The Great War in Africa, 1914-1918

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Summary: The British and French conquest of German Africa.
Review: A great and interesting read about how the Allies conquered Togo, Kameroons, South West Africa, and East Africa. The Germans started World War I with four colonies in Africa, and short campaigns in three of them resulted in their division between the French and British. In German East Africa, the battle was long and hard. A German cruiser was stranded here, and the Allies had to find and destroy it. The German military commander Lettow-Vorbeck waged a guerilla campaign against the French, British, Belgian, and Portuguese for all four years of the war. The story of the African Queen also maks its appearance in German East Afria. This book is the definitive account of the First World War in Africa.

Rating:
Summary: The British and French conquest of German Africa.
Review: A great and interesting read about how the Allies conquered Togo, Kameroons, South West Africa, and East Africa. The Germans started World War I with four colonies in Africa, and short campaigns in three of them resulted in their division between the French and British. In German East Africa, the battle was long and hard. A German cruiser was stranded here, and the Allies had to find and destroy it. The German military commander Lettow-Vorbeck waged a guerilla campaign against the French, British, Belgian, and Portuguese for all four years of the war. The story of the African Queen also maks its appearance in German East Afria. This book is the definitive account of the First World War in Africa.

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Summary: An untold story of World War 1
Review: 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.

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Summary: Excellent Overview of Intriguing Campaigns
Review: Farwell does a great job of covering the basics of the many unknown campaigns fought in Africa during WWI. Although frequently dismissed as a mere "sideshow" to the action in Europe, Farwell's work reminds us that to those who fought it, these campaigns were just as terrible as those on the Somme.

The book is necessarily abbreviated in places. He covers the battles in sufficient detail to make you feel you have a baseline understanding of them, but leave you wanting more. For those who want more, I recommend E.P. Hoyt's Guerrilla. It's a focused look at the East African campaign from the German perspective.

Well worth reading!

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Summary: Farwell at his best
Review: 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.

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Summary: World War One: The Tanzanian Front
Review: Few incidents in 20th century military history are as astonishing as the World War One campaigns across Africa. While there was little strategic benefit to either side in fighting these tropical campaigns, the thought of NOT fighting would have been anathema to the imperial mindset of the day. Hence, both sides vast armies of African auxiliaries, together with improvised navies (and even a small air wing) to wage a series of campaigns in places where heat and disease were to account for most (in some cases all) of the casualties.

The Great War in Africa was prosecuted in three fronts: a brisk (and virtually uncontested) conquest by the Allies of German West Africa; followed by a quick invasion by South Africa of German Namibia; lastly the epic Anglo-German struggle across Tanganyika (modern Tanzania). The principal players were Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen (on the British side) and, most prominently, the wily German commander, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, who marched his guerilla army the length and breadth of Tanganyika before invading Mozambique, keeping his guerilla forces intact, and only surrendering once the Kaiser had fallen. Farwell tells their stories expertly, together with some stunningly bizarre vignettes: the battle that was halted by an outbreak of killer bees, the Zeppelin that flew from Bulgaria to central Africa and the "phantom flotilla" that was marched through the Congo to sail along Lake Victoria. A terrific story.

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Summary: like coolsville daddeo
Review: This book was totally awesome!! It provides a very readable story of the little known African Front of World War I. It is full of colorful stories, such as armies being attacked by bees, and heroic exploits such as Lettow-Vorbeck's defense of German East Africa. I recommend this book to anyone interested in African colonial or World War I history, or anyone who just likes an exciting story.

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Summary: Great conflict; an even greater book!
Review: This is a truly magnificent book that covers a rather "obscure" (for those of you who are not colonial/WWI wargamers) and colourful period in history. The war in Africa during the First World War was a forgotten one; yet, as it remained mainly a sideshow, it proved to be a collosal one. From the unremarkable Allied offensives in German South-West Africa to the epic odyssey of Col. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck in German East Africa, where he brilliantly launched a guerilla campaign against the several British, Belgian, and Portugese armies that were sent against him. He continuously played silly buggers with his enemies; it was only news of the armistice in Europe that eventually forced him to surrender his arms in late November, 1918, being the last German officer to do so.
Well written, this is a highly reccomended book.

Rating:
Summary: Great conflict; an even greater book!
Review: This is a truly magnificent book that covers a rather "obscure" (for those of you who are not colonial/WWI wargamers) and colourful period in history. The war in Africa during the First World War was a forgotten one; yet, as it remained mainly a sideshow, it proved to be a collosal one. From the unremarkable Allied offensives in German South-West Africa to the epic odyssey of Col. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck in German East Africa, where he brilliantly launched a guerilla campaign against the several British, Belgian, and Portugese armies that were sent against him. He continuously played silly buggers with his enemies; it was only news of the armistice in Europe that eventually forced him to surrender his arms in late November, 1918, being the last German officer to do so.
Well written, this is a highly reccomended book.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome!
Review: 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.