Surrender of German South West Africa

On 9 July 1915, at the “Kilo 500” milestone on the railway line from Swakopmund to Tsumeb, near Khorab farm north of Otavi, the armed forces of German South West Africa surrendered to the troops of the Union of South Africa. The instrument of surrender was signed by Governor Theodor Seitz and the commander of the Schutztruppe, Lieutenant-Colonel Victor Franke, and on the victors’ side by the Union’s prime minister and commander-in-chief, General Louis Botha. The campaign, which had begun in September 1914 with the landing at Lüderitzbucht, ended after less than a year.

Surrounded at Khorab

After the loss of the Otavifontein springs on 1 July, Franke concentrated his main force in the hills at Khorab. His position quickly became hopeless. On the right flank General Myburgh’s brigades routed a German detachment at Gaub (in some sources Chaub) on 4 July and moved on Tsumeb, while on the left General Coen Brits’s brigade, after marching around the Etosha salt pan, was approaching Fort Namutoni. On 6 July both garrisons surrendered after weak resistance. At Tsumeb and Namutoni the Germans lost their last large depots of food, ammunition and equipment, and several dozen British officers and civilians were freed from captivity. The line of retreat to the north was closed.

As early as 4 July the two headquarters agreed a local ceasefire. On 6 July at “Kilo 500” Botha met Seitz and Franke and handed them his terms, demanding an answer by the early hours of 9 July. On the night of 8–9 July the Union forces stood ready to attack. According to participants’ accounts, the Germans had prepared a night bayonet attack on the camp at Otavifontein in case the terms were rejected. During the night, however, the answer came: Seitz accepted the terms. The instrument of surrender itself was signed at about 10 a.m. on 9 July at a table set up in the shade of a tree near Khorab farm.

The terms

The terms proved lenient, especially compared with the unconditional surrender Botha had demanded during the failed talks in May. German officers kept their arms and horses and could live on parole in places of their choosing. Regular rank and file and non-commissioned officers were interned in the colony; each could keep his rifle, but without ammunition. Reservists, that is, men of the Landwehr and Landsturm, were to hand in their weapons and, after signing an undertaking not to take any further part in the war, return to their homes and farms. The same rule covered those taken prisoner earlier. The mobilised police were treated as soldiers, and the posts in remote parts of the country were to remain on duty until the arrival of Union troops, in order to protect the civilian population. Officials of the German administration could return home on parole, but were forbidden to interfere with the government of the new authorities.

According to the South African official history, 204 officers and 3,166 other ranks laid down their arms, and the victors captured 37 guns and 22 machine guns. Other accounts give higher figures, up to about 4,700 men, probably also counting reservists and police from the whole colony.

Significance

German South West Africa was the largest German colony so far to have been captured in its entirety. Earlier the Germans had lost smaller possessions: Togoland, Samoa and New Guinea. For the Union it was the first great military success, achieved largely by the Boers, who only a dozen or so years earlier had fought against the British and who in the autumn of 1914 had partly taken up arms against their own government. Losses were small for the scale of the campaign: on the Union side, according to the tallies, just over a hundred men were killed in action and about a hundred and fifty died of wounds and disease.

Botha soon returned home as a victor. The colony was occupied by Union troops and placed under military administration. After the war, in 1920, the League of Nations entrusted the Union with a mandate over the territory, henceforth called South West Africa. South African rule there lasted until 1990, when the country gained independence as Namibia.