World War I

by Edward Paice

Overview

The definitive and dramatic history of World War I’s forgotten front.

On August 7, 1914, Britain fired its first shots of World War I not in Europe but in the German colony of Togo. The campaign to eliminate the threat at sea posed by German naval bases in Africa would soon be won, but in the land war, especially in East Africa, British troops would meet far fiercer resistance from German colonial forces that had fully mastered the tactics of bush warfare. Its costs were immense, its butchery staggering: well over 100,000 Allied troops died, as did hundred of thousands of civilians. Imperialism had run calamitously amok.


This eye-opening account of the Great War in East Africa recounts in full the daily horrors of an ill-fated campaign alongside tales of extraordinary courage and the kind of adventure that inspired C. S. Forester’s The African Queen, William Boyd’s An Ice-Cream War, and Wilbur Smith’s Shout at the Devil.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781605980805
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	03/15/2010
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Edward Paice spent several years living and writing in East Africa, as he researched World War I: The African Front. A former history scholar at Cambridge, Paice was awarded a Visiting Fellowship in 2003. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Paice lives in Kent.

Table of Contents

Illustrations x

Maps xiii

Acknowledgements xxvii

Glossary xxix

Dramatis Personae xxxiii

Introduction I

Part 1 1914 II

1 'The Germans Open the Ball' 13

2 Phoney War 26

3 'The Action of a Lunatic' 40

4 The Aftermath 59

5 Marking Time 67

Part 2 1915 77

6 The Coast 79

7 The War in the West 94

8 'A Brilliant Affair' 102

9 The End of the Königsberg 113

10 'The Lion and the Springbok' 125

11 A Velha Aliada - 'The Old Ally' 136

12 'Swallows and Amazons' 145

13 The African War 155

Part 3 1916 167

14 The Build-up 169

15 The 'First Salaita Show' 177

16 The 'Robbers' Raid 187

17 Opsaal! Saddle-up! 197

18 The Advance down the Northern Railway 206

19 The Crescent Flag 212

20 'The Cannibals' 224

21 The 'Ubiquitous Rhodesians' 232

22 'Abso-Damn-Lutely Fed Up 239

23 Smuts's 'Final Phase' 252

24 'The Condemned' 267

25 The 'Suicidal System of Supply' 278

Part 4 1917 291

26 Unfinished Business 293

27 The Raiders 306

28 The Allies 316

29 Into 'The Unknown' 324

30 The German Pimpernel 336

31 The 'China Affair' 347

32 The Propaganda War 351

Part 5 1918 361

33 The Hunt Begins 363

34 Nhamacurra 372

35 Tipperary mbali sana sana! 379

Epilogue: 'There Came a Darkness' 392

Appendices

1 German East Africa Schutztruppe: Dispositions July 1914 403

2 Indian Expeditionary Forces 'B' and 'C': Summarised Orders of Battle of 1914 406

3 German East Africa Schutztruppe: Order of Battle 5 March 1916 407

4 British Forces in East Africa: Summarised Order of Battle 4 April 1916 412

5 British Order of Battle (Main Force), 5 August 1916 415

6 British Forces in East Africa: Summarised Order of Battle 30 June 1917 417

7 German East Africa Schutztruppe: Order of Battle 14 October 1917 419

8 British Forces in East Africa: Summarised Order of Battle 31 March 1918 422

Notes 425

Bibliography 440

Index 465

Editorial Reviews

A richly detailed history of those four years. It is a story of imperial hubris on a colossal scale and an authoritative account of a huge and often overlooked part of the war. World War I: The

African Front will stand as a must-read for students of the African campaign. (The Wall Street Journal)


Edward Paice has written what is by a significant margin the best book to date on the Great War in Africa. Paice accurately and evocatively describes a campaign in which modern technology was consistently frustrated by terrain, climate, and disease.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

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