The Gun at the Elephant's Foot in Kigoma
"For four days before the fall of Tabora those who were in the town heard heavy gun-fire resulting from an engagement which was taking place to the north."
(New Zealand Sun newspaper, 16 March 1917)

Remains of the Gun Emplacement at Kigoma

This gun was originally one of the turreted guns on the SMS Königsberg. It therefore had a flange on the barrel to hold a small shield which would fit inside the turret. It was one of two guns sent west to Kigoma on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. The other was the Gun Mounted on the SS Goetzen.

Deployment at Kigoma
After being refitted in Dar Es Salaam, two of the SMS Königsberg guns were transported from Dar Es Salaam to Kigoma on the Central Railway via Dodoma and Tabora. The German defence of Lake Tanganyika was under the command of the resourceful Korvetten-Kapitän Gustav Zimmer (former captain of the SMS Möwe) and came under the overall command of Generalmajor Kurt Wahle's Western Schutztruppe.

"After July 1915, when the SMS Königsberg was sunk by the English, two of the 10.5cm guns were sent to Kigoma. From there, one was used on Lake Tanganyika and the other was emplaced on a mountain overlooking Kigoma."
(Original Quotation from P15 "Die Möwe-Abteilung auf dem Tanganjikasee in DOA 1914 – 1916" by Gustav Zimmer, Marine Archiv, Berlin 1931)

While one of the two guns was installed on the SS Goetzen, the other gun was put into a fixed emplacement on the Elephant's Foot ("Elefantenfuß") peninsular between Kabando and Kigoma in August 1915. The gun was mounted on its original naval fixed pivot stand with its turret. Around the gun emplacement a series of trenches and blockhouses were constructed.

Here it overlooked the lake and due to the fact that it outranged the guns on any allied ships in the area it was able to protect Kigoma from a potential seaborne assault. The threat eventually came from Belgian forces coming on land from the north.

Deployment towards Tabora and Counter Offensive Actions
By September 1916 the Central Railway at Dar Es Salaam was in British and South African  hands and Belgians were advancing on the Central Railway at Kigoma from the North. Korvettenkapitän Zimmer heard reports of Belgian askaris at Ussoke and immediately ordered the gun to be removed from the emplacement at the Elephant's foot and sent along the Central Railway to towards Tabora. A fake gun and turret was put on the lakeside to deter allied ships in the absence of the real gun. Unfortunately, we have not seen any photographs of the real Elephants Foot gun after it was removed from Kigoma as the Schutztruppe retreated.

Schutztruppe Askari Company, Kigoma 1916
Photo by Gustav Zimmer © Frankfurt University Koloniales Bildarchiv

According to the diary of Hans Apel (of the the Königsberg gun officers), one of the Krupp gun carriages that arrived on the SS Marie was sent to Kigoma. The gun from the SS Goetzen that was later displayed in the Belgian Congo had a Dar Es Salaam carriage, so the Krupp carriage that he mentions must have been for the Elephants Foot gun.

The problem here is that the SS Marie only carried four Krupp gun carriages for the Königsberg's guns. One was given to the Gun at Kondoa-Irangi, one to the Gun at Bagamoyo, one to Wenig's Gun later captured at Mahiwa and one to the Tanga Gun that was destroyed at Masasi.

The gun at Kondoa-Irangi suffered a mis-firing in May 1916 that had damaged both the barrel and the carriage and it was sent back to Dar Es Salaam for repairs. The engineers at Dar Es Salaam could not repair the barrel and buried it. We have not found a record of what happened to the gun carriage. Maybe it was repaired with improvised parts or perhaps just the wheels were usable and a new carriage was made for the gun at Kigoma.

What we do know is that as the gun was withdrawn east down the Central Railway it took part in a series of counter attacks organised by Wahle's Schutztruppe to delay the Belgian advance. About twenty miles west of Tabora, the gun was first put into action on land at Mabama on 1 September 1916 under Kapitänleutnant Fritz Schreiber as artillery commander.

On the night of 2/3 September it was involved in the German counter offensive south of Ussoke. It remained at Ussoke and again saw action on 7 September.

The biggest counter offensive of the Schutztruppe in the west was at the Battle of Lulanguru fifteen miles west of Tabora on the Central Railway. Alongside one of the 10.5cm howitzers from the SS Marie and two 3.7cm guns from the SMS Möwe, the Königsberg 10.5cm gun from Kigoma, now commanded by Leutnant z.S. Reinhold Kohtz, supported Hauptmann Wintgens' Abteilung in their battle from 10-12 September against the Belgian advance. After three days fighting the gun was retreated to Tabora.

Railway Bridge on the Central Railway near Tabora, 1916
The Germans destroyed much of the Central Railway and anything that the allies might find useful, as they retreated East and South.
Photo from the Lt-Col Mann Collection © Imperial War Museum

Battle of Itaga and the Destruction of the Gun
From Tabora it was sent north overland to Itaga where Wahle had set up his headquarters. It was deployed again alongside the 10.5cm howitzer and saw action against the Force Publique from 13-14 September. It was at Itaga that on the afternoon of 18 September 1916 the gun fired its last 30 rounds at Belgian camps at Misha and Matende and was abandoned. It thus become the seventh of the ten Königsberg guns to be put out of action.

"For four days before the fall of Tabora those who were in the town heard heavy gun-fire resulting from a day's engagement which was taking place to the north."
(Quotation from New Zealand Sun newspaper, Volume IV, Issue 966, 16 March 1917, Page 11)

We have not been able to find any later references to the gun, its capture or its whereabouts since. This gun is therefore unaccounted for.

Sketch Map of the Battle of Itaga, September 1916
In the upper left corner, the Belgians hold Mount Itaga, opposed by the Schutztruppe 7. Feldkompagnie and Batterie Vogel (under Oberleutnant d.R. Dr. Alfred Vogel, former commander of the Königsberg Gun at Mwanza). The position of the Königsberg gun and 10.5cm Howitzer to the bottom of the map is marked in red.

Belgian Occupation of Tabora
The following day on the 19 September, the Belgian Force Publique under Tombeur entered Tabora without a fight. The Schutztruppe had already moved south and the British under Brigadier-General Crewe halted their advance after the fall of Mwanza. For this action the commander was later awarded the title Baron Tombeur of Tabora.

After occupying Tabora the Belgians "demanded an unspecified quid pro quo in consideration of rendering any further military assistance", which offer the British declined. And so the Belgian advance went no further than Tabora.
(Quotation from the British War Office "Précis of correspondence relating to Belgian occupation of Tabora District, German East Africa, and further Belgian co-operation in the East African campaign 1916" WO 106/257 at National Archives, Kew London)

In the hospital at Tabora the Belgians captured several German patients including Reinhold Kohtz. Kohtz had commanded three of the Königsberg guns, the mis-fired Gun at Kondoa-Irangi, its replacement in the Former SS Goetzen Gun and lastly the gun recently captured at Itaga.

The Belgians eventually withdrew from Tabora which came under British rule as part of the new colony of Tanganyika after the First World War. At the Treaty of Versailles, the Belgians gained the former German territories of Ruanda and Burundi for their part in the campaign. 

Belgian Askaris entering Tabora, 19 September 1916
Originally published in 'Les Campagnes Belges d'Afrique 1914 - 1917' by the Belgian Ministere des Colonies, 1918 on Wikimedia

Remains of the Gun Emplacement at Kigoma
The pivot stand, turret parts and emplacement itself at the Elephants foot remained in place for some time after the war. It is not known how much of them still remain but a recent tourist website reported:

"On a hill halfway to Katonga are the remainders of some First World War German fortifications. The place intended for the 105mm naval gun that was taken from the MV Liemba is the most interesting one of the remains. When the Germans left Kigoma, the gun was carried away to be never found again. There are several bunkers, old ammunition stores and interconnecting channels. It is said that one of these channels runs from the regional commissioner’s office to the train station, though nobody knows all the precise details of this."
(Quotation from KigomaDioceseTourism)

They have mixed the gun up with that on the SS Goetzen but they certainly describe the gun emplacement as still being visible.

Schutztruppe on Parade in Kigoma to Celebrate the Kaiser's Birthday, 27 January 1915
Lake Tanganyika, the port of Kigoma and the SS Goetzen under construction in dry docks can all be seen in the background.
Photo © Frankfurt University Koloniales Bildarchiv

Sources
"Meine Erinnerungen aus Ostafrika" by Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, KF Koehler Verlag, Leipzig 1920
"Die Möwe-Abteilung auf dem Tanganjikasee in DOA 1914-1916" by Gustaf Zimmer, Marine Archiv, Berlin 1931
"Tätigkeit S.M.Vermessungsschiff Möwe und seiner Besatzung bei Kriegsausbruch in Deutsch-Ostafrika 1914" by Gustav Zimmer, Sidi-Bishr 1918 at Traditionsverband
"Lebensbericht 5. Die Schiffsgeschütze als Artillerie der Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe" by Hans Apel, unpublished personal memoirs
"Die Operationen in Ostafrika im Weltkrieg 1914-1918" by Ludwig Boell, Verlag Walter Dachert, Hamburg 1951
"Das Offizierskorps der Schutztruppe für Deutsch-Ostafrika im Weltkrieg 1914-1918" by Wolfgang-Eisenhardt Maillard and Jürgen Schröder, Walsrode 2003
"Les Campagnes Belges d'Afrique 1914-17" published by the Belgian Colonial Ministry
"The First World War in Africa" by Hew Strachan, Oxford University Press 2004
"Königsberg- A German East African Raider" by Kevin Patience, Zanzibar Publications, Bahrain 1997
"The First World War in Africa" by Hew Strachan, Oxford University Press 2004
New Zealand Sun newspaper, Volume IV, Issue 966, 16 March 1917, Page 11
Original Map from 'A Short History of the Great War' by AF Pollard, Methuen & Co, London
KigomaDioceseTourism
WorldWar1Gallery.com
Axis History Forum Discussion on the SMS Königsberg Guns in English
Panzer Archiv Forum Discussion on the SMS Königsberg Guns in German