500 Great Military Leaders, 2 Volumes by Spencer Tucker

Author:Spencer Tucker
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781598847581
Publisher: ABC-CLIO
Published: 2015-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Employing native troops with great effectiveness, German Army major general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck waged a brilliant campaign in eastern Africa against far larger Allied forces during World War I, surrendering only with the end of the war. (Library of Congress)

When World War I began in August 1914, Lettow-Vorbeck seized the initiative and attacked British rail lines in Kenya. He then successfully defended the port of Tanga against a British amphibious attack (November 3–5) and inflicted heavy losses on the attackers. Lettow-Vorbeck’s objective became to tie down as many Allied troops as possible. Although his total command never exceeded more than 3,000 German and 11,000 askari troops, he was able to divert more than 300,000 Allied troops from use on other fronts. When the German cruiser Königsberg was destroyed, he absorbed its crew into his forces and salvaged its guns for land use. Lettow-Vorbeck’s greatest asset was his askaris. He treated them with respect, which they repaid with devotion in combat.

By 1916 Lettow-Vorbeck faced General Jan Christian Smuts, who mounted an offensive against East Africa. As Allied numbers increased, Lettow-Vorbeck resorted to ambushes such as at Mahiwa (October 17–18, 1917), where he inflicted 1,500 casualties on an enemy force four times his own number and suffered about 100 casualties. He then left East Africa and shifted his operations to Mozambique and Rhodesia. Learning on November 13, 1918, of the armistice, Lettow-Vorbeck surrendered his undefeated force to the Allies at Abercorn on November 25, 1918.

Lettow-Vorbeck returned to Germany a hero and was promoted to Generalmajor (U.S. equiv. brigadier general). He subsequently became involved in right-wing politics to oppose the left-wing Spartacists and served in the Reichstag during 1929–1930, where he opposed the National Socialists of Adolf Hitler. Lettow-Vorbeck died, impoverished, in Hamburg on March 9, 1964.

Lettow-Vorbeck rightly deserves credit as one of history’s most successful and possibly the most gifted of guerrilla force commanders.

Steven J. Rauch

Further Reading

Farwell, Byron. The Great War in Africa. New York: Norton, 1989.

Hoyt, Edwin P. Guerilla: Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck and Germany’s East African Empire. New York: Macmillan, 1981.

Lettow-Vorbeck, Paul von. My Reminiscences of East Africa. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1920.

Miller, Charles. Battle for the Bundu: The First World War in East Africa. New York: Macmillan, 1974.

Morrow, John H., Jr. The Great War: An Imperial History. New York: Routledge, 2004.

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