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| Genre/Form: | Military history |
|---|---|
| Document Type: | Book |
| ISBN: | 9781933648903 1933648902 |
| OCLC Number: | 780001604 |
| Description: | xxxix, 488 pages [24] pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm |
| Contents: | Maps -- I. 1914: 'The Germans open the ball'; Phoney war; 'The action of a lunatic'; The aftermath; Marking time -- II. 1915: The coast; The war in the West; 'A brilliant affair'; The end of the "Konigsberg"; 'The lion and the springbok'; A "Velha Aliada" -- 'The old ally'; 'Swallows and Amazons'; The African war -- III. 1916: The build-up; The 'first Slaita show'; The 'robbers' raid; "Opsaal!" Saddle-up! ; The advance down the Northern Railway; The crescent flag; 'The cannibals'; The 'ubiquitous Rhodesians'; 'Abso-damn-lutely fed up'; Smuts's 'final phase'; 'The condemned'; The 'suicidal system of supply' -- IV. 1917: Unfinished business; The raiders; The allies; Into 'the unknown'; The Germen Pimpernel; The 'China affair'; The propaganda war -- V. 1918: The hunt begins; Nhamacurra; "Tipperary mbali sana sana!" -- Epilogue: 'There came a darkness' -- Appendices: German East Africa "Schutztruppe": dispositions July 1914 -- Indian Expeditionary Forces 'B' and 'C': summarised orders of Battle of 1914 -- German East Africa "Schutztruppe": Order of battle 5 March 1916 -- British forces in East Africa: summarised order of battle 4 April 1916 -- British order of battle (main force), 5 August 1916 -- British forces in East Africa: Summarised order of battle 20 June 1917 -- German East Africa "Schutztruppe": Order of battle 31 March 1918. |
| Other Titles: | World War I : The African Front: An Imperial War on the Dark Continent |
| Responsibility: | Edwared Paice. |
Abstract:
The definitive history of World War Iś forgotten front: Britain versus Germany in East Africa to secure the belly of a continent. 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. It was expected to be a "small war," over by Christmas, yet it would continue bloodily for more than four years, even beyond the signing of the Armistice in Europe. Its costs were immense, its butchery staggering (in excess of100,000 British troops and 45,000 native recruits dead). Utmost among the tragic consequences, though, was the waste laid to the land and its indigenous peoples in what one official historian described as "a war of extermination and attrition without parallel in modern times." Imperialism had gone calamitously amok. This eye-opening account of the Great War in East Africa does not flinch at the daily horrors of an ill-fated campaign - not just the combat but also a hostile climate, disease, the terrible loneliness - nor does it fail to recount tales of extraordinary courage and the kind of adventure that inspired other works. In all, it demonstrates dramatically why even the most hardened of Great War soldiers preferred the trenches of France to the trauma of East Africa.
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Similar Items
Related Subjects:(11)
- Africa -- History, Military.
- German East Africa.
- Africa, Eastern.
- Africa, Eastern
- Afrique -- Histoire militaire.
- Afrique orientale.
- Africa.
- Eastern Africa.
- Africa -- German East Africa.
- World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- German East Africa.
- World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Africa.
