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Colonial Violence and the German-Hehe War in East Africa C “To Devour the Land of Mkwawa”: Colonial Violence and the German-Hehe War in East Africa c. 1884-1914 David Pizzo A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History. Chapel Hill 2007 Approved by: Professor Christopher R. Browning Professor Lisa Lindsay Professor Konrad Jarausch Professor Claudia Koonz Professor Christopher J. Lee TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS…………………………………………………iv-vi ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………..vii-viii I. Introduction, Litereature, Questions, and Arguments…………………….…..1 Literary Review………………………………………………..………..….17 Objectives and Methodology…………………………………………….…25 II. The Birth and Collision of Two Empires…………………………………..37 The Establishment of German Power in East Africa…………….…………41 African Politics in the Southern Highlands………………………………...51 III. The Road to Rugaro and the “Zelemski Catastrophe”……………….....….76 The Causes and Beginnings of the German-Hehe War……………….……76 The Battle of Rugaro, 17 August 1891…………………………….……….86 IV. Stalemate and the Logic of Conquest: From Rugaro to Kalenga…………105 Strategic and Administrative Situation after the “Zelewski Catatrophe”: German Priorities, Policies, and Constraints………………………….……108 Strategic and Administrative Situation after the “Zelewski Catatrophe”: Hehe Priorities, Policies, and Constraints……………………………….….….…119 ii Between Rugaro and Kalena: The Conflict up to 1894 in Uhehe and Beyond……………………………………………………………….……123 Highland Politics: The Hehe Polity under Stress, the Rise of Rivals, and the Destruction of Potential Allies……………………………………...……..134 . V. Shock and Awe—the Siege of Kalenga and the Battle of Mage (1894)…156 The Era of Schele and the Siege of Kalenga, Late 1894…….……….....156 After Kalenga: The Battle of Mage……………………………………….176 VI. Guerrilla War and Scorched Earth in Uhehe ………………………......…186 The Situation in Uhehe after the Fall of Kalenga…………….……...…188 Mkwawa and the Hehe State after Kalenga………………………………194 German-Hehe Relations after Kalenga……………………………………196 VII. Aftermath, the Evolution of German Power, and Conclusions …..........…218 Aftermath……………………………………………………………218 Uhehe During the Maji Maji Revolt, 1905-07…………………………….224 The Primacy of Local Politics and Commanders: Expediency and Violence……..……………………………………………………………235 Civil-Military Dualism and the Operation of German Colonial Policy......244 War in Colonial East Africa………………………………………………254 Colonial Warfare During the Age of the “New Imperialism”…………….264 Fin de siècle Colonial Warfare and World History……………………….279 BIBLIOGRAPHY… …………………………………………………………..287 iii LIST OF ILLUSTRAIONS 1. European Hunting a Leopard………………………….……………………….1 2. March order of Weule’s Caravan…………………………………………… 37 3. An Askari with the Imperial Flag……………………………………………41 4. Carl Peters…………………………………………………………....………46 5. Hermann von Wissman and his Troops……………………………………...48 6. The Chinja Chinja Tree in Bagamoyo..……………………………………...49 7. Wangoni Warriors……………………………………………………………53 8. Thaba Bosiu……………………………………………………….….……….55 9. The Mfecane………………………………………………………………….56 10. Ethnic Groups in Southern Tanzania………………………………………...58 11. Tomb of Munyigumba the Founder………………………………………….62 12. Issala Stabbing Spears……………………………………………………….64 13. Hehe Marching Formation…………………………………………………...67 14. Makonde Women in Chains………………………………………………….70 15. An Elephant Herd…………………………………………………….………71 16. Arabesque German Fortress………………………………………….………73 17. Caravan on the March……………………………………………….……….76 18. Askari with rifle……………………………………………………………...83 19. African Drawing of Askari…………………………..………………………..86 20. Photograph of the Site of the Rugaro Ambush………………………………90 21. Ridge at Rugaro……………………………………………………....……...96 22. The Spot Where Zelewski was Killed……………………………….……….97 iv 23. The Spot Where General Ngosi Ngosi Died……………………….….……..101 24. Map of the Iringa District…………………………………………….……..104 25. African Drawing of a German Boma………….………………...…………….105 26. The Southern Highlands………………………………………….…………110 27. Table of German Colonial Governors………………………………………113 28. Uhehe and Its Neighbors……………………………………………………122 29. Enslaved Makonde Women Chained Together……………………….…….138 30. African Depiction of a Steam Ship……………………………….…………140 31. African Map of the Key Caravan Routes…………………………….…......144 32. Governor Friedrich von Schele…………………………………….………..155 33. The Kalenga Fortress………………………………………………….…….156 34. Askari Recruits and Askari Training………………………………….…….161 35. Villagers Feet Damaged by Sand Fleas………………………….………….163 36. Larger image of the The Kalenga Fortress…………………….……………165 37. Photographs of the Foundation of the Kalenga Wall………….……..166 & 167 38. Cross-section of one of Kalenga’s Bastions……………………….………..170 39. Photographs of the Tossamaganga Hill……………………….……..171 & 172 40. View of Kalenga’s Wall…………………………………………………….173 41. Diagrams of Mkwawa’s Inner Sanctum……………………………….……174 42. Monument to Schutztruppler Lieutenant Erich Maass…………….………..175 43. The Battle of Mage………………………………………………….………177 44. An Askari Watches Penal Laborers…………………………….….………...186 45. Governor Liebert’s Map of Uhehe…………………………….…..…………188 v 46. Governor Hermann von Wissmann……………………….………….……..193 47. Wissmann Negotiating……………………………………………………...197 48. African Depiction of Mountain Warfare………………………..……………203 49. Governor Eduard von Liebert……...……………………………………….205 50. “The Bus” in Southern Tanzania…………………………………………...206 51. The Boma at New Iringa………………………………………....…………207 52. East African Women Doing Forced “Tax Labor”…………….…………….213 53. The Cave at Mlambalasi…………………………………….………………215 54. Mkwawa’s Skull at the Kalenga Musuem……………….………………….217 55. Hanging Scene from Maji Maji………………………….………………….218 56. The Massassi Mission Station…………………………….……...………....220 57. The Tossamaganga Mission Station …………………….………………….222 58. Forced Labor in Massassi……………………………….…………………..235 59. Theodor Heine’s Cartoon about Imperial Atrocities……….……………….263 60. Images from the French-Baule War………………………….………...…...273 61. American Atrocities in the Philippines……………………….….…………..276 62. Guernica………………………………………………...…….…………….282 63. German “Askari” in the Warsaw Ghetto…………………….……………...285 64. An Askari Watches Chained Laborers………..…….….……………………286 vi ABSTRACT DAVID PIZZO: “To Devour the Land of Mkwawa”: Colonial Violence and the German-Hehe War in East Africa c. 1884-1914 (Under the direction of Christopher R. Browning and Lisa Lindsay) David Pizzo UNC Chapel Hill 2007 “’To Devour the Land of Mkwawa’: Colonial Violence and the German-Hehe War in East Africa” focuses on the German-Hehe War, which raged across the Southern Highlands of what is now Tanzania in the 1890s, and is based on archival and field research done in Berlin, Freiburg, Dar es Salaam, and Iringa. The central question of the dissertation is nature of imperial violence in the African context, in this case perpetrated by German-led colonial forces in their attempt to subdue the large, martially proficient Hehe conquest state, which was similar other states based on the Zulu model. The extreme brutality and destruction that characterized this nearly decade-long campaign resulted not simply from some sort of “special path” of the German Empire or some sort of culturally encoded national pathology, but rather arose from the interplay of conditions and exigencies “on the spot” in East Africa and broader, overlapping circuits of violence that connected processes and events across the globe. I also seek to destabilize the traditional binary of omnipotent European invaders and passive African victims—indeed, the Hehe under Chief Mkwawa were highly effective killers and administrators whose tenacious resistance to the Germans vii itself brought forth extreme responses from German colonial forces. My work is transnational and comparative: it is the former insofar as the violence that characterized the Hehe-German War was the result of and drew on several concurrent developments that transcended national or other established political boundaries. It is the latter in that I explicitly compare the Hehe-German War with other cases of intense colonial violence across Africa and Asia in order to illuminate what is specific about both the German imperial experience and about the powerful Hehe Mfecane State. These events are a part of world history, not just East African or German history, and they offer one an opportunity to explore the larger issue of how violence and warfare—particularly irregular, “asymmetrical” warfare—shaped and continue to shape our world. viii 1 Chapter I: Introduction, Literature, Questions and Argument Faced with tenacious guerrilla resistance and a murderous enemy that he cold not see, the German Colonel Eduard von Liebert stated bluntly: “there was nothing left for us to do other than continue with the campaign of annihilation [Vernichtungsfeldzug] and war of destruction [Zerstörungskrieg] of earlier expeditions in order to cut his followers off from the means of existence ”2 He went on to argue that his forces could only achieve victory if they prosecuted a strategy of attempting to “devour the land of Mkwawa” [das Land des Mkwawa aufzufressen], in other words the intentional causing of famine in “rebel areas” in order to bring about an end to hostilities.3 One would be forgiven for assuming 1 Karl Weule, “Ostafrikanische Eingeborenen-Zeichnungen: Psychologische Einblicke in die Künstlerseele des Negers,” in Ipek: Jahrbuch für Prähistorische und Ethnographische Kunst 2 (1926): between
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