AFRICA BATTLES OF WORLD WAR ONE

The Africa Battles Of World War One comprise geographically distinct campaigns around the German colonies scattered in Africa: the German colonies of Cameroon, Togo, South-West Africa, and German East Africa.

Overview of Africa Battles Of World War One:
The United Kingdom, with near total command of the world's oceans, had the power and resources to conquer the German colonies when the Great War started. Most German colonies in Africa were recently acquired and not well defended (German East Africa was the notable exception). They were also surrounded on all sides by African colonies that belonged to their enemies, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and, later in the war, Portugal.

West Africa and Battles Of World War One:
Germany had two colonies in West Africa, Togoland (modern-day Togo) and Kamerun (modern-day Cameroon). The small colony Togoland was almost immediately conquered by British and French military forces. The German troops in Kamerun put up a fierce fighting against invading British and French forces, but in 1916 (after many soldiers escaped into Spanish Guinea) the fighting ended with the surrender of the remaining German "Schutztruppe".

The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War

South-West Africa and Battles Of World War One:
The South-West Africa Campaign was the conquest and occupation of German South West Africa, now called Namibia, by forces from the Union of South Africa acting on behalf of the British Imperial Government at the start of World War I. The outbreak of hostilities in Europe in August 1914 had been anticipated and Government of the Union of South Africa were aware of the significance of their common border with the German colony. Prime Minister Louis Botha informed London that South Africa could defend itself and that the Imperial Garrison may depart for France; when the British government asked Botha whether his forces would invade German South-West Africa, the reply was that they could and would. South African troops were mobilised along the border between the two countries under the command of General Henry Lukin and Lt Col Manie Maritz early in September 1914. Shortly afterwards, another force occupied the port of Lüderitz.

There was considerable sympathy among the Boer population of South Africa for the German cause; it was, after all, only twelve years since the Second Boer War during which Germany had supported them. Maritz, who was head of commando forces on the border of German South-West Africa, issued a proclamation that "the former South African Republic and Orange Free State as well as the Cape Province and Natal are proclaimed free from British control and independent, and every White inhabitant of the mentioned areas, of whatever nationality, are hereby called upon to take their weapons in their hands and realize the long-cherished ideal of a Free and Independent South Africa." Maritz and several other high ranking officers rapidly gathered forces with a total of about 12,000 rebels in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, ready to fight for the cause in what became known as the Boer Revolt (also sometimes referred to as the Maritz Rebellion). The government declared martial law on October 14, 1914, and forces loyal to the government under the command of Generals Louis Botha and Jan Smuts proceeded to destroy the rebellion. Maritz was defeated on October 24 and took refuge with the Germans; the rebellion was effectively suppressed by early February 1915. The leading Boer rebels received terms of imprisonment of six and seven years and heavy fines; however, two years later they were released from prison, as Botha recognised the value of reconciliation.

South-West Africa and Battles Of World War One:
In March, 1915, the South Africans were ready and 67,000 troops, moving in four columns began the complete occupation of the German territory. Botha himself commanded the force that occupied Walvis Bay and Swakopmund in the north of the territory. During the campaign the occupying forces encountered land mines and poisoned wells, as well as some stiff resistance. The capital, Windhoek, was occupied on May 12, by which time the South Africans had taken over most of the country. An attempt was made to persuade the Germans to surrender at this stage but it was unsuccessful and the campaign continued with the German forces gradually being squeezed into the northwest corner of the territory. They were defeated at Otavi on July 1 and surrendered at Khorab on 9 July, 1915.

Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914-1918

German East Africa Battles Of World War One:
The East African Campaign was a series of battles and guerilla actions which started in German East Africa and ultimately impacted portions of Mozambique, Northern Rhodesia, Kenya, Uganda, and the Belgian Congo. The German colonial forces, led by Colonel (later Major-General) Paul Erich von Lettow-Vorbeck, fought for the duration of World War I and surrendered only after that war had ended. German East Africa comprising Tanganyika (the mainland part of modern-day Tanzania), Burundi, and Rwanda, was a large territory with complex geography (including parts of the massive Great Rift Valley, Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria). It varied from the mountainous, well-watered and fertile north-west, to the drier and sandy or rocky centre, with wildlife-rich grasslands in the north-east and vast areas of uninhabited forest in the south-east. Its coast, inhabited by the Swahili people and Arab traders, dominated trade with Central Africa in conjunction with British-controlled Zanzibar and the coasts of modern-day Kenya and Mozambique. At the start of the war, the German colony chief administrator, Governor Heinrich Schne. The fighting in German East Africa began in August, 1914. On August 15, German troops stationed in Rwanda-Burundi shelled some villages in the Belgian Congo. On August 22, a German naval vessel on Lake Tanganyika opened fire on the harbour of Albertville (now Kalemie). In September, the Germans staged raids into neighbouring Kenya and Uganda. Lettow-Vorbek also created a tiny navy on Lake Victoria, causing minor damage but a great deal of news. The British sent out some gun-boats in pieces over the railway to Lake Victoria to take control over the lake. They also sent two brigades of the British Indian Army which they tried to land at Tanga on November 2, 1914 but the Germans completely disrupted the landing (see Battle of Tanga). Heavy and accurate fire prevented the British from moving off the beaches and finally forced them to re-embark three days later. In 1915, two British motorboats, HMS Mimi and HMS Toutou, the Fifi and two Belgian ships, under the command of Commander Geoffrey Spicer-Simson, managed to sink Hedwig von Wissman in a bid to secure control of Lake Tanganyika, strategic key to controlling the eastern part of German territory. The success of this expedition was compromised by the fact that a larger vessel remained, the formidable Graf von Götzen, which retained naval supremacy over the lake until it was scuttled later in the year in the face of a land assault on Ujiji. (After the war the ship was raised by the British and restored as a passenger ferry under the name MV Liemba, and still operates along the eastern shore of the lake to this day). Meanwhile, Belgian colonial forces used flying boats to bombard the German ships and the harbour installations. General Horace Smith-Dorrien was assigned the command to fight the Germans, but pneumonia contracted during the voyage to South Africa prevented him from taking command. In 1916, General Jan Smuts was given the task of defeating Lettow-Vorbeck. Smuts had a large army (for the area), some 13,000 South Africans including Boers, British, and Rhodesians as well as 7,000 Indian and African soldiers. Also, not under his direct command but fighting on his side, was a Belgian force and a larger but totally ineffective group of Portuguese military units based in Mozambique. A large Carrier Corps of African porters under British command carried supplies for Smuts's army into the interior, much of which lacked railway or established roads. Despite all these troops from different countries, this was essentially a South African operation of the British Empire under Smuts' control. During the previous year, Lettow-Vorbeck had also gained troops and his army was now 3,500 Germans and some 12,000 Askaris. Smuts army attacked from several directions, the main attack was from the north out of Kenya, while substantial forces from the Belgian Congo advanced from the west in two columns, over Lake Victoria and into the Rift Valley. Another force advanced over Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) from the south-east. All these forces failed to catch Lettow-Vorbeck and they all suffered terribly from disease along the march. One unit (9th South African Infantry) started at a strength of 1,135 in February and by October was down to 116 men, without doing much fighting at all (Cyril Falls, The Great War, pg. 253). However, the Germans nearly always retreated from the larger British forces, and by September of 1916, the German railway from the coast at Dar-es-Salaam to Ujiji was fully under British control. Belgian forces under General Tombeur captured Tabora, an administrative center of central German East Africa. With Lettow-Vorbeck's forces now confined to the southern part of German East Africa, Smuts began to withdraw his South-African, Rhodesian, and Indian troops and replace them with African soldiers. By the start of 1917 more than half the British army was composed of African soldiers, and by the end of the war, it was nearly all African troops. Smuts himself left the area in January of 1917 to go to London to join the Imperial War Cabinet. As noted above, the first action in the war in East Africa consisted of attacks by German forces on the Belgian Congo. Belgian-Congolese participation in the campaign was sizeable for the logistics alone some 260,000 carriers were mobilized, not counting troops. The colonial armed forces of the Belgian Congo ('Force Publique') started a campaign on April 18, 1916 under the command of General Tombeur, Colonel Molitor and Colonel Olsen. They captured Kigali on May 6. The German forces in Burundi fought well, but had to give in to the numerical superiority of the Force Publique. On June 6, they took Usumbura, and by that time had completely occupied Rwanda and Burundi. The Force Publique then started the campaign to capture Tabora. They marched into Tanganyika in three columns and took Biharamuro, Mwanza, Karema, Kigoma and Ujiji. After several days of heavy fighting they took Tabora. Fearing Belgian claims on the German colony, Smuts quickly sent Belgian forces back to Congo, leaving them as occupying forces in Rwanda and Burundi. But the British were forced to call Belgian-Congolese troops to help for a second time in 1917, and after this they worked together. Despite continued efforts to capture or destroy Lettow-Vorbeck's army, the British failed to end the German resistance. First General Hoskins (of the King's African Rifles) took over, then another South African, General van Deventer, was given the command. Deventer launched an offensive in July 1917. Lettow-Voorbeck's forces were divided into three groups and two of them managed to escape the offensive but the third, some 5,000 men under Tafel, was forced to surrender. The German army was able to tie down large British forces and even defeat them upon occasion. For example, the Germans beat the British at a battle near Mahiwa in October 1917. They lost 100 men and the British lost 1600. Nevertheless, the British troops were closing in on the Germans and so on November 23, 1917, Lettow-Vorbeck crossed south into Portuguese Mozambique. He hoped by so doing to gain recruits and supplies by capturing small Portuguese garrisons. He marched through Mozambique for the next nine months, avoiding capture but unable to gain much strength. Then the German army crossed into Northern Rhodesia in August 1918. On November 13, two days after the Armistice was signed in Europe, the German army took and burnt its last town, Kasama which had been evacuated by the British. The next day at the Chambezi River, Lettow-Vorbeck was given a telegram announcing the signing of the armistice, and agreed to a cease-fire: the 'Von Lettow-Vorbeck Memorial' marks the spot in present-day Zambia. As requested, he marched his undefeated army to Abercorn and formally surrendered there on November 23.

After the War:
The war marked the end of Germany's short-lived overseas empire. Britain and France divided up the German African colonies between them, but their colonial rule would be short-lived also. Most of the former German colonies gained their independence by 1960, Namibia (German South West Africa) was the last to gain independance, gaining political freedom from South Africa only in 1988.

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