WWI East Africa: Belgians at Tabora (1916)

For our last game of the year, Anton turned up and gave us a Christmas treat: Tabora. This is one of those obscure corners of history it is such a joy to explore.

The background is that the Allies were trying to eliminate the little German colonial army in German East Africa (now Tanzania). The main attack was by a British Empire force pushing south from Kenya, but an important supporting attack was provided by a Belgian force coming from the Congo. Two Belgian columns totalling some 10,000 men converged on Major-General Wahle's 5,000 Schutztruppen and askaris at Tabora, on the east-west railway line connecting Lake Tanganyika to Dar-es-Salaam. After several days' fighting on successive defensive lines, punctuated by some aggressive counterattacks, Wahle finally abandoned Tabora and marched away to the southeast.

The game was a playtest of Anton's draft scenario, which will probably be included in a forthcoming scenario book, Bloody Big Battles in AFRICA!. (See also his previous WWI African excursion, Otavi.)  We anticipated it would need some tweaks, and so it proved. We spent half an hour or so on an initial false start that confirmed a couple of the tweaks we'd considered were indeed necessary. We quickly reset and fought the whole game through to a very satisfactory conclusion in under 90 minutes. 15 captioned photos illustrate the course of the action, followed by some Reflections at the end.

This is just to orient you before the table gets cluttered with miombo woodlands and troops. Top edge is north. The east-west railway bisects the table. Tabora nestles among rolling hills at the junction of the railway and the road running south. The village north of it with the fieldworks around it is Itaga. Belgians will arrive on the west edge around Usoke station and on the north edge above Itaga. White counters mark the objective locations: Tabora itself, Itaga, Lulanguru (the first station west of Tabora) and the hill commanding the road.

Now we add some bush. This is just for scenic effect rather than defining particular wooded areas. The ground scale is large - 6km per 12", so the 5'x4' table is 30x24km. Consequently, between that and the frequent woods, LOS is limited to 6" (artillery can fire indirect out to 12" at half effect) and infantry are treated as armed with Repeating Carbines (RC) rather than Repeating Rifles (RR).

Note the green counters marking off the SE grid square. This is the German escape zone, of which more later.

The troops arrive. This was the abortive first go, so doesn't exactly match the positions for the definitive second attempt, but it gives the right general picture. Belgians are on the browner bases, Germans on the greener ones. Colonel Frederik-Valdemar Olsen's 'Brigade Sud' has arrived following the railway line from the west, while Colonel Philippe Molitor's 'Brigade Nord' is moving to pin and outflank the main German defenders entrenched in Itaga. Smaller German forces are screening Lulanguru and there is a reserve in Tabora.

The game proper. Troop scale is about 250 men per base, so these units are battalions of ~1,000-1,250 men each. I took command of Olsen's force. I was opposed by Crispin, who decided not to bother with a forward delaying force but concentrated around Lulanguru, committing the Tabora reserve as well, to set up a solid defensive line. I started by feinting towards his southern flank ...

... but then tried to work around the northern flank instead. This would have worked better if my movement dice had been kinder. Having the main outflanking battalion stall entirely wasn't helpful.

Meanwhile, Anton was attempting something similar with Brigade Nord, seeking to work around Dave T's left flank towards Tabora, as well as taking Itaga itself. Empty trenches outside Itaga show where some of Dave's askaris fell, but top right of pic is his audacious right-flanking counterattack. This significantly delayed a couple of Anton's battalions.

Olsen tries to galvanise his attack on Lulanguru. The German defenders are bolstered by a naval gun on a railway carriage.

Belgian Force Publique infantry are actually my Balkan Wars Serbs (Irregular Miniatures 6mm figures). Germans are Anton's Boer War boers (Irregular again). The railway gun is my conversion: an Irregular flat car with some Peter Pig 1/600 coastal artillery. Railway sections also Irregular.

Turn 6 of 8. Crispin's rearguard hangs on in Lulanguru, but his left wing is retiring towards the escape zone. This is important as the Germans can earn one or two Objectives by retreating one or two units off the SE corner on Turn 8, but may not enter the SE 12" grid square before Turn 7.

Anton finally sees off Dave's counterattack and takes Itaga. However, some Schutztruppen still hang on in their position above Itaga, with artillery support. Can Anton reach the objectives further south?

Like Crispin, Dave too has withdrawn a battalion towards the escape zone. Here we see the German commander, Major General Kurt Wahle, pointing out the green escape zone boundary marker to his loyal men. Sandbags by Irregular Miniatures. Veteran cardboard sabot base handcrafted by me 15 years ago and shows it.

Belgian Turn 7. My troops have suffered heavily (two battalions with black smoke on them are Spent), but we have stymied Crispin's attempt to escape (his withdrawing battalion centre right is Disrupted [white smoke] and can't move fast enough) and we are in range to capture both Lulanguru and the hill objective if we're lucky.

Also on Turn 7, Anton presses down from the north past Itaga to threaten Tabora. Not many Germans stand in his way now.

Turn 8. Crispin has judiciously withdrawn his battalion from Lulanguru to secure the hill (line of communications objective), leaving just a machinegun detachment to hold Lulanguru. One of my spent battalions gamely assaults the MGs but will perish in the attempt. The other balks and refuses to advance. My largest battalion is fresh and descends on the railway gun, hoping to exploit onto the hill, but will be repelled by German fire.

Anton seizes Tabora on the last turn, but it will not be enough.

Dave needed 7+ for this battalion to get a full move and escape. He rolled 6. Thanks to the +1 for Wahle's presence, that was enough, so he earned an Objective

The Germans needed to hold two Objectives for a draw or 3+ for a win. As one German unit had escaped and I'd failed to take either Lulanguru or the LOC hill, victory went to the Kaiser's valiant troops.

Reflections:

Fighting withdrawals make for fun games! Obviously, they oblige a defender to move, rather than just sitting and shooting. That's more interesting for all concerned than a simple attack-defence. Good examples are Beaumont (FPW 1870) and 2nd Vac (Hungary 1849). Tabora gave Dave and Crispin tricky decisions to make about how to time their escape. Anton's rule that effectively required units to make two successful movement rolls in succession to escape helped to build the suspense at the end.

What a quick, clean game. Low unit numbers (8 Belgian infantry units vs 7 German on a 5'x4') make the turns pass quickly. Low troop density plus the LOS limit meant plenty of room for maneuver without being pinned down and decimated (though WWI firepower still made frontal assaults a daunting prospect). And Anton's gift for scenario structure made it a nice tactical challenge.

6mm is great for proxies! Not every wargamer has a Belgian or German colonial army for WW1. Certainly I don't, but it was easy enough to put some plausible proxies in blue and khaki on the table. As Dave commented, it might have been a bit harder if my collection was all 15s or 28s. (You could probably still get away with it in 10mm.)

And finally: Merry Christmas! And thank you for your attention during what, for me, has been another great year of great games with great friends. I hope 2024 has treated you kindly as well (and that you've enjoyed my pontifications on this blog). Here's to more of the same in 2025!