Published by Zebra Press

an imprint of Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd

Reg. No. 1966/003153/07

The Estuaries No. 4, Oxbow Crescent, Century Avenue, Century City, 7441

PO Box 1144, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa

www.zebrapress.co.za

First published 2015

Publication © Zebra Press 2015

Text © Adam Cruise 2015

Cover photograph: Museum Africa

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.

PUBLISHER: Marlene Fryer

MANAGING EDITOR: Robert Plummer

EDITOR: Bronwen Leak

PROOFREADER: Jacinta Nunes

COVER DESIGNER: Michiel Botha

TEXT DESIGNER: Jacques Kaiser

TYPESETTER: Monique van den Berg

MAPS: Ryan Africa

INDEXER: Sanet le Roux

ISBN 978 1 77022 752 1 (print)

ISBN 978 1 77022 753 8 (ePub)

ISBN 978 1 77022 754 5 (PDF)

For Amanda

Contents

Foreword

Preface

1.The Empire writes back

2.Groundwork

3.The Sandfontein reversal

4.Insurrection

5.Interlude

6.Central Force

7.Eastern Force and McKenzie’s pursuit

8.Northern Force

9.The hippodrome

10.Counterattack

11.Closing in

12.In for the kill

13.Kilo 500

14.Reverberations

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Foreword

A VISITOR TO modern South Africa could be forgiven for knowing nothing about Louis Botha. Prominent statues of him may still stand in front of the Union Buildings up on the Highveld in Pretoria and the National Assembly at the other end of the country in Cape Town, but today they are mostly ignored. They have about them more than a whiff of ‘Ozymandias’, Shelley’s lament to the passing power of a leader who once styled himself King of Kings and yet whose broken stone likeness lies askew in the desert, the forlorn, double-edged invocation still legible on the pedestal: ‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’

And what works did Botha achieve? The turbulent history of South Africa’s fight against racial inequality can rightly make uncomfortable the lauding of senior white figures from the ancien regime, but in Botha perhaps an exception can be made.

From humble, rural Afrikaner beginnings that seeded in him a connection with the land of South Africa as pure as any, he rose to prominence fighting the British during the Boer War of 1899 to 1902. Famous for out-thinking their better supplied, funded and equipped enemy, it was guerrilla commanders such as Botha who helped establish the myth of the resourceful, dogged – indeed, noble – Afrikaner commando outwitting the flat-footed British soldiers on the remote South African platteland.

Then, in an act of remarkable statesmanlike transformation, just twelve years later he raised an army to fight alongside the British when the First World War broke out in 1914. He would die a committed Anglophile.

It was an evolution that would win him huge respect in Europe, where he was invited to take part in the Paris peace negotiations following the Armistice, and the eternal respect and friendship of Britain’s great wartime leader, Winston Churchill. Yet it was an act that would tarnish him forever with the traitor’s mark of Cain in the eyes of many anti-British Afrikaners back home in South Africa, the so-called ‘bitter-enders’ unwilling to come to terms with Britain’s eventual victory in the Boer War.

It is this ‘betrayal’ that has led in part to his story being largely forgotten today. The narrative of the struggle against apartheid tends to put all whites in the same single, homogenous, racist block, yet the reality of history is that single blocks rarely exist. There are fault lines, margins, places were subtlety and nuance agglomerate, and this is perhaps why a richly complex South African figure like Botha is passed over today.

Adam Cruise goes a long way to putting that right with his excellent new book, Louis Botha’s War. It is in part a work of military history, an account of the 1914/15 campaign by South African forces led by Botha that dislodged German troops from the arid, thirsty wastes of what was known in the colonial era as German South-West Africa, but is today called Namibia. But it also gives new life to our understanding of a key and complex international figure from the start of the twentieth century.

That some of Botha’s views can today be regarded as reactionary, even racist, should not be forgotten. It was under his premiership that the Natives Land Act of 1913 was passed, a law that stopped black South Africans from owning land in all but very limited areas. It was a keystone to ensuring white minority rule in the country long before apartheid was legally codified in the 1950s and 1960s.

But to pillory one man for an attitude that seeped through entire social cohorts would be wrong. It is much more important to understand what a difference he made in the context of the time in which he lived, and this is where Cruise’s book really comes alive.

South Africa as a united nation was just four years old when Botha, now serving as prime minister, took the momentous decision to invade South-West Africa on behalf of Britain. Many outsiders doubted whether such a new entity could even field an effective army. Many of the soldiers were Afrikaners who had fought against Britain in the Boer War and who did not possess quite the same magnanimous mindset of forgiveness as Botha. Cruise relates how the invasion brought anti-British republicanism to the fore, leading to a rebellion at home that had to be put down by Botha’s loyalists before the war could be successfully prosecuted against Germany across the border.

This led to the first – and last – time South Africa was invaded by a foreign power, when a German detachment managed to cross the frontier, egged on by a minority of Afrikaners with such strong hatred of Britain they would later embrace Nazism. But, as Cruise argues convincingly, this was more a case of an incursion in search of water and supplies, rather than a serious attempt to seize territory.

Botha was not the sort of prime minister to run a war from his office, forward deploying into German-held territory to such an extent that his bodyguards gave up trying to rein him in. At one point, he came within a whisker of being captured, insisting on taking operational command to an extent that would be inconceivable in our modern age of pampered world leaders.

Through careful culling of all the best sources on the campaign, Cruise tells of the many ‘firsts’ associated with the 1914/15 South-West Africa campaign: the first time South Africa deployed armoured cars, the first time aeroplanes were used to bomb enemy positions, the first time motorbike outriders replaced horsemen, the first German target to be successfully taken by the Allies in the Great War (a consular building on the Caprivi Strip).

This is a story of derring-do, of troops trekking for days on a diet of biltong and biscuit, of Botha’s indomitable wife rushing north to nurse her husband back to strength during the campaign, of forces who dared to traverse the Kalahari desert in full battle order.

But mostly, this is the story of a man who, rather like Nelson Mandela later in the century, was willing to adapt, compromise and change, all in the name of peoples putting their differences behind them. Botha’s name may no longer be revered around the globe, but after reading this book with its account of his tactical brilliance and political courage in the deserts of Namibia, one could be inspired to think how lucky South Africa has been to sire the greatest of leaders.

TIM BUTCHER

AUGUST 2014

Preface

AS A SOUTH AFRICAN I learnt about Louis Botha at school, but only in passing reference to other, ‘more important’ issues. We were taught that he was a successful young general in the Anglo-Boer War, where, together with his close friend Jan Smuts (always in association with Smuts), he persuaded recalcitrant Boer generals like Christiaan de Wet and Koos de la Rey to accept the terms of defeat offered by Britain. Sometime later, Botha became the first prime minister of South Africa. We learnt about his controversial Natives Land Act of 1913, his split with J.B.M. Hertzog and, almost as an afterthought, his campaign in German South-West Africa (now Namibia) at the beginning of the First World War.

I unearthed my old high-school textbook to double-check. There was, in a wordy 700-page treatise on South African history, nothing more than a passing reference to the campaign; a single sentence stating it was brought to a successful conclusion by July 1915. That was the last we scholars heard about Prime Minister Louis Botha. We were not taught anything else about him, or his war. Our school history curriculum had more important things to negotiate, leapfrogging to Smuts and Hertzog’s protracted rivalry between the wars, which would result in apartheid, an ideology history texts in those days went to great pains to justify.

Botha, it seemed, was at best unimportant in the larger scheme of South African history; at worst, a traitor to Afrikanerdom for his repudiation of republican sentiment. He was, and still is, practically ignored by the official compilers of South African history, even though his statues take pride of place outside both Parliament in Cape Town and the Union Buildings in Pretoria, where successive governments have resided in the very rooms in which he, as the first prime minister, took office. And let us not forget Durban, where he stands side by side with his old Zulu friend, King Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo.

There is simply not a lot of information available on Botha and his invasion of South-West Africa in 1914/15. While a few international historians, most notably Hew Strachan, have written extensively about the campaigns in Africa during the First World War, most of their attention goes to the East African Campaign, in which Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, the indomitable German imperial commander of a largely African force of askaris, led the Allies on a protracted goose chase across the vast savannahs and forests of East Africa. Admittedly, Strachan deals with the other campaign, in the German South West, with a fair amount of diligence, but while the information is useful, it is not detailed. His account covers how the campaign affected the broader war, rather than the finer details, and it certainly does not explore the long-term consequences other than mentioning that the South Africans, despite Botha’s claim to Winston Churchill that he would throw them out for good, did not deport the resident German population, a group that is still evident in Namibia today.

I find it puzzling that Botha’s war has been swept under the carpet, because, as insignificant as official history has deemed it, this was the first war that South Africa fought as a united country. It was also the first campaign to be brought to a conclusion in the Great War. Contrast that with the East African theatre of war, which was the last campaign to be brought to an end, and only because there was no longer a kaiser for von Lettow-Vorbeck to fight for.

It has always seemed clear to me that Botha’s decision to accept Britain’s request to invade South-West Africa had tremendous consequences on the direction and course of both South Africa and the former German colony’s history, and that both countries today, a century on, are still struggling to shake off the colossal repercussions generated by this ‘sideshow’ of the Great War.

Only recently, after trawling the internet, did I discover more about Botha, the personality, and his war. I managed to purchase an old, dog-eared copy of Johannes Meintjes’ long out-of-print General Louis Botha: A Biography. The only published account of Botha’s life, it is a fascinating read, especially as it sheds light on the character of the larger-than-life man. But still, there is not quite enough about the war.

Meintjes’ references, however, led me to other, even older texts, such as Deneys Reitz’s Commando and Trekking On, books still popular with modern readers. Reitz, now a part of South African folklore, is an intriguing character, a true adventurer. He fought in the Boer War as a teenager and took part in the great battles under generals Botha, De la Rey, C.F. Beyers and Jan Kemp. He was also one of the last Boer fighters in the field, having followed Smuts into the northern Cape to carry out a protracted campaign of guerrilla warfare against the British garrisons there. After the war, Reitz exiled himself in Madagascar, but returned just before Botha became prime minister of the Union of South Africa. As Botha’s staunch ally, Reitz volunteered for the 1914 campaign and his personal account of German South-West Africa, as well as of the preceding rebellion, was invaluable to my quest.

Then I found something even better, and lesser known: Brigadier General J.J. Collyer’s The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, published in 1937. This was and remains the official military account of the campaign. As Botha’s chief of general staff at the time, Collyer was as well placed as anyone to produce an accurate write-up of the operations and South Africa’s involvement.

I also managed to source the unabridged diary of Eric Moore-Ritchie, a policeman from Pretoria who volunteered to become a member of Botha’s mounted bodyguard, a small force of highly skilled soldiers that was formed at the outset of the war after rumours surfaced of a plot to assassinate the prime minister. The bodyguard shadowed Botha’s every move throughout the campaign and Moore-Ritchie’s account provided me with a window onto events as they unfolded 100 years ago.

To supplement my reading, I found titbits here and there on the internet. The online portal of the South African Military History Society has unique first-hand accounts of various aspects of the campaign, including the German use of airpower, which was hitherto a novelty in war. Other valuable websites include one maintained by the Imperial Research Circle and which has a blow-by-blow account of the opening battle of the campaign at Sandfontein by a certain J.E.M. Atwell, who took part in it. Then there is ‘The Soldier’s Burden’, an excellent online resource for first-hand accounts of relatively unknown events. It contains the kind of history I am interested in: texts written during or shortly after the war by the men who saw and experienced it.

Other information came from unexpected sources, such as The Anglo-African Who’s Who and Biographical Sketchbook of 1907 and a recent academic paper by Dr Anne Samson titled ‘South African mining magnates and World War One’. I even managed to find a website dedicated to German colonial uniforms. The site, www.germancolonialuniforms.co.uk, was useful in that it also gave accurate information on German and South African ordinances used throughout the campaign.

Perhaps the greatest contribution to my understanding of the subject, however, came from my own travels to Namibia to unearth the faint tracks left by the campaign. Although I had been to Namibia many times before, this time I had to step off the well-worn tourist paths, and even those of the locals, to discover the scenes of battles. As with the literature, there is not a lot of evidence of the war on the ground. Unlike in Europe, the only physical memorials are a few graves, small headstones lost in the bush announcing the date when hostilities ended, and discreet museums of the era’s artillery in Tsumeb and Windhoek.

I did, however, discover plenty of circumstantial and incidental evidence, like bits of rusty ammunition cartridges along the bed of the Swakop River, and the crude stone breastworks and redoubts or schanzes of defenders on the battlefields. Perhaps the most conspicuous evidence of the war is the indelible mark left by the South Africans on the Namibian social and cultural psyche. The Namibia of today is similar to South Africa; save for border control, one would be forgiven for thinking it is the same country. For seventy-five years it was treated as a fifth province of its southern neighbour. Many South Africans settled here, their languages, accents, cultures and racial policies infusing into Namibian society, culminating in a national makeup that originated with Botha’s decision to invade.

My own personal exploration, as well as the texts I managed to uncover, ultimately helped shed considerable light on what has essentially become a forgotten war.

I would like to thank Amanda, my wife and fellow travelling companion in our month-long exploration of Namibia’s backwaters while I was doing research on the ground. Not only did she give me the initial prod to write this book for the centenary of the First World War, but she provided the necessary goading to follow my instincts when eventually I did commit to it.

In Namibia, the congenial owner-managers of Sandfontein Lodge, Rodica and Willie Agenbach, allowed me free reign to ferret about their backyard looking for clues of one of the more significant battles of the campaign.

At Zebra Press, managing editor Robert Plummer played an unflappable role in getting this book ready for print. Special mention also to his editorial team, who had to meticulously cross-check the historical references as well as pore over the endless stylistic quirks of the antiquated texts I cited, and particularly to Bronwen Leak, who suggested some important additions and even did a bit of valuable research of her own.

I would like to show my deepest appreciation to Tim Butcher for his epigrammatic foreword. Tim is a friend and an author I greatly admire, who himself has just written a penetrating work on the Great War.

At the time of the war, South-West Africa was commonly spelt with a hyphen, and this is the style I have used when referring to that period. South West Africa is spelt without a hyphen when referring to later periods.

ADAM CRUISE

NOVEMBER 2014

1

The Empire writes back

SOMETIME DURING THE last week of July 1914, two men had a brief exchange in the courtyard of the House of Commons shortly after question time.

‘What’s going to happen?’ one asked anxiously. On receiving the answer he left looking grave. That evening he cabled Pretoria with the following message: ‘Tell Botha, Churchill thinks it’s war and Britain is involved.’

Louis Botha, prime minister of the fledgling Union of South Africa, however, was not in Pretoria. He and his wife, Annie, were far away in Northern Rhodesia. They were due to return to South Africa in the first week of August on a steamship sailing from Beira in Portuguese East Africa. Nevertheless, 1st Baronet Sir David de Villiers-Graaff’s cable from London was immediately relayed north, where it reached Botha just before he was due to board. Cancelling the sea passage, he instead returned to Pretoria by train.[1]

Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914. As a dominion of the British Empire, South Africa was automatically drawn into the conflict. The news of a European war could not have come at a worse time for Botha. It was a mere twelve years since the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging which brought an end to the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902, a bitter conflict that pitted Briton against Boer, and the wounds still ran deep. The Union, made up of two former colonies and two previously independent states, was itself only four years old and already the Afrikaners were fighting among themselves over the path the new country should take. Botha’s own policy was to pledge reconciliation between the two disparate groups of whites, the one English, the other Afrikaans, but his fellow countrymen were still smarting from defeat at the hands of their traditional foe. Botha’s placatory tonic was too bitter to swallow for many South Africans of Dutch descent. Despite gaining self-governance, and even though that government was led by a famous Boer general, with fellow Afrikaners and generals in the cabinet, many die-hard Boers or bittereinders (bitter-enders) still hankered after notions of an Afrikaner republic and remained vehemently anti-British.

As recently as January 1914, the Afrikaner ranks within Botha’s own cabinet had splintered over government policy. Those with nationalist and republican sentiments broke away under the leadership of General James Barry Munnik Hertzog to form the National Party, an organisation that would, after a few modifications, one day plunge the country into the now infamous racial system of apartheid. The schism in the prime minister’s own ranks was a blow to his delicate policy of reconciliation, but he was feeling pressure from both sides. The Union had just endured a spate of violent miner strikes on the Rand, where communist and socialist elements of the largely English-speaking Labour Party did little to assuage the negative perceptions of their conservative and pious agricultural brethren on the other end of the white spectrum.

To add to the turmoil, the land was rife with racial tension. In 1913, the Natives Land Act had effectively removed much of the black population from white-owned areas and placed them in reserves. These relocations were the hallmarks of apartheid, still thirty-five years away from being formalised, and have forever tarnished Botha’s name. In direct response to these measures, the South African Native National Congress was formed. This socio-political party of mainly black and some concerned liberal white South Africans was the forerunner of the African National Congress that now governs the country after almost a century of struggle against white domination. The ‘native question’ was a contentious issue among policy-makers and did little to help Botha’s road to reconciliation.

Then there was Mohandas Gandhi, a young Indian lawyer and resident South African, who, showing a quality that would one day make him a legend, initiated a peaceful and successful campaign to repudiate the second-class treatment of Indians in the country. This, too, did little for Botha’s reputation both at home and abroad. By mid-1914, he was immersed in domestic strife and could ill afford to fight an international war.

To make matters worse, in 1914 South Africa had a weak and fledgling defence force. Since the end of the Boer War in 1902, the Boer commandos had disbanded, and the permanent imperial force that Britain maintained had diminished in size as the decade wore on. In 1912, Botha passed the Defence Act, which made provision for an all–South African army, one that would ambitiously include both Afrikaner and English elements. The Union Defence Force was initially made up of an odd combination of volunteers and conscripts, and by 1914 it was still a long way from being war-ready, consisting of both English- and Afrikaans-speaking mounted militia and infantry who were not only largely untrained but who also regarded one another with deep suspicion and mistrust.

The bulk of the army was made up of the Active Citizen Force, which included volunteers between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one and older men from rifle associations and clubs. According to the Defence Act, if the volunteers fell short of the 64 000 deemed necessary for an effective citizen force, the government would be compelled to conscript to make up for the shortfall. At the outbreak of the war in 1914, there were only 44 000.

Among the ranks of the Active Citizen Force there were widely differing ideas on how an army should function. The English officers, being regimented, had a penchant for khaki uniforms and clean-shaven faces. The Boers, who typically democratically elected their officers based on districts and were quite happy in informal mufti and slouch hats, found the new regime too British.[2] Although consummate horsemen and sharpshooters, and brilliant guerrilla fighters, the Afrikaners tended to eschew authority and baulked at pushing home an attack, because of their inadequate chain of command and general military indiscipline. Nonetheless, the Boer commando system was a potent fighting force, well honed to the style of warfare on the subcontinent, as the British had discovered to their cost over a decade earlier. The commandos lent themselves to mobility and allowed for leadership intuition and instinct in battle, and, as a result, were adept at employing hit-and-run guerrilla tactics in the African veld. This style of fighting, however, was debatable as a method for sustained constructive defence or even attack.

In any case, the commando system was practically dormant, having not been utilised since the burghers handed in their weapons and went home to their farms in 1902. Nevertheless, Botha knew that around 20 000 experienced and loyal veterans from the Boer War could be called upon from the Transvaal and Orange Free State should they be needed, although there was a serious lack of commanding expertise among them.[3] The only officer in South Africa who had ever directly commanded a force of over 600 soldiers or more was the prime minister himself. All the other Boer commanders had operated with small, mobile mounted units without an adequate staff system and with no experience of formal supply lines, lines of communication, reserve units, medical supplies or auxiliary personnel – all essential tenets for a formal defence force. When they were eventually called up, the volunteer officers of the Active Citizen Force suddenly found themselves commanding many thousands of troops, a task they struggled to handle.[4]

The rest of the Union Defence Force was made up of the Permanent Force, which consisted of just five regiments under the command of Brigadier General Henry Timson Lukin, an ex-officer of the British Army. Lukin was held in the highest regard by all who knew him. Colonel B.C. Judd, who fought with him throughout his career, writes:

[Lukin gave] every problem the most ponderous consideration as he was a slow thinker. However, having solved the problem to his satisfaction he would act quickly and usually successfully and he was completely fearless. He could berate an erring subordinate in masterly style, yet, if he later considered that he had been unjust would send for the man and apologize. Lukin was, fundamentally, a kind and loyal man. Holding himself accountable for the success or failure of any enterprise in which the men under his command might be engaged, he would support a subordinate who in his opinion had done his best to carry out orders.[5]

Lukin had his fair share of quirks, too, as Judd remembers:

Some of his idiosyncrasies were, nevertheless, a source of great amusement to the men. He had, for example, a peculiar way of placing his feet when walking along a veld path, which usually resulted, sooner or later, in a fall, from which he would rise, in accordance with the regimental motto, in increased splendour. [The regimental motto of the Cape Mounted Rifles was Aucto Splendore Resurgo – ‘I rise again with increased splendour’.] Lukin was always insistent that his men should be immaculately turned out both in peace and wartime; his own turnout, however, was frequently not what it should have been. He would often be observed to have unfastened buttons and to have neglected to remove toothpowder and blood from his face, the latter caused by his dashing efforts with a cut-throat razor![6]

Lukin’s Permanent Force was modelled on the highly structured imperial army, complete with parades, drills and chain of command. The general, however, was separate from and independent of the commander of the Active Citizen Force, the intractable Boer War general, Commandant General Christiaan Frederick Beyers, at one time Lukin’s sworn enemy. The emergent defence force, therefore, was made up of two disparate sections with neither commander holding rank over the other.[7]

Worst of all, there was no proper supreme command, such as a commander-in-chief or even an official chief of staff. The minister of defence held the defence force’s top job, while his secretary acted as chief of staff. It just so happened that the defence minister was none other than Jan Smuts, Botha’s right-hand man and a general of sound military acumen and experience, yet only as a guerrilla fighter. His secretary had no military background whatsoever.[8] Furthermore, as a minister ensconced behind a desk in Pretoria, the ‘commander-in-chief’ was far too detached from military operations. Even if he were to take to the field, Smuts, like many of his Boer War contemporaries, had no prior experience commanding a large body of men. What could he hope to achieve against the well-trained and acclimatised German Schütztruppe (colonial armed forces), who had proved brutally effective in the Herero and Nama wars in 1904–1907?

At the outbreak of war, Botha could only hope that South Africa would be tasked with simply organising the country’s defence in the unlikely event of a German attack from the colony to the north-west. The unlikelihood of an invasion from these quarters was in part due to the fact that the German colonial forces occupying South-West Africa were, despite their experience and weaponry, almost as incapable of attack as the new South African army.

The German colony had just a few thousand active soldiers at its disposal – 7 000 at most – so invading South Africa would be suicidal. But, unlike the Union Defence Force, this was a war-ready, homogenous army with an undivided supreme command, far superior artillery and an excellent supply of ammunition. The German Empire’s ruthless campaign that all but destroyed the rebellious native Herero and Nama people of South-West Africa less than a decade before meant that the Schütztruppe were well acquainted with their own terrain and, like their southern neighbours, were mobile and effective bush fighters. Defence of their colony was deemed more viable than the attack of another, and the German military command was particularly concerned about a possible South African invasion.

As it happened, the British imperial command in London cabled Botha two days after the declaration of war requesting that South Africa act against German South-West Africa. It was not the news that Botha, by now safely back in his country, had wanted to hear.

On 5 August, the day before Botha received the audacious request, a subcommittee of the Committee of Imperial Defence in London laid out its military objectives for the German-held colonies in Africa. Their primary concern was not the Schütztruppe on the ground, an infinitesimal threat at best, but rather the ports and wireless stations that could effectively relay messages to the much-touted German Asiatic and Atlantic naval fleets.[9] Denying the German navy of these all-important points of communication would deal a crippling blow to its ability to operate effectively. There was a huge wireless station at Kamina in German-occupied Togoland (today part of Ghana and Togo) that could relay messages from Berlin to the fleet in the Atlantic. Another, in Windhoek, the capital of German South-West Africa, could expand the field of direct communication via Kamina deep into the South Atlantic, South America and even the Indian Ocean. While a small British imperial force in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) would mount an expedition to attack an even smaller German force guarding the tower in neighbouring Togoland, it was decided that the mission in South-West Africa would go to the South Africans.

It was by all accounts a cheeky request, given the recent animosity between Britain and the Boer republicans, but Winston Churchill claimed that a year prior to the war, he and Botha had had an interesting private conversation in London, just after the latter had returned from a spell at a health spa in Germany.

‘Mind you are ready,’ Botha allegedly warned his friend. ‘Do not trust those people … they mean you mischief. I can hear things you would not hear. I can feel there is danger in the air.’

According to Churchill, Botha then declared that when the day came for Britain to attack Germany, South Africa would be ready. ‘I am going to clear them out of South-West Africa for good,’ he boldly claimed.[10]

Botha’s personal anti-German sentiments originated with the kaiser’s failure to convert his vociferous anti-British sabre-rattling into action during the Boer War. Botha had never forgiven him and was furthermore unimpressed with the subsequent German treatment of the Herero. Despite passing the questionable and racially motivated Natives Land Act in 1913, Botha had a paternalistic outlook on the black tribes of the region, and was especially fond of the Zulu, whose language he could speak fluently. He was an old friend and comrade in arms of Zulu king Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo. A young Botha had successfully helped Dinuzulu in a battle for the succession of the Zulu throne in 1884. As a sign of gratitude, Dinuzulu granted Botha’s mercenaries a large slice of Zululand, which became the short-lived Boer republic of Vryheid, where Botha served as a parliamentary minister. Decades later, in 1910, Botha freed the Zulu king from prison where he had been languishing since 1906 after being accused by the British of masterminding the Bambatha Rebellion. Dinuzulu’s pardon was one of Botha’s first acts as prime minister of the Union of South Africa.

Yet, aside from any personal sentiment against the Germans, Britain’s impudent request for the Union to be a belligerent in their war was secretly unwelcome. It was just too soon. In South Africa in 1914 the biggest question on everyone’s lips was one best formulated by another of Botha’s old comrades in arms and a general in the Active Citizen Force, General Coen Brits. When Botha asked him to begin mobilising his units, Brits responded: ‘My men are ready. Whom do we fight? The English or the Germans?’[11]

Brits, a hulking, hard-drinking, sjambok-cracking, unprincipled and battle-hardened soldier, was fiercely loyal to his prime minister. It was said that Botha once saved his life under great personal danger during a skirmish in the Boer War. The general would therefore have fought whomever his leader told him to, but his question was well founded in terms of the national psyche. The country was split in its allegiance between Britain and Germany. On the one hand, many Afrikaners felt a linguistic and cultural kinship with Germany, although this was tempered a little in the first few months of the war when the Germans violated the sovereignty of Belgium, also a country with which the Afrikaners shared strong ties. On the other hand, most English-speaking South Africans, who supported the Unionist Party and the truculent Labour Party, believed that, as a dominion of the British Empire, going to war against German South-West Africa was a foregone conclusion.[12]

While Parliament, thanks to strong Unionist presence, could be swayed to accept Britain’s request, the majority of the white population was not so easily convinced. Most South Africans were neutral and believed that a war between Germany and Britain was of no concern to them. This was certainly Hertzog’s view. He saw no reason for South Africa to become a belligerent against a hitherto peaceable neighbour.[13]

With public sentiment so divided, staying neutral perhaps would have been the most sensible thing to do, especially in light of a more sinister danger lurking in the undercurrent of Afrikaner politics. Many of the old Boer generals had been simmering with hatred of Britain for taking away their beloved republics. They had not forgotten Lord Kitchener’s controversial scorched-earth policy and the internment in concentration camps of captured Boer women and children, who died by the thousands due to poor sanitation and neglect. They were biding their time, waiting for the moment when they could snatch independence back from their traditional foe. It is alleged that in order to persuade these bittereinders to accept a secession of hostilities during the peace negotiations at Vereeniging in 1902, Botha had promised them that sometime in the future Britain would be preoccupied with a European war and, when that day came, the Afrikaners would rise up once again and take back what was rightfully theirs.[14] While Britain’s subsequent cordiality and considerable leniency in hastening South Africa towards self-governance in Botha’s mind rendered his promise null and void, the generals were not so easily placated.

Botha considered good relations with Britain as being vital to achieving independence, but his view was not held by all Afrikaners. One such was Botha’s mentor and close friend General Koos de la Rey, an old fighter nicknamed ‘the Lion of the West’, who felt that the moment had now come to declare South Africa a republic.

The old general was a mysterious fellow. Tall, heavily bearded and hook-nosed, he looked like Rasputin, the Russian ‘holy man’, and had a similar temperament. De la Rey was fired up by visions; or rather by a siener or visionary named Niklaas van Rensburg, who, it was said, could predict the future. During the Boer War, De la Rey had relied heavily on his ‘oracle’, with uncanny success. At the time, his men and the other generals, including Botha, found his reliance on visions the quirk of a man they otherwise admired for his astute ability as a guerrilla fighter. Twelve years on, however, Van Rensburg’s predictions had become wilder and more embarrassing for Botha, who began to wonder if the old lion had completely lost his mind.

The siener predicted that, like Moses, De la Rey would rise up and lead his people to freedom from British bondage. According to Johannes Meintjes, who wrote the only detailed biographies on Botha and De la Rey, in July 1914, one month before the outbreak of war, Van Rensburg paid an unusual visit to the general’s farm (since the end of the Boer War they had corresponded exclusively via messenger). According to De la Rey’s daughter, who was the only other person present, the siener told her father about a recurring vision of the number ‘15’ on a piece of white paper against a black sky. He also saw two bulls fighting – one red and one grey. The grey killed the red.[15]

When war was declared between Britain and Germany the following month, De la Rey took it as a sign to act. The vision clearly indicated that Germany (represented by the grey bull) would defeat Britain (the red bull), and the number ‘15’ obviously pointed to 15 August 1914. (Meintjes points out that the numbers of the date ‘1914’ also add up to fifteen.)[16] De la Rey set this as the date for an armed uprising against the British, in which he would ride up to Pretoria with an army of men and declare a republic with Botha as president. The time had come for the prime minister to act on his so-called promise at Vereeniging.

Because of the old general’s enormous influence among Afrikaners, Botha was genuinely concerned that anti-British sentiment would grow. In addition, as Botha’s friend, De la Rey was convinced of the prime minister’s support against Britain and was dragging him into his own precipitous cause. However, the other Boer veterans hankering after a republic were not so sure the time was yet ripe to act against Britain. Major Jan Kemp, an officer in the Active Citizen Force, thought De la Rey was acting prematurely and went to visit him on his farm in order to persuade him to rather await the outcome of the war before declaring a republic.[17] Kemp was echoed by other republicans like Manie Maritz (also an officer in the citizen force), Christiaan de Wet and C.F. Beyers, who, having just returned from Europe after witnessing German army manoeuvres, was under the impression that the Germans would easily defeat the British. Yet he too counselled patience.

Botha faced a tough decision. If he invaded South-West Africa with an unready and fractious army, he risked jolting the more moderate republicans out of their moratorium and into armed protest. He was also keenly aware that he would face stiff opposition from the nationalists under Hertzog, whose clamours advocating neutrality grew more and more hysterical. Plus there was the real threat that if Germany did defeat Britain in the war, as Beyers believed, South Africa could find itself in the unenviable position of facing the full wrath and might of imperial Germany. It was also no secret that the kaiser was hankering after an African super-colony, similar or even bigger in size than the British Raj in India. The desired colony would include all previous British, Portuguese, French and Belgian territories, and most of South Africa, save for a small republic around Swaziland and present-day KwaZulu-Natal set aside for pro-German Boers.

But if Botha remained neutral or went over to the Germans, his grand designs for reconciliation would be scuppered. English-speaking South Africans would never accept such conditions and armed protest from this quarter was equally likely. Besides, he was under no illusions as to what Britain would do if South Africa did stay neutral or go to the other side.

In any case, the prime minister had become Britain’s close ally. He had come to understand and accept the Empire’s world vision and had visited the island a few times since the Boer War, where the British public treated him, and the other generals, magnanimously. Botha had struck up close friendships with men like Churchill and even Dr Leander Starr Jameson, once the most hated man in the old Boer republics. Jameson, who had become prime minister of the Cape Colony just prior to union in 1910, was leader of the Unionist Party that had contested Botha in the first elections. Jameson was subsequently leader of the official opposition in the first South African Parliament. After the schism with Hertzog, the Unionists, whose ideology differed little from Botha’s South African Party, became the prime minister’s strongest support base in Parliament. He would need them to ratify his decision if he chose to accept Britain’s appeal.

By the time Britain renewed its request on 8 August, Botha had already sounded out both his cabinet and Parliament and knew which way they would swing. He also knew that pro-invasion sentiment across the four provinces was marginally greater among the general populace than anti-invasion, but that did not mean the pro-republican minority in the Orange Free State and Transvaal would accept a decision to invade without more than a voiced protest, which was about as far as other anti-invasion elements like Hertzog were prepared to go.

There was one other matter for Botha to consider: the considerable territorial gain to his country should South Africa ally itself with a victorious Britain. If the South Africans, without the support of British imperial troops, were indeed to kick the Germans out of South-West Africa, they could potentially secure the huge German colony as their own. This idea appealed to Botha, who, like the kaiser, had designs on an enlarged southern African state, which would also include the British protectorates of Bechuanaland, Basutoland, Swaziland and Nyasaland, as well as Southern and Northern Rhodesia, and perhaps the southern half of Mozambique.[18] If he, without Britain’s help, defeated the German detachments across the border, he could see no reason why Britain would not grant him his wish.

He was also convinced that if he could defeat the four or five regiments of Schütztruppe rapidly and cost-effectively, it would nullify the opposition of the nationalists and republicans, who would then be won over by the immense economic and social benefit for Afrikaner prestige and culture, which could be developed and enhanced if a ‘Greater South Africa’ were achieved.

In truth, Botha’s mind was already made up when he received the first cable from De Villiers-Graaff while in Northern Rhodesia. The fact that he cancelled his sea passage home in favour of rail is indicative of this. The boat that would have taken him home flew the German flag and Botha must have known that if he was on board when war was declared, he may well have been taken hostage or at least interned until he pledged allegiance to the kaiser. Botha was correct in his prediction, no siener required, because he would indeed have been on board far out to sea on 4 August. As it happened, the steamer was recalled mid-passage to Dar es Salaam in German East Africa.[19]

And so, despite an unready army, despite the republicans and despite the rankling of the nationalists, Botha replied to London on 8 August 1914, unequivocally accepting their request. South Africa would undertake to neutralise the ports of Windhoek, its artificially constructed neighbour Swakopmund, and Lüderitz, as well as the wireless station in Windhoek. Botha was going on the offensive in German South-West Africa.

The decision now made, Botha knew he needed to neutralise De la Rey, so he summoned his old friend to Pretoria on 12 August for a heart-to-heart discussion. Apparently during the all-night vigil Botha was able to persuade De la Rey not to mobilise against Britain, reasoning that while the siener had mentioned the 15th, he had never said which month.[20] This seemed to placate the general, who finally agreed not to act. The following morning, Beyers also contacted De la Rey asking him to exercise restraint, at least until the Germans had Britain on her knees. For the time being, at least, the fiery republican elements against invasion were doused.

The 15th of August passed without incident. As South African forces mustered in the remote north-western harbour of Port Nolloth, Parliament prepared to formally ratify Botha’s decision to invade the German colony. On 14 September, with troops already mobilised, Parliament officially gave the green light. Upon hearing this news the next morning, Commandant General Beyers and Major Kemp, along with a number of other senior Boer War officers, resigned their posts in protest.[21]

In a move that would prove the prophetic value of ‘15’ after all, De la Rey aligned himself with Beyers the following morning. Later that day, 15 September, the two men left Pretoria in the commandant’s Daimler, headed for Potchefstroom where they were to meet Kemp. A roadblock had been set up in an outlying Johannesburg suburb in order to capture a notorious gang of criminals that had killed a police officer a few hours earlier. Tensions among the police were high and, as Beyers and De la Rey approached, a nervous officer opened fire, apparently mistaking De la Rey for a member of the gang. The old war veteran was killed instantly.

De la Rey’s death rocked the nation and galvanised the republicans. They believed De la Rey was killed to quash anti-imperialist sentiment, and openly accused Botha and the government of conspiracy and murder. There was a widespread call for an armed uprising, but the prime minister managed to quell the tension with a hastily called special meeting with the remaining republican leaders – Beyers, Kemp and De Wet. Although the meeting was by no means successful – the trio asked Botha to refrain from pursuing the invasion on Britain’s behalf, but he would not budge – it adjourned reasonably amicably, with the republicans reinforcing their intention to protest, albeit in a non-violent fashion. The three were clearly still following a wait-and-see policy as far as the war in Europe was concerned, convinced that Germany would soon be victorious and the anti-republican Botha resolutely discredited.

The prime minister, however, was now more steadfast in his decision to invade than ever.

2

Groundwork

GOING INTO SOUTH-WEST AFRICA was a formidable undertaking for the South Africans. In 1914 the Germans had only surveyed parts of their colony and consequently there was a dearth of reliable maps. According to Brigadier General J.J. Collyer, who became Botha’s chief of staff at the end of September 1914, the invading soldiers were forced to rely on verbal information from local guides and traders, a fair dose of instinct and a good deal of luck.[1] Unlike the German forces, who knew the lie of the land intimately, the South Africans were essentially entering terra incognita.

Even today, the Namibian map has a lot of blank spaces. The sheer size of the landscape makes for a great natural fortress against anyone wishing to invade. The entire length of Namibia’s west coast consists of a 100-kilometre-wide belt of one of the earth’s most inhospitable deserts, the Namib. Little grows except for the 1 000-year-old Welwitschia mirabilis plant that somehow manages to extract what little moisture there is in the air to survive. Here and there, bisecting the dunes, are ephemeral river courses that the local Herero call omurambas, ghost rivers. These, like the Swakop River that ‘flows’ into the frigid Atlantic just north of Walvis Bay, are almost always dry apart from the odd waterhole and small green oasis. There are only two natural seaports along the entire 1 000-kilometre coastline – Lüderitz in the south and Walvis Bay in the centre. Both are forlorn and bleak places and are often shrouded in a dense ocean fog that, apart from keeping the coastal belt relatively cool in comparison to the inferno a few kilometres inland, gives the impression of something sinister.

In 1914 Walvis Bay was a British enclave. It had been in existence as a British port long before the Germans occupied the surrounding territory. Requiring a port of their own, the Germans were forced to create an artificial one further up the coast. They built a wooden jetty in 1898 at the mouth of the Tsoakhaub River. The chosen site was the next best thing to a natural port, having offshore geological features that kept the bay placid and a good supply of underground, albeit brackish, water. Tsoakhaub is a Nama word meaning ‘excrement opening’ and described the dirty river in flood spilling into the ocean. The Germans mispronounced it as ‘Swakop’ and in 1896, when the district was officially proclaimed, the settlement was named Swakopmund. By 1914 a steel jetty was under construction.

Beyond the Namib Desert, the country is protected by a series of craggy mountain ranges, the most dominant being the Khomas Hochland escarpment that acts like a gigantic buttress protecting the capital, Windhoek, which lies on the fertile plateau further inland in roughly the centre of the country. Directly north of the capital, endless dry bushveld and scattered mountain ranges sweep up past the giant Etosha saltpan all the way to the Kunene River, which forms the border with Angola. Back in 1914, Angola, or Portuguese West Africa as it was known, was a Portuguese colony on paper only. In practice, the Portuguese had very little control over the huge territory, save for the ports and the odd inland fort. Most of it was de facto independent of Portugal.

Interestingly, in 1914 the Portuguese had a controversial presence on the Caprivi Strip. Germany’s acquisition of the Caprivi, an anomalous 400-kilometre-long narrow strip that plunges like an arrow into the heart of the subcontinent, in an 1890 exchange with Britain was an example of characteristic nineteenth-century colonial posturing. The German chancellor, Count Leo von Caprivi, and the kaiser had a grand notion to link South-West Africa with their colony in East Africa via the Zambezi River. It was thought to be so strategic a move that the Germans willingly gave over Zanzibar to the British in order to annex the strip. Lord Salisbury, the British prime minister at the time, was a shrewd negotiator, however, and duped von Caprivi in the fine print. The Germans were unaware that Cecil John Rhodes, as part of his own grand scheme, had already privately claimed the land north of the Zambezi, effectively driving a permanent wedge between the two German colonies. Furthermore, the river itself proved unnavigable. The strip thus came to an inglorious end at the confluence of the Zambezi and Chobe rivers, just above the Victoria Falls.

Too late, the Germans also discovered that it was virtually impossible to travel along the strip from west to east. After the Okavango River, there is an almost impassable tract of waterless dune belt before a series of miasmic swamps at its eastern-most point. To all intents and purposes, the annexation of the strip to German South-West Africa was an entirely futile enterprise. An imperial resident, for his sins, was housed near the apex of the strip, on the south bank of the Zambezi, in a malarial and isolated outpost called Schuckmannsburg.

Southern Africa at the outbreak of war in 1914

At the hilt of the strip named after Chancellor von Caprivi, the Portuguese constructed a mud-walled fort in 1911. Called Mucasso, the fort was controversial from its inception, as it was built just inside German territory. At the time, the Germans were not too concerned about this far-flung violation, until sometime later that year when rumours began circulating that the Portuguese garrison there had gone on a rampage against the local tribes, who were in effect German citizens. That in itself was not cause enough for the German colonial governor to react, but then news reached him that the German imperial resident at Mucasso had been killed in a skirmish with the Portuguese while trying to protect the locals. This immediately caused a stir, souring relations between Germany and Portugal.

The commanding officer of the Schütztruppe, Major Joachim von Heydebreck, was dispatched to the Caprivi with a large force to punish the garrison at Mucasso, but, on arriving, he found the imperial resident very much alive. His superiors in Windhoek, meanwhile, had done an about-face, deciding that the matter of the fort should be handed over for international arbitration. Von Heydebreck was recalled, but not before he showed the Portuguese a display of German military prowess that kept them well ensconced behind their mud walls until the outbreak of war three years later.[2]

Schuckmannsburg, or Luhonono as it is now called, has the honour of being the first German base to be taken by the Allies in the Great War, albeit without a shot being fired.[3] In theory, the whole of the Caprivi Strip was under British control even before the main South African advance in late September 1914. The desperately lonely German imperial resident, Lieutenant Victor von Frankenberg, had apparently got wind of the outbreak of war from a missionary posted in Andara on the Okavango River on the western end of the strip. The concerned missionary had sent a couple of runners across the difficult terrain to warn von Frankenberg,[4] but it is conceivable that the imperial resident already knew. He was on cordial terms with his British counterpart, the district commissioner in Northern Rhodesia, who was based at Sesheke, a village just upriver on the north bank of the Zambezi. Unlike Schuckmannsburg, Sesheke was adequately connected to the small town of Livingstone, which in turn was linked to South Africa via the rail system. The district commissioner surely must have heard as soon as war was declared and passed the information on to von Frankenberg.

The two men were practically the only Europeans stationed along that stretch of the Zambezi, except for von Frankenberg’s assistant, Sergeant Fischer, and possibly a secretary or two working for the British district commissioner. To quell their repressive loneliness, they must have sometimes met to share notes, hunt and enjoy formal dinners. They would have discussed the impending war and would have been under no illusions as to their respective courses of action once it broke out. Besides a tiny contingent of native irregulars, von Frankenberg had no military presence, while his opposite number could quickly dispatch mounted Rhodesian police units with ammunition and heavy machine guns from Livingstone and Bulawayo.

The details of surrender had probably been discussed weeks before the event, so when the Rhodesian police did appear on the opposite bank of the river on 21 September 1914, von Frankenberg initiated a well-rehearsed exhibition of formal surrender. As the British crossed over, a bugle sounded and von Frankenberg’s irregulars stood to attention on the muddy parade ground, guns (if they had any) slung across their backs. The German flag was lowered, the Union Jack raised, and the imperial resident, in full regalia, and his secretary were taken to Livingstone, where they remained as prisoners, or rather as guests, until the end of the war. Von Frankenberg’s natives were simply sent home. The last German imperial resident of the Caprivi had even taken the trouble beforehand to inform the local chief of a forthcoming, although temporary, change in sovereignty, and expressed the hope that they would see each other soon after Germany won the war.[5]

Today there is nothing left of von Frankenberg’s lonely house. The South Africans were initially even more uninterested in the incongruous strip than the Germans. After the war, they handed it over to the British authorities in Bechuanaland, hoping that it would be fully assimilated into that protectorate to save them having to contend with the obvious difficulties of administrating it from Windhoek. For some inexplicable reason, the Caprivi was handed back to the South Africans in 1929, but even then it was not completely under the ambit of the South West African administration. The eastern sector of the strip, with the outpost at Schuckmannsburg, fell under the direct jurisdiction of Pretoria.[6] Sometime in the 1930s, the South Africans destroyed the imperial residence, preferring an administrative base on higher ground at Katima Mulilo, just opposite Sesheke.

These days the Caprivi is as incongruous a place as ever, despite the arrow-straight highway from Grootfontein that now links it to the rest of the country. The strip falls under the administration of the eastern Zambezi and western Kavango East regions of Namibia.

Unlike the South Africans, who were reluctant aggressors, the Portuguese of 1914 were somewhat understandably itching to pick a fight with the Germans, especially after they got wind of Germany’s ambitious plans to annex both Portuguese West and East Africa for their own super-colony. According to historian Hew Strachan, Portugal’s eagerness to engage the German colony was a liability to Britain.[7] Portugal’s armed forces had been in a state of chaos since the overthrow of the monarchy in 1910, and an offensive against the Germans in Africa was likely to strengthen the German hold if they retaliated and took over the Portuguese colonies complete with half a dozen working ports and stashes of extra arms and ammunition. If that happened, the region would require a greater British presence, sapping much-needed resources from the home front. Unlike with the South Africans, Britain had requested Portugal not to rattle the hornet’s nest by going on the offensive, asking them instead to focus on quietly defending their own ports.

Portuguese pride, however, overruled British desire and the colony was put on a war footing. Lisbon shipped a force of about 7 000 troops on the pretext of suppressing an Ovambo rebellion in the south, but it was clear they were preparing to invade the German territory. The German colonial governor, Dr Theodor Seitz, kept a wary lookout on Portuguese troop movements amassing on the northern border of South-West Africa.[8] It was not so much the threat of a military attack that worried the Germans, since the northern sector of the territory was vast enough to stretch the resources of an invading force beyond practicality, but rather the hope of keeping an open corridor through southern Angola to the weakly guarded southern desert port of Moçâmedes (present-day Namibe). The Germans wanted to establish a secret supply route from their ships docked at Moçâmedes, via Humbe, through the Angolan border town of Naulila to the railhead at Tsumeb, a supply line deemed vital in the likely event of Swakopmund being blockaded by the Royal Navy.[9] If the Portuguese were in southern Angola, the German-controlled port would be compromised. It was therefore essential for Governor Seitz to nullify the Portuguese on their northern flank.

The Germans had nothing to fear from the east, protected as they were by an equally inhospitable desert, the Kalahari. Invading troops from the east would have to cross over 1 000 kilometres of waterless terrain, and still be able to fight on the other side. Trans-Kalahari treks had been attempted before with catastrophic consequences, the most renowned being a series of journeys beginning in 1874 by bands of disgruntled South African Boers who were evading what they regarded as overly stringent British rule. Most of the trekkers perished while trying to cross from east to west; only a few made it safely to their destination in Portuguese West Africa. The bleached bones of the unfortunate majority lay scattered in the desert sands for decades afterwards, marking the path of their failed journey.

Then, in 1906, the Germans deliberately drove the Herero into the Kalahari knowing full well that the chances of them reaching the waters of the Okavango Delta in British Bechuanaland were next to nil. A handful, including their chief, Samuel Maharero, did eventually make it across, but they left tens of thousands of corpses in the desert behind them.

The German military command therefore knew that the only effective land attack would come from the south, and even that would be an arduous and risky undertaking. South Africa is split from Namibia by the meandering channel of the Orange River. Compared to other African rivers like the Zambezi, Niger, Congo and Nile, the Orange is a mere trickle and, except for those rare occasions when it floods, the river provides ample fords or ‘drifts’ on which to take an army across. But it is the nature of the surrounding landscape, not the river, that provides an effective barrier. On both banks, the Orange slices through a steep, mountainous, lunar-like landscape. There is virtually no drinkable water, vegetation or shelter.

Apart from the Namib and Kalahari deserts, this area, called Greater Namaqualand, is the most sparsely populated region on the subcontinent. The nearest town of any size is Upington, a few hundred kilometres downriver from the border. In 1914, Upington was completely isolated from the rest of South Africa. The nearest railway to the lonely town was a branch breaking off from the main Cape Town–Pretoria line at De Aar, which terminated at Prieska. This was still a good few hundred kilometres of barren, featureless terrain from Upington. Furthermore, any force posted at Upington had to trek another hundred kilometres to the border, and then a few hundred more just to get to the nearest German stronghold at Keetmanshoop. That exercise alone would be a near-impossible undertaking for an invasion force. Combined with a highly trained enemy easily tracking and harassing your movements, it would be out of the question.

There was, however, another option. A single narrow-gauge railway on the north-west coast of South Africa snaked up from Port Nolloth to a cluster of Namaqualand copper-mining hamlets called Springbok, O’okiep (present-day Okiep), Concordia and Nababeep. The Port Nolloth railhead stopped just to the north of these towns at a small mission station called Steinkopf, which still exists today. If a force could march from here in combination with another mustered at Upington, an invasion of German South-West Africa, although still difficult, was reasonably feasible.

Steinkopf was still over fifty kilometres south of the border. The immediate border area between the two countries was uninhabited, save for the odd Nama goat-herder. There were no proper roads either. To move against the German South West would require a sea passage from Cape Town to Port Nolloth, followed by a train journey to Steinkopf, and then a severe overland march to the river. From there, the forces would be confined to leapfrogging between the established waterholes and wells, which were few and far between. They would have to halt for a time at each well in order to replenish and rest before making the next hop. It was a tough ask for any army, let alone one as inexperienced and disorganised as the fledgling Union Defence Force.

As with the Upington route, any advance would be ponderously slow and predictable. But these were the only two options available to defence minister Smuts and his generals.

In 1914, O’okiep, just south of Steinkopf, was one of the richest copper mines in the world. The early Dutch settlers learnt of the rich copper deposits in the mid to late 1600s through reports from Nama traders visiting the Cape settlement. As a result, the Dutch governor accompanied an expedition north to locate the fabled ‘copper mountain’ that the Nama called U-gieb, meaning ‘great brackish place’. They found U-gieb, but, after sinking a few shafts and checking the coastline for a suitable harbour, they deemed it unfeasible to mine. Then, in the 1860s, Cornish miners with their technological nous were sent in to sink deeper, well-ventilated shafts and, most importantly, to build a railway line from the marginally workable deep-water bay at Port Nolloth. Mules pulled the train carriages from the harbour until they were replaced by steam engines just before the hostilities of the Anglo-Boer War began. Deneys Reitz fought in the area towards the end of the war as a member of Smuts’s staff. O’okiep saw some of the last skirmishes of that brutal three-year conflict and Reitz himself eventually took the train from Steinkopf to Port Nolloth on his way to Vereeniging, where he would take part in the peace conference held there in April 1902.

Today, the Okiep Country Hotel, with its lush palm trees and colonial broekie-lace façade, greets one like an oasis in the dusty town. Inside is a collection of interesting historical photographs. Those from the Boer War are dominated by a portrait of Lieutenant Colonel Salomon Gerhardus ‘Manie’ Maritz, a veggeneraal (fighting general) with the Boer forces in these parts. He led a mounted commando attached to Smuts’s main force, but his command was semi-autonomous as he was a northern Cape local and knew the lie of the land better than anyone else. He successfully besieged the British garrison in O’okiep until the cessation of hostilities. Maritz was a powerfully built man with a domineering personality. He harboured fantastical delusions of self-worth and believed himself to be the chosen one to free his people from their foreign yoke, a latterday Moses. Maritz was consumed by a deep hatred for everything British. Long after Britain ceased to be a dominant factor in South African life and just before the Second World War, he unsurprisingly transferred his hatred onto the Jews.[10]

Reitz relates a story from the Boer War that emphasises Maritz’s vengeful nature. On their way to attack the British garrison at O’okiep, Reitz and Smuts stopped at the Leliefontein mission station to the south of the copper cluster. On arriving, they found the place sacked and gutted. The corpses of the entire population lay rotting among the rocks and burnt-out houses ‘still clutching their muzzle-loaders’. They knew it was the work of Maritz, who, after being fired upon by frightened Nama, had exacted a terrible revenge by massacring the entire settlement. The otherwise steely Smuts was visibly livid and could not conceal his rancour, while the other soldiers, despite being battle-hardened from three years of war, were sickened by what they found and felt that Maritz had gone too far.[11]

Still, Maritz was a more than capable guerrilla fighter, which made him invaluable in the war. When general hostilities ceased shortly after this incident, Maritz fled the country and eventually joined Reitz in exile in Madagascar. Here he made himself unpopular with the locals with his frequent and exceptionally violent outbursts and racial slurs. He refused to allow anyone of colour to enter his house and would not even shake their hands. At one point during a fit of anger, he picked up a stubborn ox with his great strength and hurled it down an embankment to its death, much to the terror of the Malagasy herders.[12]

Twelve years later, on the eve of the outbreak of the war with Germany, Maritz’s considerable fighting skills and knowledge of the terrain were once again called upon. Even though he had been in exile for the past decade and had refused to pledge allegiance to the newly formed Union on his return to South Africa, after some sustained persuasion from Commandant General Beyers at a war council of senior officers on 14 August, Smuts had reluctantly made Maritz a lieutenant colonel in the Active Citizen Force and given him command in his old theatre of operations. He was entrusted with 1 000 mounted riflemen who made up ‘B Force’, one of the three army groups earmarked to invade the colony in a three-prong attack.

His geographical knowledge aside, Maritz’s posting as the district staff officer to the northern Cape was no coincidence. The German colony next door was also well known to him. After the secession of fighting in 1902, Maritz had fled first to South-West Africa, where, it was said, he eagerly assisted the Germans in 1905 in their quest to wipe the Herero off the face of the planet. Ironically, Maritz’s time in the German colony made him indispensible to defence headquarters in Pretoria. He knew the area and the Germans better than anyone else in the entire Union Defence Force. The drawback, apart from his questionable personality, was that Maritz was on extremely cordial terms with the Schütztruppe and knew most of the resident imperial command personally.

Maritz’s brief was to concentrate his men at the river towns of Upington and Kakamas, and prepare to time his march on the German frontier with ‘A Force’, which was essentially the Permanent Force under Brigadier General Lukin. Lukin had 1 800 rifles and eight artillery guns coming up from Steinkopf, thus trebling the number of South Africans moving on the border. The third army group, ‘C Force’ under Colonel Percival Scott Beves, with a further 1 200 rifles plus six artillery guns, would land at the German port of Lüderitz after a bombardment by the Royal Navy.[13] Beves’s job was to push the Germans eastwards up the Lüderitz railway line and converge with A and B Forces at Keetmanshoop, where a large portion of the German army and military supplies were known to be held. Together, they were to get astride the railway line running directly north to Windhoek and the all-important radio mast.

The initial South African plan of attack was to attack the German colony from the south, with three columns situated 1 000 kilometres apart

The total South African expeditionary force, therefore, consisted of 4 000 rifles, plus auxiliaries of roughly the same number, and fourteen artillery guns. Split into three widely separated columns of independent, autonomous commands, the force was to cover a front of almost 1 000 kilometres, facing a concentrated enemy with some obvious advantages.

With over 7 000 rifles, the Schütztruppe was almost double the size of the expeditionary force. Plus it could rely on a citizen reserve force of a further 1 000 to 2 000. The Germans possessed better and more artillery pieces, and operated behind considerable natural barriers under the single, undivided command of wily Major von Heydebreck, a man cut from the same cloth as his East African counterpart, von Lettow-Vorbeck.[14]

Another glaring difference between the two forces was their respective lines of communication. Good and secure lines of communication are crucial for any military endeavour in that they ensure that the front lines are adequately supplied with reinforcements, ammunition, food and transport. The Germans enjoyed excellent lines of communication thanks to a railway network that ran down the spine of the country from Tsumeb in the north to Kalkfontein in the south, through Windhoek, and with branches to Lüderitz and Swakopmund. It meant any retreat would only improve their ability to rapidly supply their front lines and create an environment for a devastating counterattack.

The South Africans had overly stretched lines of communication even before they crossed the border. The Germans could effectively fall back on their supplies, whereas the more the South Africans advanced, the longer and thinner their supply and communication lines became. From the outset, with the three forces 1 000 kilometres apart and defence headquarters another 1 000 kilometres away in Pretoria, the lines were already ineffective. Smuts, who had considerable military nous, ought to have better addressed this issue.

Furthermore, the Germans, thanks to their rail system, could rapidly deploy their entire force where it was needed most. This meant that the timing of the advance by the three separate South African columns was key if they were to successfully split the Germans, but given the lengthened and inefficient lines of communication, plus a volatile Maritz who was already digging in his heels over supplies and men, accurate timing would be unlikely. Judging the situation, Botha must have watched the launch of the military campaign in September 1914 with a sense of foreboding.

3

The Sandfontein reversal

BRIGADIER GENERAL HENRY LUKIN was the antithesis of Lieutenant Colonel Manie Maritz. For starters, he was English and the quintessential British officer. Born in 1860 into a family with a long military tradition, he was sent to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where, although proficient in the practical aspects, he found the exams too difficult and failed. Undaunted, he tried another tack. In early 1879, Lukin sailed for South Africa with the hope of volunteering for duty in the Anglo-Zulu War. He was drafted into a labour unit in charge of preparing roads into Zululand so that soldiers and wagons could move rapidly en masse. Luckily, a passing cousin and adjutant in the military persuaded his commanding officer to enlist Lukin as a fighting officer and he was immediately made a lieutenant in a mounted brigade. Lukin fought and was wounded at the Battle of Ulundi that saw the Zulus finally defeated.

After the war, Lukin remained in South Africa and served in the Cape Mounted Infantry, the only standing unit in the Cape Colony at the time. From then on he fought in skirmishes against the Basotho and the Xhosa. He was promoted to captain and sent to England where he did courses on artillery and the new Maxim guns. He returned to fight in the Boer War and became regiment commander of the South African Mounted Infantry shortly afterwards. In 1912, Smuts made him a brigadier general and put him in charge of the Permanent Force. In August 1914 he was given orders to muster troops in Port Nolloth. By September, he was in Steinkopf, commanding A Force and about to attack the German colony from the south.

On 11 September, Lukin sent ahead a reconnaissance team to scout the near bank of the Orange River. The following day he received the order from Pretoria to proceed into German territory. Lukin immediately dispatched two squadrons of mounted riflemen under Colonels Dawson and Berrangé to occupy and secure the two fordable places on the Orange River, Raman’s Drift, about sixty kilometres north-east of Steinkopf, and Houm’s Drift, a few kilometres further upstream. On 14 September, they were secured after some light skirmishes, the small German units retreating quickly north into the mountains. On that same day along the coast, the Royal Navy bombarded Swakopmund. The Germans, according to their pre-war plans, evacuated the town without loss of life. Five days later, Lüderitz was also shelled and occupied from the sea.

From Steinkopf, Lukin endeavoured to push his main force further north, but soon realised that the considerable distance over harsh terrain to the river was a great deal more challenging than headquarters in Pretoria had previously conveyed. He had been given only enough water and supplies for about a quarter of his force to move forward comfortably. Lukin requested a light train line to be laid from Steinkopf to the river in order to improve his supply issues, but he was denied on account of expense and time. His next request, that he be given three weeks’ grace until he had enough supplies and draft animals to move his whole force forward, was also denied. It was a grave mistake.

Lukin was instead ordered to rapidly push on to the first well on the German side of the Orange River, at a place called Sandfontein, about forty kilometres north-east of Raman’s Drift. This manoeuvre was designed to eventually take the strategic southern village of Warmbad, which lay a further sixty kilometres north-east. The plan devised in defence headquarters was for Lukin’s advance units to link up with the advance of Maritz’s B Force coming up from Kakamas on the right. Pretoria had assured Lukin that the Germans only had small detachments in the south. Their main force, it was believed, was still in Windhoek, hundreds of kilometres away. This, notes Collyer, was probably correct, but what Pretoria failed to understand was that the Germans could rapidly deploy their entire force, with the necessary supplies, from anywhere in the colony down the railway line to its southern terminus at Kalkfontein Station, just to the north of Warmbad, in less than a day.[1]

Lukin was undoubtedly aware of his overall predicament, he probably had been from the beginning, but he was not a man to question orders. He had tried to cooperate with Maritz on his right flank, his only support, by wiring the lieutenant colonel before occupying the river crossings, asking him to coordinate his attack. Maritz had replied that he was not ready to move, allegedly telling an adjutant that Lukin could ‘stir in his own juice’, such was his abhorrence for the British officer.[2] Lukin, wise to Maritz’s questionable allegiance, was therefore non-committal with information about his own movements and relayed his concerns about Maritz to Smuts in Pretoria.

On 23 September, Smuts sent a telegram to Maritz ordering him to mobilise his detachment in two columns at Upington and Kakamas respectively, and to advance immediately on the border. Maritz’s long diatribe in response revealed that he had never had any intention of mobilising. He argued that the men of the Active Citizen Force under his command were of no military value and that his force was the only one of the three without artillery, and he could not therefore weaken it further by dividing it into two columns. He berated the South African government for moving against the German South West, which had made his ‘position very difficult’, and he threatened to resign should he be forced to take part.[3] Lukin was on his own.

On 24 September, Lukin dutifully sent a squadron of 100 rifles from the 1st South African Mounted Rifles under Captain E.F. Welby to secure Sandfontein, while a second squadron under the regiment’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel R.C. Grant, replaced Dawson’s men at Raman’s Drift and prepared to follow Welby a few days later. A third squadron painstakingly made its way to the river from Steinkopf. Lukin himself arrived at Raman’s Drift later on the 24th to establish brigade headquarters.[4] A drum telephone line was rolled out to Sandfontein, providing a direct link to Welby, who was ordered to gather intelligence from local Nama about the movements of the small units of German soldiers operating in the mountainous area north of the Sandfontein well. Berrangé, at Houm’s Drift, was also ordered to scout his front and report to brigade headquarters.

According to Collyer, the reconnoitring intelligence corps’ use of local Nama scouts had two chief faults.[5] Firstly, while intimately knowledgeable about the landscape, the Nama were unable to provide reliable information from a military perspective. Numbers of soldiers and descriptions of materials were often not provided or deemed unimportant. Secondly, because they were at pains to please, they tended to provide answers that the questioners seemed to want to hear, at the expense of accuracy. Furthermore, the maze of mountains around Sandfontein made it virtually impossible for even the best scouts to gather an accurate picture of enemy troop movements and numbers. Lukin may as well have been operating blind.

While Lukin manoeuvred his troops, Colonel Beves landed with C Force at Lüderitz unopposed. The German command saw defence of the small port as futile – the vast natural fortification of the Namib would be C Force’s real enemy – so they wisely pulled back inland, making for Aus, a small village perched just behind an imposing wall of mountains with a commanding view of the waterless plains to the west. Behind them, on a higher elevation to the east, was plenty of grazing and water for their animals, as well as the railway track that branched from Keetmanshoop, so their supply line was well organised and efficient. The Germans meticulously destroyed the railway line behind them and poisoned or destroyed the few waterholes along the way. This left Beves the tedious and unenviable task of repairing the line as he advanced the 120 kilometres to Aus. He could only move as fast as the tracks were laid and even then had to keep doubling back to replenish his force. It was a case of two steps forward, one step back. In short, C Force was going nowhere, which left the Germans able to combine the forces facing C Force with those about to face A and B in the south.

With Maritz refusing to take action, rather than commit hara-kiri by advancing on Warmbad, Lukin concentrated on securing his own position on the river and his advanced position at Sandfontein. On 25 September, intelligence from Sandfontein reported that a squadron, two at most, of Schütztruppe had been seen about thirty kilometres north-east of Houm’s Drift. In addition, dust from an unknown body moving south from Warmbad had been observed, but no indication of size or strength was available. Lukin assumed he was facing a force of some 300 strong with the intent to attack his forward position at Sandfontein.[6] On that same day, Welby telephoned to tell him that Sandfontein could not be defended against attack unless the surrounding heights were occupied. Welby was concerned that his rear was not sufficiently protected either. For this he needed more men. He also informed Lukin that he was on his last day’s rations and supplies were long overdue.[7]

After reassuring Welby that aid was on its way, Lukin ordered Grant to hurry north with two 13-pounder quick-firing field guns, a machine gun and three troops of his squadron to reinforce Welby’s squadron. Lukin also began to prepare another squadron to follow Grant in an effort to secure Welby’s rear.[8]

The urgency was such that Grant could not wait for his ponderous supply wagons. In the early hours of 26 September, he was ordered to push on ahead with the expectation that his supplies would arrive later that evening. The problem for Grant, however, was that all his reserve ammunition was with the supply wagons. Normally this would have accompanied him, but, given the scarcity of transport, Lukin could not spare extra mules to transport the reserve ammunition separately, even after Grant had implored him.[9]

Lukin’s A Force advance alone into German territory

Grant reached Sandfontein at 7:25 on the morning of 26 September. Silver-haired and regal, and a seasoned campaigner and fighting man, Grant knew his trade, and immediately upon arrival he realised that the situation was, as Collyer records, ‘extremely bad, difficult to hold against any superior force, and untenable against artillery’.[10] Sandfontein, although important as a well point, was a weak defensive outpost.

The area is centred on a conical-shaped hill or koppie just less than 100 metres high, with a long spur jutting to the south-west. To the south, north and east, the koppie is dwarfed by an imposing semi-circular range of mountains, which would have been well within range of First World War–era artillery. To the west, an open plain rises gradually to dominate the koppie, which itself sits in a dip with a dry river bed sweeping past it to the south. In 1914, the well, situated at the western foot of the koppie, was accompanied by a single square stone kraal, where mules and horses were kept, as well as some sheds.

Grant requested an urgent meeting with Welby to discuss their untenable position. Since their arrival two days earlier, Welby’s engineers had built rows of protective schanzes at varying levels around the koppie, but the ground was too rocky to construct deeper trenches and there were no suitable gun positions. As the two men talked, a message came from the top of the koppie that a column of Schütztruppe was advancing rapidly from the direction of Warmbad in the north. Almost at the same time, news arrived that the telephone line in the rear had been cut.

Grant rushed to the top only to discover three more columns moving at a gallop from the east, west and south-west respectively. The German column to the east was under the command of Major Hermann Ritter, while that to the west was led by Major Viktor Franke, who would later feature prominently in the campaign. On the rise to the south-west, Major Emil von Rappard’s mounted column – which had somehow gone undetected by Grant on his approach from Raman’s Drift – bore down on them at full tilt. In Grant’s own words, ‘Within twenty minutes of my arrival it was evident that my detachment was completely enveloped by a greatly superior force.’[11]

The Germans’ northern column under the command of Major von Heydebreck was being slowed somewhat by the brave fighting retreat of a scout patrol under Lieutenant Northway, which Welby had sent out to reconnoitre the area less than an hour earlier. Northway was forced to dismount in order to better check the advance, but he and his men were effectively pinned down and cut off from the main body on the hill.[12]

At 8 a.m. Grant ordered both his 13-pounders to open fire on von Rappard’s southern column, which had the immediate effect of halting their advance. The barrage was answered, however, by four German light field guns from the mountains to the north, and later by another four from the south-west. With a total of eight artillery pieces firing on Grant and Welby’s central position, it was a most unequal artillery battle. It was not long before the two South African 13-pounders ceased firing: a direct shell hit killed the entire crew of the one, while the other was abandoned after sustained shelling, but not before being put out of action by the heroic efforts of Lieutenant Adler, the young officer in charge of the gun crew, who, along with most of the other men, was witnessing battle for the first time.[13]

With the 13-pounders gone, the koppie was raked at will by enemy artillery and machine-gun fire as lines of dismounted German soldiers slowly advanced. The Schütztruppe concentrated their fire first on the poor mules and horses tethered in the kraal at the foot of the hill, and in minutes only one or two fatally wounded animals remained standing.[14] They then enfiladed the heights. Grant was severely wounded at the top of the koppie and ordered command to be handed over to Welby, who was at the northern foot. It is not known if Welby received the order, which had to be shouted by Grant’s adjutant. In any case, with the searching fire it was impossible for Welby to ascend and effectively take command.[15] Nevertheless, the South Africans courageously held their defence, beating off repeated waves of attack with well-placed rifle shots.

There was a distinct lull in the fighting at around 1 p.m., when the Germans took their lunch.[16] The South Africans had no such luxury. They had been without food and water for a day already. The sun beat down relentlessly on the exposed hill, fuelling the discomfort of Grant’s squadron especially, which had not slept since departing Raman’s Drift in the early hours of the morning.

At 3 p.m. the Germans moved their artillery in closer and started exacting a heavy bombardment on the weak redoubts. Northway and three others who had been pinned down all day decided to make a dash for the koppie. All three were cut down by machine-gun fire, and the remainder of the patrol surrendered.[17]

The only hope now lay in a relief force from either Lukin at Raman’s Drift or Berrangé at Houm’s Drift. In fact, at midday Grant’s men had heard distant fire in the direction of Houm’s Drift. Berrangé had gallantly tried to come to their rescue, but had been held back by enemy detachments placed in defensive positions in the mountains along the dry watercourse of the Hom River specifically to counter such efforts. At Houm’s Drift, the main channel splits into a series of narrower ones, making it easy to ford. As a result, the Germans had not bothered to line their defences at the crossing, preferring to hang back in the mountains from where they could pick off the approaching South Africans.

At the Battle of Sandfontein, the South African advance troops are completely surrounded and cut off from the main body

Lukin, too, had tried to relieve the men at Sandfontein. He had activated the entire force for the rescue as soon as he heard the first salvos, but because of the supply problems he only arrived the following day. Then, on seeing the superior size of the German force blocking his path, he had prudently fallen back on Raman’s Drift.

The wounded Grant was under no illusions as to their situation. He knew Lukin did not have a big enough relief force to break the German lines. His own ammunition was running low (his reserve ammunition, with the supply train, had barely progressed beyond Raman’s Drift when the fighting began); his men were hungry, thirsty and exhausted; and, although the enemy had been held in check, the approach of evening meant there was no hope of repelling an attack under the cover of darkness. Surrender was their only real option.

At 6 p.m., after ten hours of heavy fighting, Grant resumed command to raise the white flag. He was escorted off the field of battle on a makeshift stretcher carried by Nama bearers. South Africa’s first battle as a united nation had ended in defeat.

It was not an ignominious defeat, though. The South African defenders could hold their heads high. Almost seventy were killed, about 25 per cent of their total number at Sandfontein, but they had had to contend with an enemy force ten times as large and an artillery four times as powerful.

When the white flag went up, both sides dropped their weapons and rushed towards each other to the well directly in between their lines. Here, amid frenzied gulps, the combatants mingled freely like the players of two exhausted teams at the end of a gruelling rugby match. Von Heydebreck personally congratulated the wounded Grant on his gallant defence and ensured he got the correct medical treatment.[18] Grant and the walking wounded were immediately dispatched to Warmbad along with all the unwounded rank and file. They would sit out the rest of the campaign, languishing in prisoner-of-war camps at Otavi and Tsumeb in the north of the country. The severely wounded were sent back to their own lines at Raman’s Drift and both sides assisted in burying the dead.

No one could argue with Grant’s decision to surrender. Lukin’s report on the battle states:

[Grant was] a thoroughly good Commanding Officer, who takes the keenest interest in everything pertaining to the efficiency of his Regiment and the welfare of those serving in it. He is in no way responsible for the regrettable incident at Sandfontein, where his Command put up a fine fight against overwhelming odds.[19]

While Lukin, sensitive to those under his command, personally accepted a large portion of the blame, no one could hold him at fault. He was simply acting on orders from his superiors in Pretoria, who, it must be said, accepted their responsibility. Lukin should instead be commended. His cautious military mind prevented him from bringing his entire force forward to Sandfontein. Given the enemy’s strength, he may have lost far more than a single detachment if his whole force had been surrounded and either killed or forced to surrender. As it was, Lukin was still able to hold the river as the German commander was loath to cross into South African territory. In the end, the Union troops suffered relatively few losses.

Back at defence headquarters, Smuts realised his insistence on moving forward had been ill-advised. Furthermore, he had underestimated the Germans’ use of the railway system to rapidly concentrate the Schütztruppe on desired targets. What is worse is that Pretoria had got wind of a concentration of German troops in nearby Kalkfontein beforehand. A staff officer had then posted this information to Lukin, who received it ten days after the Sandfontein reversal. Had the information been relayed by telegraph, Lukin would have known that the bulk of the enemy force was swooping down on him and he would never have dared push beyond the river.[20]

Credit must go to the German commander, von Heydebreck, who utilised his natural defences to nullify the threat from C Force and direct his full attack on Lukin’s A Force. He also used the terrain around Sandfontein to his advantage and correctly predicted the movements of the South Africans, who only realised their mistake after they had occupied the koppie. Had Grant been given just a little more time, he most certainly would have abandoned the hill for a stronger position, possibly a section of the surrounding mountains. Von Heydebreck’s rapid deployment revealed the cracks in the Union’s reconnaissance system as well as in their lines of communication.

Von Heydebreck had the upper hand, however. As early as 1911, he had provided a full report on the advantages of aircraft in both reconnaissance and offensive manoeuvres and, as a result, acquired pilots and aeroplanes that were tested in the months before the war. The colony’s three planes included an Aviatik flown by Lieutenant Paul Fiedler and an LFG Roland biplane piloted by Lieutenant Alexander von Scheele. The third was an unidentified craft (probably a Taube or a Roland) flown by its civilian owner, a factory pilot named Willy Trück. All three planes were modified for war, and were equipped with a compass, a camera and a signal mirror for emergencies. They all had a range of between thirty and fifty kilometres, although the Aviatik had a steeper rate of climb and was easier to maintain. The pilots were provided with food rations, water bags, tools, tents and a rifle with ammunition, as their planes were prone to crash, and often did, but usually with no serious consequences for the pilots or the aircraft.

The opening phase of the war provided an opportunity to test these aeroplanes’ capabilities and von Heydebreck used them effectively to gather information on troop movements, specifically Lukin’s A Force at Steinkopf. These aircraft held the accolade of being the first, and last, to violate South African airspace. It was also the first time aerial photographs were used to record ground information, which von Heydebreck was then able to use with surprising accuracy. This may explain the ease and speed with which he attacked Sandfontein.

The German commander also had forewarning from Maritz that B Force would not be a threat. If anyone is to blame for the reversal, it is Maritz: for failing to lend support to Lukin and for his complicity with the Germans. His two attacking columns could have weakened the Schütztruppe by splitting their force in three. Despite this, however, Collyer argues that it is uncertain whether B Force’s involvement would have made much difference against a numerically superior German force. Maritz knew this, as did the South African commanders, who were forced to reassess their position. Smuts immediately sent General Brits to replace Maritz and then went back to the drawing board to re-evaluate the campaign.

These days the area around Sandfontein and the two crossings, Raman’s Drift and Houm’s Drift, is remote, even by Namibian standards. You will not find Sandfontein on any printed map. Today it is the site of an upmarket game lodge that forms part of the Sandfontein Nature Reserve. At 76 000 hectares, it is the third-largest private reserve in Namibia and is home to some 4 000 animals, including the rare black rhino. Activities include hunting, horse riding, game and scenic drives, rhino tracking, canoeing on the Orange River, and relaxing at the lodge’s twenty-metre swimming pool. It is not a cheap destination. In 2014, a bungalow cost about R3 000 or €200 a night.

Looking up from the lodge towards the koppie today, one can see just how exposed to machine-gun and shell fire the South African troops were. There is precious little shelter from top to bottom. At the foot of the western slope, a shed that looks to be original is dwarfed by a new, large and ostentatious house – apparently a shareholders’ holiday residence. When they dug the foundations for the new building they found a lot of equine bones, most likely those of the horses and mules that were mowed down by the Schütztruppe at the beginning of the battle. The local Nama believe the house is haunted.

Climbing to the top of the koppie, one passes row upon row of redoubts, the very ones that Welby had his men construct. They are the physical monuments, the obvious reminders of the battle. It seems that not a stone has been removed; even the rifle holes are still visible. One can picture South African soldiers hunkering down behind their schanzes, careful to keep their heads low, swarms of bullets whizzing past and pinging into the rocks all around them, then the whine of a shell, an awful explosion, rocks and metal flying about, shouts, screams, cries …

Bits of rusted metal litter the ground. They are mostly old beer cans, presumably left by farm labourers over the decades, but some are the older and much thicker rusty fragments of artillery shells. From the top of the koppie, the view to the north-east is dominated by the high buttress where four of the German artillery guns were positioned, raining hellfire on the hapless defenders. To the east, a dry riverbed sweeps past and joins another heading south towards the Orange. Beyond that, clothed in deep ochre, are the mountain ranges that dominate the position on three sides.

Visible on the wide plain to the west are the white marble gravestones of German soldiers. Fourteen were killed that day, including Major von Rappard, who was commanding the column advancing from the south-west. Exposed on a rocky path that descended to the riverbed, it was they who Grant’s 13-pounders found first. They took a heavy toll. Von Rappard’s death especially was a huge blow to the German military endeavour and would prove to have a negative impact on Germany’s overall defence of the colony. A Prussian aristocrat with a fine military background, he was astute and popular among his men. He was also von Heydebreck’s second in command.

The view from the koppie south of Sandfontein is dramatic. The twisted mountains reveal how difficult it must have been for Berrangé to attempt to relieve Grant. They formed an effective cover for the encircling German force. Although Houm’s Drift is not an official border crossing today, it is often used for illicit cross-border activities. The area on both sides remains remote, making it easy for the illegal flow of alcohol, drugs, weapons and other contraband. These days a different kind of armed invader is attempting to cross into the former German territory: poachers going after Sandfontein’s black rhinos.

4

Insurrection

ON 28 SEPTEMBER, TWO days after the battle at Sandfontein, and probably as a result, Botha personally took over Beyers’ position as commander of the Active Citizen Force, which he then amalgamated with Lukin’s Permanent Force, thus taking overall command of the Union Defence Force as commander in chief and relieving Smuts of the responsibility. Botha also appointed a real soldier, Brigadier General J.J. Collyer, as his chief of staff.

Botha called for more volunteers to bolster his meagre forces along the border, stating that if South Africa did not occupy German South-West Africa, Britain was ready to send in Australian (or worse, Indian) troops to do the job for them. That, he warned, would be in the nation’s worst interests, as it would both tarnish South Africa’s image among the Allies, especially if troops of colour showed them up, and be a lost opportunity for South Africa’s grand designs on the subcontinent.

Among the hundreds of volunteers eager to fight under the wily general was Deneys Reitz. Being from the Free State, where republican feelings ran deepest, Reitz’s decision went against the grain. Most volunteers came from former British territories within the Union – the Cape and Natal provinces – as well as Botha’s own sphere of influence, in the eastern and central Transvaal, where he enjoyed unprecedented Afrikaner support. The western Transvaal, where De la Rey was idolised, and the Orange Free State, from where De Wet hailed, were an entirely different matter.

What made Reitz different? During his self-imposed exile in Madagascar following the Boer War, the young Reitz contracted malaria. On his return to South Africa, he spent a lengthy convalescence in the Smuts household. During this period, he came to understand Botha’s policy of reconciliation and the importance of Britain in the Union’s future. Over time, Reitz, like Smuts, became a loyal Botha supporter, even though his fellow Free Staters held a different opinion.

De Wet publicly berated Reitz for supporting Botha when the two met on the streets of Reitz’s hometown, Heilbron, where De Wet was vociferously campaigning against Botha’s decision to invade.[1] Reitz’s father, Francis William Reitz, was a former Free State president and a republican. When hostilities broke out, Reitz senior was president of the senate in Parliament. Although against the invasion, as a parliamentarian he preferred resistance through that democratic medium rather than armed protest. De Wet, being the rabble-rouser he was, accused the younger Reitz of not only turning his back on his country, but his republican heritage as well.

By the end of September 1914, Reitz could sense the growing militancy in the Free State.[2] Despite assuring Botha that protests would be peaceful, De Wet was rushing about advocating armed resistance, and thousands of Free Staters were heeding his call. Beyers was apparently doing the same in the western Transvaal, but the prime minister was not overly concerned. It was tradition among Afrikaners to voice their displeasure through ‘armed’ protest. Sabre-rattling was the way the old Boers let off steam and settled their disputes. Besides, Botha remained in close and constant contact with Beyers, De Wet and Kemp, and he knew they had no real intention of firing upon their own brethren. A full insurrection was simply out of the question.

That was until the hulking Manie Maritz waded into the fray. With his replacement, Coen Brits, en route to Upington after the Sandfontein fiasco, Maritz effectively abandoned the Union Defence Force and moved all his forces to Kakamas to be closer to the German border. In early October he made overtures to von Heydebreck, expressing a desire to join forces with South Africa’s enemy. The German commander was somewhat mystified by Maritz’s wish to switch allegiances.[3] He was no doubt aware of the anti-invasion sentiment in the Union, but to what extent it would manifest in armed rebellion was, at that stage, still unclear, and von Heydebreck did not want to get mired in the confusion that was South African politics. His mandate was simply to defend the colony, not to go on the offensive in foreign territory.

Militarily, a sound defence was the right thing to do. It was far safer and easier to defend than to stretch his dangerously meagre resources on an offensive, as the South Africans themselves had discovered to their peril at Sandfontein. In any case, von Heydebreck thought Maritz too much of a loose cannon. The German commander correctly assumed Maritz was liable to be more of a hindrance than a help to the German cause.

The veggeneraal, however, was determined to go over to the Germans. At a parade for his troops, he vilified the South African government in a fiery, if somewhat incoherent, rant and gave his men one minute to decide whether or not they were with him in throwing in their lot with the Germans.[4] Most of the impressionable young men accepted, but fifty, including Reitz’s brother Joubert, refused and were stripped of their weapons and horses and unceremoniously marched across the border as prisoners of war.[5] Maritz then promoted himself to the rank of general, raised the old Transvaal republican flag, the Vierkleur, and declared war on Britain. These eccentric antics would have been dismissed by the South African government had Maritz not also implicated Beyers, Kemp and De Wet in his act of treason.[6]

In truth, the three had nothing to do with the trouble-maker stuck away in a distant outpost on the Orange River, but Maritz’s claims prompted Smuts, as minister of defence, to declare nationwide martial law. De Wet interpreted Smuts’s action as an open threat of armed suppression of all republicans. Furthermore, martial law meant that defence-force recruitment changed from volunteerism to full conscription. It forced the Free State and Transvaal republicans to openly decide on whose side in the war they stood.[7]

On 19 October, despite misgivings of prematurity, De Wet, Beyers and Kemp called for republicans to ignore the declaration and consider full rebellion. The response was immediate. Thousands of young men saddled up to ride for the rebel cause, eager to fight with the famous Boer War generals.[8] Those Afrikaner republicans already attached to the Union Defence Force prudently resigned their posts. The stalwart generals were now determined to unseat Botha and declare a South African republic, with the Free Stater Hertzog as their president.

Hertzog, however, was keeping uncharacteristically quiet. He voiced neither his support nor his opposition for the republican cause. He preferred to channel his political will peacefully, though vociferously, through Parliament. It was blatantly obvious that the fiery orator was sitting on the fence, possibly awaiting the outcome of the rebellion before he pinned his colours to the mast.

On 26 October, the rebellion was officially proclaimed. The South African public, and the Germans across the border, held their breath as the rebels fanned out from their strongholds in the Free State and Transvaal. Within days, almost the whole of the Orange Free State was under rebel control. Loyalists like Reitz just managed to escape with their lives. He and a handful of others made their way to Pretoria where they learnt that Beyers and Kemp had taken control of large tracts of the western and northern Transvaal.

Maritz, however, was faring badly. Having foisted himself on the Germans, they diffidently bolstered his force with artillery and weapons, but von Heydebreck refused to go further to support the rebel cause and held back on lending Maritz any of his own soldiers, a move that Botha undoubtedly would have regarded as an act of aggression.

Undeterred, Maritz returned to the Union to face government loyalists who had moved opposite him on the river. The loyalists promptly routed his forces and the rebels had to scurry back across the border, to the obvious misgivings of the German command. Maritz realised he was too isolated geographically from the main theatre of the rebellion to be effective, and with loyalists solidly barring the way, there was no hope of linking up with the rebel forces in the Free State and Transvaal.

Despite their initial successes, the rebels were no match for Botha. He had confidently rejected Britain’s offer to supply detachments of Australian troops, cleverly ensuring that his loyalist ranks were made up mainly of Afrikaners. He did not want to strengthen the republican cause by deploying too many English-speaking troops. On 26 October, Botha took to the field accompanied by his bodyguard, which had been formed earlier in the year by Major H.F. Trew, head of the police force in Pretoria, after an assassination plot that implicated Beyers. Although Botha had initially ridiculed the idea of a personal bodyguard, he had since taken a keen interest in it, and it soon became a highly trained crack commando.[9]

Lieutenant Eric Moore-Ritchie, one of the policemen who had eagerly signed up to Botha’s elite bodyguard, records that they first headed west for Rustenburg, where Beyers and Kemp had established the headquarters of the Transvaal rebels. Within a couple of days, surprised at the speed of Botha’s manoeuvring, both commanders and their men were on the run. They evaded capture, but neither commanded an effective fighting force any longer. As in the Boer War, the two leaders separated and retreated into the hills, resorting to guerrilla tactics.[10]

In the meantime, Botha returned to Pretoria. He was well accustomed to guerrilla warfare and his men were equally adept at mopping up the scattered units. They successfully divided and isolated the small rebel commandos, and only a few skirmishes followed, including a couple of sharp ones against Major Jopie Fourie, a Union Defence Force officer in charge of a commando that was doggedly resisting capture. It is said that Fourie’s band was responsible for a third of the loyalist casualties in the Transvaal, although they were largely ineffective in the broader scheme of the rebellion and simply prolonged the inevitable. Botha’s bodyguard eventually captured Fourie in December. As he had neglected to resign his defence-force post before changing sides, he was the only rebel to be executed.

On 9 November, Botha turned his attention to the Orange Free State and De Wet. The cantankerous old general had a large force of over 5 000 rebels. On 12 November – incidentally, the same day von Heydebreck was unexpectedly killed in South-West Africa when an experimental grenade launcher he was testing misfired – the prime minister and his forces arrived at the central Free State town of Winburg, which De Wet had vacated the day before. Hoping to obtain intelligence on De Wet’s route out of Winburg, Botha resolved to telephone Smuts at headquarters in Pretoria. As he was about to pick up the receiver at the local post office, the phone rang. An orderly answered and a whispered voice on the other end told him that they were being held prisoner by De Wet on a farm called Mushroom Valley, a day’s march south of Winburg. De Wet had encamped with his entire force on the farm for the night and had locked some hostages in a room, failing to notice the telephone in the room or to cut the telephone lines outside.[11] It is rumoured that at the probable time of the call, De Wet himself was casually leaning against a telephone pole smoking a pipe.

True to form, Botha wasted no time. He immediately got in touch via heliograph with Brits, who, after ensuring Maritz’s permanent immobility, had, together with Lukin (then at Steinkopf), raced east to assist the commander-in-chief against the greater threat of the Free State rebels. Botha instructed the two generals to converge on the farm by securing his right flank so as to prevent any possible escapes when he attacked. Even though it was by now nightfall, Botha ordered his forces to mount up. His aim was to surprise De Wet at sunrise. It was not an unexpected move. As Moore-Ritchie notes, ‘General Botha is celebrated amongst fighting men for many things … his night marching is one of them.’

It was a taxing sixty-four-kilometre ride in pitch darkness and freezing temperatures. Moore-Ritchie continues:

During the all-night trek from Winburg to Mushroom Valley I had a first thorough experience of the true horrors of sleep-fighting. It was bitterly cold as the Free State night on the veld knows how to be. And we could not smoke, could not talk above a faint murmur, and nodded in our saddles. The clear stars danced fantastically in the sky ahead of us, and the ground seemed to be falling away from us into vast hollows, then rising to our horses’ noses ready to smash into us like an impalpable wall. After midnight, outspanning in a piercing wind, we formed [a] square; main guard was posted over the General’s car, and those lucky enough to escape turn of duty huddled together under cloaks and dozed fitfully until two-thirty. From two-thirty till sunrise we trekked on.[12]

At dawn the fruits of the forced march were revealed. Botha’s column was on top of the unsuspecting rebels, who had not even posted sentries. They were literally caught napping. Botha brought up the artillery and opened fire on the sleeping camp. He then advanced and after two hours of fierce fighting the action was over, with Botha the victor.

But De Wet had escaped, thanks to Brits and Lukin who had been quarrelling during the night march and as a result mistimed their advance, leaving a gap for the old general and a few followers to get through.[13] Yet, like Beyers and Kemp, De Wet was now just another fugitive with no army to command. He had abandoned most of his men at Mushroom Valley, along with his transport wagons with all his ammunition and supplies. Twenty-two rebels lay dead and the rest were taken prisoner. It was a resounding, although bittersweet, victory for Botha. It pained him to see so many of his old friends and comrades lying dead or wounded. ‘Life,’ wrote Moore-Ritchie of his leader’s sombre mood after the battle, ‘was not dealing too fairly by him.’[14]

After Mushroom Valley, Botha concentrated on mopping up the last pockets of resistance throughout the province. Beyers and Kemp were by now in the field somewhere in the Free State, but after De Wet’s defeat the cause was lost. Loyalist troops occupied the towns one by one, the citizens surprised by their Boer composition. Reitz records an incident in which an old Free State woman rushed to view the triumphant loyalist army and, on seeing only Afrikaners, shouted, ‘Waar is die verdomde Engelse?’ Where are the bloody English? To which a young scout replied, in Afrikaans, ‘Old lady, we are the bloody English.’[15]

On 1 December, De Wet, exhausted and broken, was captured on the fringes of the Kalahari just across the border in British Bechuanaland. Brits had commandeered a number of motor cars and gone after him. Tired from the relentless pursuit and mourning the loss of his son who had been killed just days before the defeat at Mushroom Valley, De Wet’s prodigious fighting spirit was finally extinguished. And so the glittering career of the shrewd general, who had never been defeated by the British, suffered an ignominious end at the hands of his own people. ‘At least the English never captured me,’ he said as he handed over his pistol to Brits’s men.[16]

Of the capture, Reitz notes with some sadness that the use of mechanised vehicles ‘spelt the end of the picturesque South African commando system’.[17]

Beyers, in the meantime, was trapped in the northern Free State. Seven days after De Wet’s capture, and hemmed in on all sides, he tried to swim with his horse across the flooded Vaal River. It was the last time anyone saw him alive; both man and beast drowned in the attempt. This left only Kemp, with a small band of men and horses, in the field. With Botha’s men pursuing him relentlessly, he made a heroic dash across the Kalahari in order to link up with Maritz, who was waiting sedately in the German colony. The rebels, struggling over dunes and stony ground, fought a continuous rearguard for what must have seemed like an eternity. They finally staggered across the border near present-day Nakop with government forces snapping at their heels. The Germans welcomed the exhausted men with some trepidation. The rebellion, in spite of providing a short respite for the German forces, had not worked in their favour.

By Christmas, Botha had cleaned up the Free State and Transvaal. Most of the rebel ringleaders were either dead or imprisoned, and the prime minister was happy enough with the state of affairs to take a well-earned holiday on his family farm in the eastern Transvaal. Just before Christmas, Maritz and a recuperated Kemp tried to launch a hare-brained surprise attack on Upington, where Brigadier General Jaap van Deventer had taken over from Brits earlier in the month.

Jacob Louis van Deventer, or Jaap as he preferred to be called, was a colourful, tough-as-nails and larger-than-life Boer commander, both in character and physique. He was a giant of a man, standing almost two metres tall, and an expert practitioner of commando tactics. As with most of his contemporaries, Van Deventer had served in the Boer War, first under De la Rey, then Beyers, and finally with Smuts and Reitz in the northern Cape. It is said that he was present when the first and last shots were fired, but was seriously wounded towards the end of the war. Reitz found him ‘huddled on the ground before his horse … Blood was pouring from a bullet wound in his throat, and his tongue was so lacerated that he could not speak.’[18] For the remainder of his life, Van Deventer spoke with a stifled rasp as a result of his injury, and he commanded the utmost respect from almost all who met him.

Maritz and Kemp’s last-ditch effort to attack Upington failed dismally in the face of the increased numbers of Van Deventer’s government forces mustered along the river and a personality clash between the two rebel commanders. The calm Kemp refused to serve under the bellicose Maritz, who insisted on making himself supreme commander of the rebel forces. Nonetheless, they tried again a month later, on 24 January 1915. This time their forces were bolstered by German Schütztruppe and the Burenvreikorps, a group of irregular militia consisting exclusively of Boer War veterans who had fled South Africa to the German colony in 1902 and had settled on cattle farms along the Nossob and Auob rivers in the south-east.

The Germans’ eventual entry to the rebellion is somewhat puzzling. It was against both the late von Heydebreck’s sound advice and Germany’s mandate. As Major von Rappard, von Heydebreck’s like-minded second in command, had been killed at Sandfontein and the next most experienced officer, Major Franke, was on a mission against the Portuguese in the far north (see Chapter 5), the local German command in the south was handed to the inexperienced Major Hermann Ritter. Ritter, for reasons known only to himself, decided to throw all caution to the wind and join with Maritz and Kemp to attack the Union.

He supplied the rebels with four light field guns, a Pom-Pom gun and a company of mounted riflemen. The idea was to launch his own mounted column of 400 men with four artillery guns on Steinkopf. Taken in isolation this was not a bad move, since Steinkopf had been evacuated during the rebellion and only a small detachment of the Witwatersrand Rifles Regiment was left to guard it.[19] However, in the bigger scheme of things it was of little value. Steinkopf by then had been jettisoned by the South African supreme command as a launch pad to invade the colony, and the railhead’s isolation would have little served the German cause. As it happened, Maritz and Kemp once again failed at Upington (they were successfully repelled by Van Deventer), prompting Ritter to redirect his attack in order to divert the South African forces away from the disorganised rebels. He turned his attention instead on the town nearest his position, Kakamas, more for want of something to attack than anything else.

As usual for forces operating in this sector, Ritter’s most immediate hurdle was his stretched lines of communication, one of the reasons von Heydebreck had refrained from such a move. In diverting their attack from Steinkopf to Kakamas, Ritter and his men had to pass through country devoid of water and fodder, a problem made even worse by the fact that there had been no time to organise supplies before they left. Nakop, on the border, had a well, which they reached on 1 February, but since the rebels had passed through a week earlier there was not enough water left for all the horses to satiate their thirst. Ritter was forced to move on to another watering point on the Molopo River, about fifty kilometres into Union territory.[20] It was the first and last time South Africa was invaded. Technically it was not an invasion – it was more of an incursion – but nonetheless Ritter holds the accolade of being the only enemy commander to take a regular force of soldiers into South Africa.

Whatever it was, it was unsuccessful. The water situation at Molopo was the same as at Nakop, and the tired and thirsty mounts were pushed further south towards the Orange River. By this time all excess baggage had been sent back to lighten the load of the thirsty beasts, but it meant the soldiers were on severe rations, too.[21]

Before reaching the river, Ritter and his men captured an oxwagon and its Baster driver. The Basters are the descendants of Cape Colony Dutch and indigenous African women, and live largely in and around the town of Rehoboth. The man told them there were two ferries on the river at Kakamas, a kilometre apart. He also maintained that there was an exposed enemy encampment on their side of the river. Based on this information, Ritter split his meagre force into two columns. First Lieutenant Friedrich von Hadeln was to take a division directly to Kakamas to attack the enemy contingent and secure the ferry downriver, while Ritter and the others encircled to the east as the left flank to take control of the ferry stationed upriver before attacking the enemy on its flank and rear.

The columns eventually reached the Orange River on 4 February, having covered a staggering 175 kilometres from their base at Warmbad in a week, and realised they had been misinformed. As Lukin had previously discovered, the local man was more concerned with providing intelligence that would please his interlocutors than conveying actual facts. While there were indeed two ferries, they were in fact five kilometres apart. And the exposed enemy encampment was in reality well entrenched with artillery and on the other side of the river. Since the ferries were much further apart than expected, contact between the two columns was lost, and, as the enemy was on the far bank of the river, the element of surprise and encirclement was mitigated, rendering a coordinated attack impossible.[22]

Kakamas itself lay on the south side of the river and consisted of isolated houses surrounded by gardens, spread along the riverbank for a number of kilometres. Ritter decided that crossing the river was pointless because any enemy reinforcements arriving from Upington along the north bank would cut off their retreat. Instead, he ordered his artillery to fire on the houses and the few enemy soldiers in the vicinity. Damage was limited, although there were a few South African casualties. Ritter then sent a company to find von Hadeln’s column, but they came under fire from some South Africans who had crossed the river, and were forced to retreat after losing an officer and three men.[23]

Major Ritter’s abortive incursion into the Union. It was the first and last time South Africa as a nation was ‘invaded’

By now Ritter had received a message that von Hadeln required artillery support. He had come under fire from a strong South African contingent occupying the heights across the river and had become pinned down. Von Hadeln was well aware that his unit would be massacred if they tried to withdraw without artillery support to cover their retreat. Ritter, though, was now panicked by the prospect of the main South African force swooping down from Upington and refused to lend von Hadeln the support he requested. Instead, Ritter hastily retreated back from the river through a narrow pass, leaving his first lieutenant to his fate.

Against all odds, von Hadeln managed to safely extricate himself and his men, but he was unable to properly water his horses before moving away from the river. As a result, most of the mounts died on the return journey, during which the South Africans continually harassed their rear. Wrote one soldier of the pursuing commandos: ‘Their marksmanship, even at far distances, was good, resulting in heavy losses of horses and mules.’[24]

Von Hadeln apparently won an Iron Cross for his leadership, yet the whole escapade had been fruitless. By the time they reached German territory, the Schütztruppe had lost seven men, with six wounded and sixteen captured. Another dejected trooper summed up the raid: ‘We had achieved … nothing.’[25]

While the Germans retreated across the desert, Kemp, who was somewhere near Upington, was desperately ill, as well as dispirited. He had always known that without Beyers or De Wet the rebel cause was lost. On 4 February 1915, he meekly surrendered to his opposite number, Jaap van Deventer, as did most of the rank-and-file rebels. While the leaders were imprisoned, many of their men immediately switched sides and joined Van Deventer’s commandos. He welcomed them into the fold, but only after first getting permission from Botha.

De Wet and Kemp were given relatively light sentences. They were imprisoned for the remainder of the war and then released. Maritz, however, scurried back across the border to evade capture, but the Germans wanted nothing more to do with him. He spent the remainder of the war in Portuguese West Africa and then lived in exile, first in Portugal and then in Spain.

It is estimated that about 13 000 South African men took up arms in the rebellion.[26] The uprising left Botha deeply shaken. His long preoccupation with reconciling English- and Afrikaans-speaking South Africans had led to an irreparable split in Afrikanerdom. He desperately tried to patch things up in the aftermath, but for most republicans his gestures were too little too late. The rebellion left a lasting bitterness among Afrikaners and was to have profound consequences for their collective psyche.

5

Interlude

WHILE BOTHA WAS preoccupied with quashing the rebellion, von Heydebreck and Governor Seitz used the interlude to deal with the Portuguese forces massing on the northern border of German South-West Africa. On 19 October 1914, a garrison from the Portuguese border fort at Naulila had ambushed a German convoy, killing the German administrator for the northern region and two lieutenants.[1] Von Heydebreck immediately dispatched Major Franke with five squadrons and six artillery guns by rail up to the Tsumeb terminus. From there they marched over the expansive bushveld, past the white castellated walls of the German fort of Namutoni on the eastern rim of the Etosha saltpan and through the land of the Ovambo to Naulila.

At the same time, Seitz determined to remove Mucasso, the Portuguese fort on the Caprivi, once and for all. By 1914 the territorial dispute was still under review, but, given the outbreak of war, he thought it best to neutralise any potential threat. While Franke moved on Naulila, a small unit led by Sergeant Oswald Ostermann marched to the Caprivi. On 19 November, Ostermann’s men took the fort without a single shot being fired. In the process they captured sixteen Portuguese soldiers, two artillery pieces, some guns and plenty of livestock, and effectively erased the Portuguese presence in the sector.[2] That left the matter of deciding whether or not to secure the remainder of the Caprivi. As the long tract of land was strategically impossible to patrol, and the imperial resident on the strip’s farthest end had already surrendered, the decision was made to abandon it.

Meanwhile, for Franke and his men, progress was agonisingly slow. Besides his five squadrons of Schütztruppe, he was moving with some 2 000 oxen and various auxiliaries. By the time they arrived at Naulila on 18 December, he feared the Portuguese would be well ready for them. He need not have worried, for though he was slow in getting there, Franke was swift in demolishing the Portuguese.

The fort, surrounded with mud walls designed to deal with the odd Ovambo insurrection, was no match for Franke’s field artillery, which rapidly obliterated the structure and killed over 180 defenders. A large number of those deaths resulted from a direct shell hit on the fort’s central ammunition depot. The rest of the Portuguese divisions in the vicinity, who, unlike Franke and his troops, had no prior experience of African warfare or its landscape, fled north in panic, leaving most of their weapons behind and abandoning the southern section of the colony entirely.

The Portuguese rout at Naulila prompted the Ovambo tribes north of the Kunene River into full insurrection, and with the arms and ammunition left behind by their hated masters, they were able to keep the Portuguese troops occupied for the remainder of the war.[3] For Major Franke, the timely Ovambo uprising provided an effective buffer between the German colony and the Portuguese forces. Satisfied that he had nullified the threat, Franke returned to Windhoek to discover that he was now commander-in-chief due to von Heydebreck’s untimely demise on 12 November.

The Portuguese’s protracted dealings with the rebellious Ovambo had lasting consequences for modern Angola. In a desperate effort to break the Ovambo spirit, the colonials exacted a dreadful revenge on the local civilian population, crucifying suspected insurgents and hanging children as young as ten with barbed wire strung around their necks. Eventually, the Ovambo were forced to capitulate, but they never forgot the atrocities exacted upon them. In the 1960s, they rose up again, this time with other Angolan insurgents, in a war for liberation. The violent and drawn-out campaign finally saw the Portuguese abandon the place for good in 1975.

6

Central Force

WHILE THE REBELLION raged across their home country, for an interminable five months Colonel Beves and C Force moved steadily into the desert from the rocky, windswept port of Lüderitz, doggedly sticking to their task. With the withdrawal of Forces A and B in the south and the subsequent rebellion, C was the only force now facing the Germans. Inch by inch they made their way into the hinterland following the railway embankment west towards Aus, re-laying the line destroyed by the Germans as they went.

From November to January C Force’s progress was hampered by the three German airmen in their rickety flying machines taking off from a new base at Aus. They began by dropping pro-rebellion propaganda pamphlets onto the troops below, but when this proved inconsequential (the force consisted primarily of English-speaking South Africans from units of the former British colony of Natal), the pilots decided to drop something a little more persuasive.[1]

It was the civilian pilot Willy Trück who designed the aircrafts’ crude but effective bombs. Made from refashioned ten-centimetre artillery shells, they each weighed about thirteen kilograms. Linen tails were attached to the bombs to enable them to fall nose down. To carry them, two metal tubes with lids fastened on the front end were fitted to the sides of the aircraft. As the pilots approached the target, they would nosedive and open the lids by pulling a string, whereupon the bombs would slide out and zigzag down to earth. The bombs, however, had one serious drawback for the pilots: they were always live. If the aircraft had to make an emergency or even a bumpy landing, the bombs could easily detonate. Every time the pilots climbed into the cockpits of their flimsy aeroplanes they were therefore risking their lives. It is a great wonder that all three managed to survive the campaign despite numerous crashes.

Initially, the German airmen had only marginal success with their bombs. They did, however, manage to kill the odd soldier and horse in return for some bullet holes in their fuselages.

C Force reached the station and water well at Tsaukaib, roughly halfway to their destination, in February 1915, as the rebellion was being brought to an end. There they were joined by their new commander-in-chief, Prime Minister Botha, and Beves’s direct superior officer, Brigadier General Sir Duncan McKenzie. It was time to resume the invasion.

Botha began by radically altering the strategy. He scrapped the three-prong approach in the south in favour of a broader four-prong attack on Windhoek, adding a main thrust from Walvis Bay/Swakopmund in the north, which Botha himself would lead. This new prong, called Northern Force, consisted of three mounted brigades, two artillery batteries, two infantry brigades, two unbrigaded battalions and one mounted regiment.

To ensure Swakopmund was still unoccupied, Botha had sent up an advance force from Cape Town in December. The advance was led by the imperiously named Colonel Percy Cyriac Brunnel Skinner, who was on loan from the British Army and tasked with setting up the general staff for Botha’s Northern Force. Collyer describes him as ‘a keen soldier of considerable nervous energy’, who ‘was well versed in his profession’.[2] Under Skinner’s command, the force had entered the unoccupied town without resistance in the first days of January 1915 and begun preparations for the arrival of the main body of troops scheduled for a month later.

In Tsaukaib, McKenzie replaced Beves and C Force was renamed Central Force. McKenzie, with two mounted brigades and two batteries of field guns, was to abandon the ponderous process of rebuilding the railway line from Lüderitz and instead ride hard across the desert from Tsaukaib to attack the well-entrenched German positions at Aus.

The reconfigured southern attack was to continue under Brigadier General Jaap van Deventer, who was already advancing from Upington with twenty-nine mounted commandos and one battery of field guns. He was instructed to divide his men into five columns, which collectively would form Southern Force.

Lieutenant Colonel Berrangé was put in charge of the 1 200 mounted rifles and one 12-pounder quick-firing field gun that made up Eastern Force. He was to make a near-impossible crossing of the Kalahari from the distant mission town of Kuruman in the east and enter the German territory at the Baster border hamlet of Rietfontein. Preparations for the desert crossing had begun in December already, presumably originally under Smuts’s orders. Berrangé was to converge with Van Deventer at Keetmanshoop, and then together thrust north up the railway line towards Windhoek.

The Central, Southern and Eastern forces were essentially designed as a ruse to split the Germans while Northern Force rapidly advanced into the heart of the German colony to Windhoek, where they would destroy the wireless tower as instructed by the Committee of Imperial Defence subcommittee.[3]

Botha hoped that by keeping the Schütztruppe occupied in the south of the colony, he would dupe Franke, who, following in von Heydebreck’s footsteps, remained convinced that a South African invasion could only be achieved from across the Orange River. Collyer notes that, if successful, Botha’s multi-prong attack would effectively deny the German command their ability to rapidly concentrate their forces on a single enemy.[4]

If Botha were to occupy the capital, even if the German forces remained in the field, he would have achieved all three objectives set out by the imperial subcommittee. The fact that, with the radio tower in Togoland already out of action and the ports of Swakopmund, Lüderitz and Walvis Bay in South African control, the radio mast in Windhoek was essentially a lame duck did not deter him. He wanted to ensure that the objectives were met to the letter. And he wanted nothing less than a complete German surrender, an essential prerequisite if his plans to incorporate the German territory into the Union were to succeed. The southern diversion was pure genius in its simplicity and typical of Botha in execution.

His scheme was not without serious obstacles, however. The communication and supply lines that had hampered the previous plan of attack under Smuts were still a problem, now even more so given the additional front and increased manpower. The number of South Africans had quadrupled to nearly 13 000 in the wake of the rebellion and now outnumbered the German soldiers two to one.

Of greater concern to Botha was the rapidly rising cost of the campaign. What began as a simple expeditionary mission had, thanks to the Sandfontein reversal, turned into a nationwide mobilisation for a full-scale invasion. Botha knew that the longer the burgeoning South African force was in the field, the higher the national cost. As prime minister he knew he could not plunder the Union’s coffers indefinitely, especially since Hertzog had found his voice and was complaining in Parliament about the heavy burden the campaign was placing on South African taxpayers. It was therefore essential that Botha got the job done quickly. Events were already unfolding too slowly for his liking and, ironically, the biggest drag on his plan for rapid deployment was the very man tasked with speeding things along.

Sir ‘Dunc’ McKenzie was the beloved commander-in-chief of the former colony of Natal.[5] Born in Africa but with hardy Scottish heritage, McKenzie was tough, gritty and dependable, well suited to the life of a colonial soldier in nineteenth-century Natal. A pioneer, hunter, consummate horseman and one-time transport rider, he spoke fluent Zulu and served in a number of minor campaigns to put down native uprisings before the Anglo-Boer War.

During the war he served with distinction in the Natal Carbineers, the only mounted British unit in the field not besieged at Ladysmith,[6] and later in the Imperial Light Horse. It was said that due to his ability to move rapidly and his willingness to take risks – skills he had learnt as a transport rider – McKenzie was the only officer to have come close to capturing the elusive General de Wet,[7] and he probably would have were it not for the dithering of his commanding officer. McKenzie was arrested on that occasion for venting his anger and using colourful Caledonian language in front of his astonished superior. A young Winston Churchill was met with the same colourful language when, as a news reporter, he timidly asked McKenzie for leave to break into Ladysmith to interview the besieged commander there. It was an action, McKenzie argued between oaths, that would unnecessarily endanger soldiers’ lives. Churchill in any event ignored the irascible McKenzie, to his own peril. Quite a few lives were endangered and the act led directly to Churchill’s much-publicised capture and imprisonment, which, incidentally, was effected by Botha’s own commando operating near Colenso in November 1899.[8]

McKenzie found real fame, or rather infamy, during the 1906 Bambatha Rebellion. Bambatha kaMancinza was a Zulu chieftain whose tribe lived in the Mpanza Valley near Greytown, coincidentally the birthplace of Louis Botha. Chief Bambatha, fed up with paying onerous taxes to the British colonial government, one day refused to pay any more. A pair of debt collectors was sent to recover the overdue funds, but they were murdered by some of Bambatha’s overzealous followers, prompting the Natal government to declare martial law. In response, the chief took up arms against the government. As commander of the colonial forces in Natal, McKenzie took a battery of howitzers and artillery and went to quell the insurrection. On 10 June 1906, he entrapped the rebels, who were armed only with spears, in a deep, wooded valley called Mome Gorge. The soldiers opened fire and massacred over 3 000 Zulus, including Bambatha, whose head was lopped off and put on a spike and paraded in front of the few survivors.

For his efforts, McKenzie received the adulation of the white colonialists, a knighthood from King Edward VII and, until recently, his name on a major thoroughfare in Pietermaritzburg, the one-time capital of Natal. King Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, Bambatha’s king and Botha’s old friend and comrade, was imprisoned for tacitly backing his chieftain’s rebelliousness, and was released four years later when Botha became prime minister of the new Union of South Africa. It is probable that Botha disliked McKenzie for the latter’s treatment of Dinuzulu’s kinsmen, but, owing to his preoccupation with reconciliation, Botha must have found it necessary to appoint a renowned English-speaking soldier like McKenzie to relieve Beves at Lüderitz.

On 8 February 1915, before leaving for Walvis Bay, Botha held a brief war council with McKenzie. With Central Force now considerably reinforced, Botha wanted the general to live up to his reputation as a rapidly mobile commander and launch the quick-fire attack on Aus with immediate effect. It was a big ask, even for a man like McKenzie. Any functional railway terminated at Tsaukaib and there was still about sixty kilometres between there and Aus.[9]

Uncharacteristically, McKenzie baulked.

Tsaukaib is just outside of the coastal dune belt that separates Lüderitz from the world. From here one is able to look due east across the featureless desert plain all the way to the imposing wall of ochre mountains where the village of Aus nestles in its impregnable position behind the ridge. Besides a sign along the railway line, there is nothing at Tsaukaib today. Now that steam engines belong to a bygone age, trains no longer have any reason to stop here. The foundations of the old train station are still visible, but there is no evidence of the well that once supplied the trains or of McKenzie’s men who mustered here a hundred years ago. One can see how the prospect of crossing sixty kilometres of open desert on horseback without water or cover to attempt an assault on an entrenched German position behind a range of mountains must have alarmed the general. In facing such impossible odds, he must have felt the ghost of Chief Bambatha had come to return the favour.

About forty kilometres from Tsaukaib, just before the mountain range, the flat desert plain dips a little. Here, in a gigantic grassy bowl, was the train station of Garub and another well, the only other watering hole before Aus. Besides its good grazing, Garub was strategic as it was near enough to Aus to stage a final assault, yet far enough away from the fortified German position to be out of reach of any potential long-range shells. As far as McKenzie was concerned, their only hope of occupying the impregnable Aus lay in using the element of surprise. He thus proposed an all-night march from Tsaukaib to a place about ten kilometres shy of Garub. At dawn the infantry would advance to secure the well, while the mounted troops would continue on directly to Aus. This plan, McKenzie reasoned, had the greatest chance of surprising the enemy.

Botha disagreed. Besides the danger in splitting the troops, there was the obvious disadvantage of the infantry having to march a further ten kilometres to Garub in daylight and be exposed to a full attack on the back of an all-night march. Furthermore, if the Germans were prepared to hold Garub they might have machine-gun units sweeping the open ground. And in any case, Botha argued, the mounted men attacking Aus still had thirty kilometres of open plain to cross and would be spotted long before they made any significant ground, giving the German artillery gunners plenty of time to respond. Surprise was not possible.

What began as B Force under Colonel Beves became Central Force under General McKenzie. It was tasked with painstakingly advancing 120 kilometres across the desert from Lüderitz to the German-held positions at Aus

Botha thought it best to march through the night all the way to Garub and take it before dawn. This plan would give them more chance of securing the all-important well; a necessary, if not vital, manoeuvre after the long slog from Tsaukaib. Taking Garub first would also increase the morale of both men and horses. With its ample grazing and water, it would offer a welcome rest on their long march east.

Having thus re-laid the plan, Botha returned to Lüderitz and by evening was aboard a troop ship steaming towards Walvis Bay, where he arrived the following morning.[10]

McKenzie, following Botha’s revised orders, moved directly to Garub and occupied it easily, despite the fact that by now the German pilots had honed their skills to the point where they were able to drop their incendiaries with greater precision onto the Allied troops below. The German patrols at Garub preferred to retire rather than risk unnecessary loss of life and equipment. If men were killed, wounded or captured, and equipment destroyed or taken, they could not be replaced until the blockade on the ports had ended. The Germans thought it prudent, therefore, to conserve men and weapons rather than risk losing both. Before leaving, however, they poisoned the well.

Botha had planned to time his own advance on the German lines that had formed along the dune belt outside Swakopmund with McKenzie’s attack on Aus, thus preventing any possibility of the Germans redeploying men to Northern Force’s theatre of operations as they had against Grant at Sandfontein.

But McKenzie hesitated at Garub, despite Botha’s urgent appeals to keep moving. They had to dig a new well, his full force had only recently encamped and the new arrivals, having run the waterless gauntlet from Tsaukaib to Garub, were in no condition to advance. Central Force was not ready to attack, McKenzie bluntly stated in a telegram to Botha in early March.[11] The restless prime minister would have to advance without a diversion from them.

In desperation, Botha pressed Smuts to wrap up the parliamentary session in Cape Town and make haste to Lüderitz to take overall command of Central Force and amalgamate it with Van Deventer’s force in the south and Berrangé’s force in the east. After a further two weeks of delay, Botha, who was by then making significant gains in his sector and could no longer wait for Smuts, abandoned his men on the front line and rushed back to Lüderitz in an effort to spark the obstinate General McKenzie into action.

In the meantime, the German aircraft based at Aus continued to harass Central Force. By now von Scheele had been recalled to fight Botha’s force in the north, and the main targets for the two remaining German pilots were the poor horses corralled at Garub. Once released, the bombs took a full twelve seconds to hit the ground. That usually gave the men below time to take evasive action, but not the penned-in horses. As with Sandfontein, killing the mounts was a strategic objective, the aim of which was to delay any advance. On 23 and 27 March, Fiedler and Trück bombed the corral housing McKenzie’s 1 700 horses.[12] While only a few died in both attacks, the remaining horses on the 27th stampeded, broke loose and galloped off into the desert. Enough were rounded up and returned in time to carry out Botha’s latest stern directive to march on Aus, but many were never recovered.

Finally, on 31 March, a nervous McKenzie gave the order to attack. Their advance was hampered somewhat as the Germans had randomly mined the roads and paths leading up to Aus. But they eventually reached their target … only to find that Aus had been abandoned.[13] As Botha had feared, his thrust in the northern sector had prompted the undermanned Schütztruppe there to recall all available resources. Aus was deemed too isolated to defend and the garrison had made the smart choice to retreat.

Major Franke had initially fallen for Botha’s feint, assuming incorrectly that the main South African attack would come from the south. But when Botha began to storm inland from Swakopmund in mid-March, Franke realised his mistake and ordered all personnel facing McKenzie, Van Deventer and Berrangé in the south to abandon their forward positions and fall back along the railway lines to bolster the forces facing Botha without delay. From there they were to gather all troops, horses, weapons and artillery and fall back in an orderly fashion towards Windhoek. Von Heydebreck had devised this emergency plan before the war in the event that the forward defences were ever breached or threatened. The retreat was ostensibly a good idea, as the Germans were effectively retiring onto their own supplies and ought to have been capable of defending the north and south of the capital. In the south, where the railway passed through the town of Rehoboth, the Germans could once again form a strong defensive position, as here the endless plain from Mariëntal suddenly rises into another set of imposing mountains.

The command to retreat from Aus was effected by Major von Kleist, the German officer in charge of the southern forces and seemingly no relation to Paul von Kleist, who encircled the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk in 1940, or Ewald von Kleist, who was implicated in masterminding the Hitler bomb plot in 1944. This von Kleist pulled back from Aus just before McKenzie attacked and was thus able to make good his escape with all his personnel, artillery and the two aeroplanes.

It is easy for historians to blame McKenzie for his uncharacteristic inactivity, but in truth he was facing insurmountable odds against an impregnable mountain position. If the Germans had not timeously pulled back, Central Force could have suffered severe casualties. The Germans enjoyed an extremely powerful defensive position at Aus, one that also allowed them the luxury of carrying out various attacking raids on the South African forces concentrated in the grassy valley below. This made life extremely uncomfortable for McKenzie and his men. And although Garub was too far for long-range artillery, for the first time in their military history, the South Africans were met with attacks from the air, something with which they had no prior experience.

These days the landscape around Garub is exactly as it was a hundred years ago. Driving into the bowl-like plain from the direction of Lüderitz, the first thing one notices is the unusual presence of yellow grass, after the seemingly interminable naked dunes. But before one has time to reflect on the sudden change in vegetation, the eyes are drawn to the dozens of grazing horses. Garub’s desert horses have become something of a tourist attraction.

Most tourist brochures refer to the Garub horses as ‘wild’ – even the road sign announces ‘Garub Wild Horses’. This is not technically correct. The only wild horses in Africa are zebras. These are feral. The same brochures state that no one really knows where the horses came from. Some guidebooks speculate that they escaped from a ranch – not that there are, or were, any nearby. Others say they may be survivors of one of the numerous shipwrecks, but Garub is too far away from the coast, separated from it by inhospitable land. The horses would have met certain death if they had ventured inland. Ditto for the theory that they are escaped draft horses from the old diamond works at Kolmanskop, a coastal ghost town just outside Lüderitz.

The most plausible explanation for the presence of these horses is the war that was fought here and, more specifically, the two German bombing raids on the South African corral in March 1915. It was natural instinct that made the terrified horses bolt into the desert. One could be forgiven for thinking it was certain death for any animals lost in that harsh environment. Deneys Reitz certainly came to that conclusion.

One morning, Reitz, who arrived in Aus just after it was occupied, rode up from the railhead, which by that stage had reached Garub. He was on his magnificent black thoroughbred called Bismarck, one of the best-bred horses in South Africa, or so Reitz claimed. At some point they came upon an infantry column of reinforcements marching to Aus. Reitz relates what happened when one of the men stepped on a German mine:

I rode chatting to the officer at their head when suddenly there was a roar in the midst of the soldiers and a column of smoke and dust shot a mile high, whilst fragments of metal went whizzing in all directions. When the air cleared, two men lay dead and a dozen wounded, and many others were temporarily blinded by the spurting sand. My horse, stung by flying grit and pebbles, reared and plunged, and when I dismounted to help the injured, he gave a snort of terror and, wrenching free, headed straight for the waterless desert … By the time we had made the wounded men comfortable and I procured another horse, Bismarck was a mere speck on the distant horizon, and he was steadily making deeper into the sandy waste. I followed him for hours, for I hoped to save him from the certain death from thirst that awaited him, but in the end the animal that I was riding gave in, and I was obliged to retrace my steps on foot, leading him behind me, and when I last saw my poor misguided horse, he was still going to his doom.[14]

In actual fact, the plain around Garub was and still is abundantly grassy, providing enough fodder for generations of warhorses to survive to this day, despite successive droughts. That Boer commandos bred their horses for endurance could be further proof of the Garub horses’ ancestry.

The animals are fine specimens – lithe with classically equine heads in chestnut, black, bay and grey – definitely not the progeny of heavy draft animals from Kolmanskop, nor transport mules or ponies. Here and there one can detect the flared tail of an Arab, the broad face of a boerperd and the graceful movement of a thoroughbred. It is a wonder that no one has tried to round them up. This may be because Garub falls under the protection of the large NamibRand and Sperrgebiet exclusion zones, meaning that no one is allowed to move off the bisecting highway to Lüderitz without a special permit. The area was deemed off-limits thanks to the expansive alluvial diamond deposits in the southern Namib, which prompted the authorities to restrict entry as early as 1908. This inadvertently allowed the feral horse population to remain isolated and flourish without the interference of ranchers and hunters. Nowadays there are man-made waterholes to see the horses through times of drought, courtesy of concerned humans. The Garub horses are most certainly a living legacy of Botha’s campaign.

Another legacy are the rusty and bent single-gauge tracks of the original re-laid railway line that now lie half-buried in the sand. The tracks begin a few metres from the modern highway embankment and run at a slight angle, about thirty degrees, away from the current railway line in the direction of the horses’ man-made waterholes. It is possible that these are the restored original wells. The old Garub railway station still stands, the German architecture evident but otherwise dilapidated. The stump of an old tree stands guard.

Outside Aus, a few kilometres off the main road, is a wartime graveyard. Many of the graves are German, which is at first surprising, since there were no German casualties at Aus thanks to their prudent retreat before the South Africans even began their advance. The sign reads ‘Commonwealth War Graves’, but the Commonwealth of Nations, a term coined by Jan Smuts, was not yet in existence in 1915; and besides, Germany was never part of the Commonwealth. There are a few South African graves dated 1915. These men were probably killed by mines or booby-traps as they entered Aus.

The German graves date from some years after Aus was abandoned. These men either would have been killed elsewhere in the campaign and were residents of Aus or, more likely, would have died in the South African prisoner-of-war camp that was established there after the campaign and midway through 1915. Upon defeat, the main body of the rank-and-file Schütztruppe was interned. The interns probably died from festering wounds sustained in battle or from diseases. Many of the headstones – both German and South African – are engraved with the years 1918 and 1919. It was during this period that the Spanish flu killed almost 500 million people worldwide. When the flu raged through the camp it spared neither guard nor prisoner: about sixty soldiers of each side died in Aus between October 1918 and April 1919, just before the prisoners were finally released.

The rest of the graves, both German and South African, indicate deaths at different periods after the war, thus explaining the use of the term ‘Commonwealth’. As a mandate of South Africa, South-West Africa became by default a member of the Commonwealth until South Africa declared itself a republic in 1961. In 1917, the Imperial War Graves Commission was set up in Britain to honour service personnel who died during the First World War. It was later expanded to include all those who died in later conflicts involving Commonwealth nations, regardless of rank, race, religion or allegiance, hence the inclusion of Germans in the cemetery at Aus. Renamed the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, it still functions to this day. Each South African gravestone near Aus is engraved with a springbok head, while the German graves typically carry the Maltese cross.

7

Eastern Force and McKenzie’s pursuit

WHILE THE ACTION was unfolding in the centre of the German colony, Berrangé’s Eastern Force was slowly making its way across the hitherto impassable Kalahari Desert from Kuruman in the northern Cape, to attack from the east.

Little is known about Lieutenant Colonel Christian Anthony Lawson Berrangé, other than that his name constantly appears in broad descriptions of the campaign in German South-West Africa. Almost every piece of literature on the subject treats him as an aside, and not one gives his full name. (It appears in The Anglo-African Who’s Who and Biographical Sketchbook of 1907, when he was still a major.[1]) He could have belonged to the Natal colonial forces under McKenzie or, more likely, the Cape Mounted Infantry under Lukin. There is no reference anywhere to his character and no photographs, despite the fact that he pulled off the near-impossible feat of traversing 600 kilometres across the Kalahari with 1 200 mounted riflemen and a section of 12-pounder artillery.

Information regarding the crossing itself and exactly why it was undertaken is equally scant. It is doubtful that it was Botha’s idea, since it was, for all the effort, a relatively futile exploit, even as a diversionary measure. More likely it was Smuts’s design from the start. At this stage of his life, the general’s military mind paled in comparison to his friend’s. The reversal at Sandfontein was largely his error of judgement, as was issuing martial law, the act that ultimately sparked the 1914 rebellion. Smuts’s military endeavours had become crude and hasty, and ordering four regiments of mounted riflemen to trek from Kuruman to Keetmanshoop would not have been beyond him.

In December 1914, Sir Thomas Cullinan, owner of the prodigious Premier Diamond Mine near Pretoria, offered to reconnoitre a route through the Kalahari Desert for the purposes of invasion. He surveyed 400 kilometres of desert between Kuruman and the border, locating water and drilling holes.[2]

Sir Thomas is renowned for giving his name to the Cullinan diamond, the largest diamond ever discovered. The 3106.75-carat stone was found in 1905 at Premier Mine. Cullinan gave it to Botha, who was then prime minister of the self-governing Transvaal colony, as a gift. Botha suggested that the diamond be presented to King Edward VII as a token of loyalty and a vote was staged to help the Transvaal government decide. Oddly enough, the Boer majority voted in favour of presenting the king with the diamond, while the English settlers voted against it. The British prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, decided to leave the decision of whether to accept the diamond up to the king, who was himself undecided. The Boers had only just been defeated and the monarch was still unsure whether to treat them as friend or foe. It was Winston Churchill as undersecretary of state for the colonies who finally persuaded the hesitant king to accept.

On 4 January 1915, Berrangé was in Kuruman preparing for his epic trek. In a stroke of pure innovative genius, he had commissioned a fleet of about forty modified water lorries to supply his troops along the dry riverbed between Kuruman and Rietfontein, the Baster town on the border. Cullinan was appointed to his general staff as a major on ‘special service’ and was charged with supervising the opening of wells, the drilling of boreholes and the construction of special water storage tanks for the lorries.[3]

Each lorry (they were apparently all Fords[4]) carried about sixty gallons, or 272 litres, of water. Each driver was responsible for filling and emptying the tanks on his lorry, but the vehicles worked in pairs, driving between the wells and boreholes that were sometimes 100 kilometres apart. It was a colossal enterprise, as the lorries themselves required fuel and truckloads of spare parts, especially wheels and tyres. They were forever getting flat tyres, which could only be repaired by shoving bundles of grass into the tubes. This hardly ever solved the problem, but it at least kept them going for a while before the rims buckled beyond repair and the entire wheel had to be replaced.

On 19 March, Berrangé’s advance column, consisting of a single squadron under Captain van Vuuren, arrived at Rietfontein and attacked the Schütztruppe, who were fielding twice their number. Nevertheless, the Germans quickly retired, leaving their transport and supplies, as well as four dead and twenty wounded.

While Eastern Force gathered at Rietfontein and prepared to push into the colony, Southern Force under Jaap van Deventer was closing in on Keetmanshoop in a two-prong drive from bases at Raman’s Drift and Kakamas. They had captured Warmbad and the southern railway terminus of Kalkfontein, and easily took Nabas with its wagons and supplies left behind by a hastily retreating enemy. At the end of March they surprised Platbeen, where they again captured all transport and supplies, as well as a few prisoners and some wounded.[5]

It was around this time, with most Schütztruppe units now in the north, that Botha combined McKenzie’s Central Force with Van Deventer’s Southern Force and Berrangé’s Eastern Force into what became known as the Southern Army. Placed under the overall command of General Smuts, the combined force numbered over 14 000 mounted men. When he took command in early April, one of the first things Smuts did was determine to go after the Germans retreating before Central Force. Botha had come to realise that McKenzie was at his most brilliant when leading a charge of flying horsemen, the highly mobile mounted commandos; he was not cut out for set military manoeuvres on entrenched positions. So once they had taken Aus, the prime minister advised Smuts to use McKenzie exclusively for mounted flying-commando attacks. Smuts accordingly ordered McKenzie to go after von Kleist with three mounted brigades.

The railway line from Aus ran due east for about 100 kilometres to the junction of the north–south line at Seeheim. By the time McKenzie started his pursuit, the Germans had already passed Seeheim and were making steady progress north, leaving just a few units to face Berrangé and Van Deventer as they converged on Keetmanshoop from the east and south respectively. With Smuts moving up the line from Aus, having landed at Lüderitz a few weeks earlier to take command of the Southern Army, McKenzie took a shortcut to the north-east in an attempt to cut off the Germans before they reached Rehoboth. It was an ambitious move; even today the unpaved overland route from Aus is difficult to negotiate as it passes over craggy mountainous terrain. Somehow McKenzie and his mounted brigades covered 200 kilometres in just twelve days.

On 16 April, while McKenzie raced to catch up with his prey, Berrangé attacked Kiries West. The enemy force there had the added advantage of field artillery, yet once again the South Africans drove them off, killing another four soldiers and capturing eight. Unfortunately, the German gunners managed to escape with the bigger guns.

A few days after the action at Kiries West, and according to plan, Berrangé linked up with Jaap van Deventer’s brother, Dirk. Together they attacked the small hamlet of Koës on 20 April, killing two German soldiers and capturing sixteen, as well as a few hundred head of cattle.[6] This opened the way to Keetmanshoop.

At about the same time, after traversing hundreds of kilometres of desert and driving the Germans back from one position to the next, Southern Force achieved its objective of occupying Keetmanshoop. The honour fell to Colonel Bouwer, another staunch Botha ally and one of the men who had relentlessly chased Kemp across the country during the rebellion. Bouwer, moving in from Raman’s Drift, took the town without a shot being fired.

As planned, the Eastern and Southern forces merged at Keetmanshoop and immediately attacked a detachment of Schütztruppe at a training camp called Kabus, about thirteen kilometres south-east of the main railway line. Von Kleist himself was at the nearby station of Itsawisis, where he was at that moment organising the general retreat with von Hadeln, the Iron Cross recipient who had been part of Ritter’s abortive attack on Kakamas.[7] Luckily for von Kleist, the South Africans were too exhausted to give pursuit, so he was able to escape north, albeit in a rather lackadaisical fashion.

But on 26 April, McKenzie successfully caught up with the retreating Germans at the small station town of Gibeon, about 150 kilometres short of Rehoboth. Perhaps because of his near encounter with the exhausted men of Eastern Force and Southern Force, von Kleist was caught completely unawares by these new arrivals on their fresh mounts. He must have thought he had plenty of time before the South Africans caught up with him, because he had a fully laden train lying idly at the station and was still busy loading the last troops, whose dust the pursuers could plainly see as they moved quietly towards the station from the south. McKenzie’s scouts managed to tap a cable line and discovered that von Kleist planned on spending the night at Gibeon before steaming off early the next morning. McKenzie therefore wasted no time.

Collyer provides a detailed record of events as they unfolded. At 8 p.m. McKenzie dispatched a demolition party to destroy the railway line to the north of the station to prevent the train from leaving. The saboteurs were followed by a mounted brigade and an additional regiment commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Royston, who was instructed to make a wide arc around the station and position his men on the line further north in order to cut off any attempt at an overland retreat. At 10 p.m. McKenzie and the remainder of the force silently moved in from the south to within three kilometres of Gibeon, where they halted until dawn. At 11 p.m. the demolition party blew up the line and evaded capture, returning safely to the main body. It was the first time the Germans became aware of the South African presence.

In the meantime, Royston had moved into position, but in the darkness he had bivouacked in an exposed location. In the early hours of the morning, his force was discovered by German sentries, who alerted the main German body of their position. Royston’s men were thoroughly enfiladed by machine-gun fire and sustained a number of casualties: three officers and twenty-one other ranks were killed and forty-nine were wounded. Royston was forced to order a general retirement almost five kilometres further up the track. He left behind seventy-two men, who were compelled to surrender at dawn when they found themselves surrounded.

At 5 a.m. on 27 April, McKenzie attacked with vigour from the south and pushed the Germans north-west, away from the railway line. Although unprepared, von Kleist managed to fight a dogged rearguard making use of the rough ground to the north-west for effective cover. Nonetheless, the speed of the attack and the firing accuracy of McKenzie’s men and artillery forced the German commander to abandon his position, along with his artillery and machine guns, and retreat on horseback to the open plains due north. The Germans just managed to evade Royston, who, thanks to his earlier retirement, had left enough space for them to break through. Von Kleist managed to escape with most of his men, but left eleven dead, thirty wounded and 188 to be taken prisoner on the field, plus a train, two field guns, four machine guns, a sizeable quantity of ammunition, wagons, livestock and the seventy-two South Africans he had just captured.[8] The larger guns were the very ones that the German gunners had made off with when Berrangé and Eastern Force attacked Kiries West ten days earlier.[9]

McKenzie’s surprise attack on Gibeon Station

Although McKenzie failed to capture the whole force, it was still a significant victory and a testament to the general’s mad-dash qualities of old. In addition, the valuable equipment that von Kleist had abandoned was necessary to prolong the campaign, and any hope Franke had of defending the capital from the south was now as good as quashed. With Botha charging up the Swakop River with equal gusto, however, this was the least of the German commander’s concerns. At one point Franke exclaimed, ‘This is not a war; this is a hippodrome!’[10]

The route to Windhoek was being pried open from both directions, and it appeared that von Kleist was prudently giving it a wide berth. In light of this, its German citizens began the ominous task of preparing to welcome the South Africans into their capital city.

Smuts, in the meantime, was approaching Keetmanshoop. He had no idea where McKenzie had got to, so he sent Reitz and another member of his staff to find him. Following the detritus of dead mules and information from local Nama villages and mission stations, the pair caught up with McKenzie at Gibeon.[11] The general was awaiting further orders to advance, but, as it turned out, the Gibeon skirmish was to be the end of his role in South-West Africa.

While Reitz was still with McKenzie in Gibeon, he and two others were given a couple of motor cars with instructions to reconnoitre north towards Windhoek after rumours reached the South Africans that von Kleist was not preparing to make a stand to save the capital. The road back then was just a wagon track and not designed for motor cars. It was, Reitz says, the first time cars had ever ventured in that part of the world. It was a trying journey as they bounced and bumped along in the blazing heat. Before long, the primitive radiators overheated.

By nightfall the three men had used up all their drinking water topping up the radiators. To make matters worse, the retreating Germans had dynamited every well, station tank and borehole along the route. The men managed to find a few tsamma melons, a hydrating fruit similar to watermelon and typical of the desert, which the wild game and Baster herders often used to satiate their thirsts. But when the cars eventually overheated for the last time, Reitz and his companions were in a serious predicament.

They abandoned the vehicles and began walking with parched throats and swollen tongues towards Rehoboth, which they reckoned could not be too far north. Soon afterwards they were lucky enough to come across the wreckage of a train at the bottom of a dynamited bridge. The Germans had run the trains over to prevent them being used by the South Africans. This train’s boilers, however, still contained enough water for the men and their thirsty machines to make it to Rehoboth.

There they were able to confirm von Kleist’s abandonment of Windhoek by the columns of dust north-east of the settlement, indicating that the German leader was giving both Rehoboth and the capital a wide berth in an effort to link up with his commander, who by that stage had been cut off from his line of retreat to the capital by Botha’s rapid advance.[12]

By now the campaign no longer required the combined force of the Southern Army, as the Schütztruppe had abandoned the entire south and the focus had shifted north. Smuts’s army was thus disbanded and sent home. Much of McKenzie’s force had taken to the field with Beves eight months earlier, and although they had only participated in one major battle in all that time, it was a decisive one because it spelt the beginning of the end for the Germans. The Natal men of Central Force would go home to a rapturous welcome.

It was later discovered that the three forces together had faced no more than 700 German soldiers scattered about in small units over a vast area (the largest, at Rietfontein, consisted of 200).[13] No wonder the Germans retreated so hastily – they were facing a numerically superior enemy. The question as to why the South Africans were deployed in the first place remains unanswered. Too late it became clear to Botha that the oversized Southern Army had unnecessarily soaked up much-needed resources, despite the heroic exploits of men like McKenzie, Van Deventer and Berrangé.

There is not much going on in Gibeon these days, not that there ever was. The town, a little to the west of the station, is run down and occupied by the mixed-race Baster people, who can trace their ancestry to the districts in and around Cape Town. They have resided in this area since the mid-1800s, having trekked from the oppression of slavery in the Cape, and have been marginalised and sidelined by successive rulers, from the Nama and Herero to the Germans and South Africans. Today Gibeon is racked with poverty, the roads are dusty, and the people, ignored by the current government (in which they will probably never enjoy any real representation), look dispirited. The train station is just as forlorn, although someone has tried to brighten it up by painting the old colonial building pink. On the other side of the tracks, neatly laid out with a fence around them, are more Commonwealth war graves, the only evidence of the events of the morning of 27 April 1915.

8

Northern Force

FROM THE START, Botha believed the shortest and most direct route to Windhoek was from Swakopmund, just north of Walvis Bay. Against the general consensus of both the Germans and the previous South African command, therefore, he reasoned that the best way to capture the capital would be an attack from Swakopmund, not from the south.[1] Before Botha assumed command, the only plans for Swakopmund involved rendering the seaport inoperable as a supply depot for the German navy, an objective that had been achieved in September 1914.

Although the Germans had evacuated the town, the Schütztruppe maintained an observation station at a small outpost called Nonidas, on the high dunes slightly west of Swakopmund. They also had a garrison or two guarding each of the possible routes out of town: one on the railway line at Rössing Station and another along the Swakop River at the Goanikontes oasis.[2] Each was about thirty kilometres inland. These garrisons were simply precautionary measures, as the Germans were not expecting a significant attack from Swakopmund. Franke thought that even if the South Africans were bold enough to attempt such a thing, it would be nothing more than a diversion from the main thrust in the south.[3] It was generally accepted that a primary attack from Swakopmund was virtually impossible. As with Lüderitz, the attacking forces would have to land by ship directly from Cape Town; and in this case, first at Walvis Bay, as Swakopmund was too small to handle invasion forces of any size. The troops would then have to march up the bleak coast for about ten kilometres to Swakopmund before attempting to traverse the 100-kilometre wide Namib Desert in an endeavour to reach Windhoek.

Swakopmund itself was not an ideal base from which to launch an offensive. Water was by far the biggest problem, as was an adequate supply of fodder for horses and mules. Colonel Skinner, who Botha had sent to secure Swakopmund for the troops’ arrival, reported that the town’s own water supply was limited and brackish at best. It would take time for man and beast to become accustomed to it before they could even begin thinking of marching inland. In addition, Skinner felt that their best route out of town, the railway track, could be easily defended by the Germans, who would no doubt destroy it in stages as the South Africans advanced. This would slow down the advance to a virtual halt.

It was precisely for these reasons that Botha decided to launch his main attack from Swakopmund. He was obeying one of the oldest military maxims – do the unexpected. The Germans ought to have known that when it came to Botha’s military acumen, they should obey the corollary – expect the unexpected. In fact, they remained unconvinced even when the Nonidas observation post reported troop ships docking at Walvis Bay on 10 February, disgorging men and horses into blunt-nosed barges that ploughed their way up the coast to Swakopmund and landed on the beaches in front of the town.[4]

Botha was aware he was taking a grave risk attacking with his main force from Swakopmund, but he was banking on his considerable skill for rapid and mobile deployment. The German observers peering into their dune-top telescopes may have noticed that there were around 5 000 troops amassing below, and that most of them were mounted. They were Boer commandos, by then still the most effective armed raiding militia in the world.

Rather than a hodgepodge of rag-tag quasi-independent units led by a loosely termed colonel or general, by February 1915 the commandos were formed into full brigades led by a brigadier general. Aside from this, the commando system itself had changed little since the Boer War. According to Collyer, each brigadier general had a staff detachment comprised of a brigade major, a staff captain, an aide-de-camp or ‘galloper’, and two administrative staff officers. Each brigade consisted of two flanking mounted columns, or ‘flying wings’ as they were known, commanded by a colonel commandant. The wings were self-contained and could be detached from the main body at will.[5] Within the wings were the commando units themselves, made up mainly of rural men who were accustomed to frugal habits, a life in the saddle and, most importantly, were expert riflemen.

Commandos were recruited and named on a geographical basis, and consisted of members drawn from around the main towns of each country district, for example the Witwatersrand Rifles and the Ermelo Commando. Sometimes a town could field two commandos, like Standerton Commando A and B. Each commando was led by a commandant, lieutenant colonel or major, depending on the origin, nature and size of the unit. Originally, leaders were elected by their own men, but in 1915 that had changed to a more formal appointment by senior ranks. Sometimes a commando was named after the charismatic personality of its leader, like Hartigan’s Horse. This particular commando was raised by Major M.M. Hartigan, a serving officer of the South African Police in the Eastern Province of the Cape. He was allowed to recruit a squadron from the police personnel of his district. The regiment served with distinction with Southern Force under Van Deventer, and later in the East African Campaign under the same commander.

Perhaps the most standout feature of the commandos were the scouts, who rode ahead of the main body to clear the area and report back on enemy developments. Scout groups consisted of between twenty-five and fifty flying horsemen and were almost always named after their leaders, for example Lemmer’s Scouts and Swart’s Scouts. They were incredibly swift and versatile, but, as Collyer points out, scout leaders were prone to be ‘indifferent to orders’, especially if they felt said orders ‘did not square with the idea of the best method of fighting’.[6] The scouts were thus instinctive and spontaneous – often invaluable traits – but, at the same time, they were not inclined to commit to the scene of a battle and would retreat as quickly as they attacked if the going got tough.

This hit-and-run method worked to great effect during the Boer War, where no tactical combinations were required, especially when the Boers went to ground as guerrilla fighters. In 1915, however, this tendency meant that both scouts and commandos would often forget they were part of a broad tactical enterprise. Generals and their staff found it extremely difficult to gather information from long-ranging, hard-riding troops bent on their own conceived mission.[7] Nonetheless, the commandos were also apt to confuse the enemy for the same reasons. The unsuspecting Germans erroneously thought that all battles would follow a similar pattern to the conventional one that had unfolded at Sandfontein the previous year.

Each of the two mounted commando brigades making up Botha’s Northern Force consisted of a battery of artillery commanded by Brigadier Generals Coen Brits and J.J. Alberts. Besides these main attacking brigades, Botha also had protective brigades, whose duty was to cover the railway line and supervise its reconstruction. The protective brigades included two infantry brigades under Colonels Skinner and Wylie, each with three battalions, plus two unbrigaded infantry brigades and one mounted regiment with a battery of heavy artillery – guns that were bigger and heavier than the smaller but mobile 13-pounder quick-firing field artillery. All the brigades had the usual administrative, medical and engineering units.

Botha’s first task was to simultaneously clear the observation post at Nonidas and move up the railway line and the Swakop River towards the German garrisons at Rössing Station and Goanikontes respectively. Skinner was tasked with occupying Nonidas, and was the first to achieve his objective. Perhaps because he was not a South African, Skinner’s brigade contained the only non–South African units in the campaign: a Rhodesian regiment, as well as an Irish regiment whose honorary colonel was none other than Botha’s wife, Annie, who was of pure Irish stock herself. It was mainly the Irish troops who were responsible for clearing the outpost at Nonidas. The surprised German observers retreated with some haste when they saw the enemy on the dawn of 23 February.

Botha successfully secures a solid beachhead by clearing the Schütztruppe outposts outside Swakopmund

Colonel Commandant Collins of Alberts’ left wing was tasked with getting astride the railway line. He saw brief action from the German rearguard, but managed to push them off the track, taking some prisoners in the process. As with Aus, the advance could only move as fast as the engineers re-laying the sabotaged line, so Rössing Station itself would only be occupied a month later. The task was slowed down significantly by someone deeming it important to replace the German two-foot narrow-gauge track with a wider, three-foot six-inch track.

Meanwhile, Alberts followed the river with the right wing of his 2nd Mounted Brigade, and easily occupied the oasis at Goanikontes. Travelling a further ten kilometres up the gorge, he took a watering point called Heigamchab, and another ten kilometres on, the Husab well, all without resistance. These conquests were vital for securing the necessary water supply for an army to move in relay convoys upriver. In addition, they were now within striking distance of good grazing, which intelligence reports claimed began along a broad belt starting at the town of Usakos, sixty kilometres further along the railway line from Rössing, then ran south in a haphazard arc to a farm called Riet, about forty kilometres further up the Swakop River from Husab.[8]

With the area in front of him now cleared, Botha had gained a sizeable beachhead around Swakopmund and the power of movement as well as reconnaissance. The springboard was now almost ready. Even though the enemy had easily given way in the face of his initial advance, there were two far more difficult obstacles that had to be overcome before the prime minister could continue with the bulk of his force. These delayed his launch into the desert by a full five weeks.

The most serious obstacle was the question of supplies. There were two routes out of Swakopmund that offered differing supply options. The first route involved a slow advance along the railway line dependent on the speed at which the new line could be laid. The advantage of this was that troops could be fed and watered along the way. Supplies could be steadily brought up from Cape Town by ship and then transported from Swakopmund to the rear by steam engine. However, the route up the railway would lose Botha the element of surprise and sacrifice the mobility of his Boer commandos, who were in any case too impatient to sit idly on a railway track behind the engineer corps for a few months. And worst of all, further inland the narrow-gauge track passed through a series of mountain ranges, which, like Aus, could be easily defended with just a handful of soldiers.

The second option was to take the commandos rapidly up the more direct route of the Swakop River and leave only a protective infantry force to guard the construction of the railway line, which would still be necessary to continually supply refreshed troops and food to the stretching front. One disadvantage of this was that the river almost never flowed, so it provided little hope of an adequate water supply. (Incidentally, and with little consequence, the Swakop flooded and flowed briefly for the first time in living memory the day Botha landed in Walvis Bay in February 1915.) Water could be obtained at various stages, like at the Goanikontes oasis and a few places further upstream, but these wells only gave a trickle of water, too inadequate to supply an army of men and horses. Not to mention the fact that supply lines would have to be carried in ‘hops’ from waterhole to waterhole by mules and oxen, of which there remained an inadequate supply. All the Germans had to do was defend these waterholes, a task made easier by the fact that the Swakop disgorges from a twisted, lengthy and deep canyon.

Although this route offered the opportunity to catch the enemy unawares, even to the most uninitiated military mind, any attempt to approach Windhoek along the Swakop would be suicide. It was deemed so risky that most, including Smuts and the Germans, assumed it impossible. All were convinced that Botha would remain astride the umbilical railway line.[9] Accordingly, Smuts did not ship out the necessary food, wagons and transport animals needed to advance rapidly along the Swakop River route, to the consternation of his commander-in-chief, who had planned once again to do the unexpected.[10]

For the next month, while Smuts focused on supplying the transport needs of the so-called diversionary Southern, Eastern and Central forces, Botha was preoccupied with addressing his grave shortage of transport and supplies. According to Collyer, the only units that enjoyed their full line of transport and wagons were Botha’s two commando brigades, but even they had only enough supplies for a day, or two at a stretch. Ideally, they needed a minimum of a week’s supply. The infantry brigades, medical and veterinary units, and machine-gun and artillery brigades were without transport altogether. Botha consequently pulled most of the labourers and mule wagons off the railway reconstruction and diverted every ounce of his resources to supply the string of waterhole depots along the Swakop as far as Alberts’ advanced position at Husab.[11]

Botha calculated that in order to begin his advance along the river he needed no less than 400 wagons, each with a team of twelve mules. In February he had only a tenth of that number. Furthermore, the mules had to pull the wagons over dunes and through soft sand along the riverbed, which took a heavy toll on the poor beasts. After each trek to Husab and back, it would take the animals more than a week to recover before they could do it again. After urgent telegrams to Smuts demanding more supplies, some belatedly began to trickle through and the eventual arrival of more draft animals and motor lorries by ship from Cape Town was some help, but Botha was still way off his intended target. Nonetheless, by 16 March, he had collected almost six days’ worth of supplies at Husab – just enough for his troops to move on Riet and the all-important grasslands beyond, where he hoped the grazing would be adequate enough to circumvent his supply problems.[12]

The whole endeavour may have been in vain had the Germans had the foresight to harass the unprotected supply convoys with snipers from the craggy hills and canyon walls on either side of the river. Botha’s supplies of transport animals and fodder were so short that he could not afford the luxury of armed escorts. As Collyer writes, the general greatly appreciated ‘this indulgence on the part of the German Commander’.[13] It is clear that the circumspect Franke was not the same sort of leader as his dynamic predecessor.

The other major obstacle that delayed Botha’s advance was the issue of acclimatisation, of his troops and himself, at Swakopmund. Eric Moore-Ritchie of Botha’s bodyguard eloquently describes the coastal town:

It is purely artificial, and artificial to a ghastly degree too. There is not a spot of vegetation. There is not a genuine tree to be seen. The water has a detestable, unsatisfying blurred taste, to which the adjective ‘brackish’ is applied … Maybe we were not acclimatised, but the fact remains that a very large proportion of us were down with a kind of dysentery, attended by vomiting and violent pains in the stomach. Then there are days when the winds blow from the desert – an indescribable experience. They bring moths and flies with them, and great clouds of sand; it is a genuine labour to breathe, and at noon and for two hours after the temperature in the sun runs up into the ‘hundred-and-sixties’.[14]

Botha fell ill with stomach pains soon after arriving in Swakopmund and his doctor prescribed a diet of fresh milk and eggs, which were unobtainable in the bleak coastal town. His wife Annie was shipped from Cape Town with the necessary cows and hens. While nursing her husband, Annie busied herself attending to the numerous sick on Botha’s staff and mending their clothes. After two weeks with the troops, her departure in mid-March was apparently much regretted by all.[15]

Having recovered from his illness, Botha left Swakopmund for Goanikontes, where he mustered his troops and the supplies he had managed to scrape together.

A hundred years later, Swakopmund is a somewhat better place. It now has a few trees, mainly date palms, the sandy roads are tarred and the water is better, brought in by pipeline from the hinterland. Teutonic architecture remains steadfast and the town ends abruptly where the desert begins. The breakwater was never completed, so it never became a fully fledged seaport. When the natural harbour of Walvis Bay down the road was incorporated after the South Africans occupied the colony, it was no longer necessary. The weather is unexpected for a desert town; Swakopmund is often shrouded in a cool, damp coastal mist.

The oldest accommodation is the Hansa Hotel. Built in 1905, it retains, certainly on the inside, an air of ostentatious bygone German colonialism. There is a large sweeping staircase as one enters, with a plush formal saloon to one side and a large restaurant with starched tablecloths and tarnished silverware to the other. The rooms are large and high-ceilinged, the passageways heavily adorned with sepia photographs and prints of German-era Swakopmund. Many are of the Schütztruppe standing proud in their uniforms, white tunics and wide-brimmed hats peeled up to the right, the officers with swords attached to their left sides. Like the long-gone troops, the hotel staff wear oversized, faded green or blue uniforms complete with braiding, gold-tasselled epaulettes and white gloves.

Although largely German in architecture, Swakopmund represents the full spectrum of Namibia’s colourful population. There are plenty of German- and Afrikaans-speaking citizens, but they form a minority against the Damara, Herero, Ovambo, Nama and even Basters.

9

The hippodrome

BEHIND SWAKOPMUND, looking upriver towards Nonidas, where flamingos wade in nearby shallow brackish pools, the Swakop River emerges suddenly from a black fissure in the surrounding desert. There are no public roads directly following the river course, but there are access routes to the river itself: one into Goanikontes and another further up the Langer Heinrich Mountain, which incidentally also marks the start of the grasslands. To access these routes today, one has to traverse a restricted zone. The whole section of the river up to and a bit beyond the mountain forms part of the Namib-Naukluft National Park. All routes except the three tarred roads out of Walvis Bay and Swakopmund and the direct route to Goanikontes require a permit.

Leaving the coast and heading east is a tar road, the C28. It lies some distance to the south of but parallel to the Swakop River. After some twenty kilometres, the gravel road to Goanikontes branches off to the left. The contrast in terrain is stark. The flat white surface of the Namib literally disappears into a deep black void of twisted rock. The gravel road drops and winds its way through this lunar landscape before popping out at the riverbed and the lush green grass and palm-tree foliage of the Goanikontes oasis. There is a welcome sign in German, a single-room farmhouse with the date 1903 embossed on the gable, and a pre-war haupthaus (main house) under the trees. The site is now a popular tourist rest camp and features rondavels, a campsite, a picnic spot and a restaurant. Almost everything, from the brochures at the entrance to the receptionist behind the desk, is German.

The name ‘Goanikontes’, however, is not. Of Nama origin, it apparently means ‘place to remove your coat/kaross’. A kaross is a furry cloak sewn from animal skins by indigenous peoples throughout southern Africa. The name indicates that this was a place where pre-colonial desert nomads could linger under the cool shade and water their small herds of fat-tailed sheep. The oasis supplied possibly the best water along the Swakop between the coast and the grasslands. It was therefore logical for Botha to choose to muster his commandos here before advancing further.

When the South Africans arrived, they discovered that the retreating Germans had poisoned the well with sheep dip.[1] It was a minor inconvenience, however; they simply dug another alongside it.

A historical booklet written in German and called Das Swakoptal (The Swakop Valley) is sold at the reception desk at the Goanikontes rest camp. A series of anecdotes on the history of the river, it describes all the farms and waterholes from Salem, a farm just beyond the Langer Heinrich Mountain, to the mouth of the river at Swakopmund, and includes historical information on Husab, Goanikontes and Nonidas. The booklet quotes an ‘Englische soldat’ (South Africans in the 1914–15 campaign are mistakenly referred to as English soldiers), who poetically describes his impression of the Swakop River gorge:

Through this extraordinary territory meanders the dry course of the Swakop River, between gorges of such awe-inspiring character that the voice is instinctively hushed at the terrible grandeur, as if in fearful expectation of a sudden encounter with the ‘Old Gentleman’ himself, armed with horns and trident complete.[2]

It is an apt description. The sun-blackened gorge has a hellish eeriness about it. It must have been harrowing for those soldiers marching upriver in the blazing heat, expecting to get shot at or shelled from the crags beyond at any minute.

The booklet also contains an old photograph of a hand-painted sign nailed to a tree. It plainly states: ‘Riet Farm. No. 30 registered on the 6th March 1913’, with the name of the owner written illegibly beneath.[3] It was here that the Schütztruppe set up a defensive position in 1915.

By the time Botha resumed his advance in mid-March, the German defensive positions extended along a fifty-kilometre arc from the Langer Heinrich on the south bank of the Swakop, in front of Riet on the riverbed itself, north across the Husab Mountains, and ending on the heights of Pforteberg, a hill above the original but disused Khan–Jakkalswater railway line at Pforte Station. Still not convinced that the main South African attack was moving directly up the Swakop, Franke’s overextended units protecting the line of defence were woefully under strength. Still, the geographic nature of their defence line was almost unassailable. Almost.

From Goanikontes, Botha determined to occupy Riet. The 1st Mounted Brigade of 1 200 rifles under Brigadier General Brits would launch a frontal attack on the German position at Riet,[4] while the 2nd Mounted Brigade under Brigadier General Alberts took the German defenders at Pforteberg in the north. Intelligence suggested that the Germans were skilfully using the natural defensive features around Pforteberg to observe their enemy. The only line of attack for the 2nd Mounted Brigade involved crossing flat terrain devoid of vegetation and exposed to unrestricted machine-gun fire. A night approach would be essential to avoid detection.

J.J. Alberts was the capable commandant of the Wakkerstroom (later Standerton) Commando. He had served under Brits during the Boer War and was a delegate in the peace negotiations in 1902. Like Brits, Alberts had served with Botha against the rebels the previous year. There is little mention of him other than that he was a man of influence, a member of Parliament and much easier to work with than the obstreperous Brits.[5]

The attack was planned for the morning of 20 March. On 18 March, Botha, Brits and Alberts left Goanikontes. At Husab, Alberts split from the others to begin his night march, moving north at 6 p.m. on the 19th. Two hours later, Brits proceeded east up the river to Riet.

The German defensive position at Riet was divided in two. While one group held the riverbed and the Riet waterhole among the castellated rocks to Brits’ right, on the left another group was ensconced on the heights of the north flank of the Langer Heinrich. Both divisions had well-positioned machine-gun schanzes with which they could enfilade the South Africans as they approached over the open ground.

By 6 a.m. on 20 March, almost all of Brits’s brigade, including his reserves, were pinned down. Before the attack, he had sent 300 men of the Bloemhof Commando under Commandant Bezuidenhout on a flanking manoeuvre to the south to attack the enemy position on the Langer Heinrich, but they failed to find a way through the jumbled rock and were forced to return to Husab. Typical of the independent-minded commando leader, Bezuidenhout did so without first reporting his failure to Brits, who waited in vain for the remainder of the day, hoping that the Germans on the left would be suitably diverted for him to advance further.

Having swiftly gauged the dire situation, Botha had personally hurried to Brits’s assistance and supplemented the reserve with his own bodyguard. He also safeguarded Brits’s four unprotected artillery guns.[6] Moore-Ritchie, standing guard at one of the guns, describes the scene at the front:

At dawn in those parts conditions are bearable enough; the sun has little strength; the night wind refreshes. From 6.30 till 10 o’clock the desert is endurable. Then comes the change. All along the front the stark yellow sand is taking on a different hue under the climbing sun rays. It turns almost to glaring whiteness all around … And on either flank, well screened, little knots of men are grouped round the guns – and ‘Hampang-ky-yao!’ they go in our ears, their report carrying ten miles back into the desert where our transport hears them in muffled thunder. And look up as you hear that screeching whistle. The enemy’s shells burst in the depression behind us on both flanks ‘Pa-ha-ha.’ They look like slabs of cotton wool against the brazen blue sky. And all afternoon the heat strikes up at you overpowering, like the breath of a wild animal. Then the wind rises, and the sand shifts in eddies. Veils and goggles are useless. They can’t keep out that spinning curtain of grit. The horses rattle the hard, dry bits in their mouths, trying to get some moisture.[7]

It was the Transvaal Horse Artillery’s battery that saved Brits’s engagement. Situated behind the lines, their fully operational guns shelled the German defences with devastating accuracy, destroying an ammunition supply wagon and keeping the Schütztruppe hunkered down behind rocks. Conversely, the German artillery was an uncharacteristic ‘wash-out’ according to Moore-Ritchie, continually overshooting and never once finding their range.[8] A stalemate ensued, which was actually in the Germans’ favour, as it meant the South Africans would have to soon abandon their positions and retreat back to the waters of Goanikontes.

The attack would have been thoroughly checked had Botha committed his entire force to Riet, but by combining the frontal attack with another of his renowned sweeping night marches, the wily general managed to outmanoeuvre the Germans once again. While the South African and enemy forces took turns shelling one another in Riet, the 2nd Mounted Brigade under Alberts’ capable leadership took Pforteberg completely by surprise.

During the night march, Alberts had split his brigade into four columns: a right wing under Colonel Commandant Badenhorst was to move south of Pforteberg, a left wing under Colonel Commandant Collins was to ride north for sixty-plus kilometres to block a possible retreat and any reinforcements coming from Franke at Usakos, and two commandos – Ermelo B and Standerton B – were to peel off from the latter and attack the ridge at Pforteberg. Alberts, following Swart’s Scouts, would make for the nek or saddle that dipped between the Husab Mountains and Pforteberg.[9]

In the dim light of dawn on 20 March, the Standerton B and Ermelo B commandos approaching the ridge came under heavy artillery fire. To their right, Swart’s Scouts executed such a rapid advance that they completely surprised the Germans on the nek. Thanks to some quick thinking by Alberts, who immediately pushed forward two of his own commandos to reinforce the scouts and outflank the German artillery, they were able to exploit the position. The Germans responded with machine-gun fire from the heights, but, owing to the dust kicked up by the charging horsemen in the dawn light, they failed to hit their targets.

Badenhorst in the meantime swept in from the south-east at full gallop, forcing the artillery units firing on the Standerton B and Ermelo B commandos to take up new positions. In fact, they had to rotate their guns 180 degrees to do so, an action that allowed the two commandos to press home their attack. They were able to secure the northern section of Pforteberg, as well as the old railway line at Pforte Station.

The speed of the South African attack on Pforteberg was startling, a typical display of commando swiftness that arguably set the tone for the rest of the campaign. Within a short time the Germans faced an attack from all directions. But the dust from the hooves of hundreds of charging horses also played havoc with the South Africans. When the commandant of Standerton B, Piet Botha (no relation to the prime minister), gained a ridge, he thought that since the guns below were firing east and therefore in the opposite direction to his position, they must be his own. As the haze prevented him from seeing much beyond the ridge, he quickly descended to them to obtain a better picture of the battle. He only realised his mistake when he rode right in among the German artillerymen. He managed to avoid capture with some inventive fast-talking, aggressively demanding an interview with the German senior artillery officer, whom he told to surrender. Upon being formally refused, he was allowed to rejoin his men, and the fighting continued.

It did not continue for long. By 8:30 a.m., just a few hours after the guns had first roared into action, the Schütztruppe discovered they were completely surrounded with no option but to surrender. Nine officers and 200 other ranks, plus the artillery guns, fell into Alberts’ hands.[10] A dozen each had been killed on either side, but it was a resounding victory for the South Africans, as it had the knock-on effect of forcing the Schütztruppe pinning down Brits and Botha to immediately abandon their positions because they were now in danger of being outflanked by Alberts. That night, all German units still operational in the area retreated north towards Franke and the main German body, who were still peering expectantly down the Karibib–Usakos–Swakopmund railway line for the main South African attack.

Thanks to remarkable high-speed manoeuvring, Alberts’ mounted commandos capture the bulk of the German troops holding the important Pforte–Riet line

Alberts’ men and horses were completely spent after the arduous night march and the high-speed dawn attack. Unbeknown to the Germans, there was no way the South Africans could have rescued Brits and Botha. Furthermore, had the German reserve units, which were based at the nearby farm of Modderfontein to the east of Pforteberg, come to their besieged countrymen’s aid, Alberts may have found himself in trouble. Luckily the reserves were distracted by the sudden appearance of Collins with the brigade’s left wing on the old railway line near Jakkalswater, some kilometres north-east of Pforte Station.

Collins had reached the railway line east of Pforte at 5 a.m. and advanced towards the station at Jakkalswater. By 6:30 he had occupied Jakkalswater, but had drawn the attention of the German reserves, who attacked in full. As usual, the Schütztruppe trained their guns on the horses, killing so many that forty-three of Collins’s men were captured because they could not ride away with the others after their commandant called a retreat.[11]

It was a minor victory for the German reserves – they had successfully secured the line of retreat for their men at Riet – but the diversion cost them the entire hold of their defences. For Collins, the action and subsequent withdrawal in the face of the reserve units could have been a lot worse. His commandos nearly came to further grief as they retired back along the line towards Pforte, when Badenhorst’s men mistook them for the enemy and consequently opened fire. Thankfully, the friendly fire ended timeously before any casualties were inflicted.

Thanks to the collective actions of the four columns of Alberts’ 2nd Mounted Brigade, Botha was able to occupy Riet and the supposed swathe of good grazing beyond. Unfortunately, the reports proved incorrect. Even though the Swakop River had been in flood for the first time in living memory the day Botha landed at Walvis Bay, there was only a semblance of grass left. The prime minister was forced to send his two exhausted brigades back to Swakopmund for some much-needed rest, leaving an infantry garrison of 600 men and a mounted commando under Colonel Wylie to hold the line and conduct further reconnaissance. Once again, Botha would have to wait for supplies, fresh horses and mules; and once again it was another frustrating five-week delay before he could take to the field to make good his gains.

It was Alberts’ high-speed cavalry action at Pforteberg that led to Franke’s ‘This is not a war; this is a hippodrome’ outburst, during which the German commander realised his error: that Botha was coming up the Swakop River, not the railway line.

10

Counterattack

BY THE END of March 1915, Louis Botha had secured the Swakop River as far as Riet and had occupied and set up advanced posts at Modderfontein and Salem, and at Jakkalswater along the old railway. He considered linking the main railway line at Rössing with this old one in order to speed up supplies to his front lines, but was advised against it because of the difficulty of the operation. The railway was mostly intact, however, and after a personal site inspection Botha gave the go-ahead to repair it.

Of more importance was the discovery of official German documents left behind at Modderfontein when the Schütztruppe reserve hurried from the base to deal with Collins at Jakkalswater.[1] The documents, along with a considerable amount of supplies and wagons, would have been destroyed were it not for the speed of Alberts’ attack and Collins’s sudden appearance on their flank. The documents confirmed once and for all that the bulk of the German army was at Karibib awaiting Botha’s advance up the main railway line. Of equal importance, they revealed the layout and whereabouts of landmines, which had already caused a few casualties among the South African scouting parties. The documents also confirmed that the wells had been purposefully poisoned, or intended to be poisoned, with sheep dip, but as before the South Africans easily solved this problem by digging parallel wells.[2]

A reconnaissance patrol at Modderfontein also intercepted a train coming from Karibib, its occupants unaware that their countrymen had been routed. It turned out to be a hospital train and, true to his nature, Botha instructed his men to return it to enemy lines.

With his front secure and the process of resupplying for a continued advance in place, it was around this time that Botha sailed to Lüderitz to put a firecracker under McKenzie at Garub (see Chapter 6). As we have seen, McKenzie finally responded only to find that the Germans had already vacated Aus. The order for the Aus defenders to fall back was a direct result of the actions along the Swakop, when Franke realised he was going to need every available soldier in the north to be able to contend with Botha.

On his arrival back in Swakopmund on 1 April 1915, Botha met with a Namibian Baster chief by the name of Captain Cornelius van Wyk. Until now, Namibians of colour had taken little direct part in the war, other than as labourers or stretcher-bearers.[3] When the war broke out, Governor Seitz and Lieutenant Colonel von Heydebreck, aware of their own limited means of defence and obviously well informed of the military force that South Africa could muster against them, had determined to keep the invading forces occupied as long as possible, hoping for a German victory in Europe. To achieve this, they decided to conscript non-German citizens for military service.[4] People of colour were forbidden to bear arms, however, and both Seitz and Botha had made it clear publicly that it was a white man’s war. Any rumour that either side had drafted coloured or black fighters was regarded with the same seriousness as the use of chemicals or the wanton execution of civilians.

The Basters were opposed to any involvement in the war and consequently sent a delegation to visit Seitz with the request that they remain neutral. The governor, however, assured them that it was a conflict between whites and that they would only be used for police service behind the front.[5]

In February 1915, a number of German non-commissioned officers and Baster conscripts under the command of Lieutenant Hunoldt set up a prisoner-of-war camp at Uitdraai (situated on the railway line about twenty-five kilometres south-east of Rehoboth), intended for 120 South Africans captured at Sandfontein. When a group of forty-six Basters were ordered to remain and guard the prisoners, there was an outcry. The Basters were upset because this went against the agreement that they would not be involved in the war. Interestingly, their German captain, von Gaertringen, protested too, because he was worried that the Basters, who were more closely linked to the South Africans in terms of blood and language, might help their prisoners escape.[6]

The Baster guards raised their objections to the Baster Council, which in turn protested to the German government, without success. They could not be replaced because of a shortage of manpower.[7] The increasing involvement of the Baster soldiers in the German war effort caused great concern within the Baster community. The Baster Council, therefore, decided that Captain van Wyk should explain their position to the South African military authorities as soon as possible. In March 1915, Van Wyk obtained permission to visit the game reserve in the Kuiseb-Swakopmund region, under the pretext that he wanted to look for bushtea and salt. In actual fact, he travelled through the barren area that makes up today’s NamibRand Nature Reserve to establish contact with the South Africans.[8]

Van Wyk told Botha that they were willing to cooperate with him in the fight against the Germans from their base near Rehoboth. Botha replied that under no circumstances were the Basters to get involved, but they ignored his directive and openly rebelled. They killed three settlers, seized weapons and raided the railway line and Rehoboth itself. German forces attacked Rehoboth in an attempt to quell the Baster threat, committing atrocities against Baster civilians and attacking refugees encamped in the mountains. The Basters retaliated, and by mid-April three German companies were tied up in Rehoboth.[9]

Botha sent a message to Van Wyk urging him to exercise restraint, particularly if he was to be treated well after the South African occupation. Van Wyk acquiesced. In any case, despite repeated attacks using superior weaponry, the Germans were unable to destroy the Basters’ position. The Germans retreated and Rehoboth’s Baster community was given a reprieve.

The Baster rebellion was timeous as it roughly coincided with Botha’s thrust inland, as well as the advances of both the Southern and Central forces. Von Kleist’s retreat from Gibeon wisely went far to the east of Rehoboth, a besieged settlement being an undesirable location to take up a defensive position. His beleaguered men were in no mood to deal with mutinous locals after their recent mauling. The Basters thus divided the stretched German defences even further and hastened both their retirement to the north and their abandonment of the capital. Botha, after denying the Basters permission to fight, would remain oblivious to their strategic involvement and its favourable outcome.

In the meantime, Botha’s front continued to prepare for the next advance. Although South African ships regularly steamed into Walvis Bay with fresh supplies, these still had to be carted by mules and oxen up to the front in the blistering summer heat. Repairs to the old Khan railway line had begun, but completion was still weeks away. The main line had only made it as far as Trekkoppies Station, roughly midway between Swakopmund and Usakos. To make matters worse, the infantrymen were stultifying in the desert, sitting alongside the hot, dusty railway line observing the engineers monotonously replacing and repairing the tracks.

Namib daytime summer temperatures can reach fifty degrees Celsius. Today travellers can scurry into the air-conditioned comfort of their 4 × 4s. For the men on the railway in 1915, however, there was no such luxury. They worked under extreme difficulties, and were always short of materials and rations because Botha needed every available horse, mule and victual for his commandos. Since mules were in short supply, the wagons often got stuck in the sand dunes. When the wind picked up, the sand made cooking and eating impossible. In some places the dunes had to be covered with canvas to prevent the sand from shifting onto the railway lines.

In early April, it was reported that the troops were getting ‘crummy’, as they had no change of clothing and were unable to wash what they were wearing.[10] One day there was such a severe dry thunderstorm that the men saw a blue flame of lightning run along the ridge of a sand dune. It is recorded that a trooper lit a cigarette attached to the muzzle of his rifle from the flame.[11]

The torpor was occasionally broken by the aerial forays of Lieutenant von Scheele. At the beginning of April he made a couple of sorties on the train station at Arandis, just behind Trekkoppies, where there was always a South African detachment to be bombed. Then, after the evacuation of Aus, Lieutenant Fiedler joined him and together they dropped a few more incendiaries on Arandis, Trekkoppies and the occasional train chugging its way somewhere in between. Once, they even reconnoitred as far as Rössing before returning to Karibib down the Khan–Jakkalswater railway, at the time an epic flight of over three hours. The pair did not inflict much damage other than providing much-needed distraction for the South African troops on the ground.

The German pilots, however, did prompt South Africa’s first ever deployment of an anti-aircraft gun. Their antics over Steinkopf before the battle at Sandfontein, and their later bombing raids at Garub and Tsaukaib, hastened the conversion of a 15-pounder Armstrong breech-loading cannon at the army ordinance workshop in Woodstock, Cape Town. The Armstrong was the standard heavy-artillery piece used by the Union Defence Force at the time. Although relatively mobile for its size and devastatingly effective at long range, the gun could only manage an elevation of sixteen degrees when a much greater elevation was required to shoot down overhead aircraft. Heightening the angle of the barrel any further would cause the recoiling breech to slam into the ground with enough force to destroy the gun and injure the operators. The Armstrong therefore had to be modified.

Captain C.L. Gransden was put in charge of the conversion. He had to design a carriage capable of elevating the gun far beyond its maximum, as well as devise a mechanism to withstand the recoil. Gransden managed to refashion the gun so it could be elevated over sixty degrees and attached heavy-duty springs to the barrel and frame to arrest the recoil. After initial trials in Cape Town overseen by Botha’s wife, the gun was shipped to Walvis Bay mounted prominently on the forecastle of the ship in the unlikely event that an enemy aeroplane should appear over the Atlantic – or, rather, in the hopeful event, as the Royal Navy gunners were itching to try out the new design.[12]

After being reassembled on carriage wheels at Walvis Bay, the gun was rushed up the railway line to Colonel Skinner, who by now was at Trekkoppies with his Irish and Rhodesian regiments. Possibly due to the giraffe-like vertical positioning of the barrel or in honour of their commander, or both, the troops affectionately nicknamed the new gun ‘Skinny Liz’. Testing her piqued the interest of the brigade’s stagnated psyche, although the tests were not very successful. The springs preventing the recoil broke each time a shot was fired and had to be replaced before the gun could fire again.[13] Skinny Liz was also a bit of an unwieldy girl, being quite a bit heavier on her modified carriage than the regular 15-pounders.

As an anti-aircraft gun she was not very accurate, but she did manage to fire a few rounds at von Scheele when he made his next appearance. The gun caused no damage to the aeroplane, but she successfully foiled a bewildered von Scheele and forced him to abandon his raid. He returned to Karibib with his bombs still attached to the fuselage, much to Skinner’s amusement.

A Scottish regiment made up of expatriate miners from Johannesburg joined Skinner’s brigade and on 24 April a Royal Navy armoured car division under Lieutenant Commander W. Whittall was added. The vehicles, on loan from the British, were modified Rolls-Royce Silver Ghosts with Vickers machine guns mounted in revolving turrets.[14] Together with the Royal Navy heavy-artillery units manning Skinny Liz, the modified cars were another first for the South African army. Skinner’s Rhodesians were by now positioned in the rear at Arandis.

It was at Trekkoppies that Franke finally took some attacking initiative. After a reconnaissance flight on 25 April, von Scheele reported to Franke that there were no more than 400 soldiers at Trekkoppies. He was correct, to a point. Skinner had left the station with three squadrons of the Imperial Light Horse and a detachment of Transvaal Scottish, and was reconnoitring some thirty-two kilometres further up the track.[15] The pilot had somehow overlooked them.

Taking advantage of Botha’s inability to press home his advantage at Riet, Franke ordered 2 000 horsemen to march on Trekkoppies and the positions at Riet and Salem that same night.

Skinner, sitting in his forward position in the early hours of 26 April, timeously detected the dust kicked up by Franke’s mounted troops. Although unable to tell the size of the enemy, he was able to fall back on Trekkoppies to take up defensive positions. He left two companies in the rear to cover his retreat, but the Germans failed to notice their presence and were therefore unaware that their hope of surprising the South Africans at Trekkoppies was lost.[16]

For Skinner’s infantry brigade squatting on the line, the German attack was a most welcome respite from the interminable boredom of months of sitting around. But, apart from Skinny Liz, Skinner had no artillery guns. All had been reassigned to Botha’s field operations on the Swakop. Luckily he had the armoured cars, and he could call up the Rhodesian regiment in reserve at Arandis to Trekkoppies to bolster the defensive lines.

At 5:45 on the morning of the 26th, the Germans blew up the railway line with the intention of blocking any rapid deployment from the rear or an equally rapid retreat. Unfortunately for them, they blew up the line on the wrong side of Trekkoppies. The pre-dawn darkness had confused the saboteurs as to their exact whereabouts. Despite this setback, the Germans persevered and at 7:40 their artillery opened fire at a range of about four kilometres from the hills to the north-west of Trekkoppies. At the same time, the Schütztruppe moved in with a dismounted attack from the north and west where there was good cover.[17]

According to Captain F.E. Jackson, Skinner’s brigade signals officer, the ‘firing continued for four hours; by that time there was not a line of shelters or bivouacs in the whole camp that was not riddled with holes’.[18] The Germans’ aim was excellent on this occasion and every square inch was enfiladed by searching rifle and artillery shell fire. Jackson writes that Skinner was ‘a brick under the protracted fire, riding about the whole time, personally supervising and giving orders and somehow escaping with dozens of miraculous misses’.[19] The situation became so precarious at one point that it seemed the entire camp at Trekkoppies would be overrun. Were it not for the Vickers machine guns firing from their revolving turrets on the armoured vehicles and the odd heavy shell from Skinny Liz that effectively checked the Germans to within 200 metres of the South African defences (more with its roar of fire than anything else), Botha may have had to rethink his entire campaign.

By 10:30 a.m. the German offensive had run out of steam. With the umbilical railway line still open to Skinner for further reinforcements (a train had already been dispatched from Swakopmund by Botha, who was in continuous telephonic contact with Trekkoppies during the skirmish), Franke ordered his men to retire. Skinner ordered the Kimberley and Transvaal Scottish regiments to counterattack, but they were checked by the German artillery, who provided an excellent cover for the retreating Schütztruppe. Although Jackson describes the attack as ‘the hottest corner I have been in’, only nine South African and seven German soldiers were killed.[20] The dead included a sixty-two-year-old South African heliograph signaller by the name of Reid. Jackson, as signals officer, made a point of honouring the old soldier, saying that it was ‘such a pity that old men should be out fighting, while so many young, single fellows sat tight at home, living on the fat of the land, enjoying themselves’.[21] It was a pointed reference to those rebels who had refused to volunteer for the war.

In the context of the campaign, the Trekkoppies affair was nothing but a trifling altercation. Yet it was the last time the Schütztruppe went on the offensive in South-West Africa. The parallel offensive unleashed on Riet and Salem on the same day was, to all intents and purposes, a non-event.[22] The positions were briefly attacked, but the Schütztruppe scurried away as soon as the South Africans fired their first return volley.

11

Closing in

MAJOR VIKTOR FRANKE did not have time to rethink his strategy after the Trekkoppies affair, because Botha was ready to resume his offensive. The general had decided to double his force for the new push and had begun steadily concentrating a much greater mobile force at Riet since 25 April, which may explain why the Germans retreated without engaging, when they saw what they faced. The two mounted brigades that took part in the operations a month earlier were now combined into one large brigade under the overall leadership of Brits. Alberts remained in charge of the 2nd Mounted Brigade, while Colonel Lemmer took over from Brits to lead the 1st. Botha added the combined 3rd and 5th Mounted Brigade and placed them under the capable leadership of a newcomer to the campaign, Brigadier General M.W. Myburgh, who, like most of Botha’s commanders, had served with him during the Boer War. Before that, Myburgh had been with Botha in the short-lived Republic of Vryheid in northern Natal, a tract of land that the Boer mercenaries had been awarded for assisting King Dinuzulu in his fight to ascend the Zulu throne. Collyer describes Myburgh as tall and powerfully built, ‘broad-minded and tactful, determined and a good disciplinarian’, someone who ‘enjoyed the well-deserved confidence of his chief’.[1] Like Alberts, Myburgh represented a constituency in the Transvaal.

The 3rd Mounted Brigade, led by Colonel Mentz, was made up of predominantly Afrikaans-speaking commandos – in fact, all the men on the left wing came from Botha’s and Myburgh’s country districts within the former Vryheid Republic. The 5th Mounted Brigade, commanded by the prime minister’s nephew, Hermanus ‘Manie’ Botha, was made up of Free State commandos, but since many Afrikaans Free Staters had participated in the previous year’s rebellion, at least half the commandos in this brigade were English-speaking. This was unusual given that the commando system was predominantly a Boer phenomenon.[2]

There was no better man to lead them than Manie Botha. Cut from the same cloth as his uncle, he had been a valuable young lieutenant in De Wet’s commandos during the Boer War and had led many daring raids in the latter stages of the conflict before his capture near Frankfort in the Free State in 1902. In 1915 he was still a young man in his thirties and, when faced with a do-or-die endeavour, his youthful exuberance allowed him to instinctively let go of the reins.

In all, Botha had almost 9 000 rifles and sixteen artillery guns under his command.[3] In terms of men, his was a vastly superior force, but Franke still possessed superior weaponry and held a powerful defensive line. Botha’s attack had to follow the increasingly irregular terrain of the Swakop River, through an area still denuded of good grazing and water. The buttresses of the Tsaobis and Khomas Hochland mountains loomed further up ahead on the south bank, and the north bank was no less rugged. Provided Botha executed the predicted frontal attack, the Germans would have no trouble checking the South African advance with correctly positioned defensive lines.

The Khomas Hochland prevented any movement directly towards Windhoek, and so all Franke had to do was defend the Swakop and its north bank. The old capital of Otjimbingwe and the hamlets of Groot and Klein Barmen further upriver were already well defended to prevent the South Africans making directly for Okahandja, a town astride the railway line north of Windhoek. Franke knew that such a move, if successful, would cut him off from his capital. Kubas Station, on the old Khan–Jakkalswater railway, was heavily defended, as was Usakos on the main line. Franke himself, along with his main force and Governor Seitz, was based in Karibib, the principal German town along the main railway line between Swakopmund and Windhoek.

What followed was classic Botha. With unexpected sweeping, speedy long-distance manoeuvres, he once again completely flummoxed the German command. On the evening of 28 April, Botha’s four mounted brigades departed from Riet. Myburgh broke off to the south of the river and skirted the far side of the Tsaobis Mountain, making for Otjimbingwe from the south-west. Twenty-four hours later, Brits moved directly up the river. While Alberts and the 2nd Mounted Brigade carried on to Potmine, the 1st Mounted Brigade, moving north of the river, split into two: one infantry wing under Colonel Wylie marched up the Khan–Jakkalswater track towards Kubas, while Brits took a commando wing towards Dorstrivier for a frontal attack on Karibib.[4] In the meantime, Botha brought Skinner in as a diversion, instructing him to keep the Germans guessing by making every effort to advance up the heavily defended main line.

Botha and his bodyguard followed closely on Myburgh’s heels as far as Kaltenhausen, then swung north down to Potmine to join Alberts on the river. Along the way, they were briefly cut off from the main body and ran into a detachment of retreating Germans. One of Botha’s bodyguards later quipped that ‘if the Germans had not been in such a tremendous hurry to save their skins, they might quite easily have bagged the Commander-in-Chief with the whole of the personal and general Staffs’.[5] Botha established his temporary headquarters at Potmine to better control the widely separated commandos to his right and left.[6]

Moore-Ritchie reckons that these manoeuvres ‘broke all known marching records’. He describes the initial march from Riet to Kaltenhausen, one that would be repeated over and again in the coming week:

Left [Riet] at 8 p.m., trekked by moonlight along the Swakop River for three hours, outspanned till an hour before dawn, and made Salem at 6.45 a.m. on April 29. At 9.30 that morning the column moved on again, reached outspan at twenty miles by 1.35 in the afternoon, rested for an hour and a half and pushed on again till a quarter before midnight, when we rode into Wilhelmsfeste. But the water was at Kaltenhausen, some miles further ahead of this military post. We reached it at 1.15 on the morning of the 30th. Animals took two hours to water in the bitterly cold morning air. The guards had not taken two steps on their beat before the sand was littered with sleepers that looked like dead men. These sleeping columns, some ninety to a hundred miles from the coast, were now half way to Windhuk [sic].[7]

The route along the river was mined in places and Botha’s column sustained some casualties – three killed and others severely wounded – but on the whole the South Africans were alert to the common spots for mines and accordingly avoided them.

Some of the other commandos did more than 320 kilometres in five days, causing Moore-Ritchie to exclaim: ‘It was some trekking!’[8] Myburgh’s mounted brigades, especially Mentz’s 3rd, were pushed to the extreme of their endurance. After consulting with them at Kaltenhausen, Botha immediately dispatched Myburgh on to Otjimbingwe, some forty kilometres further on. The men and horses had barely rested before they set off. Luckily for the exhausted brigade, Otjimbingwe was quickly evacuated as the South Africans approached, yet Mentz’s men went beyond the call of duty and gave chase, capturing an officer and twenty-three men. The rest just managed to escape, thanks in part to the condition of the South African mounts, as well as a lack of local knowledge of the terrain, which created a gap for the galloping Germans to break through.

Otjimbingwe provided grazing and plenty of water, but the respite was to be short. A day later, Botha ordered Myburgh on another epic ride north to Wilhelmstal, a small station hamlet on the main railway line between Karibib and Okahandja. Here Myburgh blew up the line and destroyed the telegraph lines from Windhoek,[9] realising Franke’s worst nightmare and effectively cutting off the Schütztruppe from their capital. The road to Windhoek was now open.

Botha’s multi-prong attack on the enemy positions in the week following 28 April 1915

The brigade’s feat was all the more impressive given that the commandos were on tight food and water rations. They were remarkably resilient and self-sufficient: they could survive on a meagre diet of rusks and biltong for weeks without needing vegetables or vitamins. Such capabilities were first seen during the Boer War, when the British thought their scorched-earth policy would render the guerrilla commandos inoperable. Rusks and biltong could last weeks and even months. The latter could be generated on the hoof by shooting any variety of wild game, cutting the meat into strips and salting it. The hard sticks were then stuffed into pockets, coats or saddlebags and were continuously chewed like tobacco.

While Botha was at Potmine, Smuts came up from the south via Swakopmund to discuss tactics with his commander-in-chief. It was here that the decision was taken to disband the Southern Army.

Smuts was appalled to learn of the prime minister’s continued disregard for his own personal safety. Botha was often at the front lines of the fighting so he could get a clearer picture and take charge of procedures. This had certainly been the case at Riet, when he had moved up to the front to reorganise Brits’s defence and protect his artillery. On hearing about Botha’s brush with the Germans on the road to Potmine, Smuts demanded that Major Trew, the commanding officer of the prime minister’s bodyguard, never allow Botha to unnecessarily endanger himself again, to which Trew replied, ‘That’s all very well sir, but will you tell me what to do when the Commander-in-Chief tells me to go to hell?’[10]

At Potmine, Botha and Smuts received intelligence that Colonel Wylie had arrived at Kubas unopposed. This prompted Botha to redirect Alberts further upriver to the defensive positions at Groot and Klein Barmen, where they discovered the Germans hastily retiring north to Karibib. The enemy no doubt appreciated the value of Botha’s outflanking move and made the precautionary dash for Karibib lest they be cut off from Franke. Botha was now in a position to concentrate all his forces, currently spread across a 320-kilometre arc, on Karibib.

Skinner moved up the line from the west, Wylie and Brits from the south-west, Botha from the south and Myburgh down the tracks from the east.[11] Franke’s only option was to retire north along the Otavi line towards Omaruru, allowing Botha’s forces to enter Karibib unopposed on 5 May. The town was the cherry of the campaign. As Collyer neatly puts it:

Botha held a small portion of German territory on 28 April 1915

On April the 28th the German commander held by far the greater part of the protectorate and held and covered the capital, Windhoek, and the railway, which gave him power to concentrate and take the initiative. His opponent controlled merely that small portion of the country that lay behind their outposts. A week later General Botha’s movements had deprived the enemy of the capital, of his power of concentration for attack, of the initiative and of two-thirds of the settled portion of the Protectorate.[12]

A week later and a much altered picture. On 5 May, Botha is in control of two-thirds of the territory

On 6 May Botha himself rode triumphantly into Karibib. Here the South Africans came into contact with the German civilian population for the first time during the campaign. Botha was met by a nervous delegation headed by the mayor, who formally handed over the town and asked if the people could remain in their homes and not be deported. Of more importance, he asked if they could keep their own food supplies. There was a desperate shortage of food among the large bodies of troops moving into Karibib from all directions. Many of the soldiers were on their last rations and were doubtless expecting the population to provide. Botha, however, agreed to the request and issued a directive forbidding any member of his hungry army from looting food from the civilians.

Much has been made of the ‘stoical grit’ of the starving soldiers at Karibib.[13] Lieutenant Commander Whittall describes the weeks following the initial occupation: ‘To say that a virtual famine existed does not exceed the truth. Everyone was on the shortest of short rations. Even the hospitals were living from hand to mouth.’[14]

The food shortage was not unexpected. The lines of communication stretched some 250 kilometres from Swakopmund, up the Swakop River, to Karibib. The wagon mules were completely worn out and for the next three weeks only driblets of food made it through. The repairs to the Khan–Jakkalswater railway were still 100 kilometres short of Karibib. Communications were eventually switched back to the main line through Usakos, but that took a further two weeks to repair. Considering the dire supply circumstances, Collyer makes special mention of Lieutenant Colonel Collins, whose indefatigable energy in charge of the South African railway engineers helped to finish the line by mid-May, relieving Botha of a persisting logistical headache.[15]

Still, it was five weeks before rations and supplies began to arrive in sufficient quantities. The conduct of the South African troops during this time could not be faulted. Moore-Ritchie writes:

The very confidence of these German townspeople that they had nothing to fear from the hated troops of the Union of South Africa was eloquent … The news of the Lusitania massacre on the high seas reached Karibib just after occupation. Did one Teuton in the place have to suffer as a consequence even the insult of a word? No … General Botha’s forces had crossed a desert through which it was the open boast of the enemy that it was strewn with mines and with every well poisoned. Was a single defenseless citizen of Karibib the worse for it after the occupation? Not one. The greater part of General Botha’s forces were on a half – a quarter – an eighth rations when they made Karibib … they lived until all supplies could come up on less than one biscuit a day, a pinch or two of meal, and fresh meat. How much looting occurred in these towns? There was none worthy the name.[16]

Even the Germans acknowledged the behaviour of their captors. A local newspaper reported that the South Africans behaved ‘properly and courteously’ and ‘in such a way as becomes civilised soldiers’.[17] Indeed, the civilian population benefited from the occupation by selling their own food rations at ridiculously high prices, and the soldiers paid without so much as a mutter, such was their respect for their commander-in-chief’s orders.[18]

Karibib was a strategic centre as it commanded the main railway line from Swakopmund all the way to Windhoek, as well as the junction of the narrow-gauge track north to Tsumeb, up which the Schütztruppe and Seitz’s governmental entourage had hastily retreated as far as Omaruru.

Most German citizens realised they were fast losing their grip on the colony, but they hoped that the war in Europe would go in their favour. To deny the South Africans, Windhoek was abandoned by all military personnel, who joined Franke at Omaruru. The move paralleled that made by the Boers against the British over a decade earlier, when they abandoned the capitals of their two republics to fight a protracted guerrilla war.

Nevertheless, Windhoek remained a glittering prize. Botha sent Alberts from Barmen to join Mentz at Okahandja in order to secure his own route to the capital. Thanks to Smuts’s intelligence gathered after the battle at Gibeon, Botha knew von Kleist was moving somewhere to the east of Mentz, trying to link up with Franke. The prime minister set out to make that task more difficult and ordered some of Mentz’s commandos to go after von Kleist and push him wide of Omaruru, forcing him towards the Waterberg mountains. The commandos managed to capture 157 soldiers, although they were not part of von Kleist’s unit, belonging instead to a group retreating north after leaving Windhoek a couple of days earlier.

Without any German soldiers to defend it, Windhoek was ready for the taking. Botha ordered Alberts and the remainder of Mentz’s brigade to surround the capital and then took a motorcade to the outskirts of town. At 11 a.m. on 12 May, Botha met the mayor, who was ‘betraying symptoms of considerable nervousness’.[19] Under the shade of an acacia tree, Windhoek was ceremoniously handed over. An hour later, it was swarming with South African troops.

The wireless station was intact, but the Germans had removed or destroyed the working parts before the South Africans arrived. That they had left the mast revealed the Germans were convinced the occupation was just temporary.[20] They were sure their troops in Europe would defeat the Allies and the colony would be regained. Reitz, who was fluent in German, noted this sentiment when he and his motoring comrades entered Windhoek from the south a day after the occupation. The German newspapers ran daily articles hinting at the temporary nature of the situation. One reads:

The early occupation of Windhoek by the South African forces is unavoidable … The occupation can at most continue for a week or two as dire calamity has overtaken the Allies in Europe … we may say with confidence that the enemy’s banner will not long float over us.[21]

The civilians were polite yet aloof, says Reitz. They were seemingly confident that the South Africans would soon pay dearly for having challenged the might of imperial Germany. But Reitz knew from his own bitter experience in the Boer War that they were just trying to keep their chins up.[22]

By occupying Windhoek, Botha had achieved all the strategic objectives laid out by the subcommittee of the Committee of Imperial Defence. By all accounts, he had done his job and could now pack his bags and go home. But Botha had his own ideas. ‘Botha’s aims were patently South African rather than imperial,’ notes Hew Strachan.[23] The prime minister could now focus on his own plans. But he worried that the Schütztruppe would resort to guerrilla warfare, just as he and the other Boer generals had done so successfully against the British. The land to the north, where the Germans had retreated, was conducive to a protracted guerrilla campaign, as the region was vast, included large, unexplored tracts of Portuguese territory, and provided better grazing and game than the south of the colony. Botha knew that hunting down small bands of Schütztruppe in this thickly bushed environment would be near impossible.

Yet for him it was essential that the Germans be completely defeated, and quickly. He did not want them to retain sufficient territory to uphold Germany’s claim to the colony if peace negotiations were to take place in Europe. He was also mindful of the effect of a drawn-out campaign on the South African public back home. When Reitz arrived in Windhoek, Botha expressed to him his concern that Hertzog and the nationalists were ‘conducting unceasing propaganda against the expedition’.[24] He was keen to wrap things up as soon as possible.

Thus, with Mentz’s 3rd Mounted Brigade duly installed to mind the capital and its civilians, and Berrangé’s 5th Regiment of Mounted Riflemen policing the southern sector of the colony, Botha hurried back to Karibib to plan his final move.

12

In for the kill

GERMAN GOVERNOR THEODOR SEITZ was in no mood to adopt guerrilla tactics. Neither was his military commander. Unlike von Lettow-Vorbeck in East Africa, Franke, based on recent experience, believed that the South African commandos would easily overrun small isolated bands of German troops. Furthermore, he could not rely on African villages for supplies as his counterpart did in East Africa, because most tribes in the South West were unsympathetic to the German cause, especially after what had befallen the Herero and Nama. German-owned farms would not be able to supply all the troops, and even if they did, they would attract the wrath of the South African soldiers. As both Franke and Seitz were at pains to maintain the safety of civilians, they would not even consider this last option.[1]

The Germans’ air support had by now also ceased operations. Fiedler’s Aviatik had suffered permanent mechanical failure and Trück’s aeroplane was also damaged beyond repair. Von Scheele flew his last mission sometime in May, crashing into a thorn tree near Karibib. He survived, but his Roland did not. It was von Scheele’s eighth crash in the war and the fourth in which he sustained injuries.

Nevertheless, had Franke the inclination for guerrilla warfare, it may have lengthened the campaign considerably, a possibility that Botha could ill afford. It was arguably Franke’s best course of action and it certainly would have been Botha’s had he been in the German commander’s position. The Ovambo, for instance, had never liked the Herero and were relatively sympathetic to the colonialists, particularly after Franke routed the Portuguese in Ovamboland. A protracted guerrilla campaign using Ovambo bases in the north of the colony and in present-day southern Angola may have proved worthwhile. Franke did consider it, but a famine was raging across Ovamboland at the time and he may have felt it would be too much to test the fragile goodwill of starving villagers.[2] He did not discount guerrilla warfare entirely, but he believed he still had one or two other options available to him.

With Botha busy mobilising the largest force of the campaign at Karibib, Seitz and Franke decided to sue for peace on terms that would favour continued German governance. The two men, like many of their compatriots, were convinced that Germany would succeed in Europe. Their objective in opening talks with Botha was twofold: firstly, they wanted to retain enough territory in the colony to uphold Germany’s claim to it when European peace negotiations commenced and, secondly, they hoped to sidestep their inexorable defeat.

Botha received Seitz’s written request for a ceasefire from a dispatch rider who intercepted his motorcade as he was travelling back from Windhoek. At midday on 20 May, at the base of a hill called Giftkop, roughly midway between Karibib and Omaruru, Botha, Seitz and their respective staff met under the umbrella-like shade of an acacia tree. Collyer, who sat next to his commander-in-chief, says the meeting was ‘conducted virtually entirely by the Governor who was vehement, and even aggressive, in his bearing’.[3] He describes Seitz as a small man who ‘made up for his lack of inches by occasionally impressive utterances, and once or twice threatened his auditors with the displeasure of sixty millions of Germans’.[4] According to Meintjes, Seitz actually said something like:

Mr Botha you are not an Englishman. Your people were robbed of their country by the English. We wish to be your friends. Are you now prepared, on behalf of your people, to incur the hatred of seventy million Germans?[5]

Botha responded that he was. Echoing Reitz’s earlier sentiments concerning the attitude of the German civilians in Windhoek, Collyer notes that the governor’s bolshie demeanour clearly indicated he was bluffing and that in reality his morale was low.[6]

In contrast to Seitz’s ‘aimless discussion’, Franke, in full uniform with sword, medals and tassels, hardly spoke.[7] Perhaps it was in deference to his governor or, more likely, to Botha, whom he had not met before but must have admired as a soldier.

The gist of Seitz’s diatribe was to cease hostilities between the two armies and maintain a status quo. The South Africans could remain in occupation of their recently conquered territory, while the Schütztruppe would be in charge of their section to the north until the end of the war when a European peace treaty would decide the fate of the colony. Botha listened patiently for a long time, ‘due mainly to his own reluctance to wound the feelings of Dr. Seitz’, once again displaying his characteristic conciliatory nature through calm and attentive conduct.[8] When Seitz eventually ran out of steam, Botha simply and politely replied that unconditional surrender was all he would accept. The meeting terminated amicably and the men went back to their respective lines, Botha to prepare for his advance and Seitz for his retreat.

The South African lines of communication were finally running smoothly and Skinner, now a brigadier general, had been given charge of them. With his customary nervous energy, and with the help of the 3rd and 5th infantry brigades and the Cape Town Highlanders, he had completely overhauled and reorganised the supply lines. There were now enough horses, wagons and ammunition to enable each of Botha’s five advancing brigades.

It was during this period in Karibib that the South African Aviation Corps (SAAC), the forerunner of the South African Air Force, was deployed for its first ever operation. Back in 1912, General C.F. Beyers had told Smuts of the value of aircraft for military purposes. On Beyers’ advice, Smuts had immediately ordered the establishment of a military flying school in Kimberley. The first South African military pilot, Lieutenant Kenneth van der Spuy, graduated on 2 June 1914 and the SAAC officially came into being on 29 January 1915.[9]

Botha had been impressed with the reconnaissance and strafing results of the German airmen during the opening phase of the war and, as a result, had ordered some aeroplanes for himself. He was itching to counter the German monopoly of the vast Namibian sky. An airstrip was consequently built at Walvis Bay and the first South African military operational airfield was constructed at Karibib in early June 1915. The first aeroplanes to arrive at Walvis Bay were six French-manufactured Henri Farman HF-27s.[10] The Farmans were chosen over British and American models as their steel-tube fuselages were deemed more suitable to the hot, dusty desert conditions than the wooden construction typical of Anglo-American aircraft.

The aeroplanes were practically obsolete in the European theatre of operations by the time they arrived in Karibib in June, the model having undergone a series of modifications to correct its reputation for being underpowered. Botha, however, was no longer concerned with power or manoeuvrability, since the three German aircraft were out of commission by then. He would use the aircraft primarily for reconnaissance and the odd (ineffectual, as it turned out) bombing raid, in which the pilot would drop hand grenades.

On 18 June, with the airfield now on line, Botha rode out of Karibib. Brits was ahead of him with 1 500 rifles and four 13-pounder quick-firing artillery guns, making directly for the German lines at Omaruru. Lukin, now back in action, was to leave his base at Usakos with 2 200 rifles and another four 13-pounders, and move in a sweeping arc from the west via Erongo to slot in on Brits’s left flank. Newly promoted Brigadier General Beves was to follow Lukin’s 6th Mounted Brigade with the 1st Infantry Brigade of 2 550 rifles, a further four 13-pounders, a number of Howitzers of various calibres and the Royal Navy armoured car division. Brits’s right flank, far to the east, was to be manned by Myburgh with the 2nd Mounted under Alberts and the right wing of the 3rd Mounted under Lieutenant Colonel Jordaan. Equipped with some 13-pounders and two 12-pounder naval guns, they were to chase down von Kleist, who was moving in the direction of the Waterberg mountains. Between Myburgh and the main body was another newly promoted brigadier general, Botha’s nephew Manie and his 5th Mounted Brigade of Orange Free Staters.[11]

By the time Brits arrived in Omaruru on the morning of 20 June, the Schütztruppe were gone, having retreated along the railway line but not before blowing up the bridge spanning the river. Over the next twelve hours, Botha, Lukin and Beves joined Brits at Omaruru, while Manie Botha and Myburgh had minor engagements with the retreating Germans as they pushed north in their respective sectors. Each lost a man in the fighting.

It was while he was at Omaruru that Botha ordered the first South African–piloted military aeroplanes to take to the skies. He was thrilled with the reconnaissance results, exclaiming ‘now I can see for hundreds of miles’.[12] It was a welcome change for the commander-in-chief, who had spent hours peering through binoculars from the tops of sun-exposed rocks.

The aeroplanes were a timeous addition, for the battle was about to move into thick, undulating bushveld, which made accurate ground surveillance of enemy movements almost impossible. After their very first mission, the pilots were able to accurately report that the Germans were not digging in at Kalkfeld as expected.

On the evening of the 20th, after Botha spent the day on the hill just outside Omaruru reconnoitring the land to the north with his trusty binoculars, the advance resumed.[13]

Today, in contrast to Karibib, Omaruru is quite pretty. It has a broad avenue lined on either side with large shady trees and old colonial buildings. Apart from the modern petrol stations and the tar on the main road, the place has changed little since 1915. If Louis Botha were to see it now, he would recognise most of its features, including the old railway bridge and Franke Tower, a tall stone tower with a castellated top. European in its design, it is dedicated to Erich Viktor Carl August Franke, commander of the Schütztruppe in German South-West Africa.

Franke was something of a hero in Omaruru, having come to the town’s rescue when it was besieged during the Herero uprising in February 1904. It seems he conducted a Botha-style march from Gibeon, covering 400 kilometres in just over two weeks, to relieve the town with numerically inferior numbers. In recognition of this feat, the town fathers erected the strange tower in his honour.

Kalkfeld is a settlement between fifty and sixty kilometres up the railway line from Omaruru. According to Moore-Ritchie, ‘It had been predicted with the utmost confidence that the Germans would here put up a fight.’[14] Indeed, Collyer notes: ‘If the German Commander intended to make a stand anywhere, nature had furnished him with a position at Kalkfeld ideal for the purpose.’[15] Botha could therefore hardly believe his airmen’s report that the Germans had abandoned yet another strong defensive position. It was nevertheless confirmed when his nephew occupied Kalkfeld on the morning of 24 June, having rapidly swept in from the east ahead of Lukin in an unsuccessful pincer effort to cut off the retreating Schütztruppe.

An exasperated Botha abandoned his bodyguard at Omaruru, got in a car and drove to meet Manie at Kalkfeld, arriving later that morning. He decided then that a far wider and faster sweeping manoeuvre was required if the South Africans were to catch the slippery Germans before they decided to entrench themselves behind their last available natural defences at Otavi or Tsumeb, or ran out of railway line and were forced into using guerrilla tactics.

Pushing his men and horses to their limits, Botha hurried a further fifty to sixty kilometres up the track, making for Otjiwarongo. Denied rest and time to consider their position, the Germans were forced to shift up the line to Otavi. At Otjiwarongo, the South Africans encountered surface water for the first time on the campaign, but Botha was not about to hang around to water and rest his troops.[16] He ordered them on after less than a day.

After Omaruru, the geography flattens out and is overtaken with low dense shrub. Even though the vast area is densely wooded, it is not quite good enough for agriculture, as there is not enough water to sustain major crops. It is not suited to cattle ranching either. The cattle, although ‘Africanised’ as semi-browsers, still prefer to graze and this is exclusively browsing country. One can understand Botha’s wish to pass through the region quickly. Apart from the dams around Otjiwarongo, there is little food and water for horses.

Botha had lost contact with Myburgh, now far on his right flank, but was unconcerned. He knew that his dependable general was probably well on his way to the Waterberg. In fact, Myburgh was already there, having chased von Kleist’s haggard troops from that mountain range, incidentally the scene of the Hereros’ last stand against the Schütztruppe in 1905. When communication was eventually established with Myburgh, Botha ordered him to ride on quickly to Grootfontein, east of Otavi.

In the meantime, Brits was instructed to encircle the Germans from the west with the 1st Mounted Brigade. It was to be an epic ride: Botha expected them to cover some 400 kilometres of thick bush, moving in a large arc from Otjiwarongo via Outjo and Okaukuejo to the German fort of Namutoni. Located on the south-western rim of the giant Etosha saltpan, these days Okaukuejo is a sprawling rest camp complete with lawns and a swimming pool. From there, Brits was to ride due east to the eastern rim of the pan and attack the white-walled fort, which is today also preserved as a rest camp in the Etosha National Park.

The capture of Fort Namutoni had long been part of Botha’s plan.[17] As early as April, he had learnt from wireless interceptions that the fort held a large number of prisoners of war who had been convalescing there since the reversal at Sandfontein; but, more importantly, the fort was a vital link in the German line of escape should they decide to flee to Ovamboland. With Namutoni in Botha’s hands, guerrilla warfare would be even less appealing to Franke. Furthermore, if Franke were to somehow check Botha’s advance up the railway line, he would also have to contend with Brits, who would threaten his rear, as would Myburgh if he was successful in taking Grootfontein.

It was essential that the outflanking move on Namutoni be conducted with the utmost secrecy, otherwise Franke would clearly detect the ruse. This explains Brits’s early breakaway from the main body at Otjiwarongo. The manoeuvre was so wide that the Germans would not be able to see the dust column from their positions along the railway line.

Brits’s ride was an extreme test of endurance for both man and horse, one that equalled if not bettered T.E. Lawrence’s overland journey with Arab rebels to take the Turkish-held port of Aqaba two years later. Interestingly, the only casualties of Brits’s epic ride were not the horses but the armoured cars of the Royal Navy attached to his brigade. The rough roads and heat proved too much for the Rolls-Royces and they were returned to Botha, who was able to make better use of them along the relatively graded wagon track that ran alongside the railway line.[18]

By 27 June, according to Botha’s aerial reconnaissance, the Schütztruppe had halted at Otavi, eighty kilometres from Otjiwarongo.[19] It was here that Franke decided to make use of the natural features and dig in. The track was running out, yet Franke was determined to hug the umbilical cord of his railway line, which terminated at Tsumeb thirty kilometres ahead. If he was to buy any more time, it would have to be here.

Otavi was strategic for the defenders for two reasons: it had good natural defences, especially to the east of the railway, and it had plenty of water in the rear for the defenders, with none in front for the attackers. Collyer calculated that the Germans had to check the South Africans for just two days before the attackers would be forced to return to Otjiwarongo for water.[20] Franke entrusted Major Ritter with securing the defences and gave him seven companies with ten machine guns and a staggering thirty-six artillery pieces, including one of the 13-pounders captured at Sandfontein.[21] This was a considerable amount of firepower compared to what the South Africans had. The latter had been forced to sacrifice their heavy artillery for greater mobility.

Leaving Ritter in charge, Franke retreated to the rear at Tsumeb, where he made his headquarters. Here he could rely on another considerable munitions arsenal, as well as two regular and three reserve companies at Khorab Station in between himself and Ritter’s forward position. Franke believed he could hold back the South African horsemen, at least long enough for Botha to reconsider the peace terms. He also believed he had left enough space between himself and Botha to prepare his defences. But, like von Kleist at Gibeon, Franke underestimated the speed of the South African advance.

For the umpteenth time, the Germans wrongly assumed that the South Africans would make exclusive use of the railway line, which they would have to repair as they advanced. But Botha once again proved that horsepower and speed were king in this environment. Galloping along the road parallel to the damaged tracks, early on the morning of 1 July – less than forty-eight hours after the German forces arrived in Otavi – the first South African troops appeared on the horizon, with Botha among them. The Germans were flabbergasted.

Ritter had not had adequate time to prepare his defences.[22] Before they could even set up machine-gun and artillery positions, let alone build schanzes or dig trenches, the South Africans swooped in on the German positions. Manie Botha’s 5th Mounted Brigade led the charge directly up the railway line, while Lukin’s 6th Mounted branched off to the right to attack the positions on Elefantenberg, an oblong mountain jutting perpendicularly east of the railway. Botha, following his nephew’s Free Staters up the line in a car, brought up the immediate rear. His motorcade had to exercise some caution because the Germans had managed to lay a few mines on the roads. Lukin had to contend with the bulk of them on the eastern road, but he prudently kept his horses off the worn defiles as they steadily encircled Elefantenberg.

Botha was just minutes from his front lines, which had already begun to engage the first German outposts.[23] After pausing briefly to learn the name of a mortally wounded young Free Stater on the roadside, he continued hot on the heels of the 5th Mounted, who had by then brought up their light artillery to fire on the half-entrenched Germans on the western spur of Elefantenberg. The dense bush hampered proper communication between the forces converging on Otavi and so Botha decided to position himself between his two brigades to manage the operation more effectively, even though it put him dangerously close to the action. Ingeniously, he used motor-cyclists to dispatch messages to both generals.[24] It was another first for South Africa. Until then, these messengers were nicknamed ‘gallopers’ for the horses they used.

Botha was concerned about the excellent natural defences and thick cover that the area offered the defenders, and was convinced he was pitted against the full might of the Schütztruppe. Despite not having all his guns in place, Ritter could still conduct a partial artillery assault and disrupt the South African attack, which was already disconnected by thick bush and dust. But the Germans were erring on the side of caution. Instead, Ritter deployed in depth by staggering and splitting his lines between Lukin and Manie Botha. His objective was to enact a fighting retreat away from Otavi and off the Elefantenberg back towards Otavifontein and the protection of the Otavi Mountains.

Pushing man and beast to the limit. Botha initiates great sweeping manoeuvres in an effort to surround the entire German force at Otavi and Tsumeb

Ritter was, in fact, retiring to a far stronger defensive position. The Otavi Mountains in the north and the Elefantenberg in the south formed a neat horseshoe on three sides of a valley that opened to the west where a secondary railway line branched off for Grootfontein. Naturally, the spirited commandos of Manie’s 5th Mounted Brigade gave chase and charged straight into this enclosed valley before Ritter was able to properly prepare his artillery positions. If he had had even an hour, the South Africans would have been blown to pieces.[25] But Manie, astutely aware of their predicament, had made a choice – to charge in rather than retreat. Says Collyer admiringly:

The 5th Mounted Brigade had become committed to their tactical enterprise in the manner in which commando units often entered a fight induced by the instinct of the individual to take a sudden line of action.[26]

The speed of the attack sent the Schütztruppe into a panic and they bolted, leaving three dead, eight wounded, twenty bewildered prisoners and the last of their natural defences defenceless. Botha and his chief of staff were baffled as to why the Germans fell back this last time. Although the number of South African soldiers facing them was approximately equal to theirs – about 3 500 rifles – the Germans held the high ground and had considerably more heavy guns. Why not choose to stand and fight?

The South Africans were not complaining. When Manie Botha pushed Ritter off the Otavi Mountains, he secured the best water of the whole campaign for the Union forces.[27] The train station at Otavifontein was the source of a clear, strong-flowing rivulet. It would have been a useful base for the South Africans had the campaign been prolonged.

Ritter’s retreat from Otavi should have pushed the Germans into the wilderness, but when Brits suddenly appeared and took Fort Namutoni from its astonished defenders without firing a shot, Franke could no longer see a way to guerrilla warfare. And when Myburgh, nipping at the heels of von Kleist’s ragged column, appeared at Grootfontein, equally out of the blue, the German commander gave up on the idea entirely. Grootfontein was actually captured by a lone signaller, Captain Poole. Customarily ahead of the main column, he was offered and accepted the surrender of the small town.

Franke failed to recognise that he still had one roll of the dice left. Thanks to continued air reconnaissance, Botha was aware that the combined German force directly facing him was far stronger numerically and in terms of firepower than his own two brigades. Brits and Myburgh were too far away to lend any immediate assistance should the Germans have chosen to counterattack.[28] In addition, at that stage Botha had not yet received word from Brits at Namutoni and had no idea where he was, while Beves’s four infantry battalions and the heavy artillery were still five days behind. The 1st Infantry Brigade’s gamely march at an astounding average speed of twenty-two kilometres a day for sixteen consecutive days is a world record by some accounts.[29] Nevertheless, Botha still had to wait for them to catch up before they could be brought into action. Furthermore, after days continually on the move, the horses of the 5th and 6th Mounted were in no condition to press home their advantage, and both brigades were forced to remain at Otavi and Otavifontein to recuperate.

All of this gave the Germans more than enough time to regroup for a counterattack, and indeed, on 2 July, air reconnaissance revealed that Franke had gathered almost all of his forces at Khorab Station. It certainly appeared as if an attack was imminent. But it never came. Collyer believes that had Franke counterattacked at that moment, he almost certainly would have pushed Botha’s two exhausted brigades back. He would then have been able to deal with Brits and Myburgh one at a time.[30] Oddly, there was an intention to counterattack. The South Africans at Otavi picked up a written order left behind by the retreating soldiers. Issued by Franke, it read: ‘The time to retire and avoid the enemy is now past. We have arrived at the stage where we must and will fight.’[31]

For some reason, instead of fighting, on 3 July Franke persuaded a reluctant Seitz to send a message to Botha requesting a cessation of hostilities. At their second meeting, Seitz again hailed the strong position of the German armies in Europe and proposed to maintain the status quo. Botha flatly refused, aware that his position was becoming less tenuous by the hour with Franke’s reluctance to act decisively.

Brits’s capture of Fort Namutoni ultimately prompted Franke to begin persuading Seitz to surrender. The Schütztruppe were surrounded and, he believed, irretrievably hemmed in. It would be a fruitless exercise to continue to fight and unnecessarily waste men’s lives. It was an unusual argument in a war made infamously iniquitous by decisions that cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

Botha, in the meantime, sent a motor car with a message for Myburgh. He was to move on Tsumeb and attack it from the north. Unbeknown to Botha but known to the German command, after releasing the detachment of prisoners at Namutoni, Brits had begun probing south towards Tsumeb as well.

13

Kilo 500

ON 4 JULY, AN increasingly desperate Seitz dispatched another message, this time requesting a meeting to discuss terms for unconditional surrender. Botha agreed to meet on 6 July midway between Otavi and Khorab, at Kilo 500. The Germans marked the railway from Swakopmund to Tsumeb every kilometre. Kilo or Kilometre 500 just happened to fall directly between the two forces. A local armistice was arranged, but Botha was careful to exclude Myburgh and Brits so as not to interfere with their advances. Seitz received this news both verbally and in writing from Botha’s chief of staff, Collyer.[1]

On the morning of 6 July, Beves led the 1st Infantry Brigade and the heavy artillery into Otavi. With their arrival, Franke’s last window of opportunity closed and Botha was now in a position to lay out his terms with the utmost confidence in his military strength, even though he still had no idea as to Brits’s whereabouts, or Myburgh’s for that matter. Myburgh’s horse-men had finally overrun the disorientated von Kleist and were now swarming into Tsumeb. It was the last skirmish of the campaign, although no one realised it at the time. When Myburgh entered Tsumeb, he freed the main body of prisoners of war, including Lieutenant Colonel Grant and the men who fought at Sandfontein, as well as those unfortunate souls who had refused Maritz’s call to rebel at Kakamas. There were also a handful of Portuguese soldiers who had been taken prisoner at Naulila and Mucasso. The released prisoners were given arms and handed the duty of guarding Tsumeb while Myburgh prepared to move on Khorab if the time came.

At Kilo 500, Seitz was a different man to the garrulous governor of the previous meetings. Now taciturn and anxious, it was clear that he was finding defeat a bitter pill to swallow. However, as Collyer wrote, ‘the helplessness of an adversary was a pure passport to General Botha’s sympathy and he endeavoured … to mitigate the soreness of defeat’.[2] The prime minister was prepared to send the German reservist troops – the Burenvreikorps – home on parole. They could keep their rifles and horses, and continue life as before. Similarly, German civilians were allowed to remain where they were, and schools, farms and businesses could continue to function. The regular Schütztruppe units had to ‘accept the fortune of war’ and would be interned until peace was achieved in Europe.[3] Those few deemed a security threat would be deported after the war, while the rest could return to their lives in the colony or Germany. The officers could keep their swords and service pistols, but would be interned separately on various farms, rather than in the camps with the rank and file. (Botha, obviously alive to Omaruru’s affection for the colony’s last German commander, would comfortably intern Franke on a farm near the town for the remainder of the war.)

In a last-ditch attempt, Seitz openly accused Botha of arming coloured soldiers, wrongly suspecting a South African hand in the spontaneous Baster revolt earlier in the year.[4] No doubt he hoped that the Germans would be treated with more consideration for being on the receiving end of such a ‘heinous’ war crime. But Botha vehemently denied the accusation, forcing the German governor to change tack and accept the terms offered.

End game: the Schütztruppe are surrounded

Botha telegraphed his recommendations to Pretoria for approval by the Union cabinet and the British governor general to South Africa, Sydney Charles Buxton. He added this rider: ‘We are in a position where we can afford to be generous.’[5] Seitz tested Botha’s generosity somewhat when he asked, rather impetuously, if the Schütztruppe could keep their artillery, a request that was firmly denied.

This last may explain the Germans’ actions following the meeting. Under orders, a contingent of soldiers jettisoned most of the big guns, as well as wagonloads of ammunition and Willy Trück’s broken aeroplane, into the nearby deep-water lake of Otjikoto. Presumably the Germans wanted to prevent the South Africans getting their hands on their artillery. Whether they were afraid the South Africans would use the weapons against them in future campaigns in other theatres of war like East Africa, or whether they simply wanted to deny Botha the fruits of victory, we will never know as the Germans never recorded their reasoning.

It was at Kilo 500 that Botha finally learnt that Brits was in possession of Fort Namutoni. Franke did not hide his admiration for this feat and openly confirmed to Botha that if it were not for the Boer general arriving at Namutoni, he would most certainly have launched a counterattack.[6]

Botha was now eager to make contact with Brits and Myburgh so as to acquaint them with the latest developments and to check on their positions, ammunition supplies and other necessities, as there was still a small possibility of hostilities resuming. The quickest and easiest way to make contact was via the telephone at Franke’s headquarters in Khorab, a request for the use of which was readily granted. Botha’s adjutant, Captain Enselin, warned him that the line would be tapped and that the Germans no doubt understood Afrikaans. Botha accordingly spoke to his two brigadier generals, one after the other, in Zulu.[7] Since all three hailed from the same area near Zululand, they were well versed in the language and could freely discuss delicate matters without fear of being understood by eavesdroppers.

At his headquarters in Otavi on the morning of 8 July, Botha received both cabinet’s and Buxton’s approval of his recommendations, with some minor alterations. He immediately telegraphed these to Seitz, who responded that evening, arguing that some of the terms were unclear. Botha telegraphed back, stating matter-of-factly that there was no ambiguity and that if Seitz did not accept the terms by 2 a.m. the following day, hostilities would recommence. Botha had already instructed his forces to be ready, and in the early hours of the morning of the 9th he ordered his men to assemble in the freezing July air. While the 1st Infantry Brigade prepared to march straight up the line towards Khorab, Myburgh made ready to gallop in from the north from his position just south of Tsumeb, Manie Botha to flank from the east, and Lukin from the west.

Half an hour after the deadline had passed and with the men making their final checks, Seitz’s letter accepting the conditions of the surrender arrived.[8] Later that morning, Seitz, Franke and a number of their staff arrived at Kilo 500 by train to find Botha, Collyer and their attendants reclining around a table under the half-shade of Burkea africana, a wild syringa or Omuparara tree, a large deciduous tree that occurs all over tropical and sub-tropical Africa. At 10 a.m., German South-West Africa formally surrendered.

Seitz made one last attempt to extract better terms, which annoyed Franke who thought his soon-to-be ex-governor’s filibustering unbecoming of Botha’s generosity. Franke was overheard curtly berating Seitz for trifling over insignificant details. Botha, however, was courteous and deferential, and made an impression on the German commander when he took the tray of refreshments from an aide and personally handed them around.[9] After some further meek parley, the terms of surrender were agreed upon and the signatures of Botha, Seitz and Franke ratified the document. With that, the German occupation of South-West Africa ended and the first successful Allied campaign in the Great War concluded.

It was the British governor general, Viscount Buxton, who commissioned the plaque at Kilo 500 to commemorate what became known as the Treaty of Khorab. Buxton was touring the territory, now under his jurisdiction, in October 1919.[10] After the war ended on 11 November 1918, South-West Africa was declared a League of Nations Mandate territory under the Treaty of Versailles. South Africa was awarded the colony and made responsible for its administration, with the future possibility of permanent acquisition into the Union. The treaty was signed on 28 June 1919.

The Khorab Memorial is nothing spectacular. A small gravestone-style edifice, it was erected under the Omuparara tree where the actual signing took place. On the headstone, a brass plaque reads: ‘This marks the place where hostilities terminated in South West Africa, Khorab, 9th July 1915’. After J.B.M. Hertzog came to power in 1924, the memorial was all but forgotten until 1973, when the South African government finally declared it a national monument. Curiously, the government bestowed the same status on Franke Tower in Omaruru in 1964, almost a decade before they officially recognised Khorab. Franke’s exploits, it seems, were more important to the South African authorities than Louis Botha’s.

Today, the small town of Otavi consists of a large granary alongside the railway line, a couple of petrol stations, a motel and one or two B&Bs. There is not much for a tourist to see here, except the Khorab Memorial. But it is difficult to find. It stands hidden in deep, overgrown bush a short distance from the railway line and some kilometres north of the town. Barbed wire lies loosely about, obvious remnants of a fence once intended to keep out vandals but which has long ceased to fulfil its purpose. All that remains of the Omuparara tree is a burnt-out stump, and if it were not for a rough stone plinth around its trunk, one would not know it was the very tree underneath which the peace treaty was signed. A new one is growing in between the stump and the memorial, the only rejuvenation that this monument is ever going to get.

It is a shame that the monument – the testament to a campaign that changed the course of Namibian and South African history – has been wholly neglected, but unsurprising given the fixation of successive yet disparate governments with trying to write Botha out of the history books.

There is another memorial to the war nearby, although this one is incidental rather than intentional and can only be seen by scuba divers. Lake Otjikoto is Namibia’s premier diving destination for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is not a lake in the traditional sense, but rather a deep hole flooded by the natural water table that runs a few metres below the surface of the land. The hole is about 100 metres in diameter and was formed when a cave’s roof collapsed. Nearby Lake Guinas was formed in exactly the same way and it is assumed that a vast network of watery tunnels connects them, but this has yet to be proved. Otjikoto’s depth is unknown, as the lengths of its tunnels have never been explored, and the water is opaque, but otherwise it makes for excellent diving.

Secondly, Otjikoto and Guinas are home to a very rare species of cichlid, Otjikoto tilapia (Tilapia guinasana). This unique ten-centimetre-long iridescent fish actually originated in Lake Guinas, but was introduced to Otjikoto in order to safeguard the species from agricultural pesticides that had run into the former. What makes this little fish so fascinating is how it got to be here in the first place. The two lakes are hundreds of kilometres from the nearest surface water. One theory is that the underground network of tunnels is possibly far greater than anyone suspects. The fish may have been cut off by some natural change, such as a tunnel collapsing, and left to evolve alone in their small aquatic world.

Thirdly, and most fascinating of all, is the First World War military detritus in Lake Otjikoto, deposited there by the Schütztruppe just before they signed the Treaty of Khorab in July 1915. South African soldiers managed to recover most of the guns in 1916, including one of Grant’s 13-pounder quick-firing field guns captured at Sandfontein. They repaired them and, just as Seitz had feared, used them in the East African Campaign against the Schütztruppe. The same 13-pounder, number 289, went on to serve Smuts’s forces against the striking miners in Johannesburg in 1922. It is now on display at the Gunners’ Memorial in Potchefstroom.[11]

In 1983, a mining company called Tsumeb Corporation Limited commissioned divers from a local diving club to recover more of the guns. The divers hoisted up a few of the large German Leichte Feldgeschutz C73s, some smaller Gebirgs L/14 M98 cannons, a Krupp Pom-Pom gun, the twin of Grant’s 13-pounder (number 288), some shells and a transport wagon. The divers left a number of German artillery pieces and quite a few shells scattered along the various shelves in the lake for posterity, and today it is illegal to remove any more of the military detritus so recreational divers can enjoy a fine underwater military museum.

It is not just the artillery guns and ammunition that attract bubble-blowers from around the world, but also a sealed safe said to contain six million German gold marks. According to legend, this was most of the colony’s wealth taken directly from the coffers of the treasury when Seitz left Windhoek to join Franke at Omaruru. The safe has yet to be recovered and for now remains the stuff of legend.

The ancient San, and later the Ovambo, regarded the twin lakes of Otjikoto and Guinas with circumspection. No doubt the strange pair of shimmering ‘eyes’ in a land entirely devoid of natural surface water was regarded as haunted, and as a result locals never ventured near them. It therefore came as no surprise when one of the German soldiers apparently got entangled in a rope attached to a cannon as it was being tossed off the cliff into Otjikoto. The hapless gunner joined the weapons in their watery grave and locals swear that his ghost haunts the edge of the lake to this day.

The Tsumeb Museum located on Tsumeb’s main street is possibly the best historical testament to Botha’s war. Although small and unassuming, the museum houses all the guns that were retrieved in 1983, and the establishment has done an excellent job of restoring them. Grant’s light 13-pounder number 288 is there in shiny splendour alongside two similar-calibre Leichte Feldgeschutz C73s (the 13-pounder had a 7.64-centimetre calibre while the C73 had a 7.85-centimetre calibre). The 13-pounder has the name ‘Tulio’ crudely painted on its armour plate. Tulio was the name of one of the scuba divers who helped recover the guns from Otjikoto. True to San and Ovambo misgivings, when the 13-pounder was being lifted out of the lake the steel cable supporting it snapped and the violent recoil of one of the loose ends severed one of Tulio’s arms clean off. Could it have been the same gun that dragged the unfortunate Schütztruppe soldier to his death, or the one that took a direct shell hit at Sandfontein that killed its crew but only inflicted slight damage on the gun itself? Perhaps the 13-pounder quick-firing field gun number 288 is cursed.

The Krupp-manufactured Pom-Pom gun on display is a nasty weapon. Botha knew the small, light, easy-to-transport cannon that operates like a machine gun intimately. He had used it with devastating effect against the British during the Boer War at the Battle of Spioenkop, where the mighty British Army experienced one of its most humiliating and bloody defeats. In a battle that included the likes of Winston Churchill, as a war correspondent, and Mohandas Gandhi, as a stretcher-bearer, the pride of the British Army lost almost 250 men, many to the single Pom-Pom that raked their exposed position on the top of Spioenkop hill. Botha would not have relished the idea of the tables being turned on him in 1915, with his horse-men charging at entrenched Schütztruppe positions knowing how devastating this gun could be. Thankfully, the Germans were more concerned with saving their own corduroy-clad hides than cutting down the enemy.

Besides weaponry, the Tsumeb Museum is also in possession of the narrow-gauge steam engine that transported the German high command to the signing of the peace treaty at Kilo 500, as well as the chassis and gearbox of Governor Seitz’s Mercedes-Benz, which more than likely hustled the legendary safe of gold marks out of Windhoek. It is strange to think that were it not for the Germans jettisoning their artillery into Lake Otjikoto, this museum, the only one dedicated almost exclusively to Botha’s campaign, may never have existed. There are other exhibits on Tsumeb and the mine, but the artillery is by far its primary focus. It is another reminder of how Botha’s exploits have been allowed to be forgotten.

14

Reverberations

AFTER SIGNING THE Treaty of Khorab, Botha left the territory for good, having appointed Brigadier General Beves as interim military governor. As promised, the German soldiers and officers were interned in prisoner-of-war camps for the remainder of the war. Of the pilots, Lieutenant Alexander von Scheele was kept at a camp at Okahandja. After the war, he immigrated to Argentina before returning to Germany to join the Luftwaffe, where he attained the rank of major. He was eventually killed in an aeroplane crash in Spain shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. Lieutenant Paul Fiedler briefly returned to his native Austria, but moved back to South-West Africa where he managed a farm until 1926, when he again returned to Europe. Willy Trück lived a long life as a Namibian farmer and ultimately moved to Cape Town. He died in his home in Sea Point when he was well into his nineties, having lived through the history of aerial bombing, from his own humble beginnings to the launch of the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber.[1]

Prime Minister Botha arrived home to a rapturous welcome, greeted at the Union Buildings by an adoring crowd. The victory came at a time when the Allies desperately needed some good news. The horrors of trench warfare were starting to become apparent and the passenger liner RMS Lusitania had been sunk by German submarines only a month before, with a terrible loss of civilian life. Botha, commander of the first Allied victory in the field, became the hero the world sorely needed. His exploits were compared to a romantic medieval crusade, with horsemen fighting for their holy rights. Instead of tank and rocket, horse and nature dictated and directed proceedings. Even after modern technology – aeroplanes, armoured cars, anti-aircraft guns – was introduced, the campaign in South-West Africa remained a far cry from the mechanised hideousness of twentieth-century warfare.

For Botha, the campaign was more than the first victory in a global war. It was the first time South Africa had fought as a united country, with former foes fighting side by side. It must have pleased him that he had at least achieved some headway with his policy of reconciliation. It came at a huge cost though. While many of his close friends and comrades in arms continued the fight in German East Africa and in the trenches in France, Botha remained in South Africa where he despairingly tried to patch up his broken political relationship with the Afrikaner republicans, without success.

The insurrection of 1914 had developed into clear-cut party-political quarrels. Hertzog, who had remained so quiet throughout the rebellion, found his voice in the immediate aftermath and roundly condemned Botha for both causing the rebellion and initiating an unnecessary invasion of German South-West Africa. The nationalists at once martyred men like De la Rey, Beyers and Fourie, and lauded as heroes De Wet, Kemp and even the unpalatable Maritz.

On 20 October 1915, the general election for the second Union Parliament was held. To a man, the ex-rebels voted for Hertzog’s fledgling National Party. Deneys Reitz returned to his home in Heilbron in the Free State directly after the campaign to contest the seat. As a Botha man, he was beaten by a huge majority. The Free State was almost 100 per cent behind Hertzog. Overall, Botha remained in power that year, but the nationalists made great strides, becoming the country’s official opposition and forcing Botha into a coalition with the pro-British unionists. His popularity at home was clearly waning.

While Botha tried to quench the flames, the rest of the South African command went on to distinguish themselves and their country in the conflict abroad. After his stint in German South-West Africa, Brigadier General Henry Lukin’s star rose rapidly. Towards the end of 1915, he went with a brigade to Egypt to quell the Senussi uprising. The Senussi were a religious sect composed of tribesmen based in Libya and supported by the Ottoman Empire and the Germans to destabilise the British presence in Egypt. The Senussi crossed the frontier into Egypt with 5 000 rifles and Turkish artillery and machine guns, but were roundly defeated. Their leader, Jaafar Pasha, was captured in February 1916 by two regiments of South African infantry, some British detachments and a New Zealand regiment, all under Lukin’s command.

From Egypt, Lukin was sent to the Western Front, where he commanded the 1st South African Infantry Brigade in the trenches of France during the Battle of the Somme. The brigade became famous for valiantly holding the Allied front line at Delville Wood on 14 July 1916. Eighty per cent of Lukin’s force was killed, but the survivors bravely held the line in what was described as the bloodiest battle of the year. More soldiers were killed on the Somme than in any other previous campaign in the history of mankind. Lukin was promoted to major general after the battle. He was later appointed as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, and awarded the Order of St Michael and St George, the Order of the Nile and the Distinguished Service Order for his service in the Great War.[2]

Lukin died in 1925 in Muizenberg, Cape Town. There is a statue of him in the Company’s Gardens, near the national museum. The likeness of the major general, in khaki and riding boots, demurely looking down as he leans on his cane, is a bit out of place today, given South Africa’s current social and political climate.

Lukin’s immediate superior at Delville Wood was Major General Percy Skinner, the British Army officer who had played an important role in the South-West Africa campaign. He too served with distinction and was awarded a knighthood.

In 1916, Smuts, Van Deventer, Brits, Collyer, Reitz, Berrangé and Enselin, together with many of Southern Force’s commandos, took charge of the East African Campaign, taking over from the British command who were faring badly against the indomitable von Lettow-Vorbeck in German East Africa. Unlike his colleagues in the South West, von Lettow-Vorbeck had gone to ground and was fighting a successful guerrilla campaign, making excellent use of the African askaris and running rings around the British and Indian expeditionary forces.

Although Smuts, who was given overall command, and his dream team were more successful, they could not replicate Botha’s feat of the previous year, primarily because their horses dropped dead in their thousands from the ravages of the Tsetse fly. ‘Ultimately,’ says Hew Strachan, ‘all horses in East Africa would succumb to the fly.’[3] Without their mounts, the commandos were no longer mobile, the primary reason for their previous successes. Furthermore, the conditions in the tropics of Tanzania were entirely different to those in Botha’s desert environment.

Smuts was also faced with commanding a polyglot of British, Indian, South African, Rhodesian and African troops. His force consisted of ‘men of different nationalities, of different training, speaking different languages, with equipment of varying patterns, thrown together without any coordinated training to carry out an important operation in an unknown country’.[4] Von Lettow-Vorbeck, who knew both the terrain and the locals intimately, was willing and able to make use of native soldiers, as he lacked the racial prejudices of Seitz and Botha. The askaris would gain the grudging respect of the South Africans fighting opposite them; there was no denying that they were as good as the Boers when it came to guerrilla tactics.

In March 1917, Smuts was called to London to serve in the Imperial War Cabinet. It was Van Deventer who persevered in the endless cat-and-mouse game with the askaris, eventually taking over from Smuts’s unsuccessful British replacement as commander of the campaign. Van Deventer was now a lieutenant general of the British Army, much to the chagrin of the other British officers, especially those who had fought against him in the Boer War and whom he constantly teased for failing to capture or kill him. Apart from his near-inaudible rasp, Van Deventer did not speak any English and had to make use of an interpreter, which further infuriated his British subordinates.

Although he successfully hounded von Lettow-Vorbeck out of German East Africa and into Portuguese and British territory, Van Deventer never did catch the German commander. Von Lettow-Vorbeck gave the Portuguese and Northern Rhodesian regiments a thorough run-around before surrendering in Northern Rhodesia after the Armistice was signed in 1918.

At the end of the war, Van Deventer was knighted and awarded the Order of the Bath and the Order of St Michael and St George. He then, surprisingly, became an aide-de-camp to King George V, even though he still required an interpreter. In 1920, Sir Jaap van Deventer retired from the military and was given the Dekoratie voor Trouwe Dienst (Decoration of Devoted Service), a retrospective South African military award for distinguished service in the Anglo-Boer War. In 1922, Smuts hauled him out of retirement to assist in quelling the Rand Rebellion. Van Deventer died in a car accident shortly thereafter, apparently as a result of heart failure while driving. He was just forty-eight years old.

Botha continued to trade blows with the nationalists once the Great War was over, but his health was failing. Plagued with fatigue, he was unwell for most of 1919 yet still personally represented South Africa at the Treaty of Versailles in June, where, as a lone voice, he unsuccessfully lobbied for leniency regarding the treatment of the defeated armies. On his return to South Africa, Botha contracted Spanish influenza and died suddenly of heart failure on 27 August 1919. He was exactly one month shy of his fifty-seventh birthday. He was laid to rest in Heroes’ Acre in Pretoria.

Smuts took over from his old friend and over the years won and relinquished his hold on government in a protracted seesaw of ideologies and disjointed coalitions. Each time, however, the National Party strengthened its support base. Smuts, who was far less conciliatory than his predecessor, was unable to prevent the steady outflow of Afrikaners from his party. In the 1924 general election, Hertzog’s nationalists defeated the South African Party and came to power in coalition with the Labour Party.

Maritz had returned to South Africa in 1923 and later set about organising hard-line republicans to support the rise of Nazi Germany and harass South African Jews. His was a small-scale operation, however, and proved more of an embarrassment to the coalition government than anything else throughout the 1930s. By the time of his death in a car accident in Pretoria in 1940, he was a confirmed and committed Nazi. His antics provided fertile ground for ultra-right-wing Afrikaner movements such as the pro-Nazi separatist and paramilitary Ossewa Brandwag (Oxwagon Sentinel), which operated during World War II.

In 1933, Smuts’s South African Party formed a coalition government with the National Party and the following year they merged to form the United Party. Reitz became a member of Parliament during this time and notes that the aftermath of the South-West Africa campaign was still raging across the political field, almost twenty years after the fact.[5] Those dissatisfied with the merger broke off to form the Purified National Party. Led by the ultra-right-wing D.F. Malan, the new nationalists, taking a leaf from their forefathers, used opposition to South African participation in World War II to stir up anti-British feelings among Afrikaners.

The nationalists tapped into the old republican sentiment like never before, certainly more than Hertzog ever did. The age of the Boer generals had passed and the nationalists set about tightening their grip on South African politics. They effectively throttled the discombobulated opposition, who were at odds over how best to deal with the burgeoning political consciousness of black South Africans. Old and unprepared for the swell of Afrikaner nationalism, Smuts was defeated for good in the 1948 general election.

A few months after his eightieth birthday in 1950, Smuts suffered a heart attack and died. Malan and his cronies went about resurrecting the strong isolationist and separatist sentiments of the Afrikaners and began to implement the first of the infamous policies of apartheid, an ideology that would be enshrined during the 1960s under Hendrik Verwoerd. With Verwoerd at the helm, the rebels’ cherished republican dream was at last realised. On 31 May 1961, the fully independent Republic of South Africa replaced the Union of South Africa, and the break from the hated English was complete.

Verwoerd’s schemes, which were the ultimate manifestation of the republican ideology born in 1914, shaped South Africa as we know it. Tensions among its disparate people still exist and South Africans remain inextricably bound to their politics. In his 1915 election campaign, Reitz poignantly said of South African voters: ‘We are a race of politicians.’[6] One hundred years later, we still are.

In part thanks to Botha’s invasion of German South-West Africa, the architects of apartheid got their claws into that territory as well. Despite the prime minister’s audacious claim to Churchill that he would kick the Germans out of South-West Africa, at the end of the campaign he allowed the defeated German colonists to stay. It was typical of his conciliatory nature. The Germans, in turn, welcomed the South Africans as their landlords. The racial and cultural ideologies of the two white races were similar, and the Germans were not too unhappy about being vanquished as long as their way of life changed little.

Almost immediately after the Treaty of Versailles was signed, the new South African overlords began implementing racial segregation over the border. In 1922, Smuts ruthlessly crushed an armed uprising by the Bondelswarts, the Nama tribe of Warmbad in the south of the territory, who had come to realise that their new masters were no different to their old ones. Smuts was chastised by the League of Nations for his brutality in quashing the insurrection. He had used the air force to hunt down the Bondelswarts and in the process air-bombed women and children, as well as their flocks of sheep and goats. It was an act that prompted the League to permanently reserve handing over South-West Africa to South Africa as a fifth province.

In the decades that followed, the League and eventually the United Nations doggedly refused the occasional request from South Africa for complete acquisition, but were unable, or unwilling, to prevent South Africa enforcing its racial policies in the ex-German territory. From 1948, apartheid laws were enacted in South West Africa as they were in South Africa.

In 1960, to gain the cherished dream of a republic, Prime Minister Verwoerd held a referendum for white South Africans. It was a tightly contested poll, as the winning margin in favour of a republic ended up being just 2 per cent. In order to secure the outcome in his favour, Verwoerd had made the unprecedented move of enfranchising white voters from South West Africa. It could therefore be argued that it was the German vote that ultimately gave South Africa total independence from Britain.

In the 1970s and 1980s, South West Africa experienced a rebellion not too dissimilar to the one in South Africa in 1914. This one, however, was a lot more vicious, protracted and deeply complex. The South West African branch of the Ovambo tribe, in particular, was proving to be a headache for the South African authorities. The Ovambo freedom fighters of the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) were operating from bases immediately across the border in Angola, the government of which was assisting in arming and training them. The Angolans were keen to see off the South Africans because Pretoria was arming Angola’s rebel movement, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

The conflict was a real rats’ nest of who was supporting whom, made even more complicated by the fact that it was a hot sideshow of the Cold War. On the one hand, the Angolan government and SWAPO were supported in the field by contingents of Cuban soldiers sent by Fidel Castro and financed by the Soviet Union. The South African forces, on the other hand, were using local San and Nama trackers and had the support of the territory’s German citizens as well as the Himba, who traditionally hated the Ovambo. In addition, the United States was secretly bolstering the South Africans both financially and militarily. It can be argued that American involvement with South Africa propped up the creaking edifice of apartheid for at least a decade longer. While the Reagan administration paid lip service to the global clamour to end racial segregation in South Africa, they underhandedly needed the whites-only South African government for their own regional interests.

In the 1980s, South Africa’s head of state P.W. Botha, who was neither related to nor nearly as statesmanlike as Louis Botha, intensified the war in South West Africa and Angola. At this stage, conscription was at its height, and all able-bodied white males, upon leaving school or university, had to serve a two-year term in the South African Defence Force, which often meant spending time on ‘the Border’ between northern South West Africa and southern Angola, fighting for an ideology that often was not their own. It was a particularly dirty war for both soldier and civilian. The scars of those still living along the border between Angola and present-day Namibia run very deep.

The conflict variously known as the South African Border War or the Angolan Bush War began to wind down in 1988 with the withdrawal of foreign forces from Angola. South Africa agreed to hand over control of South West Africa to the United Nations, which set about preparing the territory for independence. Democratic elections were held in November 1989 and on 21 March 1990 Namibia became the last African country to rid itself of colonial rule.

The Namibia of today feels no different from South Africa. The languages, infrastructure, culture and outlook are so South African that the place could be mistaken for another province of the republic. There is one standout difference, however. There are still many German-speaking Namibians, and lately German tourists. They disgorge from Lufthansa jets in Windhoek to visit the place that they still regard as within the German sphere of influence, much like Britons think of Jamaica or Kenya. It is somewhat strange, given that a century has passed since the Germans last governed here. And even when they did govern, it was for little more than three decades (1884 to 1915). This is the paradox of Louis Botha’s legacy – Germans and Afrikaners side by side as allies. It was Beyers and Maritz’s dream, but in the end it was Botha who realised it. South Africans and Germans both feel somehow connected to Namibia. It is as though they never left, and, in truth, many have not.

Louis Botha’s decision to invade German South-West Africa was less about placating Britain than about South Africa’s territorial aggrandisement. He wanted to absorb it, not administer it as a mandate. He had hoped that the German territory, along with other British-administered protectorates, would form part of a Greater South Africa. Had he not been so preoccupied with domestic strife, had he not died so prematurely, his dream may have eventually come to pass. Perhaps if Botha and not the impatient and unsentimental Smuts had faced the republican groundswell, it could have been tempered. In which case, maybe – just maybe – separatist white Afrikaner supremacy, and hence apartheid, would not have flourished as it did. Botha was the kind of man who would always eventually find the justness, or unjustness, in something. It is not unfeasible that he would have changed his stance on what was then called the ‘native question’. He was, after all, a man of the times and, as times changed, he certainly would have changed with them, as he had proved so often before.

As the first prime minister of a unified South Africa, Louis Botha was ostensibly the father of a nation, one that sadly rejected his legacy and continues to do so. He won the affection not only of those Afrikaner soldiers loyal to him, but of most English-speaking South African citizens and colleagues overseas as well. But it was not enough. While his exploits in German South-West Africa were regarded with an almost mythical reverence in Britain, at home his own brethren were determined to unseat him. It literally broke his great heart. Soon after his death he ceased to be a household name, as successive generations of Afrikaners were determined to forget the man they thought had betrayed them.

Winston Churchill and Botha had become close friends after the Anglo-Boer War. The two often joked about how the future prime minister of South Africa had personally captured the future undersecretary of state for the colonies during that war. Although not entirely true – Botha was nowhere near the armoured train that Churchill was travelling in when it was captured, although the captors certainly had been men under his command – Churchill nonetheless took the romantic view of the incident. He had grown quite fond of Botha and refused to accept any alternative version of events.

The two former foes saw a good deal of each other when Churchill was undersecretary between 1905 and 1908, a job that was dominated by South African affairs in the aftermath of the Boer War. In 1907, Churchill successfully lobbied Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s Liberal government to grant responsible rather than representative government to the two former Boer colonies, something that must have left Botha deeply indebted to his friend. Churchill’s act was possibly the primary reason Botha, as the newly elected prime minister of the independent Transvaal Colony, adopted such unwavering loyalty towards Britain, which he continued to exercise after the formation of the Union three years later.

After Botha’s death, it was Churchill who venerated him as the father of South Africa. He affectionately remembered the ‘grand rugged figure’, and described Botha as a ‘a wise and profound statesman, the farmer warrior, the crafty hunter of the wilderness, the deep, sure man of solitude’.[7] Of Botha’s military prowess, Churchill wrote in Great Contemporaries, ‘The three most famous generals I have known in my life … all begin with a “B”. They are General Booth, General Botha and General Baden-Powell.’[8] Of the three, Churchill would often say that Louis Botha was the greatest he ever knew.

Notes

CHAPTER 1: THE EMPIRE WRITES BACK

1Johannes Meintjes, General Louis Botha (London: Cassel & Company Ltd, 1970), p. 207.

2Hew Strachan, The First World War in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 65.

3J.J. Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915 (London: Imperial War Museum Department of Printed Books, 1937), p. 17.

4Ibid., p. 18.

5B.C. Judd, ‘Major General Sir Henry Timson Lukin KCB, CMG, DSO’ (South African Military History Society, Military History Journal 7 (3), June 1987).

6Ibid.

7Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, pp. 18–19.

8Ibid., p. 19.

9Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 63.

10Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 205.

11Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 64.

12Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 208.

13Ibid., p. 209.

14Ibid., p. 214.

15Ibid., p. 216.

16Ibid., p. 216.

17Ibid., p. 215.

18Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 64.

19Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 207.

20Ibid., p. 218.

21Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 71.

CHAPTER 2: GROUNDWORK

1Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 36.

2Maria Fisch, The Caprivi Strip During the German Colonial Period 1890 to 1914 (Windhoek: Out of Africa Publishers, 1999), pp. 123–5.

3Ibid., p. 140.

4Ibid., p. 137.

5Ibid., pp. 137–41.

6Ibid., p. 144.

7Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 78.

8Ibid., p. 79.

9Ibid., p. 79.

10Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, pp. 232–3.

11Deneys Reitz, Commando: Of Horses and Men (Edinburgh: House of Emslie, 2012), pp. 295–6.

12Ibid., p. 352.

13Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 29.

14Ibid., p. 29.

CHAPTER 3: THE SANDFONTEIN REVERSAL

1Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 35.

2Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 234.

3Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 34.

4Ibid., p. 31.

5Ibid., p. 36.

6Ibid., p. 37.

7Ibid., pp. 39–40.

8Ibid., pp. 39–40.

9Ibid., pp. 37–8.

10Ibid., p. 40.

11Ibid., p. 40.

12J.E.M. Atwell, ‘The Zandfontein disaster 1914’ (Imperial Research Circle, available at http://www.imperial-research.net/sandfontein.htm, last accessed 28 May 2014).

13Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, pp. 40–1.

14Atwell, ‘The Zandfontein disaster 1914’.

15Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, pp. 41–2.

16Atwell, ‘The Zandfontein disaster 1914’.

17Ibid.

18Ibid.

19Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 47.

20Ibid., p. 48.

CHAPTER 4: INSURRECTION

1Deneys Reitz, Trekking On: In the Company of Brave Men (Edinburgh: House of Emslie, 2012), p. 18.

2Ibid., p. 18.

3Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 235.

4Ibid., p. 235.

5Reitz, Trekking On: In the Company of Brave Men, pp. 20–1.

6Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 235–6.

7Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 71.

8Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 237.

9Ibid., p. 240.

10Eric Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field (London & New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1915), Project Gutenberg eBook, Part I, Section I.

11Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, pp. 242–3.

12Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, Part I, Section II.

13Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 243.

14Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, Part I, Section II.

15Reitz, Trekking On: In the Company of Brave Men, p. 35.

16Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 245.

17Reitz, Trekking On: In the Company of Brave Men, p. 36.

18Reitz, Commando: Of Horses and Men, p. 279.

19Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 49.

20‘Kakamas: Recon Abteiling von Hadeln’ (The Soldier’s Burden, available at http://www.trenchfighter.com/40029/150601.html, last accessed 28 May 2014).

21Ibid.

22Ibid.

23Ibid.

24Ibid.

25Ibid.

26Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 249.

CHAPTER 5: INTERLUDE

1Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 79.

2Fisch, The Caprivi Strip During the German Colonial Period 1890 to 1914, p. 143.

3Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 80.

CHAPTER 6: CENTRAL FORCE

1J.O.E.O. Mahnke, ‘Aircraft operations in the German colonies 1911–1916’ (South African Military History Society, Military History Journal 12 (2), December 2001).

2Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 93.

3Ibid., pp. 54–6.

4Ibid., p. 56.

5‘The man on the spot’ (Kalgoorlie Miner, 8 January 1908, available at http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90380013, last accessed 28 May 2014).

6R.E. Stevenson, ‘A carbineer remembers’ (South African Military History Society, Military History Journal 2 (2), December 1971).

7‘The man on the spot’.

8Stevenson, ‘A carbineer remembers’.

9Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 52.

10Ibid., pp. 53–4.

11Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 249.

12Mahnke, ‘Aircraft operations in the German colonies 1911–1916’.

13Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, pp. 79–80.

14Reitz, Trekking On: In the Company of Brave Men, p. 43.

CHAPTER 7: EASTERN FORCE AND MCKENZIE’S PURSUIT

1Walter H. Wills (ed.), The Anglo-African Who’s Who and Biographical Sketchbook (London: L. Upscott Gill, 1907), p. 441.

2Anne Samson, ‘South African mining magnates and World War One’ (unpublished academic paper presented as a lecture at Brenthurst Library to the Boksburg Historical Association, November 2012), p. 4.

3Ibid., p. 4.

4Ibid., p. 4.

5Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, pp. 80–1.

6Ibid., p. 81.

7‘Disaster at Gibeon Station’ (The Soldier’s Burden, available at http://www.trenchfighter.com/41815/205801.html, last accessed 28 May 2014).

8Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, pp. 89–90.

9Ibid., p. 81.

10Reitz, Trekking On: In the Company of Brave Men, p. 49.

11Ibid., pp. 44–5.

12Ibid., pp. 45–8.

13Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 82.

CHAPTER 8: NORTHERN FORCE

1Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 82.

2Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, pp. 57–8.

3Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 82.

4Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, Part II, Section I.

5Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 57.

6Ibid., p. 73.

7Ibid., p. 73.

8Ibid., pp. 57–9.

9Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 83.

10Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 60.

11Ibid., p. 61.

12Ibid., p. 62.

13Ibid., p. 61.

14Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, Part II, Section I.

15Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, pp. 256–7.

CHAPTER 9: THE HIPPODROME

1Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 83.

2Hartmut O. Fahrbach, Das Swakoptal (Swakopmund: Wissenscaftliche Gesellsschaft, 2011), pp. 10–11.

3Ibid., p. 15.

4Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 67.

5Ibid., p. 64.

6Ibid., p. 67.

7Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, Part II, Section II.

8Ibid.

9Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 65.

10Ibid., pp. 69–76.

11Ibid., pp. 71–2.

CHAPTER 10: COUNTERATTACK

1Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 77.

2Ibid., p. 77.

3Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 86.

4G.J.J. Oosthuizen, ‘The military role of the Rehoboth Basters during the South African invasion of German South West Africa, 1914–1915’ (Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies 28 (1), 1998).

5Ibid.

6Ibid.

7Ibid.

8Ibid.

9Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 86.

10Doreen Barfield, ‘The Battle of Trekkoppies’ (South African Military History Society, Military History Journal 2 (2), December 1971).

11Ibid.

12W.M. Bisset, ‘South Africa’s first anti-aircraft guns’ (Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies 8 (1), 1978).

13Ibid.

14Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 94.

15Ibid., p. 93.

16Ibid., p. 93.

17Ibid., pp. 93–4.

18Barfield, ‘The Battle of Trekkoppies’.

19Ibid.

20Ibid.

21Ibid.

22Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 94.

CHAPTER 11: CLOSING IN

1Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 95.

2Ibid., pp. 96–7.

3Ibid., p. 97.

4Ibid., pp. 99–100.

5Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 263.

6Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 103.

7Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, Part II, Section III.

8Ibid.

9Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, pp. 100–5.

10Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 263.

11Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 105.

12Ibid., p. 105.

13Ibid., p. 107.

14Ibid., p. 107.

15Ibid., p. 109.

16Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, Part II, Section III.

17Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 108.

18Ibid., p. 106.

19Ibid., p. 116.

20Ibid., p. 117.

21Reitz, Trekking On: In the Company of Brave Men, p. 50.

22Ibid., p. 51.

23Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 89.

24Reitz, Trekking On: In the Company of Brave Men, p. 49.

CHAPTER 12: IN FOR THE KILL

1Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 89.

2Ibid., p. 89.

3Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 117.

4Ibid., pp. 117–8.

5Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, pp. 265–6.

6Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 118.

7Ibid., p. 118.

8Ibid., p. 118.

9‘The history of the South African Air Force’ (South African Air Force, available at http://www.af.mil.za/about_us/history.html, last accessed 28 May 2014).

10Ibid.

11Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, pp. 119–20.

12Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, Part II, Section IV.

13Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 130.

14Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, Part II, Section IV.

15Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 130.

16Ibid., p. 134.

17Ibid., p. 135.

18Ibid., p. 135.

19Ibid., p. 136.

20Ibid., p. 136.

21Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 90.

22Ibid., p. 91.

23Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 138.

24Ibid., p. 139.

25Ibid., p. 140.

26Ibid., p. 140.

27Ibid., p. 142.

28Ibid., p. 143.

29Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 90.

30Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, p. 144.

31Ibid., pp. 143–4.

CHAPTER 13: KILO 500

1Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, pp. 145–6.

2Ibid., p. 148.

3Ibid., p. 148.

4Ibid., p. 100.

5Ibid., p. 148.

6Ibid., p. 149.

7Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 269.

8Collyer, The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915, pp. 150–1.

9Meintjes, General Louis Botha: A Biography, p. 270.

10Klaus Dierks, ‘South West Africa becomes a League of Nations mandate: 1919–1945’ (Online Namibia Library of Dr Klaus Dierks, available at http://www.klausdierks.com/FrontpageMain.html, last accessed 28 May 2014).

11Chris Dale, ‘Schütztruppe artillery recovered at Lake Otjikoto’ (German Colonial Uniforms, available at http://www.germancolonialuniforms.co.uk, last accessed 28 May 2014).

CHAPTER 14: REVERBERATIONS

1Mahnke, ‘Aircraft operations in the German colonies 1911–1916’.

2Judd, ‘Major General Sir Henry Timson Lukin KCB, CMG, DSO’.

3Strachan, The First World War in Africa, p. 143.

4Ibid., p. 136.

5Reitz, Trekking On: In the Company of Brave Men, p. 53.

6Ibid., p. 53.

7Celia Sandys, Churchill Wanted Dead or Alive (New York: First Carroll & Graf, 2000), p. 61.

8Winston S. Churchill, Great Contemporaries (London: Odhams & Co. Ltd, 1947), p. 287.

Bibliography

Books

Churchill, Winston S. Great Contemporaries. London: Odhams & Co. Ltd, 1947

Collyer, J.J. The Campaign in German South West Africa, 1914–1915. London: Imperial War Museum Department of Printed Books, 1937

Fahrbach, Hartmut O. Das Swakoptal. Swakopmund: Wissenscaftliche Gesellsschaft, 2011

Fisch, Maria. The Caprivi Strip During the German Colonial Period 1890 to 1914. Windhoek: Out of Africa, 1999

Meintjes, Johannes. General Louis Botha. London: Cassel & Company, 1970

Moore-Ritchie, Eric. With Botha in the Field. London & New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1915

Reitz, Deneys. Commando: Of Horses and Men. Edinburgh: House of Emslie, 2012

———. Trekking On: In the Company of Brave Men. Edinburgh: House of Emslie, 2012

Sandys, Celia. Churchill Wanted Dead or Alive. New York: First Carroll & Graf, 2000

Strachan, Hew. The First World War in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004

Wills, Walter H. (ed.) The Anglo-African Who’s Who and Biographical Sketchbook. London: L. Upscott Gill, 1907

Journal articles and unpublished papers

Barfield, Doreen. ‘The Battle of Trekkoppies’. South African Military History Society, Military History Journal 2 (2), December 1971

Bisset, W.M. ‘South Africa’s first anti-aircraft guns’. Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies 8 (1), 1978

Judd, B.C. ‘Major General Sir Henry Timson Lukin KCB, CMG, DSO’. South African Military History Society, Military History Journal 7 (3), June 1987

Mahnke, J.O.E.O. ‘Aircraft operations in the German colonies 1911–1916’. South African Military History Society, Military History Journal 12 (2), December 2001

Oosthuizen, G.J.J. ‘The military role of the Rehoboth Basters during the South African invasion of German South West Africa, 1914–1915’. Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies 28 (1), 1998 (available at http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/201/247, last accessed 18 July 2014

Samson, Anne. ‘South African mining magnates and World War One’. Unpublished academic paper presented as a lecture at Brenthurst Library to the Boksburg Historical Association, November 2012

Stevenson, R.E. ‘A carbineer remembers’. South African Military History Society, Military History Journal 2 (2), December 1971

Internet sources

Atwell, J.E.M. ‘The Zandfontein disaster 1914’. Imperial Research Circle, available at http://www.imperial-research.net/sandfontein.htm, last accessed 28 May 2014

Dale, Chris. ‘Schütztruppe artillery recovered at Lake Otjikoto’. German Colonial Uniforms, available at http://www.germancolonialuniforms.co.uk, last accessed 28 May 2014

Dierks, Klaus. ‘South West Africa becomes a League of Nations mandate: 1919–1945’. Online Namibia Library of Dr Klaus Dierks, available at http://www.klausdierks.com/FrontpageMain.html, last accessed 28 May 2014

‘Disaster at Gibeon Station’. The Soldier’s Burden, available at http://www.trenchfighter.com/41815/205801.html, last accessed 28 May 2014

‘German Colonial Uniforms’. Available at http://www.germancolonial uniforms.co.uk, last accessed 28 May 2014

‘Kakamas: Recon Abteiling von Hadeln’. The Soldier’s Burden, available at http://www.trenchfighter.com/40029/150601.html, last accessed 28 May 2014

‘The history of the South African Air Force’. South African Air Force, available at http://www.af.mil.za/about_us/history.html, last accessed 28 May 2014

‘The man on the spot’. Kalgoorlie Miner, 8 January 1908, available at http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90380013, last accessed 28 May 2014

Index

The index that appeared in the print version of this title was intentionally removed from the eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for items of interest. For your reference, the items that appear in the print index are listed below.

acclimatisation

Active Citizen Force

Adler, Lieutenant

aerial photographs

aeroplanes see aircraft

‘A Force’

African National Congress (ANC)

Afrikaans-speaking vs English-speaking whites

aircraft

Alberts, Brigadier General J.J.

America see United States of America

ANC (African National Congress)

Anglo-African Who’s Who and Biographical Sketchbook, The

Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902

Anglo-Zulu War

Angola (was Portuguese West Africa)

Angolan Bush War

anti-aircraft guns

anti-British sentiment see Afrikaans-speaking vs English-speaking whites

apartheid

armoured cars see motor cars

Armstrong breech-loading cannon, 15-pounder

artillery see weapons and artillery

askaris

Aus

Aviatik

Badenhorst, Colonel Commandant

Bambatha Rebellion of 1906

Basters

Belgium

Berrangé, Colonel Christian Anthony Lawson

Beves, Brigadier General Percival Scott

Beyers, Commandant General Christiaan Frederick

Bezuidenhout, Commandant

‘B Force’

biltong

Bismarck (horse)

bittereinders (bitter-enders)

black people see people of colour

black rhinos

bodyguards of Louis Botha

Boer commando system

Boer insurrection of 1914

Boer War see Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902

Bondelswarts tribe

Botha, Annie

Botha, Hermanus ‘Manie’

Botha, Louis

Britain declares war

Britain’s request

anti-German sentiment

Churchill and

black people

anti-British sentiment

aim of campaign

launch of campaign

Rebellion of 1914

bodyguards of

advance on Windhoek

cost of campaign

Cullinan diamond

aircraft

north of Windhoek

peace negotiations

Pom-Pom guns

impact of campaign

death of

statues of

legacy

Botha, Piet

Botha, P.W.

Bouwer, Colonel

Britain see Afrikaans-speaking vs English-speaking whites

Brits, Brigadier General Coen

background of

East African Campaign

Rebellion of 1914

South-West Africa campaign

Burenvreikorps (German reservist troops)

Buxton, Sydney Charles

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry

Cape Mounted Rifles

Caprivi, Count Leo von

Caprivi Strip

Castro, Fidel

Central Force (was ‘C Force’)

‘C Force’ (later Central Force)

Churchill, Winston

cichlid

civilian population, German

Cold War

Collins, Colonel Commandant

Collyer, Brigadier General J.J.

on Brigadier General Myburgh

as chief of staff

on Colonel Skinner

on commando system

East African Campaign

on information about SWA

on Lieutenant Colonel Collins

on peace negotiations

on strategy

colonies of Germany

commandos see Boer commando system

Committee of Imperial Defence

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

communication lines

see also wireless stations

Company’s Gardens, Cape Town

concentration camps

see also Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902

conscription, South African Defence Force

control of territory, maps

copper mines

cost of campaign for Union of South Africa

Cuba

Cullinan, Sir Thomas

Cullinan diamond

Dawson, Colonel

Defence Act of 1912

De la Rey, General Koos

De Villiers-Graaff, Sir David

De Wet, General Christiaan

diamonds

Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo

documents, official German

East African Campaign

Eastern Force

Egypt

English-speaking vs Afrikaans-speaking whites

Enselin, Captain

Etosha National Park

Farman aircraft

Fiedler, Lieutenant Paul

‘firsts’ associated with South-West Africa campaign

Fischer, Sergeant

food see supply lines

Fort Mucasso

Fort Namutoni

Fourie, Major Jopie

France

Franke, Major Erich Viktor Carl August

background

Botha’s feint

Franke Tower

guerrilla warfare

at Karibib

at Otavi

peace negotiations

Portuguese forces

at Swakop River

‘This is a hippodrome!’

at Trekkoppies

Frankenberg, Lieutenant Victor von

Franke Tower

Free State see Orange Free State

Gaertringen, Captain von

Gandhi, Mohandas

Garub

George V, King of England

German civilian population

German reservist troops (Burenvreikorps)

German Schütztruppe

Germany expected to win war

Ghana see Togoland

Gibeon

Goanikontes oasis

Gransden, Captain C.L.

Grant, Lieutenant Colonel R.C.

graves

Great Contemporaries

Greater Namaqualand

Grootfontein

guerrilla warfare

Gunners’ Memorial, Potchefstroom

Hadeln, First Lieutenant Friedrich von

Hansa Hotel

Hartigan, Major M.M.

Hartigan’s Horse

Henri Farman HF-27s

Herero people

Heroes’ Acre, Pretoria

Hertzog, General James Barry Munnik

Heydebreck, Lieutenant Colonel Joachim von

Caprivi Strip

death of

Portuguese forces

Rebellion of 1914

South-West Africa campaign

Himba people

horses

hospital trains

Houm’s Drift

Hunoldt, Lieutenant

impact of South-West Africa campaign

Imperial Light Horse

Imperial War Graves Commission

insurrection of 1914

‘invasion’ of Union of South Africa

Irish regiment

Jaafar Pasha

Jackson, Captain F.E.

Jakkalswater

Jameson, Dr Leander Starr

Jordaan, Lieutenant Colonel

Judd, Colonel B.C.

Kabus training camp

Kakamas

Kalahari Desert

Kalkfeld

Kaltenhausen

Karibib

kaross

Keetmanshoop

Kemp, Major Jan

Khorab Memorial

Khorab Station

Kilo 500

Kimberley

Kiries West

Kitchener, Lord

Kleist, Major von

Kleist, Ewald von

Kleist, Paul von

Labour Party

Lake Guinas

Lake Otjikoto

landmines

Lawrence, T.E.

League of Nations

Leliefontein mission station

Lemmer, Colonel

Lettow-Vorbeck, Paul Emil von

LFG Roland biplane

lorries

see also mechanised vehicles

Lüderitz

Luhonono see Schuckmannsburg

Lukin, Brigadier General Henry Timson

Lusitania

Madagascar

Maharero, Samuel

Malan, D.F.

maps

control of territory

dearth of

movement of soldiers

Southern Africa in 1914

Maritz, Lieutenant Colonel Salomon Gerhardus ‘Manie’

background

Rebellion of 1914

South-West Africa campaign

McKenzie, Brigadier General Sir Duncan ‘Dunc’

mechanised vehicles

Meintjes, Johannes

Mentz, Colonel

mines see landmines

Moçâmedes (now Namibe)

Modderfontein

Moore-Ritchie, Lieutenant Eric

motor cars

motorcycles

Mucasso (fort)

mules

Mushroom Valley

Myburgh, Brigadier General M.W.

Nama people

Namib Desert

Namibe see Moçâmedes

Namibia

independence of

landscape of

Namib-Naukluft National Park

NamibRand exclusion zone

Namutoni (fort)

Natal Carbineers

National Party

National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA)

Natives Land Act of 1913

Nonidas observation post

Northern Force

Northway, Lieutenant

OB see Ossewa Brandwag

Okaukuejo

Okiep Country Hotel

see also O’okiep

Omaruru

O’okiep (now Okiep)

Orange Free State

Orange River

Ossewa Brandwag (Oxwagon Sentinel)

Ostermann, Sergeant Oswald

Otavi

Otjikoto tilapia (Tilapia guinasana)

Otjimbingwe

Otjiwarongo

Ovambo people

peace negotiations

people of colour

Permanent Force

Pforteberg

poachers

poisoned waterholes

political impact of South-West Africa campaign

Pom-Pom gun

Poole, Captain

Port Nolloth

Portugal

Portuguese West Africa see Angola

prisoners of war

Purified National Party

racism see apartheid

radio communication see communication lines; wireless stations

railway lines

Raman’s Drift

Rand Rebellion

Rappard, Major Emil von

Rebellion of 1914

Rehoboth

Reid, Signaller

Reitz, Deneys

Reitz, Francis William

Reitz, Joubert

Republic of South Africa

Republic of Vryheid

reservist troops (Burenvreikorps)

rhinoceros

Rhodes, Cecil John

Rhodesian regiment

Riet Farm

Rietfontein

Ritter, Major Hermann

Rolls-Royce Silver Ghosts

Rössing Station

Royston, Lieutenant Colonel

rusks

SAAC (South African Aviation Corps)

SAAF (South African Air Force)

sabre-rattling

safe of gold

Salem

Salisbury, Lord

Sandfontein, Battle of

Sandfontein Nature Reserve

San people

Scheele, Lieutenant Alexander von

Schuckmannsburg (now Luhonono)

scorched-earth policy

see also Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902

Scottish regiments

scouts

Seitz, Governor Theodor

Senussi uprising

Skinner, Major General Percy Cyriac Brunnel

‘Skinny Liz’

Smuts, General Jan

Bondelswarts tribe

death of

Deneys Reitz and

East African Campaign

Kalahari Desert crossing

Manie Maritz and

as political leader

Rand Rebellion

Rebellion of 1914

South African Aviation Corps

South-West Africa campaign

Union Defence Force

Somme, Battle of the

South African Air Force (SAAF)

South African Aviation Corps (SAAC)

South African Border War

South African Mounted Rifles

South African Native National Congress

South African Party

Southern Army

Southern Force

South West Africa see Namibia

South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO)

Soviet Union

Spanish flu

Sperrgebiet exclusion zone

Spioenkop, Battle of

steam engines

Steinkopf

Strachan, Hew

striking miners

supply lines

surrender see peace negotiations

Swakopmund

Swakop River

SWAPO (South West Africa People’s Organisation)

Swart’s Scouts

Togoland

Transvaal

Transvaal Horse Artillery

Treaty of Khorab

see also Kilo 500

Treaty of Vereeniging

Treaty of Versailles

Trekkoppies

Trew, Major H.F.

Trück, Willy

trucks see lorries

Tsaukaib

Tsetse flies

Tsumeb

Tsumeb Corporation Limited

Tsumeb Museum

Tulio (scuba diver)

Ulundi, Battle of

UN see United Nations

Union Defence Force

Unionist Party

Union of South Africa

UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola)

United Nations

United Party

United States of America

Upington

Van der Spuy, Lieutenant Kenneth

Van Deventer, Dirk

Van Deventer, Brigadier General Jacob Louis ‘Jaap’

Van Rensburg, Niklaas

Van Vuuren, Captain

Van Wyk, Captain Cornelius

Verwoerd, Hendrik

Vryheid Republic

Walvis Bay

water see poisoned waterholes; supply lines

Waterberg Mountains

weapons and artillery

aerial bombing

anti-aircraft guns

German Schütztruppe

Lake Otjikoto

landmines

‘Skinny Liz’

Union Defence Force

Welby, Captain E.F.

wells, poisoned

Whittall, Lieutenant Commander W.

Wilhelmstal

Winburg

Windhoek

landscape of

surrender of

wireless stations

see also communication lines

Wylie, Colonel

Zulu people

Museum Africa

Commandant General Louis Botha during the Anglo-Boer War

Museum Africa

Prime Minister Louis Botha during the First World War

The Times History of the War, Volume I, 1914; Wikimedia Commons

General Jan Smuts as minister of defence

South African Archives; Wikimedia Commons

Brigadier General Henry Timson Lukin

Bildbestand der Deutschen Kolonialgesellschaft in der Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main; Wikimedia Commons

Major General Victor Franke

Karsten Herzogenrath

Von Heydebreck (in white on the left) and the Mountain Gun Battery of the South-West African Schütztruppe in Okahandja in 1903

Wikimedia Commons

A mounted Schütztruppen

Koloniales Bildarchiv, Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main

Schütztruppe training for battle, circa 1907. Horses were trained to lie prone to provide cover for their riders under fire

Source unknown

South African mounted troops crossing Raman’s Drift, on the way to Sandfontein

Adam Cruise

Major von Rappard’s grave at Sandfontein

Adam Cruise

Today a modern lodge sits on the site of the Battle of Sandfontein. The koppie can be seen in the background

Museum Africa

De Wet, De La Rey and Botha before the rebellion

Source unknown

Jan Kemp (left) and Manie Maritz (far right) pose at Keetmanshoop before the attack on Upington

Source unknown

Maritz and his brigade head for Upington flying the Vierkleur

Museum Africa

Botha on board the Erna Woermann on his way to South-West Africa. From left to right: Captain Esselen, General Botha, Captain Griffiths and Lieutenant Colonel Collyer, Botha’s chief of staff

Eric Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, courtesy of the National Library of South Africa, Cape Town

Botha’s bodyguard leaving for the front

South African National Museum of Military History

Factory pilot Willy Trück (centre) with the LFG Roland in the background

South African National Museum of Military History

Lieutenant Fiedler (left) standing in front of the LFG Roland

Tsumeb Museum

Lieutenant Fiedler’s Aviatik is railed to the front at Aus

Tsumeb Museum

Von Scheele’s Roland biplane used in South-West Africa

Koloniales Bildarchiv, Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main; Wikimedia Commons

Aerial bombing of a South African military camp at the Tsaukaib railway station, by Fiedler, 17 December 1914

Adam Cruise

Feral horses at Garub today, ancestors of those used by the Boer mounted commandos a hundred years ago

Adam Cruise

Remnants of the old railway line at Garub. Aus is behind the ridge in the background

Adam Cruise

The Commonwealth war graves at Aus

Adam Cruise

The Commonwealth war graves at Gibeon, with Gibeon Station in the background

The McGregor Museum, Kimberley, South Africa

Botha standing behind his carriage at Nonidas. Collyer has his back to the camera

The Times History of the War, Volume VII, 1916; Wikimedia Commons

Crossing the desert was perilous, not just because there was insufficient water. Gun carriages were continually getting stuck. Here a British heavy artillery 4.7-inch naval gun is being pulled out of the sand by a team of oxen

Adam Cruise

The Swakop River Canyon in the Namib Desert between Nonidas and Goanikontes

Eric Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, courtesy NLSA

South African soldiers trekking over the terrible sand dunes as they cross the desert near the coast

Eric Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, courtesy NLSA

Desperate men scratched in the dirt of the Swakop riverbed looking for water

Eric Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, courtesy of the NLSA, Cape Town

When they did find sufficient water, the soldiers collected it in these bags

Adam Cruise

First World War cartridges found along the Swakop River, 100 years after the war

Eric Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, courtesy of the NLSA, Cape Town

Botha (seated) and his staff reconnoitre near Riet

The McGregor Museum, Kimberley, South Africa

Burghers laying the narrow-gauge railway from Rössing to Jakkalswater

The McGregor Museum, Kimberley, South Africa

The South African graves (including that of the 62-year-old signaller) at Trekkoppies, a result of the unsuccessful German offensive

Museum Africa

A Herero patrol in South-West Africa

Eric Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, courtesy of the NLSA, Cape Town

Captured German infantry

Eric Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, courtesy of the NLSA, Cape Town

Botha and Smuts meeting in the field at Potmine, just before Windhoek was taken

Eric Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, courtesy of the NLSA, Cape Town

The capture of Windhoek. The mayor of Windhoek surrenders his town to Botha

Museum Africa

Sergeant Digby types out the terms of the German surrender of South-West Africa

Adam Cruise

The narrow-gauge train that took the German command to Kilo 500, seen here at the Tsumeb Museum

Eric Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, courtesy of the NLSA, Cape Town

Franke (left) and the German staff surrender at Kilo 500

Eric Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, courtesy of the NLSA, Cape Town

Botha (second from the right in the background) chats to Franke during the German surrender at Kilo 500. Collyer stands facing the camera in the foreground, left of centre

Adam Cruise

The author at the Khorab Memorial

Source unknown

Mission accomplished. General Botha takes German South-West Africa

Eric Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, courtesy of the NLSA, Cape Town

Botha and his sons returning to the Union after the conquest

Eric Moore-Ritchie, With Botha in the Field, courtesy of the NLSA, Cape Town

Botha receives a standing ovation as he addresses the crowd at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on 30 July 1915, after successfully concluding the campaign

Table of Contents

Cover

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Foreword

Preface

1: The Empire writes back

2: Groundwork

3: The Sandfontein reversal

4: Insurrection

5: Interlude

6: Central Force

7: Eastern Force and McKenzie’s pursuit

8: Northern Force

9: The hippodrome

10: Counterattack

11: Closing in

12: In for the kill

13: Kilo 500

14: Reverberations

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Photo section