OLD PORTUGUESE WATERGATE, DAR-ES-SALAAM

MAP OF GERMAN EAST AFRICA




INTRODUCTION


These sketches of General Smuts' campaign of 1916 in German East Africa,
do not presume to give an accurate account of the tactical or
strategical events of this war. The actual knowledge of the happenings
of war and of the considerations that persuade an Army Commander to any
course of military conduct must, of necessity, be a closed book to the
individual soldier. To the fighting man himself and to the man on the
lines of communication, who helps to feed and clothe and arm and doctor
him, the history of his particular war is very meagre. War, to the
soldier, is limited to the very narrow horizon of his front, the daily
work of his regiment, or, at the most, of his brigade. Rarely does news
from the rest of one brigade spread to the troops of another in the
field. Only in the hospital that serves the division are the events of
his bit of war correlated and reduced to a comprehensive whole. Even
then the resulting knowledge is usually wrong. For the imagination of
officers, and of men in particular, is wonderful, and rumour has its
birthplace in the hospital ward. One may take it as an established fact
that the ordinary regimental officer or soldier knows little or nothing
about events other than his particular bit of country. Only the Staff
know, and they will not tell. Sometimes we have thought that all the
real news lives in the cloistered brain of the General and his Chief of