The War 1914 - 1915
The War 1914 - 1915
CHAPTER VI
HOW GERMANY LOST HER "PLACE IN THE SUN"
ONE of the chief causes of the War of 1914 was the jealousy which Germany felt of those other countries, and especially Great Britain, which had been clever enough or fortunate enough to win great dominions for themselves in far-off lands. In the days when these were won Germany had not been a nation at all, and when her different parts were at last united under one Government it was already too late. Germany did pick up small pieces of territory in scattered places all over the globe, but her statesmen felt that these were not enough, and angrily declared that they wanted a " place in the sun."
When the war began Germany hoped to win some of their colonies from the countries she meant to conquer. Instead of this, at the end of five months of war she had lost the greater part of her own colonies. She had hoped, too, that parts at least of the great British Empire might be moved to rebel when Great Britain should be in the difficulties in which Germany meant to put her. Instead of this she saw Canada and Australia coming eagerly forward with gifts of men and money to help the Mother Country in the fight. She saw, too, Indian princes pouring forth their treasure to help England, and the dark-skinned soldiers of India fighting in the trenches shoulder to shoulder with the British for the Empire and the Emperor they had learned to love.
When the message from the Viceroy of India (the English statesman who represents the King there) was read out in the House of Commons early in August, cheer after cheer was given by the members. Almost everyone of the seven hundred native princes who rule different parts of India had offered help to the Government in the war. Many of the princes themselves, or their sons, asked to go to the Front, and did so. Among them was the handsome Sir Pertab Singh, Regent of Jodhpur, who was seventy years old. He took with him his nephew, a youth of sixteen.
There were people who were discontented with the Government in India, just as there were in England, but the same thing happened abroad as at home. The leaders of the discontent felt they could wait to have these smaller things put right; the one thing which mattered now was that the Allies should conquer Germany.
From Canada came the offer of soldiers, and one division of 22,000 men, with a cavalry regiment and some artillery, were accepted. Many more men were anxious to come over to the Front as soon as the Government should be ready to receive them. The Canadian troops had some training first, and were then sent over to England to be made perfect in the drill and discipline of the British army. Canada gave also to the navy of the Mother Country two splendid submarines, two light cruisers, two merchant vessels, and some smaller ships ; and because they knew that prices in England must go up, even if our navy did keep the seas safe, Canada sent also a million bags of flour, each weighing 98 lb.
Then from different parts of Canada came presents of food for the troops-half a million bushels of oats from Alberta, four million pounds of cheese from Quebec, one hundred thousand bushels of potatoes from New Brunswick, and so on. Germany must have been surprised indeed when she saw the dominions she had expected to be in rebellion joining like this to help in the war, " not for love of battle, not for great possessions, but for the cause of honour."
Australia and New Zealand, too, gave their most loyal help. Australia had begun a movement before the war broke out to make herself able to defend herself against any enemy without having to get help from the Mother Country. She was drilling quite a big army, and had built up for herself a small fleet. She immediately offered an expeditionary force of 20,000 men, and handed her fleet over for the use of the Mother Country. It included one Dreadnought cruiser (the Australia), three smaller cruisers, and six destroyers. New Zealand also lent her Dreadnought cruiser, the New Zealand, a Sister ship to the Australia, and offered a rifle, artillery, and infantry brigade.
Prom Australia, too, as from Canada-as, indeed, from even the smaller British possessions scattered through the world came further gifts of food. Australian farmers offered a million sheep to the Mother Country. Great quantities of butter, bacon, beef, condensed milk, and arrowroot came from different provinces of Australia, and Victoria sent a thousand gallons of port wine to be used in hospitals for the wounded. Ceylon's gift was a million pounds of tea. From Mauritius came two million pounds of sugar. Never before had people quite realized how loyal all parts of the British Empire were.
It was of special interest to see how the people of South Africa would behave. It was not many years since England had fought against the Boers in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State and conquered them. But in 1909 the Union of South Africa was formed, and these States were granted self- government. The South African republics have prospered as part of the British Empire, and their people have become loyal and happy subjects of the Empire. The Prime Minister of South Africa is Louis Botha, who was one of Great Britain's bravest and cleverest enemies in the South African War. When the war was over and Great Britain dealt so generously with the republics, General Botha became an enthusiastic supporter of the new system and a lover of the Empire.
On the 4th of August a cable was received by the British Government, in which the Union offered to use its own defence troops instead of the 6000 imperial troops stationed in South Africa. These 6ooo were therefore withdrawn for service elsewhere.
General Botha and most of the South Africans were anxious to do all they could to help the Government at home. When two countries go to war they naturally attack each other's colonies, and most of the South Africans were quite ready to attack the German colonies bordering on the States of the Union. But there were still some among the old Boer population, and especially some who had played a great part in the South African War, who were, as it were, sulking. Among these were Generals Beyers, De Wet, and Delarey.
These all thought that, though the Union should defend itself, it ought not to attack the Germans. General Beyers wrote a letter reminding the people of the sympathy Germany had shown for the Boers in the South African War (a sympathy which, of course, arose out of hatred of England). He said, too, that in the South African War "almost all farms, not to mention many towns, were so many Louvains."
General Smuts, one of the loyalist generals (who had also fought against Britain in the South African War), reminded him that since that war the British people had given South Africa its freedom, a freedom which, for instance, allowed him to write a letter of a kind which, if it had been written against Germany in the German Empire, would have been punished with death. General Beyers in a later speech said that he had no wish to stir the people up against Britain, and that in the defence of his country he would fight "till the last drop of his blood had been shed."
But Beyers and his party meant to rebel if the Union should actually attack the German colonies in Africa, and they did so. But they were only a handful of men, and were soon put down by the loyalists. Some of them fought from a mistaken idea of loyalty to their old ideas ; but they were traitors all the same, having given, as General Botha said, " lip loyalty in fair weather," and then been moved by pro- German sentiment in days of storm and stress."
The way in which the South Africans held fast to England caused great surprise in Germany, and one newspaper at least wrote that it was a proof that England is a good colonizer. "The people which for a hundred years has fought for its freedom to the last drop of its blood is happy to-day to be able to serve its conqueror now that he is in need." The loyalty of the South Africans was indeed terribly tried, for when the discontented few rebelled, many of them found themselves fighting with men of their own race, and often even of their own families.
The rebellion in the Union broke out when preparations were made to invade German South-West Africa. General Beyers resigned his position as Chief of the Union Defence Force because of this. As a matter of fact the German troops were mobilized in German South-West Africa before the Union troops across the border, and Germans had crossed the Orange River, which divides Cape Colony from this German province, and had attacked the police posts there. So the Germans were really the aggressors. It was known afterwards, too, that Germany had made preparations to help on rebellion in the Union.
German South-West Africa is a piece of country about three times as big as England and Scotland together. Here the Germans had a much bigger army than was necessary for the ordinary defence of the colony. Like its mother country, it was probably prepared for aggression if the chance came.
In all these African lands there is a much larger native than white population, and natives as well as white men are used in the armies. The Germans said they had 3500 soldiers in South-West Africa, but other people counted that they must have 10,000 mounted infantry and artillery, besides a camel corps of 500. In Africa, where most even of the fertile colonies have their strips of desert land, camels are used a great deal for transport. German South-West Africa is chiefly desert land in the east, where it joins the British colony of Bechuanaland.
But the fighting between that colony and the Union began on the frontier running along the Orange River with the advance of the Germans against the patrols. The Germans had some advantage here, because they had several lines of railway, while in the north-west corner of Cape Colony, a barren and empty district, there is only one small line of railway. The Union, however, attacked and took Luderitz Bay, the only German port in the colony, and troops from Rhodesia took Caprivi, a strip of German land on the north-east of the colony which ran into Rhodesian territory.
But no more could be done until the rebellion which now broke out in the Union itself was put down. In the Transvaal, Lieutenant-Colonel Maritz, with a body of 1000 troops-some rebels and some Germans- rebelled in the Transvaal, invaded Cape Colony, and boasted that he would "overrun the Cape." He had, too, German guns and rifles, besides others which he had got possession of as an officer in the Union Police. He was one of the Boers who had never really forgiven Great Britain, although he had asked for and been given his position in the Union Police Force. The Germans had promised this traitor that if he rebelled the Union should be an independent republic under Maritz himself. Those of his men who would not join him in rebellion were sent as prisoners to German South-West Africa. Before the end of October Maritz and his troops had been completely defeated.
But there was more desperate fighting still in the north of the Orange Free State and the west of the Transvaal, where General Beyers and the famous Boer general, Christian De Wet, went from place to place preaching rebellion. Another Boer leader, General Delarey, a friend of General Beyers, had been shot in his motor-car by a sentry when he either did not hear or would not notice the order to stop. General Beyers now went about in General Delarey's motor-car, and spoke of his dead friend as though he had been a martyr to South African liberty.
Christian De Wet had shown himself in the South African War to be one of the greatest leaders who have ever lived in ' guerilla " warfare-that is, in fighting with scattered bands over difficult country. Of course all this fighting which broke out in Africa was between small bands of troops, and was not in any way like the great battles going on in Europe. De Wet's hatred of Great Britain was almost like a religion to him, and the rebellion was helped by a mad Boer preacher, Van Rensburg, who was thought by some of the simple Boers of the Transvaal to be a real prophet. He went about trying to stir up the people, and prophesying that Heaven would restore the old republics by means of Dc Wet and Beyers.
There was one other Boer leader, General Hertzog, whom people almost expected to join the rebellion. He did not approve of the attack on the German colonies, but he refused to help the rebels, and begged them to keep the peace.
General Botha himself led one expedition to put down this rebellion. He went against Beyers' troops in the Transvaal, to break them up and prevent them joining with the rebels in the Free State. Within a week they had been scattered in all directions.
In the Free State De Wet had not yet been attacked, although he and his followers were in open rebellion. They went about smashing telegraphs, buying by force horses and guns, and "sjamboking" (that is, hitting with a kind of leather whip) anyone who would not sell to them. De Wet was a very rough, passionate man. in one place he had a magistrate seized and brought before him. He then lectured him at great length because he had once fined De Wet five shillings for sjamboking a native. After this General Smuts spoke of the rising as " the five-shilling rebellion."
But General Botha was patient. He proclaimed that all rebels laying down their arms by the 21st of November would be left in peace. Many did this, including two sons of De Wet.
In the middle of November both rebel leaders were defeated after sharp fights, and both fled. De Wet on horseback was chased by motors as he fled towards the Transvaal. His horses were completely tired out when they had to run fifty miles at a time without being unsaddled. De Wet was captured at last at Wartburg, a hundred miles west of Mafeking, and was taken to the fort at Johannesburg to await his trial for treason.
Meanwhile nearly all the Free State and Transvaal rebels were captured, with very few losses to the Government troops. General Beyers died tragically when, in trying to escape by making his horse swim the Vaal River, he fell from its back and was drowned. On the 10th of December the rebellion was at an end after six weeks' fighting. General Botha had taken 7000 prisoners, and had lost only 78 killed and 253 wounded. He was now able to turn to the conquest of the German colonies.
The Germans had made raids into British territory in Namaqualand, Rhodesia, Nyasaland, and British East Africa. They were driven out of Nyasaland and Rhodesia, though there was very fierce fighting in this colony. In Namaqualand the whole body of invaders was captured.
The fight was longer in British East Africa, the southern boundary of which runs along the north of German East Africa, a colony a little bigger than German South-West Africa. On the 10th of August an attack was made by a British cruiser on Dar-es-Salem, the chief port of German East Africa. A German ship, the floating dock, and the wireless station were destroyed, and the Germans left the port.
But in British East Africa, especially at first, the Germans had far more men than the defenders. They had 5000 native soldiers and 2000 white troops, and they began to enlist many more natives. This was thought by many people to be a very dangerous thing to do, as, if the natives were to suddenly turn against the white people in Africa, and so many of them were armed, there might be a very terrible massacre of the white population. Indian troops were sent over as soon as possible to help in East Africa, but it took a month's hard fighting to push the Germans to the frontiers. They had tried to blow up the Uganda railway, but were prevented and their dynamite was captured. By the end of November the Germans were pushed over into their own territory but they had had so many more men at first and so much better guns, including some of the guns called "Maxims," that the British had lost a good many men, about 900 altogether, in killed and wounded.
The two German colonies on the west of Africa, Togoland and Kamerun, were attacked by British and French troops and ships together. The coast parts were attacked first, and then the soldiers pushed inland. The chief settlement in Togoland is Lome, on the coast, and this was forced to surrender by a British cruiser. It was especially important, because at Lome there was one of the biggest wireless telegraphy stations in the world. From there messages could be sent to a station near Berlin, a distance of more than 3000 miles. Early in November the whole of Togoland was in British hands.
In Kamerun the work was harder. The first attack made from Nigeria was. not successful. But when British warships and French troops together attacked it from the coast, and bombarded Duala and Bonaberi at the mouth of the Kamerun River, these places soon surrendered. The conquest of the rest of the colony, like that of German South-West Africa, had yet to be made. But at the end of the year 1914 British territory everywhere in Africa had been cleared of the invaders, the rebellion they had encouraged had been stamped out, Togoland was in British hands, and in the other African colonies of Germany attacks were being made by the Allies.
There seemed to be very little chance for Germany keeping her" place in the sun " in the Dark Continent. Before the end of the year, too, Germany had lost every one of her few scattered possessions in other parts of the globe. Before the end of August German Samoa was seized by troops from New Zealand, which were carried and protected by ships of the French and Australian navies. On the very last day of the old year the largest of the Solomon Islands in the Pacific was seized by Australian troops. It must have been very bitter for Germany to find that many of the blows struck at her possessions were struck by these subjects of the British Empire in far-off lands whom she had hoped to see in revolt.
But the worst shadow of all which fell over Germany's place in the sun" was the taking of Tsingtau by the British and Japanese together. Tsingtau was the chief town of Kiao-Chau, which Germany had made China lease to her "for ninety-nine years "in the year 1897. Germany had pretended that China must do this to make up for the murder of two German missionaries. Tsingtau was one of the most important fortresses in the China Seas. The Germans had spent twenty millions of pounds on it, and the Kaiser looked upon it as the fairest jewel in his crown. He had sent a message to the commander of Tsingtau that he would rather see the Russians marching into Berlin than hear that the Japanese had taken Tsingtau.
But when Japan joined in the war to support its ally, Great Britain, it was certain that Tsingtau would fall. Japan has a treaty of alliance with England. It was of such a kind that her troops would not be expected to join in the fighting in the West, but she would do her best against an enemy in the East. In August, then, Japan gave an ultimatum to Germany demanding that she should withdraw her warships from Chinese and Japanese waters and give up her lease of Kiao-Chau.
The Japanese, whom the Germans had always despised, hoped that Germany would leave her warships to defend Tsingtau, and that their fleet would then attack them. But Germany's China fleet sailed away, as we have seen, to attack British trading ships in the Pacific, where they fought in the battle off the Chile coast, and were destroyed at last in the battle off the Falklands. Tsingtau had to depend on its garrison alone when, on the 18th of September, Japanese troops landed to attack it. They had gone very carefully to work, as they had plenty of time. Mines which the Germans had laid were cleared from the seas, and an old Austrian cruiser and one or two German gunboats within the harbour were sunk, to make the sea quite safe for the British and Japanese warships which were coming to help in the attack. British troops were landed a week later than the Japanese.
The garrison of Tsingtau held out well. It was bombarded by the battleships, and had to resist the assaults by land of the troops. At last, on the morning of the 7th of November, it fell, and 2300 prisoners were taken.
Germany must have been especially annoyed at being so humiliated before China, whom she had for many years done her best to impress with her power, just as she had done Turkey.
Not only did she lose her own possessions while she saw proof after proof of the strength of the British Empire, but she even saw that Empire become stronger through her own acts. Egypt, which had for long been ruled by Britain, but under the " suzerainty" of Turkey, was declared a British Protectorate on the 11th of December. The old" Khedive," who had held to Turkey when that country joined in the war, was deposed, and a new ruler, now called the " Sultan” was appointed, who was loyal to Great Britain and the new rule. So, while the power of Germany in far-off lands grew less, that of the enemy she hated so much grew more and more.