The Kaiser's men’s medals
Article about: The Kaiser's men’s medals (and Homelands) Some time ago acquiring this postcard for my collection. It’s a small piece of art on paper that someone used on April 21, 1916 It’s an incred
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04-06-2024, 07:16 AM
#341
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04-06-2024, 07:23 AM
#342
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04-06-2024, 07:27 AM
#343
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04-06-2024, 08:15 AM
#344
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04-06-2024, 08:24 AM
#345
On August 11, 1904, some 4,000 soldiers (Germans and Nama auxiliaries) under Trotha attacked the Herero positions from different angles. The Herero were waiting for them in strategically well-located places. The entire Herero people had gathered at the site, a conservative figure of 45,000 people, plus their herds of cattle.
Concentration of von Trotha's troops just before the battle
The Herero gathered there, accustomed to negotiating with Leutwein, hoped to enter into a negotiation with the German colonial government, but von Trotha did not accept any pact and attacked.....
But his plan failed spectacularly (as the "old Africans" such as Leutwein had predicted): the dense forested terrain prevented the German columns from acting in coordination. The fighting lasted almost all day. The column approaching from the west came forward, while the attack from the east lagged behind in the dense thickets, so that Samuel Maharero, his retinue, and some of his men, probably short of ammunition, managed to escape by that way.....
On this map from the time of the battle I have indicated the German columns in blue and the position of the Herero people and their escape routes to the east in red.
Several tens of thousands of men, women, children and the elderly and most of the livestock escaped through the German units heading east. Their only option: cross the Omaheke Desert, reach the border and enter the British protectorate of Bechuanaland (Botswana)....
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04-06-2024, 08:30 AM
#346
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04-06-2024, 08:42 AM
#347
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04-06-2024, 08:52 AM
#348
But for Trotha, persecution had become an obsession. He did not want to admit his failure and sacrificed countless lives in an attempt to erase it.
He only agreed to give new orders when operations literally came to nothing: without water and provisions, his troops in the Omaheke Desert could advance no further. "I don't chase anymore." Enough is enough," Trotha said on Sept. 29. "I'm sick. All of our supplies are out of stock." Ending the war on their own was out of the question for the time being. Although the OvaHerero no longer had anything to oppose their pursuers, they avoided any combat.
Hereros after being captured....those who were lucky
This meant that what Leutwein had warned of had happened : a desperate struggle on the part of the OvaHerero, the end of which could not be foreseen. The officers wanted to start peace talks. But Trotha wouldn't allow it. The longer the war dragged on, the more Lonely Trotha felt with his belief that anything short of victory would be a sign of weakness. What is more, he could only imagine a coexistence between Germans and Ovahereros on the basis of a total victory.
By the end of August, Trotha had already announced what that meant. In the event that there was no longer any chance of reaching them, he wanted to expel the OvaHerero from the colony "into English territory and then leave there a strong frontier guard" (he wrote in his diary on August 29).
By the end of September, his own troops were no longer able to continue. So they occupied the last known water points on the western edge of the Omaheke to prevent the OvaHerero from returning.
In desperation, on 3 October 1904, von Trotha issued orders to shoot all Herero males and drive the women and children into the desert; resorting to exemplary acts of cruelty against those he captured, thus signaling to the others that they were no longer German subjects and there was no place for them in the colony.
Without being able to get water from the wells, the Herero people were condemned to an atrocious death....
Women and children were forcibly expelled from water wells. The OvaHerero were declared outlawed and could no longer expect any mercy.
Awasab water well. The Germans took the wells to kill the rebels with thirst
Observation posts and shooting at any Herero who tried to approach the wells
As October progressed, it became clear that many of them would not make it to the border and would not be able to remain in the Omaheke Desert. Tens of thousands of displaced people died of thirst as they fled. That this was clear to Trotha is clear from a letter to Leutwein dated 5 November. In it, he bluntly stated that the entire "nation" of the OvaHerero was being pushed "completely" into an area where it would "no longer exist and would have to perish." He could not defeat them and with his expulsion he wanted to erase the stain of their failure....
Very few Herero survived the escape and those who did (like those in this creepy image) were walking corpses....
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04-06-2024, 09:01 AM
#349
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04-07-2024, 10:36 AM
#350
The Nama Uprising
The Nama Uprising
The warriors of the Nama tribe (inhabitants of the south of the colony) fought on the side of the Germans at the Battle of Waterberg, against the OvaHerero.
But their leader Hendrik Witboi, seeing the dramatic end of the OvaHerero tribe, understood that the next to be eliminated were the Nama, so on October 3, 1904, he also rebelled against the German occupiers.
The Chief of the Namas Hendrik Witbooi (1830-1905)
He gave orders to kill all the white men in his power, although he freed the women and children who were taken under the protection of the German troops.
Witboi had experience in the war, having fought against the German protection forces until 1894, when he signed his agreement with Leutwein, with whom he later collaborated for ten years. (see #327, first pic)
Hendrik Witbooi sitting on the chair with fighters of the Nama tribe circa 1904-1905
Witboi was killed in combat with German troops in 1905, but his men continued the fight for another three years, as guerrilla warfare in the south of the country and in the Kalahari Desert would last until 1908.
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