The casualties sustained by the Gold Coast Regiment in the fighting on the 1st October amounted to 5 men killed, and 3 Europeans, 50 rank and file and 10 carriers wounded.
On the 3rd October, the men of the Gold Coast Regiment enjoyed that, to them, unusual experience—a day of rest. Ever since leaving the camp at Narungombe, now more than a fortnight earlier, they had been incessantly on the march or in action, and during that time they had had scant leisure to devote to matters of even an essential character which merely concerned their personal comfort. Now at last, during all the hours of daylight, they were free to do as they chose, and to complete their well-being the shrunken stream of the Mbemkuru exhibited in the midst of this thirsty land the rare phenomenon of running water. The day of rest, therefore was converted into a monster washing-day, the men revelling in a succession of baths such as had not been enjoyed by any of them for months, and thereafter, subjecting their clothes and other belongings to an energetic washing and scrubbing and sun-drying till the whole camp was one large dhobi-green. It was real refreshment after all their labours and privations, and by evening the men, new-washed, cool and comfortable once more, were in high spirits and were thoroughly ready to resume their duties on the morrow.
CHAPTER XI
RUANGWA CHINI TO MNERO MISSION STATION
The operations which have formed the subject of the three preceding chapters were designed to drive von Lettow-Vorbeck’s main force in a south-easterly direction, until its progress should be stayed by “Linforce.” This latter column, in the face of stubborn resistance, and hampered, too, by the inadequate harbour facilities available at Lindi, was fighting its way mile by mile down the road which leads from that place to Massassi, where, as we have seen, von Lettow-Vorbeck had established his General Headquarters. As must inevitably happen in fighting of this character, all the British columns engaged occupied the anomalous, one might almost say the paradoxical, position of attacking forces which were incessantly and perpetually on the defensive. For them were combined all the risks of the attack upon prepared and unreconnoitred positions with all the moral and actual disadvantages which ordinarily attach to the defence. They were, indeed, only properly to be described as attacking forces because it was they that were advancing, the enemy which was retreating before them; but in the daily conflicts with the enemy, in which they were so constantly entangled, the actual attack was usually delivered by the latter. It was he, not the British, who selected the spot where fighting should take place; to him, not to them, were secured, in practical perpetuity, the advantages of surprise and of being the first to open fire; and while he could concentrate all his attention upon the task of hampering, embarrassing and resisting the advance of his opponents, the commanders of British columns and units alike were for ever distracted from the actual fighting by a knowledge of the extreme vulnerability of the formation in which they were compelled to move, and by the precautions necessary to protect it, as far as possible, from assaults upon its flanks. In this rough country, where an advance was only possible along the main roads or along well-worn paths, each column, with its inevitable train of pack-animals and loaded carriers, sprawled down the tracks for miles in the rear of the advancing force, men and beasts alike being often compelled to go in single file. The pace of such a column is that of the slowest man in it, for it is essential that straggling should, as far as possible, be prevented. It is fortunate if the progress made averages a modest two miles an hour—it will much more often approximate to half that rate of advance; yet the actual fighting force, which can be spared from the work of mere protection, cannot abandon the transport and press on ahead for any great distance without the risk of becoming paralyzed for lack of supplies and ammunition, or without exposing the long, snake-like column of unarmed men and terrified animals to an attack that may work in a few moments its complete disintegration.
The circumvention or outflanking of an enemy in these circumstances and in such country, and still more the envelopment of him, are for the most part impossible military feats. Such movements are generally dependent upon the rapid manœuvring of troops, and upon the enemy being kept in complete ignorance of the strategy which his opponent is adopting; but rapidity of movement was the one thing which could not be insured in the East African bush, save only where a very small body of men was concerned; and the forces at von Lettow-Vorbeck’s command were sufficiently numerous to expose any weak unit, temporarily detached from the main body, to imminent danger of being cut off or overwhelmed. 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. When to these things are added the fact that the British attack was always delivered upon an opponent who was perfectly familiar with the geography of the country in which the operations were being conducted, and to whom it was a matter of complete indifference which point of the compass he should select as the direction of his temporary retreat, the handicaps under which the British commanders laboured can be to some extent appreciated.
Where possible mechanical transport was used, and this fact alone served in a great measure to anchor the British columns to the main roads. Sooner or later, however, there came a time or a place at which it was no longer possible to depend even mainly upon motor transport, and thereupon hosts of pack-animals and of head-carriers became the machine of military supply, and the clamorous, snake-like column thus evolved wriggled, with incredible slowness and clamour, into the wilderness of grass and bush. Of the transport mule much has been written, and much more has been said—most of it being unprintable. As for the East African carrier, the late Sir Gerald Portal said the last word about him a full quarter of a century ago. “As an animal of burden,” he wrote, “man is out and out the worst. He eats more, carries less, is more liable to sickness, gets over less ground, is more expensive, more troublesome, and in every way less satisfactory than the meanest four-footed creature that can be trained, induced, or forced to carry a load.”
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. Members of the British public, who happily for themselves have no personal experience of bush-fighting, would do well to realize, however, how heavy was the balance of the military advantages which he throughout enjoyed, how completely these discounted any that could be derived by his opponents from mere numerical superiority, and how practically impossible is the task of rounding up in the bush a well-armed and elusive enemy, which had been entrusted to the British commanders. It may even be said that von Lettow-Vorbeck did not really make the most of his opportunities, and that, given the superiority of his armament, he played this game of bush-fighting less skilfully and successfully than it had been played in their time by the Burman and by the Malay. 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.
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.
On the 4th October the Gold Coast Regiment, rested and refreshed, and above all clean once more, took the field again.
As far as could be ascertained, the enemy appeared to be holding positions on the right bank of the Mbemkuru River on the road to Namehi, approximately four and a half miles to the west of Mitoneno. Patrols sent out on the preceding day had drawn fire from him from the hills to the south of the river, and it was General Hannyngton’s intention to attempt to hold the enemy by a frontal attack delivered by one battalion drawn from No. 1 Column, while the remainder of that force worked round his right and sought to possess itself of the hilly country to the south. The reserve of “Hanforce” was simultaneously to detail a weak battalion to hold the enemy’s left flank, the rest being held ready in support. Meanwhile, across the river on the British right, the 25th Indian Cavalry were to remain at Kihindi, holding themselves in readiness to move, at fifteen minutes’ notice, in any direction in which their services might be required.