Indian Expeditionary Force "C" merged into Force "B"

The British chronology of the war records under 31 December 1914 that Indian Expeditionary Force “C” was absorbed by Indian Expeditionary Force “B”. The formal date closed a process that had begun as early as November, after the defeat at Tanga. From then on all the Indian troops in British East Africa formed a single force under the command of General Richard Wapshare.

Two forces, two tasks

Force “C” was the first unit of the Indian Army sent to the war. Its first detachment, the 29th Punjabis, arrived at Mombasa on 1 September. Commanded by Brigadier-General James Stewart, the force was to defend the colony and the railway running inland from Mombasa. Besides the Punjabis it consisted mainly of units of the Indian princely states, among them Bharatpur, Jind, Kapurthala and Rampur, as well as mountain artillery and volunteer batteries. At the end of October it numbered about 4,000 men.

Major-General Arthur Aitken’s Force “B” sailed from Bombay in mid-October with the task of conquering German East Africa. At the beginning of November it was defeated at Tanga by the troops of Lieutenant-Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and returned to Mombasa. On top of that, the two forces answered to different authorities in London, which hampered cooperation.

A single force for defence

On 17 November the Secretary of State for India, Lord Crewe, agreed with Aitken that the troops in East Africa must for the time being go over to the defensive. At the same time he proposed that the two forces be combined into a single force, organised in two brigades and intended for the defence of British possessions. On 22 November the direction of the campaign was taken over by the War Office. The units of Force “B”, landed at Mombasa, were at once dispatched where they were most needed. A British battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and a mountain battery went to Nairobi, and part of the Kashmir Rifles to Voi on the railway.

The combined troops were divided into two areas. The Mombasa area, which stretched as far as Kilimanjaro, was commanded by Brigadier-General Michael Tighe, and the Nairobi area, together with Uganda, by General Stewart. From then on the battalions of both former forces stood side by side. In Tighe’s December expedition, which ended in the capture of Jasin, grenadiers and Kashmir Rifles from Force “B” marched together with Jind infantry from Force “C”. The staff was also reorganised. Intelligence was taken over by Captain Richard Meinertzhagen, whose intelligence service gradually became ever more efficient.

Troubles of a joint command

The merger did not solve every problem. The British official history of the campaign stresses that in a single army different British, Indian and colonial regulations came together, concerning rations, arms, pay and allowances. Many of these matters were never sorted out. India continued to supply reinforcements and stores, although operations were directed from London.

Wapshare judged that to resume the offensive he would need at least two more infantry brigades, a regiment of Indian cavalry and one more mountain battery. With the war in France and Flanders, such reinforcements were out of the question. For the coming months the combined force was therefore only to defend the frontier and the railway. The offensive against the German colony began only in 1916, when troops from South Africa arrived in East Africa.