Det ene af C. Millers værker om 1. Verdenskrig i Afrika - "Lunatic Express" haves ikke.

This book revisits some of the most significant guerrilla struggles of the late 19th century, all set in Africa, and remind readers, in light of current events, the difficulties involved in engaging in this type of conflict.

This monograph analyzed whether Lieutenant Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck used operational art to defeat British forces in the East African campaign of World War I. British forces were superior in quantity of men and equipment, but slow moving and heavily dependent on secure lines of communication. Lettow-Vorbeck’s forces maintained an asymmetric advantage in mobility, knowledge of terrain, and responsive logistics. An analogy was suggested that the U.S. Army in the twenty-first century is similar to British forces in 1914, and the nation’s future adversaries could potentially use Lettow-Vorbeck’s unconventional warfare and asymmetric tactics woven together in a comprehensive campaign plan. This monograph reviewed the origins and characteristics of operational art. The Army’s emerging doctrine, Student Text 3-0, Operations defines operational art as the “use of military force to achieve strategic goals through the design, organization, integration, and conduct of theater strategic, campaigns, major operations, and battles” and serves as the entry point for discussion. A synthesis of Shimon Naveh and James Schneider’s theories revealed five primary characteristics of operational art and was used as the criteria to evaluate the research question. The five characteristics were: operational objectives, operational maneuver, disruption, operational approach, and operational logistics. The East African campaign was analyzed from the perspective of Lettow-Vorbeck linking his strategic aim of forcing the British to commit forces to a secondary theater of operations to his limited resources. The four-year campaign was divided into three phases based on Lettow-Vorbeck’s operational objectives and the correlation of forces. Significant tactical vignettes were examined as part of an overarching campaign plan. Finally, this monograph considered how the U.S. Army would fight an asymmetric enemy in a similar environment.

Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (20 March 1870 – 9 March 1964) was a general in the Imperial German Army and the commander of its forces in the German East Africa campaign. For four years, with a force that never exceeded about 14,000 (3,000 Germans and 11,000 Africans), he held in check a much larger force of 300,000 British, Belgian, and Portuguese troops. Essentially undefeated in the field, von Lettow-Vorbeck was the only German commander to successfully invade imperial British soil during World War I. His exploits in the campaign have come down "as the greatest single guerrilla operation in history, and the most successful." [Source: Wikipedia]

Drawing upon fresh archival material this book recovers the experience of different ethnic groups during the First World War conflict.

In 1895, George Whitehouse arrived at the east African post of Mombasa to perform an engineering miracle: the building of the Mombasa-Nairobi-Lake Victoria Railway – a 600-mile route that was largely unmapped and barely explored. Behind Mombasa lay a scorched, waterless desert. Beyond, a horizonless scrub country climbed toward a jagged volcanic region bisected by the Great Rift Valley. A hundred miles of sponge-like quagmire marked the railway's last lap. The entire right of way bristled with hostile tribes, teemed with lions and breathed malaria. What was the purpose of this 'giant folly' and whom would it benefit? Was it to exploit the rumoured wealth of little-known central African kingdoms? Was it to destroy the slave trade? To encourage commerce and settlement? THE LUNATIC EXPRESS explores the building of this great railway in an earlier Africa of slave and ivory empires, of tribal monarchs and the vast lands that they ruled. Above all, it is the story of the white intruders whose combination of avarice, honour and tenacious courage made them a breed apart.

This fascinating book tells the stories of the most dramatic, memorable, and important conflicts in world history, from Agincourt, Lepanto, and Trafalgar, to Gettysburg, Stalingrad, and the Somme. It begins with the battle of Megiddo fought by the ancient Egyptians and takes the reader through to the Second Gulf War of 2003. On the way it encompasses almost 300 battles from around the world - from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, to Europe and the Americas.

A new assessment of Jan Smuts’s military leadership through examination of his World War I campaigning, demonstrating that he was a gifted general, conversant with the craft of maneuver warfare, and a command style steeped in the experiences of his time as a Boer general. World War I ushered in a renewed scramble for Africa. At its helm, Jan Smuts grabbed the opportunity to realize his ambition of a Greater South Africa. He set his sights upon the vast German colonies of South-West Africa and East Africa – the demise of which would end the Kaiser’s grandiose schemes for Mittelafrika. As part of his strategy to shift South Africa’s borders inexorably northward, Smuts even cast an eye toward Portuguese and Belgian African possessions. Smuts, his abilities as a general much denigrated by both his contemporary and then later modern historians, was no armchair soldier. This cabinet minister and statesman donned a uniform and led his men into battle. He learned his soldiery craft under General Koos De la Rey's tutelage, and another soldier-statesman, General Louis Botha during the South African War 1899–1902. He emerged from that war, immersed in the Boer maneuver doctrine he devastatingly waged in the guerrilla phase of that conflict. His daring and epic invasion of the Cape at the head of his commando remains legendary. The first phase of the German South West African campaign and the Afrikaner Rebellion in 1914 placed his abilities as a sound strategic thinker and a bold operational planner on display. Champing at the bit, he finally had the opportunity to command the Southern Forces in the second phase of the German South West African campaign. Placed in command of the Allied forces in East Africa in 1916, he led a mixed bag of South Africans and Imperial troops against the legendary Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and his Shutztruppe. Using his penchant for Boer maneuver warfare together with mounted infantry led and manned by Boer Republican veterans, he proceeded to free the vast German territory from Lettow-Vorbeck’s grip. Often leading from the front, his operational concepts were an enigma to the British under his command, remaining so to modern-day historians. Although unable to bring the elusive and wily Lettow-Vorbeck to a final decisive battle, Smuts conquered most of the territory by the end of his tenure in February 1917. General Jan Smuts and His First World War in Africa makes use of multiple archival sources and the official accounts of all the participants to provide a long-overdue reassessment of Smuts’s generalship and his role in furthering the strategic aims of South Africa and the British Empire in Africa during World War I.

Written by experts for use by nonexperts, this monumental work probes Germany's "Genius for War" and the unmistakable pattern of tactical and operational innovation and excellence evident throughout the nation's military history. Despite having the best military forces in the world, some of the most advanced weapons available, and unparalleled tactical proficiency, Germany still lost both World Wars. This landmark, four-volume encyclopedia explores how and why that happened, at the same time examining Germany as a military power from the start of the Thirty Years' War in 1618 to the present day. Coverage includes the Federal Republic of Germany, its predecessor states, and the kingdoms and principalities that combined to form Imperial Germany in 1871. The Seven Years' War is discussed, as are the Napoleonic Wars, the Wars of German Unification (including the Franco-Prussian War), World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. In all, more than 1,000 entries illuminate battles, organizations, leaders, armies, weapons, and other aspects of war and military life. The most comprehensive overview of German military history ever to appear in English, this work will enable students and others interested in military history to better understand the sociopolitical history of Germany, the complex role conflict has played in the nation throughout its history, and why Germany continues to be an important player on the European continent.

Offering exhaustive coverage, detailed analyses, and the latest historical interpretations of events, this expansive, five-volume encyclopedia is the most comprehensive and detailed reference source on the First World War available today. One hundred years after the beginning of World War I in 1914, this conflict still stands as perhaps the most important event of the 20th century. World War I toppled all of the existing empires at the time, transformed the Middle East, and vaulted the United States to becoming the world's leading economic power. Its effects were profound and lasting—and included outcomes that led to World War II. This multivolume encyclopedia provides a wide-ranging examination of World War I that covers all of the important battles; key individuals, both civilian and military; weapons and technologies; and diplomatic, social, political, cultural, military, and economic developments. Suitable as a reference tool for high school and undergraduate students as well as faculty members and graduate-level researchers, World War I: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection offers accessible, in-depth information and up-to-date analyses in a format that lends itself to quick and easy use. The set comprises alphabetically arranged, cross-referenced entries accompanied by further reading selections as well as a comprehensive bibliography. A fifth volume provides chronologically arranged documents and an A–Z index.