Another glory of the road was its lack of water. I knew Zigualand from painful experience…. But on my arrival I was given an official list of wells and watering places (made during the rains) … twice did we resolve to halt where the army said good water was…. And twice did we repent ourselves of our trusting and confiding spirit. On the first occasion it was midday … and there was no water at all: only a vast camping place where water had once been…. The second day we had marched nearly fifteen miles and wanted food. The so-called well was … a museum of dead frogs…. It remained to do another six miles onward. And the man who has not had to do extra miles beyond his promised halting place, under tropical sun, has yet much to learn of what a broken spirit really means.
Bishop Frank Weston quoted in The Carrier Corps Geoffrey Hodges.
Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s strategy was to avoid encirclement, fight rearguard actions and continually retreat, thus drawing his enemy farther and farther south and stretching to the limit and beyond the British lines of communication. By mid-1917 the cruelly depleted but constantly reinforced British army was approaching the border with Portuguese East Africa, over six hundred miles from Moshi as the crow flies. Here some of the bitterest fighting of the campaign took place.
12 August 1917
About 11 am, when drawing in to the hillcrest overlooking Narunyu, which is situated in a valley bottom, the first-second King’s African Rifles, in the lead, encountered large forces of the enemy, and entered into action. On their establishing a firing line, the rear of the column was drawn in, and a perimeter was formed, for, in the thick bush we were then in, attack might threaten from any direction. This was a wonderfully wise and fortunate precaution, for no sooner were our lines on all sides established than the enemy opened a determined attack on our right flank; and, as the fight continued, fierce and sustained attacks developed later, even in our rear and on our left. In other words, the enemy were all around us and trying to break through our “square” in the bush. It was a day of tremendous battle. There were, within the circle, the first-second King’s African Rifles, 25th Royal Fusiliers, and Stoke’s Guns, and back to back they fought, without one minute’s cease in the deafening fusillade, until long after dark. It was here that one saw, and realized, the full fighting courage to which well-trained African troops can rise. The first-second King’s African Rifles was one of the original pre-war regular battalions, and magnificently they fought here; and we, who were an Imperial unit, felt that we could not have wished for a stouter, nor a more faithful, regiment to fight alongside of. About 8 pm the firing ceased and we had at last a breathing space and could hear each other speak in normal voice. But all was not yet over. At 9.30 pm an enemy whistle blew sharply – and instantaneously a great burst of enemy fire swept the square from the right flank, and from closer quarters than before. An enemy force had crept in in the darkness and silence, and tried to take us by surprise. But they reckoned wrongly, and in the end, after a fierce encounter, they were driven off and silenced: though movement and groans, from beyond our front, continued long into the night while the enemy collected their dead and wounded….
At last our anxieties ceased. Weary, powder-blackened, mud-filthy, thirsty beyond the telling, the line slept fitfully through the remainder of the night….
It was decided that we were to hold on here, and arrangements were made to bring water to camp, while bully and biscuit would be our ration – no tea, no cooked food, for no fire could be allowed on account of the smoke, which would have marked our position to enemy artillery. The enemy were shelling the square and shooting dangerously close, but were unable to locate us exactly, or tell where their shells were landing, in the dense bush. To-day all ranks were very exhausted after the past week of blanketless, half-sleepless nights and the extreme strain of yesterday.
For five days we lay in the confined square in our shallow trenches, drinking sparingly of foul water, and holding impatiently on, while smaller engagements went on with the enemy, who continued to invest our front closely and our right flank. Our porters had a bad time here. In time cooked food was sent up for them from the rear, but on the first two days it was common to see the poor creatures hungrily munching their uncooked ration of hard rice-grains. At the end of the five days, many of them were almost unable to walk, and could not be burdened with an ammunition load.
On 22 August our battalion received orders to withdraw under cover of night to the reserve column at the main camp back some miles on the trolley line and west of Tandamuti – a camp which was designated C23.
The withdrawal was quietly accomplished, and at 9.30 pm we camped at C23. And then we had, what in the past few days we had come to dream of – tea, tea, tea. Camp-fires were started everywhere, and we sat there and feasted our fill of tea that tasted threefold more fragrant and delicious than ever before, and on cooked food, warm and palatable, and long we sat into the hours when weary heads should have been asleep.
We remained at C23 until 4 September, and at intervals each day were shelled by the enemy’s long-range guns, at aggravating intervals.
A large camp had sprung up at C23, and additional forces and additional stores were daily arriving. But we were in terribly unhealthy country; the air was close and oppressive, and the sun merciless; and men went about their duties with listless bearing. The hospitals were full of sick, and troops and porters were being evacuated in hundreds every few days. The native African was suffering as much as if not more than the European. The 25th suffered no less than other units, and our forces were sadly growing smaller and smaller.
On 4 September the battalion left C23 and advanced to the centre and left camps before Narunyu, to occupy the front line there; relieving the 8th South African Infantry, who were tottering with sickness and unfit for further service in active fields.
Here utter physical exhaustion, and fever, which had gripped me for some time, began slowly to master endurance.
On 9 September I had not strength to walk, and later in the morning I was taken to hospital. I was beaten, hopelessly overcome, though no man likes to give in.
The war was over for Captain Buchanan, MC, and was soon to be so for his famous regiment, the Legion of Frontiersmen, the 25th Royal Fusiliers.
In the final action which my unit undertook – the only one after my departure – the remnants of the band, steel-true men who had come through everything till then were pitted against overwhelming odds when covering a retirement, and fought till they were cut to pieces. It was a tragic ending.
Three Years of War in East Africa Angus Buchanan.
The 25th Royal Fusiliers was the regiment which the famous hunter, Frederick Selous, had joined at the age of over sixty. He was killed in action during the campaign.
Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s army survived on self-sufficiency.
More dangerous than the enemy seemed to me the material position of our men. The cargo of wheat from the relief ship was coming to an end, and I thought it questionable whether bread could be baked from Mtama [sorghum] flour alone, without the addition of wheat flour. At that time I still regarded bread as an indispensable necessity for the nourishment of Europeans, and therefore I made experiments personally in baking bread without wheat flour. Unfortunately the results were unsatisfactory. Afterwards, under the stress of necessity, we all produced excellent bread without wheat. The methods differed widely. Later we made bread not only with mtama, but also with muhogo, sweet potatoes, maize, in short, with nearly every kind of meal, and with mixtures of all sorts of combinations, and later still improved the quality by the addition of boiled rice.
The necessary kit also required attention. A shortage of boots was in sight. My experiments showed me that a European can go barefoot where there are tolerable paths, but never through the bush. Sandals, which anyone can make, given an odd bit of leather, proved helpful, but did not take the place of boots. To be ready for any emergency, I had some lessons in boot-making, and succeeded, with supervision, in producing an object that at a p
ush could be taken for a left boot, though it was intended to be a right. It is very convenient for a European who knows the simplest rudiments of this craft to be able to kill an antelope and make a boot, or at any rate repair one, from his skin a few days later, without the help of any of the tools of civilization. A nail must serve as an awl, a tent-pole as a last, and the thread he can cut from the tough leather of a small antelope. As a matter of fact, however, we were never driven to these extremities, as we were always able to obtain the necessary kit and equipment from captured stores, and many captured saddles were cut up to make soles and heels for boots.
Every European was becoming more and more like a South African “Trekker” and was his own workman. Naturally, not always in person, but within the small independent household, consisting of his black cook and his black servant, which followed him about. Many had even provided themselves with a few hens which they took about with them, and the noise of these betrayed the position of German camps even as far as the native settlements. An order issued in one force that the crowing of cocks before 9 am was forbidden brought no relief.
The important question of salt was very simply solved by the troops at Kilwa, by the evaporation of sea-water. In order to secure the supply, which was beginning to run short, against the loss of the coast, salt-yielding plants were collected and the salt obtained from their ashes by lixiviation. We got this idea from the natives of the district, who supplied themselves with salt in this way. The salt thus obtained was not bad, but was never required to any extent, as we were always able to meet our requirements from the captured stores. The large numbers of elephants in this district furnished us with fat; sugar was replaced by the excellent wild honey which was found in large quantities. The troops had made an important step forward as regards supplies of grain. They found out how to ripen it artificially, and in this way provided against want.
After retreating across the Portuguese border, von Lettow-Vorbeck captured a sufficient quantity of arms, ammunition and medicines to stave off surrender. For almost a year he led his troops, with a rabble of camp followers, through bush, swamp and mountain until, some 1,500 miles later, on 12 November 1918, he was 150 miles into the British Protectorate of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). A motor-cyclist brought him the unsuspected news that on 11 November Germany had surrendered. On 25 November, at Abercorn, the remnants of his army surrendered to a battalion of the King’s African Rifles. His force numbered 155 officers, 1,156 African askaris and a cavalcade of porters, women and children, some of the latter having been born on the march. The officers were permitted to retain their arms. In Dar es Salaam the general was all but feted; a house and car were put at his disposal and that of his senior officers, and their movements were unrestricted until they boarded a ship to take them home.
In cold truth our small band, which at the most comprised some 300 Europeans and about 11,000 Askari, had occupied a very superior enemy force for the whole war. According to what English officers told me, 137 generals had been in the field, and in all about 300,000 men had been employed against us. The enemy’s losses in dead would not be put too high at 60,000, for an English press notice stated that about 20,000 Europeans and Indians alone had died or been killed, and to that must be added the large number of black soldiers who fell. The enemy had left 140,000 horses and mules behind in the battle area. Yet in spite of the enormously superior numbers at the disposal of the enemy, our small force, the rifle strength of which was only about 1,400 at the time of the armistice, had remained in the field always ready for action and possessed of the highest determination.
I believe it was the transparency of our aims, the love of our Fatherland, the strong sense of duty and the spirit of self-sacrifice which animated each of our few Europeans and communicated themselves, consciously or unconsciously, to our brave black soldiers, that gave our operations that impetus which they possessed to the end. In addition there was a soldierly pride, a feeling of firm mutual co-operation and a spirit of enterprise without which military success is impossible in the long run.
My Reminiscences of East Africa General von Lettow-Vorbeck.
The Second World War
When Mussolini declared war on the Allies on 10 June 1940, his Abyssinian armies numbered about 300,000 well equipped men with powerful artillery and air support. Facing them in Kenya were six battalions of the King’s African Rifles and one mounted Indian battery, numbering approximately 7,000 men. The Italians made the opening move by capturing the outposts of Moyale and El Wak, but in December 1940 the British launched their offensive with a lightning and successful raid on El Wak. Reinforcements came from South Africa, the Rhodesias, Nigeria and the Gold Coast (Ghana), including units of the South African Air Force which patrolled the parched and barren Italian Somaliland/Kenya border. An aircraft was obliged to make a forced landing.
Fortunately it was a full moon and we walked all that night through the eerie and silent bush, making westward with the aid of the plane’s compass, carrying as much kit as we could; a Very pistol in case we needed to signal, and the rear machine gun, which we had removed from the aircraft. We had two drums of ammunition and we were prepared to argue with any enemy troops or wandering banda [bandits] who came along.
By nine o’clock the next morning the sun was blazing. The altitude was only about 400 feet above sea level and the sun struck back with terrible effect from the limitless sand and sparse thorn bush. Walking was impossible except at the price of rapid exhaustion. We had seen nobody during the night and in the morning the land seemed empty of life. But it was enemy territory and we carefully avoided game and camel tracks. All that day we rested in the bush and set out again at night.
On the second day our water supply ran out in the afternoon. The two-gallon tin had been damaged in the crash and was leaking. Again we travelled by night, moving with increasing difficulty, and on the third day, unable to find water, we rested and plodded on again. Four days after the crash we came upon a dried up water hole, a mere pool of mud, baked nearly hard. Rigging up a Heath Robinson contraption made chiefly from film spools, we contrived a long pipe and managed to distil some water. It worked very well and the water, caught in shaving tins, was a precious thing.
That night it was very difficult. Parts of the bush were fairly open and we could march with some ease, but sometimes it was so thick that we had to force our way through. Wild life was stirring in the undergrowth and among the thorn trees. Once we found ourselves within 200 yards of a lion’s kill and frequently we came upon elephant tracks. In the darkness these tracks were a trap for tired men when a bad stumble might cause a broken leg. Fortunately we all knew something about bushcraft and hunting. In South Africa in the shooting season we knew the Low Veld and were not afraid of it. The same afternoon we had come across quite a good water hole not very far from the mud pool. We renewed our supplies, filled water bottles and even tried to carry water in a kit bag. After that we devoured our emergency rations and felt better. Since leaving the machine we had not eaten a bite of food. Our little store had been resolutely husbanded against the time when we must eat. Having no water we did not wish to eat, and thirst and starvation had made us all very weak….
The long halts during the day were beginning to tell. All we could do in the terrible heat was to lie absolutely still in such shade as we could find. We were in a constant condition of profuse perspiration and any water we drank evaporated through our bodies before it could give us any benefit. All the next day, nearly a week since we began our trek, we went without water. One of us, who had had an operation only a few months previously, was in a serious condition. We had no food and even if we had, our mouths were so swollen with thirst that we could not have eaten it. The machine gun and ammunition had been discarded in the bush because we could not carry them any longer. Both were useless to us and the added weight was telling on us. We kept the Very pistol and the magazine of photographs we had taken on the flight. The compass, too, we retained, but days before in desperation
we had drained off the alcohol in it to wet our lips.
At eleven o’clock on the morning of the seventh day we found another water hole. We had abandoned caution and were following a camel track in the hope that it would lead to water. Our lips were burst and bleeding, our tongues swollen and we knew we could not survive unless we found water soon. The moon did not rise that night until about eleven o’clock, and the bush was very thick with thorn trees that tore at our clothes and bodies. We could not travel for more than twenty minutes without rest. Our feet were badly blistered and our progress was slow and painful. That morning we heard British aircraft on frontier patrol.
At this water hole we had to take a decision. I was still feeling fairly fit but my companions were in a state of exhaustion, so I decided to carry on to the border and try to get help. It was arranged that, whatever happened, the other two would stay by the water hole for three days and try to recuperate their strength, though all they had to recover with was water. In that scorched, forsaken bit of Africa there was not even a berry they could eat. It was agreed that, if they had sufficiently recovered at the end of three days, they were to set out again due west. If they did not, they had to remain at the water hole until such time as help was sent out, or …
I struck the frontier in the forenoon about a day and a half later. I judged I was only a few miles south of a British post. So I struck north along the well-defined track that marks the border. While resting I was overtaken by two Somalis, who had seen my tracks some hours before, and had trailed me. They were friendly and helpful, though neither I nor they understood the other, and they took me to their village a few miles on the Kenya side of the frontier. The Somalis apparently knew me to be a British soldier. That village felt like an oasis. The Somalis gave me plenty of goat’s milk, which revived me completely. They were intelligent and knowledgeable about place names, and I soon gathered that the post for which I was seeking lay to the south, and that I had, in fact, been walking away from it. Finally I persuaded three of them to escort me. More refreshing goat’s milk was drunk with appropriate Somali ceremony and, in that strange place and strange company, I lay down in a hut and rested, while the kindly Somali passed round a bowl of milk mixed with fat from which each of them, including their unheralded guest, drank in turn. It was a strange experience. And after it was over I thought I had better leave some mementos of my visit – odds and ends from my shaving kit, bits of soap, a comb, a mirror. The Somalis were greatly intrigued. Then they washed my hands and feet, which were raw and blistered and swollen.
Nine Faces Of Kenya Page 24