To Arms

by Hew Strachan

  The Schütztruppen were a professional military elite, proud of their vocation and often the sons of soldiers. Originally their recruiting area had embraced the Sudan, Abyssinia, and Somalia, but by 1914 well over two-thirds came from within German East Africa itself, from Urundi, Tabora, Iringa, and Songea. Their initial period of enlistment was five years, and the combination of generous pay and enhanced status ensured frequent re-enlistment. Their officers served in the colony for a minimum of two-and-a-half years. In reality many served much longer, and six had been in East Africa since before 1908. Lettow himself, although only recently arrived, boasted experience far more relevant than most German officers could claim: he had visited the Boer republics, served in the Boxer rebellion, and had been wounded in the Herero uprising. The Germans’ discipline was harsh, but clear and uncapricious: fifteen lashes with a horsewhip was the penalty for not obeying orders, and twenty-five for lying. The askaris’ loyalty is a moot point. Of the 13,430 casualties which they suffered throughout the war, 4,510 were reported as missing, 4,275 as captured, and 2,847 as deserters. Sufficient indications of poor morale are present in these figures to give the lie to German claims of an extraordinary faithfulness to the Kaiser. Those who soldiered on frequently did so because their wives accompanied them: their homes and property rested in the Schutztruppe. But equally, the casualty figures were disproportionately swollen in 1917–18, when the askaris were far from their native territories with inadequate supplies and with pay considerably in arrears. No question-mark stands over askari loyalty until late 1916; and equally Lettow still had—for all its diminution—an effective fighting force in November 1918.158

  In January 1914 all bar three of the field companies were armed with the 1871-model, black-powder carbine. Its retention had been justified on the grounds that bush warfare involved fighting at close quarters, success resting on surprise rather than on musketry. Lettow was anxious to increase the firepower of his troops, and by the outbreak of the war the number of companies equipped with the 1898 smokeless magazine rifle had risen to six. In addition, each company had two to four machine-guns. The thirty-one field guns were all obsolete, of small calibres and provided with insufficient ammunition.159

  The askaris never achieved the level of markmanship to which Lettow aspired. The key weapon proved to be the machine-gun, more mobile than the field gun and manned by Europeans.160 But their small-unit tactics were brilliantly adapted to the terrain in which they fought. Rather than embrace the 1906 German infantry regulations, the Schütztruppen of East Africa had their own manual based on their experiences against local insurgents. They recognized that retreat with minimum losses could be counted success, that pursuit of an apparently vanquished foe could be the prelude to ambush. The Germans had learnt the techniques of bush warfare, how to use ground but avoid fixed positions. Herein is the source of Lettow’s claim to be a guerrilla leader. In reality, these tactics were the bread and butter of the Schütztruppen before his arrival. His achievement was to recognize their potential application in the event of conflict with the adjacent colonial powers.161

  The British made no such imaginative leap. For them bush warfare and operations against European powers belonged in separate and largely self-contained compartments, at least until January 1917. They had, in the King’s African Rifles, a unit comparable with the Schütztruppen. But in August 1914 it boasted only three battalions, one each in Nyasaland, Uganda, and Kenya. A fourth, also based in Nyasaland, had just been disbanded. Many of its members had crossed the frontier to Neu Langenburg to enlist in the better-paid Schütztruppen, with the result that the company there used British bugle-calls and English words of command. Both the Uganda and the Kenya battalions were engaged in operations on their northern frontiers, in Turkana, Jubaland, and Somalia. Thus, of the King’s African Rifles’ total strength of 2,319 askaris, only about 150 were available in Nairobi to protect the Uganda railway. Moreover, the battalion organization, apparently so much better adapted for war against a European opponent than the field-company structure of the Schütztruppen, was misleading. Each battalion consisted of eight small and therefore weak companies, not four large ones as had just been adopted in the British army proper. The ratio of Europeans to blacks was much less favourable than in the German units: the numbers of officers were comparable (sixty-two British to sixty-three German), but there were only two British NCOs to sixty-seven German. Like the Schütztruppen, the King’s African Rifles had no supporting units, no transport and supply services; unlike them, its administration was based not in East Africa but in London.162

  Therefore, when the CID subcommittee met on 5 August 1914 it had to reckon with the problem that British East Africa had insufficient local forces for defence, let alone attack. The most recent operational plan for the area, that of 1912, recognized this: its thrust was entirely defensive, relying on the Royal Navy and developments in Europe. But the subcommittee’s decision to target the port and wireless station of Dar es Salaam demanded an offensive capability. Its solution, first adumbrated in an ill-worked-out plan of 1898, was to call on the Indian army. Present at the meeting was Brigadier-General A.R. Hoskins, the inspector-general of the King’s African Rifles, who was home on leave. Hoskins warned the committee of the problems of campaigning in East Africa, reminding them that the low-lying coastal strip was hot, humid, and malarial. The favoured point of invasion in the 1898 plan had been from Voi towards Moshi, via Taveta, in the much healthier uplands of the foothills of Kilimanjaro. Seaborne attacks along the coast were to prevent the Germans concentrating to the north. Thus, the immediate naval priorities in 1914 were at odds with the likely area of land operations. Moreover, the limited objectives of the former contrasted with the ambition of the latter: the 1898 plan reckoned on the conquest of all German East Africa.163 The subcommittee’s conclusion was to ask for not one but two Indian Expeditionary Forces (IEFs), B to go to Dar es Salaam and C to reinforce the King’s African Rifles in British East Africa. Hoskins apart, the committee was deprived of intelligence or serious studies to support what it now proposed. The campaign and the King’s African Rifles were the responsibility of the Colonial Office; the Colonial Office had asked the India Office for troops; those troops were to fulfil objectives set by the Admiralty. The War Office was not directly involved and yet was the only ministry that possessed a general staff with which to work through the implications of the undertaking.164

  By September East Africa came low in the priorities of the India Office. Its first need was for India’s own security and good order, particularly on the north-west frontier; secondly, it had agreed to send two divisions to Europe; thirdly, Indian Expeditionary Force D was being readied for operations in the Persian Gulf in the event of war with Turkey. On 28 August IEF B’s raid on Dar es Salaam was postponed. But, for the Admiralty, the cruiser threat, and German East Africa’s position alongside the main shipping lanes through the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, made the dispatch of IEF B increasingly urgent. Künigsberg had, by virtue of her speed and the prevailing bad weather, eluded the Cape Squadron, and had captured a British merchantman off Aden on 6 August. Deprived of Dar es Salaam, Künigsberg profited from the coastal survey completed in early 1914 by the Müwe. It revealed eight useable channels in the delta of the Rufiji river, more than the Royal Navy could blockade even if it had known about them, which it did not. It was here that Künigsberg established her lair. On 20 September she sallied forth once more, raided Zanzibar, and sank a British light cruiser. The material damage done by Künigsberg was sustainable. But the inability to track her, the suddenness of her incursions, and—from September—the combined effect of Emden’s entry on the eastern end of the scene were creating havoc with the maritime traffic of the Indian Ocean.

  IEF B was resuscitated. But its objectives were now expanded to meet Admiralty needs, and far exceeded the resources allocated to them. Major-General A. E. Aitken, IEF B’s commander, was instructed to take possession of all the bases on the G
erman East African coastline, beginning not with Dar es Salaam but with Tanga. If IEF B took the more northerly port first, its operations could—so Aitken was advised—be combined with a thrust by IEF C from Tsavo towards Moshi. Having got control of both ends of the northern railway, Aitken would be in a position to advance on the central railway. The Germans would probably then seek terms. On 5 August the CID subcommittee envisaged a limited raid; on 1 October it was aiming ‘to bring the whole of German East Africa under British authority’.165

  The version of his instructions telegraphed to Aitken seemed to leave him no discretion with regard to a landing at Tanga. That at least was the view in India. The supporting document, sent by post and only received by Aitken on his arrival in Mombasa on 31 October, did leave him with a choice. But by that stage Aitken had fallen victim to the optimism prevailing in the British camp. The British ex-consul in Dar es Salaam, Norman King, was its principal author, encouraging the view that rebellion would ensue the moment the British attacked, that the German civilian population had little fight, and that Tanga itself would be virtually undefended. At the conference held in Mombasa on 31 October IEF B’s intelligence officer, Richard Meinertzhagen, a man of considerable Kenyan experience, did not disagree with the last point. But he observed that the Germans were concentrated in the Moshi area, and that they could therefore move troops by train to Tanga within thirty hours; at the very least they could operate on interior lines against IEF B and C, commands too far apart to have reciprocal effect, and thus liable to defeat in detail. Meinertzhagen’s views should have weighed more heavily with Aitken in view of the—for him—major revelation of the Mombasa conference, that the British would not enjoy the advantage of surprise. The navy’s agreement to respect the neutrality of Dar es Salaam and Tanga had been rejected by the Admiralty on 26 August. Rear-Admiral King-Hall, commander-in-chief at the Cape, was duly informed, but decided that the two towns would not be told until ‘shortly before any further offensive action’, in order to avoid the Germans preparing their defences. The abrogation of the neutrality agreements was confirmed in Mombasa on 22 October. By now the East Africa station had been transferred to the East Indies command, and administrative confusion may explain the determination of Captain F. W. Caulfeild, commanding the light cruiser Fox, that a separate notice of intention to resume hostilities was required at Tanga. If King’s appreciation of German morale was right, a peaceful approach might pay dividends. Aitken agreed, albeit reluctantly, that one hour’s notice be given.

  The planning of the Tanga landing was deficient in many respects, but the real stumbling-block was the shambolic state of IEF B. Originally built round a brigade subsequently purloined for the Gulf, it was composed of units that encountered each other and their commanders for the first time a week before embarkation. One brigade came from Bangalore, not one of the ‘martial’ areas of India, and the other was formed of the troops of the Indian princely states. Meinertzhagen thought them ‘the worst in India’. Aitken, however, remained confident that ‘the Indian army will make short work of a lot of niggers’.166 With a command 8,000 strong against an anticipated 4,500, most of whom he expected either to be at Moshi or to desert, Aitken felt that he could refuse the offer of the 3rd King’s African Rifles. Thus, none of his force was versed in bush warfare. Two battalions had not seen field service for a generation, and their equipment was accordingly antiquated: short-magazine Lee-Enfield rifles and machine-guns were only issued just prior to departure. Once aboard, the force remained at anchor for a week awaiting escorts before sailing. The troops were not allowed to disembark and refit at Mombasa for fear of losing surprise. Therefore, when IEF B’s convoy stood off Tanga on 2 November its members had been afloat for the best part of a month, many of them seasick throughout that time, and all of them losing what little battle-fitness they had.

  At 7.05 a.m. on 2 November Caulfeild took HMS Fox into Tanga and called on the German district officer, Dr Auracher, to surrender the town or be exposed to bombardment. Auracher procrastinated, saying he must refer to higher authority. At 10.40 a.m. Aitken received a signal from Fox to say that Tanga had not surrendered. The convoy carrying IEF B was 15 miles offshore in order to be over the horizon while these negotiations were conducted. Not until the afternoon did the British ships approach land. Caulfeild meanwhile was obsessed with the fear of mines across the harbour entrance, and refused to bring Fox’s guns to bear to cover Aitken’s landing. HMS Goliath, a battleship with 12-inch armament, had broken down off Mombasa, and thus its firepower too was lost. Aitken therefore decided to disembark not at Tanga itself but at a beach sufficiently distant from the town to be undefended. The light was already going when the first battalions began to come ashore; the unfamiliar process of disembarkation, carried out in the dark, left the Indian states forces exhausted and bewildered on a crowded beachhead as dawn broke on 3 November. The lead units, part of M. J. Tighe’s brigade, set off towards Tanga at 4.30 a.m., but they were pinned down on the eastern edge of the town by 5.30. Dense bush impeded Tighe’s communications and observation, and he was outflanked on his left. By 10 a.m. his demoralized brigade was back at its start point.

  When the action began Tanga was held by a single company, consisting of former policemen and charged principally with the maintenance of order. Although Lettow had received abundant intelligence from spies and wireless intercepts of IEF B’s coming, his attention had remained fixed on the north. He believed that any British attack on the coast was likely to be co-ordinated with an advance on Moshi. This made an attack on Tanga more likely than one on Dar es Salaam to the south, but to meet it head on conflicted with the pre-war plan to abandon the coast. Therefore, Lettow’s initial response to the threat was to want to blow up 40 kilometres of railway track inland from Tanga, so as to isolate any beachhead the British might establish.167 Such a course of action could have made sense if the British had indeed simultaneously attacked from the north, but they did not: they did not even consider the idea until the Mombasa conference on 31 October, far too late for there to be a realistic chance of its being effected.

  Schnee stopped Lettow blowing the line. Lettow’s sole response was to preposition two further companies some kilometres to Tanga’s west. Admittedly, his plans were complicated by Schnee’s continuing to argue that Tanga was an open town. But by late October its population was no longer under such illusions, and on the 29th Lettow reminded Auracher that his duty as a reserve officer was to obey the military commander, not the governor. On 2 November Auracher, the moment he had finished his parley with Caulfeild, donned his uniform and placed himself under military command. Three further companies had already begun the move from Moshi to Tanga. Each company required an independent train. Between 2 and 6 November the northern railway’s locomotives covered 6,443 kilometres compared with the 2,785 normal in peace for the same period, and on 3 November (the crucial day) they tripled the peacetime performance.168

  Lettow himself arrived at Tanga on the night of 3/4 November to find that the three pre-positioned companies had been withdrawn. Mounting a bicycle, the Schütztruppen commander went through the deserted town on a personal and unimpeded reconnaissance of the British beachhead. He now had the equivalent of seven companies immediately available, with two more due to arrive during the course of 4 November. He decided to hold Tanga to its east, and to position his reserves behind his right wing with a view to counterattacking the British from that quarter.

  IEF B’s advance began at noon on 4 November. It was very hot; units lost touch with each other in the thick bush; the fighting was mostly at ranges of 50 yards or less; the Indians were already wilting before they reached the eastern environs of Tanga. Because of the congestion on the beach, Aitken had decided not to disembark his artillery but to work the guns from the ships’ decks. Caulfeild, however, remained reluctant to bring Fox in close, and there were no observation officers forward on land to direct the guns’ fire. Thus the infantry was deprived of effective artillery support. Aitke
n’s right, formed of the best Indian battalion and a British regular battalion, made satisfactory progress nonetheless, and got into Tanga. But the heaviness of the fighting at the town’s eastern end pulled them towards the right and away from the left, which by the afternoon had disintegrated. One battalion broke and ran, causing what remained of the others on the left to bunch even further to the right. At 4.30 p.m. Lettow, his position apparently desperate, but now optimistic of accomplishing the cherished envelopment despite his inferior numbers, committed his reserve company against the British left. A further German company arrived from Moshi, but, to Lettow’s chagrin, in the confusion followed and supported the first, rather than extended the German right. To regain control of their units some company commanders ordered their buglers to sound the recall. The call was taken up and an effort to regroup became a signal to fall back.

  Thus, as darkness began to descend Aitken’s position was far from irredeemable. Meinertzhagen recognized the German bugle call, but others on Aitken’s staff insisted it was the charge. Aitken himself had lost confidence. He had kept no reserve in hand to exploit such an opportunity as now presented itself. At 8 p.m., rather than occupy the untenanted German positions, he ordered re-embarkation.

  By 5 November Lettow had collected 1,500 troops. He awaited a fresh British onslaught, his defences far from secure, and conscious that only three companies remained to hold the area around Kilimanjaro. Tanga itself was at last under naval gunfire. At 5 p.m. Lettow concluded that the town was untenable, and prepared to fall back out of range. But IEF B was already on its way. By 3.20 p.m. the British evacuation was complete. All the heavy stores, whose rapid reshipment had not been envisaged, were abandoned on the beachhead. In the north IEF C had fallen back, its attack on 3 November too late to hold the Germans around Moshi and too lackadaisical to reach the water at Longido. Aitken had handed his adversary a major victory.