This is a piece by Harry Fecitt who has covered a vast area of East Africa researching the campaign in the Voi - Taveta area fought over during the construction of the branch line to Moshi 1915 - 16.
Opposite Kilima Njaro Schutztruppe raiding parties attacked the Uganda Railway
on 56 occasions, mainly on the stretch between Maji Chumvi & Kiu. The first
successful attack was on 20 April 1915 when a 120-foot three-span girder bridge
near Makindu was damaged, but quickly repaired. Engines & rolling-stock were
derailed on 17 occasions & the permanent way was damaged in 13 places. Three
Schutztruppe patrols fired on passing trains, a station was attacked but not
captured, 13 undetonated mines were removed from the track by British troops &
nine enemy patrols were driven off by rifle fire as they approached the line.
The total damage achieved by the Schutztruppe was not very great but the
nuisance value of these attacks was considerable. For nearly a year trains were
not run at night through part of the danger zone & it was necessary to keep
repair trains loaded with construction materials standing-by at several
stations.Line repairs led to delays in schedules & the attacks themselves led to
stressful duty hours for the train crews. The British tried whitewashing
sections of the track and also laying oil trails either side of the lines in
order to detect if the track had been interfered with, but the Schutztruppe
countered those measures by carrying their own whitewash & oil to re-beautify
the track after they had laid their mines. Lettow states that he had plenty of
dynamite available on plantations in German East Africa but the best charges
were made from the British military explosives unloaded & abandoned at Tanga in
1914. Using Indian troops a system of continuous track patrols & bridge guards
was started in the danger zone, but even so some Germans who could speak good
English easily captured the defenders by pretending to be British officers and
then disarming the sepoys. The captured sepoys were released in the bush later
but their rifles & ammunition were taken back to GEA. As in other areas of BEA
the enemy was not the only threat. In December 1915 a 3 Kashmir sepoy on duty at
Tsavo was taken and eaten by a lion. The British assumed that all Schutztruppe
attacks would come from the west but Lettow's men stayed ahead of the game by
using a base camp on the Athi River, 15 miles east of Mtito Andei. This gave the
attackers freedom of movement onto the line when they attacked. The Schutztruppe
abandoned this base camp before the British discovered it. Using British
telephone equipment captured at Tanga English-speaking Germans tapped into
British telephone lines for information about troop & train movements. Trains
started using armoured trucks at each end. These were 10-ton high-sided trucks
protected by half-inch steel plate and carrying infantrymen ready to return fire
and repel attacks. For a time the 2nd Bn The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment in
Nairobi had to provide a nightly armed escort of 1 NCO & 10 men supported by an
Indian Volunteer maxim gun to travel on the train down to Mombasa and then back
again the following day. Also a 20-ton truck loaded with sand was run ahead of
the engine to take any damage from a mine, but the Germans then used delay
detonators that allowed several axle-loads to run over before detonation of the
mine. These defensive measures considerably reduced the tonnage of freight that
the trains could move. In the end trains pushed trucks containing expendable or
low-value freight ahead of them in order to keep freight tonnages moving. As
seen in the Schutztruppe could use mounted patrols in the Magadi area but east
of Taveta the lack of water for mounts meant that raiding parties had to move 40
to 50 miles on foot before finding water. This patrolling was extremely arduous
& Lettow describes how some men died of thirst & others just survived by
drinking their own urine. Demolition patrol sizes were small – one or two
Germans, three or four Askari & five to seven carriers. Food & water had to be
carried on the return journey & so badly wounded men could not be evacuated.
Casualties who could not walk would hand their rifle & ammunition over to be
taken back to GEA by a comrade, and then would be left in the bush to await
their fate.
