THE MYSTERY OF THE KÖNIGSBERG GUNS
IN GERMAN EAST AFRICA DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR
by Chris Dale, Bob Wagner, Oliver Eicke and Holger Kotthaus
 

THE KAHE RAILWAY GUN
"The barrel was filled with dynamite and it blew up the gun so effectively that the entire barrel was torn at its thickest point"
 Korvetten-Kapitän a.D. Werner Schönfeld, Commander of the Kahe Gun


The Railway Gun at Tanga c1915-16
 Photo originally published in "Geraubtes Land" by Werner Schönfeld

Deployment to Tanga
In November 1914 the German Schutztruppe under Oberstleutnant von Lettow-Vorbeck decisively defeated a landing by British and Indian troops at Tanga and captured much needed supplies, weapons and ammunition in the process. To prevent another British landing attempt, two of the Königsberg 10.5cm guns were deployed to Tanga after their being salvaged from the Rufiji and repaired at Dar Es Salaam.

The first of these guns arrived at Tanga in August 1915 (the second being the gun later captured at Masasi which was arrived in Tanga in October 1915). This first gun was commanded by Korvetten-Kapitän a.D. Werner Schönfeld, a former naval artillery officer who had since become a plantation owner in German East Africa.

Von Lettow-Vorbeck described his first meeting with Schönfeld shortly before the outbreak of war- "Close by was the plantation of Lieutenant-Commander Schoenfeld (retired) who hospitably offered us a glass of very fine Moselle wine, and did so with a military tone like a word of command which even then characterised him as the energetic leader who was later to defend the mouth of the Rufiji River against a superior enemy with such stubbornness."
(Quotation from P7 'Reminiscences of East Africa' by Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, Naval & Military Press Ltd 2004)

The gun, with its turret and its original pivot stand were set on a wooden platform on a steel construction mounted on rails which ran from Putini overlooking Tanga Bay to Mtimbwani overlooking Manza Bay, both to the North of Tanga. Although it was mounted on rails, it did not have a steam engine to power it and instead, large numbers of African porters were needed to tow it up and down the tracks. Hermann J Müller, who served in the gun's crew recalled- "The gun at Putini was mobile on a 6km long railway track in order to fire up Tanga and Manza Bay simultaneously."
 (Quotation from P34, Vol 3 "Kriegserinnerungen aus DOA 1914-1917" by Hermann J Müller, Privately Published)

In the event, the presence of the guns at Tanga and the memory of their previous failed attempt at a seaborne invasion there deterred the British from trying the same tactic again. Meanwhile to the North, along the frontier with British East Africa the Germans had not only held the frontier but raided into British territory cutting communication lines and blowing up the Nairobi-Mombasa railway in several places.

The Battles at Longido and Jassin had held the German frontier but at a heavy cost. With little hope of reinforcements from Germany, von Lettow-Vorbeck could not afford more costly defences of territory and would gradually have to cede territory in future. By early 1916 the Germans were also feeling the effects of the blockade and faced shortages of fuel, medicine and ammunition.

At this point all the other overseas German possessions had already fallen to the allies. The smaller territories in of German Samoa, New Guinea, Togo and Tsingtao in China had fallen in 1914, with the larger colonies of German South West Africa and Cameroon falling in 1915 (although a small garrison held out in Northern Cameroon until February 1916). German East Africa was now the only German colony remaining and more importantly it still held its borders largely intact.


German Positions on the Northern Front, German East Africa c1916
Photo by Walther Dobbertin from Bundesarchiv / WikiCommons

Smuts' Offensive on the Northern Front
The allies meanwhile had only grown in strength. The Belgians had built up in the West, the British in the North and most importantly large numbers of South African troops freed up by the surrender of German South West Africa had started to arrive under General Smuts, who from 23 February 1916 was promoted to temporary Lieutenant Colonel and took command of the British and now South African forces in British East Africa with the intention of an imminent invasion of German territory.

These plans did not go unnoticed by the Germans and in early March 1916, it was decided to move the Königsberg gun at Putini, from Tanga to the Northern Front. Ludwig Boell who served in the East African Schutztruppe wrote-

"To remedy the especially painful perceived lack of long-range guns (on the Northern front), the command decided... to weaken the coastal defence. An 8.8cm and a 10.5 cm gun (the gun later captured at Mkuyuni) were transported from Dar Es Salaam to the Northern railway and a 10.5cm gun from Tanga made its way to Kahe. The first two guns were on carriages made in the colony, while the latter had to be permanently installed."
 (Quotation from P167 and footnote "Die Operationen in Ostafrika im Weltkrieg 1914-1918" by Ludwig Boell, Verlag Walter Dachert, Hamburg 1951)

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, the commander of the Schutztruppe explained the position in his memoirs- "From Tanga, one of the Königsberg guns mounted there was brought up by rails. The reader will rightly ask why this had not been done long before. But the gun had no wheels and fired from a fixed pivot, so that it was very immobile. It is therefore understandable that we delayed bringing it into action until there could be no doubt as to the precise spot where it would be wanted"
(Quotation from P111 'Reminiscences of East Africa' by Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, Naval & Military Press Ltd 2004)

The permanent installation at Kahe took the shape of a newly laid railway track and the reconstruction of the old Tanga railway mounting construction, though this time perhaps without its original naval turret as later photographs of the remains of the gun show no signs of a turret being present. Hermann Müller again recalled-

"We were ordered to bring the gun to Kahe on the Northern Railway, about 30km from Moshi. It was around the 10th March 1916... Unloading the gun was quite strenuous work but by the evening of 15th March 1916 it was ready to fire. Minor tasks such as telephone connection, data acquisition cards etc. took a lot of work too, but it really was a pleasure to work with Schönfeld. Kapitan Schönfeld was also the main observer from the gun on the Kifaru Mountain, 12km from the gun emplacement."
(Quotation from P25 "Kriegserinnerungen aus DOA 1914-1917" by Hermann J Müller, Privately Published)

From here the gun shelled the advancing South African and British troops as they broke through the Schutztruppe lines north of Kahe. But with the allies already closing in on the gun's position a decision was made to destroy the gun rather than have it fall into enemy hands. Hermann Müller recalled in his memoirs- "168 shots were fired from our 10.5, then came the command to blow up the gun, as there was a lack of teams, especially porters to remove the gun."
(Quotation from P27 "Kriegserinnerungen aus DOA 1914-1917" by Hermann J Müller, Privately Published)

Werner Schönfeld described the situation- "General von Lettow gave the order to blow up the gun because taking down the heavy struts and pivots with a tripod stand and its transport with manpower and a traction engine would have been too time consuming. Preparations were in place for all eventualities. The barrel was filled with dynamite and it blew up the gun so effectively that the entire barrel was torn at its thickest point for about 1.5 metres."
 (Quotation from P177 "Geraubtes Land" by Werner Schönfeld, Alster-Verlag, Hamburg 1927)

Hermann Müller continued- "At 8 o'clock the gun was destroyed. So with a heavy heart the first gun was lost. The blast itself was good. The barrel burst and was ejected from the rotating base, shearing the trunion- a picture of the most destruction! It was a good job."
 (Quotation from P27 "Kriegserinnerungen aus DOA 1914-1917" by Hermann J Müller, Privately Published)


Major-General Hoskins and his staff examining the Railway Gun Captured at Kahe, March 1916
 Photo © Private Collection

Both of these descriptions of the gun's destruction seem to match the photographs on this page of the destroyed gun being separated from its base with a wide split in the barrel. This would seem to rule out the gun currently on display in Pretoria as being the same gun captured in Kahe as is stated on that gun's plaque. This is the root of our first mystery of the Konigsberg guns, if the gun in Pretoria wasn't captured at Kahe, then where was it captured?


Destroyed Gun Barrel Captured at Kahe 1916
This photograph clearly shows the split in the barrel at the breech end while it is lying on the ground out of its cradle.

 

Capture and Post-War Display
Soldiers of the British Kings African Rifles under Brigadier General Arthur Hoskins came across the torn and twisted remains of the gun and its platform on the morning of 22 March 1916. It was the first of the Königsberg guns to fall into allied hands although the damage done to it by the German dynamiting meant that it was of no value to the allies except as scrap metal.

Nevertheless, sometime after the British had captured Dar Es Salaam in September 1916, the remains of the gun was taken there to be displayed. The broken barrel was mounted on a concrete plinth in the grounds of the former German governor's house which was largely re-built after its shelling by the British Royal Navy during the town's capture for the new British Governor. The former commander of the gun, Werner Schönfeld described coming across the it on a return trip to East Africa in the 1920s-

"The impression I gained of Dar Es Salaam was not favourable. The gardens which had been so well kept in German times were now neglected as were the grounds of the newly built British Governor's House. Upon turning my attention to the gardens immediately before the Governors House, I was attracted by a gun barrel in place there. Coming closer, I welcomed this long slender barrel. A dear old friend."
(Quotation from P174-175 "Geraubtes Land" by Werner Schönfeld, Alster-Verlag, Hamburg 1927)

Local historian Kevin Patience, described the last sighting of the gun at the Governor's House in Dar Es Salaam- "After standing for over ten years with nothing to identify it, the governor's secretary asked Captain Ingles for details and a suitable plaque was made. Five years later on 22 August 1934 the gun was removed for storage."
 (Quotation from P159 "Königsberg- A German East African Raider" by Kevin Patience, Zanzibar Publications, Bahrain 1997)

The gun has not been seen since. It may have been scrapped or it may simply be rusting in storage or in a hedgerow near its former display site. The former governor's house is now the residence of the President of Tanzania and is known as State House. Unfortunately the house and its grounds are not open to the public.


The Kahe Railway Gun Barrel on display in Dar Es Salaam c1920s-30s
 Photo © Kevin Patience

Sources
 "Geraubtes Land" by Werner Schönfeld, Alster-Verlag, Hamburg 1927
"Kriegserinnerungen aus DOA 1914-1917" by Hermann J Müller, Privately Published
"Die Operationen in Ostafrika im Weltkrieg 1914-1918" by Ludwig Boell, Verlag Walter Dachert, Hamburg 1951
 "Königsberg- A German East African Raider" by Kevin Patience, Zanzibar Publications, Bahrain 1997
"Das Offizierskorps der Schutztruppe für Deutsch-Ostafrika im Weltkrieg 1914-1918" by Wolfgang-Eisenhardt Maillard and Jürgen Schröder, Walsrode 2003
"Army Diary 1899–1926" by Richard Meinertzhagen, Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh 1960
"The First World War in Africa" by Hew Strachan, Oxford University Press 2004
"C Smuts and JL van Deventer: South African Commanders-in-Chief of a British Expeditionary Force' by Ross Anderson, South African Journal of Military Studies 2003
Kaiser's Cross on the Battle of Kahe
 Hoskins information at 1914-1918InvisionzoneForum
Birmingham University biography of General AR Hoskins
Axis History Forum Discussion on the SMS Königsberg Guns in English
Panzer Archiv Forum Discussion on the SMS Königsberg Guns in German

Thanks to MC Heunis, Kevin Patience and Per Finsted for their additional help on this page.

  




INTRODUCTION
Mystery of the Ten Guns
 SMS Königsberg & WWI in East Africa
 10.5cm SK L/40 Naval Guns
 Deployment of the Guns on Land

HISTORIES OF THE TEN GUNS
The Railway Gun - Tanga to Kahe
'Big Bertha' - Dar to Kondoa-Irangi
 The Lake Victoria Gun - Mwanza
 The Hove Gun - Dar to Bagamoyo
 The River Gun - Dar to Mkuyuni
 The SS Goetzen Gun - Kigoma to Korogwe
 The Elephant's Foot Gun - Kigoma to Tabora
 Apel's Gun - Dar to Kibata
 Wenig's Gun - Dar to Mahiwa
 The Last Gun - Tanga to Masasi
 and the
Two 8.8cm Naval Guns
 One 6cm Landing Gun
CONCLUSIONS
Last of the SMS Königsberg
 Mystery of the Mombasa Gun
 Mystery of the Pretoria Gun
WEBSITE
 Return to Index Page
 Credits, Sources and Links
 On-Going Research Forum at AHF
 Contact
 German Colonial Uniforms


Werner Schönfeld
Werner Schönfeld was a former naval officer, who at the outbreak of the First World War was a farmer in German East Africa. He entered the Imperial navy as an officer cadet in 1890 and received his first commission as Leutnant z.S. the following year serving on the SMS Siegfried. He served in the East African station from 1900 aboard the light cruiser SMS Condor and transferred to the naval artillery the following year serving in Tsingtao in 1905. After retiring from the navy in 1910 he became a plantation owner in Moshi in the north of German East Africa, near Mount Kilimanjaro. On the outbreak of war he was recalled to service as Korvetten-Kapitän a.D. (außer Dienst, out of service). His first wartime action was leading  raids to blow up the Mombasa railway in British East Africa. In November 1914 he was given command of the Abteilung Delta, defending the Rufiji River, where the Königsberg later hid. In that capacity he also oversaw the recovery of the guns from the wreck of the Königsberg. After the salvage operations he commanded the Artillerie Abteilung at Tanga including the two Königsberg guns stationed there, then the Artillerie Abteilung Nord along with the Königsberg gun at the Battle of Kahe. Schönfeld eventually surrendered to British forces in Rovuma on 28 November 1917 and was held as a prisoner of war in Sidi Bishr in Egypt. After the war he returned to naval service in Germany being promoted to Kapitan z.S. He retired to write his memoirs about Africa as 'Geraubtes Land' (or 'Raped Country') after making a return journey to East Africa in the 1920s. Schönfeld later lived in Berlin.


Ludwig Boell
Ludwig Boell was commissioned as Leutnant into Infanterie-Regiment Vogel von Falkenstein (7.Westfälisches) Nr.56 in 1910 and transferred to the 1. Feldkompagnie of the East African Schutztruppe in 1913. He was promoted to Oberleutnant in February 1915 and in May transferred to the mounted 9. Schützenkompanie, then the 21. Feldkompagnie. On 13 June 1916 he was badly wounded by a shell splinter as he took cover next to von Lettow-Vorbeck at the Battle of Kondoa-Irangi. A year later he was promoted to Hauptmann and by October 1917 he was serving as a staff officer for the Schutztruppe's Western Command. In May 1918 he was given command of the 21. Feldkompagnie and was again wounded at Lioma in Portuguese East Africa on 31 August 1918. A week later he surrendered to the British. He returned to Germany in 1920 and worked as an accountant and later as a senior official (Oberregierungsrat) of the German Military Archives. During this time he worked on his definitive history of the East African campaign using countless official sources and interviewing dozens of veterans. In the Second World War allied bombing destroyed most of the archive and Boell was reduced to searching through the rubble to find as much of his work as possible. After thirty years of research and over 13,000 pages of manuscript he finally published the work as "Die Operationen in Ostafrika im Weltkrieg 1914-1918" in 1951.


Jan Smuts (1870-1950)
Jan Smuts was born to a traditional Afrikaner farming family and studied law at Cambridge University in England. In 1895 he returned to the Transvaal to practice law, eventually becoming state attorney. When the Second Anglo-Boer War broke out, Smuts initially served in a political role as President Paul Kruger of the Transvaal Republic's right hand man but after the fall of Pretoria, Smuts became a soldier in the field commanding a Boer Commando in guerrilla actions with great distinction. He later was a legal representative of the Transvaal at the Treaty of Vereeniging, ending the war. Smuts was active in the negotiations for home rule for firstly, the Transvaal and in 1910, the Union of South Africa. He served as Minister of the Interior and of Defence in the new government. During the First World War he led the successful South African invasion of German South West Africa and was then appointed as commander of the allied armies in East Africa from February 1916. Smuts' offensive began the following month and smashed through the Schutztruppe's Northern Front. As a military commander, Smuts was criticised by his peers for not being a schooled officer and avoiding frontal battles to concentrate on out flanking the enemy. In fact von Lettow-Vorbeck was using very similar tactics of warfare as Smuts had used against the British in the Boer War and he understood them well. Smuts success in gaining territory if not he final defeat of von Lettow-Vorbeck was undeniable. He was replaced as East African commander in by General Hoskins of the Kings African Rifles and in early 1917 he was called to London to a War Cabinet position and it was in this role that he represented South Africa at the Treaty of Versailles. During the Second World War he was promoted to Field Marshal and represented South Africa at Germany's surrender. As such he was the only man to sign the peace treaties ending both the First and Second World Wars and was instrumental in the setting up of both the League of Nations and the United Nations. In politics, he was prime minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919-24 and 1939-48. Although he had initially supported the idea of racial segregation in South Africa, later as prime minister he opposed the system of Apartheid proposed by hard line Afrikaners and supported stronger links to the British Commonwealth. Although by the sounds of it, he had more weighty matters on his mind, one wonders if he was ever aware that the gun he passed on his way up to the Union Buildings where he worked was not the gun that his soldiers had captured back in the opening days of his East African offensive of March 1916?


Sir Arthur Reginald Hoskins
(1871-1942)
Hoskins was first commissioned into the North Staffordshire Regiment of the British Army in 1891 and went on to see active service in Egypt, Somalia and the Second Anglo-Boer War where he was awarded the DSO. After returning from the Boer War he entered the military staff college qualifying in 1905. In 1913 he was appointed as Inspector-General of the Kings African Rifles but was recalled to the Western Front just after the outbreak of war. He returned to East Africa in early 1916 with the rank of Major-General to command the 1st East African Division at the Battle of Kahe and the following year he was promoted to overall allied commander in East Africa, replacing Jan Smuts. In his short time as commander he reorganised and expanded the Kings African Rifles but took little offensive action before being replaced by General Jakob van Deventer. Hoskins then  transferred to the Middle Eastern Theatre for the Palestinian Campaign. He commanded the 3rd Lahore Division of the Indian Army at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918 when the Ottoman and German forces were decisively defeated. He was knighted in 1919 and retired from the army in 1923.
Painting by Sir Oswald Birley © Ashridge Collection

 


PHOTO GALLERY


The Railway Gun at Tanga c1915-16
This photograph shows the gun on its pivot stand with turret on a wooden platform on rails. Note that is on rails but not steam powered, a team of African porters can be seen on the other side of the gun to haul it into position. This construction was used at both the guns positions at Tanga and later Kahe.
Photo originally published in "Geraubtes Land" by Werner Schönfeld, Alster-Verlag, Hamburg 1927


The Railway Gun Captured at Kahe by the British Kings African Rifles, March 1916
Note the barrel of the gun lying on the ground is torn and twisted at the breech end by the Germans dynamiting it before abandoning it. In the background is the gun's railway platform on top of which is the gun's original pivot stand lying on its side. The railways platform is the same one as used on the gun's initial deployment at Tanga. The soldiers in the photograph are mostly British officers of the Kings African Rifles with a few askari bodyguards.
Photo © Private Collection


Close Up of the Abandoned Gun Platform, March 1916
This close-up view of the damaged platform at Kahe as captured by the Kings African Rifles in March 1916. In the left foreground is the gun itself lying on the ground. The steel and wood structure of the platform can clearly be seen as can the naval pivot stand now partially fallen through the platform. Officers and NCO of the British Kings African rifles stand around inspecting the remains. On the far right is an askari of the regiment with his back to the camera. He is armed with a British Lee Enfield Mk III rifle slung over his shoulder. Immediately to the left of the askari, is an officer who looks very like Lieutenant-General A. R. Hoskins, at that time Inspector -General of the KAR.
 Photo © Private Collection


German Prisoners of War held at Sidi-Bishr, Egypt 1918
These officers were captured in German East Africa, there are several naval officers among them, including Werner von Schönfeld standing at the back third from right.
 Photo © Frankfurt University Colonial Archive


The Kahe Railway Gun Barrel on display in Dar Es Salaam c1920s-30s
This photograph clearly shows the Kahe Railway Gun. Its breech split is the same as that shown in the previous photographs. It is mounted on a concrete base in the grounds of the Governors House. This photograph is one of the last known sightings of the Kahe Railway Gun.
 Photo © Frankfurt University Colonial Archive


The Kahe Railway Gun Barrel on display in Dar Es Salaam c1920s-30s
Another photograph of the barrel of the Kahe Railway Gun in the grounds of the Governor's House in Dar Es Salaam. Its breech split is the same as that shown in the previous photographs and this time we can see right through the other side. It is impossible that this is the barrel now on display in Pretoria.
 Photo © Kevin Patience Collection


Königsberg Gun on Display at Pretoria, 2012
Despite the plaque on the front of the breech claiming that this is the gun captured at Kahe (it reads in English and Afrikans "German Naval Gun, Calibre 10.5cm=4.1inches.Captured by the SA Mounted Brigade and SA Infantry Brigade Rifles at Kahe, East Africa 21st March 1916"), the intact state of the barrel at the breech end shown here as compared to the previous photographs taken at Kahe and Dar Es Salaam showing the barrel split wide open would seem to prove the plaque to be in error.
Photo by PH Parsons on WikiCommons

 

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