Customer Reviews

The Great War in Africa: 1914-1918

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This is the only book I know of that deals exclusively with this odd theatre of operations. WWI in Africa did not have any impact on the war in Europe or on world history, but the stories are so fantastic that they deserve to be rmembered and retold. The first and last shots of WWI were actually fired in Africa, by unknown black soldiers. The author describes the colonial setting, and points out how unnecessary the war in Africa really was. All four major campaings are described in chronological order.
The courage and loyality of the black soldiers fighting for the Germans were amazing. Most of the book is dedicated to the longest campaign, in German East Africa. Here, wastly outnumbered German troops fought with rifles and knob-kerries, time and time again outsmarting the British enemy. Idiotic racism led the British to first import Indian recruits to fight, rather than arming the black population. Oddly enough, it was the South African general, Smuts, who actually first starting using black troops for the British. Thus turning the tide.
Von Lettow-Vorbeck must rank as one of the foremost generals of history. He is sadly unknown, even by military buffs, and deserves to be remembered. The book is filled with larger-than-life charaters and their exploits. This book reads like a "boys-own" adventure. One must remind oneself constantly that the pain and suffering described are real.

Byron Farwell offers the reader a well researched and well presented account of this often forgotten campaign of WW1. In just over 380 pages (hardback version) he covers all aspects of this little known campaign covering such incidents as L-59, the German Zeppelin which made the world's longest sustained flight, from Bulgaria to Central Africa and back! Hunting a German Cruiser on the Rufiji River by an elephant hunter (The African Queen?). Accounts of some of the terrible battels on land, one where both armies were routed by killer bees! Men fighting with spears, knobberries, machine-guns, planes and armoured cars. The author also offers an interesting account of that famous German commander who had the allied forces chasing themselves for so long; Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck. This is a great story which I recommend to anybody who enjoys a well written history book.

Farwell is my favorite British military historian and this book might be his best. Growing bored with the same old discussions about the war in the trenches, and never finding more than a footnote or two in most history books about the war in the colonies, I searched for anyone who gave this theater of the Great War the attention it deserves. Farwell does not write dry history but tells a tale that keeps one wanting to read just one more chapter before putting the book down. I read this book in one sitting because it tied together many of the fragmented items I associated with this period of time in Africa:"Out of Africa","Young Indiana Jones","African Queen", etc.

One of my favorite sections of the book is the story of the hunt for the Konigsberg. My father told my the story as a child: the German cruiser was bottled up on the Rufiji River with its engine in need of repairs. Thousands of native laborers hauled the engine, en masse, a hundred miles overland to a machine shop in Dar-es-Salaam and then back again.

This book reads more like a novel than a history book and is, I believe, the best place to start if one is interested in the African theater of WW1. If you still want more, try "A History of the King's African Rifles..." by Malcolm Page and "My Reminiscences of East Africa" by Lettow-Vorbeck himself.

This book provides one of the most comprehensive summaries of the Allies' actions against the German colonies in Africa. Although most historians of the period dismiss the actions in both the Pacific and Africa as sideshows to the great battles occuring in Europe, Byron Farwell's untiring effort at research gives the reader a fascinating view of battles, the leaders, the men that are on a par with the finest hours on the Western Front. A must read for any serious military history buff.

Mr. Farwell has written an exciting and detailed account of the war in Africa from 1914-18. He captures all the mistakes, the courage, the vicious battles, the incredible treks, wild animals, machine guns, snakes, armored cars and swamps. All of it true. Superb piece of work. I also highly recommend any of his other books.

Informative, insightful, & readable.
At last! A writer who both:
A)Knows his material
and
B) Can write in an absorbing & engaging fashion.
L. Sprague De Camp fans take note--you will like this author.

Also, try--
Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure: The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika

The Hipster gives it a big Thumbs Up!

I recommend this book to people who, like me, want to learn more about the underreported campaigns in Africa during the Great War: most of the general volumes on WWI don't do justice, in particular, to the battles for Germany's SW and E African colonies. Unfortunately, it is marred by several flaws that prevent it from moving beyond "useful overview" to "essential purchase."

First, the book has only 4 maps, all of which are light on details and none of which show the entire continent.

Second, Farwell briefly alludes to a message in a bottle that had a significant effect on the campaign in German East Africa, but he never follows through with the story. A good author -- and a good editor -- shouldn't hint at a fascinating tale, then fail to follow up. (Sadly, my Google searches to date have not revealed the end of the message-in-a-bottle story.)

Third, just pages from the end, Farwell launches an ad hominem attack on Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, Germany's commander in German East Africa, for fighting for an "unworthy" cause. Lettow-Vorbeck was simply a soldier doing his duty and fighting for his country. As Farwell himself writes (!), there is no credible evidence that Lettow-Vorbeck was anything other than honorable. So for a former soldier, as Farwell himself was, to condemn Lettow-Vorbeck for his military service, is both mind-boggling and a discredit to the author. (It was only a paragraph or so long, but its placement in the final pages of the book magnified its significance.)

Finally -- and most importantly -- Farwell seemed to get tired of writing about Lettow-Vorbeck's incredible guerrila campaign. He offered a desultory sketch of the final 12-18 months of the war, when Lettow-Vorbeck led a magnificent trek of hundreds (thousands?) of miles through German East Africa, in and out of Portuguese Mozambique, and finally into English Rhodesia. It's as if an author tired of writing about the Civil War and mentioned Sherman's March to the Sea only in passing. In fairness, Lettow-Vorbeck did not achieve a strategic victory in his trek, but his was one of the most (if not the most) spectacular and successful guerilla campaigns in military history. I would have preferred much more focus on the hardships and improvisations associated with Lettow-Vorbeck's campaign than the tedious details about the bungled English bureaucracy and leadership that Farwell seemed to delight in discussing.

I'd recommend borrowing the book from the library, not purchasing it. Then read Guerilla by Edwin Hoyt for a thoroughly enjoyable and detailed look at Lettow-Vorbeck's magnificent campaign.

This very well written book covers WWI in Africa, events almost entirely unknown to most readers, with the exception of those who seen "the African Queen," Most of the German colonies fell very quickly to the Allies. But the German forces in German East Africa, the bulk of them African, fought throughout the entire war and were the final German forces to surrender in the field. Although cut off from the homeland almost from the beginning of the war, the German forces not only held out, but carried the war into the surrounding colonies. Includes coverage of one of the more eccentric incidents in the war in any theatre,an effort fo supply German East Africa by zeppelin from Bulgaria.

Before I came across this book, I never saw very much written on World War 1 in Africa. This book gives us those missing chapters. It covers the fighting between The British,French, South Africans against the Germans. It covers the fighting in Togoland, Cameroon, German East Africa, and South West Africa. It also covers the colonial rebellion in Nysaland that the German and British both worked to surpress.

Joseph Conrad would have loved and respected Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, and any woman would have been proud to have been his African Queen. This book is really three vignettes and one great story of courage and endurance.

At the outbreak of World War I, Germany had four African colonies, Togoland, Cameroon, South West Africa (now Namibia) and German East Africa (now mainland Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi). The stories about the conquering of the first three are very straight forward and give a very good idea of how the fighting in Africa differed from that in Europe. Of course the British made major mistakes of bringing in untried Indian troops who were totally unfit to fight in the 'Bush' but everyone kept a 'stiff upper lip' and died from disease and malnutrition.

The major story is how the commander of the "Schutztruppe" (local militia that were made up of European Officer and NCOs, African levies called Askaries, porters who were the most numerous and their wives and children) Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, managed to fight a four year war against over- whelming odds, and never lose a major engagement to the British. Throughout the war he was the consummate Guerrilla fighter, never facing the British head on but using hit and run tactics and always being one step ahead.

(There is a great side story that is better documented in "Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure by Brian Garfield", about the bringing of some British naval ships to fight on Lake Tanganyika; but Farwell does a good job of telling the story in a succinct manner.)

In the end, the British, mostly made up of South African Whites,Nigerians, Kenyans and Indian troops, spend four years chasing Lettow around Tanganyika, into Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique), Northern Rhodesia and back into Tanganyika. During all this time he would leave his sick and wounded behind to be tended by the British, and would release his European prisoners if they would give their parole (agree not to rejoin the war). At the end of WWI, he was leading four to five thousand troops and keeping 87,000 British Commonwealth troops tied down protecting ports and railroads that could have been shipped to France. (He didn't surrender until November 15, 1918.)

For any history buff who enjoys a story that is almost Kipling-esque, this is the book to read.