Slipways for a a lake series#

Lee had been in Eastern Africa and had personally observed the German ships on Lake Tanganyika. Lee-a big game hunter and veteran of the Second Boer War-arrived at the Admiralty to meet Admiral Sir Henry Jackson. While the British could muster troops to the south of the lake, and the Belgians had troops to the north, neither could push into German East Africa because of the risk that the Germans would use their boats to transport troops across the lake, and use them to cut their supply and communications lines. German control of the lake was significant for the whole campaign in the central African theatre. The British had sent two 12-pounder guns to arm her with, but with little prospect of being able to launch her, the Belgians were instead using them as shore batteries to defend Lukuga. The Belgians had the components for a large steamer, Baron Dhanis, which if it could be assembled would be considerably larger than either Kingani or Hedwig von Wissman, but did not dare to start construction on her while the Germans patrolled the lake for fear that she would destroyed before she could be launched. Despite this undertaking, there was little the Belgians or British could do to challenge the Germans. This was beaten back, but further raids on Belgian territory and bombardments of Lukuga convinced the Belgians to support the British. The Germans used their control of the lake to launch an attack on northern Rhodesia, led by Major-General Kurt Wahle. This gave the Germans unchallenged superiority on the lake, with their position strengthened further with the sinking of the British African Lakes CorporationвЂІs steamer Cecil Rhodes in a raid in November 1914. Hedwig von Wissman was quickly armed with four pom-pom guns taken from the scuttled survey ship MГ¶we and sailed out to the port of Lukuga on the Belgian side of the lake, where on 22 August she attacked the Belgian steamer Alexandre Del Commune, sinking her after two further raids. By the start of the war, the Germans had two warships on Lake Tanganyika the 60В t (59 long tons 66 short tons) Hedwig von Wissman, and the 45В t (44 long tons 50 short tons) Kingani. Lake Tanganyika lay between the Belgian Congo on the western side and German East Africa on the eastern side. Developments in the land-based conflict caused the Germans to withdraw from the lake, and control of the surface of Lake Tanganyika passed to the British and Belgians. The Germans maintained a third large and heavily armed craft on the lake, the Graf von GГ¶tzen this craft was attacked indecisively by Belgian aircraft and was subsequently scuttled.

In the second, the small flotilla overwhelmed and sank the Hedwig von Wissman. In the first action, on 26 December 1915 the Kingani was damaged and captured, becoming HMS Fifi. In two short engagements, the small motor boats attacked and defeated two of their German opponents. The boats were transported to South Africa and from there by railway, by river, and by being dragged through the African jungle, to the lake.

The British forces-consisting of two motor boats named HMS Mimi and Toutou-were under the command of the eccentric Lieutenant-Commander Geoffrey Spicer-Simson. The intention was to secure control of the strategically important Lake Tanganyika, which had been dominated by German naval units since the beginning of the war.

Slipways for a a lake series#

The Battle for Lake Tanganyika was a series of naval engagements that took place between elements of the Royal Navy, Force Publique and the Kaiserliche Marine between December 1915 and February 1916, during the First World War.