In April 1916, Kondoa Irangi became the scene of one of the more unusual engagements of the East African Campaign. General Jan Smuts's South African force seized the town from a retreating German Schutztruppe, only to find themselves besieged from the surrounding hills by Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck's much smaller but more mobile force. For several weeks the town was shelled daily while Smuts waited for reinforcements and supplies.
The escarpment ridges visible from the town centre were the German firing positions. A walk up the hillside to the east of town offers both an excellent view over the settlement and a palpable sense of why Lettow-Vorbeck chose to hold here: the commanding heights gave his handful of guns a clear field of fire into the valley below. No formal memorial exists, but the district administration office — itself housed in a German colonial-era building — is a starting point for asking locals about the history.
The battle is a footnote in most histories of the First World War, but in Kondoa it is local legend. Older residents can still point to areas where shell craters once marked the ground, and the story of the German askaris who refused to surrender long after peace was declared is told with a certain pride.