THE CAMPAIGNS IN EAST AFRICA

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 84, 3 January 1919, Page 5

THE CAMPAIGNS IN EAST AFRICA

WERE THEY JUSTIFIED?

VON LETTOW VORBECK'S LONG FIGHT (By Major-General Sir F. Maurice, in • tiTe "Daily. News.") ■ the past throe months our attention has been entirely absorbed by the bewildering succession of victories won. in France, Belgium, Italy, Macedonia, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, and the campaign in East' Africa, which has been dragging i(s slow longth along, lias been forgotten. This is quite natural, for tho later stages of the campaign have con-, sisted-in a weary hunt through wild and almost unknown regions after a small remnnot of the enemy's forccs, Time and again von Lettow Vorbcck has been all but surrounded, , and his capturo seemed certain. Time and again ho has escaped, and to him has fallen the honour of being the last of the. German commanders to admit defeat. Tho enormous distances to be traversed, tho lack of communications, and the pestilential climate, have made the campaign a serious burden upon us, and in} particular it has greatly increased the strain upon our shipping resources at a time when they were heavily taxed. There have not been wanting thoso who have asked whether we were wise in undertaking the campaign at all. whether we ought not to have • remained on the defensive, guarding our frontiers, in British East Africa and Rhodesia,' and to have left the issue in the main theatre of war to decide , the fate of the last German colony. The'course of events lias, however, justified the expedition, though few foresaw when it began what it would cost us in lives, time, and treasure. The German Scheme of Conquest. Much has been written of Germany's great Middle-Europe scheme, but we hayo heard less of her Middle-African plans. These were, however, vast and formidable. The. abortive attempts to raise rebellion in the, Dominion of South Africa was a part of these plans, but there is little doubt but that German East Africa was intended by the enemy to have been the main base from which he proposed to expand. Wo have .very good evidence now that the programme was to',, have'■ taken tho form of raising a considerable native, army in East Africa, which done, Utranda was to have been overrun, the Belgian Congo invaded, and a German belt established across Africa from tho Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, while Turkey, with German assistance, absorbed Egypt. Tho end of the war was to have found Germany sunreme in Africa, just- as the realisation of her Bagdad, railway . scheme' was to have made'her supreme in Asia, and her victories in the main theatres of war to have, left her mistress of Europe. / ' Shortly before the war a number of German reservists .were sent to East Africa in'the guise of colonists, the stock of arms and ammunition was cons»lenbly_ increased, and several, good officers were .sent out. including von Lettnw Vorheck,. who has gn en us so much trouble. Wo were not at all well informed as to these preparations, • and our first expeditionary force sent from India, which-attempted to take Tansra in September. 1914, was'unequal to its task, and failed completely. The Germans, set. themselves to carry out a considerable expansion of their local forccs, and towards .the-end of 1915 these had grown, to some 1000 whites and l over 20,000 native, troops, a force sufficiently formidable to constitute a serious menace to our neighbouring African possessions, and it was then thnt.it wan decided to undertake/ the. campaign which was conducted by General Smuts 'after Sir Horace Smith- Dorrien's health hnd broken down 1 . . Von Lettow's Personality', , . That yon Lettow Vorbeck succeeded in defying us for close on three years is. the best justification for that policy, for he has shown himself >to nave exceptional power over native troops, and had he been, left alone ,he might have- done .untold mischief. He is a little man .with only one eye, and curiously unlike tho average, German officer in his, untidiness of dress, so that 'his appearance is far from imposing, but he must have an'iron constitution to have withstood the rigours of the climate so long, and is certainly a determined character. ~At the time of the Tanga disaster he told a British officer who-met him in the course of a parley-that lie would never surrender or be taken alive,-"but would, if necessary, lead us oyer ihp whole of Africa. At the time when be had been driven by General van Deventer, General Smuts b successor, down to the frontiers of Portuguese East Africa he is said to, have shot his best friend for suggesting that further resistance was useless. . His. method with the natives appears to have been to turn the best, lighting riices into a privileged military clasj, and to do everything possible to raise their self-confidence and belief in himself. In this he was remarkably successful, and it is an extraordinary achievement that he should have kept ft Jiative 'force together so long while constantly flying before our. pursuing columns. .If he did not, as he boasted, lead us over the whole continent of Africa, the operations extended from the frontiers of Uganda to the Zambesi and from -Lake Tanganyika to the Indian, Ocean, an area almost equal to that of the whole European theatre of war. His methods with those natives whom he could not, or did not wish to, turn into warriors were those of terrorism; and his barbarities were infamous. Therefore, in clearing the Germans completely out ' Africa we have performed a necessary, ir arduous, duty - In the performance of it we owe much to the assistance of the Belgians" and still more, to the Dominion of South Africa, which lia.? supplied us -with' the two generals who have Inmost successful in' overcoming the difficulties of distance and climate, which have been our chief ohstactes.