Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was born on 20 March 1870 in Germany. His father was an army general who encouraged his son to start a military career. In 1888 he studied at the War Academy. Later he was posted to China during the Boxer Rebellion as adjutant of the commander of the German contingent. During this time he fought alongside British troops and had experiences that would be useful in the future.
Additional key assignments were to South Africa where he worked as an independent Company and Detachment Commander and to German South West Africa (now Namibia) where he helped to suppress the Herero and Hottentot rebellion. Lettow-Vorbeck used these years to learn and train that bush fighting tactics he would later use against the British during the East Africa Campaign. Back to Germany he got command of the 2nd Marine Battalion. In this time he had the chance to study the relationship between naval power, ground troops, and expansionism, an experience that was rare at this time. Before he went back to German East Africa (now Tanzania) to become commander of the Schutztruppe (protection force) in 1913 he was commander of the Schutztruppe in Cameroon.
After his arrival in German East Africa, he used the time to inspect the country, learn about the colony and its people, about the infrastructure, and especially about the British neighbors in the British-ruled East Africa Protectorate (now Kenya). He inspected the border very closely and “once the war started, Lettow-Vorbeck defended German East Africa with skill, determination and courage.” His troops consisted of never more than 3,000 Germans and 12,000 African soldiers, known as Askari, and porters. During the war, Lettow-Vorbeck managed to hold out against a considerably larger force of British, Belgian, Portuguese, and African troops.
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| An Askari Company of the Schutztruppe, 1914 |
It was obvious for him from the beginning, that it would be impossible to defeat the British with their settlements in East Africa and South Africa on the one hand and with the Royal Navy that controlled the sea and therefore the supplies to East Africa on the other hand. “Instead he decided that his greatest service to his country would be to occupy as many troops as possible, for as long as possible, in order to prevent them being used against Germany in other theatres of war.”
[For more information on the campaigns in East Africa, clice HERE to read the articles we've published on that subject over the years.]
By the last year of the war, however, Lettow-Vorbeck's force had been reduced to about 2,000 of his most hardened troops. This last year of the East African campaign thus saw little fighting but endless marches of the Schutztruppe, pursued by the British, Portuguese, and Rhodesian troops, who were never able to catch it. The Schutztruppe left a trail of scorched earth as it marched through several thousand kilometers of Portuguese East Africa, the southwestern part of German East Africa, and finally North Rhodesia, which it invaded in October 1918. Although his Schutztruppe had not been defeated, Lettow-Vorbeck surrendered to the British 14 days after the end of the war in Europe.
The war in East Africa was different to the war in Europe. No entrenched mass armies fought against each other, it was small scale engagement over large stretches of bush country and “the military commanders lived and fought with their troops”. This was necessary for three reasons.
*First, fighting a war in bush country with a relatively small amount of troops calls for a lot of movements and quick reaction times, especially when the enemy has a lot more troops and communication over distance is not reliable.
*Second, the coherence of the troops is very important and the combining of German Schutztruppe with African soldiers called for a very engaged leadership, especially with the burden of long and fast marches and no supply lines.
*Third, the commander had to be able to react to the disposition of enemy forces and to adapt quickly to changes of the enemy’s tactics, which can be done best while being in theater personally.
In the case of L.-V., his leadership philosophy while living and fighting with the troops was successful. One adversary, General Crowe, who served under General Smuts made the comment: “Colonel von Lettow had undoubtedly gained the confidence of the forces under him.”
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| Monument on Hamburg Barracks Named in Honor of Lettow-Vorbeck |
The Keys to Lettow-Vorbeck's Success
Unquestionable Legal and Personal Authority
The governor of German East Africa (Heinrich Schnee) was the supreme military authority in German East Africa. At the beginning of the war the governor wanted the colony to stay independent, but Lettow-Vorbeck's plan was to engage the adversary and do as much harm as possible. In the end, Lettow-Vorbeck convinced Schnee, and after that he had the support of the command in Berlin and the governor in Dar-es-Salaam. Therefore, he had full legal authority.
On his relationship to the men he commanded—Lettow-Vorbeck had the experience of his postings to China, South Africa and Cameroons before he was appointed to East Africa. He also had experience as a commander of a Schutztruppe from his time in Cameroon. Because of these facts, his experience was never questionable. He earned the respect and loyalty of his Askari troops in a number of way such by limiting the number of personal servants of officers and convincing his officer corps not to claim any special comforts for themselves. Such measures help explain why almost all his African troops stayed with him throughout the entire war and shared all the hardships.
Skill at Matching Tactics to Strategy
Lettow-Vorbeck was a commander on the operational level, conducting guerilla warfare with regular troops with the mission of defending a German colony against the adversary while inflicting as much harm on Allied troops as possible.
The strategy L.V. adopted was to tie down as many British troops as possible both to do as much harm as possible to the adversary and by preventing their redeployment to other theaters more critical to the Central Powers. According to the force ratio between the Germans and British it was clear for Lettow-Vorbeck from the outset, that it would be impossible to defend German East Africa against the British conventionally for an extended period of time. “The need to strike great blows only quite exceptionally, and to restrict myself principally to guerilla warfare, was evidently imperative," he later wrote.
The tactics to achieve this aim were absolutely different to those applied in Central Europe. There were no mass armies in Africa and no war out of trenches fighting for each single meter of ground. It was a guerilla war with small specialized fighting units, agile, mobile, and highly motivated troops. Lettow-Vorbeck described his methods:
Knowledge of the desert improved, and in addition to patrols for destruction and intelligence work, we developed a system of fighting patrols. The latter, consisting of twenty to thirty Askari, or even more, and sometimes equipped with one or two machine-guns, went out to look for the enemy and inflict losses upon him. […] The influence of these expeditions on the self-reliance and enterprise of both Europeans and natives was so great that it would be difficult to find a force imbued with a better spirit.
Furthermore, it was necessary for Lettow-Vorbeck to adapt his troops and his tactics to the level of supply and the terrain they had to operate in:
Expeditions through districts providing neither water nor food require a degree on experience on the part of the troops which could not possibly exist at that stage of the war. […] this conditions improved as the troops became better trained, and as our knowledge of the country, which was at first mainly terra incognita, increased.
Ability to Operate Independently
Lettow-Vorbeck operated with a near total absence of communication with the headquarters in Berlin. He could not receive orders on a regular basis and not sent reports on a regular basis. But in a general sense—as both a former member of the German General Staff and as the army's most experienced colonial officer, and with his vast and specific issue of knowledge of the local environment, natives, and opposing forces in the adjacent colonies—he did not need a lot of direction. In his combination of mastery of details, enormous self-confidence, and independence of mind, he is a rare bird among generals of the Great War. He brings Mustafa Kemal to mind.
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| Lettow-Vorbeck's Triumphal Return in Berlin |
Lettow-Vorbeck returned to Germany on 2 March 1919 to a hero's welcome. He led the veterans of the Schutztruppe in their tattered tropical uniforms on a victory parade through the Brandenburg Gate, which was decorated in their honor. Fourteen months after his return to Germany, Lettow-Vorbeck commanded the troops that ended the Spartacist Uprising in Hamburg. He was well known in Germany after the end of WWI, and the Nazi regime wanted to use him for their program, which he strictly refused. This refusal caused a lot of inconvenience for him, and by the end of WWII he lived in near poverty. He recovered and was able to visit Africa and the site of his successes. Lettow-Vorbeck died with the age of 94 in 1964
Sources: "What Were the Keys to Success for Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and T.E. Lawrence," Capt S.W. Fliege, Canadian Forces College; "Lettow-Vorbeck", 1914-1918 Online; Wiki Commons
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