The African Guerrilla

     The character of leaders varies on the culture, period, and circumstance, but the greatest variable and determinant is the personal traits of the individual. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck is a remarkable figure as a leader in World War I while the rest of his life and further exploits have been criticized and his name removed from honorific tributes from street names to statues. Despite public backlash for personal affairs post mortem, the men who served under him on his World War I campaign, especially his Africans, flew from thousands of miles away to attend his funeral.
    Growing up in a Prussian military family, Lettow-Vorbeck began his career early and had experience in China and Africa before the War to End All Wars. Injured in the German West African (Namibia) uprisings in 1904, he gained fighting experience in the African jungles as well as knowledge of the effectiveness of guerrilla warfare against a larger, better equipped enemy. In 1914, just prior to the outbreak of war, Paull von Lettow-Vorbeck gained command of German East Africa (Tanzania). Ignoring a direct command not to mobilize for war, he organized his 250 Germans over the 2,500 native African Askari.
     The first true test of Vorbeck's ability to command outnumbered troops without hope of support or provision came when a British flotilla attacked Tanga with a force that outnumbered the defenders eight to one. Strategically retreating into the jungle and splitting the army into small fighting bands, the Germans successfully confused the enemy and forced their retreat. In all, the Britsh-Indian force suffered about 4,000 casualties to the defenders's fifteen Germans and the fifty-four Askaris. Thus began a four-year resistance by the only remaining German colonial force in Africa.
     Von Lettow-Vorbeck's strategy was simple. Since the German forces would not be able to defeat the huge British forces on the continent, the Germans would deny the British a victory of their own. This guerrilla process tied up nearly 100,000 Allied troops in a side-theater colonial war against fewer than 10,000 German troops without support of any kind. Continuing from his victory at Tanga, Lettow-Vorbeck split his forces and attacked British, Belgian, and Portuguese outposts and railways throughout East Africa including Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

     With no supplies reaching the Germans except those scavenged from the countryside and stolen in raids, by 1917 the Allied forces pinned Lettow-Vorbeck's forces down in an area that forced a battle while being outnumbered more than three to one. The Battle of Mahiwa was the first and only major confrontation the Germans and Askaris had against the Allied forces, but even pitched battle proved disasterous for the assailants. After careful scouting, Lettow-Vorbeck's 1,500 troops fought off a direct assault by 5,000 men then outflanked them and bayonet charged against machine gunners. In this battle, the Allies accumulated 3,000 casualties while the Germans suffered only 519.
     In September 1918 one of Lettow-Vorbeck's threen main armies was captured, but the German commander fought on for another two months. When word of the November 11 Armistice reached General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck by a British POW, the chivalrous leader dutifully surrendered to the surprised and relieved British. After four years of constant fighting without any support, relief, or resupply from his nation, Lettow-Vorbeck's German force never lost a battle and single-handedly made British exploits in Africa throughout the war shameful. His British captors allowed the Germans to go free but held the Askari soldiers in abysmal camps. Lettow-Vorbeck refused to return to Germany until his black soldiers were also released. Historians have credited much of his success throughout the war on Lettow-Vorbeck's treatment of his African soldiers. Promoting several natives to officer positions for performance, his reliance on native troops kept his army fitter than the European Allied forces and allowed the German force to exploit knowledge of the terrain and resources. Lettow-Vorbeck's skill, courage, tenacity, and honor earned him the respect of his British opponent, Jan Smuts.
     His return to Germany after the war saw huge support from the populace as they welcomed home an undefeated general in a lost war. Though Lettow-Vorbeck dabbled in politics, with the rise of Hitler's Nazi's he declined any position of power with verbal insults, only avoiding being executed because of his extreme popularity. Throughout World War II, he was kept until surveillance, but no action was taken against him.
     Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck returned to East Africa in 1953 where he was greeted by a group of his Askari veterans singing his regiment song and cheering. For his funeral in 1964, several of those same warriors were able to fly into Germany.
    An outstandingly persistent  man from Germany stood his ground on colonized soil in defiance of the massive enemy that threatened his nationalistic fervor. Never losing a battle, and surrendering undefeated, this German forced the Allies to commit huge numbers of troops to put down one of the most successful guerrilla rebellions in history. Though Lettow-Vorbeck's lost 2,000 men over the four years of the war, the Allies lost over 10,000 men, mostly due to the horrible arboviruses of the jungles of Africa. By using natives, the Germans suffered minorly compared to the Allies who suffered thirty casualties through sickness for every man in battle.
     In a war remembered for the inability of high command to learn the effects and techniques of modern war, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck stands high, undefeated, and as one of the most successful, adaptable generals of the twentieth century.


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Agatha Tyche