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British East Africa
October 1918
| Rifle 107 Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield (SMLE), Rifle No.1 Mk III*. Royal Small Arms Factory - Enfield, 1918. One of 626,330 rifles produced that year at RSAF Enfield. Matched (bolt, receiver, barrel, backsight & nosecap) serial number C2332. Buttstock marking disc stamped 1/1 K.A.R. 10/18 over 463. With 1/1 K.A.R. marked P1907 bayonet and scabbard. KAR marked rifles are exceptionally rare – especially matched rifle and bayonet. Rifle notes and photo catalog |
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| It was called 'The Scramble for Africa' - a free-for-all that saw most European countries determined to gain new territory - by treaty, by alliance, or by conquest - in the vast African continent. By 1888 (the year the Lee-Enfield was adopted) much of Colonial East Africa had been carved into territories controlled by Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Portugal. MAP |  British East Africa Union Jack |
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British East
Africa 1888-1920
By 1888 British East Africa, also known as the Kenya
Colony, was thoroughly under British control by
a combination of conquest and cession. It was administered
like a British Crown Colony, with a governor, lieutenant-governor
and
provincial
commissioners;
the East Africa Protectorate included the Uganda
Protectorate (acquired by treaty in 1892), the Zanzibar
Protectorate (acquired by treaty in 1890; now part of Tanzania),
and the Nyasaland Protectorate (ceded in 1891; now
Malawi). The entire East
Africa Protectorate was annexed to the Crown in 1920
as the Crown Colony of Kenya.
The origins of the KAR actually begin somewhere around 1833, when Parliament outlawed slavery in the British Empire. Livingstone's explorations (and Stanley's rescue mission) in East Africa focused interest on the horrors of slavery as well the opportunities for Europeans in Africa. Missionaries, colonists and administrators followed; law and order had to be enforced. The Arab slave traders were particularly dangerous as their business was disrupted. Young and comparatively junior British officers suddenly found themselves assigned the task of recruiting local tribesmen, organizing them around a mixed nucleus of British soldiers and European colonists, and undertaking military operations to suppress the slave trade. Over time some of the ad-hoc organizations evolved into permanent local units. The Military Ordnance of February 1899 established four-year terms of service as standard for native troops and authorized the attachment of British NCO's as instructors.
| In
1901 the Central African Regiment (formerly the Central African
Rifles), the Uganda Rifles, the East African Rifles, some Somali
units and several Indian contingents were organized into The
King's African Rifles. PICTURE In 1907 the Committee of Imperial Defense decided that "native levies" would not be used in any defense plans for African Colonies in the early stages of any war; in May 1911, the role of local forces was defined as internal security and suppressing "risings of the native population". As a result, the original six battalions in 1901 had been reduced to three battalions (seventeen companies) by August 1914, the 1st (Central African) Battalion in Nyasaland; the 3rd (East African) Battalion in the East African Protectorate and the 4th (Uganda) Battalion in Uganda. In addition, the Somaliland Camel Corps had been a part of the KAR since 1912. Morale was low. (Half of D Company, 1st KAR, mutinied in April, 1913, after being on extended tax collection duty and away from their families for eighteen months, rather than the promised six months). At the outbreak of WWI the strength of the force was 62 British officers, two British NCO's and 2,319 African and Indian soldiers with no artillery and little transport scattered over 800,000 square miles of territory. |
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The War in
Africa 1914-1918
Both the German and the British Colonial governments argued that
the African colonies should remain neutral. The Royal Navy wanted none
of it. The German cruiser Konigsberg (3400 tons, ten 10-inch
guns) was in the German East African port of Dar-es-Salaam waiting to
pounce on British targets. Meanwhile, the German East African C-in-C,
Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, armed a steamer to assure control
of Lake Tanganyika and then crossed the border to attack the British Uganda
Railway, a vital link to the British port of Mombassa.
Military
operations inevitably centered around the four German colonies (German
East Africa (nine-tenths of which later became British
Tanganyika), Cameroon,
Togoland and South-West Africa (now Namibia)) which were surrounded by
colonies belonging to Britain, France, Belgium and Portugal. German
East Africa's Schutztruppe, (260 Europeans, 2,472 askari,
31 artillery pieces and transport, as well as a gendarmerie of
2,200 (including 45 Europeans)) were better trained, equipped and armed
than
the KAR - as well as paid better.
| In
August 1914 the British Government assigned the conquest of German
East Africa to the Indian Establishment. Simla quickly
sent two Indian Army Expeditionary Forces, one of which had most
of its equipment and supplies captured after it's first hostile
encounter. For the next four years Lettow-Vorbeck never
lost sight of his strategic goal - to tie up as much of the Allies
men, equipment and resources as possible. Outnumbered and
always short on supplies, the German Schutztruppe nonetheless
waged a constant guerilla campaign against the Uganda Railway. In 1916 South Africa's Jan Smuts was appointed British C-in-C in Africa. Smuts' forces were reinforced by contingents from South Africa and Rhodesia, as well as additional reinforcements from India and Britain. The King's African Rifles were expanded, growing to seven regiments of 22 battalions with a strength of 1,423 British Officers, 2,046 British NCO's and 32,200 African soldiers. Despite numerical superiority, heavy rain, sickness, tough terrain, as well as superior German defense tactics, enabled German forces to retreat almost intact into the Rufugi River region. 12,000 sick white British troops were evacuated to South Africa, where their sick and diseased condition caused a sensation. Details The 1915 British casualty reports included thirty deaths caused by lions, rhinoceros, hippos and crocodiles. |
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From
a strategic standpoint, the war in East Africa was over by January 1917. The
German colonies simply could not match the supplies of men and materials
that poured in from India, South Africa, England
and Rhodesia, Belgium and Portugal. The Royal Navy bottled up
the Konigsberg in
the Rufugi Delta and brought in shallow draft gunboats
from England to pound the German cruiser into scrap in shallow water.
The German capital of Dar-Es-Salaam surrendered September 1916. Lettow-Vorbeck refused
to admit defeat. After the Konigsberg was sunk, the
cruiser's ten-inch guns were removed, placed on home-made gun carriages
and with
the crew
of
the Konigsberg,
marched inland to continue the fight. For the next two years Lettow-Vorbeck was
Germany's Lawrence of Arabia, dodging
British pursuit, replenishing his supplies of guns and ammunition with
captured British equipment, using the shells from the Konigsberg to
create improvised mine fields and
avoiding entrapment by a grueling trek of almost 2000 km south into Mozambique,
then doubling back north into Rhodesia. German forces were still
very active and
skirmishing
with KAR troops
near the village of Kasama on 12th November, 1918, the day after fighting
stopped in Europe. When
informed by the British of the Armistice, Lettow-Vorbeck was
unable to contact his superiors in Berlin as the government was in chaos.
After two weeks of negotiations, Lettow-Vorbeck agreed
to surrender. (The situation remained tense during this time because
many of the surviving Shutzentruppe did not wish to surrender,
as they were still undefeated and wished to retain their rifles.) Finally,
the Germans marched into Abercon and surrendered the surviving 175 Europeans
and 3,000 askaris on 25th November, 1918, Germany's
only
undefeated
army
in WWI. Click
for catalog of WWI KAR photos.
Rifle 107:
1st Battalion, 1st Nyasaland Regiment, October 1918
| Rifle
107 is marked to the 1st Battalion, 1st Nyasaland Regiment, King's
African Rifles and dated October, 1918. In 1914 the
1st Btn consisted
of four Companies, each Coy having
75-125 men. In January
1917 the original 1st Btn KAR was divided into two battalions
of 3 Coy. each. The raising of two more battalions and a Depot
(or training) battalion was authorized. (The numbering
system would then look like this: 1/1st, 2/1st, 3/1st, 4/1st). 1st
KAR was recruited and trained in Nyasaland. 1/1st
KAR had three companies, "A" (Atonga) Coy., "B" Coy.
and "D"
Coy. |
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Epilogue
In
many respects, Lettow-Vorbeck was one of the
most outstanding commanders of the entire war, forcing the British to
commit 130,000 Allied troops (a considerably larger force than Britain
had used during the entire Second South African War (1899-1901))
and precious resources for no strategic gain. The war in Africa, for
good
or ill, would not effect the outcome in Europe.
The askaris of the Shutztruppe had received no pay since the begining
of hostilities and their commander made every effort to correct this omission.
His telegrams to Berlin recieved no response. His appeal to the British
for a loan was politely refused. Before
surrendering, Lettow-Vorbeck issued
a certificate to each askari and porter, detailing how much money they were owed,
in some cases as much as four years back wages. It would be more than
fifty
years before those IOU's would be honored. Details
Although the war was over, Africa had not finished with the survivors. The
world-wide pandemic of Spanish influenza arrived in Dar-es-Salaam as the Germans
were waiting to sail home, killing ten percent of the surviving Germans and
large numbers of the askari of the Shutztruppen. The Germans finally sailed
home on 17th January, 1919.
Paul Von Lettow-Vorbeck paid a return visit to Tanganyika in 1953, where he was feted by the survivors among his askari. He died in 1964 at the age of 94.
Postscript
Often
overlooked is the all-important role of the porter. In the German organization,
each Feld-Kompagnie of 150-200 askari had its own complement
of 200-250 porters, resulting in a self-contained tactical unit. Replacement
askari could be recruited from among the porters. In contrast, in 1915
the British had to create The
East African Military Labour Service to recruit no fewer than
400,000 local men as military porters and laborers. The
porters were certainly not immune to death and disease. At
the end of the war when
the British paymasters paid off the porters, more than 40,000 men could
not be
accounted for.
As the War ended with demobilization and the settling of payment accounts,
we will conclude our account with an excerpt from page 574 the Official
History of the War: Military Operations - East Africa: "On
demobilization the men had very large balances of pay to come to them, as
they very rarely drew pay in the field. These balances were paid out
in paper money instead of silver currency, owing to shortage of the latter. This
the men were unable to understand, with the result that they felt that the
Government had cheated them. The matter was aggravated by the fact
that the Indian traders in the villages took advantage of these fears,
demanding higher prices, showing an increase in some cases as much as 50
per cent., if payment was made in paper currency. Eventually officers
were sent into the districts to protect the discharged men's interests; but
not before considerable harm had been done."
SOURCES
Page, Malcolm, A History of The King's African
Rifles and East African Forces, 1998. Maps and images
reprinted with permission. More
Skennerton, Ian. The Lee-Enfield Story
Page
153 2,008,158 total RSAF Enfield production 1914-1918. More
Image of British East Africa Union Jack courtesy of Flags
of the World website.
1936 tobacco card by John Player & Sons, Ltd. One of a set
of fifty entitled Military Uniforms of the British Empire Overseas. Author's
collection.
Haythornthwaite, Philip J., The World War One Source Book Page
127 More
Cox, Reginald H.W., Military Badges of the British Empire
1914-1918 Page 132 More
The MacMillian Dictionary of The First World War, 1995.
Stephen Pope & Elizabeth-Anne Wheal. Pages 139 - 141. More
Farwell, Bryon, The Great War in Africa 1914-1918,
1986, W.W. Norton & Company.
Official History of the War: Military Operations - East Africa