At Dar-es-Salaam it was very interesting during those days of tension to watch the proceedings of the English Consul King. He was to be seen everywhere, either in the Officers’ Club at a game of bridge, or at the Post Office where our telegrams were handed in. The standing orders of the English Expeditionary Force, which were subsequently captured at Tanga, and which were mainly based on King’s reports, showed how active this man had been in the time before the war, and how excellently he was informed as to the internal conditions in our Colony. His judgment on relevant matters extended so far that he even compared the relative fighting value of the Europeans in different districts, and credited those of Dar-es-Salaam with little “stomach for fighting.” To be honest, it must be admitted that in the case of a large number of the Germans in that place (and even of the local Government authorities) it actually did take some time before they were imbued with that warlike spirit without which the fulfilment of our task was simply impossible. Very difficult was the position of the coast towns, which were inhabited by numerous Europeans (among them many women and children), and which were of course exposed to bombardment by English men-of-war at any minute. The Governor maintained that such a bombardment must be avoided under all circumstances. According to an ordinance, which certainly did not contemplate the case of foreign war, the supreme military power in the Colony was in the hands of the Governor, and communication with home having ceased, it was anyhow physically impossible to get this altered. So I was obliged to make the best of this, from a military point of view, very serious difficulty and to reckon with the possibility that, if the Governor’s instructions were faithfully executed, Dar-es-Salaam and Tanga for instance, the termini of our railways and the obvious bases for hostile operations from the coast towards the interior, would fall into the enemy’s hands without a struggle.