On December 3rd I received a telegram, dated the 2nd December, from General van Deventer. It ran as follows:
“I beg to acknowledge receipt of your telegram setting forth your formal protest against your troops being treated as prisoners of war. This will duly be forwarded to the War Office. Meanwhile I am sure you will recognise that pending the receipt through the War Office of a communication on the subject of the German Govt. I have had no choice but to act in accordance with the orders of the War Office, and treat your force as prisoners of war.”
The same day the first lot of troops for transport went on board four ships. One of them, the St. George, had, in addition to its crew of English bluejackets and an escort officer, only the Governor and the officers of our force with their black servants. For food the English gave us corned beef, dates and biscuits, and Dr. Huber, the veterinary officer, looked after our bodily welfare here on board as carefully as he had done for so many years in the bush. The British commander, the escort officer and the whole crew were extraordinarily kind. After a short stop on the evening of the 3rd, at the Belgian station of Vua, a violent storm arose in the night. It tore away the awning and, among other things, carried off Dr. Huber’s coat. The English sailors did all they possibly could for the Germans, who were quite wet through.
On December 5th we arrived at Kigoma. The place was under Belgian control, and the Belgians received us with a hospitality which could not have been anticipated. They displayed a tactful reserve to us which had never been shown before. Tables covered with cloths had been set out for all the Europeans, a sight we had not seen for years. Some red wine was produced. The Belgian Governor had sent his orderly officer, who spoke German fluently, to receive us officially, and I was glad to take the opportunity, before we started on our railway journey, to thank the Belgian commandant for the camaraderie shown us, camaraderie which always exists among soldiers, even between enemies, when they have a mutual regard for each other.
Among the English, too, examples of discourtesy on the part of individual officers, who apparently had not been brought up in the South, were absolutely exceptional. The senior men immediately adopted a tactful attitude, whereas one or two juniors did otherwise—for example, they were inconsiderate enough to want to keep a German invalid out of the compartment. We Europeans were very well looked after on the train, and it was like peace time to get a good night’s rest by letting down the bunks and using a leather pillow.
There was quite a crowd of Germans on the station at Tabora. They complained of many cases of theft on the part of the Belgians and English. It is undoubtedly true that such outrages had taken place. We stopped for the night at Dodoma and next morning had an opportunity of fetching water and having a bath.
The news of the approach of our train had reached Morogoro, and when we arrived there in the afternoon we once more found the German women whom we had left behind us in and about Morogoro two years before. They had tea and coffee waiting for us. They had arranged tables and baked plenty of rolls and cakes. In addition they had got the finest fruit for us. The English were almost as much interested as the Germans. Besides a very amiable elderly medical officer I have a particularly lively recollection of a tall, lanky corporal who had apparently drunk a whole series of glasses to our health before our train arrived. I managed to slip away from him at last.
We reached Dar-es-Salaam at seven o’clock on the morning of December 8th. The Europeans were well housed in tents in a camp within a barbed-wire fence. Food was good and plentiful, and we were able to buy necessaries of all kinds cheaply from the English canteen. Governor Schnee and I were received by the Chief of Staff of the British commander, General Sheppard, and conducted to our very pretty house outside the camp. General van Deventer had very kindly sent a luncheon there as a welcome to us. Major Kraut, Captain Spangenberg, and Dr. Huber were all quartered here. We found General Wahle, who had been left behind sick at Ubene and fallen into the enemy’s hands a few months back. He had quite recovered. We had a common mess and our freedom of movement out of the house was only limited to the extent that we had always to be accompanied by a British officer as escort. At the start these gentlemen were very unpunctual, but gradually quite tolerable relations were established between us, and I had an opportunity of visiting acquaintances in Dar-es-Salaam and arranging my personal affairs. A car was also usually placed at my disposal. Major Hosken, the Commandant of the prison camp, who had previously shown himself extremely considerate to the captured German women and children in Tanga, now again devoted himself to preserve us from unnecessary annoyance.
On our railway journey we had already been surprised to find almost more English Europeans at every station than we had in the whole of the Protective Force. Dar-es-Salaam itself literally swarmed with white troops. I estimated their number at not less than five thousand, and hundreds and hundreds of motor lorries and cars were awaiting repairs in the motor transport park.
This close concentration of human beings revealed its dangers when Spanish influenza made its appearance. Escort officers told me that frequently five or seven English officers had died of this disease at Dar-es-Salaam. We soon came across its traces among ourselves. Infection had probably taken place while we were on the ship on Lake Tanganyika, and subsequently on the train. It spread from man to man in the concentration camps in Dar-es-Salaam. Captain Spangenberg was going about with me in the town shortly after his arrival at Dar-es-Salaam. Then he felt ill, and though his iron constitution had successfully overcome all the hardships of the campaign, he died in hospital on December 18th of influenza and inflammation of the lungs.