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Lake Tanganyika lay between the Belgian Congo on the western side and German East Africa on the eastern side. By the start of the war, the Germans had two warships on Lake Tanganyika: the 60 t (59 long tons; 66 short tons) Hedwig von Wissmann, and the 45 t (44 long tons; 50 short tons) Kingani. Hedwig von Wissmann was quickly armed with four pom-pom guns taken from the scuttled survey ship Möwe and sailed out to the port of Lukuga on the Belgian side of the lake, where on the 22nd August she attacked the Belgian steamer Alexandre Del Commune, sinking her after two further raids.

This gave the Germans unchallenged superiority on the lake, with their position strengthened further with the sinking of the British African Lakes Corporation′s steamer Cecil Rhodes in a raid in November 1914. The Germans used their control of the lake to launch an attack on northern Rhodesia, led by Major-General Kurt Wahle. This was beaten back, but further raids on Belgian territory and bombardments of Lukuga convinced the Belgians to support the British.

Despite this undertaking, there was little the Belgians or British could do to challenge the Germans. The Belgians had the components for a large steamer, Baron Dhanis, which if it could be assembled would be considerably larger than either Kingani or Hedwig von Wissmann, but did not dare to start construction on her while the Germans patrolled the lake for fear that she would be destroyed before she could be launched. The British had sent two 12-pounder guns to arm her with , but with little prospect of being able to launch her, the Belgians were instead using them as shore batteries to defend Lukuga.