Since the 25th July, 1915, General Wahle was besieging the enemy, who was strongly entrenched at Jericho, with four companies and two 1873-pattern guns. Relief expeditions from Abercorn were defeated, but the siege was raised on the 2nd August, as no effect could be produced with the guns available. General Wahle returned to Dar-es-Salaam with three companies. The 29th Company remained at Jericho, the two guns at Kigoma.
On the 19th June the Goetzen towed off the steamer Cecil Rhodes, which was lying beached at Kituta, and sank her.
During September and October there were continual skirmishes between patrols on the border near Bismarckburg; Belgian reinforcements again invaded the country about Abercorn. On the 3rd December it was observed that the defences of Jericho had been abandoned and dismantled. A new fort, north-east of Abercorn, was bombarded by Lieutenant Franken on the 6th December with one hundred rifles and one machine gun; the enemy appeared to sustain some casualties.
The English Naval Expedition, the approach of which, by Bukoma and Elizabethville, had long been under observation, had reached the Lukuga Railway on the 22nd October, 1919. We picked up leaflets which stated that a surprise was being prepared for the Germans on Lake Tanganyika; this made me think that we might now have to deal with specially-built small craft which might possibly be equipped with torpedoes. We had, therefore, to meet a very serious menace to our command of Lake Tanganyika, which might prove decisive to our whole campaign. The simultaneous transfer of hostile troops towards Lake Kivu and Abercorn proved that an offensive by land was to be co-ordinated with the expedition. In order to defeat the enemy if possible while his concentration was still in progress, Captain Schulz attacked the Belgians at Luwungi on the 27th September, inflicting heavy loss.
On the night of the 28th October the steamer Kingani surprised a Belgian working-party, who were constructing a telegraph line, and captured some stores. In the mouth of the Lukuga river a railway train was observed on the move. At last, the Kingani did not return from a reconnaissance to the mouth of the Lukuga, and, according to a Belgian wireless message of the 31st December, she had been lost, four Europeans and eight natives were said to have been killed, the remainder to have been captured. Evidently, the favourable opportunity for interfering with the enemy’s preparations for gaining command of the Lake had passed.
Then, on the 9th February, 1916, another of our armed steamers was captured by the enemy.
On Lake Nyassa the German steamer Hermann von Wissmann, whose captain did not know that war had broken out, was surprised and taken by the English Government steamer Gwendolen on the 13th August, 1914.
On the 9th September, 1914, Captain von Langenn, with his 5th Field Company, which was stationed at Massoko, near New Langenburg, had attacked the English station of Karongo. In the action with the English, who were holding a fortified position, Captain von Langenn himself was severely wounded. The two company officers were also severely wounded and taken prisoners. The German non-commissioned officers and the Askari fought very gallantly, but were obliged to recognize that they could do nothing against the enemy’s entrenchments, and, therefore, broke off the hopeless engagement. Over twenty Askari had been killed, several machine guns and light guns had been lost. Reinforcements from the 2nd Company at once arrived from Iringa and Ubena, and several hundred Wahehe auxiliaries were raised. Gradually it turned out that the enemy had also suffered severely. He avoided expeditions on a large scale against the Langenburg District, and so this fertile country, which was so necessary to us as a source of supply, remained in our possession for eighteen months.
Later on our company at Langenburg moved its main body nearer the border to Ipyana Mission. On the 2nd November an affair of outposts occurred on the Lufira river, and the steamer Gwendolen on Lake Nyassa was hit several times by our artillery.
Early in December, 1914, some fighting between patrols took place north of Karongo, on the Ssongwe river. Lieutenant Dr. Gothein, of the Medical Corps, who had been returned to us from captivity by the English in May, 1915, told us that in the first action at Karongo, on the 9th September, 1914, the enemy had had six Europeans and fifty Askari killed, and seven Europeans and more than fifty Askari severely wounded. The English spies were very active, especially through the agency of the “Vali,” the native administrative official, on the Ssongwe.