Skirmish on the Tsavo

On 6 September 1914, in the valley of the Tsavo river in British East Africa, today’s Kenya, a German detachment clashed with soldiers of the 29th Punjabis and African riflemen of the King’s African Rifles. It was one of the first actions fought by Indian troops in this war.

The target: the Uganda Railway

The most important artery of the British colony was the railway line from Mombasa on the Indian Ocean to Lake Victoria. It ran not far from the border with German East Africa, and near Tsavo station it crossed the river by a bridge. The Tsavo valley, overgrown with dense, thorny bush but supplied with water, was a convenient route for German raiding parties coming down from Kilimanjaro towards the line.

At the end of August the German commander at Moshi sent a small detachment with orders to destroy or cut the railway and telegraph at Tsavo. At the beginning of September it was replaced by Captain Hans Schulz’s 13th Field Company, more than 200 askaris with four machine guns. On the British side, two double companies of the 29th Punjabis, which had disembarked at Mombasa a few days earlier, were stationed in the Voi area.

Fighting in the bush

On 5 September some of the Punjabis moved up the valley to intercept the Germans, but in the dense bush they missed them. The next day, as the detachment was turning back, the Germans surprised its rearguard with fire from a low ridge. Askaris of the King’s African Rifles joined the fight, and the German machine guns inflicted losses on them. Their commander, Lieutenant Oldfield, was killed. Many of the Punjabis, fighting in the African bush for the first time, became lost in the thicket. Eventually a small party led by Captain Pottinger and supported by the askaris outflanked the Germans and forced them off the ridge. Schulz’s detachment withdrew deeper into the valley.

Outcome

According to the regimental history, six soldiers of the 29th Punjabis and their subadar, Sher Baz, were killed, and eight were wounded. Subadar Sher Baz, himself wounded, was killed trying to carry the badly wounded Naik Gul Muhammad out of the line of fire. Both received the Indian Order of Merit, according to the regimental history the first such awards of the war.

The Germans did not destroy the Tsavo bridge, but the clash showed how hard it would be to defend a long railway line against small, mobile units. In the following months German patrols repeatedly blew up the track of the Uganda Railway, and the British had to guard it with numerous posts.