No further news came from the Mesopotamian theater of war during the balance of December, 1917, or during January and February, 1918.
On December 1, 1917, it was officially announced by the British authorities, that reconnoissances had definitely established the fact that German East Africa had been completely cleared of all German troops and that the German commander, General von Lettow-Vorbeck, with the force under his command, estimated at 2,000 rifles, had crossed the Rovuma River into Portuguese East Africa.
During December, 1917, after driving the Germans across the border into Portuguese territory, the British forces were busy in preparing for the new task of hunting out General Lettow-Vorbeck in Portuguese East Africa. British patrols by December 25, 1917, were forty miles south of the Rovuma River, which marks the frontier.
Von Lettow's force had been broken up into small foraging parties; and it was expected that they would be rounded up before the big rains set in.
However, during the last few days of December, 1917, the German forces in Mozambique, consisting of 2,000 men with two fieldpieces and ten machine guns, attacked the Portuguese positions on Mt. M'Kula, occupied by Captain Curado, with 250 men and five machine guns, and after three days' fighting succeeded in carrying the positions by assault.
This did not change the fact that the last vestige of the German Colonial Empire had fallen into the hands of the Allies.
PART VI—THE BALKANS
CHAPTER XXXII
THE BALKANS—GREECE AND MACEDONIA
On the Macedonian front the military situation has had all the appearance of a deadlock, not only since last summer, but for the past year. On November 24, 1917, the Austrians were reported to be making a general offensive attack on the Italian lines in southern Albania, between the Voyusa and Osum Rivers, which was followed by a strong Italian counterattack, but neither side was able to announce any gains of territory or any notable capture of prisoners or material. Again, barely two weeks later, on December 5, 1917, violent fighting was said to have begun for several miles along the front near the Struma, with the net result that "several Bulgarian patrols were captured." Compared to what we have come to regard as fighting in this war, therefore, these few sporadic efforts in Macedonia and Albania have been very little more than outpost affairs, mere raids.