Schutztruppe Deutsch Ostafrika
The Battle of Tanga
November 1914

Preliminaries

by Dennis L. Bishop and Holger Doebold

Sir Henry Belfield directed the British Colonial Office in the East African Protectorate. All matters of defense in the colonies rested in the Colonial Office instead of the War Office. Sir Belfield, knowing how vulnerable the Uganda Railroad was to German raids, requested an Indian brigade to aid in the defense of Kenya and Uganda. The Colonial Office conceded to dispatch Indian Expeditionary Force “C” under Lieutenant Colonel A. B. H. Drew. Force “C” consisted of the regular 29th Punjab Battalion, a section of the 120th Field Ambulance, and Imperial Service half battalions of the native states of Bhurtpore, Jind, Kapurthala, and Rampur.

The various Indian princely states maintained armies that, according to Lord Sydenham, “included men of many races[.] [T]hese troops were held at the disposal of the king emperor in case of need and called upon [to] take their place with the British Indian Army.”

To this force was added the 27th Mountain Artillery Battery R.A., the Calcutta Volunteer Artillery, the Volunteer Maxim Battery, and ancillary units.

While the British Colonial Office wrestled with reinforcing the Kenya and Uganda colonies, the Germans in Tanganyika were under no restraints. Hauptmann Thomas von Prince organised a striking force at Mosche consisting of his own 7. Sch. K. (local police who would become the 19. F. K. under Leutnant Boell) and a mounted unit of Europeans under Oberleutnant von Bock to attack Taveta on 13 August. Following a brief firefight with some British native police, the Germans occupied Taveta. Its strategic position controlled the approaches to the Kilimanjaro region from the British territory because of the water holes located there. Without the water holes, the British had a 60 kilometer march across dry land to the German border.

This sparked a series of indecisive raids and counter-raids between the British askari, Indian Force “C”, and the Germans on both sides of the border throughout August and September. Many of these actions were fought for possession of water holes as the Germans attempted to occupy suitable positions for raids against the Uganda Railroad. The British deployed Force “C” along the border in an effort to reinforce the local units defending the accesses to the railroad.

At the end of October 1914, two months after the outbreak of the First World War, the overall commander of the German Schutztruppe, Oberstleutnant von Lettow-Vorbeck, traveled to Tanga to inspect the defense preparations. In his memoirs he mentioned that captured English newspapers announcing the arrival of a 10,000 man-strong expeditionary force from India convinced him that a British landing in force at Tanga was very probable. He instructed Hauptmann Adler of the 17. Feldkompagnie and the representative of the civil authority, Bezirksamtmann Auracher, to prepare the defenses, and then returned to Neumoschi to assemble more troops for the coming battle of Tanga. At that time, in spite of minor successes in the Kilimanjaro district, it seemed very unlikely that a prolonged resistance could be sustained in East Africa because of the small numbers of the Schutztruppen and the impossibility of keeping open the supply lines to Germany.

At the outbreak of war the government of India was called upon to reinforce the local forces in East Africa, but also to provide a larger force for the projected invasion at Daressalaam. These demands were not welcomed in India as they strained India’s military resources after the provision for the Indian Expeditionary Force to Europe and the growing tensions with Turkey. On August 28, the Secretary of State for India telegraphed the Viceroy that the expedition against Daressalaam should be postponed. The British War Office notified the Viceroy of India that the now named Indian Expeditionary Force “C” would remain intact and should prepare to be sent to East Africa.

India had only nine organised divisions at that time. Two were in transit to Europe and two were depleted by the withdrawal of brigades to Egypt and the Persian Gulf. At the same time, it was important that the forces located along the North-West Frontier with Afghanistan were not weakened. The India Office decided to dispatch a brigade of 8,000 men from units furthest from the frontier.

Hence, the British War Office made the demand, but the India Office complied under duress after the intended 16th Poona Brigade was stripped from the original organisation to the more important sphere of action in the Persian Gulf. The India Office selected the 27th Bangalore Brigade, not because of the quality of the troops, but because its cantonments were furthest from the frontier and closest to Africa.

The bureaucracy sorted out this way. Lord Kitchener, War Office, generally approved the organization of the expeditionary force but had no part in the preparations. The India Office controlled the expedition in conjunction with the Colonial Office. The commander of the force, Major General Aitkens, was directly responsible to the Secretary of State for India for all military operations in German East Africa. The execution of the plan was drawn up by Sir Edmund Barrow, Military Secretary at the India Office. The plan was approved by the Committee of Imperial Defence, the India Office, the Colonial Office, and the Admiralty.

In the end, General Aitken commanded a mixed division-sized force of 57 companies of British, Indian regulars, and Imperial Service units. The force included the 27th Bangalore Brigade. The brigade included the British 2/Loyal North Lancashire Battalion (2/LNL) whose quality was unquestionable. The Mahratta 101st Grenadier Battalion (101st) had recent service in Somaliland and the North-West Frontier. The 108th Infantry Battalion and 61st King George’s Own Pioneers were withheld and the 63rd Palamcottah Light Infantry Battalion (63 PLI) and the 98th Infantry Battalion (98th) substituted in their places. The 63 PLI and 98th had received commendations, but their last action was building roads in Hong Kong during the Boxer Rebellion.

To make matters worse, only seven of the thirteen officers of the 63 PLI were available, so six officers from other regiments were attached who had never trained with the sepoys they commanded. The Imperial Service Brigade constituted the second half of the force. It included the 13th Rajput Battalion (13th Rajput) that had a good reputation. It also contained the Gurkhas of the 2nd Jammu and Kashmir Rifles Battalion (2nd Kashmir Rifles) and half battalions of the 3rd Jammu and Kashmir Rifles Battalion (3rd Kashmir Rifles) and 3rd Gwalior Infantry Battalion (3rd Gwalior).

The brigade combat supporting units consisted of the 61 KGO Battalion (recently removed from the 27th Bangalore Brigade) and the 28th Mountain Battery R. A. (six 10 pdr guns). Other supporting units included the Faridkot Sappers and Miners Company, the Logan Battery (two naval 3 pdrs manned by 15 men from the 2/LNL), and the North-Western Railway Volunteers (40 men manning one gun and two machine guns). The force was also supported by 2,000 bearers recently recruited from Zanzibar and 521 bearers of the Punjab Coolie Corps.

Schutztruppe Deutsch Ostafrika The Battle of Tanga, November 1914

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