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African Kaiser: General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and the Great War in Africa, 1914-1918
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About African Kaiser: General Paul Von Lettow-Vorbeck And
Product Description The incredible true account of World War I in Africa and General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, the last undefeated German commander. “Let me say straight out that if all military histories were as thrilling and well written as Robert Gaudi’s African Kaiser, I might give up reading fiction and literary biography… Gaudi writes with the flair of a latter-day Macaulay. He sets his scenes carefully and describes naval and military action like a novelist.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington PostAs World War I ravaged the European continent, a completely different theater of war was being contested in Africa. And from this very different kind of war, there emerged a very different kind of military leader.... At the beginning of the twentieth century, the continent of Africa was a hotbed of international trade, colonialism, and political gamesmanship. So when World War I broke out, the European powers were forced to contend with one another not just in the bloody trenches, but in the treacherous jungle. And it was in that unforgiving land that General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck would make history. With the now-legendary Schutztruppe (Defensive Force), von Lettow-Vorbeck and a small cadre of hardened German officers fought alongside their fanatically devoted native African allies as equals, creating the first truly integrated army of the modern age. African Kaiser is the fascinating story of a forgotten guerrilla campaign in a remote corner of Equatorial Africa in World War I; of a small army of ultraloyal African troops led by a smaller cadre of rugged German officers—of white men and black who fought side by side. But mostly it is the story of von Lettow-Vorbeck—the only undefeated German commmander in the field during World War I and the last to surrender his arms. Review Praise for African Kaiser “Let me say straight out that if all military histories were as thrilling and well written as Robert Gaudi’s African Kaiser, I might give up reading fiction and literary biography...Gaudi writes with the flair of a latter-day Macaulay. He sets his scenes carefully and describes naval and military action like a novelist. His sentences are models of clarity and vivacity, sometimes further enlivened with wry authorial comments.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post “Robert Gaudi combines a researcher’s meticulous precision with a novelist’s consummate storytelling skill to piece together a thousand shards of forgotten history into this astonishing and irresistible confection.”—Madison Smartt Bell About the Author Robert Gaudi is a freelance writer and historian. At one time or another, he has worked for the National Endowment for the Arts, tended bar, and managed a classic car restoration shop. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1 Zeppelins of the China Show A thick, billowing fog bank concealed the rocky shore of the Baltic island of Odensholm off the Estonian coast before dawn in the early morning of August 26, 1914. Odensholm-desolate, beautiful home to a small ethnic Swedish population of farmers and fishermen since Viking times-was also, according to legend, the final resting place of Odin, chief god of the Norse pantheon, patron of death, battles, frenzy, poetry, and a few other things. No one on Odensholm could say exactly where the god was buried, whether beneath this barrow or that mound; some insisted the island itself was his tomb, its cliffs and stony beaches the monument raised above his massive divine corpse. But such mythological nonsense did not figure among the matters weighing on the mind of Korvettenkapitan Richard Habenicht of SMS Magdeburg as he threaded his warship through the shallow waters at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland in the last dark hours of the night. Magdeburg, one of the newest and fastest cruisers in the Kaiserlich Marine, 455 feet long, propelled by two powerful A
