The Campaign in German East Africa

C.E. Hamshere shows how, a fortnight after the Armistice of 1918, the elusive German Commander in East Africa surrendered at Abercorn in what is now Zambia.

Fifty years after the great war began, it is not surprising that most reminiscences should be confined to the campaigns in the main theatre of Flanders. Yet it was a World War with fighting in many countries, and the most prolonged overseas campaign took place in German East Africa, the country known today with Zanzibar as the Republic of Tanzania. Long after the Germans in South-West Africa, Togoland and the Cameroons had surrendered, a minute force of their compatriots in East Africa kept the German flag flying, tied up 130,00 Allied troops and involved the British Government alone in an expenditure of £72,000,000.

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