My Reminiscences of East Africa

by Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck

Unmolested by the enemy, I now made for the fertile district of Kwiri, south of Mahua, and from thence on to the Lurio. It turned out, however, that some of our seriously wounded and sick would not be able to endure several days of such marches in their “Maschille” (litters). Nor was it easy to ensure medical attention. We had too few attendants to be able to leave the sick behind individually. So there was nothing for it but to collect our invalids from time to time, turn them into a complete Field Hospital, under a single medical officer, and take our leave of them finally. Even the senior medical officer of the Protective Force, Dr. Meixner, was left behind at Kwiri with one such hospital. On that occasion I said farewell to Lieutenant Schaefer who had rendered us such exemplary service in the preparations for the action at Jassini, and was now stricken with black-water fever. This experienced “African” was fully aware of his situation, but was as cheerful as ever and faced his inevitable end, which was approaching fast, with composure.

I did not wish to linger long north of the Lurio, for I thought that this river, which had been very high only a short time before, would be a serious obstacle. For that reason I proposed to cross it with our large quantity of transport quickly and without let or hindrance. When we actually reached the Lurio it appeared that at this time of the year there were plenty of fords which offered a comfortable crossing. We left some of our troops on the northern bank without anxiety as to the drawbacks involved, and established a camp for the main body on the southern bank. The country was very fertile and the inhabitants trusted in us; good relations had been established by the earlier visits of the patrols and raiding parties. One of my orderlies had a hearty reception from some old acquaintances.

I was pretty sure that the English would attack us here and be compelled to bring up ever more troops. If I only withdrew slowly enough, the strong enemy forces would, I believed, probably follow, but in view of their immense supply difficulties, it would be in vain. In this way I might achieve my main purpose of gaining enough time to raid the weaker hostile camps and posts further south. Captain Müller’s detachment, which had been sent south, discovered one such camp at Malema, the same place where our troops had won heartening successes before.

After fighting for several days Captain Müller captured the Boma Malema. It had been occupied by an English half-battalion which retired south at night. Simultaneously a Portuguese patrol had gone north from the Boma Malema and returned. Captain Müller took the latter for the retreating English, attacked them on the march and was very astonished to find that the killed were Portuguese.

After the action Captain Müller shifted his camp. In the move, Lieutenant von Schroetter, who was ill with malaria, was left behind for a short time and taken prisoner by an English patrol which suddenly appeared upon the scene. When this patrol marched off to the Boma Inagu he managed to escape, and rejoined us at length, quite exhausted. But he lost all his belongings, and had nothing on his head—a very serious matter under a tropical sun.

From the reports of the natives and our own patrols there was no longer room for doubt that strong enemy forces, which had disembarked at Mozambique, were marching west on the Boma Malema, and were already only a few days’ march from that place. Simultaneous reports were received that troops were also marching towards the Boma Malema from the west, the direction of Malacotera. A few days later the enemy following us from the north reached the Lurio, so we evacuated its northern bank. From captured documents and the fighting that took place on the northern bank, we judged that this hostile force was stronger than I had suspected. Thanks to its light motor transport columns it had been able to follow us up quickly with all its supply as well as a body which I estimated at about three or four battalions with auxiliary arms.

The country along the river Malema in which we had our camp was quite extraordinarily fertile. The mtama was perfectly ripe, and there was an abundance of tomatoes, bananas, sweet potatoes (batatas) and other fruits. The food was also very varied. Game and fish were plentiful. The natives knew the German troops from previous acquaintance, and were very friendly. When I rode from one detachment to another the women came running out of their houses to see the “Njama” (animal, game, flesh), a creature quite unknown to them. I was riding a horse, of course! The fertile country was so extensive that we could not even approximately exploit or protect it. We could not prevent it supplying the necessities of life to the large number of Askari and non-combatants with our enemies, as well as ourselves. We could not deprive the enemy of the possibility of also making this prolific region in a large measure into a new base and shortening his line of supply. From our point of view the country was, if anything, too fertile and we were not in a position, as on earlier occasions, to exploit it to such an extent before we left that it was insufficient to support the enemy masses. But at any rate it had the result that for the moment we were very mobile as, thanks to our sojourn of several weeks, our wounded and sick were so far recovered that all, even the inmates of the field hospitals, were quite fit for marching.

This advantage would have been lost once more by any considerable actions. I decided gradually to evacuate the region, in spite of its extraordinary fertility, and slip through the ring in which the enemy columns were enclosing me in the fertile district of the Malema river. My idea was that a small part of my troops should hold off these enemy columns and keep them so busy that they would think they were involved in a serious affair, and attack my rearguard properly. In coming to this decision, good service was done me by the orders of the English commander which had fallen into our hands. He had no intention of being “foxed” by us a second time, as he had been at Koriwa, and had therefore arranged that whenever contact was established with us at any point, several detachments should immediately execute a flank march round us at a distance of five or six English miles. I told General Edwards about this later on, and he was extraordinarily amused that this had given me an intimation of his intentions, and enabled me to take my counter-measures against them. It was obvious that if I only echeloned my troops deeply enough the enemy’s enveloping detachments would be placed in the greatest peril. They would find themselves sandwiched between my detachments and in this way could be taken by surprise in the flank or rear by my troops echeloned further back. Unfortunately the execution of this plan was only imperfect. In the very thick bush, however carefully one watched camp fires and the dust, there were too few indications to follow a column properly and it was very difficult for a column to keep its direction. In addition there were a number of factors that threw out one’s calculations, factors such as dense bush, marshes and water-courses. In spite of all these obstacles, we succeeded every now and then in taking one of the hostile enveloping columns by surprise and bringing it under fire. The inevitable difficulties of moving separate columns in the thick bush were even greater on the English side than on the German. When a collision occurred there was often a complete mix-up in which neither friend nor foe knew whom he had before him. On one occasion Lieutenant von Ruckteschell’s detachment, which had been nearest to the enemy, fell back on some of our troops which had been echeloned further back. In so doing it came across a reconnoitring party in the bush, at a distance of about thirty paces. This patrol was recognized as an enemy. The machine guns were brought into position under the nose of the enemy and without any interference on his part, and the patrol, which had taken our men for English, was fired on lustily at point-blank range and put to flight in a second.

In the same way our own patrols continually found themselves in the middle of enemy troops. On one such occasion Vizefeldwebel Schaffrath made his patrol lie down in the high grass and then opened an effective fire on the head of approaching enemy columns. Then he took cover again. In this way he succeeded in the course of a few hours in inflicting sensible losses on the enemy several times and capturing some material.

I wanted to gain time by these holding actions, so that I could get my main body into the country further south, which was supposed to be fertile, according to report, and fall upon and drive away the smallish hostile garrisons we expected to find there. The first objective of this nature was the Portuguese Boma Alto-Moloque. A captured map showed that this had been the seat of a higher administrative authority in peace time and the military station of a force exceeding a company. Both natives and food must certainly be there. Between us and Alto-Moloque lay the high range of Inagu. An English battalion in its entrenched camp at Inagu barred the road which led from the Boma Malema round the west side of the Inagu Mountains to Alto-Moloque. It was therefore probable that our advance by that road would be contested, and that would have been unpleasant in view of the length of our carrier columns. In any case we should have been delayed and our intended surprise attack on Alto-Moloque would have been spoilt. But surprise I regarded as absolutely essential, as we suspected the presence of ammunition and arms at Alto-Moloque.