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Part One-Hundred Nine: The War in the Colonies

African Front:
While Africa remained a peripheral front for most of the countries involved in the Great War. But with the entry of South Africa into the Great War, the war in sub-Saharan Africa intensified. In the first months of South African involvement in the war, the government in Pretoria sent South African armies to defend the areas where the ongoing skirmishes were heaviest. The South Africans engaged Cape Colony troops at Hope Town on the Orange River. After protracted fighting for several days, the South Africans withdrew back across the Orange River as more Cape troops arrived at Hope Town. Further north, British troops led by Leander Starr Jameson[1] crossed into the South African Republic from Mafeking, and raided the towns of Zeerust and Lichtenberg. The raid was particularly damaging to Lichtenberg on the Witwatersrand[2]. On the other side of South Africa, the South Africans began moving east to block Lourenço Marques and secure Delagoa Bay. The siege of Lourenço Marques took several months, but the South Africans finally captured the city and secured control over all of Delagoa Bay in September of 1907.

While the first land combat in Sub-Saharan Africa during the Great War was in South Africa, the first real military offensive was performed by the German army in Ostafrika. In May of 1907 at the beginning of the dry season, the explorer and commander Reinhard Kandt[3] led an Ostafrikan colonial expedition west from Utengula. The expedition made good progress through the savannah and surprised a British outpost at Marukutu in early June. From there, the expedition pressed on with the goal of reaching the capital of British Katanga at Victoria[4], but Kandt was forced to turn back after a brief battle against the British fort at Kasama. While Kandt's 1907 offensive was stopped before it reached central Katanga, Kandt did achieve the capture of the village of Abercorn[5] at the south tip of the Bismarcksee during the expedition. Germany held Abercorn throughout the rest of the Great War.


Asian Front:
In east Asia, the war remained concentrated in the islands off the Chinese coast. In the early months of 1907, there were two major offensives by the New Coalition against Corea and the French navy in the region. The first was the attempted occupations of the rest of the islands around the Corean Peninsula. In February 1907, a Japanese naval squadron landed soldiers on the small island of Ulleung in the Sea of Japan. The island had been claimed by both Corea and Japan in the past but for two centuries was subject to a mutual agreement to not settle the island[6]. The Coreans broke this agreement in the 1890s and founded Hyeonpo on the northwest of the island. So while the island was of little significance, its seizure by Japan was seen as a great prestigous occasion for Tokyo. Later in May, the Japanese and Russian navies covered a landing on the island of Cheju. Cheju was a more strategic stronghold for the New Coalition, as it was vital to cutting off mainland Korea from Formosa and imposing a blockade on the peninsula. The Japanese force landed near Goseong on the eastern coast of the island on May 7th. The Japanese soon occupied much of the eastern half of the island. However, the Corean armies in Cheju City and on Mount Hallasan which dominates the island stymied the Japanese forces for months. Despite the attempt to blockade the island, a Korean reinforcing army landed at Cheju in late July and repelled the Japanese. The Japanese evacuated the island in August. The failure to capture Cheju greatly prolonged the conflict between Japan and Corea within the war.

As the Japanese were attacking Corea, the British fleet in the South China Sea was engaging the French and attacking their colonies in the area. As the French fleet sailed from Formosa back to Hainan, the British East Asian squadron encountered the French north of the Paracel Islands in April. The two fleets exchanged fire over the next three days, but the engagement was mostly superficial and only one French cruiser was damaged. The French fleet continued on its way and reached the port of Qiongshan[7] on northern Hainan in May. Rather than seeking a battle with the French, the British East Asian squadron was moving toward a more worthy target. On May 16th, the British East Asian squadron set up a blockade of the Pearl River Delta from Macau to Lantau Island[8]. The blockade prevented trade out of the French concession further inland on the delta, and by early June the French consul in Nansha surrendered to the British. Additional British naval activity during this time included the first action by Australasian forces in the war. In March 1907, small army of just over six hundred men from Australia and New Zealand occupied the German colony in Samoa[9] with no bloodshed. Later in July, another Australasian army landed on New Caledonia, but the army of over a thousand men were defeated by the French garrison on the island. The Australasians lost four hundred men in the invasion of New Caledonia, marking the first casualties suffered by the colony during the war.

[1] Leander Starr Jameson led the Jameson Raid in OTL which partly led to the Second Boer War.
[2] The Witwatersrand is one of the major gold fields in South Africa.
[3] German explorer Richard Kandt, but with a different first name.
[4] OTL Lubumbashi, in TTL named after Queen Victoria instead of Queen Elisabeth of Belgium.
[5] Mbala, Zambia was named Abercorn during the British colonial period.
[6] A real decision by Korea since the 1690s to stop the dispute with Japan over the island. The empty island policy was stopped in 1881 in OTL.
[7] Prior to the growing prominence of Haikou, Qiongshan was the major port city on Hainan.
[8] Lantau Island is part of OTL Hong Kong, west of Hong Kong Island.
[9] German merchant Johann Cesar Godeffroy had eyes on Samoa since the 1850s in OTL. With the British getting more of the Pacific islands elsewhere in TTL and the US not involved as much in Pacific colonization, there's no dispute over them so Germany gets all of Samoa.