German East Africa was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mozambique. GEA's area was 994,996 km2 (384,170 sq mi), which was nearly three times the area of present-day Germany and almost double the area of metropolitan Germany at the time.
The Battles of Narvik were fought from 9 April to 8 June 1940, as a naval battle in Ofotfjord and as a land battle in the mountains surrounding the north Norwegian town of Narvik, as part of the Norwegian Campaign of the Second World War.
The Gunboat War was a naval conflict between Denmark–Norway and Great Britain supported by Sweden during the Napoleonic Wars. The war's name is derived from the Danish tactic of employing small gunboats against the materially superior Royal Navy. In Scandinavia it is seen as the later stage of the English Wars, whose commencement is accounted as the First Battle of Copenhagen in 1801.
The Abushiri Revolt, also known as the Slave Trader Revolt, but generally referred to by modern historians as the Coastal Rebellion, was an insurrection in 1888–1889 by the Arab, Swahili and African population of the coast of what is now Tanzania. This coast had been leased, under protest, to Germany by the Sultan of Zanzibar in 1888. The rebellion was eventually suppressed by a German expeditionary force commanded by Hermann Wissmann.
Kasanga, known as Bismarckburg during the German colonial rule, is a town in Rukwa Region, Tanzania. It is located at around 8°27′30″S31°8′10″E, on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, 810 m above sea level.
MV Liemba, formerly Graf Goetzen or Graf von Goetzen, is a passenger and cargo ferry that runs along the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. The Marine Services Company Limited of Tanzania sails her, with numerous stops to pick up and set down passengers, between the ports of Kigoma, Tanzania and Mpulungu, Zambia.
The East African campaign in World War I was a series of battles and guerrilla actions, which started in German East Africa (GEA) and spread to portions of Mozambique, Rhodesia, British East Africa, the Uganda, and the Belgian Congo. The campaign all but ended in German East Africa in November 1917 when the Germans entered Mozambique and continued the campaign living off Portuguese supplies.
The Lungu are a tribe of two Bantu ethnic groups i.e. the Lungu of Chief Tafuna (Mambwe-Lungu) and the Lungu of Chief Mukupa Kaoma (Malaila-Lungu). The Mambwe Lungu, who are the main focus of this article are located primarily on the southwestern shores of Lake Tanganyika in Rukwa Region's Kalambo District, Tanzania and northeastern Zambia mainly in Mpulungu and Mbala district. In 1987 the Lungu population in Tanzania was estimated to number 34,000. The number of Lungu in Zambia has not been independently estimated, though the combined number of Mambwe and Lungu in Zambia was estimated to be 262,800 in 1993.
Mimi and Toutou Go Forth: The Bizarre Battle for Lake Tanganyika is the fourth book by author Giles Foden. It was published in 2004 by Michael Joseph. The United States edition, published in 2005 by Knopf, is entitled Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure: The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika.
Captain Geoffrey Basil Spicer-Simson DSO, RN was a Royal Navy officer. He served in the Mediterranean, Pacific and Home Fleets. He is most famous for his role as leader of a naval expedition to Lake Tanganyika in 1915, where he commanded a small flotilla which defeated a superior German force during the Battle for Lake Tanganyika.
Hermann Wilhelm Leopold Ludwig Wissmann, after 1890 Hermann von Wissmann, was a German explorer and administrator in Africa.
HMS Mimi and HMS Toutou were motor launches of the Royal Navy. After undergoing an unusual journey from Britain to Lake Tanganyika in the interior of Africa, the ships played an important role in the African naval struggle between Britain and Germany during World War I. The names mean Meow and Fido in Parisian slang. They had originally been named Dog and Cat by their erstwhile commander, Geoffrey Spicer-Simson, only to have the names rejected by an apparently scandalized Admiralty.
The Battle for Lake Tanganyika was a series of naval engagements that took place between elements of the Royal Navy, Force Publique and the Kaiserliche Marine between December 1915 and July 1916, during the First World War. The intention was to secure control of the strategically important Lake Tanganyika, which had been dominated by German naval units since the beginning of the war. The British forces – consisting of two motor boats named HMS Mimi and Toutou – were under the command of the eccentric Lieutenant-Commander Geoffrey Spicer-Simson. The boats were transported to South Africa and from there by railway, by river, and by being dragged through the African jungle, to the lake.
HMS Fifi was an armed screw steamer, captured from the Germans by Royal Navy units during the Battle for Lake Tanganyika, and used to support Anglo-Belgian operations on the lake and its surrounding areas. She had previously been operated by the Germans under the name Kingani named after the river Kingani.
HMS Helmuth was a German tug that the Royal Navy captured at the beginning of World War I and armed as a picket boat. She served in the East African campaign including the battles of Zanzibar and Tanga, she survived a German attack at Dar es Salaam, and took part in blockading SMS Königsberg in the Rujifi Delta. In 1916 she took part in an amphibious assault on the coastal town of Bagamoyo.
Liuli, formerly known as Sphinx Hafen, is a settlement on the Tanzanian shore of Lake Malawi in the Mbinga District of Ruvuma province. It is notable for being the site of the first naval action of World War I.
Hermann von Wissmann was a German steamer on Lake Nyasa named after the German explorer Hermann von Wissmann who had raised funds for the vessel to be built in 1890 as an anti-slavery gunboat.
SMS Schwalbe was an unprotected cruiser built for the German Kaiserliche Marine, the lead ship of the Schwalbe class. She had one sister ship, Sperber. Schwalbe was built at the Kaiserliche Werft in Wilhelmshaven; her keel was laid down in April 1886 and her completed hull was launched in August 1887. She was commissioned for service in May 1888. Designed for colonial service, Schwalbe was armed with a main battery of eight 10.5-centimeter (4.1 in) guns and had a cruising radius of over 3,000 nautical miles ; she also had an auxiliary sailing rig to supplement her steam engines.
HMS Niger was a torpedo gunboat launched in 1892, converted to a minesweeper in 1909, and sunk in 1914 by the German submarine SM U-12 near Deal.
The Tabora Offensive was an Anglo-Belgian offensive into German East Africa, which ended with the Battle of Tabora in the north-west of German East Africa, it was part of the East African Campaign in World War I. The forces of the Belgian Congo crossed the border with German East Africa and captured the port city of Kigoma and the city of Tabora. In August a smaller Lake Force under the command of the South African brigadier general Crewe, launched a parallel attack from Uganda, also aimed at taking Tabora. The completion of the Tabora Offensive not only left much of the Ruanda-Urundi territory under Belgian military occupation but gave the Allies control of the important Tanganjikabahn railway.
German Empire
