About This Book

The Fight for Germany’s African and Asian Colonies During World War I

The largest battles of World War I were fought in Europe, and it is there where most critical studies focus. The fate of the far-flung colonies of Germany, however, are what gave the war its global scope, with campaigns reaching from China to New Guinea and East to West Africa. While there are detailed accounts of most of these campaigns, The War in Africa and the Far East, 1914-17 is unique in providing a concise history of the entire series of military events in Africa and Asia, giving the reader a better idea of the relationship and chronology of these wide-ranging events. While Germany was stripped of all its overseas colonies, the change in power had unintended consequences, most importantly the rise of Japan in the Pacific, where former German colonies now stood at the territorial boundary between Japan and the United States.

Waged by Allied troops from Britain, Kenya, Zambia, Portugal, Japan, India, Netherlands, and other countries and led by such personalities as General Jan Christian Smuts, the theater of operations crossed modern-day Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Togo, Cameroon, Namibia, New Guinea, Qingdau, the Bismarck Archipelago, and other Pacific Island chains. Originally published in 1918 using official dispatches and other sources, and presented here for the first time in paperback, completely retypeset and with the original maps and additional photographs, The War in Africa and the Far East is a compact overview of an important aspect of the First World War.

Praise for War in Africa and the Far East:

“This account will be welcome to a large circle of readers. . . . The arduous nature of these campaigns deserves to be far more widely known, and this is just the book for the purpose–short, clear, and easy to read.”—Journal of the African Society