The Last Great Safari: East Africa in World War I

In this volume, the author explores the fascinating and misunderstood theater of African operations in the history of the First World War. Unprepared for the Great War, colonial units combined modern industrial weapons and equipment with traditional African methods to produce a hybrid force. This volume brings together traditional military studies and African history to explore the myths, fables, and stereotypes that have long characterized examinations of this topic, from questions as to how German East Africa contributed to the fate of the war to claims respecting significant diversion of resources. Racism played a significant role in then prevalent definitions of what constituted military success and in how Africans and Indians were recruited, holding more sway in the minds of white armies as a success factor than differences in weapons. The author points out how modern methods of medicine and transportation ultimately failed, only to be replaced by a hybrid of industrial Europe and traditional African solutions for dealing with an especially difficult climate. In the end, only when necessity came to outweigh then-current ideas of professionalism did German forces outfight their opponents.