2004 - Mimi and Toutou Go Forth (6 page)

In the so-called ‘scramble for Africa’ that took place in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, it was Germany that won Tanganyika and its lake. Britain seized neighbouring Kenya and Uganda. Through a series of sham treaties, the Belgians had already taken the Congo in the 1870
s
. Many of these treaties were arranged by Stanley, whose activities on behalf of the Belgian King Leopold had spurred on the other powers, especially Germany. Covering roughly the present area of Tanzania, plus Rwanda and Burundi, German East Africa was established in 1885. It would be administered by the Deutsche Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft (German East African Company) until 1890 and thereafter by the Imperial Government. On the far western side of the territory lay the inland sea of Lake Tanganyika.

Despite the takeover by the Government, German East Africa Inc. had proved a profitable enterprise. Between 1900 and 1913, the value of German exports from Tanganyika had risen from 4 million to 27 million marks. The products sent out of the country, in wooden crates bound for Hamburg, included cotton, sisal, coffee, tea and tobacco.

Of these, cotton was the most important. Indeed, its significance in the story of German East Africa cannot be overestimated, though to understand why takes some unpacking. One of the reasons is cotton’s qualities as a material. A fabric with a long staple and great resilience, it can be mechanically processed more easily than wool, silk or linen. It was the first fabric to switch from hand-to machine-weaving in Germany, yet even as late in the Industrial Revolution as 1873 the Germans lagged far behind Britain and America in cotton production. By the turn of the century, establishing a secure national supply had become a matter of national pride for Germany, which never again wanted to submit to the indignities of having to pay hiked-up prices for cotton, as she had done during the Napoleonic wars and the American Civil War.

Even in peacetime, German industrialists like Karl Supf, a Bremen factory owner, resented having to pay what he described as an ‘annual tribute’ to Britain and America. Powerful figures such as Imperial Chancellor Bismarck advocated independence of supply, and the Colonial Office and industrialists like Supf were constantly agitating for it.

They had a point. In 1900, 80 per cent of Germany’s cotton-was imported from the United States. The remaining 20 per cent they bought from the British: Germany’s main rival for global power. It was decided that Germany would henceforth satisfy her cotton needs with production in the newly established colony of German East Africa. Supf, a colonial enthusiast, emphasised the political benefits of this new economic enterprise. Cotton could be a means of control: ‘Becoming economic master of our colonies depends basically on our succeeding to make the natives dependent on us. Indeed, the economic dependence of the inhabitants will make us real masters of our colonies. The introduction of cotton cultivation as a peasant culture seems to be a very appropriate means of teaching the natives to work while making them at the same time dependent on us.’

German-American experts were brought in to oversee the new venture in Tanganyika. For four years from 1902, a harsh system of agricultural imposition was put in place, as native Africans were persuaded to grow cotton (from foreign seed) through a mixture of threatened and actual violence as well as punitive taxation—measures that eventually provoked the Maji-Maji rebellion of 1905-7.

One of the cotton-growing areas was to the north-east of Lake Tanganyika—the destination of Spicer and his men.
Tanganjikasee
, as the Germans called the lake, was well stocked with fish, hippopotamus and crocodile, but its main appeal was strategic. During the early 1900
s
, as the colony developed, the Kaiser was keen to extend his empire further into Central and East Africa. He saw clearly how modern transport could bring remote regions as yet unconquered into his orbit. In 1904 he began building a railway through the centre of German East Africa. The
Mittellandbahn
, as it was known, would link the capital Dar es Salaam with the port of Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika—effectively connecting the Indian Ocean in the east to the Congolese border in the west.

No one doubted the
Mittellandbahn
’s importance. As
The Times
of Tuesday 29 December 1914 put it: ‘The great value of the railway as an economic factor lies in the fact that it borders on three great inland seas—Nyassa, Tanganyika and Victoria Nyanza—thus linking up the great lake system of Central Africa and the River Congo with the east coast ports…One thing is certain—had the great conflagration in Europe not taken place we should have clashed with Germany in Africa. Our Central African and the east coast trade would have been in jeopardy, and our power would have gradually declined east of the 25
th
parallel.’

The railway was especially useful in the matter of transporting ships to the lake, which hitherto had required African labour. In 1900, setting off from Dar es Salaam, a team of 5,000 porters had carried the 60-ton
Hedwig von Wissmann
—the ship John Lee had seen—to Kigoma. This port town would later become the centre of German maritime operations in the west, under the command of Kapitan zur See (‘Sea Captain’) Gustav Zimmer, the man destined to be Spicer’s strategic rival on the lake.

This was the context in which Lee’s plan was to be made operational. Not that Spicer regarded it as Lee’s plan any more. He liked to intimate that he had already been studying just such a plan when Lee came up with his. Spicer had never met Lee, but he was quite prepared to hold forth on him to Dr Hanschell in the early days of their voyage to Cape Town.

‘Lee is one of those chaps one meets all over Africa,’ he told the doctor, ‘doing a bit of shooting, prospecting, contracting for native labour and so on—a bit of a tramp, in fact. What they call a ‘stiff’ over there.’

As far as the Admiralty was concerned, who came up with the plan was immaterial. They just wanted it completed as soon as possible. At the heart of Spicer’s orders was the instruction to capture, sink or otherwise disable the
Hedwig von Wissmann
.

It was supposedly a secret mission, although Kapitan Zimmer’s memoirs reveal that he knew there was a British naval expedition on its way to the lake by late May 1915: before it had even set off! How this could be is still unclear. In any case, Zimmer had no good reason to fear any British boats, having a trump card up his sleeve. He was more concerned at rumours that the Belgians were trying to build an iron-panelled steamer, the
Baron Dhanis
, the parts of which were currently hidden inland. Zimmer had paid good money to the Holo-holo to find out where, but so far had drawn a blank.

Steaming south on the
Llanstephen Castle
, Spicer and his men were aware of little if anything of all this. They simply knew they had to get
Mimi
and
Toutou
halfway up Africa, then sink the
Hedwig
. Until then, they could relax. The weather was getting warmer and they would soon cross the Equator. After putting in at Madeira, where they took the opportunity to sample the island’s famous fortified wine and to load plentiful supplies of fruit and vegetables, the day finally came.

It was a tradition on ships of the Castle line that fun and games were to be had when the Equator was crossed. These generally included an appearance by the sea-god Neptune, complete with trident. Churchill scorned such festivities and they were unlikely to have changed much in the intervening decade:

Neptune and his consort boarded us near the forecastle and paraded round the ship in state. Never have I seen such a draggle-tailed divinity. An important feature in the ritual which he prescribes is the shaving and ducking of all who have not passed the line before. But our attitude was strictly Erastian and the demigod retired discomfited to the second class, where from the sounds which arose he seemed to find more punctilious votaries.↓

≡ In his autobiography,
A Collector of Characters
, Spicer’s artist brother Theodore remembered similar antics taking place on the family’s sea voyage back from Tasmania: ‘That trip has remained in my memory, particularly the incident when Father Neptune came on board and tricks were played on those who had never crossed the equator before.’

A few days after they had crossed the Equator, Spicer’s officers had just finished dinner when he invited them to his cabin. Once they were all inside he turned on them in fury, saying he had heard them talking about ‘Lee’s Expedition’. Such talk was to cease forthwith.

‘This is no man’s expedition!’ he shouted. ‘It is the Naval Africa Expedition—that is its official title—and I am in command!’

He dismissed them at once and the doctor and ‘Tubby’ Eastwood went for a walk on the deck. The setting sun was a beautiful sight on the western ocean as they leant over the ship’s rail. Neither spoke as night fell. There was no sound, writes Shankland, who reported their conversation, save ‘the swish of water against the ship’s side and the deep throbbing of the engines’. Stars had appeared by the time Dr Hanschell broke the silence.

‘What do you think of the ultimatum?’ he asked Eastwood, meaning Spicer’s threat to punish anyone who described their enterprise as ‘Lee’s expedition’.

‘I was thinking,’ said the Methodist as he gazed up at the night sky, ‘that the hand of God is over this expedition.’

‘I’ve no information about that,’ the doctor replied, half-mockingly, ‘but of one thing I’m sure—that Spicer’s hand will be over it.’

‘Tubby’ Eastwood was used to Hanschell’s atheist jibes by now. ‘It amuses you to play the Devil’s Advocate, doctor,’ he said, ‘but I know you don’t mean any harm.’

A few minutes later Wainwright and a civilian passenger joined them. Wainwright’s companion began pointing out the Southern Cross and the other stars that filled the magnificent panoply of the tropical heavens, when a voice was heard in the darkness. It was Spicer, correcting the civilian’s reading of the night sky.

‘You must forgive me if I don’t agree,’ responded the passenger. ‘Stars are in my line of work, you know.’

‘Oh, indeed?’ retorted Spicer. ‘I certainly wouldn’t know it from what you’re telling us. I am a Navigating Officer!’

Wainwright’s companion studied Spicer as he emerged into the light, then simply turned and walked away.

‘That was the Astronomer Royal of Cape Town,’ explained the doctor, as casually as he could.

‘Is that so?’ Spicer laughed out loud. ‘He’d make a damned bad Navigating Officer!’

Such stories spread like wildfire among the members of the expedition, rapidly eroding Spicer’s authority. It was his stupid boastfulness about hunting that especially did for him. When he claimed to have carried a water-buck back to camp slung over one shoulder, having outstripped his native trackers, it only needed someone to point out that a water-buck was about the size of a pony for him to appear a figure of fun.

It didn’t help that the Captain of the
Llanstephen Castle
clearly thought Spicer a complete idiot. One day, under Spicer’s supervision, Lieutenant Cross and the other engineers had been starting
Mimi
and
Touton
’s engines to test them. Some passengers were smoking nearby on the promenade deck and as he passed the Captain said, ‘No smoking here!’

‘Whyever not?’ inquired Spicer, sidling up.

‘Because of the danger of igniting petrol vapour,’ explained the Captain.

‘What nonsense!’ said Spicer, in full earshot of his men and the watching passengers. ‘We’re far out of reach of any vapour!’

‘No smoking here!’ the Captain shouted, so loudly people looked up. ‘Those are my orders!’

Spicer flushed, but for once he kept quiet—until that night in the bar. ‘You know what these Merchant Service fellows are like!’ he told his juniors. ‘Actually, I could have ordered the Captain off the deck there and then. As a Commander RN on the active list in time of war, I can order any merchant skipper to turn his ship over to me.’

Engineer Lieutenant Cross, who had witnessed the whole episode, chewed the side of his mouth as Spicer spoke. He now did this as a matter of course to stop himself from laughing or answering back. Spicer had already reprimanded him for ‘smiling in a disbelieving manner’ on one occasion. This had resulted in an embarrassed pause at the dinner table, until Cross was forced to retract his smile in public and confirm that he entirely believed what Spicer was saying: that he had a certificate from the Admiralty authorising him to run the engine-room of a second-class cruiser. In effect, Spicer was claiming to be an experienced engineer.

‘Bloody liar!’ Cross muttered, once Spicer had left the table. It was becoming a common sentiment among Spicer’s men who, with mounting dismay, continued on their way to Cape Town, where the African leg of their adventure would begin.

During the journey, British forces captured Bukoba, an important port on the other great African lake, the Victoria Nyanza. One can be sure that the full story of the victory did not come through on the
Llanstephen Castle
’s Morse set: drunken soldiers dancing about in looted German dress uniforms, or in stolen ladies’ underwear, with spiked
Pickelhaube
helmets on their heads and cigars between their lips.

Some of the looters, writes Byron Farwell, ‘were scandalised…by their glimpses of the Germans’ sex lives. One soldier discovered companion photographs of the German commandant: in the first he stood resplendent in full dress uniform beside a woman (his wife?) who was completely naked; in the second, the same woman stood fully dressed in formal attire beside the naked commandant.’

I
t was a cool day. The region at the tapering end of Africa where the Atlantic and the Indian oceans come choppily together was less turbulent than usual. There was no storm and the foamy line where the oceans met—or was it divided?—was barely visible. It must have seemed a good omen to those like ‘Tubby’ Eastwood who put their faith in God’s providence. The first part of
Mimi
and
Toutou
’s journey was over. There had been no attacks by U-boats or those surface raiders of the German fleet that still roamed the sea-lanes. The liner carrying the Naval Africa Expedition arrived safely in Cape Town, South Africa, on 2 July 1915.