Part 25
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German colony of Tanganyika (now Tanzania) was bitterly divided. The colony’s Governor Schnee held the opinion that, as a tiny country surrounded by British possessions, there was no hope of resistance and that they should declare themselves neutral for the duration of the war. However, the commander of the small German garrison, Colonel von Lettow Forbeck, was intensely loyal to Kaiser Wilhelm II and felt that not opposing the enemy was unthinkable, no matter how futile their resistance would be.
The Colonel won the day. With a paltry 3,000 German troops and 15,000 Askaris (African troops), he defied the might of the British army which ultimately consisted of a quarter of a million troops that were sent from India.
From the start, von Lettow Forbeck displayed a streak of brilliance. When the first British troops arrived by sea and anchored off a beach north of Dar es Salaam, the colonel directed his snipers to fire, not at the British but at wild beehives in the trees near the beach. Millions of angry bees swarmed across the beach and drove the entire British contingent back to their ships.
Inevitably, the British did land and started a futile pursuit of the Germans who were highly mobile, familiar with the terrain and led by an exceptional leader. The British army in India had grown lazy over the years and, despite their vast superiority in numbers, had little idea of how to track down the German troops.
A typical example of this was the day when some excited British scouts approached the commander of the British troops, with the incredible name of General Wapshare. They told him that they had found the German force and that if they moved immediately, they stood a good chance of capturing them.
The General shook his head regretfully, “Sorry, gentlemen. Have a game of polo this afternoon. We’ll go after the beggars tomorrow.”
Needless to say, von Lettow Forbeck and his men were long gone by the next day. The General was removed from his post and in his place a South African, Jan Smuts, a veteran of the Anglo-Boer war and a tactician on a par with the German Colonel, was appointed to lead the British troops.
The campaign developed into a real battle of wits between the two men. Ultimately, von Lettow Forbeck was never captured and only laid down his troops’ arms two weeks after Armistice. The huge respect that grew between Smuts and von Lettow Forbeck was illustrated by communications between the two leaders. When Colonel von Lettow Forbeck was promoted to General, Smuts sent a letter under cover of a white flag to the German congratulating him on his well-deserved promotion. At Christmas time, both sides agreed to cease hostilities for the day and sent festive wishes to each other. It was truly one of the last of the Gentlemen’s wars.
In fact in 1922 in Paris, a dinner was held to commemorate the campaign. The guests of honor were, of course, von Lettow Forbeck and Jan Smuts.
In later years Smuts became South African Prime Minister. During World War II he was given the rank of Field Marshall and became a vital member of Winston Churchill’s War Cabinet. Not bad for the former Boer commando who had harassed the British troops during the Anglo-Boer war!
Von Lettow Forbeck was an acclaimed German war hero from World War I. However, he was diametrically opposed to Hitler and the Nazi regime. Hitler did not dare imprison the country’s national hero but put him under house arrest in Munich for the duration of the war.
In 1964, I wrote a screenplay about this extraordinary campaign, called “The Bicycle General” (von Lettow Forbeck took to riding a bicycle along the narrow tracks in the African bush to review his troops). The screenplay was read by one of the major US movie studios. They were impressed but felt that they could not make a film with a German hero. I need to revise it and re-submit one of these days. I can only hope that attitudes have changed.
What this story reminds me of, over and over again, is that there was a time not so long ago, when men and women still had a sense of honor, integrity and decency, despite any differences of opinion. Truth was still fairly truthful and a man’s word was his bond.
With today’s ever-growing pattern of lies and endless conspiracy theories, mankind is hard put to believe anything they are told.
A vital tenet of ExoBrain’s philosophy is to create not only a new, super-efficient and affordable computing system but one that will jealously guard against the infusion of fake news and outright lies. We intend that ExoBrain will create a means of communication that can be believed and not be infiltrated by those who would destroy all vestiges of decency, as they seek to control Man’s minds, bodies and ultimately souls.
We too consider ourselves to be Gentlemen at War, not with weapons, not against other men…but with technology, against those things that oppress men who could easily be helped by the brilliance of software and hardware meant to do good. We align ourselves with all other technologists who strive to help their fellow man and hope to celebrate that triumph with all of them.
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.