Railways in G.S.W. Africa

Railways were indispensable on account, not only of the considerable distances to be covered, but, also, of the sand-belts and stretches of desert across which the transport of troops and stores would be a matter of great difficulty without the help of railways. They were, in fact, a vital part of the whole scheme.

Following on Germany's annexation of Damaraland and Great Namaqualand, and her conversion of them into the Protectorate of German South-West Africa, a party of German engineers and surveyors landed at Swakopmund with the design of planning a line of railway to be constructed from that point to Windhoek, and thence across the Kalahari desert to the Transvaal. About the same time, also, Germans and Boers were alike working to secure as much of Bechuanaland as they could, without attracting too much attention to their proceedings. A realisation of these further aims might have been of great value to Germany in facilitating the attainment of her full programme in respect to Africa; but the scheme was frustrated by Great Britain's annexation of Bechuanaland in September, 1885, the result of the step thus taken being to drive a wedge of British territory between German South-West Africa and the Boer Republics.

So the railway in question got no further east than Windhoek, the capital of the colony, a distance inland of 237 miles.

Having failed in one direction, Germany tried another. Under a concession granted to them in 1887 by the Government of the Transvaal Republic, a group of Dutch, German and other capitalists, constituting the Netherlands South African Railway Company, built a railway from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria; and the new aim of Germany was, apparently, to make use of this line, and so get access to the Transvaal—and beyond—from the east coast instead of from the west.

Confirmation of this fact is to be found in "A Brief History of the Transvaal Secret Service System, from its Inception to the Present Time," written by Mr. A. E. Heyer, and published at Cape Town in 1899. The writer had held a position in the Transvaal which enabled him to learn many interesting facts concerning the working of the system in question. Among other things he tells how, at Lisbon, every effort was made to obtain a port in Delagoa Bay, and how, "aided by Germany, Dr. Leyds approached Lisbon over and over again with a view to get Delagoa Bay ceded to the Transvaal"; though the Doctor got no more from the Portuguese authorities than a reminder that, under the London Convention of 1884, the South African Republic could conclude no treaty or engagement with any foreign State or nation (except the Orange Free State) until such treaty or engagement had been submitted to the Queen of England for her approval.

That Germany, in giving her "aid" in these matters to the Transvaal Republic, was inspired by a regard for the furthering of her own particular schemes is beyond all reasonable doubt; but Mr. Heyer shows, also, that when the negotiations with Portugal were unsuccessful, there was elaborated a scheme under which Germany and the Transvaal were to get what they wanted by means of a coup de main. Mr. Heyer says on this subject:—

I have before me a copy of a document, dated Pretoria, August 24, 1892 (the original of which is still in a certain Government office in Pretoria), wherein a Pretoria-Berlin scheme is detailed, namely, "How a few regiments of Prussian Infantry could be landed at Delagoa Bay and force their way into Transvaal territory, and, 'once in,' defy British suzerainty, and for all time 'hang the annoying question of her paramountcy on the nail.'" The name of Herr von Herff, then German Consul at Pretoria, appears on the document. Any one reading this cleverly-planned "Descent on Delagoa" would be readily convinced as to how very easily a German raid on Delagoa territory could be successfully accomplished.

This project, also, proved abortive, and, in default of Delagoa Bay, Germany had still to regard her South-West African Protectorate, with its railways and its armed forces, as the base from which British interests were to be wiped out—sooner or later—from the Cape to Cairo.

At the time of the outbreak of war in 1914, the principal railways in German South-West Africa—apart from some minor lines which do not come into consideration—were as follows:—

Railway2 ft. Gauge. 3 ft. 6 in. Gauge.
Miles.Miles.
Northern121119½
Otavi425—
Southern—340½
North-to-South —317
Total546777

Granting that the Northern Railway was needed to afford a means of communication between Swakopmund and the capital of the colony, and that the original purpose of the Otavi line was to provide an outlet for the copper obtained from the mines in that district, it is, nevertheless, the fact that the Southern and the North-to-South lines were designed to serve what were mainly or exclusively strategical purposes.

When the building of the first section of the Southern line—from Lüderitzbucht to Aus—was under consideration in the Reichstag, one of the members of that body, Herr Lattmann, recommended that the vote should be passed without being referred to a committee; and in support of his recommendation he said:—

This way of passing the vote would be of particular importance for the whole nation, since the railway would not then have to be regarded from the point of view of provisioning our troops, or with regard to the financially remunerative character of the colony, but because a much more serious question lies behind it, namely, what significance has the railway in the event of complications between Germany and other nations? Yes, this railway can be employed for other purposes than for transport from the coast to the interior; our troops can be easily conveyed by it from the interior to the coast and thence to other places. If, for example, a war had broken out with England we could send them into Cape Colony.

From Aus the line was extended in 1908 to Keetmanshoop, a distance inland of 230 miles from Lüderitzbucht. Situate in the Bezirk (district) of South-West Africa nearest to Cape Province, Keetmanshoop, with the railway as a source of supply from the chief harbour of the colony, developed into the leading military station of German South-West Africa.

At Keetmanshoop all the chief military authorities were stationed. It became the headquarters of the Medical Corps, the Ordnance Department, the Engineer and Railway Corps, and the Intelligence Corps of the Southern Command. It was the point of mobilisation for all the troops in that Command. It had a considerable garrison, and it had, also, an arsenal which a correspondent of the Transvaal Chronicle, who visited the town about two years before the outbreak of war in 1914 and gathered much information concerning the military preparations which had then already been made,[60] described as four times as large, and, in regard to its contents, four times as important, as the arsenal at Windhoek. Those contents included—47 gun carriages; fourteen 16-pounders; eighteen ambulances; 82 covered convoy vehicles; 3,287 wheels, mostly for trek ox-wagons; three large transportable marquees used as magazines and containing 28,000 military rifles; huge quantities of bandoliers, kits, etc.; three further magazines for ammunition, and large stores of fodder; while further military supplies were constantly arriving by train from Lüderitzbucht, whither they were brought from Germany by German ships. In the arsenal workshops was a staff of men actively engaged on the making of, among other military requirements, 1,000 saddles and water bags for the Camel Corps kept available for crossing the desert between the furthest limit of the railway and the Cape Province border.

It was, also, in this south-eastern district, and in immediate proximity, therefore, to Cape Province and Bechuanaland, that the military forces kept in the colony had all their principal manœuvres.

Of still greater importance, from a strategical standpoint, was the branch of this Southern Railway which, starting from Seeheim, forty miles west of Keetmanshoop, continued in a south-easterly direction to Kalkfontein, eighty miles north of Raman's Drift, on the Orange River, and less than ninety miles from Ukamas, where the Germans had established a military post within five miles of Nakob, situate on the Bechuanaland border, only forty miles from Upington, in Cape Province. From Kalkfontein the branch was to be continued another thirty miles to Warmbad, and so on to Raman's Drift—a convenient point for the passage of the Orange River into Cape Province territory by an attacking force. At Seeheim, the junction of this branch line, a Service Corps was stationed; Kalkfontein was the headquarters of the Camel Corps of 500 men and animals; and at Warmbad there was a military post and a military hospital.

The North-to-South line allowed of an easy movement of troops between the military headquarters at Keetmanshoop and Windhoek, or vice versâ. According to the original estimates this line was not to be completed before 1913. Special reasons for urgency—as to the nature of which it would be easy to speculate—led, however, to the line being opened for traffic on March 8, 1912. From Windhoek, also, troops were supplied to Gobabis, situate 100 miles east of the capital and about forty miles west of the Bechuanaland frontier. Gobabis became a German military station in 1895. Provided with a well-equipped fort, it became the chief strategical position on the eastern border of German South-West Africa. A railway connecting Gobabis with Windhoek was to have been commenced in 1915.

From Windhoek, as already told, there is rail communication with Swakopmund.

Grootfontein, the terminus, on the east, of the Swakopmund-Otavi line, had been a military station since 1899. Its special significance lay in the fact that it was the nearest point of approach by rail to the "Caprivi Strip," along which the German troops, conveyed as far as Grootfontein by rail, were to make their invasion of the adjoining British territory of Rhodesia. Troop movements in this direction would have been further facilitated by a link at Karibib connecting the Swakopmund-Otavi-Grootfontein line with the one to Windhoek and thence to the military headquarters at Keetmanshoop. Karibib was itself a military base, in addition to having large railway offices and workshops.

With, therefore, the minor exceptions, the system of railways in German South-West Africa had been designed or developed in accordance with plans which had for their basis an eventual attack on British territory in three separate directions—(1) Cape Province, (2) Bechuanaland and (3) Rhodesia. The Southern and the North-to-South lines had, also, been built exclusively with the standard Cape gauge of 3 ft. 6 in., so that, when "der Tag" arrived, and German succeeded British supremacy in South Africa, these particular lines could be continued in order to link up with those which the Germans would then expect to take over from Cape Province. Keetmanshoop was eventually to be converted from a terminus to a stopping-place on a through line of German railway from Lüderitzbucht to Kimberley, the effect of which, it was pointed out, would be to shorten the distance from Europe to Bulawayo by 1,300 miles as compared with the journey via the Cape. Surveys had been made for extensions (1) from Keetmanshoop, via Hasuur, to the Union frontier near Rietfontein, and (2) from Kalkfontein, on the southern branch, to Ukamas, also on the frontier and in the direction of Upington, in Union territory. Each of these additions would have carried the original scheme a stage further, though it was not, apparently, thought wise to make them before "der Tag" actually arrived.

On these various railways the Government of German South-West Africa had expended, so far as the available figures show, a total of, approximately, £8,400,000, defrayed in part from Imperial funds and in part from the revenue of the Protectorate. This total includes the amount paid by the Government to the South-West Africa Company for their line from Swakopmund to the Company's mines at Otavi and Tsumeb, but it does not include the cost of the original narrow-gauge Government line from Swakopmund to Windhoek, of which the section between Swakopmund and Karibib was abandoned when the Swakopmund-Otavi line, via Karibib, was taken over, the remaining section from Karibib to Windhoek being then converted into the Cape 3 ft. 6 in. gauge. On most of the open lines no more than two or three trains a week were run, and on some of the branches there was only one train in the week.[61]