Hope yet for African Queen gunboat on Lake Tanganyika

[John Ashworth]

Off topic on a railways forum? No, because Liemba was operated by East African Railways and Harbours Corporation from 1948-1977, and by Tanzania Railways Corporation from 1977 until 1997, when TRC's inland shipping division became a separate company, the Marine Services Company Ltd (Wikipedia).

Hope yet for African Queen gunboat on Lake Tanganyika

By Stephen Evans
29 August 2011 Last updated at 00:42 GMT
BBC News, Berlin

Ships don't come with much more historical ballast than the MV Liemba. The steamer still shudders and belches its way across Lake Tanganyika every Wednesday and Friday, a century after it was built as a warship in Germany.

In its time it's been a pawn in the colonial scramble for Africa. It's been scuttled and then raised again from the deep. It was the model for the warship sunk by The African Queen, a steam-powered launch in the film of the same name, starring Katharine Hepburn as a prim spinster and Humphrey Bogart as the rough captain.

And now it's a ferry on Africa's longest lake, invariably packed with hundreds of people plus their jumble of bundles and baskets as it churns the water between Kigoma in Tanzania across the lake to Mpulungu in Zambia.

But for how long? Such is the ramshackle, dented state of the vessel that the company which runs it has asked the German government to help with refurbishment. The basis of the appeal is that this is a piece of German history. The steamer that serves the citizens around Lake Tanganyika was once the Kaiser's gunboat.

Cat and Dog

A spokesman for the Marine Services Company told the BBC: "We have requested that Germany help in its rehabilitation. This is because of financial constraints but we have not had a concrete commitment."

The Liemba started life as the Graf Goetzen in 1913 when she was built as a warship in Papenburg on the River Ems in northern Germany. It is said that the Kaiser himself ordered the construction to further his imperial ambitions.

The Graf Goetzen was then transported in parts, in 500 crates, from Hamburg to Dar es Salaam on the coast of East Africa - and from there over mountains to Lake Tanganyika where Germany, Britain and Belgium were all engaged in colonial jostling.

Britain did not take the presence of the vessel easily. As the Admiralty put it: "It is both the duty and the tradition of the Royal Navy to engage the enemy wherever there is water to float a ship."

So London decided to send two gunboats and by an equally difficult route.

The British ships were sent down to South Africa and then up the continent as far as they could be taken by rail, and after that by the sheer human power of 2,000 labourers who hauled and cut through the jungle, eventually getting them to the lake which became the site of imperial contest.

The two British boats, by the way, were initially to be called Cat and Dog but that was thought to be too flippant - the Admiralty in London at the time was not into flippancy. The names Mimi and Touto were chosen instead, the French terms used by children for cat and dog.

'Indispensable service'

Colonial rivalry and conflict then ensued, and, in the face of a British attack, the Germans abandoned the port of Kigoma, scuttling their ship, the Graf Goetzen, to stop it getting into British hands.

The Goetzen then remained at the bottom of the lake for nearly 10 years until she was raised to the surface. Amazingly, the engines still functioned after minor repairs - possibly because the German engineers who had done the scuttling were the ones who had taken it out from Germany... and they took care to encase the engines in grease so that their baby could one day live and steam again.

It is not clear who raised it, perhaps the Belgians or perhaps the British - but whoever did it, the old German gunboat ended up in the hands of the British.

Clearly, a vessel of the Royal Navy could not be named after Count Gustav Adolf von Goetzen, who was a German explorer and governor of German East Africa. So the ship was renamed as the Liemba - which is how she has stayed ever since.

And so may she stay for much longer if she can be renovated. The request for financial help has fallen between the governments of Lower Saxony, in which the ship was built, and the federal government in Berlin.

The president of Germany has added his voice. The ship, said President Christian Wulff, had a "singular history" and performed an "indispensable service" to the people of East Africa. The government of Tanzania joined the clamour for salvation.

A study has been done by the German authorities but it is thought to have concluded that the costs might well be higher than actually building a new ship. But would a new ship be quite the same as an ancient steamer, dented and bulging with history?

MV Liemba

Built in 1913
Scuttled in 1916 - raised again after several years at the bottom of Lake Tanganyika
Put into service as a ferry in 1927
An inspiration for the gunboat Luisa, in C S Forester's 1935 novel The African Queen, and the 1951 Hollywood film
Proudly described by its owners as "the oldest passenger ferry in the world"

[John Ashworth]

There is also an informative article on the "Liemba's" return to service in 1952 in the March 1953 EAR&H Magazine at http://www.energeticproductions.com/EARandH/Vol0104.htm

Included is a summary of the interesting litigation claims against EAR&H from the film production crew filming "The African Queen."

Posted by Tony on the East_African_Steam Yahoo group

[John Ashworth]

I hope I'm not violating anyone's copyright by posting the bit about the litigation (attached), taken from the link that Tony gave. I found it a very interesting little piece, especially as someone in Nairobi was telling me about it just a few weeks ago. I was told that in a fit of pique at losing the case, the film company refused to include the Administration in the credits at the end of the film. It's so long since I saw the film (and probably didn't read the credits anyway) that I can't confirm that. Someone who has it on DVD can perhaps confirm.

[Derek Walker]

John, I had a similar thing about Liemba on my website along with pics of her that I got from somebody that travelled on her and was mailed by a really agro character who said he was connected to her and proceeded to froth at the mouth and rant and rave about the lies I was perpetuating. I asked him to clarify the story then and give me the truth and he just ducked out of sight. I subsequntly pulled the page on her and the other lake steamers that I had. If they dont want to correct the history but can only froth and rave about it then I am sorry, they must bear part of the blame for incorrect history. I may still have pics of her, but they are probably long gone now.

[John Ashworth]

The heritage community seems to breed characters who froth at the mouth and rant and rave! Funnily enough they're often not the ones who get their hands dirty actually preserving things (or working for preservation projects in the many other support roles apart from the physical work)...

[Dylan Knott]

Too many in this industry. And yes they never get their hands dirty as it too easy to sit in front of a PC and type nasty emails.

As for the boat it would be nice to save her, but as with all heritage assets they eventually need to retire. We only hope that if it is saved its allowed to earn its keep.

[Thomas Reyer]

Hello John,
thank you very much for your intersting posting but there is a lapse in your article. The "Graf Goetzen" was built as an civil passenger steamer for the Lake Tanganjika and not as a warship. In 1913 nobody in Germany thought about a possible war with other colonial powers in the african colonies. The Meyer-Werft in Papenburg has an interesting article on its homepage about this fascinating ship. Here is the link: http://www.meyerwerft.com/page.asp?lang ... =0&did=880

Many greetings from Germany
Thomas

[John Ashworth]

Thanks, Thomas, for that correction to the original article. One of the great thing about a forum such as this is the ability to hear from a wide variety of informed sources.

[John Ashworth]

WW1: The indestructible warship (video)

As part of a series looking at stories beyond the trenches of Europe, BBC Swahili's Zuhura Yunus travels to Tanzania and takes a journey aboard the "indestructible warship"...

[John Ashworth]

Just recently I saw a local news item that Liemba had been pressed into service to evacuate refugees during the recent/current crisis in Burundi over the president's decision to stand for a third term in office. I can't find the article now.