Three Years of War in East Africa

Foreword

Captain Buchanan has done me the honour of asking me to write a short preface to a work which seems to me at all events of peculiar interest. To write a preface is a difficult task, unless one has some real raison d'etre for the task ; yet I find it difficult to refuse, if only for my intense admiration for the part played by the battalion with which the author was so long and honourably associated—the 25th Royal Fusiliers.

The author’s qualifications to write this work are undoubted, not only from his stout record as a soldier, but also through his previous experience as a traveller, explorer, and student of Natural History. When war broke out Captain Buchanan was engaged on behalf of the Provincial Government of Saskatchewan, Canada, in investigating the country in the far north, west of Hudson Bay, and studying and collecting the rarer flora and fauna. He had been for nearly a year many hundreds of miles out of touch with any other white man. The first rumour of war did not reach him until the end of October, when he at once struck south to a Hudson Bay Fort, which he reached at Christmas. Without delay he left to join up, and in but a month or two had changed his habitat from almost the Arctic Circle to the Equator.

Readers will be able to follow the fortunes of that wonderful unit, the 25th Royal Fusiliers, through the campaign, and will perhaps gain thereby an insight into this strangest of all side-shows more true and illuminating than a more comprehensive work. There was little that this old Legion of Frontiersmen missed. Comparisons are odious; yet I think it may safely be said that no other white unit took so full a part in the diverse stages of the campaign. They bore the long and arduous months of frontier and railway guarding in 1915. They took no mean share in the spectacular capture of Bukoba. Their mounted infantry as well as ordinary rank and file, took part in many of the small but intensely trying patrols through the thorny scrub along the Serengeti plains. General Smuts’s operations around Kilimanjaro saw them. Right to the fore were they in the long and tiring treks, varied by frequent and fierce rear-guard actions, which took place down the Pangani and southward through the bush and forests to the capture of Morogoro; and onwards again right down to the Rufiji. They bore that cruelly hard period through the rains of 1916, when they held the Mgeta line against a numerically superior foe, living literally in a swamp for months, riddled through and through with fever. In January, 1917, when General Smuts made his final effort to position, Colonel Driscoll and his men were right in the van, and here among others they lost Captain Selous, that great hunter and greater English gentleman. After a brief period in the south we find them back in time for the final stages of the campaign. Here they went in from Lindi to take part in the fighting of 1917, fighting so bitter that all the previous work was but as child’s play in comparison. Lest it seem that I exaggerate, let me say that, with a force of about half the size, the casualties during these last four months were three times as great as those throughout the whole previous two years. There was indeed hardly an action in which the battalion did not take part, until that day on the 18th of October, 1917, when, while covering a temporary retirement, they were overwhelmed by immensely superior numbers and cut to pieces.

The author does not harp overmuch on the sickness and privations of his comrades—he has been through too many of them to do so; but I am reminded of the remark of one of them during the not infrequent periods of grousing which every respectable British soldier must have. "Ah, I wish to h----- was in France ! There one lives like a gentleman and dies like a man, here one lives like a pig and dies like a dog.” There may have been something in this remark, yet I have thought as I saw the 25th staggering on, absolutely in rags, many with fever actually on them, nearly all emaciated and staring-eyed, that they were living, if not like gentlemen, at all events like Men.

There is one point of view that I would like to put before readers in estimating the debt that those of us who live in Africa owe to these men—and that is this: when once the coastal belt was reached, and after the departure of General Smuts and practically all his South African fighting troops, it became apparent that European infantry, generally speaking, could no longer compete on even terms with the native soldier. The handicap of climate became too great. The European could no longer stand marching under a load, and more than that, the continual fever and sun sapped the "essential guts," so that it became almost impossible for white troops to meet the German-African troops—led, of course, by trained and well-fed German officers and N.C.O.s—with any fair prospect of success. Such a fact boded ill for the future prestige of the white race. Yet it may be said that the Fusiliers soared triumphant even over this handicap ; and they can boast, without fear of contradiction, that up to the very end no German field company would look with other than apprehension to meeting the 25th on even terms. I have always felt that the prowess and endurance of these fine men during these last months have done more to uphold our prestige and ensure the firm future of our rule than is likely to be adequately realised.

An estimate of the campaign as a whole is scarcely yet possible. It will probably be years before a just view can be taken of a side-show that is believed to have cost more money and many more lives than the whole of the South African Campaign. Many mistakes were made, and it is more than possible that the lion’s share of what credit posterity may have to bestow will fall on Von Lettow and his comrades. Yet there were many factors which caused the task which Generals Tighe, Smuts, Hoskins, and Van Deventer did eventually accomplish, to be of almost unparalleled difficulty.

The question asked very often, and one which is likely to be of interest to posterity, is: How were the Germans able to prolong their resistance and, in fine, to make such a determined struggle against our very superior forces ? In answer the following points seem to merit consideration.

In the first place the enemy had in the person of Colonel Von Lettow an outstanding personality, and a soldier whose merit it is hard to over-estimate. It will, moreover, always form one bright spot on the blackened German escutcheon that in his operations during the campaign, personally speaking, his conduct was as clean as it was efficient.

When war broke out the local military position was overwhelmingly in favour of the Germans. They had ready, at a conservative estimate, 2,000 to 3,000 trained whites and 8,000 native troops, with some 70 machine- guns and 40 guns. Against this we, on our side, had in British East Africa about 700 native soldiers and 2 machine-guns, one of which was out of action, and not more than 100 whites with any military experience at all. This force might possibly have been duplicated in Nyasaland. With this early crushing superiority it is obvious that expansion on the one side was easy—on the other a matter of extraordinary difficulty.

In connection with this point it must also be borne in mind that in British East Africa the natives are for the very large part, not soldiers, but agriculturists by nature; whereas German East Africa teems with natives who form as fine material for soldiers as any in the world. This point is always worth remembering since, because of it, while Germany held German East Africa, she was a potential menace to the whole continent.

Unity of command again was with the Germans to a striking degree. For on our side was ever command so divided ? Our main force working from East Africa contained troops from almost every portion of the globe, speaking different tongues, having different habits, eating different foods, fighting in different ways. From Nyasaland and Rhodesia, General Northey with his small force brilliantly fought his way into the enemy’s country, for long not only not under our Commander-in- Chief, but not even administered by the War Office. From the west our most gallant Allies the Belgians pushed forward to Tabora, and later worked in direct co-operation into the very heart of the enemy’s country. On the south there were the Portuguese.

The advantages which the Germans had over us in this matter were worth many thousands of rifles.

It is certainly undeniable that after the first eighteen months our combined force largely outnumbered our adversaries. Yet at his strongest Von Lettow probably mustered 25,000 to 30,000 rifles, all fighting troops. A not inconsiderable army on the basis that we, on our side, had to estimate that it took four to five soldiers to get one fighting man into the firing line.

It will naturally be assumed that at all events in the matter of equipment and arms we had the advantage, but until the very latest stages it may be doubted if this was so. Two incidents will illustrate this. During the latter part of 1916 a German prisoner, being taken past a spot where some of our artillery units, which shall be nameless, were parked, remarked, 44 the movable armament from the Ark, I should imagine! ” And, indeed, his naval guns, his 42-in. howitzers, and quick-firing mountain guns were far ahead of anything in our possession. Again, late in 1917, a German doctor came in to demand back one of his medical panniers abandoned on the field. We returned it with reluctance, as it was a very fine set, the latest model in 1914. However, in response to repeated and urgent indents and “ hasteners,” new equipment for our own medical department was that moment arriving. It was far in advance of anything we had seen on our side, but was plainly marked 1906. I shall not soon forget the sneer on that doctor’s face.

It is true that twice in the campaign the Germans were on short commons in the matter of small-arm ammunition, in spite of their enormous pre-war accumulation, but in each case, most unfortunately, a blockade runner relieved the situation. Later on, unfortunate captures prevented a shortage which would have appeared inevitable.

Again, the Germans worked throughout on interior lines and were able, for the most part, to choose the areas in which their resistance would be stiffest. Such spots were naturally where they would gain the fullest advantage from their knowledge of the country, and where the evil climate would exact the most murderous toll from our white and Indian troops. These considerations should, I think, be borne in mind by those who feel, as many must, that the cost in blood and money was altogether in excess of the results obtained. In any case it is to our credit that having put hand to the plough we did not turn back. It is for those who in the future will reap the benefit to see that the worthiest use is made of the vast country which the efforts of those who have fallen have placed in our hands.

The wild animal and bird life encountered throughout the campaign formed a most distinctive feature. This especially applies to the last stages, when the fighting in the southeast corner of the Colony was conducted in territory almost virgin to the naturalist. This applies equally to the insects both large and small, which in many cases were as unpleasant as they were intrusive. Captain Buchanan is well qualified to discourse on these subjects, and his observant notes are most instructive. Let us hope that some day he may find an opportunity of renewing his researches under happier circumstances.

In conclusion of these few remarks let me wish Captain Buchanan the utmost success in putting his book before the public. If only others read it with the same interest and enjoyment with which it has filled me, I can only think that the author’s work will not have been in vain.


Cranworth.