IN EAST AFRICA.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15131, 27 January 1917, Page 5

IN EAST AFRICA.

(High Commissioner’s Gable.) LONDON, January 26. .In, East Africa, General Hoskin succeeds General Smith. Northwards and southwards of Rufiji the Germans are retiring, likewise in the western zone. At Ex Masnenge an advanced detachment was invested, and surrendered. AN ACTION DESCRIBED. GENERAL SMUTS’ GOOD WORK. STRONG POSITIONS TAKEN. An officer in the Legion of Frontiersmen Battalion, officially known as the aocii Royal Frontiersmen Fusiliers, in a letter to a friend in Auckland, gives/ interesting particulars of the operations in German mast Africa. “We have steadily pushed the enemy before us since May last,’’ states the letter, “from the TAhga railway to 60 miles south of Morogoro. The Germans have put up innumerable" rearguard actions—a very simple matter in the dense bcs>. They prepared most formidable positions,.which must have cost months of hard labour, along the one trunk road from the British border to Morogoro and still further south to Kissaki, but they never dared to hold them for fear of being surrounded. These positions were mostly where the road crossed the rivers, and so we had to fight for water after long marches in the terrific heat. We occasionally caught them napping, as, for instance, at the Sukigura River, where they had constructed trenches and redoubts in the thick bush, and amongst the rocky ridges across the river, and -where they had blown up the bridge. ATTACK ( ON THE ENEMY. “A frontal attack was out of the question, So the Legion of Frontiersmen Battalion was sent to a flank attack, 20 miles through a dense bush, across the river, in the early dawn; We made a long detour and got into the back of the German position. We were all dead tired, and also hungry and thirsty, and could not have dragged our weary bodies much further, when suddenly machine gun and rifle fire opened upon us. Every man was immediately fresh and alert. We attacked at once, our machine guns opening fire, and two companies supported by a third, crept through the dense bush, each man for himself, but keeping in close touch—our men are expert in bush work—and at length we got to the creek, and with a cheer we charged the position in face of a pom-pom and two machine guns in full blast. “The trenches were full of Askaris. We went through them. In a few minutes that hillface was covered with bayoneted Germans, and Askaris/. t.e captured the pom-pom and the two machine guns and the stand of a third. We did not get the gun itself; some Askari must have shouldered it and got off into the bush. All the Germans died at their posts; they had not time to get out. Having secured the enemy’s main or reserve position, we had the positions on the river bank, a few hundred yards away, between ourselves and the troops in front across the. river, and then the rest of the enemy surrendered, a few on the extreme flanks breaking oft into the bush. , HALF RATIONS FOR .DAYS. “Both General Smuts and General Haskina heartily congratulated us on what they called the prettiest bit of fighting in the East African campaign. The enemy was very chary of holding his strong positions after that, and many a wonderfully constructed and ugly looking position we found we could march through without scarcely a shot being fired at us. But what a march it has been from the British border to down south !, L have tramped every inch of the road on foot for vve long, weary months. “General Smuts, without doubt the smartest general who could have been found for the East African campaign, has spared neither himself nor his men nor tne enemy, and we have come fast and far, so that we have occasionally been too fast for our supplies to catch us up. We have gone on half-rations many ays, and only men of iron could stand it and the fever and dysentry. There are only 30 to 40 per cent of our original battalion left, but they are as fine a set of men as you could see anywhere on earth. They can live and grow strong on little food, with no shelter, and with only one ragged suit of clothes apiece. We dispense with transport.’’ ASKARIS AS FIGHTERS. “We have run the white Germans off their legs, and we have nearly all of them in our. hands, or killed, but tne cunning Askaris is a different proposition, for bush is his home, and hundreds of them can lay concealed within a few yards of a marching column in the grass or the bush, and they don’t fail to murder stragglers. They are nardy and climate-proof, welidrilled and mobile. Of course,'there are some equally; hardy Germans left with them, but they will not fight us in the open, even .when .their numbers are greater than ours,„ We Hold all the railways', seaports and towns, and they have only the dense hush left to them.” The officer, iri a section of the letter, evidently written after mails and supplies had been fushed forward, says: “We are now resting a bit; and I presume General Smuts is making fresh plans in his clever head. He does his own scouting, and I think we are most fortunate, in , having such’ a commander/ We could end it in . one fight, hut the enemy won't;, meet us in the open, and we will have, to' patiently, hunt him out.