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The Military Thread
- Thread starter The Human Q-Tip
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There's this whole weird collision story between the USS Fitz and the ACX Crystal in the Sea of Japan. Seven sailors dead.
http://www.npr.org/2017/06/19/533432845/how-could-the-navy-destroyer-collision-happen
It's a really odd collision. Happened on a clear night - though no moon, calm seas. From the damage, it's hard to know if it was a "crossing" hit, where the Fitz crossed in front of the Crystal, or an "overtaking" hit, where the Crystal was passing the Fitz and veered into it. In the former situation, the Fitz would be at legal fault because it was hit on it's starboard side. If the latter, than the (primary) fault would be the Crystal.
But in either case, it's impossible to imagine how the Navy ship would not be at fault at least in the eyes of the Navy. If you're being overtaken by another ship on a bad course, you have to take the initiative to steer away even if you have the legal right of way.
http://www.npr.org/2017/06/19/533432845/how-could-the-navy-destroyer-collision-happen
It's a really odd collision. Happened on a clear night - though no moon, calm seas. From the damage, it's hard to know if it was a "crossing" hit, where the Fitz crossed in front of the Crystal, or an "overtaking" hit, where the Crystal was passing the Fitz and veered into it. In the former situation, the Fitz would be at legal fault because it was hit on it's starboard side. If the latter, than the (primary) fault would be the Crystal.
But in either case, it's impossible to imagine how the Navy ship would not be at fault at least in the eyes of the Navy. If you're being overtaken by another ship on a bad course, you have to take the initiative to steer away even if you have the legal right of way.
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OOD (watch) almost certainly at fault. Helmsman just turns the wheel as told by the OOD, so unless he disobeyed an order, probably not his fault.
Skipper obviously toast since everything is his responsibility.
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I'm not sure about this particular incident. The Russians and Syrians squawked -- they had to -- but their actual reactions seem surprisingly muted. From what I heard, the U.S. was contacting the Russians telling them to get that Syrian plane out of there, and buzzed it a few times before engaging it. And the conflict hotline is still operating normally despite Russian threats to pull it.
I imagine the U.S. response to this is something along the lines of "if one of our planes was bombing Syrian troops and refused to pull off after being warned repeatedly, what would you do?" I suspect that either this was a rogue attack by an overly-aggressive Syrian air commander, or a deliberate test.
I hope we don't pull out at this point. It's pretty clear that the intensity has been ratcheted up, and it looks like ISIS may be on its last legs. Be nice to finish them off first, because once they're gone, something of a political solution may be more possible.
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Pyrrhus of Epirus
Greece's best hope to stop the expansion of Rome. Fantastic general, though having read Plutarch numerous times, I've never quite been able to figure out why he couldn't take Sparta.
Pyrrhus (319/318–272 BC) was a Greek general and statesman of the Hellenistic period He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house (from c. 297 BC) and later he became king of Epirus (r. 306–302, 297–272 BC). He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome. Some of his battles, though successful, caused him heavy losses, from which the term Pyrrhic victory was coined. He is the subject of one of Plutarch's Parallel Lives.
Struggle with Rome
The Greek city of Tarentum, in southern Italy, fell out with Rome due to a violation of an old treaty that specified Rome was not to send warships into the Tarentine Gulf. In 282 BC, the Romans installed garrisons in the Greek cities of Thurii (on the western end of the Tarentine Gulf), Locri, and Rhegium, and sent warships to Thurii. Although this was designed as a measure against the Italian peoples of Lucania, the Tarentines grew nervous and attacked the Romans in Thurii, driving the Roman garrison from the city and sinking several Roman warships. Tarentum was now faced with a Roman attack and certain defeat, unless they could enlist the aid of greater powers. Rome had already made itself into a major power, and was poised to subdue all the Greek cities in Magna Graecia. The Tarentines asked Pyrrhus to lead their war against the Romans. Pyrrhus was encouraged to aid the Tarentines by the Oracle of Delphi. His goals were not, however, selfless. He recognized the possibility of carving out an empire for himself in Italy. He made an alliance with Ptolemy Ceraunus, King of Macedon and his most powerful neighbor, and arrived in Italy in 280 BC.
Pyrrhus entered Italy with an army consisting of 20,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry, 2,000 archers, 500 slingers, and 20 war elephants in a bid to subdue the Romans. The elephants had been loaned to him by Ptolemy II, who had also promised 9,000 soldiers and a further 50 elephants to defend Epirus while Pyrrhus and his army were away.
Due to his superior cavalry, his elephants and his deadly phalanx infantry, he defeated the Romans, led by Consul Publius Valerius Laevinus, in the Battle of Heraclea in 280 BC, in the Roman province of Lucania. There are conflicting sources about casualties. Hieronymus of Cardia reports the Romans lost about 7,000 while Pyrrhus lost 3,000 soldiers, including many of his best. Dionysius gives a bloodier view of 15,000 Roman dead and 13,000 Epirot. Several tribes, including the Lucani, Bruttii, Messapians, and the Greek cities of Croton and Locri, joined Pyrrhus. He then offered the Romans a peace treaty which was eventually rejected. Pyrrhus spent the winter in Campania.
When Pyrrhus invaded Apulia (279 BC), the two armies met in the Battle of Asculum, where Pyrrhus won a costly victory. The consul Publius Decius Mus was the Roman commander, and while his able force was ultimately defeated, they managed to almost break the back of Pyrrhus' Epirot army, which guaranteed the security of the city itself. In the end, the Romans had lost 6,000 men and Pyrrhus 3,500 including many officers. Pyrrhus later famously commented on his victory at Asculum, stating, "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined". It is from reports of this semi-legendary event that the term Pyrrhic victory originates.
Ruler of Sicily
In 278 BC, Pyrrhus received two offers simultaneously. The Greek cities in Sicily asked him to come and drive out Carthage, which along with Rome was one of the two great powers of the Western Mediterranean. At the same time, the Macedonians, whose King Ptolemy Keraunos had been killed by invading Gauls, asked Pyrrhus to ascend the throne of Macedon. Pyrrhus decided that Sicily offered him a greater opportunity, and transferred his army there.
Soon after landing in Sicily, he lifted the Carthaginian siege of Syracuse in the same year. Pyrrhus was proclaimed king of Sicily. He was already making plans for his son Helenus to inherit the kingdom of Sicily and his other son Alexander to be given Italy. In 277 BC, Pyrrhus captured Eryx, the strongest Carthaginian fortress in Sicily. This prompted the rest of the Carthaginian-controlled cities to defect to Pyrrhus.
In 276 BC, Pyrrhus negotiated with the Carthaginians. Although they were inclined to come to terms with Pyrrhus, supply him money and send him ships once friendly relations were established, he demanded that Carthage abandon all of Sicily and make the Libyan Sea a boundary between themselves and the Greeks. The Greek cities of Sicily opposed making peace with Carthage because the Carthaginians still controlled the powerful fortress of Lilybaeum, on the western end of the island. Pyrrhus eventually gave in to their proposals and broke off the peace negotiations. Pyrrhus' army then began besieging Lilybaeum. For two months he launched unsuccessful assaults on the city, until finally he realized he could not mount an effective siege without blockading it from the sea as well. Pyrrhus then requested manpower and money from the Sicilians in order to construct a powerful fleet. When the Sicilians became unhappy about these contributions he had to resort to compulsory contributions and force to keep them in line. These measures culminated in him proclaiming a military dictatorship of Sicily and installing military garrisons in Sicilian cities.
These actions were deeply unpopular and soon Sicilian opinion became inflamed against him. Pyrrhus had so alienated the Sicilian Greeks that they were willing to make common cause with the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians took heart from this and sent another army against him. This army was promptly defeated. In spite of this victory, Sicily continued to grow increasingly hostile to Pyrrhus, who began to consider abandoning Sicily. At this point, Samnite and Tarentine envoys reached Pyrrhus and informed him that of all the Greek cities in Italy, only Tarentum had not been conquered by Rome. Pyrrhus made his decision and departed from Sicily. As his ship left the island, he turned and, foreshadowing the Punic Wars, said to his companions: "What a wrestling ground we are leaving, my friends, for the Carthaginians and the Romans."
Last wars and death
Though his western campaign had taken a heavy toll on his army as well as his treasury, Pyrrhus went to war yet again. Attacking King Antigonus II Gonatas (r. 277–239 BC), he won an easy victory at the Battle of the Aous and seized the Macedonian throne.
In 272 BC, Cleonymus, a Spartan of royal blood who was hated among fellow Spartans, asked Pyrrhus to attack Sparta and place him in power. Pyrrhus agreed to the plan, intending to win control of the Peloponnese for himself, but unexpectedly strong resistance thwarted his assault on Sparta. On the retreat he lost his firstborn son Ptolemy, who had been in command of the rearguard.
Pyrrhus had little time to mourn, as he was immediately offered an opportunity to intervene in a civic dispute in Argos. Since Antigonus Gonatas was approaching too, he hastened to enter the city with his army by stealth, only to find the place crowded with hostile troops. During the confused battle in the narrow city streets, Pyrrhus was trapped. While he was fighting an Argive soldier, the soldier's old mother, who was watching from a rooftop, threw a tile which knocked him from his horse and broke part of his spine, paralyzing him. Whether he was alive or not after the blow is dubious, but his death was assured when a Macedonian soldier named Zopyrus, though frightened by the look on the face of the unconscious king, hesitantly and ineptly beheaded his motionless body.
Antigonus had him cremated with all honours and sent his surviving son Helenus back to Epirus. That same year, upon hearing the news of Pyrrhus's death, the Tarentinians surrendered to Rome.
Legacy
While he was a mercurial and often restless leader, and not always a wise king, he was considered one of the greatest military commanders of his time. In his Life of Pyrrhus, Plutarch records that Hannibal ranked him as the greatest commander the world had ever seen, though in the life of Titus Quinctius Flamininus, Plutarch writes that Hannibal placed him second after Alexander the Great. This latter account is also given by Appian.
Pyrrhus was also known to be very benevolent. As a general, Pyrrhus's greatest political weaknesses were his failures to maintain focus and to maintain a strong treasury at home (many of his soldiers were costly mercenaries).
His name is famous for the term "Pyrrhic victory" which refers to an exchange at the Battle of Asculum. In response to congratulations for winning a costly victory over the Romans, he is reported to have said: "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined".
Pyrrhus and his campaign in Italy was effectively the only chance for Greece to check the advance of Rome towards domination of the Mediterranean world. Rather than banding together, the various Hellenistic powers continued to quarrel among themselves, sapping the financial and military strength of Greece and to a lesser extent, Macedon and the greater Hellenistic world. By 197 BC, Macedonia and many southern Greek city-states became Roman client states; in 188 BC, the Seleucid Empire was forced to cede most of Asia Minor to Rome's ally Pergamon (Pergamum). Rome inherited that state, and most of Asia Minor in 133 BC. Total Roman domination over Greece proper was marked by the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC; Greece would then form an integral part of the Roman world leading into the Byzantine period.
Pyrrhus wrote memoirs and several books on the art of war. These have since been lost, although, according to Plutarch, Hannibal was influenced by them, and they received praise from Cicero.
Greece's best hope to stop the expansion of Rome. Fantastic general, though having read Plutarch numerous times, I've never quite been able to figure out why he couldn't take Sparta.
Pyrrhus (319/318–272 BC) was a Greek general and statesman of the Hellenistic period He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house (from c. 297 BC) and later he became king of Epirus (r. 306–302, 297–272 BC). He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome. Some of his battles, though successful, caused him heavy losses, from which the term Pyrrhic victory was coined. He is the subject of one of Plutarch's Parallel Lives.
Struggle with Rome
The Greek city of Tarentum, in southern Italy, fell out with Rome due to a violation of an old treaty that specified Rome was not to send warships into the Tarentine Gulf. In 282 BC, the Romans installed garrisons in the Greek cities of Thurii (on the western end of the Tarentine Gulf), Locri, and Rhegium, and sent warships to Thurii. Although this was designed as a measure against the Italian peoples of Lucania, the Tarentines grew nervous and attacked the Romans in Thurii, driving the Roman garrison from the city and sinking several Roman warships. Tarentum was now faced with a Roman attack and certain defeat, unless they could enlist the aid of greater powers. Rome had already made itself into a major power, and was poised to subdue all the Greek cities in Magna Graecia. The Tarentines asked Pyrrhus to lead their war against the Romans. Pyrrhus was encouraged to aid the Tarentines by the Oracle of Delphi. His goals were not, however, selfless. He recognized the possibility of carving out an empire for himself in Italy. He made an alliance with Ptolemy Ceraunus, King of Macedon and his most powerful neighbor, and arrived in Italy in 280 BC.
Pyrrhus entered Italy with an army consisting of 20,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry, 2,000 archers, 500 slingers, and 20 war elephants in a bid to subdue the Romans. The elephants had been loaned to him by Ptolemy II, who had also promised 9,000 soldiers and a further 50 elephants to defend Epirus while Pyrrhus and his army were away.
Due to his superior cavalry, his elephants and his deadly phalanx infantry, he defeated the Romans, led by Consul Publius Valerius Laevinus, in the Battle of Heraclea in 280 BC, in the Roman province of Lucania. There are conflicting sources about casualties. Hieronymus of Cardia reports the Romans lost about 7,000 while Pyrrhus lost 3,000 soldiers, including many of his best. Dionysius gives a bloodier view of 15,000 Roman dead and 13,000 Epirot. Several tribes, including the Lucani, Bruttii, Messapians, and the Greek cities of Croton and Locri, joined Pyrrhus. He then offered the Romans a peace treaty which was eventually rejected. Pyrrhus spent the winter in Campania.
When Pyrrhus invaded Apulia (279 BC), the two armies met in the Battle of Asculum, where Pyrrhus won a costly victory. The consul Publius Decius Mus was the Roman commander, and while his able force was ultimately defeated, they managed to almost break the back of Pyrrhus' Epirot army, which guaranteed the security of the city itself. In the end, the Romans had lost 6,000 men and Pyrrhus 3,500 including many officers. Pyrrhus later famously commented on his victory at Asculum, stating, "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined". It is from reports of this semi-legendary event that the term Pyrrhic victory originates.
Ruler of Sicily
In 278 BC, Pyrrhus received two offers simultaneously. The Greek cities in Sicily asked him to come and drive out Carthage, which along with Rome was one of the two great powers of the Western Mediterranean. At the same time, the Macedonians, whose King Ptolemy Keraunos had been killed by invading Gauls, asked Pyrrhus to ascend the throne of Macedon. Pyrrhus decided that Sicily offered him a greater opportunity, and transferred his army there.
Soon after landing in Sicily, he lifted the Carthaginian siege of Syracuse in the same year. Pyrrhus was proclaimed king of Sicily. He was already making plans for his son Helenus to inherit the kingdom of Sicily and his other son Alexander to be given Italy. In 277 BC, Pyrrhus captured Eryx, the strongest Carthaginian fortress in Sicily. This prompted the rest of the Carthaginian-controlled cities to defect to Pyrrhus.
In 276 BC, Pyrrhus negotiated with the Carthaginians. Although they were inclined to come to terms with Pyrrhus, supply him money and send him ships once friendly relations were established, he demanded that Carthage abandon all of Sicily and make the Libyan Sea a boundary between themselves and the Greeks. The Greek cities of Sicily opposed making peace with Carthage because the Carthaginians still controlled the powerful fortress of Lilybaeum, on the western end of the island. Pyrrhus eventually gave in to their proposals and broke off the peace negotiations. Pyrrhus' army then began besieging Lilybaeum. For two months he launched unsuccessful assaults on the city, until finally he realized he could not mount an effective siege without blockading it from the sea as well. Pyrrhus then requested manpower and money from the Sicilians in order to construct a powerful fleet. When the Sicilians became unhappy about these contributions he had to resort to compulsory contributions and force to keep them in line. These measures culminated in him proclaiming a military dictatorship of Sicily and installing military garrisons in Sicilian cities.
These actions were deeply unpopular and soon Sicilian opinion became inflamed against him. Pyrrhus had so alienated the Sicilian Greeks that they were willing to make common cause with the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians took heart from this and sent another army against him. This army was promptly defeated. In spite of this victory, Sicily continued to grow increasingly hostile to Pyrrhus, who began to consider abandoning Sicily. At this point, Samnite and Tarentine envoys reached Pyrrhus and informed him that of all the Greek cities in Italy, only Tarentum had not been conquered by Rome. Pyrrhus made his decision and departed from Sicily. As his ship left the island, he turned and, foreshadowing the Punic Wars, said to his companions: "What a wrestling ground we are leaving, my friends, for the Carthaginians and the Romans."
Last wars and death
Though his western campaign had taken a heavy toll on his army as well as his treasury, Pyrrhus went to war yet again. Attacking King Antigonus II Gonatas (r. 277–239 BC), he won an easy victory at the Battle of the Aous and seized the Macedonian throne.
In 272 BC, Cleonymus, a Spartan of royal blood who was hated among fellow Spartans, asked Pyrrhus to attack Sparta and place him in power. Pyrrhus agreed to the plan, intending to win control of the Peloponnese for himself, but unexpectedly strong resistance thwarted his assault on Sparta. On the retreat he lost his firstborn son Ptolemy, who had been in command of the rearguard.
Pyrrhus had little time to mourn, as he was immediately offered an opportunity to intervene in a civic dispute in Argos. Since Antigonus Gonatas was approaching too, he hastened to enter the city with his army by stealth, only to find the place crowded with hostile troops. During the confused battle in the narrow city streets, Pyrrhus was trapped. While he was fighting an Argive soldier, the soldier's old mother, who was watching from a rooftop, threw a tile which knocked him from his horse and broke part of his spine, paralyzing him. Whether he was alive or not after the blow is dubious, but his death was assured when a Macedonian soldier named Zopyrus, though frightened by the look on the face of the unconscious king, hesitantly and ineptly beheaded his motionless body.
Antigonus had him cremated with all honours and sent his surviving son Helenus back to Epirus. That same year, upon hearing the news of Pyrrhus's death, the Tarentinians surrendered to Rome.
Legacy
While he was a mercurial and often restless leader, and not always a wise king, he was considered one of the greatest military commanders of his time. In his Life of Pyrrhus, Plutarch records that Hannibal ranked him as the greatest commander the world had ever seen, though in the life of Titus Quinctius Flamininus, Plutarch writes that Hannibal placed him second after Alexander the Great. This latter account is also given by Appian.
Pyrrhus was also known to be very benevolent. As a general, Pyrrhus's greatest political weaknesses were his failures to maintain focus and to maintain a strong treasury at home (many of his soldiers were costly mercenaries).
His name is famous for the term "Pyrrhic victory" which refers to an exchange at the Battle of Asculum. In response to congratulations for winning a costly victory over the Romans, he is reported to have said: "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined".
Pyrrhus and his campaign in Italy was effectively the only chance for Greece to check the advance of Rome towards domination of the Mediterranean world. Rather than banding together, the various Hellenistic powers continued to quarrel among themselves, sapping the financial and military strength of Greece and to a lesser extent, Macedon and the greater Hellenistic world. By 197 BC, Macedonia and many southern Greek city-states became Roman client states; in 188 BC, the Seleucid Empire was forced to cede most of Asia Minor to Rome's ally Pergamon (Pergamum). Rome inherited that state, and most of Asia Minor in 133 BC. Total Roman domination over Greece proper was marked by the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC; Greece would then form an integral part of the Roman world leading into the Byzantine period.
Pyrrhus wrote memoirs and several books on the art of war. These have since been lost, although, according to Plutarch, Hannibal was influenced by them, and they received praise from Cicero.
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It's weird how these great general/poor king guys get killed by weird battlefield accidents - Richard I, Charles XII, and Pyrrhus. Karma or something, I suppose.
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The King of Greece was bitten by a monkey and died of sepsis. His death is the reason why Constantinople is Istanbul and why Turkey remains in Europe.
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Military Leader of the Day
Hopelessly outnumbered. Cut off from home. Desperately short of trained officers and men. No chance of resupply of all the materials necessary to wage modern war. But, he did have bees. Angry bees.
Most men would have provided token resistance and accepted an honorable peace. Not Lettow-Vorbeck. He was charged by the Kaiser to defend His Majesty's territory and defend it he did. Despite being cut-off from Germany and forced to wage a war from the jungles, von Lettow-Vorbeck routinely defeated Allied forces many times his number and tied down hundreds of thousands of British troops in a backwater front. Though Germany's armies were vanquished in France, at the time of the Armistice, Letter-Vorbeck's forces, comprised of Germans and a much greater number of native African Askari troops, were advancing into Allied territory as an unbeaten and proud force.
General Paul von Letter-Vorbeck
Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (20 March 1870 – 9 March 1964), nicknamed affectionately as the Lion of Africa (German: Löwe von Afrika), was a general in the Prussian Army and the commander of its forces in the German East Africacampaign. For four years, with a force that never exceeded about 14,000 (3,000 Germans and 11,000 Africans), he held in check a much larger force of 300,000 British, Belgian, and Portuguese troops. Essentially undefeated in the field, Lettow-Vorbeck was the only German commander to successfully invade imperial British soil during the First World War. His exploits in the campaign have been described by Edwin Palmer Hoyt "as the greatest single guerrilla operation in history, and the most successful."[1]
Early life
Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck was born into the Pomeranian minor nobility, while his father was stationed as an army officer at Saarlouis in the Prussian Rhine Province. He was educated in boarding schools in Berlin and joined the corps of cadets at Potsdam and Berlin-Lichterfelde. In 1890, he was commissioned a Leutnant into the Imperial German Army.
Military career
Captain von Lettow-Vorbeck, stationed in German South-West Africa in 1904
In 1900, Lettow-Vorbeck was posted to China as a member of the international alliance forces to quell the Boxer Rebellion. He did not like fighting against guerrillas and considered the war detrimental to the discipline of the German Army. He returned from China in 1901 and became a member of the German General Staff.
Beginning in 1904, he was assigned to German South-West Africa (now Namibia), during the Namaqua and Herero insurrection. He did not participate in the subsequent genocide: having suffered injuries to his left eye and chest, he was evacuated to South Africa for treatment and recovery.[2]
In 1907, Lettow-Vorbeck was promoted to Major and assigned to the staff of 11th Army Corps. From March 1909 to January 1913, he was commanding officer of the marines of II. Seebataillon ("2nd Sea Battalion") at Wilhelmshaven, Lower Saxony, German Empire. In October 1913, the Imperial German army promoted him to Lieutenant Colonel and appointed him to command the German colonial forces known as the Schutztruppe (protectorate force) in German Kamerun (today's Cameroon, plus a portion of present-day Nigeria). Before he could assume this command, however, his orders were changed and he was posted — with effect from 13 April 1914 — to German East Africa (Tanganyika, the mainland territory of present-day Tanzania).
While travelling to his new assignment, Lettow-Vorbeck formed what would prove to be a lifelong friendship with Danish author Karen Blixen (also known by her pen name of Isak Dinesen), who was travelling aboard the same liner. Decades later, she recalled, "He belonged to the olden days, and I have never met another German who has given me so strong an impression of what Imperial Germany was and stood for."[3]
First World War
Great War poster of Lettow-Vorbeck leading African soldiers. Above: "Colonial Warriors' Donation"; below a facsimile of Lettow-Vorbeck's signature
Lettow-Vorbeck's plan for the war was quite simple: knowing that East Africa would only be a sideshow to the other theatres of war, he determined to tie down as many British troops as he could. He intended to keep them away from the Western Front, and in this way to contribute to Germany's eventual victory.
In August 1914, during the early phases of the First World War, Lettow-Vorbeck was the commander of a small military garrison of just 2,600 German nationals and 2,472 African soldiers in fourteen Askari field companies.[4] Realising the need to seize the initiative, he disregarded orders from Berlin and the colony's Governor, Heinrich Schnee, who had attempted to achieve neutrality for German East Africa.[5] Lettow-Vorbeck simply ignored the Governor and prepared to repel a major British amphibious assault on the city of Tanga. The attack began on 2 November 1914, and for the next four days the German forces fought one of their greatest engagements, the Battle of Tanga. Lettow-Vorbeck then assembled his men and their scant supplies to attack the British railways in East Africa. He scored a second victory over the British at Jassin on 19 January 1915. These victories gave him badly needed modern rifles and other supplies, as well as a critical boost to the morale of his men.
However, Lettow-Vorbeck also lost many experienced men, including the "splendid Captain Tom von Prince", whom he could not easily replace.[6]
Schutztruppe Askari Company (1914)
Lettow-Vorbeck knew he could count on his highly motivated officers (their casualty rate was certainly proof of that).[7] Although casualties remained high, Lettow insisted his commanders engage British forces. Unfortunately, the British offered few enticing targets, and forced him to conduct raids into British East Africa (later Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia), targeting forts, railways, and communications, all with the goal of forcing the Entente to divert manpower from the main theater of war in Europe. He realized the critical needs of guerrilla warfare, in that he used everything available to him in matters of supply.
The Schutztruppe recruited new personnel and expanded to its eventual size of some 14,000 soldiers, most of them Askaris, and all well-trained and well-disciplined. Lettow-Vorbeck's fluency in the Swahili language earned the respect and admiration of his African soldiers; he appointed black officers and "said — and believed — [that] 'we are all Africans here'."[8] In one historian's estimation, "It is probable that no white commander of the era had so keen an appreciation of the African's worth not only as a fighting man but as a man."[9]
Battle of Tanga
By evening on 3 November, the invasion force was ashore with the exception of the 27th Mountain Battery and the Faridkot Sappers.[9] At noon on 4 November, Aitken ordered his troops to march on the city. Well concealed defenders quickly broke up their advance. The fighting then turned to jungle skirmishing by the southern contingent and bitter street-fighting by the harbor force. The Gurkhas of the Kashmiri Rifles and the 2nd Loyal North Lancashire Regiment of the harbour contingent made good progress; they entered the town, captured the customs house, and Hotel Deutscher Kaiser and ran up the Union Jack. But then the advance was stopped.[10] Less-well trained and equipped Indian battalions of the 27th (Bangalore) Brigade scattered and ran away from the battle. The 98th Infantry were attacked by swarms of angry bees and broke up. The bees attacked the Germans as well, hence the battle's nickname.[11] British propaganda transformed the bee interlude into a fiendish German plot, conjuring up hidden trip wires to agitate the hives.[12] The 13th Rajputs failed to play a significant role in the battle as their morale had been shaken when witnessing the retreat of the 63rd Palamcottah Light Infantry.
Dead Indian soldiers of the British force on the beach at Tanga
The colonial volunteers of the 7th and 8th Schützenkompanies [rifle companies] arrived by rail to stiffen the pressed Askari lines. The normally mounted 8th Schützenkompanie had left their horses at Neu Moshi. By late afternoon on 4 November, Lettow-Vorbeck ordered his last reserves, the 13th and 4th Askari Feldkompanie (field companies) – the 4th had just reached Tanga by train), to envelop the British flank and rear by launching bayonet attacks along the entire front to “bugle calls and piercing tribal war cries.” At least three battalions of the Imperial Service Brigade would have been wiped out to a man, if they had not taken to their heels. All semblance of order vanished as Force B's retirement “degenerated into total rout.”[13]
Still outnumbered eight to one, caution overtook some of the German officers. Through a series of errors by the buglers and misunderstandings by an officer to disengage and consolidate, Askari withdrew to a camp several miles west of Tanga. As soon as Lettow-Vorbeck learned of this, he countermanded the move and ordered a redeployment that was not completed until early morning. “For nearly all of the night [before sunrise 5 November], Tanga was Aitken's for the taking. It was the most stupendous irony of the battle.”[14]
Hopelessly outnumbered. Cut off from home. Desperately short of trained officers and men. No chance of resupply of all the materials necessary to wage modern war. But, he did have bees. Angry bees.
Most men would have provided token resistance and accepted an honorable peace. Not Lettow-Vorbeck. He was charged by the Kaiser to defend His Majesty's territory and defend it he did. Despite being cut-off from Germany and forced to wage a war from the jungles, von Lettow-Vorbeck routinely defeated Allied forces many times his number and tied down hundreds of thousands of British troops in a backwater front. Though Germany's armies were vanquished in France, at the time of the Armistice, Letter-Vorbeck's forces, comprised of Germans and a much greater number of native African Askari troops, were advancing into Allied territory as an unbeaten and proud force.
General Paul von Letter-Vorbeck
Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (20 March 1870 – 9 March 1964), nicknamed affectionately as the Lion of Africa (German: Löwe von Afrika), was a general in the Prussian Army and the commander of its forces in the German East Africacampaign. For four years, with a force that never exceeded about 14,000 (3,000 Germans and 11,000 Africans), he held in check a much larger force of 300,000 British, Belgian, and Portuguese troops. Essentially undefeated in the field, Lettow-Vorbeck was the only German commander to successfully invade imperial British soil during the First World War. His exploits in the campaign have been described by Edwin Palmer Hoyt "as the greatest single guerrilla operation in history, and the most successful."[1]
Early life
Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck was born into the Pomeranian minor nobility, while his father was stationed as an army officer at Saarlouis in the Prussian Rhine Province. He was educated in boarding schools in Berlin and joined the corps of cadets at Potsdam and Berlin-Lichterfelde. In 1890, he was commissioned a Leutnant into the Imperial German Army.
Military career
Captain von Lettow-Vorbeck, stationed in German South-West Africa in 1904
In 1900, Lettow-Vorbeck was posted to China as a member of the international alliance forces to quell the Boxer Rebellion. He did not like fighting against guerrillas and considered the war detrimental to the discipline of the German Army. He returned from China in 1901 and became a member of the German General Staff.
Beginning in 1904, he was assigned to German South-West Africa (now Namibia), during the Namaqua and Herero insurrection. He did not participate in the subsequent genocide: having suffered injuries to his left eye and chest, he was evacuated to South Africa for treatment and recovery.[2]
In 1907, Lettow-Vorbeck was promoted to Major and assigned to the staff of 11th Army Corps. From March 1909 to January 1913, he was commanding officer of the marines of II. Seebataillon ("2nd Sea Battalion") at Wilhelmshaven, Lower Saxony, German Empire. In October 1913, the Imperial German army promoted him to Lieutenant Colonel and appointed him to command the German colonial forces known as the Schutztruppe (protectorate force) in German Kamerun (today's Cameroon, plus a portion of present-day Nigeria). Before he could assume this command, however, his orders were changed and he was posted — with effect from 13 April 1914 — to German East Africa (Tanganyika, the mainland territory of present-day Tanzania).
While travelling to his new assignment, Lettow-Vorbeck formed what would prove to be a lifelong friendship with Danish author Karen Blixen (also known by her pen name of Isak Dinesen), who was travelling aboard the same liner. Decades later, she recalled, "He belonged to the olden days, and I have never met another German who has given me so strong an impression of what Imperial Germany was and stood for."[3]
First World War
Great War poster of Lettow-Vorbeck leading African soldiers. Above: "Colonial Warriors' Donation"; below a facsimile of Lettow-Vorbeck's signature
Lettow-Vorbeck's plan for the war was quite simple: knowing that East Africa would only be a sideshow to the other theatres of war, he determined to tie down as many British troops as he could. He intended to keep them away from the Western Front, and in this way to contribute to Germany's eventual victory.
In August 1914, during the early phases of the First World War, Lettow-Vorbeck was the commander of a small military garrison of just 2,600 German nationals and 2,472 African soldiers in fourteen Askari field companies.[4] Realising the need to seize the initiative, he disregarded orders from Berlin and the colony's Governor, Heinrich Schnee, who had attempted to achieve neutrality for German East Africa.[5] Lettow-Vorbeck simply ignored the Governor and prepared to repel a major British amphibious assault on the city of Tanga. The attack began on 2 November 1914, and for the next four days the German forces fought one of their greatest engagements, the Battle of Tanga. Lettow-Vorbeck then assembled his men and their scant supplies to attack the British railways in East Africa. He scored a second victory over the British at Jassin on 19 January 1915. These victories gave him badly needed modern rifles and other supplies, as well as a critical boost to the morale of his men.
However, Lettow-Vorbeck also lost many experienced men, including the "splendid Captain Tom von Prince", whom he could not easily replace.[6]
Schutztruppe Askari Company (1914)
Lettow-Vorbeck knew he could count on his highly motivated officers (their casualty rate was certainly proof of that).[7] Although casualties remained high, Lettow insisted his commanders engage British forces. Unfortunately, the British offered few enticing targets, and forced him to conduct raids into British East Africa (later Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia), targeting forts, railways, and communications, all with the goal of forcing the Entente to divert manpower from the main theater of war in Europe. He realized the critical needs of guerrilla warfare, in that he used everything available to him in matters of supply.
The Schutztruppe recruited new personnel and expanded to its eventual size of some 14,000 soldiers, most of them Askaris, and all well-trained and well-disciplined. Lettow-Vorbeck's fluency in the Swahili language earned the respect and admiration of his African soldiers; he appointed black officers and "said — and believed — [that] 'we are all Africans here'."[8] In one historian's estimation, "It is probable that no white commander of the era had so keen an appreciation of the African's worth not only as a fighting man but as a man."[9]
Battle of Tanga
By evening on 3 November, the invasion force was ashore with the exception of the 27th Mountain Battery and the Faridkot Sappers.[9] At noon on 4 November, Aitken ordered his troops to march on the city. Well concealed defenders quickly broke up their advance. The fighting then turned to jungle skirmishing by the southern contingent and bitter street-fighting by the harbor force. The Gurkhas of the Kashmiri Rifles and the 2nd Loyal North Lancashire Regiment of the harbour contingent made good progress; they entered the town, captured the customs house, and Hotel Deutscher Kaiser and ran up the Union Jack. But then the advance was stopped.[10] Less-well trained and equipped Indian battalions of the 27th (Bangalore) Brigade scattered and ran away from the battle. The 98th Infantry were attacked by swarms of angry bees and broke up. The bees attacked the Germans as well, hence the battle's nickname.[11] British propaganda transformed the bee interlude into a fiendish German plot, conjuring up hidden trip wires to agitate the hives.[12] The 13th Rajputs failed to play a significant role in the battle as their morale had been shaken when witnessing the retreat of the 63rd Palamcottah Light Infantry.
Dead Indian soldiers of the British force on the beach at Tanga
The colonial volunteers of the 7th and 8th Schützenkompanies [rifle companies] arrived by rail to stiffen the pressed Askari lines. The normally mounted 8th Schützenkompanie had left their horses at Neu Moshi. By late afternoon on 4 November, Lettow-Vorbeck ordered his last reserves, the 13th and 4th Askari Feldkompanie (field companies) – the 4th had just reached Tanga by train), to envelop the British flank and rear by launching bayonet attacks along the entire front to “bugle calls and piercing tribal war cries.” At least three battalions of the Imperial Service Brigade would have been wiped out to a man, if they had not taken to their heels. All semblance of order vanished as Force B's retirement “degenerated into total rout.”[13]
Still outnumbered eight to one, caution overtook some of the German officers. Through a series of errors by the buglers and misunderstandings by an officer to disengage and consolidate, Askari withdrew to a camp several miles west of Tanga. As soon as Lettow-Vorbeck learned of this, he countermanded the move and ordered a redeployment that was not completed until early morning. “For nearly all of the night [before sunrise 5 November], Tanga was Aitken's for the taking. It was the most stupendous irony of the battle.”[14]
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After Tanga and Slow Withdrawal
In March, 1916, the British under General J. C. Smuts launched a formidable offensive with 45,000 men and the Belgians under General Charles Tombeur near Tabora. Lettow-Vorbeck patiently used climate and terrain as his allies, while his troops fought the British on his terms and to his advantage. The British, however, kept adding more troops and forcing Lettow-Vorbeck to yield territory. Nevertheless, he fought on, including a pivotal battle at Mahiwa in October 1917, where he lost 519 men killed, wounded, or missing and the British, 2,700.[10] After the news of the battle reached Germany, he was promoted to Major-General (Generalmajor).[11] The British would recover their losses and continue to hold an overwhelming advantage in numbers of men. For the Schutztruppe, this was serious: there were no reserves to fill the ranks again.
Lettow-Vorbeck now began a forced withdrawal to the south, with his troops on half rations and the British in pursuit. On 25 November 1917, his advance column waded across the River Rovuma into Portuguese Mozambique.[12] In essence, Lettow-Vorbeck cut his own supply lines, and the Schutztruppecaravan became a nomadic tribe. On its first day across the river, it attacked the newly replenished Portuguese garrison of Ngomano and solved all its supply problems for the foreseeable future.[13] When it captured a river steamer with a load of medical supplies, including quinine, at least some of its medical problems were no more.
On 28 September 1918, Lettow-Vorbeck again crossed the Rovuma River and returned to German East Africa with the British still in pursuit. He then turned west and raided Northern Rhodesia, thus evading a trap the British had prepared for him in German East Africa. On 13 November 1918, two days after the armistice, he took the town of Kasama, which the British had evacuated,[16] and continued heading south-west towards Katanga. When he reached the Chambeshi River on the morning of 14 November, the British magistrate Hector Croad appeared under a white flag and delivered a message from the allied General Jacob van Deventer, informing him of the armistice.[17] Lettow-Vorbeck agreed to a cease-fire at the spot now marked by the Chambeshi Monument in present-day Zambia. He was instructed by the British to march north to Abercorn (now Mbala) to surrender his undefeated army, which he did, arriving there on 25 November.[17][18] His remaining men then consisted of just thirty German officers, 125 German non-commissioned officers and other enlisted ranks, 1,168 Askaris, and some 3,500 porters.[19]
East African War and the Population
General von Lettow-Vorbeck and colonial Governor Heinrich Schnee
The British and Belgian invasions of German East Africa set off a chain of events with devastating ramifications for the natives and their German overlords. The invasions caused interruptions throughout the colony, so that the land no longer "basked in a climate of plenty."[20]
Scarcely any aid from Germany could penetrate the British naval blockade to alleviate the enormous supply deficiencies, and only two ships running the blockade succeeded in reaching the colony. On 14 April 1915, the freighter Kronborg arrived off Tanga at Manza Bay after a two months' journey from Wilhelmshaven and was promptly attacked by the British cruiser HMS Hyacinth. Fortunately for the Germans, Kronborg had been scuttled by her captain to avoid a coal fire after repeated hits by the British cruiser, and the ship settled in shallow water; nearly her entire cargo could be salvaged.[23] But when the steamer Marie von Stettin arrived south of Lindi on 17 March 1916,[24] its cargo of 1,500 tons was of only very modest help.[25] An attempt in November 1917 to resupply German forces by Zeppelin airship failed. By late September 1916, all of coastal German East Africa, including Dar es Salaam and the Central Railway, was under British control, with the west of the colony occupied by Belgian forces.[26] Then, in December 1917, the German colony was officially declared an Allied protectorate.[27]
Lettow-Vorbeck and his caravan of Europeans, Askaris, porters, women, and children marched on, deliberately bypassing the tribal home lands of the native soldiers in an effort to forestall desertions. They traversed difficult territory: "swamps and jungles . . . what a dismal prospect there is in front of me", stated the Allied commander, General J. C. Smuts. But Smuts did not flinch. His new approach and objective was not to fight the Schutztruppe at all, but to go after their food supply.[28] The end eventually came, with Smuts in London and Gen. J. L. van Deventer in command in East Africa.
Post-War Career
Lettow-Vorbeck at a parade in Berlin in 1919
Lettow-Vorbeck returned home to Germany in early March 1919 to a hero's welcome. On a black charger he led 120 officers of the Schutztruppe in their tattered tropical uniforms on a victory parade through the Brandenburg Gate, which was decorated in their honour.[36] Though he ultimately surrendered as ordered, he had frequently won against great odds and was the only German commander to invade British territory successfully during the First World War.[37]
Lettow-Vorbeck was greatly respected by his white officers, non-commissioned officers and Askaris, and even Allied forces.[32] In the field when rations had to be reduced and supplies dwindled,
"it was a measure of the Askaris' loyalty to their commander that they accepted the cuts and did not desert en masse. Some did desert, of course … [as did British, Belgian and Portuguese native troops]. But the German Askaris were by far the most loyal as well as the most effective, and it all went back to… Lettow-Vorbeck's brand of discipline, which bound him and his German officers as much as his black soldiers".[38]
Michael von Herff[who?] says the loyalty of Askaris during the campaign had little to do with Von Lettow's character or his 'brand of discipline', but we due to them having formed a military caste within the colonial structure, who had largely separated themselves from tribal roots.[39]
After his return from Africa, Lettow-Vorbeck married Martha Wallroth (1884–1953) in 1919; they had two sons – Rüdiger (1921–1940) and Arnd (1922–1941) – and two daughters – Heloise (1923) and Ursula (1927). Many people tried to get him involved in the chaotic politics of the Weimar Republic. He remained in the Army. Only fourteen months after his return to Germany, Lettow-Vorbeck commanded the troops that ended (without any use of force) the Spartacist uprising in Hamburg.[41] In the confusion following the Kapp Putsch at about the same time, Lettow-Vorbeck lost his commission in the army in the summer of 1920.[42][43] He then worked in Bremen as an import-export manager.
Lettow-Vorbeck (right) as a guest of General Günther von Kluge during army maneuvers in 1935
In June 1926, Lettow-Vorbeck met Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen in Bremen, the British Intelligence officer with whom he had fought a battle of wits until Meinertzhagen was invalided back to England in December 1916 (he was later posted to Palestine).[44] Three years later, Lettow-Vorbeck accepted an invitation to London, where he met face-to-face for the first time J. C. Smuts;[45] the two men formed a lasting friendship. When Smuts died in 1950, Lettow-Vorbeck sent his widow a moving letter of sympathy.[46]
Between May 1928 and July 1930, the former General served as a Reichstag deputy for the monarchist German National People's Party. He intensely "distrusted Hitler and his movement,"[46] and approached his relative Hans-Jürgen von Blumenthal with an idea to form a coalition with the Stahlhelm against the Nazis. After his blunt refusal, Lettow "was kept under continual surveillance" and his home office was searched.[41] The only rehabilitation due to his legendary status among the German people came in 1938, when at the age of 68 he was promoted to the rank of General for Special Purposes, but he was never recalled to active service.
By the end of the Second World War in 1945, Lettow-Vorbeck was destitute. His two sons, Rüdiger and Arnd, had both been killed in action serving in the Wehrmacht. His house in Bremen had been destroyed by Allied bombs, and he depended for a time on food packages from his friends Meinertzhagen and Smuts. However, with the German economic miracle, he began to enjoy comfortable circumstances again.[41] In 1953, he visited his former home, East Africa, where he was heartily welcomed by surviving Askaris, who greeted him with their old marching song Heia Safari![48] and was also received with military honours by British colonial officials.[49]
In 1964, eleven days before his 94th birthday, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck died in Hamburg. The West German government and the Bundeswehr flew in two former Askaris as state guests, so that they could attend the funeral of their general.[50] Several officers of the Bundeswehr were assigned as an honour guard, and West Germany's Minister of Defence, Kai-Uwe von Hassel, gave the eulogy, saying that the deceased, "was truly undefeated in the field". Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was buried in Pronstorf, Schleswig-Holstein, in the graveyard of Vicelin Church.
Legacy
In the year of Lettow-Vorbeck's death, 1964, the West German Bundestag voted to give back-dated pay to all surviving Askaris from the German forces of the First World War. A temporary cashier's office was set up in Mwanza on Lake Victoria. Of the 350 old soldiers who gathered, only a handful could produce the certificates that Lettow-Vorbeck had given them in 1918. Others presented pieces of their old uniforms as proof of service. The German banker who had brought the money had an idea: asked each claimant to step forward, was handed a broom and ordered in German to perform the manual of arms.[46] Not one man failed the test.[51]
Four barracks of the Federal German Army, or Bundeswehr, were once named in his honour. They were situated at Leer, Hamburg-Jenfeld, Bremen, and Bad Segeberg. Following the recent closure of 178 military installations, the only one remaining is the Lettow-Vorbeck-Kaserne in Leer, East Frisia. The former Hamburg-Jenfeld barracks houses the "Tanzania Park", a group of large terracotta relief sculptures of Lettow-Vorbeck and his Askari soldiers, now closed to the public.[52] Another sculpture of Lettow-Vorbeck and the Askaris is on display at Mühlenteich, near the Bismarck memorial at Friedrichsruh.[53]
In the spring of 2010, the City Council of Saarlouis renamed Von Lettow-Vorbeck-Straße, mainly for Lettow-Vorbeck's involvement in the 1920 Kapp Putsch.[54] In Hanover, "Lettow-Vorbeck Straße" was renamed "Namibia Straße". In Wuppertal, Bremen, Cuxhaven, Mönchengladbach, Halle, Radolfzell and Graz, Austria there are still streets named after General von Lettow-Vorbeck, while in Radolfzell a procedure for renaming the road is nearing completion.[55]
The dryosaurid species Dysalotosaurus lettowvorbecki was named after Lettow-Vorbeck.
In March, 1916, the British under General J. C. Smuts launched a formidable offensive with 45,000 men and the Belgians under General Charles Tombeur near Tabora. Lettow-Vorbeck patiently used climate and terrain as his allies, while his troops fought the British on his terms and to his advantage. The British, however, kept adding more troops and forcing Lettow-Vorbeck to yield territory. Nevertheless, he fought on, including a pivotal battle at Mahiwa in October 1917, where he lost 519 men killed, wounded, or missing and the British, 2,700.[10] After the news of the battle reached Germany, he was promoted to Major-General (Generalmajor).[11] The British would recover their losses and continue to hold an overwhelming advantage in numbers of men. For the Schutztruppe, this was serious: there were no reserves to fill the ranks again.
Lettow-Vorbeck now began a forced withdrawal to the south, with his troops on half rations and the British in pursuit. On 25 November 1917, his advance column waded across the River Rovuma into Portuguese Mozambique.[12] In essence, Lettow-Vorbeck cut his own supply lines, and the Schutztruppecaravan became a nomadic tribe. On its first day across the river, it attacked the newly replenished Portuguese garrison of Ngomano and solved all its supply problems for the foreseeable future.[13] When it captured a river steamer with a load of medical supplies, including quinine, at least some of its medical problems were no more.
On 28 September 1918, Lettow-Vorbeck again crossed the Rovuma River and returned to German East Africa with the British still in pursuit. He then turned west and raided Northern Rhodesia, thus evading a trap the British had prepared for him in German East Africa. On 13 November 1918, two days after the armistice, he took the town of Kasama, which the British had evacuated,[16] and continued heading south-west towards Katanga. When he reached the Chambeshi River on the morning of 14 November, the British magistrate Hector Croad appeared under a white flag and delivered a message from the allied General Jacob van Deventer, informing him of the armistice.[17] Lettow-Vorbeck agreed to a cease-fire at the spot now marked by the Chambeshi Monument in present-day Zambia. He was instructed by the British to march north to Abercorn (now Mbala) to surrender his undefeated army, which he did, arriving there on 25 November.[17][18] His remaining men then consisted of just thirty German officers, 125 German non-commissioned officers and other enlisted ranks, 1,168 Askaris, and some 3,500 porters.[19]
East African War and the Population
General von Lettow-Vorbeck and colonial Governor Heinrich Schnee
The British and Belgian invasions of German East Africa set off a chain of events with devastating ramifications for the natives and their German overlords. The invasions caused interruptions throughout the colony, so that the land no longer "basked in a climate of plenty."[20]
Scarcely any aid from Germany could penetrate the British naval blockade to alleviate the enormous supply deficiencies, and only two ships running the blockade succeeded in reaching the colony. On 14 April 1915, the freighter Kronborg arrived off Tanga at Manza Bay after a two months' journey from Wilhelmshaven and was promptly attacked by the British cruiser HMS Hyacinth. Fortunately for the Germans, Kronborg had been scuttled by her captain to avoid a coal fire after repeated hits by the British cruiser, and the ship settled in shallow water; nearly her entire cargo could be salvaged.[23] But when the steamer Marie von Stettin arrived south of Lindi on 17 March 1916,[24] its cargo of 1,500 tons was of only very modest help.[25] An attempt in November 1917 to resupply German forces by Zeppelin airship failed. By late September 1916, all of coastal German East Africa, including Dar es Salaam and the Central Railway, was under British control, with the west of the colony occupied by Belgian forces.[26] Then, in December 1917, the German colony was officially declared an Allied protectorate.[27]
Lettow-Vorbeck and his caravan of Europeans, Askaris, porters, women, and children marched on, deliberately bypassing the tribal home lands of the native soldiers in an effort to forestall desertions. They traversed difficult territory: "swamps and jungles . . . what a dismal prospect there is in front of me", stated the Allied commander, General J. C. Smuts. But Smuts did not flinch. His new approach and objective was not to fight the Schutztruppe at all, but to go after their food supply.[28] The end eventually came, with Smuts in London and Gen. J. L. van Deventer in command in East Africa.
Post-War Career
Lettow-Vorbeck at a parade in Berlin in 1919
Lettow-Vorbeck returned home to Germany in early March 1919 to a hero's welcome. On a black charger he led 120 officers of the Schutztruppe in their tattered tropical uniforms on a victory parade through the Brandenburg Gate, which was decorated in their honour.[36] Though he ultimately surrendered as ordered, he had frequently won against great odds and was the only German commander to invade British territory successfully during the First World War.[37]
Lettow-Vorbeck was greatly respected by his white officers, non-commissioned officers and Askaris, and even Allied forces.[32] In the field when rations had to be reduced and supplies dwindled,
"it was a measure of the Askaris' loyalty to their commander that they accepted the cuts and did not desert en masse. Some did desert, of course … [as did British, Belgian and Portuguese native troops]. But the German Askaris were by far the most loyal as well as the most effective, and it all went back to… Lettow-Vorbeck's brand of discipline, which bound him and his German officers as much as his black soldiers".[38]
Michael von Herff[who?] says the loyalty of Askaris during the campaign had little to do with Von Lettow's character or his 'brand of discipline', but we due to them having formed a military caste within the colonial structure, who had largely separated themselves from tribal roots.[39]
After his return from Africa, Lettow-Vorbeck married Martha Wallroth (1884–1953) in 1919; they had two sons – Rüdiger (1921–1940) and Arnd (1922–1941) – and two daughters – Heloise (1923) and Ursula (1927). Many people tried to get him involved in the chaotic politics of the Weimar Republic. He remained in the Army. Only fourteen months after his return to Germany, Lettow-Vorbeck commanded the troops that ended (without any use of force) the Spartacist uprising in Hamburg.[41] In the confusion following the Kapp Putsch at about the same time, Lettow-Vorbeck lost his commission in the army in the summer of 1920.[42][43] He then worked in Bremen as an import-export manager.
Lettow-Vorbeck (right) as a guest of General Günther von Kluge during army maneuvers in 1935
In June 1926, Lettow-Vorbeck met Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen in Bremen, the British Intelligence officer with whom he had fought a battle of wits until Meinertzhagen was invalided back to England in December 1916 (he was later posted to Palestine).[44] Three years later, Lettow-Vorbeck accepted an invitation to London, where he met face-to-face for the first time J. C. Smuts;[45] the two men formed a lasting friendship. When Smuts died in 1950, Lettow-Vorbeck sent his widow a moving letter of sympathy.[46]
Between May 1928 and July 1930, the former General served as a Reichstag deputy for the monarchist German National People's Party. He intensely "distrusted Hitler and his movement,"[46] and approached his relative Hans-Jürgen von Blumenthal with an idea to form a coalition with the Stahlhelm against the Nazis. After his blunt refusal, Lettow "was kept under continual surveillance" and his home office was searched.[41] The only rehabilitation due to his legendary status among the German people came in 1938, when at the age of 68 he was promoted to the rank of General for Special Purposes, but he was never recalled to active service.
By the end of the Second World War in 1945, Lettow-Vorbeck was destitute. His two sons, Rüdiger and Arnd, had both been killed in action serving in the Wehrmacht. His house in Bremen had been destroyed by Allied bombs, and he depended for a time on food packages from his friends Meinertzhagen and Smuts. However, with the German economic miracle, he began to enjoy comfortable circumstances again.[41] In 1953, he visited his former home, East Africa, where he was heartily welcomed by surviving Askaris, who greeted him with their old marching song Heia Safari![48] and was also received with military honours by British colonial officials.[49]
In 1964, eleven days before his 94th birthday, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck died in Hamburg. The West German government and the Bundeswehr flew in two former Askaris as state guests, so that they could attend the funeral of their general.[50] Several officers of the Bundeswehr were assigned as an honour guard, and West Germany's Minister of Defence, Kai-Uwe von Hassel, gave the eulogy, saying that the deceased, "was truly undefeated in the field". Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was buried in Pronstorf, Schleswig-Holstein, in the graveyard of Vicelin Church.
Legacy
In the year of Lettow-Vorbeck's death, 1964, the West German Bundestag voted to give back-dated pay to all surviving Askaris from the German forces of the First World War. A temporary cashier's office was set up in Mwanza on Lake Victoria. Of the 350 old soldiers who gathered, only a handful could produce the certificates that Lettow-Vorbeck had given them in 1918. Others presented pieces of their old uniforms as proof of service. The German banker who had brought the money had an idea: asked each claimant to step forward, was handed a broom and ordered in German to perform the manual of arms.[46] Not one man failed the test.[51]
Four barracks of the Federal German Army, or Bundeswehr, were once named in his honour. They were situated at Leer, Hamburg-Jenfeld, Bremen, and Bad Segeberg. Following the recent closure of 178 military installations, the only one remaining is the Lettow-Vorbeck-Kaserne in Leer, East Frisia. The former Hamburg-Jenfeld barracks houses the "Tanzania Park", a group of large terracotta relief sculptures of Lettow-Vorbeck and his Askari soldiers, now closed to the public.[52] Another sculpture of Lettow-Vorbeck and the Askaris is on display at Mühlenteich, near the Bismarck memorial at Friedrichsruh.[53]
In the spring of 2010, the City Council of Saarlouis renamed Von Lettow-Vorbeck-Straße, mainly for Lettow-Vorbeck's involvement in the 1920 Kapp Putsch.[54] In Hanover, "Lettow-Vorbeck Straße" was renamed "Namibia Straße". In Wuppertal, Bremen, Cuxhaven, Mönchengladbach, Halle, Radolfzell and Graz, Austria there are still streets named after General von Lettow-Vorbeck, while in Radolfzell a procedure for renaming the road is nearing completion.[55]
The dryosaurid species Dysalotosaurus lettowvorbecki was named after Lettow-Vorbeck.
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Should have used a bigger cliff.
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