Page 16 - Bulletin 11 2007

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General C. W. Thompson, his staff, and the Royal Garrison Artillery, manning the coast
guns, remained. (By June 1916 the latter had been replaced by the Cape Garrison Artillery

gunners.) The Union thus took over full responsibility for its own defence, with General
Botha as Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief, and General Smuts as Minister of

Defence.

The Experience of the Great War in the South Peninsula 1914 - 18

The South Peninsula area experienced the Great War in three ways. There was, firstly, a

brief sea war off East Africa and in the deep South Atlantic in which Simon’s Town played
a distant role. Secondly, there was the dominant land war in a variety of theatres involving

SA volunteer troops (German South West Africa, German East Africa, Egypt-Palestine, and

France-Flanders) many of whom underwent their training on the Peninsula. Thirdly, there
were a variety of “home front” activities in support of the wartime requirements.

The Sea War

On 13 September 1914 the armed cruiser Kinfauns Castle captured the German three-
masted sailing barque Heinz off Port Nolloth. She was towed into Simon’s Town by HMS

Afrikander, formerly a tug belonging to the Table Bay Harbour Administration. “Heinz
made a fine sight berthed at B Wall with all her sails set.” (Godsiff, undated). (Figs. 1.4 &

1.5).

The first contact between the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet

was expected to be somewhere in the North Sea but, instead, it took place off East Africa
where the modern cruiser Koenigsberg, based at Dar-es-Salaam, sank the RN cruiser HMS

Pegasus. Koenigsberg subsequently disappeared into the delta of the Rufiji River in

Tanganyika. Admiral King-Hall, Commander of the Cape Squadron, enlisted the help of a