Michael Tighe takes command in East Africa

The British chronology of the war records under 16 April 1915 that General Michael Tighe replaced General Richard Wapshare as commander of the British forces in East Africa. On that day Tighe was promoted to temporary major-general. Wapshare, who had taken over command after the defeat at Tanga, was sent to Mesopotamia. According to some lists he had ceased to command in East Africa as early as 3 April, so for a dozen or so days the duties of commander were probably performed by Tighe as the senior officer on the spot.

The new commander was born in 1864 in Trincomalee in Ceylon. After officer training at Sandhurst he served in the Leinster Regiment and then in the Indian Army. He fought in Burma, served in China, Persia and East Africa, and commanded the 56th Punjabi Rifles. In 1913 he retired, but the outbreak of war brought him back to active service. At Tanga in November 1914, as a brigadier-general, he commanded the brigade of Indian princely states’ troops (the Imperial Service Brigade), which was to be the first to go ashore. Captain Richard Meinertzhagen, the force’s intelligence officer, wrote in his diary at the time that Tighe was a go-ahead man, liked by everyone and certainly a real soldier.

After Tanga Tighe commanded the Mombasa area, and at the end of December his troops occupied Jasin on the border with German East Africa. In January 1915 he failed to relieve the garrison of Jasin, which surrendered to Lieutenant Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. Even so, he was regarded as one of the most energetic officers in the colony.

He took over command in a difficult situation. London had forbidden offensive operations in East Africa, and there were no reinforcements, because troops were needed in France and at the Dardanelles. After Jasin Lettow-Vorbeck avoided major battles and sent small detachments to raid the railway from Mombasa to Uganda, the main supply line of British East Africa. Tighe had to spread his troops along the line and guard the bridges, stations and watering places. He proposed an offensive and asked for reinforcements, but the War Office had serious doubts as to whether this was wise. It agreed only to limited operations. The most successful of these proved to be the expedition against Bukoba, a German port on Lake Victoria, in June 1915.

At the end of 1915 General Horace Smith-Dorrien was appointed in his place, but he fell ill on the way and never took up the post. In February 1916 command was taken over by the South African general Jan Smuts, who launched a great offensive against the German colony. Tighe still commanded a division under him and later returned to India.