Page "Henry Peel Ritchie" Paragraph 13

Two days later, with the wounded hospitalised in Zanzibar, Goliath and Fox returned to Dar-es-Salaam and reduced most of the seafront to rubble, setting fire to several other districts of the town as well.

This reprisal served only to turn the hitherto neutral local populace against the British.

Feelings ran high in both camps following the raid, with the British claiming that white flags flying from several shore installations should have prevented any German attack, and the Germans insisting that the British had attempted to capture their merchant vessels ' crews despite promises not to do so.

According to Stephen Snelling in The Naval VCs, both sides had entered the operation with the intention of breaching the predetermined agreements.