East African campaign (World War I)

Series of battles in East Africa during World War I

The East African campaign in World War I was a series of battles and guerrilla actions, which started in German East Africa (GEA) and spread to portions of Mozambique, Rhodesia, British East Africa, the Uganda, and the Belgian Congo. The campaign all but ended in German East Africa in November 1917 when the Germans entered Mozambique and continued the campaign living off Portuguese supplies. The strategy of the German colonial forces, led by Lieutenant Colonel (later Major General) Paul von Lettow Vorbeck, was to divert Allied forces from the Western Front to Africa. His strategy achieved only mixed results after 1916 when he was driven out of German East Africa. The campaign in Africa consumed considerable amounts of money and war material that could have gone to other fronts. The Germans in East Africa fought for the whole of the war, receiving word of the armistice on 14 November 1918 at 07:30 hours. Both sides waited for confirmation, with the Germans formally surrendering on 25 November. GEA became two League of Nations Class B Mandates, Tanganyika Territory of the United Kingdom and Ruanda Urundi of Belgium, while the Kionga Triangle was ceded to Portugal.

German East Africa (Deutsch Ostafrika) was colonized by the Germans in 1885. The territory spanned and covered the areas of modern Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. The colony's indigenous population numbered seven and a half million and was governed by 5,300 Europeans. Although the colonial regime was relatively secure, the colony had recently been shaken by the Maji Maji Rebellion of 1904–1905. The German colonial administration could call on a military Schutztruppe ("Protection force") of 260 Europeans and 2,470 Africans, in addition to 2,700 white settlers who were part of the reservist Landsturm, as well as a small paramilitary Gendarmerie. The outbreak of World War I in Europe led to the increased popularity of German colonial expansion and the creation of a Deutsch Mittelafrika ("German Central Africa") which would parallel a resurgent German Empire in Europe. Mittelafrika involved the annexation of territory, mostly occupied by the Belgian Congo, to link the German colonies in East, South west and West Africa. Such an annexation would allow Germany to dominate central Africa and would make Germany by far the most powerful colonial power in Africa. The German colonial military in Africa was weak, poorly equipped and widely dispersed, with the largest military concentration in the German colonial empire being in East Africa. Although better trained and more experienced than their opponents, many of the German soldiers were reliant on obsolete weapons such as the Model 1871 rifle, which used black powder, giving away the position of the firer. The militaries of the Allied powers also had similar problems of poor equipment and small size. Most colonial militaries were intended to serve as local paramilitary police for the repression of unrest or rebellion. They were neither equipped nor organized to fight against military forces of foreign powers.

The objective of the German forces in East Africa, led by Lieutenant Colonel Paul von Lettow Vorbeck, was to divert Allied forces and supplies from Europe to Africa. By threatening the important British Uganda Railway, Lettow hoped to force British troops to invade East Africa, where he could fight a defensive campaign. In 1912, the German government had formed a defensive strategy for East Africa in which the military would withdraw to the hinterland and fight a guerilla campaign. The German colony in East Africa was a threat to the neutral Belgian Congo but the Belgian government hoped to continue its neutrality in Africa. The Force Publique was constrained to adopt a defensive strategy until 15 August 1914, when German ships on Lake Tanganyika bombarded the port of Mokolobu and then the Lukuga post a week later. Some Belgian officials viewed hostilities in East Africa as an opportunity to expand Belgian holdings in Africa; the capture of Ruanda and Urundi could increase the bargaining power of the De Broqueville government to ensure the restoration of Belgium after the war. During the post war negotiation of the Treaty of Versailles, the Colonial Minister, Jules Renkin, sought to trade Belgian territorial gains in German East Africa for the Portuguese allocation in northern Angola, to gain Belgian Congo a longer coast.