South African troops occupy Lüderitzbucht

On 19 September 1914 troops of the Union of South Africa occupied the port of Lüderitzbucht, today’s Lüderitz, on the coast of German South West Africa. The British chronology of the war stresses that it was the first German territory entered by Union troops. The Germans did not defend the town.

The invasion plan

At London’s request the government of Prime Minister Louis Botha agreed to seize the German colony, and above all its ports and wireless stations, which were used by German warships in the Atlantic. The Minister of Defence, Jan Smuts, drew up a plan for an attack from three directions. Force “A” was to enter the colony from the south, from the Orange River, Force “B” under Lieutenant Colonel Manie Maritz was to operate from the east, from the Upington area, and Force “C” was to land from the sea at Lüderitzbucht.

The landing

Force “C” under Colonel Percival Scott Beves sailed from Cape Town under the cover of Royal Navy ships. It consisted of an artillery battery, a squadron of the Imperial Light Horse, battalions of the Transvaal Scottish and the Rand Light Infantry, and engineers. Sources put its strength at between about 1,200 and 1,800 men. Scouts went ashore on the evening of 18 September, and the main force landed on the morning of 19 September. This is why some studies give 18 September as the date the town was taken.

The landing was unopposed. The small German garrison withdrew inland, destroying behind it the wireless equipment and the track of the railway that ran across the desert to Aus and Keetmanshoop. The German civilians of Lüderitzbucht were later taken to the Union of South Africa and interned until the end of the campaign.

Port and diamonds

Lüderitzbucht had special significance for the Germans. In this bay, called Angra Pequena by the Portuguese, the Bremen merchant Adolf Lüderitz bought in 1883 the first land from which the German colony grew. In 1908 diamonds were found in the nearby dunes. Mines sprang up around the settlement of Kolmanskop, and the port went through a diamond rush. Together with Lüderitzbucht, one of the most valuable places in the colony thus passed into the hands of the Union’s troops.

War and rebellion

The capture of the port did not mean a quick victory. As early as 26 September the Germans routed a detachment of Force “A” at Sandfontein, just across the colony’s border. Meanwhile a crisis was growing in the Union itself, which had begun in mid-September when General Beyers resigned and General De la Rey was killed. In October Maritz went over to the Germans, and the Boer Rebellion broke out in the country. The government had to halt the invasion and send its troops against the rebels.

The units at Lüderitzbucht held the bridgehead for several months and slowly pushed into the desert, rebuilding the wrecked railway. Only after the rebellion had been put down, at the beginning of 1915, did Botha and Smuts launch the great offensive. Some of the troops set out eastwards from Lüderitzbucht itself, while Botha’s main force landed at Swakopmund and Walvis Bay. On 9 July 1915 the German colony capitulated.