by Edward Paice
The operations in and around the Uluguru Mountains proved to be, in Smuts’s own words, ‘among the most difficult of the whole campaign’26 and were conducted in weather which alternated almost hourly between raging heat and torrential rain. German resistance was stubborn, ferocious and unpredictable. The detachments in positions in the heights overlooking Morogoro were not forced down to the plains, as Smuts intended, but succeeded in retiring straight through the mountains, ‘the wildest and most impassable in East Africa . . . with sheer precipices falling to yawning gorges, swampy valleys and thick jungles’. As they began to arrive in Kissaki, to the south of the Ulugurus, all the German troops ‘showed signs of the retreat’, malaria was rife, and uniforms were ‘faded and tattered’. But they had again achieved a feat that had been considered impossible by Smuts, defying conditions of ‘constant misery and torture’.27
Even a timely convergence at the southern end of the Ulugurus of Smuts’s two flanking manoeuvres proved impossible. When Enslin and Beves were just eight miles west of Kissaki on 5 September, Hoskins’s troops were still over forty miles away to the north-east; and instead of waiting for the British Division the South African commanders launched an attack that was mauled by Otto. Nussey also had to withdraw when he confronted Tafel north of Kissaki, and the consequence of these ‘two isolated efforts’ leading to a ‘double retirement’28 was that von Lettow-Vorbeck was able to withdraw his entire force to Duthumi, where he fought yet another rearguard action, and then over the Mgeta River to safety. It was here that Nis Kock first set eyes on his commander-in-chief:
He didn’t look much as I’d imagined him, his clothes were shabbier than those of most officers and he wore no badge of rank. He had on a rather dilapidated sun-helmet, riding breeches and puttees, and a pair of exceedingly well-worn riding boots. Judging by all this he was not a man who thought much about appearances . . . But his face struck one as remarkable. It was no typical army chief ’s face, a little moustache was the only military thing about it, and there was a hovering smile at the corners of his mouth. I had imagined something much more brusque and unapproachable; but his whole bearing was intrepid and self-assured.29
When Hoskins’s troops, shattered and famished, finally converged on Kissaki the German troops were already entrenched on the other side of the Mgeta River. Five German naval guns and 500 4.1-inch shells had been captured during the advance, but they were scant consolation. Smuts’s plan to ‘bottle up’ von Lettow-Vorbeck around Morogoro had, like his plan to cut him off north of the Central Railway, failed; and with rain now falling heavily, and many of his troops having advanced 200 miles in six weeks, it was impossible for Smuts to consider launching an immediate offensive south of the Mgeta. To the west the situation was no better. Van Deventer’s advance from the Central Railway towards Mahenge was also brought to a standstill by the rain on 10 September, by which time half the men in his division were sick. In total, more than 6,000 British troops were in hospital at the end of the month, and Brits’s 3rd Division had ceased to be an effective unit.
On the southern front it was not only the first rumours of Wahle’s approach, and the fact that van Deventer’s troops were still separated by 100 miles of unholy terrain from Iringa, that made Northey’s position start to look ‘distinctly grave’30 in early October. Mindful of his need to hold the main food-growing districts south of the Central Railway by the advent of the rainy season, von Lettow-Vorbeck had begun shifting his troop dispositions in August. Holding the Mahenge plateau would give him command of the rice-growing district in the Kilombero (Ulanga) Valley, a resource all the more precious since the fall of Mwanza, and he had sent the trusted Kraut from Kilossa to reinforce Braunschweig on the plateau in August. The combined force of about 2,500 troops with twenty-four machine-guns and six field guns now defending the Mahenge plateau soon proved a considerable obstacle to Smuts’s plan for Northey to occupy it; and while Northey watched for Wahle’s approach from the west, he suddenly heard that in the east Kraut was personally leading a substantial force of ten or eleven companies to attack Hawthorn’s column on the Ruhudje River.* Rhodesians’, who were fortuitously completing their march all the way from Iringa, harrying German troops The first inkling of this ‘scarcely believable’ threat was brought by runner to Hawthorn in late September. Patrols were immediately sent out and, as one trooper attested, ‘sure enough back came our patrol closely followed by the enemy’.
Kraut’s attack on Hawthorn’s positions began in the afternoon of 28 September, with the SAMR guns subjected to a heavy bombardment from Kraut’s artillery. They answered with double explosive shells which ‘made terrific double reports in the drum-like air of the forest’,31 and Hawthorn’s troops held firm – killing forty-two and wounding more than eighty of Kraut’s attackers (including eleven Germans). Sniping continued all night, making everyone jumpy and relieved to receive the order the following morning to pull back through elephant grass taller than a man to the Ruhudje, which was crossed in darkness. Once across the river the column dug in around Mkapira and was joined there by Murray’s ‘ubiquitous through the mountainous country around Muhanga Mission and right down the sweltering Ruhudje Valley by way of Makua.
It was now fully apparent that an entire new front had opened up to Northey’s east, stretching 200 miles from Iringa to Songea, and in order to try and arrest the general drift of the campaign southwards, Admiral Charlton continued his subjugation of the German ports. On 7 September Kilwa Kivinje surrendered to Vengeance and Kilwa Kisiwani to Talbot and Challenger. Six days later Kiswere was occupied by the Royal Marines without a fight and Sudi Bay, the Marie’s former hideout, and Lindi followed. By 18 September the whole of German East Africa’s coastline was in British hands. It was over two years since the naval operations against German East Africa had commenced, yet the work of the four cruisers and fleet of smaller vessels was still not at an end. To the south the Portuguese, who had formally entered the war in March, were finally advancing across the Rovuma into German East Africa, and it was tacitly recognised that on past form this might well involve a need for support.
In early May, Smuts had written to Admiral Charlton that ‘we will have to see our mission through whatever proportion of sickness we may have’.32 Less than six months later, however, he was forced to contemplate the possibility that he had been stymied by a combination of disease, natural obstacles and the tactics of his elusive and determined opponent. Smuts’s response was characteristically optimistic. At the end of September he informed the War Office that the operations he planned for October and November would be ‘final’. They had to be: the War Office was pressing for as many as possible of the 50,000 or so British, Indian and South African troops tied down in East Africa to be made available for other fronts; and Botha and Smuts had already decided to begin repatriating the remains of their most depleted units. Among the first to leave was Byron’s 5/SAI, which could only muster 118 fit men, and embarkation orders were also received by – among others – 9/SAI (reduced to 116 men from its original strength of 1,135 all ranks) and by 1/SAH and 2/SAH (among whose original officers only one – Captain Bagenal – had not been hospitalised). Among the Indian Army and other British units the story was the same: even the 57th (Wilde’s) Rifles could only field one in five of its men after just three months in Africa.
Smuts would later write that ‘it may be that I expected too much of my men’ in calling for a further advance at this juncture, ‘that I imposed too hard a task on them under the awful conditions of this tropical campaign’. But his response to this question was resolute: ‘I do not think so . . . It is true that efforts like these cannot be made without inflicting the greatest hardships on all, but it is equally true that the Commander who shrinks from such efforts should stay at home.’ He knew that he would be unable to destroy all of von Lettow-Vorbeck’s detachments – the main force between the Mgeta and Rufiji Rivers, Kraut’s strong force on the Mahenge plateau, and Wahle’s – in succession before the end of
the year. But the encirclement of the main body might still be feasible, and Smuts even thought that there was an outside possibility that the enemy might seek to surrender.
At the end of September Smuts wrote to Schnee in the following terms:
It is unnecessary for me to point out that on your Excellency and Colonel von Lettow rests the responsibility for the welfare of the helpless people of this Colony, who are cut off from all hope of succour from abroad and have already been called upon to make such efforts and sacrifices for more than two years. A continuation of the campaign even for a short while longer at this season of the year and in the deadly country to which your forces are now confined must mean untold suffering and complete ruin for them and at the end there will be no alternative to unconditional surrender. Under these circumstances I would impress upon Your Excellency that the time has come for you and Colonel von Lettow to consider very seriously whether this useless resistance should not now cease in a manner honourable to yourselves.33
His overture was a judicious mix of bluff and blackmail, and Schnee ‘declined the proposal’.34
Von Lettow-Vorbeck regarded Smuts’s missive as confirmation that his opponent’s ‘blow had failed’, that he was ‘at the end of his resources’.35 He still had 1,500 Germans and 7,500 askari in the field, and had succeeded in moving huge quantities of supplies and munitions – including several thousand cattle – from Kissaki before abandoning the town. To say that all was well, however, would be an overstatement. In the retreat from Morogoro, askari whose homes were north of the railway had deserted and even switched sides in considerable numbers; and many of the European troops viewed the prospect of further ‘desperate resistance quite without hope’36 with no great enthusiasm. As was true of their pursuers, there was an increasing realisation that the campaign was not, as some in Europe believed, ‘a sightseeing tour arranged by Cooks’,37 and that ‘if you are told to “live on the country” and the country has not got it, well you have had it’.38
TWENTY-THREE
Smuts’s ‘Final Phase’
At Mkapira, forty miles west of Mahenge, Murray and Hawthorn dug in after their initial ‘bump’ with Kraut at the end of September. Their position, on a slope with forest on three sides and the swampy banks of the Ruhudje on the fourth, was an exposed one; but observation posts on ‘Picquet’ Hill to the north would warn of any attack on the network of gun pits and trenches constructed by the British troops. At the centre of the camp the South African Mounted Rifles’ guns afforded further protection, and for three weeks Kraut, keen to make quite certain that his second attack was successful, also remained on the defensive while he awaited the arrival of further troops from the Mahenge plateau.
During the early hours of 20 October, two days before Northey was warned by van Deventer that Kraut had fully ten or eleven companies at his disposal, British scouts at Mkapira warned Hawthorn that an attack was imminent and the camp was put on full alert. At dawn the lookouts were driven off Picquet Hill by German troops, and within minutes it became clear that Mkapira was surrounded and its lines of communication with Lupembe had been cut. Only two of Kraut’s companies remained east of the Ruhudje River while two had crossed to seize Picquet Hill, three occupied another hill to the south of Mkapira, and another had taken up a position at nearby Mudikula. All the river crossings for miles were held by German detachments, and at 8 a.m. concentrated fire from the German artillery and more than a dozen machine-guns was directed against the British camp. The barrage went unanswered until mid afternoon, when the SAMR guns were briefly called on to assist in repelling an attack against Murray’s trenches on the higher ground to the north of the camp. But after the attack was beaten off the British guns again fell silent for fear of giving away their positions, and for three days Kraut continued his bombardment unopposed as he endeavoured to soften up a foe whose strength he estimated at just three or four companies.
On 29 October Mkapira’s defenders repelled another determined German attack and, as many in the camp were now suffering from dysentery and the effects of an acute shortage of foodstuffs, Hawthorn and Murray decided that the time had come to attempt to break the siege. The counter-attack was ‘a brilliant piece of work’.1 Hawthorn’s troops beat back the two German companies to the north of the camp, Murray’s Rhodesians and a company of 1/KAR attacked two others to the south-west and a KAR detachment moved up from Kasinga, fifteen miles west of Mkapira, in support. Before light Murray’s BSAP charged 10/FK’s picquets with the bayonet and did not stop until they were right into the enemy trenches, and all around Mkapira German troops were forced out of their offensive positions. Freiherr Louis von Schrötter, who had just a month earlier received the Iron Cross 2nd Class, lost two of 10/FK’s three machine-guns to Murray; Hawthorn’s KAR also captured a machine-gun and a small field gun in their attack; and a barrage laid down by the SAMR guns to the west was of such ferocity that the German companies holding the road to Lupembe were unable to move in support of those being attacked nearer Mkapira.
Kraut appeared to have been taken completely by surprise by the counterattack, and many of his troops fought through the early stages of the battle in a state of semi-undress. In a few hours it was all over. German casualties amounted to almost fifty killed and eighty-one captured, whereas British casualties numbered just twenty-five. In addition to the three machine-guns and the field gun, documents summarising Kraut’s movements up to 26 October were captured. These revealed that Kraut’s intention had been to starve Mkapira’s defenders into surrender, thereby securing the Mahenge plateau from any further threat from the south-west. Instead he was routed. Von Lettow-Vorbeck acknowledged a ‘partial disaster’ and somewhat disingenuously claimed that Kraut – who had a superiority of about four to one – had ‘insufficient resources . . . to take [Mkapira] by force’.2
After Mkapira, Murray’s demeanour was said to soften. His men had finally proved themselves up to his exacting standards, and they in turn now acknowledged him to be ‘a commander that one was proud to serve’.3 But no sooner had the dead been buried than news was received at Mkapira that Lupembe was being heavily attacked and Hawthorn left to relieve the mission as fast as possible. He found the route clear because Kraut, mistakenly thinking that the din emanating from the west indicated that his own 25/FK was under attack on the Lupembe road, pulled those of his mauled troops who remained on the west bank of the Ruhudje back over the river. But after a while Kraut, who had no knowledge of the whereabouts of Wahle’s Westtruppen, became increasingly uncertain of the veracity of his belief that 25/FK was engaged with British troops to the west.
When the first news of fighting around Lupembe reached von Lettow-Vorbeck he too considered it a ‘riddle’, and one that ‘was not solved until later’.4 Unbeknownst to both of them, while Kraut had been advancing from the Mahenge plateau to Mkapira Wahle’s advance troops had had their first contact with Northey’s force. On 17 October scouts operating from Njombe, Northey’s HQ, reported a large enemy force to the north and it was subsequently identified as Wintgens’s column, which was making for the mountain stronghold of Ngominyi, thirty-five miles south-west of Iringa. As was his wont, Wintgens was operating entirely independently: Wahle had in effect lost him, and only after Wintgens crossed the Great Ruaha River in the fourth week in October did Wahle’s son finally locate him. On 23 October, before communication was established with Wahle, ‘Captain Winkins’, as Allied reports referred to Wintgens, sent out Zingel’s 26/FK to ambush a column led by Colonel Baxendale which had escorted an SAMR battery forward from Malangali to Iringa and was returning via Ngominyi. Baxendale was killed, his column of fifty Northern Rhodesia Police suffered thirty-three casualties, and Wintgens then turned his attention to Ngominyi itself, which was held by Captain Clarke with two 12-pdr naval guns and fifty men. After a siege lasting six days, during which even the sick and wounded were forced to remain in the trenches, the depot surrendered. The last time Clarke was seen alive he was hurling his empty revolver a
t a German askari, and in addition to Clarke and Lieutenant Bones thirty of Ngominyi’s garrison were killed and the naval guns and a wireless fell into Wintgens’s hands.
Having arrived from Iringa a day too late to relieve Ngominyi, a column led by Colonel Rodger was the next British unit to encounter Wintgens. Two days of fierce fighting ensued, in which Rodger found his SAMR battery so completely outgunned by Wintgens’s artillery that he had to order them to withdraw; and only after the arrival of reinforcements from Iringa did Wintgens disengage and head for the mission station at Madibira. There he left 150 sick and wounded men and cast around for his next target, unaware of the extent to which his attack on Ngominyi had compromised Wahle’s plans. Wahle had intended for all his columns to attack Iringa, and was forced by Wintgens’s absence at Ngominyi to launch it without the assistance of his most audacious commander. The result, to Wahle’s considerable annoyance, was ‘costly and without success’5 because on 26 October, the advance guard of troops sent by van Deventer – comprising Colonel Freeth’s 7/SAI, a detachment of 4/SAH under Captain Walker, Colonel Fairweather’s motorcyclists, and a section of mountain guns – finally arrived in Iringa.