SS Gwendolen - Lake Malawi

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TheGreenGoblin
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SS Gwendolen - Lake Malawi

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sun Oct 31, 2021 8:36 pm

A friend in South Africa sent me this clipping today. A tale of one of the first, if not the very first, naval engagement of the First World War.

SSGwenodolen.jpg
SS Gwendolen (sometimes misspelled Guendolen and Gwendolyn) was a British steamship on Lake Nyasa[1] that fought in the first naval action of World War I against the German steamship Hermann von Wissman which it caught on a slipway at Sphinxhafen, now known as Liuli.

The 350-ton vessel was launched at Fort Johnston in 1899, and named after Lady Gwendolen Cecil, the then 29-year-old unmarried daughter of the Marquess of Salisbury. In 1907 the Gwendolen was the largest of three vessels formerly used as gunboats, the others being the SS Chauncy Maples and the Queen Victoria, with four civilian steamers on the lake.

From 1914 she was commanded by Captain Edmund Rhoades, who attacked the Hermann von Wissman, the vessel of his friend and former drinking partner Captain Berndt, by surprise, with Berndt having been unaware that war had started.[5] William Percival Johnson later recalled that Captain Berndt, who had been master of the German vessel for its original purpose as an anti-slavery gunboat in the 1890s, had been a good friend of the British missionaries in the days of Chauncy Maples.

In the 1920s the Nyasaland Government Marine Transport ran a monthly sailing of SS Gwendolen from Fort Johnston carrying goods and passengers on a 15-day round trip around various ports on the lake.
SS Gwendolen.JPG
http://ww1blog.osborneink.com/?p=8156
In the early 20th century, Lake Nyasa lay on the border between German Tanganyika (today’s Tanzania) and British Malawi, and each empire maintained a small naval presence there. The British assigned the task to Commander Edmund Rhoades, in charge of the gunboat HMS Gwendolen. He shared the lake with a German Captain Berndt, in command of the SS Hermann von Wissman. In the decade preceding the war, Rhoades, in charge of the gunboat HMS Gwendolen. He shared the lake with a German Captain Berndt, in command of the SS Hermann von Wissman. In the decade preceding the war, Rhoades and Berndt became good friends, and boon drinking companions. When Britain declared war against Germany in 1914, Rhoades was first to receive the news, and decided to end the war in Lake Nyasa before it had even begun, without hurting his friend.

The German gunboat was docked for repairs, its captain still unaware that there was a war on, when Rhoades showed up in the Gwendolen, and disabled the Hermann von Wissman with a single volley. Captain Berndt leapt into a dinghy and had it rowed furiously to the Gwendolen, which he boarded while cursing out Rhoades and questioning his sobriety and sanity. Rhoades sat Berndt down, and over whiskey, explained the situation to his erstwhile boozing buddy. He then led away his livid prisoner of war, who by then was loudly cursing German officials and his chain of command for not keeping him up to speed on developments in Europe. Thus concluded WWI’s first naval engagement.
The story of the initial strategy of seizing German territories in Africa is an interesting one.

https://www.academia.edu/6626820/Behind ... =swp_share
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Re: SS Gwendolen - Lake Malawi

#2 Post by Mrs Ex-Ascot » Mon Nov 01, 2021 7:22 am

A very interesting read. :)
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Re: SS Gwendolen - Lake Malawi

#3 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Nov 02, 2021 2:14 am

Mrs Ex-Ascot wrote:
Mon Nov 01, 2021 7:22 am
A very interesting read. :)
Glad you enjoyed the article. The Anglo German relationship during the European "scramble for Africa" was an anomalous, and sometimes almost an amusing one", the Caprivi Strip being a case in point.

Caprivi Freedom

caprivi-strip.jpg
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2020/04/t ... strip.html
The country of Namibia has a sizeable landmass with an enviable coastline by the South Atlantic Ocean. Yet, a thin sliver of land, no more than 32 kilometers wide, protrude eastward for about 450 kilometers from the north-eastern corner of the country towards Zimbabwe, seeking something it doesn’t have. This odd finger-like intrusion is called the Caprivi Strip, after German Chancellor Leo von Caprivi, who negotiated the acquisition of the land with the United Kingdom in 1890.

The Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty, signed between Great Britain and the German Empire, gave Germany control of the islands of Heligoland in the North Sea and the coast of Dar es Salaam that would form the core of German East Africa. In return, Germany handed over to Britain the islands of Zanzibar and parts of East Africa. Thrown along with the deal, in favor of Germany, was the Caprivi Strip which connected the German South West Africa to the Zambezi River. This gave Germany a route to Africa's east coast, where the colony of German East Africa was situated. Except it didn’t. Leo von Caprivi was not aware that the Zambezi River was unnavigable. Just 80 kilometers downstream was a major obstacle—the world’s largest waterfalls, Victoria.

When Germany realized their mistake, they tried to swap the Strip for another British territory, but the British were not interested. Caprivi’s predecessor Otto von Bismarck attacked Caprivi over the failed deal, remarking that Germany had traded away its entire “trousers for a button.” But the island-swap was not completely bust. Although they lost the “Scramble for Africa”, Germany acquired Heligoland, strategically placed for control over the German Bight, which, with the construction of the Kiel Canal from 1887 onward, had become essential to Emperor Wilhelm's II plans for expansion of the Imperial Navy.
Of course the Battle of Heligoland Bight was one of the earliest key naval battles of the First World war. Once again far off Africa stood like a palimpsest in European affairs of state and war!
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Re: SS Gwendolen - Lake Malawi

#4 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Nov 02, 2021 2:30 am

It was the in the East of Africa that was the primary focus of the campaigns of the First World War and it was here that Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck (one of my favourite German Commanders) made his honourable name.
Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (20 March 1870 – 9 March 1964), also called the Lion of Africa (German: Löwe von Afrika), was a general in the Imperial German Army and the commander of its forces in the German East Africa campaign. For four years, with a force of about 14,000 (3,000 Germans and 11,000 Africans), he held in check a much larger force of 300,000 British <<South African mostly>>, Indian, Belgian, and Portuguese troops.

Essentially undefeated in the field, Lettow-Vorbeck was the only German commander to successfully invade a part of the British Empire during the First World War. His exploits in the campaign have been described by Edwin Palmer Hoyt as "the greatest single guerrilla operation in history, and the most successful."
Lettow-Vorbeck treated and commanded his Askaris well and was rewarded by loyalty and thus melded a significant fighting force along the Zambezi and German East Africa generally. He was much admired as a general by South African General Smuts.

Paul Von Lettow Vorbeck

The famous scout, hunter and gentleman adventurer Frederick Selous lost his life in this campaign.
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Re: SS Gwendolen - Lake Malawi

#5 Post by FD2 » Fri Nov 05, 2021 10:24 pm

My maternal Grandmother's brother was a junior RNR sub lieutenant serving in HMS Princess. The ship was originally the Hamburg America Line ship Kronprinzessin Cecilie, but was seized at the outbreak of WW1 and later used as an armed merchant cruiser off East Africa for about 18 months. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Kronpr ... lie_(1905)

A friend transcribed the ship's log for me and she spent most of that time taking troops from one port to another in a futile attempt to catch Lettow-Vorbeck who eventually marched his surviving men into Abercorn - not a surrender - as the War was over. Amazing commander!

I have a German Schutztruppe flag in black white and red, used until 1918 by the German empire and which Uncle Ivan claimed had been flying over Dar es Salaam when it was surrendered. Not sure if that was true or the dates tie up but it made a good story - the flag is genuine. He spent some time undergoing treatment for 'neurasthenia' on return to England before returning to duty - looking at the operation of those old coal fired ships in that heat I'm not surprised.

GG - I recommend 'An Ice Cream War' by William Boyd as a good novel about events there in WW1.

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Re: SS Gwendolen - Lake Malawi

#6 Post by G-CPTN » Sat Nov 06, 2021 3:41 am

As to how SS Gwendolen arrived at Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa - the story of SS Chauncy Maples probably explains matters.

Mangochi was founded by colonial administrator Sir Harry Johnston in the 1890s as a British colonial defence post on the littoral plain of the Shire River's western shore. After this, Fort Johnston – as the town was then known – was an important slave market and administrative centre.

The British gunboat Gwendolen, named after Lady Gwendolen Gascoyne-Cecil, daughter of the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, was built in Mangochi in 1897. At 310 tonnes (340 short tons), it was the largest ship to sail on Lake Malawi until being scrapped shortly after World War II. The gunboat, operated by the Protectorate of Nyasaland, is said to have fought the first naval battle of the First World War when it defeated the German vessel Hermann von Wissmann in August 1914.

From March to November 2007, roughly 480 children were "rescued" from child labour on tobacco farms in Mangochi.

The Alley & McLellan shipyard in Polmadie, Glasgow, was a considerable distance from the River Clyde, with the final approach into Glasgow Central Station posing just one of many barriers between it and the Clyde. The company specialised in supporting the far reaches of the British Empire by building vessels that were dismantled into kit form once they had been completed.
The resulting set of parts was frequently enormous and a daunting logistical task to transport. Re-assembly also depended heavily upon the availability of skilled labour at the customer's premises. As in the case of the Chauncy Maples, this was frequently the only viable option when the ultimate destination was very far inland, away from any semblance of modern communications.
The SS Chauncy Maples was designed to steam the extensive waters of Lake Nyasa, the most southerly lake in East Africa.
At 560 kilometres (350 mi) long and 80 km (50 mi) wide it is the eighth-largest lake in the world. It is also the second-deepest lake in Africa and home to more fish species than any other lake on Earth, giving an easy source of food for those who live around its shores.
Conceived and commissioned by the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA), the 150-ton ship was one of the last designs produced by Henry Marc Brunel, son of the Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Once dismantled, the complex kit of almost 3,481 parts was transported by cargo ship to Portuguese East Africa, then towed by barge up the dangerous waters of the Zambezi.
The boiler was built by Abbott of Newark. It weighed 11 tons and was transported in one piece on a special wagon fitted with Sentinel wheels, to be hauled overland by 450 Ngoni tribesmen for 560 km (350 mi) through uncharted malarial land to the East African Rift. The other parts of the ship were man-handled or carried on the heads of men and women over difficult terrain and across river beds: they averaged only 5 km (3 mi) a day.
Re-assembly of the Chauncy Maples proved to be even more arduous than the journey — in error, the part numbers had been stamped on each section prior to the galvanising process, making the task for the African engineers even more complex. It took two years to re-assemble; the vessel was finally launched on 6 June 1901 and named after Bishop Chauncy Maples, an Anglican missionary, later Bishop of Nyasaland.

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Re: SS Gwendolen - Lake Malawi

#7 Post by FD2 » Sat Nov 06, 2021 5:20 am

That's an amazing enterprise. Just imagine all those part numbers galvanised over and no clues apart from skill and intuition where they went - and no easy way of contacting Polmadie!

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