The Gold Coast Regiment in the East African Campaign

by Sir Hugh Charles Clifford

At dawn on the 16th November, Captain Briscoe with twenty rifles drawn from A Company set out from the camp to patrol down into the valley in a northerly direction; and Captain McElligott started at the same time, in command of a similar patrol, to reconnoitre the high spur across the saddle to the east of the camp. Captain Briscoe’s patrol was fired upon very shortly after he left camp; and a little later a party of the enemy were seen moving about down in the valley. It was one of the many trials of the campaign in East Africa that even a glimpse of the folk against whom they were fighting was very rarely vouchsafed to the attacking forces. It was the rôle of the former to keep well under cover at all times, to let their pursuers discover their whereabouts if they could, and to make them pay as heavy a price as possible for the knowledge so obtained. The spectacle of a number of German soldiers, visible to the naked eye, and scuttling about in the valley, accordingly created considerable excitement, and fire was at once opened upon them with the Gold Coast Regiment’s machine-guns. There are few feats more difficult, however, than accurately to find the range of an object situated far below and aimed at from a considerable height above it. Almost invariably the fire is not sufficiently depressed, and the bullets fly well over the target. It may be doubted, therefore, whether on this occasion much execution was done. The enemy, however, quickly took cover, and was presently seen to be in action with the 55th Rifles, who were working up the valley from west to east.

Between eight and nine o’clock in the morning the rest of No. 1 Column joined the Gold Coast Regiment on Miwale Hill; and the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Regiment of the King’s African Rifles was sent south to work round the high spur on the east, which was being patrolled by Captain McElligott and his party.

The latter had reached the spur without encountering any opposition, but he reported that the northern slopes were occupied by the enemy, and that patrols sent out by him in that direction had been fired upon. At 1.45 p.m. Captain McElligott, signalling by flag-wagging from the western slope of the spur, confirmed this report; and in the meantime B Company had been dispatched to reinforce his patrol. With B Company also flag-communication was established, and the 55th Rifles and the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd King’s African Rifles were sent forward to occupy the spur.

No sooner had Captain McElligott’s signaller set to work on the western slope of the spur than the enemy from the bottom of the valley began shelling the British position with quite extraordinary accuracy. The first shot was aimed at Captain McElligott’s signaller and scored a direct hit, blowing the poor fellow to pieces. The shelling which followed was no less accurate, and the target this time was the crowded perimeter camp in which No. 1 Column had that morning joined up with the Gold Coast Regiment. As all the carriers and troops were inside the perimeter, the position was rendered peculiarly vulnerable, and great commotion and consternation were caused among the non-combatants by the extreme precision of the enemy’s aim. As soon, therefore, as the 55th Rifles and the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd King’s African Rifles had established themselves upon the spur to the east, the whole of the remainder of No. 1 Column moved across to that less dangerous spot, where another perimeter camp, sheltered this time from the guns in the valley, was formed. During the night the enemy retired from his positions on the northern flank of this spur.

It is not thought that any large body of the enemy was present on this day, but a strong rear-guard—for such it probably was—had been able to check the British advance, and had succeeded in giving von Lettow-Vorbeck’s main body the time it needed to escape from a desperate situation, and to slip away in the direction of Newala.

The casualties sustained by the Gold Coast Regiment on the 16th November were 1 colour-sergeant, who had been attached to the Gold Coast Regiment from the South African Infantry, killed, and Captain Dawes and 1 colour-sergeant wounded, 3 soldiers and 1 carrier killed, and 9 soldiers and 8 carriers wounded.

On the 17th November No. 1 Column moved forward in an easterly direction to a camp which had been occupied on the preceding night by the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Regiment of the King’s African Rifles; and the latter marched east and occupied a big water-hole near Luchemi. On the following day Luchemi was occupied by No. 1 Column, no resistance being offered by the enemy; and on the 19th November the column pushed on to Mkundi, which lies almost due west of the hills upon which Massassi is situated, and at a distance of perhaps two and a half miles from that station. It will be remembered that Massassi had been chosen by von Lettow-Vorbeck, after he had been driven across the Rufiji, as his General Headquarters. He had now, however, abandoned it and was basing his present operations upon Newala, which is distant only a dozen miles from the Portuguese frontier on the Rovuma River. It was for Newala that the enemy’s forces were now believed to be heading; and it was understood that the troops under von Tafel’s command, who had been driven in a south-easterly direction by the advance of the Belgians and of General Northey’s column, had been ordered to join forces with von Lettow-Vorbeck at this place.

At Mkundi information was received that the Nigerians had captured a German hospital on the previous day, containing 25 British, 2 Belgian and 5 Portuguese officers prisoners, and 250 German and 700 natives, most of whom, however, were believed to be carriers, though there were 100 or more Askari among them. Twenty German officers and 242 Askari, and 4 European and 10 native non-combatants had also surrendered on this day. Von Lettow-Vorbeck, with the Governor of German East Africa—Herr Schnee—were believed to have with them some 800 to 1200 men, and to be about to quit the erstwhile German colony and to cross over into Portuguese territory.

On the evening of the 19th November the disposition of the British forces operating in this area was approximately as follows. No. 2 Column had reached Nairombo on the left bank of the Mwiti River, twelve miles south of Chiwata. One battalion of the Nigerians was at Mpoto, on the main road from Massassi to Newala, and distant about fourteen miles to the north-west of the latter place. Two Nigerian battalions were at Manyambas, the village to which the Pioneer Company of the Gold Coast Regiment had marched from the mission station at Mwiti on the 15th November; No. 3 Column was halting further north with orders not to advance for the present; and the 25th Cavalry were near Lulindi, fourteen miles east of Mpoto.

On the 20th November No. 1 Column marched from Mkundi, in a south-easterly direction, to Lulindi, a distance of fourteen miles; and here information was received that Lieutenant Isaacs, who, it will be remembered, had been captured by the Germans during the fight at Nkessa in the Uluguru Mountains on the 12th September, 1916, was among the British officers who had been released by the Nigerians on the 18th November. During his fourteen months’ captivity Lieutenant Isaacs had lost about two stone in weight, and had suffered severely from the shortage of all supplies, by which the Germans themselves had for many months been acutely pinched. Apart from these inevitable hardships, however, he and his fellow-European captives appear to have been well treated. The absence of any British native soldiers among the men released was, however, of sinister significance.