Sir Hugh Charles Clifford

“ When all the facts above noted are borne in mind, therefore, it ceases to be in any degree wonderful that von Lettow-Vorbeck’s forces—which from first to last never numbered more than five or six thousand Askari and perhaps a thousand to fifteen hundred white men—were able to keep their British pursuers chasing them to and fro and up and down the jungles of East Africa for nearly four years, with all the grotesque lack of success with which a dignified middle-aged person runs after his hat upon a windy day. ”

“ In this brilliant little encounter six men of the Gold Coast Regiment were killed, six were wounded, and one fell into the hands of the enemy. The latter lost three white men and fifteen Askari killed, and over thirty wounded; and the Gold Coast Regiment, remembering the fate of Lieutenant Shields and Colour-Sergeant Nelson and their men, had the satisfaction of feeling that, to use the phrase of the officers’ mess, “they had got back some of their own.” ”

“ Of these a number, under the charge of naval officers, accompanied the marching men, scudding up and down the column and searching the country in the immediate neighbourhood of the line of march, much as a dog hunts on all sides of a path along which its owner is walking. Occasionally, a deep donga would be met with, which could not be negotiated by a motor-car; and then the marching men would turn to with their picks and shovels, fill in a section of the dried-up watercourse, and so fashion a temporary road across it which enabled the cars to pass. ”

“ Through this heated atmosphere the marching troops plodded doggedly onward, parched with thirst, and playing an eternal game of hide and seek with the attacking bush-fires. Many narrow escapes occurred, and the first-line transport of the Gold Coast Regiment was once fairly caught, the casualties including 6 oxen, an army transport cart, 2 wagons, 10,800 rounds of small arm ammunition, 20 picks, 42 shovels, one rifle, some private kit, and a quantity of rations, all of which were burned to a cinder. ”

“ As the large stocks of native food-stuffs seized by the British at Nangano and again at Ruponda clearly showed, the Askari were for the most part well fed and well cared for; but cassava and maize and millet, which will perfectly content an African, form a sadly monotonous and unsatisfying diet for white men who have to make of them their staple for many months on end. ”

“ Von Lettow-Vorbeck and Kohl had allowed the British, very slowly and painfully, to work their way inland from the coast from a distance of eighty-four miles to Medo; and having now drawn them on into a very difficult belt of country, they were preparing to ambush the advance once or twice daily, to make the troops fight as often as possible and in disadvantageous circumstances, for the camping-ground and for their supply of water, and to withhold from them any chance of dealing a very effective blow at their ubiquitous and elusive enemy. ”

“ Such a shortage can only occur in the hot weather, at a season when the atmosphere is so abnormally dry that a man may feel his very eyebrows lift and stiffen as the last, least drop of moisture is sucked from out of them. All about lies a parched and arid wilderness, here and there blackened by bush-fires, where the leafless trees provide no shade, an environment the very dustiness of which alone occasions an abnormal sensation of thirst ”

“ The men who took part in the East African campaign are louder than any in the expression of their admiration for von Lettow-Vorbeck, for the pluck and grit and resource which he displayed, for his dogged resolution, and for the fine resistance which he put up, and which may justly be attributed to his individual energy and force of character. ”

“ No. 1 Column could supply itself with water from the captured holes at Mihambia, but the position of the Gold Coast Regiment was rapidly becoming desperate. Officers and men alike were agonized by thirst, which was intensified by the heat in this dried-up, arid waste of dust-smothered vegetation, and those of them who had been fighting and patrolling all day were reduced to a state of pitiable exhaustion. If a supply of water could not be obtained early on the morrow a considerable portion of the force would almost inevitably perish of drought in that weary wilderness. ”

“ Such trifles as the discomfort of accumulating dirt which cannot be washed away hardly affect you; the craving to drink has blotted out all other physical sensations. You realize that you are treading a road along which, perilously close ahead, madness lies in ambush.
It says much for the discipline of the men, and for the trust which they repose in their officers that, during those appalling days between the morning of the 19th and the afternoon of the 22nd September, none deserted, straying away from the force on an insane quest for water. ”

“ These facts combine to render a campaign in the bush a heart-breaking and nerve-racking experience, even when the enemy is an undisciplined native levy armed with more or less primitive weapons. In the Kameruns, however, and to a much greater degree in East Africa, the enemy was composed of well-trained native soldiers, with a good stiffening of Europeans; he was armed with machine-guns and magazine-rifles; he was supplied with native guides intimately acquainted with every yard of the country; and he was led with extraordinary skill and energy by German officers. ”

“ All along the line little knots of natives shouted and danced their welcome, and even after darkness had fallen every station at which the trains stopped was crammed by eager crowds of Europeans and natives alike, bent upon showing the men what pride the colony felt at the reputation which they had won for themselves, and how deep was the popular sympathy for all they had suffered and endured. ”

“ It was while the meshes of the net appeared at last to be securely drawn around von Lettow-Vorbeck, that Lieutenant Broomfield and his little body of sixty men of the Gold Coast Mounted Infantry specially distinguished themselves. It was of great moment to General Edwards that he should be kept fully and frequently informed of the exact position and movements of the enemy, and this service was rendered to him by Lieutenant Broomfield. For a week the Gold Coast Mounted Infantry maintained close touch with the enemy’s main body. ”

“ The cold felt has little in common with the brisk, keen cold of a frosty day or that met with at a high altitude; but it has certain raw and penetrating properties, and the discomfort becomes hourly more acute, while at every moment the puddles suck and squelch beneath you, and fresh streams of colder water flow in from unexpected directions to chill you to the bone. ”

“ It was doubtless thought by simple folk in Berlin that the dramatic arrival of a Zeppelin on the battlefields of East Africa would fill the native troops fighting against von Lettow-Vorbeck with awe, terror and despair, and would produce upon them the demoralizing effect which a belief that the Germans stood possessed of supernatural powers might be expected to inspire. But the Oriental and African native of to-day is a thoroughly blasé person who has long ago outgrown such childish weaknesses. ”

“ The pursuit through bush and scrub, or through wide expanses of high grass, of a stubborn and crafty enemy is a task which, as many British regiments have learned in places spattered all up and down the tropics, imposes a peculiar strain upon the nerves and upon the endurance of the forces which engage in it. ”

“ Silence in the ranks is easy enough to secure among men subject to strict military discipline, but no Englishman has yet learned the secret of imposing a like silence upon a mob of male and female African carriers. The result was impressive, but it may perhaps be hoped that the British never will achieve this particular miracle. Those who know the natives of Africa will agree that it is only to be wrought by means of methods that have always found greater favour in Prussia than they are ever likely to secure in Great Britain. ”

“ It means that every stream has run dry, and that even many of the larger rivers have shrunken into mere runnels. It means that sun-dried grass and scrub and the very leaves upon the trees have become brittle and inflammable as tinder; and that the bush fires, for the most part self-generated,—such as those which of old so greatly affrighted Hanno and his Carthaginian mariners on the West Coast of Africa—are ubiquitous,—are columns of smoke by day and pillars of fire by night. ”

“ Had he realized, as the Burmese and the Malays both realized, how small a force is needed to check and delay the advance of an enemy column through the bush, and had he thereafter devoted most of his attention to constant harassing attacks upon the terribly vulnerable transport trains, it would have been altogether impossible for the British to drive him, in the course of two dry-weather campaigns, steadily southward from the country north of the Dar-es-Salaam-Lake Tanganyika Railway to beyond the Rovuma River into Portuguese territory. ”

“ The Gold Coast soldier is a toughish fellow, and as a rule is not greatly affected by extremes of heat. Like all Africans, however, he is blessed with very open pores, and an insufficient supply of drinking-water hits him peculiarly hard. On this day no less than forty men fell out, and sank exhausted on the line of march, and it would have gone hard with them had not some motor-drivers hurried to the rear and returned, after an absence of some hours, with a supply of water. ”

“ Between Mtumbei Juu and Kibata, at a point near the base of the valley which divides the hill upon which the mission station stands from that occupied by the Kibata mission buildings, a hill slopes upward in a long spur, trending in a northerly direction. Its surface, covered with grass and strewn with outcrops of rock, is broken by many minor crests, till the summit is reached at its most northerly extremity. Near the top a spur juts out to the east and south, shaped somewhat like the flapper of a seal, its slopes separated from the main hill by a semicircular valley. ”

“ From the kopje occupied by the Pioneers a general view of the enemy’s position could be obtained. On the left front, about a mile away as the crow flies, Kikirunga arose skyward from the huddle of lower hills in which it has its base, and from one of the slopes of these, somewhat to the right of the peak, an enemy machine-gun opened fire upon the position which Butler had occupied. ”

“ The object to be aimed at was to wear down the enemy’s forces, to reduce them by gradual attrition, and for this purpose to bring them to action whenever and wherever this could be achieved. There were now, however, no important places, such as Newala, to be threatened by the British advance, and von Lettow-Vorbeck having got rid of all impedimenta, and having no preoccupation save that of maintaining himself in the field as long as possible, was able to place his opponents in a very embarrassing position. ”

“ Toward the end of 1916 a number of captured Askari were sent back to British East Africa, and were there incorporated in a battalion of the King’s African Rifles. The reputation which they there won for themselves is instructive—excellent on parade, but a most violent and undisciplined crew when off duty, who in their relations with the native population respected the laws neither of God nor of man. ”

“ As for secrecy, that was unattainable in country where the enemy’s scouts could creep up to within a few yards of a British column without running any save the most slender risk of being observed, and where, when once the main roads were quitted, the passage of any large body of men through the bush inevitably caused an amount of noise and commotion that was nicely calculated to advertise its presence to even the least watchful and suspicious of enemies. ”

“ The way led along a native footpath which only admitted of men marching in single file, but in order to beat out a track for the transport through the high grass and standing crops of maize 265and millet, the column advanced four abreast—a hard task for troops who had been insufficiently fed for many days, and who were now required to cover between daybreak and dusk a distance of eighteen miles. The column camped in the bush, and on the following day it joined up with the 4th Battalion of the 4th King’s African Rifles at the boma at Msalu. ”

“ For you now thirst no longer only with parched mouth, swollen tongue, cracking lips and throat that is dry as a lime-kiln, for each individual pore is gaping and aching with drought which every passing minute renders more acute and unendurable. ”

“ Von Lettow-Vorbeck, the German Commander-in-Chief, who throughout was the living soul of the resistance offered to the British, was not a man who believed in doing things by halves, and when he found that the valley of the Rufiji was untenable, he established his main headquarters nearly two hundred miles further to the south of that river, at a place lying within thirty-five miles of the Rovuma, which is the boundary between erstwhile German and Portuguese East Africa. ”