Chapter II: Preface

In accomplishing the conquest of German East Africa, many columns were put in the field. Those had their starting-points from the British East Africa frontier in the neighbourhood of Kilimanjaro Mountain, from Lake Victoria Nyanza, from the Belgian Congo, from Rhodesia, and latterly from the East Africa coast. To cover wide fronts of great extent of country, the forces from each of those bases advanced in their particular area in two, three, or more columns. This narrative deals directly with the operations of a single column, but, as operations throughout the columns were similar, it may be found, in part, to be generally descriptive of much that was experienced by all columns.

On actual operations in German East Africa—not including the operations on the frontier during 1915, nor the countless distances covered on patrol—our unit marched some 850 miles with the column, in the following stages: Kilimanjaro area, 194 miles; to the Central Railway, 335 miles; Morogoro-Rufiji area, 260 miles; and Lindi area (to date of my departure), 61 miles. Those distances are not direct to their objective as the crow flies, for they had often a zigzag course, and sometimes even doubled back to a fresh starting-point.

It has been my endeavour to include every detail of experience, and, in doing so, I trust that at some points I have not laid too much stress on the hardships of the campaign. They were all in the day’s work, and were taken as such, no matter how irksome they were. Of them General Smuts, in a dispatch of 27th October, 1916, said:

“Their work has been done under tropical conditions which not
only produce bodily weariness and unfitness, but which create
mental languor and depression, and finally appal the stoutest
hearts. To march day by day, and week by week, through the
African jungle or high grass, in which vision is limited to
a few yards, in which danger always lurks near, but seldom
becomes visible, even when experienced, supplies a test to
human nature often, in the long run, beyond the limits of human
endurance.”

Little reference has been made in the narrative to the number of our casualties, nor was that possible. A recent casualty statement—at the end of 1918—records the casualties of the East African Campaign as: 380 officers killed, 478 officers wounded, 8,724 other ranks killed, 7,276 other ranks wounded, 38 officers missing (including prisoners), and 929 other ranks missing (including prisoners) = 896 officers, 16,929 other ranks.

This is the only statement of casualties I have seen, and I give these figures with every reservation, doubting the aggregate and its completeness.

They will, however, suffice to show that there is a remarkable percentage of killed, and this may largely be put down to the closeness of the fighting, and that at times the attacking forces were advancing on entrenched positions without protection of any kind to themselves.

ANGUS BUCHANAN.

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