British boats on Lake Tanganyika

On 23 December 1915, in the small port of Kalemie, built by the British beside the Belgian post of Lukuga on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika, two Royal Navy motor boats, Mimi and Toutou, were launched. So, according to the British official histories and the report of the High Commissioner for South Africa, ended a journey that had lasted half a year and led across most of the continent. According to the account given by Giles Foden, Toutou was launched a day earlier, on 22 December, and Mimi on 23 December. The next day the boats ran their trials and reached more than 13 knots.

The idea

From the first weeks of the war the lake, more than 600 km long and separating German East Africa from the Belgian Congo, belonged to the Germans. Their armed steamer Hedwig von Wissmann had attacked Belgian posts as early as August 1914, and in 1915 the much larger Graf von Götzen entered service at the port of Kigoma. The Allies had no vessel on the lake at all. In April 1915 the big-game hunter John R. Lee, who knew the region, suggested to the Admiralty that light, fast motor boats be brought there. The Admiralty accepted the idea and gave command of the expedition to Lieutenant Commander Geoffrey Spicer-Simson.

Two motor boats built by Thornycroft were chosen, about 12 metres long and 2.5 metres wide, capable according to the British official history of up to 15 knots. Each received a 3-pounder Hotchkiss gun (47 mm) and a Maxim machine gun. Spicer-Simson reportedly wanted to name them Cat and Dog, and when the Admiralty refused, he chose the French equivalents: Mimi and Toutou. The expedition numbered 28 officers and men, who undertook not to reveal its purpose to anyone.

The journey

The boats sailed from England in mid-June and reached Cape Town at the beginning of July. From there they travelled by rail through Bulawayo and Rhodesia to Elisabethville in Belgian Katanga, and on to the railhead at Fungurume, where they were unloaded on 4 and 5 August. The hardest stretch began on 18 August. For about 230 km of bush and mountains, at altitudes of up to 1,800 metres, the boats were hauled on trailers by two steam tractors and teams of oxen. In places the road had to be hacked out and trees blown up, and according to Newbolt nearly 200 bridges were built along the way. Drinking water was given up to the tractors’ boilers. A report later published in the London Gazette quoted Spicer-Simson as saying that everyone who knew the road considered the crossing by tractor “sheer madness”.

On 28 September the expedition reached Sankisia station, and from there went by rail to Bukama on the Lualaba, the upper course of the Congo. On 1 October the boats were put into the river. The water was so low that barrels had to be lashed under the boats, and they were propelled by paddlers, eighteen to each boat. Further on the boats travelled on a barge towed by a Belgian steamer. On 21 October, after running aground many times, the expedition halted at Kabalo, from where the railway carried it to the lake. By 28 October everyone was at Lukuga.

Kalemie harbour

With the consent of the Belgian commandant, the British built a small harbour under the cover of the guns of the Belgian fort, protected by a breakwater made of rocks blasted in the vicinity. The work took about six weeks and was interrupted by violent storms. The harbour was named Kalemie, as the town that grew out of the Lukuga post, where the Lukuga river flows out of the lake, is called today.

The Germans failed to recognise the threat in time. In early December the commander of the gunboat Kingani, Job Rosenthal, landed at night near Lukuga to reconnoitre and was taken prisoner. According to accounts by members of the expedition he had managed to see the British boats, but his warning reached Kigoma only several months later. When Mimi and Toutou took to the water on 23 December, Spicer-Simson therefore had surprise on his side. Three days later the Kingani again appeared near Kalemie.