With Botha In The Field Part 4

There was none worthy the name.

Everyone was guarded. A few hours after the places were entered the orders were issued threatening severe and instant penalties should any looting be done by the hungry troops; officers, etc., were quietly billeted; and to the houses occupied by women and marged with a white cross no one unauthorised was allowed any approach whatsoever.

It was magnanimous, it was magnificent. But I wonder if the chivalrous Teuton would call it war!

Karibib, the practical junction of the railway running north to Grootfontein, the enemy's new "capital," was made Army Headquarters.

General Botha hoisted the flag at Karibib and proclaimed it on the 6th of May, spent a few days settling matters at Karibib, and on the afternoon of the 11th set out for Windhuk by motor, formally to enter the capital. With him the Commander-in-Chief took his Chief of Staff (Colonel Collyer), Lieut.-Colonel de Waal (Provost Marshal), Major Bok (Military Secretary), Major Trew (Officer Commanding Bodyguard), Major Liepoldt (Chief Intelligence Officer), Major Esselen (Staff), an escort from the 4th Battery South African Mounted Riflemen and Bodyguard.

Overnight the Headquarters party "outspanned" at Okasise on a beautiful camping-ground, and, meeting the Burgomaster of Windhuk under some trees outside the town, ran into the South-West capital towards noon.

Later in the day the ceremony of formal taking over was performed before a big crowd at the Rathaus. It was in every way a historic scene. The mounted troops lined all about the square that fronts the Rathaus from the roadway, their weary horses and stained uniforms showing up in the background, with the throng of civilians crowded amongst the motor-cars and carts in the square itself. A warrant-officer of the Commander-in-Chief's Bodyguard had the honour of hoisting the Union Jack over the Rathaus at Windhuk, the capital of Germany's erstwhile colonial possessions.

A cheer went up as the flag fluttered up in the noon sunlight. Windhuk was naturally regarded as the Mecca, so to speak, of the invading army.

[Ill.u.s.tration: At the Gate of Windhuk. Headquarters Staff Motors awaiting entry]

[Ill.u.s.tration: At the Gate of Windhuk. General Botha discusses matters with the Governor of Windhuk]

[Ill.u.s.tration: At the Gate of Windhuk. The Interpreter]

[Ill.u.s.tration: At the Gate of Windhuk. General Botha emphasises]

With the interests of the civilised world fixed on the vast slaughter-grounds of Europe, I shall not spend much time describing Windhuk. It is a pretty, picturesque little town, built amongst brown and purple hills. In most ways it is highly finished; reflects the spirit of German thoroughness that is an admitted attribute of the race. As usual in South-West Africa, it has nothing of the _colonial_ town about it; it might be another suburb of Berlin. Many of the houses are thoroughly built into the sides of the surrounding kopjes--perched like great red-roofed cages on the hillsides. The place doesn't seem to have a single industry of its own; but then, as I said elsewhere, there is hardly an established industry in the Protectorate.

There is one thing about Windhuk that grips your attention--and holds it in no uncertain manner, too. One of the great objectives of the South-West campaign was to secure the Windhuk wireless station. When you see this--catch a glimpse of it suddenly where it stands on the veld outside the town--you get a thrill of sheer astonishment. The thing seems monstrous there. It is foreign to our ideas--a wireless colossus in such a place. Had I seen this vast piece of work in a humming city that stands warden to the seas it would have fitted in.

But where it is--well, it just surprised. Fancy a pretty bijou veld town, red roofs, neat church, pepper trees, aeromotors, sleepy people and everything--and across the veld, a mile and a half away, darkening the sky with great vertical lines, five terrific steel lattice pillars, nearly four hundred feet high, tied by cables with stay bolts as big as a man; their aerials sweep from pillar to pillar, answer to the wind the deepest note of a giant 'cello, and eavesdrop and conjure amongst the news markets of the world. Now there is no electric light in this village of Windhuk, or Windy Corner, yet. What was the idea with this stupendous thing? And there are not enough Germans in the place--or in the whole territory, if it comes to that--to populate a good-sized town. There is also the usual telegraphic communication to the coast, etc. Yet--the wireless.

Its significance could be of one kind only: a military one.

Leaving the town in the hands of Colonel Mentz, Military Governor, and Lieut.-Colonel de Waal, the Commander-in-Chief returned to Headquarters at Karibib on the 14th of May.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The great Wireless Station at Windhuk]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Conference at Omaruru. General Staff lunching]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Last Phase. The BE2 tuning up in shed before flight over German positions]

[Ill.u.s.tration: At the Provost Marshal's office at Windhuk--all in Law and order]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Union Jack just hoisted at the Governor's office, Windhuk]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Great Military Barracks at Windhuk]

SECTION IV

THE LAST PHASE

On the 19th of June Brigadier-General Brits, of the Northern Army, occupied Omaruru, on the Karibib-Grootfontein line. The enemy had retreated.

Nearly five weeks had pa.s.sed since the Commander-in-Chief had officially proclaimed the capital. During this time much had happened.

An abortive conference had taken place at Omaruru itself, the Germans, we were informed afterwards, asking for terms that we were in no mind to give them. The railway line between Swakopmund and Karibib, broken up by dynamited bridges, had been to a great extent repaired. The poorly rationed troops were now replenished. The horses, badly knocked up after the rush through to Windhuk, had had opportunity to mend a bit. General Botha had proclaimed the country; with refreshed troops and horses, he was setting out to attempt to spring a final surprise on the Germans. He had now the Aviation Corps in full working order--had aerial eyes wherewith to be guided through a subtropical bush country very full of possible dangers. He had ahead of him an enemy astonished, yet, if what was rumoured was true, prepared to make a series of fights and a big stand in country of his own choice. He had with him an army that had crossed a desert and, arriving in bush country such as you find in the Rhodesia "low" veld, knew the nature of it as only the South African can.

On June 24 Headquarters ran into Kalkfeld just after midnight. The enemy had retreated. It had been predicted with the utmost confidence that the Germans would here put up a fight. So confidently was this expected that the Commander-in-Chief would hardly believe it when the aeroplanes returned and reported that there were about half a dozen Germans left in the place. Yet that proved to be exactly the fact, and so greatly impressed was General Botha with the accuracy of the observations on this occasion that he emphasised that the skymen were to receive every possible a.s.sistance for the future.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Panorama of Windhuk]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Picturesque Windhuk]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Windhuk. Basking in the sun: from the great Wireless Station]

[Ill.u.s.tration: How the Germans started to try trading with us ten minutes after we entered the Capital. Note the spelling]

On June 26 Headquarters arrived at Okanjande, and pushed through to Otjiwarongo, arriving there at 12 noon. The pace of the trekking was now becoming phenomenal, and though the country was quite good, water was as scarce as ever, the bush being intensely dense, with thick sweet gra.s.s as much as eight feet high in places. It was a country made for ambushes. In less than a week General Botha had trekked over one hundred and twenty miles, the distance from Karibib to Otjiwarongo.

During this trek the army had had water only twice on the stretch from Omaruru. But delay of any kind was now highly undesirable: the columns could not afford to pause long owing to the consumption of rations. It was no part of the Commander-in-Chief's policy to make bases and await the arrival of large supplies; water was uncertain, and congestion of columns at the watering places had to be avoided as much as possible.

Near Okanjande the first great development in General Botha's final strategy occurred. The northern advance was being conducted as follows.

Brigadier-General Brits, on the left, remained at Otjitasu, leaving it on June 30. General Botha, with his command, in the centre, was holding to the narrow gauge Karibib-Otavi-Tsumeb-Grootfontein Railway, and General Myburgh's column to the right. Brigadier-General Brits now branched away to Otjitasu, making for Outjo, Okanknejo, and across the Etoscha Pan to Namutoni. The other columns moved on, trekking night and day, as in the great advance across the Namib Desert.

Headquarters made Okaputa on June 29; paused the next day, and on July 1 the Staff, leaving Okaputa at 8 o'clock in the morning, reached Otavi and Otaviafontein at 4.30 p.m., close on the heels of an engagement at Osib between the Germans and Brigadier-General Manie Botha, who had pushed on with the Orange Free State Brigade at 6.30 the previous evening, June 30. This engagement took place in the now intensely thick bush country. In defeating the enemy, at a cost of a dozen casualties, Brigadier-General Manie Botha succeeded in securing the finest water supply the Union Forces had yet seen, and so swift and resolute was the fighting of the burghers that the enemy fled to their last strong-hold northward towards Tsumeb. Before striking the enemy in this action the Free State Brigade, and their accompanying batteries from the 2nd South African Mounted Riflemen, had trekked forty-two miles in sixteen hours without halt for any kind of a rest. Behind them, in support, came the force, consisting of the 6th Mounted Brigade, with the 1st South African Mounted Riflemen Batteries, who did a similar trek, through thickest bush, covering almost fifty miles in twenty hours. And the animals had come through from Karibib--almost two and a half degrees of lat.i.tude south.

At the same time as Brigadier-General Manie Botha had left Okaputa, Brigadier-General Lukin, with the 6th Mounted S.A.M.R. Brigade, had left Omarasa. We had therefore a perfect network of highly mobile forces advancing on the German position somewhere north. Away on the right, from Windhuk and Okahandja through the Waterberg, was Brigadier-General Albert's column. On his left was Brigadier-General Myburgh. Nearer the railway was Brigadier-General Manie Botha. Next came the Commander-in-Chief with Headquarters Staff and Bodyguard; and, further, General Lukin. For the time being Brigadier-General Brits, on the extreme left, had disappeared.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Last Phase. Difficulties with General Botha's car through the thick sand]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Last Phase. The Germans had a hobby of blowing up bridges. Here is a fine specimen]

[Ill.u.s.tration: General Frank's house, Windhuk. Photo of the two first men there taken under the flag hauled down by us]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Windhuk. The first British station-master and one of his staff]

Brigadier-General Manie Botha now advanced right into the bush, supported by Brigadier-General Lukin, who occupied Eisenberg Nek, on the right flank. Brigadier-General Myburgh, trekking by forced marches, in the course of his flanking movement on the right cut the line between Otavi and Grootfontein, and, swerving north, encountered the enemy at Asis and Gaub. This column, having captured seventy Germans, marched straight on to Tsumeb, the extreme northerly limit of the railway, forty miles north of Otavi. Here the enemy was attacked so resolutely that they surrendered with all arms and four field guns, and the Union prisoners of war were released. And great was their rejoicing, too. Other columns marching north had now reached Rietfontein and Grootfontein.

It so arose now that General Myburgh, having got for a brief s.p.a.ce out of touch with the Commander-in-Chief, was not aware that the Germans had opened, on July 5, negotiations with General Botha. General Myburgh was at once communicated with. As a fact, at the time he entered Tsumeb, a conference was on hand farther south.

Why did the German forces in the Protectorate surrender without making the big stand they threatened? If any proof be needed that they did intend to make a stand it is necessary only to glance at the plan of their final dispositions. And that is just where General Botha and his forces had done their work. There is not the least doubt, not the very least, that von Franke might have made a stand. It would have been nothing more than a quixotically honourable waste of life ending in one only possible way.

_He was surrounded before he knew it._

So neat and swift had been the scheme prepared by the Commander-in-Chief that the German was incredulous--until his scouts kept coming in and telling him what the real state of affairs was. For Brits, after a two hundred mile detour through the wildest country had swept right north to Namutoni on the Great Etoscha Pan, had released more prisoners and was swerving further out. Myburgh was in Tsumeb. Both these generals were behind the Germans, ready to strike out forthwith; and von Franke was cut off from all his supplies. He had simply been caught--caught by remorseless forced marches and strategy as neat as a trivet--in a great fork with bent p.r.o.ngs. On the sketches in this little book, to which I have sacrificed everything possible for clearness, the general simple scheme of the campaign may be apparent.

The final position on July 5 was something like the diagram on page 61 [A].

Even guerilla warfare is an unattainable luxury when you are surrounded.

[Ill.u.s.tration: [A] The Fork that Caught the Germans]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Last Phase. Opposite the very spot where surrender was made. A vast ant-hill at 500 Kilometres]

[Ill.u.s.tration: South-West Africa. Position of enemy before surrender]

At kilometre 500 on the line between Otavi and Korab, at 2 a.m. on the 9th of July 1915, von Franke, the German Commander, and Dr. Seitz, the Imperial Governor of South-West Africa, discreetly surrendered to Louis Botha, Commander-in-Chief and Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Last Phase. The German white flag train just arriving]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Last Phase. General Botha meets Von Franke at 500 Kilometres]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Last Phase. Troops entraining to return home]