The East Africa Campaign 1914–18: Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s Masterpiece (Campaign, 379)

The beginning of the First World War put Imperial Germany's colonies in Africa at risk from her European opponents. German troops in Africa were outnumbered by their Allied opponents. In addition, the British Royal Navy largely cut off reinforcement and resupply by sea from Europe. But German colonial forces were led by then-Lieutenant Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, a seasoned and savvy field commander who was about to lead Allied forces on a merry chase around Africa.This Osprey Campaign series book offers a compelling account of the East Africa campaign of 1914-18. Von Lettow-Vorbeck sought to make the most of his native forces and local resources, while the Allies poured poorly trained and unacclimatized troops into a long chase of their German opponents. The narrative includes a wealth of period photographs and modern illustrations, maps, and battle diagrams. Well recommended as making sense of a challenging theater of the First World War.

I like the easy to understand historical narrative as well as the illustrative artwork.

Bookkeeping: My five star review is judging this book strictly against its peers in the Osprey Campaign series.I’ve read a handful of these Osprey books now and they usually do not live up to what I expected from them, which is a high level overview of the campaign with some insights into how it was fought and why. With the other Osprey books I’ve read, they tended to throw a blizzard of dates, troop strengths, and unit numbers at the reader; and I found by the end of the book I really didn’t take anything away from the book, or retain any of its information. This book was a pleasant exception.David Smith does not lose the forest for the trees. He keeps the narrative focused on what the situation was in German East Africa and how the “pieces” were moved around the chessboard. Yes, he does give us relative troop strengths and casualties figures, but they are used to emphasize the overall picture rather than snow us with pedantic minutia. For example, Smith will say something along the lines of “The Kings African Rifles numbered 1,200 men and von Lettow could only muster 150 men in the area and therefore he was forced to retreat.” In this instance he only mentions the numbers to expound upon the reason that the Germans pulled back from the position.Smith’s overview includes a brief narrative on who the commanders of both sides were, pulling no punches (for example he states several times that British General Michael Tighe was drinking “out of control”). A brief narrative on the strengths of the opposing forces. And finally, a brief outlay of the opposing plans (German to merely keep their army intact & prolong the fighting as long as possible, British to conquer new colonial possessions for their empire, and Belgians to capture land to use as a post war bargaining chip at the peace table).Then Smith goes into the meat of the book by providing an overview of the entire theater for its four years, which he breaks down into five discernible phases (British Offensive, the Railway War, the South African Offensive, the German Withdrawal, and the Final Stage). Each phase is lead off with an annotated operational level map of that phase, which is very helpful.Smith also provides the reader with a few insights as to why things are developing the way they are. For example, initially the British were using troops almost exclusively from out of the area (England, South Africa, and India) who had no natural immunity to the myriad of diseases in East Africa, and the units would simply melt away within a matter of a few months whether in contact with the enemy or not. Meanwhile the local German Askaris, were more capable of enduring the local diseases, and fared better.And of course, the book contains the usual aspect that Osprey excels at, which is illustrations (both photos and drawings), tactical maps, and even a couple 3-D 45 degree overhead painted maps of battlefields (Tanga 1914 & Mahiwa 1917).In total this is 5 Star effort, and a good primer for further reading on the subject.

The East Africa Campaign 1914-18 was good to read with interesting points during the First World War. The First World War was concentrated mostly on Europe and Asia Minor. East Africa was really overlooked for that campaign, but as for the colonial competition for the Europeans, there were minor fightings in South Africa and Congo. However, the new campaign in East Africa was a surprise to the reader. For the four-year campaign in East Africa, it was long-winded as the Germans kept undefeated against the Allied forces for nearly four years until Commander Von Lettow finally surrendered in late 1918. Thank you to David Smith for writing such unknown campaign in the World War 1.

a concise history covering many facets of this area of the war. despite a tendency to make the Germans the bad guys, it is generally a well balanced version of a colonial conflict.

Great summary of a little known front of the Great War.

A solid overview of the campaign. Lavishly illustrated. The bibliography alone makes the book worth buying.

Gute Aufmachung mit vielen Infos

This book is a good example of the series, but it lacks any new information . But theart work and maps make the book ok.

Mto bom