Battle for Lake Tanganyika

The Battle for Lake Tanganyika consisted of two small actions in which a British flotilla, brought from England across half of Africa, wrested control of Lake Tanganyika from the Germans. Since the beginning of the war German armed steamers had sailed unchallenged on this lake, more than 600 km long, which separated German East Africa from the Belgian Congo. On 26 December 1915 two British motor boats, Mimi and Toutou, captured the German gunboat Kingani, and on 9 February 1916, together with the prize renamed Fifi, they sank a second, the Hedwig von Wissmann. Not a single Briton was killed in either action.

Name and dates

In English-language literature these actions are usually described as the Battle for Lake Tanganyika, but its scope varies. Some studies, including the English Wikipedia, include in it all operations on the lake up to July 1916, when the Germans scuttled their last large vessel, the Graf von Götzen, themselves and the Belgians took the port of Kigoma. The British official histories (Henry Newbolt, Naval Operations, vol. IV, and Charles Hordern, Military Operations: East Africa, vol. I) and the report of the High Commissioner for South Africa, Lord Buxton, published in the London Gazette in July 1917, describe instead two battles: the capture of the Kingani on 26 December 1915 and the sinking of the Hedwig von Wissmann on 9 February 1916. The Graf von Götzen never fought the British flotilla. On this page we therefore adopt the dates from 26 December 1915 to 9 February 1916, and describe the later events briefly in the last section.

Background

The outbreak of war found only two larger vessels on Tanganyika: the Belgian steamer Alexandre Delcommune and the German Hedwig von Wissmann, named after the wife of the African explorer Hermann von Wissmann. The Germans quickly armed their vessel with light guns taken from the survey ship Möwe, scuttled at Dar es Salaam, and manned her with the Möwe’s sailors. On 22 August 1914 the Hedwig von Wissmann shelled Belgian posts and disabled the Belgian steamer. She was soon joined by the Kingani, a small steam customs launch built in 1894 at the Meyer yard in Papenburg, which was dismantled at Dar es Salaam, carried by rail to Kigoma, reassembled and armed with a light gun in the bow. In 1915 the steamer Graf von Götzen was also launched at Kigoma; about 65 metres long, she was later armed with a 105 mm gun from the cruiser Königsberg. The German forces on the lake were commanded by Gustav Zimmer.

Control of the lake gave the Germans an enormous advantage. They could move troops and supplies along the whole western shore of the colony, raid Belgian and British landing places and tie down large detachments of Belgian colonial troops, the Force Publique, in passive defence of the shore. The Belgians had a larger steamer, the Baron Dhanis, in parts, but did not dare to assemble it under the eyes of the German gunboats.

In April 1915 the hunter John R. Lee, who knew the region, proposed to the Admiralty that armed motor boats be sent to the lake. The Admiralty decided that the lake should be treated as “a distant sea within the zone of British sea power”. Command of the expedition went to Lieutenant-Commander Geoffrey Spicer-Simson. Two motor boats built by Thornycroft, each about 12 metres long and armed with a three-pounder Hotchkiss gun (47 mm) and a Maxim machine gun, sailed for Cape Town in mid-June with a crew of 28 men. From there they went by rail to the Congo; through the bush and the mountains they were hauled by steam tractors and oxen, then floated down the Lualaba river, and the last stretch was again covered by rail. At the end of October the expedition reached the lake at the Belgian post of Lukuga, and on 23 December the boats were launched at the harbour of Kalemie, built by the British.

The Germans learned of the expedition too late. At the beginning of December the commander of the Kingani, Job Rosenthal, crept ashore at night near Lukuga to observe the Belgian preparations, but failed to get back to his ship in time and was taken prisoner. According to accounts by members of the expedition, Rosenthal saw the British boats and tried to send a warning to Kigoma, but his message reached it only several months later.

Course of the battle

Capture of the Kingani (26 December 1915)

On the morning of 26 December the Kingani was sighted from Kalemie, steaming south. She was now commanded by Leutnant zur See Junge. According to the British official history, Spicer-Simson let her pass the harbour and at about 11.25 a.m. put out with Mimi and Toutou to cut off her way back to Kigoma. The Kingani’s gun fired only ahead, so the motor boats came at her from astern. At 11.47 a.m. they opened fire at a range of about 1,800 metres. A shell from Mimi pierced the gun shield and killed the commander and members of the gun crew. At 11.58 a.m., after eleven minutes of fighting, a German engineer hauled down the ensign and stopped the engine.

The badly damaged Kingani reached Kalemie under escort and sank in the harbour, but three days later she was raised and repaired. She was given a Belgian 12-pounder (76 mm) gun and joined the British flotilla as Fifi. As a reward Spicer-Simson was promoted to commander.

Sinking of the Hedwig von Wissmann (9 February 1916)

For a long time Zimmer did not know what had happened to the Kingani. According to Newbolt, the Germans attributed her loss to the fire of a Belgian fort and still did not realise that the British boats were present. January storms made navigation difficult for small vessels, and Toutou sank in one of them in the harbour (she was later raised).

On the morning of 9 February 1916 the Hedwig von Wissmann was sighted from Kalemie, steaming slowly south. Fifi and Mimi went out after her, followed by Belgian boats. The commander of the German vessel, Job Odebrecht, turned about and tried to escape to Kigoma, but Mimi quickly caught up with him and kept up her fire from a range at which the German guns could not reach her. According to Buxton’s report the chase lasted about three hours. It was decided by shells from Fifi’s gun: one wrecked the engine room and others started a fire. Odebrecht ordered the burning ship to be abandoned, and she soon sank. According to Newbolt the British picked up 12 Germans, among them the commander, and eight Africans. According to Buxton’s report two Europeans and three African crew members were killed.

Losses

The British did not lose a single man in either action. The Germans lost two of their three armed vessels on the lake. On the Kingani, according to Hordern, both officers and three of the four German sailors were killed, and the survivors were taken prisoner. On the Hedwig von Wissmann, according to Buxton, five men were killed and twenty were taken prisoner. More recent studies give somewhat different figures for both actions.

Significance

Two small victories reversed the situation on the lake. The Graf von Götzen, larger and more heavily armed than the whole British flotilla, did not give battle, and in May 1916 the Germans removed her guns and sent them to the land forces. The ship was bombed by Belgian seaplanes, and in July 1916, as the Belgians approached Kigoma, the Germans scuttled her themselves. After the war she was raised and for many decades sailed the lake as the Liemba.

Control of Tanganyika enabled the Allies to move troops along the lake and helped the Belgian offensive of 1916, which ended with the capture of Kigoma and Tabora. Buxton’s report also stressed that the victory raised British prestige among the population of Northern Rhodesia and the German colony. Spicer-Simson received the Distinguished Service Order, and his expedition, the smallest and most distant sent out by the Royal Navy during the war, was written about for a long time. It is believed to have been one of the inspirations for C.S. Forester’s novel, filmed by John Huston as The African Queen.