At this critical time, when the heads of the enemy columns were nearing Chiwata, it was urgently necessary for us to throw all our strength against one of these columns as soon as possible before the others could intervene. The first essential to make this blow effective was to bring the whole strength of our all too weak forces to bear simultaneously. This depended chiefly on the supply of ammunition. Our whole supply had dwindled to about 400,000 rounds, a very scanty allowance for our 25,000 rifles and 50 machine guns in a serious engagement, after which it would only be possible to continue the struggle if ammunition were captured. For this the nature of the ground was unfavourable. In the thick bush there was a tendency for each individual to fire many rounds and make few hits, so that the supply of cartridges was quickly used up without producing the decisive results we needed. What made a satisfactory solution of the ammunition question still more impossible was that the cartridges were for the most part the smoky ’71 type, whereas only about one-third of the troops were armed with ’71 rifles; the other two-thirds had modern German, English or Portuguese rifles, and for these the supply of cartridges was very small. What there were were required for our most important weapon, the machine gun. It was a difficult position. There was nothing else for it but to make the attack with only those troops who were armed with the ’71 rifle and to hold in reserve the rest, who had only twenty rounds of ammunition suitable for their modern rifles, the rest being the smoky ’71 type. The two forces would then be interchanged so that the first, armed with the ’71 rifles, could hand them over to the relieving force, taking the modern weapons in exchange. This meant that at the best only one-third of the available strength could be in action at the same time and even then would have to be very sparing with their ammunition. Our artillery ammunition had already been exhausted with the exception of a few rounds for the two mountain guns and some Portuguese ammunition. Our last field-howitzer, as well as the English gun captured at Mahiwa, had burst. The last two 10·5 cm. guns from the _Königsberg_ had been destroyed a few days before. On the day after a German mountain gun had been destroyed and sunk at Kitangari. We were thus left with one German and one Portuguese mountain gun. During the last few months the lack of artillery ammunition had been so serious that we had rarely more than three hundred rounds all told. That was about the allowance per engagement for one of the numerous English guns.