1/ #HistoryKeThread: Thunder Of WW1 Bombs and Piano Keys Upon Nyanza

2/ It is well known that WW1 action in Kenya was primarily focused around Taveta.

3/ However, there was nearly as much action in other parts of Kenya, including Victoria Nyanza, Tsavo and Maasailand.

4/ On Lake Victoria, for instance, the British sank the German armoured tug 'Mwanza'.

5/ And as the war raged in western Kenya, a British telecoms expert, Reginald Kenneth Rice, was dispatched from the telegraph station at...

6/ ...Mombasa up to Lake Victoria to establish a telegraph receiver on SS Clement Hill, a passenger and cargo steamer on the lake.

7/ Reginald's brief was to ensure that the British were able to intercept German military communications.

8/ On 14th December 1914, he managed to intercept German Major von Stümer’s despatch to Captain Braunschweig. The intercepted message...

9/ ...read thus:

10/ ‘Despatch of troops here impossible. Wire situation in that place to Commando, from whom I am demanding reinforcements.

11/ Hold the line on the River Mara and Mwanza.’

12/ The interceptions by the British were so invaluable that they had a major effect on how the war turned out. In one of the intercepts,...

13/ ...the British learnt that the German army had left on the lake shore logs of firewood that had been punctured and inserted with...

14/ ...dynamite.

15/ The Germans intended the British to find the logs and use them as firewood, thereby blowing them into smithereens.

16/ Meanwhile, the British felt stretched and were in desperate need for manpower in Nyanza.

17/ Some local volunteers were rushed from around Nairobi and Kajiado to Kisumu when it was heard that the Germans were on the march in...

18/ ...Nyanza. The locals were put on the Winifred and sailed to Karungu Pier to cut the German march off. The whole idea was for the...

19/ ...British to prevent Kisii and Kisumu from falling to the Germans.

20/ But the port (Karungu) was already occupied by Germans who drove the British away and marched on Kisii on 11th September 1914.

21/ When locals tipped off the resident British settlers of the German approach, the latter hurriedly abandoned their dinner tables

22/ and evacuated.

23/ About thirty prisoners that the Brits held were released to help carry money - which included lots of coins, that was kept in the...

24/ ...strong room.

25/ Locals looted the Europeans’ houses in the wake of the evacuation and the Germans subsequently occupied the station.

26/ To counter the invaders, Lieutenant W. J. T. Shorthose, with forty KAR men and six settlers, bravely marched from Kericho.

27/ The aim was to retake Kisii.

28/ Hordes of Africans perched on adjoining hills were treated to live war drama as the two European armies exchanged gunfire around...

29/ ...Kisii town. It really did not matter to the locals which of the two European powers took possession of the town. To them, one...

30/ ...white man was no different from the other.

31/ Captain E. G. M. Thorneycroft was killed and Charles Grey, brother of Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, was wounded.

32/ He had to have his arm amputated and was actually, later on in 1928, killed by a rogue buffalo.

33/ Here is the grave in Kisii of one of the British officers killed in action.

34/ Sir Edward must have had a very bitter opinion of East Africa as he had lost yet another brother to a lion in then British East Africa.

35/ But let's get back to the war action.....

36/ ...thinking that the British force was much larger than it was, the Germans decided to retreat from Kisii and the British reoccupied...

37/ ...the town. The settlers and officials returned to find everything looted, except for a piano belonging to a certain Mrs. Spencer.

38/ The story among the settlers at the time was that when a Kisii chief called Orere sat on the piano, its notes sounded very loudly a

39/ nd the locals took off in a panic, believing that the sound was of the white man's evil spirits.

40/ 45 Africans and 15 whites on the German side were killed in the Kisii battle. The British on their part lost 20 Africans and one white.

41/ The German whites were buried in a common grave, with Father J. A. Wall of the nearby Roman Catholic mission at Nyabururu presiding...

42/ ...over the service. Briton Thorneycroft was buried near a tennis court in the town.

43/ Others were buried here, at Kisumu’s war graves.

44/ By mid-1915, the British were still in need of reinforcements.

45/ So in September of that year, Ewart Grogan (Grogan Road, which is Kirinyaga Road today, was named after him), arranged a public...

46/ ...meeting of settlers at the Royal Theatre (Cameo cinema), Nairobi. He made a fiery speech calling on the British to take up...

47/ ...national service for the nascent East African Protectorate.

48/ He took a swipe at the Boers of Uasin Gishu, calling on them to shed their laissez-faire attitude towards the war and take up arms...

49/ ...for Britain. A significant number of Afrikaners stepped forward to join the war. In late 1915, conscription was introduced and...

50/ ...seven Afrikaners who refused to join the war were put on trial. They were handed varying jail terms of between six and ten months.

51/ In December of 1915, the Germans invaded Tsavo and took the strategic Kasigau mountain. On Christmas Day, they attacked Ndi station...

52/ ...on the Mombasa-Uganda railway.

53/ In the peak of the hot season of January 1916, South African troops under Jan Smuts (pictured) arrived and engaged the Germans, who...

54/ ...were pushed back towards German East Africa (Tanzania) by April.

55/ According to author C.S. Nicholls, one soldier, Noel Smith, wrote the following to his mother:

56/ ‘Of course nature and the mosquito are far greater enemies to our advance than the Germans...’

57/ It is said that in 1917, there were 1,423 military admissions to hospital for malaria per 1,000 soldiers. Altogether, there were...

58/ ...reportedly 40,527 admissions of soldiers for malaria that year, with 2,291 deaths, mostly of Africans who hailed from the highland...

59/ ...regions.

60/ Jan Smuts reoccupied Taveta in March 1916 and soon captured Moshi and Arusha.

61/ Of course, the war took place in the bush and troops were often hungry. A lot of the supplies were carried by African carrier corps,...

62/ ...many of whom died in the war.

63/ Nearly all of the food for the fighting forces was sourced from the Tsavo and Athi plains. The British army Supply Depot had troops...

64/ ...who scoured the country and shot at game for meat. War historians report that no less than 40,000 head went to furnish the...

65/ ...soldiers with meat. Far more game was killed inside the reserve in those war years than had been shot outside it in the preceding...

66/ ...ten years. Kongoni (hartebeeste) and wildebeeste were most popular, and zebras were shunned, especially by the African troops, as...

67/ ...they were deemed unpalatable.

68/ The Supply Depot men occasionally shot at giraffes, not for their meat, but because these 17 feet-tall creatures kept breaking...

69/ ...telegraph wires with their necks.

70/ Rhinos, a species now endangered, were shot more for being a nuisance to the troops than for meat.

71/ Meanwhile, Jan Smuts eventually pushed the Germans led by Von Lettow Vorbeck towards Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique).

72/ Among the names on the war memorial at Muthaiga unveiled by Governor Edward Northey on 23rd July 1920 were T. H. Drake, H. M.

73/ Lambert, J. N. F. Pixley, H. H. Sandbach, R. R. Tate Smith, A. H. Thompson, R. F C. Tompson and R. B. Woosnam, all British settlers...

74/ ...in Kenya who died in the war. A number of memorials for the African soldiers were also put up, including the famous one on...

75/ ...Kenyatta Avenue today.

76/ In the end, Kenya's contribution to the war came at a huge price of both man and wildlife.

77/ But can you imagine how different things would have been had the Germans succeeded in colonizing Kenya? Or what would have become of...

78/ ...our sense of humor ?