August 11, 1904

Battle of Waterberg

Battle of Ohamakari–Waterberg

Trotha planned an encirclement. By the next morning the people and cattle inside it had gone out through a gap reported as nine miles wide.

The encirclement that did not close

On 11 August 1904, German colonial forces under Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha attacked the Ovaherero concentration around Ohamakari and the Waterberg in German South West Africa, now Namibia. Approximately 60,000 Ovaherero men, women and children were gathered there with their herds; about 6,000 were armed, with little ammunition and no artillery.

Trotha attempted a concentric encirclement meant to destroy the Ovaherero force. The southeastern element under Hermann von der Heyde failed to close its assigned sector, and the principal fighting fell on the southern and southeastern approaches.

By the following morning the Germans found the Ovaherero gone, through a gap a military study reports as roughly nine miles wide between the Müller and von der Heyde detachments.

A field held, an annihilation missed

German troops occupied the ground and organised Ovaherero resistance at that concentration ended. The annihilating battle Trotha had assembled reinforcements for did not happen.

Pursuit was ordered on 13 August, and orders on 16 and 26 August established cordons at watering places, pushing and confining refugees deeper into the Omaheke.

Scholars agree the pursuit and denial of water were genocidal; they debate whether driving the Ovaherero into the waterless Omaheke was the plan before the battle or a lethal opportunity taken after the encirclement failed.

Figures that need labels

German strength is counted two ways. Numbers near 1,500 describe rifle-bearing combat troops or infantry, while approximately 4,000 describes the wider force in the operation, which brought 36 cannon and 14 machine guns.

Berlin replaced Theodor Leutwein as military commander, not as governor; he remained nominal governor while Trotha controlled war policy. Some scholarly accounts date the battle 11–12 August, because the breakout and the discovery of the empty encirclement ran into the next morning.

Naming 11 August as the instant the genocide began is too categorical: the genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama is dated 1904–1908, and the Nama were not the opposing force in this battle.

Sources

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What the sources leave uncertain

August 11 is the standard date of the decisive engagement; some scholarly accounts describe the battle as August 11–12 because the breakout and discovery of the empty encirclement extended into the following morning.
Sources count German strength differently. Figures near 1,500 usually describe rifle-bearing combat troops or infantry, while approximately 4,000 describes the wider German force involved in the operation.
Scholars agree that subsequent German pursuit and denial of water were genocidal. They debate whether driving the Ovaherero into the waterless Omaheke was already the precise plan before the battle or a lethal opportunity exploited after the encirclement failed.