Liuli | |
|---|---|
Town and ward | |
 MV Iringa at Liuli harbour | |
  Liuli Location in Tanzania | |
| Coordinates: 10°56′28″S34°58′0″E / 10.94111°S 34.96667°E | |
| Country |  Tanzania |
| Region | Ruvuma Region |
| District | Mbinga District |
| Time zone | UTC+3 (EAT) |
Liuli, formerly known as Sphinx Hafen (German : Sphinxhafen), is a settlement on the Tanzanian shore of Lake Malawi in the Mbinga District of Ruvuma province. It is notable for being the site of the first naval action of World War I.
The settlement is distinguished on the lake shore by a sphinx-like series of 7 rocks lying offshore. [1] The rocks indicate deep water, leading to its development by the Germans as a ship repair base. The Anglican missionary William Percival Johnson described the rocks as follows:
"Sphinx Hafen rocks, so called by the Germans (the native name is Liuli) is fairly central placed on the east side. If you can see the great rock on the south side of the entrance in the right light you will not ask 'Why is this place called Sphinx?' The harbor is small but good, and here was the first opening skirmish of the Great War on the Lake. The German steamer had been pulled up on a slipway here, and was seized by the British. Nyasa, the great water: being a description of the lake and the life of the People. 1922
On 13 August 1914, in the first naval action of World War I, the British lake steamer gunboat HMS Gwendolen caught the German armed steamer Hermann von Wissmann on a slipway at Sphinxhafen. The German steamship was named after the explorer Hermann von Wissmann who raised funds for the vessel as an anti-slavery gunboat in 1890. HMS Gwendolen commenced bombarding the German port. [2] [3] [4] The King's African Rifles later attacked Sphinxhafen in May 1915. [5]
Liuli was originally, as Sphinxhafen, a German mission. After World War I it became a mission station for the Universities' Mission to Central Africa. [6] William Johnson is buried in the church there and regarded locally as a saint. The mission hospital, founded by the German mission, continues as St. Anne's Hospital, still the major health facility on the eastern lakeshore. [7] [8]
Liuli is today a stop on the lake ferry from Mbamba Bay, up the lakeshore as far as Liuli, and then across to the Malawi side of the lake. [9] [10]
Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.
German East Africa was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mozambique. GEA's area was 994,996 km2 (384,170 sq mi), which was nearly three times the area of present-day Germany and almost double the area of metropolitan Germany at the time.
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Hermann Wilhelm Leopold Ludwig Wissmann, after 1890 Hermann von Wissmann, was a German explorer and administrator in Africa.
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William Percival Johnson was an Anglican missionary to Nyasaland. After education at Bedford School (1863–1873) and graduation from University College, Oxford, he went to Africa with the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, under the Bishop Edward Steere.
Hermann von Wissmann was a German steamer on Lake Nyasa named after the German explorer Hermann von Wissmann who had raised funds for the vessel to be built in 1890 as an anti-slavery gunboat.
SS Gwendolen was a British steamship on Lake Nyasa that fought in the first naval action of World War I against the German steamship Hermann von Wissman which it caught on a slipway at Sphinxhafen, now known as Liuli.
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The Nyasaland Volunteer Reserve (NVR) was a British Colonial Auxiliary Forces unit raised in the British protectorate of Nyasaland. The British Central Africa Volunteer Reserve was formally established by the colonial government in 1901 and was renamed when the protectorate became Nyasaland in 1907. In the initial years the unit was little more than a rifle shooting club with no uniform and no military training. The NVR was placed on a more formal standing in 1908 under the Volunteer Ordinance. This implemented residency and racial requirements for membership and made provision for the unit to be mobilised by the governor. The unit was initially formed of four sections but grew to seven sections by 1914 and by 1930 the unit had ten.
{{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) "At Nkhata the most recent information was that three weeks previously the Wissmann was at Sphinx Hafen,* due east of Nkhata across the Lake, hauled out of the water on a slipway having some new plates fitted."