Looff addressing Königsberg officers in the Rufiji Delta, 1915
Deployment of the Königsberg Guns on Land
 "The loss of the Königsberg though sad in itself had at least this advantage for the land campaign, that the whole crew and the valuable supplies were now at the disposal of the Schutztruppe."
(Quotation from P85 'Reminiscences of East Africa' by Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, Naval & Military Press Ltd 2004)

Salvage of the Guns
As the British Royal Navy had not been able to secure the site of the Königsberg's wreck, the commander of the Schutztruppe's Abteilung Rufiji, Korvetten-Kapitän a.D. Werner Schönfeld took the initiative and ordered that the guns and any other useful war material be salvaged.

this was done with the assistance of the steamer Hedwig von Wissmann and rafts they made... work began two days after sinking over the following two weeks six guns ad been brought onshoire, the the other four following soon afterwards.

Divers without specialist equipment also managed to find all ten breech blocks that had been thrown overboard during the battle. As well as the guns and their ammunition, the salvage team recovered useful radio equipment, medical supplies ands other material.

This was a lost opportunity on the part of the British in failing to secure the wreck and prevent the guns and valuable supplies falling into German hands.

Salvage Crew at the wreck of the SMS Königsberg
Photograph by Walther Dobbertin from Bundesarchiv / WikiCommons

In July 1915 all of the ten 10.5cm guns of the SMS Königsberg were recovered from the ship's wreck and dragged on carts made from farm machinery over 100 miles overland by African porters to Dar Es Salaam. There they were refitted at the railway workshops and prepared for use on land.

Initial Deployments of the Guns as Coastal Artillery
The guns were initially deemed most suitable as coastal artillery overlooking the sea or lakeshores to defend against potential allied seaborne attacks. In this role all ten guns were originally deployed on their original naval pivot stands. Five guns were installed at Dar Es Salaam, two at Tanga and three were sent to the Western Front of German East Africa.

Initial Deployment of the Guns

Dar Es Salaam Deployment
Five of the guns were installed in fixed emplacements to defend the harbour at Dar Es Salaam in two batteries (Batterie Müllerschamba next to the railway station with three guns and Batterie Kurasini across the Seresan Creek above the harbour with two guns). Both batteries covered the deep water approach to the harbour.

As we know by deduction that two of the guns based at Dar Es Salaam were originally turreted guns on the SMS Königsberg and that three were not. It is tempting to believe that the two batteries were divided in this way with Batterie Müllerschamba being turreted and Batterie Kurasini being unturreted and possibly built into blockhouses as seen in some photographs of the emplacements after their capture by allied forces in September 1916. There is however no corroborating evidence for this theory.

The guns were gradually withdrawn one by one from Dar Es Salaam between March and August 1916 as they were needed on other fronts and as the allies under Smuts eventually drew closer to Dar Es Salaam itself.

Map of Dar Es Salaam Harbour, Showing the Position of the Two Gun Batteries

An eyewitness, Nis Kock described the response of a single 10.5cm Königsberg to a British naval raid on Dar Es Salaam. The British were shelling the city from three or four ships-

"But all at once, one of the long range Königsberg guns began to make itself heard; its emplacement was behind the town but its fellow had already been taken off to one of the fronts. I saw slender spurts of water rising round the English ships, like innocent fountains on the shining sea. But the English knew what these tall thin springs of water meant, and they altered course and stood out to sea but still kept up their fire. The Königsberg big gun followed them faithfully and her shells fell annoyingly near. I couldn't see whether there were any hits on account of the ships smoke which hid them almost completely".
(Quotation from "Blockade and Jungle" by Nis Kock, edited by Christen P Christensen, Battery Press 2003)

Tanga Deployment
Two of the guns were deployed to Tanga to defend the harbour there. These guns were mounted on platforms on rails. Both guns were fitted with their original turrets.

"The guns set out in Dar Es Salaam were stationary- they were placed on concrete platforms. Those used in Tanga were different. The gun at Nyamyami was constructed within a building (a grass hut) and was transportable. 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)

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

Westwards Deployment
The other three guns were sent Westwards on the Central Railway to Tabora. From there one went north to Mwanza on Lake Victoria and two carried on along the railway further west to Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika, where one was used as coastal artillery and the other was mounted on the lake steamer SS Goetzen. The guns at Kigoma and on the SS Goetzen had their original turrets. The gun at Mwanza which did not have a turret and so improvised a gun shield in its place.

Captured Gun in Emplacement at Mwanza, 1916
Photo © Imperial War Museum

Blockade Running Supply Ships
The Königsberg guns would have soon run out of ammunition if it had not been for the arrival of two blockade running supply ships in German East Africa, the SS Kronberg and the SS Marie both carrying 10.5cm shells and well as other much needed supplies and munitions.

SS Kronberg
The first of the blockade breakers to reach German East Africa was a cargo steamer named Rubens that was impounded at Hamburg in 1914. Renamed the SS Kronberg, she was captained by Oberleutnant zur See der Reserve Carl Christiansen and manned by a hand picked crew of sailors from the Imperial Navy who spoke fluent Danish. These men were mostly from the ethnically Danish North Schleswig, which was at the time part of the German Empire.

The crew were not told of their mission until they had left Kiel and were out to sea. They were told to discard their German naval uniforms in favour of civilian seamen's sweaters. Nis Kock, a stoker on the ship recalled that Christiansen then gathered the ship's crew and said-

"I can now tell you the object of this voyage. It is to run the English blockade and take supplies of coal and ammunition to the SMS Königsberg. I had to keep this absolutely secret till this moment on account of the spies which unfortunately abound in Wilhelmshaven... we hope to keep clear of English and French ships but if nevertheless we are stopped, I hope every man understands what that means. You are now Danish seamen!"
(Quotation from "Blockade and Jungle" by Nis Kock, edited by Christen P Christensen, Battery Press 2003)

The Danish flag was flown from the ships mast and a portrait of King Christian X of Denmark was hung in the mess. The deception did prove effective when they were stopped and inspected by a British Royal Navy ship and successfully passed themselves off as an innocent Danish merchant vessel.

The Kronberg sailed across the North Sea to the coast of Norway, around the south of Iceland, down the Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope and on 14 April 1915 arrived at Manza Bay, north of Tanga. By this time, the Royal Navy had intercepted wireless messages between the SMS Königsberg and the Kronberg and knew of her presence. HMS Hyacinth was deployed to Manza Bay where she began shelling the Kronberg from a distance to be safe from return gunfire from the shore.

Christiansen then ordered the Kronberg to be burned, scuttled and abandoned. The wooden beams on the deck were set ablaze and she sank in shallow water. HMS Hyacinth then considered her task done and returned to Zanzibar.

With the Royal Navy gone, teams of divers from the crews of the SS Kronberg and SMS Königsberg set about salvaging the ship's cargo. In all they managed to retrieve the following useful supplies-

1,800 Mauser 98 rifles (Kar98az).
Four MG08 machine guns.
4.5 million rounds for the rifles and machine guns.
Two 6cm naval landing guns.
3,000 6cm shells for the landing guns and the other three 6cm guns already in East Africa.
1,000 10.5cm shells for the large SMS Königsberg guns.
500 8.8cm shells for the two smaller SMS Königsberg guns.
3,000 3.7cm shells for the revolver guns from the SMS Möwe. ·       
One ton of Trinitroanisole explosive. ·       
Telegraph and telephone material, medical supplies, machine tools, cutting torches, uniforms, two hundred tents, rations and other minor items.

The one thousand rounds for the Königsberg guns were essential for the continued usage of the guns on land. They were well packed on board the ship and so suffered little water damage by the time they were salvaged. The rifle and machine gun rounds were however damaged and many had to be taken apart and reloaded in Dar Es Salaam. Even then they suffered high incidences of misfiring.

The crew of the Kronberg were then incorporated into the Schutztruppe with many Danish names appearing in the list of the last Schutztruppe survivors to lay down their arms after the European armistice of November 1918. 

SS Marie
The second blockade runner was sent to East Africa as a response to a message sent back to Germany with a wish list of supplies, among those were some gun carriages for the Königsberg guns. Within a month of the receipt of the message the mission was on its way.

For this voyage another British built steamer was chosen. She was formerly named the Dacre Hill but had been taken into German service as the Sperrbrecher 15 and was now renamed the SS Marie for the mission from Wilhelmshaven to German East Africa.

As it had worked so well before with the SS Kronberg, the same ruse of pretending to be a Danish merchant vessel and following a similar route was used again. This time however, the ship's captain, Leutnant z.S. d.R. Conrad Sorenson maintained complete radio silence throughout his mission.

Around 18 March 1916, she arrived at Sudi Bay near Lindi in the south of German East Africa near the border with Portuguese Mozambique having completely evaded the allied blockade. The news even came as a complete surprise to von Lettow-Vorbeck's Schutztruppe who had no idea that it was coming either. In fact, when the Marie was first spotted she was fired upon by a Schutztruppe coastal battery.

With the confusion soon cleared up, Sorenson was greeted by the Lindi District Commander, the former Königsberg navigation officer Leutnant z.S. Hinrichs and the local Schutztruppe commander Hauptmann Paul Kaiser. Together they planned the work needed to unload the cargo of the SS Marie, unhindered by the Royal Navy. Sorenson even had his own pontoon bridge system with him to assist. The cargo of the SS Marie consisted of :

2,000 Mauser G98 rifles (Kar98az).
Six MG08 machine guns with telescopic sights.
Four 10.5cm howitzers.
Two 7.5cm mountain guns.
Unknown number of artillery shells, including 10.5cm rounds.
3 million rounds of ammunition.
2,000 rifle grenades
1,500 hand grenades
Four Krupp gun carriages intended for the 10.5cm guns of the SMS Königsberg.
Medical supplies (including 200 kilos of quinine), rations, uniforms and equipment packed as 50,000 porter loads.
Luxury items such as sweets and also a quantity of medals for von Lettow-Vorbeck to distribute and award (One hundred first class Iron Crosses with recommendations for von Lettow-Vorbeck, Schnee and Looff, one thousand second class Iron Crosses for members of the Konigsberg crew and the Schutztruppe and 2,425 Kriegerverdienstmedaille of various classes for the askaris).

To accompany the 10.5cm howitzers was an artillery officer, Hauptmann Roland von Kaltenborn-Strachau who remained with the guns and served with the Schutztruppe. Especially useful for the Königsberg guns were the Krupp gun carriages which enabled four of them to become mobile and of course the 10.5cm shells.

The new 10.5cm shells on the SS Marie were shrapnel shells with a timed fuse (known as Brenn Zünder or BZ) so that the shell exploded in mid air over a target, rather than the original armour piercing rounds of the Königsberg which were less useful on land.

Several weeks of work went into unloading the cargo before the Royal Navy's HMS Hyacinth arrived having heard reports of another ship having arrived. She fired at the Marie and returned in strength with more ships a few days later for a three hour bombardment of the Marie. Seeing their target ablaze, the Royal Navy did not venture closer to confirm their kill.

Amazingly, after the raid Sorenson and his crew off-loaded the last of their supplies and made good their repairs in ten days. The SS Marie then sailed away from German East Africa, through the British blockade and across the Indian Ocean where they docked at Batavia on 16 May 1916 in the neutral Netherlands East Indies (modern Jakarta in Indonesia) and were interned there for the rest of the war in relative comfort.

The supplies that they left behind were crucial for the Schutztruppe's ability to carry on the war throughout 1916 and 1917. The Schutztruppe were now able to equip most of their askaris with 1898 model rifles, the ammunition for which lasted them up until around October 1917. Soon after they captured large quantities of Portuguese weapons and ammunition.

Gun Carriages
In 1916 with the allies on the offensive and the Schutztruppe in retreat, the Königsberg guns had to become mobile. Three distinctive types of gun carriages have been used for the guns. One type was improvised in Dar Es Salaam and notably different were the Krupp carriages that had arrived from Germany on the SS Marie. Confusingly the gun currently on display in Pretoria has an entirely different type of carriage using Krupp wheels.

The different gun carriages had their own methods of adjusting the elevation of the gun but none had any mechanism for adjusting the traverse aiming of the gun. This was done by manually moving the tail of the carriage to the left or right.

The recoil dampers were kept on the guns, these were just as essential on gun carriages as they had been on ship. The dampers took some of the recoil of the gun and thus reduced the tendency of a gun carriage to roll back when fired. This saved precious time in action by not needing to reposition the gun after each shot.

"Now it was time to adapt to new shooting ratios for use on land. Our guns lacked some technical tools that were installed on land guns from the outset. For the lateral adjustment of the gun we fired alongside our 7.5cm guns (presumably the 7.5cm Gebirgskanone M08 that had been brought from Germany on the SS Marie in 1916). After determining this direction we could then detect further targets by lateral improvements to our gun."
(Original quotation from P41-44 "Lebensbericht 5. Die Schiffsgeschütze als Artillerie der Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe" by Hans Apel, unpublished personal memoirs)

I. Dar Es Salaam Improvised Gun Carriages

The Former Goetzen Gun on display with a Dar Es Salaam Improvised Carriage in the Belgian Congo c1930s-early 1950s
Note the low slung rounded riveted carriage tapering toward the tail, the multi spoken wheels and the gun limber in the background. This limber has sixteen spokes, whereas other limbers seen in period photographs only have eight.
Photo © Stanleyville.be

Realising that the guns may one day need to be mobile the Königsberg gunnery officer and gun commander at Dar Es Salaam, Oberleutnant z.S. Hans Apel, the Schutztruppe's artillery officer Oberleutnant d.R. Karl Häuser and the chief naval engineer in Dar Es Salaam began designing gun carriages for them based on what limited parts they had available.

These gun carriages were then made in the Dar Es Salaam railway works from parts of steam trains and requisitioned farm machinery. The large gun carriage wheels were obtained from LANZ Lokomobile steam traction engines. They  had 14 tangentially laced spokes. The smaller 8.8cm guns and the limbers for all guns also used wheels from similar farm machinery.

LANZ Steam Traction Engine on a Plantation in German East Africa
Photo originally appeared on the Panzer Forum 

The first of these gun carriages was given to the gun sent from its fixed position in Dar Es Salaam to reinforce the northern front in March 1916. This Gun was later captured near Mkuyuni. A second carriage was sent to Kigoma for the former SS Goetzen Gun later captured by the Belgians at Korogwe. A third Dar Es Salaam gun carriage was given to Apel's Gun which was later captured at Kibata. The 8.8cm Königsberg Gun captured at the Battle of Mlali also had a similar Dar Es Salaam made carriage.

The Dar Es Salaam carriages had a rounded blunt front nose and were low slung in that they sat mostly below the wheel axle. The nose of the carriage sat horizontally the tails tapered down and met at the base. The carriage had a folding platform on either side of the tails for the gunners to stand on. One period photo shows the gun captured at Korogwe with a Dar Es Salaam carriage with brake blocks on the front side of the wheels. It is not know if this was a standard fitting on the guns. The Dar Es Salaam made carriages used the existing gun bucket from the naval pivot stands to attach them to the carriage.

Being home made, not all the Dar Es Salaam carriages were identical. The gun captured at Korogwe had a riveted seem at the front, while the one captured at Mkuyuni had a smooth front. It is likely that close examination would have revealed further differences between the individual carriages.

These carriages were used on at least three of the ten 10.5cm Königsberg guns (those that were captured at Mkyuni, Kahama-Korogwe and Kibata) and the 8.8cm Königsberg gun captured at Mlali Pass. Only the carriage of the 8.8cm from Mlali survives today.

DAR ES SALAAM GUN CARRIAGES
All the photographs below clearly show the guns with multi spoked wheels and low slung riveted gun carriages with blunt rounded fronts and tampering tails.

Gun captured at the River Ruaha	Gun in Stanleyville, Belgian Congo
Apel's Kibata Gun	8.8cm Königsberg Gun

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II. Krupp Gun Carriages
As described above in March 1916, the supply ship SS Marie arrived at Sudi Bay in German East Africa from Germany with supplies of ammunition, weapons and four new Krupp gun carriages for the former SMS Königsberg guns.

These Krupp carriages were not standard ones for standard land weapons, they were made specifically to mount naval guns on land. Carriages such as these had already been used for naval guns in the Dardanelles campaign

10.5cm Feldkanone L/35 on a Krupp Gun Carriage, Germany
Note straight carriage, gun shield, sighting post and the eight strutted wheels with their original comparatively thin rims. Note also the attachment in the circular hole by which the gun could be moved. It seems these attachments were either not delivered to Africa or discarded there.
Photo originally appeared on the Panzer Forum 

Some modifications had to be made to the carriages before they were suitable for use in East Africa. One of the battery commanders at Dar Es Salaam Hans Apel described the problems and their solutions-

"These new carriages sent from home were heavy vehicles with shields, well suited for solid European roads and strong draft animals. However, for the road conditions in the bush, they proved not to be very suitable. The shields were removed and made into much-needed protection for machine guns. We attached 25cm wide iron bands to the very narrow wheels. They provided some assurance that the vehicles did not sink too deeply into sandy and muddy trails. After their reconstruction with Dar es Salaam guns, two were immediately sent to the front (most likely the gun later destroyed at Kondoa-Irangi and that sent to Bagamoyo) and a third carriage without a gun was sent to Kigoma (and later captured outside of Tabora)."
(Original quotation from P40 "Lebensbericht 5. Die Schiffsgeschütze als Artillerie der Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe" by Hans Apel, unpublished personal memoirs)

Königsberg Gun with a Krupp Gun Carriage at Mombasa
Note the specially widened wheels eight strutted wheels and the straight heavy gun carriage.
Photo © Kevin Patience

The gun carriages were of a design commonly seen on German artillery of the period. They were more robust than the carriages made in Dar Es Salaam but consequently heavier.

Unlike the carriages made in Dar Es Salaam which had a rounded blunt nose, the Krupp carriages were flat. While the Dar Es Salaam carriages were low slung, the Krupp ones sat above the axle. The Dar Es Salaam carriages tapered down towards the tail while the Krupp tails were straight and parallel, separated by steel plates. 

The Krupp wheels had eight struts rather than the laced spokes of the Dar Es Salaam traction engine wheels. As mentioned above, the original wheels were too thin for the terrain of East Africa and engineers in Dar Es Salaam fitted 25cm steel bands to widen them for African soil. These 25cm steel bands around the wheels can still be seen on the surviving examples of Krupp wheels for Königsberg guns at Mombasa and Pretoria.

Whereas the Dar Es Salaam made carriages used the existing gun bucket from the naval fixed mounted to attach them to the carriage the Krupp carriages had their own gun mountings so did not use the ship's original gun bucket. The photograph below shows the naval pivot stand of a 10.5cm Königsberg gun at Dar Es Salaam shortly after the allies occupied the town in September 1916. Note that the gun bucket with fixtures for the barrels' trunions and elevation system are still present. This tells us that the gun removed from this stand was not put onto a Dar Es Salaam made carriage but a Krupp Carriage. The fact that the gun bucket has bolt holes in it shows us that this gun originally had a turret.

It is clues like this that helped us track down the history of the Konigsberg guns and identify their photographs.

Mounting base of a Gun at Dar Es Salaam
This photograph shows one of the abandoned gun emplacements at Dar Es Salaam captured by the British in September 1916. The five guns were all put onto gun carriages and sent to different fronts before the city was captured. The gun bucket being among the remains shows that this gun went onto a Krupp gun carriage as the carriages made in Dar Es Salaam required the pivot stand's gun bucket. From the fact that there are bolt holes in the side of the gun bucket for attaching the turret, we know that this gun must have had a barrel flange. Therefore this is the stand for one of the guns later captured at either Bagamoyo or Mahiwa.
Photo by CH Grenfell © Imperial War Museum

Other unique features of the Krupp carriages were an aiming post of the left side, fixed gunners platforms on either side and a detachable shield for the gunners with a sight hole on the left side. As stated by Hans Apel above, the gun shield was sometimes discarded as being too heavy and was sometimes used on fixed machine gun emplacements instead. The guns used at Kondoa-Irangi and Bagamoyo both still retained their guns shields.

The carriages seem to have arrived without limbers as period photographs show them coupled up to limbers made from farm machinery in Dar Es Salaam.

The four gun carriages were used on the guns lost at Kondoa-Irangi, Bagamoyo, Mahiwa and Masassi. The carriages of the guns captured at Bagamoyo, Mahiwa and Masassi have all been accounted for. The fate of the Kondoa-Irangi Krupp carriage is unknown except that it was reported as damaged. The Gun from the Elephants Foot in Kigoma was also reported to have had a Krupp carriage by Apel, so it may be that gun used the carriage from the first Kondoa-Irangi Gun or at least some parts of it to make a working carriage. Unfortunately no photographs of the Kigoma gun have been seen of its mobile service.

One of the Krupp carriages still survives at Fort Jesus, Mombasa in Kenya. The wheels of another are on the gun at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.

KRUPP GUN CARRIAGES
All the photographs below clearly show the guns with eight strutted wheels and straight gun carriages with right angled cross struts bracing them.

Gun at Bagamoyo	Kondoa-Irangi Gun
Wenig's Gun at Mahiwa	Last Gun at Masasi

III. Pretoria Gun Carriage

The Pretoria Gun
Photo © MC Heunis

The gun on display at the Union Buildings in Pretoria has a unique hybrid gun carriage. It has widened Krupp wheels but the carriage itself is not of Krupp design, is roughly welded and may have been made by the Germans in wartime conditions. The exact origins of this gun and its carriage are as yet uncertain.

Gun Limbers
When moving the guns on their carriages a gun limber was needed, as a set of wheels to support the tail of the gun carriage. Various types of improvised gun limbers have been seen usually made from the same farm machinery as the gun carriages also made in Dar Es Salaam, thought their variously designed wheels are smaller than those on the gun carriages. The gun captured at Bagamoyo and later seen in Hove, England appears to have used an old C73 gun carriage as its limber. The SS Marie does not appear to have brought Krupp made limbers to accompany the four Krupp gun carriages that she brought.

Wartime Painting of the Guns
The illustration below by W Rehfeld, is most likely an eye witness sketch. Rehfeld did serve with the Schutztruppe in East Africa during the First Word War and made many water colour illustrations of life on campaign there. This painting is far too accurate in it detail for it too be anything other than an eyewitness painting. From the spoked wheels, lack of a gunner's sighting arm and low riding carriage it would appear that this illustration shows a gun on one of the Dar Es Salaam made gun carriages. It also clearly has no barrel flange meaning that it was not an originally turreted gun. This combination of features means that the gun illustrated here is most likely either the gun abandoned near Mkyuni on the River Ruaha in August 1916 or Apel's gun that was abandoned near Kibata in January 1917.

Weaknesses of the Guns and Assessment of their use on Land
Despite for some time being the largest guns owned by either side in the East African campaign, they were rarely decisive in action on land. The Königsberg's guns had proven deadly to the HMS Pegasus at sea and they defended coastal positions well in deterring enemy ships from approaching but their use during the on-going land campaign was limited by two factors: their relative immobility and a limited supply of ammunition.

Transportation of the Guns
The main weakness of the Königsberg guns on land was their immobility. While the Germans were able to defend their borders the guns were useful in defensive positions. From 1916 when the war in East Africa became more mobile and the Schutztruppe went into retreat the guns often became a liability. This is mentioned in veterans' diaries time and again-

"Unfortunately, we did not have more than eighty four porters for the heavy artillery and we needed to continue to Killimamzinga. Because of this lack of manpower it was a sad journey, having to drag the heavy artillery through the sand and over hill and dale."
(Quotation from Vol 3 "Kriegserinnerungen aus DOA 1914-1917" by Hermann J Müller, Privately Published)

"We recognized the limitation of our guns. Accordingly, the idea of allocating a gun to a fast moving formation had to be abandoned."
(Quotation from P41-44 "Lebensbericht 5. Die Schiffsgeschütze als Artillerie der Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe" by Hans Apel, unpublished personal memoirs)

"The 10.5 cm gun was already written off by us as a loss because it was no longer transportable due to a lack of draft animals. As a kind of abandoned scarecrow it could only serve as a bulwark to hold down the Belgians for as long as possible."
(Quotation from "Hptm. Wintgens Rueckzug von Ruanda nach Tabora und die Kaempfe um Tabora" by Bruno Koppe, Koloniale Rundschau, Leipzig 1919)

Whenever possible the guns were transported by rail, for example from Tanga to Kahe or Dar Es Salaam to Tabora and Kigoma. When rail was not an option then the transport of the guns became very difficult. Even with gun carriages it was an immense effort to drag them across rough African terrain.

Often it was easier to dismantle the gun and carrying the barrel on a Boer cart. Easier there is used as a very relative term, as dismantling the gun meant making a makeshift hoist to lift the weight of the barrel (over 1000kg) on and off its carriage.

Around two hundred African porters (depending on the terrain) were then needed to pull each gun. Another porter was needed to carry each round of ammunition. Sometimes oxen or draught horses were used to pull the guns. Supplying and feeding such manpower or animals put additional strain on the already limited German resources.

When a gun could no longer be moved because of difficulty of terrain or lack of manpower, it had to be destroyed and abandoned by the Germans in face of allied advances.

10.5cm SMS Königsberg Gun being dragged on a Sled by hundreds of African Porters, Kigoma 1915
Photo by Kapitän Zimmer © Frankfurt University Koloniales Bildarchiv

Ammunition Shortages
Shortage of ammunition was always a problem too. The Germans simply could not afford to keep enemy positions under constant barrage. Instead the ammunition was eked out over three years of warfare at sea and on land.

The SMS Königsberg left Kiel for German East Africa in 1914 with 1,500 high explosive 10.5cm shells. With a well trained crew the guns could each fire up to fifteen rounds per minute so it would have been possible to fire all the guns initial ammunition in ten minutes. She fired a few rounds in training off the East African coast when war was looming and another few during her short raiding career shots were used to sink the Winchester). Perhaps they used less than fifty rounds in total on these minor actions.

The action at Zanzibar where HMS Pegasus was sunk used 276 rounds, while the action in the Rufiji before the Königsberg was sunk used around 900 rounds. This would have brought her ammunition stocks down to around 300 had it not been for the Rubens bringing 1,000 shells in April 1915.

Reportedly, 450 rounds were salvaged from the wreck of the SMS Königsberg. Some of the Rubens supply may still have been ashore at this time. All in all the guns probably started the campaign on land with only a hundreds rounds each.

Both the Rubens and Königsberg supply of shells were also water damaged to some extent. The shells were taken to Dar Es Salaam, cleaned up, dried off and no doubt re-loaded in some cases (as was a lot of small arms ammunition that arrived on the Rubens). It is not recorded exactly how many shells were salvaged in this way but it is also likely that many would have been duds by this stage and indeed the mis-firing gun at the Battle of Kondoa-Irangi may have been due to water damaged ammunition.

German Naval Crew Cleaning and Drying 10.5cm Shells from the SMS Königsberg
Photo by Walther Dobbertin from Bundesarchiv / WikiCommons

In  March 1916, the blockade running ship, SS Marie arrived off the coast of German East Africa with more supplies including more 10.5cm shells. Unfortunately this cargo of shells was also water damaged by the time it could be recovered. The shells were carefully taken apart, dried, reloaded and distributed to the remaining guns.

Both the guns abandoned at Kahama-Korogwe and Mahiwa are reported to have fired off their last rounds before being destroyed and several others may have been in a similar situation although the gun at Bagamoyo was captured by the British with eighty shells and the gun at Mwanza with 400 shells (according to Major J J Drought's diary at the Axis History Forum).

Even when a gun had a plentiful supply of ammunition, one porter per round was needed to transport it. There were occasions when the Schutztruppe did not have enough manpower  to carry the shells. Four hundred 10.5cm shells were captured by the British as they overran a Schutztruppe ammunition dump that the Germans were unable to move at Mlali in August 1916 (see Soldier 's Burden).

Von Lettow-Vorbeck described the general shortage of ammunition suffered by the Schutztruppe in 1917: "During the last few months the lack of artillery ammunition had become so serious that we rarely had more than three hundred rounds all told. That was about the allowance per engagement for one of the numerous English guns"
(Quotation from P128 'Reminiscences of East Africa' by Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, Naval & Military Press Ltd 2004) as

Another point on the ammunition is that the armour piercing high explosive rounds were designed to sink battleships. They were not especially suited to infantry warfare and often simply sank into the soft African soil without exploding. ES Thompson, a South African machine gunner at the Battle of Kondoa-Irangi in 1916 recalled in his diary,  "28 May- As it is Sunday the Germans only shot 3 shells into the town, only one of which burst"
(Quotation from Vol 7 No 5 , P 3 "A Machine Gunner’s Odyssey Trough German East Africa: January 1916- February 1917'  by ES Thompson, South African Military History Journal)

Target Identification
At sea, the gunnery officer on the bridge would identify a target and set coordinates. On land, observers were needed. Ideally, an observer (sometimes the gun commander) would set up position on a hilltop over looking the target and relay coordinates and corrections to the gun team by field telephone. Under these conditions the accuracy of fire could be almost guaranteed.

Conditions in the field when the guns were mobile were however not always so favourable. Often observers could not get into position to see the enemy or communications between them and the gun team were lost. Under these conditions the accuracy of fire could not be guaranteed as guns would have fired at set targets where they hoped the enemy may be or blindly in the general direction of the allied advance.

Allied artillery often had the advantage of spotter planes, which the Germans were without, having lost their only aircraft (an Otto/AGO Pusher Biplane piloted by Bruno Büchner) long before the Königsberg guns took on a mobile role.

Allied Reports of the Effectiveness of the Guns on Land
Reports are mixed as to the effectiveness of the guns from the view of the enemy. When ammunition was plentiful and targets were properly spotted the guns could provide a terrific bombardment. Major Lewis of the 129th Baluchis Regiment of the British Indian army reported this experience of a bombardment from a Konigsberg gun near Kibata- “An hour before dark, this developed into an intense bombardment, and except for the size of the shells, I never experienced such a hot one, even in France. We lost heavily in the redoubt however our men stuck it like heroes, though there was little left of the trenches.”
(Quotation from Letters of Major Lewis reported on Kaiser's Cross website)

The Germans were also able to delay the allied advances with Königsberg guns as they often out ranged anything the allies had. This is a description of the action on 30 December 1916 at Duthumi, near the Mgeta river- "For five weeks before this British troops had lain passively in this water logged camp under an irregular but very accurate, fire from a 4.1 naval gun off the Königsberg. The range of this gun was about eight miles. It was so carefully hidden in the bush that our areoplanes could not possibly spot it, and it therefore had everything all its own way, as none of the British guns up at this front, up to date, had a range of more than four miles"
(Quotation from P57 With the Nigerians in German East Africa by WD Downes, Meuthen, London 1919)

While they certainly caused casualties and acted as a deterrent to allied advances they did not apparently always strike fear into the enemy. ES Thompson, a South African machine gunner at the Battle of Kondoa-Irangi in 1916 recalled in his diary for 1 June 1916, "At about 4 o'clock (in the afternoon) an exciting artillery duel began. Our artillery first opened fire using shrapnel and the Germans replied with high explosives. One of their shells landed in the mountain battery camp but no damage seems to have been done. Another shell landed in a herd of native sheep killing a few."
(Quotation from Vol 7 No 5 , P 5 "A Machine Gunner’s Odyssey Trough German East Africa: January 1916- February 1917'  by ES Thompson, South African Military History Journal)

The South African commander, General Jan Smuts summed up the ship and its guns' action in his memoirs- "The Königsberg was to be very troublesome for a long while to come, for the enterprising of Lieutenant-Commander Schönfeld had salvaged her ten 4.1 inch high velocity guns. These were to be converted into mobile land guns and were to outrange our own artillery throughout the campaign and to harass our men incessantly."
(Quotation from "General JC Smuts" by JC Smuts, Cape Town , 1949 at Archive.org)

Sources and Links
Original Map from 'A Short History of the Great War' by AF Pollard, Methuen & Co, London 1920
"Blockade and Jungle" by Nis Kock, edited by Christen P Christensen, Battery Press 2003
"Fahrt nach Ostafrica" by Knud Knudsen, Otto Lenz, Leipzig 1918
"With the Nigerians in German East Africa" by WD Downes, Meuthen, London 1919
 "A Machine Gunner’s Odyssey Trough German East Africa: January 1916- February 1917'  by ES Thompson, South African Military History Journal
"Königsberg- A German East African Raider" by Kevin Patience, Zanzibar Publications, Bahrain 1997
"Meine Erinnerungen aus Ostafrika" by Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, KF Koehler Verlag, Leipzig 1920
"Kriegserinnerungen aus DOA 1914-1917" by Hermann J Müller, Privately Published
"Lebensbericht 5. Die Schiffsgeschütze als Artillerie der Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe" by Hans Apel, unpublished personal memoirs
"Hptm. Wintgens Rueckzug von Ruanda nach Tabora und die Kaempfe um Tabora" by Bruno Koppe, Koloniale Rundschau, Leipzig 1919
"In Monsun und Pori Safari" by Richard Wenig, Verlag, Berlin 1922
"Kumbuke, Kriegserlebnisse eines Arztes" by August Hauer, Deutsch-Literarisches Institut J Schneider, Berlin-Tempelhof 1935
"Das Offizierskorps der Schutztruppe für Deutsch-Ostafrika im Weltkrieg 1914-1918" by Wolfgang-Eisenhardt Maillard and Jürgen Schröder, Walsrode 2003
"The First World War in Africa" by Hew Strachan, Oxford University Press 2004
Major J J Drought's diary at the Axis History Forum
"General JC Smuts" by JC Smuts, Cape Town , 1949 at Archive.org
Letters of Major Lewis reported on Kaiser's Cross website
Gustav Zimmer Collection at Frankfurt University Koloniales Bildarchiv
The highly recommended Kaiser's Cross article on the Blockade Runners
Von Stachau-Kalternborn biographical information on the GMIC Forum
NavWeaps
Lovett Artillery
PassionCompassion1418 More German guns after the war inc. Krupp carriages
Axis History Forum Discussion on the SMS Königsberg Guns in English
Panzer Archiv Forum Discussion on the SMS Königsberg Guns in German