One of the features of German military life that fills one with horror
and disgust is their brutality to the native. Nor do they make any
attempt to cloak their atrocities. For they perpetuate them by
photographs, many of which have fallen into our hands; and from these
one sees a tendency to gloat over the ghastly exhibits. The pictures
portray gallows with a large number of natives hanging side by side. In
some, soldiers are drawn up in hollow square, one side of it open to the
civil population, and there is little doubt that these are punitive and
impressive official executions, carried out under "proper judicial
conditions" as conceived by Germans. But what offends one's taste so
much are the photographs of German officers and men standing with
self-conscious and self-satisfied expressions beside the grim gallows on
which their victims hang. From the great number of these pictures we
have found, it is quite clear that not only are such executions very
common, but that they are also not unpleasing to the sense of the German
population; otherwise they would not bequeath to posterity their own
smiling faces alongside the unhappy dead. With us it is so different.
When we have to administer the capital penalty we do it, of course,
openly, and after full judicial inquiry in open court. Nor do we rob it
of its impressive character by excluding the native population. But such
sentences in war are usually carried out by shooting, and photographs
are not desired by any of the spectators. It is a vile business and
absolutely revolting to us, nor do we hesitate to hurry away as soon as
the official character of the parade is over. I well remember one such
execution, in Morogoro, of a German Askari who assaulted a little German
girl with a "kiboko" during the two days' interregnum that elapsed
between Lettow's departure and our occupation of the town. To British
troops the most unwelcome duty of all is to form a part of a firing
party on such occasions. The firing party are handed their rifles,
alternate weapons only loaded with ball cartridge, that their sense of
decency may not be offended by the distasteful recollection of killing a
man in cold blood. For this assures that no man knows whether his was
the rifle that sped the living soul from that pitiful cringing body.
In the past the Germans have had constant trouble with the natives, not
one tribe but has had to be visited by sword and flame and wholesale
execution. That this is not entirely the fault of the natives is shown
by the fact that we have not experienced in East Africa and Uganda a
tenth part of the trouble with our natives, notoriously a most restless
and warlike combination of races.
It was thought at one time that, if the Germans seriously weakened their
hold on some of the more troublesome tribes and withdrew garrisons from
localities where troops alone had kept the native in subjection, risings
of a terrible and embarrassing character would be the result. That such
fear entered also into the German mind is shown by the fact that for
long they did not dare to withdraw certain administrative officials, and
much-valued soldiers of the regular army, who would have been of great
service as army commanders, from their police work. Notably is this the
case at Songea, in the angle between Lake Nyasa and the Portuguese
border. To the state of terror among the German women owing to the fear
of a native rising during the intervening period between the retreat of
their troops and the arrival of our own in Morogoro I myself can
testify. For the German nursing sisters who worked with me told of the
flight to this town of outlying families, and how the women were all
supplied with tablets of prussic acid to swallow, if the dreadful end
approached. For death from the swift cyanide would be gentler far than
at the hands of a savage native. But the Germans have to admit that as
they showed no mercy to the native in the past, so they could expect
none at such a time as this. They told me of the glad relief with which
they welcomed the coming of our troops, and how with tears of gratitude
they threw swift death into the bushes, much indeed as they hated the
humiliating spectacle of the gallant Rhodesians and Baluchis making
their formal entry into the fair streets of Morogoro.
The German hold on the natives is, owing to severe repressive measures
in the past and the unrelaxing discipline of the present war, most
effective and likely to remain so, until our troops appear actually
among them. Indeed, the fear of a native rising, and the butchery of
German women and children has been ever on our minds, and we have had to
impress upon the native that we desired or could countenance no such
help upon their part. All we asked of the native population was to keep
the peace and supply us with information, food and porters. We sent word
among the restless tribes to warn them to keep quiet, saying that, if
the Germans had chastised them with whips, we would, indeed, chastise
them with scorpions in the event of their getting out of hand. And we
must admit that, almost without exception, the natives of all tribes
have proved most welcoming, most docile and most grateful for our
arrival. Had it not been for the clandestine intrigues of the German
planters and missionaries whom we returned to their homes and
occupations of peace, there would have been no trouble. But the Hun may
promise faithfully, may enter into the most solemn obligations not to
take active or passive part further in the war; but, nevertheless, he
seems unable to keep himself from betraying our trust. Such a born spy
and intriguer is he that he cannot refrain from intimidating the native,
of whose quietness he is now assured by the presence of our troops, by
threats of what will befall him when the Germans return, if he, the
native, so much as sells us food or enters our employment as a porter.
But the native is extraordinarily local in his knowledge, his world
bounded for him by the borders of neighbouring and often hostile tribes.
We are not at all certain that any but coast or border tribes can really
appreciate the difference between British rule and the domination that
has now been swept away.
Recent reports on all sides show the desire for peace and the end of the
war; for war brings in its train forced labour, the requisition of food,
and the curse of German Askaris wandering about among the native
villages, satisfying their every want, often at the point of the
bayonet. Preferable even to this are the piping times of peace, when the
German administrator, with rare exceptions, singularly unhappy in his
dealing with the chiefs, would not hesitate to thrash a chief before his
villagers, and condemn him to labour in neck chains, on the roads among
his own subjects. And this, mark you, for the failure of the chief to
keep an appointment, when the fat-brained German failed to appreciate
the difference in the natives' estimation of time. By Swahili time the
day commences at 7 a.m. In the past, it was no wonder that chiefs,
burning with a sense of wrong and the humiliation they had suffered,
preferred to raise their tribe and perish by the sword than endure a
life that bore such indignity and shame.
But our job has not been rendered any easier by the difficulty we have
experienced in pacifying the simple blacks by attempts to dispel the
fears of rapine and murder at the hands of our soldiers, with which the
Germans have been at such pains to saturate the native mind. This, in
conjunction with the suspicion which the native of German East Africa
has for any European, and more especially his horror of war, has made us
prepared to see the native bolt at our approach.
But if our task has succeeded, there has been striking ill success on
the part of the Germans in organising and inducing, in spite of their
many attempts and the obvious danger to their own women and children,
these native tribes to oppose our advance. Fortunately for us, and for
the white women of the country, tribes will not easily combine, and are
loath to leave their tribal territory.
Many of us have looked with some concern upon the mere possibility of
this German colony being returned to its former owners. We must remember
that we shall inevitably lose the measure of respect the native holds
for us, if we contemplate giving back this province once more to German
ruling. Prestige alone is the factor in the future that will keep order
among these savage races who have now learnt to use the rifle and
machine-gun, and have money in plenty to provide themselves with
ammunition. The war has done much to destroy the prestige that allows a
white man to dominate thousands of the natives. For to the indigenous
inhabitants of the country, the white man's ways are inexplicable; they
cannot conceive a war conducted with such alternate savagery and
chivalry. To those who look upon the women of the vanquished as the
victors' special prize, the immunity from outrage that German women
enjoy is beyond their comprehension. For that reason we shall welcome
the day when an official announcement is made that the British
Government have taken over the country. One would like to see big
"indabas" held at every town and centre in the country, formal raising
of the Union Jack, cannon salutes, bands playing and parades of
soldiers.