the less hesitation in referring to it; for I had been at
both Tanga and Dar-es-Salaam early in 1908. At the first-named port
our ship only spent a few hours, so that any kind of reconnaissance
work would have been out of the question. But we lay for four days on
end in Dar-es-Salaam harbour, and yet it never occurred to me to
examine the place and its immediate surroundings from the point of
view of possible attack upon it in the future--this, moreover, after
having just given over charge of the strategical section in the War
Office. Even allowing for the fact that war with Germany was not
looming ahead to the same extent in 1908 as it was from 1909 onwards,
there was surely something wrong on that occasion.

The start that was made in East Africa in 1914 can only be described
as deplorable. Following a custom which to my mind is more honoured in
the breach than in the observance, the mortifying results of the
attempted maritime descent upon Tanga which ushered in the
hostilities, were for a long time kept concealed from the public. That
reverse constituted a grave set-back--a set-back on a small scale
perhaps, but as decided a one as we met with during the war. Our
troops not only lost heavily in casualties, but they also suffered
appreciably in _moral_. For months subsequent to that untoward event
we were virtually on the defensive in this theatre of war, although we
unquestionably enjoyed the advantage in actual numbers, and although
the maritime communications were open to our side and closed to that
of the enemy. The enemy enjoyed such initiative as there was. Bodies
of hostile troops used to cross the border from time to time and
inflict unpleasant pin-pricks upon us. The situation was an eminently
unsatisfactory one, but what was to be done?

That "German East" was just the very place to utilize South African
troops in, became apparent at a comparatively early stage of the
proceedings. Even before General Botha and his men had completed his
conquest of "German South-West," one had already begun to dream dreams
of these same forces, or their equivalent, coming to the rescue on the
farther side of the Dark Continent, and of their getting our Indian
and native African contingents, with their small nucleus of British
regulars, out of the scrape that they were in. Being in constant
communication with General C. W. Thomson, who was in command of the
exiguous body of British soldiers left at the Cape, I was able to
g