Stotzingen Mission
The Stotzingen Mission , also known as the Stotzingen-Neufeld Expedition , was the German Reich's plan to set up a base in Hudaida ( Yemen ) during the First World War to initiate and organize the uprising of Islamic population groups in Sudan against the British occupation . Due to the outbreak of the Arab revolt in June 1916, the mission had to be canceled in the initial phase. It was the last attempt by the German Reich to revolutionize the indigenous Islamic population in the colonies of the Entente.
planning
During the First World War it was hardly possible for the German Reich to supply its colonial armed forces ( protection forces ) with supplies or reinforcements. In order to at least relieve the protection force in German East Africa , at the end of 1915 the Reich Colonial Office set up the plan to incite the tribes in South Sudan and in the border countries of Abyssinia against the British with the help of funds. For this purpose, a news point should be set up in Yemen, from where negotiations with local middlemen should be conducted and the distribution of funds should be coordinated. This plan found support from the General Staff and the Foreign Office .
After negotiations with the German military attaché Otto von Lossow , the Ottoman War Minister Enver Pascha granted the implementation of this plan in February 1916 , on the condition that the mission for protection be accompanied by an Ottoman regiment. Meanwhile, the General Staff expanded the plan to include the construction of a radio station. Already in January negotiations between the ambassadors Gisbert von Romberg and Fuad Selim took place in Switzerland regarding the construction of a radio station in Yemen. The intention was to establish a communication link with Addis Ababa in order to win the Abyssinian Empire for the Central Powers . Similar missions each led by Leo Frobenius and Salomon Hall had already failed in 1915.
course
Major Othmar von Stotzingen was appointed head of the mission . Subordinate to him were Karl Neufeld , who was already active as an agent for revolutionary projects, a representative of the Foreign Office, two non-commissioned officers to operate the radio and a native Arabic speaker who was assigned to publish propaganda newspapers in Medina. Later another Indian joined. The mission left Berlin on March 15, 1916 and reached Constantinople two days later. After weeks of preparation, the mission continued on its journey. The plan to publish a propaganda newspaper in Medina was forbidden by Enver Pasha and the Arabs were released from the mission. In Aleppo , the mission joined Major Khayri Bey's regiment, which was supposed to reinforce the Ottoman troops in Yemen, and reached Damascus on April 16, 1916 . There the journey was delayed because Cemal Pasha , Commander in Chief and Governor of Syria, was not informed of the mission and was waiting for orders from Constantinople.
On April 28, 1916, the mission continued its journey on the Hejaz Railway to al-'Ula , the last station before Medina that non-Muslims were allowed to enter (→ Haram ). There the mission separated from Kari Bey's regiment and continued the journey with camels to al-Wajh and reached Yanbu on May 23, 1916 . There the mission waited for the arrival of a group led by Kapitänleutnant Erwin von Moeller , who had fled internment in the Dutch East Indies and tried to reach their homeland via Arabia. However, Moeller and his group were murdered by Bedouins near Jeddah in late May or early June 1916 .
Believing that Khayri Bey's dispatch of troops was intended to strengthen the Ottoman presence in the Hejaz , the Emir and Sherif of Mecca, Hussein ibn Ali , decided to bring forward the uprising against the Ottomans planned for August 1916. The Arab Revolt broke out on June 5, 1916 , after which the mission was ordered to return to Damascus on June 9, 1916. Part of the mission left immediately and reached Damascus on June 30, 1916. The rest were left with their equipment and radios and were ambushed by Bedouins three weeks later on their departure. This raid is described in TE Lawrence's work The Seven Pillars of Wisdom :
“Behind the Ashraf came the crimson banner of our last tribal detachment, the Rifaa, under Owdi ibn Zuweid, the old wheedling sea-pirate who had robbed the Stotzingen Mission and thrown their wireless and their Indian servants into the sea at Yenbo. The sharks presumably refused the wireless, but we had spent fruitless hours dragging for it in the harbor. Owdi still wore a long, rich, fur-lined German officer's greatcoat, a garment little suited to the climate but, as he insisted, magnificent booty. ”
“Behind the Aschraf followed the red banner of the last tribe organized into a troop, the Rifaa under Audi ibn Suweid, the clever old pirate who robbed the Stotzingen mission and threw their radio and the Indian service team into the sea at Janbo. The sharks will probably have spurned the radio, but we'd spent many a useless hour trying to fish it out. Audi still wore a long, thick, fur-trimmed German officer's coat, a lot of unsuitable clothing for this climate, but, as he claimed, a splendid piece of booty. "
literature
- Erich Helmensdorfer : East of Suez. The feudal peninsula . RS Schulz, Munich and Percha 1972. pp. 59-66 and pp. 75-78.
- Alexander Will: No reaching for world power . Boehlau, Cologne 2012. pp. 246–249.
- Donald M. McKale: War by revolution: Germany and Great Britain in the Middle East in the Era of World War I . Kent State University Press, Kent (Ohio) 1998. pp. 172 ff.
- Hans Werner Neulen: Field gray in Jerusalem - The Levant Corps of Imperial Germany . 2nd edition, Universitas, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-8004-1437-6 , pp. 165 ff.
- Martin Strohmeier: The “very real bogey”. The Stotzingen-Neufeld Mission to the Hijāz (1916) . In: Arabian Humanities, Revue internationale d'archéologie et de sciences sociales sur la péninsule Arabique 6 (2016), pp. 1–18, doi : 10.4000 / cy.3098 .
Notes and individual receipts
- ↑ The establishment of a radio telegraphic connection with Mwanza in German East Africa was also initially considered. However, this part of the mission was rejected as difficult to carry out in mid-April 1916. Reinhard Klein-Arendt: "Kamina calls Nauen!" - The radio stations in the German colonies 1904–1918 . 3rd edition, Wilhelm Herbst Verlag, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-923925-58-1 , p. 318f.
- ↑ Which members of the mission left immediately and which fate befell those who stayed behind is not shown in a uniform manner: According to Helmensdorfer (p. 76), only the representatives of the Foreign Office and the Indians remained, who, however, reached Damascus after the attack at the end of August 1916. According to McKale (p. 178), Stotzingen, Neufeld and a third left while the rest stayed behind and were killed in the Bedouin attack. Will (p. 249) does not mention a raid, but the capture of two Germans, a Turk and an Indian, by the British, whereby the Germans were killed.