South Africans advance on Otavifontein

A British chronology of the war records under 19 June 1915 the start of the last offensive by the forces of the Union of South Africa in German South West Africa. The objective was the springs of Otavifontein near Otavi, around which the last German forces had gathered. According to the South African official history the march north began a day earlier, on 18 June. On 19 June General Coen Brits’s 1st Mounted Brigade occupied Omaruru, the first sizeable town on the way, which the Germans had abandoned without a fight.

Six weeks’ pause

After the capture of Windhuk in May, General Louis Botha’s Northern Force had to halt. Men and horses were exhausted by the march across the desert, and supplies reached them from the coast with difficulty, because the Germans had blown up the bridges on the railway from Swakopmund. Between 20 and 22 May Botha met Governor Theodor Seitz at the Giftkuppe farm near Omaruru. The Germans proposed an armistice that would have left them the northern part of the colony, north of the 22nd parallel, until the war in Europe was decided. Botha agreed to discuss only surrender, and the talks were broken off. Over the following weeks the railway was repaired, supplies were stockpiled and the horses rested.

By 17 June Botha’s striking force was ready. It consisted of four mounted brigades, a wing of a fifth and an infantry brigade, with five field batteries, heavy guns and howitzers. The transport numbered 532 wagons, and for the first time in this campaign the units had supplies for more than two days. For reconnaissance Botha could use the aircraft of the newly formed South African Aviation Corps. Before the march on Omaruru the airmen reported that there were only about twenty Germans in the town.

An encirclement plan

The German commander, Lieutenant Colonel Victor Franke, had pulled his units back along the narrow-gauge railway to the north, to the area of Otavi, Tsumeb and Grootfontein. According to South African figures he had about 3,400 men, 36 guns and 22 machine guns. Botha did not intend simply to chase him. In the centre, along the railway, went Manie Botha’s 5th Mounted Brigade, General Henry Lukin’s 6th Mounted Brigade and Colonel Beves’s 1st Infantry Brigade. On the left wing Brits was to make a wide sweep through Outjo and along the salt pan of Etosha as far as Namutoni, where the Germans had gathered their most important stores, and cut off their line of retreat. On the right wing General Myburgh, with the 2nd Mounted Brigade and part of the 3rd, was to outflank the Germans from the east, through Waterberg, towards Grootfontein and Tsumeb.

Headquarters expected the Germans to make a stand at Kalkfeld. On 24 June it turned out that they had abandoned that position too. In less than a week Botha’s headquarters covered more than 120 miles (about 200 km) from Karibib to Otjiwarongo, through dense bush, with water at only a few places. On 1 July Manie Botha’s brigade, after a night march, surprised the Germans at Otavi and took the springs of Otavifontein, and on 9 July Franke and Seitz surrendered.