On the 21st November No. 1 Column advanced with the intention of making a reconnaissance in force towards Newala for the purpose of attacking and capturing this the last of the enemy’s strongholds in his African colonies. The advance was led by the 55th Rifles and the 1st Battalion of the 3rd King’s African Rifles, the Gold Coast Regiment following in support. The 55th Rifles, however, occupied Newala without resistance, and it was there ascertained that von Lettow-Vorbeck, with the remainder of his war-worn forces and carrying the unhappy Herr Schnee with him, had early that morning marched south to Nakalala on the northern bank of the Rovuma, where a number of canoes had been assembled, and intended thence to cross over into Portuguese territory.
At Newala 126 Germans surrendered to No. 1 Column.
| GOLD COAST REGIMENT. | ||
| 2·95 Battery. | To face p. 196. |
CHAPTER XIV
TRANSFER OF THE GOLD COAST REGIMENT
TO PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA
The actual movements and whereabouts of von Lettow-Vorbeck and his troops were, as usual, still largely a matter of conjecture, but every base which he had possessed in German East Africa was now in the hands of the British. He was known to be short of supplies, of food, of equipment, and of ammunition; the end of the dry season was drawing near, and the Portuguese were aware that he was approaching the frontier, and were strongly encamped at Ngomano, on the right bank of the Rovuma, about fifty miles upstream from the point at which the German force had crossed the river. The Rovuma is here a fine river, with a bed of sand and shingle, about half a mile wide from bank to bank. At this season, however, it was shrunken to such an extent that the running water measured only a hundred yards or so across, and was easily fordable at many points. The banks of the Rovuma were low and water-worn; the country in the vicinity was flat and covered with vegetation, which owed such fertility as it possessed to annual extensive inundations. In the rainy season the valley of the Rovuma would clearly be even more uninhabitable than the basin of the Rufiji had proved to be in 1916-17.
There were many sanguine people in the British camp who held that with the expulsion of von Lettow-Vorbeck from the territory that had once belonged to Germany the campaign in East Africa—which had already, nearly a year before, been publicly declared to have been practically at an end—was now at last definitely concluded. Since the first pronouncement to that effect was made, the enemy, quite unperturbed by this pious expression of opinion, had kept the field continuously, had fought a series of vigorous rear-guard actions, among which those at Njengao and Mahiwa on the Lindi road were of considerable magnitude, and had incidentally cost the British taxpayer an average of over twelve millions sterling per mensem. Now, even if fighting did not cease, the campaign, it was thought, could henceforth be conducted upon a much more modest scale; but most of the men who had fought against von Lettow-Vorbeck, and who had had opportunities of gauging the resolution, the determination, the resourcefulness, and, if you will, the dogged obstinacy of the man, were convinced that he would carry on the fight so long as he had an Askari to fire a rifle, and a cartridge to be discharged. It was also regarded as probable that he and von Tafel might still be able to join forces.
On the night of the 21st November the Gold Coast Regiment, which had not entered Newala, camped on the road halfway between that place and Lulindi, and on the following day retraced its steps to the latter. On the 23rd November, No. 1 Column marched from Lulindi to Luatalla, where it was joined by the 55th Rifles and the 1st Battalion of the 3rd King’s African Rifles from Newala. Word was here received that von Lettow-Vorbeck’s column was moving down the right, or Portuguese, bank of the Rovuma, and it was reported by natives that von Tafel had recrossed the river to the left bank, and was moving slowly and with great difficulty through the bush in the neighbourhood of Miesi, which lies halfway between the Mwiti and Bangalla rivers, both of which are left tributaries of the Rovuma. No. 1 Column was ordered to proceed to the mouth of the Bangalla River, by forced marches, for the purpose of trying to cut off von Tafel, and of preventing him from effecting a junction with von Lettow-Vorbeck. The Cavalry was to move in advance of No. 1 Column, and No. 2 Column was simultaneously to march down the Bangalla River from the north.
At 4 p.m. on the 24th November, therefore, No. 1 Column, with the Gold Coast Regiment leading the advance, set out for the mouth of the Bangalla, and at midnight bivouacked in column of route along the roadside. At 5.30 a.m. on the 25th November, the march was resumed, and the junction of the Bangalla with the Rovuma was reached at 10.30 a.m. During the march a solitary bull buffalo, outraged by this intrusion upon his privacy, savagely charged the column, went through it like a clown through a paper hoop, knocking over two carriers, and so vanished into the bush.
During the march a distance of 24 miles was covered, and it was calculated that since leaving Ruponda, nine days earlier, the main body of No. 1 Column had marched no less than 174 miles—an average of over 19 miles per diem—while many of the units composing it, of which the Gold Coast Regiment was one, had materially exceeded that average. This would have been a sufficiently fine performance anywhere and in any circumstances for a body of infantry impeded at every step by a large number of carriers; but in the East African bush, at the fag-end of the dry season, when everything is at its dryest and hottest, it represented a really considerable feat.