German attack on Kondoa Irangi

On the evening of 9 May 1916 the forces of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck attacked General Jacob van Deventer’s 2nd Division at Kondoa Irangi, in the central part of German East Africa. The fighting lasted until the early hours of 10 May and ended in a German defeat. The British chronology of the war places this attack under 9 and 10 June, but this is a month out: the British official history (Hordern), the South African official history and General Jan Smuts’s report of October 1916 all date it to the night of 9–10 May.

Lettow-Vorbeck changes front

When in April van Deventer’s mounted brigade occupied Kondoa Irangi, Lettow-Vorbeck concluded that this was where the British were making their main thrust. He moved most of his forces from the Usambara railway southwards, via Handeni and the Central Railway, and then on foot northwards, along the roads from Dodoma and from Handeni. By the end of April the British command already knew that more German companies were passing through Handeni, and van Deventer’s patrols reported the enemy south of the settlement. On 4 May a German detachment drove back a British post at Kwa Mtoro, and on 7 May refugees from the surrounding villages, seeking the British protection promised to them, reported more than 20 companies.

Van Deventer had about 3,000 men to defend the place, exhausted by hunger and malaria. The last units of General Berrangé’s 3rd South African Infantry Brigade reached Kondoa Irangi, according to the South African history, only on the morning of 9 May. The settlement lay in a shallow valley among rocky hills. Three infantry battalions held a large hill south of it, and the mounted troops took up position on the hills on the flanks and in the rear. On the other side of the valley, about three kilometres wide, rose two higher hills, which the British named Range Rock Hill and South Hill.

A night of assaults

At about midday on 9 May the Germans drove in the British outposts and occupied the hills to the south-east. In the afternoon their artillery began shelling the settlement and the camps. The South Africans were surprised by the weight of this fire: alongside howitzers, a 105 mm gun taken from the cruiser Königsberg was firing. Hordern adds that the Germans were short of ammunition and that this gun fired home-made iron shells filled with black powder. At dusk the German infantry that had come up into the foreground turned back, and many campfires were lit on the slopes of the hills. The defenders took this for a ruse, and they were right. After dark the askaris, screened by fields of maize, crept close to the trenches.

At about 7.30 p.m. the Germans struck the southern and eastern edges of the position. The main weight fell on the 11th South African Infantry. By the light of a half moon the askaris charged uphill with shouts and to the sound of bugles, but they had no cover, and the defenders lit up the ground in front with flares (PL). Every assault broke down under rifle and machine-gun fire. The South African history lists heavy attacks at 9, 10 and 11 p.m. and at about 12.30 a.m. The 11th Battalion captured a German machine gun by a pond on the southern edge of the position, and the 12th Battalion counter-attacked the attackers’ right flank. At about 2.15–3 a.m. the Germans withdrew and did not renew the attack.

Losses and the dispute over intentions

According to Hordern the defenders lost 6 killed and 17 wounded. Governor Heinrich Schnee gave the German losses as 55 killed, including 5 Germans, 71 wounded and 21 missing. Captain von Kornatzki was killed and Lieutenant-Colonel von Bock badly wounded. According to the findings of the British official history, three German detachments (Otto, Bock and Kornatzki), about 1,800 men in all, made the assault, with more in reserve on the hills. Schnee put the total forces gathered at Kondoa Irangi at about 4,000 rifles, about 20 machine guns and several guns. By chance Major Richard Meinertzhagen of Smuts’s staff was in the camp at the time. On the basis of prisoner interrogations he estimated the Germans at about 20 companies. At headquarters he was long disbelieved.

After the war Lettow-Vorbeck presented the engagement differently. In his memoirs he wrote that his companies, contrary to expectation, had stumbled at night upon an unknown hill held by the enemy and become involved in a fierce fight. The authors of the South African history rejected this version: several successive assaults during the night, preceded by a bombardment and a feigned withdrawal, were in their view a planned attack. After the attack had been repulsed, neither side had the strength to decide the fighting. On the morning of 10 May mutual outflanking began, with daily shelling and night clashes between patrols. The front at Kondoa Irangi lengthened to about 16 kilometres and stayed in place until the end of June, and Lettow-Vorbeck kept his main forces here while Smuts was preparing his advance along the Usambara railway.