The First World War Part 2

Germany's loss of Tsingtao left the East Asiatic Squadron without a base. But Spee had never intended to contribute directly to its defence. The basic presumption of cruiser warfare was that cruisers should retain their freedom of manoeuvre as long as possible. Spee's s.h.i.+ps should therefore have dispersed. Individual s.h.i.+ps were easier to supply and coal, particularly with so many bases around the Pacific littoral in British control. By scattering he would force a superior enemy to follow suit. He would be free to direct his attacks against vulnerable targets, such as merchant s.h.i.+ps and harbours, and he would avoid a battle in which the enemy could concentrate strength against weakness.

But in mid-August, with j.a.pan not yet in the war, Spee's quandary was that his squadron was not - in local terms - the inferior force. As a professional sailor and as an admiral, Spee's temperamental preference was to keep his squadron united and under his own control, and to exercise maritime dominance while he could. On 12 August he received a signal warning him of j.a.pan's probable entry to the war, but he did not revise his intentions. He had already resolved to direct his squadron south-east towards Chile. Chile was neutral, but was reported to be well disposed towards Germany and could provide coal. The Entente naval chain was weakest in this quarter of the Pacific.

When Spee told his captains what he intended, Karl von Muller of the Emden disagreed. Spee's scheme would keep his command intact, but it would do so at the price of the principles of cruiser war, and it would not threaten Britain's commerce at its most vulnerable points. Spee agreed to the extent that he allowed Muller to detach the Emden from the squadron and to make for the Bay of Bengal. Over two months, beginning on 10 September, the Emden raided Madras and Penang, captured twenty-three vessels, and sank a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. Muller applied the principles of cruiser warfare to brilliant effect. Although his exploits created chaos in British trade in the Indian Ocean, he was lionised as much by the British press as the German. On 9 November the Emden Emden was surprised and sunk by an Australian light cruiser as she was raiding the wireless station on the Cocos Islands. Even then the was surprised and sunk by an Australian light cruiser as she was raiding the wireless station on the Cocos Islands. Even then the Emden's Emden's exploits were not over. Muller had put a landing party ash.o.r.e on Direction Island. It seized a schooner and sailed to the Yemen. After crossing to the Red Sea, it braved the desert, despite attacks by hostile Arabs, and reached Damascus and then Constantinople. A German journalist greeted the party on its arrival by asking its commander, h.e.l.lmuth von Mucke, which he would prefer, a bath or Rhine wine: 'Rhine wine,' replied von Mucke. exploits were not over. Muller had put a landing party ash.o.r.e on Direction Island. It seized a schooner and sailed to the Yemen. After crossing to the Red Sea, it braved the desert, despite attacks by hostile Arabs, and reached Damascus and then Constantinople. A German journalist greeted the party on its arrival by asking its commander, h.e.l.lmuth von Mucke, which he would prefer, a bath or Rhine wine: 'Rhine wine,' replied von Mucke.6 In 1914 coal powered almost all s.h.i.+ps, which bunkered every eight or nine days This gave Britain two advantages it possessed a network of bases for coaling, and Welsh anthracite burned more slowly and with greater heat than other coal.

Spee's squadron set a course for the Marshall Islands, so eluding both the j.a.panese navy, which was confined to the north Pacific, and the British and Australian vessels, which focused on the defence of the trade routes from the Far East to Europe. The swift destruction of the German wireless stations in the Pacific forced Spee to observe radio silence, and so helped him hide in the vastness of the ocean. Having learnt via an American newspaper of the fall of Samoa, Spee called at Apia in the hope of finding enemy wars.h.i.+ps there - a clear indication of his abandonment of cruiser warfare. Luckily for him there were no major targets. As he left Samoa he made course for the north-west to fool any pursuers, but then doubled back towards Tahiti as darkness fell. At Tahiti his good fortune deserted him. He bombarded Papeete on 22 September. Papeete had no wireless of its own, but a French steamer was able to report the attack, and so confirmed what some of his pursuers were beginning to realise: that Spee was aiming for South America.

Sir Christopher Cradock, commanding the Royal Navy's Western Atlantic Squadron off South America, was one of those who had suspected as much since early September. It was a rare flash of intuition: a brave man, he was not particularly intelligent, and believed that 'a naval officer should never let his boat go faster than his brain'.7 To cover both the western Atlantic and the eastern Pacific, Cradock was obliged to divide his command, taking four s.h.i.+ps only round the Horn. The Admiralty intended to reinforce them, but the attacks of the To cover both the western Atlantic and the eastern Pacific, Cradock was obliged to divide his command, taking four s.h.i.+ps only round the Horn. The Admiralty intended to reinforce them, but the attacks of the Emden Emden and Spee'.s north-westerly course after the attack on Apia persuaded it that it must have been mistaken about Spee's destination. Only an ageing pre-Dreadnought, HMS and Spee'.s north-westerly course after the attack on Apia persuaded it that it must have been mistaken about Spee's destination. Only an ageing pre-Dreadnought, HMS Canopus, Canopus, arrived. Her 12-inch guns gave Cradock the firepower if he could lure Spee's faster-moving s.h.i.+ps into range. But the engineer on arrived. Her 12-inch guns gave Cradock the firepower if he could lure Spee's faster-moving s.h.i.+ps into range. But the engineer on Canopus Canopus said that she could not make more than 12 knots and that she needed four days' overhaul after the long voyage to the Falklands. If Cradock waited for the said that she could not make more than 12 knots and that she needed four days' overhaul after the long voyage to the Falklands. If Cradock waited for the Canopus, Canopus, he risked losing track of Spee, and so he left her behind : in reality, the engineer was mentally unhinged and the s.h.i.+p could do 16 knots. he risked losing track of Spee, and so he left her behind : in reality, the engineer was mentally unhinged and the s.h.i.+p could do 16 knots.

The Admiralty's orders to Cradock were ambiguous - the consequence of an offensive-minded First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, who could not resist the temptation offered by the wireless to direct operations from London on the basis of outdated intelligence. The Admiralty certainly told Cradock that it was his job to seek out the enemy, and only by leaving Canopus Canopus did it seem that he would have the speed to do so. The trouble was that he now lacked the firepower to be effective when he found Spee. did it seem that he would have the speed to do so. The trouble was that he now lacked the firepower to be effective when he found Spee.

Spee used only one vessel, the light cruiser Leipzig, Leipzig, to transmit wireless signals. Cradock heard the signals and fancied that he might catch the to transmit wireless signals. Cradock heard the signals and fancied that he might catch the Leipzig Leipzig in isolation. In fact, Spee's squadron had rendezvoused with two cruisers, including the in isolation. In fact, Spee's squadron had rendezvoused with two cruisers, including the Leipzig, Leipzig, off Easter Island. Cradock used HMS off Easter Island. Cradock used HMS Glasgow Glasgow in exactly the same way. The Germans heard the in exactly the same way. The Germans heard the Glasgow's Glasgow's signals and closed with her off Coronel at about 4.30 p.m. on 1 November. Cradock could still have escaped. He did not. He closed up to the signals and closed with her off Coronel at about 4.30 p.m. on 1 November. Cradock could still have escaped. He did not. He closed up to the Glasgow. Glasgow. While the setting sun was in the Germans' eyes, his s.h.i.+ps had a temporary advantage, but as soon as it sank over the horizon the British s.h.i.+ps were silhouetted against a reddening sky. Spee kept his distance until the light was right, and then at 7 p.m. opened fire. His theoretical broadside was 4,442 1b to the British 2,875 1b. In practice, the British guns were mounted lower on the s.h.i.+p than the Germans', and the rough seas meant that water flooded the casemates, so up to half of them could not be used. Cradock's flags.h.i.+p, While the setting sun was in the Germans' eyes, his s.h.i.+ps had a temporary advantage, but as soon as it sank over the horizon the British s.h.i.+ps were silhouetted against a reddening sky. Spee kept his distance until the light was right, and then at 7 p.m. opened fire. His theoretical broadside was 4,442 1b to the British 2,875 1b. In practice, the British guns were mounted lower on the s.h.i.+p than the Germans', and the rough seas meant that water flooded the casemates, so up to half of them could not be used. Cradock's flags.h.i.+p, Good Hope, Good Hope, was. .h.i.t before she opened fire and sank within half an hour; HMS was. .h.i.t before she opened fire and sank within half an hour; HMS Monmouth Monmouth followed two hours later. followed two hours later.

It was a crus.h.i.+ng victory, but Spee was realistic about his options. When he called at Valparaiso on 3 November to bunker, he told an old friend: 'I cannot reach Germany; we possess no other secure harbour; I must plough the seas of the world doing as much mischief as I can, till my ammunition is exhausted, or till a foe far superior in power succeeds in catching me.'8 After an uncharacteristic delay he set course for Cape Horn and the Atlantic. He was now in the one quarter of the globe not reached by the German wireless network. He therefore did not know, as those in Germany did, that the British had responded to the news of Coronel by detaching two battle cruisers, After an uncharacteristic delay he set course for Cape Horn and the Atlantic. He was now in the one quarter of the globe not reached by the German wireless network. He therefore did not know, as those in Germany did, that the British had responded to the news of Coronel by detaching two battle cruisers, Inflexible Inflexible and and Invincible, Invincible, from the Battle Cruiser Squadron in the North Sea. Commanded by Sir Doveton St.u.r.dee, they reached the Falkland Islands on the morning of 7 December 1914. from the Battle Cruiser Squadron in the North Sea. Commanded by Sir Doveton St.u.r.dee, they reached the Falkland Islands on the morning of 7 December 1914.

Spee could have given the Falklands a wide berth, but once again his propensity for action got the better of him, even though his sh.e.l.l stocks were running low. As the Gneisenau Gneisenau closed on Cape Pembroke, its senior gunnery officer spotted the three-legged tripod masts characteristic of Dreadnoughts, the all-big-gun battles.h.i.+ps pioneered by the British in 1905. Spee turned away, confident that he had the speed to outdistance battles.h.i.+ps - if indeed they were there. But battle cruisers had been developed by Jackie Fisher, the First Sea Lord, for action exactly like this. They combined the hitting power of the battles.h.i.+p with the manoeuvrability of the cruiser. Not only did they mount 12-inch guns, but they could make speeds of up to 25 knots (as opposed to the Dreadnought battles.h.i.+p's 21 knots). They forfeited deck armour to do so, but when on the oceans, with plenty of manoeuvring s.p.a.ce, the risk was - it seemed - neutralised by their ability to engage at great ranges and at great speed. closed on Cape Pembroke, its senior gunnery officer spotted the three-legged tripod masts characteristic of Dreadnoughts, the all-big-gun battles.h.i.+ps pioneered by the British in 1905. Spee turned away, confident that he had the speed to outdistance battles.h.i.+ps - if indeed they were there. But battle cruisers had been developed by Jackie Fisher, the First Sea Lord, for action exactly like this. They combined the hitting power of the battles.h.i.+p with the manoeuvrability of the cruiser. Not only did they mount 12-inch guns, but they could make speeds of up to 25 knots (as opposed to the Dreadnought battles.h.i.+p's 21 knots). They forfeited deck armour to do so, but when on the oceans, with plenty of manoeuvring s.p.a.ce, the risk was - it seemed - neutralised by their ability to engage at great ranges and at great speed.

In fact, the British s.h.i.+ps managed 26 knots, while the German light cruisers, their hulls befouled by the long cruise, made 18. Inflexible Inflexible opened fire at 16,500 yards, although her guns were calibrated for 12,000 yards. St.u.r.dee avoided closing beyond about 14,000 yards, the maximum range for the Germans' 8.2-inch main guns. Spee looked for a break in the weather, knowing that the British had the afternoon and evening of a South Atlantic summer to deal with their foe. opened fire at 16,500 yards, although her guns were calibrated for 12,000 yards. St.u.r.dee avoided closing beyond about 14,000 yards, the maximum range for the Germans' 8.2-inch main guns. Spee looked for a break in the weather, knowing that the British had the afternoon and evening of a South Atlantic summer to deal with their foe. Scharnhorst Scharnhorst was sunk at 4.17 p.m. Aboard the Gneisenau, 'debris and corpses were acc.u.mulating, icy water dripped in one place and in another gushed in streams through panels and sh.e.l.l-holes, extinguis.h.i.+ng fires and drenching men to the bone'. was sunk at 4.17 p.m. Aboard the Gneisenau, 'debris and corpses were acc.u.mulating, icy water dripped in one place and in another gushed in streams through panels and sh.e.l.l-holes, extinguis.h.i.+ng fires and drenching men to the bone'.9 Out of ammunition, at 6.02 she, too, went down. Out of ammunition, at 6.02 she, too, went down.

The battle of the Falkland Islands a photograph taken just after 6 p m. on 8 December 1914 from Invincible Invincible of her sister battle cruiser, of her sister battle cruiser, Inflexible, Inflexible, picking up survivors from picking up survivors from Gneisenau Gneisenau

One of Spee's two sons, Heinrich, drowned with the Gneisenau. Gneisenau. The other, Otto, was on the light cruiser, The other, Otto, was on the light cruiser, Nurnberg. Nurnberg. She was overhauled and sunk, as was She was overhauled and sunk, as was Leipzig. Leipzig. Only Only Dresden Dresden escaped: she was not run down until 14 March. By the end of 1914 the German cruiser threat to Britain's maritime trade was all but eliminated. So large was Britain's merchant fleet that the achievements of Spee, Muller and others were in statistical terms insignificant. By January 1915 German surface vessels had accounted for 215,000 of the 273,000 tons of merchant s.h.i.+pping sunk, but that was only 2 per cent of British commercial tonnage. escaped: she was not run down until 14 March. By the end of 1914 the German cruiser threat to Britain's maritime trade was all but eliminated. So large was Britain's merchant fleet that the achievements of Spee, Muller and others were in statistical terms insignificant. By January 1915 German surface vessels had accounted for 215,000 of the 273,000 tons of merchant s.h.i.+pping sunk, but that was only 2 per cent of British commercial tonnage.

WAR IN AFRICA.

However, one German cruiser continued her operational effectiveness beyond the year's end. SMS Konigsberg Konigsberg began the war attacking trade off the coast of German East Africa. She abandoned her base at Dar es Salaam for exactly the same reasons as Spee's cruisers left Tsingtao. Instead she established herself in the Rufiji delta about two hundred miles to the south. By November she was blocked in, but as she drew up the river the overhanging branches protected her from aerial observation. Having consumed the efforts of a blockading squadron of twenty-five vessels for over half a year, she was finally sunk on 11 July 1915 by two shallow-draught monitors. Even then her war continued. Her crew and her guns, dismounted from the s.h.i.+p, joined the forces of Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck in the longest campaign in Germany's global war. began the war attacking trade off the coast of German East Africa. She abandoned her base at Dar es Salaam for exactly the same reasons as Spee's cruisers left Tsingtao. Instead she established herself in the Rufiji delta about two hundred miles to the south. By November she was blocked in, but as she drew up the river the overhanging branches protected her from aerial observation. Having consumed the efforts of a blockading squadron of twenty-five vessels for over half a year, she was finally sunk on 11 July 1915 by two shallow-draught monitors. Even then her war continued. Her crew and her guns, dismounted from the s.h.i.+p, joined the forces of Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck in the longest campaign in Germany's global war.

Lettow-Vorbeck became a legend. Forty-four years old when the war broke out, he was physically tough and extremely aggressive. He did not surrender until 25 November 1918, two weeks after the armistice in Europe. Here, at least, was a German commander who had never been defeated. But he became a legend to his enemies as well. Lettow-Vorbeck led them the length of East Africa from Uganda to the Zambezi, but they never caught him up. Their incompetence played a large part, but it suited them better to believe that he had conducted a guerrilla campaign. That was nonsense. Lettow-Vorbeck was a Prussian general staff officer, with all the preconceptions that that implies. His African soldiers, or askaris, were organised in independent field companies, and were trained in bush fighting, but his inclination was to seek battle, not shun it. Cut off from Germany, he was almost entirely reliant on what he could get from within the colony: fighting for fighting's sake both depleted his ammunition stocks and endangered his irreplaceable European officers and non-commissioned officers. As with Spee and his cruisers, Lettow's strength lay in dispersal and in striking against weakness, forgoing the temptation to concentrate for battle. Like Spee, Lettow could not resist the pressures of the traditions in which he had been brought up.

A true guerrilla strategy would have rested the defence of German East Africa on the opportunities for fomenting revolution in the adjacent colonies of the enemy. The British colonial service was depleted by the need for its younger officials to join the armed forces, and the Belgians to the west and the Portuguese to the south had the reputation of being the most bloodthirsty and tyrannical of all the European colonial powers. Lettow-Vorbeck did not exploit this chance: he saw the fighting as a matter between armies in the field and the territories as simply ground over which they operated.

By the same token, he never acknowledged - and perhaps never realised - how much he owed to the civil administration of German East Africa. Although there were certainly areas of the colony which gave support to the British forces, the Germans never had to cope with insurrection in their rear. The German governor, Heinrich Schnee, was not enthusiastic about the war, which he saw as undermining the progressive effects of colonisation. Initially, he embraced the Congo Act. For Lettow-Vorbeck, German East Africa fulfilled a purely military function: to draw British troops off from the main theatre in Europe. This could never be accomplished by neutrality. Lettow-Vorbeck therefore saw himself as constantly at odds with Schnee. In reality, he could never have lasted as long in the field as he did without the efforts of the civil administration.

Primarily this was a matter of logistics. British naval supremacy meant that the Germans in Africa sustained the war very largely on the basis of their own resources. But it was also a matter of men. Many of them were soldiers procured through the agencies of colonial government. France enlisted over 600,000 soldiers in its colonies, the vast majority in West and North Africa. It even used its African soldiers in the war in Europe. The Germans took strong exception to what they interpreted as the barbarisation of war, although the performance of the French Senegalese was not as effective as their reputation. While European soldiers were citizens of the states on whose behalf they were fighting, Africans were - in general - pressed men or mercenaries. Some served on both sides in the course of the war. Kazibule Dabi, a German askari, was captured by the British: They said that we should become soldiers ... We asked them how much they would pay us if we enlisted. They said one pound, one , s.h.i.+lling, and fourpence [a month]. We told them that we would not accept that. We told them that when we were on the German side we used to receive three pounds and ten s.h.i.+llings. We refused and there was great talk about it. When they saw that we were not willing to give way, they decided not to give us food.... As a result we ended up by enlisting.10[image] African porters could prove as vulnerable to diseases in East Africa as did European soldiers. The long distances required many to march way beyond their local areas, with changes to their diets and exposure to new climatic conditions African porters could prove as vulnerable to diseases in East Africa as did European soldiers. The long distances required many to march way beyond their local areas, with changes to their diets and exposure to new climatic conditions

However, the majority of the Africans who served were not soldiers but labourers. Sub-Saharan Africa had few roads or railways, and pack animals fell prey to the tsetse fly. Supplies were therefore carried by human beings. The British recruited over a million carriers for the East African campaign, drawn from the Belgian Congo, Ruanda, Uganda, Kenya, Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, and Mozambique. At the end of the war, the British district commissioner in what had been German East Africa, an area where both sides had recruited labour, reported that a third of the male taxable population had been taken. Mobile operations demanded at least two or three carriers for every soldier, and the demands grew exponentially as the line of communications lengthened. The longer the line of march, the more likely that the carriers themselves would consume the loads they carried. a.s.suming an average ration of 3 lb per day and a load of 60 lb, a line of communications of ten daily marches needed as many porters as there were soldiers in the front line. A march of three weeks and the porter consumed the entire load himself. Thus there was a trade-off between the nutritional needs of the porters and those of the troops. Porters in British pay in West Africa were given daily rations on two scales - either 2,702 or 1,741 calories - but in East Africa in 1917 porters were getting less than 1,000 calories a day. Natives were a.s.sumed to be more resistant to the effects of the climate and its local diseases, but very often they had been marched out of their own localities and their resistance to disease had been undermined by changes in diet, by poorly cooked food and, above all, by its insufficiency. Among East and West Africans employed as carriers the death rate was 20 per cent over the war as a whole: this was higher than the death rate for British soldiers in the war.

On 15 September 1918, with the campaign reaching its conclusion, a doctor with Lettow-Vorbeck's force, Ludwig Deppe, wrote: 'Behind us we leave destroyed fields, ransacked magazines and, for the immediate future, starvation. We are no longer the agents of culture; our track is marked by death, plundering and evacuated villages, just like the progress of our own and enemy armies in the Thirty Years War.'11 For Schnee German colonialism was an end in itself; for Lettow-Vorbeck it was a means to an end. Both were defeated. Germany lost its colony: its active defence did not begin until March 1916 and it was overrun by November 1917. Thereafter German troops fought largely on Portuguese territory. In doing so, they did not draw off troops which could have been deployed in Europe. The British decision at the outset of the war, that only local forces should be used in the elimination of German colonies, broadly interpreted, remained good. Although about 160,000 troops, both British and Belgian, were deployed against Lettow-Vorbeck in the course of the East African campaign, few of them would have been available for the western front. Indeed, the fact that the campaign was not allowed to detract from the British army's effort in France and Flanders was one reason why it was so protracted. For Schnee German colonialism was an end in itself; for Lettow-Vorbeck it was a means to an end. Both were defeated. Germany lost its colony: its active defence did not begin until March 1916 and it was overrun by November 1917. Thereafter German troops fought largely on Portuguese territory. In doing so, they did not draw off troops which could have been deployed in Europe. The British decision at the outset of the war, that only local forces should be used in the elimination of German colonies, broadly interpreted, remained good. Although about 160,000 troops, both British and Belgian, were deployed against Lettow-Vorbeck in the course of the East African campaign, few of them would have been available for the western front. Indeed, the fact that the campaign was not allowed to detract from the British army's effort in France and Flanders was one reason why it was so protracted.

The other British decision at the outset of the war, that the objectives of operations outside Europe were naval, created - unbeknown to them - an almost perfect symmetry between their objectives and the Germans'. Precisely because of British maritime supremacy, the Germans had little intention of defending the coast, and planned instead to withdraw inland so as to use the interior in order to prolong their resistance. Germany's cruisers were to put to sea and use alternative bases for coaling and supplies. Thus the British secured several quick successes but were then baffled as to why the fighting continued. The mutual incomprehension prevailed throughout the war and even after.

The first speedy victory for the British was also the most important. By 25 August the wireless station in Togoland at Kamina, which linked Germany's other African stations with Nauen in Germany itself, was destroyed, following a British invasion by the Gold Coast Regiment. The war in Africa lasted four more years but the princ.i.p.al objective had been achieved within three weeks of its outbreak.

In East Africa, the princ.i.p.al port, Dar es Salaam, was a long way from the nearest British colony, Kenya. Moreover, the activities of the Konigsberg Konigsberg revealed to the Admiralty that the coastline contained several bases from which a cruiser could operate. The Admiralty therefore wanted mastery of the whole coast. The King's African Rifles had been designed for internal colonial policing and were not strong enough for such a task. Two conclusions followed: the princ.i.p.al garrison of the British empire, India, was asked to provide the troops, and Tanga, because it was in the north, was chosen as the first target. It stood at the foot of the Northern Railway, and an attack on it could be combined with a thrust on the other end of the line which reached into the foothills by Mount Kilimanjaro. revealed to the Admiralty that the coastline contained several bases from which a cruiser could operate. The Admiralty therefore wanted mastery of the whole coast. The King's African Rifles had been designed for internal colonial policing and were not strong enough for such a task. Two conclusions followed: the princ.i.p.al garrison of the British empire, India, was asked to provide the troops, and Tanga, because it was in the north, was chosen as the first target. It stood at the foot of the Northern Railway, and an attack on it could be combined with a thrust on the other end of the line which reached into the foothills by Mount Kilimanjaro.

On 2 November 1914 Indian Expeditionary Force B went ash.o.r.e at an undefended beach close to Tanga. The town was held by a single company, and Lettow-Vorbeck's attention was focused on the danger to the other end of the railway. But the preparation of IEF B had not been a high priority for the Government of India, which had already diverted its best troops to other theatres - France, Mesopotamia and Egypt. 'They const.i.tute the worst in India, and I tremble to think what may happen if we meet serious opposition', the expedition's intelligence officer, Richard Meinertzhagen, wrote in his diary. 'The senior officers are nearer to fossils than active, energetic leaders of men.'12 They had been at sea for the best part of a month, and they were not trained in bush warfare. Moreover there was no attack from the other end of the northern line until 3 November. Lettow-Vorbeck could have suffered a major defeat at the very outset of the campaign; instead he was able to s.n.a.t.c.h a crucial victory. IEF B's dilatory and demoralised approach gave him time to concentrate seven companies by the morning of 4 November, with two more due to arrive that day. Deprived of effective artillery support by a decision not to disembark its guns, and confused by the thick bush, IEF B none the less fought its way into Tanga by late afternoon on 4 November. At this juncture some German company commanders instructed their buglers to sound the recall in order to regroup. But the signal was mistaken as one for a general retreat. On the British side, Meinertzhagen recognised the call for what it was, but others insisted it was the charge. For a second time the Germans were given a chance to recover an apparently irredeemable situation. Tanga was empty and, as British naval gunfire at last began to take effect, Lettow-Vorbeck prepared to continue the fight to the west of the town. But the British commander, A. E. Aitken, had decided to give up. IEF B had completed its evacuation by 3.20 p.m. on 5 November. Tanga was only the first of Britain's amphibious expeditions to fail because of divided ministerial authority, lack of army and navy cooperation, and confused and irresolute command. They had been at sea for the best part of a month, and they were not trained in bush warfare. Moreover there was no attack from the other end of the northern line until 3 November. Lettow-Vorbeck could have suffered a major defeat at the very outset of the campaign; instead he was able to s.n.a.t.c.h a crucial victory. IEF B's dilatory and demoralised approach gave him time to concentrate seven companies by the morning of 4 November, with two more due to arrive that day. Deprived of effective artillery support by a decision not to disembark its guns, and confused by the thick bush, IEF B none the less fought its way into Tanga by late afternoon on 4 November. At this juncture some German company commanders instructed their buglers to sound the recall in order to regroup. But the signal was mistaken as one for a general retreat. On the British side, Meinertzhagen recognised the call for what it was, but others insisted it was the charge. For a second time the Germans were given a chance to recover an apparently irredeemable situation. Tanga was empty and, as British naval gunfire at last began to take effect, Lettow-Vorbeck prepared to continue the fight to the west of the town. But the British commander, A. E. Aitken, had decided to give up. IEF B had completed its evacuation by 3.20 p.m. on 5 November. Tanga was only the first of Britain's amphibious expeditions to fail because of divided ministerial authority, lack of army and navy cooperation, and confused and irresolute command.

Lettow-Vorbeck was now given a breathing s.p.a.ce of over a year. This was the product not of his own efforts but of those of the men defending Germany's colonies in other parts of Africa. Given the inadequacies of the Indian forces in East Africa, the British had two alternative sets of 'local' troops to turn to. One was the South African Defence Force, and the other was the West African Frontier Force. But both were fully committed, the former in South-West Africa until July 1915, and the latter in the Cameroons until January 1916. Although Lettow-Vorbeck never acknowledged it, the conduct of the second campaign in particular stands comparison with his own achievement - and indeed underpinned it.

Just as Australia and New Zealand harboured 'sub-imperialist' designs in the south Pacific, so South Africa - particularly its defence minister, Jan s.m.u.ts - wanted to push the frontier of the Union to the Zambezi river. By securing the ports of Delagoa Bay and Beira, South Africa could open up the Transvaal and further the interests of the Afrikaner population, many of whom were still smarting from defeat at the hands of the British in the Boer War of 1899-1902. The war in Europe threatened to deepen their feeling of grievance : the most obvious contribution South Africa could make to the British war effort would be to overrun German South-West Africa (modern Namibia) - a move which would hit a power which had been pro-Boer and which would benefit the status of the English-dominated Cape Town as a port. s.m.u.ts's scheme could mollify Afrikaner sentiment, but it had a big hurdle to overcome: the territory up to the Zambezi was already part of Portuguese Mozambique. s.m.u.ts's solution was to conquer German East Africa, keep the northern part for Britain, give the southern part to Portugal, and ask the Portuguese to give the southern part of its existing colony to South Africa.

To achieve this the South Africans were prepared to provide troops to conquer East Africa. But in 1914 and 1915 the South African forces were not free. First, they had to deal with rebellion in their own territory. The idea that Britain was engaged in a war for the defence of small nations did not convince those who had been on the receiving end of the British army in 1899-1902. Second, Britain had asked the Union to seize the harbours and wireless stations of German South-West Africa. The commandant-general of the defence forces opposed the invasion of German territory, and he and other senior officers resigned. Open rebellion flared in October, but the Germans could not give it effective support from across the frontier and it was suppressed by early December. Thereafter the conquest of South-West Africa was carried through in six months.

In 1915 the South African government could rely on the loyalty of white Rhodesians - even if not all Boers - for the invasion of German South-west Africa By 1916. 40 per cent of Rhodesia's white adult male population was on active service.

The South Africans' opening experience of the First World War, in a territory adjacent to their own, was sufficiently like the Boer War to leave intact too many of the a.s.sumptions that they had inherited from that war. s.m.u.ts had led a commando of about 400 men in the Boer War and in South-West Africa he commanded a column of three brigades. Both campaigns were fought in comparable climates, with the horse as the pivot of manoeuvre. When s.m.u.ts took over the East African command at the beginning of 1916, he had a ration strength of 73,300 men deployed for the conquest of a tropical colony, much of it barely mapped. He was a fine leader on a personal level, a man of courage and intelligence, but he had limited command experience and no staff training. None the less, his first step was to dismantle the professional staff that had been put in place and bring in men like himself - South Africans without proper training and devoid of local knowledge. His second was to manoeuvre the Germans out of their colony rather than fight them: 'he told me', Meinertzhagen wrote, 'that he could not afford to go back to South Africa with the nickname "Butcher s.m.u.ts".'13 The key to his approach was the use of mounted infantry on the lines favoured by the Afrikaners in both their previous campaigns. But horses in East Africa inevitably succ.u.mbed to the tsetse fly. The British knew which were the worst regions for fly, because German veterinarians had obligingly supplied them with maps before the war, but this information was not incorporated in the campaign plan. Basic procedures to prolong the horse's life were not observed. Equine wastage ran at 100 per cent per month in 1916.

s.m.u.ts's transport services had a.s.sumed that he would not begin his advance until after the March-May rainy season was over. They were wrong. Humans succ.u.mbed to disease caused by malnutrition as supply collapsed. The medical services were no more integrated in s.m.u.ts's organisation than were the veterinary. For men the princ.i.p.al problems were dysentery and malaria, which tended to be debilitating rather than fatal. The 2nd Rhodesia Regiment had an effective strength of 800 men, but with a wastage rate of 20 per cent per month it was often reduced to 100 men. Between March 1915 and January 1917 it deployed 1,038 all ranks in East Africa, and suffered only 68 deaths - 36 in action and 32 from disease. But it had 10,626 cases of sickness, one-third of them from malaria, a largely preventable disease.

By the beginning of September 1916 the results of s.m.u.ts's efforts looked impressive on the map. He had reached and overrun the central railway and he had control of Dar es Salaam. But he put no effort into establis.h.i.+ng the German port and its communications infrastructure as the base for his push into the south of the German colony. His administrative staff remained at Tanga, and his princ.i.p.al base was still in Uganda, at Mombasa. When he was recalled to London in January 1917 to represent South Africa at the Imperial War Cabinet his forces stood on the Mgeta and Rufiji rivers. He claimed victory, presenting the war in East Africa as all but finished, the result of a great South African feat of arms. In reality, the advance had eventually stalled. The December rains, which s.m.u.ts had attempted to ignore, had turned the area between the Mgeta and the Rufiji into a continuous swamp. The Rufiji itself was a torrent hundreds of yards across. The nearest railhead was Mikese, 255 km away. The troops were sodden, hungry and sick. His successor, A. R. Hoskins, postponed any further action until April 1917.

The German Schutztruppen Schutztruppen were intended for internal policing, not for fighting foreign powers. Although professional soldiers, their loyalty was not as unconditional as post-war German propagandists, anxious to regain Germany's African territories, claimed were intended for internal policing, not for fighting foreign powers. Although professional soldiers, their loyalty was not as unconditional as post-war German propagandists, anxious to regain Germany's African territories, claimed

s.m.u.ts was determined that his campaign was going to prove the invincibility of the white man. The South-West African campaign had been an affair of whites only. When in 1915 mixed-race Africans had offered to rise in revolt in support of the South Africans, the latter rejected their cooperation for racial reasons. On arrival in East Africa the Boers had dubbed the German askaris 'd.a.m.ned Kaffirs'. Over the course of 1916 s.m.u.ts had had to change his tune, at least privately. Africans seemed to have greater resistance to local diseases than Europeans. By the time s.m.u.ts left the East African theatre, it was clear that the only way to carry the fighting forward was to use African soldiers. But, by claiming that the campaign was all but over, and by implying that all that remained was to mop up the vestiges of resistance in the colony's remotest corner, s.m.u.ts kept the self-esteem of the white man intact.

The Africanisation of the East African campaign was also dependent on the completion of the conquest of the Cameroons. This had taken far longer than anybody on the British side expected - eighteen months - because n.o.body had appreciated the true nature of German intentions. The British wanted to secure Douala on the coast, the Cameroons' princ.i.p.al port and wireless station, an objective entirely consonant with their original policy of August 1914. By 27 September 1914 they had done so, without a shot being fired. The French in French Equatorial Africa had meanwhile embarked on their own campaign in the south, without approval from Paris. They had two objectives: to recover territory ceded to the Germans in settlement of the 1911 Moroccan crisis, and to take the war into German territory. In the main the Germans in the south of the colony had no forewarning of hostilities, so these initial objectives, too, were soon achieved.

Neither Paris nor London had any desire to conquer the German Cameroons. The problem for both governments was that they did not know how to stop what they had begun. The Germans still controlled the bulk of their colony, and their forces were intact. In 1913 they had drawn up a plan to defend the colony not from its periphery but from its interior. Its focus was Ngaundere in the northern highlands, well defended by nature and agriculturally productive. In the Cameroons, as opposed to East Africa, the German civil authorities remained paramount. So the Cameroons did not become simply a battlefield, sacrificed to the greater struggle in Europe, but was held because its defenders believed in the merits of colonisation, and especially German colonisation, as an end in itself. These a.s.sumptions had two implications. First, the Germans could rely on local support, and this in turn gave their defence greater resilience. Second, the initial losses at Douala and elsewhere were not of major strategic significance.

The French and - more particularly - the British never appreciated the underpinnings of German strategy. As a result, their conquest lacked direction and purpose, too often hitting the Germans hard where it did not hurt them. On 10 March 1915 London, in conformity with the original policy of August 1914, told the British commander in the Cameroons, Charles Dobell, to go over to the defensive. But a month previously the governor-general of French Equatorial Africa, M. Merlin, had convened a meeting in Brazzaville designed to wrest control of the French side of the campaign from its column commanders on the spot and impose an overall plan. It adopted Yaounde as the focus of the different advances, so that the columns' efforts should have mutually supporting effects. Merlin's plan was not lacking in sense, but it did of course completely neglect the fact that the Germans' pivot was not Yaounde but Ngaundere. The allies intercepted a signal which revealed Ngaundere's importance on 4 February, but the intelligence was dismissed by Merlin.

Dobell's initial attempt to reach Yaounde failed. The French attacked from two directions, the south, where progress was slow and disjointed, and the east, where it was not. By June 1915 the Germans, cut off from resupply from Germany, were running low on ammunition. Rounds for the 1898-pattern rifle were restricted to use in machine-guns only, and the askaris had to employ older models firing bullets made from spent cases collected from the battlefield, percussion caps fas.h.i.+oned from bra.s.s ornaments, and black powder. The smoke gave away their position and the bullets themselves - if they did not get stuck in the breech - rarely ranged more than twenty yards. Even more serious for the Germans was the decision of their commander, Zimmerman, to reduce the garrison at Garua, in the north, so as to reinforce that at Banyo, protecting Ngaundere's western flank. The British operating out of Nigeria were meant to be supporting Dobell's advance by tying down Germans, but they now had an overwhelming superiority and were able to capture Garua on 10 June. The British did not know what to do next. They still a.s.sumed that Yaounde was the key to the German defence, not Ngaundere. But Colonel Brisset, commander of a French column in the north-east, persuaded the British to push on to Ngaundere. None of the British appreciated what had been achieved, any more than did Brisset's French superiors: all saw him as insubordinate and b.l.o.o.d.y-minded.

Britain's African units needed officers with local knowledge and linguistic competence, and so drained the civil administration of local officials Subsequent fears for the internal order of Nigeria are about to be eased by this column, making its way back from the Cameroons.

Now allied plans and German intentions fell into step for the first time in the campaign. The Germans could no longer use the northern highlands as their lifeline; instead they had to switch to the Spanish colony of Muni (today Equatorial Guinea), and neutral terrritory. At last Yaounde became the axis of the German line of communications. Forced to pause during the rains, the British and French resumed their converging movement on Yaounde from the west and east on 15 November and 15 October respectively. Movement was also resumed in the north at the beginning of November. Although the columns moved in ignorance of each other, their effects were now reciprocal and on 8 January the British from the north and French from the east linked at the Nachtigal rapids, to the north of Yaounde.

The allies' attention had been focused on the north. They had neglected the south. The Germans' route to neutral territory lay open and they took it. The allied columns were exhausted by their advance: when the French reached Yaounde they were 700 km from their intermediate base at Nola on the Sanga. Short of supplies, their pursuit was dilatory. About 6,000 askaris and 7,000 families and followers followed 1,000 Germans into Muni. From here, the Germans kept alive their hopes that the defeat was only temporary and that German colonialism could be revived.

The allies' victory in the Cameroons released black troops from West Africa for service in East Africa. The Gold Coast Regiment arrived there in July 1916. The four Nigerian regiments of the West African Frontier Force were delayed by worries about possible rebellion within Nigeria, but sailed in November 1916. In East Africa itself, the King's African Rifles, composed of three battalions at the outset of the war, had risen to thirteen by January 1917 - and reached twenty-two by the war's end. Britain never considered using these African troops in Europe, although the French did: in this the British reflected the difficulties their Indian soldiers had encountered from the cold on the western front in the first winter of the war. So Lettow-Vorbeck's contribution to the wider war was undermined.

Lettow-Vorbeck aimed to hold the line of the Rufiji until the crops ripened in April 1917. The supply position of the Germans to his left, to the north of Songea, was also desperate. They split, one column under Georg Kraut going south and the other, under Max Wintgens, going north. Setting off at the end of January 1917 Wintgens led his column clean across the allied lines of communications, and up to the central railway near Tabora. Wintgens, sick with typhus, surrendered on 21 May, but Heinrich Naumann, his successor, held out until 2 September. By then he was right back in the north of the colony. This was a cla.s.sic guerrilla operation. Naumann's men marched 3,200 km between February and September; they had found a population which was pa.s.sively supportive; and they had drawn up to 6,000 men away from the main battle.

Lettow-Vorbeck never appreciated what had been achieved: such independence smacked of insubordination not initiative. His own instinct still was to give battle not to adopt guerrilla methods. The British resumed their advance at the end of May, after the rainy season, but under the command of another Afrikaner. Hoskins's delay - given that s.m.u.ts had said that the campaign was over - had exhausted London's patience, and he was replaced by 'j.a.p' van Deventer. The frontal push was supported by thrusts from the coastal ports of Kilwa and Lindi. Lettow met the Kilwa column with head-on battles - at Narungombe on 19 July and at Nahungu in an eighteen-day struggle beginning on 19 September. In the battle of Mahiwa, begun on 15 October and extended over four days, the Lindi force faced eighteen out of Lettow's total of twenty-five available companies. Ground was won and lost up to six times. The British suffered 2,700 casualties out of 4,900 men engaged. Although the German losses were comparatively light (about 600), the battle - the fiercest of the campaign so far - broke Lettow-Vorbeck's force as a combat-ready formation. All its smokeless ammunition was expended, machine-guns had to be destroyed, and only twenty-five rounds remained for each of the older-pattern rifles. However, Mahiwa enabled Lettow-Vorbeck to break contact with the British and on 25 November he crossed the Ruvuma river into Portuguese East Africa (today Mozambique). In July his rifle strength had been 800 Europeans and 5,500 askaris; on 25 November he took with him 300 Europeans and 1,700 askaris. Over 1,000 soldiers had to be left behind because there were no longer the weapons or munitions for them. The last of the Konigsberg's Konigsberg's guns was destroyed. guns was destroyed.

Lettow-Vorbeck carried on fighting and marching for a whole year longer. His column, a self-contained community with 3,000 women, children and carriers, was able to exploit the weakness of Portugal's hold on its colony and the incompetence of its forces. Portugal's greater concern was with internal order: the northern parts of the colony had never been properly pacified, and in the south the Makombe in Zambezia rose in revolt in March 1917. The Portuguese turned Ngoni auxiliaries on the Makombe, and suppressed the rising by the end of 1917 by condoning inter-tribal terrorism and slavery. However, Lettow-Vorbeck did not fan these flames for his own ends. He paid for goods with worthless paper currency, and the German doctors attended to the sick - albeit without medicines - but he continued to regard Africa and Africans as neutral bystanders in a wider conflict. Lettow-Vorbeck marched straight through Portuguese East Africa and reached Quelimane on the coast. At Namakura on 1-3 July he defeated a Portuguese-British garrison and plundered large quant.i.ties of food and ammunition. He then set off north again, skirted the top of Lake Nyasa, and was in Northern Rhodesia when the war ended. Some of his party had favoured making for Angola, others for Abyssinia or even taking s.h.i.+p for Afghanistan.

The British forces' supply lines in German East Africa collapsed in 1916-17 Coastal communications eased the situation Indian troops embark at Dar es Salaam for Kilwa in October 1917

In the eighteenth century Britain and France had fought each other in India and America for the control of continents. This was not why war came to Africa in 1914. The powers did not fight to take territory. Indeed, the most obvious immediate effects were to loosen the holds of empires. Most whites in the colonies feared that the sight of Europeans fighting each other would promote rebellion and resistance. Those fears could only grow as local administrators joined up, and as local forces turned from their policing function to that of confronting an external enemy. But such fears proved exaggerated. Where colonial authority collapsed, anarchy was more likely than revolution. In the Cameroons German pastors were interned and German doctors fled to Muni: the French took over much of the colony in 1916 but were in no position to provide replacements. Education collapsed and witchcraft revived. In South-West Africa, the South Africans wisely left the German settlers in place - at least until the peace settlement in 1919.

That settlement completed the last stage of the part.i.tion of Africa, allocating the German colonies to the victorious powers. Although it was not an intention at the outset, the war promoted imperialism - even if the ambitions of South Africa were in the end thwarted. Moreover, it was not only the peace settlement that had this effect. Where the campaigns were conducted, white men penetrated areas which they had never entered before. Soldiers spread the cash economy and the market; they mapped; and they created the rudiments of a communications network. Above all, they conscripted men. Traditional patterns of authority were broken down as adult - and not-so-adult - males were taken for the army and for labour. Particularly for those who left Africa, and who were treated with respect in Europe, the war could open the door to political awareness: 'We were not fighting for the French', Kamadon Mbaye, a Senegalese, recalled; 'we were fighting for ourselves [to become] French citi-zens.' 14 14 The long-term consequences would be the emergence of modern resistance movements to colonialism. But immediately colonial rule was deepened and extended in order to serve the war efforts of the belligerents. The long-term consequences would be the emergence of modern resistance movements to colonialism. But immediately colonial rule was deepened and extended in order to serve the war efforts of the belligerents.

Africa comes to Europe s.m.u.ts, the former Boer commando but now member of the British Imperial War Cabinet, inspects the South African Native Labour Contingent in France in April 1917

The Entente powers wished to stabilise their hold on their empires by closing down the global war outside Europe. But the demands of the war within Europe meant that instead they had to mobilise overseas resources almost as much as domestic resources in order to wage it. That in turn was more a reflection of Germany's success in extending its own frontiers within Europe, rather than outside it. In 1916 the South Africans went to France, and reports of Senegalese cannibalism were propagated to terrify the Germans at Verdun. The efforts of Spee and Lettow-Vorbeck may have been contained, but Germany's idea of weakening the Entente by widening the war did not stop there. Through an alliance with the Ottoman empire, Germany aspired to lead Muslims to war not just in Africa but across the Middle East and Central Asia.

4.

JIHAD.

THE GERMAN-OTTOMAN ALLIANCE.

O Muslims, who are the obedient servants of G.o.d! Of those who go to the Jihad Jihad for the sake of happiness and salvation of the believers in G.o.d's victory, the lot of those who remain alive is felicity, while the rank of those who depart to the next world is martyrdom. In accordance with G.o.d's beautiful promise, those who sacrifice their lives to give life to the truth will have honour in this world, and their latter end is paradise. for the sake of happiness and salvation of the believers in G.o.d's victory, the lot of those who remain alive is felicity, while the rank of those who depart to the next world is martyrdom. In accordance with G.o.d's beautiful promise, those who sacrifice their lives to give life to the truth will have honour in this world, and their latter end is paradise.1 In Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, the Sheikh-ul-Islam declared an Islamic holy war against Britain, France, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro on 14 November 1914. He spoke on behalf of the Caliphate, a combination of spiritual and temporal authority claimed by the Sultan, and justified by the fact that the holy cities of Mecca and Medina fell within the purlieus of his rule. But the reach of the Ottoman Empire, which at its height in the sixteenth century had extended from the Persian Gulf to Poland, and from Cairo to the gates of Vienna, was contracting. In 1914, of 270 million Muslims in the world in 1914, only about 30 million were governed by other Muslims. Almost 100 million were British subjects; 20 million were under French rule, most of them in North and Equatorial Africa; and another 20 million were incorporated in Russia's Asian empire. Those Muslims in the British, French and Russian empires who opposed the Ottoman Empire's summons to holy war were promised 'the fire of h.e.l.l'. The Muslims in Serbia and Montenegro, who were likely to commit the lesser offence of fighting Austria-Hungary, would merit only 'painful torment'.

This was a call to revolution which had, it seemed, the potential to set all Asia and much of Africa ablaze, forcing the Entente powers to forget the war within Europe as they struggled to hold on to their empires outside it. The message was translated into Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Tatar. It was carried to the Crimea and Kazan, and through Central Asia to Turkestan, Bokhara, Khiva and Afghanistan; it went to India and China; it extended south-east to the s.h.i.+'ite Muslims of Iran; and in Africa its call was heard in Nigeria, Uganda, the Sudan, the Congo and as far south as Nyasaland. But its reverberations were minimal. The First World War may have been a war in which men were motivated by big ideas, but that of Islam failed to override the loyalties of temporal rule.

For many the true author of holy war was not the Sheikh-ul-Islam but Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. In 1898 Wilhelm had visited Jerusalem and Damascus. His love of uniforms and military ceremonial, which looked faintly ridiculous to the cynics of the liberal West, struck a chord in the East. He was dubbed 'Haji' Wilhelm, implying that he was a 'saint' who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. His reaction when he heard of Britain's warnings to Ger-many on 30 July 1914 was to write angrily: 'Now this entire structure must be ruthlessly exposed and the mask of Christian peacefulness be publicly torn away ... Our consuls in Turkey and India, our agents, etc., must rouse the whole Muslim world into wild rebellion against this hateful, mendacious, unprincipled nation of shopkeepers; if we arc going to shed our blood, England must at least lose India.'2 Moltke, the chief of the general staff, agreed with him. On 2 August he wrote to the Foreign Ministry calling for revolution in India, the heart of the British Empire, and in Egypt, which connected Britain's eastern empire to London via the Suez Ca.n.a.l. Moltke, the chief of the general staff, agreed with him. On 2 August he wrote to the Foreign Ministry calling for revolution in India, the heart of the British Empire, and in Egypt, which connected Britain's eastern empire to London via the Suez Ca.n.a.l.

In November 1914 Cemal Pasha, the Turkish naval minister, took over the command of the Ottoman 4th Army, based in Palestine and earmarked for the invasion of Egypt Two Turkish attacks on the Suez ca.n.a.l, Britan's vital route to the east, were repelled, in February 1915 and August 1916.

Here was the articulation of Germany's strategy for world war: it would weaken the Entente powers by attacking them indirectly through their empires. Moltke's problem was that the German army and German weapons were all fully committed to the war in Europe. He had no rifles he could send to those who might rise against British, French or Russian rule, and certainly no troops. And, even if he had had them, British naval supremacy meant that he could not send them by sea. The Ottoman Empire could confer two strategic benefits on Germany: its army could provide the troops for overseas deployment and its land ma.s.s could open the overland routes to Central Asia and Africa.

In some respects the Ottoman Empire bore a superficial resemblance to its western neighbour, Austria-Hungary. Like it, it was a multi-national concern in an age of nationalism, and it also possessed a monarchy in need of reform. In 1914, the empire was still geographically extensive, running from the Caucasus in the north to the Persian Gulf in the south, and from Iraq in the east right across North Africa in the west. For practical purposes, however, it had lost its grip west of the Sinai Desert, except in the case of Libya, where it was actively supporting the local population in their continued resistance to the Italian invasion of 1911. In Europe the Balkan wars had left it with no more than a toe-hold in Macedonia. It seemed that before long this once-mighty multi-national empire would be shorn of its outlying possessions and reduced to the Anatolian heartlands that const.i.tute modern-day Turkey. None of the great powers necessarily wished to initiate this final collapse, but all were preparing themselves for the eventuality.

Germany, Britain, Holland, France, Italy and Austria-Hungary were represented on the Ottoman Public Debt Commission, an attempt to consolidate Turkey's overseas borrowing, which by 1878 consumed 80 per cent of Turkish state revenues. But none of the powers intended to be marginalised from other forms of profiteering within the Ottoman Empire through this process. The privileges given to foreign businessmen in the days of Ottoman might - exemptions from Turkish law and taxation, called 'capitulations' - prevented any increase in tariffs to protect nascent Turkish industries from cheaper imports or the generation of state wealth from exports. Between them Britain and France controlled most of the Ottoman Empire's banking and financial system as well as its debt.

While the great powers exploited the empire, they also staked out their claims in antic.i.p.ation of its demise. France jockeyed for position in Syria and Palestine. Britain had interests in Iraq, both as a buffer for India and because of the discovery of oil: its first oil-fired battles.h.i.+p, HMS Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth, was laid down in 1912. Italy had already taken the opportunity of Turkey's troubles in the Balkans to seize Libya and the Dodecanese in 1911-12. And although Rome's hold in North Africa was shaky, its actions were condoned by Britain and France for fear of driving Italy back into the embrace of Germany and the Triple Alliance. Turkey's most inveterate enemy, Russia, with which it had gone to war three times since 1828, lacked economic and maritime clout, but because it, too, was now linked into the security system of Europe through the Entente neither France nor Britain was likely to oppose it in its Ottoman policy. It wanted control of the Dardanelles, through which a third of its exports (and three-quarters of its grain) pa.s.sed, and it seemed to sponsor the nation alisms not only of the Balkans but also of the Caucasus. Georgians, Armenians and Tatars straddled the frontier and threatened the stability of both empires: Russia's solution, Russification, was defensive, but that was not how it looked to Turks, concerned for the survival and even promotion of Turkish culture. was laid down in 1912. Italy had already taken the opportunity of Turkey's troubles in the Balkans to seize Libya and the Dodecanese in 1911-12. And although Rome's hold in North Africa was shaky, its actions were condoned by Britain and France for fear of driving Italy back into the embrace of Germany and the Triple Alliance. Turkey's most inveterate enemy, Russia, with which it had gone to war three times since 1828, lacked economic and maritime clout, but because it, too, was now linked into the security system of Europe through the Entente neither France nor Britain was likely to oppose it in its Ottoman policy. It wanted control of the Dardanelles, through which a third of its exports (and three-quarters of its grain) pa.s.sed, and it seemed to sponsor the nation alisms not only of the Balkans but also of the Caucasus. Georgians, Armenians and Tatars straddled the frontier and threatened the stability of both empires: Russia's solution, Russification, was defensive, but that was not how it looked to Turks, concerned for the survival and even promotion of Turkish culture.

Each of the main actors, with the exception of Russia, had managed to secure a holding position. The British became advisers to the Turkish navy in 1908, and the French administered the gendarmerie. The Germans had a military mission, although the defeats in the Balkans had dented its - and its parent army's - reputation. But in the desperate circ.u.mstances of the Balkan wars, the Turks could not afford a change of style and ethos, and in 1913 they invited Germany to send a fresh military mission. Its head, Liman von Sanders, had been pa.s.sed over for the command of a corps in Germany, but was determined that he would enjoy in Turkey the status and pomp which such an appointment would have conferred on him at home. Initially, he was not disappointed. He was asked to command Ottoman I Corps in Constantinople. The Kaiser told him to Germanise the Ottoman army, and to make Turkey an instrument of German foreign policy and a counterweight to Russia. The Russians were outraged. But they mistook the Kaiser's rhetoric for the substance of German foreign policy. The purpose of the mission was to recoup the German army's image of professional excellence and to secure the market