Maji Maji War

Maji Maji War
Battle at Mahenge from 29 to 31 August 1905, painting by Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Kuhnert
Date July 1905 – August 1907 Location German East Africa Result German victory
Belligerents
Germany German East Africa	20 different tribes (at the peak of the insurgency)
Commanders and leaders
Major von Götzen Major K. K. F. Johannes Lt. von Lindeiner-Wildau	Kinjikitile Ngwale Nasr Khalfan Hemedi Muhammad
Strength
As of July 1905 c. 2,000 (among them 1,701 Askari, all equipped with the old Mauser Rifle Gewehr 71 with bayonets, officers with the Gewehr 88 or possibly even a few new Gewehr 98, although controversial) as well as 659 colored policemen (could only be used militarily to a limited extent)	c. 90,000 (equipped with muzzle-loading rifles, but mainly with battle axes, spears, bows, and arrows, all with poison tips)
Casualties and losses
15 Germans, 73 Askari and 316 auxiliary troops ⚔	75,000–300,000 total dead due by combat, famine, and disease

The Maji Maji War (German: Maji-Maji-Krieg) or Maji Maji Uprising (German: Maji-Maji-Aufstand) in German East Africa (what is now Burundi, Rwanda and mainland Tanzania) was the most significant African challenge to German colonial rule and the Schutztruppe. The uprising lasted two years and involved people over 10,000 square miles.

History

One of the six colored photoplates according to originals by Wilhelm Kuhnert (1865–1926) in Major Graf von Götzen's last book from 1909.

Kapitänleutnant der Reserve Johannes "Hans" Albert Ferdinand Paasche (1881–1920) from the small cruiser of the Imperial German Navy SMS "Bussard" was able to win important battles in August 1905 for which he received the Red Eagle Order 4th Class with Swords and the Colonial Medal. His wife Ellen, née Witting, who was only 29 years old, died of the Spanish flu on 8 December 1918. She had, in the meantime, given birth to her fourth child.

Colonial Medal (Kolonial-Denkmünze) with battle clasp (1912), edition for Askari and colored police troops

The insurection cannot be seen as a unified movement but rather a series of revolts conducted for a wide range of reasons, including religion. The cult of Maji-Maji played an important role in the mobilization of the African population, encouraging the insurgents to band together across ethnic boundaries and to turn against the militarily far superior colonial power. The cult was based on the teachings of the medicine man and sorcerer Kinjikitile Ngwale (executed on 5 August 1905), whose magic maji medicine or daua (water laced with an intoxicant, most likely khat; also known as Maji Dawa) was supposed to make the Maji-Maji invulnerable.

The Maji-Maji cult and it's snake god Koleo had spread across large regions since 1904 after Kinjikitile Ngwale had a "vision" of Germans being defeated by maji water, but was not a homogeneous movement, but was adapted to local rites, customs and needs depending on the local character. The recruitment of followers was not successful everywhere and was carried out with coercion and violence. In regions whose residents had already experienced conflicts with the German colonial troops as a result of previous resistance (such as the Hehe near Iringa), the Maji recruiters were met with little interest. Some of these regions joined the Germans after the outbreak of war.

The picture that emerges is perhaps intended to stimulate reflection among readers whose circle of thought has not previously included colonial life. Because the sum of all the phenomena that emerged during the rebellion of 1905 forces us to believe today in the beginnings of a feeling of solidarity among the Negro race towards foreign, colonizing peoples. The uprising must undoubtedly be seen as a symptom of the great movement for independence that has been evident since the beginning of the 20th century among colored humanity outside of written Christian culture. – Gustav Adolf Graf von Götzen, Hamburg, Summer 1909

Many people in the area itself saw the revolt as one part of a longer series of wars continuing since long before the arrival of Germans in the region. Other groups sought an alliance with the Germans to further their own agendas. The widespread uprisings, beginning in July 1905, centered in the region between Nyasa and the coastal settlements of Kilwa and Lindi. On 28 July 1905, after being attacked the week before, the Akida (administrator) of Kibata asked the German superiors in Kilwa for help, and then takes flight on 29 July 1905. On 1 August 1905, Sergeant Hoenicke and his 38 police Askari try to reach Kibata but was stopped in the hills 800 m behind Samanga.

On 30 July 1905, after threats the days before and being warned by the Akida of Kibata, the settler Hopfer fled his plantation in Matumbi Hills and was murdered, he was beaten to death, the skull was split open by a blow (some sources state in the night from 1 to 2 August). His estate and plantation were burned to the ground. Hopfer was the first German to die. On 31 July and 1 August 1905, Samanga was attacked by 1,600 insurgents (Matumbi tribesmen). They burned several homes belonging to East Indians. The first attack was repelled with considerable losses by the German cotton planter Steinhagen and the Arabs, the second, after their return to Samanga, by the small detachment of police Askari from Kilwa under Sergeant (Polizei-Feldwebel) Hoenicke.

Two auxiliary troopers (who had joined Hoenicke's detachment) fell on the German side, the insurgents left behind 27 dead. Several settlers and a Catholic bishop along with a party of four missionaries were murdered near Kilwa. Wangoni tribesmen wrested control of the countryside around Nyasa. On 3 August 1905, Captain Merker gave 2nd Lieutenant Lincke and Sergeant Hoenicke the order, to recover the bod yof Hopfer, but their 30 Askari were met by over 1,000 tribal warriors. The natives had learned to encompass the enemy's flanks, which almost led to the destruction of Lincke and his men.

The war quickly spread in all directions, east to the towns of Somanga and Mohoro near the coast, south to Umwera, west to Mahenge, north to Uzaramo and southwest to Liwale. On 13 August 1905, insurgents attacked the German boma (enclosure) in Liwale. After a three-day siege they succeeded in conquering it, during which a German non-commissioned officer, a settler, who had taken refuge here, with his family and a few Askari were murdered. Liwale became a logistical hub for the insurgents between the outbreak area and other important theaters of war. Here warriors exchanged news with each other and maji medicine was also distributed here.

On 12 August 1905, all of the men Sergeant Peter August Faupel was informed, that all the men he had sent out, a few hours away from Liwale, were ambushed and killed. On 13 August 1905, Faupel's station, with merchant Aimer ans six Askari, was attacked. They held out two days, but on 15 August 1905, he had to flee the burning building and was killed by three poisoned arrows. Before this, he and his men had given Aimer and his native servants cover and enabled their escape, but they were later all found dead by 1st Lieutenant Gideon von Grawert (with 2nd Lieutenant Lincke, Stabsarzt Dr. Skrodzki, Oberfeierwerker Knoke, Sergeant Schober and 80 Askari), Aimer, the men, even the women and children, had been brutally butchered.

On 14 August 1905 in Mikondo, the Vicar Apostolic Cassian Spiß, a father, two brothers (Gabriel Sonntag and Andreae Scholzen) and two sisters (Felicitas Holtner and Cordula Ebert) were murdered by Donde warriors. On 15 August 1905 at the Liwale Police Post, Sergeant Faubel, merchant Aimer and six Askari were killed by poison arrows. On 17 August 1905, Mbunga warriors attacked the Ifakara trading post in the Mahenge area. Looking back, this was the start of a series of large attacks by the Maji-Maji warriors. The staff doctor (Stabsarzt) Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Arning (1865–1943) summarized:

"The negro warriors entered with unity and determination into the uprising […], which is amazing and could almost awaken admiration. […] Their attacks were rejected with great loss, but they still didn't let off, but had instead carried out a real siege for weeks."

The Governor dispatched two companies of Schutztruppe to quell the uprising but the rebellion spread further south. Governor von Götzen called for reinforcements. SMS "Bussard", cruising off the African coast, was sent to join the cruisers SMS "Seeadler" and SMS "Thetis" at Dar-es-salaam and a company from the Seebataillon (marine infantry of the Imperial German Navy) was dispatched from the German Empire (arriving in October 1905). Oberleutnant zur See Johannes "Hans" Albert Ferdinand Paasche from the SMS "Bussard", with two NCOs, 20 men and a heavy machine gun was sent towards Mohoro. He fought a victorious battle near Utete on 18 August 1905 and killed over 60 rebels, but sailor Gramkau was ⚔. On 21 August 1905 near Kipo, 24-year-old Paasche, his men and additional Askari attacked a group of over 1,000 rebels on the north bank of the river. 75 rebels were killed in the battle, the rest tried to swim to the other side, a large part of them drowned.

The uprising did not reach the scale feared by the authorities and subsided during the later part of 1905. As the war continued to spread towards Lake Nyassa in September 1905, the combatants' strategy changed. Where the warriors had seen their comrades fall despite military successes, a guerrilla strategy was adopted, with rapid attacks and rapid retreats. In those regions that had just entered the war, however, the belief in the effectiveness of the maji was still largely unbroken, so that the fighters ran directly into the German machine gun fire with a breakneck courage to kill. Nevertheless, confidence in maji medicine, the miraculous power of the magic water, was lost at the latest in view of the many dead who had been easily killed by German machine gun fire.

This fanatical behavior of the rebels was certainly based on the primitive religious ideas of the Negro and could only develop on such soil. However, it does not give us the right to characterize the uprising itself as a religious movement, because the motive of replacing an old faith with a new one or defending it against such a belief undoubtedly played no role here. Furthermore, in the ranks of the insurgents we will see not only the heathens but also adherents of Islam and even a few Christians fighting, but no Arabs, Sudanese and other foreign elements. It is a battle of the Bantu Negroes against all invaders of other races.

Somalis and New Guineans were recruited to fill the ranks of the black Schutztruppe in East Africa but the Reichstag rejected a plan to enlist Togolese and Cameroonians. Cranes were installed at the port of Dar-es-salaam to permit quicker offloading of railcars, locomotives and wagons from ocean steamers. The amount of ivory tusk collect continued to decline with the elephant population but the value of ivory exports increased due to high market prices. German hive keepers found it necessary to teach the native labor improved gathering methods as the Africans were destroying the bees while gathering the wax. The Deutsch-Afrikanische Eisenbahngesellschaft, although also under attack, completed route surveys for the first 100 km of the southern railway line.

The war, in its confusion, with its small-scale fronts, and its unmanageable and unpredictable spread for the Germans, made it impossible to determine a center of its organization and to launch planned counterattacks there; This was completely out of the question in view of the guerrilla tactics that the African combat units resorted to. Therefore, the colonial army, especially after the arrival of reinforcements in November 1905, focused great efforts on destroying the economic base of the combatants.

At the short-lived peak of its expansion, around 20 different tribes, the entire southwest of German East Africa and thus around a third of the colony's territory were at war with the German colonial power. The rebellious ethnic groups included, among others, the Luguru, Kichi, Matumbi, Ngoni, Sagara, Vidunda, Wagoni, Wangindo, Wapogoro and Zamaro. In addition, there were groups that deliberately refused to join the uprising. These included the Hehe, who had already learned and feared the strength of the German colonial troops and their weapons technology in an earlier uprising under the leadership of their leader, Chief Mkwawa. The Wayao were also loyal to the Germans. Many former Askari, who had retired after their five-year contract and received their own land, volunteered once again to serve for the necessary war period.

On 1 February 1906, the training of around 150 recruits from German New Guinea, the so-called Bukaleute, began. However, they were found medically unfit for service in African conditions. After a few months, the colonial administration sent them back to their homeland. Von Götzen then mobilized all troops available in the region. In addition to the Askari, they consisted of auxiliary troops. These were African mercenaries, so-called Rugaruga, who saw military service with the colonial power – similar to military support for caravan traders – primarily as an opportunity to enrich themselves through looting, a traditional practice that the Germans were not able to stop out of fear that the Africans would desert.

In March 1906, the native uprising quelled in the coastal regions and had not been joined by the Wahehe, Unyamwesi and Ussukuma tribes as authorities once feared. In July 1906, the native rebellion largely ended with a crushing defeat of the Wangoni near Nyasa. It was suppressed in a relatively short time, even though the Germans were helplessly outnumbered. But not until August 1907 were the last embers of rebellion extinguished. Some leaders even continued the guerrilla warfare, albeit without success, until they, too, were captured and executed in July 1908.

Nevertheless, thanks to his energy and skill, the uprising was suppressed in a relatively short time, even though the Germans were helplessly outnumbered. In its wake, the rebellion had left 15 Germans and 389 Askaris ⚔, several German civilians murdered and tens or even hundreds of thousands of native insurgents dead (some sources estimate between 75,000 und 300,000). A large number of Arabs and East Indians had left the protectorate to escape the rebellion. The Wassukuma and Wanyamwesi laborers journeyed from their homelands on Lake Victoria to the plantations on the coast in smaller numbers. The labor shortage was worse in the northern plantation districts. Attempts were made to hire workers from the interior and bring them to Usambara. Famine fears grew throughout the colony.

In 1906, the museum director Prof. Dr. Felix Ritter von Luschan received some of the weapons captured by the German Schutztruppe, essentially around 12,000 spears. Since he attached little scientific value to the weapons, consideration was given to distributing them to German schools as display objects. This plan failed because, as was found out, the spearheads were poisoned and a cut could lead to a painful death. Von Luschan then had most of the items burned. Only a few objects remained.

Battle at Mahenge

On 10 August 1905, Hongos arrived with their consecrated water at the camp of Kindunda, the chief of the Wambunga Mafiti tribe. He joined in the revolt immediately and had the war drums (Goma) beat. The first action was directed against the guard at the ferry Ifakara, whose crew of 12 Askaris was massacered. But not all tribes wanted to join the rebellion. The Wangoni sultans Kiwanga and Mpepo provided 2,000 auxiliary troops for the protection of Mahenge. Von Hassel could now start a relief operation to Ifakara. On the way there they got into a fight skirmish with the Wambunga Mafiti near Kiva Muhindi, where about half of the Askaris fell and the rest had to retreat. The relief force was just arriving back in time before Mahenge was surrounded by the insurgents. The thousands of Mafifi warriors had also collected another 8-10,000 warriors from other tribes from all over the south of German East Africa. But they made the mistake of breaking away from the Mafiti in order to start a seperate attack alone. On 29 August 1905, the storm on Mahenge began, but was broken by the machine gun fire of the Schutztruppe, exactly like the attack by the Mafiti main force two days later.

During the Battle at Mahenge (German: Schlacht bei Mahenge) from 29 to 31 August 1905, the station of Captain Theodor Berthold Paul von Hassel (1868–1935), commander of the 12th Company, was attacked by c. 20,000 insurgents. At his disposal von Hassel had four Germans (Zahlmeister-Aspirant Voigt, Feldwebel Münzner, Sanitäts-Sergeant Max Knispel, and Unteroffizier Friebe), 60 Askari and c. 200 to 2,000 (depending on the source) auxiliary troops of two allied sultans. Refugee travelers and clergy as well as c. 100 bearers also stood under von Hassel's protection. The attackers came primarily from the Ngindo and Pogoro tribes. In contrast to other fighters in the uprising, they were commanded – separated by ethnic group – by traditional tribal heads and not by Hongo cult leaders.

Von Hassel only returned from a campaign against the insurgents on 27 August 1905. Alarmed by reports of attacks, he had two machine guns (MG) positioned on a wooden high stand and palisades, trenches, thorns and wire barriers built. In addition, a field of fire that was as clear as possible was created and distance markers were marked around the station. A courier requesting assistance was sent to Dar es Salaam. On 29 August 1905, the insurgents approached the station in several groups. Equipped with traditional stabbing weapons, shields, clubs and muzzle-loading rifles, they relied on the effects of the maji magical water. Soaked wreaths made of millet stalks were worn on the heads as a Maji Maji symbol. It was supposed to protect them from bullets and even bring down walls.

During the storming attack on 30 August 1905 in the south of the station, however, scores of Maji Maji supporters were left fatally hit and lying in the prepared apron, shot down by widespread machine gun fire. Eyewitnesses later reported eerie scenes as the hail of bullets from automatic weapons hit the waves of people. In the close range, rifle volleys from the Askaris were added. After a further approach to the east of the station, the attackers fled without reaching the fortification walls. The following day another group attacked to the north. Since this area around the station was built up and more confusing, the attackers had more cover here. Therefore, von Hassel sent the local auxiliary troops to engage in close combat. Occasionally, attackers reached the perimeter of the station, but once again found that the maji magic remained ineffective. The use of poisoned arrows was also unsuccessful. After enormous losses – estimates state 600 to 3,000 dead – the insurgents refrained from further attacks. Only 20 auxiliary soldiers are said to have fallen on the German side. However, the Schutztruppe was in danger of running out of ammunition.

On 20 September 1905, the garrison of the Mahenge station was relieved by the 2nd company of the Schutztruppe under the command of Captain Ernst Julius Theodor Nigmann (1867–1923). At the same time, ammunition supplies arrived. Nigmann was given the task of finding and combating insurgent nests in the area. On 21 October 1905, the Germans retaliated with an attack on the camp of the unsuspecting Ngoni tribe that had recently joined the rebellion.

Reinforcement 1908

Although the strength of the Schutztruppe for East Africa was increased by over 1,000 men in comparison to before the uprising, many were still unsatisfied, especially the former Governor Graf von Götzen, who wrote 1909:

The complaints that are often made in the press, in the German Reichstag and in the Imperial Finance Authority about the expensive and supposedly quite impressive military force that the Empire maintains in the colonies have prompted me to draw a comparison between German East Africa and its neighboring colonies in order to investigate the relationship between troop numbers and population numbers. This comparison shows that German East Africa has by far the weakest occupation, because there are for every one soldier in

• Congo state 1,110 inhabitants
• British East Africa 1,300 inhabitants
• Uganda 1,800 inhabitants
• British India 1,275 inhabitants
• German East Africa 2,650 inhabitants

But if we take the numbers of available German or British military personnel as a basis, which is more correct for assessing the situation in major future uprisings, excluding the native troops, then it turns out that, for example, in the Indian Empire there are 4,120 natives for every white military person, but in German East Africa the enormous number of 25,550 natives.

See also

• Hottentot War

Further reading

• Hans Paasche: Im Morgenlicht. Kriegs-, Jagd- und Reise-Erlebnisse in Ostafrika, 2nd Edition, Berlin 1907 (PDF; Project Gutenberg)
• Gustav Adolf Graf von Götzen: Deutsch-Ostafrika im Aufstand 1905/06, Berlin 1909 (PDF)