The Great War in Africa: 1914-1918 by Byron Farwell

Product Details

Synopsis

"A lively, fast-moving narrative."-Publishers Weekly

Annotation

The African front comprised a series of conflicts, schemes, maneuvers, heroics, disasters, inhospitable climate and geography, and insects--as the Allies sought to conquer four German colonies.

Library Journal

General readers will enjoy this comprehensive narrative of operations against imperial Germany's African colonies, including Togo, the Cameroons, and Southwest Africa, as well as the more familiar East African campaign. Its anecdotes convey the flavor of war in theaters dominated by disease and logistics. But in contrast to his works on the Victorian army, Farwell limits his perspective to the battlefield. Overwhelmed by the number of good stories at his disposal, he eschews systematic discussion of the polyglot forces engaged, or of the war's impact on subsaharan Africa's fragile colonial structures. The tales of bush fighting become repetitive, adding little to such earlier works as Charles Miller's Battle for the Bundu (1974), and limiting the book's value for specialists. Dennis E. Showalter, History Dept., Colorado Coll., Colorado Springs

Biography

During the Second World War, Byron Farwell (1921-1999) served as a captain of engineers attached to the Mediterranean Allied Air Force in the British Eighth Army area.