31 January 1904
Hauptmann Franke and his company and guns withdrew from Karibib to Omuaruru, which is besieged by the Hereros. At a battle in Osona, Franke’s company lost a large number of horses to the Hereros. They took away and kept thirty animals, and let the remaining thirty-nine come back to us. Of these, the majority are currently unfit for use; they were in a miserable condition, with most of them bearing terrible, large, open pressure sores on their backs and withers. We managed to find twelve useable horses. I got a pretty, four-year-old, brown Afrikaner mare, which they probably only left to return back to the company because of her two faults: hard to catch and difficult to mount. I soon figured out catching her, and I was not bothered by her restlessness when mounting: I am always in the saddle. However, at the battle of Barmen these two vices would almost prove disastrous for me. Gradually we treated the rest of the horses, and soon our whole train was mounted. We were now the elite, justly envied by the others, but this also brought extra duties looking after the horses in the morning and evening.
3 February 1904
Early at five o’clock in the morning we made our first major patrol, from Okahandja via Okakango to the farm Otjisawakumbe, where we found the owner Utz and his wife murdered, and the farm ransacked, and once again we had to play gravedigger. On the way to Waldau we caught two Hereros armed with rifles, whom we simply hung on the next tree. Waldau was clear of the enemy, and as we encountered no further Hereros on searching the surrounding area, we started to ride back and were in Okahandja at seven o’clock that night.
4 February 1904
The first soldiers sent from Germany arrived in Okahandja; a troop of twenty men under Oberleutnant Winkler with a division of Marines, who travelled immediately to Windhoek.
4 February 1904
In the afternoon the Boer de Jager rode up, and reported that there were a lot of Boers with women, children and cattle on the farm Okambambe, together with a Frau Hoth with two children and the young Wecke[30] (son of the first merchants in Swakopmund), and that they were hard pressed by the Hereros. At 3 o’clock our platoon stood saddled-up in front of the fort, and after three-and-a-half hours hard ride we arrived in Okambambe. There were fifty-four people there altogether, a crowd of Boer women and children. Frau Hoth, whose husband was murdered, had a serious gunshot wound in the leg, and was immediately patched up by our doctor, Stabsarzt Dr Jacobs, who had joined the expedition. All were instructed immediately to pack their belongings and loaded onto their waggons and to get ready for departure. I was on guard until midnight, sentry posts all around the farm house, and could only dream of sleeping that night.
10 February 1904
At four in the morning we departed, and escorted the seven ox-waggons loaded with women and children and all their belongings; a bullock cart with the wounded Frau Hoth and her two children, as well as three large herds of cattle to Waldau, where we arrived at seven o’ clock in the morning. We loaded the woman and children onto a train to be taken to Okahandja; we had riders accompany the waggons and cattle to Okahandja, and arrived there in the afternoon.
10 February 1904
Leutnant Griebel has been ordered back to Swakopmund and I have to take over his Two Company—to my great annoyance, as I wanted to stay with our detachment. Oberleutnant von Zülow also returns to Swakopmund as Etappenkommandant, and Reserve Oberleutnant Zürn[31] goes back as garrison commander, to everyone’s chagrin.
12 February 1904
In the evening the mounted company rides for Barmen. I am not allowed to go with them as the Seebateillon (naval light infantry) should arrive tonight. Zürn was the only officer in the fort, and I was busy with my garrison company.After a fruitless night on watch, the train arrived with the Seebateillon and a detachment of marine artillery, forty men altogether, under Major von Glasenapp[32].
13 February 1904
Early up, at half-past five, and 150 men immediately set off riding towards Windhoek. I had already prepared their accomodation, so that all troops were soon billeted. At half-past-six in the evening the Major suddenly sounded the alarm for the entire garrison. My company was mustered in front of the fort ready to march off in less than ten minutes, long before the newly-arrived troops, for which he gave us a special commendation.
14 February 1904
On Sunday I accompanied Major Glasenapp and two officers who had not sat on a horse for a long time, and who wanted to see something of the destruction of the farms, on a ride to Okakango and back.
At five-thirty in the afternoon our riders came back from Barmen. Between Gross-Barmen and Klein-Barmen they came under such fire from a superior force of Hereros that they were forced to retreat, without being able to complete their mission. The latter consisted of a detachment of sailors from the cruiser Habicht (Hawk) and a new Schutztruppe company, in Barmen under the command of Kapitänleutnant Gygas,[33] and expected to keep the place clear of the enemy. Glasenapp, dissatisfied, ordered the immediate return of the mounted detachment and to keep Barmen at all costs. At the request of Glasenapp I was relieved as commanding officer of the garrison company and reassigned to the mounted division again, much to the fury of Zürn, who could not understand that I did not want to remain in a safe and harmless post in the fort.
We chose a different route this time. One Seebateillon company under Hauptmann Liber, and an ox-waggon with provisions and ammunition for the troops accompanied us. The infantry marched at half-past seven in the morning, and we followed at eight; at ten o’clock we passed them, riding onwards to the farm Okatjirude and arriving at eleven. Two hours later the infantry joined us there, and all remained there for the night.
15 February 1904
Rose at five o’clock and moved off. We rode as an advance party about five to six hundred metres ahead, past Otjisaru to Okamarusu where we waited for the ground forces. I rode with two men about three kilometres along the river to look for a watering hole, but had to return back empty-handed; and since there was no water at Okamarusu, the entire company had to return to Otjisaru. We met there at midday and dismounted for a lunch break. The watering hole was a vlei about 40 metres in diameter and about a metre deep. To begin with, we fished out a dead ox and a dead Herero from the water. It looked uninviting; apart from being the colour of cocoa, nobody knew if it had been poisoned by the Hereros. First of all we made the weakest horse and one of our own natives drink it; when neither of these two dropped down dead, we let ourselves taste the dark broth. It did quench our thirst, but it took ages.
Here Liber’s company eventually fulfilled their objective by means of acquiring some Herero cattle, and returned to Okahandja with their ox-waggon at five o’clock in the morning. We rode from half-past five (Oberleutnant von Dobeneck from the detachment joined us) from Okamarusu until just before Barmen, near the so-called Schlangenkoppe where we unsaddled and in total silence, without making a fire, spent the night.
16 February 1904
At five o’clock in the morning we rode off, taking the utmost precautions, because we faced a ride which went through a particularly unfriendly pass. We were very close to Barmen and expected to find the place full of Hereros. By half past seven we were in Barmen. One section rode immediately to the fort; the first company under Rickman searched the houses and the river valley, and I had the second company inspect the church, mission house and the native houses. There were no Hereros. In one native home we found a newborn lamb; straight into the house, knife out, throat cut, it only took a moment. In the next house we found four chickens; we wrung their necks just as quickly, and then rode proudly to the fort, with our looted foodstuffs. We had something to eat for the time being, at least; we each had nothing in our knapsacks other than two hard ship’s biscuits and a piece of bacon, and nobody knew how long we would be staying in our new palace. The military fort had been totally destroyed by the Hereros, they had smashed the walls for the most part, turning it into a giant pile of rubble, and the building was uninhabitable. Since Barmen seem
ed to be empty of Hereros, we pitched our camp outdoors. From midday to five o’clock I had four-man outposts set on the highest hills in Barmen, about two kilometres away from the fort; they saw no Hereros.
The interior of the mission house was also destroyed, we found in among the rubble all sorts of things we could use: cooking utensils, plates, spoons and knives, and in the garden there were even vegetables and fresh maize for us to take.
17 February 1904
At seven o’clock in the morning I went back to the mission house. First I shot a chicken that ran across the road towards me and then, with six men, I set all the native houses alight. The black rascals had all their belongings piled up in the church, packed in boxes and suitcases. All were opened up with an axe and carefully searched; collected together in front of the church; doused with paraffin, and then we had a nice little bonfire. At ten o’clock a patrol under Oberleutnant Paaschen[34] and Reserve Leutnant Oswald came from Okahandja with an ox-cart, along with an eight-man escort, to bring us provisions and oats for our horses. I had acquired some fresh maize cobs in the mission, which we roasted among the ashes. Together with curried chicken and rice, we entertained our guests royally. In the afternoon the two newly-arrived officers and I wandered around the mission house again, finding all sorts of useful things and vegetables and maize in the garden, and finally I was able to shoot a nice cockerel that had nervously hidden itself in a tree. With everything stowed in a hand basket, we were on the way back when suddenly shots rang out from the hill behind the mission house, one of which landed between me and Oswald. We had a good twenty-minute walk to the fort across totally open terrain: rocky, uphill, and without any cover. Oswald called to me to throw my bag away because I could run better, but there was nothing more I could do, so I wasn’t going to give up my cockerel to the Hereros. We straight away brought the horses, carts and oxen to the kraal behind the fort; and, lying under cover of the rubble of the fort, we immediately returned fire until darkness fell and the Hereros stopped shooting. Sleeping within the walls was practically impossible, as the wreckage on which we were lying almost broke our backs.
18 February 1904
By five o’clock in the morning I had had enough; I sat down, and at the very moment I had lit my pipe, and was thinking about my mother in Tetschen, the other side began shooting. At first I was delighted, and even waved my thanks to the rocks opposite because I thought the Hereros were so considerate to have organised a gun salute to mark my mother’s birthday, but as an 88er bullet[35] struck the ground about a metre in front of me, I realised that the gentlemen meant it for me. Our side returned vigorous fire at once; but we could not move out from the wreckage of the fort, and at ten o’clock the enemy ceased firing and moved off.
19 February 1904
At four in the morning the patrol moved off with the ox cart to return to Okahandja, we had to carry on waiting here.
At half-past eight a ten-strong mounted patrol came, under Oberleutnant Ritter, the head of the Otjimbingwe detachment we had been waiting for (very jolly). He said that they had not seen a single Herero between Klein- and Gross-Barmen. We were puzzled, because we had observed Hereros in the hills just a short while before. The detachment was due to arrive in about two hours and, to protect them from surprises, we decided to ride to Klein-Barmen with Ritter’s patrol. We set off at half-past nine, twenty-eight riders, with one sergeant and eight men remaining as a guard. After a short ride we came to the home of the farmer Rosenthal,[36] completely destroyed. We found Rosenthal lying murdered in the cattle kraal, and buried what remained of him in a grave which we scraped out with our hands, as we lacked a spade. In the meantime Feldwebel Säring had been sent with six men to scout to the left around the cliffs located there; when he did not return, we rode to the cliffs at a full gallop in Schützenlinie (skirmish-line) formation. Suddenly, two hundred metres ahead of us, a bunch of Hereros jumped out of the rocks and opened fire on us. We rode to the left, brought our horses into cover, leaped off and took up the fight. We had the enemy under heavy fire and were about to storm their positions, when… Boom! Suddenly an artillery grenade whizzed over our heads. Shortly afterwards, shrapnel burst a short way behind us, and at the same moment a second grenade exploded near us. “Everyone to the horses! Get out and gallop back on whatever you can ride, our own artillery are firing at us!”
What had happened was this: Kapitänleutnant Gygas had just arrived on the scene with sixty crewmen from the Habicht, and fifty new Schutztruppe troops and two guns from Otjimbingwe (the advance party under Oberleutnant Ritter was already with us). The cliffs that we were about to storm lay between him and us, and since he was engaging with enemy in the cliffs, he opened fire on them with his guns. We rode back until we were out of range of the guns, with two horses shot, and occupied the left-hand-side of the path leading up, in order to cut off the enemy’s retreat. With six men, I went further forward and occupied a hill at the enemy’s flank. The fight lasted six hours until the enemy was displaced from his position and all the rest of them retreated back in a stampede. Once our troops had withdrawn, Gygas directed us for deployment to Barmen. We followed everyone else, providing cover at the rear of the column, and arrived at the fort at five o’clock in the afternoon, tired, hungry and thirsty.
We were looking forward to a rest, but did not get one, because there were nine men seriously wounded (one man missing, believed killed) who needed to be brought overnight with a mounted escort to Okahandja. We just had time to feed and water our horses and grab a bite to eat ourselves, and at six-thirty the detachment stood saddled-up and ready to move off again. Sixteen troops rode ahead with Gygas and Oberleutnant Ritter, then an ox-cart with the wounded, and ten riders and myself providing an escort at the rear. It was a dismal journey, because the ox-cart drove very slowly over the bad roads; we had to keep to its pace, and so we finally arrived in Okahandja at two in the morning.
Eight hours on horseback at walking speed after spending the entire day in the saddle and fighting, you can only imagine what the riders went through. I prefer four hours trotting and cantering to an hour at walking pace. In order to provide relief during the slow progress, every now and then I permitted men to dismount and lead their horses. The waggon constantly enveloped us in a cloud of dust, and occasionally we halted and allowed it to proceed forward for some distance, so that at least we had the opportunity to trot a short way. At one point during these manoeuvres the waggon got about 200 metres ahead of us. As we trotted to catch it up, Kapitänleutnant Gygas was there in the middle of the road, and he tore me off a strip: I was supposed to be escorting the waggon, not going out for a nice canter in the country. Since he refused to accept the explanation I gave him for my actions, I angrily gave the command “Dismount! Lead horses!” Gygas gave me a disapproving look and rode back to the front.
In Barmen our quarters were occupied, so we dismounted in front of the fort and spent the night sleeping on our saddles. I was up early, and met Kapitänleutnant Gygas. He immediately stopped me and said “Was it you leading the patrol behind the cart with the wounded? You’re a fine chap: first I reprimand you, and then you give the order, ‘Dismount!’ You actually meant ‘Kiss my arse,’ didn’t you?”
I did not say anything, but when he asked again, I replied “If that’s what the Herr Kapitänleutnant thinks, then I have to agree.”
Gygas laughed, shook hands and took me inside the fort for a large glass of schnapps.
24 February 1904
We had received news that there were Hereros settled with cattle at Okamita, about twenty-five kilometres north of Okahandja, and orders came for an expedition. At eleven o’clock at night we set off; thirty mounted riders at the front, then two guns and a Seebataillon company on foot under Hauptmann Scheering. We stopped from one till three, and let the horses graze with their saddles on; it was a cold night and none of us were thinking of sleep.
25 February 1904
At five in the morning we arrived at Okamita, a large H
erero village in a beautiful location, with good pasture and water. The guns were hauled to the top of a hill, and we horsemen galloped in Schützenlinie formation from the left towards the village before the infantry went in from the right. The village was deserted; after searching the surrounding area and confirming that none of the enemy could be found, we set the huts on fire. Our task was fulfilled; Scheering’s section remained in place until the afternoon, while the mounted troops started back after an hour’s rest. We found on the road the bodies of Feldwebel Kühnel and a trooper who had been missing since the outbreak of the uprising; in other words, they had died there while out on patrol.
26 February 1904
The telephone line to Windhoek stopped working and needed to be repaired by Feldpostsekretär Thorun, and I had to ride with a patrol of four troopers to escort him. He soon found the damage, and on the way back we had a little race with the train coming from Windhoek… which we won handsomely.
27 February 1904.
At nine o’clock in the morning, I was sent by train to Windhoek with a special message from Oberst Dürr;[37] it was nice to do something different for a change. There were two days to wait until I could return, and the time passed pleasantly with invitations to see friends, as well as in the officer’s casino. I was also able to attend the execution by hanging of four Hereros.
29 February 1904
In the morning I returned to Okahandja.
1st March 1904
I spent the morning with Oberleutnant Ritter and Leutnant Oswald. We were building targets for artillery halfway up Kaiser Wilhelm Berg. We held a shooting competition in the afternoon.
The Autobiography of Eugen Mansfeld Page 6