East African Campaign (1914-1918) Part IV: War Along the Railway

The Lesson of Jassini

Lettow-Vorbeck prepared for his offensive against Jassini. Early in January, Lettow-Vorbeck scouted ahead with one of his captains. He created as accurate sketch as possible of the terrain and enemy dispositions. The most notable feature of Jassini was its large coconut plantation. The fort at Jassini itself was only manned by a small advance force, with the bulk of the British force miles to the north (now under the command of General Richard Wapshare). In Jassini’s rear was a small river, the Sigi. The commander of Jassini’s garrison was an Indian Colonel, Raghbir Singh. Under him were Indians and elements of the KAR. If Lettow-Vorbeck hit it swiftly enough, he could overwhelm the small garrison and remove the northern threat to Tanga. He hastened back to his army and brought it up. He was careful and secretive in organizing his men, hoping for the element of surprise. Contingents went ahead, going north around the town to straddle the roads north. They hoped to block and delay any relief efforts for the garrison.

The battle began on January 18. The surprise attack was looking to be a success, but internal dissensions prevented it. Among the Askaris were Arabs, and they were very angry with their commander. Lettow-Vorbeck wanted few impediments to his force’s mobility, and had ordered the Arabs to leave their boys behind. These young males helped the Askaris carry their gear, and performed certain other services for the Arabs. Stripped of their youthful companions, the Arabs waited until they were close to enemy lines and then fired their guns into the air, alerting Singh’s Indians. They ran to the rear, satisfied that they had gained their revenge. However, the African Askaris were furious and turned their guns on the Arabs, mowing them down. Having dealt with this treachery, the Schutztruppe now found itself embroiled in a furious battle.

George Fitzhugh: Confederate Socialist?

“All concur that free society is a failure. We slaveholders say you must recur to domestic slavery, the oldest, the best and most common form of Socialism.”- George Fitzhugh[1]

The likening of southern slaveholding ideology to socialism seems anathema to us today. The former is associated with conservatism and the latter with leftism. But it must be remembered that not all socialism is Marxism. Still, the states that would make up the Confederacy never thought to have the government control the economic means of production. Yet in the years leading up the Civil War, one Virginian intellectual insisted that there were commonalities between socialism and slaveholding ideology. This man was George Fitzhugh, a small slaveholder and lawyer in Port Royal, Virginia. He sought to prove the legitimacy of slavery and furthermore to show that it was a moral good for the betterment of the lower classes.

Southerners often defended slavery on the grounds that it was a benign institution, that it uplifted blacks towards white civilization. A common counter-argument of the abolitionists was that if slavery was so good, then why were impoverished whites not put into it? Unlike other pro-slavery advocates, Fitzhugh took their arguments to their logical conclusion, that there was nothing wrong with enslaving whites. This was a radical suggestion, though Fitzhugh did argue that the enslavement of whites would be much different than the enslavement of blacks. However, he considered slavery of any kind to be a better alternative to “free society” capitalism, especially in industrializing countries. It should also be noted that many of his arguments were not unheard of among Southerners in general. He merely took them a little further. Most of his ideas expressed here are taken from his two major works, Sociology for the South (1854) and Cannibals All (1857). Both attacked free capitalist society and both defended the Southern way of life as the most natural and benevolent.

East African Campaign (1914-1918) Part III: The Sting of Defeat

The Invasion Force

As the first skirmishes broke out on land and at sea, the British Empire prepared a death blow to German East Africa. Given the rapid successes mounting against Germany’s other colonies, it expected much to be accomplished with one hastily assembled force. This force was Indian Expeditionary Force B. Assembled in India, it soon was stripped of many of its best men and top-notch gear. These resources were diverted to deal with the oncoming entrance of the Ottoman Empire on Germany’s side. Indian Expeditionary Force B was led by General Arthur Edward Aitken of the Indian Army. He had not done much of note in his career, but had good familial and political connections. This gave him a command position, albeit one in a sideshow. Originally IEF B was built around Aitken’s own 16^th Poona Brigade, and his mission was to seize Dar-es-Salaam and its radio station. However, the 16^th Poona Brigade was taken away, while his superiors gave him a far more ambitious plan. He was to land his force at the port town of Tanga. After seizing it, he was to move north towards Stewart’s IEF C, which was currently squaring off against Lettow-Vorbeck, and secure the colonial border. After this he was to conquer all of German East Africa. Like many of the famed British military disasters of history, the upcoming campaign was to be undone by an incredible stream of horrible decisions and terrible luck.

Replacing the Poona Brigade was the 27^th Bangalore Brigade under General Richard Wapshare (but sans its cavalry, artillery, and pioneers which were redirected elsewhere). This was the only brigade in the force to hold an all-British battalion, the Loyal North Lancashires. One Regular Army brigade was added, with the 63^rd Palamcottah Light Infantry and the 98^th Infantry. The infantry was further filled out with Imperial Service troopers. These were not part of the British army, but soldiers assigned to various Indian princes. They had practically been private security forces and inexperienced in true warfare. Those that were borrowed were placed in a brigade under Brigadier General Tighe. The Indian Service units had originally been equipped with outdated Lee-Enfield long rifles and had barely any time to adjust to the newer shorter models handed out before the East Africa invasion. They did not have machine guns at all. A few finally got the weapons, but at the last minute and with no time to properly train. Finally Aitken was given the 61^st King George’s Own Pioneers, the 28^th Indian Mountain Battery, and various small detachments of support personnel such as railway specialists and signalmen. All of these units would not consolidate until they arrived at Tanga, making it impossible for Aitken to study his force as whole and reorganize it accordingly.

East African Campaign (1914-918) Part II: War Comes to East Africa

Neutral Hopes

War among the whites was not supposed to happen in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Scramble for Africa and other colonial ventures had been morally justified on the idea of transmitting European civilization to the unenlightened (“White Man’s Burden”). The whites had to set an example by showing they had moved beyond fighting each other. There were another dimension to this ideological reasoning. One was that Europe itself was hoping never to repeat the widespread conflagration of earlier coalition wars, the Napoleonic Wars serving as the most recent example. Europeans had managed to avoid any such conflicts for about a century. What wars there were between the nations included ones that were quick (Franco-Prussian War) or limited in its scope (Crimean War). Thus Europe hoped to prevent any escalation of competing imperial interests into a repeat of earlier disasters.

By not allowing blacks to see white kill white, the Europeans in the colonies were primarily serving their own self-interests. After all, they were perfectly willing to send blacks to kill other blacks. What they realized was that if the supposedly superior whites began to kill each other, it would undermine the image they had cultivated for themselves. Even worse, such a war in the colonies might require the use of black troops against whites, further undermining the hierarchy of race. Thus far the only inter-white conflicts in Africa had occurred between the British Empire and the Boers in Southern Africa, and these were not between the imperial powers, but between just one of them and a defiant group of colonists. It was furthermore restricted to only one part of Africa. World War I would be the true violation of colonial neutrality.

Grover Cleveland: Most Underrated President?

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Joseph T. Glatthaar's The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman’s Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaign

Glatthaar, Joseph T. The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman’s Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaign. Los Angeles: New York: New York University Press, 1985.

Glatthaar is a Civil War historian who specializes at looking into the lives or the everyday rank-and-file, though he has done work on major generals. He’s a bit of a social historian with a military focus. He’s more well-known for Forged in Battle, which looked at the relationship between black Union soldiers and their white officers. Before that he wrote this overview of Sherman’s force after the fall of Atlanta and up to May 1865. He attempts to show the reader that the various Union armies were unique in their own way. Sherman’s army, which was actually a combination of the Army of Tennessee and the Army of Georgia (actually two corps of the Army of the Cumberland) was primarily made up of westerners who had a more egalitarian view of the army. While there was discipline, officers and men spoke more freely. Officers, up to generals, would sometimes pitch in manually when a wagon or artillery piece needed to be freed from mud or quickly placed. Compared to the Army of the Potomac, they had much less concern for proper drill and proper attire. Two corps from the Army of the Potomac in fact helped make up Sherman’s force and they had trouble adjusting to this new army, which “at first glance… looked more like a mob than an army. They were an unkempt, boisterous, seemingly unruly lot, in no way resembling the stereotypical professional army of the min-nineteenth century...”

East African Campaign (1914-918) Part I: The German Empire

Map of Colonized Africa right before the outbreak of WWI. Courtesy of davidjl123 / Somebody500 via wikimedia at https://brilliantmaps.com/africa-1914/

World War I, also known as the Great War, was labeled thus because it involved nearly every nation on the world in some capacity. Every great power was militarily involved. Despite its status as a “world war”, the bulk of the fighting took place in Europe and the Middle East. There were battles in far-flung theatres amongst the belligerents' colonies, but these were considered side-shows. These theatres also did not last long into the war. Against the Entente’s Britain, France, Belgium, Japan, and later Portugal, the only member of the Central Powers to have colonies was Germany. It could not hold on to is oversea possessions against the British Royal Navy and the overwhelming numerical superiority of the Entente’s colonial forces. It would need to win on the European continent and get some or all of its territory back in a post-war settlement. By the end of 1915 all of its colonies had been conquered. All save one.

German East Africa, the crown jewel of the young German Empire, would see fighting all the way past the armistice of November 11, 1918. Led by the determined General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, the Germans and their native African soldiers would at first repel Entente intrusions and then lead them on long chases. They would furthermore strike into enemy colonies. Though defeated, Lettow-Vorbeck and his men would gain universal admiration and a considerable body of literature within military history. Many writers have claimed that his efforts diverted valuable resources from Europe, thus helping out the overall war effort. This series will look at several questions. What was the true impact of the East African campaign on the war overall?  How did German East Africa hold on so long? How much was owed to German genius and how much to British mistakes? Were there other factors? And how did the Africans themselves perceive the conflict and how were they affected? Before diving into the war, it would be good to start with a brief history of German East Africa.