Poisonous insects and tropical diseases.
The campaign a story of human endurance.
It is impossible for those unacquainted with German East Africa to realize the physical, transport, and supply difficulties of an advance over this magnificent, but mountainous, country, with a great rainfall and wide, unbridged rivers in the regions of the mountains, and insufficient surface water on the plains for the needs of an army; with magnificent primeval forest everywhere, pathless, trackless, except for the spoor of the elephant or the narrow footpaths of the natives. The malaria mosquito is everywhere except on the higher plateaus; everywhere the belts are infested with the deadly tsetse fly, which makes an end of all animal transport; and almost everywhere the ground is rich black or red cotton soil, which any transport converts into mud in the rain or dust in the drought. Everywhere the fierce heat of equatorial Africa, accompanied by a wild luxuriance of parasitic life, breed tropical diseases in the unacclimatized whites. These conditions make life for the white man in that country sufficiently trying. If in addition he has to perform hard work and make long marches on short rations, the trial becomes very severe; if, above all, huge masses of men and material have to be moved over hundreds of miles in a great military expedition against a mobile and alert foe, then the strain becomes almost unendurable. And the chapter of accidents in this region of the unknown! Unseasonable rains cut off expeditions for weeks from their supply bases. Animals died by the thousand—after passing through an unknown fly-belt. Mechanical transport got bogged in the marshes, held up by bridges washed away, or mountain passes obstructed by sudden floods. And the gallant boys, marching far ahead under the pitiless African sun, with the fever raging in their blood, pressed ever on after the retreating enemy, often on reduced rations, and without any of the small comforts which in this climate are real necessities. In the story of human endurance this campaign deserves a very special place, and the heroes who went through it uncomplainingly, doggedly, are entitled to all recognition and reverence. Their commander-in-chief will remain eternally proud of them.
When in January, 1917, I relinquished the command to my successor, General Hoskins, we were across the Rufiji River in the southeast, and in the great valley formed by the principal tributaries, the Ulanga and Ruhuje rivers in the west; but the rainy season which set in shortly afterward stopped all advance until the following June.
Enemy's forces evacuate German East Africa.
Five months later our advance was resumed, and by the beginning of December, 1917, the last remnants of the enemy's forces had evacuated German East Africa across the Rovuma, while our forces were operating against the enemy bands far south in Portuguese territory, as I have already stated.
Development of tropical Africa retarded by diseases.
In economic value this region ranks very high among the tropical countries of the African continent, and probably no part of all Africa has a climate or soil more suitable for the production on an immense scale of copra, cocoanuts, coffee, sugar, sisal, rubber, cotton, and other tropical products, or of such semi-tropical products as maize and millet. In common with the rest of tropical Africa, its full development is still retarded by the undefeated animal and human diseases, especially malaria. But the time is not far distant when science will have overcome these drawbacks, and when Central and East Africa will have become one of the most productive and valuable parts of the tropics. But until science solves the problems of tropical disease, East and Central Africa must not be looked upon as an area for white colonization. Perhaps they will never be a white man's country in any real sense. In those huge territories the white man's task will probably be largely confined to that of administrator, teacher, expert, manager, or overseer of the large negro populations, whose progressive civilization will be more suitably promoted in connection with the industrial development of the land.
The Germans discouraged white settlement.
Natives compelled to work for planters.