battle of tanga

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THE BATTLE OF TANGA By Bob Cashner Tanga, 1914 When the term “Sideshow” comes up in the context of World War One, most think of the amphibious disaster at Gallipoli, the desert raids of T.E. Lawrence, or perhaps the bitter mountain warfare

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Article on a brilliant but obscure battle in German East Africa during WWI.

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Page 1: Battle of Tanga

THEBATTLE OF TANGA

By Bob Cashner

Tanga, 1914

When the term “Sideshow” comes up in the context of World War One,

most think of the amphibious disaster at Gallipoli, the desert raids of T.E.

Lawrence, or perhaps the bitter mountain warfare between Italy and Austria.

However, the often overlooked sideshow in German East Africa deserves

more attention than it gets.

Page 2: Battle of Tanga

Often divided by internal squabbles through much of the mid 1800’s,

Imperial Germany was quite a late-comer to Imperialism on the continent of

Africa. Other nations such as Great Britain, Portugal, Belgium, and Italy had

already long since “civilized” large portions of Africa into their own

colonies. Using uncertain methods including bribes and coercion, crates of

guns and large amounts of alcohol, a German nationalist named Karl Peters

“secured” from local chieftains the Imperial German colonies of West Africa

(Nambia), the Cameroons, and East Africa, modern day Tanzania.

Of the colonies, German East Africa was the largest and most

important. Parts of it were soon under cultivation for sisal, which produced

hemp for rope-making, coffee, rubber and cotton. The Germans developed

the ports of Dar-Es-Salaam and Tanga, and modern railroads were built

through the bush from the former to Lake Tanganyika and from the latter to

Moshi, near the famous peak of Kilimanjaro. Faced with unbearably heavy

taxes and often used as veritable slave labor, the natives revolted on more

than one occasion, but these rebellions were brutally and bloodily put down

by force, to include the killing of some women and children.

By the time World War One was declared, the Germans were

fortunate indeed to have appointed, in January of 1914, one Colonel Paul

Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck to head the small security forces in East Africa.

Page 3: Battle of Tanga

The 44-year-old officer was from a military family, the son of a general, and

one of the most experienced combat leaders in the Imperial German Army,

having seen action in the Peking Boxer Rebellion in China as well as in the

Hero and Hottentot Rebellions in German Southwest Africa, where he was

blinded in one eye. He had also observed the Boers in their action against the

British in South Africa, and was good friends with Jan Smuts.

Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck plunged immediately into his duties as

leader of the Schutztruppe, the tiny “army” that served as a defense force in

East Africa. The German Schutztruppe was the smallest of the Imperial

European defense forces in Africa, with even Portugal fielding more

soldiers. Approximately 2,500 men were divided into independent

Page 4: Battle of Tanga

companies consisting, usually, of sixteen German officers and Non-

Commissioned Officers and 160 native Askari troops.

German troops serving in East Africa were the cream of the crop,

carefully screened and selected. They drilled the Askaris in Prussian

discipline and marksmanship with modern small arms. In turn, under von

Lettow-Vorbeck, who had almost obsessively studied Africa, the black

troops taught the Europeans their native tactics, camouflage and how to

survive in the bush. Many Askari went on to become senior NCO’s, and

even hade some whites serving under their command, which was unheard in

the day and age.

The Schutztruppe’s armament was a major headache for all

concerned. The vast majority of the Askaris were equipped with the obsolete

black powder 11mm Mauser Jagerbuchse M/71 rifle. Other troops also had

the Model 1888 “Commission Rifle”, which fired the 7.9x57mm Patrone 88

cartridge, while others had the brand-new Model 1989 Mausers. The latter

fired the more powerful high-velocity 7.92mm Patrone S cartridge, which

could not be used in the Commission Rifle due to much higher chamber

pressures.

Page 5: Battle of Tanga

The smoke from the black powder Jagerbuchse M/71 rifles soon

obscured the battlefield, as in the American Civil War.

Impressively, each company also fielded two Maxim machine guns.

This was at a time when the regular army forces of the British Expeditionary

Force in France and Belgium had only 2 machine guns per battalion!

For mobility, each company also brought along from 250 to 500

bearers or porters to carry supplies. This seemingly archaic method worked

quite well and gave the Schutztruppe much greater mobility than their

Page 6: Battle of Tanga

British opponents. The porters were immune to most of the African diseases

which affected the Europeans. The British had some motorized supply units,

but roads were few and very poor, and the trucks could not keep up.

Likewise, when they used pack animals such as horses and mules, the

African tsetse fly quickly laid waste to the stock through disease.

Like Stonewall Jackson before him, and Erwin Rommel after, von

Lettow-Vorbeck was passionate about seeing the ground on which he would

fight in person. He conducted extensive personal reconnaissance of the area

immediately upon arrival and throughout the campaign. With horses being

scarce, he often rode a bicycle on his recon trips. Although his small forces

could not meet the enemy in open battle and he planned an extensive guerilla

campaign, when the British threatened the vital port city of Tanga, von

Lettow-Vorbeck was forced to give battle.

As with many generals throughout history, von Lettow-Vorbeck had

to fight his own politicians as well as the enemy. The official governor of

German East Africa, Dr. Schnee, who was regarded with distaste by the

British as well as the German military, had a two-fold plan. First was to

insist that the colony was neutral and, if that failed, to surrender outright.

Even though von Lettow had solid intelligence that a British invasion fleet

was en route, and even after British warships shelled Dar-Es-Salaam, Dr.

Page 7: Battle of Tanga

Schnee insisted they were still neutral. The good colonel thought otherwise

and prepared accordingly.

Then a British Astrea-class cruiser, the HMS Fox, steamed into Tanga

harbor and a British emissary sought out the town commissioner, Herr

Aurarcher. He told Aurarcher that London would not honor Dr. Schnee’s

“neutrality” and that the city must be surrendered immediately or face

destruction. Aurarcher played for time, saying he must consult with his

superiors, and during the conversation planted in the British emissary’s mind

that the harbor had been sown with anti-ship mines.

After that, Aurarcher didn’t bother to contact Dr. Schnee but instead

promptly notified von Lettow-Vorbeck of the impending invasion. As a

reserve officer in the Schutztruppe, Aurarcher then gathered his 15-man

rifle-armed Askari police force and headed out to join the lone Schutztruppe

company then defending the city.

Granted 24 hours advance notice of the invasion by the emissary’s

visit, von Lettow-Vorbeck rushed what reserves from Kilimanjro down the

railroad to Tanga. He once again personally reconnoitered the area and

deployed his companies. Only about 250 additional Askaris arrived in time

for the beginning of the battle, and von Lettow-Vorbeck’s eventual total

forces came to a maximum of around a thousand men, armed with rifles and

Page 8: Battle of Tanga

machine guns and devoid of artillery. Facing the Germans was a British-

commanded landing force of some 8,000 men, supported by the big guns of

the Royal Navy.

The handful of available Schutztruppe reinforcements was rushed in to

do battle with the British landing force.

Fortunately for the Germans, the British Expeditionary Force was led

by General Arthur Aitken, an individual reminiscent of the fictional

“Colonel Blimp”. He pompously turned down local information and

assistance from the King’s Own Rifles of British East Africa as well as the

Page 9: Battle of Tanga

Royal Navy’s offers of fire support from the big guns of the HMS Goliath.

No reconnaissance at all of the landing areas or German defenses, personal

or otherwise, was conducted. Aitken bragged that von Lettow’s “lot of

niggers” would be no match for his force. In his first order of the day, Aitken

was more concerned with spit-and-polish than fighting. “I will not tolerate

the appalling sloppiness of dress allowed during the late war with the

Boers.”

Fearing Aurarcher’s fictitious harbor mines, the BEF landed some

three miles from Tanga, again without any reconnaissance. The troops

slogging ashore found themselves in a palmetto and mangrove swamp

teeming with mosquitoes, leaches and snakes. Once they forded the swamp,

they found themselves facing fifty-foot rock cliffs. This fiasco delayed the

intended attack by another full 24 hours, allowing more German askaris to

rush to the scene.

Many of the British-led troops were Indians, and Aitkin had great

faith in them. However, these were not the justly famous Gurkha and Sikh

warriors who were trained to the standards of the Old Contemptibles. These

were mostly peasant conscripts yanked from their homes, given rudimentary

training, and shoved onto troopships like sardines. For the past three weeks

they had been crammed in the holds of the ships, inactive and seasick. Some

Page 10: Battle of Tanga

of them were totally unfamiliar with the new Lee-Enfield rifles they had

been issued, while others had fired only 5-10 rounds through their new

weapons.

Schutztruppe Askari riflemen were often better trained than the British

and Indian soldiers they faced.

Despite the atrocious landing area, the troops were ashore by the night

of November 3, 1914. Aitken told them to get a good rest before attacking

on the morning of the 4th. That day, the British and Indians plowed headlong

into von Lettow-Vorbeck’s defenses, again without any intelligence or

reconnaissance. Besides the forbidding terrain they had landed in and had to

cross, the city of Tanga itself, with its solid brick and stone houses and dense

hedgerows, was an ideal defensive position for the Schutztruppe.

Page 11: Battle of Tanga

The Schutztruppe’s finest company, consisting of the best-trained

marksmen with the most modern rifles, had been placed on the flank of the

British advance. The lines of the British battalions were taken under vicious

and accurate full enfilade fire right off the bat. Other Schutztruppe defenders

to the front poured rifle and machine gun fire into the advancing ranks.

When the Imperial Service Brigade attempted to advance through the

concealment of a ripe cornfield, Askari marksmen perched in trees inflicted

dreadful casualties via head shots among the tassels.

To top it all off, the battlefield area was heavily used by local

beekeepers to raise honey. The hives were tended in hollow logs suspended

from trees in the area. The African honey bee is the most vicious and

aggressive of the bee species. Disturbed and enraged by the noise as well as

stray bullets and shrapnel striking the hives, the bees swarmed over the

advancing Indian infantry and some men received literally hundreds of

stings. This led the British to nickname Tanga “The Battle of the Bees”.

Page 12: Battle of Tanga

As the day wore on, the fight degenerated into wicked close-range

jungle fighting. The British and Indian troops ran out of drinking water by

noon. Still they fought on in the heat and the bullets and the bees. All units

suffered heavy casualties. Some Indian units began to break under the

pressure.

In late afternoon, von Lettow-Vorbeck’s reinforcements, consisting

only of two companies, arrived via rail and were immediately thrown into a

counter-attack against the British flank and rear. The Entendre units began

fall apart, and then to break and run. By nightfall, the BEF had been forced

back into the landing boats and was retreating to the troopships.

Despite eight-to-one odds, the short battle had cost the British and

Indians 360 dead, 400 wounded and 1,800 men missing or captured. Colonel

Page 13: Battle of Tanga

von Lettow-Vorbeck’s forces reported losses of 15 Germans and 54 Askaris.

In addition, the German forces captured a vast array of British supplies,

including 500 rifles, 16 machine guns, over a half a million rounds of

ammunition, telephones, wire, tents, medical supplies, and other military

gear. The booty enabled von Lettow-Vorbeck to raise and equip another

three companies of men for his tiny army.

The defeated British Expeditionary Force went limping back

Mombassa in British East Africa (BEA). To add insult to injury, the local

port authorities would not let the task force dock and unload until they paid

the 5% port tax. They were dissuaded at gunpoint. Soon, a satirical

anonymous poem about the battle began to circulate through British East

Africa.

Page 14: Battle of Tanga

Steaming Down to Tanga

Steaming down to TangaOver the briny main,

See our major generalAnd his brilliant train.

Three brigade commandersColonels, staff galore.Majors count for little,Captains they ignore.

Armoured trains and sleepers,Guns of different bores,

Telephones and mess plates,Hospitals and stores.Medicos in thousands

Anxious to avoidWork outside the units

Where they are employed.

Earnestly they studyEach Little Book

Which, compiled in Simla,Tells them where to look.Local knowledge needed;

Native scouts of use.For so quaint a notionThere is small excuse.

See them shortly landingAt the chosen spot.

Find the local climateJust a trifle hot.

Foes unsympatheticMaxims on them train;Careful first to signalRange to ascertain.

Ping, ping go the bullets;Crash, explode the shells.Major General's worried

Thinks it just as wellNot to move too rashlyWhile he's in the dark.

What's the strength opposingOrders to reembark?

Back to old MombassaSteams Force B again,

Are the generals ruffled?Not the slightest grain.

Martial regulationsInform us day by day

They may have foozled Tanga

But they've taken BEA.