No Insignificant Part: The Rhodesia Native Regiment and the East Africa Campaign of the First World War

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no insignificant part The Rhodesia Native Regiment and the East Africa Campaign of the First World War

Rhodesia Native Regiment Area of Operations (1916–1918)

Tabora

German East Africa

Kilimatinde

Dodoma

(Tanzania)

Abercorn Fife

Northern Rhodesia

Dar es Salaam Iringa Madibira

Ru fi

Mafia Island

gi R iver

Lake Rukwa

Malangali Kilwa Mahenge New Utengule Mpepo St. Moritz Itaka New Langenburg Ifinga Mwaya Old Langenburg Liwale Lindi Kitanda Mahiwa Gumbiro Karonga Likuyu Weidhofen Sonyea NyamTundutu tumbo Mbamba m a Ri v e r u Bay v Ro

INDIAN OCEAN

La ke Ny asa

(Zambia)

Zanzibar Island

Kilosa

Kitunda

Bismarckburg Lake Tanganyika

Pemba Island

Tanga

(M a la w

Nanungu Korewa Mahua

i)

(Malawi)

Nyasaland

Mtengula Mwembe Mtarika

Namwera Lake Mutuali Amarambu

Porto Amelia

Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique)

Sh

re

Ri v

er

Malema Ligonya Murupula Moçambique Lake Lioma Alto i Chilwa (Mozambique) Ligonya Inagu mt el Numirrue mulanje Regone Molokwe nn Z Chalaua a Namarroi Blantyre Ch Mocubi ez Liciro iR ue Ille iv e r q i

Portuguese East Africa

am

b

Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe)

Namacurra

M

oz

am

b

Quelimane Rail Road Border River

100km 200km [approximate scale]




no insignificant part The Rhodesia Native Regiment and the East Africa Campaign of the First World War

Tim Stapleton

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Stapleton, Timothy Joseph, 1967– No insignificant part : the Rhodesia Native Regiment and the East Africa Campaign of the First World War / Tim Stapleton. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-88920-498-0 ISBN-10: 0-88920-498-5 1. Great Britain. Army. Rhodesia Native Regiment. 2. World War, 1914–1918—Regimental histories—Zimbabwe. 3. World War, 1914–1918—Participation, Black. 4. World War, 1914–1918—Campaigns—Africa, East. 5. World War, 1914–1918—Zimbabwe. 6. Zimbabwe— History, Military. i. Title. d547.r458s72 2006

940.4'1608996891

c2006-901352-7

Cover design by Sandra Friesen. Text design by Catharine Bonas-Taylor. Photographs on pages 3 and 4 courtesy of Tim Stapleton. Photograph on page 133 provided by Dr. Alec Douglas. All other photographs courtesy of the Zimbabwe National Archives. ©2006 Wilfrid Laurier University Press Waterloo, Ontario, Canada www.wlupress.wlu.ca

Printed in Canada Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material used in this text, and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and omissions called to the publisher’s attention will be corrected in future printings. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

for Mavis and Fungai




contents

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Acknowledgements ix List of Abbreviations xi List of Terms xii Introduction 1 Setting the Stage: Colonialism and Zimbabwe: The First World War and Africa 9 Africans in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and the First World War 19 Soldiers in the Rhodesia Native Regiment: Their Profile and Daily Life 31 The Road to Songea 53 The Sieges of Malangali and Songea 67 The Siege of Kitanda 79 Disaster at St. Moritz 93 Mpepo: The Place of Winds 105 Portuguese East Africa 119 Demobilization and Life after the War 135 Conclusion 147 Appendix: Short Biographies of Some African rnr Soldiers 151 Notes 159 Bibliography 177 Index 181

vii




acknowledgements

i would like to thank the social sciences and humanities research Council of Canada and Trent University for funding the research for this book. The staff of the Zimbabwe National Archives, where most of the research was conducted, was extremely helpful and professional. The Department of History and Centre for Defence Studies at the University of Zimbabwe provided me with an institutional base during research trips. Various people at Wilfrid Laurier University Press, particularly Jacqueline Larson, provided important guidance through the publication process. I would like to offer special thanks to two sons of Rhodesia Native Regiment soldiers; Chief Kaisa Ndiweni, a well-known figure in Zimbabwean politics whose father was killed in action in German East Africa during the First World War, and Dr. Alec Douglas, an eminent historian whose father was a Boer War veteran and rnr sergeant. I would also like to thank Dr. (Lt. Col. Retired) Martin Rupiya of the Institute of Security Studies in Pretoria, Dr. Sean Morrow and Prof. Roger Southall, both of South Africa’s Human Science Research Council, Prof. John Laband of Wilfrid Laurier University, Mr. Frederick Sadomba of the University of Zimbabwe and the two anonymous reviewers of this manuscript for their useful comments. Ms. Grace Maziriri helped make arrangements for my research permit in Zimbabwe. Mr. Pascals Mrewa gave me a thorough tour of Harare’s Anglican Cathedral and explained the controversy surrounding war memorials in that church. Mr. Joseph Muduka of Mary Mount Teachers’ College guided myself, my wife, and my sister-in-law up the steep slope of Cross ix

x

acknowledgements

Kopje to the impressive and little-known war memorial on its top. My deepest appreciation goes to my wife Mavis Ncube-Chinamora for her considerable support of this project.




list of abbreviations

bsac bsanp bsap co cnc csm kar nad naz nc nco nrp nrr obe oc rnr rsm sai srv

British South Africa Company British South Africa Native Police British South Africa Police Commanding Officer Chief Native Commissioner Company Sergeant Major King’s African Rifles Native Affairs Department National Archives of Zimbabwe Native Commissioner Non-Commissioned Officer Northern Rhodesia Police Northern Rhodesia Rifles Officer of the British Empire Officer Commanding Rhodesia Native Regiment Regimental Sergeant Major South African Infantry Southern Rhodesia Volunteers

xi




list of terms

Askari — an African soldier under European command Bundu — the bush/wilderness Induna — an Ndebele term for an appointed official Lewis Gun — a light machine gun that can be carried by one person Maxim Gun — an early type of machine gun, water-cooled and very heavy Schutztruppe — German colonial armed forces in East Africa Tenga Tenga — supply carriers or porters

xii




introduction

the city of mutare, called umtali in colonial times, is nestled in Zimbabwe’s mountainous Eastern Highlands close to the border with Mozambique. On the peak of a high, rocky, forested hill that overlooks the entire city is what appears to be a large concrete cross. As the hill, called Cross Kopje, is on the grounds of Mary Mount Teachers’ College, a former Christian mission, many people believe that the cross has something to do with a church. Only after a fairly tough climb up the sometimes vertical rocks does one discover the real purpose of the structure. At the base of the thirty-foot-high cross, made of large stones held together by concrete, is a small bronze plaque that reads “To the Glory of God and in Memory of Africans Who Fell 1914–1918.” It is a gigantic monument to Africans who died in the First World War. The survival of this monument is interesting because over the past few years, with the increasing anti-colonial and anti-British rhetoric of the Zimbabwe government, monuments to those who died in the world wars have been pulled down. Plaques commemorating those who fell in the world wars have been removed from what was once the country’s main war memorial in Harare Gardens. The walls of Harare’s Anglican Cathedral have dozens of blank spaces where memorial plaques relating to various conflicts have been removed and taken to the National Archives where they lie scattered on a basement floor. Mixed in the dusty piles are numerous memorials: to those who fell in the world wars (along with many others); to Europeans who were killed in the colonial wars of conquest during the late nineteenth century; and mem1

2

introduction

bers of the Rhodesian security forces, including police dogs, who died fighting “communist terrorists” during the bush war of the 1970s. Seeing this, it is easy to comprehend why many Zimbabweans today might associate the world wars with a one-sided colonial view of history that they would rather forget. However, as the gigantic cross in Mutare illustrates, Africans from Zimbabwe and elsewhere did fight and die in the First World War. Another more specific clue to this largely forgotten history hides in a corner of the Anglican Cathedral where the name “Rhodesia Native Regiment” is carved directly in the stone under the place where the unit’s colours once hung. In fact, of the roughly three thousand black people from Zimbabwe who went off to the Great War, most served in the Rhodesia Native Regiment (rnr) that fought in the gruelling German East Africa campaign. The 350 Africans from Zimbabwe who participated in the conflict but were not in the rnr were members of the British East Africa Transport Corps, South African Native Labour Corps, and the British South Africa Police Mobile Column.1 Today, the very name of the Rhodesia Native Regiment can evoke fairly strong reactions from people who know very little about it. “Rhodesia,” the name Cecil Rhodes gave to the territory he conquered in south central Africa, appeals to those nostalgic for the days of Ian Smith and settler minority rule in what is now Zimbabwe, but it often repulses many Africans who associate this term with their dispossession and exploitation. “Native,” which has pejorative connotations, is popularly associated with the colonial paternalism of native departments and native commissioners and has been widely replaced by the term “African.” “Regiment” draws the attention of those interested in military history but it also raises the eyebrows of those who see regimental histories as seeking to glorify war and violence while contributing little to our understanding of the past. Why then write a book on the history of the Rhodesia Native Regiment? I came across the topic while researching a paper on views of the First World War in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe today). Despite the fact that the rnr was the only primarily African unit from Zimbabwe to participate in the Great War, fighting for two and a half years in German East Africa, most Zimbabweans know little or nothing about it. This seems to be part of a general amnesia about the First World War in Zimbabwean society. Coming from Canada, where the First World War is publicly remembered each year during Remembrance Day and where there is a fairly large literature on local participation in the conflict, I was puzzled by this situation. Zimbabwe has its First World War memorials, but they have been largely forgotten or pulled from public view. It is easy to attribute this national forgetfulness solely to the overpow-

introduction

3

above Cross Kopje in the city of Mutare (called Umtali before 1980). This monument to African soldiers who died in the First World War was erected in 1924 amid some controversy and lies very close to the border with Mozambique. left The monument on Cross Kopje.

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above The inscription on the Cross Kopje monument. left The War Memorial in Harare Gardens. Note the vacant space where the First World War plaque has been removed.

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5

ering memories of the much more recent liberation war that was fought in the country during the 1960s and ’70s. Compared to that, a few thousand black Zimbabweans going off to fight a war in East Africa over eighty years ago seems remote. However, there is more to it than that. Today, Zimbabweans often see the world wars as something that concerned the small settler minority and had no relevance to the indigenous majority. This view came about partly because settler society and the colonial state, which was a settler-controlled responsible government from 1923, wanted to downplay the role that Africans from the area had played in the Great War. White veterans of the war were made into Rhodesian national heroes and histories of their wartime experiences were published, beginning in the 1920s.2 Citing the contribution of Rhodesian settlers to the British Empire’s war effort became a standard element of histories of the colony.3 This effort to downplay the role of African soldiers seems to have begun even before the conflict was over and it went far beyond Southern Rhodesia. In an address to the Royal Geographic Society in January 1918, the Colonial Secretary, Walter Long, paid glowing tribute to the contribution of white soldiers from South Africa and Rhodesia in the East African campaign, mentioning the loyalty of African civilians, but he completely ignored the service of African soldiers.4 This statement was made at a time when black soldiers formed the core of colonial regiments fighting in East Africa. After the conflict, African veterans, as we shall see, were ignored and forgotten. Of course, the role of black soldiers was also minimized in other countries such the United States, Canada, and Britain.5 Discussing the Rhodesia Native Regiment, Melvin Page, a historian of Malawi and the First World War, points out that “Rhodesian accounts of the war tended to minimize not only the participation of Malawians and Zambians in the regiment, but also the role of the unit in general.”6 Given all this, the lack of importance attached to the First World War in Zimbabwe and the absence of knowledge generally about the role of black Zimbabweans in the conflict is not surprising. Therefore, one of the main aims of this book is to broaden awareness of Zimbabwe’s role, and in particular the participation of black Zimbabweans and other Africans, in an essentially global conflict. There are many other reasons to look at the Rhodesia Native Regiment. The story of the unit’s formation can reveal much about how Africans in Southern Rhodesia viewed the war, and how the colonial administration and settler society saw the use of black troops in the conflict. Why did Africans volunteer to fight in the army of a colonial power that had conquered them as recently as the 1890s? Given the history of African revolt in Southern Rhodesia in 1896–97, was there any concern among the settler minority and their

6

introduction

administration over arming and training subject peoples? The combat history of the regiment in East Africa can tell us much about that campaign which, in popular films and books, has often, and inaccurately, been portrayed as a romantic adventure story. By studying one battalion-sized formation, it is possible to gain a better understanding of the major challenges faced by soldiers and leaders in the field. The physical factors of the campaign, such as a huge territory with few roads and the prevalence of tropical disease, were daunting and the enemy was tenacious. How did a colonial unit made up of a mass of African soldiers commanded by a few Europeans manage to cope with life-and-death situations? In other words, how did the racist nature of early colonial Rhodesian society influence the regiment’s organization and operations, and did the attitudes of white officers and administrators change under wartime pressures? After the war, how did the demobilization and memorialization of the unit occur, and what does this tell us about the emerging Rhodesian colonial state? How did the war experience influence the lives of African veterans and did they have any impact on the colony? There are very few published sources on the Rhodesia Native Regiment. The only rnr veterans to write about their wartime experience were former white officers who published a few articles on the regiment during the 1920s and ’30s in Rhodesian police and defence force magazines. A.J. Tomlinson, the first commanding officer of the regiment who became acting police commissioner of Southern Rhodesia in 1926, wrote a series of articles about his service in East Africa. These were essentially an edited and serialized version of his war diary. Tomlinson, a distinguished police officer before the war who had participated in the Jameson Raid of 1895 and commanded a cavalry squadron during the South African War of 1899–1902, definitely had something to prove by writing about his old regiment because his departure from East Africa, in the midst of the operations during the First World War, had left a cloud over his wartime reputation. Tomlinson’s original war diary is housed in the Zimbabwe National Archives and was an important source for the production of this book.7 The second commander of the unit was C.L. Carbutt, who had been seconded from the Native Affairs Department to the rnr and became Southern Rhodesia’s secretary of native affairs in the 1930s. In 1921, while Carbutt was the native commissioner for Fort Victoria (Masvingo today), he was called upon by the colony’s secretary for defence to submit a history of the rnr for the period he was in command. The book-length manuscript, essentially a rewritten version of his war diary, was sent to the defence department but never published. It was eventually deposited in what became the Zimbabwe archives and was an invaluable source for this study since the original diary

introduction

7

is missing.8 There was only one other former rnr officer who published something about the war. Captain H. Bugler, a British South Africa Policeman, wrote an article for a police magazine about his period as commander of “C” Company rnr during the last months of the conflict.9 Several former officers of the Northern Rhodesia Police, a primarily black unit from what is now Zambia that worked closely with the rnr in East Africa, published articles on their wartime experiences in local academic journals during the 1950s and ’60s. These contain a few brief references to the rnr.10 Despite the emergence of a historical literature on Africa and the Great War, more recent historians have not paid much attention to the Rhodesia Native Regiment.11 Peter McLaughlin’s book on Zimbabwe and the First World War, published at the time of the country’s independence in 1980, follows the Rhodesian tradition of concentrating on the settler community and devotes only seven pages to Africans and the war. The same author did write two informative papers in the late 1970s and 1980s on the military recruitment of black Zimbabweans during both world wars.12 However, his view that the First World War was not very important to Africans in colonial Southern Rhodesia is not supported by the evidence.13 Melvin Page, who has written a pioneering book on Malawi and the Great War, briefly discusses the rnr but only in the context of how many Malawian migrant workers were in its ranks.14 The only other recent historical work on the rnr is an unpublished but useful conference paper on military discipline in the regiment.15 No modern historian has looked at this unit’s campaign history. Perhaps as a result of this gap in the literature, military historians of the East Africa campaign of the First World War have also largely ignored the rnr. The official history of the King’s African Rifles (kar), published in the 1950s, contains a long section on the Great War in East Africa but the author, H. Moyse-Bartlett, makes only three references to the rnr which is strange considering how closely the two regiments worked together.16 Malcolm Page’s more recent history of the kar mentions the rnr only once.17 Several popular histories of the East Africa campaign written in the 1960s and ’70s hardly discuss the rnr.18 Ross Anderson’s recent and important academic study of this campaign lumps the rnr in with all other Rhodesian forces and, in the only specific reference to it, the unit’s name is replaced by the generic phrase “a newly raised African police battalion.”19 Hew Strachan’s voluminous study of the First World War contains one sentence on the rnr.20 There is little wonder that the rnr is almost forgotten. However, just after the war, the top colonial official in Southern Rhodesia stated that the rnr had played “no insignificant part” in the Allied victory in East Africa.

8

introduction

The nature of the available evidence makes a comprehensive study of the rnr difficult. The rapid formation of the rnr and the rough conditions of the East Africa campaign hindered thorough record keeping. All the written records produced by the unit were authored by white officers or senior noncommissioned officers (ncos) who often sought to highlight their own role in the war and minimize the contribution of their black soldiers. This trend carried on in postwar writing by former rnr officers. For example, Bugler’s article has an appendix of short biographies of all the white officers and ncos in his company but there is nothing similar on the black ncos.21 Specific African soldiers were usually mentioned in the official documents only when they did something to impress or displease their European superiors. One of the most serious problems in researching the rnr is that since the vast majority of its black soldiers were not literate, their perspective is largely missing from the written record. Also, it appears that no veterans remain alive and their children do not know much about the subject. One interesting window into the views of African soldiers in the regiment is provided by the transcripts of military trials that were held for those accused of offences such as stealing, deserting, disobeying orders, and insolence. Statements of witnesses were written down in detail and do sometimes reveal valuable commentary on military life. Other official documents such as medical reports, duty officer reports, regimental orders, and official correspondence can also offer some insight into the African view. However, it should be kept in mind that all these sources were filtered through the recording hand of a European officer or senior nco. There are transcripts of a few interviews conducted with white veterans of the unit during the 1960s and ’70s, which are housed in the Zimbabwe National Archives. It is a great pity, and it says much about Rhodesian society of the time, that the interviewer did not seek out African veterans, some of whom would surely have been alive. The result of all this is that much is known about the white leadership of the rnr but detailed information on the African rank and file is very limited. Readers should keep in mind, however, that every military operation described by white commanders in the official records depended on the participation of numerous and often anonymous black soldiers.




chapter 1

Setting the Stage Colonialism and Zimbabwe: The First World War and Africa

when the first world war broke out in 1914, the era of colonial conquest for much of sub-Saharan Africa had barely ended and this fact greatly influenced how Africans, including those in what is now Zimbabwe, experienced this global event. African independence had been crushed and African people were forced to live within the context of an exploitive colonial state and economy. It is also important to remember that the events of the First World War in Africa occurred very much within this colonial context. Up until the late 1880s, most of the people of the interior of sub-Saharan Africa lived in independent kingdoms, smaller chiefdoms, or even decentralized communities. The European presence in Africa was mostly confined to a number of small colonies on the west and east coasts, and several settler territories in what would become South Africa. A combination of tropical disease (such as malaria) and powerful African states kept Europeans out of the interior but most Africans did have some sort of trade contact, direct or indirect, with coastal areas. Bantu-speaking Africans, possessing iron-age technology, had long inhabited the Zimbabwe plateau between the Zambezi River to the north and the Limpopo River to the south. This environment, with its relatively moderate climate and less-severe tropical disease, favoured cattle keeping but the cultivation of maize and other crops also became important. Shona-speaking people inhabited the centre and eastern half of the area, and had organized numerous centralized states of various sizes. In the southeast, the large Ndebele Kingdom was established after moving north from what is 9

10

setting the stage

now South Africa in the late 1830s to escape the expansion of Dutch-speaking white settlers (Boers) from the Cape. The Ndebele, whose invasion had been partly responsible for the breakup of the larger Rozvi Shona state, had absorbed many Shona and Kalanga people into their society, and established tributary relations with neighbouring groups. By the second half of the nineteenth century, however, many Shona chiefdoms had acquired firearms through trade and were better able to resist Ndebele raids.1 The “Scramble for Africa” in the 1890s and early 1900s brought nearly the entire continent under the rule of European powers such as Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, and Portugal. Spurred on by greed to obtain raw materials, and fuelled by imperial ambition and ideas of racial superiority, Europeans led armies of mostly African soldiers into the interior of the continent and used newly developed rapid-firing weapons such as the Maxim gun to quickly defeat those who resisted. At this point Africans, lacking a broader continental identity, tended not to see Europeans as a common threat and responded to these invasions in a divided manner. It became easy for the European powers to play one African state off against another and the conquest was so fast that Africans did not have time to develop a new response. For what is now Zimbabwe, this process of colonial conquest was masterminded from further south in the British Cape Colony. Cecil Rhodes, a mining magnate and ardent British imperialist, heard rumours that the area between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers was rich in gold. Since Rhodes was frustrated by the heavy taxation of his gold-mining operations in the independent Boer republic of Transvaal, he thought that gaining control of the area to the immediate north would be a way to outflank the Boers and begin the extension of British rule from Cape to Cairo. In 1889 agents of Rhodes, led by Samuel Rudd, visited the Ndebele ruler Lobengula and tricked him into marking a treaty that he could not read. White Christian missionaries, frustrated by a lack of converts among the Ndebele, told the king that only a few Europeans would visit the country to collect minerals. In fact, this document, called the Rudd Concession, claimed to give the British control over the eastern half of the country inhabited by the Shona people. With the treaty, Rhodes was able to obtain a royal charter from the British government that gave his newly formed British South Africa Company (bsac), a privately owned business, the right to administer territory on behalf of Britain.2 In 1890, at the same time other European-led armies were invading the rest of Africa, the bsac organized its “Pioneer Column,” made up primarily of white settlers from the Cape, which rode north and established embryonic settlements, such as Fort Victoria (Masvingo today) and Salisbury (Harare

setting the stage

11

today), in the predominantly Shona part of what is now Zimbabwe. Lobengula, realizing that he had been deceived, considered attacking the column but it stayed out of Ndebele territory and he was concerned about the power of European firearms. Initially, this settler occupation did not mean much to the Shona because the relatively small number of whites meant that their immediate impact was minimal. However, when the bsac settlers failed to discover the rumoured gold deposits in the eastern half of the country, they turned their attention toward the Ndebele Kingdom. A pretext for war was created by bsac officials who portrayed the Ndebele as warlike predators who represented a threat to the allegedly peaceful Shona. In 1893, the bsac organized several armed columns of settlers which invaded the Ndebele state, converging on Lobengula’s capital of Bulawayo. The Ndebele army did not have time to develop a new strategy to combat Europeans and met the invaders in a series of head-on battles where they were slaughtered by bsac Maxim guns. Rhodes’s agents occupied Bulawayo, which became another colonial town, and Lobengula fled north toward the Zambezi where he disappeared, purportedly dying of fever in the bush. No new major sources of gold were found, and the whites who had participated in the invasion were given huge tracts of formerly Ndebele land and herds of captured Ndebele cattle as a reward. The Ndebele people were pushed into small, arid reserves and their monarchy was abolished. The borders of the new British colony now began to take shape and it was called Southern Rhodesia.3 With the end of Ndebele independence, the bsac began to establish the foundations of a colonial state and economy. Although some gold and coal mines were eventually opened, settler agriculture became the main method of wealth extraction from the colony and more whites moved there from the older settler territories to the south. The bsac created the British South Africa Police (bsap) to serve as its coercive arm within the colony. bsap members were mostly white but a small contingent of “native constables” was formed to assist in controlling the African people. A rudimentary “Native Affairs Department” was formed to supervise and administer Africans who represented the vast majority of the population. In 1895, the bsac imposed a hut tax on all Africans in Southern Rhodesia. Across colonial Africa, taxation became a way to force African people into the capitalist economy, either by selling cash crops or entering wage labour. When combined with land alienation by white settlers, taxation usually forced Africans into a life as migrant workers in mines or commercial farms. Initially, it also prompted considerable resistance. Eighteen ninety-five was also the year of the Jameson Raid in which a bsap force invaded the gold-rich Boer republic of Transvaal in an

12

setting the stage

attempt to install a pro-British government. However, the raid failed and the bsap men were all captured, which left Southern Rhodesia with a muchweakened police force at a time when new demands were being made on the African population. This opportunity did not go unnoticed by the recently conquered Africans. In 1896 a number of the Ndebele, frustrated by loss of land, taxation, and harassment by abusive police, rose up against the bsac and attacked white settlers. For a time, the new colonial town of Bulawayo was besieged. The Ndebele rebels were led by their old chiefs and military commanders. News of the rebellion eventually spread to Shona communities and a number of chiefs, whose people were just beginning to experience the hardships of colonial rule, decided to rise up against the Europeans. The rebels had learned from the Ndebele defeat of 1893, and fought a bush war of ambushes and surprise attacks against the whites. The Ndebele used the Matopo Hills as a natural stronghold and the bsap had a hard time dislodging them. In addition, the rebels made more extensive use of firearms acquired through trade or capture. The 1896–97 rebellion, particularly the role of the supposedly less warlike Shona in it, was a major shock to the bsac administration which had begun to believe its own propaganda that it was bringing the benefits of western civilization to Africa. Reinforcements were sent from the Cape and Britain, and eventually the rebels, seeing the need to plant crops for the coming year, found it increasingly difficult to sustain the war. Also, most Ndebele and Shona had not opted for rebellion and some “loyalist” chiefs provided men to fight as auxiliaries for the colonial forces. Rhodes met personally with the Ndebele rebel leaders in the Matopo Hills and negotiated an end to hostilities in that region. This enabled the bsac forces to concentrate on the Shona rebels who were hunted down and often dynamited in their caves. Two Shona spirit mediums, Kaguvi and Nehanda, were hanged by the bsac for their part in organizing the rebellion. This allowed the bsac to deflect blame for the rebellion away from its heavy-handed administration and claim that the disturbance had been caused by superstitious Africans who had followed false prophets. Although most fighting ended in 1897, the northeast of the country was not completely “pacified” by the bsap until 1904 when the rebel leader Mapondera was finally captured. The 1896–97 war, called the First Chimurenga (or liberation struggle) in present-day Zimbabwe, had a deep impact on the colony. Concerned about the expense of any future rebellions, the British government placed the bsac under more direct supervision. The small white settler population grew extremely fearful about the possibility of future African resistance and developed a racially segregated colonial society.4

setting the stage

13

On the eve of the First World War, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) were recently conquered British territories administered by a privately held chartered company in which numerous individuals owned shares. While Southern Rhodesia became known as a “settler colony,” few whites moved to the more tropical climate of Northern Rhodesia which eventually developed an economy based on copper mining. After Rhodes’s death in 1902, the bsac board of directors was based in Britain but it was still responsible for financing and administrating its territories. Each territory was governed by an administrator, nominated by the company but appointed by the colonial office, who reported to the British High Commissioner of Southern Africa, the top British official in the region based in Cape Town. In Southern Rhodesia, on the eve of the First World War, the administrator was advised by an executive council consisting of four members appointed by the bsac and a legislative council made up of six members appointed by the colonial office and twelve representatives elected by the colony’s small settler population. The administrator would forward proposed legislation to the high commissioner for final approval. The resident commissioner of Southern Rhodesia, who sat on the legislative council but did not vote, was meant to serve as the main colonial office “watchdog” in the colony and reported directly to the high commissioner on the impact that any proposed legislation would have on the African community.5 Defence and security were the jurisdiction of the commandant-general of the Rhodesias, a professional British officer seconded to the bsac, who worked in conjunction with the territorial administrators but reported directly to the high commissioner. The only full-time armed forces in the colonies were the bsap and Northern Rhodesia Police (nrp), responsible for the security of Southern and Northern Rhodesia respectively, and still technically part of the bsac. The bsap remained mostly white but it maintained a small auxiliary unit of “native police.” The nrp had white commanders but, reflecting the nature of its home territory, most of its rank and file were black. In addition, a number of part-time white settler military units were created, such as the Southern Rhodesia Volunteers, the Northern Rhodesia Rifles, and various local rifle clubs. The bsap and some members of the other Rhodesian units participated in the South African War of 1899–1902 in which British forces conquered the Boer republics and set up the conditions for the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910.6 The famous British institution of indirect rule, where African chiefs and rulers maintained local autonomy in exchange for accepting overall British supremacy, was established in parts of Northern Rhodesia but never applied

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setting the stage

to the settler colony of Southern Rhodesia. At the local level, Shona and Ndebele chiefs continued to run the day-to-day affairs of their communities under a version of colonial “customary law” but their authority was greatly weakened by the direct supervision of white native commissioners who were in charge of each district. Each native commissioner had a small staff of European assistant commissioners and clerks as well as African messengers and spies. Native commissioners were responsible for maintaining stability, settling local disputes, arbitrating disagreements over chiefly succession and land, and collecting taxes. They also worked closely with the Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau to recruit workers for mines throughout Southern Africa. Native commissioners reported directly to superintendents of native affairs who were based in each provincial capital. At the top of this hierarchy was the chief native commissioner who was located in Salisbury, the territorial capital, and reported directly to the administrator.7 By the 1890s, the employment of indigenous soldiers by conquering colonial armies already had a long history, such as during Britain’s eighteenthcentury wars in North America and India. Most of the troops who conquered Africa during the Scramble period were black. They were recruited from the older coastal territories, belonged to African states that had sided with Europeans against local African rivals, or were enlisted through promises of wealth. Once colonial rule and the capitalist economy were established, serving in the colonial police or army became an attractive employment opportunity for Africans. In most colonies, a permanent force of armed Africans, such as Britain’s West African Frontier Force or Belgium’s Force Publique in the Congo, or Germany’s Schutztruppe in East Africa, provided internal security.8 Settler colonies functioned somewhat differently where armed Africans were considered a threat to white supremacy. After the conquest period in what is now South Africa, irregular black units were disarmed and disbanded, and an allwhite and “coloured” (mixed race) defence force was created by the Union. The white settler population of Kenya, on the other hand, was so small that even after the Scramble period it had to rely on a battalion of King’s African Rifles for its protection. Southern Rhodesia lay between these two extremes. Africans from the Cape Colony, working as servants and wagon drivers, had been part of the “Pioneer Column” of 1890. Small irregular military units of so-called Cape Boys were part of the bsac force that invaded the Ndebele Kingdom in 1893, defended Bulawayo from Ndebele rebels in 1896, and fought against Shona rebels in 1897. In 1898, Fingoes, long-time allies of the British in their wars of conquest in the Eastern Cape, were settled in Matabeleland to serve as a buffer between Bulawayo and potentially hostile Ndebele groups.9 Vari-

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ous ad hoc local African formations, usually men from “loyalist” chiefdoms, fought on the colonial side during the 1896–97 rebellion but then went back to their homes. The only permanent uniformed force of armed Africans in early colonial Southern Rhodesia was the fairly small group employed by the bsap starting in the 1890s. While they were under bsap command, these black policemen were paid less and wore different uniforms than their white colleagues. Technically, they even belonged to a separate sub-unit of the bsap that was called the British South Africa Native Police (bsanp) but sometimes unofficially referred to as the “Black Watch.”10 The First World War (1914–18) had a profound impact on most of Africa. To aid the war effort, the colonial powers demanded men and material from their African territories. Around two hundred thousand men from French West Africa were conscripted into the army and thrown into the trenches of Europe’s Western Front. At the same time, the French demanded that their African subjects provide food for the embattled mother country despite the fact that the absence of men who had gone to war reduced agricultural production. In many parts of Africa, a combination of weakened colonial control, caused by white officials leaving for the war, and increased demands for food production led to widespread African rebellion. Just like the British and French, the Germans had rushed to conquer African territory in the late nineteenth century and they now had at least one colony in each major region of sub-Saharan Africa. Each of these German colonies—Togo, Cameroon, German South West Africa (Namibia today), and German East Africa (mainland Tanzania as well as Rwanda and Burundi today)—were invaded from the adjacent territories of the Allied powers and became the scenes of military campaigns. African people in those areas experienced all the horrors of war, including having their crops and cattle seized by armies of both sides. In neighbouring colonies, the Allies sustained these campaigns by taking huge amounts of food and over a million men were forced to serve as supply carriers. For the Allied powers, the war in Africa was an opportunity to enlarge their territorial possessions at the expense of the Germans. German aims in Africa varied because they were usually surrounded, outnumbered, and isolated from the mother country by Allied naval dominance of the oceans. Some German colonial officials, including the governor of German East Africa, wanted to declare the colonies as neutral and avoid an extension of the war to Africa. They feared that fighting between Europeans in Africa would weaken colonial control over Africans and destroy the economic infrastructure that had been build over the previous twenty years. Both Allied and German military commanders would have none of this. The British invaded Togo in 1914 to

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seize the powerful German radio transmitter that was located there. German attempts to defend this key asset were half-hearted because the governor knew it was futile and protracted fighting would only disrupt what he saw as the achievements of German rule. The British and French both invaded Cameroon in 1914 but were so busy seizing territory that they did not immediately coordinate their military efforts. The German commander abandoned the narrow coastal belt and withdrew his forces to the vast interior to fight a bush war. His aim was to preserve a German presence in the area so Germany could still make territorial claims there in any future peace talks. When the Union of South Africa, a British dominion, invaded German South West Africa in 1915, the government of Louis Botha saw this as an important step in expanding its control across the entire Southern Africa region. Because South Africa and German South West Africa had significant settler populations, this became the only African campaign in the First World War to not see the extensive use of black soldiers. Armed Africans were seen as a potential threat to the security of the white community. The open terrain of this colony enabled the South Africans to use mounted and motorized units to surround the Germans and quickly defeat them.11 The British in Kenya and the Rhodesias, the Belgians in the Congo, and eventually the Portuguese in Mozambique all saw German East Africa as a potential area for territorial gains. The German commander, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, thought that he could tie down Allied soldiers and resources in East African and divert them from going to the main theatre of the war in Europe. In 1914 and 1915, the main imperial British concern in East Africa was that the German cruiser Konigsberg was using river mouths along the coast as a sanctuary from which it could emerge and disrupt shipping in the Indian Ocean. An amphibious landing by units of the British Indian Service Corps, a hastily put-together force mainly from the princely states of India, was conducted on the German port of Tanga in 1914. The poor quality of the British commanders and Indian troops led to a major disaster and the expeditionary force had to be quickly withdrawn, leaving behind most of its supplies. The Tanga debacle gave the Germans in East Africa a new lease on life and they began a series of raids against the British railway in Kenya that led to the agriculturally rich colony of Uganda. The sinking of the Konigsberg in the Rufigi Delta in 1915 removed that larger strategic aspect of the campaign but it provided the German army in East Africa, who stripped the wreck of the ship, with additional rifles, machine guns, ammunition, and even salvaged artillery pieces. Once the South West Africa campaign was finished, South African forces under Jan Smuts, a former Boer general but now a member of the Union government,

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were sent to Kenya to renew the offensive and conquer the German colony. As historian Hew Strachen points out, Smuts fought the campaign more as a politician than a general. He did not want the white electorate back home to hold him responsible for high casualties so he attempted to outflank and trap the Germans as the South Africans had done in South West Africa.12 However, the thick East African bush made fast manoeuvers impossible where horses and motor vehicles were nearly useless. In addition, without roads, it took dozens of supply carriers to support just one soldier in the field. It was almost impossible to use draft animals to carry supplies because of the prevalence of the tsetse fly which carried the disease trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness). Eventually, almost a million African supply carriers were employed in the East African campaign. Tropical diseases like malaria, parasites like the jigger worm, and dietary problems that caused dysentery took a huge toll on Allied personnel. The result of all this was that the Germans, who seemed to have a more effective approach to preventing disease within their ranks, were able to escape encirclement and maintain control over large portions of the territory. Smuts eventually left his command, claiming a victory that he had not achieved. It was not until the defeat of the Germans in Cameroon in 1916 that the British could send thousands of black Nigerian and Gold Coast soldiers to East Africa to resume operations. A new British commander who had some East Africa experience, R. Hoskins, further Africanized the campaign by dramatically expanding the King’s African Rifles, a colonial regiment with battalions in Kenya, Uganda, and Nyasaland (Malawi today). South African, white Rhodesian, and British units were sent home because they could not cope with the health problems that were characteristic of the campaign. Beginning in 1916 and continuing into 1917, a new Allied offensive was launched with British-led columns invading German East Africa from Kenya in the north and Northern Rhodesia/Nyasaland in the southeast, and Belgian forces moving in from the west. The result was an arduous bush war in which the Germans fought a seemingly endless series of delaying actions that ran both sides ragged. The last major operation of the campaign was when Von Lettow-Vorbeck, in late 1917 and 1918, led his one remaining column into Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique), an area where local people were in rebellion against the colonial power because of wartime demands for labour, to distract the Allies and loot supplies. The war ended shortly after the Germans crossed back into East Africa and they finally surrendered at the town of Abercorn in Northern Rhodesia. Although casualty rates for soldiers in this campaign were much lower than on the Western Front, fatalities among supply porters, who were literally worked to death while suffering from tropical disease, were

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extremely high. Historians have refuted the official figure that forty-two thousand carriers died in British service and it seems likely that at least a hundred thousand perished. Of course, this does not include those employed by the Belgians, Portuguese, and Germans.13




chapter 2

Africans in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and the First World War

when the first world war broke out in august 1914, southern rhodesia’s small population of thirty thousand white settlers was generally very eager to get involved in the conflict. Identifying closely with Britain, they made overt displays of patriotism, collected money for various war-related causes, and volunteered to serve in the armed forces. At a time when the colony was still administered by the chartered British South Africa Company (bsac), participation in the war was seen by whites as a prerequisite for earning a form of self-government in the future and an important step towards creating their own distinctive nation along the lines of Canada and Australia. While some Rhodesian settlers travelled home to Britain and enlisted there, many settlers felt that they had to form their own distinct “national” units in order to fully contribute to the war effort and benefit in any post-war settlement. Early in the conflict, the Rhodesia Regiment was formed as an all-white unit. Its first battalion helped subdue rebellious Afrikaners in South Africa and fought in the brief German South West Africa campaign of 1915–1916. The second battalion fought in the long and punishing campaign in German East Africa but tropical disease and lack of replacement manpower at home meant it was impossible to maintain the unit at a reasonable strength. In March 1916, the Rhodesia Regiment made urgent appeals to the settler population for recruits up to forty-five years of age, especially those who were veterans of “Britain’s Empirebuilding wars” but sufficient men could not be found.1 The worn-out unit was returned to Southern Rhodesia in April 1917 and disbanded in October of 19

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that year, over a year before the end of the East Africa campaign.2 During and after the Great War, Southern Rhodesian settlers were proud to state that they had the highest enlistment rate in the British Empire. With the small population, however, it was impossible to maintain all-white Rhodesian units and keep the home economy running at the same time. There was also fear that disgruntled Africans would seize the opportunity provided by the absence of so many policemen and settlers on military service to repeat the Ndebele and Shona uprisings of 1896–97.3 In September 1915, Drummond Chaplin, the administrator of Southern Rhodesia, sent a message to the directors of the bsac in London advising them that while additional troops were needed for the East Africa campaign, it would be impossible to send more from the colony’s small European settler population. The administrator believed that a regiment of between five hundred and one thousand Ndebele could be formed within six months, there would be no local opposition to such a scheme and that the imperial government would assume all expenses.4 There was some precedent as irregular African forces had fought on the colonial side during the wars of conquest in the 1890s, the bsap maintained a small corps of African constables, and the Second Rhodesia Regiment had brought thirty African scouts to East Africa. Faced with a suggestion from the bsac board that this force should go to the border of Northern Rhodesia to defend company property against possible German attacks, Chaplin insisted that a unit of five hundred Ndebele should be sent to German East Africa where they would certainly see combat.5 The board gave its permission and the Southern Rhodesian administration took up the matter with the imperial authorities. Major General A.H.M. Edwards, the commandant-general of the colony, and several directors of the bsac went to Cape Town in November 1915 to discuss the proposal with the high commissioner of Southern Africa who was the highest ranking British official in the region. It appears that the directors told the high commissioner that the Ndebele regiment should be sent to reinforce the border of Northern Rhodesia because the Northern Rhodesia Police (nrp), a primarily African force, was “unsuitable” for that task and many were already fighting in German East Africa. The high commissioner agreed to recommend to the secretary of state for the Colonies that a regiment of five hundred Ndebele be raised from a nucleus of British South Africa Police (bsap) “natives and messengers” with a cadre of European officers from the Native Affairs Department and bsap “who can speak Matabele and [are] accustomed to deal with them.”6 Following the bsac directors’ suggestion, the high commissioner recommended that the regiment be sent to Northern Rhodesia for local defence.7

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The imperial government approved the formation of the regiment in mid March 1916.8 There was, however, disagreement over who would pay for the unit’s formation since the army council wanted the bsac to pay but the bsac directors demanded that the funds should be advanced to them by the British government.9 By early April, General Edwards had become impatient and informed General Edward Northey, commander of the Rhodesia-Nyasaland Field Force who was preparing for operations in the southern part of German East Africa, that since it was too late to raise the proposed unit of five hundred Ndebele, he should request half a battalion of Indian troops to be sent to Northern Rhodesia. Northey flatly refused to accept Indian soldiers in his command because he considered them unreliable.10 With the Rhodesia-Nyasaland Field Force facing a serious shortage of manpower, the war office eventually agreed to pay for the raising of the new unit and urged the bsac “to proceed with immediate enlistment of 500 additional police from whatever source—Matabele, Barotse.”11 The matter was considered serious enough that officials of the British prime minister’s office intervened and wrote to the bsac directors demanding that “immediate instructions will now be given to the Company for enlistment of at least 500 additional native police.”12 Edwards received the “go ahead” from the bsac to form the regiment on 20 April 1916.13 Early in May 1916, the Southern Rhodesia administration approved Edwards’s detailed plan for the formation of the “native regiment.” Edwards’s plan included names of specific policemen and Native Affairs Department (nad) officials who had agreed to become officers in the new unit, rates of pay for all ranks, instructions that recruiting be conducted entirely by the nad, and that recruits be assembled for training at a Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau camp just outside Salisbury.14 An obscure section in Southern Rhodesia’s police ordinance that made provision for the use of armed African auxiliary forces was used to legalize the formation of the new regiment.15 Although there had been much fear expressed by settlers about the possibility of African revolt during the war, there were no public objections to the formation of an armed African regiment. Perhaps the war effort had become an overriding concern.16 It is, moreover, probably not coincidental that the formation of Southern Rhodesia’s first “native regiment” happened at the same time that the so-called white man’s war in East Africa was being Africanized with the massive expansion of the King’s African Rifles (kar) in other British East African territories.17 While the war office did not seem to care about the ethnic composition of Southern Rhodesia’s new African unit, local colonial officials wanted to recruit primarily from the Ndebele who made up about 20 per cent of the

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African population and lived in the southwest of the country. For the first few months of its existence, the unit was tentatively referred to as the “Matabele Regiment.” Chaplin, Edwards, and the bsac directors, like many Europeans of the time in Southern Africa, certainly had a rather romantic view of the Ndebele as a warrior people with historic links to the famous Zulu of South Africa whose supposed warlike nature was already entrenched in popular literature. From this perspective, the Ndebele seemed like a natural choice for military recruits as opposed to the Shona, the majority African ethnic group, who were perceived by Europeans as cowardly and treacherous. After all, British South Africa Company propaganda during the 1890s had justified colonial conquest on the grounds that they were protecting the weaker Shona from aggressive Ndebele cattle raids. This idea was reinforced by the fact that the Shona did not resist the initial occupation of their country by settlers in 1890 but the Ndebele had to be subdued by force in 1893. However, when some Shona groups rose up against oppression and taxation in 1896–97, the chartered company and the settlers viewed it as a betrayal and exacted a harsh revenge. Also, the events of the 1896–97 rebellion had resulted in a number of Ndebele chiefs gaining favour with the administration. Some had openly sided with the British and even those who had rebelled gained credit by eventually agreeing to a settlement proposed by Cecil Rhodes.18 In examining the social history of the kar, Timothy Parsons points out that the British in Africa tended to believe that certain “tribes” had inherent military prowess and were labelled as “martial people.” British officers in India had developed similar stereotypes about Indian ethnic groups and brought these ideas to Africa in the late nineteenth century. Parsons also maintains that, in reality, the term martial more accurately described those people who, because of the way they were being integrated into the colonial economy, were more receptive to military recruitment. As a result, the term was flexible enough that supposedly “non-martial” people could eventually become “martial” and vice versa.19 The British in Southern Rhodesia certainly saw the Ndebele as “martial.” It was probably not a coincidence that the Ndebele were already more integrated into the colonial economy than most other people in the colony—they had lost a considerable amount of land during the 1893 war and their home territory, Matabeleland, was closer to the vast labour market of South Africa. The first commanding officer of the new “Matabele Regiment,” Lieutenant Colonel A.J. Tomlinson, had been born in Indian and had begun his military career in an Indian regiment.20 Therefore, it is likely that he reinforced this sort of ethnic stereotype within his new command. Before leaving for East Africa in 1916, the unit’s name was changed to the more generic

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“Rhodesia Native Regiment” as a significant number of men from other ethnic groups had enlisted and it was hoped that more would join in the future.21 It is difficult to determine how the large and recently colonized African majority of Southern Rhodesia saw the First World War. The typical view of historians is that, since most Africans in Southern Rhodesia lived in rural areas and survived by subsistence agriculture, they did not care about the conflict and had reason to give it any thought only when they came to be seen by the colonial administration as a source of military recruits. Robert Blake, writing in the 1970s, maintained that “the war did not have a great impact on African society.”22 Peter McLaughlin, though he does briefly discuss the role of African soldiers from Southern Rhodesia in the East Africa campaign, claims that in 1914, “Africans were closer to their nineteenth century tribal environment than to that of a modern nation state” and that for Africans, “the Great War could have been fought by aliens from different planets for all their connection with events in Europe.”23 Writing in the 1960s, nationalist historian T.O. Ranger briefly mentioned some instances of African resistance to colonial rule in Southern Rhodesia during the First World War.24 Since the mission-educated African elite was in its infancy at the time, written sources from Africans during the war are very few. European officials of the native department recorded most of what is known about rural African views of the war. It is significant that there is nothing in these sources to confirm the idea that rural Africans did not care about the war. Right from August 1914, the Native Affairs Department was preoccupied with controlling the flow of war news to Africans and they employed numerous spies among the African population to report on any possible unrest. There was much debate within the nad about how to tell rural Africans about the war and what news would be released to them. Africans, however, had their own ways of getting information such as second-hand reports originating from settler newspapers which, at the time, were often full of sensationalist stories about the war. Immediately after the outbreak of the conflict, the nad learned of “false and alarming reports” being circulated within the African population that they would be conscripted to go to the front. The situation was enflamed by a delay in the annual rains and by white traders who took advantage of the war excitement to raise the price of goods meant for the African market. Reports of the Afrikaner rebellion in South Africa, which Ndebele chiefs knew about long before their native commissioners officially told them, also caused excitement and led to a rumour that African cattle would be confiscated to feed the soldiers fighting in the south. Throughout the rest of 1914, the native commissioners, following instructions from head office in Salisbury,

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repeatedly assured African chiefs that the war should not concern them because it involved only whites. These efforts and the arrival of much-needed rains lessened anxiety among African communities and by early 1915 the chief native commissioner, Herbert Taylor, seemed pleased that taxes had been collected without resistance. However, paranoia was growing and he reported that “there is no doubt in my own mind that German influence has been at work ever since hostilities began in Europe.”25 By late 1914, the settler press became concerned that the unstable atmosphere caused by war was contributing to a wave of petty crimes being committed by Africans in various parts of the colony.26 There were also a number of cases where wages were withheld from African workers and some migrant labourers from Northern Rhodesia and Mozambique left the colony because of ill treatment by their employers.27 Native Affairs Department officials, and indeed many British settlers, believed that foreign missionaries, some of whom were enemy aliens, were involved in stirring up trouble among the Africans. The chief native commissioner acted as something of a censor for any African language publications and was displeased when an article condemning the Afrikaner rebellion in South Africa slipped through the process and was printed in Munyai wa She, a Dutch Reformed Church newsletter published in Shona. Taylor believed that Africans should know nothing about the rebellion and instructed his subordinates to “see that subject matter is not likely misconstrued by natives.”28 The African uprising in Nyasaland in early 1915, led by the Christian minister John Chilembwe who objected to the recruitment of Africans to fight in a European war, greatly worried the entire white population of Southern Rhodesia.29 The chief native commissioner believed that foreign missionaries, even ostensibly loyal ones, were involved in “secretly spreading sedition among the natives, one form being to refer to the late trouble in Nyasaland, exaggerated into statements that the British are killing all the natives there.”30 In Gatooma, Father S.J. Nesser, who was from Luxembourg, was found guilty of a breach of martial law by entering the local jail and telling African prisoners that the “English have killed three native chiefs in Nyasaland” and asking if they would prefer to fight for the Germans or British.31 Not all nad officials agreed that foreign missionaries were a threat. W.E. Thomas, the superintendent of natives for Victoria, reported back to Taylor that the only missionaries of enemy nationality were Roman Catholics in the Chilimanzi District who “have apparently said or done nothing suspicious.”32 In April 1915, some Africans were arrested in the Goromonzi District when they were rumoured to be emissaries from the Ndebele who had been sent to “sound out” the Shona on what they might do if there was a rising in Mata-

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beleland. An African informer told native department officials that the emissaries had been sent from the Ndebele chief Nyangazonke. The chief native commissioner did not believe this because Gambo, the senior chief of Nyangazonke’s area, was considered extremely dependable, and Nyangazonke’s late father had remained loyal to the British during the 1896–97 rebellion. Since there was also no obvious unrest in Matabeleland, Taylor thought that Nyangazonke’s name had been used to give credibility to some “secret agency” involving German influence. Despite no apparent threat of widespread rebellion, Taylor remained suspicious and wrote that the African mind is an “unknown quantity” and “we should be prepared for any eventualities.”33 There was certainly considerable debate within African communities over what the war would mean for them and particularly what it would mean for their existing grievances against the British. In Charter District, in May 1915, the main topics for discussion at beer-drinking parties were the hated colonial cattle-dipping regulations (measures to control disease in livestock) and who would win the war. Africans wondered how the Germans would treat them if they took over the area. Would the Germans also enforce compulsory dipping? If the British were driven out, “would they first kill off the natives?”34 In Hartley, around the same time, an African railway worker named Magada angered two Europeans when he told them that “the Germans are killing the English and will come and change our passes in this country.” Later, when the local native commissioner questioned Magada, he claimed that he had just repeated what a European had said.35 Despite the various rumours and debates among Africans, they continued to pay their taxes to the colonial administration and most native commissioners felt there was no immediate threat of rebellion. It seems likely that a few Shona spirit mediums saw the war as an opportunity to drive the British out of their territory. Remembering the role of these spiritual leaders in the 1896–97 rebellion, nad officials utilized anti-witchcraft legislation to imprison any popular Shona spirit mediums whom they perceived as likely in inciting resistance. In May 1915, the native commissioner of Darwin District, D.M. Pomley, reported that spirit mediums named Katigo and Mtegede were spreading rumours among the Africans that a German army would invade the territory from Mozambique and that people should prepare to rise up by hiding maize, and collecting arms and ammunition. Nothing could be done with Katigo because he had fled to Portuguese territory but Pomley proceeded to make a case against Mtegede for contravening witchcraft laws. The native commissioner also sent paid African spies to keep a close watch on another new spirit medium named Msussa because the late chief of the area he lived in had been involved in the Mapondera rebellion of 1904.36

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By July 1915, Pomley had confiscated 450 guns, and hunted down and detained five spirit mediums in his district.37 However, the native department had learned that large-scale coercive actions could themselves incite the unrest they were designed to prevent. The chief native commissioner chastised Pomley for collecting all African-owned guns in his district and warned other native commissioners to seek guidance before undertaking such “drastic steps.”38 He did not, however, object to the arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of spirit mediums. The only serious threat of African rebellion came when the colonial administration directed the Native Affairs Department, in May 1916, to begin recruiting Africans for military service in the German East Africa campaign. Since initial recruiting efforts concentrated on the Ndebele because of their stereotypical martial reputation, the crisis began in Matabeleland. Even before native commissioners could explain that enlistment would be purely voluntary, rumours spread quickly that there would be mass conscription of Africans. This was a logical conclusion considering that colonial “recruitment” of African forced labour in Southern Rhodesia was well established by this time and the native department’s use of chiefs as army recruiting agents must have made the process seem slightly less than voluntary. There must have been very little trust in the native commissioners on this matter—just a few months before they had been assuring Africans that this was a “white man’s war” but now they were busy enlisting African soldiers. In May and June 1916, Maduna, an Ndebele chief in the Insiza District whom the chief native commissioner described as a “malcontent of some influence,” organized a force of nearly one hundred armed men to resist the British if they imposed conscription.39 When the local native commissioner, W.E. Farrer, ordered another chief to assemble his people so their passbooks could be inspected, Maduna claimed that this was proof of British plans to force Africans into the army.40 Farrer complained to his superiors that Germans named Gerber and Eisenhammer were likely spreading disquieting rumours among the Africans in the district. He also reported that Max Selesnik, a horse trader with a suspiciously Teutonic-sounding name, often visited Maduna and suspected him of supplying ammunition and whisky to the recalcitrant chief.41 Rumours circulated that the Germans were going to march into the country with the legendary Lobengula, the Ndebele ruler who had disappeared while fleeing from British invasion in 1893. Whites believed that some Africans were gathering spears and guns, and that guns could be obtained from Dutch settlers at the cost of one ox per firearm.42 Lacking support from neighbouring pro-colonial chiefs, Maduna eventually backed down by the end of June and the native department decided that direct military

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action against him would be unwise as it might further stir up trouble.43 The case against Maduna seems to have been dropped. According to the superintendent of natives in Bulawayo, “The fact of the present war being waged has awakened dormant hopes in the discontented minority among the native chiefs. These hopes were fanned by a series of rumours which began shortly before the recruitment of the Matabele Contingent began.”44 However, he also believed that the poor harvest of that year and the fact that most chiefs were pro-British combined to make widespread resistance unlikely.45 As usual, the chief native commissioner, Taylor, believed that there was German influence at work and in July 1916, the same month as the disastrous British offensive on the Somme, he ordered his subordinates to track down those who were responsible for spreading disturbing rumours of British military defeat that were exacerbating the conscription worries in Matabeleland.46 Historians Ian Phimister and Charles van Onselen point out that the mushrooming of voluntary settler organizations during the First World War must have shown Africans the potential of such organized activity.47 Like the British settlers, the mission-educated Africans came to see the war as an opportunity to pursue their established interests. The Loyal Mandebele Patriotic Society (lmps) was founded by African elites in Bulawayo in late 1915 and seemed like a carbon copy of the many wartime organizations that had been founded by white settlers. The lmps, which claimed to represent “a people loyal under the British flag,” portrayed the struggles of the British Empire as its own and utilized the wartime language of patriotism, albeit with the occasional use of African symbolism or an appeal to African history.48 This can be seen in the message the lmps sent to the colonial administration upon the death of Lord Kitchener in 1916, which seems like a combination of British/ Christian eulogy and African praise poem. We, the members of the Mandebele Patriotic Society, mourn on account of this calamity which has descended upon the nation in regard to the warrior of warriors, the fighter who made war with weapons, whose days have been numbered and whose guidance of our armies will ever be remembered by whites and blacks. We pray that Providence will give us another leader who will direct our forces until the end.49

While most white patriotic organizations in Southern Rhodesia were interested in raising money to purchase “comforts” for front-line soldiers or to support Belgian refugees, the lmps had a different agenda that betrayed its Christian mission background. In keeping with the martial atmosphere of wartime, the society posted notices around Bulawayo that evoked the historical memory of

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Mzilikazi, the famous nineteenth-century warrior king of the Ndebele, and encouraged people to report prostitutes and brothels to native commissioners or the police.50 lmps leaders made constant representations to officials of the native department to have the administration pass more vigorous laws against prostitution, which they saw as responsible for the spread of syphilis. The organization also campaigned for the expulsion of “immoral” white men who were living with black women in African locations—they claimed that the “half-caste” children that resulted from these relationships were often neglected.51 Overall, the lmps was far more interested in imposing its Christian puritan and patriarchal views upon other Africans than contributing to the war effort, but it used wartime organizational methods and jargon to facilitate that process. This concern over immorality was not directly connected with the war itself but the war did provide an opportunity to put pressure on the government about these issues. Another interesting example of Africans using the language and organization of the war effort to advance their own goals was the Nyasaland Boys’ Club which was formed in 1917 by a small group of skilled migrant workers. Enlisting the services of a European lawyer in Bulawayo, the club made an official application to the chief native commissioner of the colony to tour mining compounds around Que Que, Salisbury, and Shamva for the purpose of staging a show for African workers to raise money for the Red Cross.52 The request was granted but within a few weeks the superintendent of natives in Bulawayo had become suspicious and sent the police to investigate the club’s activities. He discovered that the shows had been performed but none of the proceeds had been donated to the Red Cross. Permission for these tours was withdrawn and it was recommended that future shows have European supervision.53 It seems likely that the members of the Nyasaland Boys’ Club had noticed all the money being collected among the settler community for the war effort and used the war as a pretext to raise funds for themselves. To some Africans in the rural areas, the concept of donating money to the war funds was not clearly understood and seemed like just another tax that would be imposed on them. In early 1915 Gambo, an Ndebele chief, who had fought on the British side during the rebellion of 1896–97 and wanted to enhance his reputation with the administration, decided that he would collect war donations from his people. He also gathered all the neighbouring chiefs to encourage them to do the same thing. According to the native commissioner of Plumtree, Gambo’s motivation was to “show appreciation for the peace and order maintained in the country, while other portions of the Empire are in the throes of war.”54 While Gambo was apparently careful to

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explain that this was not compulsory and most of the chiefs seemed to understand, some people in southern Matabeleland began to think that they had to donate money or they would be punished by a livestock fine. In order to make their donations, some African farm workers asked their European employers for loans. The white farmers, already fearful of a repeat of 1896, thought that this was the first sign of trouble and complained to the administration. The native department then sent messengers around the countryside to explain that donations were not compulsory, some money was returned, and there was no unrest. At this point Taylor, the chief native commissioner, decided that any African donations going to local war funds might lead to the confusion that donations were a substitute for paying local tax, so he recommended instead that such donations should go to the Prince of Wales Fund which was sent to Britain.55 Westernized African elites in the towns had already been giving money to the Prince of Wales Fund at this stage. There were some examples of Africans who collected and donated money to the war effort without any obvious ulterior motives or fears of coercion. In early March 1915, one hundred and fifty urban Africans attended a tea in Salisbury which had been organized by a group of African mission-educated elites to raise money for the Prince of Wales Fund. An African choir provided the entertainment and there were speeches in English, Sindebele, and Shona by the chief native commissioner and acting assistant native commissioner of the area. Just less than nine pounds sterling was collected, which was around the same amount or slightly more than what was usually raised by similar settler functions. Within a few weeks, Africans from in and around Salisbury, including one chief, made further donations to the same fund which brought the figure up to just less than seventeen pounds.56 In June 1915, the native department reported that the Africans of Bulalima District, an area in the southwest of the colony that would provide many volunteers for the rnr from 1916 to 1918, had given just over £183, a staggering sum, to the “Patriotic Fund” which was then forwarded to the Prince of Wales Fund.57 Although there was some concern among nad officials that African donations of money to the war effort would lead to further misunderstandings, the superintendent of natives in Salisbury was very pleased about these activities. He wrote that “the value, politically, of free and voluntary contributions however small, coming in this way from the natives, can hardly be over-estimated. It is the most marked, tangible token we have yet had that the natives regard themselves as belonging to the Empire.”58 While the superintendent may have been pleased that some Africans were beginning to associate with the empire, the fact that all such money went to the Prince of Wales Fund in Britain when there were dozens

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of local war funds suggests that the Rhodesian administration did not want the African contributors to feel that they had invested in the future of the colony. Westernized African elites in Southern Rhodesia were not yet as politically aware or organized as those in South Africa where, as historian Bill Nasson points out, many saw the war as a “buoyant opportunity” to resurrect “political claims of full citizenship on the segregationist state.”59 The wartime aims of the African mission elites of Southern Rhodesia were certainly not very political. However, the opportunity that the war did present to this small westernized group, and to which they did respond, was one of their first experiences with organizing themselves outside the church. This had obvious implications for the future of African protest. The African majority of Southern Rhodesia was certainly aware of the war and thought that it was an important issue but they responded to it in a variety of ways. Evidence from the Native Affairs Department reveals that rural Africans were hardly indifferent to the war. They worried about how the conflict would affect their agrarian lives and anxiously discussed many rumours of which the most provocative involved colonial seizure of livestock, the potential impact of a German victory, and perhaps most importantly, conscription. African fear of conscription and hesitation to enlist might be seen as proof that the war was of little significance to them. However, it is obvious that for those who opposed conscription in Canada and Australia, albeit in more concerted and organized campaigns, the war and their relationship to it was of central importance at the time. Some rural Africans, at least one outspoken chief, and a few militant spirit mediums, certainly saw the war as an opportunity to mobilize their people for another rebellion against colonial rule but these attempts were headed off by experienced native department officials and their spies as well as pro-colonial chiefs. Knowledge of previous rebellions was used efficiently by native department officials who seemed to strike an effective balance between negotiation and coercion that pre-empted any serious, widespread resistance. The small mission-educated African elite, mostly living in urban areas and seeing themselves as part of so-called civilized society, closely identified with the war effort and founded their own patriotic organizations. Like the white settlers, they often tried to use the atmosphere of wartime emergency to pursue a more immediate and local agenda. The absence of Europeans who were on military service created new opportunities for some Africans who, for example, became merchants, gained new responsibilities in mission churches, and were employed in supervisory jobs in the mines.




chapter 3

Soldiers in the Rhodesia Native Regiment Their Profile and Daily Life

african soldiers in the rnr did not leave behind written evidence stating why they volunteered for the colonial army, but analysis of their preenlistment life might contribute to answering that question. Similarly, examination of the military culture and daily routine of the regiment might reveal something about the nature of the early colonial society that had produced it and is certainly important for understanding how the unit functioned in East Africa. Several scholars of the First World War in Southern Africa have briefly looked at the composition of the rnr. According to Peter McLaughlin, who has written the most about Zimbabwe and the Great War,“by 1918 seventy-five per cent of the 2,360 who passed through the ranks of the regiment were ‘aliens’; over 1,000 came from Nyasaland. The Rhodesia Native Regiment had thus lost its essentially ‘Rhodesian’ character.”1 This would seem to suggest that because the rnr had many soldiers who originated from outside Zimbabwe, this regiment was somehow less significant to Zimbabwe’s First World War history. While McLaughlin admits that “the evidence on the precise composition of the Rhodesia Native Regiment is not available,” he claims that “approximately 1800 aliens served in the unit.”2 In a recent book on Malawi and the First World War, Melvin Page agrees with McLaughlin’s estimate that “probably more than 1,000 Malawians joined the Rhodesian Native Regiment.”3 However, Page freely admits that the evidence upon which this approximation is based is far from conclusive.4 By looking at the available evidence, 31

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particularly a previously unutilized regimental nominal roll in the Zimbabwe National Archives, it is possible to gain a clearer picture of the composition of the unit. This analysis will not only deal with the nationality of the soldiers, which was the focus of the two previous writers, but also their ethnic/regional origin and pre-enlistment occupations. Such information might provide clues about why men from a somewhat recently conquered society volunteered to join the colonial army. The lack of complete evidence causes obvious problems in creating a profile of the soldiers who served in the Rhodesia Native Regiment. It appears that record keeping in the regiment was not very thorough, especially in its early days, and the only surviving service record files for African soldiers are for those who were recruited directly from the British South Africa Police who were a small but important minority.5 There is some very incomplete evidence from the Native Affairs Department on early recruiting efforts for the regiment but it does not go beyond August 1916.6 There are also a number of relevant anecdotal references in accounts of the war by former European officers and ncos. The only complete nominal roll of the regiment, a list of all its African members, was compiled just after the war and contains service numbers, names, decorations, previous police/military unit, and dates of wounding and/or death.7 It gives very little indication of the background of these men. This nominal roll became the official record of who had been in the rnr and it was used after the war to evaluate veterans’ requests for service medals and employment assistance. Housed in the Zimbabwe National Archives in Harare, this typed document was consulted by Page who found that it did “not indicate the birthplace or homes of the more than 2,600 men listed.”8 However, there is another nominal roll of the Rhodesia Native Regiment in the Zimbabwe National Archives that does provide much more detailed information on the background of these soldiers. Handwritten in a thick Standard Bank ledger book, this document is a list of soldiers—mostly recruits— who passed through the regiment’s Salisbury depot during 1917 and 1918 on their way to and from the front lines. This roll contains entries on 1,234 separate members of the regiment with most entries containing the soldier’s service number, name, date of attestation, home district in Southern Rhodesia, previous military/police service (with units and time of service included), previous trade, country of origin, tribe (ethnicity), place where tax was last paid, name of chief, name of headman, and father’s name.9 A very few entries lack one or a few details but most are complete. This was the sort of working nominal roll that would have been maintained on a daily basis by the depot sergeant major. While this is not a comprehensive list of every soldier who served in the

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regiment, it does account for around half of them and, when combined with other pieces of information, can be used to draw more accurate conclusions about the composition of the regiment. The document is difficult to locate in the archives, which is probably why McLaughlin and Page did not use it. Of the 1,217 entries on the depot nominal roll that have information on country of origin, 541 soldiers (44.5%) are listed as coming from Nyasaland (Malawi), 353 (29%) from Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), 213 (17.5%) from Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), 101 (8%) from Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique), and 9 (less than 1%) from other territories such as Bechuanaland, Zanzibar, South Africa, and Swaziland.10 This means that it is possible that as much as 71 per cent of the regiment came from outside Zimbabwe, which would almost correspond with McLaughlin’s estimate of 75 per cent. It is tempting to use this rather large sample of rnr soldiers to estimate the total number of Malawians, Zimbabweans, Zambians, and Mozambicans in the entire unit. There are some small discrepancies regarding exactly how many African soldiers served in the Rhodesia Regiment during the war. While it is not clear on which evidence McLaughlin bases his estimate of 2,350, Page’s figure of 2,600 comes from a miscounting of the official postwar nominal roll of the regiment. This nominal roll, the typed complete version, lists 2,507 names which seems to have been the official figure.11 Using the percentages from the handwritten depot nominal roll and applying them to the total number of soldiers, it could be estimated that around 1,116 Malawians, 727 Zimbabweans, 339 Zambians, 201 Mozambicans, and 18 others served in the regiment. This would seem to confirm McLaughlin’s and Page’s estimate that over one thousand (perhaps just over a thousand) Malawians served in the rnr during the First World War. There is, however, a potential problem with this method of estimating the numbers. A report by the administrator of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), Lawrence Wallace, immediately after the war states that a total of 258 Africans from that territory served in the rnr.12 This figure is substantially lower than the 339 in the above estimate. There are two possible explanations for this. The administrator’s report might have been faulty or there may be an overrepresentation of Zambians (213) in the handwritten depot nominal roll upon which the above approximation is based. It is likely that the national character of the first five hundred recruits taken into the rnr in 1916 was very different than those whose information was recorded in the handwritten depot nominal roll. This document contains no information on these first five hundred who left Southern Rhodesia before the establishment of a formal unit depot in Salisbury. Although there is some

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conflicting evidence, it seems more than possible that there was a much higher proportion of Zimbabweans among the first group than in subsequent groups of recruits. In early August 1916, Herbert Taylor, Southern Rhodesia’s chief native commissioner who had been put in charge of recruiting Africans, wrote a letter to his immediate superior, the territory’s administrator, that 428 African men had volunteered for the new regiment of which 300 were Ndebele.13 The origin of the remaining 128 was not mentioned but other documents reveal that migrant workers from other territories were among their number and that Zimbabweans from outside Matabeleland, the Ndebele homeland, were not forthcoming as recruits during this period.14 Therefore, it seems possible that the handwritten depot nominal roll, as a reflection of the makeup of the entire regiment, somewhat underrepresents Zimbabweans and overrepresents soldiers from other colonies but it is difficult to know by exactly how much. If we take the 300 Zimbabweans from the first 500 and add them to the 353 Zimbabweans from the handwritten nominal roll of 1,217 names with place of origin identified, we get 653 Zimbabweans out of a total of 1,717 men. This means that the percentage of Zimbabweans in the regiment could have been as high as 38 and soldiers from other territories could have accounted for only 62 per cent. There is another document that seems to contradict Taylor’s letter about the origins of the first five hundred recruits. In a report written to the high commissioner of Southern Africa in January 1918, Major General Edwards, commandant-general of the Rhodesias, stated that of the first 500 soldiers in the rnr, 50 had been native police, 113 had been local Africans,“i.e., Matabele,” and 290 had been from outside the colony “mostly Awemba and Angoni from Northern Rhodesia.” It also states that the ratio of “alien” to “indigenous” Africans soldiers in the entire rnr was three to one.15 This report is cited by McLaughlin as the basis of his claim that 75 per cent of the rnr soldiers came from outside Southern Rhodesia.16 However, there are a number of reasons to believe that Edwards’s report was incorrect about the origins of the first five hundred recruits and thus the entire ratio of foreign to local troops in the unit. First, the report of the chief native commissioner, in which a much higher figure of local recruits is given for the first five hundred, was made in 1916 right at the end of the nad’s first recruiting drive and was based on the reports of local native commissioners and superintendents of natives who were the ones doing the recruiting. Edwards’s report was written two years later and its sources are not given. Second, the report of the superintendent of natives in Bulawayo for recruiting in 1916 states that 289 recruits originated from Matabeleland.17 Third, most of the mining centres where future “alien” recruits

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would come from produced very few volunteers during this initial enlistment campaign. The native commissioner of Penhalonga reported, in early July 1916, that he “visited the Rezende and Kent mines twice in an endeavor to obtain recruits” but he could send only two potential soldiers to Salisbury.18 The superintendent of natives in Gwelo reported, in mid-July, that only fifteen recruits had been obtained from QueQue, a mining town, and that they were “all foreign and ex kars.”19 By contrast, during 1917 and 1918 hundreds of mine workers, mostly from Nyasaland, would be recruited from QueQue which might have distorted Edwards’s memory in early 1918 of events in 1916. Fourth, the native commissioners’ and superintendents’ reports for the entire country contain just a few specific references to recruits from outside Southern Rhodesia. Fifth, Edwards claims that nearly all of the 290 foreigners in the first 500 were from Northern Rhodesia, which conflicts with Administrator Wallace’s report, cited here, that only 258 Africans from that territory joined the rnr during the entire war. It seems plausible that Edwards, who was never involved in the recruiting himself and was writing two years after the fact, made an error and reversed the number of foreigners and locals in the first five hundred. The ratio of three foreigners to one native, given the information from the handwritten nominal roll, seems to have been a rough approximation that was slightly high. Even some anecdotal evidence reveals that while the regiment’s composition was very cosmopolitan, there were probably more Zimbabwean people in it than historians have estimated. Interviewed in 1973, Frank Albert Cross, who had been a company sergeant major in the rnr, said that “the Matabele had a special battalion” and “I was with C Company of the Mashonaland outfit—they were all mixtures: Portuguese, East Africa natives, and Mashonas and all sorts.”20 In addition, there is oral evidence that a number of Ndebele chiefs, who were involved in recruiting, sent their sons to join the rnr in order to serve as an example to their subjects.21 It has always been assumed that most of the Zimbabwean recruits were Ndebele and very few were Shona, who were considered by the colonial officials to be less warlike. Of the 353 Zimbabweans listed on the handwritten nominal roll, 329 were identified as belonging to a distinct ethnic group. Surprisingly, 147 (or 42%) of this number were Kalanga, a small ethnic group from the Plumtree area on the Botswana border that falls within the Bulalima District where Africans had collected a large amount of money for the war effort in 1915. At the time of the First World War, this area already had a wellestablished reputation for supplying labour migrants to the mines in South Africa and the main railway going south ran through it. Among those listed

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on the handwritten nominal roll, Ndebele and Shona speakers are about equal in number. There were 71 Ndebele and 72 Shona (47 Shona, 22 Manyika, and 3 Korekore, which are all Shona speaking) which means that soldiers from these two major ethnic groups made up a total of 40 per cent (about 20% each) of the Zimbabweans in the regiment. Of the remaining Zimbabweans on this list, four were Sotho, three Shangaan and thirty-two reported themselves as members of ethnic groups that are difficult to identify today, such as “Muangwa” or “Lilima.” This last category might have been recorded erroneously or were the children of people who had originated from outside Zimbabwe.22 The surprisingly large numbers of Kalanga in the regiment raises some questions about the three hundred Ndebele reported to have been among the first five hundred recruits. It is likely that since the Kalanga and Ndebele come from the same southwestern region and the former usually speak Sindebele as well as their own language, colonial officials, in the rush of forming the regiment, lumped them both together under the heading of Ndebele. It is possible that the Kalanga, a minority group in Zimbabwe, represented a majority of Zimbabweans who enlisted in the rnr. In discussing where Malawian soldiers in the rnr originated, Page points out that “the only available data about rnr veterans from the northern twothirds of the country, which usually had a higher labor migration rate, is extremely fragmentary.”23 The handwritten nominal roll, however, indicates that of the Malawians who joined the regiment, about 41 per cent were from the north of that country, reporting their homes as Kotakota, Karonga, Chinteche, Lilongwe, Fort Manning, and Mzimba. Around 59 per cent were from the south and reported their homes as Mlanje, Fort Johnson, Ncheu, Blantyre, Zomba, Port Herald, and Fort Liwonde.24 As we will see, there were strong links between rnr soldiers and the migrant wage labour system but it is not clear why northern Malawians, with their tradition of labour migration, were in the minority, albeit a significant one. Looking at the ethnicity of the same men, it appears that of the 541 Malawians listed in the detailed nominal roll, 180 (or 33%) were Ngoni, 176 (also 33%) were Chewa, 76 (or 14%) were Yao, 61 (or 11%) were Tonga, 9 (or 2%) were Asiska, and 38 (or 7%) were from various other groups or gave no ethnic identity.25 It is interesting that the Ngoni, a minority group with historical and linguistic links to the Ndebele and Zulu, made up such a large portion of Malawians in the rnr. In addition, the Ngoni and Tonga tended to come from the northern region which, as Page states, had a greater involvement in the migrant labour system. It is not surprising that the Chewa, as the largest ethnic group in the country who tended to be from the central/southern region, should have a high representation within the

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rnr. In fact it might, at first glance, seem odd that there were not more of them. Like the Shona in Zimbabwe at this time, the Chewa were a majority group but were not as involved in migrant labour as the other groups that were prominent within the rnr. It is well established that the “foreign” Africans in the regiment were mostly in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) as migrant workers and were often recruited from the mines through the cooperation of the mining industry and the Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau. In fact, after the enlistment of the first five hundred soldiers, the native department placed more emphasis on recruiting through the labour bureau and mining companies. However, not much more has been said about the relation of wage labour and enlistment. The handwritten nominal roll can provide a clearer picture of the pre-enlistment occupations of these soldiers. Of the 1,205 soldiers on the roll who have a listed “trade,” 688 (or 57%) were recorded as mine workers which is, by far, the largest single occupation. Other “trades” include 247 (21%) general laborers, 136 (11%) farm workers, 30 (2.5%) police/soldiers, 21 (2%) house servants, 7 office/store clerks, 9 skilled workers (tailors, printers, boiler operators, railway workers), and 13 other workers (cooks, drivers, gardeners, hospital orderlies). Only fiftyfour men are listed as specifically having no trade. It is also significant that of the miners, 396 (or 58%) were from Malawi, 164 (24%) from Zambia, 58 (8%) from Zimbabwe, 66 (10%) from Mozambique, and 4 from other areas (Botswana and Zanzibar). This means that of all the men listed on the handwritten nominal roll, 76 per cent of Zambians, 73 per cent of Malawians, 66 per cent of Mozambicans, and only 16 per cent of Zimbabweans had been mine workers before joining the regiment. This demonstrates a clear link between the migrant labour-dependant mine industry and recruits who joined the rnr. It is also interesting that fifty-eight soldiers listed on the handwritten nominal roll are footnoted “to be returned to Rezende Mines on termination of service.”26 In fact, in 1917, officers of the rnr approached the Southern Rhodesian Chamber of Mines and gained permission to recruit among the industry’s workers.27 Writing in the early 1950s, Captain R. Langham, who had served in the Northern Rhodesia Police during the First World War, stated that “we were told that a certain number of Africans had been supplied by the Rhodesia Native Labour Bureau to make up the Regiment’s (rnr) compliment.”28 While the recruiters certainly concentrated their efforts on the mines, black miners had strong reasons to join the military because their wages were reduced during the war period, working conditions were extremely dangerous, and the cost of living was on the rise.29 Sometimes, however, mine managers were short of labour and did not

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want their workers to leave for the army. In April 1917, Johannes Colenbrander, a mine-compound manager near Gwelo, handcuffed and flogged two African workers to prevent them from joining the rnr. A recruiting officer intervened and the men were able to leave the mine and enlist in the regiment. Colenbrander was charged with attempting to hamper recruiting but was acquitted because of lack of evidence. However, he was convicted of assault for which he was fined three pounds.30 Most Zimbabweans on the handwritten nominal roll tended to be listed as general or farm workers. For example, almost all the Kalanga soldiers from Plumtree, the largest group of Zimbabweans, were listed as farm workers which meant they had been employed by white farmers. It seems that even Zimbabwean recruits, not just migrant workers from other territories, had strong links to wage labour but not usually in the mines. Zimbabweans seeking work in mines would have gone to South Africa to earn more money and would not have been available for recruitment. On the complete nominal roll of the regiment, 172 out of 2,507 are listed as having previous military or police service. Of these, 117 had been in the British South Africa Police, 35 had been in the King’s African Rifles, and 20 had been scouts in the primarily European Second Rhodesia Regiment.31 The large number from the bsap is not surprising since the nucleus of the regiment was taken from that organization and ties with the police remained strong throughout the war. Page claims that there must have been more kar veterans among Malawians who joined the rnr but his evidence for this conclusion is not clear.32 However, the handwritten nominal roll, which Page did not seem to consult, proves him correct. In this document, twenty-three soldiers are recorded as having had various periods of service in the kar but only two of them are listed on the complete nominal roll as having any previous military service. Of these twenty-three kar veterans, twenty were Malawians and three were Zambians. Most of the men whose previous military service was not included in the complete nominal roll had been in the kar for three or more years and some had served in both the kar and Northern Rhodesia Police or British South Africa Police. For example, Lance Corporal Chikoko had a total of ten years’ previous service, four in the bsap and six in the kar. Private Sofora had eleven years of previous service, five in the nrp and six in the kar. It is surprising that the previous service of men who were wounded or killed in action was not recorded. Lance Corporal Lupenga, who had been a signaller in the kar for five years and was employed in the same capacity in the rnr, was wounded in action in September 1918. Acting Corporal Ndara, who had been in the kar for six years before enlisting in the rnr, was killed in late

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May 1918 when an rnr private accidentally fired his rifle.33 Of the fifteen “foreign” kar veterans who were recruited from QueQue for service in the first five hundred, it seems most were not recognized in the official nominal roll as having had previous military service.34 Among all the kar veterans listed in the official record, only one, M255 Private Manjawira, was among the first five hundred recruits. In fact, nearly all the kar veterans given credit for previous service in the complete nominal roll joined the rnr late in the war—they have service numbers over 2,000.35 This could mean that records for the later recruits were more complete at the end of the war, although not available now, which would explain why the previous service of so many soldiers went unrecognized. It is likely that some of these men might have been on active service in the kar during the first year or two of the war and would have been eligible for the 1914–15 Star but would not have received this award, which was seen as somewhat prestigious, because of an omission in the official postwar nominal roll. Given that the handwritten nominal roll covers just over twelve hundred soldiers, it is impossible to know exactly how many of the other thirteen hundred men had unrecorded previous military service. It seems likely, however, that a number of them did. There were at least sixty-nine kar veterans, mostly Malawians, in the rnr. What does all this tell us about the composition of the Rhodesia Native Regiment? Previous historians estimated that 75 per cent of the soldiers originated from outside Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) with the remaining 25 per cent being local recruits. However, a closer look at some old and new evidence reveals that this is not entirely accurate. Men from other territories in Southern Africa (primarily Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique) made up from 62 to 70 per cent of the regiment’s numbers, which meant that they were in the majority but that there were not as many of them as previous historians have estimated. Zimbabweans made up somewhere between 29 and 38 per cent of the regiment’s strength. Malawians were the single largest national grouping in the regiment with slightly more of them coming from the southern part of that territory. Interestingly, among Zimbabwean soldiers, there was a very strong presence of men from the Plumtree area who belonged to the Kalanga ethnicity. This is a small community within the Zimbabwean context but living along the main rail line to South Africa, it has a long history of labour migration, which might explain why so many men from that area enlisted. The Kalanga were also accustomed to adapting to foreign rule because throughout the nineteenth century they had been dominated by the Rozvi Shona, the Ndebele, and then the British. The previous occupations of the soldiers illustrate the strong link between the regional migrant labour system and recruit-

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ing for the regiment. Over half the soldiers had been miners before enlisting and most of these had entered Southern Rhodesia from other territories. While the unit’s original and short-lived name was the “Matabele Regiment,” which was quickly changed to Rhodesia Native Regiment, it might well have been called the “Nyasaland Miners Regiment.” Even the Zimbabwean recruits seem to have been involved in wage labour before enlisting, but mostly on farms. Finally, it is certain that the regiment had a much higher percentage of former soldiers in its ranks than was officially recognized but the total numbers are difficult to estimate. In his work on the kar, Timothy Parsons argues that previous histories tend to see Africans volunteering for the colonial army either out of supposed awe of Europeans or because they were opportunistic mercenaries. He explains African military recruitment as being directly connected to integration in the colonial, capitalist economy. Typical recruits came from communities that had been pushed off their land and forced into unskilled wage labour to survive and pay the new colonial taxes. Where pre-colonial economic structures remained, men did not tend to enlist.36 The same process occurred with the rnr. Earning wages represented an important motivation for many Africans who joined the rnr. People in Matabeleland, Ndebele and Kalanga, had been driven into reserves after the conquest of the 1890s and so they tended to join the new regiment as an alternative to other forms of unskilled labour. Shona people, while they had experienced colonial oppression, had lost less land and were less incorporated into the capitalist economy. There was consequently less reason for them to join. Mine workers from outside Southern Rhodesia saw the army as an attractive alternative to their dangerous and unpleasant employment. For those who had already been in the police or army, the choice must have been easier because they knew what to expect. Also, mine workers from other territories lived around the fringes of urban areas and probably knew more about the war from second-hand newspaper reports. They were already far from home and the thought of going to a war that was being fought close to their pace of origin was not as intimidating as it would have been for local people. Of course, Africans might have joined the rnr for a host of other very individual reasons. Kaisa Ndiweni, a well-known Ndebele chief in today’s Zimbabwe whose father was a soldier in the rnr, states that while the colonial government compelled people go to war, Africans also felt a need to “fight for their country.”37 Masotsha Ndlovu, a worker in Bulawayo during the war whose uncle joined the rnr, said years later that “those who wanted to fight for the country were given guns and taught European methods of using them.

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They were not forced but volunteers.…By that time people were used to European rule.”38 As Peter McLaughlin reminds us, “Motivations were obviously heterogeneous (as would be the case with recruits for armed forces elsewhere in time and place) and are not open to simple categorization.”39 Enlistment was not always voluntary. In March 1917, native department officials in the predominantly Shona eastern highlands sent four chiefs to Salisbury so they could explain their failure as recruiting agents and threatened to interfere in their agricultural activities if they did not provide more recruits. In fact, Chief Mtigeza compelled his son to join the rnr so his other subjects would follow suit.40 The spectacle of military music and ceremony was used to attract recruits. The rnr band would accompany the unit’s recruiting officer in tours of major communities throughout the colony. According to a newspaper report from August 1917, The squad arrived in Gwelo last week and made a stay over a couple of days. Headed by their bugle and drum band the party created quite a sensation in Gwelo when they marched in from Selukwe. Apart from the Black Watch and the bsa Police, natives under discipline and in uniform, belted and pouched and armed, have not been met with in these parts, so this party in smart khaki, in sections of fours, as they swung up Livingstone Avenue and stepped up to the music of their own band, drew after them such a crowd of boys not often seen in our streets. The bearing of the units, their carriage and precision of movement indicated an efficiency sufficient for all contingencies.41

It is interesting that Southern Rhodesia’s small westernized African elite, who were involved in raising money for the war effort and often employed patriotic language in public venues, did not enlist in the rnr. Very few men in the regiment were literate and only a handful had been employed in “skilled” trades before enlisting. In fact, some missionaries were against their African students joining the army and made an arrangement with the chief native commissioner that they were not to be targeted for recruitment. A native commissioner reported that this arrangement with the Mapoto Mission had a negative impact on recruiting in the wider vicinity as “none of the scholars came forward, and I consider that the announcement produced a very unfavourable effect on the recruiting as very few of Ntola’s and Ndamoya’s people volunteered. Further the chiefs were offended at the missionaries interfering with their authority.”42 This was unlike South Africa where a large number of African westernized elite, highly politicized by this point and seeking ways to claim rights of citizenship, wanted to fight in the war but could join only an unarmed labour corps.43

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The rnr regimental band was used to attract attention during recruiting tours.

Life in the Rhodesia Native Regiment was greatly influenced by factors such as British military tradition, the racism of colonial society in Southern Rhodesia, and the culture of its African soldiers. Like all military units, the rnr was a hierarchical structure but the colonial influence meant that a small group of Europeans was at the top and a mass of Africans was at the bottom. All officers were white and the minimum rank for Europeans in the rnr was sergeant. In addition, most of these Europeans had been seconded from the British South Africa Police and some from the native affairs department, which were both organizations concerned with the supervision and control of the African population in Southern Rhodesia. This must have informed relations between whites and blacks in the unit. All the private soldiers in the rnr were black. In theory, the highest rank that an African could attain was regimental sergeant major but in practice none made it above sergeant. Even the most junior European sergeant was considered senior to an African nco of the same or higher rank. In fact, any white soldiers attached to the regiment, even for a short period, had to be promoted to acting sergeant.44 When Sergeant Nyamana and three rnr privates were sent from German East Africa to Salisbury for medical discharge in June 1917, they were ordered “to pay proper respect to all Europeans you meet.”45 As Timothy Parsons says of the kar in the same period, race and not merit was the true mark of authority.46 African soldiers in the rnr, given their background as workers in the mines and on settler

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An rnr detachment, led by the regimental band, sets off on a three-week recruiting tour “among the Ndebele.” European officers perceived the Ndebele as a particularly martial ethnic group and tended to target them for recruitment.

farms, would have been familiar with this situation but at times tensions exploded and there were numerous charges against soldiers for insolence and insubordination.47 The racial hierarchy in the rnr was reinforced at a number of levels. Europeans and Africans received very different rates of pay and conditions of service. White members were employed on standard bsap terms. This meant a third-class sergeant would make 180 shillings a month and a lieutenant would make 250 pounds a year. Those seconded from the Native Affairs Department, where pay was usually higher than in the police, were sometimes given higher pay than others of the same rank. African privates received twenty-five shillings a month and sergeants thirty a month. All Africans, regardless of rank, also received fifteen shillings a month as deferred pay that would be issued at the end of service. Europeans signed on for the duration of the war while Africans enlisted for one year of service, which could be, and usually was, extended by the government for another year. An important benefit of enlistment in the rnr was that its African soldiers and their immediate families were exempt from colonial taxation. If an African soldier died on active service, his family would be paid a “death gratuity” of ten pounds. Soldiers who were partially disabled because of military service would receive a one-time payment of ten pounds and those fully disabled and unable to work were promised an annual pension of three pounds. A factor that prompted migrant workers from Nyasa-

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land to join the rnr was that it paid higher wages to African soldiers than the kar of their home territory.48 Some aspects of military law were different for European and African soldiers. In addition to all the usual punishments of the British Army, including the notorious “field punishment number one” where an offending soldier was tied to a post or wagon wheel for a number of days, black soldiers could be flogged for offences like stealing, insubordination, insolence, and desertion.49 This built upon the legal system of Southern Rhodesia where Africans convicted of a crime could receive twenty or twenty-five lashes in addition to a jail sentence.50 Rhodesian settlers tended to believe that Africans responded only to brute force and that they saw prison time as working just for food and not wages.51 Europeans often thought that Africans were uncivilized and could sometimes be motivated by violence only. According to historian David Killingray, “for much of the colonial period most European army officers firmly believed that corporal punishment was the most effective and efficient way of dealing with recalcitrant African soldiers and carriers.”52 The convicted man would be stretched out on the ground and an African nco, in the presence of a European medical officer, would beat his naked buttocks with a whip or cane.53 The maximum number of lashes an rnr man could be sentenced to was twelve, but in practice this also became a minimum.54 On the eve of the rnr’s departure from its training camp in Nyasaland to the operational area of German East Africa in August 1916, a soldier who had created a disturbance in a nearby village by sleeping with a married woman was flogged before the entire unit.55 Flogging had been banned in the imperial British Army in 1881 but it survived in African units like the kar until 1946 because of a “widely held bias in colonial military circles that it took harsh measures to turn ‘primitive’ Africans into trained soldiers.”56 The use of violence by white officers and ncos in the rnr against black soldiers and supply carriers also occurred unofficially. In the 1930s, an anonymous white rnr veteran wrote in a Rhodesian police magazine that “I had to go and give Askari who were snoring away happily kicks in the ribs to keep them quiet” and “If caught helping themselves to monkey nuts, sugar cane, kasava or other crops when passing through native gardens, they were put down on the ground and given from 10 to 20 strokes with a sjambok on the buttock.”57 In the early 1970s, Frank Albert Cross, a former European nco in the rnr, laughed when he remembered that “to begin with, you had to beat their backsides with a sjambok (whip).”58 Nevertheless, no rnr man was ever executed for potentially capital offences such as desertion or cowardice. If the African soldiers were seen as childlike and primitive, it was difficult to see them as fully responsible for their actions. Also, the threat

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of resistance was a constant undercurrent in colonial society and by this time, Europeans in the colonial state, such as the police and native department, had learned that they could push Africans only so far. European members of the regiment often had personal African servants, some of whom were soldiers working in the traditional British army role of “batmen,” but others were civilians brought from Southern Rhodesia. Some African soldiers looked down on performing duties associated with servants. For example, Private Liabwa, a veteran of two years in the British South Africa Police before joining the rnr, told a European sergeant major that “I did not come here to cook but a soldier” [sic].59 European and African soldiers wore very different uniforms. While whites were issued with standard British army tropical clothing and equipment, blacks were given a pair of shorts, a simple shirt, a hat, standard web equipment, and a greatcoat but no boots. Given their stereotypical image of Africans having naturally hard feet, some Europeans in the regiment were surprised when African soldiers, particularly the supposedly warrior-like Ndebele, complained about marching long distances without footwear.60 Rations were also different for whites and blacks. Europeans received standard British army rations but Africans were given simpler fare consisting of mostly maize meal to make porridge. Logistical difficulties during the German East Africa campaign, however, meant that in practice, everyone usually ate African rations which were much easier to transport or obtain through trade with locals. When supplies were low, Africans would usually be put on some form of reduced rations before Europeans were.61 Even in established camps, sometimes the amount of rations issued to African soldiers would be enough for only one meal a day and complaints about this were regular. When problems developed with the supply of meat for European officers and ncos, however, it was not uncommon for tinned “bully beef ” to be issued.62 Lack of food was a common cause of desertion from the rnr. Private Masamba, a Chewa from Nyasaland and veteran of three years in the King’s African Rifles who said that he knew he could be shot for this offence, stated that “I deserted because I saw at Songea that there was a shortage of rations and we were consequently hungry. I was not sick at the time but hungry.” He passed through villages where people refused to give him food because they had little themselves. After getting something to eat from a passing group of kar soldiers, Masamba used his rifle to shoot game. When he arrived at his home village in Nyasaland, the local chief became worried about the presence of a deserter and reported him to the authorities. After his arrest, Private Masamba was returned to the rnr where he, although described by his platoon commander as a soldier of

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An rnr soldier wearing his “full kit” or complete uniform and equipment. His web equipment appears to be standard British pattern and his rifle is an early version of the Lee-Enfield. Since he is wearing the “pillbox” hat typical of the kar, it is likely this photograph was taken later in the war, perhaps 1918. The first contingent of rnr soldiers wore a wide brimmed “slouch” hat with the left side pinned up but later recruits seem to have been issued the more widely used “pillbox.” Note that rnr soldiers were never issued boots.

Another rnr inspection that took place in a temporary camp around 1918.

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European rnr officers conduct an equipment inspection of their African soldiers around 1918. Such inspections were a regular part of life in the rnr. This photograph appears to have been taken in a semi-permanent camp like the rnr regimental depot in Salisbury (Harare).

A unit of recently trained rnr recruits.

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“good character,” was sentenced to three years imprisonment with hard labour and twelve lashes.63 On another occasion, Private Tisikanya sold his issued jersey to buy meat from a white butcher; when he was caught he was sentenced to twenty-one days “field punishment number one” and “a whipping of 12 cuts.”64 White officers were allowed to hunt wild game, either for sport or to supplement their diet. Lieutenant H.J. Simpson, seconded from the British South Africa Police and later killed in action, wrote a letter home stating that he “had some good shooting too, potted a fine black-maned lion and a few buck not found in Rhodesia.”65 Africans were forbidden to hunt and taking anything from the local population in their areas of operation was considered looting, which was strictly prohibited. The rnr’s first commanding officer, Tomlinson, described some African soldiers shooting buck while on a training march in Nyasaland as a “very regrettable lack of discipline.”66 Such double standards could have deadlier implications in other situations. As shall be seen, on several occasions when disease, such as typhoid, spread through the regiment, Europeans were given medicine and Africans were not.67 While the European minority may have been in control, the Africans did have certain inherit power that came with being in the majority. An example of African influence in the life of the regiment was the fact that groups of camp followers who were often called soldiers’ “wives” were tolerated by the authorities. There is little detailed evidence about these women, probably because white officers, who authored all of the unit’s records, either considered them irrelevant or an embarrassment. From fleeting references in the proceedings of military trials, it is certain that women, probably local to German East Africa and Portuguese East Africa, had sexual relations with rnr soldiers and they also performed work such as cooking and washing. White officers sometimes allowed these women to accompany their men on combat operations and share in the unit’s rations. Even those rnr men who were under arrest for various offences were often allowed to keep their wives with them. Private Kurukuru, after being arrested as a deserter, was able to escape because his guards were distracted by their wives. Later, at his trial, he stated that “Our party brought 4 women with them belonging to Corporal Chitapangwe, Sergeant Tanganyika, Lance Corporal Lupenga and Private Ndarawa. The later two slept in the hut with Tanganyika with their women also.”68 In November 1917, at an rnr camp in Portuguese East Africa, an orderly officer reported “lots of noise in married lines after lights out. Sent corporal to check it out.”69 The issue of women camp followers was potentially explosive and rnr officers must have known that an attempt to drive away soldiers’ wives from the Northern Rhodesia Police in early 1916 had resulted in near mutiny. As a

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result, the presence of women associated with the regiment was tolerated although civilians wandering in and out of camp often caused security concerns for officers, especially in operational areas.70 Children were also part of the rnr’s entourage; on one occasion an orderly officer reported that “there are a great number of picinines [African children] always hanging round the camp presumably working for the men. Dead fires scattered all round the outskirts of the camp [were] made by these picinines.”71 Given the cosmopolitan profile of its soldiers, the rnr was an extremely multilingual organization. No one African language dominated the rnr and Sindebele, Chishona, Chichewa (Chinyanja), and Yao were all common. This was different from the kar in which respective battalions, depending on place of origin, adopted either Chichewa or simplified Swahili as a lingua franca.72 The rnr did not exist long enough for one or two languages to dominate. rnr soldiers, particularly those who had been migrant workers, would have been multilingual, but it would have been rare for someone to speak every language spoken in the regiment. The rnr was organized along linguistic/ethnic lines with companies and platoons of Ndebele, Shona, Chewa, and others. By the end of the war, “C” Company was made up primarily “of the Yao tribe.”73 Many Europeans who became officers and ncos were recruited because they knew an African language or at least could give orders in a simplified mix of languages called “kitchen kaffir.”74 At times the diverse nature of the unit caused confusion when instructions were not always understood. Also, claiming lack of comprehension of a particular language sometimes became a convenient excuse for not following orders. A typical mix-up caused by language was revealed when three rnr privates were on trial for leaving their sentry post without permission. Corporal Yaseri claimed he had told them to remain on guard while the three men insisted that he had instructed them to go for food. Testifying at the trial, James Fife Douglas, a sergeant major in the rnr, stated that “Private Sikopo is a Mashona, Private Yefelana is a Manganja, and Private Piroro is a Sena native. Yao is a widely spoken language and that is the language the accused (Corporal Yaseni) used in speaking to the three askari mentioned. I have never heard either of them speak in Yao but I have noticed that they understand it when spoken to.” Another witness in the same case, Private Chindoko, stated “I am a private in A Coy rnr and am a Chewa native…I heard accused tell them. He spoke in the Yao language which I can understand though I do not speak.”75 Life in the rnr involved a process of interaction and negotiation between the colonizer and the colonized. Timothy Parsons argues that “the military culture of the kar evolved from the daily interaction of Western and African

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values.”76 Much the same can be said for the rnr during the First World War. Given the fact that it had originated from a settler-controlled colony, there was a higher proportion of Europeans in the rnr than in a typical kar battalion. Every officer in a kar battalion was white but almost all ncos were black. Every rnr platoon (forty to fifty men) usually had a white junior officer and sergeant along with some African ncos. This meant that European influence and supervision was stronger than in the kar but still far from omnipotent. There had to be compromises in recognition of the inherent power of the African majority, on whom the operations of the unit ultimately depended. Like the British in India, Rhodesian settlers categorized Africans into martial and non-martial tribes. When the idea of an African unit was raised in colonial administrative circles, it was meant to be recruited primarily from the Ndebele ethnic group. Of the first five hundred recruits, three hundred came from Matabeleland, the predominately Ndebele region of the colony, and the unit’s initial name in 1916 was the Matabele Regiment, the British War Office continued to refer to it by this name for at least another year.77 Native Affairs Department officials used Ndebele chiefs, eager to prove their loyalty to the colonial state, as recruiting agents who often sent their sons to the regiment to serve as an example to their subjects.78 However, the tribally specific name was quickly changed to the more generic rnr when it became obvious that many other ethnic groups would be represented in the unit. The reason for this initial emphasis on the Ndebele originated with the rather romantic European perception of that group, well established in literature by that time, as having inherently warrior-like traits. Historically, the Ndebele had a common history with the Zulu, supposedly the most warlike African group of them all, and had fought their way north in the early nineteenth century under the leadership of the famous warrior-king Mzilikazi. Subsequently, the Ndebele had fought the British invasion in 1893 and then instigated a rebellion in 1896 that ultimately spread to the Shona. Ndebele chiefs gained respect from the British by negotiating a peace treaty, separate from the Shona, in 1897. Conversely, the Shona, who constituted the majority of Africans in the colony, were seen by whites as cowardly and less warlike. A central historical myth of colonial Rhodesia was that British rule had been imposed to protect the weaker Shona from aggressive Ndebele raids. Among the many rnr soldiers from Nyasaland, who had been migrant workers in the Rhodesian mines before enlisting, there were similar stereotypes. The Ngoni, who also had a historical connection with the Zulu, and the Yao, Muslims and descendants of slave traders, were seen as martial peoples whereas the Chewa, historically the farm-

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ers and fishermen of the Lake Malawi area, were perceived as non-martial. Martial reputations sometimes led to exaggeration as one British member of Parliament, in August 1916, strongly advocated the use of African troops on the Western Front when he claimed that “there would be no difficulty in putting 100 000 Zulus, Basoto and Yao in the field in six months.”79 A former officer of the Northern Rhodesia Police who had fought alongside the rnr, writing in the 1950s, claimed that the Bemba, Ngoni, and Yao “had fighting in their blood and tribal traditions to live up to.”80 Timothy Parsons, in his study of the kar, maintains that tribes which the British identified as “martial” were usually groups that responded well to military recruiting because of the way they had been incorporated into the colonial economy. The Ndebele could be put into this category because they had lost much of their best land in the 1890s, which meant it was necessary to enter the workforce to get money to pay colonial taxes. The Kalanga, a small minority from Matabeleland, also responded very well to recruitment as they had a long history as a conquered people. By the first decade of the twentieth century, Kalanga were heading to the farms and mines in large numbers and the army represented a similar option. However, the Kalanga did not have the romanticized history of the Ndebele and most Europeans could not immediately tell them apart because both groups tended to speak Sindebele.81 Therefore, the strong Kalanga presence in the rnr was never emphasized and became rolled into a broad Ndebele identity. The Shona were not as incorporated into the capitalist economy at this point and as such were not as responsive to military recruiting. General Edwards reported that, “with the exception of the Mashona tribe, no difficulty was experienced in obtaining the required number of recruits.”82 Although ethnic stereotypes of Africans, which were very real in the minds of European officers, had an impact on life in the rnr, they also broke down to an extent under wartime pressures. For example, during the first year or more in the field, it was fairly common for officers to assign difficult combat tasks to specially selected groups of Ndebele soldiers.83 When an Ndebele soldier did something noteworthy or was wounded or killed in action, official records would highlight his tribe. At the Battle of Mpepo in July 1917, Lieutenant Colonel Carbutt noted with regret the wounding of Corporal Dengezana who was “a very reliable type of Matabele soldier.”84 Other ethnic identities were not usually highlighted in this way. On one occasion, when Shona soldiers were abandoned by their European commander and ran from enemy fire, the entire incident was blamed on their non-martial culture and swept under the rug.85 Soldiers from another ethnic group would have faced severe punishment.

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Of course, sometimes reality failed to confirm the expected stereotypes. Tomlinson expressed surprise that the first man flogged in the regiment was an Ndebele.86 European officers, who had read stories of nineteenth-century Zulu warriors dancing on thorns, were shocked when Ndebele soldiers complained about having to march hundreds of miles without footwear.87 General Edwards wrote to Tomlinson that he was “anxious to know how the Mashonas are shaping as regards fighting.” Defending his men, Tomlinson replied that “they are doing equally well as other tribes.”88 Since sub-units were organized on an ethnic basis, European officers and ncos sometimes began to identify with the tribe of their own troops. Frank Cross, an rnr platoon sergeant who was interviewed years later, remarked that the men of his Mashonaland Company were, “strangely enough,” better at marching than the Ndebele.89 Such ethnic references in the official records of the regiment decreased as the war went on but never entirely disappeared. It is probably not a coincidence that once large numbers of migrant workers from Nyasaland, Portuguese East Africa, and Northern Rhodesia entered the rnr, ethnic stereotyping, which had essentially played beliefs about the Ndebele off against beliefs about the Shona, declined in significance. In many ways, the Rhodesia Native Regiment was similar to other British colonial units like the King’s African Rifles. However, given its origins in Southern Rhodesia, with its migrant labour economy and settler society, the rnr was increasingly multi-ethnic and European control usually filtered down to its lowest levels. All the inequalities of early colonial society were recreated in the rnr. However, given the fact that African soldiers were in the majority and central to the task at hand, they did have a significant influence on the developing military culture of the regiment.




chapter 4

The Road to Songea

the initial phase of the german east african campaign during 1914 and 1915 had not gone well for the Allies. The British attempt to take the German port of Tanga in early November 1914 was a dismal failure. The German warship Konigsberg remained a threat along the coast until it was trapped in the Rufigi River Delta and destroyed in July 1915. With the Allies lacking enough troops to invade German East Africa by land, an “uneasy stalemate” developed in which both sides defended their respective territories and harassed each other with periodic raids.1 In January 1916, German forces were at the peak of their strength with 2,712 Europeans, 11,367 Askaris, and 2,591 auxiliaries. These were organized into forty field companies with about twenty Europeans and two hundred Africans in each. The bulk of the German forces were in the north of their colony, around Mount Kilimanjaro, facing the border with Kenya. Defending the vast southern region, there were only 270 men at Bismarckburg on Lake Tanganyika, 600 at New Langenburg at the north end of Lake Nyasa, and another 600 spread between Songea, Mahenge, and Iringa in the southeast.2 By the beginning of 1916, the reinforced Allies were ready to plan a new offensive against the German colony with British/South African forces invading from Kenya in the north, Belgians advancing from the Congo in the west, and another British force (known as the Rhodesia-Nyasaland Field Force) coming up from the Rhodesias and Nyasaland to the southwest. In March 1916, the Rhodesia-Nyasaland Field Force was placed under the command of Brigadier Edward Northey, a regular army officer who had commanded a 53

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brigade during the infamous Second Battle of Ypres in Western Europe. It was made up of elements of the King’s African Rifles, British South Africa Police, Northern Rhodesia Police, a few white reservists from the Northern Rhodesia Rifles and Southern Rhodesia Volunteers, and eventually various white and “coloured” South African units.3 After several months of preparation, training and road building, Norforce, as Northey’s command became known, invaded the southwestern portion of German East Africa in late May 1916, successfully driving off German garrisons at Bismarckburg and Langenburg, and securing the area between the southern half of Lake Tanganyika and the northern part of Lake Nyasa. These moves also secured the flank of the Belgian units pushing east through Rwanda and Burundi. Realizing the threat that Northey’s southern offensive represented, the Germans dispatched reinforcements to the Madibira/Malangali area northeast of Lake Nyasa to block Norforce’s advance deeper into the German colony. As historian Ross Anderson points out,“Norforce’s greatest handicap was the lack of soldiers for the task at hand. In reality, it was a brigade-sized command that now fielded less than 4,000 rifles, split into three columns, separated by 320 kilometres of wild and mountainous terrain.”4 The Rhodesia Native Regiment camp at Salisbury was established in May 1915 and the first Europeans officers and ncos, primarily bsap men, organized the African recruits who arrived from Bulawayo and a few other parts of the country. The men, around five hundred strong at this point, were issued with uniforms and put through a basic training course that lasted two and a half months. Given a shortage of equipment, the rnr was initially issued with obsolete Martini-Henry rifles of Zulu War vintage and their web gear arrived only a few days before they left the colony.5 The main problem with the Martini-Henry was that it used a type of ammunition that produced considerable smoke when fired and it thus would reveal the firer’s position. Three weeks into the training program, the rnr was visited by the high commissioner of South Africa, Lord Buxton, and a parade was held in his honour. The event was fairly well attended by the public and a reporter noted that “The regiment presented a soldierly appearance…the spectacle presented by the regiment was exceedingly credible, and reflected the interest taken by both officers, ncos and the natives in their drill.”6 The rnr left Salisbury by train on the eighteenth of July and arrived at the port of Beira, in Portuguese East Africa, the next day. From Beira they were transported by ship up the Indian Ocean coast to Chinde from where river steamers brought them up the Zambezi River into Nyasaland. They arrived at a kar camp near Zomba, seat of the colonial government, on the twenty-sixth of July. Over the next few weeks,

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Officers of the first contingent of the Rhodesia Native Regiment on their departure from Southern Rhodesia in July 1916. In the front row, left to right, Captain F.C. Burke (later wounded), Captain V.A. New, Major C.L. Carbutt, Lieutenant Colonel A.J. Tomlinson, Major F.H. Addison, Lieutenant H.J. Simpson (later killed in action), Captain F.J. Wane (later wounded). Back row, left to right, Captain A.J. Poole, Lieutenant F.W.C. Morgans, Lieutenant A.H. Rutherford (later killed in action), Lieutenant W.R. Benzies (later wounded), Lieutenant J.H. Williams (later killed in action), Lieutenant E.F. Bridges (died of wounds), Captain W.J. Baker (later killed in action), Lieutenant F.P.L. Piggin (later killed in action). It is notable that nine out of the 15 officers in this photograph were killed or wounded during fighting in East Africa.

the rnr continued its training regime which included practice patrols, company level attacks, shooting on an improved range, and construction of earthwork defences. The more experienced officers tutored the European junior officers and sergeants, most of whom had been ordinary bsap troopers before joining the rnr, on infantry tactics and leadership. The rnr left the Zomba area on the eighteenth of August and marched north to the shore of Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi today) from where they were transported by river barges to Nkata Bay and then to New Langenburg, a captured German post on the north end of the lake. While in Nyasaland, both European and African members of the regiment were plagued with malaria.7 The extreme southern part of German East Africa, between the eastern shore of Lake Nyasa and the small town of Songea, was a rich agricultural area that had hardly been touched by the war. Northey had hoped that the Portuguese, who had entered the war against Germany in 1915 primarily to acquire additional African territory, would move across their nearby border and secure it but they were not up to the task. With new German columns moving into

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the west and east of his main operational zone, Northey did not have the manpower to secure what he knew was an important area defended by just a few dozen enemy soldiers. However, in early September 1916, Northey was ordered to occupy the Songea region. This meant that Norforce had to commit its only reserve, the recently arrived Rhodesia Native Regiment. Since Songea was over two hundred miles to the southeast, Northey planned to use Lake Nyasa in order to speed up this operation. An rnr force would land at Wiedhafen, a small German post on the eastern bank of the lake, and hike inland to Songea.8 On 10 September 1916, while the regiment was encamped at New Langenburg, General Northey briefed Lieutenant Colonel Tomlinson, the rnr’s fortyseven-year-old commanding officer, on his plan to secure the German post at Songea “in order to deny it to the enemy.”9 Intelligence reports indicated that German forces were becoming active in the Songea area and were gathering supplies there. However, as Northey’s forces were spread fairly thin at the time, he could afford to spare only one rnr company (two hundred men).10 Tomlinson’s detachment was small and would be separated from friendly units by a huge distance and a great lake. The rnr company being sent to Songea was the only one that had been able to exchange their aged Martini-Henry rifles for the newer Short Magazine Lee-Enfields, which used a smokeless cartridge. Unfortunately, carriers for the battalion’s four Maxim machine guns, extremely heavy water-cooled automatic weapons fed by long belts of ammunition, had not yet arrived.11 Over the next few days, Tomlinson made preparations for his unit’s first operation. He discussed the Songea district with an intelligence officer on Northey’s staff, Lieutenant Sutherland, who had been there during the Maji Maji Rebellion of 1905. Also, at Northey’s suggestion, Tomlinson appointed Mr. Charles Grey, a kar veteran who had lost his arm during the fighting further north in 1915, as an intelligence officer in the regiment because he could speak Swahili, a common language in East Africa.12 On the fourteenth of September, Tomlinson and some of his headquarters staff led the regiment’s Number One Company and 176 supply carriers out of New Langenburg and marched south toward the lake. While every soldier was armed with the new rifle and every sixth man had some rifle grenades, the Maxim machine guns were left behind. This force reached the port of Mwaya the next day at noon after marching thirty miles. At Mwaya, a number of new members joined the regiment. A Northern Rhodesia Police officer was to be in charge of establishing a supply base for the unit, a white member of the Nyasaland Volunteer Reserve took over supervision of the carriers, and thirtyfive local Africans who knew the country around Songea were employed as

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operatives in the intelligence section. The unit boarded the lake steamer HMS Gwendolen that evening and left the port. The next morning, the rnr men disembarked at Wiedhafen. One hundred soldiers searched the area before the main force landed, but they encountered no resistance. Tomlinson wasted no time in continuing with the mission. A small supply base was quickly established at the port and early that afternoon Captain MacCarthey, the battalion’s chief intelligence officer, took a patrol of twenty rnr privates and the thirty-five local African scouts inland on the narrow road to Songea looking for signs of the enemy. Later in the afternoon, Tomlinson followed with the main force of twenty-nine European officers and ncos, and 165 African soldiers intending to march all night toward the objective. The force marched until midnight when four “fearfully excited” scouts yelled at the main column from the darkness and then ran down from the hills.13 They reported that their group had fired on an enemy patrol of one German and five African soldiers. When rumours of this action and the fear of ambush were making Tomlinson’s untested men nervous, he decided to march for one more hour and then halt for the rest of the night. In fact, the rnr men could not have known that they had caught the Germans off guard. Even Major Kraut, commander of the nearest German column that was confronting elements of Norforce to the north around Mkapira, did not learn of the landing until five days after it had happened and he instructed one of his subordinate officers, Captain Falkenstein, to secure Songea, but by then it was too late.14 At 5:30am the next morning, 17 September, Tomlinson’s force continued up the path to Songea and within a few hours met up with MacCarthey’s patrol, which then joined the main body. The intelligence officer stated that he had been delayed because the Africans under his command had become frightened as soon as they encountered the German patrol. The force plodded on and the path became increasingly narrow and rough. Early in the afternoon, Tomlinson directed his signalling section to establish a post on nearby Namusweya Mountain in order to make heliograph contact with the supply post at Wiedhafen which was some twenty miles away. (A heliograph is a device that utilizes reflections of the sun to send messages over a long distance.) Since the carriers were having difficulty keeping up with the main body, Tomlinson decided to halt his force around sunset but he planned to personally carry on toward Songea with a detachment of three other European officers and thirty African soldiers with Captain MacCarthey and his twenty men scouting ahead. Major F.H. Addison, the battalion’s adjutant and a bsap officer, was directed to follow in the morning with the main force.

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Tomlinson’s advance party marched through the night. The next morning they discovered two bridges that had been burned by retreating Germans, but they managed to use wooden poles to get quickly across the swift-running rivers. After seizing a cow from two local herdsmen, Tomlinson ordered the beast slaughtered for food. He recorded that the rest of the day consisted of a “stiflingly hot march on a hard road.”15 That evening MacCarthey’s scouts had two shots fired at them but they had no idea from where. The advance force again marched through the night and in the morning arrived at the burned remains of the Ruvuma River bridge. When Tomlinson and one of his junior officers were assessing the damage and deciding how best to cross the fast current, another ineffective shot rang out from the bush. After using felled trees to cross the Ruvuma River, the patrol captured an African scout who had been working for the Germans. They also acquired maize meal from local villagers who told the rnr men that the Germans had abandoned Songea. Hearing that there were still German civilians at the nearby Mangua Mission, Tomlinson led his force to that location where they met nine German missionaries (two men and seven women) and captured a large quantity of rations packed and ready for transportation. The detachment spent the night at the mission and the next morning marched the short distance into Songea. The Germans had indeed abandoned their earthen fort and supplies at the village, and several local chiefs received the rnr group with “apparent pleasure.”16 The intelligence officer learned that two small groups of Germans had left the previous day heading along the road going northeast from Songea. One German officer and forty-five African soldiers intended to establish themselves at Likuyu, over one hundred miles northeast of Songea, while two German officers with their wives, along with six African soldiers and some porters, were to carry on toward the much more distant coastal town of Kilwa. Tomlinson wanted to go after the Germans but decided against it when he realized that doing so with such a small force would leave Songea insecure and that his men were exhausted from several days and nights of continuous marching. In fact, Tomlinson himself was so chaffed between the legs that he could “not get around much.”17 He then consolidated his force at the town and brought in the German missionaries and their livestock under guard. The next day, 21 September, Major Addison led the main body of troops into Songea and reported that nothing of significance had occurred during the march. He had left a European supply sergeant and five African privates to trade for food at a local village. Addison also reported that the signalling section had not yet climbed to the top of Namusweya Mountain but was continuing to try, so the force still did not have communication with its base on

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Lake Nyasa at Wiedhafen. Tomlinson was completely out of contact with higher headquarters. At Songea, Tomlinson wasted no time in getting his men to dig defensive trenches around the small earthwork fort that dominated the village, and he planned a schedule of patrols to secure control of the immediate area and gather intelligence. Aware that there were reports of an enemy force of seven Germans and 150 African soldiers at Makochela to the southeast, Tomlinson decided not to risk raiding the enemy food depots he knew were at several posts along the Kilwa road. Over the next few days the rnr men continued to dig and improve their trenches at Songea. At the same time, various local Africans came to the town to trade food for the calico that the rnr had brought. The business was so brisk that after just a few days the regiment began to run short of this highly sought after textile. In addition, several chiefs visited Tomlinson’s headquarters to pay their respects and ask if the bridges in the area could be rebuilt by the British. Tomlinson put his patrol plan into action. On the regiment’s first full day in Songea, Lieutenant Williams and twenty African soldiers reconnoitered a few miles down the Kilwa Road but found only thick bush and a few friendly villagers. The next day another patrol under Lieutenant Eric Bridges, a native department clerk who had fought with the First Rhodesia Regiment in Southwest Africa, marched northeast along the Mahenge Road for a few miles, turned southeast across country to the Kilwa Road, and then headed back to Songea. Once again, nothing of significance was encountered except a few small African villages. On Monday 25 September, Tomlinson, confident that the immediate area was clear of the enemy, decided to extend the distance covered by his patrols. That day, Regimental Sergeant Major T.N.J. Usher, a veteran of the Second Rhodesia Regiment who was temporarily in command of a rifle platoon, took twenty-five soldiers a few miles down the Kilwa Road and set up a bivouac for the night. At the same time, Captain MacCarthey, who had been continuously scouting the area since the regiment’s arrival, sent an intelligence report to Songea that cattle were being driven toward Tunduru, 150 miles southeast of Songea, but that there was no new information on the supposed enemy force at Makochela which was in the same direction but closer. The next day, Tomlinson directed Corporal Juma to lead a fiveman patrol down the Tunduru Road for three days and to send one of their number back with a report as soon as anything important was discovered. At the same time, a message arrived from the signalling detachment that they had finally made heliograph contact with the supply base at Wiedhafen. Over the next few days a number of twenty- and twenty-five-man patrols, led by

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European junior officers, were sent out in various directions around Songea to collect intelligence and locate sources of food.18 A few depots of German maize meal were discovered and brought into Songea by the regiment’s carriers but generally the local people claimed little knowledge of German activities. On Thursday 28 September, Tomlinson received an intelligence report stating that a force of eight German and between thirty and forty African soldiers had been present at Mbarangandu, just under one hundred miles to the northeast along the Kilwa Road, some five days before. Immediately, Tomlinson issued orders for Major Addison to lead a hundred-man force along with MacCarthey and his twenty rnr scouts to find the Germans and attack them. At this point, Tomlinson began to suspect that the reports of a strong enemy force at Makochela were not accurate and he felt secure in leaving only half his entire force, about one hundred men, to defend Songea. Addison’s large fighting patrol left the next morning with rations for seven days. Reports of enemy around Kitanda, to the north, prompted Tomlinson to immediately send Corporal Tanganyika, who was one of the few rnr men who could read and write, and six African soldiers, on an extended reconnaissance patrol in that direction. Furthermore, Corporal Tanganyika was to establish an observation post just outside Kitanda and send an immediate message back to Songea if his patrol observed the enemy. These men were given some calico to trade for food so they could travel as fast as possible.19 On 30 September, Major Addison sent a message back to Tomlinson by the unit’s lone motorcycle dispatch rider stating that he was twenty-six miles east of Songea and was hesitant to proceed further without definite news from General Northey. Tomlinson replied that he would send word of any information from higher headquarters but that Addison’s actions must be determined by the information he gathered himself.20 Over the next two days, another small reconnaissance patrol under an African corporal was sent southeast to Tunduru and another African corporal was assigned the task of leading carriers with seven days of rations out to Addison’s force on the Songea/Kilwa road. At this time, Addison continued to slowly advance east away from Songea and collected information that a German force was making for Mahenge to the north.21 By 5 October, Addison, whose patrol had been out for seven days at this point, began to feel uncertain about proceeding against the supposed German presence at Mbarangandu because he had heard rumours of an eightyman-strong enemy force with two Maxim guns roaming the area. Addison decided to wait at Likuyu, a post along the Songea/Kilwa road, until he could

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definitely ascertain the strength of the Germans at his objective. He sent word to Tomlinson that he could not take any risks, given the precarious nature of the defences at Songea.22 On 7 October, Tomlinson was beginning to lose patience with Addison’s indecisiveness and sent him a message directing the patrol to gather more specific information on the enemy. Later that same day, Tomlinson received two notes from Corporal Tanganyika. The first one stated that he had heard reports from local villagers that eight Germans were around Kitanda and he was going to try to find them. The second reported that he had actually seen fifteen Germans and a number of their African soldiers (or askari) in a village near Kitanda. Tomlinson then sent a message to Corporal Tanganyika that he should inform Major Addison on the Kilwa Road of enemy movements. Tomlinson sent a similar note to Addison. However, the two soldiers who were sent with the message for Corporal Tanganyika returned the next day with all the men from Tanganyika’s patrol who stated that they had become separated from him. At once, Lieutenant Bridges was detailed to take the six men from Tanganyika’s patrol and another six local men to search for the missing corporal. Around the same time, Tomlinson received an intelligence report that a very large enemy force had arrived at Mahenge, a German post two hundred miles north-northeast. The next day, Tomlinson received another note from Tanganyika. The note had been carried by villagers and seen at some point by Bridges; it stated that his men had abandoned him when he went to observe the enemy and that he was hiding in a hut just one mile from where a group of nine Germans and ten enemy African soldiers were camped. A day or so later, Tanganyika managed to capture two German askari deserters in a village and then rendezvous with Bridges’s patrol. The corporal, who Tomlinson singled out in his diary as someone “whose behaviour has been splendid,” remained on patrol while two of the men who had deserted him escorted the prisoners back to Songea.23 On 11 October, Major Addison, who was still on the Kilwa Road, finally made up his mind to send a small group of intelligence scouts further along to Mbarangandu and if they did not find the enemy there, he would lead his entire force back to Songea. On the same day, Addison received a message from Captain MacCarthey, the unit’s intelligence officer, that just three days before a German officer named Schultz was at Kitanda with eight European and 180 African soldiers, along with one Maxim gun and that subsequently this group had been reinforced by an additional fifty German troops. This information seemed to be confirmed by Tanganyika’s prisoners who claimed to have been part of a large force around Kitanda when they deserted. MacCarthey’s message also stated that scouts observed three Germans and sev-

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enteen African soldiers somewhere along the Kilwa Road. Alarmed by these reports, Addison sent off an immediate note to Tomlinson that he was returning to Songea at once in order to help defend that post. On hearing all this, Tomlinson was skeptical and sent an order to Addison, who was by now on the march back, that he should leave a small patrol of one European sergeant and twelve African troops at an observation post along the Kilwa Road. Tomlinson wanted to speak with Addison directly about the source of all these reports of enemy movement and believed that he would have to send the entire fighting patrol out once again in the same direction.24 The next day, 12 October, Addison and his force arrived back at Songea. Tomlinson began to share Addison’s fears of a German move against his base but, since he was still concerned about the Kilwa Road, he sent a strong patrol of twenty-five African riflemen under two European sergeants out to replace the men Addison had left behind. It was around this time that Tomlinson received a message from Major C.L. Carbutt, who was commanding the regiment’s second company at New Langenburg, that one of his platoons had been reissued with the new Short Magazine Lee-Enfield rifle and his other three platoons had received the slightly older but similar Martini-Metfords. However, this force could not proceed to Songea as it was awaiting ammunition, which was still at the port of Durban in South Africa.25 Throughout the middle of October, the rnr men at Songea continued their rigorous system of patrolling in various directions and they also collected more but often confusing intelligence on German movements and strengths. Another objective of these patrols was to instill confidence in the local population that the British had come to stay and that the Germans were on their way out. At this time, Tomlinson became more convinced that the Germans, who seemed short on supplies, would risk an assault on Songea if they believed there was a chance to capture the valuable food stores housed there.26 On 21 October, Tomlinson received an alarming message from Lieutenant Williams who was leading a patrol. According to carriers who had deserted from the Germans, enemy commanders Schultz and Hoffmann were leading a large force, part of which was on horseback, with a Maxim gun toward Kitanda. The next day, Williams sent in another note to report that the enemy force had entered Kitanda and that they intended to go anywhere that food was available. Tomlinson sent a runner out to Williams asking urgently for information on enemy strength. Tomlinson wanted to mount an attack against this German force to knock it off balance but felt that, with his present resources, and the fact that the Germans had a Maxim gun and more mobile cavalry, it would “prove futile or disastrous.” He resolved to concentrate on

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defending the food and ammunition supplies at Songea. The rnr soldiers were put to work improving their trenches around the small earthwork fort, erecting barbed wire that had been left behind by the Germans, digging a communication trench to the nearest water source which was some four hundred yards away, and filling several cement tanks at the post with water.27 A siege seemed likely. On 24 October, Tomlinson finally received a report on enemy strength from his intelligence officer, Captain MacCarthey. Supposedly, twelve German soldiers, two hundred askari, and two machine guns had arrived at Kitanda just three days before. Other patrol reports arrived around the same time indicating the presence of small German patrols scouring the area for supplies and getting dangerously close to Songea. Around the twenty-fifth of October, a patrol under Lieutenant Bridges heard from local sources that some Germans were looking for food at a nearby village. Bridges had his men fix bayonets and rush the village where they captured a German sergeant and two askaris. The German, conversing in French with his captors, claimed that forces from Mahenge, Kitanda, and Liwale were converging on Songea and he openly laughed when told the obvious lie that Songea was defended by five hundred men.28 The prisoners were escorted back to Songea where they were interrogated by the intelligence officer. The German askari revealed that they had been part of the Seventh Field Company which consisted of eleven Europeans, ninety African soldiers, and one Maxim gun and that on 22 October, just a few days earlier, they had been marching from Mahenge south toward Songea. They also stated that the Twelfth Field Company, made up of seventeen Germans, 250 askari, and one Maxim gun, were at Kitanda collecting food and that the Fifth Field Company, which had a field gun, had been near Kitanda ten days before.29 It was now obvious that the Germans were concentrating forces in the area with the intention of recapturing Songea. In preparation for the coming attack, Tomlinson had all the remaining grain from the nearby Peramiho Mission brought into Songea by a party of over two hundred porters. Also, another carrier party under R.S.M. Usher was sent to Wiedhafen to bring back ammunition. Through the last days of October, Tomlinson maintained an active system of patrolling using groups of platoon strength led by European junior officers, smaller detachments of soldiers under African corporals, and various groups of local intelligence scouts guided by Captain MacCarthey.30 On 31 October, a note from Corporal Rita, another one of the few literate rnr soldiers of the intelligence section, reached headquarters at Songea. It stated that he had sent a local agent into the German position at Kitanda to

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collect information. According to Rita’s scout, the Germans, who were sleeping in trenches at Kitanda, had requested mounted reinforcements from Mahenge to support their intended attack on Songea but this had been refused. Rita also reported that the Germans were building a bridge near Kitanda, that some German askari had told his agent that they would run away if attacked, and that a local headman, who complained that the Germans were murdering his people, would show the British a concealed approach to the German position. At once, Tomlinson dispatched Captain F.J. Wane, a thirty-six-year old assistant native commissioner from Salisbury, R.S.M. Usher, the unit surgeon Dr. Forrester, and twenty-five African soldiers to join up with a platoonsized patrol led by Lieutenant Williams and then link up with Corporal Rita with a view to attack the German force at Kitanda. Wane was instructed to use his discretion but to take “fair risks.”31 After only a day’s march out from Songea, Wane’s detachment met up with Lieutenant Williams’s patrol which was now accompanied by Captain MacCarthey. They had learned that an enemy patrol of about ten men had camped on a hill only five miles from Songea and they had sent out a few scouts to follow them. Wane sent a message to Songea stating that he would wait for more information on the enemy around Songea before proceeding with his attack on Kitanda. MacCarthey’s scouts eventually lost the enemy patrol. Back at Songea, Tomlinson learned that the German patrol had sent a message, the contents of which were unknown, to Kitanda and he began to realize that the intended attack on that position would probably not be possible. He sent a message to Wane informing him of the situation but told him to continue leading his men along the Kitanda road but to send back the medical officer.32 The Germans were beginning to retake the initiative in the Songea area but this also meant that German resources were being diverted from other parts of the colony. Around the same time, Corporal Rita, whom Tomlinson would later describe as “a splendid soldier,”33 captured a German sergeant who was then sent back toward Songea under an escort of four rnr soldiers. However, on 2 November, while marching down the Kilwa road toward Songea, this party was ambushed by a patrol of German askari. Two rnr soldiers were killed and another was severely wounded. In the sudden fire fight, the German prisoner was almost shot by his own men and he threw himself down in the bush to avoid being killed. The ambushers withdrew quickly after one of their number was shot dead and another taken prisoner. A local man reported all this to Tomlinson at Songea who sent out five men with a stretcher under Sergeant Zuli who brought back the survivors and the new prisoner.34

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Also on 2 November, Tomlinson received a message from Wane reporting that a porter who had run away from the Germans told them how the German force to the north at Kitanda, commanded by Captain Schultz and a colonial official known as “Bwana Feza,” now consisted of numerous German officers and ncos, two hundred askari, and one Maxim gun with plenty of ammunition. The former porter had been with a German patrol in the Songea area when the German in charge sent two messengers back to Kitanda advising the force there to attack the main rnr position. Furthermore, he said that those messengers would reach Kitanda the next morning. Another intelligence report received the same day claimed that there were three hundred German askari and one Maxim at Kitanda and that another force, consisting of the Twelfth Field Company and one large field gun under Major von Grawert, had been seen on the Luwegu River heading south toward Songea. Firmly convinced that the Germans were planning a move against his position, Tomlinson decided to consolidate his forces and sent out orders for all patrols to return to base.35 Strangely, on Friday 3 November 1916, the German prisoner (who had jumped into the bush to escape being shot by his own men) walked into Songea and surrendered. His name was Johannes Formann and he claimed that Major von Grawert, with twenty-five Germans and three hundred askari, was advancing along the Kilwa road toward Songea and that he had orders from Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck, the overall German military commander in the colony, to take that post. That afternoon, two local Africans came to Songea and told Tomlinson that a patrol of ten German askaris were at their village only three miles away. An African corporal with fifteen privates was sent out to investigate and returned at 6:00pm with four prisoners, one uniformed askari, two enemy scouts in civilian attire, and one German officer’s servant. The same patrol was sent out again to try and find the German leader of the patrol and the remaining askari but returned the next day without having encountered them. At this time, Tomlinson also learned that one of his messengers, Private Darusiga, from the heliograph signalling station, had been told by some locals that two German askari were searching the area for the British “lights” so they could destroy them. Private Darusiga eventually found the enemy soldiers sitting under a tree along a path and drove them north into the bush with a few shots.36 On 4 November, Tomlinson received a message from General Northey stating that “Songea must be held to the last.”37 Over the next few days, patrols of African soldiers were sent to scout along the Kitanda and Kilwa roads. One was twenty strong under Corporal Rita and the other fifteen strong under

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Corporal Salima who managed to capture a local scout employed by the Germans. Tomlinson was instructed by Northey’s headquarters to maintain active patrols in order to make the Germans believe there were more British forces in the area than there really were. Subsequently, two more twenty-man patrols, under lieutenants Williams and Piggin, were directed to sweep the area between the Kitanda and Kilwa roads. At the same time, the rnr soldiers continued to work on the defences of Songea. Trenches around the post were improved, houses that blocked fields of fire were demolished, and every available container was filled with water in case of a siege.38 On 7 November, Tomlinson received a heliograph message from headquarters that a South African infantry battalion was on its way by lake steamer to Wiedhafen from where it would move east to reinforce Songea.39 Little did the rnr men know that on 23 October, von Lettow-Vorbeck had given instructions to Major von Grawert to move his column south, link up with Falkenstein’s company that was already in the area, and retake Songea.40




chapter 5

The Sieges of Malangali and Songea

throughout most of september and october 1916, when tomlinson’s force was securing Songea, the rnr’s second company under Major Carbutt, the forty-year-old native commissioner of Plumtree, remained at New Langenburg conducting field training and route marches. In addition, eighty machinegun carriers arrived and were given training. Around 20 October, Carbutt’s company was ordered to join other units operating in German East Africa northeast of Lake Nyasa around the Iringa/Njombe road area. This was over two hundred miles north-northwest of Songea. Carbutt’s company was broken up and used to defend a number of small supply posts. One platoon was based at New Utengule, two platoons were based at Buhora, while another was mounted on motor cars and used to escort supply convoys between Buhora and Malangali. In the early morning darkness of 23 October, a patrol of twenty rnr soldiers led by Lieutenant William Benzies, a thirty-five-year-old assistant native commissioner, was entrenched at the village of Maborgoro when it was attacked by a German force. The Maxim gun jammed and the defenders were quickly overwhelmed. Of the rnr men, privates Sikoti, Mangwana, and Bidu were killed, the machine gunner Corporal Zakeyo was wounded, and seventeen men, including Benzies, were captured. An rnr rescue party found that the village had been burned and there was no trace of their missing comrades. This was not the only setback for the British forces in that area—around the same time a fifty-man patrol of Northern Rhodesia Police was ambushed by the Germans, its commander, a Major Baxendale, was killed, and most of his 67

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soldiers were captured. However, a few weeks later, all of the captured rnr men managed to escape from the Germans and return to their unit.1 By early November, a German force under General Wahle, a retired officer who had been visiting the colony when the war broke out, was moving south from Tabora and had cut the British lines of communication between Iringa and Njombe. As a result, Carbutt was ordered to send one platoon and his machine gun section from Buhora to reinforce elements of the Second South African Rifles who were defending Malangali, which was a critical supply base for the South Africans at Iringa. Malangali was a difficult position to defend because it was in low ground which meant any attackers would have good positions to fire down on it. The Germans attacked Malangali on 8 November 1916, bombarding the post with artillery and raking it with machine gun fire. A shell from a twelve-pound naval gun, captured by the Germans some time before, set fire to the supply depot which illuminated the defenders’ trenches during the night. The Germans assaulted the rnr and South African trenches several times, making it to as close as forty yards but were constantly repulsed. The next day the Germans changed their tactics from all-out attack to trying to starve out the Malangali garrison, which was desperately short of food and water. According to the South African commander, Captain Marriott, several European members of the rnr distinguished themselves during the siege. For example, Lieutenant William Baker, who led the rnr detachment, was described as “an officer of great promise, cool and very courageous; he has a great influence over his platoon. He can readily grasp orders and is most scrupulous in carrying them out, allowing nothing to hinder or deter him.” Sergeant Major W.J. Carr, a former bsap member, “was in the part of the trench which was uncomfortably hot from the burning stores, and received the brunt of the attack, he gave me the greatest assistance all through and his cheerfulness and enthusiasm were unquenchable.” Sergeant Frederick C. Booth, a young bsap trooper who had been involved in the seizure of a German post in the Caprivi Strip in 1914 and who would later become the most famous member of the rnr, was said to be “fearless and full of dash; he also put his whole heart into the work and was of the greatest assistance.”2 On the morning of 12 November, the fifth day of the Malangali seige, the rnr and South Africans were encouraged when a British airplane, perhaps the first most of them had ever seen, bombed the German positions. Later that day, elements of the Southern Rhodesian Column, made up of several nrp and bsap companies and a platoon of rnr, arrived by motor vehicle from Njombe and drove off the Germans. Remarkably, the rnr lost only one man,

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Private Mbujane who had been shot in the head by a German sniper, and had only two wounded. Private Gaza was extremely lucky when he found an unexploded German shell in his trench and threw it into the bush. Captain Marriott’s account of the action praised the European officers and ncos of the rnr for controlling their African soldiers but gave no credit to the Africans. However, Baker’s report was more balanced and stated “The native troops reserved their fire and took good aim, while the fire control generally exercised was of a high order. The maxims were most efficiently worked and were the main factors in each instance in breaking up the attack.”3 Just after the relief of Malangali, Carbutt, who was still at Buhora, believed that there was an enemy force to his northeast at Madibira and sent two patrols, one with a motor car that broke down, to that area. They reported back that his suspicions had been correct. A letter written by Lieutenant Hector Simpson, one of the patrol commanders who was a veteran of the bsap and Second Rhodesia Regiment, revealed much about the nature of the campaign: The Huns were at Madibira and my object was to obtain some information as to their strength. To do this I passed through their posts and got into a good position overlooking their camp and was thus able to obtain all the information desired. I had a sergeant and six askaris with me and my carriers two or three miles off in the veld. We had a great difficulty in getting back, as German patrols were on the lookout for us, having been informed by native spies that we were in the neighbourhood. I lost two of my askaris somehow, and was thus left with four. Twice we almost walked into parties of Germans, but managed to keep clear of them. On another occasion we found ourselves within 50 yards of a tent, and expected every minute to have a volley into us, but luck was on our side and we got away unseen. When we got back to where we had left the other askaris and the carriers, we could not find them anywhere, they had either been captured or run away. This left us in rather a predicament as we had no food or kit of any description with us. I learned from a local native that a German patrol of 20 men had been round, apparently seeking us. I therefore concluded that my natives had seen them coming and had bolted. We had seen about 200 of the enemy leaving Madibira, with a 4.1 inch howitzer, in the direction of Buhora, where we were stationed at the time being, and it now behoved us to get back to Buhora as quickly as possible. The distance was 52 miles and this we had covered in two days on the way up. We had no food and very little water.4

The force observed by Simpson was likely part or all of the force that had laid siege to Malangali, which was just a short distance to the south. Simpson eventually found his missing men, obtained some water from a pool, and linked

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up with Carbutt’s main force.5 Unfortunately, since the telegraph line to New Langenburg was down, it was impossible to get instructions from General Northey’s headquarters. Carbutt decided to take the initiative and took one rnr rifle platoon towards Madibira but found the Germans had left. Over the next week, Carbutt and his platoon, along with some other elements of his company, pursued a German force of roughly two hundred men around the Madibira/Buhora area. The Germans did not want to get pinned down and always seemed to remain a day’s march ahead of Carbutt, who eventually gave up the chase because his unit ran out of rations.6 On 22 November, the day after Carbutt and his platoon returned to Buhora, the major received orders to command his company as part of a battalion attack by the Southern Rhodesian Column, led by Colonel R.E. Murray, on the same enemy force he had been chasing, which was now entrenched at Ilembula Mission. With three platoons and six Maxims, Carbutt’s company left Buhora at six in the morning and completed the twenty-six-mile march to Ilembula by 4:30 in the afternoon and waited for further instructions. The next day Carbutt observed the enemy position and in the early afternoon Colonel Murray’s scouts finally arrived with detailed orders for the attack. Carbutt’s task was to outflank the enemy position and approach it from the west to cut off a potential avenue of escape. During the night the rnr men dug in one thousand yards from the Germans and the next morning, 25 November, they began the attack by opening up with their machine guns. The Germans responded with their 4.1-inch field gun which, according to Carbutt, “severely shelled the vicinity of our trenches, which they could not locate.” A few rnr men under Lieutenant Simpson advanced toward the enemy and began sniping at them. The distraction worked and the Germans redirected their field-gun fire at the snipers, three of whom were wounded by shrapnel. That night, Carbutt had his men advance and dig new trenches closer to the enemy position. Throughout the morning of 26 November, there was a vicious exchange of fire between the attackers and defenders. Carbutt counted 230 shots from the German gun. Hopelessly trapped, the Germans surrendered that afternoon. The British captured 57 European and 250 African soldiers along with three machine guns and the 4.1-inch gun, which had been rendered useless by the Germans. The rnr had done the bulk of the fighting and the only other part of the attacking force to actually engage the enemy was one company of nrp. Subsequently, the Southern Rhodesian Column, along with Carbutt’s rnr company, was pulled back south to Njombe for much-needed rest.7 General Northey sent a personal wire to Lieutenant Simpson congratulating him for the work he had done in this operation.8

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In the second week of November, larger and more aggressive German patrols began to move closer to the rnr position at Songea. On 8 November, intelligence reports indicated that members of a German patrol were openly boasting to villagers at nearby Nyamabengo that columns from Kitanda, Likuyu, and Liwale were converging in order to recapture Songea and that they were looking for a scout from that area to act as a guide during an anticipated attack. The next day, the rnr received local reports that a patrol of four Germans and an unknown number of askari had entered Samangula village, just a few miles to the north, and captured the headman. Tomlinson sent out Corporal Tanganyika with ten soldiers to investigate, with orders to travel as quickly as possible. Almost simultaneously, a twenty-man patrol under Lieutenant Williams encountered an enemy patrol of unknown strength near Ngonyoke and in the ensuing fire fight Private Mtema was killed and Private Mlanje was wounded in the arm. The German patrol withdrew to a hill where Williams observed more enemy soldiers. Lieutenant Williams decided to withdraw his patrol from the area since their supply porters had fled during the skirmish and he did not think it wise to advance over open ground in view of the enemy. On the same day, a small standing patrol under Corporal Juma that had been posted at Bwanaisa, a village on the Ruvuma River near Portuguese territory, a month earlier returned to Songea reporting that their post had been attacked the previous week by fifty German askari who then murdered ten villagers for helping the British.9 Around noon on 10 November, Corporal Tanganyika’s patrol returned to Songea and reported that a few hours earlier they had seen and fired on a party of three Germans and an unknown number of askari at Kayumbwiki, which was about seven miles away. Tomlinson then dispatched two patrols. One was a ten-man detachment under Corporal Rita that was to sweep the immediate area close to Songea. The other was a group of twenty-five soldiers under R.S.M. Usher who was instructed to proceed north up the Kitanda road and decide what to do based on any local intelligence they gathered. Usher set up a post on a hill three and a half miles from Songea and sent out scouts to “find out what is in front.” That afternoon, Usher observed a party of around fifteen people moving at the foot of another hill about a mile east of his position, but he could not make out who they were. He then sent a message to Tomlinson asking if any friendly patrols were operating in that direction; the response he received was that there were none. Late that afternoon, Usher’s post was fired on from unseen positions in the surrounding bush. Fearing that his patrol would be surrounded by a numerically superior force, Usher yelled for his men to withdraw toward Songea but when he reached the bottom of the hill

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he noticed that some of them were missing. He went back up the hill and discovered that eight of his soldiers, including a Corporal Ziloli, had fled as soon as the firing started. The rsm then returned to Songea where his men, except the corporal, were being held under arrest. The men were released with a stern warning from Tomlinson, who blamed the incident on the fact that all the soldiers were Shona, an ethnic group from Southern Rhodesia that the British saw as not very warlike, who should have been under more control during their first engagement. Ethnic stereotyping deflected blame from Usher’s lack of supervision. It was later discovered that Corporal Ziloli had been shot dead in the bush. At the same time, the intelligence officer found out from former enemy porters that the German force Lieutenant Williams had bumped into at Ngonyoke was the one commanded by Major Von Grawert; it consisted of twenty German and two hundred African soldiers with a Maxim gun.10 On 11 November, the rnr captured two German soldiers, Felix Lehmann and Siegfried Lindemann, in Songea village who admitted that they were scouting the post’s defences. Tomlinson was surprised that the enemy would be bold enough to come so close to his position.11 In addition, a party of fiftytwo carriers coming from Wiedhafen with four days’ rations was ambushed by a German patrol. The porters abandoned their loads and ran to Songea. It was clear that an enemy attack was imminent. Tomlinson sent out two fifteen-man patrols under corporals Rita and Paisha to scout the local area. Another one under Corporal Kapembwe was sent toward Wiedhafen and was able to recover some of the rations that had not been looted by the Germans. A scout who had been sent out the previous day from R.S.M. Usher’s failed patrol returned to Songea and reported that the Germans were camped about six or eight miles to the northeast. Tomlinson was tempted to send several European officers and ncos out with twenty-five men to harass this enemy post but decided against it because he thought the whites would slow down the patrol and he could not afford to risk casualties with such a small force to defend Songea.12 Tomlinson seems not to have even considered putting an African nco in charge of such a dangerous combat patrol. The Germans attacked Songea just before dawn on 12 November 1916. Fortunately for the rnr, one of the German commanders made a critical error. Two German forces were converging on Songea with the intention of linking up for a combined attack on that position. A column under Captain Falkenstein consisting of about 180 men and a Maxim gun was advancing south from Kitanda and another, made up of between two hundred and three hundred men and a Maxim under Major von Grawert, was approaching southwest along the road from Likuyu. Together, both columns would have had

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around five hundred men supported by machine-gun fire. Von Grawert had sent orders to Falkenstein that they would attack Songea together. However, Falkenstein, who was known to the British as an aggressive commander, arrived first and became impatient waiting for the other force. As a result, he launched the attack by himself at a time when the rnr soldiers, who had been sleeping in their trenches, were beginning to conduct the customary morning “stand to.” The Germans lost the element of surprise and assaulted a well-prepared defensive position with only half the intended force. The Germans began their attack from the southeast, having used dead ground to creep up fairly close to the trenches and brought heavy rifle fire to bear against the rnr positions throughout the entire morning. Luckily for the rnr, the German Maxim gun fired only a few rounds before jamming and there was nothing to replace it. A number of carriers and villagers were wounded when they attempted to run away from the Germans and into the rnr trenches. Early in the attack, Captain Wane was wounded in the shoulder while directing fire at the retiring enemy Maxim crew and Private Rupea, a drummer from the regimental band who was helping to defend the eastern part of the position, was shot dead. Seeing that some enemy soldiers had occupied a hospital building overlooking the rnr defences, Sergeant Charles Craxton, a bsap trooper from Bulawayo, and four African volunteers advanced two hundred yards in the open and set fire to the thatched roof of that structure. The signalling section at Songea struggled to assemble their heliograph under fire and managed to get off a message to their relay point on Kalinda Hill that the main position was under attack. Around noon, Von Grawert’s force arrived at Songea and immediately attacked it from the north and east, supported by sustained fire from its Maxim gun. This was too little and too late. While Von Grawert’s men put down very heavy fire on the trenches around Songea, they failed to prevent the rnr men from shooting back, which included the effective use of some rifle grenades, so the Germans were unable to advance. By evening, the enemy had failed to break through the rnr defences and the only new casualty was Private Chewa who had been wounded in the head. Over the course of the entire day, at least nine German askari and Captain Falkenstein had been killed, along with twenty askari and two Germans wounded. With ammunition running low and their attacks getting nowhere, the Germans withdrew to Unangwa Hill, which overlooked the Songea position from about two miles away, where they regrouped and buried their fallen officer. Tomlinson was pleased that his men had kept their composure under fire, obeyed the commands of their ncos and officers, and learned to conserve their ammunition and keep low in their

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trenches. He believed that the use of barbed wire, ironically left behind by the Germans, in front of the rnr trenches gave his men confidence and attributed the failure of the German attackers, who were twice the number of defenders and supported by machine guns, to “our strongly entrenched position.”13 At sunrise the next day, the Germans fired a few shots at the rnr position but appeared to do little else. Tomlinson sent out a small patrol to see what the enemy was up to and it quickly drew maxim fire from the east. Later in the morning, two local scouts slipped into the rnr position and gave reports on the strength of the German attackers and the fact that they had suffered at least three fatalities the previous day. That afternoon, enemy soldiers were observed to the north and in the nearby village which was later burned by the rnr. Early that night, around 8:15pm, the Germans attacked again but were repulsed after only fifteen minutes.14 Over the next four days, both the rnr and the Germans probed each other’s positions with a series of reconnaissance patrols. Most of the rnr patrols were led by African corporals and were made up of the best men in the regiment. These forays usually lasted only a few hours before they were spotted and fired on by one of the German positions that were now surrounding Songea. Despite these difficulties, a patrol led by Corporal Rita located a number of Germans positions and found out that the main German camp was about two miles northeast of Songea on the Luhira River. In addition, Captain MacCarthey found out from some local informants who slipped into rnr lines that Captain Falkenstein had been killed in the initial attack, and that the Germans were waiting the arrival of an artillery piece and reinforcements from Kitanda before they would attack again. Remarkably, throughout this entire period, the rnr was able to maintain heliograph communication with its supply base at Weidhafen and learned that the relief force of South African infantry would arrive shortly. Tomlinson thought it surprising that the Germans, who knew very well that the rnr had a heliograph post on nearby Kalinda Hill, did not try to knock it out.15 On Saturday 18 November, violent thunderstorms and rain began, and soon the rnr trenches were flooding. Seizing this opportunity, the Germans attacked the north side of Songea at 11:30pm but they were repulsed in just ten minutes. On Sunday, 19 November, the signalling post on Kalinda Hill sent a messenger to Songea to report that the South African infantry had landed at Weidhafen and were marching east to relieve the rnr. However, the signalling post was not heard from the following day and local informants indicated that the Germans had begun searching for it. Tomlinson then sent a runner to link up with the approaching South Africans. Fortunately, on

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Tuesday, 21 November, shortly after German Maxim fire had racked the rnr trenches, a messenger arrived from the signalling station reporting that the heliograph operators had been forced to withdraw from their hill for a day or so because of German patrol activity but had now reoccupied their position. Tomlinson was particularly impressed with the conduct of the rnr signallers, all African soldiers, who had been instructed to use their discretion and retire to Weidhafen if located by the enemy. Around the same time, a local messenger brought Tomlinson a reassuring note from Colonel Byron of the Fifth South African Infantry stating that he was on the road to Songea with three hundred men and two machine guns.16 Given the heliograph’s inability to work during cloudy weather, there were some communications problems between the South African force and the rnr as the former came within thirty miles of Songea. Corporal Rita was sent out with a patrol on 23 November to make sure the Germans were not planning to ambush the advancing relief column. He followed an enemy patrol but it eventually returned to its base camp. The South Africans arrived at Songea on the afternoon of Friday 24 November and Colonel Byron, as the senior officer present, took command of the postion. Around the same time, the rnr received intelligence reports that the Germans were gathering livestock and food stores, and press-ganging villagers into service as carriers.17 This was a sign that they were preparing to move. With Songea now defended by a much stronger force, it was possible to pursue a more aggressive strategy against the Germans. Over the course of 25 and 26 November, the rnr dispatched a number of platoon fighting patrols to make contact with the enemy. Patrols led by lieutenants Eric Bridges and Frederick Piggin, a bsap trooper from Salisbury, seized nearby Kilosa Hill forcing an enemy observation post to retire under fire. Coincidently, both these young officers would be dead within a few weeks. Captain MacCarthey and Lieutenant A.L. Lockwood, another bsap officer and former member of the Northern Rhodesia Rifles, led forty men in pursuit of the fleeing enemy and exchanged shots with another German post near the Likuyu Road to the northeast of Songea. Corporal Anlawe and his twenty-man patrol surprised a small group of five German askari who were drinking beer in a village to the south. All of the enemy were shot, three were killed, and two were wounded but managed escape. The fact that a black nco led a combat patrol of this size, a task normally given to whites, suggests that Tomlinson was beginning to look beyond racial stereotypes of Africans as unreliable leaders. Around the same time, R.S.M. Usher led twenty men north to Peramiho Mission to ambush some German askari who, according to local reports, had ordered

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some beer to be brewed there for them. Usher’s group arrived at the mission in the middle of the night and discovered four German askari sleeping there. He allowed his men to fire blindly into the huts but, while at least three of the askari were wounded, they all got away. Unfortunately, the fleeing German askari did manage to shoot an rnr soldier, Private Paruzengani, in the thigh which was a severe wound. Usher then withdrew his patrol quickly and subsequently reported that his men had killed the three askari but this was later contradicted by local informants. Tomlinson was particularly annoyed by Usher’s behaviour during this incident.18 It was obvious that the rsm, in his rush to get back to the safety of camp, had failed to complete what would have been a relatively easy attack and he had also lied about the results. These two similar patrols, with very different outcomes, should have illustrated that there was no relation between race and leadership ability but at this time such attitudes were too strongly entrenched to be openly questioned. On Monday, 27 November, the recently promoted Sergeant Rita and a reconnaissance patrol returned to Songea with a number of captured enemy carriers and officers’ servants. These prisoners stated that the bulk of the German force had been camped two miles northeast of Songea on Unangwa Hill. However, when the South Africans arrived, the Germans left a detachment of twenty to fifty men at their old camp and moved their main force to another position on the Lomeja stream about nine miles east of Songea. As a result of this intelligence, Byron sent A Company of his South African Infantry, screened by rnr scouts, to attack the German post at Unangwa Hill. When the advance elements of the company were fired on from deeply entrenched positions, Byron decided to postpone the attack and the company returned to Songea.19 Two days later, on 29 November, two companies of South African Infantry that were screened by more rnr scouts under Captain MacCarthey attacked Unangwa Hill. One company seized the hill itself while the other swept around a flank to cut off any fleeing enemy. However, the vastly outnumbered German force moved so quickly that they were not caught in the trap and managed to get away clean.20 It was clear that the siege of Songea had been lifted and that the South African/Southern Rhodesian force was going on the offensive. One of the most important features of this operation was intelligence gathering. In short, Tomlinson’s rnr seemed to know much more about the movement and strength of German units than the Germans knew about them. The rnr made extensive use of local informants and the local people appeared to go out of their way to supply information on their outgoing colonial masters. This can be explained by the history of German oppression in the area,

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for example during the Maji-Maji rebellion of 1905, but also by desperate and brutal German tactics during the First World War campaign such as pressganging supply carriers and executing community leaders who were suspected of aiding the British. There is considerable evidence that the Germans seriously underestimated the strength of the defences at Songea and the tenacity of the rnr. The German scouts who were captured the day before the attack expressed surprise at the preparedness of the position and claimed that they expected to face “newly raised askaris who would be easily overcome.”21 In early December 1916, two askari deserters from the Twelfth Field Company told the rnr intelligence officer that before the initial attack on Songea, they had been told by their officers that the position was garrisoned by only nine British and thirty African soldiers.22 Such inaccurate information may have prompted Falkenstein to make a reckless grab for personal glory by attacking early, without the necessary support. Had he waited for Von Grawert’s force, things might have turned out differently but, given the rnr trenches and wire obstacles, it still would have been a hard fight. In mid December, General Northey sent a message to Tomlinson stating that he “heartily congratulates all concerned on the splendid behavior of the Regiment both at malangali and ilembula, as well as songea. The conduct of this newly raised Regiment, put into the firing line earlier than was intended through force of circumstance, reflects the greatest credit on those responsible for their short training and on all ranks of the Regiment.”23 A few months later, the director of military operations in the war office wrote to the board of the bsac stating that “he noticed with great satisfaction the reports made by Brigadier General Northey as to the good conduct and military aptitude of all ranks of the Matabili [sic] Native Regiment, as shown in the operations at Malangali, Ilembule and Songea.” Furthermore, he was “confident that the fresh units now being raised in Southern Rhodesia, will prove equal to the original unit, and will be a valuable accession to General Northey’s forces.”24 After its first two months of combat, the rnr had proven very effective. Elements of Carbutt’s company had been engaged in fierce fighting north of the Njombe area but they held together and participated in an important operation that captured over three hundred enemy soldiers and secured a vital supply route. Under Tomlinson, one company armed only with rifles and a few rifle grenades, and operating several hundred miles from other units and higher headquarters, had managed to hold Songea against a sustained German assault. They had held an important supply base in the southern region of German East Africa and by continuing an active patrolling network, as instructed by General Northey, they gathered fairly extensive information on

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the enemy, while at the same time concealing their overall strength. The African ncos of this company proved particularly adept at leading patrols and this was reflected in the fact that many of them were promoted to sergeant at this time. The proven success of African ncos like Tanganyika and Rita, and the obvious incompetence of R.S.M. Usher, obviously demonstrated that there was no relationship between race and military leadership. As a result, Africans who demonstrated leadership skills gained more responsibility within the rnr. However, the idea of European racial superiority was so central to the colonial society and military establishment of the time that attitudes changed very slowly and in some cases, not at all.




chapter 6

The Siege of Kitanda

with the defences of songea reinforced by the south african infantry, the rnr company there was reorganized from four to three platoons and the size of Captain MacCarthey’s intelligence scout section increased to fifty soldiers. This allowed the rnr to expand its intelligencegathering activities by sending out more small reconnaissance patrols led by African ncos who questioned local villagers and tried to observe German activity. This could be a risky business as Sergeant Rita discovered when he shot a German askari sergeant and was pursued through the bush by about forty enemy soldiers. As a result of increased intelligence, however, a clearer picture of the enemy disposition began to emerge. In the first few days of December, local informants reported that the Germans had split into two groups. The main body of the German force, commanded by Lieutenant Schultz, was camped on some high ground about two miles south of the Kilwa Road at Lomeja, which was just a few miles east of Songea. An advance party of fifty askari under Major Von Grawert, a veteran of long service in East Africa, had moved a few more miles further east and was supposedly entrenched at Namabengo on the south side of the Kilwa Road. The intelligence picture became clearer on 2 December 1916 when Lieutenant Bridges’s platoon raided a lightly guarded German food depot at Samangula, a few miles north of Songea, killing one askari, wounding two others who fled, and capturing a German officer’s servant who informed his captors that Lomeja was defended by eighteen Germans and two hundred askari who 79

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had two Maxim guns. Colonel Byron, commander of the South African Infantry battalion based at Songea and the senior officer in the area, was very pleased with this discovery and praised Bridges for conducting the patrol with “skill and energy.”1 The Germans did not give up so easily and on 4 December, Sergeant Tanganyika, who was leading a reconnaissance patrol in the area of the main enemy camp at Lomeja, heard from locals that Schultz, two other Germans, and forty askari had just left there bound for Samangula. Byron later learned from other local sources that this force arrived at Samangula, press-ganged some of the residents as porters, and moved the food stores to a nearby location in the bush. Colonel Byron decided to attack the Germans at Samangula and on 7 December he led two companies of his Fifth South African Infantry, along with two Maxim sections, to that location where they discovered that the enemy had already left.2 Throughout late November and early December 1916, the German patrols gathered food and imposed a reign of terror over the villages they entered. Local people were hauled away in chains to work as supply carriers and anyone who resisted or who was suspected of having helped the British forces was summarily shot.3 On Friday 15 December, part of the second company of the rnr under Major Carbutt, which had been fighting to the north around Buhora and Malangali, arrived at Songea having marched from Wiedhafen where they had landed by boat several days before. Importantly, Carbutt’s group brought six Maxim guns with them for the rnr. For the first time, most of the battalion was working together in the field with machine-gun support.4 On 17 December, an African soldier who had deserted from the Germans surrendered to the rnr at Songea. He claimed to have run away from the main enemy force at Lomeja just two days previously and gave a very detailed report on the defences of that position including the amount and type of ammunition available. According to this deserter, Schultz’s twelfth company had five Germans and 102 askari, Von Grawert’s seventh company had seven Germans and 103 askari, and there were two Maxims in support. Furthermore, he reported that the Germans had small posts of ten men or less at Nyamabengo, Samangula, and Kitanda, all of which had food stores.5 Based on this information, which seemed believable given what was already known, Colonel Byron formulated a plan to use most of his forces to attack the enemy at Lomeja. At noon on 19 December, a large force marched out of Songea with orders to converge on Lomeja and commence an attack on the enemy position at 7:30am the next day. This was a combined force made up of both rnr com-

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panies under Major Carbutt, two more companies of South African Infantry under Major Fulton, and the rnr scout section led by Captain MacCarthey. Very early the next morning, Byron and Tomlinson went to a place of high ground from where they could observe the attack which began at 7:05am. As usual, the outnumbered Germans conducted a successful fighting withdrawal and broke contact with the attackers. The Lomeja position was captured with minimal casualties, including Lieutenant Piggin who was killed, Private Chapandukwa who was severely wounded in the groin, Private Katonga who was slightly wounded in the forearm, and Private Kobiri who was shot in the right knee. The Germans also suffered a few casualties and withdrew along the Kilwa Road to their post at Likuyu.6 Just after the attack on Lomeja, Byron was informed by higher headquarters that a large force of five enemy companies under Major Kraut was heading south from Ruhudje along the Kitanda Road. It was also rumoured that the German company which had withdrawn to Likuyu had been reinforced by a field gun and a number of European and African soldiers. Further down the Kilwa Road to the east at Tunduru, according to a captured German sergeant, there were five more enemy companies who were in radio communication with a German force at Mahenge, 155 miles to the northeast of Songea. While it is difficult to know if all these reports were accurate, it seemed there was still a threat to the rnr/South African position at Songea. In turn, further improvements were made to the defences of Songea and platoons of the rnr occupied and entrenched several nearby hill positions.7 Active patrolling continued as normal with the rnr men doing most of the reconnaissance work. Around Christmas Day 1916, the rnr scouts and a company of South African Infantry raided the German post at Kitanda and destroyed the enemy food supplies there before returning to Songea. At the end of the month, Sergeant Zuzi and twenty-five men were sent to patrol northward along the Kitanda Road where they were supposed to make their way, if possible, to see if the Germans had reoccupied it. Simultaneously, sergeants Rita and Tanganyika, who by this time had led dozens of patrols, were sent northeast with groups of scouts along the Kilwa Road to gather information on the enemy at Likuyu. A rifle platoon under Lieutenant Bridges was sent to follow Sergeant Rita in order to “damage and alarm the enemy as much as possible, endeavouring to watch their movements.”8 In the first few days of January 1917, Byron and Tomlinson led a strong force about thirty-one miles north to Gumbiro village where local spies had reported that a small German patrol was collecting food stores. A company of one hundred rnr men, which were those not involved with patrol or outpost duty,

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along with four Maxim guns, two more companies of South Africans, two medical sections, and two signalling sections marched three days and one night. Major Carbutt with the rnr company served as the advance guard, followed by Tomlinson and Major Fulton with a South African company, and lastly Byron with his staff and the second company of sai. Tomlinson described the last night of marching where the force crossed the five-foot-deep Hanga River and moved to encircle the enemy position at Gumbiro: This was a terribly trying march, the night became very dark, and to keep touch with each unit was a matter of the utmost difficulty. When halts were made everyone simply sank down where he was and snatched a few minutes sleep. The only possible way to awaken the long line of sleepers (for we were marching in single file) was for Wane and myself to go down the line and pass the word for the advance to continue to each European, who in turn awakened the askaris.9

The attack was launched at dawn on 5 January but only one German askari was killed and one was wounded. The rest, approximately three German and fifteen African soldiers, managed to slip through the bush and escape. At Gumbiro, the rnr and South Africans found that the Germans had gathered together 150 local women and made them grind the maize seized from nearby villages. Byron told Tomlinson that “he is very pleased with the conduct of the rn Regt, officers and men, who carried out their duties excellently, and took up their positions with exactitude.”10 The next day, Byron led all the South African soldiers back to Songea and gave Tomlinson orders to take the remaining elements of rnr plus the signalling sections and once and for all destroy the enemy post at Kitanda. It took another two days of marching for Tomlinson’s force to reach Kitanda only to find that the Germans there, who according to locals numbered around thirty men, had abandoned their trenches and run off with the food stores. Tomlinson then led his men back toward Songea but after two days’ march, during which time they covered thirty-seven miles, they received a dispatch from Byron telling them to remain at Kitanda. Tomlinson attempted to communicate with the Songea headquarters by heliograph but failed so then turned around and led his men back to Kitanda. At this point it became clear to Brigadier General Northey, commander of the Rhodesia Nyasaland Field Force, that the Germans were beginning a general thrust to the south in the direction of his command. This was confirmed by a captured German note instructing the columns under commanders Kraut, Langenn, and Wintgens to get their supplies from the district just north of Songea.11

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While marching back to Kitanda, Tomlinson received another message from Byron informing him that a large force of eight hundred under the German commander Kraut was supposedly heading south from the LupembeMahenge Road toward Ifinga. Byron also reported that a company of South African Infantry was marching north to link up with Tomlinson’s rnr at Kitanda and that they were to send out patrols along the Gumbiro-KitandaIfinga line to prevent the enemy from breaking through to the south or southwest. Furthermore, Tomlinson was instructed to “get into touch” with Colonel Murray who was the commander of the Southern Rhodesia Column based at Ifinga. After another two days of marching, on 13 January 1917, the rnr men reoccupied Kitanda where they arrested the headman, based on allegations that he had given information to the Germans.12 The day after the rnr reoccupied Kitanda, a low-lying village surrounded by bush-covered ridges, Tomlinson sent out numerous patrols throughout the surrounding countryside. Several platoon and half-platoon patrols were sent to investigate local reports of Germans gathering food from neighbouring villages. Only one of these made contact with the enemy. Lieutenant Baker, a thirty-seven-year-old assistant native commissioner from Fort Victoria, and half a rifle platoon had been sent to pursue a small German patrol that was reported to be east of Kitanda on the Luhira River. When Baker located the general area of the German position, which was only three or four miles from Kitanda, he broke his patrol into three sections and advanced on the enemy. Sergeant Booth’s section, while sweeping through the bush on the right flank, moved slightly ahead of the rest of the patrol and emerged from the trees to see a group of Germans and askari preparing to fire at the left flank section which did not see them. Immediately, Booth had his men open fire which enfiladed the enemy, killing one askari, and wounding two German and two African soldiers. The remaining enemy panicked and fled into the bush. The rnr patrol chased the enemy for a mile but was unable to catch them.13 The company of Fifth South African Infantry from Songea arrived at Tomlinson’s Kitanda post on 15 January 1917. At this time, numerous reports from both local informants and the wounded prisoners taken by Baker indicated there was an enemy force of seven Germans and sixty askari with two Maxim guns at Kalinga, which was just six miles from Kitanda on the old road northeast to Mahenge. It was further reported that this was just an advance party of a much larger force of three or four companies under Captain Max Wintgens, supposedly accompanied by the retired General Wahle who was in charge of German operations in this region of East Africa, which was proceeding south to Kitanda. Enemy activity around Kitanda was certainly increas-

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ing—several women collecting water for the rnr were reported to have been seized by German patrols.14 Throughout the morning and early afternoon of the following day, small rnr and German patrols stalked one another around Kitanda with a few ineffective shots being exchanged every hour or so. A large enemy force arrived in the late afternoon and fired constantly on Kitanda with a field gun and two Maxims from 4:00 until 7:00pm. During this time a bold German attack was launched from the northeast, but it turned back when the rnr Maxim guns opened fire. Tomlinson sent two dispatch runners off to Songea with news of the attack. Bursts of cannon and machine-gun fire continued off and on all night and sniper fire was a constant threat. Throughout all this, the rnr and South Africans refrained from returning fire because they were not taking any casualties and they wanted to avoid muzzle flashes giving away their position in the dark. The Germans attempted another attack at dawn but again failed to break through the defences. That day, a small detachment of six rnr soldiers ventured out from their position to drive off the German snipers who had been harassing them. This group also discovered that the main enemy force, consisting of around 150 or 200 men, was located about one thousand yards north of Kitanda and that small groups were guarding the Songea road and the stream to the south. With less than a hundred rnr men and the South African company consisting of all new recruits, Tomlinson did not feel confident in attacking the Germans.15 Over the next few days, the Germans moved their forces to more completely encircle Kitanda and harassed the defenders with cannon, machine-gun, and rifle fire from random directions. The rnr kept low in their trenches and conserved ammunition. Occasionally, they returned fire with their Maxims which tended to silence the enemy for a short time. Several platoon-sized patrols of rnr searched the bush around Kitanda trying to locate and drive off various German detachments and snipers. Once again, Lieutenant Baker and his men distinguished themselves—in one such encounter to the southeast of Kitanda they killed three German askari and captured three wounded ones. These prisoners alleged that their force was commanded by the aged General Wahle and was made up of three field companies consisting of thirty Germans, between three hundred and four hundred askari, three small guns, and twelve Maxims.16 There had been no communication with Songea or any other friendly force since just before the Germans attacked. Over the course of several days, Tomlinson had sent two different pairs of local messengers toward Songea, but he did not know if any of them had made it through enemy lines. Also, con-

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stant cloud cover fouled attempts to contact a post on Bunga Hill, a high point that could see both Kitanda and Songea, by heliograph. It was now vital that a relief force should be sent to Kitanda. Given all this, sergeants Craxton and Booth, both seconded to the rnr from the British South Africa Police, volunteered to go to Songea themselves. Tomlinson sent them off at night with a local scout and, since no shots were heard, he believed that they had gotten away safely.17 In fact, Booth and Craxton did have an encounter with a small German patrol that had been searching for the rnr signalling station on Bunga Hill. In the darkness, Booth and Craxton thought that the patrol was friendly and the Germans, who initially thought they had encountered the vanguard of a large enemy force, let them walk by, only to open fire from behind when they realized their mistake. The sergeants ran away with the daring Booth roaring with laughter.18 Periodic enemy sniping continued over the next few days but it was noticeably reduced and there was no Maxim or cannon fire. Using this lull as an opportunity to go on the offensive, Tomlinson sent a force of fifty rnr riflemen under Lieutenant A.H. Rutherford, a clerk with the native department who had fought in East Africa before with the Second Rhodesia Regiment, to sweep the bush on the ridge that overlooked Kitanda from the northeast. They would be given covering fire by another fifty soldiers from the South African company along with one Maxim gun. The purpose of this operation was two-fold: it was a reconnaissance in force and it was meant to give the porters time to collect water from the nearby stream without taking fire from the ridge. After some small skirmishes, the rnr men drove a number of Germans and askari from their sniping positions on the ridge and into the fire of the South African Maxim. The rnr patrol swept the ridge, finding evidence of scattered and abandoned enemy positions, and was fired upon from other German posts when they returned to Kitanda. While the rnr were keeping the Germans busy on the ridge, the carriers had indeed managed to bring some much-needed water back to Kitanda. That evening, a small reconnaissance patrol of six South African soldiers was sent out to scout northwest of Kitanda but after less than two hours they were driven back by a large burst of enemy rifle fire.19 By 24 January, almost ten days after the start of the siege, Tomlinson had become frustrated at having received no communication from his superior, Colonel Byron, at Songea. The only news he had received was a brief heliograph message from Bunga Hill that a supply column escorted by fifty South African riflemen, which had been on its way from Songea before the Germans attacked, was waiting at that location. Tomlinson believed that some of the eight run-

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ners he had sent over the past week must have made it, and he knew that any one of them could have been sent back with a reply to his many calls for assistance. In fact, all of the runners he had sent to Songea made it but none of them were willing to risk their lives by returning to Kitanda. Tomlinson had also sent two intelligence scouts to link up with the Southern Rhodesian Column at Ifinga but the reply from Colonel Murray, written in code, was not decipherable because the rnr had not been given the key code word for January. The following day, a messenger finally arrived from Songea with orders for Tomlinson to hold his position “as long as ever possible.” A relief force was promised from either Iringa or Likuyu, both the scene of other battles at this time, when the situation cleared.20 Sergeant Booth returned to Kitanda in the early morning hours of 26 January. He reported that he had made it to Songea and on his return had encountered the supply column that was waiting at Bunga Hill along the Songea Road just south of Kitanda. Furthermore, he volunteered to go back and lead it in under cover of darkness. This was an important development as the Kitanda force had been on half rations for a week. Unfortunately, as the sun came up, the Germans began to pour heavy small-arms and cannon fire down on the rnr and South African trenches. The enemy attacked from the southeast with such intensity and came so close to the trenches that Tomlinson ordered his men to fix bayonets. Fortunately for the rnr and sai, the German attack once again petered out before reaching its objective. That night, Booth slipped out of Kitanda once again and made for the supply column.21 Over the next few days, enemy activity seemed to decrease with only occasional sniping against the position at Kitanda. The rnr continued to send out small reconnaissance patrols, one of which was led by Sergeant Rita, and exchanged shots with the enemy. On 27 January, Tomlinson received a message from Likuyu stating that the German force there under Major Von Grawert, a total of forty Germans and two hundred askari, had surrendered. Additionally, it reported that a relief force under a Major McCarthey, an officer of the Northern Rhodesia Police who had led detached elements of the rnr in the operations around Likuyu, was on its way to Kitanda. At the end of the next afternoon, a force of twenty rnr men under Lieutenant Bridges arrived at Kitanda, stating they had been sent from McCarthey’s relief force which was just two miles east on the Likuyu Road. Tomlinson sent Bridges’s patrol back to McCarthey with instructions for him to occupy the ridge to the northeast of Kitanda the next morning and to link up with the supply convoy that was being guided in from the south by Sergeant Booth. Because this was the same ridge that Rutherford’s patrol had attacked some days before, Tomlinson knew

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that the enemy had not entrenched it. Tomlinson also sent two rnr soldiers from his force to act as guides for McCarthey.22 On Monday 29 January, Tomlinson sent out three rnr men at dawn to scout the northeast ridge and they returned reporting it was clear of the enemy. At 8:30am, a runner brought Tomlinson a message from McCarthey stating that he was in the process of occupying the ridge to the northeast of Kitanda. What the note did not say was that this mission was being carried out by a strong patrol of one hundred rnr and sai men under Lieutenant Simpson. Tomlinson had expected the entire relief force to occupy the ridge. At around 9:00am intense small-arms fire was heard from the northeastern ridge. In order to support what he believed was an all-out attack by McCarthey’s force, Tomlinson sent Captain Molloy with fifty South African Infantry and a Maxim gun to some high ground at the end of the ridge, north-northeast of Kitanda. Tomlinson was perplexed about how the enemy could hold up against an attack by what he thought was the entire relief force. With the sounds of fire on and behind the ridge continuing and no sign of McCarthey’s force, Tomlinson decided to attack the ridge from his position in order to weaken the Germans and allow the relief force to advance. At 10:45am Captain Burke, along with several other European officers and ncos, led fifty rnr men up the ridge. Coming within seventy yards of the enemy, this force suddenly came under heavy fire and was compelled to withdraw back to Kitanda. Two of their men were missing and thirteen were wounded, including Captain Burke, Lieutenant Williams, Sergeant Barter, and Sergeant Arnolt. Later that day, Tomlinson received a note from McCarthey stating that Simpson’s detachment had been badly shot up and had failed to take the ridge. In addition, Lieutenant Simpson himself had been killed in action and Lieutenant Bridges, who was also with this patrol, received a mortal wound in the leg. Tomlinson was angry that his instructions had not been followed and he sent another note to McCarthey ordering him to report to Kitanda as soon as possible. In addition to Simpson and Bridges, three rnr privates and a number of sai from that patrol had been killed, and many were wounded and taken prisoner. It was later reported by an enemy prisoner that the battle over the northeast ridge had cost the Germans one African and three European soldiers killed, and fifteen African and eight European soldiers wounded. McCarthey would later report that Simpson had been sent to scout the ridge but he had exceeded his orders by advancing too far to the north where he encountered part of the main German force. In fact, Tomlinson later discovered that Simpson had been caught in a well-prepared trap; when he advanced up the ridge, he eagerly pursued some fleeing German

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askari who led his patrol straight into the close range fire of a Maxim gun. Only Sergeant Rita, who was with Simpson’s patrol, and a few rnr men made it to the top of the ridge where they took heavy enemy fire but managed to escape down to Kitanda.23 That evening, Sergeant Booth came into Kitanda and reported that his supply column was now with McCarthey’s relief force. A few hours later he left again with Sergeant Craxton and in the early morning darkness they guided part of the supply convoy through enemy territory and into Kitanda without a shot being fired. Booth then left Kitanda again and went back to the relief force. Praising both sergeants, Tomlinson recorded in his diary that “these men have displayed splendid grit and courage and (especially Booth) they have been invaluable in their help during the critical period my force has been besieged.” The next day, which was 30 January, the Germans periodically harassed the Kitanda position with rifle, machine-gun, and cannon fire. Despite this, Booth came back to Kitanda in the morning to check information on enemy positions and once again slipped back to the relief force. Late that night, Booth guided McCarthey’s force along with the remainder of the supply carriers into Kitanda.24 The food supplies and additional men were much needed by the defenders of Kitanda, but the arrival of the relief force had done little to drive off the Germans. Tomlinson recorded that “Although Major McCarthey has managed to join up the situation has not much improved. The enemy has improved in ‘morale’ owing to our reverse with the Simpson patrol, and has again occupied positions which he began to vacate on the 27th ulto on the approach of McCarthey’s force, and is now getting reinforced by von Langen.”25 Through the first few days of February, the Germans continued to fire on the Kitanda position with rifles and machine guns. Several rnr and South African soldiers were wounded. Tomlinson tried to counter this by following up on small reconnaissance patrols with larger aggressive patrols on searchand-destroy missions. Lieutenant Baker led fifty rnr riflemen west of Kitanda where they exchanged rounds with a few German askaris. Sergeant Booth, who was with the patrol, took four men and rushed the enemy position. The askari fled and the rnr patrol discovered that they had been guarding a large but unoccupied German trench system that could accommodate up to two hundred men and several machine guns. Because this position overlooked the road to Songea, Tomlinson sent Major Carbutt with a mixed force of a hundred rnr and sai, along with one Maxim, to occupy it. There was a short skirmish with another small enemy force that had reoccupied the position but most of them ran off and five, including one German, were captured. A

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garrison of forty men and two Maxims was eventually posted at this entrenched position to deny it to the enemy and they reworked it into an all-around defence. With news from locals that the Germans were being reinforced, Tomlinson decided to make another attempt to take the ridge that dominated Kitanda to the northeast. This would be a vital position for enemy fire support in any concerted attack on Kitanda. Major McCarthey and one hundred men from both the rnr and sai were to sweep the ridge while several Maxims from Kitanda put fire down just ahead of them. McCarthey’s force drove off an enemy sentry on the east end of the ridge, but they then hesitated and returned to base. When Tomlinson asked why the attack was not continued, McCarthey claimed that the supporting machine-gun fire had not been sufficient. Tomlinson disagreed because he knew that the Maxims had expended just over two thousand rounds. From various sources, including the prisoners captured by Carbutt, Tomlinson eventually learned that Kitanda was besieged by three German Field Companies (about three hundred men), the eighth, twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth, with ten Maxims and three 37mm field guns.26 Just after dawn on 4 February, several local people arrived at Kitanda and informed the garrison that the Germans had left during the night. Various scouting patrols were sent out and confirmed that this was true. Over the next several days Tomlinson received conflicting reports about exactly where the enemy had gone but in the end he believed there was going to be a general move south on Songea by several German columns in the area. However, there was also some information that the Germans were planning to break away from the Rhodesia-Nyasaland Field Force, which had been blocking their southwest move for six weeks, and head north toward Tabora. It seemed like anything could happen. The rnr and sai searched the abandoned German main camp and found that it had been well entrenched. Tomlinson concluded that it would have been impossible for his force to attack it. Just after the siege of Kitanda was lifted, Colonel Byron sent orders for Major McCarthey to escort the enemy prisoners, a total of three German and seven African soldiers, back to his base at Songea. Byron also sent a message to Tomlinson that “congratulates the Kitanda garrison on splendid endurance and magnificent efforts of relieving force.”27 While Tomlinson was praised by his immediate superior for his defence of Kitanda, another version of events began to circulate among officers of the Rhodesia-Nyasaland Field Force. Supposedly, Tomlinson had not advanced north quickly enough from Songea to link up with the Southern Rhodesian Column, under Colonel Murray, which was fighting the Germans under Kraut

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around Ifinga. Murray believed that “Had Col Tomlinson been able to assist in the operations, his (Kraut’s) surrender was certain.” According to official Southern Rhodesia Column records, Tomlinson “allowed himself ” to get trapped at Kitanda and this enabled the Germans under Kraut to escape the area. Therefore, Kraut’s force could avoid being encircled by the Southern Rhodesian Column and eventually moved south toward the Rovuma River. In fact, Tomlinson’s orders were to occupy Kitanda and send out patrols from there in order to block enemy movements south and southwest. He was to “get into touch with Murray,” which he did, but the replies were written in a code that the rnr could not decipher and there was no further orders from Songea for most of the siege. On the other hand, Southern Rhodesian Column records praised Major McCarthey for defeating two companies of Germans at Likuyu, which was probably accurate, and for saving Tomlinson’s besieged force by driving the Germans away from Kitanda, which was completely inaccurate.28 McCarthey’s leadership at the Battle of Kitanda was overcautious and bordered on being incompetent. In attempting to relieve the garrison, he unwisely delegated a central objective, the ridge northeast of Kitanda, to a junior officer who made a critical error and lost his life in the process. In turn, McCarthey’s force had to be rescued by the very garrison it was supposed to save. Additionally, when ordered to take the same ridge a few days later, McCarthey did not make an effort at all and covered himself by making up a story that the fire support was insufficient. Despite all this, McCarthey became seen as the hero of Kitanda and Tomlinson as the fool who had to be bailed out. A number of ncos from the rnr were decorated for their part in the defence of Kitanda. Sergeant Booth, who had played a key role in several intense firefights and slipped in and out of Kitanda as if there was no siege at all, received the Distinguished Conduct Medal “For conspicuous gallantry on many occasions. He showed a splendid example of courage and good leadership, inspiring confidence in his men. He twice carried dispatches through the enemy lines.” The Military Medal was awarded to Lieutenant Baker, Booth’s platoon commander who had led two successful fighting patrols, along with Sergeant Craxton, who had accompanied Booth on his errand to Songea, and sergeants Edwards and Salima for their part in the various skirmishes around Kitanda.29 Given the racist colonial society of the time, the last decoration was particularly interesting because it was unusual, but not unheard of, for African soldiers to be recognized in such a way and Sergeant Salima was the first black member of the rnr to receive an award. A month later, Sergeant Rita, who had become a daring and expert patrol

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leader, was presented with the prestigious Distinguished Conduct Medal “for conspicuous gallantry in action on many occasions. His example and influence with his men is incalculable.”30 This was the highest decoration ever presented to a black rnr soldier.




chapter 7

Disaster at St. Moritz

at the end of the first week of february 1917, two companies of sai and one platoon of rnr from Kitanda were sent off to pursue the German force under Captain Max Wintgens which had blocked communication between Songea and Wiedhafen. The rnr intelligence officer, Lieutenant Grey, accompanied this force and would coordinate rnr reconnaissance patrols for the South Africans. Simultaneously, most of the rnr, two companies plus headquarters and support elements, marched south to Songea to garrison that key supply base and rest. At Songea, Tomlinson recorded that “All of us glad of a rest after the last strenuous six weeks. The natives are in a terrible ragged condition.”1 The rest period did not last long. The day after arriving at Songea, Tomlinson began sending detachments to assist the South Africans who were fighting the enemy along the Wiedhafen road. First, Lieutenant Baker and Sergeant Booth were sent with a platoon of twenty-five men followed by Lieutenant Rutherford with an additional fifty soldiers. These additional forces proved useful and on 15 February the Germans fled south, leaving the SongeaWiedhafen road open once again.2 During these actions, Booth ran out alone into very heavy enemy fire and pulled a seriously wounded African soldier to cover. He then rallied a number of disorganized soldiers and led them back to the firing line. For these actions, he later received the British Empire’s highest award for bravery in battle, the Victoria Cross. The citation stated that “This nco has on many previous occasions displayed the greatest bravery, coolness and resource in action, and has set a splendid example of pluck, 93

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endurance and determination.”3 News of this award was widely publicized in Southern Rhodesia and Booth was held up as an example of Rhodesia’s patriotism.4 Booth became the only soldier serving in a Southern Rhodesian unit to ever receive this legendary decoration. Around the same time, a large group of war-weary and hungry German soldiers, twelve Europeans, and sixty-nine Africans surrendered to a local rnr scout at Gumbiro village.5 With the arrival of several battalions of King’s African Rifles (kar) by lake steamer, the Germans left the area with Wintgens’s column heading north along the east side of Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) and Kraut’s force moving further south to raid villages along the Mozambican border.6 Interestingly, this division of the German forces appears to have been caused by a falling out between Wintgens and Kraut. The latter, who was the senior of the two, insisted that they both follow orders and proceed south. However, Wintgens, who was “a strong willed and difficult personality,” rejected this command and led his men north to threaten the border of Northern Rhodesia. Historian Ross Anderson points out that Wintgens was concerned about the lack of food in the south and the increasingly restricted area of operations, that many of his men wanted to return to their homes around Tabora in the north, and that he did not get along well with Von Lettow-Vorbeck, the overall German commander in East Africa.7 The campaign in the southern part of German East Africa, at least for the moment, seemed to be shifting away from the Songea area. On 20 February, Tomlinson received orders to move all the rnr from Songea to Letuhi, on the shore of Lake Nyasa near Wiedhafen, where they would be picked up by boat and transported to Mwaya on the north tip of the lake. Tomlinson’s column, which consisted of thirty-eight European officers and ncos, one hundred twenty-three African soldiers, and four Maxim guns, marched for five days to Letuhi. Tomlinson sent a telegraph message to General Northey reporting that since his battalion had several detachments on various duties around the Songea district, it would be permanently “broken up and disorganized if the various details were not to join up with me.” Northey replied that he regretted the breaking up of the unit and would have all its various detachments reunited as soon as possible. Coincidently, just after Tomlinson received that message, Lieutenant Rutherford arrived at Letuhi with 125 rnr men and two Maxims, the entire force that had been attached to the sai. Rutherford stated that he had been sent by Major Marriott, the sai officer he had been working under during the pursuit of Wintgens’s force. Tomlinson then sent a message to General Northey asking if Rutherford’s detachment should be sent back to sai headquarters at Songea but the reply stated that the regiment was to remain

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together and head for Mwaya. Upon hearing about all this, Colonel Byron, commander of the Fifth sai and Tomlinson’s immediate superior, sent a “wrathful message” to the rnr commander insisting that he should not have broken the chain of command by communicating directly with General Northey. Tomlinson thought it important to keep his battalion together as a Rhodesian “national” unit but had to work against the South African agenda of breaking it up into a number of small, specialized scouting formations. Through some manipulation of military bureaucracy, Tomlinson had brought together most of his battalion for the steamer trip to Mwaya.8 The rnr landed at Mwaya on 28 February and were placed at the disposal of Colonel Murray, commander of the Southern Rhodesia Column, who was operating against Wintgens’s column in the area of Tandala, northeast of Lake Nyasa’s northern tip. At this point Wintgens’s renegade force, consisting of around 750 men in total, shifted west and positioned itself between Lake Nyasa and Lake Rukwa. On 4 March, Colonel Murray and his staff arrived at Mwaya with five hundred supply carriers for the rnr and orders for Tomlinson. That afternoon, Tomlinson led his men north, away from the lake, and after a day and a half marching they arrived at New Langenburg, northwest of Lake Nyasa. The nrp company commander at New Langenburg, a Captain James, informed Tomlinson that a German force was operating around Malapindi which was seventeen miles beyond Rungwe on the New Utengule Road. Almost immediately, Murray arrived at New Langenburg and sent the nrp company with two rnr Maxims and one rnr company with four Maxims, under Major Addison, to secure the Igale Pass but they found nothing there. The next day, 7 March, the remainder of the rnr went forward to the Igale Pass and the nrp were withdrawn. Local informants reported that the main German force had retired from Malapindi toward Umbose, leaving behind a small detachment to gather supplies. Lieutenant Williams, with fifty rnr men and some local scouts, was sent out to destroy the enemy position at Malapindi and capture some prisoners in order to get better intelligence. Once Williams had reconnoitered the German post, he decided that it could be rushed with a slightly larger force so he then sent a message to Tomlinson asking for thirty more men. In turn, the newly promoted Lieutenant Booth and his platoon were sent to assist Williams. At dawn on 9 March, William’s eighty-man force assaulted the German position, killing two enemy askari, wounding one, and capturing another. The remainder of the enemy fled into the bush. The prisoner stated that the German force under Wintgens, consisting of five companies, fifteen Maxims, and two field guns, were camped at Old Utengule mission and intended to move far north to Tabora.9

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On 11 March, Tomlinson received orders to take the rnr west to Mbosi Mission, near the border with Northern Rhodesia, where a food cache would be waiting and where Captain James’s nrp company would come under his command. Tomlinson’s mission was to try to prevent the enemy from crossing the Songwe River, which ran parallel to the border, but if that had already happened they were to “pursue and harass” the Germans as much as possible. The rnr marched out at dawn the following day. Heavy rains began in the afternoon and Tomlinson recorded that “Road very bad after rain began, steep hills and declines making marching extremely difficult. One of the maxim tenga tenga (carriers) died from exposure and exhaustion.”10 The gruelling march, and the rain, lasted for three days. When the rnr arrived at Mbosi Mission it found that the nrp had gone off in pursuit of the Germans and that the promised food supplies were not there. Tomlinson immediately sent off messengers to find Captain James and to inform Colonel Murray, who was back east at Igale Pass, about the lack of supplies. The next morning, Tomlinson sent Major Carbutt’s company, along with some scouts, a medical section, and a signals section to occupy a prominent hill overlooking the Songwe River in order to block enemy movement across. A few hours later, a wire was received from Murray informing Tomlinson that he was to close in on Old Utengule and the rnr commander immediately left Mbosi Mission with the remainder of his force. That night, another message arrived from Murray reporting that the Germans under Wintgens were now at St. Moritz Mission, where there was a bridge that crossed the Songwe River, and ordering the rnr to proceed to that location which was further to the north. At the same time, Murray would continue to pursue the enemy northward from Old Utengule.11 With this rapid change in orders, Tomlinson’s force had to quickly march back to Mbosi where it could get onto the Bismarckburg Road that led to St. Moritz, and Carbutt’s company had to abandon its position on the Songwe River and rush to join the column. On the morning of 17 March, soon after the rnr began marching up the Bismarckburg Road, the advance platoons under lieutenants Usher and Carr, both former sergeant majors, surprised a platoon-sized enemy force which fled, leaving behind eight thousand rounds of ammunition. It had probably been a supply column. Unfortunately, as soon as the shooting began, the rnr carriers panicked, dropped their loads, and ran off—as did a herd of cattle the regiment was keeping as a supply of fresh meat. It took all day to reorganize the column and get it under way again. Shortly after this skirmish, Carbutt’s company, which was seven miles behind on the same road, also engaged a small enemy group and captured a German lieutenant named Wahle who was the son of the retired general. The same

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day, Murray sent Tomlinson a message saying he had given up on the idea of pursuing Wintgens from Old Utengule to St. Moritz. His force would now follow Tomlinson’s column on the Bismarckburg Road and make for Itaka, just southwest of St. Moritz, from where they could support the rnr and would be ready to move to St. Boniface Mission, on the Saisi River, if the enemy shifted in that direction. In reply, Tomlinson informed Murray that his column had only three days’ supply of rations.12 Tomlinson was surprised by the sudden change in Murray’s plan and understood that his orders were still “to advance on St. Moritz (Galula) and should the enemy retreat, to pursue and harass him.”13 Tomlinson continued to lead his column up the Bismarckburg Road and then turned up a bush path that led to the St. Moritz Mission. On 19 March, the column came down from the hills that surrounded the mission and received local reports that there was an enemy patrol at the nearby village of Dzanga. A platoon under Lieutenant Poole was sent to investigate. After a small skirmish, Poole and his men returned to the column with two prisoners—a slightly wounded German and an enemy askari. While the German said nothing, the askari claimed that his group had been the one chased off by advance elements of the rnr a few days previous. He also claimed that the main German force in the area was based at St. Moritz and consisted of four hundred African and fifty European soldiers with fourteen machine guns and three field pieces. That afternoon, Tomlinson assembled his entire force in the valley and moved it closer to St. Moritz, which at this point was only six miles away and could be observed from the hills.14 At dawn on Tuesday, 20 March Tomlinson led his men across country to the Itaka Road. His reason for doing this was to make it easier for Murray’s column, now located two days’ march down that road at Itaka, to come to his assistance if required.15 This meant that he was no longer approaching St. Moritz from the south but from the west. Tomlinson was not aware that Murray intended to box the Germans in, with the rnr moving in from the south and his force from Itaka to the west.16 Tomlinson also received local reports that an enemy force of unknown strength had moved down that road toward Itaka the day before.17 The rnr came out on the Itaka Road about five miles from St. Moritz. Knowing full well that the enemy was “in force at the mission,” Tomlinson decided to advance and create an entrenched position about two miles from St. Moritz.18 This would prove to be a terrible mistake. In the early afternoon, Tomlinson sent two platoon-sized patrols, one consisting of rnr men under Lieutenant Baker and one of nrp men under Sergeant Bambridge, up the right and left sides of the road, respectively, as a

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scouting force. One and a half hours later, Tomlinson followed with the main body, which was divided into an advance guard of company size under Major Addison, a support element in the middle made of the nrp company under Captain James, and Major Carbutt’s company following as a reserve/rear guard. About thirty minutes later, which was around 3:30pm, Lieutenant Baker’s patrol came under enemy fire and a few minutes after that, Addison’s advance guard, which continued to move up the road, also came under fire. The area was flat but vision was impaired by tall grass and bush. Tomlinson sent James’s nrp company with several Maxims into the fight but held Carbutt’s men back as a reserve. The firefight lasted for forty-five minutes with the Germans, who were reinforced twice during this time, attempting to flank the rnr on both sides. The right flank, which was under the most pressure, was secured by fire from two Maxim guns. On the left flank, Bambridge’s patrol managed to hold off an enemy attack. Since dusk was approaching, Tomlinson sent Carbutt, forty riflemen, and all the carriers back to the point where the column had broken out on the Itaka/St. Moritz Road. This detachment began digging trenches for the rest of the column to withdraw into and the cattle were herded down the road away from the battle. At 5:10pm, Tomlinson sent a local guide towards Itaka with a message for Colonel Murray informing him of the situation and requesting reinforcements. Around the same time, Captain Wane, the battalion’s adjutant who Tomlinson later claimed “showed great pluck” during this engagement, went up to Addison’s company and gave them the order to withdraw to the prepared trenches. As the rnr and nrp men began to retire, and with the light rapidly fading, the Germans charged out of the bush and commenced a fierce attack. Some nrp riflemen panicked and fled, leaving three rnr maxim teams to be completely overwhelmed by the enemy. One rnr soldier, Private Nderemani, had the presence of mind to destroy the bolt of his machine gun before it was captured. He managed to evade the Germans. Corporal Zakeyo and Sergeant Breeden carried their gun away and tried to hide it in the bush but were captured. As darkness fell, all the rnr and nrp men withdrew quickly to the new position down the road. However, the aide station, commanded by Surgeon-Captain Murray, had to be left behind—it was full of wounded men who could not be moved because there was only one stretcher.19 All the senior officers of the rnr, majors Addison and Carbutt, and Captain Wane, advised Tomlinson to withdraw further down the road toward Murray’s column at Itaka. At this point the rnr, which had lost half its machine guns, was vulnerable to being surrounded and annihilated by the Germans because it was only five miles from St. Moritz in fairly flat and open ground.

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Further down the road the valley gave way to hills that could be more easily defended and reinforcements from Itaka would be closer. Also, casualties had been relatively heavy. The rnr had twenty-nine African soldiers killed, wounded, or missing. Of the European officers and ncos, two sergeants had been killed, two captured, and two wounded, and Lieutenant Baker was also wounded. The nrp company had twenty African soldiers killed, wounded, or missing and their commander, Captain James, was wounded along with a European sergeant. Despite all this, Tomlinson felt he could not abandon the wounded men, the precise number of which was not known, who had been left behind at the aide station. He was worried that if his force moved back towards Itaka, it would encounter the enemy patrol said to have moved down the Itaka Road the previous day. As a result of his concerns, Tomlinson led all his men in single file just two miles down the Itaka Road to some “rising ground“ where they dug in.20 They were still in the fairly flat terrain of the valley only seven miles from St. Moritz and four miles from the German force that had driven them back. At this point another message, giving the rnr’s new location, was sent off by runner to Colonel Murray.21 Early the next morning, on 21 March, Tomlinson sent a reconnaissance patrol up the road toward St. Moritz but it was fired upon and returned quickly. It did report that Surgeon-Captain Murray and the wounded had been captured by the Germans and taken to the mission. Subsequently, Lieutenant P.E. Poole, a bsap man, was sent forward with a white flag of truce and he negotiated the return of the doctor and wounded, which happened later that day. The rest of the men continued to dig in. Around mid-morning of 22 March, the Germans launched an attack supported by Maxim and field-gun fire against the vulnerable rnr/nrp position. Enemy soldiers came within fifty yards of the trenches but were repelled. This was repeated several times throughout the next forty-eight hours, with the Germans using flares to illuminate Tomlinson’s position during the night. The defenders huddled in their trenches and their morale sunk as they took occasional casualties from Maxim and sniper fire. Lieutenant Baker, who had been wounded on 20 March but continued to fight, was shot in the back by a sniper and died a few days later. Private Mkulunyelwa Ndiweni, who was the son of an important Ndebele chief and had a pregnant wife at home, was shot dead as he peered over the edge of his trench. While Tomlinson was briefing Lieutenant Booth, a field-gun shell landed in their trench but failed to explode. Water became scarce because anyone who approached the nearby stream was immediately fired on by the Germans. It was now apparent that the Germans had established several camps surrounding the position.22 According to Tom-

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linson, his “native soldiers had been severely shaken in the action with Wintgens’s force on the 20th, and combined with this that there had been little to eat, which made them very low spirited, so that to tackle Wintgens’s highly trained hand picked askaris again by assaulting his force in their positions before and behind us would have been to court complete disaster.”23 At dusk on 24 March, the Germans launched a large attack from two directions but they were beaten back. They continued firing on the trenches with field guns and small arms all that night. On the morning of 25 March, Lieutenant Booth was called upon to repeat his daring exploits during the seige of Kitanda. Together with three rnr privates, he was sent through enemy lines towards Itaka to find Murray’s column which was expected to be on its way up the road. Small-arms and field-gun fire continued to pound the position throughout the night. Fortunately, toward the end of the next day, which was the unit’s fifth straight day under enemy fire, a flag message was observed from a nearby hill. It indicated that Booth had found Murray’s column which would relieve the rnr the next day. As promised, Murray’s force began to arrive on the morning of 27 March and Tomlinson was ordered to take his entire column six miles down the Itaka Road to Murray’s camp. Captain R.W.M Langham, an nrp officer who led the advance elements of Murray’s column, described what he saw on approaching the rnr position: “We met the rnr askari streaming back in two’s and three’s; some had lost their hats, some had lost their rifles, some their equipment, some all three articles. As stragglers arrived I sent them back to the main body for questioning and food, as they were quite without rations.”24 Seeing the arrival of the relief force, the Germans offered no resistance and withdrew immediately to St. Moritz.25 Tomlinson’s last day in command of the rnr was 27 March 1917. However, there is some confusion over the nature of his departure. The records of Murray’s Southern Rhodesian Column make it fairly clear that Murray dismissed Tomlinson: “Unfortunately Tomlinson misinterpreted his orders and brought on an action south of St Moritz with Wintgens on the 21st March in which he was badly mauled and had to retire towards Murray. Instead of taking up a position after his defeat in the hills south of St. Moritz he dug in in the plains where Wintgens had no difficulty in surrounding him.”26 Murray had blamed Tomlinson for allowing the rnr to be surrounded at Kitanda a few months before which had enabled the Germans in that area to escape. The same thing seemed to have happened again at St. Moritz, at the cost of many men and three valuable machine guns, and Murray as well as Northey probably felt they could not risk a third disaster of this type. According to Southern Rhodesian Column records, “Tomlinson was relieved on the 27th March and taken to a

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place of safety.”27 Interviewed in the early 1970s, Frank Albert Cross, who had been a platoon sergeant in the rnr at the time, suggested that Tomlinson had been dismissed because he and Murray had disagreed over the actions taken at St. Moritz.28 On the other hand, Tomlinson’s war diary and his postwar writings do not mention that he was dismissed but rather claim that just after the Battle of St. Moritz, his face began to swell because of an infected insect bite and he was invalided home to Southern Rhodesia. Even from the start of the battle, Tomlinson, though, was well aware that there would be questions about his actions at St. Moritz. His diary entry for 20 March, the day of the initial encounter with the Germans, states “I carried out my instructions to advance on St. Moritz mission Col Murray stating he would remain in support of me at ITAKA about 2 or 2½ days journey from St. Moritz.”29 Tomlinson’s diary also records a meeting he had with Murray on 28 March, the day after the arrival of the relief force, in which Tomlinson told Murray that his actions had been “controlled in accordance with his (Murray’s) instructions to me which clearly indicated that I was to attack the enemy if possible.” Murray supposedly “agrees that I did my best to carry out orders.”30 At this point Tomlinson seemed to be under the impression that he was still in command of the rnr but when Murray, whose column was pursuing the Germans from St. Moritz to St. Boniface Mission, called forth all fit men from the regiment on 30 March, Major Addison was put in charge of them. Tomlinson was ordered to remain at Murray’s base camp in charge of defences and later the same day he fell sick.31 In his postwar writing, the closest that Tomlinson came to accepting responsibility for the reverse at St. Moritz was by quoting a wartime newspaper report that described how “Colonel Tomlinson and the rnr, who had got rather too far ahead of Murray’s main body, was fiercely attacked by part of Wintgens’ force about three miles south of St. Moritz.”32 In another article, Tomlinson contradicted his war diary by stating that the first time he had met Murray after the battle was on 27 March while leading his men down the Itaka Road. Tomlinson wrote that “we had lots to talk about,” which was certainly an understatement, and he claimed that Murray told him he had sent a message to him some time before ordering him “to turn my advancing force into a reconnoitering patrol” but this message had not arrived. Tomlinson also stressed that Murray’s column had been delayed in relieving the rnr because they believed, as he had, that there was a German ambush set up somewhere along the Itaka Road.33 Historian Peter McLaughlin, who believes that “Tomlinson was set up as the scapegoat for this near disaster,” found that “the rest of the Southern Rhodesian column was incredibly lackadaisical in going to the rnr’s relief.

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A commentator who was on the spot wrote later that he had never seen such a lack of urgency as that displayed at the headquarters of the Southern Rhodesian column when it should have been hurrying to the relief of the beleaguered forces.”34 Murray was never able to give his side of the story—his health deteriorated immediately after the war, presumably because of the harsh conditions of the campaign, and he died in 1920. However, he was known by nrp officers as a commander who was extremely arrogant, having styled himself “OC Southern Rhodesia Column,” and very difficult to satisfy. Some months after the St. Moritz affair he sacked the nrp’s commanding officer for much the same reasons as he had dismissed Tomlinson. In addition, Murray was not wellliked by his subordinates because he was verbally abusive and constantly addressed them as “miserable bastards.”35 Carbutt’s diary probably comes closest to the truth of what happened after the St. Moritz debacle. It says Tomlinson was “sent for by General Northey,” which certainly meant he was in trouble, but he became “so ill, that for some time his life was in danger, and after becoming convalescent, had to go South to recuperate.”36 Tomlinson’s dismissal was certainly covered up to an extent and the official reason for his departure became illness. With obvious exaggeration, the official bsap history notes that “he served in the East African campaign until he was badly wounded. He spent four months in hospital before he returned to Rhodesia to take up his career again in the police.”37 However, it was noticeable that unlike his eventual successor, C.L. Carbutt, Tomlinson did not receive any decorations and unlike A.E. Capell, a fellow bsap officer and former commander of Second Rhodesia Regiment in East Africa, he was not promoted to full colonel at the end of the war.38 There was definitely a shadow over Tomlinson’s wartime reputation and his writings about the regiment published in the 1920s and ’30s can be seen as an attempt to rehabilitate his image. While Tomlinson did have a successful career in the bsap after the war, the legacy of St. Moritz still seemed to follow him. Upon the retirement of Cappell as police commissioner in early 1926, Tomlinson was promoted to that position but only in an acting capacity. Despite the fact that at the time he was the longestever-serving member of the bsap, Tomlinson was never confirmed at the substantive rank of commissioner and he retired eight months later. Eventually, he received some recognition when Tomlinson Depot, a police facility in Salisbury (Harare today), was named after him, and unlike many such colonial names, it was not changed after Zimbabwean independence in 1980.39 Scapegoat or not, Tomlinson certainly did make some critical errors at St. Moritz. He had reliable intelligence that there were some 450 enemy with

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several field guns and over a dozen Maxims at the mission. Despite this information, he continued to advance toward St. Moritz with only three hundred men and six Maxim guns. His intention was to create an entrenched position two miles from the mission and call upon support from Murray’s column but this was at least two days’ march away. To be fair, Murray’s rapidly changing orders were confusing and incomplete. Tomlinson’s original orders to advance on St. Moritz were never officially changed but he should have known, given Murray’s change of direction away from St. Moritz to Itaka, that they were impossible to follow without courting disaster. Tomlinson should have stopped his column in the hills overlooking St. Moritz and sent a message to Murray seeking to clarify his instructions. He could have even sent some aggressive patrols toward the mission without risking his entire force. Perhaps Tomlinson knew he had been criticized for slow action at Kitanda and wanted to take the initiative by trying to catch the Germans off guard at St. Moritz. He had the most combat experience of anyone in the rnr but cavalry actions in the open veldt of South Africa were very different than bush war in East Africa. In the end, he made the wrong decision and it cost him his command and many of his men’s lives.




chapter 8

Mpepo The Place of Winds

for the first ten days of april 1917, colonel murray, commander of the Southern Rhodesian Column, assumed temporary command of the rnr, issuing orders directly to the unit’s company commanders. On 10 April, Major Addison was sent back to Salisbury to train recruits at the regiment’s new depot and Major Carbutt was placed in command of the battalion. Carbutt, who was born in the segregationist British colony of Natal, was a career official in the Rhodesian Native Affairs Department and had explored the remote forests of Matabeleland in 1898.1 In early April, there were still fears that the Germans would move southwest to threaten Northern Rhodesia and the rnr was involved in building footbridges over the Sira and Lupa rivers so forces could move in that direction. When Carbutt took over the battalion, it had just occupied an abandoned enemy entrenchment overlooking Lake Rukwa where the Germans had left behind several rnr prisoners who had been wounded at the Battle of St. Moritz. The rnr along with units of the King’s African Rifles remained at this camp, called Iwungu, for a week, but many men became sick because it was surrounded by low swampy ground that was perfect for malarial mosquitoes. Although the unit had just received thirty-five new recruits from Southern Rhodesia, it was seriously understrength with a total of just 235 men out of the usual five hundred. In turn, Murray attached a company of nrp under a Lieutenant Burton to the rnr to make it capable of fielding three rifle companies.2

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Around the middle of April, the German force under Wintgens suddenly broke north and there was little time for Northey to shift his forces and supply routes in that direction. On the morning of 14 April, Murray’s column, including the rnr, hastily left the Iwungu camp and set out in pursuit of the Germans. First battalion kar were the advance guard, the nrp and bsap of the Southern Rhodesian Column were the main body, and the rnr constituted the rearguard with the supply carriers. Several thousand men moved in single file through swamps where the ground was covered “under anything from a few inches to two feet of water.”3 Since the rnr was at the end of a very long column, there were constant delays and it took them until 8:30pm, well after dark, to reach the fifteen miles to a new camp at Kasapi. On 16 April, the column came to the Lupa River which was so flooded that it took an entire day for First kar to cross. The rnr camped on the bank of the river where they awaited another supply convoy that arrived a week later, along with twenty-three replacements from the Salisbury depot. The pursuit was continued on 24 April when the column, still with the rnr as rearguard, took all day to cover seventeen miles of swamps and river crossings. However, when it became obvious that there were not enough rations to feed all the soldiers and carriers, the pursuit was once again delayed.4 The pursuit was continued on 29 April and through the first week of May. As usual for this operation, the rnr served as rearguard and escorted overburdened supply carriers through waist-deep swamps. After a few days and many miles, the ground became drier and the column eventually made camp at Guliliro, where the men were allowed the rare privilege of shooting some game to supplement their meagre diet of biscuits and rice. Supplies ran out very quickly because the Germans, who were well ahead of this column, were living off the land and collecting all the available food in the area. The march continued on 11 May and on 19 May, after linking up with several different supply columns, Murray’s force reached Kitunda which was over one hundred miles to the northeast of Lake Rukwa. The overall plan was now for Murray’s column coming from the south and a Belgian force advancing from the northwest to push Wintgens against a long line of British and Indian units under Brigadier W.F.S. Edwards that were extended along the Tabora/Kilimatinde railway. Murray’s column, including the rnr, left Kitunda on 24 May and marched for four days northward. However, on 28 May General Northey ordered Murray’s column, which was just a day’s march south of Tabora, to break off the chase because Wintgens’s force had slipped through the British lines east of Tabora. Carbutt recorded that his unit had marched some four hundred miles over the entire course of this operation with very scanty rations.

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Frank Albert Cross, an rnr sergeant, stated that the Europeans were eating half a tin of bully beef and an army biscuit each day while the African soldiers had to make due with a daily “mealie cob and sweet blow all.” On 15 June, the rnr, as part of Murray’s force, arrived at Rungwe, near Kitunda, for a rest period. It had taken them nineteen days to cover another three hundred and twenty miles south but at least the supply of rations was more dependable. During the pursuit of Wintgens’s force and the return journey, they had marched a total of 720 miles in two months. It is revealing that two major histories of the kar, written by H. Moyse-Bartlett and Malcolm Page respectively, do not mention that the rnr was involved in this operation. Page even states that the “chase eventually involved Indians, kar, Nigerians, South Africans and Belgians” but he leaves out the Rhodesians.5 Seemingly, the disaster at St. Moritz had cast doubt over the competence of the rnr and during this epic pursuit over half of German East Africa, they were allocated menial tasks and not given credit for their participation. However, they marched just as far as those units in the vanguard of the chase, none of which were able to catch up to the Germans.6 The Allies planned a major offensive in East Africa to begin in late June and early July 1917, which gave the ground enough time to dry out after the rainy season. The force under Colonel Murrey, including the rnr, was earmarked to secure important preliminary objectives in the direction of the major German centre at Mahenge.7 The rnr rested at Rungwe for a week, which did not seem long enough considering the amount of ground they had covered over the previous two months. On 22 June the rnr left for Mwaya on the north end of Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) and was transported by boat down the eastern shore to Ilela where they camped on the beach. General Northey and his staff arrived the same day, 24 June, and briefed Carbutt that the rnr would be moving through the familiar territory of Songea toward Kitanda where they would operate against enemy detachments in that area. Given the recent history of the rnr being trapped at Kitanda and mauled at St. Moritz, Northey warned Carbutt that “on no accounts was he to allow the Regiment to be surrounded by the enemy and held up in trenches, as had so frequently happened in the past.”8 The rnr left Ilela on 27 June 1917, marched east to Songea, and then turned northeast to Kitanda, now garrisoned by South African troops, which they reached on 5 July. This was a trek of some 140 miles. At this time there was a sizable German force at Mpepo, meaning “the place of winds,” a post north of Kitanda on the Ruhudje River, with various detachments and patrols spread out around the surrounding countryside. The Germans at Mpepo were under a Captain Aumann and consisted of two field companies totalling around

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four hundred men with six machine guns. Immediately after the rnr’s arrival at Kitanda, Carbutt was ordered to send a company after a German patrol from Mpepo that was collecting food and intelligence just twenty-five miles away. Carbutt sent out Captain Burke with an rnr company and fifty-two local scouts who were reinforced several days later by forty riflemen under Captain G.J.T. Thornton, an experienced bsap officer who had been with the Southern Rhodesia column earlier in the war, who assumed command. It took a few days to locate the German patrol, which then withdrew toward Mpepo without firing a shot. On 14 July, Carbutt was instructed to take his entire force and attack Mpepo in cooperation with two companies of nrp, under Captain Dickinson, that were also heading in that direction. The remaining elements of the rnr left Kitanda the next day and linked up with Thornton’s company, which was still pursuing the small German patrol, on 17 July. Because the terrain consisted of steep hills and dense bush, it was difficult for the rnr to move quickly. Also, the narrow paths in the area passed through steep-sided ravines that were perfect ambush positions.9 According to H.A. Cripwell, a member of the nrp operating in the same area, “the nature of the country was dreadful in the extreme with well-watered rivers and extensive swamps amidst somewhat forbidding hills covered in bush and jungle.”10 According to military historian Ross Anderson,“this move was intended to draw off any German reinforcements for Mahenge and thereby assist the Belgian advance further north from Iringa.”11 On 19 July, the rnr made camp about twenty-five miles southwest of Mpepo. Reconnaissance patrols were sent out with one led by Sergeant Rita capturing an enemy porter and another led by Sergeant Reynolds capturing a German soldier. With information from these prisoners plus local sources, it was determined that the Germans were pulling back their forces in the area to Mpepo. However, Carbutt was concerned that his supply lines were vulnerable and his messengers had not yet found the two nrp companies who were supposed to assist in the attack. On 22 July, lacking clear orders about what to do next, Carbutt moved his camp to a place called Tuturu which lay on the main footpath from Kitanda so as to better protect the unit’s supply lines. In addition, he sent a platoon-sized fighting/reconnaissance patrol under Lieutenant Rutherford, whom Carbutt described as “one of the most capable officers of the Regiment,” toward Mpepo. When this group ran into a sixty-man German patrol, Rutherford was shot through the head and died. Carbutt received a note from Colonel Murray that the nrp companies under Captain Dickinson had been held up because of lack of food supplies. The rnr was facing similar problems—by now the African soldiers were on half rations. When

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a heliograph post was established on a high hill but failed to establish communication with the nrp, Carbutt faced a different decision. He had been ordered to attack Mpepo but felt that he did not have a large enough force to defeat the Germans there who were rumoured to have a rapid-firing revolver field gun. He feared that if the rnr suffered a setback at Mpepo, they would be too far from any possible relief force and their supplies, which had to be carried 110 miles, were not getting to them. He had no wish to repeat Tomlinson’s blunder at St. Moritz. As a result, Carbutt decided to set aside his orders for the moment and postpone any attack on Mpepo before linking up with the nrp. Cripwell later claimed that “our forces were under strength for what was being attempted.”12 Over the next few days, the rnr remained camped on the path from Kitanda and sent out patrols. Local intelligence indicated that the Germans were transporting supplies from Mpepo to their main base at Mahenge to the northeast. Also, rnr scouts located a strong enemy outpost only ten miles from the unit’s camp in the direction of Mpepo. Lieutenant Booth was sent out with three platoons to reconnoitre this position and probe its defences. After a firefight in which two rnr soldiers, Private Zinsi and an unidentified man, were killed and another two wounded, Booth discovered a force of about a hundred enemy soldiers with two machine guns dug in and surrounded by very difficult terrain. He then returned to the rnr camp and reported his findings to Carbutt. Around the same time, local intelligence scouts reported that a large German force, perhaps as many as 150, had moved west of the rnr camp and Carbutt feared that they were trying to cut off his supply lines. In turn, he sent a twenty-man reconnaissance patrol to the west that returned the next day to confirm the presence of around one hundred enemy soldiers in that direction. Carbutt now received a message from Northey’s headquarters at Songea stating that Dickinson’s nrp did not have a heliograph. Carbutt was angry—he could not understand why a force would be sent on such an operation, where linking up with another detachment was vital, without the appropriate signalling equipment. Given the fact that upwards of 350 enemy soldiers were in various positions around the rnr camp and that the unit had only a half day of rations left, Carbutt decided that offensive operations were impossible. Subsequently, at the end of the month, the rnr moved out of the circle of enemy positions ten miles south to Bendera.13 This action must have been informed by Northey’s stern warning that the rnr should not allow itself to be surrounded and cut off once again. On 1 August, just as the rnr arrived at Bendera, messengers finally arrived from Dickinson’s nrp saying that they were awaiting the imminent delivery

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of boats so they could cross the Ruhudje River. These messengers also stated that the German position at Mpepo had been recently reinforced and now consisted of 360 riflemen, six machine guns, and the revolver cannon. This information was confirmed by local intelligence gathered by rnr scouts. The sudden German aggression in the area now made sense. Three days later, a much-anticipated supply column arrived bringing six days’ worth of rations. While the rnr once again prepared to advance, Carbutt sent a message to Northey pointing out that his freedom of action was hampered by logistical problems and the rnr’s quartermaster was dispatched back to Songea to try to improve the organization of the supply columns.14 On 5 August 1917, the rnr marched north toward its former camp at Tuturu. About two miles from the old base, the scout elements of the battalion were fired on by an enemy patrol. Leaving one platoon to guard the baggage, Carbutt immediately moved the rest of the unit forward. Two platoons were sent to sweep along a ridge to the right and another two platoons swept toward the enemy on the left. Another two platoons were kept in reserve while another one was sent to occupy a prominent hill five hundred yards away on the left flank. The German patrol eventually broke contact and moved to that hill but was driven back into the bush and fled. The platoons sweeping right and left searched for the enemy until well after dark but returned to camp with little information, save suspicion of a German observation post on the Pitu River to the west. Early the next morning, Carbutt sent out two strong patrols with orders to find enemy positions in the area and drive them off. These patrols spent all day skirmishing with various small enemy groups that would fire a few shots and withdraw. One of the patrols under Lieutenant Booth managed to locate and overwhelm an enemy observation post which resulted in the capture of a German askari who stated that he belonged to a blocking force of some sixty men that had been sent from Mpepo.15 On 7 August, the rnr, which consisted of three hundred men with four machine guns, was reinforced by a full nrp company with two Maxims, four Lewis guns—a newly designed, portable light machine gun—and plenty of food supplies under Colonel C.H. Fair who was the overall nrp commander. This nrp company had crossed the Ruhudje River at night in dugout canoes the soldiers had made themselves. Nearly five hundred strong, this combined force was much more capable of dealing with the Germans around Mpepo and could post guards at various points along the supply line. Fair took command but agreed to continue with the established plan of attack on Mpepo. The next day, the rnr under Carbutt moved toward the Ruhudje River to try to

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meet up with Dickinson’s nrp while Fair’s company remained at Tuturu to secure incoming supplies and keep the enemy busy in that area.16 After several days of marching cross-country through grass eight or nine feet tall, the rnr arrived at the Ruhudje River which was eighty yards wide, very deep, and infested with crocodiles. Since the Germans had previously removed all the local people’s canoes from the river, it was difficult for the rnr to get across. Several local messengers were sent in search of Dickinson’s nrp. A heliograph message from Fair stated that the Germans in the Tuturu area had been reinforced and the fighting there was continuing. Concerned that the tall grass around the river obscured his men’s view, Carbutt moved the rnr to a hill two miles from the river bank and made camp. Later the same day, one of the local messengers returned having found Dickinson’s force which had just crossed the Ruhudje River. Carbutt sent the man back with instructions for Dickinson’s nrp to move along the bank of the Ruhudje towards the rnr position.17 Local reports indicated that the Germans at Mpepo had moved a short distance west of that location so Carbutt sent a ten-man patrol to confirm this. Dickinson sent another message to the rnr stating that he could not move toward them as the enemy had set up a position in that direction but that he could cooperate in an attack on it. Carbutt sent scouts to locate and reconnoitre this new German post that was located on a hill near the bank of the Kitatu River and surrounded by open ground. The next day, 13 August, Carbutt sent one of his companies to establish an entrenched position, where baggage could be secured, about a mile from the enemy position. Simultaneously, another company was sent to engage the Germans who responded with fire from a small field gun. This rnr company managed to drive back a few enemy sentries and occupied some high ground from where machine guns could support a larger attack. While all this was happening, a note was sent to Dickinson telling him to cooperate in an attack that was to start the next day at 10:00am, but his reply stated that he could not comply because the Kitatu River, which separated him from the Germans, was flooded and would be difficult to cross. Carbutt was puzzled by this sudden change in Dickinson’s situation but decided to continue with the attack. The next morning all the rnr men, less one platoon left to defend the supplies, assaulted the German position but found that the main enemy force had withdrawn during the night, leaving behind a small party who, by periodic firing, gave the appearance that the trenches were still occupied. As the rnr advanced, these men fled into the bush. Such actions were typical of the German East Africa campaign. The Germans had abandoned ninety-three rounds for their field gun.18

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Dickinson’s two nrp companies finally arrived at the abandoned German position, now occupied by the rnr, the afternoon after the attack. From a nearby hill, Carbutt discovered that he could observe the position of the main enemy force at Mpepo which consisted of trenches dug into a long, low ridge that had been cleared of bush on all sides. Around sunset that evening, a cloud of smoke from the firing of German rifles was seen near the Mpepo position and Carbutt believed that the small patrol he had sent in that direction must have been engaged by the enemy. Two rnr companies were sent out immediately to support the patrol but returned quickly when they met the patrol returning to camp. It turned out that the ten-man patrol had run into a much larger German force with machine guns headed toward the rnr position. The rnr men had surprised the enemy by firing at them, killing two German askari, and then ran away. The Germans, who could not see the size of the rnr patrol because it was getting dark, responded by shooting wildly into the bush and then withdrew back towards Mpepo. The Germans probably believed that they had run into a large force coming to attack their main position.19 At dawn, on 17 August, the rnr and nrp, four companies in total, began an advance on Mpepo from the south and east. Small German patrols tried to cut off the rnr/nrp supply line but they were driven off. The German defences at Mpepo consisted of a number of platoon- and company-sized entrenched positions surrounding a main stronghold on the top of the long, low ridge. Getting closer to the enemy trenches, number one company of the rnr took the advance position and seized some high ground by driving off enemy sentries. This high ground was occupied by the rnr/nrp main body which set up machine guns to provide support fire. Number one company continued to push forward but was held up by an enemy outpost. A company of nrp men was sent forth from the main body and outflanked this position. This allowed the rnr company to continue forward under cover from machine guns and capture the west side of a large German position. The enemy abandoned their trenches and pulled back as soon as the rnr men approached. That afternoon, as the attack was developing, Colonel Fair arrived with his company of nrp. There were now five companies attacking the German position. Around the same time, the rest of the rnr occupied the trenches that number one company had captured that morning and Dickinson’s two nrp companies skirmished toward the east end of the German position and captured it. The lack of serious German resistance was surprising. It turned out that the enemy had pulled back to another position eight hundred yards behind their old one and were digging in. Also, there was a large shallow water pan between them

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and the rnr/nrp force. Late that afternoon, Lieutenant Booth was sent out with two rnr platoons to “turn the enemy out of this position.” He was ordered to flank the enemy from the east and attack through thick bush. However, Booth did not move far enough to the east and ended up attacking over a completely open piece of ground. A number of his men were wounded, including Corporal Dengezana whom Carbutt considered “a very reliable type of Matabele soldier,” and they had to retreat. The next morning Captain Burke was sent out with four platoons to take the same enemy outpost but found that the Germans had abandoned it during the night. The rnr and nrp now advanced up the long, low ridge toward the main German entrenchments that were surrounded by thorn bush obstacles, covered pits with sharpened stakes sticking up at the bottom, and between four hundred and two thousand yards of cleared fields of fire. The Germans now poured a heavy volume of fire down on their attackers. By the end of the day, the rnr and nrp were unable to advance any further and had to dig in on the edge of the cleared ground. During the night Carbutt rotated two of the advance rnr platoons with two that had been held in reserve. It should be noted that at this time the rnr could field only six platoons for the attack because one was guarding the supply column and another was still on garrison duty at Kitanda.20 The next morning, under cover of dense fog, the attack on the main enemy position was resumed but the Germans clung tenaciously to their trenches and the rnr and nrp could make no headway. Among the rnr, Lieutenant Williams was severely wounded and died the next day, privates Kobiri and Chibwana were killed, and Lieutenant Carr along with eight privates were wounded. Sergeant Ronald Northcote, a policeman from Bulawayo,“displayed great coolness and courage and brought in a wounded askari under fire from enemy trenches.” He was later awarded the Military Medal for this act.21 Since the expected supply column had not yet arrived, the rnr and nrp were running low on ammunition. Colonel Fair tried to bluff the Germans by sending an officer forward with a white flag and asking for their surrender which was “curtly declined” with a “sarcastic reference” to the disorganized positions of the various rnr and nrp units.22 The rnr dug in an advanced position about two hundred yards from the Germans and moved its reserve camp up to about five hundred yards from the enemy. Over the next few days and nights the rnr/nrp and the Germans sniped at each other and occasionally exchanged bursts of machine gun fire. A lone British airplane, a rare sight in this campaign, made daily bombing runs on the German trenches. On the evening of 22 August and the morning of 23 August, the Germans ventured out of their trenches and attacked the nrp positions but were beaten back. It seemed as if

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the rnr/nrp attack had stalled and the Germans were beginning to go on the counter-offensive.23 With the situation deteriorating, Colonel Fair presented a plan to his senior officers to split their force into numerous small detachments and surround the enemy position. Carbutt strongly objected to this as he thought the small parties would be vulnerable and the German supply route to the north would still be left open. The rnr commander believed that the key to taking the position was cutting off regular food supplies that the Germans had been receiving from their main base at Mahenge. Fair, who was under intense pressure from Colonel Murray “to clear Aumann out of Mpepo or destroy him,” backed down on his original plan but insisted on trying to capture the position with a night attack. This did not materialize because on two consecutive nights the nrp became lost in the darkness and failed to find the rnr camp from where the attack was supposed to be launched. During the second attempt to organize a night attack, a hail of fire from the German trenches claimed the life of one rnr soldier, Private Ntubane, and wounded another three. Fair was “wrath and showed it” and ordered his men to turn in all unnecessary clothing and rations which, he promised, they would get back when the Germans were defeated. This would prove to be a critical error. Also, Fair finally accepted Carbutt’s recommendation and sent a company and a half of nrp to capture a German outpost some two thousand yards to the northeast that was protecting the enemy supply lines. The nrp were successful and fought off a number of desperate German counterattacks, including a “well-drilled charge with the bayonet,” aimed at retaking this important position. At the same time, the rnr tried to distract the Germans by sniping at their main trenches and launching a feint attack.24 The situation now appeared to be turning against the Germans. On 27 August, a platoon of rnr that had been sent back along the supply lines for ammunition arrived with their precious cargo. It now became obvious that the Germans were planning a withdrawal as they moved an entire company from their main position to the Kasanga-Mahenge road two thousand yards north. Fair then ordered an all-out assault to be made before the enemy got away. On the morning of 28 August, all of the rnr and part of the nrp attacked the main German trenches and discovered that most of the German force had pulled out the previous night. A few enemy soldiers who had been left behind to give the appearance that the position was still occupied were driven into the bush. After ten days of fighting, the rnr/nrp force had finally taken the German trenches. Another part of the nrp was sent to attack the German company that had moved north but found that they had also retired under cover

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of darkness. During the fighting at Mpepo, the Germans had three European and ninety-two African soldiers killed or captured.25 That afternoon, Fair, who was extremely angry that Aumann’s force had escaped, instructed Carbutt to take one rnr company and three nrp companies and pursue the Germans who were believed to be moving north along the Kasanga road toward Mahenge. Unfortunately, because of Fair’s insistence that his men turn in superfluous equipment, the nrp soldiers were not carrying any rations and the pursuit could not begin until dawn the next day. Only a few hours after marching off, Carbutt’s force reached some high ground near the Itete River and observed some dug-in German positions on a rise about two hundred yards across an open valley. Initially, Carbutt believed this was a small rearguard force meant to delay his pursuit, so he sent the two nrp companies to conduct a quick right-flanking attack through the bush on the west side of the enemy. As the nrp were approaching their objective, however, the nrp men left behind captured several enemy sentries who claimed that the German position was not just a rearguard but the main force from Mpepo. Carbutt then sent a runner to call back the two nrp companies who abandoned their attack and retired just in time. On further investigation, it was observed that the main force from Mpepo had occupied an entrenched position that had been built weeks or months before. Carbutt revised his plan and decided to surround and pin down the enemy. That afternoon, two and a half companies of nrp were sent around to the west to approach the enemy through the bush and tall grass. At the same time, the rnr company was sent around through the bush on the east. Both groups had been instructed to make contact with the enemy and dig in. Half a company of nrp remained with the supply carriers. By mid-afternoon, the rnr company under Captain Burke had driven in some enemy sentries and by sunset both the rnr and nrp were digging in on either side of the enemy position.26 The next morning, 30 August, the rnr company attacked the German trenches but while crossing an open glade they were repelled by superior rifle fire. Privates Dafidi and Nyatsi were killed, and several other men were seriously wounded. Lieutenant Booth, certainly the star of the regiment who had won his vc by saving the life of an African soldier, was shot in the thigh and trapped close to the enemy trenches. Corporal Nsuga, who was slightly wounded himself, stayed with Booth and protected him until Medical Sergeant Sims ran to their position and bandaged the lieutenant’s leg so he would not bleed to death. Nsuga and Sims, under fire, then carried Booth to safety. Nsuga later received a Military Medal for “conspicuous gallantry in action.”27

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With the collapse of the rnr advance, the Germans concentrated their fire and counterattacks on the nrp companies to the west which they believed to be just a small fighting patrol. Taking victory for granted, Aumann failed to place any units on the high ground that would have completely dominated the nrp position. According to Cripwell, the subsequent “fight was one of the fiercest in the experience of the nrp” with thirty-six of their men and ninetyfour of the enemy killed or wounded. The nrp buried some sixty-seven dead German askari the next day.28 Another former nrp officer thought that if the rnr had continued its assault, which he seems not to have known would have been suicidal, the entire German force might have been routed and destroyed: To this day we cannot understand why the Rhodesia Native Regiment did not charge. It was a glorious opportunity lost. We know it was not for want of courage or dash. Some order or other had gone wrong, and instead the “Rhod. Nats.” withdrew.…The Germans, no longer being worried by the Rhodesia Native Regiment, devoted all their attention to us. They attacked from all sides, with machine guns and rifles, coming within 40 yards of our rifle pits, but they could get no further.…What a carnage! A German company had been wiped out with light casualties to ourselves.29

As a result, with about 30 per cent of their force out of action, the Germans once again withdrew during the night and were not discovered to be missing until dawn.30 Throughout the first week of September, Carbutt and his combined rnr and nrp force continued to march northeast in pursuit of the Germans who seemed to be heading for Mahenge. The enemy made a brief stand on some high ground near Malinji but withdrew just before Carbutt’s men were able to mount an attack on that position. Shortly after that, on 9 September, Carbutt received orders from General Northey, through Colonel Fair, to round up all the rnr elements and return to Kitanda which was ninety miles south. After gathering supplies, the rnr completed the march in four days. A telegram from Northey then ordered the regiment to move south to Songea which was another fifty-six miles away. The rnr reached Songea on 19 September and were immediately paraded before Northey, who decorated sergeants Rita and Salima with the Distinguished Conduct Medal and Military Medal, respectively, and praised the regiment’s performance in clearing the Songea and Mpepo areas. Behind the scenes, Colonel Murray blamed Colonel Fair for mishandling the attack on Mpepo, which allowed the Germans there to escape, and for delaying the subsequent pursuit. In late October, Murray dismissed Fair as commander of the nrp and sent him back to Northern Rhodesia.31 In his history of the East Africa campaign, however, Anderson notes that during the

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pursuit of Aumann’s command, “the Germans suffered heavily, with nearly a third of their force as casualties. By the end of the month, Norforce had inflicted significant losses on the Westtruppen, with twenty-two Germans and 241 Askaris being confirmed casualties and three guns taken. August had brought success at relatively low cost.”32 The new offensive was off to a good start and the Belgians captured the important centre of Mahenge on 9 October.33 The Battle of Mpepo was the first major offensive operation undertaken by the rnr as a full battalion. Proving to be a more flexible battlefield commander than his predecessor, Carbutt reinterpreted orders based on the realities of the ground and the fast-changing situations he encountered. The rnr did not repeat its past mistakes and performed as well as could be expected during the engagement. In fact, the rnr and nrp had very little chance of trapping the Germans at Mpepo. While the combined strength of the rnr and nrp was around seven hundred men, this was not enough to tackle four hundred enemy troops with support weapons in a very well-prepared defensive position. Aside from one aerial bombing run each day, the attackers lacked artillery support and mortars had not yet been issued to those units. With only five companies, it was impossible for the rnr and nrp to completely surround the Germans and starve them out. The best they could do, albeit fairly late in the battle because of Fair’s prevarication, was to cut off the enemy supply line and force them to break out through one of the numerous gaps in the attackers’ lines. The delay in pursuing Aumann’s force because nrp troops had been ordered to turn in their rations was a major blunder that should never have happened. By this point in the campaign, Fair should have known that the Germans would eventually run and that his men would have to pursue them on a moment’s notice. This error gave the Germans time to pull back and regroup at a previously constructed defensive position. Had Carbutt been able to get right on the heels of the withdrawing enemy, then the fight near the Itete River would not have been so difficult and Aumann’s force might well have been completely routed instead of once again being able to escape. The Germans, however, made their own critical mistake at Itete by launching an ill-conceived counterattack, with no support fire, against a strong force of nrp which cost them dearly in the lives of soldiers that they could not replace. As an nrp veteran wrote after the war, Mpepo meant “the place of winds— windy corner, if you like—for such it turned out to be both for the Germans and the Rhodesian forces during the actions at that spot.”34




chapter 9

Portuguese East Africa

late september 1917 was a transitional period for the rhodesia native Regiment. Casualties and illness had taken their toll. During the preceding months, seven European and twenty-three African soldiers had been killed, and fifteen European and eighty-eight African soldiers had been wounded. This meant that 50 per cent of the Europeans, all officers and ncos, and 25 per cent of the Africans were out of action.1 Carbutt worried that “some of the platoons were so depleted in officers and men, that unless strong drafts arrived, they would no longer be able to maintain themselves as separate units, but would have to be amalgamated with others.”2 Shortly after the rnr arrived in Songea following the Mpepo operation, General Northey directed them to send a company north to the St. Moritz area to deal with remnants of Wintgens’s force, about fifty men, who were still active in that area. Selecting the fittest soldiers, Carbutt reorganized his unit into one full-strength company of 160 men with a complete complement of officers and ncos under Captain Wane. Only a few dozen of the remaining men were not included in this company, with some being sent to Northern Rhodesia for garrison duty and twenty remaining at Songea for training in the newly issued Lewis Gun, a light machine gun that could be carried by one man. At the end of the month, two full companies of new recruits arrived at Songea direct from the regiment’s depot in Salisbury. Training of the new soldiers continued throughout the next two months with regular target practice and live fire exercises. General Northey himself supervised some of the field training. There were some problems with disci119

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pline—Carbutt complained that “a good deal of trouble was experienced with the new askari at this time, as they seemed to think that they were in an enemy country, and that the local natives were a fair mark to be robbed, and ill treated in all sorts of ways.”3 Around this time Sergeant Rita, one of the most skilled ncos in the regiment and the only African in the unit to hold the Distinguished Conduct Medal, died from unspecified “natural causes.”4 Given the nature of the campaign, the loss of such an accomplished patrol leader certainly represented a serious setback for rnr operations, yet the dearth of information about his passing in the official record indicates a basic degree of indifference on the part of white officers. At the end of November, Carbutt’s reorganized unit, including the veteran company that had returned from St. Moritz, was ready for operations and was ordered to move east to Nyamtumbo where they were employed building a new road to move supplies toward Tunduru. At the same time, a new second battalion of the rnr, under Major S.N.G. Jackson, a senior native department official, landed at Mbamba Bay on the eastern shore of Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi). Many of these men were recruited directly from the mines of Southern Rhodesia and a large percentage of them were migrant workers from Nyasaland, Mozambique, and Northern Rhodesia.5 They had left Salisbury train station a few weeks earlier amid a great public gathering and cheers of “Rhodesia will have every reason to be proud of the Native Regiment!”6 Just after the new second battalion had left Southern Rhodesia, the wounded Lieutenant Booth VC arrived back in Salisbury to recuperate. Immediately, he became a focal point for displays of patriotism. A large crowd, including dignitaries such as the chief native commissioner, mayor, and commandant-general, met him at the railway station. He was carried to the police camp on the shoulders of rnr and bsap ncos who were led by the rnr band. A newspaper reported that “Indeed the welcome offered to Lt. Booth was the most spontaneous and loyal that has ever been afforded any returning Rhodesian…He has won great honour for himself, his old regiment, and for the country generally.”7 By contrast, Corporal Nsuga, the African soldier who saved Booth’s life, while decorated with the mm, was not given any public recognition besides a short newspaper article.8 In November, just before Booth left Southern Rhodesia to join the Middlesex Regiment in England, he was presented with the Distinguished Conduct Medal for “conspicuous gallantry” in carrying messages through enemy lines. At the ceremony, the colony’s acting administrator, F.J. Newton, gave a presentation that highlighted the role Rhodesian officers such as Colonel Murray of the bsap had played in the East African campaign. The rnr, specifically, was not mentioned.9 The fact that

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Booth left the colony to serve in an imperial British regiment once he became a Rhodesian national hero suggests that the rnr was seen as a unit of inferior status and not an appropriate home for a winner of the legendary Victoria Cross.10 Around the same time, General Northey, the British commander of the Rhodesia-Nyasaland Field Force, recommended that a number of Africans in the rnr, sergeants Rita and Salima, Corporal Dada and privates Chindingo and Mgwagwa, be mentioned in dispatches “for splendid work this past year.”11 At this point, very late 1917, the only German force left in the field was the main one of two thousand men under von Lettow-Vorbeck. While the German commander had always understood that he could never defeat the Allies in East Africa, his main objective had been to create a distraction in order to divert as many Allied resources as possible from the European theatre of the conflict. Von Lettow-Vorbeck now embarked on a bold final plan. Abandoning dependence on supply lines in order to move faster, his column marched south into Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique) where they survived by raiding the civilian population and Portuguese military posts. Portugal had entered the war in 1915, primarily to acquire additional African territory at the expense of Germany, but it was now distracted by a major African uprising in parts of Mozambique that had been caused by conscription of labour, seizure of food, and general colonial oppression.12 In the middle of December 1917, the first battalion rnr marched to a new camp near Mbamba Bay close to the location of the new second battalion. Together with the nrp, these units patrolled the Rovuma River area in order to block von Lettow’s movement north back into that part of German East Africa. Simultaneously, a training regime of target practice, field firing, field exercises, and route marches continued during a period of very heavy rain. In late January 1918, Colonel Murray, who was on his way back to Southern Rhodesia because of ill health, ordered that the two rnr battalions, each five hundred strong, were to be combined into one large battalion. The bsap service company, which had been the core of the Southern Rhodesia Column, was broken up and its remaining men were portioned out to the rnr and nrp as machine gunners. Carbutt was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and given command of the new battalion while Major Jackson, the former second rnr commander, would serve as his deputy. Two Native Affairs Department bureaucrats were now running a double-sized battalion of African soldiers. During the first week of February the former first battalion moved to Mbamba Bay where the amalgamation took place and one thousand new porters were recruited from surrounding villages. The rnr was now a strong force made up of 35 European officers, 95 European ncos, 978 African soldiers, and 2,470

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local supply carriers. This was a far cry from the skeleton crew that had pursued the Germans hundreds of miles north to Tabora and fought the frustrating Battle of Mpepo. However, most of the men were new recruits who had not seen combat. Experienced African sergeants, veterans of the previous year’s fighting, were attached to each new platoon. In the middle of February, the much-enlarged rnr marched for eight days south down the lakeshore into Portuguese East Africa where it formed a brigade with the second battalion of the Cape Corps, a unit of mixed-race soldiers from South Africa, and two companies of Portuguese African soldiers at Mtengula.13 At this time, the main German base was located at Nanungu in the central part of northern Mozambique. On the shore of Lake Nyasa, the rnr and Cape Corps at Mtengula as well as a kar battalion at Namwera, were 280 miles away with mountainous territory and no roads between them and the enemy. South African and British forces, under Major-General J.L. Van Deventer, had landed on Mozambique’s Indian Ocean coast and were advancing inland in order to trap the Germans. Supply problems associated with the lack of roads kept the rnr based at Mtengula for the next few weeks. Typhoid became a problem in this area but only European soldiers were inoculated against it. In late February, the brigade commander, South African Colonel Clayton, was sent home because of illness and Carbutt was appointed as his replacement. Carbutt moved the brigade headquarters east away from the lake to Mwembe since it was the most advanced position from where wireless communication could be maintained with Northey and other Allied units. Major Jackson then took over the rnr which had just become the first unit in the area to be issued with a number of new Stokes Mortars.14 (A mortar is simple tube-like launcher that throws an explosive round toward a target at an extremely high trajectory.) This was an important development because the rnr had never benefited from artillery support. As soon as Jackson took command, discipline problems emerged within the new rnr battalion. In early April 1918, there was a serious disturbance, perhaps a near mutiny, in the regiment. The causes and details of the incident are not clear but it was recorded in regimental orders that on 6 April, fortysix rnr privates, mostly former mine workers from across the region, were convicted of “conduct to the prejudice” and fined ten shillings each. Corporal Shambiri was convicted of the same offence and fined twenty shillings, and Corporal Chirwa was convicted of “insolence to a superior officer” and fined five shillings. All of the privates convicted on this day, except one, were new recruits which might suggest that they had problems adjusting to military life.15 Several months earlier, Carbutt had complained about the lack of dis-

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cipline among his replacement troops. However, this was a particularly unusual number of men to be convicted of the same offence on the same day. It should be remembered, though, that these were fairly light punishments considering that around the same time Private Yakoti fell asleep while on sentry and was given four months’ imprisonment with hard labour and twelve lashes, and several soldiers convicted of theft were subjected to Field Punishment Number One, being tied to a post or wagon wheel, for up to twenty-one days.16 Most records are silent on this incident, including Carbutt’s diary which mentions many less-important details. Decades later, Frank Hulley, who had arrived with the short-lived second battalion rnr as a second lieutenant, wrote in a letter that there had been a “strike” or a “row” and that “Lieutenant H.L. Jones” (or more likely A.L. Jones, a forty-five-year-old-native commissioner from Matabeleland) had sided with the men and was subsequently sent off to work as an intelligence officer for the kar.17 It is tempting to speculate that the spread of typhoid through the camp and the exclusive inoculation of Europeans had something to do with this mysterious disturbance. It is more likely that as the regiment was stuck at Mtengula for around six weeks, all of March and part of April 1918, the men became bored and restless. What does seem certain is that Carbutt and Jackson did their best to downplay a serious incident because it would be seen as reflecting poorly on their leadership. In the middle of April, Carbutt gave orders for the rnr to send two companies east toward the German-occupied area where they would replace two companies of Cape Corps that were suffering heavily from tropical disease and were difficult to supply as they had to be issued with the much heavier “European” rations. It should be noted that in this area, given the extremely long supply lines, it took twelve thousand porters to maintain just two companies in the forward positions. On 18 April, Captain Thornton led B and C companies rnr together with Maxim gun, Lewis gun, and medical sections on a six-day, 180-mile march to Mwembe. From there, they marched another three days to Mtarika which they reached on 27 April and reinforced Cape Corps companies in that area. Carbutt, still the brigade commander, then called up the rest of the rnr. Jackson left Mtengula with his headquarters and the two remaining rifle companies on 7 May and arrived at Mtarika on the seventeenth. At Mtarika, as the Cape Corps was gradually pulled back to the lake, the rnr men conducted patrols towards the main enemy position at Nanungu and escorted supply columns to protect them from enemy raiding parties.18 With Allied forces closing in on Nanungu from all directions and after suffering a defeat at the hands of the kar at Korewa, Von Lettow-Vorbeck abandoned that position in late May 1918 and led his column south toward the

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more populous part of Portuguese East Africa where he could seize fresh supplies and carriers.19 At this time, C Company of the rnr under Captain H. Bugler, the rnr mortar section, and a company of Cape Corps were pushing east toward Nanungu and had joined up with 3/1 battalion kar under Colonel A.H.D. Griffiths that had moved up from the southwest. This composite force was temporarily brigaded together and would break free of supply lines, living off the land in order to more effectively pursue the Germans who were doing the same thing. On the morning of 22 May, not far from Nanungu at Mwamba Hill, this mixed force, with the rnr company in the lead, suddenly made contact with the main German column, captured its baggage train, and dug in a circular position to await the inevitable counterattack. Maxims, Lewis guns, and mortars bolstered the defence. In fact, since this composite force had popped out of the bush near the middle of the German column, it was now nearly surrounded because the main body of German soldiers was on its right and the enemy rearguard was on its left. At noon, the Germans, who desperately needed to recapture their supplies, began to fire at the Allied position but with the thick bush, it was difficult to see any targets. In turn, Lieutenant Douglas Blin’s rnr platoon was sent forward of the Cape Corps rifle pits to “test the strength of the enemy.” They advanced five hundred yards but then came under heavy fire and had to retire. At 3:00pm the Germans launched a concerted attack, the main thrust of which was directed at the Cape Corps company. By dusk, however, the Allied position was still intact. That night, a small skirmish took place when a section of the enemy rearguard stumbled into the rnr position while trying to link up with the German main body. That day, five rnr privates were killed, though their names were not recorded, and another twelve were wounded. The next morning it was obvious that the Germans had fled and were continuing south. However, Colonel Griffiths decided not to pursue the enemy as the Cape Corps company was down to only one effective platoon, and African soldiers of the rnr and kar had been on less than half rations for some time. Later that day another kar column arrived and took up the chase. In this fight, the rnr company captured thirty-nine boxes of rifle ammunition, two cases of field gun shells, 150 rifles, one three-pounder field gun, 256 porters, and all the baggage for four enemy companies. This was a major blow to Von Lettow-Vorbeck. According to Carbutt, the rnr men “were congratulated for their steadiness in this action, and the Stokes gun detachment for the good work it put in.”20 It is unusual that this incident was never mentioned in Moyse-Bartlett’s official kar history which contains a very detailed account of the East Africa campaign. Anderson’s recent history of the Great War in East Africa discusses

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this engagement and the capture of the baggage train but does not mention the rnr at all. According to Anderson, “The two-day battle cost both sides heavily, but especially the Germans. They had suffered heavy casualties, losing over 100 troops and 300 carriers. Four companies were effectively destroyed.”21 An rnr company was central to this achievement but its role has been forgotten. Around this time, late May and early June 1918, the two-year period of service of the first five hundred rnr volunteers expired and most of those not already discharged because of wounds or illness opted for demobilization and went back to Southern Rhodesia. A few of these veterans, particularly those who had been seconded from the bsanp, stayed with the regiment. The loss of this core of experienced men must have been a serious blow to the regiment but by that time there were numerous replacements. Passing through Umtali station on their way to Salisbury, rnr men returning home ran into their former commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Tomlinson. A large group surrounded him and repeatedly cheered “Nkosi,” which means chief or lord in the Ndebele language. Just less than four hundred rnr men plus a few European officers arrived at Salisbury train station on 30 May to a huge gathering of civilians and soldiers. Colonel Masterman, the military secretary of Southern Rhodesia, told the returning rnr soldiers that: The people of Rhodesia had watched very carefully the good work the men had done for their King and country since they left Salisbury, nearly two years ago. They might indeed be proud of the splendid fighting record which the regiment had earned for itself in East Africa, and although they might be sorry for those of their gallant comrades whose bodies they had left in soldiers’ graves, yet they must be glad that they had been able to render such good service to their King…it was hoped they would enjoy the fruits of their labour and that in the years to come they would be able to look back upon the time when they voluntarily undertook to serve their King and country.22

The men were entertained by a special bioscope (moving picture) show at Salisbury’s Palace Theatre. They were shown a film of parades by the second Rhodesia Regiment and second Rhodesia Native Regiment.23 In late May, back in Portuguese East Africa, the brigade under Carbutt was broken up and he once again took direct command of the rnr which was ordered to move south and cooperate with the kar units at Namwera on the southern shore of Lake Nyasa. The Cape Corps, hard hit by tropical disease and difficult to maintain with their “European” rations, were pulled out of frontline duty and used to escort supply columns. By the middle of June, most of

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the rnr was assembled on the east side of Lake Amaramba. At this time, the German main force was based at Malema to the east. On 22 June, Carbutt led the rnr on a three-day, sixty-nine-mile hike south to the east shore of Lake Chilwa. Carbutt recorded that “The lake has a swamp fringe some miles wide and as we marched on the edge of this swamp we were assailed by myriads of mosquitoes: they were so thick and persistent that one’s whole time was spent in slapping the exposed parts of one’s body, and with each slap three or four mosquitoes would be killed.”24 Predictably, more mosquitoes meant more cases of malaria. Since Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s force was continuing south looting African villages and Portuguese posts, the rnr was ordered to follow in the same direction along the Portuguese East Africa/Nyasaland border and arrived at the south end of Mount Mulanje at the end of June. In early July, with the Germans having attacked a Portuguese sugar factory at Namacurra near the ocean port of Quelimane, the rnr was ordered to move in that direction, southeast, to Liciro where they linked up with their old comrades of the nrp. Carbutt’s instructions were to block German movements to the west that might threaten the Shire Highlands Railway and steamboats on the Shire River, both of which were essential for supplying Allied forces in the region and central to the local colonial economy. There was even some fear at the time that Von Lettow-Vorbeck would try to cross the Zambesi River and threaten Southern Rhodesia. As a result, the rnr established strong posts along the Luala River and sent out numerous patrols throughout the area.25 By the middle of July 1918, it was apparent that Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s force was moving north through the coastal districts of Portuguese East Africa. With Nyasaland no longer in danger of invasion, the rnr began to retrace its steps north through Liciro and on 23 July the entire battalion was concentrated near there at Mocubi. At this point intelligence reports indicated that the main German force was at Namirrue, to the northeast. The rnr continued its pursuit of the Germans, passing at least one Portuguese post they had burned, until 1 August when it had to stop because of lack of food at a Portuguese station called Inagu. Carbutt, who complained that “the food question was a constant source of anxiety in this campaign,” had expected to find a supply convoy waiting at Inagu, but when it was not there he had to put his soldiers and porters on half rations.26 At Inagu, the rnr received orders from General Van Deventer, senior Allied commander in the region, to move east through Molokwe and Ligonya where they would pick up rations and come under the command of Brigadier General W.S.F. Edwards. Carbutt’s force, now just over three thousand strong,

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arrived at Molokwe on 6 August but was disappointed to find only one day of food waiting for them. The battalion quartermaster scrounged some local supplies from a nearby village. Receiving an urgent telegram from Edwards that the rnr had to be at the Ligonya crossroads within the next three days, Carbutt led his unit out of Molokwe later the same day. On 9 August the rnr, having just marched fifty-eight miles from Molokwe, picked up four thousand pounds of food near Ligonya and dug in at the crossroads. At this point the Allied forces were attempting to trap Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s column which was around Chalaua near the Indian Ocean coast. The rnr’s objective was to block an anticipated westward move by the Germans as other Allied units, particularly several kar battalions, moved in from other directions.27 On 11 August, after receiving the first fresh meat they had seen since June, the rnr advanced twenty-five miles east to Murupula where Edwards had his headquarters. Although the Allies expected to trap and attack the Germans somewhere in this area, Von Lettow-Vorbeck once again managed to elude them and the operation was called off. Several kar battalions chased the Germans south. The rnr was ordered to retrace its steps through Ligonya and Molokwe, and then to come under the control of Lieutenant Colonel W.J.T. Shorthose, commanding officer of 1/4 kar. The two battalions, known as Shortcol, were directed to pursue Von Lettow-Vorbeck and block his westward route. The rnr made contact with Shorthose’s kar, who were hot on the Germans’ trail, on 18 August near Molokwe. Carbutt recorded that the rnr had marched an astonishing one thousand miles since leaving Mwembe in early June.28 The pursuit was continued for a day but because of poorly chosen routes, which Carbutt blamed on Shorthose, there were considerable delays and the Germans slipped away. Both battalions were ordered to hold fast at the Portuguese post at Alto Molokwe. However, that evening, an rnr patrol returned to camp with six Africans who had been carriers for the Germans but had recently deserted. They stated that the German advance guard, consisting of 140 men with two field guns, had crossed the nearby Mlela River the previous day on their way to Ille and that the main body were following along the same route. Edwards was informed by priority telegram and a quick response ordered the rnr and 1/4 kar to be on a moment’s notice to move. The next day, 21 August, both battalions received orders to move toward Ille but the march was very slow because of swampy ground. Around 23 August, the rnr and kar of Shortcol came within three miles of Ille and local sources reported that the Germans, who had been moving south, were now travelling west

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along the road to Namarroi. Since Shorthose’s orders were to block German movement west or north, he decided against rushing to engage the enemy rearguard and instead opted to attempt to move in front of the Germans by making a detour across country. Thick bush and heavy rain, however, slowed the march. After two days, Shorthose directed Major Wane to take D Company of the rnr and push ahead through the night to a crossing on the Licungo River which was some twelve miles from Ille and which the Germans were suspected to be using. Wane was to do everything in his power to delay the movement of the enemy so the main body of rnr and kar could catch up. The baggage train was left behind to speed up movement. Wane’s company arrived at the river crossing at dawn but found nothing there. Local people told them that the German rearguard had crossed the previous afternoon. The rnr/kar main body arrived at the crossing later in the morning and Carbutt was angry that all the delays and waiting around at Molokwe had cost them the chance to engage Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s column.29 The rnr and kar of Shortcol, with their supply carriers now far behind, continued their pursuit of the Germans along the road to Namarroi. The advance was slow and cautious because the hilly country was perfect for an ambush. Along the route the rnr men found the bodies of several local people who had been shot by the Germans for either refusing to surrender their food stores or work as porters. On 26 August an rnr platoon under Lieutenant Hulley, which was scouting ahead of the main column, was shot at several times but did not locate the enemy. Around the same time, some kar flank guards captured a German askari. It appeared as if the column was literally biting at the heels of the retiring enemy and the many new recruits in the rnr were nervous. The rnr and kar soldiers passed through Namarroi to find the corpses of several 1/1 kar soldiers who had been among a force that had unsuccessfully attempted to block German movement through the post. A number of severely wounded German askari told the Allied soldiers that Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s force had continued to Regone.30 Without delay, the rnr and 1/4 kar pressed on toward Regone and were shot at periodically along the way by German stragglers. The next morning they arrived at Regone and made contact with 1/1 and 2/4 kar battalions, under Colonel G.L. Baxter, that were holding the post. Baxter took command of the entire force and issued orders to attack what he believed was the main enemy position a few miles away. Carbutt complained that Baxter himself delayed the departure from Regone until he had eaten a full breakfast when he had denied his men the chance to do the same. The rnr and three battalions of kar spent the entire day fighting skirmishes against small pockets of enemy sol-

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diers that Von Lettow-Vorbeck had left behind to delay the Allied pursuit. The next day Baxter, whose own men were well rested but who himself refused to leave Regone, sent the exhausted rnr and 1/4 kar men after the Germans who were moving north toward Lioma. The Germans left behind a detachment armed with a Maxim gun and two captured Lewis guns to delay the Allied pursuit. Throughout the day, the rnr men led the column and used determined bayonet charges to chase this machine-gun detachment from one position to the next. In the process, two European sergeants and four African privates were severely wounded.31 According to Captain Bugler, commander of C Company rnr: Our first day out of Regone was highly successful. “C” Company rnr was detailed as advance guard to the column. At about mid-day we overtook Von Lettow’s rearguard which was commanded by Capt. Muller and engaged him in a running fight over bushy, undulating country in which a series of ridges favoured the tactics of rearguard action. We were successful in keeping this rearguard on the run without undue delay to our main body. One effort to outflank him failed: by this time the German askari were too experienced in bush warfare to be trapped.32

On 30 August, the rnr and 1/4 kar were just three or four miles from the three German companies that were working as the rearguard for Von LettowVorbeck’s main force. However, late that night, a wireless order was received for the Allied column to make a detour and close in on the enemy’s main body which was in the process of attacking a kar detachment a few miles away at Lioma. A number of kar units were converging on Lioma to rescue their outnumbered comrades and trap the elusive Von Lettow-Vorbeck. Using an Italian settler as a guide, the men of the rnr and 1/4 kar marched off at 2:00am but because of extremely rough ground they did not reach Lioma until thirty-four hours later at noon on 1 September. They found 130 wounded kar soldiers and another seventy wounded enemy. Most of Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s force had moved around Lioma and continued through the bush northeast toward Mutuali.33 Assessing the plan to catch the main German column at Lioma, Captain Bugler claimed that: In theory this sounded excellent. In actual practice it proved an expensive failure and saved Von Lettow from what might have been his coup-degrace before the Armistice.…When our column of approximately 1200 askari and twice the number of Tenga Tenga broke camp at midnight, there was unutterable confusion…there was a state of chaos that could be definitely felt and for a while pandemonium reigned. The kar were to lead the march, but units became mixed and most of the value of a forced night

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portuguese east africa march was lost. The matter was further complicated by a swarm of “Soldier Ants” which attacked the legs of Blacks and Whites and the noise created by approximately 5000 human beings stamping their feet to shake these ants off bare legs killed all chance of a silent departure. The value of surprise was lost and tempers became frayed. The column actually marched for 15 hours without rest and instead of gaining an advantage we actually lost time and touch, and the rnr never saw Von Lettow again.…Von Lettow continued on his line of march without our column harassing his rearguard, was able to pin the Liume [sic] garrison to their pits whilst he circled round the position unmolested. It was a great pity for if only we had kept to out original line of march and maintained the touch established with the enemy rear-guard, which if necessary, we were strong enough to overrun, we might have been presented with the opportunity of forcing Von Lettow to give battle with the Liume garrison in front and ourselves behind.34

On 2 September, Shortcol continued northeast after the Germans and the rnr men, who were in the advance position, marched twenty-seven miles in eleven hours. All the rations were finished and the men survived by eating cassava roots from local fields. The next day they arrived at Mutuali where rations were found but the carriers were so exhausted, and many had been left behind at Lioma to evacuate wounded, that the column was almost immobilized. After a much-needed day of rest, the rnr restarted their pursuit of the Germans on 4 September by marching northward in cooperation with Kartucol, a brigade made up of three kar battalions, which was trying to block enemy movement toward Mahua. Kartucol was led by Colonel George Giffard who has been called “one of the shrewder bush infighters of both sides” of the campaign—he went on to become a general who commanded West African troops during the Second World War.35 According to historian Charles Miller: “Giffard was now bringing a smart tactical innovation into play: whenever a kar detachment made contact with a Schutztruppe column, its askaris, instead of fanning out through the bush and advancing cautiously, would attack at once, firing rapidly from the hip as they dashed straight in at the Germans. Long accustomed to the intricate and slow-moving maneuver of British assaults, von Lettow’s troops were almost invariably thrown off balance by Giffard’s new head-on ploy.”36 Some Allied units were rightfully reluctant to adopt such risky tactics, including the rnr. A and D companies of the rnr, under Major Wane, engaged an enemy rearguard position on the bank of the Lulelo River. There was an intense firefight but the Germans withdrew just before C Company rnr was about to outflank them. The rnr advanced across the river and found that the Germans had established another defensive position on a ridge just four hundred yards away. Another “short sharp engage-

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ment” occurred and the enemy fled through the bush just before B Company rnr moved around to their rear. The rnr, which had seven men wounded including Lieutenant Francis Hulley, ended the day in possession of the ridge. The dead included Private Jack Masoja, a Kalanga man who had been a general labouror in the Insiza District of Matabeleland before joining the rnr in November 1917.37 Over the next two days, the rnr advanced while Kartucol fought a series of intense skirmishes with the main body of the German column which eventually broke contact. The large number of casualties caused by Giffard’s reckless tactics and problems with supply carriers meant that Kartucol became immobilized. The rnr and 1/4 kar of Shortcol continued the pursuit of Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s force toward Mahua where there was an Allied food cache.38 Carbutt sent two companies under Major Thornton across country to try to get ahead of the Germans but when they arrived at Mahua, on 11 September, there was no sign of the enemy. The rations at Mahua proved to be less than expected and once the rest of the rnr and all of 1/4 kar arrived within a few days, feeding all the soldiers became a problem and the pursuit was delayed while a supply column was brought forward. Carbutt, who had lost five officers and his regimental sergeant major because of exhaustion from constant marching, wrote that: Since leaving murrupula on the 16 August the Regiment had marched continuously everyday for 26 days, averaging 15½ miles a day: on three of these days there had been continuous fighting, and on many other days, fighting formations had to be maintained, owing to the proximity of the enemy and the uncertainty of when he would be encountered in the bush covered country. During this period two marches of 28 miles and four others each of over 20 miles in the day had been done. During more than a third of the time all troops had been on short rations.39

By the end of the September 1918, the German force was heading northwest along the east side of Lake Nyasa toward German East Africa with no Allied troops between them and the border. The nine-month campaign had drained that part of Portuguese East Africa of food resources and Von Lettow-Vorbeck had to look for new sources of supplies. In addition, battle casualties and tropical disease had reduced the German force from two thousand to fourteen hundred men. As Charles Miller, historian of the German East Africa campaign, points out, this was the same number of men as two battalions of King’s African Rifles. Throughout the rest of the month, the rnr, in cooperation with several kar battalions, followed the Germans but were too far behind to catch up.40

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In early October, the rnr was ordered to abandon the chase and retire southwest to the Allied depot at Namwera on the shore of Lake Nyasa. Unfortunately, on 13 October smallpox broke out among the members of the regiment and it was later discovered that they had unknowingly camped on the site of a previous outbreak. The battalion, which by this time consisted of 93 Europeans and 3,050 African soldiers and carriers, was quarantined a few miles away from the main Allied base. Each company was given a separate camp in order to inhibit the spread of the disease. Carbutt ordered the medical officer, Captain McVea, to use his available supply of vaccine on the European members of the unit first and then to look for additional medicine for the Africans. Only one member of the regiment, Sergeant Mlembe, died of smallpox and the quarantine was lifted in mid October.41 Just as the rnr’s smallpox quarantine was being lifted, the influenza pandemic hit East and Southern Africa. In many areas, war-induced hunger, caused not only by warfare but by seizure of food by colonial regimes in order to feed soldiers in the field, made people especially vulnerable to the flu, and up to 5 per cent of the East African population died from it.42 Elderly people in Zimbabwe still refer to this calamitous period as “the year of the fever.” In late October 1918, General Northey ordered the rnr to be disbanded because there were sufficient kar soldiers available to pursue the lone German column in the field. In preparation for demobilization, the regiment was moved to Zomba, the colonial capital of Nyasaland, where it was expected that 406 Malawian soldiers would take their discharge and the rest would be transported to Southern Rhodesia. It was at this point that eleven rnr soldiers suddenly became ill and died from influenza. In early November, Northey cancelled his order to demobilize the rnr as Carbutt was informed that his unit would be moved to Northern Rhodesia, which had just been invaded by the German column, for further operations—this instruction was put on hold by the Armistice of 11 November and the subsequent surrender of Von LettowVorbeck. With the unfolding of the influenza pandemic in Nyasaland, the administration of Southern Rhodesia directed that the rnr remain at Zomba until the crisis had passed. It was rightly feared that troop movements, as they had in other parts of the world, would further spread the illness. Nevertheless, Lieutenant Colonel Carbutt and Major Wane, the only two original officers of the regiment left in the field, were given leave and returned to Salisbury.43 Frank Hulley, a junior officer in the rnr who had been wounded in action, later stated that, “Before we got it (the flu) Col Carbutt and Major Wane left us to go to Salisbury much to everyone’s disgust and condemnation.”44 Weakened from malaria, dysentery, and weeks of trekking through the bush, many rnr

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Hector James Binny Douglas was a bsap veteran of the South African War (1899–1902) who served as a platoon sergeant in the rnr during the East African campaign of the First World War. Records indicate that the nature of his recruitment was “special,” and he was one of very few Europeans in that category not seconded from the Native Affairs Department. This might be explained by the fact that, as a trader, he almost certainly had some ability to speak an African language and of course, his previous military experience and police contacts would have been relevant.

men became seriously ill. A sense of panic and desperation gripped the unit. Abandoned by their commanding officer, their discipline deteriorated and African soldiers began to disobey and sometimes even assault European officers and ncos. Although Carbutt was not with the unit during the entire flu crisis, he wrote that forty African and three European soldiers died. In fact, regimental orders and newspaper reports reveal that seventy-three African soldiers died from the flu.45 Interviewed years later, Frank Cross, a sergeant major with the rnr, remembered that “we lost more askari there than pretty well in the whole campaign—they just ran off into the bundu and died.”46 Despite the chaos, some men tried their best to care for their ailing comrades and gained valuable experience that bed rest, regular food, and good nursing were the only ways to combat the flu. Immediately after the war, Hector James Douglas, an rnr sergeant and Boer War veteran, worked in Northern Rhodesia where “he rendered valuable service with the Native Department in treating sick natives in the Zambezi Valley.”47 African sergeants Dangwe, Nyamadi, Mayega, and Myonyo were mentioned in dispatches by the commander of British forces in East Africa, General Van Deventer, for “valuable service rendered during the period 1st August 1918 to the conclusion of hostilities.”48 At the same time, Major Thornton, an rnr company commander, became an Officer of the British Empire (obe) for “valuable services rendered in connection with military operations in East Africa.”49 While the record is silent on the exact actions of these African ser-

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geants in the Portuguese East Africa campaign, Thornton’s leadership is well documented. This illustrates that while Africans were given some credit for their role in the campaign, the actions of Europeans attracted much more official attention. The Portuguese East Africa campaign had been a physically torturous experience. It involved marching thousands of miles in pursuit of an elusive and desperate foe. Exhaustion, dysentery, and tropical disease took a heavy toll on Europeans and Africans, soldiers and carriers. While the Germans looted villages at will and summarily executed those who would not give them food, the Allied forces were forbidden to do this—with so many men in the field, supply problems were persistent and slowed their movement. Before this campaign, the rnr had been a small battalion that struggled to maintain two active companies in the field. After entering Portuguese territory, replacements arrived and the rnr was transformed into a large unit with a thousand troops organized into four double-strength companies and twice that number of supply carriers. Despite all the problems of the campaign, the rnr had proven to be an effective combat unit and was extremely stubborn in its pursuit of the Germans who were fighting a continuous series of rearguard actions and withdrawals. On one occasion, at Mwamba Hill, an rnr company captured Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s baggage train. Carbutt had proven to be an able commander, and led a brigade for a time, but he ultimately disgraced himself, even by the standards of the day, by abandoning his men in the face of the influenza pandemic. It seems unusual that after several years in the field with the soldiers of the rnr, he had developed very little personal loyalty to them. Carbutt was an impersonal bureaucrat who saw these men as simply a means to an end. They were used to attain military objectives, and win glory for their commander in the process, but they were then cast aside when of no further use. Later, in 1930, Masotcha Ndlovu, head of Zimbabwe’s first black trade union whose uncle was an rnr veteran, described Carbutt, by then the Chief Native Commissioner, as “a bad man and an oppressor of natives.”50 In 1934, with increasing racial segregation in Southern Rhodesia, Carbutt advised his superiors to send all educated Africans to Northern Rhodesia in order to “be freed of the embarrassing necessity to consider native interests.”51




chapter 10

Demobilization and Life after the War

after the danger of influenza had passed, the first contingent of about 350 rnr men returned to Salisbury by train during Christmas of 1918. Hundreds of Europeans lined the railway platform and thousands of Africans, who were not allowed on the platform, gathered around the tracks to greet the returning veterans. The rnr band played patriotic and military music. Many prominent whites were in attendance, including the colony’s administrator, the mayor of Salisbury, the chief native commissioner, the bishop of Southern Rhodesia and many senior officers, including Colonel A.E. Capell, former commander of second Battalion Rhodesia Regiment, the disbanded all-European unit that had fought in East Africa. Conspicuous by their absence were the rnr’s former commanding officers Tomlinson, who had left East Africa because of sickness just before he would have been dismissed for incompetence, and Carbutt, who had abandoned his men when the influenza epidemic broke out in their ranks. The administrator gave a speech in which he congratulated the regiment for “upholding the good name of Rhodesia” during an “arduous campaign” and playing “no insignificant part in depriving the Germans of their power in Africa.” Addressing the African soldiers in particular, the administrator stated that “they were all proud of the natives of this country who had come forward in such large numbers to maintain the King’s authority.… Now that they were coming back to peaceful occupation he was confident that they would not forget the lessons they had learned; the lesson of discipline, and that they would communicate to other natives in the territory what good 135

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discipline does.”1 The European members of the regiment were then told that “the people of this country would not forget the services they have rendered.”2 An editorial in a settler newspaper praised the role of African soldiers from the colony in the East Africa campaign and stated that “We are confident they will receive the grateful thanks of the townspeople, and that as the result of their suffering for the common cause they will be better able to appreciate the blessings of good government under the flag which symbolizes liberty and freedom.”3 After the welcome, the mayor invited all ranks of the rnr to attend a show at the “Grand Theatre.” Only European members of the regiment were invited to a dance in the evening at Meikles Hotel.4 It is difficult to know to what extent the African soldiers, at that time, realized that the freedom and liberty they had been told they had fought for had strict limitations within the racial hierarchy of colonial Southern Rhodesia. The rnr was demobilized very quickly during the first half of 1919. Groups of between seventy and a hundred and twenty rnr men arrived in at the regiment’s Salisbury depot throughout January 1919 and were almost immediately given their discharges. Several hundred men were disarmed and demobilized in Nyasaland because they were from that territory and wanted to return to their homes. On demobilization the veterans were given their deferred pay of fifteen shillings per month of service. This usually totalled a few pounds. Those who had been seriously wounded were paid gratuities of five pounds sterling for partial disability and ten pounds for full disability. The dismantling of the unit was so fast that accurate discharge records were not maintained for most African soldiers except those who had been policemen before enlisting. A few European members remained at the depot conducting administrative duties connected with the disbanding of the regiment, including trials for a few captured deserters who were usually sentenced to several months in prison with hard labour. In bureaucratic terms the rnr officially ceased to exist in February 1921, but by then it had not had any soldiers for two years.5 The rapidity of dismantling the rnr was caused by a number of factors. From its formation, the regiment was seen as a temporary measure justified by wartime emergency. With the war over, the imperial government would no longer pay for the upkeep of the regiment and the British South Africa Company was not about to take on this burden. The same issue was present in Kenya, Uganda, and Nyasaland where the kar was significantly reduced in size. The defence of Southern Rhodesia, which did not yet have self-government, was still the responsibility of the bsap, and while many settlers desired the creation of a more formal military establishment, it would have to wait on political developments. In the colonial context, defence usually meant inter-

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A contingent from the rnr depot, including the regimental band, parades outside the “Residency” in Salisbury (Harare) on Armistice Day, 11 November 1918.

nal security and in Southern Rhodesia at that time Africans were not considered completely reliable in this role. The settlers had harboured fear of an African rebellion during the Great War and had swallowed their apprehension over the rnr because it was the only way for the colony to continue its direct involvement in the conflict. The immediate disarming of returning African soldiers was seen as a political necessity. This seems similar to the postwar situation in Kenya where local settlers wanted to completely disband the kar, their only real military establishment, and replace it with an all-white Kenya Defence Force.6 This was impossible given Kenya’s very small settler population but in Southern Rhodesia, where there were more Europeans with realistic aspirations for responsible government, a primarily white security force had been the norm since the days immediately after colonial conquest. The rnr had been an exception. Even before the war was over, a commission of enquiry on the defence of Southern Rhodesia made no mention of the future use of black soldiers.7 Even before the conflict was over, a branch of the “Comrades of the Great War” was formed in Salisbury to attend to the welfare of returning soldiers and sailors. However, this was an all-white group and African soldiers did not fall under its jurisdiction.8 Upon discharge, the African veterans of the rnr seem to have scattered across not only Southern Rhodesia but the entire Southern

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The rnr band outside the Palace Theatre as rnr soldiers enter to see a free film on 30 May 1918.

African region as well. They were not unlike West African veterans of the French Army who mostly tried to return to their old lives after the war.9 Many rnr men returned to the life of migrant labour for the mining industry. Some joined or returned to the police as native constables for the bsap, nrp, or municipal forces and others managed to get employment as messengers or dip tank supervisors with the native department. Not all those “fully disabled” by war wounds received the annual three-pound pension. It appears that those who had lost limbs were considered “partially disabled,” despite the fact that their only chance of employment would have been as mine or farm workers. Many supposedly “partially disabled” men found that their five-pound gratuity ran out quickly and it was difficult to find employment. Some of them appealed to the Native Affairs Department for assistance and were given menial jobs out of pity. At times small pensions were awarded to former members of the rnr who had been partly disabled by wounds, but this was done on an informal, case-by-case basis. In 1921 Shawani, one of the first five hundred volunteers for the rnr who had lost an arm because of wounds sustained at the disastrous St. Moritz engagement in March 1917, appealed to the Native Affairs Department for assistance—he had a wife and three children to support but could not find work as a labourer because of his disability; office work was out of the question because he was illiterate. He was awarded a small

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rnr soldiers entering the Palace Theatre in Salisbury (Harare) for a free film on their return from East Africa, 30 May 1918.

pension of ten shillings a month, which was equivalent to what he would make as a mine or farm worker.10 This ad hoc approach to pensions sometimes caused confusion. Lungombe, another member of the first five hundred who had been wounded during the Battle of Mpepo in August 1917, worked as a messenger for the Native Affairs Department from the end of the war until 1929. In 1933, while living in the Plumtree area, he complained to the Native Affairs Department that back in 1920 his superior, a former rnr officer, had promised him that a pension of five shillings a month would be deposited for him in a bank account. However, there were no records of this award and the bank account could not be found. Eventually, Lungombe was examined by a medical officer who supported his case, and he was awarded a pension of five shillings a month but effective only from February 1933.11 Even before the end of the war, it had become a contentious issue to recognize the service of African soldiers through the issuing of special certificates and medals. In August 1918, while the rnr was chasing the wily Von Lettow-Vorbeck through Portuguese East Africa, Brigadier C.P. Fennell, the British quartermaster general in East Africa, advised his superiors that “I do not consider that the issue of Silver War Badges to African troops to be necessary or desirable. The wearing of it will not be understood.”12 The army council decided not to issue the Silver War Badge to African troops. Just after the

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armistice, Major L. Parson, Southern Rhodesia’s acting secretary for defence, forwarded a copy of Brigadier Fennell’s report to the colony’s administrator with a recommendation that neither the Silver War Badge nor the King’s Certificate of Discharge be given to African veterans of the rnr. He claimed that normal discharge certificates would suffice and those “mentioned in dispatches” because of excellent performance would be given a special certificate. The governor general of the Union of South Africa recommended to the colonial office that former members of the Cape Corps, a unit of mixed-race Cape Coloured men who were eventually withdrawn from combat in East Africa, be issued the King’s Discharge Certificate but no such documents should be awarded to blacks who had served in the South African Native Labour Battalion, Northern Rhodesia Police, or Rhodesia Native Regiment.13 Ndebele chiefs, who had been actively involved in recruiting men for the rnr, sought rewards for their wartime loyalty. In 1918, Ndebele leaders sent a message to the British high commissioner of Southern Africa stating that “when the King called upon us for help, we sent our young men, who fought and died beside the English, and we claim that our blood and that of the English are one.” At a public gathering in Umzingwane, Matabeleland, in 1919, an Ndebele induna introduced a number of rnr veterans to European officials saying “I ask regarding them that they may receive a token of recognition of the work they have done, and to urge that we are entitled to share in their recognition by being accorded a hut in which to rest, a permanent resting place in which we can sit down and drink water in peace. They have proved our loyalty and purchased us a relief from our grievances.”14 The “hut” seems to be a symbolic reference to land taken from the Ndebele during the 1890s. Ultimately, the hypocrisy of denying Africans symbols of recognition for their wartime service became obvious. In 1921, the Native Affairs Department was authorized to issue the British War Medal in silver and the Victory Medal in bronze to Africans who had fought in East Africa as members of the rnr. These medals would be given to living veterans only and not to the families of those who had died either during or after the war. It was difficult to locate veterans of the regiment and a circular went out to native commissioners to report whether any such individuals were in their districts. A special ceremony was organized by the bsap in Matabeleland in July 1921 to award these decorations to veterans who were working as native constables and other rnr veterans from Matobo, Umzingwane, Bubi, and Nyamandlovu districts were invited. The Native Affairs Department supplied some cattle for a feast.15 A few Africans who had been with the bsap at the start of the war and fought in early engagements were awarded the “1914–15 Star.” Historian Jonathan Newell

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points out that many African veterans “felt cheated by the meager payments they had received in relation to what their white colleagues obtained at the end of the war. Nor were they mollified by their medals which they considered ‘just pieces of metal and cloth.’”16 Many veterans of the rnr, however, especially those employed in some capacity by the colonial government such as policemen and warders, did eagerly apply for their service medals even before the official notification that they were available. Africans who wore a uniform on a daily basis were also keen to get their service and wound stripes. In 1919, Masafuli, an rnr veteran from the Belgian Congo who was working in Northern Rhodesia, applied to the British consul in Elizabethville “for certain war medals which he claims are due to him in respect of services rendered during the late German East campaign.”17 In 1920, the native commissioner of Mkushi in Northern Rhodesia reported that “Corporal Chitapankwa has come before me with a request as to when he is likely to receive his Victory and British War medals. He also makes enquiry as to what amount of gratuity is due him and when same is likely to be paid.”18 In 1931, Kagunda, who had served with the bsap Mobile Column in the early days of the Great War and later joined the rnr as a bugler, applied for his war medals from Gwelo prison where he was serving a sentence of two years and fifteen lashes for the crime of rape. Within a few months he was sent the 1914–15 Star, British War Medal, and Victory Medal.19 Given the vague nature of the records, some rnr veterans who were seeking their medals had trouble proving their identity. Constable Jekete, a policeman in Tanganyika during the 1920s, was extremely persistent and ultimately successful in convincing the colonial authorities that he had been a member of both the nrp and bsanp who had been seconded to the rnr from May 1916 to December 1918.20 Almost a year after the end of the war, the Rhodesian administration decided to erect a war memorial in Salisbury. In a circular to his subordinates, the chief native commissioner explained that: “It has been decided to erect a Memorial in Salisbury in commemoration of all Rhodesians who sacrificed their lives in the Great War. It is intended as a tribute not only to the Europeans but also to the native soldiers who died for their country, and something emblematic of the loyal service of the men of the Native Regiments will be incorporated in the general design.”21 Since this structure was to cost three thousand pounds, native commissioners were to explain the significance of the memorial to the Africans in their districts and solicit contributions towards its construction. Missionaries and chiefs were enlisted to assist in fundraising.22 The response was remarkable, and within a few months, the African people of Mashonaland had donated over five hundred pounds to this cause. Native

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churches, messengers in the Native Affairs Department, and chiefs were particularly generous contributors. The native commissioner of Gutu reported that the entire adult male population had given money to the memorial fund.23 In 1924, there was a minor controversy over the construction of a special memorial for African soldiers who had died during the Great War. It appears that the military commandant of Umtali District in the eastern highlands of Southern Rhodesia, Lieutenant Colonel Methuen, collected donations of money and material to construct a thirty-foot-high granite and cement cross. The Umtali town council provided the necessary stone and sand. The location was a high rocky hill called Baboon Kopje (now called Cross Kopje) that overlooked the town and was positioned almost right on the border of Southern Rhodesia and Portuguese East Africa. A dedication ceremony was held in late April. After the mayor of Umtali unveiled the monument, the bishop of Southern Rhodesia performed the service before an honour guard of bsap “native police” from Salisbury and several Portuguese “native police” sent from Beira by their governor. A group of African employees from the railway, Native Affairs Department, and customs and post office were in attendance as well as some African chiefs from across the colony. A settler newspaper described the structure as “a fitting memorial to the natives who, too, played a not inconsiderable part in the Great War.”24 While it was obvious that many Africans and Europeans were supportive of this project, high-level authorities in Salisbury were not pleased. The governor, who Methuen believed had promised to unveil the monument himself, refused to attend the ceremony. Although the civil commissioner of Umtali claimed that the hill was too rough for the governor to climb, many people noticed that the elderly bishop had managed to do it. Methuen was ultimately chastised by the governor for erecting the “Native War Memorial” and organizing a dedication ceremony without official permission, and for inviting foreign troops into Southern Rhodesia.25 Why was there such hostility by those in power to the idea of a special war memorial for African soldiers? Clearly, some Europeans, especially those who had been part of “native” units during the war, felt that not enough had been done to memorialize the contribution of African soldiers. However, it was probably not a coincidence that Southern Rhodesia had gained responsible government in 1923 which gave the small settler population internal self-government. This was usually explained as something the colony had earned through its enthusiastic support for Britain during the Great War. The settler minority, who had all the power in this new dispensation, saw responsible government as a step toward the eventual attainment of dominion status like Canada and Australia had. It was seen as an important step toward the development

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of Rhodesian nationhood. However, the fact that Africans had also fought and died in the war but had gained no political rights was a contradiction that some at the highest levels felt it important to ignore. Decades later, in 1953, the spate of patriotism caused by the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II briefly brought the wartime service of Africans to the public’s attention. In a coronation address to Africans, the governor of Southern Rhodesia, John Kennedy, stated that in both world wars “Africans from Southern Rhodesia played a brave and honourable role.”26 At a similar gathering in Matabeleland, Chief Mabikwa Khumalo responded to the governor’s address by stating that “African people here had always been loyal to the Crown. Their loyalty had never been more visibly shown than in two world wars in which African soldiers had voluntarily fought for the preservation of the British Commonwealth.”27 Around the same time, T.R. Dube of Shabani wrote a letter to the Bantu Mirror, a newspaper meant for elite African readers, chastising his people for not memorializing those Africans who had died during the world wars. Citing the fact that black South Africans held meetings to remember those who had perished on the Mendi, a ship that went down carrying members of the South African Native Labour Corps during the First World War, Dube added that “I wonder if we here are still too immature for organizing such a memorial to our brave men.”28 The imminent creation of the Central African Federation, a political combination of Southern and Northern Rhodesia plus Nyasaland, was probably not lost on any of these people and the issue of African representation in this new dispensation was not far below the surface of these statements. Another factor that greatly worried the authorities in Southern Rhodesia after the First World War was the emergence of drilling societies among black miners in the early 1920s. African veterans of the Great War who were working in the mines would often organize their colleagues into groups to perform military drill during their spare time. Labour historians Ian Phimister and Charles van Onselen point out that “by the early 1920s workers in several large mining compounds had dummy guns (cut from wood) and spent their recreation time in drilling and marching.”29 This terrified compound managers and prompted an investigation by the Native Affairs Department which found that there was no tangible connection between these drilling societies and “strike committees, labour movements or secret societies.” However, the native department did suggest to mine managers that drilling be discouraged.30 It was obvious that this kind of activity represented the embryonic growth of some kind of broader working-class consciousness among African miners and illustrated their ability to work together in a potentially militant context. By 1928,

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the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (icu), an African trade union movement from South Africa, had spread to Southern Rhodesia, particularly the Bulawayo area. Although it is impossible to determine if rnr veterans were involved in the icu, there were some indirect connections. Despite his militaristic-sounding name, “Sergeant” Masotsha Ndlovu, the general secretary of the Rhodeisan icu in the late 1920s who was later involved in African nationalist politics in the 1950s and ’60s, was not a First World War veteran. Ndlovu, who was working on a construction site at Cement Siding near Bulawayo when the war broke out, had an uncle who joined the rnr. However, when Ndlovu tried to enlist in the regiment his parents refused to let him go because they considered him too young and they said “we could not all join the war.”31 In addition, John Maphamba, another icu organizing committee member, was a war veteran from Nyasaland who may well have been a soldier in the rnr.32 In 1925, King George V granted the battle honours of “East Africa 1916– 1918” to First rnr and “East Africa 1917–1918” to Second rnr, despite the fact that the regiment had been disbanded several years before. The regimental colours of First rnr were laid up in Salisbury Anglican Cathedral and those of Second rnr, which had never really operated as a separate battalion, were placed in a Bulawayo “Native Church.” These artifacts were forgotten about and neglected for decades. Years later, in the early 1960s, the First rnr regimental colour was discovered to have nearly disintegrated in its plastic case. In the early 1970s, the old Second rnr colour was found in a church cupboard.33 With the outbreak of the Second World War, Southern Rhodesia faced the same pressures to supply recruits for the war effort. Given the First World War experience, entirely white infantry units were not formed because high casualties would be devastating to the still-small settler population. In 1940 the “Rhodesian African Rifles” was formed with Lieutenant Colonel F.J. Wane, an rnr veteran of the First World War who had been a bsap officer and then a senior official in the Native Affairs Department, as its first commanding officer. Other rnr veterans, including some Africans, served as instructors for the new unit’s recruits. The name “Rhodesia Native Regiment” was not used because the term “native” had fallen out of popular favour. The new name was inspired by the well-known “King’s African Rifles.”34 After considerable delay, the rar was sent to fight the Japanese in Burma in 1944. Like its forbearer, the rar was disbanded after the Second World War but was quickly reformed because of the Cold War and went on to participate in the Malay Emergency during the 1950s. In the early 1960s the rar, now a regular force unit of the Rhodesian security forces, received permission from the British War Office

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to use the First World War battle honours of the rnr which, according to the president of the rar association who was a former commanding officer of the regiment, “will ensure that the 1914–18 war effort of the Southern Rhodesian Africans is never forgotten.”35 The rar became a mainstay of the Rhodesian military establishment and fought in the counterinsurgency campaign of the 1960s and ’70s. Rhodesian propaganda often focused on it as an example that the conflict was not entirely white versus black. Upon Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 and the amalgamation of Rhodesian and Nationalist forces, the rar was disbanded.




conclusion

the rhodesian native regiment was created in 1916 because the small settler population of Southern Rhodesia desperately wanted to continue its contribution to the war effort but was rapidly running out of manpower. The settlers justified the recruitment of blacks because the Germans had allegedly broken the rules of a “white man’s war” by employing African soldiers. The Allies had to respond in kind. From the settler perspective, arming Africans and giving them western military training must have seemed potentially dangerous, given the relatively recent white conquest of Southern Rhodesia and rebellions by the African population. There was precedent, however, in the arming of African police auxiliaries in the colony so the Rhodesian Native Regiment was built upon that existing framework. In fact, there was remarkably little settler outcry against the formation of the unit. The wartime sense of emergency and patriotism, to an extent, outweighed local fears. Africans joined the Rhodesia Native Regiment for many reasons. Most of the recruits were men already involved in the regional migrant labour system with its cash economy and taxation. Money was a motivation but so was escaping the dreadful conditions of the Southern Rhodesian mines. Of course, the cooperation of the Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau and the mining industry also facilitated this recruitment. It is, moreover, likely that migrant workers, living as they did on the fringes of colonial towns, knew more about the war than rural Africans did. Many of the recruits were from Nyasaland and they

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did not fear going to a strange and far-away place since the East Africa campaign was being fought close to their home. Rural chiefs, who were used as recruiting agents, sent their sons to war as a sign of loyalty and to serve as an example to their subjects. Also, as in other places around the world, some must have joined the army to seek adventure and leave behind the boredom or problems of life at home. The rnr experienced the harshest conditions that the German East Africa campaign had to offer. They marched thousands of miles on rough tracks, and through thick bush and swamps. Like other units, they suffered terribly from tropical diseases such as malaria, which worsened during the rainy season. Some European officers and ncos could not cope with the physical demands of the campaign and had to be sent home. Despite European stereotypes, Africans were not immune to these hardships and usually had to make do without boots or medicine. Reliance on supply carriers meant that all ranks of the regiment often had little or no rations for days or even weeks and living off the land was common. The regulation that European and African soldiers receive different rations was the first legacy of colonial society in the regiment that was cast aside. However, there always seemed to be more food, of whatever type, for the Europeans. Some African soldiers deserted because of this treatment. In combat, the rnr proved as capable as any other unit and better than some. It grew from a small battalion of five hundred men to a large column of several thousand soldiers and carriers. It certainly had its problems but there were also achievements. During their first few months in the field, subunits of the battalion were often given isolated positions to hold against attacks by numerically superior enemy forces. The capture and holding of Songea by a single rnr company that had no support weapons and was several hundred miles from other Allied units was a remarkably good start for the new regiment. Problems began during the subsequent pursuit of German columns that were engaging in prolonged delaying actions. Tomlinson, the rnr’s first commanding officer, and Murray, his immediate superior, seemed unable to work together. The trapping of the unit at Kitanda and the disastrous engagement at St. Moritz were blamed on Tomlinson who conveniently fell ill just before he was about to be dismissed. Tomlinson certainly had problems interpreting orders that had been rendered out of date by the rapidly changing situation but Murray’s abrasive personality and lack of clear direction made the situation worse. Carbutt, the career Native Affairs Department bureaucrat who took over the battalion, proved a much more flexible and imaginative commander. He led the unit through the last phase of the campaign which

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involved the sustained assault on Mpepo and months of chasing the Germans across the tough terrain of Portuguese East Africa. Throughout the campaign, in which small patrols were often vital in collecting intelligence and denying food resources to the enemy, racial stereotypes about leadership began to break down. The white senior officers of the rnr initially did not trust African corporals and sergeants to perform important tasks that required individual initiative or to lead larger patrols that would engage the enemy. They believed, at first, that Africans needed European supervision to maintain steadiness under fire. However, the unit’s white officers also believed that Europeans tended to slow down African soldiers travelling across country and were not as skilled at moving stealthily through the bush. Frank Cross, a former white sergeant in the rnr, claimed that “as for patrol work with them well I mean you were a baby, because they were, nearly all of them, born and bred in the bush, and they could tell from a leaf what had happened.”1 This contradiction meant that while it was a priority to put European junior officers and senior ncos in charge of larger patrols that expected to see fighting, at the same time their very presence was considered a liability to effective operations. Experience eventually proved that these stereotypes did not apply to everyone. Some European officers and ncos were just not reliable enough to lead important patrols. Increasingly, certain African ncos such as Tanganyika, Rita, and Salima were regularly called upon as leaders of all types of patrols, including platoon-sized ones with combat missions. They proved to be daring, intelligent, and highly skilled. The unit could never have functioned effectively without them. On the other hand, certain Europeans, such as Frederick Booth who seemed to make a dangerous game out of slipping back and forth through enemy lines, proved just as bush-wise as the best African soldiers. In fact, it was obvious that some African soldiers, many of whom were mine workers, were not as confident in the bush as their European superiors believed. The pressures of warfare meant that merit began to challenge race as the main determining factor in the regiment’s hierarchy. However, the colonial nature of the rnr was too powerful to be overtaken by temporary wartime experience and in the end race won out over merit. Africans could climb only so high. After the war, the rnr was disbanded as quickly as possible and its veterans spread across the region. Former rnr soldiers melted back into colonial society. Many went back to the mines, some acquired menial jobs in the colonial state, some became policemen, and others went to the rural areas. While attempts were eventually made to recognize their service through medals, no support program was ever established for these veterans and the few pensions

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awarded were given out of pity for specific disabled men. As Southern Rhodesian settlers gained political power under responsible government, they wanted to forget that Africans had contributed to the war that was seen as having helped forge their emerging nation. The only whites who tried to publicly memorialize the contribution of black soldiers to the war effort were those whose own wartime reputations were tied to “native” regiments. A significant number of rnr veterans, white and black, went on to support the racial hierarchy of colonial society through careers in various police forces or the Native Affairs Department. For them, previous military service was a mark of loyalty that could translate into social mobility. On the other hand, a few black veterans challenged the system. Some of those who returned to the mines, disappointed with lack of recognition for their wartime service and by continued exploitation by the mining industry, participated in drilling societies where military organizational skills were transformed into an embryonic working-class movement. Although the rnr fought in a peripheral theatre of the First World War and was disbanded almost ninety years ago, it should not be forgotten. It was certainly important to all those involved—officers, soldiers, and their families— and played a significant role in major events in East Africa. rnr soldiers were as much part of this global struggle as people from any other country. The rnr was also the first large unit of black soldiers to be put into uniform in Southern Rhodesia and as such represents the beginnings of the modern African military tradition in that country. Although some might be loath to admit it because of anti-colonial sentiments, the Zimbabwe National Army of today is a descendant of the Rhodesia Native Regiment. Politically, this primarily black unit allowed Southern Rhodesia to continue its direct contribution to the war effort which, a few years later, led to a form of self-government for the colony’s white minority. As such, the rnr played a role in shaping the future of Southern Rhodesia and the struggles of contemporary Zimbabwe.




appendix

Short Biographies of Some African rnr Soldiers

Aliki, Private Aliki was an Ngoni man from Nyasaland (Malawi) who was a mine worker in Southern Rhodesia. Enlisting in early June 1916, he was among the first five hundred volunteers for the rnr. After completing two years of service in German East Africa, Aliki, unlike most of those he had joined with, re-enlisted in the regiment and went on to fight in Portuguese East Africa. In late October 1918, after just arriving in Zomba, Nyasaland for demobilization, he was one of the first rnr soldiers to die of influenza. Brandy, Sergeant Although his rnr officers believed he was an Ndebele, Brandy had been born to a Malawian family living in the Inyati area of Matabeleland. He was the first constable of the British South Africa Native Police (bsanp) in Fort Usher, Matabeleland, to volunteer for the rnr and enlisted on 1 May 1916. Brandy rose steadily through the ranks, becoming a corporal in November 1917 and sergeant in July 1918. He was one of the few veteran ncos left in the unit during the Portuguese East Africa phase of the campaign. After two years and 260 days of active duty, Brandy was transferred back to the bsanp in Matabeleland in January 1919. In the early 1920s he was employed as a policeman in Bulawayo.1

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Chapotela, Private Chapotela was an Ngoni man from Nyasaland. He joined the bsanp in 1911 and was a member of the Southern Rhodesian Mobile Column that was sent to the border of Northern Rhodesia and German East Africa in 1915. Chapotela served in the rnr from May 1916 to December 1918, fought in the East Africa campaign, and was demobilized in Nyasaland. Despite his conviction for “disobedience” in June 1918 which resulted in a five-shilling fine, his rnr officers rated his military character as “very good.” He soon returned to the bsanp and was based at the Salisbury police camp until at least 1921. While the records are blank for his activities during most of the inter-war period, it seems Chapotela, as a middle-aged man with false teeth, joined the kar in Zomba, Nyasaland in October 1939 but was medically discharged in April 1941 because one of his toes had to be amputated.2 Chikoti, Corporal A Malawian of Chewa ethnicity, Chikoti had spent three and a half years in the kar. By early 1917, he was employed in a mine near Sinoia (Chinoyi today) in Southern Rhodesia. In March 1917 he enlisted in the rnr and was quickly promoted to corporal because of his military experience. In April 1918, in Portuguese East Africa, Chikoti was convicted of being absent from his assigned sentry post during a march and was sentenced to be tied to a post for twentyone days, the infamous Field Punishment Number One, and demoted to private. By the end of the war, however, he had regained his rank of corporal in an acting capacity.3 Chimsure, Private Chimsure was a Shona mine worker from Mtoko District in the northeast of Southern Rhodesia. He enlisted in the rnr in March 1917 and in April 1918 he was one of forty-six privates involved in a mysterious disturbance, perhaps a near mutiny, at the unit’s camp at Mtengula, Portuguese East Africa. Chimsure was fined ten shillings for “conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline.” He was discharged at the end of the war.4 Chitapangwe, Corporal Chitapangwe was one of the first bsanp constables to be transferred to the rnr in May 1916 and he remained with the regiment until he was demobilized in January 1919. With almost three years in the field, Chitapangwe was among the longest serving rnr soldiers. He was shot in the left arm during the

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fighting around St. Moritz in March 1916, was hospitalized in Fife, Northern Rhodesia, and then returned to the unit. Police experience, a “very good” war record, and basic literacy gave Chitapangwe an advantage in establishing a postwar career within the colonial state. In the early 1920s, he was working as “head warder” at the administrative centre (or boma) of Mkushi in Northern Rhodesia.5 Kavote, Corporal At the beginning of the First World War, Kavote, a Chewa man from Malawi, was a member of the bsanp and was sent to Northern Rhodesia in 1915 as part of the ad hoc Southern Rhodesia Mobile Column meant to defend the border with German East Africa. He was part of a mixed force of Rhodesian police and Belgian Force Publique soldiers that defended an entrenched position at Saisi, twenty-eight miles west of Abercorn, from a German attack between 26 July and 3 August 1915. For his part in this battle, Kavote was mentioned in dispatches for “gallantry” in “sponging out a gun (7 pounder) under heavy Maxim and rifle fire at night under no cover.”6 He was transferred to the rnr in May 1916, was promoted to corporal for “good service,” and fought in German East Africa and Portuguese East Africa. Kavote was discharged in July 1918 because of “long service in the field.” He then joined the Northern Rhodesia Police as a native constable and was in that position until at least 1924. Kavote was one of the few black soldiers in the rnr to receive the 1914–15 Star for his early service in the war. Like most rnr soldiers, he could not read or write.7 Kurukuru, Private A member of the bsanp before joining the first contingent of the rnr in May 1916, Kurukuru, a Malawian, was described by his platoon commander as a man of “exceedingly bad character.” Kurukuru deserted from the unit in November 1917 because he could not keep up with the advance—he had a sore on his leg caused by venereal disease. He asked another rnr soldier to take care of his wife who was with him. Several weeks later, he was arrested by a fellow black rnr soldier who saw him behind the lines masquerading as a sergeant. While being transported to serve his prison sentence, Kurukuru managed to escape from his guards who were distracted by their wives. After being recaptured, he was sentenced to a total of four months and fourteen days of imprisonment with hard labour as well as twelve lashes. He died in Zomba, Nyasaland, in December 1918 from “pneumonia following influenza.”8 He could not read or write.

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Lopo, Private Like many Zimbabweans in the rnr, Lopo was a Kalanga from the southwestern Plumtree area who had worked on white-owned commercial farms. He enlisted in March 1917 and died of meningitis in Portuguese East Africa in June 1918. Lungombe, Private A Kalanga man from the Plumtree area, Lungombe was twenty-seven years old when he travelled to Salisbury in May 1916 to enlist as one of the first five hundred rnr soldiers. His pre-enlist activities are not known but it is likely that he worked within the colonial economy. He was wounded at the Battle of Mpepo in August 1917 and then discharged from service as he was considered medically unfit. After the war, Lungombe worked as a messenger for the Native Affairs Department in Plumtree until 1929. He did not receive a disability pension until 1933 when his application was supported by a doctor.9 Magonkwa, Private A mine worker from Northern Rhodesia who was living in the Inyati District of Matabeleland at the time of the war, Magonkwa enlisted in the rnr in July 1917. On 12 June 1918, in Portuguese East Africa, a special board of officers found him guilty of sleeping on sentry duty and sentenced him to two years’ hard labour and twelve lashes.10 Mayega, Sergeant In May 1916, Mayega was among the first group of bsanp constables transferred to the initial rnr contingent. He was most likely from the Matabeleland area. Promoted to corporal the day before the unit left for East Africa, Mayega remained in the field until the armistice. It seems that literacy helped his career in the rnr. Mayega was promoted to sergeant in early July 1917 just days before the Battle of Mpepo. He was mentioned in dispatches, an honour just short of decoration, for rendering “valuable service” during operations in Portuguese East Africa in 1918. Despite this, there is very little information on Mayega’s personal actions during the campaign. He returned to Southern Rhodesia in January 1919 and after a month’s leave, he returned to the bsap and was posted to Bulawayo. His discharge record from the rnr described his military character as “excellent.”11

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Mdala, Corporal Mdala was from Nyasaland and had served six years in the kar. During the First World War he was working as a boiler operator in the Southern Rhodesian town of Umtali (Mutare). In April 1917 he enlisted in the rnr and, given his previous military experience, it was not surprising that he was quickly promoted to corporal. On 29 May 1918, in camp in Portuguese East Africa, an rnr soldier, Private Maulana, was sitting in his hut, fiddling with his rifle when it accidentally fired. The bullet passed through the wall of the hut and killed Corporal Mdala, who was standing outside. A board of rnr officers convicted Private Maulana of culpable homicide and sentenced him to one year in prison with hard labour.12 Mulenge, Abel, Private Abel Mulenge, who was from Livingstone in Northern Rhodesia, was among the first five hundred volunteers for the rnr. He was wounded at the Battle of Mpepo in late August 1917 and after the war he became a dip tank supervisor at Selukwe, Southern Rhodesia. In 1925, Mulenge started to collect a disability pension paid through the local native commissioner.13 Ndiweni, Mkulunyelwa Private Enlisted simply as Private Mkulunyelwa, this man was the son of the famous Ndebele Chief Ndiweni who had fought against the British in the 1890s. Because chiefs were expected to provide recruits for the rnr, Mkulunyelwa’s father sent him to join the first contingent to serve as an example to his other subjects. The young man’s wife was pregnant at the time and she later game birth to a boy named Kaisa (or Kaiser) Ndiweni. On 20 March 1917, just after the rnr had been mauled by the Germans near St. Moritz, Mkulunyelwa Ndiweni raised his head slightly above his trench and was shot dead. His family collected the ten-pound death gratuity. Kaisa Ndiweni took over the chieftainship in 1942 and attended the Lancaster House talks in 1979 that led to Zimbabwe’s independence. Rita (Lita), Sergeant Rita was part of the original rnr contingent. There are no detailed records on his personal background but it is likely he was an Ndebele, since most of the first contingent came from Matabeleland and white officers sometimes spelled his name “Lita” which is Ndebele. As one of the few literate black soldiers in

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the rnr, he was posted to the intelligence section and quickly promoted to corporal. Rita led countless small reconnaissance patrols and became an expert at collecting information on the enemy. Just before the siege of Songea, he led a patrol that captured a German sergeant. Just after the siege of Songea, while on patrol, Rita shot a German askari sergeant and was pursued through the bush by forty enemy soldiers. Stealth, reliability, and narrow escapes from the enemy became his trademarks. Once he was promoted to sergeant, Rita was eventually posted to a rifle platoon and entrusted with leading twenty-man fighting patrols that would locate and engage the Germans. Winning the Distinguished Service Cross, Rita was the most highly decorated African soldier in the rnr. He died of unknown natural causes in November 1917 and his family was paid a death gratuity. Salima, Sergeant Judging from his name, Salima was probably from Nyasaland and likely came to Southern Rhodesia as a migrant mine worker. He was one of the first recruits to enlist in the rnr. Salima led important fighting patrols that harassed the enemy when the rnr was besieged at Kitanda in January and February 1917. For this, he received the Military Medal which was the first decoration awarded to a black rnr soldier. Along with dozens of others, he was discharged in June 1918 at Salisbury, having completed his two years of service.14 Nothing is known of his postwar life. Stambuli, Private Stambuli was from Portuguese East Africa and had worked as a house servant in Southern Rhodesia. In April 1917, he was working in the Connemera Mine near Gwelo (Gweru today) when an rnr recruiting officer came looking for volunteers. Stambuli, along with six others, told the officer that they wanted to enlist in the regiment. As instructed, the next day these recruits went to the mine compound manager to collect their outstanding pay so they could travel to Salisbury to join the rnr. Since the mine was short of workers, the manager refused to let them go and ordered them back to work. When Stambuli and another man refused, the manager called in the mine police who beat the would-be recruits and handcuffed them to a wagon wheel. The rnr recruiting officer discovered what had happened and had the mine manager charged with “hampering recruiting” and “assault” but he was convicted of only the latter offence. Stambuli joined the rnr in May 1917, went to East Africa, and was discharged at the end of the war.15 The exact details of his service and postwar life remain a mystery.

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157

Tanganyika, Sergeant As a member of the first five hundred rnr recruits, there are no records of Tanganyika’s background. His name would seem to indicate an East African origin and there was another Tanganyika, a private, in the rnr who was recorded as a Chewa from Nyasaland (Malawi). However, Tanganyika is also a phrase in the Shona language meaning “to make the country.” Sergeant Tanganyika was either a Malawian of Chewa ethnicity or a Zimbabwean of Shona ethnicity. Since he was literate, he was promoted to corporal fairly quickly and became one of the most effective patrol leaders in the rnr. In October 1916, while leading a reconnaissance patrol near Songea, Tanganyika’s six men fled but he still managed to single-handedly capture two enemy African soldiers. Strangely, he received no decorations. The only blemish on his record seems to have been leading the prisoner escort that was responsible for the escape of Private Kurukuru, a deserter. Tanganyika survived the war but there are no records of his postwar life.


notes

introduction 1 National Archives of Zimbabwe (hereafter naz), a3/11/24/5 List of Natives, exclusive of members of the Rhodesia Native Regiment, who left Southern Rhodesia on active service during the Great War 1914–1918. 2 A.E. Capell, The Second Rhodesia Regiment in East Africa (London: Simson, 1923) and F.B. Young, Marching on Tanga: With General Smuts in East Africa (London: House of Stratus, 1917). 3 L.H. Gann, A History of Southern Rhodesia: Early Days to 1934 (London: Chatto and Windus, 1965), 218–31; L.H. Gann and M. Gelfand, Huggins of Rhodesia: The Man and His Country (London: Allen and Unwin, 1964), 42–43. 4 Rhodesia Herald, 1 February 1918. 5 Calvin Ruck, The Black Battalion: 1916–1920, Canada’s Best Kept Military Secret (Halifax: Nimbus, 1987); Bill Harris, The Hellfighters of Harlem: African-American Soldiers Who Fought for the Right to Fight for Their Country (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2002); Arthur Barbeau, The Unknown Soldiers: Black American Troops in World War One (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1974); Robert B. Edgerton, Hidden Heroism: Black Soldiers in America’s Wars (Boulder: Westview Press, 2002). 6 Melvin Page, The Chiwaya War: Malawians and the First World War (Boulder: Westview Press, 2000), 77. 7 A.J. Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment: Some Reminiscences,” Rhodesian Defence Force Journal 5, no. 12, October 1919, to 6, no. 11, September 1920. This series of articles was repeated in the British South Africa Police magazine The Outpost 9, no. 6, December 1931, to 9, no. 12, June 1932. For the Tomlinson’s original diary, see naz, to 1/ 2/1/1 A.J. Tomlinson Diaries. 8 naz, b1/5/10/11, C.L. Carbutt Diary, letter from Carbutt to Secretary of Defence, 20 December 1921.

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9 H. Bugler,“C Company Rhodesia Native Regiment,” The Outpost 6 (January 1939): pp. 13–16. 10 R.W.M. Langham, “Memories of the 1914–18 Campaign with Northern Rhodesian Forces,” Northern Rhodesia Journal 1, no. 2 (1953), to 3, no. 3 (1957); H.A. Cripwell,“Operations around Mpepo, German East Africa, 1917,” Rhodesiana, no. 10 (July 1964): 54–79. 11 For examples of the growing literature on Africa and the First World War, see Joe Lunn, Memoirs of the Maelstrom: A Senegalese Oral History of the First World War (New York: Heinemann, 1999); Bill Nasson, “War Opinion in South Africa, 1914,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth Studies, 223, no. 2 (1995): 248–49; Albert Grundlingh, “The King’s Afrikaners? Enlistment and Ethnic Identity in the Union of South Africa Defence Force during the Second World War, 1939–45,” Journal of African History 40 (1999): 351–65. 12 Peter McLaughlin, Ragtime Soldiers: The Rhodesian Experience in the First World War (Bulawayo: Books of Rhodesia, 1980); Peter McLaughlin,“The Legacy of Conquest: African Military Manpower in Southern Rhodesia during the First World War,” in Africa and the First World War, ed. Melvin Page (London: MacMillan, 1987), 115–36; Peter McLaughlin, “Collaborators, Mercenaries or Patriots? The Problem of African Troops in Southern Rhodesia during the First and Second World Wars,” Zimbabwean History 10 (1979): 21–50. 13 Tim Stapleton, “Views of the First World War in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) 1914–1918,” War and Society 20, no. 2 (May 2002): 23–34. 14 Page, The Chiwaya War. 15 Jonathan Newel, “I Wore Sergeant’s Stripes because I Wanted to Be One: Protest, Punishment and the Assertion of Rights in the Rhodesia Native Regiment” (paper presented to the Conference on the Historical Dimensions of Democracy and Human Rights in Zimbabwe, September 1996). 16 Harare Moyse-Bartlett, The King’s African Rifles: A Study in the Military History of East and Central Africa, 1890–1945 (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1956), 331, 348, 406. 17 Malcolm Page, KAR: A History of the King’s African Rifles and East African Forces (London: Leo Cooper, 1998), 46. 18 Brian Gardner, German East: The Story of the First World War in East Africa (London: Cassell, 1963) and Charles Miller, Battle for the Bundu: The First World War in East Africa (New York: MacMillan, 1974). 19 Ross Anderson, Forgotten Front: The East Africa Campaign 1914–1918 (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus, 2004), 154. 20 Hew Strachan, The First World War: Volume I: To Arms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 498. 21 Bugler, “C Company,” 16.

chapter 1 1 For an excellent pre-colonial history of Zimbabwe, see D.N. Beach, The Shona and Zimbabwe, 900–1850 (Masvingo: Mambo Press, 1980). 2 For a thorough account of the colonial conquest, see Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa: White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent, 1876–1912 (New York: Avon Books, 1991).

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3 For an account of the 1893 conflict, see Stanford Glass, The Matabele War (London: Longman, 1968). 4 For the 1896–97 Rebellion, see T.O. Ranger, Revolt in Southern Rhodesia 1896–97 (London: Heinemann, 1967); D.N. Beach, War and Politics in Zimbabwe, 1840–1900 (Gweru: Mambo Press, 1986), 119–48; J.R.D. Cobbing, “The Absent Priesthood: Another Look at the Rhodesian Risings of 1896–97,” Journal of African History 18, no. 1 (1977): 61–84. 5 Philip Mason, The Birth of a Dilemma: The Conquest and Settlement of Rhodesia (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), 217–18. 6 Peter Gibbs, History of the British South Africa Police 1890–1980 (1972. North Ringwood, Australia: Something of Value, 2000). A.S. Hickman, Rhodesia Served the Queen: Rhodesian Forces in the Boer War 1899–1902 (Salisbury: Government Printer, 1970). 7 Mason, The Birth of a Dilemma, 271–72. 8 David Killingray and David Omissi (eds.), Guardians of Empire: The Armed Forces of the Colonial Powers, c. 1700–1964 (Manchester University Press, 2000). 9 T.O. Ranger, The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1970), 45–46. 10 See Gibbs, British South Africa Police. 11 Strachan, The First World War, 495–569. 12 Ibid., 604. 13 Ibid., 569–643. For a recent and detailed study of the war in East Africa, see Ross Anderson, Forgotten Front: The East Africa Campaign 1914–1918 (Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2004); for older, more popular accounts see Brian Gardner, German East: The Story of the First World War in East Africa (London: Cassell, 1963); and Miller, Battle for the Bundu. For an excellent work on supply carriers see Geoffrey Hodges, The Carrier Corps: Military Labour in the East African Campaign (Westport: Greenwood, 1986).

chapter 2 1 Rhodesia Herald, 31 March 1916. 2 A.E. Capell, The Second Rhodesia Regiment in East Africa (London: Simson, 1923), 93. 3 Tim Stapleton, “Views of the First World War in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) 1914–1918,” War and Society 20, no. 2 (May 2002): 23–24. 4 National Archives of Zimbabwe (naz), a3/11/20/1–2, D. Chaplin to bsac London, 30 September 1915. 5 naz, a3/11/20/1–2, cablegram from Chaplin to bsac London Office, 4 October 1915. 6 naz, a3/11/20/1–2, telegram from Commandant-General, Cape Town, 23 November 1915. 7 Ibid. 8 naz, a3/11/20/1–2, cablegram to London, 12 April 1916. 9 naz, a3/11/20/1–2, A.P Millar, Assistant Secretary bsac to Under-secretary of State for the Colonies, London, 29 March 1916. 10 naz, a3/11/20/1–2 A.P. Millar, Assistant Secretary bsac to Under-secretary of State for the Colonies, London, 8 April 1916.

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notes to chapter two

11 naz, a3/11/20/1–2, War Office B.B. Cubitt to Under-secretary for Colonial Office, London, 18 April 1916. 12 naz, a3/11/20/1–2, H.W. Just to Secretary of bsac, Downing Street, 19 April 1916. 13 naz, b2/2/7, Annual Report, Edwards to High Commissioner, 14 January 1918. 14 naz, a3/11/20/1–2, Edwards to Secretary for Administration, Salisbury, 27 April 1916; Secretary for Administration to Edwards, 3 May 1916. 15 naz, b1/5/1/1–4, Military Operatons, Edwards to Buxton, 14 January 1918, “The Corps was raised under the provisions of the Southern Rhodesia Police Ordinance 1903 as amended by the Ordinance of 1905.” 16 Peter McLaughlin,“Collaborators, Mercenaries or Patriots? The Problem of African Troops in Rhodesia during the First and Second World War,” Zimbabwean History 10 (1979): 25. 17 Timothy H. Parsons, The African Rank-And-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King’s African Rifles, 1902–1964 (Oxford: James Currey, 1999), 17–18. 18 See T.O. Ranger, Revolt in Southern Rhodesia 1896–97 (London: Heinemann, 1967). 19 Parsons, The African Rank-and-File, 9. 20 The Outpost 3, no. 6 (December 1925): 4. 21 naz, b3/7/1, Vol. 2, Rhodesia Native Regiment Orders. When the unit was being formed in May 1916, it was referred to as the “Matabele Regiment” but this was changed to Rhodesia Native Regiment in early June. 22 Robert Blake, A History of Rhodesia (London: Methuen, 1977), 168. 23 Peter McLaughlin, Ragtime Soldiers: The Rhodesian Experience in the First World War (Bulawayo: Books of Rhodesia, 1980), 73. 24 Ranger, The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia (Nairobi: East African, 1970), 8, 43–44. 25 naz, n3/32/1, Chief Native Commissioner to Secretary of Administration, 26 April 1915. 26 Rhodesia Herald, 6 November 1914. 27 Rhodesia Herald, 4 December 1914. 28 naz, n3/32/1, Chief Native Commissioner to Superintendent of Natives, Victoria, 10 May 1915. 29 For additional reading on the Chilembwe Rising see G. Shepperson and T. Price, Independent African (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1958); G. Mwase, Strike a Blow and Die, ed. R. Rotberg (London: Heinemann Educational, 1975); R. Rotberg,“Psychological Stress and the Question of Identity: Chilembwe’s Revolt Reconsidered,” in Protest and Power in Black Africa, ed. R. Rotberg and A. Mazrui (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 337–73. 30 naz, n3/32/1, Chief Native Commissioner to all Superintendents of Natives, 18 March 1915. 31 Bulawayo Chronicle, 26 March 1915. 32 naz, n3/32/1, Superintendent of Natives, Victoria, to Chief Native Commissioner, 29 May 1915. 33 naz, n3/32/1, Chief Native Commissioner to Secretary of Administration, 26 April 1915. 34 naz, n3/32/1, Native Commissioner, Charter to Superintendent of Natives, Salisbury, 19 May 1915.

notes to chapter two

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35 naz, n3/32/1, Native Commissioner, Hartley to Superintendent of Natives, Salisbury, 20 May 1915. 36 naz, n3/32/1, Native Commissioner, Darwin to Superintendent of Natives, Salisbury, 11 May 1915. 37 naz, n3/32/1, Native Commissioner, Darwin to Superintendent of Natives, Salisbury, 14 July 1915. 38 naz, n3/32/1, Chief Native Commissioner to all superintendents of Natives, 5 August 1915. 39 naz, n3/32/1, Chief Native Commissioner to Administration, 3 July 1916. 40 naz, n3/32/1, Native Commissioner, Insiza to Superintendent of Natives, Gwelo, 4 July 1916. 41 naz, n3/32/1, W.E. Farrer to Superintendent of Natives, Gwelo, 3 July 1916. 42 naz, n3/32/1, Statement by Sigodjwana to T.M. Thomas, 10 June 1916; W.E. Farrer to Superintendent of Natives, Gwelo, 26 June 1916. 43 naz, n3/32/1, Chief Native Commissioner to Administration, 3 July 1916. 44 naz, n3/32/1, Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo to Chief Native Commissioner, 12 June 1916. 45 naz, n3/32/1, Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo to Chief Native Commissioner, 12 June 1916. 46 naz, n3/32/1, Chief Native Commissioner to Administration, 8 July 1916. 47 Ian Phimister and Charles van Onselen, “The Labour Movement in Zimbabwe, 1900–1945,” in Keep on Knocking: A History of the Labour Movement in Zimbabwe, 1900–1997, ed. Brian Raftopoulos and Ian Phimister (Harare: Baobad Books, 1997), 6. 48 naz, n3/21/1, Thomas Mazinyane (lmps committee chairman) to Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, 30 August 1916. 49 naz, n3/21/1, Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo to Chief Native Commissioner, 10 June 1916. 50 naz, n3/21/1, Notice by Amandebele Patriotic Society, 15 December 1916. 51 naz, n3/21/1, Chief Native Commissioner to Secretary of Administration, 20 September 1916. 52 naz, n3/21/1, Cecil Roberts to Chief Native Commissioner, 11 January 1917. 53 naz, n3/21/1, Criminal Investigation Division, Bulawayo, to Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, 31 January 1917. 54 naz, n3/32/1, Native Commissioner, Plumtree to Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, 1 May 1915. 55 naz, n3/32/1, Native Commissioner, Plumtree to Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, 18 May 1915; Chief Native Commissioner to Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, 19 May 1915. 56 naz, n3/32/1, Acting Assistant Native Commissioner, Salisbury to Superintendent of Natives, Salisbury, 12 March 1915. 57 naz, n3/32/1, Chief Native Commissioner to Secretary of Administration, 17 June 1915. 58 naz, n3/32/1 Jackson to Chief Native Commissioner, 30 April 1915. 59 Nasson,“War Opinion in South Africa, 1914,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth Studies 223, no. 2 (1995): 257.

164

notes to chapter three

chapter 3 1 Peter McLaughlin, Ragtime Soldiers: The Rhodesian Experience in the First World War (Bulawayo: Books of Rhodesia, 1980), 75. 2 Peter McLaughlin,“The Legacy of Conquest: African Military Manpower in Southern Rhodesia during the First World War,” in Africa and the First World War, ed. Melvin Page (London: MacMillan, 1987), 128. 3 Melvin Page, The Chiwaya War: Malawians and the First World War (Boulder: Westview, 2000), 78. 4 Ibid. 5 naz, s2294/24, Discharges. 6 naz, n3/32/4, Correspondence of Native Department. 7 naz, a3/11/24/7, Nominal Roll, Rhodesia Native Regiment. 8 Page, Chiwaya War, 78. 9 naz, b4/7/5, Nominal Roll, Rhodesia Native Regiment. 10 Ibid. 11 naz, a3/11/24/7, Nominal Roll, Rhodesia Native Regiment. 12 naz, b1/5/7, L. Wallace, “Northern Rhodesia: Work Done during the Great War,” n.d., 57. 13 naz, n3/32/4, Taylor to Secretary of the Administrator, 7 August 1916. 14 naz, n3/32/4, reports by native commissioners and superintendents of natives on recruiting, July 1916. 15 naz, b1/5/1/1–4, Edwards to Buxton, 14 January 1918. 16 McLaughlin, “Legacy of Conquest,” 128 and 135n49. Also see Peter McLaughlin, “Collaborators, Mercenaries or Patriots: The ‘Problem’ of African Troops in Southern Rhodesia during the First and Second World Wars,” Zimbabwean History 10 (1979): 28n30. 17 naz, n3/32/4, N. Jackson to Chief Native Commissioner, 5 August 1916. 18 naz, n3/32/4, Native Commissioner Penhalonga to Superintendent of Natives Umtali, 5 July 1916. 19 naz, n3/42/4, Superintendent of Natives, Gwelo to Chief Native Commissioner, 14 July 1916. 20 naz, oral/cr 3, interview with FA Cross, Borrowdale, Salisbury, 1 November 1973, conducted by J.D. McCarthey. 21 Interview with Chief Kaisa Ndiweni, 15 August 2001, Ntabazinduna, Zimbabwe. Chief Ndiweni’s father had been among the first five hundred volunteers for the rnr and was killed in action in April 1917 in German East Africa. He stated that “a few sons from each chief had to go.” 22 Ibid. 23 Page, Chiwaya War, 78. 24 naz, B4/7/5, Nominal Roll, Rhodesia Native Regiment. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 McLaughlin, “The Legacy of Conquest,” 127. 28 R.M.W. Langham, “Memories of the 1914–18 Campaigns with Northern Rhodesian Forces,” Northern Rhodesia Journal 1, no. 2 (1953): 257. 29 Ian Phimister, An Economic and Social History of Zimbabwe 1890–1948: Capital Accumulation and Class Struggle (London: Longmans, 1988), 91. 30 “Native Recruiting,” Rhodesia Herald, 11 May 1917.

notes to chapter three

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31 naz, a3/11/24/7, Nominal Roll, Rhodesia Native Regiment. 32 Page, Chiwaya War, 78. Page counts thirty-two kar veterans on the complete nominal roll. In fact, there are thirty-five on that list. 33 naz, b4/7/5, Nominal Roll, Rhodesia Native Regiment. 34 naz, n3/32/4, Superintendent of Natives, Gwelo, to Chief Native Commissioner, 14 July 1916. 35 naz, a3/11/24/7, Nominal Roll, Rhodesia Native Regiment. 36 Timothy Parsons, The African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King’s African Rifles, 1902–1964 (Oxford: James Currey, 1999), 59. 37 Interview with Chief Kaisa Ndiweni, Ntabazinduna, 15 August 2001. 38 naz, aoh/69, Transcript of an interview with Masotsha Ndlovu, 8 October 1981. 39 McLaughlin, “The Legacy of Conquest,” 132. 40 naz, a3/11/20/1, Arthur Cripps to Resident Commissioner, Salisbury, 28 March 1917. 41 Rhodesia Herald, 10 August 1917. 42 naz, a3/11/20/2, Native Commissioner, Umzingwani, to Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, 19 February 1917. 43 Albert Grundlingh, Fighting Their Own War: South African Blacks and the First World War (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987). 44 Jonathan Newel, “I Wore Sergeant’s Stripes because I Wanted to Be One: Protest, Punishment and the Assertion of Rights in the Rhodesia Native Regiment” (paper presented to the Conference on the Historical Dimensions of Democracy and Human Rights in Zimbabwe, September 1996): 2. 45 naz, s2294/24, Discharges rnr, 3938 Sergeant Nyamana, enclosed is letter from Colonel F.A. Hodson, Officer Commanding Line of Communications, 15 June 1917, Instructions for Sergeant Nyamana, No. Two Company rnr. 46 Parsons, The African Rank-and-File, 108. 47 naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders 16 May 1916 to 14 February 1921. 48 naz, a3/11/20/2, B/Gen Edwards Comdt Gen, Salisbury to Sec, Dept of Adm, 27 April 1916. 49 Newel, “I Wore Sergeant’s Stripes.” 50 Rhodesia Herald, 8 January 1915; Bulawayo Chronicle, 12 March 1915. 51 Rhodesia Herald, 7 April 1916. 52 David Killingray, “The ‘Rod of Empire’: The Debate over Corporal Punishment in the British African Colonial Forces 1888–1946,” Journal of African History 35 (1994): 207. 53 Ibid. 54 naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 9 October 1918, Proclamation of High Commissioner Buxton, 14 September 1918. 55 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, A.J. Tomlinson, Diaries of the First Rhodesia Native Regiment, 26 August 1916. 56 Parsons, African Rank-and-File, 186. 57 Ndhlovu, “Mphepo,” The Outpost 9, no. 12 (June 1932): 10. 58 naz, oral/cr 3, Interview of Frank Albert Cross, by J.D. MacCarthey, 1 November 1973, Borrowdale. 59 naz, s2294/24, Discharges rnr, 4415 Liabwa. 60 naz, oral/cr 3, Interview with F.A. Cross.

166

notes to chapter four

61 Ibid. 62 naz, s3093/3/2, 2rnr Orderly Officer’s Reports, 4 and 19 October, 6 and 19 November 1917. 63 naz, s2294/26, Proceeding of the Special Board of Officers, Mtengula, Portuguese East Africa, 9 April 1918, case against 983 Private Masamba. 64 naz, s2294/26, Proceedings of the Special Board of Officers, Mtengula, Portuguese East Africa, 9 April 1917, case against 1833 Private Tisikanya. 65 Letter from the Late Lt. Simpson, Rhodesia Herald, 9 March 1917. 66 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diary, 27 October 1916. 67 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 63. 68 naz, s2294/26, Proceeding of the Special Board of Officers, Mtengula, Portuguese East Africa, 13 April 1918, case against 166 Private Chahombo. 69 naz, s3093/3/2, 2rnr Orderly Officer’s Reports, 27 November 1917. 70 Newel, “I Wore Sergeant’s Stripes,” 6–10. 71 naz, s3093/3/2, 2rnr Orderly Officer’s Reports, 3 October 1917 to 28 December 1917. 72 Parsons, African Rank-and-File, 112. 73 H. Bugler,“C Company Rhodesia Native Regiment,” The Outpost 6 (January 1939): 16. 74 naz, oral/cr 3, interview with F.A. Cross. 75 naz, s2294/24, Discharges rnr, 4924 Acting Corporal Yaseni. 76 Parsons, African Rank-and-File, 111. 77 Tim Stapleton,“The Composition of the Rhodesia Native Regiment during the First World War: A Look at the Evidence,” History in Africa 30 (2003): 283–86. For the continued use of the name Matabele Regiment, see naz, a3/11/20/2 War Office to Chairman bsac, 26 April 1917. 78 Interview with Chief Kaisa Ndiweni, 15 August 2001, Ntabazinduna, Zimbabwe. 79 Rhodesia Herald, 18 August 1916. See also David Killingray, “The Idea of a British Imperial African Army,” Journal of African History 20, no. 3 (1979): 423–27. 80 R.W.M. Langham, “Memories of the 1914–1918 Campaign with the Northern Rhodesian Forces,” Northern Rhodesia Journal 3, no. 3 (1957): 258. 81 Stapleton, “Composition of the Rhodesia Native Regiment,” 291–92. 82 naz, b1/5/1/1–4, Military Operatons, Edwards to Buxton, 14 January 1918. 83 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diary, 20 January 1917, 4 February 1917. 84 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 38. 85 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diary, 10 November 1916. 86 Ibid., 26 August 1916. 87 naz, oral/cr 3, Interview with Frank Albert Cross. 88 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diary, 8 February 1917. 89 naz, oral/cr 3, Interview with Frank Albert Cross.

chapter 4 1 Ross Anderson, The Battle of Tanga 1914 (Charleston, SC: Tempus, 2002), 123–24. For general works on the German East Africa campaign see Brian Gardner, German East: The Story of the First World War in East Africa (London: Cassell, 1963); Charles Miller, Battle for the Bundu: The First World War in East Africa (New York: MacMillan, 1974); and Ross Anderson, Forgotten Front: The East African Campaign 1914–1918 (Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2004).

notes to chapter four 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

167

Anderson, Forgotten Front, 108. naz, b1/5/12, Southern Rhodesian Column. Anderson, Forgotten Front, 129–33. naz, b1/5/1/1–4, Military Operatons, Edwards to Buxton, 14 January 1918. Rhodesia Herald, 9 June 1916. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diary, 18 July to 30 August 1916. Anderson, Forgotten Front, 154. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, A.J. Tomlinson, Diaries of the First Rhodesia Native Regiment, 10 September 1916. For Tomlinson’s Boer War service, see Peter Gibbs, History of the British South African Police 1890–1980 (1972. North Ringwood, Australia: Something of Value, 2000), 106–107. naz, b1/5/12, Southern Rhodesian Column. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, A.J. Tomlinson, Diaries of the First Rhodesia Native Regiment, 6 September 1916. Ibid., 6 September 1916. Ibid., 16 September 1916. Anderson, Forgotten Front, 154. naz, to 1/2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 18 September 1916. Ibid., 20 September 1916. Ibid., 22 September 1916. Ibid., 26–27 September 1916. Ibid., 29 September 1916. Ibid., 30 September and 1 October 1916. Ibid., 2 October 1916. Ibid., 5 October 1916. Ibid., 7–9 October, for the quote see 15 October 1916. Ibid., 11–12 October 1916. Ibid., 12–13 October 1916. Ibid., 15 October 1916. Ibid., 21–23 October 1916; A.J. Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment: Some Reminiscences,” Rhodesian Defence Force Journal (rdfj) 5, no. 11 (September 1919): 5. naz, t01/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 24 and 27 October 1916. Ibid., 29 October 1916. Ibid., 31 October 1916. Ibid., 31 October and 1 November 1916. Ibid., 1–2 November 1916. Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” 5. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 2 November 1916. Ibid., 2 November 1916. Ibid., 3 November 1916. Ibid., 4 November 1916. Ibid., 5–7 November 1916. Ibid., 7 November 1916. Anderson, Forgotten Front, 161.

168

notes to chapter five

chapter 5 1 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 24 October, 1 and 17 November 1916, Report on Operations by No 2 Company rnr during period 1 to 30 November 1916 by Major C.L. Carbutt; naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders 24 November 1916. 2 naz, a3/11/20/2, Captain T. Marriott, 2nd sar to cso General Northey, 28 November 1916; naz, to 1/2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, report on operations by No 2 Company, 1 to 30 November by Carbutt, letter from Lt Baker to Major Carbutt 22 November 1916; naz, b1/5/12, Southern Rhodesian Column. 3 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, report on operations by No 2 Company, 1 to 30 November by Carbutt, and letter from Lt Baker to Major Carbutt 22 November 1916; naz, b1/5/12, Southern Rhodesian Column. 4 Letter from the late Lt. H. Simpson to W.M. Langden, 14 January 1917, Rhodesia Herald, 9 March 1917. 5 Ibid. 6 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, report of operations by No 2 Company 1 to 30 November by Carbutt. 7 Ibid.; naz, b1/5/12, Southern Rhodesian Column. 8 Rhodesia Herald, 9 March 1917. 9 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 8–9 November 1916. 10 Ibid., 10 November and 10 December 1916. 11 A.J. Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment: Some Reminiscences,” Rhodesian Defence Force Journal 5, no. 12 (October 1919): 3. 12 naz, to 1/2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 11 November 1916. 13 Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” 4–5; naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 27–30 November 1916. Initially, Tomlinson believed that a German officer named Schulz was in command of the first German force that attacked Songea. However, this must have been a mistake because during this time Schulz was at Kibata to the north. Tomlinson must have confused Falkenstein and Schulz but he did know that a German officer had been killed in the abortive attack and he eventually wrote about seeing Falkenstein’s grave. For a brief overview of the Songea battle that puts it in a broad context see Ross Anderson, Forgotten Front: The East Africa Campaign 1914–1918 (Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2004), 161. 14 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 13 November 1916. 15 Ibid., 14–17 November 1916. 16 Ibid., 18–21 November 1916. 17 Ibid., 23–24 November 1916. 18 Ibid., 25–27 November 1916. 19 Ibid., 27 November 1916. 20 Ibid., 29 November 1916. 21 Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” Rhodesia Defence Force Journal 5, no. 12 (October 1919): 3. 22 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 8 December 1916. 23 naz, a3/11/20/2, Lt. William W. Honeywell, ADC B/Gen Northey to Col. Byron, 13 December 1916. 24 naz, a3/11/20/2, War Office, Whitehall to Chairman, Board of Directors bsac, London, 26 April 1917.

notes to chapter six

169

chapter 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30

naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 1–4 December 1916. Ibid., 4–7 December 1916. Ibid., 13 December 1916. Ibid., 15 December 1916. Ibid., 17 December 1916. Ibid., 19–21 December 1916. Ibid., 21–24 December 1916. Ibid., 21–30 December 1916. A.J. Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment: Some Reminiscences,” Rhodesian Defence Force Journal 6, no. 4 (February 1920): 5. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 2–5 January 1917; Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” 5. H. Moyse-Bartlett, The King’s African Rifles: A Study in the Military History of East and Central Africa, 1890–1945 (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1956), 352. naz to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 6–13 January 1917; Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” 5. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries 14 January 1917. Ibid., 15 January 1917; Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” 6. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries 16–17 January 1917; Tomlinson, “1st Rhodesia Native Regiment: Some Reminiscences,” Rhodesian Defence Force Journal 6, no. 5 (March 1920): 10. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 18–19 January 1917; Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” rdfj 6, no. 5 (March 1920): 10. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries 20 January 1917. Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” rdfj 6, no. 5 (March 1920): 11. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 23 January 1917. For Rutherford’s background see naz, b4/7/3, Nominal Roll of rnr. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 24 January 1917; Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” rdfj 6, no. 5 (March 1920): 11–12. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 26 January 1917; Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” rdfj 6, no. 5 (March 1920): 12. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 27–28 January 1917; Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” rdfj 6, no. 5 (March 1920): 12. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 29–31 January 1917; Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” rdfj 6, no. 5 (March 1920): 12; naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 10 April 1917. naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 29–30 January 1917. Ibid., 1 February 1917. Ibid., 1–3 February 1917. Ibid., 4–7 February 1917. naz, b1/5/12, Southern Rhodesian Column. naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 26 July 1917. naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders 3 August 1917.

170

notes to chapter seven

chapter 7 1 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 14 February 1917. 2 Ibid., 13–15 February 1917. 3 naz, b3/7/1, rnr orders 3 August 1917; Ian Stephanus Uys, For Valor: The History of Southern Africa’s Victoria Cross Heroes (Johannesburg: Galvin and Sales, 1973), 225. 4 Rhodesian Herald, 17 August 1917. 5 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 13–16 February. 6 H. Moyse-Bartlett, The King’s African Rifles: A Study in the Military History of East and Central Africa, 1890–1945 (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1956), 352–53. 7 Brian Gardner, German East: The Story of the First World War in East Africa (London: Cassell, 1963), 148; Charles Miller, Battle for the Bundu: The First World War in East Africa (New York: MacMillan, 1974), 268; for the quote, see Ross Anderson, Forgotten Front: The East Africa Campaign 1914–1918 (Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2004), 202, 204. 8 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 20–27 February 1917. 9 Ibid., 28 February–9 March 1917; Moyse-Bartlett, King’s African Rifles, 354. 10 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 11–12 March 1917. 11 Ibid., 14–15 March 1917. 12 Ibid., 16–17 March 1917. 13 A.J. Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment: Some Reminiscences,” Rhodesian Defence Force Journal 6, no. 10 (August 1920): 6. 14 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 18–19 March 1917. 15 Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia,” 6. 16 naz, b1/5/12, Southern Rhodesian Column. 17 Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia,” 6. 18 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 20 March 1917; Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia,” 6. 19 Ibid., 6–7. 20 Ibid., 7. 21 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 20 March 1917. 22 Ibid., 21–24 March 1917; A.J. Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” rdfj 6, no. 11 (September 1920): 3; interview with Chief K. Ndiweni. 23 Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” rdfj 6, no. 11 (September 1920): 3. 24 R.W.M. Langham,“Memories of the 1914–18 Campaigns with the Northern Rhodesian Forces,” Northern Rhodesian Journal 13, no. 3 (1957): 257. 25 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 21–27 March 1917; Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” rdfj 6, no. 11 (September 1920): 3. 26 naz, b1/5/12, Southern Rhodesian Column. 27 Ibid. 28 naz, oral/cr3, Interview with Frank Albert Cross by J.D. MacCarthey, 1 November 1973, Borrowdale. 29 naz, to 1/ 2/1/1, Tomlinson Diaries, 20 March 1917, emphasis in original. 30 Ibid., 28 March 1917. 31 Ibid., 30 March 1917. 32 Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” rdfj 6, no. 10 (August 1920): 7. 33 Tomlinson, “First Rhodesia Native Regiment,” rdfj 6, no. 11 (September 1920): 4.

notes to chapter eight

171

34 Peter McLaughlin, Ragtime Soldiers: The Rhodesian Experience in the First World War (Bulawayo: Books of Rhodesia, 1980), 78. 35 H.A. Cripwell, “Operations around Mpepo, German East Africa, 1917,” Rhodesiana no. 10 (July 1964): 66; for quote see naz, oral/cr3, Interview with F.A. Cross. 36 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 1. 37 Peter Gibbs, History of the British South Africa Police 1890–1980 (1972. North Ringwood Australia: Something of Value, 2000), 195–96. 38 naz, a3/11/24/4–5, List of European Persons Who Left Southern Rhodesia to Proceed on Active Service During the Great War; Langham, 257. 39 Outpost 3, no. 6 (December 1925): 4. Gibbs, History of the British South Africa Police, 195–96.

chapter 8 1 J. Alexander, J. McGregor, and T. Ranger, Violence and Memory: One Hundred Years in the ‘Dark Forests’ of Matabeleland (Oxford: James Currey, 2000), 24. 2 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 1–4. 3 Ibid., 5; for a general account of Wintgens’s break to the north, see H. MoyseBartlett, King’s African Rifles: A Study in the Military History of East and Central Africa, 1890–1945 (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1956), 355. 4 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 7–8. 5 Malcolm Page, KAR: A History of the King’s African Rifles (London: Leo Cooper, 1998), 42. 6 Ibid., 10–11; naz, oral/cr3, Interview with F.A. Cross; Moyse-Bartlett, King’s African Rifles, 355. 7 Ross Anderson, Forgotten Front: The East Africa Campaign 1914–1918 (Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2004), 216–17. 8 For the quote, see naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 12; Cripwell,“Operations around Mpepo, German East Africa, 1917,” Rhodesiana no. 10 (July 1964): 58. 9 naz, b1/5/10–11 Carbutt Diary, pp. 13–16; H.A. Cripwell, “Operations around Mpepo,” 59; Ndhlovu, “Mphepo,” The Outpost 19, no. 11 (May 1932): 18. 10 Cripwell, “Operations around Mpepo,” 61. 11 Anderson, Forgotten Front, 228. 12 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 19–21, Cripwell, “Mpepo,” 63. 13 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 22–24. 14 Ibid., 24–25. 15 Ibid., 26–27. 16 Ibid., 28; Ndhlovu, “Mphepo,” 19. 17 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 31–32. 18 Ibid., 33–34. 19 Ibid., 35–36; Cripwell, “Operations around Mpepo,” 64. 20 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 37–38; Cripwell,“Operations around Mpepo,” 65–66; Ndhlovu, “Mphepo” Outpost 9, no. 12 (June 32): 10. 21 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 39; naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 30 August 1917 and 22 November 1917; Cripwell, “Operations around Mpepo,” 65. 22 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 40; Cripwell, “Operations around Mpepo,” 65. 23 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 40; Cripwell, “Operations around Mpepo,” 66.

notes to chapter nine

172

24 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 41–42; for quotes see Cripwell, “Operations around Mpepo,” 66; Ndhlovu, “Mphepo” (May 1932): 21. 25 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 43; Cripwell, “Operations around Mpepo,” 68; Ndhlovu, “Mphepo” (June 1932): 10. 26 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 43–45; Cripwell, “Operations arpound Mpepo,” 68. 27 naz, b3/7/1 rnr, Orders, 22 November 1917. 28 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 45–46; Cripwell, “Operations around Mpepo,” 68; Ndhlovu, “Mphepo” (June 1932): 13. 29 Ndhlovu, “Mphepo” (June 1932): 11, 3. 30 Cripwell, “Operations around Mpepo,” 68; naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 46. 31 Ibid., 47–53; Cripwell, “Operations around Mpepo,” 55 and 75–79. 32 Anderson, Forgotten Front, 231. 33 Ibid., 250. Westruppen refers to German forces in the west of the territory. 34 Ndhlovu, “Mphepo” (May 1932): 18.

chapter 9 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18

naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 56. Ibid., 50. Ibid., 53–54. Rhodesia Herald, 23 November 1917; naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 22 November 1917. For the arrival of the new battalion see naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 54; for mine workers see Tim Stapleton, “The Composition of the Rhodesia Native Regiment during the First World War: A Look at the Evidence,” History in Africa 30 (2003): 292–93. Rhodesia Herald, “For Active Service—Native Regiment’s Departure,” 21 September 1917. Rhodesia Herald, “For Valour—Rhodesia’s First VC,” 19 October 1917. Rhodesia Herald, 23 November 1917. Rhodesia Herald, “Gallant Rhodesian,” 16 November 1917. Booth was decorated with the vc by King George V at Buckingham Palace on 16 January 1918. He left the army after the war, stayed in Britain, and had a shortlived marriage in the 1920s. He eventually worked as a warehouseman in London, represented Rhodesia at the vc centenary celebrations in 1956, and died in 1960. Ian Stephanus Uys, For Valour: The History of Southern Africa’s Victoria Cross Heroes (Johannesburg: Galvin and Sales, 1973), 227–28. naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 22 November 1917. For Von Lettow’s plan, see Charles Miller, Battle for the Bundu: The First World War in East Africa (New York: Macmillan, 1974), 295–96; For Portugal’s entry into the war see Hew Strachan, The First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 264. naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 58–61; for the sergeants see naz, cr 7/12/3/5, F.E. Hulley to “Archer,” January 1962. naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 62–64. naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 7 May 1918. naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 9 May 1918. naz, cr 7/12/3/5, “2rnr 1917–18,” F.E. Hulley to “Archer,” January 1962. naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 64–66.

notes to chapter nine

173

19 H. Moyse-Bartlett, The King’s African Rifles: A Study in the Military History of East and Central Africa, 1890–1945 (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1956), 396; Miller, Battle for the Bundu, 307. 20 H. Bugler,“C Company Rhodesia Native Regiment,” The Outpost 6 (January 1939): 13–15; naz, b1/5/10–11 Carbutt Diary, 68–69. 21 Ross Anderson, Forgotten Front: The East Africa Campaign 1914–1918 (Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2004), 275–76. 22 Rhodesia Herald, 31 May 1918. 23 Ibid. 24 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 73–74. 25 Ibid., 75–79. 26 Ibid., 82–85. 27 Ibid., 86–87. 28 Ibid., 88–89; Moyse-Bartlett, King’s African Rifles, 406 is one of the rare occasions when the official kar history mentions the rnr and states that they were involved in this pursuit. 29 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 90–93. 30 Ibid., 94–95. 31 Ibid., 96. 32 Bugler, “C Company,” 16. 33 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 97; Moyse-Bartlett, King’s African Rifles, 406. 34 Bugler, “C Company,” 16. 35 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 98–99; Moyse-Bartlett, King’s African Rifles, 407. For the quote about Giffard see Miller, Battle for the Bundu, 316. 36 Miller, Battle for the Bundu, 316–17. 37 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 98–99; Moyse-Bartlett, King’s African Rifles, 407. For Private Jack Masoja see naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 11 March 1919 and b4/7/5 rnr, Nominal Roll. 38 naz, b1/5/10–11 Carbutt Diary, 100; also see Anderson, Forgotten Front, 288; MoyseBartlett, King’s African Rifles, 408–409. Neither Moyse-Bartlett nor Anderson mention the rnr role in continuing the pursuit. 39 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 101. 40 Ibid., 101–102; Miller, Battle for the Bundu, 318–19. 41 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 101–105. 42 For recent works on the influenza pandemic see Howard Phillips and David Killingray, eds., The Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918: New Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2003); Stephanie True Peters, The 1918 Influenza Pandemic (New York: Benchmark Books, 2005); John M. Barry, The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History (New York: Viking, 2004); Gina Bari Kolata, Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999). 43 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 105–106. 44 naz, cr 7/12/3/5, Hulley to “Archer,” January 1962. 45 naz, b1/5/10–11, Carbutt Diary, 106; naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 5 November 1918 to 2 January 1919; Rhodesia Herald, 8 November 1918. Eleven soldiers were reported to have died in late October and ten of these were not mentioned in regimental orders. 46 naz, oral cr3, Interview with Frank Albert Cross.

notes to chapter ten

174 47 48 49 50 51

Outpost, March 1935. naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 5 March 1920. Ibid., 31 September 1919. Pathisa Nyathi, Masotcha Ndlovu (Harare: Longman, 1998), 25. T.O. Ranger, The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia (Nairobi: East African, 1970), 186.

chapter 10 1 2 3 4

5 6

7 8 9 10

11

12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19

Rhodesia Herald, 27 December 1918. Ibid. Ibid. J. Newell, “I Wore Sergeant’s Stripes because I Wanted to Be One: Punishment and the Assertion of Rights in the Rhodesia Native Regiment” (paper presented to the Conference on the Historical Dimensions of Democracy and Human Rights in Zimbabwe, Harare, September 1990). naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 2 January 1919 to 14 February 1921. Timothy Parsons, The African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King’s African Rifles, 1902–1964 (Oxford: James Currey, 1999), 21. Rhodesia Herald, 1 March 1918. Rhodesia Herald, 30 August 1918. Joe Lunn, Memoirs of the Maelstrom: Senegalese Oral History of the First World War (New York: Heinemann, 1999), 187–205 and 215. naz, s138/42, Acting Chief Native Commissioner to Chief Staff Officer, Salisbury, 2 June 1921 and Acting Chief Native Commissioner to Secretary of Department of Defence, 21 June 1921. naz, s138/42, Native Commissioner Plumtree to Superintendent of Natives, Bulawayo, 20 April 1933 and Overseas Pensions Agent to Chief Native Commissioner, Salisbury, 3 July 1933. naz, a3/11/20/1, B/Gen C.P. Fennell to Chief Secretary East African Protectorate, Nairobi, 6 August 1918. naz, a3/11/20/1, Major L. Parson to Department of Administrator, Salisbury, 19 July 1919; Secretary of State for Colonies to Governor General of South Africa, 12 July 1919; Governor General of South Africa to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 28 August 1919. T.O. Ranger, The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia (Nairobi: East African, 1970), 43–44. naz, s132/42, Circular Chief Native Commissioner’s Office, 20 January 1921; Chief Native Commissioner to Chief of Staff, bsap, 28 June 1921. Newell, “I Wore Sergeant’s Stripes,” 20. naz, s2294/24, Discharges rnr, Acting British Vice Consul, Elizabethville, to Adjutant rnr, 26 September 1919. naz, s2294/24, Discharges rnr, Native Commissioner Mkushi to Staff Officer, War Records, 19 August 1920. naz, s2294/24, Discharges rnr, Civil Commissioner, Gwelo, to Chief Staff Officer, Salisbury, 30 October 1931.

notes to conclusion and appendix

175

20 Ibid., Commissioner of Police and Prisons, Tanganyika to Adjutant nrp, 17 February 1926. 21 naz, n3/32/5, Chief Native Commissioner, 3 November 1919. 22 Ibid. 23 naz, n3/32/5, Native Commissioner Gutu to Chief Native Commissioner, 2 June 1920; Chief Native Commissioner to Town Clerk Salisbury, 29 June 1920; Chief Native Commissioner to Secretary of the Administration, 22 June 1920. 24 Rhodesian Advertiser, 27 August 1924. 25 naz, b1/7/7, Major G. Parson, Chief of Staff, to Lieutenant Colonel Methuen, 22 September 1924. 26 Bantu Mirror, 6 June 1953. 27 Ibid., 13 June 1953. 28 Ibid., 6 June 1953. 29 Ian Phimister and Charles van Onselen, “The Labour Movement in Zimbabwe, 1900–1945,” in Keep on Knocking: A History of the Labour Movement in Zimbabwe 1900–1997, ed. Brian Raftoplos and Ian Phimister (Harare: Baobab Books, 1997), 8. 30 naz, n3/21/1–6, Superintendent of Natives, Umtali to Chief Native Commissioner, 1 September 1922. 31 naz, aoh/69 Interview with Masotsha Ndlovu, 8 October 1981. See also Pathisa Nyathi, Masotsha Ndlovu (Harare: Longman, 1998), 5. 32 Ian Phimister and Charles van Onselen, “The Labour Movement in Zimbabwe 1900–1945,” in Keep on Knocking: A History of the Labour Movement in Zimbabwe 1900–1997, ed. Brian Raftoplos and Ian Phimister (Harare: Baobab Books, 1997), 18–19. naz, a3/11/24/7, Nominal Roll of the rnr lists one m1018 Private Mapamba. Phimister and van Onselen mistakenly claim that Ndhlovu was a The First World War veteran. 33 naz, s3021/3/1/ 2, Papers of Colonel G.E. Wells, Memo, Salisbury, March 1962, Colonel G.E. Wells, President of Rhodesian African Rifles Association; Dean of Salisbury Cathedral to Lieutenant Colonel N.G. Jardine, 4 December 1964; Notes on Regimental Customs (rar) 1974. 34 naz, s3021/3/1/ 2, Memo, Salisbury, March 1962, Colonel G.E. Wells. See also David Johnson, World War Two and the Scramble for Labour in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1939–1948 (Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications, 2000), 17–27. 35 naz, s3021/3/1/ 2, Colonel G.E. Wells to Army hq, 16 November 1962.

conclusion 1 naz, oral/cr 3, interview with Frank Albert Cross.

appendix 1 2 3 4 5 6

naz, s2294/24, Discharges rnr, Record of 4954 Brandy. naz, s2294/24, Discharges rnr, Record of 4034 Chapotela. naz, b4/7/5, rnr Nominal Roll; naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 25 June 1918. naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 7 May 1918; b4/7/5, rnr Nominal Roll. naz, s2294/24, Discharges rnr, Record of 4734 Chitapangwi. naz, b1/5/1/1–4, Military Operations, Lord Buxton, High Commissioner to South Africa to Walter Long mp, 10 March 1917.

176

notes to appendix

7 naz, s2294/24, Discharges, Record of 4267 Kavote. 8 naz, s2294/26 Captain J. Moffat to co rnr, 25 March 1918; naz, s2294/24, Discharges rnr, Record of 5055 Kurukuru. 9 naz, s138/42, rnr Medal Distributions, File of m48 Private Lungombe. 10 naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 25 July 1918 and naz, b4/7/5, rnr Nominal Roll. 11 naz, s2294/24, Discharges rnr. 12 naz, s2294/24, Discharges rnr, Record of 5273 Maulana; naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 25 June 1918; naz, b4/7/5, rnr Nominal Roll. 13 naz, s138/42, Pension Awards. 14 naz, b3/7/1, rnr Orders, 20 June 1918. 15 Rhodesia Herald, 11 May 1917; naz, b4/7/5, rnr Nominal Roll.




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index

1 King’s African Rifles 106 1/1 King’s African Rifles 128 1/4 King’s African Rifles 127–29, 131 2/4 King’s African Rifles 128 3/1 King’s African Rifles 124 Abercorn (Northern Rhodesia) 17, 153 Addison, Major F.H. 55, 57, 58, 60–62, 95, 98, 101, 105 Afrikaner Rebellion (1915) 23–24 Aliki, Private 151 Alto Molokwe 127 Anderson, Ross (historian) 7, 54, 94, 108, 116, 124, 125 Anglican Cathedral (Salisbury/Harare) 1–2, 144 Anlawe, Corporal 75 Arnolt, Sergeant N. 87 Asiska (ethnic group) 36 Aumann, Captain (German officer) 107, 114–117 Awemba (ethnic group) 34

Baxter, Colonel G.L. (kar) 128, 129 Bechuanaland (Botswana) 33, 37 Beira (Mozambique) 54, 142 Bemba (ethnic group) 51 Bendera 109 Benzies, Lieutenant W.R. 55, 67 Bidu, Private 67 Bismarckburg 53, 54, 96, 97 Black Watch 15, 41 Blake, Robert (historian) 23 Blantyre (Nyasaland/Malawi) 36 Blin, Lieutenant D. 124 Booth, Captain F.C. 68, 83, 84, 86, 88, 90–95, 99, 100, 109, 110, 113, 115, 120, 121 Victoria Cross 93–94 Botha, Louis 16 Brandy, Sergeant 151 Breeden, Sergeant E. 98 Bridges, Lieutenant E.F. 55, 59, 61, 63, 75, 80, 81, 86, 87 British East Africa Transport Corps 2 British South Africa Company (bsac) 10–14, 19–22, 77, 136 British South Africa Native Police (bsanp) 15, 125, 141, 151–54 British South Africa Police (bsap) 11–13, 15, 20, 32, 38, 42, 43, 45, 48, 54, 55, 57, 68, 69, 73, 75, 84, 98, 102, 106, 108, 120, 121, 133, 136, 138, 140, 142, 144

Baker, Captain W.J. 55, 68, 69, 83, 84, 88, 90, 93, 98, 99 Baboon Kopje 142 Barter, Sergeant 87 Bambridge, Sergeant (nrp) 97, 98 Bantu Mirror 143 Baxendale, Major (nrp) 67

181

182

index

British War Medal 140, 141 Bubi District (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 140 Bugler, Captain H. 7, 8, 124, 129 Buhora 68–70, 80 Bulalima District 29, 35 Bulawayo (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 11, 12, 14, 27, 28, 34, 40, 54, 73, 113, 144, 151, 154 Bunga Hill 85, 86 Burke, Captain F.C. 55, 87, 108, 113, 115 Burma 144 Burton, Lieutenant (nrp) 105 Burundi 15, 54 Buxton, Lord 54 Bwanaisa 71 Byron, Colonel (sai) 75, 76, 80–83, 85, 89, 95 Cameroon 15–17 Cape Colony 10, 12, 14 Cape Corps 122–25, 140 Cape Town 13, 20 Capell, Colonel A.E. 102, 135 Carbutt, Lieutenant-Colonel C.L. 51, 55, 62, 67, 69, 70, 77, 80–82, 88, 89, 95, 97, 101, 106, 107, 110–13, 117, 124–28, 134, 135, 148; appointing acting brigade commander 122; appointed rnr Commanding Officer 105; background 105; concerns over high casualties 119; cover up of disturbance 123; cutting off German supply lines at Mpepo 114; decision to withdraw to Tuturo 109; influenza 131–33; opinion on looting 120; ordered to attack Mpepo 108; postwar writing 6; promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel 121; pursuit of Germans from Mpepo 115–16 Carr, Lieutenant W.J. 68, 96, 113 Central African Federation 143 Chapandukwa, Private 81 Chaplin, D. 20, 22 Chaputela, Private 152 Chalaua 127 Charter District (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 25 Chewa (ethnic group) 36, 37, 45, 49, 50, 152, 153, 157 Chewa, Private 73 Chibwana, Private 113 Chikoko, Lance Corporal 38 Chikoti, Corporal 152

Chilembwe, John 24 Chilimanzi District (Southern Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe) 24 Chimsure, Private 152 Chimurenga (First) 12 Chinde 54 Chindingo, Private 121 Chindoko, Private 49 Chinteche (Nyasaland/Malawi) 36 Chirwa, Corporal 122 Chitapangwe, Corporal 48, 141, 152 Clayton, Colonel (South African) 122 Colenbrander, Johannes 38 Comrades of the Great War 137 Congo (Belgian) 53 Connemera Mine (Southern Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe) 156 Craxton, Sergeant C. 73, 84, 88, 90 Cripwell, H.A. (nrp) 108, 109, 116 Cross, Sergeant F.A. 35, 44, 52, 101, 107, 133, 148 Cross Kopje 1, 142 Dada, Corporal 121 Dafidi, Private 115 Dangwe, Sergeant 133 Darusiga, Private 65 Darwin District (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 25 Dengezana, Corporal 51, 113 Dickinson, Captain (nrp) 108, 109, 111, 112 Distinguished Conduct Medal (dcm) 90, 91, 116, 120, 156 Douglas, Sergeant H.J.B. 133 Douglas, rsm J.F. 49 drilling societies 143 Dube, T.R. 143 Dzanga 96 Edwards, Sergeant F.C. 90 Edwards, Major-General A.H.M. 20–22, 34, 35, 51, 52 Edwards, Brigadier W.F.S. 106, 126, 127 Elizabethville (Belgian Congo) 141 Eisenhammer 26 Fair, Colonel C.H. (nrp) 110–17 Falkenstein, Captain (German officer) 57, 66, 72–74, 77, 168n. 13 Farrer, W.E. 26 Fennell, Brigadier C.P. 139, 140 field punishment number one 44, 48, 123, 152

index Fife (Northern Rhodesia/Zambia) 153 Fingoes 14 flogging 44, 52 Force Publique 14, 153 Formann, Johannes (German soldier) 65 Forrester, Dr. 64 Fort Johnson (Nyasaland/Malawi) 36 Fort Liwonde (Nyasaland/Malawi) 36 Fort Manning (Nyasaland/Malawi) 36 Fort Usher (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 151 Fort Victoria (now Masvingo) (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 10, 24, 83 Fulton, Major (sai) 81, 82 Gambo, Chief 25, 28 Gatooma (now Kadoma) (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 24 Gaza, Private 69 Gerber 26 German East Africa 15–17, 19–21, 26, 42, 44, 45, 48, 53–55, 67, 77, 94, 107, 111, 121, 131 Giffard, Colonel G. (kar) 130, 131 Gold Coast 17 Goromonzi District (Southern Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe) 24 Grand Theatre (Salisbury/Harare) 136 Grawert, von, Major (German Officer) 65, 66, 72, 73, 77, 79, 86 Grey, Charles 36 Grey, Lieutenant C. 93 Griffiths, Colonel A.H.D. (kar) 124 Guliliro 106 Gumbiro 81–83, 94 Gutu (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 142 Gwelo (now Gweru) 35, 38, 41, 141, 156 Gwendolen (ship) 57 Hanga River 82 Harare 10, 32, 102 Hartley (now Chegutu) (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 25 heliograph 57, 59, 65, 73–75, 82, 85, 109, 111 Hoffman (German) 62 Hoskins, Lieutenant-General R. 17 Hulley, Lieutenant F. 123, 128, 131, 132 Ifinga 83, 86, 90 Igale Pass 94, 95 Ilela 107 Ilembula Mission 70, 71 Ille 127, 128

183

Inagu 126 Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (icu) 144 influenza 132, 151, 153 Insiza District (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 26, 131 Inyati District (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 151, 154 Iringa 53, 67, 68, 86, 108 Itaka 97–103 Itete River 115, 117 Iwungu 105, 106 Jackson, Major S.N.G. 120–23 James, Captain (nrp) 95, 96, 98, 99 Jameson Raid 11 Jekete, Constable 141 Jones, Lieutenant A.L. 123 Juma, Corporal 59, 71 Kagunda, Private 141 Kaguvi 12 Kalanga (ethnic group) 10, 35, 36, 38–40, 51, 131, 154 Kalinda Hill 73, 74 Kapembwe, Corporal 72 Karonga 36 Kartucol 130, 131 Katigo 25 Katonga, Private 81 Kasanga 114, 115 Kavote, Corporal 153 Kayumbwiki 71 Kennedy, J. 143 Kent Mine (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 35 Kenya 14, 16, 17, 136, 137 Khumalo, Mabikwa, Chief 143 Kilimanjaro (mountain) 53 Kalinga 83 Kasapi 106 Kilimatinde 106 Killingray, David (historian) 44 Kilosa Hill 75 Kilwa 58–62, 64–66, 79, 81 King’s African Rifles (kar) 7, 14, 17, 21, 22, 35, 38–40, 42, 44–46, 49–52, 54, 56, 94, 105, 107, 122–25, 127–32, 136, 137, 144, 152, 155 Kitanda 60–66, 71, 72, 74, 80–83, 85, 86, 90, 93, 100, 103, 107–109, 113, 116, 156; attacked by Germans 84; attempted relief operation 87–88; departure of Germans 89

184

index

King’s Certificate of Discharge 140 Kitatu River 111 Kitchener, Lord 27 Kitunda 106, 107 Kobiri, Private 81, 113 Konigsberg (ship) 16, 53 Kotakota (Nkotakota) 36 Korekore (ethnic group) 36 Korewa 123 Kraut, Major G. (German officer) 57, 81–83, 89, 90, 94 Kurukuru, Private 48, 153, 157 Lake Amaramba 126 Lake Chilwa 126 Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi) 51, 53–56, 59, 67, 94, 95, 107, 120, 122, 125, 131, 132 Lake Rukwa 94, 105, 106 Lake Tanganyika 53, 54 Lancaster House 155 Langenburg 54 Langenn (German) 82, 88 Langham, Captain R. (nrp) 37, 100 Lee Enfield rifle 56, 62 Lehmann, Felix (German) 72 Lettow-Vorbeck, von, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul 16, 17, 65, 66, 94, 121, 123, 124, 126–32, 134, 139 Letuhi 94 Lewis Gun 110, 119, 123, 124, 129 Liabwe, Private 45 Liciro 126 Licungo River 128 Ligonya 126, 127 Likuyu 58, 60, 71, 72, 75, 81, 86, 90 Lilongwe (Nyasaland/Malawi) 36 Lindemann, Siegfried (German soldier) 72 Lioma 129, 130 Livingstone (Northern Rhodesia/Zambia) 155 Liwale 63, 71 Lobengula 10, 11, 26 Lockwood, Lieutenant A.L. 75 Lomeja 79–81 Lomeja stream 76 Long, Walter (colonial secretary) 5 Lopo, Private 154 Loyal Mandebele Patriotic Society (lmps) 27, 28 Luala River 126 Luhira River 74, 83 Lulelo River 130

Lungombe, Private 139, 154 Lupa River 105, 106 Lupembe 83 Lupenga, Lance-Corporal 38, 48 Luwegu River 65 Maborgoro 67 MacCarthey, Captain 57–61, 63, 64, 74–76, 79, 81 Madibira 54, 69, 70 Maduna, Chief 26, 27 Magada 25 Magonkwa, Private 154 Mahenge 53, 59–61, 63, 64, 81, 83, 107–109, 114–17 Mahua 131 Maji Maji Rebellion (1905) 56, 77 Makochela 59, 60 Malangali 54, 67–69, 77, 80 Malapindi 94 malaria 126, 132, 148 Malay Emergency 144 Malema 126 Malinji 116 Mangua Mission 58 Mangwana, Private 67 Manjawira, Private 39 Manyika (ethnic group) 36 Mapondera 12, 25 Maphamba, John 144 Marriott, Captain (South African) 68, 69, 93 Martini-Henry Rifle 54, 56 Martini-Metford Rifle 62 Masafuli, Private 141 Masamba, Private 45 Mashonaland 141 Masoja, Jack, Private 131 Masterman, Colonel 125 Matabele Regiment 22, 27, 40, 50, 77 Matabeleland 14, 22, 24–27, 29, 34, 40, 50, 51, 105, 123, 131, 140, 143, 151, 154 Matobo District (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 140 Matopo Hills 12 Matopo Mission 41 Maulana, Private 155 Maxim Gun 10, 11, 56, 60–63, 65, 67, 69, 70, 72–75, 80, 82–85, 87–89, 94, 95, 98, 99, 103, 110, 123, 124, 129, 153 Mayega, Sergeant 133, 154 Mbamba Bay 120, 121

index Mbarangandu 60, 61 Mbosi Mission 96 Mbujane, Private 69 McLaughlin, Peter (historian) 7, 23, 31, 33, 34, 41, 101 McCarthey, Major (nrp) 86–90 McVea, Surgeon-Captain G.A. 122 Mdala, Corporal 155 Mendi (ship) 143 Meikles Hotel (Salisbury/Harare) 136 meningitis 154 Methuen, Lieutenant-Colonel 142 Mgwagwa 121 Middlesex Regiment 120 Military Medal 90, 113, 115, 116, 120, 156 Miller, Charles (historian) 130, 131 Mkapira 57 Mkushi (Northern Rhodesia/Zambia) 141, 153 Mlanje 36 Mlanje, Private 71 Mlela River 127 Mlembe, Sergeant 132 Mocubi 126 Molloy, Captain (South African) 87 Molokwe 126–28 Morgans, Lieutenant F.W.C. 55 Moyse-Bartlett, H. (historian) 7, 107, 124 Mpepo 51, 107–11, 114–17, 119, 122, 138, 149, 154, 155; German defences 112–13 Msussa 25 Mtarika 123 Mtegede 25 Mtema, Private 71 Mtengula 122, 123, 152 Mtigeza, Chief 41 Mtoko District (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 152 Mulanje, Mount 126 Mulenge, Private Abel 155 Muller, Captain (German) 129 Munyai wa She 24 Murray, Colonel R.E. (bsap) 70, 83, 86, 89, 90, 95–101, 103, 105–108, 114, 116, 120, 121, 148; character 102 Murray, Surgeon-Captain 98, 99 Murupula 127, 131 Mutuali 129, 130 Mwamba Hill 124, 134 Mwaya 56, 94, 95, 107 Mwembe 122, 123, 127 Myonyo, Sergeant 133

185

Mzilikazi 28, 50 Mzimba 36 Namacurra 126 Namarroi 128 Namirrue 126 Namusweya Mountain 57, 58 Namwera 122, 125, 132 Nanungu 122–24 Nasson, Bill (historian) 30 Native Affairs Department (nad) 11, 20, 21, 23–26, 28–30, 32, 34, 37, 41–43, 45, 50, 59, 105, 120, 121, 133, 138–40, 14–144, 148, 150, 154 Ncheu (Nyasaland/Malawi) 36 Ndamoya, Chief 41 Ndara, Corporal 38 Ndarawa, Private 48 Ndebele (ethnic group) 9–12, 14, 20–26, 28, 29, 34–36, 39, 40, 43, 45, 49–52, 99, 125, 140, 151, 155 Nderemani, Private 98 Ndiweni, Chief Kaisa 40, 155 Ndiweni, Private Mkulunyelwa 99, 155 Ndlovu, Masotcha 40, 134, 144 Nehanda 12 Nesser, Father S.J. 24 New, Captain V.A. 55 New Langenburg 53, 55, 56, 62, 67, 70, 95 New Utengule 67, 95 Newell, Jonathan (historian) 140–41 Newton, F.J. 120 Ngoni (ethnic group) 34, 36, 51, 151, 152 Ngonyoke 71, 72 Nigeria 17, 107 Njombe 67, 68, 70, 77 Nkata Bay (Nyasaland/Malawi) 55 Norforce 54, 56, 57, 117 Northcote, R. Sergeant 113 Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) 13, 17, 20, 21, 24, 33–35, 37–39, 48, 52, 94, 96, 105, 116, 119, 120, 132–34, 143, 152–55 Northern Rhodesia Police (nrp) 13, 20, 37, 38, 51, 54, 56, 67, 68, 70, 86, 95, 96, 98–100, 102, 102, 105, 106, 108–17, 121, 122, 126, 138, 140, 141, 153, 154 Northern Rhodesia Regiment (nrr) 13, 54, 75 Northey, Brigadier Edward 21, 53–56, 60, 65, 66, 70, 77, 82, 94, 95, 100, 102, 106, 107, 109, 110, 116, 119, 121, 132 Nsuga, Corporal 115, 120

186

index

Ntola, Chief 41 Ntubane, Private 114 Nyamabengo 71, 79, 80 Nyamadi, Sergeant 133 Nyamana, Sergeant 42 Nyamandlovu District (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 140 Nyamtumbo 120 Nyangazonke, Chief 25 Nyasaland (Malawi) 17, 24, 31, 33, 35–39, 43–45, 48, 50, 52–54, 120, 126, 132, 136, 143, 144, 147, 151–53, 155–57 Nyasaland Boy’s Club 28 Nyasaland Volunteer Reserve 56 Nyatsi, Private 115 Officer of the British Empire 133 Old Utengule Mission 95–97 Page, Malcolm (historian) 7, 107 Page, Melvin (historian) 5, 7, 31–33, 36, 38 Paisha, Corporal 72 Palace Theatre (Salisbury/Harare) 125, 138, 139 Parson, Major L. 140 Parsons, Timothy (historian) 22, 40, 42, 49, 51 Paruzengani, Private 76 Penhalonga (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 35 Peramiho Mission 63, 75 Phimister, Ian (historian) 27, 143 Piggin, Lieutenant F.P.L. 55, 66, 75, 81 Pioneer Column 10, 14 Piroro, Private 49 Pitu River 110 Plumtree (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 28, 35, 38, 39, 47, 139, 154 Pomley, D.M. 25, 26 Poole, Captain A.J. 55, 97, 99 Port Herald (Nyasaland/Malawi) 36 porters 121 Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) 17, 24, 25, 33, 37, 39, 48, 52, 54, 55, 94, 120–22, 124–26, 131, 134, 139, 142, 148, 151–55 Prince of Wales Fund 29 Que Que (now Kwekwe) (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 28, 35, 39 Quelimane (Portuguese East Africa/Mozambique) 126

Ranger, T.O. (historian) 23 Rebellion of 1896–97 12, 14, 15, 20, 22, 25, 28, 29, 50 Red Cross 28 Regone 128, 129 Reynolds, Sergeant 108 Rezende Mine (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 35, 37 Rhodes, Cecil 2, 10–13, 22 Rhodesia Native Regiment; 2nd Battalion 120, 121; abandon pursuit of von LettowVorbeck 132; amalgamation of 1st and 2nd Battalion 121; attack on Mpepo 112, 113; band 38, 41, 42, 120, 135, 137; capture of Mpepo 114; capture of von Lettow-Vorbeck’s baggage train; casualties 119; children 49; defences at Songea 63, 66, 81; demobilization 136; ethnic composition 35–37; exhaustion 131; food 45, 107, 126, 127, 130, 148; hunting 48, 106; ignored 120, 125; influenza 132, 133; language 49; local intelligence 76; looting 48, 120; malaria 55, 106; march on Songea 57, 58; marched 1,000 miles in two months 127; martial tribes 50–52; Military Law 44, 45; miners 120; medical treatment 48, 122, 123, 132; name 23; occupation of recruits 37, 38; ordered to capture Songea 56; origin of recruits 31–35, 39, 40; patrols 59, 60, 62, 63, 65, 66, 74, 75, 77–79, 80, 83, 88, 123, 136, 157; pay 43; previous military service of recruits 38; pursuit of Wintgens 105, 106; racial hierarchy 41–43, 50, 149; reasons for enlistment 40, 41; records 32; recruiting 26, 36, 37, 41, 42; Salisbury Depot 32, 33, 54, 105, 106, 119, 136; servants 45; siege of Malangali 67–69; siege of Songea 99, 100; smallpox 132; strength 121, 126; strike 122, 123; taxation 43; trade with local people 59, 60; training 55, 119, 121; typhoid 122, 123; uniforms 45, 46; Westernized African elite 41; women 48, 49, 153 Rhodesia-Nyasaland Field Force 21, 53, 82, 89, 121 Rhodesia Regiment (rr) 19, 20, 38, 59, 69, 85, 102, 125, 135 Rhodesian African Rifles (rar) 144 Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau (rnlb) 14, 21, 37, 147 Rita (aka Lita), Sergeant 63–65, 71, 72, 74–76, 78, 79, 81, 86, 88, 90, 91, 108, 116, 120, 121, 149, 155, 156

index Rovuma River 58, 71, 90, 121 Royal Geographic Society 5 Rozvi Shona 39 Rudd Concession 10 Rudd, Samuel 10 Rufigi River 16, 53 Ruhudje River 81, 107, 110, 111 Rungwe 95, 107 Rupea, Private 73 Rutherford, Lieutenant A.H. 55, 85, 86, 93, 94, 108 Rwanda 15, 54 Saint Boniface Mission 97, 101 Saint Moritz (Galula) 93, 96–102, 105, 107, 109, 119, 120, 148, 153, 155 Saisi (Northern Rhodesia/Zambia) 153 Saisi River 96 Salima, Sergeant 66, 90, 116, 121, 149, 156 Salisbury (Harare) 10, 14, 21, 23, 28, 29, 35, 41, 42, 47, 54, 64, 75, 102, 105, 120, 125, 132, 135, 137, 141, 142, 154, 156 Samangula 71, 79, 80 Schultz, Captain (German officer) 61, 62, 65, 79, 80 Schutztruppe 14, 130 Selesnik, Max 26 Selukwe (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 41, 155 Shabani (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 143 Shamva (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 28 Shangaan (ethnic group) 36 Shawani, Private 138 Shire Highlands Railway 126 Shire River 126 Shona (ethnic group) 9, 10–12, 14, 20, 22, 24, 25, 29, 35–37, 39–41, 49–52, 72, 152, 157 Shortcol 127, 128, 130, 131 Shorthose, Lieutenant-Colonel W.J.T. (kar) 127, 128 Sikopa, Private 49 Sikoti, Private 67 Silver War Badge 139, 140 Simpson, Lieutenant H.J. 48, 55, 69, 70, 87, 88 Sims, Medical Sergeant F.E. 115 Sinoia (now Chinoyi) (Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) 152 Sira River 105 smallpox 132

187

Smuts, Jan 16, 17 Sofora, Private 38 Songea 45, 53, 55–67, 71, 72–90, 94, 95, 109, 110, 116, 119, 148, 156, 157 Songwe River 95 Sotho (ethnic group) 36 South African Infantry (sai) (5th Battalion) 74–76, 79–83, 86–89, 93–95 South African Native Labour Corps (sanlc) 2, 140, 143 South African Rifles 68 South African War (1899–1902) 13, 133 South West Africa (Namibia) 15–17, 19 Southern Rhodesia Chamber of Mines 37 Southern Rhodesia Column 2, 68, 70, 83, 86, 89, 90, 95, 100–102, 105, 106, 108, 121, 152, 153 Southern Rhodesia Volunteers (srv) 13, 54 spirit mediums 25 Stambuli, Private 156 Stokes Mortar 122, 124 Strachen, Hew (historian) 7, 17 Sutherland, Lieutenant 56 Swahili 49, 56 Swaziland 33 Tabora 68, 89, 94, 95, 106, 122 Tandala 95 Tanga 16, 53 Tanganyika, Sergeant 48, 60, 61, 71, 78, 80, 81, 149, 157 Tanzania 15 Taylor, Herbert 24, 25, 27, 29, 34 Thornton, Major G.J.T. 108, 123, 131, 133, 134 Thomas, W.E. 24 Tisikanya, Private 48 Togo 15, 16 Tomlinson, Lieutenant-Colonel A.J. 48, 51, 52, 55–67, 71–76, 81–83, 85, 86, 93–96, 109, 135, 148; attempted relief of Kitanda 87, 88; attack on Kitanda 84; background 22; defence of Songea 77; disaster at St. Moritz 97–100; dismissal 100–103; encounter with returning soldiers 125; postwar writing 6; rumours about incompetence 89, 90 Tomlinson Depot (Salisbury/Harare) 102 Tonga (ethnic group) 36 Transvaal 10, 11 Tunduru 59, 60, 81, 120 Tuturu 108, 110, 111 typhoid 122, 123

188

index

Uganda 16, 17, 36 Umbose 95 Umtali (now Mutare) (Southern Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe) 1, 125, 142, 155 Umzingwane 140 Unangwa Hill 73, 76 Usher, Lieutenant T.N.J. 59, 63, 64, 71, 72, 75, 76, 78, 96 Van Deventer, Major-General J.L. 122, 126, 133 Van Onselen, Charles (historian) 27, 143 venereal disease 153 Victoria Cross 93, 94, 115, 121 Victory Medal 140, 141 Wahle, Major-General K. (German officer) 68, 83, 84 Wahle, Lieutenant (German officer) 96 Wallace, Lawrence 33, 35 Wane, Captain F.J. 55, 64, 65, 73, 82, 98, 119, 128, 130, 132, 144 West Africa Frontier Force 14

Wiedhafen 56, 57, 59, 63, 66, 72, 74, 75, 80, 93, 94 Williams, Lieutenant J.H. 55, 59, 62, 64, 66, 71, 72, 87, 95, 113 Wintgens, Captain Max (German officer) 82, 83, 92, 94–97, 100, 101, 106, 107, 119 Yakobi, Private 123 Yao (ethnic group) 36, 49, 50, 51 Yaseri, Corporal 49 Yefelana, Private 49 Zakeyo, Corporal 67, 98 Zambezi River 126 Zanzibar 33, 37 Ziloli, Corporal 72 Zinsi, Private 109 Zomba (Nyasaland/Malawi) 36, 54, 55, 132, 151–53 Zuli, Sergeant 64 Zulu (ethnic group) 22, 50–52 Zuzi, Sergeant 81