Quote Originally Posted by TROUFION View Post
My Reminisence of East Africa, by Lettow Vorbeck. Available on Amazon for @$30.

A good read/a good translation. Compares well to Lawrence's Seven Pillars. The major difference being that he was the Commander of the forces without any real influence from his HHQ in Berlin, not an intel officer-liaison-advisor with an active HHQ in closer Cairo. Further his was the only game in town once the other German colonies fell (all within the first year) he was the only one left. Whereas Allenby's advance on Jerusalem, and the expeditions up the Tigris-Euphrates were the principle efforts of the brits.

WWI.com has a nice biographical sketch and an article on the battle of Tanga available free.

The wikipedia site on him is a good start point for researching.

Of course to really get to know the guy you'd have to know German. My Grandfather (former Luftwaffe Capt. from Hamburg, Vorbeck's home city) was a big fan of the General and used to tell me about him. Including his involvment in Freikorps and the suppression of the Spartacist Rebellion in Hamburg after WWI.
You sure he was from Hamburg? Wikipedia says he was born in the Saar, but I remember reading that he was a Pomeranian (like my grandmother).