British take Kondoa Irangi

On 19 April 1916 General Jacob van Deventer’s South African Mounted Brigade took Kondoa Irangi in the central part of German East Africa. The issue had been decided by the fighting of the previous day. On 18 April, after skirmishes on the hills north of the settlement, van Deventer attacked the German positions. According to the South African official history, at about two in the afternoon his men took a hill commanding the enemy’s left flank and hauled one of their two batteries onto it. The German positions came under the crossfire of two batteries, firing at right angles from a range of about 2.7 kilometres. The British official history (Hordern) adds that the Germans tried to counter-attack on the flanks but were repulsed. In the evening they withdrew to low hills just in front of Kondoa Irangi, suffering losses in the open fields.

On the morning of 19 April the South Africans saw columns of askaris and porters leaving the settlement, in which the larger buildings were burning. Downpours had turned the area into a swamp, and the gun teams sank into mud in places up to the horses’ chests. According to the South African history, only at about ten in the morning did the artillery manage to shell the settlement, where a German rearguard was holding out, and by five in the afternoon it had been driven out of Kondoa Irangi and the hills behind it. The pursuit got about 8 kilometres further and, according to Hordern, took 5 Germans and about 60 stragglers prisoner. Then the exhausted men were turned back and began to set up camp.

Victory without supplies

The prize was a disappointment. The Germans had gathered the crops of the whole area in the settlement and burned the storehouses before leaving. The South Africans did capture some 800 head of cattle and 200 donkeys, but for many days the men lived mainly on green guavas, papayas and groundnuts. The brigade, which had set out from Arusha on 3 April about 1,200 strong, now had fewer than 600 men fit for action and for the time being could not move. Horses were dying in masses from tsetse fly and disease, and those that survived had no chance of regaining their strength. Hordern nevertheless admits that against all odds the brigade had achieved its aim and taken an important point from the Germans. From Kondoa Irangi roads led to the Central Railway between the stations of Saranda and Kilosa, the colony’s main line of communication.

Van Deventer now stood alone deep in the German colony, some 320 kilometres by road from the main forces of General Jan Smuts, which after the fighting at Kahe were waiting on the Ruvu for the end of the rains. He sent patrols to the south and collected food within a radius of about 50 kilometres. He summoned the local chiefs, told them that the British now held authority, and demanded their help. Thanks to them he obtained many porters, who carried supplies from Ufiome and Salanga. His infantry, the 3rd South African Infantry Brigade, struggled through mud and swollen rivers for more than two weeks. It reached Kondoa Irangi only on 30 April and 1 May, with only about 1,850 men in its three battalions. Together with the mounted troops van Deventer then had about 3,000 men.

Lettow-Vorbeck’s response

Van Deventer’s raid had the effect Smuts had hoped for. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck concluded that this was where the British were making their main advance, and according to a German source cited by the British official history, as early as 21 April he decided to transfer most of his forces from the Usambara Railway to Kondoa Irangi. His companies marched south through Handeni and travelled by the Central Railway. According to Governor Heinrich Schnee he gathered there about 4,000 rifles with several guns, including one from the cruiser Königsberg. On the night of 9–10 May the Germans attacked van Deventer’s positions. The attack was repulsed, and both sides were stuck at Kondoa Irangi for several weeks. The British official history observes years later that had van Deventer waited until the end of the rains and set off together with the main army, his division would have suffered far less, and the campaign might have ended sooner and more decisively.