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A first attempt to invade German South West Africa from the south failed at the Battle of Sandfontein, close to the border with the Cape Colony, where on 26 September 1914 German colonial forces defeated the Union Defence Force (UDF), although the surviving UDF troops were left free to return to South Africa. [6]
German South West Africa (German: Deutsch-Südwestafrika) was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 [1] until 1915, [2] though Germany did not officially recognise its loss of this territory until the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.
Camel cavalry, German South West Africa, 1904 Camel patrol, German South West Africa, 1907 Zebra cavalry, German East Africa, 1911. The Schutztruppe in German South West Africa was structured in 12 companies of mounted infantry totalling 1,500 men, primarily Germans. The 7th Company, stationed in the northern desert area of the colony, was ...
By 17.00, German troops halved the distance separating them from the South African positions, employing high explosive shells. At around 18.00, the South African troops raised the white flag. German casualties amounted to 14 dead and 46 wounded, while the South Africans lost 16 men dead and 51 wounded. [2]
Troops took much of the territory, including Walvis Bay in the north, in 1915. In early 1915 the South African troops began moving into German South-West Africa. South African forces quickly moved through the country, but the Germans fought until cornered in the extreme north-west before surrendering on 9 July 1915.
As the German forces had been restricted to the southern part of German East Africa, Smuts began to replace South African, Rhodesian and Indian troops with the King's African Rifles and by 1917 more than half the British Army in East Africa was African.
The Hereros were cattle grazers, occupying most of central and northern South West Africa. Under the leadership of Jonker Afrikaner, who died in 1861, and then later under the leadership of Samuel Maharero, they had achieved supremacy over the Nama and Orlam peoples in a series of conflicts that had in their later stages, seen the extensive use of fire-arms obtained from European traders.
South Africa's participation in the First World War occurred automatically when the British Government declared war on Germany in August 1914. Due to her status as a Dominion within the British Empire, South Africa, whilst having significant levels of self-autonomy, did not have the legal power to exercise an independent foreign policy and was tied to the British declaration.