Germans capture Jasin

On the morning of 19 January 1915 the British garrison of Jasin, a border plantation in German East Africa, surrendered. Since dawn the previous day about 300 Indian soldiers had been holding out in a redoubt surrounded by nine companies under Lieutenant-Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. Attempts to relieve them from the British camp on the Umba river had failed.

The surrender

Early in the morning the firing grew heavier again. The defenders attempted a sortie but were driven back. Their position was hopeless. Their commander, Raghbir Singh, had been killed the day before, and command had passed to two British officers, Captains Hanson and Turner. In the redoubt, which was also being shelled at close range, the water had run out and the ammunition was nearly exhausted. At about 7 a.m. the defenders raised the white flag. Brigadier-General Michael Tighe had been preparing a new relief attack for that morning. One company of the King’s African Rifles set out at dawn to reconnoitre and reached the hill above Jasin, but it was already too late.

According to British figures, 276 men were taken prisoner. They included grenadiers of the 101st Regiment and Kashmir Rifles, about 130 from each unit, as well as askaris of a King’s African Rifles machine-gun crew, a few signallers and both British officers. Lettow-Vorbeck congratulated the officers on their stubborn defence, returned their swords and released them on parole. The other prisoners were sent to German camps. The German commander recalled how proudly his askaris looked upon the defeated enemy.

A costly victory

For the Germans it was a success bought at a high price. According to the figures of the colony’s governor, Heinrich Schnee, 25 Europeans, including seven officers, and 53 askaris were killed, and about 200 men were wounded. Lettow-Vorbeck lost roughly one seventh of his regular officers, who could not be replaced in the cut-off colony. In two days his troops fired 200,000 rounds. He calculated that at such a rate of expenditure he could afford at most three more battles like it. He concluded that from now on he had to keep major attacks for exceptional occasions and wage above all a guerrilla war, especially raids on the Uganda Railway.

British losses are hard to count exactly. Besides the prisoners, at least several dozen Indian soldiers and a dozen or so King’s African Rifles askaris were killed, and many were wounded. The Jind infantry suffered particularly, losing many officers in a failed attack. Lettow-Vorbeck estimated the enemy’s losses at no fewer than 700 men, but this figure is probably exaggerated.

After the battle

The Germans made no attempt to attack the fortified camps on the Umba. They left a few companies at Jasin and sent the rest of their troops back by rail to Kilimanjaro. The cruiser HMS Weymouth, which arrived off Jasin on 20 January, shelled the area to little effect. Soon General Richard Wapshare ordered the troops to be withdrawn from the whole Umba valley. At the beginning of February German patrols found the British camps empty. In London Lord Kitchener forbade the command in East Africa to undertake any further offensive operations. The border strip that the British had cleared of Germans in December became once again the ground of German patrols.