East Africa & Von Lettow Vorbeck

[TROUFION]

Granite State, I believe youre right. I believe his time in Hamburg was after WWI.

[davidbfpo]

The Western Front Association (WFA) is dedicated to the study and commemoration of WW1 and their latest newsletter had an article on a conventional battle in the East African campaign, in March 1916. Following the e-trail their website has ten articles:http://www.westernfrontassociation.c...-theatres.html

The latest article had a phrase that appeared on SWC this week, referring to the US Army in WW1 & WW2:

..the hastily trained and poorly disciplined South African officers and men were on a steep military learning curve..

[Fuchs]

There's a book about German colonies with a chapter on the episode:
ISBN 978-3-548-36940-2
pp. 349-366

The East African conflict was apparently a major medical and logistical disaster for both sides. Estimates about dead indigenous porters (forced by both sides) are in the six figure range. Germans lacked anti-Malaria medicine badly, had to produce it with indigenous plants. Raining season created mud trails that made movement extremely tiresome and created horrible lower leg infections.

Overall quite messy, but the performance of the defenders was nevertheless one of the most extreme ones in history.