During
World War I, an invasion attempt by the
British was thwarted by German General
Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck at the
Battle of Tanga, who then mounted a drawn out
guerrilla warfare campaign against the British.
At the outbreak of the
First World War the
German authorities regarded the position of their premier Colony with considerable equanimity although it was inevitably cut off from outside communication. It had been organized against any attack that could be made without those extensive preparations. For the first year of hostilities the Germans were strong enough to carry the war into their neighbours' territories and repeatedly attacked the railway and other points in
British East Africa. However, British rule had begun with the occupation of the
island of Mafia by the
Royal Navy in 1914.
The forces at the disposal of the German Command may never be accurately known. Lieutenant-General
Jan Smuts at one time estimated them at 2,000 Germans and 16,000
Askaris, with 60 guns and 80 machine guns, but this should prove to be below the mark. The white adult male population in 1913 numbered over 3,500 (exclusive of garrison), a large proportion of these would be available for military duties. The native population of over 7,000,000 formed a reservoir of man-power from which a force might be drawn limited only by the supply of officers and equipment. There is no reason to doubt that the Germans made the best of this material during the long interval of nearly eighteen months which separated the outbreak of war from the invasion in force of their territory.
In his final despatch of May 1919, General
Jacob van Deventer placed the German forces at the commencement of 1916 at 2,700 whites and 12,000 blacks.
Lord Cranford, in his foreword to Captain
Angus Buchanan's book on the war, writes, "At his strongest
von Lettow probably mustered 25,000 to 30,000 rifles, all fighting troops", with 70 machine guns and 40 guns. After eighteen months of continuous fighting, General van Deventer estimated the enemy's forces at 8,000 to 9,000 men.
Cut-off from Germany by the
Royal Navy Von Lettow made a virtue of necessity and conducted a masterly guerilla campaign, living off the land and moving swiftly to repeatedly surprise the British. The British, who deployed large numbers of
Indian Army troops under Smuts, faced difficult logistic problems supplying their pursuing army deep in the interior, which they attempted to overcome by the formation of a large
Carrier Corps of native porters.
Another point bearing on the war and duly emphasized by General Smuts in his lecture before the
Royal Geographic Society (January 1918), was the extraordinary strength of the German frontier. The coastline offered few suitable points for landing and was backed by an unhealthy swamp belt. On the west the line of lakes and mountains proved so impenetrable that the Belgian forces from the
Congo had, in the first instance, to be moved through Uganda. On the south the
Ruvuma River was only fordable on its upper reaches. And the northern frontier was the most difficult of all. Only one practicable pass about five miles (8 km) wide offered between the
Pare Mountains and
Kilimanjaro, and here the German forces, amid swamps and forests, had been digging themselves in for eighteen months.
The Honorable H. Burton, speaking in
London in August 1918 said, "Nothing struck our commanders in the East African field so much as the thorough, methodical and determined training of the German native levies previous to the war."
The force which evacuated the Colony in December 1917, was estimated at the time at 320 white and 2,500 black troops; 1,618 Germans were killed or captured in the last six months of 1917, 155 whites and 1,168 Askaris surrendered at the close of hostilities.
A skillful and remarkably successful
guerrilla campaign waged by the German commander
Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck kept the war in Tanganyika going for the entire length of the First World War. A
scorched earth policy and the requisition of buildings meant a complete collapse of the Government's education system, though some
mission schools managed to retain a semblance of instruction. Unlike the Belgian, British, French and Portuguese colonial masters in central Africa, Germany had developed an educational program for her Africans that involved elementary, secondary and vocational schools. "Instructor qualifications, curricula, textbooks, teaching materials, all met standards unmatched anywhere in tropical Africa." In 1924, ten years after the beginning of the First World War and six years into British rule, the visiting American Phelps-Stokes Commission reported: In regards to schools, the Germans have accomplished marvels. Some time must elapse before education attains the standard it had reached under the Germans.
But by 1920, the Education Department consisted of 1 officer and 2 clerks with a budget equal to 1% of the country's revenue — less than the amount appropriated for the maintenance of Government House.
British East Africa
The mandate to administer the former German colony was conferred on the United Kingdom under the terms of the Supreme Council of the
League of Nations. With the concurrence of the Supreme Council, the United Kingdom transferred the provinces of
Ruanda-Urundi, in the northwest, to Belgium. These provinces contained three-sevenths of the population and more than half the cattle of the colony. The boundaries of the
East Indies Station were enlarged in 1919 to include
Zanzibar and what was the littoral of
German East Africa.
Dar-es-Salaam remained the seat of Government of the colony and the first Administrator was
Sir Horace Archer Byatt CMG. He embarked it on its course as an African country, improved its health and agriculture and made slavery illegal. He also did much for its economy. In Dar-es-Salaam you can see the house he rebuilt – now lived in by the
President. The native troops went back quietly to their villages and the few Germans that remained were reported as settling down under the new administration.
1920s: border resolution
In 1920, by the Tanganyika Order in Council, 1920, the Office of Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Territory was constituted. The colony was renamed
Tanganyika Territory in 1920. In 1921 the
Belgians transferred the
Kigoma district, which they had administered since the occupation, to British administration. The United Kingdom and Belgium signed an agreement regarding the border between Tanganyika and
Ruanda-Urundi in 1924. The administration of the Territory continued to be carried out under the terms of the mandate until its transfer to the Trusteeship System under the Charter of the United Nations by the Trusteeship Agreement of December 13, 1946.
1926: Africanisation policy
British policy was to rule indirectly through African leaders. In 1926, a
Legislative Council was established, which was to advise the governor. The British administration took measures to revive
African institutions by encouraging limited local rule, and authorized the formation in 1922 of political clubs such as the
Tanganyika Territory African Civil Service Association. In 1926 some African members were unofficially admitted into the Legislative Council and in 1929 the Association became the
Tanganyika African Association which would constitute the core of the nascent
nationalist movement. In 1945 the first Africans were effectively appointed to the Governor's Legislative Council.
Late 1920s: railway development
In 1928 the railway line
Tabora-Mwanga was opened to traffic, the line from
Moshi to
Arusha in 1929. In 1919 the population was estimated at 3,500,000.
1931 census
In 1931 a census established the population of
Tanganyika at 5,022,640 natives, in addition to 32,398 Asians and 8,228 Europeans.
Health and education initiatives
Under British rule, efforts were undertaken to fight the
Tsetse fly (a carrier of
sleeping sickness), and to fight
malaria and
bilharziasis; more hospitals were built. In 1926, the Colonial administration provided subsidies to schools run by missionaries, and at the same time established its authority to exercise supervision and to establish guidelines. Yet in 1935, the education budget for the entire country of Tanganyika amounted to only (US) $290,000, although it is unclear how much this represented at the time in terms of
purchasing power parity. In 1933,
Sir Horace Hector Hearne was appointed as
Puisne Judge, Tanganyika Territory, and acted as
Chief Justice of Tanganyika in 1935 and 1936. He held the post until 1936/1937 when he went on to be a similar job in
Ceylon.
1943: 100,000-acre (405 km2) Tanganyika wheat scheme
The British Government decided to develop wheat growing to help feed a war-ravaged and severely rationed Britain and eventually Europe at the hoped-for Allied victory at the end of the Second World War. An American farmer in Tanganyika,
Freddie Smith, was in charge, and
David Gordon Hines was the accountant responsible for the finances. The scheme had 50,000 acres (202 km
2) on the
Ardai plains just outside
Arusha; 25,000 acres (101 km
2) on
Mount Kilimanjaro; and 25,000 acres (101 km
2) towards
Ngorongoro to the west. All the machinery was lend/lease from the USA, including 30 tractors, 30 ploughs, and 30 harrows. There were western agricultural and engineering managers. Most of the workers were
Italian prisoners of war from Somalia and Ethiopia: excellent, skilled engineers and mechanics. The Ardai plains were too arid to be successful, but there were good crops in the Kilimanjaro and Ngorongoro areas.
1940s and 1950s: farming co-operatives
British colonial policy in the 1940s and 1950s encouraged the development of farming co-operatives to partially convert subsistence farmers to cash husbandry. Before co-operatives, the farmers sold their produce to Indian traders at poor prices. The responsible colonial officer
David Gordon Hines from 1947 to 1959 achieved the vast expansion of the co-operatives. Co-operative offices throughout the country showed the members how to elect committees, keep their books, and market produce. Co-operatives formed "unions" for their areas and developed
cotton gineries, coffee factories, and
tobacco dryers. A major success for Tanzania was the
Moshi coffee auctions that attracted international buyers after the annual Nairobi auctions.
No Mau Mau violence
In the early 1950s the Mau Mau movement of violent resistance to British rule was active in neighbouring Kenya. The Tanganyika government expected the violence to spread to Tanganyika, especially in the north where the
Wa-Chagga live — but violence did not spread there from Kenya.
1940s - 1950s transition to self government
After
World War II, Tanganyika became a
UN territory under British control. Subsequent years witnessed Tanganyika moving gradually toward self-government and independence. In 1954,
Julius Nyerere, the future leader of Tanzania, who was then a school teacher and one of only two Tanganyikans educated abroad at the university level, organized a political party—the
Tanganyika African National Union (TANU).
