Lettow-Vorbeck considered his first obligation as a military commander that to his army, over the objections of Governor Heinrich Schnee. The governor regarded war as the worst possible calamity to befall German East Africa, " everything his social and economic reforms had accomplished." Lettow-Vorbeck's strategy, meanwhile, held central giving ground and escaping confrontations with Allied forces. He had thus established food depots along his intended line of march from Neu Moshi to the Uluguru Mountains, writing off famine in neighboring villages as a misfortune of war.