The History of German East Africans Schutztruppen

Origins and Organisation

Ifyou think about the first world war, what is the first picturepopping up in your mind? Perhaps its one of the muddy battlegroundsin France a enormous clash in the wasteland of russia or the snowypeaks of an Italian mountain covered in austro Hungary blood, well forget about all of that because today we will talk about sandy hotand yellow desert in the german colonie of East Africa and the Manwho defended it. So as I already told you The German Schutzruppen theword for germanys coloniel army are hardly remembered by anyone whosinterested in the first world war. The Word Schutztruppen dates backto a certain Otto von Bismarck who in an effort to stay as special asever used the term Schutzgebiete protectorates instead of colonies.The first Units of the schutztruppe originated from a German ledmercenary group consisting of mostly Africans the so called Wissmanntrupp. To expand this small unit in East Africa the Imperial GermanArmy recruited their askari soldiers mostly from British heldterritory where the young man were pressed into service and oftendefected to the Germans where they were treated with respect and paidrelatively well while maintaining the prospect of becoming an NCO.The Army also invested 100.000 Reichsmark and equipped the first 10Companies with old Prussian Mauser M 71 black powder bolt actionrifles. Officially the Schutztruppe was formed by imperial Law on the22nd of March 1891 initially belonging to the imperialGerman Navy it came under the supervision of the Imperial ColonialOffice with the Schutztruppen Act of 1896. An Act that also shapedthe organisation of an askari companie the so called Fieldkompanieconsisted of an Headquaters Section with 4 German officers a Doctor aCobbler a tailer and a few dozend porters. 3 infantry Platoons with55 Askari 3NCOs (german or sometimes african and one German Officereach. Additionally each companie was supported by 200 to 300 portersand had one or two machine Gun Sections with each section consistingof 2 squads with 5 askari operating one machine gun under theleadership of an NCO each. While the section was commanded by anofficer. The Later also established schützen kompanien were formedout of European settlers together with a small number of Boersettlers and stranded naval personnel from the SMS Möwe the lightcruiser königsberg and the two auxiliary ships marie and rubens. Theonly differents in their organization besides their origin was thealmost tripled amount of porters used for these companies and a smallincrease in european officers.

The First Call to Arms

TheFirst Task of the newly formed army was to secure the IringaHighlands and the important Caravan route from the Coast to Ujiji onLake Tanganyika deep in the hehes sphere of influence. To accomplishthis seemingly easy task Captain Emil von Zelewski and his secondbattalion consisting of 3 Companies equipped with the newly arrivedmachine and field guns who previously had their baptism of fire,shooting up a small village and burning it to the ground on the 30 ofjuly 1891 marched straight and without any Vanguard into an smallforest. Shadowing this small Force of 14 Europeans, 320 Askari and upto 200 porters was a much larger force of 2500 highly trained andmotivated Hehe warriors. While most of the column was alreadydirectly below the hidden Hehe, a German officer took a shot on abird which The Hehe took as the predetermined signal and attacked. Asthe battle took place in densely overgrown terrain the troops werecompletely surprise and the Askari were only able to fire a few shotsfrom their rifles before the Hehe, armed with thrusting spears, brokeinto the colume and Obliterated the German Force in directhand-to-hand combat. The battle was decided after only 10-15 minuteswith the Hehe capturing around 300 rifles as well as field andmachine guns, which subsequently made them a dangerous opponent forthe Germans in the Future. In a shier stroke of luck, the German Rearguard under lieutenant von tettenborn was saved by the prematurestart of the battle and fought a fighting retreat back to Daressalamwith his remaining four Germans 64 Askaris and 74 porters. Accordingto tettenborns testimony the germans who lost 10 Europeans, 250-291Askari, and about 100 porters also killed more than 300 to 700 HeheWarriors although this number could be an exaggeration to save thepride of the German Imperial Army and the Schutztruppen. In thefollowing years the Schutztruppen underwent much needed retrainingand refitting with new equipment and guerrilla tactics under theirnew commander Friedrich von schele and in 1894 started a large scalepunitive expedition which developed into a 4 year long bloodyguerrilla war at the end of which thousands of Africans lay deadeither killed trough the Germans or starved to death by the tacticsused both by the Germans and Hehe Warriors and Chief Mkwawa in orderto evade capture committed suicide in july 1898 subsequently endingthe war and the career of one of the greatest tribal chiefs inAfrican History.

Development

Butthe German occupiers did not have much time to recover, as one of thelargest uprisings in Africa's colonial history, the Maji Majiuprising, began in 1905 a collection of tribes dissatisfied with therules imposed on them rose up in the South of the Country, cuttingvital railway connections and attacking the small germanGarrisonforces mostly consisting of enlisted Askari. This timehowever the Germans came prepared, and in a remarkable piece ofmilitary action Major Kurt Johannes led an expedition along the coastdestroying or taking with him every weapon food or animal in his wayand as such expertly using the scorched earth tactics to dislodge theenemy's economic bases of operation and force them to surrender,ending the last noteworthy uprising in German East Africa and formingthe groundwork for an expertly trained hard to fight Schutztruppe.although the uprising was crushed with relative ease and in a shortamount of time, it left the South of the country devastated and wouldresult in more than 200.000 famine related civilian deaths anunparalleled catastrophe that sadly was not the last of its kind ingerman east africa.