Thanks a lot Tango! I'm familiar with the photo in your first post; in fact, I used that photo in a camel scenario I ran at Cold Wars in March.
The Germans in Southwest Africa didn't use camels at all during the Herero War of 1904, and used them in only one campaign during the Nama War of 1904-1908: the last campaign of that war, the pursuit of Simon Kopper in 1907-08.
After the death of the brilliant Nama leader Jakob Morenga on 20 September 1907, in a firefight with the Cape Mounted Police at Eensaamheid in British Bechuanaland, only one major Nama leader remained active in the field: Simon Kopper (Kooper).
While not a great warrior personally (unlike Morenga), Kopper led a significant Kriegspartei (war party), consisting of the most capable men. The dry desert sands of the Kalahari Desert protected Simon Kopper and his Nama forces from an assault over long distances by standard horse-mounted Schutztruppen. In order to get at Kopper in his desert fastness, the Germans formed a special camel-mounted Expeditionskorps (expeditionary corps) under the command of Hauptmann Friedrich von Erckert.
Von Erckert's expedition was essentially 100% camel-mounted. The Expeditionskorps had 2 horses, 5 mules, 11 rider oxen – and 710 camels! That's 98% camels! The human contingent comprised 27 German officers, 373 German enlisted men, and 129 African support troops (mostly labor and logistics) – a total of 529 men.
Three camel-mounted Schutztruppe infantry companies formed the core combat power of the Expeditionskorps. The Expeditionskorps also had two camel-mounted scouting detachments and a camel-mounted machine gun detachment, with 4 machine guns.
On March 16, 1908 at the Battle of Seatsub Simon Kopper and his Franzman Nama troops clashed with Hauptmann von Erckert and his Schutztruppen (fighting on foot, dismounted from their camels) in the last battle of the Nama War. When the battle was over, most of the Franzman Nama were dead; the exact number of Nama who lost their lives is unknown. Simon Kopper's wife had been captured, and Simon Kopper had fled. On the German side, the Expeditionskorps commander Hauptmann von Erckert had been shot dead through the head and a dozen other Germans fell with him. 10 other Germans were severely wounded.
The Nama War was now effectively over. Simon Kopper remained free but would eventually agree to a ceasefire in return for an annual stipend. He would live out his days in Bechuanaland, now the independent nation of Botswana. He died in January 1913.
Here is an image of a German camel-mounted scouting patrol:
(From the German Federal Archives, attribution = Bundesarchiv, Bild 105-DSWA0095 / Walther Dobbertin / CC-BY-SA 3.0)
In the summer and fall of 1907, German camel patrols like this (as well as mule patrols) were the only means of keeping watch on Simon Kopper and his men in the Kalahari:
"After unsuccessful attempts in April and May [1907] to catch him there, he was only observed by the men of the stations located at the western edge of the desert by camel rider and mule patrols." (Translation by Roy Jones)
"Nach erfolglosen Versuchen, ihn dort im April und Mai zu fassen, wurde er nur die am Westrande der Wüste befindlichen Stationsbesatzungen mit Kamelreiter – und – Maul-tier-Patrouillen beobachtet". (Generalstab-Nama, Book 6 (cont.), pp. 361-362)
I have other historical photographs of the camel-mounted machine gun detachment, as well as photos I took from my Battle of Seatsub scenario at Cold Wars, where I had 100 camels on the table. I'll post a link to those historical photos and to an AAR with photos from the Cold Wars game later on this week.
