involved in the operation was struck down by frequent attacks of malaria. More than a dozen vessels remained on the East Africa Station, and any hopes that the destruction of the Königsberg and the capture of all of German East Africa’s ports might have brought an end to their involvement in the campaign had long since evaporated.
The knowledge that the plight of von Lettow-Vorbeck’s troops was no better than their own was of little consolation to British troops as they prepared as best they could for van Deventer’s advance. On the Rufiji front the German askari subsisted for months on half-rations, and were often forced to succumb to the same desperate measures as British troops eating roots and hippo meat; while the death rate among carriers was as high as one in five. At any one time eighty per cent of the European troops were sick with malaria or dysentery, and supplies of quinine ran perilously low after one third of the total German stock fell into the hands of Nigerian troops when a mobile medical depot was captured near Mkindu in March. More fatal even than malaria was the prevalence of blackwater, which had accounted for almost two-thirds of all German fatalities caused by disease (as opposed to combat) in the period up to June 1917.
Many a German prisoner captured at this time maintained that von Lettow-Vorbeck could not possibly hold out for longer than a couple of months. That he was able to do so was partly due to the efficiency and careful planning of his medical officers. There were no fewer than sixty-three doctors in German East Africa at the start of the war, a figure that dwarfed the number of medical practitioners in British East Africa and was attributable in part to a pre-war campaign against sleeping-sickness. Under the supervision of Dr Meixner and his team of experienced doctors the network of field hospitals and laboratories established in the north-east had been moved southwards, as von Lettow-Vorbeck retreated, with a minimum of disruption. The resources at their disposal had certainly dwindled, but the 200kgs of quinine brought by the blockade-runner Marie had sufficed for 1916 and thereafter improvisation made up for shortages. ‘Lettow Schnapps’ – the ‘home-made’ quinine distilled from the bark of the cinchona tree – was still being produced; bandages were fashioned from bark; and stocks of a typhoid treatment manufactured at an institute in Dar-es-Salaam had been spirited out of the city before its capture. Per capita, the medical resource available to the German troops was far greater than that of the Allies right until mid 1917, when the rising death toll due to disease – particularly among carriers – finally forced the latter to pay serious attention to the expansion of their medical services.
Further inventive solutions were also used by the beleaguered Germans to tackle the shortages of basic foodstuffs and other consumables. Before it fell into British hands the research institute at Amani, in the Usambara Mountains, had produced substitutes for everything from toothpaste to candles to tobacco. ‘Whisky’ and a ‘petrol’ of sorts were manufactured in small quantities; honey was substituted for sugar; salt was produced by evaporating sea water after the saltworks at Gottorp were captured by the Belgians; hippo fat was used for cooking; and bread was made from other grains (and even from sweet potatoes) when wheat was scarce. The result of all this improvisation was that the German troops were, in many respects, better off than most of the British front-line troops. For them, medical attention was always nearer to hand; and many of the ersatz provisions would have been regarded as luxuries by British troops always at the furthest extent of their lines of communication.
The measures undertaken by Schnee and von Lettow-Vorbeck to combat shortages enabled them to confound the sceptical opinions voiced by some of the German prisoners who had fallen into British hands on the Rufiji front. No matter how great the hardships confronted by his men, von Lettow-Vorbeck remained as determined as ever to fight on. His troops were not dying in large numbers for want of food or medical attention, and he was
certain that the dry season was sure to bring new opportunities. It might even bring another blockade-runner from Germany; and in the meantime his tactics would continue to confer certain important advantages. These were not underestimated by the British troops who had spent the rainy season on the Rufiji, and the historian of the Gold Coast Regiment succinctly described the challenge facing van Deventer in the following words:
the enemy, who alone knows his plans and his objectives, and whose movements are designed to avoid rather than seek contact with his pursuers, unless he can attack or sustain attack in circumstances favourable to himself, possesses throughout the immense advantage of the initiative. If he elects to retreat, the pursuer must plod after him, whither he knows not, through country which is not of his choice, and with the character of which he has had no opportunity of rendering himself familiar. If the enemy resolves to make a stand, it is almost invariably in a position which he has selected on account of the advantages it affords him; and when in due course he has been ejected from it, the pursuit through The Unknown of an elusive and usually invisible enemy begins ab novo, in circumstances which the apparent success has done nothing material to improve. These facts combine to render a campaign in the bush a heart-breaking and nerve-racking experience.34
TWENTY-SEVEN
The Raiders
On Northey’s front the rainy season precluded operations against the Mahenge plateau itself, but south of the plateau there was no respite for his exhausted troops. Von Grawert’s decision to surrender near Likuyu was a significant boost to morale, as was Murray’s capture of General Wahle’s son. But the presence of detachments led by Kraut, Wintgens and Lincke in the fertile territory between Songea and Wiedhafen, on Lake Nyasa, could not be ignored.
Wintgens was the first to cause a disturbance. En route to link up with Kraut in January 1917, he could not resist targeting Colonel Tomlinson’s Rhodesia Native Regiment at Kitanda, twenty-five miles east of the lake. It was a main supply depot for Gumbiro district, in which 12,000lbs of ‘German’ corn had been seized during the operation against von Grawert, and Wintgens meant to recapture these vital foodstuffs. For two weeks Tomlinson withstood the siege and was eventually relieved on 30 January by a force led by Major McCarthy which was composed of two companies of 5/SAI and one of the Rhodesia Native Regiment. A few days later, Wintgens withdrew in search of easier pickings elsewhere, having inflicted forty per cent casualties on Tomlinson’s garrison of 230. Wintgens was within reach of Kraut, but either because of a disagreement or his preference for independent action, their columns did not remain in the same area for long.
