Tip and Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa

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Synopsis

In the aftermath of the Great War the East Africa campaign was destined to be dismissed by many in Britain as a remote 'sideshow' in which only a handful of names and episodes - the Konigsberg, von Lettow-Vorbeck, the 'Naval Expedition to Lake Tanganyika' - achieved any lasting notoriety. But to the other combatant powers - Germany, South Africa, India, Belgium and Portugal - it was, and would remain, a campaign of huge importance. Africa quite simply mattered. A 'small war', consisting of a few 'local affairs', was all that was expected in August 1914 as Britain moved to eliminate the threat to the high seas of German naval bases in Africa. But two weeks after the Armistice was signed in Europe British and German troops were still fighting in Africa after four years of what one campaign historian described as 'a war of extermination and attrition without parallel in modern times'. The expense of the campaign to the British Empire was immense, the Allied and German 'butchers bills' even greater. But the most tragic consequence of the two sides' deadly game of 'tip and run' was the devastation of an area five times the size of Germany, and civilian suffering on a scale unimaginable in Europe. Such was the cost of 'The White Man's Palaver', the final phase of the European conquest of Africa. The Great War in Africa has inspired some notable fiction, including William Boyd's An Ice-Cream War, C.S.Forester's The African Queen (memorably filmed with Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn) and Wilbur Smith's Shout at the Devil. Here for the first time is the true story - a ground-breaking account by Edward Paice, author of the highly-praised Lost Lion of Empire: The Life of 'Cape-to-Cairo' Grogan.

Book details

Published
11/01/2007

Publisher
Weidenfeld Military

ISBN
9780297847090

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Jacket review

'Edward Paice's superb history ... meticulously researched and written with tremendous lucidity and brio. One feels that this forgotten episode of the great war has now, finally, its own literary-historical monument - in the future, everyone will start with Paice ... This exceptional history can stand as their [East Africans'] in memoriam.' -- William Boyd THE SUNDAY TIMES 'This marvellous book enthrallingly narrates... Edward Paice's admirable achievement is to have put solid factual flesh on the bones of Boyd's and Forester's fiction, and write the definitive history of that war... Minutely detailed yet entirely engrossing, Paice has done his astounding story justice... It has never before been told so exhaustively, nor so well.' THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'gripping... I wholeheartedly recommend this fascinating book.' -- Sara Wheeler DAILY TELEGRAPH 'a masterful, damning, definitive account...' -- Christopher Hudson DAILY MAIL 'extraordinary, admirably researched history... exemplary clarity... as a feat of synthesis and co-ordination of sources, Tip and Run is amazing.' -- Sam Leith SPECTATOR 'there has been no comprehensive history of this shocking episode of warfare until now.' THE HERALD (Glasgow) 'engrossing... a story of the nightmare shaped by European fantasies and lethally visited on African societies.' THE GUARDIAN 'marvellous ... Minutely detailed yet entirely engrossing, Paice has done his astounding story justice.' THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Paice's fine book is a worthy tribute... Exhaustively researched, well written and admirably balanced' -- Saul David LITERARY REVIEW 'Edward Paice's superb history ... meticulously researched and written with tremendous lucidity and brio. ' -- William Boyd SUNDAY TIMES 'very well written and researched, and, with a wealth of detail and good maps, it is certainly a good read.' -- Gary Sheffield BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE 'a comprehensive, detailed, scholarly and above all readable account... of warfare and political history of the African continent.' PENNANT