THE LAST GERMAN COLONY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 64, 8 December 1917, Page 8

THE LAST GERMAN COLONY

An announcement hiado- a few days ago that German East Africa has been completely cleared , of the enemy marks the conclusion of a campaign which takes a minor place only because the standards of this war are colossal In itself tho conquest of the. last of the German colonies is a great military achievement, not on account of the strength of the enemy forces overcome, but because the character of the country them to an extraordinary extent in conducting and prolonging guerrilla warfare. When General Smuts transferred his command to General Van Deventer in January last the campaign was regarded as virtually over.' General Smuts himself expressed this view, and with . ■ every apparent justification. The Germans had been heavily defeated and dislodged from the richest part of the colony and- from its railways. The greater part of the army which opposed, tne British when they crossed the border had been put out of action. In these conditions nearly all the South African .white troops were withdrawn, and it was expected that the native battalions ' which General Smuts had organised in considerable strength would speedily round up the German remnant. It is now clear that this.estimate took insufficient account of the immense difficulties of "kraaling" the enemy in the trackless jungles and swamps into which he retreated. An excellent description of the task upon which General Van Deventer and his troops have been engaged for nearly a year was given not long ago by. an English writer. '

The ground to be won (he observed) was the worst in the colony from the point of view of the health of the troops. Mountain ' and desert had already impoiled our progress, as much as the enemy. We iad now to face deadly malarial swamps among which, the only healthy tract, that at Mahenge, was in the possession of the onemy. ; Commercially this routh-eastern' corner of the German land ie worthless; strategically it offered a formidable obstacle. It was hoped that native troops and auxiliaries would withstand the menace of its climate better than white men. In point of fact the death-rate among tho natives employed has- been very high, and among the horses it has been almost disastrous,

In such a campaign a rapid and spectacular success such as Genekal Botha gained in South-West Africa was a sheer impossibility. Not only were the climatic conditions exceedingly trying, even to the native troops who bore the brunt of the campaign in its final phase, but tremendous difficulties had to overcome as the enemy was dislodged step by step from his strongholds and lurking-places far in the interior. The position now reached is in the highest degree creditable to General Van Deventer and his troops. The German colony hae been completely cleared of its de-fenders,-and the only enemy forces' still afoot .aro . the members. of a small regiment which has retired over tho Kiver . Royuma, on the southern border, into Portuguese territory. . _ . An aspect of the campaign which should not be overlooked is that it has witnessed deeds of inhuman barbarity by the Germans which rank with the atrocities of which they have been guilty in Europe. A recently-issued White Paper embodying the reports of missionaries and civilians upon German brutality to British and native prisoners in East Africa has been described as one of the most damning documents in the library of German dishonour. In regard to British prisoners, there is repeated evidence of insufficient and unwholesome food and accommodation, causing much illness and sometimes death, as well as of insults and ill-usage. The sick were denied care and iorced to work. Complaints were punished and met with such replies as "Prisoners have no rights" and "Anything is good enough for damned Englishmen." Ono camp, recognised as a women's camp, was in charge of a German soldier of drunken and immoral habits. At another camp 13 men, 34, ladies,-and 2 infants, after a distressing, march,, were confined for a night and most of the following day in an iron goods shed along with 41 native prisoners, who were not allowed to leave the shed. Aβ to the treatmoni of the natives by the Germans, the Eev. Ernest F. Spailton, principal of St. Andrew's College, Zanzibar, bears the,following testimony:—

The porters ongaged in transport work were consistently treated with tho greatest brutality. When a man fell, exhausted under the weight rf his load, ho was flogged until he staggered to his feet and etumbled on again. Those who were too weak to do this were shot as they lav. For example, one of the German officers with tho column retreating from the Ruanda country before the advancing Belgians wrote in a private letter: "Our road U paved with tho corpses of tho natives we have been obliged to kill."

At first the Germans were at great pains to conciliate their native troops, raising their pay and allowing them to rob and tyranniso pretty much as they pleased. Yet it is stated that as tho war dragged on' largo numbers of the askaris in German, service hecame thoroughly disaffected and talked openly of their hope that the English would come quickly-and bring the war to an end. Many of them had to be flogged into action, and they seized every opportunity to _ desert. It is self-evident that » hideous misfortune for the native races concerned as well as a deadly threat to the future peace of tho world would be involved in permitting Germany to regain a foothold in equatorial Africa. Only an extraordinary perversion of justice and lack of common foresight would make it possible for' the Allies to" : ignor6 theso facts when the future fate of the former German colonies is being determined at the end of the war.