STEADFAST SOUTH AFRICA
When Germany struck at the heart of France through Belgium simultaneous
action was undertaken by the German Command in Southwest Africa through
propaganda and mobilization of the available German troops. Insidiously
and by the use of money systematic propaganda was instituted to corrupt
the Boers against their allegiance to the Union of South Africa. One
great character stood like a rock against all their efforts. It was the
character of General Louis Botha, formerly arrayed in battle against
the British during the Boer uprising.
With characteristic determination he formulated plans for the invasion
of German Southwest Africa without asking permission of the citizens
of the South African Union or of the British Foreign Office. His
vision comprehended an invasion that would have as its culmination a
British-Boer colony where the German colony had been, and that from
Cable Bay to the source of the Nile there would be one mighty union,
with a great trunk railway feeding Egypt, the Soudan, Rhodesia, Uganda,
and the Union of South Africa. An able lieutenant to Botha was General
Smuts. He co-operated with his chief in a campaign of education. They
pointed out the absolute necessity for deafness to the German tempters,
and succeeded in obtaining full co-operation for the Botha plan of
invasion from the British Imperial Government and the South African
Union. Concerning this agreement General Botha said:
“To forget their loyalty to the empire in this hour of trial would
be scandalous and shameful, and would blacken South Africa in the
eyes of the whole world. Of this South Africans were incapable. They
had endured some of the greatest sacrifices that could be demanded
of a people, but they had always kept before them ideals, founded on
Christianity, and never in their darkest days had they sought to gain
their ends by treasonable means. The path of treason was an unknown
path to Dutch and English alike.
“Their duty and their conscience alike bade them be faithful and true
to the Imperial Government in all respects in this hour of darkness and
trouble. That was the attitude of the Union Government; that was the
attitude of the people of South Africa. The government had cabled to
the Imperial Government at the outbreak of war, offering to undertake
the defense of South Africa, thereby releasing the Imperial troops for
service elsewhere. This was accepted, and the Union Defense Force was
mobilized.”
Preliminary to the invasion of German Southwest Africa, General
Botha proclaimed martial law throughout the Union. The first act
in consequence of this proclamation was the arrest of a number of
conspirators who were planning sedition throughout the Union. The head
of this conspiracy was Lieutenant-Colonel S. G. Maritz. General Beyers
and General De Wet, both Boer officers of high standing, co-operated
with Maritz in an abortive rebellion. The situation was most trying
for the native Boers and, to their credit be it recorded, the great
majority of them stood out strongly against the Germans. Vigorous
action by Botha and Smuts smashed the rebellion in the fall of 1914. A
force acting under General Botha in person attacked the troops under
General Beyers at Rustemburg on October 27th, and on the next day
General Beyers sought refuge in flight. A smaller force acting under
General Kemp was also routed on November 5th.
General De Wet opened his campaign of rebellion on November 7th in
an action at Wimburg, where he defeated a smaller force of Loyalists
under General Cronje. The decisive battle at Marquard occurred on
November 12th, Botha commanding the Loyalist forces in person and De
Wet the rebels. The victory of Botha in this fierce engagement was
complete. De Wet was routed and was captured on December 1st with a
rear-guard of fifty-two men. General Beyers was drowned on December
9th while attempting to escape from the Vall into the Transvaal. This
virtually ended all opposition to General Botha. The invasion of German
Southwest Africa began on January 5, 1915, and was one uninterrupted
chapter of successes. Through jungle and swamp, swept by torrential
rains and encountering obstacles that would have disheartened any but
the stoutest heart, the little force of invasion swept forward. Most
of the engagements by the enemy were in the nature of guerrilla and
rear-guard actions. The backbone of the German command was broken and
the remaining forces capitulated in July, 1915.
With the capitulation came the story of the German mismanagement in
Southwest Africa, and particularly their horrible treatment of the
Hereros and Hottentots in the country misgoverned by them. An official
report fully authenticated was made and none of its essential details
were refuted.
The report told the story of how the German authorities exterminated
the native Hereros. When Germany annexed the country in 1890 they
were believed to possess well over 150,000 head of cattle. After the
rinderpest scourge of 1897 they still owned something like 90,000
head. By 1902, less than ten years after the arrival of the first
German settlers, the Hereros had only 45,898 head of cattle, while the
1,051 German traders and farmers then in the country owned 44,487. The
policy of robbing and killing the natives had by that time received the
sanction of Berlin. By the end of 1905 the surviving Hereros had been
reduced to pauperism and possessed nothing at all. In 1907 the Imperial
German Government by ordinance prohibited the natives of Southwest
Africa from possessing live stock.
The wholesale theft of the natives’ cattle, their only wealth, with
the direct connivance and approval of the Berlin Government, was one
of the primary causes of the Herero rebellion of 1904. The revolt was
suppressed with characteristic German ruthlessness. But the Germans
were not content with a mere suppression of the rising; they had
decided upon the practical extinction of the whole tribe. For this
purpose Leutwein, who was apparently regarded as too lenient, was
superseded by von Trotha, noted for his merciless severity. He had
played a notorious part in the Chinese Boxer rebellion, and had just
suppressed the Arab rising in German East Africa by the wholesale
massacre of men, women, and children. As a preliminary von Trotha
invited the Herero chiefs to come in and make peace, “as the war was
now over,” and promptly shot them in cold blood. Then he issued his
notorious “extermination order,” in terms of which no Herero--man,
woman, child, or babe--was to receive mercy or quarter. “Kill every one
of them,” he said, “and take no prisoners.”
The hanging of natives was a common occurrence. A German officer
had the right to order a native to be hanged. No trial or court was
necessary. Many were hanged merely on suspicion.
The Hereros were far more humane in the field than the Germans. They
were once a fine race. Now there is only a miserable remnant left.
This is amply proved by official German statistics. Out of between
80,000 and 90,000 souls, only about 15,000 starving and fugitive
Hereros were alive at the end of 1905, when von Trotha relinquished
his task. In 1911, after all rebellions had been suppressed and
tranquillity restored, the government had a census taken. The figures,
reproduced below, speak for themselves:
Hereros 80,000 15,130 64,870
Hottentots 20,000 9,781 10,219
Berg-Damaras 30,000 12,831 17,169
-------- ------ ------
130,000 37,742 92,258
In other words, eighty per cent of the Herero people disappeared, and
more than half of the Hottentot and Berg-Damara races shared the same
fate. Dr. Paul Rohrbach’s dictum, “It is applicable to a nation in the
same way as to the individual that the right of existence is primarily
justified in the degree that such existence is useful for progress
and general development,” comes forcibly to mind. These natives of
Southwest Africa had been weighed in the German balance and had been
found wanting.
Germany lost more than a million square miles of territory in Africa as
a direct consequence of General Botha’s bold action. These are divided
in four great regions, Southwest Africa, Kamerun, Togo and East Africa.
Togoland as this region is popularly known extends from the north
shore of the Gulf of Guinea into the interior and is bounded by French
and British colonies. By a joint attack of French and British forces,
beginning the second week in August, 1914, the German power in this
rich domain was completely broken, and the conquest of Togoland was
complete on August 26, 1914. The military operation was of a desultory
nature, and the losses negligible in view of the area of 33,000 square
miles of highly productive land passed from German control.
The fighting in the great region of Kamerun was somewhat more stubborn
than that in Togoland. The villages of Bonaberi and Duala were
particularly well defended. The British and French fought through
swamps and jungle under the handicap of terrific heat, and always with
victory at the end of the engagement. The conquest of the Kamerun was
complete by the end of June, 1915. In addition to the operations by the
British and French a combined Belgian and French force captured Molundu
and Ngaundera in the German Congo.
The raids by General Botha on German Southwest Africa commenced on
September 27, 1914. A series of brilliant strategic actions resulted in
the conquest of a region once and a half the size of the German Empire
at the time the Great War began. A British description of the operation
states:
The occupation of Windhoek was effected by General Botha’s North
Damaraland forces working along the railway from Swakopmund. At the
former place General Vanderventer joined up with General Botha’s
forces. The force from Swakopmund met with considerable opposition,
first at Tretskopje, a small township in the great Namib Desert fifty
miles to the northeast of Swakopmund, and secondly at Otjimbingwe,
on the Swakop River, sixty miles northwest of Windhoek. Apart from
these two determined stands, however, little other opposition was
encountered, and Karibib was occupied on May 5th and Okahandja and
Windhoek on May 12th. With the fall of the latter place, 3,000
Europeans and 12,000 natives became prisoners.
The wireless station--one of Germany’s most valuable high-power
stations, which was able to communicate with one relay only, with
Berlin--was captured almost intact, and much rolling stock also fell
into the hands of the Union forces.
The advance from the south along the Luderitzbucht-Seeheim-Keetmanshoop
Railway, approximately 500 miles in length, was made by two forces
which joined hands at Keetmanshoop. The advance from Aus (captured on
April 10th) was made by General Smuts’s forces. Colonel (afterward
General) Vanderventer, moving up from the direction of Warmbad
and Kalkfontein, around the flanks of Karas Mountain, pushed on
after reaching Keetmanshoop in the direction of Gibeon. Bethany had
previously been occupied during the advance to Seeheim. At Kabus,
twenty miles to the north of Keetmanshoop, and at Gibeon pitched
battles were fought between General Vanderventer’s forces and the
enemy. No other opposition of importance was encountered, and the
operations were brought to a successful conclusion.
The stiffest fighting in all Africa came in German East Africa. It
began in late September, 1914, and continued until mid-June, 1915.
The Germans, curiously enough, commenced the offensive here with an
attack upon Monbasa, the terminus of the Uganda railway and the capital
of British East Africa. The attack was planned as a joint naval and
military operation, the German cruiser Koenigsburg being assigned to
move into the harbor and bombard the town simultaneously with the
assault by land. The plan went awry when the presence of British
warships frightened off the Koenigsburg. The land attack was easily
checked by a detachment of the King’s African Rifles and native Arabian
troops until the detachments of Indian Regulars arrived upon the scene.
The enemy thereupon retreated to his original plans.
British reprisals came early in November, when the towns of Tanga
and Gassin were attacked by British troops. The troops selected for
this adventure numbered 6,000 and carried only food, water, guns and
munitions. No protection of any kind nor any other equipment was taken
by the soldiers. Reinforcements to the German forces delayed the
capture of Gassin until January. A garrison of three hundred men was
left there and this in turn was besieged by three thousand Germans.
After a stubborn defense the Germans recaptured the town. A union of
two British forces was accomplished early in June, 1915. One of these
cut through German East Africa along the Kagera River and the other
advanced on steamers from Kisumu. They met the enemy on June 22d and
defeated it with heavy casualties. Later General Tighe, commanding the
combined British forces, was congratulated on the completeness of his
victory on June 28th, by General Kitchener.
The territory acquired by the British as a consequence of the invasion
of Germany’s African possessions, possesses formidable natural
barriers, but once these are past the traveller finds lands of
wonderful fertility and great natural resources. Approaching German
Southwest Africa from the east, access is across the Kalahari Desert.
This in its trackless desolation, its frequent sand-storms and torrid
heat through which only the hardiest and best provisioned caravans
may penetrate is worse than the worst that Sahara can show. There is
not a sign of life. Approached from the sea the principal port is
Walfish Bay, a fair harbor that was improved by the British when they
occupied it. Near Walfish some of the largest diamonds in the history
of the world have been found and gold fields of considerable richness
have been worked. The climate of German Southwest Africa, after the
torrential storms of the seacoast and the terrific heat of the desert
have been passed, is one of the most salubrious in the world. It is
unique among African regions in the opportunities it affords for
colonization by white men. Great Britain possessed large holdings of
this land before Germany came into possession, but abandoned them under
the belief that the region was comparatively worthless. There was no
misapprehension on this score when all of the lands came into the
possession of England as the result of the war.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.