EAST 



2769 



EAST AFRICA 



Rsri 



Sir Alfred East, 

 British painter 



Elliott & Fry 



East, SIR ALFRED (1849-1913). 

 British painter and etcher. Born at 

 Kettering, Dec. 15, 1849, he studied 

 at the Glasgow 

 School of Art 

 and at Paris 

 under Tony 

 F 1 e u r y and 

 Bouguereau. 

 aj He became a 

 V V iPl^^J ' an dscape 



1^'^iffsMi p a * nter - p r " 

 v AwHHHI nounced in- 

 dividuality, 

 though with 

 a strong sym- 

 pathy with Corot. He was elected 

 A.R.A. in 1899 and R.A. in 1913; 

 was chosen president of the Royal 

 Society of British Artists in 1906, 

 and was knighted in 1910. Few 

 landscape painters are so well re- 

 presented in municipal art galleries. 

 Evening in the Cotswolds is at Hull, 

 Autumn in the Ouse Valley at Old- 

 ham, The Silent Somme and Au- 

 tumn at Manchester, Gibraltar 

 from Algeciras at Liverpool, Hayle 

 from Lelant at Birmingham, The 

 Golden Valley at Leeds, An Idyll of 

 Spring at Preston, Autumn in the 

 Valley of the Seine at Leicester, 

 and Autumn in England at Bris- 

 bane, while to Kettering he left a 

 collection of his works which was 

 opened in 1913. He is also repre- 

 sented at Pittsburg and Chicago, 

 Budapest, Venice, Milan, and the 

 Luxembourg. He wrote The Art 

 of Landscape Painting in Oil 

 Colour, 1906; and the posthum- 

 ously published Brush and Pencil 

 Notes in Landscape, 1914. He 

 died in London, Sept. 28, 1913. 



East Africa. General term ap- 

 plied to that part of the African 

 continent which includes British 

 East Africa, i.e. Kenya Colony, 

 Uganda Protectorate, and the Zan- 

 zibar Protectorate, Tanganyika 

 Territory, and Portuguese East 

 Africa. See Kenya Colony ; Uganda 

 Protectorate ; Zanzibar Protecto- 

 rate ; Tanganyika Territory ; East 

 Africa, Portuguese. 



East Africa, CONQUEST OF. 

 British operation during the Great 

 War. The campaign falls into 

 two parts, desultory and inde- 

 cisive operations throughout 1914 

 and 1915, and the conquest of the 

 German colony by the British and 

 their allies in 1916 and 1917. In 

 the former period the British were 

 in the main on the defensive. 



On Aug. 13, 1914, a British' 

 cruiser bombarded Dar-es-Salaam, 

 destroyed the wireless station, and 

 by sinking the floating dock and a 

 ship made the port temporarily 

 useless. On land there were attacks 

 by both sides on the frontier posts, 

 especially on the Uganda side of 

 the colony ; there was also some 



fighting on the lakes and on the 

 Rhodesian border. On Nov. 4 

 the British, reinforced by a white 

 battalion, the 1st Loyal Lanca- 

 shires, attacked Tanga. They took 

 it, but their losses were very 

 heavy and they were compelled 

 to retreat to their ships, which 

 carried them back to British soil. 

 Longido was another failure. 



On Jan. 2, 1915, the British 

 occupied Jassin, a German port. 

 On Jan. 19 the Germans returned 

 to it with 2,000 men, and the 

 garrison surrendered. Following 

 this the British retired from 

 German soil, but soon they cleared 

 the Germans from the Victoria 

 Nyanza, took the island of Mafia, 

 and on Feb. 28 declared the coast 

 of the colony to be in a state of 

 blockade. On June 23 they cap- 

 tured Bukoba on the Victoria 

 Nyanza, and on July 11 destroyed 

 the Konigsberg, which had run up 

 the Rufiji river. The main task, 

 however, was still almost un- 

 attempted, and although the 

 Germans were cut off from the 

 outside world, their position was 

 by no means hopeless. Their 

 colony, which was intact, was 

 defended by a strong force, well- 

 trained and well led, and this was 

 continually raiding British posts, 

 especially those on the Uganda 

 rly. Throughout it was under von 

 Lettow-Vorbeck. 



In the autumn of 1915, the 

 serious nature of the task being 

 by then realized, Sir H. Smith- 

 Dorrien was sent out to take the 

 chief command, till then in the 

 hands of Brig. -Gen. J. M. Tighe. 

 His health, however, was unequal 

 to the task, and General Smuts 

 took his place. On Feb. 19, 1916, 

 he arrived at 

 Mombasa, and 

 from that event 

 the conquest 

 really dates. 

 Troops for the 

 campaign had 

 been raised in S. 

 Africa, and he 

 had soon some- 

 thing over 

 30,000 men 

 under him. In 

 addition, the 

 Belgians were 

 preparing to 

 march on to the 

 German soil. 



From Mom- 

 basa, the Bri- 

 tish base, the 

 best way into 

 the German 

 colony was 

 through the 

 gap of Kilima- 

 Njaro, the alter- 



native being an attack, as at Tanga, 

 from the coast. Smuts decided on 

 the former, and in March his force 

 succeeded in forcing the defences 

 of the gap. One divinon attacked 

 in front, while the other made a 

 detour. There were several en- 

 counters, but the plan worked 

 well and soon the Germans were 

 retreating rapidly ; their main 

 body got clear, but only by the 

 narrowest margin of time. Smuts 

 moved his headquarters to Moschi 

 and prepared for another sweep. 



The new operations began in 

 April, three divisions being em- 

 ployed, while other forces, Belgian 

 and British, began to enter the 

 colony from the W. One division 

 marched into the interior, took 

 Kondoa Irangi, where it was at- 

 tacked by 3,000 Germans on May 

 10, and made the Germans anxious 

 for the safety of their main line 

 of rly. The main force operated 

 nearer the coast. In the valley 

 of the Pangani river the German 

 askaris, aided by the thick bush, 

 fought well, but they could not 

 prevent the occupation of Wil- 

 helmstal, Handeni, and other posts. 

 The rly. to Tanga was also seized, 

 and minor actions, one or two 

 naval, made the hold of the British 

 on the N.W. part of the colony 

 secure. Across it and around the 

 Victoria Nyanza small but useful 

 successes were also recorded. 



By this time the main enemy 

 force was concentrated in the 

 Ngura Hills ; consequently this 

 was the next objective. The 2nd 

 division meanwhile had reached 

 one of the main objects of the 

 campaign, the line of rly. running 

 from Dar-es-Salaam right across 

 the land, and in July about 100 m. 



East Africa. Map to illustrate the campaign which 

 ended in the conquest of the German colony 



