Sir William Wallace was a Scottish knight who became one of the main leaders during the First War of Scottish Independence.
Adlai Ewing Stevenson II was an American lawyer, politician, and diplomat.
Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as well as for its de facto status as a nature reserve. The Cemetery is designated Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. It is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London.
Francis Brett Young was an English novelist, poet, playwright, composer, doctor and soldier.
German East Africa (GEA) 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 square kilometres (384,170 sq mi), which was nearly three times the area of present-day Germany, and double the area of metropolitan Germany then.
Tanga is both the name of the most northerly port city of Tanzania on the west of the Indian Ocean, and the capital of Tanga Region. It had a population of 273,332 in 2012. The name Tanga means "sail."
Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, also called the Lion of Africa, was a general in the Imperial German Army and the commander of its forces in the German East Africa campaign. For four years, with a force of about 14,000, he held in check a much larger force of 300,000 British, Indian, Belgian, and Portuguese troops.
The Battle of Tanga, sometimes also known as the Battle of the Bees, was the unsuccessful attack by the British Indian Expeditionary Force "B" under Major General A.E. Aitken to capture German East Africa during the First World War in concert with the invasion Force "C" near Longido on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. It was the first major event of the war in Eastern Africa and saw the British defeated by a significantly smaller force of German Askaris and colonial volunteers under Lieutenant Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. It was the beginning of the East African Campaign of World War I, and is considered one of greatest victories of the Schutztruppe in Africa. The British retreat enabled the Schutztruppe to salvage modern equipment, medical supplies, tents, blankets, food and a number of Maxim Machine Guns which allowed them to successfully resist the allies for the rest of the War.
Thomas Mayne Reid was an Irish-American novelist, who fought in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). His many works on American life describe colonial policy in the American colonies, the horrors of slave labour and the lives of American Indians. "Captain" Reid wrote adventure novels akin to those by Frederick Marryat and Robert Louis Stevenson, and set mainly in the American West, Mexico, South Africa, the Himalayas, and Jamaica. He was an admirer of Lord Byron.
The Battle of Kilimanjaro at Longido took place in German East Africa in November 1914 and was an early skirmish during the East African Campaign of the First World War.
Philippe Régis Denis de Keredern de Trobriand was a French aristocrat, lawyer, poet, and novelist who, on a dare, emigrated in his 20s to the United States, settling first in New York City. During the American Civil War, he became naturalized, was commissioned and served in the Union Army, reaching the rank of general.
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 Portuguese Mozambique, Northern Rhodesia, British East Africa, the Uganda Protectorate, and the Belgian Congo. The campaign all but ended in German East Africa in November 1917 when the Germans entered Portuguese Mozambique and continued the campaign living off Portuguese supplies.
An Ice-Cream War (1982) is a darkly comic war novel by Scottish author William Boyd, which was nominated for a Booker Prize in the year of its publication. The title is derived from a quotation in a letter "Lt Col Stordy says that the war here will only last two months. It is far too hot for sustained fighting, he says, we will all melt like ice-cream in the sun!"
Historical romance is a broad category of fiction in which the plot takes place in a setting located in the past. Walter Scott helped popularize this genre in the early 19th-century, with works such as Rob Roy and Ivanhoe. Literary fiction historical romances continue to be published, and a notable recent example is Wolf Hall (2009), a multi-award-winning novel by English historical novelist Hilary Mantel. It is also a genre of mass-market fiction, which is related to the broader romantic love genre.
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.
Gerald Hanley was an Irish novelist and travel writer and was born in Liverpool of Irish parents. Hanley's novels reflect his experiences of living in Africa, Burma and the Indian sub-continent, as well as his life as a soldier. His first book, Monsoon Victory was published in 1946, and his last novel, Noble Descents in 1982.
Jim Redlake is a 1930 novel by the British writer Francis Brett Young. It portrays the life of the title character from childhood. Like most of his works, it was influenced by his own life experiences. Scenes set during the East African campaign had been censored from his earlier memoir of the campaign Marching on Tanga. Young later declared it his favourite of his own novels.
Black Roses is a 1929 novel by the British writer Francis Brett Young. Paul Ritchie an English painter is on a cruise around the Mediterranean, when the ship pulls into Naples. This sparks his memories of many decades before when he had lived in the city and found friendship with a fellow artist and love with their landlady. However all three were struck down during a cholera epidemic of which only Ritchie survived. Without ever setting foot back in the city, he is finally able to banish the ghosts that have haunted him all these years.
The Zanzibar Volunteer Defence Force was a military unit raised in the British protectorate of Zanzibar during the First World War. It was formed to supplement the Zanzibar garrison after defeat in the 4 November 1914 Battle of Tanga left British forces in the region on the defensive. Though enlistment was voluntary almost the entire able-bodied military-age European population of the protectorate joined the unit. After the British garrison was withdrawn in October 1915 the Zanzibar Volunteer Defence Force and other indigenous units were responsible for the defence of the protectorate.
