Manoeuvre warfare in the South African campaign in German South West Africa during the First World War

Abstract

This dissertation studies the First World War South African campaign in German South West Africa from 1914 until 1915. The campaign was characterised by the high mobility of the Union’s mounted soldiers which enabled swift advances and rapid envelopments. The German forces applied a defensive strategy relying on the lack of water and remoteness of the terrain to deter and prolong the Union’s invasion. The German force also relied on internal lines of communication to concentrate its forces on the Union’s advancing columns. The Union Defence Forces’s numbered approximately 50 000 compared to the German force of about 7 000. The campaign culminated on 9 July 1915 with the surrender of almost the entire German fighting force intact. This study analyses whether the victory can be attributed to the Union Defence Forces’s numerical superiority or the operational strategy and tactics which were applied during the campaign. It is argued that this operational strategy is congruent with the modern theory of manoeuvre warfare and that the campaign is therefore a textbook example of manoeuvre warfare theory