Battle of Tanga - Battle

Battle

Captain Caulfield ordered the harbor swept for mines during 2 November and well into the next day. During the sweeping the Force “B” commander, Aitken began the unopposed landing of troops and supplies in two groups, at the harbor and three miles east of the city on a minefree beach. By evening on 3 November the invasion force was ashore with exception of the 27th Mountain Battery and the Faridkot Sappers. At noon in 4 November, Aitken ordered his troops to march on the city. Well concealed defenders quickly broke up their advance. The fighting then turned to jungle skirmishing by the southern contingent and bitter street fighting by the harbor force. The Gurkhas of the Kashmiri Rifles and the 2nd Loyal North Lancashire Regiment of the harbour contingent made good progress and entered the town, captured the customs house and Hotel Deutscher Kaiser and ran up the Union Jack. But then the advance was stopped. Less well trained and equipped battalions of the Imperial Service Brigade scattered and ran away from the battle. The 98th Infantry were attacked by swarms of angry bees and broke up. The bees attacked the Germans as well, hence the battle's nickname. British propaganda transformed the bee interlude into a fiendish German plot, conjuring up hidden trip wires to agitate the hives. The 13th Rajputs failed to play a significant role in the battle as their morale had been shaken when witnessing the retreat of the 63rd Palamcottah Light Infantry.

The colonial volunteers of the 7th and 8th Schützenkompanies arrived by rail to stiffen the pressed Askari lines. The normally mounted 8th Schützenkompanie had left their horses at Neu Moshi. By late afternoon on 4 November, Lettow-Vorbeck ordered his last reserves, the 13th and 4th Askari Feldkompanie ((field companies) - the 4th had just reached Tanga by train) to envelop the British flank and rear by launching bayonet attacks along the entire front to “bugle calls and piercing tribal war cries.” At least three battalions of the Imperial Service Brigade would have been wiped out to a man ... if they had not taken to their heels. All semblance of order vanished as Force B’s retirement “degenerated into total rout.”

Still outnumbered eight to one, caution overtook some of the German officers. Through a series of errors by the buglers and misunderstandings by an officer to disengage and consolidate, Askari withdrawals occurred to a camp several miles west of Tanga. As soon as Lettow-Vorbeck learned of this, he countermanded the move and ordered a redeployment that was not completed until early morning however. “For nearly all of the night, Tanga was Aitken’s for the taking. It was the most stupendous irony of the battle.”