A Good Read

At the outbreak of WWI, one strategy of the allies was to isolate and control German East Africa. Germany had had the foresight to place some armed boats on Lake Tanganyika, which effectively controlled all transportation in East Africa. The very peculiar British naval officer Geoffrey Spicer-Simpson was directed to take Mimi and Toutou, two forty-foot gunboats, overland from South Africa to the lake and defeat a fleet of German steamers. Spicer-Simpson went into battle wearing a skirt, was worshipped as a god by the Holo Holo tribe, entirely alienated his subordinates, and more or less succeeded in reducing the German naval presence through a combination of effective military action and slapstick. The events that transpired were eventually transmogrified into The African Queen (first the book by C.S. Forester, then the movie), though being significantly changed in the process. Highly entertaining analysis of a mostly forgotten episode in the Great War. Foden's mix of colorful characters, hubris, pluck, and idiocy is well worth reading.