MTYELA KASANDA (AKA MIRAMBO)
A Wanyamwezi warlord, he started out as a slave and ivory trader, travelling between Africa's great lakes and the coast, but later installed himself as king of the Urambo region. He was a sworn enemy of the Arabic traders at Kazeh. He died aged 44, after becoming too ill to rule.
GENERALMAJOR PAUL EMIL VON LETTOW-VORBECK (1870-1964)
The commander of the German East Africa campaign during the First World War.
MAJOR GENERAL ARTHUR EDWARD AITKEN (1861-1924)
Commander of the Indian Expeditionary Force “B” in Africa during the First World War.
JANE DIGBY (LADY ELLENBOROUGH) (1807-1881)
An English aristocrat, Digby was involved in numerous romantic scandals. She had four husbands and countless lovers before eventually settling in Damascus, where she married Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab, who was twenty years her junior.
BLUT UND EISEN
Otto von Bismarck made his famous speech in support of increased military spending on 29th September 1862. “Blood and iron” was, in fact, “Eisen und Blut.” The words were reversed almost immediately by press reports and have remained that way in most accounts.
HMS ORPHEUS
The Orpheus was a Jason-Class Royal Navy corvette, constructed in Chatham Dockyard, England, in 1861. She was commanded by Captain Robert Burton and served as the flagship of the Australian squadron. On 7th February 1863, while navigating Manukau Harbour, New Zealand, the ship hit a sandbar and sank, with a loss of 189 men, including Captain Burton. Frederick Butler, a convicted deserter, served as quartermaster aboard the vessel.
THE BOMBING OF DAR ES SALAAM
Despite a number of prior skirmishes between British and German troops, the First World War didn't properly begin in East Africa until 8th August 1914, when the British launched an attack against Dar es Salaam. The naval vessels HMS Astraea and HMS Pegasus bombarded the city, the Astraea hitting and destroying the German radio station. The Germans responded by sabotaging the harbour so the British couldn't use it, which also had the effect of preventing their own ship, SMS Königsberg, from returning to port. Just over a month later, the Pegasus was docked at Zanzibar for repairs when the Königsberg launched a surprise attack and sank her. The Königsberg was herself eventually knocked out of action by British ships on 11th July 1915.
THE BATTLE OF THE BEES
Also known as the Battle of Tanga, this was an attempt by the British Indian Expeditionary Force to capture the German port, and became one of the worst defeats for the British in Africa during the First World War. The incident commenced when HMS Fox arrived at the port and gave the authorities an hour to surrender. The hour passed but no action was taken, which gave Generalmajor Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck time to move German reinforcements into position. On 4th November 1914, street-to-street fighting began in the north and jungle skirmishes in the south. The British found themselves hard pressed, and when swarms of bees, disturbed by the conflict, attacked both sides, the British were routed and took to their heels. In retreating, they left behind all their equipment, which the Germans appropriated. In later propaganda, the British suggested that the bees had somehow been a fiendish trap set by the enemy.
L.59 ZEPPELIN
A German dirigible used during the First World War, L.59 Zeppelin was known as Das Afrika-Schiff (“The Africa Ship”). In 1917, it was commissioned to resupply Generalmajor Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck's troops. Its journey to Africa was intended to be a one-way voyage—upon delivering its 50 tons of supplies, the ship would be cannibalised, its outer envelope used for tents, its frame used to build radio towers, etc. Following the course of the Nile, L.59 Zeppelin was halfway along the river when she received an “abort” order transmitted by Lettow-Vorbeck, who, in his battle with British forces, had been unable to secure a safe landing place for her. She returned to Germany. The following year, the dirigible mysteriously exploded over the Strait of Otranto in the Mediterranean, with a loss of all twenty-one crew.
THE SECOND SCHLESWIG WAR
Beginning on 1st February 1864, this was a renewal of hostilities between Prussia, Austria, and Denmark over control of the Duchies of Schleswig, Holstein, and Saxe-Lauenburg. The conflict continued until the end of October, when the Treaty of Vienna saw the territories ceded to Prussia and Austria. It confirmed Prussia's military might and thus advanced the cause of those who supported German unification.
THE BURNING OF SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON'S JOURNALS AND PAPERS
Of all the controversies concerning Burton during his lifetime, none compared with what happened after his death in 1890. His widow, Isabel, made a bonfire of his personal journals, the vast majority of his papers, and the unpublished book he regarded as his magnum opus, his new translation of The Perfumed Garden, which he'd retitled The Scented Garden. Her act incited such anger and condemnation from those who'd known Burton, including Swinburne, that she lost many friends and badly stained her own reputation.
MARK HODDER was born in Southampton, England, but lived for many years in London. He is an ex-commercial copywriter, BBC web producer, journalist, and editor. After too many years running the rat race, he threw in the towel and moved to Valencia in Spain, seeking quality of life rather than quantity of income. After a few months teaching English as a foreign language, he wrote his first novel, The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, which won the Philip K. Dick Award in 2010. After that, there was no looking back, and Mark now works as a full-time novelist, thus fulfilling his wildest dreams, which he started having around the age of eleven after reading Michael Moorcock, Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, Philip K. Dick, P. G. Wodehouse, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In addition to speculative and detective fiction, he is interested in Buddhism, transcendentalism, all the ITC TV programmes of the 60s and 70s, and techie-gadgety things.
Mark Hodder, Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon
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