Fighting for Kondoa Irangi begins

On 17 April 1916 the South African Mounted Brigade of General Jacob van Deventer fought the Germans in the hills north of Kondoa Irangi, a settlement in the middle of German East Africa, about 200 kilometres in a straight line south of Arusha. The British chronology of the war records under this date the beginning of the British attack on Kondoa Irangi. The sources divide this fighting somewhat differently. According to the British official history (Hordern), the brigade halted on 16 April about 11 kilometres from the settlement, on 17 April fought only minor skirmishes and made its actual attack on 18 April. The South African official history writes that the Germans were attacked as early as 16 April and that the fighting went on throughout the following day.

A march through the rainy season

After driving the Germans from Kilimanjaro, General Jan Smuts had to wait out the rainy season. Most of his troops halted on the Ruvu River, but he decided to send van Deventer’s newly formed 2nd Division south-west, towards Kondoa Irangi and beyond to the Central Railway linking Dar es Salaam with Lake Tanganyika. From Kondoa Irangi roads led to several stations on that railway. Smuts expected that the Germans would shift part of their forces from the Usambara Railway against van Deventer, which would ease his later advance along the main road. He was confirmed in this by local Boer settlers, who assured him that in the west the rains would not greatly hamper operations. The British official history states that this information proved entirely wrong: the heaviest rainy season for many years followed.

The mounted brigade, about 1,200 strong, left Arusha on 3 April. It first struck at a German company defending the lone rocky mountain of Lolkisale, some 55 kilometres further on, and the only water sources in the area. After two days of fighting, during which men and horses suffered from thirst, the Germans hoisted a white flag on the morning of 6 April. According to the British official history 2 officers, 15 other Germans, 114 askaris and 300 porters were taken prisoner, and the South Africans captured 2 machine guns and large stocks of ammunition. Their own losses were slight.

The rest of the march was a struggle against nature. The roads turned into swamp, lorries got stuck, and for a week no transport got through from Arusha to Lolkisale. Horses died of tsetse fly and African horse sickness, the men fell ill with malaria and ate less and less. Van Deventer did not wait for his infantry, which was toiling far behind. On 12 April he sent the mounted troops ahead, already reduced to about 800 men, to the Ufiome hills. On 13 April his men drove a German detachment from there and pursued it in the rain for about 30 kilometres across the open Maasai steppe to Salanga. By 16 April, when the brigade approached Kondoa Irangi, it had, according to Hordern, only about 650 men left. According to the South African history it could put only about 300 rifles into the firing line.

The Germans bring up reinforcements

After the fall of Lolkisale Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck understood that the British were advancing into the interior of the colony and ordered his troops to concentrate at Kondoa Irangi. The 13th Field Company, which in peacetime had been stationed there, set out from the Usambara Railway by forced marches through Handeni. Two companies from Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika were brought by rail to Saranda station. On 10 April command of this group was taken over by Captain Klinghardt. The reinforcements were only just coming up: the 13th Company reached Kondoa Irangi on 18 April, and the other units were just arriving. Hordern estimates that the Germans who actually fought van Deventer in those days numbered no more than about 400.

The South African official history describes an episode on the evening of 17 April. Van Deventer, with his staff and an escort of twelve men, was personally reconnoitring on the left flank when he came upon several German companies with porters working round his positions, probably to strike his rear the next day. He let them come close and opened rapid fire with twelve rifles. Taken by surprise, the Germans scattered in disorder, and the initiative remained with the South Africans. The next day van Deventer went over to the attack on the German positions covering Kondoa Irangi.