by Edward Paice
* Kock p. 250 and p. 253. See also Lettow-Vorbeck (1), p. 221: ‘the majority . . . were bitterly disappointed at having to remain’.
* Göring puts the figure of carriers at as high as 7,000 plus 1,000 family followers (p. 150). Boell (1), p. 399 states 3,900 carriers, 470 askaris’ boys, and 1,300 women and children. Both are higher than von Lettow-Vorbeck’s estimate of 3,000, and attest to the fact that reliable records were not kept for carriers.
* Wylly (2), p. 133; he added acerbically that ‘it was also believed that more energetic action by the SA mounted columns [on the Rovuma] might have produced better results’.
* Lettow-Vorbeck (1), p. 231. This was clearly an exaggeration, indeed on the next page von Lettow-Vorbeck contradicts himself by saying that ‘about 200 enemy dead’ were buried, ‘about 150 Europeans’ were released on parole, and ‘several hundred askari’ were taken prisoner. Schnee’s estimates were probably more accurate: he claimed that twenty-five Portuguese officers and soldiers and 162 askari were killed, and 490 prisoners were taken (Schnee (1), p. 310).
* See Boell’s figures (1), p. 397: No. 1 Column took the surrender of nineteen German officers, ninety-two German NCOs and others, 1,260 askari, 2,093 carriers and 227 followers. Van Deventer put the total Allied ‘haul’ during November 1917 at 1,115 Europeans, 3,382 askari and six artillery pieces in working order.
* Theodor Tafel was one of only four of von Lettow-Vorbeck’s senior officers to take to the field again in World War II (the other three being Franz Köhl, Alfred Gutknecht and Heinrich Naumann). Tafel commanded Infantry Regiment 435 for the first three years of the war, and was then appointed Commandant of Stalag XX B; he ended the war with the rank of Major-General and was awarded the German Cross in Gold for his conduct on the Eastern Front in 1941.
† Wahle, p. 48. Only seven out of thirty-three of von Lettow-Vorbeck’s senior regular officers of 1914 were still in the field with him: Kraut, Schulz, Stemmermann, Göring, Otto, von Chappuis and Köhl.
* Köhl’s detachment comprised 3/FK, 10/FK, 11/FK, 17/FK and 6/SchK, accompanied by Sabath’s field gun.
* ‘I shook the dust of EA off my feet. May I never return there,’ wrote an officer of the 40th Pathans. During his regiment’s two years in Africa one third of its original complement had been killed or wounded and nearly one and a half times its original complement evacuated to India due to sickness (IWM/Thornton).
* IWM/Castle: British and South African troops: 2,322 officers and 18,029 other ranks; Indian troops: 258 officers and 12,383 other ranks; African troops: twenty officers and 23,485 other ranks. Total ration strength: 56,477 rifles.
* Goebel and Förster, p. 50. The inventory listed the cargo as comprising 311,100 rounds of ammunition; 230 machine-gun belts holding 57,500 cartridges; fifty-four machine-gun ammunition boxes containing 13,500 cartridges; thirty machine-guns; four rifles for the crew in the event of emergency; nine spare machine-gun barrels; sixty-one sacks of medical supplies; binoculars, rifle-bolts, knives and spare radio parts.
* Von Lettow-Vorbeck to Colonel Brian Hawkins (see W. Lloyd-Jones, p. 200); ‘even when told that it had reached Khartoum they laughed at the idea as being impossible and impracticable’.
* The resurgent appeal of colonies led to the publication of such influential works as Emil Zimmermann’s The German Empire of Central Africa as the Basis of a New German World Policy.
† The title of a contemporary poem by Dr Ernst Marshall.
* See, for example, Freeman (1), pp. 10–11: ‘Practically all news from Germany’s African colonies underwent a censorship. . . the world heard much of “Congo Atrocities” and nothing whatever of the indescribable inhumanities practised by the Germans. Even the details of Germany’s unspeakable campaign against the Hereros did not find their way to the outside world until Botha discovered archives bearing on them.’
* See, for example, ‘Africanus’, The Prussian Lash, p. 86, quoting from a speech by Peters in 1902: ‘The English system pampers the blacks to such an extent as to make the country impossible for the whites . . . To me the most advantageous system seems to be one in which the negro is forced, following the example laid down by military law, to devote some twelve years of his life to working for the Govt.’
* One such account was P.C. Wren’s fictional Cupid in Africa (Heath Cranton, 1944) which included the following passage: ‘Sergeant Simba was what he looked, every inch a soldier, and a fine honourable fighting-man, brave as the lion he was named after; a subordinate who would obey and follow his white officer to certain death, without questioning or wavering; a leader who would carry his men with him by force of his personality, courage and leadership . . . Beside Sergeant Simba, the average German soldier is a cur, a barbarian, and a filthy brute, for never in all the twenty years of his “savage” warfare has Sergeant Simba butchered a child, tortured a woman, murdered wounded enemies, abused (nor used) the white flag, fired on the Red Cross, turned captured dwelling-places into pig-styes and latrines in demonstration of his kultur.’
* A statement was made in the House of Commons in November 1917 affirming that Britain ‘has no desire to deprive [Portugal] of her colonies’, but on 28 December the Portuguese Minister in London wrote that the Labour Party’s document ‘profoundly hurts the feelings of my country’ (see MNE/Portugal Na Primeira Guerra Mundial, document 645, pp. 217–18).
* The frequent assertion by British and German troops that most of the Portuguese soldiers were afflicted with venereal diseases of one sort or another provoked outrage in Portugal. See, for example, E.A. Martins (4), p. 65: ‘this severe mark against our military brio must be remedied’.
* By 1918 even recruitment to the KAR was not always a smooth process. In August ‘tensions became very acute’ in the Masai Reserve. The Masai, ‘it was generally thought’ by the government, ‘would be only too pleased’ to provide a new company to add to the tribe’s existing one. But when recruiting commenced there was great unrest and finally bloodshed, in which fourteen moran (warriors) of the Purko and Loita clans were killed. (See RH/Ainsworth/380, pp. 98–9.)
* Approximately 3,800 officers and men saw service with the Gold Coast Regiment in East Africa, and the regiment sustained casualties of nearly fifty per cent (215 killed in action, 725 wounded, 270 died of disease, 567 invalided, thirteen missing). Fifteen MCs and three DSOs were awarded to British officers; twenty-two DCMs, twenty-four Military Medals and three MSMs were awarded to the African NCOs and other ranks.
* On 20 June 1918 the ration strength of the British troops committed to the Portuguese East Africa campaign was as follows: Kartucol – 1,400 rifles; 3/2KAR – 850 rifles; Fitzcol – 1,300 rifles; Nyasaland forces – 3,900 rifles; KAR Mounted Infantry and Mounted Howitzer – seventy rifles. Total: 7,520 rifles. In the southern area of operations the Portuguese had twenty-two askari companies and five European companies, a total of approximately 5,500 rifles. (See TNA/WO/158/475.)
* TNA/WO/158/476: correspondence of 6 and 8 July 1918. Van Deventer estimated that the Portuguese had lost three field guns, one Hotchkiss gun, twenty machine-guns, 1,000 rifles and more than a million rounds of ammunition in 1918.
* The Governor-General of Portuguese East Africa,Álvaro de Castro, was a prominent participant in the attempted coup of January 1919 which followed the assassination of Sidónio Pais. He was Prime Minister for ten days in November 1920 and for eight months in 1923–4.
* ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’, King’s African Rifles marching song.
* The size of the area of operations in Portuguese East Africa during 1918 had been about 470 miles north–south by 330 miles east–west – approximately two-thirds the size of France.
* Franz Kempner was executed in 1944 for his part in the July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
† The ration strength of British troops, including carriers, at the time of the surrender was a staggering 111,731.
* Steer, p. 300. See also p. 264: ‘In decrees of 1915 and 1916 the German government
had banned cash holdings in excess of business and personal requirements; holders of surplus cash were forced to accept interim 3% notes, which Germany covenanted to pay, and quite naturally did not pay, six months after the war.’
* For example H.R. Wallis’s Handbook of Uganda, published in 1920, failed to the mention the epidemic in its narrative of the Great War, and there was no reference to it in the 1925 Report of the East Africa Commission.
* It should be borne in mind that, for example, infant mortality rates in areas as disparate as those of Teita district, the ‘Swahili’ coast, and Uganda were fifteen to twenty per cent; that bilharzia affected sixty to seventy per cent of the coastal Wadigo; and that respiratory and venereal disease were endemic to eastern and southern African indigenous populations.
Table of Contents
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
ILLUSTRATIONS
MAPS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
GLOSSARY
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE: 1914
Chapter One: ‘The Germans Open the Ball’
Chapter Two: Phoney War
Chapter Three: ‘The Action of a Lunatic’
Chapter Four: The Aftermath
Chapter Five: Marking Time
PART TWO: 1915
Chapter Six: The Coast
Chapter Seven: The War in the West
Chapter Eight: ‘A Brilliant Affair’
Chapter Nine: The End of the Königsberg
Chapter Ten: ‘The Lion and the Springbok’
Chapter Eleven: A Velha Aliada –‘The OldAlly’
Chapter Twelve: ‘Swallows and Amazons’
Chapter Thirteen: The African War
PART THREE: 1916
Chapter Fourteen: The Build-up
Chapter Fifteen: ‘The First Salaita Show’
Chapter Sixteen: The ‘Robbers’ Raid
Chapter Seventeen: Opsaal! Saddle-up!
Chapter Eighteen: The Advance down the Northern Railway
Chapter Nineteen: The Crescent Flag
Chapter Twenty: ‘The Cannibals’
Chapter Twenty-one: The ‘Ubiquitous Rhodesians’
Chapter Twenty-two: ‘Abso-Damn-Lutely Fed Up’
Chapter Twenty-three: Smuts’s ‘Final Phase’
Chapter Twenty-four: ‘The Condemned’
Chapter Twenty-five: The ‘Suicidal System of Supply’
PART FOUR: 1917
Chapter Twenty-six: Unfinished Business
Chapter Twenty-seven: The Raiders
Chapter Twenty-eight: The Allies
Chapter Twenty-nine: Into ‘The Unknown’
Chapter Thirty: The German Pimpernel
Chapter Thirty-one: The ‘China Affair’
Chapter Thirty-two: The Propaganda War
PART FIVE: 1918
Chapter Thirty-three: The Hunt Begins
Chapter Thirty-four: Nhamacurra
Chapter Thirty-five: Tipperary mbali sana sana! ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’, King’s African Rifles marching song.
EPILOGUE
APPENDICES
ONE: German East Africa Schutztruppe : Dispositions July 1914
TWO: Indian Expeditionary Forces ‘B’ and ‘C’: Summarised Orders of Battle of 1914
THREE: German East Africa Schutztruppe : Order of Battle 5 March 1916
FOUR: British Forces in East Africa: Summarised Order of Battle 4 April 1916
FIVE: British Order of Battle (Main Force), 5 August 1916
SIX: British Forces in East Africa: Summarised Order of Battle 30 June 1917
SEVEN: German East Africa Schutztruppe : Order of Battle 14 October 1917
EIGHT: British Forces in East Africa: Summarised Order of Battle 31 March 1918
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
COPYRIGHT
Table of Contents
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
ILLUSTRATIONS
MAPS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
GLOSSARY
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE: 1914
Chapter One: ‘The Germans Open the Ball’
Chapter Two: Phoney War
Chapter Three: ‘The Action of a Lunatic’
Chapter Four: The Aftermath
Chapter Five: Marking Time
PART TWO: 1915
Chapter Six: The Coast
Chapter Seven: The War in the West
Chapter Eight: ‘A Brilliant Affair’
Chapter Nine: The End of the Königsberg
Chapter Ten: ‘The Lion and the Springbok’
Chapter Eleven: A Velha Aliada –‘The OldAlly’
Chapter Twelve: ‘Swallows and Amazons’
Chapter Thirteen: The African War
PART THREE: 1916
Chapter Fourteen: The Build-up
Chapter Fifteen: ‘The First Salaita Show’
Chapter Sixteen: The ‘Robbers’ Raid
Chapter Seventeen: Opsaal! Saddle-up!
Chapter Eighteen: The Advance down the Northern Railway
Chapter Nineteen: The Crescent Flag
Chapter Twenty: ‘The Cannibals’
Chapter Twenty-one: The ‘Ubiquitous Rhodesians’
Chapter Twenty-two: ‘Abso-Damn-Lutely Fed Up’
Chapter Twenty-three: Smuts’s ‘Final Phase’
Chapter Twenty-four: ‘The Condemned’
Chapter Twenty-five: The ‘Suicidal System of Supply’
PART FOUR: 1917
Chapter Twenty-six: Unfinished Business
Chapter Twenty-seven: The Raiders
Chapter Twenty-eight: The Allies
Chapter Twenty-nine: Into ‘The Unknown’
Chapter Thirty: The German Pimpernel
Chapter Thirty-one: The ‘China Affair’
Chapter Thirty-two: The Propaganda War
PART FIVE: 1918
Chapter Thirty-three: The Hunt Begins
Chapter Thirty-four: Nhamacurra
Chapter Thirty-five: Tipperary mbali sana sana! ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’, King’s African Rifles marching song.
EPILOGUE
APPENDICES
ONE: German East Africa Schutztruppe : Dispositions July 1914
TWO: Indian Expeditionary Forces ‘B’ and ‘C’: Summarised Orders of Battle of 1914
THREE: German East Africa Schutztruppe : Order of Battle 5 March 1916
FOUR: British Forces in East Africa: Summarised Order of Battle 4 April 1916
FIVE: British Order of Battle (Main Force), 5 August 1916
SIX: British Forces in East Africa: Summarised Order of Battle 30 June 1917
SEVEN: German East Africa Schutztruppe : Order of Battle 14 October 1917
EIGHT: British Forces in East Africa: Summarised Order of Battle 31 March 1918
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
COPYRIGHT
