LAND AND .WATER 
July 31, 1915, 
THE CAMPAIGN IN EAST AFRICA. 
By C. Creighton Mandell. 
WHAT is tli« situation in East Africa t How far 
has the campaign progressed, and ha.v» wo or 
tixo Germana had the bettor, so far, of the 
operations t Is th« war in that quarter of 
Africa likely to bo brought to a conclusion soon, 
and b our object the conquest of German territory, or meroly 
Um defence of our own possessions ? Of what importanc* 
would th© acquisition of German East Africa be to the 
British Ilmpire? 
These are but a few examples of the many questions I am 
eontinually asked, and, in attempting to answer them, I am 
hampered at the outset by the very general ignorance in 
England of the nature, resources, climate and geography of 
British and German East Africa, while the conditions govern- 
ing everyday life in that most interesting corner of our 
'African possessions are, to the majority, entirely unknown. 
To explain fully all these factors, some knowledge of 
which is necessary in varying degree to a just appreciation of 
the campaign, would require volumes. Indeed, a sufficient 
number of interesting books on th© diverse aspects of British 
East Africa have been written already, and to these the reader 
is referred. Such facts as are indispensable to this short 
afnmmary wiU be stated simply when their introduction, to 
ucplain certain features of the operations, is inevitabl©. 
N.\TURE OF THE COUNTRY. 
In th© first place, it should be remembered that the key 
to all operations of a defensive character conducted in British 
territory, and, at the same time, the object of all German 
oifensive movements, is th© Uganda Railway, running from 
Mombasa, the ooast port, inland to Nairobi, th© capital and 
military headquarters, and thence to Kioumu, the railhead 
on the Victoria Nyanza. South of, and roughly parallel to, 
this line, at a distance of from fifty to on© hundred miles, 
runs th© German border. There is thus formed a fairly narrow 
■trip of country, some seven hundred miles in length, of con- 
nderable importance from a military standpoint, on the one 
■ide of it lying the German border, the British objective, and, 
«n th© other, the Uganda Railway, the German objective. 
In this strip of country, consequently, a largo amount of very 
necessary and very difficult patrol-work has bean in progress 
Mnce the early days of the war, the difficulty of the work 
▼arying in accordance with the nature of the country, which 
can be divided, roughly, into four areas : (a) the tropical coast 
area, where the cultivated land consists mainly of sisal, 
rubber, and coconut plantations, and the uncultivated of 
overgrown, almost impenetrable jungle — this extends from 
Mombasa to Voi, the latter an important military centre and 
the junction of a railway of strategic value, which is gradually 
being constructed across the waterless waste between that 
point and Taveta, on the German border; (b) the sub-tropical 
area, extending from Voi to Nairobi, and embracing th© great 
■oda-lake and the branch line running out to it from Magadi 
Junction, a district in which the difficulties encountered by 
patrols are lack of water and thick patches of thorn-bush, the 
thorns being of the " fish-hook " variety, tearing through 
khaki and fleah, and causing abrasions which in that climate 
quickly form into intolerable "veld-sores"; (e) the high- 
lands, from Nairobi upwards; and (d) the area, again sub- 
tropical, of th© lake shores and Uganda. 
WORK OF THE VOLUNTEERS. 
Such is the strip of country over any part of which, after 
the outbreak of hostilities, an enemy raid, aimed at the 
cutting of the Uganda Railway, was momentarily to be 
expected. Accordingly, the problem of defence arose, and it 
was found that, quit© apart from any idea of initiating an 
offensive movement, th© forces in British East Africa were 
utterly inadequate to the defence of the country. The only 
force of trained Europeans in existence was a company of 
Bailway Volunteers, and these men were immediately sent out 
hi small detachmenta to guard the more important bridges 
Jta addition to this Volunteer company, the only other forces 
in the Protectorate were a few thousand King's African 
Eifles, native troops who had never been in action even against 
other troops of their own caUbre, but had been employed 
merely in quelling disturbances caused by restiess border 
tnboa^ The number of these tiroops, moreover, available for 
mmie^ato us© was seriously depleted owing to the fact that a 
large section of them waa engaged, at the time the crisis arose. 
in Jubaland, and the Turkhana country, both of which ar« 
some hundreds of miles distant from the point at which troops 
were most urgently needed. In this emergency an appeal was 
made to the European residents, farmers and settlers of the 
country, and the response to that appeal constitutes one of 
the finest episodes in the history of British East Africa, and 
should earn for th© settlers there the respect of all men for 
all time. From every part of the Protectorate men flocked 
in to aid in the defence of the land they had made their 
home. Without a moment's hesitation, men who had put all 
they possessed into their farms and depended entirely on th© 
yield of the ground for their living left their homesteads 
and carefully-tended acres, left even their wives without the 
protection of their presence, to come into Nairobi and sign 
on. I know of instances where men, as far away as the Uasin 
Gishu plateau, were on th© road some miles away from their 
farms, when a messenger — a native runner— bearing the 
proclamation, reached them. Instantly, they turned their 
mounts towards Eldoret, th© nearest township, and thence 
journeyed, as fast as mule and train could can-y them, straight 
into Nairobi, leaving all behind them, literally, at a moment's 
notice, laying down the work of years in order to "do their 
bit ' ' for their country. 
Nairobi was soon crowded with these men, among whom 
was a large contingent of Dutchmen, the whole town aglow 
with optimism, the world made rosy by the prospect of a 
" scrap." Picture to yourself an indescribably unkempt town 
of gawky tin buildings, giving way, her© and tJiere, to almost 
imposing stone edifices. The largest of these, Nairobi House, 
the only building which boasts a lift, became the Volunteer 
Headquarters. Large placards were posted up across the 
windows inviting all able-bodied men to enlist, either in tho 
East African Mounted Rifles, th© East Africa Regiment, or 
Bowker's Horse, a force which later became a unit of the 
E.A.M.R, All day long men went in and out through tha 
doors, passing in civilians and coming out soldiers, while 
crowds of natives assembled in the street outside the entrance, 
and watched the proceedings with consuming interest. Tall, 
thin-legged Somalis, clad in long, loose gerbas, and wearing 
brilliantly-coloured cloths round tiieir heads, stood in 
negligent, graceful attitudes, in groups of twos and threes, 
watching the scene with an air of amused condescension, and 
exchanging guttural epigrams on the ways of the white man 
in the intervals of chewing a tooth-stick. Indians, in loose 
loin-cloths and white puggarees, formed Little clusters, and 
eloquently embroidered the latest bazaar rumours of the war, 
while Kiknyu natives — relying for covering on a goodly coat- 
ing of red earth as much as upon a rather threadbare blanket 
— trudged along stolidly in single file, occasionally emitting 
uncomfortable ejaculations. 
KHAKI-CLAD CHAOS. 
In a few days the khaki-clad chaos produced by the influx 
of the Volunteers was reduced to order. A camp was formed 
on the racecourse, squadrons came into existence, and troops 
fell in in a line of which the straightness depended more upon 
the temperaments of the mules than the desires of the riders. 
Men who had been captains in th© South African War and 
gained th© D.S.O., men who had travelled the world over and 
become famous as hunters, men who had spent years in the 
Regular Army willingly fell in side by side with office-workers 
whose shooting expeditions were confined to occasional Satur- 
day afternoons and Sundays, and laughingly submitted to the 
training of raw recruits. But with such material training 
was naturally short, and, before many weeks had passed, East 
Africa's Volunteers wer© out in the border country, where 
the enemy had already made his presence felt by raiding into 
British territory, burning Masai villages, and driving off their 
live-stock. 
What occurred in Nairobi took place on a smaller scale in 
Mombasa, where a small but efficient Volunteer corps was 
formed, as was also the case in some of the Uganda towns, 
80 that, in a remarkably short time, from th© hot, unhealthy, 
tropical coast-belt up to the cooler altitudes of the open, 
grassy Masai country, away across the wide waters of the 
Victoria Nyanza, the birth-plaoe of th© Nile, through sub- 
tropical Uganda, past the " Mountains of the Moon," and on 
towards the Congo, the outposts of the Empire were held by 
handfuls of erstwhile peaceable white settlers, working ia 
conjunction with the availabla King's African Rifles, anj 
IS 
