German attack on Jasin

At dawn on 18 January 1915 the German colonial troops of Lieutenant-Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck attacked Jasin, a coconut and sisal plantation just across the border of British East Africa. The British had taken it on Christmas Day and had since held a forward post there. The main forces of Brigadier-General Michael Tighe were encamped a few kilometres further north, on the border river Umba.

Preparations

Lettow-Vorbeck saw the British presence at Jasin as a sign of an advance along the coast on Tanga. At the beginning of January he inspected the ground in person. He was helped to prepare the plan of attack by a reserve officer who before the war had worked for years on that plantation and knew every path. Companies from around Kilimanjaro were brought by rail to the coast. On 16 January they detrained near Tanga and set off northwards at once. On the evening of 17 January nine companies with two field guns assembled at the Totohovu plantation, about 11 kilometres south of Jasin.

The German commander hoped that an attack on the forward post would lure the main British forces out of their fortified camps. He intended to destroy them in the bush as they came to its relief. Two companies were to go round Jasin on the right, two on the left, and one was to strike straight along the road. Behind it came the main body with a European company and the guns. On the road from the north-west, from Samanya, a detachment of Arab volunteers lay in ambush.

A fortress in the bush

The attack took the British by surprise. The German companies quickly occupied the plantation buildings, but came up against something they had not expected. At Jasin stood a carefully built and camouflaged redoubt, and in it about 300 Indian soldiers: a company of the 101st Grenadiers and men of the 2nd Kashmir Rifles from the Indian princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, with one machine gun. They were commanded by Raghbir Singh, commander of the Kashmir battalion. About 40 Kashmiris also held a separate post at the sisal factory, north of the redoubt.

By noon the Germans had surrounded the redoubt, but could not take it. Even the field guns, set up less than 200 metres from the defences, could achieve little. The attackers’ losses mounted quickly. Lettow-Vorbeck’s staff officer, Captain von Hammerstein, was badly wounded in the stomach and died a few days later. Lettow-Vorbeck himself, going over to the right wing, was shot in the arm, and a second bullet pierced his hat.

A failed relief

Tighe set out to help. From the camp on the Umba came companies of the King’s African Rifles under Captain George Giffard, followed by half a battalion of infantry from the princely state of Jind and two mountain guns. The African riflemen crossed the Suba stream several times and fought hand to hand in the marshy valley, but each time had to fall back. The Arab volunteers on the German left wing could not stand the strain and fled, but the column advancing from that direction was stopped by two German companies under Captain Adler. At around noon the Jind infantry went into the attack. Its officers and NCOs fell one after another, and the attack stalled.

A night under fire

The fighting went on throughout the afternoon and the night. The German askaris began to run short of ammunition. Ammunition was brought up along the plantation’s light railway, and the wounded were carried back on it to a hospital set up at Totohovu. Inside the redoubt the situation was even worse. There was no water, ammunition was running out and the only machine gun had stopped working. Raghbir Singh was killed on 18 January. The defenders of the post at the sisal factory, having fired off their cartridges, fought their way northwards with the bayonet. Nearly thirty of them reached the British camp. Tighe decided to let his exhausted troops rest and to attack the Germans again in the morning. The garrison of the redoubt had to survive one more night.